Technology
Can we learn from the Clinton episode?
Ravi Gupta
What can the Indian government learn from the Clinton Monica episode? People in high offices should keep a good moral character? Or people in high offices should remain faithful to their family to avoid embarrassment to themselves and their country? Sorry, we think that the answer is something more than that.
The lesson no. 1 is Transparency. The prevalent system of transparency in the US government lead to the release the Kenneth Starr report, videotapes and other related material to the world very-very quickly. Every US citizens is free to know what his elected representative has done and what does he deserve for it. If we compare it with situation in India, we find that reports of various commissions set up by the government never find their way to the public. Although the press is free in our country, it is still not able to report everything dusky affair happening in the corridors of power to the public.
It's high time that the GIS community demands the Right to Information, so that the data collected by government agencies by the expenditure of millions of rupees of the citizens is not wasted. It reaches out of the dust-ridden files to the people who can benefit from it.
The lesson no. 2 is the Internet. It has become the medium for disseminating information. The IT task force must make mandatory for all the government agencies to put all the data collected by them on the Internet. It is the cheapest way the agencies could publish and distribute data. At present the government agencies involved in data collection have the British Raj attitude, i.e. data collection by the government and for the government. The aspect of data dissemination and earning profits must be included in charter of every organisation in the government.
Highlighting these two key points are lead stories of this issue. While Chandrababu Naidu is busy redefining the way governments should function, at the central level there seems to be lack of initiative in re-engineering the government. In-spite of the gazette notification accepting all the recommendations of the IT task force, nothing has moved. The internet policy, the map policy.. nothing has moved an inch in the government to implement these government decisions.
The good news is: the government has taken a lead in announcing data dissemination policy. Now the bad news: Unfortunately, this is not truly being done due to the commitments of the government to people, but due to its commitment to do so to the IMF. There seems to be no initiative at the top level of the government to draft an information policy of the government.