About the prices expected for the global auction, Mr Raja said that he was not sure if the auction would fetch the expected price due to the global economic crisis. It was earlier reported that the finance ministry hoped to earn at least Rs 40,000 crore by selling spectrum for 3G mobile services. The department of telecom also announced recently that UK-based NM Rothschild to conduct the global auction. BSNL and MTNL have already been allotted spectrum for the 3G roll out.

The government has a plan to set up one lakh such centres in six lakh villages through a public-private-partnership (PPP) and would invest Rs 5,742 crore on the project over a period of four years, a statement from Ministry of Communication and Information Technology said.

The CSCs are scheduled to be operational by July next year for which agencies have already been selected in most of the cases. These CSCs would help rural people getting information in the areas of education, agriculture, healthcare and other services using information technology, the statement added.

Out of the total Rs 5,742 crore projected investment, the government would contribute Rs 856 crore and Rs 793 crore will be invested by the state governments. The balance resources would be mobilised from the private sector, it added.

Apart from Sonia, all prominent party leaders from the state will also be present at the meeting, state Congress spokesman Manak Agrawal said.

Congress leaders who will be attending the meeting include former Chief Minister Digvijay Singh, State Congress President Suresh Pachouri and Union Ministers Arjun Singh, Kamalnath and Jyotiraditya Scindia.

"Our technical team (task force), in coordination with RIM, is working to sort out the issue of data security. We are positive to solve all security-related concerns," Minister of State for IT and Communication Jyotiraditya Scindia told PTI.    

Security agencies have confirmed that the system is susceptible to misuse by anti-national forces and had asked for government intervention.    

"Ministry of Home Affairs is looking after the security aspect of Blackberry to ensure that the service doesn't harm anyone," Scindia said.    

Indian Mujahideen terrorists used WiFi network to send emails claiming responsibilty for the serial blasts that rocked the nation during past months.    

Considering its misuse, law enforcement agencies have even raised demands to restrict Blackberry services.    

However, the ministry ruled out all such speculation and said that it did not plan to ban Blackberry.    

"We are here to provide free flow of service and we are doing that. Our ministry is there to make sure that customers don't face any problem. The service (Blackberry) is operational and we hope that it continues to run," the minister said.    

The security agencies have asked the Department of Telecom to ensure that traffic originating and terminating in India does not travel outside the country.

The project will be completed with an investment of Rs 20,000 crore. The project will be completed in four phases.

The first phase will create an aviation facility, the second will have an air-cargo and logistics hub, the third will develop an industrial or agro-processing park, while the fourth phase will create a township, medical tourism, a biotech university and a leisure destination.

"The state government has joined hands with the company as an equity partner against a land area, which has been impounded under the Ceiling Act and a case is pending in this regard at the High Court," said Kailash Vijayavergiya, government spokesperson and cabinet rank minister, adding, "the project will provide jobs to thousands of people".

The Project Clearance and Implementation Board (PCIB) had given in-principle clearance to the project. This project also involves foreign direct investment of Rs 6,000 crore.

More than 300 people got their eyes tested, while about 50 cataract operations were done free-of-cost in the camp held at Camp Khanpur, Narela.

A prayer meeting was also held to remember the late leader. The prayer meet was attended by hundreds of people including former Governor Romesh Bhandari.

"Scindia ji was a great leader who was always concerned about the basic health facilities for the poor section of the society. He was associated with various NGO's and other organisations for the benefit of the poor," said Bhandari remembering the departed Congress leader.

Devender Kumar reminded people of how Madhav Rao Scindia would start a `Health Line Express' train for the people of his constituency to come to Capital and get their check-ups done from time to time.

The meeting was also attended by Delhi municipal corporation member Mukesh Bhatt, Narayan Singh, Vijender Pehlawan, Deepak Chaudhry and other local Congress leaders.

Though essentially a Prince turned a statesman, the weave of his career was woven from the warp of many worlds. Scindia Ji was amazingly versatile, with exceptional managerial skills, a man of integrity and infinite capacity for hard work. Scindia Ji, though, you are no more with us, you will continue inspiring us. Cricketers, sports persons and many other will always miss you.!

In A development that could completely liberalise mobile commerce, the department of telecommunication (DoT) will soon write to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) seeking guidance on linking telephone networks with banking services.

While the RBI recently announced certain guidelines for mobile banking in India, it only provides for a few basic banking services which can be undertaken through mobile phones. The new DoT move will allow consumers to virtually use mobile phone as a debit or credit card.

Sources told SundayET that the ministry would seek RBI's consultation to provide fullfledged mobile banking services to the customers, in line with discussion held between the 13th Finance Commission team and DoT officials on September 18, 2008. According to a senior DoT official, the ministry has so far not taken any initiative on linking telephone networks with banking services, but is keen on it as it will generate revenues, in addition to giving more value to telephone customers. "These services can increase the share of value-added services from the existing 7-8% of total revenues from the sector to almost about 25% which is the case in the developed countries," DoT said to the Commission's team. SundayET has a copy of the discussion paper prepared by DoT.

Explaining how the new initiative would help Indian consumers, Romal Shetty, director at KPMG India, said it would change the entire face of banking in the country. "So far, consumers can make only a few basic transactions through the mobile, but this will mean using your mobile as your credit or debit card. All you have to do is to send a message to make a payment," he said.

His first stint as a blogger lasted all of three months.

Prasad blogged on a range of issues--the Gujjar community's agitation in Rajasthan, inflation, the Indo-US nuclear deal--but found that irrespective of his subject matter, the debate he sought to start would inevitably end up in complaints about the Indian Railways or the government.

"Dear Laluji, sadar pranam (salutations)!" read a comment on his post on the Gujjar agitation. "My husband Baba Sidhaye, (an) ex-western railway employee, is the first and only deaf and dumb by birth international cricketer in the world from India among 110 crore of Indian population. I would like to know: What your railway ministry has done to recognize his exemplary services to the nation and Indian Railways? I think that he is eligible for all the awards of government of India..." On 25 July, Prasad wryly remarked, "I would like to thank all those who have posted their comments on my blog. It has come to my notice that most of the comments are related to the functioning of railways, where people have pointed out various deficiencies in the services. We are studying all the suggestions and will try to implement them." He has not written since, though he may return to blogging later.

Prasad's blog is a case in point about why Indian politicians and political parties are reluctant to tap the growing number of Indian Internet users to further their agenda. As of September 2007, India had 49 million Internet users, according to a study by the eTechnology Group of IMRB International, a South Asian market research firm.

Access to a politician lies at the root of this reluctance, says Sanjay Sharma, managing director of QuBitTechnologies Pvt. Ltd, which has been running the official website of Indian Olympic Association president and Congress politician Suresh Kalmadi (www.skalmadi.org), the unofficial website of minister of state for information technology and communications Jyotiraditya Scindia (www.jyotiraditya.com) and an unofficial Congress party website, www.congress4india.com.

"The problem comes up when there is a flood of small and big requests. When you open up access to a politician, this happens and it is difficult to manage. Politicians have a group of handlers who restrict access and act as filters," Sharma says. "But when access is opened up, the equations get topsy-turvy and there is a fundamental conflict. The politician just wants to say things and find a way to filter access to him." Congress party's computer department chairman Vishvjit P. Singh, agrees. "The problem with interactivity is not only the bandwidth requirement but also that anyone can say anything they want." `Intolerant people'?

The Department of Posts, earlier this week, agreed to utilize the world's biggest postal work force (of 80,000 postmen) to collect data from over one-lakh villages every week for the Central government to tabulate Consumer Price Index for rural India.<center></center>

Every week, a postman will visit a designated shop in a village and will note down retail prices of the products being sold.

Each postman will have to e-mail the information to a Central office same day This information would .

then be tabulated and forwarded to the Ministry of Programme Implementation and Statistics.

For the work, each postman will get some additional money and he would be trained for the specialized job of data collection, said a ministry official.

The information collected from the ground level would provide the ministry a realistic Consumer Price Index (CPI) for rural India.

"Postal service is best suited for the job as they act agents of link between the government and Indian villages. Moreover, it will also lead to continuity of data collection from same source as a postman for a village is seldom changed, he commented.

Once these postmen provide consumer price data for over a year, the new CPI will replace the present system of multitude of different indices for industrial workers, rural workers, and agricultural workers based on secondary data.