Simputer hits retail shelves


The Simputer is finally here for the retail buyer. From April, three versions of the simple, hand-held device, including one costing under Rs 10,000, will be available at showrooms in Bangalore and other
cities. It can also be booked online at www.amidasimputer.com.

It is also the first computer to be designed and manufactured in India. Bharat Electronics Ltd. (Bel) and PicoPeta Simputers  launched their version, ‘Amida’, some three years after the revolutionary device was developed.

BEL is one of the two companies that are manufacturing the Simputer under licence from PicoPeta. BEL signed the agreement 18 months ago to make and market the product.

“It has been a long wait. But I am sure everyone will agree, after experiencing the product, that the Amida Simputer is worth the wait,” said BEL CMD, Mr Y. Gopal Rao. Several versions of the Amida Simputer are on offer to cater to a broad spectrum of people.

Amida, packs in several innovations. It enables emailing, browsing the Net, games, organising budget; it allows handwriting in any language, doodling on every screen, mailing these scribbles with a single tap, gesture technologies that allow changing a page or zooming of an image by a hand gesture.

“We have taken the first steps of an Indian product company building a global brand,” said Prof Vinay, Chairman, and Dr Swami Manohar, CEO of PicoPeta. They are among the four co-developers of the Simputer.

Webel launches Braille transcription system

Webel Mediatronics Ltd, a West Bengal Government undertaking, on formally announced the launch of a comprehensive, computerised Braille transcription system. The system offers comprehensive solutions for the visually impaired for reading, writing, teaching, learning, printing, etc. It is a mix of hardware and software applications, also addresses the problems of conventional Braille printing systems in terms of speed, convenience and costs. The basic system has been priced at Rs 1.25 lakh.

Mr Shankar N. Goswami, Director of Webel Mediatronics, said that the system covers transcription in 13 languages - English, Hindi, Tamil, Oriya, Bengali, Marathi, Punjabi, Gujarati, Assamese, Telugu, Kannada,
Malayalam and Nepali. The Union Ministry of Communications and Information Technology and West Bengal’s Department of Information Technology sponsored the project. Work on it began in 1997. The computerised Braille transcription system has been installed and was being used in over 102 blind schools in 22 States.

In West Bengal, the system has been installed in 27 blind schools and two libraries. The objective is to augment the literacy levels of the visually
impaired and also assist in their communication with sighted people.There are an estimated 90 lakh visually challenged people in India and a mere three per cent of them are literate. As such, it would be critical to deploy the computerised Braille transcription system and help enhance the literacy levels among them. Several software and hardware items have been developed for specific applications as part of the computerised Braille transcription system. For instance, TextBraille facilitates the conversion of Indian language text to corresponding Braille codes and prints them through an  Automatic Braille Embosser. MathBraille facilitates Braille transcription of mathematics books and scientific texts while TactBraille is a touch-reading system whereby the visually impaired can access files from the PC. The system forms an electronic library in a multi-user environment. Webel Mediatronics, which has developed studio and broadcasting systems, strategic electronic systems and
systems for the disabled, has already put out the Braille-ready text on www.braille-aids.com. More than 250 general textbooks in Braille-ready form in 12 Indian languages are available on the Web site.

 20,000 digital certificates issued in India

The Government of India is fostering a PKI (public key infrastructure) regime and the four certifying authorities have already issued over 20,000 digital certificates, according to the Information Technology (IT) Secretary, Mr K.K. Jaswal.  “The PKI framework is fully established and the four certifying authorities are operational under the IT Act who have issued nearly 20,000 digital certificates. The Act has placed electronic records at par with paper records and digital signatures at par with handwritten signatures,” Mr Jaswal said at an e-business summit organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

Digital certificates are electronic files that act like a kind of online passport. A trusted third party, a certificate authority, which verifies the identity of the certificate’s holder, issues them. They are tamper-proof and cannot be forged. A digital signature is an electronic signature that can be used to authenticate the identity of the sender of a message or the signer of a document, and possibly to ensure that the original content of the message or document that has been sent is unchanged.

Government is also pursuing a project aimed at delivering all international trade-related services electronically, Mr Jaswal said. All regulatory departments such as Customs, Directorate General of Foreign Trade, ports, airports and banks have been asked to gear up for the new system.

A hi-tech Assembly in 5 yrs says Delhi Government

 In the next five years, Delhi Assembly may become one of the most hi-tech state legislatures in the country. Speaker Ajay Maken announced his grand plans to modernise the Assembly in the coming years.

The Assembly will be fitted with giant plasma screens and members will be able to make power-point presentations sitting at their seats.

They will also be able to communicate discretely with each other using local area network (LAN).  Unveiling his Vision document for using information communication technologies (ICT), he said: ‘‘Use of ICT will not only help the members to get IT-savvy, but also help them in quick and better grievance redressal.’’

Outlining his priorities broadly, he said that the first step will be to create a web-server as an information bank at the Assembly secretariat, only for the use of a limited group through LAN and for selective information through internet for general public. Having created LAN, each and every table would be facilitated with the usage of intranet. There will be giant screens, which will not only show the instant results of division of votes, but will also be capable of displaying graphics during a debate or special mention by members.

A discrete communication system introduced between officers and the ministers, between leader of House or Opposition or chief whips with the Speaker and Assembly secretary, so that the House proceedings will not be disturbed.

There are plans for better storage of clippings, Assembly records and documents to ensure longevity, as the information would be electronically stored and can be made available online.

To broadcast and web cast the  important events a  audio-visual system would be made compatible with the public address system and website, so that telecast, will be possible, whenever necessary.

The Assembly secretariat will be consulting Delhi government’s IT department for fine-tuning of the proposals. A reputed company will be appointed as a consultant that will prepare a detailed techno-economical report and tender bids. The vision document will be implemented in a time-bound and phased manner.

AP Govt to examine best practices in e-governance

Realising the importance of data standards for rapid progress in e-governance applications, the Andhra Pradesh Government has initiated a study to examine the best practices world over and suggest a way forward, according to the State Chief Information Officer and Secretary of Information Technology and Communications, Mr Subbarao Ghanta.

The initiative, taken up towards standardisation of its e-governance is being claimed as the first of its kind one in the country. An apex body with the State Chief Secretary as its chairman was formed to supervise the development of data standards, e-thesaurus, a collection of all data elements used in the government repositories. A two-day workshop for various Chief Information Officers of the Government was conducted to evolve the structure for the maintenance of these standards.

The objective is to make use of information and to develop interoperable solutions. A portal was also designed having provision for various stakeholders to offer suggestions.

The goal is to provide one face of the government where a citizen should be able to access all services just through a single login. It is important to integrate the services provided by these projects. Integration of these projects would result in the interoperable communication between the government applications, which would result in better service delivery.

Significant number of Government IT projects operates on data elements specific to the domains of the individual departments. Once they were examined and the standards were set on their structure along with the semantically similar elements available in place, the interoperability among the existing projects could be attained, resulting in reusability of them for the newer initiatives.

Andhra Pradesh Govt to link all e-Gov portals

Andhra Pradesh Government had no doubt taken one more step towards e-governance. After full computerisation and independent portals for each government department, the Andhra Pradesh government is now embarking on bringing interoperability across platforms. The objective behind this exercise is to establish a common language platform for all kinds of government services, be it obtaining certificates, registration of real estate, besides providing citizens information,” The project, a first for the country, would integrate all the e-governance solutions thus enabling registered users to access any kind of government information and service by using a single login address. The project is expected to be completed in two years, by when all the departments involved in offering these services can be brought under a single portal. The portal site, http://www.aponline.gov.in, is already operational, being supported by Tata Consultancy Services.

For example, if a citizen wants to apply for an electricity connection, he has to apply to Discom, go to the municipal corporation to obtain proof of residence, go to a bank to pay the fees, etc. But all these processes can be offered through a single portal site, which will process the application online and deliver the end service. At present,through the e-Seva platform, the government is offering some of the services like birth and death certificates besides receiving utility payments.

This initiative is aimed at bringing uniformity among the solutions by offering interoperable communication between the government applications, which would help the system improve the delivery of services.

The state government, in association with Centre for Good Governance, is designing the architecture, enabling each of the standalone portals to be linked eventually to the aponline portal.

A two-day workshop for the benefit of the ’chief information officers’ was organised by the state government recently to evolve the structure for the maintenance of these standards.

There is another portal named, http://www.cgg.gov.in/egovstandards,  designed to develop schemes for various governmental data and to present comprehensive e-thesaurus and repositories of forms for the benefit of various users of government information inclu-ding the citizen, corporates, employees of various government departments.

It is now a tremendous task as each of the departments has to participate actively in the project in providing information about the processes, which is necessary for drawing a common language.

Andhra Pradesh has several IT projects operating independently for various departments, which need to be integrated. Therefore, there is a need for an effective ’metadata’ (data of data) besides tagging an information tool to help users navigate through the massive electronic information sources

 Open courses and e-learning

Something revolutionary is happening in Kerala’s education sector. From the next academic year (2004-05) onwards, all textbooks for students of Class 10 will be available on the Internet. Textbooks for students studying in Kerala where Malayalam or English is the medium of instruction are already available online.

Students and teachers can download the textbooks free of cost, provided they are used only for educational purposes. The textbooks can be downloaded from either www.keralaeducation.org or www. education.kerala.gov.in in Adobe’s portable document format (PDF), which allows for printing.

The real competition today, ironically enough, is from the Internet. Who needs to shell out precious rupees and walk long distances to attend a class in a cramped room when you can get all the knowledge you need in the comfort of your own room?

If e-Learning comes of age in Kerala - developing from online textbooks only to entire courses and lectures freely available to anyone with access to the Internet - tuitions may well become a thing of the past.

Sarva Siksha Abhiyan offices in Kerala to be networked

All offices of the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan (SSA) in the State, district and block levels will be networked in a bid to streamline and expedite the project.The was decided in  a meeting of the State-level monitoring committee of the SSA. The meeting evaluated the progress in the implementation of the project during the years 2002-03 and 2003-04. In the first year, Central assistance to the tune of Rs 22.51 crore was received. This was in addition to the State Government’s contribution of Rs 7.50 crore. In which, Rs 29.59 crore had been distributed among all the 14 districts of the State.

Sarva Siksha Abhiyan is an integrated national education programme launched with a view to universalising elementary education.

The programme aims to provide eight years of quality elementary education for all children up to the age of 14 years in a mission mode with a thrust on community ownership, disadvantaged group and girls’ quality education and alternative modes of education. All existing schemes on elementary education will converge with this scheme after the Ninth Plan and it will cover all districts in the country.

The grants received were utilised to provide infrastructure facilities in schools as well as for training of teachers and for supply of books to children, free of cost. The overall achievement for the year 2002-03 was estimated at 84 per cent. The emphasis has been on making the schools more student-friendly. During the current financial year, 1.28-lakh teachers in the State have been provided training under the SSA project. Over 10,000 children in inaccessible areas are being taught at different levels in 461 centres. More than 5,500 physically or intellectually challenged children or those with learning disabilities have been identified in medical camps held for the purpose and learning aids have been distributed to them at a cost of Rs 44.45 lakh.

To aid the evaluation process under the system of grading to be implemented soon in the State, guidelines have been prepared with regard to procedures to be followed for classes one to seven. Audio- visual learning materials for the study of science subjects were also ready for distribution.

Schools to get $20 m grant from Microsoft India

To push local language computing in the State, Microsoft Corporation India Ltd  announced the roll-out of its $20-million IT education programme for schools in India and signed an agreement on a programme with the Orissa Government.

Under the programme, Microsoft will provide free software upgrades to computers donated to schools, institute scholarships and set up Microsoft IT Academies in different States, the company Managing Director, Mr Rajiv Kaul, told reporters.

At Dehradun in Uttaranchal, the first IT Academy had already come up and the second one was ready for commissioning in Hyderabad. The company is planning to set up similar centres in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Orissa and Madhya Pradesh. The memorandum of understanding that Microsoft signed with Orissa Government entails initially setting up basic support for Oriya language. It will be followed by development of an Oriya language interface pack for Microsoft Windows and Office.

Language matters: Windows, MS Office to be in 5 Indian languages 

With the aim of promoting business, Microsoft India has devised a three-pronged strategy in India this year. The company will be focussing on accelerating IT literacy, improving security and enabling local IT opportunities through vernacular language interfaces’ in and around its software packages. Microsoft has set a target of training 3.5 million students and 80,000 teachers in IT during the next five years as well as offering software interfaces in 14 Indian languages in the next three years.

The company plans to launch its two most popular products — Windows and Office — in five Indian langauges within the next six months. As we all know that the company had already launched Windows and Office in Hindi and will be introducing these in five more languages — Tamil, Kannada, Marathi, Telugu and Oriya within the next six months. The company will also piggyback on state governments to spread its education and local language initiatives.

The company is now talking to Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Orissa state governments for its IT education initiative. The company had earlier announced that it would invest $20 million in its Project Shiksha for extending learning grants to teachers and students. Microsoft will also be offering Windows operating systems free of cost for donated computers to schools. Apart from education, Microsoft will be investing in improving information security awareness and training its partners on security related issues.

Enabling local IT business opportunities is also on the company’s agenda this year. Microsoft is working in creating an IT eco-system to grow the domestic market. Microsoft has already signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the state government of Orissa for computerisation of government departments, training people and develop customised local language applications,” Mr Kaul said, adding that the company was also discussing similar tie-ups with state governments of Madhya Pradesh, Uttaranchal and Gujarat.

Welingkar Institute offers e-biz programme

The growth of the IT industry has created a number of employment opportunities for technical and management graduates. And management institutions, quick to latch on to new trends in the employment space, have been extending and creating new courses to meet the huge demand from graduates aspiring to such positions.

It was to meet this demand that the Welingkar Institute of Management Development and Research in the city launched its e-biz programme two years ago. According to Prof Pradeep Pendse, the “mixed orientation” of the course differentiates it from the usual management course.

By mixed orientation, he refers to the fact that graduates from any stream, but with an “inclination for IT,” could apply for a place on the course. As for specific job opportunities, Prof Pendse says e-biz graduates could apply for positions as analysts with software companies where they bring to bear their business basics as well as an adequate knowledge of technology aspects.

End-users such as banks, BPOs and the retail sector also required people who could visualise technology along with specific domain knowledge. Further, e-biz graduates could work as change agents in an e-business or supply chain initiative, he said.

Torrent launches medical healthline

Torrent Pharmaceuticals Ltd, in association with State Mental Health Authority, Health and family Welfare Department, launched ‘Sanidhya - Torrent Medical Healthline’
in Bhat near Gandhinagar, Ahmedabad,
India. “Times are getting more competitive and there are more pressures on the human mind than ever before. This often lead people to take extreme steps. Our helpline is meant to help these kinds of people. This initiative is extention of our corporate social philosophy to go beyond the usual call of healthcare and look at life.” said Narayan Menon, assistant general manager, marketing, Torrent Pharmaceuticals. The first phase of the programme will be target the school students of 10 and 12 standards, who will appear for their board examination this year. “It has been seen that the students are most susceptical to anxiety regarding their performances in the examinations and depression during the post-examination period when their results are announced. Failure to live up to the expectations of family and peers takes a huge toll on their mental faculties.” said Hansal Bachech, the chief programme co-ordinator and helpline incharge. The initiative aims at generating awereness about mental health related problems and providing support and counseling. Expert opinion and extensive counseling sessions from a part of Sanidhya Torrent Mental Helpline, which has been conceived and co-designed by the State Mental Health Authority along with Torrent Pharma. Anyone seeking help can call the helpline numbers 9898211331 and 9898211332 to seek expert help in mitigating their problems.

A rural healthcare revolution in the making in Bengal

At a time when the Left Front Government is West Bengal faces public ire over lack of proper healthcare at the city’s government-run hospitals, an experiment in providing rural medicare through female health assistants might well bring about a health revolution in the country.

Part of the State Government’s programme on preventive healthcare in rural areas through decentralisation, the healthcare assistants are residents of a village where they are trained to work as health workers. “The main objective is to link every village, every family to the governmental health system,” State Government sources said.

Health assistants, received training from the State Health Department are equipped to give advice on routine health problems, especially those related to the welfare of the mother and the child. Each of the two or three sub-centres  have both male and female workers and  it is the female swasthya sahayika who is creating waves.

Basic aspects of rural healthcare are covered during the training programme. The curriculum includes creating a immunisation schedule of a pregnant mother and then the newborn, nutrition of mother and child, preparation of low-cost diet for children, first-aid for snake bites, treatment of cuts, burns and other injuries and personal hygiene. Every health assistant gets a medical kit, which includes essential items of first-aid, ORS packets, antibiotic ointment, a thermometer and leaching powder. A bicycle is also given to each of them for easy conveyance.

According to a report prepared by the State Government, since the launch of this initiative in June 2003, a perceptible change has been noticed in the state of the health of people living in villages. “During studies made by the Health Department, it was found that there were fewer cases of diarrhoea, pre-natal as well as post-natal care had improved, with children getting delivered in hospitals instead of homes. More toilets using sanitary facilities were being built. This was only the beginning of a process where stakeholders participate in building their own healthcare infrastructure, which might be rudimentary but is nevertheless effective.

The urban-rural divide worries Beijing 

Alleviating the plight of rural workers is one of the key focus areas of China’s 10th Five-year Plan. The Plan was presented by Chinese premier Zhu Rongji at the the National People’s Congress.

China has been registering blistering economic growth in excess of 8 per cent over the last few years. However, most of this growth has been concentrated in urban areas and the more industrialised coastal provinces. Rural China has enjoyed few of the benefits of this growth.

A biased industrial policy has, in fact, led to a reduction in annual grain production and the proportion of arable land. This has manifested itself in income disparities. While urban incomes grew by 9.3 per cent last year, rural incomes grew by less than half as much. Urban residents today earn 3.2 times as much as farmers, compared to 1.9 times in 1978. Reducing this difference between urban prosperity and rural poverty will be a high priority area for the government going forward.

Some of the key measures that the government will adopt to improve the lot of farmers include, the phasing out of a 5 per cent levy on cash crops over the next five years; $1.2 billion in direct subsidies to farmers and a 20 per cent or $3.6 billion increase in investments in agriculture.

Midas takes IT to rural masses via TeNET

If you are travelling to Melur, a small village tucked away amidst paddy fields in Madurai district of Tamil Nadu, and your laptop runs out of battery, do not despair. You can simply go to ‘Chirag Internet Illam’ and reply to that important business mail.

Well, it may not be the typical place to find a cyber café, but Sukanya, the owner of the facility, will tell you that it is her bread and butter. You may ask how she gets customers in a village that has all of 1,000 people?

“It is important to let the users decide what they want to do with computers. We must understand that their needs are different, so instead of teaching them we simply let them develop their own business model,” said Mr K.N. Rangarajan, Senior Sales and Marketing Manager of Midas Communication Technologies Ltd, promoted by the Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai, under its TeNET programme.

A virtual mascot for Midas, Sukanya says she is able to earn nearly Rs 4,000 per month from her venture. Apart from the regular e-mail and browsing, Sukanya’s customers use the computer for getting agricultural and veterinary advice from nearby universities.

She use video-conferencing to get advice for her customers from Othakadai Agricultural University in Madurai. She even help them with expert opinion on their animals from the Veterinary University in T.T. Nagar. Others in the countryside use their computers for clicking and storing photos, charting horoscopes and even matchmaking.

NLog, the service company under Midas, has been helping unemployed villagers to procure computers. and even help them in getting finance  the total investment that is about Rs 50,000, but we help them get finance,” said Mr Rangarajan.

NLog has already supported several hundred rural youth in South India and Gujarat by arranging finance and enabling them set up their business enterprise. Rangarajan feels that the numbers will multiply in the coming years. The use these machines can be put to is also growing, as brains from IIT Chennai develop more applications under the TeNET programme. NeuroSynaptic, another company under TeNET, has developed a tele-medicine kit that can be used to relay vital body parameters of a patient to a doctor sitting in the hospital.

“The machine takes blood pressure, electro-cardiogram (ECG) and body temperature. It can be used by anyone with just a day’s training. The doctor, at the other end, will have access to the patient’s medical history and can ask the operator to position the stethoscope where he wants,” said Mr Rajeev Kumar, Chief Operating Officer of NeuroSynaptic. The tele-medicine unit costs about Rs 12,000 and is ready for commercial launch. Using a Webcam, the doctor can also examine the patient. For Sukanya at her Chirag Internet Illam, it could soon be one more facility for her customers.

Lupin Plans First Rural Convergence Centre

Pharma company Lupin Ltd would set up the first of about the 100-odd rural convergence centres (RCCs) planned by the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) across India to foster public private partnerships to accelerate rural development.

“We will set up the first rural convergence centre in the country at Bharatpur in association with CII by August end,” executive director of Lupin Human Welfare and Research Foundation (LHWRF) Sita Ram Gupta said. RCCS would demonstrate environmental, social, technological and financial viability of a large variety of rural development initiatives.RCCS, which would be set up in one core district by CII in association with different NGOs and member industries, would cater to at least six districts around it, he said adding, it would catalyse replication of these initivates and multiplication systems across the country. Local communities around these centres would over a period of time have more income generation opportunities, better living environment and quality of life.

An ‘Ocean’ of Information

The Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS), an autonomous body under the department of ocean development, is in the process of forming an ‘ocean information bank’ to coordinate research in satellite oceanography and provide consultancy services. 

A national chain of marine data centres and ocean observing systems will support the ocean information bank. These centres would simulate the oceanic data which helps prepare maps on potential fishing zones along the Indian coastline, INCOIS director Dr K Radhakrishnan said that the oceanic data collected from the data centres will be preserved at INCOIS to suggest a framework for a future marine data centre network of INCOIS. It will set up an Ocean Development and Information Networking system which will use strategies for capacity building modelling and assimilation of data for understanding the Indian Ocean. Unrestricted and timely flow of data on oceanography will help in predicting storms and disaster management, weather forecast, monitoring of oil spill and identifying potential fishing zones.

The 14 marine data centres in this network are: Geological Survey of India, Kolkata, KD Malavia Institute of Petroleum Exploration, Dehradun, India Meteorological Department, Pune, Survey of India, Dehradun, Naval Hydrograph-ic Office, Dehradun, National Institute of Oceanography, Goa, Fishery Survey of India, Mumbai, Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute, Kochi, Central Drug Research Institute, Lucknow, Central Salt and Marine Chemicals Research Institute, Bhavnagar, Orissa Remote Sensing Applications Centre, Bhuban-eswar, Institute for Ocean Management, Chennai, National Institute of Oceanography, Mumbai and National Remote Sensing Agency, Hyderabad. An agreement has been signed between  INCOIS and Tata Consultancy Services for development of a web-based multilingual online solution that facilitates the user community to download a variety of ocean information and advisory services.  These informations will be made available through kiosks planned to be set up closer to the harbour. A resource person at the kiosk will assist fishermen in acquiring the local information available in a value-added form.

‘IT Experience in India’

Old India hand and close-watcher of ICT-for-development initiatives Prof Kenneth Keniston of MIT, USA has recently published a new book titled ‘IT Experience in India’, along with Deepak Kumar of Bangalore. Published by Sage in March 2004.

This book explores whether modern ICTs can deliver on their promises of democracy and prosperity for the people of developing nations who comprise
80 per cent of the world’s population. In order to do this, this volume uses lessons from the Indian experience — a country where information technology (IT) has made giant leaps, but which suffers from what has been described as multiple ‘digital divides’. The contributors explore four such closely interrelated divides. The first
is internal — between the digitally empowered rich and the poor.  The second is a linguistic-cultural gap between English and other languages and between ‘Anglo-Saxon culture’ and other world cultures.  The next gap is underscored by disparities in access to information technology and between rich and poor nations. Finally, there is the phenomenon of the ‘digerati’. This is an affluent elite possessing the appropriate skills and means to take advantage of the ICTs.

Essays by V Balaji et al (Pondicherry), T H Chowdary (Indian telecom), Pat Hall (IT and diversity), Prof Ashok Jhunjhunwala and Bhaskar Ramamurthi (telecom and regulation scenario), P D Kaushik (e-gov for the poor), Deepak Kumar (digital development), Harsh Kumar (Indian languages), Rajeev Sangalet al (digital resources in Indian languages), Anna-Lee Saxenian (the Bangalore boom) and an introduction by Prof Keniston (The Four Digital Divides). <

Only ten states are active on e-Governance initiatives 

How long will India take to create full-fledged transaction-based e-governance services for its citizens? And when will states cross the boundary from website-based information to an interactive government-to- citizen or G2C payment and commerce information portal?  Most of the people who were posed these questions by The Financial Express believe that the country has a long way to go. In fact, they feel that all grand plans could fizzle out in the absence of a definite goal. Firstly, not more than 10 states are active with e-governance initiatives. Of these, even much-hyped states like Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Karnataka have very little to do with an interactive G2C commerce planning and implementation even though some have started delivering services to citizens by introducing cash payment points. According to Mr Roopen Roy of PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC), the states that are implementing e-governance projects are still at the ’brochure ware’ stage - the information availability closely resembles their printed brochures. “Some departments have websites with good front-end applications delivering public utility services, but we have not reached a stage where the governments are providing transaction-oriented interactive services to citizens,” he said.

BBC Worldwide Launches e-Learning Gateway 

BBC Worldwide has launched an e-learning gateway termed ‘bbclearning.com. This initiative will now enable Indian students to pursue distance-learning programmes in managment from several universities in UK.  This is the first launch in India. e-Learning has several disadvantages in comparison to the conventional classroom learning. In an online world, there is no opportunity for peer learning or assimilating the strengths of the other students in the classroom through various interactions. But here drawbacks are minimized by creating online forums where students from all over the world can come together at a given time and brainstorm on various management dynamics. The company has also instituted MBA scholarships for an ‘all expense paid’ course in premier universities in London.

Tea Board of India to launch e-auctions by April

The Tea Board is contemplating starting electronic auctions at the Guwahati and Coimbatore tea auction centres by April and hopes to complete the process throughout the country by the end of October, this year. The organisers of the Kolkata tea auction centre have started procuring the necessary hardware for the new system. At first, electronic auctions would start with one set of teas (either CTC or orthodox) first and once the new system stabilizes the other product will be introduced.  The Tea Board has issued a licence for a new auction centre at Jalpaiguri.It may be noted that the one-man committee of West Bengal Government in its report also suggested setting up of a new auction centre in that region. “The licence was issued by the Tea Board only a couple of months back. The district magistrate of Jalpaiguri is the Chairman of the body that will oversee the new auction centre”, he said.

Tea Board, however, has not fixed a deadline for completing the electronisation of the auction centers but, ideally, it would like the process to be over within six months from the beginning. Mr Shukla said production of tea in 2003 had increased by 31 million kg (mkg) to 857 mkg against 826 mkg in 2002. Last year, auctions through the Kolkata centre were 133 mkg. It is the highest quantity since 1991. Mr K.N. Desai, the outgoing Chairman of CTTA, in his inaugural speech urged the Tea Board to make certain changes in the Tea Marketing Control Order 2003. “The buyers are primarily concerned about the five per cent premium payable on division of lots and the limit on proxy bidding.

The Chairman of Tea Board has decided not to reduce the prompt period in the North India centres to the sixth working day from January 2004,” he said. He thanked the Tea Board to delay the introduction of cash and carry system in North India auction centres from January, this year. The broker members of CTTA can continue to grant credit to their buyers up to the prompt date. CTTA have also requested the board to reduce the minimum qualifying percentage for samples of CTC leaf and dust tea. “This will help several buyers to retain their free trade sample entitlements without which their ability to operate in the auction will be severely curtailed,” Mr Desai said.

Cell phones soon for train driver of Indian railways to make travel safe

The next time you travel by train, you may see your engine driver sporting a cellular handset that will certainly be swankier than yours. It could also make your ride safer. As part of their safety drive, the Railways are set to equip their operational staff with GSM-R (Global System for Mobile for Railways) equipment. Indian Railways will become the first railway system in Asia to adopt the technology that allows emergency telephone calls to supersede all other communication and a group of users to interact simultaneously.

The Jammu-Guwahati trunk route passing through New Delhi and Mughalsarai will be the first to get the GSM-R based communication system and the Railways have already closed six tenders worth nearly Rs 200 crore in different Zones for the technology.

The system marks a significant improvement over the present VHF (very-high frequency) network that the Railways have. As of now, the only communication available to the loco-pilots (drivers) and guards are the walkie-talkie sets with an extremely limited range or the “emergency sockets” placed at intervals of 1.5 km along tracks that enable the guard or the loco-pilot to contact the nearest station. “In the event of an accident, the loco-pilot or guard has to rush to the emergency socket point, access the phone using a unique key and then relay the information. The station staff would then try to alert other trains in the area.

At times, that results in costly delays,” according to a senior Railway Signalling and Telecommunications officer. With GSM-R, the driver simply has to press the emergency button on his handset, and he would be immediately connected with the control office. The control office can then alert other trains instantaneously, the officer said. The GSM-R handsets are specially designed to be more rugged and have greater battery life.

They communicate with the control office that is equipped with a touch-screen control panel that helps the operational staff to track different calls. It works like the regular GSM handsets that we use. Only, it has certain additional features, which require one or two days to get familiar with.  Regular mobile phone users would, however, not be able to access the Railways’ system.

The Railways will use their existing optical fibre cable (OFC) and microwave networks and the GSM-R system will work independently of the private cellular service providers. Siemens and Nortel Networks are the only two vendors for the GSM-R technology in the world. “Obviously, the bidding will be restricted between these two vendors.

More & more ‘SME’s embracing the ‘IT’ advantage 

Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) recently conducted a ‘Snap Poll’, to study the usage of Information Technology (IT) among Indian SMEs. It was specifically focused to reveal the level of IT-orientation among SMEs and to find out their
e-experience so far.

The report states that, all the respondents were using IT in their organisations compared to 2% respondents last year who were not using IT in their organisations. 17% (up by 5 % since last year) of the respondents rated the degree of usage of IT in their organisation as ‘Excellent’, 39% (up by 8% since last year) ‘Good’, and 31% (down by 5 % since last year) ‘Adequate’; only 13% (down by 6% since last year) of the respondents mentioned a ‘Marginal’ usage of IT in their organisation. Functional application of IT has also undergone an appreciable change - with sales & marketing  attracting maximum IT usage, surpassing finance. Human resource development (HRD)/administration, research & development and corporate affairs are also being increasingly handled through IT usage. The other functions where IT finds significant usage are operations, manufacturing and production, distribution, logistics, HRD and services.

According to the survey, all the respondents indicated an increase in their turnover due to the use of IT: 55% indicated an increase of less than 5 %, 37% indicated an increase of 5-25%), 4% recorded an increase of 25-50% and 4% recorded an increase of over 50% in their turnover.