National Policy on Open Standards in e-governance - India is one of the first countries in the world to adopt open standards in e-governance. As part of this policy, the government has notified the specific open standards for each format including odf (Open document format) and ogg. Read more here (The Hindu, 26 November 2010). Assam promotes public software and distributes more than 19,000 laptops to high school students during 2010. Read more.
WITHIN OTHER PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS UNESCO to support implementation of public educational software - Sri. A. Parsuramen, Director of UNESCO, India, talks about promoting the use and development of public educational software tools for teacher training and teaching purposes, with the state governments. Read more. The Competition Commission of India (CCI) is hearing a case against Microsoft for abusing its dominant position as a market leader (The Economic Times, 27 September 2010).
Karnataka creates State master trainers on public education software tools -Following the successful Kerala model of computer aided learning programmes in schools, many organisations, including IT for Change, with the support of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) and R.V. College of Engineering (RVCE), trained approximately 150 teacher educators from government institutions as State Master Trainers on Computer Aided Education tools (Mathematics, English language and Geography). Read more and browse through the course material. Educational institutions role in digital inclusion – Frontline analyses the Declaration on ICTs in education by anchoring it in the history of the free software movement. (Frontline, 23 October – 5 November 2010).
The Declaration on ICTs in Education urges educational institutions, policy makers, students and teachers to start fostering digital inclusion by exclusively using FOSS tools, sharing knowledge, reasserting the basic rights of education and participation at all levels, and asking the State for quality education in ICTs and beyond. The declaration was signed at the National Conference on Free Software in Education in Kozhikode (Kerala, 10-12 September 2010). Read more.
Russia uses Microsoft to suppress dissent - The Russian authorities' latest tactics for quelling outspoken advocacy groups or opposition newspapers is confiscating computers under the pretext of searching for pirated Microsoft software. (The New York Times, 11 September 2010).
Public software for Russian Government - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has ordered government agencies to be on Linux by 2015. His support is critical for the success of open source software within the government arena. Read more. Defining open source hardware - A group of open source hardware enthusiasts has been working on the draft version of a definition of open source hardware (The Hindu, 28 August 2010). A first version of the Open Source Hardware (OSHW) Draft Statement of Principles and Definition has been defined at the Open Hardware Summit (September 2010, New York). |
|
Public Software Website - www.public-software.in Follow us on Twitter @publicsoftware | |
To subscribe, unsubscribe or send us your feedback: PS-Bulletin-owner@public-software.in |