The compromise will act as a savior for United Progressive Alliance's ambitious Aadhaar number programme. The decision is important for ruling Congress party as it enters into an election phase in many states, where Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi is promising Aadhaar as a one stop solution to end corruption.

The compromise gives both the Home Ministry and Mr Nilekani's UIDAI (Unique Identification Authority of India) the power to collect biometrics. Mr Nilekani, who has already collected the data for 20 crores has been authorised to gather biometric data for another 40 crores. He had asked for the money and sanction to enroll all Indians. The problem so far was that the same data was also being collected by the Home Ministry for the National Population Register or NPR, which when completed, will be the world's largest biometric database.

The $3.4-million program was rolled out Thursday with statements from chiefs with the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, the Southern Chiefs Organization and the Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak in the north.

The groups say it's the first time First Nations health workers have had access to software to consolidate patient files and manage care through electronic records directly on First Nations.

Over the weekend, a joint ministerial statement announced a further $20.6 million to fund pilot projects, in areas where the NBN has already been rolled out, which demonstrate how in-home technology can improve aged care, palliative care and cancer care.

The Australian Medical Association (AMA) has continued to lobby the government to change its $466.7 million e-health record system to an “opt-out” model, arguing that the current “opt-in” model will undermine the system’s health improvement objectives.

In its submission (PDF) to the Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record (PCEHR) Bill 2011, the industry body’s president, Steve Hambleton, maintained the current “opt-in” design will undermine the goals of the system, “to reduce the occurrence of adverse medical events and duplication of treatment”.

The state just wrapped up a once-per-decade process that requires branding information for livestock to be re-recorded. For the first time, that process was made available online. The yearlong registration concluded at the end of 2011.

Digital public services are getting a lot of praise across both Whitehall and town halls as a means to transform service delivery and to cut costs.

Ministers are so convinced of the value of this route that they want public services to be digital by default. Government digital champion Martha Lane Fox, the online entrepreneur behind this "huge culture shift", says there are major benefits to be had for both government and the individual.

Broadband MEA, the premier event driving sustainable growth of broadband in the Middle East and Africa, is attracting top industry representatives in the region to its first ever Rural Broadband Summit to be held on 25 March 2012. As MEA governments and industry players alike work towards bridging the digital divide to improve rural broadband, the summit will explore the opportunities and innovations required to achieve connectivity in these territories.

Speaking at the launch in the City of Thiruvananthapuram Technopark, Kerala State IT and Industries Minister P K Kunhalikutty said that the new data centre would host government services and applications, and this enable the implementation of new G2G, G2B and G2C services.

“Kerala has to go a long way on the IT front. In the neighbouring state such as Karnataka, it has reached a saturation point and the IT companies are looking at Kerala for investment and the state should reap the maximum out of it,” he commented during his official statement.