Governance2.Org

Biju Seva Kendras Bring eGovernance In Orissa

Dhirender — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 04:29:29 +0000

With the Orissa government deciding to launch 8,558 common service centres — Biju Seva Kendra — at least one in each block to provide government-to-citizen, business-to-consumer and business-to-business services to citizens at their doorsteps, villagers would no longer have to run to the capital, district headquarters or towns to get copies of official documents or avail e-services such as Internet or get a railway ticket done.
IT minister Surya Narayan Patro said the common service centres, to function as front-end delivery points for all villagers closer home, were expected to be operational within six months.
Under the government-to-citizen services, providing land record, certificates, details of government schemes and utility bill payment would be delivered. Forms could be downloaded and submitted at the Biju Seva Kendra.
Similarly, services such as typing, photography, Internet surfing, agro-information, railway and air ticketing, astrology and matrimony, mobile coupon, exam results, online education services and distant learning courses and life and general insurance packages would be available under business-to business service. Market research, surveys, rural BPO services, advertising, branding and promotions would be provided under business-to-business package.
Each centre would have a furnished room at panchayat level equipped with a computer, printer, digital and web cameras, scanner, UPS and Internet connectivity.
Set up under a public-private partnership, the private players would set up the common service centres on build, own and operate basis, with the government providing revenue support for the first four years to make the scheme sustainable. [Via]

India Per Capita Spend On eGov At $1.29

Dhirender — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 17:18:04 +0000

According to a new study by TCS, India, the world’s IT services backyard, figures quite low in a global e-governance ranking with a per capita IT spend of just $1.29. Compare this with $199 in New Zealand and $153 in Singapore.
According to the WEF Global Information Technology Report, India ranks 44 out of the 122 countries analysed even behind countries like Barbados, Latvia, Tunisia, Thailand and the Slovak Republic.
The White Paper is an attempt by TCS to use its experience in e-Governance projects to define a road-map for India and highlight current impediments like a silo-based approach that is limiting the benefits of technology use. [Via]

India’s Largest eGov Project, MCA-21, Set For Revamp

Dhirender — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 16:37:56 +0000

Introduced two years ago, India’s largest e-governance project, and the second biggest of its kind in the world, the MCA-21, which enables e-filing of corporate information with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, is set to be revamped shortly.
The ministry is now looking to launch the second generation of e-filing process, and has tied up with TCS for the same.
Once the revamped system is in place, companies would find it still simpler and convenient to file corporate information with the ministry while public and professionals would get easy access to relevant records and effective grievances redressal.
The move will also help in effective compliance of relevant laws and improve corporate governance, according to the Institute of Company Secretaries. [Via]

Turkmenistan Eases Internet Access

Dhirender — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 12:15:27 +0000

Turkmenistan has begun allowing private citizens to connect to the Internet, the latest sign that the reclusive Central Asian nation is opening up.
The country’s only Internet provider, Turkmentelekom, said Thursday that it has been connecting up to 20 homes daily since the start of the week, mainly in the capital Ashgabat. It said it has a waiting list of 2,000 people.
“As of this week we have begun connecting customers, regardless of their professional status,” a Turkmentelekom statement said.
Last year, president Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov allowed the country’s first Internet cafe. Until then, Internet use had been restricted solely to government employees, diplomatic posts and offices for major international companies. [Via]

CFP - Ubiquitous Sustainability: Citizen Science & Activism

Dhirender — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 17:01:27 +0000

This workshop at the 10th International Conference on Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp 2008) explores new approaches to bring about real environmental change by looking at the success of empowering technologies that enable grassroots activism and bottom up community participation. Ubiquitous computing is transforming from being mostly about professional communication and social interaction to a sensor rich personal measurement platform that can empower individuals and groups to gain an awareness of their surroundings, engage in grassroots activism to promote environmental change, and enable a new social paradigm - citizen science. This workshop brings together fresh ideas and approaches to help elevate individuals to have a powerful voice in society, to act as citizen scientists, and collectively learn and lobby for change worldwide.

More details: http://www.urban-atmospheres.net/Ubicomp2008/
Submission deadline: 27 June, 2008
Notification for position papers: 25 July, 2008
Day of workshop: 21 September, 2008
Workshop venue: Seoul, South Korea

Internet Subscribers In India

Dhirender — Tue, 20 May 2008 02:23:51 +0000

India now has over 49-million internet users in the country according to this article in the Economic Times. No surprise that at 40 million, urban users account for a bulk of it, with rural net users making up the other 9 million. Regular net users, defined as anyone accessing the net at least once a month, number around 35 million (30-million urban and 5-million rural).
However, Internet World Stats puts the number of Internet subscribers in India at 42 million in 2007, while a December 3, 2007 IAMAI release has put the number at 46 million.
Back to the JuxtConsult’s ‘India Online 2008′ however, Internet penetration (as % of population) has crossed double-digit mark in urban India at 12%, up 3% from 9% last year, and rural penetration stands at 4.5%.

Other highlights:

Every one in 10 urban Indians (12%) is now net connected. The number of urban netizens has increased by 33% in the last one year, from 30 million to 40 million. 75% (30 million) of these are regular urban users while rest, 25% (10-million), are occasional users.
Over two-thirds (70%) of all internet users reside outside metros
SEC C, D and E in urban areas now account for around half of all users
Over 70% internet users prefer to access the net in Indian languages, with English users at just 28%, down from 41% in 2007.
A majority, over three-fourths (77%) users, are between 19-35 years of age, up 10% from 2007.
Overall, women account for less than a fifth, just 17.6%, of the 49-million odd Indian netizens, with urban women marginally higher at 18.2%
Over half of all net users (51%) in the country are salaried employees in the corporate world. Wonder what implications this has for where the net users access the Internet from.
South India contributes the largest share of internet users at 33%, with East under-represented at just 15%.
Although for 44-million users (91%) emailing is still the most popular online activity. Faith in internet shopping is strengthening gradually, and a good 80% of regular online Indians are now buying through the net.

Gujarat Plans To Connect All Villages Via VSAT

Dhirender — Mon, 19 May 2008 14:20:09 +0000

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]

With 216 Million Mobile Subscribers, India Now Ranks Second

Dhirender — Sat, 03 May 2008 05:09:53 +0000

Adding the 10.16 million wireless (GSM, CDMA, WLL) subscribers in March, India overtook USA to ranks at second place after China. The total wireless subscribers now stands at 261.09 million.
A total of 10.40 million telephone connections (Wireline and Wireless) have been added during March 2008 as compared to 8.49 million connections added in February 2008. This implies a reach of 300.51 million at the end of March 2008 against a reach of 290.11 million in February 2008 taking the overall tele-density from 25.31% in February 2008 to 26.22% in March 2008.
Broadband, defined as speeds above 256 Kbps, had a subscriber base of 3.90 million at the end of March 2008 against that of 3.47 million at the end of Fenruary 2008. Clearly we have a long way to go to achieve its target of 20 million broadband subscribers by 2010 - more so if TRAI actually goes ahead with its proposed definition of broadband.
Download the complete report here.

Report - Mobile Phones For Social Activism

Dhirender — Thu, 01 May 2008 14:36:55 +0000

“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.

European Commission Publishes eHealth Report

Dhirender — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 06:54:35 +0000

The European Commission has published a pan-European survey on electronic services in healthcare (e-health) that shows 87 per cent of European doctors (general practitioners) use a computer, 48 per cent with a broadband connection.
The survey, called ‘Benchmarking ICT use among General Practitioners in Europe,’ also found that about 70 per cent of European doctors use the internet and 66 per cent use computers for consultations.
Denmark has the highest broadband penetration among General Practitioners (91 per cent) and Romania has the lowest (about 5 per cent). [Via]