AGRICULTURE / WATER : July 2004 Issue by i4d magazine

Vol. II No. 7

July 2004

The first monthly magazine on ICT4D

India could be virtually food secure today Information for development www.i4donline.net

Technological Translations

Ensuring adequate water supply in India Swajaldhara

Ushering market-led agriculture extension

ISSN 0972 - 804X

AGRICULTURE / WATER

Digital Networks for Farmers

April 2004 | www.i4donline.net

Sub-Themes

Mapping and Geospatial Solutions

Contents

i4d Vol. II No. 7

Features

July 2004

Mailbox

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Columns

25 Interview Alan Rossi

27 Petersberg Prize 2004

Grameen Bank Village Phone awarded

28 6 8

Technological Translations India could be virtually food secure today T. Pradeep

Jagriti

Development Gateway Forum The action points

32 Opinion

What can ICTs do for rural poor? Alfonso Gumucio-Dagron

37 ICT and Education

Revolutionising agriculture, the IT way J. S. Sandha

11 Swajaldhara

Ensuring adequate water supply in India Seemantinee Sengupta, Om Prakash, G.V.S.N. Murthy

13 Digital Networks for Farmers Ushering market-led agriculture extension

39 Quiz

40 ‘Local Content’ quiz answers 41 What’s on 42 In fact 21 News

Information services for the farmer P. P. Nageswara Rao

Rural infrastructure and services commons (RISC) A model for rapid rural economic development Vinod Khosla and Atanu Dey

29 EU-ACP

CTA: Promoting cooperation Jayalakshmi Chittoor

Rendezvous

34 35 36

ICT stakeholder forum, Mauritius Mission 2007, Delhi, India ICTD project workshop, Hyderabad, India

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News Search ICT4D news in the sectors of governance, health, education, agriculture and so on. E-mail Subscribe to daily, weekly, monthly newsletters online or send request to info@i4donline.net

30 ICT Proliferation in Ghana Internet and the poor Kofi Mangesi

The magazine is full of relevant information for the audience. For this I congratulate the entire team of i4d. I believe that the i4d magazine and web site can draw a huge lot of advertisers; I hope you have already looked into this aspect. S P Nautiyal National Informatics Center (NIC), India sp_nautiyal@hub.nic.in

ICT and Agriculture

Madaswamy Moni

Planning 16 Agricultural Information Bank (APIB)

I just received a copy of the i4d magazine. Thanks a lot. Do let me know how we could regularly subscribe to the magazine, as it certainly seems to be a resource all of us would like to have here. Prashant Sharma ICIMOD, Nepal prashant@mtnforum.org

Research e-Learning projects from India. www.i4donline.net/elearn.asp Print edition The past issues of the magazine is available online www.i4donline.net/archive/archive.htm

Congratulations for bringing out such a useful newsletter. Keep doing good! Neelam Maheshwari Pradan, India neelammamheshwari@pradan.net Hello, happy to have been reading from i4donline and your efforts to get one of the developing countries like India on the eyes of the world. Your recent publication on e-Learning is a good step in the right direction. To keep millions of your readers abreast of information in the Information Technology stuffs. You have made your site my regular. Keep me updated if there is an avenue for foreign contributors. I would love to be one. Elochukwu Ukwandu Nigeria eloukwandu@hotmail.com I am very pleased to see the posting of our event on your site. I am a member of parliament and a chairperson of the Tanzania parliamentarian network on ICT4D. This monthly magazine is very useful and practical to meet the needs and the demands of the modern world in this globalised world. I will send you more information about Parliament and our constitution. Dr. Batilda Burian Member of Parliament, Tanzania batildab@yahoo.co.uk i4d gives a lot of information, which is highly useful to a technocrat (like me) as well as to non-technocrats. Thank you very much, and expecting more. Antony Joseph Chairman-CSI, Cochin Chapter, India saathviksystems@rediffmail.com

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i4d Editorial Calendar 2004 Month

Theme

January

Microfinance

February

ICT and education

March

ICT and health

April

Wireless communication

May

ICT for the poor

June

Local Content

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Water/Agriculture

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Community Radio

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Tele-centers/Kiosks

October

Submission of articles

FLOSS

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e-Culture

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e-Governance

July 31 August 31 September 30 October 31

i4d | July 2004

Editorial Information for development

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Advisory Board M P Narayanan, Chairman, i4d Amitabha Pande Department of Science and Technology, Government of India Chin Saik Yoon Southbound Publications, Malaysia Ichiro Tambo OECD, France Karl Harmsen Centre for Space Science and Technology Education in Asia and the Pacific, India Kenneth Keniston Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA Mohammed Yunus Grameen Bank, Bangladesh Nagy Hanna Information Solutions Group, World Bank, USA S. Ramani Research Director, H.P.Labs, India Walter Fust Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, Switzerland Wijayananda Jayaweera UNESCO, France Editorial Board Akhtar Badshah, Digital Partners Fredrick Noronha, Bytesforall Madan Mohan Rao, Consultant Editor Ravi Gupta Editorial Consultant Jayalakshmi Chittoor Research Associate Anuradha Dhar, Gautam Navin, Saswati Paik Design Deepak Kumar

This issue of i4d magazine on agriculture and water could not have been more appropriate given the looming meteorological drought in India that has already affected about nine states. The need for macro and micro level readjustments and such analysis to reach the extension workers and farmers are becoming more and more critical. Research organisations and international agencies have always valued the importance of information databases and have methodically archived research and development findings. However, it is only in the last few years that the thrust has shifted to make local information relevant and applicable for the communities and farmers for whom well-informed decision making would mean better cropping decisions and management of the scarce resources like water and seed stocks. There are numerous organisations, which are involved, in collecting information on water and agriculture. The research includes information collection on plethora of issues such as soils, crops, insects, irrigation mechanisms, weather etc. But, in spite of the concerted efforts to disseminate this information among the farmers at large, it is still rare to find this valuable information reaching the farmers. If it reaches there, it is often too late. The challenge for an agrarian country like India is to convert the excellent research knowledge and infrastructure to one that is of value to the people. The “lab to land” concept in the field of ICT is becoming a reality with several innovative initiatives, some of which are presented in this issue. Many of the authors have made the critical point that the issues are not only about technology but also about providing locally relevant information, packaged in a manner that is easily comprehended by the local farmers and users of the resources.

Programmer Analyst Manish Kumar Business Executive Neeraj Budhari Group Directors Maneesh Prasad, Sanjay Kumar i4d G-4 Sector 39, NOIDA, UP, 201 301, India. Phone +91 120 250 2180-87 Fax +91 120 250 0060 Email info@i4donline.net Web www.i4donline.net

It would be a shame if the revolution in ICTs cannot bring improvement in the lives of the rural community that is primarily dependent on water and agriculture to make timely and adaptive decisions. We look forward to learning about other projects in this field, and would very much like our readers to contribute news and contacts about other useful projects, so that we can collectively share this knowledge for rural communities to use.

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i4d is a monthly publication. It is intended for those interested and involved in the use of Information and CommnicationTechnologies for development of underserved communities. It is hoped that it will serve to foster a growing network by keeping the community up to date on many activities in this wide and exciting field. i4d does not necessarily subscribe to the views expressed in this publication. All views expressed in this magazine are those of the contributors. i4d is not responsible or accountable for any loss incurred directly or indirectly as a result of the information provided.

February 2004 | www.i4donline.net © Centre for Spatial Database Management and Solutions, 2003

T ECHNOLOGICAL T RANSLATIONS

India could be virtually food secure today

We just need the political will to implement our technologies in the interests of our rural communities. This article explores how technology can impact on our collective stomach; on our very survival.

Agricultural dry lands constitute the single largest livelihoods resource base in the semiarid regions. The semi-arids are defined as areas with adequate rain and soil moisture for 75-180 plant LGP (Length of Growing Period) days. The semi-arids form the single largest landmass in India. States, which contain significant areas of this include, amongst others, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. The semiarid region literally provides the collective Indian stomach: >65 % crop production in the country is rainfall dependent.

T Pradeep SAMUHA, Bangalore, India pradeep@samuha.org

Some ICT dream tools in agriculture

Stress to food security • Decreasing biomass and bio-diversity • Increasing rain delay/failure • Decreasing soil fertility and crop productivity • Usurious local interest rates of 36%72%, and • Low access to cheap institutional credit, compounded by a high incidence of defaulters. But more critically, we are in the process of losing the very ground on which our lives are built on: • About 187 million hectares (ha) of land in India is already degraded. • Each hectare loses slightly more than 1 mm of its top soil every year. This translates into a horrendous average national soil loss of 16.3 tonnes/ha/year! • Soil erosion is estimated to cause an yield decline of 0.14 tonnes/ha/per mm of soil loss. (Resource Management in Rainfed Drylands - MYRADA and IIRR, 1997 Vision 2020, Div. Of NRM, ICAR)

The following applications are based on remote sensing, GIS and on wireless

telemetry for rainfall data. While remote sensing has existed for many years, it is only recently that satellite images with resolutions as high as 70cm (which allows any object that is 70 cm long to be seen with the naked eye) are now available. Cost implications of this technology have restricted the use of this technology primarily to macro planning. But it is in its micro use, that this technology comes into its own. While each of the following applications is also a stand-alone, it is in the convergence of remote sensing, telemetry and GIS that the real solutions for Indian agriculture will be found. Rainwater harvesting: Technical guidelines for the construction of Farm Ponds ask for a catchment of 7 ha for a pond of 9mx9mx9m in areas with around 500mm of rain. A simple planning tool can be created with the use of 5.8m satellite images from the National Remote Sensing Agency. Updated drainage lines can be interpreted from this, and a watershed ridge line delineated. A minimal GIS tool can be created to generate 7 ha squares. And you have a dream tool (Fig-1) that can be used by farmers, line department officials and bankers to examine where farm ponds can be sited, and for drawing up departmental annual action plans. And this can be adapted with ease for different rainfall areas. Modelling tools also exist to translate the existing 20m contour height levels from the Survey of India topographical maps into 1m contour height levels. The GIS tool can be modified to also include farm bunds to facilitate soil conservation plans, while both the bunds and the drainage lines can provide planning and monitoring data for vegetative treatments. Understanding soil: Tonal signatures from a satellite image can be interpreted, ground truthed, and form the basis for a i4d | July 2004

semi-detailed soil survey. With the help of a good soil scientist, this can provide a soil map with >60% accuracy at the individual plot level. With soil as the foundational data, a soil scientist can now interpret the Land Capability Classification (LCC) for a given area. Basically, this defines what soil is good for what land use and crop. The use of satellite imagery and a linear classification allows this process to create LCCs with finer gradations. With a plot’s LCC known, it is now easy to examine whether an existing land use is appropriate to the soil’s carrying capacity. Soil also provides a foundational tool to understand the vulnerability of a plot of land to soil and moisture erosion. By extrapolating plot area, soil type, slope and maximum rainfall over the past 25 years to a standard run-off formula, it is possible to define which plot is at very high, high, medium, low and no risk for erosion. Both carrying capacity analysis and lands at risk have been developed by SAMUHA’s Centre for Remote Sensed Micro Applications (CReSMA). Food fodder fuel budgeting: This is a tool developed by the University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore, for ISRO’s Integrated Mission for Sustainable Development. Using this, satellite images can be interpreted for biomass and converted into a Supply figure. Similarly, population in a given area is then quantified as a demand figure. Based on this, an area can be assessed as being surplus or deficit. Given the criticality of fuel wood in rural areas, specific interventions can be undertaken to establish woodlots to meet a village’s fuel requirement, even as a village’s fodder requirement is assessed and specific steps taken to grow more biomass for livestock development. Plot Map: Most revenue maps are a pictorial depiction of land ownership, with each survey number connoting an individual owner. Unfortunately, revenue maps in India are 30-60 years out of date. All changes in land ownership since the map was last created are now maintained in a khata (plot) register. Because there is no corelation between the visual map and the text register, the village accountant becomes inordinately important. Satellite images, now available at 70cm resolution, provide a simple way of upgrading and updating all revenue maps in the country. SAMUHA has defined a plot as the unit for base maps. In GIS terms, a plot is a polygon, and when this is attached to a record, it allows the map to be queried for all the data contained in the record. By clubbing different factors, it is also possible to create a map showing household vulnerability. This household Vulnerability Index was generated using landholding, caste and gender as parameters. Farmer card: SAMUHA believes that an overview of all the factors affecting their lands can help farmers make the transition from being cultivators to becoming managers of their resources. The Farmer Card provides information – ownership, location, drainage, soil, hydrogeomorphological, recommended cropping and conservation measures for each of their plots. Credit inventory: SAMUHA presently uses the data generated from remote sensing in the planning and implementation of 7 watershed projects supported by the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) Watershed Development Fund, the Indo-Swiss Participatory Watershed Development-Karnataka project, and Plan International. The co-relation of plot-level Land Capability information to existing institutional credit and land development schemes led us to hypothesise that we could July 2004 | www.i4donline.net

Fig 1

generate Rs 5 million in bank and departmental credit and schemes for every 1000 ha. This is now being tested in a 10,000 ha study area in partnership with HP Kuppam-i-Community in the Shantipuram Mandal in Chittoor district, Andhra Pradesh. Wireless Telemetric Rain Gauges (WTRG): The reality of the semi-arids is that even after water, land development and credit have been addressed; agriculture here is still rain dependent. The Drought Monitoring Cell (DMC) is a little known scientific unit of the government of Karnataka. Despite a serious paucity of resources, DMC has done cutting edge work in developing the use of rainfall data into Taluk level Aridity Index Reports which provide a critical Drought Monitoring Information System to the government and to farmers. While DMC has been able to get government of Karnataka to now order the establishment of rain gauge stations in every Gram Panchayat, its work is handicapped by the availability of real time data. This is now being addressed by a wireless telemetric rain gauge, which uses GSM technology to facilitate each WTRG to send a SMS message to DMC on how much rain has fallen in the previous 24 hours. DMC is also committed to redesigning its Taluk Aridity Index to a Gram Panchayat-level. This will ensure that for the first time, farmers will receive real time rainfall data.

Conclusion At the end of the day, dryland agriculture is still the most sustainable of all our agricultures. Scarce natural resources led our farmers to make farming part of a life style. Much of the ills of agriculture have arisen from a consumer culture, which has taught us to live beyond our means. Technology presently provides the easiest means to continue and to increase the exploitation of our natural resources. And in the process, technology also takes a bad name. Especially amongst the marginalised and the disadvantaged who pay disproportionately for this misuse. The challenge for the future is not technological: it is how we can use the creativity inherent in technology for the greater good of all, not just some good for a few.

J AGRITI

Revolutionising agriculture, the IT way “India is like a long snake”, he wrote, “while the head is moving into the twenty first century, the tail is still in the sixteenth; and, there are people all over its body”. For me, this was the most comprehensive statement of the information-status of Indian society.

J. S. Sandha Jagriti e-Sewa, Punjab, India jsandha@vsnl.net

In the early 1990’s the software Guru Ed Yourdon (www.yourdon.com) visited India and wrote an article on his return to USA. Those days India was still struggling to make a name in software business. “India is like a long snake”, he wrote, “while the head is moving into the twenty first century, the tail is still in the sixteenth; and, there are people all over its body”. For me, this was the most comprehensive statement of the information-status of Indian society. The story is similar in all developing countries, the difference being the length of this snake and the number of people on its head and the tail. Next few years, I kept on thinking: Can we push the people on the tail towards the head?

The need Like India, all the developing countries are beset with problems of unemployed youth, lack of infrastructure and resources. Some are as follows: • A large population of trained, educated youth, who need to be deployed/employed but the governments are unable to do so. • This large pool of youth doesn’t have resources to set up even a tiny enterprise to employ themselves. • There is a large gap between the lifestyles of rural and urban areas. There is also an accelerating gap due to limited access to ICTs between various strata of people, the so-called digital ‘have/ havenots’. This phenomenon is being popularly addressed as ‘Digital Divide’. An ideal solution to these problems is to develop a self-supporting model that touches lives of people in most spheres of life and apart from causing the improvement in their lifestyles and livelihoods, address the issues of universality of access and creating employment in the society.

The Jagriti model Jagriti e-Sewa (www.jagriti.com) is a social enterprise that has pioneered the concept of development of ‘Rural Models of IT’. The salient features of Jagriti include: Low cost IT solutions The whole project has been developed around Linux, the open source operating system that has gained a lot of ground against proprietary systems such as Windows. This has helped in a saving of about Rs 22,000 per kiosk, being the license fee for proprietary software. The use of Linux has saved about Rs 2 crore on the software license fee only. Linux being less demanding on resources, some outdated and old computers can also be deployed in the project. Appropriate technology The technologies as ‘available today’ (e.g. dial-up) are used to render services, rather than the ones, which would have caused waiting or efforts elsewhere. Considering that the American model of e-Commerce (read Credit Card Commerce) wasn’t feasible in rural India for quite some time to come, a hybrid model (physical + electronic) called ‘d-commerce’ (desi-Commerce) was used and it was an alternative model of delivery mechanism. Diverse services The lifestyles in rural areas are quite complex. Declining agricultural incomes, migration to cities and the spread of information/ TV has brought about a spurt in demands in the rural areas of modern gadgets like mobile phones that reflect a complex blend of urban and rural. Jagriti recognised this, conducted market studies and included a blend of services that have rural and urban flavours to it. i4d | July 2004

Stress on agriculture Most of the canvas of rural lifestyle is filled with the colors of agriculture. Jagriti was born just when the concept of the ‘Second Green Revolution’(SGR) was taking shape. By this time it had become adequately clear that IT and BT (Bio-Technology) would be pivots of SGR. Hence Jagriti decided to take active part in SGR, using IT as vehicle for development. Local franchise Jagriti has been focusing on the local youth and the ex-servicemen for franchising out the kiosks. The location of this kiosk is chosen such that there is a significant flow of people in that area. Bus stops, villages with banks etc have been found to be viable locations. Knowledge centres Jagriti e-Sewa Kendras are envisioned as centers of knowledge for that area. The Kendra is equipped with some reading space with reading material, especially that relating to agriculture and rural development. Jagriti kendras keep themselves on the forefront of development activities by organising farmer’s training programmes and other social activities (e.g. Pulse Polio Camps etc.).

Current status Presently Jagriti e-Sewa Kendras are operational in five districts of Punjab. All districts of Punjab will have Jagriti Kendras by the end of year 2004. The spread of Jagriti got a shot in the arm with the initiation of a REDP (Rural Entrepreneurship Development Programme) funded by National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) in December 2003. Educated rural youth have been trained in running rural e-Services and are being helped for availing loans under Prime Minister’s Employment Scheme (PMRY) to establish their own Jagriti e-Sewa Kendras.

Giving new paradigms of life Jagriti has been operational since March 2003. While it is too early to claim large impacts, the Jagriti teams, assisted by the franchisees in their respective areas, have been instrumental in bringing about a perceptible change in the thinking process of local population: • People now look at IT devices as the vehicles to improve their lot, rather than awesome white elephants. • People wish to plan their travel by talking to Jagriti e-Sewa franchisees, and book their railway tickets, rather than travel unplanned and in discomfort.

The services available at Jagriti e-Sewa • Punjabi e-mails: sending and receipts • Delivery of Prepaid cards: Cell Phone, Virtual Calling Cards (VCC), Internet, Internet Phone • Booking of travel seats: Rail reservation, Buses to Delhi Airport • Life Insurance policies • Vehicle financing • Money transfer • Precision Agriculture:Input/produce linkages, contract, organic farming, soil testing, fertiliser dose guidance July 2004 | www.i4donline.net

A farmer’s training programme being conducted on integrated watershed development programme

• Large attendance at Jagriti’s training camps on Medicinal Plants, Organic Farming and Contract Farming and their keenness to get out of current crop rotation has made a small initiative like Jagriti the most popular converging point for these issues. Jagriti receives numerous calls daily, requesting more details on this livelihood option.

Modernisation of agriculture Punjab in India, the birth-state of Jagriti, has been at the forefront of the First Green Revolution and has led the country in adapting to the new techniques of agriculture. This kept the hunger away from the most of India. Probably it was the need of that hour. Slowly the negative aspects of the technologies used in First Green Revolution came to light. Over the last many years the grain output has been static, the soil health has declined and the land responds sluggishly to the inputs. Water table, mostly within 20 metres till about ten years ago, has been falling at an alarming rate of about 70 cm per year. Most of the farmers are stuck in the traditional wheatpaddy rotation due to undeveloped marketing infrastructure for other crops. All these, combined with rising literacy and consumption (and aspirations), has led to a score of social maladies which ranged from debt-suicides by the farmers to a scramble to go abroad. With this background, Jagriti has undertaken a multi-pronged programme to bring about changes in Punjab. These include: Promotion of medicinal plants For the first phase, seven Medicinal and Aromatic Plants (MAPs) have been identified. Based on the studies with the farmers, the programme includes extension services, training and guidance, provision of quality planting material and providing market links for the growers. The Jagriti e-Sewa Kendras act as contact centers for the local population for enquiry, training and knowledge exchange. The kiosk franchisee is normally a quick learner and is backed up with adequate knowledge with offline presentations. All such enquiries, offer of land for cultivation of MAPs, and soil test results are fed into the kiosk computer and ultimately reach the Jagriti server. A trial area of 45 acres, spread in 1-2 acre size farms, has been brought under MAPs by Jagriti during the current season. This is targeted to increase to about 500 acres by July 2004.

• Creation and fast replication of training material for the farmers. • Efficient management of inputs, stocks and the produce. • Maintenance of the master database of the producers, agroclimatic data and farm data. • Market demand/prices data.

The current applications in use Training material Training material about the MAPs selected for Punjab has been prepared and provided on the Jagriti kiosk network. The material is menu driven, in local language and takes extensive support of pictorial presentation. Each crop also has a FAQ section that is a repository of farmer’s questions and expert’s answers. The UK Herbal farm at Jalandhar district being developed in association with Jagriti e-Seva

Precision and sustainable agriculture It is a known fact that post-WTO, agriculture in all developing countries will have to become more competitive. Jagriti has undertaken initiatives to guide the farmers on controlling the investment on inputs and maximixe the productivity. The soil samples are tested in-house at Jagriti or at other labs and the farmers are guided into judicious control of inputs. The farmers are also advised on proper timing of agricultural operations, especially those related to insecticide application and the quality issues. All the advise/recommendations are based on the recommendations made by leading institutions such as Punjab Agricultural University, Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) or other such institutes of repute. To ensure long-term sustainability and food security, efforts are also being made to enable full support on development of ‘Jagriti Organic Farms’. Jagriti has been in dialogue with the research, finance and other development agencies to support these farms. These farms will be given close guidance by Jagriti and other supporting agencies. Market links have already been established wherein the buyers have agreed to support this initiative by buying the produce of these farms. Quality benchmarking Another facet of post-WTO situation in agriculture will also revolve around international acceptance of produce. EC has already become the single largest group of countries adopting a common set of policies, and not to forget that they have among the most comprehensive (read stringent) laws relating to import of food. Indian food products will have to ensure and prove its quality standard. This is easier said than done, for, the food production, agronomic practices, storage, process cycle is very long and complex. Jagriti has in-house know-how of such benchmarking and has initiated the process of acquiring the capability of Quality Benchmarking of agricultural produce at the farmer’s premises through Jagriti e-Sewa Kendras.

Role of ICT in agriculture initiatives of Jagriti • Reduction in the cost of communication and improvement of the response time to the queries.

Booking of land committed for MAPs The kiosk software provides for filling up of an online form in case a farmer intends to adopt cultivation of MAPs. Soil/water test reports The kiosks can collect and forward the samples of soil and water to the head office. The reports of these samples and the expert’s advice are transmitted to the kiosk in electronic manner. Crop inspection reports The kiosk software includes provision for data entry of Crop Inspection Reports based on the inspections carried out by the kiosk franchisee. All events (irrigation, rain, storm) and inputs (interculture, fertilisation etc) are recorded in this section.

Conclusions Jagriti e-Sewa has tried to create a very comprehensive model of ITenabled rural services. This model is different from other models in the way that it touches the rural life in most comprehensive manner that includes activities from agriculture, financial, travel, e-Governance to communication services. While the starting was slow and difficult, now many development and government agencies have shown interest in the work done by Jagriti. It has adopted a financially self-sustaining model. This has helped Jagriti to prove that there is an increasing opportunity in making a development model out of marriage of ICTs with rural development.

Future path • Jagriti is working towards the increase of ‘depth’ of operations by adding more rural-centric services for sustainable development of rural life. These include adding the distribution of rural commodities and services. • Increase the ‘width’ of operations by moving into other states of India and other developing countries. Many associate organisations, educational institutions and individuals are working towards identification of local needs to make Jagriti more relevant in new areas. • Identification of opportunities associating with like-minded developing agencies to enable the filling of ‘knowledge gaps’, which needs investment. i4d | July 2004

S WAJALDHARA

Ensuring adequate water supply in India The article focuses on the e-Governance efforts undertaken by the Department of Drinking Water Supply, delivering web based information to the government agencies in terms of better planning and monitoring.

Seemantinee Sengupta ssengupta@water.nic.in Om Prakash omprakash@hub.nic.in G.V.S.N.Murthy gvsnm@hub.nic.in National Informatic Centre (NIC), Department of Information Technology, Government of India, New Delhi, India

July 2004 | www.i4donline.net

The Department of Drinking Water Supply (DDWS), Ministry of Rural Development (MRD), Government of India (GOI) supplements the efforts of the states in their strive towards providing safe drinking water, sanitation and hygienic education to the rural population through central programmes like Accelerated Rural Water Supply Programme (ARWSP), Swajaldhara, Total Sanitation Campaign and state programmes like Minimum Needs Programme (MNP). Primarily the approach of attaining universal coverage was based on target driven norms and was allocation based, being implemented by highly centralised state government departments. Although the coverage achieved in providing safe drinking water to the entire rural population is appreciable in terms of assets created, which is more than 94%, there is a considerable gap between infrastructure created and service level available to the community. Realising that the target driven approach is not sustainable, the government introduced the Sector Reform Programme (SRP), which is a paradigm shift from the highly centralised programmes to demand oriented community based programme, in which the community also bears a part of the capital cost of the water supply scheme and takes full responsibility of its operation and maintenance including its recurring costs. This programme was further scaled up in the form of Swajaldhara, which was launched in December 2002. Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) is another important project undertaken by the Govt. of India, in Department of Drinking Water Supply. In 1986, the Government of India launched Central Rural Sanitation Programme (CRSP). However, the CRSP project continued with heavy subsidy and was a supply driven programme. It was in

April 1999, that GOI revamped the CRSP and introduced the Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC). So far, 398 projects have been sanctioned (covering 398 districts with more than 5 crores sanitation units) in a single scheme alone. These projects are at various stages of implementation. The enormity of data being handled by the department, poses a monitoring problem for these programmes in absence of computerisation. Earlier the progress of implementation of the rural water supply and sanitation projects, in the various districts was monitored manually. Data in the prescribed formats was sent by post and thereafter, necessary information processing was done manually in order to produce required outputs. This method was time consuming, heavily reliant on the person dealing with this data and was afflicted with other kinds of problems associated with manual processing. The record keeping related to funding and progress achieved was also not in easily traceable form. As a solution, e-Governance efforts at various levels were timely conceptualised by the department and steps were taken to introduce the infrastructure to promote the basic ICT services utilisation, to begin with, in the ninth five-year plan itself. The development and deployment of an Integrated MIS for all the State Public Health Engineering Departments(PHED) /Jal Nigam or Water Authority or Boards being taken up in a massive way in the Tenth Plan period to facilitate the interaction of these agencies with common man and monitoring exercise.

The monitoring system design methodology Given the nature of the reform program as a pilot initiative, the monitoring and evaluation system is envisaged to be an

institutionalised arrangement in strategic learning and action at community, district, state and national levels. The basic considerations that have informed the designing of the MIS, includes the reform approach and objectives, learning needs of various stakeholders at the community, district, state and national levels, actual and potential institutional capacity to generate and manage data and time and cost effectiveness of data collection and management vis-à-vis the usability and possible use of data collected. Wider learning for policy application and improved project management and institutional practices has been the other key consideration in developing the architecture of the system. The architecture of IMIS, focusing on e-Governance, envisages the habitation survey data to play the base role on which the other components of state PHED Information Systems should reside and interact with. The requirement of DDWS, at headquarter level, is being currently serviced by web based Information systems for Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC), Swajaldhara, Research and Development Projects, Nirmal Gram Puruskar (NGP), prepared by the NIC- DDWS Informatics Cell, Rural Development Informatics Systems Division. The performance reports from grassroots are being entered by executing agencies over the web. These information systems could be accessed through departmental portal for various kinds of reports.

Objectives and benefits of IMIS • Centralised hosting of database for monitoring all the projects • Decentralised access to various stakeholders (state, districts etc) • Speed up information flow from the districts

• Improved efficiency, performance and speed in decision-making process • Enhanced security of the system with password protection • Ease in historical Data Maintenance • Elimination of human error in processes The Web is the new paradigm for delivering applications as it is globally accessible, allows for centralised administration, immediate single point upgrades and delivers an application to multiple clients on several operating systems using the same code base. These applications are relatively low cost and reside on the server making updates spontaneous. Custom web applications also require minimal user training, as the applications are as easy to use as surfing the Web and also relieves end user from the problems of backup, recovery, security and other IT centric activities related with data maintenance at their end. The use of the Online Monitoring software will give a fillip to efficient project implementation and monitoring and at the same time make the data universally available.

Acknowledgement The authors are deeply indebted to Kumar Alok, Deputy Secretary and Kamal Mazumdar, Assistant Advisor of the Department for their continual support and valuable inputs and last but not the least to D.C.Misra, Senior Technical Director and HOD, Rural Development Informatics Systems Division, National Informatics Centre, for his constant inspiration and valuable guidance.

i4d | July 2004

D IGITAL N ETWORKS

FOR

F ARMERS

Ushering market-led agriculture extension This paper deals with the government’s digital initiatives and agenda as a step towards “reaching” agricultural knowledge and technology to the resource poor farmers of the country.

Madaswamy Moni National Informatics Centre (NIC) Department of Information Technology, Government of India, New Delhi, India moni@hub.nic.in

July 2004 | www.i4donline.net

Agriculture, including crop and animal husbandry, forestry and agro-forestry, fisheries, and agro-industries, provides livelihoods to over 70 per cent of the Indian population. Multifunctionality - an economic activity (producing goods) and a service to the community (food security, rural employment, and environmental obligations such as soil conservation, sustainable natural resource management and biodiversity protection) - is thus crucial to sustainable agricultural and rural development in our country. Multifunctional agriculture is the bottom line for integrated rural development. Agricultural development, along with village and cottage industries, tiny and micro enterprises, are the cornerstone for promoting sustainable rural livelihoods. Our vision is to realise an economically and socially vibrant agricultural industry i.e. to accelerate commercialisation of innovative, alternative and value-added agricultural and farm related enterprises, in rural areas. This development strategy, inter alia, facilitates skill improvement, providing employment in rural areas, transfer of technology, rural industrialisation and promoting self-reliance among the people and to build up a strong rural community base. An agricultural knowledge and information system for rural empowerment and improved livelihoods i.e. e-farmer, is the need of the hour. This paper broadly deals with the government’s digital initiatives and agenda (viz., Agrisnet, Agris, Agmarknet, Dacnet, Vistarnet, Aphnet, Fishnet, Hortnet, Seednet, Ppin, Coopnet, Fertnet, Arisnet, Afpinet, Arinet, Ndmnet, etc), as a step towards “reaching” agricultural knowledge and technology to the Small Holders (Resource-PoorFarmers) of the country. The AGMARKNET has already emerged as the sun-shine website for farmers to bargain better prices for

their produce, and marching ahead towards becoming an e-Commerce and e-Business portal in India. AGMARKNET programme plays a catalytic role for ushering in “market-led agricultural extension” in India, highly scalable, planned through bottomup process, and implemented through active involvement and collaboration of agricultural market committees in India. This digital development in rural areas of India facilitates rural prosperity, rural empowerment, and a warehousing of data for development – a step towards digital inclusion to foster rural enterprise in India.

Government’s initiatives on agricultural ICT in India The Vision 2020 document of the central Department of Agriculture and Cooperation (DAC) envisages that “the tools of IT will provide networking of Agriculture Sector not only in the country but also globally and the Centre and State Government Departments will have reservoir of databases”; and also will bring farmers, researchers, scientists and administrators together by establishing “Agriculture Online” through exchange of ideas and information. ICTs diffusion and infusion have many potential applications spanning the breadth of the agricultural industry, at all scales of organisation from farmer, to cooperative and professional bodies, from farm machinery vendors, fertiliser and chemical companies, insurance, regulators, and commodities, to agronomists, consultants, and farm advisors. According to the National IT Task Force (1999) recommendation (No.79), “the Government shall take all necessary steps to boost IT for agriculture and integrated rural development”. The Ministry of Agriculture and National Informatics Centre (NIC) also emphasised informatics for Agricultural

development in the national conference on “Informatics for Sustainable Agricultural Development (ISDA-95). Many follow up actions (ICT projects: AGMARKNET, DACNET, etc) were taken up, to provide relevant agricultural information in rural areas, helping farmers to improve their labor productivity, increase their yields, and realise a better price for their produce. This initiative is based on the recommendations of ISDA-95 Conference (Informatics for Sustainable Agricultural Development), includes: • AGRISNET: An infrastructure network upto block level agricultural offices facilitating agricultural extension services and agribusiness activities to usher in rural prosperity • AGMARKNET: With a road map to network 7000 Agricultural produce wholesale markets and 32000 rural markets • ARISNET: Agricultural Research Information System Network • SeedNET: Seed Informatics Network • CoopNet: To network 93000 Agricultural Primary Credit Societies (PACS) and Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Societies to usher in ICT enabled services and rural transformation • HORTNET: Horticultural Informatics Network • FERTNET: Fertilisers (Chemical, Bio and Organic Manure) Informatics Network facilitating “Integrating Nutrient Management” at farm level • VISTARNET: Agricultural Extension Information System Network • PPIN: Plant Protection Informatics Network • APHNET: Animal production and Health Informatics Network networking about 42000 Animal Primary Health Centres • FISHNET: Fisheries Informatics Network • LISNET: Land Information System network linking all institutions involved in land and water management for agricultural productivity and production systems, which has now evolved as “Agricultural Resources Information System” project during the Tenth Plan being implemented through NIC. • AFPINET: Agricultural and Food Processing Industries Informatics Network

• ARINET: Agricultural and Rural Industries Information System Network to strengthen Small and Micro Enterprises (SMEs) • NDMNET: Natural Disaster Management Knowledge Network • Weather NET: Weather Resource System of India India is expected to become a “Knowledge Society” by 2008 and by which time, any farmer in a remote village can demand and get the following information: • Land use planning for cropping strategy for farmers fields based on integrated information on soil, water, weather, fertiliser and pest management models; • How and where to get seeds or good quality nursery plants; • Prevailing prices of farm equipments, agricultural produce, products and series of such set of information, which can lead to high productivity and optimum cost benefit to the farmers. To achieve “knowledge society” in agriculture, the following things should happen: • An agriculture information centre in each village; • Interactive exchange of information for planning and day-today operations by farmers; • Availability of all the extension and advisory services on demand. Various study results strongly support that the “payoff” effect of ICT on economic growth can be achieved only through a robust National Information Infrastructure (NII), i.e. AGRISNET for the agricultural sector that supports ICT adoption and applications in pre-harvest and post-harvest supply chain activities. As a step towards “reaching” technology to the small holders (Resource-PoorFarmers) of the Country, the Central Ministry of Agriculture have taken initiatives to build up an Informatics Network - AGRISNET: A NICNET based Agricultural Informatics and Communication during the Tenth Plan (2002-07). During the Ninth Plan, this proposal did not materialise due to bureaucratic entangle. This ICT Network envisages to facilitate an integrated approach of ‘Internet Technology” and “Sustainable Agricultural, Rural and Backward Area Development” with its farm and non-farm linkages. This digital agenda informatics-led development facilitates ushering in agricultural governance in the country, and it is essential to make the AGRISNET as the rural infrastructure reaching upto 6.5 Lakh villages. The DACNET Programme (http://dacnet.nic.in) is recognised as an “e-GOV4D1 ” model in India.

AGMARKNET: A warehousing of “data-for-development” on Internet In view of globalisation, the main players of the future would no longer be conventional landowners but agri-businesses linked directly to multinational food corporations (Peter Bunyard, 2002)1. Global competition and new Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are forging new relationships within and between, different layers of agribusiness, transforming the industry from a chain to a complex web. e-Commerce is growing fastest among businesses and facilitates companies to integrate and maximise changes. The industry developments provide an insight into trends, potential impacts and prospects, as given below: • e-Marketplace/Neutral e-Hub • e-Distribution sites/Distributor model • e-Procurement sites/Aggregation model i4d | July 2004

e-Marketplaces are expected to emerge as a dominant force in e-Commerce, accounting to 56% of the value of all Business to Business (B2B) transactions by 2004, compared to 7.5% in 2001 (IDC, 2000)2. Another trend in e-Commerce is in the supply of information. “Business to Business” (B2B)3 and “Business to Consumer” (B2C) raises questions for agriculture, because traditionally farmers have never been equal trading partners with either the upstream input suppliers or with the downstream retailers and distributors. Another trend is the current domination of B2B developments by large and medium sized farms. According to http://www.emarketer.com, although 98% of medium and large business was expected to be online by the end of 2002, 82% of small business would also be online. However, as with many concepts and trends, application to the agricultural industry raises questions. There appears to be a distinct difference between ‘Farm Business’ and ‘Up and Down Stream Business’: • Farm Business - limited web presence - restricted to direct trade with final customer often in niche market and not to retailers or processors. • Up and Down Stream Businesses - significant developments sites for buying or selling with a large number of individual business, farmers or customers Classical farm businesses do not appear to have either the capacity (capital, labour, and expertise) or the necessity (output) to set up and maintain sites at the same level as for up-stream and downstream business. Business upstream and downstream of the farm business are generally more consolidated and are more likely to have the capacity and necessity to set up and maintain a site. Farmers cannot replicate offline behaviour online. As a step towards globalisation of agriculture, the Union Ministry of Agriculture has embarked upon an ICT project: NICNET based Agricultural Marketing Information System Network (AGMARKNET) in the country. This AGMARKNET project has already networked 735 Agricultural Produces Wholesale Markets (APWMs), during 2000-02 and embarked upon additional 2000 Markets during the Tenth Plan Period (2002-2007). The Government initiative of networking of agricultural produce markets (AGMARKNET)4 and the AGMARKNET portal would facilitate the development of B2B and B2C e-Commerce model in the country (Moni, 2001)5. This project has the potential of expansion to about 7000 Wholesale Markets located through out the country and further to 35000 Rural Markets in India. This ICT Project is a farmer-centric project to put the progressive farmers on ‘global free trade zone on Internet’. AGMARKNET appears to be filling a huge gap by providing access to information at reasonable cost. The AGMARKNET venture is a heartening initiative from the much criticised and slowto-react government, especially on the issue of easing the infrastructural constraints on agriculture (The Times of India, 2002)6. The advantages of this database accrue to the farmers, as they are not forced to sell their produce in the nearest market at uneconomical prices. The challenge, if the full potential of such ventures have utilised, is to take IT to rural India in a big way. Constraints/Challenges are: (a) connectivity in rural areas, (b) training the stakeholders and (c) ensuring data updation in real time frame (http://www.eapf.net/casestudies/in/agmarket.asp). Anand Sagar July 2004 | www.i4donline.net

(2003) 7 considers AGMARKNET, a step towards rural empowerment” and also data for development. Kari Holland of Washington University (USA)8 categorises AGMARKNET (India) as follows: • Nationwide market information for wholesale produce, • Project supported by various departments and state boards of agriculture, • Access mainly through the Internet, • Customers pay (some), • Computer facilities at the markets, • Software for download, • Daily market prices, • Information collected by nodes in the various markets, • Weekly trends, • Information on loans, policies and regulations, • Income has increased (for some), and • Bypass middlemen. The country is now witnessing a unified ‘agricultural marketing price information system’ for the entire country. The general hypothesis is ‘the more farmer produces the less he gets’ – i.e. not getting adequate returns for his toils.

Conclusion The increasing trend of agricultural production has brought new challenges. This AGMARKNET venture benefits the farming communities from the new global market access opportunities and also strengthened the internal agricultural marketing system in India. There have been requests for AGMARKNET venture in various developing countries (ASEAN), etc. in view of its operational efficiency in India.

Footnotes 1

Peter Bunyard (2002) : ‘When the Cheapest is not cheerful’

The Ecologist, April 2002, pp. 30-32 2

IDC.2000: eBusiness Trends, IDC Newsletter (see http://www.idc.com/

newsletter) 3

‘Business to Business’ (B2B) implies similarities or equal partners in trade;

Business to Consumer or producer' (B2B) implies the two parties. 4

‘AGMARKNET: NICNET Based Agricultural Marketing Information

System Network - A Sponsored Project of the Directorate of Marketing and Inspection (Ministry of Agriculture)’, February, 2001 and also see http://www.agmarknet.nic.in 5

Moni .M (2001): ‘Leveraging Information Technology for development of

Agri-Business – Agribusiness : B2B or B2C e-Commerce Model?’, presented at the National Seminar on ‘Managing Agri-Business in the New Millennium: Challenges and Opportunities’, organised by All India Management Association (AIMA) , 20-21 July 2001, New Delhi 6

Times of India : ‘Website to help farmers bargain better’, dated 31st May

2002 7

Anand Sagar K (2003), ‘Agmarknet-Rural Empowerment: Data for

Development’, Geospatial Today, Vol.2 (2), 2003 and also www. Geospatialtoday. com/ journal/Vol2Issue2 8

www.cis.washington.edu/courses/pbaf537d

A GRICULTURAL P LANNING

AND

I NFORMATION B ANK (APIB)

Information services for the farmers Farmers are more concerned about the choice of crops that are appropriate for the changing weather and climatic conditions and more conscious about site-specific crop management so that the input costs are minimal and less risky.

P. P. Nageswara Rao North Eastern Space Applications Centre Shillong, Meghalaya, India pinnamaneni1953@yahoo.com

Indian farmers have to reckon with numerous variables in the agriculture system. Some of them namely, land and water resources, labour, seeds etc. are under his control whereas the price of produce, pesticides, fertilisers, power, weather and climatic change are beyond his means to manage them. Farmers are more concerned about the choice of crops/varieties that are appropriate for the changing weather and climatic conditions and more conscious about site-specific crop management so that the input costs are minimal and less risky. Farmer needs information and advice on these aspects. There are other players in the agricultural sector â&#x20AC;&#x201C; such as financial institutions, traders, researchers, and extension workers. Each one of them directly or indirectly affects the efficiency of the system and needs a different set of information and advisory services. At present, the Indian agriculture extension system deals with 85 million land-holdings and about 500 million farmers, including farm women, young farmers and agricultural laborers. An extension system howsoever vast, cannot reach them fully on time, especially in the North Eastern Region (NER) where the terrain is rugged and inaccessible. There is still scope to improve the methods of reaching the unreached and to create more livelihood opportunities in the remote inaccessible terrain of this region despite the commendable efforts of the extension machinery of various departments. In the Indian context and especially in the NER, multiple extension agencies, training institutions, input and information suppliers are needed to compliment and supplement the current efforts. It is in this context that an example of using modern tools of remote sensing, Geographic Information System (GIS) and ICT in developing an enterprise called Agricultural Planning and Information Bank (APIB).

Methodology of developing APIB The first step in developing an APIB is to conduct a primary survey on the information needs of the farming community; identify the needs that are most important and essential; categorise those areas that are into highly dynamic and required to be supplied during various stages of crop growing season to the static one time need. The second step is to take stock of the natural resources potential of the district, block or a group of villages using remotely sensed data from Indian Remote Sensing Satellite (IRS) or other satellites and evaluate their availability, accessibility and usability for meeting the food, fodder, fuel wood and fiber needs of the human and bovine population of the area under study. Then, using the tools of GIS, the maps of natural resources (the supply components) and socio-economic parameters (demand components) are integrated to delineate coherent land units that can be allocated for appropriate land use, cropping systems and farming systems. The third step is to collect non-spatial and attribute data through extensive organisational linkages established with the Universities of Agricultural Sciences, Institutions of Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), Department of Agriculture and Horticulture, Directorate of Economics and Statistics, various non-government and private organisations in and around the study area. These data sources are then pooled and synthesised into planning advises using GIS and relational database management tools. The fourth step is to convince the people at the village level on the benefits of alternatives to the current practices and reach them through the most accessible channels of communication. The flow of events in the methodology is shown in figure 1. i4d | July 2004

Planning Advisory Services offered by APIB and their dissemination Spatial information: The natural resources endowments of any administrative units (district, taluk, block or a Mandal), present land use/land cover, maps showing areas that have residual soil moisture for taking up second or third crop, surface and ground water potential and areas suitable for appropriate land use practices that are useful for district/state level planners, rural financial institutions and extension agencies. Information on crop acreage/ production estimation and crop condition assessment in the domestic and foreign countries, useful for the farmers in deciding which crop would be more in demand in the market and profitable as obtained using satellite remote sensing, spatial variation in crop yields and input usage as derived from vegetation indices, GIS-based administrative units (viz., khatha numbers, villages, mandals, blocks and taluks/districts) that are having unfavorable spatial variability. Non-spatial information: Different agricultural inputs, their manufacturers, major companies supplying them and government departments /agencies that are providing subsidy or credit for those inputs plus information on pests/diseases control, quantity of seeds required, crop duration, package of practices for each of the crop type in addition to literature on farm machinery, hand tools, harvest and post harvest equipment, information regarding the credit, subsidy, insurance schemes being operated by various financial institutions/other government agencies that are more relevant at the grass root level farmers and extension personnel. Agriculture market intelligence and infrastructure: Information on market infrastructure facilities, export policies applicable for selected farm products, the price information for selected commodities, the dynamics of price fluctuations and forecasting through simple statistical analysis, facilities for storage, processing and value addition especially their locations, charges to be paid and formalities to be fulfilled, etc. Weather and climatic information: Weekly and monthly probabilities of rainfall, long term climate change and trends in rainfall patterns, best practices under delayed and weak monsoon conditions etc that are very valuable to the farmers for carrying out farm operations. An important feature of this database is that the terminology used is not in English calendar months such a JanuaryFebruary, but in lunar calendar with terms such as Purvashada, Utharashada, Shravana, Dhanishta â&#x20AC;&#x201C; that are familiar to Indian farmers particularly when scheduling farm operations vis-Ă -vis the rains. In addition, satellite-based rainfall monitoring techniques, supporting the advisory services could be built into the bank. The planning advises and information services generated by APIB can be reached, on experimental basis, to the farmers and other decision-makers in the agriculture and allied sectors by post as well as through the extension machinery of State Departments of Agriculture and Horticulture, through the Community Information Centres (CIC) at the block level and district headquarters, the print media, especially the journals and magazines on farming and related fields. New methods of satellite-based instructional television, radio and communication can also be used for dissemination of APIB services. Internet will be another preferred channel of dissemination of services. July 2004 | www.i4donline.net

Flow of geospatial planning advices to the farmers

The INSAT-based radio networking, Training and Development Communication Channel (TDCC) provides one-way video and two-way audio teleconferencing networks for interactive training and education. Such facilities are already established in many states and many more are going to be available under EDUSAT-1 (Education satellite) pilot projects aimed at interactive training, distance education and information dissemination. All the information and planning tools from APIB can be run as an enterprise starting with an investment of about USD 1,111. APIB can be built around a Pentium III based personal computer. Information and planning advice can be sold as a commodity. A quick estimate of employment opportunities shows that nearly 500,000 graduates per year can get livelihood on running as many APIB like information kiosks as required in the rural India. The Subscribers Trunk Dialing (STD)/PCOs could be one of those locations for such kiosks in addition to village panchayat office buildings, cooperative milk societies and libraries in the villages.

Conclusions Indian farming community is passing through a phase of reducing incomes, uncertain and unpredictable markets and weather conditions. They need advance information and intelligence on agricultural commodities and their supply/demand position in the local as well as global markets. They also need advises on the impending climate/weather so as to regulate their choice of crops and farm management and operations. They have to be enabled to face the global competition. Using the remotely sensed data from Indian Remote Sensing Satellite (IRS) having capability of resolving what is grown in one tenth of an acre, it is possible to estimate the area under foodgrain, horticulture and commercial crops of neighbouring states and countries. A sort of agriculture intelligence and market information can be supplied to the farmers. Similarly, the remote sensing payloads from geostationary satellites like Kalpana-I, INSAT etc. can provide hourly information on weather systems. Combining the satellite technology with the tools of ICT, it will make possible to develop knowledge kiosks at the village level that can sell information and advisory services as commodities.

R URAL I NFRASTRUCTURE A ND S ERVICES C OMMONS (RISC)

A model for rapid rural economic development RISC is a marketdriven intervention in rural India that has the potential for achieving the multi-faceted goals of sustainable economic development.

Vinod Khosla Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, San Francisco, USA vkhosla@kpcb.ocm

The problem of the economic development of large underdeveloped economies present unique challenges that require innovative solutions. In an age of increasing specialisation, there is a critical need for integration to supplement the specialisation. Economies are complex, nonlinear systems and just as they cannot be adequately described by partitioning them into subsystems and analysing them piecemeal, so also their problems cannot be addressed by partial interventions. This is because the subsystems of complex non-linear systems interact strongly with one another, and even the most carefully thought through partial solution often fails to achieve its goal. The aim of RISC is to address the problems of one such complex nonlinear system — the rural Indian economy — and to outline a solution that addresses the problem of economic growth comprehensively by accomplishing a set of interlinked transitions to a more efficient equilibrium. RISC is a market-driven intervention in rural India that has the potential for achieving the multi-faceted goals of sustainable economic development. This intervention has the potential to • increase India GDP growth rate by around 1 percentage point • add about Rs 20,000 crores annually to India’s GDP • directly raise the incomes of around 70 million Indians

Services share a standardised reliable infrastructure platform

Atanu Dey Deeshaa Ventures, Mumbai, India atanu@deeshaa.com

RISC distinguishes between the infrastructural services from the user services. Standardisation of the underlying physical plant and the infrastructural services makes the services cheaper to develop and deliver. Conceptually and operationally, a RISC has two levels:

• Infrastructure level • User services level RISC follows the logical trend of moving away from vertically integrated institutions to one of horizontal segmentation and specialisation. Thus, conceptually and operationally, a RISC has two levels: the lower one is the infrastructure level (henceforth, the I-level) which consists of power, broadband telecommunications, and the physical plant (building, water, airconditioning, sanitation, security); and above that the user services level (henceforth, the S-level) which consists of all services that are relevant to rural economic activity such as market making, financial intermediation, education and library, health, social services, governmental services, and so on. The I-level provides a reliable, standardised, competitively-priced infrastructure platform. This is achieved by the coordinated and cooperative actions of firms that specialise in the component activities. Co-located on the S-level are a variety of firms that provide user services. The presence of the I-level reduces their costs and therefore the prices that the users face. Economies of scope and agglomeration are obtained by the presence of the variety of different service providers.

Standardised infrastructure level The I-level can be considered the “operating system” of a RISC. The I-level provides the following: • Power: the lack of reliable and good quality power has been a major failing of rural India. RISC corrects for that failure. • Broadband connectivity: provide sufficient bandwidth to meet all needs. • Air-conditioning, water, sanitation: essential services. • Physical plant: a well-designed building i4d | July 2004

providing an optimal working environment. • Security: for guaranteeing a stable environment. • Human Resources: to help manage and provide the various infrastructural services.

General purpose services level S-level services are those that are relevant to the rural economy. Most of the services are market driven and provided by the private sector, while some are provided by the public sector. The S-level can be considered the equivalent of ‘applications’ that run on an operating system. • Market making, market access, market information: Efficient markets depend on information. These essential services have the potential to remove current inefficiencies and to expand markets so as to increase incomes. • Banking, finance, and insurance: Financial intermediation is critical to economic growth. • Agricultural extension: Agriculture is the backbone of the rural economy. Immense opportunities for income generation exist. • Governance: Not just the provision of government services to rural populations but also the participation of the people in governance. • Vocational education and training: Rural populations would benefit in the short run from appropriate training. • Library and general information: In a world where access to information and knowledge are critical, this is an essential service. • Medical and health care: Essential public good that is currently insufficiently provided. • Telecommunications, internet and web access: To bring the benefits of the revolution in information and telecommunications revolution to rural India. • Support for primary education: Universal primary education is one of the most critical factors in economic development. Primarily a public good, it has to be funded by the government because of the long payback involved. • Entertainment: Support for the provision of entertainment and for creating content by the rural population. • Legal: Services such as dispute resolution and other legal matters. • Social services by government and NGOs: Charitable and other services that increase social capital. • Marketing of consumer goods: The supply of consumer goods to rural areas. By co-locating the services at a specific location, the infrastructural needs of the services can be more efficiently met.

Features and benefits of RISC A core-periphery approach A core-periphery approach concentrates resources at a central location to serve a population, which is situated around it. Given that rural populations are very poor, the per capita demand for any service is low. Even at the level of a village, the aggregate demand for a specific service is low enough that it cannot be normally provided without external support. However, the aggregate demand for, say, 100 villages for a single service could be significant. Aggregating the demand for many July 2004 | www.i4donline.net

different kinds of services of the same 100 villages would translate into a significant total demand for services. These services would require infrastructure services such as power and connectivity, which can be commercially and sustainably supplied given their volume demanded. Aggregating the demand for services Each RISC addresses the needs of a large rural population – about 100 villages or around 100,000 people. Given population densities, this is usually within a radius of 15 kilometers. This population will have access to the RISC with at most a couple of hours’ bicycle ride. Each RISC will serve as a local business center where the downstream flow of information and material to the villages is complemented by an upstream flow of goods and services from the local village economy to markets that are global. Commercially sustainable solution Sustainability requires that the user fees for the services must exceed the cost of providing the services. It can be shown that there is a segment of the rural population which has the willingness and the ability to pay for services that expand their economic opportunities and increase their incomes. RISC addresses the development trap Unreliable and inadequate infrastructure in rural India leads to costly, and often non-availability of services that are essential for economic growth and income generation. The population therefore is unable to pay for infrastructural services, which leads to their non-provision or under-provision. To release this development trap, RISC concentrates the services at a scale which is economically viable and which can be commercially provided. This raises a very important question. If indeed a wide range of services can be profitably provided to rural populations, why have profit-maximising firms not exploited the opportunity? We conjecture that there is a coordination failure in the investment, required for the basic infrastructure that leads to this market failure.

available at the RISC. The annual gross revenues per RISC would then be Rs 1.3 crores.

The forces of globalisation have created opportunities for the integration of rural populations in a larger marketplace than was ever available to them before RISC solves the coordination failure in investment Any supplier of a specific infrastructural service would be deterred from investing in rural India because the other essential infrastructure services are missing. Thus each infrastructure provider can rationally decide against investing in rural India because others are not investing as well. The coordination failure can be effectively addressed by demonstrating that opportunities exist for profitable investment provided that the investment is made in all the infrastructure components simultaneously by major infrastructure providers. Once a standardised reliable infrastructure platform is in place, market forces will pull in user service providers who would benefit from the availability of reliable infrastructural services that are competitively priced. In other words, their costs will be low, and in turn result in competitively priced user services. Given the availability of a full set of user services, incomes will grow which, in turn, would lead a way out of the development trap mentioned above. RISC reverses rural to urban migration Economic development of any population is both a cause and consequence of urbanisation of the population. Urbanisation is normally attained through rural to urban migration, which is unsustainable in developing countries with already overcrowded cities. Therefore, providing a rural population a comprehensive set of services and opportunities of the type usually available in urban areas could urbanise the population ‘in-situ’ without disruptive and socially costly migration. Essentially a RISC is a micro-city, an appropriately scaled down version of a city. It acts as a focal point that provides a bi-directional flow of information and materials that are essential to the rural economy and which uses state of the art tools and technologies to do so efficiently. It can be conceived of as a holographic projection of a city on a small scale at the rural location. The economics of a RISC If we assume a conservative average annual per capita income of the rural population to be about Rs 8,0001 , then the annual income of the 100,000 target population of a single RISC is about Rs 80 crores2. Assuming that the top 10% of the population account for around 30% of the income, and that the presence of a RISC increases their incomes by a modest 10%, then the direct impact of a RISC would be an increase in the output of about Rs 2.6 crores per year. Assigning half of this increased output as increased income to the population leaves about Rs 1.3 crores per year to pay for the services

RISC on a macro scale About 600 million people live in rural India. About 6,000 RISCs would provide coverage for them all. The estimate above of Rs. 2.4 crore of additional economic activity due to a RISC would then translate into Rs 14,400 crores for the entire economy directly. This is only a partial analysis as there will be a multiplier effect on the economy. Taking a conservative multiplier of 2.5, the total effect of 6,000 RISCs would be Rs. 36,000 crores. This is over 1% of the annual GDP of India. However, one can expect only a few states of the Indian union to adopt the model at an early stage. Assuming that only 1,000 RISCs are implemented, the total effect of these would be an increase in the GDP of Rs 6,000 crores per year.

Conclusion The economic development of India’s 600 million strong rural population presents formidable challenges and also great opportunities. An institutional innovation called RISC — Rural Infrastructural and Services Commons — is presented that has the potential for achieving the multi-faceted goals of sustainable economic development. Fundamentally, the specific market failure that RISC addresses is that of coordination failure. RISC is designed to coordinate the activities of a host of entities—commercial, governmental, NGOs. It synchronises investment decisions so as to reduce risk. It essentially acts as a catalyst that starts off a virtuous cycle of introducing efficient modern technology to improve productivity that increases incomes and thus the ability of users to pay for the services, and so on. It creates a mechanism that reduces transaction costs and therefore improves the functions of markets. Revolutions in the Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) have the potential to remove the barriers to information asymmetries that were impeding the working of markets that are critical for economic growth. The forces of globalisation have created opportunities for the integration of rural populations in a larger marketplace than was ever available to them before. Economic development is both the cause and consequence of urbanisation. RISC achieves the urbanisation of the rural population without requiring the massive and unsustainable rural-urban migration. It brings urbanisation to the rural population by making available to them the full set of services and amenities that are normally available only in urban locations. It works within the constraints of limited resources by concentrating them in specific locations to obtain economies of scale, scope and agglomeration. It helps lift the population out of a development trap by making available to them the benefits of technological advances and the increased access to global markets that globalisation promises.

Footnote 1

The current (June 2003) exchange rate is US$1 = Rs 47 approximately. For back-of-the-envelope calculations, Rs 10,000 is around $200. 2 One crore = 100 lacs. One lac = 100,000. So one crore = 10 million. A useful approximation is that Rs 5 crores is $1 million.

i4d | July 2004

Vol. II No. 7

The i4d News

July 2004

Information for development www.i4donline.net

Agriculture CDROMs promoting Pacific agroforestry Agroforestry.net, a non-profit educational organisation, has launched its Traditional Tree Initiative, with the support of the US Department of Agricultureâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Western Region Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (WSARE) programme and the SPC/GTZ Pacific-German Regional Forestry Project. It is a series of fact sheets on CDROM is reacquainting Pacific islanders with local tree species. When complete (by June 2005), the series of 50 fact sheets will cover the most important tree species indigenous to the South Pacific. Each sheet will provide detailed, practical information on tree products and their uses, intercropping applications, growing requirements and propagation methods. Freely available on the Internet and on searchable CD-ROM, with hyperlinks to 200 agricultural offices, libraries, they will serve two overlapping goals: to record, in a single collection, the nearly forgotten knowledge about the regionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s native tree species, and to promote the re-adoption of traditional agroforestry systems throughout the South Pacific. Regional experts will identify the 50 most important underutilised tree species through an email voting process. Leading authorities on traditional and native Pacific island species are currently compiling the species profiles. A panel of 35 academics, producers and other professionals will review their work in the coming months. Together the fact sheets will create a valuable reference work that may help to restore traditional agroforestry systems that will stand the test of time. http://agroforestry.net/tti/index.html

July 2004 | www.i4donline.net

Creating rural hubs in India on China model Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh proposed new measures to combat rural poverty by routing grants directly to district authorities and creating rural hubs for agroindustries. Addressing a conference of chief ministers on panchayati raj (local governing institutions), he said that funds for developmental blocks could be sent directly to district authorities and disbursed after taking into account factors like the incidence of poverty in various areas, the capacity to absorb funds and the availability of a machinery to implement projects. These funds would not be scheme-specific, but would be linked to a broader rural development plan. He emphasized the reorientation of different central developmental schemes to create non-agricultural employment opportunities in rural areas. He also proposed the creation of rural

industrial hubs on the lines of Chinese model. It would help in the decentralization of the production generating employment in the rural sector. http://www.hindustantimes.com

Weather data to rural farmers through kiosks International Crops Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) will collaborate with the Telecommunication and Computer Networking (TeNet) group of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Madras, to establish a new system to gather weather data from rural India and provide agricultural advise to rural farmers.The TeNeT Group, led by Prof Ashok Jhunjhunwala, has set up more than 1,000 rural kiosks with the participation of private companies and non-Government organisations. These kiosks linked to hubs through the wireless in local loop technology.

Indian banks to train farmers Many public sector banks are tying up with agencies to train farmers in agriculture and allied activities. Institutionalising this concept, Union Bank of India has joined hands with National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) to set up colleges for the farming community whereby farmers will learn other trades to safeguard their livelihood, which today is largely dependent on agricultural activities. The entrepreneurial colleges being set up in Kerala and Varanasi (UP) will be operational in the current fiscal year and these centres will be operated in co-operation with Nabard and the respective state governments. State Bank of India has provided credit to 5,000 self-help groups in Maharashtra, in addition to financing certain common production activities in the area of vermiculture and card board ice-cream cup manufacturing in Tamil Nadu. http://www.business-standard.com

The i4d News It is proposed to use ICRISAT’S technical expertise to the network of rural information kiosks and personnel created by the TeNeT in rural areas. Icrisat will help TeNeT identify and source cost-effective weather probes that can continuously feed data on temperature, humidity and rainfall to a computer at the rural information kiosks. This data can be accessed and compiled at the information hubs, according to Icrisat. The modalities of the collaboration were worked out in a workshop held recently. The experts at the workshop suggested that special programmes on weather, water, crop and livestock management should be designed for the para-professionals managing the kiosks. http://www.thehindubusinessline.com

e-Governance Microsoft partners with Digital China Microsoft has partnered with Digital China, the nation’s leading software vendor and system integrator, to develop .NET based enterprise and e-Governance packages for the Chinese market. This agreement is expected to help China in taking a step towards becoming a software development and IT services firm.

The MoU signed expands the scope further to cover a large number of key sectors such as telecommunications, finance, customs, taxation and e-Government. Microsoft’s .NET initiative is an attempt to bring software and online related services and applications under a single umbrella. http://www.financialexpress.com

Electronic birth registration system in Bangladesh A unique step has been taken by The Rajshahi City Corporation (RCC), Bangladesh for developing an electronic birth registration system (EBRS). The system provides citizens with a unique identity card that can be used for various services including education and health care. EBRS is initiated by the RCC and the local rural development division of the ministry of local government. UNICEF provided technical and financial supports. With most of the necessary training complete, the system will continue on a sustainable basis since there is clear public demand for it. Financial Express, Bangladesh

Government of Orissa to set up 1,000 information kiosks With a view to ensuring greater citizen government interface and facilitating public

Launch of computerisation of Delhi land records Computerised land records and web portal of districts of Delhi is inaugrated by the Hon’ble Chief Minister of Delhi Smt. Sheila Dikshit. This is a combined project of Delhi Government, National Informatics centre and Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India. This will facilitate access to accurate and transparent information, hassle-free transfer of land title, clean and updated records, easy access to information, quick retrieval, minimal visits, security against tampering, overall leading towards transparency in governance. The Govrertnment of Delhi is moving forward in the direction of bringing greater transparency and accountability in administration and working towards improving the quality, efficiency and delivery of public services. This initiative of Delhi Government is called ‘Bhagidari’. Hon’ble Chief Minister of Delhi laid down the theme of citizen partnership foundation in the year January 2000 for good, modern and humane governance. The Department of Social Welfare is moving forward in this direction and involved participation of citizens, NGOs and public representatives of Delhi in these programmes and activities. Link to Bhagidari is, http://socialwelfare.delhigovt.nic.in/bhagidari.htm Web Portal of districts of Delhi, www.districts.delhigovt.nic.in www.timesofindia.com

access to government information and eServices, the government of one of the Indian states, Orissa is implementing a scheme that would entail the setting up of 1,000 information kiosks in urban and semiurban locations spread across all the 30 districts of the state. The Orissa Computer Application Centre would provide two weeks, free needbased training to the entrepreneurs. Asit Tripathy, Commissioner-cum-Secretary in Orissa’s Department of Information Technology (IT), said that the scheme was being implemented through a self employment district sector scheme. In addition to browsing the State Government’s portal for information, citizens could also transact through the Web from the nearest kiosk. More than 1,300 applications have been received from entrepreneurs in the districts who wish to set up kiosks under the scheme. http://www.thehindubusinessline.com

Jharkhand state in India goes online Netguru Inc’s Indian subsidiary, Netguru India has won an e-Governance contract from the Jharkhand state government to develop a portal for them to increase interaction with the public. The portal called “ Jharkhand Online”, a communications portal will offer online access to government officials and will give visitors a platform to register their inquiries, download form, view notifications, participate in opinion polls and surveys, and search for information, access databases. http://www.financialexpress.com

Indian railways for e-Mode A pilot project for Northern Indian Railway is being chalked out to put all purchase activities on Internet, wherein issue of tenders and contracts, receipt of bids etc will be done online. The move is expected to reduce procurement time-cycle. After the completion of the project, e-Procurement will be extended to other zonal railways. A pilot project on Material Management Information System (MMIS) incorporating online exchange of information on material management had been successfully developed and implemented by Central Railway. This system will be extended to other zonal railways for effective material management. To improve passenger traffic operations, coaching stock module of

i4d | July 2004

The i4d News coaching operation information system will be implemented this year. The computerised registration of claims at zonal railway headquarters had already been started from April 2004 and it was expected that full computerisation of claimoffices would be completed during the current financial year. It will provide online information to claimants. This will help customers find unconnected consignments and will reduce the duplication of claims. Rules and procedures of compensation claims in respect of accident and loss/damage of goods have been incorporated in the Indian Railways website. http://www.financialexpress.com

Education IT training for the teachers of government schools in India

Examine your health online The world fame Harvard University has launched a page on its website (http:// w w w. h s p h . h a r v a r d . e d u / c a n c e r / y c r / index.html) which can calculate your risk of suffering a major health problem such as a storke or cancer. Users who want to know about the condition of his/her health can click on to the site and get a readout within three minutes after answering a series of questions about their health. Starting with cancer, the site has expanded to give risk assessments for strokes, heart disease, diabetes and osteoporosis. Justifying its site The Harvard Centre for Cancer Prevention, part of the university’s medical said that it allowed to deliver personalised health messages to those who filled in questionnaires. Users fill in a brief questionnaire and than get a description of their risk in the form of a coloured bar graph, which will compare them to men and women of their age. It does not put the risk in percentage terms, but describe it as above or below average, with seven levels of risk. Each question on the site is related to a number that represents the strength of the association between the risk factor and the disease. As you answer questions,the numbers are multiplied to equal your personal risk based on the risk factors that apply to you. The site than compares your risk to the average risk for a person of your age and sex.

A global IT- firm has offered to train a 1000 teachers of Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD). They will then further educate the students. The cost incurred for the project will be Rs 7 crore annually. The MCD runs 1,800 primary schools in Delhi that mostly cater to the poorer section of the society. Since many teachers were not familiar with computers, a computeraided teaching programme for the kids is not possible. The training module will look into the basics of hardware and software. It will be in Hindi, English and Urdu so that no linguistic barriers are created. Though many complaints to this project arises as most of the schools do not have basic facilities like proper classrooms and drinking water. The civic agency does not even know how many of its 1,800 schools have telephone connections. It’s crucial to do so before talking about the Internet.

The conversion of national schools into smart schools would be carried out in phases. Such development would widen students’ involvement in ICT. To date, 87 smart schools have been built nationwide. Under Phase One of the ‘Multimedia Super Corridor Programme’, the Education Ministry had last year proposed to build 100 smart schools. He said about 2½ months ago, in a briefing to the Cabinet, the decision was taken to convert national schools into smart schools. The Government decided to equip existing schools with the necessary ICT equipment, which will be upgraded from time to time, whenever necessary.

http://www.timesofindia.com

http://www.emedia.com

In Malaysia, all schools will be smart schools The construction of new smart schools will be stopped with immediate effect. This is to make way for the conversion of the country’s present 10,000-odd national schools into smart schools by equipping them with facilities in ICT. The Prime Minister said such conversions would be quicker and more cost-effective than building new smart schools. He said that it costs RM20 million to RM30 million just to build a smart school, let alone equip it. July 2004 | www.i4donline.net

www.hindustantimes.com

Health Portal on Kerala health department KG Information Systems Pvt Ltd of India (KGISL) has entered into an agreement with the Thiruvananthapuram-based Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC) for integrating the online payroll and human resources management portal for the Department of Health and Family Welfare of the Government of Kerala. The Executive Director of CDAC, Rajan T. Joseph, said that this was part of a five-

year integrated plan to automate and network directorates and all district headquarters of the state. This project would involve linking all locations to a centralised network and automating the current manual payroll and HR activities. CDAC will set up the network infrastructure and KGISL would build the portal. http://www.thehindubusinessline.com

Miscellaneous A multi-lingual website planned for Delhi Tourism Delhi Tourism and Transport Corporation (DTTDC) is planning to redesign its existing website in an effort to increase better access to information for foreign travellers. The website is going to be a multilingual and commercially viable information portal. Information in languages including English, French, German, Japanese and Spanish will be introduced initially. The website is targeted at the international tourist, hopes to rule out touts and fly-by-night operators to provide authentic information. Although the transportation and tour packages prepared for the international traveller, the domestic tourist has not been neglected. The sute plans to market PG accomodations for the budget traveller too. http://www.thetimesofindia.com

The i4d News

Telecom India: miles to go According to the recent Economic Survey, India has a lot of catching up to do with respect to teledensity and Internet usage when compared to other countries inspite of achieving 40 per cent growth in telecom sector. The survey has also said that a policy on spectrum allocation is crucial for the telecom industry. The survey has lauded the growth in subscriber base, but has pointed out that the number of telephones needs to go up from the existing levels of 7 per cent to the levels on developed countries where the teledensity is over 100 per cent. It has pointed out that a growth rate of 40 per cent in 2004-05 and 2005-06 will take the total number of lines to almost 150 million by the end of 2005-06. Yet, teledensity will be only about 14. Countries such as China and Brazil with a teledensity of 42 are already ahead of India. “The market should offer a range of reliable fixed line and wireless technologies to suit he heterogeneous needs of the people,” the survey has said. The survey has also pointed out, “One problem inhibiting dial-up Internet use is the lack of flat fee unlimited access tariff plans for fixed line telephony. While the growth of broadband has been a vexing problem, some countries such as South Korea have achieved remarkable penetration of Internet access at homes.” While telephone lines have grown by 40 per cent to 76 million lines, Internet subscribers grew by 15 per cent from 3.6 million to 4.2 million in 2003-04 in India. http://www.thehindubusinessline.com

SAARC countries vow to use ICTs for social uplift SAARC countries agreed to harness telecommunication technologies for the social and economic uplift of the region through infrastructure development by optimal sharing of the available resources and enhanced cooperation in technology transfer. The agreement came during a meeting of the senior SAARC officials who met to finalise recommendations. The agreement was made at the Second Conference of the SAARC Communications. The officials agreed to reduce telecom tariffs in the SAARC region to the lowest extent feasible within the framework of cost orientation based on international benchmarks. For the intra-regional traffic within SAARC countries, the meeting called for making efforts to utilise either direct links or hubbing / transit facility within the region by 2005. The meeting recommended the member states to offer special rates for transiting /hubbing the regional traffic and utilise the facilities of other members for their overflow traffic. The meeting also recommended facilitating intra-regional communications for the traveller and entrepreneur by promotion of country direct services, calling cards, cellular roaming and liberalised leased lines within the regulatory frameworks of the member states.

The delegates agreed that the member states should encourage a complete digitisation of inter-country links as early as possible; settlement of inter operator revenues in line with timeframe set under international telecommunication regulations; calling card services by facilitating centralised or decentralised credit verification systems; cellular roaming facility within the region; and examining the feasibility of establishing an intraregional high bandwidth hub for leased lines. http://paktribune.com

Government to establish IT based network for agriculture extension The Department of Agriculture, Government of Maharastra has decided to establish “IT Based network for Agriculture Extension (MAHA-AGRINET)”. The Government has put an open invitation for appointing a nodal agency to establish the entire setup. The project will help the farmers in exchanging information and experiences on crops, pest and pesticides, fertilisers, market price and many more within and outside their communities. The agency appointed on scrutiny of the documents will act as a Nodal agency for Planning and execution of the project.

The scope of work of appointed agency will be to survey and evaluation of the existing deliverables (Information, Services) and infrastructure. It has to put into operation the formation in an approved format of the organisation. It has to also implement the project in a manner that it would be commercially sustainable and can run for minimum period of five years successfully. The newly build organisation must protect the interest of farmers and stakeholders. The detail project report and application form is available on the department’s website. http://agri.mah.nic.in

Land registration process made easy Center for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) launched a new software platform called Stamp and Registration with Information Technology (SARITA) supporting the computerisation of the Indian state of Maharashtra’s land registration system. SARITA has already been introduced at 360 registration offices across the state, which serve 7 million customers each year and process a million pages of documents per day. Registering the photograph and thumb print of the illiterate farmers is the first and most critical step in the process of transferring formal title to land or property. Earlier this land registration process used to take many hours or even days. The document serves as proof of identity of the new owner, and is accepted by banks as collateral for loans or other forms of credit. Not only has SARITA cut the time and effort required of both the registration officials and customers to process documents, it has also made the land registration procedure far less complicated. The system has also helped to boost state government revenues. Fraud has been significantly curtailed in the land records department due to SARITA. The system’s foolproof security measures, such as image encryption, the inclusion of digital photographs and thumbprints, help to prevent forgeries. Local registrars are now required to stamp and sign registration documents immediately, in view of the waiting customer, rather than behind closed doors. It also has adopted a publicprivate partnership model, which has the potential to transform the work of land registration agencies throughout India, and in countries across the world. http://www.mahaigr.org i4d | July 2004

I NTERVIEW

Connect, collaborate and change your world i4d spoke to Alan Rossi on the strides made by Development Gateway Foundation under his leadership and just after the Forum meeting in Germany where the first Petersburg Prize was announced. What is the vision of the DG Foundation? What are your new programme initiatives? We can help improve people’s lives, and act as a catalyst for developing countries. We promote partnership, and work to increase access to development information and resources, especially to those who would most benefit by this knowledge. We also work to increase the effectiveness of development efforts by providing appropriate knowledge and expertise, and we share and collaborate. We are a very small organisation with a big vision and we build and deploy systems for organisations and for organisations in turn to work in partnership with other organisations to build this gateway. Development Gateway Foundation is a facilitator of knowledge sharing and we enable organisations to share their knowledge and expertise with others. We have an eminent Board of Directors with 20 members, and chaired by Mr. Mamphela Ramphele. The small Secretariat is responsible for day-to-day management of the Development Gateway Foundation. The Secretariat will devise a monitoring and evaluation system, and will report regularly (at least quarterly) to the Development Gateway Foundation Board. The Secretariat will, in addition, mobilise funds under the guidance of the Board Chairperson, design and propose detailed policies and appraisal criteria, and approve grants and investments in accordance with limits set by the Board July 2004 | www.i4donline.net

and the Executive Committee. The objectives and programmes are as follows: • Improve public sector transparency (through dgMarket and the E-Government Program) • Enhance development effectiveness (through the AiDA directory and the Development Gateway portal) • Increase knowledge sharing (through the Topic Pages of the Development Gateway portal, the annual Development Gateway Forum) • Build local capacity to empower communities (through the network of Country Gateways, the Development Gateway portal, dgMarket, the Research and Training Network) How do you see the Forum emerging as a leading platform for high-level policy impact on ICTs for development?

Through the Development Gateway portal, we envisage several partners, especially in developing countries, to act as information and knowledge providers and we hope to see the Forum emerging as a leading platform for high-level policy impact on ICT4D. We are very pleased that this year’s Forum was especially focused on recognising the valuable and innovative project in Bangladesh. This project uses communications technology for development and has won the Petersburg Prize. This recognition is critical to celebrate good work. Does the Development Gateway envisage all the countries to join in and how do you see the service being catered to for local language requirements? Development Gateway deliberates and works with various partners in many countries, and they organise as independent coun-

Alan J. Rossi Alan is Chief Executive Officer of the Development Gateway Foundation. He joined the Development Gateway in December 2002, bringing over 30 years of experience as a telecommunications and technology executive. Born in Peru, Alan has spent his career leading information and communications enterprises in several countries. Most recently, he was President and CEO of Elektra, a holding company for the telecommunications investments of The Galesi Group, of New York. Previously, he served as Group President for Andrew Telecom, of Orland Park, Illinois, and as Vice President and General Manager for Sprint, of Reston, Virginia. Alan graduated in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University and in Management from the University of London. He also took courses in Financial Management from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.

We hope to see the Forum emerging as a leading platform for high-level policy impact on ICT4D. try networks, and are responsible to develop these networks. In some countries they have emerged as a vibrant resources, and have even outgrown the core global portal. For us, it is very exciting to see our role as catalysts, especially for developing countries, to promote partnerships and collaboration. Many country gateways are independent Internet Service Providers (ISP). Development Gateway helps to establish the country gateways. Could the UN system use the Development Gateway project as a portal for knowledge management on the MDGs? We are very delighted to share that we work very closely with the UN system, among others on the Development Committee, to develop a platform that would allow countries to monitor their policies and actions toward achieving the MDGs and related outcomes. In fact we have two UN representatives on the Board of the Development Gateway Foundation. I invite the readers of i4d to take a look at the MDG capacity building page that we do with UNDP and World Bank Institute (WBI). We have also begun a series of monthly reports related to the MDGs, and have brought out specials on entrepreneurship, climate change, universal primary education, global health, gender equality, and global partnerships. Please take a look at http:// topics.developmentgateway.org/mdg Is there any plan to initiate similar initiatives like AiDA for thematic developmental information? AiDA (Accessible information on Development Activities) is a directory of develop-

ment projects and activities, and is a collaboration tool. It is essentially focused on overseas development assistance and those of large foundations. As of date, AiDA contains a total of 481,659 records. There are 431,831 records in the current sources section and 49,828 records in the AiDA historical repository. Yes there are, but we have to overcome some critical challenges. The challenge of initiating similar projects as that of AiDA, especially in relation to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), is: “How to map the traditional sectors to MDGs?” The first step to initiate such a tool is to focus it towards the National Development Goals. We are beginning to do that fieldtesting in Ethiopia. Who owns the knowledge gathered through the development gateway, what are your views on the Open Content (public money should generate public information for public good)? There are concerns about issues of ownership and appropriation, could you comment? Development Gateway was a new concept. In the early days, World Bank helped to develop the system, contributed the knowledge and expertise. Now, Development Gateway Foundation is an independent foundation. There should be no reason to worry about the content. None of the knowledge and content is owned by the Foundation, but is in the public domain. Thousands of experts and organisations form the part of the network of content developers. For example, in water management, the topic editor is from the Australian CSIRO, and they have steers dozens of research organisations to link up and contribute content. Can you share a little bit more about the Petersburg Prize and how will it identify new projects that have not received much media publicity? The Petersburg Prize was awarded for the first time this year in Bonn, Germany. Grameen Bank Village Phone project and its visionary leader, Prof. M. Yunus have been recognised for bringing livelihoods to over 60,000 village women, through innovative use of ICTs. It is important that little known and visionary projects are recognised. This year, we had over 200 entries, and an independent jury selects the winner. We are

confident that the network of people committed to bring ICT for development will nominate the best projects with critical impact for this competition and Petersburg Prize. Are there any hurdles for the Indian Gateway project to take off and go live? At what stage is it presently? The Indian government and partnership of local NGOs are leading the project to set up the India Country Gateway. It is ready to go live, and should soon be launched. We only play the role of catalysts for initiating the process and linking the world to the country gateway networks. How do you ensure that development of local content happens, with information and knowledge that is responsive to local needs? How does the DG Foundation envisage playing a role in filling this gap? The country gateways are local initiatives with local leadership coordinating the production, management and uploading of the content. Development Gateway has key understanding of global audience, and localised content is relevant to the specific country or specific regions, which the local partners understand well. With this kind of synergies, DG has created local partnerships in over 50 countries. The business plan of the Development Gateway clearly projects that in the three years time frame, 70% of the resources will be allocated to work locally, in local languages and to address local problems. The expertise of DG is available for the country gateways for others to use. We are a small organisation of about 30 people. For us, we are successful because we collaborate. The key challenges are: Since the early results were positive, for us the challenge is - How to keep the ‘encore’? There is multiplicity of countries and organisations. Having the right resources is very critical for ensuring ongoing success of this initiative. Another important issue that we always think about is how effectively can we continue to collaborate effectively. These challenges are also stimulants for our team to think and work out the solutions in a participatory manner. I look forward to several new fruitful initiatives in the future. www.developmentgateway.org i4d | July 2004

P ETERSBERG P RIZE 2004

Grameen Bank-Village Phone awarded Grameen Bank-Village Phone was chosen among the 200 nominees for the Development Gateway Foundation’s firstever Petersberg Prize. The 100,000 Euro Prize recognizes Grameen’s outstanding achievement in the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) to improve people’s lives. Grameen Bank, which provides micro-credit to poor people, established a program called Village Phone, through which women entrepreneurs can start a business providing wireless payphone service in rural areas of Bangladesh. In doing so, Grameen has created a new class of women entrepreneurs who have raised themselves from poverty. Moreover, it has improved the livelihoods of farmers and others who are provided access to critical market information and provide lifeline communications previously unattainable in some 28,000 villages of Bangladesh. The Prize was awarded on the eve of the Development Gateway Forum in July 2004. Prize sponsors are Deutsche Telekom AG and Microsoft. The Forum is sponsored by Deutsche Telekom and the State of North Rhine-Westphalia.

Jorge Quiroga, former President of Bolivia, led the panel of independent jurors. Other members include Vinton Cerf (USA), MCI; Vallampadugai Arunachalam (India), July 2004 | www.i4donline.net

Carnegie Mellon University; Hisham ElSherif (Egypt), IT Ventures and Nile Online; Miriam Meckel (Germany), State Government of North Rhine-Westphalia; Wendy Millin (South Africa), HewlettPackard; and Mary O’Kane (Australia), Mary O’Kane & Associates Pty. Ltd. Acting as adviser was Carlos A. Primo Braga, World Bank. In his acceptance speech, Muhammad Yunus said, “Winning the Petersberg

Prize is an event of great rejoice for anybody. This prestigious prize has been created to give unparalleled honour and distinction to the recipient organisation. To Grameen Bank, it also brings a resounding endorsement of the Grameen Bank’s effort to bring information and communication technology (ICT) to the benefit of the poor. What Grameen Bank has done is simply to take advantage of the synergy between micro-credit and ICT and help the poor women to exploit the market opportunity that exists around them. Though people were cynical, we remained thoroughly

convinced that while people may be poor and illiterate, they are not stupid. Potentially they are as smart as anybody else in the world. A mobile phone became the fastest way to make money and earn social respectability. Telephone-ladies quickly learned and innovated all the ropes of the telephone business. Today there are 60,000 telephone ladies providing telephone service in 80 per cent of the villages of Bangladesh. In villages where grid electricity does not exist, solar energy powers the phones. The number of telephone-ladies will exceed 100,000 by the end of this year. Grameen Phone, the mobile phone company which provides the telephone service, has over 1.7 million subscribers. But telephone-ladies, who are only 3% of the subscribers, use 15% of the air-time of the company, generating substantial revenue for the company. Today, the Petersberg Prize vindicates our belief in the creativity and energy of the poor people, particularly poor women. I hope the world will look at the poor differently than they did before this Prize went to the Village Phone Project of Grameen Bank.” For further details of the prize: log on to w w w. d e ve l o p m e n t g a t e w a y. o r g / p r i z e . Take a cyber view of Grameen Phone project at www.grameenphone.com/village.htm Congratulations to Prof. M. Yunus, who is on the advisory board of i4d magazine.

D EVELOPMENT G ATEWAY F ORUM

The action points This year more than 100 participants attended Development Gateway Forum from 39 countries on June 27 to 28 at the Petersberg center outside of Bonn, Germany. The Development Gateway, an independent not-for-profit organisation launched by the World Bank, issued a progress report on action items in last year’s Petersberg Declaration. In answer to the call to “prioritise local partnerships and applications,” for instance, the Development Gateway’s research center in India has advanced 12 applications, including multilingual web searches and low-bandwidth information exchanges. In response to the mandate to link ICT to the Millennium Development Goals, a platform has been developed to allow countries to monitor policies and actions aimed at achieving the MDGs. On the global Development Gateway portal, a network of more than 100,000 development practitioners from around the world are now sharing information, collaborating to improve development effectiveness, and building local capacity and enterprise. Each year, the Development Gateway Foundation gathers input for the Call to Action at its Development Gateway Forum. The Petersberg Call to Action focuses on improving the use of ICT to enhance development effectiveness, increase transparency in public sector procurement, and help build the local capacity of institutions and individuals to become agents of change. Each year, the elements of this Call to Action are gathered at the forum to help the Development Gateway refine its strategy as it also helps define priorities for the larger ICT community. Some action items, which came out of this year’s forum, are as follows:

Development effectiveness There is a need to improve the information and tools used to achieve development effectiveness. To provide information that is comprehensive, but at the same time useful, in order to avoid information overload and waste. Information has to be “handy” so people can use it easily.

Apply ICT to the Millenium Development Goals To this end, the Development Gateway has been developing Millennium Development Goals monitoring platforms that is hoped to bring it into use both globally and locally.

Scaling the use of information technologies for public procurement $1 trillion is spent each year on public goods and services in developing countries – and it is important that dgMarket is used as an element to increase competition in public procurement. Development Gateway can make major contributions to fight corruption by putting this information online and lessons can be drawn from doing this.

Local content/local language There is an urgency to overcome the “English first and only” bias on the Internet and in information gathering and dissemination. A strong focus on local content and local languages is required. The Development Gateway’s Country Gateways are tools to overcome this bias. Its research and training centers can play a positive role for more multilingual applications and content on the Internet.

Catalyse ICT While the Development Gateway can use its Petersberg Prize to catalyse ICT innovation, others can play a more prominent role in the popularisation of technology. To act as a catalyst, we need to reach out to new candidates for the next prize and share the lessons learned from Grameen Bank, the winner.

The Development Gateway Portal of development information An element which was not stressed enough involves the Development Gateway’s portal of development information. This is important because it should be capable of conveying information on the social, economic, and cultural side of development. It is important that there is a pluralistic way of bringing information into the Development Gateway. In that sense, it needs an arm’s length relationship to very big organisations, to give others a chance to participate in information sharing. The Development Gateway also issued its “Progress Report – Petersberg Declaration 2003” at the Forum. To read forum papers and for other Forum information, please visit www.devforum.org. i4d | July 2004

EU-ACP

CTA: Promoting cooperation CTA, is an abbreviation of the French name for Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation in the Africa, the Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries with the European Union. The Centre has emerged as a leading information and knowledge services organisation for farmers and agro-forestry practitioners in ACP countries. Jayalakshmi Chittoor i4d, India jchittoor@csdms.org

CTA has two main objectives for the 20012005 planning period, as noted in its Strategic Plan: • to improve the availability of and access to relevant, adequate, accurate and timely information on agricultural and rural development in ACP countries; • to improve the information and communication management capacity of ACP agricultural and rural development organisations. CTA defined three programme areas to achieve these objectives. The following departments implement these programmes: (1) Information Products and Services; (2) Communications Channels and Services; (3) Information and Communication Management Skills and Systems along with the monitoring activities under the (4) Planning and Corporate Services department ensures that the objectives set out in the strategic plan are implemented well, and also there is a chance to identify and translate new issues into future activities. The website and the numerous innovative initiatives created by this Centre headquartered in Wageningen in The Netherlands makes it possible for building the cooperation among many nations through the effective use of ICTs. Online discussions, study papers, thematic conferences and a host of other information related activities and services that this Centre July 2004 | www.i4donline.net

provides makes it one of the most valuable resources for farmers from the ACP region. The AgriTrade portal addresses trade issues on commodity items like Rice, Banana, Sugar, Beef and Veal, which are critical export products for many countries in Africa, the Caribbean and Pacific countries. Policies and WTO issues that are relevant to farmers and other thematic dossiers makes this a very comprehensive resource. CTA’s bimonthly bulletin Spore, in English and French, and Esporo, in Portuguese, is a valuable repository and 111 issues have been released up to July 2004. It covers varying issues and all the bulletins in all three languages are digitized in Pdf and HTML formats. Thus making this one of the most important resources for researchers, policy makers, farmers, trade organizations etc. The 16-page bulletins carry feature articles, news items, information on forthcoming courses and conferences, news of CTA’s activities, book reviews and descriptions of information sources. Spore Newsfeeds are produced as XML standard and can be used to link other useful websites with the newsfeeds. Another very interesting part of the services that CTA provides is the The Knowledge for Development portal of the CTA is an S&T Observatory. The website supports the policy dialogue on S&T for

agricultural and rural development in African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries. It enables the ACP scientific community - primarily agricultural research and development scientists and technologists, policy makers, farmers and other stakeholders and actors - to share and review results of national and regional efforts and collaborate to harness science and technology for the development of agriculture in their countries. For most ACP countries, the agricultural sector is a vital source of food, employment and incomegenerating activities and hence the engine of their economy. To get more details to be in touch with what ICTs can do to link the farming community with experts, policy makers and markets, this is a recommended site. It also provides innovative ideas of how a simply structured portal can be made in a userfriendly format and reach out to a diverse audience. There are very useful lessons that CTA’s experiences can provide for other regions like Asia.

Contact CTA, Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation ACP-EU, Postbus 380 NL- 6700 AJ, Wageningen, The Netherlands. www.cta.nl, http://agritrade.cta.int/, http://spore.cta.int/, http://knowledge.cta.int/

ICT P ROLIFERATION I N G HANA

Internet and the poor Sayed is not alone, many of the farmers in Nyenasi and villages across Ghana have never heard of the Internet or computers before, they are busy trying to make a living.

‘Sayed Ali is a cocoa farmer in Nyenasi, a small village in the central region of Ghana. He lives with his wife and in his words ‘many children’ in a small village house, five days a week, like every farmer in Nyenasi, Sayed goes about his business farming. ICTs are the least of his worries. By his own admission Sayed says “I am poor and finding it more difficult to feed my family.” Computers and the Internet are not familiar tools in his line of trade, so when asked if he had seen, used, or knows anything about computers and the Internet, Sayeed was not the most enthusiastic of respondents. Sayeed has no clue about what computers or the Internet is and what it does. Sayed is not alone, many of the farmers in Nyenasi and villages across Ghana have never heard of the Internet or computers before, they are busy trying to make a living. The village of Nyenasi is like most villages in Ghana, there is no electricity, library, post office, or telephone service, the major sources of information are the interactions on market days at the district capital Twifo Praso and portable radio sets which run on dry cell batteries. ‘The agricultural extension officer is still a powerful conveyer of information. It is such communities that many development experts want to reach with ICTs, and it is people like Sayeed, that experts claim, can reduce their poverty levels if they embrace ICTs.’

erned by a District Chief Executives (DCE), who is allocated a budget to undertake development projects for the districts. Nyenasi is located in the Twifo Heman Lower Denkyira District (THLDD) found in the Central region of Ghana. Abraham Dwumah Odoom is the DCE for THLDD and overseas the village of Nyenasi, he believes ICTs hold the answer to some of Sayed’s cry of poverty. Odoom whose district covers an areas of 1199 sq. kilometres can boost of only two public payphones and eight private communication centre (telephone access points) serving over 107,787 residents in the community. To make his vision a reality, he is investing a huge amount of the community’s funds into a grand project to extend Internet to the whole of the district. The project which was commissioned in November 2003, seeks to use ICTs to enhance the socio-economic development process, modernise agriculture, improve education, with the potential to transform THLDD into a middle income, information rich, knowledge-based and technology driven economy and society. To start with Odoom has set up, the first Internet café in the whole of the THLDD, he has computerised the operations of the district assembly and is getting staff trained in basic computer literacy. Many of the civil servants and profes-

Decentralised Ghana makes it possible to bring ICTs to villages

Kofi Mangesi Ghana Information Network for Knowledge Sharing (GINKS), Ghana kofi@ginks.org

In Ghana, a decentralised system of government is practiced. Here the country is divided into 10 administrative regions and 110 administrative districts. The District Assemblies as they are known form the basis of local government and they are gov-

Sayed Ali (cocoa farmer) hearing about the Internet for the first time i4d | July 2004

sionals who work in the town are major users of the café: nurses, teachers, students and mine workers (from the next district). For Odoom and his team, the success of the programme lies with the youth of the community. Once a month pupils in all basic cycle schools in the THLDD have the opportunity to use computers and the Internet. In all, there are 18 junior secondary schools in the district and, through a comprehensive training programme each class from all the schools come to the centre once a month to receive basic computer training and Internet skills.

Rural farmers and ICTs S.W. Hansen is director of Agriculture for the THLDD, he knows all about the Internet and its benefits. Sitting in his office is a desktop with a dedicated Internet link from the District Assembly office. Hansen is more worried about the farmers in the district. He says of the potential benefit of the project to the farming community “we intend to use the Internet to buy and sell goods for our farmers.” Already through a government/donor initiative, the Ministry of Food Agriculture (MOFA) has set up an Agriculture Information Centre in the district capital Twifo Praso. It is in this very centre that, Hansen hopes, will be connected to the Internet, farmers can themselves access relevant information. He says, “most of the farmers are literate and I believe they can use the Internet.” As part of the programme to reach farmers with ICTs, the District Assembly also intends to use its mobile vans to show videos in the villages on best farming practices and to make available CD Roms on agriculture information to farmers.

In-country digital divide Not many kilometres (70 km) away form THLDD is Cape Coast, the Regional capital of the Central region of Ghana. Here the story is much different. Cyber cafés are common and the proliferation of ICT training centres continues. This scene is not much different in all the ten regions of Ghana. The proliferation of ICTs in the country has been centered in the major urban centres much due to the neglect of the rural areas. It is not uncommon to move a few kilometres from any of the regional capital and discover that, the people have no access to computers and the Internet and that the only source of information is the national radio and television, which broadcast state information and usually provide week signals. Access is therefore non-existent in many communities apart from the 10 regional capitals. The rural poor are left behind in this fast

July 2004 | www.i4donline.net

Bamboo sticks serve as radio antennas

The agricultural extension officer is still a powerful conveyer of information. Experts claim that if people like Sayeed embrace ICTs, their poverty will reduce moving ICTs again. For example, in the Upper East Region of Ghana, which is further up north from the capital Accra, there is only one Internet café in the whole of the regional capital and the cost of use is simply outrageous. THLDD Internet project is a unique local government project to focus on ICTs for the rural poor.

Conclusion There are plans to improve telephony in the community by deploying Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) in the near future. It is presently illegal to operate VOIP in Ghana. There is a need for an alternative source of power supply. Internet charges at the THLDD Internet café are not cheap by national standards. There are daunting challenges involved in deploying ICTs and though it may be a bit too early to start measuring what has been achieved, nonetheless it has joined the information age and has broken new grounds in ICTs proliferation in Ghana.

O PINION

What can ICTs do for the rural poor? Many governments and agencies have remained hard hearing or completely deaf to the argument that the ‘digital divide’ is a social divide, an economic divide, a cultural divide and a political divide…

Alfonso Gumucio-Dagron Communication for Social Change Consortium, USA Gumucio@CommunicationForSocialChange.org

First wrong assumption: development is a matter of technology. Second wrong assumption: development is a matter of information. Third wrong assumption: information technologies are equal to development. I’m afraid these assumptions are leading the camp of the official representation at the World Summit of the Information Society (WSIS). The long PrepComs have shown that some governments and agencies try to focus on wider distribution of ICTs in developing countries rather than dealing with societal perspectives of information. Though the civil society and various sectors of the society have raised issues of social, economic and cultural development, the results of the PrepComs are rather poor. However, the PapComs show little concern for a social and human rights based approach. In the minds of the profitable organisation ‘bureaucrats without borders’, technology supersedes content. Haven’t I mentioned a ‘technological divide’? It is on purpose, because I believe this is the least important issue if the others are not taken into consideration. If we are looking at ICTs supporting sustainable development, access to computers and Internet is far from being the answer. Over fifty years of failed attempts to promote development in Third World countries, particularly Africa and Latin America, have demonstrated that the paradigms of development could not be dictated by the North and that the development agendas of bilateral and multilateral organisations had not taken into consideration social, political and cultural factors that determine social change and development. People are poor because of social inequality which embraces much more than just access to information. Development paradigms have gone through various phases to realise this.

The first phase, in the fifties and sixties, bet on the introduction of new technologies and techniques to improve agriculture, at a time where the rural population in most developing countries was still a majority. Little consideration was given to how the international market operates, who fixes the prices, and who, in the end, benefits from the work of those poor peasants that are now living in worst conditions than 40 years ago. Today, there is less productive land for the poor and more for the wealthy. The land was more productive forty years ago but was exhausted by intensive harvesting of commodity crops. The second paradigm, during the seventies and eighties, recognised that technology alone is not the silver bullet, and that information and knowledge are also important to help the rural population to improve their living conditions. The assumption, however, had a dangerous arrogant slant: “we have the knowledge, we know what the poor need, we will gracefully share our knowledge with people in developing countries”, without consideration to the local knowledge cumulated over hundreds of years, by cultures that were alive and well while pests ravaged Europe. In recent years, the role of communication in development and social change has been acknowledged. A number of development organisations began to understand that information and communication is not the same thing. Information alone does not generate changes, whereas communication – which implies participation, sharing knowledge in a horizontal way, and respect for diversity - is key to social change. Many development programmes even today don’t use participatory approaches and seldom involve communities in the decision making process, as it clashes with institutional agendas. i4d | July 2004

This last decade of incredible expansion of the new Internet based information technologies, was initially presented as the magic box containing the answers for poverty, exclusion and underdevelopment. We have seen a kind of competition whereby development agencies and corporate interests teamed to achieve equality through ‘Internet for all’ or ‘e-mail for all’. The marvellous technology feats that are promoted as vehicle for knowledge dissemination and equal access to information. In other words, democracy could be achieved by accessing Internet. Much is said about technology and very little about contents. The emerging models range from the commercially driven Internet Cafés or Cyber cafés, to more socially oriented models that involve not only setting up computer stations, but providing adequate training and developing local contents. These are called Telecentres, Community Media Centres, Village Knowledge Centres, Information Kiosks, Public Cabins, Info Plazas, Telecottages, among other names, depending on the institutional sponsorship and the region of the world. Few, however, linked the ICTs push to existing organisations, existing development projects and existing communities that watched these developments from a prudent distance and were seldom really involved. For one success story of ICTs in development, there are fifty failures. The very year a particular ICT project is implemented, people claim success, guided more by enthusiasm than reality check. We should evaluate all these experiences after four or five years, to see if they are really contributing to development. Very few will pass the test. Already, independent evaluations are generally critical of most existing projects. Briefly, we have referred already to the development paradigms that are vertical, that show a certain level of arrogance from North to South, and that respond to institutional agendas rather than to the real needs of the communities. To understand the failures we should seriously concentrate on how the Internet and the World Wide Web have been shaped: largely in English, with contents that have little to do with the interests of the poor in developing countries. 90% of the contents of the World Wide Web is irrelevant to 90% of the population of the Third World. Are we saying that there is no role for the New Information and Communication Technologies to improve the lives of the rural poor? There is an important role for ICTs at the service of rural populations, but only if they are envisioned from the perspective of users and through their active participation. The discourse on ICT4D is often well crafted for institutional reports, but seldom reflects the ground reality.

A smaller world with bigger communities For ICTs to contribute to the development of the rural poor, certain conditions have to be met, and these are: Ownership and appropriation: This can only be achieved through a process of participation from the inception of each project. This is a foremost condition particularly when seeking for sustainability, which has been the weakest aspect in most of the current experiences. Ownership and appropriation refer not only to technology but also to the ownership of the communication process and capacity development to understand the importance of communication, knowledge and networking in social development. When communities acquire the necessary skills to manage ICTs as a tool at the service of development and education. July 2004 | www.i4donline.net

Some questions that could guide our reflection every time we face a new project: • Who sets the agenda, international agencies or communities? • Which are the mechanisms of consultation with the intended beneficiaries or partners? • Do they participate in decision-making since the inception? • How much of the effort is devoted to technology and how much to content development? • Are ICTs benefiting the poorest segment of society? Is international cooperation dealing with community ownership? Development of local contents: It is equivalent to “localising” the WWW Access to the World Wide Web should not prevent each local experience to develop its own demand-driven content, as it is done at the Village Knowledge Centres in Chennai, India. Language and cultural pertinence: It relates with the development of local content, accessing to information in their own language, that is culturally appropriate. Language is the vehicle that communities use to communicate; but it is also the essence of their identity. Strengthening cultural values through communication tools, including ICTs, can only benefit long-term sustainable social development. Communities are often menaced and at risk of internal divisions because of external influences, religious or political. By bolstering local identity, communities are better equipped to face the ongoing cultural negotiation process. Convergence and networking: Both are essential for sustainability of the communication process. We want to make the world smaller and communities bigger, however, paradoxically, that many of the ICT4D projects are born as deserted islands, with very little rapport with other similar experiences in the same province, country or region. Networking is important for information exchange and for capacity building of newer experiences. As for convergence, opportunities exist to build on existing communication processes, such as community radio, which has grown rapidly, seems more culturally pertinent and is adapted to the need of communities. ICT projects have a lot to learn from community radio in terms of local management, creation of local contents, networking, or the use of appropriate technology. ICT projects must converge with local schools, libraries, development projects and social organisations to be effective in helping to improve the lives of the rural poor. Appropriate technology: It also relates to sustainability. During decades we have discussed the need of appropriate technologies for development, particularly in the fields of agriculture and health. However, when it comes to information technologies, projects are largely market-driven. Independent evaluations have shown that in rural multimedia projects, users often pay no attention to computers, but are keen to use the telephone or the photocopier. Partly, the reason is the lack of useful contents but it is also the type of technology being utilised, which is not appropriate to the local context. The Simputer project may help to bridge this gap. It may be apt to say “Leave access behind and adopt process, mind more about contents and less about machines”. Full version of this paper can be accessed at www.i4donline.net

Rendezvous 7-9 J ULY 2004, M AURITIUS

ICT stakeholder forum

The First Global ICT Stakeholder Forum with a special focus on Least Developed Countries (LDC) brought together high-level decision makers, private companies and civil organisations at one platform to discuss and find innovative practical solutions for the ICT deployment for development. The Forum had a theme ‘to move from the so-called perpetualpilot-project- syndrome’ to projects that can make a difference on the ground’. This theme generated a lot of interest and inquisitiveness within the ICT sector and it attracted 150 participants from 49 Least Developed Countries (LDCs). This three-day forum was jointly organised by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and Commonwealth Business Council (CBC), hosted by the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunications of Mauritius, and held in association with E-Africa Commission (NEPAD). It took place at beautiful location of Pointe Aux Piments in Mauritius. The aim of the forum was best described by Mohan Kaul, CBC while opening the forum, “This forum will not be another talk shop, and it would be a multi-stakeholder discussion on actual projects. The goal of this conference is to bring the widest range of stakeholders together from governments, civil society, private sector and donor agencies.” Last year CBC had hosted a two-day summit in London bringing together all stakeholders to discuss the recommendations on the Commonwealth Action Programme for the Digital Divide (CAPDD), to promote co-operative action among stakeholders, but at the end of the summit the delegates were ‘disillusioned and impatient’ about the realistic role played by ICTs as a tool for development for bridging the information divide. So CBC decided to host this event, which would focus on the ground projects in LDCs. Ethiopia, Ghana, Kiribati, Lesotho, Mali, Mauritius, Solomon Islands, and Sudan were represented at Ministerial level. The African Development Bank, E-Africa Commission, ECOWAS, European Commission, COMESA, the Swiss Agency for Development

and Cooperation (SDC) and USAID, the Commonwealth Secretariat, the International Trade Centre (ITC), PNUD and UNESCO were some of the key regional and international organisations that took part and played an important role at the Forum. The private sector was well represented by organisations from Africa, Asia, Europe, and the United States. In the welcome session on day one, Hon Deelchand Jeeha, ICT Minister of Mauritius talked about the vision of making Mauritius a ‘cyber island’ in which ICT would become the fifth pillar of the economy after sugar, textile, tourism and financial services. He said that this event therefore gives his country an opportunity to showcase its projects and best practices. Further, Mauritius Acting Prime Minister, Jayakrishna Cuttaree emphasised some of the key initiatives need to be taken up by LDCs to integrate ICT in their economy, “a firm commitment of the Government to develop the ICT sector, a well laid out ICT policy, the ICT sector that should be open to full competition in a gradual manner, government should be one of the biggest users of ICTs, and the information that can be utilised by the citizens should be made available online preferably in local language.” During three days, which comprised of presentations and showcases ranging from projects in the areas of infrastructure to universal access, education service and encouraging entrepreneurship, the key points inferred from different plenary sessions of the entire forum were as follows: • Donor Perspective: All the donors present there, African Development Bank (ADB), SDC and USAID, emphasised that the ICT4D activities is one of their priority areas of funding. There is a urgent need to integrate ICTs into national plans, strategies and policies focusing on core areas of rural access and development, education, ICT training. • Universal Access: Community centres, be it called CMC or MCT or by any other name, are the main gateways to attain rural access in LDCs and developing countries. There is lot of duplication currently happening with similar projects in different parts of the globe and there is a need of co-ordination between donor and implementing agencies. Multi level partnerships are the key to any ICT project for access. Lack of training skills also should be addressed. • Education services: The means to provide digital opportunities to the schools are by providing access, training and relevant content. It is not only important to provide Internet access but also to find ways of integrating it in the learning curriculum of the students. Providing useful content is the need of the hour. • Public-private partnerships: They are crucial for the infrastructure support for ICT4D projects. There are abundant market opportunities to explore in ICT4D for the private sector. Government and private sector need to work hand-in-hand to bridge the divide and alleviate poverty. i4d | July 2004

9-10 J ULY 2004, N EW D ELHI , I NDIA

Mission 2007

The National Academy of Agricultural Sciences in New Delhi hosted ‘Mission 2007: Every village, a knowledge Centre - A Road Map’ on July 9-10, 2004. This high level policy consultation was organised by M. S. Swaminathan Research Foundation and One World South Asia with support from IDRC, CIDA, NASSCOM Foundation and SDC. Over 250 participants and delegates including panelists, keynote speakers and task force coordinators discussed and debated various issues in launching a nation wide and highly ambitious national movement. The expertise and free flow of ideas, issues and concerns reflected the vast experience of the various stakeholders who participated in this national consultation. The idea of the National Alliance for Mission 2007 was mooted in a consultation held in Chennai in May this year. Over 43 organisations have since committed their support to this alliance. They also realised that the task of achieving the mission objective of making every village a knowledge centre was ambitious one, which required a lot of collective thinking. Several task forces have since been set up to address the issue of connectivity, content, policy issues, space applications, organisation, M&E, scalability and resources. This forum was an opportunity for these task forces to share their reports in the plenary of the opening day. Other participants July 2004 | www.i4donline.net

representing the various stake holders – government, private sector foundations, civil society organisations and donors aired their concern for focusing on local knowledge for local planning and to insure that communities are empowered while building infrastructures and not only limited to technical projects. It also called for collaboration within grass root organisations and to upgrade the PCOs to knowledge centre and not to promote only technology. The concept of the alliance is to build a non-hierarchal flexible structure to enable collaboration and avoid duplications of efforts by various stakeholders. The high point of the meeting was a videoconferencing between all the metros facililated by British Council. Several core experiential concerns and suggestions emerged during this session. The second day’s plenary focused on policy framework and the plan of action. The Mission 2007 was successfully launched with many more stakeholders, especially from the government endorsing this initiative. The momentum created within this consultation was shared with the media and endorsed by over 100 agencies. The secretariat of the alliance has been established at One World South Asia, New Delhi with NASSCOM Foundation with MSSRF as members of the secretariats. For further details and to pledge your support, contact geetasharma@oneworld

8-9 J ULY 2004, H YDERABAD , I NDIA

ICTD project workshop Organised by the National Institute for Smart Government (NISG), the Make ICTs work for people: ICTD workshop was supported by UNDP and Ministry of IT and Communications, Govt. of India. As a first step in the implementation of the UNDP sponsored ICTD project, the workshop aimed at increasing awareness about the ongoing projects in India in the ICTD domain and also to identify projects that could be implemented in the future. It was attended by over 140 delegates from all sectors- governments including the IT secretaries from 12 states, businesses and NGO’s from the ICTD domain. A highlight of the event was the launch of the eGovGateway portal by Ramalinga Raju, Chairman, Satyam Computer Services. “eGovGateway is a repository containing the entire knowledge and best practices in e-Governance. It shall also function as a place for e-learning,” said J. Satyanarayana, CEO, NISG. In his presentation, R. Chandrasekhar, Joint Secretary (e-governance), DIT, stated that the National e-Governance Action Plan launched in 2003 had been awarded high priority by the new Government at the Center and significant funding for e-Governance projects is possible. Dr Maxine Olson, UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative while releasing the book “ICTs for Development: Case Studies from India”, emphasised the role that ICTs can play as a catalyst and engine for social growth. “ICTs should work for the masses and not only for the classes,” she said while lauding India as one of the e-Governance leaders in the world. Dr Ashok Khosla, Chairman, Development Alternatives, spoke on the need for every village to be an outsourcing center. “Technology can only work if there is support of having a sound business model with social sustainability a key factor for success”, he said while delivering the key note address. Projects, current and future, showcased in the workshop were broadly divided into four themes namely “Integrated citizen services, ICT’s for enhancing rural livelihoods, ICT’s for transforming rural governance and ICT’s for Women empowerment”.

“eGovGateway is a repository containing the entire knowledge and best practices in e-Governance. It shall also function as a place for e-Learning,” 36

“Integrated citizen service” projects have the ability to directly impact lives of thousands of citizens and are thus high on the priority list of ICTD initiatives in our country. By organising and speeding the delivery of essential services to the citizens, projects such as the e-Seva in Andhra Pradesh, Sukhmani in Punjab and the Tirunelveli Municipal Corporation in Tamil Nadu, have brought about transparency, accountability and empowered both governments and citizens. The suggestions from this session were that NISG take the initiative and build technology, BPR and business models that can be adopted for integrated services projects after taking into account local needs. Precise Service Level Agreements, it was felt, should govern the management of such centers. In the session “ICTs for enhancing rural livelihoods”, projects which provide livelihood opportunities to the rural people by targeting agriculture and allied sectors, and which are currently being implemented by MSSRF, Tarahaat, n-Logue Communications, Governments of Assam and Kerala, were presented. While informing all present that India currently dominates this sector with 150 ongoing projects, the session on rural livelihoods also threw up questions about the acute water shortage problem India shall have to face after 20 years. Thoughts surfacing from this session focused on providing demand-driven services in rural areas that result in economic benefits through access to markets, rural credit and employment by leveraging on the existing infrastructure. The focus of the session on “ICTs for transforming rural governance”, was on decentralisation of power and empowering of local bodies through the use of ICTs. A special session showcasing projects like the e-Choupal, e-Panchayats and work done by Byrraju Foundation and Tarahaat through short video films, was also arranged for the delegates. Anita Gurumurthy, Founder-Member, IT for Change chaired the session on “ICTs for Women/Child Empowerment”. Presentations by delegates from Azim Premji Foundation, SEWA, Datamation Foundation and UNICEF stressed on the need for capacity building of women, enabling them to play a dominant role in mainstream economic activities. At the end, it was suggested by all present that NISG take the initiative to frame standards and roadmaps for e-Governance projects to help unify all the varied projects going on across India. The workshop ended with a common resolution to join hands together and make ICTs work for people across the country. The partnership between UNDP, NISG and GOI is expected to help people of all sectors to carry out many more ICTD projects across the country. Contacts: Sandeep Krishna – sandeep.paidi@nisg.org and Anita Satyajit – anita.satyajit@gmail.com i4d | July 2004

ICT

AND

E DUCATION

i4d launches a new research programme Even 20 years back, we couldn’t think of learning without textbooks. Now we can think of that with the increasing popularity of internet-based training, web-based training, on-line learning and can even get recognised university degrees without stepping out of the home.

Saswati Paik i4d, India saswati@i4donline.net

July 2004 | www.i4donline.net

People learn in many different ways and at different times. Their need of learning varies as per their social status and need. Learning, as an indefinite process, is beyond time and contents. But any learning is purposively constructive in nature. It may range from simple knowledge of letters up to the higher level of formal education. In this process, the word ‘Learning’ covers the entire path of getting knowledge as per the need of the persons involved into this process. To support these different learning needs, different delivery methods are needed. No single learning method is best for every learning need. When learning programme combines modern tools and traditional learning methods, it might be termed as ‘blended learning’. With the development of science and technology, the tools and techniques of learning are also being changed. Even 20 years back, we couldn’t think of learning without textbooks. Now we can think of that with the increasing popularity of internet-based training, web-based training, online learning and, in recent time, ‘e-Learning’, and can even get recognised university degrees without stepping out of the home.

ing, on its way of development, needs initial training which ultimately follows traditional face-to-face learning methods. What change this modern method has brought is reducing the time of face-to-face learning. In this way, a blended learning programme has been initiated that combines e-Learning and traditional learning methods. This blended learning can provide the convenience, speed and cost effectiveness of e-Learning with the personal touch of traditional learning.

What is e-Learning?

Asynchronous e-Learning

e-Learning is technology-based learning, instructional content or learning experiences delivered or enabled by electronic technology. It is a structured, interactive approach for educating and informing the students, employees etc. It includes computer-based learning, web-based learning and virtual classrooms or chat rooms. Instructor-led courses often include some form of technology-based training to give learners both hands-on training and easy access to the instructor’s expertise. But we can never ignore the significance of traditional learning methods while accepting and utilising the modern tools and technologies. e-Learn-

Asynchronous e-Learning happens when training takes place independent of time and relationships. It requires documents and web pages, web-based training (WBT), computer-based training (CBT), CDROM, recorded live events, simulations and labs. It also includes self-paced courses and discussion groups. In this process, the learners have the scope of selecting the time of learning as per their own convenience. e-Learning includes development and management that include Authoring, Learning Management Systems (LMS), Learning Content Management Systems and Knowledge Management.

Synchronous e-Learning Synchronous e-Learning requires the students and instructors to be present at the same time. It includes Virtual Classroom, Audio and Video Conferencing, Chat, Shared Whiteboard, Application Sharing and Instant Messaging. This type of e-Learning provides the students the opportunity to receive immediate feedback from the other learners and instructors. On the other hand, the familiar classroom-based teaching-learning process provides stimulating environment to the others. At the same time, this process needs specified times.

Quiz

ICT and Agriculture D. C. Misra Former Development Commissioner, Delhi, and Chairman of the Taskforce for IT Policy, NCT of Delhi, India dc_misra@hotmail.com

What is common between the following: (b) AgriSurf,

(d) @gricculture online, and

(e) AgMetaSearch? 2.

When and where was the first World Conference on Computers in Agriculture and Natural Resources (WCCA) held?

What are the following:

(b) FAOSTAT,

(d) FIVIMS, and

(e) AGRIS?

If these are regional / international / national-level organisations in the field of information technology (IT) in agriculture, also called AgIT organisations, what are the following: (a) EFITA, (b) AFITA, (c) PanAFITA,

(d) INFITA-InfoNet

(e) JSAI,

(f ) INSAIT, and

(g) IIAA?

(a) If this claims itself to be the largest database of agricultural information worldwide, what is AGRICOLA, (b) If this provides access to over 400 journals from major scientific publishers in the fields of food, agriculture, environmental science and related social sciences, what is AGORA? Kisan, meaning farmer, is a very popular word for use in various schemes for the Indian farmer. If so, what are the following: (a) ikisan,

(b) MahindraKisan Mitra,

(d) Kisan Dehydration, and

(e) e-Kisan credit card? 7.

Name the milking robot - a fully automated milking unit has its own software, the Crystal software, which operates under WindowsTM. It is manufactured and assembled at the Fullwood factory in Shropshire, England.

To use computer technology at the grass roots level, Village Computer and Internet Program (VCIP) has been undertaken at Madhupur in Tangail district, about160 km from Dhaka, in Bangladesh. Who started the programme?

(a) If it has been a bellwether application of eGovernance in India as early as 1986, what is CRISP, and (b) If these have

July 2004 | www.i4donline.net

10. If these are important official networks in agriculture sector in India, what are (a) DACNET,

(b) ARISNET,

(d) AGRISNET?

11. What are the following:

(a) AgFind,

(a) WAICENT,

been created by National Informatics Centre (NIC), New Delhi, what are the following: (i) RuralBazar, (ii) RuralSoft 2000, (iii) PriaSoft, and (iv) eNRICH?

(a) Agricultural Gateway of India (AGI), (b) Indusscitech.net,

(d) Cyberfarm, and

(e) CCNet?

12. 120 farmers pooled land in 1994 to create this 400-acre cyber city in western India. Name the cyber city. 13. If this is the brand name under which a private company markets its automatic milk collection systems to milk co-operatives in Gujarat and Maharashtra, what is AKASHGANGATM, literally meaning the milky way? 14. It claims to be the single largest producer of vermicompost in the world. Starting with a small beginning in Jhunjhunu, Rajasthan in 1995, this foundation has emerged as a major organisation offering various services for organic agriculture in India. What is its name? 15. What are dairy information services kiosk (DISK) and dairy portal (DP) projects and who is implementing them? 16. If this was the first call centre for farmers set up by a state government in India, what is Parishkaram (Solution)? 17. When did the Government of India set up a National Commission on Farmers (NCF) for recommending policies, programmes and measures for alleviating rural poverty and raise standards of living of the farming community? 18. Name the Indian satellite, launched on October 17, 2003 from Sriharikota space cntere (SHAR), 100 kilometres north of Chennai, is expected to enhance the remote sensing applications in agriculture, land and water resources management, and disaster management? 19. Where has the Centre for Space Science and Technology Education in Asia and the Pacific (CSSTE-AP) for enhancing the capabilities of the member states in space science and technology been established at the initiative of the United Nations (UN)? 20. What are the following: (a) Surapalaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Vrikshayurveda, (b) Kashyapiyakrishisukti, (c) Krishi Parashara, (d) Nuskha Dar Fanni-Falahat, and (e) Vishvavallabha? ÂŠ DC Misra, 2004

Answer to Quiz in June issue, 2004 1.

It is a 3-year programme at Centre for Research in Urdu Language Processing (CRULP), National University of Computer and Emerging Sciences (NUCES), Lahore, Pakistan, launched by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canada, for developing local language computing capacity. The countries (and languages) included in the project are Bangladesh (Bangla), Bhutan (Dzongkha), Cambodia (Khmer), Laos (Lao), Nepal (Nepali) and Sri Lanka (Sinhala, Tamil). For details, visit the Web sites http:// www.panasia.org.sg/news/index12.htm and http:// www.panl10n.net/.

July 31, 2003 (URL: http://www.google.co.in). The four Indian languages are: Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, and Marathi. This is in addition to English. Subsequently Tamil was added. As on April 14, 2004, the Google interface was available in five major Indian languages.

(a) Indian Script Code for Information Interchange, (b) The universal character-encoding standard, used for representation of text for computer processing. The Unicode standard provides the capacity to encode all of the characters used for the written languages of the world, (c) Indian Standard Font Code (http://tdil.mit.gov.in/insfoc.pdf), and (d) Indian Script Roman Transliteration, and (e) Perso-Arabic Script Code for Information Interchange, devised by Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), Pune which defines storage standard for Urdu, Sindhi, Kashmiri and Arabic. For details, visit the Web site http://parc.cdacindia.com/PASCii.htm.

(a) Indian language database management system (1992), (b) Indian language publishing software – Windows version (1993), (c) Indian language browser authoring software (1996), (d) Integrated accounting inventory software – claimed to be world’s first accounting software for 12 Indian languages (1997), (e) Email software for Indian languages – claimed to be world’s first email software for 11 Indian languages (Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Punjabi, Sanskrit, and Telugu) (1999), and (f) Java-based Universal Language Interface (2000). It makes it possible to use the Indian languages on the Internet without downloading the fonts or software. (Figures in parentheses denote the year of release of the product). Lastech Systems Private Limited, Chennai has developed all these software. For details, visit http://www.lastech.com/. These are email software in Indian languages, namely, (a) Hindi, (b) Malayalam, (c) Tamil, and (d) Telugu, respectively developed by Lastech Systems Private Limited, Chennai. For details, visit http://www.lastech.com.

6. Shri Balram J.Rathore. Most of the work available currently has been voluntarily typed by him. This page, on the Web site of Language Technologies Research Centre (LTRC), International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), Hyderabad attempts to create an online library of Hindi literature and develop e-texts of the writings of the famous Hindi writers like Meera, Suradas, Tulasidas, Premchand, Rahim, etc. for whose works the copyright is over. For details visit http:// www.iiit.net/ltrc/script_html. 7.

(a) A voluntary project attempting to improve the state of Indian language computing with special emphasis on open-source operating systems. Subject to merit, participation in the project is open to all. It was started on SourceForge.Net in Qctober 2001, and (b) On September 15-16, 2002 in Bangalore. For details, visit the Web site http://indic-computing.s ourceforge.net/about.html.

Technology Development for Indian Languages programme, which aims at promotion of information technology (IT) tools for Indian languages, was launched by Department of Information Technology (DIT), Government of India in 1991. For details, visit http://tdil.mit.gov.in/introindx.html.

(a) Content Development and IT Localisation Network. It was launched by Technology Development for Indian Languages (TDIL) programme of Department of Information Technology (DIT), Government of India, in pursuance of specific recommendation of IT Task Force 2000 for promoting IT in

lagging Hindi-speaking states. (b) The Manufacturers’ Association of Information Technology (MAIT) (http:// www.mait.com) - Consortium on Innovation and Language Technology (CoIL-Tech) set up in 2002 and funded by TDIL (Technology Development in Indian Languages) programme of Department of Information Technology (DIT), Government of India. It is a consortium of information technology (IT) companies engaged in development of local language applications and products. (Source: VishvaBbarat@tdil No.9, April 2003, inside front cover and p-110. For further details, visit http://tdil.mit.gov.in/tdil-july.2003.zip. 10. (a) (2002): $11 million, and (b) Over $64 million, growing at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 79 percent over next three years, 2002-2005, according to a study conducted by Frost and Sullivan, a Silicon Valley- based growth consulting and training company (http://www.frost.com), for Manufacturers’ Association for Information Technology (MAIT), New Delhi (http;//www.mait.com). (Source: VishvaBharat@tdil, April 2003, No.9, p-102). 11. (a) A computer software, which renders text from one Indian language into another, jointly developed by Indian Institute of Technology (I.I.T.), Kanpur and University of Hyderabad. For details, visit http://www.iiit.net/ltrc/Anusaaraka/ anu_flyer.html, (b) Microsoft’s a community portal for Indian language developers. For details, visit the Web site http:// www.bhashaindia.com, (c) A bilingual (English/Tamil and English/Hindi) suite of applications including word processor, spreadsheet, database, browser, e-mail client, and drawing/ paint developed by Chennai Kavigal Private Ltd., a part of TeNet group of companies incubated in 1996 by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Madras for producing software in local languages. For details, visit http://www.chennaikavigal. com/products.htm, (d) The first ever Indian language financial accounting software on Windows developed by Cyberscape Multimedia Ltd., Mumbai (Source: http://www.cybers capeindia.com/aboutus/history.htm), and (e) A range of software for Indian languages/ scripts (suite of fonts, utilities, keyboard drivers and cliparts) developed by Cyberscape Multimedia Ltd., Mumbai). The first product – Akruti for Windows – was developed in 1991. For details visit http:// www.cyberscapeindia.com/products/akruti1.htm and http:// www.akruti.com. 12. (a) The first Web site (http://www.vishvakannada.com) hosted in Kannada on the Internet, established in December 1996. It is also the first online magazine in Kannada started by Dr U B Pavanaja, a scientist at Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Mumbai, (b) A comprehensive major Hindi e-news portal (http://www.prabhasakshi.com) by Dwarikesh Samvad Ltd., New Delhi launched on October 26, 2001. Envisioned by Gautam Morarka, CMD of Dwarikesh group and executed by Balendu Dadhich, Managing Editor-cum-Technical Head, it was originally a news portal which has now been made comprehensive to include 21 channels, (c) The first complete portal in Indian languages (http://www.indianlanguages.com) developed by Cyberscape Multimedia Ltd., Mumbai in 1997 (Source: http://www.cyberscapeindia.com/aboutus/ history.htm), (d) A leading portal in Marathi (http:// www.ramrampavna.com) launched on October 20, 2000 set up at a cost of Rs 40 crore (MD: Girish Balekundri) (Source: The Financial Express, October 20, 2000, http:// www.financialexpress.com/fe/daily/20001020/ fco20021.html), and (e) A Web site for Hindi poetry. Kaavyaalaya is run by Vani Murarka, an IT developer and Dr Vinod Tewary, a physicist. It was started on Geocities in 1997 and moved to its present site in 1999. Dr Tewary joined the team in 2001. For details visit http://www.manaskriti.com/ kaavyaalaya/about_kavya.html. 13. It is a multilingual database of Indian theses and dissertations, currently available in English, Hindi and Kannada. According to an estimate, 25 to 30 percent of doctoral theses in India are in local languages. It is conceptualised as an eventual national repository and collaborative consortium of participating universities and institutions. It is an initiative of Dr. Shalini R Urs, Professor and Director, Vidyanidhi, Department of Library and Information Science, University of Mysore, Manasagangotri, Mysore. Beginning as a pilot project in 2000 with support from government of India demonstrating the

feasibility of e-theses programme in India, it was started in 2002. The programme is supported by the Ford Foundation (http://www.fordfound.org) and Microsoft Corporation (http:// www.microsoft.com). For details, visit http:// www.vidyanidhi.org.in/html/aboutus.htm 14. (a) September 23, 1999, (b) February 1999, (c) September 1999, (d) April 13, 2000, (e) September 26, 2000, and (f) November 1, 2000. All of them were launched by Webdunia.com (India) Pvt Ltd., Indore (Madhya Pradesh), a company founded by Vinay Chhajlani, its Chief Executive Officer (CEO). For details, visit http://www.webdunia.net/ company/history.asp. 15. (a) LEAP mail (email software for 11 Indian languages), (http:/ /www.cdacindia.com/html/gist/products/leapm.asp), (b) IndoMail (email software for 12 Indian languages), (c) Apnamail. (Email system in 13 Indian languages) (http:// www.indianlanguages.com/email/help.htm) 16. (a) krishiworld (http://www.krishiworld.com/default.asp), which claims to be India’s first multilingual agricultural portal, set up by Cyberdyne Solutions India Ltd., Pune. 17. (a) A machine-aided translation methodology for translating English to Indian languages, (b) A hybrid example-based machine translation (HEBMT) approach that is a combination of example-based approach and traditional rule-based approach for translating Hindi to English. Both Anglabharti and Anubharti have been developed by Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur. For details, visit the Web site http:/ /www.cse.iitk.ac.in/users/langtech, (c) One million pages parallel multilingual corpus, (d) Optical character recognition (OCR) for Devanagari script, which recognises Hindi, Marathi and Nepali, (e) Platform independent word processor (Linux, Solaris, Windows, etc.), and (f) A Unicode-based word processor with integrated optical character recognition (OCRs). Gyan Nidhi, Chitraksharika, Lekhika and Swarnakriti have been developed by Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), Noida (http://www.cdacnoida.com) (Source: VishvaBharat@tdil, Number 9, April 2003, pp 97-99). 18. Graphics and Indian Script Terminal, developed by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur (R.M.K.Sinha, S.K.Mullick). The then department of electronics (DOE), government of India sponsored a project on design and development Integrated Devanagari Computer (IDC) terminal at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur in 1983. Demonstrated at the Third World Hindi Convention at Delhi, it was developed using Intel 8086 processor with multitasking firmware. The technology was further implemented in the 32bit 68000 microprocessor and the result was named GIST. The technology was subsequently adopted by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC). A number of companies bought this technology for manufacturing multilingual computer terminals. (Source: http:// www.cse.iitk.ac.in/users/langtech/hist.htm). 19. (a) (i) A font styler, (ii) A text styler, (iii) A multilingual database utility, all in Shree-Lipi package, a de facto standard for desk top publishing (DTP) in Indian languages, and (b) (i) A Windows-based multilingual word processor, (ii) A multilingual appointments diary, both in Ankur suite. All these software have been developed by Modular Infotech Pvt Ltd., Pune, incorporating Modular System Pvt Ltd., Pune and TVS Electronics, Chennai. For details, visit the Web site http:// www.modular-infotech.com. 20. (a) According to Mithi Software Technologies Pvt Ltd., Pune, which ran the free email service, due to the free nature of the service, there was an increased misue of the site by miscreants for spamming, and as a result they were forced to discontnue this free service. For further details, visit the Web site http://mithi.com/services/email/mailjol.html, and (b) It is an international email service in several, including many Indian, languages run by Langoo.com, Inc., Palo Alto, CA. Its characteristic feature is that it does not require special keyboards, language fonts or software. The name Langoo, according to the Web site is a combination of the first four letters of the word “Language”; with “goo” which is the glue that binds them together. For details, visit http:// www.langoo.com/about/what.asp. i4d | July 2004

What’s on

Thailand 04 – 08 August, 2004 ICT Expo 2004, Bangkok www.brudirect.com

09-12 August, 2004 World Congress on Computers in Agriculture and Natural Resources, Bangkok

Argentina

Mauritius

22-27 August, 2004 World Library and Information Congress: 70th IFLA General Conference and Council Buenos Aires

07-09 September, 2004 ACT 2004: Building Partnerships to Mainstream Africa’s ICT Sector Mauritius Cybercity

www.ifla.org/IV/ifla70/index.htm

www.aitecafrica.com/act2004/index.htm

China

Mexico

21-24 November, 2004 Libraries - Gateways to Information and Knowledge in the Digital Age Bangkok

11-13 October, 2004 Global Mobile Congress Shanghai

04-07 October, 2004 Youth Employment Summit Veracruz

Uganda

www.delson.org/3g-4g/main.htm

www.yesweb.org/mexico

26-29 August, 2004 Map Asia 2004 Beijing

16-20 October, 2004 Global Forum for Health Research Mexico City

www.mapasia.org

www.globalforumhealth.org/pages/index.asp

27-28 August, 2004 2nd i4d Seminar Beijing

16-19 November, 2004 Global Indicators Workshop on Community Access to ICTs Mexico City

www.i4donline.net

www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/mexico04/index.html

Ethiopia 11-14 October, 2004 ADF 4: Governance for a progressing Africa Addis Ababa www.uneca.org/adf/adfiv/About.htm

Senegal 01-02 September, 2004 CODESRIA Conference on Electronic Publishing and Dissemination Dakar

www.kemri.org

www.alic2004.org

05 – 08 September, 2004 Universities: Taking a Leading Role in ICT- enabled Human development Makerere university conference@dicts.mak.ac.ug

United Kingdom 30 September-1 October, 2004 Access to health information in developing countries: the role of information and communication tech, eHealth 2004, West End Conference Center, London harry@ihn.info

United States

www.codesria.sn

18-21 October, 2004 eLearning Producer Conference and Expo 2004 Orlando, Florida

Sweden

http://www.elearningguild.com/pbuild linkbuilder.cfm?selection=doc.652

Kenya 04-08 October, 2004 25th African Health Sciences Congress Nairobi

www.afitaandwcca2004.net

25-28 August, 2004 EuroScience Open Forum 2004 Stockholm www.esof2004.org/index.asp

01-05 November, 2004 E-Learn 2004 Washington DC

Korea

Tanzania

http://www.aace.org/conf/eLearn/call.htm

08-12 September,2004 ITU Telecom Asia 2004 Busan

05-07 August, 2004 Women and ICT, Arusha

12-14 December, 2004 Eradicating Poverty through Profit San Francisco

www.itu.int/ASIA2004/

www.aitecafrica.com/events/2004/WomenICT/ womens-ict.htm

http://pvertyprofit.wri.org

Get your event listed here. www.i4donline.net/events July 2004 | www.i4donline.net

I N F ACT

Agricultural initiatives SciDev has dossiers on genetically modified crops, indigenous knowledge, intellectual property right issues, bio-diversity and biotechnology. www.scidev.net

ICIMOD (Internatioanl Centre for Integrated Mountain Development) has numerous links and online resources particularly focused on mountain eco-system in HinduKush Himalayas addressing issues of livelihood, natural resource management, pastoral livelihood and off-farm opportunities. www.icimod.org.np IFAD (International Fund for Agricultural Development) has an extensive rural poverty knowledge base covering rural finance, gender, food security and nutrition, livestock and rangeland. www.ifad.org WFP (World Food Program) has used ICT to provide online resources for humanitarian assistance due to natural calamities like floods and draughts. www.wfp.org IWMI (International Water Management Institute) has one terabyte of data on river basin, nations, regions and global in a gateway for RS/ GIS (Remote Sensing and Geographical Information System). The water and Climate Atlas gives irrigation and agricultural planner rapid access to accurate data on climate and moisture availability for agriculture. www.iwmidsp.org CGIAR (Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research) has initiated ICTKM program to promote and support the use of ICT and knowledge management to improve the effectiveness of CGIAR. It works on behalf of the poor and developing countries. The projects under this program are grouped around three thrusts. The first will improve how CGIAR communicates by implementing high performance ICT infrastructure both system wise and in support of specific, scientific communities of practice. The second will create and share the knowledge by capturing

information, integrating it and providing easy access to it in the forms usersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; need. The third thrust will help CGIAR to collaborate by new techniques and KM initiatives to build a culture of cooperative global agricultural research. http://ictkm.cgiar.org/projects.htm IFPRI (International Food Policy Research Institute) has a wide selection of primary data, processed and compiled secondary data, organized as data sets at local, national and global levels. IFPRI distributes most of these data sets freely and encourages its use for research and policy analysis provided proper citation and information is included. They include agro MAPS (mapping of agricultural production systems). Data sets also include country level surveys, institutional level surveys, regional data and social accounting matrices. IFPRI is dedicated to providing sustainable solutions for hunger and poverty. Its website also provides Vision 2020 for food, agriculture and environment. http://ifpri.org WAICENT (World Agricutural Information Centre) is FAOâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s virtual libraries that have over six thousand documents in html allowing users to download valuable agricultural information free of charge. It has also online catalogue of all the publications of FAO since 1945. AGROVOC is a multilingual agricultural thesaurus developed by FAO and used to index items in database. The David Lubin Memorial library is considered one of the finest collections of food, agricultural and international development information reaching one million volumes. www.fao.org/waicent/portal/virtual library_eu.asp Tele Food is a campaign launched by FAO to raise awareness and generate funds through concerts, sporting events to harness the power of media. So far it has generated $12 million in donations. It helps to pay for small sustainable projects that help small farmers to produce more food for their families and communities. The project costs between USD 5,000 to 10,000 for seeds and simple farming tools. The interesting aspect of this project is that Tele Food does not charge any administrative cost. http://www.fao.org/food/english/index.html

i4d | July 2004

I N F ACT

Agricultural initiatives SciDev has dossiers on genetically modified crops, indigenous knowledge, intellectual property right issues, bio-diversity and biotechnology. www.scidev.net

i4d | July 2004

Information for development www.i4donline.net

27-28 A UGUST 2004 I NTERNATIONAL C ONVENTION C ENTRE , B EIJING , C HINA

2nd i4d Seminar in conjunction with Map Asia 2004 Theme ICT for Development: Is Asia ready for the challenge? The prime concern in most of the developing world is today on expanding the digital opportunities to bridge the digital divide. The promise of the information economy—of tremendous possibilities for human development, of rapidly growing economies, of empowered communities and responsive polities—is but a dream for the vast majority in the developing world. There are several initiatives at the global, regional, national and the local levels all across the globe. But these efforts are proving to be much less than what is required to reach to downtrodden and the underserved people in the society. The requirements, such as for the basic ICT infrastructure alone, are enormous. The necessary resources will not flow automatically from the technology-rich countries to the technology-poor countries. Unless the global community responds to the challenge of the digital divide in a coordinated and determined manner, the developing world will wake up to the horrible reality of being left behind once again. The seminar will be held in conjunction with Map Asia 2004, the largest conference and exhibition on Geographic Information Technologies in Asia. Sub-themes: •

ICT’s Infrastructure policy and action plans

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Legal and regulatory mechanisms

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Capacity building

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Applications

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Building public-private partnership

Contacts Authors gautam@i4donline.net Registration niraj@i4donline.net

Venue : International Convention Centre, Beijing, China Supported by :

Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC)

Seminar Details info@i4donline.net www.i4donline.net www.mapasia.org