Information Society Watch

June 23, 2007, Deccan Herald

This news-piece highlights the fact that even after a year of it's enactment, the Right to Information Act has largely remained an urban phenomenon and awareness in rural areas is very low. Even in urban areas, while there have been success stories, the larger picture is one of lack of awareness on the part of government officials and citizens on the practical aspects of using the Act.

June 24, 2007, Breitbart

In the strictly controlled media world of communist China, "citizen journalism" is beating a way through censorship, breaking taboos and offering a pressure valve for social tensions. In one striking example this month, the Internet was largely responsible for breaking open a slave scandal in two Chinese provinces that some local authorities had been complicit in.

June 21, 2007, Wired News

A European Union probe triggered by concerns over how long Google stores user information has widened to include all Internet search engines. The EU's panel of national data protection officers say they are concerned over the retention of data that the companies use to deliver more relevant search results and advertising.

June 22, 2007, BBC News Service

Although the web has permeated almost 250 nations, most websites used to only support Roman characters, However this is slowly changing with international domains getting more widely used to help people get to grips with the web in their own language. A prime example of this phenomenon is China which has started promoting three Chinese language domain names.

June 12, 2007, Venezuelananalysis.com

The Venezuelan Government has introduced open source computing for government departments, which will be extended to all Government institutions, and especially to schools. The programme involves developing locally manufactured computers, equipping them with open source software and supplying them at costs which are 40% less compared to commercially available computers.

June 14, 2007, Tectonic

Google and Intel have launched a programme called ' Climate Savers Smart Computing', which aims to introduce aggressive new targets for energy-efficient PCs and servers that will save energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This programme already has the backing of top IT corporates like Dell, HP, IBM, Lenovo, Canonical, Linux Foundation, Red Hat, Ubuntu, Microsoft etc.

June 9, 2007, The Times of India

A study conducted by a private consultancy firm shows that Internet usage amongst Indian masses is no longer restricted to metropolitan cities. The study showed that more than half of India's Internet users are from Tier II and Tier III cities. Accessing Internet from homes is getting more and more popular with the rapid spread of broadband and other technologies.

June 6, 2007, BBC News Service

In a move that could have a far reaching impact on the way democracies function, Britan's Leader of the Opposition, David Cameron has suggested that suggested that online petitions could be used to decide the subject of debates and votes in Parliament under a Tory government.

January 22, 2007, Tectonic

South Africa disallows software patents and according to an academic from South Africa ,Derek Keats, Microsoft has been violating this law by filing software patents over there. He said this during a workshop on software and business method patents where Microsoft officials were present, while Microsoft officials refuted this claim and insisted that Microsoft were operating within the laws of the land.

May 18, 2007, Times of India

While multinationals are rushing into India to take advantage of the IT boom, one company, Citigroup has decided to put up it's BPO (Citigroup Global Services) up for sale. The company has decided to do this after finding it difficult to keep its costs down, arising out of rising salaries and advertising costs.