Exploring the use of ITCs in Development Projects @ict4development-blog - Tumblr Blog

E-choupal- an ICT initiative of ITC limited

While discussing the role and functioning of the PDS in the previous case, it became evident that the procurement of food grains from the farmers at Minimum Support Price is an inevitable responsibility of the government to encourage the agricultural producers. In contrast to the previously cited case of PDS and food grain procurement, e-choupal initiative of ITC limited is a private entrepreneur business model and interference in the state-citizen trading.

Within this model, the IT network was built and maintained by the ITC ltd in rural India and the farmers were trained to manage each e-choupals. Through this, they became updated about the recent market prices and trends. Initially, computers were installed in the farmers’ house connected to internet through phone line which serves on an average 600 farmers in 10 surrounding villages within about a radius of five km. The farmers were dependent on the operator (sanchalak) to access the daily closing prices on local mandis and also global price trends. The operator who himself is a farmer was additionally benefitted through commissions based on each e-choupal transaction. Through the e-choupals orders of seeds, fertilizers and other consumer products of ITC ltd and its partners were started being placed by the farmers. The sanchalak collects the demands of the village and puts it before the ITC representative. At harvest time ICT offers to buy the crops directly from the farmers who were then paid by the company. [1]

As per some reports, the e-choupal model proved profitable for both farmers and ITC. The farmers were benefitted through accurate weighing (as the weighing was done electronically), faster processing time and timely payments. Also, they were now much exposed to the market prices, trends and innovated techniques of farming. One of the reports says:

“The e-Choupal system has had a measurable impact on what farmers chose to do: in areas covered by e-Choupals, the percentage of farmers planting soy has increased dramatically, from 50 to 90% in some regions, while the volume of soy marketed through mandis has dropped as much as half.”[1]

It reduced the transportation costs of the farmers as it was paid by the company and also brought down the need of the middle-men. The company (ITC) was mutually benefitted with the success of the e-choupal business model. In mid- 2003, the e-choupal services had influenced more than a million farmers in 11,000 villages, the report says[1]. ITC and its partners now had a dense network and database of farmers which they used for placing their consumer products like seeds, fertilizers, farming equipments and other services like credits and insurance.

But to come up with a technology based solution to improvise the performance of the overall farming and then trading process in a rural location is a challenge. The ITC went through the complexities of transport, electric power and information infrastructure and subsequently identified the issues and carried out the business planning accordingly.

Through the past 60 years experience one point is evident that the government monopoly over land ownership, control over agricultural production and purchasing has not left farmers with other choices. And that system itself became so corrupted that the agricultural producers were the only one who got affected largely at the end. So, in that sense the ITC model of business has not only led to overcome the lacunae of the existing government system but has now been looked upon as an effective option.

At the same time, it should be taken into consideration that too much private sector interference in the agricultural sector could in future lead to exploitation and transfer of control of the agro-economy to the hands of private entrepreneurs. Technology based solutions to overcome inefficiency is a good idea but not on the cost of accountability. The computerization of the PDS in Chhattisgarh is one of the successful and effective examples of ICT initiative of government. The government should actually take lessons from such successful ICT initiatives that improves and facilitates the efficient functioning of the system irrespective of the public or private initiative.

References

What works: ITC’s E-choupal and profitable rural transformation, Kuttayan Annamalai, Sachin Rao, August 2003, University of Michigan, 2003

Prakash Chandra Sao

2010MC012

[1] What works: ITC’s E-choupal and profitable rural transformation, Kuttayan Annamalai, Sachin Rao, August 2003, University of Michigan, 2003

Computerization Drive of the Public Distribution System (PDS) in Chhattisgarh

In continuation with the previous case of biometrics enabled UID, this is another example of ICTs dependent public policy. With the objective of bringing transparency and consequently curbing corruption in the food grain supply chain, the government of Chhattisgarh has computerized the entire mechanism of Paddy procurement and the Public Distribution System. When it comes on issues like food security and subsidized food, the PDS becomes an obvious crucial part of the public policy. As pointed out in my earlier post, the ICTs have had immense influence in public policies and also it has been seen as an effective tool of governance by the modern state. Not surprisingly, the involvement of ICTs in policies and governance has also sometimes dispensed desirable outcomes.

A paper entitled “Computerisation of Paddy procurement and Public Distribution System in Chhattisgarh” efficiently puts the process of computerization within this model:

“The case study is complete process computerization of food grain supply chain in Chhattisgarh from paddy procurement from farmers, its storage, milling and distribution of rice and other commodities to 3.7 million ration card holders through 10,416 Fair Price Shops (FPS). As a part of this project, 1532 Paddy procurement centres, 50 storage centres, all district offices concerned, 99 Civil Supplies Corporation distribution centres and 35 FCI rice receiving centres have been computerized covering six different organizations involved in food grain management viz. Department of food, Marketing Federation (MARKFED), CG State Civil Supplies Corporation (CGSCSC), Food Corporation of India (FCI), Central Cooperative Bank and Primary Agricultural Cooperative Societies (PACS). Purchase and issue at paddy procurement centres including generation of cheques has been computerized. Miller’s registration, Agreement with millers and generation of Delivery Orders etc. are computerized. 3.7 Million Ration card holders database has been prepared. Calculation of monthly allotment to FPS has been automated. Call centre with a toll free number 1800-233-3663 is operational from 8:00 AM to 10:00 PM to take complaints from citizens and give any desired information about paddy procurement and public distribution. Citizen interface web site is hosted to increase the citizen participation in controlling diversion of PDS commodities. The project can be described in four distinct areas which complete the process computerization of whole food grain supply chain and its monitoring”.[1]

The idea behind this move is to reduce the rate of diversion and leakages within the PDS. It could be seen as an e-governance practice which involves the strategic use of ICTs to check corruption. While debating the use of technology in checking corruption, the government is not of the view that technology could stop corruption rather the argument put forward is that it would help in increasing transparency which would consequently help in checking corruption. The strategy formulated to implement this ICT induced operation largely focuses to (a) achieve transparency in operations to let citizens know what is happening (b) provide citizen the easiest method to give feedback or lodge compliant and (c) build public confidence that the lodged complaints will be attended[1].

The Chhattisgarh government is following the above strategy and through which it has managed to procure paddy from 1 million farmers of the state at Minimum Support Price at 1532 Procurement centres. Since the procurement centres are located at village panchayats, most of the centres lack connectivity. To overcome this, the government has opted an innovative idea of hiring 250 motorcycle riders to carry data everyday from procurement centre computers to block headquarters. On spot generation of cheque payment to farmers and delivery memos for the movement of paddy has made the process less time consuming. The government claims that this has created wide range of impact particularly in controlling the siphoning off funds by the middle men.[2]

Somasekhar’s paper further discusses how the computerization has resulted in creating a unified ration card database and also in checking the diversion of PDS commodities before reaching the FPS (fair price shops):

“Unified Ration Card database has been prepared. The ration cards are printed using the database. Only those ration cards having a unique number and a barcode printed through that database, are valid now in Chhattisgarh. Since the entire ration cards database has been computerized shop-wise allocations have now been automated. Per card allocations are fed into the computer at the State level. Shop-wise allocations are calculated by the software. All Fair Price Shops are required to give declaration of their stocks and sales in the previous month before issue of PDS commodities. These figures are entered in the web application at CGSCSC warehouses. Based on allocation, stock and sales figures of FPS, the actual amount of PDS commodities to be issued to the FPS is calculated by the software, and a delivery order is issued on the web application. After the issue of the delivery order a truck challan is issued indicating the truck number, driver’s name, quantity dispatched etc. The truck challan is also generated using the web application. Thus information regarding allocations, stocks, issue and sales for each FPS is now available on the central server. At least 10% of this data is physically verified by the staff of the food department every month, and action is taken against any FPS giving false declarations.”[1]

Moreover, in order to increase the accountability and transparency the model also emphasize on citizen participation and that too is ICT enabled. A citizen interface website has been created where they can lodge complaints and give suggestions. Also, they can register their mobile numbers in the website by selecting one or more FPS of their interest. This would help in checking the diversion of the trucks carrying PDS commodities as whenever a truck is dispatched to the FPS an auto generated message is sent to the registered mobile numbers. The message carries information including the truck number, the quantities of PDS commodities and date and time of dispatch. This is an innovative idea adapted which could indeed be effective in checking diversion which is regarded as the biggest challenge in PDS functioning. There is also a call centre with toll free number in operation which could be used in quick compliant lodging. The uniform computerized millers’ registration has been introduced to check execution of agreement with fake millers.

The Chhattisgarh’s model of PDS has been admired not only within and by the state but also it has been appreciated in academia and by development economists. Reetika khera, a development economist at IIT delhi writes in Hindustan Times, “…Chhattisgarh’s computerisation drive to issue hologram-enabled cards has eliminated 8 per cent duplicates”.[3]

Reetika in her another paper “trends in diversion of grain from the Public Distribution System” writes:

“Based on per capita purchase of PDS grain, states can be grouped into three broad categories…….. The second group consisting of five states is that of “reviving” states where per capita purchases were below the 1kg/month benchmark at the beginning of the period being studied, but has risen since then. This is a mixed group: Orissa in the east, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh in central India, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh (UP) in the north…… The most remarkable improvement is in Chhattisgarh where per capita purchase in 2007-08 was 3.2kg/month, putting it among the top five states on per capita purchase (after Himachal, Tamil Nadu, Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) and Andhra Pradesh)”[4]

She further says “…in Chhattisgarh, diversion has declined from half to zero between 2004-05 and 2007-08”. Discussing improvements in the PDS of different states Reetika in her another article, “PDS- Signs of Revival” published in The Hindu says, “NSS data beyond 2007-8 are not yet available. This is unfortunate, because recent field evidence suggests that these improvements have been consolidated since then. The most impressive example is Chhattisgarh: Ration shops open regularly in the first week of each month and most people get their full quota of 35kg at the right price.”[5]

This is how the computerized model of PDS in Chhattisgarh has been analysed by experts and have been admired throughout particularly the desirable changes it has brought. It has now been looked as an ideal model for PDS reforms and has been recommended to other states by economists like Reetika khera. A highly technological driven process has shown its potential to bring changes for good. Somasekhar paper’s concluding remark says:

“Use of technology in delivery mechanism can definitely reduce corruption when used in a strategic way. The technology itself cannot check corruption. The technology should be used to create transparency combined with a convenient system for a citizen to lodge complaints with confidence that the complaint will be attended to. Manual methods should be replaced by computerizing processes. Data should be captured as and when they are generated instead of developing MIS applications for entry of data after manual processes are followed. Commitment of higher authorities, Capacity building in the operating personnel and connectivity are the 3 essential thing for success and sustainability of any e-Governance project.”[1]

Prakash Chandra Sao

2010MC012

References

[1] Vivek Kumar Dhand, Dinesh Kumar Srivastav, Somasekhar A.K., Rajeev Jaiswal, Computerisation of Paddy procurement and Public Distribution System in Chhattisgarh, www.csi-sigegov.org/egovernance_pdf/26_216-223.pdf

[2] Computerisation of Paddy procurement and Public Distribution System in Chhattisgarh, Research: One World Foundation, Governance Knowledge Centre (GKC) team, documentation: research associate, Sapna Kedia

[3] www.hindustantimes.com/Not-all-that.../Article1-593541.aspx

[4] Khera, Reetika, Trends in Diversion of grain from the Public Distribution System, Economic and Political Weekly, may 21, 2011, vol xlvi no 21

[5] www.hindu.com/mag/2011/06/12/stories/2011061250110400.htm

ICT in Disaster Management: TsunamiTeacher

In an earlier post, I put forth my point of view that when one thinks of ICT, or more specifically of ICT4D, one more often than not, tends to associate the project or initiative with the Internet. The Web has become less of a virtual space that is distinct from our physical lives, and more of a way of being that is nowadays increasingly integrated into our existence through multiple media including but certainly no longer limited to the computer. The Internet is now akin to a pair of extra limbs – it gets in the way every now and then, but for the most part, it makes life more interesting, not to mention much easier. So, I thought it would be interesting to examine the case of an internet-based ICT4D targeted at an Indian population. Here's a brief introduction to TsunamiTeacher: Contributing to capacity building in order to help communicate the risk of the occurrence of tsunamis to the general public, UNESCO's IOC has worked on and created 'TsunamiTeacher', an information and resource toolkit available for free online, or in the form of a DVD. The digital resource and information kit consists of exhaustive information on tsunamis. This information is available as articles, audio-visual media such as news clips, interviews of scientists, animations, and more. The information contained within the toolkit is accurate and efforts have been taken to exclude articles that containing too much intimidating jargon; instead, articles that explain important scientific principles and phenomena in language that a school student would be comfortable with, have been included. It is meant to be a global resource that is accessible to people and organizations across India and the world. The ICT aims at both, generating awareness and building the capacity of communities here in India as well as globally, when it comes to Tsunami response and impact mitigation. The plan is to achieve this through the sharing of research and knowledge regarding best practices among varied and diverse communities. The toolkit contains materials that, its creators claim, can be customized for different users. One very good thing about TsunamiTeacher is multiple language support. While English is the only language it is available in at present, translations into languages such as Indonesian, Thai, Bengali,and a couple of European languages are planned. The ICT disseminates information and training about Tsunamis to various stakeholders including schools, colleges, members of the media, GO's and NGOs, corporate organizations, etc. The information is packaged in the form of training modules that target specific groups with content that is appropriate for each group. For instance, while the training modules for colleges and schools won't have material that's too complicated, the ones target at government organizations will include material on tsunami occurrences, disaster funding, the science of early-warning systems for tsunamis and earthquakes, detailed mitigation measures, education and advocacy, HRV (Hazard Risk Vulnerability) assessment guidelines, emergency response for tsunami events, environment and engineering resources and more. In addition, the modules also provide links to websites which the stakeholders can visit for additional resources on the subject. As mentioned, it runs online, and it is also available as a DVD that is PC and Mac compatible. Since it is primarily an online database, it will be updated from time to time with the latest information, scientific and otherwise. Scientists, experts in disaster management, members of CBOs and other NGOs, and regular members of civil society will be involved in updating the online database of TsunamiTeacher. The DVD automatically links with the Web if a connection is available when it is inserted in the disc drive of the computer, so it too, will contain the latest information by automatically updating its stored databases of information and other resources. Now, this toolkit is seen as an ICT for development, but the question that begs asking is this: is a digital toolkit, presently available only in English, really going to be effective as a tool for development in India and in other parts of the world that are not considered to be 'developed'? Ought we, perhaps, to question in the first place, who will TsunamiTeacher really benefit? Not just in terms of profit;one should note that organizations can benefit from goodwill generated by their 'magnanimous' and 'socially responsible' actions too. Sein (2005) contends that Information and Communication Technologies are not neutral, and that outcomes are affected by the paradigmatic premises of the specific ICT intervention. The rhetoric of Development, once put forth by Governments and corporations in the physical realm, has been packaged in its digital avatar: the delivery is different, but the medicine the same. The idea, development, is sold to to the susceptible as the promise of progress on countless websites that use the term 'development' without getting into the details of what it actually consists of and why the 'backward' countries and 'backward' communities within those countries even need it. It's even easier to 'develop' since the 1990s, and next to effortless since the last decade. All one really needs to do is go online and find a suitable 'ICT4D' for one's local development needs. I'm not against the thing in itself. I'm just a little skeptical of the way it's been used, and of whether it's really the best solution in this age of information. Question: Have we really come to the point where we can say, with certainty, that we're living in the information age? Maybe WE are. Writing this post on a WiFi enabled laptop, I'm a part of that 'we', living in a world of digitised information. So, I can benefit from an ICT4D like UNESCO's 'Tsunami Teacher' software. However, I live in Mumbai, where a tsunami is possible but highly improbable. I don't see how someone my age, living in Chennai or a coastal fishing village in Tamil Nadu would be able to draw any benefit at all from a piece of software that, while excellent in other ways, needs uninterrupted internet connectivity to deliver an optimal educational experience. Final words: ICT4D has a lot of potential, and there are many out there across the world who do use it to help effect social change in places it is needed the most. However, living in a world that privileges mobile phones and phone connections over transformers and electric supply, a little extra caution wouldn't hurt anyone, least of all those of us in the social sciences and development sector, who have chosen to make a profession of being aware of the patterns of developmental change in this world. Perhaps we could do our bit as watchdogs – see who's actually doing good out there, and who's masquerading as doing good while actually doing great...but only for themselves. Just some thoughts!

- Sudeep Pagedar References: ———————— ioc3.unesco.org/TsunamiTeacher http://www.westerndisastercenter.org/DOCUMENTS/DITF_Report.pdf ’Revisiting the role of ICT in Development’, Harindranath & Sein; Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, São Paulo, Brazil, May 2007

#disaster #disaster management #ICT #ICT4D #development

LifeNet: A Developing ICT for a 'Developing' Nation

In post-disaster scenarios, especially when the disaster is a major one in terms of its intensity and magnitude, existing communications infrastructure has a tendency to either not perform at optimum capacity, or, more often, fail altogether. Land-line wires get severed and mobile phone towers collapse. Internet services linked with such wire-based and wireless telephone lines also becomes unavailable. This is a major problem for disaster management, and it is often compounded by the non-existence of an effective replacement or backup. This lack of an effective alternate system of communication has negative consequences for the affected population(s). The risk they are already at further increases, as the damage done during a disaster can be magnified in the absence of communication solutions. For instance, emergency rescue and relief work is greatly hindered by the lack of uninterrupted communication. Due to this, far fewer lives are saved than could be, if there were a way to restore communication in the hours after a disaster has struck. A greater number of casualties and extensive property damage is not only unfortunate, but it also leads to large expenditure on the part of both, the government as well as the affected people. It has been observed that when preparedness is inadequate, response is hampered, and as a result, the process of recovery is prolonged, which affects the overall development of the region. This holds true for all places affected by disasters, but it is especially true in nations such as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, et cetera. This is because, in addition to coping with their internal dynamics, they have to contend with their role of being 'developing' nations. The global discourse of development has seen to it that the response of such nations, in disasters, is always congruent with what the 'developed' world expects of its counterparts that are trying to 'catch up'. There is a reason India does not have access to the kind of emergency response seen in the Global North, post-disaster. However, before attempting a critique of technology in the arena of development, let's have a look at the case study of an emergency communication solution currently in development, 'LifeNet'. At present, the emergency communications infrastructure in India is quite basic and rudimentary. HAM radio is still used as redundancy, and while that is not a bad thing in itself, the fact remains that India does not possess advanced information-delivery and communication technology that many Western countries have been taking for granted since many years. Even the options currently available, such as satellite communication are not inexpensive and their functionality is limited. What we don't have – but ought to – is a strong communication solution that, while being cost-effective, does not require more than the most basic infrastructure (preferably zero infrastructure), and it should allow for wireless communication while consuming very little power. Also – and this is very important – it should be easy to use in post-disaster scenarios.

LifeNet is essentially a WiFi-based data communication solution that is meant to be used in post-disaster scenarios. One of it's USPs is that it runs on software that is open-source: anyone can download and use it. Its design is such that it can be installed on consumer devices such as laptops, wireless routers, and since recently, smartphones running Google's Android OS. The software, once installed, turns any such consumer device into a node in an ad hoc communication network. Applications such as voice messaging and text-based chat can be run on any device running LifeNet. Another unique feature of LifeNet is its multi-path ad hoc routing protocol. This allows for incremental growth of the network, even in the case of the failure of a single or multiple nodes in the network. What this basically means is that LifeNet helps boost the wireless signal of a laptop or a wireless broadband router. By increasing the area within which a wireless signal can be transmitted and received, LifeNet helps turn a regular consumer device into a node which can be used to establish connectivity with other devices in the area which, in turn, can connect to a main node, perhaps somewhere in a town or a city. Thus, LifeNet's main purpose is to ensure reliability of connectivity for continuity of communication during and after disasters, as it is of utmost importance to create a wireless channel of communication for the coordination of emergency work in the affected areas. This effectively means faster communication in emergencies, which translates into more lives saved.

The most important points in support of LifeNet are -

(a) It works on the principle of ad hoc communication, which is crucial in disaster scenarios.

(b) It uses hardware that exists in India, and might be available either in the disaster-affected area, or in the nearest town.

On the face of it, LifeNet is excellent. However, rather than continuing to accept and adopt ad-hoc communication in post-disaster scenarios, should we not be challenging why we do not have an effective system of emergency communication across the country? There's the example of Tetra Communication which, superior to even satellite communication, was used for security by the Delhi government during the Common Wealth Games in 2010. It is cited as being impractical to implement nationwide due to restrictive costs. It is unfortunate that often, development for social well being is hindered in order to allow development that earns profits even at the cost of inconveniencing a section of society.

Another issue with LifeNet is, affordability of even the 'consumer' hardware that they claim their software works on. How many in India can afford even the laptops and Android phones that LifeNet runs on? A counter-argument to that could be that laptops are becoming more affordable, and almost 'anyone' can get a smartphone with applications that run on the Android platform (which is open-source).

While this is not inaccurate, it also raises the question of whether Indian society is becoming an increasingly tech-dependent society, in which the survival of the fittest depends not on mundane things like health and education, but increasingly, on who has the sleeker phone capable of multitasking, Geo-tagging photographs and the such.

Yet another challenge to LifeNet: At present, the software interface is only in the English language. True, this is the age of the BPO unit and Call Center, but it is surely unreasonable to expect a fisherman in West Bengal or a Red Cross field-worker in Manipur to be able to use the LifeNet chat application in English. Disasters are a part of the development cycle, according to the doctrine of Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR). A skewed development paradigm will lead to more disasters, and no amount of investment, no ICTs, however useful, will be able to keep the people of this country safe. In order to reduce the frequency, intensity and magnitude of disasters; in other words, to reduce the risk people face from hazards, one needs to understand the many and varied vulnerabilities that exist. One further needs to understand that one is only at risk of being harmed by a given hazard if one is vulnerable to it. Vulnerability can be reduced, but for that to happen, it is not advisable to continue pursuing the present model of development. LifeNet can be seen as ICT4D, but while it can only help mitigate disasters, the events themselves can only be mitigated by working towards a model of development that is more suited to the specific social, cultural, economic and political dynamics of this region. Only then can steps be taken to make this region safe, secure and disaster resilient. - Sudeep Pagedar References: -------------- nariphaltan.virtualave.net/disaster.pdf http://thelifenetwork.org/ www.ndmindia.nic.in/letters/NDMF.pdf www.adpc.net/infores/adpc-documents/paperatgdin01.pdf

ICT4D in Rural Vidarbha: APMC Akola Online

“Information and Communication technologies (ICT) have a potential for economic growth and social empowerment” (Nandi, 2002).

APMCs were established in order to regulate the marketing of various sorts of agriculture produce for a given same market area and its sub-parts. According to the APMC Maharashtra website, “The Maharashtra Agricultural Produce Marketing (Regulation) Act was passed in the year 1963, with a view to regulate the marketing of agricultural and pisciculture produce in market areas.” The Act was amended in the year 1987 to incorporate a few changes. As of today, there exist two hundred and ninety five APMCs with main markets, plus six hundred and nine sub markets.

An interesting case study is that of the APMC in Akola. Akola is a district in the Vidharbha region of Maharashtra, known for its heat, dryness and generally inhospitable weather. It’s a struggle to grow anything here, as, due to the quality of the soil, irrigation is not practiced. In addition, due to the demand for cash crops, cotton is cultivated in this region. Many farmers in this region are subsistence farmers, and due to market demands, they are often compelled to produce cotton rather than food crops. If, due to the weather or other reasons, their crops fail during one season, the only way they can survive is by getting deeper into debt. Often, they get in far too deep to be able to extricate themselves, and more often than not in Vidharbha, farmers kill themselves. The APMC is supposed to be a regulatory body, in that it is supposed to act as a link between the traders who are the buyers, and the farmers. The APMC in Akola has a centre with a large adjoining ground, where traders set up their tables on a daily basis. Every morning, at a pre-decided time, the farmers are permitted to begin selling their produce. The advantage of the APMC is supposed to be that the farmers have access to a range of competitive prices for their produce. If the farmers are dissatisfied by any of the prices offered, then they can sell their produce to the APMC at the minimum fixed price which is provided to anyone who wants to see it, updated on a daily basis.

The APMC also has a website that is meant to act as a ‘tie-in’ to the physical APMC premises. The website is available in two languages – English and Marathi. English is default, and the problem with the Marathi version is that unless one has the basic prerequisites installed on one’s computer, the Marathi version of the site appears garbled. It should be noted that not all APMCs across Maharashtra offer ‘e-services’ such as regional language website access, mobile phone SMS updates regarding price of produce, cost of fertilizer, loan offers and more. APMC Akola, however, does offer such e-services, and some farmers at that APMC who were interviewed, reported that they were satisfied with the services offered by the body. One of the biggest advantages of the SMS service is that farmers, every morning, are able to receive updates regarding the price of various crops as decided by the government, for that day. They can also register with the APMC to receive updates from various traders regarding their prices for the day. In addition, the farmers can receive weather forecasts. Such information is immensely useful to the farmers, as they become empowered to take informed decisions about whether or not to transport their produce from their farms/storehouses to the APMC Shetkari Bazaar or Farmer’s Market. This saves the farmers time, money, and most important of all, it puts them in a position where they make the decisions about what they produce. There are, of course, other factors that influence the farmers’ decisions regarding transportation, buying and selling, but this ICT initiative by APMC Akola helps to the best extent possible. Still, with any ICT in rural India, there are bound to be problems. In many parts of Akola, especially in smaller villages, electricity is not available. This, naturally, poses a problem as far as internet connectivity is concerned, seeing as how electricity is needed for computers to work. In addition, mobile phone connectivity is not very good in many areas. So, even though this is a good initiative by the Akola APMC, it does not take into consideration those who have diminished capacity of access to their e-services. This translates into a divide, where some are able to access certain services while others are completely or to a great extent cut off from those services. Thus, the purpose of these e-services, which is to bring all farmers in the region onto a common platform, is defeated. The long and the short of it is that while this particular ICT4D is, by intention, a great one, its design is flawed insofar as delivery is concerned. Without the appropriate infrastructure, the APMC’s e-services are rendered useless to a certain section of people who need it as much as those who do have access to the requisite infrastructure. This is a common problem with many such rural ICTs for development. It seems to be a systemic problem, rather than one that is isolated to some specific initiatives or programs.

The e-services by Akola APMC can be successful, yet. - Sudeep Pagedar

References: --------------

ICT for Rural Development: An Inclusive Framework for e-Governance by Charru Malhotra, V. M. Chariar, L.K. Das, and P. V. Ilavarasan (a Computer Society of India article)

http://www.msamb.com/english/apmc/default.htm (APMC Maharashtra website) http://ict4djester.org/blog/?cat=11

ICT4D and the Concept of 'Sustainability'

Development, as a concept, was first put forth in the year 1942. Since then, development has largely been understood as synonymous with 'progress'. It is not surprising, then, that post-1947, Independent India began to talk the rhetoric of the need for being developed. This came at the cost of the lives and livelihoods of crores of Indians with rapid and heavy industrialisation becoming the order of the day. Subsequent governments only continued this policy, eventually bringing the nation to a point where progress had become an end in itself, rather than a means to an end. It became, and now is, progress for the sake of profit - and thus, progress. It's a vicious cycle. As Esteva put it, "Associating with development converts participation into a manipulative trick to involve people in struggles for getting what the powerful want to impose on them."

However, the 1980s saw the rise of the first critiques of Development not just as a concept, but also as practice. The notion of re-development then came about a decade later in the 1990s, coinciding with the beginnings of 'sustainable development'. The 1990s were the years during which Information and Communication Technologies truly gained prominence as a medium for furthering the goals of Development. While there is no doubt that ICTs were appropriated by the Establishment for pushing forward its idea of what development meant, it should be noted that ICTs were in no way passive things that let themselves be used by the BIG (Big Industry & Government) combine. They can and have been used in order to further the kind of development that leads to social change, too. But first, a look at one of the issues with ICT for Development (ICT4D).

The first thing that comes to mind when one mentions ICT is the Internet. This is because of the manner in which the notion of IT has been peddled by the ‘First World’ to what was formerly the Third World. Indigenous forms of technology and ways of communication are, even today, seen as less important than ‘modern’, that is, Western methods and techniques. Knowledge itself is largely seen as the domain of the West, and consequently, the knowledge-based tools needed for progress and ‘development’ can only be provided by the West or its proxies the world over. Such a perspective is almost universal. So, like it or not, most ICT4D projects are directly or indirectly linked with the internet. Rather than expending energy combating such a point of view, many agencies and organisations that are engaging with ICT4D choose to work around it by using the internet as a medium, but adapting their projects and initiatives such that the end-users and other beneficiaries are empowered by being a part of the Net, rather than becoming entrapped within it. Once users are empowered, then they begin to become more and still more capable of doing things "on their own" This brings us to the issue of ICT4D and sustainability. At a very basic level, sustainability means a proper utilisation of resources such that present needs are met while ensuring that enough is left over for subsequent generations. But that is a very broad understanding of the term. It has multiple applications in different contexts, with the notion of judicious use of resources at the core. What, for instance, can some of the parameters be, that decide whether or not a given ICT4D is sustainable? The internet is replete with instances of discussions, debates and even conferences on the meaning and scope of sustainability with regard to ICT4D. In 2009, the web forum ‘Technology Salon’ sponsored by the United Nations Foundation organised a discussion on sustainability and ICT4D in Washington D.C. (http://technologysalon.org/2009/10/ict4d-sustainability-and-scale.html). The outcome of the discussion was, essentially, this: sustainability is if it works at present and has the potential to be replicated from time to time in the future. A lot of things are actually quite simple if one tries to make them so, but we in the development sector and/or academia, tend to derive a strange sort of pleasure in piling on the definitions, explanations and whatnot. This is not to undermine the importance of knowing and understanding phenomena in detail, but sometimes, when it comes to the world outside that which exists in the pages of dusty tomes and in the bytes of information within ebooks, the simplest answer is often the best one. Still, for the sake of discussion, here are some factors that, according to me, define the sustainability of a given ICT4D project:

1) The project does require too much from intended beneficiaries, by way of financial contribution.

2) The intended beneficiaries can engage in the project with minimal or no training.

3) The project does not cause harm to the environment.

4) The project adds value to the lives of the intended beneficiaries. These are just a few basic points and more might be added. I would encourage you to add more and in doing so, begin a discussion on the meaning, nature, essence, and other parameters of ‘sustainability’. - Sudeep Pagedar

#ict #ICTs #ICT4D #sustainable #sustainability #internet #development

Facilitation of livelihood options for people with hearing impairment through ICTs in India: Mirakle Couriers

Mirakle Couriers is a courier service located in the heart of Mumbai. The for-profit social enterprise was launched in January, 2009 by Mr. Dhruv Lakra and is run and manned entirely by the hearing-impaired. The courier service receives a huge amount of support from large corporate companies such as Mahindra and Mahindra, Godrej & Boyce, the Aditya Birla Group, etc.

Mirakle Couriers won the National Award for the Empowerment of People with Disabilities in December, 2010. As mentioned in the site, “The organization aims to provide employment to people with hearing impairment while addressing the acute need for recognition of working conditions suitable to them. It does not work within a charity framework. Rather, it attempts to equip personnel with skills into survive in a job that is placed within a very competitive atmosphere.” Thus, The interaction with the corporate world places them directly into the ‘mainstream’, in a sense, which also increases the visibility of a form of disability that stands rather invisibilised even within the disability framework.

Mirakle Couriers has been commended for its inclusive work process and work satisfaction levels. So far, it has maintained a zero-defect service record even after a delivery of over 10, 000 packages. The figures on the website suggest that Mirakle Couriers is currently operating with four management staff and sixty four hearing impaired employees. The back office is run by 20 hearing impaired women who are responsible for data entry, tracking, sorting and so on. Delivery of couriers is done by the 44 male employees.

An initiative such as Mirakle becomes relevant not merely due to its employment of persons with hearing impairment but its innovative use of readily available technology for the same. While operations within the organization are conducted in Indian sign language, the use of mobile phone technology is of special importance during interactions with clients. In order to analyze the effectiveness of mobile phones in making the courier service hearing-impaired friendly, it is important to first highlight the overall benefits of the technology. Since relatively less data is available in India regarding the use of mobile phones by persons with hearing impairment, a reference has been made to work done abroad (Adams, 2000, Eureka Strategic Research, 2005; Harkins & Bakke, 2003; Network Strategies, 2003; Power & Power, 2004). All studies have revealed the extensive use of the SMS service by the hearing impaired and suggest that more and more hearing impaired people have begun to use SMS for the “same purposes as hearing people: maintaining personal contacts, arranging social life, for business, emergencies, and ‘useful’ services like shopping, automobile roadside assist, weather forecasts, and so forth…Especially for personal contact and arranging social life, these purposes are not significantly different from those for which hearing people use SMS.” (Horstmanshof and Power, 2005a, 2005b).

Mobile phone technology has been found useful for several reasons. Most of these are related to the features provided in most mobile phones today such as predictive text, vibrating function, large sized screens, high video capacity, and ease of availability, cost-effectiveness and portability in comparison to other assistive devices. Studies suggest that other features such as voice to text capacity and volume control have also proved useful for people with partial and complete deafness. It is also important to note that the use of mobile technology is not understood as use of ‘disabled technology’. Rather, it is perceived as the use of supposedly ‘mainstream’ technology which allows contact between a hearing impaired and hearing person on a ‘‘level playing field’’ (Power & Power, 2004). Thus, this kind of use of mobile phones highlights the use of technology by a group that may or may not have been the original target for marketing and selling the product, thereby marking the possibility of tweaking and adaptation of technology to suit particular needs.

In the case of Mirakle, the primary language used is the Indian Sign Language (ISL). A phone operator well versed in both languages bridges the gap between consignees and office staff through ISL and English. However, for communication with clients, employees also have access to internet and mobile phones through short e-mails and SMS, which gives them greater confidence and involvement in the overall process. Thus, mobile technology allows for a steady and ever available channel of communication, irrespective of geographical location, time and the ability to hear.

An interesting facet in the use of mobile technology is the negotiation of language. Most people with hearing impairment grow up using the sign language (ISL/ ASL/ etc.). Thus, the learning and/or the use of other languages is minimal. If at all there is any interaction with another language, it is the vernacular. This often becomes a barrier to people with hearing impairment for easy access to the ‘normal’ world for education, work and other social interactions which is based on dominant languages. In India, for example, the existence of high end technology mainly in English becomes a barrier although some phones today allow for messaging in vernacular language scripts.

In the case of Mirakle Couriers, most employees have only basic English language skills. Therefore, they incorporate the use of vernacular languages for information and updates on pickup and delivery processes. Thus, SMSs and noting of landmarks for locating addresses is done in a vernacular languages such as Marathi. It is not clear as to whether the organization uses the Roman script to write messages in Marathi or takes help of mobile technology that offers the Devnagri script, but they do mention English training sessions for employees. The use of English is primarily justified as an attempt to enter the ‘mainstream’. However, the use of a language and script which may be alien to low-income groups in India (to which Mirakle employees belong) has certain inherent problems.

The site mentions that the “back office supervisors have email addresses and have been trained in the professional etiquette and productive techniques associated with email messaging. Email messaging is done in English.” There is no doubt that the move to ensure basic skills in English could be to ‘fit in’ with the needs of a largely corporate clientele. However, it is important that sign language, by virtue of being closest and easiest for the hearing impaired employee, be rendered acceptable and ‘normal’ no matter what the client base. Mirakle seems to provide such scope through mediators who can communicate in ISL, English and vernacular languages. However, the acceptance of both languages as ‘normal’ is crucial so as to ensure that the hearing impaired employees have as much say as the clients.

The use of mobile technology by the hearing impaired occurs within a complex interface of several factors. In the case of Mirakle Couriers, mobile technology allows for the entry of the hearing impaired into the domain of the ‘normal’ and marks its wide use by an otherwise untargeted consumer group. It allows for its employees to be more than just ‘non-performing assets’ within the family and work environment through appropriate project designs. Thus, the role of ICTs becomes crucial not only for their ability to assist PwDs in various activities, but also through creation and/or facilitation of livelihood options for them. However, the key to an inclusive interaction between ICTs and people with disabilities is a balanced negotiation between attempts at change by PwDs for acceptance in the mainstream, accompanied by a simultaneous effort by the mainstream to accept their present abilities.

References:

Power Mary R., Power Des, Horstmanshof Louise , Deaf People Communicating via SMS, TTY, Relay Service, Fax, and Computers in Australia, Oxford University Press, 2006, doi:10.1093/deafed/enl016accessed on August 26, 2011

Summet Valerie Henderson, Facilitating Communication for Deaf Individuals with Mobile Technologies, Ph.D. in Computer Science Thesis, School of Interactive Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2010

http://www.miraklecouriers.com/

http://www.cats.gatech.edu/content/facilitating-communication-deaf-individuals-mobile-technologies

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/1808872.stm

http://deafness.about.com/od/articlesandnewsletters/a/accessibility.htm

-Shweta Ghosh

ICT for development: Projects in Bihar

3. ICT@SCHOOL

The 'ICT in schools’ scheme is an opportunity to the learners in the Government aided Secondary and Sr. Secondary schools in the country to bridge the digital divide. The project, which is a state version of the national scheme was inaugurated in 2008. Bihar Electronics Department Corporation( BELTRON) is in partnership with NIIT, the leading Global Talent Development Corporation to introduce computer education in Government schools spread across Bihar.Besides it,Bihar E-governance Services and Technologies(BeST) Ltd are also among the consultants of the state in the project.

ICT@School Project is to establish computer lab in all 1000 schools. Each of the lab contain one server, 10 PC nodes, networked with Printer and Scanner, computer furniture etc. The project is rolled out under PPP(public- private partnership) modal, specially using Build, Own, Operate and Transfer (BOOT) modal on quarterly lease basis for 3 years.It is decided that the programme would focus on communication skills and personality development.The girls and persons with disabilities were given special preferences in terms of admission to IT courses.

According to 'IT policy 2011' of Bihar, ICT@School, all Government and Govt. aided Secondary and Higher Secondary Schools will provide basic computer literacy courses through a computer lab with broadband Internet connectivity. Presently being implemented in 1000 schools and expected to be launched in 1350 schools by 2012. All Government and Govt. aided Secondary and Higher Secondary Schools will be covered through ICT @School project by 2013.

It is taken for granted that the use of ICT in school will lead to better performance, better attitude towards academics. It also assumed that these e- learning education initiatives would especially help those who are concerned 'backward' in their social binary as class, caste or 'general ability'.

Bihar recorded the sharpest decline in the proportion of children still not enrolled in school during the period of 2005 to 2010. It might be due to the fact that the allotted funds rose to 100 crore Rs. by 2008 from 10 crore Rs. In 2004 for activities under Sarva Shikha Abhiyan (SSA). But recent study by (SchoolTELLS) shows a big gap between child enrollment and actual attendance.In the schools which were sampled from five districts in Bihar, only 65% of enrolled children actually attend school at all, of these only 40% attended school regularly.

These are the problems which don't concern a use of technology. Those children don't attend classes primarily because they go to work. They have to work,and for most of them it is very obvious and necessary. In fact many of them migrate to big cities in search of work.These are some major issues and it needs to be tackled at the earliest.

It is apt to say 'The use of technology must be embedded within a wider strategy for teaching, learning, and service that is responsive to the challenges of technological change' (Bates, 1999). But the problem of Bihar seems be to of more 'socio-political' kind rather that 'technological'. The choice and priority has to be made very carefully as where one has to invest the time and the resource.

Allocations of resources and funding in time is another major barrier in successful applications of any initiative let alone any ICT project.According to the data collected by Planing, Allocations and Expenditures, Institutional studies in Accountability (PAISA) only 11% of samples schools had received the grant by the first half of the financial year.So although such initiatives create impressive headlines when they are introduced but the sustainability of these projects becomes questionable.For most of the part the change coming from the top is taken for granted but it lacks responsibility in the middle for the delivery to the bottom.

Conclusion

A lot has been proposed and projected in last few years regarding the role of Information and Communication in developing the state of Bihar. Many initiatives have been launched in last few years and its success have been been applauded in media with the good governance of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. Nobody is against technology but one should be very careful that one should directly relate the use of technology with the notion of development.More computers would not mean the it would eradicate caste structures or would remove poverty.

The idea of doing this assignment was largely inspired by media content that I found on Internet which seemed to convey a rather different picture from what I heard from my observation and other sources. I am personally not against the ICT initiatives but I was trying to make few enquirers which I felt was needed to speak about.

References

http://www.niit.com/services/solutionsforgovernment/ItEducationForSchools/Pages/ComputerEducationAtSchools.aspx#Bihar

http://www.csdms.in/gesci/ict-in-school.asp http://biharonline.gov.in/it/it.html Banerji Rukman i(2011), Challenging Bihar on Primary Education, vol XLVI NO 11, Economic and Political Weekly.

Amol Ranjan

2010mc005

An analysis of the Biometrics in the Unique Identification project

The ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies) have always been seen as an effective tool of governance across the world. Since it is an idea which came up with modernity, the modern state has used it widely in governance and administration, also sometimes with immense interference of market forces.

There cannot be any other recent, well suited example of ICT initiative in India other than the ongoing UID (Unique Identification) project. It is a project which sets to uniquely identify every resident of the country by providing a unique identification number. And at the same time it also envisages to maintain a centralized database of individual’s demographic and biometric information. The argument behind the collection of biometrics is its requirement in the de-duplication process, henceforth assuring that the data stored in the central database i.e. CIDR (Central Identities Data Repository) is clean and unique. In this context, it must be clear that the biometrics is referred to as the facial image, finger prints and iris scans.

While stating its objectives the UIDAI (Unique Identification Authority of India) very clear says that ‘it envisions full enrollment of residents with a focus on enrolling India’s poor and under-privileged’ with ‘the UID method of authentication’, that ‘will improve service delivery for the poor’.[1] It has been claimed by the UIDAI authorities and is also evident in the UIDAI documents that through better targeting with the help of the UID the flagship social welfare schemes of the government including NREGS, PDS and RSBY will see drastic improvements.

Is Biometrics a reliable technology?

The UIDAI largely relies on the biometrics for the authentication of identity. It becomes significant in the supposition that any kind of technological error or failure specifically relating to biometrics could adversely affect the UID linked services importantly NREGS or PDS. Several cases of biometric failure have been argued, as of now, by scholars and biometric experts.

R.Ramakumar in his paper, ‘the unique Id project in India: A skeptical note’ discusses two debated and controversial cases of false matching of finger prints in the USA that led to massive protests from the human rights activists :

“ …the case of Brandon Mayfield, an Oregon attorney and Muslim convert who was held for two weeks as a material witness in the Madrid bombing of March 11, 2004…Mayfield, who claimed not to have left the United States in ten years and did not have a passport, was implicated in this attack almost solely on the basis of a latent fingerprint found on a bag in Madrid containing detonators and explosives in the aftermath of the bombing. Unable to identify the source of the print, the Spanish National Police emailed it to other police agencies. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Senior Fingerprint Examiner Terry Green identified Mayfield as the source of the latent print. Mayfield’s print was in the database because of a 1984 arrest for burglary and because of his military service. The government’s affidavit stated that Green “considers the match to be a 100% identification” of Mayfield…

…A few weeks later the FBI retracted the identification altogether and issued a rare apology to Mayfield. The Spanish National Police had attributed the latent print to Ouhnane Daoud, an Algerian national living in Spain…

…But the Mayfield case was not the first high-profile fingerprint misattribution to be exposed in 2004. In January, Stephan Cowans was freed after serving six and a half years of a 30- to 45-year sentence for shooting and wounding a police officer. Cowans had been convicted solely on fingerprint and eyewitness evidence, but post-conviction DNA testing showed that Cowans was not the perpetrator. The Boston Police Department then admitted that the fingerprint evidence was erroneous, making Cowans the first person to be convicted by fingerprint evidence and exonerated by DNA evidence.”[2]

It is to be taken into consideration that the above two cases are from a developed country where ICTs have influenced public policy and subsequently, the functioning of the state. For instance, biometrics, especially finger print technology has so far been used in forensic sciences, mainly for criminal investigation. However, both the cases cited previously have pointed out the flaws regarding the accuracy of such technology and also consequently its reliability. In a similar manner, the lack of careful operational processes in such a high magnitude application of biometrics in UID could result into high rate of technological errors.

Error rates and Accuracy

The Biometrics Standards Committee of the UIDAI in one of its report foresees some challenges on the biometrics accuracy. The report says, “An accuracy rate (i.e., True Acceptance Rate) of 99% is reported in the test of commercial system performance. Two factors however raise uncertainty on the extent of accuracy achievable through fingerprints: First, the scaling of database size from fifty million to a billion has not been adequately analyzed. Second, the fingerprint quality, the most important variable for determining accuracy, has not been studied in depth in the Indian context”[3].

Here, I should cite some field experiences from my research work which highlights the operational hindrances appearing in biometrics capturing at UID enrollment sites.

Being a highly technological driven process, the enrollments are encountering problems at the same rate. At Mongolpuri enrollment camp in Delhi, Prabhjeet Singh of the enrollment agency (Strategic Outsourcing, a Bengaluru based IT company) says that biometrics capturing is not going slickly. In cases of good quality finger prints and iris scans the ideal scale of above 50 percent shows a strong signal. But it does not happen with bad quality finger prints. Like, with people involved in rigorous manual work whose finger prints gets altered and children below five years of age whose finger prints are not well developed, the capturing becomes difficult. “In such cases”, he says, “We have instructions to do force capture after four attempts. It is during the de-duplication and verification process that the best one out of the four is selected to store the data into the Central Database, CIDR”.

This method of forcibly capturing biometrics could be troublesome in future, as it could deprive the poor to seek benefits from the UID linked services. Say, if a manual labour goes to the PDS shop to get subsidized grains and if his fingerprints mismatch the one in the stored data, he will not get the benefits, as the identity is not proved. Such cases have been argued previously in several critical arguments.

The UID enrollment proof-of-concepts report identifies four possibilities of errors in relation with biometrics.

FPIR: False Positive Identification Rate: This is the likelihood that a person’s biometrics is seen as a duplicate (i.e., the biometric de-duplication software identifies his biometrics as matching with that of a different person), even though it is not a duplicate in reality.

FNIR: False Negative Identification Rate: This is the likelihood that a person enrolls a second time and the de-duplication software is unable to identify their biometrics as a duplicate set.

FAR: False Accept Rate: This is the likelihood that a person’s biometrics is matched against a different person and the biometrics is seen to match, i.e. the person is wrongly seen to be a different person.

FRR: False Reject Rate: This is the likelihood that a person’s biometrics does not match against an earlier sample of his or her biometrics and so he or she is not recognized as the same person.[4]

The case cited above, as per my understanding, could give rise to all the possible errors and particularly the last one.

Yet another finding from my research is again an erroneous element in the technological proceedings in biometrics. On conditions of not disclosing the name a technical advisor of the enrollment agency Strategic Outsourcing says, “sets of information (demographic and biometric) of individuals known as packets are needed to be sent for de-duplication. Every packet needs to be verified by a live or active operator through his thumb print. Ideally, the software should not accept any other thumb prints but it is happening. It is a major software fault and could be misused in many ways”.

On this issue, the IT head of Strategic Outsourcing (Delhi region) N. Sudhakar says “it is impossible. It cannot happen. And if it is happening” he admitted “the packets will be rejected during the de-duplication process because of not been verified by an authentic supervisor”.

Not quite certain of the de-duplication accuracy, the above stated software fault could have two possible drawbacks. One, if such packets gets ahead of the de-duplication successfully the probabilities of fake identity creation goes up. Second, as per N. Sudhakar, if they get rejected, the person fails to get an UID.

Role of the market and threat to security

In a globalised and liberalized economy, where private corporate becomes key players in influencing public policy, the case of biometrics being monitored by the foreign companies cannot be disregarded. A news story in tehelka magazine howls similar concern;

“The three foreign companies will be implementing biometric solutions for UIDAI that includes designing, supplying, installing, commissioning, maintaining and supporting the multi-modal automatic biometric identification subsystem.

...the involvement of companies such as American defence contractor L-1 Identity Solutions — which has names associated with the CIA and other US defence organisations in its top management — together with US-based Ernst & Young and Accenture raises queries about how much access they will have over Indian data.

Among the names associated with L-1 Identity Solutions are former CIA director George Tenet and former Homeland Security deputy secretary Adm James Loy, also on the board of Lockheed Martin. The company’s links with the US military establishment is underscored by the fact that its board of directors include former Army Technology Science Board member BG Beck, former chairperson for the Secretary of the Army’s National Science Centre Advisory Board Milton Cooper.

It’s feared that the database can be used as a bulwark against India because all USbased firms are subject to the Patriot Act that obligates American companies to share their data with Washington.”[5]

Moreover, on the applications of the UID, for instance in the NREGS, an observer of the UID project and NREGS activist Nikhil Dey( Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan) says “all that the biometrics system can ensure is that the person who is drawing the wage is indeed the person who is putting his thumb impression but it cannot ensure that he went to work or he did how much work and he got how much wage? And that is where fraud is taking place and any biometric system cannot eliminate such kind of corruption”.

The way the UIDAI is propagating the merits of a biometric system in addressing the hitches in socio-welfare schemes does not seems to be realistic and acceptable to the experts. And henceforth, this ICT initiative has been widely criticized by activists, practitioners and in academia on various grounds.

Prakash Chandra Sao

2010MC012

[1] http://www.uidai.gov.in/UID_PDF/Front_Page_Articles/Documents/Strategy_Overveiw-001.pdf

[2] Ramakumar.R, The Unique ID Project in India: A Skeptical Note, 2010

[3] Biometrics Design Standards for UID Applications, Version 1.0, Biometrics Standards Committees Report, UIDAI, 2009

[4] UID Enrollment Proof of Concept Report, http://www.uidai.gov.in/images/FrontPageUpdates/uid_enrolment_poc_report.pdf

[5] http://www.tehelka.com/story_main49.asp?filename=Ne210511TROUBLE.asp

ICTs and Funding: Kickstarter

My third ICT for development will address a perpetual problem for social programs: funding. Specifically, funding for creative projects that are often (understandably) sidelined in favor of programs that address pressing basic needs issues like hunger, unemployment, and education. One of the most successful recent funding innovations is a website: www.kickstarter.com. Kickstarter aims to provide a platform for creative projects relating to music, film, art, technology, design, food, and publishing (Kickstarter). With such a wide range of issues, it could have easily have become a chaotic closet of pet projects. Luckily, the website is streamlined and well-organized, allowing for easy browsing and selection.

Kickstarter operates on a peer-to-peer funding model, where the website connects project leaders to potential donors. The interface is a bit like online shopping, similar to many popular microlending websites. Participants list a description of their project, including photos and videos if possible, to entice viewers to click the Donate button, which drops the contribution into their “basket.” In return, funders are offered sweeteners like minor roles in films or invitations to launch parties. The model of the website, and others like it, have instigated the coining of words like “crowdfunding” and “micropatronage” (Madrigal; Charman-Anderson).

There are three unique funding features of Kickstarter: autonomy, insurance, and personability.

The first of these characteristics means that project leaders remain in full control of their project’s vision and process, rather than having to change plans to suit the whims of wealthy investors. This is partly because of the website’s explicit operating rules and also because most of the funding is made up of small donations by many people, rather than a singular wealthy backer (Kickstarter).

The insurance aspects comes from the rule that funding is not distributed to projects if and until their projects reach full funding. This way, projects are sure to be carried out and it protects donors from giving money to projects that soon founder on the rocks of a dry bank account. Also, projects listed on the platform are given a fundraising deadline; if the goal is not met by that date, then the funds are not dispersed and the listing closes.

Lastly, the project pitches are unique for the fact that you both get to know the person running it and also that they tend to be ordinary people. They are not international development officers or government officials; they are everyday people who the funders can identify with. This makes for a friendly, grassroots feel that is accessible to average people.

I think looking at Kickstarter makes for a great opportunity to discuss: what is development? What do we mean by this term, who defines it, and what are its goals? A loose definition could be any activity that aims to improve social or economic sectors of a society. Some more exacting theorists could restrict this to just contribution to the economic output of a region or country. For me, supporting grassroots art projects certainly falls under BOTH of the rubrics I have provided. With many projects proving highly successful (as discussed below), they are generating revenue in the millions for their economies. The arts-focused nature of the projects means that many being funded are those with a social impact, like documentaries bringing to light important social issues.

Why is this project successful? The most obvious fact of its success is that Kickstarter, after its launch in April 2009, has become the largest platform for funding creative projects in the world. It has provided funding to over 10,000 projects totaling 80 million dollars (Nowotarski). The website facilitates support of people who might not otherwise have been able to get their ideas off the ground. Of course, this is qualified with the often reiterated critique of ICTs that we don’t know what changes or help the projects are actually offering. There is no qualitative and little quantitative data to capture this impact. What we do know is that the reported success rate of projects 44%, by whatever measure of success was used in this assessment (Smith). A figure of just below half could call into question “success” if this were not outweighed, in my personal view, by the overwhelming success of what projects do manage to make productive use of their funding and market themselves well. Plus, some feel that the middling success rate “bring[s] discipline to the site’s entries” (Madrigal). Meaning, projects learn what works and what doesn’t, and a project has to be truly great to receive full funding.

Despite the grey area in success measurement, one has to assume that at least the accountability is higher, as funders have to approve of the project and find it worthwhile. This approval comes not from higher governmental and non-governmental bodies arguably out of touch with on-the-ground realities; rather, it is hoped that funders would have a good sense of what is needed in their communities and give accordingly. The founders describe this DIY nature as: “projects are big and small, serious and whimsical, traditional and experimental” (Kickstarter). I would argue that a facility to fund projects outside the scope of traditional development programs is extremely valuable (value-contribution being one of my metrics for success).

Kickstarter is sustainable because it charges a 5% hosting tax of the funds raised. In addition, its overhead costs are low because it works through internet-facilitated electronic transactions that take very few staff to oversee. For the present, it has been spread quickly and continues to demonstrate high rates of usage. So long at the market for its services continues (the point of instability for all business) then it will continue to operate. There even exist some opportunities for it to expand, by creating partner websites in other countries that run in different languages and currencies. For now, the project requires that you hold a US bank account to post a listing, and to pay through Amazon (who also charges a 2-3% tax). Certainly, other wealthy countries could benefit from such a service. European countries like France and Italy already have knockoff versions of the website, but markets in wealthy countries within lower-income regions such as Brazil, Japan, and even the United Arab Emirates are ripe for the picking (Charman-Anderson).

When speaking of countries like the latter example and other Middle Eastern countries, it seems to me to be a perfect market to reach out to. Projects in the arts sector could help with help with attempts to subvert the state and the norms it enforces, along the lines of theories of “counter hegemony” (Pratt). Given the revolutions witnessed this past spring in the region, it is clear that the converged of ITCs and social movements can prove a powerful force for change. Services like Kickstarter could further aid such movements.

References:

Charman-Anderson, Suw. “Entrepreneurs Flock to Crowdfunding Websites.” First Post. 31 Aug 2011.

Madrial, Alexis. “Why Kickstarter Works Better Than Other Crowdfunding Sites.” The Atlantic. 8 Aug 2011.

Nowotarski, Mark. “Funding Your Invention: Get Started with Crowdfunding.” IPWatchdog.com. 1 June 2011.

Smith, Mark. “Kickstarter’s Online Platform Helps Artists Seek Funds for Their Work.” Detroit Free Press. 7 Aug 2011.

Pratt, Nicola. Democracy and Authoritarianism in the Arab World. Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2007.

Kickstarter. Kickstarter, April 2009. Web. 30 Aug 2011.

~Sasha Anderson

ICT for development: Projects in Bihar

2. Vasudha Kendras ( Common service centers in Bihar)

The Indian government had launched national e-governance plan (NeGP) for delivering e-services to the rural India in 2006 as part of its commitment in the National Common Minimum Pro gramme to introduce e-governance on a massive scale.

In the state of Bihar,the front end interface of NeGP with people at the village is common services center (CSC) also known as Vasudha Kendras. "These centres or Panchayat portals will enable villagers to connect with the outside world and provide affordable and easy access to information about the government and its policies," Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said on the day of its launch on 31st of October 2008.The scheme intends to roll out various services in the areas of e-governance ,education, health,agriculture, commerce and retail etc.These CSCs (common service centers) aimed to be installed in all the Panchayats to provide information like weather related information, agriculture related information relating to prices of different variety of seeds, fertilizer and pesticides.

The government of Bihar has invited private sectors players to jointly work as service centre agencies (SCAs) for functioning of 8643 CSCs in rural regions of the state.

The state selected three SCAs namely SREI SAHAJ, Zoom Connect and SARK system. Three agencies then in turn facilitated hard wares and conducted training programs to Village Level Enterprenuers(VLE), who delivers many business services to people at the village.At present around 4500 Vasudha Kendras are up and running in all the 38 districts of the state of Bihar.

The district of Rohtas, where Vasudha Kendra is working with SREI SAHAJ consists of large population of unemployed people.Dinesh Pandey, one of the Village Level Enterprenuers, informs that 6,92,562 men are jobless, and the number almost doubles when it comes to women. SAHAJ, here aims to bring e-governance, computer education, etc. Vasudha Kendras are also working with local Panchayats in areas of health , education, and railways reservations. In this terror struck district of Rohtas where most of the population are unemployed due to hampered growth in agriculture sector, these services in nature seems to be alluded by the grassroots problems.

There have been complaint of corruption against SAHAJ in the Rohtas district.According to the allegation SAHAJ is taking Rs. 500 license fee and 400 Rs. net for net connectivity.SAHAJ has also taken illegally amount from VLEs ID account, when they recharged with Rs. 10,000. One of the officers in charge have also said to demanded 5000 Rs. from CSC to provide them the license through BSNL. Its ironical that the system which intially hailed as bringing transparency in the system could face charges against it. The differences have seems have grown between VLEs and SAHAJ as there have been occasion where SAHAJ has threatened to cancel the licenses of VLEs.

SAHAJ chose DLF insurance company over LIC insurance company,despite of LIC's policies of catering the concerns of people from all classes and categories. They chose DLF as partner only because they were giving more commission than LIC.

There have reports about SAHAJ launching its retail business in rural areas with local brand names, which could kill the business of the local people. I am sure policies allows private players to invest in rural setups but one has to be aware of who all are the real beneficiaries.

This schemes have their existence since 2008 in Bihar but there have been many newspaper reports about the infrastructure not reaching to people in certain villages or complaints being not reaching to these centers.

In terms of policy level, the current ICT 2011 policy of Bihar government only mentions 'Govt. of Bihar is setting up Common Services Centers in all 8,463 panchayats across the

State' which is no different than the states' release of IT policy of 2008. It shows lack of self reflection in implementation and regulation of policies.

http://www.biharonline.gov.in/Site/IT_Policy_2011-Draft-English_latest%20-%201.pdf

http://www.igovernment.in/site/Bihar-launches-first-Vasudha-e-Seva-Kendra/

http://sahaj-kios.blogspot.com/

http://sahaj-kios.blogspot.com/2011_03_01_archive.html

http://gov.bih.nic.in/Documents/Draft_IT_Policy_2008.pdf

http://biharonline.gov.in/it/it.html

Amol Ranjan

2010mc005

ICT for development: Projects in Bihar

I am taking examples of ICT interventions in Bihar in recent times.I came across some news items which were endorsing the success of the use of information and technology through public-private intervention.The government of Bihar has launched many projects like State Wide Area Network(SWAN), Common Service Center(CSC), Secretary LAN, Prison modernisation, Treasury management,Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) computerisation and many others. Bihar is said to be evolving from one of the most ‘backward’ states in the country to one of the ‘emerging’ states of the country in public imagination. It would be contested whether my observation and interpretation by just going through media articles can hold any valid or rich argument as I could hardly recall any such experience and observation of any sort, even though I have lived in the for most part of my life. But I will try to bring my understanding on the intricate nature of these interventions from various readings.I will be looking into three such projects and below is first one of them.

1. E- shakti project

An ICT intervention in MNRGEA scheme in Bihar

‘E-Shakti’ in the state of Bihar was awarded the “Best Government to Citizen Initiative” at the ‘E-World Forum 2011’. The award was presented to Glodyne at a glittering ceremony on 2nd August, in New Delhi at the hands of Jyotiraditya Scindia, Minister of State for Commerce and Industry.

The E-shakti project was inaugurated on February 24, 2009 in the Paliganj block of Patna district by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar with a private partnership with the service provider Smaartech Technologies limited,a subsidiary of Glodyne Technoserve which is based in the U.S.

E- shakti project was introduced to give strength and provide the efficiency of work load of (MNREGA) scheme through the application of information and communication technology(ICT).

One of the goal was to monitor and strictly implement the timely wage payments to deserving workers.The government had found some amount of irregularities and malfunctioning regarding the identification at the time of attendance and at the time of wage payments.

Mr.B.K Mishra, the Smaartech Director (Bihar) had said that the information technology application was introduced to bring effective coordination in execution, better targeting of beneficiaries, establishing transparency,accountability, e—based grievance redressal mechanism and establishing state of art financial management systems. The project also intends to open a bank account for each beneficiaries as financial inclusion.

The e-shakti facilitates through the registration process of individuals which includes recording of personal information as well as biometric information which includes the fingerprints of all the beneficiaries. The information consists of a card. This e-Shakti card is suppose to be distributed among 24 million NREGA beneficiaries in approximately 39,000 villages spread over 536 blocks in next two years. As for the current information 496 blocks have filled up the information.

Number of households de-manding jobs is far higher than the number of households who have been issued job cards..For example: In Araria district, Bihar, job cards have been issued to 9103 household while 92,000 household have demanded for employment.Similar is the case in Lakhisarai district of Bihar where 2630 job cards have been issued and 29285 families have demanded employment.(http://www.i4donline.net/aug06/778). There are currently 991 computers available for all the blocks in Bihar for functioning, out of which only 158 of them have the Internet connectivity at the block office level. So there are issues of infrastructure reaching to people.

Now according to the government, the e-Shakti cards will be issued simultaneously issued along with Aadhaar Cards( the cards issued under The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI).The Govt. of Bihar has decided to provide e-Shakti biometric cards to all its 10 crore citizens.If the proposal is approved by the ministry of rural development,the e-Shakti cards can be used for the all the purposes and the services that are offered under UID Aadhaar Cards.

It is here the problem starts, as you are enforcing this system by saying it will make things more accountable, transparent and etc, but one forgets that the problem could easily occur as the data can easily be corrupted from anonymous sources, and personal information can easily be accessed for ill used.The issues like the right to privacy, greater control of authority over its citizens and its amplification are areas of grave concern.

Other areas of concerns are the reliability of this information. Patterns of Iris changes with age and also with some disease.What about the millions of people with corneal blindness? Fingerprints can also be tapped and copied. There are also millions who may be without hands. Since many labourers’ hand get so much of beating that their fingerprints might also get marred.

The project has yet to reach its peak in order to challenge its final outcome but the process of debates have already started and the use of technology as an apparatus to enhance the efficiencies of the workload are being questioned.It also must be noticed that in the mix of both MNRGEA and ICT interventions the focus have largely centered around wage employment and shifted away from the concerns of creating productive long term assets which could valued by the people from all sections of the society.

References:

http://www.igovernment.in/site/e-shakti-project-gets-going-bihar-37648

http://helloap.com/e-shakti-and-aadhaar-cards-in-bihar/

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2010-08-26/patna/28279962_1_mnrega-financial-inclusion-pilot-project

http://www.pwcbed.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Bihar%E2%80%99s-ICT-success.pdf

http://nrega.nic.in/ict/ictstaterep.asp

http://nrega.nic.in/writereaddata/state_out/ICTAllst.html

Amol Ranjan

2010mc005

On ICTs, visual impairment and facilitation of educational and recreational needs: Swaram and Sparshdnyan

Swaram is a free, bimonthly audio magazine for the visually challenged, the first of its kind in India. It is an initiative of Alakal, a community radio wing of the Society for Promotion of Alternative Computing and Employment (SPACE) with the creative support of the journalism students of Press Club, Thiruvananthapuram. Swaram was launched in 2008 and seeks to provide a combination of information and entertainment through varied and interesting programming which includes articles and discussions (on topics of general and specific interest such as free software), news and analysis, radio plays, poetry, drama, music, and so on. The content of this audio magazine is available in the form of CDs as well as online links. At present, Swaram is available only in Malayalam and has released four successful editions. The approximate duration of each magazine is between 30 minutes and an hour and it is currently being extended to two hours.

Sparshdnyan is a bimonthly 48-page newspaper. This paper is one of the first in India to be printed entirely in the Marathi version of the Braille script. The paper’s editor, Swagat Thorat, first wrote a Diwali issue (an important part of Maharashtrian literary culture) named Sparshgandh in 2006, which became widely popular. Soon after, he compiled and published the first issue of the novel newspaper, Sparshdnyan (or ‘knowledge by touch’) in 2008. Today, an estimated readership of the paper may be pegged at approximately 24,000 copies per issue. The editor receives approximately 600-700 letters with each issue and covers his costs by selling and exhibiting his photographs and screening his documentaries on nature and wildlife.

In a society where the needs of people with disabilities are recognized only in a basic minimum of food, shelter and clothing, other important elements such as the need for education and intellectual stimulation, recreation, sexual and reproductive health facilities, etc. are not addressed entirely. It is in this context that initiatives such as Swaram and Sparshdnyan have become extremely important.

The audio magazine, Swaram and newspaper, Sparshdnyan, cater specifically to the needs of the visually impaired. The challenges of people with visual impairment are several. These include not only the person’s access to and perception of his/her environment, but also the ways in which the society perceives him/her. Most communication around us tends to be audio-visual, which means that a lot of vital information often becomes rather inaccessible to people with visual impairment. Thus, good quality, print (Braille) and audio communication becomes an important requisite for effective communication in the case of people with visual impairment.

There seems to be a serious dearth of useful and accessible material for purposes of education and/or recreation. However, Swaram and Sparshdnyan may be included here as sustainable initiatives. At the most basic level, they provide information and entertainment through media that are easy to access and use. Braille script and aural description-based media are the two very effective modes of communication for people with visual impairment, which are still not exploited to their optimum level in India.

Interestingly, the material provided by the two initiatives is available at very low (Sparshdnyan-Rs. 2/ newspaper) or no (Swaram-free) cost, which allows those with financial restraints to access them. 50 copies of each Swaram magazine have been distributed free of cost to schools and other institutions for the visually challenged, and individuals across Kerala. The poverty-disability correspondence as discussed in the previous post, thus, gets addressed through these initiatives. The idea in any initiative for people with disability or any marginalized community for that matter, is to provide for facilities at subsidized costs so as to make them affordable. This not only balances the concern regarding affordability of services but also lessens the danger of a charity based approach towards ‘their development’.

The programming in Swaram is done keeping in mind relative or complete lack of sight. Although regular radio is aurally rich, it takes certain visual codes of communication for granted which creep into the content (script, etc.) of the show. Swaram takes care to design information in a way that a person with visual impairment can to relate to. Similarly, people with visual impairment have relied on the reading out aloud of regular newspapers or listening to the news on the radio, T.V., internet, etc. The very existence of a newspaper in Braille script brings in possibilities of proactive involvement and independent choice by people towards their own education and entertainment.

It is also important to note that both the initiatives cater to people in their regional languages. Swaram, a Kerala based initiative, consists of programmes in Malayalam. It still awaits the launch of shows in English, but presently caters to a Malayalam speaking audience. Sparshdnyan is a newspaper published in the Marathi version of the Braille script. News stories in several newspapers also report that this has attracted a wide range of enthusiastic visually impaired readers. Thus, the inclusion of the regional language angle allows the initiatives to be accessible across a wide range of people.

The developers of material for the two initiatives include a mix of people with and without visual impairment, which lends the material an interesting mix of perspectives and approaches. The two also receive creative inputs from various professionals and institutes. Sparshdnyan, for example, consists of a regular body of journalists and donors from Pune, Marathwada and Vidarbha who contribute to the content and publication of newspaper. Swaram receives inputs from the journalism students at the Press Club, Thiruvananthapuram.

Often, the perspective behind initiatives for a ‘marginalized section’ of people may border on a sentiment of charity. Well meaning, philanthropic attempts at the ‘development of the oppressed’ could well end up eliciting rather ordinary work, be it research or media material. However true the idea of ‘some work is better than no work’ may be, there is a strong need for development of high quality media material for and by people with disability. In the present market framework, a person with disability is as much a consumer as any other individual, and if rigorous competition in the market elicits highly competent work for the ‘normal’, then the same must be applied to material developed for people with disability as well. Thus, only reporting news or playing music is not good enough. The material must be made relevant and interesting, and multiple avenues must be opened up for the same, so that a person with disability has the same right to pick and choose interesting material from a wider range. The content developed by Swaram as well as Sparshdnyan provides such a hope. Material is of reasonably good quality not being just a bunch of information thrown into a common space. Content is carefully thought out, packaged and presented to listeners and readers, which consequently puts listeners/readers in a powerful position to demand for the availability of good quality material. Swaram provides a wide range of material ranging from news and analysis of assorted topics, short stories and plays, discussions (topic e.g.: free software), poetry, music programmes and so on. Similarly, Sparshdnyan delivers a whole range of news on current issues (politics, entertainment, science, etc.) and news specific to people with visual impairment.

Every project is, of course, subject to critique. While both initiatives are promising, it will be interesting to see how they pan out over coming years. However, these initiatives are definitely among the more sustainable ones due to their attempt at the addition of a localized, community context to larger ICT policies and recommendations for people with disabilities.

References:

Insights on INSIGHT, http://www.space-kerala.org/files/Insight%20Status%20Report.pdf, February 2009

Venniyoor, Sajan and Sah, Gitanjali (Compiled by), Query: ICT Tools for Visually Impaired Persons – Examples, Solution Exchange ICT for Development Community Consolidated Reply, 2007

Garrido, Maria, A Comparative Analysis of ICT forDevelopment Evaluation Frameworks, Center for Internet Studies, University of Washington, 2004

Links for news articles on Sparshdnyan:

http://ornelladsouza.posterous.com/people-hero-swagat-thorat

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/good-news/sparshdnyan-india-braille-newspaper-brings-news-thousands-194706476.html

http://www.ummid.com/news/2011/June/09.06.2011/news-fr_blinds.htm

http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/braille-news-magazine-opens-up-windows-of-information-for-the-blind/274874/

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/989137--braille-newspaper-helps-thousands-stay-informed-in-india

http://www.bharatstudent.com/study-india/sindnews.php?newsid=2555

Links for Swaram:

http://space-kerala.org/

http://insight.kerala.gov.in/about/

http://swaram.web4all.in/

-Shweta Ghosh

ICTs for Persons with Disabilities: Introduction

A blind bloke walks into a shop with a guide dog. He picks the dog up and starts swinging it around his head. Alarmed, a shop assistant calls out: “Can I help, sir?” “'No, thanks.” says the blind bloke, “Just looking.”

-Tommy Cooper

I came across this quote during an online search for quotations on disability for a class project. It was a humorous take at the negotiation of challenges by a person with disability, which, I must admit, was rather refreshing. The life of a person with disability is, no doubt, a challenging one, and the challenges are diverse and numerous. Interestingly, the fast-emerging solution to problems of access, acceptance and confidence building is turning out to be technology. The guide dog in this quote, though definitely not redundant, has begun to fade away in the wake of increased availability of information and communication technologies.

The question of people with disabilities has always been an important, yet widely unaddressed one. The World Health Organization defined ‘Disability’ in 1976, through a three–fold distinction between impairment, disability and handicap[1]. The importance of ICTs for people with disabilities has been widely discussed in several forums including the UN Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities, G3ICT initiative (Global Initiative for Inclusive Information and Communication Technologies) and back in India, in the latest draft bill for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, submitted in June, 2011. The main questions we need to explore are: What are the challenges faced by PwDs which make the inclusion of ICTs especially important in policy documents at national and international levels? And how differently do ICTs address the issues of PwDs as opposed to other aids that have been available till now?

At the outset, I would like to firmly locate my post within the Indian context. While the WHO definition of disability is understood as extensive, the definition of disability by the Indian State may be termed as fairly narrow. However, the newly proposed bill not only broadens the definition of disability but also enumerates the need for ICTs for PwDs in the segment ‘Access to information and communication technology’ as follows:

1. All appropriate governments and the establishments shall take measures to ensure that:

(i) All content in whichever medium whether audio, print or electronic shall be made available to persons with disabilities in accessible format;

(ii) Persons with disability shall have access to Electronic media by providing for audio description, sign language interpretation and close captioning;

(iii) Accessibility to telecommunication services where telecommunications will include any kind of transmission of information of the user’s choosing without change in form or content of information as sent or received.

(iv) Electronic goods and equipment of everyday use shall follow the principles of universal design;

(v) Schemes are formulated or amended to ensure for affordable access to Information and Communication Technology & Electronics for persons with disabilities in rural as well as urban areas;

(vi) All government websites, and private websites providing consumer services conform to the most updated version of the World Wide Web Consortium web accessibility standards.;

(vii) Incentives and concessions are provided to support existing websites to make them accessible to persons with disabilities;

2. The conversion, reproduction, adaptation and communication of all copyrighted materials into accessible versions for exclusive use of persons with disabilities on ‘not-for-profit’ basis shall be deemed fair dealing;

(Explanation: Accessible version includes any version or form which gives a person with disability access to the work as flexibly and comfortably as a person without a disability, and shall include, but not be limited to, audio recordings, audio –visual works with audio and/or text descriptions, Braille, e-text including DAISY formats, digital copies compatible with assistive technology or refreshable Braille, tactile material, large print, with different type-faces and sizes and sign language)

3. All government websites shall be made accessible within a maximum period of Six months and all private websites shall be made accessible within a maximum period of one year after this Act comes into force.

4. Any contravention of this Section shall be penalized under Section 30D.

The argument for the induction of ICTs into development projects relating to PwDs is to essentially bridge the digital divide between people with and without disabilities. The Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities, 2010, ICT Accessibility Progress Report locates its study within the context of the near indispensable and ever growing nature of ICT development projects which almost invariably seem to exclude PwDs. It states that, “Concurrently, an estimated 650 million persons live with disabilities worldwide, whose ability to enjoy fundamental freedoms and full participation to society is increasingly dependent upon their interaction with multiple and pervasive Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) interfaces and applications in their daily lives such as mobile phones, Automated Teller Machines (ATMs), Web sites, television, electronic forms, digital books, computers or voting machines, many of which are not accessible. The number of persons who are excluded from access to ICTs is increasing exponentially…Article 9 defines ICT accessibility as an integral part of Accessibility Rights, on par with accessibility to the physical environment and to transportation. This has immense consequences because many ICT interfaces are inaccessible today. The right to accessibility covers information and communication together with education, health, environment, etc. enabling persons with disabilities to fully enjoy all human rights and fundamental freedoms. It includes the right to seek, receive and impart information and ideas concerning human, civil, social, political, and economic issues in an equitable way.”

The use of ICTs in India is increasing rapidly, and more and more facilities such as banking, health, education, etc. require citizens to use ICT interfaces which are almost necessarily exclusionary for PwDs. The case of the access of persons with disabilities to ICTs in the Indian context, is also complicated by the poverty-disability correspondence (Rakesh Arora) and the vicious cycle that follows thereafter, which makes access to technological devices and information difficult in both, rural and urban areas. The ownership of high-end technology and affluence in India seem to almost complement each other. Hence, the high cost of assistive devices, along with lack of availability of accessible information, designs and formats renders ICT access to PwDs very complex. The key pointers to an effective analysis of ICT initiatives for people with disabilities essentially boil down to accessibility in the form of a universal, accessible design, ease of availability, affordability and equal access to all (C. D. Waddell, J. Doctor). It is on the basis of this that I seek to analyze three ICT initiatives for people with disabilities in India, namely Swaram, Mirakle and Sparshdnyan. The above-mentioned, elaborated context becomes especially important to my analysis of the accessibility and sustainability of the initiatives.

[1] According to the WHO, “an impairment is any loss or abnormality of psychological, physiological or anatomical structure or function, a disability is any restriction or lack (resulting from an impairment) of ability to perform an activity in the manner or within the range considered normal for a human being, and a handicap is a disadvantage for a given individual, resulting from an impairment or a disability, that prevents the fulfillment of a role that is considered normal (depending on age, sex and social and cultural factors) for that individual.”

References:

Waddell, Cynthia D. and Doctor, Juris, Meeting Information and Communications Technology Access and Service Needs for Persons with Disabilities: Major Issues for Development and Implementation of Successful Policies and Strategies, Lusaka (Zambia), 2008

Gould, Martin, Studer, Elsa, Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities2010, ICT Accessibility Progress Report, G3ICT Pubilcations and Reports, 2011

Campos, Simão, A framework on ICTs and people with disabilities: Policies and strategies for meeting ICT needs of persons with disabilities, ITU, 2007

Christine, Mugimba, ICT Accessibility for Persons with Disabilities in Africa Region: Uganda’s Country Report, Uganda Communications Commission and ITU, 2008

Vijaybaskar, M., Gayathri, V., ICT and Indian Development: Processes, Prognoses, Policies, Economic and Political Weekly, 2003

National Institute for the Mentally Handicapped, New (Proposed) Draft Bill - PWD Act (The Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2011), 2011

-Shweta Ghosh

#ICTs #PwDs #Persons with Disabilities #G3ICT #Accessibility #Draft bill for PwD Act #2011 #Swaram #Mirakle Couriers #Sparshdnyan #Disability

Finance and ICTs: M-PESA

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Much hubbub has been boiling over innovative banking schemes like microfinance. Lauded as the new solution to global poverty, microloans have often gone south as a development tool due to predatory lending practices. But, the industry has instigated the creation of revolutionary new banking technologies to reach the previously un-banked in rural areas of developing countries. The explosion of mobile phone ownership in these areas has led to a logical fusion – mobile banking. This post will look at the first such venture in Africa, M-PESA, whose name originates from the Kiswahili word for money.

Kenya has two main competing phone companies – Safaricom and Zain. The former is an affiliate of Vodafone and developed the M-PESA venture from 2003-2007, finally launching in early 2007 (Hughes and Lonie). The program’s initial objective was to allow for easier distribution and repayment of microloans, but was quickly redirected by users who found it useful for sending payments long distances – such as transnational wage remittances or payments for raw materials from the countryside. The parent company restyled the program in response to user feedback. The real genius of the operation is its simplicity. Banking at people’s fingertips allows family members working abroad to efficiently send funds back to their families, reducing the lag time and paperwork for in country payments as well. Users are also able to store credit in their M-PESA account, so that the service can be used as a savings account. This is particularly in demand from individuals living in slum conditions where the lack of safe storage options reduces the incentive to save. A lack of savings can place schooling and land ownership out of reach for poor families. Furthermore, though there haven’t been any studies conducted, I feel that the service could prove a boon for women who are looking to keep funds independent from their husbands and male family members in order to attain greater freedom.

Though it may be outside the typical ICT profile, I have included this service here because I think it brings information and communication to its users in an indirect but very important way. It allows them to gain financial literacy through instantaneous balance statements. It also lets families communicate more clearly about their finances. M-PESA allows for greater connectivity between urban and rural areas, so that economic markets are more accessible to those living on the local and global periphery.

This service has been overwhelmingly successful. In its first two years, M-PESA accumulated 6.5 million subscribers who performed 2 million daily transactions (Hughes and Lonie). This rapid growth has allowed M-PESA to expand into other African countries – namely, Tanzania and South Africa, with plans to offer similar services to India and Egypt in the near future. The service has been so popular that it threatens to put traditional brick-and-mortar banks out of business. Some of these threatened banks formed a group to petition the Kenyan finance minister for an audit, citing transparency issues. You can imagine their chagrin when the audit was impeccable (Starita).

Another good mark on M-PESA’s performance record has been its responsiveness to local contexts and the financial circumstances of its mostly poor users. Had it insisted on continuing its partnership with the microfinance sector, this service would probably have followed in their crumbling footsteps. Instead, it listened to the feedback from the trial run and made adjustments to provide services that were user requested. Inflexibility and an I-know-best mentality are often the Achilles heel of ICTs for development projects. M-PESA’s model meant that their services were tailored directly to user needs and thus highly likely to succeed so long as the costs were not preventative.

Lastly, mobile ICTs in Kenya have been able to break the growth paradox whereby “you could increasingly see ICTS in developing countries except in the economic growth data,” meaning their impact of socioeconomic status was minimal (Heeks). They were largely a result of higher incomes, rather than a generator of gain. Now, the Kenya Economic Update shows that the ITC sector has grown 20% per year for the last ten years while the agriculture declined by an average of 2%. More astounding is the statistic that money transfers by phone now make up 20% of Kenya’s income and are used by two-thirds of the population. The report even claims that ICTs have been the primary driver of the country’s growth in recent times. The blog ICT4DBlog breaks it down nicely, explaining:

“...the report’s strongest claim is this...“Since 2000, Kenya’s economy grew at an average of 3.7 percent. Without ICT, growth would have been a lacklustre 2.8 percent – similar to the population growth rate – and income per capita would have stagnated.” So ICTs were responsible for 0.9 of the 3.7% annual GDP growth, and for all of Kenya’s GDP per capita growth. Put another way, ICTS were responsible for roughly one-quarter of Kenya’s GDP growth during the first decade of the 21st century” (qtd. in Heeks).

The report then went on to propose that the ICT sector in Kenya is really all about telecommunications, lacking other traditional ICT services like e-governance and education programs.

The for-profit nature of M-PESA, where a small fee is charged for the use of their services, means that it will always be financially supported. It is further bolstered by the economies of scale it has been able to achieve with little addition of costly infrastructure. The service is quite scalable and can expand to anywhere that receives a phone signal. These days, one can get a signal in the most unlikely places – on top of a Himalayan foothill, in the middle of the ocean, so the service can be offered virtually anywhere. I imagine it would be quite popular within Western states too, as wire transfer services are time consuming and can be costly. It may even manage to supplant popular internet middle-men like Paypal.

The only threat to its sustainability would be the encroachment by other companies, usually already existing banks who want to capture a piece of the mobile banking pie. Western Union, well-established in the field of remittances around the world, would potentially be able to usurp M-PESA because it already has many branch offices that would allow customers to combine in-person banking with network transfers and deposits. Luckily for M-PESA, Western Union offered them a partnership, rather than starting their own service (The Western Union Company).

M-PESA also protects itself by locating its physical outlets right where a majority of its users live – in low-income slums and rural villages. Where traditional banks have abstained from providing convenient, affordable services to these populations, usually claiming the transactions costs are prohibitively high, M-PESA has thrived in this micro-payment goldmine.

References:

Heeks, Richard. "ICT and Economic Growth: Evidence from Kenya." ICTs for

Development. 26 June 2011. Web. 19 Aug. 2011.

Hughes, Nick and Susie Lonie. "M-PESA: Mobile Money for the “Unbanked"

Turning Cellphones into 24-Hour Tellers in Kenya." Innovations: Technology,

Governance, Globalization 2.1–2 (2007): 63–81.

Starita, Laura. "Mobile Case Transfers Pose Threat to Banks." Philnathropy Action.

Philanthropy Action, 26 Feb. 2009. Web. 19 Aug. 2011.

"A Look at Mobile Remittances and Mobile Banking." Payments News. Glenbrook

Partners, 13 Aug. 2008. Web. 19 Aug. 2011.

"Press Releases." The Western Union Company. ir.westernunion.com, 2008. Web.

19 Aug. 2011.

~Sasha Anderson

Sexual Health Education and ICTs: Scarleteen

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My sexual education consisted of an ageing gym teacher who cried over the thought of our “loss of innocence” before forcing my class to sign an abstinence contract, and a persnickity “expert” consultant who refused to answer our questions if we did not use the medically-sanctioned terminology. What’s a girl facing raging hormones and a lack of practical knowledge to do? Unlike my stranded teenage self, youngsters around the world are increasingly able to access sexual health knowledge and counselling through information and communication technologies. One leading program – Sex Ed Text (SET), implemented in the Philippines, takes advantage of the cultural obsession with phones to offer mobile-based sexual health information (www.healthmarketinnovations.com). SET has found this approach to work better than a website-based program, as internet cafes in the country are often not secure enough to allow users to browse comfortably. Another program operating throughout the United States allows users to select from a list of pre-determined questions, like “What 2 do if condom broke?” (Hoffman). A third registers the zip code of the caller and sends them information on nearby health clinics, plus weekly health tips (Hoffman).

This post will specifically look at Scarleteen, an ICT4D start-up located in my hometown of Seattle, Washington. This street smart, straight-talking website was started by Heather Corinna, who is a professional sex educator and founder of the blog “All Girl Army.” The DIY sex education website was started in 1998 out of a great frustration at the ineffectiveness of classes offered in public schools (the primary source of reproductive knowledge in the US). The website strives to provide “opt-in, progressive, inclusive and comprehensive sexuality, sexual health and relationship information,” acknowledging the often overlooked reality that sexual education entails much more than describing how babies are made (Chally). In addition to knowing the right way to put on a condom, young adults need to be equipped with the skills to navigate relationships, recognize abuse, be good future parents, and nurture their emerging identities,. Plus, the website provides information to students who are home-schooled, or live in places where sex education is not offered through their school.

Though written with a US focus, Scarleteen reaches three quarters of a million users around the world each month, and can be accessed by anyone with an internet connection and English skills. According to the website’s self-provided description, it is “the highest-ranked website for sex education and sexuality advice online and has held that rank through most of its tenure” (Corinna). Similar projects with regional focuses have sprung up around the world. For this reason, Scarleteen serves as a representative look at the possibilities that arise when ICTs and sexual empowerment collide. For further information on web-traffic information to analyze the potential impact of internet-based development solutions, I found this website useful in my research: http://www.alexa.com.

A brief perusal of the website provides the user with a number of options. Have questions about the basic facts of life? Check out the set information pages with titles like: “Driver’s Ed for the Sexual Superhighway” and “Safer Sex 411” (Corinna). If a trip through the index of over 1,000 articles isn’t enough, users also have the option to post in the message boards, where questions are promptly answered by qualified volunteers. Questions texted or tweeted are also accepted and quickly replied to (in 160 characters or less, no easy task!). Users can even get a referral for an in-person doctor’s appointment sent to them. These latter two options have recently been added to the site, to take advantage of the increasing use of cell phones and the popular networking site Twitter.

Two questions I want to tackle when discussing the project Scarleteen are: 1) how does this qualify as development and 2) what makes this project successful and sustainable?

To address the first, one only need look at any statistics of teen pregnancy to know that development issues are not only for the so-called “developing countries”; social problems and inequality exist in every country. In many Western cities, rates of teen pregnancy and rates of infection with sexually transmitted diseases has remained obstinately stable or even risen (Hoffman).

The second is a bit trickier. How does one measure success? And can something be “sustainable” if it is tied to mercurial private donation?

Success measurements are often stated with numbers – Scarleteen’s 10,000 text message-based users per day or their high monthly website visit rate. But what remains to be verified is whether the information provided helped users to make better choices or just to feel more informed. A feedback survey, along the lines of the one given by Skype, to analyze user’s satisfaction on each visit, would provide an additional layer of proof of the program’s efficacy.

As mentioned above, the website and its subsidiary programs are supported solely by private donation and volunteers (mostly eager collegiates studying education or public health). There are periodic fundraising drives to collect donations, which were not elucidated on the website. It takes no support from government or funding institutions, which allows it to retain its independence and freedom to post material that pushes the boundaries of social norms. As with many internet-based services, it still struggles to capture monetary return for the value provided. To address this gap, the organization is slowly expanding into a for-profit social enterprise model by creating and selling sex ed books geared towards teens. This move, combined with wide reader support and subsequent donation, indicates that the project is financially secure in the short-term, and forseeably, as these activities expand, Scarleteen will continue to be successful in the long term as well.

The website has been running for over ten years, steadily gaining readership and the funds to expand into new areas of outreach, so I have tentatively assessed it as sustainable, particularly in light of its for-profit forays.

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References:

Chally. "Interview: Heather Corinna of Scarleteen." Feministe. Feministe, 2

Aug. 2010. Web. 29 Aug. 2011.

Hoffman, Han. "When the Cellphone Teaches SEx Education." The New York

Times. 3 May 2009. Print.

Corinna, Heather. Scarleteen.Scarleteen, 1988. 20 Aug. 2011.

"Sex Ed Thru Text." Healthmarketinnovations.org. Center for Health Market

Innovations, n.d. Web. 20 Aug. 2011.

~Sasha Anderson

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