Tuesday, July 25, 2006

on OLPC and RTIA

Two disconnected issues. But the way in which policy makers are taking decisions (and giving reasons for them) on these apparently important matters should be of real concern and .

A few days ago, the HRD ministry had indicated that OLPC (one-laptop-per-child) program is *not* suitable for children of rural India... providing some absurd reasons like: ".. the problems (health) faced by rural child is well known, and would be further complicated by usage of laptop". and it goes on to give so many other reasons (by quoting foreign experts)! I fail to understand why no Indian expert is at all considered?

So is the case of Right To Information Act (RTIA) where an amendment to limited/ no access to "file noting" on certain "classified" areas is proposed. Similar acts in other countries were cited as example for the proposed amendment. This is simply not good for a health of democratic India, where we seem to be trying to do what others are doing, and simply not having our own views on these subject of prime interest to any democratic institution.

And as Arvind Kejriwal gets Magsaysay Award for the very RTIA that he and may others (including Anna Hazare) fought for, we simply wonder how our elected representatives are modifying a powerful act to suite some wested interests.

Friday, July 21, 2006

Blog of V.Ganesh

Blog of V.Ganesh

.... Hurray! It up again! So finally the ISPs and DoT, GOI seems to have figured out the "technical issues" involved in stopping access to only certain blogs.

... A real pity situation. But anyways I am happy, and hope that such incidences do not happen in India again. BTW, it would be interesting to see if some of the avid bloggers still file a PIL (which i guess they will) in Supreme Court? This would probably bring in some amendment to the IT Act, 2000 to include "blogs" ... its wait and watch.

Monday, July 10, 2006

INSAT 4C on GSLV fails

An hour ago I was watching the live telecast of the launch on DD. By now its very clear that we have not been successful in launching the INSAT series on Indian soil. This was the third launch attempt of the GSLV (cryogenic development vehicle), the first two have been a success and has placed weather satellites (kalpana I and II) in geo-synchronous orbit.

Hard luck for ISRO. The launch originally scheduled at 4:36 pm IST was postponed twice, first to 5:16 pm and then finally to 5:36 pm. So far no official reason for the failure has been given, but it is speculated to be a failure in the second stage of the GSLV.

The next plan of ISRO, if they are not going to hold up, would be another launch of GSLV in 2007-08 (http://isro.org/decade_plan.htm), and the much publicized lunar mission.

... hope for the best

Friday, July 07, 2006