Hon'ble president inaugurates SWAN at Secretariat, UT of Lakshadweep, Kavaratti. The Lakshadweep State Wide Area Network (SWAN) has been inaugurated by her Excellency Smt. Prdaibah Devi Sing Patil, Hon'ble President of India, at a glittering function held at Secretariat of UT of Lakshadweep, Kavaratti on 24th December 2009. The occasion was blessed with the presence of the Administrator of the U.T. of Lakshadweep, along with Her Excellency's spouse, local Member of Parliament and all Heads of Departments of the administration besides public representatives. The Hon'ble President of India spoke with the Sub Divisional Officers of the islands of Agatti, Androth and Minicoy , through the newly established video conferencing system. This project envisages connecting around 420 offices across Lakshadweep .This enables videoconferencing with the Sub Divisional Offices at all inhabited islands. The Public redressal is also one of the main features of this system. The administration would be brought to very close to the people with speed and transparency. During her Excellency's speech, she focused on providing all round connectivity between islands and the mainland. More efforts needed to improve ship, boat and air services to develop regular and effective transport linkages. She appraised SWAN, an ICT initiative to provide connectivity between the various Government departments. It will be a platform for e-Governance and other IT enabled services. SWAN shall help in the improvement of education, health awareness, providing information about the weather, entertainment and news delivery services. She also wished the bandwidth is increased, internet facilities be extended to the people for their business and personal use. K.P. Mohamed Koya, Lakshadweep. e-Governance Stall at 'Kissan Mela 2009-10', Alappuzha, Kerala. An e-Governance stall was setup at the annual 'Kissan Mela 2009-10' held at SDV Grounds, Alappuzha from 19th to 27th December, 2009. The mela is an event by the Agri-Horti Society in association with Department of Agriculture, Government of Kerala and Botany Department, S D College, Alappuzha. It attracts people from all walk of life especially farmers. Farmers and other stakeholders exhibit and market their produces directly. As an innovative step, with the initiation of the District Collector, who is the President of the Agri-Horti Society, NIC Alappuzha District Centre had setup the e-Governance stall under ATMA with the expert guidance and cooperation from the State Centre and Agricultural Informatics Division of NIC Head Quarters, for giving awareness about the e-Governance initiatives in Agriculture by Central and State Governments. The stall was equipped with a Touch Screen Kiosk with internet connection, an LCD TV for projecting Multimedia presentations and videos of achievements, postures and banners highlighting the features of the portals. Brochures and notices were distributed to the visitors. Good response was received from the visitors of the stall, especially the farmers. Speaking on the occasion, Sh. P. Venugopal IAS, the District Collector says “The e-Governance stall setup by National Informatics Centre during KISSAN MELA 2009-10 was an excellent facilitation centre to the farming community of the District, giving awareness on the possibilities open to them through Information & Communication Technology. This in fact benefited a large section of farmers who were, hither to, unknown to the facilities that the Government of India and the State Government are extending to them.” P. Parvathy Devi, Allappuzha. “Gold”National e-Governance Award for Madhya Pradesh Education Portal. The Education Portal www.educationportal.mp.gov.in developed by NIC, MP has bagged the prestigious Gold National E-Governance award of GoI. The award was presented during the 13th National e-Governance Conference organized jointly by DARPG, GoI and Department of IT, GoI at Jaipur on 18th and 19th Feb '10. The award was presented by Smt Prabha Rao, Hon'ble Governor, Rajasthan in the presence of Sh. Prithviraj Chauhan, MOS (Prime Minister's Office) and Sh. Sachin Pilot, MOS (Communications & IT). DG (NIC) was also present during the award ceremony. The project is being continuously being enriched and enhanced with new facilities and services since last one year. It has also won several prestigious awards under different categories which includes MP State Government e-Governance Award 2009 Best Project under “IT for Masses” category; CSI Nihilent e-Governance Award 2009 Best Project under Department category; Manthan South Asia e-Governance Award 2009- for effective public service deliveries through innovative IT applications. Sh. Shivraj Singh Chauhan, Hon'ble CM of MP, Smt. Archana Chitnis, Minister (School Education), Sh. Avni Vaish, Chief Secretary, GoMP has also congratulated the project team for this feat. Santosh Shukla, Madhya Pradesh. SMS based complaint receiving system launched by J&K Police at Jammu. Recently a SMS based Complaint Receiving System, as a supplement to Dial 100 was inaugurated by IGP Jammu for the general public of Jammu City in which the citizen can sent a SMS base complaint to the PCR Jammu through their mobile which will be then forwarded to the concern Police Station / Officer for quick necessary action. Citizens can send complaint related to Harassment, Accidents, Traffic Jams, Strangers, Dangers, Corruption Ragging, Domestic violence etc with out visiting the Police Station. NIC Jammu & Kashmir has implemented the software with the technical support/guidance of CIPA Team of NIC Andhra Pradesh at Police Control Room Jammu (J&K) and the same software will be replicated at Srinagar soon. Jit Raj, Jammu & Kashmir. Kudos for NIC Rajasthan. NIC Rajasthan added a feather in its cap by winning three awards recently. The first one being the Manthan Award South Asia 09 (MASA) held at NCUI Complex New Delhi on the 19th Decemeber 2009. The e-Gram project was awarded under the e-Governance category. The prestigious award was given away by Hon'ble Minister of State for Communications & Information Technology Sh. Sachin Pilot and received by SIO Rajasthan Smt. Indu Gupta , Sh. Prashant Mittal TD, Sh.Chandan Sen & Sh.Manoj Nagar (PSA's) and Sh.Arun Mathur SSA. Similarly another ICT Project titled “Pregnancy & Child Tracking System" under the e-Health category also received an appreciation at MASA 09. Apart from these awards, NIC Rajasthan also received two awards at Jaipur. The first being 'PayManager' which was awarded the e - Rajasthan 2009 Public Choice award under G2C Category and the second being the e-Gram project ,which was awarded the e-Rajasthan2009 Jury Award under the G2C Category respectively. A team of NIC officials Sh.Deepak Bhargava TD, I.D. Sh. I.D Variyani & Manoj Nagar PSA's and others received the prize. Thus it was double kudos for e-Gram. Chandan Sen, Rajasthan. Inauguration of online registration of employment exchanges at Kohima. Employment Exchanges Computerization for the state of Nagaland is being formally inaugurated by the Parliamentary Secretary for Housing, Labour and Employment, Er. T. Saku Aier on 19th February 2010 at Regional Employment Exchange Office, Kohima. Congratulating the Department for implementing the computerization project, he also lauded the NIC for the technical support given and encouraging the officials to replicate the project to other districts of the state. Speaking on behalf of NIC, Nagaland, Sh. Kemvu Elah, PSA and Project in Charge said the project could be successfully implemented in the Department due to the support given by the Director and his officials in the implementation of the Project. He said the Employment Exchange computerization is one of the National e-Governance Mission Mode Project which is being implemented across the country. With the implementation of Employment Exchange Computerisation, it would help the Department to maintain records in a schematic manner and the detail information about the registered job seekers and employer can be had from anywhere and anytime. Joint Secretary, Labour and Employment, K. Miasalhou and Director, Employment and Craftsmen Training N. Panger Jamir also gave short speeches. The programme was attended well by the Departmental officials and Media. Swedesenuo Natso, Nagaland. Online quiz gallery application. The S&T Division, Ministry of Earth Sciences had developed an application “Online Quiz Gallery”. It was developed using PHP with MySQL as backend RDBMS support. Apache acts as Web Server. The resources of application platform are totally drawn from open source. This Quiz Gallery application also developed on Java and PostgreSQL platform. The software is used to test the knowledge of people in the area of Earth Sciences, Atmospheric Science and Ocean Science, which encourages and brings awareness amongst school children. The Ministry of Earth Sciences organize Quiz for the Earth Sciences, Atmospheric Science and Ocean Science & Technology at places like IITF-2008 & 2009, National Science Congress and various science Museum of India using stated application. Around 7000 participants have been participated in the Quiz conducted by the ministry in various science events during the last two years. The ministry also provides gifts and certificates to the participants those who scores above 80%. Sanjay Gahlout, NIC HQ. 3 Days Workshop on e-Granthalaya and NewsNIC Software at NIC Kerala. Three days “Workshop on e-Granthalaya and NewsNIC Software for Automation and Networking of Libraries” was conducted during 23-25th Feb, 2010 at National Informatics Centre, Trivandrum, Kerala. The workshop was sponsored by the kerala State Library Council, Trivandrum, Kerala. The workshop was conducted for the Automation of the Public libraries exists in Kerala State. The workshop was inaugurated by Sh. Bala Krishanan Nambiar, Secretary, KSLC while keynote address was delivered by Shree Ram Kumar Matoria, Technical Director, NIC, New Delhi. Sh. Ajith Brahmanandan, Technical Director, NIC Kerala welcome the participants and delivered the introductory remarks. The e-Granthalaya workshop attended by 22 number of library officers from various public libraries. The Workshop was Co-Ordinated by Sh. S. Manohar,SSA and Ms Sibi, A P, Scientific Officer from NIC Kerala. The participants were given exhaustive training / hands-on for use of various modules of the e-Granthalaya Software and Software CDs were distributed to all the participants. Ram Kumar Matoria, NIC HQ. Signing of MoU between NIC and MIT COE, Pune. The Memorandum of Understanding ( MoU ) has been signed between NIC and Maharashtra Institute of Technology College of Engineering (MIT COE), Pune regarding the Setting up of CollabCAD Training & Technical Support Centre at the Institute on 23rd Feb 2010. Prof S.N Kaul. Principal, MIT COE signed the MoU between NIC and MIT COE, Pune. Prof. Sh. Pramod E. Chaudhari, HOD, Mechanical Engineering Department was present on occasion. Dr Sh. S.N.Kaul emphasised the usefulness of the CollabCAD Software for the Faculty and the Industries around the region of Pune. Dr. Sh. Manjesh Karad, Executive Director MIT COE, Pune appreciated the efforts of setting of NIC in setting up of CollabCAD Centre at MIT COE,Pune. Sh. K.S.Nagesh TD, NIC represented from NIC during the occasion of signing of MoU at MIT COE, Pune. Later CollabCAD Workshop was conducted by Sh. K.S. Nagesh for the professors of MIT COE,Pune . The participants created several CAD Models using the CollabCAD Software during the Workshop. MIT College of Engineering, Pune has the distinction of becoming the first educational institute to setup the CollabCAD Training & Support Centre in the State of Maharashtra. K.S Nagesh, NIC HQ.