Professor of English at the Gudlavalleru Engineering College P. Ramanujam on Friday said there was a need to create domestic digital infrastructure as the country was under colonialism of foreign social media platforms.
Speaking as the chief guest at the International Literacy Day celebrations at the Delhi Public School here, Mr. Ramanujam said, “The United States-based platforms like Google, Facebook, Twitter and Amazon store digital footprints of users across the world as data in the US. This data is then used by American agencies for surveillance, amounting to breach of privacy.”
Mentioning China, he said, the country had its own platforms like Alibaba, which had made inroads in India. This meant data of Indian users would now be stored in China.
‘Information literacy’
Tracking the changing nature of societies from agricultural to industrial to knowledge-based in the present, he said, “There is a need for moving beyond the dictionary definition of literacy and evolve a comprehensive one considering complex changes in society.” Information, digital, financial and curricular literacy were the multiple dimensions of the new definition.
“Information literacy pertains to the ability to access and comprehend information with the knowledge of context and past events,” he said.
Quoting from ‘The End of Growth: Adapting to Our New Economic Reality’ by Richard Heinberg, he said although resources on the planet were finite, economic planning considered them infinite. This amounted to overuse of resources which were limited. Financial literary should drive one with foresight and environmental consciousness.
Talking about curricular or pedagogical literacy, he mentioned a study which said 65% of the school students would be employed at jobs in the future that were not yet invented. “Therefore, high order skills should be imparted keeping in mind future possibilities. This will help develop a critical outlook,” he said.
Later, he gave away prizes to best speakers and interjectors of an inter-school debate competition at the school on Thursday. School principal G. Mala and director Pavan Chand participated in the celebrations.
