FN: Frederick Noronha’s blog

Makes a lot of sense, usually. Rajesh Jain’s weblog on emerging technologies, enterprises and markets. Check it out here. Jain simply describes himself as an “Entrepreneur, Mumbai, India, Emergic, Netcore, Internet, IndiaWorld, Sify, IIT-Bombay, ColumbiaUniv …” He made it to the headlines because of the whopping price he got for one of India’s early dotcoms he set up — IndiaWorld.

BytesForAll: Can IT be relevant to the poor? An interesting update from my friend Niklas Vainio with some relevant insights into Free/Libre and Open Source Software and India. See it at this blog.

At the moment, India is a “net taker” in the open source movement, but in few years it should become a “net giver”. Dr. Phatak is currently running a program to get computer science students involved in open source development.

And

Third day was the most interesting for me. Jitendra Shah spoke about his Janabhaaraati Live CD with localized software. He said a couple of things I hadn’t thought about the use of IT in government offices. For government use, you need: Indian language support, office tools, printing, network, communication utilities, document management, search in Indian languages, name translitteration, GIS and low-cost support (can IBM/Red Hat/Novell do that?).
The most interesting session was an ad-hoc session right after the official program about why Open Source still hasn’t gotten off in India yet. This session had the most discussion and argumentation, about piracy vs. free software etc. Somebody from the audience criticized David Axmark (of MySQL) that it’s easy for him to develop software and give it away since he’s from a social democracy. On one hand it’s very true that FLOSS has hidden assumptions on the background of the free software hacker. A large part of free software is software somebody wrote on their free time. Not everybody can afford that. On the other hand, freedom of the software is part of the strategy of MySQL - it wouldn’t have become so great piece of software if it hasn’t been free. Same applies to Linux, gcc, KDE, Firefox and many others.

Send out an SMS saying TRAIN to the number 676747 or type RAILWAY and send it to 7886 for information on * your ticket’s PNR status * accomodation available * time table * trains between two stations * train running status * train delay update. This SMS enquiry on 676747 is available on Airtel, IDEA, BPL and the MTNL networks. SMS enquiry on 7886 is available on Airtel, Hutch (Orange), BPL and BSNL networks. For more info newspaper ads promised info on this indrail SMS site. But there was a problem in getting through. The main indrail site works though.

Very interesting inputs from an Indian which the mainstream press otherwise simply forgets about. Check out InfochangeIndia.org

Goa Miscellania Came across this reference to Goa, in a history of Indian advertising at Prayas Abhinav’s blog

History of Indian Advertising, 1800s - 2002
Compiled from books, articles, journals and inputs from professionals in the industry by MagIndia.com A sophisticated & professional industry called Indian Advertising
1950s Radio Ceylon and Radio Goa become the media option ..

A very slender connection, but interesting nonetheless.

Goa Miscellania CAN IT HAPPEN? A GOAN MARITIME MUSEUM? Journalist Melvyn Misquita and Cliford Pereira are working on plans to build a proposed ‘Goan Maritime Museum’, possibly in cyberspace. The meet to discuss this happens on February 22, 2005 at 10 am at the Xavier Centre of Historical Research. There will be a brief presentation by Melvyn on his work on the ‘SS Britannia’ and another by Cliff on his work with the National Maritime Museum in
London and his findings on ‘Goan fatalities in World War II’. Mario Alvares will make a presentation on the GMM website. Melvyn can be contacted on phone 0 9422064707

Shaila Desouza of the Centre for Women’s Studies (at the Goa University, Goa) sent in a copy of the book she co-authored with Ms Nirmala Sitharaman of the National Commission for Women (New Delhi). Looking forward reading that more closely.

Incidentally, the NCW site is here. (Oops, some problem with the URL?) They can be contacted via email at mahila alfa.nic.in

This book: 119 pages, May 2004, price not mentioned. Large format. Paperback.

Goajourno is a mailing lists where (some) journos speak their mind. See this thread (and related posts) titled “Correspondents” where some strong words and angry accusations have been traded. It seems to have degenerated into a personal slanging match
My arguments are: let’s go beyond personalities to see some of the issues emerging:

* Should journalists accepts presents, hospitality, tours, etc?
If so, under what conditions, and to what limit? If not, why?

* Can hospitality influence journalism? If so, how do we
respond to (i) tours (ii) food (iii) gifts?

* Should journalists be allowed to hold another full-time job?
If not, why? On the other hand, could there be some
advantages of such an arrangement?

* Can there be a ‘conflict of interest’ even when a
journalist doesn’t hold another job and, if so,
what steps need to be taken to prevent this?

* Is the problem caused by the low payment structure for
non-staff journalists?

* Should teachers be disallowed from also functioning
as journalism? If so, why? (Just the need to create more
full-time job opportunities for journalists might not
be a good-enough reason!)

* Is freelancing viable? If so, under what conditions?
If not, why not?

* How does a journalist ensure that his functioning is
*not* wholly dependent on the whims of management’s policy?

* Is journalistic rivalry touching unhealthy levels?

* Do juniors have good role-models from among the seniors?
Or are juniors themselves at fault, and unnecessarily
scapegoating their seniors?

* Do journalists take professional and mid-career-
training issues seriously enough in Goa/rest of India?

* What are the questions that are left out in the above list?

All of us are violating one or the other here…

Consider the unsparing standards set out in the Society of Professional Journalists’ Ethics Code, which instructs journalists to:

* Avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived.
* Remain free of associations and activities that may compromise
integrity or damage credibility.
* Refuse gifts, favors, fees, free travel and special treatment, and
shun secondary employment, political involvement, public office and
service in community organizations if they compromise journalistic
integrity.
* Deny favored treatment to advertisers and special interests and
resist their pressure to influence news coverage.
* Be wary of sources offering information for favors or money …

See: http://www.ojr.org/ojr/stories/050217lasica/

GoanetNewsBytes is the archives of the new format of news updates from Goa, which we’re putting out via Goanet.

Mississauga, Ontario-based Edna is author of ‘Saviour the Flavour of India’, pp 132, January 2005 printed at Pilar, Goa. This book is available from tonferns at hotmail.com

This is a new site created to review books related to Goa. Check GoaBooks Your comments, feedback, suggestions, brickbats are welcome.