AIDS counsel a call away

1051 has a special ring to it here. Run by the Health and Social Development Research Centre, the AIDS helpline has been the lifeline for 2.4 lakh callers since 2001. The helpline begun by the NGO8217;s secretary, Mridula Chandra, is now sponsored by the state AIDS Control Society.

8220;Lack of awareness had led to people actually being afraid of having sex. I realised this when I ran a helpline on my landline number in 1997. It was then that I decided that a full time AIDS helpline was essential,8221; says 42-year-old Chandra.

The helpline was launched in December 2000 on a pilot basis and in three months, it was officially launched. 1051 is a toll-free number and is run through a computer linked to two phone lines, connected to the Interactive Voice Response System IVRS. The service won the Manthan Award in the E-Health category in 2005.

8220;There have been times when we received more than 10,000 calls in a month but our average is about 2,500-3,000 calls,8221; says Chandra. Most callers are between 20 and 35 years and most of them want to know if they might be carrying the virus but fear a test.

8220;In such cases we always try to make it clear that despite everything, we are no experts and it is best to get a test done and talk after taking a look at the reports.8221; Chandra does, however, have a technical assistant who attends to special queries.

8220;We are planning to expand the helpline to the state level, which is not only important but will also help in bringing about awareness in rural areas. Moreover, keeping in mind the changing times, there is a need to increase the phone lines and start something like a call centre to address to the queries. One of the biggest problems we face today is that the helpline is not accessible through the mobile network,8217;8217; says Chandra.

TN villagers get digital identity

Biometric tracking gives a tamper proof identity to villagers

Jaya Menon 8211; Chennai

Remote Gurrampeta, a tribal hamlet, seemed hardly the ideal place to distribute smart cards after an experiment with sophisticated personal tracking or access control systems. The backward village with 150 families was poverty-stricken and calamity prone. All that the tribals here wanted was a decent livelihood that would give them at least a meal a day. So, when Kris Dev and his IT savvy team from Chennai hit this rural reach of Andhra Pradesh, carrying their 8216;access technology8217; equipment, comprising a biometric device, a 98221; by 6 8220;equipment weighing barely 500 gms, and a laptop, the villagers did not exactly jump with joy.

8216;8216;In fact, after setting up the equipment to start their experiment, it suddenly struck us that there was no power supply to Gurrampeta village,8217;8217; says Kris Dev, a management and ICT consultant, specialising in decentralization and e-governance, co-founder of the Life Line 2 Business LL2B. He recently won the Manthan Award in the category of 8216;e-inclusion and livelihood creation.8217;8217; The April 2006 experiment by Kris and his team in three villages of Andhra Pradesh, Gurrampeta V R Puram Mandal in Khammam District, Mohammedabad and Jakulla Kootha Palli Amadugur Mandal in Ananthapur district coming under the National Rural Development Employment Guarantee Scheme NREGA for 8216;Biometric Tracking of Payments under NREGA and others8217; was adjudged the best among 25 states in India.

Back in Gurrampeta, Kris and his colleagues, found a 6-volt car battery and kicked off their experiment which promised to usher in radical changes at the grass root level 8216;8217;where villagers working in agricultural fields, construction sites or factories were always being exploited by greedy, corrupt middlemen.8217;8217; Their village initiative had been possible only after several rounds of counselling and explanations. It was quite understandable, as the villagers had only recently been taken for a big ride.

Soon after the 2005 floods in coastal Andhra Pradesh spread over Khammam district, the Hyderabad-based Centre for World Solidarity, a NGO, announced solatium of Rs. 500 each for many villages including Gurrampeta. 8216;8216;A middleman, authorised to distribute the relief money, put his thumbprints across 135 names of affected villagers and pocketed funds worth Rs. 75,000,8217;8217; says Kris. Only 15 villagers actually got the relief. Kris explained to the disillusioned villagers that this would never happen with a biometric device where each of them would have a 8216;unique identity8217; by registering their thumbprint into the machine and their photographs integrated through software. So, every time they put their thumb on the optical scan for verification, their photographs would pop up. The biometric device has a provision to enter the citizen8217;s ID and displays the ID and name on a LCD screen.

8216;8216;When a villager signs in for work, he registers on he biometric device. He does the same when he finishes work. So, there is an official record of the man days he puts in which cannot be tampered with and he has to be paid for work done on those days. We have work records muster-rolls in villages showing how supervisors have tampered with number of working days of villagers so that they could pocket the extra cash,8217;8217; said Kris. 8216;8216;A biometric-based smart card where the citizen uses the information of what he has, what he knows and what he is, ensures a high level of security,8217;8217; he added.

Now, villagers of Gurrampeta, neighbouring Mohammedabad and J K Palli are thrilled with their new identity. But this was just an experiment. Convincing the policy makers to introduce the process on a permanent basis has proved to be more difficult. In fact, one officer wanted to know if the biometric device would work as well with work-worn hands as it did with his 8216;soft8217; fingers. 8216;8216;We showed him that the device worked with everyone 8212;a villager working with machines in a factory, whose work-roughened palms were full of corns and those working in cement factories,8217;8217; points out Kris. So, while he had convinced villagers that a unique 8216;biometric8217; citizen identity would dramatically change their lives, the greater challenge has been to convince the various state and district administrations.

The investment would be a mere Rs. 20,000 in every village for a battery-run biometric device in conjunction with a suitable software that can register citizens uniquely, avoid duplication, create a data base of citizens and permit online transfer of information for the district and state administrations to view online. Kris is still waiting with crossed fingers for the first invitation to a village in India for implementing the project.

Students8217; search ends here

University to career options, this portal is a ready reckoner

Divya Sama 8211; Mumbai

Now worried Indian students won8217;t have to splurge money on career counselors or believe certain money making institutions who sell the quality of their education through marketing not literally by their success stories. Thanks to studentindia.com, a web portal created by Rashmikant Mahapatra 35 of Mumbai that won Manthan award 2006 for

being the best educational site in India. This portal not just guides students for the apt university for them, it also provides information on jobs and its online career counseling gives a sense of direction to the confused lot.

With pride Mahapatra declares the aim behind creating this portal in 2004. It has a lot to do with his personal dilemma in choosing the right career path for himself. 8220;After schooling my friends were running aimlessly to different metropolitan cities across India after reading about big colleges in these cities. Most of these colleges were not that good, they were just richly publicized. So I decided to study for being a charted accountant and not gamble with my career by studying in any of these colleges. My personal experience, many worrying parents and confused students prompted me to make this portal that would provide vital information to students about colleges and companies8221;, smiles Mahapatra.

It was also a sense of disbelief in the government agencies that pushed his dream to make this portal further hard. 8220;Many government agencies give a biased view about the ratings of colleges. Many of the agencies do not have forms available on webs for students to download. Where should an Indian student go to chose a right career path for himself?8221; questions Mahapatra.

His portal is like an encyclopedia for students, he believes. 8220;This portal has data bank of 16,000 institutions and 300 universities across India. As admission process is always a daunting time for students, studentindia.com is regularly updated on admission dates8221;, he says.

Mahapatra feels the best part about this portal is the provision of online career counselling. 8220;Students won8217;t be running here and there to different counselors. Their counselors are just a mouse click away8221;, he laughs.

However, there is much philanthropy in creating this portal than just a disciplined thought. 8220;I am no earning revenue out of this site. The students don8217;t have to pay anything for downloading a form or important information. I love to call it a 8216;8216;NGO site8221;, he remarks.

As studentindia.com is getting around 30 lakhs hit on an average yearly, Mahapatra wants to take this dream portal out in the global market. 8220;Recently, we have added data on 40,000 foreign institutions as so many Indian students want to study abroad. Moreover, I am trying to build a mechanism of information sharing between foreign students for Indian universities and Indian students for foreign universities8221;, he smiles.

With much motivation he reveals a 8216;give back theory8217; concept that is motivating him to innovate more changes in this portal. 8220;Students are the resources of our nation and if we don8217;t have any resource for them than we are wasting the productive elements of our country. I believe in the theory of giving back to the nation what it gives to you. Just wait and watch, this portal will meet the standards of student.com of USA and studentusa.com of Monster India8221;, he confirms.

A touch screen for mothers-to-be

Rajen Varada8217;s computer programme is about getting information at fingertips

Karn Kowshik 8211; Hyderabad

Rajen Varada became a computer engineer in 1983 8220;when it was still a new field8221;. He was in Dubai on way to a well-entrenched career when he decided he wanted to take his knowledge beyond air-conditioned rooms. He moved back to Hyderabad and began working with UNICEF. Among his many projects was the national health card for pregnant women.

8220;UNICEF printed more than 30,000 cards for pregnant women but we found that while the cards were useful, access was limited and they almost never reached the women,8221; says Varada. So UNICEF put him on the job.

Varada designed a modest computer program 8212; Sisu Samrakshak 8212; which could be used through touch-screens. With simple images and voiceovers in the local language, the program gave out vital information on pregnancy, ante-natal and post-natal care, adolescence, nutrition and immunisation among other issues. The project won the World Summit award for Content and Creativity and the Manthan Gold Award. The NASSCOM Foundation has now taken over the project and is working to convert it in eight languages to be used at more than 110 centres in 10 states.

8220;We found that we had a lot of learning and unlearning to do before we could design the software,8221; says Varada. 8220;What we did was go out into the villages, speak to groups of women and gather the questions almost everybody had about pregnancy.8221; Doctors answered these questions and they found their way into the program.

Besides, 8220;at first, we had some really jazzy animation but we found that the audience was so drawn in by the animation that they could not remember the message. So we went back to the drawing board.8221;

What came of it was a simple village scene. If an expecting mother needed to know about ante-natal care, she just needed to click on the icon of a pregnant woman, nothing more. 8220;The mascot we chose had to be identifiable. We thought of Mina UNICEF8217;s girl child mascot for education. Since we couldn8217;t use her, we used her pet parrot.8221;