IfG.CC - The Institute for eGovernment

She said earlier all telecom operators had agreed in a meeting with the prime minister to launch biometric verification for the issuance of SIMs from the above mentioned date.

Information Technology (IT) and Telecom Minister Anusha Rahman on Saturday said the government is committed to provide connectivity to the un-served/underserved areas of Pakistan.

The minister expressed these views during a meeting with Balochistan IT Minister Abdul Rahim Ziaratwal. Balochistan IT Secretary Dr Umer Babar also accompanied the provincial minister.

The purpose of the forum was to share experience of rollout of ministry’s flagship e-Governance initiative ‘e-office/e-filing system’ to sensitise all the stakeholders about its importance. Minister of State for Information technology Anusha Rehman said it was fact ineffective governance not only slowed down the pace of economic growth, but also has a highly negative impact on the living standards of the citizens.

It will create a less paper environment and concept of digital governance will be promoted through it. The e-office suite consists of 6 modules. Initially it is being implemented in Ministry of IT, PM office, National Assembly, Secretariat, Ministry of Science and Technology, Finance Division and Planning Division. Subsequently it will be implemented in all other Federal/Divisions in a phase manner and is expected to be complete by end of year 2014.

This MoU will enable the MoIT to host E-Governance Software applications at PTCL data center, free of cost, for a period of fifteen (15) months. It is important to mention that PSDP project Titled “Federal Government Data Center & Internet” was approved through ECNEC in July, 2004.

However, Electronic Government Directorate (EGD) has remained unable to deploy data center to date.

“The PTI will never backtrack on its words for a transparent governance system; therefore, it has been overhauling and reorganising all public sector institutions in order to ensure that people have unhindered access to all sectors,” the chief minister told the IT Department authorities after inaugurating the E-Government Initiative Project at a ceremony in the Chief Minister’s Secretariat.

The Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has urged the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to introduce the application of bio-metric system in upcoming Local Government Elections.

The KP Govt said, it was necessary to ensure transparency and accuracy by eliminating the chances of impersonation and fake voting.

Lahore Smart City is a real estate project in the city of Lahore. It is one of the largest and most ambitious projects in the region. The project covers an area of 20,000 Kanal and is designed to be a modern, eco-friendly city. It is intended to be a hub of international business, finance, tourism, and culture. The project is designed to have a leisure path along the city's eco-backbone and rivers; it will also have parks, gardens, sports facilities, and be self-sufficient and energy efficient. It will have solar panel systems, wind turbines, and other renewable energy sources to generate power.

In a quickly improving economic friendly environment, Pakistan's economy can progress in a short span of time, if it is made technology-intensive

For the wellbeing of its people, to achieve prosperity and become an influential country, it is necessary that Pakistan attains economic self-sufficiency by hastening its economic development. In this area, it has the capacity to succeed within a short timeframe, provided that it makes its economy technology-intensive on an urgent basis. In the past, like most other Asian economies, Pakistan’s economy had been based on making use of physical capital and cheap labour, with less emphasis on modern technology. While many western and some Asian economies use the most modern innovations and technology, especially information, communications and computer technologies (ICT), to achieve spectacular economic growth rates and export earnings, Pakistan has been slow in adopting these technologies. For example, with a much lesser population than Pakistan, Finland and Singapore’s annual exports for the year 2012 were $ 182 billion and $ 360 billion respectively, while Pakistan’s annual export earnings were only $ 18 billion.

He was chairing meeting organised by a private university on ‘The role of civil society in making government system transparent. He said that it was a general practice that budgets were formulated without consultation with the stakeholders. When budget is announced, he added, the people started making hue and cry and then issues were re-examined and discussed.

An official of the provincial election commission told The News that the mock polling would be held in two urban and two rural areas of the district where machine and equipment for biometric system would be introduced for the first time.

Muhammad Tariq Malik, Chairman of the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA), stated on Friday that NADRA has embraced massive digital transformation through procedural and structural reforms over the last year.

During an interview with PTV, he stated that 43 initiatives were planned during the period to digitalize NADRA and improve service delivery, with 27 of them completed.

The administration says the new non-mandatory cards are being issued following the successful launch of Smart National Identity Cards to the adult population in Pakistan last year. The smart identity card has a number of embedded security features and also includes biometric data of the card holder.

In a statement issued on Saturday, the Nadra said that all telecom operators had earlier agreed with the prime minister to launch biometric verification system for the issuance of SIMs from February 28.

The proposed system comprises three main elements — the collection of the pensioners’ data to eliminate duplication and ghost pensioners, the issuance of smart identity cards and the deployment of a pension disbursement system to be utilised by all disbursing partner entities.

Sindh police authorities have been seeking access to NADRA’s comprehensive fingerprint data since early 2011. In Pakistan, NADRA exists to index the biometric and issue national identity cards to citizens – they are not an arm of law enforcement.

Recently, NADRA announced the roll-out of new smart ID cards, claimed to be the most advanced identity document in the world.

The National Plan of Action for Education was prepared in consultation with experts from Ministry of Education, Training and Standards in Higher Education, all the provinces, Unesco and Unicef.

We stand on the cusp of a new machine age. If current trends and predictions are anything to go by, the next few decades will see a fundamental transformation of economy and society on a scale not seen since the first industrial revolution as artificial intelligence, autonomous machines, and big data revolutionize how things are produced, consumed, and even understood. Some estimates suggest that within this century, much of the work that is currently performed by humans will be done by complex technological systems that will be more efficient and, indeed, cost-effective than the labour they will be replacing, even as increases in computing power allow for the collection and use of data on an unprecedented scale, with significant implications for how human behaviour is understood and, more importantly, influenced.

The SECP had issued a notification in this regard on March 13, 2013, wherein, May 13, 2013 was given as an effective date, for the mandatory online filing.

Requirement of mandatory filing is applicable to all listed companies; Companies which had filed last document return accounts or any application through eServices or will file any document, return, accounts or application through eServices from May 13, 2013 onward.