<b>Geetanjali Krishna:</b> No cell phone for the chaste

The author talks about the increasing usage of cell phones

Increasing cell phone penetration among India’s rural areas has been one of the three thrusts of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s poverty alleviation effort. However, a recent migrant to Delhi, Sanju Devi, told me a story that made me realise that not everybody is that thrilled with the ubiquity of mobile devices. It began when she said she didn’t possess a cell phone because her husband and most of her family didn’t believe women should have them. “They say that cell phones lead women to temptation,” she said.

Sanju Devi belongs to Madhubani district in Bihar, a district where, once upon a