I was going to write this post under the headline “The Schizoid Nature of eGovernment” under the false assumption that “schizoid” meant some variation of “schizophrenic” which I’ve always associated with “having a dual personality.” I was surprised to learn from a variety of Web-based dictionaries that “schizoid” refers to a personality disorder “marked by dissociation, passivity, withdrawal, inability to form warm social relationships.” That’s definitely not what I meant.

Instead, this post is inspired by the fact that my inbox was graced, first, with this link to this story from Cisco’s newsroom describing a joint initiative with CSC eGovernance Services India, to extend medical and educational services to remote communities through “Common Service Centres.”

As explained in the release: “The Common Service Centres program is a strategic cornerstone of the government of India’s National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) with 250,000 CSCs planned across 600,000 villages.” In the bullet points that follow, there’s lots of emphasis on two specific Cisco Products WebEx on Demand, for distributing telecourses and Cisco HealthPresence for telemedicine. But with all that broadband capacity, it’s a certainty that the better educated and cared for villagers can define other applications to take advantage of connectivity and collaboration.

As the email and blogging gods would have it, the next post in my inbox carried the headline “Governments Use Internet as Tool for Control”. In it, reporter Emma Woollacott, cites a report issued today by the US Department of State which, using China as the primary culprit, claimed that governments can “monitor internet use, control content, restrict information, block access to foreign and domestic websites, encourage self-censorship, and punish those who violated regulations.”

That’s not a pretty picture, but it was one augmented by a report entitled “Enemies of the Internet” from Reporters without Borders, which lists the countries that are most abusive of the Internet’s ability to serve both public and individual needs. Burma, North Korea, Cuba, and Turkmenistan block Internet access altogether. The report adds: “For economic purposes, China, Egypt, Tunisia and Vietnam have wagered on a infrastructure development strategy while keeping a tight control over the Web’s political and social content.”

Such policies pose a real threat to the healthy growth of innovative applications on the global Internet.

Categories: Articles

Tags: Cisco, Recombinant Communications, public policy