Thu January 1 1970 India is considered to be the Largest Democracy, where Largest denotes population. And Democracy is supposed to mean, traditionally, a government Of the People, By the People and For the People. I would like to examine whether this is really so.

How do we ensure that the government is really of, by and for the people? The means adopted ...

Thu January 1 1970 This is an interview with Sri C.V. Radhakrishnan, founder of River Valley Technologies and the person who brought TeX and Free Software to Kerala, that I did some time in 2007. It was published in the December 2007 issue of Linux for You. Here it is:

LFY: We understand that your company River Valley Technologies is doing business using ...

Thu January 1 1970 The Indian GNU/Linux Users' Group, Thiruvaanthapuram, is organising an Install Fest during September 1-5, 2008. This time it is in the den of computer geeks, the Technopark. The first such install fest organised by ILUG Tvpm at Kanakakkunnu Palace was a grand success even though it rained heavily that day (which, according to some people, is very ...

Thu January 1 1970 There are indications that the government is again trying to bring software patents, possibly covertly. The first indication of this has been in the draft Manual of Patent Practice and Procedure published by the Patent Office, India, in which they talk about "software per se" and software in association with hardware. This was repeated in the meet ...

Thu January 1 1970 It seems Microsoft has contributed some money to the Apache Foundation. Unbelievable? See here. This, of course, naturally sets people thinking. About what Microsoft is up to. ...

Thu January 1 1970 Finally, Malayalam has become one of the official languages supported by the K Development Environment, or KDE, one of the most popular desktops in GNU/Linux. The youth in the Swatantra Malayalam Computing (SMC) movement, which is becoming a registered society, have exceeded the minimum amount of translation needed for KDE to accept Malayalam as a ...

Thu January 1 1970 Free Software has been advancing in many regions of the world, giving freedom to computer users. Though we hear an occasional news about somebody going to migrate to Free Software, we never realise the extent to which people have migrated. It is interesting to take a look at all the migrations over the last few years and see to what extent GNU/Lin ...

Thu January 1 1970 This is an article that was published in the May 10- 23, 2008, issue of Frontline (see http://www.frontlineonnet.com/stories/20080523251008900.htm), but without their editorial corrections. The major editorial changes are in the sub-headings. It was published under the Creative Common ...

Thu January 1 1970 Though the results of the final voting are out, and it appears that Microsoft OOXML has been accepted as a standard by ISO. There is a two-month period when members can appeal against the decision, after which, if there are no appeals, the standard will be published. See http: ...

Thu January 1 1970 India has decided to vote against Microsoft's OOXML file format being accepted as an ISO standard in the meeting of the committee convened by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS). Out of 19 members of the BIS committee, five did not attend the meeting, five voted in favour of OOXML and the rest (eight) voted against.

It is interesting t ...