Whither e-democracy? : June 2006 Isue

ISSN 0973-161X

www.egovonline.net

Volume II issue 6, June 2006

A participatory approach to Information Systems planning PAGE 10 Developing secure e-Voting system PAGE 20 Jharkhand: Marching towards smart Governance

PAGE 30 The e-Government magazine for Asia and the Middle East

Whither e-democracy?

INDUSTRY PERSPECTIVE

IN FOCUS National Knowledge Commission’s recommendations on e-Governance efforts in India page 26

Focusing on open standards and standardisaion to drive market Interview: Susy Struble, Sun Microsystems page 39

egov ASIA 2006 CONFERENCE

page 35

CONTENTS

Cover Feature: e-Democracy

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Citizen Charter led e-Governance: A participatory approach to Information Systems Planning H K Misra, B N Hiremath and D P Mishra

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Citizen Consultation Model for e-Government Wanchai Varavithya and Vatcharaporn Esichaikul

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Democracy in Egypt: Developing secure e-Voting system Mohamed Aborizka, Ahmad Shedeed and Sherif Saad

In Focus

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Knowledge Commission e-Governance recommendations

Region Focus: Jharkhand

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Jharkhand: Marching towards smart governance Shahid Ahmad

18 23 28 42

Middle East Geo-Informatics India World

Industr y PPerspective erspective

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Interview: Susy Struble, Corporate Standard Management, Sun Microsystems

Regular Features

45 46

numbers What’s On

Event Diar y Diary

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egov Asia 2006 Conference: Highlighting e-Government trends and strategies in Asia

Interview: Ram Sewak Sharma, IT Secretary

News Review

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Asia Business Read all the articles online at www.egovonline.net

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EDITORIAL

Whither e-Democracy?

Vol. II, Issue 6

June 2006

President Dr. M P Narayanan Editor-in-Chief Ravi Gupta Sr. Assistant Editor Anuradha Dhar Assistant Editor Danish A. Khan Sub Editor Prachi Shirur Designed by Bishwajeet Kumar Singh Web Zia Salahuddin, Ramakant Sahu Circulation Himanshu Kalra Editorial and marketing correspondence eGov G-4 Sector 39 NOIDA 201301, India Tel: +91 120 2502181-87 Fax: +91 120 2500060 Email: info@egov.csdms.in Printed by Yashi Media Works Pvt Ltd New Delhi, India egov does not neccesarily subscribe to the views expressed in this publication. All views expressed in the magazine are those of the contributors. egov is not responsible or accountable for any loss incurred, directly or indirectly as a result of the information provided.

Today, the Internet has become a tool that transcends national borders and allows free flow of ideas the worldover.

It has got immense potential to empower, educate and allow people to share and mobilise opinion. In fact, the Internet has truly become a forum for e-Democracy where people have found voice through personal websites, blogs and discussion groups. Although till date e-Democracy has not been defined fully, it embodies a wider connotation. eDemocracy, so to speak, has more to do with the usage of ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) to strengthen and upgrade democratic structures and processes. It is essentially about engaging citizens in public policy-making for ensuring good governance. e-Democracy initiatives include e-Forums, e-Consultations, e-Referenda, e-Voting, and other forms of eParticipation.

The very concept of e-Democracy is yet to take shape. Up till now it has been into transition moving at a snail’s pace — from experimentation to formulation of policies.

The record of e-Democracy initiatives and experimentation has not been worthwhile.

And, to top it all, the path to e-Democracy is strewn with roadblocks. Recently, Amnesty International launched a campaign to demand freedom of expression over the Internet because of increasing concern over state censorship and control of online communications. Governments around the world are today engaged in stifling the voices of people, particularly online community, and has been forcibly closing down cyber cafes, confiscating home PCs, keeping an eye on chat in discussion forums and censoring or removing blogs. According to 2006 Annual Internet Report by ‘Reporters Without Borders’, countries such as Belarus, Burma, Cuba, Iran, Libya, the Maldives, Nepal, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam have gained notoriety in censoring the Internet now. Cyber dissidents are being arrested at an alarming pace. In 2003, China, Vietnam and the Maldives had imprisoned cyber-dissidents. Moreover, blog messages can now be automatically censored by China, blanking out words such as “democracy” and “human rights.” Since March 2005, a lawyer has been in jail in Tunisia for criticising official corruption in an online newsletter.

As of now, e-Democracy is in a stage of evolution in the overall democratic experiment. It seeks to use new, interactive technologies to give credence to the oft-repeated democratic claim that governments are ‘of, by and for the people’.

There is a fundamental and paramount need to remove obstacles such as online censorships by governments to ensure effective citizen engagement in policymaking for good governance. The challenges are nonetheless daunting, and require greater efforts to build confidence, raise awareness and capacity both within governments and among citizens to make the very concept of e-Democracy hugely successful.

egov is published in technical collaboration with GIS Development (www.GISdevelopment.net) © Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies, 2006 www.csdms.in

| June 2006

Ravi Gupta Ravi.Gupta@csdms.in

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ASIA

range of requirements in State budget accounting, which was lacking in the previous payment system.

Vietnam to issue regulation on e-Government

15-year roadmap for informatisation development in China

Phan Vãn Khai, Prime Minister of Vietnam, has instructed the ministers, heads of the government agencies and chairpersons of provincial people’s committees to examine and improve the issuance of administrative documents in order that paperwork be considerably decreased at State administrative bodies. The Vietnamese Government would be issuing a regulation on e-Government Internet access and management in the third quarter of 2006, which would mandate the ministries, branches and provincial people’s committees to send their administrative documents to the Government via the Internet.

China has formulated a 15-year roadmap for informatisation development, which has been unveiled by General Office of the CPC Central Committee and General Office of the State Council in the recently published ‘State Informatisation Development Strategy (2006-2020)’. The Strategy extensively deliberates on nine key aspects that includes promoting informatisation of the national economy; popularising e-Government; establishing advanced Internet culture; pushing ahead social informatisation; popularising information infrastructure; exploiting information resources more efficiently; improving information industry competition; building national information security system; improving peoples’ ability in using information technology; and cultivating more talents in information technology.

Yayasan Shopping Complex in the capital and The Mall in Gadong.

Bangladesh opposition leader’s son supports e-Governance initiatives Sajib Wajed Joy, son of Bangladesh Leader of the Opposition in Parliament and Awami League Sheikh Hasina Wajed, has said that the government should introduce e-Governance initiatives in a big way and put all official information online to ensure transparency and accountability

Brunei set up e-Islam Information Kiosks at strategic locations Lately, Bac Ninh became the first locality in Vietnam to start e-Administration by adopting information technology in daily administrative management. The eAdministration system was launched by Nguyen Cong Ngo, Chairman of Bac Ninh Provincial People’s Committee. Ngo, speaking on the occasion, said, “Basically, administrative agencies in Bac Ninh have transcended the IT underdevelopment situation as compared to other localities across the country.”

Meanwhile, the Vietnamese State Treasury has unveiled its new e-Payment system to streamline its administrative procedures and meet the needs of other financial institutions. The nationwide e-Payment system is expected to meet a broader 6

Brunei’s Ministry of Religious Affairs would be installing e-Islam kiosks at 18 strategic locations across the country as part of its e-Government drive. A roadshow at the selected locations would also be organised to create awareness of the e-Islam Information Kiosks. The roadshow would disseminate information on daily life among the Muslim community, including activities related to mosque affairs, Islamic propagation, Hajj and many others using the easy and innovative ICT medium.

The kiosks would be located at the two State’s mosques, and would also be installed at major mosques in all the four districts. The kiosks would also be located at government premises such as Brunei International Airport, Universiti Brunei Darussalam and Raja Isteri Pengiran Anak Saleha Hospital and public places — the

of the government. Indicating that the Awami League plans to incorporate eGovernance in its election manifesto, Joy said, “I believe e-Governance will eventually help eliminate corruption, which has become the number one problem today and the government has failed to contain it.”

Joy also suggested the setting up of a ‘venture fund’ to finance promising IT start-ups in Bangladesh. He also opined the creating up of a nationwide database and network for the police to increase the efficiency of the law enforcement agencies, improve law and order situation and prevent incidents of police abuse.

Joy, a US-educated computer engineer, www.egovonline.net |

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gave his opinion while presenting the keynote paper at the seminar titled ‘The Potential and Challenges of Information Technology for the Future of Bangladesh’, which was organised by the Science and Technology Sub-committee of Awami League.

UN award for South Korea The United Nations 2006 Public Service Awards (PSA) would be bestowed on South Korea’s Ministry of Government Administration and Home Affairs on June 23, which is designated by the UN as Public Service Day. Introduced in 2000 by the UN and managed by its Department for Economic and Social Affairs, the PSA awards recognises the efforts by public organisations and agencies around the world in bettering transparency and accountability of public services and improving their delivery and responsiveness. Effective application of information and communication technology in public services such as eGovernment initiatives also serves as a category in the competition.

Myanmar Internet users increasing In Myanmar, the number of Internet users is considerably increasing, reaching 63,700 at the end of 2005 from a merely few thousands in 2000 thereby registering the highest rate of increase in Southeast Asia region in five years. However, the number of Internet users in Myanmar continues to be on the lower side when compared with other Southeast Asian countries, with one Internet user per 1,000 people.

On the e-Government front, Myanmar has launched some e-Government systems including e-Visa, e-Passport, and eProcurement to effectively manage government bodies. In 2006, the Myanmarese government would be opening Internet service centres called ‘Public Access Centres (PAC)’ in 12 townships including Yangon, Mandalay, Mawlamyine, Monywa, Taunggyi, Toungoo, Pyay, Pyinmana, Magway, Myeik, Kawthoung and Shwebo. The | June 2006

government has decided to open Internet service centres in Myanmar’s 326 townships in the near future. The Internet service centres are expected to facilitate communications particularly in the sectors of business and education.

Online exam system for seafarers in Philippines In Philippines, seafarers intending to take examinations for marine deck officer licenses would no longer have to wait for hours in the sweltering sun to register for the professional exam. The Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) recently indicated that it is ready with

its computerised walk-in examination process under the Licensure Examination and Registration System (Leris), wherein seafarers wanting to take examinations for marine deck officer licenses can register online, take the walk-in computerised exam, and get the results soon after the test.

Leonor Tripon-Rosero, PRC chairperson, said, “The long wait is over.

The implementation of Leris was nine years late in coming.

Filipinos from 42 types of professions seeking license or renewal of their license including teachers, nurses, mechanical engineers, dentists, x-ray technicians etc. would be able to take the online examination. Seafarers would be the first sector on which the system would be applied.

Every year beginning 2006, some 5,000 seafarers are expected to register online and take the computerised exams.”

Meanwhile, as part of the e-Government initiative the Intellectual Property Office

(IPO) of Philippines has launched its new service, Trademark Electronic Filing System (TM Online), at its office in Makati City thus becoming the newest government agency to join the e-Government process.

Through the TM Online, the user can apply for the registration of trademarks, service marks, geographical indications and other marks of ownership.

In Malaysia, e-Filing awaits adoption prominently Taxpayers in Malaysia are yet to take up e-Filing aggressively. According to reports, only 128,306 individual taxpayers in the country have agreed for tax assessment via the new e-Filing system.

Currently, Malaysia has 4 million individual taxpayers. The report also said that only 6,515 people out of more than 280,000 individual taxpayers have so far signed up and received their digital certificate registration slips at the Internal Revenue Board (IRB)’s Johor Baru branch. The registration slip, which has a PIN and serial number to access the eFiling system online, can be obtained at any IRB branch.

Nor’azam Sulaiman, Johor Baru branch Public Relations Assistant Director, said, “Taxpayers would get immediate acknowledgement once they submit forms through the e-Filing system. In fact, it is simpler and more convenient. Sadly, people are slow to adopt new technology

and are concerned over security. But there is nothing to worry about. The system is secure.”

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BUSINESS Hughes for providing e-Governance solutions to UP government

Satellite networking technology company Hughes Communication India is mulling the supply of e-Governance solutions to the Uttar Pradesh government and is currently into negotiations with it. Pranav Roach, Hughes’ Director, said, “The proposed solutions that we intend to provide could take the shape of IT enabled counters at government departments dealing directly with the people such as revenue records office. We can provide the medium by which the physical movement of official files can be minimised. Also, large amount of data can be transferred from one place to another in real time.”

Meanwhile, global majors such as Microsoft and Intel have already tied up with the UP government for a multidimensional partnership to help accelerate IT usage in the state.

ILFSL to launch job portal for Indian rural youths India’s popular job portal naukri.com (http://www.naukri.com) and a private company Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services Limited (ILFSL) are entering into a joint venture to give the so-far-deprived unemployed rural youths an exclusive job portal, which would them to post their resumes and search for jobs on the website free of cost. The portal is expected to be launched in June 2006. Earlier, the ILFSL has also assisted the Indian government in its National eGovernance Plan (NeGP).

Dinesh Kumar Tyagi, CEO, Community 8

Centre, ILFSL, said, “We approached officers of naukri.com with a proposal for providing job avenues to rural youths, who are not as fortunate as their urban counterparts when it comes to exploring job opportunities. Once the portal is launched, these village youths will also have easy access to various job openings.

The website can be accessed from the one lakh Common Service Centres (CSCs) which are to be set up in several villages across the country as part of the e-Governance plan. The job portal will bring about a social transformation in rural areas.”

Pantavanij is mulling to enter into partnerships in a big way and intends to emerge as one of the top five players in the region. Tri Kanchanadul, Chief

Microsoft supporting Bahrain in furthering e-Government

Executive Officer of Pantavanij, said, “The world’s electronic procurement market is consolidating. We expect the number of e-Procurement players to fall to about five over the next three years due to mergers and acquisitions from 20 now. We want to be dominant player in China and in all the Asian markets.

And to pave a way for that goal, we have already talked with some players in the Philippines and South Korea, with a final conclusion on the plan likely within the year.”

The Kingdom of Bahrain is seeking help from the global IT major Microsoft to shape its e-Government strategy.

Microsoft is also trying to help local businesses in Bahrain through training, share of expertise and creating an e-society in all vital sectors.

Sherif Bayoumi, newly-appointed Manager of Microsoft Bahrain, said, “We have signed a government agreement with Bahrain, which will support the Kingdom’s e-Government initiative. The Bahrain Government is also part of the Microsoft Government Security Programme and was one of the first in the region to take positive steps towards e-Government, and Microsoft supports them in their efforts. We are working with government community organisations in Bahrain to help local people and businesses.”

Thai e-Procurement firm Pantavanij eyeing top slot Over the next three years Thailand’s first and largest e-Procurement company

Currently 210 billion e-Payments worldwide, to double by 2010 The annual number of e-Payment transactions is on the rise with about 210 billion transactions worldwide at present, and is expected to double by 2010, according to a study conducted by Global Insight Inc. and commissioned by ACI Worldwide. The study revealed that ePayments continued to grow at an annual rate equal to four times the expected growth in real gross domestic product (GDP). Significantly, the study is being considered as the first econometric approach to forecasting global payments across countries representing 97% of the world’s GDP. Various types of e-Payment mode ranging from ATM transactions to credit and debit card payments, direct debit, bill payments, large-value money transfers and bulk file transactions were examined during the study. www.egovonline.net |

e-Democracy

Are we engaging citizens?

Citizens’ acceptance is a major concern for success of ICT initiatives. The citizens neither have the exposure nor ability to evaluate any of the attributes. Presently most of the initiatives are conceptualized, put as pilots and then used without citizens’ active participation.

Without a strategy to convert these supply-driven projects to demand-driven it is unlikely that such projects would succeed | June 2006

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Citizen Charter led e-Governance

A participatory approach to Information Systems planning H K Misra, B N Hiremath and D P Mishra

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nformation and Communication Technology (ICT) projects require proper identification of users’ needs.

Identifying the right types of services with users’ perspective is important to make an ICT initiative successful. While there is phenomenal growth in ICT-enabled processes, failures continue to plague the projects owing to decrease in cost of computing, increase in acceptability of ebusiness, e-commerce and m-commerce activities. Indian ICT initiatives make the situation even more critical, not because it involves the rural infrastructure, but the complex process of involving the rural masses, who lack basic livelihood opportunities, and are therefore least concerned with them. In order to make the initiatives successful, it is essential that the people themselves identify their issues, prioritise their needs, manage their infrastructure and services with the support of government, NGOs, etc., monitor their resource utilisation and draw benefits. Increasing their capability to list the issues and to lead the intervention process is quite complex. If processes are understood and prioritised properly, ICT interventions would bring in significant improvements in addressing the issues in development process, and citizens’ role therefore is of paramount importance.

It is pertinent to discuss how the rural citizen, the system users, can be involved in the planning process to elaborate better information system (IS) planning and eventually create an effective ICT infrastructure. The concept and importance of user-led design process and the role of IS planning and its effect on ICT planning also needs to be discussed.

The development process and effect of participation in the development process too needs elaboration.

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There is a phenomenal growth in ICT-enabled processes, of late. However, Indian ICT initiatives makes the situation critical because of the complex process of involving the rural masses who lack basic livelihood opportunities, and are least concerned with them

Citizen-Charter led ICT initiatives The ICT initiatives based on various business and governance models are still evolving in India, and are being considered for scaling up. However, it is not encouraging because of lack of interest among rural citizens. e-Governance needs support of ICT, and its success depends on the technology chosen and related infrastructure such as electricity, education, transport etc.

User-centered design (UCD) is one

major area of concern for an effcetive eGovernance. UCD practices are aimed at understanding the users (rural citizens), their behaviour and incorporating them in the product/service delivery. ICT initiatives for rural development can also, therefore, be mapped with this perspective. Normally UCD practices are described through ISO13407.

Citizens’ acceptance is a major concern for the success of ICT initiatives.

The citizens neither have the exposure nor www.egovonline.net |

COVER FEATURE

ability to evaluate any of the attributes.

Planning in user centred processes in this context needs involvement of rural citizens who are neither in a position to put the right context nor specify their requirments in a holistic manner. This user limitation leads to a complex situation where solutions provided do not have relevance to the real situations. Presently most of the initiatives are conceptualised, put as pilots and then used without citizens’ active participation. It is, therefore, essential to understand needs of rural citizens for considering ICT options for income generation and other desired services. However, poor acceptance of all these models is due to lack of concerted effort to map the citizen priorities rendering these initiatives to remain supply-driven. Without a strategy to convert these supply-driven projects to demand-driven it is unlikely that such projects would succeed. Citizens’ acceptance determines the scope to transform the initiatives to be “demand driven”. Citizen-led IS planning can create a good demand for ICT services.

Rural ICT initiatives, especially through various models, have hastened the development process.

ICT can be applied for enhancing rural livelihood, generating employment, provide business opportunities and rendering ICT-enabled services. These initiatives are not free from challenges. The digital-divide syndrome, which was primarily perceived as a problem rather than symptom led to poor design of the ICT initiatives. In India, despite having ICT policies, the problem is still mounting. The challenge to garner benefits of ICT as a tool for development process is not by its automation, but by aiding this process. Besides, deployment of ICT infrastructure in rural areas is not commensurate with the perceived benefits. Other problems are organising an affordable, scalable and self-sustaining ICT infrastructure to provide services for income generation, e-Government and conducting business in a convergent manner. The challenge is therefore to revisit the development process in the context of ICT interventions and explore possibility of citizens’ participation. | June 2006

Understanding participation in development process Approaches to development action have changed over the decades. From the early conception of ‘absence of poverty’ focussing wholly on lack of income and associated efforts at ‘economic growth’, development praxis has mutated to include multiple facets of poverty such as sociopolitical and psychological aspects and the economic view of poverty. It has come to recognise the multi-hued life experiences of the poor informed by their inability to deal with mainstream political institutions, social institutions, and the relevant/influential actors in the market place. While traditional income generation/poverty alleviation programmes are aimed at decreasing the income p o v e r t y, they have generally

UCD Framework

failed in enhancing the social condition of the poor in the ab-sence of any specific efforts at addressing the other facets of poverty. Theorising on civil society is increasingly emphasising the need for ‘organising’ among the poor and marginal sections. It is through the process of organising and their ‘organi-sation’ that the poor begin to acquire the mutual support system and self-belief in dealing with other democratic and market place institutions, leading to the develop-ment of ‘citizenship’ and sustainability of their livelihood related activities.

The changed understanding of development process has made the task of development management complex.

First, it has been turned upside down,

e-DEMOCRACY

from the earlier approach of starting out from ‘project level objectives down to specific operations’ to start from the other end, i.e., stakeholders. The only available signpost is the development organisation’s broader institutional goals and value commitments. The process begins with participatory exploration of the conditions and knowledge of the stakeholders, their needs, wants and aspirations, and then crafts ‘projects’ in consonance with them. Second, the development organisation is no more the ‘director’ of the process but a ‘facilitator’ of the process. Thus, the organisation could experience variety in the conditions and aspirations of the stakeholders across sites.

These two characteristics of development management have strong implications for information management.

In the earlier mode, the organisation ‘knew’ what information to seek, where to collect them, and how to record and process them. In the new mode, only the broad parameters of information could be anticipated. Specific data and information could be varied across stakeholders and across habitation sites. Secondly, the process throws up far more data and information since the stakeholders are not bound by an ‘external framework’ but are enabled to articulate from their own vantage points. Thirdly, as a consequence, the nature of information so generated could take multiple forms.

Due to the intrinsic variety and quantum of data now available, there is a danger that a lot of it would not get used because of information handling and processing constraints. It is here that ICT has a role to play. But for this role to be played rightfully, the information system design must have built-in capabilities and robustness corresponding to the quantum and variety of data.

PRA Methodology There have been two distinctive approaches to citizens’ participation in development projects. One is the classical top-down approach where the development agency identifies projects and invites the community to participate, and the other is for the citizens to identify projects and invite a development agency to form an equal partnership with it to 11

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develop the project. Techniques like Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) are means of generating data for gaining an understanding of the needs, preferences and priorities within the communities.

They contribute to improving thinking, analysis, and decision-making processes related to the production, dissemination, and efficient use of lessons learnt from participatory development experiences.

There are several constraints in conventional methods of data gathering such as high cost, time consuming, questionable accuracy, lack stakeholder participation, and quantitative information generated, does not explain real life situations and local knowledge. PRA methods are essentially a process of learning about people’s conditions in an intensive, iterative and expeditious manner. The techniques are adopted to achieve increased accuracy at low cost both in terms of time and money.

The Causal Framework The PRA methodology exercise leads to a metrics based measurement system, which is an important stage for ICT acquisition life cycle. The goal-question-metrics (GQM) methodology strongly fits in to the deliverables of PRA exercise since it quantifies appropriate deliverables through metrics, and these metrics are related to the long term aspirations of the rural citizen. PRA based IS planning exercise is conducted through the active participation of citizens.

PRA tools and techniques for IS metrics elicitation PRA tools are used for involving rural citizens to share information on resources, their problems, expectations, and limitations in earning their livelihoods.

Rural citizens depend mostly on local resources, support received from the agencies like government, NGOs and community based organizations (CBOs).

Usually, these supports are not commensurate with their expectations thus leading to unsustainable livelihoods.

Expectations are captured through PRA process which attempts to deliver certain meta-measurable indicators which the citizens consider to be important.

Information systems (IS) are logical reflections of physical processes and their 12

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ICT Projects for Rural Development

behaviour. Behavioural analyses are important characteristics of any process and these are mostly measured through agreed attributes. Understanding of these attributes is initiated through measurable terms, which are identified as metrics.

These metrics evolve with the process and their maturity brings in a measurable behaviour of the process leading to measurable metrics. IS practices with metrics provide an interface between the physical process and information communication technology (ICT) orientated processes. Options for ICT interventions need to be carefully chosen on the basis of their strength and weakness. ICT as a technology is seen as a process improvement tool, and this is possible through an IS-ICT alignment exercise. The alignment exercise looks for the requirements of a process (process metrics), lists the possible deliveries through the systemic approach being made (IS metrics) and provides a scope to leverage the strength of ICT options through an analysis of each option (ICT metrics). Strategic IS-ICT alignment models advocate a metrics based approach for successful alignment among processes and IS - IS and ICT. ICT interventions effectively contribute towards managing transactions, organised process, and bringing an overall improvement in information dissemination. Therefore, prior to organising ICT resources, information systems with feasible demand driven metrics is crucial.

The natural, physical, and social assets play a vital role in peoples’ livelihoods. Yet, there has been a steady erosion of these assets. In rural areas,

ecological problems such as deforestation have played havoc in peoples’ livelihoods in many ways. Climate change, soil erosion, water depletion, habitat loss, energy overuse and extinction of species are all symptoms of economic process that depletes resources. With increasing pressure on land, individual households have exploited their resources leading to unsustainable livelihoods. If the goal of development is to build sustainable livelihoods, the very people who depleted the resource base have to be involved in problem identification, analysis, prioritisation, planning, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of development projects. This calls for the bottoms-up participatory approach.

Conclusion ICT is strong service enabler tool in development process and a medium to poverty alleviation. In Indian context, the policies for poverty alleviation are being planned with a top-down strategy making it “supply driven”. However, supply driven projects do not generate much demand without involving citizens in the planning process. Creating an atmosphere for eliciting the requirements and prioritising the needs of citizens is a complex phenomenon because of the spatial, political, social, religious and cultural dynamics. It is therefore necessary to balance the system that encourages availability of the supply driven services with active citizens’ participation.

About the authors: H K Misra, B N Hiremath and D P Mishra are associated with Institute of Rural Management, Anand

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Citizen Consultation Model for e-Government Wanchai Varavithya and Vatcharaporn Esichaikul

P

ublic administrative discretion refers to the degree of latitude or flexibility exercised by public administrators when making decisions or conducting any agency business. The use of discretion in public administration is often viewed as a major source of poor governance that breeds arbitrariness, unfairness, corruption or irrational outcomes.

Several literatures view e-Government as a potential tool to hollow out discretionary power from officials using predetermined decision-making rules or advanced algorithms. However, it is important to understand that taking away discretion from the government does not always bring about good governance, as it ignores citizen individualised circumstances and situations such as economic welfare, political bias, culture diversity. To bring about good governance, i.e., openness and transparency from discretionary decisionmaking in e-Government, extensive use of information technologies help reduce whim, caprice, and arbitrariness in decisions caused by an administrative decision maker.

The e-Government Discretionary Framework From the citizen points of view, citizens expect the good governance to be delivered by the government in handling the discretion issues. To accomplish such expectations, the concept of ‘open government’ as advocated by W.N. Nelson is the finest approach to promote transparency and openness in the government use of discretionary decisionmaking where “Participation contributes to open government; open government contributes to the need to justify official actions in terms of morally acceptable principles; and the need to justify contributes to better decisions.” | June 2006

The use of discretion in public administration is generally being regarded as a major obstruction to good governance. Therefore, to bring about good governance from discretionary decision-making in e-Government, using information technologies help reduce whim, caprice, and arbitrariness in decisions caused by an administrative decision maker With the goal of eliminating the discretionary decision-making by whim, caprice, chance, or ritual, Galligan coined the concept of consultation as a mode of participation that connotes the presentation of arguments and proof in order to influence the way issues needs to be settled. The decision-maker has a duty to hear and consider, but may decide for reasons which go beyond the submissions of the parties, and may act according to standards which are defined only broadly or settled only in the course of the decision.

Based on the open government approach and the consultation concept, the citizen consultation process is presented, which comprises of three phase of coordinate activities. This includes Phase 1: disclosure of reasons and factors before decisions; Phase 2: formu-late standards or apply existing standards and make decisions; and Phase 3: issue legal decisions and appealing procedure.

The Citizen Consultation Model (CICO) To elucidate, our research focus is on the modified adjudication decisions. The rationale that in e-Government service processes, a human intervention is found to interfere with the approval processes before the completion of services.

For example, in the case of business

registration services in Thailand, the law states that a business’ name must not have any similar meaning or pronunciation or any other wording related to the Thai monarchy. During the registration approval process, a registrar can still be called upon to use discretion on the requested business name whether it has any meaning related to the monarchy, which is totally based on personal judgment and experiences. This causes a sense of arbitrariness in citizens as the results can vary from one registrar to another. A similar problem can also be found in social welfare, immigration, police, deportation, etc. The special requirements of the modified adjudication decision are as follows: an official is a person who is held accountable for decision outcomes; decision-making aims at a citizenindividualised problem in relation to his or her situation, not as a general public issue; citizens and other affected parties have a right to put forward evidence and present their arguments or proof that are relevant to the decision throughout the citizen consultation process; in certain cases, if laws provide no norms or unbound factors or unfettered discretion domains, a decision-maker is required to formulate a new set of standards, which could be flexible and unpredictable; and, the combination of adjudicative (i.e. rules of law) and discretionary element is necessary.

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The CICO Prototype The existing conversational technologies, i.e. e-mail, discussion forums, Internet chat, Weblog, or Wiki can be used as an effective tool to support coordination and collaboration activities, i.e. viewing, discussing, debating, writing, and recording.

Step 1 - Determine Decision Problem, Alternatives, and Goals: The Citizen Consultation Room is intended to provide an easy to use interface similar to public discussions via the chat room.

The Internet web-browser prototype supports a real-time and synchronised communications between two or more participants via computers. In order to avert possible chaos from the citizen consultation process, a semi-formal vocabulary of Decision Representation Language (DRL) was applied as a language for representing discussions and argumentations. The basic elements of decision-making in DRL are decision problem, alternatives, goals, claim, and questions/answer.

Before the starting of Phase II of the citizen consultation process, an official who acts as a decision-maker must designate an instance of promulgation, case identification, groups and names of participants, and start date and due date.

Next, an instance for a decision problem, alternatives and goals must be created.

In the consultation room, participants can always use a mouse to point at DRL argumentation element and use the rightmouse button to initiate the corresponded elements, i.e. a new decision problem, sub-alternatives, sub-goals, questions and answers and can enter text statement or upload file down the root node of the hierarchical structure graph. Text statements will appear on the other participant’s monitor immediately.

Each element is accompanied by DRL element icon, user name of the participant who put it forward date and time of submission. The objectives of the citizen consultation room includes participants are able to ascertain the matters that are to be decided, the legal background, facts, evidence upon which the official is acting or proposing to act, and sort out any unclear ‘open-texture’ language of laws; participants have a change to put before new information, or make inquiries 16

A conceptual design of the citizen consultation model

about the cases; and, participants can influence the nature of decision problem, alternative, and goals and decide whether it should include more or cross out any unnecessary alternatives or goals.

Step 2 - Put forward discussions and argumentations: After the deliberation on the decision problem, alternatives, and goals are settled, an official will activate the access right to the decision matrix room for participants to solicit their arguments. Participants can put forward discussions and argumentations by appraising an alternative with respect to a goal using a mouse to point to an instance of DRL elements and use rightmouse-click to open and choose claim actions and enter text statements.

Participants express their claim arguments as ‘supports’ or ‘denies’ and can initiate a discussion by posting questions or answers instance. The citizen consultation system also provides the argument polarise feature that allows participants to click on a tap control and view the whole set of arguments in three different views - alternatives, goals, and participant point of views. This feature helps participants gain a full understanding of the case and enhances the openness principal as participants can put before the decision-maker an argument that may compete or rebut each other in an equal of opportunity mode of participation.

Step 3 - Arguments cleansing and indexing: After participants have fully asserted discussions and argumentations or the allowed time has elapsed, an official has a duty to validate the legitimacy of each argument using his or her discretion.

This process is called the arguments

cleansing process. The system provides facilities for an official to approve valid arguments by clicking on a check box located at the beginning of each instance of DRL. The arguments cleansing process is very important, as a decision-maker must consider each argument based on past experience and support information.

The results from the cleansing process can be viewed by all participants.

There-fore, a decision-maker has a duty to pro- vide reasons and explanations why some arguments are cast aside and why some arguments are valid enough to the case.

On the indexing, the systems will automatically retrieve concept keywords from the knowledge-base and match with DRL instance of each argument. The match index is presented in a green font of the text statement. If the index is not in the knowledge-base, officials can either select an existing index keyword from the knowledge-base or add a new index keyword as they see fit. It should be noted that indexing keywords must be chosen carefully if the most useful cases are to be recalled from the case repository.

To support the exercise of discretion power by certain authorities, an official can input a weigh preference score for each alternative using a combo box that shows the number of preference (e.g. 1-23-4 as highest preference to lowest preference), which however, would be used as a preference record, and not as a reasoning mechanism.

Step 4 - Formulate standards and make decisions: In order to make a decision, the citizen consultation system will assist a decision-maker by presenting the most similar cases from past cases www.egovonline.net |

COVER FEATURE

from database. Using a simple flat memory and a serial search technique, arguments can be retrieved by applying a matching function sequentially to each argument grids in the file and keeping track of the degree of match of each arguments and returning those that match best. The final decision can be made by clicking the radio button in front of a selected alternative and pressing save.

CICO has been tested on real citizens and public servants. The model was tested among nine citizens who are affected by government decisions, three authorities who make decisions, and two experts. All involved with the rule of origin services provided by the Department of Foreign

and completed under the direction of the facilitator by the following procedures: after the training, the facilitator made an appointment with each citizen to the experiment site. An officer generated problem statement, goals, and alternatives; in the first session, each citizen took half an hour to review and generate questions or arguments according to goals and alternatives; approximately one week later, a citizen asked to review the whole arguments again and generated more arguments if he/she wished to; three officers separately reviewed the whole arguments and selected an alternative as a final decision; and, all citizens scrutinised the final decisions and filled-in the questionnaires.

Trade, Thailand. The experiments were conducted during December 2005 to February 2006. The experiment task was to make discretionary decisions on the setting up of the department’s policy that effect citizens in three cases. First, when should the government verify the rule of origin certificate? Second, who should be considered as wrongful if there was a circumvention problem of export goods?

Third, how to select an exporter for the rule of origin post-exported audit? The experiment was conducted in three weeks

The objective of the questionnaire was to get citizens’ assessments about the good governance principle from the discretionary decision-making processes and outcomes. To fill the questionnaire, citizens had to give an answer – strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree, and strongly disagree scale.

Citizens had to evaluate the level of good governance criteria based on SIGMA, i.e. accounta-bility and openness and transparency.

The feedback was certainly

Evaluation results

| June 2006

e-DEMOCRACY

encouraging. In all the issues raised in the questionnaires, the percentage of the positive answers (sum of the strongly agree and agree percentage) was over 70 %. It is clear that by involving citizens in the discretionary decision-making processes, the majority of citizens were convinced that by using CICO they could influence a decision-maker to think thoroughly and make decisions in a reasonable and intelligent manner.

However, the consistency of decisionmaking from the point of view of citizen is not very satisfying, as the experiment cases were limited to three cases within a short period of time.

Conclusions and future works The citizen consultation model and prototype are proposed with the aim to promote the ‘open-government’ concept where citizens are encouraged to participate in every step of the government decision-making process. The proposed model contributes to the instrumental rationality of discretionary decision-making and follows the commitment to a democratic government. By providing the participation platform via the Internet, officials, citizens, and affected parties can put forward discussions and argumentations relevant to the cases, which is an effective way to enforce caution on the decision-maker and reflect more on the issue. The experiment and evaluation of the CICO prototype in a real digital government setting is proved that majority of citizens are convinced of the good governance outcomes from an administrative discretionary decision-making.

The future research whenever undertaken needs to focus on a largescale citizen participation in public policy and discretionary decision-making.

Designing research on a web forum as simple as web-board or e-mail but containing structured entries as a tool for a government policy maker are also a challenging issue for a future research.

About the authors: Wanchai Varavithya and Vatcharaporn Esichaikul are associated with School of Engineering and Technology, Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand

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NEWS REVIEW

MIDDLE EAST

integrated services portals in other countries of the world. Saudi Arabia has also been lauded for taking bold eGovernment initiatives of late.

UNDESA report ranks e-Governance readiness SAR3bn allocated for e-Government program in the Gulf at 50% in Saudi Arabia A recent index compiled in a report by the United Nations Department of Economic & Social Affairs (UNDESA) has ranked e-Governance readiness in the Gulf region at approximately 50%. In terms of e-government readiness, the UNDESA report “Global e-Government Readiness Report 2005: From eGovernment to e-Inclusion” has ranked the UAE at number one in the GCC region while simultaneously placing it at the 42nd rank in the world. Significantly, the UAE has moved up 18 places from 2004, when it was in the 60th rank in the world. The report has also pointed out the positive movement several GCC countries have made on the e-Government front. Kuwait has moved to 75th rank from number 100 in 2004, while Qatar has moved to 62nd

Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah ibn Abdul Aziz has allocated S A R 3 b n (US$799mn) for the eGovernment program for the first five years.

The e-Government program would include 150 main services and more than 1,000 subsidiary services by 40 government agencies. Instructing all government officials and agencies to work for realising the vision of electronic governance and making it a success, King Abdullah said, “The e-Government program would help the public receive distinguished government services through secure electronic means from anywhere and at any time.”

Cyber law coming soon in Bahrain

rank from 80th during the period. In 2005, Saudi Arabia has also moved to 80th rank in global position from the 90th place in 2004. However, Bahrain’s global position has been affected, and it has slipped seven places, from 46th rank in 2004 to 53rd in 2005. In GCC countries, it occupies 2nd place only after UAE. The UNDESA report said that UAE has largely succeeded owing to its revamped national portal, which integrates easily locatable information and services through a single gateway. The report praised Qatar for improvement of online service delivery, while terming its eGovernment portal as an example of regional best practice when compared to 18

The Kingdom of Bahrain is contemplating to bring in vogue a cyber law intended to protect web users from hackers who create viruses, steal vital information and pose a threat to the economy. The move comes in the wake of a prior warning by a computer security expert that Bahrain’s businesses and private Internet users may possibly lose their vital data unless strict cyber legislation was effectively in place soon.

Shaikh Ahmed bin Ateyatalla Al Khalifa, Central Informatics Organisation (CIO) acting president, said, “We have created a cyber law for the Internet, computers and so on, and have covered everything in it — viruses and hacking. This is the most important thing because with eGovernment everything now is done electronically so this is essential for the

success of our government. Everybody wants it and with Bahrain as a financial and commercial centre this is one of the most important laws that has to be on the ground.”

By 2008, ‘Government of Excellence’ in UAE Sultan Al Mansouri, UAE Minister of Governmental Sector Development, has indicated that a radical project intended at transforming the UAE’s federal ministries into a ‘Government of Excellence’ would be shortly launched.

The 3-phase plan, which is to be effected in two years, is akin to similar projects implemented in many developed countries. Al Mansouri said, “Two years from now our Government of Excellence will be functioning. The two main features are to have a transparent programme of performance in every transaction and building the e-Government and linking departments.”

CIPS conference highlights e-Procurement in ME The growing adoption of e-Sourcing and e-Procurement in the Middle East has been appropriately highlighted at the inaugural Charted Institute of Purchasing Supply (CIPS) conference held in Dubai recently. The conference witnessed the participation of delegates from across the Middle East and Africa, wherein eProcurement service providers such as Tejari, Ariba, Quadrem and EOS Technologies also participated.

Addressing the audience, Omar Hijazi, CEO of Tejari, said, “One of the main advantages of e-Procurement is its ability www.egovonline.net |

NEWS REVIEW

to facilitate good governance through greater efficiency and transparency. There is a lot of mistrust of the Internet, mistrust of technology in the region. We have to emphasise that this platform will save you money, save you time, and allow you to move on to more important strategic tasks. Market forces are changing to make this an ideal time for adoption of e-Procurement.”

Affairs, has said that it is necessary that Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries cooperate among themselves in the field of e-Governments. Praising the role of Kuwait in the implementation of its e-Government, Al Mubarak said, “GCC countries should coordinate among each other to benefit from

New e-Government initiative by Dubai Municipality As part of its e-Government initiative to provide the public with visual information products and services including images and videos, Dubai Municipality has unveiled a new electronic service through its official portal www.dm.gov.ae.

Dubai Municipality has entered into a partnership with Photint Technology, and would brand and market the rollout program and deliverables as ‘Oyoon’.

Abdullah Al Shaibani, Assistant Director General of Dubai Municipality, said, “The new venture is a natural and logical

the expertise of developed countries and consultative firms. GCC governments should also benefit from the Malaysian and Singaporean expertise in the field of electronic governments since they (e-Governments) are highly important in the Gulf to improve performance and facilitate processes for all sides.”

UN honour for Dubai Municipality

extension of e-Government services and its purpose is to introduce and provide state-of-the-art visual information products and services.”

‘e-Governments’ cooperation between GCC countries necessary’ Dr. Maasouma Al Mubarak, Kuwaiti Minister of Planning and Minister of State for Administrative Development | June 2006

The United Nations 2006 public services award has been bestowed on the Dubai Municipality in the area of e-Government — the application of information technology and telecommunications in the government sector. As such, Dubai has become the first Arab city to be decorated with such an honour.

Meanwhile, Bruno Fererra, Bero Vertas Quality International Company has awarded the Electronic Services Department of Dubai Police with the ISO 2000:9001 certificate thus making it the first department specialised in information technology to get ISO in the Middle East. Colonel Ahmad Hamdan Bin Dalmook, Director of the electronic services department of Dubai Police, received the certificate.

Oman’s digital society initiative ‘eOman’ takes shape Sultanate of Oman’s tryst with the digital era has begun in all earnest with the unveiling of a countrywide e-Government awareness campaign ‘eOman’ at Muscat’s Al Bustan Palace Hotel recently amid the presence of Maqbool bin Ali Sultan, Commerce and Industry Minister, besides royal family members, ministers, heads of diplomatic missions, IT heads and professionals etc. The initiative, which is described as the laying down of an “effective government-community-citizen infrastructure”, is being spearheaded by the National Economy Ministry’s Information Technology Technical Secretariat (ITTS). A website www.itec. gov.om was also launched on the occasion.

Addressing the gathering, Mohammed bin Nasser Al Khusaibi Secretary-General of the National Economy Ministry and Chairman of the Information Technology Executive Committee, said, “eOman will offer every citizen, business and government entity in Oman a wide variety of convenient, cost-effective and customer-oriented electronic services that will empower and transform life for the better.”

Other e-Government initiatives in Oman that are being implemented includes the development of the government electronic services gateway — the ‘Ubar’ portal, expected to be functional by the end of 2006. Besides, several other schemes like the National Registry System, Smart ID cards for citizens and residents, one-stop-shop for businessmen, an enhanced commercial registration system, ‘BankNet’ for electronic fund transfer and automated clearing systems.

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COVER FEATURE

e-DEMOCRACY

eDemocracy in Egypt

Developing secure e-Voting system Mohamed Aborizka, Ahmed Shedeed and Sherif Saad

N

owadays, one of the most important government services such as elections has become a severe pressure on people (candidates and voters) involved in the process due to several constraints. Voting is an efficient method for the public to express their opinion about a given topic or issue.

In other words, voting is the key to democracy. The traditional election is normally held under the supervision of the government, which ensures the right administration of acknowledged electoral practices, and also that only eligible voters are permitted to join the election process avoiding any kind of forgery and the attempts of bogus voting. One of the most famous violations of any government is vote buying, which is too difficult to control. In addition, the process of human supervision over the election process requires a lot of efforts and money in order to achieve the desired level of privacy, security and trust. Moreover, when the election process is completed, another problem that surfaces is of vote checking and counting. These require great efforts that are supposed to be exerted by humans and no single mistake is accepted during this process. This phase of the election is considered as a time consuming process and its accuracy is always mistrusted.

These drawbacks enforce the people to think about another voting system that could overcome such problems. e-Voting systems seem to be the solution to overcome the weakness in traditional voting systems.

The use of computer networks and modern state-of-the-art cryptography techniques to build e-Voting systems is expected to result in a voting system that would confirm the participation of only those people who have the right to vote, and are able to cast a vote emphasising that every vote cast is counted only once.

In addition, the system can run in unverifiable voting mode (where the voter cannot prove his voting cast), which

20

Spurred by the rapid usage of computers in the internal processes of day-to-day governance, the Egyptian Government is efforting to provide the first package of eDemocracy services by developing an electronic voting system, and give the much-needed fillip to e-Government in the country

prevents the voters from selling their votes to candidate. An ideal e-Voting system should allow the voting process to be available on a public communication channel such as the Internet that will encourage more voters to cast their vote remotely and increase voter participation with the help of Internet voting that can be done on workdays too. Even citizens aboard can cast their votes. In general, e-Voting system can replace the obsolete traditional voting system by providing a suite of features including the privacy of the voter, the fraud detection and prevention, the security of the voting process, the ability of remote voting, and the guarantee of a fair election process. e-

Voting is supposed to deliver many requirements that are needed to achieve the e-Voting system applicable over the traditional voting system. e-Voting must be easy for the beneficiaries (candidates and voters) to follow without recognising any change in the traditional system saving much time and cost. e-Voting must deliver a very high degree of security such as privacy, integrity besides accuracy to avoid the same problems faced by traditional voting by rooting them out completely. e-Voting promises to achieve the required level of security so as to be applicable to be used for holding election processes saving human effort, cost, and of course time. www.egovonline.net |

COVER FEATURE

e-Voting scheme components Our online voting scheme consists of several internal and external components that interact together through the different stages of the election process (registration/ identification, votes casting, and votes counting) to provide a robust e-Voting system. Internal components (Registration Server, Privacy Server, Voting Server, and Counting Server) are those special purpose components, which we design especially to support our eVoting system, while the external components (e-Token, Certificate

Proposed e-Voting system

Authority) are the components that already exist in our e-Government system and will interact with the internal components to complete our proposed system.

Internal Components include Registration Server (RS), Privacy Server (PS), Voting Server (VS), and Votes Counting Server (VCS). Registration Server is responsible for monitoring and controlling the first stage of the election process, which will be the registration and identification stage. The registration server allows only eligible persons to participate in the election process. Any person can participate in the election process by providing his identification data to the registration server. The registration server will be responsible to confirm the correctness of the identification data, and use it to check if the person is eligible to participate in the election according to the rules of the election authority. These rules could be | June 2006

some restrictions, for example the age of the person, etc. Usually different kinds of elections (local people’s council elections, president elections, etc) will have its private rules and restrictions. If the person is eligible to participate in the election the registration server will generate an electronic voting certificate to that person and send it to the person. This voting certificate will allow its holder to cast his vote, and he will use it to prove that he is an eligible voter. The registration server records the identification data of the voter and his voting certificate.

Privacy Server plays a principle role in the election process by allowing eligible voters to create an anonymous identity (anonymous voter ID) for themselves so that they can freely cast their votes.

The privacy server authenticate the voter identity by confirming his election certificate, and if the voter holds a valid election certificate the privacy server will accept and validate the anonymous identity generated by the voter himself. After the privacy server validates the anonymous identity of the voter, the voter can easily use it to cast his vote with a high level of privacy and guarantee that it is impossible for any other party to trace his vote or figure his identity.

Voting Server is responsible for the second stage of the election process. The voting server manages the vote casting stage. It receives the voters’ anonymous ID validated from the privacy server, and use it to authenticate the legality of voter, but not the voter identity, which means that the voting server can only check if the voter has the right to cast a vote or not, but it will be never able to figure the real identity of the voter who cast the vote in the time of the voting or after the end of the voting session. The voting server also keeps tracking the voting process to ensure that each eligible voter will vote only once.

Votes Counting Server is responsible

e-DEMOCRACY

for the last and final stage of the election process, which is votes counting (also known as election post). The counting server collects the voting ballots, counts the votes, and finally declares the election result.

External components include e-Token and Certificate Authority (CA). e-Token is a national public key infrastructure (National PKI) based on smart card and USB technologies. e-Token includes a full suite of security and authentication methods. Voters will use e-Token for authentication purpose in the registration stage and also to store their election certificate, and to execute other security and cryptology computing required by the e-Voting system. The use of e-Token provides a high level of security, and introduces a new feature, which is the mobility of the scheme that allows voters to cast their vote from any place and on any computer (it slides into a common USB port). Certificate Authority is responsible to confirm the person identification data received by the RS in the registration and identification stage, and to provide personal information about the voter where the RS can use this information to take a decision about the state of the voter whether he/she is eligible or not.

e-Voting scheme interactions Different components in the scheme are interacting together in order to provide a secure modern e-Voting system that satisfies the needs of the public and democracy. The scenario of these interactions runs through three main stages — registration/identification, votes casting, and votes counting.

In the Registration and Identification stage, normally the election committee would start the election process by defining the time interval for the registration phase, and start accepting people to register and participate in the election. Each person wishing to participate in the election must hold a national digital certificate assigned by the Certificate Authority and stored on his eToken (smart USB token). A person will need to register himself in the election process on the Registration Server. The registration phase can be summarised in the following steps: A person sends his 21

COVER FEATURE

public key (the public key of his digital certificate stored on e-Token) to the registration server (RS); the RS authenticate that the person who send this public key is the real owner of the key by using challenge/response message (if the sender of the key fail to pass the challenge/ response message test, or his public key was found in the ineligible list the registration session will be ended, otherwise the session will continue to the next step). The RS contacts the CA to request the persons’ credentials; the CA replies the RS with the voters’ credentials; the RS review and check the current rules of the election process to figure weather the person is an eligible and can become a voter or not (if the person is not an eligible voter the RS end the session and records this person in the Ineligible list).

The RS issues the voter a valid election certificate and records the voter as eligible registered voter in the registered list; the RS sends the voter his/her certificate (the most important information in the election certificate are the certificate serial number, unique pair of public/private keys, digital stamp of the current election, and the public key of the election committee); and, the person who becomes an eligible registered voter will store the received election certificate on his e-Token.

The beginning of the voting stage is directly after the end of the registration and identification stage. The most important process in the voting stage is the generation of the voters’ anonymous ID, which allows him/her to cast his/her vote in untraceable voting system, while at the same time the voting system guarantees that a voter can cast his/her vote only once. The voting phase continues after the registration and identification phase in the following steps: The voter using his e-Token security suite and some data found in his/her stored election certificate to generate a unique identification number, a simple process to generate this number is by encrypting the digital stamp of the election certificate by the voter private key and hashing the result with one way hash function (the digital stamp is a public information stored in each election certificate generate by the RS); the voter uses blind signature to blind his unique identification number and, sign the output 22

with the private key of his election certificate; the voter encrypts the output of the preview step by the public key of the election committee, and sends it to the privacy server (the voter uses his election certificate to authenticate his identity to the PS); the PS decrypts the received message using the election committee private key and blindly signs the voters’ unique identification number using the election committee private key; the PS then encrypts the signed voter’s unique identification number by the voter’s election certificate public key; the PS sends the encrypted signed unique identification number to the voter, and records the voter as authentic voter so he/she can’t request another blind signature; the voter receives the blindly signed unique identification number and decrypts it using his private key and reverse the blinding signature to obtain his signed unique identification number, which he will use as his anonymous ID (now we can see that the voter hold an authentic an valid ID from the PS and in the same time no one can link his real identity to this ID); the voter contacts the voting sever, and authenticate him/herself by his/her anonymous ID; the VS check if the received anonymous ID is a valid ID, by decrypts it using the election committee private key, and if the voter is an eligible voter the VS allows him to cast his vote; and, finally the VS record the anonymous ID as a voted voter (so at most a voter can vote only once). The privacy server ensures that a voter can only get a blindly signed ID only once, and the voting server ensures that blindly signed ID can cast a vote only once.

Directly after the end of the voting stage, all the cast votes on VS in transferred through a secure communication channel to the votes counting server that will start decrypt the votes and counts the votes for the subject of the elections (candidates, proposed government law etc.), and tally the result of the election for the public.

Scheme implementation issues The current implemented version of our secure e-Voting scheme is a prototype which is implemented by the Java technology including JDK 1.4 with Java

e-DEMOCRACY

Cryptography Architecture (JCA) and Java Cryptology Extension (JCE) libraries to support required encryption/ decryption and other security required to the e-Voting system, and Java cards to support smart card cryptology algorithms.

The current version has the following limitations. First, the system uses only the following algorithms. For symmetric key encryption, we use advanced encryption standard (AES) with 128 bit key size and a modified version of AES for smart card, and the RSA for digital signature purpose, and MD5 as hashing algorithm, and D as Chum blind signature algorithm. The time performance of the system was however not taken into account. Finally, the proposed system does not cover the issue of bribe and coercion.

Conclusion e-Voting systems received a great interest in the last few years as a normal result of the huge growth in electronic and digital communications. An ideal e-Voting scheme must at least meet four main characteristics —security, privacy, accuracy and mobility. The time performance of the system is also an important issue. The system should be able to serve any number of voters connected to the system in concurrent sessions with reasonable processing time for each user. In fact, there is an intrinsic need to develop a secure, anonymous, democracy, and mobility eVoting system that could be considered as an ideal e-Voting system. Further, the success of the e-Voting system also depends on the need to work on the security suite of the system that includes different algorithms and protocols for making it more flexible. Besides, the system be modified in such a way as to provide an accepted solution to bribe and coercion problem. Finally, a real time and practical testing outside the lap for the released version of the system to report the performance and reliability of the system, would determine the success of the e-Voting system.

About the authors: Mohamed Aborizka, Ahmed Shedeed and Sherif Saad are associated with Arab Academy for Science and Technology, Heliopolis, Cairo, Egypt

www.egovonline.net |

NEWS REVIEW

Geo-Informatics

Indian Army to use Google Earth for tracking militants

controversy in 2005 when it laid bare vital installations like army bases and government buildings like Rashtrapati Bhawan thus exposing their vulnerability and making them easy targets for terrorists groups in India.

Nationwide bus tracking via satellite in Ireland

The Indian Army has decided to subscribe to Google Earth and make extensive use of the satellite imagery for operations against insurgents in the hilly terrain and in the semi-urban areas in the Northeast states of India. The Google Earth would enable the army to use its high-resolution satellite photographs and maps allowing it to operate smoothly and effectively.

The Telegraph quoted a top army official as saying that the army would acquire a paid account in Google Earth to gain access to ‘extra information’ over what is available free on the website. Currently, there are two paid versions — Google Earth Plus and Google Earth Pro — available for subscription. However, at the same time the army official also quipped that Google pictures might not be able to pinpoint the exact location of the militant hideouts since a majority of them a located deep inside the forests of the Northeast states such as Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram and Assam. But the relief would be that the satellite pictures would be able to pick out the green cover and the terrain clearly, enabling the army to plan much better. This would be akin to flying physically over the area, instead of depending on two dimensional contour or relief maps. The move is expected to help both the armies from India and Myanmar. Presently, the Myanmar army is acting against Indian rebels operating from its soil.

It may be remembered that the newly launched Google Earth had raised a | June 2006

A EUR4.2mn (US$5.36mn) investment in satellite navigation technology is being made by Bus Éireann across its entire fleet in Ireland for enabling customers to access arrivals information in real time on a range of platforms including the web, text message and directly at bus stations.

Ireland is now claiming itself to have become the first country where a global positioning system (GPS) on a nationwide basis has been rolled out by a bus operator. Such systems are normally available in individual cities.

Siemens Ireland has been awarded the contract to install onboard equipment besides providing the necessary technical infrastructure for the Bus Éireann depots.

Every bus in the fleet will be fitted with a specially designed computer capable of establishing its exact location using satellite technology. This computer will also hold the bus timetable as well as the exact location of all Bus Éireann stops.

The system would communicate with the bus ticket machine to establish the route and direction in which it is travelling and would use this, the timetable and its current position to calculate the exact time it would take to travel to the next stop. This data will then be transferred via a mobile link to a central computer which in turn will distribute it to the website, to mobile phones and electronic display signs at bus stations. Forty eight million passengers avail of Bus Éireann’s services annually.

Now, GIS mapping to detect power theft Geographic Information Systems (GIS) mapping, smart meters and separate feeders for farmers across the country is likely to be introduced by the Indian

government to check pilferage and to aggregate technical and commercial losses of power. According to a Planning Commission official, the 11 th Plan approach paper has appreciated the Gujarat model and suggested its replication for the entire country by introducing GIS mapping to specifically find out the flow of electricity.

The official said, “AT&C losses are to the tune of at least Rs 30,000 crore per year.

Actual losses could be even higher. In some cities of Gujarat, through GIS mapping they have been able to track which customer is connected to which pole. This can be replicated in other places and we will know exactly where the power is flowing.”

Multipurpose database mapping project for Ghana’s Jasikan A multipurpose database mapping and monitoring project would be implemented

by Ghana’s Jasikan district to facilitate planning and providing information about its infrastructure, resources and economic viability. Brainchild of the Centre for Remote Censoring and Geographic Information Services (CRCGIS), University of Ghana, Legon, the project would harmonise and establish mapping and monitoring system for development activities in Ghana.

Dr Emmanuel Amamoo-Otchere, the Executive Director of CRCGIS, said, “The one-stop database would include information on first and second cycle schools, health facilities and water and sanitation. It will also include feeder roads, community based development projects, population and improved data on 2000 population census and all its ramification and social facilities.”

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e-Governance in India: Vision 2010 www.egovonline.net/egovindia

23-25 August 2006, Hotel Taj Palace, New Delhi Key topics of the sessions Introduction As the Indian economy is booming and is being predicted to be going stronger in future, it has become absolutely essential for our government to be effective, transparent and accountable in order to increase India's overall competitiveness internationally. Good governance is imperative for a developing country to be progressive and e-Government support good governance. Though India is trying to catch-up with the developed nations, there are issues like corruption, lack of infrastructure, which are hampering its growth. e-Government could play a very important role to battle all these problems and thus lead to enhanced country's global competitiveness.

ICT in public sector can not only improve productivity potential but also address some of the root causes for corruption. To ensure that diverse ICT capabilities are effectively harnessed, there is a need to establish coherent strategies at the national and regional levels.

About egov India 2006

Important Dates We are accepting papers for presentation on the topics related to e-Governance.

Abstract Submission: June 30, 2006 Acceptance Notification: July 05, 2006 Full Paper Submission: July 25, 2006 Final Confirmation: July 31, 2006

'egov India 2006' aims to focus mainly on how IT in public sector could be an instrument to increase India's competitiveness for fostering a leadership economy. It will address other important e-Governance issues reflecting present situation and future aspirations. It would also provide a platform to hear case studies and debate on the realities and strategies of e-Governance in India.

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Reviewing National e-Governance Plan where are we?

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Right to Information in India

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Secure e-Government laws, regulations and security policies

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Rural Connectivity - telecommunication, kiosks and rural networks

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Sectoral initiatives - Banking, Agriculture, Health

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Case Studies from different States and departments

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Innovations and Technologies

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e-Services - Policies and Strategies

Exhibition egov India 2006 will have an exhibition of latest e-solutions, services, initiatives and case studies from across Asia and beyond. Professional service providers, IT vendors, consulting firms, government agencies and national/international development organisations involved in the e-Government domain are encouraged to participate in the exhibition.

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IN FOCUS

‘Re-engineer, modernise Government processes before computerisation’ “e-Governance is more about opportunity for administrative reforms than just electronics, IT and infrastructure. If we miss this opportunity to reengineer government processes before computerisation, the cost will be enormous. The game plan is to leave behind the legacy of the British raj, which has been perfected by the Indian bureaucracy, with a plethora of new layers and silos, each working within departmental boundaries and pet-priorities,” said Sam Pitroda, Head of the National Knowledge Commission (NKC), while releasing the recommendations on eGovernance efforts at the central and state levels at the end of a 3-day brainstorming session held from May 5-7 at Bangalore.

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fter a series of discussions and reviews of various eGovernance efforts at the Centre and State levels, the National Knowledge Commission (NKC) formed a special group, under the chairmanship of Nandan Nilekani, to study eGovernance. The report of this group was discussed at the Planning Commission and presented to the Minister for communications and information technology and the Minister’s staff. Thereafter, several discussions were held with other stakeholders including the Administrative Reform Commission.

Based on these discussions we are convinced that e-Governance is more about an opportunity for administrative reforms than merely about electronics and information technology and infrastructure. We are pleased to submit our recommendations on e-Governance which broadly relate to Processes and Standards, Infrastructure and Organisation as follows: 1. Government process reengineering before any computerisation – At present the e-Governance efforts are primarily based on computerizing age-old processes left behind by British Raj and compounded by a plethora of new layers and silos by Indian bureaucracy, each working within departmental boundaries and pet-priorities. As a result we are computerising cumbersome processes and hence not commensurately benefiting from it. Simply digitising the existing government processes merely adds an additional layer of expense, complexity, delay and confusion.

In our judgment, now is a unique opportunity in the history of India to leave behind the British Raj and re-engineer and modernise Government processes to build a new India of the 21st century. Hence it is essential that we first redesign the government processes keeping the citizen at the centre, providing hassle-free enablement of citizens, businesses, producers and consumers, replacing the old mistrust and control regime from the British Raj. This redesigning of government processes will drastically reduce the numbers and duration of successive steps required to obtain services.

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It will also provide traceable records; enable enforcement of individual performance, accountability, efficiency, productivity as well as transparency of policies and processes.

10 to 20 Important Processes and Services – To make an immediate impact on citizens it is critical to identify and simplify important processes and services, say 10 to 20 to begin with, which are currently cumbersome, bureaucratic and prone to unnecessary delays and even corruption.

These processes can be simplified and made available as web-based services. Initially, these services could include birth certificate, death certificate, proof of residence, ration/ ID cards, etc. Other processes can be added over a period of time. This approach will require each state to implement these processes in concert and learn from each other.

Common Standards – At present various state governments are doing their own thing to selectively computerise their processes and provide e-Governance. Many of these programmes are vendor driven and not scalable. It is critical to develop and enforce citizen/business entitlement standards uniformly over all states and central ministries and functions, spanning from voting, taxes, certificates, financial products, law-enforcement and welfare for individuals, properties of land, institutions, businesses etc.

These standards should not be hardware-centric and vendor dependent but should enable easy participation by any State, Panchayat Institution, business, NGO or citizen, whenever they decide. These standards, templates and data formats must be designed carefully by teams of experts drawn from government, IT companies, academia, R & D institutions and users/stakeholders who understand latest trends, technology, software, user interfaces and interoperability requirements. We recommend these new standards be followed by all state governments. At the same www.egovonline.net |

IN FOCUS

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time, we are conscious of the need to incorporate some of the standards followed by state governments.

Best Practices and Lessons from the Past – A great deal of work has already been done in various central ministries and in state governments. The key is to learn from these and design best practices that are affordable and applicable nationwide to ensure ease of use and interoperability. We note that the government’s own offices, laboratories, directorates etc., have immense amount of useful and relevant data (e.g. seven centres of the National Bureau of Soil Science and Land Use Planning - NBSSLUP), which needs to be digitised and made publicly accessible for use and analysis. This requires making the data collected by one agency, available across all agencies as well as the public, subject to their sensitivity to national security.

National Infrastructure – It is important to provide nationwide secure broadband infrastructure and associated hardware, software and hosting facilities with easy access at all levels. This infrastructure should be based on userpays principle and Public-Private partnership in investments and mutual accountability and efficiency. This infrastructure creation should be led by the central government to enforce a high level of security, uniformity and standards at every interface, regardless of state language, culture, legacy and financial health.

Web-based Services – To enforce standards and to keep the governance uniformly responsive and transparent, it is recommended that state governments use templates created by the central government to offer localised data and services in Indian languages. In this model, the private sector can invest in creation of access-infrastructure and building relevant business models for user-fee collection and its sharing across all stakeholders, to ensure sustainability and adaptation for future needs. This also implies that all public institutions will make sure that all public data is available on the web.

Open Source Software – Because of the enormous size and scope of the e-Governance effort in India and because of the availability of globally recognised software talent of Indians, we must actively encourage wherever possible open source software implementations and open standards.

This will allow us to have cost-effective solutions and help develop open software products and standards. It will also help improve scaling up as well as minimise delays caused by repeat tendering.

Specialist CITO (Chief Information Technology Officer)– Each state and major central government departments must create an empowered chief information technology officer, with relevant expertise and skills in the domain subject and IT usage. These posts must be filled on open recruitment and draw the best and the brightest from India’s technologically qualified talent. These officers should be paid market salary and have a three-year contract with the government, renewal of which will be dependent on performance.

New National Programmes – As government plans to spend hundreds of thousands of crores on Bharat Nirman, June 2006

rural employment guarantee scheme, urban development initiatives etc., it is recommended that we mandate that each of these programmes begin with well engineered eGovernance implementation and web-interface that ensures speedy delivery, productivity and efficiency. It is recommended to invest 1 to 2 percent of the national program budget in establishing new processes and associated e-Governance infrastructure to improve delivery and reduce leakages.

10. Focused Organisation – For national e-Governance to succeed, it is critical to create an appropriate central organisation with structures that can operate in mission mode, with full autonomy and accountability. It is recommended that we create an organisation with a CEO, with board members drawn from IT industry and government to redesign processes and procedures, to represent multiplicity of stakeholders and diversity in domain expertise, and to drive the National e-Governance Plan with facilitation from the CIT Ministry.

The task of this organisation shall include but not be limited to: a) Administrative reforms related to process re-engineering b) Providing and maintaining common national ICT infrastructure for e-Governance c) Providing leadership and framework for implementation with immediate focus on selected mission mode projects, and d) Providing neutral consulting framework and standards for e-Governance with the help of CITOs We need to re-engineer our processes first, to change our basic governance pattern for simplicity, transparency, productivity and efficiency, select 10 to 20 important services that make a critical difference, offer web-based services, develop common standards and deploy common platform/infrastructure for e-governance to make it citizen-centric.

As a next step we recommend focusing on the organisational issues related to re-engineering government processes with strong committed leadership, autonomy, flexibility, clarity of purpose, predefined deliverables, measurable milestones and periodic monitoring in order to implement national e-Governance programme within 3 to 5 years.

(Source: http://www.knowledgecommission.org/)

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NEWS REVIEW

INDIA India among world’s top 10 with Internet users above 15 A survey by America’s comScore Networks has ranked India at the 10th position behind countries like the US, China, Japan and South Korea with the highest population of Internet users above the age of 15. Currently, India has an online population of 16.713 million users. The survey also pointed out that India’s online population is also higher than countries like Russia, Australia, Spain and Brazil.

Four Asian nations — China, Japan, India and South Korea — together account for nearly 25% of the worldwide online

population, which is about 11% larger than the US having the largest online population of 152 million users. China has been ranked 2nd with a 74.72 million online population. Traffic from Internet cafes and access from mobile phones or PDAs have been excluded in the survey.

It may, however, be noted that Internet penetration in India continues to be the lowest in the world particularly when it has a population of 1.1 billion.

department and IBM has launched Project INVITE (Initiative to Nurture a Vibrant Information Technology Ecosystem), which would engage final year engineering students in government projects. The project, the first of its kind in the state, would enable BE (Bachelor of Engineering) students to help create solutions/ prototypes for local e-Governance needs at various levels.

Students to oversee eGovernment initiatives

K. V. Prahada Rao, Director and IT adviser of BITES, said, “Over 400 students are already working on 24 project scenarios for 22 government departments. Students can even request for a project of their choice. More than 100 faculty members have been trained to help students with the projects. This initiative is primarily aimed at plugging plagiarism in college projects,” and further commented, “In

In an effort to suitably and effectively address e-Governance glitches by several government departments in Karnataka, Engineering students are being roped in to handle e-Governance initiatives in the state. The Board for IT Education Standards (BITES) in association with the IT

In Memoriam Pramod Mahajan October 30, 1949 - May 3, 2006 Rajya Sabha member and BJP General Secretary Pramod Mahajan’s untimely death on May 3 has quite understandably snatched away a prominent member of GenNext who would have steered his party BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) to great heights and proved to be an asset for India as well. Unfortunately, Mahajan’s life was nipped in his prime after a 12-day long battle for life at Mumbai’s P.D. Hinduja hospital when his assassin-brother Pravin Mahajan pumped in 3 bullets from point blank range from his .32 Belgian pistol at Pramod Mahajan’s 2-bedroom Worli apartment on April 22 morning. Fifty six-year-old Mahajan’s liver, pancreas and intestine were extensively damaged in the ghastly attack.

Known as an articulate and dynamic politician, Mahajan rose to dizzy heights from his humble middle-class background through his gift of gab, resourcefulness, organisational and manipulative skills. Born on 30th October 1949 at Mehboobnagar in Andhra Pradesh, Mahajan’s family migrated to Ambejogai in Maharashtra from where he began his career as a teacher in Kholeshwar College. In BJP, Mahajan donned the mantle of being a master strategist, fundraiser and election manager. He was also known for his suave, media friendly and witty attitude.

Mahajan became a cabinet minister in the NDA government led by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee. He held important portfolios like Information and Broadcasting, Communications and Information Technology, and Parliamentary Affairs. He remained Union Cabinet Minister for Communications and Information Technology between 2001 and 2003. During his stint as Communications and Information Technology Minister, Mahajan played a major role in India’s cellular revolution. He was also instrumental in tabling the IT Act 2000. Earlier, Communications and Information Technology were being run under two separate ministries but Mahajan succeeded in getting the two ministries merged and retaining the expanded ministry. It was during his ministership that the Convergence Bill regarding Internet telephony was passed. Pramod Mahajan also strongly advocated government spending in e-Governance and tried to push for a three percent budgetary allocation for e-Governance projects. He was very excited about the future of smart cards that would carry complete information of an individual. With so much to the credit of Mahajan, his tragic demise is extremely unfortunate particularly at a time when India has started its march towards eGovernance in earnest.

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NEWS REVIEW

most colleges, year-end projects are a farce. Anyone can buy them in the open market. There are dubious companies which award projects for a price.

Through INVITE, students and faculty members can work on live projects and not cooked-up ones.”

Maran stresses timebound adoption of e-Governance Marking the completion of two years of the UPA Government, Union Minister of Communications and Information Technology Dayanidhi Maran said that for 2007 his ministry’s priority areas would be Rural Telephony, Telecom and IT manufacturing, e-Governance and Postal sector reforms. Dwelling on the issue of e-Governance, Maran said, “The National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) has just been approved by the Union Cabinet. We will provide full support to other central ministries and state governments to facilitate time-bound and systematic adoption of e-Governance. By 2007, the Department of Information Technology will create a ubiquitous platform for such integrated delivery of e-Government services consisting of State Wide Area Networks, State Data Centres and Call Centres in all states, besides 100,000 Community Service Centres spread over all the 6000 blocks in the country.”

Maran also stated that by 250 million connections would be provided by 2007 and further 500 million connections by 2010. Plans are afoot to cover 85% of the geographical area of the country by mobile telephone by 2007. A Village Public Telephone to all the 41,000 uncovered eligible villages would also be provided by March 2007 under Rural Telephony. Further, to ensure rural connectivity all Secondary and Higher Secondary schools, and public health care centres would be provided broadband coverage by 2007. Besides, all Gram Panchayats would get broadband connectivity by 2010. | June 2006

VAT Portal for Gujarat In an effort to effectively implement VAT (Value Added Tax), the Gujarat government recently launched http:// www.commercialtax.gujarat.gov.in/ vatwebsite/index.jsp. The portal is a dealer-account software (DAS) tool-based portal to simplify the operations. In order to maintain business records and filing of VAT returns, any registered dealer can download the tool, which is available as a freeware. Through this software the dealers would also be able to prepare sales invoices, stock registers and sales purchase registers by themselves. The portal has been designed by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). Besides eliminating double taxation and encouraging self-assessment by the dealers themselves, the portal also provides extensive information on various forms of taxes prevailing in Gujarat.

KMC to retail civic services through e-Seva booths The Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) has decided to retail civic services through a network of e-Seva booths across Kolkata. This is in line with similar services being currently offered by the municipal corporation in Hyderabad. The host of civic services to be offered by the KMC include renewal of trade licence, collection of property tax, distribution of mutation forms and granting permission for water supply connection. Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharyya, KMC Mayor, said, “Our objective is to offer relief to the citizens from the hassles of coming to the KMC headquarters or borough offices to avail of these services. The scheme will also generate self-employment opportunities.”

Recently, a INR100 crore (US$2.19mn) e-Governance program for KMC has been funded by the Department for International Development of the British government. The implementation of the program is underway, and would be finalised by 2008. Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), which is undertaking this project, is also devising an integrated municipal administrative system through a wide-area networking (WAN) and an inter-departmental local area networking (LAN) facilities for the KMC that has over 100 offices spread across Kolkata.

e-Governance gains pace in Manipur The first phase of the installation work of State-wide Area Network (SWAN) is being undertaken in Manipur as part of the countrywide National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) being implemented by the Department of Information Technology (DIT), Government of India. National Informatics Centre (NIC) would be installing SWAN in the state.

Computerisation work in important government departments has also begun.

The successful implementation of NeGP would enable people to download information from the official websites of the concerned departments not only from Community Information Centres (CICs) and cyber cafes but also through the help of mobile phones.

Earlier, a sensitisation workshop for the legislators and bureaucrats was held in December 2005, and was conducted by the Manipur’s Science and Technology Department.

Currently, the NIC is undertaking the networking of all the Heads of Departments. Among other e-Governance initiatives, computerisation of land patta (holdings) of some, which are under Imphal East District, has already been completed. Besides, 33 CICs have also been set up in various block headquarters of the State while six more CICs to be set up in block headquarters include SaituGamphajol, Chakpikarong, Thanlon, Parbung, Saikot and Tuiboung.

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REGION FOCUS JHARKHAND

Jharkhand

Marching towards smart Governance Shahid Ahmad

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harkhand, formerly a part of the State of Bihar, was formed on 15 th November 2000 with Ranchi as its capital. Jharkhand is one of the richest states in mines and minerals in India.

With the formation of the State, NIC (National Informatics Centre) Jharkhand State Centre also came into existence in the year 2000 which ever since has been providing valuable ICT support to the government departments at various levels in coordination with the Department of Information Technology, Government of Jharkhand. The State is in the throes of achieving many feats in the field of e-Governance.

Network infrastructure Network Infrastructure is the backbone for all IT enabled services. NIC Jharkhand took up the challenge to connect 12 administrative buildings of the secretariat including the 2 main buildings – Project Building and Nepal House. A Campus Area Network of more than 500 nodes with its hub centre at Nepal House has been established to provide Intranet and Internet connectivity to the State Administration through NICET. The hub centre is equipped with high-end Routers, managed switches, Antivirus servers, Firewall, NMS etc to provide a secure connectivity. The government is already on the verge of commissioning a very ambitious SWAN (State Wide Area Network) Project – JHARNET– extending the connectivity further to all the districts, blocks and panchayats.

Video conferencing In November 2001 four Commissionaries of Jharkhand got connected through Video Conferencing (VC). The initiative of NIC Jharkhand to bridge the digital-divide 30

The State of Jharkhand, which came into existence on 15th November 2000, is moving towards the adoption of e-Government at a fast pace. Jharkhand is on the verge of commissioning the ambitious JHARNET project that would extend the connectivity further to all its panchayats, blocks and districts bore fruit when the then PM of India A. B. Vajpayee inaugurated the ‘Sarvasiksha Abhiyan’ and interacted with the villagers of a remote Koinjhari village through Video Conferencing. Subsequently, the VC facility was extended to the Governor, Chief Minister, Ministers in the State Cabinet, senior bureaucrats, district officials, and is currently under installation at the Jharkhand Bhawan, New Delhi. The Chief Minister now regularly interacts with the remote villagers through his office VC or Mobile VC facility.

Web services By developing the websites of various departments, the Government has tried to Some of the developed websites are as follows: http://jharkhand.nic.in - The official website of Govt. of Jharkhand; http://jharkhandhighcourt.nic.in - The official web site of Jharkhand High court is very popular for cause list generation; http://jharkhandcomtax.nic.in - the official site for the Department of Commercial Taxes; http://cipranchi.nic.in Central Institute of Psychiatry started its Electronics patient care through this website; http://sisiranchi.nic.in The official web site for Small Industries Service Institute Ranchi; http://kvsurda. nic.in/ - the official web site for the All India Soil & Land Use Survey, Ranchi, etc.

Besides, almost all the districts of Jharkhand have a website furnishing

details of the districts. The websites are available at http://districts.nic.in. Results of various examinations conducted by Jharkhand Academic Council and Central Institute of Psychiatry are published on the Internet by NIC, Jharkhand. In some cases, the admit cards are also made available on the web.

Patient registration and enquiry In an attempt to extend the benefits of ITES (Information Technology Enabled Services) in the health sector, a single window system for registration and enquiry of patients was developed and implemented at the Mahatma Gandhi Medical College, Jamshedpur, in August 2003. The features of the software include outdoors patient registration, indoor patient registration, enquiry on indoor patient and generation of discharge certificate for indoor patient.

Treasury computerisation Treasury Computerisation in Jharkhand started in 2005. A LAN based solution has been designed and developed on a 2-tier architecture (VB/Oracle 9i on Linux server) incorporating a tight role based security for different types of users. The application has automated all the major processes of the treasury functions and authentication procedures. While transactions through Bank have been made online using Dial up connectivity www.egovonline.net |

REGION FOCUS JHARKHAND

or LAN. The application has helped in timely generation of accounts, reduced paper work and removal of offline entry of vouchers. The system also facilitates GPF accounting and is fully operational at 17 locations and will soon be extended to all treasuries and sub-treasuries of the state. A centralised web based interface (http://jhr.nic.in/treasury) has been implemented to monitor the daily transactions being made in the districts through user-id/password authentication mechanism. The State government officials are extensively using this interface for monitoring the financial health of the state.

offices. The Registration of vehicle, Tax realisation, Issue of Permits and Vehicle fitness details are done through VAHAN software whereas SARATHI is used for issuing Driving License, Conductor’s License and License to Driving School.

In six districts, namely Dhanbad, Ranchi, Hazaribagh, Jamshedpur, Bokaro and Koderma, the Registration Certificate Book and Driving License are being issued in smart card medium. Efforts are being made to extend this facility to all the 18 DTOs by the end of this financial year.

For VAHAN software, Jharkhand has won Silver Icon award at the 9th National Conference on e-Governance under Service Delivery category.

GPF computerisation The Directorate and all the District GPF (General Provident Fund) offices are computerised for maintaining the subscribers details, their contri-butions, advances and refunds and generates the necessary accounts and reports as and when required. A web interface has also been developed for the subscribers of the Directorate.

Transport computerisation NIC, Jharkhand, in coordination with the State government has successfully implemented VAHAN and SARATHI software in all the 18 District Transport Office (DTO), 4 Regional Transport Authority and State Transport Authority

Land records information system A Unicode-based application software has been developed in VB.Net on MS SQLSERVER for the Land Record Computerisation in the State. The pilot implementation is being carried out in East Singhbhum district to maintain the information regarding the KHATIYAN and REGISTER-II in digital format. Once the pilot is successful the application can be rolled out in the entire state.

Budget preparation for the State Government NIC has been providing necessary support for the computerisation and preparation of the State Budget every

year. The Budget is also uploaded on the state website and a budget CD is released.

Election support system NIC provides active support to the State Government during the Parliament and Legislative Assembly elections. This includes management of entire range of pre-poll and post-poll activities, data transmission, website management etc. An application software has been developed to take care of activities such as personnel deployment in booths, management of booth information, support in counting processes etc.

Prison management system The Birsa Munda Central Jail, Ranchi, has been computerised on the pattern of the Tihar Jail on a pilot basis. The system maintains a comprehensive database about the prisoners, their photographs and biometrics, physical locations, their movements, medical history, actions taken by the court, and crimes committed by them etc. The visitors’ information and monitoring is also done through the system. ISDN based Video Conferencing facility has been set up between the Birsa Munda Central Jail and the civil court, Ranchi, for the hearing of the cases without physically moving the prisoners.

On an average 50 cases are attended daily using the VC facility. Another 16 pairs of Civil Courts and Central jails are being taken up in the current financial year.

Computerisation of High and Civil courts Jharkhand High court computerisation has been a major achievement of NIC, Jharkhand. The court information system maintains the status of cases right from its filing and generates the cause lists on Daily and Monthly basis which is uploaded on the court website. The system also maintains the judgment of the cases for future references, and the litigants can enquire their case status through the IVRS facility.

Besides, the Ranchi civil court has been taken up as the pilot site for the city civil court computerisation project. A state-of-art LAN has been established covering 50 courts and offices in different buildings in the campus. The software for maintaining the case details, judgment |June 2006

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REGION FOCUS JHARKHAND

orders and cause list generation has already been made operational.

Appointment management system An Appointment Management System has been implemented for the Governor and the Chief Minister of Jharkhand. The system maintains and manages the appointments and engagements and prepares the daily schedules resolving the time conflicts. The system operates on authority based security model.

NIC is also extending full support for computerisation of Raj Bhawan and CM Secretariat. A technical expert has been posted at both the locations to support their computerisation activities and a UTP/Fiber based Campus Area Network is in place to cater to the connectivity requirements.

Public grievances monitoring system The pilot implementation of the PGMS is being carried out at the district of Palamu.

The system captures the grievances from the point it is lodged till the time it is redressed. The application is used for monitoring of pendencies and helps in early redressal of grievances.

Human resource management system (e-Personnel) e-Personnel is a web-based system that maintains the details of government officials posted in the department. The MIS supports generation of different reports based on the requirement. Pilot implementation is underway at the district of Dhanbad and some of the Secretariat departments including Industry.

DM’s court monitoring system A web-based application has been designed for monitoring the cases in District Magistrate (DM)’s court. The application allows the DM to enter the next hearing date right from the courtroom without intervention of any other staff.

The application generates date wise cause list and has been implemented in Dumka district on a pilot basis

Online project monitoring The project, “e-Vikas”, is an application meant for district level heads like DC, DDC, 32

BDOs and others who can monitor the status of schemes/projects being implemented under them. The highlight of this application is that State level officials can also monitor the individual projects.

This is a web-based application using Unicode. The individual schemes/ projects can be monitored up to the village, panchayat, block and district level.

This has been implemented at the district of Lohardagga on a pilot basis.

Further, the 22 district centres of NIC are broadly contributing in area like DRDA, Scheme Monitoring, Arms Licensing, Education, Health, Revenue, Recruitment and Transfer Processes, Welfare, Old Age Pension Scheme, Court Cases Monitoring, Internet and Email support through local RAS, Training etc.

Online passport The PCIS (Passport Control and Issuance System) package has been implemented at Regional Passport Office, Ranchi, since April 2003. The entire process starting from receiving application to printing and dispatching of Passport is now online. A Computer generated file number is given to applicant during submission of application for future enquiry over telephone or through passport website (http://www.passport.nic.in). Modules covered under this include complete computerisation of applications, fees, CID reports handling, loss case entry, report generation, passport booklet and number allotment and system administration, Passport Index Retrieval System, Prior Approval Category System, and Passport Printing.

In addition to this the District Administration, Jamshedpur (East Singhbhum), launched a site (http:// jamshedpur.nic.in/login.asp) where the applicants applying for passport in District Passport Cell can view the status of verification being done by the S.P. and CID office. The verification details can be viewed using the receipt no. allotted by the District Passport Cell.

FCI-Integrated information system for foodgrain management (Central Project) It is a web-based Integrated Management Information System for FCI (Food Corporation of India) which captures the

complete workflow of FCI from Depot to head office levels and extends a new way of reconciliation of stock figures thereby transforming the current depot set up into a computerised environment. NIC is supporting the computerisation activities at both the District Centres of Ranchi and Hazaribagh along with their depots.

Other activities 7th All India School Survey has been completed successfully. Support to AGMARKNET is being provided and the data is being uploaded on regular basis from the districts. It facilitates generation and transmissions of prices and arrivals of information from APMC and web-based disseminations. Farmers Awareness Programs were also organised at Ramgarh, Lohardagga, Hazaribagh etc.

DACNET websites have been developed and maintained. CBSE-AIEEE – On campus online Counselling for fee collection, refund, choice submission, deletion, allotment letter generation and all technical support were provided for counselling centres officials at BIT Mesra, Ranchi.

Upcoming projects Computerisation at RINPAS (Ranchi Institute of Neuro Psychiatry and Allied Sciences) is to be undertaken.

The modules under progress include PIS (Patient Information System), Hospital Inventory Management, Library Computerisation and PIS. CPF Computerisation for the employees under the new pension scheme of Government is being done for the Directorate of GPF. Under Cooperative Bank Computerisation, Ranchi-Khunti CCB and DCB are being taken up on a pilot basis and remaining 7 CCBs and 53 DCBs are planned to be taken up in next phases. In Stamp paper stock Monitoring system for Treasuries, CONFONET (Consumer Forum Network) is under progress; VAT (value Added Tax) Computerisation is to start in April 2006; and CIPA (Common Integrated Police Application) is likely to start soon.

About the author: Shahid Ahmad is the Technical Director, NIC, Jharkhand

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REGION FOCUS JHARKHAND

‘Automated Jharkhand government to be more transparent, responsive’ “Our government has taken the decision that the entire internal functioning of the government has to be automated so that can bring about transparency and responsiveness. We have learnt lessons from the eGovernment projects of other states also. I see a great future in terms of the easy access to technology.

And I see a great future for eGovernance,” says Ram Sewak Sharma, IT Secretary, Jharkhand, in a candid confession to Anuradha Dhar of egov | June 2006

Could you briefly tell us about the major achievements of Jharkhand government in e-Government initiatives?

The strategy that has been followed for e-Government initiatives is how much interface we have in the public. There are some departments that have no interface in the public; there are some, which have. For example, the transport department, registration of documents and commercial taxing department have tremendous public interface. So, basically we are changing those departments that have the maximum public interface. And, we have begun the computerisation and e-Governance there. In that respect, we have already covered 10 departments, which are registration, transport, commercial taxation, municipal corporation, employment exchange, consumer forum, land record computerisation, and so on.

These are some of the departments which we have computerised and which have very good service delivery.

What is the current status of these e-Government projects? Are they already in the implementation stage?

A number of these projects are in the delivery stage, some in the implementation stage, and some in the pilot stage, which are to be replicated quite soon. So they are at various stages of implementation. We have learnt lessons from the e-Government projects of other states also.

Apart from the departments you mentioned earlier, what is the plan of action for other departments?

Our government has taken the decision that the entire internal functioning of the government has to be automated so that

can bring about transparency and responsiveness. For example, the file-tracking system is already being put in place. We are having the land records computerisation, then natural resource information system and GIS is being used in a big way. Each department is being studied and we are trying to find out what are the niche areas where we can computerise. For example, we have taken the public distribution system, the welfare department, scholarship, the integrated child development scheme, the law department, the examination board, the courts at the district level, revenue department, and the gram panchayats [Panchayats are the smallest unit of community-based management of local affairs at the village level].

We have already digitised the entire panchayat maps; we call it e-panchayat application, where one can see the boundary of each panchayat. We are putting in place what are the facilities available at each panchayat in terms of communities, hand pumps, and how many of the hand pumps are functioning and how many are non-functional. We are doing these kinds of information collectively.

We have created Jharkhand as a geo-spatial station. It is fully functional and has very qualified people. They are collecting the data and actually putting them on the GIS. For example, there is cadastral map digitisation taking place. There are number of GIS applications that we have taken up which are indirectly related to e-Governance. For instance, for building the resource map of the state, the underground water utilisation, remote sensing, and so on.

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REGION FOCUS JHARKHAND

What according to you are the key issues that need to be addressed in implementing the e-Government projects?

Putting all the stakeholders, convincing them and actually making them active partners is an issue. For example, the different e-Government initiatives are happening at different departments of the government. But in these departments, the entire hierarchy has to be brought on board and they have to be convinced.

IT department is doing this. We are organising conferences, seminars, and trying to convince the different stakeholders. It is not enough that the Secretary of the department is convinced, what is required is that the hierarchy down to the lower level is convinced. For example, in a telemedicine project unless the health department and the various functionaries at various levels get motivated, you cannot really make it happen.

Finance and political support is not an issue. Politicians are keen into the applications of IT for delivering better governance. There are no major issues.

Of course, there is the issue of process change. Process change is a huge task.

What we are tempted to do is that whatever we do manually, we want to translate that into computers. eGovernance is not translation, it is transformation. We need to transform the processes. People are generally not willing to do this, they feel that the previous processes are time-tested and therefore, we should not fiddle with them. Again, attitude of the government employees are a big stumbling block. When I said that we have to convince people, this is part of attitude building.

What is the allocated budget for e-Governance in the State of Jharkhand?

The allocated budget is INR500mn (US$11.18mn) this year and next year it is going to be INR17.5bn (US$3.91bn).

It began 2-3 years back by INR140mn (US$3.12mn), then it was INR380mn (US$8.48mn), this year it is INR500mn (US$11.15mn), so it is progressively increasing. Money is not at all an issue. And we are on the right path, hopefully.

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How are you engaging in the private-public partnership? Are you satisfied with the performance of your partners?

I would say that we have had not many experiences of private-public partnership. We are right now in the process of doing it.

How do you see India as a whole in their performance in eGovernance compared to other Asian countries?

I think we have a baggage of colonial administrative system, so that is coming in the way. But I am very sure and very optimistic about the way things have changed, the way administrators have realised about reforming the governance and basically going to the cost of delivery. I see a great future in terms of the easy access to technology.

There is no reason why we should not be much more efficient in terms of delivery of the government services.

Development of the private sector is also acting as a pressure for the government to perform better because now there is competition. And I see a great future for e-Governance.

Are you creating the e-Government roadmap for Jharkhand?

Yes, we are doing that. We already have engaged consultants for that.

They have prepared a draft, which is under discussion and finalisation.

We expect this to be final by the end of this month. Because the basic preliminary work is done by them, they have collected inputs from all the departments.

How do you see your State performing in comparison with the other States?

Many States are doing very good work in e-Governance. No doubt about it.

Each State has its own peculiarity. India is a very vast and diverse country.

You cannot really compare one State with the other.

You are undertaking so many initiatives. How are these initiatives helping the government?

Lets talk about the computerisation of treasuries. This will basically enable us to get the accounts of expenditure or other accounts instantaneously. So now I know my account position on the daily basis.

So when I have to draw an overdraft from the Reserve Bank of India on which I have to pay some interest, I can be a little more careful since I can refer to my expenditures. So in terms of fiscal planning, I can plan better.

What is your approach in capacity building and training?

We are doing capacity building. We are building institutions for the same, like Jharkhand State Educational Centre for the promotion of IT. We are hiring professionals for capacity building.

What about generating public awareness on e-Governance?

Many a times we are not able to publicise what we are doing. So generally, people think that nothing is being done. So we need to make people aware of what we are doing, so that people can ask questions and people can demand services from the government. This is necessary.

What about SWAN (state-wide area network) in Jharkhand?

In the context of SWAN, we are the first state in the entire country, which has already appointed an operator and consultant. SWAN commenced operations in February this year. So we are way ahead than many states in India. www.egovonline.net |

egov Asia 2006 Highlighting e-Government trends and strategies in Asia

I

n Asia, there is growing recognition that e-Government can lead to reduced levels of corruption, more efficient government, greater citizen access to government services and information, and an improved relationship between government and businesses. While some Asian governments have been quick to embrace e-Government, most are still not fully aware of its potential, and many eGovernment initiatives are constrained by lack of funds, bureaucratic resistance, or lack of political support. Some countries are already topping the international charts of e-Governance; some have just begun their journey, while there are a few others who are yet to step into the eGovernance arena. Despite these challenges, interest in e-Government continues to gain momentum as governments seek to become more economically competitive, and citizens and businesses demand greater accountability and improved access to services and information. egov Asia 2006 conference highlighted e-Government trends and strategies in Asia bringing forth the challenges and opportunities specific to Asian region. Along with exhibition, it was a forum to showcase best practices, innovative technologies and ICT solutions.

The Event The conference was held from 26-28 April 2006 at Bangkok, Thailand. The conference was hosted by Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies (CSDMS), India, in association with Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (MoICT) and Ministry of Education, Royal Thai Government, and co-hosted by Danish Technological Institute. The conference was spread over 3 days with 9 plenary sessions, 6 parallel sessions and 2 workshops. The issues pertaining to multiple aspects of e-Government were | June 2006

deliberated, discussed and debated by the speakers as well as the audience.

The conference was supported by USAID (Indo-USAID Fire (D) Project), UNDP, Asia e-Learning Network, British Council, CompTIA, NOLP-Thailand, CDAC-India, Commission on Higher Education-Thailand, International Academy of CIO-Thailand, NECTEC, EPFL- Switzerland, SIFT, Software ParkThailand, SIPA, Telecentre.org, SEAMEO, and University of Washington. The institutional partners included National University of Singapore, University of Malaya, Universiti Teknologi Mara – Malaysia, and Rangsit University. There was a good participation by private sector companies as sponsors and exhibitors of the conference. These included NIIT, NORHTEC, Brainstream, Gilat, Learnet, IMPACT, NEWGEN, NORTEL, Riverbed, SAP, Sybase and Thai Rural Network (TRN).

Participation The conference saw the participation of more than 450 delegates, representing various key policy makers from government departments, multilateral and bilateral agencies, academic institutions, non-governmental organisations and the IT industry. From the government sector, there was a representation of Permanent Secretary - Thailand, Deputy Permanent Secretary - MoICT Thailand; Director General - MIE Prefecture, Government of Japan; Director - National Compterisation Agency, Korea; IT Secretary and State Secretaries from India.

From the world of academia, the participant institutions were: Mahidol University, Thailand; Manchester University, UK; IIT-Ahmedabad, India; King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi, Thailand; Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia; Sungkyunkwan University, South Korea; Peking University, China; Arab Academy

for Science and Technology, Egypt; Institute of Rural Management, India; Sylhet University, Bangladesh; University of Engineering and Technology, Pakistan; Jadavpur University, India; Al-Barkaat Institute of Management, India; Vivekanand Education Society’s Institute of Technology, India; Forum for Information Technology, Nepal; and University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka.

The delegates from nongovernmental organisations and private companies who participated in the conference as speakers included UNESCO, UNDP-APDIP, UNCRD, Asia Foundation, USAID, Development Gateway, Intel, Nortel Networks, Riverbed Technology, CISCO systems, Sybase, Newgen, NIIT, Wipro, Infotech, Sun Microsystems, Gilat and EPFL.

Proceedings The three-day conference was inaugurated by Suchai Charoenratana, Minister of ICT, Ministry of Information and Communication Technology, Royal Thai Government, Thailand and Chaturon Chaisang, Minister of Education, Ministry of Education, Royal Thai Government, Thailand. It was first time in the history of Thailand that two ministers graced a conference, thus, highlighting the importance accorded to the event and the commitment towards e-Government by the Thailand government.

Speaking on the inauguration of the conference, Dr. Susanne Ornager, UNESCO Adviser for Communication and Information, Bangkok, Thailand, said, “eReadiness in Asia is not simply a matter of the number of computer servers, websites, and mobile phones in the country, but also things such as its citizen’s ability to utilise technology skillfully, the transparency of its business and legal systems, and the extent to which governments encourage the use of digital technologies.”

35

EVENT DIARY

GLIMPSES

36

Minister of ICT and Minister of Education, Royal Thai Government, inaugurating the conference exhibition

Participants attending the inauguration of the conference

Session in progress

Organisers pose for a group photo

Key dignitaries at the exhibition

Exhibition

www.egovonline.net |

EVENT DIARY

From Left to Right: R. Chandrashekhar, Ashis Sanyal, Peter Moore, Dr Yoon Jin Shin, Gianluca Misunaca, SN Tripathy, Dr M P Narayanan, Minister of ICT, Chip Cleary, Dominic Scott

Registration Desk at the conference

UNDP - APDIP workshop in progress

Gala Dinner

People networking during tea

| June 2006

37

EVENT DIARY

Giving the vision statement of the conference R. Chandrashekhar, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Information Technology, India, stressed on ensuring universal service availability. “Leveraged appropriately, e-Governance can trigger a new paradigm of ICT-enabled development,” said Chandrashekhar.

According to him, imaginatively linking the e-Governance agenda with the governance agenda and the development agenda of the country holds the key.

Feedback I think my participation in egov Asia 2006 was a wonderful experience.

I would like to commend the effort of all you in putting up such a nice event and gathering the large number of eminent people under one roof.

NIIT The quality of egov Asia 2006 conference presentations and the attendees were very good. I met with a good number of key players in the ICT sector, both new and those with whom I know. It is a good event to network, to get updated information and intelligence on the markets, development, trend and technologies as well as to develop business connection/opportunities. On the exhibition part, as I know from the Canadian exhibitor, they found the event interesting and also met a number of new customers.

Canadian High Commisssion, Thailand

Key Issues Some of the key issues that emerged from the on various aspects of e-Government are as follows: •

Capacities of e-Leaders in the changing government scenario is to be able to design and steer crosssector partnerships, as well as managing the outsourcing of processes and the deployment of interfaces with the civil-society in a user-centric perspective

•

Procurement policies that limit the available market for ICT solutions subvert sound internationally recognised economic, trade and IPR principles

•

Merit-based policies best serve local citizens and industry enhancing the development of the local economy and exports

•

A sequential implementation of various e-Government services and emergence of single electronic gateway will require corresponding alignment of human inputs with technological and operational configurations

•

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An expanded definition of eGovernance should be adopted that exceeds the traditional view of eGovernment – focusing on improved service delivery and internal reengineering of government – if it is to be used to as a tool for anticorruption initiatives

•

Security is a strategic investment because it protects enterprise assets and revenue stream

•

Cyber city has multiple benefits for e-Government such as increased digital reach, intelligent

•

transportation system, community security, e-Learning, mobile commerce, and so on The new ‘connected government model’ requires the pervasive application of networked ICT. The networked ICT delivers desired results only when deployed with appropriate design principles and underlying architectures

Exhibition and Workshops Through the exhibition, the conference provided an opportunity for updating on new advancements, solutions and services in the field of e-Governance. The event had different exhibitors from the government and industry, who showcased a wide range of products, services and initiatives in the domain of e-Government.

These included Brainstream, GIS Development, IMPACT, Learnet, Ministry of ICT and Ministry of EducationRoyal Thai Government, NECTEC, NEWGEN, NIIT, NORHTEC, NORTEL, SEAMEO, SIPA, SITF, Software Park, Sybase and UNDP. There were two workshops that provided an opportunity for delegates to interact and share with each other their viewpoints and experiences in various

aspects of e-Government. The workshop ‘Public Health Information System: Roadmap for Thailand’, was organised in collaboration with the Thai Health Promotion Foundation. The workshop aimed at creating awareness about the linkages between Public Health Information System and e-Government and its benefits for the masses. The other workshop ‘Open Source versus Open Standards’, organized by National Electronics and Computer Technology Centre (NECTEC) aimed to create understanding about the importance of open standards and to promote the use of open standards in Thailand.

Conclusion The egov Asia 2006 conference truly provided a knowledge-sharing platform and a forum for policymakers, practitioners, industry leaders and academicians of Asia-Pacific nations to carry forward the e-Government vision of the region and consolidate them into actionable program, through collaborative learning and partnerships.

Prachi Shirur

www.egovonline.net |

INDUSTRY PERSPECTIVE

Sun Microsystems

Focusing on open standards and standardisation to drive market

Open Source is a vital part of Sun Microsystems’s strategy.

For Sun, standards and standardisation is an important market development activity.

Sun believes that to standardise is to try for interoperability with standard specifications.

Susy Struble, Corporate Standard Management, Sun Microsystems, US, discusses these and other issues on standards and open source, in a conversation with Ravi Gupta, Editor-in-Chief, egov | June 2006

X How is Sun positioned in relation with others, like the Linux or IBM initiatives?

First of all, I will tell you about what I do. I work in the office of the CTO (Chief Technology Officer), which focuses on research and development that will pave the way for our company and customers success.

We have a very future oriented focus — 3-5 year and often even further. We are not associated with the product lines, but a big part of my work is to go and consult with the different product lines, mainly software, on where they should be investing in IT standards. So, for us, standards and standardisation is an important market development activity.

So, basically, one of the things that we learnt working in the product lines is that it was almost impossible for them to make consistent and intelligent business plans around what types of standards they would need to adopt to survive and thrive in the market. We came to realise that one of the big issues that we were facing, as an industry, is that the global standardisation system is broken. It can no longer be relied upon to deliver interoperable, harmonious standards that are global in scope and free of patents. In most of the standardisation organisations — ISO, ITU, IEC, and so on — the Intellectual Proprietary (IP) policy simply states that if you make a technical contribution, you only have to promise reasonable or non-discriminatory licensing for any patents that are included in that contribution, and that’s all.

The licensing terms of truly open standards must not preclude implementations of that standard under open source licensing terms or have any restrictive licensing terms. Faithful implementations of the standard must interoperate. We believe with open standards you get a large-scale interoperability, innovation, more flexibility, more choice and control, greater access to information, and so on- the more sustainable IT eco-systems.

X Tell us something about Open Document Format (ODF) initiative of Sun? ODF is a fantastic initiative of Sun. ODF allows text, spreadsheet and presentation files to work with one another even if they were created with different vendors’ applications. It improves data interoperability while expanding consumer choice. As long as your application adheres to the ODF standard — which is completely free, and which anyone can get involved in and help create the next version — it will completely interoperate with other ODF compliant applications, even if those applications are web-based, or PDA-based, or from competing vendors.

ODF addresses the concern that as documents and services are migrated from paper to electronic form, governments and other public agencies may not be able to read important documents if they are not all using a common file format. Return on government investment in IT is greatly improved by the ability to reuse information and services based on open standards like ODF. X What brings you to India?

One reason of coming to India is just to understand what do the academics, the businesses and the Government of India think about IT interoperability and 39

INDUSTRY PERSPECTIVE

standardisation, which is important for building of the software industry here in India and also important for consumers to fully benefit from IT. The main reason is to learn and to understand India’s position and understand why they’re not participating much in international IT standards. I’d like to better understand how organisations that pay attention to standards are linked together in India and how they work with the outside world, and I’d like to see if there’s a helpful role Sun could play in helping India to engage in IT standards creation.

X What is your perception regarding why India is not participating much in creating standards? What is that segment that needs to be sensitised for this? Please tell us from your experience of other countries?

Sun Microsystems HQ in the United States

X What has been your China experience?

China has, for some decades, a quite focused effort in building the IT sector. Building up the IT industry has been an economic driver. They do have a better advantage than India as they do have a hungry domestic market for IT. As part of that, some three decades ago, China embarked on some very focused efforts like creating scientific IT parks, focusing on getting the academia to work together to address national economic and technical problems and also involving those people in considering how standards are to be created, how systems are to be put together and integrated. One thing that China really has done well is to tie some of the academic focus with the government projects on system integration and what are the interfaces that should be standardised. China very well understands that standardisation can be the key language in the international trade and relations. They’ve been pretty active in the WTO Technical Barriers to Trade group in raising issues of patents in international standards. We believe that a big reason behind their WAPI introduction was the patent problems they encountered with WIFI.

X India is mostly a user of standards, there is not much product development itself happening. In that scenario, why standardisation is so important?

I would say two things — one, as a user of standards you want to make sure certain of the interoperability Scott G. McNealy, Chairman of the Board quality of what you’re getting, and secondly, the My personal experience is mainly from the United States and cost and consumer choice. If you, being a user, demand that China. And Sun has worked for the past five years in getting vendors sell you products based on open standards, you can China working in international standards. This wasn’t terribly be guaranteed of a few things. First, it’s much more likely that difficult, as the Chinese government has for some time believed there will be a flourishing market of competing products based that IT standards were key to international market engagement. on that standard. If no one controls it and its free, open to all to China certainly has a very different style of government, but all get engaged in and build products too, there will be a lot of governments — including democracies like India — take action products out there, and one is more likely to have the features to help industries they want to nurture and take action to help you need. Competition drives the prices down and innovation consumers. So many of countries do it differently, but I think up. You’ll also be able to switch products without losing success requires focused collaboration between the academia, interoperability, meaning you can choose to use another ODFthe government and the private sector. It requires research on compliant office software product and still read your documents. understanding where India is feeling most pain from a lack of There is a third angle to standards. India needs to have control interoperability. It requires technical training and a belief that to keep the door open, and that’s where things like ODF have such a huge importance. Because, tomorrow let’s say, as part of engaging in IT standards builds business.

Indian standards are probably some of the best in let’s say some international initiatives, a company that owns patents and the electrical goods created, or let’s say the pollution standards technologies for a key but simple word processing technology — the automobile exhaust standards. So all of those are some of suddenly decides to abandon it in its products? Or, makes a the best in the world. When you come down to IT sector, the technical change to it that means you have to buy their new structured approach is not there. However, we see a little activity product in order to read your old documents? You’re stranded. here and there, but we don’t see much of a focus or much You have a dangerous dependency. But if there was an open collaboration between private enterprise, academics and the standard for saving and exchanging word processor documents government. There are single-person or company efforts, the — exactly what ODF is — CDAC or NIC or NIIT could come out bunch of single persons who are trying to push in, or people with a software which can open those documents, can read who have got linkages with the US universities are pushing in. them, and life goes on as normal.

The efforts have started kicking in India. Standardisation is a key component in the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP). X One of the criticisms of open documents is that it is not easy India has the best engineers and some of the highly CMM to implement from a user perspective. How far these are tools qualified equipments. The standardisation industry needs for the common man?

For readers understanding, I want to point out that there is a that input.

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www.egovonline.net |

INDUSTRY PERSPECTIVE

difference between open source and open standards. Open source is about implementations in code; open standards are about the rules that code should follow for interoperability in a particular function. Both are about building community, however, and sharing and participating.

Open standards are not so difficult. If you use the Internet, you are already using the whole slew of open standards.

Think of all the hundreds of tools we have for web authoring, all the choices of email clients we have, some of these are open source and free, some aren’t, but the choices are seemingly limitless... and then think about how little choice we have in office productivity suites. Hopefully ODF can change this.

Remember the effect that truly open standards have on the market — anyone can implement them, so supporting products pop up quickly.

We are not saying you to move from non-open source to open source just because it is fashionable, we are saying that you move because in the long-term perspective it is much more beneficial. In the long term — the strategic, economic benefits as well as human resource benefits are much more with using the open-source. And that is why, in other countries, the government has taken a stand, and is seeing interoperability and the standards that they support as the key for the economic policy.

X What are the key drivers pushing the open-source movement?

I think it is the realisation that IT is really a utility, and it is becoming ubiquitous. In most parts of countries in the world IT

is so integrated into business and more and more into our daily lives. We need to have access to the things that make this all work. We, the consumers, want to be able to look “under the hood”, so to speak; we want control and the ability to make changes, if we so choose. Another angle in the open source movement is that it is backed by the philosophy that we can network together and share information. It is amazing because it was initially against the proprietary systems, and it was to show that there is a way to doing the same thing with a very different model — model of sharing and collaboration.

X Which are the countries in the world where you see the key actions taking place in terms of open standards?

I would say Brazil, East Asia in general, and China. In the US, key actions are taking place in the healthcare IT. In the US, there is appalling lack of harmonisation of IT standards, and agreements upon formats, in the area of health care IT. In Brazil, there is a progressive thinking — IT for the public services through open source. Brazil has a lot of supportive policies to make the software projects interested in interoperability.

Ravi Gupta, Editor, with Susy Struble

We are not saying you to move from non-open source to open source just because it is fashionable, we are saying that you move because in the long-term perspective it is much more beneficial | June 2006

X The open source initiatives — Red Hat, ODF, IBM — are happening in isolation. Can we think of an umbrella under which the initiatives can take place?

I don’t actually believe that the open source initiatives are necessarily taking place in isolation. For Sun’s open source communities, we provide the umbrella, which includes help for the open source Open Office project that supports the ODF standard. ODF itself is managed by the OASIS standards organisation, which is completely open to participation from anyone. What could be helpful is the Indian government giving recommendations on particular “packages” to use, which is what I believe is the intent of the e-Government standards efforts.

The government will come out with a set of recommended IT standards for a particular e-Government function and might also even recommend open source implementations of these standards.

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NEWS REVIEW

WORLD e-Government ratings for US federal agencies drop

The latest round of evaluations by the Bush administration in US has indicated a sharp decline in the e-Government ratings of more than one-third of the federal agencies. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) attributed this to the lack of adequate funding. The traffic-light style President’s Management Agenda scorecard, which ran from January 1 to March 31, reflected the accomplishments for the secondquarter of fiscal 2006. According to the evaluations, the Office of Personnel Management and the departments of Commerce, Defence, Justice and Transportation dropped in e-Government ratings to the failing mark of red. The Environmental Protection Agency, the Housing and Urban Development Department, NASA and the Small Business Administration dropped from green to yellow. However, only the Social Security Administration improved, from yellow to green.

Clay Johnson, OMB’s Deputy Director for Management, said, “This lack of progress highlights the need for agencies and OMB to work more closely with Congress to communicate the benefits and improved service provided by the e-Government initiative’s governmentwide solutions. The administration will continue to reach out to Congress on e-Government and work with them to ensure that e-Government projects are able to provide the greater levels of services demanded by our citizens.”

42

m-Government to help Ireland save US$25.83mn annually A study ‘Mobile Communications in the Irish Public Sector’ carried out by iReach has indicated that the Irish government would be able to save some EUR20mn (US$25.83mn) annually by increasing its use of mobile technologies. “Mobile services not only provide a major opportunity for greater application of eGovernment than traditional computer based technologies but also offer the potential for a significant increase in public sector productivity and job satisfaction,” the study said. The iReach report identified public sector areas such as hospitals where greater adoption of mobile technology would be able to considerably reduce costs and thus increase savings. At present, mobile penetration rate in Ireland is over 100% while the PC penetration level stands at 45% only.

Oisin Byrne, Managing Director of iReach, said, “It may make more sense for the State to begin offering m-Government services rather than continuing to focus on offering services which can only be accessed via the Internet. Accessibility remains the key issue to be resolved in bridging an emerging digital divide.

Mobile technologies will play a key role in addressing this by providing citizens

and businesses with better access to government services.”

Updation sought for Ghana official portal Alphonse Koblavie, Project Manager of the Ghana National Portal, has sought more budgetary allocation to update the official website of the government.

Koblavie lamented that the current technology used by the project was outmoded, and prevented possibilities of expanded programmes such as operating on a Wider Area Network (WAN) and printing of certain information posted on the website.

Addressing a seminar on ‘Promoting eGovernance through National Portals’ Koblavie said, “National Portal needed to be modernised to help to provide timely and current information on all sectors of the country including governance and businesses, so that people could have elaborate and updated information to make informed choices.” The National Portal was established in April 2003 as part of the e-Governance strategy to disseminate public information online.

Personalised websites for Dutch citizens on card The Netherlands government has indicated that Dutch citizens would now get a personalised Internet page for allowing them access to their records at public institutions and also to remind them when to renew important documents. Besides citizens, the companies would also get Internet pages to access their data whenever required.

Significantly, the government aims to reduce its administrative costs.

According to the government, a trial Personal Internet Page (PIP) is expected to start later this year. Through the PIP, the citizens would be reminded when to renew their travel documents or driving license. The status of a building permit may also be accessed. However, it is still unclear as to when the PIP would become fully functional. www.egovonline.net |

Partner

Supported by

LkR;eso t;rs

Organizer

Ministry of Communications & Information Technology Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances & Pension Ministry of Panchayati Raj Govt. of India

www.assocham.org THE WORLD BANK

ASSOCHAM Summit on

14th July, 2006, Hotel Le Meridien, New Delhi OBJECTIVE In order to achieve an overall 10% GDP growth target, e- Governance can play a significant role.

This Summit envisages to showcase the best practices/technologies being followed in the area of e-Governance.

It will provide a forum for discussion on various e-Governance related issues among experts from administration, industry and academia, leading to the formulation of Regional and National e-Governance strategies.

WHO SHOULD ATTEND? • Officials from Government Departments • Secretaries, Information Technology/State Governments • Officers from Municipal & Civil Administration • IT Managers, Ministries/Departments, Central/State Governments • Procurement Officers, Ministeries/Departments • Experts from Industry, Administration & Academia • Information Technology Companies/Vendors • Infrastructure Support Companies • Financial Institutions • Research Institutions • IT Professionals/Consultants • NGOs • IT Students

PARTICIPATION FEE:

Knowledge Partner

Media Partner

Electronic Media Partner

Rs. 1000/- per delegate Partner States: For Partnership/Registration, contact: Ajay Sharma, Deputy Director, Mobile: 9899188488 Email: ajay.sharma@assocham.com, assocham@nic.in Phone: 011-26512477-79, Fax: 011-26512154, 26865830 Website: www.assocham.org

LkR;eso t;rs

GOVT. OF PUNJAB

GOVT. OF UTTARANCHAL

GOVT. OF MADHYA PRADESH

info@nidhiads.com

PROGRAMME HIGHLIGHTS • Change Management Issues in Implementing e-Governance • Panchayati Raj Institutions: Special Challenges • Art of Project Management & e-Governance • e-Governance - What Lies Ahead • Capacity Building in Infrastructure Challenged State • e-Governance in Govt. Procurement • Inter Agency Collaboration for Effective e-Governance • e-Governance in Manufacturing Competencies in Indian Industies • Capacity Building for Nation Wide e-Governance Project • International Best Practices in e-Governance • Financing e-Governance Projects & Sustainability Issues • Building Public-Private Partnership Enhancing • e-Governance : a State Perspective Citizens Partnership in Governance • Backbone of e-Governance Planning & Implementation • National Action Plan on e-Governance of State-wide Network • Recommendations

GOVT. OF GUJARAT

GOVT. OF KERALA

THE ASSOCIATED CHAMBERS OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY OF INDIA

NEWS REVIEW

‘Australia at e-Government practice forefront’: Nairn

administration and in business that uses e-Signatures, and the third step is the creation of software solutions for building the e-Government’s environment.”

Gary Nairn, Australia’s Special Minister of State, while speaking at the e-Gov Forum at CeBIT recently said that Australia is at the forefront of e-Government practice.

Nairn said, “Australia ranked among the top nations for the delivery and implementation of services and programs via the Internet. Some 80% of all tax returns were now submitted online and the number of people using government services online was also on the rise. From the 2004-05 to 2005-06 this figure had grown from 39% to just under half of Australia’s population accessing services such as vehicle registration, family and child benefits. Also, 19% Australians — up from 14% over the same period — now used the Internet for all their dealings with the Federal Government.”

Advertisement campaign for UK eGovernment websites

Nairn’s remark comes after the release of the US$2.7bn Federal Budget for ICT spending over four years. The budget includes allocations of US$375mn for an updated document and records management system for the Department of Immigration and US$57.6mn for the Tourism and Industry Department to expand its www.business.gov.au portal.

Popularity for local Finnish e-Government websites According to a Finland government survey, the most popular amongst eGovernment services are the websites belonging to local authorities. “In the 3month period preceding the survey, 49% of respondents had visited the web pages of their own local authority, and 37% visited the mol.fi service of the Ministry of Labour, which provides information on employment in Finland, job search facilities and details of legal regulations relating to working life. The websites of KELA (social security), the tax authorities and libraries were the most frequently visited sites. Adults in the 25-34 age group were the most active users of eGovernment services, but the largest proportional increase in use over the past 44

2 years was in the 50-79 age group,” the survey pointed out.

Expansion for Electronic Belarus programme Vladimir Goncharenko, Belarusian Minister for Informatisation and Communications, has announced that Electronic Belarus programme would be expanded by 51 new projects thus making it a total of 109. The new projects would see an investment of BYR54bn. In 2002, the State Electronic Belarus programme for 2005-2010 was adopted.

Goncharenko said that BYR16bn would alone be invested into infrastructure and e-Government related projects. The major projects aims at automatisation of the state administration bodies.

‘e-Government to help fight corruption in Bulgaria’ Nikolai Vassilev, Bulgaria’s State Administration Minister, recently addressing the Bulgarian Business Leaders Forum (BBLF) at Sofia, said, “The fast and successful introduction of e-Government is an important step in fighting corruption in state administration. Bulgaria has the political will for the implementation of eGovernment, inseparable part of which is the introduction of e-Payment. What hampers the process are not technical flaws, but poor organization and administration.”

Outlining three main steps necessary for achieving a successful e-Government introduction, Vassilev said, “The first applies to providing a certain number of computers, mainly to smaller municipalities in Bulgaria, to enable their connectivity to the central authorities in the capital. The second step is the accumulation of a “critical mass” of people in state

In order to promote local and central government websites and also show how the public can use those websites to their advantage, the UK government has decided to unleash a new campaign of online and offline coverage starting early May 2006 in an attempt to widen the appeal and reaching out to more of the population. The government’s decision comes close on the heels of a survey that found that more and more people are using the facilities available on local council websites.

The website use increased by 40% in 2005, as per the available statistics contained in a report by the Society of IT Managers (Socitm) — the trade association of local government IT managers. Earlier, in 2004, during a poll conducted for the government’s e-Citizen project 42% people had expressed desire to use online services on council websites provided

they were available and worthy enough.

Consequently, the local authorities engaged in an intensive marketing campaign to promote their websites.

Indicating that local councils’ efforts were successful, the February 2006 survey disclosed that some 11.4 million people — roughly 15% of the population — used local government websites for tasks like reporting neighbourhood nuisances and planning applications. A listing of local councils and their websites outlining the availability of online services can be accessed by the people upon visiting Directgov website. www.egovonline.net |

numbers 80 Farmers Information and Technology Service (FITS) centers in the Philippines will get connected under the ‘K-AgriNet’ programme, which is for the maintenance and updating of databases and knowledge networks etc.

3.7 billion US$ tax cut for depreciation of investments has been announced by the Australian Government in its 11th budget. This would give opportunity to investors for more investment, and to support technology companies.

50%

600,000

is the e-Governance readiness index of UAE according to the United Nations Department of Economic & Social Affairs (UNDESA) e-Governance readiness report. United States is leading the index with 91%.

villages will be connected in India under ‘e-Bharat’ initiative in a bid to bridge digital divide. The initiative is one of the most aggressive and comprehensive e-governance initiatives being planned by any country in the world.

799

million US$ is allocated by Saudi Arabia to set up infrastructure facilities required for providing 150 e-Government services within the next five years. This is aimed at enabling government agencies to use electronic communications to extend their services to the public and private sector.

78%

of the government websites did not deliver online services in their first effort in a three-year project dedicated to eGovernment, according to the Brown University researchers. They studied 1,813 government websites and found that only 2% delivered more than three services and large numbers had no privacy policies.

| June 2006

75

million Americans (37% of the adult population and 61% online Americans) used Internet to get news, discuss candidates in emails, and participate directly in the political process, making Internet as a key force in politics in America in 2004.

Source 80

http://www.sunstar.com.ph/static/dum/2006/05/11/oped/ joy.g..perez. sensitivity.html

3.7

http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/4247/53/

50%

http://www.arabtimesonline.com/arabtimes/kuwait/Viewdet.asp?ID =7801&cat=a

600,000

http://www.siliconindia.com/shownewsdata.asp?newsno= 31795&newscat=Top

799

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1&section=0&article=81913&d =9&m=5&y=2006

78%

http://www.govtech.net/magazine/story.php?id=2842&issue=11:2000

75

http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/150/report_display.asp

45

WHAT’S ON

This section lists upcoming e-Government conferences, exhibitions, and other public events for the benefit of our readers.

6 – 9 June 2006

26 – 28 June 2006

4 – 8 September 2006

4th International Conference on Applied Cryptography and Network Security (ACNS’06) Singapore

International eParticipation and Local Democracy Symposium Budapest Germany

International EGOV conference 2006 Krakow (Poland)

http://acns2006.i2r.a-star.edu.sg

http://www.egovonline.net/events/eventsdetails.asp?EventID=69

12 – 13 June 2006

http://www.uni-koblenz.de/FB4/ Institutes/IWVI/AGVInf/Conferences/ egov2006

6 – 8 September 2006

Local Government Reform: Privatization and Public-Private Collaboration Barcelona Spain http://www.egovonline.net/events/eventsdetails.asp?EventID=76

12 – 14 June 2006 The Internet & Society 2006 The New Forest United Kingdom http://www.wessex.ac.uk/conferences/2006/ itsociety06/

15 – 16 June 2006 The European e-Identity Conference Barcelona Spain http://www.egovonline.net/events/eventsdetails.asp?EventID=70

20 – 21 June 2006 Procurement solutions for the public sector London United Kingdom http://www.procurementsolutions.gov.uk/ page.cfm

26 – 29 June 2006 EEE’06- The 2006 International Conference on e-Business, Enterprise Information Systems, e-Government, and Outsourcing Monte Carlo Resort Las Vegas Nevada, USA http://www.world-academy-of-science.org/ worldcomp06/ws/EEE/index_html

06 July 2006 4th Annual Flexible and Mobile Working in the Public Sector London United Kingdom

International Conference on Mobile Business (ICMB) 2006 Copenhagen Denmark http://www.cbs.dk/forskning_viden/ fakulteter_institutter_centre/institutter/ oekonomi/inf/h_jreboks/arrangementer/ 1151309100_icmb_conference_2006

http://www.egovonline.net/events/eventsdetails.asp?EventID=79

22 September 2006 2nd International Workshop on eGovernment and Data Protection (EG&DP-2006) Varna, Bulgaria www.tu-sofia.bg/saer/

27 – 29 September 2006

http://www.egovonline.net/events/eventsdetails.asp?EventID=66

4th Quality Conference for Public Administrations in EU Tampere, Finland

12 – 13 July 2006

http://www.egovonline.net/events/eventsdetails.asp?EventID=77

The European Conference on IT Management, Leadership and Governance Paris France http://academic-conferences.org/ecmlg/ ecmlg2006/ecmlg06-home.htm

17 – 19 October 2006 e-Government 2006 (South Asia) New Delhi, India http://www.egovworld.org/

6 December 2006 23 – 25 August 2006

26 – 27 June 2006

I-KNOW ’06 - 6th International Conference on Knowledge Management Graz, Austria

Hotel Taj Palace New Delhi India 3 – 5 September 2006 The EURO mGOV 2006 Sussex University, Brighton UK www.icmg.mgovernment.org

2nd Annual Event Information Management in the public sector London http://www.kablenet.com

7 December 2006 eGovernment Conference 2006 Copenhagen, Denmark http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp? containerId=IDC_P11911

Tell us about your event at info@egovonline.net 46

www.egovonline.net |

India 2006

...even sky is not the limit !

23-25 August 2006 Hotel Taj Palace, New Delhi www.csdms.in