I have been in touch with the Mah Government authorities and have found many takers for good ideas , particularly Linux since it is free. However , since I am new to the Linux community, I have not been able to gather the demo capability. I am trying thru a small setup in Powai. I am ready to arrange the demo , even use some BE grad students to work , if someone can help in the following or tell me how exactly to go about it
What is urgently needed is 1> OS level : Tiny linux : apparently specifically designed to work on old (even 386) machines. Even if it works on P-I or similar there is good scope to convince schools and Govt to consider adopting. 2> Applications level : If only unicode/ISO standard based editors can be demonstrated with GUI . Similarly spreadsheets. 3> Content level: a> School Educational The government hs come out with a Teachers manual (about 50 pages) which I have a copy of , for the 9th and 10th standard IT course. The manual is shabby by all standards. But the content can be made far better if we adapt the content to Linux based stuff. It contains wordprocessor, Basic language and some smattering of 'internet'. It is in english. The alternative would be a CD based, multimedia rich and video-intensive Cd making teacher feel absolutelly comfortable. It need not be very polished or commercial quality video. b> Governance: some application that can help the rural folks to prepare village population data base and use the same for filling typical forms like birth-certificate, death certificate,request for land-records like 7/12 extract etc. There are about 94 forms that the govt would be keen that people give electronically. Dont presume everyone in the authority will be warm to such happenings. But it is feasible. c> Watershed and mapping: There is a great need for a small-time GIS facilty. We know how severe the water shortage is. At the same time it is known that only 4% of land consumes 70% of irrigation facilities created by dams. Half of nations dams are in maharashtra. The limit is someone (PK Patil ) has the temerity to suggest using sugarcane for cars as alcohol hich will cause further skew use of water and greater shortage of drinking water and thus a greater driving of resources from rural folks to urban folks.The facts , if on maps can be so stunning that such arguments will not be advanced. For that map-making must reach every school and every desktop. Can we localise GRASS or MyWorld(from Northwestern University) . It is only sad that institutions like IITs which have built a lot of software on Public money are unwilling to make their software 'freely' available .
I hope some people will respond to this. I have simultaneously taken up a localisation project . It is an humble beginning. ( Refer Loksatta -Arthvrittant of 18 and 25 March for more details) Watch the site sourceforge.net/projects/gnuindia
Jitendra