[icernet] Media Lab: Shourie denies MIT allegations

[Arul Selvan]

Brushing aside allegations by Massachusetts Institute of Technology that 
it withdrew from a research project in India due to differences with 
him, Information and Technology Minister Arun Shourie said on Friday 
that the US-based institute failed to add value to the project, which 
was designed to benefit the Indian masses.

"The agreement with MIT which lapsed on March 31 was not renewed, not 
because I am not interested in rural development but because researcher 
in five IITs to whom funds had been given for the project said, 'we 
can't tell what contribution came about from MIT'," Shourie said 
reacting to allegations by MIT that he did not believe in rural 
development through IT.

Terming the allegations made by MIT Media Lab chairman Nicholas P 
Negroponte as "strange", Shourie said, "I don't want the relationship to 
end unhappily so I don't want to react on the sort of phrases that 
Negroponte has used. That was not the tenor of talks when he came to see 
me with Prof Pentland."

The project -- Media Lab Asia -- was founded in 2001 to develop 
technologies to help transform the economically weaker sections of the 
society with affordable wireless and Internet technology.

Asked if he saw Media Lab's withdrawal as a major loss to the project, 
Shourie answered in the negative.

A lot of money was being spent by the Indian government even when the 
work was being done by IIT professors, Shourie said, adding that the 
IITs did not want an exclusive tie-up with any agency.

"There should be a choice. This kind of considerations led to a revamp 
of the project," Shourie said.

Hitting out at MIT, Shourie said that at one point they had promised 
that due to association of great names (with the project), lot of 
private funds would come but "private entrepreneurs who were on the 
board of MLA had also not contributed anything. So in the end it was 
completely a government-funded project."

About the meagre MIT cooperation to the project, Shourie said, "One of 
them (IIT professors) said there had been only two e-mail messages in 
the whole year and twice they (MIT professors) came to give lectures."

"Such was the extent of value addition by MIT."

The minister said there was a demand of payment of five million dollars 
of government money just for using the word 'Media Lab Asia', and added, 
"I certainly did not see why it must be done."

Source:
http://www.rediff.com/money/2003/may/09medialab.htm