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The first model e-court in the country that will make the judicial process more transparent and justice delivery system speedier, besides removing the bottlenecks was launched by the Gujarat High Court here on Sunday.
Chief Justice of India K.G. Balakrishnan inaugurated the first e-court, which started functioning on a pilot basis at the Ahmedabad City Civil and Sessions Court on Monday, providing tamperproof authentic audio-video recording of proceedings with multi-point video conferencing facilities linking the courtroom, central jail, the police commissioner’s office and the Forensic Science Laboratory. Continue Reading »

The Estonian Parliament approved a measure allowing citizens to vote by mobile phone in the next parliamentary elections in 2011. This is a step up from from Internet ballots that Estonians were allowed to cast in last year’s parliamentary vote.
The mobile-voting system, which has already been tested, requires that voters obtain free, authorized chips for their phones, which in turn, would  verify the voter’s identity and authorize participation in the electronic voting system.
Kaidro, spokesman of the SK Certification Center, which issues personal ID cards in Estonia, said he expects the 2011 vote to be the first of its kind, though he said neighboring Finland and Sweden possess the software and technical capabilities to conduct a similar “cellular election.”
Estonian officials said the Internet voting system in 2007 proved secure despite worries about hacker attacks, identity fraud and vote count manipulation. [Via]

While Delhi, Chandigarh and Goa are rated the best in terms of e-network access by their households where a State’s e-network policies are concerned, the Southern regions take over, according to an Assocham assessment on ‘E-governance initiatives’.
“A country’s e-readiness measures the current state of its ICT infrastructure and the degree to which its consumers, businesses and governments are able to capitalise on Internet-based opportunities. It determines the degree to which a country is prepared to participate in the networked world. The States have been rated on parameters: network access, e-learning, network society, e-governance and network economy,” said Assocham Secretary, General D. S. Rawat.

• Delhi, Chandigarh and Goa have been rated the best in terms of network access. Moreover, Delhi and Chandigarh are equally well in e-learning, which is based on percentage of colleges and schools with Internet access, universities offering infotech courses and computer labs.
• Network policies, which are evaluated on government’s efforts to address issues, related to telecom and e-commerce is better in most southern States including Maharashtra.
• Network society, which is measured on the number of online companies and local language websites is better in States such as Karnataka and Chandigarh.
• Andhra Pradesh’s initiatives such as Rajiv Internet Village launched in 2004 seeks to provide a host of services to the rural population through its 22,000 kiosks. Due to these measures it is estimated that Andhra Pradesh will capture 41% of the national IT and IT-enabled services market by 2010.
• Sikkim from the North-Eastern region has done well with its community information centres (CICs) and well established network access. [Via]

In a move which would have significant implications, Gujarat is planning to be the first state to provide high-speed connectivity through satellite-based data connections to all its 13,693 gram panchayats, by July this year, enabling video, voice and data offerings in the areas of e-governance, distance education, telemedicine, agriculture and interactive advisory and counselling services.
Each panchayat will have its own email address and more than 13,000 of them will be hosted on the state-owned data centre.
Bharti Airtel, the implementing agency, which began work on the project in January, plans to connect the panchayats with broadband connectivity at speeds of 2mbps. [Via]

“Well over 3.5 billion mobile phones are in use around the world and organizations are harnessing this technology to help overcome humanitarian challenges,” according to Timothy E. Wirth, President of the United Nations Foundation.
The recent report, Wireless Technology for Social Change: Trends in NGO Mobile Use, examines emerging trends in “mobile activism” by looking at 11 case studies of groups active in the areas of public health, humanitarian assistance and environmental conservation.
These include the text messaging ‘nerve center’ that Oxfam-Great Britain and the Kenyan umbrella group PeaceNet created which collected alerts about violent outbreaks during the recent civil unrest and mobilized local ‘peace committees.’ The project served as a vital tool for conflict management and prevention by providing a hub for real-time information about actual and planned attacks between rival ethnic and political groups.
The GSM Association, together with a handful of non-profit and private sector groups in Kenya, developed another conflict prevention project that allows farmers to preserve their crops while protecting wildlife. The program monitors instances when elephants approach farmed land, and provides an early warning system via mobile that is reducing the incidence of human-elephant conflict in an area where as many as five humans and 10 elephants are killed each year.
Other case studies cover the areas of public health (such as connecting health workers to one another in Uganda), humanitarian assistance (such as alerting Iraqi refugees to food aid drop offs in Syria), and environmental conservation (such as using text messages to raise awareness about deforestation in Argentina).
About 86% of non-governmental organization (NGO) employees use mobile technology in their work, with 25% believing it has revolutionized the way their organization or project works. While the most common uses of mobile technology by NGO workers are voice calls (90%) and text messaging (83%), about 10% use mapping functionalities, 8% use it for data analysis, and 8% for inventory management.

Gujarat bagged the award for the `Best e-governed State’ for 2006-07 at the 42nd Computer Society India(CSI) Convention, organised to recognise the best e-governance initiatives in the country, especially in the government sector. A total of 17 awards were presented.

Other highlights:

1. Goa, Jharkhand, Kerala were declared as joint winners of the `Progressive e-Governed State’
2. Department of Electricity of Lakshadweep, and Department of Health and Family Welfare, Gujarat were declared joint winners under the `Best e-governed Department’ category
3. The Department of Education, Delhi, bagged the special jury award under the same category for its initiative in the admission, examination and management of teachers. Continue Reading »

Madhya Pradesh government has set up a School for Good Governance and Policy Analysis here to review state policies and its effect on a target group.
The school will function as an autonomous `think tank’ in the field of good governance in international and domestic context and will analyze problems regarding governance. It will also prepare an action plan and assist in implementation of the same.
[Via]

The Maharashtra Knowledge Corporation Limited (MKCL) has in partnership with several institutions developed a comprehensive software framework for a web-based network of colleges affiliated to universities. This digital university product is a one-stop platform aimed at providing information about the university, its departments, colleges/institutes and various courses on offer.
Besides admissions and exam-related information, students will be able to access information on schemes —government as well as other agencies — for backwards, tribals, economically backward, minority classes and the physically challenged. Information will also be available on scholarships and free-ships, concessions, loans, employment, placement and competitive examinations etc.
An integral aspect of the project will be customised services which students can access through individual logins. This includes a range of administrative services like personal profile update, eligibility form, application for examination, admit card, personalised result, application for verification, revaluation and convocation as well as applications for migration certificates and transcript status of various applications.  [Via]

A community project to provide high speed Internet, telemedicine, e-education and e-governance services to the rural areas of Tamil Nadu was made operational in Vadugambadi, about 60 km south of state capital Chennai. The facilities will be provided for the first time in India with the High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) and Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA) systems under the Gramjyoti programme of the central government.
At the three community centres cum panchayat offices, the Apollo Hospital’s telemedicine service has provided a paramedic, who can do basic check ups for those needing medical attention.
There are plans to bring about 100,000 villages under the fold of the programme.
[Via]

People across the country may soon access their water, electricity and other utility bills online.
The national mission on e-governance in urban local bodies, covering  423 cities across the country, will cost Rs 787 crore and cover services and management functions, including online registration and issue of birth and death certificates, approval of building plans and payment of property tax and other utility bills.
All 35 cities with a population of 10 lakh or more are proposed to be covered in the current financial year. In the next five years, the project is supposed to cover all the 423 cities having a population of one lakh and above.
[Via]