@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Date: Thu, 21 Dec 1995 >From: Arun Mehta <•••@••.•••> Subject: USIS teleconference On December 20, 1995, there was a WorldNet Dialog organised by the United States Information Service, in which Bruce McConnell, Chief of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Office of Management and Budget, and Lisa Kimball of Meta Systems Design Group, joined panelists from Bombay and New Delhi in discussing "Electronic Democracy: The Global Information Infrastructure." Here are some interesting points: Bruce mentioned that the US government plans to wait 2 years before starting to regulate electronic cash. Any further info on that? Seems like a window of opportunity to me... Dr Seshagiri, a panelist, who is Director General of the National Informatics Center and Special Secretary to the Government of India, mentioned that at a recent conference, the French and the Canadians were talking about starting a rival or parallel Internet, since this one is so English dominated. Does anyone know more about this? IBM runs EDI as a closed user group, not part of the Internet, said he. Is that correct, and have the implications of this been discussed somewhere? Seshagiri also mentioned, in the context of copyrights, that source codes of several commercial packages had been illegally posted on the Net. Anyone know further? My question to Bruce asking how the US government planned to implement the censorship mandated in the new Telecom Bill, and what it was going to cost, started to get asked when we ran out of time (sigh). However, we did get to discuss it locally afterwards. Robert Garfias from the UCI, Irvine, California, took over, said many thought it was unconstitutional, and how serious it was. Seshagiri said the US was setting a bad example that others would emulate. I used that opportunity to ask what he as one of the few ISPs in India, was doing about the corresponding Indian law, which held *him* liable for anything obscene or objectionable I might send out via his network. He said they put out a disclaimer (ho, ho, ho!) I'm chairman of the Information Technology Committe of the Delhi Management Association, and I used this opportunity to announce that we were going to hold a seminar in February '96 on Indian Telecom Policy, and lots of people including Seshagiri, Rajendra Pawar (head of NIIT, India's leading IT training institute) and Prasanto Roy, Editor of the Indian computer magazine PC Quest, immediately agreed to come. It would be nice to get international participation. Ideas? We are starting a mailing list to discuss Indian telecom, particularly policy and regulatory issues. I'm asking Marsha if cpsr will host it. If they are unable to, who else might? What should the list be called? Intelreg? Or indcom-l? @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ ~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~--~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~ Posted by Richard K. Moore (•••@••.•••) Wexford, Ireland Cyber-Rights: http://www.cpsr.org/cpsr/nii/cyber-rights/ CyberLib: http://www.internet-eireann.ie/cyberlib ** NOTE ** Temporarily submit postings to •••@••.••• ~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~--~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~
