Rohan Samarajiva writes a monthly column on Choices for the Lanka Business Online. His second column titled Nanny State (March 15, 200) deals with the controversial 100/200 meter rule that the Sri Lankan government wants to impose on people living along the coast line, preventing them from building houses within 100/200 meters from the sea. The third column is titled BPOs or daha dahasak wewu? (April 20, 2005) discusses the realistic policy choices available to decision-makers for moving the Sri Lankan economy to a high trajectory growth-rate.
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.
On March 7th (I know, this is late; but as they say better late . . ), LIRNEasia had a full day of presentations and meetings at the School of Communication and Information at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. The main presentation by Rohan Samarajiva and Sujata Gamage and the related concept paper may be of interest. Other conversations covered disaster-related and other research collaboration possibilities.
National Early Warning System: Sri Lanka (NEWS:SL): A Participatory Concept Paper for the Design of an Effective All-Hazard Public Warning System (Version 2.1) Annexes: A Participatory Concept Paper for the Design of an Effective All-Hazard Public Warning System (Version 2.1) *Executive Summary*# *The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that claimed the lives of one in 500 of Sri Lanka�s people and displaced one in twenty has highlighted the critical importance of an effective National Early Warning System for Sri Lanka (NEWS:SL)*. Meeting this need, which has been discussed (and forgotten) after each of our too frequent disasters such as the cyclones of 1978 and the floods of 2003, can no longer be postponed. # *Public warning is a system, not a technology*.
By Payal Malik In his budget speech the Finance Minister of India promised a release of Rs. 1,200 crores (USD 275 million) for the Universal Service Fund. While it is heartening that the funds are being released and are not being gobbled by the Contingency Fund of India, what is however disheartening is that competition and liberalisation has not achieved its full potential in bridging the rural urban divde and like in the monopoly era one has to wait for budgetary pronouncements for rural telephony to jumpstart. An extract from his speech: Telecommunication is the best way to provide connectivity in urban and rural India. By the end of January 2005, we had achieved a tele-density of 8.
The Virtual Organisation: How do we get there? Divakar: How can we get researchers and participants to engage in LIRNEasia activitites? And sustain these relationships? Money? -this is tough, since we have limited funds Professional development?
Some very important issues on government vs private supply of last-mile access (of the type that will come to the fore in places like Andra) are discussed at: Philly Leads Charge For Wireless (New York Times) Are we ready to discuss anything other than tsunami related stuff?
I have agreed to write a column on Choices for Lanka Business Online, starting this month. The first column is up, entitled “Surviving tsunamis: What we can learn from Hawai’i.” Any suggestions, comments, criticisms will be welcome. BTW, a tentative statement in my column (that was written on my flight back from Hawai’i Jan 20-22) has been confirmed: the undersea earthquake responsible for the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami is now the second largest recorded earthquake at 9.3 on the Richter scale.
Mass computings next big thing runs into an archaic law that bans outdoor use of Wi-Fi Thakkar RESHMA PATIL & PRAGYA SINGH Posted online: Sunday, February 06, 2005 at 0154 hours IST Indian Express MUMBAI, NEW DELHI, FEB 5: When tech entrepreneur Jayesh Thakkar geared to connect computerswithout wires20 km away in two Vadodara offices, his corporate client first applied for a licence. They have been waiting for a year. At Mumbai, a construction giant is waiting since nine months for permission to wirelessly connect offices in two suburbs. […] Most big corporates stay away from outdoor WiFi use because licences are cumbersome and bureaucratic, says Thakkar, director, JayRaj Exim, a company WiFi-enabling offices in Mumbai. By the time a licence arrives, what if the technology is outdated?
Mass computings next big thing runs into an archaic law that bans outdoor use of Wi-Fi Thakkar RESHMA PATIL & PRAGYA SINGH Posted online: Sunday, February 06, 2005 at 0154 hours IST Indian Express MUMBAI, NEW DELHI, FEB 5: When tech entrepreneur Jayesh Thakkar geared to connect computerswithout wires20 km away in two Vadodara offices, his corporate client first applied for a licence. They have been waiting for a year. At Mumbai, a construction giant is waiting since nine months for permission to wirelessly connect offices in two suburbs. […] Most big corporates stay away from outdoor WiFi use because licences are cumbersome and bureaucratic, says Thakkar, director, JayRaj Exim, a company WiFi-enabling offices in Mumbai. By the time a licence arrives, what if the technology is outdated?
Here is an interesting article recommended by Nalaka Gunawardene: Four years ago, this magazines editor, environmentalist Anil Agarwal, wrote a scathing comment after the Bhuj earthquake: Disasters come and go but our government has become a permanent disaster. While we are vulnerable to natural disasters cyclones, earthquakes, floods or droughts, and now the tsunami these temporary and preventable disasters turn into massive calamities because of the perpetual disaster that this countrys governance system has come to represent. Why? Because earthquakes do not kill, the buildings do. Anil put the question: why, then, do we not build, in areas identified as seismic, earthquake-resistant structures?
Published in The Sunday Times “Vanguard Foundation and LIRNEasia will conduct an expert consultation as a part of the process of developing a concept paper and specifications for a Disaster Warning System with adequate regional and global linkages. We earnestly request those who have expertise in the areas of Disaster Management to take part in this exercise.”
The BBC world service programme ASSIGNMENT this week is about the tsunami and emergency communications in Sri Lanka and includes an interview with Rohan. You can hear it at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/meta/tx/nb/assignment_au_nb.
Led to the Colombo Regency Rotary Club’s successful web relief operation. This has been featured in Rotary International’s publication, without either of their names . We, in our small way, seek to correct this by this post. Good work, guys. You are appreciated, by us as at least.
Rohan: Vanguard Foundation was recently created which has a center for disaster management. The work I have done at TRC on disaster management will be leveraged in the current context, and we will prepare a document. Pete Anderson is disaster communication expert who will be brought in to design a concept paper to set up parameters of a disaster management system. We are moving very fast on this. Sequence: Disaster happens, analysed, and transmitted in a secure communication mechanism to the media.
An article describing the thinking behind the design of e Sri Lanka, with emphasis on e government and infrastructure is at . As the title note states, this was a collective design that many contributed to. So, I cannot take credit for the design, though I will have to take responsibility for any errors in the article. This is a good journal for those working on developing country infrastructure issues. Subscribe.