The Upstate NY Coalition to Ground the Drones and End the Wars I lived in Syracuse, New York for five years and one of my biggest surprises was to meet a large number of committed peace activists in this very small town. I was impressed by their courage, commitment and their sustained stand against wars and injustice. They started a coalition along with fellow activists in other parts of Upstate New York to protest the establishment of a base to operate drones in places as far as Afghanistan. The perfectly peaceful protests (a few of which I have taken part in) have faced many legal hassles including […]
Monthly Archives: July 2014
Internet can add power to the right to information. How well this happens depends on how government websites are designed. Digital technologies can add power to the right to information movement by making information easily, quickly and cheaply accessible. But for online data to be effective, government websites have to be suitably designed. The 8 principles A good starting point for the design principles is a set of eight far-reaching principles developed by Sunlight Foundation. These are: Complete: All public data are made available. Public data are data that are not subject to valid privacy, security or privilege limitations. Primary: Data […]
8 principles of open government data & beyond
More than authenticating identities, these small devices acted as simple Point of Sale devices that automated much paperwork.
The unexpected use of a biometric device
eGovernments Foundation: “eGovernments Foundation is a not-for-profit trust founded in 2003 by Nandan Nilekani and Srikanth Nadhamuni with a goal of creating an eGovernance system to improve the functioning of City Municipalities leading to efficient delivery of services to its stakeholders…eGov products have been successfully deployed in more than 275 Municipalities across the country. These include state wide implementations in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh as well as large corporations like Corporation of Chennai, Municipal Corporation of Delhi, Bangalore Mahanagar Palike, Nagpur Municipal Corporation and Kanpur Nagar Nigam”
The Overview Project: “Overview is an open-source tool to help journalists find stories in large amounts of data, by cleaning, visualizing and interactively exploring large document and data sets. Whether from government transparency initiatives, leaks or Freedom of Information requests, journalists are drowning in more documents than they can ever hope to read. There are good tools for searching within large document sets for names and keywords, but that doesn
Transparency Advisory Group: TAG is a group of professionals, activists, and academics with an interest in transparency and the right to information, and with the common objective of promoting transparency in governance by advising and lobbying governments and other stakeholders, especially in the South Asian region. It also conducts research and organises meetings and consultations on transparency related issues. TAG has, as members, retired and serving senior officials, information commissioners, activists and academics from South Asian countries, and from Mexico, Canada, UK, Australia, South Africa, Singapore and the USA.
National Democratic Institute | NDI: NDI is a “nonprofit, nonpartisan organization working to support and strengthen democratic institutions worldwide through citizen participation, openness and accountability in government”. NDI has several leading projects in the intersection of technology and democracy.