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Just a Handful

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DQI Bureau
New Update

Despite its IT credentials, India has failed to match up in content creation

for electronic and digital media, particularly in the field of science and

entertainment, according to the Digital Empowerment Foundation. The foundation

has started the Manthan Award, an initiative of recognizing the best e-content

practices across the country in categories such as: health, business, culture,

science, entertainment, learning, governance, and inclusion.

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For the year 2005, the award recognized 27 practitioners from all across the

country in eight categories: e-business, e-culture, e-science, e-entertainment,

e-health, e-inclusion, e-learning, and e-governance. All of the 27 winners were

handed over trophies in respective categories at a function in New Delhi.

However, the fact is, there is very little content being generated in India-leave

alone the local languages, even in English the content situation is not good.

Osama Manzar, chairman of Manthan Award, in his opening speech said,

"Anyone going around the country will discover that there lies enough

content to be recognized and generated in this country. We just want to inspire

and create a culture of motivation in this country." The need of the hour,

he said, is to motivate those in content practices at the lower level, in small

towns and cities.

The

award's processes revealed some important pointers: which states are creating

digital content proactively and what sectors are getting maximum attention of

the content creaters. For example, out of 104 nominations, 25% nominations came

in the e-governance sector, followed by e-learning with 23%. E-science and

e-entertainment categories attracted very low percentage of nominations. And out

of the 21 states that participated in the award for best e-content practices,

80% of the nominations came from Gujarat, Karnataka, Maharashtra, and Delhi.

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Well-known personalities from the country's development field were present

as guests of honours. The list included: S Shiva Kumar, the man behind ITC's

e-choupal initiatives and Prof Anil Gupta, the man behind Honeybee network

working from IIM-Ahmedabad courtyards. According to Shiva Kumar, there are a

series of constraints and challenges to brave against, to complement e-content

with economic boom in the country. He focused on the need to connect content

with resource and resourcefulness in the country, especially for rural India.

Making

a Difference
Categories   Winners
E-Business - Automatic milk

collection system, Gujarat
  - ToeHoldindia.com,

Karnataka  
  - PlantersNet (ITC),

Andhra Pradesh
E-Culture - Honeybee

Network, Gujarat  
  - NUDI,

a Kannada script—enabling software, Karnataka www.kagapa.org> 
  - Marathiworld.com,

Maharastra
E-Science - Electrophoresis, Delhi

E-Entertainment   - World Cup Cricket,

Delhi
E-Health - Sisu

Samrakshak, Andhra Pradesh
  - IndianBloodDonors.com,

Maharastra
  - Helpline

on HIV/AIDS, Rajasthan
E-Inclusion   - aAQUA, Maharastra
  - VAACHAK, a

text-to-speech software, Uttar Pradesh
  - Dissemination

of information on animal health: RGCVAS, Pondicherry 
  Special

Mention
  - Save

the Girl Child, Delhi
  - Disability India

Network, Delhi www.disabilityindia.org>
E-Learning - C-GAP course, a self

learning kit, Maharastra
  - Learning

objects-creating a knowledge utility, Maharastra
  - Chukki

Chinna interactive radio instruction programme, Karnataka
  Special

mention
  - BookBox, Pondicherry
  - Adventus

Learning Management, Karnataka  
E-Government - NISANI, National

Identity Card, Uttar Pradesh
  - Trivandrum City Police

Portal, Kerala
  - E-governance

infrastructure for globalised Indian agriculture, DELHI
  Special

mention
  - State-Wide

Attention on public Grievance by Application of Technology, Gujarat

  - E-VIKAS

Government to citizen interface, Himachal Pradesh
  - E-Cops,

Andhra Pradesh

"Good ideas do not come to intelligent and intellectuals alone. They can

even come to ordinary people," said Anil Gupta. Gupta also pointed out that

e-content is missing in local languages in this country, which is a very

problematic condition, while sharing local knowledge and innovations.

Member

of Parliament Sachin Pilot praised the winners for coming out with noble ideas

in e-content for common man's benefit. "It is a nice experience to see

people coming out with ideas and translating them into real products,"

Pilot stated. And he promised to strive to have all the MPs and MLAs to have a

portal of their area as soon as possible.

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