FN: Frederick Noronha’s blog

This story from INDIA TODAY, titled “Street Smart: Fine collection doubles to Rs 72 lakh as Simputers make traffic management hassle-free for cops” is about how policemen in Bangalore, South India, are using the GNU/Linux-based Simputer to tighten their fine-collection system.

Sad but true: amidst all the Indian lack of official support, hardward challenges, and delay, the goal of the Simputer (of empowering the common citizen) is taking more time to become a reality (if it does). But meanwhile, the law of unintended consequences is getting into play. Google will tell you a lot about the Simputer’s deployment in the military too.

Would the Gomantak Times agree? Remember how many headlines the SARS
created some time back? Maybe some journalists benefitted from this; but
SARS seems to have had less of an impact than, say, malaria. FN

http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=118356

Economy

Media hype hits poultry biz hard, says Pawar

New Delhi, Feb 21 The media has exaggerated the extent of the outbreak,
contributing to a steep decline in poultry sales, agriculture minister
Sharad Pawar told reporters in New Delhi on Tuesday. “I am afraid that the
rural economy may be hit because of this coverage,” Mr Pawar said.

Chicken prices fell 42% on February 19 at the Ghazipur market in New Delhi,
the day after an outbreak was discovered in poultry in Maharashtra, said
Shashi Kapur, president, Poultry Federation of India.

According to the World Health Organisation, the virus in birds creates more
opportunity for human infection and increases the risk of it changing into a
pandemic form.

At least 92 of the 170 people known to have been infected with the H5N1
avian influenza virus have died, mainly in Asia. China, Sri Lanka,
Bangladesh and Pakistan had announced bans yesterday on poultry and poultry
product imports from India.

—Bloomberg

An interesting perspective:

http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue9_11/odonnell/index.html

A case for Indian insourcing: Open Source interest in IT job expansion

by Casey O’Donell

Abstract
The controversy surrounding the “off–shoring” of IT jobs from the United
States to other countries, in particular to India, has become a focal
point in American political discourse and has been widely represented in
the media. Disturbingly, little attention has been paid to this
occurrence beyond its implications for American employment
opportunities. Representing Indian and American IT workers as unified
groups whose interests are mutually exclusive and opposed to one another
is problematic given the material realities that propel “outsourcing.”
Among the potential benefits of growing demand for, and supply of,
skilled IT workers is increased participation in the Open Source
Software (OSS) movement. Expanding global involvement offers a
significant opportunity for developing countries to influence the
direction, importance, and future of OSS.

While visiting Uganda, where daily newspapers are priced the equivalent
of 50 US cents (about 1000 Ugandan shillings), it suddenly struck me how
inexpensive and affordable Indian newspapers are. A paper here costs Rs
2-3 on a weekday (under 10 cents US) and about Rs 5 on a weekend.

But papers that are advertisement-driven can be a bit (or more)
reader-unfriendly at time. One compromise is the Sunday newspapers, and
most outstation weekend-editions tend to have a fair amount of
interesting reading material.

My joke on myself was that the Sunday Deccan Herald used to be a very
readable product… till I joined (from 1987-1994) and started writing
for it Anyway, whenever the chance comes along, one does like to
pick up the Sunday papers. Problem is: these editions come only to the
towns (Panjim mainly, Mapusa doesn’t get all) and Sunday is a day when
one is seldom in town!

Yesterday’s papers did have some Goa links in them…

Deccan Herald’s art and culture page had this tory on the Opera House in
Mumbai. It read:

The fat lady sings only in Mumbai! Its rich history and intricate
architecture make the Royal Opera House in Mumbai a major tourist
attraction. K D L Khan on the only opera house in India. The Opera
House in Mumbai waits to regain its past glory…

One wondered: with all the talent, couldn’t Goa have something even
remotely like this? Never mind that the sun has set on the British
Empire!

And whiele reading, a Goan link presented itself. Apparently, the (then)
Bombay Opera House was constructed in the Baroque style, and was the
brainchild of Maurice E Bandmann, a renowned entertainer from Calcutta
and Jehangir Framji Karaka, who headed a coal brokers’ firm. The article
further says:

An advantageous corner site was leased at the northern end of Queen’s
Road in the vicinity of the Sandhurst and Kennedy bridges, and in 1908,
Karaka and Bandmann drew up designs for the theatre. Bandmann’s manager
was responsible charge of the construction…

Almost expected it! A Goan link there. As one reads a little of history,
the Parsi-Goan links and the role they played in British colonial
history of India keeps coming up. Even if the Goan often seems to be a
junior partner in such endeavours. Interesting that Collaco is referred
to only by his surname here. Does anyone have more details?

Another article in the DH is Marianne de Nazareth’s review of Manohar
Malgaonkar’s *Inside Goa* (published by Architecture Autonomous, pp 495,
Rs 695). Year of publication is not mentioned.

She writes: “Written in a fluid and easy reading style, Malgaonkar takes
every Goan back to the days when their Portuguese ‘masters’ converted
them to Christianity forcibly — “Let him who wants to live in the
islands become Christian”. The others ran away to Mangalore and remained
Hindu…”

That, to me, seems a bit too simplistic. In post-colonial times, it’s
fashionable to claim that the Portuguese converted “forcibly”. It would
seem more believable that many simply saw opportunity in this
switch-over. Likewise, one thought that migration further south down the
coast (to Karnataka and Kerala) started in pre-Portuguese times. It
might be fashionable now-a-days to blame this on colonialism alone.

Another article in the SUNDAY Times of India (the paper I love to
hate… it has changed the idea of what newspapers are so drastically,
but you still can’t afford to miss its adverts!) has this rather
convoluted article on Wendell Rodricks, about a February 10 event in
Colombo but written from Mumbai.

It begins thus: “The fashion world is in a state of shock. The attack on
designer Wendell Rodricks at a fashion show in Colombo on February 10
has left a bad taste in the mouths of the glad-rag brigade.”

After reading two-thirds of the piece, one lears that it probably was
some rivalry between designers… or something to that effect.
Apparently some designers had been invited to showcase their work at a
charity event coordinated by a (?) Sumita Radhakrishna from Colombo on
behalf of the Rotary Club of Colombo East.

Maybe one is just missing something here!

In the Deccan Herald, there’s also another profile of Satish Gujral, the
brother of former Indian PM Inder Kumar Gujral. We’re told his “thirst
for life and creativity led him to dabble in many artistic mediums”.

Wonder how many would agree that his design of the Goa University was
something worth writing home about?

Kindly visit a new site on Saligao — http://saligao.goa-india.org/

Derek Cordeiro recommended CivicSpace (based on Drupal) and it works
great. We can unleash the power of GNU/Linux and Free Software by
demonstrating to people how easy and useful it can be in real-life!

If you know of anyone who’d like to build a village site, do get in
touch. My dream is to have a lot of villages and schools from Goa in
cyberspace. But to make that happen, we need a lot of volunteers. It
would probably also help the local society if more people took to
expressing themselves in writing.

S Gasper D’Souza of the Navhind Times has put up a photo exhibition at
the currently underway ‘Gagged by the Bag’ event, on at the Municipal
Garden in Panjim.

Gasper writes: “The garbage problem does not begin in the dumps. It
begins in your shopping bag! Each time you go shopping, you are adding
to the city’s garbage. With cities bursting at the seams with increasing
population [actually, with overconsumption really --FN], the waste being
generated each day is simply too much for the limited space available. A
day will dawn (and it has, for some cities) when we will not have any
place to dump our garbage.

View the photo-documentary and article at http://www.gasperdesouza.com
Contacts: 946 Gasper Village, E3/24 Tivai Vaddo, Calangute gasperd at
gmail dot com Phone 227 5235 or 9422 638381

Milton Aineruhanga <milton@wougnet.org> informs us that after the
recent Africa Source 2 event (see their mailing list at
africasource2-l@lists.tacticaltech.org ) the Linux Chix Africa- Uganda
chapter was born.

Milton writes: “It is now in existence and is seeking membership from
women in Uganda. The targeted audience is decision makers, end users as
well as women computer technicians. The primary focus of Linux Chix
Africa- Uganda chapter will be FOSS [Free/Libre and Open Source
Software] and women in Uganda. The chapter seeks to advocate for the
use of FOSS by women at all levels i.e. both the urban and the rural
woman.

For more information about Linux Chix Africa, visit:
http://www.africalinuxchix.org

Maybe we in South Asia should try and promote the formation of
LinuxChix chapters in Indian states too. I would love to see one happen
in Goa (and am willing to help, without interfering!). But there are so
few potential members I can think of!

It’s 3:30 am almost, and I’ve been chatting with Clinton (not the prez!)
Here’s what the young man wrote… –FN

http://klintvaz.blogspot.com/
2.54am, 130kmph, and 13 turtle hatchlings

Thought i’d pass the blog phase in my life but i guess i was wrong. Got
persuaded by a friend that blogs were worth trying out. Perhaps that it
is 2.54 am in the morning and i don’t know if i’m sleepy or not, but i
won’t put too much thought into that…

I’ve just returned home speedily from a beach in North Goa, called
Morjim. So what was a benaulikar doing 70 kms away from his hometown at
that ungodly hour you ask? Watching turtles hatch and crawl to the sea
ofcourse!

Well it’s not everyday that you see such a happening, so armed with a
camera and a 4 wheeler, i made my way to Panjim for dinner and then to
Morjim where i would witness this for the first time in my life. Sujeet,
one of those in charge had informed me earlier that i would be just one
of the 5-6 people that night, and you can perobably imagine my horror
when i saw over 150 people at a desolate beach close to midnight.

It’s a sad sight to see people jostling with each other trying to get a
better view perhaps, a better camera angle and this special moment
becomes just another touristic sideshow. At birth, hatchlings make their
way upwards, crawling through the sand with their flippers. Instinct
tells them to follow the moonlight towards the sea. But with so many
meddilng tourists, and flashing cameras, they get disoriented and move
in circles, wearing themselves out even before they enter the sea. It
was a disa pointing experience as I could not get a picture in a natural
setting with the crowds milling about, nor could i enjoy the sight.

At times like this I wish we ddin’t have so many tourists or perhaps
these hatchings should be kept secret, at least for the sake of the
turtles. This night just 13 turtles made it into the sea. I wonder how
many will survive till they return back to Morjim to lay some more eggs.
Probably none, but by then i guess Morjim would probably be another
Calangute.

Clinton..
klintvaz at gmail.com

posted by klintvaz at 1:25 PM | 0 comments

Does this mean that our October 2003 ebook on journalism in Goa will
finally see the light of day? In terms of being printed, I mean? A
friend from the Free Software network CV Radhakrishnan <cvr at
river-valley.com> has helped me immensely in typesetting the book, using
world-class LaTeX software and skills. After all, a book on freedom in
the media needs to be worked on in Free Software, right?

PS: The book was out in e-format soon after being compiled. It’s also
available here http://www.gutenberg.org/files/11523/11523.txt

I really think that by highlighting such reports so prominently, the
Herald (in particular… but other papers also have their own thing
going when it comes to dealing with communalism in Goa) is playing into
the hands of those fanatics who want to divide Goan society on communal
lines.

It may be good for circulation, but certainly not good for Goa.
Maybe it might be better to have a fact-finding committee, to find out
the issues involved, what might have been the provocation, areas of
possible tension, and where there is scope for bridge-building (among
communities) in Aldona.