50/- CSI · PDF filealso be considered for poster and oral presentation. Send ... Director...

CSI CommunicationsKnowledge Digest for IT Community

Programming.Tips() »

Coping up with Rounding Errors in C 25

Programming.Learn(Perl) »

Flat File Databases in Perl 28

IT Strategy Nuances »

Business-IT alignment: Significance and the realization 29IS

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e-Governance

Training for e-Governance: Does Culture Hold a Key? 32

ICT news briefs in September 2011 37

Quiz 38

Putting Public Interest First 6

e-Governance applications in public healthcare for rural areas of Uttarakhand 8

m-Governance future in Indian context 11

Revisiting NeGP: eBharath 2020: the proposed future NeGP 2.0 16

Tapping the mHealth Opportunity 19

IT Act 2000 »

The IT Act, 2000 (Cyber Law) of India - A Brief 21

Information Security »

Introduction to Information Security – Defense in Depth 23

Write to us at: info@csi‐2011.org For details log on to: www.csi‐2011.org

Contact: Dr. Haresh Bhatt, Program Chair, pc@csi‐2011.org | Visit: http://www.csi‐2011.org

Government of Gujarat

Associated Organizations

Computer Society of India 46th Annual National Convention 2011 Host: Ahmedabad Chapter December 1–3, 2011Venue: Ahmedabad Mgmt Association, Ahmedabad

Registration Fees (in INR) Registration Fees:

Members CSI/GESIA

Non Members CSI/GESIA

Academician Researcher

Student Accompanying Spouse

Up to 31/10/2011 5000 6000 4000 1500 3000 After 31/10/2011 6000 7000 5000 2000 3500

Partnership Opportunities Collaborating with CSI 2011 will provide an effective means of broadening your competitive edge by improving your company's image, prestige and credibility by supporting this convention that your target market finds attractive. It will be a means of accessing a wide range of audience ‐ CEOs, CTOs. CIOs & Government officials accessible over the span of three days in one space. CSI 2011 welcomes partnership from ICT companies, Institutes, Universities, Government / Semi Government departments, PSU etc. All contributions will be used directly to ensure greater quality of convention. Various partnership schemes are available. Partnership Options Fees (INR) Partnership Options Fees (INR) Platinum Partner 15,00,000 CIO Summit & CEO Conclave 10,00,000 Gold Partner 10,00,000 Pre‐Convention International Conference 3,00,000Silver Partner 5,00,000 Tutorial Partner 1,00,000Session Partner 3,00,000 Official IT Media Partner– Online/Print/TV On RequestConvention Dinner 5,00,000 Academic Partner 25,000

Contact: Prof. Bipin V Mehta, Finance Chair, fc@csi‐2011.org | Visit: http://www.csi‐2011.org/sponsors.htm

▪ Insight by more than 40 speakers in 5 tracks ▪ Focus on Innovation, Research & Development ▪ Thought leadership for transformation of business & society ▪ ICT Roadmap for India’s socio‐economic growth ▪ Innovative solutions for cost‐effective organizational transformation

▪ More than 900 Delegates ▪ Representatives from State/Central Govt. ▪ CEOs, CIOs, CTOs & IT Management Personnel ▪ Representatives from Indian / Foreign Universities, IT / Non‐IT Companies ▪ Computer Professionals/ IT Consultants ▪ Researchers, Academicians, CSI Members

Highlights of the Convention

A patent plays a big role in driving the innovation process. Patents create property from information or knowledge. In earlier days capital and labour were necessary to start a business. Today, Patent has been given highest importance for a new venture. Proposals are invited from ICT industry to present patents acquired in last 10 years. Posters of patents will either be kept at prime locations or in dedicated room. Selected proposals will be given time in a track for presenting the innovation. Innovative systems or applications developed which has significant impact on societal benefit will also be considered for poster and oral presentation. Send your entries at: patents@csi‐2011.org | For more details, visit www.csi‐2011.org/patents.htm

Call for Patent and Innovation Presentations

▪ Pre Convention International Conferences on 1. IT Security 2. Grid & Cloud Computing

▪ Pre Convention Tutorials on 1. Sensor Networks: Design to Deployment 2. ICT for Education 3. Cloud Computing

▪ Ph. D. Scholars’ Colloquium ▪ Paper Presentations during Convention ▪ Special Invited Talks / Sessions

▪ Tracks on VC Funding for ICT, Societal Application, Safety & Security Enterprise Resource Planning Education (eLearning), Mobile Application Patent & Innovation, Advanced Technology ▪ Special Tracks on eGovernance Award, IT Excellence Award ▪ Panel Discussions ▪ Live Demonstrations

Key Events of the Convention

Computer Society of India invites you to join one of the premier IT‐Federation meet “CSI‐2011”. The 46th Annual National Convention of CSI is one of the India’s largest ICT events, CSI‐2011 would be a unique platform for sharing of knowledge, challenges, ideas and best practices amongst the various stakeholders driving ICT initiatives in the domain of Governance, Healthcare, Defense, Education, Communication and Space Application.

Invitation for CSI‐2011: 46thAnnual National Convention

ContactConvention Secretary, CSI‐2011 Email: cs@csi‐2011.org Mobile: +91 96626 40500

Eminent Speakers

Sam Pitroda Chairman National Knowledge Comm. Government of India

Kiran Karnik Former President

NASSCOM

Arup Dasgupta Managing Editor GEOSPATIAL WORLD

Gulshan Rai Director General, ICERT

Government of India

James Thurston Sr. Strategist ‐ Global Policy & Standards, Microsoft

John William Walz Vice President

IEEE Computer Society

Lalit Sawhney Former CTO Reliance communication

M M Saggi Nautical Advisory

Government of India

Niru Mehta Chief Executive Officer AttendByVideo

P K Srivastava Managing Director

GSDL

Paul Nicholas Director, Global Security Strategy & Diplomacy, Microsoft

R S Sharma Director General &

Mission Director, Aadhar

Ranbir Singh Group Director & Head Public Sector, Microsoft

S Ramakrishanan Former Director General

CDAC

Sanjay Bahl Chief Security Officer Microsoft Corporation

Sorel Reisman President


Vakul Sharma Sr. Advocate Supreme Court of India

CSI Communications | October 2011 | 1

ContentsVolume No. 35 • Issue No. 7 • October 2011

Cover Story

6 PuttingPublicInterestFirst AmitChakravarty

8 e-Governanceapplicationsinpublic healthcareforruralareasofUttarakhand Dr.MKSharma

Technical Trends

11 m-GovernancefutureinIndiancontext KhairiyyahBintiMohdNoor(Malaysia), RKBaggaandKSVijayaSekhar

Research Front

16 Revisiting NeGP: eBharath 2020: the proposed future NeGP 2.0 CSRPrabhu

Article

19TappingthemHealthOpportunity AtanuGarai

CSI Communications

Editorial Board

Chief EditorDr. R M Sonar

EditorsDr. Debasish JanaDr. Achuthsankar Nair

Resident EditorMrs. Jayshree Dhere

AdvisorsDr. T V GopalMr. H R Mohan

Published byExecutive Secretary Mr. Suchit GogwekarFor Computer Society of India

Please note:CSI Communications is published by Computer Society of India, a non-profit organization. Views and opinions expressed in the CSI Communications are those of individual authors, contributors and advertisers and they may differ from policies and official statements of CSI. These should not be construed as legal or professional advice. The CSI, the publisher, the editors and the contributors are not responsible for any decisions taken by readers on the basis of these views and opinions.

Although every care is being taken to ensure genuineness of the writings in this publication, CSI Communications does not attest to the originality of the respective authors’ content.

© 2011 CSI. All rights reserved.

Instructors are permitted to photocopy isolated articles for non-commercial classroom use without fee. For any other copying, reprint or republication, permission must be obtained in writing from the Society. Copying for other than personal use or internal reference, or of articles or columns not owned by the Society without explicit permission of the Society or the copyright owner is strictly prohibited.

PLUSBrain Teaser DebasishJana

35

Ask an Expert DebasishJana

36

Happenings@ICT: ICT news briefs in September 2011HRMohan

37

QuizMrs.JayshreeADhere

38

On the Shelf! – Book reviewDr.SuneetaSane

39

CSI Elections 2012-2013 / 2012-201439

ExecCom Transacts Prof.HRVishwakarma

41

CSI News 45

Security Corner

21 IT Act 2000 » TheITAct,2000(CyberLaw) ofIndia-ABrief Adv.PrashantMali

23 Information Security » IntroductiontoInformationSecurity– DefenseinDepth AvinashWKadam

Practitioner Workbench

25 Programming.Tips() » Coping up with Rounding Errors in C Dr.DebasishJana

28 Programming.Learn(Perl) » Flat File Databases in Perl AchuthsankarS.NairandKashyapChhatbar

CIO Perspective

29 IT Strategy Nuances » Business-IT alignment: Significance and the realization AnilVVaidya

HR

32 Trainingfore-Governance: DoesCultureHoldaKey? Dr.ShefaliNandan

CSI Communications | October 2011 | 2 www.csi-india.org

Know Your CSI

Executive Committee (2011-12/13) »President Vice-President Hon.SecretaryMr. M D Agrawal Mr. Satish Babu Prof. H R Vishwakarma [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

Hon.Treasurer Immd.PastPresidentMr. V L Mehta Prof. P [email protected] [email protected]

Nomination Committee Members (2011-2012)

Prof. (Dr.) A K Nayak Mr. P R Rangaswami Mr. Sanjay K Mohanty

Regional Vice-Presidents

Region-I Region-II Region-III Region-IVMr. R K Vyas Prof. Dipti Prasad Mukherjee Mr. Anil Srivastava Mr. Sanjay MohapatraDelhi, Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Assam, Bihar, West Bengal, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Chattisgarh, Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, North Eastern States Rajasthan and other areas Orissa and other areas inUttar Pradesh, Uttaranchal and and other areas in in Western India Central & Southother areas in Northern India. East & North East India Eastern India

Region-V Region-VI Region-VII Region-VIIIProf. D B V Sarma Mr. C G Sahasarabudhe Mr. Ramasamy S Mr. Jayant KrishnaKarnataka and Andhra Pradesh Maharashtra and Goa Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry, International Members Andaman and Nicobar, Kerala, Lakshadweep

Division Chairpersons

Division-I:Hardware(2011-13) Division-II:Software(2010-12) Division-III:Applications(2011-13)Dr. C R Chakravarthy Dr. T V Gopal Dr. S Subramanian [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

Division-IV:Communications Division-V:EducationandResearch(2010-12) (2011-13)Mr. H R Mohan Dr. N L Sarda [email protected] [email protected]

Important links on CSI website »Structure&Organisation http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/structureNational,Regional& http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/structure/nscStateStudentsCoordinatorsStatutoryCommittees http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/statutory-committeesCollaborations http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/collaborationsJoinNow- http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/joinRenewMembership http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/renewMemberEligibility http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/eligibilityMemberBenefits http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/benifitsSubscriptionFees http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/subscription-feesFormsDownload http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/forms-downloadBABAScheme http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/baba-schemePublications http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/publicationsCSICommunications* http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/info-center/communicationsAdhyayan* http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/adhyayanR&DProjects http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/47TechnicalPapers http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/technical-papersTutorials http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/tutorialsCourseCurriculum http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/course-curriculumeNewsletter* http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/enewsletterCurrentIssue http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/current-issueArchives http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/archivesPolicyGuidelines http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/helpdeskEvents http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/events1President’sDesk http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/infocenter/president-s-deskExecComTransacts http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/execcom-transacts1News&Announcementsarchivehttp://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/announcements

CSI Divisions and their respective web links Division-Hardware http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/division1DivisionSoftware http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/division2DivisionApplication http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/division3DivisionCommunications http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/division4DivisionEducationandResearchhttp://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/division5

List of SIGs and their respective web linksSIG-ArtificialIntelligence http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/csi-sig-aiSIG-eGovernance http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/csi-sig-egovSIG-FOSS http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/csi-sig-fossSIG-SoftwareEngineering http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/csi-sig-seSIG-DATA http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/csi-sigdataSIG-DistributedSystems http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/csi-sig-dsSIG-HumaneComputing http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/csi-sig-humaneSIG-InformationSecurity http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/csi-sig-isSIG-Web2.0andSNS http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/sig-web-2.0SIG-BVIT http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/sig-bvitSIG-WNs http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/sig-fwnsSIG-GreenIT http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/sig-green-itSIG-HPC http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/sig-hpcSIG-TSSR http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/sig-tssr

Other Links -Forums http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/discuss-share/forumsBlogs http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/discuss-share/blogsCommunities* http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/discuss-share/communitiesCSIChapters http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/chapters

* Access is for CSI members only.

Important Contact Details »For queries, announcements, correspondence regarding Membership, contact [email protected] any other queries, contact [email protected]


My hearty good wishes on the eve of Navaratri and Dassera. The current Executive Committee completes six months on the auspicious day of Navaratri. As I look back, I enumerate below some of the key achievements of last 6 months, on different fronts– HQ, ED, Regions, Divisions, SIGs, Chapters, Student Chapters.

New Initiatives of Knowledge Management & Publications:1. CSI Communications: New Design, Structure & layout: An

excellent feedback from members for high Quality content matching international standard.

2. Introduction of Online CSI Communications Magazine for all members .

3. CSI Computing Journal: Launch of Online Research Journal with efforts of Prof. Shyamasundar, Publication Committee Chairman.

4. CSI Student Wiz Kid: Monthly Online Magazine for student community: Thanks to team associated with Education Directorate and all editors.

5. CSI Monthly E Newsletter: continuous efforts of our senior member Mr. H.R. Mohan.

6. Formation of separate company “CSI Publication“ under section 25 for CSI Transactions, thanks to Shri Mahalingam & Prof. Raghavan.

7. CSI Knowledge Portal started getting many more hits and visits, thanks to proliferating no. of news and submissions.

8. Upgradation Project of CSI KM Portal and Development of new membership software: Likely to complete in next 2 months by HQ team.

9. Digital Library feasibility study completed, thanks to Prof. Mini.

10. Introduction of mass e-mailing facility at HQ and setting up of SMTP server.With all the above developments, CSI infrastructure and

Publications are ready to serve better interests of members and to avow, as it is, a prime professional body fostering knowledge network and offering quality technical publications & helping members and industry with knowledge of new developments.

New Premises for HQ in Mumbai:After allotment of 3800sq feet floor space by MIDC last year

and after stringent planning & architect work, CSI HQ corporate office is now completed. The new premises provides artistic ambience, has additional facilities of seminar/auditorium, two meeting rooms and library as well.

Growth of Education & Training Programs:1. New policy of partnership & subject-based centre of

excellence, was announced, for setting up centers with education institutions and other organizations for joint technical and certification programs and it is being implemented by ED.

2. As a result of this policy, Education Directorate succeeded in introducing certification program on E-Waste Management, in partnership with M/s. ERG and is also likely to launch following further certification programs:

� Network security in partnership with MIEL Academy � Smart Phone Application development in partnership

with Nokia � Green IT Associate with

M/s. Core3. Partnership program with IIT

Mumbai Spoken Tutorials www.spoken-tutorial.org, on subjects like PHP, Linux, MySQL. Pilot has been completed successfully by our ASC and 50 students got CSI - IIT Joint certification at Coimbatore. These programs have the capability of offering certifications on important ICT subjects to students & professionals. A policy needs to be firmed up by us on this front to offer these certifications to all students & professionals.

4. Education Directorate endeavor for making available a basket of 15 no. standard workshops for Education institutions and Chapters. Prof. Mini, as convener of Skill Development Cell, is helping Education Directorate to develop standard catalogue of workshops. Project of building a list of 1000 no. of Speakers as CSI Talent pool, will go a long way in helping to run above workshops and many other short term assignments.

5. Thanks to local teams, many Chapters including Bangalore, Chennai, Coimbatore, Mumbai, Pune, Kolkatta have started offering technical workshops on emerging subjects. Successful Experiences of these may help to replicate workshops at other chapters, provide a good growth of workshops.

6. Mumbai chapter started a study project for developing framework for CSI industry focus workshops leading to certifications. An industry survey of selected corporate and IT companies shows strong need of quality programs for their staff. There may be an incubation period of 3 months to 6 months.

7. For membership drive for education institutions and creation of student branches a dedicated satellite office at Coimbatore Chapter was started, under guidance of Mr. Ranga Raj Gopal. This decision helped to create many new members & student chapters.

8. Mr. Ranga Raj Gopal, ASC, lists out following key achievements at student activity fronts:

� State student conventions held at Goa, Tamilnadu, Kerala, U.P

� National student convention at GIET, Rajahmundry under CSI Vizag chapter

� Special Membership drive - reached out to over 1000 colleges nationally

� About 50 new student branches expected to start through this drive

� FDP Workshop on cloud computing with support from Ms. Mini

� Pilot of spoken tutorials of IIT- Mumbai, conducted on 26th-28th September at PSG College of Tech., Coimbatore

� Microsoft FDP held at Bengaluru/Pune

President’s Message M. D. Agrawal

From :[email protected] :President’sDeskDate :1stOctober,2011

Dear Friends


� Seminars/Workshops on Cloud Computing / Testing & Automation/Android conducted in Bangalore

National seminars / workshops: Six National / International Seminars were concluded including International conference of IFIP TC 5, at Goa, 3 national student conventions and many seminars and workshops.

CSI Awards & Recognition :Recognition and Awards are considered one of the prime objectives of any professional body. Next 3 months will witness numerous activities and cheers with launch of following CSI Awards. I convey my gratitude to organizers and members of award committees.

� Education Excellence Awards: 10 no. of special awards for education sector have been newly introduced by Director Education.

¬ YITP 2011 Awards have been launched by Mr. Bipin Mehta and all team members, after complete re-structuring & with better professional look. Hon. Treasurer, Mr. V L Mehta, assisted in getting initial funding.

� CSI IT Excellence Awards were re-introduced last year with efforts of Mr. Anil Srivastava, RVP. This year 2 new categories of awards have been added.

� CSI SIG E Governance Awards have set high standards in our country. Thanks to Dr. Bagga & his team.

Organizing of these awards at all-India level requires lot of co-ordination and leadership acumen. I am sure all our four teams will do their best and bring new laurels to CSI.New Chapters : Four new chapters like Gurgaon, Varanasi, Jhansi, & couple of new student chapters were added to our list and many defunct chapters were revived.Friends, I desired to share some good moments with members with a consolidated list of key happenings & achievements of teams during last 6 months but unable list out full list due to paucity of space. These shall be considered as strengthening of foundation for the next level of activities. Activists should use list of achievements for promoting CSI Brand among corporate, Governments and other society segments and shall attract their attention to get involved in CSI programs.Now, a thoughtful exercise is needed to maintain sustainability and growth. For financial viability and self sustenance, these activities require proper planning and good secretariat & managerial support. There are always demands from members for a good quality of service. For effective planning, effective governance, execution of initiatives, an urgent need is felt to recruit a senior person in rank of Chief Operating officer at HQ for all India co-ordination. Administration in hand of senior person shall also help to develop schemes for new source of revenues & optimize expenses. He shall also help to take special measures toward CSI membership enrolment among corporate and individual professionals working in IT companies. Our SIGs and Divisional activities also need better attention, I am hopeful in coming months new initiatives will be taken by respective chairpersons.CSI Chapter Organization & Forthcoming Elections: We have a decentralized structure. At chapters, a great amount of autonomy of operations is available. It is being noticed in large number of cases, issues are getting surfaced with formation of chapter

committees, continuation of old committee members and lack of interests among new members to contest chapter positions. There is need to attract suitable representations from all category of stakeholders especially from corporate, academics, Government including presence of youngsters, CIOs, women members.

This situation calls for a serious effort, on one side amendment of Byelaws to fill gaps and also on the part of nomination committees to identify suitable candidates and also at times function. Now elections are being announced for National executive and chapter committees. NC has a crucial role to play in selections, invitations and nominations. All seniors and fellows are requested to help local chapters and National NC by extending their help in identification and pursue them to file nominations for various leadership positions. My hearty good wishes to Chairman NC, Prof Nayak, Mr. Rangaswami and Mr. Mohanty for taking this responsibility at National level.

CSI Research Focus: Research promotion is considered CSI’s key agenda item.

On 5 th sept, 2011, we had a meeting with DST Secretary, Shri Ramasami. Prof. Shyamasundar and Dr. Om Vikas were also present. Secretary strongly expressed that CSI should help the Government in improving Research ecosystem in the field of Computer Science and ICT. Secretary called upon the Society to bring out a White Paper on Research and Education in CSI and play a proactive role in framing policies and arriving at mechanisms for implementing the same. He also stressed that this will aid the government in taking concrete steps in the coming 12th Five Year Plan in the area of Computer Science and Engineering among the public institutions through private partnerships.

We have requested research veteran & Publication Committee Chairman, Prof. Shyamasundar & Dr. Om Vikas to spare time for taking suitable action in preparation of this report. As per him, CSI roadmap must provide strategy to transition from “Catch-up Phase” to “Competitive Phase” and also develop technologies to place India in “Commanding Phase”. We shall consider this an good opportunity.

To achieve this sort of tasks & other opportunities in research we shall invite and nominate seniors with strong background of academic and industrial research in our committee, as and when opportunity arrives. They will be helpful to strengthen our research programs and in promoting csi research promotion mission.

In next 3 months, CSI Team will be involved in the mammoth task of organizing major activities - Annual National Convention CSI 2011, SEARCC 2011, CSI National Awards, National and Chapter elections and others. These events call for a fair amount of synergy, mutual help, good back office capabilities to draw industry and institutions support & secretariat support and hard work by organizers. I am hopeful for good results.

Considering forthcoming opportunities and challenges, I recollect the words of Lord Krishna in Bhagwat Gita Sutra 38: “Treating alike victory and defeat, gain and loss, pleasure and pain, get ready for the battle, fighting thus will not incur sin“.

I implore you to extend your wholehearted and continuous support.

Jai hind!

With love,

M D Agrawal


Editorial Rajendra M Sonar, Achuthsankar S Nair, Debasish Jana and Jayshree DhereEditors

Dear Fellow CSI Members:

As announced in the June 2011 issue of CSI Communications, it’s our pleasure to bring to you this October 2011 issue with cover story on e-Governance. We are delighted to inform you that we received very enthusiastic response to our request for contribution on the topic of e-Governance, from members as well as from SIG – e-Governance. In fact, we received quite a number of contributions and have to take a call to split it into two issues and extend the cover story topic to the next month as well.

Governance is important as it helps to set the tone at the top, so that everything else falls in right place. While the letter ‘e’ in e-Governance stands for electronic implying governance empowered through technology, in reality we find that there are various aspects to this subject ranging from varied impacts of different types of empowering technologies, re-engineering aspects of governance processes to removing ills, bringing efficiency and transparency, inclusion of as many citizens as possible by extending reach, enabling new services possible thereby resulting in better and smarter governance. Various authors have tackled different aspects of the topic and we are glad to bring to you their viewpoints and findings.

In this issue we have two cover story articles – one titled “Putting Public Interest First” written by M. Amit Chakrawarty of NISG (National Institute of Smart Government) and the other titled “e-Governance applications of public healthcare for rural areas of Uttarakhand” contributed by Dr. M K Sharma of AMr.apali Institute at Haldwani. While there is no doubt about the transforming power of ICT technologies and its impact on e-Government in improving lives of citizens, Mr. Amit Chakravarty stresses the importance of making the best use of transformative power by putting the public interest first. Dr. M K Sharma focuses attention on the fact that providing health services is one of the priorities of the Government and goes about describing several guidelines on how healthcare in hilly rural areas can be improved by interlinking primary, secondary and tertiary level health centers using ICT and e-Governance applications.

...three-tier architecture of current NeGP – National e-Governance Plan, examines it to find missing gaps and goes in depth informing us about the vision of eBharat 2020, which is the proposed future NeGP 2.0, a plan with 12 various steps.

While the letter ‘e’ in e-Governance stands for electronic implying governance empowered through technology, in reality we find that there are various aspects to this subject ranging from varied impacts of different types of empowering technologies, re-engineering aspects of governance processes to removing ills, bringing efficiency and transparency, inclusion of as many citizens as possible by extending reach, enabling new services possible thereby resulting in better and smarter governance.

Research Front section presents you an article by C.S.R. Prabhu of National Informatics Centre, Hyderabad, wherein he writes about three-tier architecture of current NeGP – National e-Governance Plan, examines it to find missing gaps and goes in depth informing us about the vision of eBharat 2020, which is the proposed future NeGP 2.0, a plan with 12 various steps.

Technology Trends features an article on “m-Governance

future in Indian Context” written by Ms Kharriyyah Binti Mohd Noor, Mr. R K Bagga and Mr. K S Vijaya Shekhar. They discuss in details about the need, the current status and challenges involved in m-Governance in India.

Under CIO Perspective, Dr. Anil Vaidya, in his series of articles on IT strategy, writes in this issue on significance of Business-IT alignment and how to realize it in practice. He provides tips on assessing the current status of this alignment and suggests mechanisms for ensuring it. He highlights the importance of impact of social climate in the organization on business and IT alignment and informs that there is every reason to challenge the long and old assumption that alignment with business is responsibility merely of IT. The article in the HR column by Dr. Shefali Nandan of Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology, Allahabad, is about training for e-governance. She addresses the

issue of whether culture holds a key here. We are bringing one more interesting column titled ‘Security

Corner’ to you in this issue. There are two parts in this column – one based on IT Act 2000, wherein advocate Prashant Mali briefly introduces the cyber law of India viz. IT Act 2000 and its latest amendments. Prashant will write a series of articles in forthcoming issues. Another section, under Security Corner, deals with Information Security and the article is contributed by none other than the security stalwart, Mr. Avinash Kadam, who explains the concept of defence in depth. Mr. Kadam will also go about elaborating the information security aspects in a series of articles in forthcoming issues.

Programming.Learn(Perl) section of the Practitioners Workbench column deals with flat file databases in Perl. Programming.Tips() section has tips on using rounding techniques for numerical values while programming.

As usual there are regular features such as Brain Teaser, Ask an Expert, On the Shelf (Book Review), Happenings@ICT and CSI News. This time we are not bringing out ICT@Society. But there is one additional feature called ‘Quiz’. It will interest those of you, who wish to find out what you learnt from previous issues of CSIC, or those of you, who like to test what you already know otherwise.

We thank all those, who have sent contributions for the issue as well as those, who have sent their valuable feedback on the previous issues. Please note we welcome your feedback and suggestions at [email protected]. And last, but not the least, we welcome your contributions in various columns and sections for CSI Communications.

With warm regards,

Rajendra M Sonar, Achuthsankar S Nair, Debasish Jana and Jayshree DhereEditors


Cover Story

Putting Public Interest First

Amit ChakravartySenior Manager, National Institute for Smart Government

Modern information and communication technologies (ICTs) are rapidly transforming not only personal lives but also the manner in which citizens interact with governments. Use of ICTs is increasingly mediating the interaction of the citizens with the government. E-government is rapidly expanding its footprint not only in all geographies but also in all walks of life from paying utility bills to e-voting.

Over the years the concept of e-government has moved through three stages as identified below:(a) The first phase emerged from the

success of e-commerce in the world of business. The primary view of the government was a provider of public services and hence e-government (or primarily electronic delivery of services) was seen as a means to improve service delivery. This view, having a technology bias, was the primary driver of e-government initiatives all over the world. Thus governments converted a whole basket of services to electronic format to make them more easily accessible over the Internet.

(b) As electronic delivery of services gained widespread acceptance as a vehicle for delivery of public services, the view emerged that this was part of the on-going reforms and transformation of the government. Governments were seen to be re-inventing themselves to be more “citizen-focused”, “mission-driven”, “result-oriented”, “decentralised”, etc. ICT tools came to be seen as key drivers of a major transformation of government processes, systems and structures.

(c) The third evolutionary step is to locate e-government in the context of good governance. Thus e-government now expands to become e-governance. This enlarges the scope of e-government beyond delivery of services to include participatory governance, socio-economic development, transparency and accountability

with the aim to make governments effective and responsive. The defining feature of this view is that government orientation shifts from government-centricity to citizen-centricity. This means that the needs and conveniences of the citizens drive government processes, procedures and strategies and not the other way around. During the first two stages of its

evolution e-government is primarily driven by technology. The main objective is to leverage the benefits of modern ICT tools to improve service delivery, benefit from digitisation of data and creation of MIS (management information systems) and to decrease transaction time and cost.

Some of the benefits which ICT tools provide are as follows:

� Single window delivery � Reduced transaction costs � Improved efficiency � Better decision making through the

use of MIS and decision support systems

� Accountability through process transparency

� Effective targeting and preventing leakages (using identity authentication and transaction authentication)The above benefits (among many

others) have been the primary drivers of e-government initiatives in the country. India is in the middle of the second stage of maturity and now it is time for our policy makers to focus on the task ahead – how can India move to the third stage. The third evolutionary stage should not be driven by technology. Instead a community empowerment agenda and a development agenda should inform the policy making process for the third stage. Development policies and programs aim not only at delivering a set of services, but also at enabling communities towards greater empowerment, through building their capabilities (to use Amartya Sen’s capability approach). Correspondingly, the potential of ICTs is also not only as a service delivery platform, but also as a means for empowerment of communities

towards self-determined goals. It is important that [e-governance] policies are situated within overall development policy frameworks, and not just seen as a part of telecom or other infrastructural policies. This approach requires an appropriate institutional framework, and a programmatic design that is oriented towards community empowerment.1

To ensure that e-government initiatives result in: a) achieving an inclusive society; b) fostering an open government culture and c) promoting citizen centric governance, it is essential that policies are framed keeping people and their empowerment in focus rather than being based on what is technically convenient or market friendly. Policies have to evolve beyond a service delivery approach and focus on community involvement, empowerment and social equity. An e-governance vision and strategy for the coming decades can be built on certain guiding principles, which could be as follows:

� An e-governance vision should be based on frameworks of social equity and justice: E-governance is not about computers and networks. It is primarily about governance which implies that the welfare of citizens is the prime consideration. Any e-governance policy cannot be solely based on technology or economic considerations. Principles of participation, social justice and equity should also factor in the decision making process. For e.g. business models should be driven by a development mandate rather than purely commercial considerations. Most importantly, policies should be drafted in such a manner that the outcomes favour the disadvantaged sections of the population.

� A two-way information flow to create space for community involvement: ICT technologies shrink time and distance. This means that the transaction costs are greatly reduced for citizens to participate in the governance process and this in turn opens up myriad ways in which

1 ICTs in Social Protection Systems – Making the Strategic Choices First, Policy Brief by IT for Change



citizens can participate in the policy formulation processes – leading to a true participatory democracy. Since in today’s complex societies a lot of information must be collected and processed in order for the decision making processes to be fruitful, technologies that facilitate accretion, processing and dissemination of knowledge are especially useful for enabling participatory democracy. Such technologies already exist and there is a need for our decision makers to factor them in.

� Conceptualisation of e-governance should transcend digitisation and service provision: Current e-government initiatives are primarily focused on (a) Digitising reams of historical data and (b) providing government services like land records, driving licence, passport, payment of taxes and utility bills, submitting applications, etc. The next paradigm shift in e-governance will happen when we move beyond these to a stage where we start using the power of technology to (a) involve the citizens in decision making processes and (b) use the disruptive power of ICT to change dominant exploitative social and economic structures. However transformation and re-defining relationships is a challenge that can be met adequately only if there is an e-governance strategy which goes beyond service provisioning and looks at issues of social equity and justice.

� Public Information Systems: The

current e-government paradigm talks of creating decision support systems and management information systems (MIS). But these are all oriented primarily for the bureaucrat or the decision maker. A paradigm shift is required where we start building public information systems whose primary purpose is to provide all the information required by the citizens so that they can make informed decisions. This means that rather than giving the citizens pre-digested information generated by an MIS, citizens should have access to raw data (or to use the current jargon – open government data) which can then be processed in different ways to yield various kinds of information required by the citizens. This requires a shift in mind-set – it is inverting the lens and looking at information from a citizen perspective rather than from the government perspective. It implies that information available on government websites should be in open machine readable formats which can be processed using various software tools rather than being available as a PDF file.

� Public Sector Software: Public provisioning principles are well enshrined in government processes and universal access is the foundation of government vision and policy. There is no argument about the need for provisioning of public funding for health, education, water & sanitation, social safety nets, etc. so that the poor and the marginalized have access to

these facilities even as private players exist who provide services for those who can pay. The same principles and public sector ethos which guide public policy should also govern the design and deployment of software used for e-government. The current manner of e-government software procurement is based on the belief that software procurement is best left to computer experts. Well-meaning civil service officers who otherwise put public interest above all else in other matters of governance seem to abdicate their responsibility by default when it comes to e-government procurement. Public sector computerization projects require careful thinking on issues such as accountability to the public, costs of access that impact equity, providing universal services which requires independence of the provider (dependence on private sector can be a cause for failure of universal public access), encouraging community participation etc. This is best done by civil service officers who are trained in the ethos of public service and is not an issue that can be delegated to computer experts. There can be no debate on the

transforming power of ICT technologies and the impact of e-government in improving the lives of citizens. What is debateable is whether we are making the best use of the transformative power of ICTs in putting the public interest first.

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About the AuthorAmit Chakravarty is a governance and development practitioner having 22 years of rich experience with diverse organisations such as Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, UN World Food Programme (WFP), National Institute for Smart Government (NISG) and various national and grass-roots organisations where he has handled projects related to quality improvement in basic education, rural livelihoods, food & nutrition security, health & sanitation and disaster management. Amit has been associated with NISG for the last 5 years and has handled national-level projects in areas related to improving governance & citizen services, women empowerment, and rural livelihoods. Apart from leading e-governance consulting projects of national importance, he is also an UNDP Resource Person for e-Governance. He has been invited to countries like Iraq, Jordan, St. Kitts and Ghana for UNDP e-governance workshops and trainings. In India he has conducted e-governance trainings for various levels of government officials. He led the India-Brunei engagement on e-governance.

MOU between CSI and SCS

Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) is now signed between THE SINGAPORE COMPUTER SOCIETY and the COMPUTER SOCIETY OF INDIA, with the objective of facilitating Certification in IT Project Management (CITPM) and Certification in Outsourcing Management for IT (COMIT) in India, under the auspice of SCS, leading to the jointly awarded CITPM and COMIT certificates. With this intent, SCS and CSI are in the process of jointly forming a working committee to discuss on the terms of the collaboration.CSI President, Mr. M D Agrawal had a meeting with SCS President during his visit to Singapore, to explore possibilities of collaboration between the two societies.


Cover Story

e-Governance applications in publichealthcare for rural areas of Uttarakhand

Dr. M K Sharma Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science, Amrapali Institute, Haldwani Email: [email protected]

1. Introductione-Healthcare can be defined as

the use of ICT to support the delivery of healthcare support and services directly to people outside the conventional care centers such as Hospitals or residence. In case of hilly and rural areas of Uttarakhand, this can be a better support system. e-Healthcare system can be as simple as providing a patient with the means to provide SMS alert about vaccination of his child or a remote care provider of their need for assistance.

The pressure on healthcare services in states like Uttarakhand is well known. Some of the reasons for this sorry state are - shortage of human resources, constraint of funds, higher sensitivity of patients for health issues, and high expectation for best quality treatment at lowest cost without inconvenience. There has been undue delay in implementing e-Healthcare in developing states like Uttarakhand due to following reasons:(1) Absence of competition in health

sector (For long time healthcare is handled by Public Health System

(PHS) by state government, with no competition.)

(2) Poor customer with low bargaining power

(3) Non-existence of funding system like insurance or social security agency

(4) Weak professional culture among doctors to adopt new ICT applications

(5) Doctors and nurses not familiar with computer

(6) Lack of computer-aid in medical and nursing education.This system can be simplified by the

use of ICT applications like telemedicine, and SMT based services. ICT can enable health related information in the web and even on mobile phones and this can be offered in PPP model. Some services like help customer contact, allocate patient to different level of health care, provide electronic forum for patient interaction and build e-prescription system can be started in initial phase. It is high time to explore how doctors and IT personnel can work together to reduce health care cost, deliver high quality service and cover

rural mass using ICT.Due to hilly areas, lack of

infrastructure, low per capita income, diseases and illiteracy, it is felt that nearly 70% of vulnerable populations are in the villages and out of reach. Here comes the concept of Village e-Health Centers to provide basic health care via online video-conferencing and the use of telemedicine.

Execution and success of ICT application lies in the hands of Doctors and Medical staff, not on IT or ICT industry. Training, interest and commitment of medical fraternity is needed for reaping the final benefit. IAMI (Indian Association of Medical Informatics), IMIA (International Medical Informatics Association) and AMIA (American Medical Informatics Association) are supervising the ethical and legal issues of ICT applications to help the growth of this new frontier of e-Health service in India.

2. e-Health Scenario In India According to EU ICTs for Health:

“e-Health describes the application of information and communication technologies across the whole range of


Current scenario in healthcare sector in Uttarakhand is disappointing. Public health service run by Government is overburdened and collapsing. Hilly geographical size, increase population density, lack of transport, inaccessibility, illiteracy, poverty, poor nutritional status, diversity in food habit and life style are various impediments. Government priorities for providing health service to rural areas is yet to be fulfilled. At this stage, low budget from state for health, lack of funds and coordination have triggered downtrend in health services in rural and hilly areas.

As medical science is fast developing and information resources are pouring in, there is urgent need for dissemination of knowledge by interlinking primary, secondary and tertiary level health centers using the ICT and e-Governance applications. This will help health personnel to deliver high quality services. IT giants are experimenting with e-Governance applications in health sector- both in Government and private hospitals. This article reviews use of e-Governance through ICT applications at National Level and also in Uttarakhand province. It presents facts on tele-medicine, tele-referral services and health information dissemination by video conferencing. Some suggested services using ICT in healthcare are also explained. Use of Mobile phone to communicate health related alerts using SMS services in rural areas is suggested.


functions that affect the health sector, from the doctor to the hospital manager, via nurses, data processing specialists, social security administrators and - of course – the patients.”

Wipro for Delhi Municipal Corporation (DMC) : Wipro provided Hospital Information System (HIS) to six hospitals of DMC. This HIS has 28 modules meeting the hospital needs, like patient registration, demographic details, outpatient visits, doctors’ appointment scheduling, admission/ discharge/ transfer, order entry, laboratory/ radiology/ cardiology result reporting, operation theatre management, pharmacy etc.

CMC LTD: India Healthcare Project in Andhra Pradesh: Hand-held mobile computing devices like Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) are being provided to Primary Health Centers (PHCs) and Auxiliary Nurses and Midwives (ANMs). While nursing or counseling the beneficiaries, the ANMs collect data using the PDA in the villages. At the PHC they transfer the data from PDA to the desktop. All data that is available on the desktops at various PHCs is transferred to the district level and State Health Commissioner’s office using available network. Data compilation and report generation could now be done at the PHC level, district level and State level. Application of ICT at grass root level covers 459 ANMs in 67 PHCs in Nalgonda district of Andhra Pradesh.

3. Current e-Health Scenario in Uttarakhand

In the 11th five-year plan (2007-2012), the objective of Directorate of Medical Health & Family Welfare is “Health for All”. Under this -

� In states’ remotest and disadvantaged blocks, 3080 new subcenters will be established - 275 new PHCs and 35 new CHCs, to provide medical heath services.

� Apart from the above, in Bageshwar and Champawat districts, specialist hospitals will be established.

� Neo natal intensive care units will be established in all districts, in order to reduce neo natal mortality.

� Emergency services in 10 district hospitals, situated on national road routes, will be strengthened in order to respond to road accidents and natural disasters. Further, it is

proposed to establish 5 new blood banks.

� A nursing institute will be established in Dehradun to strengthen paramedical staff and to train nurses.

� 10 Mobile Hospital Vans will be acquired to serve difficult and disadvantaged areas.

3.1 SGPGIMS Telemedicine Programme in Uttarakhand

Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences (SGPGIMS) located in Lucknow, capital of Uttar Pradesh, a state in northern India, is a tertiary level referral academic medical center involved in teaching and training of super specialist medical professionals with 23 academic departments. It is the first tertiary care hospital in public healthcare sector in India to adopt Information Technology (IT) for healthcare delivery.

The national and international medical partners of the SGPGIMS Telemedicine Network include; all three Medical Colleges of Orissa located at Cuttack, Berhampur and Burla, two district hospitals of Uttarakhand State - Almora & Sirnagar.

3.2 Tele-consultationIt is helping physicians and health care

specialists at partner hospitals to get help from the SGPGIMS experts to diagnose and treat patients over distances using telemedicine technology. In September 2000, the first experiment was carried out using store and forward technology on Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) to exchange electrocardiogram (ECG) between District Hospital, Pithoragarh, Uttarakhand and SGPGIMS, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh located 275 kms apart. The exchange of video clippings of 30 patients, typed and hand written notes, ultrasound and radiographic images and audio clippings provided images of satisfactory quality. Later in the same year similar experiment was carried out with Balrampur and Civil Hospitals located

in Lucknow city. Another statewide telemedicine network project started with the support of Uttarakhand state government in April 2004, in which two district hospitals of Uttarakhand state in the hilly region got networked with SGPGIMS for tele-consultation services. Both real time and store and forward technology were used to provide these services.

4. Suggested e-Health services for Uttarakhand

Some E-heath care activities modules for Uttarakhand may be :.a) Tele-consultationb) Tele-follow upc) Pre-referral Screeningd) Treatment Planning

4.1 Tele-consultationThis service will help physicians and

health care specialists at partner hospitals to get help from the experts all over India and abroad to diagnose and treat patients over distances using telemedicine technology.

4.2 Tele-follow upTele-follow-up clinics in departments

like Dept of Rheumatology, Dept of Endocrine Surgery and Dept of Nuclear Medicine may be established to help patients from hilly parts of the state of Uttarakhand, who have undergone primary treatment at city hospitals like Haldwani or Dehradun, so that they need not come again for their follow-up. It makes an impact in terms of saving their time, money and efforts by avoiding frequent physical follow-up visits to major cities of Uttarakhand. Their follow up is done in real time using telemedicine technology.

4.3 Pre-referral ScreeningDoctors of city based Medical

Colleges or Hospitals in Uttarakhand, who want to refer patients to other cities like Delhi, Lucknow etc may discuss with hospital consultants, before referring


patients to metro city hospitals like AIIMS.

4.4 Tele-educationTele-Education should be understood

as the development of the process of distance education (regulated or unregulated), based on use of information and telecommunication technologies that make interactive, flexible and accessible learning possible for any potential recipient.

Different modules of tele-education can be practiced depending upon the requirement and need of the remote side such as tele-CME, tele-conference, tele-consultation, surgical treatment planning, tele-mentoring, lectures, case discussion etc. Tele-education can be planned at different levels.

4.5 Tele- Education of postgraduate students of medical colleges

To provide latest knowledge in medical science, distance medical education program for the post-graduate students can be offered, linking through ISDN. Facilities of various Departments such as Endocrine Surgery, Surgical Gastroenterology, Urology, Pathology, Rheumatology, Radiology, Nuclear Medicine, Neurosurgery, Neurology may take part in it.

4.6 Tele- education for district hospital doctors

With an aim to develop and improve the professional career and consultation skills of the rural and remote doctors, we can use telemedicine technology in various projects. In these programs, the specialties and topics chosen for these programs were based on the needs and demands of the users at the remote end, which they thought would be helpful in their day-to-day clinical work.

Similar activities may be offered to district hospitals of Uttarakhand or in remote hilly areas through ISDN media and District Hospital network through fiber optic cable network.

4.7 Tele- education of paramedical workers and hospital administrator

This teaching and training activity can started using ICT for the nurses and hospital administrators for district hospitals of Almora, Srinagar and later that can be extended to other District Hospitals and medical colleges of Uttarakhand to improve the patient care skills and healthcare facilities in these hospitals.

5. Conclusion This article analyses the scope for

application of ICT in healthcare services for Uttarakhand. Effective use of IT and ICT in hospitals and Medical Colleges supported by Networking and Video Conferencing will help to increase efficiency, quality of patient care and patient satisfaction as a support system. As part of e-Healthcare system, telemedicine aims to deliver specialist care at doorstep to many helpless patients in remote and hilly areas. Presently ICT implementation in health services is in infancy but its further use in both medical education and healthcare industry will revolutionize the healthcare provided by Government hospitals and corporate sector.

References1. Bachman JW, The patient computer

interview- A neglected tool that aid the Clinician, Mayo Clinic Proc. 2003; 78 : Pages: 67-8.

2. Blobel B, Nerdberg R et al, Modelling privilege Management and access control, International Journal of Medical Informatics, 2006,75:597

3. Bruno von Nirman, Steve brown User experience design guidelines for Tele-care (e-Health) Services, Interactions, Sept 2007, Pages: 36-40.

4. Community Information Centre Web site http://www.cic.nic.in la last visited 30 Sep’08

5. Das R K, Dash S S (2007), Telereferal Service of NIC- A Helping hand for the Doctors and Inhabitants of KBK districts of Orissa, Adopting e-Governance, GIFT Publishing 2007, Pages: 253-8

6. Han Song, Skinner Geoff et al, A Framework of Authentication and Authorisation for e-Health Services. 2006 ACM 1-59593546-0/06/0011 Pages: 105-6

7. Deepalakshmi, K “Public healthcare service takes IT route” from web site http://www.expresshealthcare.in April 2008 Subash Chandra Mahapatra et al. / Current e-Governance Scenario in Healthcare sector of India

8. Lele R.D (2008), ICT in day-to-day Clinical Practice Postgraduate medicine API and ICP 2008 Vol. XXII. pp. 3-9.

9. Lele R.D, Computers in Medicine: Progress in Medical Informatics, McGraw Hill 2007

10. Mahapatra SC, Pulmonary Scintigraphy in AIDS, Update in Medicine 2004 Vol-I Pages: 32-5

11. Mishra Sanjeeb Kumar, Rajput N.B.S, Das R K et al (2004), E-Grama: The Rural Information Gateway of Ganjam District (Orissa), In Promise of e-Governance Operational Challenges, M.P.Gupta (eds.), TMH, 2004, Pages: 540-46.

12. NIC’s Videoconferencing Services web site “ http://vidcon.nic.in” last visited 30 Sep’08.

13. O’Buyonge Abrams A, Chen Leida, E-Health.dot-coms Critical Success factor 2006 Idea Group Inc Pages:: 379 -84

14. Patra, M R, Das R K, SORIG: a service-oriented framework for rural information grid – an implementation viewpoint, ACM International Conference Proceeding Series; Vol. 232 p 49-52

15. Shaffer V I (2008) Key issues for Healthcare Delivery Organisations and E-Health Programes, Feb 2008 Gartner Inc Id No: G00155039

16. http://www.telemedindia.org/SGPGIMS.html

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About the Author

Dr. M K Sharma is Associate Professor and Head MCA program, with Department of Computer Science, Amrapali Institute of Management and Computer Applications, Haldwani (Uttarakhand). He obtained, his Ph.D. (Computer Science) from Kumaun University, Nainitaal. He has authored 10 books. He has contributed many research papers and articles in international and national journals and magazines including E-gov Asia, CSI Communications, Macmillion Advance Research Series. He is associated with International Journal Of Information Technology and Management as Executive Editor.


Technical Trends Khairiyyah Binti Mohd Noor (Malaysia), R K Bagga and K S Vijaya SekharIIIT,Hyderabad,AndhraPradesh,India.Tel:[email protected](Malaysia),[email protected]@iiit.ac.in(IIIT,Hyderabad)

m-Governance future in Indian context

IntroductionA century ago, companies stopped

generating their own power with steam engines and dynamos and plugged into newly built electric grid. The cheap and affordable power did not just change how businesses operated, it set of a chain reaction of economics and social transformation, which brought the modern World; the global village. Today a similar revolution is under way, when internet’s global computing grid is pumping massive data, information and software code into our home, offices and businesses. Internet technology is the key to 21st Century growth and progress and is used to refer to the collection of tools and techniques to improve productivity both in public and private sectors. In this context, it is the current state of humanity’s knowledge which combines resources to solve problems, fulfill needs of citizens, or satisfies their wants. That is exactly the charter of all Governments all over the World. The use of technology by the man began with the conversion of natural resources into simple tools to build automatic machines that are able to help human beings in cooking, washing, entertainment and travelling. The discovery of the wheel helped man in travel and other technologies development during previous centuries helped man to do work in much easier ways. The development of information technology has impacted the press, the media, the communication using internet, which has reduced the physical barriers and allowed human beings to network on a global scale with the click of a button. e-Governance is expected to become a common mode of meeting people’s needs which is in infancy particularly in developing country like India. Can India, with abundant of computer literate professionals take a quantum jump by using the explosive growth of mobile device and meet the need of masses particularly in rural area by directly focusing on m-Governance?

Governance to e-GovernanceGovernance is the act of governing by

the governments or any other organizations

or agencies which can be defined as “The manner in which power is exercised in management of a Country’s economic and social resources for Development”. Hence, Governance can be simply put as the process of decision-making and the process by which decisions are implemented (or not implemented). Since governance is the process of decision-making and the process by which decisions are implemented, an analysis of governance focuses on the formal and informal agencies involved in decision-making. e-Governance is the efficient use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) at all levels of government set up in delivering citizen services to common man and also to the corporate world.

m-Governancem-Governance is a sub-domain of

e-Governance and it is not a replacement of e-Governance, through which the governments delivers their services to the citizens using mobile devices. m-Governance is as an alternative to e-Governance especially for the country like India, that has very large population of citizens where accessing or having the personal computers and internet usage is comparatively low as compared to mobile phones. Hence, the alternative of m-Governance or mobile Governance can help make public information and government services available anytime and anywhere by bringing personalized, localized and context aware services close to citizens and officials. Most of the government realized a long time back that mobile is no longer a tool meant only for communication but it’s a medium for empowering the citizens and a powerful enabler of good governance. m-Governance can be defined as a strategy and its implementation involving the utilization of all kinds of wireless and mobile technologies, services, applications and devices. It improves upon the benefits for those involved in e-Governance, including citizens, businesses, and all government units. m-Governance offers a great potential for enhancing

the provision of basic public services, especially to the poor and marginalized populations. Furthermore, it also enhances the participation of non-State agencies in critical democratic governance issues, such as transparency, electoral processes, oversight of governments and public policy making. While many m-Governance efforts are essentially focused in the provision of private services, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) interest lies in the improvement in terms of both quality and quantity of public services for those who have little to no access to them.

Need for m-Governance in IndiaTo know the relevance of mobile

devices in developing countries such as India, we must know the benefit of these devices. The growth of mobile technology is increasing rapidly day by day and every month, a new mobile device might come out in the market. This grows with the demand and the use of mobile devices by the users is increasing now a days. The high demand of mobile devices from the users especially in developing countries such as India which has high population is because of the benefits and advantages that they can get from these devices. Some of the advantages/benefits of the mobile devices are: Ready Availability, Low Cost, Easy Learning Curve and Location Based Services.

One of the India’s Government aims is to connect all the States, villages and even every home in India through wireless broadband; so that, information can flow from any part of India to the home of any citizen anywhere in India even in a rural areas. Instead of the need of citizens to go to government agencies to get the services, now those services come to the citizens through all the e-Governance projects and plans. But, because of the high population in India and as well because of the slow pace at which the internet is spreading across the country, there will be a problem to reach e-Governance to all the citizens especially in rural areas. Hence, mobile devices technology has come out to improve the government services delivery


to the citizens with mobile technology. The hand held mobile device set can make in roads into even the remotest area and can help make public information and government services available at anytime, anywhere to citizens and officials.

In rural India, being able to store a number in contacts and then call that contact is a primary mechanism for overcoming traditional infrastructure challenges, like learning the prices of goods at market. However, currently, most mobile phones available to people in rural areas of India, have a text driven interface, making it near impossible for illiterate users to obtain and store contacts. Information in rural India isn’t centralized through census information, medical and health records, or a regional phone book. Therefore, the contact lists on mobile phones become an extremely valuable mechanism for creating adhoc networks that enable information sharing. For example, several research participants recorded the blood type of the contacts stored in their phone’s address book. These users were able to act on this information when medical emergencies occurred in their village. They could quickly identify possible donors for blood transfusions and alert their network of the need. All these actions can be done through a simple piece of information stored in a mobile device. To show how data could be made tangible, and how illiterate users could easily share contact information, Adaptive Path, a product experience and strategy design company created a concept called MobilGlyph. Solving the “save a contact” problem for illiterate users became one of the focuses for their project.

m-Governance allow for the use of mobile wireless communication technology within the government administration and tool for delivery of information and services to citizens and business. The use of mobile technology in government sector not only provides an alternative channel of communication and public service delivery, but more importantly, it can address the mobility of government itself where m-Government can help make public information and government services available anytime and anywhere by aware services close to citizens and officials. Therefore, these can help in reaching rural citizen to access government services. Transition

from e-Government to m-Government requires researching the integration process between the two. m-Governance is an add on to e-Government involving the utilization of all kinds of wireless and mobile technology, services, applications and devices for improving benefits to all parties involved in e-government including citizens, businesses and all government agencies. m-Governance can be powerful component of the e-Government in facilitating the delivery of more and better services to citizens. With the developments in mobile and wireless technologies, some applications and services of e- Government are being provided through mobile devices, and yet these technologies are also opening ways to some unique and new applications and services. In terms of technology involved, currently many mobile government applications make use of SMS (short messaging service). Other technology includes Wireless Application Protocol (WAP), MMS and mobile internet. It is expected that mobile internet will play a more significant role in near future due to the development of 3G technologies and the capabilities to process more information faster.

Mobile Devices in IndiaThough mobile phones have been

available for over two decades, their exponential spread in India during 2010-2011 is due to low cost and affordability, through large number of players in 2G arena. Not only their penetration has exceeded landline, it is bound to displace the existing inefficient BSNL set up. Steve Job of Apple must get the credit for his launch of iPhone and iPad, smart devices meeting the diverse need of new generation. No wonder Apple has replaced Microsoft as the new leader in IT domain in the world. Below shows the detailed list for some of international mobile devices with their features, available in India.

Mobile Devices Hardware Features (Source: http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/)

a. Blackberry Bold 9000Size/Dimensions 114 x 66 x 14

mm; Weight 133 g; Display - Type: 65K colors; Size 480 x 320 pixels and 2.6 inches; QWERTY keyboard and trackball navigation. Memory – Phonebook: Practically unlimited entries and fields; Photocall Call records: Yes; Internal: 1 GB

storage; 128 MB RAM Card slot: microSD, up to 8GB; OS - BlackBerry OS; CPU - 624 MHz processor; Messaging - SMS, MMS, Email, IM; Browser – HTML; Radio – No; Games - Yes + downloadable; Colors – Black and White; GPS - Yes, with A-GPS support and BlackBerry Maps.

b. iPad 2Processor - Dual Core A5 CPU and

superfast gaming graphics with graphics processing is 9x faster. Size - Thinner and lighter, which has 33% thinner than iPad 1, with diameter from 13.4mm to 8.8mm which makes it even thinner than the iPhone 4. Colors - Black and White. Display - Comes with both rear and front cameras. Overall specifications - Faster, Lighter, Thinner, come with cameras and Gyro, iOS 4.3 + FaceTime & PhotoBooth, iMovie & GarageBand, 3G on Verizon & AT&T and 10 hour battery life. Accessories - HDMI 1080p Video Out, Smart Cover. Palmtop computers or personal digital assistants (PDAs) - A typical PDA has a touchscreen for entering data, a memory card slot for data storage, and IrDA, Bluetooth and/or Wi-Fi. While some PDAs which may not have a touch screen, using softkeys, a directional pad, and a numeric keypad or a thumb keyboard for input.

c. iPhone 4Size - Dimensions: 115.2 x 58.6 x 9.3

mm. Weight: 137 g; Display - Type: LED-backlit IPS TFT, capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors. Size: 640 x 960 pixels, 3.5 inches, scratch - resistant oleophobic surface, multi-touch input method, accelerometer sensor for autorotate, three-axis gyro sensor and proximity sensor for auto turn-off. Memory - Phonebook: Practically unlimited entries and fields, Photocall Call records: 100 received, dialed and missed calls; Internal: 16/32 GB storage, 512 MB RAM; Card slot: No; OS: iOS 4; CPU: 1 GHz ARM Cortex-A8 processor, PowerVR SGX535GPU, Apple A4 chipset Messaging: SMS (threaded view), MMS, Email, Push Email; Browser: HTML (Safari); Radio: No; Colors: Black, White; GPS: Yes, with A-GPS support. In India, apart from Government initiative for Rs 10,000 laptop, a number of companies have announced their low cost tablets costing as low as Rs.1500=00. These include Reliance, Wipro, HCL, Olive Pad and LAC Bangalore. Their devices have yet to see the market in India, where hand held devices from Apple and Samsung are


doing roaring business.

Status of m-Governance in IndiaToday, India is moving towards

m-Governance after major involvement in e-Governance. It’s a well known that Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is very essential for processing, storing, organizing, and presenting data and information. The reasons for the keen interest in governing through mobile are not tough to guess. As the Indian telecom subscriber base reached the extraordinary figure of 700mn, mobile phones have become the most accessible tool of communication available to such a large population. Thus, making the best way for delivery of information at citizen’s site is a personalized way. Within two decades of mobile launch in India, mobile phone has reached at remote rural hamlet despite the much known hurdles like lack of connectivity and power and low level of literacy. In the other side, it has created lakhs of direct and indirect job opportunities for youth.

In the second phase of the development, it has emerged as a delivery channel for different kind of services and now anyone can transfer amount from one bank account to another using their mobile phone. Government and private agencies have also started using “Mobile Phone” to deliver citizen and business services to common man. Recently, Reserve Bank of India has allowed commercial banks to provide banking services on mobile phone, whereas Government of India has approved the “Framework for delivering financial services through mobile phone” developed by Inter-ministerial group. After the launch of 3G technologies in India, users will be able to access health, educational, agricultural, infotainment services on their mobile phone. Around 54 Gram Panchayats in five remote blocks of West Bengal State will soon have SMS alerts on disasters, funds inflow and outflow, information about health camps and pulse polio campaigns will be sent to and from between the State departments, district offices and Gram Panchayats, block development offices. In India, m-Governance is still at a nascent or new stage. While many innovative applications are underway in both private sector as well as government domains, it may be a little premature to celebrate its success. However, embracing the possibilities

and opportunities that this technology provides will only lead to an effective and cost-efficient way of exploiting the same.

Current m-Governance project and services in India

The project and services that currently provided by Government of India through m-Governance are:

i) The latest M-service added is The electoral Details on MobileKerala State IT Mission (KSITM)

has added a new m-service by which citizens can check their Voter ID details by sending an SMS. The voters just need to send the message ELE to the Kerala m-Governance short code 537252 and the sender will get the details regarding his/her voter details Roll No, and polling station. Another example is that Gujarat State Election Commission has developed a project called ‘Online Voting System’ for its Local Body Elections in October 2010 and in April 2011.

ii) Mobile Banking in IndiaIn India, Banking sector has become

more customers friendly to provide banking services through mobile phone. It has given an opportunity to customers to update themselves about Account balance, transactions and do the transfer of amount from one Account to another. All the public and private sector banks in India have started providing their different services through mobile phone. Currently they are offering banking services through mobile free of cost (except some bank) but customers have to bear the cost of mobile service providers.

List of the banks offering banking services on mobile handset (Source: http://www.indg.in/e-governance/mobilegovernance/mobile-banking):

iii) Common Citizen Services in India using Mobile devices

Some examples of common citizen services using mobile devices are Indian Meteorological Dept’s Weather Information, Kisan Call Centre’s Agriculture related queries solution, CBSE’s Exam result of class 10 and 12 and so on. DataQuest (May 2011) may be referred for detailed list.

Suggested Proposal for moving from e-Governance to m-Governance in India

Within two years from now which has

a time frame till Oct 2013, Government of India should implement m-Governance using below six phases to get better m-Governance services in order to give complements to e-Governance:

Phase 1 : Making all government websites mobile compliant/mobile site access should be promoted. All government agencies should use mobile optimized content as a primary method for device support.

Phase 2 : Plan strategies to popularize the use of mobile devices technology in rural areas by giving subsidies, training and guidelines.

Currently, m-Governance status in India still at the starting level and in fact still new to the citizens especially for the Indian citizens in rural areas whereas the urban citizens are most aware of the mobile technologies that are growing increasingly nowadays. While most of the Indian rural areas are not aware and interested about the mobile technologies that are growing increasingly nowadays, and in fact some of them never use and own at least a mobile phone. If this condition still happens, the services that are provided by the government through the mobile devices might not reach the citizen. The government should plan a strategy how to popularize the use of mobile devices among the Indian rural citizens. Most of the Indian rural citizens have lack of knowledge about these technologies, because they are born and live in poor condition which might prevent them to own and use such technologies. To overcome this problem, the government should provide and give subsidy to own a mobile phone and they should be given a training how to use that mobile device. They also should be given knowledge what are the benefits they can get from the mobile technologies and why these technologies are becoming famous for other areas and countries. The Government of India should come out with the plans and strategies to formulate guidelines about the use of mobile devices and enable government departments to provide services from mobile phones like paying utility bills etc. It also should aims to formulate standards for applications for easy interoperability of services across multiple service providers and multiple Government departments and other agencies.

Phase 3: Implement m-Governance


by developing mobile applications in local languages and more mobile utilization applications.

Phase 4: Plan strategies to popularize the use of mobile devices technology among all citizens by education.

To popularize the mobile technologies among all the citizens, they should be introduced to such technologies since their early childhood. Currently in India, most of urban kids are already exposed with those technologies but the problem is for the kids in rural areas. To overcome this problem, the government should provide more learning by using the mobile technologies in the education space in India. This learning method is called as m-learning. Whereas m-learning apps already exist in the education in India but this learning method might still not in use in rural areas. Meanwhile, the government should expand m-learning method to all the school areas in India even in rural areas, so that, all the citizens might be exposed with those technologies. This strategy will change the mindset of rural citizens about the mobile technologies.

Phase 5: Develop mechanisms and platforms for the good design and delivery of mobile Governance.

To improve the m-Governance in India, it is proposed that development of suitable mechanisms to enable users to pay for public services through mobile phones, and develop and deploy innovative public private partnership. Multi stakeholder partnership models for the design and delivery of mobile governance services should come out. It will also encourage the development of cloud-based implementation models. Besides that, a platform should be proposed for the way the mobile services deliver to the citizens which will be fully integrated with existing infrastructure created under the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP). All ministries and departments will be able to start offering their services on this platform.

Phase 6: Implement laws for mobile Governance for better m-Governance services.

As we know, m-Governance is the complements of e-Governance so that m-Governance should provide services in a better way rather than e-Governance services. To achieve this vision, Government of India should come out with some laws to get the

better services from m-Governance to overcome the problem that are still faced by e-Governance such as corruption. The laws that should be enacted by the government are such as Privacy Law, Data Protection Law and Legal Enablement for better m-Governance.

Challenges for m-Governance in India

To facilitate the deployment of m-Governance services reach to the citizens, it is essential to critically examine the challenges that have traditionally being the ‘entry barriers’. Here, we can define those challenges into technical challenges and management challenges. The main challenges of m-Governance are typically the same as those of e-Governance, such as low levels of computerization of government operations at the back-end, lack of digitized data or content and change management. As mentioned above, that the challenges for m- Governance in India have traditionally been the ‘entry barriers’. Some of these ‘entry barriers’ which we can put it as management and technical challenges in m-Governance includes:i) Cost: m-Governance tends to be yet

one further channel for e-governance, in which case it will create additional costs. This will continue until m-Governance can truly substitute for other delivery channels. Such substitution will be viable for applications within government.

ii) Low levels of literacyThe low levels of literacy in India mostly happening in the rural areas. Currently, most mobile phones available have a text driven interface, making it near impossible for illiterate users to obtain, read and get any information provided by the government.

iii) Lack of knowledge of English language80% of Indian citizens speak and understand only the local languages while only 5% of them have knowledge and understand English language. But, most of mobile devices applications are developed using English language. So, this factor will give challenge to the m-Governance services to reach their services to the citizens especially in rural areas through mobile devices.

iv) Computer illiteracyThe computer illiteracy problem

in India will also pose challenge to m-Governance application reaching the citizens. This is because some mobile devices are using technology in m-Governance which is related to computer based devices such as tablet PC, iPad, iPhone etc. Therefore, the computer illiterate users might face problems and difficulties to access government services which are offered through such mobile devices.

v) Not enough facilities in mobile devices for m-GovernanceThough, in India the costs of mobile devices and calls are perhaps the lowest in the world, in order to effectively deliver government services on mobile devices, we need very simple text messaging solutions. For example, if a person has to put details in a form etc, he/she cannot do so if such facilities are not available in the current devices. Therefore, the immediate option is to look at mobile devices that combine computing with mobility and are affordable.

vi) To develop application in each of local languagesAnother challenge is to develop applications that can be offered in each of local languages. Because India is facing a lack of knowledge of English language challenge, the applications that can be offered in local languages should be developed. But, it still has another challenge where currently, India has 22 different national languages which will give major challenges for developers.

vii) Trust/securityIf m-Governance is to encompass m-payment systems or other transactional public services, then it must have good security and must be trusted. As yet, there is still a credibility gap to be crossed for many mobile device users.The mobile nature of information poses a significant challenge at the government level. Data no longer simply resides within the network. It exists on mobile devices and data that is on a network can be accessed from virtually anywhere. In addition, compromising a mobile device itself can place the government at risk.


The present cloud computing being offered will further aggravate the security environment.

viii) Data overloadMobile devices increase the pressures of a world in which users are permanently connected. These connections increase the number of messages circulating and can cause a blizzard of communications by spam, junk and unwanted messages. Govt of India has just restricted the number of SMS per day to 100 to control such eventuality.

ConclusionThe research study done at IIIT,

Hyderabad on the m-Governance in India is to give a better view of the government services through mobile devices technology. The discussion on this application has brought many issues, challenges and ideas involving m-Governance applications in India. In India, m-Governance is still at new stage and still need for more improvement to get a better m-Governance. While many innovative applications are underway in both private sector as well as government domains, it may be a little premature to celebrate its success and still need for the improvement. The proposed suggested plan for the m-Governance in India is to give better e-Governance environment in each phase. The proposal covers the strategy that could be accepted by Government of India in order to make m-Governance

success and get acceptance by all citizens. Currently, m-Governance in India is still facing challenges in both management and technology. Hence, to improve the m-Governance in India, some suggestions have been recommended which are to overcome those challenges in order to implement m-Governance and make it successful in next few years.References

� A Lesson in Computer Literacy from India’s Poorest Kids. Available at: http://www.businessweek.com/bwdai ly/dnf lash/mar2000/nf00302b.htm. Accessed June 9, 2011.

� DATAQUEST site, E-GOVERNANCE: 20 Hot eGov Projects in India available at: http://dqindia.ciol.com/content/top_stories/103101501.asp. Accessed May 19, 2011.

� Designing Mobile Technology for Emerging Markets “Rural India” available at : http://blog. i2f ly.com/?p=978. Accessed May 20, 2011.

� e-Gov (Magazine), May 2011, Vol. 07, Issue 05.

� eGovernment Mobile Applications available at: http://www.egov.com/Solutions/Innovative/Pages/MobileGov.aspx. Accessed May 18, 2011.

� Governance Now (Magazine), April 1-15, 2011, Vol. 02, Issue 05.

� India Development Gateway official site available at: http://www.indg.in/india. Accessed May 18,2011.

� www.itmission.kerala.gov.in accessed 10 Jun 2011.

� M-Governance: Service On-the-go available at: http://voicendata.ciol.com/

content/NetworkingPlus/210010501.asp. Accessed Jun 1, 2011.

� mGovernment Benefits and Challenges. Available at: http://202.138.100.134/node/10603. Accessed May 18, 2011.

� Mobile future for e-government. Available at: http://www.ericsson.com/solutions/news/2007/q1/20070326_egovernment.shtml. Accessed May 19,2011.

� Mobile technology. Available at: http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/detail?itemId=1074298219&type=RESOU RCES. Accessed May 18,2011.

� Nicholas Carr: The Big Switch; Rewiring the World from Edison to Google published by WW Norton & Company New York 2008

� Rachel Hinman, MobilGlyph: Making Data Tangible. Available at: http://adaptivepath.com/ideas/mobilglyph-making-data-tangible. Accessed May 19, 2011.

� Romit Pandey and KS Vijaya Sekhar: From e-Governance to m-Governance: The way forward paper submitted to ICEG-2011.

� Saaransh – A compendium of Mission Mode Projects under NeGP, January 2011.

� The Future of M-governance in India in the Draft Stage. Available at: http://202.138.100.134/node/10603. Accessed June 8, 2011.

� The iPad 2 – Price, Features, Availability – Everything You Need to Know! Available at : http://www.redmondpie.com/ipad-2-price-specs-features-availability-everything-youneed-to-know/. Accessed June 18, 2011.

� The Times of India Newspaper, Hyderabad, Monday, May 30, 2011. n

About the Authors

K S Vijaya Sekhar is presently working in Outreach Division at IIIT, Hyderabad. He is responsible for organizing middle level executive programs and international/national level conferences, seminars with a focus on filling the gap between academia and industry with support from Government. He completed his Masters of Commerce, Master of Computer Applications and currently Master of Business Administration (HR). He is also pursuing his PhD and working on eGovernance and eParticipation as a core.

Maj. Gen. Dr. R K Bagga is the Advisor (Outreach Division) at IIIT, Hyderabad, since July 2004. He is responsible for International Programs, Research and Resources Generation by international and national collaborations for IIIT-H. He joined Army in 1958 and superannuated as Director Computer and Information Centre & Associate Director, DRDL, Kanchanbagh, Hyderabad in 1997 after 40 years in uniform. While in service, he obtained M Tech (CS) IIT Kanpur, PhD Osmania University and MA,LLB from Agra University. He is guiding a number of Researchers for their PhD from JNTU and Osmania Universities.

Ms Khairiyyah Binti Mohd Noor completed her MTech in IIIT, Hyderabad in July 2011 as a sponsored student from Govt of Malaysia. She did her MTech Project on ‘mGovernance in India: Technology, Challenges & Opportunities’ under guidance of Dr R K Bagga.


Research Front CSR PrabhuDeputyDirectorGeneral(Scientist“G”)atNationalInformaticsCentre(NIC),Hyderabad

Revisiting NeGP: eBharath 2020:the proposed future NeGP 2.0

The present National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) has been partly completed but has certain fundamental gaps and important omissions in its conception and planning. These omissions and missing aspects are critical for the full success of NeGP in future. Even though the IT Act 2000 and Electronics Services Delivery Act 2011 provide the necessary background and motivation for reengineering of government processes, they do not make major process reforms compulsory. eBharath 2020 is a vision of the future NeGP 2.0. (for the period 2012-2020), succeeding the current NeGP. A brief outline of e-Bharath 2020, future NeGP 2.0 (2012-2020) is attempted here with emphasis on major reform and reengineering of government processes, systems and procedures using Lean and Six Sigma techniques with the provision of the proposed e-Governance Act 2012 for building large scale mobile cloud applications for appropriate m-governance citizen services delivery.1. The National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) (1) of Government of India aims to “make all government services accessible to the common man in his locality through common service delivery outlets and ensure efficiency, transparency and reliability of such services at affordable costs to realize the basic needs of the common man”. The “basic needs” of common man identified were limited to certificate delivery and all other needs were ignored.

India has a very strong presence in the IT sector globally, yet the benefits of the IT revolution have not truly percolated into the everyday life of the common man, particularly in rural areas. Experiments in IT based service delivery had started early in the last decade. Some of these, such as e-Seva, e-Panchayat and Bhoomi, were more successful than the others. These early successes as well as failures showed that online services served citizens better by reducing the burden of having to physically visit separate agencies,

make contact with public officials and be subjected to their discretion. While computerisation or online delivery of certificates was partly enabled, corruption continued as transparency was not brought on and the need to visit government offices or contacting of public offices or officials by the citizens was not prevented.

NeGP is a major initiative of the Government of India, the first time under which a concerted effort is being made to take Information Technology to the masses in the areas of concern to the common man. It aims to make most services available online, ensuring that all citizens would have access to them, thereby improving the quality of basic governance on an unprecedented scale. This goal was partly achieved.

NeGP (1) has a three tier architecture. The Common Service Centres (CSCs) are the front-end delivery points for a range of citizen services. The common man feels empowered when he is able to get a service in a transparent manner, at a convenient location and at an affordable cost. These centres also provide employment to the entrepreneurs running them, besides being useful in rolling out all kinds of governmental schemes such as those for financial inclusion, enumeration of data, insurance and IT education. However, in some cases the financial viability of the CSC was in question and some were finally closed, indicating the need for a sustainable revenue model.

The second tier is of the common and support infrastructure that can allow information to be shared electronically between different agencies of the government and with citizens. Included in it are the State Wide Area Networks (SWANs) which form the converged backbone network for data, voice and video throughout a State/UT and the State Data Centres (SDCs) which can provide common secure IT infrastructure to host state-level e-government applications and data. In this tier also

there were significant delays resulting in older technology deployment (e.g., low speed of SWANs).

The third tier comprises the 27 Mission Mode Projects (MMPs) (1) which will transform high priority citizen services from their current manual delivery into e-delivery. Each MMP is owned and spearheaded by the relevant ministry/agency of the national government or by a state government and is called “mission mode” because it has a definite time table, service levels, project implementation team and process reengineering plans. Many of the MMPs have been successful and were partly implemented. No large scale project planning was done for them with due interoperability arrangements. The major Telecom revolution resulting in the penetration of the mobile phone into all areas of life, both urban and rural, in the country was not considered for services delivery of e-governance and other value added services.

1. What was missing?However, the NeGP can be examined

to find the missing gaps, omissions and discrepancies. The following are the main discrepancies found upon the examination of the current NeGP: 1. Natural Law- Citizen life cycle

approach- all events of life from birth to death (through education , health, marriage, employment, retirement and pension ) to be considered for identifying processes for e-governance service delivery based on citizen needs analysis based on survey. Till now all the projects were based on ideas and proposals and not field survey for Needs Analysis. The real needs of the stakeholders are to be ascertained by survey.

2. Legacy Government processes continued without change-colonial/historical government processes originally designed for control/red tape, not designed for freedom of citizens essential for e-governance


participation. The colonial mindset was not fully changed and modernization not done in comparison with other advanced nations.

3. 27 MMPs (Mission Mode Projects) have no interoperability or integration amongst or across themselves and no process level/data level/service level interoperability or integration envisaged

4. No information exchange across the Federal Structure of Central/ State/District/Local Government bodies.

5. No mandatory Enterprise Architecture (EA) envisaged for each MMP or its components.

6. No major process reform / re engineering envisaged except minor optional reengineering possibilities in systems and procedures.

7. Global best practices not identified and recommended for replication

8. Local best practices not identified and recommended for replication.

9. National CIO/ State CIO/ Local CIO hierarchy not envisaged even though in some States Departmental CIOs were appointed.

10. New e-governance Act not envisaged (In the lines of USA). Even though IT Act 2000 (3) and Electronic Services Delivery Act (4) were separately provided, they do not make reforms compulsory.

11. Low speed SWANs with obsolete technologies due to delays in execution.

12. Latest technology trends such as mobile, grid and cloud technologies not envisaged (only older gateway concepts brought into NSDG and SSDG). Digital Signatures to ensure secure transactions for all citizens not envisaged.

3. Proposed Future NeGP 2.0: eBharath 2020

e-Bharath 2020

NeGP2.0: Future National e-governance Plan of Action (2012-2020)

Step1. Perform needs analysis and Survey for (a) Needs of Citizens at Rural & Urban

Areas(b) Needs of Businesses (SME’s & Large

Industries)(c) Needs of Govt. Employees at state

and central levels.Step2. Based on the above Survey, perform needs based large scale e-governance Project Planning for service delivery through mobile phones, making the mobile phone the centre of service delivery given the great revolution in telecommunications resulting in large scale penetration of the mobile phone in rural areas and urban areas.

m-biometric identity authentication (along with digital signature and Unique ID integrated into mobile phone)

m-health (mobile based tele medicine and health consultancy)

m-education (mobile based virtual education classrooms in local languages at all levels)

m-agriculture (mobile based agri extension advice and monitoring, management and sale)

m-elections (mobile based online voting based on authentication)

m–rural development (various rural development projects based on mobile)

m-panchayat (panchayat services delivered on mobiles)

m-gram bazaar (linking rural producers with urban consumers using mobiles) etc. etc.The ubiquitous mobile phone

will have to be made the centre point of delivery of all Services – not just e-governance certification services but services which impact daily life as Health, Education, Commerce, etc., have to be developed.

Step3. Enact the dedicated e-governance Act, with compulsory process reform and reengineering with maximum efficiency using Lean Six Sigma processes (most efficient) involving values (Dharma) of principles of Justice, Equality, Transparency, Accountability and responsiveness to citizen needs.

A ‘Think Tank’ advisory group and R&D centre/Institute comprising Government, Judiciary, Academicia and Industry can be formed to give advice to help formulate this Act.

The present Electronic Services Delivery Act needs to be expanded

towards these endsStep4. Perform reengineering of

Government Processes on compulsory basis based on the above, using Lean Six Sigma Principles (most efficient). A composite team comprising members from NIC, DIT, Six Sigma Consultants (including BPR specialist) along with line Ministry/Department of Government may drive the process reform and reengineering) (The present reengineering/reform provisions of Electronic Services Delivery Act 2011 are required to be made compulsory). Also enhance the Land Reforms with geospatial mapping of the entire country.

Step5. Perform Re-engineering of Judicial Processes based on the above, using lean Six Sigma Principles (most efficient). The scope of terms of e-committee of Judiciary may be enhanced to include process reform towards efficiency and integration of Judiciary with Jails, Transport and Police systems.

Step6. Perform Re-engineering of Election Process on compulsory basis based on the above, using Lean Six Sigma Principles (most efficient). The internal reform/reengineering group of Election Commission may be engaged along with Six Sigma and BPR Consultants and legal experts.

Step7. Perform Re-engineering of Legislature Process on compulsory basis as based on the above, using Lean Six Sigma Principles (most efficient). The internal Secretariat of Parliament and State Legislature bodies may execute process reform with help of NIC, DIT and Six Sigma Consultant (including BPR specialist).

Step8. Identify Processes (after reengineering as above) for all sectors and identify Services using Service Oriented Approach(SOA) as for life cycle of citizens-different services for life as Birth, Education, Employment, Marriage, Health, Retirement and Pension.

Step9. Develop Web Service Repositories according to the above for Central, State and District levels of the government and also for Judiciary and Legislature.

Step10. (a) Implement the e-governance Grid/Cloud Architecture (5, 6) at IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service), PaaS (Platform as a Service) and SaaS


(Software as a Service) levels using SOA (Service Oriented Architecture), with web service repositories.

(b) Implement EA (Enterprise Architecture) for SaaS (Software as a Service) layer with single window for all Government Services (e-sarkar).

Step11. Plan and implement integrated e-governance (e-sarkar), e-Judiciary (e-nyaya), e-legislature (e-vidhan), e-democracy and participation, e-elections (e-nirvachan).

Step12. Finally fully integrated single window e-Bharath covering all areas as above.

Conclusion:The National e-Governance Plan

(NeGP) is being implemented for several years all over the country. The NeGP 1.0, the current version has its own strengths as the first well organized plan of the Govt. of India for both Central and State level e-governance Projects. 27 Mission Mode Projects (MMPs) of NeGP had seen their partial successes. However, many omissions such as Needs Analysis, Process Reforms could be identified, especially in the context of technology developments such as the ubiquitous mobile phone penetration calling for mobile engineering applications and new

technologies such as SOA, Grid and Cloud and Enterprise Architecture, all of which have to be deployed in e-governance also.

In this Paper we have proposed the future NeGP 2.0. as eBharath 2020, comprising of 12 steps. The proposed new NeGP 2.0 gives a Vision as eBharath 2020 comprising important steps as Needs Analysis, based on Surveys, followed by large scale project planning for m-governance and m-services all based on the ubiquitous mobile phones in all service sectors and commerce as m-Health, m-Education, Rural e-Commerce as m-Gram Bazaar. An e-governance Act may be enacted towards major Process Reforms. The central theme of future NeGP 2.0. will be Process Reform and Reengineering of Govt. Processes which have been kept untouched for over sixty five years. After major Process Reform, SOA based Web Services can be identified for life cycle events of Citizens which can then be implemented as the future e-governance grid and cloud of India, deploying the Enterprise Architecture for all major initiatives. Similar exercise of Process Reforms in Judiciary, Legislature and Education followed by SOA based Web Service Repositories on Grid.Cloud will

result in a modern systemic environment in India which call can be integrated with the final NeGP 2.0. as e-Bharath 2020, which will be comparable, if not better than the most advanced nations, in the delivery of e-governance services and m-governance services to the citizens, in the world.

References:1. NeGP Document http://www.

mit.gov.in/content/national-e-governance-plan

2. http://www.lassib.org3. IT Act 2000 http://www.mit.gov.in/

content/view-it-act-20004. Electronic Services Delivery Act

http://www.mit.gov.in 5. Prabhu C.S.R. “Towards an

e-governance grid of India”, 2008: “E-Government development and diffusion”, Information Science Reference, Sahu, Dwivedi and Veerakkodi, (editors), IGI Global, UK and USA, 2009. ISBN 978-160366713-3.

6. Prabhu CSR, “Eucalyptus Cloud to remotely provision e-governance applications”, Journal of Computer Systems, Networks and Communications, 2011. n

About the AuthorsCSR Prabhu is Deputy Director General (Scientist “G”) at National Informatics Centre (NIC), Hyderabad (Ministry of Communications and Information Technology).

He is currently steering NIC’s internal Private Cloud initiative, the e-governance cloud of India (e-gcI), deploying Eucalyptus middleware in various Data Centres of NIC for hosting remote e-governance applications in rural areas on the IaaS Cloud. Other layers of the Cloud as Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) are also being overlaid.

In addition to being the Head of National Training Centre (NTC) of NIC, with a responsibility to induct new technologies into the Government, he is engaged in the implementation of SOA based e-governance grid of India (e-ggI) including virtualization and cloud computing among all the States and District Centres of NIC over the NICNET. He was responsible for setting up the National Data Centre (NDC) at Hyderabad and also operationalizing Disaster Recovery Centre (DRC) at NIC, Hyderabad.

After obtaining M.Tech (Electrical Engineering with specialization in Computer Science) from IIT, Bombay in 1978 (after B.Tech (ECE) from JNTU in 1976), he has worked in various capacities at Tata Consultancy Services, CMC, TES and Tata Motors before joining NIC.

He was the State Informatics Officer for Tamil Nadu during the period 1997-2000 and he executed important projects such as Taluka and Block Information System.

In Andhra Pradesh he was responsible for the successful implementation of a number of e-governance projects such as Collectorate 2000 and e-Panchayat. The e-Panchayat Project was conceived, initiated and implemented by him and is under operationalisation in 475 village panchayats in Andhra Pradesh. Later the same Project was taken up at National level for implementation.

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Article Atanu GaraiAdvisor–mHealth,InnovadorsLab,2ndFloor,KIIT-TBI,SchoolofBiotechnology,Campus11,KIITUniversity,Bhubaneswar751024.Email:[email protected]

Tapping the mHealth Opportunity

Health managers have reasons to be optimistic about the potentials of mobile health or mHealth. Studies after studies have pointed out how personalized messages delivered over mobile phones can help patients improve their adherence to treatment regimes, resulting in better health outcomes. Instructional messages prompt health workers perform their tasks for various patients undergoing treatment while their supervisors monitor. Electronic transactions over mobile phone can enable health system to manage its human resources, supply chain and financial transactions in fast, reliable and accuratemanner. Mobile devices like smart phones and netbooks can process and transmit patient health data faster and more accurately than paper. The potentials of mHealth seem to be limitless with the growing capacity and connectivity in mobile devices.

Despite its potentials, progress with mHealth in India is clearly faltering. Compared to African countries, India has far less number of mHealth Projects. This is hardly surprising given that more and more experts and institutions in Africa are successful in securing start-up funding from the Western donors In Africa and elsewhere, donors tend to encourage innovation even where overall spending can barely support the health systems. Therefore, mHealth is flourishing in Africa within a deficient health system. The rural health system in India has radically been improved with the launch of National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) in 2005.

Despite the shortfall of doctors and an ill-equipped infrastructure, NRHM has managed to train and recruit hundreds of thousands of health and nutrition workers in the form of Auxiliary Nurse Midwives, Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHA) and Anganwadi Workers (AWW). The program has also received a generous budgetary allocation that many states find difficult to spend. In fact, NRHM has the target to increase the public health spending from less than one percent in 2005 to three percent of the country’s GDP by 2012. It has brought private sector

and NGOs on board in various capacities.It means the basic health structure is

now in place. It is a different issue that the structure is functioning far less optimally. Progress in rural healthcare has been slow, disparate and clearly not enough. Consider the case of antenatal check-up (ANC), a service essential to make pregnant women ready for safe delivery. NRHM prescribes a minimum of three ANCs for every pregnant woman in this country. Even after five years of operation, NRHM could provide only half of country’s pregnant women with only one ANC. The fact that only a quarter pregnant women are receiving three ANCs indicates that something is seriously missing in the system.

Since its inception, NRHM has been experimenting to monitor its large cadre of health workers with various methods, without any significant success. Presumably, ANC coverage can be dramatically improved if health workers can communicate with the pregnant women to plan and schedule the ANCs and supervisors can simultaneously monitor and follow-up the delivery. There are many mechanisms for monitoring, supervision and accountability in the communities. Community participation, panchayati raj, Citizen Charter, Management Information System and Community Monitoring are among those methods. By no stretch of imagination, one can believe any of these methods to be effective in monitoring millions of tasks of providing medicines, counselling sessions, payments, diagnosis and care by hundreds of thousands of health workers.

Technology can help monitor these tasks. However, India seems to have a systemic problem in mass adoption of information technology when it comes to business verticals like agriculture, health, education. In some areas of technology diffusion, India has long been overtaken at least by some countries of the African continent. In early 2007, Safaricom and Vodafone launched the mobile money transfer application ‘M-PESA’ in Kenya.

Today this application serves millions

of transactions amounting to more than 150 million Euros on a daily basis, for some 13 million M-PESA subscribers. In contrast, Indian banks are still grappling with mobile banking and adoption has been sluggish. The early indications of our progress with mHealth show that it will follow the lead of m-banking if we do not take actions now.

Developing mHealth application requires knowledge of computing, engineering, medicine, design, behavioural sciences, communication, among other subjects. Most traditional software companies will not fit the bill to develop mHealth applications, as it will require a multidisciplinary approach. In Kerala, the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing has developed the mobile application mCARE to collect patient data from the field. A vast majority of mHealth projects in developing countries is still working on data collection and analysis. However, patient data registration is but the first step for developing messages for the health workers and patients to help them manage their treatment regime. These messages, rather than the electronic patient data, can persuade both the caregivers and patients to adopt target health practices.

Encouraging creation of mHealth research and development labs will be the first step. Union and state health departments, international donor community and venture capitalists can come forward to provide start-up funding for deserving entrepreneurs to set up these labs. Since health messages will vary according to community requirements and health areas, many such labs will thrive in their respective areas of specializations.

Entrepreneurs can run these labs with or without making profits. However, all these labs will require an incubation period to be able to develop and refine their products. Development phase itself may take six months to two years of time. Labs can become financially viable once their products show results on the ground. It may take few years for the labs to become financially viable as mHealth


is not a dose of medicine that can cure a patient instantly; rather it is a process that makes health system function better.

mHealth ventures can adopt diverse business models. Recently, Tata Indicom has launched “Doctor on Call” service in partnership with Healthcare Magic to offer consultation services for acute and chronic emergency situations at a price of 9 rupees for a minute. Charging consumers directly for patient consultation can work for curative diseases like heart ailment or diabetes, but this strategy may not work for preventive health at all. A smoker may not be willing to pay for an SMS that asks him to quit smoking. In those cases, healthcare providers like government and private facilities can reimburse the entrepreneurs from sources like taxes, insurances and payments received from the patients.

What amount of money these labs will require? It depends on the applications they intend to develop. The investment requirement for majority of these labs will be rather modest – in the range of 10 to 30 million rupees. Development of a patient database and disseminating personalized messages can cost less than 10 million rupees. It will entail design and programming of a medical record

system. Developer communities across the world have already made available open source applications that can be downloaded and customized to local requirements. Developing algorithms to trigger reminders and messages requires extensive study of how local health providers function; communicate with their patients and profiles of the patients. Consider the ANC example above. To monitor if all the eligible pregnant women receives all three check-ups in time, first a database of pregnant women needs to be developed. This entails digitization of legacy data and entering new data into the system. Once this database is created, a rule can be run to assign three dates for check-ups using the last-menstrual period, registration date and last check-up. This rule then will trigger simple SMSes for the ASHA with instruction on the name of the pregnant women and target check-up date. The ASHA can schedule the meeting over the phone or directly visit the house. The pregnant women or their husbands receive prerecorded voice calls reminding of visits from their ASHAs for check-ups.

Many of us may wonder if such simple SMS reminders can bring any change. An ANM has to monitor some 450 such check-ups at various pregnancy

cycles over a period of almost two years in a population cluster of 5000 people. The check-up is one of hundreds other tasks. Even with the best of intentions, it is highly likely that health workers have difficulties in remembering their tasks. For this simplest intervention, the average cost per women per month can be as low as 5 rupees for a population of 45000 pregnant women. This cost is particularly viable, considering the efficacy of the method.

Some people tend to wait for the perfect solution to arrive in the market before initiating their actions. Well, there is no perfect solution. Technology is a work in progress. Health managers must be able to make the best out of what is available for them. That does not mean we should constantly upgrade our technologies. Rather the implementation has to follow a strategy and for healthcare, the strategy is simple. Identify a problem and develop a solution. Follow up research and evaluation can tell us if the solution is able to solve the problem effectively while containing cost.

n

About the AuthorAtanu Garai writes on the impact of information technology on society. Currently he is Advisor - mHealth with InnovadorsLab Private Limited, an incubated company at KIIT-TBI. He is a Fellow with the U.S.-based Society for New Communications Research. Atanu Garai received graduate education in e-Governance from Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, and in information management from Calcutta University. He has eight years of research and project management experience in using information and communication technologies in the social sectors. He has undertaken number of research and development projects for organizations in South Asia and Europe in the areas of governance, health and public transport. Since 2007, he is a member of ACM, CSI and IEEE. He can be reached at [email protected].

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Security Corner

IT Act 2000 »

The IT Act, 2000 (Cyber Law) of India - A Brief

Adv. Prashant Mali [BSc(Physics),MSc(CompScience),LLB]

CyberLaw&[email protected]

India has its cyber law, The Information Technology Act, 2000 as amended by The Information Technology (Amendment) Act, 2008, which provides the legal infrastructure for Information Technology in India. The said Act along with its 90 sections is to be conceived with 23 Rules called the IT Rules, 2011.The section along with rules constitute relevant law of Information Technology in India.

The object of The Information Technology Act, 2000 as defined therein is as under:-

“to provide legal recognition for transactions carried out by means of electronic data interchange and other means of electronic communication, commonly referred to as “electronic methods of communication and storage of information, to facilitate electronic filing of documents with the Government agencies and further to amend the Indian Penal Code, the Indian Evidence Act, 1872, the Banker’s Book Evidence Act, 1891 and the Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934 and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto.”

Different types of cyber crimes have been described as offences under Chapter IX. Crimes like Hacking, Phishing, Data Theft, Identity Theft, Denial of Service, Spreading of Virus, Source Code Theft, Sending lewd SMS/MMS/Email, Pornography, Child Pornography and Disclosure of Information by Organizations.

Different types of cyber crimes have been described as offences under Chapter IX. Crimes like Hacking, Phishing, Data Theft, Identity Theft, Denial of Service, Spreading of Virus, Source

Code Theft, Sending lewd SMS/MMS/Email, Pornography, Child Pornography and Disclosure of Information by Organizations. Such Crimes attract imprisonment for a period of 3 to 7 years with a penalty between Rupees One Lakh to Rupees Five Lakhs. The victim also can ask for compensation from the adjudicating officer (normally the IT Secretary of the state) for compensation up to Rs. Five Crores and for compensation above Rs. Five Crores from civil court of relevant jurisdiction. For the crimes with less than three years of punishment, arbitration or out of the court settlement is also provisioned.

This act has flavors of various data protection & Internet laws, which other developed countries have. Section 43A of the said Act, deals with sensitive personal data contained in a computer system. This Indian Act requires compliance from organizations, which possess, deal or handle sensitive personal data and for not doing so, organizations shall be made liable to pay penalty. The IT Rules, 2011 have clearly defined the meaning of “Sensitive Personal Data” and what are Reasonable Security Practices to be followed by organizations are also mentioned in the IT Rules, 2011.

The IT Act, 2000 also provides for the constitution of the Cyber Regulations Advisory Committee, which shall advice the government as regards any rules or for any other purpose connected with the said act. The said Act also has Five Schedules, the last one being the glossary and others, which amend the Indian Penal Code, 1860, the Indian Evidence Act, 1872, The Bankers’ Books Evidence Act, 1891, The Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934

to make them in tune with the provisions of the said Act.

Email is now a valid and legal form of communication, which can be duly produced and approved in a court of law. Executives in offices need to be more careful while writing emails, whether outside the company or within as the same with whatever language could be proved in the court of law. When a company employee sends an email to another executive in the same company with some defamatory or other related offensive material and marks a copy to others, there are possibilities that he may land in a litigation case for defamation in a court of law.

With the legal infrastructure of electronic signatures in place to regulate commercial transactions online, this act also covers e-commerce and e-contracts. Certifying Authorities for issuing Digital Signatures Certificates is now a reality. C2G ecommerce model is implemented i.e. tax payers now pay tax online and they are authenticated by there digital signatures. A signature authenticates writing by identifying the signer with the signed document. When the signer makes a mark in a distinctive manner, the writing becomes attributable to the signer.

Executives in offices need to be more careful while writing emails, whether outside the company or within as the same with whatever language could be proved in the court of law.

Every electronic record is under scope of the IT Act, 2000 but following electronic transactions are not under the ambit of the IT Act, 2000a. The IT Act, 2000 is not applicable

on the attestation for creating trust via digital signatures, physical


attestation is must.b. The IT Act, 2000 does not apply for

the attestation on a will or a codicil, physical attestation by two witnesses is must.

c. A contract of sale for any immovable property.

d. Attestation for giving power of attorney of property via digital signature.Current day’s scenario is that Data

has become the largest corporate asset and it is also now the most important asset for India Inc. as well. Corporates invest huge amount in storing, securing and protecting data. Under the IT Act, 2000, it is now possible for corporates to claim remedy against any perpetrator. If any such cyber criminal breaks into their computer systems or network and causes damages or commits data theft,

Corporate can claim monetary damages.As per the Rules, 2011, Banks,

Insurance companies, Telecom companies, hotels, hospitals, universities except organizations providing services relating to collection, storage, dealing or handling of sensitive personal data or information under contractual obligation with any legal entity located within or outside India, shall now publish the rules and regulations, privacy policy and user agreement for access or usage of the organizations computer resource by any person.

Lacunas in the IT Act, 2000 amended by the IT Act, 20081. The Interval of amendments to the IT

Act, 2000 is not defined.2. Section related to copyright

infringement has not been included in this Act.

3. There is no section talking of domain names dispute.

4. The said act is not applicable on the power of attorney, trusts, will, sale of immovable property.

5. The said act remains silent on taxation issue.

6. There are no explicit provisions for payment of stamp duty on electronic documents.

7. The act remains silent on jurisdiction of police station in case of a cyber crime.

8. The act gives too much of powers in the hands of government and to police.The content of this article is intended

to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specific Questions relating to this article should be addressed directly to the author. n

About the Author

Advocate Prashant Mali is Cyber Law & Cyber Security Expert. He is President of Cyber Law Consulting, a legal firm handling matters regarding Cyber law, IPR, financial crimes, and media & entertainment. His articles are published in leading magazines of the country on topics like S/W Piracy, Data Theft, Pornography, IT Rules, 2011. He has written 4 books on cyber law. He is an accomplished speaker in national and international conferences and consults Government and Corporates on Cyber Law & IPR matters.

Vision Statement - 46th Annual Convention, CSI 2011 to be held at Ahmedabad during December 1-3, 2011

The Information & Communication Technology scenario has seen tremendous development in recent years. The growth has greatly affected the fields of software, hardware and communication. IT services are going to play a big role in enabling the socio-economic growth of India.

There had been a paradigm shift in last decade from centralized computing towards clustered computing. Technologies such as Grid Computing and Cloud Computing are result of this paradigm shift. The telecommunication industry in India is the world’s fastest growing industry. As of February 2011, India has 791.38 million mobile phone subscribers. It is projected that India will have 1.159 billion mobile subscribers by 2013. In terms of number of wireless connections India is second largest telecommunication network. With the availability of 3G and 4G, M-Commerce soon may become de-facto standard in coming years. The mobile devices and other miniature wireless devices are now capable of working as computers. Such devices can store, process, send data and can be part of networks on demand basis.

This growth of usage in miniature wireless devices has further increased the challenges in the area of application architecture being built to provide different services. With the decrease in cost of the miniature devices and increase in number of users, the services made available through ICT will reach huge masses. This reach further will touch the lives of every human being directly or indirectly.

The CSI-2011 Convention theme “ICT4U: Touching the Lives of Everyone”, focuses on use of ICT in various aspects of life. The idea is to make people aware of recent trends in new paradigm software applications, computing and communication technologies along with those under research. We aim to show two perceptions of this new

and innovative utilization, one with respect to end-user and another with respect to technology. The speakers and attendees are likely to be policy makers, senior government officials, industry leaders, core IT professionals and academia. The Convention will provide a unique opportunity for all stakeholders to network with peers and share their thoughts.

The convention is supported by Government of Gujarat and ISRO among other organizations. Spanning over three days, 1st – 3rd December, 2011, the event consists of two Pre-convention International Conferences on Grid and Could Computing and IT Security, along with three tutorials on ICT for Education, Sensor Networks: Design to Deployment and Cloud Computing on 1st December 2011 followed by the inaugural ceremony of CSI 2011.

On 2nd – 3rd December, 2011 the delegates will be able to listen to enlightening talks by leading International and National senior industry practitioners, researchers and academicians. The program includes around 12 technical sessions and some plenary sessions. To have more delegate participation, around 4 panel discussions have been planned. The Convention also includes tracks on paper presentation and Ph D students Colloquium, to generate more thought provoking ideas on variety of application areas of ICT. The Convention further includes a track for live demonstration of innovations (product, software, solution) by individual, organization, institute, academia, government and industry. A separate Conclave for CEO/CIO/IT Secretaries has also been organized for exchange of new ideas, technologies and sharing application roadmap. Moreover, CSI-Nihilent e-Governance and CSI-IT Excellence awards will be presented during the convention.Prof. R P Soni, Conference Chair

Write to us at: info@csi‐2011.org For details log on to: www.csi‐2011.org

Contact: Dr. Haresh Bhatt, Program Chair, pc@csi‐2011.org | Visit: http://www.csi‐2011.org

Government of Gujarat

Associated Organizations

Computer Society of India 46th Annual National Convention 2011 Host: Ahmedabad Chapter December 1–3, 2011Venue: Ahmedabad Mgmt Association, Ahmedabad

Registration Fees (in INR) Registration Fees:

Members CSI/GESIA

Non Members CSI/GESIA

Academician Researcher

Student Accompanying Spouse

Up to 31/10/2011 5000 6000 4000 1500 3000 After 31/10/2011 6000 7000 5000 2000 3500

Partnership Opportunities Collaborating with CSI 2011 will provide an effective means of broadening your competitive edge by improving your company's image, prestige and credibility by supporting this convention that your target market finds attractive. It will be a means of accessing a wide range of audience ‐ CEOs, CTOs. CIOs & Government officials accessible over the span of three days in one space. CSI 2011 welcomes partnership from ICT companies, Institutes, Universities, Government / Semi Government departments, PSU etc. All contributions will be used directly to ensure greater quality of convention. Various partnership schemes are available. Partnership Options Fees (INR) Partnership Options Fees (INR) Platinum Partner 15,00,000 CIO Summit & CEO Conclave 10,00,000 Gold Partner 10,00,000 Pre‐Convention International Conference 3,00,000Silver Partner 5,00,000 Tutorial Partner 1,00,000Session Partner 3,00,000 Official IT Media Partner– Online/Print/TV On RequestConvention Dinner 5,00,000 Academic Partner 25,000

Contact: Prof. Bipin V Mehta, Finance Chair, fc@csi‐2011.org | Visit: http://www.csi‐2011.org/sponsors.htm

▪ Insight by more than 40 speakers in 5 tracks ▪ Focus on Innovation, Research & Development ▪ Thought leadership for transformation of business & society ▪ ICT Roadmap for India’s socio‐economic growth ▪ Innovative solutions for cost‐effective organizational transformation

▪ More than 900 Delegates ▪ Representatives from State/Central Govt. ▪ CEOs, CIOs, CTOs & IT Management Personnel ▪ Representatives from Indian / Foreign Universities, IT / Non‐IT Companies ▪ Computer Professionals/ IT Consultants ▪ Researchers, Academicians, CSI Members

Highlights of the Convention

A patent plays a big role in driving the innovation process. Patents create property from information or knowledge. In earlier days capital and labour were necessary to start a business. Today, Patent has been given highest importance for a new venture. Proposals are invited from ICT industry to present patents acquired in last 10 years. Posters of patents will either be kept at prime locations or in dedicated room. Selected proposals will be given time in a track for presenting the innovation. Innovative systems or applications developed which has significant impact on societal benefit will also be considered for poster and oral presentation. Send your entries at: patents@csi‐2011.org | For more details, visit www.csi‐2011.org/patents.htm

Call for Patent and Innovation Presentations

▪ Pre Convention International Conferences on 1. IT Security 2. Grid & Cloud Computing

▪ Pre Convention Tutorials on 1. Sensor Networks: Design to Deployment 2. ICT for Education 3. Cloud Computing

▪ Ph. D. Scholars’ Colloquium ▪ Paper Presentations during Convention ▪ Special Invited Talks / Sessions

▪ Tracks on VC Funding for ICT, Societal Application, Safety & Security Enterprise Resource Planning Education (eLearning), Mobile Application Patent & Innovation, Advanced Technology ▪ Special Tracks on eGovernance Award, IT Excellence Award ▪ Panel Discussions ▪ Live Demonstrations

Key Events of the Convention

Computer Society of India invites you to join one of the premier IT‐Federation meet “CSI‐2011”. The 46th Annual National Convention of CSI is one of the India’s largest ICT events, CSI‐2011 would be a unique platform for sharing of knowledge, challenges, ideas and best practices amongst the various stakeholders driving ICT initiatives in the domain of Governance, Healthcare, Defense, Education, Communication and Space Application.

Invitation for CSI‐2011: 46thAnnual National Convention

ContactConvention Secretary, CSI‐2011 Email: cs@csi‐2011.org Mobile: +91 96626 40500

Eminent Speakers

Sam Pitroda Chairman National Knowledge Comm. Government of India

Kiran Karnik Former President

NASSCOM

Arup Dasgupta Managing Editor GEOSPATIAL WORLD

Gulshan Rai Director General, ICERT

Government of India

James Thurston Sr. Strategist ‐ Global Policy & Standards, Microsoft

John William Walz Vice President


Lalit Sawhney Former CTO Reliance communication

M M Saggi Nautical Advisory

Government of India

Niru Mehta Chief Executive Officer AttendByVideo

P K Srivastava Managing Director

GSDL

Paul Nicholas Director, Global Security Strategy & Diplomacy, Microsoft

R S Sharma Director General &

Mission Director, Aadhar

Ranbir Singh Group Director & Head Public Sector, Microsoft

S Ramakrishanan Former Director General

CDAC

Sanjay Bahl Chief Security Officer Microsoft Corporation

Sorel Reisman President


Vakul Sharma Sr. Advocate Supreme Court of India


Security Corner

Information is an ethereal concept. Information has no defined shape or size. It is intangible. Even a whisper, a bit on the wire, a signal on wireless or a photon of light can carry information. How do you prevent the information from leaking and getting in the hands of people who could misuse it? We have seen enough examples of such information leakages, including the most publicized one of Wiki-leaks. So how do we actually prevent or at-least reduce the possibility of information leakages or compromise in real world?

This could be achieved to a large extent by rigorous implementation of a standard like ISO/IEC 27001:2005(1), which is an international standard for Information Security Management System (ISMS). The standard advocates the PDCA cycle, which means we have to systematically Plan-Do-Check and Act about information security. The planning part of the PDCA cycle requires us to identify information assets and identify the threats to these assets, the vulnerabilities that could be exploited by the threats and the impact they may have on the assets. This is the risk assessment approach which identifies the risks, either quantitatively or qualitatively. It is a critical step as it will decide the further course of action. Selection of security controls will be based on the level of acceptable risks. If the impact of a compromise is unacceptable, the security controls will have to be capable of preventing the threats from exploiting the vulnerabilities. In such a situation, we cannot depend on a single layer of defense to protect our critical assets. We need to have multiple layers to provide a defense-in-depth. Even if one control fails, there should be another control which could protect the information asset.

ISO 27001 has identified 39 control objectives supported by 133 controls.

These controls have been divided in 11 security domains like human resources security, physical and environmental security, communications and operations management, network security management, access control, applications and information access control and are supported by various management functions like establishing and managing the ISMS, internal audits and trainings. The purpose of the standard is to help “adoption of a process approach for establishing, implementing, operating, monitoring, reviewing, maintaining and improving an organization’s ISMS”.

The ISO 27001 controls could be logically arranged to provide a layered defense. Various technical and management controls help to establish a virtual fortress for securing our information assets. How many security layers to be created will depend on the criticality and sensitivity of the information assets.

One of the first steps in planning for information security is then to identify the importance of every piece of information and appropriately classify it. As defined in the ISO 27001:2005 standard, “Information shall be classified in terms of its value, legal requirements, sensitivity and criticality to the organization.” The classification could be in descriptive terms like top-secret, secret, confidential, restricted and unclassified. However, each of the classification labels should be clearly defined to identify the impact the leakage of information may have to the organization in tangible terms. These could be actual loss of life, property, financial loss, reputational loss, legal penalties or even embarrassment. The more explicit you are in defining the losses, more real and convincing they will be for someone to understand the need for protecting the information. The ultimate purpose of classification of information

should be to trigger some concrete actions to see that the information is secured as expected by the classification level. The selection of controls is finalized based on the classification level, risk assessment and the cost-benefit analysis. You do not want the control to cost more than the value of the information. Every piece of information may not merit such a detail risk treatment. Risk assessment can prioritize the risks which need to be mitigated by an appropriate defense-in-depth approach. Other risks could be transferred, avoided or even accepted, depending on the management decision.

Defense-in-depth was a concept adopted in the medieval era while building a fort. The Viking marauders running up a hill to take a fort would have to survive a series of defenses, arrayed in sequence: berms (a mound or bank of earth), ditches, outer walls, chevaux-de-frise (defensive structure), more ditches, walls, palisades (tall, spiky wooden fences) and more walls(2). For critical information assets, you should build a similar fortress with independent layers having multiple controls to prevent any failure. The following seven layers could provide a defense-in-depth for the information asset. The design of each layer will have to be such as to provide independent security, even when other layers fail. These seven layers are: 1. Hardware security layer2. Operating system security layer3. Database system security layer4. Application system security layer5. Network security layer6. Physical and environmental security

layer7. Personnel security layer

A brief description of each of these layers follows:

1. Hardware security layerThe information, when in electronic

Information Security »

Introduction to Information Security – Defense in Depth

Avinash W KadamDirector,MIELe-SecurityPvt.Ltd.


form, will reside on some hardware device. This could be storage devices such as hard disks, USB drives, flash cards, or could also be random access memory chips. The digital information is stored in bits. The information from these devices is accessed by computer programs. However, with appropriate interface devices and programs this information could also be read and interpreted by someone who has physical access to the devices. Thus a stolen computer with strong password may protect the access to the information through the keyboard, but someone can still remove the hard disk, attach it to another computer and read the data without any problem. Similarly a stolen USB drive may reveal all the information. Do not assume that the data is secured only by a password. Always encrypt the data when it is stored on hardware. This is becoming increasingly important since our mobile phones, PDAs and tablets store very large amount of data and these devices could be easily stolen or lost. For really sensitive information, one should use tamper-resistant hardware which will destroy the information in case of an attempt at unauthorized access.

2. Operating system security layerThis layer is very familiar to all of us.

Windows OS or Unix / Linux OS provides us the required software interface with the hardware. All the OS commands and utilities make it easy for us to deal with the hardware devices. However, the Operating Systems are very large software programs. Windows 7 is supposed to have in excess of 50 million lines of code. With such a huge code size, there are always possibilities of some defects which escape testing. Such defects, when noticed, become well-publicized vulnerabilities and till these are patched, are open for exploitation by an attacker. Security in this layer requires us to be familiar with various published vulnerability databases, patches and vulnerability testing tools.

3. Database system security layerDatabases are another essential

piece of software required by every organization to maintain data in an orderly form. Since databases provide

centralized accumulation of data, they are very lucrative targets for an attacker. All accesses to database are usually strictly controlled but there could be numerous paths to data. If each path is not well guarded, there is always a possibility of a compromise. Similar to OS, the database vendors also maintain lists of discovered vulnerabilities and how to patch them.

4. Application system security layerApplication is the window to

the underlying data. OS, Databases and applications, each is finally an application with finite number of lines of code. Applications are being written by innumerable programmers and no one can guess the number of applications in use and their number of lines of codes. Not every program is well tested from the security angle. A weakness in application code could make the program crash, provide illegal access to data, and could be manipulated to give control to the attacker. The Internet has exposed the application layer through web applications which are the interface between internet users and the underlying web servers and database servers. With the variety of application programming languages, testing the security of underlying code is a huge task. Various secure coding practices need to be followed. Also application vulnerabilities need to be identified using various tools if code review is not practical.

5. Network security layerNetwork connects millions of

computers to each other and provides access to them. If the networks are not secured, these could also lead to compromising the security of computers connected to the networks. Securing all types of networks like LAN (Local Area Networks), WAN (Wide Area Networks) and Wireless networks as well as the Internet which connects all the networks is one of the prime security requirements. Propagation of every type of malicious code through the network endangers the information on the end devices. Network could be the conduit for all types of attacks or the network itself could be attacked and brought down creating a denial of service attack.

6. Physical and environmental security layerWe take the physical and

environmental security for granted. But the theft of a laptop or a server reminds us of this layer. Data centers have to be physically secure, major security breaches have occurred when attackers managed to walk away with critical equipment from the data center. The environment has to be maintained to protect the computers against temperature and humidity variations as well as protect against fire, flood and electrical disturbances.

7. Personnel security layerThis is probably the most important

security layer. A knowledgeable person with thorough knowledge of security measures will protect the information against every attack. An ignorant person or a malicious internal employee will expose security weakness at each of the above layers. Selecting the right persons, training them appropriately and ensuring that they do not misuse their position of trust through appropriate controls like separation of duties and job rotation is very critical to information security. One disgruntled employee with un-monitored access to critical information can cost you a wiki-leak.

Each of the above layers will be discussed in more details in the next few articles.

1. Hardware Security

2. Operating System Security

3. Database Security

4. Application Security

5. Network Security

6. Physical Security

7. Personnel Security

(1) ISO/IEC 27001: 2005 - Information Security Management Systems — Requirements

(2) Information Security Defense In Depth Lessons (from a Bronze-Age Fort) http://www.csoonline.com/article/220224/information-security-defense-in-depth-lessons-from-a-bronze-age-fort-?page=2



Dr. Debasish JanaEditor,CSICommunications

Programming.Tips() »

Coping up with Rounding Errors in CNumerical rounding has always drawn attention in

programming. Of course, integral number like, 3, 4 do not require rounding for approximation. Only fractional numbers do require rounding to be estimated by another value that is close to equal but has a shorter and simpler presence. For example, 32.4487 can be approximated as 32.449 (rounding upto three decimal places). Rounding always introduces round-off errors due to this approximation. But, keeping in mind of finite representation of data within a computer, we have to approximate real or floating point numbers for all practical purposes.

In any computation dealing with approximation through rounding, we drop one or more of last digits in a floating point number. This process is called rounding off numbers. To illustrate the process of rounding numerically, let’s state the rules first:(a) If the first of the dropped digits is greater than or equal to

5, then the last digit retained is incremented by one. The increment is also made when the first digit retained is equal to 5 and followed by at least one significant digit. Lets see some examples:(i) Rounding a number 25.782 to three significant digits,

we write 25.8. The third digit is incremented from 7 to 8, since the first of the dropped digits is 8, that exceeds 5. As we see, after rounding, the resultant number 25.8 is closer to the actual number (25.782) than the number 25.7 taken just by chopping the extra digits.

(ii) Rounding a number 25.153 to the first decimal, we write 25.2, as the first dropped digit is exactly 5 and followed by significant digit(s).

(b) If the first of the dropped digits is less than 5, then the last digit retained is NOT incremented by one. Example:(i) Rounding a number 25.153 to the nearest whole number

is 25 and nit 26, since 1 being the first of the dropped digits is less than 5. The resulting number 25 is closer to actual number 25.153 than 26.

(c) In case the digit 5 is dropped, and no significant digits follow this digit 5, then rounding is done to the closest even number. In other words, if last retained digit is even, it is kept as-is, otherwise, is incremented if odd.(i) Rounding a number 0.0285 to the third decimal place,

we write 0.028. We don’t make it 0.029, as we are dropping 5 and having no follower significant digit, and preceding digit is 8 which is even. And it is obvious that 0.028 is as close to 0.0285 as 0.029. So, it’s all the same.

(ii) Rounding a number 0.0275 to the third decimal place, we write 0.028. We don’t keep as 0.027, as first dropped digit 5 has no significant digit after and preceeding 7 is odd.

What will be the rounding off result for 4.518, 0.256, 2.396, 0.950, 7.651, 0.850, 0.05 to the first decimal place? We get 4.5, 0.3, 2.4, 7.2, 1.0, 7.7, 0.8, 0.0 respectively (applying the above rules).

Now, let’s see we can write a round function of our own. Let’s take example in C. Any other language implementation would be similar.We add 0.5 to the number and then convert to integer to take the integral part and then convert it back to double. Thus, double

(3.6) will have the integral part of 3.6+0.5 or 4.1 i.e. 4, and we get 4.0. Similarly, double(3.1) will result 3.0. We can use the floor function also, where floor(x) = largest integer not greater than x, thus, floor(3.7) = 3, floor(4.0) = 4.0 and so on.Thus, using floor function, we have: doubleround(doubled){ returnfloor(d+0.5); }

But, this will work for only positive values. What about negative values?doubleround(doubled){return(r>0.0)?floor(r+0.5):ceil(r-0.5);}

The function ceil(x) represents ceiling(x) = the smallest integer not less than x. doubleround(doubled){ return(double)((int)(d+0.5)); }

x floor(x) ceiling(x) Fractional part

rounded value

14/5 = 2.8 2 3 4/5 = 0.8 3.02.6 2 3 0.6 3.02.3 2 3 0.3 2.0

–2.6 –3 –2 0.6 -3.0–2.3 –2 –2 0.3 -2.02.0 2 2 0.0 2.0-2.0 -2 -2 0.0 -2.0

Note that if an integer result is sought for from the rounding, then ceil or floor is not needed, for example: intround(doubled){ return(r>0.0)? (int)(r+0.5): (int)(r-0.5); }

The program given above does rounding to the nearest integer. In order to round upto n decimal places, the following supporting function invpower returns 0.5, 0.05, 0.005 for arguments 0, 1, 2 and so on as precision levels. This result needs to be added to or subtracted from the given number for the desired result. doubleinvpower(intprecision){ doubles=0.5; for(inti=0;i<precision;i++) s=s/10.0; returns; }doubleround(doubled,intprecision){ doublea=invpower(precision); return(r>0.0)? floor(r+a):ceil(r-a);}Do you have some Programming Tips to share? Send your summarized write-up to CSI Communications with subject line ‘Programming Tips’ at email address [email protected] n


To encourage innovations and indigenous development in the field of Information Technology, Computer Society of

India has instituted CSI Awards for Excellence in IT for those who have implemented exemplary projects to

meet their organizational goals and to improve the service delivery amongst the target segment. Awards are an

effort by which CSI acknowledge and motivate individuals and organizations to excel in IT usage.

CSI 2011Awards for Excellence in IT

ndDate : 2 December 2011 Ahmedabad

President’s MessageCSI 2011 Awards for Excellence is an initiative of CSI to motivate the individuals and the companies towards innovations, thus we aim to recognize the role models of the industry. I

welcome all the personnel and experts to participate and demonstrate the uniqueness of theirIT usage during "CSI 2011 Awards for Excellence in IT". My best wishes to CSI 2011 IT Awards team.

- M.D. Agrawal

Convenor's Desk

I extend my invitation to all of you to

participate for these Awards. I am sure

your company/organization has many

such achievements to display and win

these coveted Awards. For any queries the team of CSI

2011 National Awards may be contacted.

RVP 3 CSI, Chairperson & Convener,[email protected]

Anil Srivastava

Time Line

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Online Short-listing (Tier 1) - 25th Oct. 2011

Audit at site of short-listed applications (optional) - 30th Oct. 2011

Presentation by 20 short-listed applicants (Tier 2) - 10th Nov. 2011

Presentation by 5 finalists during annual convention

st nd(Tier 3) - 1 - 2 Dec. 2011

Presentation of Awards - st nd1 - 2 Dec. 2011

Trophy for the Organization and replica - miniature in size to team members

Citation: Certificate to all winning organizations and its team members

Rs. 1.00 lakh cash to the team leader of the winning organization.

Prizes for first & second runners up

CURTAIN RAISER


CSI 2011Awards for Excellence in IT

ndDate : 2 December 2011 Ahmedabad

Core Committeel

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M.D. Agarwal, President CSI

P Thrimurthy, Chairperson CSI Awards Committee

Anil Srivastava, Regional Vice President 3, CSI Chairperson & Convener Awards for Excellence in IT

S. Mahalingam, CFO, TCSPast President, CSISpecial Advisor

Satish Babu, Vice President, CSI

S Ramanathan, Regional Vice President 7Chennai Chapter, Member

Saurabh Sonawala, Ex. Hon' Treasurer CSI Head Quarters Mumbai – Member

Awantika Varma, Member Execom Bhopal Chapter & Co-ConvenerAwards for Excellence in IT

Selection Process

Selection Committees

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Tier 2 -

Tier 3 -

Selection Committee will shortlist the 20 submissions in each sector and forward it for next level of selection process.

Review Committee would identify 5 finalists in each sector and forward it for final selection.

Winners would be selected through a selection process in th

Ahmedabad during 46 annual convention by a distinguished Jury. ndThe winners will be facilitated on 2 December 2011 in Ahmedabad

during a special program organized for the occasion.

http://csinationalawards.org

Entries are to be submitted online in the prescribed format and complete in all respects at http://csinationalawards.org

Successful submissions would be duly acknowledged by generating a Registration ID.

Registration ID is to be used for all future correspondence/ queries/clarifications.

The selection committee would include senior CSI members, top industrialists, renowned academicians and leading IT professionals. The selection process would be done in a fair and transparent manner. Ames of the committee members and the detail selection procedure would be available in public domain.

Duly completed entries need to be submitted online in the prescribedformat at

Entries sent by email will not be accepted

For More Details Please visit - http://csinationalawards.org

Sponsorships are invited for the awards,

for details Please Visit

http://csinationalawards.org/sponsorship.html

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Entry fee - Rs. 5000/- Entry fee to be deposited into ICICI bank a/c of CSI National Awards. For details Please visit: http://csinationalawards.org/fee.html; http.

An organization can make entries in more than one category. However, in each category only one entry will be allowed

Winners of CSI 2010 Awards will not be eligible to participate with the same project

The committee shall make its judgment based on evaluation of the received nominations.

The committee can desire to seek additional information/call for presentation from the shortlisted submissions. However, equal opportunities shall be provided to all the short listed entries. If in any specific sector, none of the entries are found to fulfill the minimum criteria, the committee may decide to skip the award in that sector.

The work done for which the award is applied for, should have been completed in the past 12 months, one month before the award is to be announced.

Winners would be decided through a selection process and will be awarded in Ahmedabad during the 46th annual convention by the distinguished Jury and facilitated on 2nd December 2011 during a special award ceremony

CURTAIN RAISER



Achuthsankar S. Nair* & Kashyap Chhatbar*** Editor, CSI Communications** Centre for Bioinformatics, University of Kerala

Programming.Learn(Perl) »

Flat File Databases in Perl

Database handling is a feature of programming languages that has acquired prime importance in the modern times. Emerging database technologies make this handling more and more involved. However, a rudimentary database can simply reside in a text file in an innocent format. Such a file is known as a flat file (if you haven’t completely transformed to a nerd, then a flat file makes you think about the do-it-yourself toolkit).

In this simplest type of database let us put in a text file names of famous personalities, field of activity and nationality. We separate the information using a selected character (delimiter). A popular choice is the pipe symbol (|).

Mandela|Politics|SouthAfricaNewton|Science|EnglandImran|Cricket|PakistanEach line of the text file holds one record, with fields

separated by delimiters – here, the pipe symbol. Each line ends with a return (new line) character which is invisible but machine readable. When Comma is used as delimiters, acronym addicts call it CSV (Comma Separated Value) files and when tab is used you get TSV files. TSV files are very common as some standard applications accept them (such as spreadsheets). Let us save our flat file as people.txt.

Handling flat files is of course plain file handling. The chomp function is used to eat away the newline character at the end of each record in the following snippet that stores the flat file database in an array.

open(f1,”people.txt”);chomp(@data=<f1>);close(f1);

Each element of the array data now contains a record of our database. We can now extract fields as we desire and use them. split// is handy here. The following code locates the record with keyword “Cricket” in it and prints out the fields.$search=’Cricket’;open(f1,”people.txt”);while(<f1>){chomp$_;if($_=~m/$search/){($name,$field,$country)=split(/|/,$_);print$name;print$field;print$country;}}close(f1);

To store the database using hashes, we can continue as follows:foreach$person(@data){($name,$field,$country)=split(/|/,$person);$field{$name}=$field;$country{$name}=$country;}

Once such a hash is produced we can make queries like $country{Imran}

Please note that the pipe symbol (|) may be deceiving in some spiced up editors (they may not be the same as the standard character). Use a clean editor. n


CIO Perspective

IT Strategy Nuances »

Business-IT alignment: Significance and the realization

Anil V. VaidyaAdjunctProfessor,S.P.JainInstituteofManagement&ResearchDoctorofBusinessAdministration(UK),MBA(USA),B.Sc.(Tech),B.Sc.,CISA,CISM,[email protected]

It is interesting to know that business-IT alignment also has a social dimension, which impacts the success of IT plans. Alignment has been identified as a vital contributor to overall success of IT, besides management commitment. This article extends the factors visited in the prior articles of this series building towards a comprehensive understanding of IT strategy formulation.

“Our IT is doing well; still there are areas that need to be addressed e.g. system integration and reporting”, a CFO told me politely; another one declared “our IT is weak” expressing his frustration fighting for global standards. While the CIOs believe that they do exceedingly well in running their IT services efficiently and meeting set targets, the gaps reveal a different story. It is a mismatch between expectations and achievements. In the HBR article “IT Doesn’t Matter” Nicolas Carr opined that the commoditization drive would result into IT becoming “essential but inconsequential from strategic standpoint”. The article was published in 2003, however, even after a decade of commoditization, one doesn’t find a senior manager, who believes in Carr’s “inconsequentiality of IT” concept. It seems almost paradoxical that the business managers criticize IT for not meeting their requirements, at the same time trusting the business potential of IT.

Essential ingredientsExecutive level support and strategy,

based on the organization’s vision and its enterprise architecture, are essential for

It is interesting to know that business-IT alignment also has a social dimension, which impacts the success of IT plans. Alignment has been identified as a vital contributor to overall success of IT, besides management commitment. This article extends the factors visited in the prior articles of this series building towards a comprehensive understanding of IT strategy formulation.

as 1988, Lederer and Sethi highlighted importance of ‘management commitment’ in implementing the IS/IT plans. Later Kearns’ (2006) found that top management support was vital aspect of successful information systems planning.

While it is clear that top management’s support is vital, it is appropriate to visit the support practices. Some CIOs believe that the CEO should send messages to the organization on important IT decisions and implementations. There are others, who quote the CEO and other top executives in their communications. Top executives also appear in IT conferences demonstrating their involvement. Open expression of management commitment helps IT to execute its plans. Of course, such expression should also cover necessary financial approvals and participation in IT governance process. Fig. 1 is the pictorial representation of essential ingredients.

Business-IT alignmentAlignment is a fit integration of

IT strategies with business strategies. The term represents the synchronized working of IT and businesses resulting in

IT Strategy Formulation Essential ingredients

Management commitment

Success in IT planning &

development

Social aspects

Practices & demonstrated visible support

Business enablement & value creation

Alignment at information systems at strategic and

structural levels with shared domain knowledge

High level of communication & cultural congruence

Planning & process aspects

Business-IT alignment

successful deployment and fruitfulness of IT strategy. The support of top management needs to be visible through active engagement of the executives in every possible way. The Economic Times reported on 27 August 2011 that India’s largest mobile technology services provider Bharati Airtel presented iPads to its directors. It is expected that they carry only iPads to board meetings. The company has done away with providing information on paper. Further, The Economic Times reports many instances where the customer facing tasks are being performed by using tablets. It exemplifies the management commitment, which is also supported by studies. As early

Fig. 1


the deployment of IT towards business goals. Many researchers and practitioners have pointed out the need to align IT with businesses. Sabherwal and Chan (2001) concluded from their empirical study that alignment between business strategy and IT strategy was associated with business success. Further they identified the alignment requirements based on strategy typology of “Defenders, Prospectors and Analyzers”. Segars and Grover (1999) identified integration with business strategy as an issue in information systems strategic planning. The lack of commitment and limited involvement of top management were found to be primary reasons for this. The business alignment has been a concern, is voiced by IT managers as well as business managers. Gold (2002) announced that alignment was an issue acknowledged by business managers. While such a requirement of alignment has been talked about for last two decades, the IT managers still seem to be struggling with it.

It is interesting to note that the social climate in organizations in-fluences the alignment and in turn the success of IT implementation. The demonstrated behaviour of the employees and their relation-ships contribute positively/nega-tively to aligning business and IT.

While IT departments put in much effort on systems and processes, little is structurally done to address impact of social climate in organization. Studies have proved that high level of communication between IT and businesses helps in improving success rate in short term. Informal organizational structure affects the achievement of IT-business alignment. Nickels and Janz (2010) found that organizations having greater degrees of cultural congruence among senior-level executives exhibited higher levels of strategic alignment maturity.

Horovitz suggested two dimensions; the “intellectual dimension” and the “social dimension”. As mentioned earlier the social dimension addresses the interactions and interpersonal relations among IT and business personnel. The intellectual dimension focuses on planning

and the process aspect of alignment ensuring that IT plans run in resonance with organizational plans and vision. Alignment at strategic and structural levels impacts the IT’s business value creation. The shared domain knowledge promotes success in long term as well as short term. In order to promote the shared knowledge and alignment, it has been suggested that IT should be embedded in the business group that it supports. Creation of divisional IT organizations is known as an effort to closely tie-up IT into businesses. The IT investment decisions should be based on whether they will confer advantage in the marketplace (Marwaha and Willmott, 2006).

Enterprise architecture is also viewed as addressing the busi-ness alignment through its four components viz. business archi-tecture, information architecture, application architecture and tech-nical architecture.

Peppard and Ward (1999) advocate strong business/IT partnership offering a framework of 5 dimensions that helps in high performance from IT. The five dimensions are structures and processes, leadership, values and beliefs, roles and service quality. Markus’ technochange management stresses on alignment as a fit between the technochange solutions and organizational processes, culture and incentives. Table 1 here shows four examples of published empirical studies.

Ascertaining current statusThere are certain parameters that

help to identify the level of IT integration and contribution to businesses. Many relate to involvement of IT in strategic and tactical level decisions and participation of IT organization members in organizational discussions. Here are some examples of pointers:1. To whom does the CIO report?2. Does the CIO participate in senior-

most executive council meetings? Is he in the Board of Directors?

3. What is IT’s image? Is it considered as service provider, as business enabler or as value creator?

4. Do businesses acknowledge IT as partner?

5. Are IT managers invited to important business meetings and conferences?

6. Does IT participate in business reviews?

7. Are daily operations computerised? Do users accept technology in their day-to-day working? Answers to such questions can

reveal the assimilation of IT in day-to-day working and the usage and the organization’s technology culture. The status can be enhanced through various ways and means, some of which are mentioned below.

Ensuring alignmentThere are various ways in which

organizations bring together the perspectives of business managers and IT organization:1. Cross-functional teams - is an effective

way to handle this. It includes the involvement of businesses in IT at

Table 1

RelationshipFrom a survey of 131 firms Rival (2006) concluded positive influence of alignment on the Internet-related performance of the firms

AssociationKearns (2006) studied 161 companies and found that the top management support of strategic information systems planning (SISP) is strongly and significantly associated with strategic IS management

IT performanceMin et al (1999) offered an integrated approach to strategic information systems planning and reported from their case study from Korean banking industry that the SISP procedure reduced the project period dramatically, besides solving many problems encountered earlier

Business performanceMentzas (1997) presented case study of a bank following team approach for its strategic implementation planning. He reported that the bank increased revenue seven times during period of two years and ascended from 10th to 4th place in the country’s list of banks


different stages in varying degrees e.g. some make special attempts to include businesses a. in IT governance b. at the requirements specifica-

tions stage c. at the operational level

2. Functional Boards - some companies institute global functional boards to ensure the business alignment. These functional boards decide on the business requirements and IT follows those requirements with fulfilment. Businesses decide ‘what’ and IT does ‘how’. In large global organizations the “Finance Board” or “HR Board” or “Marketing Board” approves the relevant processes and the deployment models to ensure consistency and harmonization in all organizational units around the globe. Every IT project has to be tabled in the related board before launching. Such a move helps to identify the project ownership as well.

3. Committee model - At the local level, three-committees model works well: beginning with the User Platform, then the IT Council and then a Steering Committee. Such a model works well in a divisionalized business conglomerate with divisional IT teams that focus on providing specialized IT services to businesses. The user platform brings in the operational focus while the other two contribute to tactical and strategic aspects.

4. Workshop method - is another popular way to align with businesses. Under facilitation of the consultant,

the company conducts structured workshops with business managers to arrive at the requirements. The consulting firms offer their facilitation expertise and the field experience to maximize the workshop outcomes. The workshops are conducted with business participants and IT at various levels covering all strata of the organization. As a process, the IT projects have

to emanate taking into account the high level external factors for enterprise, the business goals and then the IT enablement developing into project ideas. These ideas need to be vetted through project portfolio board balancing risks and returns and only approved projects need to be put in deployment. It is the IT project initiation process and the deep involvement of businesses that ensures aligned IT with business resulting in organizational performance. It keeps open clear communication lines between IT and businesses helping in quick adjustment of IT capacities as required by business exigencies. Figure 2 depicts the factors that help achieving the Business-IT alignment.

FutureIn most discussions and platforms it

emerges that it is the responsibility of IT to align itself to business. There is every reason to challenge this. IT has come a long way now embedding itself more and more into business. The services, especially financial, can hardly think of business sans technology. It is vital to acknowledge that the alignment is a joint responsibility of IT and business; IT or CIO alone cannot ensure the alignment (Chan

Cross-functional

Teams

Functional Boards

WorkshopsIT Portfolio

Management

Business-IT Alignment

Committees

IT Governance

Engaging Business

Involving Business

and Reich, 2007). He emphasizes that executives and line managers should try to improve coordination with IT; actions of IT managers are not enough to achieve this coordination. While concluding Chan proclaimed that “the alignment remains an important but elusive goal”.

An important aspect to bear in mind is that of the changing business scenario and the external factors. It is quite likely that finely balanced IT-Business alignment and coordination may get vitiated with the shifting market forces and business strategies. CIO needs to assess status periodically, may be every six months, and revisit the policies making necessary adjustments in processes and structure to ensure continued integration benefits.

Bibliography � Chan, Y. and Reich, B. (2007) IT

alignment: What have we learned? Journal of Information Technology 22: 297-315

� Gold, R. (2002) Enabling the strategy-focused IT organization Information Systems Control Journal 4

� Kearns, G. (2006) The effect of top management support of SISP on strategic IS management: Insights from the US electric power industry The International Journal of Management Science 34: 236-253

� Lederer, A. and Sethi, V. (1988)The implementation of strategic information systems planning methodologies MIS Quarterly 12(3)

� Marwaha, S. and Willmott, P. (2006) Managing IT for scale, speed and innovation McKinsey on IT Fall 2006

� Mentzas, G. (1997) Implementing an IS strategy – A team approach Long Range Planning 30(1)

� Min, S., Suh, E. and Kim, S. (1999) An integrated approach towards strategic information systems planning Journal of Strategic Information Systems 8

� Nickels, D. and Janz, B. (2010) Organization culture: Another piece of the IT-Business alignment puzzle Journal of Information Technology Management XXI(3): 1-14

� Rival, Y. (2006) Explaining the internet-related performance from the alignment point of view Proceedings of the Twelfth Americas Conference on Information Systems, Acapulco, Mexico August 2006

� Sabherwal, R. and Chan, Y. (2001) Alignment between business and IS strategies: A study of defenders, prospectors and analyzers Information Systems Journal 12(1)

� Segars, A. and Grover, V. (1999) Profiles of strategic information systems planning Information Systems Research 10(3)

n


HR

Introductione-Government encompasses a wide

range of activities, that may be broadly classified into three distinct areas: government-to-government (G to G),government-to-citizens (G to C), and government to business (G to B). Successful e-governance initiatives facilitated by ICT (Information Communication Technology) can lead to improved accessibility to information and services to a larger group of citizens, reduced costs, and increased accountability. India has a promising vision of its e-governance programme. Government departments like Customs and Excise, Railways, Postal Department and Passport / Visa etc. have begun using ICT to provide services to citizens. Though certain projects like Bhoomi – Automation of Land Records (State Government of Karnataka) and Gyandoot- Intranet in Tribal District of Dhar (State Government of Madhya Pradesh) have been successful, at present there exists a gap between desired level of service delivery and reality in the country. There are various reasons related to technology, planning, implementation, lack of proper infrastructure and human resources that are responsible for this lag. Due to these challenges India’s rank in the U.N. 2010 e-Governance Readiness Index fell to 119 from 113 in 2008, compared to 87 in 2005. This continuous fall in position indicates that there is a serious need to review the situation and identify the factors responsible for this slack.

Changes in work environment due to ICT

Let us take a look at changes brought about by introduction of ICT in working. Tapscott and Caston [1] argue that ICT causes a “paradigm shift” introducing “the age of network intelligence”, and reinventing businesses, governments and individuals. The traditional bureaucratic set-up, characterized by internal productive efficiency, functional rationality, departmentalization, hierarchical control and rule-based

management (Kaufman) [2], is being replaced by competitive, knowledge based economy requirements, such as: flexibility, network organization, vertical/horizontal integration, innovative entrepreneurship, organization learning, speed up in service delivery, and a customer driven strategy. E-Government paradigm, which emphasizes coordinated network building, external collaboration and customer services, also fits into these changes (Ho) [3].

G2C, G2G, G2B, all require effective teamwork. The bureaucratic set-up of Indian government organizations has laid emphasis on the role of the individual, with little opportunities for teamwork. Service delivery in e-governance systems requires interactions between different departments at various levels; therefore, members should be encouraged to work in a team for effective problem solving (Gupta) [4]. Nandan [5] views organizations that adopt e-governance as learning organizations where continuous innovation is required. Rigid bureaucratic systems are not conducive towards creating a suitable environment for e-governance, as it would demand, like any other learning organization, a lot of flexibility in its operations.

Thus e-governance requires lot of changes in the job content and job context. This implies that policy makers for e-governance and top management in organizations need to understand that introduction of computers in the workplace should not simply mean learning to operate computers. Installing computers in organizations without creating an appropriate environment and preparing employees to work in a changed work environment, with changing roles, is akin to having hardware without software.

Challenges in e-Governance in IndiaThe key challenges with electronic

governance are not technology or internet-related issues. Rather, the predominance is of organizational issues, including (a) redefining rules and procedures (b) infrastructure, skill

and awareness (c) interdepartmental collaboration and (d) tendency to resist the change in work culture [6]. Ahmed [7] identified that there is a severe lack of in-house IT expertise to solve even minor problems. There is an acute shortage of staff even the leading Indian states in the provision of e-governance. Problems also lie in the planning processes. There is a lack of coordination among the various departments of the Union government with each other and with the states (Sebastian) [8]. Certain gaps have been identified in building capacity for e-governance (Narayana Murthy) [9] which include (a) Lack of personnel with appropriate background and aptitude (b) inadequate skill sets of personnel already deployed (c) inadequate expertise and skills within the state training institutions to lead training programme for policy makers.

An exploratory survey was conducted by the author in four government offices of different departments in Uttar Pradesh in September 2011. Semi-structured interviews conducted with 30 employees of the State Government and Central Government revealed that these employees strongly feel the need for better infrastructure for e-governance. They received the training just two-three times in last five years for using computers in their day to day work, and that they are not yet totally comfortable using computers. They expressed the need for better designed training programmes in different areas, besides those on computer usage. It was found that the higher level officials had a very little or no role in motivating or facilitating employees to adapt in the changed work environment. The infrastructure was found to be in a poor state. In most of these government offices, the number of computers were not sufficient and even those present were very old and virus afflicted, as there were no anti-virus packages available. This survey revealed that even the basic requirements in terms of infrastructure and training for e-governance have not been met.

Dr. Shefali Nandan

Faculty,SchoolofManagementStudies,MotilalNehruNationalInstituteofTechnology,Allahabad

Trainingfore-Governance: Does Culture Hold a Key?


Cultural characteristics of IndiaConsidering these issues and looking

at continuously dipping position of India in UN surveys (mentioned earlier), it is essential to closely analyze the problems to identify their root cause. These problems could be stemming from the cultural characteristics of India. Culture refers to values, beliefs, practices and customs of people. Sharma and Palvia [10] propose that cultural barriers for effective e-government programme implementation exist at employee level, officers’ level and political level. Cultural characteristics of India may be acting as barriers towards creating a suitable environment and implementing changes for e-governance.

Hofstede’s [11] cultural dimensions of ‘Power Distance’ (extent to which the less powerful members feel that power is unequally distributed in organization) and ‘Individualism’ (tendency of people care about themselves and their immediate family only) have been found to affect e-government readiness of a country. High individualism (countries where individual rights are paramount) accompanied with smaller power distance (those countries which allow upward social mobility of its citizens) characterized a society in which e-Government readiness is at the higher level than in the collectivistic countries with larger power distance (Kovačič) [12]. India is high on ‘Power Distance Index’ and moderately low on ‘individualism’. By this account, it should have low e-government readiness.

Another cultural characteristic of India is that it has a ‘High context’ culture (Hall and Hall)[13] . Such cultures are slow to change and time is open and flexible, where people do not stick to fixed time limits for doing things.

Also, India has a ‘Family’ type of corporate culture, which is characterized by strong orientation to hierarchy, and those in charge are respected like a parent and looked up for guidance and approval (Tromepanaars) [14].

Issues in Training for e-governance: Culture as a key

If a skilled workforce, equipped with all the necessary skills, can be built with the help of appropriate training programs, many problems related to planning and implementation of e-governance programmes can be overcome. Training programmes for e-governance should focus not just on technical aspects, but also towards changing the mindset of

government employees so that they are ready to embrace the changes in their work environment. Keeping in mind the cultural aspects that affect the adoption and implementation of new practices, key issues for providing training to employees need to be identified with a new perspective. Seminars and workshops may also be organized for such purposes. It is suggested that training programmes may particularly address the following issues:

� Leadership: Leadership is one of the main driving forces of every new initiative. This is particularly true for a country like India with ‘Family’ type of corporate culture, wherein the head of the organization controls every activity. For an initiative like e-Governance, which is fraught with various challenges, the role of the leader becomes very important. Effective leadership is necessary at all stages of project implementation. Before the project is initiated, leadership is needed in order to explain the concept, and create awareness, and motivate people to learn to adapt new processes and work methods; during the project, leadership is needed to manage change, facilitate people and system, and provide resources; and after the project, it is needed to evaluate the overall process and then plan and implement corrective actions and changes. In this context, top leadership involvement for making management improvements are critical for building and maintaining the organization- wide motivation towards adopting new ways of government working. Specific leadership training programmes may be designed that suit the needs of top, middle and lower level employees.

� Change Management: DeLisi [15] identifies culture as the primary driver of strategic organizational change. Being aware of an organization’s culture is already a big step towards a higher capacity to change (Hassard and Sharifi) [16]. There may be two broad categories of problems related to change management:

i) Coping with changed structure and power equations: Implementing e-governance tends to redefine structure and power equations within departments. Power is redistributed amongst various employee levels.

Hierarchy is the most traditional of cultural values of a government bureaucracy and in many ways its defining feature with different amount of power inherent in different positions. Since India is a High Power Distance country, this redistribution of power may be threatening to certain employees due to perceived insecurities. The first challenge is to clearly identify the extent to which these can be harmonized. This forms the basis of a credible and effective change management plan. Right from the inception stage of project, these problems need to be anticipated and time to time training programmes/workshops may be organized to address the need for empowerment and power redistribution for effective implementation of e-governance initiatives.

ii) Changed work processes: Employees get habitual of doing work in a particular way. In most of the government departments work was done manually. E-governance process completely changes the way the work is to be handled. Being a high context culture country, where culture is slow to adopting changes, it is essential that employees are continuously educated about the advantages of new processes through continuous coaching by their superiors, and other means. The objective is to change the mindset of employees towards adopting change.

� Developing new competencies: Use of ICT in work requires new competencies in government employees. These include, besides knowledge of IT, ability to work in a team, innovativeness, ability to appreciate changes, customer (citizen) orientation, coordination, sticking to deadlines, participative approach towards decision making and flexibility. Therefore, top management must plan for providing training for developing these competencies in employees. Employees should be motivated to make an effort to learn from the training programmes. Such organizations need to develop a culture where experts, not persons or roles are important. Deeply entrenched values of ‘family culture’ will oppose this. Leaders can define their strategies to bring this


transformation. This is important because of India having High Context culture, which is slow to adopting change. Government departments, in addition to retraining employees for new competencies, need to have an access to external experts also. Therefore, employees should be open to reaching out to external support. As of now, in-house expertise on ICT in government departments does not seem to be sufficient. For example, in the survey conducted by the author, employees were found to be struggling with the problem of virus in computer and were unable to get rid of it. Such problems affect the performance of projects.

� General IT Training: As computers become more pervasive, it is necessary to impart training to existing employees in use of computers for general purposes like word processing, spreadsheet, power point, etc. Organizations like the National Informatics Centre (NIC) or private training institutions provide such trainings but the number of people who need training is very large. It was found that only one-fourth of the employees received computer training in around 35 per cent of local governments. (Centre for Development Studies)[17]. This finding was supported by the survey conducted by the author where it was found that that employees were not satisfied with the frequency of the training programmes. Some of them had received such training only once , that too about five years back! Therefore, they were not satisfied even with their knowledge of computer. The field of IT is very dynamic; therefore to reap some benefits from IT, training ought to be organized more frequently, covering large number of such employees.

� Communication - Communication patterns in ICT enabled service organizations are very different from that in bureaucratic structure. The

typical bureaucratic set-up has mostly downward flow of communication, with upward communication existing usually for reporting and occasionally for suggestions. In contrast, an organization that is changing due to introduction of ICT requires free communication flow in all directions so as to create an environment of trust, openness, participation and innovation. Top level management must be open to changing the existing communication patterns in organizations. Other employees too must be trained to appreciate the need and adopt new communication patterns.

The shift from being an ‘organization ‘to becoming ‘e-organization’ affects organization structure and management styles as it results into re-distribution of power and control. It also changes the orientation of the organization. Therefore, meticulously planned efforts addressing the real problems are required to be made. Cultural patterns of the country can provide a useful key, both for identifying the problems and ways to overcome them. The need is to create a rich and adaptable culture that encourages values such as team work, empowerment, trust, and sharing which is opposed to closed, rigid and mechanistic bureaucratic structure of the government organizations. The capacities are to be built in individuals and in institutions. Those involved in policy making for Capacity Building and trainers for e–government training must take a look at cultural barriers in India so as to hit the nail on its head. References[1] Tapscott, D. and Caston, A. (1993).

Paradigm Shift: The New Promise of Information Technology, McGraw-Hill: New York.

[2] Kaufman, H. (1977). Red Tape: Its Origins, Uses and Abuses, Washington, DC:Brookings Institution.

[3] Ho, T.K. (2002). Reinventing Local Governments and the E-Government Initiative, Public Administration Review, 62, 4, 434-444

[4] Gupta, D.N. (2006). Need for Organization Development in e-Governance . In Sahu, G.P. (ed), Delivering e-Government, pp160-

169. Delhi: Gift Publishing[5] Nandan, S. (2009). E-Government:

Good Deliverance through Effective Performance Management, in Chhabra, S. and Kumar, M (eds). Integrating e-Business Models for Government Solutions, 138-164, Information Science Reference: Hershey, New York

[6] http://www.it.iitb.ac.in/~prathabk/egovernance/challenges.html, accessed on 19 September 2011

[7] Ahmad, I. (2004). Why does e-governance fail? http://www.dqindia.com/content/guest/2004, in Gilmore, A. & D’Souza, C. (2006) Service excellence in egovernance issues: An Indian case study, JOAAG, 1(1).

[8] Sebastian, P.T. (2008). The Card Trick, Outlook Business, April20-May03, 34

[9] Narayana Murty , N.R. (n.d.). Human Capital for e-Governance, www.nisg.org/home.php?page=humancapital.php&PHPSESSID=311d6bdb10c76a0a894f773752c26a1d, accessed 20 September2011

[10] Sharma, S.K. and Palvia, S. (2004). Organizational and Cultural Barriers to e-Government Implementation in India. In Gupta, MP (ed), Towrads e-Government: Management Challenges, 217-227. New Delhi: Tata McGraw-Hill Publishing Company

[11] Hofstede, G. (1991). Culture and Organization: Software of the Mind. London: McGraw-Hill , UK

[12] Kovačič, Z. J. (2005). The Impact of National Culture on Worldwide e-Government Readiness, Informing Science Journal, 8, available athttp://inform.nu/Art ic les/Vol8/v8p143-158Kova.pdf

[13] Hall, E.T. and Hall, M.R. (1990). Understanding Cultural Differences, Yarmouth, ME: Intercultural

[14] Trompenaars, F. (1994). Riding the Waves of Culture: Understanding Diversity in Global Business. Burr Ridge, IL: Irwin

[15] DeLisi, P.S. (1990). Lessons from the Steel Axe: Culture, Technology and Organization Change, Sloan Management Review, 32, 1, 83-93.

[16] Hassard, J. and Sharifi, S. (1989). Corporate Culture and Strategic Change, Journal of General Management, 15, 2, 4-19.

[17] E-Governance in Local Governments of Kerala: Analyzing Institutional Issues (2010). Research Unit on Local Self Governments (RULSG), Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram n

About the AuthorDr. Shefali Nandan, Faculty, School of Management Studies, Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology, Allahabad. She did her Ph.D. in the area of Human Resource Management. She has a teaching experience of about ten years. Her areas of interest are cross cultural management, human resource management and e-governance.

(The author acknowledges the assistance of Mr. Prateek Srivastava, MBA student, Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology, Allahabad, in gathering data for the survey used in the study).


Boss, you have better think twice before obtaining UID card as of now we are not on record with the Police Department. Roji roti ka sawal hai (question of livelihood)

CLUES

Brain Teaser Debasish JanaEditor,CSICommunications

Crossword »Test your Knowledge on eGovernance initiatives in IndiaSolution to the crossword will appear in the next issue. Send your answers to CSI Communications at email address [email protected].

ACROSS1. Indian Customs EDI Gateway Project (7)3. Integrated community service centre initiative of

Himachal Pradesh (5)4. E-Governance plan from Orissa (4)6. A citizen-centric service delivery from District Health

Society of UP (8)7. Data Management System of Income TaX Dept (5)9. Act that mandates timely response to citizen requests for

Govt information (3)11. Community centers spread out among community (3)14. Indian permanent account number (3)16. Tea Board of India Kolkata initiative (8)19. First Indian State to announce IT policy (9)20. A GIS based Property Tax Information System (6)21. Kerata State eGOV initiative (7)23. First Indian District to go online (9)26. Wide Area Network in West Bengal offering the

backbone for eGov projects (6)28. Initiative from Justice Department of Rajasthan (5)29. Indian Railways initiative (5)30. An MP Govt project to connect rural cybercafes (8)

DOWN2. Karnataka’s computerised constituency management

system (5)3. A sales tax management software project of Bihar (7)5. Citizen services of Govt of Andhra Pradesh (5)8. Computerisation of land records in Uttaranchal (9)10. MP Govt’s iniriative for call centre for citizen facilitation (12)12. A smart card-based driving license eGov project (7)13. Unique identification project initiative (5)15. Name of Gujrat’s eGov project on attention on grievances

by application of technology (6)16. Rajasthan’s initiative towards speech application through

automated communication help (8)17. Biometrics centre of competence (4) 18. Gram Panchayatha Online System of Karnataka (11)22. Agricultural information service network initiative from

Tamil Nadu (8)24. A 12 digit individual unique identification number issued

by GoI (7)25. Number of Rajya Sabha members nominated by President

of India (6)27. State Wide Area Network of Andhra Pradesh (6)

Solution for August 2011

Congratulations to Mr. Purushothama Tulupule (Asst. Prof., Dept. of MCA, Srinivas Inst. of Technology, Merlapadavu, Mangalore)

for getting all correct answer to September month’s crossword.

ITEDUCATION

FORALL

1M

2S

3B

4K

L5C O G N I T I O N

6G O O G L E

7X O N O

A S R8

B A U D W

R9

L10C M S R L

N O Y E

I U11A

12P D F

13S C A N N E R

14C S G

Q G15

S L A16

J17C O D E C

L18

B E 19I S P I

20B

21E A W E I

22P I X E L B A

23

P24

N G

T25

E U D O R A E26

E A W E T

D27

F R I S28

Z29U R L N D

30C M I

31A V I T

32X A

33P O R T A L

S N34H T M L P

H G L35

P E D A G O G Y

1 2

3

4 5

6 7 8

9 10

11 12

13 14 15

16 17

18 19

20

21 22

23 24 25

26 27

28

29

30


Ask an Expert Dr. Debasish JanaEditor,CSICommunications

Your Question, Our Answer“Your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer.”

~ William S. Burroughs

What will happen if I say delete this in C++ ?

R Lakshmi Aparna3rdB.Tech,(Jt.SecretaryofCSIStudentBranch)

ComputerSc.andEngg.,PragatiEngineeringCollege-Surampalem,AndhraPradesh

A Let’s reiterate the usage of the delete operator in C++ first. The delete operator destroys the object created with operator new by deallocating the memory associated with the object. If a dynamically allocated memory is no longer needed, it is freed so that the occupied memory blocks become available for future requests of dynamic memory allocations. The delete operator has a void return type. It has the following syntax:

delete pointer; or

delete [] pointer; The first expression should be used to delete memory

allocated for a single element, and the second one for memory allocated for multiple elements (dynamic arrays created through new call). The operand of delete must be a pointer returned by operator new call, and cannot be a pointer to constant. If operator new call fails, the pointer returned by new will have a zero value (NULL). However, it can still be used with delete. Deleting a null pointer has no effect.

If you have defined a destructor for a class, delete invokes that destructor. Whether a destructor exists or not, delete frees the storage pointed to by calling the function operator delete() of the class if one exists. If users do not provide destructor for a class, then the compiler generates a default destructor, however, the generated destructor may not have the intended memory deallocations.

Now, let’s see what is meant by this pointer.The keyword this identifies a special type of pointer. When a

non-static member function is called, the this pointer is a constant (i.e. const means non-modifiable) pointer to the object for which the function was called. One cannot declare the this pointer or make assignments to it. The type of the this pointer in some class, say X is as follows:

Type of member function Type of this pointer

nonstatic member function X * const

nonstatic member function with const qualifier

const X * const

sttaic member function not used

The this pointer is passed as an extra argument (hidden) to all non-static member function calls. It is available as a local variable within the body of all non-static functions.

Now, if you call “delete this;” then this means that you are calling the destructor to free up the memory used by the object. While within the non-static member function (because only non-static member functions have this pointer available as a local argument), if you are attempting to destroy the current object for which the member function is being called, then the effect of “delete this;” destroys the current object and the next statement, if any, remains after the call is defunct as the object exists no more. For example,classX{voidf1();voidf2();...

intmx;intmy;};voidX::f1(){intlx=mx;//okdeletethis;//oops,killingselflx++;//lxislocal,noproblemmx++;//unsafe!mxdoesn’texistf2();}voidX::f2(){//thispointerisinvalidasthe//objecthasbeendestroyedwithinf1mx++;//unsafe!mxdoesn’texist}

As such, you must be very cautious if you call “delete this;”, only when the object is not required any more after this statement. Ideally, “delete this;” should never be called. However, if you have overloaded new operator and that does not allocate memory rather have a location pre-allocated of some sort, then you may manage avoiding the deallocation but you must be extremely cautious.

Never ever dare to call “delete this’” within a destructor. That will cause infinite recursion, as delete calls the destructor. Also, never call within a constructor. In fact, even better, never call.

There was an old story about poet Kalidasa that he was cutting the tree branch on which he was sitting. So, be cautious!

ReferenceDebasish Jana, C++ and Object-Oriented Programming Paradigm, PHI Learning Private Limited, 2005, ISBN: 978-81-203-2871-6.

Send your questions to CSI Communications with subject line ‘Ask an Expert’ at email address [email protected]


Happenings@ICT H R MohanChairman,Div.IVCSI,AVP(Systems),TheHindu,Chnenai.Email:[email protected]

ICT news briefs in September 2011

The following are the India specific ICT news and headlines in Sep 2011. They have been compiled from various news & Internet sources including the financial dailies -- The Hindu Business Line, Economic Times.

Voices & Views � The sales of smartphones would exceed 420m by year-end,

accounting for 28% of the global handset market.-- IMS Research.

� Smartphones are more ‘prone to cyber attacks’ – Trend Micro � India’s computer sales are projected to grow at 35% in FY12,

more than double the pace in previous year. – MAIT. � A study by Norton indicates that the cost of global cybercrime

is $114 b annually. � In India, an estimated 29.9 m people are said to have

become victims to cybercrime last year, suffering $4 b in direct financial losses and an additional $3.6 b in time spent resolving the crime.

� Large enterprises may never move fully to cloud. – Gartner � BPO market: Greater China will outpace India in 5 years –

Ovum, research firm. � Weak rupee could push up PC prices by 4-6% � European crisis not to hit Indian IT -- Som Mittal, President,

Nasscom. � The Indian cloud computing market opportunity is expected

to reach $ 16 b by 2020. – Study by Nasscom & Deloitte � India’s Green IT spend to reach $ 70 b by 2015 -- Gartner

Telecom, Govt, Policy, Compliance

� BSNL proposes setting up a common wireless network for rural areas..

� Tamil Nadu Government’s free distribution of 9.12 lakh laptops in the current financial year to students of Govt. and Govt. aided schools and colleges have started.

� Finance Ministry is for a Special Purpose Vehicle and not BSNL to set up broadband network at a cost of Rs. 20,100 cr.

� Over 850 m telephone users are set to get respite from unwanted calls and SMS from telemarketers from Sep. 27.

� The US Govt. has raised concerns over a number of India’s telecom related policies.

� The Telecom Ministry has given its nod to National Frequency Allocation Plan .

� There will be a need for 6000 Gbps (compared with 750 Gbps in 2010) of bandwidth in the next three years to support all the demand. -- TRAI

� The MoCIT has proposed to set up “Spectrum Management Commission”.

� 2G: Finance Ministry note casts shadow on Chidambaram’s role.

� The proposed income tax reimbursement incentive scheme for IT units could have initial corpus of Rs 5,000 crore to promote investment in the sector. – DG, STPI

� The UIDAI has generated over 3.11 crore ‘Aadhaar’ numbers till Sep 1.

� DoIT expects 11 states to adopt e-payment gateway by March, 2012.

� India to join the race to develop new generation of powerful supercomputers and is mulling for allocating Rs 6,000 crore for the purpose in the 12th plan.

IT Manpower, Staffing & Top Moves � Mahindra Satyam plans pay hike of 12% for offshore staff and

2.5% for onsite. � Akamai Technologies, content delivery Network Company,

focusing to hire people with strong math skills for its R&D team.

� KPIT Cummins Infosystems to hire 2,000 this year, for the auto vertical.

� Mr Ratan Tata releases the book “The TCS Story...and Beyond”, authored by Mr S. Ramadorai, Vice-Chairman, TCS.

� MAIT appoints Dr Alok Bharadwaj, Sr. VP, Canon India, as its new President. Mr. J.V. Ramamurthy, President and COO, HCL Infosystems, as Vice-President for 2011-12.

� Mr B.V.R. Mohan Reddy, CMD, Infotech Enterprises, received the American Society of Mechanical Engineers Leadership award for the year 2011.

� Dell which has two billion online interactions with clients annually with a revenue of over $13 b a year has in a unique initiative identified 3,000 of its employees as its online ambassadors.

� US Republican Presidential hopeful Mr Mitt Romney has favoured raising the visa caps for highly-skilled overseas workers.

Company News: Tie-ups, Joint Ventures, New Initiatives

� BSNL launches Mobile applications – Digital Mandi developed by IIT Kanpur to enable farmers to know ‘mandi’ rates on their mobile phone & Intelligent Mobile Social Networking Platform – similar to Facebook and Orkut developed by IIT Mumbai

� IMI Mobile launches “My SMS” an application to SMS in local language.

� HP launches VirtualSystem for VMware, to provide a foundation for cloud computing.

� AT&T may soon act as a business incubator for a handful of telecom focused technology start-ups in India.

� Omnitech Info Solutions to offer REVIVE, a disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS) — based on the cloud computing model for SMBs.

� CSC has bought AppLabs Technologies, the Hyderabad-based testing tools and quality management company, for an undisclosed consideration.

� Kaspersky Lab appoints Sachin Tendulkar as brand ambassador. n


Quiz Mrs. Jayshree A DhereResidentEditor,CSICommunications

Test what you learnt while reading CSI Communications [HINT: Questions are based on Cover Stories, CIO Perspective and HR column in April 2011 (Mobile Application Development) and May 2011 (Cloud Computing) issues of CSI Communications. You may send your answers to [email protected] Correct answers will appear in the next issue.]1) Lazy loading of resources and designing user interfaces that

can be unloaded from memory on demand are the tactics, which developers need to resort to, when coding for a. Cloud computing applicationsb. Applications for mobile devicesc. Business Analyticsd. Applications for autonomic computing

2) While architecting mobile software applications, the best organization to follow is –a. Layered architectureb. Broker architecturec. Model-View-Controllerd. None of the above

3) Detection of Alzheimer’s disease, fall detection and sight for blind are some of the medical applications developed on Android powered mobile systems. These applications typically make use of following feature(s) of smart phones –a. Built-in accelerometersb. GPS and camerac. Microphone and other sensorsd. All of the above

4) Which of the following are examples of various IT Strategy strands?a. Strategy management, IT governance and Value from ITb. IT governance, Green IT and IT strategy formulationc. Consumerization of IT, Technology and Social

perspectived. Globalization and Emergence of new acquisition and

delivery models of IT systems and services.5) In recent times, HR function has evolved and broadened in

scope and functionality and assumed varied roles such as “people’s people”, “change agent” and “strategic business partner” etc. Which of the following activities have got embedded into HR role in recent times?a. Employee engagementb. Talent acquisition and retentionc. Induction & training as well as performance appraisalsd. All of the above.

6) Aneka is a distributed application platform for developing cloud applications. Which of the following statements in the context of Aneka is FALSE?a. The platform is based on extensible Service Oriented

Architecture (SOA)b. Aneka middleware provides a homogeneous distributed

runtime environment for applications, which is built by aggregating together physical and virtual nodes hosting Aneka container.

c. Aneka container hosts three different classes of services viz. Fabric services, Foundation services and Application Programming services.

d. Developing elastic and scalable applications with Aneka is a very simple task.

7) Many businesses, both large and small, have successfully begun using ‘Software-as-a-Service’ Clouds for :a. Applications like Accounting and Payrollb. Communication solutions like email, chat and document

managementc. Functions such HR and CRMd. None of the above

8) Service level assurance is very important in the context of cloud service offerings. But public cloud offerings are virtually all accessed over the public Internet and public Internet does not guarantee any SLA on response time. Therefore, to offer guaranteed SLA, TCS’s iON cloud offerings make use of –a. IPSEC-level VPNs over the Internet, which also provide

enhanced security.b. MPLS VPNs for enhanced performance.c. ISDN lines for continuous availability.d. Dedicated leased lines.

9) Which of the following statements is NOT TRUE in case of cloud computing?a. Some of the key open issues in cloud computing are

Software Licensing, Security - Privacy & Trust, and Cloud ‘lock-in’ worries & interoperability.

b. Windows Azure platform consists of SQL Azure and the .NET services and Windows Azure application development mandates the use of SQL Azure as RDBMS functionality.

c. Key value of Google App Engine is that developers can rapidly build small web based applications on their machine and deploy them on the cloud.

d. Force.com provides the best approach for Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) for developing CRM based applications.

10) Which of the following is the MOST appropriate statement in the context of management discipline for IT strategy? a. World-class processes won’t produce success without

the right strategic direction and the best strategy won’t get anywhere without strong operations to execute it.

b. Inculcating strategy management as a core function has greater implications for organizational management in the 21st century than even the Balanced Scorecard.

c. In many large firms, CIOs have IT strategy cells responsible for strategy development and the accepted strategy is deployed by a larger team of IT professionals.

d. Common perception of many business managers is that their IT is not up to the mark, and the reason for this lies in the boundary-less, ever-escalating expectations and the pace of IT delivery on ground. n


On the Shelf!

Book Review »

Conceptual Programming Tips for Interviews and Competitive Exams Tricky Problems and Solutions

Book Title : Conceptual Programming Tips for Interviews and Competitive Exams Tricky Problems and Solutions

Author : Jitender Kumar Chhabra

ISBN : ISBN-13: 978-0-07-132993-4 ISBN-10: 0-07-132993-5

Printed Pages : 358

Print Edition Price : Not mentioned in book

Publisher : Tata McGraw Hill Education Private Limited, New Delhi

Dr. Suneeta SaneProfessorandDeanR&D,VJTI,Mumbai

A book titled “Conceptual Programming Tips for Interviews and Competitive Exams - Tricky Problems and Solutions”authored by Prof. Jitender Kumar Chhabra is received in CSI library for review. Book is written keeping in mind undergraduate, post graduate level candidates like BE/B. Tech. in Computer Science, Information Technology and M. Sc. (Computer Science/IT) and Computer Applications (BCA/MCA) students, who program in C language but lack in the language nuances. Currently competitive examinations with knowledge of Computer Science are based on the basic programming skills. The book may prove useful for individuals, who intend to appear for such competitive exams. The organization of every chapter in the book starts with a recap of a concept, followed by tips to remember, true or false questions and programming exercises. Exercises are well ordered from simple to complex. There are many solved examples, where an attempt is made to help clear possible doubts, which readers may come across. n

Dear CSI Colleagues,

The elections for various posts of CSI National Executive Committee, Nomination Committee and for management Committees of various chapters of the society are due to be held in December 2011 - January 2012. The election process will start by the announcement on Call for Nominations. The process of nominations, issue of ballot paper and the voting will be electronic through online balloting process.

It is our endeavour that the ballots are received in large numbers and only the most competent and suitable candidates are elected.

We, the present members of nomination committee therefore, request you toi) Make corrections in your email IDs and telephone numbers available with the CSI.ii) Help in identifying the correct addresses/email ID’s of persons with whom CSI HQ is unable to contact.iii) Nominate competent & experienced persons of your choice suitable for the respective positions.iv) Please do cast your vote as a matter of your right and also a duty.

If you have any question, please contact us by email or through CSI communications.

Yours truly

Dr. A K Nayak (Chairman) E-mail: [email protected]. P R Rangaswamy E-mail: [email protected]. Sanjay Mohanty E-mail: [email protected]

CSI Nominations Committee 2011-2012 E-mail: [email protected]

CSI Elections 2012-2013 / 2012-2014



CSI ElECtIonS 2012-2013 / 2012-2014

Dear CSI Members,Under Byelaw 5.1.1 of the Computer Society of India, the

Nominations Committee (NC) is required to invite appropriate groups of members to submit names of Voting Members for considering them for the various elective offices of the ExecCom and the Nominations Committee as well as Chapter Elections.

Members are accordingly invited to submit the names of candidates who are valid Voting Members for the following elective offices:

For the Term 2012-2013 (April 1, 2012 – March 31, 2013)1. Vice-President cum President Elect2. Nominations Committee (3 members).

For the Term 2012-2014 (April 1, 2012 – March 31, 2014)1. Hony. Secretary

2. Regional Vice-President (Region II) � Assam, Bihar, West Bengal, North Eastern States and other

areas in East & North-East India

3. Regional Vice-President (Region IV) � Jharkhand, Chattisgarh, Orissa and other areas in Central &

South Eastern India.

4. Regional Vice-President (Region VI) � Maharashtra and Goa.

5. Regional Vice-President (Region VIII) � International Members

6. Divisional Chairperson (Division II) – Software.

7. Divisional Chairperson (Division IV) – Communications

The proposal for Nomination should be accompanied by:1. Signed letter/E-mail from at least 2 valid voting members

proposing the Nominee.

2. A signed letter/E-mail from the Nominee confirming:2.1 Acceptance to stand for election to the nominated office.2.2 Willingness to devote adequate time for the Society’s work.2.3 Commitment to attend at least 3 ExecCom Meetings in a year

(Not for Nominees to NC).

3. Passport size Photograph (printed or digital) in High Resolution.4. Statement of Intent on how the nominee intends to serve the

Computer Society of India.5. Bio-data in the following suggested format:

1. Name :2. CSI Membership No. :3. CSI Membership since :4. Divisions in which the candidate is member : i) ii)5. E-mail address :6. Date of Birth (Age) :7. Postal Address :8. Phone/ Mobile/ Fax Nos. :9. Educational Qualifications :10. Publications – relevant to the office being nominated for:11. Contribution to the IT profession:12. Contribution made to CSI13. Experience - relevant to the position nominated for :14. Honours/ Professional Recognition:15. Other Relevant Information :16. In case of Nominees who are holding or have held An Elected post in CSI in the last 3 years:

a. Positions heldb. Statements of Intent submitted for the above positionsc. Results achieved/action taken against the details

mentioned in Statement of Intent.Note-1 : If the name of any Nominee appears for more than one Office, the Nominations Committee will be empowered to decide on the office for which he/she should contest. The

NC will take into consideration any e-mail or signed written preferences submitted by the nominee received prior to the last date of nominations.

Note-2 : Nominees will NOT be considered in the following cases:(a) Nominees with pending dues to CSI or(b) Where Disciplinary action has been taken or(c) Nominees with pending issues with the Disciplinary

Committee.The last date for receipt of proposals is November 12, 2011.The proposals must be sent to The Chairman, Nominations Committee C/o Executive SecretaryComputer Society of IndiaSamruddhi Venture Park, Unit No. 3, 4th Floor, MIDC Andheri (East), Mumbai–400 093E-mail: [email protected]

with a copy to Dr. A K Nayak, Chairman, Nominations Committee E-mail: [email protected]

All election related notices will be published on the CSI Homepage www.csi-india,org. The date of publishing election related notices on the CSI Homepage www.csi-india.org will be considered as the date of publication. As per Section 4.6.4, “The word mail includes e-mail and the word publication includes web publication”.The proposed dates for various stages of the above elections are:Call for Nominations to be published on : 05 Oct 2011 CSI Homepage In CSI Communications Oct 2011 issue : 11 Oct 2011Last date for receipt of Nominations : 12 Nov 2011Last date for Withdrawal of Nominations : 19 Nov 2011Communication of slate by NC to ExecCom : 26 Nov 2011Slate to be published on CSI Homepage &In CSI Communications Dec 2011issue : 11 Dec 2011E-mail Posting of Passwords : 12 Dec 2011Opening Election site : 15 Dec 2011 Last date for receipt of Ballots (Internet) : 16 Jan 2012Declaration of Results : 21 Jan 2012

The dates can be changed by the Nominations Committee, if required – by suitable announcements on the CSI Homepage www.csi-india.orgWe would urge all members to register/ update their latest e-mail Ids with the CSI Headquarters. This will allow the members to derive Full benefits from Internet Balloting and to take CSI to a leadership Position in showcasing the use of IT for Elections.

Elections for CSI ChapterAs also intimated in the past, Chapter Elections will also be Held

simultaneously with the National Elections. Nominations Committees at the Chapters will invite Nominations for these positions from their respective members.1. Vice Chairman Cum Chairman elect (2012-2013)2. Nominations Committee (3 Members) (2012-2013)3. Hon Secretary (2012-2014)4. Managing Committee (2012-2013) (Class A: 8, Class B: 6, Class

C: 4 Members)

CSI Nominations Committee 2011-2012 E-mail: [email protected]. A K Nayak (Chairman) E-mail: [email protected]. P R Rangaswamy E-mail: [email protected]. Sanjay Mohanty E-mail: [email protected]


ExecCom Transacts

1. Announcement of the CSI Elections 2012-13/2012-14: The Nominations Committee of the CSI has made an announcement regarding the national, regional and chapter level elections for 2012-13/2012-14. The committee has urged all CSI members to register/ update their latest e-mail Ids with the CSI Headquarters. This will allow the members to derive full benefits from Internet Balloting and to take CSI to a leadership Position in showcasing the use of IT for Elections.

2. National/International events: The members and colleagues are requested to benefit from the events coming up e.g. CSI-2011 the 46th Annual Convention, 1-3 Dec’2011, Ahmedabad (www.csi-2011.org), COMNET-2011 International Conference on Communication & Networks, 4-6 Dec’ 2011, Udaipur ([email protected]), ObCom2011: International Conference on Recent Trends in Computing, Communication & IT, 8-11 Dec’2011, Vellore ([email protected]), SEARCC-2011, 12-13 Dec’2011, Mumbai, (www.searcc-2011.org), YITP Awards (Regional: Oct-Nov 2011, National: 12 Dec’2011, Mumbai), ASPIRE 2011-First Symposium on Software Systems,15-17 Dec’2011, Chennai, ([email protected]), COMAD-2011 International Conference on Management of Data, 19-21, Dec’2011 (Bangalore, [email protected]), ICDECS-2011 International Conference on Data Engineering & Communication Systems 29-30 Dec 2011, Bangalore (www.icdecs2011.in).

3. CSI Excellence Awards for Academia: The ExecCom in its meeting held during 23-24 July in Bangalore had approved to instate an exclusive set of awards for academia to to recognize the large membership base of academic institutions, student branches, faculty members and student members. The nominations forms for these awards are available at http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/academic-excellence-awards.

4. Student Conventions and related programmes: The team of Regional/State Student Coordinators led by Mr. Ranga Rajagopal has been working hard to host student conventions across India as well as to reach out to over 1000 colleges and institutions. The 28th CSI National student convention was successfully hosted by Godavari Institute of Engineering and Technology (GIET), Rajahmundry and organized by CSI Vizag chapter and its affiliated Student Branches. Several regional and state conventions have been hosted and are in pipeline in different regions/cities of India.

5. Talent and Skill Development: Mr. Ranga Rajagopal, National Student Coordinator, Prof. Mini Ulanat, National Skill Development Convener and Wg Cdr Murugesan, Director-Education have been providing value-added services to student members Other significant contributors include Dr. Sakthivel, Dr. Maluk and Mr. Adivarahan who have taken up specific tasks at the regional/national level such as Faculty Development Programmes, Projects Competition, Discover Thinking School Quiz respectively.

6. KM Portal, Digital Library and Student Portal: Mr. Mohan Datar, Advisor to CSI HQ is working towards further development on KM portal and membership software.

Prof. Mini Ulanat and Mr. Ranga Rajagopal have submitted two proposals for Digital Library and Student Portal respectively which are under consideration by the President.

7. CSI Funding for Minor Projects: CSI Student Branches and member institutions are requested to motivate faculty and students to submit their project proposals (based on new or ongoing projects for the academic year 2011-12) to [email protected] on or before 31st January 2012.

8. Call for Fostering Student Branch Activities: The CSI Fellows and distinguished members are requested to recommend names of potential candidates whose services would help strengthen the student branches and academia in general. It is proposed to select and publish the list on CSI website 1000 distinguished lecturers consisting of professionals from industry, government, research institutes and well-known institutes/colleges etc. The CSI student members will be motivated to directly contact these distinguished speakers and invite them.

9. Revival of Defunct Chapters and Formation of New Chapters: The Regional Vice Presidents and Hon. Secretary have been making hectic efforts towards revival of defunct chapters and formation of new chapters. The regional staff members concerned have been assigned the task of of necessary follow up with and providing the necessary help to the Chapters. The target set is to form the ad hoc committees of all such chapters for current 2011-12 latest by 31st October 2011. Two committees have been formed to prepare comprehensive proposals on (1) Financial requirements and sustainability Strategies (2) Human resources requirements.

10. The President/ExecCom Interaction with Chapters: The President, OBs and ExecCom members strived for a close interaction with the chapters. The modes and efforts included chapter visits, writing e-mails and making phone calls to seek their suggestions and feed backs on various aspects of chapters/members development. Several members have also shared their experiences, success stories, best practices and path-breaking initiatives. A few examples are Dr. Debasish Jana of Kolkata on high-quality research oriented technical events, Mr. Vineet Kumar Mathur of Jamshedpur on a unique award instituted in the honour of its founder chairman, Mr. Santosh Kamat of Goa on IT exhibitions, Dr. Dharm Singh of Udaipur submitting a compendium of CSI Programmes and state-of-the-art reports, Mr. Vijay Rastogi of Ghaziabad on outcomes of national conferences on entrepreneurship development, Mr. Praveen Krishna of Viajayawada compiling the brief history of all CSI Chapters in Andhra Pradesh, Prof. Kalyanaraman of Vellore on faculty/student members’ role in Green Vellore project.

Based on inputs from members concerned and past practices, the agenda for National Council Meeting (scheduled with CSI-2011) has been drafted. Apart from the activities report of April-November 2011, the meeting shall include brainstorming sessions on “CSI’s Road map 2011-12 and 2012-

13” n

Prof. H R VishwakarmaHon.Secretary,[email protected]


Call for Proposals

As India’s largest and one of the world’s earliest IT professional organizations, the Computer Society of India has always aimed at promoting education and research activities, especially in the advanced technological domains and emerging research fields. It is also committed to take the benefits of technological progress to the masses across India in particular to unrepresented territories. In order to promote research and innovation meeting the grass-root level ICT needs and emphasize the importance of joint research by faculty-students, the CSI has been providing R&D funding for last several years.

CSI Student Branches and member institutions are requested to motivate the young faculty members and students (including undergraduate and postgraduate) to benefit from this scheme. The proposals (based on the ongoing or new projects for the academic year 2011-12) the following aim/objectives, expected outcome, indicative thrust areas for research funding may be submitted to: The Director (Education), Computer Society of India, Education Directorate, CIT Campus, IV Cross Road, Taramani, Chennai 600113. Last date for Receipt of Proposals: 31st January 2012

Aim and Objectives � To provide financial support for research by faculty

members, especially for developing innovative techniques and systems to improve teaching-learning and institutional management processes.

� To provide financial support to students for developing new systems catering to the needs of socially relevant sectors and/or involving proof of concepts related to emerging technologies

� To facilitate interaction / collaboration among academicians, practitioners and students

� To develop confidence and core competence among faculty/students through research projects

� To foster an ambience of ‘Learning by Doing’ and explore opportunities of industry funding and mentoring for inculcating professionalism and best practices among students and faculty

� To recognize innovation and present excellence awards for path-breaking projects through CSI YITP awards and industry associations, Govt. Agencies and professional societies.

Expected Outcome � Identification of thrust areas, capability assessment, gap

analysis, recommendations and future education and research directions

� Integration of research methodologies into the university teaching-learning process and evolving a quality control mechanism for academic programmes and curricula

� Strengthening of industry-institute interaction through commercialization of technologies and products developed by students and faculty

� Publication of research studies (ICT penetration, technological innovation, diffusion & adaptation), state-of-the-art reports and case studies of education/ research initiatives

� Identification of potential new and innovative projects of young faculty, researchers and students for possible business incubation

Indicative Thrust Areas & Quantum of Research fundingThe indicative thrust areas for funding include (but not limited): Technology - OS, Programming Languages, DBMS, Computer & Communication Networks, Software Engineering, Multimedia & Internet Technologies, Hardware & Embedded Systems, cyber security, virtualization, cloud computing, grid computing etc.Process & Tools - Requirements Engineering, Estimation & Project Planning, Prototyping, Architecture & Design, Development, Testing & Debugging, Verification & Validation, Maintenance & Enhancement, Change Management, Configuration Management, Project Management, Software Quality Assurance & Process Improvement, Green IT, eWaste management etcVertical Applications - Scientific Applications, Enterprise Systems, Governance, Judiciary & Law Enforcement, Manufacturing, Healthcare, Education, Infrastructure, Transport, Energy, Defence, Aerospace, Automotive, Telecom, Agriculture & Forest Management etcInter-disciplinary Applications - CAD/CAM/CAE, ERP/SCM, EDA, Geo-informatics, Bioinformatics, Industrial Automation, CTI and Convergence.Financial assistance up to ̀ 50,000/- for hardware projects and up to ̀ 30,000/- for software projects will be provided to cover items like equipment, books/journals, field work, questionnaire, computation work and report writing

Last date for Receipt of Proposals: 31st January 2012Further details and application form can be downloaded from http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/47

Wg. Cdr. M Murugesan (Retd.)

Director(Education),CSIEducationDirectorateCITCampus,IVCrossRoad,Taramani,Chennai-600113

Computer Society of India National Headquarters

Education Directorate, Chennai

Call for Minor Project Proposals from Faculty Members and StudentsUnder the R&D Funding Scheme for the year 2011-2012


ConfER-121st International Conference and 5th National Conference on Education and Research

(Applications of FOSS in ICT, Education and Research)January 12-13, 2012, Faridabad, India

Hosted by Centre of Excellence for Research in Software EngineeringLingaya’s University, Faridabad

Organized by : CSI Division V (Education & Research), Region-I, Delhi and Gurgaon Chapters

Prelude: The ConfER series of conferences on Education and Research was of launched in 20007-08 year during the tenure of Prof. H.R. Vishwakarma as Chairman, Division-V (Edu. & Research). The ConfER-2008, 2009,2010,2011 were hosted at Vellore (29-30 March 2008), Kochi (13-14 March 2009), Guna (6-7 March 2010), Allahabad (23-24 January, 2011). The ConfER-2012 is being hosted by Lingaya’s University as the fifth national event and the first international event of the series. The theme is “Application of FOSS in ICT, Education and Research”. Free/Open Source Software (FOSS) is a recent phenomenon that has the potential to revolutionize the industry, academics and research. Interest in FOSS is growing globally, particularly in developing countries. Governments are considering policies to promote its use, businesses are recognizing its potential and various other sectors are giving increasing attention to the opportunity for localization that it presents. The impact of FOSS will be felt in many areas. Aim and Objectives: The conference will focus on FOSS in IT, IT Enabled Services, Education and Research and the role it can play in schools, colleges and universities. Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have the potential to improve the quality of education. However, educational institutions are often faced with financial constraints. Competing demand for resources and the high cost of ICT can be a major obstacle to providing ICT facilities in educational institutions. FOSS has the potential to help lower the cost barrier by reducing the cost of software, which is an important component of ICT facilities.

Besides the cost benefits, there are numerous other advantages in using FOSS in education, including pedagogical benefits. FOSS is considered to have better reliability, performance and security. This conference is intended to help policy-makers and decision-makers understand the potential use of FOSS: where and how it can be used, why it should be used, and what issues are involved. In particular, officials in departments of education, school and university administrators, academic staff and researchers should find this conference extremely useful.Call for Papers: Original papers are invited from research scholars, academicians, students and Industrialists. The topics of the Conference would include but not restricted to: Free and Open Source Software; Reliable and Secure Communications; Software Reliability and Testing; Reliability and Maintenance Models; Natural Language Processing; Cloud Computing; Embedded Systems; Coding and Prototyping; Data Mining & Data Warehousing; Mobile Communications; Software and Web Engineering; Soft Computing; Risk Analysis; Network Communication and Security; Software Engineering; E-governance; Social Computing; IT for Senior Citizens and disabled; Speech Processing; Educational Technologies. Submissions must be of original contributions and should not have been presented or published anywhere. Authors of the accepted papers must guarantee that at least one of the authors will attend the conference and present the paper. Paper should not exceed 10 pages following the IEEE format.

Important Dates : Last date for receiving full paper : November 20, 2011 E-mail notification of paper acceptance : November 30, 2011 Last date for receiving camera-ready paper with modifications : December 10, 2011

For Additional Details, please contact:Dr. Sunil Kumar Khatri, Conference Chair

E-mail: [email protected]; Mobile : 9910206349, 9999639225 • Website: www.lingayasuniversity.edu.in/confER-12

Following new student branches were opened as detailed below –

Region V

� St Aloysius Institute of Information Technology (AIMIT), Goa – CSI Student Branch was inaugurated at AIMIT on 10th August 2011. Dr Santhi Thilagam in her presidential address highlighted the importance of imagination, innovation and creative thinking to survive in the present-day industry.

Region VII

� Sree Narayana Gurukulam College of Engineering, Kadayiruppu, Kollencherry – The Student Branch of CSI at Sree Narayana Gurukulam College of Engineering, Kadayiruppu, Kollencherry was inaugurated by Mr. Gigo Joseph, CEO, Infopark, Cochin on 21st July, 2011. The inaugural function was followed by a technical talk on “Data Security using Cryptography” by Dr. Varghese Paul.

Reporting omission in Sept 2011

CSIC

September 2011 issue of CSI Communications had an article on “The FOSS Movement and its

impact on Education”, which displayed an image on page 20. The Photo credit of the image

goes to: Hightech.Blogosfere


Calls Wg. Cdr. M Murugesan (Retd.)

Director(Education),CSIEducationDirectorate,CITCampus,IVCrossRoad,Taramani,Chennai-600113

Every year during the annual convention, we have been giving away several awards for academic community, which includes Region wise Best Student Branch award, Active participation award for student member and Vandhana Goel Award for the female top ranker in Software Testing. To recognize the large membership base of academic institutions, student branches, faculty members and student members, the need for additional awards was felt. CSI ExecCom held at Bangalore between 23rd & 24th July 2011 discussed this and approved institution of the following the following additional awards effective 2011.

a) Largest Student Branch award

b) Best compliance student branch award

c) Best CSI International Students’ event host award to institution

d) Highest sponsor of CSI Events award to Institution

e) Longest SBC Tenure award

f) Maximum CSIC publishing award for faculty

g) International conference paper presenter award for faculty

h) Maximum CSIC publishing award for student

i) Most committed student branch activist student

The nominations forms for these awards are available at http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/academic-excellence-awards

The criteria for each award and who can nominate are clearly specified in these forms. The specified nominating authorities are invited to download the form, fill it up, get recommended by the Head of the institution and forward to the following address:

Director (Education),

Computer Society of India,

National Headquarters, Education Directorate,

CIT Campus, IV Cross Road,

Taramani, Chennai – 600 113.

Phone: 044-2254 1102 / 1103.

along with the proofs and enclosures as indicated in the forms. Hard copy application is to be sent to the above address marking the envelope as “Additional Awards 2011” in Block Capitals.

Education Directorate will carry out verification of the supporting data and proof therein. A screening Committee appointed by the Chairman-Awards Committee will carry-out initial scrutiny of the nominations with due consideration of the verification by Education Directorate. The Screening Committee will make recommendations to the Awards Committee whose decision will be final and binding. The recipients of all the awards will be invited to CSI Convention 2011 to be held at Ahmedabad between 1st December 2011 to 3rd December 2011 where the new awards will be presented along with the existing awards.

Any queries in this regard may please be addressed to [email protected]

Last date for receipt of nominations at CSI Education Directorate is 31st October 2011.

n

As suggested by our past president Dr. S Ramani and approved by current president Mr. M D Agrawal, we propose to select and list on our website 1000 distinguished lecturers consisting of professionals from industry, government, research institutes and well-known institutes/colleges etc. Our student members will be then able to directly contact these speakers and invite them.

Hereby we request distinguished CSI fellows, to recommend at a minimum of 10 potential candidates, and other CSI members to recommend all potential candidates, checking their availability, and including their CV (as per format below). They should be CSI fellows, senior members, members or associate members, or should be willing to become one. With all your assistance, we plan to get 1000 good speakers for the current year.

Format for CV:i. Name :ii. Educational qualification-iii. Experience profile with details such as employer,

Designation, Responsibilities and period-iv. Current occupation with name & address of employer-v. Complete address-vi. Agree to travel or not-vii. If yes which places: Local / National-viii. Contact Phone No-ix. Contact mobile No- x. Contact email- xi. Proposed topic / subject-Please send your recommendations to [email protected] by Oct 31, 2011.

Additional (New) Academic Excellence Awards for Educational Institutions, Faculty and student members

CALL FOR NOMINATIONS

Call to CSI Fellows and Other Members for Fostering Student Branch Activities


CSI News

From CSI Chapters »Please check detailed news at: http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/chapternews-October2011

SPEAKER(S) TOPIC AND GIST

DEHRADUN (REGION I)

Mr. Tapas Sen from M/s. IndusNet Technologies, Kolkata

25 August 2011 : Seminar on “Web Technology and Standard”

Mr. Sen covered various aspects of Web Technology, particularly its basics, contemporary trends and best practices. He also lucidly explained the established web standards followed in the IT industry and also presented a glimpse of future possibilities.

ç Session in progress

GHAzIABAD (REGION I)

Prof. S K Kak, Mr. Subhash Verma, Mr. Manoj Tandon and many more.

30 April 2011 : 9th Seminar on “Convergence of Database & Communication Technologies (CDCT-2011)”

Prof. Kak spoke about issues related to research, while Mr. Verma spoke about the latest developments taking place in the IT Industry. Mr.Tandon said that the converging technologies are leading to different kind of environment and spoke about the impact of compact mobile phone.The seminar had two technical sessions viz. -1. Technological Advancements & Research Directions and2. Design & Deployment issues in Databases.ç (L-R) Dr. A K Puri, Mr. Subhash Verma, Prof. S K Kak, Mr. Manoj Tandon, Dr. Vineet Kansal, and Dr. Rabins Porwal (standing)

KOLKATTA (REGION II)

Prof. Kalyan Kumar Bhar, Prof. M S Nathawat, Dr. Srikumar Mukherjee, Mr. G Padmanabhan, Prof. Aditya Bagchi(ISI, Kolkata) and Mr. Debasis Mullick

30-31 July 2011 : Two-days Workshop on “Role of Computing in Better Governance”

Topics discussed were - the advent of technology, information technology, in particular in recent days, demand for use of computing in an enhanced way in providing means for better governance. The call of today is to improve the Government’s information technology sector and move towards e-governance in a better way.

ç Dr. P S Roy (Director, IIRS and CSSTEAP, Dehradun) addressing the audience

Debasish Jana, Arpan Pal, Chirabrata Bhaumick, Avik Ghose and Diptesh Das

6 August 2011 : One-day National Seminar on “Mobile Application Development Awareness”

The seminar focused on creating awareness in today’s technical horizon, where smart phones and tablets have become an evolution, or simply a revolution. There are plentiful fascinating mobile applications available on smart phones to make people smarter and thereby making the arena of use of mobile phones especially smart phones more exciting.

Topics included iPhone, iOS, ObjectiveC, Android, context-aware mobile phones towards Ubiquity.

ç Dr. Debasish Jana of CSIKC receiving memento from Dr. Rina Paladhi, Registrar, in presence of Piyal Sarkar, HOD, IT Dept @ Techno India, Salt Lake, Kolkata.


UDAIPUR (REGION III)

Prof S.N.A. Jaffarey, Prof. Maheep Bhatnager, Mr. Monoj Agrawal, Prof. R.N. Vyas, Prof Jaffarey, Mr. Azimuddin Khan, Mr. Mazher Hussain, Prof Porwal and many more.

20-21 August 2011 : National Workshop on “GIS”

Prof Vyas shared his experiences related to GIS based projects. Prof Jaffarey stressed upon need for use of GIS, specially in government sectors to implement welfare schemes.

Prof. Porwal talked about the mathematical modeling based on GIS to generate analytics for better decision making e.g. mineral exploration using GIS software. GIS can provide answer to five basic generic questions Location (What exists at a particular location, Condition (Identify locations where certain conditions exist), Trends (What has changed since), Patterns (What spatial pattern exists), Modeling (What if analysis).

ç Dr. Alok Porwal, IIT Mumbai taking session one

VADODARA (REGION III)

Mr. Nirav Shah of Rishabhsoft 4 September 2011 : Workshop on “Application Development on Android”

Android is operating system for mobile devices, based on the Linux kernel, and developed by Google and later the Open Handset Alliance. It allows developers to write managed code in the Java language, controlling the device via Google-developed Java libraries.

Google released most of the Android code under the Apache license, a free-software and open source license. Android is the fasted growing operating platform on Mobile devices during last year.

ç Participants in Android workshop

BANGALORE (REGION V)

Mr. Shashikanth, Prof. Nagadevara were part of panel of judges

27 August 2011 : Best Practices Sharing Event on “Collaborate to Grow”

“Collaborate to grow” has become the buzz theme of IT industry. IT Organizations, educational institutes, vendors, Human Resource Institutes and so on are no exception to this. Learning from the lessons and sharing of best practices among these entities are becoming common now.

The sharing event witnessed presentation by 6 industries and 3 institutions. At the end judges announced the winners in two categories - industries and institutions.

ç Team at Best Practices Sharing event

VISAKHAPATNAM (REGION V)

Trainers from M/s DATAPRO 20 August 2011 : Program on “Computer Awareness Training for Students”

The training programme is for students selected based on CSI conducted test and it to cover topics such as computer Basics like MS Office, Windows Basics, Photo Shop, and Basics of Internet. The program would continue for 2 months.

ç A P Choudhary & his team watching the training programme after inauguration



SIVAKASI (REGION VII)

Mr. M D Agrawal, Prof. H R Vishwakarma and others 26 August 2011 : Inauguration of “New CSI Chapter”

Mr. M D Agrawal inaugurated the new chapter and motivated the members, while Prof HR Vishwakarma delivered key-note address.

ç Mr. M D Agrawal, President CSI, inaugurated the Sivakasi Chapter by Lighting the Kuthuvillaku

From Student Branches »http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/chapternews-October2011SPEAKER(S) TOPIC AND GIST

COLLEGE OF TECHNOLOGy AND ENGINEERING (CTE), UDAIPUR (REGION-III)

Mr. P Chandrashekhar, Dr. Navin Choudhary and others 18-19 July 2011 : Two-days Workshop on “Mobile and Embedded Operating System”

Mr. Chandrashekhar spoke on the functioning of Advanced RISC Machine-9 (ARM9) processor on the ARM9 processor kit. This processor operates in Mizi Linux Environment. The applications of this processor are - writing device driver for different device interfaces, learning basic instructions at programming of ARM9, running different mobile OS on ARM9.

ç Participants view

ANIL NEERUKONDA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGy & SCIENCES (ANITS), SANGIVALASA (REGION V)

Mr. P Srinivasu 23 July 2011 : First Faculty Seminar on “Data Warehousing”

“The topics covered were Overview of Data Warehousing, Data Warehouse Architectures, How to create a data warehouse, How to design a data warehouse and Understanding the ETL process.The seminar focused on Industry Oriented approach with Data Warehouse Life Cycle. OLTP and OLAP systems were clearly addressed with detailed discussions of examples like Banking Applications, ATM, Airline Reservation System, Inventory Systems etc. The approach for building Data Marts and Data Warehouse using Dimensional Models like Star Schema, Snow-flake Schema and Hybrid schema were also discussed.

ç Seminar on ‘Data Warehousing’ in progress

Mr. Y V Srinivasa Murthy, Assistant Professor, Dept. of CSE, ANITS

30 July 2011 : First Faculty Seminar on “Advanced Java and Its Applications”

Mr. Y. V. Srinivasa Murthy explained the concepts related to Programming techniques, standards, Application classifications, Java classifications (J2SE, J2EE, J2ME), Window based applications and Database Connectivity using Java.

ç Seminar on ‘Java’ in progress




RAGHU ENGINEERING COLLEGE, AFFILIATED TO JNTU – KAKINADA (REGION V)

Mr. S Raja, Scientist – F, NSTL, Visakhapatnam 10 August 2011: Technical Talk on “Embedded Systems and Applications”

Mr. S. Raja discussed mainly about the Embedded Systems and their applications. He also distinguished Real Time Embedded System from other systems. He even clarified the students about the difference between real time and non-real time systems. He also briefed about the major components of Embedded Systems and also their pros and cons. Topics like Real Time Operating Systems and its features like Scheduling, Resource allocation, Interrupt Handling etc., were discussed more elaborately.

ç Mr. S Raja while speaking on Embedded Systems

R V COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING (RVCE), BANGALORE (REGION-V)

Mr. I M Umesh, Ms Maheshwari D G, Ms Yashodha T and Ms Anisha B S

14 July 2011 : One-day Workshop on “Advanced Features of MS Office”

The workshop was a part of skill up-gradation of technical and clerical staff, which is a continuous process practiced at RVCE.

The workshop contents were designed and delivered by technical staff of ISE. The contents included Mail Merge, Graphs options in MS-Word, Filter and Pivot table in MS-Excel and user interface design in MS-Access.

ç Participants of MS Office workshop

DADI INSTITUTE OF ENGINEERING & TECHNOLOGy, ANAKAPALLE (REGION-V)

Dr. S N Rao, DGM (ERP), Vizag Steel Plant 9 September 2011 : Technical Talk on “Enterprise Resource Planning Implementation”

Addressing the students on the occasion of Dennis Ritchie birthday celebration, Dr. S. N. Rao, spoke about Dennis Ritche and the C Language and Unix Operating System in the present day technological world. He also delivered talk on implementation of ERP in Steel industry.

ç Dr. S N Rao felicitation on Dennis Ritchie B’Day

Mr. Jacob RajKumar, Vice-President (Operations), Symbiosys Technologies

15 September 2011 : Technical Talk on “Project Orientation and Job Opportunities in IT”

The speaker focused on identifying opportunities in II sector & he made attempt to connect the student community with the global world. He explained about the projects, the need of doing them. He also explained how exactly the process of software development is carried out by the companies.

ç Mr. Jacob RajKumar speaking on Engineers’ Day

GITAM INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGy (GIT), GITAM UNIVERSITy, VISAKHAPATNAM (REGION-V)

Dr. K Thammi Reddy, CSI Life Member 13 September 2011 : Guest Lecture on “Cloud Computing and its Applications”

Dr. Reddy elaborately explained cloud computing. He mentioned different types of clouds available and how they are useful. He also stressed upon cloud computing environment that existed in GITAM University as a practical example with architecture of the Cloud. He stated that Cloud computing is Pay Per Use Delivery System.

ç Participants for the Guest Lecture

Please visit http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/csi-eventcalendar for detailed calendar of all future events.

Invitation Young IT Professional Awards-2011

YITP-2011Dear Young IT Professionals,

In order to promote the young IT professionals in the quest of innovation in IT, Computer Society of India (CSI) is conducting the National competition ‘Young IT Professional Awards’ (YITP Awards) for young IT professionals, an event instituted annually by CSI since 1999. The competition provides them an opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge, professional prowess and excellence in their profession.

The competition is to encourage Researchers, IT professionals, Academicians, Consultants, Entrepreneurs and IT Practitioners in an Organization, or individuals in service/ support/training function in the field of Information Technology.

The objectives of YITP Award are:

� To recognize the significant contribution(s) made by a professional in IT profession.

� To motivate upcoming professionals and enhance the prestige of the profession by enabling them to exercise their skills and competencies in the best possible and innovative manner.

� To directly or indirectly contribute towards the improvement of professional effectiveness in different spheres of life.

� To motivate young men and women to imbibe the entrepreneurial spirit and thereby encourage more and more people to venture into entrepreneurship, and

� To encourage contribution in boosting the economy of the country through entrepreneurship.

Through this Award, innovative and exciting initiatives of Young IT Professionals can be shared with the CSI members and IT community. Winning a YITP Award will boost morale of IT professionals.

This award is instituted both at the national as well as at the regional levels. The winners of the seven regional levels qualify for competing on the national level. This award is scheduled at seven regions in October-November,2011. The final National round will be held on 12th December, 2011 at Mumbai during SEARCC-2011, Asia Pacific Conference hosted by CSI.

Criteria: The most outstanding technology project of any kind, completed during the year 2010 / 2011 (project duration could be of 2-3 years from the start date) within an organisation will be judged for following criteria by the selection committee:

� Criticality of IT Usage

� Improvement of Customer Service � Innovation, Return on Investment � Quality of Management � Impact on Organisation and Society

Eligibility:Any individual below 35 years of age (on 31st March, 2011) who are either working professionals, entrepreneurs or researchers and has made significant innovation in the areas of research, academics, IT applications and services to bring improvement in service, support and training in the field of Information Technology.

Participants can be from CSI Institutional members, Business organizations, Research Institutes and Interns from incubation centers of universities. Only those individual with minimum of 3 years and maximum 12 years of experience can participate in this competition.

A team of maximum 3 members meeting all the eligibility criteria can be nominated.

Nominations should be supported by the organisation to which the applicants are attached. Applications nominated by any CSI Fellow are also eligible.

The project which is nominated should be original and not published prior to the event.

Awards Comprise of:Trophy and Certificate to winning team/individual and prize as under:Category National Awards Regional yITP award (For each region)Winner ` 50,000/- ` 25,000/-1st runner up ` 25,000/- ` 15,000/-Special mention ` 15,000/- ` 10,000/-

With the launch of these Awards, I invite you to participate in the contest and forward this information to others who may be interested in participating in YITP Awards

The information about the awards, guidelines and application process is available at: www.csi-india.org OR

www.csinationalawards.org/yitpawards2011.html. You may forward your queries to [email protected]

I look forward to enthusiastic participation of Young IT professionals in making this event a grand success.

Sincerely,

Bipin V MehtaConvener, YITP Awards

Bipin V Mehta

Registered with Registrar of News Papers If undelivered return to : for India - RNI 31668/78 CSI, 122, TV Indl. Estate, Regd. No. MH/MR/WEST-76-2009-11 Mumbai - 400 030

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