Friends, The sudden discovery of an ambassador in Minister Dayanidhi Maran by Microsoft Inc is not surprising in the wake of the much touted training of teachers in Tamil Nadu (a project whose sibling met with an untimely death in Kerala, thanks to efforts of a few volunteer activists). But what is surprising is to see the Minister shamelessly sitting atop foolish advertisements of the corporate telling us *what ought to be the right way to address digital divide*. Perhaps it would do a world of good if someone from Tamilnadu retold the story of Don Quixote to the Minister (in its 400th year of celebrations). CK Raju Thrissur ---------------- http://ernakulam.sancharnet.in/doxa
On 10/17/05, doxa@sancharnet.in doxa@sancharnet.in wrote:
Friends, The sudden discovery of an ambassador in Minister Dayanidhi Maran by Microsoft Inc is not surprising in the wake of the much touted training of teachers in Tamil Nadu (a project whose sibling met with an untimely death in Kerala, thanks to efforts of a few volunteer activists). But what is surprising is to see the Minister shamelessly sitting atop foolish advertisements of the corporate telling us *what ought to be the right way to address digital divide*. Perhaps it would do a world of good if someone from Tamilnadu retold the story of Don Quixote to the Minister (in its 400th year of celebrations). CK Raju Thrissur
You bring up a topic I have also been following closely and find equally astonishing. I think it might actually be a good idea to invite Mr. Maran to the FOSS.IN http://FOSS.IN conference < http://foss.in >and maybe even organize a group of individuals to meet with him to discuss how India needs to embrace free and open source software. I will suggest this on the conference mailing list and see if this can be arranged.
Regards, Ragavan
On 10/17/05, doxa@sancharnet.in doxa@sancharnet.in wrote:
Friends, The sudden discovery of an ambassador in Minister Dayanidhi Maran by Microsoft Inc is not surprising in the wake of the much touted training of teachers in Tamil Nadu (a project whose sibling met with an untimely death in Kerala, thanks to efforts of a few volunteer activists). But what is surprising is to see the Minister shamelessly sitting atop foolish advertisements of the corporate telling us *what ought to be the right way to address digital divide*. Perhaps it would do a world of good if someone from Tamilnadu retold the story of Don Quixote to the Minister (in its 400th year of celebrations). CK Raju Thrissur
You bring up a topic I have also been following closely and find equally astonishing. I think it might actually be a good idea to invite Mr. Maran to the FOSS.IN http://FOSS.IN conference < http://foss.in >and maybe even organize a group of individuals to meet with him to discuss how India needs to embrace free and open source software. I will suggest this on the conference mailing list and see if this can be arranged.
Regards, Ragavan
Somehow this reminds me to make the following URLS available to you ppl, these are screenshots of a CBT Cd Provided to Govt School Teachers in Punjab for a so Called Sarvshiksha Abhiyan being carried out by MS in collaboration with Punjab Govt. Check these screen shots and if you know punjabi, then you will come to know how serious MS is regarding the course contents.
http://www.ajaypal.com/files/microsoft_cd_snapshot.jpg http://www.ajaypal.com/files/microsoft_cd_snapshot2.jpg http://www.ajaypal.com/files/microsoft_cd_snapshot3.jpg http://www.ajaypal.com/files/microsoft_cd_snapshot4.jpg http://www.ajaypal.com/files/microsoft_cd_snapshot8.jpg etc etc
And in the tutorials section of the CD I found these http://www.ajaypal.com/files/microsoft_cd_snapshot_tutorials3.jpg http://www.ajaypal.com/files/microsoft_cd_snapshot_tutorials2.jpg etc etc Would accessibility features make sense in such a CBT, I am not sure.
Use your imagination to guess names of other files :-) I do hope I am not infringing any copyright, by putting the screen shots of the CBT CD provided by MS.
Would beautiful hard bound books and cool looking CD's compensate for good course contents.
I would rate the Shiksha Abhiyan by MS -10 on a scale of 1 to 10
Atleast our Babus who approved of such a thing could see the course contents before commisioning the crap, Whatever.
-
Ajay Pal Singh Atwal -
doxaï¼ sancharnet.in -
Ragavan Srinivasan