'Strategic' submarine cable to connect islands where locals just emerged from stone age India's government has decided to build a submarine cable between the city of Chennai and the Andaman & Nicobar Islands. The where? The Andaman & Nicobar Islands are about 1,300km east of India, way out in the Bay of Bengal. The Islands are home to about 380,000 people, among them the Jarawa people who lived a more-or-less …
According to the ever-correct Wikipedia, India's annual government expenditure is $300bn - so $150m is a 0.05% rounding error
OTOH, it is $226 per capita. For 380,000 people, that means their fair share is only $86m.
Either way, this doesn't look like a huge one-off cost for something which could transform the opportunities and well-being of these people. The 1G satellite link probably costs a fair few dollars as well.
I was thinking that myself, the cost of a 1Gbps link is probably well over $2m per year, sure it will take a long time to amortise $2m into $150m but when you consider the military value and the potential improvement in healthcare or just GDP it will pay for itself.
I think the article is rather unfair to the locals, there are probably parts of rural Britain which weren't much better before the 70s, Margate for example.
2018?
Has anyone done the sea level rise calculations for these islands?
update: Wikipedia assures us that there's a mountain available:
"The highest point is located in North Andaman Island (Saddle Peak at 732 m (2,402 ft)"
They may not even *be* there in 2018. Would be a shame to get all the way there, dragging a cable, and find no place to connect it.
"a nation that is still trying to get clean water". Should one point out that there are towns in the USA with the same problem, probably in the UK too. That "clean water" argument is just mean and stupid. When the topic was computers for African kids that same argument popped up all over the place. Besides I would suggest you try to give up the "Big brother" attitude towards India. Especially now when you are begging for help.
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