India Computes!

Organic seed production manual

Kokopelli Seed Foundation (http://www.kokopelli-seed-foundation.com) is offering the book “The Seeds of Kokopelli”, a manual for seed production and a directory of heritage seeds online. Its goals include helping rural communities in Third World countries to create community seed banks, seed saver networks and organic seed production groups. http://www.kokopelli-seed-foundation.com/seed-manual.html

WEBLIS

WEBLIS, an integrated library system based on information retrieval software CDS/ISIS is available free of charge from UNESCO and ICIE. The results of the international library organisations IFLA/FAIFE’s survey have once again revealed the huge gaps between various regions of the world and the information haves and have-nots. There is a long way to go before countries, their libraries and their staff are suitably equipped and properly trained to meet this challenge. http://portal.unesco.org/ci/ev.php? URL_ID=16840&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_S ECTION=201

The Afrifund Database Group

peter Burgess of New York <peterb@afrifund.com> says: “Modern ICT gives us a cost effective way of getting information on the record and available for electronic storage and distribution for the first time. I hope this includes information flows from developed to the developing world, so that there can be a much better allocation of scarce development resources.”

Burgess informs that The Afrifund Database Group is working on getting information about organisations and communities “on the record”, especially about organisations and activities that are doing work that makes for the best possible quality of life at the level of the family and the community.

Afrifund Database is being implemented in its first stage as a Wiki at http://www.afrifund.com/wiki/idex.pcgi?page=AfrifundDatabaseCommunities

The database provides a forum for dialog about development issues as well as for information about organisations, and other information important for development project implementation

Mapping the neighbourhood

BytesForAll recently noted that as a part of the Great Arc celebration, Department of Science and Technology has supported ‘mapping the neighbourhood’ programme. The programme is conceptualised and executed by Centre for Spatial Database Management and Solution (CSDMS)—a-not-for-profit organisation. The vision is to take mapping to schools across India by encouraging children to start creating neighbourhood maps. These maps will then become part of a repository of information on which decentralised rural planning and development decisions can be based.

Contact: Ravi.Gupta@csdms.org

The Access Initiative

Environment Support Group coordinator Leo F Saldanha in Bangalore recently wrote in to announce plans to launch The Access Initiative in Bangalore. The Access Initiative is a global coalition of civil society organisations collaborating to promote national implementation of commitments on access to information, participation, and justice in decision-making that affects the environment. As a part of this initiative, a toolkit has been developed to enable organisations to generate national-level indicators and monitor government performance on the Access Principles. These indicators help NGOs and governments identify ways to improve public access to information, participation and justice.

Contact: Environment Support Group (R) S-3, Rajashree Apartments 18/57, 1st Main, SRK Gardens Bannerghatta Road, Jayanagar Bangalore 560041 INDIA Tel: 91-80-26341977/26531339/26534364 Fax: 91-80-26341977 Email: esg@bgl.vsnl.net.in or esg@esgindia.org, Web: http://www.esgindia.org

eNRICH, North East, non-proprietary tech

DDG of India’s National Informatics Centre (NIC) Achuthan Mohan <mohan0028@yahoo.com> informs that the present version of eNRICH is being tested at some of the Community Information Centres in India’s North Eastern blocks. He says: “eNRICH is currently available on Microsoft technology. Efforts are on to port the same to Open Source environment and come out with enhanced functionality framework as a content management tool and portal generator.” Incidentally, the NIC is also using Plone for its FLOSS portal at http://osf.nic.in/

Cotton... and ICTs

Jitender of Vardhman <cottonimport@vardhman.com> is interested in setting up an agri-related specialist list. He says, “Cotton as a commodity has great potential as a cash crop and is the bread and butter of millions in India and in various other agrarian economies the world over. I think cotton ranks amongst the crops requiring the highest inputs in terms of the fertilisers and agro-chemicals. It may also be a fact that the majority of the farmers in the country have cotton in one of their rotations. Grown in 9-10 states in the country which are all rainfed like Maharashtra, cotton is the life line of the poorest of the cultivators in the country. “

Project Gutenberg

Aaron Cannon, a Project Gutenberg Volunteer <cannona@fireantproductions.com> recently sent in a couple of CDs, each containing a few hundred e-books on it. If you’d like to support the project, visit http://www.gutenberg.net/donate.shtml for details. To hear about new Project Gutenberg eBooks, or get involved in creating new eBooks, visit http://www.gutenberg.net

Tokelau, ahoy

The tiny island nation of Tokelau is promoting itself on the Internet in an unusual manner. Introduce anyone to try out their free Dot TK domains, and you earn “fish”. Once you have accumulated enough fish, you can enter the Dot TK Barter Market (located within My Dot TK) and barter (exchange) your fish for Dot TK merchandise...just like at the market on Tokelau’s atolls: Fakaofo, Nukunonu and Atafu! http://my.dot.tk

UNDP best practices and know-how in ICT for development

Sangeeta Pandey of UNDP in Nepal<sangeeta.pandey@undp.org says that publication (in English and free of cost) contains a collection of knowledge-based best practices accumulated by UNDP in Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States(CIS). It is located at http://www.ecissurf.org/index.cfm?module=BookStore&page=Book&BookID=89

CPSR India?

Steve Ediger director, Information & Communications Technology, Woodstock School is keen to form a CPSR (Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility) chapter in India. He can be contacted at Tehri Road Mussoorie, Uttaranchal 248 179 India Phone: +91(135) 2635-900 Ext. 2310 Email: SteveEdiger@woodstock.ac.in

ICT knowledge bank

There are online tutorials on information and communication technologies for development. This series is the product of Dr Barbara Fillip of Knowledge for Development, LLC and covers the nature of the Digital Divide, and applications of ICTs to health and education. W. J. Karle and Associates sent in the information. For more on the tutorials check-http://www.knowledgefordevelopment.com/ICT4D03SP/index.htm

Knowledge on air in Pondicherry

In Pondicherry, on the Indian east coast, each Sunday 15-minute broadcasts in Tamil go on air at 0700 hrs to provide the target audience — farmers, women, children and others in the villages — information that is relevant to their daily lives and livelihood. The first of this series of programmes was aired on May 9, 2004. These broadcasts were a key objective of the Open Knowledge Network <http://www.openknowledge.net> project that seeks to collect, share and disseminate local knowledge, using flexible and low-cost technical solutions. For information/comments on OKN radio broadcasts, contact: Dr A R Thiagarajan, content manager, Open Knowledge Network, at rthiagarajane@hotmail.com http://www.digitalopportunity.org/article/view/91420/1/1138

Lacking in recognition

Sunil Khairnar <sunil@agriwatch.com> narrates the pleasures and pain of running an Internet-based operation: “We have revenues of close to two crore from Agriwatch.com and we make profits. The traffic is 100,000 hits a day. We generate $75,000 in online revenues in a year. Yet other ICTD organisations who make losses win awards left right and centre.”

Khairnar adds: “We have not been too good at tom tomming what we have done. At agriwatch.com we are the only company in existence in India which is profitable. The ISAP (Indo-Society of Agri Professionals) is one of the largest ICT-based (agriculture) networks in the world. But when UNDP holds a conference, we don’t even get invited.”

Reporting award

Panos and GKP have sought submissions for the 2004 “Reporting on the Information Society” awards. The topic for this year is “Transparency, good governance and democracy: Do Information and Communication Technologies increase accountability?” Four awards of $1,000 each will be given for the best journalism on this topic produced by journalists in ‘developing’ and transition countries. Deadline for submissions: Oct 15, 2004. Details from award2004@panos.org.uk

Helping Indian voters

In Gurgaon, North India, the group People’s Action has launched a website designed to help residents access Form-6, the first step towards acquiring a voter ID card by registering as a prospective voter. People’s Action is currently running a campaign for registration of new voters in Gurgaon to increase participation in the electoral process. http://www.voter-card.com Email peoplesaction@vsnl.net

NIC’s promise on agriculture

Information on the Indian government’s agmarknet.nic.in site is likely to be made available via telecom giant Bharat Sanchar Nigam’s (BSNL) mobile-phone network. “We expect this to happen within a few weeks. Reliance (another large mobile network) is also exploring how they can make use of this information,” said National Informatics Centre (NIC) deputy director general M Moni. http://agmark.nic.in

Internet for all?

Is it possible to provide Internet connectivity for every village in every ‘developing’ nation? Doing so would require perhaps a decade and billions of dollars for design and planning, procurement, installation and operation. Critics object that such a project would not be worth the effort and investment. This article considers nine objections to such an undertaking including the view that the Internet isn’t a high priority need, that there’s little interest among non-English speaking villagers, and such a plan lacks a sustainable business model. The article is at

http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue9_8/press/

India Computes! is presented by Frederick Noronha, a freelance journalist based in Goa. He is the co-founder of BytesForAll, a voluntary unfunded venture focusing on how IT and the Internet can benefit the common man, particularly in South Asia. To join the Bytesforall mailing list send a blank e-mail to bytesforall_readers subscribe@yahoogroups.com Website: www.bytesforall.org