Government of India Initiatives on Open Source

The Indian Government has recently proposed to go the Open Source way in its e-governance projects, and the Department of Information Technology has issued a Draft Policy in this regard. The move has been welcomed by the IT Industry. According to a latest draft policy on e-governance, all new projects must work on Open Source Operating Systems only.

The draft ‘Policy on Device Drivers for Procurement of Hardware for e-Governance’ states that the, “Government of India (GOI) endeavors to provide e-governance services, which are technology-neutral, cost-effective, interoperable and vendor neutral. The GOI policy on open standards is as step towards meeting this objective in the development of e-governance applications” . The policy will be applicable in all new e-governance projects, as well as in existing ones.

* ( Source :- By Diksha P Gupta , Linux ForYou – The complete Magazine on Open Source, Volume:09, Issue 06, August 2011 )

Save Our Hard Earn and Country’s Money – thru FOSS

Pls Save Our Hard Earn and Country’s Money – thru FOSS

EYE Opening And Awakening by ILUGC (Indian Linux Users Group Chennai) to Tamil Nadu Government

* Tamil Nadu announced the distribution of 9.12 Lakh free laptops to students. The state run
ELCOT (Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu) has invited International competitive tender for this big order. The members of ILUGC are not happy with the “Technical Specifications” mandated by ELCOT page 57 of the tender talks about the Operating System . According to the tender, ELCOT is looking for “Preloaded Dual Booting -Window Starter Edition with Anti Virus for 1 Year License”.

This group of concerned citizens has been discussing the issue online since the tender was floated by ELCOT. T Shrinivasan,Coordinator ILUGC, says , “Assuming that the basic cost of the proprietary OS License is RS 1000/-, the cost of just the licenses for the 9.12 lakh laptops will be a whooping amount of Rs 91.2 Crore.

FOSS IS THE BEST ALTERNATE NOT ONLY TO SAVE THIS AMOUNT , such a system has already been implemented in a number of other Indian States and countries across the globe. The world has witnessed that the implementation of Open Source technology has proved useful and economical for its users. The neighbouring state of Kerala has successfully implemented Open Source Technology in its Schools ( saved more than 49 crore rupees). Students in Kerala have been using Open Source Operating System since almost five years.

* ( Source :- By Diksha P Gupta , Linux ForYou – The complete Magazine on Open Source, Volume:09, Issue 05, July 2011 )