Indian President asks IT industry to focus on ICT market

President of India, A P J Abdul Kalam asked the IT industry to more focus on high end products, while the ICT should touch USD 200 billion by the year 2010.

Yechury wants government of West Bengal to go for free software

According to Sitaram Yechury, member of the CPI (M) politbureau, the government of West Bengal should be forced to use free software and GNU-Linux based operating systems in the delivery of information for public use so that costs are kept low.

Taking e-Governance to rural millions. But how fast?

[This article was published in the April 2006 issue of the eGov Magazine (http://www.egovonline.net) ]

India

Women’s ICT-based Enterprises Workshop, 2-3 March 2006, Kolkata, India

[This article was published in the April 2006 issue of the eGov Magazine (http://www.egovonline.net) ]

The falling cost of technology has generated self-employment opportunities for women in ICT-based enterprises, but great expectations need to be tempered with a realistic assessment of the country

‘E-roll cleaning package’ to weed out duplicate voters

The Election Commission in India has deployed an ‘E-roll cleaning’ package to weed out duplicate voters from the electoral rolls in five states where Assembly elections are to be held shortly.

ICT in Indian Agriculture

[This article was published in the February 2006 issue of the eGov Magazine (http://www.egovonline.net) ]

The latest Situation Assessment Survey of Farmers, 2005 of NSSO (http://mospi.nic.in/mospi_nsso_rept_pubn.htm) observes that the average monthly per capita expenditure (MPCE) of a farm house hold is just Rs 503 in 2003 across regions, classes and income groups with 27 per cent of farmers not liking farming while 40 per cent felt that given the option they prefer other career, due to poor incomes.

Rural mobile services get click in Bengal, NGO becoming catalyst

The Grameen Sanchar Sewak (GSS) scheme, an ambitious pilot project to introduce rural mobile services kickstarted by Bharat Sanchar Nigam Lmited (BSNL) and the Department of Posts in 2002, is ready to be regularised and go national, after a resounding triumph in the Indian state West Bengal.

Creating a connectivity backbone for rural Bengal : Dr. GD Gautama, Principal Secretary, IT, West Bengal

Owing to the fast progress of the state of West Bengal in recent years in IT and e-Governance services, it is now being counted as one among the leading states in e-Governance along with Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat. West Bengal is now all set to implement India

Q & A : Dr Vijayaditya, Director General, National Informatic Centre (NIC)

National Informatic Centre (NIC) is a premier government technical body of India responsible for various computeris-ation projects. Estab- lishment of NICNET & CICs (in the north-east India) have been some of NIC

e-merging India

[This article was published in the September 2005 issue of the eGov Magazine (http://www.egovonline.net) ]

e-Governance scenario in India is passing through interesting times.