26/08/2017 Click - Short Edition

in the next few weeks. Concerns over these trees have stepped up a

in the next few weeks. Concerns over these trees have stepped up a gear.

these trees have stepped up a gear. Tim

these trees have stepped up a gear. Tim Muffett,

these trees have stepped up a gear. Tim Muffett, BBC

these trees have stepped up a gear. Tim Muffett, BBC News.

In a moment it'll be time for the Film Review.

But first, here's Click.

Driving in India is an experience.

The roads are cramped, the horn is omnipresent

and the rules are...

Well, the rules are here somewhere, I'm sure of it.

And that's why we won't be doing a piece about self driving cars

in India any time soon.

Despite the fact that it seems like everyone in India travels

in the car, that's not true by any means, many people choose to travel

by train instead.

But, if you think that's any less intense, think again.

Yeah, about those rules.

Mumbai Central Station is a massive heaving hub connecting the city

to the north and east of India.

But, if you look closer you'll see something else connecting

the commuters to the rest of the world.

116 wireless access points provide free Wi-Fi to anyone

with an Indian phone number.

It has been provided by Google which at the moment says about 2.5

terabytes are being downloaded here every day.

And here's the interesting part - this is not just about this station,

along India's railway tracks lie 45,000 kilometres of optic fibre

and Google is piping internet access down those cables to feed Wi-Fi

access to 114 other train stations as well.

I caught up with the man overseeing the project while he was waiting

for his train.

If you had to take one place in the country where you want

tremendous fibre and you had to have reliable power,

relatively speaking power is a challenge across the country

and you had to have an entire country walking there at that one

place, there is only one place that is the railway stations.

Can you guarantee that all services on Google's Wi-Fi

will be treated equally?

Absolutely, I think the whole motivation for us, if you look

at the reason why we did this, was to see if we can provide an open

internet, completely open with access for the entire web,

the way the web was designed.

So, there is a fibre-optic network that's rolling out from train

stations like this to the vast rural areas of this enormous country

and David Reid hopped on a train to find out what affects that's

having elsewhere in India.

It's hard not to be romantic about India's Railways.

British colonial rulers laid tracks for control,

shifting resources mostly out and prising open markets.

Now, it's about moving people, millions a day thanks

to optic fibre, data.

I took the train here to Jaipur to investigate,

it has proper broadband and it's free.

Apart from some controversy at another station where commuters

were using free Wi-Fi to download hard-core pornography,

the provision of high-speed Wi-Fi has been almost universally praised.

90,000 people pass through Jaipur station every day.

I'm using my Wi-Fi for entertainment, the news,

the office work.

I find it quick, yeah.

For this student journalist it means she can keep tabs

on breaking stories.

In the morning the world changes like...

There are so many things that have changed so I have to come and check.

Indian stations are full of thriving businesses feeding off,

or simply feeding the thousands streaming through them every day.

Free Wi-Fi has actually been a boost to local businesses here,

this man runs a tea store on the station platform,

he's making more money now that his customers can make

online payments to him.

TRANSLATION: I use the Wi-Fi when my 4G signal doesn't catch.

When that's not working I used the Wi-Fi.

Especially when a customer is paying through digital payments,

I needed to confirm that I have received the payment.

Digital payments are worth about 40-50% of my takings.

This is music to the ears of people managing India's Railways,

a nationalised industry that runs at a loss.

They are thinking that high-speed Wi-Fi could be a good pull

for a station like Jaipur, they plan to build a huge concourse

and attract retail and service businesses.

It might just be an earner.

As Wi-Fi expands and becomes taken for granted then I think people

will transact more and more of their business.

Jaipur is a kind of domestic, tourist hub and an international hub

of high repute.

People are coming out here from all parts of the world

so now when you have a huge concourse it becomes an area

where you can have shops, entertainment spots...

For Google, more people online is more people to sell to,

India's Railway is the country's backbone, its public Wi-Fi is poised

to be as least as far reaching.

This is the Anjuman-Urdu primary school in the town

of Kundapur in Kamataka.

My name's Spencer.

This 155 kids here from grades one through to seven and a whole bunch

of dedicated teachers.

And this is how they start their day.

THEY SING.

Over in this classroom things are a little more serious.

At the back of the projector there is a device which is plugged

in and is running videos on English, maths, and science.

The videos are made for the entire region, but then they are dubbed

in different dialects, different languages,

depending on where they are being sent to.

Today we are learning about fractions.

It is a great teaching tool as long as there is electricity.

But there are plenty of times when there isn't.

TRANSLATION: This is a new school.

Earlier it would have been difficult to teach due to power cuts.

We would get electricity in the mornings, but as the day

passed by in the afternoon we would have power cuts for more

than two hours.

That's why the projector and tablet are hooked up to this box,

which is itself attached to a solar panel on the roof.

Together they can provide up to five hours of electricity a day,

meaning that classes don't have to be interrupted or cancelled

if the power cuts out.

TRANSLATION: Then we started using solar power as it is an easy

and natural source of generating electricity.

We have introduced the study of generating power through solar

energy to our students and are teaching them the importance

of working with it.

We also explained to our students that this process will help us

in the future to generate electricity.

This whole system has been provided by the Selco Foundation,

an Indian charity with the hope to alleviate poverty by improving

access to energy.

With this students can get better education.

And then there is no problem of electricity.

At any time they can take their students to the classroom,

they can teach through this medium.

Selco and other NGOs they work with pay for half of the cost

of installing the projector and solar system.

The other half comes from local schools or local government.

How important is the projector?

TRANSLATION: Before this project came into use it we had

very few students.

But since we have started using the solar power,

our number of students has increased in a good way.

We have students coming to us from different villages to learn.

And not only students, we have other schools coming down

to our Institute for smart classes.

The smart class is a good way of teaching kids these days.

They seem to enjoy and learn more than usual.

After we introduce smart class our school stands proudly

in the educational sector.

We plan to grow large as the years pass by.

Cool.

Oh!

CHUCKLES The same system is already in hundreds of rural schools

and they are aiming to add hundreds more this year.

And it's not just key for schools.

Across rural India businesses can be helped massively by having

a reliable power supply.

Sumana is a seamstress who lives a short drive from Kunapur.

She became the main breadwinner for the family after her father

was taken ill.

The more clothing she can repair the more she gets paid.

With her old hand operated sewing machine she could fix a couple

of items a day, but thanks to the solar panels on her roof her

electric machine can whizz through five or six clothes per day.

Plus, she has a fan, a TV, and a light, so she can work

earlier and later.

One quarter of India's rural population lives below

the official poverty line.

That's 216 million people whose livelihoods could be improved

by the addition of basic facilities like electricity.

And, of course, one key way of helping people out

of poverty is education.

It's always such a privilege to come to a place like this and see how

the simplest technology can make a world of difference.

That's it from India for the moment.

You can see plenty of photos and more backstage

gossip on twitter.

Thanks for watching.