NEWS
NEW E-GOVT PROJECT GETS SINGAPORE FIRM’S HELP Singapore based IT company, Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) is working with ictQATAR to establish a new e-government project. The project called Qatar Services Infrastructure (QSi) project, a fast developing e-government initiative, will provide the government of Qatar with a rich and highly integrated centralised software platform, which helps accelerate the delivery of public e-services on the Internet. The pilot scheme, Company Registration e-Service, is in collaboration with Qatar’s Ministry of Business & Trade. IDA was also assisting Qatar in establishing an integrated system for the Customs & Ports General Authority.
MTN INVESTS IN $700M EUROPE-INDIA CABLE The MTN Group is investing in a new $700 million submarine cable system, the European Indian Gateway (EIG), to be built by Alcatel-Lucent starting next month. The 15,000 kilometre-long high bandwidth optical-fibre will connect Europe and India from the United Kingdom to Portugal, Gibraltar, Monaco, Libya, Egypt, Djibouti and the United Arab Emirates. The cable’s purpose is to provide a central linking point for other cable syatems already in the pipeline such as the East African Submarine Cable System (Eassy) and the West African Cable System (WACS). The project is expected to be completed by the middle of 2010 and link other planned cable systems in Africa to global telecommunications infrastructure via Asia and Europe.
FRANCE ENACTS INTERNET PIRACY LAW Taking stringent action against the online copyright infringement, France parliament has passed Internet anti-piracy bill, providing relief to global music industry. The bill was passed in the lower house (National Assembly) by a vote of 296 to 233 on Tuesday and by 189 votes to 14 in the upper house (the Senate) a day later. The legislation provides for disconnecting
the user who has faulted for three times. A national agency will send a mail when a user firstly step over the copyrights of the Internet stuff. Second time it sends a letter to the user and third and at last it disconnects the user from Internet.
INDIA RANKED AS THE 20TH LARGEST ELECTRONIC POLICE STATE According to the recent report published by Cryptohippie Inc., which surveyed 52 countries for having the most aggressive procedures to monitor residents electronically, India ranks No. 20. The report, called ‘The Electronic Police State’, assessed the status of government surveillance around the globe for 2008. Not surprisingly, the rankings for the year of 2008 show China and North Korea occupying the top spots as the most complete Electronic Police States in the world, followed by Belarus and Russia.
SUVIDHAA INFOSERVE VENTURES INTO E-GOVERNANCE PROJECT Suvidhaa Infoserve is partnering with Government of India and Maharashtra in the ambitious E-governance project by providing its S-Commerce platform in rural areas of India. The vision of Suvidhaa is to reach out to a very large base of outlets. It includes providing basic utility services on the IT platform for rural India. Its kiosks, which are manned, enable consumers to pay electricity and other utility bills on-line besides enabling purchase of railway, bus tickets, insurance premium, travel and tour packages, mobile recharge, mobile bill payments, DTH Recharge, E Pooja, horoscope amongst others. They have approximately over 3,000 centres in the State.
SIX IT PROJECTS ON ANVIL AT RIICO Rajasthan State Industrial Development & Investment Corporation (RIICO) has signed six IT projects worth INR 207.20 crore are in the process of being established in the RIICO’s Export Promotion Industrial Park (EPIP) in the Sitapura Industrial Area or the adjoining new industrial area of Ramchandrapura (Sitapura Extension). According to RIICO Managing Director Alok, these projects are meant for content creation, design and manufacturing of printed circuit boards (PCBs), software
development for export market, data encoding and processing services for travel and aviation industries, software development centre and IT training centre for foreign clients.
FTK TECHNOLOGIES LAUNCHES E-GOVERNANCE SOLUTION
FTK Technologies has launched a special version of its patented flagship software product, called LooKeys for the E-governance applications in 10 Indian languages. Besides the predictive dynamic virtual keyboard interface, this E-Gov LooKeys product shall also provide an interface for expert users proficient in Hindi typewriter, thus enabling this category of advanced users to rapidly adopt and use the LooKeys technology, the company said.
PAYWORLD TO CONTRIBUTE ITS ONLINE SERVICES FOR NEGP
“PayWorld”, a e-pin distributor for Telecom and DTH products will also contribute to National E-Governance Programme (NeGP). The company will provide online services like Mobile Recharges, TV Recharges, Bus, Air & Train Reservation services by executing technical software at 28,175 planned CSC (Common Service Centre) outlets in different rural locations of Haryana, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar, Jharkhand, Assam, Manipur, Rajasthan, Chattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh and Orrisa etc.
TCS OPENS DEVELOPMENT CENTER IN LUCKNOW Tata Consultancy Services has opened a development center TCS Awadh Park in Lucknow, India. The center is the latest addition to the company’s Global Network Delivery Model and has a capacity of 1,500 egov
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