It was a sheer coincidence to get myself acquainted with the news of Tata Docomo – Nokia collaboration in order to help Nokia Ovi Life Tools reach rural areas just one day later to attending the mBillionth South Asia Mobile Congress, Expo & Award Gala(date: july 23, 2010 ; venue : Hotel Intercontinental Eros, Nehru Place, New Delhi) where the theme for Welcome session was “Mobile for Inclusive Development : Mobile Power in the hands of the people”.
And to my notice, it was mainly about the change that this gadget “mobile” can bring in the lives of people living in far-off rural areas and the effect that Mobile Accessibility, affordability and mobile infrastructure will have on the Rural Development.
And when i got my eyes on this piece of news that the Tata Docomo GSM services brand and Nokia are collaborating in a deal to offer Nokia’s Ovi Life Tools targeting customers in rural areas and small towns, i could not stop myself from relating it to that event.
Nokia Life Tools is a software application which is set in select Nokia handsets that offers educational, entertainment and agricultural news. Its agricultural services include offering information related to market prices of seeds, crops and fertilizers along with general tips and advices.
Key Points Of This Collaboration :
- the collaboration will focus on providing the agriculture and related information to subscribers across 18 states. The subscribers would be provided with information, news, reports, tips and advices on agriculture.
- the information will be provided in over 10 different languages including Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Tamil, Kannada, Punjabi, Oriya, Marathi, Telugu, Malayalam and English to reach out to maximum masses.
- two different plans for subscription have been announced by the companies, wherein the first plan comes at the rate Rs. 30 per month and the second one at Rs. 60 per month. The first plan gives agriculture and weather related news, information and tips. The second plan is a premium one that provides information of any three crops that subscriber chooses along with the crops’ closest market prices.
V. Ramnath, Director, Operator Accounts, Nokia India was quoted as saying, “Nokia Ovi Life Tools is a service that has the potential of transforming the lives of the rural and semi-urban population of India. For this service to scale and benefit larger section of users, it is important to have partners like Tata DOCOMO who share Nokia’s vision of empowering people with the right tools.â€
Finally, India’s not just ‘talking’ and instead actually ‘doing’ something for the rural upliftment/development. 🙂 Stay tuned for more updates on this.
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