Microsoft partners with Indian government for building digtal bridge

Microsoft Corporation India Private Limited today announced a strategy aimed at supporting the Ministry of Communications and IT, Government of India, in its efforts to address the issue of the digital divide in India after a series of in-depth discussions that took place this week at Microsoft's Redmond headquarters between a visiting Indian delegation led by Union Minister of Communications & IT, Dayanidhi Maran, and Bill Gates. The discussions underscore Microsoft's commitment to partner with the Ministry of Communications & IT, Government of India, in six strategic areas including driving PC penetration, accelerating IT literacy, ensuring affordable access to technology in rural areas, ushering in e-governance, enabling local language computing and creating a secure IT environment. Microsoft and the delegation from India committed to collaborating in strategic areas including enabling access to affordable and language based computing, accelerating IT literacy, facilitating adoption of e-governance at an accelerated pace, enabling research on Indic Language Computing technologies and co-operation around IT security. Elaborating on the announcements, Bill Gates, chairman and chief software architect, Microsoft Corporation, said, "We are delighted to be working with Maran towards our common goal of bridging the digital divide for people across India. In particular, I'm excited about the promotion of e-Governance technologies, the expansion of teacher education and broadening our Windows XP Starter Edition for India offering to better meet the needs of Indian citizens". "India is synonymous with IT success today. As a long-term partner for India, Microsoft strives to be a key contributor to this success and at the same time help create a digitally-inclusive society where technology reaches out to the over one billion strong population to help them to realise their full potential", said Ravi Venkatesan, chairman, Microsoft Corporation India Pvt Ltd. Microsoft announced today plans to deliver a multilingual Windows XP Starter Edition for India, designed for speakers of any of nine Indic languages who may also want to use English. The product has evolved based on customer feedback and is designed to better meet the aspirational needs of Indian citizens. Microsoft and the Government of India agreed to collaborate in cyber security through the Security Co-operation Programme. This collaboration demonstrates the Government's commitment to IT security and improving the capacity to respond to incidents. To help accelerate IT literacy: Microsoft will work with the Government to pilot a new approach to ICT-based education and extend this project to all districts in India. Microsoft will invest in an e-governance centre in collaboration with an Indian institution to undertake pilot e-Governance. The primary purpose of this collaboration will be to ensure successful outcomes of these projects Microsoft will further strengthen its countrywide initiative Project Bhasha, a comprehensive programme focused on providing local interfaces for Microsoft's flagship desktop offerings Windows and Office in 14 Indian languages. Microsoft has conveyed its commitment to support the Government of India and rural entrepreneurs who are participating in the programme in establishing 100,000 Common Service Centres in the country.Microsoft will also share its research findings regarding critical success factors for the establishment of rural kiosks with the Government and the agency designated by the Government of India for this purpose. More

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