India is largely with more
than 60 per cent of our population dependent
on agriculture and allied activities. It is
important to address their needs with value
added information. In many situations we have
witnessed local knowledge coming to the rescue
of major global problems. It is a fact that
the knowledge base in the grassroots actually
gives ways to various solutions at the global
level. Similarly other global issues like the
HIV AIDS, Food Security, Digital Divide, it’s
the grassroots communities who can suggest appropriate
strategies.
Information needs of the community are immense.
Presently they continue to remain unmet, whether
its agriculture and related information for
the farmers, educational opportunities for the
students, health education, livelihood opportunities,
employment opportunities for the unemployed,
and access to market for the small entrepreneurs
or government information for the citizens.
Every citizen has the right to information.
The challenge is how to have access to the information
and how to disseminate the information. Similarly,
every community has the reservoirs of local
knowledge. How to harness this local knowledge
and what should be the sharing mechanism from
one community to another; from one village to
another; from one block to another; from one
district to another and how to share the global
knowledge, needed at the local level. It seems
to be a marathon task. But, small efforts can
show the way. On the one hand the process of
collecting, collating, conceptualizing and disseminating
of information and knowledge has to be built,
on the other hand, the environment for accessibility
and acceptability of the knowledge sharing mechanism
has to be created with the ultimate goal of
connecting communities and empowering people.
In recent times, the digital medium has demonstrated
distinct advantages over traditional approaches
of reaching out to communities and has a great
potential to empower communities in voicing
their voices. Present services through internet
are designed in English, that continue to
remain outside the ambit of semi-literate
communities and language become the main barrier
in accessing and assimilating the e-knowledge.
The community requirements are have information/knowledge
available in local and simple language, so
that every one in the community can understand
and use it.
One way to achieve this is to develop a pool
of information/knowledge in digital format
so that it is readily available for sharing
via online and offline routes. Taking the
facts into consideration Open Forum, initiated
publication of an Annual Journal called Development.
By this initiative Open Forum aims to introduce
a knowledge revolution by providing connectivity
by content to policy makers. This initiative
also relies on appropriate content developed
for the community needs and justifies the
entire connectivity effort. The first issue
was released at the 5th convention of Mission
2007 at IGNOU, jointly by Mr. Amar Singh,
Member of Parliament & Member, Governing
Board, Open Forum & Prof. V. N. Rajashekharan
Pillai, Vice Chancellor, IGNOU.
