As governments ar-ound the world adopt to e-governance big-time, one of the major problem faced by them and their constituents is that they may not be able to access, retrieve and use critical records, information and documents in the future. This is because the documents could be stored in different formats, using different platform technologies.

And in an effort to make the documents accessible online easily, several technology companies and organisations got together and formed the Open Document Format Alliance in March this year. The mission of the ODF Alliance is to enable "the public sector to have greater control over and direct management of their own records, information and documents, the ODF Alliance seeks to promote and advance the use of ODF".

ODF Alliance works globally to educate policymakers, IT administrators and the public on the benefits and opportunities of the Open Document Format to help ensure that government information, records and documents are accessible across platforms and applications, even as technologies change today and in the future.

The ODF Alliance kicked off its events in India with a national seminar on ODF in New Delhi on Friday jointly with the "International Congress on Electronic Governance" at IIT Delhi. But what’s ODF. It’s an open XML-based document file format that enables the retrieval of information and exchange of documents (including spreadsheets, charts, and presentations) without regard to the application or platform in which the document was created — both now and in the future.

ODF was developed as an application-independent file format by Oasis (Organisation for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards), a vendor-neutral standards organisation. It is available for implementation and use free of any licensing, royalty payments or other restrictions. ODF has been an approved OASIS standard since May 2005 and has been implemented by multiple vendors in a variety of products as well as in multiple open source software projects.

The best part of ODF is that its specification is available for use by any developer, including proprietary software vendors as well as open source developers. Key members of of ODF Alliance in India include Sun Microsystems, IBM, Red Hat, IBM, Novell, CDAC and faculty from IIT Delhi, IIM Ahmedabad and IIT Bombay.The alliance says that ODF provides governments with enhanced access by ensuring that documents are usable in the future by anyone, at any time.

"By providing complete interoperability among office suites, ODF provides governments with greater choice."

Mittal Steel has sweetened its proposal for a partnership with European group Arcelor and the two companies are now on the point of striking an agreement, a source close to the matter said on Sunday. The source said Mr Mittal, the world’s leading steelmaker, was now offering 40.37 euros per Arcelor share, up from a previous offer of 37.74 euros, in its bid to forge a partnership with the number two producer.

"Mittal Steel has asked the Arcelor board to consider an offer on the basis of 40.37 euros a share and there will be an accord," the source told AFP, asking not to be named. Neither group would confirm the report.

The Wall Street Journal, quoting unidentified people close to the matter, said Mr Mittal was willing to hand over an extra euro 3.3 billion ($4.1 billion) in cash, increasing its last offer by euro 5 ($6.25) a share compared to Arcelor’s last trading price. It said executives from both companies have agreed to the terms, but Arcelor’s board still had to approve it. An earlier report from CNBC said Mr Mittal would pay euro 43 a share. Arcelor said it would not comment until the board meeting finished later on Sunday. "Anything is speculation until the end of the board meeting and the publication of a statement," said spokesman Luc Scheer.

Mr Mittal also refused to comment until Arcelor had spoken. It would not confirm that its own board was meeting separately in London to discuss the offer. According to sources close to the deal, when the deal is finalised, it could see Mr Lakshmi Mittal as co-chairman with Mr Joseph Kinsch and his son Aditya Mittal would also be a member on the board. 75 per cent of the board would consist of Arcelor’s representatives.

The company would be called Arcelor Mittal. Mr Mittal will be a minority shareholder with a 45 per cent stake. It is also learnt that Arcelor will have to pay Russia’s Severstal, controlled by steel magnate Alexei Mordashov, euro 130 million for going back on the contract. Arcelor had tried to get in Severstal as a white knight to stave off Mittal Steel.