IS News Archive
Karnataka plans IT network in rural areas
June 20, 2008, iGovernment
The recently elected Karnataka government has decided to come out with a policy which intends to benefit rural areas of Karnataka. The Information Technology minister has hopes that IT investment in rural areas will create job opportunities and improve the standard of living. The government hopes to start IT training centres in villages in partnership with technology majors and the policy will also provide incentives to telecom players especially BPOs to set up shop in those areas so as to create employment opportunities.
AP govt to launch portal about departments, schemes
June 13, 2008, The Economic Times
The Andhra Pradesh government is all set to launch an integrated portal which will contain information on all development schemes across departments. Citizens can obtain information on the various stages on implementation of development schemes. The government also aims to publish an e-gazette on the Internet very soon. The portal has been created by Centre for Good Governance.
10,000 mobile phones sold in India every hr
June 19, 2008, Business Standard
The availability of low cost handsets has meant that mobiles are now within the reach of almost anyone. This news-report shows that over the past year (April 2007- March 2008), there has been a tremendous growth in the handset market. In this period, India shipped close to 85 million hand-sets, registering a growth of 29% over the previous year. In the last quarter of financial year 2008, the figure has touched 22.3 million handsets, which accounts for the 10,000 mobiles per hour.
Government plans to subsidise internet for rural India
June 19, 2008, The Economic Times
After having failed to meet its target of rural broadband connections, the Government of India is planning to subsidise Internet connectivity in rural areas. This subsidy is quite extensive covering 50% of the cost incurred by service providers in installing infrastructure. Running costs of Internet would cost half of the costs in urban areas. The scheme will be implemented in a phased manner and will focus on remote areas and North Eastern states.
Government may soon find BlackBerry solution
May 16, 2008, Kalyan Parbat and Joji Thomas Philip, The Economic Times
This news report talks about the recent developments in the controversy over monitoring Blackberry traffic in India. It started when the Canadian company Research in Motion (RIM) that owns Blackberry services in India, refused to share the decryption code with the Department of Telecommunications (DoT). This had raised security concerns since the security agencies could not monitor the data that were being sent due to the high encryption codes.
One held for posting obscene Orkut message on Sonia
May 18, 2008, The Times of India
This news story is about an IT professional who was arrested on charges of posting derogatory comments on Sonia Gandhi, the chief of the Congress party, on a community named 'I hate Soniya Gandhi' on Orkut, the popular social networking site. The police traced the person through the IP address as well as the user information provided in the e-mail by which the comment was posted. The interesting part, however, is that the owner of the community has not been charged.
DoT to allow niche operators in rural areas
March 27, 2008, The Business Line
Teledensity rates in rural India is still quite abysmal, the latest figures showing them to be 20 times less than that in urban areas such as Mumbai and Delhi. However, this sector has been given a fillip by the government which is now allowing niche operators to provide services in rural areas. These operators can lease the telecom infrastructure from the big telecom players and provide services to their particular area.
Suicide sites pose deadly problem
March 16, 2008, The Times of India
A new disturbing phenomenon in the online space are websites that provide a guide to commit suicide. While the exact impact of such websites to increase suicide occurrences is still a subject of study, it is no doubt a very serious development which has to be looked at by both government and civil society in order to block potentially harmful content. India unfortunately lags behind other countries in tracking such developments and enhancing its laws and guidelines to handle such sites.
Kerala shuts windows, schools to use only Linux
March 05, 2008, The Indian Express
Kerala is setting the trend in IT policy by making the use of GNU/Linux free software mandatory in all schools for computer education, says this report. Known for several innovative experiments in development policy in the past, the state has already been using FOSS for e-governance.
Content code: MIB places self-regulation guidelines before court
March 24, 2008, Sujit Chakraborty, Indiantelevision.com
The new regulatory guidelines of the government for the broadcasting sector propose a two-tier set up run entirely by the broadcasters, says this report. Whereas the content auditors would have had to report directly to the government as per the earlier clause, the new guidelines propose that the auditors report to the chief editor on violations, who will then decide on what goes on air.
