{"id":281451,"date":"2026-04-21T00:39:43","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T19:09:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/?p=281451"},"modified":"2026-04-21T00:39:43","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T19:09:43","slug":"so-near-yet-so-far-the-silent-struggle-of-my-village","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/2026\/04\/21\/so-near-yet-so-far-the-silent-struggle-of-my-village\/","title":{"rendered":"So near, yet so far: The silent struggle of my village"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n

\n

[ Kapiyen Tagi ]<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

On my way back from Itanagar to my village Sibumin Upper Siang district, I realised that once I reached the village, there would be no proper internet. I thought about that again and again throughout my whole journey, wondering: are we even a part of this digital world? I mean its 2026, and my village still doesn’t have proper internet connectivity.<\/p>\n

Now, some might assume that the problem is remoteness and small population, but actually we are just 45 km away from Pasighat and 90 km from Yingkiong. There is even a National Highway (NH513) near our village, which connects Pasighat and Yingkiong. And about population – my village alone has approximately 1,500 people, and if I include nearby villages like Jeru and Sumsing, the population will reach up to 3,000.<\/p>\n

While BSNL 4G service technically exists, it is so weak and unstable that even a single drop of rain or a cloudy weather is enough to takes away the signal. Sending messages and downloading pictures and videos from this network takes the whole day.<\/p>\n

I believe that this digital gap is the main reason behind the backwardness of my village. While everyone is affected, we students suffer the most in many ways, such as:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. I myself was exposed to the internet only when I reached Class 10 and went to Geku for further studies. To be honest, I still remember, everything felt so new and strange during that time, because I had never experienced such a thing before. While I was still learning how to use it, others were already comfortable with it. They already knew how to use it in a productive way as they were guided by their parents and elders since their childhood. I got drawn into social media without knowing how to balance them.<\/li>\n
  2. As a student living far away from home, staying in touch with family is very difficult. While others can call their family any time, we struggle a lot just to have conversation with them. Sometimes months pass without proper conversation, and even if it rarely gets connected, the voices are always unclear and get cut off in the middle of conversations.<\/li>\n
  3. In today’s world, where sending money is very simple and quick with online payment methods, this facility is unusable in my village. Families have to send in cash, which sometimes take weeks to reach us, which creates not just inconvenience but also stress and distraction from studies, especially during emergency situations.<\/li>\n
  4. Honestly, the students of my village are running in the same race with others, but significantly with fewer facilities.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    What make this situation worse is that our people, especially students, never stayed silent, as the student unions of my village and nearby villages, led by the Geku Katan Intellectual Youth Forum have continuously struggled to bring attention to this matter. They submitted several representations, enforced 12-hour bandhs in Geku, organised a peaceful march from Geku to Yingkiong, covering around 35 km, and raised the matter on social media platforms through press briefings, even in Itanagar.<\/p>\n

    Despites all those efforts, what we got was BSNL 4G network – very far from what was demanded. The demand was simply a stable and dependable network from reliable companies like Jio or Airtel.<\/p>\n

    Even though we are also a part of India, where the Constitution itself grants the right to internet access under its fundamental rights, seeing my village being ignored by authorities and representatives is like watching an entire village being cut off from the rest of the world.<\/p>\n

    We are geographically very close, but when it comes to internet connectivity, we are far behind from the rest of the world, struggling to connect. (The contributor is a student of Rajiv Gandhi University, Rono Hills)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    [ Kapiyen Tagi ] On my way back from Itanagar to my village Sibumin Upper Siang district, I realised that once I reached the village, there would be no proper internet. I thought about that again and again throughout my whole journey, wondering: are we even a part of this digital world? I mean its […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-281451","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-state-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281451"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281451\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":281465,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281451\/revisions\/281465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}