Kerala IT.Com:  Chief Minister postpones, comes late
By NRM
 
The biggest IT event in Kerala, the Kerala IT.Com 2008, started off with a bang in Trivandrum. The three day event was inaugurated by the Chief Minister of Kerala, Shri V S Achuthanandan at a function held at the Technopark on March 13, 2008. But the day belonged to Mr. Achuthanandan, who is fondly called Achu mama because of this theatrics.

After he rose to deliver the Inaugural Address, Achu mama started off by reading the programme sheet, starting from the ‘Welcome Address by State IT Secretary’ to the ‘Vote of Thanks by CEO, Technopark’.  There were ripples of quiet laughter at this faux pas, but the audience was too polite to let him know. And then he proceeded to read out his Inaugural speech, copies of which were already there with the audience.
 
Earlier, the inaugural function which was scheduled for 3 pm was postponed to 4 pm as the CM, who is also the IT Minister was expected to come late. But it was 5 pm when he finally came. The invitees which included several honchos of the IT Industry and the media were seen fuming at this inordinate delay. Many of them were questioning the need for politicians to inaugurate such industry events. However, the bureaucrats were at ease. Probably they are more used to this!
 
But some of the IT top shots utilised this delay to catch up with their work. Blackberries and PDA’s were out while some were working on their laptops. Yet those who didn’t have a Datacard or an EVDO were let down as there was no wi-fi at the Park Centre Auditorium in Technopark.  The place is supposed to be a hot spot but it was not working.
 
Earlier in the day, a National e-Governance Programme (NeGP) Advocacy conference also began as part of the Kerala IT.Com. But even as discussions were being held on serious issues like Common Service Centre, Service Delivery Infrastructure and Capacity Building, the Windows XP on the laptop hung during the presentation by CMC forcing the CDAC representative to carry on without his PPT. This did make several delegates to think aloud if it wasn’t risky to have a National e-Governance Programme on Windows!!