When it comes to sheer numbers, India, with as many as 81 million people accessing the Internet, is just behind Japan (88.1 million), China (210 million) and the USA (220 million). Brazil is at the fifth place with 53.1 million users.

A report released by The Internet Governance Forum, on the eve of its four-day global conference scheduled to be held in Hyderabad, has listed India as the country with the fourth largest number of Internet users in the world.

While the numbers may seem encouraging, there is a definite disparity between the IGF data and the TRAI data. The latter in a recent report put the total number of dial-up connections in India at a measly 11.6 million. To arrive at a figure of 81 million it would be necessary to share this one connection with as many as six people.

If that was not all, another figure released by the Internet And Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and IMRB International had put the number of Internet users in India at 32 million - and this was just last year.

That was about the dial-up part. When it comes to the number of users accessing the Internet using a broadband connection, India lies at the bottom of the pile with only 5.05 million users on broadband. Compare these numbers with the US (73.2 million), and China (66.4 million) and it is certain that the country sure has a long way to go before we can break into the Top 10 list here.