There is a distinction between information and knowledge, which is worth keeping in mind. As had been reported, Wiki (English language version) has done dark. This is the landing page image.
January 18, 2012
by Atanu Dey
3 Comments
Category Archives: Information and Communications Technology
January 17, 2012
by Atanu Dey
8 Comments
SOPA, PIPA, and Indian Censorship
Sometimes looking at the way the government does things one wonders whether the lunatics are running the loony bin. But perhaps the truth is not funny at all, and more horrifying: the people running the country are not crazy but … Continue reading
July 4, 2011
by Atanu Dey
2 Comments
The Age of Superfluous Information — Revisited
The Economist’s article, “Too much information: How to cope with data overload,” deals with information overload. (Hat tip Prasanna Viswanathan @prasannavishy for the link.) For a few years I have been concerned about it since I have a very low … Continue reading
September 14, 2009
by Atanu Dey
0 comments
First Debug the Child . . .
The topic of education is an obsession with me for the simple reason that one cannot address any development related issues without reference to education, however broadly or narrowly one defines education or development. My interest in the use — … Continue reading
September 7, 2009
by Atanu Dey
0 comments
Change is Digital, not Analog
“If the old model is broken, what will work in its place?” ask Clay Shirkey in a blog post “Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable.” (March 2009). The full implications of technological change is impossible to foresee even by those who … Continue reading
May 25, 2009
by Atanu Dey
8 Comments
Keeping Afloat in a WWW-world
I received an SMS just moments ago: “A thirteen-year old’s day in Surat: school 7 to 2. Daily tuitions 4:30 to 7:30. Saw ICSE standard 8th textbooks. Detailed and depressing. What a state!” No surprise to me as I have … Continue reading
May 13, 2009
by Atanu Dey
5 Comments
The OLPC is Inappropriate for India
I was invited to write a guest post on One Laptop Per Child News by Wayan Vota in connection with the recent news that 250,000 OLPC laptops have been ordered by two government agencies in India and one private sector … Continue reading
April 29, 2009
by Atanu Dey
2 Comments
India Orders 250,000 OLPCs?
Endgadget reports that “India bids mythical $10 laptop adieu, turns to OLPC.”
March 24, 2009
by Atanu Dey
10 Comments
The Rational IT Policy
So it’s time to unveil the IT policy that I had been promising for a while. I have already laid a bit of ground work in the previous three posts — “BJP’s IT for All“, “A Rational IT Policy: The … Continue reading
March 18, 2009
by Atanu Dey
4 Comments
Of IT and Pascal’s Wager
Technological Idiocy Technological hubris is sometimes the result of infantile solipsism commonly encountered among those who are – paradoxically – at the two opposite ends of a spectrum of technical competence: those who are understand technology very intimately and those … Continue reading
March 16, 2009
by Atanu Dey
3 Comments
A Rational IT Policy: The Introductory Bits
Follow up to BJP’s Policy of “IT for All”. In the following, I will present the features of a rational “IT Policy” and argue why it makes sense. This is only an academic exercise as this is not likely to … Continue reading
March 16, 2009
by Atanu Dey
20 Comments
BJP’s “IT for All”
Information technology (IT) is arguably one of the more remarkable products of the advanced industrialized countries (AIC). Its development in the AICs and subsequent widespread use there indicates that IT tools are not only a consequence of economic growth and … Continue reading
February 5, 2009
by Atanu Dey
3 Comments
The “$10 Laptop” and Radical Ignorance
The radical ignorance displayed by those who claimed that the government had created a laptop costing Rs 500 (~US $10) is jaw-dropping spectacular. How on earth can one for even one moment entertain the idea that any entity — least … Continue reading
February 3, 2009
by Atanu Dey
4 Comments
The Indian $10 Laptop — Revisited
[Follow up to the previous post.] I suppose it should not come as any surprise that it is now being claimed that the $10 cost was a mis-statement and the actual cost is $100. And like the “$100″ OLPC which … Continue reading
February 1, 2009
by Atanu Dey
8 Comments
The Indian $10 Laptop
Some years ago it was some genius who was making petroleum by twirling some sticks in a bucket of water. The Indian press reported it breathlessly and which is worse, some dimwitted “professors” from some “educational” institutions even considered it … Continue reading
January 25, 2009
by Atanu Dey
3 Comments
What’s up, OLPC?
At the intersection of high-tech gadgets and public spending on education in poor countries lies XO, the machine from the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project led by Nicholas Negroponte. I have been a critic of the program right from … Continue reading
January 25, 2009
by Atanu Dey
3 Comments
Not the News
I get to watch TV news only occasionally, mostly at airports, hotels and while visiting friends. Today at my friend’s place in Delhi, I woke up to TV news. It was wall-to-wall coverage of Dr Manmohan Singh’s heart surgery and … Continue reading
January 14, 2009
by Atanu Dey
2 Comments
ICT, Choice and Democracy 2.0
Upstream and Downstream Choices It is fairly well understood that information and communications technologies (ICT) tools expand choice. We all have access to a very large set of information and have the freedom to choose what we want to read, … Continue reading
August 5, 2008
by Atanu Dey
11 Comments
The OLPC in India
I spent the last evening in the American Center near Churchgate, Mumbai, at a presentation on the launch of the “one laptop per child” — OLPC — in India. The event was hosted by a bunch of institutions: Asia Society, … Continue reading
July 30, 2008
by Atanu Dey
2 Comments
The Fabulous $10 Indian Government Laptop
“Everything reminds Milton of the money supply. Well, everything reminds me of sex, but I keep it out of the paper,” wrote Nobel prize-winning economist Robert Solow in 1966 about Milton Friedman, another Nobel laureate economist, the father of monetarism. … Continue reading