Students taken for a ride for Jaya’s silly publicity

Jayalalitha’s battery of freebie pronouncements has purposes other than mitigating the sufferings of people or meant for their welfare and progress. On the eve of elections, she waited for the release of DMK’s Election Manifesto, and then announced her party’s adding something more than what was promised by the DMK. As Kalaignar not only fulfilled all electoral promises and offered beyond them during his previous rule, Jayalalitha could not escape this time around without fulfilling the promises as in the past.

But the modus operandi of implementing free schemes by this regime leaves much to be desired or cloaked in mystery and intrigue, unlike during the DMK rule when at every stage of implementation all the parties represented in the Assembly were associated in a transparent manner.

With the unfolding of one scheme after the other, many skeletons in the cupboard are coming into the open. The free cow, sheep/goat scheme to rural women below poverty line is reported to be benefiting ruling partymen acting as middlemen and the beneficiaries get tormented with dying cattle or old cows already given birth to 10 calves, past lactation period. The scheme serves only to transfer government funds to the pockets of ruling partymen.

Another dole by the ADMK regime in the form of free laptop is certain to become millstones around the necks of lakhs of students. Under the scheme, a poll promise of Jayalalitha, the government will distribute 9.12 lakh laptops to school students of Plus Two classes every year in the next four years. About 6,600 were distributed last year on September 15. The State government’s IT arm The Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu (ELCOT) is to procure the laptops.

Leaving aside ‘less-informed’ Tamil media, the self-proclaimed enlightened English media including the 24x7 penetrative news channels, did not find anything amiss in the Free Laptop scheme, until February 6, when the US expert and Free Software Pioneer Richard Stallman on a visit to Chennai, slammed TN’s free laptop scheme.

The Tamil Nadu government may be trumpeting its scheme to distribute computers free to students but it is setting a poor example for what a state should do, says American software freedom activist Richard Stallman.

    “It distributes laptops loaded with non-free software to children, teaching them to be dependent on paid products. It creates a system of digital colonisation,” Stallman, who has waged a storied battle against software giants like Bill Gates, said in an e-mail interview. He criticised the state’s ambitious free laptop scheme that hands out computers with the Windows operating system.

Even after the investigative journal Tehelka’s business daily ‘The Financial World’ exposed the evil design in the scheme as much back in October last, the media in Tamil Nadu did not think it proper to pursue the matter and inform the people how the scheme will cost the future of the poor students and the State’s exchequer.

 The ELCOT has taken out a tender for the supply of 9,12,000 laptops to be delivered this year. Over the next five years, close to 70 lakh laptops produced at a cost of over Rs 10,200 crore would be distributed. Jayalalitha has sent a memorandum to Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh asking for central funds to implement this scheme.

With so much at stake, the IT intelligentsia in India is accusing Microsoft of using a mixture of American diplomatic offensive and its ‘embrace, extend and extinguish’ strategy to make 7 million poor students of Tamil Nadu dependent on its products with their free laptops.

ELCOT’s repeated changes in the tender have forced out free software and pushed in Microsoft products, a move that could ‘end up putting unproductive laptops with Windows in the hands of poor students’. This would entrap them in Microsoft’s proprietary web of licences, renewals, updates and upgrades.

There are allegations against ELCOT that it deliberately issued a second tender favouring Microsoft by eliminating open source software from its list of specifications and removing academically useful hardware from the laptop in a bid to balance out the increased cost of using the Windows Operating system and the licensed MS Office.

ELCOT advertised the first tender for the free distribution of over 9,12,000 laptops on June 4, 2011, after Jayalalitha decided to implement another of her election promises. ELCOT was working on keeping the base price of the laptop at Rs 15,000 and, given the sheer scale of the order, the costs were expected to come down to Rs 10,000 a laptop.

In June, ELCOT took out a tender with the following specifications: A dual boot system that had free open source Linux with the proprietary Microsoft Windows starter edition with antivirus software valid for a year. In addition, the laptop also had to have 320 GB hard drive, 1.3 megapixel web camera, Wi-Fi adapter and 8X DVD writer among other things.

At a time when ELCOT was looking to reduce costs, the bundling of Microsoft Windows raised the price by Rs 5,000. Experts also point out that according to Microsoft’s terms of licencing with Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), Windows always boots first irrespective of what a user wants when they start a laptop.

Faced with a situation where it needed to cut costs and not offend one of the world’s most profitable and powerful corporations (as directed by Jayalalitha), ELCOT took out a second tender that stupefied the IT community in Tamil Nadu. In its new tender, ELCOT asked bidders to provide only Microsoft Windows and removed Linux from the list.

The ELCOT refused to take more questions on why they needed dual boot software when Kerala had set an example in the use of the free open source software through its 2007 IT policy. The Kerala programme, which is being heralded as the future of computing, aims to make the state the leader in e-literacy driven largely by Linux, which promotes the democratisation of it and brings it to every home.

ELCOT removed the free OS even though Linux’s Ubuntu operating system comes for free and requires no updates, upgrades or expensive antivirus software to keep the laptop in shape.

Ironically, ELCOT ’s own data centre at Taramani in Chennai uses IBM servers and is powered by the free and open source Linux platform. But when it came to students, it ditched the open source model for Microsoft.

What is more startling is that in 2007 , under the DMK government, ELCOT had shut the doors on Microsoft by ordering the migration of all government departments, panchayats and schools to Open Source Software after being convinced about its cost benefits and massive collaborative potential. Over 30,000 government and schoolteachers were to be trained in Linux. Microsoft staffers approached twice and offered to sell the Windows OS for Rs 7,000 a computer. ELCOT quoted a price of Rs 500 saying that for a mere Rs 300 they could not only get an Operating System better than Windows but could also incorporate features like DVD drives, webcams, multimedia editing software, vector map drawing applications and hundreds of other academically helpful software. Rs 300 was just the media cost and they need not pay it if the package was downloaded. It was contended that MS Office did not allow saving files in open format but it was always possible to open MS Office files on an open source. This made the Windows OS and MS Office not only more expensive but also inferior. ELCOT’s proposals then, massively upgraded the systems and saved the Tamil Nadu government close to Rs 400 crore every year.

Even the special adviser to the Prime Minister, Sam Pitroda, believes that in a scheme like this there is no scope for burdening students with stifling software that would eventually become a liability for students. “I would strongly recommend going in for open source software since it gives students the capability to innovate, improvise and be creative. There is no difference between using expensive proprietary software and open source platforms and students who fear that their job prospects might be hurt because of using free software are completely misplaced in their fears,” Pitroda has said.

When ELCOT took out a second tender on August 20, 2011, not only had ELCOT booted out open source by only allowing Microsoft Windows OS on the systems, but it also removed vital hardware to accommodate the high cost of the Windows OS . The new tender removed the webcam and Wi-Fi adapter from the system while reducing the hard disk capacity to half (160 GB as opposed to 320 GB in the June tender). So ELCOT which wanted to reduce costs by about Rs 3000 on the base price of Rs 15,000 chose to dispose of hardware, which would benefit the students instead of shaving off the costs by including free software with extra hardware. Considering the growing penetration and relevance of internet in today's times, without the Wi-Fi adapter, how beneficial is a laptop (defined as a personal computer for mobile use) to students?

So what changed between June 4 and August 20 that led to Microsoft’s OS being bundled into the laptop even though it meant higher costs and removing hardware from the system, which is helpful to students?

Diplomatic observers then point out to the stopover of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Chennai on July 20-21 when she met Jayalalitha before flying out to Indonesia on a state visit. “The proximity of the Clintons and the Gates is well known to the world and needs no explanation. Hillary Clinton has often endorsed Microsoft’s views on piracy and curtailing open source software to protect Intellectual Property Rights (IPR). Microsoft employees alone contributed close to $1,30,000 to Hillary’s presidential campaign while giving just half that amount to Obama’s campaign. And the revelations of WikiLeaks only show how the US has been forcing governments across the world to buy expensive Microsoft licences,” says Peter Gabriel, an online free software activist.

Two cables, one originating in the embassy at Hanoi and the other at the embassy in Tunis, throw enough light on the scale and nature of the government-corporation nexus in the United States and its influence on world governments.

According to one of the cables, the US government ‘intervened’ to force Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dzung to sign an agreement with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer that would require Hanoi to pay Microsoft $20 million for 3 lakh licences. This even though the Vietnamese PM wanted to hold the Microsoft deal as a deliverable till he met the US president later that year.

Now put that deal in an Indian context where 70 lakh licences would be required under Jayalalitha’s ambitious free laptop scheme and the business of diplomacy becomes clear. The Microsoft deal of 3 lakh licences was dubbed in the cable as ‘the most significant agreement Vietnam has ever signed with a US business’.

Another indication of what Microsoft is up to in Tamil Nadu can be understood from what the software giant did in Tunisia where only free software was being used in the government since 2001, which prevented Microsoft from participating in the Tunisian government’s tenders.

Microsoft, like its various charitable acts in India through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, also helped a charity for handicapped people run by the wife of the Tunisian president, Ben Ali. The confidential cable notes, ‘Microsoft has agreed to provide training to handicapped Tunisians to enable them to seek employment. The programme’s affiliation with Leila Ben Ali’s charity is indicative of the backroom manoeuvring sometimes required to finalise a deal. Microsoft’s reticence to fully disclose the details of the agreement shows Tunisia’s emphasis on secrecy over transparency. Ultimately, for Microsoft, the benefits outweigh the costs.’

Microsoft eventually bagged the contract to supply 12,000 licences to the Tunisian government. It also made the Tunisian government change its tender rules for IT equipment, and every subsequent tender now specifies that equipment must be Microsoft-compatible, which until then had been prohibited by Tunisia’s open software policy.

A similar scenario is unfolding in Tamil Nadu where despite a major shift to open source software in 2007 under DMK rule, the state is moving back to laptops for poor rural students preloaded with Microsoft Windows.

After one year, the performance of a Windows laptop goes down drastically. Using Windows would greatly hamper the productivity of the student using it and the machine would become useless within two years. This is a step backwards for Tamil Nadu. They thought since it is the tax payer’s money, it doesn’t matter what kind of laptop is given. Would anyone have bought a laptop for their personal use without vital hardware at an enhanced cost?”

Bengaluru-based software analyst Niranjan Bhargava says: “An inbuilt webcam would have helped poor students get access to qualitatively superior training from India’s centres of academic excellence, which are primarily concentrated in a few areas. A laptop without wireless capability is outdated. It is going back in time when we should be looking at leapfrogging broadband to improve wifi connectivity.”

Bhargava’s views are shared by Chennai-based IT consultant Mahesh Bhadani. “The education system should be vender-agnostic as ultimately it is the students who will have to pay the price of Microsoft’s armtwisting and invasive technology.

The Linux system has extremely beneficial academic applications for students available free of cost. For science students, free software like Stellarium and Kalzium are immensely beneficial.

The new tender also reduces the warranty to one year. That is a real bad idea considering that most of the users will be first timers who will be prone to mishandling the laptop out of ignorance,” Bhadani said.

What should probably be more disconcerting than Microsoft’s aggressive strategy is that Jayalalitha is making the same mistakes that leaders of underdeveloped African nations made under US pressure.

However it is still not known whether there were any other consideration, as in the case of the wife of the Tunisian President Ben Ali, that ‘moved’ Jayalalitha to add costly and risky MS software meant for students, unpacked by Hillary Clinton’s Chennai stopover.

But visibly there was a short-lived attempt for cheap and silly glorification of Jayalalitha. Following her meeting with Hillary Clinton and the subsequent event of a US congressional committee mooting a proposal for a $100 million aid cut for Sri Lanka for violation of human rights, for the consideration of US Congress and senate in October this year, the pro-Jayalalitha English daily ‘The New Indian Express’ stooped so low to interlink the two separate and unrelated events and interpreted it as a diplomatic success for Jayalalitha, publishing an editorial glorifying Jayalalitha that she has emerged as the ‘Leader of World Tamils.’ Exhilarated Jayalalitha signalled her minions to issue ads in newspapers and posters across the state hailing her as ‘Leader of World Tamils’.

However, the ad-blitz was very short-lived (only for two-three days) as the DMK daily ‘Murasoli’ exposed the bluff, as the official website of the US State department did not mention a word about the meeting of Hillary Clinton with Jayalalitha, whereas all her other engagements in Chennai were found posted on the website in detail. Ashamed over the much-ado-about-nothing,  she had directed her party’s official organ to halt publishing ads in this manner.

Now the cat is out of the bag. It was not at all Lankan Tamils issue that transpired in their very brief meeting, but the US lady pushed the US business interests and successfully pressurised Jaya for the market-starved Microsoft, of course at the huge cost of the students of Tamil Nadu and also, the State exchequer!