Digital India & Office/Word processing software
By: Amit Bhushan Date: 22nd May 2017
While the celebrations for great achievements in office is ‘on’, there are still questions that need to be raised and would raise them around Digital India. Which is version of ‘Office/Word processing software (of one of our languages)’ that would be used to develop communications material. Would want to know about the software package being patronized by the government & its agencies, who are the vendors and what has been the ‘job growth’ on account of this development focus on Digital India. Actually, how much user friendly has their software become is going to be my next question. This is because the more user friendly the software becomes, the more its chances of greater adoption by ordinary public. Considering what may be expense of the government & PSUs on ‘office or word processing software’, it perhaps would make sense to promote domestic units who can commit to a progressive development roadmap. That would grow domestic capabilities and lead to a better solutions availability for other units/people as well. Nearly same thing can be said about the internet ‘browsers’ and various other software services.
While the Indian private sector entrepreneurs may have developed some freeware solution, but the trouble with the freeware is it seldom gets updated or keeps up with the changes. A large software buyer guiding the solution provider’s roadmap would perhaps help as it would also develop local language computing skills. However that doesn’t seem to deter political netas who would rather celebrate if and their ‘slogans’ seem to have been sold. Soon after attempts would be made to sell the grandness of celebrations rather than any ‘delivery’. While there have been euphoric rhetorical slogans like bringing computers to Madrasas, not one journo has bothered to raise any question if the netas can offer a right version of “Urdu” office/word processing software that is dependable and if they have checked the same on ‘applicable parameters’. The netas have not really come out that on if computers are just a propaganda to raid some of the values as well. No wonder the netas do not really enjoy the trust on other community related issues which are ventilated almost daily as part of some other rhetoric.
Simply by having a ‘more effective planning’ of the expenditures of various governments (center & states) and their agencies, effective value can be created for the people and is an area of domestic strength viz. software development. However due to lack of such planning neither citizens are able to derive ‘value’ since they are instead forced to ‘learn’ foreign language (for jobs) and then work on ‘foreign’ software in a foreign language (the author has nothing against either English or any other foreign language). This creates a situation where domestic language and culture is not progressed on account of best minds are working of foreign languages and softwares. A number of example other than office or word processing can be cited including say anti-virus, web-based CRM applications, and various productivity tools. In spite of our prowess in BFSI software, most population is still not comfortable in banking because almost none of the domestic banks work in the language of masses and lack any transaction processing capabilities if instructions is in the local language, however our media would keep singing paeans around banking penetration that has been achieved. How many people have been able to operate these account electronically and what would perhaps lead to a new round of explosions in such transactions is least of their concerns. Other tenets of Digital India like ‘offering access’ of internet and services based on it still seems to be miles away mostly because of little attempt to fill barriers, though the song and dance continues.
By: Amit Bhushan Date: 22nd May 2017
While the celebrations for great achievements in office is ‘on’, there are still questions that need to be raised and would raise them around Digital India. Which is version of ‘Office/Word processing software (of one of our languages)’ that would be used to develop communications material. Would want to know about the software package being patronized by the government & its agencies, who are the vendors and what has been the ‘job growth’ on account of this development focus on Digital India. Actually, how much user friendly has their software become is going to be my next question. This is because the more user friendly the software becomes, the more its chances of greater adoption by ordinary public. Considering what may be expense of the government & PSUs on ‘office or word processing software’, it perhaps would make sense to promote domestic units who can commit to a progressive development roadmap. That would grow domestic capabilities and lead to a better solutions availability for other units/people as well. Nearly same thing can be said about the internet ‘browsers’ and various other software services.
While the Indian private sector entrepreneurs may have developed some freeware solution, but the trouble with the freeware is it seldom gets updated or keeps up with the changes. A large software buyer guiding the solution provider’s roadmap would perhaps help as it would also develop local language computing skills. However that doesn’t seem to deter political netas who would rather celebrate if and their ‘slogans’ seem to have been sold. Soon after attempts would be made to sell the grandness of celebrations rather than any ‘delivery’. While there have been euphoric rhetorical slogans like bringing computers to Madrasas, not one journo has bothered to raise any question if the netas can offer a right version of “Urdu” office/word processing software that is dependable and if they have checked the same on ‘applicable parameters’. The netas have not really come out that on if computers are just a propaganda to raid some of the values as well. No wonder the netas do not really enjoy the trust on other community related issues which are ventilated almost daily as part of some other rhetoric.
Simply by having a ‘more effective planning’ of the expenditures of various governments (center & states) and their agencies, effective value can be created for the people and is an area of domestic strength viz. software development. However due to lack of such planning neither citizens are able to derive ‘value’ since they are instead forced to ‘learn’ foreign language (for jobs) and then work on ‘foreign’ software in a foreign language (the author has nothing against either English or any other foreign language). This creates a situation where domestic language and culture is not progressed on account of best minds are working of foreign languages and softwares. A number of example other than office or word processing can be cited including say anti-virus, web-based CRM applications, and various productivity tools. In spite of our prowess in BFSI software, most population is still not comfortable in banking because almost none of the domestic banks work in the language of masses and lack any transaction processing capabilities if instructions is in the local language, however our media would keep singing paeans around banking penetration that has been achieved. How many people have been able to operate these account electronically and what would perhaps lead to a new round of explosions in such transactions is least of their concerns. Other tenets of Digital India like ‘offering access’ of internet and services based on it still seems to be miles away mostly because of little attempt to fill barriers, though the song and dance continues.