Technology helps the poor in India.

Future Pundit has a fantastic post showing how technology - even high tech IT - can help the poor get more income for their hard work.
(go to the link to read the full story).

Cellphones Boosting Incomes Of Poorest In India

Cellphones are enabling poor fisherman in India to get far more market information so that they can sell their catches for much higher prices.

"Hallo!" he shouted, struggling to hear over the big diesel engines of his 74-foot boat, Andavan. "Medium sized! Medium sized!" he said, estimating the haul for a wholesale agent calling from port, who had heard by cellphone from other skippers that Rajan had just set his nets.

Minutes later Rajan's phone rang again -- another agent at a different port.

...

"One element of poverty is the lack of information," Prahalad said. "The cellphone gives poor people as much information as the middleman."

The fisherman Rajan says his income has at least tripled since 2000 to $150 per month and that cellphones have enabled him to get the information he needs to make the middlemen who buy his fish to pay much more for them.

Poor people in India use cellphones in many occupations.

For less than a penny a minute -- the world's cheapest cellphone call rates -- farmers in remote areas can check prices for their produce. They call around to local markets to find the best deal. They also track global trends using cellphone-based Internet services that show the price of pumpkins or bananas in London or Chicago.
Indian farmers use camera-phones to snap pictures of crop pests, then send the photos by cellphone to biologists who can identify the bug and suggest ways to combat it. In cities, painters, carpenters and plumbers who once begged for work door-to-door say they now have all the work they can handle because customers can reach them instantly by cellphone...

Continues at Future Pundit