|Farmers in India have a popular extra tool their ancestors lacked: they can get weather reports and crop advice delivered direct to a mobile phone. Since the service was launched in late 2006 by Reuters Market Light, part of the business information group, it has attracted about 250,000 subscribers who are paying the equivalent of £2 ($3.90, €2.50) a quarter.

Its impact is potentially huge in a market where information is often controlled by corrupt intermediaries and where suicide rates are rising among farmers driven to despair by poverty. Perhaps surprisingly, the idea behind the service has its origins in the heart of legal London. Throughout its gestation, Market Light was sponsored and promoted by Rosemary Martin, London-based in-house general counsel for Reuters.