What can we learn from ongoing initiatives? There has been a lot of interest during the last two decades in employing Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for achieving development. While many of these initiatives have benefited rural women by way of access to new information and new employment opportunities, women still face a number of constraints in accessing ICTs. This paper explores the role of ICTs in empowering Indian rural women, through a review of ICT initiatives in India.

This paper is a reflection on a research project that defied the conventional technology transfer approach and adopted an approach based on innovation system principles to address fodder scarcity. Fodder scarcity in the project was conceptualized not as lack of technical capacity, but as lack of innovation capacity. This project tried to enhance innovation capacity by promoting appropriate configurations of stakeholders. However, translating this theory and principles into action was fraught with numerous challenges.

ICTs are being increasingly used for Knowledge Management (KM) nowadays. In spite of this, rapid deployment of ICTs for KM is a major challenge. This paper explores the challenges in using ICT for KM using the case of “agropedia” – an ICT mediated knowledge management platform for Indian agriculture. The paper argues that KM is no more a technical challenge, but rather constrained by social and organizational barriers. Without initiating institutional and policy changes in addressing these barriers, KM continues to elude Indian agriculture.