Information Society Watch

September 11, 2007, Telecom Magazine

India's telecommunications regulatory body, TRAI has released policy recommendations on ways to improve connectivity. These include using the Universal Service Obligation Funds to subsidise satellite backhaul charges by up to 40 percent when providing broadband links to rural areas. To boost broadband connectivity in urban areas, TRAI recommends that state telecommunications players like MTNL and BSNL appoint franchisees to supplement their broadband services.

2007, IT for Change

This is a report of an international workshop conducted by IT for Change in January 2007 in Bangalore, India. The workshop proposed to examine the policy options for development in the information society by bringing together policy advocates, leading thinkers and researchers in both fields.

2004, C.P. Chandrasekhar & Simran Kumar, APDIP

This study examines the ways in which ICT can be used in India to realise the stated, time-bound goals set by the United Nations’s Millennium Declaration in different sectors, and discusses constraints to using ICT as an tool for the MDGs, and the dangers involved in any excessive emphasis on ICT as a means to realising the MDGs. It examines the many routes through which ICT impact on human development is expected to occur, once access to the technology is provided to the people.

Abdul Jaleel Tharayil & Rajeev K R

In a developing country like India, advances in ICTs have brought a lot of opportunities and perhaps a whole lot of challenges as well. One of the main challenges is the frightening gap between the information have-s and information have-nots -what is known as the digital divide. The paper highlights the concept of digital divide in general and the Indian scenario in particular and suggests measures to reduce this divide especially the role that can be played by rural libraries towards this end.

Empowering the poor: Information and Communications Technology for governance and poverty reduction - A study of rural development projects in India

2006, UNDP-APDIP

It is widely believed that Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) are effective tools in the fight against poverty, if used appropriately. As India’s poverty is deepening and its ICT industry booming, there are many projects underway that are using ICT to reduce poverty and promote good governance.This publication systematically analyses 18 projects in India that use ICT for the benefit of poor people, and provides recommendations on how ICT can be applied to the massive, widespread and seemingly intractable problems of poverty.

May 2, 2007, UNESCO

The state government of Kerala through it's state wide ICT project Akshaya with support from UNESCO is going to create community portals in the local language (Malayalam). The portal will comprise vital information such as government schemes,information regarding agriculture, business ventures,products,local job vacancies, educational details,health information, legal rights and so on.

March 13, 2007, Rajat Guha and Mayur Shekhar Jha, The Economic Times

In India, it will soon be mandatory for states to computerise all land titles and get them audited in the interest of averting property disputes and making property transactions transparent. Non-conformity would mean the deferment of central funding to the state.

March 17, 2007, Moumita Bakshi Chatterjee and Joji Thomas Philip, The Economic Times

India may soon have a unique identification number (UIN) similar to the American social security number system. Below-poverty-line (BPL) individuals would be the first to be given the UIN for the administration of government welfare schemes.

October 31, 2006, Akshaya Mukul, The Times of India

Sakshat has been introduced by the Indian Minstry of Human Resource Development to function as a one-stop education portal in all fields of study, including vocational education. The portal indicates a positive trend of non-ICT ministries taking up ICT projects in India.

January 2004, Anita Gurumurthy, World Social Forum

The author strongly critiques India’s excessive emphasis on building an IT-savvy human resource pool, which has resulted in the diversion of resources away from the much more crucial expenditures on literacy and primary education. These are not just development goals in themselves but a must if the digital divide is not to widen rapidly.