FN: Frederick Noronha’s blog

Dr Montek Singh Ahluwalia — the deputy chairman of the Indian Planning
Commission, sometimes called by his critics as the World Bank/IMF’s man in New
Delhi — threw some hard challenges to the 6th annual Baramati Initiative on ICT
& Development, currently underway in this central Indian location, in the heart
of rural India.

If you thought e-agriculture just meant getting in computers, sticking
in a pipe (to the internet) and working out some magic, then you’ve
overlooked a lot, said Dr Ahluwalia.

He termed IT (information technology) one of those “defining
technologies” that bring about a drastic change. “It’s not just something you
plug on top of the old. As far as IT goes, the perception is that it has led to
a phenomenal increase in productivity in every sector it has been applied to.
It’s become fashionable to add ‘e’ to everything. You have e-agriculture,
e-business, e-commerce. Even words which began with an ‘e’ now have two e’s
added on to them. Like e-economics, and maybe even e-electricity,” he said.

He pointed to the importance of the agriculture field in India.
“Agriculture contributes only 23% of India’s GDP, but it still provides a
dominant source of income for 60% of our population. We can’t think of going
ahead without agriculture,” Dr Ahluwalia said.

“We (in India) have done extraordinarily well as suppliers of IT to the world.
India has responded incredibly rapidly, as part of the global supply chain of
IT. But our record of applying IT to our own society back home has actually been
quite poor. That’s the main difference between India and China. This is not a
criticism of the IT industry, but a criticism of the rest of us,” said
Ahluwalia.

He said IT had not been optimally applied to most fields in India –
whether agriculture, other sectors, and certainly in government. “Government
should have been the first sector (to promote effective IT use because) G2C (its
government-to-citizen dealings) and even G2B (government-to-business dealings)
require access to information by millions to information controlled by one
party. Access to IT should have been a big part, but it hasn’t,” said Dr
Ahulwalia.

“Since the mid-eighties, every government office is decorated by a
computer. Most senior officers, including myself, started using a computer only
when your children got old enough that it was not possible to communicate by
them through any ways except by email,” said Ahluwalia. “If you send an email to
a government officer, hoping for a reply, they get the relevant file and sit in
your out office to discuss the issue.”

“We haven’t really done what needs to be done. The first thing
government does is buys hardware. There are relevant issues here: Is IT just a
case of adding technology to an existing system? It’s not an incremental change.
The amount of information flowing is only going to be useful if there’s a lot of
response to the information available. Or else, the equation turns into NT + 00
= EOO. New technology and old organisation equals expensive old organisation.
The benefit of IT is only derived when the process re-engineering takes place.
Or else it’s completely useless.”

Dr Ahluwalia cited the experience of India during its early stages of
computerising banks. Due to union opposition, the central bank, the
Reserve Bank of India, came to an understanding with the unions that the
“tellers” in the banks would get access to computers, but the computers would
not be linked across tellers or to the back office. This was intended to protect
the number of tellers in jobs, but killed the utility of computers, or their
possiblity of enhancing efficiency in the banks, he said.

Ahluwalia called for structural change, together with “bringing in this
phenomenal technology”. He said: “One of the biggest problem with Indian
agriculture is the gap between what the product is sold for and what the farmer
gets, is probably the largest in the world. The structure of marketing has to
absolutely changed. There’s no use if we have the same number of (unnecessary
middlemen) between the market and the farmer, but that each one is running
around with a laptop!”

He criticised the “focus on lines, connections, kiosks”. Said Ahluwalia: “If we
are serious about IT, we should be spending on a systems analysis (to see what’s
wrong with the old ways of doing work).”

In Pondicherry, on the Indian east coast, Alhuwalia cited the experiment with
transmitting information of predicting good fishing fields, based on factors
like sea water temperature.

“It sounds good. But fish also move around quite a bit. It takes about
eight hours to get out there (to where the fish are predicted as being). If you
keep getting online information, it would be more useful. But Indian fishing
boats being used are designed to go and come back within the 24 hour cycle. You
need boats which can go out for 4-5 days. Fishermen who earlier were opposed to
this very (big vessel) technology in the past, are now talking about how to form
fishermen’s associations, and go in for larger boats,” he said.

Ahluwalia suggested that there are many problems — which have nothing
to do with the IT part of the solution — which are not being tackled. “We
should not talk of agriculture as if we’ve tackled the sectoral problems, and
just need to add on the e-part. Doubling growth rates doesn’t happen through
business as usual. Make a list of whatever you’re doing, and the probablity is
that you aren’t doing it very well, or that’s not the right thing to do,” he
stressed, explaining the vital need to boost productivity in agriculture, to
improve the lifestyles for hundreds of millions in rural India.

Said he: “Indian agriculture is not using fully what is known in seeds
and more. It also needs to move beyond its earlier obsession with
food-grains. No medium-term plan for Indian agriculture can be postulated
without the assumption that we will be moving from foodgrians to horticulture,
floriculture, livestock, fisheries and so on. The latter are much more
perishable, and the importance of post-harvest technologies is far greater than
for wheat and paddy.”

Ahluwalia said the recent US-Indo joint statement signed opened up the
possibility of exporting Indian mangoes to the US.

But he concluded on a challening note.

“We’re not managing water properly. We’re not managing water where
there’s irrigation, and we’re not managing it properly where there’s no
irrigation. We’re not managing credit properly. The flow of information is very
poor when it comes to what’s good practice, good seeds, etc. Within the country,
yields are one-third to one-half of what they can be using best practices –
using the same seeds, and same weather. We also have to deal with weaknesses in
credit, extension, and the knowledge system.”

Said Ahluwalia: “When we say e-agriculture, we’re misreprenting the
challenge. There are a lot of other alphabets we need to add. I would
prefer the term m-agriculture (modern agriculture). I hope those into
e-agriculture don’t feel we’re shortchanging them. There are a few other
alphabets too before you get to ‘m’. Don’t forget them.” He suggested terms like
l-agriculture (logistical agriculture) or m-agriculture (marketing agriculture).

Because of the unseasonal rains (which lashed central India
after midnight, accompanied by lightning and power failures)
most of the participants at Baramati VI [1] arrived late at
the venue.

At the dinner table, at starting time, there were just three
other participants who had flown in from abroad, via Mumbai.

Frida Youssel, a Lebanese lady based in Geneva, is
coordinator for UNCTAD (the UN’s Conference on Trade and
Development) [2] finance and risk management commodities
branch. We shared ideas on Lebanon’s senseless civil war,
its site to keep villages in touch with the outside world
including the large number of expats from the country [3] and
the impact of Lebanese food in the most unlikely places of
the globe including six kms away from my village!

Dr Youssef, who has visited other parts of India in the past,
is keen to look at successful attempts of ICT in agriculture.

PJAM (Peter) Smeets, drs. is from Alterra Landscape Centre in
the Wageningen UR in the Netherlands [4]. He spoke on
e-agroparks in the Netherlands, somewhat hi-tech stuff with
more interest on the business side.

Edwin Moyo of Zimbabwe, the CEO of the Trans Zambezi
Industries Ltd, was also present early, having come in via
the Kenya Airlines flight (one of the few from that continent
that connects Africa with India, apart from South Africa and
Ethiopian airlines). But he didn’t have a card on hand, so
that will have to wait.

Gopi N Ghosh was a known face. We’ve been in touch through
BytesForAll. He’s currently the assistant FAO representative
and resource person (for food and nutrition security) at New
Delhi.He heads FAO’s knowledge management network and is part
of the Solutions Exchange that shares useful agri info.[5]

Later, on the bus home, this expert with a long experience in
agriculture (including the G B Pant University), spoke about
growing areas for concern about agriculture in India. Ghosh
has had long experience in this field.

Together with him wer ehis colleagues Bidisha Pillai
(research associate, food and nutrition security community)
and Shailza Kapani (operations assistant, knowledge
management partnership project). Both have the link for the
Solutions Exchange prominently mentioned on their visiting
cards.

Another familiar face was that of sai sreekanth m (who spells
his name in lower case on his cards). [6] sai was one of
those bright young men we met at FOSS.in [7] 2005, the
Free/Libre and Open Source Software network conference held
last December in Bangalore. There, he was talking on Free
Software tools in the world of education.

sai works for Yahoo! [8]. His designation is senior product
manager for emerging markets. But he’s passionate about ICT
in development, is a member of the BytesForAll [9] mailing
list (now, am I bragging?) He was earlier with HP, looking at
how all the silicon and software could make sense to the
Indian commonman. sai sees India as among the top ten
emerging internet markets globally, and expects a lot of
attention and things to happen on this front.

As some of us were discussing over dinner, there are a lot of
interesting small projects coming up all over the place, in a
country like India. But given our size and poor
communication, the left hand doesn’t seem to know what the
right hand is doing. If anyone can bring all these together,
that would be magic!

On Friday morning, one met up with some press people too.
Hemant P Mardia, associate editor of IndianInfoline.com [10].
B B Bansal is the commercial advisor to the Consulate General
of the Kingdom of the Netherlands [11]. He mentioned Dutch
interest in port dredging, logistics, and the like.

T L Sankar is a honorary visiting professor at the
Administrative Staff College of India at Hyderabad [12] while
K R Padmanabha Rao is deputy general manager and member of
the faculty at the Reserve Bank of India’s [13] college of
Agricultural Banking.

In between, I also caught up with Mathew Sangma, who comes in
from the remote North-Eastern Indian state of Meghalaya, and
is with unitus-accion, the Indian microfinance centre. He
mentioned they have a software called ‘porta credit’ but I
couldn’t locate it after a hasty search on their site [14].

Or did one look at the wrong place?

[1] http://www.baramatiinitiatives.org
[2] http://www.unctad.org
[3] http://www.baldati.com
[4] http://www.alterra.wur.nl
[5] http://www.solutionexchange-un.net.in
[6] saisreek at yahoo-inc.com
[7] http://foss.in
[8] http://bangalore.yahoo.com
[9] http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bytesforall_readers
[10] http://www.indiainfoline.com
[11] bom-ea at minbuza.nl
[12] http://asci.org.in
[13] http://rbi.org.in
[14] http://www.unitus.com and http://www.accion.org

Vidya Prathisthan is an educational campus built in the middle of rural
India, amidst some barren terrain and in the midst of what used to be
desolate villages areas. It aims to be “an institution in which knowledge
resides as the most ineresting building block”, as organisers of the
organising panel put it.

“In 1992, (prominent Indian politician who’s often credited with this
success story) Sharad Pawar dared to dream of translating 128 acres of
barren land into a prominent centre of education. We’re always aimed at
taking technology to the grassroots of society. VIIT (Vidya Pratishthan’s
Institute of Informatoin Techology, the local engineering college) was
established in February 2000, six years ago, with an aim to provide
quality
education in information technology and computer science,” said VIIT
governing council chairman Sharad Kulkarni.

He mentioned some of the initiatives taken by this institution in terms of
IT-enabled “affordable” services, interactive-voice recording based bazaar
bhav (market prices information), telebanking, WiLL (or wireless in local
loop) to access the internet, smart cards for rural settings, computer on
wheels, and the local government’s e-services network called Setu.

(Setu is a single window system, which processes the applications received
at the facility center, verifies them and generates certificates or
affidavits. The operator can punch in all details of the applicant,
whenever
he receives an application for a certificate or affidavit.)

Kulkarni narrated that the Baramati Initiatives evolved out of a World
Bank
meeting between the Indian politician and strongman of the Baramati area
Sharad Pawar and the then World Bank’s Watanabe, who was keen on
harnessing
the power of ICTs for development.

Kulkarni also gave an update of earlier conferences at Baramati. This
series
of annual meets, he said, have served as meeting point for four sets of
stake-holders: grassroot workers, the development community, IT
entrepreneurs with technical skills (entrepreneurs and researchers), and
government officials.

In May 2001, the theme of connectivity for the rural poor in India.
Baramati
II came about from May 31 to June 2, 2002, and had among its partners the
Digital Partners and Media Lab Asia. May 2003 saw the third
initiative. It’s
focus was ways in which ICTs are being used to empower the power in a more
sustainable manner. There were presentation of social entrepreneurs.
In May
2004, the focus went onto info-kiosks. For the Fifth Baramati
Initiative in
March 2005, the theme was delivering opportunity — education through
technology.

This year, the conference is focussing on ICTs in agriculture. VIIT
governing council chairman Sharad Kulkarni said: “We’re exploring avenues
through which governments, NGOs, and entrepreneurs can focus on
e-agriculture. Some 65% of India lives in the rural sector, mostly working
in agriculture. But agriculture accounts for hardly 23% of the GDP (gross
domestic product). We need to assist India’s remaining 650 million to
augment their own purchasing power. Indian farmers are sustaining
themselves
on archaic practicses, like their counterparts in various parts of the
globe. It’s essential that they get access to info on weather, production
techniques, availability of seed, cultivation techniques, water usage, new
techniques like biotechnics, and market infrastructure like warehousing.”

“All flights are delayed by two hours,” the director of the VIIT
announced to volunteers, and the mood sunk. Even the Baramati skies
appear overcast. Earlier, while I sat through a sandlewood-paste
flavoured beard-trim (Rs 15) at the local roadside makeshift
haircutting saloon, the TV spoke of rainy weather warnings.

That means a delay in getting started.

But the hosts here are hospitable to a fault. I don’t know what it is,
but have often encountered the hospitality of our neighbouring states,
though often, like “good neighbours” huge Maharashtra and tiny Goa
also have our tiffs over political and other issues.

A few of the early arrivals, mainly the organisers from YES _/ Bank
and the college, and ICRISAT’s international faculty Dr SP Wani,
joined in for an interesting, vegetarian Maharashtrian meal. Their
food is interesting, and given the diversity of India, food changes
every few hundred kilometres that you travel. Like it. In any case, am
(impure) veg myself.

After that, a brief chat saw one land up at the CC — or the community
centre. On the top of the building, a newish board announces this
year-old station “Vasundhara Vahini, 90.4 FM”. Vasundhara is one of
the names of the earth. There are many names in South Asia with an
earthy feel to them: “Achala, Avani, Bhoopesh, Bhupendra, Bhupati,
Bhoodevi, Bhuvana, Bhuvaneswari, Dharani, Dharavi, Ela, Ela Devi,
Ibrahim, Ila, Ila Devi, Mahipal, Pruthvi, Pruthviraj, Urvi.”

After all, as the announcer who worked at Satara, a neighbouring
state-run All India Radio station as a casual announcer said, it was
because of the earth that man sustains himself. And this point is felt
strongly in this part of agrarian India.

VIIT director Dr Amol Goje thinks it would help to hand over the radio
to the students to run. Others rued the fact that the number of
restrictions placed by the Indian government on what it calls
“community radio” (actually a form of ‘campus radio’) make it tough to
sustain.

One can broadcast just four minutes of advertising in a day, or that’s
what one was told! There are restrictions on rebroadcasts of
entertainment-oriented music, others complained. But the announcer at
the station, who demoed how he read out the announcements (broadcast
is four hours in the morning, with a repeat session in the evenings)
termed this the first agriculture-oriented radio station in Asia.

It’s located in three rooms, and is run with the minimal staff to keep
it viable. Waiting to tune in to this network, when I have the time
and an FM radio on hand, at the right moment.

Waiting for the action to start. –FN in Baramati 7:49 pm March 9, 2006.

I’ve lost all sense of time, but my mobile phone (which fortunately
works 800 kms away from home) tells me it’s 10:29 am on March 9, 2006.
Have reached Baramati… after many years.

Later today, the 6th Annual Baramati Initiative on ICT and Development
(focussing on The Potential of e-Agriculture) gets underway at this
rural, but education-oriented island two hours away from Pune in Central
India.

On reaching, I couldn’t recognise the place. It has been a return to
Baramati after five (or is it six?) years. The place has greened in the
meanwhile… while this diarist has greyed Another change: bandwidth
has improved considerably here. I could have been in some part of
metropolitan India at these speeds. And so has the Baramati knowledge of
GNU/Linux and free software. When I was struggling to get onto the
wireless network (I’m no techie, as you know) a staff member from the
institute helped me in a few minutes to get online. Despite the fact
that they’re more into Red Hat and this is Mandrake. (I prefer the
volunteer-crafted Debian, but the student supporting me has installed
Mandrake on my laptop, and there’s no arguing with him!)

Instead of spending the day at Pune, I thought of bussing it down to
Baramati, in the rugged, rough but fairly efficient and functional bus
service that connects this state of 96 million (Indian sizes tend to be
huge, except perhaps that of my home state, Goa, 1.4 million!). And as I
look at the Wikipedia for the background figure on Baramati, I find that
Kerala, another Indian state not far from Goa to the south, is featured
on the home-page at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page today.

The actual event opens tomorrow, Friday, March 10. Among other things,
there’s a report launch on ‘e-Agriculture: Empowering India’, talks, a
field trip to a sugar-cooperative (this is the heart of Indian
sugarland), and more. Given bandwidth, I hope to keep you updated with
inputs. Let’s see how it goes.

As the students talk about organising (mainly) the event and technology
(a bit, amidst all the bustle today) in Marathi (the local language) and
Hindi (India’s national language, but not uniformly understood across
the country), it’s nice that we had to learn a bit of either in school
– so one can understand what’s going on… and even converse. What’s
also interesting is the high rate of women participation among students
here. But will they be able to break the glass ceiling over time?
–
———————————————————-
Frederick ‘FN’ Noronha | Yahoomessenger: fredericknoronha
http://fn.goa-india.org | fred@bytesforall.org
Independent Journalist | +91(832)2409490 Cell 9822122436
Currently blogging from Baramati on the 6th Annual Baramati
Initiative ICT&Development “The Potential of e-Agriculture”
See http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bytesforall_readers
———————————————————-

Given his energy levels and zest for life, you wouldn’t guess Victor Rangel-Ribeiro is an octogenarian. If he’s not mentoring young writers and egging them on, he’s spending long hours perfecting sheaves of manuscript pages or taking a keen interest in his love of music.

Born in 1925 in the village of Porvorim, he lived his life in the shadow of his father, who, he says, could do almost anything not just well but with panache. Victor Rangel-Ribeiro has had two careers — one first in Bombay, and the second in the United States. And they have encompassed several fields.

In education, he was a high school teacher in Mumbai, and in New York a teacher of illiterates, a teacher of the poor and disadvantaged both young and old, a teacher of university students, and for a very short time a “teacher of pampered teenagers whose parents were so rich they did not give a damn about getting a good education”.

As a journalist, he has been a reporter, subeditor, and assistant editor in Mumbai, and has then written for the New York papers as well. In advertising, he became the first Indian to be copy chief with J. Walter Thompson Co. in Mumbai, and was also the first Indian to be copy chief with a very small advertising agency in New York. (more…)

Good Morning Mansoorpur!

Sunday Times of India carried this half-page story titled ‘Good Morning Mansoorpur‘ in it’s today’s issue (March 5, 2006). It’s subtitle says it all: “In a Bihar village, one man runs a radio station from a repair shop. It’s social, entertaining and probably illegal too, Alok Mishra reports.”

The photo shows villagers in Mansoorpur listen to the radio station, and Raghav Mahato in front of his repair shop, which is also his FM station.

Couldn’t locate the story online. But there were some other interesting links. BBC carried this story some time back, and had it titled The amazing DIY village FM radio station

BBC says: It may well be the only village FM radio station on the Asian sub-continent. It is certainly illegal. The transmission equipment, costing just over $1, may be the cheapest in the world. But the local people definitely love it. On a balmy morning in India’s northern state of Bihar, young Raghav Mahato gets ready to fire up his home-grown FM radio station. Thousands of villagers, living in a 20km (12 miles) radius of Raghav’s small repair shop and radio station in Mansoorpur village in Vaishali district, tune their $5 radio sets to catch their favourite station.

Even more interesting: For the next 12 hours, Raghav Mahato’s outback FM radio station plays films songs and broadcasts public interest messages on HIV and polio, and even snappy local news, including alerts on missing children and the opening of local shops.

After years of begging the authority on bended knee for the legalisation of community radio in India, now perhaps one could only conclude that they’ll see sense when ‘pirate’ radio becomes a reality.

There’s the DelhiDoorHai blog which has this interesting comment, with reference to the above story: “I can’t resist this post. There is all that possibility it seems to offer, of an underground radio network, freedom from the self-righteousness of All India Radio (and AIR ‘Rainbow’s’ catchy, head-bashingly awful jingle). Raghav FM Mansoorpur 1. Radio for the people it seems to suggest - and certainly by them.”

This note is from the organisers of the event…

Sixth Annual Baramati Initiative on ICT and Development. Baramati, Maharashtra, India – March 9 - 11, 2006. Co-Organized by: Vidya Pratishthan’s Institute of Information & Technology YES BANK.

The Potential of E-Agriculture: This is the sixth in a series of conferences organized by Vidya Pratishthan’s Institute of Technology (VIIT) in Baramati, Maharashtra, India. This year, the conference will focus on the use of Information and Communication Technology in Agriculture (e-Agriculture), exploring avenues through which governments, NGO’s, development agencies and corporates can work to successfully promote e-agriculture to benefit the rural economy.

Though over 65 percent of India’s population resides in rural areas, with majority working in agriculture and allied areas, it contributes to a mere 23 percent of total GDP. Meanwhile, the services sector has raced ahead on the back of the phenomenal growth in the IT and ITES sectors. The agents that funneled their growth – technology, information, and efficient processes – now need to be chanelised into the agriculture sector and assist India’s remaining six fifty million to augment their earning power.

Rural areas are predominately under-developed with poor infrastructure, electricity and roads and Indian farmers – like many of their counterparts across the world – are sustaining themselves on archaic methods and processes. To achieve a sustainable level of food production it is necessary that they have seamless access to: * Information on weather, production and cultivation * techniques, seeds and fertilizers, plant nutrients and water usage * Funds and liability coverage through agri-finance and * agri-insurance

Assistance from universities on new techniques (such as biotechnology) used to increase production yield Market infrastructure like warehouses and Cold-chain management

Thus, creative delivery of information and other resources to farmers becomes vital. E-agriculture aims to harness the potential of information and communication technology (ICT) to enhance the dissemination of vital information on agriculture to the rural population. Various agencies – including government, corporates and NGO’s – have utilized ICT to implement innovative solutions and facilitate the access to knowledge.

The Baramati Initiative seeks to synergize these learnings through presentations and panel discussions involving not only experts and practitioners from NGOs, corporations and government agencies, but also the grassroots partners, the ultimate beneficiaries.

Panels include:

Innovative Practices showcasing the benefits of ICT for the Agriculture Sector

Role of ICT in facilitating Agri-Finance and Agri-Insurance

Research on use of ICT in Agriculture

Government and E-Agriculture: Government’s Support for

E-Agriculture

Corporate experiences – Trade facilitation through ICT

The Power of Collaboration: Success stories

The Future of E-Agriculture and Critical success factors

Further, the annual conference will continue to act as a platform for information exchange, exploring ways in which information and communication technology is being used as a tool to empower the poor. The event is a learning opportunity for participants allowing them to:

Interact directly with grassroots partners i.e. people who are using this technology, and to learn from them the difference that ICT has made a difference in their lives

Meet and interact with individuals and organizations that are financing these efforts

Learn about new trends via exhibits and demonstration booths

The Baramati Concept: The basic concept behind this event is to highlight the enormous potential of digital technologies and digital economy to help poor communities.

Poverty-alleviation organizations, social entrepreneurs, government institutions, corporate enterprises and even uneducated, village entrepreneurs are continuously developing technological solutions to serve the often-overlooked customers at the bottom of the pyramid.

These solutions are bringing the benefits of the digital age

—increased access to markets, education, environmental information, and government services

– to communities around the world. In doing so, they are helping to build the business, economic and social cases for investing in systems and infrastructure needed to serve the poorest of the poor. Together, they are helping to empower hundreds and millions of the world’s underprivileged to become agents of their own development.

The purpose of Baramati initiative is to showcase how ICT is being employed to provide sustainable solutions to the needs of poor communities. The conference takes place in Baramati, a village located in rural Maharashtra where an ecosystem using ICT to aid the rural economy has been successfully created.

This conference attracts over 150 participants each year with over 30-40 foreign participants. Over the last 5 years, the Baramati Initiative has become one of the key forums for people to exchange information on innovative efforts in the field of ICT and Development.

About VIIT http://www.viitindia.org

Vidya Pratishthan’s Institute of Information Technology was established in February 2000 at Baramati with an aim to provide quality education in the field of Information Technology and Computer Science. VIIT is a progressive institution equipped with state-of-the-art infrastructure and committed to human resource development.

Conference Website: http://www.baramatiinitiatives.org

About YES BANK http://www.yesbank.in

YES BANK, India’s new age private sector Bank, is the outcome of the professional commitment of its Indian promoters, Rana Kapoor and Ashok Kapur, to establish a high quality, customer centric, service driven, private Indian Bank catering to “Emerging India”.

YES BANK has adopted international best practices, the highest standards of service quality and operational excellence, and offers comprehensive banking and financial solutions to all its valued customers. A key strength and differentiating feature of YES BANK is its knowledge driven approach to banking. The Bank has formed a specialized ‘Development and Knowledge Banking Division’ focusing on key sunrise growth sectors with predominant focus on Food and Agriculture.

The Bank’s constant endeavor is to provide a delightful banking experience expressed with simplicity, empathy and totality.

AGENDA: Thursday, March 9, 2006

5:00 pm Participants assemble in Pune at Blue Diamond Hotel and leave for Baramati (Buses will be arranged to transport all participants)

7:30 pm Hotel Check-In

8:00 pm Reception and Dinner (Welcome)

Mr. Sharad Kulkarni – Chairman, Governing Council, VIIT

Mr. Sadanand Sule – Member Governing Council, VIIT ommissioner - Agriculture GOM - Potential of E-Agriculture

Friday, March 10, 2006

10:00 am Inauguration & Inaugural Address Mr. Rana Patil, Minister of State for Agriculture, GOM

Guests of Honor & Key Note Address:

Dr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman Planning Commission, GOI

12:15 pm Lunch

1:00 pm Innovative Practices showcasing the benefits of ICT for the Agriculture Sector

Dr. Kirthi Ramamrutham - IIT , Powai

Dr. Goje – Principal, VIIT

Dr. Peter Smetes – Wageningen, Netherlands

Mr.Helmut Drewes, Agrista, Zambia

Mr. Michael F.Carter* – World Bank

Mr. Johannes Keizer* - FAO

2.30 pm Tea Break

2.45 pm Role of ICT in facilitating Agri-Finance and

Agri-Insurance

Moderator

Mr. G. Chandrashekar – Deputy Editor of Business Line

Speakers

Mr.Edwin Moyo, CEO, Trans Zambezi Industries Ltd, Mr. Prashanth , Insurance Expert, BASIX Group Mr. Kalyan Chakravarthy - YES BANK Ms. Paul Asel* – IFC Mr. Sonu Agrawal– MD, Weather Risk Management Services Pvt.Ltd. Mr. Vineet Rai – CEO, Aavishkar

4.15 p.m. Tea break

4.30 pm Research on use of ICT in Agriculture: Dr. Jayanth Chatterjee, Prof IIT Kanpur Mr. Sudhir Ahluwalia, Tata Consultancy Services Mr.T.V.Prabhakar, Prof IIT Kanpur Dr.V P Sharma, Director, MANAGE Dr. S.S. Magar , Vice Chancellor , Krishi Vidyapeeth, Dapoli

6:00 pm Summarizing the day 1 – Dr. Amol Goje

6:30 pm Cultural Program & Dinner

9:00 pm End of Day 1

Saturday, March 11, 2006

9:00 am Field-trip to KVK and Sugar Cooperative

11:15 am Break

11:30 am Government and E-Agriculture: Government’s Support for E-Agriculture : Moderator Ms. Radha Singh*, Secretary - Ministry of Agriculture, GOI Speakers: Ms. Suryakanta Patil, Minster of State for Rural Development, GOI Dr.M.Moni, Deputy Director General, NIC Dr. P.D. Kaushik, Director- Rajiv Gandhi Foundation Dr. A.K. Chakravarthy, Advisor, GOI, Dept of IT Mr. Sanjiv Chopra, Principal Secretary - IT, GOUt Mr. G.D. Gautama – Secretary IT, GOWB Mr. J.S. Saharia* – Principal Secretary – Agriculture & Horticulture, GOM Mr.Graham Walker, Managing Director Gov3, UK Mr. Askar Abubakirov, Department of Strategic Development and International Cooperation, Kazakhstan

1:30 pm Lunch

2:15 pm Corporate experiences – Trade facilitation through ICT Moderator Dr. Frida.Youssef - UNCTAD Speakers Mr. Siva Kumar –CEO, ITC -IBD Mr. Raul Montemayor, National Business Manager, Federation of Free Farmers Cooperatives, Inc , Philippines Mr. Narayanan Head Agri business, SPIC Mr. Kapil Mehan – COO, TATA Chemicals

3:45 pm The Power of Collaboration: Success stories

Mr. Rashid Kidwai – SEWA Swaminathan Foundation Mr. Sunil Kairnar - CEO, Agriwatch Mr. Swetank Gupta – CEO, Gramdoot Seva Kendra Mr. Apurva Mehta – Trade Advisor, Canadian Delegation, Canada Mr. Vijay Pratap Singh Aditya - ekGaon

5:15 pm Break

5:30 pm The Future of E-Agriculture: Special Plenary Moderated by Mr. G. Chandrashekar – Deputy Editor of Business Line Mr. P. Chidambaram Minister for Finance, GOI Mr.Sharad Pawar, Minister for Agriculture, Food & Civil Supplies, Consumer affairs and Public distribution, GOI Mr. Prasad Chandran, Chairman & Managing Director, BASF Mr. Rana Kapoor, Managing Director & CEO, YES BANK Mr.Vijay Mahajan, CEO, BASIX Mr. Yogi C. Deveshwar* – Chairman, ITC Mr. Sunil Mittal* – Chairman & Managing Director, Bharti Group Mr. A.C. Muthiah*, Chairman & Managing Director, SPIC Mr. S. Ramadorai*, CEO & Managing Director, Tata Consultancy Services Mr. A.K.Purwar*, Chairman, State Bank of India Dr. Y.S.P. Thorat*, Managing Director, NABARD

7:00 pm Valedictory Address – Dr. Kamal Taori, Chairman, National Productivity Council

7.30 pm Dinner

Sunday, March 12, 2006

9:00 am Breakfast & Departure

* Confirmation Awaited

Levering FLOSS… a judge’s view

Ramanraj K — ramanraj.k at gmail.com — points to a recent talk by Honb’le Mr.Justice Yatindra Singh on Leveraging Open Source Software was delivered at 9th e-Governance held from February 2-4, 2006 at Kochi (Kerala) and which is available at http://www.allahabadhighcourt.in/event/Leveraging_OSS.odt

FSF-India’s associate fellowships

Recently (some three weeks ago), the Free Software Foundation of India started offering Associate Fellowships to individuals and organisations. Details are here: http://www.gnu.org.in/fellowship/ In brief: you support FSF India, gain karma for promoting software freedom, and get some discount on FSF-I merchandise. But the main concern is promoting software freedom, of course! I should be putting my money where my blog is…(Thanks to Baishampayan Ghose for letting me know.)