India will connect 5000 blocks in the country with wireless broadband, once the spectrum is allocated later this year, announced Department of Telecommunications (DOT) , Government of India. The project will be undertaken along with the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF). The plan aims to provide connectivity to villages coming within a radius of 10 Kms of the Taluka/Block headquarters.
Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) launched its first e-Ticketing kiosk in Karachi recently. This move is to facilitate round the clock access to national airline tickets on domestic flights.
Google is launching an Internet browser which is said to give Internet Explorer and Firefox stiff competetion. The Browser is named as Chrome which will be launched as a beta for Windows machines in about 100 countries across the globe. The browser will work in machines equipped with Mac and Linux versions.
In yet another move towards e-Governance initiatives, the IT Department of Haryana Government, India, has decided to install computers with Internet facilities in all the 108 ‘mandis’ and 25 sub-centres of the agricultural marketing board of the state.
In a move for becoming communication friendly, the Lower House of the Indian Parliament — Lok Sabha has collaborated with enterprise mobile messaging services provider – ValueFirst which will enable the House to keep in contact with its members.
The Ministry of Corporate Affairs has proposed the establishment of a single portal, where various regulators and regulatory ministries can be put together, in order to promote e-Governance further. This will help to link businesses through a common website.
National Informatics Centre, Government of India, which is the nodal agency for providing backbone support for all e-Governance initiative in the country, is said to come up with two Data Centres of tier 2 and 3 claas standards in two Indian cities – Pune and Hyderabad.
The World Bank has given a green signal to the Project Preparation Facility Advance for the e-Bharat Project of the Government of India under the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP). World Bank is willing to consider a loan of US$ 300 million under the first phase of funding for e-Bharat project.
The pension record system in India will soon be digitised. India’s largest financial depository firm National Securities Depository (NSDL) will soon have a new record keeping system developed by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS).
The Government of Haryana, India, has announced that it will soon make 5.2 million ration cards into smart cards. The government has earmarked an amount of INR 153 crore for this project. The state awaits the approval of the central government for implementing this scheme.
