ON 7th November' 2010, Hon'ble President of United States, Mr Barack Obama held Video Conferencing from St. Xaviers College, Mumbai with Gram Panchayat, Kanpura, Srinagar Block, District Ajmer. Aimed at knowing the impact of e-Governance services at Panchayat level, he was briefed by Sh. Sachin Pilot, Hon'ble MoS for C&IT and the event was managed by NIC Rajasthan. As President Obama walked in for the VC session, he was greeted by the villagers who had come in huge numbers and in their colourful best. Dr. Sam Pitroda, Chairman, National Knowledge Commission conducted the show from the other end and also briefed him about the project. Welcoming the President on behalf of Kanpura village, Sh. Pilot informed that the two big things that they were trying to do to bridge the rural divide was to have e-Governance along with rural connectivity. He further added that the agenda of the government was to provide broadband con-nectivity to all the villages in next 2 years. He continued to inform that as a first of its kind experiment in India, about 17 villages have been connected with fiber connectivity thus bringing government services at their doorsteps, which has been able to transform their lives. Smt. Indu Gupta, SIO Rajasthan informed that GPNIC has been developed to facilitate the Panchayat offices by providing various online services. Ten Gram Panchayats of Srinagar block (Ajmer) were selected on a pilot basis for which BSNL provided the connectivi-ty. NIC took the lead in selecting and providing the software for e-Governance applications especially targeting the Citizen centric services. NIC also developed a portal to facilitate all the services through a single point of contact and provided an email ID to all the ten Panchayats for better communication. Websites were also developed for them thus registering their web presence. A series of capacity building trainings were also organized to familiarize them with the initiative. — THIS is a Good News, In the US we are trying to do the same things you do. Trying to make government more transparent, trying to make government more accountable, trying to make government more efficient. I want to Congratulate all of you for doing this terrific work. I look forward to watching this terrific experiment continuing to expand throughout India. You will be the model for the countries around the world. BARACK OBAMA, President of United States. Sh. Shiv Shankar, Panchayat Secretary, Kanpura mentioned about the convenience that this facility has brought since he is now able to send the faulty Hand Pump complaints easily and government takes immediate actions to repair the hand pump. Smt. Sunita Rathore, ANM of Kanpura said that immunization, ANC, delivery records are now available at Panchayat itself through internet. Previously, she had to go to PHC office, Srinagar for the records which used to take 1-2 hours, and now within 5-10 minutes the records are available in Panchayat itself. With an easy access to information and avail-ability of records, she is now able to effectively implement the health scheme in the area. An MBA student, Sh. Vipul Jhanwar said that with the facility of Internet at Panchayat, it is beneficial for his studies since he is now able to download course materials, take online exams and get the results quickly. Hon'ble President expressed happiness on the progress of the e-Governance in India. He con-gratulated and appreciated the importance of doing e-Governance work in rural areas. — This is by far the most impressive e-Governance demonstration I have seen, since I have been in the administra-tion. ANEESH CHOPRA, Chief Technology Officer, White House, Govt. of US.