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DATA : September - October 1999
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MoU signed for Internet Kiosk
Digitalisation of historical documents
Police network - Polnet
Computerisation of Constitution
NIRD launches information kiosk
Information Village
Computerised railway info system
Village Revenue Records on CD
MoU signed for Internet Kiosk
An initiative of Maharashtra Government
A memorandom of understanding (MoU) has been signed by Maharashtra Government with London-based WorldTel Ltd. to establish nearly ten thousand community internet centres in the state. The entire project will cost around Rs. 350 crore. The MoU will explore the feasibility of setting up such a project in respect of its cost, tariffs, feasibility of delivery of the project in Marathi to popularise the same. The state government is also planning to install a complete networking of nearly three thousand state offices for the easy access of information from various government departments to the common people.
Digitalisation of historical documents
Sarasvati Mahal library enters in e-era
The Centre for Development of Advanced Computing, Bangalore, in cooperation with the departments of culture, electronics and science and technology working on a project to create a digital library solution for the Sarasvati Mahal library, Thanjavur. It will provide web access with a search engine to support major national languages. C-DAC has an advantage in this area as its range of iLEAP, Indian Language support products, seamlessly integrates with the Web environment. The DL solution for Sarasvati Mahal involves digitising the contents of the palm leaves and paper documents, and Web enabling them for access through the Internet. C-DAC is setting up a laboratory to create photo images. This will help create Web documents that combine images with digital text.
Police network - Polnet
NCRB Database accessible to districts
The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) is preparing the state law-enforcing agencies for the new millennium. Polnet will link the various state police forces together and connect them to NCRB’s vast and powerful database of criminals and crimes of every type.
The network will let the state police forces access crime-related information. The crime and criminals database has detailed information on convicted criminals collected from various stages of prosecution: scene of crime, arrest report, the chargesheet, court disposal etc. Deputy Director M. P. Singh says once Polnet is operational, these information will be accessed at district and state levels. NCRB already has a database of stolen vehicles and firearms. The NCRB’s fingerprint database also has over six lakh fingerprints stored digitally for instant reference by year 2000.
Computerisation of Constitution
Website on Acts
The Ministry of Law, Justice and Company Affairs (Legislative Department) has taken up computerisation of the Constitution of India and all the Central Acts to put them ultimately on NICNET and INTERNET. All the ordinances, presidential regulations and the Government bills have been processed in order to feed them on the computers.
NIRD launches information kiosk
Information on rural development
The National Institute of Rural Development (NIRD) has launched a project called Public Information Kiosk. The Development Communication Group and Centre on Rural Development have concieved kiosks to be set up in Tenali and Vikarabad mandals to supply information to people on rural development programmes with the help of computers. The information available at the kiosks covers the profile of the village, agriculture, health, education, employment, financial and credit facilities and legal matters. News papers, magazines, Internet and e-mail services, telephone, fax, TV, VCR and photo copying machines will be available at the kiosks.
"Information Village"
Empowered through IT
With an aim to provide location specific information to five villages near Pondichery, the Chennai based M. S. Swaminathan Research Foundation has set up an "Information Village". The International Development Research Centre, Canada, partly funded this Rs. 54 lakh project. The project aims at empowering the local population with pertinent information at very short notice. The technology used in this project is a simple ‘analog wireless system’. It works in very high frequency range and uses the duplex system of communication just like the conventional landlines.
The project envisages networking five villages to one hub through wireless. The hub provides the villages with the necessary information. The wireless system is also connected to landlines through an EPBX. This allows the villagers to make local calls. It is essentially a local area networking following Internet protocols. This allows data transmission from the hub to the Research Foundation located in Chennai through a computer or fax. Kizhur, with a population of 130 families near Pondichery, was the first village to be selected for implementing this project in September 1998, followed by Embalam and Verampattinam, the fourth is now being networked. Verampattinam, a fishermen’s village to, which thermal maps published by the National Remote Sensing Agency (NRSA) provide information about fish aggregation. Today, perhaps except for Verampattinam no other village in the country has access to the NRSA’s information on a regular basis.
Computerised railway info system
Rs. 47 crore project by Railway Board
The Railway Board has set out a Rs. 47 crore computerised management information system (MIS) to have financial, administrative and operational control over its country-wide network. The project will include revenue and accounts, operational data, material management, workshop management and personnel administration. The system will help the railway planners and policy-makers to reduce unnecessary expenditure and workload by transferring the large data in a summarised form. The major software modules would be the bill passing, book keeping, cash and pay, fuel, costing and financing. In fact, it is a positive initiative taken by Railway Board. It will be very useful if Indian Railways introduces computerised traffic control systems as it may help in averting Gaisal kind of tragedies. This month itself, in Gaisal, West Bengal, hundreds of people have lost their lives when two trains collided.
Village Revenue Records on CD
Fatehabad leads
Fatehabad a district of Haryana, has become perhaps the first district in India to maintain revenue records of all the 240 villages of the district on a compact disc. The CD contains exclusive details of village customs and specifies rules for every village administration.
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