Manmohan Singh launches village resource centre By Indo-Asian News Service
New Delhi, Oct 18 (IANS) Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Monday launched the Village Resource Centre (VRC) that aims at providing a host of intelligent services to make India's 600,000 villages prosperous. Conceived by the Chennai-based M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation and shaped by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), the satellite-based VRC is more than just bridging the urban-rural divide through information technology. The centre will be used to provide information about agricultural, health, education and also government services to the villagers. Launching the centre here, Manmohan Singh said: "Unless we take the benefits of modern science and technology to our villages, we cannot get rid of mass poverty which has afflicted millions and millions of our people." He described the mission as yet another saga of adventure and enterprise to bring the benefit of modern technology for the development of India's villages. A satellite link provided by ISRO would provide villages with local specific information. The VRCs would use communication and remote sensing satellites to provide information on a range of subjects like natural resources, sites for drinking water and ground water recharging, water harvesting and wasteland reclaiming. Initially, the VRC will be set up in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Wayanad and Palakkad areas of Kerala and in some parts of the northeast. ISRO and the Department of Space plan to set up more such VRCs in regions such as islands, mountainous terrains and tribal-dominated areas, before extending the service to all 600,000 villages. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Frederick Noronha (FN) Nr Convent Saligao 403511 GoaIndia Freelance Journalist P: 832-2409490 M: 9822122436 http://www.livejournal.com/users/goalinks http://fn.swiki.net http://www.ryze.com/go/fredericknoronha http://fn-floss.notlong.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Difficulties to send email across? Write to fredericknoronha at vsnl.net ============================================================================ ------------ ***GKD is solely supported by EDC, a Non-Profit Organization*** To post a message, send it to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. In the 1st line of the message type: subscribe gkd OR type: unsubscribe gkd Archives of previous GKD messages can be found at: <http://www.edc.org/GLG/gkd/>
