Agriculture
Some useful agriculture-related site
Content
I Wikipedia
Omi Azad (
omi@ekushey.org) drew attention to the Wikipedia
(a fascinating volunteer-compiled encyclopeadia) in Bangla. He says: “There aren’t many articles yet, so it needs new contributors because whoever was working on it before is no longer working on it. All the text there, is released under the GNU Free Documentation license; you can edit any page, without even registering
(although it is recommended).” See
http://bn.wikipedia.org/wiki/.
Several examples of Wikipedias in different stages of
development:
Others have argued that the existance of a Wikipedia in a
language is a huge boost to the amount of information in that language accessible on the Internet, and for some languages
Wikipedia is their first encyclopedic resource ‘ever’.
II Online social science journal
Padma Prakash (
nrprakash@vsnl.com) writes in to inform about the launch of ‘ojournal’. This yahoo group was started to facilitate the launching of an online multidisciplinary social science journal.
III Greenstar Resources CD
Jay Scholten (jpschtx@grande com.net) of Greenstar says his network builds solar-powered community centers for small villages. They have conducted programmes in a number of villages, including the West Bank, Ghana, Jamaica, India, Tibet and Brazil. As part of each Greenstar installation, they provide a set of Greenstar Resources CD-ROMs, many of them localised to current language and cultures, so that people can learn about international development issues, ideas, tools and examples.
The final programme will provide hundreds of documents and over 300 Mbytes of useful information, covering technology, health, energy, environment, education, culture, business and economics topics, along with a directory of development organisations around the world.
Please contact Greenstar Research Director Clyde Musgrave (
clyde@greenstar.org) if your organisation is willing to participate in the Greenstar Resources programme.
http://www.greenstar.org
IV Mailing lists:
Linking up alternative voices to build greater awareness over issues that matter. Membership is free, this is a volunteer-driven initiative. Mailing-lists related to literacy, health, community-radio, education, environmental journalism, science writing, corruption issues, wildlife, and other subjects. Some active, others not.
http://www. indialists.org/,
http://wikiwikiweb.de/IndiaLists
Some interesting South Asian mailing lists
Infrastructure
I Nepalese man honoured for connecting villages
The story of Mahabir Pun high in the Himalayas just keeps getting better. He is the guy in Nepal who was determined to connect his remote village of Nangi to the Internet. Pun started in a village of 800 at 7,300 feet with no electricity and no phone. He collected computer parts and expertise from trekkers and from those who learned of his plan on a website he launched with the help of friends in the United States. He communicated with the outside world by e-mail, walking five hours down his mountain and then riding a bus for four hours to an Internet cafe.
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/9719460.htm?1c
II Bangla e-Gov for Development
Bangladesh’s Ministry of Communication (MoC) set up a series of websites in 2003 to improve the flow of data from government to citizens. As a part of introducing e-Governance, the Ministry of Communication in Bangladesh launched four websites of its major departments to enable citizen access to government information.
http://www.egov4dev.org/banglaweb.htm
Localisation
Guntupalli Karunakar (
karunakar@freedomink.org) updates us about the release of IndLinux Hindi 0.9 (Unnati). Download
http://www.indlinux.org/downloads/
This is primarily a KDE Hindi translation update release for Hindi translations done for KDE 3.2 including the reviewed translations from SARAI KDE Review Workshop.
Education
I dot-ORG
In selected areas of India’s Jharkhand state, dot-ORG has begun implementing a pilot project to explore the use of digital ICTs, such as computers and digital cameras to promote culturally relevant educational content in the local language.
http://www.dot-com-alliance.org/newsletter/article.php?article_id=22
II Mapping
School children in Uttaranchal map the state: Downloading complicated data from a satellite system on to computers and then disseminating it for local use is not exactly the stuff one would associate youngsters with. But this is what over 250 children from Uttaranchal state have done under a project initiated by the
Department of Science and Technology (DST).
http://in.news. yahoo.com//041004/43/2h3km.html
III Curriculum
Vinaya Kasajoo (
vinaya@wlink.com.np) informs that the Curriculum Development Board, Nepal is going to draft ICT curriculum for high school level classes up to Class 12.
Health
e-Health-Care
Athar Haq (
haque@ehealth-care.net) is looking out for volunteers, either individuals or organisations, to work with their ‘eHealth-Care’ across India. This is looking at a health card and online medical advice software and networking health centres for benefiting unprivileged mass of the district in India using Information Technology.
http://www.ehealth-care.net/pc.htm
Internet standards in South Asia
APNIC signs MoU
APNIC (
http://www.apnic.net/) has signed a MoU with the Internet Service Provider Association of India (
http://www.ispai.com/). ISPAI and APNIC will cooperate to promote domestic and international Internet standards, infrastructure, and service developments; exchange information; provide assistance to each other in organising meetings, seminars, and conferences; and provide training opportunities for ISPs in India. It is expected that the ISP industry in India will benefit from a greater degree of regional industry cooperation.
http://www.apnic.net/news/2004/1008.html
Free Software
I Free Software Workshop run for women
The first ‘free software’ workshop run for women by women in the world? See a report from South Africa. It was held at the Women’sNet offices in Johannesburg form the 6-10 September. The workshop also inducted the new Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) walk-in Internet cafe recently set up in the Women’sNet offices.
http://www.apc.org/english/news/index.shtml?x=26360
II Ubuntu, a promising new GNU/Linux distribution
Called an “interesting new distribution that is based on the Gnome and Debian projects. Ubuntu Linux is the end-user-oriented distribution funded by Mark Shuttleworth’s company Canonical....Ubuntu Linux is a solution to a lacking niche in the [GNU]Linux ideaspace — a polished distribution aimed at novice users that is both free and community driven. If it helps to understand in terms of comparison, you can think of Ubuntu as a hybrid of the ideas of Debian and Fedora.” They will even post you copies for free!
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/9/28/211242/712
III GNU/Linux help centres in Kerala
India’s southern state of Kerala was reported to have kickstarted GNU/Linux usage with 100-plus help centres, says a news report. Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, in a low-key ceremony, launched a programme anchored by the Centre for Development of Imaging Technology (C-DIT), where 107 computer training institutes spread across all 14 districts of Kerala have been beefed up as ‘Linux Technology Extension (LiTE) centres. Every centre would soon provide customers with practical help in configuring their PCs around the GNU/Linux operating system.
http://www.hindu.com/2004/10/22/stories/2004102209060700.htm
Miscellaneous
I Technology for the masses
UTTHAN-2005 is a seminar on technology initiatives for the development of rural masses. February 19-20, 2005
http://www.adarshsamaj.org/seminar.html
II Making films, making a difference
Video Volunteers is a movement of people who believe in the power of media to bring the world closer together and cause people to take action. Working with the Creative Visions Foundation and Drishti Media Collective, Video Volunteers uses the now ubiqui tous video camera to accelerate social change at the most basic level: To fix wells, educate children, and fight for social justice and women’s rights.
http://www.videovolunteers.org/
Bytes For All Readers Discussion:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bytesforall_readers
Compiled and summarised by Fredrick Noronha, Bytes for All (
www.bytesforall.org)
Features