India’s first ‘ebiz’ government-to-business portal launched

Promoting the National e-Governance Plan, the Govt the launch of an eBiz portal which will offer Government-to-Business (G2B) services for India’s investor and business communities.

Developed by: Infosys in a PPP (Public-Private Partnership) mode.

Objective:

The portal provides a single-window service to enable businesses and investors to save time and costs and improve the business environment.
Government-to-Business (G2B) services for India’s investor and business communities.
A 24×7 facility for information and services, and will also offer joined-up services where a single application submitted by a customer, for a number of permissions, clearances, approvals and registrations, will be routed automatically across multiple governmental agencies in a logical manner.

As a part of the 10-year programme, Infosys will roll-out services in a phased manner. In the first year, eBiz will launch 29 services in the five states including Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Haryana, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu.

Central Government Services –

1. Issue of Industrial Entrepreneur Memoranda

2. Issue of Industrial License

3. Filing for Employees Provident Fund

4. Issue of Permanent Account Number (PAN)

5. Filing of Returns by Companies (Form 1)

6. Tax Deduction Account Number of Income Tax Dept

7. Excise Tax Registration (Form R-1)

8. Service Tax Registration (Form ST-1)

State Government Services –

Andhra Pradesh

1. Annual Filing under Factories Act

2. NOC from Pollution Control Board

Delhi

1. MSME Registration (SSI)

2. Annual Filing under Factories Act

3. Factories License

Haryana

1. NOC from Pollution Control Board

2. New Power Connection

Maharashtra

1. Annual Filing under Factories Act

2. Factories License

3. New Power Connection

TamilNadu

1. Annual Filing under Factories Act

2. Factories License

3. MSME Registration (SSI)

4. New Power Connection

About eBiz

IntroductioneBiz is one of the integrated services projects and part of the 27 Mission Mode Projects (MMPs) under the National E-Governance Plan (NEGP) of the Government of India. eBiz is being implemented by Infosys Technologies Limited (Infosys) under the guidance and aegis of Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP), Ministry of Commerce & Industry, Government of India. The focus of eBiz is to improve the business environment in the country by enabling fast and efficient access to Government-to-Business (G2B) services through an online portal. This will help in reducing unnecessary delays in various regulatory processes required to start and run businesses.
This project aims at creating an investor-friendly business environment in India by making all regulatory information – starting from the establishment of a business, through its ongoing operations, and even its possible closure - easily available to the various stakeholders concerned. In effect, it aims to develop a transparent, efficient and convenient interface, through which the government and businesses can interact in a timely and cost effective manner, in the future.
Vision
The vision of eBiz is to be the entry point for all individuals, businesses and organizations (local and international) who would like to do business or have any existing business in India by creating a one-stop-shop of convenient and efficient online G2B services to the business community, by reducing the complexity in obtaining information and services related to starting businesses in India, and dealing with licenses and permits across the business life-cycle.
About DIPPThe Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion (DIPP) was established in 1995 and has been reconstituted in the year 2000 with the merger of the Department of Industrial Development. Earlier separate Ministries for Small Scale Industries & Agro and Rural Industries (SSI&A&RI) and Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises (HI&PE) were created in October, 1999.
With progressive liberalization of the Indian economy, initiated in July 1991, there has been a consistent shift in the role and functions of this Department. From regulation and administration of the industrial sector, the role of the Department has been transformed into facilitating investment and technology flows and monitoring industrial development in the liberalized environment.
 For more information, visit www.dipp.gov.in

About Infosys
Infosys (NASDAQ: INFY) defines, designs and delivers IT-enabled business solutions that help Global 2000 companies win in a Flat World. These solutions focus on providing strategic differentiation and operational superiority to clients. With Infosys, clients are assured of a transparent business partner, world-class processes, speed of execution and the power to stretch their IT budget by leveraging the Global Delivery Model that Infosys pioneered. Infosys has over 1,00,000 employees in over 50 offices worldwide. Infosys is part of the NASDAQ-100 Index and The Global Dow. For more information, visit www.infosys.com

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Microsoft to developers: This is the 'modern.IE' world

Modern.IE is a new tool from Microsoft for Web developers to make sure that their sites are built for the modern Web.

(Credit: Microsoft) In case you weren't sure, Microsoft wants you to really, really understand that Internet Explorer 10 isn't just any old update to the much-maligned browser. The latest example: "modern.IE," a set of tools to help Web developers that the company announced today.
"It's still too hard to test sites across the different OSes and browsers," Ryan Gavin, Internet Explorer's general manager, said in a phone interview with CNET yesterday. "On our part, we can encourage best practices. We know we can do better here, so we're providing the tools and support so that developers spend more of their time innovating and less of their time testing."



"More time innovating, less time testing" was Gavin's watch-phrase of the day, something he repeated throughout our conversation. Microsoft clearly believes that modern.IE's toolset will appeal to developers.
Some developers who have used pre-release versions of the service were impressed with modern.IE.
Rachel Andrew, managing director of Web development company Edgeofmyseat.com, said to me in an e-mail: "I'm a Mac and Linux desktop user. I have Windows laptops for testing, but haven't used Windows for anything else for many years. I feel as if Microsoft [has] recognized, with modern.IE, that this is the case for a lot of Web designers and developers. Instead of trying to persuade us to use Windows, the site gives us a whole bunch of ways to test sites from our platform of choice, to ensure that people who visit our sites using Windows and IE get a great experience."
Modern.IE appears to be quite simple to use. Drop a URL into the scanning tool text field, and it kicks back a report with suggestions on how to improve your site, split into three categories. The first is a long-overdue bit of housekeeping that breaks down problems that have arisen from supporting legacy versions of Internet Explorer.

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Coming soon to Facebook: more action, battle games

When nWay began a trial of its dark, sci-fi combat game "ChronoBlade" on Facebook last year, the San Francisco-based start up felt sure it had a hit on its hands.

"First of all, what comes is, 'Wow, I had no idea you could actually do a game of this quality on Facebook,'" said Dave Jones, Chief Creative Officer of nWay, who has worked on "Grand Theft Auto" and "Diablo."
Then came some resistance: Jones admits some potential investors and partners questioned how an action-focused game with slick graphics can play to a Facebook audience more accustomed to "Farmville" and other less time-consuming casual games. Others wondered how the game – which launches this spring – would gain significant users and revenue on the social network.
But Facebook Inc is betting nWay and a clutch of other developers this year can extend console-style action games beyond Microsoft Corp's Xbox or Sony Corp's PlayStation onto the world's largest social network.
Facebook is spearheading the launch of 10 high-quality games created by third-party developers in 2013 that squarely target so-called hardcore gamers, an atypical audience overlooked thus far against the wealth of family-friendly offerings like Zynga Inc's "Farmville" that now dominate the social network's gaming landscape.
The effort, which began late last year but will accelerate in 2013, is part of Facebook's ongoing objective of making sure its 1 billion-plus users log in and spend more time on the network, which in turn boosts ad revenue. Facebook also takes a cut of its applications' revenue.

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Airtel Emergency Alert Services Launched For Indian Women Safety

Telecom Major, Bharati Airtel, has come up with an emergency alert service for women. The service was launched by Airtel on Friday, for its users in Kolkata, Odisha and Bengal. Women in an emergency situation need to dial 55100, a helpline number of Airtel. The facility also allows users to send SMSes in case of emergencies.
The emergency helpline number when dialed sends alerts via voice message and SMS to 10- predefined numbers. The message will also deliver to the numbers the location and timing. An Airtel official says that the messages will be sent to all 10-predefined numbers simultaneously. He also said that the alert to the numbers will be repeated at least 3 times in a span of 30 minutes.



Vire Indar Nath, the COO of Airtel for the West Bengal and Kolkata circle, confirmed that the service is now available for free and is chargeable after a period of 30 days. The COO also said that the service is launched primarily targeting women folk.
Bengal, Odisha and Kolkata currently have around 20 million subscribers for Airtel. The company is also expecting that around 10 per cent of its women subscribers will avail its new service.
The COO also confirmed the company's talks with local police administration regarding the implementation of a single number system for making calls in emergency. The alert service of Airtel can also generate alerts to numbers like 100, to the local police station. This means that women can also include local police station numbers among the 10-predefined numbers.

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Hackers Targeted Twitter User Data

Twitter Inc. on Friday said it had detected "sophisticated" unauthorized attempts to access information from the short-messaging service used by more than 200 million people.
In a blog post, the San Francisco company said it identified this week computerized attacks that may have accessed ...

Anonymous hackers attacked Twitter this week and may have gained access to passwords and other information for as many as 250,000 user accounts, the microblog revealed late on Friday.
Twitter said in a blog post that the passwords were encrypted and that it had already reset them as a “precautionary measure,” and that it was in the process of notifying affected users.
The blog post noted recent revelations of large-scale cyber attacks against the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, but unlike the two news organizations, Twitter did not provide any detail on the origin or methodology of the attacks.

Anonymous hackers attacked Twitter this week and may have gained access to passwords and other information for as many as 250,000 user accounts, the microblog revealed late on Friday.
Twitter said in a blog post that the passwords were encrypted and that it had already reset them as a “precautionary measure,” and that it was in the process of notifying affected users.
The blog post noted recent revelations of large-scale cyber attacks against the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, but unlike the two news organizations, Twitter did not provide any detail on the origin or methodology of the attacks.

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BlackBerry 10: What BlackBerry needs to do

Today BlackBerry must deliver a new range of devices that satisfy new and traditional users – and they’re very different audiences, says Matt Warman. 

 

 

Who buys a BlackBerry in 2013? The answer is simple, but it encapsulates the conundrum that has enveloped manufacturers Research in Motion: it’s either young people keen on the BBM Messenger service or corporate IT departments. Although some individual professionals have continued to invest in handsets themselves, they’ve not been enough to make the firm a top-of-the-range brand competing with the iPhone, HTC’s One X and Samsung’s Galaxy S3.

And the problem now facing BlackBerry is that it is not the brand employees want from their IT department either. Nor is it the winning combination of cheap and brilliant that younger people demand. When the new devices are unveiled today at 3pm, RIM must produce phones that are unexpectedly brilliant, email-your-socks-off-tastic – they must offer a BBM to beat Facebook, a web experience to beat Google and an operating system to beat Apple. When Thorsten Heins stands on stage and says “This is the new Z10”, he needs it to be more shocking than the iPhone was in 2007 – if the audience does not rise to its feet as one, applauding with an enthusiasm that puts every American cheerleader to shame, BlackBerry has probably failed.

Can BlackBerry do that? Can it do what Apple couldn’t manage with the iPhone 5, what Samsung can’t manage with all its global expertise, what even Sony can’t do with a waterproof phone that you take for a quick dip? The answer is probably no.

RIM has, however, done everything it can up to this point: it has rewritten every line of code in its operating system, it has briefed its greatest fans and most influential enthusiasts, from Alan Sugar to Stephen Fry, and it has tantalised the media with leaks ago-go. No operating system this late has generated this much excitement.

And that’s a shock when it offers little more than phones out a few years ago: we know there’ll be an 8MP camera, a dual core processor, all those standard things. We know it will offer separate modes for work and personal, like two devices in one. We know it will offer a system based around ‘Peek and flow’, so you’re never too far from a combined inbox of every social network message, email and tweet, all in one place. Swipe one way to get to all your running apps, another to that BlackBerry Hub, then over to a list of apps.

But there’s little sign that BB10 will offer the customisable homescreens and widgets of Android, little sign of glorious apps such as The Orchestra or even a native YouTube. If RIM can’t do the things everyone else has already thought of, it seems unlikely the Z10 will be shockingly brilliant.
Yet for its corporate survival, there are other things RIM must do today, and it’s largely already achieved them: it must maintain the enthusiasm of its existing business user base, 1,600 firms from whom are already engaged, and it must provide a keyboard model for people who still like typing physically.
And additionally RIM must get networks on side - they’re so keen to provide a third option to iOS and Android, this is something of an open goal, however. (This is despite the fact that Windows already wants that number three spot, and anyway consumers have a history of always narrowing rivalries to pairs, from betamax and VHS to BluRay and HD DVD.)
But while those positive those things seem eminently possible, they’re not the revolution BlackBerry needs to stem the tide and recapture its glory days. If what’s already rumoured is all there is, BlackBerry will struggle to convince the world it’s done enough. If its future rests on cheap devices for young people, there’s little money there. If it rests of falling loyalty from corporations, RIM is simply prolonging the agony. Neither option looks like success. Let’s hope it is making its own third way.
 

 

Source: telegraph.co.uk

 

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Google unveils detailed North Korea map, with gulags

Details ... the North Korean capital of Pyongyang on Google Maps.

 

Weeks after its chairman Eric Schmidt's secretive visit to North Korea, Google has released a detailed map of the isolated state that even labels some of its remote and infamous gulags.
Until now North Korea was pretty much a blank canvas to users of Google's "Map Maker", which creates maps from data that is provided by the public and fact-checked in a similar process to that used by Wikipedia.
"For a long time, one of the largest places with limited map data has been North Korea. But today we are changing that," Jayanth Mysore, a senior product manager at Google Map Maker, said in a blog post.

What the Google Map of Pyongyang used to look like.

"We know this map is not perfect — one of the exciting things about maps is that the world is a constantly changing place," he said.

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Mysore said the North Korea section had been completed with the help of a "community of citizen cartographers" working over a period of several years.
"While many people around the globe are fascinated with North Korea, these maps are especially important for the citizens of South Korea who have ancestral connections or still have family living there," he added.

The North Korean capital of Pyongyang is visible on a satellite image from Google Earth.

With the two countries still technically at war, decent maps of the North are almost impossible to come by in South Korea.
The people least able to benefit from the Google publication will be the North Koreans themselves, who live in one of the most isolated and highly censored societies on the planet.
The North has a domestic intranet, but it is cut off from the rest of the world, allowing its very limited number of users to exchange state-approved information and little more.
Access to the full-blown internet is for the super-elite only, meaning a few hundred people or maybe 1000 at most, experts estimate.
The Google version offers a detailed map of the capital Pyongyang, showing hospitals, subway stops and schools.
Outside the capital, the detail is sketchier, but noticeable on an overview of the country are a series of city-sized, grey-coloured areas which, when zoomed in on, are identified as sprawling re-education camps.
In the largest gulag of all — Camp 22 near Hoeryong near the North's northeast border with China — Google Map Maker identifies a number of units including an armoury, a food factory and a guards' restroom.
As many as 200,000 people are estimated to be detained in the North's vast gulag system, many under a guilt-by-association system that punishes those related to someone perceived as an enemy of the state.
Google has helped cast a light on the location of these camps before, through its popular Google Earth satellite imagery service.
Groups and individuals involved with human rights research on North Korea have used the satellite pictures to confirm the location of known camps and uncover the existence of new ones.
The release of Google's new North Korea map came just weeks after Schmidt returned from a controversial trip to Pyongyang as part of a US "humanitarian" mission.
On his return, Schmidt said he had told officials in the North that the country would never develop unless it embraces internet freedom.
Schmidt's trip was criticised by the US State Department, which said it was ill-timed in the wake of the North's recent banned rocket launch.
South Korean officials have welcomed the Google map initiative.
"We think that this could be an opportunity for the world to know more about North Korea and an opportunity for the North to open itself more," a unification ministry spokeswoman said.
And the concept also drew praise from some of the South Koreans, cited by Mysore, with family roots in the North.
"It sounds great. I'll be happy to see the map of my hometown," said Lee Nak-Ye, who heads an association for Koreans who moved from North to South.
Lee, 80, left his home in the eastern port city of Hamhung when the 1950-53 Korean War broke out and can "only dream" of reuniting with the relatives he left behind.
"I'll tell other friends at the association about this," Lee said. "Most of them are too old to learn how to use the internet thing though."

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