BANGALORE: Microsoft head honcho Bill Gates is expected to visit Chennai in December this year, said Dayanidhi Maran, union minister for communications and IT.
“I have asked Gates to come to India and also look beyond Bangalore. He will be visiting Chennai this time,” said Maran.
The minister said that he was pleased with the infrastructure improvement activities undertaken by the Dharam Singh government.” We need more visible changes. I have also requested the center to release Rs 500 crore under the Central Scheme for Critical Infrastructure to fund the construction of 50 flyovers in Bangalore.”
Maran also said that IT should grow beyond Bangalore and in other cities like Mysore and Hubli.
Gates has invested Rs 10 crore in a pilot project to take e-governance to the villages, Maran said, adding, Microsoft had taken the bold step of deciding to launch bi-lingual Microsoft Windows XP starter (in English and a local language). “Besides Hindi, the edition would be launched in eight local languages in January next year.”
On the education front, Maran said that Microsoft had agreed to sponsor a pilot project to train teachers. This involves deploying 5000 computers across a hundred schools in six states.
Source:CIOL