faridabad haryana an apple macintosh computer a digital movie camera and five young boys huddled in front theres nothing striking about the scene except that the boys are from a nondescript haryana village and they are working on what will be the third movie written shot and edited entirely on their own the movie as the makers admit is inspired by aamir khans lagaan tikawali the village the makers of the movie are from has been chosen as part of a pilot project on digitisation of villages a joint effort between media lab asia an academic research programme funded by the government of india with the help of the massachusetts institute of technology and jiva institute a faridabadbased ngo an hours drive from the capital the village has many surprises up its sleeve it runs its own cable channel where movies educational programmes news capsules and even advertisements shot entirely by villagers are shown the budding moviemakers are given training at the jiva institute and avail of the facilities there to make their ideas come to lifetikawali is also testing out a new software baatchit which is completely languageindependent it is based on an audiovisual interface with categories like kheti pashu shiksha swastha vahan sarkar etc when a villager moves the mouse over a category he hears a voice call out the name of the category the villagers are excited by the visual medium and they want to explore says harish gautam one of the residents they can learn about schemes the government offers and then make use of them they are fully aware when they go to apply for the scheme and no one can dupe them he adds the software developed by media lab asia with inputs from jiva is still in its testing phase if implemented across the country it can be a stepping stone to a connected indiabut can is the operative word as stephen rudolph director of jiva points out technology cannot drive development he says why would a villager want to sit in front of a computer and browse unless it gives him what he needs he asks one cant come in with hifi technology and expect the villagers to lap it up he says those are the dreams of those who sit in ivory towers a computer and an internet connection cannot solve the problems of a villager who needs water for his crops and to address this need for sustainable development jiva runs vocational courses for the villagers the villagers keep accounts on the computer it is the perfect example of technology sustaining development says r p chauhan president of jiva villagers respond to technology just as the body responds to external elements they absorb what they deem useful says rudolph and an example of this absorption was seen when the young moviemakers rushed with their digital cameras to the scene of a fire near