'Mahinda Chinthanaya' - a positive approach to ICT

OURS is an organisation comprising peoples of different walks of life espousing different political ideologies.

We have given serious thought to the contents of manifestos of both Presidential candidates relating to the forthcoming Presidential election and have decided to support unanimously the most beneficial one, a news release from the IT Professionals Circle said.

It said: "After having studied both manifestos, our decision had to be based on points derived from both of them since most media in this country are in the habit of arriving at their decisions on political and other privileges.

It is with much regret we note that "Ranil's People's Agenda" does not address the issue of Information Communication Technology.

We can still recollect the priority give to ICT in his programme "Regaining Sri Lanka", three years ago. Besides, the UNP leader sets up therein the ICTA, which was considered comparatively more efficient as against CINTEC.

However, 'People's Agenda' does not address the ICT sector and not a single word on ICTs in Mr. Wickremesinghe's presidential manifesto.

'Mahinda Chinthana' has a positive approach and recognises the importance of ICT. Establishment of ICT centres called 'Nana Salas' in rural areas and the introducing ICT in Sinhala and Tamil, which had hitherto been confined only to English is another factor to be considered.

There is also a Rural Telecommunication network to be set up in far flung villages. Premier Rajapakse also suggests using ICT to re-engineer the government to provide better citizen services to the public.

We believe that he has the political determination to implement these ICT projects.

Ultimately it is our opinion that it is only under such a leadership, we would be able to utilise ICT for the development of the entire country and end the era when ICT was confined only to the elite society.