While inaugurating, on Thursday, the 49th World FID conference on The New Information Society of Tomorrow organised by the CSIR Documentation Centre, and Indian National Scientific Documentation Centre (INSDOC), he called for setting up a `knowledge system for sustainable food security'. He pointed out that 20 per cent of the world's population had access to 84 per cent of the world's resources, and in Asia though wealth was being created jobs were not increasing leading to an unsustainable jobless growth.

The conference was also addressed by Martha B Stone, president of FID, who also expressed concern over the growing hiatus between the information haves and information have-nots.

Swaminathan warned of skin apartheid being replaced byinformation apartheid as was indicated by US vice-president Al Gore. Nations have to take note of it and create their own strong networks so as not to exclude anybody from this rapidly expanding knowledge base.

Swaminathan said that there was tremendous scope for marketing information knowledge in rural areas. This was a huge untapped area but all the same it had to be made accessible to the poor to increase the scope of wealth generation and boost agricultural activities. He criticised diluting the concept of Doordarshan from ``free flow of information to sponsored flow''.

The technology could not be used for jobless growth as has happened in large parts of Asia by excluding a major part of the population from `knowledge network'. The poverty of knowledge gradually led to the crash of economies.By widening the reach of technologies like hybrid of wireless, wired modes, digital radio and wireless loop technologies, significant power could be given to the people. Such knowledge would also help in thedevelopment of a database on the role of women in strengthening the ecological foundations essential for sustainable advances in farm productivity.

The critical component of this programme was the `value addition centre', which could convert various kinds of generic and general information into locale-specific information. The information available on the Internet could be transformed into something that has a use-value in the locality. The three components - weather information, management of information and marketing information - were the essentials to revolutionise the agricultural process.

Swaminathan said that but for a sound rural economy and a strong food base, all developmental processes would come to a halt. He said the latest technologies for information dissemination should be used widely to reach the remotest areas of the country. Technology, he warned, could be used by monopolies to create inequities and impoverish the poor.

One major problem in increasing the knowledge network indeveloping countries was poor health care. This slowed brain development, he said. ``Unless you have a proper brain, how you an be part of the information revolution?'', he asked. He suggested marrying of technologies - the existing and the evolving - to have the maximum advantage of reach.