Bytes for All discussion group observed the month of November 2004 with very interesting and moving discussions. The deliberations ranged from technological developments to FLOSS movement, governance, accountability to gender issues and education to Internet standards. Following is the summary of that discussion.

ICTs for development
Shobha Warrier interviewed Prof. Jhunjhunwala where he discussed various issues and solutions to transform rural India using ICTs. This interview that was forwarded to the list triggered up a great deal of intriguing discussion.

Prof. Ashok Jhunjhunwala an internationally reputed professor on connectivity design particularly for WLL technology has also incubated many ideas that cater to rural Indian market. In his interview he talked about, Bloomba, the search-based e-mail application which has been taken over by Yahoo recently and iSoftTech the team behind development of Bloomba, including other significant matters. He believes that until the Indian rural population (around 700 million people) is not mainstreamed in the development process development objectives cannot be achieved. Prof. Jhunjhunwala has presented vision 2010.

He maintains that telephones and the Internet can have an amazingly positive impact in the development of rural India and the GDP of rural India can be doubled in the next 8-10 years. He suggested developing the rural micro enterprises by developing, the Internet kiosks, ATM machines, the medical diagnostic kit, etc.

Responding to this interview most of the members appreciated Prof. Jhunjhunwala’s ideas for rural development however; there were many who did not agree with his optimistic views. Many believe that technology is not yet hassle free, and people in the rural area are not very much receptive towards change. Making ICTs work in the rural areas needs a total social re-engineering and social dynamics cannot be assessed with a set of formula. Others believe that proper capacity building initiatives for the rural communities will certainly help the development agenda forward.

Surveys for India
Dr D. Rama Rao has informed Bytes for All readers that a survey on IT needs of farmers in a remote village in Nagonda district is being carried out. The results will be available in a book accompanied with CD and on a dedicated website as well.

Transparency and accountability
Kris Dev (Krishnan) suggested launching a ‘Transparency & Accountability’ (TRAC) movement worldwide to invite people voluntarily to give up all cash transactions and make their dealings totally transparent and accountable. In his opinion, this can change the mindset of people and the society can be liberated of all evil thoughts and actions. In response to this call Mr Peter B shared information regarding another such organization, Transparency, Accounting and Accountability, and effective Monitoring and Evaluation (TAAME). The TAAME strives to bring all organisations under a system that allows good accountability, and as a substitute for the prevailing high cost way of doing monitoring and evaluation. Agriculture

Agri Info Online
Frederick Noronha shared this piece of information about an interesting initiative called isapindia and the site that Sunil Khairnar has been running, which provides links to agri-related info via cyberspace. To get agriculture-related information via simple, effective and low-cost e-mail, this is the place to check out. Free/Libre software

I Firefox 0.9
Firefox 0.9 is an award-winning preview of Mozilla’s next generation browser. Firefox keeps the computer safe from malicious spyware by not loading harmful ActiveX controls. Firefox is the most customizable browser.

The new Easy Transition system imports all settings - Favorites, passwords and other data from Internet Explorer and other browsers. Firefox comes with a standard set of developer tools including a powerful JavaScript and CSS error/warning console, and an optional Document Inspector that gives unheard of insight into how your pages work.