Thursday, July 10, 2008

IAEA Agreement - India

Pushkar's Blog on Silverlight - read it

Sunday, November 11, 2007

China confirms it: Date-rape drug inside recalled toys

Some months ago I had blogged on the topic of severe quality and contamination issues with chinese toys. I guess this blog just confirms the problem I had suspected.

China confirms it: Date-rape drug inside recalled toys

I think as concerned parents Its time to boycott Chinese toys atleast till preventive checks and balances are put into place by each country.

Saturday, November 10, 2007

This is how the Prism application works.. Seems Ok to m as of now but really can't makeout the real difference between the browser based and Prism based platforms.. Still need to be convinced on this application platform let see how it evolves.

Thursday, October 26, 2006

Some Random Thoughts: Salvation for Pune Roads

Some Random Thoughts: Salvation for Pune Roads

Have a look at this blog..

Cheers till then
Pushkar

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

Some Random Thoughts: Mandal - II

Some Random Thoughts: Mandal - II

Check out this Blog Folks

Sunday, November 06, 2005

Blog Nov06, 2005 - on e-Governance at PMC

  • Last week I had mentioned on my web-blog that I was going to publish to the blog my personal thoughts on e-governance. One of the reasons that prompted this move was the pathetic condition of urban infrastructure in cities across India and the complete lack of will power among the city father's to do something about the same.
  • A case in point was the latest discussion in the Pune city edition of the daily the Times of India, which mentions and reports on the gross under-utilization of allocated capital expenditure for projects that have been stated for completion in the 12 months starting April 2005. The Times of India report quoted that of the approximately Rs. 600 Crores that was to be spent on public works in the city only 12% had been expended in the last 6 months. One of the reasons attributed for this failure was the fact that contracts have still not been awarded for the bulk of the tasks in hand. The report also mentioned that the Pune Municipal Corporation had surpassed its targets for Tax collection backlogs. So here is a perfect case of money being paid by the citizens for services to be rendered by the city authorities and the PMC not delivering on the same.
  • A crucial question that comes to my mind is that if the city engineers are forced to meet their targets for capital expenditure by 31st March 2006 then what quality will they deliver. This given the fact that all of the projects mentioned are large public works which will have impact on the city for many years to come. God save us..
    So what is happening here and how does it link up with e-governance. Good question, you see the key point that emerges is the issue of information asymmetry. One reason why information on the under-utilization of capital expenditure did not reach people was because PMC still does not have the right infrastructure to collate, aggregate and disseminate the information. This means that there is not just information asymmetry between the PMC organization and the citizens but more so information asymmetry within the organization.
  • So assuming that PMC is in a state of Utopia. The lack of coordination between the different city engineering departments the Finance Department and office of the PMC Commissioner has effectively meant that the appropriate information did not reach the Commissioner in time for remedial action to happen on time. Effectively, one is taking of a large organization where the head does not know about the actions of the tail and the right is not communicating with the left. So the crucial question is what does PMC need to deploy to remedy the present situation. Aha, I think they need to take the first initial steps by deploying a computerized enterprise accounting system backed by a sophisticated Financial Management System covering Planning and Budgeting , and Consolidation and Reporting system. Hopefully, that would get the CEO, CFO and the Department Heads the information they require in a consistent manner, and in time and a format that would be most productive to the user.
  • We have all been complaining of the working of our governance machinery. However, I think the first step towards improvement will involve recognizing the fact that there exists a problem. In a governance ecosystem, where basic IT infrastructure does not exist, creating the necessary infrastructure at least to support financial transparency and accountability will go a long way.
  • As they say in India “Before you start pointing a finger at others you need to mend her/his own home”. Even before Indian Government Institutions start to address information asymmetry as it exists between the Government and the People, they need to first address the problem of information asymmetry with itself. Only then will the world become flat for a lot of folks in India and similar countries worldwide.
  • Folks, next post will again focus on how Information Technology could have helped in law enforcement and the critical issues facing Law Enforcement Agencies in India. Till then have a good time.