Yet, very little of this money (not even 0.1%) has so far ever been put into research that was of direct relevance to the poor. The idea that knowledge is also needed at the grassroots of our society never seemed to occur to our decision makers. It is only now, as a result of massive and sustained efforts by civil society organizations, helped by the outcome of a national election that indicates a widespread and growing dissatisfaction by those who feel marginalised by our lopsided policies, that we can hope to see the village for what it is: both a consumer and a potential respository of high quality knowledge.

Way back, in 1984, with support from the ENVIS programme of the Ministry of Environment and Forests we set up the first systematic knowledge base on issues of sustainable development, the Development Alternatives Information Network (DANET). Its purpose was to make available to practitioners such as NGOs, Government Agencies, international development organisations and professionals the best possible technical information for their use. Later, with additional financial inputs from IDRC and Ford Foundation, DAINET expanded its reach in many directions and undertook pioneering projects such as compiling an annotated and searchable directory of leading NGOs, newsletters and bulletins and, in 1994, the very first regular e-mail service outside government.

Recognising that practitioners were simply intermediaries and that individuals and enterprises in village communities themselves needed urgently to become part of the knowledge society, Development Alternatives set up its first Technology Demonstration Village and Rural Industrial Park at TARAgram near Orchha in Madhya Pradesh in 1994. By its very nature, TARAgram was a Physical Knowledge Centre. Research and development activities enabled it to generate relevant and timely knowledge, and to extend this knowledge to surrounding communities.

Physical knowledge centres like TARAgram need considerable resources and access to expensive expertise. It is difficult to see how they would proliferate in the numbers needed to reach the great majority of villages of India. However, by 2000, advances in information and communication technology (ICT) and the widespread introduction of infrastructure facilities in India made it possible to consider a business model for proliferating information nodes throughout the country in a manner that is financially viable and therefore sustainable. TARAhaat, an ICT enterprise focusing on the needs of village communities was set up by the Development Alternatives Group for precisely this purpose.

Today, TARAhaat has shown that there exist a variety of information-based products and services that can be provided at the village and peri-urban level at prices that clients can afford and businesses find profitable. Such businesses, called TARAkendras are franchises, essentially local operations owned and run by small entrepreneurs. They quickly become profitable because of the wide spectrum of products and applications provided by TARAhaat, together with technical, managerial and marketing support services they receive from TARAhaat. For these services, the TARAkendra franchises pay a modest fee to TARAhaat. As they grow, they become the core of what Dr MS Swaminathan has called Village Knowledge Centres. TARAkendras are capable of bringing large amounts of processed information from the world outside and also of taking value generating information out to it.