From fred at bytesforall.org Thu Aug 1 11:01:09 2002 From: fred at bytesforall.org (Frederick Noronha) Date: Thu, 1 Aug 2002 14:31:09 +0530 (IST) Subject: [Bytesforall] BytesForAll: Aug 2002 Message-ID: ____ _ _____ _ _ _ | __ ) _ _ | |_ ___ ___ | ___| ___ _ __ / \ | | | | | _ \ | | | | | __| / _ \ / __| | |_ / _ \ | '__| / _ \ | | | | | |_) | | |_| | | |_ | __/ \__ \ | _| | (_) | | | / ___ \ | | | | |____/ \__, | \__| \___| |___/ |_| \___/ |_| /_/ \_\ |_| |_| |___/ ---------------------------------------------------------------- MAKING COMPUTING RELEVANT TO THE COMMON(WO)MAN * Aug 2002 ISSUE http://www.bytesforall.org * http://www.indialists.org ---------------------------------------------------------------- IT transforms a village ----------------------- BBC's Bangalore correspondent Habib Beary recently wrote about how IT has "transformed a village near India's high-tech capital of Bangalore, drastically reducing corruption and red-tape". It said the village of Bellandur, 18 kilometres from the city, is credited with being the first 'gram panchayat', or village-level administration, in the country to introduce e-governance. The gram panchayat covers as many as 10,000 people, and is spread over five villages. "And bribery, which is common practice in official corridors across the country, has been significantly cut," says the report. Media attention is what is needed for such initiatives. Without the hype such case-studies need to be studied, both for their potential and flaws. Other journals like the 'Frontline' has also recently focussed on Belandur. Bellandur is a relatively well-off agricultural village and as it is near Bangalore, access to education has contributed in making the village almost 90% literate. Cooperation from the villagers was vital. "Bellandur's e-governance project started with a single computer that was installed in the village in 1998 to replace the old typewriter.The village office now has three computers, funded by donations from wealthier farmers as well as companies that operate in the area," reports Beary. It has been argued that this has helped to plug revenue leakages too. The software package used at Bellandur handles records of property details, tax collection, birth and death certificates and so on. More details from http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_2045000/20454 85.stm IT against corruption --------------------- Karnataka chief minister S.M.Krishna's promise to computerise all sub-registrars' offices in that state to "eliminate corruption" has also get reported recently. To begin with, 11 sub-registrars' office in Bangalore Urban and Rural districts are to be "computerised shortly", he said. Mr Krishna raised this issue while launching a Krishi Marata Vahini website, of the regional agri-marketing department and the Karnataka agricultural marketing board. Incidentally, this new website would be linked to the existing 744 Raita Mitra Kendras. See the Krishi Marata Vahini website at maratavahini.kar.nic.in Phones in India --------------- Apart from the occasional government, it is the NGOs (non-government organisations), small firms and even foreign (or NRI) students who have done quite a bit to promote the IT-for-development agenda. Aswin is a graduate student at the MIT, and has been spending time in Chennai on a summer internship. He has been working with the TeNet group. Says he: "My assignment for the summer is to understand the influence that STD/PCOs have had in one particular district of Tamil Nadu (Theni/Tiruppur). I've come across studies in the U.S. ("social history of the telephone", "when old technologies were new" etc.), that are wonderful analyses of the role of telephones in different spaces (home, office, public spaces, etc.). I haven't found any in India." Aswin is looking for tips that point to papers, books or commentaries that try to understand what the telephone as a communications technology means to people in India. "What I am hoping to do is tackle a some fundamental questions concerning the introduction and use of public telephones. How do people receive new communication technologies? How did they learn about this technology? What are the adaptations they made (cognitive, socio-cultural, economic) as they began using telephones?" says Aswin. He argues that if one begins with the notion that multiple-media technologies shape the flow of information in any community (post and telegraph, radio, regional newspapers, cable TV, telephone booths, town-hall meetings, and daily face-to-face interactions), then an understanding of the relationships between these various sources becomes important. ICT for development ------------------- This piece of information comes in from Washington. The Digital Dividends Project Clearinghouse has a fully searchable database of over 600 ICT for Development projects worldwide, "with a proportionally large number in Asia", says John H. Paul Research Assistant, Digital Dividend Clearinghouse of the World Resources Institute. You can access the site at http://wriws1.digitaldividend.org/wri/app/index.jsp Unofficial Simputer FAQ ----------------------- The VLSI and Embedded Systems Center at IIIT Hyderabad is in the process of setting up an Embedded Systems Repository which will mirror software and documentation related to embedded systems in general and "ARM related stuff", informs Shaurya Arora of the IIIT Hyderabad . Part of the repository consists of the Unofficial Simputer FAQ. The repository is currently not online but will be shortly at http://embedded.iiit.net . The FAQ is online at http://gdit.iiit.net/~arora/simpfaq.htm . IT for your exams ----------------- Check this unusual site, which offers interesting on-line coloured notes for students http://www.alabhya.com/vfsedu.html Language, Knowledge.... ----------------------- IIT Bombay along with the UNDL Foundation at Geneva, UNESCO and the Government of Goa will organize the International Conference on Integrated Approaches to Language, Knowledge, Culture and e-Engineering at Goa on November 25-29th, 2002. This is an international event in which about 70 researchers from abroad and about 100 from within the country will participate. The conference is unique in its scope -- discussing and deliberating on the problems of the language barrier, promotion of peace and harmony among nations through communication and globalisation trend of information media. Eminent scholars from India and abroad will deliver keynote speeches and Prof. M.G.K. Menon will give the inaugural address. Research papers will be presented in the technical sessions. The conference will also have demos and poster presentations. Evaluating sites ---------------- Dr T. Matthew Ciolek who heads the Internet Publications Bureau of the The National Institute for Asia and the Pacific at the Australian National University in Canberra comes out with an interesting evaluation of websites. It's called the Asian Studies WWW monitor, and looks at sites related to various subjects. Recently, for instance, it mentioned the Books & Periodicals Agency of New Delhi. This is "an online book-shop with books in English, Hindi and Sanskrit (having) over 1,30,000 books, 356 subjects, 39 countries". By way of site content, this website offers Search, E-shop; FAQ, WishList; Special Lists (Art, Afghanistan, Africa, Buddhism, Biology, Christianity, History, Indonesia, Library Science, Malaysia, Myanmar, Numismatics, Plants, South East Asia) etc and can be visited at http://www.bpagency.com Dr Matthew found the it to be "useful" in scholarly usefulness terms. To get your site possibly evaluated, write to Dr Matthew at the address above. Indian MEDLARS Centre --------------------- Good news for Indian medicos. The ICMR-NIC Centre for Biomedical Information (Indian MEDLARS Centre) has designed and developed a bibliographic database from Indian biomedical literature. To start with 75 prominent Indian journals, have been selected to build up the database entitled IndMED. More journals would be added to the list as their quality improves in coming years. It is proposed to cover the journals from 1985 onwards in this database. http://indmed.nic.in Sanskrit-speak -------------- Academy of Sanskrit Research (Melkote-Karnataka) president M A S Rajan makes an interesting point. Responding to a recent write-up on IT-for-development, he pointed to the need to tackle local language computing issues. Tasks related to local language utilisation of computing need to be adequately addressed. Some concerns now include the tasks ahead, the kind of standardization that needs to be achieved, the agencies to be engaged and their financing, he says. "I wish someone would essay a review of these questions and write a stimulating piece," says he. Rajan is reputed to have put in excellent work on speech recognition and related stuff in Sanskrit. He can be contacted at masrajan at vsnl.net ITC4D meet in Bangalore ----------------------- Editor-in-Chief Robert Davison informs that The Electronic Journal of Information Systems in Developing Countries (EJISDC) -- www.ejisdc.org -- recently put together a report on the recent IFIP94 conference in Bangalore. This report is by Mayuri Odedra-Straub, as a personal reflection on the way the IFIP94 community has developed. Says Davison: "We hope that this will provide an opportunity for those of you who attended the conference, as well as anyone else concerned about the issues that are pertinent to IT in DCs (developing countries), to provide some feedback and reflection...." http://www.ejisdc.org Digital Review coming --------------------- Soon, we'll be seeing the launch of the first edition of the "Digital Review of Asia-Pacific". The Review will be a bi-annual review providing facts, figures, data and analysis of the state-of-the-art of ICT and Internet diffusion, adoption and application in 25 Asia-Pacific countries. The "Digital Review of Asia-Pacific" is a joint collaboration by Pan Asia Networking [PAN] of the International Development Research Centre [IDRC] of Canada, the Asia- Pacific Development Information Programme [APDIP] of UNDP, and the UNESCO Chairs in Communication Network [Orbicom]. Its promoters say the review will provide regional overviews summarizing ICT trends in the region. Furthermore, the review will be made available in three formats: Firstly as an electronic online database, secondly as an electronic publication mounted on a CD-ROM, and thirdly as a printed monograph. Two editions of the publication are currently being streamlined and finalized. The second one is to published in January 2003. More information from isa_eza at yahoo.com http://www.apdip.net/news/digitareview/index.htm 0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0 bYtES For aLL is a voluntary, unfunded venture. CopyLeft, 2002. bYtES For aLL e-zine volunteers team includes: Frederick Noronha in Goa, Partha Sarkar in Dhaka, Zunaira Durrani in Karachi, Zubair Abbasi in Islamabad, Archana Nagvenkar in Goa, Arun-Kumar Tripathi in Darmstatd, Shivkumar in Mumbai, Sangeeta Pandey in Nepal, Daryl Martyis in Chicago, Gihan Fernando in Sri Lanka, Rajkumar Buyya in Melbourne, Mahrukh Mohiuddin in Dhaka, Deepa Rai in Kathmandu and Ashish Kotamkar in Pune. To contact them mail bytes-admin at goacom.com BytesForAll completes three years of fruitful existance in July 2002. Three years on, BytesForAll thanks all those who have volunteered their time, energy and motivation in taking this experiment forward, since its launch in July 1999. If you'd like to volunteer too, contact the above address. BytesForAll's website www.bytesforall.org is maintained by Partha Sarkar, with inputs from other members of the volunteers' team and supporters. To join or leave this mailing-list simply send a message to fred at bytesforall.org with SUB B4ALL or UNSUB B4ALL as the subject. 0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0 From fred at bytesforall.org Sat Aug 3 07:51:57 2002 From: fred at bytesforall.org (Frederick Noronha) Date: Sat, 3 Aug 2002 11:21:57 +0530 (IST) Subject: [Bytesforall] LINK: Special issue on IT in Economic and Political Weekly Message-ID: Special issue on information technology and developing societies. Call for papers: EPW calls for papers for a special issue on information technology and developing economies and societies to be published in February 2003. Significant focus has been placed on the use of Information Technolgy as a means of development over the last few years. We are looking for research that examines three aspects of this use of IT. First, research into the effects, impact and possible future impact of IT on developing countries. We are not particularly focussed on IT as an industry, but rather as a tool used in the economy and society at large. Secondly, we are interested in studies that identify analogous technical introductions that provide insight into projects of how IT will influence these societies. For instance, what have we learnt from the spread of telecommunications? In many places, the use of IT may not be significant enough yet to study. We may, therefore, have to examine other areas to gain insights and project what may happen. Finally, we are interested in studies that examine how the social science disciplines can be useful in guiding interventions focussed on employing IT for development. Please submit abstracts of your research by the end of September 2002. Completed papers must reach by the end of December 2002. Economic and Political Weekly * Hitkari House, 284 Bhagat Singh Road Mumbai 400001 Phones 269 6972/73 * Fax (22) 269 6072 Email: epw at vsnl.com or edit at epw.org.in