IfG.CC - The Institute for eGovernment

Under the government’s flagship initiative, Digital India, healthcare has been flagged as a sector awaiting reformation through enabling digital access. Across the world, the internet has increasingly come to serve as a platform for organized public healthcare delivery and has also demonstrated its potential in effectively increasing access to timely, specialized medical care in remote areas. Both e-health and m-health, public health models that use information and communications technology (ICTs) for the provision of both healthcare services and information, have been employed extensively to support physical healthcare infrastructure in several countries and is now finding its way into the Indian public health framework.[1]

India is embracing e-learning in a big way. India has learned lessons from the success of the e-way in the West and today the grim educational picture is being replaced by e-governance’s-classroom, e-tutorials. It is a matter of pride for the country in general and agencies in particular for the popularisation of the mission mode programmes on e-governance.

With the proactive leadership of Dr Chandra Sekhar Kumar, IAS, Commissioner-cum-Secretary, Employment and Technical Education and Training Department this initiative is taken with National Informatics Centre(NIC) as knowledge partner to increase the job opportunity and skill development through use of Information and Communication Technology(ICT).

From land record registration to registering a new birth to getting an affidavit for income, Gujaratis do it all the e-way. Gujarat has recorded 8.80 crore e-transactions in the said period in the standard services provided under state government projects. Andhra Pradesh comes second with 7.87 crore e-transactions.

Constitutional support for data safety is the foundation stone for a strong e-governance ecosystem in Estonia.

For Estonia, a European country with a population nearly 1,000 times less than India, the pursuit to establish a national digital identity programme was not any easier. When the nation rolled out its identity programme 15 years ago, similar to India’s Aadhaar project, political debates around the cost of the project and its mandatory nature had erupted. The government believed that the first step to have a strong ecosystem of digital services and e-governance was digital identity. However, that’s just one side of the coin. The push to electronic governance was backed by a data protection legislation.

IT spending by the Indian government sector is projected to reach $8.5 billion in 2018

The government sector is picking up pace again after the brief slowdown in the past two quarters due to the effects of demonetisation and a drop in industrial production. According to the latest forecast by IT research firm Gartner, IT spending in the Indian government sector is projected to reach $8.5 billion in 2018, an increase of 8.9% from the 2017 estimated spending of $7.8 billion. This increased spending is likely to be spurred by Digital India initiatives.“The Digital India programme, which aims to transform the country into a digitally-empowered society and knowledge economy, will call for technology investments in the backbone infrastructure, advanced data analytics, digital security, digital payment and e-commerce infrastructure, digitally-enabled G2G, G2B and G2C services, and scores of other related services,” said Ganesh Ramamoorthy, managing vice president at Gartner India. “This will be the key driver for IT spending growth in the Indian government sector over the next five years,” he said.

Listening to the keynote speeches delivered at eIndia, I am confused. Sangita Reddy, Executive Director of Apollo Hospital Group, for example, shares her experiences of developing and implementing a cloud-based hospital IT system that connects everybody with whom the hospital interacts – patients, suppliers, doctors, pharmacies and primary care, even a group hospital on Mauritius. Dr. Karanvir Singh, CIO of Dehli-based Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, says that their doctors already complete 50% of all medical records digitally –incentivized by the convenience of automatic discharge summaries and a dashboard for data analysis.

Die Vorträge bei der eIndia irritieren mich. Sangita Reddy, Leiterin der Apollo Hospital Group, zum Beispiel berichtet über die Entwicklung und Einführung eines Krankenhausinformationssystems. Dieses verbindet das Krankenhaus und seine Patienten, Lieferanten, Ärzte, Apotheken und Hausärzte. Sogar ein Krankenhaus auf Mauritius ist daran angeschlossen. Und Dr. Karanvir Singh, CIO des Sir-Ganga-Ram-Krankenhauses in Delhi, sagt, dass die Ärzte bereits heute 50% aller Krankenakten digital erstellen - automatische Entlassungsberichte und ein Dashboard für die Datenanalyse motivieren sie dazu.

Around 500 delegates from various parts of the globe including the US, Canada, UK, Middle East, Belgium, Denmark, Japan, New Zealand, Malaysia and Iran are participating in the conference. Participants discussed e-health initiatives, globalisation of healthcare, challenges of emerging healthcare markets and next generation ICT and healthcare among other issues. The conference will be followed by the 2nd International Congress on Patient Safety to highlight how information and communication technology can make a difference in ensuring the safety of patients on Saturday.

With the governance in India steadily acquiring an improved version of administration and service delivery, the change in the system has been expedited by the power of digitisation. Bringing innovators, visionaries, policymakers and the industry giants at one platform, summits like eINDIA have laid the foundation of knowledge-sharing for collective growth, writes Sandeep Datta of Elets News Network (ENN).

Sam Pitroda, the key architect of telecommunication revolution in India, once told an audience in 2016 that even in this Digital India effort, every government department still uses manual system. Even the department of Information Technology does not use electronic system! “They all want budget, computers, but do not want to change. If you really want to benefit from Digital India, you have to first change your mindset,” he said while delivering a speech on “Digital India and National Development”.

Governor P Sathasivam has called for stringent measures to ensure privacy and security in e-governance initiatives.

Governor P Sathasivam has called for stringent measures to ensure privacy and security in e-governance initiatives. “Who knows, tomorrow’s wars may be fought not with missiles, but with bugs and viruses designed to bring society to a standstill. The increasing demand to ensure Aadhaar linking for social media accounts so as to avoid disinformation campaigns is also to be seen in such a perspective,” he said.

In Indien, der größten Demokratie der Welt, haben am Dienstag die Parlamentswahlen begonnen, die bis 10. Mai in mehreren Phasen abgewickelt werden.

Harbour, who is leading a nine-member delegation from European Parliament to India, said Europe is keen to know how e-governance works between the Centre and State governments in India, as it makes case between Brussels-based European Parliament and its 27-member EU states, he observed.

"We are very interested in issues about e-governance," Malcom Harbour, leading a nine-member delegation of European Parliament on a visit to India on a fact-finding mission, said as he saw lots of possibilities for collaboration in sharing ideas and concepts.

Like India, investment into e-governance growth in Europe was growing, added Harbour, chairman of the Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Market, European Parliament.

Seven years after setting out its ‘ehealth Action Plan’ the European Commission is proclaiming Europe as a world leader in applying ehealth to make healthcare more convenient, effective and efficient.

However, the Commission also acknowledges that Europe “still has a long way to go” to reap the full benefits of ehealth, and now the recession threatens to undermine progress to date. Neelie Kroes, Vice President of the European Commission and Commissioner for Digital Agenda says the ageing population and a shortage of healthcare staff will lead to increased pressure on healthcare, at a time where European governments are facing budget austerity. “The challenge is to do more with less, in which information technology is a key enabler for delivering more effective, efficient and patient-oriented health care,” Kroes says.

"Outsourcing is now seen more as a partnership than losing jobs. Success of Volkswagen cars in India provides more opportunities for our firms back home in a big way," European parliament member Barbera Weiler said here Wednesday.

Weiler, who represents the German Socialist Party, is in India as part a nine-member European parliamentary delegation to understand how this country deals with regulatory issues such as services, standardisation, customs and consumer protection.

Telecommunication and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told the Lower House of the Indian Parliament on Monday that it would be important for the government to improve the quality of life in villages in order to ensure economic and social development. At the same time, the minister said that the government would require active co-operation from provincial governments in this regard to achieve the target.

The government launched the Digital India Week on 1st July from the Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium. The two-hour long event saw speeches from Ravi Shankar Prasad, the Communications and Information Technology Minister, Arun Jaitely, the I&B minister, corporate leaders, and the Prime Minister himself. Also, during the event, the PM launched a number of projects for the government’s Digital India programme. The country, which is the third largest internet user after China and the United States, could definitely benefit from a programme that brings digital infrastructure to its population.

The technology can help migrants and seasonal workers exercise their fundamental right to vote’.

The Election Commission had last month organised a series of webinars in collaboration with the Tamil Nadu e-Governance Agency (“TNeGA”) discussing different aspects of the potential of using blockchain technology for remote voting in India. This step would particularly favour internal migrants and seasonal workers, who make up approximately 51 million of the population (Census 2011) in exercising their fundamental right to vote. The technology that now has a long way to go before being tangible, has already created a divide in opinion between those backing it and those who aren’t.