Potato farmers turn to internet in Pakistan

When a landslide created a huge, turquoise lake that cut them off the world, farmers of Gulmit were left destitute and unable to sell their potatoes. Their solution: to drag their Himalayan valley in Pakistan’s far north into the internet age. In the village, which is nestled between two peaks approaching 8,000 metres (26,000 feet) high, farmers scrabble to grow the produce as their ancestors did. But just a few metres away Karim Aslam is hammering at a keyboard on a computer connected to a giant satellite dish. He downloads audio files sent from the US: English-language recordings of patients’ diagnoses sent from Tennessee, which he transcribes before sending back, acting as a long-distance secretary. More