From: Frederick Noronha [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: Monday, February 25, 2002 9:29 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: BYTESFORALL: Feb 2002 (Focus: South Asia)
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_/ B y t e s F o r A l l --- http://www.bytesforall.org
_/ Making Computing Relevant to the People of South Asia
_/
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FEBRUARY 2002 ISSUE * FEBRUARY 2002 ISSUE * FEBRUARY 2002 ISSUE
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E-TAPAAL, A SOLUTION FROM INDIA: www.e-tapaal.com is a new email service in
Indian languages and English for individuals, businesses, institutions and
governments. The service is being launched first in the south Indian
language of Kannada and English. Besides email, the service will feature a
bilingual Kannada and English Messenger for live chat and discussion in the
near future. Eventually, the email and messenger service will be launched in
10 other major Indian languages: Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu, Marathi,
Gujarati, Punjabi, Bengali, Oriya and Assamese. Bilingual Indian language
and English facility will be available within each email. In addition,
e-tapaal will have a solution for businesses, institutions and governments
from the tiny with, say, 2 users to the gigantic. By using an inexpensive
software package developed wholly in India and based on the Linux operating
system and other freeware, e-tapaal will offer businesses a very
cost-effective solution. Email: [log in to unmask]
ONEWORLD NEWS VIA YAHOO.COM: OneWorld, the leading online network for human
rights and sustainable development has launched a daily news syndication to
the World News section of Yahoo! News (http://news.yahoo.com), the most
popular news site on the Web. The syndication agreement between OneWorld and
Yahoo! Inc., a leading global Internet communications, commerce and media
company, is the first daily non-profit world news syndication to a major
corporate Web portal. OneWorld news stories will focus on events relating
to human rights, world poverty, social justice, the environment and
sustainable development. OneWorld has over 1000 media partners made up of
non-government organisations (NGOs) and international bodies.
WEB KIOSKS FOR INDIA's VILLAGESS: For millions of Indians living in
villages, making a phone call, let alone connecting to the internet, is a
distant dream. But a new, cheap and robust wireless technology could bring
the information revolution to rural areas.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1593000/1593890.stm
C-IT AND CYBERPARKS: Cyberparks is a unique Network developed by C-IT to
take benefit of Information and Communication Technologies for employment
and empowerment. Cyberparks will provide large scale employment, business
and investment opportunities to IT and non IT professionals. Cyberparks will
compliment Govt. of India's initiatives to make "India a best IT
destination". Cyberparks will help small-scale entrepreneurs to develop
business on the strength of the Network. Entrepreneurs can avail multiple
benefits by joining the Network and avail opportunities offered by IT
bandwagon. These Cyberparks will provide various IT products, IT enabled
services, training packages and software services. Cyberparks are aimed to
promote a new socio-economic and business culture.
See http://www.c-it.org/cyberparks.htm
INDIA -- DEPT OF POSTS SET FOR ONLINE MAIL-TRACKING (Newsbytes) In what
could give the private courier companies a run for their money, India's
Department of Posts is ready to set up an online track-and-trace system at
all its existing Speed Post centers. The system -- christened "Speednet" --
would enable customers to track Speed Post consignments online. Even
customers who do not have Net access would be able to track their parcels.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/171644.html
Posted via [log in to unmask] [from UNESCO OBSERVATORY ON THE INFORMATION
SOCIETY Newsletter - No 114 - November 2, 2001]
INDIAN INCOME TAX DEPARTMENT has put the names of 13,000 taxpayers in Delhi
on its website (www.incometaxdelhi.nic.in), whose refunds have come back in
the last few years due to wrong address etc. These taxpayers must have been
running from pillar to post for the last so many years. Now, they can see
the website. Details from Parivartan [log in to unmask]
VILLAGE IN THE CLOUDS EMBRACES COMPUTERS: Mahabir Pun is a Nepalese
educational pioneer who is trying to break the cycle of poverty in his
mountain village of Nangi by taking it into the computer age. Having founded
Himanchal High School, he sees the internet as the way to improve the
children's education.
* http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1606000/1606580.stm
* http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1615000/1615454.stm
* Mahabir Pun's Nepal site http://rip.physics.unk.edu/nepal/
* Nangi village school project http://coe.unk.edu/nepal/index.html
PAKISTAN: 10,000 police officials to be imparted IT training
http://www.nation.com.pk/daily/today/national/isb4.htm
SIMPUTER NOW 'TALKS' BANGLA: Gholam Mortuza Hossain <[log in to unmask]>
reports that the Simputer <www.simputer.org> now has a screenshot of
displaying text in the Bangla text. "So Simputer is now one step closure to
the people of eastern India," says Hossain. To keep abrest with what's
happening on the Simputer front, send an email to
[log in to unmask] and join the mailing list.
NEW LINUX LOCALISTATION INITIATIVE IN INDIA; Mahendra M from Bangalore
<[log in to unmask]> tells us about a new Linux Localisation INitiative. Says he:
Our main aim is to translate all Linux Documentation, available from the
Linux Documentation Project (www.linuxdoc.org), into Indian languages.
Thanks to Venky <[log in to unmask]> for forwarding this. Volunteers needed
from across India (and beyond!) http://lli.linux-bangalore.org . Harnessing
the Free/Open Source Software Movement for India http://www.iiitb.ac.in
http://www.freeos.com/indianlinux
UN TASK FORCE ON ICTs: United Nations Information and Communication
Technologies (ICT) Task Force. The ICT Task Force is mandated by UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan to find new, creative and quick-acting means to
spread the benefits of the digital revolution--from which four billion of
the world's people are currently excluded. The members of the Task Force
come from the public and private sectors, from civil society and the
scientific community, and from leaders of the developing as well as the most
technologically advanced countries. http://www.unicttaskforce.org
REFORMING TECHNICAL COOPERATION: E-discussion forum on reforming technical
cooperation for capacity development. The emerging hypotheses as well as
other supporting documentation (TORS, framing papers) can also be viewed on
the project web-site (www.undp.org/capacity), via the "Focus Studies"
sub-page. http://www.capacity.org/undp-forum/subscribe.phtml If you don't
have Internet access please send a message to [log in to unmask] Please mention
your First Name, Last Name and Country
HELPING PEOPLE ON DROUGHT: From: Balaji V <[log in to unmask]>: "There is an
idea relating to using ICT to help ordinary people address the recurrent
problem of drought. As you would know, close to 42 per cent of India's land
area is highly drought-prone. The public arrangements worked out in a large
measure during the colonial rule and the early 1950's do not take into
account the growing aspiration of rural families to overcome drought as a
problem. I believe contemporary ICT can help them address this issue
effectively. There is a whole range of products from NASA (to cite an
example) which are useful in assessing the vulnerability of a small area
(say, 150 sq km) to drought. When tools like this are readily available to
rural communities, there is a possibility that mitigatory measures can be
better planned or worked. The very considerable public expenditure in
drought relief etc can be rendered timely and more effective. I would like
to seek your guidance in elaborating this."
HINDI VERSION OF SOFTWARE TO COPE WITH IRREGULAR RAINFALL: Vikram Vyas
<[log in to unmask]> informs that a long-awaited Hindi version of the
Jal-Chitra software is ready! It is freely available to the community at
large. "If you need a copy then please get in touch with me," says Vikram.
(Earlier edition in English already available). Vyas says he will be
shifting over the development of Jal-Chitra from Windows to Linux and
FreeBSD, which are "all free and open operating systems". Jal Chitra
software has earlier featured in bytesforall, and it's aim is to help make
life less trying for villagers in the poor, drought-prone regions of the
globe by helping them forecast their water-supply situations in the months
ahead. Contact Dr. Vikram Vyas The Ajit Foundation Jaipur & Associate,
International Centre for Theoretical Physics Trieste, Italy
<[log in to unmask]>
MILK COOPERATIVE KEEN ON ICTs: From: Ujvalparghi <[log in to unmask]>
Hi! pls visit www.skepl.com Can u tell me from where we can get financial
support for milk cooperatives which cannot efford to pay for technology
after looking at the ICT model that we offer.
EDUCATION SITE: Check out this site... http://www.educationindia4u.com
FREE SOFTWARE FOR TRANSLITERATION: A new website just launched from the
central Indian city of Nagpur called aaina-e-ghazal.com offers a trilingual
dictionary of commonly used words in 'ghazals'. It is also accessible via
the nagpurcity.net site. To enhance the popularity of this site and help the
'ghazals' get a wider reach, the Urdu text is written in Devnagri, the
widely-used script of Hindi and other North Indian languages. Urdu is spoken
by an estimated 104 million worldwide, and like Hindi have proceeded from
the same Khariboli speech source from the areas sorrounding Delhi. This
software is available for free download from
<http://www.sanisoft.com/rtod/index.php3> . It is provided under LGPL, or
the Lesser GNU Public License. A user is free to use the software even in
his commercial products. But if any modifications are made to the original
code, then the new code also has to be made public under LGPL. Contacts: Dr
Sani can be contacted at [log in to unmask]
ESPOTS.ORG: http://www.espots.org is a volunteer based inititive with the
following mission: to bridge technological divide especially digital divide
at the local, national, and international levels with right-based community
development approach.
EFFECTIVE USES OF ICT IN NEPAL: Sangita Khadka <[log in to unmask]>
recently wrote in from Nepal (via the GKD mailing list), to say: I would
like to inform you of some effective uses of ICT that are taking place in
Nepal. Old records used to lie in dusty corners in Kanchanpur, a district in
far-west Nepal. Now they have become part of the digital revolution.
Kanchanpur is one of the areas in this mountainous country most dedicated to
using information technology to modernize public administration and promote
local development. Further information from: Sangita Khadka, UNDP, Nepal,
[log in to unmask] OR Trygve Olfarnes, UNDP Communications Office.
[log in to unmask]
ICTs IN BANGLADESH, A STUDY: Sirajul Islam, a lecturer of a University
(www.diu.edu) in Bangladesh who is teaching courses related to Information
and Communication Technology (ICT), is working on an interesting field. Says
he: "Currently, I am working on the research as titled 'National Information
and Communication Technology (ICT) policy process of Bangladesh with special
reference to India's experence'." He seeks information that would help his
research. Contact details: M. Sirajul Islam 69/C green Road, 3rd Floor
Panthapath, Dhaka 1205 Bangladesh Email: [log in to unmask]
Website: http://www.geocities.com/siraj2k Fax: 00880-2-8612930
INDIA SLATES $2Bil PLAN FOR IN-SCHOOL INTERNET: India's government plans to
invest $2 billion to improve Internet access in schools across the country.
While $1 billion will be spent on providing Net connectivity, another $833
million has been proposed for upgrading Education and Research Network
(Ernet). The blueprint drawn up by the Ministry of Information Technology
shows that multilateral funding agencies like the World Bank would be
recruited as a partner. The $1 billion project called "Schoolnet" proposes
to provide 128 kilobits per second connections in 60,000 schools in the
first phase. In its second phase, the government proposes to add another
40,000 schools, taking the total number to 100,000.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/170989.html
CONTINUED MEDICAL EDUCATION THROUGH TELECOMMUNICATIONS: Madhya Pradesh is a
large India state full of natural resources. But it is still unfortunate to
have the highest Infant mortality rate in India, i.e., 97/1000 birth. The
early neonatal mortality rate is 47 which constitutes 49.4% of the infant
deaths. Hence, there is an urgent need to train the paramedical workers
about essential neonatal care mainly concentrating on care at birth. The
conventional training programs conducted by expert trainers, are useful.
However, it is not possible to organize these programs more frequently to
cover a large number of paramedical personnel. Such training programs also
require time, money and immense efforts on part of the trainer. Satellite
transmission can be good cost effective alternative to train such a large
number of audience simultaneously
http://www.nplinx.com/thearts.cfm?readurl=&artid=243627&specid=33 </a>
RAILWAYS, BANKING, ETC: Prof Ken Kenninstone (of MIT, who recently completed
a long study of ICT-for-development projects while in Bangalore on an
extended stint) comments: "Thanks for your mail about Indian Railways. There
is another big success story, the computerization of the Indian banking
system. Incidentally, the Konkanrailway.com [another railway network in
India that has effectively used ICTs -FN] work was done by Harsh Kumar, a
friend who is also the author Bharath Bhasha. Small world! He is now doing
something else in the public sector." Dr Kenneth Kenistone is Andrew Mellon
Professor of Human Development and Director MIT India Program Massachusetts
Institute of Technology Contact: E51-163, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA Phone:
1-617-253-4055 Fax: 1-617-258-8118 Email: [log in to unmask] Web: www.kken.net
From Bangalore in South India, Preeti Ramanathan <[log in to unmask]>
explains her plans thus: "We are an agro-industry accelerator in India,
deploying a mix of technology and grassroot development to increase
productivity and improve living standards of farmers. In our first phase, we
have established linkages in rural Karnataka. We hope to go online soon with
our local language online platform, an interactive tool to link the villages
with market centres and information outlets."
WORKING GROUP ON IT FOR THE MASSES: The Working Group on Information
Technology for Masses was constituted by Government of India vide a
Notification dated 10/05/2000 with the purpose of formulating a set of
policy initiatives to be implemented by the government, industry and
entrepreneurs in the country to achieve wide spread application of IT in all
possible areas in the shortest possible time. The group deliberated on
issues like Infrastructure and Services, Electronic Governance, Education
and Mass Campaign for IT Awareness and invited suggestions through this Web
Site from people across the world who evinced direct interest in faster
economic growth of this large nation. Based on the suggestions received,
the working group gave its recommendations. Consequently, a National IT
Mission has been set up vide a Ministry Notification dated 12.06.2001 to
implement the recommendations of the Working Group. The web site of the
Working Group is closed now. However, the background report and
recommendations are kept for reference purpose. For the latest information
on IT Mission & its activities, please visit at
http://www.mit.gov.in/itmasses/index.htm.
DEVELOPMENT LABORATORY: In Nov 2001, 'Development Laboratory' set up a stall
at BangaloreIT.com consisting of four entities -- Centre for Knowledge
Societies, Madhyam, VOICES and MAHITI. They showcased a "bouquet of projects
and technologies" that made the point that ICTs for rural development is
possible, and already being done. Some of the products showcased included
- Mithi.com [Multi-lingual computing]
- ChennaiKavigal [Multi-lingual computing]
- n-Logue [Wireless Local Loop]
- VXL [Thin Clients]
- MAHITI [Content Management Systems]
- VOICES [FM Radio Station]
More details from: Sunil Abraham Team Leader - MAHITI Info-tech for the
Voluntary Sector Vijay Kiran, IInd Floor 314/1, 7th Cross, Domlur Bangalore
- 560 071 Karnataka, INDIA Ph/Fax: +91 80 5352003. Pager: 9624 279519 Yahoo
Pager: golisoda E-mail: [log in to unmask] Web: http://www.mahiti.org
FILM FROM NEPAL: In Nepal. a film has been made with donated money raised
from all over the world by email. The film is about the Maoists and was
scheduled to also be screened in Film South Asia documentary festival. The
film 'Raktamme Pahad' (English title: The Killing Terraces) director is
Dhruba Basnet. What's probably unusual is that the film is the first made
about the Maoist movement, and also the funds were raised, in part, through
an e-mail campaign.
JIVA IN NORTH INDIA: Steve Rudolph <[log in to unmask]> announces that Jiva has
recently put together their first book on Social Studies for Kids I (for
Class I), and more are scheduled to go to the press in recent weeks. Says
Steve, who works out of North India: "The books have a nifty feature in them
called 'Edulinks'. Next to each topic in the book, we have a small code
(e.g. SC102). At any time, the student can go to our jivaworld.com website,
type the code into a search box, and find quality activities and web
resources directly relevant to the topic and at the student's age level.
Saves time searching the net or CDs endlessly." Steve also informs that two
of Media Lab Asia's projects have been formally approved. Jiva's Ayurvedic
website has been re-done at http://www.ayurvedic.org It offers some
e-learning courses, and a new service called Ayunique -- personal ayurveda.
The attempt is to try "to preserve the integrity of the science (keeping
Ayurveda "personal" rather than make it an over-the-counter affair like some
folks are doing)".
KANNADA BENCHMARK SOFTWARE: Dr. U.B. Pavanaja <[log in to unmask]>
tells about a FREE benchmark Kannada Script Software (Kalitha) developed by
Kannada Ganaka Parishat for Govt of Karnataka that has been released. This
takes Kannada further along the road to standardisation for computer usage.
More details from Dr. U.B. Pavanaja Editor, Vishva Kannada World's first
Internet magazine in Kannada http://www.vishvakannada.com/
CORRUPTIONFREEZONE.ORG: Four Indian companies viz. STAR, Ejourno, Sony,
Manas have come forward to take a public pledge against corruption that
infests the country. The objective of creating corruption-free zones in
commercial enterprises is to start small, but finally create a movement to
eradicate this evil from the country. CorruptionFreeZone is a non-profit and
non-political movement that solicits organizations, citizens and the
government to stand up in solidarity and eradicate corruption.
CorruptionFreeZone has formally contacted 90 Indian organizations to declare
themselves as CorruptionFreeZone. Details of the movement can be read on the
organization s web site: CorruptionFreeZone.Org.
For further information contact: Amit Malik Founder CorruptionFreeZone.org
Tel: +91-98201-36382 Email: [log in to unmask]
PRAGATI, AN INDIAN NEWSLETTER ON EDUCATION: Pragati (which means "progress"
in Sanskrit) is a newsletter from Jiva's Education department. It provides
updates on educational trends, IT in Education, useful learning resources,
methods to enhance teaching, the development of ICOT (India's Curriculum of
Tomorrow), and more. It is meant for teachers, principals, educators,
parents, administrators, policy makers, and anyone concerned about the state
of education in India and internationally. To unsubscribe, send a blank
email to: [log in to unmask]
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bYtES For aLL is a voluntary, unfunded venture. CopyLeft, 2002. bYtES For
aLL e-zine volunteers team includes: Frederick Noronha in Goa, Partha Sarkar
in Dhaka, Zunaira Durrani in Karachi, Zubair Abbasi in Islamabad, Archana
Nagvenkar in Goa, Arun-Kumar Tripathi in Darmstatd, Shivkumar in Mumbai,
Sangeeta Pandey in Nepal, Daryl Martyis in Chicago/Goa, Gihan Fernando in
Sri Lanka, Rajkumar Buyya in Melbourne, Mahrukh Mohiuddin in Dhaka and Deepa
Rai in Kathmandu. To contact them mail [log in to unmask]
BytesForAll's website www.bytesforall.org is maintained by Partha Sarkar,
with inputs from other members of the volunteers' team and supporters. To
join or leave this mailing-list simply send a message to
[log in to unmask] with SUB B4ALL or UNSUB B4ALL as the subject.
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