Students Climb "Network Tree" In Maharashtra Village For Online Classes

For the last 15 months, around 150 students in this Maharashtra village get their notebooks for online studies and reach arrive at this "network tree" with a mobile phone, pens, headphones.

Weak mobile internet connectivity has pushed several students in a village in Maharashtra's Gondia district to climb a "network tree" in search of uninterrupted signals for online classes. Internet penetration is still a challenge in many rural areas which sits at odds with the Digital India narrative by the central government. Prime Minster Narendra Modi, speaking to beneficiaries of various schemes of Digital India programme at a recent event, said he believes this to be "India's techade". Atul Gondhale, a student whose village is 18 km away, walked through fields to reach a particular tree to find network for his online polytechnic college class. The villagers have named it "network tree". "Every day one has to come near this tree to study. Often classes are missed due to heavy rain in monsoon. This is the only place where the network is good, other places have no network," says Atul Gondhale.