Data Centres for the Government: June 2008 Issue

ov Promoting Technology Adoption and Prosperity: Through Public Private Partnerships Microsoft Corporation

State Data Centres: The Critical Infrastructure SDC: The Store House of Information Government of Maharashtra

I SSN 0 9 73-16 1X

VOLUME 4

| ISSUE 6 | JUNE 2008

w w w .e g o v o n lin e. n et

THE E-GOVERNMENT MAGAZINE FOR ASIA & THE MIDDLE EAST

M-CONNECT

TECHNOLOGY INNOVATIONS AND TELECOM SECTOR

INDUSTRY PERSPECTIVE

PROVIDING ROBUST SOLUTIONS FOR THE GOVERNMENT

STATE FOCUS: KERALA

TOWARDS USER FRIENDLY E-GOVERNANCE

COUNTRY FOCUS: PAPUA NEW GUINEA

HARNESSING THE POTENTIAL OF DIGITAL REVOLUTION

IT Leader’s Forum

Data Centres for the Government

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w w w . e g o v o n l i n e . n e t | volume 4 | issue 6 | june 2008

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NEWS BYTES

EXPERT SPEAK

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Promoting Technology Adoption and Prosperity: Through Public Private Partnerships Interview: Bill Gates, Chairman, Microsoft Corporation

COVER INTERVIEW: GOVERNMENT SPEAK

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State Data Centres: The Critical Infrastructure

Interview: S.P. Singh, Senior Director, Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Information and Communication Technology, Government of India

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SDC: The Store House of Information Interview: Dr. Kshatrapati Shivaji, Secretary, Information Technology,

Government of Maharashtra

COVER FEATURE

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Applications of Data Mining in e-Governance STATE FOCUS: KERALA Data Warehouse M.K. Sharma, Senior Lecturer, Department of Computer Science, Amrapali Institute, Haldwani Towards User Friendly e-Governance

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Interview: Dr. Ajay Kumar, IT Secretary, Government of Kerala

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Data Centres: Business Requirements Drive Data Centre Design

Navinder Chauhan, Marketing Manager India, Panduit

COVER INTERVIEW: INDUSTRY SPEAK

MCONNECT

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Technology Innovations and Telecom Sector N.K. Goyal, President, Communications and Manufacturing Association of

India (CMAI)

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Efficient Energy Solutions for a Better Tomorrow

Interview: Deepak Sharma, Country Business Manager, UPS-India & SAARC, Delta Energy

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Expanding Horizons of Mobile Services Interview: Gabriel Solomon, Senior Vice-President, Public Policy, GSM

Association

Systems

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Energy Efficient Green Data Centres

SPECIAL FOCUS: FINANCIAL INCLUSION

Interview: Sandeep Nair, MD, Emerson Network Power (India) Pvt. Ltd.

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IT Led Financial Inclusion India Rajat Tyagi, Tapas Chattopadhyay, Jayalakshmi Subramanian, Infosys

INDUSTRY PERSPECTIVE

Technologies Ltd

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Embracing Virtualisation Technology Interview: Chris Sharp, General Manager, Server Tools, Microsoft APAC

COUNTRY FOCUS: PAPUA NEW GUINEA

Providing Robust Solutions for the Government

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Interview: Anand Ekambaram, Vice President, Public Services, SAP Indian Sub-continent

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News

June 2008

Interview: Patrick O. Tammur, Minister for Communication and Information, Papua New Guinea

EVENT DIARY

MCONNECT

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Harnessing the Potential of Digital Revolution

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The Government Leaders Forum Asia ICT: Accessibility for All

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ov egov is a monthly magazine providing a much needed platform to the voices of various stakeholders in the arena of e-Government, apart from being a repository of valuable information and meaningful discussion on issues of e-Governance in general, and eGovernment in particular -both to the specialist and the generalist.

Contributions to egov magazine should be in the form of articles, case studies, book reviews, event reports and news related to e-Government projects and initiatives, which are of immense value for practitioners, professionals, corporates and academicians.

We would like the contributors to follow these guidelines, while submitting their material for publication.

ARTICLES / CASE STUDIES should not exceed

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AN ABSTRACT of the article/case study not exceeding 200 words should be submitted along with the article/case study.

ALL ARTICLES / CASE STUDIES should provide proper references. Authors should give in writing stating that the work is new and has not been published in any form so far.

BOOK REVIEWS should include details of the book like the title, name of the author(s), publisher, year of publication, price and number of pages and also send the cover photograph of the book in JPEG/TIFF (resolution 300 dpi). Book reviews of books on e-Governance related themes, published from

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ov volume 4 | issue 6 | june 2008 PRESIDENT

Dr. M P Narayanan EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Ravi Gupta

EDITORIAL Data Centres for Government: Infrastructure for Efficient Electronic Delivery of Government Services

GROUP DIRECTORS

Maneesh Prasad Sanjay Kumar ASSISTANT EDITOR

Prachi Shirur RESEARCH A SSOCIATE

L. Chaitanya Kishore Reddy SR. SUB EDITOR

Nilakshi Barooah RESEARCH ASSISTANT

Neha Sabharwal MARKETING

Gautam Navin mobile: +91 9818125257 email: gautam@csdms.in Debabrata Ray mobile: +91 9899650692 email: debabrata@csdms.in SALES EXCUTIVE

Santosh Kumar Gupta mobile: +91 9891192996 email: santosh@egovonline.net SR. GRAPHIC DESIGNER

Bishwajeet Kumar Singh GRAPHIC DESIGNERS

Om Prakash Thakur Chandrakesh Bihari Lal (James) WEB MAINTAINANCE

Zia Salahuddin, Amit Pal Santosh Kumar Singh

A data centre is a facility used to house computer systems and associated components, such as telecommunications and storage systems. It generally includes backup power supplies, data communications connections, environmental controls (e.g., air conditioning, fire suppression), and special security devices. A data centre is needed for better operations and management control and to minimise overall cost of data management, IT management, deployment and other costs. A new global research shows that awareness of data centres is rising. Even in India, the data centre market is poised to explode. As per the security vendor Symantec, the Indian Data Centre market could reach close to USD 200 million by 2009.

Many a state governments in India such as Kerala, have developed data banks, state wide area networks and applications.The interconnectivity of ‘servers’ is an issue, which calls for the establishment of ‘State Data Centres.’ The National Informatics Centre has established VSAT connectivity in all the districts of the country. There are, however, issues of standardisation, inter-operability, security, and ‘propriety vs open source’ etc. All these issues need to be addressed centrally to ensure harmony and synergy in decentralised deployment.

To fulfill this need, the Government of India, as part of its National e-Governance Plan, is setting up large data centres in all the states and union territories which would enable the states and union territories to set up robust, shared and secure infrastructure to host state-level e-Governance applications to deliver Government to Government (G2G), Government to Citizens (G2C) and Government to Business (G2B) services electronically. State Data Centres (SDC) will consolidate services, applications and infrastructure to provide efficient electronic delivery of government services.

SUBSCRIPTIONS & CIRCULATION

Lipika Dutta (+91 9871481708) Manoj Kumar (+91 9210816901) EDITORIAL CORRESPONDENCE

eGov G-4 Sector 39 NOIDA 201301, India tel: +91 120 2502181-85 fax: +91 120 2500060 email: info@egovonline.net 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.

There are several challenges in implementing the SDCs. The states might face challenges such as integrating and migrating the available applications and infrastructure to the SDC. Selection of right skill sets, technology, monitoring, operation/management and conformity to the security and data privacy are also some of the major issues to be addressed. Hopefully, the states will tide over these issues soon. In this edition of the magazine, we have brought forth perspectives about the role of data centres from the government-policy makers and implementors, and IT vendors of power solutions, rack and cabinet solution. We have also covered the interview of the Hon’ble Minister for Communication and Information, Papua New Guinea, who has given an overview of the e-Governance scenario in the country. Hope you would enjoy reading this issue. We look forward to your suggestions.

egov is published by Ravi Gupta on behalf of Elets Technomedia Pvt. Ltd. Printed at R P Printers, G-68, Sector - 6 Noida, U.P. and published from 710 Vasto Mahagun Manor, F-30, Sector - 50 Noida, UP Editor: Ravi Gupta

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June 2008

Ravi Gupta Ravi.Gupta@csdms.in

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EXPERT SPEAK

Promoting Technology Adoption and Prosperity Through Public - Private Partnerships Bill Gates, Chairman, Microsoft Corporation

We live in an era of unprecedented progress and prosperity. Today, about 1 billion people around the globe can expect to live long, productive and comfortable lives made rich by access to incredible amounts of information and new ways to connect with the people they care about.

This is a wonderful accomplishment, and 1 billion is a very large number. But it is a relatively small fraction of the world’s 6.6 billion people. In fact, more than 5 billion people still lack access to the full range of economic and social opportunities that so many of us take for granted.

One of the most important determinants of whether you are part of the 1 billion or the 5 billion is access to the benefits of technology. Those of us with access to the tools of the digital information revolution – PCs, the Internet, productivity software, e-mail – can be full participants in the global knowledge economy. Those without access face difficult hurdles as they strive to gain skills, knowledge, access to decent medical care, and transform their ideas into competitive businesses.

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How important is access to Information Technology? A World Bank report released earlier this year, found a very high correlation between the rate of technology progress and income growth. According to that report, “ Technological progress distinguishes fast-growing developing economies and slow growing ones.” It also distinguishes economies that have made great strides in reducing poverty and those that have been less successful.

Today, thousands of governmental and non governmental organisations worldwide are trying to provide undeserved communities with access to affordable, relevant technology that can play a role in driving sustainable economic growth and development. Their efforts are having a significant positive impact for millions of people.

At Microsoft, we share the belief that Information Technology can have a dramatic positive effect on people’s lives. We also believe that one of the best ways to accelerate the speed of technology adoption is through close partnerships between the public sector and the private sector.

Public-private partnerships make it possible to multiply the impact that a single organisation or company could hope to achieve working alone. These partnerships combine public sector organisation’s knowledge of local communities with private company’s technical expertise and implementation experience. As a result, public-private partnerships can develop and deploy relevant and effective Information Technology solutions that solve specific challenges with much greater speed.

The notion that businesses have a responsibility to promote the public good by supporting the work of non-profit and governmental organisations is not a new one. The late 1940s and early 1950s saw companies such as Ford, Western Electric, and Philip Morris form foundations to manage corporate giving.

But much of this activity centered exclusively on financial support. Today’s approach to public-private partnerships, where the value of corporate involvement lies as much in expertise as it does in monetary support is relatively new, and grows in part out of efforts by a number of United Nations agencies in the late 1990s to look for new ways to work with corporations to help address major global health issues.

The rise of what some people have called ‘strategic corporate philanthropy’ based on public-private partnerships that seek to address areas where social needs overlap with both corporate expertise and business interest is an important step forward. When a company like Microsoft is in a position to provide not just money, but also the expertise and experience to help an organisation use technology to achieve its goals more quickly and more effectively, it can speed the pace and scale of progress.

A great example is a programme run by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) to create a set of global technology competency standards for teachers. The goal is to ensure that teachers have the training and materials to provide students with the technology skills they will need to participate in the global knowledge economy. The programme was created with the involvement of three major corporations: Microsoft, Intel, and Cisco. All 10 }

The rise of what some people have called ‘strategic corporate philanthropy’ based on public-private partnerships that seek to address areas where social needs overlap with both corporate expertise and business interest is an important step forward

three companies are participating because of a shared belief that a technically literate workforce is an essential ingredient for sustainable economic growth.

Across Asia, public-private partnerships are playing an important role in creating new economic opportunities. In South Korea, the Ministry of Information and Communication has worked in close partnership with the private sector for nearly 15 years to build a National Technology Industry.

Today, South Korea is a global leader in Information and Communication Technologies and it is a model for how collaboration between the public and private sectors can serve as a catalyst for creating a vibrant technology industry that provides the foundation for new jobs and significant economic growth.

The ultimate goal is to support the development of local economies that have the infrastructure and skilled work force needed to create sustainable growth. My hope is, that this will help in increasing the number of people who have the tools and knowledge to participate in the digital revolution from 1 billion to 2 billion and beyond. As this happens and more people join the global knowledge economy, they will spur further innovations that address difficult issues faced by so many peoples around the world. This, more than anything, will be the key to creating a world where everyone can expect to lead long, healthy, productive, and fulfilling lives. www.egovonline.net

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COVER INTERVIEW: GOVERNMENT SPEAK

State Data Centres: The Critical Infrastructure

“SDC being a critical infrastructure requiring uptime of the highest order, selection of right technology, monitoring, operation/management and conformance to the security and data privacy will be major issues to be addressed,� says S P Singh, Senior Director, Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Information and Communication Technology. ov

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COVER INTERVIEW

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The State Data Centres (SDC) have been recently approved by the Government of India. What has been the progress made so far?

State Data Centre Scheme was approved by the Government of India on 24th January 2008 for establishing Data Centres across all states and union territories in the country. Since the approval of the Scheme by the government, significant progress has been made. Policy guidelines on State Data Centre Scheme have been circulated to the states, which bring out various issues and the implementation options that can be exercised by the state for the State Data Centre. A panel of consultancy agencies has been created centrally and the consultancy agency has been allocated to the states as per their choice and preference. These agencies have been assisting the states in the Detailed Project Proposals preparation for the SDC. Adopting the centralised approach, the Department of Information Technology (DIT) has prepared template RFP (Request For Proposal) for State Data Centre implementation and circulated to the states, which shall be used by the states and customised as per the states requirements, and finalised.

Further, the consulting agencies would assist the states in bid process management and overall project management upto the stage of successful implementation and operationalisation of the State Data Centre.

State Data Centre Scheme was approved by the Government of India on 24th January 2008 for establishing Data Centres across all states and union territories in the country. Since the approval of the Scheme by the government, signiďŹ cant progress has been made. Policy guidelines on State Data Centre Scheme have been circulated to the states, which bring out various issues and the implementation options that can be exercised by the state for the State Data Centre

How many states have already submitted their detailed project plans (DIP) for implementation of SDCs? DIT has received proposals from 23 states, which were examined by the Empowered Committee and approved during the last financial year i.e., 2007-08 itself, involving a total outlay of over INR 10,000 million.

What is the preferred mode of implementation of SDCs being adopted by the states ? Are they creating their own infrastructure or are they leveraging on physical infrastructure provided by the private players?

Under the SDC scheme, two implementation options have been given. Under Option I, the state sets up, owns and manages operations of SDC for which a composite team of state IT and the National Informatics Centre (NIC) will be formed and through Option II, the state leverages on the capabilities of existing commercial Internet Data Centres (IDCs). All the 23 states approved so far, have opted for Option I, where the physical and IT infrastructure will be with the state.

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How active is the private sector in the operationalisation of SDCs? The IT infrastructure segment is seeing an increased activity in the country. The private sector will play a big role in the overall SDC scheme. There are many blue chip organisations in India providing IT infrastructure management services. By having a defined role for operationalisation of SDC and postimplementation activities, the private players will bring in the best practices accepted and adopted worldwide for the data centre management and operations.

What are some of the difficulties being faced by the states in operationalising the SDCs? How is DIT helping these states in overcoming them?

As the State Data Centre scheme is just at the implementation phase at the state level, it may be possible to indicate the difficulties they are facing in operationalising the SDCs. However, being the core infrastructure pillar for the National e-Governance Plan and having countrywide spread across the states, the latter are likely to face certain challenges in integrating and migrating the available applications and infrastructure to the SDC. SDC being a critical infrastructure requires uptime of the highest order, selection of right technology, monitoring, operation/management and conformity to the security and data privacy will be major issues to be addressed.

There are other challenges such as interoperability, business continuity, disaster recovery, and capacity planning as well as optimal utilisation of resources and the infrastructure.

Some of these issues have been addressed as part of the policy guidelines. Further, the composite team of domain specialists and experts on data centre and the manpower hired/ recruited specifically for the data center shall be in a position to manage these issues technically and professionally in a ssuccessful manner. www.egovonline.net

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COVER INTERVIEW: GOVERNMENT SPEAK

SDC: The Store House of Information “SDC is one of the most sophisticated component of the e-Governance project in India for which experts with specific skill sets such as security, software, hardware are required. Besides these, managing the entire activities of different departments of the government is also crucial,” says Dr. Kshatrapati Shivaji, Secretary IT, Government of Maharashtra Where do you see Maharashtra in its journey towards e-Readiness?

Our basic objective is to enable the government to provide services to the citizen online. Instead of people coming to the government offices the government will go to their regions at any point of time and from anywhere. This way the government will provide online solutions for all the government transactions.

The journey towards e-Readiness has been quite successful.

Few department’s have already been computerised. In local 14 }

bodies such as Birhanmumbai Municipal Corporation, services are being delivered online for about dozen services.

In the sales tax department, the process has started for filing of returns. We are moving forward with e-Payment gateway through treasury and finance departments. Likewise, we are at the final stage of the completion of land records department. All the records have been computerised and now the transactions are also being made available online.

In the second stage, the integration of the land records and registration departments will be completed. Both the www.egovonline.net

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COVER INTERVIEW: GOVERNMENT SPEAK

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departments are now fully computerised. Once the e-Payment gateway transaction portal is established, the services will be provided online.

Please share with us the current status of State Data Centre (SDC) and State Wide Area Network (SWAN) in Maharashtra.

State Data Centre (SDC) is another significant digital governance component for which we have the approval from the Government of India. This will be one of the most advanced data centre. In all probability, by the end of this year SDC project will be completed.

Maharashtra State Wide Area Network (SWAN) is one of the most important projects under the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP). The work order has been given and its implementation has started. It will be implemented

by ITI and SPANCO. More than 90 percent of the sites have already been taken over for the points of presence (POPs) up to taluka headquarters. The project will be operational by the end of this year.

Please share with us the various challenges that you are facing in implementing the SDC in Maharashtra. How do you plan to overcome these challenges?

The SDC is the most important nuclear part of the e-Governance infrastructure which requires professionals with highly specialised and sophisticated skill sets. Within the government, these types of skill sets are not available.

Therefore, there are structural constraints in the government for attracting highly skilled and sophisticated professionals who can cater to these requirements.

We are going ahead with the framework approved under the Capacity Building Scheme. We will be hiring persons (skilled) from the private sector and the market. Through this scheme, we are trying to bring efficient persons on deputation basis from within the government and different private companies.

Nevertheless, the skill set is one of the major challenges for establishing and managing the data centres.

How is your state technically equipped to manage the complexities of SDC? SDC is one of the most sophisticated component of the e-Governance project in India for which experts with specific 16

skill sets such as security, software, hardware are required.

Besides these, managing the entire activities of different departments of the government is also crucial. Therefore, under capacity building scheme we are planning to bring people on deputation from the market or appoint consultants who can provide uninterrupted supply of the required skill sets.

Security of information is a significant aspect of SDC. How is the state of Maharashtra planning to ensure security of information in SDC? We will be hiring highly qualified persons with sophisticated skills for the data centre management in accordance with the Capacity Building Scheme that has been approved by the Government of India recently. We will not compromise on the security of information in the data centre. Government data/information per se may not be a secret. But, if anyone tampers with the data or remove or edit the data, the entire digital governance systems will be seriously affected.

Therefore, we are taking all possible precautions to ensure security through the above mentioned initiatives.

What are the latest projects being undertaken by the IT Department of Maharashtra to promote e-Governance?

Information Technology (IT) Department of Maharashtra has undertaken most of the essential components of the digital governance programme, starting with the networking of all the government offices and departments across the whole state down to the taluka level. Now our focus is on the last mile connectivity through Maharashtra SWAN (MSWAN).

The second most important aspect under this plan is the Common Service Centre (CSC) for which the selection of the Service Centre Agency (SCA) for all the six revenue divisions has been finalised. Letter of Intent (LOI) has been given, Master Service Agreement (MSA) is under finalisation and will be completed shortly.

We are also implementing the SDC project in the state and in addition to this we are also making an attempt for the common payment portal for the whole state to provide a common window of services to the different departments and the citizens. Besides these initiatives all the line departments are also under computerisation starting with the sales tax, land records, registration, treasury and transport. Maharashtra is at the highest level of e-Readiness in the country and we continue to be the leader in the country as far as the IT and eGovernance are concerned and we are also taking up various projects in public distribution system and civil supplies department.

To date, what have been Maharashtra’s key achievement’s in implementing projects related to e-Governance?

The state of Maharashtra has received many awards in the past and in fact we are at an advanced stage in the implementation of e-Governance projects in most of the government departments. The Mantralaya (Secretariat) in Maharashtra is under the Local Area Network (LAN) system and a number of projects and programmes are running under the intranet applications such as the file tracking system referred to as Document Journal Management System. www.egovonline.net

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COVER FEATURE

Applications of Data Mining in e-Governance Data Warehouse Data mining is a broad category of applications and technologies for gathering, storing, analysing and providing access to data to help the decision makers in making decisions.

MK Sharma

The advent of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the recent years has presented an opportunity for the central and state governments to change the way organisations leverage and value their information assets. e-Governance is a new way to govern processes in which ICT can play an active and significant role.

By deploying the latest ICTs, the government departments can not only maximise access to information at the lowest level but also bid farewell to the massive paper trail, often associated with various government agencies. Rather than providing non-detailed information to uninterested constituents, the departments can now direct the right information to the right people at the right time with the use of data warehousing and mining applications. Further, the enterprise-wide information can be an asset to the government as well as to the entire population. This article will help the policy makers in central or state governments to think about the use of data warehouse, using data from e-Governance databases and further how to take decisions (as detailed micro level analysis and decision-making) using a different mining approach.

the data might not be utilised by other departments. This is because the information is stored in different formats, in different platforms and in heterogeneous data base systems.

A look at the information requirements at each level and the information flow across levels shows a pattern. While information that flows from top (fund sanction, allocation

e-GOVERNANCE DATA WAREHOUSE

Data warehouse is a subject-oriented, integrated, time-variant, non-volatile collection of data, cutting across the enterprise.

Until there is a repository of accurate data across the enterprise value chain, application of mining tools to analyse and aid in strategic government decisions is impossible. Currently, in most enterprises, the most difficult and resource consuming stage of development and deployment is data warehouse and mining application development.

At times, government departments might come across shortages of resources in one department and excess of resources in the other. This could be due to non-availability of proper data and facilities to disseminate information. Even if government departments are computerised and networked more for the purpose of Internet usage and mail transfer, the information available in one department, which possess 18 }

and disbursement details) is split up to generate information for lower levels, information that flows from grass root level (such as expenditure details, benefits details, beneficiary details etc.) is consolidated to generate information for higher levels. This pattern makes the entire vertical domain of e-Governance framework, an ideal domain for development of data warehousing and use of data mining applications.

DATA MINING ON e-GOVERNANCE DATA WAREHOUSE

Data mining is a broad category of applications and technologies for gathering, storing, analysing and providing access to data to help the decision makers in making decisions. Typically, any Data Warehouse and Mining (DWM) application includes large data warehouse, decision support systems, query and www.egovonline.net

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reporting, On Line Analytical Process (OLAP), statistical analysis, forecasting and mining (a technology to extract unknown and hidden patterns and knowledge from within the data). DWM, therefore is well suited for e-Governance applications in the G2G (Government to Government) and G2C (Government to Citizen) environment. For effective implementation of a DWM solution, the de facto condition is a solid and reliable data warehouse on available e-Governance data from different sources.

and can lead to an important decision and/or can lead to lot of savings.

KNOWLEDGE DISCOVERY MANAGEMENT

Knowledge Discovery Management (KDM) is the management of information, skill, experience, innovation, and discovering hidden aspects using machine intelligence.

DWM AND e-GOVERNANCE: THE NEED

How to better understand our citizen’s needs How to gain more operational effectiveness How to provide better, faster access to critical data about service status while increasing the value of information for those who make decisions on different levels of the government • Develop project implementation plans on state and national level • Propose extensive and effective databases for the e-Society • Provide extensive data for support of e-Government • Create effective data and system architectures for more goal oriented solutions to transitional problems Going by the e-Governance definition, with the use of DWM technologies, policy makers can get key conclusions from large amount of data that can be a critical component of any e-Governance initiative.

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DIFFERENT DATA MINING APPROACH

Use of Historic Data: The availability of the basic data, right from the point of generation to meet the information needs at all level for all the time is still a problem in most of the government departments. As current e-Governance framework is based on the use of computer technologies like Internet and Intranet that has further enhanced the utility of these databases as the main supportive system for planning and decision-making. There is still a vacuum in the analysis based decision systems. The growth of information technology and its adaptation over the years has been exponential, while at the same time the cost of both hardware and software are decreasing tremendously. New applications in all areas of planning and strategic operation are being developed and used at all levels.

Generally on a day-to-day basis, a large volume of data is generated in order to fulfill various needs of the government.

This data is generally associated with human resources, projects, plans, decisions, reports etc. As a matter of fact officials use to maintain at the most, one year data or up to five years data in the system. As it occupies a lot of space and also tends to take lot of time for retrieval, with the kind of technology used at different levels, it was simply not possible to keep the historic data in the computer. But the historic data, which the officials could not use for various reasons, can play an important role for planning and analysis purpose ov

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Gartner defines KDM as, “the creation, capture, organisation, access and use of knowledge”. It uses many technology categories, almost none of which are exclusive to KDM. KDM is a top down effort (practice) to try to understand and manage knowledge. KDM may use specific practices such as mining, collaboration, content management, e-mail, video conferencing, work place tools, portals and business applications. Knowledge management is the one, which ultimately is to be used for planning and implementation of various government schemes and projects. Managing knowledge involves managing domains of knowledge that are valued for achieving strategic objectives. The very nature of knowledge is that it changes fast and renders information obsolete at a rapid pace. Building knowledge management requires identifying and storing the collected information in an enterprise knowledge repository known as a data warehouse.

BENEFITS OF DATA WAREHOUSE AND MINING FOR BETTER e-GOVERNANCE

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Do not have to deal with heterogeneous and silo systems Dependence on IT staff minimised Can obtain easily decipherable and comprehensive information without the need to use sophisticated tools.

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Can perform extensive analysis of stored data to provide answers to exhaustive queries.

Helps in formulating more effective strategies and policies for citizen facilitation

knowledge bank can be created for the entire e-Governance environment.

REFERENCES BENEFICIARIES OF THE SYSTEM

From a layman’s angle, the DWM technologies are more towards G2G than other forms. All the government plans and decisions can be arrived at, with the help of detailed multidimensional analyses of all the relevant data. In fact, it helps the citizens more than the government. The citizens can have a compact and compiled profile from the government as a web based report and the same can be used wherever the citizen wants.

CONCLUSION

A framework for ‘Data Warehousing and Mining’ in e-Governance is presented in the article. A large number of e-Governance applications are already in operation in most of the states and at the centre. The necessary DWM infrastructure has been created at the head-quarter and sufficient number of officials have been trained on DWM. This is the right time for introducing DWM in the e-Governance arena and to further strengthen the e-Governance system. In order to incorporate the DWM system and implement it, initially one or two sectors may be identified and the DWM system built over it as a proof of concept.

Once the desired results are achieved, the same can be replicated in other sectors of the government. Once the complete system is in place at the national level for use, a

e-Passport to be Introduced in India from June 2008 In an effort to check misuse of passports in the present format, e-Passports carrying biometric information in a chip will be introduced by the Government of India. According to a government order, the e-passports will initially be introduced for diplomats and officials, while it will be made available to common people by May 2009.

Besides having entire personal information, including finger-prints, of the person carrying such passport, it will also help the authorities keep track of the movement of the persons. The decision to issue such passports comes after days of trials by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) and IIT (Kanpur), which had been tasked by the government to work on the project.

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1. Ester M., Wittmann R.: “Incremental Generalization for Mining in a Data Warehousing Environment”, Proc. 6th Int. Conf. on Extending Database Technology, Valencia, Spain, 1998, in: Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 1377, Springer, 1998, pp. 135-152.

2. Fayyad U., Piatetsky-Shapiro G., and Smyth P.: “Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining: Towards a Unifying Framework”, Proc. 2nd Int. Conf. on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining, Portland, OR, 1996, pp. 82-88.

3. Gueting R. H.: “An Introduction to Spatial Database Systems”, The VLDB Journal, Vol. 3, No. 4, October 1994, pp. 357-399.

4. Han J., Cai Y., Cercone N.: “Data-driven Discovery of Quantitative Rules in Relational Databases”, IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering, Vol.5, No. 1, 1993, pp. 29-40.

5. Kaufman L., Rousseeuw P. J.: “Finding Groups in Data: An Introduction to Cluster Analysis”, John Wiley & Sons, 1990.

6. Mumick I. S., Quass D., Mumick B. S.: “Maintenance of Data Cubes and Summary Tables in a Warehouse”, Proc. ACM SIGMOD Int. Conf. on Management of Data, 1997, pp. 100-111.

7. Ng R. T., Han J.: “Efficient and Effective Clustering Methods for Data Mining”, Proc. 20th Int. Conf. on Very Large Data Bases, Santiago, Chile, 1994, pp. 144-155.

MK Sharma is a Senior Lecturer with Department of Computer Science, Amrapali Institute, Haldwani. He did his M.tech and now pursuing his Ph.D. in the area of e-Governance implementation in Uttarakhand. He has authored 6 books and contributed many articles for CSI communication and other journals of computer science.

He can be contacted at sharmamkhld@gmail.com

Bucharest’s Green Signal to e-Payments System of e-payments for the City Council of Bucharest’s Sector 6 to facilitate payment of local administrative charges and taxes has been initiated by the Government of Romania.

This system allows residents of the locality the freedom to pay their taxes online.

Under this system the City Council’s IT system has been integrated with the virtual payment office system which is developed by the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) in the country. As per the MCIT this new integrated system is aimed at making the back-office efficient and improving on the quality of public services.

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COVER INTERVIEW: INDUSTRY SPEAK

Efficient Energy Solutions for a Better Tomorrow www.delta-es.com

“Today, both government and private sector is investing extensively in infrastructure upgradation and new technology implementation. The power situation in the country is still in an ‘improveable’ status and there is an increasing importance of business continuity,” informs Deepak Sharma, Country Business Manager, UPS-India & SAARC, Delta Energy Systems ov

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What is your company’s vision and objective in the power supplies market place?

Delta is a global pioneer and leader in the power supplies industry. We have a whole gamut of products to offer from deskstop and laptop power supplies, switching power supplies to UPS solutions. Since the year 2002, Delta has been world’s largest provider of merchant switching power supplies with market shares of over 50% in the server power market and 35% in the notebook market.

As a global leader in power electronics, Delta’s mission is ‘to provide innovative energyefficient solutions for a better tomorrow.’ As a result of technological advances, Delta has steadily increased the efficiency of power supply products including its UPS solutions and has introduced products with energy-saving features such as electronic ballasts, economy modes in UPS, AC motor drives, renewable energy inverters, and fuel cell components. The 97.5% efficiency of Delta’s photovoltaic inverters, for example, is the highest achieved in its class so far.

Green technologies are growing in importance to the economy and it will be a target technology 21

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for us. Our research and development have an important role to play in addressing them.

What are the specific areas that Delta India would like to focus on?

India is an extremely important market for us with tremendous growth prospects. The technology adoption in terms of the infrastructure is in line with its global counterparts and someways even better. Today, both government and private sector is investing extensively in infrastructure upgradation and new technology implementation. The power situation in the country is still in an ‘improveable’ status and there is an increasing importance of business continuity which means that businesses wish to avoid the high cost of any breakdown in their processes and the resultant loss of productivity. Power back-up systems are highly in demand and the ever-improving after-sales service has helped the sector grow tremendously.

This year we will be focusing strongly on the e-Governance / ICT initiatives such as State Wide Area Networks, State Data Centres and Common Services Centers, which have demonstrated significant success in improving accessibility, cutting down costs, extending help and increased access to un-served groups, reaching out to millions of people.

Our product focus in India is to provide products with better value and performance with high-density and highefficiency UPSs with advanced interfaces, compact product footprint, long backup models, redundancy, scalability and online monitoring systems.

These features are in huge demand across all industry verticals in India. One such product we have launched very recently is the NH series UPS. It has the most advanced Delta patented topology for 3 phase Power Factor Correction (PFC) UPS with parallel control, with one of the highest power efficiencies in the industry.

Delta Group is the world’s largest provider of switching power supplies and brushless fans, as well as a major source for power management solutions. What do you consider to be the growing or emerging opportunities for Delta in the market?

A variety of opportunities are available both in public as well as private sectors. The Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are being increasingly used by the governments to deliver its services at the locations convenient to the citizens. However, the power supply required to run these projects in the rural areas is unstable and often interrupted by load-shedding. Similarly, the private sector competing against its global counterparts demand 100% uptime for its business sustenance.

These factors have prompted the UPS market to grow tremendously in India, which has crossed 20,000 million mark in 2007-08.

We are one of the very few players to have an entire range of online UPS solutions from 1KVA upto high end 4000 KVA ratings to serve all power backup needs. We are growing at a very fast pace and are among the top few players in India in terms of offerings and growth in first three years of our existence in the market. We have developed a very good customer base in India.

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What differentiates Delta power solutions from its competitors?

Apart from having a wide range of power solutions for telecom, datacentres, office, medical, industrial and automotive applications, our solutions are backed by Delta’s global strength in product design, research and development.

We have several global patents for the highest degree of power efficiency and product reliability to our credit. Also, we have the technology leadership through local assembly and customisation capabilities. Our world-wide presence through local platforms, experienced and established network of distributors and service partners locally, gives strength to our nation-wide service and support network.

These factors have prompted to retain our leadership position in power management position world-over.

What is your opinion about the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) of the Government of India?

Now e-Governance has morphed from a catchword to an absolute necessity. In future, states’ efficiency would be measured by the extent of their e-Governance. Since central government also share the expenses for implementing this activity in the states, each of the states have started implementing (or already implemented) the SWAN (State Wide Area Network). By implementing SWAN, one state can provide the connectivity back bone for the state over which voice, Internet, Intranet and video conferencing services can be launched. It is indeed very credible and forward looking approach.

The State Data Centres (SDCs) are an important component of NeGP, which has huge power requirement.

What role Delta India is playing or intends to play in implementation of SDCs? State Data Centres are rated as tier–I in the 3-tier structure and is supposed to have most critical equipments. This calls for power supply in redundant configuration to increase reliability.

Delta, as a specialist in power supply solutions has a complete range of highly efficient UPS systems suitable for these type of mission critical applications. A wide variety of models with various state-of-the-art ‘Delta patented’ technologies are available to choose from for different applications. Delta has already supplied UPS systems for Gujarat SWAN through Wipro Technologies who has implemented WAN for the state. Moreover, in future too, Delta intends to support all large system integrators who are into this business for their requirement of ‘reliable power solutions’ with its range of products and chain of 24 x 7 support facility across the country for prompt and efficient after sales support to make their projects successful.

What are the challenges that your company faces and what kind of strategies are being implemented to overcome these challenges?

The challenge is to provide the desired models at a desired price to the customer, as rising prices of battery is a cause of concern for major UPS manufacturers. To combat this, we are offering our UPS systems at very competitive pricing. www.egovonline.net

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Unlimited opportunities for the ICT community of India!!

4th

29-31 July 2008, Pragati Maidan, New Delhi

Distinguished Speakers

D. Purendeswari Minister of State for Higher Education, MHRD, Govt. of India

Alain Madelin President, Global Digital Solidarity Fund

Prof. M. S. Swaminathan Chairman, MSSRF

Dr. K Kasturirangan MP, Rajya Sabha

Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu MP, Lok Sabha

Dr V S Ramamurthy Chairman, Board of Governers IIT Delhi

R. Chandrashekhar Additional Secretary, Ministry of Communication & IT DIT, Govt. Of India

Subhash C Khuntia Jt. Secretary, Dept. of School Education and Literacy, MHRD Govt. of India

Sanjeev Gupta Joint Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, Govt. of India

N Ravi Shankar, Joint Secretary, E-Learning Group, Ministry of Communications & IT, DIT, Govt. of India

S. Regunathan Advisor National Knowledge Commission

Vivek Bharadwaj Principal Secretary, Dept. of Urban Development and Municipal Affairs, Govt. of West Bengal

Dr Rajashekharan Pillai VC, IGNOU

Deepak Pental VC, Delhi University

Terry Culver Executive Director, Global Nomads Group

Michael Riggs Information Management Specialist, FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific

Oleg Petrov Coordinator e-Development Thematic Group, The World Bank

V. Shunmugam Chief Economist, Multi Commodity Exchange of India Ltd. ...Among many others

eINDIA 2008 Thematic Tracks

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eINDIA 2008 Presented by

Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Communications & IT Government of India

UN Global Alliance for ICT and Development

knowledge for change

REGISTER NOW @ www.eINDIA.net.in For Exhibition or Sponsorship Enquiries: sales@eINDIA.net.in, For Registration Enquiries: registration@eINDIA.net.in Contact: eINDIA2008 Secretariat, G-4, Sector-39, Noida, UP, INDIA Tel: +91-120-2502180-85, Fax: +91-120-2500060, Web: www.eINDIA.net.in

Ministry of Human Resource Development Government of India

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COVER FEATURE

Data Centres Business Requirements Drive Data Centre Design www.panduit.com Navinder Chauhan

Data centre planning is best perceived as a process where the needs of various business units meet. Indeed, it requires the close collaboration of business, IT, and facilities management teams to develop an integrated solution. Understanding some general planning relationships will help you translate business requirements into practical data centre networking solutions.

Business requirements ultimately drive all data centre planning decisions (see Figure 1). On a practical level, these requirements directly impact the a single hardware platform, which makes it much easier to scale out cabinet, row, and room decisions over time. Other managers base their design decisions solely on the business application, which presents more of a challenge in terms of planning for future growth.

The data centre architectures discussed in this article take a modular, platform-based approach and assume that all

maintaining cost-effective network infrastructure solutions for data centres: • Uptime: Uptime is the key metric by which network reliability is measured, and can be defined as the amount of time that users have access to mission-critical business applications. The most common service interruptions to the physical layer result from operational changes.

• Performance: When designing a data centre, network designers must balance today’s known performance requirements with tomorrow’s anticipated user demands.

Bandwidth and distance requirements will continue to vary throughout the data centre, but the need to maximise your network investment will not.

• Security: A key purpose of the data centre is to house mission-critical applications in a reliable, secure environment. Environmental security comes in many forms, from blocking unauthorised access to monitoring system connectivity at the physical layer.

Overall, the more secure your network is, the more reliable it will be.

DESIGNING SCALABILITY INTO THE PHYSICAL LAYER

Figure 1. Business Requirements

compute resources incorporate resilient network, power, and storage resources. This assumption translates to multiple LAN (Local Area Network), SAN (Storage Area Network), and power connections within the physical layer infrastructure.

These assumptions can be scaled up from cabinet to room requirements.

SOME DATA CENTRE ISSUES

The following issues are critical to the process of building and 24 }

When deploying large volumes of servers inside the data centre, it is extremely important that the design footprint is scalable. However, logical architectures vary between each network, and can often be extremely complex to define. The integrated network topologies discussed in this article take a modular, platform-based approach in order to scale up or down, as required within a cabinet or room. It is assumed that all compute resources incorporate resilient network, power, and storage resources. This assumption translates to multiple LAN, SAN, and power connections within the physical layer infrastructure. One way to simplify the design and simultaneously incorporate a scalable layout is to divide the raised floor space into modular, easily duplicated subareas. Figure 2 illustrates the modular building blocks used in order to design scalability into the network architecture at both OSI (open system interconnection) Layers 1 and 2.

The logical architecture is divided into three discrete layers, and the physical infrastructure is designed and divided into manageable sub-areas called ‘Pods’. This example shows a typical data centre with two zones and 20 Pods, distributed throughout the room; core and aggregation layer switches are located in each zone for redundancy, and access layer switches are located in each Pod to support the compute resources within the Pod. www.egovonline.net

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allow for greater densities and performance with higher reliability and redundancy. Figure 4 represents a MOR deployment with multiple Pods being distributed throughout the room

CONSIDERATIONS COMMON TO TOR AND MOR CONFIGURATIONS

Figure 2. Mapping the Logical Architecture to the Cabling Infrastructure

Panduit, a leading, world-class developer and provider of innovative networking and electrical solutions, is focused on providing high-density, flexible physical layer solutions that maximise data centre space utilisation and optimise energy use. The following sections describe cabinet, cooling, and pathway considerations that are common to all logical architectures.

Cabinets

SWITCH ARCHITECTURES

This article describes two types of switching architectures – Top of Rack (TOR), and Middle of Row (MOR) – and reviews the design techniques needed for the successful deployment of these configurations within the integrated physical layer solution.

For determining whether to deploy a TOR or Middle of Row MOR architecture, it is important to understand Figure 3. Logical TOR Network Topology Server the benefits and challenges associated with each: • A TOR design reduces cabling congestion and power footprint, and enables a cost-effective high performance network infrastructure. Some trade-offs include reduced manageability and network scalability for high-density deployments • An MOR deployment leverages chassis-based technology for each row of servers to provide greater throughput, higher densities, and greater scalability throughout the data centre. Large modular chassis such as the Cisco Nexus 7000 Series and Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series

Figure 4. Top View of MOR Configuration

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Cabinets must be specified so that they allow for maximum scalability and flexibility within the data centre. The vertically mounted patch panel within the cabinet provides additional rack units that can be used to install more servers within the 45 rack units available. These vertically mounted panels also provide superior cable management versus traditional TOR horizontal patch panels by moving each network connection closer to the server network interface card, ultimately allowing a shorter patching distance with consistent lengths throughout the cabinet.

Separation is achieved through the use of vertical cable management on both sides of the cabinet frame. The cabinet also allows for both overhead and underfloor cable routing for different data centre applications. Shorter power cords are an option to remove the amount of added cable slack from longer cords that are shipped with server hardware.

Using shorter patch cords and leveraging Panduit vertical cable management integrated into the Net-Access Cabinet alleviates potential airflow issues at the back of each server that could result from poorly managed cabling.

Thermal Management

Data centre power requirements continue to increase at high rates making it difficult to plan appropriately for proper cooling systems needed to support your room. Cabinets play a critical role in managing the high heat loads generated by active equipment. Each cabinet will require different power loads based upon the type of servers being installed as well as the workload being requested of each compute resource. Understanding cabinet level power requirements gives greater visibility into overall room conditions. Panduit Laboratories research into thermal management includes advanced Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis to model optimal airflow patterns and above-floor temperature distributions throughout the data centre. This data is then used to develop rack, cabinet, and cable management systems that efficiently route and organise critical IT infrastructure elements. Panduit Net-Access Cabinets feature large pathways for efficient cable routing and improved airflow while providing open-rack accessibility to manage, protect and showcase cabling and equipment.

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This strategy offers several benefits: The combination of overhead fibre routing system and cabinet routing system ensures physical separation between the copper and fiber cables, as recommended in the TIA-942 data centre standard Overhead pathways such as the Panduit Fiberrunner • Cable Routing System protect fiber optic jumpers, ribbon interconnect cords, and multi-fiber cables in a solid, enclosed channel that provides bend radius control, and the location of the pathway is not disruptive to raised floor cooling • The overall visual effect is organised, sturdy, and impressive

Pathways

The variety and density of data centre cables means that there is no ‘one size fits all’ solution when planning cable pathways.

Designers usually specify a combination of pathway options. Many types and sizes are available for designers to choose from, including wire basket, ladder rack, J-hooks, conduit, solid metal tray, and fiber-optic cable routing systems. Factors such as room height, equipment cable entry holes, rack and cabinet density, and cable types, counts, and diameters also influence pathway decisions. The pathway strategies developed for TOR and MOR architectures all leverage the Fiberrunner Cable Routing System to route horizontal fiber cables, and use the Net-Access Overhead Cable Routing System in conjunction with a wire basket or ladder rack for horizontal copper and backbone fibre cables.

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CONCLUSION

Next-generation data centre hardware such as the Cisco Nexus 7010 switch provides increased network capacity and functionality in the data centre, which in turn is placing greater demands on the cabling infrastructure. This guide describes the ways that Panduit structured cabling solutions map easily to the logical architectures being deployed in today’s high-performance networks to achieve a unified physical layer infrastructure. Network stakeholders can use modular designs for both hardware architectures and cabling layouts to ensure that the system will scale over the life of the data centre to survive multiple equipment refreshes and meet aggressive uptime goals.

Figure 5. PANDUIT Net-AccessCabinet with Cisco Nexus Switch

Navinder Chauhan, Marketing Manager India, Panduit. He may be reached at ind-nsc@panduit.com

Land Revenue Records in Pakistan to be Computerised Soon Rehman Malik, advisor to Prime Minister for Interior while inaugurating ‘e-Sahulat’ project of National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) said “land revenue records all over the country would be computerised to ensure transparency, remove public grievances and to bring the country at par with the systems of developed countries like USA and Japan.”

He said that the computerised data of criminals and health record would also be maintained to overcome flaws of the system. “Government is striving to provide maximum self employment and business opportunities to enterprising youth of the country and projects like ‘e-Sahulat’ will be a big leap forward in this direction. He urged the public and private sector organisations to come up with bright ideas like e-Sahulat by NADRA which would definitely help in eradicating poverty and unemployment from the country which are the root causes of all social evils.

While handing over the licenses to around 1200 franchisees of Lahore, Islamabad and Multan regions for first phase of the project, Rehman Malik said that one of the top priorities of the present democratic government is to facilitate the masses

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using the latest technology. So far 8 million bills, worth PNR 6.7 billion have been submitted under NADRA’s Kiosk project which is a testimony of public confidence in NADRA. The authority has received as many as 4,403 applications across Pakistan and in the first phase 1,200 franchise licenses have been issued. Chairman NADRA said that e-Sahulat scheme provides a single platform for each citizen enabling use of multiple services through CNIC. The biggest advantage of e-Sahulat is its 24/7 availability. Under the scheme, franchises will collect utility bills, dispense pins for scratch cards (mobile phones, calling cards) and will also be able to carry on line verification (VERISYS).

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COVER INTERVIEW: INDUSTRY SPEAK

Energy Efficient Green Data Centres www.emersonnetworkpower.co.in

“Designing of optimal data centres, keeping the power management and cooling in mind is very critical for green data centres.

Whether it is power consumptions, cooling or acquiring space, everything has to be designed and thought of, in order to make data centres more efficient,” says Sandeep Nair, MD, Emerson Network Power (India) Pvt. Ltd., to egov magazine

Data centres are vulnerable to power anomalies that can cause lost packets, switch outages and other persistent problems. What are the Emerson power protection solutions for the data centres?

In today’s 24x7 world of information availability, on-demand services and round-the-clock commerce sites, companies are increasingly adding high-performance servers, storage and other equipments to their data centres to satisfy user and customer demand. As a result, companies find that they ov

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need more and more power to run and cool this equipment.

At the same time, the cost of electricity is on the rise. Many companies are trying to be good corporate citizens by becoming green (or at least greener). The combination of these factors is forcing many IT departments to evaluate their data centre power consumption and find ways to become more energy efficient.

Realising this need to cut cost and save energy, Emerson started propagating the benefits of energy efficient data centres 27

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or ‘green data centres’. These data centres are a repository for the storage, management and dissemination of data in which the mechanical, lighting, electrical and computer systems are designed for maximum energy efficiency and minimum environmental impact. Emerson also pioneered and launched the concept of Adaptive Architecture (called as Liebert Adaptive Architecture) which consists of an array of products and technologies designed to adapt to changes in technology or business environments, while maintaining or improving availability and efficiency. We have been promoting and conveying the benefits of going green to the customer at large through all forms of communications.

Please tell us about your Smart Energy solutions for increasing data centre performance while lowering energy usage.

Designing of optimal data centres, keeping the power management and cooling in mind is very critical for green data centres. Whether it is power consumptions, cooling or acquiring space, everything has to be designed and thought of, in order to make data centers more efficient.

Typical solutions that exist in the market take up too much floor space and consume enormous power. To cope up with the space constraint, Emerson came out with a conceptAdaptive Architecture that provides the flexibility to extend the existing infrastructure investment by handling heat loads of 20kw per rack, requiring less energy for cooling than any other technology and using refrigerant and not water in the controlled space. The solution helps to provide the cooling at the source itself, rather than using extra energy to cool the entire room. All these features make the solution extremely energy efficient.

Using Liebert Adaptive Architecture, businesses can create a dynamic critical infrastructure that supports IT agility and enables operational efficiencies that contribute to business innovation and competitive advantages. With Liebert Adaptive Architecture you can: • Respond to rising energy costs with high-efficiency power and cooling solutions • Remove barriers to new technology deployments imposed by power and cooling limitations • Increase computing capacity without building a new facility • Add redundancy to achieve higher levels of availability without disrupting operations • Add power and cooling capacity without impacting system reliability With solutions that extend from flexible, reliable Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS) to scalable and efficient power distribution systems to intelligent, reconfigurable cooling solutions, Liebert Adaptive Architecture gives you the power to manage changing IT systems and business requirements.

Liebert Adaptive Architecture Solutions include: a. Liebert Cooling Technologies are scalable, efficient and easy-to-reconfigure cooling solutions: The solutions give the power to adapt to increasing densities at the room, zone and rack level.

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b.

Liebert Power Technologies create a foundation for critical systems that can grow and accommodate new applications and technologies without compromising availability.

Liebert UPS technologies are available in a broad range of sizes, allowing them to be sized to the exact needs of the application, while delivering more ways to scale and add redundancy than any other family of UPS products.

These highly reliable solutions are supported by a family of power distribution systems that manage power from the UPS to the rack using a staged approach that delivers the flexibility to easily support changing technology requirements.

With Liebert technology, power management extends all the way to the rack with intelligent power strips that provide visibility and control of in-rack power.

Together, these solutions create a reliable, flexible and efficient system for ensuring continuous, conditioned power to business-critical systems. c. Liebert Monitoring Technologies enable proactive management of critical systems from the data level to the enterprise-wide system. This helps in getting the required information to prevent failure, respond quickly to unexpected events and plan for the future.

Tell us about the PNR 42 rack solution by Emerson.

PNR 42 is a unique floor mounting rack solution for data centres. It is a high quality rack, especially designed for cabling, networking and light server applications.

PNR 42 is a complete sheet steel structure and is designed for easy configuration and mounting flexibilities. The folded sheet steel frame gives it the capability to handle static load of 350 kgs. The top cover design enables effective air management and easy cable entry.

Emerson entered the rack cooling solutions segment last year, post its acquisition of Knurr AG, the global leader in Rack and Enclosure Technologies for IT and telecom vertical.

With the rack-cooling solutions as part of its portfolio, Emerson Network Power now delivers the broadest portfolio of technologies- taking proven cooling technologies from room-level applications and integrating them into the rack.

How big is the Indian data centre rack solution market?

What is your company’s strategy to capture a substantial share of the Indian rack solutions segment?

In 2007, the Indian rack solutions segment was estimated to be around $ 80 millions. It has tremendous potential and Emerson is confident of garnering a substantial market share in coming years. India’s emergence as the back-office hub of the world coupled with the exponential growth of telecom and other segments has driven the need to develop and maintain world-class data centres.

Currently, Emerson has captured 15% of the IT and telecom rack solutions market. Emerson’s high-tech rack solutions offer turnkey solutions to all organisations. We further extend our leadership with the launch of high-tech rack solutions.

To effectively reach its target audience across India, Emerson adopted a unique sales model. In this, apart from selling to prospective customers directly, Emerson also www.egovonline.net

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identified and selected large System Integrators (SIs) who actively supported the sale of rack solutions. Through this model, Emerson leveraged the relationship that these System Integrators shared with the IT managers and educated them on the relevance of ‘Business Critical Continuity’. Emerson also created a special profile for these partners referring to them as ‘Network Solution Partners’ (NSPs) and plans to tap 8-10 NSPs for its rack solutions business.

Who are some of your government sector clients in India?

Which of your power, energy and rack solutions are finding their way in the government?

Today, government is one of the most important verticals that is fuelling the growth of UPS industry, in India. Emerson works with more than 80% of the top 100 organisations in the country. We have stronghold in the government sector and are currently working with a plethora of clients in this space.

In Financial Year 2007, we formed a separate team to service the government sector. This vertical is now a 15 member strong team dedicated to doing business development only in this domain. We are working towards identifying and sourcing major Government Rate Contracts and have already bagged few prestigious projects such as NICSI (National Informatics Centre Services Inc), DGS& D (Directorate General of Supplies and Disposal) etc. This increased headcount has helped us to reach out to the right customer at the right time with right solution and product offerings. We have also received tremendous response from our system integrators who are willingly quoting Emerson in crucial government projects, purely due to the authenticity, reliability and effectiveness of product offerings. Going forward this vertical will be our biggest growth driver. We have been actively participating in government customer focused events/seminar to update them with latest trends in air and power conditioning industry.

Emerson Network Power (India) Pvt. Ltd. has won various awards such as Maharashtra IT Award in IT hardware category, Frost & Sullivan ‘Voice of Customers Awards’ for the Indian UPS Industry. What are some of your company’s future plans in the power solutions space?

The awards that we have won are recognition of our commitment to manufacturing high technology IT products in India. We aim to sustain our leadership and keep introducing newer, innovative technologies in Business Critical Continuity space.

Today, Indian power conditioning market is almost touching INR 20,000 million. The market is getting more sensitive and mature to the evolving needs of the businesses. With India assuming a key role in the Asian economy, businesses have become attuned to the fact that they need to be robust in terms of infrastructure to attract and retain investors. Hence, Business Critical Continuity is being viewed strategically and upcoming businesses are realising the importance of factoring and aligning it as key component in the overall business model.

In last five years, Emerson has moved from being a UPS and Precision AC manufacturer to a ‘Global Leader in enabling Business Critical Continuity Solutions.’ Emerson Network ov

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Power (India) Pvt. Ltd. has grown at a consistent pace, much above the market growth rate. With its foray into the SOHO (Small Office and Home Office) segment, Emerson has become the only vendor in the Indian market to offer complete spectrum of air and power solutions across large Enterprises, SME and SOHO. Today, Emerson is acknowledged as the global leader in enabling Business Critical Continuity by providing bestin-class integrated network uptime solutions. It offers AC power (UPS), connectivity solution, DC power for telecom, embedded power, inbound power, integrated cabinet solutions, outside plant, precision cooling all supported by world-class site monitoring and services.

In the new fiscal, the company plans to focus on upcountry market and indulge in solutions marketing with partners.

The UPS business has been growing tremendously in India and will continue to grow in the coming years. Due to enormous growth in the IT, telecom and BPO sectors, the high-end UPS segment is poised to reap maximum benefit. Given the fact that India has emerged as an outsourcing destination for MNCs, this will fuel the growth of the UPS market with a gradual focus on B and C Class cities. In addition, as the quality of power in these cities is a concern, there is a need for a reliable power protection solution.

Being the leader in its segment, Emerson takes the responsibility of introducing new technologies and products to the market. Investment is an ongoing process and we will keep investing in the Indian market. Some of the key areas of focus are as follows: 1. Engineering resources and technology: Innovation has been our key strength and we have a dedicated team working in the R&D center in India.

2. Marketing (branding and positioning): Emerson has been investing a lot in branding and positioning itself.

Our aggressive marketing strategy supported by a superior product quality and delivery has been our key strength and we are committed to continue investing in this field.

3. Human resource: Backbone of any organisation is its people. Skilled and committed man power is our strength, be it the engineers, marketing and sales force, management and administration team.

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INDUSTRY PERSPECTIVE

Embracing Virtualisation Technology

www.microsoft.com

“We believe that organisations need to embrace virtualisation as part of their dynamic IT strategy to mobilise the resources of the infrastructure to meet dynamic business demands. This can have a profound impact on your entire operations, including faster levels of service, freeing up critical resources to take on bigger challenges, reducing costs and ultimately achieving greater agility�, says Chris Sharp, General Manager, Server and Tools, Microsoft APAC to egov magazine 30 }

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Based on your vast experience, what is the IT development scenario in Asia?

Today’s IT industry in Asia Pacific is exciting and dynamic with many growth opportunities. Public and private organisations in the region are making strong investments in Information and Communication Technology, and IDC estimates that the Asia Pacific region, excluding Japan, will see an increase in ICT spending to US$154 billion in 2008. This represents a ten percent increase over last year. It has also been forecasted that government spending will fuel some of this momentum given the need for digital inclusion and new digital demands from a more savvy population.

At Microsoft, we believe that organisations (in the public or private sectors) need to embrace virtualisation as part of their dynamic IT strategy to mobilise the resources of the infrastructure to meet dynamic business demands. This can have a profound impact on your entire operations, including faster levels of service, freeing up critical resources to take on bigger challenges, reducing costs and ultimately achieving greater agility.

Could you please elaborate upon Microsoft’s virtual server technology and its implementation?

Our core strategy with virtualisation is about enabling it from the desktop to the data centre. This is done with an extensive suite of solutions that address the needs of each virtualisation target. This includes delivering server virtualisation with our flagship Windows Server 2008 operating system and its Hyper-V hypervisor. We are also delivering operating system virtualisation through our existing Virtual Server 2005 and Virtual PC. Application virtualisation comes via the SoftGrid Application Virtualisation. Remote desktop virtualisation is handled by the established Terminal Services as well as via the new Vista Centralised Desktop licensing, which allows users to access virtual desktops running in a remote Microsoft Virtual Server deployment via the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP). It also provides data virtualisation using folder redirection.

In short, the Microsoft suite can handle many of the virtualisation tasks in the data centre including server consolidation, development duties, and accelerated provisioning. Additionally, management of the virtualised datacentre is handled by Microsoft System Centre, an integrated management platform that allows both the physical and virtual environments to be managed from a single interface with extensive integrations into existing environments and platforms.

To date, we have seen more than 250,000 downloads of Windows Server 2008 and IDC estimates that it will be installed on more than 3.5 million servers worldwide by the end of 2008. With approximately 5% of servers currently using virtualisation technology, we believe this represents ov

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a strong growth opportunity for the software industry, offering significant opportunity to help governments reduce costs, make IT more flexible, and enable vendors to offer more services.

What opportunities do you foresee for Microsoft in general, and for the server business in particular under it?

I am confident that the year 2008 will be a significant year for Microsoft and our server business in Asia Pacific.

Asia is one of the fastest-growing regions for Microsoft, and 2008 has been a milestone year for us. In February 2008, Microsoft launched Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008. This was a phenomenal launch with more than 50,000 attendees at events across 18 cities in APAC, 250,000 downloads of Windows Server 2008 for evaluation, more than 20,000 customers and 9000 partners trained and more than 120 community-led events. These new products have strengthened Microsoft’s ability to help business customers and partners save money, optimise their processes, human resources and technology, and position Information Technology as a strategic asset for businesses.

From a momentum perspective, Microsoft also sees organisations embracing virtualisation technology in a big way – this is a key value proposition of Windows Server 2008. In fact, Springboard Research has found that the virtualisation software and services market in Asia Pacific will grow at an estimated CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) of 42% to reach US$1.35 billion by 2010 as CIO interest in the technology has steadily increased. It is also estimated that virtualisation services will grow to US$1 billion by 2010 to form the major portion of this market as organisations will spend 2 to 3 times more on services than on software.

These findings were based on a survey of CIOs from large and mid-sized enterprises in Australia, China, India and Singapore.

What are the operational challenges in implementing government projects in India and the rest of Asia?

The trend is clear: Public and private sector organisations will continue to face more devices, services, changes and demands in their daily work. The challenge is to manage this complexity to achieve agility while keeping costs under control.

At Microsoft, we believe that organisations (in the public or private sectors) need to embrace virtualisation as part of their dynamic IT strategy to mobilise the resources of the infrastructure to meet dynamic business demands. This can have a profound impact on your entire operations, including faster levels of service, freeing up critical resources to take on bigger challenges, reducing costs and ultimately achieving greater agility.

Therefore, we are focused on a range of initiatives to help customers accelerate the adoption of virtualisation to build a dynamic IT environment. By developing a comprehensive approach towards virtualisation, we are working to deliver solutions at the hardware, application and management levels that bring an economical and strategic advantage to government organisations.

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Will our lives get simpler this year?

Find out this July at egovINDIA 2008! egov INDIA2008 provides a platform for all stakeholders, policy makers, practitioners, industry leaders, academicians and architects of e-government projects to discuss the achievements, challenges, and the progress made towards achieving the goals of e-Governance.

Meet the Who’s Who of India’s e-Governance Fraternity!

Key Speakers

R. Chandrashekhar Additional Secretary, Ministry of Communication & IT DIT, Govt. Of India

Oleg Petrov Coordinator e-Development Thematic Group, The World Bank

Ashish Sanyal Sr Director, Ministry of Communication & IT, Govt. of India

S.R. Das Sr. Director, DIT, Govt. of India

Renu Budhiraja e-Governance Project Management Unit, DIT

S.P. Singh Sr. Director, DIT, Govt. of India

Aruna Sundararajan CEO, IL&FS

Shashank Ojha Sr. e-Government Specialist, e-Government Practice – ISG, The World Bank

R. S. Sharma Secretary IT Government of Jharkhand

Amod Kumar Special Secretary, IT, UP Govt

Syedain Abbasi Director, MoCIT Government of India

Vivek Bharadwaj Principal Secretary, Dept. of Urban Development and Municipal Affairs, Govt. of West Bengal

Ajay Kumar IT Secretary, Kerala

Vinnie Mehta Executive Director, MAIT

K Shivaji Secretary, IT, Government of Maharashtra

Key Themes State Data Centre •SWAN •Urban Local Bodies •Infrastructure •Defence •Financial Inclusion •Railway /Transport •National ID •eDistrict •Public Distribution Systems •eProcurement • Data Storage & Management •Standard & Interoperability •Security •Smart Card/ Biometric •Power Solutions

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29-31 July 2008 Pragati Maidan, New Delhi

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INDUSTRY PERSPECTIVE

Providing Robust Solutions for the Government SAP Public Sector Solutions www.sap.com

What are some of the SAP software solutions for the public sector? How are these helping governments to increase transparency and efficiency to reach its citizens?

Designed to help all levels of government to maximise public value, SAP public sector solutions enables governments to optimise limited resources in public administration while delivering responsive front-office services.

SAP solutions help governments leverage their finite time, money, and personnel resources to fulfill mandated programme and service requirements on a timely basis. SAP provides extremely strong solutions for the government which includes treasury management, funds and grants management, tax and revenue management, HR, payroll, pension and provident fund solutions, and specific solutions for railways, ports, aerospace, defence, higher education and healthcare.

The net outcome of an integrated suite offers robust support to improve internal efficiencies as well as bring in transparency and operational agility. With its reliable and proven solutions for citizen portals and interaction centres, SAP ensures a complete and easy to use citizen services delivery.

“SAP solutions help governments leverage their finite time, money, and personnel resources to fulfill mandated programme and service requirements on a timely basis. SAP provides extremely strong solution for the government,”says Anand Ekambaram, Vice President - Public Services, SAP Indian Subcontinent ov

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As SAP is providing solutions to railway enterprises worldwide, what is SAP’s take on the Indian Railways?

Indian Railways has been performing extremely well in the last few years and has been one of the biggest turn around stories for the country. Since last year, great emphasis has been placed on modernisation of IT systems within various areas of railway operations such as production, HR, commercial portal, loco-shed maintenance etc. Infact Indian Railways has been providing substantial budget support for Information and Communication Technology and Enterprise Resource Planning. This also means big potential opportunity for a company like SAP to assist Indian Railways in its on going endeavour by providing best-in-class and the most modern solutions that we have deployed in almost all large railways and railroads companies globally.

Please give us some examples of successful projects undertaken by SAP with the government sector across the globe.

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INDUSTRY PERSPECTIVE

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A successful project can be viewed from 2 aspects. One being from specific verticals within governments and the other from a solution perspective The former includes urban and local bodies/railway and post/defence/state and central government projects – for e.g., Commonwealth of Pennsylvania; the Government of Israel; the Federal Government of Austria; Service New Brunswick, Canada; and the State of Washington Digital Archives, UK Forensic Science Service etc.

The latter includes e-Procurement, tax and revenue management, citizen services, grants and financial management etc. for example – INFONAVIT, Mexico, State of Hesse - Germany, City of Ghent, Belgium , Lisbon Municipal Council, Portugal, Municipio de Medellín-Columbia to name a few.

Some of our Indian customers are as follows: Coal Mines Provident Fund Organisation (CMPFO), Brihanmumbai Electricity Supply, Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM), National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC), Chattisgarh State Electricity Board (CSEB), Steel Authority of India (SAIL), Aurangabad Municipality, Lakshwadeep Development Corporation, Cochin Port Trust, International Institute of Water Management, Jamshedpur Utilities and Services Ltd., Bangalore Development Authority, etc.

We have the breadth and depth of expertise in public sector, having served over 1300 governments globally.

Which are the projects SAP is working currently with the government of India in its implementation of the National e-Government Plan?

We are working across several Mission Mode Projects spanning across central, state and integrated classification under the National e-Governance Plan. Some of these include tax, excise, passport, treasury and commercial taxes, panchayant and municipality, police, Public Works Department (PWD) and irrigation and the e-Procurement department.

What are the challenges and opportunities in working with the public sector in developing countries especially India?

The challenges in working in a developing country like India are three-fold: 1. A long drawn and complex decision making cycle.

2. The bigger battle of changing the mindset of an entire workforce accustomed to handling manual system of work-flow management.

3. And finally, the need to look at pre-packaged software like SAP vs. always building new applications. SAP’s strength is that we make ‘pre-integrated’ software, aimed at the government. Government, predominantly is used to custom build applications. Hence, there is little re-use, and no product roadmap leading to high costs for integration, maintenance, and upgradation.

However, having said that, the seeds of citizen centric services are well sown since the 1990s. Success of e-Governance projects of neighbouring states and initiave undertaken by private players has encouraged several governments to invest in technology. We, at SAP are committed to support and help 34

drive government transformation through high standards, thought leadership and best practices.

SAP solutions are designed to integrate Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) information. Could you please elaborate on the GRC repository application of SAP? Effective Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) processes have become a top priority in the wake of corporate mismanagement, increased emphasis on business process transparency, and concerns about infrastructure security and data privacy. As a result, effective GRC processes are needed to increase stakeholders’ trust and confidence.

The Governance, Risk, and Compliance package from SAP can play a key role in achieving service accountability with citizens and other stakeholders. Through integrated, continuous control monitoring, it can also help reduce the cost and burden of compliance and play an important role in the IT system for government. Our GRC solutions provide strong support in aspects of segregation of duties, delegations of financial powers, access and audit trails compliance reporting; thereby providing much sought after transparency to the government systems. SAP recently announced the results of a year-long ‘public return on investment’ (ROI)initiative, conducted in partnership with the Center for Technology in Government (CTG).

What is this SAP supported ‘Public ROI’ methodology and how is this helping governments go beyond financial measures to prove the value of their IT investments?

Existing methods for ROI assessments for IT projects in the general environment are severely limiting for ROI assessment of government IT projects. With this background, SAP partnered with the Centre for Technology in Government and the Economist to develop, disseminate and use a framework for assessing ROI for government IT projects.

This framework has been named ‘Public ROI’ and brings into focus two distinct but equally important types of public value; the delivery of benefits directly to citizens and enhancing the value of government itself as a public asset.

The frame work presents a comprehensive way of describing public value and includes financial, political, social, strategic, ideological and stewardship impacts of government IT projects. This framework is used to asses the impact of SAP solutions in selected large government IT projects. This is a big differentiator, as it helps the government asses the public value of their IT investments.

How is SAP set to optimise the growing e-Governance market in India?

Government and public service entities in India are revamping their infrastructure and expanding their capabilities to meet the demands of the citizens. To take advantage of this rapidly growing and highly competitive sector, we at SAP have put together a dedicated team, formed with some of the best people in the industry for public services in the Indian subcontinent. We also launched enablement programmes both for the government prospects as well as the partner community so that there are adequate skills in the market to support this very high growth but challenging space. www.egovonline.net

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STATE FOCUS: KERALA

Towards User Friendly e-Governance “The Kerala e-Governance Strategy 2008 is in furtherance of the intentions expressed in the IT Policy 2007 and proposes to provide a more definitive framework for leading Kerala into an era of ICT-enabled citizen friendly efficient and effective governance”, says Dr. Ajay Kumar, IT Secretary, Kerala to egov magazine

Could you tell us about Kerala’s IT mission and how far it has been realised?

The Kerala State IT Mission (KSITM) recognises that the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in the government is inevitable to achieve its goals. ICTs can help improve performance, efficiency, quality of service and can reduce cost, thereby enabling better utilisation of limited resources. In its IT Policy 2007, the Government of India has declared its intention to bring about a user-friendly eGovernment system. The IT Policy also envisages optimum utilisation of resources in the e-Government spectrum.

The Kerala e-Governance Strategy 2008 is in furtherance of the intentions expressed in the IT Policy 2007 and proposes to provide a more definitive framework for leading Kerala into an era of ICT-enabled citizen friendly efficient and effective governance. KSITM is engaged in fulfilling these objectives. ov

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What are the key growth drivers for e-Governance in Kerala?

The key drivers include proactive policy, sound governance system and high awareness levels among the government employees and citizens as consumers of government services.

What are the latest projects being undertaken by the IT department to promote e-Governance in your state?

There are several e-Governance projects which have been initiated during the last one year. Some of these are mentioned below.

New State Data Centre: A new state-of-the-art State Data Centre (SDC) is going to be developed at Technopark for e-Governance purposes. The 5000 sq. ft . SDC would meet the growing data centre needs of various government departments and organisations. The total project cost is 35

STATE FOCUS: KERALA

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INR 556.8 million. The new SDC shall help the government departments and other government organisations to host their services/applications on a common infrastructure, leading to the ease of integration and efficient management, ensuring that computing resources and the support connectivity infrastructure (like KSWAN) is adequately and optimally used. The data centre would provide many functionalities like Central Repository of the databases for the State, Secure Data Storage, Online Delivery of Services, Citizen Information/ Services Portal, State Intranet Portal, Remote Management and Service Integration. e-District Project: e-District for pilot funding under the NeGP scheme for an outlay of INR 5990.1 million. eDistrict programme envisages delivery of several G2C services by the district administration, using Information and Communication Technology. The project is proposed to be implemented in two districts, Kannur and Palakkad during the current year. Subsequently, it will be rolled out in other districts of the state. The services that are proposed to be delivered through ICT with the implementation of this programme include issuance of various certificates, recovery of government dues, activities relating to revenue court cases, RTI and grievance redressal, services relating to social welfare schemes, public distribution system related services. e-Government Procurement: Government of Kerala has embarked on a journey to implement e-Government Procurement in six state government departments with support from Department of Commerce, Government of India, National Institute of Smart Government (NISG) and World Bank. NISG and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) are the consultants for this initiative. The Detailed Project Report at the end of May 2008 and the RFP will be completed at the end of June / July 2008. A common e-Procurement platform will be set up during 2008-09.

Digital Workflow in KSITM (MESSAGE): As an example of modern digital workflow, Kerala State IT Mission has implemented Modern Electronic Systems and Services Agility for Governance in Enterprises (MESSAGE) with effect from January 1, 2008 thus becoming the first government office in Kerala to become a paperless institution. Following the example of KSITM, several other government offices/ organisations have come forward to implement the digital work flow system. We are expanding the culture of digital work flow systems across several other offices. Akshaya and Kerala Sustainable Urban Development Project (KSUDP) have also since implemented the digital workflow system. There is tremendous demand from many offices to implement the system.

Malayalam Computing: Bridging the digital divide is one of the most challenging issues of the emerging knowledge society. One of the biggest obstacles for non-English speaking population of India is that computing has become synonymous with English. Moreover, most of the content on the Internet is also in English. Be it shopping or getting information on health or tourism, most websites provide contents in English. This has discouraged the computerilliterates and neo-literates from actively using the computers and benefiting from it. Moreover, it is also one of the main reasons for digital divide between genders, with men being 36

more familiar with English then women. Government of Kerala, is now taking a leadership role by embarking on a new initiative with the objective of creating capacity and content in the local language – Malayalam. This would go a long stead in the effort to reach the benefits of Information Technology to every household in the society.

Apart from bridging the digital divide, the campaign has significant cultural implications. Language is an important part of the identity of any society. When the daily chat or e-mailing is invariably in English, the native language is progressively disused and gets corrupted. For example, English script is used to write Malayalam (also popularly known as Manglish). The year 2008 is being celebrated globally as the year of languages by the United Nations. The Government of Kerala is joining the international community with a campaign to promote the linguistic diversity of cyberspace and would be an example to other linguistically diverse societies to have similar campaigns. It would sensitise the global community to recognise the imperative of digital world protecting the distinct cultural richness and heritage as transmitted through centuries, in respective local languages.

Malayalam computing campaign is being led by the Department of IT, Government of Kerala. The main agencies implementing the campaign shall be KSITM, Akshaya and Society for the Promotion of Alternative Computing and Employment (SPACE). With the help of about 2000 Akshaya centres network, public awareness programmes will be carried out across the state. Each Akshaya centre reaches approximately 1200-1500 families. The campaign targets to address about 4-5 million households in the state of Kerala over the next three years. Akshaya centers in association with local community organisations and local self-governments will organise awareness and capacity building programmes in different localities for public. Capacity building programmes for local hardware vendors are also planned in each district as well. Teaching computing in Malayalam will be made an essential part of all computer courses in schools.

As part of the campaign, publicity will be carried out through various mass media sources including audio (FM radio), visual (TV, cinema) and print (newspapers, magazines). Booklets with technical information on Malayalam computing will be distributed across the state. A support website is being established for the distribution of essential software, training www.egovonline.net

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materials and other documentations.

The campaign shall be followed by several activities to increase Malayalam content on the web. Each local panchayat shall be asked to develop a local portal in Malayalam which would include details of local natural and human resources, local economy, local industry, agriculture and services, discussion forum and such other details as may be relevant.

As an incentive, suitable awards shall be granted to the best panchayat portals. An example of one such portal is a portal developed in Azhikode Panchayat with the active participation of the local Panchayat, Akshaya centres in the Panchayat and local community (http://azhikode.web4all. in/). Government will facilitate development of these portals by providing space in its State Data Centre. Similarly, all high schools and colleges in the state will be encouraged to develop their portals in Malayalam on lines described above. District level and state level awards for best portals shall be granted.

Other groups like libraries, NGOs and web developers are also proposed to be engaged in this effort.

Asset Management System: Government of Kerala has deployed computer hardware in various departmental offices and PSUs all over the state. However, there is neither consolidated data on the hardware owned by the government nor a mechanism in place to collect the data. A web enabled FOSS based solution for collecting the inventory data and management is being developed by KSITM. The application automatically updates details of all hardware and software connected on a network. In addition, it is possible to supplement the details manually. The application has been tested and implemented at KSITM. The process of implementing it in the Government Secretariat, where around 3000 computers and around 2000 printers have been deployed, is underway. The reports generated by the

http://keralaitmission.org/default.asp

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system can be used to physically verify the equipments at each location.

Provision of B2C Services through Akshaya Centres: It is proposed to convert Akshaya centres as hubs of e-Services.

B2C services will be delivered from Akshaya through selected Service Centre Agencies, who will be identified through a transparent RFP process during the year. This will help provide greater sustainable income to the Akshaya entrepreneurs. m-Governance: Mobile Governance is a project intended to create an integrated IT Platform at the state level for various citizen interfacing departments, using mobile technology so as to increase information quality, improve overall efficiency and effectiveness in the Government processes with convenience in operations. We have started taking steps to implement a pilot project targeting 20 services like the information about to the Public Service Commission (PSC) applications, vehicle taxes etc. Central assistance INR 1137.5 million for the pilot phase implementation of m-Government project. This project will be implemented during 2008-2009.

Electronics Clearing Services (ECS): The objective of the ECS scheme is to provide an alternative method of effecting bulk payment transactions which would obviate the need for issuing and handling paper instruments and thereby improve payment efficiency and also facilitate better customer service by the banks and companies/corporations/ government departments effecting the payments. Make bulk payment transactions like periodic payments of interest/ salary/pension/commission/dividend/refund by government departments and other organisations. This is to be introduced in institutions under the IT Department in the first phase. In the second stage, disbursement of salary to be done for Class I & Class II officers in the government on optional basis.

Migration of Government Websites to Content Management Framework (CMF): KSITM has undertaken a programme for migrating government websites to CMF. This helps the regular updation of website by the officers of the concerned departments themselves even when the sites are hosted by different service providers. Once completed, Kerala could become the first state to have a sustainable model of managing its websites by the user departments/ organisations. 10 sites have already migrated to CMF, 26 new websites designed in CMF and 10 websites are in the pipeline in migrating to CMF. Promotion of Free and Open Source Software (IC-FOSS): The international Centre for FOSS Development will be set up during 2008-2009. Some of the activities planned as part of the promotion of FOSS include: a FOSS e-Governance application repository on the lines of the government Open Code Collaborative Repository; an international conference on FOSS will be held in December 2008. Moreover, steps are being taken to propagate FOSS solutions being used in the state for e-Governance.

Integrated Government Service Gateway: Geographical location is an important attribute in the dataset of government offices. People wish to know where an office is located and how to reach there, in addition to other information such as services offered by the office. By this document, we propose the Integrated Government Service Gateway project under Kerala State IT Mission, which envisages providing web based 37

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information to citizens about the details of all government offices and institutions in the state, may use this facility. To develop a GIS based web application which makes accessing of relevant information regarding government offices and associated services easy to the public. Trivandrum district shall be covered in the 1st phase. A WebGIS application shall be developed. Five touch screen kiosks shall be provided at selected locations, through which the citizens can get information on the government office location and its services.

The State Data Centre project in Kerala was commissioned in 2004, could you throw some light upon the current status of implementation of the project?

The Data Centre has been in operation for the last three years.

More than 100 applications from various departments are colocated or hosted in the Data Centre. More than 70% of the installed rack capacity has already been utilised. Installed UPS capacity has been enhanced to meet the demands for server co-location. The Data Centre is currently connected to Internet (34 Mbps) and KSWAN backbone (22 Mbps, being enhanced). ISO 27001 certification process is in progress.

What were the challenges faced by you in the implementation of the SDCs in your state?

One of the biggest challenges has been finding human resources within the Government set-up to manage the State Data Centre. Other challenges include: • Identification of suitable location for setting up the data centre • Making the officials aware of the utility and bring their applications to data centre • Providing technical support for the departments in making use of the data centre Who are the private sector partners participating in the SDC project in Kerala and in what areas?

The turnkey implementation and operation of the Data Centre was awarded to TCS on the bases of a public tender.

Security is an important element for the State Data Centres, how is that ensured for the Kerala SDCs? Security measures in the data centre include: 1. 24 x 7 manned security has been provided 2. Firewall and IPS (network based and server based) have been provided 3. Enterprise anti-virus solution available 4. Data centre divided into zones (secure, non-militarised, backbone, public) and stringent access policies for each zone 5. Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) and Virtual Private Network (VPN) support 6. Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) authentication 7. Server hardening 8. Periodic review of policy and implementation During our last conversation, you had mentioned that the main focus for the state, in terms of e-Governance 38

would be capacity building, m-Governance, last mile connectivity, among others, what is the progress of the state on these stands?

Capacity building: Human resource • Strength (technical and managerial) of Kerala State IT Mission is being enhanced • State e-Mission Team (SEMT) and Project e-Mission team (PEMT) being formed Infrastructure • KSWAN in advanced stage of completion • Second data centre – RFP to be released either this month or early next month.

• More than 2000 Akshaya centres most of which are connected on broadband are already functioning.

The number is proposed to be enhanced to over 3000 this year. This will ensure kiosks for every 1200 families or so. m-Governance: RFP has been prepared for mobile-enabling some of the existing Mission Mode projects. We expect the RFP to eIssued some time later this month.

Last mile connectivity: • 1660 offices being connected over wireless as part of KSWAN • Village offices and Panchayat offices planned for connectivity through wireless from KSWAN • 3000 Akshaya centres getting connected over Internet Which, according to you has been the most successful IT project in Kerala? Why? It is difficult to say which is the most successful project in Kerala. In my opinion, there are several applications which are being used and all those applications, which have been adopted are successful applications. The adoption on a sustained basis itself is a reflection of benefits and valueaddition as a result of the project implementation. Those applications which do not generate benefits or value-addition automatically fade away.

Let me list some of the more successful e-Governance applications in the state: AKSHAYA- e-Literacy project which has since evolved into citizen service centre including e-Pay. FRIENDS- Single window utility payment State Data Centre MESSAGE- Digital work-flow system INSIGHT- Using ICTs to train visually impaired.

IT@school- Project for introducing IT education at high school level SMART move- Motor vehicles application KVATIS- Kerala Value Added Tax Information System PSC-Online application (5 lakh applications received online) Online counseling for entrance examinations (more than 15 million students availed the facility) Video-conferencing facility across the state SPARK- Digital Human Resource Management System for government employees www.egovonline.net

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Technology Innovations and Telecom Sector N.K. Goyal INTRODUCTION

Various environmental issues are demanding our vigilant attention in the world today. One of them is climate change, which is already in public domain. Scientific evidence shows that past emissions of Greenhouse Gases (GHG) are already affecting the earth’s climate. If current trends and policies continue, the result will be a rapidly warming world leading to inconsequential calamities.

Most of the observed global warming in the past 50 years has been caused by human activities, particularly producing and consuming fossil fuels, increasing agriculture and changing land use. e-Waste has been another issue of global concern. Increasing consumer awareness, enhanced knowledge due to web and various studies and assessment reports has made this topic a vital one. Solutions to the environmental challenges are available, achievable and affordable, especially when compared to the expected economic growth and the costs and consequences of inaction. That, however, does not mean it will be cheap or easy, but it is affordable.

For getting it right in the field of the environment is not only about what to do but how to do it. We also need to address the question of who will pay for what? The global cost of action will be much lower if all countries work together. Finding the best solutions will also require political will and co-operation on an unprecedented scale.

At various world level conventions such as at Kyoto, United Nations and Rotterdam, Basel etc., the governments at large have been showing concern for environmental issues. All countries have taken precautions for air, water, and sound pollution. However, much is needed to be done if we see at the level of problem.

the chance of extensive, unforeseen side effects. The speed also matters i.e. the greater the rapidity of human-induced changes, the more likely they are to destabilise the complex systems of nature.

Similar to the ‘global warming’, a big threat hovering around is the threat from electromagnetic radiations emitted from various electrical and electronic devices at homes and offices, mobile phones and various other ubiquitous wireless gadgets, cell phone towers emitting high intensity radiation along with any overhead power lines running through residential/office areas. The world understands how hazardous these radiations can be to humans and a large number of scientists and researchers are engaged in

various studies coming out of their findings every now and then, pointing towards the hazardous affects on health due to radiations from various sources.

GETTING OUR ENVIRONMENT RIGHT SOME SERIOUSNESS ATTACHED TO RADIATIONS

Nature has given us everything to live in this world in abundance. However, our greed for more and the technology and innovations have changed the way we live and communicate. Yet, it is also a fact that every technology along with it also brings some side affects for which adequate precautions are required to be taken. One of the common laws of any technology or innovation is that scale matters i.e. the bigger the technological solution, the greater ov

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We all know the affects of radiations. In earlier times, the radio and wireless stations were be put up away from residential places. The experience of ear getting hot while using cell phone is quite common. Doctors use lead coat of about 45 Kg weight while exposed to X rays. The radiations affect the man, machine and nature as well. Some other examples are: 39

In airplanes, passengers are advised to keep mobile phones in switch off mode to avoid such radiations interfering with the sensitive operating machinery of the aircraft.

At Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), there have been cases when small rockets took off due to such radiations’ interference with the operations of the rocket launching system.

People with pacemakers are advised not to carry mobile phones as the radiations emitted from mobile can interfere with the functioning of pacemaker. Mobile phones not permitted in ICUs in hospitals .

There have been recorded cases of birth disorders and untimely abortions among microwave oven users due to excessive exposure of pregnant ladies to microwaves.

Recently there have been researches announced by Dr. Vinnie Khurana (Australia) and others saying that the use of cell phone is more hazardous than smoking. Also there are several researches that radiation affects male fertility.

Butterflies, sparrows, pigeons, vultures, parrots etc are increasingly vanishing from skies since the time the onslaught of power transmissions, mobile telephony and satellite communication started.

Generally, radiations are biologically active, capable of making changes in the structure of human and animal cells, which are exposed to them.

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When a biological object is exposed to Electromagnetic Frequency (EMF), an interaction takes place between the field strength and the electrical current and charges of the body tissue.

The result of the interaction produces biological effect that is not necessarily damage.

Short exposures result in lack of concentration, headaches, stress, loss of memory and vision, sleep disturbances etc.

Long exposure result in infertility, heart attack, cancer, brain tumor, kidney failure etc.

Also reported, some acute and chronic diseases such as Alzheimer, Parkinson and other neuro-degenerative diseases.

Numerous researches are being done world over with substantive results to say the least that radiations do harm the human body with only the quantitative impact to be determined. There is counter view from technology suppliers and equipment producers that Class I evidence does not exist to prove the hazard, the sample size of researches has not been large enough, and that there is no hazard within the provided safe limits.

The answer to above is, that all researches are subject to criticisms like low sample, no established proof or a question mark on the credentials of the researcher. As regards safe levels, are we adhering to it? Is there a mechanism to ensure import or manufacture of only radiation compliant products and installations? Is consumer awareness available to verify the safer limits, if he has doubts?

The issue to be addressed is, do we wait for evidence or lack of it to act or do we wait for a disaster to happen?

Hazards from Mushrooming of Communication Towers Another neglected area has been non-existence of any guidelines for installation of towers in every nook and corner of the country. In our endeavour to grow, proper attention is missing for safety associated with towers. Lots of towers in India have been installed on roof tops of weak and unsafe buildings. During construction, hardly anybody has planned for towers on roof tops. It is unexpected that the structure feasibility of all buildings is undertaken before towers are installed. There are cases where more than two or even three towers have been installed at a single location.

Towers have also been installed in the congested bye lanes and at non approachable locations. Children can be seen playing near towers or people using it for drying of clothes.

Diesel generators, along with diesel are also placed near towers. That also demands adequate protection from the fire safety angle. Towers have also been installed on hospitals, near ICUs and weak temples etc.

Competition, too, is the playing an important role, which forces any body to grow at a faster pace, widest coverage at every place and best service to customers at the cheapest rates. This has naturally lead to hap-hazard installation of high intensity mobile towers in sensitive residential and educational premises. Within India there are several cases pending in various courts in relation to the hazardous nature of radiations from towers. In some cases, the courts/ government have also provided some type of ban or restrictions in this regard. www.egovonline.net

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SAFE GUIDELINES AVAILABLE WORLD OVER

Numerous efforts have been made to provide precautions and preventive measures against hazards from radiations.

World organisations like the United Nations, World Health Organisation, International Telecommunication Union, International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) have formulated some guidelines. The cause of concern has been that most developing countries do not put emphasis on formulating or adopting the guidelines. When guidelines are formulated, there is hardly any mechanism to test and verify if the equipments meet the parameters or not.

The concern can grow bigger, especially when we take the views of our former President and well known Nuclear Scientist Dr Abdul Kalam’s views into consideration: Increased use of radio frequencies because of ever increasing number of mobile phones and expansion of mobile communication networks have brought in new problems and concerns.

The situation is also getting complicated because of alarming increase in other wireless devices and systems.

WiFi, WIMAX, Bluetooth, WIL and Cordless phones are also competing for appropriate allocation of frequency bands.

In addition to creating mutual electromagnetic interference, these are causing excessive electromagnetic pollution and electromagnetic radiation hazards.

In the recent times, overwhelming increase in the number of mobile phones and number of service providers competing with each other, have created such a situation that we see cell phone towers everywhere; even on residential

buildings, schools, hostels and hospitals. These towers are radiating high power radio waves, continuously exposing children, senior citizens and people needing health-care to harmful electromagnetic radiations.

These towers should be located away from residential and other such vulnerable areas and should use minimum essential radio power.

THE ANSWER

Can we stop technology? No way! Nor can it be said that do not use modern technologies. Yet, there is enough scope for public awareness on the topic and also laying down suitable guidelines and mechanism to enforce or verify it. Fortunately, world over and within India, enough technologies are available, which can provide radiation safety to any product, equipment or installations. India is not only providing end to end solutions within the country but is also exporting these solutions world wide.

We all should urge the respective governments and public bodies to come forward and work cohesively to combat this radiation menace.

NK Goyal is President, Communications and Manufacturing Association of India (CMAI). He has about 38 years of experience in telecom/IT. He is also the Chairman Emeritus of Telecom Equipments Manufacturers Association of India (TEMA); Senior Vice President, HP Chamber of Commerce and Industries and is actively involved in policy formulations and development of industrial policies specially related to telecom and IT sector. He may be contacted at nkgoyals@yahoo.co.in

Service-Oriented Government Plan Unveiled in Abu Dhabi (UAE) Abu Dhabi Systems and Information Committee (ADSIC) unveils five year plan to improve government services in the UAE. The ADSIC (the entrusted ‘CIO’ of the Abu Dhabi Government) plan, entitled “A High Performance Government Delivering World Class Services to the Benefit of all Its Customers”, aims to fulfil four roles.

The plan aims to transform the manner of operating and delivering of government services. The plan includes an authority to IT policies and standards, an ‘enabler’ of technology and infrastructure projects for Government modernisation initiatives, an ‘innovator’ to position Abu Dhabi as a leader in Government modernisation both regionally and globally, and lastly, an ‘educator’ to foster IT literacy and create awareness for the potential and benefits of automation.

ADSIC has adopted an internationally recognised framework

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for formulating and implementing a comprehensive e-Government Strategy - the Environment-ReadinessUsage (ERU) framework to fulfill Abu Dhabi Government vision outlined in the Policy Agenda. ADSIC’s five year strategic plan is derived from this comprehensive strategy and encompasses over 75 projects across the ERU dimensions. Out of 75 projects, some of these projects are already operational and available to all customers like the Abu Dhabi Government Portal (www.abudhabi. ae), the Government Contact Centre (800-555), and an electronic Land Management System at the Abu Dhabi Municipality.

Enhancing IT skills of government employees to use and benefit from the e-Government modernisation provisions has been of paramount importance as well with over 4,000 civil servants trained to date.

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INDUSTRY PERSPECTIVE

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Expanding Horizons of Mobile Services www.gsmworld.com

“Indian operators have successfully driven the mobile industry on the right side and made India the leading player in the world. They have proven how infrastructure sharing can be a success story”, says Gabriel Solomon, Senior Vice – President, Public Policy, GSM Association to egov magazine 42

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GSM Association (GSMA) is a global trade association, representing 750 mobile phone operators across the world.

What is the role that it plays?

The major achievement of GSMA is that we represent the mobile industry globally and define their common areas of interest. On behalf of the members, we represent issues and provide a united voice. In India, we are very proud to be associated with Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI). We are also looking at partnerships with the government, industry stakeholders, the United Nations, International Telecommunications Union (ITU), World Bank in order to provide a consistent front.

Please tell us about the emerging high-speed connectivity technologies in terms of 3G and 4G. 4G is a myth and it has not been defined clearly. It is still a buzz word. In terms of the evolution from Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM) eco-system, we had 2G and then 2.5G, which is essentially General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) and now we have moved to Wide Band Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA) which we call 3G and if you look at any new 3G network that has been rolled out with High Speed Packet Access (HSPA), bandwidth availability from mobile base stations is exploding. It has gone from 9.6 kilobytes to 14 megabytes with HSPA as a down-link. HSPA has a clear evolution path with software upgrades to get 48 megabytes down-links and about 14 up-links. If we go a little further we have Long Term Evolution (LTE), which is again a set of defined standards for this eco-system to evolve into an even higher bandwidth.

What are the major achievements of HSPA as a major technology in providing wireless connectivity? What are the issues in terms of mobile penetration in India and other countries?

HSPA dominates the mobile broadband in terms of subscriber numbers, networks that are commercially available today. These include handset devices, mobile devices that are put into laptops as a modem. In terms of market share, HSPA is dominating. What this essentially means is that the total cost of ownership for a HSPA subscriber will be substantially less than other competing technologies such as WiMAX. We are at the cusp of a huge explosion of mobile broadband subscriptions. We expect a growth of a billion consumers globally in four years. HSPA as a technology has been around for a couple of years. HSPA networks are there in about 90 countries. The governments should give licences for 3G so that the technology can reach the market at the appropriate time.

In terms of mobile penetration, India is certainly leading. India has higher number of mobile subscribers than USA and is close to China as well. The growth rates are also quite high. Therefore, the markets are well defined and working extremely well. The operators do see a requirement for mobile broadband. However, a lot depends on the availability of spectrum. For example, in the UK there were 3G auctions in the year 2000. The auction design and the irrational exuberance was such that high licence fees was paid as in the case of Vodafone, which paid 6 billion pounds for a 3G licence. This is an amount that can never be recovered. It was too high and ambitious. There is a lag in the roll-out of these services. Therefore, in a typical emerging market, with consumers ov

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having low disposable incomes, it is important for government to look up to the industry for technology, in order to reap the benefits and bring them to the mainstream. These benefits are huge and in many countries mobile operators are the major tax payers. They generate Value Added Tax receipts on a massive scale and thereby they provide significant boost to the economy and employment.

Thus, the governments need to recognise these benefits that they get from mobile industry while issuing the license.

What are your views on the potential of the mobile industry for providing last mile connectivity?

Providing last mile connectivity is the longest and the hardest challenge. The cost of mobile solutions is making it viable and making it economically affordable. In India, the population coverage in terms of mobile telephony is expanding at a faster rate. It is expected that there will be 500 million subscribers by 2010. This essentially means covering rural areas. The problem in covering rural areas is not in terms of wireless technologies.

The cost of setting up a base station in Delhi is the same as setting it up in rural areas. What makes it expensive in the rural areas is the backhaul, providing electricity to these base stations and the logistics involved in setting up distribution networks. For example, in providing electricity and logistics the government and other industries such as electricity can look towards working in some kind of partnership in providing infrastructure. This will benefit everyone and allow a holistic view towards infrastructure development and will reduce the costs and expedite the roll out.

This will allow the mobile operators to cover rough terrain and it will be an economic incentive. The falling prices of mobile handsets and the affordability of services, especially in India where mobile services are amongst the cheapest in the world would facilitate the growth of the industry.

What are your views on utilisation of USO Funds?

The Universal Service Obligation (USO) Fund has a fund allocation of approximately USD 2.5 billion. They have used these funds only for infrastructure sharing projects. The market is far more efficient in terms of providing subsidies, the operators are likely to cover these areas. There is a significant impact on the possibility and economic viability of rolling out in rural areas. Globally, India is standing out in terms of these funds. It has a massive 5% of the USO Fund, while the rest of the countries across the world have about 1%. Hence, the government needs to reconsider its stand for the benefit of the operators as well as the consumers, particularly those in the rural areas.

There is a lot of discussion about infrastructure sharing in terms of providing mobile connectivity in India. What are your comments on this?

Indian operators have successfully driven the mobile industry on the right side and made India the leading player in the world.

They have proven how infrastructure sharing can be a success story. There are different companies who have come together to share bytes and Radio Access Networks and the regulator has allowed them to do so. Relatively, India is far ahead of the rest of the world. There is a chance that operators in other countries see India as a mandate and ask their regulators to share networks.

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INDUSTRY PERSPECTIVE

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market is a clear commercial driver for network sharing. Perhaps, in other countries it is not the same. I think the regulators need to be careful in terms of model sharing. It can be a take away incentive to invest commercial drivers which will allow the market to evolve. But the security and safety needs to be addressed as well.

Spectrum is one of the highly valued assets and it gives rise to a need for policy change because of the growing need for services and with more players coming in the market. The policy needs to be reviewed in accordance with the industry requirements, especially in a country like India where there is a target of 500 million mobile subscribers by 2010 Being a policy specialist, would you like to give any suggestions to the policy makers of the country in terms of availability of spectrum and other related aspects in India?

Most of the operators are asking for more spectrum in India. The way spectrum has been awarded on a per subscriber basis, it does not really allow the operators to plan networks effectively. This leads to inefficient use of the spectrum. The Indian Military has been allocated a lot of spectrum. The government might consider allowing the military to make it available on a commercial basis.

Therefore, with the diversity of the market and the growing number of players, there might be a need for consolidation in terms of licencing.

There are certain issues that I would like to highlight. Spectrum is one of the highly valued assets and it gives rise to a need for policy change because of the growing need for services and with more players coming in the market. The policy needs to be reviewed in accordance with the industry requirements, especially in a country like India where there is a target of 500 million mobile subscribers by 2010. In this scenario, there is also a need to avoid network congestion in order to provide better services and requires more spectrum to make capacity stronger. People are relying on mobile phones from work to social activities to entertainment. Non-availability of spectrum is a bottle neck that can be removed with a little foresight from the government’s side.

This is a critical policy issue with the Indian government. In short, I would say two things. One is that there should be availability of more spectrum and secondly, the ownership of the spectrum needs to be reviewed with the industry which has a knowledge of the requirements.

The 5% tax that is levied by the USO Fund should be reduced.

This is hindering the growth of the mobile industry and is a hurdle in terms of business expansions.

There is also a need to create cost structures that will allow them to afford mobile services. For example, the taxes on mobile hand sets should be abolished, which will reduce the price by 20 – 30%. There can be a generation of Value Added Tax (VAT) as well. Therefore, there is a need for the government to take a holistic approach of the issue. Hence, there is a need to look at long term issues, given the explosive growth in the mobile industry.

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Value Added Services (VAS) are a part of the mobile industry.

In a country like India, which is so vast and diverse, how do you think these services can help benefit the consumers?

Value Added Services (VAS) can be of tremendous benefit to the consumers. It is found that these services are localised and add value to the local communities. Here, the main issue is creation of the local content which has meaning and it should be made accessible and less cumbersome. It should be an interface where people can participate. Globally, we have seen market pricing in agricultural communities have a profound impact on the farmers’ efficiency in the market. In Kerala, there has been a great impact of mobile telephony in fishing communities. The wastes were reduced and profits went up, so the velocity of prices was reduced substantially. VAS has a huge role in terms of market efficiency and safety. Natural fishing involves a lot of danger. Mobile connectivity helps in identifying the dangers involved in the sea and makes it more secure and safe. VAS have an immense potential and it needs to be localised to have direct meaning for those who use them.

In Europe, we have seen operators develop their own content portal so that consumers have access to these VAS. VAS allow the operators to develop solutions which will have meaningful impact on the local communities.

What are fundamental issues and challenges involved in the Public Private Partnerships (PPP) in the mobile industry?

Please give some examples as well.

The fundamental issue of Public Private Partnerships (PPP) in the mobile industry is in the issuance of licences and the regulations in terms of market roll-out. This includes spectrum issues, interconnectivity issues etc. The reality is that the private sector is dynamic and focused in terms of its intentions. The public sector should let the private sector expand and grow and in return receive the taxes and the economic benefits from the latter. Airtel has done a study where they have seen that an increase in mobile penetration in rural areas by 1% leads to an increase in the revenue by 0.2 % and in urban areas by 0.5%. There is a need to have a holistic view of the overall benefits that it will bring. Therefore, the public sector needs to provide an enabling environment where the private sector can flourish. As mentioned earlier, there are issues of spectrum and the USO Fund that the public sector needs to address. The public sector can do much more in facilitating the market and in setting up a PPP model.

One example of the PPP which is struggling very much is in the East African Cable. East Africa has no optical fibre cable.

One of the great things that India has done is, during the down turn some of the Indian companies have acquired a lot of global optical fibre. India has about 50% of the undersea optical cable capacity in the world. This has facilitated the BPO success in the country. This will make India the hub of IT related activities in the foreseeable future. On the other hand, East Africa is struggling.

They need international capacity to be competitive. There is not much progress and it is the PPP that is struggling.

The government can play a catalysing role in terms of PPP. It can play a key role in bringing industries together such as the telecom industry, which needs infrastructure and power to set up business in rural areas. The government can bring together such players in the market and develop a PPP model. Moreover, the government should provide guidelines to the private players to execute the plans under such models. www.egovonline.net

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NEWS TRAI INITIATES WORK ON SATELLITE RADIO POLICY The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has initiated the consultation process on satellite radio policy as proposed by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I&B). The satellite radio policy will lay the ground rules for the companies to operate the satellite radio services in the country.

The license will also provide satellite radio service for carriage and broadcasting of channels and licensee to get registration for satellite radio channels. TRAI has also suggested a 74 per cent cap on the foreign investments, in line with the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) policy for the telecom sector.

Currently, a 24 per cent FDI cap in the FM radio sector is being considered against a demand for at least 26 per cent. The draft satellite radio policy guidelines permit a satellite radio service provider to hold the licence for the registration of satellite radio channels also. The draft policy guidelines cover eligibility criteria, period of licence, entry fee and annual licence fee, bank guarantee, technical standards, monitoring, inspection, valueadded services, terrestrial repeaters, termination of licence, WPC wing’s licence, among others.

NOKIA TO LAUNCH 40 ‘GREEN’ PHONE MODELS BY YEAR-END Nokia is planning to launch around 40 new green phone models by the end of this year. Each mobile phone comprises biodegradable components that can be easily recycled. Nokia is coming up with a mobile phone, which includes bio-degradable phone covers, recycled battery designs that use less harmful toxic materials and energy efficient accessories for all the forthcoming phones. The company has already eliminated the use of PVC (Polyvinyl Chloride) in all phones. Nokia is already using bio-materials like Polylactic Acid (PLA) plastics with plant or other biomass-based modifiers that help reduce the use of non-renewable materials. An additional bonus is that the energy required to produce PLA from raw material to plastic pellet is minimal. Elastomers based on bio-materials can be used as rubberlike materials to seal off the battery case. Nokia’s ‘Eco Sensor’ concept is rooting for the phone and detector units that will be optimised for lower energy consumption than phones in 2007 in both the manufacturing process and use. Alternative energy sources, such as solar power, will fuel the sensor unit’s power usage. Nokia is also investing in green bins across all its priority dealer centres, where customers can drop their old phones, and plans to extend this service across all Nokia centres. Nokia has already launched eco-friendly phone, the 3110, which is claimed to be more around 65 percent recyclable. The company is also aiming to reduce the amount of energy consumed by mobile chargers. It plans to launch all its new products by the end of 2009 which will be free of restricted flame retardants (all brominated and chlorinated compounds and antimony trioxide).

AIRTEL TO FOCUS ON RURAL EXPANSION IN INDIA MOBILE PHONE BASED FOOD TRACKING SYSTEM LAUNCHED A new mobile phone based dietary assessment tool for the National Institute of Health (NIH), Genes and Environment and Health Initiative (GEI) has been developed by Sarnoff Corporation and Viocare Technologies. The tool called the Mobile Food Intake Visualisation and Voice Recogniser (FIVR), uses a mobile phone to help measure a meal’s nutritional content.

The innovative system uses a combination of photographs and speech recognition to identify the food and produce an estimate of the calories an individual will be consuming. FIVR will also be able to categorise a user’s eating habits. Using a series of questions, FIVR will both recognise foods that a user commonly eats, such as popcorn and identifies habits specific to that food, such as adding butter. The NIH’s Genes, Environment and Health Initiative helps determine environmental components and genetic roots of common diseases. As part of that mission, GEI invests in innovative new technologies to measure environmental factors such as dietary intake to determine individuals’ biological response.

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Airtel is planning to increase the pace of its network expansion in rural Tamil Nadu during 2008-2009. Airtel has already covered over 88 percent of the 15,500 census villages in the state during 2008-2009.

The Chief Executive Officer of Tamil Nadu Mobile Services Bharti Airtel Ltd, Rajiv Rajagopal said that people in the rural markets are ready to go mobile and the growth depends on the strength and the quality of the network. He commented that the network is on its way to extend its coverage to urban areas in major districts in Southern Tamil Nadu and the rural network is being expanded from 2,800 villages to 3,307, accounting for over 85 per cent of the population in these districts. The network has spread over 93 per cent along the National Highways and 88 per cent of key rail routes across the state. Moreover, the SMS capacity is sought to be raised from the current 5,500 messages per second to 6,500 messages per second by March 2009.

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NEWS KUALA LUMPUR BECOMES THE WIRELESS ONLINE METROPOLITAN With the launch of the Kuala Lumpur wireless metropolitan project in the city, the capital city will soon be covered by a wireless broadband access network. Everyone will be able to use the service which runs at 512 kbs for free over the next two years. The service is based on WiMAX 2.3 Giga Hertz.

Kuala Lumpur is among the first cities in the world to use this technology. The city-wide project involves the Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL), Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Commission (MCMC), Synapse Technologies Sdn Bhd and Packet One Networks (M) Sdn Bhd. The first phase of the project aims to make the city wireless with the collaboration of Packet One Networks, while the second part is to have the city’s own portal www.kul.com.my managed by Synapse Technologies. In the first phase, 1500 Wi-Fi zones will be installed by end of this year at the commercial areas, offices, DBKL public housings and PPR flats, DBKL community centres and public areas. Subsequent phases will see 2,000 more WiFi zones installed to cover the whole of the Klang Valley by end of next year. The portal www. kul.com.my will act as a onestop information centre about all things in the city. It enhances the web presence of existing websites of government and private sectors, hence is expected to boost economic activity for Small Medium Enterprises.

MOBILE PHONES FOR AGRICULTURE The local government of Imus (Sweden) is improving delivery of farm services with the help of mobile phone. Mobile phones will help rice farmers to improve their harvest in Imus. The Swedish Programme for Information and Communication Technology for Developing Countries (SPIDER), is using SMS technology as a means to reach the dominantly rural population of the country. SPIDER programme begins by assessing the current information and communication needs of the underserved and rural community. Through their mobile phones, residents from these communities can now access vital information that will help them solve the issues that hinder them from improving their livelihood. In Philippines, the De La Salle University adopted the SPIDER programme in their study on Imus’ Agriculture Network. With the similar concept of e-Governance, I-Agri Imus’s agricultural network was launched in Philippines. The project aims to provide readily accessible information across the agriculture value chain. Also, it will allow the local agriculture office of Imus to monitor government projects and make service deliveries more efficient.

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AFRICANS CHANGE THE FACE OF MOBILITY Mobile phone based payment systems, health care services, transfer money are some of the areas where world can look to Africa for inspiration. Africans are using their mobile phones in a very entrepreneurial way, because it is their lifeline, and small businesses depend on them. M-PESA means mobile money is the most famous system in Africa with about 2 million users a year after its launch. It can be used for someone in an urban area to forward money to relatives in rural areas, and people in rural areas can pay off loan in an urban area. M-PESA system includes a software enabled mobile phone where someone can credit out money. In South Africa, people use SMS technology to monitor and prompt the taking of medicine. Using a pillbox with a built-in chip, when the patient opens it, a message is sent to a central computer. If the patient doesn’t open the box, a message is sent as well, and the patient can be reminded.

MOBILE PHONE NAVIGATION : NEXT BOOM IN INDIA Mobile phone will soon be used as a navigation tool. The Indian cellular handset manufacturers and service providers are all set to offer navigation products and solutions. The shift to such technologies will be facilitated by the increase in the sale of Smart Mobile Devices (SMDs). Canalys, a global market research firm predicts the sale of SMDs in India to increase by 28 per cent very soon. It is projected that the market will touch 7.9 million units by 2010 and of this, nearly 45 per cent will be global position system (GPS) based phones. The Indian mobile market is coming up with new strategies that would facilitate such a boom.

Nokia recently, announced a release of 2.0 version of maps on its high end handsets in India. The company plans to provide not only in-car navigation but also provide handsets that will enable pedestrian guidance and feature social aspects such as helping users create and share mapping data with others. Airtel intends to take mobile phones beyond sending e-mails to help users navigate locations. Commenting on the issue, Bharti Airtel’s marketing manager Guninder Singh stated that there will be issues that would arise such as accuracy of maps, regular updation of maps, putting more points of interest and simplifying the maps. Daryl Chiam, mobile phone industry analyst at Canalys, said that India is a potential market opportunity as it is going through an infrastructure development phase. There will be a high demand for navigation technologies in India given the fact that approximately 40 per cent of India’s population would be aged between 20 and 44 by 2010.

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SPECIAL FOCUS: FINANCIAL INCLUSION

IT Led Financial Inclusion in India Rajat Tyagi, Tapas Chattopadhyay & Jayalakshmi Subramanian

Financial Inclusion is a very important initiative for the sustainable growth of a country. With a huge rural population, that is economically challenged, Government in India has rolled out many initiatives like Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (Education for All), Bharat Nirman Programme. But to support the growth, a committee on Financial Inclusion (FI) was also formed in June 2006, with Dr. C Rangarajan as Chairman to recommend a strategy to achieve a higher Financial Inclusion in the country.

In this article, the authors have tried to come up with ways as to how IT can support different collaborative models to implement and sustain the Financial Inclusion initiatives.

FINANCIAL INCLUSION

Financial Inclusion is delivery of basic banking services at an affordable cost to the vast sections of disadvantaged and low income groups. It includes access to formal financial system such as financial institutions, markets and instruments, like savings, loans, remittances and insurance services, at affordable prices.

Disadvantaged and Low Income Groups*

Typical Services Required #

• • •

•

• • • • • • • • •

Marginal farmers Landless labourers Self employed and unorganised sector enterprises Urban slum dwellers Migrants Ethnic minorities and socially excluded groups Senior citizens and children Women.

Disabled Uneducated Ethnic minorities Un-employed

• • • • • • • •

Access to small loans or overdrafts Check in accounts Small savings products Health insurance Life Insurance Insurance against the failure of activity Financial asset Credit card Entrepreneurship credit

* Source:Financial Inclusion -the Indian experience-Usha Thorat, Deputy Governor RBI, June ‘07 # Source: Financial inclusion– Chakravarthy, CMD Indian Bank, 2006

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The access to finance for the unbanked is not a new concept for the Indian market. Access to formal banking services has been available through the use of intermediaries such as Self Help Groups (SHGs) and Microfinance Institutions (MFIs).

SHGs are usually groups of women who get together and pool their savings and give loans to members. Usually NGOs and National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) promote and nurture these groups. The recovery experience has been very good from SHGs and there are currently 2.6 million SHGs linked to public sector banks reaching almost 40 million households through its members.

The foreign banks and private sector banks have also accessed the microfinance market by setting up relatively lower cost non-bank companies or by partnering with MFIs to provide small value retail loans or financial services to the relatively higher risk segments of the population. This has been a successful model to reach out, except that the interests are high in the range of 24-30 percent, chiefly due to the high transaction cost for the small sized loans.

The table below shows the kind of disadvantaged groups and the services they would require from the formal financial system.

INDIA STILL LAGS IN FINANCIAL INCLUSION

In spite of all the current initiatives, large population is still financially excluded, unlike in the developed countries where only a small portion of the population needs to be included.

Even if one were to consider India’s status on Financial Inclusion within the South Asian region, the financial outreach leaves a lot to be desired. As one can see from the table on global statistics on financial exclusion, Sri Lanka seems to have a better position in the South Asian region.

There are some initiatives taken, not only by Sri Lanka, but also in the South Asian region towards Financial Inclusion.

By 2005, microfinance institutions covered at least 35 million of some 270 million people in the South Asian region and met around 15% of the overall credit requirements of low income families.

In Sri Lanka, the coverage is particularly high at 60%. The high outreach in Sri Lanka is based on an extensive network of community-based organisations that receive considerable government subsidies. Sri Lanka in particular has been very 47

SPECIAL FOCUS: FINANCIAL INCLUSION

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Global Statistics on Financial Exclusion Country

Population excluded (in mill.)

China Africa Rest of Asia India Latin America (excluding Brazil) Middle East Central and East Europe W.Europe US Brazil Common Wealth of Independent States (CIS- 11 former Soviet republics)

263 230 162 135 28 20 19 18 17 14 14

IT LED e-GOVERNANCE MODELS FOR FINANCIAL INCLUSION

Source: The next billion consumers- A BCG Report, Nov 2007

successful with microfinance reaching out to 63% of the poor families as compared to India’s 9%.

CHALLENGES TO FINANCIAL INCLUSION

There are a number of reasons why Financial Inclusion is not taking place in India. These include coverage, cost of small value transactions, infrastructure, suitable products, flexibility, weak delivery model for community enterprise and Access to Finance – 2006 Demographic branch penetration (branches per 100,000 people) Demographic ATM penetration (ATMs per 100,000 people) Deposit accounts per 1,000 people Loan accounts per 1,000 people Geographic branch penetration (branches per 1000 sq. km.)

Geographic ATM penetration (ATMs per 1000 sq. km.)

Microfinance Coverage Population (millions) Poverty ratio (%) Poor families (millions) MF clients MF poverty outreach % MF coverage of poor families %

India

Sri Lanka

6.37

7.69

1.93 5.67 442.87 1117.82 78 364.22 23.46

15.81

7.11 India 1100 30 60 15 35 9

11.65 Sri Lanka 20 25 1 2.5 25 63

Ref: Speech by Dr Ranee Jayamaha, Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, at the Centre for Women’s Research (CENWOR), Colombo, 4 April 2008; Source: Getting Finance in South Asia Phase IV-2008 World Bank

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financial management support. With the automation of core banking processes and the use of channels such as ATM, IVR based tele-banking, Internet banking, the banking industry has become lean and more profitable. Banks however, face an uphill task in reaching out to the mass customers in remote locations such as villages. Infrastructure cost, operating expenses, security, understanding of customer behaviour and risk associated with it, and low and slow Return-OnInvestment (ROI) inhibit banks from expanding into the rural market.

The solution to the problem of Financial Inclusion in India is IT. This is also supported by the Government of India, as is evident from the recent budget 2007-08, the Finance Minister has announced the setting up of two funds for FI; the first called Financial Inclusion Fund for Developmental and Promotional Interventions and the other called Financial Inclusion Technology Fund to meet cost of technology adoption of about USD 125 million each.

1) Postal Network: The government should consider tying up with private banks to deliver financial solutions to the un-banked, using its extensive postal network. The synergistic overlay of the existing postal system with banking functions is the answer to innovative channel required to penetrate the rural markets. The chart shows the strengths and weaknesses of the government owned postal system and the banking/financial services industry. Areas of collaboration are where one’s strengths can supplement the other’s weaknesses. The area of weakness of both the entities is also where both can collaborate based on the severity and need. Areas of conflict and negotiation are where both have their core strengths. Such collaborations to benefit the low income groups are not uncommon across the world and this is amply demonstrated by the Brazilian Government or MPesa in Kenya.

2) Mobile Banking: It can radically reduce transaction costs even in remote locations. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) estimates that over half the people of Low Income Countries (LICs) are within reach of wireless service and aims to connect the world by 2015. Basic banking services are made available remotely through low cost wireless phones.

The ultimate level of wireless penetration depends on the cost to consumers and the profitability of providers, creating the possibility that a digital divide could be exacerbated at a lower level.

Every major Indian bank has been piloting multiple m-Banking applications. While banks like ICICI and HDFC have already started with m-Banking activities, if mobile service operators are to be believed, there is much more to come. Even the Reserve Bank of India, on its part, has underscored the need to formalise mobilebased banking and payments in this year’s annual monetary policy and it will be unveiling norms for the same by mid-June 2008. www.egovonline.net

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For example, the scope of mobile banking (Micro financing for example) is immense if the communication network is available at all locations and the processes are standardised. A secured, hand held mobile device should be able to communicate to the central database, upload and download relevant application and data seamlessly and the link must be up all the time (through multi-modal connectivity like land line, satellite, and microwave connectivity, etc.). For user authentication, bio-recognition technology like finger print etc., will play an important role for user authentication and security.

Ubiquitous Technology: Rural banking requires extremely ubiquitous technology, that which has an innovative Geographical User Interface (GUI) to deliver an easy user experience. The use of IT solutions for providing banking facilities at doorstep holds the potential for scalability of the FI initiatives. Pilot projects have been initiated using smart cards for opening bank accounts with bio-metric identification. Link to mobile or hand held connectivity devices ensure that the transactions are recorded in the bank’s books on real time basis.

3)

CONCLUSION

High GDP growth in India, triggered by an open economy has created job opportunities in urban and semi-urban India and it will go further into rural India, increasing the potential for growth to vast sections of disadvantaged and low income groups.

Therefore, Financial Inclusion would help in bringing much needed access to the unbanked masses, who are the future growth engine of the economy. While government in India has already set up various initiatives to support FI, they also need to be backed by progressive policies. These can be effectively implemented only through private-public partnerships powered by ubiquitous technologies.

REFERENCES 1)

2) e-GOVERNANCE NECESSARY FOR SUCCESSFUL IMPLEMENTATION

3) 4)

Success and evolution of the FI initiative is largely dependent on the successful collaboration among the private and public sector. A platform for these players to interact, driven by a progressive governance policy and framework is absolutely required. In today’s world, e-Governance is becoming absolutely important to set pace to the progress in a cost effective and efficient manner, reducing corruption and delays.

Typically the participants of an e-Governance system are: • Central government • Other governments • Local business (National players in host country) • Regional business (State level players in host country) • Global investors • Statutory bodies, and industry bodies • Individual citizens or consumers As per McKinsey report, e-Governance is going to be the largest IT investment area after the manufacturing, retail and financial industry. From 2003, Government of India has already spent over INR 2 billion after hardware and infrastructure alone.

5) 6) 7)

Taking Banking Services to the Common Man – Financial Inclusion, IIBF, Speech by Mr V.Leeladhar, Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of India Financial Inclusion - the Indian experience - Usha Thorat, Deputy Governor RBI, June 2007 Extending Banking to the poor in India” , Amit Singhal/ Bikram Duggal, ICICI Bank Speech by Dr Ranee Jayamaha, Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, at the Centre for Women’s Research (CENWOR), Colombo, 4 April 2008 Source: Getting Finance in South Asia Phase IV-2008, World Bank.

Ref: Financial exclusion: A new angle to urban poverty in Latin America, 2005) Source: OECD paper ITU, www.itu.int.

Rajat Tyagi is a Principal Consultant with the Banking and Capital Markets group at Infosys Technologies Ltd. He has over ten years of experience in banking. He has consulted banks in the areas of transaction banking, payments, credit, risk, operations and sales.

Tapas Chattopadhyay is a Senior Associate with the Retail, Consumer Goods and Logistics practice of Infosys. He has about 15 years of global experience in logistics industry, backed up with his consulting and other industry experience.

Jayalakshmi Subramanian is a Senior Associate with the Retail Consumer Products and Logistics group of Infosys Technologies Ltd. Her expertise lies in marketing research and she has over 8 years of experience in the areas of consumer and B2B research.

INR 400,000 Million for e-Governance in India Union IT and Communication Minister A Raja said “As per the 11th Five Year Plan, the Centre has allocated a sum of INR 400,000 million (Rs. 40,000 crores) for implementation of e-Governance across the country.” “Out of the INR 400,000 million, INR 60,000 million would be spent by the Information and Technology Ministry while the remaining would be from other departments,” Raja said. Under the scheme, to be launched in all the village panchayats shortly, one lakh Common Service Centres (CSC) would be set up for the benefit of the common man. The project would enable people to record revenue registry, get ration card, community certificates and other essential documents through the CSCs. Adding further Raja said, that the panchayat, taluk, state and the union headquarters would be computerised through this scheme.

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News

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GUJARAT TO CONNECT ALL VILLAGES VIA SATELLITE Gujarat will be the first state in India to provide high-speed connectivity through satellite-based data connections to all its 13,693 gram panchayats by July this year, enabling video, voice and data offerings in the areas of eGovernance, distance education, telemedicine, agriculture and interactive advisory and counselling services. Each panchayat will have its own email address and more than 13,000 of them will be hosted on the state owned data centre.

The project will be connected through very small aperture terminals (VSATs), which bounce data signals from one location to another via satellites, routing these signals through small dish antennas. The project will cost INR 2000-3000 million, a senior Gujarat government official said. “While a majority of the funds come from the state government, some capacity of between INR 200 million to INR 250 million comes from the Central government,” said Varesh Sinha, principal secretary of panchayats in the state. The build-operate-transfer project, announced by the state government in September, Bharti Airtel Ltd, which also runs a broadband business, as the implementing agency. Bharti Airtel, which began work on the project in January, plans to connect the panchayats with broadband connectivity at speeds of 2mbps. “One of the best things about Gujarat is that there is a lot of great digitisation that has happened in the state than anywhere else. This will be further fuelled by the panchayat connectivity,” said T.R. Madan Mohan, Managing Partner at management consultancy firm Browne and Mohan.

APEC SIGNS ‘BANGKOK DECLARATION’ ON CYBER SECURITY Representatives from 21 countries of Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) have signed a new agreement on several issues including cyber security and universal access. Dubbed as the ‘Bangkok Declaration’, signed at the APEC Ministerial Meeting on Telecommunications and Information Industry (or TELMIN) in Thailand.

The Declaration urges for the need of reliable infrastructure and service. The Declaration states, ‘ensuring universally accessibly ICT infrastructure and services to bridge the digital divide is crucial to our future social and economic prosperity,’ and that economies should ‘continue their efforts to expand the reach of networks with the ambitious goal of achieving universal access to broadband by 2015.’

The Declaration focuses on various themes like trade liberalisation among APEC economies, universal access, flexible regulatory frameworks, cyber security and ICT capacity building. This year, members shared their strategies in pushing for digital prosperity in the region.

INDIA MOVES TOWARDS M-GOVERNANCE After moving towards e-Governance, now India is expanding m-Governance across the country. Around 54 gram panchayats in five remote blocks of the state will soon have SMS alerts on disasters, funds inflow and outflow, information about health camps and pulse polio campaigns will be sent to and from between the state departments, district offices and gram panchayats, block development offices.

In this regard, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has sanctioned INR 50 lakh for the pilot project. The project will begin in 54 gram panchayats in five blocks including Bandwan and Bagmundi blocks of Purulia and Sagar, Patharpratima and Gosaba blocks of South 24-Parganas. The project would be completed within nine months. Once the project is implemented, SMS alerts will be sent out to government officials and members of the gram panchayats about impending disasters such as a Bird Flu outbreak, or allotment of funds for a particular project, information about the date and venue of a health camp to be held, pulse polio campaign and the filing of reports through an SMS alert over the mobile. The state department for panchayat and rural development is working towards setting up Common Service Centres (CSC) at villages at the gram panchayat, block and district levels. About 1,000 CSCs, called Tathya Mitra, have already been rolled out in the districts.

DEPARTMENT OF ISLAMIC AFFAIRS JOINS DUBAI E-GOVERNMENT’S ASKDUBAI SERVICE The Dubai Department of Islamic Affairs and Charitable Activities (DICD) has become the 16th Government department to join the AskDubai service, an initiative that facilitates interaction between the government and its public through a single point of contact.

Initially, public can inquire about prayer timings via the AskDubai call centre and later on they will also be able to inquire about various services offered by DICD. AskDubai is a unified, bilingual (Arabic/ English) contact centre connecting to government departments in Dubai through multi channels including a call centre, internet chat, e-mail and fax. With DICD joining the AskDubai service, the public can

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have round-the-clock access to prayer timings for the day. AskDubai integrates key features of Customer Relationship Management, which has become a crucial component in many IT-enabled customer care services. Later on, AskDubai will offer a host of Islamic affairsrelated services via this channel.

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Ushering in an Information Century

Witness an Inspired India at eINDIA2008, the largest ICT event of the country and join the global movement for ICT and Development.

India's Largest ICT Event 29 - 31 July 2008 Pragati Maidan, New Delhi

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COUNTRY FOCUS: PAPUA NEW GUINEA

Harnessing the Potential of Digital Revolution

“With the e-Government initiatives, it is our aim to effectively create an alternative new channel for citizens and businesses to engage with government administrations transparently, at a faster pace, more conveniently and at a lower cost,” says Patrick O. Tammur, Hon’ble Minister for Communication and Information, Papua New Guinea 52 }

www.egovonline.net

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Please give us an overview of the socio- politico scenario of Papua New Guinea?

Papua New Guinea is a young and vibrant country rich in natural resources and home to 6 million people and more than 800 languages. We achieved independence in 1975 and for most of the formative years, our countries experience in governance was one of a ‘government-in-transit’. This is due to the political structure build around multiple coalition partners, none of them with a strong mandate to govern on their own.

This unfortunate scenario precipitated a lack of continuity in the aspects of policy and planning in the context of national development.

I am proud to say that Papua New Guinea has now managed to overcome this with the introduction of ‘Organic Law on Political Parties and Candidates: this prevents Members of Parliament from ‘party-hopping’.

Since then, Papua New Guinea has had a stable government led by the Hon’ble Prime Minister Rt. Sir Michael Somare, returning to power for a second consecutive term in 2007.

As a result of this stability in government, the people of Papua New Guinea are currently experiencing continuity and consistency in matters of policy, planning and national development, thereby providing us a window to address eGovernance.

How has your government harnessed the potential of Information and Technology (ICT) for better delivery of services to the citizens?

ICT is one sector that has enjoyed the benefit of a continuation of policies by the government. Much has been achieved by the current government over the past 5 years and I am pleased to share some of these achievements.

My Country Paper on the topic of ‘Government Policy to Support Efficient, Effective and Transparent Governance’ touches on the various policy and administrative actions and plans that we have put into place to harness the benefit from the digital revolution.

Papua New Guinea consists of largely rural communities physically divided by oceans and mountain ranges and is a challenge to the process of governance.

The government’s key focus has been placed largely on physical infrastructure such as roads, schools, hospitals etc.

The emergence of e-Government initiative is based largely on the key strategy of improving service delivery for better quality of life and to create new opportunities outside the spectrum of a traditional developmental processes.

What are the major e-Governance initiatives taken by your government? What benefits are envisaged from these initiatives?

The government has initiated a number of initiatives and projects to address the impediments to the introduction of e-Government.

First and foremost, was the adoption of a National ICT Policy in February this year. Subsequently, our Parliament endorsed relevant amendments to the Telecommunications Act 1996, to give effect to the ICT policy. The Policy recognises the use of ICT to secure the socio-economic benefits in the areas of education, health, national security, justice, agriculture, government administration and e-Commerce.

The Government is, therefore, embarking on a specificGovernment project called the Integrated Government Information System (IGIS) to link all the government agencies to a central database.

The resulting delivery of integrated and seamless services to the citizens and business partners will provide a more efficient, inclusive and transparent governance.

Notwithstanding the study, we have also recently launched a Rural Connectivity Project at a village in the outskirts of the capital city. This village now has chosen to proudly refer to themselves as the first ‘cyber’ village in Papua New Guinea, where broadband Internet connectivity with Voice-over-IP (Internet Protocol) services out of a box is a reality. Moreover, three more sites are currently under development. These initiatives are largely guided by the ongoing development and progressive implementation of the National ICT Policy.

With the e-Government initiatives, it is our aim to effectively create an alternative new channel for citizens and businesses to engage with government administrations transparently, at a faster pace, more conveniently and at a lower cost.

What are the challenges to accessing ICT services by the citizens?

Access to ICT services for our people is a key objective of our government. However, access here in the Papua New Guinea context raises a number of fundamental issues, namely affordability, availability and capability. This challenge is even greater when viewed in the context of providing broadband and Internet services for 80% of our people living in the rural areas.

Read All egov Interviews Online@www.egovonline.net ov

June 2008

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EVENT DIARY

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EVENT DIARY

The Government Leaders Forum – Asia

ICT: Accessibility for All Education, Healthcare and Sustainable Development came under the spotlight during this year’s Government Leaders Forum (GLF) at Jakarta, Indonesia. The forum focused on ‘Serving the citizen: The transformative power of Information Technology in delivering government services’. This year’s GLF provided an opportunity to bring together leaders to exchange experiences in these areas and discuss the specific challenges and opportunities in the Asia Pacific region. More than 100 delegates and guest speakers from Asian countries and around the world attended the two-day event scheduled between 8th and 9th May 2008.

OPENING SESSION

In his opening address, Emilion Umeoka, President, Microsoft Asia Pacific mentioned that leveraging ICTs for sustainable development in the Asia Pacific region is one of the three objectives of this year’s Government Leaders Forum – Asia. The other two objectives are to deliberate and discuss on the key issues in leveraging ICTs for education, health and achieving the sustainable development, and increase the public private partnership in these areas. Earlier in his address, he introduced the format and design of the forum.

Speaking at the forum Dr Surin Pitsuwan, Secretary General, Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) said it is high time to transform the public service delivery.

He said ASEAN covers 567 million people in 10 countries and contributes USD 1 trillion to the GDP and another 1.4 trillion towards foreign trade. This will be a lucrative market for the international business community. He also mentioned that ASEAN has been trying for a collective effort to manage positive impacts and cushion negative impacts of globalisation and technology. We need to think clear on how to integrate Microsoft to set up a system to manage well and improve further. He quoted Bill Gates by saying ‘Creative Capitalism’ as the new solution to the reach the unreached.

Dr Craig Mundie, Chief Research and Strategy Officer, Microsoft in his opening keynote address said ICT innovations are the building blocks of economic growth. For governments achieving economic development it is one of the key foci.

IT innovations promote global trade and assist businesses to reach the global market. He briefed the role of IT in two essential elements for good governance namely, education and healthcare. He shared different Microsoft initiatives in the education and health sector. He requested the government leaders to join hands with Microsoft to take these initiatives forward on a large scale.

In his welcome address, Ir. Aburizal Bakrie, Coordinating Member of People’s Welfare, Republic of Indonesia said Microsoft is not only a pioneer in software development, it 54

is a driving force for technology driven development across the globe. He mentioned that the Republic of Indonesia is reaping the benefits of information technology. The country has exploited innovative ways to reach the rural masses. He said “with the help of Microsoft, Indonesia would have 1000 Bill Gates in the years to come.”

REVIEW OF PROCEEDINGS OF THE FORUM Plenary forum on ‘Education’

Background It is axiomatic that a strong and inclusive educational system is the foundation of economic growth and innovation. It is also true that in both developed and developing markets’ educational systems are uneven and inconsistent in preparing students for the challenges of today’s increasingly digital environment – and of course many still have little or no access to formal education. Ironically, it is often in the learning context that computer technology – perhaps the world’s greatest tool for learning and the delivery of information – is used least effectively and creatively. Despite the dramatic ways in which IT has transformed our lives, today’s typical classroom and pedagogical style often closely resemble classrooms three decades ago – students sitting in rows of desks using a pen and paper to take notes, with the only major difference today being the use of computers to automate certain processes or mirror activities done initially by hand. The untapped potential of IT to fundamentally alter and enhance learning environments in ways that will foster social and economic opportunities for all – including underserved communities – is enormous. We will explore opportunities to dramatically change educational systems and increase access to education through the development and application of new technologies.

Proceedings: Anoop Gupta, Corporate Vice President, Unlimited Potential Group, Education Product Group, www.egovonline.net

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and Technology Policy & Strategy, Microsoft Corporation facilitated the session. Anoop introduced the theme of the plenary and invited the keynote speakers.

Professor Ir. Muhammad Nuh, DEA, Minister of Communications and Informatic, Republic of Indonesia and Prof. Bambang Sudibyo, Minister of National Education, Republic of Indonesia delivered the keynote address. In their presentations, the ministers focused on the key government initiatives to transform the public service delivery. They outlined the challenges they are facing in terms of financial allocation, demographics, infrastructure and upscaling.

After the keynote addresses, Anoop invited Sheldon Shaeffer, Director, UNESCO Asia Pacific; Dr Rom Hiranpruk, Director, Office of Knowledge and Development, Thailand and Prof. Jun Murai, Vice President, Keio University, Japan to share their views on the theme.

Key issues discussed

Increasing disparity between the haves and have nots Including the out of school and children with disabilities Reaching the children living in rural areas Lack of understanding among the policy makers while scaling up Shortage of knowledge workers Issue of morality/ethics Lack of management of education Capacity building of teachers Wired vs. Wireless to reach the last mile Infrastructures vs. Applications approach to service delivery Top-down vs. Bottom-up in policy making Sustainability

• • • • • • • • • • • •

PLENARY FORUM ON ‘SUSTAINABLE ECONOMIC GROWTH’ Background

It has long been recognised that IT can play a powerful role in driving economic growth. The IT industry itself is a powerful vehicle of wealth creation, producing an increasing number of high skill jobs in developed and developing markets across the region. Further, numerous studies demonstrate how IT helps government and industry to increase their overall productivity and efficiency. However, the full impact of IT as a growth driver has to be felt. Even in highly developed markets, IT is in many cases still underutilised. And the challenges are even more acutely felt in countries at comparatively lower points on the productivity and economic growth curves. One particularly vexing problem, for example, is how to expand rural access to IT in a manner that will foster inclusive economic growth – a significant concern in Asia Pacific, a region with both fast-growing economies and vast segments of the population living in remote and areas with limited connectivity and IT infrastructure.

Proceedings:Michael Rawding, Vice President, Unlimited Potential Group, Microsoft Corporation introduced the theme and invited the keynote speaker and panel discussion speakers to share their views. ov

June 2008

Dr Mari Pangestu, Minister of trade, Republic of Indonesia delivered the keynote address. In her address, she highlighted the use of IT as an enabling tool for good governance. She said e-Governance applications are easy to read in theory, but, are difficult to implement. Small and medium enterprises can play a key role in ensuring the sustainability.

Richard Fuchs, Regional Director, Southeast and East Asia, International Development Research Centre; Dr Tadatoshi Akiba, Major, City of Hiroshima, Japan; and Scot. A. Marciel, Ambassador for ASEAN Affairs, Department of State, U.S.A., shared their views and perspectives on the theme.

KEY ISSUES DISCUSSED

• • • • •

Where to go next? The 21st century goes to Asia Increasing literacy Digital divergence Shared access computing Train younger generation for doing global business on the Internet • IT can be leveraged for rural development – to provide information on education.

• Success stories – ICTA’s Nenasala telecentres, Philippine Community eCentre Programme The GLF had also seen plenary forums on Healthcare, Technology Solutions and Public Policy.

CLOSING REMARKS BY BILL GATES

In his keynote address Bill Gates, Microsoft Corporation Chairman announced several key programmes, partnerships and offerings that strengthen Microsoft’s commitment to and investment in delivering accessible technology and transforming education for citizens across the Asia Pacific region and around the world.

The announcements included new education tools for people with special needs; the extension of an important skills development and certification programme available through Internet cafes (iCafes) in the Philippines;the further progress of Microsoft’s flagship K-12 education programme Partners in Learning, which has now achieved a milestone number of 100 million students reached worldwide; and the expansion of Microsoft Innovation Centres in Indonesia with Pelita Harapan University.

“At the heart of our efforts is the belief that everyone should have access to technology and all the benefits it brings – quality education, fostering local innovation and enabling jobs and opportunities,” Gates said. “We want to do everything we can to equip economies with access to the tools of the digital information revolution – PCs, the Internet, productivity, software, e-mail – so that they can be full participants in the global knowledge economy.”

This event diary highlights sessions on Education and Sustainable Economic Growth at the Government Leaders Forum – Asia. The GLF had also seen plenary forums on Healthcare, Technology Solutions and Public Policy that are not included in this article.

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WHATS ON

JUNE 10, 2008 Soldier Technology 2008 London, United Kingdom http://www.soldiertechnology.com

25 - 26 JUNE 2008 TranSec World Expo PTA - Amsterdam http://www.transec.com

OCTOBER 18, 2008 10 - 11 JULY 2008 8th European Conference on e-Government Ecole Polytechnique, Lausanne, Switzerland

GCC eBanking Forum Dubai, United Arab Emirates http://www.datamatixgroup.com

http://www.academic-conferences.org/eceg/eceg2008/ eceg08-home.htm

JULY 26, 2008 International Joint Conference on e-Business and Telecommunications Porto, Portugal

OCTOBER 22, 2008

23 - 24 OCTOBER 2008

4th International Conference on e-Government Melbourne, Australia

4th International Conference on e-Government 2008 RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia

http://www.academic-conferences.org/iceg/iceg2008/ iceg08-home.html

http://www.econference.com.au/4th-InternationalConference-on-e-Government-2008.html

http://www.icete.org

NOVEMBER 13, 2008 Network Enabled Capability Exhibition 2008 Noida, India

AUGUST 26, 2008 Security 2008 Conference and Exhibition Sydney, Australia

http://nec-exhibition.com

http://www.securityexpo.com.au/

24 - 26 NOVEMBER 2008 TranSec India Expo Bandra Kurla Complex, Mumbai, India

AUGUST 27, 2008 International Symposium on Telecommunication Tehran, Iran

http://www.transec.com

http://ist2008.itrc.ac.ir

NOVEMBER 26, 2008 The 12th International Exhibition in Vietnam on Telecommunications and Information Technology / Vietnam Electronics 2008 Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

SEPTEMBER 3, 2008 3rd International Conference on Legal, Security and Privacy Issues in IT Prague, Czech Republic

http://www.2456.com/VNC

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17-19 APRIL 2009 SEPTEMBER 25, 2008 2nd International Conference on Methodologies, Technologies and Tools enabling e-Government Corfu, Greece http://conferences.cs.unicam.it/metteg08/

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29-31 July 2008 Pragati Maidan, New Delhi , India www.eINDIA.net.in

3rd IEEE/ACM International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development (ICTD2009) Doha, Qatar http://www.ictd2009.org

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