I've been innovating on the railroad

I came across two articles today where the railroad industry in Kerala is pushing some small scale innovations of their own.

Here is the first story.

The railways is providing broadband Internet connection in the state through the Railtel Corporation of India. The biggest incentive for those taking the net service of Indian Railways is that they can download education material free, reports IANS.

And in the second story,

Nagaland University and Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management of Kerala (IIITM-K) have been linked through India’s longest terrestrial connection over the Indian Railways optical fibre cable (OFC) network for enhancing technology education in the state.

It almost seems fitting that railroad companies are the ones involved in building out communication networks in various parts of the country. For much of the early to mid 20th century, railroads were a symbol of industrial progress as they connected previously unconnected parts of the terrain. Likewise, today, these efforts are trying to build and develop a virtual network that will only shrink India further.

[Source for both: iGovernment]