GOVERNMENT COMMITTED
TO PROVIDE VALUE ADDED CONNECTIVITY TO TACKLE DIGITAL DIVIDE :
SHRI MAHAJAN
MINISTER
MEETS MR. BILL GATES
MICROSOFT
TO CONTRIBUTE $1 MILLION TO MEDIA LAB ASIA
Union Minister for
Parliamentary Affairs, Communications and Information Technology,
Shri Pramod Mahajan today met Mr. Bill Gates, Co-founder, Chairman
and Chief Software Architect of Microsoft. During the discussions,
Shri Mahajan outlined India’s Telecom&IT initiatives that
had been undertaken in the last two years. He specifically highlighted
the achievements that had taken place in the Basic, International
Long Distance, National Long Distance and Internet sectors. The
focus was also on the Government’s commitment to provide level
playing field in the sector with the customer being regarded as
the ‘King’. The Minister also apprised Mr. Gates of the efforts
undertaken to tackle the Digital Divide. Both agreed that there
was a similarity of purpose between the Department of IT and Microsoft
in taking IT to the Masses.
During the discussions,
Shri Mahajan specifically touched upon the key programmes of the
Government in the IT&Telecom sector. He specifically gave
an indepth overview of the functioning of Media Lab Asia in India
in the last one year. The Minister touched upon the key components
of the initiative and said that it had evoked a popular response
amongst IT corporates. As a result of the discussions on the issue,
Mr. Gates agreed to contribute $1 million for Media Lab Asia.
Appreciating this gesture, Shri Mahajan said this initiative from
Microsoft would attract other international IT corporates to participate
in the Media Lab Asia programme.
The deliberations
also focussed on the e-learning initiative in the country. As
a result of the detailed discussions, Microsoft has also agreed
to give $20 million for training the trainers in the e-learning
programme, also known as ‘Shiksha’. Under this, 80,000 teachers
and three and a half million students would be trained between
a period of 3-5 years. The collaboration would be done in partnership
with the Department of Information Technology.
Shri Mahajan also
explained in detail two specific Government initiatives namely,
the Village Public Telephony (VPT) and the Community Information
Centre (CIC) programme in the North-East. The Minister informed
Mr. Gates that when he had come to India two years ago, the CIC
programme had just begun as a Pilot Project and today, it was
present in 487 blocks in the remote corners of the North-Eastern
Region of the country. In this regard, he mentioned that it was
through this programme that the Government had initiated the policy
of providing value added connectivity to the people and hence
tackle the problem of Digital Divide. The Minister gave an indepth
view of how this facility had benefitted the people of North East
India in being digitally connected with the rest of the country.
He also gave an overview of the Village Public Telephone programme
and explained how through appropriate measures, by the end of
this year, there would be a telephone in every village of the
country. In this context, he also touched upon the Village Mobile
Telephone Programme.
The meeting also
saw discussions on the role and relevance of language software
in empowering the people. Mr. Gates acknowledged that during his
last visit to India, he had taken the advice of the Minister to
embark upon the local language software development programme.
He specifically mentioned that they had been quite successful
in this regard. The Minister also explained the initiatives of
the Government in the e-Governance sector and specifically mentioned
the ‘Bhoomi e-governance Project’ undertaken across the country.
