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Contents
Vol. V No. 10
October 2007
Mail box
Features market economies: 6 Emerging India and China Tale of the dragon and the elephant Shambhu Ghatak
10
Defining emerging markets A developing country perspective Jayalakshmi Chittoor
12
Opportunities for rural India
15
Telecom accessibility
26
Games for a purpose
29
Opinion
Equalising growth in outsourcing Prashant Gupta, Vignesh S
Phones at the bottom of the pyramid Anu Samarajiva, Ayesha Zainudeen
Playing seriously Prashant Gupta
Are English skills a power in India? Prashant Gupta
18 News Interviews to develop CSCs in 22 eGovServices Jharkhand Parminder Singh
23
Technology for the people Rajen Varada
Rendezvous 17
Launch of OECD Economic Surveys, India Report India surging ahead
28
Manthan Award 2007 Recognising the ICT content innovations
30
Community media, India Radio broadcasting uber wires Vickram Crishna
Columns
39
Showcase
42
Bytes for All
44
Book received
45
What’s on
46
In Fact
Exemplary online alternative media Prashant Gupta
Field Visit College, Tilonia, 32 Barefoot Rajasthan, India Campus with no gates Anaam Sharma, Vignesh S
The bottom billion
Doing business 2008
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New Media for Development i4d | October 2007
Editorial Information for development
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Emerging Markets
ADVISORY BOARD M P Narayanan, Chairman, i4d Chin Saik Yoon Southbound Publications, Malaysia Karl Harmsen United Nations University Kenneth Keniston Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA Mohammed Yunus Grameen Bank, Bangladesh Nagy Hanna e-Leadership Academy, University of Maryland, USA Richard Fuchs IDRC, Canada Rinalia Abdul Rahim Global Knowledge Partnership, Malaysia Walter Fust Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, Switzerland Wijayananda Jayaweera UNESCO, France EDITORIAL BOARD
The term ‘Emerging Markets’ was originally brought into fashion in the 1980s by then World Bank economist Antoine van Agtmael, of the International Finance Corporation. Emerging markets are countries that are restructuring their economies along market-oriented lines and offer a wealth of opportunities in trade, technology transfers, and foreign direct investment. The five biggest emerging markets are China, India, Indonesia, Brazil and Russia. Other countries that are also considered as emerging markets include Mexico, Argentina, South Africa, Poland, Turkey, and South Korea. Each of them is important as an individual market and the combined effect of the group as a whole could change the face of global economics and politics. In recent years, new terms have emerged to describe the largest developing countries such as BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) and BRIMC (Brazil, Russia, India, Mexico, China). These countries do not share any common agenda, but some experts believe that they are enjoying an increasing role in the world economy and on political platforms.
Akhtar Badshah, Frederick Noronha GROUP DIRECTORS Maneesh Prasad, Sanjay Kumar EDITORIAL TEAM Editor-in-Chief Ravi Gupta Programme Co-ordinator Jayalakshmi Chittoor Sr. Research Associates Prashant Gupta, Shambhu Ghatak, Ritu Srivastava Research Associate Ajitha Saravanan Designers Bishwajeet Kumar Singh, Om Prakash Thakur Web Programmer Zia Salahuddin i4d G-4 Sector 39, NOIDA, UP, 201 301, India Phone +91 120 250 2181-85 Fax +91 120 250 0060 Email info@i4donline.net Web www.i4donline.net Printed at Yashi Media Works Pvt. Ltd. New Delhi, India i4d is a monthly publication. It is intended for those interested and involved in the use of Information and Commnication Technologies 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.
Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies, 2006 Except where otherwise noted, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License
A large section of the population in the developing economies are not able to reap the benefits of the new liberalised economies. There is still a lot of scope to help small corporations, and improve inter-state trade and regional trade, which need more thrust and policy pushes. The proliferation of information and communication technologies gives an opportunity for new and innovative business models to flourish. These models can be used to bring the large sections of population, commonly referred to as the “Bottom of Pyramid” (BoP), into the folds of new market scenarios. This spells business and employment opportunities for the most deprived. Entrepreneurship at the local level must be assisted at all fronts, not just by local governments, but by large private sector players, and civil society organisations. Also, local commodities can find a variety of markets with the aid of new communication technologies. A thrust on sustainable solutions is important, so that the marginalised do not have to be dependent upon aid and borrowings. The government can create opportunities in this regard by giving a thrust to infrastructural development in neglected areas. The CSC (Common Services Centres) scheme in India is all set to provide direct and indirect employment to a large number of people. Social entrepreneurship models can go a long way in opening up the BoP market towards integration with the rest of the economy. The private sector too needs too look at this sector as a productive one, instead of treating it as a non-sustainable strata. e-Commerce can link the local market with the global and vice-versa. Micro-credit institutions could provide financial services to the un-banked. IT outsourcing can be relocated to the rural areas with some initiatives from the government and large corporations in training the rural youth. Language barriers continue to stand tall in the face of ICT diffusion into new markets. This is a glaring problem in Africa as well as Asia. MSMEs (Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises), which are labour intensive, too stand to benefit with new technologies and extending their access to newer markets and corporations.
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Ravi Gupta Ravi.Gupta@csdms.in October 2007 | www.i4donline.net
5
EMERGING MARKET ECONOMIES: INDIA AND CHINA
Tale of the dragon and the elephant Introduction The focus of the current article would be on India and China, which are considered as two of the fastest growing economies of the world. According to the newly released report titled ‘Asian Development Outlook 2007 Update (ADO Update)’ by the Asian Development Bank, developing economies from Asia are expected to register impressive economic growth in 2007, driven by fast growth in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and India. PRC and India, which together account for 55.3 percent of the total gross domestic product (GDP) in developing Asia, recorded their fastest growth in 13 years during the first half of 2007, and the fastest in 18 years in the fiscal year 2006, respectively. The present analysis, would cover the existing economic scenario in India and China— internal as well as external, in the backdrop of economic reforms, which are associated with the openness to foreign trade and (long-term) investment. In China, the merchandise trade ratio to gross domestic product (GDP) exceeded 60 percent, which was more than double of India’s. China attracted direct foreign investment of US $ 79 billion a year, about 13 times than that for India.
‘The heat is on’ In India, the balance of payments (BoP) data show that FY 2006 has seen growth of exports by 20.9 percent, and import by 22.3 percent, and the trade deficit widened to US $ 64.9 billion. The current account deficit rose marginally to US$ 9.6 billion from a year earlier. The capital account surplus nearly doubled from a year earlier to US$ 44.9 billion. The balance of payments surplus has escalated to US $ 36.6 billion from US$ 15.0 billion. The net direct investment flows as a whole doubled to US
6
$ 8.4 billion. Net portfolio investment fell to US$ 7.1 billion from US$ 12.5 billion. In China, high trade surpluses and capital inflows have boosted foreign exchange reserves. Foreign exchange reached US$ 1.3 trillion by end-June, 2007 up by US$ 266 billion in 6 months. The trade surplus (US $ 122.5 billion) and actual foreign direct investment (up 12.2 percent to US$ 31.9 billion), accounted for 54 percent of the total foreign exchange accumulation in the first half of 2007, while non-FDI capital inflows contributed 46 percent (against just 3.0 percent in 2006). During the year 2006, India’s international reserves amounted to US $ 1,76,105 million (as end of the period); whereas for the same year, Chinese international reserves amounted to US $ 10,72,564 million (calender year), which is almost six-times than that of India. The following table 1, provides a
Chinese ICT firms do not merely assemble and re-export to OECD countries, but also compete in aspects of production process that utilise skilled labour, and absorb higher technology inputs.
detailed picture of the balance of payments scenario for both India and China. From the table 2, one can find about the economic growth faced by India and PRC during the last four years. The PRC has registered higher economic growth in the recent years compared to India.
Economies in transition It can be recalled that both India and PRC, historically, have very restrictive regimes, including outright prohibition on foreign direct investments (FDI), which got opened up only during the past 20-25 years (see table 3). The reforms process in the PRC started in the year 1978, thanks to the efforts of Deng Xiaoping (one can remember the term ‘Four Modernisations’), which got further consolidated in the late 1980s, and again in 2002 upon its accession to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) (because of the support coming from the United States). The PRC’s successful effort to bring foreign direct investment (FDI) in the special economic zones (SEZs), needs to be mentioned here. Special export processing zones (EPZs) along China’s southern coast allowed it to exploit its comparative advantage in lowwage labour. Due to the ongoing reforms in the state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in China, there was substantial reduction in the workforce. The loss of manufacturing sector employment could be felt more in the state sector. Under the new competitive climate, starting from the mid-1990s, SOEs and the agricultural collectives started adopting the capital intensive technologies in China. However, services still continue to be constrained by high entry barriers, excessive state involvement, opaque regulatory process and overly burdensome licensing and operating requirements. China has promised that by the year 2006, i4d | October 2007
Table 1: Balance of Payments (BoP) situation for India and China in the year 2006 India (million US $/ Fiscal year beginning 1 April)
China (million US $/ Calender year)
Current account
(-) 9609
249866
Balance on goods, net
(-) 64905
217746
Exports
127090
969682
Imports
(-) 191995
(-) 751936
27881
2921
Credit
90302
143239
Debit
(-) 62421
(-) 140318
27415
29199
Credit
28861
31578
Debit
(-) 1446
(-) 2378
Capital account
44944
4020
Of which, Direct investment
8495
60265
Of which, Portfolio investment
7004
(-) 67558
Services and income
Current transfers
Source: Key indicators of developing Asian and Pacific Countries-2007, Asian Development Bank
it will drop all form of discriminations against the foreign firms. China has become the final processing and assembly platform for a large volume of exports originating from its Asian OECD neighbours but destined for European and North American markets. Despite the processing exports in China being less valueadded and more labour-intensive, the expansion of manufacturing employment has slowed down in China. The intellectual property rights regime in China is considered as weak, which is a major stumbling block before China’s trading partners. The year 1991 is regarded as the key reform year for India, following which phase-wise reforms started in terms of fiscal reforms, monetary reforms, trade reforms, banking sector reforms, currency and foreign exchange related reforms, etc. However, in the case of India, it is said that the labour market reforms is yet to be carried out, in the backdrop of labour market militancy, which exists in certain states of India. The labour laws are considered to be restrictive in India. India reduced its trade barriers since the 1990s, along with an expansion of exports of mostly capital and skill intensive products. It is perceived by some economists that too much openness of the economy can be a bane instead of a boon, since this can lead to flight of capital, de-industrialisation and massive unemployment. The Indian growth process has been termed as service sector-led growth, whereas Chinese growth process has been described as manufacturing-centric. However, the unorganised services constituted two-thirds of the service sector output in India, during the last decade. Among sectors attracting high cumulative FDIs, electrical equipments retained the first spot, to be followed by services and telecommunications, in India.
ICT scenario The IT (Information Technology)-enabled services and business process outsourcing (ITES-BPO) in India have shown their superiority, sustained cost-advantage and fundamentally-powered October 2007 | www.i4donline.net
value proposition in the global market, according to the Economic Survey 2006-07 (Government of India). The IT industry’s contribution to gross domestic product (GDP) rose from 1.2 percent in 1999-2000 to an estimated 4.8 percent in 2005-06. The value of the electronics hardware exports has increased from US$ 1.2 billion in 2000-01 to US$ 2.12 billion in 2005-06. The value of the computer software exports has increased from US$ 7.8 billion in 2000-01 to US$ 25.8 billion in 2005-06. The total number of professionals employed in the IT and ITES sector has grown from an estimated 2,84,000 in 1999-2000 to 12,87,000 in 2005-06, in India. In the year 2005, Chinese ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) spending is estimated at US $ 118 billion, following growth of 22 percent a year in current US $ since 2000. According to the Information and Communication Outlook 2006 (OECD 2006), India and China account for 6.5 percent of exports and almost 5 percent of imports of computer and information services and other business services. In 2005, ICT-related FDI inflows in China valued US $ 21 billion. China is ranked as the sixth largest ICT market in 2005. During 2007, China’s rapid growth continued to be largely investment led, although net exports have been contributing a growing share. India’s domestic demand gained further momentum, taking growth there to more than 9 percent. Chinese share of world total trade in ICT goods was worth less than US $ 35 billion in 1996. However, by the year 2004, Chinese ICT goods trade reached almost US $ 329 billion. Since the year 2002, China has become a net exporter of high-technology goods to OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries. Chinese ICT firms do not merely assemble and re-export to OECD countries, but also compete in aspects of production process that utilise skilled labour, and absorb higher technology inputs. Rodrik (2006) finds that the Chinese exports is not merely about the volume of exports or its large pool of labour that allows the country a huge labour cost advantage, but it is also about what it produces and sells, which is associated with a productivity level that is much higher than a country at China’s level of income. Table 2: Economic growth in India and China 2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
India (Billion Rupees; fiscal year beginning 1 April)
22653.0
25494.2
28559.3
32509.3
37434.7
China (Billion Yuan; Calender year)
12033.3
(12.54%) (12.02%) (13.83%) (15.15) 13582.3
15987.8
18386.8
20940.7
(12.87)
(17.71)
(15.01)
(13.89)
Source: Key indicators of developing Asian and Pacific Countries-2007, Asian Development Bank Note: Figures in bracket show the growth rate (%) in a particular year over the previous year
Conclusion There are risks before the two emerging economies, namely India and China, unless they take bolder steps to reforms, which aims at both internal and external macroeconomic stability without affecting the medium-term growth rate and rate of employment generation. The strengths and weaknesses need to assessed by both India and China, before they move into another round of reforms, and openness. Lastly, it must be mentioned that
7
Table 3: FDI regimes in China and India—Some stylised facts People’s Republic of China (PRC)
India
Ownership Structures
Dominant but declining SOEs, Large SOE sector; reservarapidly rising private and tions schemes for small firms foreign firms
FDI History
Closed to 1978; rapid increase Very restrictive pre-1991, from 1980s, especially in south then gradual opening
FDI Presence
Modest but rising
Trade Regime
Closed to 1978; then progres- Very restrictive pre-1991, sive opening, especially for then gradual opening exports; 2002 WTO accession
International Connections
Modest, no clear trend
Human Capital
Shambhu Ghatak, shambhu@csdms.in
References and statistics: •
Uneven, though improving
Well developed, though cumbersome
Pockets of excellence; uneven, Pockets of excellence; conrapid catch-up tinuing high illiteracy
Source: ‘Divergent Asian views on foreign direct investment and its Governance’ , by Douglas H Brooks and Hal Hill, Asian Development Review, Vol. 21, No. 1, pp.1-36 Note: SOEs mean State Owned Enterprises
globalisation has also seen rise of Multi National Enterprises (MNEs) from the emerging market economies (EM) such as Brazil, China, Korea, India, Malaysia, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Russia, Singapore, Chinese Taipei and Turkey. These MNEs are termed as the ‘second wave MNEs’, who appear to be driven directly by firm-to-firm contracting in a global setting. Firms in the developing economies now manufacture for others, which allow them to capitalise on their cheap labour while avoiding the expense and risk of marketing, distribution and research and development (R&D). Another feature of globalisation has been the vertical fragmentation of manufacturing production into discrete activities that can be performed in different locations by different firms for
Divergent Asian Views on foreign Direct Investment and Its Governance’, by Douglas H. Brooks and Hal Hall, Asian Development Review, Vol. 21, No. 1, pp. 1-36
•
Hong Kong, China important; Large and active diaspora large diaspora
FDI Regime in Practice Continuing though declining Reforming, in context of SOE preference; rapid decen- dirigiste history; states are tralization; much corruption powerful; much corruption Institutional Quality
producing wide range of products. EM-MNEs utilise various types of strategic and organisational innovations in order to establish a presence in industrial sectors, which is already populated with world class competitors. These firms have also invested in brand-building.
‘Poverty and Inequality in China and India: Elusive Link with Globalisation’, by Pranab Bardhan, The Economic and Political Weekly, September 22, 2007, pp. 3849-3852.
•
‘Key Indicators of Developing Asian and Pacific Countries’, The Asian Development Bank, pp. 91-95, pp. 98-102, pp. 202-207 and pp. 230-236.
•
The Economic Survey 2006-07, Ministry of Finance, Government of India, pp. 139-147.
•
Information Technology Outlook 2006 Highlights, pp. 3-15.
•
‘Regional Economic Outlook, Asia and Pacific’, April 2007, International Monetary Fund
•
‘Asian Development Outlook 2007 Update’ (ADO Update), The Asian Development Bank
•
‘Jobless growth in Chinese manufacturing’, by Jayati Ghosh and CP Chandrasekhar,
•
http://www.macroscan.com/fet/may07/print/prnt150507Jobless_Growth.htm
•
‘Strengthening Productive Capacity in Emerging Economies through Internationalisation: Evidence from the Appliance Industry’, by Federico Bonaglia and Andrea Goldstein, Working Paper No. 262, July 2007, OECD Development Centre
•
‘China’s Trade and Growth: Impact on Selected OECD Countries’, by Malory Greene, Nora Dihel, Przemyslaw Kowalski and Douglas Lippoldt (Unclassified), Working Party of the Trade Committee, OECD Trade Policy Working Paper No. 44, 28-Nov-2006.
•
‘What’s so special about China’s exports?’, by D Rodrik, NBER Working Paper 11947, Cambridge, MA, January 2006.
ILO report underscores ties between poverty and productvity A new report by the United Nations International Labour Organisation (ILO) titled Key Indicators of the Labour Market released on 4th September, 2007, highlights the linkage between poverty and labour productivity, while noting that limited investment in training and skills is diminishing opportunities to lift people out of poverty. South Asia, Central and South-Eastern Europe (non-European Union countries) and the Commonwealth of Independent States have all seen their productivity rise in recent years. In South and East Asia, there is presence of working poor who are working but are unable to earn at least US$ 2 a day for themselves and for their families. However, the situation is different in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), where there has been only ‘moderate’ growth in productivity. The only asset the poor have is often their labour. There is thus the need to improve productivity in SSA, where bolstering skills and labour could play a key role. The report said that the productivity gap between
8
the industrialised region and most others remains wide, even as productivity levels have been on the rise over the past decade worldwide. Increase in productivity is seen largely due to firms better utilising capital, labour and technology, and thus limited investment in training and skills, equipment and technology could lead to an underutilisation of the world’s labour potential. Raising the productivity levels of workers on the lowest incomes in the poorest countries is the key to reducing the enormous decent work deficits in the world. The report has shown that the US has increased its productivity growth with US$ 63,885 of value added per person employed in 2006, followed by Ireland (US$ 55,986), Luxembourg (US$ 55,641) and Belgium (US$ 55,235). But the report stated that Americans work more hours per year than workers in most other nations with developed economies, and thus Norway has the highest labour productivity level when measured as value added per hour worked. i4d | October 2007
DEFINING EMERGING MARKETS
A developing country perspective This issue on emerging markets has stirred a lot of interest for the research team at i4d. The terminology, though coined as a purely economic term by the World Bank’s IFC has evolved in its meaning and understanding to different peoples. We wanted to understand if the perspectives and definition mooted by the original term is the same or the meaning is more fluid. The upcoming conference at Global Knowledge Partnership’s GK3 event of the future has the running theme: Emerging Markets, Emerging People, Emerging Technologies, and its close inter-linkages. The vision is to explore the relationships and opportunities that open up with multistakeholder partnerships, and recognise that gender mainstreaming, role of youth and equity issues are central to achieving sustainable growth. Information and Communications Technologies play a key role in the knowledge gathering and sharing, building these new opportunities, and providing spaces for innovations to create new livelihoods opportunities. Where resources are scarce, and the desire to leapfrog the divide, it has been found that the creative potentials are the highest among the people. We posed the following questions to a number of specialists who are engaged in the domain of ICTs for Development, and in premier institutions promoting livelihoods opportunities and located in emerging markets. • What is emerging markets from a developing country point of view? • How do different organisations perceive emerging markets? • What is the role of IT industry in creating new markets for enterprises, farmers, etc.? • Is the definition different in developing countries and developed countries?
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Typically the developed world identifies Brazil, Russia, China and India as the world’s riskiest but most buzzing emerging markets for investments. But, what do the people in developing countries feel? The perspectives by the practitioners provide a fresh understanding of emerging markets. Vijay Pratap Aditya, owner of the ekgaon technologies (www.ekgaon.com), feels that ‘emerging market’ is a theoretical construct, which while talking about markets mostly is being understood (by the developed world) as identifying markets in developing world. While to some extent this might be true to some sectors, it is the reverse for other sectors. ‘Emerging markets’ for companies located in several developing countries like India, China, Sri Lanka, etc. representing the component manufacturing, ITES services, BPO, industries, etc., are located in USA and the EU countries. In developing countries, lack of infrastructure and means of communication were major hurdles in establishing business processes for industry to grow markets, ensure supply chain and increase access to financial services. Information Technology plays a very important role to enable access even if other infrastructure development is not in pace with all round development of the business environment in the underdeveloped areas. Ekgaon’s work in this area has been to enable this access using appropriate and open technology framework for cost effective delivery and equitable and healthy economies in developing world. Focusing on affordable and appropriate solutions, ekgaon designs and develops technologies and information systems to meet the needs of developing communities. Ekgaon is a strong believer in the ideals of community
and collaboration. It seeks to use and develop free and open source software conforming to open standards whenever possible. Some current projects: • CAM Mobile Services Framework (promoting local innovations in technology) • Mahakalasm MIS (for the microcredit self-help groups) • Medicinal Plant Portal (indigenous knowledge documentation and sharing) • Indic-Computing Consortium (addressing localisation issues) The standard definition is definitely different and sometimes skewed towards the developed countries and their economic perspectives, while it should be actually looking at economics of business and opportunity thus created by it, e.g. services for India and manufacturing for China. Santosh Tiwari, Solutions Architect with Telecordia Technology, UK says, “I think the definition of the emerging market is more from domain and services offered by the organisation rather developing or developed countries perspective.” He further identified the key factors at the baseline • Most basic demand • Ability of people to pay for the services (It is quite important from the perspective that people have the kind of money to purchase the services) • Cultural backgrounds • Suppliers, legal, financial and government frameworks • Infrastructures • Competition For example, if the organisation is offering services for infrastructure development services, UK might not be an emerging market but India will be, irrespective of host country for the i4d | October 2007
organisation. Information Technology (IT) will not create a new market but it can provide services with respect to new market. IT industry is always dependent upon the different domains. Priyanthi Daluwatte, an IT professional working with the National NGO Sarvodaya in Sri Lanka, (www.sarvodaya. org) perceives emerging markets differently for development organisations from the normal commercially oriented entities. For an entirely profit oriented organisation emerging market would be identified in terms of improving sales. For a development organisation with grassroots volunteers, emerging market would indicate more opportunities for employment for youth, women, etc. It is one that addresses the equity and opportunity questions. The role of IT industry should be to create opportunities for more grassroots folk to engage in the use of Internet to generate income. If more portals are available in local languages that cater to local market, then the community youth from developing countries could engage in BPO type work, thus opening up livelihood opportunities. Additionally, youth from developing countries could directly link with any global organisation to carry out outsourced work. Sastri Vadlamani, Technical Lead and software engineer with National Instruments, Bangalore, perceives emerging market from the availability of talent that can be quickly brought up to speed. Just when the Internet revolution was beginning and students could try their hands and immediately could see the results of their experiments. Hence they got excited about this and wanted to learn more. This created eagerness to study software and hence created talent too. Emerging markets’ success is decided by accessibility. Internet made the access easier and hence we see information technology as a service industry sector itself being an emerging market leading to the emergence of knowledge and creative talent service industry. Whether a market is emerging or not is also decided based on when people start changing a product from luxury to a necessity. That is exactly what’s happening with Cell Phones. When people have purchasing power, lots of markets can seem emerging but it always starts with when luxuries become necessities. The automobile sector can also be seen as an emerging market in developing countries now. In India, healthcare is also an emerging market, as more and more specialist health care services are emerging, so also health tourism is emerging, creating new opportunities for servicing global clients. This simultaneously also opens up opportunities for the expertise to be accessed through telemedicine to rural and remote areas. Michael Gurstein, Centre for Community Informatics Research, Development and Training, Canada and Editor-in-chief of the Online Journal of Community Informatics (http://www.ci-journal.net) believes that emerging markets is the new way of seeing least developed countries (LDCs) as potential consumers/market participants rather than as those requiring external stimulation for ‘development’. However, seeing those in emerging markets only as consumers is itself limits the scope, as they are also producers and contributors to distributed but global responses to the eradication of poverty, environmental management, climate change management etc. October 2007 | www.i4donline.net
Satish Jha, an ICT4D activist based in US, feels that emerging markets need not have much to do with technology per se, but that they do. BRIC or Brazil, Russia, India and China are the largest segment of the emerging markets. It has a bit to do with lowering market risks, growth rate, and the hope of a reasonable size sometime soon. And technology has helped them move in that segment, which covers manufacturing and services sector. Agriculture is generally not associated with them. However, to the extent they start using state-of-the-art farming practices, boosting productivity and laying the foundation of galloping sectoral growth driving the rest of the economy, they may be included. Information Technology has been critical in closing the gap between productivity levels across the globe for those who are ready, able and willing to embrace them. Without using it and getting better at it, the chances are that non-IT-engaged economies will experience a fall in their growth rates and may therefore slip back further relative to the rest of the world. Tejesh Nandyala, Accenture, believes that the booming retailing industry, for example in India, valued at $350 billion, and run by small or family run enterprises has immense growth potential and is likely to quadruple in the next five years. He also recommends the following link to get a generic understanding of the concept. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerging_markets Jayanthi Chandrasekharan, Features Editor of the daily Indian business newspaper Financial Express, believes that emerging markets is a sort of equivalent to developing countries, except maybe Africa, from an economic standpoint where infrastructure, skills, etc. are not entirely in place. There still exist vast differences between regions and where ever the political scenario remains very fragile, it makes investments risky, thus cannot be classed as emerging markets. Different organisations perceive emerging markets positively due to 8-10 percent growth rate. Roughly 85 percent of the enterprises in India are Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) and IT plays a big role for them in evolving a cost-cutting for them as that makes it less labour intensive. IT industry itself has created several thousand new jobs, and the demand is on the rise. Educational institutions need to gear up to cater to the growing need of skilled workforce. Jayanthi feels that farmers do not use IT to the extent that they could. And, that would need government support. The back end information gathering and making it available for farmers to use it in local languages and being locally relevant makes the system far more complex. IT can provide the most important market linkages, and thus create new market opportunities for farmers to sell their produce and gain from the potential of globalisation.
Conclusions The developing country perspectives of emerging markets views globalisation and use of IT as a facilitating process to create new and equitable opportunities, to jumpstart the infrastructure divides that confront the rural economies to create livelihood opportunities, innovate, and deploy, local solutions for global or geographically removed markets. It is this developing country perspective that we would like to put forth. The most challenging areas are indeed improvement in human skills, efficiencies of SMEs, and market linkages for the farming sector. Jayalakshmi Chittoor, jcchittor@csdms.in
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OPPORTUNITIES FOR RURAL INDIA
Equalising growth in outsourcing Introduction
Slicing the pie
The IT enabled services (ITeS) constitute the fastest growing industry in India. Over the years 2001-06, India’s share in global sourcing is estimated to have grown from 62 per cent to 65 per cent for IT and 39 per cent to 45 per cent for BPO. The preference for India is due to its advantage across parameters. The Indian IT-BPO sector is all set to achieve its aspired target of US$ 60 billion in export revenues by 2010. According to the 2006-07 Annual Report of Department of Information Technology, Government of India, the “key factors underlying this optimism include the growing impact of technology-led innovation, leading the increasing demand for global sourcing and the gradually evolving socio-political attitudes.” India-based centres (both Indian firms as well as MNCowned captives) score very high on quality, and account for the largest number of quality certifications achieved by any single
As far as dominance is concerned, it can be stated without dispute, that a very high volume of the business is concentrated with the industry leaders. A conservative estimate could be as high as 65 percent. This is surprising given the commonly held idea, that the industry is characterised by low barriers to entry. So clearly, the growth pie has been cornered by a few leaders in the market.
One can safely argue that there is a direct relationship between economic class status and the proficiency in English. country. As of December 2006, over 440 Indian companies had acquired quality certifications. Out of these, 90 companies were certified at SEI CMM Level 5, which is higher than any other country in the world.The total number of IT and ITeS-BPO professionals employed in India is estimated to have grown from 284,000 in 1999-2000 to 1,630,000 in 2005-06, growing by over 340,000 in the last year alone. Notwithstanding the fact that India scores high on almost all parameters, especially the availability of a large talent pool, there has been a growing concern about the need to pay attention to provision of quality human resource. There is a lot of talk about a ‘Skills Gap’, that needs immediate attention. The quality of graduates from most colleges in the country, barring a few select ones, is seen as not meeting the standards expected for gainful employment.
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Saloni Malhotra, Head - Operations, DesiCrew Solutions, shares her views about the rural BPOs in an interview with i4d.
DesiCrew, a socially motivated BPO service provider, leverages cutting-edge technology and flexible business process knowledge to set-up delivery centres in rural areas. Their decentralised outsourcing model leverages the power of ICTs in providing quality and cost effective solutions to urban clients while opening up new income generating opportunities in ‘Rural India’. How do you operationalise these rural BPO centres? Currently, we are running 10 rural BPO centres in different districts of Tamil Nadu. Each centre employs approximately 10 to 15 people and most of them are from rural areas. We follow a three phase interview system. After their selection, we provide them rigorous training on various skills necessary for their efficient functioning. Our base office at Chennai then gets jobs for these centres, and distribute amongst them equally. Currently, we are having two shifts spanning over 7 am to 7 pm. What is the socio-economic profile of your employees? Our employees are from different religions and socially backward communities like, OBCs and other scheduled categories. Their household income is equivalent to their individual income, so, you can imagine that these people are coming from economically disadvantaged communities. Most interestingly, 85 to 90 per cent of our total workforce are women. What are the services you are offering and who are your clients? Our data services division offers high quality, cost effective i4d | October 2007
Even as far as growth is concerned the leaders are growing at a rate which is more than double of the other players. Apart from this, the share of the captive companies is fairly high. There are good reasons for the government to pay attention to this, and mandate measures to make the share of revenue more equitable. Also domestic centres must receive special attention. Giving a blanket tax holiday to the whole of the sector is an inefficient method. However, during the last few years the share of captive centres is showing a downward trend. The costs of a captive centre (outlocation) are more than that of a third party one (offshoring), and this in itself is a factor in the fall in the share. The benefits of employment too could be said to have been cornered by the middle class. While the industry has created a significant new category of employment noted for its high levels of compensation, comfortable working environments, and opportunities for foreign travel, and produced a new kind of knowledge workforce, an open question is whether it is providing employment opportunities to a wider cross-section of society or is simply tapping into the existing educated middle classes. That is, has this sunrise industry provided employment
services ideally suited to digitisation of high volume data such as a data base and a mailing list compilation, key from images, data extraction from web, electronic publication, file conversion, etc. We have worked with leading corporates, institutions, trade associations and SMEs from across India. We have worked with leaders in technology, publishing, BPO companies, education, and development sectors. Some of the clients include: Microsoft, MIH Web, IL&FS, and we also have a US-based client.
opportunities to people from diverse regional, caste, social, and economic backgrounds, and offered equality of opportunity to both genders, or is it simply reproducing or exacerbating existing social divisions? According to a study conducted by Upadhya, the majority of the employees come from the middle class, although some people from lower and lower-middle class backgrounds have also entered this profession. This pattern is not surprising, for it is primarily the middle class that possesses not only the economic means but also the social and cultural capital necessary to equip their children to enter this profession. Krishna and Brihmadesam argue that, access to appropriate information about career paths and opportunities is limited for those from rural areas or less educated families. According to their sampled study, with regard to religion, 88 per cent of respondents were Hindus, while only 5 per cent were Christians and 2 per cent Muslims. With regard to caste, Brahmins constituted 48 per cent of the sample. The predominance of Brahmins is not surprising, given the monopoly over higher education and formal sector employment that they have historically had. All upper castes taken together make up 71 per cent. Though this pattern could be less harsh for the ITeS sector, it would still leave a lot of scope for a more equitable distribution of employment opportunities in the sector. One must however be consistent with the fact that the government colleges around the country need major reforms including the mobilising of quality faculty and the extension of intake capacity. There is also a need for a thrust on the teaching of English, which is without doubt the dominating language of commerce. Many states are embracing the idea of training youth in English skills, as a necessary part of school education.
Rural bias What are the key challenges you are facing in running these centres? The frequent power failure and training employees to meet the international requirements are the key challenges in front of us. But, we are very much hopeful, that these are short term challenges , and can be overcome easily. What is your vision? Our vision is to build a new outsourcing model to provide employment in rural India with the following objectives: New sources of skill enhancement - currently the opportunities available in rural areas are either related to agriculture or skills like masonry. Such opportunities will introduce the rural workforce to a new set of skills. Increasing the purchasing power - new sources of income from the rural BPOs will ensure greater purchasing capability and help improve the quality of life in rural areas. Increasing the income earning capacity of rural Internet kiosks - Additional revenue from DesiCrew would also make the existing Internet based businesses more viable. Reducing the gender divide - Educated young girls and housewives who cannot traverse distances can be brought into the workforce, hence enabling the enhancement in existing household income levels. „ October 2007 | www.i4donline.net
The 55th round of the Nation Sample Survey Organisation’s data shows that 94 per cent of IT occupation workers are located in urban areas. Of the top 600 IT firms, 21.8 per cent are located in Mumbai, 20.3 per cent in Bangalore, 18.5 per cent in the National Capital Region, and 10.7 per cent in Hyderabad. The major source of hiring for the industry is the campus placement process, wherein all the major companies have developed college ranking systems, and they recruit people only from those with the top ranks. The large services companies usually visit the top 50-60 campuses each year; the MNCs and the medium-sized Indian products or services companies may visit about ten select campuses while smaller companies usually go to the same few colleges each year. The rankings of the top fifty colleges are more or less the same for all the companies, which means that they are competing for a limited pool of well-qualified engineering graduates, which in turn results in the increase in operational cost of the firm. It leaves out the rest of those second and third tier colleges. Another important reason for the pattern of exclusion is the requirement that employees in the outsourcing industry be very conversant with English. Given the differential access to private English-medium education, this tends to exclude many from lower caste, rural, and less privileged backgrounds. One can safely argue that there is a direct relationship between economic class status and the proficiency in English.
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HR managers emphasise that gender, regional, caste, or religious identity are irrelevant in the recruitment process, that the sole criterion is merit, and that the profile of the workforce will therefore reflect the diversity of the country. There are two flaws in this argument: first, empirically the workforce is less diverse than is often claimed; second, it ignores the social and economic factors that produce meritorious candidates in the first place.
Shifting base The NASSCOM-McKinsey 2005 report says, though India churns out a large number of engineering and computer science graduates each year, as well as diploma and degree holders in ITrelated subjects, a sizeable proportion of them are not considered suitable to be absorbed by the industry, or are employable only in low-level jobs. But while 290,000 engineering degree and diploma holders enter the workforce annually, according to one study only about 25 per cent of them suitable for employment in the offshore IT-ITeS industries. (Summary of NASSCOM-McKinsey Report 2005, in NASSCOM Newsline No. 50, December 2005, www.nasscom.org). According to Gartner Inc., India is likely to lose market share in offshore business proces outsourcing, from its current 80 per cent to 55 per cent by 2007, because of its, increasing cost of operations, lack of term-plan for improving infrastructure and increasing the supply of quality employees for the BPO industry. It is in this backdrop, recent attempts by various young social entrepreneurs to establish BPOs in smaller towns and rural villages has given a big relief to the Industry. To name a few, DesiCrew Solutions, GramIT of Byrraju Foundation and Sai Seva Business Solutions. The rural BPO operations work out to be 40-60 percent cheaper than the urban counterparts. GramIT is a Rural BPO initiative by the Byrraju foundation that enables villages to create wealth by participating in the new economy. Like how corporate India is the back office to the world, Byrraju foundation envisions rural India as the back office of corporate India, government, and other institutions. GramIT centres are owned, managed, and led by the community, offers training and employment to educated young men and women
within their villages. Smart and dedicated graduates are selected to undergo an 8-10 weeks training programmes that includes computers and keyboard skills, and written and spoken English, basic numeric and commercial ability, quality assurance, office etiquette, and methods. Sai Seva Business Solutions, Puttaparthi, located in the state of Andhra Pradesh provides high quality back-office solutions at much lower costs from a rural set up. The firm was established in May 2006, by four friends with marketing and business management experience, with the notion of tapping the potential of 8 million educated unemployed rural youth in the country. The firm has 50 employees, and most of them are youth from the surrounding villages, including a barber’s son and a post man’s daughter. While many of the skeptics argue that getting employable youths in such villages could be a challenge, but these firms has broken the myth and already provided back office solutions to some of the major corporate and government clients. Most of these initiatives plans to expand their rural operations and have already started looking for locations. We have an urgent need for more of these firms to break the various myths, and to pay heed to the untapped potentials of rural India and most importantly to put in their efforts for an inclusive growth pattern in the country. Prashant Gupta, prashant@csdms.in Vignesh S, vignesh@csdms.in
References • • • •
Basant, Rakesh and Uma Rani (2004), “Labour market deepening in India’s IT: an exploratory analysis”, Economic and Political Weekly 39:5317-26. Krishna, Anirudh and Vijay Brihmadesam (2006), “What does it take to become a software professional?”, Economic and Political Weekly 41:3307 14. NASSCOM (2004), “Strengthening the Human Resource Foundation of the Indian IT Enabled Services/ IT Industry”, KPMG-NASSCOM Report. Upadhya, Carol (2006), “Employment and Exlusion in the Indian IT Industry”, National Institute of Advanced Studies: Bangalore, Accessed on 0410-2007, URL: http://www.idpad.org/pdf/CAROL%20Upadhya% 20-%2008.pdf
BPL Mobile debuts mobile tracking solution in India It’s a sigh of relief for Mumbai (India) citizens who are using BPL mobile handsets as now they can track their mobile phones and recover their lost mobile handset. BPL Mobile has added one more new feature, called ‘Mobile Tracker’, one of the most ultimate mobile tracking solution in its mobile handsets. Based on Ultimate Mobile Tracker (UMT) application, the mobile phone helps you to track or recover your lost mobile phone. All you need is that just install the application on your mobile phone and enter two alternate recipient numbers, where you wish to be notified if in case, your mobile phone is lost or stolen and enable the Mobile Tracker. BPL Mobile maintains the application, which will always active in the background of mobile phone without disturbing the performance or making any changes in the phone’s Operating System (OS).
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In case, if one’s mobile phone is stolen and the application detects any change of SIM card, then immediately two SMS would be sent to two recipient numbers which you have mentioned during set up. These messages would be sent by the OS directly through the kernel without any notification on the mobile screen. The thief would be unaware that he is being tracked. The messages would be sent in every 60 minutes to ensure that the phone is active and helping you to trace the thief. The Mobile Tracker solution is compatible with all Symbian operating system (O.S) handsets. Currently, 35 odd medium Symbian handsets are coming with BPL mobile Tracking solution. The UMT is available for Rs. 149 one time fee. Customers with not be charged any monthly rentals for the same thereafter. i4d | October 2007
TELECOM ACCESSIBILITY
Phones at the bottom of the pyramid A look at the experience of the poorest farmers and villagers, and of the most marginalised groups in developing countries vis-a-vis the ICTs
Introduction A rural farmer finds out the latest crop prices on his mobile phone. A village woman rents out her mobile to her neighbours, making a business out of the technology she owns. These are compelling examples of how mobile telephones impact those who were traditionally without telecommunication access. But these are individual examples, and perhaps do not represent the broader picture of any larger group. What have been the experience of the poorest farmers and villagers, and of the most marginalised groups in developing countries vis-a-vis the Information and Communication Technologies?
Survey results
Anu Samarajiva Freelancer and Junior at Reed College Portland, Oregon, USA samaraja@reed.edu
Ayesha Zainudeen Researcher, LIRNEasia Colombo, Sri Lanka zainudeen@lirne.net
October 2007 | www.i4donline.net
In a 2006 five-country study, which was conducted by LIRNEasia, researchers asked 6,269 respondents in Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, and Thailand about their access to, and use of telephones. Those surveyed were all users at the lowest socio-economic strata in the countries, at ‘the bottom of the pyramid’ (BOP). Their responses revealed many differences between users in the five countries, but more interestingly, intercountry inequalities in phone use between men and women. Indeed, the data indicates that a gender divide in mobile access clearly exists in India and Pakistan, which is less prevalent in Sri Lanka, and is generally absent in the Philippines and Thailand. The respondents were asked about the primary phone that they used—12 percent of Indian BOP males used their own mobile as their primary phone, compared to 5 percent of females, which equates to a ratio of 2.7 to 1.0. In Pakistan, 30 percent of BOP males used their own mobile phone, compared to 11 percent of
females, with the same ratio of 2.7 to 1.0. In Sri Lanka, the ratio of males to females who used their own mobile as a primary phone dropped to 1.8 to 1.0. However, in the Philippines and Thailand, the ratios dropped to almost one to one, which means equal access.
Prevalence of gender gaps The gender divide was even more prevalent while comparing urban and rural access. In India, 14 percent of urban BOP males used a mobile compared to 6 percent of females, which led to a ratio of 2.3 to 1.0, in favour of males. However, in the countryside, the ratio increased to 3.9 to 1.0. While this divide is significant, the ratio went up to 4.8 to 1.0 in rural Pakistan. Indian and Pakistani BOP women also differed in their use of access modes when they either didn’t have their own mobile or a fixed phone within the house. While Indian women in this category relied heavily on public phones (as much as men), their Pakistani counterparts relied much more on someone else’s phone – i.e. a neighbour, friend or relative. When it came to usage patterns, Indian BOP men and women appeared to use the phone as much as each other (about 46 calls per month on average, each of approximately 3.4 minutes long), as well as for the same purposes (mostly to keep in touch, but with a slightly higher level of business usage among men). Pakistan on the other hand saw much more significant differences, with women making and receiving fewer calls per month on average, but spending longer durations on calls; business calls among women were almost non-existent. In all, there were strong differences in telephone use between men and women in Pakistan and India, but more in the former.
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In the Philippines and Thailand, these differences were hardly noticeable, and the use of phones was more equitable among males and females.
Variation in gender divide Why does the extent of the telecom gender divide differ across the various countries? The five countries, namely: India, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Thailand, differ considerably in terms of per person wealth, and many studies have shown a link Figure 1: Phone ownership at the bottom of the pyramid, versus national income
low levels of access may also have a knock-on effect on the level of usage seen among Pakistani BOP women, which appeared to be somewhat restricted. However, it appears that when women do get the chance to talk, they talk for longer. Differences in usage patterns between men and women were, by and large, not seen in the other countries. Another possible reason is that in many developing countries with booming mobile markets, the household’s only phone happens to be a mobile. It is very likely that the male will take it with him to work and carry it around for his use. If the family can afford to purchase another phone, the females would have more access to it. However, further research is necessary to ascertain the connection between telecom penetration and gender equality in phone access; this study indicates correlation, not causation. Further research might include time series data on countries with similar socio-cultural backgrounds but different levels of telecom penetration.
Conclusion
Sources: LIRNEasia, World Bank
between increased access to telecom and increased economic growth and development. The survey findings concur with the idea that telecom access is correlated with national income levels, as figure 1 demonstrates. More interestingly, this trend of declining gender inequality corresponds with increasing phone ownership across the five countries. In figure 2, it is clear that countries with low levels of BOP phone ownership have higher ratios of male-female mobile use, i.e. higher levels of gender inequality, and vice versa. While there is an apparent correlation between national income levels and levels of gender inequality with respect to telecom access at the BOP, time series data could shed more light on this relationship. However, if the correlation really does exist, the implication would be that as phone ownership or penetration increases within a country, the differences in mobile use between the genders decrease until access is relatively equal.
Reasons behind the gender divide The gender divide is most prominent in Pakistan, and to a lesser extent in India, less prevalent in Sri Lanka, and is generally absent in the Philippines and Thailand. What are the factors that may lead to such divides in countries like Pakistan and India? An important factor is how conservative a particular country’s culture is toward women, as in the case of Pakistan. The infrequent use of public phones by Pakistani women (as compared to their Indian counterparts) might be explained by this factor, where women are discouraged from going outside of their household to place phone calls, especially if men operate those public phones. The resulting
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Increased access to telephones can have a significant impact on the lives and work pattern of users, even if they are users at the bottom of the pyramid. However, this impact is hardly consistent for all users - there is a significant difference in the telecommunications experience of men and women. Upon a cross-country examination, this divergence appears to decrease in importance as all the users at the bottom of the pyramid achieve higher incomes and access to more resources. Figure 2: Percentage of phone ownership versus male-female ratios of phone use and ownership at the bottom of the pyramid
Source: LIRNEasia
If this holds true, and the overall levels of telecom access of the poorest and most marginalised increases, then anecdotes about farmers with mobile phones will graduate from news stories to everyday occurrences. With some further study to determine whether this relationship is truly a causal one, we may soon be able to truly applaud the impact of mobile technology on those at the bottom of the pyramid. „ i4d | October 2007
RENDEZVOUS LAUNCH OF OECD ECONOMIC SURVEYS, INDIA REPORT, 9 OCTOBER, 2007, NEW DELHI, INDIA
India surging ahead Introduction On 9 October, 2007 Angel Gurria, Secretary-General, OECD, released the first Economic Surveys, India Report, in the presence of D Subba Rao, Finance Secretary, Ministry of Finance, Government of India, Dr. Isher Judge Ahluwalia, Chairperson, Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER), Rajiv Kumar, Director and Chief Executive, ICRIER and Salu Kapila. The Report was released in Hotel Imperial, New Delhi (India). The Academic Foundation published the Indian Economic Survey of the OECD for the South Asian market.
Welcome session In his opening presentation, Angel Gurria informed that the OECD Economic Survey provides an overview of economic policies in India and proposes a number of reforms. The Report is the result of extensive discussions between the staff of the OECD and a wide range of experts in India both in the central and state governments, and in the private sector. Globalisation and economic reforms also helped in the rise of IT and ITES (IT-enabled services). Due to all these factors, India recently experienced growth rate of nearly 9.0 percent. While talking on reforms, Angel Gurria focused upon four major areas, namely: improving business environment; infrastructure development; public finances and labour market reforms. He asked for labour market reforms in India, in the backdrop of restrictive employment regulation in the formal sector, and the growing unorganised sector where much of the employment is created. Dr. Isher Judge Ahluwalia while speaking about the OECD Economic Survey, said that the Report lacked focus on India’s ailing agricultural sector. D Subba Rao said that the OECD Report is very comprehensive, and despite its limitations, it has provided a road map of what is needed for India’s future economic and social development. October 2007 | www.i4donline.net
Report OECD India’s annual economic growth could reach a sustainable 10 percent and be spread more evenly across the country if it pursues ambitious and wide-ranging reforms, says the new OECD report. In its first Economic Survey of India, the OECD says market-based reforms since the 1980s have helped reduce poverty and average incomes are expected to double within the next decade. The new Competition Commission needs to start work as quickly as possible now that it has full legal backing. A modern bankruptcy law is also needed to simplify the restructuring of insolvent firms. Privatisation of more publicly-owned firms should resume to help improve productivity and profitability. In the meantime, public companies should be controlled by a government investment agency rather than by a sponsoring ministry, in order to separate ownership and policy-making. The report says the government should continue its programme of increased discipline in public spending. This will make room for higher levels of private investment. Spending on subsidies should be better targeted to help the poor. The survey also recommends reducing tax exemptions to allow more money to be transferred to fund public services in urban areas. “India’s infrastructure is seriously overstretched,” the survey warns. The country’s “high rate of economic growth is
at risk if infrastructure development does not increase and keep pace with demand.” Electricity shortages are one such brake on growth. To boost investment in this area consumers should pay for all of their electricity, the report says. Business should no longer be forced to subsidise consumers by paying overly high electricity prices. Banks should be gradually moved out of the public sector while the government should stop directing bank lending. These moves would improve allocation of capital and boost growth. More foreign competition is needed in financial services. The report calls for the removal of the ban on foreign direct investment in retail shops. This would help improve productivity and supply chain management, reduce the high rates of waste of farm products and lower prices for the consumer. Labour market laws need to be reformed so that more people can benefit from economic growth. Existing laws are pushing jobs into low productivity small-scale firms. Reform would help ensure that India benefits fully from its abundant labour, the report says. To ensure higher incomes, India will need a better educated population. The OECD survey proposes ways of ensuring that all children complete eight years of schooling through such schemes as improving incentives for teachers and providing the poor with cash grants dependent on their children continuing at school.
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Information for development www.i4donline.net
Agriculture New ‘e-Agriculture’ platform launched by the United Nations The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has recently launched a new interactive web-based site (www. e-agriculture.org), to initiate the usage of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in promoting agriculture and rural development. Users can exchange experiences, opinions and good practices on the platform, www.e-agriculture.org, which was developed by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and its partners. The platform is part of the Community of Expertise – a global initiative to boost sustainable agricultural development and food security through increased use of ICT –that includes policymakers, rural service providers, development practitioners, farmers, researchers and ICT specialists. More than 3,400 people from 135 countries participated in an online survey and in virtual forums to help develop the platform. Although the digital divide is shrinking, only 18 per cent of the global population has access to the Internet. The UN International Telecommunication Union (ITU) estimates that one billion people worldwide – most of whom depend in some way on agriculture for their livelihoods – still lack connection of any kind to ICT.
Community Radio LMC/RNTC launches a radio project in Liberia The Liberia Media Centre has launched a broadcast training facility and community radio support project in cooperation with the Radio Netherlands Training Centre. The community radio project also known as the Initiative for Mobile Training of Community Radio (INFORMOTRAC) is a four-year support programme to build the capacities of community radio stations
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across the country. The INFORMOTRAC project is implemented in collaboration with the Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism with funding from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Initially, the INFORMOTRAC project will provide six stations in Nimba, Margibi and Lofa with broadcast and studio equipment; and routine training and technical support. The six beneficiary stations include Radio Nimba, Radio Kergheamahn, Radio Voice of Tappitta, Radio Kakata, Radio Peace and Radio Life. Later in 2007, LMC and RNTC will select a new batch of partner stations.
The Government of India expands policy to speed up FM Radio spread The Union Government of India has expanded a new policy to speed up the spread of FM Radio in the country. Presently, the government has granted permission for operationalisation of 266 channels including the 21 operationalised under the old (1999) scheme and out of this, a total of 116 channels are currently in operation. It is expected that the rest of them would be operational by the end of the current financial year. Recently, the government has invited bids for allotment of 97 channels in 48 cities and also has plans for further expansion of the private FM radio stations in future. So far, the government has received 95 applications under the new guidelines and permission has been granted to five organisations.
e-Governance egov Malaysian Govt. implements online system to monitor rural projects The Government of Malaysia is implementing an online system which allows residents of Kampung to access and monitor the status of projects in their areas. People of the country can survey the list of projects approved under the Ninth Malaysian Plan through the web portal ‘I
Cerve U’ and then take up their grievances up with the local district officers and elected representatives over delayed or abandoned projects. The government will also launch the e-Merah system at local district offices to create profiles of residents within their areas and compile an information database on matters like financial assistance, disaster management, economic activities and planning. The portal will also list public infrastructure in their areas such as health clinics, telephone cabling, roads, low-cost housing etc., which will give them an idea of the development in their areas. The villagers will also be able to channelise their complaints through the portal.
Ericsson takes e-Governance to villages in Tamil Nadu (India) Telecom leader Ericsson has launched the ‘Gramjyoti Rural Broadband Project’ in the village of Vadugambadi in Tamil Nadu, 60 kms from Chennai (India). The pilot project seeks to introduce the benefits of WCDMA/HSPA technology in rural India and connect communities to high-speed Internet services. Villages in the Gramjyoti project area will be able to use broadband applications like telemedicine, e-Education, e-Governance and access high speed Internet services on the 3G platform. Ericsson has partnered with the Apollo Hospitals for telemedicine services through which a doctor sitting in Chennai can attend to patients in the villages via a video uplink. A fully equipped mobile medi-van can also be operated across villages on a rotational basis. The mobile community centres set with help of NGO Hand-in-Hand can be used to access forms for registration, ration cards, land lease deeds that can be submitted to the District Collectorate. Ericsson along with One97 has enabled farmers to get access to real-time prices of crops and commodities and view information on local weather, seeds, fertilisers and pesticides. i4d | October 2007
The i4d News
Phenomenal growth in mobile subscription, India It is a landmark achievement for India, that its telecommunications network has crossed the 200 million mark for wireless subscribers. Now India has 201,286,738 wireless phones, which includes fixed wireless connections. It means that pure mobile phones are yet to reach the 200 million mark but are in close range. In state-wise, Andhra Pradesh is holding top position with 15.93 million wireless phones and a wireless teledensity of 19 percent. The second slot goes to Maharashtra (excluding Mumbai) with 15.79 million phones against a population of 108.3 million and a wireless teledensity of nearly 14 percent. Delhi, with 13.74 million wireless phones and a population of 16.50 million has a wireless teledensity of 83 percent. The least number of wireless phones have been installed in Andaman & Nicobar Islands. The state has a mere 1,430 phones, all through BSNL. However, other states fare marginally better: Uttaranchal has 53,780, Jharkhand 70,775 and Chhatisgarh has 98,758 phones.
Education KISS, Asia’s first largest tribal university in India
Health Palm-sized compact device to detect bird flu
The Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS), Orissa has been entered into the record books as the Asia’s largest residential tribal school. More than 5000 tribal children from several districts are taking formal and vocational education in the Institute. The school offers free education from kindergarten to post graduation along with all the facilities to tribal students. The Institute provides range of facilities from a well stocked library to hostel and computer centre, and vocational training centres to complete medical care. KISS was started with 100 children in 1993 and now it offers post graduate courses too.
Scientists in Singapore have recently invented a palm-sized device that can be used to detect the deadly H5N1 strain of avian flu in less than 30 minutes. The Nature Medicine journal has published about the ‘lab-on-a-chip’ invention by the scientists at the Institute of Bioengineering and Nano-technology, the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, and the Genome Institute of Singapore.
S&T Ministry designs software for science education in Nigeria The Ministry of Science and Technology of Nigeria has designed an ICT programme, which packages science curricula in software for school children. The government is planning to expand the scope of its programme by subsidising the cost of a computer for making it affordable to all Nigerians. The Edo state government has appealed the Ministry to support the state’s pilot scheme for the setting up of computer laboratories in designated secondary schools in the state. The scheme aims to raise awareness of the next generation of leaders through the acquisition of requisite Information Technology. The Ministry is also procuring laboratory equipment from Science Equipment Development Institute in Minna for secondary schools and tertiary institutions in the state. The Chief Information Officer of the Ministry, Abdulganiyu Aminu stated that the young children are well-placed to grasp the computer technology, bit faster than the adults. October 2007 | www.i4donline.net
Mobile phone based wireless telecardiology system in UK Telecardiology system is the result of the joint co-operation between eHIT Ltd and AnalyzeYou Inc. The System collects and analyses ECG recordings. It also makes use of a novel algorithm developed by AnalyzeYou Inc, in order to help the cardiologist to identify early signs of heart problems and even prevent sudden death. Heart activity is continuously measured by a wearable ECG miniature sensor, which transfers the data wirelessly, to the patient’s mobile phone. This information is automatically transferred to the health care provider through a mobile connection such as GSM, GPRS, 3G or CDMA. The mobile electrocardiograph offers a simple yet efficient way to get in touch with health care professionals anytime and almost anywhere.
Livelihoods IFAD’s project to boost farmers’ profits in Tanzania Poor farmers in Tanzania are using modern Information and Communication Technologies like mobile phones and the Internet to get access to market information, and to learn how to build better and more collaborative market chains from
producer to consumer. Market ‘spies’, known locally as shu shu shus, investigate prices and other aspects of local markets, then use their mobile phones to report the information back to their villages. Soon they might be using SMS to access Internetbased databases of locally-relevant market information. Using his phone, a farmer can quickly call and send text messages to other members of his farmers’ association. Vital information is shared, such as prices and quantities needed. Farmers in Tanzania also collect other highly relevant information, particularly about when, where and to whom farmers’ products can be sold. Such efforts will help fellow farmers increase market access, minimise inefficiencies and maximise profits. Agricultural Marketing S y s t e m s D e v e l o p m e n t P ro g r a m m e (AMSDP) is a seven-year, US$ 42.3 million programme, which is funded in part by a US$ 16.3 million grant from IFAD. The First Mile Project, funded by the Swiss Government, was launched in the year 2005 and is now in its second phase. The First Mile Project is about how small farmers, traders, processors and others from poor rural areas learn to build market chains linking producers to consumers. People in isolated rural communities use mobile phones, e-Mail and even the Internet to share their local experiences and good practices, thus learning from one another. In mid-2005 the First Mile Project Phase 1 started working with small farmers in parts of Tanzania to improve their access to markets and market information. The project set out to facilitate learning among local groups to improve market linkages generate locally developed good practices in building markets empower small farmers to get access to Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), based on their own needs. The First Mile project showed that poor rural people can come up with innovative solutions if they are given the support they need to be able to try out new ideas and exchange learning, relevant local knowledge and experience. The First Mile Project has a built-in sustainability strategy. Phase 2 will support the emergence of commercially viable rural service providers that can use modern ICTs to provide marketing services to small farmers. The focus will be on how to achieve sustainable and reliable services along market chains in rural areas of Tanzania. Building on the experience of the First Mile Project, IFAD is now working with FAO to support a Rural Knowledge Network project for East Africa. IFAD has provided a grant of US$1.5 million to FAO over three years to implement the project. The Rural Knowledge Network project will work with farmers and their organisations to build a region-wide knowledge management process that responds to farmers’ demands and generates and delivers information to meet their particular requirements in a useful form.
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The i4d News
m-SERVE Airtel plans to offers services in Singapore Bharti Airtel has received a license from Facilities-Based Operator (FBO), which permits the company to offer global voiceand-data services in Singapore. Bharti Airtel will set up a point of presence (PoP) in Singapore for cable interconnection and providing connectivity to service providers and local carriers. The PoP would enable the company to integrate its cables with other service providers in Singapore to offer connectivity options. This licence will support Airtel’s portfolio of international voice-and-data services, including private lines, Internet managed private-leased line services, long distance, toll-free services and mobile roaming. Bharti Airtel has already operations in Sri Lanka, while a groupcontrolled VSNL has commenced services from Sri Lanka and Nepal, and is close to offering services in South Africa.
Koreans pay highway tolls via mobile phones LG Telecom has launched new service called PassON, so that citizens of Korea can pay their highway tolls through their mobile phone. The system is linked to the ‘high pass’ service of the Korea Expressway Corporation and when a car with OnBoard Unit passes toll gates, the toll is automatically subtracted from ‘high plus card.’ To use PassON, Koreans should get the mentioned OnBoard Unit which is linked with the phone using the standard Bluetooth technology.
Open Source Australia plans to adopt Open XML format Standards Australia, which represents Australia at the International Standards Organisation (ISO), plans to adopt the Office Open XML format standard as an International Standard. Alistair Tegart, Programme Manager from Standards Australia stated that, if Australia adopts a Office Open XML format, then Standards Australia would be able to take that position to the JTC1 committee and vote accordingly. JTC1 is the name given to the ballot administered by the International Organisation for Standardisation and International Electrotechnical Commission on the decision to adopt the DIS 29500 Office Open XML format draft standard as an International Standard. Australia will participate in the international development process for the document and will remain in contact with the appropriate groups and individuals on the issue. Australia will still continue its work with the stakeholders.
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NCC selects 109 schools for USPF’s digital lifestyle The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has selected 109 primary and secondary schools as beneficiaries of the first phase of the ‘Schools, University Access Programme to Digital Lifestyle’ project of the Universal Service Provision Fund (USPF). The project is expected to be completed in the next six months and provide ICT tools to schools. Out of the 109, three schools have been selected from Osun, namely the Odo Otin Grammar School, Okuku, Ansar-UD Deen Primary School IWO and Community Grammar School, Ipetu-Ile. The digital lifestyle programme is a part of the five-year strategic plan of the fund aimed at extending ICTs access to the rural and under served areas of the country, mainly through schools. Some of these projects are the Community Communication Centre (CCC), Accelerated Mobile Phone Expansion Project (AMPEP) and National Backbone Infrastructure Project (NBIP)
SME Economic outlook of developing countries is positive: UNCTAD According to an annual report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) released recently, the economic outlook for developing countries is positive for the first time since the early 1970s, driven in large part by the growth in China and India. Developing countries –including many of the world’s poorest nations–will see ongoing benefits from strong demand for primary commodities, and this positive trend in terms of trade since 2003 has allowed such countries globally to bolster investment in their economies. The Report noted that per capita gross domestic product has increased nearly 30 per cent between 2003 and 2007, compared to 10 per cent for the Group of Seven (G-7) highly industrialised countries. Overall, the world economy will mark growth for a fifth consecutive year, with a 3.4 per cent expansion this year. UNCTAD has warned that a major recession in the United States could lead to diminished exports for China and India. The Report also cautioned that North-South bilateral and regional free trade or preferential trade agreements could prevent poorer nations from developing their industrial sectors and reduce their control over foreign direct investment. UNCTAD has pointed to the positive feature of protection to infant and nascent industries by the first world nations, which hone their abilities to meet the challenges of international competition. The Report has called for intensified regional cooperation in exchange rate arrangements as a means to reduce the vulnerability of developing countries. The absence of appropriate global exchange rate
arrangements could lead to exchange rate instability, especially in developing nations by impeding their overall competitiveness. Regional collaboration could also benefit developing countries in terms of long-term development as it can help countries build up their economic capabilities to allow them to compete globally. Such cooperation should include joint policy action – focusing on macroeconomic, financial, infrastructure and industrial policies – to boost growth and structural change potential.
Technology ISRO to set up INR 1,600 crore satellite navigation system The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is developing a India-specific navigation system in the lines of the Global Positioning System (GPS) at an investment of INR 1,600 crore. The Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS), comprising of seven satellites, will be ready in 2011-12. The indigenously developed system will serve the country’s specific needs, providing infrastructure for generating data on position, navigation and timing. The data can also be used for various other applications such as agriculture, civil aviation and fisheries. At present, the Global Positioning System is controlled by the US Defence Department. Russia is also in the process of restoring its own navigation system of 24 satellites, Glonass, by 2009. Besides, Europe is building a satellite navigation system, Galileo, consisting of 30 satellites, which would be ready in 2012-13. ISRO is also planning to launch a radar-imaging satellite (RISAT) in the second-half of 2008. ISRO collaborates with 26 countries for various missions and space applications. This includes US$ 60-million project for African countries.
i4d | October 2007
The i4d News
More rural business centres in Ghana More than 500,000 people in Ghana’s rural and pre-urban communities are taking benefits from the establishment of about 69 Rural Business Centres (RBCs). These RBCs are aimed to connect the communities with the outside world and also to educate them on the uses and benefits of ICTs. The centres are established under the Ghana Telecom’s eCommerce and Renewable Energy (eCARE) programme. These centres were designed on the same platform with similar objectives behind the government’s efforts to construct and manage Community Information Centres (CICs) in all the 230 political constituencies in the country. The objective of these centres are to educate and inform the rural communities on issues related to health, education, agriculture and gender among others and also to train the people. Recently, RBCs have commissioned broadband supported Internet and e-Learning facilities to make them more attractive to users.
Sign language in virtual worlds makes life easier for deaf people: IBM Researchers at IBM has developed a technology, called SiSi (Say It Sign It) that translates spoken or written words into British Sign Language (BSL). The technology was created by a group of students in the UK. SiSi is expected to enable deaf people to have simultaneous sign language interpretations of meetings and presentations. The technology uses speech recognition to animate a digital character or avatar. The technology will allow for interpretation in situations where a human interpreter is not available. It could be used to provide automatic signing for television, radio and telephone calls. The concept has gained the approval of the Royal National Institute for Deaf people. Sign language users are considered among the most disenfranchised citizens as a result of services and products not being designed with their needs in mind. IBM runs a yearly initiative called Extreme Blue which invites technically-minded and business students to collaborate for 12 weeks. The students used two signing avatars developed by the University of East Anglia. One of them signs in BSL and the other uses Sign Supported English - a more direct translation using conventional syntax and grammar. Converting SiSi to use other languages should also be straightforward. Creating a system that can actually bridge the gap between hearing people who speak English and deaf people who use BSL is very important.
Telecentre Effort to empower Millennium Villages through communications Ericsson has partnered with the Earth Institute at Columbia University to provide
October 2007 | www.i4donline.net
connectivity to the Millennium Villages project. This partnership is designed to bring mobile communication and the Internet to approximately 400,000 people in 10 African countries where the project is working. The Millennium Villages project is a partnership between The Earth Institute, Millennium Promise and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The Millennium Villages project is a community-led initiative, which aims to empower rural African communities out of the extreme poverty that traps hundreds of millions of people throughout the continent. Currently, the project is working in 79 villages covering approximately 5,000 people per village. The project is solving issues related with agriculture, health, education, infrastructure, gender equality and business development. Ericsson will also work closely with the operators to identify and develop telecom services and applications customised to meet the needs of the villages. In the first phase of the partnership, Ericsson and Sony Ericsson will supply a number of mobile and fixed wireless phones to the communities in an effort to bring the benefits of connectivity to areas such as agriculture, health, education and infrastructure. Ericsson and Sony Ericsson have also co-developed a solar village charger for mobile phones that will be provided to each village. This new technology is capable of charging 30 mobile phones batteries per day.
Telecommunication FSOs are in demand for telecommunications The optical wireless or free-space optics (FSO), is promising better security and higher data-transfer rates (up to 10 gigabits per second) than the existing radio-based communications technologies. FSO is used to connect networks in nearby offices without having to string cables between
them. The idea of sending information through the air in the form of flashes of light is being given a high-tech makeover nowadays. In the domestic environment, FSO could be used together with interior lighting to provide extremely fast Internet downloads. In the past few years, a small number of companies, such as Terabeam, LightPointe and Cablefree Solutions, started offering businesses point-to-point optical systems that could pass data between buildings. These early optical systems were capable of sending information at a rate of hundreds of megabits per second (Mbps), but customers often wanted about 10Mbps. FSO has the speed of a fibre-optic link, and the convenience of a wireless link. It can be easily set up and the cost of installation is quite low. There is no messing about with radio-spectrum licences or digging up roads, and FSO usually bypasses prohibitive planning restrictions. In places where transmitters are not allowed on roofs, for example, indoor FSO transceivers can simply send and receive data through closed windows. FSO is considered to be secure: the only way to intercept the signal is physically to intercept the beam. As a result, hundreds of businesses, hospitals and universities have started using FSO. Telecom operators have started to take an interest in the technology as an alternative to the microwave-radio “backhaul” links that are in common use to link mobilephone base-stations to operators’ core networks. FSO’s main drawback is that bad weather, such as rain or fog, can interrupt the signal. It is said that a combination of LEDs and FSO could be used to provide Internet coverage throughout a home or office.
Singapore’s seaport to get WiMax The Government of Singapore is planning to build a wireless broadband network within 15 kilometres from Singapore’s southern coastline. It is expected that the project would be completed by early 2008. With the use of Wi-Max, ships in Singapore will be able to tap on the new network for low-cost, high-bandwidth and secure access for real-time data communications with their customers and business partners. Dubbed Infocomm@ SeaPort, the US $12 million programme is a collaboration between the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) and the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA). Later this year, MPA and IDA will jointly initiate a call-forcollaboration to develop new content and software applications for the seaport community. These include messaging services that enable ships to communicate more cost-effectively with other parties and applications that allow ships to book maritime services through the highspeed network.
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INTERVIEWS
eGovServices to develop CSCs in Jharkhand
Parminder Singh Board of Director e-Gov Services parminder@egovservices.org
Could you share the CSC programme scenario in Jharkhand? T h e De p a r t m e n t o f In f o r m a t i o n Technology (DIT), Government of India, as a part of NeGP (National e-Governance Programme) has three components of State Wide Area Network (SWAN), State Data Centre (SDC) and Common Service Centre (CSC). As a part of the CSC programme, the Government of India, aims at establishing 100,000 Centres through out the country, and the Department of IT, Government of Jharkhand, plans to set-up 4562 Common CSCs through out all the panchayats (local village level government bodies) in the State in first phase, and 872 CSCs in the second phase to provide e-Government services and other value added services. Jharkhand Agency for Promotion of IT (JAP-IT) is the nodal agency for the implementation of the CSC programme in the State of Jharkhand. JAP-IT would facilitate the implementation as well as
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The First Government of India’s Common Service Centre (CSC) tender under National eGovernance Plan (NeGP) has been won by eGovServices. eGovServices is the largest Service Centre Agency (SCA) in India. eGovServices offers e-Governance Solutions for Governments at all levels. The solutions enable the Governments to focus on their core areas i.e. Governance and Administration, optimise their performance and improve information and service delivery to citizens through the use of Information and Communication Technologies. eGovServices is committed to foster new and deeper citizen involvement with the Governments and related Agencies. The Government of Jharkhand has awarded a Tender for 2,943 CSCs to eGovServices. The CSCs will be deployed in rural Jharkhand and provide government services to rural areas. The Government of Jharkhand identifed eGovServices as one of the few technically competent organisations globally to execute the project. i4d spoke to Parminder Singh, one of the Board of Directors of eGovServices about the roll-out. provide policy, G2C services, and revenue support to the SCAs. IL&FS is the National level Consultant and NLSA (National Level Service Agency) for the CSC Scheme. As you know, the CSC programme is to be implemented on a public-private partnership (Build Own Operate- BOO) model wherein we the private entity is selected to participate as a Service Centre Agency (SCA) responsible for developing and managing effective and sustainable business model. The DIT, Government of India, would provide financial support to SCA through JAP-IT, in the form of revenue support sought as direct fund transfer and through additional central assistance (ACA). There is no financial commitment from the State government for implementing this Scheme. How many CSCs you have been awarded in the State of Jharkhand? The Jharkhand state is divided into five divisions and we have been awarded three
divisions namely Ranchi, Hazaribagh and Kolhan. We will be operating 2,954 centres combining both rural and urban areas. The Dumka division is given to Zoom Developers (P) Ltd., and the Palamu division goes to Alternative for India Development. What is your strategy to operationalise the Centres? The operator will be chosen from among the local community. The chosen operator will be trained in technical, business techniques, and we will carry out handholding exercises for the next 5 years. In order to create a sense of ownership, the operator is supposed to pay 25 percent of the total cost to setup the centre and the rest of the amount will be arranged through Bank loans. We have been developing networks with various civil society organisations, farmers associations and other welfare ations to get their i4d | October 2007
stake in the initiative. We have been constantly receiving support from the state government and the bureaucracy especially from Mr R S Sharma, Principal Secretary IT, Government of Jharkhand. How will you ensure the sustainability of these Centres? As I mentioned earlier, these Centres are delivery channel for the government services. For the poor, Internet is nothing unless and until it caters to his basic needs. So, in addition to the e-Governance services, the Centres will provide educational, financial and agricultural services based on the local needs at an affordable fee. For example, agricultural services will include seed prices, market information, weather, etc. In short, these Centres are will be based on a business model.
Jharkhand is the only state in the country to award the contract to an NGO. Would they become a competitor to you? No, not essentially. In fact, we welcome this move. There are 100,000 CSCs which are going to come up and definitely different models will emerge. At the end of the day, our common goal is to empower the local people. We will work hard to fulfill the needs of the common man. What are the key challenges you are facing in the implementation of these Centres? We have two important challenges in front of us. One is the initial capital out flow to develop the infrastructure and the second is the accessibility to remote and tribal areas. Most of these areas are not connected by roads, and there is very little electricity available.
Technology for the people i4d got an opportunity to catch up with Rajen Varada, Managing Director, Technology for the People, Karnataka, India. Rajen Varada is basically, an animation artist, and has worked various NGOs. His journey started from his early quest to find out how social messages could be conveyed effectively through animation and other multimedia tools. Later he joined in UNICEF as project manager to design a health dissemination package for rural communities called ‘Sisu Samrakshak’ and then he entered into the development sector. Four years back, he started his own NGO called, Technology for the People (TFTP). The organisation was founded as a technical support organisation to promote developmental issues through appropriate technology and support the use of ICTs in expanding the existing activities in areas of education, hygiene, child rehabilitation, economic empowerment. etc. Recently, we came across his new initiative to provide ICT training to Mehendi (henna) artists and its’ success. What is the vision and mission of Technology For The People (TFTP)? Vision: Technology For The People (TFTP) is a non-profit organisation founded by development and technology professionals to address developmental issues using technology as a gateway to provide livelihood options for deprived and marginalised communities in urban slums and in rural areas. Mission: TFTP is committed to create, innovate and support appropriate use of technologies (ICTs) in the so-called traditional development sectors of education, health and livelihoods. TFTP has been formed with the belief that developmental realities can October 2007 | www.i4donline.net
Rajen Varada Managing Director, Strategy, Planning & Programme Management TFTP, rajen@tftpeople.org
be addressed by enabling access to technology benefits, which can provide a quantum leap in enhancing livelihood options and information empowerment to marginalised communities. Which one of your projects is the most successful? Why do you think so? The intervention in the old city of Hyderabad, situated in the southern India has been most successful. It may be due to its acceptance by the community and the support from industry. From inception we strove to go beyond CSR activities and looked for Corporate Partnerships in creating a win-win model where
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industry gets the advantage of a resource pool of skilled workers while investing in their training needs, and the community in turn make a quantum leap in earnings by tapping into the higher pays offered by the animation industry. What is the motto behind providing animation training to Mehendi artists? We primarily focused on getting the girls working at home back to school. However, education is meaningless if it does not provide a livelihood at the end of the day. So a combination of education and vocational skills was needed to induce families to get back to education. Further, animation skills tap into the inherent artistic and creative skills of the girls. We focused on technology as a gateway to provide the higher income it gives compared to traditional outlets. Recognising that the Mehendi, Chikan and Zardosi workers are very creative, we saw an opportunity to enable them to handle animation jobs. What kind of strategy have you adopted to operationalise this initiative? We initially did a skill mapping of the working girls in the focus area, which was when we discovered that a lot of them had very good artistic skills. We then did a survey of the animation companies in Hyderabad and found that due to high attrition rates and migration of staff to other cities the need for a resource pool of skilled persons who do not migrate was very high. We then partnered with an animation company called Star Features Studio, to develop a fast track training module in tune with the industry requirements. The training module lasts for six months and then followed by an internship in the industry. Within this span of one year the girls learn life skills, animation and good communication skills.
via Internet to the company for incorporation into the work flow. The cost of infrastructure savings to the animation company has made them keen to make the unit more than viable. It has now been running for 3 months. The girls have been formed into a self help group (SHG) where they save money to invest for future
We initially did a skill mapping of the working girls in the focus area, which was when we discovered that a lot of them had very good artistic skills. trainings and maintenance of computers. One girl is already planning to have a computer at home so that she can give more time to the production work. I call this the ‘in-sourcing’ model where work from the new city is outsourced to the interior of the old city. We have already commenced working on using this whole model to convince another technology company to set up operations in the old city of Hyderabad. This is only way it can become sustainable. Our job is to be a catalyst to change, once the industry sets up they will invest in capacity building and ongoing training. We are also planning to set up a training unit run by some of the trained girls themselves to cater to the ongoing training of new batches. What are some of the key implementation challenges and constraints you face? Attrition rate due to lower age of marriage among girls and other gender based discriminations reinforced by communities belonging to minorities and low income groups, are a few persistent challenges.
How do you plan to sustain this initiative? Initiatives such as these need much more than just training and finding jobs. We have to take into consideration that women from conservative communities are not allowed to travel far from home. So the key is to induce industry to come to them. In this process we have set up a production unit as an outreach unit of the animation company in the old city itself. The team sits here under a team leader to do the work. The finished work is uploaded
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What are the parametres to measure sustainability of projects such as yours? • Change in industry perceptions of setting up their production centres in low income areas which are marginalised socially and politically. • Change in mindsets of the community in accepting technology as a livelihood gateway instead of traditional ones like sewing, etc. • The target community can tap into the benefit of the new industry without NGO facilitation! We as an NGO should make a graceful exit and go and work in more needy areas! You have partnered with NASSCOM Foundation (NF) for the rural knowledge centres. Tell us a bit more about the MoU. We have started our telecentres under the banner of ‘Resource Centres’, four years back. Last year, NASSCOM Foundation was looking for partners to set up the rural knowledge centres, they i4d | October 2007
visited our centres and were satisfied with it. This resulted in the form of Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). The MoU is an endeavour to strengthen NGOs to create knowledge communities and bring technology services and benefits to rural communities. We have 12 centres in two southern states, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. Now these centres are called as NASSCOM Knowledge Centres. So far, how has this new relationship worked? It has been a good partnership. The value add to our existing locations with training packages and support in capacity building of field staff has been immense. The platform provided by NASSCOM Foundation to learn and share with other partner NGOs has been extremely fruitful.
Give us a story to share with the international audience of the i4d magazine that outlines the impact of the work you have done. The exposure to education and the world outside opens their aspirations. Some of them want to be teachers, high end artists, one wants to join the police force, and we even have one who wants to be an air-hostess. If not for the exposure they would be only Mehendi or Zardosi artists married off at an early age. Now they not only have aspirations but also know how to make their aspirations a reality. They all have joined junior college and have been able to negotiate with their families to study further. The ability to earn more increases their status in the family and open doors for them. What advice would you give to others doing similar type of work as yours? • Truly understand the skills inherent in the target community and document them (skill mapping) • Conduct a study to see if they can be converted to technology skills, and find appropriate industry skills they can be mapped to (industry mapping) • Develop appropriate training curriculum in tune with industry requirement - preferably with industry involvement • Partner with industry so they understand the benefit of investing in your initiative and help you in internships in October 2007 | www.i4donline.net
the company so that by the time the course is completed, the trainees are ‘market ready’. This saves the companies the cost of orientation and reduces the learning curve of fitting into the work environment. How do you think the telecentre movement could be strengthened? • By linking up e-Governance structures of the state government. • They should address the changing information needs of the community and livelihood aspirations. In the real work of technological advancement, there is a quick redundancy of technology and capacity building as new products and new software gets released. How do the people who get trained with you cope with the turnover of technology and thus knowledge? The company ‘Star Features Studio’, which they now get their work from, has implanted a trainer to give them training on flash scripting so that they can take on higher end work. Partnerships with industry is the key to sustainability. Tell us a bit about your engagement with UNICEF and the role of animation that has inspired you! I was with UNICEF as project manager to design a health dissemination package for rural communities. ‘Sisu Samrakshak’ was born out of this engagement. It is a health information package which uses simple animation and local language to induce rural community’s behavioural change. We also broke new ground in designing icons in collaboration with the rural communities. The whole design was done with involvement of the community at every stage. Sisu Samrakshak won the Manthan award and subsequently the World summit award for its design, creativity and potential to reach rural communities. The award belongs as much to the rural communities who helped in its design as it does to UNICEF. It has now been adopted by NASSCOM Foundation to be converted into several Indian languages. Tell us about the success of Meena - not many people may know the story. Meena is one of the best communication packages I have seen. As a matter of fact the parrot in Meena is the same parrot character in Sisu Samrakshak! The Meena clubs and street plays based on the Meena character were a great hit. Its potential as a communication tool in child rights and girls education is immense. Many NGOs including us still use it in our interactions in rural schools. The kids love it, especially as it is in the regional language. How do you envisage your experiences being documented - do you have a website, a book, case study, that you can refer the readers to? We have preliminary documentation on the processes we have followed - and of course we have all the stories both good and sad which happened through these two year process. Our website is www.tftpeople.org. We do plan to have a case study ready soon on the whole initiative.
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GAMES FOR A PURPOSE
Playing seriously The first computer and video games were invented in the 1960s and 1970s, respectively, and their growing prevalence, first in arcades and then in homes throughout the industrialised world, began in the late 1970s. Even though electronic games are a relatively new form of media, they have already become a widespread phenomenon with people of all ages playing them everyday. The proportion of people who play electronic games is quite high in western nations and is growing steadily and fast in developing countries. Two myths stand to be busted in the current scenario. These two relate to the myths of age and gender as far as gaming is concerned. It has been widely acknowledged that a large proportion of gamers are actually grown ups, and less than 30 percent of the gamers are below eighteen years of age. This is based on data in the United States but could hold true in other counties too. In the least it can be established that the gaming market is wide open as far as age is concerned. The initial concerns about gaming being a male bastion too have been allayed as there is an ever increasing participation from women gamers. According to the NASSCOM study on the Animation and Gaming industr y in India, the worldwide gaming market (demand perspective) stood at USD 21 billion in 2006.
This market is expected to reach USD 42 billion by 2010, growing at a CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) of nearly 18 percent over 2006-2010. Developers’ costs account for around 25-30 percent of revenues. Consequently, the worldwide gaming content market (developers’ perspective) was estimated at nearly USD 7 billion in 2006 and is expected to cross USD 13 billion by 2010, a CAGR of about 17 percent over 2006-2010. In the gaming market, mobile and online gaming segments are expected to grow significantly at CAGRs of about 30 and 25 percent respectively, through till 2010.The US and Europe remain the biggest markets for outsourcing animation and gaming related activities. Majority of the work from these markets is being outsourced to destinations in the Asia Pacific region and in East Europe. The global animation market is even more prolific, with estimates placing the market(demand perspective) at USD 59 billion in 2006. This market is expected to grow at a CAGR of nearly 8 percent over 2006-2010, to reach USD 80 billion by 2010. Of the total revenue earned in the segment,approximately 40-45 percent is attributed to the cost of development. Consequently, the global market for animated content and related services (developer’s perspective) is estimated at USD 2526 billion and is forecast to cross USD 34 billion by 2010.
Setting the record straight Source: www.theesa.com
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The title of this article seems at first like an
oxymoron. Gaming has been traditionally aligned with entertainment, addiction, wastage of precious time, and parental
Source: www.theesa.com
Gaming on the go
concern. There are widely held beliefs that gaming is the purview of adolescents, who get addicted and this effects their school performance and induces violent behaviour. This is consistent with a lot of research and publication on the social dynamics of video and computer games, wherein the idea of ‘effect’ is paramount. In fact most research on electronic gaming has focussed on negative impacts on children and adolescents. The conventional wisdom perceiving video games as a youth epidemic largely ignores evidence that games are becoming a larger and more accepted part of modern culture. Also no casual link has been established between violence and gaming. A more serious allegation has been that of addiction, where gaming is obsessive and shares traits with other addictions. However this charge falls weak too on looking at the average age of a gamer. As gaming becomes a norm rather than an exception the occasional addiction of the activity can be compared to the occasional addiction of many prevalent practices. There have been a similar formulation of the notion of web-dependency or Internet addiction, with accompanying symptoms i4d | October 2007
http://www.sfondideldesktop.com/Images-Games/Civilization-3/Civilization-3-0001/Civilization-3-0001.jpg
as withdrawal, anxiety, and depression, but such studies remain one dimensional and inconclusive.
Charting new territories Gaming too is finding various applications apart from entertainment. Gaming has proven to be an effective tool in training purposes. It can be used for business purposes, for brand building, and for communication purposes. It can also be used to raise the historical, and political consciousness of citizens, as well as for various advocacy related communication. Teachers can now use a variety of games for getting students interested in history. However as with the Internet technologies, games and animation are also resourceful for the conservatives and other interest groups. According to ‘Mother Jones’, “Advergames” are an increasingly popular method of bringing commercial messages to the nation’s 117 million or so video gamers. Interest groups are also getting into the action, hooking up with design shops such as Persuasive Games, which, for a mere $40,000, will design a custom game to get out your political message.’ The serious games initiatives therefore need to be aware of such manipulations of the potential of gaming. Gaming cannot be seen as a wholly beneficial or a wholly malign phenomenon. One visit to white supremacist website www.resist.com will convince anyone about the ways that extremist ideologies can make use of animation and gaming. As an example the website showcases a game called ‘Border Patrol’ which has as its purpose the keeping out of mexican drug smugglers and ‘breeders’. On the other hand there is the ‘Darfur is Dying’ game that by self admission is a game for change that provides a window into October 2007 | www.i4donline.net
the experience of the 2.5 million refugees in the Darfur region of Sudan. Via the game players can also learn more about the genocide in Darfur that has taken the lives of 400,000 people, and find ways to get involved to help stop this human rights and humanitarian crisis. At this juncture the serious gaming initiative needs major attention. There is a big opportunity to reach out to the gamers of the world, for various communication purposes. Business has been quick to capitalise on gaming, and it is high time that gaming is put to more constructive uses. Schools can reap the benefits of using games for teaching of most subjects. There are games available for free for the teaching of Geography, History and other social sciences starting from games for first graders to advanced games for higher learning. Information on health issues and health services also can be relayed very effectively through games. Recently games have been created for the dissemination of information about HIV/AIDS. Civil Society organisations are only now beginning to see the potential offered by gaming. In India, there is especially a potentially enormous market for mobile gaming. Mobiles offer a much cheaper option rather than gaming consoles. Small sized mobile games can therefore be used to reach millions of users who are likely to take to mobile gaming. With children becoming used to mobile phones there is a huge market for mobile learning content and games could be very effective here. Efforts must me made by all concerned to give an impetus to the development of purpose oriented games, which aid in healthcare management, education, advocacy, and reform. Prashant Gupta, prashant@csdms.in
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RENDEZVOUS MANTHAN AWARD 2007, 22 SEPTEMBER 2007, NEW DELHI, INDIA
Recognising the ICT content innovations Recognising innovations involving Information Communication Technology (ICT) and its essential e-Content domain, and bringing them to the limelight is one minimal effort one could attempt towards the cause of e-Content enabled ICT for Development, all towards empowerment. And the Manthan Award is all about these, recognising some of the best practices in e-Content for Development in India. It all started in 2003 when the World Summit Award (WSA) was formed in Austria, under the framework of UN Sponsored World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). WSA picked up ‘content and creativity’ as a major component for the entire concept of ‘Information Society’. At this juncture, Digital Empowerment Foundation and WSA decided to work jointly by launching a national chapter for India to select best eContents, under the guidelines of WSA. The approach towards eLearning, eHealth, eGovernance, eLivelihood, eBusiness hinges on the effective strategies towards content creation and facilitation through appropriate technology tools and infrastructure. All ICT approaches will be futile without recognising the vitality of content and its importance. The Manthan Award commitment whirls around meeting the creditable purposes horizontally and holistically inviting nominations across eGovernance, eLearning, eEducation, eBusiness, eCulture, eScience, eHealth, and eInclusion and livelihood and other critical segments including community broadcasting and mobile content for development. The platform has been widened and the 2007 edition had 15 categories for nomination and recognition. This year 27 states/ union territories participated, and 343 nominations were received. 39 winners were declared during 2007 edition of the
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Manthan Award event held on September 22nd evening in New Delhi. Preceded by two day long Conference on ‘eContent for Development and Sustainability’ (21-22 September) the eContent exercise
culminated in bringing together grassroots ICT and eContent innovators, patrons, and partners on one single platform during felicitation ceremony. For more information please visit www.manthanaward.org
State wise award winners: Andhra Pradesh Rajiv Internet Village-e-Commerce for Poor People e-Sagu: An IT-based Agro-advisory System Arbit Choudhury - The First (MBA) Comic Character APREGS (AP Rural employment Guarantee Scheme) www.friends2support.org Booksline
Maharashtra Website for Mumbai Police The Wellness Site - Health Portal Let’s know more about HIV.. SolidGyan www.infochangeindia.org Self-Employment Promotion through Local SMS Communities
Gujarat Community Radio and Community Video College to Career Programme
Nagaland Kuknalim.com - a Home for Nagas on the net
Haryana Ayushveda.com - India’s Finest Health Portal think.com
Delhi HIV/AIDS Awareness Package-HAAP The Great Escape A Degree of Concern Instant Money Order National Portal of India Raftaar- The first Integrated Hindi Search Engine
Jharkhand Our rule in our country (Abua Disum Abua Raj), and Let’s go to village (Chala Ho Gaon Mein)
Orissa Odisha News
Karnataka SAHYADRI: Western Ghats Biodiversity: Environmental Information System Braille literature (GITA) India Education Digital Library - Multimedia Tools for Teaching, Learning and Training Lipi Toolkit for Online Handwriting Recognition
Puducherry Open Source Simple Computer for Agriculture in Rural Areas (OSCAR)
Kerala Kerala Education Grid Puzha.com Manorama Online
Punjab Virsa Digitisation
Lakshadweep National Employment Service Portal
Tamil Nadu DesiCrew Solutions, Rural Business Process Outsourcing
Madhya Pradesh Jansamvad
Uttar Pradesh Daisy Book Reader West Bengal From Dusk to dawn i4d | October 2007
OPINION
Are English skills a power in India? Are English language skills a power in India? Can it be denied that versatility in this language is a stepping stone to gainful employment? Gainful.. Not employment, but employment which promises gains. Employment which suggests a moving ahead, a betterment, an insurance for difficult times, a smooth supply of water, a better education for children, a house of one’s own, a debt relief, food and health. All this and more is dependent upon English. This is not an exaggeration, nor unrealistic, nor anglocentric. English is perhaps one of the most important parameters for stepping up the socio-economic ladder. Citizens are said to stand in immense benefit with globalisation. However what is often neglected is that good skills in English are intimately tied to class. There is an immediate need to address the ‘English Skills’ divide that could be said to be as pernicious as the digital divide. As the governments go on at a slow pace, private institutes continue to blossom all around the country sensing a dire need for English language skills. There is an immediate requirement for the government schools to address the need for English. I would argue that it may be a good idea to have a separate policy initiative in this direction – A national policy on English education in India. Recently the Uttar Pradesh government mandated that English be taught as a language right from Class II in all state run schools. The language has had difficult times with most previous governments. Although all the other subjects would continue to be taught in Hindi. In an interesting move the government has asked for a thrust on reading English newspapers, and listening to English radio news bulletin. This sounds like the honest advice given to children by most parents. This initiative is part of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (Universalisation of Elementary Education). This initiative is in keeping with the growing demand for English as a life-skill. Gujarat too has initiated a new project under which the ‘Society for Creation of Opportunity through Proficiency in English’, will impart spoken English skills to nearly 5 lakh Gujarati youths over four years (One lakh=100,000). Similarly other states are initiating various projects to impart English language skills to the youth, to aid them in finding employment. The classes in which the teaching of English is compulsory differs from state to state. In general, it is compulsory in Classes VI-X in most of the states. However this hardly equips the students with skills in the language as the quality of teaching remains poor, and there are no dynamic interactions in everyday life. October 2007 | www.i4donline.net
Source: http://www.marathikatta.com/images/jobs.jpg
According to the NASSCOM-McKinsey Report 2005, India will face a shortage of semi-skilled workforce in the next decade, mostly in the ITeS-BPO sector. Currently, only about 25 per cent of technical graduates and 10 to 15 per cent of college graduates are suitable for employment in the offshore IT and BPO industries, respectively. NASSCOM pegs this shortage at five lakh by 2010 with 3.5 lakh in BPO alone and another 1.5 lakh in the ITeS space. Even with Engineers, a lack of language skills is being upheld. India still produces plenty of engineers, nearly 400,000 a year at last count. But their competence has become the issue. A study commissioned by a trade group, the National Association of Software and Service Companies, or Nasscom, found only one in four engineering graduates to be employable. The rest were deficient in the required technical skills, fluency in English or ability to work in a team or deliver basic oral presentations. Some commentators are of the opinion that private investment in education must be stepped up. However, the services provided by private enterprises in education are out of reach for most students in the country. It is imperative that the government schools, both central and state run, receive immediate attention in terms of resources available, infrastructure provision, and a quality influx of teachers. Although paucity of good teachers is at alarming levels, this is not receiving enough attention. Until English education provision is equitable, the elite will continue to corner the benefits of emerging markets, where the premium on soft skills holds high. Prashant Gupta prashant@csdms.in
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COMMUNITY MEDIA, INDIA
Radio broadcasting uber wires Introduction India is such an interesting country, as far as the media is concerned (well, admittedly, for many more reasons, but they don’t really relate to this note). It simply explodes with publications, thousands of them in print, tens of television channels, and hundreds of radio channels. Why then, is the situation so parlous as far as community media is concerned? And more to the point, how can we emerge from this morass? All over the world, there has been a refreshing wave of positive change, as far as the media is concerned. From the 80s, when pervasively ‘corporate’ media was the norm, being chronicled in later novels like Jeffrey Archer’s ‘The Fourth Estate’, to the days of Radio Caroline and the angst of Seattle, there has been a palpable and spontaneous outpouring of desire for media unfettered by hidden agenda.
Radio reaches out Radio is the odd one out, actually. The Indian government was always amazingly open to the print media, conceptually honouring Gandhiji’s tremendous leadership and tireless writing. Much later, it repeated its proactive attitude to the revolutionary impact of television, which took only a short time to become incredibly pervasive. While print is widely visible, it has a limited reach, since it demands literacy. Television doesn’t, but the medium is terribly expensive, and that defines its creative quality. Sadly, in a very constricted fashion. And that leaves radio. For many decades, radio was totally controlled by the government. The manner in which this happened inevitably led to a perception that radio was a pretty big deal, but the reality was that during the same period, radio had become almost child’s play in other parts of the world.
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Unlike television, terrestrial radio comes in several ‘flavours’, due to the different technologies in use. One kind is ’shortwave’ (SW), which (given enough power) can be reliably broadcast across the world. Another is ‘mediumwave’ (MW), which doesn’t go very far. Both these technologies were enthusiastically backed by the government for the decades immediately following Independence, but finally, in the ’90s, the third technology commonly in use elsewhere was activated here. This is also a low-range solution, needing ‘line-of-sight’ for reliable reception, like MW. It is called frequency modulation, or FM, because its adaptation of audio to a radio frequency (RF) carrier wave uses that means, unlike the other two forms, which use AM, or amplitude modulation. After trying controlled broadcasting for a few more years, in the early ’90s, leasing out shared time to private broadcasters on the government stations in a few major cities, and prompted by a Supreme Court judgment that declared the airwaves as public property, the medium was liberalised, very slowly and carefully. It began in 2000, by empowering the Indira Gandhi National Open University,
We need to critique the layers of opacity that have constrained the use of accessible community media in the past.
and awarding them 40 licenses. It took several years for the licenses to be operationalised. Some regard this as a failure of policy, but the reality is that it merely points to the genuine difficulty of involving people who are totally unfamiliar with the media. Without involvement (the management jargon for this is ‘passion’), no venture can succeed. It doesn’t actually take advanced management thinking to realise this, although there is a lot of money floating around some highly visible management schools, for purveyors of such trivia. In 2003, however, the government began to feel a little pressured, and opened up the sector a little more. Now, other educational institutions were also allowed to apply for their own stations. By doing so, the government got an excuse to close down the village stations that had already started work. [Disclaimer: I was personally involved, together with several other dedicated techies, in helping Mana Radio in Oravakal, a small village in Andhra, source the technology for their station]. The situation was not helped by the intense sectoral rivalry between the ministry of Communications and Information Technology, and its counterpart, the ministry of Information and Broadcasting. However, announcing a policy and making it work are two different things. After a four-year hiatus of public denial (including several Parliamentary assertions that “the policy is successful”), punctuated by the sporadic launch of a few scattered university and school radio stations, a new policy became effective in February 2007. The government of course, in keeping with its desire to seem proactive, claims the policy was announced in November 2006, but that was when the Cabinet acquiesced i4d | October 2007
with the ministry’s proposal, not when it was promulgated, pragmatically, with a set of rules and processes. The situation now, in September 2007, is so far from hopeful that one really must looking for viable alternatives. First, the policy itself. In a spirit of kindness and generosity, let us simply say that it is full of holes. By attempting to define technological boundaries and cheekily declare support for ‘people’s’, ‘community’, media, the process of getting and operationalising licenses has been made difficult. So much so that not a single application has yet been cleared. To add insult upon injury, the government has set up a special panel to vet the organisations who claim to have community support for such stations, although no such layering exists in the clearance process for commercial and educational radio station licenses. Then, the technology. There are so many bounds that it is easy to unwittingly slip out of consideration. Tower heights, transmitter power, and even a ‘hidden agenda’ (perhaps even the minister doesn’t know, but when only a cosy little number of vendors have carte blanche, no other choice is possible). And lastly, the funding. Again, huge complications and contradictions, with different ministries setting opposing standards. Foreign funds, local funds, revenue streams, commercial funding - a plethora of restrictions designed to ensure that this media form has as difficult a birth as possible. With midwives like this, evolution itself stands threatened.
How about retrogression, in that case? Simply put, when broadcasting over RF is well-nigh impossible, the options open to communities are either not to intercommunicate, or to explore broadcasting by other means. In their very new publication (Alternate Voices, Sage Publications, 2007), my friends Dr Vinod Pavarala and Kanchan Malik have explored the phenomenon of ‘narrowcasting’ in India. The experiments of Kolar (Namma Dhwani), KMVS in Kutch, DDS in Medak and communities in Jharkhand (Challa Ho Gaon Mein), show, in Vinod’s words (reported by Fred Noronha), how they had to “come up with creative ways to do audio production in the absence of the right to broadcast themselves.” Of the four examples of sustainable community media, one (Namma Dhwani) is borrowed from a technological innovation evangelised by my good friend and colleague, Dr Arun Mehta, way back in 1998. The regular radio programmes produced by the community in Kolar are transmitted to households by simple television cable as a carrier, instead of wireless broadcasting over RF. Arun had suggested that, given sufficiently low quality cable, some amount of wireless broadcasting will take place anyway under such circumstances. If exploited properly, some amount of mobile listening becomes possible. The other community media groups either use narrowcasting, recording audio programmes to tape or CD and then playing them back to groups of people for listening and discussion, or lease/ borrow airtime from local AIR stations. The former technique is actually very interesting, but it does impose a certain amount of deliberation into the radio listening paradigm. Ordinary radio is of course very liberating, in that listeners can do simple routine tasks while the radio is on, unlike television, which demands October 2007 | www.i4donline.net
complete attention. Reading, of course, demands attention as well as literacy.
Research based solutions I have been researching a different innovation, that of distributed sound, something I learned about by experience while doing all this practical work in wireless. It is not only not in the textbooks, but acoustic specialists seem to hate the idea, maybe because it costs peanuts and involves no esoterics. I found that actually it is not difficult to distribute to many multiples of acoustic radiators using a single powered source device. In a home system (or any PA system), this is normally considered a little difficult, because adding speaker units adds uncertain amounts of ‘impedance’ (electrical resistance, when the current and voltage are both fluctuating). This can mess up a power device in a major way, as it happens. But there is a workaround, and it works quite well. This workaround is used for outdoor public functions, and PA system companies actually make ready made devices for the purpose. What this means, in simple English, is that sound can be broadcast over wires faithfully. Of course, it may cost a little more than broadcasting wirelessly, but one thing I have learned from my years on the fringes of the IT industry is that the only thing that really matters is the total cost of ownership, never the equipment cost. In the Indian broadcast environment, community wireless radio costs too much, because it is either entirely illegal or impossible for regulatory reasons. Broadcasting over cable is not only legal, it is very simple. Licenses cost only Rs 100, and are issued by the local post office. There are no overwhelmingly obnoxious provisions on content, and in fact common sense should prevail. Doing this will enable local communities to focus on the important things, namely the activities of creating content and interacting within the community. Here’s what Vinod points out, “In order to be good citizens in democratic societies, one needs to participate in the larger democratic sphere. In terms of both information consumption and information production and transition.” We need to critique the layers of opacity that have constrained the use of accessible community media in the past, and that purpose is being served by the forum set up by supporters of community media. As importantly, however, we need many, many more examples of working, participatory governance, not just of the people, but by the people. Only then can it ever hope to be for the people. At this point in time, technology is being used as a barrier to achieving such a result. It only takes a little thought to find ways to use it wisely and well, instead. Vickram Crishna Chief Executive Net Radiophony India Pvt. Ltd., Mumbai vvcrishna@radiophony.com Originally published at: http://communicall.wordpress.com/2007/09/27/ radio-broadcasting-uber-wires/
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Field Visit BAREFOOT COLLEGE, TILONIA, RAJASTHAN, INDIA
Campus with no gates On the day of Gandhi Jayanti, 2nd October 2007, which incidentally was the day for local Gujjar community’s movement giving mass arrest, we made our visit to Barefoot College, Tilonia, a village in one of India’s largest, driest and poorest states, Rajasthan. Since the inception of this unique College in 1972, and due to their concerted efforts, over 125,000 people in 110 villages have access to safe drinking water, education, health, electricity and employment. Calling itself a mobiliser, its a place where no paper degrees or certificates are provided, but real solutions are taught. Founded by Sanjit Bunker Roy a former civil servant and managed by S. Srinivasan along with a brigade of around 250 full time volunteers, about 450 part time volunteers, and nearly 7000 honorary members, the campus remains not just restricted to an area of 80,000 square feet. Rural youth once regarded as ‘unemployable’ install and maintain solar electricity systems, hand pumps and tanks for drinking water. We boarded a bus from Delhi, and as we alighted at Kishangarh, from where we started our journey towards Tilonia village, all was looking very familiar. As we have our typical Indian villages, an apology for a road, which was metallic for half the way, and rest was a dusty and unmade affair. We reached our destination ‘Barefoot College, Tilonia’ while making several other observations on our way. We found children attending school, people in their fields, grazing cattle, on the hand pumps, couple of PCOs, a post office, a bank, and also worth mentioning is a wine shop (which was closed that day). We actually found nothing very special/outstanding about this typical Indian village side, but the moment of truth had yet to come.
Through the open gates Srinivasan alias Vasu welcomed us and put us up at the near-by guest house. On reaching our guest house we could not hold
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ourself and were anxious to see all we had heard or browsed over the net during our home work for the visit. We were excited so were our hosts Rup Singh and Mohan took us to toys section at the old campus (the place from where the movement took off ). There the training is imparted on how to make toys and furniture as well. It is a residential training programme for one year. During the training a minimum wage
Successful failures are the success of Barefoot College. Over 125,000 people in 110 villages have access to safe drinking water, education, health, electricity and employment.
of INR 73/day is given to all. The young boys/girls who are from poor families or are physically challenged are generally selected for the training. On asking about what these children do after completing one year training, we were told that the organisation also facilitates bank loans for the willing candidates to start their own enterprise. And if required, further hand holding for 2-3 months is also done till the candidate gets enough confidence. Some of the trainees have engaged few others from their village into their venture and thereby providing employment to them. On an average 2-3 trainees out of a batch of 5-6 trainees continued working in toy making after going back to their places and rest returned back to their earlier business. Successful failures are the success of Barefoot College. Chaain Sukh who is working for more than ten years and now imparts toy making training to children, showed us one of his successful failures. We were moved to see that a man with no awarenes of aerodynamics wanted to make a functional toy helicopter and which could take off using a battery driven motor. The first attempt failed, as he admitted with a smiling face, but was hopeful about the next time, as he will be using a lighter wood material to make the body of the
Photos credit: Vignesh and Anaam Sharma
On the road
i4d | October 2007
care of is the initial cost of the solar unit. If state or the central Government can provide, some kind of subsidy or financial assistance, the wish of rural electrification of the remotest of the places is possible as proposed by the Government of India.
Bhutanese girls training to be solar engineers
Parabolic solar cooker panel
helicopter. We could hear a train passing by at a distance from the college as we moved to visit next unit- the Solar Engineers Section. We met Chheigne Bai, an 8th class pass out and one of the instructors there, who had imparted training to people from countries like Ethiopia, Bolivia, Afghanistan, Mali, Bhutan, Zambia, Cameroon, etc. Chheigne Bai finds it very interested to meet and train people who speak different languages. It is not limited only to the training, but the night lamps, lanterns, and charge controller which are assembled here and are exported to various destinations across the globe. In 2003, a sale of around INR 50 million was achieved, because of the fifty percent subsidy given by the Government of India. Since now the subsidy has been withdrawn it is really beyond the reach of the common man to buy such solar lighting units, which costs INR 12,000 for an 18 W lantern and the cost of a 74W unit is INR 28,500. The average life of the system is around 20-25 years. Making a long term cost benefit analysis, the investment can efficiently light up areas with no electricity ever, but the initial investment calls for some kind of subsidy from the government side to make the solar electricity work to its fullest. The training process starts with understanding of simpler circuits and assembling large components onto the plate and finally the resistances are taught to be placed on the resistance board. A colour sheet is prepared for all the ten colours, which are used in resistances, in the languages of the trainer and the trainee to overcome the barrier of language in the training process. The six month’s training empowers these people in such a way that when they return to their places they can bring light to areas with no transformers, no power grids, and no electric poles in the vicinity. Some of the people who were attending this training told that the road was at a distance of twelve hours on foot from their villages. If these solar lights could reach such villages and these solar engineers can take care of routine maintenance it will be a self sustaining lighting solution for them. The Barefoot College which is completely solar-electrified is a successful model to learn from. By scaling up this model the world can be a much cleaner and brighter place running on the solar energy, as the Barefoot College campus does. The only thing which needs to be taken October 2007 | www.i4donline.net
We were excited to see a team of young women from Bhutan who were being trained at the Solar Engineers unit. All these 24 women were from the remotest and inaccessible villages from Bhutan. We could interact with Sherab Dema, an 18 year old girl from Dologang, a remote village in Bhutan, who hails from a farming family. Her family has to live on her father’s total annual income. She says, there is no electricity and road connectivity to her village and they have to walk one complete day to reach the nearest town. From her village she was the one who was nominated by the headman for this training. From her training for the past one month, she has learned to make a transformer, to assemble the circuit board of lantern lamp, and has also learned names of all the tools and how to use the voltmeter. She also gets INR 1200 as a stipend which she saves for her future. “We are thankful to Governments of India and Bhutan and Barefoot College for taking such initiative. It is a very useful programme. We will work hard and hope to take back to our villages what we learn here,” said this 9th class drop-out girl. She was very happy with the people of the village and very importantly about the non-examination system of the training. On completion of their training, these women will be provided with solar units and equipment to establish rural electric workshops, where repair and maintenance will be carried out. These Barefoot Solar Engineers will be paid by each community to maintain the solar units. Nearly 500 families in 28 villages will be solar-electrified by March 2008 when the Barefoot Solar Engineers return to their communities to install and maintain the
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solar power systems. After this we reached the Women Barefoot Solar Cooker Engineer Society, an organisation which is doing a wonderful job of tapping the Sun’s heat for cooking purposes. The organisation is engaged in the manufacturing of parabolic solar cooker and also imparts training to women on manufacturing the solar cookers. Shama, who is engaged in the activity since 2003 has little elementary education, who, as some of the other women have never attended any school. Shama and some others were trained by a gentleman from Germany. They are now disseminating this small but powerful idea further, in which a simple mechanical clock keeps the Sun always into the focus. We were told that a deaf and dumb woman named Sanju Devi was also learning to manufacture the solar cooker. Initially, we had some doubts about the effectiveness of such a cooker, but it was revealed later on that the food in the mess is being cooked using the same cooker. Though according to our planned programme we could not have the privilege to have our dinner cooked in the solar cooker, which is used in the mess, as we had to visit the night school in Panna village and a field centre of Barefoot College at Chota Narena.
Tilonia has developed the online craftstore, www.tilonia.com, and is participating on behalf of the Barefoot college at selected US trade shows. The order, which has to accompany half of the payment, is executed on receiving the confirmation from the Union Bank of India, which is in the same village. The organisation realises the importance of digital age and is coping fast with it. “We don’t want to be left out on the technology highway” says Vasu and it was evident that the organisation is already on its journey. With the new markets for traditional crafts, the livelihoods of the rural artisan is improved, and the production of the traditional craft is continued. The whole campus is connected well with intercom facility and has an ‘Internet Dhaba’ within the campus. We were told that all the accounting work is done and maintained on computers. The organisation has lot of documentaries, short films, CD library, educational and environmental films, which are shown to the community regularly. Geeta, a fourth class pass out who learnt computer operations from Noorti Bai, is now in-charge of the CD library section. Before coming to this place she was a labourer and now we were able to see the confidence, which comes from learning, reflecting on her face. All the Barefoot College’s work is very well documented with the help of their video graphers Mohan and Bata Bhurij. Also the entire communications of barefoot college are being digitalised. This is done to ensure that the communications survive the test of time and are not destroyed by manhandling and other threats. Barefoot College has also applied for a community radio station license, which will most likely be operationalised by next year.
Treading onto the information highway Before leaving to the site we made a quick visit to the Craft Shop. The place is quite famous for its handicraft work and the artifacts are exported all over the world. The college assists local artisans in making their products in India and around the world. Besides the traditional marketing modes of attending fares and exhibitions it was very interesting to know the role of Internet in reaching out the international market. The customer sitting in US or any other part of the world can just browse the website to see the design and make his choice to place the order. One can even send his/her own designs and get the article of his choice. Friends of Tilonia, Inc. a US-based non-profit organisation is providing marketing and business development assistance to the local crafts and works using the power of Internet. Friends of
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It was time to leave – sadly leaving our hosts and the energetic volunteers to work for the betterment of their people. But, with the satisfaction and hope that this hand-on, bottom-up, community driven approach will have long lasting impact on these communities, we have proceeded back to our urban life. Reported by: Anaam Sharma, anaam@csdms.in, Vignesh S, vignesh@csdms.in i4d | October 2007
October 2007
ICTD Project Newsletter
ICT in law enforcement The revolutionary advances in Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) are ushering in change in every aspect of life. Everything from business to governance is undergoing change. In contrast to the galloping advances being made in the application of ICTs in all sectors of governance, one vital sector – law enforcement and judiciary – is lagging behind.
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he emergence of Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) are rapidly transforming the way citizens interact not only with each other but also with private businesses, public service utilities and government institutions. Traditionally citizens went to a government office to transact a government interaction, whether to get a certificate, apply/ renew a passport/driving licence or to pay utility bills. Today using ICTs it is possible for the same interaction to take place in a service centre close to the citizen or over the Internet or even at an una ended kiosk. As pointed out in the Fourth Report of the Second Administrative Reforms Commi ee entitled Ethics in Governance: “The relationship of the government with its constituents, citizens and businesses, and also between its own organs can be transformed through the use of the tools of modern technology such as Information and Communication Technology (ICT). The digital
revolution has the potential to transform and redefine processes and systems of governance. The most visible impact has been in access to information and data, in building management information systems and in the field of electronic service delivery. e-Governance is the logical next step in the use of ICT in systems of governance in order to ensure wider participation and deeper involvement of citizens, institutions, civil society groups and the private sector in the decision making process of governance.” Of the various duties enjoined upon the State, the foremost duty is to maintain public order and preserve the rule of law. It is one of the most important pillars of good governance as the collapse of public order and rule of law can erode the faith of the citizens in their government and erode its legitimacy. ICTs can play a pivotal role in transforming the police force from being an oppressive agency of the government to an agency which
first and foremost exists to protect the lives and liberty of the common citizens. Keeping its importance in mind the National e-Governance Programme (NeGP) has two mission-mode projects one for Police and the other for judiciary (e-Courts). In this issue we explore how ICTs can help the police.
Police The police have always been recognised as a vital arm of the state whether in ancient times, during the British period or even today. Earlier the job of the police was to maintain law and order and establish the sovereignty of the state. In recent times accelerating economic and social changes accompanied by increasing globalisation and the communications revolution have put enormous pressure on peace and social harmony threatening to disrupt the social fabric. In such times the police force has to face unprecedented challenges.
Make ICTs Work for People
As India transitions into the new world economy a number of factors are operating to make traditional ways of policing obsolete. In addition to traditional societal problems like crime, mob violence, civil disturbances, terrorism, insurgency, etc. new forms like cyber crime, internationally funded terrorism spanning continents, international crime syndicates, etc. are emerging. Criminals are one step ahead of the police in making use of the latest technology including ICTs in implement their nefarious designs. This makes it necessary that the police should also evolve to keep pace with the changing times. Some of the newer challenges are described below:
Rapid urbanisation: Rising population combined with continued urbanisation will create new challenges: conflicts over land, competition for jobs, pressure on infrastructure and resources, explosive growth of vehicle movement, and religious and political tensions. With increased urbanisation and increasing numbers of vehicles on the roads, traffic control management that includes reduction in road accidents, facilitating orderly traffic flow and enforcement of traffic discipline will emerge as a priority area for the police department. Currently, there are more fatalities each year from road accidents in India than in the United States, though we have only about one-twentieth of road vehicles as compared to the USA.
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Growing economic and social inequalities: The combined forces of globalisation, modernisation and urbanisation are leading to spiraling economic inequalities. Though the global economy has grown sevenfold since 1950 the disparity in per capita gross domestic product between the 20 richest and 20 poorest nations has more than doubled between 1960 and 1995. In India the richest 20 percent of the population command 46 percent of the total income while the poorest 20 percent get only 8 percent of the total income. The impacts of this widening rich–poor gap are varied. They include environmental destruction, migration and conflict – wealthier individuals fight to keep what they have, while those suffering a lack of resources fight to obtain them. Because poorer groups typically lack the assets and technology to conduct large-scale conventional war to obtain their goals, they o en resort to low-intensity conflict and terrorism.
E x p a n s i o n o f I C Ts : T h e p r o l i f e r a t i o n o f I C Ts i n a l l spheres of life including the evergrowing Internet and mobile phone subscriber base create opportunities for significant economic development. It therefore becomes important that critical infrastructure and the information economy must be protected, and not become vulnerable to crime. Some of the challenges posed by electronic crime are its global reach, speed, unpredictability of evidence
for investigators, anonymity, and potential for deliberate exploitation of sovereignty and jurisdictional issues. It is widely expected that as technology becomes even more pervasive, traditional threats will increasingly involve aspects of technology and electronic crime. Globalisation allows multinational criminal syndicates to broaden their range of operations from drug and arms trafficking to money laundering, counterfeit currency, piracy and human trafficking. The role of the police will increasingly be related to ‘mapping’ and predicting risk within the population. Given the fact that the police will have to face newer challenges in the coming decades, it is imperative that ICTs must become an integral part of the police force. The greater emphasis on accountability and transparency in the police functioning will only increase the load on the police force. The police are also bound to face increasing pressure from all the stakeholders, not only from the public/media for be er detection, investigation, and prevention of crime but also from its employees, for be er working conditions. As a result, the reliance on ICTs will grow necessitating the department to recruit/develop specialists in the collection and analysis of information.
Current scenario ‘Public Order ’ and ‘Police’ are state subjects thereby making state governments primarily responsible for maintaining law and order and preventing crime. The police
The functioning of the entire police force can be split into: Primary Duties • Crime prevention • Detection • Law & order maintenance • Traffic management • Incident Response • Investigation • Case resolution Supporting Activities • Management Information Systems • Crime/Intelligence Analysis • Human Resource Administration • Finance Management • Technology Management • Procurement Currently the police functioning is
beset with, inter alia, the following problems: • Lack of integrated information systems for operations • Po o r q u a l i t y d a t a a n d information services for mission-critical processes • Poor ability to exchange information with other related state and national agencies • Poor integration between voice, radio and data communications • Multiple entry of the same data • Need to access multiple databases to retrieve related information • Limited ability to analyse information because of its disparate locations • Timeliness and quality of data capture • Security of information, information systems and information usage. There are some driving factors
which are forcing the police to look at integrating ICTs in their work. The first imperative is technologydriven. Much of police work is actually processing information. Hence it is natural that ICTs would be of great benefit. Police need to invest in ICTs to increase their capacity to store and process large volumes of data; to improve their intelligence and investigative capabilities; and to provide ready access to criminal records and other crime-related information. The second imperative is policy-driven. Though police organisations are not driven by market considerations, yet there are demands for public a c c o u n t a b i l i t y, i n t e r m s o f cost-effectiveness, probity and procedural regularity. Since the 1980s, a new conception of public accountability has arisen in a number of Western countries such as Australia and Britain. There is an emphasis on cost control, efficiency, decentralisation of management and cutting back of the public sector, while creating market or
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Make ICTs Work for People
set-up in every state is a vast and complex distributed organisation. On an average there are about 20 functional units. While each wing functions independently, there a set of complex interactions taking place between the wings. While some of the wings are located at the Police Headquarters, a few like the police station are geographically distributed and have a presence even in remote parts of the state. Of all the wings within the department, the police station occupies a pivotal position for several reasons. The police station not only serves as the main interface to the public but is also as a key supplier of information to the several wings within the department.
Make ICTs Work for People
quasi-market mechanisms such as contracting out, performance indicators, risk assessment and audit procedures. There is a new emphasis on customer service and performance measures. Thus, part of the maintenance and upgrading of Information Technology in policing is designed to meet the requirements for information under the new management and accountability systems. The third imperative is information-driven. Apart from meeting the demands of external watchdog agencies for information regarding police actions for accountability purposes, police organisations regularly provide crime and accident data for external bodies such as road traffic authorities and insurance companies. To be able to function as a unit and act in a proactive manner rather than a reactive one, the police has to function in a collaborative mode with each wing interacting with the other entities both within and outside to access and/or transfer the necessary information. To achieve the desired efficiency and service levels it is critical to deploy Information Technology systems at multiple and possibly sequential steps. Operational (eg. automation of internal processes) o The necessary information within each wing is archived or digitised in a manner that can result in easy and automated retrieval of information when requested by the other wings
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within the department. Collaborative (eg. MIS systems, citizen-centric services) o The wings should have access to reliable voice and data communication channels through which the information can flow with minimal human interventions. Interfaces for the available information will have to be developed allowing the external entities to access information in a self-service mode. This will lead to improved quality and speed of information flow. Analytical (eg. expert systems) o The information within each wing is archived and mined to gather insights that can lead to improved organisation planning, resource allocation, and crime prevention. The first step to using ICTs would be in the interface of police with the public. Some states have taken the initiative to use ICTs in this regard. Rajasthan has introduced an innovative project called ‘Aarakshi’ that aims to improve the efficiency of police procedures. Each complainant is given a token number at the time of registration of his/her complaint which can be used for future referencing. Citizens can then access the police stations through the Internet and ascertain the status of the complaint. The supervising officers can also monitor the progress in investigation. This brings a greater degree of accountability in the
investigation. Andhra Pradesh has a state-wide computerised network of police stations – ‘e-cops’ (e-Computerised Operations for Police Services). Thus, a er a case is registered in the computer of the nearest Police Station, a printout of the FIR is given to the complainant. Once registered, the status of the FIR can be viewed by the complainant from anywhere by accessing ecops. The Thiruvananthapuram City Police has developed a system to receive certain types of complaints electronically through its website. Citizens can register any type of complaint such as traffic problems, pe y the s, communal disturbances, eve-teasing, pickpocketing, illicit distillation of liquor.
Conclusion: To meet the challenges of the coming decades it is essential to have a police force which is up-to-date with ICTs in its daily work. This will build the confidence of the public that the police force is effective and can serve the community efficiently. It will help bring more offences to justice through a modern and efficient process. Employees will also benefit. Not only does technology promise to improve police effectiveness and efficiency in controlling crime, it may also enhance their professional status and organisational legitimacy.
NISG and i4d jointly hold the copyright to the articles printed in the ICTD section of the i4d magazine and website. For permission to reprint the articles please write to the Editor, i4d.
SHOWCASE
Exemplary online alternative media Introduction It is perhaps no exaggeration that in many countries around the world the consumption of digital media has surpassed that of traditional media, including television and radio, which anyway have a larger consumer base than the print media. Following the trend one can say that the digital media will soon overtake, in absolute numbers, the leader of a long time, i.e. Television. Apart from readership, there are other factors that are pushing the production of news media to new frontiers. With new developments in news delivery, one could very well be entering into a phenomenon of unscheduled content. Many see this as a democratic development, wherein news production will become truly collaborative in nature. Micro-publishing is seen as the new trend which will have to be embraced profitably by news corporations. This is a narrative about the various forms of online news media that exemplify the potential of the web to become an alternative media platform. It is however important to begin with a few caveats. First, that the online platform is only too amenable to be moulded to the interests of the big media corporations, who will go on to consolidate their readership. It is entirely arguable that media conglomerates will exercise the same dominant role over the internet as it has done with other forms of media. True, the new forms of media will transform the way the public interacts with politics and the press. But these new ways do not carry within themselves, an a priori democratic impulse. One can find many utopian visions that subscribe to the idea. If there is a potential for a user driven news production, it will be mostly channelled through organisations that assort the unlimited user generated news available. It October 2007 | www.i4donline.net
is the channelling of news that will decide the kind of effect that user generated news will have on everyday life. The reportage has to be followed up with actions, and that is where a big question mark confronts us. How can we trust the authorities to pay heed to user generated reportage? However, the threat to establishment, from the phenomenon of user generated news and reportage, cannot be underestimated.
Showcase of a few notable initiatives that fall under the category of online news and analysis Secondly, it is important to ask about the kind of content that users are most likely to generate. In a world suffused with advertising, the way in which new technologies and paradigms are marketed will have a big influence on the production of content by users. Consider the much routed phenomenon of blogs. What is the political IQ of bloggers?What are people most likely to blog? One can speak here of both politically astute blogs, and of the great mass of apolitical and trivial blogging. Take for example the top ranked blogs in India. Most of these are about ‘Hot babes’, ‘Bollywood Gossip’, ‘personal reflections’ etc. This is not to underestimate the importance of personal expression but to underscore the importance of political consciousness. Also, this is a reflection on the popular consumption of textual
material. It will not be surprising, if more than half of the content on the internet is pornographic in nature. However, we do see many concerted attempts, to provide alternatives to mainstream media by highlighting issues of social justice, policy analyses, and advocacy. In fact one can already begin to see, that the phenomenon of user generated content, is posing a threat to the establishment. Currently, the digital medium has been instrumental in bringing us images and videos from Myanmar, of the way the ‘Junta’ has cracked down on protesting monks, who embody mass aspirations of democracy. This is only one of many recent examples, about people using digital media for political opposition. Finally, the emergence of the new paradigm of user generated content holds tremendous possibilities, provided that the new paradigm fosters a political consciousness in users, and that effects of this production can be materialised in everyday life and politics. In this first showcase, a few notable initiatives that fall under the category of online news and analyses, are highlighted.
Infochangeindia – information for change Infochangeindia is a four year old initiative which was conceived with an understanding that the mainstream media is biased in its representation of the economic well being of the nation. InfoChange News & Features is managed by the Centre for Communication and Development Studies (CCDS), a social change resource centre focusing on the research and communication of information for change. CCDS uses communication tools and processes to inform, initiate and inspire
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change in societal attitudes and public policy. Its activities are designed to strengthen civil society by promoting a deeper understanding of issues related to sustainable development, justice, equity and rights. The core competence of the Centre for Communication and Development Studies is the strategic and innovative use of communication to inform, initiate and inspire change in societal attitudes and public policy. The activities are designed to strengthen civil society by promoting a deeper understanding of issues related to sustainable development, justice, equity and rights. CCDS empowers activists, students, researchers, development analysts, policymakers and concerned citizens by giving them pertinent, timely and useful information on development and rights issues. The portal is a step in making the citizens of the coutry more involved in things like policy, administration, social justice, and equity. This cross-sectoral website provides daily updates of development news from across India, the background and context to development and social justice issues in India, and features, profiles, interviews, data and statistics on the social sector. Infochangeindia has recently won the Manthan Award for India’s best e-content for development 2007. Visit www.infochangeindia.org to have a look at some of the issues that the initiative has covered.
content is written by the 55-person staff while the majority of articles are written by other freelance contributors who are mostly ordinary citizens. OhmyNews shot into limelight when it was influential in determining the outcome of the South Korean presidential elections in December 2002 with the election of Roh Moo Hyun. After being elected, Roh granted his first interview to OhmyNews. OhmyNews is unique amongst purely online media in the sense that it has registered a profit and has a sustainability model. The site boasts 95 full-time staffers and nearly 42,000 citizen contributors, who together produce about 160 articles a day. And since July 2005, OhmyNews has been churning out news in English, produced by 850 citizen reporters from 85 countries plus eight professional editors. Citizen reporters receive $2 to $20 for each story OhmyNews uses, based on its merit. About 76 percent of the citizen reporters are men. Twenty percent are college students, 6 percent are small business owners, and 73 percent are 20 to 39 years old. As the pioneer in citizen participatory media, OhmyNews would like to open up research into independent citizen journalism Web sites around the world and introduce them to our global readers. OhmyNews also plans to establish a global network of international citizen media Web sites in the process while developing a global resource site of citizen journalism with relevant contents in the future. Oh Yeon Ho, president and CEO of OhmyNews, received the Missouri Honor Medal for Distinguished Service in Journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia, probably best known as the home to the study of journalism. His latest book,
OhmyNews - every citizen is a reporter The poster child for participatory citizen journalism, OhmyNews has been in existence for seven years. OhmyNews was founded by Oh Yeon Ho on February 22, 2000.It is the first of its kind in the world to accept, edit and publish articles from its readers, in an open source style of news reporting. About 20% of the site’s
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OhmyNews Story, details his journey in launching OhmyNews and earning international recognition for his unique citizen reporter concept. Do visit http://english.ohmynews.com/ and take a virtual tour of the OhmyNews office. i4d | October 2007
Tehelka in Hindi – a new boat, the same journey Tehelka is an Indian weekly newspaper under the editorship of Tarun Tejpal. It was launched following the successful debut in 2000 of Tehelka.com as an online newspaper. Tehelka came into fame, or rather infamy, after the explosive investigative piece called Operation West End. Operation West End was a sting operation aimed at uncovering the corruption underlying India’s large defence contracts. The original investigative piece by Tehelka in 2001 targeted several members of the then ruling coalition, the National Democratic Party, headed by Bharatiya Janata Party’s Atal Behari Vajpayee. It showed several political figures, as well as army top brass, colluding to take bribes that approached 4% of orders totalling hundreds of crores in order to approve defense contracts. The minister in charge of Defence, George Fernandes of the Samata Party, resigned after the tapes were made public, but he was reinstated later. Part of the tapes show the treasurer of his party talking about accepting bribes of 1 crore or more. Tehelka was nearly destroyed after this expose. It faced a commission of enquiry and a series of arrests and raids, and harassment. The scandal highlighted the possibilities of the Internet as a new news medium, but also drew a repressive reaction from the state. However tehelka has gone ahead to become a leading weekly newspaper, and recently tehelka responded to popular demand and launched its Hindi version online. There will a lot of crossfertilisation between the Hindi and the English versions. Pieces will be translated from Hindi to English and vice-versa. An attempt is in order, to exchange ideas and points of view, between the Hindi and the English weekly. This is a good move on part of Tehelka, to introduce a whole new set of readers to investigative journalism. Take a look at www.tehelkahindi.com and see for yourself, the quality of content and journalism that tehelka has made available to a Hindi readership. ‘The truth tastes the same in different languages’, as the advertisement for the Hindi website says.
Intercultural Resources – for the concerned citizen Intercultural Resources is a forum for research and political intervention on issues related to the impacts and alternatives to October 2007 | www.i4donline.net
destructive development. It’s effort draws upon the social, cultural, material and intellectual resources that have been generated in the course of dialogues between people of different cultures on questions of social justice, development and self-rule. Intercultural Resources is of the view that dialogue can sustain plurality and open possibilities for recovery of the ground lost on account of inter-cultural alienation, which is manifest in a variety of forms of violence that we encounter everyday at different levels of social life. Intercultural resources has been featured here for its portal, which makes available reports, and research from its various initiatives. Intercultural resources is home to many programmes. Seeds of Hope is a six-year old initiative to study and present some of the most inspiring initiatives in India that practice an alternative to the present systems. These alternatives are socially just, politically democratic, ecologically sustainable and culturally plural. Some such initiatives are in the fields of Agriculture & Food Security (e.g. Aptani Wet Rice Cultivation), Water (e.g. Community Stewardship of Water Resources), Biodiversity ( e.g. Scope of Sacred Conservation practices in India), and Governance (e.g. Hamal Panchayat) etc. Another programme looks at how the International Financial Institutions (IFIs) are penetrating deeper into the fabric of Indian society. Intercultural resources has been involved for over three decades in research and campaigns to not only make these institutions accountable but to also present alternatives to centralised institutions which collaborate and even direct state policy and have far-reaching adverse social, cultural, economic and ecological consequences. Another initiative is the Citizens’ Research Collective, which has been set up to coordinate Indiawide research on Special Economic Zones (SEZs) and related issues emanating from globalisation.
Visit www.icrindia.org to find out more about Intercultural resources, and take a look at the various publications and reports available for free on the portal.
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Announcements
Pitroda calls for 1,000 community radio stations, India Chairman of the National Knowledge Commission, Sam Pitroda, has called for at least 1,000 community radio stations to be set up in India in a year’s time. In a video message to participants at a media workshop in Auroville, Pitroda also called for greater awareness of radio’s usefulness. Expressing concern over the ban on news and current events under India’s radio policy, Pitroda said he believed that ‘the community radio can fulfil its objectives to facilitate exchange and bring out more information on events of local importance’.
3rd International Youth Media Summit Organised by Media Education Centre, the 3rd International Youth Media Summit will be held in Belgrade, Serbia, from 20th to 27th August 2008. This programme is exclusively designed to provide Skills and Professional Development as well as familiarising the young participants with codes and standards of Media.
Source: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/bytesforall_readers/message/11041
Myanmar cuts public Internet access Myanmar’s generals appeared to have cut public Internet access on Friday to prevent more videos, photographs, and information about their crackdown on the biggest protests against military rule in nearly 20 years, getting out. Internet cafes were closed and the help desk at the main Internet service provider did not answer its telephones to explain why there was no access. Citizen reporters have been at the forefront in informing the world of the protests against 45 years of military rule and declining living standards in the former Burma. Source: http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/Crackdown-on-Myanmar-cutspublic-Internet-access/222137/
Buy a laptop for a child, get another laptop free One laptop per child, an ambitious project to bring computing to the developing world’s children, has developed considerable momentum. Years of work by engineers and scientists have paid off in a pioneering low-cost machine that is light, rugged and surprisingly versatile. Mr. Negroponte, the founding director of the M.I.T. Media Laboratory,is reaching out to the public to try to give the laptop campaign a boost. The marketing programme, to be announced today, is called ‘Give 1 Get 1,’ in which Americans and Canadians can buy two laptops for $399. One of the machines will be given to a child in a developing nation, and the other one will be shipped to the purchaser by Christmas. Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/24/business/worldbusiness/24laptop.html
The US Justice Department has said that ISPs should be allowed to charge for priority traffic. The agency said it was opposed to ‘network neutrality’, to see net is treated equally. The comments put the agency at odds with companies such as Microsoft and Google, who have called for legislation to guarantee equal access to the net. The agency submitted its comments to the Federal Communications Commission, which is investigating net access. Several US Internet service providers (ISPs), have said that they want to charge some users more money for certain content. Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/technology/6983375.stm
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Source: http://tech.groups.yahoo.cogroup/bytesforall_readers/message/10998
Workshop on migration, globalsation, security and development The South Asia Migration Resource Network is organising its Second Residential Training Workshop on Migration, Globalsation, Security and Development in Godavari Village Resort, Kathmandu, Nepal, from 09th March to 16th March, 2008. For more information see link: Source: http://www.samren.org/workshop2008/index.htm
Call for application : Human Rights Advocates Programme(HRAP) at Columbia University Application for the 2008 session of the annual Human Rights Advocates Program (HRAP) at Columbia University is now available. HRAP is designed to prepare proven human rights leaders from the Global South and marginalised communities in the U.S. to participate in national and international policy debates on globalisation by building their skills, knowledge, and contacts. It features a four-month residency at Columbia University in NewYork City with a structured curriculum of advocacy, networking, skills-building, and academic coursework. Source: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/bytesforall_readers/message/10993
Asia Foundation Launches Mobile Library Initiative in Sri Lanka The San Francisco-based Asia Foundation, with support from the AIG Disaster Relief Fund and Give2Asia, has announced a new mobile library initiative designed to serve an estimated eighty thousand families and children living in southern and eastern Sri Lanka. The foundation has retrofitted buses as mobile libraries stocked with books selected by local authorities and available in Sinhala, Tamil, and English, as well as a laptop computer, multimedia projector, and educational DVDs. Source: http://www.asiafoundation.org/Locations/srilanka_mobilelibraries.html
Call for Participation, NGOmobile : a text messagebased competition NGO mobile is a text message-based competition aimed exclusively and unashamedly at grassroots non-profit organisations working for positive social and environmental change throughout the developing world. NGOs from developing countries are invited to submit a short proposal outlining how text messaging could make their job easier. Source: http://www.ngomobile.org/?id=1 i4d | October 2007
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Bytes for All... The Journal of Community Informatics The Journal of Community Informatics has just published its latest issue. Source: http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej.
ISOC Fellowship for developing country professionals The Internet Society has announced that it is seeking applications for the next round of the ISOC Fellowship to the IETF programme. The programme offers engineers from developing countries fellowships that fund the cost of attending an IETF meeting. The Internet Society is currently accepting fellowship applications for the next two IETF meetings. IETF 70 is being held in Vancouver, Canada on December 2-7 2007, and IETF 71 being held in Philadelphia, USA on March 9-14, 2008 Source: http://www.isoc.org/educpillar/fellowship
2nd i4d Film Festival, 9-10 December 2007, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies (CSDMS) in partnership with Global Knowledge Partneship (GKP) is organising the 2nd i4d Film Festival, between 9th and 10th December 2007, at Crowne Plaza, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The theme for the film festival is ‘New Media for Development’. The event is slotted under the Associated Events at the GK3 calendar. Source: http://www.gkpeventsonthefuture.org/GK3/dsp_page.cfm?pageid=682
Projects/Resources The InkMedia mobile computer The InkMedia mobile computer (Ink MC) by Ink-Media Inc. (www. ink-media.com) Canada, is a low cost mobile computer running on Linux/FOSS, and costing under US$300, manufactured for the developing and developed world to reduce the digital divide. InkMedia have a different technology and approach to market than the other low cost computer initiatives. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InkMedia
Doko or Backpack Radio Station in Nepal “Imagine a doko-basket carrying a 30-watt FM radio transmitter, a generator to support its power supply, a laptop, few good microphones and a sound mixer. Welcome aboard a journey to Nepal’s far-flung remote FM-Shadow regions as the Doko Crew trek and transmit with local people’s voice - locally. This is Doko Radio - Nepali Mobile Radio Unit Backpack Style.” The mobile Doko Radio unit treks and stations for a week in each location. So far it has completed five locations in the mountains of Nepal. Source: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/bytesforall_readers/message/11030
3G network in a rural village in India On a desolate, 300-square kilometre stretch of land bordering the coastline near Mamallapuram in Tamil Nadu, a revolution is brewing. This is the site of Gramjyoti Rural Broadband Project, October 2007 | www.i4donline.net
a 3G pilot community program. The promoters of India’s first 3G network did not wait for new spectrum allocations to emerge from the discussions of the department of telecom and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India. Source: http://www.rediff.com///money/2007/sep/26spec.htm
CLP, An innovative approach for spreading IT to rural Bangladesh CLP’s first step was to establish Computer Learning Centres (CLCs) in educational institutions in rural Bangladesh. In selecting the sites for CLCs, consideration was given to geographical location, availability of electricity, eagerness of the school management and its willingness to help. Every CLC has a computer lab for handson training, and is provided with a minimum of four computers, one printer, and other accessories. An introductory curriculum was developed in consultation with computer scientists, based on which a student’s manual, ‘Esho Computer Shikhi’ (Let Us Learn Computers), has been published. Source: http://voiceofsouth.org/2007/09/17/clp/
UNDP-APDIP and APCICT Release ePrimer on ICT for Disaster Management This e-Primer introduces policy makers and development practitioners to the application of different ICTs for disaster management, with case studies from the Asia-Pacific region. A key conclusion is that the effectiveness of ICTs in reducing disaster risks depends on how these ICTs are used. A multiplicity of communication channels and technologies exist, and each can be suitable in a particular situation. The challenge is to identify suitable combinations of technologies. Source: http://www.apdip.net/news/ict4dm
APDIP e-Note 19 Telecentre Technology: The aplication of free and open source software, the affordability of FOSS and its openness to modification and localization is contributing to the sustainbility of telecentres, and more broadly, to empowered communities and poverty reduction. APDIP e-Note explores the benefits of using FOSS applications in telecentres with case studies from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Brazil, Egypt and Sub-Saharan Africa. Source: http://www.apdip.net/news/apdipenote19
NGO Post: People’s platform for sharing and discussing social welfare ideas and initiatives.NGO Post is more than the traditional news website or mailing list. More than about news, it is about ideas that facilitate action. Source: http://ngopost.org
Bytes for All: www.bytesforall.org or www.bytesforall.net Bytes for All Readers Discussion: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ bytesforall_readers To subscribe: bytesforall_readers-subscribe@yahoogroups.com Bytes for All Discussion summary compiled by: Miraj Khaled, techigemik@yahoo.com, Bangladesh/Canada
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BOOK RECEIVED
The bottom billion The Bottom Billion - Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It Author: Paul Collier Published by: Oxford University Press Pages: 224 ISBN13: 978-0-19-531145-7 “This slip of a book is set to become a classic of the ‘how to help the world’s poorest’ genre. Crammed with statistical nuggets and common sense, this book should be compulsory reading for anyone embroiled in the hitherto thankless business of trying to pull people out of the pit of poverty where the ‘bottom billion’ of the world’s population of 6.6 billion seem irredeemably stuck.” The Economist Global poverty, Paul Collier points out, is actually falling quite rapidly for about eighty percent of the world. The real crisis lies in a group of about 50 failing states, the bottom billion, whose problems defy traditional approaches to alleviating poverty. In The Bottom Billion, Collier contends that these fifty failed states pose the central challenge of the developing world in the twenty-first century. The book shines a much needed light on this group of small nations, largely unnoticed by the industrialised West, that are dropping further and further behind the majority of the world’s people, often falling into an absolute decline in living standards. A struggle rages within each of these nation between reformers and corrupt leaders-and the corrupt are winning. Collier analyses the causes of failure, pointing to a set of traps that snare these countries, including civil war, a dependence on the extraction and export of natural resources, and bad governance. Standard solutions do not work against these traps, he writes; aid is often ineffective, and globalisation can actually make matters worse, driving development to more stable nations. What the bottom billion need, Collier argues, is a bold new plan supported by the Group of Eight industrialized nations. If failed states are ever to be helped, the G8 will have to adopt preferential trade policies, new laws against corruption, and new international charters, and even conduct carefully caliberated military interventions.
44
As former Director of Research for the World Bank and current Director of the Centre for the Study of African Economies at Oxford University, Paul Collier has spent a lifetime working to end global poverty. In The Bottom Billion, he offers real hope for solving one of the great humanitarian crises facing the world today. The book is being seen as an attack on the likes of Jeffrey Sachs, the celebrity economist who is the intellectual force behind the official United Nations Millennium Development Goals, for placing too much reliance on aid. And it is an assault on William Easterly, the main critic of Sachs, who argues that much aid is wasted. Also, although Collier makes an important distinction between the bottom billion and the rest, some critics are of the opinion that he tends to overdraw it. The problem of lack of development, according to this school, goes much further than extreme poverty. For example, 2.6 billion people in the world live on less than $2 a day. The developing world still has a long way to go before it catches up with Western levels of prosperity. Even China, which has become so talked about with its rapid development over the past three decades, will take several more decades to catch up with the West in terms of living standards, even on the most optimistic assumptions. Another problem with Collier’s approach is that he automatically makes an assumption about Western intervention being generally benign. One of the telling examples of this is the way in which the book sees the G8 group of leading industrialised countries having the potential to solve the problem of extreme poverty. The question is whether the interventions in such places as Iraq, Sierra Leone and Somalia are apparently without any problems worth considering. The substantial evidence that Western intervention has made things worse in these countries, is not deemed even worthy of examination. As an example, the book states how millions in India have been lifted out of poverty in the nineties. This is a simplistic assumption and the national figures tell a very different story, where real employment has fallen, and many have been forced to fend for themselves by becoming selfemployed in the informal economy. Also the state of agriculture in the last decade, reflects a different side of the so-called development. i4d | October 2007
What’s on
Singapore 14-17 April, 2008 Biomedical Asia 2008 Suntec International Convention & Exhibition Centre http://www.terrapinn.com/2008/biomedasia/
Africa
Malaysia
8-11 July, 2008 2nd African Council for Distance Education( ACDE) Conference and General Assembly Lagos, Lagos State, Nigeria
20-21 November, 2007 Rural ICT Development Conference 2007 (RICTD ‘07) Kedah
http://www.nou.edu.ng/noun/acde2008
Australia 15-16 November, 2007 KPO Australia 2007 Hilton Hotel, Sydney http://www.terrapinn.com/2007/kpo%5Fau/ Custom_15363.stm
10-11 March, 2008 Somerset Conference for Librarians, Teachers, et al Queensland http://www.somerset.qld.edu.au/conflib
29 June, 2008 The 2nd International Workshop on Web Mining for E-commerce and E-services (WMEE2008), Melbourne
http://www.rictd.uum.edu.my
27-28 November, 2007 Digital Asia e-Gov Summit (DAEG07) Kuala Lumpur http://www.worldsummits.com/
27- 29 November, 2007 International Conference on Engineering & ICT Malacca http://www.icei2007.org/
11-13 December, 2007 3rd Global Knowledge Conference Kuala Lumpur
Portgual 3-6 December, 2007 E-ALT’07 E-Activity and Leading Technologies Porto
http://www.cie37.net/
http://www.iask-web.org/e-alt07/e-alt2007.html
India
7-9 December, 2007 Iadis International Conference e-Commerce 2007, Algarve
October 2007 | www.i4donline.net
14-17 January, 2008 e-Learning Excellence in the Middle East 2008: Define. Design. Deliver, Dubai http://elexforum.etqm.ae/
United States
28-29 November, 2007 One Course Source - Open Source Conference, San Diego, California
Egypt
http://conferences.theiet.org/wireless/index.htm
United Arab Emirates
Oman
http://www.icoet,.com
11-12 January, 2008 International Conference on Wireless, Mobile and Multimedia Networks Mumbai
http://www.e-case.org/e-Education2008/
http://www.UofA.edu
http://www.itu.int/EUROPE2007/index.html
http://www.pravara.com
27-29 March, 2008 The 2008 International Conference on e-Education, Bangkok
http://www.icet.unikl.edu.my/
3-5 March, 2008 International Conference Of Educational Technology ICOET2008, Muscat
22-24 February, 2008 11th Asian Congress of Agricultural Medicine and Rural Health Aurangabad, Maharashtra
Thailand
11-13 December, 2007 ICET 2007, Kuala Lumpur
3-6 December, 2007 ITU Telecom Europe, Sofia
20-23 October, 2007 37th (2007) International Conference on Computers and Industrial Engineering - CIE37
http://www.terrapinn.com/2008/mcw08%5Fsg/
24-26 October, 2008 The University of Atlanta’s First International Symposium on Online Teaching and Learning, Georgia
http://www.gkpeventsonthefuture.org/gk3/
http://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/~derrick/WMEE2008/
Bulgaria
25-27 April, 2008 Mobile Content World Asia 2008 Suntec International Exhibition & Convention Centre
http://www.ecommerce-conf.org/
http://www.onecoursesource.com/ocs-osc.php
29-30 November, 2007 First Annual USA-Africa International Business Conference, Detroit, Michigan http://gsmi-usa.com/UAIBC.aspx
Vietnam 10-13 December, 2007 The 10th International Conference on Asian Digital Libraries (ICADL 2007) Hanoi http://icadl2007.vista.gov.vn/
Ukraine
23-25 October, 2007 Second international conference : Fruit & Vegetable Business of Russia 2007 Moscow
4-5 December, 2007 Fourth International Conference: Fruits & Vegetables of Ukraine 2007 Akademika Glushkova Str., The National Complex Expo-center of Ukraine
http://www.lol.org.ua/eng/conferences/fvr2007/ fvr2007prog.php?lng=2
http://www.lol.org.ua/eng/conferences/fv2007/ fv2007prog.php?lng=2
Russia
45
IN FACT
Doing business 2008 Table 1: Most reform in Eastern Europe and Central Asia Countries that made at least one positive reform in 2006-07 (percent)
Regions Eastern Europe and Central Asia
79 63
South Asia
63
OECD (high-income) Middle East and North Africa
59
Sub-Saharan Africa
52
East Asia and Pacific
46
Latin America and Carribean
36
The ‘Doing Business 2008’ Report of the International Finance Corporation, Eastern Europe and Central Asia have reformed the most during 2006-07, whereas Latin America reformed the least. India rose 12 ranks on the ease of doing business (Table 1). Note: Economies are ranked on the number and impact of reforms. First, Doing Business selects the economies that reformed in 3 or more of the Doing Business topics. Second, it ranks these economies on the increase in rank on the ease of doing business from the previous year. The larger the improvement, the higher the ranking as a reformer.
The top ten reformers in 2006-07 are: Egypt, Croatia, Ghana, Macedonia (FYR), Georgia, Colombia, Saudi Arabia, Kenya, China and Bulgaria (Table 2). Large emerging economies like China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Turkey and Vietnam have turned out to be fast reformers. Egypt’s reforms went deep with reforms in 5 of the 10 areas studied by Doing Business, and it greatly improved its position in the global rankings as a result. China has enacted the private property right, which also expanded the range of assets that can be used as collateral to include inventory and accounts receivable. China has also passed a new bankruptcy law. Construction has become easier with electronic processing of building permits, reducing delays by 2 weeks. In India, traders can now submit customs fees online before the cargo arrives in port. The credit bureau has expanded to include payment histories on businesses as well as individuals. There has been introduction of an electronic collateral registry for security rights granted by companies. The tie to obtain a business license in India ranges from 159 days in Bhubaneshwar (Orissa) to 522 in Ranchi. The time to register property ranges from 35 days in Hyderabad to 155 days in
Table 3: Top reformers in 2006/07 by indicator set Starting a business
Saudi Arabia
Dealing with licenses
Georgia
Employing workers
Czech Republic
Registering property
Ghana
Getting credit
Croatia
Protecting investors
Georgia
Paying tax
Bulgaria
Trading across borders
India
Enforcing contracts
Tonga
Closing a business
China
Kolkata (West Bengal). During 2006-07, India became the top reformer in trading across borders. The most dramatic reforms happened in Saudi Arabia’s elimination of the minimum capital requirement. Vietnam and Indonesia have strengthened investor protections. Russia has established a new credit bureau (Table 3). Reforms in African countries have been uneven. For the second year running, Singapore tops the rankings on the ease of doing business. Venezuela faced the largest negative reforms. The countries considered least business-friendly were (from the bottom) the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Central African Republic, GuineaBissau, Republic of Congo, Burundi, Chad and Venezuela.
Table 2: The top 10 reformers during 2006-07 Economy
Starting a business
Dealing with licenses
Egypt
3
3
Croatia
3
Ghana
3
Macedonia, FYR
3
3
Georgia
3
3
Employing workers
Registering property
Getting credit
Protecting investors
3
3
3 3
3 3
3
Kenya
3
3 3
Bulgaria
3
Closing a business
3
3 3
3
3
China
Enforcing contracts
3
3
3
3 3
3
Trading across borders
3
Colombia Saudi Arabia
Paying taxes
3
3 3
3 3
3 3
Source: Doing Business 2008, IFC, World Bank, www.doingbusiness.org
46
i4d | October 2007
Mapping ICT4D Knowledge: The i4d initiative i4d Newsletter Information on ICTs for development September 12, 2007 AGRICULTURE Reuters ready to give Agri-info to rural India Reuters has launched Reuters Market Light, an initiative to reach the rural community in India. The Reuters Market Light will provide information on crop prices, weather updates and other agri-related news via SMS. e-GOVERNANCE Committee in the offing to make action plan for cyber crimes: Ministry of Home Affairs, GoI The Ministry of Home Affairs on 10, September, 2007 has disclosed that it would shortly set up a high-powered committee to develop a comprehensive action plan to enable it to effectively deal with possible threats, arising out of cyber crimes. Dubai eGovernment and Etisalat in Strategic Partnership Dubai e-Government signed a memorandum of strategic partnership (MOSP) with Etisalat, the UAE's leading telecommunications provider, to deliver a range of ICT solutions to Government units in the UAE and across the region. Indian Parliament pulls up Govt. on cyber laws The Indian parliament panel has criticised the government for not preparing a new set of laws on cyber crime and instead taking a "short cut route" of making changes in the existing norms. Singapore, Indonesia to cooperate in Info comm sector Singapore has signed an agreement with Indonesia to cooperate in the field of information and communications. HEALTH Child malnutrition in Somalia at critical levels: UNICEF The UNICEF has said that child malnutrition in Somalia is at critical levels due to violence and lack of access for aid workers.
View the latest i4d Magazine, August, 20 07 Vol.V No .8 on Government investments in ICT4D ANNOUNCEMENT EU-IndiaGrid Trainin g & Workshop on Atmospheric, Earth & Material Sciences Location: Pune, India Date: 24-28 September, 200 7 You ng Social Entrepreneurs' Forum Organisations: Global Knowledge Partners Location: Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre, Malaysia Date: 11-13 December 2007 UNESCO Prize for Rural Communication$ 20,000 Location: UNESCO Headquarters, France Date: 26 to 28 March 2008
Telemedicine: Boon for rural India There are many rural folks in India who are living life in constant fear of IFC and FT's Essay Competition imminent death due to improper medical diagnosis. But now things are Encourages Innovation changing due to telemedicine service. Organisations: Rural Marketing Agencies m-SERVE Association of India Terranet comes out with new mobile handsets (RMAAI) & NASSCOM
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