Every MLA can now access everything, including statements, agenda, reports, Bills, Budget, minutes and proceedings that were tabled in the Assembly in the past year, on the desktop installed on their table, Tamil Nadu Finance Minister Palanivel Thiaga Rajan said on Tuesday.
The plan is to make available all the data on their monitors since the inception of Madras Presidency’s legislative council in 1921 so that in real-time MLAs can extract data, question the government and get into a debate, he said.
He was speaking at the inauguration of a two-day international conference on ‘Memory Studies Memory in a digital age’ at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras Research Park.
“We are in the age of universal memory and so much common information is available to anybody, anytime. It has greatly enhanced the intellectual capabilities of the common people. Now, we live in the age of infinite external memory. However, there are issues in engines of storage and retrieval. Conferences such as these are very important since universalisation of memory has still not translated into universal access,” he said.
Mr. Thiaga Rajan also launched the conference book and an app, ‘MemoryBytes’, that uses augmented reality and virtual reality to capture the life and 500-year history of the Anglo-Indian community in India.
In the digital age, it is important to find ways to store information and maintain the formats, said Institute director V. Kamakoti. “As data keep growing, we are looking at different ways to store data. The conference will feature many AR- and VR-related developments which participants can experience them, learn from history and the past,” he said.
Conference coordinator Avishek Parui said over 160 major memory studies scholars from across the world are participating in the conference that is being held in a hybrid mode.
Co-principal investigator Merin Simi Raj said the conference followed from the first meeting in 2019 on the centenary of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of which an augmented reality-animated mural artwork was created.
After the conference, the Centre for Memory Studies has proposed to scale up its research into organisational memory by launching two major projects — campus chronotope and remembering Mamallapuram. For this, the Institute has tied up with Vizara, an all-women Delhi-based tech firm.
