Full Coverage: Information & media

28.11.2005 The right to education bill that will be tabled sometime in the coming year, has the potential to bring about a significant transformation in elementary education in India.It attempts to make effective a child’s right to free and compulsory education by focussing on the state’s obligation to provide schools of “equitable” quality.

28.11.2005 Civil Society organisations had earlier written to United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan expressing serious concern about the suitability of Tunisia as a host country for the WSIS because of its poor huiman rights record. They have now asked him, again, to take follow up measures after serious attacks on human rights and the right to freedom of expression at the summit.

18.11.2005 After listening to a stream of platitudes and jargon at the World Summit on the Information Society, a group of bloggers produced their own list of least favourite words and phrases from Tunis:
An inclusive information society is possible if decision-making processes are mobilised at the grassroots level, together with multi-stakeholder partnerships and civil society alliances to build the capacity of the marginalised for meaningful and inclusive knowledge partnerships. Such participatory approaches will encourage social entrepreneurism leading to sustainable development.
* Another Tunis blog: World Association of Christian Communication

18.11.2005 From facilitating collaboration between U.S. and international classrooms to providing information technology to Ugandan medical students, innovators and visionaries are affecting change and inspiring global engagement. Find out who they are, and how you can help them too.

17.11.2005 Southern journalists working for Panos bring you news, views and insights as the World Summit on the Information Society unfolds.

17.11.2005 In a country where the right to speak out is under severe repression, sometimes people are moved to drastic action. For the past 30 days Tunisian rights activists, including journalists, lawyers and political rights activists, are doing just that. They are on hunger strike, believing that this is the only way under the current regime that they can get their issues into the limelight.

16.11.2005 Under the incredulous eyes of the participants at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis, Tunisia, journalists and human rights defenders were manhandled, insulted, and then beaten, said a press release from the Association for Progressive Communications (APC).

16.11.2005 The Citizens Summit on the Information Society is a forum in Tunis for Tunisian and international civil society advocates to discuss human rights and other issues related to the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). Held as a parallel event to the official WSIS, the Summit will consider such issues as Internet and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for Development, media freedom and the Internet, privacy and data security, and human rights in Tunisia.

16.11.2005 The Zambian government has rejected a proposal to guarantee citizens the right to access public information as part of a new constitution being drafted for the country.

11.11.2005 Payoffs of successful E-Development projects can produce dramatic returns across a range of sectors if the risks involved are managed properly,
according to a World Bank report issued ahead of the UN World Summit on Information Society in Tunis on 16-18 November.

10.11.2005 After two years of hesitation and stalling, Montenegro Parliament adopted the Law on Free Access to Information. The Law needed absolute majority of the total number of seats in the Parliament, and was supported by 38 MPs, 13 voted against and one MP abstained from voting.

01.11.2005 On Friday, October 28, the Environmental Legislation and Planning Albania (ELPA) organized the “Environmental Action” meeting in Tirana. The “Action Group for the Environment” (AGE) was established over the course of the meeting.

01.11.2005 Blogs. What does an obscure format which started with computer geeks have to do with development? Quite a bit, say Tim Harford and Pablo Halkyard, who write the Private Sector Development Blog, the World Bank's first venture into internet blogging.