1995 was a year in which the Country witnessed an Information Technology boom. Internet accessibility, paging systems and cellular phones were the more visible manifestations of this phenomenon, prominently in metros and mini-metros. However, unknown to many, similar progress was being made in other areas of IT in many small towns and districts. National Informatics Centre, the pioneer of IT in India, played a major role all through. On one hand, NIC pioneered the introduction of new technologies; while on the other, it stood by its commitment of promoting of informatics right down to the grassroots level. The Organization's performance in 1995 is ample proof of the significant role it has played. We present gists of major achievements during 1995, culled from previous issues of Informatics.
† National Informatics Centre's efforts to computerize customs operations bore fruit when the Union Finance Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh inaugurated a new custom house building on February 4, 1995. The House has been equipped with state-of-the-art EDI service from NIC. † NIC's project for computerization of all property tax collection operations in the 12 Zones of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi made impressive headway in 1995. Computerization of property tax collection has yielded rich dividends in the form of fast and error-free billing, better service and improved monitoring.
The Minister of Commerce and Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission, Mr Pranab Mukherjee, inaugurated C-WEB, Centre for World Wide Web (WWW) Service through NICNET, on January 14, 1995. This opened up a new and unique way of accessing the world of information. In collaboration with Information Dimensions Incorporation, the makers of Basis Plus, NIC successfully installed a Basis web server on its National Info Highway. Thus, NIC Users in India were not only provided access to Internet's WWW, but also had at their disposal an access mechanism which incorporated every conceivable means of tapping information. Once again, NIC emerged as the leader in introducing new technology. The Basis web server on NICNET redefined the concept of information management for the scientific and academic community as well as for commercial users. NICNET's connectivity to the Internet, made Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), Electronic Funds Transfer and access to Trade Data Banks possible for its Users.
On March 8, 1995, Justice AM Ahmadi, Chief Justice of India, inaugurated the Judgement Information System (JUDIS), a nationwide caselaw information system for the Supreme Court of India. Developed by the National Informatics Centre, JUDIS stands out as a milestone in NIC's endeavour to provide highly organized computer support to the Judiciary. The first of its kind in India, JUDIS can be best described as a comprehensive on-line library of caselaw that contains all reportable judgements of the Supreme Court of India from 1950 onwards. The repertoire of JUDIS consists of 25,000 judgements and is accessible from any of the 800 nodes of NICNET. Traditionally, legal research has been carried out through use of case citators and index of the sort used in text books. Its disadvantage lies in its inherent dependency on the views of the person who develops it. A case may have many legal issues and is best left to the user to derive his own inference. To sort this out, JUDIS provides a free text-based retrieval system. By providing only the actual text part it is ensured that the user will not miss his own view point.