Table of Contents

Editorial

This issue gets uploaded at a time of festive season. Let me wish our readers a Happy 2005. Unfortunately our joy has been diminished by the fact that many countries in South East Asia have been struck by a great calamity in which nearly 150,000 lives have been lost. We hope that the IT for Development community will contribute generously to the rehabilitation effort for millions who have suffered loss of life and property.

There is a debate raging amongst the scientific community as to whether countries like India and Sri Lanka, where it took three hours for the Tsunami to reach, could have minimized the loss of life with an early warning system. In this age of unprecedented progress in Information and Communication Technologies, it is a shame that the International community has been unable to share information speedily on impending disasters; countries are unable to communicate with vulnerable citizens to warn them of such disaster and relief is hampered because of lack of communication. This is not a failure of adequate scientific knowledge. It is a failure of policies in the affected countries to utilize the knowledge for the benefit of the people. It is also a failure of International cooperation that there are no warning systems that are global in nature and run on a non-commercial basis. Nature's fury knows no geographical boundaries and it can strike any country. Moreover, with high international mobility, a disaster can affect people from many different countries, as has happened in the case of over 3,500 Swedish tourists missing from Thailand after the recent disaster. Shouldn't there be cooperation amongst the International community to build warning systems that are global, serving all countries- whether rich or poor?

On a positive note, I am happy to report that the Center for Electronic Governance (CEG) which publishes this newsletter, has completed five years. When CEG was started, the mission of CEG was to create awareness about the potential of e-Governance in India and the developing world. CEG was expected to develop a few proof-of-concept projects. In the last five years, the idea of e-Governance has got mainstreamed. There are many countries like Sri Lanka and India which have large national programs on the anvil. I was recently in Bangladesh where a group of senior civil servants were convinced that e-Government needs to be introduced in Bangladesh for creating an enabling environment for the private sector to flourish. However, making a success of a national program on e-Government (scaling up from pilots to national scale and moving from successful applications in a few departments to the entire government) is not going to be an easy task. Much has to be learnt on how such national programs can be organized and managed. The CEG is therefore redefining its mission to focus on understanding these challenges and also to promote sharing of knowledge and best practices. To help this effort CEG Website has been revamped. We encourage readers to visit the website and provide feedback. We also invite potential partners to contact us for cooperation in research and training activities.

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