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[Fsf-friends] Patents (Amendment) Bill, 2005 introduced in Lok Sabha
by Ramanraj K 18 Mar '05

18 Mar '05

The agenda for 2005-03-18 at the Lok Sabha included: <quote> Patents (Amendment) Bill, 2005 16. SHRI KAMAL NATH to move for leave to introduce a Bill further to amend the Patents Act, 1970. ALSO to introduce the Bill. ______ STATEMENT REGARDING ORDINANCE 17. SHRI KAMAL NATH to lay on the Table an explanatory statement (Hindi and English versions) showing reasons for immediate legislation by the Patents (Amendment) Ordinance, 2004 (No. 7 of 2004). </quote>

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by jothi prakash 18 Mar '05

18 Mar '05

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Bangalore one Project â A reverse gear e-governance: Re: IAS officer reply with respect e-Seva project to Central MIT Minister, NISG, INDIA-EGov, CM's, Secretary's of e-Gov, WHICH is being REPLICATED in Karanataka State
by Venkat Kumaraswamy 17 Mar '05

17 Mar '05

----------------- Forwarded Message: Subj:Bangalore one Project – A reverse gear e-governance: Re: IAS officer reply with respect e-Seva project to Central MIT Minister, NISG, INDIA-EGov, CM's, Secretary's of e-Gov, WHICH is being REPLICATED in Karanataka State Date:3/12/2005 8:28:39 PM Pacific Standard TimeFrom:umashankarc@yahoo.comTo:ellakannada@yahoo.com, cm(a)karnatakacm.com, cm(a)kar.nic.in, cs(a)karnataka.gov.in, itsec(a)bangaloreit.com, devcom(a)karnataka.gov.in, prs-fd(a)karnataka.gov.in, secybud-fd(a)karnataka.gov.in, secyexp-fd(a)karnataka.gov.in, hcom(a)vsb.kar.nic.in, prs-infra(a)karnataka.gov.in, prs-home(a)karnataka.gov.in, prshigh-edu@karnataka.gov.inCC:vs@nisg.org, ceo(a)nisg.org, piyush.gupta(a)nisg.org, satyajit.suri(a)nisg.org, sandeep.paidi(a)nisg.org, binay.sharma(a)nisg.org, bala.srinivas(a)nisg.org, rekha(a)nisg.org, devajoy.choudhury(a)nisg.org, umashankarc(a)yahoo.com, minister(a)mit.gov.in, mos(a)mit.gov.in, secretary(a)mit.gov.in, srinath(a)mit.gov.in, rgilani(a)mit.gov.in, dg(a)nic.in, lalitha(a)hub.nic.in, kashinath(a)hub.nic.in, pspillai(a)hub.nic.in, ellakannada(a)yahoo.com, novamed(a)aol.com, India-egov(a)yahoogroups.com, ellakavi(a)yahoogroups.com, ias-tn(a)yahoogroups.comSent from the Internet (Details) Bangalore one Project – A reverse gear e-governance Author: C.Umashankar IAS., (TN) http://www.sugame.com/umashankar umashankarc(a)gmail.com The views expressed in this article are the personal views of the author and they do not reflect the views of any Government or the Indian Administrative Service. In the name of e-governance, Karnataka had decided to favour a consortium of private companies through Bangalore One project. Actually there is no e-governance in the whole design of Bangalore One! Collection of utility bills or collection of passport applications can not be considered e-governance. Bangalore one is a purely vendor driven utility bill collection arrangement whereby the citizen who enjoys remitting the sum through different banks and different modes as on today is being cornered to make the payment through the kiosks operated by the private vendors. The effort would be to discontinue the online payment portals (I wonder whether they are operational even now) and direct service facility through the respective offices/organisations. I would appreciate the Karnataka Government if it had decided to carry out this venture for true e-governance such as online procedure for all licences and permits, government approvals for building permits, RTOs, labour department procedure, employment exchanges, treasury payments, entire commercial tax procedure, traffic police operations, police station operations, rural development operations, highways and PWD operations and so on. The proposed Bangalore one nonsense does not cover any of these areas! After commencing true e-governance through Bhoomi, with the full technical help of National Informatics Centre (NIC), my esteemed colleague Rajiv Chawla had jettisoned NIC and went for private vendors. And this time it is not e-governance, but a good business for a private partner in the name of e-governance. The undoing of the e-governance momentum in Karnataka had just begun. What is the agenda behind this move? I have certain pertinent questions? Why a State Government wants to involve itself in collection of BSNL bills? BSNL and all telecom operators have their collection systems already in position. Why include them? Is it to show ‘volume of business’ which the AP government boasts now and then when they talk about their e-seva centres! The volume of business is an utter nonsense. Even without the e-seva or Bangalore one, the volume of business is there. It is not that these kiosks generate this volume. The BSNL (or like organisations which have joined the bill collection kiosks) does all the hard work. They generate the revenue through their own business plan, infrastructure and manpower. The kiosks simply collect these amounts as collection agents. But this amount is shown (which is usually large) as a turnover from the kiosks. It is a cheap business trick. If I could find out the cheap trick beyond this smoke and hype, it is not going to take much time for others to find out this in the near future. After India had commenced liberalisation, the States and Central Government have hardly any role in private business. They have to move out from their existing business ventures through disinvestment. The Government of India and State governments have already been doing this. But Karnataka wants to get into private business! It cannot be argued that this effort would result in better citizen services. Because the citizens of Bangalore have already been enjoying online payment facility and payment facility through multiple bank counters. The kiosks would restrict them to go to these 15-50 counters! It is going to be a downgraded service and not the other way around. And what are the plans for the rural masses! Can this service provide online Old Age Pension service or can it allow the rural masses to enhance their democratic participation through transparent and online rural development administration? Can it empower the women, especially the rural women or can it empower the SC/STs? I am deeply concerned and so I am using harsh words against my own wishes. Why I am concerned? I am explaining the cause of my worry in the succeeding paragraphs. Before I explain why the Bangalore one nonsense is against humanity, let me share my anguish from a real life situation. Runaway bribe culture. Can Bangalore One rein in this culture? A month and half ago, one of my acquaintances approached me and informed that an officer was demanding Rs.10 lakhs to clear a file. There was nothing unusual or out of the way in the whole proposal. Even when everything was alright with the proposal he was asked to remit the huge sum as bribe. I wanted to intervene. But my acquaintance said that if I intervened the whole thing would be off and they would ensure that he would be ruined. He begged me to desist from interfering. He did not have the money to pay the bribe. Rupees ten lakhs is not a small sum! This acquaintance had come up in his life doing porter service in Chennai railway station. Through sheer hard work he had come up in life. The situation was that if he did not pay the bribe, he was going to lose the whole investment which he had already made in that venture. This was all borrowed money. So he chose to borrow the bribe sum and remitted the same in two instalments. Even after remitting the huge bribe, the officer had cleared only one out of the two proposals. The other one is still pending. In between I had to go to Bihar for election duty. Today morning (12th March 2005) the acquaintance called me to inform about this daughter’s engagement. I asked him a few more questions. Yes, till date he did not get approval for the second part of the proposal though he had paid the full sum (agreed bribe sum for both the proposals). His partner had decided to break off from the business because of this delay. I also asked him whether he dealt with through agents or the officer himself had interacted with him directly. He replied that the officer himself gave the instructions in person to him. He had paid the last instalment of Rs.2 lakhs at Nagercoil bus stand, as per the officer’s instructions! Now people would raise questions, in all the wrong ways! (The way Tehelka was witch hounded) Why you did not inform the Government? You are also a silent accomplice to this fraud and so on. Let me request you to look at the point I wish to drive at the end of this paragraph. (I informed the CBI. They said they would not be able to do anything without the consent of the State Government. They are now looking for the assets of this officer. If the assets are created in TamilNadu they would be able to catch him. But I am sure he is a clever guy. He would be creating the assets in some other State). What I have described here is only a tip of the iceberg. I don’t have many acquaintances who run business or do special commercial ventures. Within this limited number I got this information. I tremble to imagine the real magnitude of corruption in TamilNadu and rest of India. If something like this can happen in TamilNadu which is supposed to be a better administered State, what could be the position in other States? Now the question is does the Bangalore one project have the prowess to curb this type of looting of honest citizens? No. None of the services envisaged has anything to do with e-governance. At present these utility bills are being collected by the respective organisations. In addition to that infrastructure they are creating a new kiosk infrastructure only to benefit the private partner. This private partner (consortium) would go to another State such as Maharashtra, Rajasthan, TN etc and get another order. This is a pollution of the highest order. Unfortunately, this pollution spreads faster than the environmental pollution. Role of NISG e-governance is supposed to capture the government processes and not the bill collection alone. As explained here, Bangalore One does not have any components of e-governance. NISG, a new venture to support e-governance in the country apparently does not know the meaning of e-governance. I fail to understand the decision of NISG to be part of Bangalore One. This is a pure and cheap commercial venture in which an august body such as the NISG has no role at all. This had demoralised die hard e-governance lobbyists like me. What demoralises the e-gov enthusiasts more is that the wrong lead given by NISG may lead to a series of wrong ventures in Karnataka and other states too. Bangalore One is going to raise questions about the existence of NISG! What is e-governance? e-governance is the process of automating the government operations in such a manner that wherever the government to citizen/ G to business/ G to G interface takes place the same should be electronic enabled. This means the citizens should be enabled to file all their applications for licences, permits etc online and get the orders of the Government / local body online. Internet has to play a crucial role. The Government offices /local body offices have to be e-enabled to process the entire requests online. Primacy should be given to electronic records and NOT paper records. The citizen interface should be fully e-governed. The government employees should commit their transactions online. All the Tottenham based personal registers have to give way to process driven automation system! In short, process automation is the key to e-governance. Similarly, the business houses have to get a facility whereby their entire interaction with the Government should go online. Today, the business community in India has to bribe its way in all its interaction with the Government. If one wants to register a company and obtain a Sales Tax certificate there is a price, the labour department has its own pricing system for every type of transactions, the inspector of factory office has its price, the electrical inspector has his price, the Assistant Commissioner of Commercial Tax department has his/her price, and the tale of owe goes on and on. Another of my acquaintances was explaining his recent encounter with a lady Assistant Commissioner of Commercial Taxes (enforcement) department in Chennai. This lady officer believes in straight business. Her way is to start the bribe negotiations right at the first minute of her entering the premises of a factory/company. She fixes her amount and places her demand for bribe sum even before setting her eye on any of the records of the factory / company which she visits. The private companies, even if they are very honest are scarred to gain enmity of these vultures because they can always find some technical fault. Even if there is none, they can write a false report and implicate a defiant company. It is extremely painful for an honest businessman in India to run his business. Lack of transparency which induces corruption is the root cause. It is a different matter that unless these businessmen carry out their day to day activities there can be no employment, no taxes, no income to the Government and there can be no government worth its salt too. Yet, the honesty of businessmen is tested on a day to day basis all over the country by these vultures. The system however is a darling for the unscrupulous businessmen. In the end, the citizen is the loser. For every such bribe paid, the businessman has to recoup the ‘loss’ though some other way. The balancing act results in public damage such as adulteration, under wieghment etc. e-governance has to put a check on these vultures. By resorting to process driven automation system and bringing up all the citizen/business interfaces online, the Governments can achieve a high level of efficiency and revenue accruals. Had it happened in Karnataka? There are only two places in India where process automation takes place, viz., Tiruvarur district of TamilNadu (1999 onwards in all Taluk offices) and in Taluk offices of Karnataka (Bhoomi project (2001) which does the limited operation with regard to land record maintenance in rural Karnataka). One needs to e-enable the citizens by hosting these services online using internet and open source software as medium. Karnataka’s proposed Bangalore one nonsense has no solution to any of the ills descried above. Let us make an analysis of the Bangalore one. The pluses and minuses of Bangalore one 1. it has no governance or e-governance content. It has no software for handling the back office operations of the government offices. It does not have even a single service which can be called e-governance. Payment of utility bills does not come under governance at all. This may come under the definition of (part of) e-commerce. It is a different matter that Governments have no business to involve themselves in e-commerce. It is an exclusive domain of the private corporate. 2. it has nothing for the business community, save for the consortium which had been identified for the implementation of the project. 3. it is not process automation based. 4. it does not have any plan for the Government offices. It has plans only for the window dressing (kiosks) 5. it does not have anything for the poor who constitute over 50% of Kannadigas. 6. it has nothing for the rural areas, which constitute 75-80% of Karnataka. 7. it has nothing for women or SC/STs. (The rural e-seva project which has been under implementation in West Godawari district of Andhra Pradesh has given primacy to women self help groups for the kiosk operations. Though the West Godawari project had not automated the back office operations, it had resulted in massive empowerment of the rural women. For this achievement, Sanjay Jaju and his team deserve all credits. West Godawari had gradually started building the back office automation as well, according to the latest reports. Why Karnataka chose to ignore this women empowerment issue?) 8. Bangalore one or any other similar project has the retarding effect of stalling true e-governance projects. This had already happened in AP. The e-seva project had resulted in stalling of all other efforts to bring in true e-governance. AP has nothing to quote as genuine e-governance effort except the registration department automation which was commenced before the commencement of e-seva. The private vendors would allow anything which has something for them. After tasting success in one project such as the e-seva, they look for only the ‘revenue models’ and not something which is beneficial to the citizens/common man. The revenue model means revenue to them. May be it is a shared revenue. 9. According to the e-mail admission from NISG, the NISG which manages the Bangalore one nonsense has no plans for rural areas. (http://www.sugame.com/umashankar) Sabotaging political will True e-governance requires a strong political will. The very fact that Karnataka had reached this level with Bangalore One shows that there is tremendous political will for e-governance in Karnataka. The political executive apparently is of the opinion that they had given go ahead for e-governance. They had no idea that they had consented to something which does not come under the definition of e-governance! This had been clearly explained in the foregone paragraphs. I am deeply concerned that such a political good will coming from Karnataka Government is being cunningly diverted to a smoke screen project which is aimed at benefiting only the private sector implementing agencies/consortium. By the time the political leaders realise this malady, precious time would have been lost. A forward looking and potential state for wholesale e-governance is going down in an abyss. A potential opportunity is being wasted through this diversion! Who is behind this Bangalore One nonsense? Why the advocates of Bangalore One are afraid of True e-governance? After achieving political will, true e-governance venture requires careful assessment and planning. It requires leaders. It needs the support of the Government employees. It needs champions from among the bureaucrats to spearhead the momentum. This list is only illustrative. These steps involve real leadership and efforts. People don’t want to take pain or leadership. They want to show results without any efforts or pain. So, the private operators come up with this magic wand called e-seva, a magic wand that worked ‘wonders’ in Andhra Pradesh. But the times have changed. When Andhra’s e-seva was introduced, India was nowhere in the e-gov field. Now there is tremendous awareness among Indians within India and abroad. The magic wand is going to fail this time. The very fact that I have written this piece shows that the magic wand has already been failing to impress! Every paisa spent on Bangalore One project has to be brought under CAG’s scanner. Today experts in e-governance are ready to volunteer the CAG’s team to study and analyse a deeds/misdeeds of a government in the area of e-governance. Let us start with Bangalore One and then with the momentum created by it let us implement other e-gov projects! This was the question posed by a senior officer of Karnataka Government when we had a telephone discussion on this subject. The officer wanted to know the feedback from me for various angles. So, he acted as a devil’s advocate and raised a few questions. This is one of them. I answered him that Bangalore One would not create the momentum one expects. ‘When we implement e-governance solutions we need to put our best foot forward. We should never put the wrong foot forward. Because the first wrong foot forward would beget another wrong foot. For example, the Andhra e-seva project which was a wrong foot forward had already resulted in another wrong foot in the form of e-procurement which is totally vendor driven. There is no enabling factor in both these projects. So, my opinion is that Karnataka should not put its wrong foot forward. The proposed Bangalore One project would not result in any empowerment. We need the Government employees, citizens and the Government to get empowered through any typical e-governance effort. In the Bangalore one project, the Government and government employees are being kept away. Only the private vendor has his say all the way. Bangalore one would create a severe dependency factor. Both the Government (its employees also) and the citizens have to be dependent on the private partners who carry out the project. This goes against all parameters’ I also informed another angle as to why Karnataka should not go for Bangalore one with the present content. This is my genuine concern too. We all know that the press is dominated by the middle class. The middle class oriented press would look at the hype that is being generated by Bangalore One with special interest. The hype will be generated by the private partners as they are getting a sizeable income out of this project. Looking at the hype, the press would start writing great stories about Bangalore One. The very same private operators would assist the preparation of documentation for prestigious awards such as Stockholm challenge etc. The officers behind the project would get some award because the awards have to be given to some one, every year. After getting such awards, the officers who are behind this project would feel satisfied that they had achieved some great thing (whereas their achievement is next to nothing) and then they would never have the drive to look at the rural areas, women empowerment, SC/ST empowerment using e-governance and so on. So, Bangalore One has the potential to thwart Karnataka One, meaning Karnataka on top of every other States in e-governance. The so called e-governance which is actually collection of utility bills in Bangalore city would be restricted to the precincts of Bangalore city. The effort would not evolve into process automation based e-governance in Bangalore city (BMC) or in rest of the government processes in the entire Karnataka state. Private partner driven bogus e-governance, a threat to India’s future I am concerned at this lurking danger that e-governance effort in India would be hijacked by these private partners. The national e-governance action plan had been approved for Rs.12,500 crores. Everyone who wants to do business may have an eye on this pie. The businessmen who believe in short cuts may like to propose e-seva/Bangalore One like projects only. This would result in total discredit to the concept of e-governance in India. It is my assessment that even 50 years after the introduction of projects such as e-seva or Bangalore One, the government offices would continue to be the same. The vultures in the government offices (calling themselves as Government officers) would continue to fleece the citizens. The politicians would remain happy because these vultures would offer a share of the booty to the political class for their election expenses. But the citizen would continue to be a slave under a fully ‘e-governed’ atmosphere. The citizen would have two sets of full fledged governments, one run by the actual government and the other by the vendors who have taken up the ‘e-governance’ projects. Both of them would have equal number of employees. In the initial period of hype, the private sector bill collection centres may not indulge in fraud or corruption. Such a situation would not continue for long. A time would come, not long from now, we would hear the news that the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti corruption had entered XYZ seva centres and seized unaccounted money or records. This would be the natural result of an over grown bureaucracy run by the private sector to administer ‘e-governance’. The women, especially the rural women would continue to remain deprived and oppressed. Their husbands would happily beat them as usual despite the change in times, from a traditionally governed nation to a fully ‘e-governed’ nation. The Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe population would continue to be discriminated against with no change in the social system. They would be confined to their slums/bastis despite the governments taking great strides in the sphere of so called e-governance. Oh! I am sorry for Karnataka and sorry for India. Long live Bangalore One Umashankar 12th March 2005 umashankarc(a)gmail.com http://www.sugame.com/umashankar Apologies for using the word nonsense often. I did not find a more appropriate word than this to express my feelings. The inner voice: 1. There are enough number of critics to any new initiative! Do you have a solution framework Umashankar? I hear this voice. Yes I do have a solution framework. In fact the whole write up had stemmed out from such a solution framework. I cannot volunteer unless the decision makers who matter wish to change course and listen to the right ways. I am willing to collaborate. Of course open source will be the base line for any such initiative or idea. 2. Open source vs. proprietary software: I have not got into the open source Vs. proprietary source (Microsoft) issue which is very much relevant as on today. Because there is much more here which forced me to analyse the basis of the project, a project which has no foundation! Open source, the beauty of future mankind has to wait for its turn. --- Venkat Kumaraswamy <ellakannada(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > Hello Members of this forum, > > This is an email written by one of the IAS officers > of INDIA from TAMILANADU CADRE. > No member from this great forum has not even talked > about and discussed about this. WHY ? He talks about > e-Seva Project of AP, which is now being REPLICATED > as BANGALORE ONE project in Karnataka State. > > Any one in this forum knows how much money has > tarnsferred hands in this transaction? This has > happenend without TENDER PROCESS. It has goine to > the same company. How can you all expect things are > going to get corrected in INDIA. World Bank Funds, > UNDP Funds, USAID , USAEP funds and othe agencies > funds is being used by GOI and State govts. in INDIA > for some of these projects. > > I think we should send this email of this IAS > officer to WORLD BANK, UNDP and other agencies so > that they all should know what is happenning in > INDIA. IS e-GOV really happenning in INDIA by > reading this email ????? > > This forum should discuss these kind of things > openly, so that things can get corrected. > ----------------- > Forwarded Message: > Subj:Re: ALTERNATIVE TECHNOLOGY - Bangalore one - > Sucides need not be assisted by NISG Date:1/27/2005 > 7:06:28 AM Pacific Standard > TimeFrom:umashankarc@yahoo.comTo:ellakannada@yahoo.com, > minister(a)mit.gov.in, mos(a)mit.gov.in, > secretary(a)mit.gov.in, srinath(a)mit.gov.in, > rgilani(a)mit.gov.in, dg(a)nic.in, lalitha(a)hub.nic.in, > kashinath(a)hub.nic.in, pspillai(a)hub.nic.in, > cm(a)karnatakacm.com, cm(a)kar.nic.in, > cs(a)karnataka.gov.in, itsec(a)bangaloreit.com, > devcom(a)karnataka.gov.in, vs(a)nisg.org, ceo(a)nisg.org, > piyush.gupta(a)nisg.org, satyajit.suri(a)nisg.org, > sandeep.paidi(a)nisg.org, binay.sharma(a)nisg.org, > bala.srinivas(a)nisg.org, rekha(a)nisg.org, > devajoy.choudhury(a)nisg.org, prs-fd(a)karnataka.gov.in, > secybud-fd(a)karnataka.gov.in, > secyexp-fd(a)karnataka.gov.in, hcom(a)vsb.kar.nic.in, > prs-infra(a)karnataka.gov.in, > prs-home(a)karnataka.gov.in, > prshigh-edu@karnataka.gov.inCC:ellakannada@yahoo.com, > novamed(a)aol.com, India-egov(a)yahoogroups.comSent from > the Internet (Details) > > 27-1-05 > > Dear Mr.Kumaraswamy, > > The e-seva concept implemented by Government of AP > is > meant for underdeveloped states. > It would not suit developed States such as > Karnataka, > TN or Kerala. > > The e-seva concept completely ignores two vital > aspects viz., back office automation in the > respective > government offices and its non replicability in > rural > areas. > > The citizen is forced to go to the e-seva centres to > avail the service whereas he/she can do it from home > using his computer or any other computer. > In the short run it may look like a great thing. But > as it progresses one would realise that it is a step > backward and not forward. > > e-seva is mostly for payment of utility bills. This > is > not e-governance. These items come under e-commerce. > > > In Chennai you can pay your utility bills without > movin g out from your home. All you need to do is to > authorise your banker to make the remittances > online. > This is a free of cost service. The tax payers' > money > with the government agencies is also saved. > > The citizen should have a variety of options to make > the utility payments. It should not be restricted to > the e-seva centres. By adopting the e-seva concept > in > Bangalore, Karnataka is taking a step backwards as > it > treats its citizens illiterate who require the > assistance of the e-seva centres. e-seva concept is > good when the citizen is illiterate and is not in a > position to operate computers on his/her own. I am > sure Bangalore citizens are literate enough to > operate > computers. > > By adopting e-seva concept the Government of > Karnataka > is putting a huge seal on true e-gov efforts. > Because, > under e-seva concept, back office automation is > given > a go by. That means the back office work would > continue to be under the manual method or a non > scientific computerised method. > > Ideally speaking, the back office should be > automated > using online methodology. Each and every government > official has to switch over to mouse and keyboard > from > pen and paper. After succeeding in this effort, the > agencies have to open up their online counters to > the > public. This includes internet based payments. > This would result in true transformation in the > country. > > e-seva would kill such a transformation initiative. > > e-seva can be taken up only where user charges are > there. Can you imagine user charges in rural > development areas and social welfare areas? > > That means the so called "e-governance" would never > reach these people in Karnataka. My colleagues would > be happy to announce it as yet another greatest > thing > they have done. They may even be awarded with > international citation! > > An e-governance effort without taking into account > the > poor section of the society can be called only anti > human. > > Well, I have one more observation to make. > Can e-seva reduce the loot that is being committed > by > Government officials and others in RTOs/police > stations/PWD/HW offices/ education department/labour > department/industries department/commercial taxes > department? > What about building licences! > You can get a glaring building construction > violation > as long as you pay the right money to the Bangalore > officials! > Can they make the building construction approval > online? > Can they book the corrupt rats in the Bangalore > corporation through e-seva? > Can they issue driving licences and vehicle permits > through e-seva centres? > > Let us first make the licence raj online. > The country is under the peril of being > disintegrated > due to corruption in government departments? > > And where is the role for NISG here? > Sucides can be done without NISG's assistance too! > > Regards. > > Umashankar C.Umashankar IAS., (TamilNadu Cadre) e-governance expert and Member (Special Invitee) - Working group for implementation of National e-governance action plan, Government of India, New Delhi. Member, India e-gov group. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/India-egov/ Current assignment: Election Observer (General) in East Champaran district - Motihari town from 7th Feb 2005 to 1st March 2005. Tel: 06252-241035 Mob: 94316-32262 Chennai: Ph: 91-44-52054443 94443-82827 __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

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Re: [Fsf-friends] MS' influence in academia
by Venkat Kumaraswamy 17 Mar '05

17 Mar '05

> > >All of you might know allready about program called PROJECT > > >SHIKSHA which is being promoted by MS. we all need to worry about M$'s dominance in EDUCATION sector. M$is buying it's way into all States of INDIA. They are signing MOU's with States to do PROJECT SHIKSHA. This is one of the blunder done by Education Secretaries of INDIA and State Education Secretaries. What M$ is doing is sponsoring Teachers, Professors and Officials trip to USA and make them to attend some seminars given by M$. Our people go for these things and they forget about the country and it's Education system. We need to find what M$ has played a role in awarding the OLTP project ? WAS anyone involved in this decision making and listening to the advise of M$ ? M$ has deep rooted in Education System of INDIA. WE all need to think of way to get out of this mess created by few people for their greed. I think M$ must be planning in developing application developers using their technologies in INDIA, so that it will deny entry of OS in INDIA. M$ is really worried about this. That is why BG of M$ is increasing his DONATIONS in INDIA. Recently he has given funding to MSS Foundation I think. These NGO's follow what M$ says. That is the POWER of MONEY. IN ONE WAY M$ IS CORRUPTING our good NGO's and Individuals. M$ can be held responsible for increasing our CORRUPTION in our Country. WE all need to discuss this matter further in this the M$ and it\'s AGENDA. As far as BANGALORE ONE project, IT SHOULD BE OPENLY DEBATED AS written by this IAS offcier. We all should support this and encourage the IAS officer to go and challenge the ELITE people who are recomending e-Seva to be used in BANGALORE ONE project. As all of you know e-Seva has been slammed by CAG. In these days the e-Seva centers are most vulnerable for,ONLINE SECURITY FRAUD. This is more problematic by using e-Seva by GOK. I do not know how NISG is recomending e-Seva to be REPLICATED in BANGALORE ONE project. GOD SHOULD SAVE KARNATAKA STATE. NISG will not !!! They will go away once the deal is made with GOK. I think, we all need to discuss further and we should get more opinions from the group and move forward on this. WE SHOULD FORM A CORE COMMITTEE. Thanks Sincerely V. M. Kumaraswamy ------------------------------------------------------------------- ",1]);//-->forum. We might want make a committee with in this group to look into the M$ and it's AGENDA. thanks V. M. Kumaraswamy --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site!

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Re: [Fsf-friends] MS' influence in academia
by Venkat Kumaraswamy 17 Mar '05

17 Mar '05

Hello Sameer N I, What you thought I was giving wrong information ? This is happenning all over INDIA. GOI has sold Education System to MS for their money. Because BG of MS is DONATING funds for HIV and other things. What BG of MS is doing throwing BONES at DOGS. Our Govt. BUREAUCRATS for their ME TOO ATTITUDE doing all these things by signing MOU's with MS for PROJECT SHIKSHA without even thinking of consequences. It is spreading like CANCER all over the country. I am fighting in different fronts in Karnataka State Governament. There is more than NAGAPUR UNIVERSITY. You should submit an application to the University and also on GNU Letterhead. This should be done by all of us. All of you need to reab the CURRICULUM written by MS. This is a large file. I can't send it through the group. But I am going to copy the report written in outlookindia.com Wrtten by: Sugata Srinivasaraju <sugata(a)outlookindia.com>, Sent: Saturday, February 19, 2005 12:24 PM Subject: microsoft story Dear Sir, Outlook has used just 500 words in print from this article. It could not use the rest due to space constraints. The full article would be put up on our Internet site. Regards, Sugata. By Sugata Srinivasaraju It was a primary school in Argentina. A few years ago computers had been newly installed. Prof. Kenneth Keniston of the MIT went there to understand how children were getting used to the new technology. He asked the instructor how the kids were faring? She said they were picking up things amazingly fast, but her only concern was that the software in the computer was converting little Argentines into little Americans. It is a somewhat similar anxiety of erasure of identity that has made writers, linguists, educationists and local language computing experts raise questions about a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that the Government of Karnataka (GoK) has recently entered into with Microsoft for IT education at the primary and secondary school level. Dubbing the MOU as the "Microsoftisation of education," the critics want the government to terminate the agreement and ensure that a more multilateral IT education is imparted, instead of allowing just one multinational corporation to "monopolize" the minds of children. In fact, renowned playwright and MLC, Chandrashekar Kambar, has raised the issue in the Upper House of the Karnataka legislature in the recently concluded session. The MOU is part of Microsoft�s �philanthropic� effort to accelerate the spread of computer literacy among students and teachers in government schools across India exclusively through Microsoft products. Through �Project Shiksha� they intend to reach out to 3.5 million students and 80,000 teachers in the next five years. To meet this target, they have entered into an agreement with many state governments and Karnataka was the most recent signatory in November 2004. Eminent Kannada writer and Sahitya Academy award winner, K P Poornachandra Tejasvi, who has been leading the charge against the MOU, in a letter to the government, has accused it of spending crores of rupees in the name of IT education to merely forward the business interests of Microsoft. "When responsible governments across the world are moving towards open source software, which is available free and could be evolved to suit our local needs, why should we remain at the mercy of expensive proprietary software?" He asks. When we point out that the Microsoft proprietary software is after all coming free for Project Shiksha, he shoots back: "That is what we are made to believe, but read clause II.2 in the MOU it clearly says that the government will set up three IT Academies in �a central location� of Bangalore, Dharwad and Gulbarga and give it to Microsoft for an annual charge of Rs. One [repeat Rs one] to run for five years. They also specify that the government should provide a minimum of 1000-2000 square feet building with �electricity, running water, sewer, security and maintenance staff and phone and/or lease lines.� The government also assures that it would regularly supply students for the IT academies, which is like saying that we will supply regular customers for Microsoft. This means the government has to shell out crores of rupees of taxpayers� money to help Microsoft carry out its philanthropy." Additional Chief Secretary and Development Commissioner Chiranjiv Singh, who has responded to Tejasvi�s letter admits that the facts of the matter have come as an "eye-opener" and he would ask the heads of the departments concerned to "examine the issue and take appropriate action." US-based Nova Group CEO and President, V M Kumaraswamy, who has started an Internet activism group on the issue and who is currently in Bangalore to petition Chief Minister Dharam Singh and former prime minister Deve Gowda, says that if the government were spending taxpayers money to get some unique technological exposure to our children then we could have thought it was well worth it, but training in Microsoft products only would mean restricting job opportunities for these kids later. "The correct approach is to teach children with total open source solutions so that they become marketable once out of school. If they are trained only in Microsoft products they may become less marketable or not marketable at all, judging from the present trend among business houses and governments all over the world," says Kumaraswamy. "We are not against Microsoft products, but we are against the one vendor policy of the government. It is ethically wrong that a MNC which is fighting monopoly charges in US and European courts is allowed to monopolize government IT initiatives and that too in a very important sector like education which prepares the next generation technologists," Kumaraswamy clarifies and adds that he is contemplating a PIL in the matter very soon. Eminent linguist at Kannada University, Prof. K V Narayana, agrees: "Project Shiksha is only advantage Microsoft. Also, I have doubts if the government is capable of creating infrastructure and the learning mileu that it has promised in the MOU. One needs to just take a look at the government schools to understand what I mean. They still do not have toilets and don't get textbooks on time. In other words there is no preparedness for the technological leap that it claims to be envisioning." Kambar says he is also concerned about the lack of transparency in the whole affair. "They are neither ready to share the curriculum nor the source code for their products. With source code especially there are a lot of security issues involved," he says. Nandu Pradhan, director, Public Sector and Governments, Micorsoft India dismisses these allegations: "Microsoft is a responsible global citizen. Project Shiksha was launced by Bill Gates himself when he came to India in 2002 and the idea behind it is to empower the masses. We simply want to help the common man join the knowledge economy. About 20 million US dollars has been set aside till 2007 for the project," he says. When we ask him about the monopoly charge, Pradhan gives the analogy of a driving school. "When we go to a driving school, we may learn on one brand of vehicle and may later end up buying a different brand of vehicle. So what we are doing through Project Shiksha is we are only teaching basic skills and fuelling IT literacy. We are investing quality time and are developing a top class curriculum. We will also pay for the faculty that teaches children, besides offering licensed copies of software." But another issue that has complicated matters for Microsoft is the Kannada Language Interface Package (LIP) that it has developed for the Windows platform. Tejasvi, Kambar and others have accused Microsoft of not caring to consult local language computing experts or linguists while developing LIP. "There are nine universities in Karnataka and one Kannada University which deals with language related issues, not one person in these institutions have been consulted," they say. Countering the charge, Raveesh Gupta, marketing in-charge of localization at Microsoft India told Outlook that over 500 language users, including U R Ananthamurthy, were consulted. "In fact Jnanpith laureate Ananthamurthy was the keynote speaker at the launch of the Kannada package. Also, we need to understand that the package is not cast in stone, it is an ongoing process. We are open and what we have done is in no way comprehensive," he said. Microsoft shared nine names of Kannada experts that it consulted, only Ananthamurthy's name was recognizable in the list. But he has been erroneously described as a 'linguist.' "I am really disappointed that some people are jeopardizing the destiny of our language. Also, the government is encouraging Microsoft at the cost of many local companies which have worked on Kannada software for years now. At one time there were 26 companies working on Kannada software, now there are 4 left, with the entry of Microsoft those four too will cease to exist," Tejasvi paints a grim picture. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I have more on MS, if group members wants to know more about MS and what they are doing and how they are buying their MARKET share in INDIA and other things. Just let me know. We should do a petition to stop MS growth in all the places. MS are breaking into SCHOOLS and UNIVERSITIES. We all need to stop this. SPREAD THE WORD about MS on what they are doing. Thanks Venkat Kumaraswamy Sameer N I <strike(a)proscrutiny.com> wrote: Venkat Kumaraswamy wrote: > >Good thing this thread started about MS. > >All of you might know allready about program called PROJECT SHIKSHA which is being promoted by MS. Even MS is writing curriuculum for PRIMARY, SECONDARY and HIGH SCHOOL. > >GoI has sold the Education System to MNC called MS. We need to stop this also. > >Even some STATE Govts. in INDIA have signed MOU with MS for this PROJECT SHIKSHA. > >MS in the name of PHILONTHRAPHY is buying their way into EDUCAION SYSTEMS in INDIA. > >Even some Govt. colleges and Some Universities are offering courses only in MS products. > >I will post some articles related to this in my next posting. > >We all need to think how we can stop this MS mania !!! > Strange but true... Nagpur University has M$ .Net and ASP included in their syllabus.. I am ready to fight with the university officials but then I do not have enough authority.. An application on a plane paper and an application on gnu letterhead. The two will definitely have substantial difference. Any thoughts? Regards, Sameer. _______________________________________________ Fsf-friends mailing list Fsf-friends(a)mm.gnu.org.in http://mm.gnu.org.in/mailman/listinfo/fsf-friends --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site!

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NEWS: Left, BJP refuse to bite Patent Bill
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 17 Mar '05

17 Mar '05

http://in.news.yahoo.com//050316/48/2k85o.html Thursday March 17, 4:00 AM Left, BJP refuse to bite Patent Bill By ENS Economic Bureau With both BJP and the Left parties putting their foot down, the UPA government is finding it extremely difficult to push through the Patents (Amendment) Bill in its present form. Desperate to convince both friends and foes, the government met both Left Parliamentarians and the BJP leadership on Wednesday afternoon, but appeared to have made little headway. The government's logic that it is under international obligation, as a signatory, to enforce the bill, found no takers in both the BJP and Left camps. With Left MPs refusing to fall in line to allow the passage of the bill as it has been envisaged, Commerce Minister Kamal Nath turned the BJP's help, again unsuccessfully. Kamal Nath called on BJP President L.K. Advani in his chambers in Parliament on Wednesday to discuss the bill. He argued that the bill, after all, had been initially moved by the NDA government. But Advani insisted that the bill be sent to the Standing Committee for detailed discussions, before moving it in Parliament. This was as per BJP's earlier stance and the party been quite vocal about it since Tuesday. After Wednesday's meeting, Advani told The Indian Express, ''BJP's stand even earlier was to refer the bill to the Standing Committee. We have always maintained that many suggestions could be dealt with in the Standing Committee.'' The earlier bill was sent to the Standing Committee towards 2003-end and as the 13th Lok Sabha was dissolved soon after, it never got discussed, Advani said. The party now wants the UPA government to follow the same route and not rush it through Parliament. Open defiance . Left continues to oppose provisions in Bill . BJP opposes it more for political reasons . Patents Ordinance to lapse sans passage by next week Advani said Nath agreed to ''consider'' the suggestion and would get back to him after discussing it with his Cabinet colleagues. Unlike the Left, which has consistently opposed many provisions in the Patents Bill, the BJP has no ideological problems with it. The party has decided to oppose the bill more for political reasons, sources said. If the bill is not passed by next week, the Patents Ordinance issued by the government in December will lapse, and a fresh ordinance will have to be issued. But senior Left leaders have been quite critical and have said they did not ''understand why the government was not inserting protection clauses permitted under the Doha declaration.'' A senior Left leader who has been part of the negotiating team said, ''Those protection clauses can give our domestic industries some leeway to operate, but the government would not for unspecified reasons be taking recourse to them.'' Other Left leaders said one could understand the Trips requirement and the obligations the country had to fulfil. But, they said, there were provisions in the proposed Amendment Bill which came under the Trips plus category. Senior CPM Politburo member Prakash Karat said in its present form the bill was unacceptable. Those Left leaders, who attended Wednesday's UPA-Left meeting in Parliament on Patents (Amendment) Bill, said it was ''inconclusive''. The Left said till now the UPA government appeared not to have climbed down on any of the key issues on which it held a diametrically opposite point of view.

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The Corporate Eyeball Trap
by Praveen A 17 Mar '05

17 Mar '05

Atul Chitnis writes about the threat faced by the Free Software Community ( Read Open Source = Free Software -- we are two different parties of the same "code-sharing" community. We co-operate on all the practical issues). The threat is very real. Read on.... <quote> Recently, Open Source Definition Author Bruce Perens spoke about some of the threats facing Linux. He specifically pointed at things like software patents, which he rightfully identified as a real danger to any form of innovation and growth in Linux. However, it isn't the only one. There is another one - sneakily creeping up on the Open Source world, ready to bite - something I call the "Corporate Eyeball Trap". Allow me to give you some background first. </quote> Read full story http://comversations.com/columns/showentry/11 -- "There is no system but GNU, and Linux is one of its kernels." A proud GNU user http://www.gnu.org http://www.edathanattukara.com My Weblog at http://www.livejournal.com/users/pravi Visit me at http://www.pravi.tk Rediscover the web ! Get firefox at http://www.getfirefox.com Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments See http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html

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INDIA: Respected Vice Chancellor...
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 17 Mar '05

17 Mar '05

Please sign this memo and add your suggestions and points. FN _____ _/ ____\____ Frederick Noronha * Freelance Journalist * Goa \ __\/ \ India T +91.832.2409490 M +919822 122436 | | | | \ http://fn.swiki.net http://goabooks.swiki.net |__| |___| / http://www.bytesforall.net http://www.bytesforall.org \/ ----------------------------------------------------- Writing with a difference, on issues that really make the difference. - - - - - - - - - http://bangalore.gnu.org.in/?VTU-FLOSS_Campaign VTU-FLOSS Campaign The Vice Chancellor Visvesvaraya Technological University Belgaum - 590 014 Karnataka State, India Respected Sir, Re: Opening wider software avenues for your students through Free Software. There are thousands of engineering and polytechnic colleges in India. Each year, a few hundred thousands of graduates and diploma holders earn their degree. They pay thousands of rupees as fees to get the best facilities. A part of this goes to buying the softwares which they use either in college lab or for doing their assignments at home. For every software which India's engineering students use; there is an alternate Free Software program available. Free Software offers freedom, accelerated possibilities and wider vistas to our students. But in a 'talent rich, resource poor' country like India, it is also an issue of costs. Huge amounts of resources will be saved, and productivity gained, while deploying Free Software. This will not only make engineering education more cost-effective, but also more productive. Free/Libre and Open Source Software has many other advantages such as reliability, performance and security; building up of long-term capacity within the state and country itself; the Free (as in freedom) philosophy; encouraging innovations; offering alternatives to illegal copying; throwing up many possibilities in localisation; helping students vastly by allowing them to learn from the source code; getting access to literally thousands of tools; in addition, of course, to lower costs. Issues related to Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) in education are outlined very well at http://www.iosn.net/education/foss-education-primer/ Other than cost benefits, Free Software has other extremely pertinent advantages. We would urge you to serious consider the following: * No-fee licensing * Ease of license fee management * Better large-scale programmability * Easier integration * Better performance * Development convenience * Better support Niranjan Rajani in a study on FLOSS in the developing world, notes, "FLOSS has a complementary and reciprocal relationship to education. One needs an educated section of the population to fulfil the full potential of FLOSS, and at the same time FLOSS helps, enhances, and complements education by providing tools to promote education." In the case of education in computer sciences, FLOSS provides opportunities which nothing else can, as the Finland-based researcher Rajani points out: * Unrestricted access to the source code. * An environment of unlimited experimentation and tinkering. * Collaboration and interaction with a community of programmers, coders and users around the world. In addition to providing ready and available tools, Free Software provides positive examples from projects around the globe. In practice, this means that if someone in some other place has created a tool to reach a specific educational goal, one can take it as a starting point and build on it, without the need to "reinvent the wheel". The Dspace project and the Koha library software, mentioned earlier, are but two simple examples of such possibilities. As far as collaboration is concerned, Sourceforge is perhaps the biggest collaboration project ever created, uniting tens of thousands of software projects and hundreds of thousands of people around the world. "FLOSS itself has been called the most collaborative human effort ever," as Rajani points out. In addition to the above, the inherent qualities of FLOSS make it a prime tool for achieving local language educational software, especially for languages which are not deemed commercially viable for proprietary software vendors. This has the scope of offering both relevance and employment to so many of your bright young students. There are literally hundreds of Free Software's programs which colleges or universities can adopt. As Vishweshwaraiah Technological University is one of the biggest engineering-related universities in India, its time for VTU to give the lead and move towards using Free Software. This would encourage other Universities to follow suit. Let the VTU have the pride to be the first one to adopt Free Software in educational curriculum, on a scale significant enough to make a difference to the future of VTU, its many students, and India itself. Here we submit some examples of three such alternative Free Software programs which can be used for technical education. * (1) Operating System: Windows v/s GNU/Linux Because of the software tools prescribed in the colleges, and also a general lack of awareness of Free Software options, most colleges use Microsoft Windows based operating system. Yet, in terms of technological features, stability, learning possibilities, the GNU/Linux is increasingly being recognised as the best available globally. It is the best suited for any educational institution. Students can not only use it, but also can study its source code to understand its internal workings. Likewise, they can easily get in touch with the many volunteers who have put together this amazing set of tools, and collaborate internationally to created more suitable products and also hike their own skill-sets. But many of the colleges use or have started adopting GNU/ Linux, starting with the server room, where it is well known for its stability and security now it has entered our labs and desktops. * (2) Simulation: Matlab v/s Octave Matlab is used in communication and electronics lab. Matlab for an individual license for use in a university (academic use) costs $500. Any college will have to buy a minimum of 25 licenses. This means shelling out Rs.537,500. Octave, which is a simulation software written by university professors. This usually comes, along and as part of, the GNU/Linux Operating System. The advantage to students is that they don't have to buy a limited student version to use at home. They can use Octave both at lab and at home. SciLab? is another Free Software competitor for Matlab. It uses sophisticated algorithms to analyse data and produce aesthetic graphics. NG-SPICE is another GPLd Circuit Simulator which is based on the University of Berkley's Spice Version 3f5. * (3) Office software's: MS Office v/s Open Office Currently, we all used Microsoft Word to submit our project documents for review and for other academic purposes. Recent technological developments now mean that we have Open Office which is as good as Microsoft Office and has the same, if not better, features. Microsoft Office in fact lacks some features like PDF (Portable Document Format) support, compatibility with older versions of Microsoft Office, lack a vector drawing application, etc. Open Office gives you everything starting from a word processor, to presentation software to PDF generator. It is fully compatible with Microsoft Office -- so already existing data in those formats can be used. Don't you think it's the right time to save money and enhance efficiency of technological education in our country? The above are just examples. There are many such software programs from which the students can benefit. We hope the university understands the urgency and the need. We would be happy to give the university any information/help that is needed. Currently, India has a wide range of volunteer GNU/Linux support groups, a list of which can be found at http://wikiwikiweb.de/LugsList * (4) Computer Networks Subject Teaching: Ethreal, tcpdump, NS2 etc We use the above mentioned tools for the teaching of Computer Networks and Data Communication subjects. There are a number of other GNU GPLed tools which can be used in a number of other labs for teaching and learning. * (5) Content Management Systems: Drupal, PHP-Nuke etc For building websites and info portals for students to make online learning possible. In the world of online forums, Free Software have a number of free options. You could well imagine the impact that the accelerated spread of such easily-reachable and usable tools would have, not just on the engineers of tomorrow, but on the wider Indian society as a whole. We thank you for your patient hearing, and urge your reputed university to take speedy and decisive steps in this direction. Thanking you, We remain, Yours sincerely,

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Update on Amendments to Patents Act
by Ramanraj K 16 Mar '05

16 Mar '05

http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=85335 <quote> Cyber expert and Supreme Court advocate Pawan Duggal pointed out that in the US, software itself is patentable. So are business process methods embedded in hardware. “Not allowing software and software embedded with hardware will cut significantly India’s share in the patent pie,” he said. </quote> If software is patentable in the US, it merely means that the US is clearly violating TRIPS and India should complain to the WTO against the illegitimate and inane practice. So far as the other argument goes, it is as bad as saying not enough people are suffering from cancer, depriving hospitals, pharmaceuticals and graveyards from revenue.

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Governments of Europe: Please support Denmark!
by cherry＠asianetindia.com 16 Mar '05

16 Mar '05

Hello, On March 4th the Danish Parliament obliged their Minister of Economic and Industry Affairs to reopen the software patents discussion in the EU Council of Ministers. This is a big step forward and so we say: Thank you, Denmark! For more details visit http://demo.ffii.org/cons0503/ -- Vivek Varghese Cherian Free as in Freedom <www.gnu.org>

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