Spotlight

15.05.2008 An ICT project in Sri Lanka is enabling people with disabilities to avail opportunities and live in an inclusive society. The eNABLE project – with Braille-equipped computers, a software to convert text into speech, a group hearing system and host of other facilities – links them with others at global and national levels.

05.05.2008 Celebrating 15 years of its creation, World Wide Web’s inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee believes that the technology is still in a nascent stage. However, as a result of various international collaborations, the Web would be of great help in managing the planet.

10.04.2008 UNHCR and Google have unveiled the "Google Earth Outreach" programme to help understand the refugee world and the ongoing humanitarian efforts. All you have to do is to sit in front of your computer and it will take you on a virtual reality tour in Chad, Iraq, Columbia and Sudan.

24.03.2008 Science fiction writer and visionary Sir Arthur C. Clarke died on March 19, 2008 in Colombo, Sri Lanka, at the age of 90. The global telecommunication community will remember him for his farsighted prediction of artificial satellite stations for earth-based communications.

19.03.2008 Punarbhava, a new interactive website for the disabled, is a one-stop cyber shop for information, aids, appliances, research and employment. The portal was recently launched at the Indian capital, along with the release of a new screen reader software for the blind.

25.02.2008 The Neer Jaal software enables effective ground water management with effective participation from the local communities keeping in mind the hard facts about groundwater information. It is India’s first attempt for holistic water resource management system using Information Communication Technology tools.

19.02.2008 Even while a US-based body is running tests to see whether it will offer domain names in non-Roman alphabets, in countries such as India mobile companies are wooing rural users by offering services in local scripts to overcome the language barrier.

30.11.2007 When Nicholas Negroponte unveiled an idea for bridging the technology divide between rich nations and the developing world in 2005, it was captivating in its utter simplicity. The idea was to design a $100 laptop and get it into the hands of 150 million of the world's poorest schoolchildren.

14.11.2007 Mobile television will soon be a reality in India. It will open up opportunities for government to enhance services to citizens ranging from education to healthcare to safety and security, apart from providing business users with latest information on stock market and entertainment to the masses.

01.11.2007 Small can become even smaller until it can’t be made any smaller. Nanotechnology is precisely that science and engineering that plays around with things at the scale of atoms and molecules. Learn more about engineering at the tiniest scale.

23.08.2007 An e-Book entitled, ICT in Agriculture: Perspectives of Technological Innovation provides an overview of successes and failures in the development and adoption of ICT in agriculture and the rural sector.

17.08.2007 Samia Melhem, Sr. Operations Officer, Policy Division (CITPO), The World Bank Group shares her views on the participation of women in information and communication technology (ICT).

07.08.2007 An e-primer on small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and ICT explores why so few SMEs have adopted information and communications technology (ICT) and why they should do so. The e-primer is a joint production of UNDP’s Asia Pacific Development Information Programme and the Asian and Pacific Training Centre for Information and Communication Technology for Development (APCICT).

03.08.2007 An article in Economist says that technology is transforming humanitarian relief and shifting the balance of power between donors and recipients. The services of computers and mobile phones can be proper utilized during an emergency in setting up networks with aid agencies.

03.08.2007 UNESCO has launched a pilot initiative in Indian capital Delhi to deploy ICTs to address urban poverty and cultural bondage in areas that are characterised by low-income groups, poor civic amenities and lack of opportunities.

25.07.2007 The staid rituals of US presidential debates met the hurly-burly of the Internet on Monday night, in an event organised by YouTube and CNN, that saw candidates fielding questions which young Americans had uploaded to the video-sharing website.

24.07.2007 A new research says that with controversies taking place often - genetically modified crops and AIDS drugs - there has to be more involvement of the common man in decision-making related to scientific and technological issues.

17.07.2007 Nandula Raghuram, a biologist at the Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University (GGSIPU) in India, is giving budding biotechnologists a solid foundation for a biotech career by providing them with a teaching laboratory that is low-cost.

15.06.2007 Norti Bai is the only woman in her village who can operate the computer. At the ripe age of 60, she manages the database and functioning of the internet café at Barefoot College, Tilonia, in Rajasthan, an Indian state where girls have always been ignored in favour of sons.

11.12.2006 The second edition of Quotes from the Earth, a three-day environment film festival, was held from November 3-5, 2006. Parvinder Singh, Senior Programme Officer in the Information and Communication unit of Toxics Link, offers an inside view of the reactions it evoked and argues that there is more to environmental films than the size of its audience.