On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 9:31 AM, CK Raju ck.thrissur@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 9:29 PM, Mani A a.mani.cms@gmail.com wrote:
M$ gets its dirty work done through partners like DRISHTI. So their plan cannot be gauged without taking the rest into consideration.
Its a treat to watch the novel way through which M$ attempts to sneak in and how it influences the machinery. I do have only secondary sources now. But these are also heavy entertainers - so will keep it with me till I get more finer prints. Dhristhi, as you said is a fine conduit, there's also a centre for smart-governance at Hyd, and the usual apparatus at South Block. The most funniest thing however is seeing the ideologies of elected representatives falling like a pack-of-cards, even in Writers' Buildings.
As far as IT policy framing department in Writers Building is concerned, the main issue they see apart from the conditionalities imposed by MORD and others is the lack of Linux support and manpower. The IT minister Prof Debesh Das and some of his friends in the academia think that is so. Though he seems to understand some of the benefits of open source, he maintains a strange "neutral" position. Apparently, only the IT-savvy section of the party in power understands FOSS.
So along with Intel they have massive Linux in Schools programme in place. They have deployed Linux systems on a large-scale in particular districts, in academia and higher level administration units. The latter is often accelerated by the enthusiasm of particular individuals within the concerned organizaton. There is the open source center of excellence and improvements for FOSS in the academic arena.
But as far as IT for administration of Panchayats is concerned, it is still not clear as to whether the CDAC developed JAVA based s/w and GPMS were put on M$ or Linux or Unix systems and in what number. Networking is typically implemented by organizations like BSNL, IBM and others
Best
A. Mani