Am I missing something? What does the literacy rate have to do with the story?

Yeah, usually communism and the word "mandatory" go hand-in-hand!

Agreed -- that's totally just bait for some. I doubt that communism or literacy rate have anything to do with it. All it does is draw attention to the concept that some Indian states have different forms of government, and that many of the poor there are illiterate. As the story itself points out, other Indian states have already embraced FOSS.

from the specific (me) to the general (the world)

there are 3 programmers of Indian descent within eyeshot of my cube and more down the hall. there are what, 700 million? people there. Ghandi was arguably one of the greatest leaders in all of human history. India is a nation with a brilliant history spanning millenia, and a rapidly modernizing, vibrant economy developing a democratic government that has to deal with dozens of ethnicities and religions ... something the US (or anyone else) hasn't quite figured out yet.

So there. India is the face of the future. India matters.

Heh. Don't you know anything? Most of us stupid Yanks don't know the difference between socialism and communism and many believe that they are the same thing, all the while not realizing that we've had socialism in the U.S. (albeit watered down) for more than 60 years. Anyway, FOSS isn't really a socialist or communist idea anyway. If anything, the ideals of Free Software are aligned more closely with American Libertarianism than anything else.

In contrast to what US brainwashing tells you, communism and democracy are not opposites.

So communism works, only not with humans are you saying?

> Ghandi was arguably one of the greatest leaders in all of human history.

And were he alive, he'd appreciate it if you'd spell his name correctly.