Governance2.Org

Reuters: Politicians have learned to fear and revere the video-sharing Web site that has become a vital part of the campaign for the 2008 U.S. presidential election. More than 2.5 million people have viewed “I’ve Got a Crush…On Obama” about Democratic Sen. Barack
Obama since it was posted last month. A rebuttal video of women fighting over Obama and leading Republican contender Rudy Giuliani has been watched more than 500,000 times in four days.
Many candidates vying for their party’s nomination to run for president have embraced the technological changes, holding polls via YouTube, asking for campaign input and making announcements on the site.
CNN political director Sam Feist said the network decided to hold a YouTube debate in part to highlight the enormous impact the Internet has on politics.
“Clearly the YouTube phenomenon is the perfect opportunity to merge new media and old media in a presidential debate,” he said, adding that the unpredictable nature of the questions will make it harder for candidates to prepare. Read on …

Kitchen Democracy allows citizens to weigh in on local issues like zoning changes without attending city council meetings.  But there are complaints of ballot stuffing in online polls, which a little analysis shows is a credible claim. Read on …

Livemint: Almost 41% of the households that plan to buy a computer or a laptop are from rural areas. Only 16% are from the super metros, the eight largest cities in the country. And 39% of the households that plan to buy a laptop or desktop computer have people who earn less than Rs1 lakh a year. Download the complete report [pdf]

I strongly believe that progressive governance can only be brought about by a partnership between the government, the industry, the civil society, and the academic world. Each of these stakeholders have an inherent ability to be able to form policies which would be more populist in nature. In an ideal scenario, they would all balance each other.
In this article pulished in Livemint, Jagdish Khattar talks about how the government’s inability to deliver could hamper inclusive growth, and proposes Mission Forward as a possible solution:

“The role of the government in economic activity has come down substantially in the past two decades. Yet, critical areas of the economy, entirely or in part, remain the responsibility of the state. The Indian state’s inadequacies with regard to execution and implementation could, therefore, hobble the nation in its onward journey.
There is plenty of evidence, both anecdotal and structured, about schools without teachers, huge village clusters devoid of power, primary health centres ailing without medicines and trained doctors, roads that end before they reach anywhere and fair price shops diverting more grain than they dispense. Unfinished irrigation projects, too, make for a sad commentary. The state’s inability to deliver, despite its propensity to spend on these heads, means that inclusive growth will continue to elude us.
How is the corporate sector able to deliver on large and world-class projects? Companies begin any initiative with detailed assessment of feasibility. There is a clear sense of what is sought to be achieved, and what systems, structures and resources are required to fulfil those objectives.
When the mission concentrates on individual projects, it will find many where the project is better farmed out to the private sector. The latter already plays a major role in developing infrastructure. Private-public partnership here could do wonders. We now have a transparent system of inviting bids, even providing a viability gap. We can encourage foreign investment as well.”

Read on …

Economic Times: The Chinese government has launched a campaign to limit the number of hours teenagers spend online playing games.
Under new rules that took effect Monday, Chinese Internet gaming companies must install a programme that requires users to enter their ID card numbers. After three hours, players under 18 are prompted to stop and “do suitable physical exercise.”
If they continue, the software slashes by half any points earned in the game. All points are wiped out if players stay on more than five hours.
The programme is part of a government campaign to combat Internet gaming addiction, “clean up the Internet environment” and “promote civilized Internet use,” according to guidelines issued by China’s General Administration of Press and Publication.
Though China’s communist government promotes Internet use, it has also set up an extensive surveillance and filtering system to prevent Chinese from accessing material considered obscene or politically subversive.  Read on …
It is continually amazing how easily a hitherto “free” medium can be tethered.

Business Standard: By 2010, a flight from Delhi to Chennai could take just two hours, a full 45 minutes less than the current duration. And a Mumbai-Delhi flight could be only an hour.
This anticipated saving in time and money (in terms of fuel costs and airport charges for carriers) will be possible with the launch of GAGAN, or the satellite-aided geo-augmented navigation project being jointly implemented by the Airports Authority of India (AAI) and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).
A Rs 644-crore project to implant navigation software in existing satellites, GAGAN, which is currently undergoing feasibility tests, will do away with the need for aircraft to be navigated through ground navigation stations, which now send position signals to the aircraft.
When the project is implemented, the signals will come from the satellite to reference stations across the country, get corrected by them and uplinked to the satellite, which will then transfer the accurate signals to the aircraft. Apart from accuracy in position, the aircraft will be able to plot its way through much shorter routes. Read on …
Given the explosion that India is experiencing in air traffic, this could not come soon enough.

Business Standard: As a measure to increase security and reduce fraud in India, all permanent account number (PAN) cards issued to tax payers, possibly after October this year, will be biometric cards that contain the physiological characteristics (such as fingerprints or eye colour) of the card-holder.
There are currently around 50 million PAN cards, which will remain valid even if the holder refuses to opt for the biometric version. Of these, the income tax department had found that nearly 1.3 million PAN cards are duplicate (more than one card per person) and it is currently weeding them out. Read more …

Livemint.com: The Intel Corp. reversed the ground on Friday (13 July) and joined the board of the One Laptop Per Child Foundation, an ambitious effort to seed the developing world with inexpensive portable computers. Read more …

Livemint.com: Rural India is set to undergo a technological revolution, thanks to “knowledge centres” that will be set up in villages to provide information on a variety of issues via satellite and computers.
On a pilot basis, around 8,000 villages will get the knowledge centres as part of Mission 2007, a Union government project.
The project envisages creating knowledge centres in villages to provide information to people on various issues, including agriculture, other sources of livelihood, education, market trends and health. Read more …