The last weekend of July, was Income Tax deadline, for millions of ordinary Indians. If my experience and that of my wife was in any way typical, it was also a time of frustrating, agonizing confrontation with half baked, improperly managed technology.

For almost five years now, the Finance Ministry has been touting its online tax payment systems and for weeks, the Income Tax Department has been spending millions of rupees on print media advertisements and television spots, egging citizens to file their tax returns the electronic, online way. Yet, the system remains only partially automated and wholly unfriendly. I gave the system a try last year and decided I was better off, filing my returns the old fashioned way, by delivering them in person at the very efficient returns camp that the Bangalore IT department holds, during the week before the deadline. At least I could walk away with an official acknowledgement of my returns, just two minutes after I reached the venue.
My wife who believes she must operate at the cutting of edge of technology, where ever possible, files her returns the e-way. This year, she tried to access the online returns page for almost three days -- but the site remained unresponsive, possibly due to the rush during the last days before the July 31 deadline. She finally succeeded in filing her electronic returns some 2 hours before midnight on the last day. Ironically, for all her trust in technology, she had to follow the e-filing, by sending a hard copy of her return (by ordinary post only) to a designated office in the city. After reconciling the hundreds of thousands of such paper-based copies, the IT department finally sends out a formal  acknowledgement:  Last year this took three months. So much for e-filing.
Though I chose the manual route to file my returns, I did try out the electronic option of paying such taxes as my self assessment dictated. No matter which bank’s online site you use, IT payment requests will transfer you to a TIN ( for Tax Information Network) site, established by National Securities Depository Limited on behalf of Income Tax department, to centrally collect electronically paid taxes. One might assume, that anticipating a peaking of such payments in the week or two before the tax deadline, the department would add additional servers, cpu time, storage or whatever it takes to cater to increased traffic. Network infrastructure that expands to meet such short terms demands, is so standard as to be boringly unremarkable today. But clearly, the Income Tax department has not heard of such elementary precautions. It took me a dozen tries on different days, before the e-pay window of NSDL accepted my payment. I was ‘ timed out’ even before the page opened. I wasted some five hours on different days, in these futile attempts and might as well have stood in a queue in any bank and made the payment.

The IT department is by no means the exception when it comes to unleashing half baked, inadequate technology on a suffering public and then crowing continuously about it. The Universal Identification number or Aadhar that is being allocated to all Indian residents is another instance of deeds not measuring up to a surfeit of words.
More than two years after the project was launched, only a handful of states (the onus of collecting the data rests with the states) have shown enrolments worth the name. In Kerala, which has made Free and Open Source Software an instrument of state policy, they had ideological objections to working with Windows, which is what the Aadhar data capture solution used by default. So, after a full calendar year, Kerala had just 5000 registrations to show. In Karnataka, they have only just got around to the task. It was allocated to the postal system two months ago – and some 236 post offices were designated, for people to approach and their personal details verified. In a city like Bangalore, some 30 post offices were listed – but the infrastructure and manpower provided was so inadequate that the post offices were unable to entertain more than 40 applicants a day.

At my neighbourhood post office, I was told they had issued tokens that would take them into 2012. I was advised to ‘ enquire later’. Mr Nandan Nilekani who gave up a high profile job at Infosys to devote himself to Aadhar has been tireless in evangelising UID at every possible forum. But wherever citizens have, inspired by him, actually tried to cooperate, their experience has been the familiar mix of bureaucracy and inefficiency, with callous disregard for the applicant’s time or comfort. Come down to street level Mr Nilekani, and see the hassles that inadequately supported Aadhar data capture piles on ordinary Indians.

I could go on and on – but I will restrict myself to just one more example of skewed citizen services in the pious name of e-governance. When the number one IT services company in India, TCS, was announced to be a partner of the External Affairs Ministry to create a new, swift, automated system for issue and renewal of Indian passports, there were high hopes that this notoriously inefficient department would finally see the smack of modernity and efficiency. This was a Rs 10 billion dollar project on a build-operate-transfer model for 19 months. Yet nearly three years after TCS came in and started the pilot in Bangalore things are little improved. The Passport Seva Kendras or service centres in the city still see hapless applicants camped the entire day waiting for their turn. Indeed, a report in Deccan Herald said incompatibility between the legacy software and the TCS solution, has resulted in the number of passports being issued at some city centres being almost halved – compared to the old, pre automation days.

One can appreciate that because the Passport Office now captures full biometric information including all-finger prints and face scan, a personal visit becomes necessary. But when combined with online services, it should be possible to reduce any single citizen’s waiting time to a bare minimum. Instead the major metros are seeing a choking of the system and anxious waits of 6 months or more for simple services like the reissue of an existing passport… an operation that in most countries even ones shifting to all- electronic passports, can be completed within one week.
Like Income Tax and Aadhar, passport systems too, are all state- of-art and cutting-edge in India – on the surface. But with poor quality control, inadequate service level agreements and absence of professional attitudes, they degenerate rapidly into mediocre, delivery systems with no respect for the citizen’s time or convenience.
But then in most countries they genuinely practice e-governance. Here we just preach it, pay for it with taxpayers’ money – and then leave lay Indians at the mercy of the same old callous  work ethic that they have suffered for sixty years.

Adobe Flash fuels quartet of Indian mobile, Net enterprise apps
At its annual Flash Platform Summit 2011 in Bangalore last week, Adobe showcased the collaborative work it is doing with four Indian enterprises, to create interactive mobile apps as well as rich Internet experiences. http://www.indiatechonline.com/adobe-flash-india-enterprise-applications-524.php  
Gimmick -- or good governance? In an environment where news of corruption in high places – mostly political – has angered lay Indians for weeks now, the Chief Minister of the Indian state of Kerala, decided to make a gesture towards transparency: he put two live web cams ( connected to his web page) in his chamber in the adjacent office shared by his staff – albeit with the sound muted. Will this combat corruption? Reactions have generally been positive and the site has seen a huge increase in hits – especially after a story in the New York Times. http://www.indiatechonline.com/webcam-in-kerala-chief-minister-office-520.php  
Closed group e-biz has come to India. Delhi based, ISO 9001:2008 certified benefitsPLUS has quickly acquired over 100 corporate customers for whom they create and manage incentive, loyalty, privilege and reward solutions for employees. In essence benefitsPLUS, puts together catalogues with over 5000 products and services from top brands which employees can access online to obtain discounts of up to 90% on MRP. http://www.indiatechonline.com/benefitsplus,-closed-group-e-biz-518.php  
US healthcare solutions leader, Quality Systems, sets up India operation; launches Bangalore innovation centre The company that provides solutions for hospitals, doctors and other medical establishments, including practice management systems, electronic health records and revenue cycle management ,will initially leverage its India facility to build on its three product verticals: in-patient solutions, ambulatory products and dental practice solutions. http://www.indiatechonline.com/quality-systems-healthcare-comes-to-india-515.php   
NIIT to provide infrastructure management muscle for high speed Eurostar train Indian IT solutions leader NIIT Technologies is to provide infrastructure management services for the core business applications for Eurostar, the high-speed passenger service between the UK and mainland Europe. NIIT Technologies was chosen from among 35 global firms to help improve efficiency as part of Eurostar’s ongoing focus on service quality.  http://www.indiatechonline.com/niit-services-for-eurostar-508.php  
IT People: Avneesh Agrawal, is Qualcomm India President http://www.indiatechonline.com/avneesh-agrawal,-is-qualcomm-india-president-49.php  
Narendra Nayak to lead domestic market thrust at CSC http://www.indiatechonline.com/narendra-nayak-at-csc-48.php  

Indian language computing – 1 Akshar Speech Technologies an Indian language computing initiative flowing out of work incubated at the International Institute of Information Technology Hyderabad (IIIT-H), has We announced the release of the beta edition of aSpeak, a text-to-speech engine in Indian Languages. The aSpeak synthesizer platform currently supports text to speech synthesis for Indian Accented English, Telugu, Hindi and Kannada. http://www.indiatechonline.com/akshar-speech-technologies-509.php  
Indian language computing -2 Kannada knowledge portal, Kanaja, now speech-enabled, thanks to work of visually -challenged Shreedhar. http://www.indiatechonline.com/kanaja-portal-is-text-to-speech-enabled-517.php  
Now, here's a missed call you would love! ZipDial -- a mobile solutions company founded by three engineering geeks, aiming to change the way companies -- big and small -- look at customer relationship management and brand promotions. Besides targeting the mass market in India, the company also hopes to have people using 'zip dialling' as a buzzword to receive promotional information, seek services and attend polls. http://www.indiatechonline.com/zipdial-interview-286.php  

Rs 5500 buys the AVerLife HD Studio Network Media Player http://www.indiatechonline.com/averlife-hd-studio--network-media-player-review-101.php  
Maxx brings noise cancellation to mobile handsets ‘Khamoshhh’ range of handsets – the MX401 in the chocolate bar format and the MQ601 which features a QWERTY keypad, feature a SAM technology that curtails external background noise during a call. http://www.indiatechonline.com/maxx-noise-cancelling-phones-519.php

Pc-TV all-in-ones   from HP, Lenovo
HP has introduced the HP Omni 200-5310IN in India: an all-in-one a desktop PC with Full TV and Full PC functionality. The TV function is met by a 21.5” (54.61 cm) High definition screen( Full HD1080p ) display with LED backlighting, inbuilt speakers, Windows 7 media center for TV viewing, live TV recording, with an inbuilt TV tuner card (including remote control). Lenovo has recently introduced a similar machine: the IdeaCentre B320 AIO comes with a 21” full HD LED screen, and what it calls OneKey®TV2 that turns the display into a High-def TV at the click of a button so that you can watch TV even without powering on the PC. http://www.indiatechonline.com/all-in-one-pcs-from-hp&-lenovo-100.php  

India entertainment biz: good; could be better: PwC. The Indian entertainment and media industry recorded one of the highest growth rates in the world --at 11.2% in 2010 thanks to a return to over all industry, consumer and advertising spend; but this is less than the 12.4 per cent predicted by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) at this time last year. However PwC predicts a faster growth of 13.2% year on year, that will take the industry from Rs 646 billion to Rs 1199 billion by 2015. http://www.indiatechonline.com/indian-entertainment-and-media-business-2011-525.php  
Usual Suspects head NASSCOM top BPO employer rankings NASSCOM has announced the annual rankings of top 20 IT-BPO employers in India, for the fiscal year gone by, 2010-11. 
Tata Consultancy Services has emerged as the largest recruiter over the last year, followed by Infosys and Wipro Technologies. http://www.indiatechonline.com/nasscom,-top-bpo-employers-in-india-2010-11-523.php  
Indian opportunity in the Cloud, mostly private: Zinnov-EMC studyThe Private Cloud in India will deliver up to 50% saving to Indian enterprises creating in the process, 100,000 additional jobs by 2015 finds a study for EMC, by Zinnov Management Consulting. The total cloud market in India, currently at US$ 400 million will grow ten fold, to reach a market value of US$ 4.5 billion by 2015; http://www.indiatechonline.com/private-cloud-landscape-in-india-101.php  
All the other India numbers from our exclusive industry Snapshot http://www.indiatechonline.com/snapshot.php  

BICSI Technology Conference 2011 Creating sustainable IT infrastructure
Mumbai, 24 Aug 2011, Bangalore, 26 Aug 2011
http://infinios.in/bicsi.htm  
APPSWorld Asia 2011 ( with Social Media World Forum Asia) Discover the future of multiplatform apps. Read our event briefing: http://www.indiatechonline.com/apps-world-asia-2011-curtain-raiser-287.php  
Singapore, 1-2 Sep 2011, Suntec
http://www.apps-world.net/asia/  
FOCUS 2011 5th annual (ASSOCHAM) summit on entertainment and media New Delhi 9 September, The Oberoi http://www.assocham.org/events/focus2011/index.php  
International Conference on e-Governance (ICEG-2011)
Ahmedabad, 8-10 September 2011
Computer Society of India, Nirma University, SIG e-gov
www.iceg.net/2011  
IBM Software Innovate 2011, the Rational Software Conference
Bangalore 10-11 September, Leela Kempinski
http://www-01.ibm.com/software/in/rational/innovate/  
Mobile VAS ( Value Added Services) World Summit Read our speaker and topic brief: http://www.indiatechonline.com/mobile-vas-summit--2011-singapore--288.php  
Singapore, 12-13 Sep 2011, Swissotel Merchant Court. http://www.symphonyglobal.com/index.php/event/page/mobile_vas_2011/overview  
ARM Connected Community Technical Symposia To bring ARM users together for technical presentations, face to face interactions, demos …
Bangalore, 19 Sep at Le Meridien; Hyderabad 22 Sep at Taj Krishna
http://www.arm.com/about/events/arm-technical-symposia.php  
Cloud Computing World Forum India Mumbai, 12 October 2011, JW Marriott
A free-to-attend event featuring all he key players within the Cloud Computing and SaaS market providing an introduction, discussion and look into the future for the ICT industry.
http://www.cloudcomputinglive.com/india/  
India Telecom 2011 International exhibition and conference New Delhi, 7-9 Dec 2011, Pragathi Maidan
FICCI-Govt of India Dept of Telecom. www.indiatelecom.org  
Are you organising an upcoming conference or trade show in the Middle East/Asia/Pac region that will interest the Indian infotech community? Send us the details in a mail to feedback@indiatechonline.com   with Event Watch in the subject line and we will be happy to feature it in this section.

Musical monsoon medley
Saawan Ki Thumri: Folk based Monsoon thumries by Dhanashree Pandit Rai( CD Rs 295)
Malhar: Monsoon Mist Ragaas and more; various artistes ( 2-CD; Rs 295)
Meghnaad: Classical santoor by Pandit Satish Vyas ( CD Rs 295)
( all Times Music www.timesmusic.com  )
If these monsoon days have put you in the mood for gentle music keeping time with the pitter-patter outside, we have some suggestions for you – a trio of albums that blend Indian classical and folk in ragaas replete with watery memories:

Thumri has its origins in the Gangetic plains, where the peasants heralded the seasons with folk songs that morphed into the Mughal classical tradition…. A confluence of two cultures. Saawan Ki Thumri features Dhanashree Pandit Rai – one of the leading exponents of the THUMRI genre – and her evocation of the monsoon varieties of thumri like the banwari, saawan, kajri, jhoola as well as some monsoon theme dadras. A masters in Hindustani Classical Music from University of Bombay, she trained under the stalwart of the Kirana Gharana, Pundit Firoz Dastur and the Thumri legend Shobha Gurtu.

The 2 CD album, Malhar, includes monsoon ragas by some renowned artistes such as Pundits Jasraj, Ajoy Chakrabarty, Sanjeev Abhyankar, Satish Vyas, Ashwini BhideDeshpande, Arati Ankalikar, Devaki Pandit and more.
Some of more melodious tracks: Raag Miyan KiMalhar – Bandish in Madhyalaya Teentaal: Pt. Ajoy Chakrabarty, Raag Gaud Malhar –Bandish in Vilambit Teentaal: Smt. Ashwini Bhide Deshpande, Raag Gaud Malhar– Bandish in Madhyalaya Teentaal: Smt. Devaki Pandit, Jhoola –‘Jhamak Jhuki Aayee’: Smt. Dhanashree Pandit Rai, Raag Des –Gat in Drut Teentaal: Purbayan Chatterjee (sitar) and Rakesh Chaurasia (flute),Raag Gaudgiri Malhar – Bandish in Drut Teentaal: Pt. Jasraj,Raag MeghMalhar – Gat in Vilambit Jhaptaal: Ustad Sabri Khan, Kamal Sabri, SuhailYusuf Khan (sarangi), Raag Megh Malhar – Gat in Drut Ektaal: Pt. SatishVyas (santoor), Raag Ramdasi Malhar – Bandish in Madhyalaya Roopak andDrut Teentaal: Smt. Arati Ankalikar, Kajri – ‘Barsan LaagiBadariya’: Dr. Smt. Soma Ghosh.

in Meghnaad, Santoor maestro Satish Vyas, senior most disciple of Santoor legend Pandit Shiv KumarSharma contributes two raagas - Raag Megh and Raag Miyan ki Malhar which are related to the monsoon. Miyan ki Malhar is themost popular Raag of the rainy season which is believed to have been created byMiyan Tansen

POSTED 2011-08-04

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