Responding to Cross Border Child Trafficking in South Asia: An Analysis of the Feasibility of a Technologically Enabled Missing Child Alert System

This report examines the feasibility of a technologically enabled system to help respond to the phenomenon of cross-border child trafficking in South Asia, and makes recommendations on how to proceed with a pilot project in the selected areas of Bangladesh, Nepal and India. The study was commissioned by the Missing Child Alert (MCA) programme which is an initiative led by Plan. MCA is an initiative to address cross-border child trafficking in South Asia, led by Plan. The aim of the programme is to link existing institutions, mechanisms and resources in order to tackle the phenomenon from a regional perspective. To achieve this, Plan propose to implement a technologically equipped, institutionalised system of alert that can assist in the rescue, rehabilitation, repatriation and reintegration of children who are at risk of, or are victims of, cross-border trafficking

Towards a Nex-Gen Cottage Industry in the Digital Age: Insights from an Action Research with Rural Artisans in India

Despite the recognition of the significance of the crafts industry for inclusive development, its informal, disaggregated and disenfranchised nature poses several problems for the rural artisans, who are often forced to live in poverty. Extant approaches to address the industry’s problems have involved siloed attempts, wherein interventions were appropriated to resolve issues within parts of the supply chain, resulting in persistence of the issues. Using Self-Help- Group women in rural India as a case in point, the paper adopts a discovery orientation and action research alignment to evolve the design principles of an ICT driven peer-to-peer collaborative, decentralized supply chain model known as Nex-Gen Cottage Industry as a means to organise the industry. The results of a pre-pilot study in a village Kandi have been discussed along with the implications of this research for academia and the society

Applications Exploiting e-Infrastructures Across Europe and India Within the EU-IndiaGrid Project

In the last few years e-Infrastructures across Europe and India faced remarkable developments. Both national and international connectivity improved considerably and Grid Computing also profited of significant developments. As a consequence scientific applications were in the position of taking substantial benefits from this progress. The most relevant cases are represented by High Energy Physics (with the contribution to the program of Large Hadron Collider at CERN, Geneva) and Nano Science (exploiting NKN-TEIN3-GEANT interconnection for crystallography experiments with the remote access & control of experimental facility at the ESRF Synchrotron based in Grenoble, France directly from Mumbai, India). Other relevant application areas include Climate Change research, Biology, and several areas in Material Science. Within this framework, in the last five years period two specific EU funded projects (the EU-IndiaGrid and EU-IndiaGrid2) played a bridging role supporting several applications that exploited these advanced e-Infrastructures for the benefit of Euro-India common research programs. A crucial important part in the projects activity was the support offered to selected applications which ranges from the training the user communities behind up to the porting of their scientific applications on the grid computing infrastructure. This article aims to present and review the main e Infrastructures development in India and their full exploitation by scientific applications with a focus on the role played by the EUIndiaGrid and EU-IndiaGrid2 projects

WASH in Schools Empowers Girls' Education: Proceedings of the Menstrual Hygiene Management in Schools Virtual Conference 2013

This publication brings together the key elements of the 16 presentations made at the Second Annual Virtual MHM in WinS Conference at UNICEF Headquarters in New York City on 21 November 2013. Building on recommendations from the MHM 2012 virtual conference, the 2013 conference focused on the research tools and instruments being used to explore MHM barriers and practices and to evaluate the interventions being trialed or implemented in various contexts

Application of Web 2.0 Technology in KOHA LMS: a Study at St. Xavier’s College Central Library, Kolkata

Web 2.0 technology provides interaction between the library and its clientele in a very convenient way. The present paper describes the changing requirements of modern integrated library management software (ILMS) to fulfil the increasing user needs with the help of web 2.0 technology. It highlights various user friendly services that can be made available for the benefit of the user community as well as for the improvement of library management software quality. It describes the use of various web 2.0 enabled tools like blogs, RSS feed, etc. in Koha ILMS with special emphasis on St. Xavier’s College Central Library

Open Source Software for Integrated Library System : Relative Appropriatness in the Indian Context

Libraries in all fields of human activity are involved in collection, preservation, management, and effective distribution of information that determines the quality of development in concerned sectors including that of higher education and research. Now information is flooding and along with that the recorded information to be managed; which necessitates automation of libraries to make the information stored in their collections useful and retrievable. Hitherto the cost of commercial packages for automation has prevented millions of libraries from using those tools. The recent emergence of Open Source Software has drastically reduced the cost of automation as well provided tools for new and innovative information services. The present research work focuses on comparative study of library automation packages with stress to appropriateness of Open Source Integrated Library Systems (OSILS) for countries like India. Study is based on a survey among library professionals from India using commercial and OSILS packages. The sample users belong to 601 libraries covering university, college, school, special and research libraries using any one of the integrated library systems. Packages covered is limited to the software /versions used in India. The survey found that features users of library automation packages consider are cost effectiveness, technical infrastructure, staff skills, software functionality and the availability of support, documentation and community. Study revealed that OSILS provides technological freedom and so is changing the landscape of library automation. Survey found Koha to be most popular in India. Suggests solutions to improve the situation. Few recommendations are provided to help libraries to choose suitable OSILS by understanding their advantages. Opines that being an attractive alternative to costly commercial package for any type of libraries OSILS, which is free to experiment and easy to use and customize for local requirements needs to be promoted in Indian libraries

The Rise of IT Services Clusters in India: A case of growth by replication

The Indian IT sector has grown from small beginnings at the bottom of value creation to a major player in the IT services segment of the global information and communications technology (ICT) industry. It commands a 55 percent share in the global market for IT services. India’s IT sector value proposition in terms of low cost with large supply of high quality talent is compelling. As a result, India has become the premier choice not only for outsourcing IT services by the developed-world’s multinational corporations (MNCs) but also for locating their own global In-house centers (GICs), which simultaneously compete and partner with local firms. This gave rise to six additional clusters beyond the earliest, largest and robust cluster, Bangalore. The paper provides a review of relevant literature, develops a conceptual framework for evaluation of clusters, and presents data and analysis with respect to relative size, growth, specialization, MNC presence and connectivity to local firms through ex-patriots and returning Indians, and innovation. There are clear signs that the Indian IT sector has been moving towards a regime of providing high-end value added services. The paper concludes that the Indian IT sector’s value proposition in terms of lower cost combined with large supply of high quality talent remains the single most compelling reason for the rise and growth of multiple IT services export clusters. While the old adage “people follow jobs” still holds for large part of the labor force, there is little doubt that the sprawling IT clusters in India with more to come from Tier II and Tier III cities indicates that “jobs follow talent” may be more true in the sense local firms as well as the MNCs, through their GICs, are pushing the boundaries of location farther and farther to continue to leverage cost advantage and available pools of talent

Intelligent e-Learning Systems: An Educational Paradigm Shift

Learning is the long process of transforming information as well as experience into knowledge, skills, attitude and behaviors. To make up the wide gap between the demand of increasing higher education and comparatively limited resources, more and more educational institutes are looking into instructional technology. Use of online resources not only reduces the cost of education but also meet the needs of society. Intelligent e-learning has become one of the important channels to reach out to students exceeding geographic boundaries. Besides this, the characteristics of e-learning have complicated the process of education, and have brought challenges to both instructors and students. This paper will focus on the discussion of different discipline of intelligent e-learning like scaffolding based e-learning, personalized e-learning, confidence based e-learning, intelligent tutoring system, etc. to illuminate the educational paradigm shift in intelligent e-learning system