National Knowledge Network: A Common Platform for Knowledge

Knowledge fuels imagination; and, imagination fuels innovation. It is with this objective that the government embarked upon creating the National Knowledge Network (NKN) platform in 2008-09. Under this project, the government is now working to bring together all stakeholders from science, technology, higher education, healthcare, agriculture, and governance. The network will link all the universities, institutions, and various departments together on a common platform. To give an overview of the progress on the network, recently Union Minister for Communication and IT, Kapil Sibal unveiled the logo and website for NKN (www.nkn.in). The government is leveraging technology to make the best use of its knowledge scattered at different levels in silos.

The government anticipates that NKN will propel India into a knowledge society. To carry the task forward, it allocated `5,990 crore last year to create a state-of-the-art pan-India network that seeks to inter-connect all knowledge institutions in the country through high speed data communication network. The NKN platform, as planned, is being implemented over a period of 2 years and will be operated over the next 10 years.

There are 1,500 plus institutions that are being connected over the NKN platform using high bandwidth/low latency network. Hence the positive side is that all universities, research institutions, libraries, laboratories, healthcare and agricultural institutions will be connected over NKN, which means rapid knowledge sharing across distinct institutions will be a reality. Besides, the leading agencies in the fields of nuclear, space and defence research will also be part of NKNwhich means the advance research and innovation activities pertaining to these areas will have a fair chance to augment. The network, being executed by National Informatics Center (NIC), also addresses the critical issue of access and create a new paradigm of collaboration to enrich the research efforts in the country.

A High-speed Promise

More than connectivity what matters for a project so big is the bandwidth. It is a challenge before NIC to make NKN viable with high bandwidth. It will thus offer speedy connectivity across 26 core locations. The network in its initial phase is offering connectivity at 2.5 Gbps (gigabits per second) speed which will be increased to 10 Gbps in the near future. In addition, the network structure will give users multiple connectivity options and also enable creation of virtual private networks (VPN) for special interest groups. Over VPN, researchers can communicate and coordinate for projects and share information. The platform is going to be equally useful when collaborating globally for particular research programs.

Onset of a Knowledge Society

If everything goes as planned, it can probably usher in a knowledge era in India. Research and innovation can see the light of day as Indians would be able to set trends such as Google and Facebook and not imitate them. There is lot of anticipation sitting on NKN as it reserves a humungous scope to transform the ways things move in education and research. Following are the areas where government sees radical change:

Countrywide Virtual Classroom: An area where government and experts envision revolution coming in after the execution of NKN is that of distance education. NKN will enable delivery of effective and real-time education over a distance. As the government statement underlines, The NKN is a platform for delivering effective distance education where teachers and students can interact in real-time. This is especially significant in a country like India where access to education is limited by factors such as geography, lack of infrastructure facilities etc. It further says that the network enables co-sharing of information such as classroom lectures, presentations and handouts among different institutions. In a nutshell, it is going to be an effective tool to fight illiteracy and lack of up-to-date knowledge.

Collaborative Research: The network will enable collaboration among researcherswhich means the growth in the scientific activities in different streams. The NKN enables collaboration among researchers from different entities NKN also enables sharing of scientific databases and remote access to advanced research facilities, mentions the government statement.

Virtual Library: The network also makes sharing of journals, books and research papers easy through virtual library. The NKN website says that the virtual library is a natural application for NKN.

Sharing of Computing Resources: Plus the NKN is crucial for national security that needs high performance computing. In addition, there are areas such as industrial productivity and advances in science and engineering where high computing is must. The network enables a large number of institutions to access high-performance computing to conduct advanced research in areas such as weather monitoring, earthquake engineering and other computationally intensive fields.

Grid Computing: The network can also handle high bandwidth with low latency and provision to overlay grid computing. Some of the grid based applications are climate change/global warming, science projects like Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and ITER, where the network can play an important role. The grid computing programs such as the Garuda Grid have already enhanced its power and stability by migrating to NKN.

Network Technology Test-bed: Besides, the network is also a place where you can test software and hardware. The benefit is well-pointed on the NKN website, NKN provides test-bed for testing and validation of services before they are made available to the production network. NKN also provides an opportunity to test new hardware and software, vendor interoperability etc.

E-governance: NKN also boasts to act as a super highway for integrating e-Governance infrastructure such as government data centers and networks. NKN provides bulk data transfer facility required for e-Governance applications.

In a Nutshell

In a country like India where people are scattered around diverse geographies, NKN can play a significant role. Research and development facilities across institutions can take advantage. Notwithstanding, making it successful remains a challenge. Will NKN eliminate the barrier between a big city and a small town as far as knowledge is concerned? If it does, it will be a success. It is not about the connectivity of certain institutions and knowledge sharing amongst them but it is also about taking connectivity to all the 250,000 panchayats and all the municipalities in the country. Unless knowledge sharing effort touches people in the rural areas and information becomes readily available in their local language, it is no more than a distant dream or a misfire.

Onkar Sharma

onkars@cybermedia.co.in