[icernet] Rift in India Leads M.I.T. to Pull Out of Media Lab

[Arul Selvan]

  The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has pulled out of Media Lab 
Asia, citing disagreements with Arun Shourie, the new Indian minister of 
information, over the focus and management of the organization's 
research projects. M.I.T. said the decision to turn over management of 
the program to the Indian government did not represent an end to the 
university's interest in expanding the influence of the Media Lab by 
building outposts in other countries. 

The Media Lab is known for innovative work in communications that is 
less structured than many forms of research and, according to some 
critics, short on specific goals. As first conceived, Media Lab Asia was 
to receive 20 percent of its financing from the Indian government with 
the rest to come from corporate sponsors and M.I.T. But the corporate 
money failed to materialize. Technologies created by Media Lab Asia were 
aimed at bridging the digital divide. India, with more than a billion 
people, a dozen official languages and hundreds of regional dialects, 
has five computers for every 1,000 people. The lab's projects included 
developing rural wireless networks, and building speech interfaces 
intended to make information more accessible to illiterate people. Most 
research is being carried out at India's premier technical school, the 
Indian Institute of Technology.

Source:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/08/business/08LABS.html?ex=1052971200&en=7a5d809ec9d7753a&ei=5062