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E-Rate

Congress created the E-Rate program in 1996 to help schools and libraries keep up with the cost of providing Internet and telecommunications access.

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 provided a fund of $2.25 billion annually to be distributed to these entities.

While it is not funded by taxpayer dollars, telecommunications companies pass their costs along to customers through a charge on their bills, sometimes labeled as Federal Universal Service Fund.

The program reimburses schools and libraries for 20 to 90 percent of their costs to provide telecommunications and Internet access, including internal connections and basic maintenance as well as usage costs.

The discount provided is based on the level of poverty of the children served.

For example, Coachella Valley Unified School District has received 88 to 90 percent reimbursement in the past three years, Palm Springs Unified has received 82 to 86 percent and Desert Sands Unified has received 70 to 76 percent.

Schools are required to submit a technology plan and use a competitive bidding process to find vendors and meet other requirements to receive funding.

In 2011, the program distributed nearly $2.23 billion.

E-Rate funds are distributed by the Universal Service Administrative Company, which was designated by the Federal Communications Commission.

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Coachella Valley Unified students remain frozen in digital divide

MORE INTERVIEWS:Crowne Plaza Invitational at ColonialDOUG MILNE:Jason Dufner, thanks for joining us for a few minutes one last time here at the 2012 Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial. All in all a really great couple of weeks. The only one hiccup on the 15th hole today didn't end up the way we wanted.

You still got to be feeling pretty good about the last couple of weeks and your play here this week at Colonial.

JASON DUFNER:Yes, definitely the last month of golf, the last three months of golf has been a pretty good run. Today, obviously, a little disappointing to play that poorly and not kind of have a chance there at the end. I thought we were looking at another duel kind of coming into 18 with Zach and I because we were both back and forth, kind of struggling, both of us a little bit. But it wasn't meant to be today and that's about it.

Q. Jason, did fatigue --

JASON DUFNER:I feel pretty good actually. I felt really good yesterday. I probably felt the best I had all week today. I felt pretty good. I just played really poorly today.

Q. Can you go through what happened at 15, what did you hit off the tee?

JASON DUFNER:I hit a 3 wood off the tee. The fairways were chasing a little bit more today. I've been underneath that bunker with 3 wood, just rolled into it. I had 142 or 3 yards, a little wind in and off the right. I hit a 9 iron probably a little bit further left than I was looking, but still that's a pretty long 9 iron for me out of the bunker into the wind. Just pitched it on the back, and it barely trickled over in the water, and you are pretty much dead back there. I probably could have made a 6 pretty easily. It turned out to be a 7 and turned out to be the difference in the tournament.

Q. It looked like on the tee shot on 17, on your follow through, your shot drifted right, and you dropped your club in it, it just sort of looked like you had a moment like you couldn't believe you had run into this stretch?

JASON DUFNER:No, I could believe it. It was happening.

Q. Why, because you had been playing so well in that four or five hole stretch, it didn't seem like anything worked? Could you believe you had run into that kind of luck, or bad luck?

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What they said: Jason Dufner

TALLAHASSE, Fla. (AP) -- May 27, 2012

Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi is celebrating her wedding in the Cayman Island this weekend.

Sen. Paula Dockery posted pictures on Facebook of the wedding party on their flight to the islands and later posted a picture of Bondi serving punch to friends. Bondi's wedding to Tampa ophthalmologist Greg Henderson was a small ceremony with close friends and family.

Gov. Rick Scott and his wife were also in attendance.

Bondi was a Hillsborough County assistant state before being elected attorney general in 2010.

The Republican is a tea party favorite and has been a popular commentator of Fox News over the years. She told the Tampa Tribune that she and Henderson would be legally married once back in the United States in a private ceremony.

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Florida AG Pam Bondi Celebrates Wedding In The Cayman Islands

REVIEW

James C. Scott writes powerfully in favour of marginalised peoples' refusal to be subjected to extracting rulers in The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia.

THE ART OF NOT BEING GOVERNED An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia by James C. Scott 337 Pages. Yale University Press

At the same time, Scott pinpoints the difficulties of states that have tried to wrest control over people constantly on-the-move. The anthropologist and political scientist draws extensively on works done by other scholars before him. But original and a source of the author's pride is his development of "friction of terrain" _ or the ruggedness of hill peoples' choice of environment and remoteness _ as a major constraint for state-making in pre-modern societies.

Looking back 2,000 years from the time of the Han Chinese state up until World War II, Scott covers people living in a mountainous area stretching from Central Vietnam across Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Burma and four provinces in the southwest of China to India and Bangladesh.

He credits William van Schendel with being the first to call this area Zomia in a paper published in 2002. He dwells at length on Edward Leach's 1954 study of minorities in the highlands of Burma, and pays tribute to Pierre Castre's 1987 paper on frontier peoples in South America. Duly cited is Thongchai Winichaikul's opus on the mapping of Siam.

In Southeast Asia, Scott says the upland peoples evaded rulers "to avoid incorporation into state structures" and escape "peasant status". Those on the move in Zomia included egalitarian Hmong or Miao, as well as the hierarchai Tai or Shan, who were widely dispersed through the area.

He says his discussion of the limits set by hill peoples' choice to stay distant from centres of power and in terrain difficult to reach is intended to generate a new way of understanding state space.

James C. Scott

Scott refuses to refer to the 80 to 100 ethinicities in Zomia as tribes "in the strong sense of the word". The book's longest chapter _ called Ethnogenesis _ spells out why as it elaborates on the hill people's origins and practices. Scott is witty and cites examples that should make sense to specialists and generalists. He emphasises the "symbiosis" of hill and valley peoples, and in particular, their mutual benefits in trade.

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The ultimate freedom

New Delhi, May 27:

A sharp plunge in rupee value to near Rs 55-56 levels against the dollar may be bad news for the markets and the economy, but the currencys depreciation may bring cheer to some including, NRIs remitting money from abroad and expats drawing salaries in dollars.

Amid a fall in rupee and stock markets, concerns are rife about a slowdown in economic growth momentum. However, a weaker rupee could mean good news for the Non-Residential Indians (NRIs) and others remitting money from abroad to their families back in India, experts said.

The rupee has not only lost sheen against the US dollar but also against other currencies. One dollar gets a little over Rs 55 now, which is nearly 12.67 per cent more than what it did on March 1. Similarly, a British pound brings Rs 86.73, (up 10.62 per cent), euro brings Rs 69.30 (up 5.83 per cent) and Australian dollar Rs 54.02 (up 1.75 per cent), a forex expert said.

India has one of the largest NRI diaspora in the world after China estimated to be around 30 million. According to World Bank data, India received remittance worth $ 64 billion in 2011 - the top recipient among developing nations.

Windfall gains could also be reaped by expats working in India with income in foreign currencies like the US dollar but incurring expenses in rupee, they added.

This is because in the short term, these employees are set to gain from a weaker rupee as they earn more rupees from their dollar-denominated salaries, an HR expert said.

The rupee on Thursday hit a record low of Rs 56.38 against the US dollar. While some recovery was seen on Friday but the rupee remained above the 55-level. The rupee has slid by a whopping 13 per cent since March 1, while market barometer Sensex has tanked by nearly 8 per cent in this period.

Besides, for those people who are planning a visit to India now, have a lot to cheer about as they will get good bargain for their home country currencies now.

This translates to having more spending power in India as compared to other favourite destinations like Singapore and Thailand. Each US dollar now costs 1.28 Singapore Dollar, and 31.63 Thai Bhat.

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Weak rupee may help dollar earning NRIs, expats