<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<META content="MSHTML 6.00.6000.16788" name=GENERATOR></HEAD>
<BODY id=role_body style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: #000000; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"
bottomMargin=7 leftMargin=7 topMargin=7 rightMargin=7><FONT id=role_document
face=Arial color=#000000 size=2>
<DIV>May I add to the comments made here by Guru that "accessibility" also must
include access to the internet for all persons with all types of
disabilities.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Myra Kovary, M.L.A.</DIV>
<DIV><A href="mailto:mmk29@cornell.edu">mmk29@cornell.edu</A> </DIV>
<DIV>-- A UN Representative to the Convention on the Rights of Persons With
Disabilities from MindFreedom International</DIV>
<DIV>-- A member of the International Disability Alliance CRPD Forum</DIV>
<DIV>-- A member of the International Disability Caucus</DIV>
<DIV>-- A member of the World Network of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry</DIV>
<DIV>-- A moderator and founding member of the new listserv for the
International Network of Women With Disabilities</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV>In a message dated 2/1/2009 11:19:39 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,
guru@itforchange.net writes:</DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: blue 2px solid"><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000 size=2><FONT
face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">Basically MG is suggesting (and I agree
with him) that 'internet for all' means actual ability of people to use the
internet and that needs to go far beyond 'access' if that only implies putting
some infrastructure in place. There are several obstacles/constraints to
people using the internet and non availability of infrastructure is only one
(albeit perhaps the first constraint that needs to be tackled)... this
includes social constraints (women not being able to access internet points
due to patriarchal pressures is one example), individual capacities -
including literacy, the lack of which means that most of the text based
internet is not accessible (though we have far more av content now), 'surround
infrastructure' including power backups, robust hardware, relevant
applications and content etc etc.<BR> <BR>Just as 'education for all'
means much more than building schools and classrooms, though that is certainly
an important starting point ... in India for e.g. the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan
(the national program which has education for all as its basic goal) has
programs which look at free text books and learning material, free uniforms,
free meals for children, bicycles for girls .. without these elements,
it is clear that hundreds of thousands of children would not be able to go to
school and universal education would remain a dream. However, with these
measures ('affirmative action'), enrollment has risen from around 70% a decade
back to over 95% today. <BR></FONT><FONT
face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><BR></FONT><FONT
face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">In the same way, Internet for all,
requires several measures (global and national public policy) .... and
creating the infrastructure is one of them. I am not suggesting that
'freebies' is the only way to go, but we need to look at different options and
see which have a good chance of ensuring meaningful access and
use.<BR></FONT><FONT face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><BR></FONT><FONT
face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">As I suggested earlier, education in
todays world has to necessarily include acquiring capacities to navigate the
information society that the internet is 'creating' and in this sense, 'right
to education', which is part of the UNDHR, subsumes a 'right to the
internet'.</FONT><BR><FONT face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><BR>Also
Roland, the '90:10' ratio may be true in some places, but in most parts of the
world is likely to be more around 50:50 or even 20:80 ..... suggesting even
greater requirement of global efforts including those relating to public
policy.<BR><BR>Guru<BR><BR></FONT><BR>Roland Perry wrote:
<BLOCKQUOTE cite=mid:wt8e97eEJhhJFATU@perry.co.uk type="cite">In message
<C5C6560F9A524F4B826F15C29FBD7418@userPC>, at 08:34:35 on Sun, 1 Feb
2009, Michael Gurstein <A class=moz-txt-link-rfc2396E
title=mailto:gurstein@gmail.com
href="mailto:gurstein@gmail.com"><gurstein@gmail.com></A> writes <BR>
<BLOCKQUOTE type="cite">What I think needs to be added to Parminder's
comments though is that the <BR>simple provision of Broadband access is
quite insufficient without the <BR>parallel and associated investment in
socially directed training, enabling <BR>of locally accessible technical
maintenance and support and community <BR>focussed applications
development (as for example in the area of health <BR>management, support
for local education and locally based training, <BR>environmental
management and so on... In the absence of these investments in
<BR>Broadband "access" are simply gifts to the telcos or other service
<BR>providers. <BR></BLOCKQUOTE><BR>The *universal* access of which I spoke,
relates only to the remaining 10% of the population that telcos find too
expensive to service using normal commercial rules. Governments mandating
that they *do* service these customers (at the same price as the easy 90%)
doesn't sound much like a "gift" to those telcos. <BR></BLOCKQUOTE><PRE class=moz-signature cols="72">--
Gurumurthy Kasinathan
IT for Change
Bridging Development Realities and Technological Possibilities
Tel:98454 37730
<A class=moz-txt-link-abbreviated title=http://www.itforchange.net/ href="http://www.itforchange.net/">www.ITforChange.net</A>
<A class=moz-txt-link-freetext title=http://public-software.in/ href="http://public-software.in/">http://Public-Software.in</A>
<A class=moz-txt-link-freetext title=http://india.is-watch.net/ href="http://india.is-watch.net/">http://India.IS-Watch.net</A>
<A class=moz-txt-link-freetext title=http://is-watch.net/ href="http://is-watch.net/">http://IS-Watch.net</A>
<A class=moz-txt-link-freetext title=http://content-commons.in/ href="http://content-commons.in/">http://content-commons.in</A>
*IT for Change is an NGO in Special Consultative Status with United Nations’ Economic and Social Council*
</PRE><BR><BR>____________________________________________________________<BR>You
received this message as a subscriber on the list:<BR>
governance@lists.cpsr.org<BR>To be removed from the list, send any message
to:<BR> governance-unsubscribe@lists.cpsr.org<BR><BR>For
all list information and functions, see:<BR>
http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/governance</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV></FONT><br/><font style="color:black;font:normal 10pt arial,san-serif;"> <hr style="margin-top:10px"/><b>Know Your Numbers</b>: Get <a href="http://www.walletpop.com/credit/credit-reports?ncid=emlcntuswall00000002">tips and tools</a> to help you improve your credit score.</font></DIV></BODY></HTML>