From owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Fri Dec 1 23:10:28 2000 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id XAA69381; Fri, 1 Dec 2000 23:10:27 +1000 (EST) Received: from pop-khi3.super.net.pk (pop-khi3.super.net.pk [203.130.2.13]) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id XAA69344 for ; Fri, 1 Dec 2000 23:10:15 +1000 (EST) Received: from excel586 (khi-line-035.super.net.pk [203.130.5.174]) by pop-khi3.super.net.pk (8.10.0/8.10.0) with ESMTP id eB1D74w21335 for ; Fri, 1 Dec 2000 18:07:11 +0500 From: "Irfan Khan" To: s-asia-it@apnic.net Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 18:13:41 +0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: About S-Asia-IT; how to (un)subscribe; post messages; archives Message-ID: <3A27EA55.14038.5411EA@localhost> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12c) Sender: owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Precedence: bulk -------------------------------------------------------------- -- About S-Asia-IT ------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------- S-Asia-IT, a mailing/discussion list for IT developments in South Asia -- Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka -- is intended to provide a forum for those interested in the development and use of information technology in the South Asian context. Our specific interest is in advancing information technologies to support equitable social and economic development in the region, recognising that the development of information and communication technologies, particularly internet connectivity, are important tools in this work by activists, donors, NGOs, government and the private sector. -------------------------------------------------------------- -- How to Subscribe the list --------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------- To subscribe the S-Asia-IT mailing list send mail to the address with the following command in the body of e-mail message: subscribe s-asia-it To subscribe the Digest version of S-Asia-IT mailing list send mail to the address with the following command in the body of e-mail message: subscribe s-asia-it-digest -------------------------------------------------------------- -- How to Post Messages -------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------- To post messages to S-Asia-IT send mail to the address -------------------------------------------------------------- -- How to UNsubscribe ---------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the S-Asia-IT mailing list send mail to the address with the following command in the body of e-mail message: unsubscribe s-asia-it -------------------------------------------------------------- -- S-Asia-IT Archives ---------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------- The S-Asia-IT mailing list is archived at http://www.apnic.net/wilma-bin/wilma/s-asia-it -------------------------------------------------------------- -- end ------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------- From owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Sat Dec 2 01:28:43 2000 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id BAA84882; Sat, 2 Dec 2000 01:28:42 +1000 (EST) Received: from exchange.ssrc.org (smtp.ssrc.org [38.166.138.2]) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id BAA84876 for ; Sat, 2 Dec 2000 01:28:39 +1000 (EST) From: matzner@ssrc.org Received: by smtp.ssrc.org with Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) id ; Fri, 1 Dec 2000 10:18:43 -0500 Message-ID: To: s-asia-it@apnic.net Subject: SSRC Fellowship on IT, International Cooperation and Global Secur ity Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 10:18:37 -0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Sender: owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Precedence: bulk SSRC FELLOWSHIPS ON INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION AND GLOBAL SECURITY The Social Science Research Council is pleased to announce the availability of new summer fellowships for innovative research on information technology (IT), international cooperation and global security. PhD students and faculty from any academic discipline and of any nationality may apply. These in-residence fellowships, for summer 2001, are designed for researchers who currently work on cooperation and security issues and who want to explore the role and impact of IT in this area; or for researchers who work on IT and want to explore its relationship to cooperation and security. International cooperation and global security involve a wide range of issues including new forms of global regulation and surveillance; transboundary advocacy and global civil society; economic and political "crisis" and transformation; unequal access to goods and services; transnational identity politics; conflict and transboundary intervention; military and warfare practices; and power and authority in the global realm. IT issues could involve the Internet and related technologies such as those associated with telecommunications, data processing, encryption, and systems of code; robotics, automation, and simulation; and concerns bearing directly on connectivity and content such as structures of information flow and processes of disinformation and dissemination. Deadline: January 12, 2001 (mailed from inside U.S.) and January 22 (all others) For more information and an application: Email: Itcoop@ssrc.org / web: www.ssrc.org Program on Information Technology, International Cooperation and Global Security Social Science Research Council 810 Seventh Avenue New York, NY 10019 (212) 377-2700 telephone / (212) 377-2727 fax From owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Sun Dec 3 15:25:07 2000 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id PAA129580; Sun, 3 Dec 2000 15:25:06 +1000 (EST) Received: from pop-khi3.super.net.pk (pop-khi3.super.net.pk [203.130.2.13]) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id PAA129539 for ; Sun, 3 Dec 2000 15:24:40 +1000 (EST) Received: from excel586 (khi-line-023.super.net.pk [203.130.5.162]) by pop-khi3.super.net.pk (8.10.0/8.10.0) with ESMTP id eB35LHw19481 for ; Sun, 3 Dec 2000 10:21:19 +0500 From: "Irfan Khan" To: s-asia-it@apnic.net Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2000 10:27:52 +0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: OECD sees future of developing countries in open telecoms Message-ID: <3A2A2028.31407.94FC8@localhost> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12c) Sender: owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Precedence: bulk 29th November 2000 OECD sees future of developing countries in open telecoms Developing countries must free up telecommunications and encourage foreign investment if they want to catch up in the internet race, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The OECD is planning to drum its message home at a special conference in Dubai next year. In an exclusive interview, Risaburo Nezu, director of science, technology and industry, told silicon.com that business and government delegates from over 30 developing countries will be advised that handouts from rich nations will not solve the problem. Nezu said: "Our message will be that there is a need for an open, predictable and transparent telecommunications market and also a need to have open, free foreign investment regimes. If those two things are ensured, I think the business follows." The OECD aims to provide governments with a setting in which to discuss, develop economic and social policy. Over the last few years it has pushed hard to free up the telecoms sector in its members states, which include Australia, Japan, the US and most European countries. But despite the progress, Nezu admitted deregulation hasn't gone far enough. "There's still a long way to go - there's a lot more for governments, telecoms companies and internet service providers to do in order to diversify and improve their services." According to Nezu, the role of the government is to create an environment for businesses to use information technology with freedom. This involves open trade systems, clear and less burdensome tax regimes and competitive, open telecoms, he said. And despite the OECD's less-than-global membership, Nezu is convinced it can still play a significant role in ecommerce development. "Ninety nine per cent of ecommerce takes place in OECD countries," he claimed. "We've never felt we are constrained by having only 30 member countries." http://www.silicon.com/bin/bladerunner?30REQEVENT=&REQAUTH=21046&14001 REQSUB=REQINT1=41195 From owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Mon Dec 4 07:29:02 2000 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id HAA100739; Mon, 4 Dec 2000 07:29:02 +1000 (EST) Received: from im.eth.net (mail.uthplanet.com [202.9.136.18]) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id HAA100732 for ; Mon, 4 Dec 2000 07:28:58 +1000 (EST) Received: from bytesforall ([61.11.9.70]) by im.eth.net with Microsoft SMTPSVC(5.5.1877.117.11); Mon, 4 Dec 2000 02:55:11 +0530 From: Frederick Noronha Reply-To: fred@bytesforall.org Organization: Freelance Journalist To: s-asia-it@apnic.net Subject: Wipro to aid setting up of call center in West Bengal Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2000 12:43:39 +0530 X-Mailer: KMail [version 1.0.29] Content-Type: text/plain MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-Id: <00120312435202.00472@bytesforall> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Precedence: bulk Wipro to aid setting up of call center in West Bengal by Krittivas Mukherjee, India Abroad News Service Calcutta, Dec 3 - Indian information technology (IT) giant Wipro will provide technical expertise to set up a state-of-the-art call center in Calcutta. The software giant has agreed to help BNKe.Solutions set up their Rs. 125 million call center, the first in eastern India, at Salt Lake on the outskirts of Calcutta. The center will be operational by January 2001. "An understanding with Wipro has been reached and it would be engaged as a technical partner for advising, solution providing, systematic integration and facility management," BNKe.Solutions promoter Ajit Khandelwal told IANS. Wipro's role in the project is identification and proper selection of equipment and integration of the entire system in the first phase, Khandelwal said. In the second phase, Wipro will provide facility management of critical stage and other technological assistance. Khandelwal said Wipro chief Azim Premji had promised, during his visit to Calcutta in September, to provide all help in setting up the center. "Commitment to this project is from the level of Premji and he will ensure that it becomes a center of excellence," Khandelwal said. "Once operational, the call center would employ at least 350 people to work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week through 365 days of the year," he added. Khandelwal suggested a bright future for call centers, saying IT-enabled services are the next major step for the fast shrinking world. Already more than 80 per cent of the world's top companies rely on communications-based services and consider call centers to be an integral part of their communication and customer service efforts, he said. The BNKe.Solutions call center will have a capacity for 100 agents servicing inbound and outbound calls in a client server computer telephony integrated environment. Since no MNC would initially be willing to appoint a new call center without testing credibility, BNKe.Solutions will enter into operating memorandums of understanding (MoUs) with companies in Telecom and Banking. "We have also entered into strategic alliances with existing Call Centers in Australia and the USA to pass on some off their additional businesses," Khandelwal said. BNKe.Solutions Pvt. Ltd. also plans to try and attract companies in Europe. "India is at such critical time zone that call centers like this could be of help to companies not only in the U.S. and Australia, but Europe as well," he added. --India Abroad News Service From owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Mon Dec 4 07:29:06 2000 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id HAA100756; Mon, 4 Dec 2000 07:29:06 +1000 (EST) Received: from im.eth.net (mail.uthplanet.com [202.9.136.18]) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id HAA100716 for ; Mon, 4 Dec 2000 07:28:58 +1000 (EST) Received: from bytesforall ([61.11.9.70]) by im.eth.net with Microsoft SMTPSVC(5.5.1877.117.11); Mon, 4 Dec 2000 02:55:09 +0530 From: Frederick Noronha Reply-To: fred@bytesforall.org Organization: Freelance Journalist To: bytes-admin@goacom.com Subject: NEWS-INDIA: Karnataka strives to take IT to the masses Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2000 12:43:03 +0530 X-Mailer: KMail [version 1.0.29] Content-Type: text/plain Cc: s-asia-it@apnic.net MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-Id: <00120312432601.00472@bytesforall> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Precedence: bulk Karnataka strives to take IT to the masses by Imran Qureshi, India Abroad News Service Bangalore, Dec 3 - India may just be waking up to a glaring digital divide but Karnataka, the state at the forefront of India's information technology (IT) surge, has taken several initiatives to bridge the gap between the IT haves and have-nots. So much so that the state's efforts have been appreciated by world leaders who visited the state during the past 12 months. The latest to praise the state was World Bank president James Wolfensohn, who even made an offer on behalf of his organization for a joint effort to use IT to bridge the digital gap and fight poverty. In many ways, India, and Karnataka in particular, has become a case study for global applications in the area of bridging the digital divide. The state has contributed much towards the country becoming a powerhouse in the IT arena but it is still fighting issues such as poverty, illiteracy and unemployment. N.R. Narayana Murthy, chairman of the Bangalore-based Infosys Technologies, put it rather succinctly when he said at a recent IT conference in the city, "We cannot wait until all the needs of the people are met. IT has to be leveraged to alleviate poverty." Murthy has been using every opportunity to drive home this point. During Wolfensohn's visit to the Infosys facility earlier this month, Murthy lined up an impressive set of people. One of them was Salil Taneja, an aeronautical engineer and founder of Taneja Aerospace, which builds small aircraft. The reason behind the invitation to Taneja was his recently launched portal, farmersbazar.com, which seeks to gather "information collated from premier agricultural institutions and research stations" to educate farmers about scientific applications. In the short term, Taneja has successfully completed another interesting aspect of his project. The Web site provides a fair price to apple growers of Himachal Pradesh by cutting out middlemen and providing a transparent system for transporting their produce to 15 cities, right down to Bangalore and Kochi. Farmersbazar.com plans to extend these services to cover other farm products as well. "The potential benefits to the rural masses from the digital revolution are even greater than benefits to the urban rich," Taneja told IANS. His words ring true in the case of the Bellandur village administration, a local self-government unit situated 20 km from Bangalore, which has computerized its operations. People living in the area can now get any official document in less than half an hour. "I used to spend three days running from pillar to post, bribing officials to get a birth certificate for my child. Today, I can finish the entire thing in less than half an hour and go to the school for admission," said Honnappa, a resident of Bellandur. "People save a tremendous amount of time because we are able to deliver in time," Jagannath, village administration president and the brain behind computerization, told IANS. "Very soon, we will provide details of cropping patterns, weather, pesticides, pests and other basic information for the benefit of the farming community," he added. The state government is set to launch its e-governance program in the revenue department, which will simplify the registration of property. In an attempt to bridge the digital gap, Karnataka has also launched yuva.com, a scheme already underway in collaboration with IT education giants like NIIT, Aptech and SSI. Under the scheme, the government subsidizes computer education provided by the private sector for rural youth. "The idea is to ensure that rural youth become computer literate. Over a period of time, you will see the growth of IT-enabled services industry in Karnataka. This is one way of filling the digital divide," said Vivek Kulkarni, Karnataka's IT secretary. There are plans for schoolchildren as well, particularly those in government-run schools. NIIT, Aptech and Compu Education are setting up computer laboratories in 1,000 government schools all over the state to ensure that every student gets a minimum of three-hours-a-week computer education. As evidence of the kind of interest rural children have in IT, Kulkarni boasts of the high response received for a rural IT quiz program organized as part of the recently concluded BangaloreIT.com2000 where almost 34,000 children took part. Yet, several bottlenecks remain even in a state like Karnataka, whose capital city is considered the nation's IT capital. "The government needs to build the infrastructure for IT to reach the rural masses. Returns on some of these investments are too long-term for the private sector to have an appetite for them now," Taneja said. While he believes that the true potential of IT will be realized over the next decade, he still has a fear. "The real danger is if a section of the population has no access to IT and its productivity-enhancing potential then that section will fall behind those who has such access," he said. -- India Abroad News Service From owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Tue Dec 5 01:18:38 2000 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id BAA90955; Tue, 5 Dec 2000 01:18:38 +1000 (EST) Received: from im.eth.net (mail.uthplanet.com [202.9.136.18]) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id BAA90950 for ; Tue, 5 Dec 2000 01:18:34 +1000 (EST) Received: from bytesforall ([61.11.9.13]) by im.eth.net with Microsoft SMTPSVC(5.5.1877.117.11); Mon, 4 Dec 2000 20:44:44 +0530 From: Frederick Noronha Reply-To: fred@bytesforall.org Organization: Freelance Journalist To: s-asia-it@apnic.net Subject: NEWS-INDIA: Shakeout in Indian dotcoms forces VCs to change track Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 20:08:35 +0530 X-Mailer: KMail [version 1.0.29] Content-Type: text/plain MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-Id: <00120420085308.00473@bytesforall> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Precedence: bulk India-IT-Capital Shakeout in Indian dotcoms forces VCs to change track by Sumeet Chatterjee, India Abroad News Service New Delhi, Dec 3 - In the wake of a shakeout in the dotcom space, focused on eyeballs and advertising revenue, a host of venture capital (VC) firms are changing strategy in India and focusing on core technology-based start-ups, say analysts. "Venture capitalists have become much more cautious in the last six to seven months in the wake of a high rate of failure in the dotcom business both in India and abroad," Amul Gogna, executive director of the Investment Information and Credit Rating Agency (ICRA), told India Abroad News Service. In the changed scenario, VCs are now looking at new areas such as software development, telecommunications, biotechnology and media and entertainment, he added. The emergence of venture capital funding in the country has helped in the evolution of Internet-based ventures. Risk capital investment in the domestic information technology (IT) sector increased from $20 million in 1996 to $320 million in 1999 and most of the venture funding has been in the areas of Web site and portal creation. Analysts say dotcom companies, mainly in the business-to-consumer (B2C) segment, which were cash-starved, were spending more money than required or had no revenue model, have started wilting under pressure. "Most of the venture capitalists in India were looking at valuation game and nobody took a close look at the revenue model of the dotcom companies. It was only after the so-called reputed dotcom brands in the U.S. started going bust that the investors here became much more cautious," Brijinder Ahuja, vice president of the Delhi-based venture capital consultancy firm First Capital India, said. Ahuja said investments were now moving into IT-enabled services such as call centers as many global blue-chip companies were planning to make India the hub of their back office operations. Although investments will continue to flow in for the right companies, there will be a lot more reality checks, Ahuja said, adding that the venture capitalists have become aware of the fact that low Internet and personal computer penetration and lack of proper infrastructure in the country will not ensure the growth of dotcom companies as envisaged earlier. According to ICRA's India Internet Business Report, there are around 50,000 dotcoms that are of Indian origin or are India oriented. In view of the high initial promotional expenditure, which is Rs. 100 million to 150 million on an average, it is assumed that the average turnover of a dotcom venture would be in the range of Rs. 100 million-120 million, says the report. When this figure is reconciled with Rs. 253 billion, which is the expected aggregate worth of e-commerce activities in India in 2005, the inevitable conclusion is that only five to 10 percent of the existing Internet ventures would eventually survive, it added. eVentures, a venture fund floated by Softbank in partnership with ePartners, an affiliate of media baron Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, recently said it would invest a further $150 million in India's expanding media and core technology sectors. The firm has already committed $65 million in 14 Indian companies. Gurcharan Das, a business economist, said investment from venture capitalists was still flowing in the business-to-business (B2B) segment and Internet companies with strong fundamentals or those creating new technologies to scale up the operations of brick-and-mortar companies. "Overall venture capital activity in the country has not declined but there has been a shift towards new areas such as software development, remote services, convergence and technology of various kinds where India has proven its skills in the global market," Das said. According to the National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM), an IT industry think-tank, venture capital and private equity inflows and commitments into India are expected to double from the previous year to reach Rs. 32 billion in 2000-01. These inflows are likely to further increase by over 100 percent and touch Rs. 65 billion by the end of the financial year 2001-02. In recent times, some of the successful Indian-run companies in the Silicon Valley have decided to invest in India. Igate Capital, a U.S.-based software services company promoted by two Indian Americans, has decided to float a $200 million global venture fund and out of the total amount, the company proposes to invest 15 to 20 percent in India. -- India Abroad News Service From owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Tue Dec 5 01:18:41 2000 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id BAA90971; Tue, 5 Dec 2000 01:18:41 +1000 (EST) Received: from im.eth.net (mail.uthplanet.com [202.9.136.18]) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id BAA90952 for ; Tue, 5 Dec 2000 01:18:37 +1000 (EST) Received: from bytesforall ([61.11.9.13]) by im.eth.net with Microsoft SMTPSVC(5.5.1877.117.11); Mon, 4 Dec 2000 20:44:46 +0530 From: Frederick Noronha Reply-To: fred@bytesforall.org Organization: Freelance Journalist To: Cybercom Subject: NEWS-INDIA: This time, Calcutta police slaps swift cyber crime charges Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 20:09:49 +0530 X-Mailer: KMail [version 1.0.29] Content-Type: text/plain Cc: amehta@cerfnet.com, s-asia-it@apnic.net MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-Id: <00120420101609.00473@bytesforall> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Precedence: bulk India-IT-West Bengal-Crime This time, Calcutta police slaps swift cyber crime charges By Krittivas Mukherjee, India Abroad News Service Calcutta, Dec 3 - Thanks to new the Information Technology (IT) Act, police here could move swiftly in booking two people for alleged cyber crimes, unlike last year when they were caught in bind because of the absence of a suitable law. Cases have been lodged against two software engineers -- Indranil Chatterjee, 25, and Sanjoy Ghosh, 25 -- for allegedly stealing data and destroying the software of a medical transcription company. Deputy Commissioner of Police (detective department) Banibrata Basu told IANS that the framing of the new IT act had made it possible to pin down the two software professionals by fixing precise charges under it. Both were arrested and then granted bail. Calcutta was in the news last year over a cyber crime involving a hate site against Bengalis. With little legal armory at their disposal, the authorities had been at a loss to deal with the situation then, because of lack of suitable laws. But this time, the police had no problems fixing charges against the software professionals under the new IT law for illegal accessing, tampering with documents and stealing and damaging data. They were charged under Sections 65, 66, 43 of the IT Act. If convicted, the duo can be sentenced to three years' imprisonment and fined up to Rs. 10 million. According to Basu, the two used to be employed with a medical transcription company and were arrested following a complaint lodged by the managing director of that firm. The complaint said the two arrested had resigned from their jobs to start their own venture with data stolen from the medical transcription company they originally worked for. They have also been charged with damaging other data in the company's computers. Basu told reporters that police then sought the help of computer experts and raided the office of the two software engineers. Stolen software and data were found from the duo's office computers. A few computers, some CD-ROMs and floppy disks were seized. -India Abroad News Service From owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Tue Dec 5 08:05:06 2000 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id IAA70948; Tue, 5 Dec 2000 08:05:06 +1000 (EST) Received: from im.eth.net (mail.uthplanet.com [202.9.136.18]) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id IAA70924 for ; Tue, 5 Dec 2000 08:05:01 +1000 (EST) Received: from bytesforall ([61.11.9.44]) by im.eth.net with Microsoft SMTPSVC(5.5.1877.117.11); Tue, 5 Dec 2000 03:30:57 +0530 From: Frederick Noronha Reply-To: fred@bytesforall.org Organization: Freelance Journalist To: s-asia-it@apnic.net Subject: NEWS-INDIA: Cricket site brings kudos, money to kid brothers Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2000 02:35:11 +0530 X-Mailer: KMail [version 1.0.29] Content-Type: text/plain MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-Id: <00120502353004.00472@bytesforall> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Precedence: bulk Cricket site brings kudos, money to kid brothers by P. Jayaram, India Abroad News Service New Delhi, Dec 4 - When cricket-crazy Karan Mahajan, then 13, and his younger brother Shiv, 11, launched their own Web site back in 1997, they never imagined there could be money in it. That was till January. Life changed for the two when Britain-based Rivals.com, a major sports network, took note of their "Indian Cricket Fever" site. "We received a surprise offer in our mailbox. Rivals.com wanted us to become their official Indian cricket providers. A few weeks later, we had a 20-page contract stuffed in our postal mailbox. The really exciting part of the offer was its monetary implications -- we would get paid 200 pounds a month plus 50 percent of ad revenue earned from the site, not to mention a stock option in Rivals.com and a free dotcom address," said Karan. Ironically, the "fever" caught on when the two brothers, students of Delhi's Modern School, were getting weary of their pet project. "We had only earned $25 till then from the site, which required us to update the site almost every single day to keep pace with the Indian cricket team's exploits, on and off the field," Karan said. The brothers were chosen by Rivals from over 100 Indian cricket sites for their "singular passion, dedication and Web-designing skills". Since then, the two have developed a new Web site and Indian cricket fever moved into its new address: www.indiancricketfever.com to www.indian-cricket-fever.com. Long before Rivals.com zoomed in on the two, their site had been noticed by others. In 1998, when the site was about eight months old, the Webmaster of Compmagic.com had said in an award citation: "I never thought I'd be awarding a sport-related page, but this site is exceptional! Authored by a team of 12 and 14-year-old brothers, it provides the user with content galore in anything related to the game (sport) of cricket. Also included is Indian Cricket News, stats on cricket teams, pictures and everything is easy to find, keeping you on the site from start to finish!... I'm sure these kids could give some of the adult Webmasters a few good lessons!" Karan says he and Shiv learned Web-designing on their own after a friend signed them up for a free Geocites.com account. Computer magazine DQWeek had also published a huge half-page feature on the site. "We were a bit surprised by our own success. The site was growing fast as we approached the 50,000 hits (mark). We were not earning much from the site -- we didn't even have a dotcom address, but the praise from our visitors from over 90 different countries served as a constant source of inspiration." The association with Rivals may put an end to the kids' worry about earning. They may well have to start thinking about spending now. --India Abroad News Service From owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Wed Dec 6 21:45:28 2000 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id VAA78507; Wed, 6 Dec 2000 21:45:27 +1000 (EST) Received: from im.eth.net (mail.uthplanet.com [202.9.136.18]) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id VAA78485 for ; Wed, 6 Dec 2000 21:45:19 +1000 (EST) Received: from bytesforall ([61.11.9.75]) by im.eth.net with Microsoft SMTPSVC(5.5.1877.117.11); Wed, 6 Dec 2000 17:11:25 +0530 From: Frederick Noronha Reply-To: fred@bytesforall.org Organization: Freelance Journalist To: s-asia-it@apnic.net Subject: NEWS-INDIA: IFC investment to establish Internet marketplace in India Date: Wed, 6 Dec 2000 16:43:49 +0530 X-Mailer: KMail [version 1.0.29] Content-Type: text/plain MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-Id: <0012061644060T.00474@bytesforall> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Precedence: bulk IFC investment to establish Internet marketplace in India by Aziz Haniffa, India Abroad News Service Washington, Dec 6 - The International Finance Corporation (IFC) is making an investment of $2 million in spryance.com Inc. to establish a remote services Internet marketplace based in India. Spryance is a business-to-business (B2B) enterprise that allows companies in industrialized countries to outsource transaction services to companies in emerging markets. IFC's investment is envisaged to help Spryance launch its technology platform and build its operational headquarters in Chennai, where software development and outsourcing operations for personalized and skilled transactions will be based. IFC, an affiliate of the World Bank, promotes private sector activity in developing countries. It finances private sector investments in the developing world, mobilizes capital in international financial markets and provides technical assistance and advice. According to IFC, Spryance, an early mover in the remote services industry, plans to initially target a particular industry segment and then scale out the business more broadly. Its first target is the medical transcription market in the United States. Spryance will begin by offering medical transcription services through a Web-based process that allows trained staff in India to transcribe into written documents the voice recordings that doctors and other medical staff dictate to report on non-acute medical situations. IFC said the company was developing a technology platform and business model that could be scaled up to allow Spryance roll out similar services across vertical markets, such as medical billing, insurance claims, software design, legal services and call centers. These services are envisaged to be natural candidates for processing remote services through a Web-based model where there are fragmented groups of buyers and sellers in service industries that require a high degree of personalization. Mohsen Khalil, the World Bank's director of global information and communications technologies department, said the initiative could contribute to creating high-skilled jobs in India, directly with Spryance as well as by enhancing India's position as a leading provider of high-tech-based services. Spryance chief executive officer Raj Malhotra, who was here to sign the contract with IFC, predicted that the company's electronic platform would help revolutionize the remote services business, and declared that his company's vision was to be the one resource for specialized services professionals around the world. The department that Khalil heads is a new unit set up by the World Bank to promote transfer of information technology to the developing world and focuses on communication networks and Internet infrastructure projects, as these are expected to have a multiplier effect in expanding the use of Internet in developing countries. Spryance was founded in March 1999 as a neutral Web site serving the emerging remote services industry. Spryance.com plans to formally launch its Web site later this month in Boston. From owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Wed Dec 6 21:45:34 2000 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id VAA78539; Wed, 6 Dec 2000 21:45:34 +1000 (EST) Received: from im.eth.net (mail.uthplanet.com [202.9.136.18]) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id VAA78502 for ; Wed, 6 Dec 2000 21:45:23 +1000 (EST) Received: from bytesforall ([61.11.9.75]) by im.eth.net with Microsoft SMTPSVC(5.5.1877.117.11); Wed, 6 Dec 2000 17:11:32 +0530 From: Frederick Noronha Reply-To: fred@bytesforall.org Organization: Freelance Journalist To: s-asia-it@apnic.net Subject: Satyam in e-learning partnership with Canadian firm Date: Wed, 6 Dec 2000 16:50:51 +0530 X-Mailer: KMail [version 1.0.29] Content-Type: text/plain MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-Id: <0012061650430X.00474@bytesforall> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Precedence: bulk Satyam in e-learning partnership with Canadian firm by Ajit Jain, India Abroad News Service Toronto, Dec 6 - ISOPIA Inc., an e-learning infrastructure software provider here, and Satyam Infoway, a premier Indian information technology (IT) company, have announced a partnership to launch an online learning site in India. Under the agreement, ISOPIA will provide its Integrated Learning Management System (ILMS) to Satyam Infoway, a pioneer in business-to-consumer (B2C) Internet and e-commerce solutions, said Rima Banerji, ISOPIA's media relations manager. The partnership was announced by Aditya Jha, vice-president of sales and marketing of ISOPIA, during a keynote address to the IT group of Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce (ICCC). Through its newly formed subsidiary, Satyam Education Services Limited (SESL), Satyam Infoway will promote online learning courseware and offer India's burgeoning web population the opportunity to expand its education to meet growing skills requirements. "The potential for e-learning in India is huge," said R. Ramraj, CEO and managing director of Satyam Infoway. ILMS is an end-to-end management tool of all modes of training delivery, including online self-serve and live courses, classroom courses, offline training material such as textbooks and CD-ROMs, and access to all student and administrator functions available through a simple Web interface, an ISOPIA spokesman said. Using ILMS, SESL will offer Indian companies end-to-end learning solutions, from consulting and Web-enabling content to managed implementation. "SESL's learning center will offer a wide range of courseware from IT and soft skills training to e-MBAs," said K. Thiagarajan, president of SESL. "We will offer high quality courseware content and manage the learning resources using ILMS." "SESL requires exceptional flexibility and scalability to meet the growing demands of mass users across multiple platforms," Jha said. "With a scalable capacity to support three million users, ISOPIA's learning management software fits this requirement perfectly." In his address to the ICCC during the Entrepreneurship Development Seminar Series at the suburban Mississauga Convention Center, west of Toronto, Jha said ISOPIA was established in 1988 and launched ILMS, its Web-based learning management system (LMS), in 1999. Built on an Enterprise Java beans architecture, ILMS is a flexible, open system that can adapt to changing learning needs and rapidly growing user communities without service corruption, said ISOPIA's marketing communication director Gloria Pakravan. In less than a year, ISOPIA has secured global clients like Marsh & McLennan and BCE Nexxia and training companies, including Element K and CDI Education Services, who are implementing its applications to deliver training programs to employees, partners and customers around the world, Banerji told IANS. She said the company raised U.S.$10 million in the first round financing from Element K, and has established partnerships with Sun Microsystems, Exodus, and Centra Software. From owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Wed Dec 6 21:45:57 2000 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id VAA78592; Wed, 6 Dec 2000 21:45:56 +1000 (EST) Received: from im.eth.net (mail.uthplanet.com [202.9.136.18]) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id VAA78554 for ; Wed, 6 Dec 2000 21:45:38 +1000 (EST) Received: from bytesforall ([61.11.9.75]) by im.eth.net with Microsoft SMTPSVC(5.5.1877.117.11); Wed, 6 Dec 2000 17:11:46 +0530 From: Frederick Noronha Reply-To: fred@bytesforall.org Organization: Freelance Journalist To: s-asia-it@apnic.net Subject: INFO SOUGHT: List of India web sites... Date: Wed, 6 Dec 2000 17:06:14 +0530 X-Mailer: KMail [version 1.0.29] Content-Type: text/plain MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-Id: <00120617054717.00474@bytesforall> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Precedence: bulk Friends, I am currently working on a list of useful Indian websites, which is to be compiled as a www.bytesforall.org initiative in a couple of weeks. If you could send me a listing of your favourite sites, together with a description (in under ten words) of each, I'd be more than thankful. These would possibly be incorporated in the listing. Best wishes, Frederick. PS: South Asian sites too are more than welcome, and will be included in a 'neighbours' section. We hope to enlarge this listing to cover all of South Asia later on.... -- *********************************************************** frederick noronha, freelance journalist, fred@bytesforall.org near convent, saligao 403511 goa india 0091.832.409490/ 409783 *********************************************************** Bytes For All http://www.bytesforall.org News from Goa http://www.goacom.com/news/ Photos from Goa http://www.goa-world.net/fotofolio/ GoaResearchNet http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/1503 *********************************************************** From owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Thu Dec 7 16:16:59 2000 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id QAA76691; Thu, 7 Dec 2000 16:16:59 +1000 (EST) Received: from im.eth.net (mail.uthplanet.com [202.9.136.18]) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id QAA76670 for ; Thu, 7 Dec 2000 16:16:55 +1000 (EST) Received: from bytesforall ([61.11.9.123]) by im.eth.net with Microsoft SMTPSVC(5.5.1877.117.11); Thu, 7 Dec 2000 11:42:58 +0530 From: Frederick Noronha Reply-To: fred@bytesforall.org Organization: Freelance Journalist To: s-asia-it@apnic.net Subject: NEWS: Haryana lawmakers attend computer classes Date: Wed, 6 Dec 2000 21:53:20 +0530 X-Mailer: KMail [version 1.0.29] Content-Type: text/plain MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-Id: <0012062153340H.00471@bytesforall> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Precedence: bulk Haryana lawmakers attend computer classes by Akhil Gautam, India Abroad News Service Chandigarh, Dec 5 - Lawmakers of Haryana enrolled themselves for computer classes Tuesday at the swank e-governance center at the Haryana civil secretariat here. Chief Minister Om Parkash Chautala and Assembly Speaker Satbir Singh Kadian have asked all lawmakers to ensure that that they become fully computer literate. The state government has committed itself to making all its employees computer literate by 2003. The lawmakers would be divided into batches of 20 and put through a 12-day training course. Classes would be held for 90 minutes every day and would cover basics and advanced computing as also areas like e-mail, the Internet and e-governance. Inaugurating the training program, Chautala announced that each lawmaker would be provided with a computer after completing their training. The fact that 80 of the 90 members of the state Assembly had enrolled for the training course proved that Haryana's legislators were "modernistic in outlook and would take a lead in making the administration more transparent and efficient," he said. Chautala reiterated the commitment of his government to take the IT revolution to the rural areas by laying an optical fibre backbone within three years. He said that the introduction of computer education in all Government run schools from class VI would enable the state prepare the next generation for the technological advancements taking place in the world. From owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Thu Dec 7 16:22:06 2000 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id QAA77323; Thu, 7 Dec 2000 16:22:06 +1000 (EST) Received: from im.eth.net (mail.uthplanet.com [202.9.136.18]) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id QAA77318 for ; Thu, 7 Dec 2000 16:22:01 +1000 (EST) Received: from bytesforall ([61.11.9.123]) by im.eth.net with Microsoft SMTPSVC(5.5.1877.117.11); Thu, 7 Dec 2000 11:48:10 +0530 From: Frederick Noronha Reply-To: fred@bytesforall.org Organization: Freelance Journalist To: gii Subject: NEWS-INDIA: Long wait yet for Convergence Bill Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 11:20:55 +0530 X-Mailer: KMail [version 1.0.29] Content-Type: text/plain MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-Id: <00120711212209.00467@bytesforall> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Precedence: bulk Long wait yet for Convergence Bill by Deepshikha Ghosh, India Abroad News Service New Delhi, Dec. 6 - The enactment of the Convergence Bill is likely to be postponed to the next session of Parliament, Information Technology Minister Pramod Mahajan has indicated. The bill, once cleared by the Union cabinet, will be posted on the Internet for public comments, Mahajan said at the inaugural function of IT World 2000/Comdex India here. "I don't know what the act will finally be called," he added. This is the second time that important legislation is being posted on the Internet - the first being the information technology (IT) bill. Mahajan said the draft, which would be placed before Parliament in the next session, proposed a Convergence Commission of India which would look into all three kinds of delivery systems -- communication, information technology (IT) and information and broadcasting. "If this act is in place in the next 6-8 months, India will be the second country in Asia -- after Malaysia -- to have such a system," the minister said. Mahajan outlined the government's plans to leverage its advantage of an English-speaking workforce and create a "world reservoir" for IT professionals by the year 2005 through "Operation Knowledge". The World Bank has committed $1 billion for the project, he added. According to him, inadequacy of power and telecom infrastructure was the main stumbling block in India's march. He also expressed concern over the gap between India's performance in the software and hardware sectors, saying if the "mismatch" continued, Indian IT professionals would be treated as mere raw material for more advanced countries. "We plan to have 10,000 community information centers all over India, equipped with computers and trained professionals, as part of our program to take IT to the masses," Mahajan said. M.S. Banga, chairman of consumer giant Hindustan Lever, proposed a central national telecom mission on the lines of the rural literacy mission in the country to champion the formulation of a master blueprint for taking IT to Indian villages. He stressed on the "four Cs" - connectivity, content, community and commerce - to aid India in leveraging IT so it could have a more profound effect on the agricultural sector, which is the heart of its economy. India needed very low cost connectivity through no-frills Net access devices, well-packaged information, Net-based community cooperatives and e-commerce, which could be implemented through strategic alliances between the Central government, state governments and industry, he said. "Together, they must put together a master blueprint of a click and brick model," Banga said. "Equal distribution of income is not only a social objective but an economic imperative. IT can be used to imagine and create innovative solutions to improve the lives of the people of this country," He said Indian IT had sailed across high seas, now it must reach the rivers and streams that percolate the country. The three-day IT World/Comdex India exhibition will feature more than 150 Indian and international companies, with the theme "The Networked Millennium". The exhibition will cover three major technology fields, e-commerce, networking platforms, convergence and infrastructure and financial services. From owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Fri Dec 8 15:05:54 2000 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id PAA112990; Fri, 8 Dec 2000 15:05:54 +1000 (EST) Received: from eximc-1.lse.ac.uk (eximc-1.lse.ac.uk [158.143.100.31]) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id PAA112979 for ; Fri, 8 Dec 2000 15:05:51 +1000 (EST) Received: by eximc-1.lse.ac.uk with Internet Mail Service (5.5.2448.0) id ; Fri, 8 Dec 2000 05:05:09 -0000 Message-ID: <43CE1CB09DEDD11196DF000629054FBB052FC1B9@exchs2.lse.ac.uk> From: "Nath,V (pgt)" To: "'s-asia-it@apnic.net'" Subject: KnowNet Initiative - Bridging Knowledge Divide through ICT Date: Fri, 8 Dec 2000 05:05:06 -0000 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2448.0) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Sender: owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Precedence: bulk Dear Colleagues, Greetings from the KnowNet Initiative at http://www.knownet.org (mirrored at http://www.cddc.vt.edu/knownet) ! I am sure this would be of interest to you. KnowNet Initiative is rooted in the strong belief that Knowledge incubates in the Human Mind and when applied innovatively becomes a factor of growth and development. KnowNet aims to popularise and facilitate knowledge networking in developing countries for overall human development through the amalgamation of Information and Communication Technology and remote volunteering. The KnowNet initiative centers around using and propagating ICT models for creating an open system for recognising, valuing, enriching and sharing of local knowledge, in parallel with human capacity building efforts. This will lead to a two-way process of people accessing information and knowledge for development and also information and knowledge finding its way to the probable users. KnowNet aims to empower communities to use ICT models for creating of Livelihood Opportunites, to evolve better Coping Mechanisms, and seek better Governance to improve their Quality of lives, on the basis of their own knowledge and efforts. Some resources have already been developed and hosted on the website at http://www.knownet.org under the KnowNet Initiative namely KnowNet Weaver http://www.knownetweaver.org - a tool kit for creation of interactive websites and TechKnowNet http://www.techknownet.org - an email administered /on-line training course for web development for layperson. Both these resources are free and are being put to use through the help of remote KnowNet volunteers. Many more resources are in the pipeline. To stay updated about the developments of KnowNet Initiative or to become a part of this open initiative, write to us at knownet@knownetweaver.org Warm Regards, Vikas Nath ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- Inlaks Fellow, 2000-1, London School of Economics Innovator, KnowNet Initiative, http://www.knownet.org Team, DevNet Jobs, http://www.devnetjobs.org HomePage: http://www.vikasnath.org Email: knownet@knownetweaver.org Phone: +44 (0) 7887 92 0080 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------ From owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Sat Dec 9 06:36:06 2000 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id GAA87427; Sat, 9 Dec 2000 06:36:06 +1000 (EST) Received: from im.eth.net (mail.uthplanet.com [202.9.136.18]) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id GAA87408 for ; Sat, 9 Dec 2000 06:36:01 +1000 (EST) Received: from bytesforall ([61.11.9.190]) by im.eth.net with Microsoft SMTPSVC(5.5.1877.117.11); Sat, 9 Dec 2000 02:02:02 +0530 From: Frederick Noronha Reply-To: fred@bytesforall.org Organization: Freelance Journalist To: gii Subject: NEWS-INDIA: Naidu calls for ending VSNL's "bottleneck" monopoly Date: Fri, 8 Dec 2000 23:33:20 +0530 X-Mailer: KMail [version 1.0.29] Content-Type: text/plain Cc: s-asia-it@apnic.net MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-Id: <00120823353004.00545@bytesforall> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Precedence: bulk Naidu calls for ending VSNL's "bottleneck" monopoly from India Abroad News Service New Delhi, Dec 8 - Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Nara Chandra Babu Naidu on Friday termed the monopoly status of the state-owned Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited the "biggest bottleneck" to the growth of communications infrastructure in the country. Inaugurating the 'wbconline' website of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry Ladies Organization (FLO) via a videoconference from Hyderabad, Naidu said, "The VSNL monopoly should go immediately. I have been demanding an end to its monopoly for the last five years." Through the online women's business council, the FLO will strive to help women entrepreneurs resolve the problems that confront them in carrying out their business. While India's strength in the information technology (IT) sector lies in software development, the country's weakness lay in the hardware sector, Naidu said. Emphasizing the need to speedily build the telecommunications infrastructure, Naidu said India may "well be in danger of losing out on a lot of opportunities." Only by ending the VSNL monopoly, Naidu said, will the private sector be encouraged to invest more in the development of communications infrastructure, making room for "leapfrog development, accountability, speediness and faster response to the people's needs." According to the government's latest schedule, the VSNL monopoly is to end by April 2002. "We are planning to provide Internet access in Andhra Pradesh to the remotest villages in 18 months," said Naidu. To provide for better distance learning, the state government is planning to have satellite links to the remote villages. While English is widely used in the state, Andhra Pradesh is trying to develop Telugu software for better reach. While agreeing that basic facilities like drinking water and healthcare are of vital need, Naidu maintained that the Internet could ease the process of delivering small but vital services to the villages at a faster pace. More importantly, it would provide a voice to the rural women in the state who through their own initiative are today able to mobilize Rs 8 billion. Referring to the remarkable growth of the Development of Women and Child in Rural Areas (DWCRA) groups in the state, Naidu said the organization currently has around 350,000 members who are selling over 450 products at the district level markets. Once they have access to the Internet, it would be earlier for them to sell their products and get better remuneration. On the issue of empowerment of women, Naidu voiced full support for the Women's Reservation Bill and expressed the hope that it would be passed by Parliament during its ongoing winter session. From owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Sat Dec 9 14:22:42 2000 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id OAA71717; Sat, 9 Dec 2000 14:22:42 +1000 (EST) Received: from post.super.net.pk (smtp-khi1.super.net.pk [203.130.2.9]) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id OAA71697 for ; Sat, 9 Dec 2000 14:22:35 +1000 (EST) Received: from irfan (khi-line-036.super.net.pk [203.130.5.175]) by post.super.net.pk (8.9.1/8.9.3) with ESMTP id JAA14056 for ; Sat, 9 Dec 2000 09:33:07 -0500 From: "Irfan Khan" To: s-asia-it@apnic.net Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2000 09:24:40 +0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: A Proposed 'Science, Technology And Development' Gateway Message-ID: <3A31FA58.6852.2D9EE9@localhost> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12c) Sender: owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Precedence: bulk [from the GKD mailing list] ------- Forwarded message follows ------- From: "Dickson, David" To: gkd@phoenix.edc.org Dear colleagues: Having been following with interest recent discussion on the GKD site about ways of using the web to collect and collate information on indigenous knowledge, as well as other discussions of knowledge-based development strategies, I would like to draw the attention of participants to a project that we are currently working on to create a free access internet gateway devoted to news and information about science, technology and development. The planned website is being developed by staff members of the scientific journal Nature, with financial support from the UK's Department for International Development (DFID), and the collaboration of Unesco and the Third World Academy of Sciences. At present, we are in the process of seeking input from as many potential users of this website as possible in order to make sure that its contents are directly relevant to genuine development needs. We would therefore like to invite anyone with an interest in this topic to fill in a questionnaire -- which can be both completed and returned electronically -- that can be found at: http://www.scidev.net/Questionnaire.htm. More information about the project, known as SciDev.Net, is on our 'welcome' page at http://www.scidev.net. Any other feedback would be most welcome, either through this discussion group or directly to: scidev.net@nature.com. David Dickson News editor, Nature 4 Crinan Street, London N1 9XW, UK -- <...> From owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Sat Dec 9 14:22:44 2000 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id OAA71733; Sat, 9 Dec 2000 14:22:44 +1000 (EST) Received: from post.super.net.pk (smtp-khi1.super.net.pk [203.130.2.9]) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id OAA71696 for ; Sat, 9 Dec 2000 14:22:34 +1000 (EST) Received: from irfan (khi-line-036.super.net.pk [203.130.5.175]) by post.super.net.pk (8.9.1/8.9.3) with ESMTP id JAA14053 for ; Sat, 9 Dec 2000 09:33:01 -0500 From: "Irfan Khan" To: s-asia-it@apnic.net Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2000 09:24:39 +0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: India Solar Community Launch Message-ID: <3A31FA57.7454.2D9DE2@localhost> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12c) Sender: owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Precedence: bulk [from the GKD mailing list] ------- Forwarded message follows ------- Date sent: Tue, 5 Dec 2000 08:34:19 -0500 From: Michael North Dear Members of GKD, I would like to update you about Greenstar's work in India. In October, Greenstar India announced that we will build 50 solar-powered community and e-commerce centres in remote villages throughout India over the next three years. As part of the celebration of the birth of Mahatma Gandhi, the first site was dedicated on 2 October in Parvatapur village, about 150 km from the Andhra Pradesh capital of Hyderabad in southern India. This community has a deep tradition of music and art, and has been pioneering natural agricultural practices. Mr. Chandrababu Naidu, Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, connected through the Internet with the dedication events in Paravatapur, where the first Indian "digital culture" products will be produced, and offered to the world. The Chief Minister placed an order for the music and art created by villagers hosting the inaugural ceremony; he visited a Greenstar website at http://www.e-greenstar.com/India/ Charles Gay of Greenstar sent an email by solar-powered satellite from Paravatapur. He said: "At 10:02 a.m. today in Parvatapur, Greenstar went live on the internet, and simultaneously began recording music for a digital culture program. We used a high-speed portable satellite terminal from Inmarsat, to connect to the Internet through space, powered solely by a portable solar power panel. "Dedicating the village on Gandhi's birthday was just the right touch. "A large solar power array was used to power the computers and recording equipment, and also ran the public address system for the launch ceremonies. All green electrons powered the village today. "Simultaneously, at a press conference in Hyderabad, Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu, one of India's leading lights in the technology field, delivered a powerful speech about Greenstar. He was joined by K.L.Chugh, a highly- respected businessman, and Ms. Rajeswari of Greenstar India. "Mr. Naidu actually ordered his own Greenstar India CD from the Greenstar website - projected onto a large screen in front of 200 observers and media. In addition, the CM committed to providing whatever government resources are necessary to implement 50 Greenstar villages in Andhra Pradesh. "The scene in the small, isolated village of Parvatapur, 120 miles away, was incredible. About 300 people attended four hours of speeches, in which the Greenstar vision was compared to Gandhi's vision. The talks were interspersed with music, dance and poetry -- all of which were part of the solar-powered recording sessions, conducted by local student technicians." To generate income through e-commerce, Greenstar villages focus on India's vivid traditional culture -- authentic art, music, legends, literature, history and sacred way of life, long a source of fascination by people everywhere in the world. Greenstar is employing a team of artists and teachers to record elements of rural Indian culture, working closely with the people of each village. This original concept is already working in the Palestinian Authority and Jamaica. The result will be a powerful, unique collection of "digital culture" -- a gallery of music, artwork, photographs, video, poetry and other arts, which can be distributed in high-resolution digital form throughout the world, instantly and efficiently. The revenues from digital culture will be used to fund basic needs of each village for its future, as decided by the people themselves -- deploying tools that include clean solar power, telemedicine and vaccination resources, basic education, micro-credit, community organizing, and a high-speed, two-way connection to the world through the Internet. Greenstar India is a new consortium of companies from India and the United States. Stakeholders include Capital Fortunes, a Hyderabad-based financial and business advisory consultancy, the Jindal Organization based in Delhi with operations throughout India and America, and Greenstar USA, which has pioneered the solar-powered ecommerce and digital culture concept. The participating companies are providing capital, technology and resources. Other key players are Indian government agencies and private participants including the Ekalavya Vidayalya Foundation, Ikisan, Kinera Object Connect, and the Renewable Energy Office at the Centre for Scientific Research of Auroville. Major support for Greenstar India comes from The Sterling Group, a company that has led the way in providing high- speed Internet access in India. Through its subsidiary, Dishnet/DSL (http://www.dishnetdsl.com/), Sterling will provide all the internet connections for Greenstar villages, including free Web hosting, and will sponsor a village demonstration in the Chennai region in the near future. Digital culture techniques will provide the only feasible means for preserving the intricate colored chalk art practiced in Paravatapur, and the spontaneous drumming and storytelling of the Telugu people. For further information, contact: Dr. Charles F. Gay of Greenstar in the United States at: 1-323-936-9602, toll-free in the US: 1-877-282-9900 by email: cgay@e-greenstar.com Also see the Greenstar websites at http://www.e-greenstar.com and http://www.greenstar.org Ms. Pingali Rao Rajeswari Director - Greenstar India in India at: 91-40-3310560; 3316083; 3397279 by email: rajeswari@e-greenstar.com To order a copy of "The Sacred Voice of India", the multimedia and audio CD produced in Parvatapur, go to: http://www.e-greenstar.com/India/launch/buymain.htm For a detailed background on this project, see http://www.e-greenstar.com/India/launch/backgrounder.htm Your comments and ideas are always welcome, addressed to editor@greenstar.org. An archive of all Greenstar newsletters to date may be seen at: http://www.greenstar.org/pressroom/newsletterindex.htm ------------ ***GKD is an initiative of the Global Knowledge Partnership*** To post a message, send it to: To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: . In the 1st line of the message type: subscribe gkd OR type: unsubscribe gkd Archives of previous GKD messages can be found at: ------- End of forwarded message ------- From owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Sun Dec 10 05:43:55 2000 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id FAA125799; Sun, 10 Dec 2000 05:43:55 +1000 (EST) Received: from im.eth.net (mail.uthplanet.com [202.9.136.18]) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id FAA125780 for ; Sun, 10 Dec 2000 05:43:50 +1000 (EST) Received: from bytesforall ([61.11.9.181]) by im.eth.net with Microsoft SMTPSVC(5.5.1877.117.11); Sun, 10 Dec 2000 01:09:57 +0530 From: Frederick Noronha Reply-To: fred@bytesforall.org Organization: Freelance Journalist To: gii Subject: NEWS-INDIA: Life's not all rosy in Silicon Valley Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2000 00:35:37 +0530 X-Mailer: KMail [version 1.0.29] Content-Type: text/plain MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-Id: <00121000362818.00474@bytesforall> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Precedence: bulk Life's not all rosy in Silicon Valley by Sukhjit Purewal, India Abroad News Service San Jose, Dec 8 - Silicon Valley may be the promised land for Indian and other entrepreneurs and technical professionals, but life is not exactly a bed of roses for these immigrants. There are some not so pleasant aspects of living and working in the valley in Santa Clara, the most diverse county in northern California, according to a report released by the county Office of the Human Relations Citizenship and Immigrant Services Program. The report, titled "Bridging Borders in Silicon Valley," was released during the Summit on Immigrant Needs and Contributions here. The report was compiled after surveying the county's top five immigrant groups -- Indians, Chinese, Mexicans, Filipinos and Vietnamese. A total of 272 Indian immigrants, including H1-B visa holders, responded to the random sample survey, which contained 113 questions on a number of topics including working conditions, mental health, education and healthcare access. The study found that tech-dominated Silicon Valley could be a difficult place for Indian immigrants. "The hi-tech world is dedicated as prosperous and progressive. But what I have seen is rampant discrimination and exploitation. The employers use the laws to their convenience and immigrant workers are denied their rights," Kim Singh, part of the Asian Pacific Public Policy Institute at Stanford University, was quoted in the report as testifying during a labor organization hearing on immigrant rights in April. Temporary workers are particularly susceptible, according to the report. "Forty percent of jobs in Silicon Valley are contingent labor, which includes temporary, part time and contracted workers," said Bharat Desai, an immigrant who worked in one of the survey's focus groups. "The majority is from the immigrant population," he said. But even as more temporary jobs are created, Desai said, the low wage earners in the group are unable to meet present inflammatory trends of prices in the valley. H1-B visa holders have their own woes despite the recent victories of raising the number of allowable visas and extending the stay period. As one unidentified Indian H1-B visa holder who participated in the study said, living on one wage is getting to be more and more difficult in the very expensive Santa Clara County. "As our spouses are issued H4 visas, they could not take up a job, even though they are well qualified. We find it very difficult to meet increased expenses on account of high rent or the high cost of living," the Indian was quoted as saying. The report recommends that spouses of H1-B visa holders should be allowed to work, especially since many of them have expertise in mathematics and science and could be used to bolster the dwindling supply of qualified teachers in California. The study also reported that while client companies such as HP or Sun Microsystems may pay as much as $75 to $175 per hour, H1-B visa holders may receive only $25 to $30 of that money. The temporary agencies, or what some call "hi-tech body shops" that contract out the employees, end up making most of the money. The study recommended that the temporary agencies be better regulated or eliminated altogether. And although Indians tend to be the wealthiest ethnic group in America with nearly one in four earning $75,000 or more, glass ceilings still remain a problem, especially for women. While Indian men in Silicon Valley earn on average $33.49 per hour, Indian women earn $23.77, according to the summit report. One unidentified Indian American woman was quoted in the study as saying, "I found it easy to get an entry-level position, but promotion to the next level has been difficult -- a male always get better treatment in the job market." At the summit, Jessie Singh, founder of BJS electronics, shared his story of immigrant triumph with the audience. BJS clocked sales of $250 million last year. Jessie Singh talked about how when he first came to the U.S. in 1986, he tried his hand at everything from pizza delivery to working at a gas station, being unable to translate his engineering degree into a meaningful career. But he said he found the American system to be friendly and the director at an employment office directed him to a computer course, which opened the door to his successful career. Jessie Singh said people like him now have to help others who follow. "When we are making a good living we have to give back -- to help the incoming immigrants make a smooth transition," he said. Jessie Singh is emblematic of the contributions Asians have made to the Silicon Valley economy. It is estimated that between 1995 and 1998, 29 percent of Silicon Valley's companies were run by either Indians or Chinese and over 700 start-ups are run by Indians. From owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Sun Dec 10 05:43:59 2000 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id FAA125816; Sun, 10 Dec 2000 05:43:59 +1000 (EST) Received: from im.eth.net (mail.uthplanet.com [202.9.136.18]) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id FAA125776 for ; Sun, 10 Dec 2000 05:43:44 +1000 (EST) Received: from bytesforall ([61.11.9.181]) by im.eth.net with Microsoft SMTPSVC(5.5.1877.117.11); Sun, 10 Dec 2000 01:09:51 +0530 From: Frederick Noronha Reply-To: fred@bytesforall.org Organization: Freelance Journalist To: gii Subject: NEWS-INDIA: Calcutta Police to set up cyber crimes cell Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2000 00:31:56 +0530 X-Mailer: KMail [version 1.0.29] Content-Type: text/plain MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-Id: <00121000322514.00474@bytesforall> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Precedence: bulk Calcutta Police to set up cyber crimes cell by Krittivas Mukherjee, India Abroad News Service Calcutta, Dec 8 - Police here are planning a "high-tech cell" of computer savvy officers to deal with cyber age crimes that are on the rise in the city. The vulnerability of the city police in matters related to cyber crimes has been revealed several times. But the hacking of detective department chief Banibrata Basu's personal Internet account has come as a big embarrassment for the department. "We are planning to recruit computer-savvy officials into a proposed special high-tech cell that can exclusively deal with cyber age crimes," Basu told India Abroad News Service. Formation of the "hi-tech cell" is being expedited after Basu's personal account with Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited (VSNL) was hacked. "Last week, when I tried to log on to the Net through my VSNL account, I found that my username and password were being repeatedly rejected. When I contacted the service providers, I was told that my account had been hacked and my Internet time had been stolen," the detective chief said. Basu said he had used only about five hours from the 50-hour package that he bought from VSNL. A week since the incident, the police were yet to gather any clues on the hacking. Basu admitted that the city police almost always drew a blank when investigating cyber crimes because of their lack of expertise in computers and the Internet. "Our present set-up is not equipped to deal with such crimes," he said, adding that since his department did not have computer experts, it had become impossible to understand the crime, let alone catch the criminals. More often than not, the police have to fall back on experts from VSNL or private Internet service providers (ISPs) to comprehend the nature of the crime and trace the offenders. Officials admitted that even provisions of the new Information Technology (IT) Act did not help matters because those in charge of enforcing the law had little knowledge of computers. The ignorance of Calcutta Police in investigating cyber crimes came to the fore last year when a Net-savvy businessman launched a hate site against the Bengali community. The police were caught napping again in July last year when the home page of the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) was hacked and vandalized. However, the initial failures spurred the Calcutta Police to modernize and two software professionals were arrested under the IT Act last week. From owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Wed Dec 13 05:35:18 2000 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id FAA102530; Wed, 13 Dec 2000 05:35:17 +1000 (EST) Received: from im.eth.net (mail.uthplanet.com [202.9.136.18]) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id FAA102511 for ; Wed, 13 Dec 2000 05:35:09 +1000 (EST) Received: from bytesforall ([61.11.9.163]) by im.eth.net with Microsoft SMTPSVC(5.5.1877.117.11); Wed, 13 Dec 2000 01:00:55 +0530 From: Frederick Noronha Reply-To: fred@bytesforall.org Organization: Freelance Journalist To: bytes-admin@goacom.com Subject: NEWS-INDIA: Videoconferencing facility between Andhra jails and courts Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 23:09:35 +0530 X-Mailer: KMail [version 1.0.29] Content-Type: text/plain Cc: s-asia-it@apnic.net MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-Id: <00121223095605.01015@bytesforall> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Precedence: bulk India-Andhra Pradesh-Prisoners Videoconferencing facility between Andhra jails and courts By Mohammed Shafeeq, India Abroad News Service Hyderabad, Dec 12 - Andhra Pradesh has become the first Indian state to provide videoconference links between jails and courts, a measure that will help 'produce' undertrials before magistrates without their physical presence. The video linkage facility between the Chanchalguda central jail, which has more than 1,600 undertrials, and the Nampally City Criminal Courts here has been provided by Stan Power Technologies at a cost of Rs.150,000. Television sets and digital video cameras have been installed at both the ends and connected through Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) lines. The facility, which will be available from new year, is likely to solve a major problem faced by police in providing armed escorts to undertrials while taking them from jails to courts. The shortage of escort personnel has also resulted in many undertrials languishing in jails without being produced in courts. State Governor C. Rangarajan has issued an ordinance that will help produce undertrials before a magistrate through videoconferencing. The ordinance has amended subsection 2 of the 167 Criminal Procedure Code, which will enable producing an accused before the magistrate concerned "either in person or through the medium of video linkage." The other benefits of the new system would be that the prisoners would have no chance to escape and a lot of time and money would be saved in transportation of remand prisoners to courts. About 1,000 constables are being used in the state everyday as escorts and they are paid escort allowance. The shortage of escort personnel often results in the remand prisoners not being produced before the courts. This has been delaying the cases. In the past, the Andhra Pradesh High Court had taken a serious note of the inordinate delay in the cases and had asked the government to take all necessary steps to ensure that the undertrials were produced on a given date. Home Minister T. Devender Goud said the electronic video linkage would ease the burden on the police forces. He said the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has appreciated the state government for providing this facility. "This is the first major step for bringing jail reforms," he said. The trials of the system were successfully conducted in October this year when the then chief justice of Andhra Pradesh High Court, M.S. Liberhan, quizzed some undertrials in Chanchalguda central jail in Hyderabad. The chief justice and some other judges, who were sitting in Nampally City Criminal Courts complex, interacted with a dozen remand prisoners and then gave the nod to the government for introducing the facility. The undertrials were hopeful that the videoconference facility would help in early disposal of cases. The undertrials are also expected to speak more freely with magistrates through this facility. Armed escorts, long waits at the court and the presence of magistrates and others have tremendous psychological pressure on undertrials when produced in person. With the successful demonstration of this facility in Hyderabad and the issuing of an ordinance, the state government is making arrangements to provide a similar facility in places like Vijayawada, Visakhapatnam, Warangal, Chittoor and Karimnagar. --India Abroad News Service From owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Wed Dec 13 05:36:21 2000 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id FAA102658; Wed, 13 Dec 2000 05:36:21 +1000 (EST) Received: from im.eth.net (mail.uthplanet.com [202.9.136.18]) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id FAA102654 for ; Wed, 13 Dec 2000 05:36:17 +1000 (EST) Received: from bytesforall ([61.11.9.163]) by im.eth.net with Microsoft SMTPSVC(5.5.1877.117.11); Wed, 13 Dec 2000 01:02:21 +0530 From: Frederick Noronha Reply-To: fred@bytesforall.org Organization: Freelance Journalist To: s-asia-it@apnic.net Subject: LINK: Conference in Goa on IT in tourism... Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2000 00:27:44 +0530 X-Mailer: KMail [version 1.0.29] Content-Type: text/plain MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-Id: <00121122375303.01804@bytesforall> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Precedence: bulk ---------- Forwarded Message ---------- The CSI (Computer Society of India) Western region is in the process of finalising the WRC (Western Regional Conference) to be held in Goa in February 2001. Dates will be Feb 21-22-23, 2001. We're sending this "Call for papers" info email, and would be obliged if anyone interested in presenting papers (at the WRC 2001) could get in touch with us. We'd welcome paper presentations from any interested persons (you needn't be CSI Members)... We're also looking for Industry Sponsors, Manufacturers that'd be interested in putting-up presentations on Software and Solutions of interest to the Tourism and Hotel Industry and the like. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ WRC 2001 - SCHEDULE ------------------------------------------------------------------------ - Wednesday 21 February 2001 - Full day - Technical Sessions. - Thursday 22 February 2001 - Full day - WRC and Presentations. - Friday 23 February 2001 - Full day - WRC and Presentations. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ WRC 2001 - CALL FOR PAPERS ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Theme : "IT in Tourism" The WRC 2001 is scheduled to be held at Goa, on the 22nd and 23rd of February 2001. Goa with it's beautiful beaches, special ambience and unique blend of western and eastern cultures is known the world-over as a tourist destination. Tourism has Industry status in Goa and is one of the state's main revenue earners. Today, in addition to the Tourism Industry, the government of Goa is actively pushing for the set-up of other clean and environment friendly industries, with the main area of focus being IT and IT services. The link-up of these two types of industries, Tourism and Information Technology, is not just important for a place as Goa, but for the entire globe. Both IT and Tourism are industries which are growing at a phenomenal rate. The WRC 2001, intends to take a look at the future for both these industries... The WRC, in addition to the usual activities, will include technical sessions in which contributory papers will be presented. Papers of original contributions are invited from researchers, students and professionals. Technical papers on the following topics are invited: ===================================================== 1. Information Technology in Tourism 2. E-Commerce and it's application to tourism 3. Enabling Systems for the Tourism Industry 4. Open-Source Software and Systems for the Tourism Industry Paper Submission: ================= * 800 word synopsis (text-only) on the paper intended to be presented to be sent (by email) to wrc-2001@csi-goa.org on/before 31st December 2000. * Papers selected for presentation will need to be submitted by 15th January 2001. * We welcome Student papers, and will be reserving a special session for student presentations. Manufacturer's Presentations: ============================= A limited number of Presentation slots are scheduled to fit-in with the conference. Manufacturers (IT Companies) interested in making presentations on the products and/or services should email wrc-2001@csi-goa.org on/before 31st December 2000. Tutorials and Technical Sessions: ================================= Are also planned on topics of interest. Check for details in the next issue of CSI Communications. For any Further Information: ============================ Email: wrc-2001@csi-goa.org or wrc-2001@opspl.com ------------------------------------------------------- From owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Wed Dec 13 06:58:19 2000 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id GAA111741; Wed, 13 Dec 2000 06:58:18 +1000 (EST) Received: from hydrogen.cen.brad.ac.uk (hydrogen.cen.brad.ac.uk [143.53.238.3]) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id GAA111722 for ; Wed, 13 Dec 2000 06:58:15 +1000 (EST) Received: from kestrel.cen.brad.ac.uk (kestrel.cen.brad.ac.uk [143.53.238.5]) by hydrogen.cen.brad.ac.uk (8.9.3+Sun/8.9.3) with ESMTP id UAA14695 for ; Tue, 12 Dec 2000 20:58:13 GMT Received: from Office (AKundu.cyber.brad.ac.uk [143.53.16.156]) by kestrel.cen.brad.ac.uk (8.9.3+Sun/8.9.3) with ESMTP id UAA01183 for ; Tue, 12 Dec 2000 20:58:13 GMT From: A Kundu Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 20:58:08 +0000 To: s-asia-IT Subject: CFP: The South Asian ICT Revolution Message-ID: X-Mailer: Execmail for Win32 5.1.1 Build (10) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Precedence: bulk CONTEMPORARY SOUTH ASIA Call for Papers: "The South Asian ICT Revolution" Information and Communications Technology (ICT) is transforming the way South Asia and South Asians work and play. Contemporary South Asia is looking for papers for a special issue which will offer articles across a broad range of ICT issues. Examples of potential submission titles might include: -- The Uneven Spread of ICT Across South Asia: Comparing 'haves' and 'have nots' -- The South Asian ICT entrepreneurs of Silicon Valley -- Netwar: South Asian internet sites and the spread of propaganda -- Digital Democracy vs Digital Divide: Will ICT help or hinder development in South Asia? -- The South Asian Diaspora and ICT: Encouraging transnational loyalties -- ICT and the command and control of South Asia's nuclear arsenals Contemporary South Asia is an academic, peer-reviewed journal published three times yearly by Carfax/Taylor & Francis (UK). See for full details. Submissions for "The South Asian ICT Revolution" themed issue should be of no more than 7000 words in length and written in accordance with the "Notes for Contributors" for Contemporary South Asia found on its website. Submissions must be submitted as an email attachment to arrive no later than 1 May 2001. For further enquiries, please contact: Dr Apurba Kundu Editor, Contemporary South Asia Department of Cybernetics University of Bradford Bradford BD7 1DP UK Tel: +44-(0)1274-235-046 Fax: +44-(0)1274-235-295 Email: a.kundu@bradford.ac.uk Internet: www.tandf.co.uk/journals/carfax/09584935.html From owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Thu Dec 14 02:18:37 2000 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id CAA65965; Thu, 14 Dec 2000 02:18:37 +1000 (EST) Received: from pop-khi3.super.net.pk (pop-khi3.super.net.pk [203.130.2.13]) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id CAA65930 for ; Thu, 14 Dec 2000 02:18:24 +1000 (EST) Received: from excel586 (khi-line-116.super.net.pk [203.130.5.116]) by pop-khi3.super.net.pk (8.10.0/8.10.0) with ESMTP id eBDGEew07758 for ; Wed, 13 Dec 2000 21:14:44 +0500 From: "Irfan Khan" To: s-asia-it@apnic.net Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2000 21:22:34 +0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Report on Indian Software Industry Message-ID: <3A37E89A.24274.717966@localhost> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12c) Sender: owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Precedence: bulk [from atimes.com] Software - the arrowhead of India's IT weaponry Driven by exports in personnel and in programming, India's software section is the driving force behind the country's master plan to become an Information Technology superpower by 2008. To achieve this, writes Tony Allison, the sector will need a compounded annual growth rate of about 40 percent - achievable, but not guaranteed. Read full text at http://atimes.com/reports/BL07Ai01.html From owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Thu Dec 14 02:29:53 2000 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id CAA67806; Thu, 14 Dec 2000 02:29:53 +1000 (EST) Received: from pop-khi3.super.net.pk (pop-khi3.super.net.pk [203.130.2.13]) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id CAA67761 for ; Thu, 14 Dec 2000 02:29:39 +1000 (EST) Received: from excel586 (khi-line-116.super.net.pk [203.130.5.116]) by pop-khi3.super.net.pk (8.10.0/8.10.0) with ESMTP id eBDGPww08055 for ; Wed, 13 Dec 2000 21:25:58 +0500 From: "Irfan Khan" To: s-asia-it@apnic.net Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2000 21:33:52 +0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: [India] ITC to set up Net booths for coffee planters Message-ID: <3A37EB40.11713.7BD11C@localhost> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12c) Sender: owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Precedence: bulk Dec 13 2000 ITC to set up Net booths for coffee planters BANGALORE ITC plans to set up 25 internet kiosks in the southern Karnataka state to connect coffee planters to the Web, according to an official. "The main purpose is to let planters understand the market realities and sell their produce at the right time, taking into account global prices," said Ninad Bhosle, senior manager, trading, at ITC's International Business Division. Indian coffee prices are near record lows due to weak global prices. Last week, LIFFE robusta coffee prices fell to 30-year lows. Last Saturday, ITC launched a portal (plantersnet.com) for coffee planters which provides prices and market information. The portal will provide international coffee prices and market information to coffee growers. "We will set up the Internet booths maximum within six months to a year," Bhosle said. ITC, which has business interests in tobacco, hotels and agri- business, launched a project this year to bring the internet to Indian farmers by setting up kiosks. It plans to spend Rs 10 crore ($2.14 million) on the project. ITC is 31.7 per cent owned by British American Tobacco. ITC has set up some 100 internet kiosks in the central state of Madhya Pradesh, the country's soybean bowl besides launching a soya portal. ITC's International Business Division deals in feed ingredients such as soymeal and rapeseed, foodgrains, coffee and marine products. - Reuters http://www.economictimes.com/today/13tech21.htm From owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Thu Dec 14 08:14:47 2000 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id IAA106763; Thu, 14 Dec 2000 08:14:47 +1000 (EST) Received: from im.eth.net (mail.uthplanet.com [202.9.136.18]) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id IAA106741 for ; Thu, 14 Dec 2000 08:14:42 +1000 (EST) Received: from bytesforall ([61.11.9.45]) by im.eth.net with Microsoft SMTPSVC(5.5.1877.117.11); Thu, 14 Dec 2000 03:40:43 +0530 From: Frederick Noronha Reply-To: fred@bytesforall.org Organization: Freelance Journalist To: s-asia-it@apnic.net Subject: NEWS-INDIA: Internet on cable launched in Hyderabad Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 01:16:04 +0530 X-Mailer: KMail [version 1.0.29] Content-Type: text/plain Cc: Cybercom MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-Id: <0012140116280C.00525@bytesforall> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Precedence: bulk Internet on cable launched in Hyderabad by Mohammed Shafeeq, India Abroad News Service Hyderabad, Dec 13 - Internet connectivity through cable without the hassles of a telephone line or cable modem was launched in Hyderabad, capital of Andhra Pradesh, Wednesday. Chief Minister Nara Chandrababu Naidu launched the service, saying the facility would soon be extended to other major cities and towns in the state. Mac Info is a company providing the cable connection in the city. "The state government will provide Internet connection to every village in the state in 18 months," Naidu said, adding that Reliance was working on laying fiber optic lines in the state. Mac Info has implemented HDSL technology on a point-to-point link, bypassing the existing leased circuits and thus reducing cost of the cable connection. Its state-of-the-art MAN technology ensures uninterrupted high speed and economical access to the Internet. "We have dedicated ourselves to provide high-speed Internet access to support business as well as personal surfing needs," Mac Info chief executive officer N.V. Subba Rao said. The company has laid cables across 60 km in Hyderabad and Secunderabad and plans to cover another 100 km in one year. It has invested Rs. 30 million on creating the infrastructure. It plans to expand its network to Vijayawada, Visakhapatnam and other places in the state soon. The company will charge Rs.5,000 for installation and a monthly rent of Rs.1,200 for unlimited access. It will also collect Rs.500 as annual maintenance charge for the first year. Even before the formal launch, more than 2,000 people had registered with the company for connections. Mac Info also offers a wide range of products and services. It has launched a browser in Telugu for instant translation of any Web page from English to Telugu. "This will help most of the people in Andhra Pradesh who can't take advantage of the Internet as the medium of communication is English," Subba Rao said. Mac Info became the first to publish books online in Telugu language. It launched "Oke Okkadu", a biography of former chief minister N.T. Rama Rao authored by I. Venkat Rao, editor of the Telugu daily Andhra Jyoti. Mac Info also plans to set up an office in Europe to help European companies attract Indian software professionals. Subba Rao said the company, through its Web site eurojobs4u.com, would provide an opportunity to European and Indian companies to come together. From owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Thu Dec 14 14:48:42 2000 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id OAA90582; Thu, 14 Dec 2000 14:48:42 +1000 (EST) Received: from post.super.net.pk (smtp-khi1.super.net.pk [203.130.2.9]) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id OAA90552 for ; Thu, 14 Dec 2000 14:48:34 +1000 (EST) Received: from excel586 (khi-line-106.super.net.pk [203.130.5.245]) by post.super.net.pk (8.9.1/8.9.3) with ESMTP id JAA29491 for ; Thu, 14 Dec 2000 09:59:53 -0500 From: "Irfan Khan" To: s-asia-it@apnic.net Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 09:52:01 +0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Indian females make it big in IT Message-ID: <3A389841.32420.42AE08@localhost> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12c) Sender: owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Precedence: bulk Indian females make it big in IT By Staff, ZDNet Asia 11 December 2000 The information technology wave appears to be going down well for Indian ladies. Many of them are now in key positions in both India and abroad. NEW DELHI - Gagandeep Kaur, who works in an IT multinational company in Sweden, noted that Indian women advance faster in their IT careers compared to European women. Kaur, who obtained her MBA and a Masters in Computer Science in India, also said that the pace of IT is slower in Europe than in India, and that telecommuting is not uncommon in India. IT actually helps in equalising gender, and Indian women working in IT firms demand no special treatment, Kaur commented. Kaur admitted that IT is still very much a male-dominated arena, although she added that more women are embracing it. When it comes to differences in working patterns between India and Sweden, Kaur said that she finds it easier to work in Europe as people consider her a professional. Indians also tend to take feedback more personally, she observed. http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/dailynews/story/0,2000010021,20164020- 1,00.htm From owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Fri Dec 15 15:33:33 2000 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id PAA76604; Fri, 15 Dec 2000 15:33:32 +1000 (EST) Received: from post.super.net.pk (smtp-khi1.super.net.pk [203.130.2.9]) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id PAA76596 for ; Fri, 15 Dec 2000 15:33:26 +1000 (EST) Received: from excel586 (khi-line-028.super.net.pk [203.130.5.167]) by post.super.net.pk (8.9.1/8.9.3) with ESMTP id KAA22758 for ; Fri, 15 Dec 2000 10:45:23 -0500 From: "Irfan Khan" To: s-asia-it@apnic.net Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2000 10:37:32 +0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Number of PCs sold in India soaring Message-ID: <3A39F46C.12332.77D249@localhost> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12c) Sender: owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Precedence: bulk 15 December 2000 Number of PCs sold in India soaring NEW DELHI: Increasingly net-savvy consumers and rapidly falling prices mean the number of personal computers (PCs) that have been sold in India will hit the five-million-mark this month, infotech magazine Dataquest said on Thursday. And that figure is expected to double to 10 million by January 2003, the magazine said. The first desktop was launched in India in 1984, when just 1,200 PC units were sold, the magazine said. The country crossed the annual one million PC sales threshold in 1999. The Indian PC industry is forecast to ship 1.7 million units this year. By 2004, some five million units are expected to be sold annually, the magazine said. The magazine said the Internet and falling prices have "fuelled a mushrooming home and small office market for the PCs." During the early 1980s, computers were being sold at Rs 200,000 each. Now a multinational branded multimedia PC is available for less than Rs 35,000. A survey by International Data Corp in July listed India as the fastest growing PC market in the Asia-Pacific region, excluding Japan. The Indian market has seen local assemblers stealing a march over their domestic and multinational computer hardware rivals, Dataquest said. Over 50 per cent of total PC shipments were now from unbranded manufacturers, the magazine said. Four years ago, they accounted for less than 40 per cent of the market, it said.(Reuters) http://www.timesofindia.com/today/15info6.htm From owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Sat Dec 16 00:34:39 2000 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id AAA76347; Sat, 16 Dec 2000 00:34:39 +1000 (EST) Received: from pop-khi3.super.net.pk (pop-khi3.super.net.pk [203.130.2.13]) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id AAA76250 for ; Sat, 16 Dec 2000 00:33:53 +1000 (EST) Received: from excel586 (khi-line-115.super.net.pk [203.130.5.115]) by pop-khi3.super.net.pk (8.10.0/8.10.0) with ESMTP id eBFETpZ12610 for ; Fri, 15 Dec 2000 19:29:55 +0500 From: "Irfan Khan" To: s-asia-it@apnic.net Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2000 19:37:50 +0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Subject: "Divide and rule out" by Victor Keegan Message-ID: <3A3A730E.13773.24BE16@localhost> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12c) Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from Quoted-printable to 8bit by ns.apnic.net id AAA76344 Sender: owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Precedence: bulk Divide and rule out The internet revolution has still failed to reach 98% of the planet's population. Victor Keegan on the importance of bridging the digital divide December 14, 2000 The single pervasive theme of the 21st century has already been decided. It is the Digital Divide and whether it can be bridged. Seldom has a potential social malaise engaged so many minds everywhere at the same time. It is as if concerned people around the world have simultaneously decided not only that the problem should be solved but that it actually can be. Every one is getting in on the act, from the United Nations and the Group of Eight at the top, to university departments and community groups at the other end of the scale. In Britain, Tony Blair has promised "universal access" (whatever that means) by 2005 and is putting plenty of money where his mouth is - including £250m for disadvantaged communities to go online, £250m to train teachers, and increased pressure on BT to deliver broadband. But what medium is best suited to deliver universal access? The PC may peak at around 60% penetration and digital television is unlikely to cover more than 70% of the population, leaving 30% disenfranchised. Most social problems of this magnitude are only debated after the event. It is only when global developments have produced social chasms - whether involving health, wealth, gender or ethnicity - that the conscience of the world is stirred and remedies explored. The digital divide is unusual in that a solution is being sought in real time - while the revolution itself is being unrolled. The initial success is mildly encouraging, at least in the industrialised world, even though it has been triggered by the driving force of the technology rather than human endeavour. The speed at which people in richer countries have adopted the net is far faster than adoption rates for previous technologies such as telegraph, radio, television, fax and video. Fast adoption has been driven by rapidly improving technology in all the key areas - computers, telecommunications, storage, bandwidth, digital cameras etc - accompanied by an equally rapid fall in real prices. Within some subsections of the IT revolution the adoption rates, particularly among youngsters, has been phenomenal. Sending text messages by mobile phone, unheard of 18 months ago, has now reached 10bn, overtaking email in popularity. Since mobile phone penetration has already reached 90% among some categories of young people, the problem of digital disadvantage has been solved even before companies and governments have started to work out what role phones should have in the digital revolution. That is exceptional but it underlines the fact that there is no single digital divide but lots of overlapping ones: between old and young, men and women, rich and poor, blacks and whites, northern hemisphere and southern hemisphere and, above all, between developed and developing nations. This is the area where the creation of a vast new underprivileged digitariat, even more dispossessed than now seems inevitable unless dramatic action is taken. The bald statistics are depressingly familiar: barely 2% of the world's population of more than 6bn are linked to the internet; most people on the planet have not even made a telephone call, let alone accessed the web; there are more telephone lines in a big city like Tokyo than in the whole of sub-Saharan Africa. In the US, internet access costs a user only 1% of average monthly income, whereas in Uganda it costs more than a month's average (per capita) income. Most of the new business opportunities in the next few decades will either be the creation of digital goods (such as music, audio and films) or the application of digital and internet techniques to old economy products (such as mapping and monitoring systems in cars or intelligent fridges). Those developing countries whom the internet has passed by, will be doubly hit by all this. They will not be making any of the new economy goods that people increasingly want to buy, while at the same time their traditional markets (such as commodities) will be squeezed by the price deflation brought about by the creation of giant electronic marketplaces on the internet. Meanwhile, what little international investment has been going their way will be diverted to the more exciting prospects (even after the experience of the past year) of internet-related projects generated by the information-rich countries. The US provides a strong contrast with the prospects for the Third World. According to the organisation monitoring the digital divide [http://www.digitaldivide.gov/ ], the share of households with internet access has soared from 26.2% in December 1998 to 41.5% in August this year. More than half of all households now have computers. But the interesting thing is that while net access is still disproportionately the prerogative of richer people, the digital divide is being tackled. During the most recently recorded 20 months, the number of black households with internet access at home has more than doubled from 11.2% to 23.5%. Hispanic households have experienced similar growth (from 12.6% to 23.6%). This is still way behind the access of white households and also Asian and Pacific Islanders, who have the highest access rates of all (56.8%), but it is moving in the right direction. In Britain, a Guardian/ICM poll earlier this year predicted that almost half of all adults in the UK would be online early next year. But, whereas 59% of the most affluent AB social group would be online, only 14% of the poorest DE social class, which includes the unskilled, would be in a similar position. However, Professor Patrick Dunleavy of LSE reminds us, that all expensive new goods sell first to the wealthy classes. He points to figures from the British Market Research Bureau showing that in the year to mid-1999 the growth in internet access was 33% for the rich AB social group but 44% for C1s and 44% for C2s. Even among the retired and unemployed DE group access grew by 50% over that period. In August 2000 the proportion of ABs and C1s who used the net during the previous month rose by 33% compared with a year earlier, while C2s, Ds and Es rose by 70% to 80%. George Gilder, the US guru, argues that the wealthiest 20% are paying for all the false starts and glitches that plague any new technology, thus bringing it down the learning curve, where everyone else can get it a few years later at a quarter the price. He says:"That's the digital divide. The rich provide the investment and the rest reap the rewards." David Elstein, former head of Channel Five, told a roundtable on the digital divide (reported in this week's New Statesman) that every new innovation, from radio to the Consumers' Association, divides society. Online evangelists, he claimed, had not yet proved what you needed to do for the net revolution that you did not for the others. The answer, maybe, is that not having electricity or a phone in an industrialising society is less of a handicap than net access because of the all- pervasive nature of the new revolution. Not to have access to information in an information-driven age, when most jobs require techie or keyboarding skills, is to risk total exclusion. Information moves so fast these days that sending an email has a definite advantage over a letter. In the information economy, knowledge is vital and most of it is locked inside peoples' heads. That is partly why the dot.com companies were so ludicrously overvalued this year. But once knowledge becomes a digital product - a document, a music file or a video - it can be transmitted instantly to millions of consumers at no extra cost. This offers a tantalising prospect for the Third World. Countries in Africa which, 150 years on, have not yet even experienced the effects of the industrial revolution, have the potential to leapfrog into the information age. Some indeed are already starting to experiment (see Online, page 12). It is not necessary any longer to have an expensive network of copper wires because the wireless revolution can beam appropriate information to remote villages from some of the satellites that fly over Africa virtually unused. What is needed is a new generation of international social entrepreneurs to harness the unused technology of the multi-nationals to the needs of the poorest countries. Of course, as Bill Gates has pointed out, what deprived people need is not computers but basic things such as medicine. Jubilee 2000 has pointed out that you could vaccinate 2,000 children against six killer diseases for the price of a computer. That is true. Also, as Kevin Watkins of Oxfam points out, in much of sub-Saharan Africa more than half of primary-age children are denied the opportunity of even a rudimentary primary education and fewer than one third make it to secondary school. All of this puts technology transfer in a depressing context. But it is not irrelevant. Internet access raises the prospect of being able to disseminate vital medical information and to do remote diagnosing. It is potentially a "killer-app" for Africa for improving education if appropriate, and appropriately cheap, methods of delivery are found. Ultimately, the best way forward is by increasing economic growth. This involves a host of factors including debt relief, stable macro- economic policies that encourage enterprise and discourage monopolies. But education is at the core because of the long-run connection between improving education and economic growth. The point is that improving health, food, education and net access should not be seen as being in opposition to each other. They are all part of the solution. And they must be applied quickly. Otherwise the praiseworthy progress being made to narrow the digital divide in industrialised countries will be swamped by the opening up of an even bigger divide between developed and developing countries. It is already happening. If nothing is done it will create a digital sore that industrialised nations will have on their consciences for ever. Their culpability is all the greater because they know they have the means to tackle it but have so far chosen to do very little to solve it. Soon, the talking will have to stop. http://www.guardian.co.uk/internetnews/story/0,7369,411112,00.html From owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Sat Dec 16 04:08:34 2000 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id EAA101539; Sat, 16 Dec 2000 04:08:33 +1000 (EST) Received: from post.super.net.pk (smtp-khi1.super.net.pk [203.130.2.9]) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id EAA101486 for ; Sat, 16 Dec 2000 04:08:07 +1000 (EST) Received: from excel586 (khi-line-056.super.net.pk [203.130.5.195]) by post.super.net.pk (8.9.1/8.9.3) with ESMTP id XAA05798 for ; Fri, 15 Dec 2000 23:20:06 -0500 From: "Irfan Khan" To: s-asia-it@apnic.net Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2000 23:11:52 +0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: [India] 2 million, 5 million, what's the difference? Message-ID: <3A3AA538.14590.B8A6F2@localhost> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12c) Sender: owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Precedence: bulk 11 Dec 2000 2 million, 5 million, what's the difference? Plenty, say analysts who complain varying estimates of Internet users in India upsets dotcoms' business strategies [NEW DELHI] Discrepancies over the estimated number of Internet users in India is upsetting the business strategy of many a dotcom company, say software industry watchers and analysts. "If you do do not know what your potential market is going to be in terms of numbers, how will you draw up any business plan?" said Vineet Narang, vice president of New Delhi-based FCS Software solutions. Studies by established market research agencies indicate the number could vary anywhere between two and five million. "The discrepancy is because there is no clear definition of the Internet user," said Mohan Krishna, research director with the Indian Market Research Bureau (IMRB). An IMRB survey, which only counts core users -- those who use the internet at least once a week for 30 minutes and for more than just sending an e-mail -- says there are 2.2 million Internet users in India. Another survey by Gartner (India) puts the number at 3.1 million, while a third by NASSCOM, an association of software companies counts 4.8 million. According to IMRB, other studies have counted people who have used the Internet just once in the past three months, which is why their figures are higher. Sometimes, the number of Internet users are also hyped up intentionally -- "just to keep the market going," Mr Krishna said. Clueless However according to Mr Narang, the recent shake-up in the Indian dotcom sector can partly be attributed to people rushing in to launch websites and portals without a clue about who their customers or audiences are. "Most people launched portals thinking they will click. So you had a plethora of portals offering you-name-it services and no or fewer- than-expected takers, making all business plans go awry," Mr Narang said. But even if one resolves the debate of numbers, "the figure of two to five million users is still too small to sustain the number of people launching e-business", said Arvind Mahajan, head of e-business strategy and consulting at Price Waterhouse Coopers. According to Nikhil Nath, who heads a venture capitalist firm in New Delhi, the first mistake made by a number of dotcom companies was thinking that the user base could "sustain a multitude of sites and portals". A number of dotcoms also misjudged the number of people who would use the Internet for services like shopping, Mr Nath said, adding that the credit card base in India was too small to replicate the e- commerce success seen in the US, he said. "I know a lot of people who would like to use the Net for shopping but are afraid of the security aspects." VCs wary All these factors add up to make venture capitalists wary of financing dotcoms which have "no concrete business models and plans based on specific numbers and figures", Mr Nath said. The indications are that venture capitalists will go slow on their investments in Indian dotcom ventures untill Internet becomes available on television. "It could take at least five years, as India will take time to get used to the new medium and shopping without a visit to the markets," said Mr Nath. -- AFP http://business-times.asia1.com.sg/3/fbzit/fbzit19.html From owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Sat Dec 16 04:10:06 2000 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id EAA101721; Sat, 16 Dec 2000 04:10:06 +1000 (EST) Received: from post.super.net.pk (smtp-khi1.super.net.pk [203.130.2.9]) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id EAA101617 for ; Sat, 16 Dec 2000 04:09:11 +1000 (EST) Received: from excel586 (khi-line-056.super.net.pk [203.130.5.195]) by post.super.net.pk (8.9.1/8.9.3) with ESMTP id XAA05803 for ; Fri, 15 Dec 2000 23:20:13 -0500 From: "Irfan Khan" To: s-asia-it@apnic.net Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2000 23:11:52 +0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Subject: [India] Delhi No. 2 in internet access Message-ID: <3A3AA538.20285.B8A925@localhost> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12c) Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from Quoted-printable to 8bit by ns.apnic.net id EAA101718 Sender: owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Precedence: bulk Dec 15 2000 Delhi No. 2 in internet access Sudha Nagaraj NEW DELHI DELHI is fast emerging as the hot new cyber hub in the country. On the heels of a progressive state IT policy that envisions promotion of IT for the masses, e-governance, IT investments and a couple of gungho reports on its geographical location and historical advantages comes the revelation that it has the second largest number of Internet subscribers in the country. With 3,19,616 Internet subscribers, the national capital has more than half of Maharashtra’s 6,19,524 Net connections, about double of Karnataka and as much as Karnataka and Tamil Nadu — the two traditional IT centres — put together. In fact, the Information Technology Policy 2000 of the Delhi government has identified conversion of Delhi into a regional hub for Internet, e-commerce and digital services traffic as one of the 16 steps to make Delhi an IT hot-spot. Says S Regunathan, principal secretary to the chief minister and in- charge of IT, “Delhi is not even a typical state. It is only a town, so, among metropolitan cities, it is leading in Net connections. In the next two years, we expect the subscription base to touch two million. This will be helped by the optic fibre network being laid by Spectranet — already 700 kms have been laid. Reliance has also jumped in. That means Net penetration through cable will also be possible. With Delhi having the highest number of TVs, many others like Bharti are interested in laying fibre.” Economic, political and geographical factors do play an important role in the IT complexion of a region. This is evident in the pattern and number of internet subscribers across the country. The BIMARU states of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh — with the exception of Rajasthan — are also the biggest states in India, and account for less than one lakh connections, whereas Maharashtra alone has six times the figure. As on September 30, the connections in Rajasthan (35,260), Madhya Pradesh (32,186), Uttar Pradesh (25,881) and Bihar (4,187) have thrown up the Northern states in poor light in the Net economy. The “connected” South is better off with Tamil Nadu and Karnataka leading the pack with 2,91,032 and 1,93,876 subscribers respectively. Tamil Nadu’s performance as the third best is aided by the fact that it has several “educated and industrialised” cities and towns, and does not fall back heavily on just one capital city, like, say, Karnataka does on Bangalore. Andhra Pradesh disappoints with a mere 91,103 subscribers. So much for all the hype about cyber chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu and his IT revolution. Fully-literate Kerala is making good strides with 49,582 subscribers. West Bengal with 1,60,054 connections is fourth on the list while Gujarat follows with 1,13,633 connections. Both government and industry sources cite VSNL, Caltiger, Satyam, Dishnet, Bharti, MTNL and BSNL as the leading ISPs in the country today, servicing a total of 20,45,509 subscribers. Despite the growing gap between the top cities and the laggards, the industry is upbeat about its initial projection that Net connections will double every six months for the next five years. Says Amitabh Singhal, secretary, Internet Service Providers Association of India, “As on March 2000, the total subscriber base was about 9.61 lakh… so, we were right after all. It should be remembered though that the subscriber base only refers to those who are paying for the connection. The number of users would be five-fold, which means if the subscribers account for 0.2 per cent of the population, the user-base translates into 1 per cent, that is 10 million users.” As of now, PC penetration, which stands at 4.5 million, has limited Net penetration to 2 million users, he says. Going by the trend of cable operators turning into ISPs, Singhal is confident that the user base will spread across the 35-million cable connected homes, thereby expanding to 10 per cent of the population in just five years. http://www.economictimes.com/today/15tech02.htm From owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Sat Dec 16 20:34:35 2000 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id UAA80154; Sat, 16 Dec 2000 20:34:34 +1000 (EST) Received: from pop-khi3.super.net.pk (pop-khi3.super.net.pk [203.130.2.13]) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id UAA80131 for ; Sat, 16 Dec 2000 20:34:29 +1000 (EST) Received: from excel586 ([203.130.7.158]) by pop-khi3.super.net.pk (8.10.0/8.10.0) with ESMTP id eBGAUZZ20760 for ; Sat, 16 Dec 2000 15:30:37 +0500 From: "Irfan Khan" To: s-asia-it@apnic.net Date: Sat, 16 Dec 2000 15:38:40 +0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: (Fwd) [***] Internet Research Methods in Asia, Sep 2001 Message-ID: <3A3B8C80.714.183500@localhost> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12c) Sender: owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Precedence: bulk ------- Forwarded message follows ------- Date sent: Wed, 13 Dec 2000 17:13:01 +1100 To: asia-www-monitor@coombs.anu.edu.au From: "T.Matthew Ciolek" The Asian Studies WWW Monitor: mid Dec 2000, Vol. 7, No. 131 ------------------------------------------------------------- 11 Dec 2000 Internet Research Methods in Asia, Sep 2001 The National University of Singapore, Singapore Supplied note: "Call for Papers: 'Internet Research: Methodological Considerations in Assessing the Impact of The Internet in Asia' A workshop to be held in conjunction with the 'Internet Political Economy Forum 2001: Internet and Development in Asia' Sep 14-15, 2001 - Singapore. [...] We are especially interested in papers that outline new and innovative methods for studying the Internet or the adaptation of traditional social science methods [...]. Papers should focus on the practical, hands-on aspects of methodology, rather than theoretical issues. [...] Send an abstract and curriculum vitae by Feb 1, 2001 to: Dr. Eric C. Thompson, Research Fellow, UCLA CSEAS, ecthomp@isop.ucla.edu." URL http://www.fas.nus.edu.sg/icm/ipef/index.htm Link suggested by: Eric Thompson (ecthomp@isop.ucla.edu) * Resource type [news - documents - study - corporate info. - online guide]: Corporate Info. * Scholarly usefulness [essential - v.useful - useful - interesting - marginal]: Useful ------------------------------------------------------------- Src: The Asian Studies WWW Monitor ISSN 1329-9778 URL http://coombs.anu.edu.au/asia-www-monitor.html Announce your new/improved Asian Studies' Web sites via http://coombs.anu.edu.au/regasia.html - regards - - Dr T. Matthew CIOLEK tmciolek@coombs.anu.edu.au Head, Internet Publications Bureau, RSPAS, The Australian National University, Canberra ph +61 (02) 6249 0110 fax: +61 (02) 6257 1893 http://www.ciolek.com/PEOPLE/ciolek-tm.html -==================================================- From owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Sat Dec 16 20:34:39 2000 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id UAA80173; Sat, 16 Dec 2000 20:34:38 +1000 (EST) Received: from pop-khi3.super.net.pk (pop-khi3.super.net.pk [203.130.2.13]) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id UAA80133 for ; Sat, 16 Dec 2000 20:34:32 +1000 (EST) Received: from excel586 ([203.130.7.158]) by pop-khi3.super.net.pk (8.10.0/8.10.0) with ESMTP id eBGAUdZ20763 for ; Sat, 16 Dec 2000 15:30:39 +0500 From: "Irfan Khan" To: s-asia-it@apnic.net Date: Sat, 16 Dec 2000 15:38:39 +0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Nepal IT Conference 2001 / Information & Call for papers Message-ID: <3A3B8C7F.14338.1832A4@localhost> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12c) Sender: owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Precedence: bulk From: "Gaurab Raj Upadhaya" To: S-asia-it@apnic.net Date: Sat, 16 Dec 2000 09:26:43 +0530 Subject: Nepal IT Conference 2001 / Information & Call for papers apoligies for cross posting. gaurab ====== Nepal IT Conference : "IT Revolution: A millennium Opportunity" CAN Info Tech 2001 offers a dynamic, full-fledge two days IT Conference @ the foot hills of the Himalayas at the dawn of the new millennium. The Conference aims to forum for discussions to scholars, professionals, business from Nepal, SAARC and outside region. The mega event CAN Info-tech 2001 is expected more to attract than 100,000 visitiors from all over Nepal and neighbouring Countries. The conference also offers to discuss practical aspects of IT which will allow the participants mutual learning as well as an opportunity to explore new horizons and perspective for developing nations. Besides, it provides a common forum for sharing success sotries while using IT in consolidating development efforts. Countries like Nepal can learn for use IT to provide better health services or education to poor and rural people, and increase agriculture productivity. The conference will be divided into six sessions devoted to different topics. Country papers will be presented in the opening plenary, expected to attended by distinguished professionals from the region. Experiences from countries around the world, are expected during ongoing sessions. Please find the program below. The Highlights The conference has many powerful agendas that will update you with the latest information and events related with IT and its applications. - There will be over 6 directional keynotes by renowned visionaries and apostles of teh IT industry. - Major IT focused tracks will cover the entire spectrum of the IT paradigm. - There will be over 6 sessions in two days that will address a gamut of technology, business and application issues. - Above all, an in-depth panel discussion that will provide a global perspective to suit Nepalese demand. Conference Program The conference theme has been titled "IT Revolution: A millennium opportunity." Six sessions including opening and closing plenary will run marathon for two days. Categories and Topic Areas - Opening Plenary IT in developing Countries : The SAARC Experience Country paper from SAARC countries. - First Session IT for Better quality of Life * E-Governance * E-Commerce * Distance Learning * Tele- medicine - Second Session Breaking the ICE (Information, Communication & Entertainment) Technology * WAP * Mobile Computing * New Media * Broadband * Internet Radio - Third Session Information Technology Human Resources * IT Education * IT Training * Virtual (Open) University - Fourth Session IT Enabled Services * Medical Transcription * Call Center * GIS Data Conversion * Software exprots Closing Plenary IT Investment opportunities in Nepal Call For Papers: Papers are invited on above mentioned topics by 31st December 2000. Conference Registration Ways to Register By E-mail: conference@caninfo.org By Mail: CAN, GPO BOX 4982, Kathamndu, Nepal. Fax. +977 1 424043 Tel. +977 1 432700 Registration Fees (For two days conference) Foreign Delegate: US$ 150.00 SAARC Delegate: US$ 75.00 Nepali Delegate: NRs 2500.00 Nepali Students: NRs 1500.00 Group Discounts: Three or more delegates from the same organization registering at the same time will receive a 10% discounts. Associations: Member of professional CAN related associations are entitled to an additional 10% discount. Please mark the name of the association on the registration form. Exhibition Open to All. More information available from e-mail: basanta@icimod.org.np URL: www.caninfo.org and www.can.org.np /~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~\ | Gaurab Raj Upadhaya | GPO BOX 13655, Kathmandu, Nepal, +977 1 499 393 | gaurabu@yahoo.com , AOL-IM: gaurabraj \~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~/ From owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Sat Dec 16 21:48:43 2000 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id VAA88051; Sat, 16 Dec 2000 21:48:43 +1000 (EST) Received: from web11403.mail.yahoo.com ([216.136.131.233]) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id VAA88047 for ; Sat, 16 Dec 2000 21:48:40 +1000 (EST) Message-ID: <20001216114838.26116.qmail@web11403.mail.yahoo.com> Received: from [216.252.166.229] by web11403.mail.yahoo.com; Sat, 16 Dec 2000 03:48:38 PST Date: Sat, 16 Dec 2000 03:48:38 -0800 (PST) From: Azad RMS Subject: (Fwd) India and Freedom of Information To: s-asia-it@apnic.net MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Precedence: bulk ------- Forwarded message follows ------- From: Ilana Cravitz To: India Interest Subject: India and Freedom of Information Date sent: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 17:42:26 -0000 ARTICLE 19 today sent the following letter to Indian MPs. It makes recommendations for bringing the Freedom of Information Bill into line with international standards. Members of the Standing Committee on Home Affairs New Delhi India 12 December 2000 Dear Committee Member ARTICLE 19, The Global Campaign for Free Expression, is an international human rights organization based in London with expertise in freedom of expression, including freedom of information. We are writing to you to provide our comments on the Indian Freedom of Information Bill, 2000, which is currently before Parliament. For your interest, we enclose our Memorandum on the Indian Freedom of Information Bill, 2000, which provides a detailed look at how the Bill could be improved to protect and promote effectively the public's right to know in India. I am also sending you our most important publication in the area of freedom of information, The Public's Right to Know: Principles on Freedom of Information Legislation, which sets out principles based on international and comparative best practice. You can find other publications on this issue on our website, www.article19.org . ARTICLE 19 believes that the Indian Freedom of Information Bill is positive in many areas but at the same time we are concerned that it fails to meet international standards in a number of areas. Its ability to effectively guarantee the public's right to know is particularly affected by flaws in two crucial areas, as follows: * The Bill fails to provide for an independent review of refusals to disclose information, either by an independent administrative body or by the courts. This means that decisions on whether or not to release information rest entirely within government. * A blanket exclusion of key intelligence and security organisations and an excessively broad regime of exemptions significantly undermine the potential for the Bill to promote the public's right to know. The lack of a public interest override for these exclusions and exemptions further undermines the Bill. We hope that you will use your influence in the Standing Committee on Home Affairs to ensure that the Bill is amended to meet the highest international standards. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions on our submission or related matters. Yours sincerely, Toby Mendel Head of Law Programme ARTICLE 19's analysis of the FoI Bill is at www.article19.org/docimages/883.htm Our Principles on Freedom of Information are at www.article19.org/docimages/512.htm Reply to: Ilana Cravitz, Communications Officer ilana@article19.org Direct line: +44 20 7239 1199 ARTICLE 19, Global Campaign for Free Expression Lancaster House, 33 Islington High Street, London N1 9LH, UK Tel: +44 20 7278 9292, Fax: +44 20 7713 1356, e-mail: info@article19.org, www.article19.org __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Shopping - Thousands of Stores. Millions of Products. http://shopping.yahoo.com/ From owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Sat Dec 16 22:40:02 2000 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id WAA93591; Sat, 16 Dec 2000 22:40:02 +1000 (EST) Received: from eximc-2.lse.ac.uk (eximc-2.lse.ac.uk [158.143.100.32]) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id WAA93587 for ; Sat, 16 Dec 2000 22:39:59 +1000 (EST) Received: by eximc-2.lse.ac.uk with Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) id ; Sat, 16 Dec 2000 12:38:57 -0000 Message-ID: <43CE1CB09DEDD11196DF000629054FBB052FC1FC@exchs2.lse.ac.uk> From: "Nath,V (pgt)" To: "'s-asia-it@apnic.net'" Subject: Events on IT and Knowledge Management Date: Sat, 16 Dec 2000 12:37:56 -0000 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Sender: owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Precedence: bulk Dear Colleagues Greetings from the KnowNet Initiative at http://www.knownet.org Just to let you know that we have initiated a section on upcoming events relating to ICT and Knowledge Management on our website at http://www.knownet.org (under the events section) and also at our mirror website at http://www.cddc.vt.edu/knownet Please keep us posted about any other event you know of and which you think could be included on the website. The KnowNet initiative centers around using and propagating ICT models for creating an open system for recognising, valuing, enriching and sharing of local knowledge, in parallel with human capacity building efforts. This will lead to a two-way process of people accessing information and knowledge for development and also information and knowledge finding its way to the probable users. KnowNet aims to empower communities to use ICT models for creating of Livelihood Opportunites, to evolve better Coping Mechanisms, and seek better Governance to improve their Quality of lives, on the basis of their own knowledge and efforts. Do let me know if you need more information. Warm Regards, Vikas Nath Innovator, KnowNet Initiative, http://www.knownet.org Inlaks Fellow, 2000-1, London School of Economics. From owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Sun Dec 17 03:55:29 2000 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id DAA127789; Sun, 17 Dec 2000 03:55:29 +1000 (EST) Received: from post.super.net.pk (smtp-khi1.super.net.pk [203.130.2.9]) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id DAA127722 for ; Sun, 17 Dec 2000 03:54:49 +1000 (EST) Received: from excel586 (khi-line-006.super.net.pk [203.130.5.145]) by post.super.net.pk (8.9.1/8.9.3) with ESMTP id XAA27025 for ; Sat, 16 Dec 2000 23:06:38 -0500 From: "Irfan Khan" To: s-asia-it@apnic.net Date: Sat, 16 Dec 2000 22:58:28 +0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: World Computer Exchange Update Message-ID: <3A3BF395.15799.1253852@localhost> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12c) Sender: owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Precedence: bulk [mentions activities in india and pakistan; with thanks to KABISSA- FAHAMU NEWSLETTER - 15 December 2000] ... World Computer Exchange Update http://www.worldcomputerexchange.org I'd like to update you about the Computer Exchange work. We've added another country to the program (making 34) and another 38 schools (making 458). As you may recall, each school agrees to connect its students with students in US schools and help its students develop websites to share their rich history & culture. This month, we learned that SDNP India (within the Ministry of Environment and Forests of the Government of India) decided not to fund the Exchange's shipment to SEWA planned for the middle of December. We are now working to secure alternative funding and encouraging the Exchange's NGO Partners and Allied Organisations in India to seek to involve SDNP in all of their ICT planning. It looks like this may delay this first shipment into January. Any advice would be most welcome! We would like to extend special thanks to those organizations that have made commitments of computers and monitors during November, including Ford Motor Company, Fidelity Investments, Think Detroit, and the Riecken Foundation. Alex Mbianda, our Programme Officer for Cameroon, has secured computers, monitors, and printers from Keyspan Energy Delivery. Thanks for help in recruiting computers to two of our Allied Organisations: Asha for Education and Kabissa-A Space for Africa on the Internet. This month, the Exchange will enter into a standard agreement with the Ministry of Technology of the Government of Pakistan to provide computers for Internet access for schools in Pakistan. This agreement is contingent on their providing $15,000 to cover the Exchange's costs for this shipment and $5,000 for the shipping costs. The Exchange has now approved fifteen partner agreements. A completed Plan of Implementation and draft list of schools has been received from the Agency for Sustainable Development Initiatives in Uganda. It reflects their work in cooperation with several other NGOs to recruit schools and funding to cover the Exchange's shipping costs. We are also expecting a cooperative Plan of Implementation and draft list of schools jointly from the Foundation for Economic Development and SDNP in Bangladesh working with several other NGOs. It is wonderful that these two efforts are fully cooperating! This shipment is contingent upon the SDNP/UNDP directly paying the shipping costs. We would greatly appreciate any and all help in building a flow of donated computers for our NGO Partners and the schools that they have recruited! Your suggestions and comments welcome. Regards, Timothy Anderson President World Computer Exchange, Inc. 936 Nantasket Avenue Hull, Massachusetts 02045 USA 781.925.3078 FAX: 509.752.9186 http://www.WorldComputerExchange.org From owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Sun Dec 17 06:14:15 2000 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id GAA77295; Sun, 17 Dec 2000 06:14:14 +1000 (EST) Received: from im.eth.net (mail.uthplanet.com [202.9.136.18]) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id GAA77291 for ; Sun, 17 Dec 2000 06:14:10 +1000 (EST) Received: from bytesforall ([61.11.9.23]) by im.eth.net with Microsoft SMTPSVC(5.5.1877.117.11); Sun, 17 Dec 2000 01:40:09 +0530 From: Frederick Noronha Reply-To: fred@bytesforall.org Organization: Freelance Journalist To: csi-goa@goacom.com Subject: NEWS-INDIA: IT minister urges industry to develop hardware side of IT biz Date: Sun, 17 Dec 2000 00:46:28 +0530 X-Mailer: KMail [version 1.0.29] Content-Type: text/plain Cc: s-asia-it@apnic.net MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-Id: <0012170046520E.00528@bytesforall> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Precedence: bulk IT minister urges industry to develop hardware side of IT biz from India Abroad News Service New Delhi, Dec 16 - Information Technology Minister Pramod Mahajan has asked Indian industry to develop the hardware side of the information technology (IT) business with the same degree of innovation and dedication as has been done with software. Expressing the government's confidence in the power of technology to provide India the economic sovereignty, he assured the industry of the government's support on infrastructure building and the provision of a level playing field. Mahajan was speaking at the panel discussion on India Technology Inc. - Fact or Fantasy - organized by publication house Hindustan Times' weekly technology feature HT Tech 4U, here. "Nothing has caught the minds of people quite like IT since India's struggle for independence," a company press statement quoted him as saying. Chief Vigilance Commissioner N. Vittal said that India could become a technology superpower by focusing on the "4C mantra" - customer, competition, convergence and commitment. The horizon spells boom for the Indian economy, provided the government, industry and people continue to synergise their efforts in that direction, he said adding that all leading basic technologies such as biotechnology, robotics, telecommunications, civil aviation are all being powered by IT. Sunil Bharti Mittal, chairman and group managing director of Bharti Enterprises, pointed out that IT and telecom sectors provided the opportunities to create islands of excellence for India to excel in. Expressing the concern of the industry, Manoj Chugh, president (India and SAARC) of Cisco, said that the pace of development of basic infrastructure, the progress of which impinges on the pace of growth in software development, is holding India back from becoming the leader in technology. From owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Sun Dec 17 14:38:25 2000 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id OAA66938; Sun, 17 Dec 2000 14:38:24 +1000 (EST) Received: from inbound3.maa.sify.net ([202.144.76.10]) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id OAA66934 for ; Sun, 17 Dec 2000 14:38:20 +1000 (EST) Received: from arun.satyam.net.in (210.214.90.131) by inbound3.maa.sify.net (5.0.048) id 3A3A22F4000160B4; Sun, 17 Dec 2000 03:39:50 +0000 Message-Id: <5.0.2.1.2.20001217100030.01becba8@imap.satyam.net.in> X-Sender: indata@imap.satyam.net.in X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 5.0.2 Date: Sun, 17 Dec 2000 10:03:36 +0530 To: fred@bytesforall.org, csi-goa@goacom.com From: Arun Mehta Subject: Re: NEWS-INDIA: IT minister urges industry to develop hardware side of IT biz Cc: s-asia-it@apnic.net, India Gii In-Reply-To: <0012170046520E.00528@bytesforall> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Sender: owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Precedence: bulk Tried hiring an engineer lately who can do hardware design? That breed has almost vanished, at least in the Delhi region -- even in the IIT they are hard to find. Software gets you better jobs and salaries, which had pulled people not only from the hardware side, but other engineering disciplines too. Major problem looming -- a country cannot live by software alone. Arun At 12:46 AM 12/17/2000, Frederick Noronha wrote: >IT minister urges industry to develop hardware side of IT biz > >from India Abroad News Service > >New Delhi, Dec 16 - Information Technology Minister Pramod Mahajan has asked >Indian industry to develop the hardware side of the information technology >(IT) business with the same degree of innovation and dedication as has been >done with software. > >Expressing the government's confidence in the power of technology to provide >India the economic sovereignty, he assured the industry of the government's >support on infrastructure building and the provision of a level playing >field. > >Mahajan was speaking at the panel discussion on India Technology Inc. - Fact >or Fantasy - organized by publication house Hindustan Times' weekly >technology feature HT Tech 4U, here. > >"Nothing has caught the minds of people quite like IT since India's struggle >for independence," a company press statement quoted him as saying. > >Chief Vigilance Commissioner N. Vittal said that India could become a >technology superpower by focusing on the "4C mantra" - customer, >competition, convergence and commitment. > >The horizon spells boom for the Indian economy, provided the government, >industry and people continue to synergise their efforts in that direction, >he said adding that all leading basic technologies such as biotechnology, >robotics, telecommunications, civil aviation are all being powered by IT. > >Sunil Bharti Mittal, chairman and group managing director of Bharti >Enterprises, pointed out that IT and telecom sectors provided the >opportunities to create islands of excellence for India to excel in. > >Expressing the concern of the industry, Manoj Chugh, president (India and >SAARC) of Cisco, said that the pace of development of basic infrastructure, >the progress of which impinges on the pace of growth in software >development, is holding India back from becoming the leader in technology. Arun Mehta, B-69, Lajpat Nagar-I, New Delhi -- 110024, India. Phone +91-11-6841172, 6849103. http://members.tripod.com/india_gii To join india-gii, a list which discusses India's bumpy progress on the global infohighway, mail india-gii-subscribe@cpsr.org From owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Tue Dec 19 03:38:04 2000 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id DAA125030; Tue, 19 Dec 2000 03:38:03 +1000 (EST) Received: from pop-khi3.super.net.pk (pop-khi3.super.net.pk [203.130.2.13]) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id DAA125010 for ; Tue, 19 Dec 2000 03:37:51 +1000 (EST) Received: from excel586 (khi-line-134.super.net.pk [203.130.5.69]) by pop-khi3.super.net.pk (8.10.0/8.10.0) with ESMTP id eBIHXAZ15587 for ; Mon, 18 Dec 2000 22:33:18 +0500 From: "Irfan Khan" To: s-asia-it@apnic.net Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2000 22:41:20 +0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Rural Technology Institute-Gujarat, India Message-ID: <3A3E9290.17505.448159@localhost> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12c) Sender: owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Precedence: bulk [from The Asian Studies WWW Monitor: mid Dec 2000, Vol. 7, No. 131] ------- Forwarded message follows ------- Date sent: Mon, 18 Dec 2000 15:00:47 +1100 From: "T.Matthew Ciolek" --------------------------------------------- 15 Dec 2000 Rural Technology Institute-Gujarat Rural Technology Institute, Gujarat, India Supplied note: "The RTIG is established by The Gujarat State as Service Institute and is the first of its kind in country. The endeavor of the Institute is to coordinate the efforts to promote the concept of appropriate Technology for the Rural Development." URL http://www.rtigujarat.org Link suggested by: Naran Patel (rti@wilnetonline.net) * Resource type [news - documents - study - corporate info. - online guide]: Corporate Info. * Scholarly usefulness [essential - v.useful - useful - interesting - marginal]: Useful <...> From owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Tue Dec 19 03:45:15 2000 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id DAA125940; Tue, 19 Dec 2000 03:45:15 +1000 (EST) Received: from web11404.mail.yahoo.com (web11404.mail.yahoo.com [216.136.131.234]) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id DAA125936 for ; Tue, 19 Dec 2000 03:45:12 +1000 (EST) Message-ID: <20001218174510.1860.qmail@web11404.mail.yahoo.com> Received: from [216.252.166.229] by web11404.mail.yahoo.com; Mon, 18 Dec 2000 09:45:10 PST Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2000 09:45:10 -0800 (PST) From: Azad RMS Subject: The Global Development Gateway: The World Bank's Internet "Land-Grab" To: s-asia-it@apnic.net MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Precedence: bulk from: IMF-WTO-WB-WHO mailing list IMF-WTO-WB-WHO@fpcn-global.org http://www.fpcn-global.org/mailman/lists posted on 15 Dec. 2000 The Global Development Gateway: The World Bank's Internet "Land-Grab" By Alex Wilks, The Bretton Woods Project It is not safe to assume that the World Bank is on the defensive. Despite the recent protests, official commissions and unofficial research pieces which have contested the Bank's legitimacy and effectiveness James Wolfensohn has many new plans for expanding the Bank's areas of influence. One of the highest items on his agenda is an attempt at a major land grab on the internet, seeking to build a new $70 million supersite - "the premier web entry point for information about poverty and sustainable development." The Global Development Gateway (GDG) scheme is an ambitious attempt to gain more control over what analysis and opinions on development topics are deemed relevant and sound. The site aims to provide an overview of key policy issues with links to other sites with "good" information about them. Many grassroots and campaign-oriented sites will be weeded out on the grounds that they contain unsubstantiated opinions, not validated research. The site will be heavily marketed to officials, journalists, students, NGOs and others. Although tightly controlled by the Bank at this stage, the Gateway will be launched next year as an apparently independent foundation, giving the appearance of neutrality to unsuspecting surfers who are unaware of who is behind this apparently helpful site. The Bank is trying to impress G8 governments and others with a cutting edge, hi-tech, multi-stakeholder project that will deliver knowledge and expertise to communities worldwide. The buzzwords associated with it are "transparency", "interactivity" etc. However, the Bank is so clumsy in its attempts to bring people into this initiative that it has alienated many potential partners thus revealing once again its top-down approach to project planning and its failure to recognize that there are many diverse and conflicting views on development. This project also illustrates the Bank's failure to understand that the internet encourages horizontal networking, multiple opinions and links, rather than centralized planning and coordination. Wolfensohn has asserted that the internet can be a confusing, yet very powerful medium for people working on international issues. Activist groups such as Indymedia and Peoples' Global Action have demonstrated this, leading WTO officials to say that Seattle was not lost in the negotiating rooms, nor in the streets but on the internet. The GDG may pose a serious threat to campaign- and policy-oriented sites that offer information from other sources. Indeed, some sites which need a certain number of visitors to keep going would be likely to go bust. One major criticism is that the Bank is drastically overestimating what can be achieved in one website - "trying to kill five birds with one stone." The GDG aims to provide: easy access data about aid agency projects, a database of organizations working on development, an online bookstore, nested country websites, and a selection of links to analysis on over 100 policy topics. The analysis links are probably the most problematic. The Bank is recruiting editors or Topic Guides, who will be given the impossible task of trying to examine websites across the world to see what exists on their issues, then post links to whatever reports they feel match their "quality" standard. Roberto Bissio, Director of Instituto Tercer Mundo (Third World Institute) in Uruguay has likened the GDG to having the World Bank publish newspapers in countries where such resources are lacking: "There would be public outrage if someone proposed it, as the press is supposed to be free." Attempting to filter development-related information to produce a global supersite for so many audiences is extremely unrealistic. Is it clearly not possible or desirable for one person or a small team to claim that it has produced links and highlights which represent views of all stakeholders (civil society, governments, official agencies, companies etc.) on any development topic. This is obvious to many people, but has been well-expressed by Anriette Esterhuysen, Executive Director of the Association for Progressive Communications: "The Global Gateway will: * de-contextualize the content it disseminates * neutralize and de-politicize information * create an illusory atmosphere of consensus and universality, while proclaiming 'diversity' * draw funding away from local information gateway development initiatives Most significantly, initiatives like the GDG, no matter how inclusive they attempt to be, are mediated by the North. It is very hard to find the boundaries of what constitutes "reasonable opinion" within single organizations, villages or families, let alone when you get to a national or international level. The meaning of development and many of the Gateway topics is itself strongly contested. Development includes everything that has to do with everyone in the South. On such a megasite reports from African think-tanks or NGOs are likely to be crowded out by major World Bank publications on the same issues. Many detailed criticisms have been made against the Bank's planned approach. But the Bank has done little to respond to them. Indeed, on 7 November Wolfensohn personally posted to the consultation list-serve that he felt the response to the Gateway proposal was good, that they are going to continue with it and will work with "those leading international NGOs and community-based organizations that wish to experiment with us." This was a frank admission that the consultation exercise they have been conducting was largely a sham and Wolfensohn was using his diplomatic muscle to marginalise opponents and steamroll groups into collaborating without questioning the fundamentals of the Bank's plans. The World Bank already gets four million page hits per month on its main website. It recently invested a huge amount of resources into a series of other internet and distance learning initiatives. Combined with the GDG, these must be seen as a strategic attempt to capture the commanding heights of information technology for development. As the web is likely to grow ever more important as a publishing and organizing medium, activists would be well-advised to prevent the World Bank getting any more powerful in this area. For more information and future updates visit the Bretton Woods Update www.brettonwoodsproject.org/update and www.realworldbank.org, join the 50 Years Is Enough list-serve, or register your interest through: gdg@brettonwoodsproject.org . __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Shopping - Thousands of Stores. Millions of Products. http://shopping.yahoo.com/ From owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Tue Dec 19 04:02:40 2000 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id EAA128085; Tue, 19 Dec 2000 04:02:39 +1000 (EST) Received: from post.super.net.pk (smtp-khi1.super.net.pk [203.130.2.9]) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id EAA128061 for ; Tue, 19 Dec 2000 04:02:30 +1000 (EST) Received: from excel586 (khi-line-134.super.net.pk [203.130.5.69]) by post.super.net.pk (8.9.1/8.9.3) with ESMTP id XAA03385 for ; Mon, 18 Dec 2000 23:14:17 -0500 From: "Irfan Khan" To: s-asia-it@apnic.net Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2000 23:06:22 +0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Satellites over South Asia: Broadcasting, Culture and the Public Interest Message-ID: <3A3E986F.21458.5B6F98@localhost> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12c) Sender: owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Precedence: bulk [from www.indev.org] Satellites over South Asia: Broadcasting, Culture and the Public Interest The rapid spread of satellite TV in recent years had made a huge impact on the choice of viewing available to audiences in South Asia, not just in the cities but increasingly in towns and rural areas as well. This unprecedented boom has provoked a lively debate about the implications for nations, communities and cultures since satellite TV respects no borders. It has also posed a major challenge to national broadcasting systems in the region which have hitherto enjoyed a monopoly. This book tells this fascinating story of the opening up of the skies, the media companies involved, the means of distribution, and the reactions of viewers to the huge and growing menu of programmes [http://www.indev.org/articles/southasia_wcdp.html ]. The book shows that satellite TV has been instrumental in creating a new South Asian popular culture which has proved both attractive and controversial. They explore the implications of these developments for the national broadcasting cultures of India, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. It also compares reactions among India's northern neighbours with those in Sri Lanka, where the existence of terrestrial competition has afforded greater national control of the process of change. From owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Tue Dec 19 04:02:48 2000 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id EAA128113; Tue, 19 Dec 2000 04:02:47 +1000 (EST) Received: from post.super.net.pk (smtp-khi1.super.net.pk [203.130.2.9]) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id EAA128060 for ; Tue, 19 Dec 2000 04:02:29 +1000 (EST) Received: from excel586 (khi-line-134.super.net.pk [203.130.5.69]) by post.super.net.pk (8.9.1/8.9.3) with ESMTP id XAA03388 for ; Mon, 18 Dec 2000 23:14:20 -0500 From: "Irfan Khan" To: s-asia-it@apnic.net Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2000 23:06:21 +0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: FAO launches e-forum on media for development Message-ID: <3A3E986D.19717.5B6A03@localhost> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12c) Sender: owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Precedence: bulk [with thanks to www.indev.org for the lead] FAO launches e-forum on media for development The FAO Communication for Development Group is hosting an e-mail discussion beginning 4 December. The electronic forum will provide a place for communication professionals to share best practices on the use of local (traditional, folk and popular) media and new media, such as the Internet, for development. The forum is open to anyone interested in the topic. Among those who have already subscribed are people from the academic community, non-governmental organizations and the media, including a number of journalists from developing countries. Issues for discussion include: - the ways in which development agencies can use local media to transmit information without exploiting or destabilizing local cultures; - the appropriateness of various media to the messages being conveyed; - media ownership and access -- that is, what local participation means and how to encourage local involvement in the design and implementation of communication programmes; - the extent to which the new information technologies, such as the Internet, reach the poor; - how to ensure that the content of these technologies, usually generated in the North, is relevant to local cultures; - the potential for the marriage of new technologies with traditional/folk media. Click here for more information or to subscribe http://www.fao.org/WAICENT/FAOINFO/SUSTDEV/CDdirect/CDre0056.htm [source: http://www.fao.org/news/2000/brief/BR0012-e.htm#forum ] From owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Tue Dec 19 04:51:32 2000 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id EAA68318; Tue, 19 Dec 2000 04:51:32 +1000 (EST) Received: from pop-khi3.super.net.pk (pop-khi3.super.net.pk [203.130.2.13]) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id EAA68295 for ; Tue, 19 Dec 2000 04:51:22 +1000 (EST) Received: from excel586 (khi-line-134.super.net.pk [203.130.5.69]) by pop-khi3.super.net.pk (8.10.0/8.10.0) with ESMTP id eBIIl9Z18290 for ; Mon, 18 Dec 2000 23:47:09 +0500 From: "Irfan Khan" To: s-asia-it@apnic.net Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2000 23:55:25 +0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Integrating Modern and Traditional ICTs for Community Development Message-ID: <3A3EA3ED.15242.885826@localhost> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12c) Sender: owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Precedence: bulk [this is further to my e-mail of 30 Nov 2000] Integrating Modern and Traditional ICTs for Community Development December 18, 2000 - "Integrating Modern and Traditional Information and Communication Technologies for Community Development", is the theme of an International Seminar addressing the digital divide in some of the world's poorest communities, that will be held from 22 to 27 January 2001 in Kothhmale, Sri Lanka. Due to the strong interest shown world-wide in Radio Kotmale's use of Internet with community broadcasting, its pioneering "radio-browsing" programmes and its multimedia community database for development, this event is being held within a development project environment, at a conference facility near the village of Kotmale itself. The event meeting is intended to be the first international pooling of project experience in this an innovative area which many believe offers the "missing link" in efforts to eradicate poverty: the harnessing of new information and communication technologies together with community media (especially radio) for community development and empowerment. The two-part meeting is organized as follows: will consist of two parts: - In a four-day workshop from 22-25 January, some 20 managers and project co-ordinators from community radios and telecentres in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean will discuss case studies and models, exchange experiences, views, strategies and techniques for the successful integration of the full spectrum of communication and information technologies at community level. - At the two-day round-table meeting on 26-27 January, international partners representing including national development agencies and , IGOs and international governmental and non-governmental organizationsNGOs, will engage the project managers in discussions on criteria for models of best practice, on partnership strategies and programme development. From this process will be drawn a set of project models and guidelines for ensuring full community appropriation of NICTs, offering strategies for sustainability, networking and technical support systems that development workers in this field can draw on and apply in project development. This meeting comes within the framework of the Global Knowledge Partnership's Action Plan, for which UNESCO washas been asked to take the "champion" role for Action Item 1.3. The GKP approach emphasises coalitions for development and many GKP partners will be present in Kothmale. The Kothmale meeting is particularly timely, as the GKP is to undertake the consultative process on the information and communication issues under consideration by the G-8's Digital Opportunities Taskforce (DOT.force). The meeting will contribute to the global dialogue on 'bridging the digital divide', as emphasised in the Okinawa Charter, through its efforts to: "Actively facilitate discussions with developing countries, international organizations and other stakeholders to promote international co-operation with a view to fostering policy, regulatory and network readiness; improving connectivity, increasing access and lowering cost; building human capacity; and encouraging participation in global e-commerce networks" The meeting aims to encourage public authorities and the international community to harness their efforts to bridge the digital divide at community level through solidarity and cooperation which supports: - the development and use of the full range of ICTs appropriate for grass-roots use, especially linking community radio and the Internet - the production, translation and sharing of content and development- oriented applications - the implementation of pilot projects corresponding to different cultural and development situations - the inventorying, evaluation and exchange of experience at the national and international levels - appropriate national policies and environments to encourage community action and cooperation, on the basis of successful models. Due to the strong interest shown world-wide in Radio Kothhmale's use of the Internet with community broadcasting, its pioneering "radio- browsing" programmes and its multimedia community database for development, the event is being held within a development project environment, at a conference facility near the village of Kothhmale itself. On the occasion of the Seminar, UNESCO will launch its new programme for Community Multimedia Centres, which combine community broadcasting with ICTs. The seminar is organized by UNESCO, the Ministry of Information and the Media of the Government of Sri Lanka and the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation in association with the Kothmale Internet Project of Kothmale Community Radio. Related Links - Kothmale: (Internet Radio in Sri Lanka) [http://www.unesco.org/webworld/netaid/com/sri_lanka.html ] - UNESCO Multipurpose Community Telecentres [http://www.unesco.org/webworld/public_domain/mct.html ] - Global Knowledge Partnership [http://www.globalknowledge.org/ ] [source: http://www.unesco.org/webworld/news/001218_kothhmale.shtml ] From owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Tue Dec 19 05:14:52 2000 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id FAA70977; Tue, 19 Dec 2000 05:14:52 +1000 (EST) Received: from post.super.net.pk (smtp-khi1.super.net.pk [203.130.2.9]) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id FAA70950 for ; Tue, 19 Dec 2000 05:14:44 +1000 (EST) Received: from excel586 (khi-line-134.super.net.pk [203.130.5.69]) by post.super.net.pk (8.9.1/8.9.3) with ESMTP id AAA04321; Tue, 19 Dec 2000 00:26:25 -0500 From: "Irfan Khan" To: Anil Aggarwal Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 00:18:37 +0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: REPLY: Nepal IT Conference 2001 / Information & Call for papers CC: s-asia-it@apnic.net Message-ID: <3A3EA95E.26155.9D9736@localhost> References: <3A3B8C7F.14338.1832A4@localhost> In-reply-to: X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12c) Sender: owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Precedence: bulk On 18 Dec 2000, at 13:50, Anil Aggarwal wrote: > Does the conference have any DATES? oops! the dates were not mentioned in the original posting. my apologies. please note that CAN Info Tech will take place from 25 - 29 January 2001, and the Nepal IT Conference ("IT Revolution: A millennium Opportunity") will be held on 27-28 January 2001 during CAN Info Tech 2001. ik. From owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Tue Dec 19 16:15:07 2000 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id QAA85984; Tue, 19 Dec 2000 16:15:06 +1000 (EST) Received: from post.super.net.pk (smtp-khi1.super.net.pk [203.130.2.9]) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id QAA85762 for ; Tue, 19 Dec 2000 16:14:55 +1000 (EST) Received: from excel586 (khi-line-108.super.net.pk [203.130.5.247]) by post.super.net.pk (8.9.1/8.9.3) with ESMTP id LAA11734 for ; Tue, 19 Dec 2000 11:26:48 -0500 From: "Irfan Khan" To: s-asia-it@apnic.net Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 11:18:59 +0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Subject: ICT & Poverty Conference Report Message-ID: <3A3F4423.14661.D0CF39@localhost> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12c) Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from Quoted-printable to 8bit by ns.apnic.net id QAA85781 Sender: owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Precedence: bulk [from the GKD mailing list ] ------- Forwarded message follows ------- Date sent: Mon, 18 Dec 2000 11:12:32 -0500 From: "Dr. Bhausaheb Ubale" INTERNATIONAL EXPERTS DISCUSSED HOW TO SPEED UP THE PROCESS OF ERADICATION OF POVERTY IN INDIA THROUGH USE OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES (ICT) PILOT PROJECT TO BE SET UP IN DISTRICT SATARA OF MAHARASHTRA STATE, INDIA Organized by International Centre for Poverty Eradication, a consortium of Canadian NGOs and local Toronto community groups and international experts discussed "how to use Information and Communication Technologies to Eradicate Poverty in Developing countries" especially in India and China, at the conference held recently in Toronto, Canada. "The technological revolution has created unprecedented economic growth in recent years yet the world has witnessed enormous disparities between rich and poor. In the case of India, this income gap is alarming due to lack of Human Development, especially education, health, and skills development particularly in rural areas," argues Dr. Bhausaheb Ubale, a British trained Development Economist; former Canadian Human Rights Commissioner, and the driving force behind this event. Thus, to accelerate the speed of human resource development, the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are being used. They serve as a powerful tool to give equal access to poorest of the poor and thereby help to create Sustainable Human Development. ICT empower people through knowledge. With such a pro-poor agenda of technology-improved access to education, health care and information-- it is increasingly possible for poor to integrate into economic life, and thereby break the cycle of poverty. With this in mind and recognition of our moral responsibilities to help those whom we have left behind and who are struggling to get out of poverty trap, we had organized the above conference. This conference was last part of the series of activities organized by the International Centre for Poverty Eradication to commemorate UN International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. The first function was held on October 17, 2000 with the speeches on various aspects of poverty by The Honorable Chief Justice of Ontario, Roy McMurtry, well-known Canadian author, broadcaster and social activist, June Callwood and Dr, Bhausaheb Ubale Dr. Ubale presented the action plan at the conference to set up a pilot project on how to use Information and Communication Technologies to Eradicate Poverty in District Satara in Maharashtra State Speaking about the plan at the conference, Dr. Ubale said: “Our main mission and objective are to eradicate poverty through Integrated Rural Development. This means all front line grassroots agencies engaged in different areas such as education, health, income generation, agriculture and rural development would work together in integrated way in the cluster of villages. ICT will be used as tool or powerhouse of information to provide continuous information to those agencies and communities to accelerate the process of development. The main focus of the project is to establish a ICT Centre to provide poor rural and and remote communities with affordable public assess and connectivity to Information and Communication and other Technologies. The targeted beneficiaries would include poorest of the poor, youth, women, and unemployed youth. Small rural enterprises, farmers, village traders, and craftsmen/women. Explaining about the structure of the centre, Dr. Ubale said, "it will be located in village high school servicing Khatav Taluka and sub-centre in another village servicing adjoining Taluka of Khanapur in Sangli district. We have decided to use schools for sustainability, and to get young people involved in poverty eradication." The Centre will be divided into two sections: 1 Computer lab. for training trainers, computer literacy training to students and others in villages; and also training in hardware maintainance. 2) Information and Communication /Technologies Centre and Community Resource Centre which will provide diverse information services in response to community needs: public telephone and fax, government service directories, regional employment listings, agricultural prices from brokers in several cities, posting crop and pest observations for the agricultural extension agent, electronics mail for distance education radio courses, and self-placed training, and information about appropriate technology and its applications. The Centre is to be supported by donations, grants and in some cases user fees and subscriptions, provider charges for some postings, sectoral support for education and agricultural activities. "Some resources will be raised locally in India and others in North America. This centre will work as hub serving adjoining villages. Once successful this will be replicated in other parts of India," Dr. Ubale added. To undertake follow up work, working committees are being set up to deal with issues of Infrastructure set up for the centre, and sectoral applications in each areas such as: education, health, income generation activities, agriculture and rural development. The project will be implemented by local NGO’s in India and in cooperation with the International Centre for Eradication of Poverty. During his concluding, remarks Mr. Chandra Mohan Bhandari, Consul General of India, who was present throughout this workshop, strongly supported the approach of using ICT for Integrated Rural Development and explained Government of India policies on poverty eradications and Information Technology. He also assured delegates of Government of India’s support for this project for the eradication of poverty. Former Indian Ambassador, and the former Secretary –General of South Asian Regional Cooperation (SARC) Kant Bhargava strongly supported the pilot project In his Keynote Address by Rafal Rohozinski designated speaker of United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) gave an overview of ICT and Poverty eradication. He said: “Developing Countries have always suffered from an information gap; reduced communication costs, and the potential for capacity development, training, professional upgrading. Explaining importance of ICT as a communication tool, he added "It took radio broadcaster 38 years to reach an audience of 50 million; television 13 years and the internet just four." Referring to Development Priorities for Information, ICTs and Poverty, he said: "The poor need knowledge to access, assess and apply existing information and resources for action. They need skills, knowledge and money. They need access to new local context information more than access to foreign context; they need voice and intelligent intermediaries to use ICTs." Mr.Rohozinski currently is at Cambridge University working with Nobel Laureate Prof.A.K. Sen. Other speakers included: Branislav Bajovic (Baya), Manager, Information System, Foundation for International Training. Speaker -Luis Guillermo Barnola Award Associate/Investigador Adjunto International Development Research Centre (IDRC), and Roger Dumelie, Director of NGO Division, Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) At the end Dr.Ubale requested people of Indian origin settled in the West to donate their skills and expertise in every field. He added that "our efforts are not charity driven; they are designed to empower poor people. It is a fact that a large number of people in India are caught up in the poverty trap. Hence, it is particularly important for us ( people from India settled in the West) to recognize that we have a moral responsibility to help those whom we have left behind and who are struggling to break the cycle of poverty". He also urged non Indians who are knowledgeable interested in eradication of poverty in India in general to assist his group. He also requested other NGOs working or intend to work in India in various fields such as education, health, environment etc. to eradicate poverty, to join hands to make this pilot project as demonstration model. This then could be replicated in other parts of India. "We need volunteers to work on implementation of this project both in North America and in India. We also need used computers (Pentium or equivalent) other hardware and funds", he said. Those who are interested should contact: Dr. Bhausaheb Ubale, M.A.Eco.,Ph.D. Eco.(U.K.) President of International Centre for Poverty Eradication, 83 Kingslake Rd, Toronto, ON, Canada, M2J 3E6 Tel. (416) 494-4763, Fax (416) 494 2185 E-mail: bubale@pathcom.com Website: www.eradicatepoverty.com Sincerely, Dr. Bhausaheb Ubale ============== Dr. Bhausaheb Ubale Former Commissioner: Canadian Human Rights Commission, Ontario Human Rights Commission and First Race Relations Commissioner, Province of Ontario President International Center for Eradication of Poverty 83 Kingslake Road Toronto (ON) M2J 3E6 Tel.(416)494 4763 Fax.(416)494 2185 Email: bubale@pathcom.com www.eradicatepoverty.com -------------------------------------------------------- From owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Tue Dec 19 20:51:11 2000 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id UAA95976; Tue, 19 Dec 2000 20:51:11 +1000 (EST) Received: from web1003.mail.yahoo.com (web1003.mail.yahoo.com [128.11.23.93]) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id UAA95971 for ; Tue, 19 Dec 2000 20:51:08 +1000 (EST) Received: (qmail 21697 invoked by uid 60001); 19 Dec 2000 10:51:05 -0000 Message-ID: <20001219105105.21696.qmail@web1003.mail.yahoo.com> Received: from [216.252.170.3] by web1003.mail.yahoo.com; Tue, 19 Dec 2000 02:51:05 PST Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 02:51:05 -0800 (PST) From: Zubair Faisal Abbasi Reply-To: zubair@isb.sdnpk.org Subject: Virtual of the Real: Consumer Rights in E-Commerce To: s-asia-it@apnic.net MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Precedence: bulk Virtual of the Real: Consumer Rights in E-Commerce By Zubair Faisal Abbasi (dated: 6 December, 2000) In the selectively experienced and info-glutted yet notional cyber-space, the episode of techno-drama related to e-commerce is replete with high-tech success stories on the one hand and a phenomenal growth of high-capitalization potential of dot-coms on the other. Some sobering thoughts about the dot-com bubble-bursting are reaching the inboxes of netizens but more of the info-bytes speak about the dot-coms' spread bringing more business for advertising agencies; essentially adding to the expanding spectrum of advertising and resultantly emerging more dot-coms related IT initiatives. Not-so-surprisingly, a news item says, "Indian Information Technology start-ups' extravagant media spending helped the domestic advertising industry grow 24.83 per cent in the year to March, according to a survey by A&M, an industry publication." Keeping in mind the volume of the money got through reshuffling of budgets and without generating a new, the report says with a warning, "Advertising agencies' total gross income was Rs10.25bn ($218.5m) last year. But some industry players warn that the slump in dotcoms' fortunes, coupled with forecasts of slower overall economic activity, could slash the sector's rate of growth to about 10-12 per cent in the year ahead." http://tm0.com/sbct.cgi?s=59315074&i=281025&d=670509. "E-Commerce has a lot of hype surrounding it", says Louise Sylvan Vice-President, the Consumers International, "and I think a lot of the hype is deserved. E-commerce has enormous potential to provide consumers with better information and educational opportunities, as well as new market choices and value for money." Sofar, so good. But how can the potentials of e-commerce in the Information Age be harnessed in the best possible way amid a sharp 'digital divide' around the world without upholding consumer rights related to the appropriation of IT infrastructure (be it hardware or software)? How can the electronic commerce mechanisms be primarily geared to develop win-win situations both for business community and consumers leading to a system that actively seeks healthy business practices and consumer satisfaction for mutual benefit and trust? >From the consumers' perspective, the issues resonating the cyberspace would be: Are the relevant consumer rights (i.e., privacy, redress, information etc.,) chosen from the eight rights adopted by the Consumers International (i.e., right to basic needs, safety, information, choice, representation, redress, consumer education, and healthy environment; some of which are won in many cases after struggles in the 'real world') being taken into cognizance in the cyberworld? More specifically, does the virtual 'shopping mall' offer the much cherished "just looking" and "window shopping" opportunities without disclosing the shoppers identity to the merchants and how the information obtained from the consumers through cookies and other means is used without their prior knowledge? Apart from it, how do the general business practices and different behaviors in e-commerce influence redress, refund, and cancellation of contract from the consumers' perspective? These questions are important because, it would not be an exaggeration to say that e-commerce is at the moment a sub-set of the cyberworld but it is fast extending its shadow to dominate the space with its ubiquitous presence as embedded "click here" adds in headers and footers of emails and flickering e-banners on almost every website. Notwithstandingly, the euphoric feelings attached with e-commerce are as shaking as accidentally finding the Aladdin's Lamp and getting into an absolutely new world with slight rubbing of the lamp and quite parallel to this is a whole range of choices before different countries to tackle with e-trade and e-commerce related issues. These choices range from self-regulatory strategies (e.g, Australia) for business to setting up regulatory bodies and treating e-commerce as global concern to develop an equitable global legal, penal, redress system, and bodies to address consumer concerns. However, e-commerce taken as a global concern requiring global initiatives from nation states with consumer protection perspective is an aspect that needs urgent attention but coherent and cautious approach. Consumer concerns in e-commerce are one of the many points, which ask us to critically analyze the often e-marketing oriented cybervision with an ever-expanding access of advertisements to consumers. For this purpose, let us go through the itemized flashes of a special study conducted by the Consumers' International. The study not only enlightens us but also provides food for thought to think across the glitzy world of e-commerce with consumers' perspective. For this study, the Consumers International, took the initiative in late 1998 and early 1999 to find out what is happening now in the 24 hours awaking virtual world of electronic commerce - what consumers are being promised in terms of information disclosure, returns policy and security of transactions, and rights to privacy. 12 consumer organizations around the world took part in a project of "mystery shopping" over the Internet. The project team ordered more than 151 items from 17 countries/territories and returned most of them. THE STUDY FOUND - One in 10 items never arrived. - Two buyers, from the United Kingdom and Hong Kong have waited over five months for refunds. - Almost half - 44% of the products ordered arrived without receipts. - 73% of traders failed to give crucial contract terms. - Over 25% gave no address or telephone number. - 24% were unclear about the total cost of the item that was ordered. Information Disclosure: Some web sites visited did not provide adequate information when it came to terms and conditions of making a purchase: - For 40% of sites information on terms and conditions governing the purchase were absent. - In 29% of cases consumers had to actively search for the conditions in order to locate them. - Only 27% of cases provided that information before the purchase was finalized. Some information on web sites was confusing, making it difficult to distinguish general product information from terms and conditions, or distinguishing subjective advertising claims from objective empirically based research information; whereas in the real world, such a distinction would be relatively easier to make. Security of Transaction: As for security of transactions: - 61% of sites from which goods were purchased claimed they were 'secure' sites; - 44% of that total supplied additional information on the type of security system provided. Some sites claimed that they provided a SET payment option, but they actually did not. ("Secured Electronic Transactions" - SET whereby additional security could be offered to consumers). Generally, banks claim that consumers will not be liable for any "proved" credit card fraud. Moreover, some sites indicated that they would reimburse consumers the US$50 that could be charged in the event of credit card fraud. However, it is still unclear whether the charge-back policy of card issuers and the legal protection offered on consumer liabilities will cover fraudulent transactions on the Internet in many countries. Returns Policy Information on a site's returns policy was also a problem: - Only 24% of the study participants found that a returns policy was included in the transaction. - 67% of cases specified restrictions. - 21% of the CI study participants experienced a problem with the refund. - In one case, a site claimed goods could be returned, but when tested on this, the request for return went unanswered. Some companies even charged a restocking fee for any item returned. Privacy Policy: Few sites, locally or overseas, mentioned anything about having a privacy policy. For example, whether shoppers could prevent having their names placed on a site's mailing list or from having their details passed on to other retailers. Only 25% of US sites, for example, had a simple tick box for placing names on a mailing list, while overall only 17% of the total sites surveyed provided that option. Some sites actually encouraged the disclosure of personal information by offering discounts for filling out surveys or gathering information in the guise of post-purchase satisfaction surveys. Many sites did not provide information about such matters as delivery policy and handling costs in advance, but only provided the information until after consumers had submitted their personal information, such as credit card number, email address and mailing address. In one case, it was only after the order had been submitted, including the release of credit card information, that it was found the company did not ship the product to the purchasers' country. So Go Ahead and Keep Consumer Rights In Mind! Taking consumer confidence as critical to the success of electronic commerce, one may argue that without at least the level of protection in the virtual marketplace as we currently have in the real marketplace, it will be difficult to achieve the win/win outcome that is necessary to realize the full potential of electronic commerce. It should be noted that various "click on" type contracts used in websites today are often one-sided measures that unfairly limit consumer rights in a wide range of areas. These not only infringe on privacy but related areas such as the rights to benefit from exceptions and limitations of copyright, the right to criticize products, the right to offer competing products, the right to seek redress for defective products or service, and many other important consumer rights. Policy makers should be wary of measures that permit sellers to enforce unreasonable contract terms. And what else should be done, ….. let us explore! 8*****8 Web sites: Consumers International: Http://www.consumersinternational.org TheNetwork for Consumer Protection in Pakistan: http://www.thenetwork.sdnpk.org ===== Regards, Zubair Faisal Abbasi. http://pakdev.tripod.com Islamabad-Pakistan __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Shopping - Thousands of Stores. Millions of Products. http://shopping.yahoo.com/ From owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Wed Dec 20 17:26:02 2000 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id RAA121630; Wed, 20 Dec 2000 17:26:02 +1000 (EST) Received: from pop-khi3.super.net.pk (pop-khi3.super.net.pk [203.130.2.13]) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id RAA121605 for ; Wed, 20 Dec 2000 17:25:50 +1000 (EST) Received: from excel586 (khi-line-036.super.net.pk [203.130.5.175]) by pop-khi3.super.net.pk (8.10.0/8.10.0) with ESMTP id eBK7LLZ01087 for ; Wed, 20 Dec 2000 12:21:27 +0500 From: "Irfan Khan" To: s-asia-it@apnic.net Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 12:29:49 +0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: [India] Telecom sector poised for a leap Message-ID: <3A40A63D.18817.3067B1@localhost> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12c) Sender: owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Precedence: bulk Dec 20 2000 Telecom sector poised for a leap NEW DELHI IT was late but the government was finally caught in a frenzy during the year 2000 to reform the giant telecom sector in anticipation of its becoming the country's growth engine for the new millennium for which it took a slew of measures to open the area of hitherto state monopoly. Opening up of the long distance telephony, lifting of any restrictions on number of players in different telephony disciplines, advancing of date for ending monopoly of overseas communication and transforming gigantic telecom services department into a corporation were among the highpoints of the government's single-minded reform drive. But the year gone by was marked by tremendous opposition to government moves from political parties, trade unions and government employees as also the early private entrants in the sector who saw the changes as signs of gloom. Consequently, the sector witnessed a nearly year-long situation of industrial unrest and frequent strikes by one or the other PSUs or government departments in the sector. Notwithstanding the pressures, the government corporatised the department of telecom services into Bharat Sanchar Nigam and opened bandwidth for overseas communication to private sector to send right signals the world ove r that Iindia was the destination for the future. The government also made conscious efforts to project India's investment potential in the fastest growing sector the world over in tandem with conducive legislative and fiscal climate with Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpa yee himself leading a virtual roadshow to America in the last quarter of the year. To demonstrate the country's commitment to the new information order and sincerity of reforms process, the government also broadly finalised a draft for the legislative structure wherein different modes of communication w ould be integrated for better effects and usefulness. However, the last minute glitches forced the government to abandon its plans to introduce a bill in the winter session of Parliament on convergence whereby it wanted to put in place a strong regulatory mechanism for guidi ng the innumerable players for a fair play. As is the adage that 'the fittest will survive in the free market,' the government spurred the process of transforming its own enterprises to prepare for challenge from domestic and global players who are high on technolo gy and deep in pockets. Overcoming the dissent from within the ruling alliance and resistance from opposition parties, the government made it clear that the telecom sector in India could not be developed by protectionist trends and hence it would provide the necessary legislative and policy support for opening up of the sector. - PTI http://www.economictimes.com/today/20tech17.htm From owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Wed Dec 20 17:39:12 2000 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id RAA123196; Wed, 20 Dec 2000 17:39:11 +1000 (EST) Received: from post.super.net.pk (smtp-khi1.super.net.pk [203.130.2.9]) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id RAA123176 for ; Wed, 20 Dec 2000 17:39:03 +1000 (EST) Received: from excel586 (khi-line-036.super.net.pk [203.130.5.175]) by post.super.net.pk (8.9.1/8.9.3) with ESMTP id MAA06585 for ; Wed, 20 Dec 2000 12:50:52 -0500 From: "Irfan Khan" To: s-asia-it@apnic.net Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 12:43:08 +0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Burma sets up national e-task force to bridge digital divide Message-ID: <3A40A95C.22997.3C9829@localhost> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12c) Sender: owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Precedence: bulk [please note that Burma is NOT a south asian country. it is located in SouthEASTERN Asia, bordering the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal, between Bangladesh and Thailand. since the IT infrastructure (and development in general) is in its nascent stages in Burma, it is interesting to see how a country which is located next to south asia is dealing with it. ik] Burma sets up national e-task force to bridge digital divide The Myanmar Times Rangoon 13 Dec 00, p 3 The Myanmar Burma government last month took an important step to stay abreast of rapidly developing information technologies which have caused a digital divide between developed and developing nations. The 18-member e-National Task Force, with Deputy Minister for Science and Technology U Hlaing Win as its chairman, has been formed to help put Myanmar on a comparable footing with its developed ASEAN cousins, and to accelerate development of the domestic information and communication technology industries. Task force members include officials from relevant ministries, computer professionals and representatives of business associations. The body will be funded through the Ministry of Science and Technology and will have three working committees on education, legal affairs, and development of infrastructure and programme applications. The task force's responsibilities will include making suggestions for the emergence of information and communication infrastructure; drafting national policies, laws and by-laws on e-commerce based on the existing laws in the country and international norms; coordinating, with government agencies, Myanmar's implementation of provisions in the e-ASEAN framework agreement; evaluating current resources for execution of appropriate programmes for Myanmar's e-readiness; and forwarding recommendations for the implementation of information and communications technology projects. The task force will have ready access to relevant information collected by public and private bodies. http://www.ayezay.com/it_5.htm From owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Thu Dec 21 15:53:22 2000 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id PAA81178; Thu, 21 Dec 2000 15:53:22 +1000 (EST) Received: from dte.vsnl.net.in (dte.vsnl.net.in [202.54.8.4]) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id PAA81121 for ; Thu, 21 Dec 2000 15:53:02 +1000 (EST) Received: from sitasars (ppp174-201.doter.vsnl.net.in [61.0.174.201]) by dte.vsnl.net.in (8.11.0/8.11.0) with SMTP id eBLGO8m24218; Thu, 21 Dec 2000 11:24:08 -0500 (GMT) Message-ID: <000501c06b14$79040b40$c9ae003d@sitasars> Reply-To: "SS Singh" From: "SS Singh" To: "Irfan Khan" , Subject: Re: World Computer Exchange Update Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2000 13:09:26 +0530 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.72.3110.5 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.3110.3 Sender: owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Precedence: bulk Hi, Can you advise how as a Bihar NGO in India we can link with you ? We are in the process of development of TELEWORK for community development in the urban ®ional area of the state capital PATNA. Thanking you in advance, Merry christmas and happy new year! Sitasaran Singh CMC CPDS(Center for Planning Development & Science) Pustak Bhandar Compound, G M Road, Patna 800 004. India Ph: (91 612)672958, 667536 Website: www.globalreachindia.com/cpds e-mail: sgreach@dte.vsnl.net.in -----Original Message----- From: Irfan Khan To: s-asia-it@apnic.net Date: Sunday, December 17, 2000 10:56 AM Subject: World Computer Exchange Update [mentions activities in india and pakistan; with thanks to KABISSA- FAHAMU NEWSLETTER - 15 December 2000] ... World Computer Exchange Update http://www.worldcomputerexchange.org I'd like to update you about the Computer Exchange work. We've added another country to the program (making 34) and another 38 schools (making 458). As you may recall, each school agrees to connect its students with students in US schools and help its students develop websites to share their rich history & culture. This month, we learned that SDNP India (within the Ministry of Environment and Forests of the Government of India) decided not to fund the Exchange's shipment to SEWA planned for the middle of December. We are now working to secure alternative funding and encouraging the Exchange's NGO Partners and Allied Organisations in India to seek to involve SDNP in all of their ICT planning. It looks like this may delay this first shipment into January. Any advice would be most welcome! We would like to extend special thanks to those organizations that have made commitments of computers and monitors during November, including Ford Motor Company, Fidelity Investments, Think Detroit, and the Riecken Foundation. Alex Mbianda, our Programme Officer for Cameroon, has secured computers, monitors, and printers from Keyspan Energy Delivery. Thanks for help in recruiting computers to two of our Allied Organisations: Asha for Education and Kabissa-A Space for Africa on the Internet. This month, the Exchange will enter into a standard agreement with the Ministry of Technology of the Government of Pakistan to provide computers for Internet access for schools in Pakistan. This agreement is contingent on their providing $15,000 to cover the Exchange's costs for this shipment and $5,000 for the shipping costs. The Exchange has now approved fifteen partner agreements. A completed Plan of Implementation and draft list of schools has been received from the Agency for Sustainable Development Initiatives in Uganda. It reflects their work in cooperation with several other NGOs to recruit schools and funding to cover the Exchange's shipping costs. We are also expecting a cooperative Plan of Implementation and draft list of schools jointly from the Foundation for Economic Development and SDNP in Bangladesh working with several other NGOs. It is wonderful that these two efforts are fully cooperating! This shipment is contingent upon the SDNP/UNDP directly paying the shipping costs. We would greatly appreciate any and all help in building a flow of donated computers for our NGO Partners and the schools that they have recruited! Your suggestions and comments welcome. Regards, Timothy Anderson President World Computer Exchange, Inc. 936 Nantasket Avenue Hull, Massachusetts 02045 USA 781.925.3078 FAX: 509.752.9186 http://www.WorldComputerExchange.org From owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Thu Dec 21 20:35:48 2000 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id UAA115399; Thu, 21 Dec 2000 20:35:48 +1000 (EST) Received: from pop-khi3.super.net.pk (pop-khi3.super.net.pk [203.130.2.13]) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id UAA115394 for ; Thu, 21 Dec 2000 20:35:40 +1000 (EST) Received: from excel586 ([203.130.7.17]) by pop-khi3.super.net.pk (8.10.0/8.10.0) with ESMTP id eBLAVDZ01949 for ; Thu, 21 Dec 2000 15:31:15 +0500 From: "Irfan Khan" To: s-asia-it@apnic.net Date: Thu, 21 Dec 2000 15:39:51 +0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Subject: [India] Cellular operators hear a rural beep Message-ID: <3A422447.6932.1BECF8@localhost> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12c) Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from Quoted-printable to 8bit by ns.apnic.net id UAA115396 Sender: owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Precedence: bulk Dec 21 2000 Cellular operators hear a rural beep Vivek Law MUMBAI WHEN a village sarpanch wrote to one of India's cellular czars about how his village was grateful for being connected — this village had only one PCO and now there are 8 mobile phone PCOs — it was a wake up call for the cell phone industry. Operators across the country are seeing more than 50 per cent of all incremental growth in cellular business coming from small towns and rural areas. And we are not talking about the now legendary mobile-toting rich farmers atop tractors. The cellular has reached the man on the cycle, the fisherman and the village sarpanch in not so prosperous villages and towns. Marketing strategies are therefore being reworked, tariff plans are being redrawn and there is a sudden glint in the eyes of cellular industry chieftains. So much so, that some operators say they do not even need to explain in detail what a cellular phone is. The villagers know it. It's just that we did not, they say. "This just amazes me. From Gondia to Latur, everybody wants to be impacted by technology. We receive letters from village sarpanch's on how the mobile phone is being used effectively in villages where there was a single PCO which too often never worked," says Rajeev Chandrasekhar, chairman and chief executive officer of BPL’s Innovision group. Some figures. "Out of 5,40,000 total subscribers, we now have close to 2,00,000 subscribers in small markets across Maharashtra, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Out of 204 towns outside Mumbai that we are present in, 160 are small towns and villages," says Chandrasekhar. "The growth here is going to be far more, for unlike in the metros, the roll out in state circles has been far slower. It's only now that operators are rolling out networks across states. You can imagine the growth potential," he adds. Bharti's head of mobile operations across circles, Anil Nair has an interesting story to tell. "Look at even Delhi. We have seen carpenters and small time contractors on bicycles among our mobile users. There was this carpenter we were trying to hire and he gave us a cell number to get in touch with. More importantly, a small contractor sees value as he can call someone for more material from the site itself," says Nair. He has figures to show as well. In Himachal Pradesh, more than 50 per cent of the total 8,500 subscriber base is now from areas apart from the two main towns, Shimla and Kullu-Manali. "It's a hit in orchards. As it is easier to create more footprints by placing a base station on the top of a hill," he said. Connecting people. From country roads to city slickers, you bet. http://www.economictimes.com/today/21tech01.htm From owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Fri Dec 22 10:16:18 2000 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id KAA77908; Fri, 22 Dec 2000 10:16:18 +1000 (EST) Received: from probity.mcc.ac.uk (probity.mcc.ac.uk [130.88.200.94]) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id KAA77884 for ; Fri, 22 Dec 2000 10:16:12 +1000 (EST) Received: from fs1.ec.man.ac.uk ([130.88.27.100]) by probity.mcc.ac.uk with esmtp (Exim 2.05 #4) id 149FsX-000CL5-01; Fri, 22 Dec 2000 00:16:09 +0000 Received: from UK-AC-MAN-EC-FS1/SpoolDir by fs1.ec.man.ac.uk (Mercury 1.47); 22 Dec 00 00:16:09 BST Received: from SpoolDir by UK-AC-MAN-EC-FS1 (Mercury 1.47); 22 Dec 00 00:15:52 BST From: "Dr Richard Heeks" Organization: Manchester University To: afrik-it@listserv.hea.ie, s-asia-it@apnic.net, devmedia@listserv.uoguelph.ca Date: Fri, 22 Dec 2000 00:15:22 GMT Subject: Call for Journal Papers: "ICTs and Development" X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Windows (v3.12a) Message-ID: <338DFCE5379@fs1.ec.man.ac.uk> Sender: owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Precedence: bulk CALL FOR PAPERS - JOURNAL SPECIAL ISSUE: "ICTs and Development" This is a call for papers for a special issue of the 'Journal of International Development' which will focus on 'Information and Communication Technologies and Development'. ICTs can bring many benefits to developing countries and to the process of socio-economic development. However, this topic has been characterised by too much hype; naive technological determinism; and short memories. This journal special issue aims to provide a balanced, evidence-based picture of the relationship between ICTs and development. The issue will form a key resource for those working in development. Papers are therefore sought on a variety of subjects relating to this topic, which could include one of the following: ICTs in key development institutions: - government - public sector organisations - NGOs - communities - international organisations ICTs in key development sectors: - health - education - infrastructure ICTs in relation to key development targets: - sustainable development/environment - gender equality - poverty alleviation - realising human rights ICTs and aspects of development: - rural development - urban development - small enterprise development - social development ICT-specific development issues: - digital divide - Northern domination of ICT models/products/agendas - ICT policies Major boundaries are not being pre-set, but the papers would be likely to provide some analysis and general conclusions about their topic, and would be likely to show an awareness of development processes and/or the particular conditions of developing countries. Papers with a technical focus would be unlikely to be included. If you have any queries about content/suitability of topic, please ask. TIMETABLE / DEADLINES Initial expressions of interest with title and short (c.100-word) summary: Jan. 31st 2001 Submission of papers: March 31st 2001 Papers will then be refereed, with final versions due: June 30th 2001. GUIDELINES Full papers should be no more than 5,000 words in length, and ideally around 4,000 words in length; an abstract of c.100 words is required. Electronic format will be required for the final version, and is preferred for the initial submission. Other guidelines for authors can be found at: http://www.interscience.wiley.com/jpages/0954-1748/authors.html THE JOURNAL The Journal of International Development, published by John Wiley, is one of the world's leading development journals. It is refereed, and abstracted in several major abstracting/indexing services. Further details about the journal can be obtained from its home page: http://www.interscience.wiley.com/jpages/0954-1748/ CONTACT Expressions of interest, papers and queries should be sent to the special issue editor, Richard Heeks, whose contact details are given below. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Dr Richard Heeks Senior Lecturer, Information Systems & Development Institute for Development Policy & Management University of Manchester Precinct Centre Manchester M13 9GH U.K. Phone: +44-161-275-2870 Fax: +44-161-273-8829 Email: richard.heeks@man.ac.uk IDPM Web: http://www.man.ac.uk/idpm --------------------------------------------------------------------- From owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Fri Dec 22 13:31:28 2000 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id NAA103337; Fri, 22 Dec 2000 13:31:28 +1000 (EST) Received: from inbound3.maa.sify.net ([202.144.76.10]) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id NAA103322 for ; Fri, 22 Dec 2000 13:31:20 +1000 (EST) Received: from arun.satyam.net.in (210.214.93.207) by inbound3.maa.sify.net (5.0.048) id 3A3A22F4000EBD1C; Fri, 22 Dec 2000 02:33:04 +0000 Message-Id: <5.0.2.1.2.20001222084727.01afd680@imap.satyam.net.in> X-Sender: indata@imap.satyam.net.in X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 5.0.2 Date: Fri, 22 Dec 2000 08:51:32 +0530 To: India Gii , s-asia-it@apnic.net From: Arun Mehta Subject: Fwd: [India] Telecom sector poised for a leap Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Sender: owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Precedence: bulk I'm not sure I agree with the Economic Times article -- we did get a few things wrong too -- the DOT shouldn't just have been corporatized, it should have been broken up, along the lines of what happened in the US many years ago, and in China more recently. The DOT and co. still make policy -- witness their recent announcement that Net telephony will remain banned another 2 years. Unless you take this sort of power away from government-owned operators, they will continue to skew the playing field in their favour, which keeps others out. The article talks about opening up long-distance telephony: but has any such licence been granted? Or even applied for? Arun >From: "Irfan Khan" >To: s-asia-it@apnic.net > >Dec 20 2000 > >Telecom sector poised for a leap > > >NEW DELHI > >IT was late but the government was finally caught in a frenzy during >the year 2000 to reform the giant telecom sector in anticipation of >its becoming the country's growth engine for the new millennium for >which it took a slew of measures to open the area of hitherto state >monopoly. > >Opening up of the long distance telephony, lifting of any >restrictions on number of players in different telephony disciplines, >advancing of date for ending monopoly of overseas communication and >transforming gigantic telecom services department into a corporation >were among the highpoints of the government's single-minded reform >drive. > >But the year gone by was marked by tremendous opposition to >government moves from political parties, trade unions and government >employees as also the early private entrants in the sector who saw >the changes as signs of gloom. > >Consequently, the sector witnessed a nearly year-long situation of >industrial unrest and frequent strikes by one or the other PSUs or >government departments in the sector. > >Notwithstanding the pressures, the government corporatised the department >of telecom services into Bharat Sanchar Nigam and opened bandwidth for >overseas communication to private sector to send right signals the world ove >r that Iindia was the destination for the future. > >The government also made conscious efforts to project India's investment >potential in the fastest growing sector the world over in tandem with >conducive legislative and fiscal climate with Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpa >yee himself leading a virtual roadshow to America in the last quarter of >the year. > >To demonstrate the country's commitment to the new information order and >sincerity of reforms process, the government also broadly finalised a >draft for the legislative structure wherein different modes of communication w >ould be integrated for better effects and usefulness. > >However, the last minute glitches forced the government to abandon its >plans to introduce a bill in the winter session of Parliament on >convergence whereby it wanted to put in place a strong regulatory >mechanism for guidi >ng the innumerable players for a fair play. > >As is the adage that 'the fittest will survive in the free market,' the >government spurred the process of transforming its own enterprises to >prepare for challenge from domestic and global players who are high on technolo >gy and deep in pockets. > >Overcoming the dissent from within the ruling alliance and resistance >from opposition parties, the government made it clear that the >telecom sector in India could not be developed by protectionist >trends and hence it would provide the necessary legislative and >policy support for opening up of the sector. - PTI > > >http://www.economictimes.com/today/20tech17.htm Arun Mehta, B-69, Lajpat Nagar-I, New Delhi -- 110024, India. Phone +91-11-6841172, 6849103. http://members.tripod.com/india_gii To join india-gii, a list which discusses India's bumpy progress on the global infohighway, mail india-gii-subscribe@cpsr.org From owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Sat Dec 23 04:22:02 2000 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id EAA77409; Sat, 23 Dec 2000 04:22:02 +1000 (EST) Received: from pop-khi3.super.net.pk (pop-khi3.super.net.pk [203.130.2.13]) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id EAA77371 for ; Sat, 23 Dec 2000 04:21:47 +1000 (EST) Received: from excel586 ([203.130.7.40]) by pop-khi3.super.net.pk (8.10.0/8.10.0) with ESMTP id eBMIHBZ05131 for ; Fri, 22 Dec 2000 23:17:15 +0500 From: "Irfan Khan" To: s-asia-it@apnic.net Date: Fri, 22 Dec 2000 23:25:55 +0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Asian Women Face Gender Digital Divide Message-ID: <3A43E304.18180.144DBF7@localhost> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12c) Sender: owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Precedence: bulk [from GK Partners Vol. 2 No. 11, December 2000] Asian Women Face Gender Digital Divide A new report by womenasia.com says few Asian women are players at a business or personal level in Asia's New Economy. And the resulting gender digital divide may ultimately limit the region's economic growth. Prepared for the World Economic Forum, Asia Pacific Economic Summit on the Gender Digital Divide in September, the report, Turning Analog Women Into A Digital Work Force says that while women represent nearly 50% of the labor force in Asia, and own more than one-third of small and medium businesses in the region, they account for only 22 percent of Internet users on average. Including women fully in the Internet economy is essential for Asia's economic health, the report says. To read the paper, visit http://www.womenasia.com/divide/index.html From owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Sun Dec 24 05:21:06 2000 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id FAA113182; Sun, 24 Dec 2000 05:21:05 +1000 (EST) Received: from im.eth.net (mail.uthplanet.com [202.9.136.18]) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id FAA113173 for ; Sun, 24 Dec 2000 05:21:00 +1000 (EST) Received: from bytesforall ([61.11.9.91]) by im.eth.net with Microsoft SMTPSVC(5.5.1877.117.11); Sun, 24 Dec 2000 00:46:51 +0530 From: Frederick Noronha Reply-To: fred@bytesforall.org Organization: Freelance Journalist To: s-asia-it@apnic.net Subject: NEWS-INDIA: India's IT industry seen simmering down on U.S. economy slowdown Date: Sat, 23 Dec 2000 23:33:35 +0530 X-Mailer: KMail [version 1.0.29] Content-Type: text/plain MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-Id: <0012232334110F.00507@bytesforall> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Precedence: bulk India's IT industry seen simmering down on U.S. economy slowdown by Sumeet Chatterjee, India Abroad News Service New Delhi, Dec 23 - Signs of a slowdown in the U.S. economy and forewarning of slump in computer sales and shortfall in revenues by the U.S. information technology (IT) giants is likely to bring its own set of woes for the Indian IT sector. And this time, even the domestic software services firms -- an important segment of the IT industry -- which thus far has felt largely insulated from the global meltdown in IT stocks, is likely to find few avenues of escape, say analysts. "The slowdown in the U.S. economy is already causing concerns to various industrial sectors, and exports of a variety of products have got a jolt," says D. H. Pai Panandiker, a noted business economist and adviser to the RPG group. According to him, most companies there - even the blue chip, Fortune 500 firms -- would try to cut costs and investments to keep their bottom lines healthy. In the process, Indian software companies - which cater to 185 of the Fortune 500 companies -- are likely to face a slack demand over the next few months. In fact, alarm bells are already beginning to sound from the three major segments of the IT sector in the U.S. -- software, microprocessors and hardware. After hardware major Compaq and chip-maker Intel, application software giants Apple and Microsoft are the latest firms U.S. suffering a downtrend, forcing them to issue a warning on a possible fall in profits with little signs of respite in the next quarter beginning January. Microsoft, in fact, blamed the shortfall to the sluggish desktop applications market in the U.S. consumer and corporate sectors, as well weak revenue from its portal subscriptions and online advertising sales. "All this could result in lower imports by the U.S. I foresee a slowdown for our software firms from the first quarter of the next calendar year," Panandiker told IANS. Over the last few years, the IT industry has been growing at a healthy pace, notwithstanding the general slowdown in the Indian industry. According to the National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom), software exports crossed $4.0 billion in 1999-2000, are estimated at $6.3 billion in the current fiscal year. This will further grow roughly 50 percent every year to reach $50 billion in 2007-08, it said. This growth rate, analysts say, will be difficult to maintain, since software exports account for a third of the IT revenues in the country. Sujata Srikumar, director (infrastructure) of credit rating firm CRISIL, agrees with Panandikar on the possible slowdown in the software sector, but she feels the impact of that on bottomline will not be immediate. "At present, the order books of most software exporters are full, so the profit margins will not take a beating in the short term," Srikumar said. She, however, added that the impact would be more immediate on the scrips of software majors. "The profit warning issued by the blue-chip companies has adversely affected sentiment in the tech-heavy Nasdaq. Since Nasdaq has strong co-relation with the domestic bourses, the market capitalization of the domestic IT companies will also fall over the next couple of months," Srikumar said. Tracking the recent downtrend in Nasdaq, the domestic software major Satyam Computer has lost nearly 37 percent from its October levels on the Bombay Stock Exchange and the Bangalore-based Infosys Technologies' share plunged by 23.5 percent in the same period to touch its yearly low at Rs. 5,796.40 on Friday. Foreign funds sold technology shares, in the last couple of weeks, on fears that a slowdown in global technology spending could hit the long-term growth of Indian software, although they were expected to maintain strong growth in the third quarter ending December 31, 2000. Sanjeev Bhalerao, partner of NetAcross, a Delhi-based e-services company, said that the companies in India would have to rework their strategies and become more cost competitive to withstand the prevailing slowdown in demand in the global market. "The effect of the slowdown will depend on the areas where the domestic companies are functioning. The services sector will largely remain unaffected," he said adding that the technology companies would have to adopt means to improve productivity and achieve cost efficiency. Anil Bakht, chairman and managing director of Eastern Software Systems, an application service provider (ASP), said that as the U.S. economy slows down the U.S. companies would be looking for more cost effective solutions for their IT needs, but little can be done to reduce the ongoing expenses on software and maintenance. He says: "Luckily for Indian companies this is not an investment decision...this has more to do with reducing costs...before the crash there was an unfulfilled demand of programmers in the range of 800,000. This may go down a bit but will certainly not drop down to zero." From owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Sun Dec 24 05:21:06 2000 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id FAA113181; Sun, 24 Dec 2000 05:21:05 +1000 (EST) Received: from im.eth.net (mail.uthplanet.com [202.9.136.18]) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id FAA113172 for ; Sun, 24 Dec 2000 05:21:00 +1000 (EST) Received: from bytesforall ([61.11.9.91]) by im.eth.net with Microsoft SMTPSVC(5.5.1877.117.11); Sun, 24 Dec 2000 00:46:40 +0530 From: Frederick Noronha Reply-To: fred@bytesforall.org Organization: Freelance Journalist To: s-asia-it@apnic.net Subject: NEWS-SOUTH ASIA: Pak official Web site not hacked: Web master Date: Sat, 23 Dec 2000 23:38:25 +0530 X-Mailer: KMail [version 1.0.29] Content-Type: text/plain Cc: bytes-admin@goacom.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-Id: <0012232338580G.00507@bytesforall> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Precedence: bulk Pak official Web site not hacked: Web master by Muhammad Najeeb, India Abroad News Service Islamabad, Dec 23 - The Web master of Pakistan's official Web site www.pak.gov.pk has ridiculed claims by some "patriotic Indian IT professional" that the site has been hacked and that its front page has been blocked. "This shows how professional Indians are...they don't know the official Web site of Pakistan," the Web master said while commenting on news reports that the government's Web site had been hacked by pro-India hackers. On Thursday, the front page of a Web site www.pakgov.org carried a message saying, "This site has been hacked by a patriotic Indian IT professional with the sole objective of trying to get the message across to Pakistani hackers (if any) to keep their hands off Indian Web sites." The Web master said one could judge the professional level of the Indians by the fact that they even did not know that government Web sites are registered as gov. and not org. He said org. was meant for organizations and not for governments. "They can only make a fool of themselves," he said. He said Pakistan's official Web site was fully operative and guessed that some Indians could have got this site www.pakgov.org registered fictitiously and then put out a message saying that they have blocked the official site. "We have made adequate security arrangements and no one can enter into our domain. They even cannot crash our servers what to talk of entering into our domain." Another IT professional, requesting anonymity, also laughed away the Indian claim, saying he knew the security system of Pakistan's official Web sites, and added that they were not easy to hack. "No doubt Indian IT professionals are large in numbers, but they cannot reach the caliber of Pakistanis," he said. Describing the news of hacking as the height of stupidity, he said Pakistani sites had multiple-layered security systems and were difficult to enter into. From owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Sun Dec 24 05:21:28 2000 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id FAA113260; Sun, 24 Dec 2000 05:21:28 +1000 (EST) Received: from im.eth.net (mail.uthplanet.com [202.9.136.18]) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id FAA113241 for ; Sun, 24 Dec 2000 05:21:24 +1000 (EST) Received: from bytesforall ([61.11.9.91]) by im.eth.net with Microsoft SMTPSVC(5.5.1877.117.11); Sun, 24 Dec 2000 00:47:07 +0530 From: Frederick Noronha Reply-To: fred@bytesforall.org Organization: Freelance Journalist To: s-asia-it@apnic.net Subject: NEWS-INDIA: Marriage a byte too much for the IT savvy Date: Sat, 23 Dec 2000 23:25:47 +0530 X-Mailer: KMail [version 1.0.29] Content-Type: text/plain MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-Id: <0012232326040A.00507@bytesforall> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Precedence: bulk Marriage a byte too much for the IT savvy >From India Abroad News Service New Delhi, Dec 23 - They have made their fortunes, acquired stock options and are sought after the world over. But these software professionals are in the news now for the wrong reasons - their high rates of divorce. These young urban upwardly mobile software professionals head the divorce rates in India today. Statistics from Bangalore's family court show that marriage may be one byte they just cannot handle, according to The Times of India newspaper. Top lawyers say software professionals or those married to them file the maximum number of cases for divorce. Lawyers handling family court matters in Bangalore, the Silicon Valley of India, say they are handling 20-30 divorce petitions filed either by or against an information technology (IT) person. Their reasons for doing so can make you laugh or cry. "My husband carries an umbrella to office every day," said the wife of an IT man who had just had enough of her husband. She filed for divorce after she realized she could not take any more embarrassment on account of her husband. One software professional could not make it past his wedding day. His airhostess wife could not hide her mortification when he walked around and greeted his guests - with ice cream decorating his upper lip. But it's not just the nerd factor that leaves them single. Many wives have complained that they had been treated very cruelly and had even been tortured by their software professional husbands. A wife of an IT man had chemical poured on her head after they quarreled over his extra-marital relationship. She lost her hair and subsequently filed for divorce. In another case, a software professional performed black magic on his wife. He cut a rabbit and poured its blood over her body, and even made her eat the animal's meat. Later the wife was forced to perform occult rites. This software engineer's wife was made to take a bath at the unearthly hour of 2 a.m. - with ice cold water. She finally filed for divorce after her mother-in-law forced her to consume insecticide. Supreme Court lawyer V. Renjith Shanker, who has handled many cases involving software engineers, told the newspaper that it is important these people realize that the divorce petitions involving IT people are on the rise. "It is time to analyze this phenomenon. Sociologists and psychiatrists should examine this issue. I wish somebody conducts a study on this," he told the newspaper. The general awareness of these software professionals is low according to the lawyer. A couple when asked to fill in a form had considerable difficulty when they came to the column titled 'sex.' They had to be told that the column was merely meant to indicate their gender and not their sexual status. "Cyber sex has also played a big role in disintegrating families. Most of them have developed relationships online," Shanker was quoted as telling the newspaper. From owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Sun Dec 24 05:21:46 2000 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id FAA113299; Sun, 24 Dec 2000 05:21:46 +1000 (EST) Received: from im.eth.net (mail.uthplanet.com [202.9.136.18]) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id FAA113295 for ; Sun, 24 Dec 2000 05:21:42 +1000 (EST) Received: from bytesforall ([61.11.9.91]) by im.eth.net with Microsoft SMTPSVC(5.5.1877.117.11); Sun, 24 Dec 2000 00:47:34 +0530 From: Frederick Noronha Reply-To: fred@bytesforall.org Organization: Freelance Journalist To: s-asia-it@apnic.net Subject: NEWS-INDIA: Edutech Informatics plans to invest $6 million more in India Date: Sat, 23 Dec 2000 23:19:31 +0530 X-Mailer: KMail [version 1.0.29] Content-Type: text/plain Cc: bytes-admin@goacom.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-Id: <00122323194705.00507@bytesforall> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Precedence: bulk Edutech Informatics plans to invest $6 million more in India from India Abroad News Service New Delhi, Dec 23 - Delhi-based Edutech Informatics India Ltd., an information technology (IT) education company, has decided to pump-in fresh investment of $6 million to expand its presence in the Indian computer education industry. "In accordance with our growth plans in India, we have already invested over $5 million and are looking at investing another S$6 million to augment our increased presence in the Indian IT education and training industry," Gopinath Pillai, chairman of Edutech Informatics India, said in a press statement here Saturday. The company wants to be known as a specialized education-focused company, offering not just IT training but also a whole gamut of skill-based learning, Pillai added. On the future plans of Edutech, he said that the company was adopting a two-pronged strategy for growth in India. "We will now be focusing on the emerging cutting edge tools in software education like software testing and convergence technologies along with related telecom topics. The other area that we will be looking at seriously is the e-learning platform vis-à-vis education and training," he said. According to Pillai, Edutech Informatics is expected to close the year with revenue of over Rs. 160 million. "It will mean a 100 percent growth over the last year, which by far exceeds the industry-average of 40 percent." "This is in keeping with our vision to be amongst the top five IT training and education companies in India by 2002," he said adding that the company has recently been certified with ISO 9001, for design and development and provision of IT education and training across all its centres. "This recognition provides the company a platform to standardize its methodology of training and development in IT education and work towards continuous improvement with total customer satisfaction as the key focus," Pillai said. On the company's e-learning initiative, the Edutech chief said that the company has launched purpletrain.com that will be offering university courses through the Internet. "Purpletrain.com is an e-learning portal that offers a combination of business and IT education programs, corporate courses and education related services," he said adding that about 200 online courses are available ranging from degree, diploma, certificate to corporate IT training programs. From owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Fri Dec 29 00:06:13 2000 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id AAA114413; Fri, 29 Dec 2000 00:06:13 +1000 (EST) Received: from pop-khi3.super.net.pk (pop-khi3.super.net.pk [203.130.2.13]) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id AAA114393 for ; Fri, 29 Dec 2000 00:06:03 +1000 (EST) Received: from excel586 ([203.130.7.164]) by pop-khi3.super.net.pk (8.10.0/8.10.0) with ESMTP id eBSE11Z30999 for ; Thu, 28 Dec 2000 19:01:05 +0500 From: "Irfan Khan" To: s-asia-it@apnic.net Date: Thu, 28 Dec 2000 19:10:08 +0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Subject: (Fwd) Vickram's letter on community radio in India Message-ID: <3A4B9010.3958.549A98@localhost> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12c) Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from Quoted-printable to 8bit by ns.apnic.net id AAA114410 Sender: owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Precedence: bulk [courtesy DevMedia] ------- Forwarded message follows ------- From: "Frederick Noronha" To: Subject: [cr-india] Vickram's letter Date sent: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 Any further follow-up to Vickram's well-drafted letter below? Vincent Subramaniam had posted it to this list. Can we take it forward? Any suggestions? -FN ********************Vickram Crishna's draft************************* TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN This letter is addressed to the nation (and perhaps to the world) because it addresses an issue that concerns everyone. The most popular medium of communication in the world is radio, addressing many times more people collectively than telephones (one-to-one) and television (expensive to produce and disseminate). It is the only medium that has the potential to cover issues of purely local concern, being extremely cheap to produce and needing very low levels of skill on the part of all concerned. Unlike any time before in history, a medium of communication has been developed that enables small groups of people to share information amongst themselves. This is the fundamental concept behind community radio, a form of radio broadcasting that allows common citizens to express themselves in the local arena. Community radio broadcasting is understood by definition to cover low power transmission within a small area, not exceeding a few tens of square kilometers. This enables the utilisation of bandwidth, the otherwise (popularly considered) scarce infrastructural commodity, to be maximised, since the same set of frequencies can be used over and over again throughout the country with no discernible loss of quality. Today, India stands at the crossroads of development. At no time in our history have we had such a huge accumulation of educated adults in one country. At the same time, the numbers of those unable to access knowledge are staggeringly large. From one viewpoint, education is the most important channel that needs the production and dissemination of content. For this reason, IGNOU has been charged with promoting a large number of public content FM stations through the country. But is this enough? Indeed, can education be disseminated independent of any other social initiative? Perhaps an alternate approach, one that empowers local communities to develop content for themselves, in which formal education has one role out of the many that will flower, should also be considered. Can this country afford to set up so many hundreds of radio stations, some may think to ask. Consider then that Indian technological talent has recently, independent of any foreign initiative, built an FM radio transmitter that is small enough to fit in a suitcase and costs just a few thousand rupees. Except for the walls, the rest of the equipment needed to produce decent audio programmes for broadcast is already small enough to fit in a bag ‹ a tape recorder with microphone, or as a high-quality option, a minidisc recorder, a laptop or desktop computer with suitable software for mixing and scheduling digital audio, and of course the necessary battery backups for running the studio in areas where regular electricity is a perennial problem. This means that unlike the traditional concept of centralised production of audio content for broadcast, the means for decentralising production to the very people for whom the content is intended and is particularly relevant is already at hand. Mobile studios for production need be little larger than a suitcase, and the broadcasting station itself be a single room with a suitable mast antenna sufficient to make the low-power transmitter signal available to the command area (in a radius typically of just five kilometers). What are the major concerns in such a scenario? One is of course cost ‹ but as we have seen above, the cost is very affordable for any small community, less than two lakhs fixed cost upfront at the most, plus some few thousands a month for consumables, exactly how much depending on the number of hours for which broadcast is meaningful. The second is security ‹ perhaps such stations can be misused for broadcasting seditious content. The likelihood of this is of course debatable, but it does little credit to the world's largest democracy to distrust its citizens, well after 50 years of independence, or even to assume that the security threat is high enough to deny formal and social education to the people who most need it. Thirdly, there is the social value of a community radio ‹ it can act as an early warning system in case of natural calamity, and will otherwise provide the most natural form of community bonding that can be conceived ‹ broadcasting for the people, with content of the people made by the people themselves. This is surely a laudable objective for a country whose biggest social problem is communication, or rather the lack of it. As concerned citizens, we believe that it is time that ordinary people were given an opportunity to participate in their own development process, especially given that the divide between the haves and have-nots has deepened and can only further exacerbate, as knowledge has become the key differentiator in the modern economy. ------- End of forwarded message ------- From owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Fri Dec 29 04:33:27 2000 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id EAA85662; Fri, 29 Dec 2000 04:33:26 +1000 (EST) Received: from pop-khi3.super.net.pk (pop-khi3.super.net.pk [203.130.2.13]) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id EAA85642 for ; Fri, 29 Dec 2000 04:33:19 +1000 (EST) Received: from excel586 ([203.130.7.163]) by pop-khi3.super.net.pk (8.10.0/8.10.0) with ESMTP id eBSISWZ04921 for ; Thu, 28 Dec 2000 23:28:34 +0500 From: "Irfan Khan" To: s-asia-it@apnic.net Date: Thu, 28 Dec 2000 23:37:44 +0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Electronic Information: Deadliest Enemy of Human Knowledge? Message-ID: <3A4BCEC8.21432.149A5DF@localhost> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12c) Sender: owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Precedence: bulk Electronic Information: Deadliest Enemy of Human Knowledge? December 27, 2000 - Galloping advances in information technology promise to give us instant access to all the world's knowledge. But how will human memory fare against the rise of the super-machine? Ivan Briscoe, UNESCO Courier journalist, looks at the connection between the yawning gaps in general knowledge and information technology. Is boundless electronic information the deadliest enemy of human knowledge, he asks in his article which is in WebWorld's Point of View section. Read complete article ("When computers chip away at our memories") at http://www.unesco.org/webworld/points_of_views/briscoe.shtml From owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Fri Dec 29 20:15:54 2000 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id UAA68106; Fri, 29 Dec 2000 20:15:53 +1000 (EST) Received: from pop-khi3.super.net.pk (pop-khi3.super.net.pk [203.130.2.13]) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id UAA68079 for ; Fri, 29 Dec 2000 20:15:43 +1000 (EST) Received: from excel586 (khi-line-105.super.net.pk [203.130.5.244]) by pop-khi3.super.net.pk (8.10.0/8.10.0) with ESMTP id eBTAApZ25887 for ; Fri, 29 Dec 2000 15:10:53 +0500 From: "Irfan Khan" To: s-asia-it@apnic.net Date: Fri, 29 Dec 2000 15:20:05 +0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Subject: [India] Government embracing the rage of the age Message-ID: <3A4CABA5.20871.60DE6@localhost> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12c) Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from Quoted-printable to 8bit by ns.apnic.net id UAA68088 Sender: owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Precedence: bulk Dec 28 2000 Government embracing the rage of the age Madanmohan Rao GIVEN the number of cyberspace initiatives recently announced by the central and state governments, it almost seems as if 'e-government' will be as important a mantra in India as 'e-commerce' in the coming year. Five sets of recent developments reflect the complex roles governments around the world will need to take on in cyberspace: * Growing concerns over the digital divide between and within countries (especially in developing nations). * The spread of Freedom of Information legislation in many countries, the presidential elections controversy in the US (leading to calls for online ballot box solutions for accurate counting). * The complexities of issuing new domain names (eg. ICANN's selection of new top level domains, the Chinese government's independent administering of Chinese language domain names). * Cyberlaw issues revolving around hate speech (eg. the French government ban on Nazi memorabilia sales on the Net) and pornography (eg. recent accusations against Rediff). A distinction needs to be made here between the terms 'e-government' (governments offering their services to citizens via the internet, eg. land records, filing of taxes) and 'e-governance' (collectively formulating laws and regulations to govern cyberspace, eg. domain names, e-commerce taxation, content censorship). Governments naturally play a key role in both activities, as a result of which these two terms tend to get used interchangeably. According to recent Nasscom-McKinsey report, the e-government infrastructure and services sector in India is a billion dollar market for IT vendors, software and training companies. True e-government will involve activities like design of a user-friendly citizen interface in local languages, back-end database integration, multiple channels of communication (email, wireless, satellite), security of tr ansactions, cyberlaw infrastructure, participatory policymaking processes, transparency of government activity, and willingness among government agencies to embrace open styles of functioning. Close to a hundred delegates gathered in Chennai recently for a conference titled 'Electronic Governance and Democracy in the New Millennium', hosted by the India chapter of the Asian Media Information and Communication C entre in Singapore. "As a large provider of services and a leading employer, it is a good sign that the Indian government has decided to allot at least 2-3 per cent of its budget for information technology expenditures," said Rajeshwar Dayal , head of the Delhi office of the German foundation Friedrich Eberhardt Stiftung. Despite all the country's progress in the IT sector, India still lags considerably in global indices of human development and information society parameters, cautioned M Anandakrishnan, IT advisor to the Tamil Nadu chief minister. Today, most state governments in India have some degree of departmental computerisation under way; many have basic informational Web sites, and some even have IT Secretaries and IT Parks. Tamil Nadu is making notable progress in online citizen services in Tamil and English, especially Web-based information about land records, birth/death certificates, subsidy schemes, GIS systems, college admission forms, and examination results. "One must not underestimate the cultural problems involved in creating such team spirit and open sharing of knowledge," warned Anandakrishnan. Companies active in e-government services in other parts of the world -- such as IBM, EDS and NCR -- are stepping up operations in India as well. "Our kiosk solutions offer e-government services like payment of traffic fines, utility bills, land and income taxes, and provident fund payments in Singapore," said Srinivasa Rao, business head for self-service solutions at NCR India. In addition to "pushing" information from government to citizens, the Internet can also open up a channel for citizens to communicate their grievances directly to government, said P Subramaniam, a World Bank consultant on e-government. Such public grievances can be aired online for electricity cuts, water supply, phone connections, ration cards, sanitation facilities, and transport services. Online government services provided by the National Informatics Centre via its state government offices include passport application, registration procedures, school examination results, trade guidelines, telemedicine, cu stoms EDI, and land records computerisation in taluks. E-government also has a role for the private sector, academic institutes, the news media, and NGOs. "We are involved in major state government initiatives for massive skill-building at the school level," said L Balasubramaniam, senior vice-president at NIIT. NIIT has won annual multi-crore contracts for IT-training 48,000 school students and 30,000 college students in Tamil Nadu as well as 20,000 school students in Karnataka. One of NIIT’s more innovative schemes in this regards is its 'Hole in the Wall' experiment to expose slum children to the Internet. This initiative of IT training via 'technical emergence' of Net browsing skills has recei ved $1.3 million in funding from the World Bank. Digital democracy must also include online participation by socio-cultural complexes like arts clubs, libraries, youth associations, gender groups, cooperatives, tribal organisations, human rights activists, disaster reli ef agencies, and advocacy groups for disabled citizens, according to a paper submitted by Damodaran Sivakumar of the University of Kerala. Kiosks and community centre solutions will play a key in bringing å-government services to a wider user citizen base, especially since an estimated 60 per cent of Indian internet users access the Net via cybercafes. The Department of Telecommunications reportedly earns 30 per cent of its revenues from public STD/ISD booths, which can thus open up new revenue streams if internet-enabled. The key solution to bringing the Net to a wider citizen base will reside in innovative approaches like installing cybercafes along railway stations outside cities, using solar power for computers, developing low-cost PCs, and leveraging new access techniques like DSL (digital subscriber loop) and WLL (wireless in the local loop), said professor Ashok Jhunjhunwala, head of the electrical engineering department at IIT Madras. Low-cost internet access technology called CorDECT, developed at the IIT’s Telecommunication and Networks Group ( www.tenet.res.in), has been used in France, Brazil and China, and in Indian districts like Kuppam (in Andhr a Pradesh) and Madurai (in Tamil Nadu); other trials have been launched in Hyderabad, Patiala and Delhi (Connaught Place). "While Internet backbone costs are coming down, last mile costs are still high in India, thus leading to low penetration of phones and Internet," Jhunjhunwala said. By way of comparison, India with a population of over a billion has only 25 million phone connections -- as compared to China which has 150 million phone connections today increasing at the rate of almost 30 million new phone connections each year. "The internet is more than telecommunications -- it is power. But the internet can create a strong digital divide if you don’t do anything about it," he warned. Citizen confidence in e-government can also increase with appropriate cyberlaw infrastructure, said N Vijayashankar, cyberlaw consultant and author of Cyberlaws for Netizens. "We need to create a cyberlaw literacy movement among bureaucrats, policymakers, police officials, judiciary and Netizens," he said. A growing trend in counties around the world is the move to enact a Freedom of Information Act, which should foster more open e-government. "Governments should be under an obligation to promote a culture of openness. Access to information should be as unrestricted as possible," urged Venkat Iyer of the Commonwealth Lawyers Associa-tion at the University of Ul ster, UK. Good case studies and success stories of e-government must be documented, urged writer Arul Aram; for instance, the Gujarat Road Transport Department’s computerised check-post project has eliminated corruption at 10 octro i posts on the state's borders, and increased revenue from Rs. 60 crore in 1998-99 to Rs 250 crore in 1999-2000. "IT is the rage of the age. But while many politicians are jumping on the bandwagon and announcing e-government plans, the challenge will be for them to live up to these plans," said TH Chowdary, IT advisor to the Andhra Pradesh government. "Internet access charges need to come down from phenomenal to nominal," he urged. The Andhra Pradesh state plans to add 'e-government outlet' facilities to the public STD/ISD booths in 400,000 villages out of a total 600, 000. "It is a tragedy that India, which was one of the first countries in Asia to shake free of Western colonial rule, today has one of the lowest levels of development and literacy in Asia," Chowdary said. Computerisation, Intranets, FM radio, e-townhalls, and televised state assembly meetings must all be collectively harnessed to bring in true e-government, Chowdary concluded. http://www.economictimes.com/today/28netw01.htm From owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Sat Dec 30 06:49:49 2000 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id GAA76356; Sat, 30 Dec 2000 06:49:49 +1000 (EST) Received: from post.super.net.pk (smtp-khi1.super.net.pk [203.130.2.9]) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id GAA76351 for ; Sat, 30 Dec 2000 06:49:41 +1000 (EST) Received: from excel586 (khi-line-030.super.net.pk [203.130.5.169]) by post.super.net.pk (8.9.1/8.9.3) with ESMTP id CAA15220 for ; Sat, 30 Dec 2000 02:01:35 -0500 From: "Irfan Khan" To: s-asia-it@apnic.net Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2000 01:53:32 +0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: [India] Global Summit on IPv6 in Bangalore Message-ID: <3A4D401C.26800.E22F22@localhost> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12c) Sender: owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Precedence: bulk [from the CyberCom mailing list] ------- Forwarded message follows ------- Date sent: Thu, 28 Dec 2000 22:20:15 -0800 From: Soundara Rajan HP to host the Global Summit on the next Generation Internet technology New Delhi, December 28, 2000 India's first Global Summit on IPv6 will be held from January 3-5, 2001 in Bangalore. Experts and Delegates from leading international IT companies will be addressing the summit. This will replace the prevailing IPv4 version of Internet protocol. The summit is being hosted by Hewlett Packard's India Software Operations(HP ISO) and marks the launch of Ipv6 forum in India. The Summit will be presided over by distinguished experts such as Mr. Latif Ladid, President, IPv6 Forum and Vice President, Ericsson Telebit A/S, Dr. Satya Rao, Director, Telscom AG, Mr. Madhu Thiyakkat General Manger- Hewlett Packard, Dr. Sadagopan, Director IIIT, Bangalore, Mr.Gopi Garge, ERNET, IISc, Kumar Sivarajan, Chief Technology Officer, Tejas Networks and Mr. H Krishnamurthy, SERC, IISc, who will highlight the advantages of the IPV6 over IPv4, such as security, privacy and Quality of Service for the Internet Development issues on various platforms, deployment issues like interoperability, scalability and implementation of IPv6 on various platforms -- HP-UX, Solaris, FreeBSD and Linux and also a practical IPv6 solutions demonstration are addressed during the Global Summit. "The global Summit will provide the complete foundation for IPv6 in India " said Mr. Gopi Garge, ERNET, IISc". "The aim of the Indian forum will be the identification of projects in IPv6, product development and promotion of India as a solutions provider, which is a huge emerging area." he further added. <...> From owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Sat Dec 30 18:42:19 2000 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id SAA89120; Sat, 30 Dec 2000 18:42:19 +1000 (EST) Received: from rmx306-mta.mail.com (rmx306-mta.mail.com [165.251.48.168]) by ns.apnic.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id SAA89101 for ; Sat, 30 Dec 2000 18:42:15 +1000 (EST) From: irfankhan@altavista.net Received: from weba2.iname.net (weba2.iname.net [165.251.4.12]) by rmx306-mta.mail.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id DAA08214; Sat, 30 Dec 2000 03:42:13 -0500 (EST) Received: (from root@localhost) by weba2.iname.net (8.9.1a/8.9.2.Alpha2) id DAA12727; Sat, 30 Dec 2000 03:42:12 -0500 (EST) MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-Id: <00123003421097.14041@weba2.iname.net> Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2000 03:42:10 -0500 (EST) Content-Type: Text/Plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: s-asia-it@apnic.net Subject: [Pakistan] Unique Crafts from the Legendary Land of Hunza Sender: owner-s-asia-it@lists.apnic.net Precedence: bulk Unique Crafts from the Legendary Land of Hunza PAN proudly launches a new Arts & Crafts category on its E-commerce Mall, under the Mail Order System [http://www.panasia.org.sg/mos/ ]. Making a debut here are genuine Hunza handcrafted products from the spectacular Karakoram mountains of northern Pakistan. Located on the old Silk Route, Hunza, a Shangri-la on earth, has a very rich history and cultural heritage, which has shaped the special traditions of the area. The craft items offered are of unique quality, comprising embroidery, carpets, traditional goat/yak hair rugs (Sharma), wood carvings, musical instruments and fabrics. Adapting traditional motifs and designs, the Thread Net Hunza project [http://www.threadnethunza.com/ ] has transformed local crafts into globally marketable products and generates work and income for about 2000 women producers. These beautiful items are made with affection by local famous artisans and are of the highest quality. The proceeds from the sale of these products are reinvested in the local communities to improve their skills and develop sustainable markets for their products. The project is supported by the Karakoram Area Development Organization (KADO), a non-profit community-based organization working to promote sustainable development of mountain areas in northern Pakistan. The organization promotes culture-sensitive and environment-friendly micro-enterprises, creating village-based employment for poor women, men and disadvantaged groups of the community. The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation provides financial support to KADO. PAN warmly welcomes KADO as our latest e-commerce partner in development. [from http://www.panasia.org.sg/] ---------------------------------------------------------------- Get your free email from AltaVista at http://altavista.iname.com