India is a country where you can find unity in diversity! We are proud to be citizens of India, and just like every other country, India will also see massive improvements in the coming decade. Talking about what India has achieved in the last decade, there are a number of breakthrough India has created. ISRO landed on the southern part of the moon, even though that isn’t 100% successful, I am confident, the goal is not far away. Coming back to consumer technology, India got cheap mobile data, creating a win-win situation for both consumers and content creators, and much more.
Just like the present decade, life will change for good in India, even in the third decade of the Millenium. The current pace of globalization can even help India to rejuvenate the life of people in numerous ways, which I can’t predict right now. But there are some ways, the life of people will change in India, and I can predict a few, which I will discuss here. I will keep my predictions limited to only those aspects associated with technology. Besides technology, we will get better health care, better ways to predict and fight natural calamities, better education, and a lot more. Well, if they are, in some way, related to technology, I will keep them on the list.
So without any further delay, let’s get started with the different ways, life will change in India, at least in the coming decade.
A paradigm shift in payments
I personally prefer online payments over cash, as they are safe, more reliable, and there are no hassles of quarrelling with the shopkeepers for change. But there are still some people, and even some shops, who prefer cash over online payments, for obvious reasons, however. But online payments have gained popularity in India, and if you are living in certain cities in India, especially metropolitans, you can rely completely on plastic money or online payments. Demonetisation was a controversial decision, but it is undeniable, that it showed India, the sway of online payments.
In the coming decade, with mobile data going cheaper, and government’s push to reduce charges on online payments, we can see more people shifting towards online payments and money transfer ditching cash, as far as practicable. Recently India’s central bank RBI has decided to remove charges on NEFT, which is one of the most popular modes for payment from January 2020. This will again motivate people to transact online instead of dealing with cash.
Cheaper smartphones
No, I am not talking about smartphones for just Rs. 251, but in the coming decade, smartphones will be available at very affordable prices. Smartphones today are even available at Rs. 3,000 or so, but the features that you will get from them will not satisfy most people. But in the coming decade, you can get much more at even cheaper prices. Just imagine, the configuration of smartphones, that was available at Rs. 10,000 a couple of years ago, and look at those, which are available today, at the same prices. You will understand what I mean.
The smartphones for enthusiasts or the flagships are expected to bear the flagship price tags, but that will not be the case for the mid-range and entry-level smartphones. The coming decade can even see the rise of new technologies in smartphones, after which, smartphones with older technologies will have to be made available at cheap prices. Even today in India, most people have a smartphone, but in the coming decade, it is expected almost everybody in India will have a smartphone, as that will become more a necessity, rather than a luxury.
Free or cheap data
If free data seems to be too good to be true, we can at least enjoy data at cheap rates, when it comes to mobile internet. With Jio, we all are getting a handful of data, and the other operators too followed the footsteps. Today, almost all the service providers are offering data at almost same prices, but in the future, with more requirements for data, mobile network providers can offer more data at same or lesser prices, if they don’t start offering free unlimited data without throttling the data after using certain gigabytes or megabytes.
Talking about broadband service providers, most of them offer unlimited data at high speeds, but the penetration of broadband services is not complete yet. But within the first few years of the coming decade, it is expected that every single person in India will get access to wired broadband services, and that will really be cool. Once India observes complete broadband penetration, the mobile network providers could also decrease the tariffs to retain their market share. All these will positively impact the people living in India.
Gadgets to go cheaper
Gadgets eventually go cheaper, once they are widely adopted, and they become a necessity rather than a luxury. But, in the coming decade, something else will fuel the process of gadgets to go cheap. The government is pushing the flagship Make In India initiative, and with that, most smartphones and other gadgets are getting assembled in India, even though the individual peripherals are manufactured elsewhere. But in the coming decade, more peripherals will be manufactured in India, which will eventually make the final gadgets available at cheap prices.
The Indian Government is already having its own policies to make India a lucrative destination for assembling the gadgets, rather than importing the finished products from the other countries. This is eventually creating job opportunities, which is cool. Most gadget manufacturers consider India to a big market for consumer electronics, and if they find it profitable to assemble or manufacture gadgets in India, they will continue doing so. But looking at this from a consumer’s standpoint, the products made or assembled in India are more affordable, and this will go on, making useful products go even cheaper in the coming decade.
More services in vernacular language
As I just said, more people will get access to the internet, and smartphones will be available at cheap prices, services for a small group of people or locality will become popular. Needless to say, when a service or app is available for a small group of people, not everybody will find it comfortable to communicate with that app in English. The same is also applicable for apps and services, which are available PAN India, but the services are locality-centric. I am talking about Swiggy, Zomato, BigBasket, etc. where people all over India use the services, but they can avail the products available only at their locality through the service.
The Government in different states is also making their websites and apps in vernacular language to make it easy for people to understand and avail the Government services and policies, right from their smartphones without facing any difficulty. That said, we can see apps in more local languages in the coming decade. So, if you are planning to make your own website or is planning to offer some service through an app, make sure, you are making it available in different Indian languages, for a better adoption among common people.
Voice to control gadgets
Voice typing seems to be a convenient option for most people, even though typing is the most preferred mode for official purposes. But not everybody in India is comfortable with typing to get their work done. That’s when, where people start communicating with the help of voice, which is a convenient option. We already communicate with our smart assistants in English, however, there are even a number of other Indian languages that you can communicate in, which include Hindi and other major Indian languages.
The coming decade will see those smart assistants and voice-based services supporting more vernacular languages so that people from all corners of India can communicate and make their life easier with technology. The use of vernacular languages to talk with digital assistants will give more power to the citizens of India to carry out everything from turning on a light in the room to commanding the digital assistant to send a message to some person. So, we can find the technology giants working there best to offer adoption for vernacular language communication in the digital assistants and other gadgets.
The more effective education system
The coming decade will also observe a paradigm shift from blackboard and whiteboard for education too large touch screen displays for better infographics making the lessons more friendly and understandable to the students using smart classrooms. Even in a number of premier schools, colleges and Universities, large screens are used to demonstrate various things, it is yet to be widely accepted all over India. Obviously, there are a number of problems related to internet connectivity and obviously, the cost is also a major constraint, which limits the revamped education system using technology only to leading schools and other institutions.
But as I mentioned in the previous points, most gadgets will be available at cheap prices, and the internet or data will also go cheap in the coming decade, it will be easier and more feasible to implement better teaching techniques that will obviously use audio and visuals to explain things making things more understandable and interesting for the students. Even today, there are a number of online education platforms, which implement the same thing, but, India will see even colleges and institutions to setup digital classes which can undoubtedly rejuvenate the education system for good, in India.
More dependency on apps
Even though there are a number of useful apps available on smartphones, people do not use them much, mostly because they balloon in size after every single update. Besides that, there are ads and most people better rely on the websites to get their work done. However, that is going to change in the coming decade with almost everybody having smartphones. With progressive web apps, a lot of work can be done on the smartphone itself and they will rely on the internet just like websites do.
At first, it will be made easier to make payments using progressive web apps, as that will make online transactions reach more people, so that they can be used for easy funds transfers, and later on, the same will also be implemented for government policies, so that anybody and everybody can avail or search for the services right from within the app without facing any kind of troubles. We are yet to see, how progressive web apps are used for the benefits of the people in India. However, this is definitely going to happen in the coming decade in India with more penetration of smartphones and the availability of cheap data.
India will observe a lot more changes in the coming decade, which I didn’t mention here, as they are not consumer-centric. We can find more urbanization and different types of skills will come up in the coming decade, as artificial intelligence or AI will make our life easier in ways we can’t even imagine. By the middle of the next decade, India is expected to become a 5 trillion economy. Even though that is not related to technology directly if India becomes an economic superpower, that will fuel limitless improvements in technology. However, time will tell us what’s really going to happen in the coming decade. But I must say, I am quite optimistic about how life will change in India in the coming decade, at least when it comes to technology.
So, that was my list of top ways, life will change in India if looked at from the perspective of technology. Do you have anything else to say? Feel free to comment on the same below.
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