Tag Archive for ‘information technology’ at LIRNEasia

Tag Archive for 'information technology'

Call for Papers: Infrastructure Regulation: What works, Why, and How do we know?
Deadline: 05 December 2008.

Questions about the budget allocation for e villages

on November 12, 2008

The 2009 Budget contains the following statement:

Allocations were made in the 2006 Budget to connect rural villages in backward areas with the rest of the world and enable them to blend with the global community and economic trends, through Information Technology. This program has enabled online connectivity through around 500 Nana Sala Centres, between villages, schools and state and public institutions, and also facilitates to broaden the knowledge of English and Information Technology. I propose to name the year 2009 as an year dedicated to expand the knowledge of English and Information Technology and allocate Rs. 100 million to broaden the scope of this programme.

The questions are:
* The Budget contains no other allocations for ICT related activities, explained possibly by the existence of a USD 80…

12 Comments
Tags: budget, e-schools, e-Sri Lanka, e-villages, ICTA, information technology, Sri Lanka.

Additional coverage for LIRNEasia study on ICTs, Transaction Costs & Traceability in Agri markets

Nirmali Sivapragasam

on March 25, 2008

Sri Lanka agriculture could do with dose of IT - LANKA BUSINESS ONLINE

Greater use of information technology in Sri Lanka’s largely subsistence agriculture sector will help both farmers and consumers alike by reducing costs, a researcher has said.

Harsha De Silva, lead economist at LIRNEasia, a think tank, said a system using IT that addresses the information needs from the decision making phase through the growth and sale of agricultural products will help balance the welfare of both consumers and farmers.

“ICT (information and communications technology) can be used to reduce the information and observable transaction costs to create efficiencies in agricultural markets,” de Silva said.

“And if we can create efficiencies in agricultural markets, we can create welfare on both sides of the equation,” he told a…

1 Comment
Tags: Agri, agricultural products, communications technology, Harsha de Silva, information technology, LIRNEasia, Sri Lanka.

Coming soon in Capital: Broadband connection through power lines

Chanuka Wattegama

on January 18, 2008

The North Delhi Power Limited (NDPL) and the Ministry of Information Technology are working towards an initiative that will make broadband connections through power lines possible. “We will send Internet signals through electricity transformer and channelise them through cables running overhead and underground,” said NDPL spokesperson Ajay Maharaj. “Residents would be given a device to plug into power points at home; they will have a broadband connection.”

Commissioned by the Ministry of Science and Technology, the pilot project will be implemented in the Bawana campus of Delhi College of Engineering (DCE) within six months. A similar project will be implemented in Kolkata.

Read the full story here

4 Comments
Tags: Ajay Maharaj, Bawana campus of Delhi College, Broadband, Delhi College of Engineering, electricity transformer, information technology, Ministry of Information Technology, Ministry of Science and Technology, The North Delhi Power Limited.

India remains outsourcing favourite, says survey

Chanuka Wattegama

on October 1, 2007

BANGALORE, India (AFP) — India remains the favoured technology outsourcing destination, an industry report said Sunday, amid concerns a rising rupee and soaring wages would blunt the country’s competitive edge.

A study by industry publication Global Services and investment advisory firm Tholons put the Indian cities of Chennai, Hyderabad and Pune at the top of a list of 15 emerging outsourcing destinations for global companies.

Kolkata at number five and Chandigarh at number nine were the other two Indian locations on the list, which contained three Chinese and two Vietnamese cities as well.

14 Comments
Tags: Avinash Vashistha, BANGALORE, Beijing, Buenos Aires, Cairo, Cebu, China, Colombo, Dublin, Europe, favoured technology outsourcing destination, financial infrastructure, Global Services, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Hyderabad, India, information technology, information technology industry, Manila, MUMBAI, New Delhi, Pune, Sao Paulo, Shanghai, Shenzhen, software giants, the Philippines, Tholons, United States, USD.

Future of telecenters

Rohan Samarajiva

on July 14, 2007

As LIRNEasia plans its future research plans, which will be centered on mobile as a “more-than-voice” mode of access to means of communication, information retrieval and publishing, as well as completion of transactions (including payments), we have come up against the need to critically examine current efforts on, and plans for, telecenters. Obviously, this is a discussion that will be Asia-Pacific-wide, like everything LIRNEasia does. However, we’d like to get this started with a provincial news report in a Sri Lankan newspaper, simply because it was posted on the website by a reader/writer. The comments and thoughts of all on the future of telecenters are welcome.

:: Daily Mirror - Opinion ::

The Nenasala Information Technology Training Centre in Ganewatta DS Division in Hiriyala electorate which was…

3 Comments
Tags: Asia-Pacific, Ganewatta DS Division, information technology, Mahinda Rajapaksa, Nenasala Information Technology Training Centre, Training Centre.

GSMA honours Indian government

Abu Saeed Khan

on February 14, 2007

Barcelona, Feb 13 (bdnews24.com) - The GSM Association (GSMA) has presented its Government Leadership Award 2007 to India for exceptional achievement in mobile communications policy.

India has been selected because of its success in establishing a framework of policies and regulations, which have stimulated the growth of mobile telecommunications over the past three years.

The latest data from the Indian government shows that India’s mobile operators are now collectively adding six to seven million new subscribers each month.

GSMA’s CEO Rob Conway presented the award to Thiru Dayanidhi Maran, India’s minister for communications and information technology. The presentation took place at the GSMA’s Leadership Summit in Barcelona.

The Indian government’s policies have not only helped revive but stimulate the country’s mobile industry, whose growth, only a few years ago,…

1 Comment
Tags: Barcelona, Brazil, GSM Association, India, Indian government Barcelona, information technology, mobile communications policy, mobile telecommunications, Pakistan, Rob Conway, Thiru Dayanidhi Maran.

Indonesian Minister proposes new initiatives to stimulate Internet growth at ITU World 2006

Divakar Goswami

on December 8, 2006

The Indonesian Minister for Communication and Information Technology, Dr Sofyan Djalil, presented a number of new initiatives for removing the barriers to Internet growth in his country at Building Digital Communities forum session at the ITU World 2006 event in Hong Kong on December 7, 2006.

Divakar Goswami, LIRNEasia’s Director, Organizational and Projects, who was moderating the panel asked the following question:

One of the first achievements of your government was to delicense the 2.4 GHz frequency that allowed communities to use Wi-Fi extensively in the country. Despite that, Indonesia currently has Internet penetration of 0.69 percent. You have about 124 ISPs that operate in Indonesia. How do you explain the low penetration and what are the barriers preventing Internet from growing faster in Indonesia? When we look…

2 Comments
Tags: Broadband, broadband wireless, fiber optic, Hong Kong, Indonesia, information technology, Internet penetration, Internet service, Jakarta, LIRNE asia, optic based network, Sidney, Sofyan Djalil, telecommunications, Wi-Fi.

Indonesian Minister Proposes Auction for Backbone Rollout

Divakar Goswami

on September 1, 2006

Inadequate backbone infrastructure in Indonesia has been widely regarded as crippling its telecom sector. Uneven development of the backbone has meant that much of the East of the country has no fiber-optic based backbone network and those islands have to rely on more expensive satellite links. Poor long-haul domestic infrastructure has meant that many parts of the country do not have access to basic communication and those that are connected have some of the world’s highest leased line and Internet prices as my earlier study shows.

The Indonesian government’s ambitious Palapa Ring project to create a fiber ring connecting the major islands had been shelved post the 1997 Asian financial crisis. Recently, however, efforts have been made to revive a modified version of the earlier vision. In…

13 Comments
Tags: backbone infrastructure, Cable TV, fiber-optic based backbone network, high-speed Internet, high-speed Internet connection using cable television l, high-speed Internet connections, India, Indonesia, Indonesian government, Indonesian Internet Service Provider Association, information technology, information technology costs, information technology, Internet prices, Internet service, Internet users, ISP, Jakarta, Nepal, Poor long-haul domestic infrastructure, satellite links, Sofyan Djalil, SouthEast Asia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, USD.

Internet Presence of Telecom Researchers

Sujata Gamage

on February 6, 2006

Knowledge capacity is typically measured in terms of the ‘productivity’ of researchers. In a paper accepted for publication in Information Technology for International Development (ITID_1.pdf) Gamage and Samarajiva argue that researchers need to pay attention to their ‘internet presence’ and ‘connectivity’ as well. The argument is supported by data on researchers on telecom reform from Asia as found in the social science citation index and scholar.google. The focus of this paper is on ‘presence’. ‘Connectivity’ will be addressed in detail in another paper.

Paper on Internet Presence of Telecom Researchers

Comment
Tags: Asia, information technology, internet presence.

USO fund may finance rural mobile telephony

Payal Malik

on April 18, 2005

NEW DELHI, APRIL 13: The government is in the process of amending the Indian Telegraph Act to extend the Universal Service Obligation (USO) fund support to cellular mobile services (both GSM and CDMA).
As of today, the government is giving USO fund support to only the fixed line operators offering services in the rural areas.

“We are looking at amending the Telegraph Act to accommodate the cellular services and CDMA-based services to reach the rural areas. We are looking at sharing of the passive infrastructure with the cellular service providers,” communications and information technology (C&IT) minister Dayanidhi Maran told reporters.

Besides covering the villages, the minister is of the opinion that the wireless services should also provide connectivity to the Railways and highways especially in rural areas. When…

1 Comment
Tags: ADC, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited, CDMA, Cellular Operators Association of India, cellular services, China, Dayanidhi Maran, fixed line services, Germany, GSM, India, information technology, Japan, mobile telephony, New Delhi, passive infrastructure, Rs, rural telephony, telephony, United States, WIRELESS SERVICES.

LIRNE at ICT4D and higher education conference

Rohan Samarajiva

on January 15, 2005

Conference on Higher Education, Information Technology and Sustainable Development: The central role of universities in building knowledge societies in Asia, Africa and Latin America, January 10-14, 2005, De La Salle University, Manila, Philippines

I was invited to this event, I think, primarily because of the perception of LIRNE.NET as a university-based, effective organization for applying knowledge to problems of ICT4D. The presentation that I made was entitled LIRNE.NET: ICT4D with or without universities” (Manila Presentation), which should give a clue about what I think of the role of Asian universities in this task.

The conference was attended by enthusiastic academics (majority), NGO representatives seeking more support from universities, and education administrators. What should perhaps have been framed as questionsDo the universities have a role in the emerging…

Comment
Tags: Africa, Asia, De La Salle University, information technology, Latin America, LIRNE.NET, Manila, Philippines.

Rohan Responds Rapidly to Nepal

Ayesha Zainudeen

on December 13, 2004

Rapid Response Unit:
14 December 2004

LIRNEasia made a short, but productive call on Nepals High-Level Commission for Information Technology (HLCIT) last week, to advise on jump-starting its e government and reform processes. The visit came within less than ten days of a request for Rapid Response assistance by Mr. Sharad Chandra Shah, HLCITs Vice Chairman.

In his three day visit, executive director Rohan Samarajiva conducted two key sessions, with HLCIT and decision making level representatives of government, private sector and civil society.

The first was a seminar, concerned with how Nepal can rapidly implement e-government initiatives, drawing on experience from Sri Lanka. Samarajiva discussed with the participants different approaches that Nepal could take and what would be most suitable for Nepal, whilst stressing the importance of strategic communication to support…

2 Comments
Tags: Academic Advisory Council, Asia-Pacific, Asian Institute of Technology, computerized government accounting systems, e-government, estimated Internet penetration rate, HLCITs, information technology, Internet users, Kathmandu, Nepal Rapid Response Unit, Nepal, Nepal Telecom Co, Nepals High-Level Commission for Information Technolog, Office of the Prime, Rohan Responds Rapidly, Rohan Samarajiva, Sharad Chandra Shah, Sri Lanka, USD.

Randy and Michael Spence

Indi Samarajiva

on September 19, 2004

Dr. Randy Spence spoke of his experiences in Somalia, where there isn’t much government to speak of. But people are using ICTs.

However, he emphasized that ICTs must drop in cost for the investments of the 1990s to bear fruit. “I’m involved in nanotech and biotech, and fairly rapid diffusion of this technology will be very important.”

Although mobile and wireless access are expanding, fixed line and Internet access lag - and the differences are largely due to regulation.

The future may be wireless broadband, but for the foreseable future the policy is fixed line.

Dr. Michael Spence

Dr. Spence began by telling his economic perspective on the importance of good governance. “There’s a lot of talk about how all you need is a market system and that’s just nonsense.…

Comment
Tags: Cambodia, Central Bank, information technology, Internet access lag, Michael Spence, Randy Spence, Somalia, weak central bank, wireless access, wireless broadband.

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