links - it and society india

censorship

• Clandestine Internet Censorship in India http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/07/134221 "China and the Middle East block sites in order to suppress political or social dissent. Website blocking in India, on the other hand, is driven by national security-related paranoia, or hate speech that may lead to violence. The state must save its citizens from propaganda of both the extreme right and the extreme left. Shivam Vij has posted a comprehensive profile of Internet censorship in India." SlashDot : 2006
• India blocking sites http://in.rediff.com/news/2006/jul/17blog.htm Rediff.com : 2006
• Sites banned in India http://www.tehelka.com/story_main20.asp?filename=hub101406banned_in.asp Sites listed by Indian DoT to be blocked, as of October 2006 Tehelka : October 2006
• The Discreet Charms of the Nanny State http://www.tehelka.com/story_main20.asp?filename=hub101406the_discreet.asp "On June 29, the Department of Telecom (DoT) asked some 150 Internet Service Providers (ISPS) to block access to the People’s War Group (PWG) website, www.geocities.com/ cpimlPWG. Exactly a month later, the DoT issued another letter informing ISPS that “M/S Yahoo! Inc” (which runs Geocities) had removed the PWG site anyway, and so all ISPS were requested to make sure that Geocities itself was not blocked. While Yahoo! had, in 2003, refused a government request for dismantling a Meghalaya militant outfit’s mailing list, this is the first time a major international portal has acceded to such a demand in India, thereby setting a dangerous precedent. ... " After this story was reported in slashdot.org, Shivam Vij's website became inaccessible. Shivam Vij : 2006

education

• India firms warn on IT skills gap http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6124872.stm "There was a huge number of graduates and engineers, but people with the technical and communications and team-working skils that were required were often lacking, ..." Omer Farooq, BBC News : 2006
• Techies, we have a problem http://in.rediff.com/money/2005/nov/28bspec.htm "India does not produce enough good computer engineers and those it does are good at theory but not very well equipped to handle the practical aspects." -- Microsoft Chief Technical Officer Craig Mundie. Long article describing lack of practical teaching, and lack of hands-on computer time George Iype : 22 nov 2005

general

• Computer ownership, broadband, in India; other issues http://www.emergic.org/archives/2004/04/30/ Rajesh Jain : april 2004
• Rajesh Jain http://www.emergic.org Rajesh Jain's Weblog on Emerging Technologies, Enterprises and Markets. Computing in the developing world, focus on India. Rajesh Jain : april 2006
• Tech2.com http://www.tech2.com/ "India's technology guide" Hardware news and reviews, some internet and software news, forums, Tech2 : 2006
• TechTree.com http://www.techtree.com/ "Making buying easy" — Reviews, classifieds, downloads, forums. TechTree : 2006

linux

• Linux Spreads its Wings in India http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/sep2006/gb20060921_463452.htm 2,600 [schools] in the state of Kerala making the shift [to desktop linux]. That means each of the state's 1.5 million high school students will grow accustomed to working not in the Windows environment familiar to computer users worldwide, but in Linux. And over the next two years, computer science based on Linux software will be made mandatory in all of the state's high schools Nandini Lakshman : 21 Sept 2006