Liberation technologies

The Popolo Project: A collaborative project for building international open government data specifications relating to the legislative branch of government, so that civil society can spend less time transforming data and more time applying it to the problems they face. A related goal is to make it easier for civic developers to create government transparency, monitoring and engagement websites, by developing reusable open source components that implement the specifications. Although the data specification is designed primarily for open government use cases, many other use cases are supported.
Open511: Open511 proposes specifications for road incidents, construction and etc. that matches open data criteria. With Open511, public bodies and citizens can get the most out of their jurisdiction
New York open data amendment to administrative law: New York’s amendments to it’s administrative law creating the regulatory framework for providing open data. Useful for those who are looking for legal provisions for open data.
Open Data Policy Guidelines – Sunlight Foundation: A set of detailed guidelines on values that open data policies should incorporate prepared by the Sunlight Foundation, the leader in the field.
Open Data Policy Comparison: Best Practices: Spreadsheet on various aspects of open data policies that are coming up in federal, state, county and city levels in the US. Each policy is evaluated based on a number of parametres that helps assess how far the law will go in making government data truely open.
White House Circular No. A-130 Revised: This Circular establishes policy for the management of Federal information resources. It includes a detailed set of procedural and analytic guidelines for implementing open data policies. It provides a useful background reading for those interested in practical aspects of open data policy.
Communications & IT – United States Access Board: US Access Board creates regulations for equal access for people with disabilities. This page provides provisions pertaining to equal access in the domain of ICT.
Common Core Metadata for Open Data: A technical document on creating a common vocabulary for the datasets released by various agencies to the public, so that the information is easy to compare across datasets.
Project Open Data: Project Open Data is an online collection of code, best practices, and case studies developed to help agencies adopt the framework presented in the White House memorandum on open data policy. The website has a very useful set of tools, policies, challenges and other materials for those working on open data policies
White House Open Data Policy: A short note outlining The White House’ open data policy issued on May 2013.
Access Info Europe: Access Info is a leading organization working to promote the right to information. This website provides a good source of information on policy and legal challenges to access to information in Europe.
Open Data & RTI: An international symposium that posed the question of whether Open data is a complementary concept or if it imposes restrictions of Freedom of Information. The page has the podcast of talks by legal scholars discussing new legal developments in Europe on this subject.
Some people are in a crisis and others are enjoying prosperity...who should the government help? A serious policy debate.

People without a crisis

This is a part of a series of articles on the proposal to shift from PDS to coupons or cash transfers. To see the introduction, click here. Another strong argument for coupons or cash is that the recipients will have the choice to spend it on what matters most to them.  Proponents of reform have argued that the Indian policymakers tend to be paternalistic, and often argue that if the government gives cash instead of grains, poor people may misuse it, including by drinking it away.  They have argued that it’s important to trust poor people to make choices that matter […]

Coupons and cash transfers give people a choice unlike the ...

During my last visit to India, I participated in a few meetings on questions such as strengthening the right information act, the role of the PDS, and other social issues. In all these meetings there was a vigorous debate on how mobile phones could be used on each of these issues given the rapid spread of mobiles in rural India. Despite periodic discussion about the use of technology, I did not hear viable ideas among my activist friends. I believe that this is in part because most of them are not advanced users of technology, and they have definitely not […]

Need for public service mobile application foundation for India