Education

Edusat completes a year, makes IT@school a reality
Edusat, India's ambitious programme to harness satellite technology to reach students in every corner of the country is being implemented by half a dozen institutions across India, while it celebrates its first anniversary on 20 September.

Kerala has leveraged the telemetry potential of Edusat and linked 45 learning centres, spread across all 14 districts for two way audio and video interaction.

More states are slowly creating their own infrastructure to leverage the enormous reach offered by Edusat.
Source: http://www.hindu.com

Infosys to train 100 Chinese students in India
Infosys Technologies Ltd has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Government of China to train 100 students from China at its Global Education Centre in the Indian city, Mysore.

These students are in their fourth year from leading universities in the software engineering field. The internship programme will run from September 2005 to March 2006 and involves a three-month intensive training course on interpersonal and technical skills at the Global

Education Centre, and a four-month internship at Infosys' development centre in Bangalore.
Source: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com

e-Lessions for science students in Namibia
As part of a pilot project funded by United Nations educational, scientific and cultural organisation (Unesco), the Namibian College of Open Learning (Namcol) has produced a series of electronic lessons that will help students studying physical science.

The electronic sessions include demonstrations, info boxes, quizzes and puzzles. Apart from making the answer checking process easy, it also brings advantages like use of animations to illustrate. The material consists of six physical science lessons and is meant to supplement textbooks and classroom instruction.
Source: http://allafrica.com

IT access to schools in Hindi belt of India
Around 1,250 schools situated in four of the most backward districts across the Hindi-speaking states of Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh in India will get connected via 12 satellite interactive terminals supported by Edusat by January 2006.

With the successful implementation of this project, the government of India will come one step closer to its objective of universalisation of elementary education. The department of space, ministry of human resource development (MHRD) and Distance Education Council, Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) have jointly agreed to work on the project in collaboration with the school education departments of the respective states.
Source: http://infotech.indiatimes.com


e-Governance

Now lodge e-FIRs in Delhi
After a two years work on the technologies, the Delhi Police have started incorporating web-based systems to enable people to lodge complaints online and cyber laboratories to ensure that no tampering is done to evidences till they reach the courts.

The project would enable police stations to come under a computer network and work as an interface with jail, courts and hospitals for better efficiency and speedy disposal of cases. The ministry of home affairs has decided to implement this project throughout the country.
Source: http://timesofindia.com

Coming up e-Panchayats to strengthen e-Governance
Taking e-Governance to rural India, the Andhra Pradesh state government is starting 475 e-Panchayats soon in the state with an outlay of Rs 3.32 crore.

These e-Panchayats would work on the lines of the e-Seva centres, where various records of the Gram Panchayat would be computerised. Various services like issuing of birth, death certificates, details of land records among others would be provided under the project.
Source: http://www.newindpress.com

Indian state starts e-Tender in public sector
Orissa Construction Corporation and Orissa Bridge Construction Corporation, the two state public sector units in the Indian state Orissa are asked by the chief minister to provide detailed information of the works contracted out to private parties during the last five years in the Government website
www.orissagov. nic.in.

The step taken after a spate of murders and shootouts in the state over tender fixing, is intended to prepare the state for e-Tenders in order to bring in transparency in the system.
Source: http://www.newindpress.com

Dutch under single database The Dutch government will begin tracking every citizen from cradle to grave in a single database, opening a personal electronic dossier for every child at birth with health and family data, and eventually adding school and police records. The new database is going to start from the beginning of 2007. Under this, each child will get a Citizens Service Number, making it easier to keep track of children with problems even when their families move. Source: http://www.wired.com

e-Admission in Indian schools reduces drop-out mark
The new online admission policy of Delhi Government in India for primary level schools has successfully brought down the dropout rate from 15 per cent to 5 per cent this year leading to 70,000 new admissions, of which 35,000 are girl students who never made to school beyond the fifth standard.

With the introduction of the online admission system the total admission had touched the record figure of 2.10 lakh instead of the routine 1.40-lakh students joining the sixth standard in Delhi Government schools.
Source: http://www.hindu.com

Agriculture

India to start agri courses through ICTs
As part of a new initiative of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), India is going to have a network of post-graduate teaching in food and agriculture through open distant learning (ODL) programme .

The course intends to provide flexible, affordable and accessible post-graduate education building high quality capacity for agricultural development. Web-based CD-Rom, traditional text and other technologies will be used for different languages to cater to local needs. Courses will be imparted in almost all segments of agriculture including livestock, forestry and fisheries with a view to enhance agricultural development, reduce poverty and ensure food security.
Source: http://www.financialexpress.com

Zambia farmers adopt ICT
Farmers Internet Cafe, hosted by the Kabwe Farmers Association established by the Zambia National Farmers Union (ZNFU), has provided the most saught after technology to the farmers with which they can now improve their production, purchasing and marketing decisions, ultimately staying connected with the rest of the world.

While the Internet communication technology has been in Zambia since 1994, farmers especially small scale ones have had no opportunity to it. Recent statistics show that there were over 50,000 Internet users by 2005 compared to only 250 in 1994.
Source: http://www.iicd.org

Community radio

Remote India to get FM tunes for teaching
As a first time attempt of FM Radio being used for teaching in India, the government of India plans 87 FM channels to be used exclusively to teach students in remote areas of the country.

Of these channels in pipeline, 36 would be used by the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) to reply to queries and organise on-air classrooms. IGNOU, which has been using All India Radio (AIR) for some courses, will now use radio on a much larger scale.
Source: http://www.indianexpress.com

Radio Botswana now in digital age
With the University of Botswana computer science staff, using modern technology to record Radio Botswana's daily programmes and then channelling them via the Internet, Radio Botswana joining the digital world has become a reality.

The service allows one to shuffle through the programming easily. One can listen to the six o'clock news, the seven o'clock news, or go back to the midnight shows and catch up with the goings at the station, thus making the Internet version a true representative of the national radio's programming.
Source: http://allafrica.com

Health

e-Medicine through Apollo and Reliance Infocomm
The Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Enterprises (ADAE) group company Reliance Infocomm, under its e-Medicine initiatives, is joining hands with the Chennai-based heart and lung care major Apollo Hospitals, to facilitate e-Diagnosis and treatment of heart diseases and cancer.

The 240 WebWorld outlets of Reliance Infocomm will act as out patient departments (OPDs) of the Apollo Hospitals, to enable the patients seeking medical assistance from doctors.
Source: http://www.businessstandard.com

Southern Indian village first to start telemedicine
Aragonda, a remote hamlet in the southern Indian state Andhra Pradesh, finally got a space in the health map with the Apollo group of hospitals chosing the village for its pilot telemedicine project.

The village otherwise has no medicare options till the year 2000 except a few Registered Medical Practitioners (RMPs) and one primary health centre with one doctor. It was to be the country’s first experiment with rural telemedicine.

The village was connected to the Apollo hospitals in Hyderabad and Chennai through Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) and Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT) lines bringing tertiary care virtually to the doorsteps of the villagers.
Source: http://www.indianexpress.com

Now drug trial data in website
With a view to keep the patients updated fear-free over drug safty, the Inter- national Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations has launched a new web (www.ifpma.org/clinicaltrials) that gives details of clinical trials on new medicines.
Source: http://www.hindu.com

Technology

Windows XP in Indian languages now
According to the joint announcement of the Chairman and Chief Software Architect of Microsoft Corporation, Bill Gates, and Indian Minister for Communications and Information Technology, Dayanidhi Maran, the new launch, multilingual `Windows XP Starter Edition' can be used by people speaking any of the nine Indian languages, who may also want to use English.

As per the collaborative initiatives outlined during the discussions, Apart from the new launch, Microsoft is to adopt 100 schools in six States, to start with. Microsoft would also support the Indian IT Ministry's programme to set-up one lakh rural kiosks by offering affordable products, services, consultancy, training and support.
Source: http://www.hindu.com

Internet Phone to keep Namibians touch the world
Skyphonics, the virtual Internet phone service has become an affordable alternative to traditional telephone services in Namibia making them more involved in sophisticated and skilful ways of enhancing their communications with the outside world.

Since the introduction of Voice-Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) that entails making a normal call via the Internet connection in other parts of the world years back, many have not used this new tool. The new technology aims to provide Namibians with services that would enable them to be in constant communication with the rest of the world at any given time.
Source: http://allafrica.com

India govt launches MANTRA, the Hindi software
The government of India has launched MANTRA (Machine assisted Translation Tool), a software to help translate government documents from English to Hindi, and LILA (Learn Indian Languages through Artificial Intelligence), a Hindi learning software on mobile phones and the internet.

The cheap version of the Hindi translating software now available in the form of multi-media card on cellular phones, promises to make Hindi learning more high-tech and easy. The LILA series, already available on the web for learning Hindi via media of English, Tamil, Kannada and Telugu will now be made available in Bengali.
Source: http://infotech.indiatimes.com


Telecommunication

In Tanzania, a telephone line first time since invention
Some parts of Kiteto and Kondoa Districts in Manyara and Dodoma Regions, in Tanzania, for the first time since the invention of the telephone, will have a telecommunication link to the rest of the country.

The people from those areas have had no such infrastructure since Tanzania attained her independence in 1961, and essentially since the invention of telecommunication. Residents of the two districts have been traveling, sometimes up to 65 kilometres, so as to get phone services. Now more than sixty customers of Matui, Mrijo and Soya in Kiteto District were enjoying the services of the Tanzania Telecommunication Company Limited (TTLC) Network.
Source: http://www.arushatimes.co.tz

The cheapest mobile phone now in India
Indian engineers at the Bangalore development centre of German semiconductor leader Infineon have helped create the world's first mobile phone, that is cheapest phone of its type, costing around US$20 (Rs. 900-1,000) and works from a pair of off-the-shelf `AAA' size batteries.

Infineon engineers had also tested versions, where, by doubling the memory chips on board, one could add colour to the screen as well as multiple Indian language capability.
Source: http://www.hindu.com

India most upwardly mobile in Asia-Pacific
With a 69% year-on-year growth to 48 million subscribers from 28 million in 2003, India has become the fastest growing mobile market in the Asia Pacific region.

Revenues from the sector are estimated to touch US$24 billion by 2009. In India, mobile penetration which is currently around 4.5% will increase to 30% by 2009. By 2009, worldwide sales of mobile phones is estimated to exceed one billion and about 25% of that growth is expected to come from the Asia-Pacific region.
Source: http://www.financialexpress.com

VOIP phones- connecting villagers in Uganda to world
Solar and pedal-powered voice-over-internet-protocol (VOIP) phones and Wi-Fi are now used in a few villages in western Uganda where nothing resembling a telephone system has ever been existing. The idea is to bring local, national and international dialing to remote areas of the world.

Inveneo, the organisation behind the technology has already installed its Linux-based voice-over internet-protocol stations at four isolated villages in Bukuuku subcounty, serving a total of nearly 3,200 villagers. Calls between the villages are routed by the hub, and cost nothing -- like dialing another room from a hotel PBX, where as calls destined for outside the village network go over a satellite link between the hub and the main Ugandan telephone exchange.
Source: http://www.wired.com