Full coverage: South Asia

31.05.2006 Information and communication technology (ICT) is the best means to eliminate poverty. Microsoft Bangladesh Limited Country Manager Feroz Mahmud said this while speaking as the chief guest at the certificate distribution ceremony of the trainees of 'Partners in Learning.'

30.05.2006 The telecom dispute settlement appellate tribunal (TDSAT) has rejected VSNL’s petition against Trai and DoT and held that long distance calling cards sold by the company was illegal.

30.05.2006 After the Department of Telecom volleyed the issue of allocation and pricing of spectrum for 3G mobile services to its court, regulator TRAI is all set to release a paper next week to gauge stakeholders' views.

30.05.2006 If equity, justice, redressal are not built into our ICT strategies, all we will have accomplished is to upgrade our worlds, not change them. A person form Andhra spoke to Samuha members of how a person with a disability had accessed financial assistance through the government's ICT kiosks, and how, immediately after, a Panchayat official had come up to this person, and had asked him to ‘deposit' the funds with him.

29.05.2006 The MCA-21 Initiative of the Ministry of Company Affairs facilitating e-filing of documents under Indian Company Law is commendable in many ways.

29.05.2006 Bihar, where former chief minister Lalu Prasad once rubbished IT as an elitist tool, is all set to take a big leap towards e-governance with the government formally adopting it as a state policy on the advice of President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam.

29.05.2006 Right to Information (RTI) and e-governance must go hand in hand. E-governance is a key vehicle to make people at the grass root levels aware of their rights, says Wajahad Habibullah, chief information commissioner of the government of India.

29.05.2006 Bharathidasan University is set to launch an FM radio station to bridge the gap between literate and illiterate people.

26.05.2006 Passengers travelling light on Jet Airways will not have to wait in long queues to check in, with the airline planning to set up kiosks that will automate the process.

24.05.2006 For the first time, the city police have arrested a woman for using the Internet to sell sexual services. The woman was picked up from a guest house in Jadavpur on Monday evening after an officer posed as a client.

20.05.2006

Zubaan logo

In March 2006, Zubaan, an Indian feminist publishing house, held an exhibition in New Delhi, of over 1500 posters together depicting the Indian Women's movement since the 1970s. Poster Women is set to open at Bangalore in November 2006. It will then travel to Chennai in December, and from there to Mumbai, Hyderabad and Calcutta.

19.05.2006 The Union Cabinet today gave its approval to few key components of National E-Governance Plan (NeGP) proposals.

19.05.2006 Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have collectively made the oppourtunity to some extent in bridging the information gap among the people and communities. Among many other technologies that originated electronic media, radio remains the most powerful media to reach to the poor and the marginalised more so in remote inaccessible geographical terrain. A number of advantages makes this medium peoples' media.

17.05.2006 In May 2006 SBMA launched its first Rural Knowledge Centre (RKC) at Saliayana, Gairsain. This centre uses office computer and has a v-sat connectivity and offers services for the community.

12.05.2006 The police will, in a month, start trials of new software to analyse accidents and factors that contributed to them.

11.05.2006 The Indian information technology enabled services (ITeS) industry is poised to touch US$ 26 billion by 2009-10 and US$ 10 billion by 2006-07, according to credit rating agency ICRA.

11.05.2006 The Supreme Court sought responses from the Centre and the telecom department on a PIL describing the communication towers — put up at prominent locations by mobile phone service providers — as health hazards, because they emit electromagnetic radiation.

10.05.2006 Passengers waiting to board trains at the Bangalore City railway station can now look forward to spending their time more productively.

10.05.2006

President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam with Justice A.S. Anand

E-governance is strong tool for ensuring corruption-free administration, President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam said here on Tuesday. He was delivering the inaugural address at a conference on `Effects of Good Governance and Human Rights,' organised by the National Human Rights Commission. He urged that "All courts should follow Supreme Court and make judgments available online"

09.05.2006 A serious attempt to make technologies for the masses and by the masses. Attempted by www.abcnewsnetwork.com