CJP inaugurates online case status software: Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry recently inaugurated the online case status software on the official website of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, in the Supreme Court Building in the federal capital. The software aims to facilitate both the advocates and the litigants, who can inquire the status of their cases online on a daily basis. The software will allow searches by case number, by parties’ name and by date.
Through the software, the CJP wishes that each and every case heard by the courts should be made available online.

USF awarded telecom contracts worth Rs 1.25 billion: Universal Service Fund (USF) awarded telecom contracts worth Rs 1.25 billion for providing Broadband Internet connectivity in the un-served urban areas of Hazara Telecom Region (HTR) in collaboration with PTCL and Wateen Telecom and Optic Fiber connectivity to un-served tehsils of Central Balochistan in league with Wateen Telecom.
In the Broadband project, PTCL and Wateen Telecom together will be paid Rs 266 Million, out of the USF that is collected from contributions of licensed telecom operators to provide broadband internet services in Abbottabad, Batagram, Haripur, Kohistan and Mansehra districts (17 towns) of Hazara Telecom Region (HTR).
Whereas, in the Optic Fiber project, Wateen Telecom will be paid Rs 986 Million for laying more than 1,100 km of optic fiber in 11 un-served tehsils including six Tehsil Headquarters, five towns of Central Balochistan, three Tehsil Headquarters and three other towns of Punjab. Around seven hundred thousand people will benefit from these projects.

Microsoft & Punjab Government together to Educate masses: Microsoft Pakistan and Educational Department Punjab recently entered in a partnership to provide schools with resources, trainings, expertise that will help create institutions to better prepare students for life and work in the 21st century. It is a four years programme from 2009-2013 in which both parties will collaborate to jointly provide Internet access to the schools and improve use of information and communication technology (ICT) for the support of teaching and learning.
During this time period, about 4,236 labs will be built in 36 small towns of Punjab. Every lab will be equipped with 15 Terminal computers and a server Server equipped with software solutions from Microsoft, a printer and an Air Conditioner. About 4,487 new IT jobs will be generated through this project.

Sharing to boost IT education: Desktop virtualisation could cut the cost of rolling out computers to schools by half with maintenance and electricity costs falling even further, according to NComputing, which hopes Thailand will consider using the technology for the massive school PC project under the ‘Strong Thai’ stimulus package.
Manish Sharma, NComputing vice-president for sales in Asia-Pacific, explained how today’s computers are powerful enough to be shared and it is possible to split one computer between 10 users in a school or office setting. A project by the Pakistan government saw 13,000 computers and 65,000 NComputing devices. In total, around two million devices have been rolled out in the Asia-Pacfic region, with many organisations and schools in Thailand also adopting the technology.