Real scary news on how Microsoft is planning to "help" out the state everywhere. - Sandip
P.S. My apologies for including the whole article, soemthing I normally refrain from. But this scared me a LOT. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/uncomp/articleshow?artid=31482910 Bengali Windows version by Oct 2003 KOLKATA: A Bengali version of Windows and MS Office is likely to be available by October 2003 enabling connectivity in rural West Bengal and cross-border e-access with Bangladesh, West Bengal IT Minister Manab Mukherjee said on Monday. "Microsoft CEO Bill Gates has approved a proposal to enable the use of Bengali in Windows and MS Office and it is likely to be available by October 2003," Mukherjee told newspersons after revalidating an August 2001 MoU with Microsoft, represented by its India President Rajiv Nair. Mukherjee said Microsoft had sought the advice of the state government on issues of accuracy of Bengali language. Besides the proposed version, Microsoft has Tamil and Hindi versions. The minister said Microsoft was also considering Kolkata as one of the destinations for setting up IT training academies in the country. On collaboration projects, he said Microsoft had completed work on IT roadmaps for six government departments -- transport, agriculture marketing, health, panchayat and land reforms -- and also prepared a blueprint for creation of a citizen database. Mukherjee said the citizen database and citizen interface projects, intended to provide more security, better planning and identification of Below Poverty Line (BPL) population, was awaiting the nod from the Centre. The TCS/WEBEL G2C portal project was executed on Microsoft technology, Mukherjee added. On e-governance initiatives, Mukherjee said Microsoft had developed products for land record management, application for registration offices, a soon to be launched West Bengal government portal, mail messaging system of the WBSWAN and local area network at the state secretariat. "Kolkata Police is in the process of using applications developed by the National Crime Records Bureau in association with NIC and Microsoft for linking of 45 police stations," he said. The minister said under the IT training initiatives, around 150 personal assistants to secretaries of the government were trained by Microsoft along with personnel Webel, state government's executing agency. Microsoft had also offered to set up a trainer's training facility at a leading technical institution, which would be selected soon, Mukherjee said. -- -------------------------------------------------------- Sandip Bhattacharya sandipb <@> bigfoot.com http://www.sandipb.net GPG/PGP: 0x08EB637C -------------------------------------------------------- ================================================ To unsubscribe, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe in subject header. Check archives at http://www.mail-archive.com/ilugd%40wpaa.org
