Dear Colleagues,
We are compiling FOSS best practices about the adoption of FOSS in Asia
for achieving organizational development goals. Kindly provide/share
with us information about how you or your organizations have benefited
from Free & Open Source Software (FOSS) for achieving Humanitarian
Development Goals. This would include best practices, issues faced
during implementation, suggestions and references to other material of
important nature related to FOSS.

One imporant question would also be that what is your perception about
FOSS and what do you think about it's future.......

I look forward to recieving references to/articles/publications related
to FOSS available on the internet. I already have sufficient knowledge
about IOSN Primers.

You may gain more information about our organization at
http://www.fossfp.org.

Regards
--
Fouad Riaz Bajwa
General Secretary
FOSSFP: Free and Open Source Software Foundation of Pakistan
http://www.fossfp.org
bajwa@...

But priyanthi, even among the educated lot and those who are supposed to
have "knowledge" will not dig deep about issues... Most of them just don't
have time... Very few are actually "concerned" people and out of these very
few, very very few will raise voice... Dynamics are terribly difficult.

However, Hope remains forever!

Shahzad


-----Original Message-----
From: bytesforall_readers@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:bytesforall_readers@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of priyanthi
daluwatte
Sent: Tuesday, January 31, 2006 12:14 PM
To: bytesforall_readers@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [bytesforall_readers] 5 key issues in the next ten years

The issues in the world are controlled by people, until each person's mind
is made to think towards another man the same way he thinks about him self
the present global issues will remain in future or perhaps aggravated due
competition with increasing population.

regards,

I appreciate the well argued attempt of Partha. It may be advisable to have the
laptop in regions where some attempts were made to reduce digital divide first
and gradually improve its functioning to take care of all that Partha was
saying, before its spread...K A Raju

parthadhaka <parthadhaka@...> wrote:  Thanks to incom-l mailing list

http://fonly.typepad.com/fonlyblog/2005/11/problems_with_t.html

Problems with the $100 laptop
Problems with the OLPC approach
Lee Felsenstein
Fonly Institute
lee@...
10 Nov. 2005

Top down structure

The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project
(http://laptop.media.mit.edu/)
rests upon a fundamental assumption that the creation and widespread
distribution of a single type of computer will solve the problem of
the
?digital divide? in the developing world. By creating a laptop
computer
priced at $100 each (when sold in quantities of millions), the
thinking
goes, schoolchildren throughout the developing world will all be
equipped with powerful tools for learning and exploration...

Email discussion: community radio for development

Jan 23 - Feb 18, 2006

Radio is very successful in developing countries. Community radio --
radio for and by the community -- seeks participation from local people,
defnds their interests, informs and educates. It can make a great
contribution to social inclusion and development.

id21's email discussion is a form for your to share your views on
creating an enabling environment, ensuring sustainability and assessing
the social impact of community radio. Participants will include
international and national policy makers, journalists, broadcasters,
NGOs and researchers from a range of disciplines. We will produce a
discussion report (available online and in hardcopy free of charge) in
March 2006.

To join the discussion, send an email to lyris@... with the
message:
subscribe communityradio firstname lastname
e.g. subscribe communityradio Prakash Tadia

For more information see our website
http://www.id212.org/communitradio

[Sorry for the delay in posting. Got a snailmail note on this just
today. -FN]
--
-------------------------------------------------------------
Frederick 'FN' Noronha      | Independent Journalist
Goa, India                  | +91(832)2409490 Cell 9822122436
-------------------------------------------------------------
1995-2005: Ten years of waiting for community radio in India!
To know more: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/cr-india
You can help: http://www.PetitionOnline.com/comradio/petition.html

Dear Joyojeet,

There is a valuable repository of reading material in the monthly magazine
i4d, www.i4d.csdms.in, which can be recommended additional reading, and also
for developing specific thematic assignments.

The thrust of the course should be not just a technological or economic
framework, but integrated with a development perspective.

All the best for the sustained course that you are offering.

jaya

----- Original Message -----
From: "Joyojeet Pal" <joyojeet@...>
To: <bytesforall_readers@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, January 31, 2006 3:53 AM
Subject: [bytesforall_readers] ICTD course in Berkeley, Syllabus


> Dear Friends,
>
> Here is the syllabus of the class we taught at Berkeley last year, and
> are doing again this year. Thanks to sustained interest in the topic,
> this class is now going to be offered yearly. All lectures will be free
> and open to public like it was last year, we're still working on the
> class website. Meanwhile, feel free to browse through the reading list.
>
> I will be sending another posting subsequently regarding class projects
> - if anyone has any potential ideas, I can assign some work to my
> students.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Joyojeet
>
> Joyojeet Pal
> Department of City and Regional Planning
> University of California at Berkeley
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>

From FOUAD RIAZ BAJWA
General Secretary
FOSSFP: Free and Open Source Software Foundation of Pakistan
e: bajwa@...
w: http://www.fossfp.org

Health & Open Education (MDGs)
Free and Open Source Software for Human Development
Open Society & Free Markets
Anti Money Laundering/Anti-Corruption through Corporate Social
Responsibility (UN Global Compact)
Regards
--
Fouad Riaz Bajwa
General Secretary
FOSSFP: Free and Open Source Software Foundation of Pakistan
http://www.fossfp.org

Two important academic institutions have taken a very laudable
initiative in launching the Stopbadware.org on January 25, 2006. The
Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University and the
Oxford Internet Institute at the Oxford University have joined hands
and launched the website, supported by Consumers' Union WebWatch  and
sponsored by Google, Lenovo and Sun Microsystems to  fight "badware"
which is "malicious software that tracks your moves online and feeds
that information back to shady marketing groups so that they can
ambush you with targeted ads." It would be interesting to watch
further developments on this site.

Dr D.C. Misra
February 1, 2006

Two resources for those teaching e-government on university
or training institution courses:

The first international textbook on e-government has just been
published.

"Implementing and Managing eGovernment: An International
Text" by Richard Heeks (Sage Publications, 0761967923) can
be used in many training situations including MPA
programmes, undergraduate courses on public
policy/administration, government in-service training, and for
self-directed/distance learning.

Further details, including online ordering (Rs.450), can be
obtained from:
http://www.indiasage.com/browse/book.asp?bookid=973&Subj
ect_Name=&mode=1

Book features include:
- case studies from across the globe, including India
- instructive diagrams and synoptic models
- short in-class activities
- assignment questions
- practice-based exercises

Second, training guides are available to use online case studies
and best practice guidelines for e-government in developing
countries, based around five key topics: success/failure; e-
transparency; e-public health; m-government; and public web
sites.  All materials are available online at:
http://www.egov4dev.org.

Please email me if you have any particular queries about either
the textbook or the web site.

Richard Heeks
Development Informatics Group
University of Manchester, UK
http://www.sed.manchester.ac.uk/idpm/dig

Dear Bytesforall readers,

Pan Asia Networking (PAN - www.idrc.ca/panasia) at IDRC (International
Development Research Centre - www.idrc.ca) is pleased to share two
interactive maps with you. The first of these maps provides information
about the ICT market structure, regulatory functions, and the national
regulatory agency for countries in Asia. You can access the map here:
http://www.idrc.ca/mapasia/map_eng_11.swf.

The second map provides a list of indicators (including population, GDP per
capita, main telephone lines, mobile cellular subscribers, radios,
televisions, and internet users) in Asia since 2001. In addition, this map
allows one to compare an indicator across up to three countries. An
animated instruction guide for this map is attached. You can access the map
here: http://www.idrc.ca/mapasia/cone_mapasia.swf.

Cheers,

Chaitali Sinha (Ms.)
Research Officer
Pan Asia Networking (PAN)
International Development Research Centre
Email: csinha@...
Skype ID: chaitali_sinha
+1 613 236-6163 x2503
http://www.idrc.ca/panasia

>From the signature file of Sankarshan Mukhopadhyay
<mailinglist@...>

http://www.gutenberg.net - Fine literature digitally re-published
http://www.plos.org - Public Library of Science
http://www.creativecommons.org - Flexible copyright for creative work

Hi Joyojeet,

Thanks for the information. We would be really interested to see your
course materials and to find interesting projects for your students. We
do ICT for Development and Humanitarian work, assisting NGOs with their
ICT needs, and we are always looking for more volunteers. Please have a
look at our website, www.aidworld.org, and feel free to ask me if you
have any more questions.

Cheers, Chris.

On Tue, 2006-01-31 at 00:53 -0800, Joyojeet Pal wrote:
> Dear Friends,
>
> Here is the syllabus of the class we taught at Berkeley last year, and
> are doing again this year. Thanks to sustained interest in the topic,
> this class is now going to be offered yearly. All lectures will be free
> and open to public like it was last year, we're still working on the
> class website. Meanwhile, feel free to browse through the reading list.
>
> I will be sending another posting subsequently regarding class projects
> - if anyone has any potential ideas, I can assign some work to my students.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Joyojeet
>
> Joyojeet Pal
> Department of City and Regional Planning
> University of California at Berkeley
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
> !DSPAM:43df4a96208707783278687!
--
(aidworld) chris wilson | chief engineer (chris@...)

This was posted by Gurstein, Michael <gurstein@...> on
ciresearchers and earlier by Geert Lovink/Steve Cisler on incom-l

Battle to bring cheap PCs to the masses
By John Markoff The New York Times

MONDAY, JANUARY 30, 2006

DAVOS, Switzerland It sounds like a project that just
about any technology-minded executive could get
behind: distributing durable, cheap laptop computers
in the developing world to help education. But in the
year since Nicholas Negroponte, the founder of the MIT
Media Laboratory, introduced his prototype for a $100
laptop, he has found himself wrestling with Microsoft
and the politics of software.

Negroponte has made significant progress, but he has
also helped generate the debate over the role of
computing in poor nations - and ruffled a few
feathers.

He failed to reach an agreement with Microsoft on
including its Windows software in the laptop, leading
Microsoft executives to start discussing what they say
is a less expensive alternative: turning a specially
configured smart cellular phone into a computer by
connecting it to a television and a keyboard.

Gates demonstrated a mockup of his cellular PC at the
Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this month, and
he mentioned it as a cheaper alternative to
traditional PCs and laptops during a public discussion
here at the annual meeting of the World Economic
Forum.

Craig Mundie, Microsoft's vice president and chief
technology officer, said in an interview here that the
company was still developing the idea, but that both
he and Gates believed that cellphones were a better
way to bring computing to the masses in developing
nations than laptops.

"Everyone is going to have a cellphone," Mundie said.

He noted that in places where televisions were already
common, turning a phone into a computer could just
require adding a cheap adapter cradle and keyboard.
Microsoft has not said how much the product would
cost. Mundie said there was no firm timing for the
phone strategy, but the company has encouraged such
innovations in the past by building prototypes for
consumer electronics manufacturers.

It is not clear to what extent Negroponte's decision
to use free open-source software in the laptop,
instead of Windows, has spurred the alternative plan
from Microsoft. But Gates has been privately bitter
about it, and in public Mundie has been skeptical
about the project's chances of success.

"I love what Nick is trying to do," Mundie said. "We
have a lot of concerns about the sustainability of his approach."

This has not deterred Negroponte. At a private
breakfast meeting on the digital divide sponsored by
the World Economic Forum on Saturday, he said that he
had a commitment from Quanta Computer to manufacture
his portables, which will initially use a processing
chip from Advanced Micro Devices; that he had raised
$20 million to pay for engineering; and that he was
close to a final commitment of $700 million from seven
nations - Thailand, Egypt, Nigeria, India, China,
Brazil and Argentina - to purchase seven million of
the computers.

On Saturday, Negroponte's nonprofit group, One Laptop
Per Child, signed a memorandum of understanding with
the United Nations Development Program at a news
conference here, under which the two will work
together to develop technology and learning resources.


Negroponte is still showing only a mockup of his
laptop, which will have a carrying handle, built-in
stereo speakers, a wireless data connection, a hand
crank to generate power and a screen that is visible
even in bright sunlight.

He said that at the Davos meeting next year he hoped
to be able to hand out working laptops to some
participants.

He also acknowledged that months of discussion with
Microsoft and Apple Computer about using their
operating system software for his computer had not
borne fruit, and that as a result it would use a
version of the open-source Linux operating system.

According to several people familiar with the
discussions, Microsoft had encouraged Negroponte to
consider using the Windows CE version of its software,
and that Microsoft had been prepared to make an
open-source version of the program available.

Steve Jobs, Apple's chief executive, had also offered
a free version of his company's OS X operating system,
but Negroponte rejected this idea because the software
is largely not open source.

Negroponte said in an interview here that he had
resolved to use Linux not because it was free but
because of its quality and maintainability.

"I chose open source because it's better," he said. "I
have 100 million programmers I can rely on."

At the same time, Negroponte, who is on the board of
the mobile phone maker Motorola, said he was not
opposed to the idea of building a low-cost computer
around a cellphone. He said his research group at the
Media Laboratory, at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, had experimented with the idea of a
cellphone that could project a computer display onto a
wall and also project the image of a keyboard, sensing
the motion of fingers over it. But they decided the
idea was less practical than the laptop.

Some business and development policy experts have
raised questions about Negroponte's laptop, pointing
to the price of Internet connectivity, which can cost
$24 to $50 a month in the developing world. But he
said networking costs would not be an obstacle because
the laptops would be designed to automatically connect
in a so-called mesh network, making it possible for as
many as 1,000 computers to wirelessly share just one
or two land-based Internet connections.

The Media Lab researchers are also planning to
approach a coming meeting of the GSM Association, an international
industry group representing mobile operators, about setting up a new
data standard that would allow low-cost and educational use of wireless
network capacity.

"We call the concept 'standby bits,"' Negroponte said, explaining that
the concept was similar to the way standby passengers on airlines can
travel when there are empty seats. The laptops would send and receive
Internet data only when higher-paying commercial data was not being
transmitted.

At the Davos meeting, a number of participants raised
questions about the wisdom of Negroponte's plan to
persuade governments to underwrite the cost of the
laptops. Stuart Gannes, director of the Digital Vision
Program at Stanford University, said a better way to
bring computers into poor countries would be to put
them into the hands of entrepreneurs and make them revenue-generators.

"We need to look at technology as a way to bring cash
into the poorest communities," Gannes said.

Negroponte said that "a lot of people were
apprehensive" about the project before he won the
backing from Quanta, but that he believed he had put
the doubts to rest. Quanta manufactures about
one-third of the world's laptop computers, he said.

Copyright (c) 2006 The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com

http://openfreeworld.blogspot.com/
A Generation is waking up

Recently I came across the site http://freeculture.org/, an
international student movement for free culture. Their
manifesto says...

"The mission of the Free Culture movement is to build a
bottom-up, participatory structure to society and culture,
rather than a top-down, closed, proprietary structure.
Through the democratizing power of digital technology and the
Internet, we can place the tools of creation and
distribution, communication and collaboration, teaching and
learning into the hands of the common person -- and with a
truly active, connected, informed citizenry, injustice and
oppression will slowly but surely vanish from the earth.

We believe that culture should be a two-way affair, about
participation, not merely consumption. We will not be content
to sit passively at the end of a one-way media tube. With the
Internet and other advances, the technology exists for a new
paradigm of creation, one where anyone can be an artist, and
anyone can succeed, based not on their industry connections,
but on their merit."

After reading the manifesto one can easily figure out that
the founders of this movement are highly influenced by the
free software, open source movements. If one can spend some
time on the internet searching for sites similar to these...
he/she is bound to be overwhelmed. www.publicknowledge.org,
creativecommons.org, www.plos.org are some of them. If you
are a book worm never miss out www.gutenberg.org, there are
over 17,000 free eBooks in their repository.

And never be content to sit passively at the end of the
one-way media tube, bring out the
artist/journalist/writer/activist or whatever in you. Take
back the web, take back the world.

posted by suresh_balasubra @ 6:27 AM 0 comments

As of January 27, 2006, I am no longer on staff at LTC.  I am still in
Lowell and still committed to community-based media and technology
endeavors.  My contact info is below.

If you need to contact someone at LTC email Jason Daniels (jason@...)
or Robert Haigh (exec@...).  You can also call the main number at
978-458-5400.

Enjoy1!!

- Felicia
+++++++++++++++++++
Felicia M. Sullivan
University of Massachusetts Lowell
61 Wilder Street - Suite 2
Lowell, MA 01854
felicia_sullivan@...
978-934-4936
http://communications.uml.edu

OR

info@...
http://www.forge-consulting.com

As of January 27, 2006, I am no longer on staff at LTC.  I am still in
Lowell and still committed to community-based media and technology
endeavors.  My contact info is below.

If you need to contact someone at LTC email Jason Daniels (jason@...)
or Robert Haigh (exec@...).  You can also call the main number at
978-458-5400.

Enjoy1!!

- Felicia
+++++++++++++++++++
Felicia M. Sullivan
University of Massachusetts Lowell
61 Wilder Street - Suite 2
Lowell, MA 01854
felicia_sullivan@...
978-934-4936
http://communications.uml.edu

OR

info@...
http://www.forge-consulting.com

Asia Commons: Asian Conference on the Digital Commons
April 18-20, 2006
Bangkok, Thailand
http://www.asia-commons.net

During the last 20 years or so, the level, scope, territorial extent,
and role of copyrights and patents have expanded into new sectors.
There
has been much discussion and debate on the impact of copyrights and
patents at a micro level of economic activity while at a macro level,
policy dialogue in several international fora, not least of which is
WIPO, has been addressing barriers posed by copyrights and patents.

Asia Commons: Asian Conference on the Digital Commons invites
researchers working in the area of copyrights and patents, promoters
of
collaborative models, development practitioners engaged in
collaborative
content creation and dissemination and custodians of public
information
to go beyond the current dialogue and debate to explore key issues and
ideas related to access to knowledge and culture in Asia.

Participants are invited to explore key themes and questions related
to
the Asian Commons:

* What is the relationship between infrastructure and copyrights on
access to culture and knowledge?
* How do software and business process patents affect innovation?
* What are the impacts of patents on software innovations in Asia?
* What are the emerging Open Business Models for content production
in Asia?
* Given existing legal, cultural and infrastructural environments both
within and outside of Asia, how can we contribute to increasing access
to knowledge and culture through an Asia Commons?

While we will be inviting a number of speakers who are seen as
thought-leaders in the field of Access to Knowledge and Culture, we
will
also look to innovative approaches to ensure a high degree of
interaction among participants in spaces and sessions which are
designed
to maximize the exchange of experiences and ideas.

Conference Fees, Registration, and Scholarships:

There are no fees for participation in the conference which is
supported
through funding made available by the International Development
Research
Centre's (IDRC's) Pan Asia Program (http://www.idrc.ca/panasia).

If you are interested in participating, please register online at
http://www.asia-commons.net/conf_registration/add or email
registration@... to receive a registration form which can
be submitted through email. Please register before March 8, 2006.

Thanks to the generous support of IDRC's Pan Asia
(http://www.idrc.ca/panasia) and UNDP APDIP's IOSN
(http://www.iosn.net)
there are also a number of scholarships available for participants in
need of financial support. Please visit
http://www.asia-commons.net/participate for more information.

Can't Join Us?

For those unable to join us physically during the event, we invite you
to participate through the participants discussion list and visit
http://www.asia-commons.net for outputs during the conference itself.

To subscribe to the participants discussion list, send an email to
participants-request@... with the word subscribe in the
subject.

A special issue of i4d Magazine (http://www.i4donline.net) will be
produced in June 2006 based on the conference and its themes.

We look forward to seeing you at Asia Commons.

Your Organising Committee:
- Shikha Shrestha, Bellanet Asia (in partnership with SAP
International)
(http://www.sapint.org)
- Sarah Kerr, Bellanet International Secretariat
(http://www.bellanet.org)
- Jaya Chittoor, Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies
(http://www.csdms.in)
- Sunil Abraham, UNDP APDIP's International Open Source Network
(http://www.iosn.net)

Dear Joyojeet,

I am attaching the copy of the syllabus on the seminar on IT and
Development I taught in 2004 and expect to teach again next year. It
obviously needs major revisions but feel free to use any part of it you wish.

Best regards,

Ken



At 03:53 AM 1/31/2006, you wrote:
>Dear Friends,
>
>Here is the syllabus of the class we taught at Berkeley last year, and
>are doing again this year. Thanks to sustained interest in the topic,
>this class is now going to be offered yearly. All lectures will be free
>and open to public like it was last year, we're still working on the
>class website. Meanwhile, feel free to browse through the reading list.
>
>I will be sending another posting subsequently regarding class projects
>- if anyone has any potential ideas, I can assign some work to my students.
>
>Best wishes,
>
>Joyojeet
>
>Joyojeet Pal
>Department of City and Regional Planning
>University of California at Berkeley
>
>


Kenneth Keniston
Andrew Mellon Professor of Human Development Emeritus
Founder MIT India Program
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
E51-296A, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
Phone: 1-617-253-4055  Fax: 1-617-258-8118
Email: kken@...   Web: www.kken.net

A set of online/downloadable guidance handbooks dealing with
e-commerce in small enterprise in India is now available at:
http://www.ecomm4dev.org/handbooks.htm

There are two types of handbook - one helping entrepreneurs to
select and implement e-commerce; the other aimed at the
agencies which assist entrepreneurs.

As well as the pair related to India, there is also: a) A generic set
dealing with developing countries generally; b) A pair specifically
related to Uganda.

Do please pass on details of these resources to any colleagues
you feel would find them useful.

Richard Heeks
Development Informatics Group
University of Manchester
richard.heeks@...
http://www.sed.manchester.ac.uk/idpm/dig

I cannot thank Satish enough for raising such a valuable and
interesting question...have been thinking about it since and this is
what i have ...

5 key issues in the next 10 years

for a five year old: Pogo, Maggi noodles, school, crayons,
birthdays

for a woman in Bharatpur:

Cooking for husband, in-laws and 5 daughters
Earning money for these people
Getting rid of her drunkard husband
Early morning tea
Tired legs at night

for the well meaning bytes for all angels:

Harnessing ICT for education, health, development
Using the internet for strengthening democracy
Right to information
e-governance
bridging the digital divide

Conference rhetoric

Sustainable Development
HIV / AIDS
Derrida
Genetic Engineering
Convergence

for the US president

Nuclear paranoia
Oil
setting the agenda for every soul that breathes on this earth
democracy!
human rights!!!!

best,
dipti





--- In bytesforall_readers@yahoogroups.com, Satish Jha
<satish.jha@...> wrote:
>
> Just wanted to ask this group's members opinion about what you
think may
> be the 5 most important global issues in the next ten years?
>

This message is about Human beings, Democracy, UNHCR, Refugees, The Iraqis,
Islam, Kurds, Human rights, Respect, Money, Donations, Angelina Jolie,
Pavarotti, Giorgio Armani, Donors, Peace, History, Campaigns and about you if
you care about these words.

Hi there,

I am SAM, an Iraqi refugee living in Lebanon at the moment; I have spent the
last 10 years of my life as a refugee registered with the UNHCR in Beirut. The
last 4 years, I have spent as an activist for peace and human rights (especially
refugees and asylum seekers) on the Internet; I'm also books author and ebooks
publisher. I have launched many campaigns to improve our situation as refugees
in Lebanon and hopefully bring more understanding to our problems worldwide. I
helped make many changes and improvements at the UNHCR office in Beirut; I used
the Internet as the field for my activities (you can read more about that in my
free ebook 'MY CAMPAIGNS'). All my ebooks are free and could be download from my
sites.

This is my newest campaign, it's about the illegal and humiliating actions of
the UNHCR, who using photos of refugees as banners and human-buttons to collect
money. This is an abuse of the dignity and humanity of the refugees and must
stop immediately and a clear public apology present by The United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees. My friends, I am talking about the pictures you can
see here: http://k.domaindlx.com/unhcr4
  Where you can read the rest of this message as web page.

Also you can read my new campaign 'Urgent, we need smile' here:
http://unhcrlebanon.angelcities.com/smile.html


For more info about UNHCR and life of refugees you can read my free ebooks. I
invite you as fellow humans and members of the world community to support my
campaign by reading my article on my site and see the human-buttons. The
campaign is to support and improve the UNHCR http://www.unhcr.ch especially
after the last scandals in the UN and UNHCR, just for example: The refugees
allege that UNHCR staff is selling most of the food items they are supposed to
be supplied.
"They aren't supplying sufficient food to us because they sell most of the food
items," they allege: http://allafrica.com/stories/200503140214.html

  Here is another example: Burmese Refugees Withdraw Protest Against UNHCR 
http://www.mizzima.com/archives/news-in-2005/news-in-april/12-April05-22.htm

"We make demonstration and fast because the UNHCR office in Cairo did nothing
for our problem..." http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4440730.stm

Together we will build better world.

You could reach me fast via this form: http://truth4all.atspace.com/email_me.htm
  and if you like to know more about me, you can google for my name 'osam
altaee'.

Thanks
THE TRUTH WARRIOR
http://k.domaindlx.com/readnow

World Bank

       Invites you to take part in a Quickstart seminar/videoconference on:

     Offshoring: Global Trends and Market Strategies for Developing Countries

          Leveraging ICTs to Enable Job Creation and Exports of Services









                                           Speakers:

     Randeep Sudan,  Senior ICT Policy Specialist, CITPO, World Bank
     Ismail Radwan, Senior PSD Specialist, SASFP, World Bank
     Eloy Eduardo Vidal, Lead Telecommunications Engineer, GICT, World Bank


                                          Discussant:



             Kwaku Ofusu Darkwa, Chief Director, Ministry of Communications,
Ghana


                                             Chair:


                        Sudhakar Kaveeshwar, Manager, ISGEA, World Bank





                            Tuesday, February 7, 2006

                                9:00 am ? 11:00 am

               Live Webcast will start at 9:00 am EST on Feb. 7 at:
                    http://www.worldbank.org/edevelopment/live

                               PROGRAM DESCRIPTION:

Offshoring and outsourcing have become industry buzzwords.  Offshoring was a key
issue in the last US election with Democrats raising the specter of well-paid
American jobs disappearing to low-wage locations in developing countries.
Offshoring is also the topic of many new books and articles.  But despite
gaining in popularity, the concept itself remains poorly understood and its
potential for developing and transition countries remains largely unexploited.

Offshoring, or the process whereby one company delegates responsibility for
performing a function or series of tasks to operation based in another country,
now represents a US$100 billion market: a market that is growing exponentially,
at more than 30 percent per annum.  In India, a global leader in this area, IT
offshored exports account for close to US$22 billion and represent significant
share of the country?s total export revenues.  The total number of jobs created
in the Indian IT industry is 700,000 and rising, with many jobs filled by women
and 2.5 million jobs indirectly.

Can other countries replicate this successful model?  What are the key
challenges and opportunities? What are the key measures that developing and
transition countries need to put in place to succeed in this area?  What are the
global trends and successful market strategies? These questions will be answered
drawing on international experience with a special focus on recent experience
from the Indian State of Andhra Pradesh and Sri Lanka in terms of efforts to
develop a successful offshoring industry as well as World Bank's own experience
in ousourcing to developing countries.

For further information on the seminar or to join our mailing list, please write
to edevelopment@..., visit http://www.worldbank.org/edevelopment or
contact Oleg Petrov (e-TG Facilitator) at 202-4738861

To me the important things are:

 

1) Eradication of poverty with improving emplyment opprtunities

2) Improvement of connectivity to each village thro roads and other infrastructure

3) Providing urban facilities to rural areas like drinking water, sanitation and minimum health facilities

4) Improving the lot of marginal and small farmers and fishermen and women with good extension systems and research

5) Gender eqality with girl child protection and women's education

Dr K A Raju, Ph. (0821) 2497984

Camp: Mysore

---

Jiyo cricket on Yahoo! India cricket

India's National Knowledge Commission (NKC) - 25:
Goa Knowledge Commission website launched

The Goa Knowledge Commission, constituted by Government of Goa on
November 10, 2005 has stolen a march over India's National Knowledge
Commission (NKC) constituted as early as June 13, 2005, by launching
its website on February 2, 2006.* To best of my knowledge, India's
National Knowledge Commission (NKC) has so far not set up its
website.

The six-member Goa Knowledge Commission consists of 1. Professor
Peter Ronald dsouza (Chairperson), 2. Fr. Romualdo D'Souza, 3.
Professor G.V. Prabhu-Gaunkar, 4. Mr. Basil D'Cunha, and 5. Dr.
Celsa Pinto (Secretary).

A "concept note" on the Goa Knowledge Commission and its proposed
work has been posted on the website which states, among other
things, that the Commission seeks "to advise and make
recommendations to the Government of Goa on positioning Goa in the
Knowledge economy. It will attempt to develop a policy that is
relevant, forward looking, innovative, marketable and sustainable by
identifying "knowledge skill sets" that would enable the young
people of Goa to participate productively in the knowledge economy.
Towards this end it will prepare a vision document for Goa." It
further describes as to how the Commission intends to prepare the
vision document which it will prepare within a year.

An excellent feature of the website is its "Discussion Forum." It
has been very thoughtfully set up. It encourages us "to make
succinct and constructive comments and suggestions." More
importantly, the discussions are "arranged in themes/groups in order
to take up a particular topic and draw specific suggestions" and
there is a "Comments Section" too.

Discussions have been arranged under nine themes of 1.Open Forum, 2.
Housing and urban planning, 3. Design/ film/ animation and media, 4.
School education, 5. Industries and industrial estates, 6. Goan
culture, history and society and ecology, 7. Maritime sector, 8.
College and university education, and 9. Agriculture, horticulture
and animal husbandry. Such an arrangement will make subsequent
checking of the material very convenient.

Check the Commission's website at:

http://www.knowledgeforgoa.com/

and its discussion forum features at

http://www.knowledgeforgoa.com/forum.php

All one can say at this stage is: Well done, Goa. Keep up the good
work. And the website of India's National Knowledge Commission?
Well, we are still waiting.

Dr D.C. Misra
February 4, 2006
_____________________________________________________________________
*Knowledge Commission launches website, The Navhind Times, Friday,
February 3, 2006, http://www.navhindtimes.com/stories.php?
part=news&Story_ID=02038 (accessed: February 4, 2006)

Friends,

You will be glad to know that "Ankur" is participating in the Upcoming
Linux Asia 2006 - to be held in New Delhi, India and "Ankur's GNU/Linux
based BanglaLiveCD" is selected for showcasing at .ORG mela.

You can know more about the event from,
http://www.linuxasia2006.com/

Selected projects are listed in http://www.linuxasia2006.com/dot_org_mela

Thanks,
`Jamil
www.ankurbangla.org