Centre for South Asian studies

Gaurav Vivek Bhatnagar

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI, SEPT. 2.

The regional cooperation between the South Asian countries in the field of education and social development received a further boost today with inauguration of state-of-the-art RPO Documentation and Information Centre here. Former Finance Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, who launched the centre also witnessed the demonstration of linkage of AsiaStar Satellite of WorldSpace Foundation with Simputer (simple computer), which together seek to take technology to the remotest corners of the region.

The documentation and information centre has important books, journals and periodicals on every facet of South Asia published by national and foreign publishers in its library and includes literature on various issued pertaining to South Asia. The high- point of the centre is that it makes available copies of all treaty agreements and declarations between the seven SAARC nations.

Pointing out how the seven countries -- Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka -- have shared intimate ties of history and cultural progress, Dr Singh said by bridging the knowledge gap the documentation and information centre would create awareness in these countries about each other.

Lamenting that information about ones own neighbourhood was hard to come by in South Asia, Dr. Singh asserted that the documentation and information centre marks a ``glorious chapter in the long and tortuous history in the great centre of civilisation that is South Asia''. He hoped that the centre would breach the knowledge gap and help bring the region closer.

Incidentally, the inauguration of the centre has come just two days after South Asia Foundation and the WorldSpace Foundation had signed a memorandum of understanding for taking education and sustainable development forward in the deprived communities of SAARC countries.

During today's inauguration, an audio-visual presentation was also made through the cutting edge technology which will enable broadcast of the Rainbow Partnership Organisation IT portal in the remotest regions of South Asia through the AsiaStar Satellite over the inexpensive ``Simputer''.

The founder of South Asia Foundation, Mr Madanjeet Singh, said the cooperation between his organisation, WorldSpace Foundation and Simputer Trust will promote education for all at the grassroots in all the SAARC countries.

While the WorldSpace Foundation is providing the RPO portal a free of cost link with its satellite -- which covers the whole of South Asia -- as well as the related expertise and maintenance of the systems, the South Asia Foundation is providing the required receivers and interface modems card for the computers.

Mr Madanjeet Singh said with the technology the digital gap would be brought within reach and it would help evolve a South Asia policy for spreading the use of computers. Through an audio- visual programme on an ongoing project in a village in the Bastar area of Chhattisgarh -- which had been received via satellite -- the gathering was given an insight into the potential of the system.

Then it was also explained by representatives of the participating companies how the Simputer utilises a fraction of the satellite bandwidth without needing an expensive mother station for providing connectivity even in far flung areas. Also being portable and having a low cost, the Simputer provides cheap access to technology to end users through smart cards.

On the Simputer project, Dr Manmohan Singh said we live in a world where human knowledge and creativity has been increasing at an unbelievable pace. ``The power of the nations,'' he pointed out, ``would be judged through their capability to adopt and adapt to modern knowledge and to bring it into used for providing their citizens a life of dignity and self respect''.

Stating that the work of Mr Madanjeet Singh displayed ``creative social engineering'' and demonstrated how modern technology can be used for reaching out to the people and improving their lot, Dr. Singh hoped the project would help South Asia become a major powerhouse of the evolving global economy.

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