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Information Technology (IT)
FROM VIMALO MAY WE ALWAYS MEDITATE FOR A MIND OF CALM AND QUIET ATTENTIVE, SMART AND ALERT WITH EQUANIMTY ACT OBSERVE UPS AND DOWNS FOLLOWING A MIDDLE PATH AND NOT TO REACT WITH A CLEAR UNDERSTANDING EVRYTHING IS SHORT AND NOTHING IS PERMENANT! Vimalo Information Superhighway 1) Natural wealth In post industrial environment by 1992 Services shot up Manufacturing and natural wealth declined. What is a service sector? 1. Education IT helps the needs of services Value of automation is Rs.12, 000 crores Communication is Rs.15, 000 crores. What is so special about IT? We did not earlier recognise how important IT was to the economy. We did not recognise how important knowledge was to the economy. Under estimated the Technology. Under estimated the power of innovation. We are correcting for all these now. An example is cellulose telephony. An act of innovation - reusing the same radio frequency in other cells A synergy - the computer does the switching while radio technology provides magic a million-fold increase in the use of the growth of communication industry. The Commercial industry will overtake railways in earnings over the next few years. Telecommunication > over postal International Issue: Balancing of trade. Those who import manufactures heavily will need to export services. Competing will be very essential. Technological laggards often have 30% of the standard of living of the technological leaders. Emigration is nothing but the globalisation of services. Disparities in per captia earnings: The International division of labour is 3:1 When you import just about anything, what do you export? Services. Off shore Services: Development of application software, and Technological Services. The developing countries will become the back-offices of the world. It is called economic co-operation. The fears: Emigration: Filling 2 million slots that need to be filled over the next ten years. 20% may come thorny emigration depriving developed countries of 400000 professional possible. National Issues: Who wins whom looses? Metros Vs small Towns? Urban Vs Rural? Male Vs Female? English Speaking Vs the others? Knowledge Oriented Vs the others? Solution 1. Convert as enterprise 2. Distance working from Satellite Towns 3. Working from small towns 4. Working from home 5. From Machine at home and E-mail 6. The need to plan infrastructure to support Telework and telecommunicating 7. Respectable Environment - clean and healthy Towns 8. Equipped schools 9. The march of technology 10. Communication 11. Automation of Information Handling 12. The ability to solve problems 13. The ability to predict 14. Electronic Commerce 15. Pervasive life long learning 16. The knowledge oriented economy needs a knowledge oriented society 17. Greater investment in Education 18. New ideas for financing education 19. Greater emphasis on innovation 20. Revaluing of Human Resources in relation to other resources. The role of the State Government The State as the unit of policy making Taxation and Government spending as instrument of policy. Alternative features for the different States The Chief Minister as an Entrepreneur Solutions to run the Government: Convert the Government as Enterprise a) There is an immediate need to plan infrastructure to support Telework and Telecommunicating b) IT professionals of International repute for automation of Information handling, for the ability to solve problems and ability to predict. c) Since the knowledge oriented economy needs knowledge oriented society, as a first step all the elected representatives must be educated and trained on the use of IT. d) For implementation of successful IT, the national, State and other Government bodies must have Proportional Representation of different castes, communities and opposition parties as members of the task force. A powerful parliamentary Committee as a national team must be the highest body to work as a task force for implementation of IT. These members must be IT qualified Professionals. If elected members are not available with IT expertise, then the Rajya Sabah should nominate such professionals task force members. The first and foremost task of the Government must be to use IT to plan Anti-poverty programs. A database of all practical individual people such as safai workers, shoemakers, farm workers, gardeners, carpenters, painters, welders, two wheeler and four wheeler technicians, hairdressers, tailors to computer professionals must be created. It should be available in the Internet. Such an exercise will avoid middlemen and sub-contractors who keep exploiting the toiling masses. If the users could have direct access to the above professionals, it would help them earn more than what they were earning after feeding the middlemen. They must get easy small loans for practicing their day-to-day profession by approaching the World Bank for the same.The Prime Minister, in his first address to the Nation on March 25th, 1998 observed "…This (Information Technology) is one area where India can quickly establish global dominance. India can be fully competitive in this area and with tremendous pay-off in terms of wealth creation and generation of high quality employment…" Recognising the tremendous opportunities that IT could provide the nation, the Prime Minister if India declared that the promotion of IT was to be one of the five top priorities of the Government. Accordingly, the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) issued a Notification on the 22nd May 1998 constituting a National Task Force on Information Technology and Software Development. The Task Force does not have any SC/ST member in it. Chandra Babu Naidu’s Task Force on IT for Andhra Pradesh too does not represent any SC/STs. Mr.M.Karunanidhi’s Task Force on IT consists mostly his family members in it. But it does not have any SC/ST member. They think that the SC/STs are not meritorious and that only the caste Hindus is inborn meritorious people. Now it is time for the Dalit@XXXXXX .com to take up this challenge. Here are some jokes. Mr.Atal Behari at Bangalore IT.com informed the nation that he had not worked on a computer. Mr. Ananth Kumar Civil Aviation Minister said that his wife was a software Engineer but he was a hardware engineer looking after the construction of Airport, roads leading to airport etc., Mr.J.H.Patel, Chief Minister of Karnataka told that people are very soft before coming to power and that is called software. After coming to power they become hard and that is called hardware.The Prime Minister had given the Task Force five main tasks and 15 terms of eference to work on and submit its recommendations to the Government within 30 days of the notification. The task force completed its deliberations on the ways and means to remove bottlenecks in the path of rapid development of IT in India & Software industry and submitted its Information Technology Action Plan (ITAP) on 4th June 1998. The Information Technology Action Plan contains 108 recommendations covering both the steps for the removal of bottlenecks and broad promotional measures crucial for boosting IT in India. These recommendations cover a wide spectrum of issues relating to banking, commerce, defense, finance, electronics, human resource development, revenue, rural development and telecommunications. But the main bottleneck was BJP (Brahminical Janatha Party) which was removed by Dadsaheb Kanshi Ramji and Smt.Mayavathiji. The Task Force (TF) recommendations address the critical national needs in the areas of information infrastructure, Internet access, software development and exports, hardware manufacture, electronic commerce, R&D in IT, man power training and education. Who will do all these things? Only Wisdom Constorium think of it. And activate IT for the benefit of: W - World I - Information S - Service D - (of/by/for the) Dalits O - Other (Backward Castes) M - (and) Minorities This will make the International Business community happy, as they are happy with the Buddhist names such as Suzuki, ZEN etc.
What is the Present Context? Information Technology entails such convergent technologies as computer technology, telecommunication technology, audio-visual technology and reprographic technology applied individually or in combination for the generation, recording and storage, process and organisation, dissemination and exchange of data and information in magnetic, electronic and audio-visual media. It also covers the interface between human beings and machines as well as the associated, social, economic and cultural matters. And therefore the bottleneck was removed for the wisdom consortium to take up the issues and complete the task. Information Content is an important aspect of the enabling IT and the dependent Information Industry. In a global access, the content further determines the value and the volume of revenue that people generate. Prevalent pointers are that information content should meet both the business and community needs of people. In a developing country, social needs like delivery of health care, education, community information are of utmost importance. In a global network, the task of content creation is likely to be left to a number of small entrepreneurs who are in the best position to create value for the users. For instance, Internet allows content providers to supply street maps to databases/information for medical care, treatment of various diseases and so on. The thrust of the WISDOM CONSTORIUM must be to promote development of contents. In pursuance WISDOM must organise an annual meet of Information Contents Industry-Users-Promoters to Keep a watch on the national and international trends in the information industry Provide a forum for the exchange of experience among the information providers, suppliers and the users. There is no such forum; meeting, conference, or seminar organised, which has an exclusive focus on the content aspects of Information industry. The IT meet is therefore an opportunity to provide for collective expressions of the user needs, expert opinions, and user expectations, and experiences of the funding agencies. CONTENT DEVELOPMENT Terms of reference No.5 regarding Development of Indian Content reads as Suggest measures for achieving a massive expansion in the use of Internet by all sections of the society, especially in business and education and development of Indian Content on the Internet Needs greater attention. India has the potential to become a major content development industry in the next century. Information Content and the content development are not given a prominent and sufficient importance in the IT Action Plan, and there is no industrial association to represent the information content industry. The Task Force does not cover anywhere the view of Science & Technology Information (STI) which forms a greater quantum of research output in the country. Nor it appears that the Task Force cared to elicit any view from those concerned with STI provision. Presently, there is a very strong need to bring to the forefront the importance of information content development at national level. While it is important to promote computer literacy, software development, networking etc., due importance needs to be given for content development, because without content (or information) to access, what could one do with an information infrastructure alone? OBSERVATIONS & RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE NATIONALTASK FORCE ON INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY Our Consultancy service could work on this. IT is not static but dynamic in a bid way making many a person computer-literate, and thereby hampering his functions and activities unless he is determined to cope with it, through a self-learning process. Specialisation, professionalism and professional expertise is advocated and one should develop information temper just like scientific temper. Ultimately one judges by the results and it is here that information and information professionals have a role to play. Following facets may be covered: · The four dimensions of a human being - Homo sapiens, Homo Faber, Homo Ludens and Homo Spritualess - and his curiosity which led him to collect and codify data. · Transition of society from an agricultural economy to an economy based primarily on manufacturing and then to one based predominantly on information and communication technologies, since India was a land of paradoxes wherein all the societies co-exist. · Categorisation of society into information generators, information diffusers and information users with their respective roles in the process of information transfer. · Paradigm shift in information handling operations due to impact of IT, Since IT is a meat resource which is all pervasive and felt in the march of civilisation, technology and more specifically IT has an increasing role to play. Future Directions: It is identified the following four paradigm shifts as relevant to information professionals: i) There is now a need to realise that one has to train oneself from self learning software on a continuing basis and unlike in the past, one cannot depend upon outside agencies. ii) As end users are not only computer literate but also computer proficient, they demand far more flexibility, accuracy when they use information resources. If information professionals, as good content analysts can provide the tool and empower users to make better use of information resources, they earn much respect. iii) The third shift is from paper to electronic media, which now includes graphics, texts, sound and video-multimedia. The integration of these media, now available in digital form, makes for paradigm shift. iv) The fourth paradigm shift is the customer consciousness, increasing demand for accountability and the cost of providing the service. High level Parliamentary Committee on IT must convince the President of the World Bank for funds for anti-poverty programme. Only teamwork can remove poverty from the country. The World Bank has the willingness to finance projects relating to Information Technology and distance education. A draft of the scheme with the help of qualified IT professionals and other anti-poverty specialists have to be prepared and announced for public debate. And valuable suggestions from experts in the field. In respect of distance education the task force has to approach Universities and reputed IT institutes specialised in the field for distance learning. The task force must approach IT companies and infrastructure segments for their willingness to invest in India. Besides the task force must create confidence among NRI’s on opportunities available in India. Promotion of merit, transparency and simplified procedures are the pillars of all round development. Hence the Task Force must concentrate on this aspect. The task Force should prepare a PowerPoint presentation of its vision for India to reinforce software Barons’ and International Business Houses’ impression that Task Force meant Business in the developing world. A receptive ambience has to be in India to attract Investment in IT. All the infrastructure bottlenecks have to be cleared for the same. As on this day India possesses the largest talent of software Engineers in the World. The Task Force must invite all the prime movers of business schools world over for series of meetings to start an International Business School which may be set up by the Captains of International Industries for the benefit of their heavy manufactures and for utilising our services which is shooting up. MoU for such Schools may be signed. Similarly with regard to Indian Industries, all the interested Industries which are inclined to start domestic and International Airport Projects must get full encouragement from the Government. Global Stock Broking Companies must be encouraged to start their computer-packed offices distributed throughout the Country in the State Capitals. All this will be possible if the Task Force understands the language of Industries and their needs. All the CEOs of Global Companies must be given the first preference for a meeting with the Task Force. The task Force must make it a point to talk and negotiate directly with Global Computer Software, Hardware and Network/Communication solution giants and must not depend on middlemen and contractors. The Task Force must learn how to do Business not as politicians, but as another Businessman in order to attract Global Players. Based on the needs of the Computer Professional, the Government has to plan massive Technological Parks on the outskirts of all the major Cities and see to it that anyone landing in those Cities can reach the Technological Parks just in 30 Minutes. Specially-built Superways full of tunnel ways or fly-overs must be constructed. Such Technological Parks must be self-sufficient with dedicated power and water -supply, Housing, Entertainment and other infrastructure Facilities, High Band-width International leased lines, Video Conferencing, Telebanking and High Speed Data Links, Internet Services, Through wireless net or fiber optics have to be provided. Once such Infrastructure starts sharing up, India will attract global players to set schools of excellence for manpower needs. The Task Force must venture an Industrial Infrastructure Corporation to attract International and NRI Companies for setting up their shops in the technological parks. The four dimensions of a human being - Homo sapiens, Homo Faber, Homo Ludens and Homo Spritualess - and his curiosity High level Parliamentary Committee on IT must convince the President of the World Bank for funds for anti-poverty programme. Only teamwork can remove poverty from the country. The World Bank has the willingness to finance projects relating to Information Technology and distance education. A draft of the scheme with the help of qualified IT professionals and other anti-poverty specialists have to be prepared and announced for public debate. And valuable suggestions from experts in the field. In respect of distance education the task force has to approach Universities and reputed IT institutes specialised in the field for distance learning. The task force must approach IT companies and infrastructure segments for their willingness to invest in India. Besides the task force must create confidence among NRI’s on opportunities available in India. Promotion of merit, transparency and simplified procedures are the pillars of all round development. Hence the Task Force must concentrate on this aspect. The task Force should prepare a PowerPoint presentation of its vision for India to reinforce software Barons’ and International Business Houses’ impression that Task Force meant Business in the developing world. A receptive ambience has to be in India to attract Investment in IT. All the infrastructure bottlenecks have to be cleared for the same. As on this day India possesses the largest talent of software Engineers in the World. The Task Force must invite all the prime movers of business schools world over for series of meetings to start an International Business School which may be set up by the Captains of International Industries for the benefit of their heavy manufactures and for utilising our services which is shooting up. MoU for such Schools may be signed. Similarly with regard to Indian Industries, all the interested Industries which are inclined to start domestic and International Airport Projects must get full encouragement from the Government. Global Stock Broking Companies must be encouraged to start their computer-packed offices distributed throughout the Country in the State Capitals. All this will be possible if the Task Force understands the language of Industries and their needs. All the CEOs of Global Companies must be given the first preference for a meeting with the Task Force. The task Force must make it a point to talk and negotiate directly with Global Computer Software, Hardware and Network/Communication solution giants and must not depend on middlemen and contractors. The Task Force must learn how to do Business not as politicians, but as another Businessman in order to attract Global Players. Based on the needs of the Computer Professional, the Government has to plan massive Technological Parks on the outskirts of all the major Cities and see to it that anyone landing in those Cities can reach the Technological Parks just in 30 Minutes. Specially-built Superways full of tunnel ways or fly-overs must be constructed. Such Technological Parks must be self-sufficient with dedicated power and water -supply, Housing, Entertainment and other infrastructure Facilities, High Band-width International leased lines, Video Conferencing, Telebanking and High Speed Data Links, Internet Services, Through wireless net or fiber optics have to be provided. Once such Infrastructure starts sharing up, India will attract global players to set schools of excellence for manpower needs. The Task Force must venture an Industrial Infrasture Corporation to attract International and NRI Companies for setting up their shops in the technological parks. |