AI Governance Debuts in Uttar Pradesh, Setting Global Standard for Innovation

Uttar Pradesh has officially become the world’s first AI-driven governance pilot site under Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, marking a global benchmark in innovation. The initiative is being recognized as a transformative step in integrating artificial intelligence into public service delivery, particularly in agriculture and rural development.

Key Highlights of the Initiative

Global Milestone: Uttar Pradesh is the first state worldwide to launch an AI-driven governance pilot, positioning India at the forefront of digital innovation.

Agricultural Transformation: AI tools are being deployed to improve outcomes for smallholder farmers, optimizing crop yields, resource use, and market access.

Partnerships: The pilot is backed by a World Bank–Google collaboration, showcasing international confidence in India’s governance innovation.

AInclusive Growth: The program emphasizes empowering rural communities, ensuring that technology benefits even the most vulnerable sections of society.

Digital Governance: Real-time monitoring, smart policing, healthcare innovation, and education reforms are being integrated into the AI framework.

Why This Matters Globally

Benchmark for Innovation: By embedding AI into governance, Uttar Pradesh sets a precedent for other regions worldwide to follow.

Scalable Model: The pilot demonstrates how AI can be scaled across diverse sectors—agriculture, healthcare, education, and urban management.

Policy Leadership: India, through Uttar Pradesh, is positioning itself as a thought leader in AI governance, potentially influencing global regulatory frameworks.

Strategic Implications For India: This strengthens India’s image as a digital-first nation, aligning with national initiatives like Digital India and AI for All.

For Global Governance: It raises important questions about AI ethics, accountability, and transparency in public administration.

For Citizens: The promise is faster, more transparent service delivery, reduced corruption, and improved access to welfare schemes.

Looking Ahead

This pilot is not just about technology—it’s about redefining governance itself. If successful, Uttar Pradesh could become a template for AI-driven administration worldwide, influencing how governments adopt emerging technologies to serve citizens better.

Pre-IIGF'21 (Internet Governance Forum) Commencing from Today

Early last month, the India chapter of the United Nations based forum namely the Internet Governance Forum was announced. It's an Internet Governance policy discussion platform to bring representatives together from various groups, considering all at par to discuss public policy issues related to the Internet.

Now in a latest, IIGF is happening for the first time in the country on 20th October 2021. To involve students, industries and citizens of the country at a large scale, the IIGF committee has planned various pre-IIGF events.

The Pre-IIGF Initiative -

As part of IIGF, a series of curtain-raiser events are being organized under the banner of “pre-IIGF events”. The purpose of Pre-IIGF events is to ensure that people across all sections of society across demographics, gender, urban-rural divide and socio-economic strata are reached out to so that they can contribute to the discussions at IIGF, making it an inclusive initiative, as part of pre-IIGF activities, in association with FICCI-ILIA with the contribution of different stakeholders organized a session on the importance of multilingual internet as a socio-economic tool of empowerment on 31-August 2021.

Mr. Anil Kumar Jain and Dr. Ajay Data quoted on IIGF -

Inclusive Internet is the need of we Indians and India IGF 2021 will aim to achieve the same with all stakeholder and community participation.

Dr. Ajay Data, Chair of the Pre-IIGF committee also added, "Pre IIGF creates awareness about Internet Governance in schools, colleges and citizens at large. It also provides opportunities and ease for people to attend one of many events throughout Sept 21 till IIGF main event happens."

We expect a large number of students and people from all walks of life to be part of the pre-IIGF event.
https://www.indiaigf.in/preiigf

About IIGF

The India Internet Government Forum is an initiative associated with the UN Internet Governance Forum (UN-IGF). The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) is a multi-stakeholder platform bringing representatives together from various groups, considering all at par to discuss public policy issues related to the Internet.

Government of India to Host the 1st Internet Governance Forum in India

Today, the India chapter of the United Nations based forum namely the Internet Governance Forum was announced. It's an Internet Governance policy discussion platform to bring representatives together from various groups, considering all at par to discuss public policy issues related to the Internet. This mode of engagement is referred to as the multi-stakeholder model of Internet Governance, which has been the key feature for the Internet’s success. The multi-stakeholder concept is well adopted IGF (Internet Governance Forum) under UN and by ICANN

India Internet The governance coordination committee for IIGF – 2021 features Shri Anil Kumar Jain as Chairman, Shri TV Ramchandran as Vice-Chairman, Shri Jaijeet Bhattacharya as Vice-Chairman, Dr. Rajat Moona as Vice-Chairman and approximately 12 members representing Government, Civil Society, Industries, trusts, Associations, etc.

India IGF 2021 will be planned for three days, starting from 20th Oct 2021. The theme of this year’s meeting is Inclusive Internet for Digital India.

Commenting on the announcement, Mr. Anil Kumar Jain, the Chairman of Coordination Committee, India Internet Governance Forum 2021 (IIGF) said --

India is the second-largest broadband subscription country in the world and also has the highest data consumption per user per month. Therefore, the aspirations of the Indians should be reflected in International policy formation and stakeholder discussion. India Internet Governance Forum is the correct initiative for the country to ensure that the growth of broadband adheres to the lifestyle and requirements of the Indian community. IIGF 2021 is adopting the multi-stakeholder concept in organizing the event as per the true spirit of global IGF. The coordination committee has apt representation from civil society, Government, Industry, Industrial association, trust, and other stakeholders.

Starting from August 2021, multiple Pre-IIGF engagement events will be held at several colleges and universities, as a precursor to the IIGF Inaugural event. The idea behind this is to engage the youth and students for their participation in October event and prepare the next generation to be part of policy formation.

Ministry Invites Proposals for Making UMANG Chatbot "ONE bot" and Conversational AI Platform for e-Governance Services

National e-Governance Division (NeGD) of Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India, has invited proposal for appointment of partner agency for developing Conversational AI Platform for delivery of UMANG/Government services.

"The Partner Agency (Bidder) shall design, develop and deploy the complete Conversational AI Platform as per SoW in this RFP and as suggested by NeGD/MeitY. The Partner Agency through this Conversational AI Platform shall provide all software/solution/tools/components etc. required to build, test, train, measure, and manage conversational bots (Chat and Voice)", said the ministry's RFP.

The Conversational AI Platform can be used to develop, deploy and manage multiple bots (Chat and Voice), however, the Partner Agency (Bidder) shall develop, deploy and RFP for Appointment of Partner Agency for - Conversational AI Platform for Delivery of UMANG / Government services and manage ONE bot (Chat and Voice) – UMANG Bot with features and functionalities such as Natural Language Processing (NLP), Text-to-Speech, Advanced Speech Recognition (ASR) among others.

In one of the required functionalities, the NeGD wants UMANG Bot to be able to carry out general conversations such as greetings, small talks, queries about UMANG, integrated departments, services etc.

"Platforms should also have other deep learning capabilities, which can be used by platforms for discovery and recommendation of eligible schemes and services to the users of bots/applications.

"Users should be recommended best-fit schemes and services available in government domain based on his/her profile," the RFP document said.

January 12 is last date for pre-bid conference and January 25 is the last date of bid submission. Bids will open on January 27, evaluation will be done by February 5 and work order is scheduled for the second week of February, according to the document. 

GovernEye App Formally Launched to Engage Citizens and Politicians for Better Governance

• A unique citizen engagement app for the self-governed
• More than 100 MPs and MLAs across party lines and regions have already signed up with GovernEye
• The beta version of the app was also used by 22 candidates in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and each one of them won

GovernEye Systems has formally launched its first-of-its-kind, citizen engagement app GovernEye to engage citizens and politicians for better governance. This is the first exclusive application in India which offers citizens an app to engage with each other and with elected representatives across India. It is available on web browsers across desktops, laptops and Smartphone and also as an Android and iPhone app.

Development issues related to the local area, circulation of fake news through social apps, and other society and law concern related issues in this pandemic have become a major concern in today’s life. This app has overcome these issues with added features like public discussions, lawmaker updates, news flash, fake news alerts, online protest march, and national pulse. It's totally different from other available apps of this sort because it actively brings elected representatives to the table.

Speaking on the launch, Mr. Dijin K. Devaraj, General Manager, GovernEye Systems, said, “We truly believe that the most important thing in a democracy is a well-informed electorate. The app provides the ideal platform for the Indian electorate to be well informed. It allows users to post in audio or video apart from the text in any of the languages recognized by the Indian Constitution. That ensures that language and writing skills are not a barrier anymore for our citizens to share their concerns and opinions on policy matters, local development, and politics."

https://youtu.be/A4ddzXC51yI

The bedrock of the app is a triad of principles that GovernEye adheres to strictly: no foul language, no echo chambers, and no invasion of user privacy. The app does not collect or track user data and does not use it for advertising as a revenue model. GovernEye app was first launched in its trial mode in mid of 2018. And after a successful trial run, the app is now being formally launched and is available on the browser, iPhone, and Android phones. During the trial version over 3 lakh users had joined it. And their overall positive review and feedback motivated the company to formally launch the app all over the country. To date, over 100 MPs and MLAs across party lines and regions have signed up with GovernEye. The beta version of this app was also used by 22 candidates in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and each one of them won their seats.

National e-Governance Service Delivery Assessment - Delhi, Chandigarh Lead among UTs

Delhi, Chandigarh, Daman and Diu administration have emerged leaders among Union territories across all parameters for national e-governance service delivery assessment (NeSDA), according to an official report released here on Saturday.

The assessment is done broadly for four categories – Union territories, remaining states, union territories and central government ministries websites. Haryana and Rajasthan are the leading states in the assessment under the "remaining states" category comprising 18 states.

Among the north-east and hill states, Nagaland has got the first rank with its service portal having an average compliance of more than 45 per cent to the criteria assessed across all seven parameters, including ease of use, end service delivery and content availability among others, according to the report released by Minister of State for Personnel Jitendra Singh at the 23rd National e-governance Conference here.

The conference, which is being jointly organised by the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG), Government of Maharashtra and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, was attended by various senior functionaries of the state and central government, including V Srinivas, Additional Secretary, DARPG.

The website of the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) under the finance ministry is the winner under the assessment of central ministry service portals category. Whereas, the ministry portals of health & family welfare, and human resource have emerged leaders across "all parameters", the report said.

The NeSDA framework primarily assessed all the service portals (state/UT and central ministry service portals) on seven key parameters, namely accessibility, content availability, ease of use, information security & privacy, end service delivery, integrated service delivery and status & request tracking.

The framework covers six sectors, namely finance, labour & employment, education, local government & utilities, social welfare (including agriculture & health) and environment (including fire) sectors.

Giving details of the assessment of the Union territories, it said data related to Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Lakshadweep, Chandigarh, Delhi, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Pondicherry were reviewed.

Of these, the portal of Andaman and Nicobar Islands has been adjudged first on the four parameters, viz., accessibility, content availability, ease of use, and information security and privacy, the report said.

"Delhi, Chandigarh and Daman & Diu are the leading UTs with their service portals having average compliance of more than 10 per cent to the criteria assessed across all seven parameters," it said.

Delhi and Chandigarh are the leading UTs with their service portals having average compliance of more than the prescribed criteria under integrated service delivery parameter.

Under the "remaining states" category, Haryana and Rajasthan are the leading states with their service portals having average compliance of more than 60 per cent to the criteria assessed across all seven parameters. Haryana has got first position and Rajasthan secured second rank in the category.

The remaining states category included West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Telangana, Punjab, Bihar, Odisha, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Jharkhand, Kerala, Goa, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.

In the north east and hill states category, Himachal Pradesh, Tripura and Assam are leading states with their portals with more than 60 per cent compliance to the criteria assessed across all the assessment parameters, including accessibility, content availability and ease of use.

"Nagaland is the leading state with its service portal having average compliance of more than 45 per cent to the criteria assessed across all seven parameters," it said.

The north east and hill states included Himachal Pradesh, Tripura, Assam, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Manipur.

The web portals of CBDT, Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC), Ministry of Labour and Employment, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Rural Development and Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, were also assessed in their effectiveness in
e-governance service delivery.

"Ministry portals of health & family welfare and human resource development are the leading portals with compliance of more than 60 per cent to the criteria assessed across all the assessment parameters," it said.

The CBDT portal has been ranked first under the assessment of central ministry service portals, according to the report.

Microsoft announces Digital Governance Tech Tour to Skill Govt Officials on AI and Cloud

In line with the government’s Digital India vision, Microsoft India today launched the Digital Governance Tech Tour, a National program to deliver critical AI and intelligent cloud computing skills to the Government officials in charge of IT across the country.  The initiative comprises a series of physical and virtual workshops and aims to train 5,000 personnel over a period of 12 months. This announcement reaffirms Microsoft’s commitment to empower government organizations to leverage AI and secure cloud technology for efficient, transparent and productive governance.

The program was inaugurated at the Digital Governance Tech Summit 2019 in New Delhi by Shri. Amitabh Kant, CEO NITI Aayog and Shri. Ajay Prakash Sawhney, Secretary MeITY, in the presence of Dr. Neeta Verma, Director General, National Informatics Centre (NIC); Shri  Sureshkumar Nair,  Additional CEO, Government eMarketplace (GEM); Dr. Omkar Rai, Director General, Software Technology Parks of India (STPI), Anant Maheshwari, President, Microsoft India and other dignitaries.  The summit in New Delhi was supported by NIC, GeM and STPI.

[caption id="attachment_134320" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] Amitabh Kant, CEO NITI Aayog and Anant Maheshwari, President, Microsoft India at the Digital Governance Tech Summit to announce the launch of a national skilling initiative[/caption]

AI and intelligent technologies are becoming all-pervasive today, driving change across businesses, communities and governments. As India advances towards fulfilling its vision of becoming a $5 trillion economy, applying AI and data analytics using secure and compliant cloud-based tools can provide actionable, predictive and effective citizen focused services, while empowering more secure inter-departmental and cross-agency collaboration. Through this program, Microsoft will help upskill government officials, equipping them with the digital skills and experience needed today and - in the future - to successfully deploy cloud-based solutions.

Shri. Amitabh Kant, CEO - NITI Aayog, said, “For our country, the power of AI, cloud services, and data analytics needs to be brought to bear in core sectors for inclusive economic growth.  As we move beyond pilots and understand how to scale AI implementation and cloud adoption across states and sectors, it is vital to equip the ecosystem with the right knowhow and skills. Collaboration with academia and the industry, and initiatives such as this will help build the foundation towards an AI enabled future.”

According to Anant Maheshwari, President, Microsoft India, “AI and the cloud can enable path-breaking innovation and drive the next phase of India's growth. Continuous focus on learning and improving skillsets for all are a must to make this a reality. Microsoft's first-of-its-kind Digital Governance Tech Tour for government officials reiterates our commitment to be a trusted partner to the government by enabling and empowering officials to do more with technology in service of the citizens.”

About the Digital Governance Tech Tour The Digital Governance Tech Tour will be open to technocrats and IT professionals across the entire Government ecosystem, including employees of Public Sector Undertakings; government partners as well as solutions/systems integrators. It is designed keeping in mind all skill levels required at every stage of Government’s cloud adoption journey - from integrating on-premise core infrastructure with cloud platforms to operationalizing cloud analytics solutions. Participants will come away with a range of skills including being able to move, transform and analyze data, design and deployment skills for end-to-end solutions, and monitoring and troubleshooting in the cloud. It will offer a comprehensive free of cost 10-module program under two different tracks. The first track, meant for Technical Directors, Technical Architects and Project Managers will cover Modern Project management for governance An overview of DevOps: a foundation for digital transformation Data, Analytics & Insights Ethical governance through AI Increased productivity with modern collaboration tools Top security considerations for moving to cloud The second track, for Developers, IT Architect and Application Architects, will comprise a deep dive into the fundamentals of Azure cloud. Additionally, developers will also have the opportunity to take an exam and earn the AZ-900 Certification on the spot at no cost.

The Digital Governance Tech Summit, New Delhi 

The launch summit featured discussions on the immense possibilities that skilling will open up in government services. Speakers also deliberated on the need for a secure information infrastructure as well as how government agencies can build trust in their intelligent technology powered projects.  The discussions were followed by first training session of the program with close to 500 participants from different central and state government departments.

The daylong conference also saw participation from eminent government representatives including Mrs. Shakuntala Doley Gamlin, Secretary, Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities, Government of India;, M S Bhatia, Inspector General, Central Republic Police Force (CRPF); Shri S N Pradhan, Director General, National Disaster Recovery Force (NDRF), and Shri Dhruva Kant Thakur, Additional Director General of Police (ADGP), UP Dial 100, Uttar Pradesh Police, among others.

Microsoft has been a longstanding partner in India’s digital transformation journey, enabling technology led transformation in government and across various key sectors including education, agriculture and healthcare. Microsoft is the first global public cloud service provider to be accredited by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY). Its hyper-scale, flexible and secure local cloud services from three India datacenters in Pune, Mumbai and Chennai – Microsoft Azure, Dynamics 365, and Microsoft365 –  are already accelerating cloud innovation and opening new possibilities in e-governance and inclusive digital growth.

In A First, India To Develop Blockchain Platform for E-Governance; IIT-K To Design Architecture Worth $5 Mn

Governments across globe are exploring and experimenting blockchain usage on multiple governance issues. In India, state such as Karnataka, Gujarat and Maharashtra, have started evaluating the technology for purposes of e-governance, and in this Telangana and Andhra Pradesh are leading the race with both looking to move government data to blockchains within a few months.

In a latest development in adopting blockchain in India, a $5 million blockchain project has been commissioned by central cybersecurity agency of India. Notably, this is the first attempt in India to design and develop a blockchain platform for e-governance and to integrate the various applications in it.

National Cyber Security Coordinator (NCSC) has engaged Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (IIT-K) to develop an indigenous blockchain architecture -- amounting $5 million (₹34.4 Crore ) -- to be used in e-governance. The project has been commissioned by the Office of the NCSC and noted cybersecurity expert Gulshan Rai is currently holding the post of the National Cyber Security Coordinator.

IIT-K professors Manindra Agrawal and Sandeep Shukla of the Department of Computer Science & Engineering are the principal investigators, who would work in collaboration with IIT Madras professor Shweta Agrawal on the project.

Additionally, a company would be incubated at IIT Kanpur to transfer the technology into the product.

Generally, blockchain is defined as a distributed ledger that maintains a continually growing list of publicly accessible records cryptographically secured from tampering and revision. It is believed to create a persistent, immutable, and ever-growing public ledger that can be updated (i.e., by appending information using cryptographic digital signatures) to represent the latest state of a blockchain. It was originally used to record historical transactions of encrypted digital currencies such as Bitcoin.

For transparent e-governance, blockchain is now being adopted by quite a few countries including Estonia, UAE, Australia and UK. Estonia is often cited as a shining example of forward-thinking blockchain development, particularly in the sphere of government. In 2016, Estonia successfully implemented blockchain-powered e-voting in one of its stock exchange.

The above news was first reported in Business Standard.

Blockchain Adoption in India

Last October, Andhra Pradesh became the first state in the India to pilot blockchain technology in two departments - land records and transport. The state launched pilot projects based on blockchain technology for land records and transport.

Few days back, New York-based blockchain startup Consensys, which is founded by Joseph Lubin, who is the co-founder of the Ethereum, has signed a nonbinding agreement with Niti Aayog, a govt. of India's policy think tank, to make blockchain prototypes across healthcare, education, land registry, supply chain, and more.

In this month only, Kerala Blockchain Academy (KBA) of Kerala state-run Indian Institute of Information Technology & Management has become the first Indian Institution to get membership of Hyperledger Project, an open source collaborative effort created to advance cross-industry blockchain technologies.

Also, India’s first blockchain-based network went live last week, when three online bill-discounting exchange platforms came together and implemented a solution for their operations to deter fraud, in this month only.

Last year, we covered a story on how the blockchain is invading financial institutions like banks and electronic voting systems in several countries, including India.

In A First, India To Develop Blockchain Platform for E-Governance; IIT-K To Design Architecture Worth $5 Mn

Governments across globe are exploring and experimenting blockchain usage on multiple governance issues. In India, state such as Karnataka, Gujarat and Maharashtra, have started evaluating the technology for purposes of e-governance, and in this Telangana and Andhra Pradesh are leading the race with both looking to move government data to blockchains within a few months.

In a latest development in adopting blockchain in India, a $5 million blockchain project has been commissioned by central cybersecurity agency of India. Notably, this is the first attempt in India to design and develop a blockchain platform for e-governance and to integrate the various applications in it.

National Cyber Security Coordinator (NCSC) has engaged Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (IIT-K) to develop an indigenous blockchain architecture -- amounting $5 million (₹34.4 Crore ) -- to be used in e-governance. The project has been commissioned by the Office of the NCSC and noted cybersecurity expert Gulshan Rai is currently holding the post of the National Cyber Security Coordinator.

IIT-K professors Manindra Agrawal and Sandeep Shukla of the Department of Computer Science & Engineering are the principal investigators, who would work in collaboration with IIT Madras professor Shweta Agrawal on the project.

Additionally, a company would be incubated at IIT Kanpur to transfer the technology into the product.

Generally, blockchain is defined as a distributed ledger that maintains a continually growing list of publicly accessible records cryptographically secured from tampering and revision. It is believed to create a persistent, immutable, and ever-growing public ledger that can be updated (i.e., by appending information using cryptographic digital signatures) to represent the latest state of a blockchain. It was originally used to record historical transactions of encrypted digital currencies such as Bitcoin.

For transparent e-governance, blockchain is now being adopted by quite a few countries including Estonia, UAE, Australia and UK. Estonia is often cited as a shining example of forward-thinking blockchain development, particularly in the sphere of government. In 2016, Estonia successfully implemented blockchain-powered e-voting in one of its stock exchange.

The above news was first reported in Business Standard.

Blockchain Adoption in India

Last October, Andhra Pradesh became the first state in the India to pilot blockchain technology in two departments - land records and transport. The state launched pilot projects based on blockchain technology for land records and transport.

Few days back, New York-based blockchain startup Consensys, which is founded by Joseph Lubin, who is the co-founder of the Ethereum, has signed a nonbinding agreement with Niti Aayog, a govt. of India's policy think tank, to make blockchain prototypes across healthcare, education, land registry, supply chain, and more.

In this month only, Kerala Blockchain Academy (KBA) of Kerala state-run Indian Institute of Information Technology & Management has become the first Indian Institution to get membership of Hyperledger Project, an open source collaborative effort created to advance cross-industry blockchain technologies.

Also, India’s first blockchain-based network went live last week, when three online bill-discounting exchange platforms came together and implemented a solution for their operations to deter fraud, in this month only.

Last year, we covered a story on how the blockchain is invading financial institutions like banks and electronic voting systems in several countries, including India.

Govt. Planning To Create A Github-Like Repository To Collaboratively Develop Software

Indian government software applications are all set to save millions of dollars by moving away from proprietary system and shifting to open source. This will also result in the boosting of pace at which such programmes are being developed.

The Indian government is in the midst of developing a policy that will call for the usage of open source software as part of the government’s Digital India initiative. Government's future plans also include developing a Github like repository of software that can be created collaboratively.

"We don't want to make it a question of ideology but wherever possible, we want to make use of open source", said RS Sharma, secretary, department of electronics and Information Technology in a statement to Economic Times.  He further added, "We are also preparing something like SourceForge, where we will open up the source code of all the existing software and crowd source development like on Github".

SourceForge and Github are among the most famous repositories for software codes on the internet that can be revised and shared by many people.

This step by the government will help in boosting e-governance. It will also help in increasing savings as these applications and codes can be used again and again. According to Gartner, the Indian government will spend around $6.4 billion on IT products and services in the year 2014. The advantage of this step taken by the government is that every consulting firm will not have to re-invent the software again and again.  The policy under construction has an aim of speeding up the development process by deploying e-governance projects across various sectors of the government.

"Open source has offered us the best way out of vendor lock-in and unpredictable financial commitments" said Jay Pullur, founder and CEO, Pramati Technologies in a statement to Economic Times.

The repository will work towards avoiding the duplication of solutions and applications to a large extent. For example, if a state wants to adopt a particular application, all it has to do now is go to the repository and customize it.

According to Venkatesh Hariharan, director of Alchemy Business Solutions LLP, "The open code policy will ensure faster deployment of IT projects, speeding up the pace of innovation and reducing failure rate of projects".

 

Govt. Planning To Create A Github-Like Repository To Collaboratively Develop Software

Indian government software applications are all set to save millions of dollars by moving away from proprietary system and shifting to open source. This will also result in the boosting of pace at which such programmes are being developed.

The Indian government is in the midst of developing a policy that will call for the usage of open source software as part of the government’s Digital India initiative. Government's future plans also include developing a Github like repository of software that can be created collaboratively.

"We don't want to make it a question of ideology but wherever possible, we want to make use of open source", said RS Sharma, secretary, department of electronics and Information Technology in a statement to Economic Times.  He further added, "We are also preparing something like SourceForge, where we will open up the source code of all the existing software and crowd source development like on Github".

SourceForge and Github are among the most famous repositories for software codes on the internet that can be revised and shared by many people.

This step by the government will help in boosting e-governance. It will also help in increasing savings as these applications and codes can be used again and again. According to Gartner, the Indian government will spend around $6.4 billion on IT products and services in the year 2014. The advantage of this step taken by the government is that every consulting firm will not have to re-invent the software again and again.  The policy under construction has an aim of speeding up the development process by deploying e-governance projects across various sectors of the government.

"Open source has offered us the best way out of vendor lock-in and unpredictable financial commitments" said Jay Pullur, founder and CEO, Pramati Technologies in a statement to Economic Times.

The repository will work towards avoiding the duplication of solutions and applications to a large extent. For example, if a state wants to adopt a particular application, all it has to do now is go to the repository and customize it.

According to Venkatesh Hariharan, director of Alchemy Business Solutions LLP, "The open code policy will ensure faster deployment of IT projects, speeding up the pace of innovation and reducing failure rate of projects".

 

Now See How Many Govt. Employees Logged Into Work, Real Time!

An inexpensive attendance system has been launched lately by Indian Govt. for India's central government employees that is publicly available on the internet-and potentially, a simple tool that could revolutionize governance in the country.

The online attendance portal is available at - attendance.gov.in essentially called as Real time Biometric Attendance System (BAS) , the portal is said to have attendance data of more than 50,000 government employees in New Delhi which shows data in real-time.

The system will not only help track the number of registered organisations and employees, but also give a dynamic interface to know the number of people attending office and the count of active devices.

The entire system is searchable, down to the names of individual central government employees, moreover all the data is available for download as well. The system cannot track people leaving in between the check in and check out. But it can track chronic late comers. And the public reporting of data creates pressure on supervisors to ensure compliance.



Network connectivity will be essential for marking attendance. Therefore, two types of connectivity are being planned with each attendance terminal; one wi-fi connectivity on NICNET/broadband and other SIM based GSM connectivity in the tablet.

The whole system had been developed under the guidance of Ram Sewak Sharma, secretary of information technology and communications.

This real time attendance system is modified version of prototype developed for Jharkhand state - attendance.jharkhand.gov.in, it was launched in Jharkhand in January 2014 which used to track around 34,000 employees, across 69 departments and 24 districts.

However initially in January this year former AAP (Aam Aadmi Party) government in Delhi had decided to introduce biometric attendance system in the Secretariat and all government offices in the New Delhi to ensure "effective functioning" however AAP govt. resigned off and it finally came into existence after 8 months.

[Top Image - The Logical Indian FB Group]

Soon Wi-Fi services in India's Cities and Universities

Wi-Fi has nowadays become as important as food for many of us and it seems the Narendra Modi government which came to power two months back has also realized the power possessed by Wi-Fi and decided to give it a further boost.

The NaMo government has decided on launching Wi-Fi services in urban areas and universities. The move has been taken in order to increase IT based government interference with people and making mobile connectivity easier. The government will be providing support to municipal bodies and state governments to launch these services.

BJP all throughout its election campaign stressed on creating "Islands" where Wi-Fi connectivity will be made available to speed up the process of e-governance all across the country, particularly in the urban pockets.

If some sources are to be believed, the telecom department paid a visit to the Prime Minister on Saturday and are expected to get approval of "competent authority" for the project by March next year.

The Telecom department is also trying to get a Cabinet approval for a scheme which aims at making mobile phone connectivity available to all uncovered villages in the Himalayan states. Another proposal which is in line to get the Cabinet's approval is for comprehensive telecom development in the North East region of the country.

In a recent presentation of all the important infrastructure ministries, the Planning Commission has submitted that the department aims at awarding work to set up around 500 mobile towers in the Left Wing Extremism affected districts. In 2014, it has a target of connecting 50,000 panchayats with the help of National optical fibre network.

The road transport ministry is also planning on launching a web portal which would aim at helping contractors in keeping a track of their pending bills and their current location.

According to a Ministry official, the facility for uploading the bill won't be available in the starting but one will be easily able to find out the status of his or her claims. This web portal will put an end to the ages old ritual of contractors visiting the government offices in order to get their payments cleared.

Soon Wi-Fi services in India's Cities and Universities

Wi-Fi has nowadays become as important as food for many of us and it seems the Narendra Modi government which came to power two months back has also realized the power possessed by Wi-Fi and decided to give it a further boost.

The NaMo government has decided on launching Wi-Fi services in urban areas and universities. The move has been taken in order to increase IT based government interference with people and making mobile connectivity easier. The government will be providing support to municipal bodies and state governments to launch these services.

BJP all throughout its election campaign stressed on creating "Islands" where Wi-Fi connectivity will be made available to speed up the process of e-governance all across the country, particularly in the urban pockets.

If some sources are to be believed, the telecom department paid a visit to the Prime Minister on Saturday and are expected to get approval of "competent authority" for the project by March next year.

The Telecom department is also trying to get a Cabinet approval for a scheme which aims at making mobile phone connectivity available to all uncovered villages in the Himalayan states. Another proposal which is in line to get the Cabinet's approval is for comprehensive telecom development in the North East region of the country.

In a recent presentation of all the important infrastructure ministries, the Planning Commission has submitted that the department aims at awarding work to set up around 500 mobile towers in the Left Wing Extremism affected districts. In 2014, it has a target of connecting 50,000 panchayats with the help of National optical fibre network.

The road transport ministry is also planning on launching a web portal which would aim at helping contractors in keeping a track of their pending bills and their current location.

According to a Ministry official, the facility for uploading the bill won't be available in the starting but one will be easily able to find out the status of his or her claims. This web portal will put an end to the ages old ritual of contractors visiting the government offices in order to get their payments cleared.