driving in india is an experience. the roads are crammed and the horn is omnipresent and the rules are... well, they're there somewhere, i'm sure. the and that's why we will not be doing a story about self driving cars in india any time soon. and despite the fact that it seems like everybody here owns a car, that's not true. many people choose to travel by train instead. but if you think that is any less intense... think again. yeah, about those rules... mumbai central station is a massive, heaving hub connecting the city to the north and east of india. but if you look closely, you will see something else connecting the commuters to the rest of the world. 116 wireless access points provide free wi—fi to anybody with an indian phone number. it is provided by google which says that about 2.5 tb are being downloaded here every day. and here is the interesting part, this is notjust about this station. along india's railway tracks lie

16,000 kilometres of optical fibre and google is piping internet access down those cables to feed wi—fi access to 114 other train stations as well. the man overseeing the project is gulzar azad, who i caught up with while he was waiting for a train. if you had to take one place in the country where you wanted tremendous fibre, and you had to have reliable power, relatively speaking, power is a challenge across the country, and you had to have the entire country walking through it there is only one place, that is a railway station. can you guarantee that all services on google‘s wi—fi will be treated equally? absolutely. i think the whole motivation for us, if you look at the reason why we did this, was to see if we could provide an open internet, completely open with access to the entire web.

the way the web was designed. so, there is a fibre optic network rolling out from train stations like this to the vast rural areas of this enormous country. and david reid hopped on a train to find out what effect that's having elsewhere in india. it is hard not to be romantic about the railways of india. british colonial rulers laid track for control, shifting resources, mostly out, and prising open markets. now it's about moving people, millions a day. and thanks to optic fibre, data. i took the train tojaipur

station to investigate. it has proper broadband, and it is free. people are filling their booths. —— people are filling their boots. apart from some controversy at pune station, where commuters were using free wi—fi to download hard—core pornography, the provision of high—speed wi—fi has been almost universally praised. 90,000 people pass through jaipur station every day. i use the wifi for news and entertainment. mainly for office work. for this student journalist, it means she can keep tabs on breaking stories. early in the morning, the world changes like... so many things change. i have to come and check. indian stations are full

of thriving businesses, feeding off or simply feeding the thousands streaming through them every day. free wi—fi has been a boon to local businesses here. ashok runs a tea stall on the platform. he makes more money now that his customers can make online payments to him. i use the wi—fi when my ag signal does not catch. when that does not work, i use wi—fi, especially when a customer pays digitally. i need it to confirm i have received the payment. digital payments are worth about 30%—50% of my takings. this is music to the ears of people managing the railways of india. a nationalised industry that runs at a loss. they think that high—speed wi—fi could be a good pull for a station like jaipur. they plan to build a huge concourse and attract retail and services business.

it mightjust be an earner. as wi—fi expands and it becomes taken for granted then i think people will transfer more and more of their business. jaipur is a domestic and international tourist hub of high repute. people come out here from all parts of the world. and when you have a huge concourse it becomes an area where you can have shops and entertainment spots. for google, more people online is more people to sell to. india's railway is the country's backbone. its public wi—fi is poised to be at least as far reaching. this is the anjuman urdu primary school in the town of kundapur in karnataka.

my name's spencer... there are 155 kids here from grades i through to 7, and a whole bunch of dedicated teachers. and this is how they start their day. singing. over in vuaya nayak‘s classroom, things are a little more serious. so, at the back of the projector, there's an android device which is plugged in and is running videos on english, maths and science. the videos are made for the entire region. but then they're dubbed in different dialects, different languages, depending on where they're being sent to. today, we're learning about fractions. it is great teaching tool, as long as there is electricity. but there are plenty of times when there isn't. translation: this is a billet school.

0rdinarily, it would be difficult to teach because of power cuts. we would get electricity in the mornings but, as the day passed by in the afternoon, we would have power cuts for more than two hours. that's why the projector and tablet are hooked up to this box, which is itself attached to a solar panel on the roof. together, they can provide up to five hours of electricity a day, meaning that classes don't have to be interrupted or cancelled if the power cuts out. then, we started using solar power, as it is an easy and natural source of generating electricity. we have introduced a study of generating power through solar energy to our students, and are teaching them the importance and working of it. we also explain to our students that this process will help us, in the future, to generate electricity. this whole system has been provided by the selco foundation, an indian charity with the aim of helping to alleviate poverty by improving access to energy. with this, students can get a better education

through audiovisual teaching, and also there is no problem with electricity. so any time the teachers can take their students to the classroom, they can teach through this medium. selco and other ngos they work with pay for half of the cost of installing the projector and solar system — the other half comes from local schools or local government. how important is the projector? translation: before this project came into useage, we had very few students. but since we have started using the solar power, our number of students has increased in a good way. we have students coming to us from different villages to learn, and not only students — we have other schools coming down to our institute for smart classes. the smart class is a good way of teaching kids these days. they seem to enjoy and learn more than usual. after we introduced smart class, our school stands proudly in the educational sector. we plan to grow larger as the years pass by.

cool whoa! the same system is already in hundreds of rural schools, and they're aiming to add hundreds more this year. and it's notjust key for schools — across rural india, businesses can be helped massively by having a reliable power supply. somana is a seamstress who lives a short drive from kundapur. she became the main breadwinner for the family after her father was taken ill. the more clothing she can repair, the more she gets paid. with her old, hand—operated sewing machine, she could fix a couple of items a day. but thanks to the solar panels on her roof, her electric machine can whiz through five or six clothes per day. plus, she has a fan, a tv and a light, so she can work earlier and later. one—quarter of india's rural population lives below

the official population line — that's 260 million people whose livelihoods could be improved by the addition of basic facilities like electricity. and of course, one key way of helping people out of poverty is... ..education. it's always such a privilege to come to a place like this and see how the simplest technology can make a world of difference. that's it from india for the moment. you can see plenty of photos and more backstage gossip on twitter. thanks for watching. see you soon. fsb a lovely day for most of us

today for the first time this year the temperature has had 20 celsius. that was recorded in highland scotland. even here, these guys were not a spoiler as yesterday. the thicker, rain beating cloud on these weather systems at the moment is being kept at bay by this large area of high pressure. and in that area of high pressure. and in that area of four high pressure there has been some cloud and will see the north sea drilling in with cloud and some of that will be heading our have seen today is

mostly higher—level code and the sunshine has been rather hazy. 0ne pa rt sunshine has been rather hazy. 0ne part of the country seemed those conditions earlier on was in suffolk. temperatures are not as high as they were in rural scotland but with clear skies and the wind, the temperatures will fall quickly overnight, particularly across mainland scotland. arresting the temperature fall. it will be called maid and a touch colder than the last eight. it's more towards the north—west that we could see temperatures below freezing. not as called for northern ireland because more clodagh rice here towards the end of the night and it will warm up in the sunshine across mainland scotland. different started the day, all the way from north—east england, pa rt all the way from north—east england, part of the midlands and wales. it could see the and there could be mist and fog and also. that venus ta kes a mist and fog and also. that venus takes a little while the west, slowly we should see an improving in most areas as the sunshine comes out. some stubborn areas of cloud will linger and more than today, but most of us will see sunshine. notably north—east england could stay at that tree —— grey and cold but will play the ones in the south—east, this is where we would see the highest temperatures, we could get 17 or 18 celsius across scotland. through the week, more

cloud arriving and that brings with that the threat of some showers or longer spells of rain. still warm here across the uk because we have southerly winds. the high pressure is getting squeezed a week into continental europe. the pressure continues to fall and we could see rainfor continues to fall and we could see rain for the first time. surely rain into wales and northern ireland and later on in scotland. very few showers and still sunshine at times and the south—east. this is bbc news. i'm martine croxall. the headlines at eight. ‘no place to hide‘ — the home secretary says intelligence services must have access to encrypted messages. khalid masood is thought to have been using whatsapp moments before he killed four people. there should be no place the terrorist to hide. we need to make sure that organisations like what sapp do not provide a secret place

for terrorists to communicate with each other. sinn fein says it's the ‘end of the road' on power sharing in northern ireland — as talks break down ahead of tomorrow's deadline residents evacuated on the wirral are told it will be several days before they can go home. in russia, police clamp down on anti—corru ption protests held across the country, more than 700 people