North East India Conference on
Strengthening Development Processes in North
East India:

“Identifying Scope & Challenges in Development & Governance”

October 30, 2009

Scope Complex, 7 Institutional Area, Lodhi Road, New Delhi

I. About the Conference

The concept of development and governance is undergoing rapid and profound transformation in North East India: demand for development and good governance is surging, policy programmes are increasingly diverse and scope for interventions are vaster than ever. But national and regional level thrust and funding seems to fall short of needs and stark inequalities remain at a time when efficient development and good governance has become a citizen’s right and has a crucial role to play in addressing key social and economic challenges. The demand and pressure for quality human resource development is already there. The reports of mal-governance from the region are almost daily phenomena.

It is against this backdrop that the NEDS Conference will be held in New Delhi on 30th October, 2009.

To compliment this effort, Member of Parliaments, Member of Legislative Assemblies from North East India, researchers, academicians, Ministry representatives and other experts are invited to highlight and share thoughts, concerns, ideas, programmes, initiatives and practices of key aspects of development and governance pertaining to the region.

II. Objectives of the Conference

The 2009 Conference on NE Development and Governance will provide a Pan India and regional platform for forward-looking debate and discussion on key aspects of rapidly changing dynamics of development and governance matters pertaining to NER.
It will take stock of transformations in development and governance in a pre and post liberalization phase of India and address the new dynamics that can likely shape the strategic agenda for the development of policies and institutions. The role of People’s representatives on making difference on the grounds will be highlighted.

Finally, the Conference will reaffirm the importance of development and governance research pertaining to NER in meeting regional challenges, as well as in building more inclusive, equitable and sustainable knowledge economies and societies.

III. Conference Themes

1. Towards Development and Governance for All: Where are we?
2. Towards an Enabling Environment: Liberal versus Sustainable Approach
3. Inclusive Development in NER: Role of People’s Representatives
4. Human Resource Development in NER: Quality Education is the hallmark
5. Role of Stakeholders: How much of the Public is for the Private?
6. Good Governance for Holistic Development: Role of a need based ICT Framework for All.
7. Need of the Hour: Choice of a Policy Framework that works

IV. Stakeholders

TheConference will see attendance of key speakers and a good mix of eminent people from Ministry of DONER (India), State Departments, other academia, corporate, development sector, government and private agencies in development sector, ICT stakeholders and others.

V. Stakeholders
Key Speakers / Participants

• Hon’ble Union Minister of DONER, India
• Union Minister of State for Rural Development , India
• Select Ministers / Officials from NE States
• Development Agencies / Research Institutes
• Consultants, Researchers, Innovators

VI. Expected / Desirable Outcomes

NEDS 2009 will identify concrete actions aimed at ensuring that the development and governance sector in NE India meets both national and regional development objectives and family and individual aspirations. It will provide an occasion for key stakeholders across public and private to make a new commitment towards good governance and development and agree on action-oriented recommendations which will enable policy decisions and development research to better respond to changing needs in an emerging knowledge society and to the growing and multiple demands of society.

VII. Organisers

The Conference is being organized by North East Development Foundation. North East Centre for Research & Development (NECRD-IGNOU) is the Co-Organiser.

We still do not have even a single official or unofficial website of any public represented constituency. We have 542 MPs and there is no constituency portal. We have 4018 MLAs and not a single portal representing their constituencies. We have approximately 271000 Sarpanches in the country, but all Panchayats’ corner available on Panchayati Raj website has zero content.The issue is alarming and dangerous,here is why:

• If you look at all the media, other than website or internet, there is no other media which is permanent and where people can access and publish the content anytime anywhere.
• In the times where RTI is an Act and all public represented offices and officers have to put all the information open and available, web is the only medium which can be utilized for this purpose for effective relevance.
• Most of the ministries and departments are doing that but what about the same trend not followed by Sarpanches, MLAs and MPs who are elected by people to represent their area, their problems and issues and their needs? How are they spending the MPLAD fund? What questions and queries are they posing in the assembly and parliament?
• Intentionally or unintentionally, the entire e-government focus has been more on administrative governance and not on elective or public representative governance and thus all those areas and their representatives elected by people are at large and hardly accountable for their promises and responsibilities, which can only be possible if the elected representatives use medium like web and Internet for transparency between them and their people.
• Incidentally, if one looks at the MPLAD fund document, there is no provisioning of spending MPLAD fund on any electronic initiative, but mostly infrastructurally; unfortunately,having a compulsory website for each constituency is far from being considered infrastructural and necessary governance and public grievance redressal medium.
• India is one of the poorest countries in the world as far as its presence on the web is concerned; which means in a knowledge driven economy, India is poor in creating digital content.

We are in the 4th series of the World Summit Award in 2009. So far, being the only award
concentrating on e-content and creativity across more than 170 countries, WSA has grown bigger, wider, and boasts more than 2,500 best practices across diverse field of activities.This year is a special moment to bring the grand jury of the WSA to India which is not only one of the biggest hub of human foot prints but also multiple of ethnicity, culture, religion, languages, medium, and geography.Since WSA is a network of hundreds of ICT & Digital Content experts in hundreds of countries, out of 40 Grand Jurors, that we short list, play a demonstrative face to 7 continents through their countries . In the next few pages you would get a chance to see the overview of ICT penetration, digital content players, best practices in hundreds, across 20 countries, because that is the only countries we received the chapters from our country experts by the time this magazine was going for print.

Like in the past, we would print soon the country chapters in its third version of the book “e-Content: Voices from the Ground” but till then, we thought we would reach out to you through this magazine as aspecial issue on the occasion of the Grand Jury of WSA 2009, taking place in India from April 2-8. For all the mistakes, please send your rants to any of us!

Cheers,
Peter Bruck (bruck@research.at); Osama Manzar (osama@defindia.net)