Unfolding of the drama ==============
"September 28, 2006 -- Microsoft India today announced the winners of its first “Microsoft E-governance awards”. The first of the annual awards set up to recognize the most impactful E-governance applications in the country received over 300 nominations and the winners include 20 E-governance applications implemented across the country (the names of the winners are attached in the addendum). The projects nominated include those developed by the National Informatics Centre (NIC), State IT Departments, and Department of Information Technology, Government of India in partnership with Microsoft..."
"Mr Ravi Venkatesan, Chairman, Microsoft India added, “E-governance is a critical necessity for our country today. A strong E-governance infrastructure enables an efficient and transparent governance mechanism providing a thrust to the development indices of a country. We are very happy to be working with the Indian governments on creating such applications.”.."
"As pioneers in the E-governance space in India, Microsoft has been working closely with various departments of the Central and State Governments and Public Sector organizations for the last 13 years. Currently Microsoft partners with 14 state governments and there are nearly 150 e-governance applications running on the Windows platform. Additionally Microsoft continues to create benchmarks in local language computing and community outreach programs that help facilitate affordable access to technology in rural areas for effective delivery of E-governance service..." Complete official document at http://download.microsoft.com/download/0/3/6/03695790-07C9-4EF2-845E-F12092F... (also available as cached google page - if M$ withdraws this document) ===========================
Surely this is an occasion of national shame to all of us, who work to propagate values of freedom in an information society. It should also put to shame the recommendations of Knowledge Commission of India to Govt of India - because already 14 states have already entered into partnership with Microsoft, some for the last 13 years. Its also a shame to the Right to Information Act 2005, where "preservation of confidentiality of sensitive information" has been thrown to winds - because these are now guaranteed only if US State agrees - refer Akbar Raj's case and the stunts followed by Kerala Police with Microsoft HQs and US Security Department.
No longer can the Ministry of Local Self Governments in Kerala now deny that Information Kerala Mission is outside this nefarious design of this proprietary corporate. Even then which are the other 13 states ? What is NIC doing with Microsoft ? What is Min of IT, Govt of India doing with Microsoft ?
Are all these happening with the consent of the citizens ?
Do we have a right to know ?
CK Raju Thrissur
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On 12/15/06, doxa@sancharnet.in doxa@sancharnet.in wrote:
Surely this is an occasion of national shame to all of us, who work to propagate values of freedom in an information society. It should also put to shame the recommendations of Knowledge Commission of India to Govt of India - because already 14 states have already entered into partnership with Microsoft, some for the last 13 years. Its also a shame to the Right to Information Act 2005, where "preservation of confidentiality of sensitive information" has been thrown to winds - because these are now guaranteed only if US State agrees
refer Akbar Raj's case and the stunts followed by Kerala Police with Microsoft HQs and US Security Department.
No longer can the Ministry of Local Self Governments in Kerala now deny that Information Kerala Mission is outside this nefarious design of this proprietary corporate. Even then which are the other 13 states ? What is NIC doing with Microsoft ? What is Min of IT, Govt of India doing with Microsoft ?
Are all these happening with the consent of the citizens ?
Do we have a right to know ?
FSF India should launch a nationwide campagn and alert the citizens as well as administrators of the dangers of these collaborations between public bodies and profit-only motivated proprietary software companies.
Nagarjuna
Quoting "Nagarjuna G." nagarjun@gnowledge.org:
FSF India should launch a nationwide campagn and alert the citizens as well as administrators of the dangers of these collaborations between public bodies and profit-only motivated proprietary software companies.
Here are the winning projects (from 300 entries, which are already implemented).
e-Government projects to receive awards include Rajiv Gandhi Computer Literacy Programme (Assam), Instant Money Order (Delhi), Web-based System for Right to Information Act, 2005 (Delhi), SWAGAT (Gujarat), e-Suvidha (Tripura), AGMARKNET (Delhi), COIN (Bihar), Apna Khata (Rajasthan), APOnline (Andhra Pradesh), APREGS (Andhra Pradesh), Bhu-Abhilekh (Madhya Pradesh), Web-based Inventory Management System of Central Zoo Authority (Delhi), eDharti (Delhi),BhuLekh (Uttar Pradesh), e-Dhara (Gujarat), Data Centre Infrastructure (Delhi), Integrated Information System for Foodgrains Management (Delhi), DDWS IMIS (Delhi), Office Procedure Automation (Delhi), NREGAsoft (Delhi), Lokvani (Uttar Pradesh), Courts Information System (Delhi), DRISTI (West Bengal), HimBhoomi (Himachal Pradesh), OTIS (Haryana), PRIASOFT (Orissa), PORTNET (Lakshadweep), Exam Results through the Internet (Delhi), SMARTMOVE (Kerala), SUWIDHA (Punjab), AICT – School Education (Punjab), and MCC (Pune).
That's Shame List No 1.
CK Raju Thrissur
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Nagarjuna G. wrote:>
FSF India should launch a nationwide campagn and alert the citizens as well as administrators of the dangers of these collaborations between public bodies and profit-only motivated proprietary software companies.
One of the things that can be done is to expose how these awards given by Microsoft are only to organizations which use Microsoft's technology to implement a solution.
We can confirm this if we manage to get a list of the awardees and their precise technologies used.
I searched a bit, and found out at least two of these awardees. Both use MS technologies.
e.g. http://lakport.nic.in/ uses .Net for their portnet project. http://nrega.nic.in/ uses ASP for the NREGA project.
Questions to be asked: 1. Are they no worthwhile e-governance project which have done a good job using non-microsoft technologies? 2. How many of these projects have got awards for e-governance from MS and other companies? 3. How many non-MS solutions have got egovernance awards from Microsoft yet? 4. Shouldn't this be called "Microsoft Awards for excellence in egovernance using MS technologies"?
- Sandip
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doxa＠sancharnet.in -
Nagarjuna G. -
Sandip Bhattacharya