The Launch Ceremony
BEGINNING OF A CELEBRATION
In a befitting ceremony on January 20, 2010, digitalLEARNING saw launch of its 50th issue along with a Curtain Raiser of 6th eINDIA 2010 Conference and Exhibition. It was an evening that saw the presence of many eminent personalities at Claridges, New Delhi. It has been a mandate with digitalLEARNING Magazine to provide with a forum where the stakeholders' perspectives and experiences are brought together to benefit all. Disseminating the best practices and suggesting perspectives of importance to policy makers has been on the digitalLEARNING agenda since its inception.
The launch was a celebration to highlight the diverse areas that the magazine has catered to in the past years. The magazine has received contributions from more than 320 authors representing diverse spectrum of the ICT in education community, over the past 50 issues. These contributions were received not only from scholars of high stature but also from different backgrounds and geographical locations. DigitalLEARNING Magazine has received contributions from India, Malaysia, USA, UK, Philippines, China, Thailand, Indonesia, South Africa, Bangladesh, Singapore, China, Pakistan, Canada and Turkey. To add to the list, the magazine received additional contributions from Russia, Israel, Kenya, Ghana, New York and Australia. This showcased the expanding global reach of digitalLEARNING. Not to mention, the response of the diverse audience, who have been overwhelmingly supportive!
FELICITATING CEREMONY
Dr. Ravi Gupta, Executive Director, welcomed the esteemed dignitaries to the launch and the curtain-raiser event. He gave a brief presentation on the journey of digitalLEARNING Magazine so far and opened a round of discussion amongst the eminent panelists, who graced the occasion. Following the introduction and welcome speech, the 50th issue of digitalLEARNING Magazine was launched along with the formal launch of eINDIA 2010 brochures. The panelists consisted of M P Narayanan, President, Centre for Science Development and Media Studies; Dr. A K Bakshi, Director, Institute of Life Long Learning; Dr. S S Jena, Chairman, National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS); Shri Subhash C Khuntia, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Human Resource Development; Prof. V N Rajashekharan Pillai, Vice Chancellor, Indira Gandhi National Open University; Dr. Latha Pillai, Pro-Vice Chancellor, IGNOU; Shakila Shamsu, Advisor-Education, Planning Commission; Amit Gupta, CEO, S.Chand Group; and Dr. Nirmaljeet Singh Kalsi, IAS, Joint Secretary, Government of India, Ministry of Home Affairs.
THE MAGAZINE
Dr. Ravi Gupta, to begin with, requested the panelists to speak about the highlights of digitalLEARNING magazine coverage. Dr. Latha Pillai opined that the digitalLEARNING magazine reaches out to a large number of people, with the issue covering themes across diverse domains related to education and ICT. Amit Gupta mentioned that the magazine and the conferences, i.e., eINDIA and eASiA, represent a fine Public Private Partnership model, which have help perpetuate awareness. “The reason why I say so is because they represent a diverse variety in an unbiased manner to create awareness,” he added.
Dr. S S Jena stated that his opinion of ICT, earlier, was specifically restricted to Higher Education. With the magazine, he has realised that ICT can be effectively used in other fields including school education and Open Distance Learning (ODL). Shri Subhash C Khuntia congratulated the editorial team of the magazine for the 50th issue. He mentioned that initially, the magazine dealt with a niche area and that it had a jittery start. But with the efforts of the team, the magazine has been a success due to the diverse range of content which deals with contemporary issues. The team has persistently worked on the magazine to fill in the voids existing in the country about the ICT awareness, be it in terms of hardware or software. The magazine has two very important processes embedded in itself
