The Internet has been doubling its size every year since 1988: it is the fastest growing communications medium ever. More than 40 million people have access to it today. Over 110 countries have a direct access to the Internet and if other E-mail networks are taken into account, 168 have links with the Net.

Access to the Net requires, at least a telephone line. At the global level, at least 80 per cent of the world population still lacks the most basic telecom services. Forty-nine countries, 35 of which are in Africa, have fewer than one telephone per 100 people. India has approximately eight million telephone lines for its 900 million people.

On the other side, all Northern countries have direct access to the Net, and so have most East European, Latin American and Southeast Asian nations.

One of the direct effects of the Internet on the economies of the North has been to make possible new forms of economic activity. They range from 'home shopping' to the development of new commercial activities for information services, such as companies selling news or financial analysis, and for services which make the Internet easier to use. Already, there are nearly one lakh companies connected to the Internet. Between them, they have 1.4 million Internet hosts, which support many more individual users. Clearly, nations without widespread access cannot f igure in this economic expansion. For most countries of the South which are already experiencing an 'industry gap', the threat of 'post-industry gap' is now looming. Says John Mukela of the Zarnbia-based Centre for Development Information, "Information-based production processes will increasingly elude developing countries and consequently exclude them from advanced manufacturing and world trade -thus further exacerbating poverty."

Moreover, for a number of reasons - primarily related costs but also the need for technological know-how and literacy, and the dominance of English as the Internet language - Internet access is likely to remain the domain of a privileged elite within the developing countries. Sally Burch, working for Agencia Latins Americana de Information in Quito, Ecuador, points to the possibility of the "reinforcement of an informed elite within a country creating a bigger Internet information and technology gap".

For geographical - the US origin of most data - as well as practical and economic reasons, English dominates the Internet to a considerable extent, thus excluding the non-English speakers from the vast information sources on it. "Language is an additional problem for many Southern countries where English is not the primary language," observes Sally Burch. The language question is keenly felt at present in Latin America where indigenous information in Spanish is available on the Internet, but foreign sources are likely to be in English.

But not many are sceptical Mukela believes that "as technology advances, so too does the notion of one world and the general breakdown of barriers - physical, linguistic as well as intellectual".