is this a subject for a LUG or an FSUG folks to act upon?

-dinesh

From: Venkat Kumaraswamy vmkumaraswamy@yahoo.com To: Secretary E-GovernanceDPAR-AR secyegov-dpar@karnataka.gov.in, secyegov@karnataka.gov.in

E KAVI, E Gov India, India RTI, Judicial Reforms & India Whistle Blower's Action Group

Facilitating Emergence of New India: Based on Values of Transparency & Accountability, E Governance, Natural Justice, Human Rights and Human Dignity

=============================================== March 14th 2006

Hello CS and other Secretaries of GOK,

You all need to look into the activities of eGovernance Secretary Mr. Rajeev Chawla. He is leading GOK to Cheat and Deceive people of Karnataka and all others in GOK.

GOK need to watch what is happenning in eGovernance in GOK !!

Even countries like Singapore does not mention what platform to use. Singapore specifies in every tender "the applicaition software should be compatible for cross platform deployment". Why not Karnataka State and INDIA ?

Even WORLD BANK suggests to use OPEN STANDARDS and OPEN SYSTEMS.

Even our own President advises all of us to use OPEN SOURCE and OPEN STANDARDS in all our systems.

Rajeev Chawla is favouring only ONE VENDOR for GOK. That is MICROSOFT.

Rajeev Chawla has made GOK to sign MOU with MICROSOFT for PROJECT SHIKSHA.

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Bangalore one is on Microsoft Platform. Bangalore One TENDER Documents have been DOCTORED in such way that ONLY ONE PERSON can bid on the TENDER which used MICROSOFT SOFTWARE.

There is a complained filed with LOKAYUKTHA on Bangalore One project.

There is PIL filed and admitted in High Court on Bangalore one project.

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Look at some of the implications of BHOOMI Project. This is going to haunt GOK in the future. Please look at the reports that have been sent to all of you.

Bhoomi: "E-Governance", Or An Anti-Politics Machine Necessary to Globalize B'lore

Bhoomi and the political economy of land Peri-urban Bangalore, Karnataka

Karnataka was formed in 1956 by merging the princely state of Mysore with areas from other states and provinces: parts of Coorg, the princely state of Hyderabad, and the Bombay and Madras Presidencies. The link for 'land coalition' in Footnote 127, discusses the five governance regimes, various aspects of land management, and the functions of the Revenue department. Under the five governance regimes, land management systems recorded up to 1500 forms of tenures.

BHOOMI - Some Critical Observations:

Bhoomi Project has led to a shrinkage in the number of possible land-holding types from 1500 to under 100. What does this mean and what are the impacts of this?

Bhoomi project represents an ideological shift from the social reform focus of land reforms to a purely technological phenomenon.

From a purely technical point of view, Bhoomi project has locked itself into Proprietary Microsoft Software.

The most vocal complaint of respondents has to do with the increased delays that have resulted after the launch of Bhoomi. Before Bhoomi, we were told, obtaining a copy of an RTC, or a mutation, took 2-3 days. These documents were made available at the village level via the VA and, as one small farmer put it, the work could be 'fast and efficient', at least in an emergency.

After Bhoomi, all categories of landowners said that any significant change like a mutation takes 3-4 months. This delay may be related to the dependence of the farmers on agents or intermediaries. Often, if farmers visit the taluk office they lose their day's work, and they may find that either the computer is down or that there is a power cut.

THERE ARE SO MANY COMPLAINTS on BHOOMI Project which you all need to look into the research Papers which will be provided to all of you. ___________________________________________

eProcurement Tendering in GOK. He is trying to favour C 1 INDIA. Please read what C 1 INDIA is facing.

Sub: C1 India affairs

Please find below one more affair of C1 India management affair, Karnataka has come up with a Tender for eProcurement on PPP model as of Andhra Pradesh, Please look in to the matter if Good Business Practices can be ensured:

Covansys has partnered C1 India Pvt. Ltd, a delhi based for offering eTendering solution to MPLUN, Madhya Pradesh, India.company which is in engaged in Rs. 38000 Crore eTendering scam in Andhra Pradesh, India. For more details log on to www.mpez.net

C1 India has a IPR Theft case filed against them by a company called Antares System, Based out of Bangalore India. The case is pending in Delhi High Court, India.

C1 India is engaged in another legal battle with a company called Nextenders, based out of Mumbai for NIC Tender for eTendering solution. The same case in pending in Delhi High Court, India.

C1 India is engaged in another legal battle for a tender for eTendering software floated by MMTC, India. The case is pending in Delhi High Court, India.

In MPLUN Tender, Covansys/C1 India JV is not Lowest Bidder. The lowest bidder is as per our market intelligence a MP based company _________________________________

GOK Karnataka Food & Civil Supplies Tendering is also on the wrong footting by using BHOOMI INFRASTRUCTURE.

Tender for the computerization of food and civil supplies, favors microsoft. But to keep everyone in dark the tender has been written in a manner that it looks as if the entire software is free of cost. Amounts to Deception and Cheating.

GoK is asking the vendors to use the Bhoomi infrastructure at the tehsil level (which is on Microsoft) for application development and implementation.

Phase I of KFCS tender will just get the application build on Microsoft platform and deployed this year. Next year when this is over, GoK will place order on Microsoft for licenses purchase and hardware up gradation. The project value at present is estimated at 8 crores which includes mere 1 crore of application development and deployment and remaining money for ration card printing and distribution.

Where as in the phase II, its going to be Rs. 22 Crore order on Microsoft, the application developer and hardware vender. In near future it will start bleeding by paying huge sums of money as license fee to Microsoft.

Regarding .NET, it is a white elephant when a more powerful application software development environment in the form of SUN's Netbeans is available free. This includes the Struts framework which is very very powerful and time tested. This is open and free too.

Whereas .NET is a new platform. Except the name of microsoft, there is nothing special about it. It is yet to gain full popularity among users whereas J2EE architecture which is open and supported by SUN/IBM/Oracle etc., through packages such as Netbeans, Tomcat etc., is more popular in the world. In enterprise environment people prefer only J2EE. This includes Singapore e-governance efforts.

Analysis on the civil supplies tender: If it is a web based application, then there is no licencing involved at the Taluk level even if it is microsoft product. But quoting this they are trying to add a processor which is not essential as in the web based application the entire load would be taken by the web server and not the local server. So, by adding a processor they are tying to pay additional money to Microsoft.

At the State level if they are adding additional servers they need to pay full licence to microsoft. For example .NET licence and mssql server multi processor licence. Also they may have to pay for the additional processor use of IIS server (web server software)

Here Oracle and Db2 would also charge licencing fee for the database but not for the deployment software unless the government wants oracle application server or IBM's websphere. Currently the GOK may be using microsoft's internet information server (IIS) paying a huge licencing fee. The alternative is open source deployment software such as apache's tomcat or resin or jboss. All these packages are available free. Apache tomcat is supported by Apache foundation, sun micro systems, Novell and IBM.

The point is that a fair deal is denied to OTHERS who are competitors to Microsoft. This is improper. Let them give a fair chance to quote for their database and in the quote if they become L1 they should be allowed to deploy their database and or application deployment software too.

In the name of saving money they are trying to promote microsoft.

This has to be stopped by GOK.

GOK need to agree for an OS neutral database, application software and deployment software.

Singapore specifies in every tender "the applicaition shoftware should be compatible for cross platform deployment". Why not Karnataka and India?

If we say cross platform, then .NET, Internet information server and ms sql server are out of the race. Because they are not cross platform. They will work only under microsoft environment. Whereas Db2 and oracle would work under microsoft and linux environment. ____________________________

Now Mr. Rajeev Chawla has called for TENDERS for:

1. Procurement of Servers for Bhoomi Project at various Taluks. 2. Procurement of Laser Printers for Bhoomi Project at various Taluks. 3. Procurement of Blade Servers for State Data Center Augmentation.

All of the TENDERING process and documents for the above favours only one VENDOR. Documents are prepared in such a way that ONE VENDOR can only bid on these TENDERS. IS THIS TRANSPARENCY in GOK? _______________________________________

Mr. Rajeev Chawla has neglected the Kannada Software Development in Karnataka State.

With all these things happenning, GOK need to watch !!

If any questions on these, I would be willing to answer and write to all of you.

Thanks Sincerely signed by V. M. Kumaraswamy, MBA