Cell phone nation

last updated 8 January 2015

Delhi

More Indians now have mobile phones than land lines, the Indian telecom agency reported this week. There are nearly 45 million cell phone subscribers, compared with 44 million for regular telephone lines. Telecom officials attribute the popularity of mobile phones to India’s cheap mobile rates, which, at two cents a minute, are the lowest in the world. Still, with India’s population of 1 billion, those 90 million telephone users represent fewer than one in 10 people. More than 40 percent of the population has no electricity, and nearly 60 percent has no access to clean drinking water.