9241 - Indian Police District Adopts Biometric Time and Attendance for Staff - Find Biometrics

Indian Police District Adopts Biometric Time and Attendance for Staff

Posted on January 5, 2016

With Aadhaar leading the way, biometric time and attendance tracking continues its spread through India’s public sector. The district police office (DPO) of Virudhunagar state has announced that it has now implemented such a system for its own ministerial staff.

It’s a move aimed at improving administrative efficiency and preventing potential timesheet fraud. Commenting on its deployment to The Hindu, Virudhunagar Superintendent of Police P. Aravindhan said that administration via the old system took “a lot of time”, while “with the new system, the attendance is automatically stored in the computer within seconds past 10 a.m. every day.” He added that it also prevents workers from leaving the office before their designated daily end times.

While the system applies only to the ministerial workers at the DPO, since only they work on a regular daily schedule, it’s yet another instance of time and attendance tracking bringing further accountability to government workers and the public sector in general. This trend has been initiated from the top down, largely via the central government’s implementation of biometric tracking through its Aadhaar biometric citizen registry; and while it has proven controversial in some deployments, it also appears to be increasingly popular, and may soon become pervasive in the private sector too.

Source: The Hindu

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January 5, 2016 – by Alex Perala

9240 - Odd-even scheme fails to hit attendance - Business Standard

Odd-even scheme fails to hit attendance

Numbers in central government offices higher than last Monday, but less than Friday's

N Sundaresha Subramanian  |  New Delhi 

January 5, 2016 Last Updated at 00:30 IST

Vehicles at ITO chowk during odd-even scheme in New Delhi. Photo: Dalip Kumar

The odd-even scheme, introduced by the Delhi government, did not have any significant impact on the attendance of employees in the hundreds of central government offices in the capital.

According to attendance.gov.in portal that publishes attendance statistics of over 500 offices under various departments and ministries in the capital, about 88,900 employees had marked their presence as of 5 pm. About 3,540 employees had reached office by 8am. The odd-even rule remains in force between 8am and 8pm. The attendance rose to 20,317 by nine before crossing the 80,000-mark around 10.30am. The presence graph showed sharp falls after 5pm dropping below 70,000-mark by 5.30 pm.

The number was slightly higher than attendance numbers reported on previous Monday, when 78,900 employees marked attendance. However, it was less than Friday, when only cars with odd numbered registration plates were allowed on road.

While the attendance number stayed around the 75,000-mark between December 29 and 31, it had shot up to 94,105 on January 1. Business Standard summed up the previous week's data from the line graphs on the portal that gave separate numbers reported through tablet based devices and PC-based devices. For example, on January 1, tablet-based attendance was 77,542 and PC-based attendance was 16,563 adding up to 94,105.

These numbers are based on attendance marked by employees with Aadhaar numbers through the tablet and PC-based biometric devices installed in these government offices. An employee at the portal's office confirmed that these are numbers for central government offices in Delhi and added that historic data beyond what is published on the portal was available, but could not be shared.

The portal reports a higher number of attendances under "department verified" category, which could include employees that did not have Aadhaar and offices that are yet to install biometric systems. On Monday, this number stood at over 110,000.

Based on this department verified numbers, of the 525 offices for which data was reported on Monday as many as 43 offices recorded 100 per cent attendance. Another 242 offices reported attendance of between 90-99.9 per cent.

Office of the commissioner of service tax, which is located in the IP Estate, was among the largest offices with all 519 employees reporting for duty. All 463 employees of Central Government Health Scheme, North Zone, in New Rajinder Nagar, were present on Monday.

Electronic Media Monitoring Centre under the ministry of information broadcasting (261) , Soil and Land Use Survey of India (260), CGHS, headquarters (221) were other large offices with 100 per cent attendance.

Over 100 organisations, which between them employed over 12,500 people, recorded zero attendance. Just one employee among 12,483 registered under Delhi Development Authority was marked present suggesting that the biometric reporting has not fully caught on. The website said it was still in beta version, meaning that it was still in the test mode.

The reporting was even worse delhi.attendance.gov.in, the portal for the state government organisations. Only 506 employees from four offices - the department of health, district magistrate West District, Delhi Urban Shelter Development Board and South Delhi Municipal Corporation - were registered in the portal. Of these, only 130 employees marked their presence on Monday. Historic data was not available for this website. None of the employees registered under DUSDB (271) was marked present on Monday, so was the lone employee registered under the SDMC.

9239 - Circular on Aadhaar linked salary triggers row - TNN

Circular on Aadhaar linked salary triggers row

TNN | Jan 5, 2016, 11.13 AM IST

INDORE: A circular issued by Indore district collector quoting finance department directives--asking government employees to submit details of the card to the treasury to draw salary--- has put 30 health department officials of Indore in a spot. They have not received salary for December. Among those, who did not get their salary include Vyapam scam whistleblower Dr Anand Rai's wife Dr Gauri Rai. 

The circular, a copy of which is with TOI, says salaries of health department employees who fail to submit information about their Aadhaar cards to the treasury department, may not be released. 

Dr Gauri Rai, who is also yet to submit information about her Aadhaar card to the treasury, feels the action of withholding her salary is a violation of high court order. The Indore bench of high court had earlier directed the state government to release her salary after it was withheld in October 2015 in a Vyapam scam-related fallout. 

"It is a dictatorial order of the finance department. Salary of any government employee cannot be stopped even when any officer is suspended. It is a human right of any employee," said Dr Anand Rai. Passing an order against Supreme Court directives is unconstitutional, he said. 

9238 - Rebooting India - Free Press Journal

Rebooting India

— By T R Ramachandran | Jan 03, 2016 12:42 pm 

Based on learnings from the Aadhaar project, Nilekani and Shah propose a series of high-tech initiatives that can deliver low-cost solutions to India’s grand challenges.

Having gained valuable insight in developing the unique identity card for a billion people in five years, Nandan Nilekeni, founding Chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIAI) and Viral Shah, who worked at the intersection of policy and technology leading the design of the government’s payments and subsidy platforms using Aadhaar. They have proposed some big ideas that can redesign existing systems and save the government a mind boggling estimated Rs One trillion annually. This saving equivalent to one per cent of the country’s GDP is enough for two Golden Quadrilateral road systems across the country or send 200 Mangalyan missions to the Mars annually.  It is also sufficient to provide minimal health insurance to every family in the country for three years. It is entirely technology driven.

This might well be one of the solutions that Prime Minister Narendra Modi might want to consider seriously to get his much touted “sab ke saath, sab ka vikas” off the ground having remained dormant over the last 18 months since he assumed the high office on the majestic Raisina Hill on May 26 last year.

Today, an increasing number of businesses and industries are run on software delivered as online services – from movies, to agriculture to national defence. Many of the winners are Silicon Valley-style entrepreneurial technological companies that are invading and overturning established industry structures. 

India now boasts of the world’s third largest internet user base with over 190 million users, many of whom are on smartphones to get online and buy things; as much as 40 per cent of all e-commerce transactions in India are now conducted via mobile phones, bypassing computers altogether.

“India is sitting on demographic dividend and is expected to become the world’s youngest country by 2020, with 64 per cent of its population, roughly 800 million people of working age. That is 800 million knocks on the ceiling with a list of demands that include education, employment, good health, better infrastructure, efficient governance and a corruption free society. The economy that is supposed to sustain the weight of these demands has been growing in single digit at around nine per cent a year at the best of times – a flimsy scaffold on which to construct dreams of a better life.”

The question is how do we build a foundation strong enough to nurture these dreams and bring them to fruition? As an enabler of peoples’ aspirations, the authors insist this requires “a radical rethink of the relationship between the government and its people compared to the one that still seems stuck in a bygone era in its reluctance to embrace technology’s transformative powers”. Even for an urban, middle class Indian dealing with the government is cumbersome. Merely starting a new business in India takes weeks; most of this time is spent in completing the required paper work and legal formalities.

“Whether it is paying taxes or negotiating complex labour law requirements we haven’t built a truly entrepreneur-friendly environment where anyone with a bright idea and some capital can easily start a business,” emphasised Nilekeni, a former CEO of Infosys, and Shah, who is the co-inventor of the Julia programming language and cofounder of FourthLion Technologies. They believe technology can transform government by: (1) Scale – solutions that handle millions of people and billions of transactions; (2) Speed – solution that can be developed in months and years, not decades; (3) Cost — solutions that decrease process and service costs; (4) Enforceability — solutions that can be monitored in real time; (5) Diversity – solutions that work as platforms to foster innovation; (6) Autonomy – solutions that allow government (central, state, local) and its agencies to function independently; (7) Mobility – solutions that are accessible anywhere in the country; (8) Integration – solutions that incorporate the best components across the public private spectrum; (9) Collaboration – solutions that share information and develop partnerships across government; (10) Inclusion – solutions that lowers entry barriers and widen access for all.

The profound shift of balance of power between the government and the people is only possible because of technology. “We need to fix our country’s problems at great speed, at scales with high quality while providing solutions that are easy to access, independent of geography and at low cost. “Technology the great leveller is our only hope of meeting these goals. Many of the states are well run today and the formation of the NITI Ayog and the GST reform will lead to further fiscal consolidation. States should be free to opt for these common platforms because they see a clear benefit in participation rather than through the carrot of money or the stick of the legislation.

The issue of fund flow can be resolved by cutting down the number of schemes and running them more efficiently; equally important, a great proportion of the central funds should be untied, eliminating restrictions on how the money can be spent and allowing states to use their money more effectively. Increasingly India is getting to the point where money itself is no longer the bottleneck. The finances of many states are quite robust. The Centre-State relationship has evolved to a point where “we believe the centre must provide value beyond money through world class platform development”.

The biggest barrier to the ideas Nilekeni and Shah believe is mindsets. In a system that clings tenaciously to hierarchy, it is hard to recognise that a 25-year-old ‘techie’ might have better ideas than the veteran official in his fifties. That value and knowledge lie not at the top of the silo, but at the boundaries across various disciplines. That problem solving is not about big budgets and a cast of thousands, but small teams with shoestring budgets — teams that include technologists, social activists, people who have built successful businesses, domain experts and bureaucrats.

Nilekeni and Shah have identified a dozen great challenges in their book. The first two — Aadhaar and PaHal — have already been scaled successfully. That leaves ten more grand challenges for which ten new start ups are required in the government, each with a team of ten dedicated multi-disciplinarian champions. Such teams operating under the authority of the Prime Minister can drive the sweeping transformation and innovative thinking capable of fulfilling a billion aspirations, say the authors.

“We are much better off dreaming, taking risks, and trying to realise a billion aspirations; at best we risk falling flat on our faces. Far more egregious, and most dangerous to our country, going about business as ususal, leaving a billion voices unheard and a billion frustrations unresolved,” observed Nilekeni and Shah.

The authors are confident that the problems are enormous. And these can only be tackled by fast changing technological tools including cloud computing, big data and analytics to move towards a different kind of aggregation, one that is gaining traction in the private sector.

9237 - Signboards to lead the way to e-seva centres - The Hindu

CHENNAI, January 3, 2016

Signboards to lead the way to e-seva centres

Concerned about poor visibility and inaccessibility of e-seva centres, the Chennai Corporation and TACTV (Tamil Nadu Arasu Cable TV Corporation) will commission new signboards in each neighbourhood directing residents towards the 70 e-seva centres across the city.

TACTV has established 70 e-seva centres in Chennai Corporation offices. Personnel manning the e-seva centres offer quick civic services such as Aadhaar cards, community certificates and property tax payment to residents.

The centres help residents get Aadhaar cards, community certificates and pay property tax

9235 - Letters: Not apt conclusions - Business Standard

Letters: Not apt conclusions

Business Standard  |  New Delhi 

December 31, 2015 Last Updated at 21:02 IST

The editorial, "Govt health insurance will only make pvt hospitals richer" (December 29), is too simplistic and rather misplaced. Kindly let me respond to it succinctly.

The direct benefits transfer platform, or JAM - Jan-Dhan Yojana, Aadhaar and mobiles - is the right way forward as it would minimise leakage and target the people actually in need and at the time they need it. All 29 states must take the lead in ensuring that processes are carried out smoothly so that citizens find it easy to avail of such schemes. This is an area where systems across several countries in Asia find it difficult to cope with. Yet Thailand's universal health coverage programme is a good starting point to understand how a scheme should be implemented. The country started its 30-baht scheme - as it was originally called - in 2005-06 and now, it is widely acknowledged as a success.

The editorial says that in India even well-implemented schemes such as Andhra Pradesh's long-running medical insurance programme, Aarogyasri, found it tough to cope with the demands of cost increases from private hospitals. But consider this: The cost of radiation therapy for treatment of cancer in private hospitals is three to four times that under Aarogyasri. Despite such disparities, the intake of patients in private hospitals is not significantly low. Generally, hospitals - whether private or government-run - are operating to near-full capacity in treating cancer through radiation therapy.

Where the editorial says that the Aarogyasri in Andhra Pradesh has a bias towards paying for serious and instrusive procedures, it is natural that people are more likely to claim insurance when the charges are high. Affordability and aggregate out-of-pocket payment are key determinants. Nonetheless, the liability on the person who is paying - under Aarogyasri, this would be the government - will continue to rise not only per capita, but also as an aggregate, as incidence and prevalence of diseases both increase.

In the first instance, the issue is of generating adequate funds to pay for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of a disease, not just to try and reduce the treatment cost. The experience of implementing insurance schemes in Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat, to name just two states, has been positive. It indicates the need to put in place an insurance coverage mechanism that will generate adequate funds at the level of the central government, which can then distribute these to the states for use in health care.

The editorial says that better healthcare in India is a moral and practical necessity. But health infrastructure in the country is led by the private sector and would continue to be so in the foreseeable future. Even the addition of new capacity for treatment is being driven by the private sector. Would the sector not strive to make it profitable and sustainable? But who will pay for such capital expenditure?

Praneet Mehrotra Singapore

Letters can be mailed, faxed or e-mailed to:

The Editor, Business Standard

Nehru House, 4 Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg

New Delhi 110 002

Fax: (011) 23720201

E-mail: letters@bsmail.in

All letters must have a postal address and telephone number

9234 - Supreme Court and Indian Cyberlaw-2015: - Business Stanbdard

A roundup

The Shreya Singhal judgment was historic this year as it upheld the power of government for interception and narrowed down the scope of intermediary liability

Pavan Duggal 

December 31, 2015 Last Updated at 21:15 IST

2015 was the year in which the historical judgment of the Supreme Court was delivered in the case of Shreya Singhal v/s Union of India. The Shreya Singhal judgment was historic this year primarily because of three things.  Firstly, it struck down Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, 2000 as unconstitutional because the Supreme Court found that the parameters of Section 66A went against the Constitution of India.

It upheld the power of Government for interception and  narrowed down the scope of intermediary liability and said that intermediaries will now act only on order of Court of law or on order of a Governmental agency.  This judgement is definitely historical because it is the first major judgment which has interpreted the constitutional validity of the provisions of the Information Technology Act, 2000.  It is also historical because Section 66A was tremendously misused in various cases and Supreme Court found the same to be in violation of peoples’ fundamental rights.   Post this judgment, there has been an increase in incidents of cyber bullying and targeting people on social media because somehow people get a feeling that the law has now been struck off, they have a license to defame.

This judgment has strengthened the hands of the Government for interception.  The challenges to the powers that were granted to the Government have been dismissed and the Government’s power to act in the national interest has been reiterated.

The entire issue of intermediary liability has to be relooked primarily because of the unique nature of the Indian mobile web. A majority of Indian online users only access the Internet through their mobiles and intermediaries become data repositories and therefore there is a need to simplify procedures regarding access of data resident on the computer platforms of the intermediaries.

The ball is actually now in the hands of the Government to amend the Information Technology Act, 2000 to actually not just incorporate the concerns of stakeholders but also to ensure that law becomes a tool for facilitating m-commerce and e-commerce.

There is a need of coming up with distinct legal frameworks which are in sync with the Constitution and which can help to preserve public order in cyberspace.

The year 2015 was a remarkable year inasmuch as it saw how the Indian Courts were redefining, clarifying and dealing with the law pertaining to electronic evidence in India. In the landmark case of Anvar PV v/s PK Basheer, earlier the Supreme Court took hold the opportunity to examine the current state of the law pertaining to electronic evidence and thereafter went ahead to clarify how electronic evidence in India has to be produced and proved in a court of law. The said judgment has universal impact and applicability and has made the entire issue of proof of electronic evidence more cumbersome.

Given the fact that majority of Indians are today only using mobile devices for the purposes of accessing the Internet, it is high time that legal approaches to electronic evidence with specific reference to mobile evidence need to have a relook.

The year 2015 was also remarkable as the debate pertaining to making Aadhaar applicable or mandatory across the board brought its own unique set of challenges. The Supreme Court was crystal clear that Aadhaar doesn't need to be mandatory and that there is a need for more  detailed examination of the privacy and other constitutional issues concerning the use of Aadhar programme.

In the year 2015, the Supreme Court has contributed its bit towards evolving jurisprudence on Cyberlaw and related subjects. The Supreme Court has through its various landmark decisions, decided various aspects which have further helped in the evolution of Cyberlaw jurisprudence in India.

The author Pavan Duggal, Advocate, Supreme Court of India, is Asia’s & India’s leading expert and authority on Cyberlaw & Mobile Law and has been acknowledged as one of the top four cyberlawyers in the world. He can be contacted at his email addresses pavan@pavanduggal.com  and pavanduggal@yahoo.com.  More about the Author is available at www.pavanduggal.com and http://www.linkedin.com/in/pavanduggal.

9236 - 2016: False info by non-PAN holders can land them in jail - Economic Times

2016: False info by non-PAN holders can land them in jail

PTI Dec 31, 2015, 07.58PM IST

NEW DELHI: A false declaration by an individual not possessing PAN card for certain value of transactions can land him upto a seven-year jail term and a hefty fine as part of Income Tax regulations that will come into force from tomorrow.

As part of the directives issued by the government for implementation of the Permanent Account Number (PAN) regime from January 1, any person not having a PAN but undertaking a transaction which requires a mandatory quoting of it, will have to fill up 'Form No. 60'.

The one-page form seeks personal details of the person undertaking the transaction along with a valid proof of identity and address, like Aadhaar and Elector's Photo Identity Card (EPIC) among others.

"There are people who may not have a PAN and still make a large transaction for which quoting of PAN is now essential. In such cases, such people have to fill Form 60 and making a false declaration of information in this will make them liable for punishment which could be a maximum of seven years of Rigorous Imprisonment (RI) with fine or a minimum of three months RI with fine under IT laws," a senior tax department official said.

The department is empowered to file a prosecution case against such people under section 277 of the IT Act (false statement in verification), the official said.

The said Act stipulates that in a case where tax sought to be evaded exceeds Rs 25 lakh (by way of false declaration in Form 60), the punishment is RI between 6 months-7 years with fine and in cases below this monetary limit, the punishment will be RI between 3 months-2 years with fine.

In order to achieve a two-pronged target of curbing the circulation of black money and widening tax base, the government has recently notified changes in the monetary limits that will require mandatory quoting of PAN.

PAN has been made compulsory from tomorrow for transactions like cash payment of hotel or foreign travel bill exceeding Rs 50,000, purchase of jewellery above Rs two lakhs in cash or card, purchase of immovable property of over Rs 10 lakh, term deposits exceeding Rs 50,000 or Rs 5 lakh in a year with banks, Post Offices and Non Banking Financial Companies among others.

Under the 'Form No. 60', an individual has to provide his personal details like name, address, date of birth, mobile number and mode of transaction like cash, cheque, card, draft or banker's cheque, online transfer or any other.

The form has an exclusive column to provide the Aadhaar number of the declarant and also includes space for mentioning the acknowledgement number which could have been received by them while applying for this 10-digit alphanumeric number.

The form also asks for the estimated total income of the person along with separate columns for their possible agricultural and non-agricultural income.

The latest notification issued by the Central Board of Direct Taxes in this regard states that PAN would be mandatory for cash payments of more than Rs 50,000 for cash cards or prepaid instruments as well as for purchasing shares of unlisted companies for Rs 1 lakh and above.

9235 - Heads-Up 2016: Judiciary- Self-assertion and a night hearing on life and death - Indian Express

Heads-Up 2016: Judiciary- Self-assertion and a night hearing on life and death

The court refused to give up the primacy of the Chief Justice of India in higher judicial appointments.

Written by Utkarsh Anand | 

Updated: January 1, 2016 10:13 am

- See more at: http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/heads-up-2016-judiciary-self-assertion-and-a-night-hearing-on-life-and-death/#sthash.CJA6MBfS.dpuf

In the concluding part of this series, The Indian Express reporters look at five different institutions from business to culture, legislature to judiciary, and read between the headlines of this year to interpret what will make news in 2016.

Looking back

The government’s attempt to change the way judges are appointed got a thumbs-down during the year from a constitution bench that quashed the National Judicial Appointments Commission, ruling that it threatened the independence of the judiciary. The court refused to give up the primacy of the Chief Justice of India in higher judicial appointments.

Among major judgments, the Supreme Court struck down Section 66A of the Information Technology Act that authorised arrest for social media posts construed “offensive”or “menacing”, ruled that an unwed mother can be appointed the sole legal guardian of her child without the consent of the father, and scrapped a notification including Jats among OBCs in nine states. It banned registration of diesel SUVs and high-end vehicles with capacity over 2000 cc in Delhi until March 31, 2016, and stopped entry of goods vehicles not bound for Delhi.

In the 1997 Uphaar fire case, the court ordered the Ansal brothers to compensate the families of the dead but controversially allowed them to walk free on account of age. It ruled Sushil , 75, is “fairly aged” and that his brother Gopal, 67, deserves “parity” with him.

A novelty in 2015 was a pre-dawn hearing on Yakub Memon’s mercy petition. He was hanged hours after the court rejected it.

The court acknowledged attempts were made through “politics and activism” to influence the proceedings on the Gujarat riots, as it rejected sacked IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt’s plea to investigate BJP president Amit Shah’s role in allegedly trying to scuttle the probe into encounter killings. In a hearing on the meat ban, the SC noted that “a ban cannot be forced down somebody’s throat” and that the “spirit of tolerance” was paramount.

Looking forward

Hearings will continue on the BCCI spot-fixing case, coal block allocation, appeals by convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination for their premature release, black money, the Vyapam scam, and Maharashtra’s dance bar ban. The year will begin with a ruling on a batch of petitions by Rahul Gandhi, Subramanian Swamy, Arvind Kejriwal and others who have questioned the validity of India’s criminal defamation law.

One thing that didn’t happen

A decision on Aadhaar. The court allowed the government to use Aadhaar only for a few schemes and left the question of validity to a constitution bench.

- See more at: http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/heads-up-2016-judiciary-self-assertion-and-a-night-hearing-on-life-and-death/#sthash.CJA6MBfS.dpuf

9234 - DEITY working on alternative authentication means along with Aadhaar to revive Digital India projects - Economic Times

DEITY working on alternative authentication means along with Aadhaar to revive Digital India projects

Surabhi Agarwal, ET Bureau Jan 1, 2016, 04.29AM IST

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court's restrictions over the Aadhaar project has taken the wind out of several marque projects under the Digital India programme, including the Digital Locker project. The department of electronics and information technology (DEITY) is now working on alternatives that will act as means of authentication along with Aadhaar to revive some of these projects.

According to a senior government official, there are around five projects under Digital India for which alternatives are being discussed currently.

Take for instance the DigiLocker project, which is a way to store, receive and authenticate documents on the virtual locker on the Internet. It made a good start after being launched by the Prime Minister in July this year only to have stagnated in the following months due to the uncertainty over their linkage with Aadhaar.

The number of users registered on the platform swelled by 71.8% to 8,96,527 at the end of July but has been registering low single digit growth since August - when the first Supreme Court order came on Aadhaar restricting it use. At the end of December, the number of users who are on the DigiLocker platform 10,50,335.

The official said that for Digilocker, authentication means such as PAN card, e-KYC of the banks, and digital signatures are some of the other options which are being considered. "Even without the Supreme Court's mandate, we have to give other options to citizens since some of them many not have access to Aadhaar," the official added. The person said that by linking these projects only through Aadhaar, the government doesn't want to make it mandatory in any way. "But, the inherent advantage that Aadhaar had of seamless authentication can't be taken away," said the official adding that with authentication means, the government is adding a layer which is the same as verifying documents in physical world.

Other projects which are inherently linked to Aadhaar include esign, Jeevan Pramaan or Digital Life Certificate for pensioners, and Digitise India, the government records digitisation drive project among others.

While Jeevan Pramaan is a biometric enabled system built on Aadhaar for over 10 million pensioner families in India to provide digital life certificates for disbursement of their pensions, e-sign is designed to enable authentication of documents on the fly and on a real-time basis through the Aadhaar authentication platform.

It is being pitched as a convenient alternative for the current process of getting a digital signature, which is cost intensive, time consuming and relatively unsafe.

Similarly under the Digitise India platform, the government has roped in common citizens to digitize its physical records through the crowd sourcing model. The identity and authentication of the crowd agents is done through the Aadhaar number and their remuneration is also credited to their Aadhaar linked bank account number.

ET has reported earlier this week that the government is getting ready to convince the Supreme Court about the use of Aadhaar in improving governance. The Cabinet secretary will helm the drafting of a strategy along with senior government secretaries on extending Aadhaar to more government services.

9233 - PM Modi holds PRAGATI video conference with chief secretaries - Economic Times

PM Modi holds PRAGATI video conference with chief secretaries

PTI Dec 30, 2015, 10.50PM IST

JAMMU: Prime Minister Narendra Modi today held his monthly video conference under the Pro-active Governance and Timely Implementation (PRAGATI) initiative, with Union secretaries of various ministries and chief secretaries of the different states.

Chief Secretary Jammu and Kashmir, B R Sharma also participated in the video conference, an official spokesman said.

The Prime Minister reviewed the status of implementation of Mega Food Parks Project and urged expediting the work project so that farmers receive the intended benefit as envisaged in the scheme, he added.

The Mega Food Parks scheme aims at providing a mechanism to link agricultural production to the market by bringing together farmers, processors and retailers so as to ensure maximising value addition, minimising wastages, increasing farmers' income and creating employment opportunities.

The park shall be having agriculture/ horticultural- processing zone containing state-of-the art processing facilities with support infrastructure and well-established supply chain.

Meanwhile, Modi also reviewed the progress with respect to Aadhaar enrollment and its seeding with bank accounts.

Linking Aadhaar with bank account will allow authentication of the beneficiary to receive Direct Benefit Transfer under various government-run schemes like MGNREGA, scholarships.

Prime Minister in this regard also asked states to complete the process expeditiously.

9232 - Will India make it – 2016? Indian innovation ready for prime-time, says Nandan Nilekani - Financial Express

Will India make it – 2016? Indian innovation ready for prime-time, says Nandan Nilekani

Google’s driverless car is one kind of innovation, and India has several types of innovations being worked on, but the biggest developments this year and over the next are going to be centered around the India Stack, says Nandan Nilekan.

By: Nandan Nilekani | New Delhi | December 31, 2015 10:13 AM

The explosion of data and the digital exhaust from various transactions will lead to another interesting set of innovations that are now gaining traction, says Nandan Nilekani.

Google’s driverless car is one kind of innovation, and India has several types of innovations being worked on, but the biggest developments this year and over the next are going to be centered around the stack of Aadhaar-based APIs and mobile payments APIs – the India Stack, so to speak – and these are about going paperless, presence-less and cashless. This will fundamentally alter business processes in corporations and in government; it means every business and application in government can be re-imagined.

Take the example of mutual funds. India was one of the early adaptors of technology in capital markets with the advent of NSE, NSDL etc. and we had dematerialized trading from the 1990s. But since then number of retail investors has stagnated. If you look at mutual funds, the cost of acquiring a customer is Rs 1,500, so you need a portfolio of at least Rs 3 lakh and so you can target maybe 3-4 million households. If acquisition costs can come down to Rs 100, you need a break-even portfolio of Rs 20,000 and can now target 34 million households; at Rs 10, the break-even is Rs 2,000 and the target is 105 million households! This is where the innovation is taking place right now. SEBI is focused on reducing these customer acquisition costs.

The cost of acquisition is expensive because the front-end is cumbersome, you need an in-person verification for KYC, you need a ‘wet’ physical signature. Now look at what’s happened. Aadhaar gives you basic identity and you have on-line authentication for presence- less verification, e-KYC for Know your Customer,, e-sign allows you to do a digital signature with Aadhaar and along with the Digital Locker, allows you to go paperless, and NPCI with its upcoming Unified Payment Interface which will revolutionize interoperable mobile payments, allows you to go cashless. Once you can on board a customer without the conventional front-end methods, the costs plunge … entire industries can change. You move from a low-volume, high-value, high cost transaction paradigm to a high-volume, low-value, low cost transaction paradigm. This will completely transform the Financial Services sector and lead to dramatic market expansion.

The big innovations in the US were done with government/defence grants – the driverless car came out of a DARPA grant and both the Internet and GPS came out of Government spending – but when innovation moved to the private sector, you ended up with the closed systems of today which can’t be innovated upon in a mass manner. 3-4 Silicon Valley companies control the digital universe. In India on the other hand, what we have, thanks to Aadhaar and the India Stack, , is open platforms that can be mass innovated upon. 

Financial services are the most obvious are which will boom with such innovation – and in the same way that mobiles boomed when the industry moved to small value pre-paid transactions. In education, putting school/college degrees in digital lockers can eliminate the fake degree racket; you can re-engineer property markets with digitally signed e-certificates.

The explosion of data and the digital exhaust from various transactions will lead to another interesting set of innovations that are now gaining traction. Today, around 3% of Indian businesses get organized credit. When a Flipkart has say 100,000 vendors, it has data on what that vendor has sold, what were the returns, and has a payment history … suddenly, the credit system explodes from one where there is no data about borrowers to one which is data rich; This will be further amplified by innovations will take place around algorithms to fine tune the credit risk and underwriting strategy. The data explosion will need to be combined with a consent architecture so the user in in charge of his or her own data.

A carpenter, to use another example, can use such systems to create a track record of what he’s done – on the phone – and once clients can track this on various apps, he can get a premium for his services which is not possible today since you don’t know how good/bad the carpenter is.

Practo has lots of data with thousands of doctors and millions of patients … think of the applications as this gets bigger – the government can know of disease outbreak as it happens, of shortages of medicines in certain areas…

Related to this is what can be called sousveillance which is surveillance from below. You take a picture of a pothole in the road, of a toilet that has no water, of dirt mounds and put it on the cloud. Over a period of time, the data becomes so compelling, the authorities are forced to respond … what you get is a new kind of governance that, unlike the earlier/present one, is accountable in a more instantaneous kind of way for certain types of services.

The other set of innovations are around organizing India’s markets. One of the start-ups I’ve invested in that I’m excited about is Fortigo which is aggregating markets for truckers and brokers, making what is essentially an unorganized market into an organized one. In the past, you brought in efficiency into markets through large companies – big farms, big trucking companies, big retailers – but you can now do it with orchestrated networks. The upending of Coase’s law by technology is the best thing that has happened for India.

With EkStep types of apps, we’re looking at changing the way educational content is delivered to students, using smartphones. Once the platform is ready, others can add layers upon it to, potentially, deliver all manner of skilling/education on it, while EkStep will focus on applied literacy and numeracy. In the West, the internet is always on, everywhere, and each user has individual access – but this is not the case in India, so that’s where the offline internet has developed and usage will be shared. You now have offline maps and offline YouTube. EkStep will be like this, you can download online and have community participation (NGOs and schools) and usage offline.

While the Government has been pro-active in the way it supported Aadhaar for instance or in coming up with governance apps, with a VC/angel/incubating network developing well with platforms like LetsVenture, ecosystem building by iSPIRT, my generation of entrepreneurs turning into investors and mentors, and a whole bunch of innovators emerging in many cities, I think 2016 is going to be a great year, a year in which we will see the start of very fundamental changes in the way Indian business and governance is structured.

(As told to Sunil Jain)

(Nandan Nilekani – co-author of ‘Rebooting India : Realizing a billion aspirations’)

First Published on December 30, 2015 7:05 pm

9231 - Why Mohanty Committee on financial inclusion deserves broad endorsement - Economic Times

Why Mohanty Committee on financial inclusion deserves broad endorsement

December 31, 2015, 4:37 AM IST ET Edit in ET Editorials | Economy, India | ET

The RBI committee on financial inclusion headed by Deepak Mohanty has done well to take a systemic approach, instead of confining itself to banking channels. This, of course, runs the risk of converting the report into a broad narrative of needed reform across the real economy, and being added, with nods of weighty approval, to the shelf of expert reports that need to be acted on sometime this century. But it has the benefit of bringing out the interconnectedness of popular access to formal finance with institutions and practices relating to the real economy, whether land records and agricultural subsidy or the tax treatment of securitisation vehicles. The Supreme Court stands to gain much clarity on the utility of Aadhaar as it ponders the legitimacy of its use in assorted government schemes, if it were to glance through just the summary recommendations of the panel.

While the report deserves broad endorsement, some specific recommendations stand out. The panel wants to remove the eight-percentage-point maximum mark-up on the interest rate charged to the end-borrower by financial intermediaries over their cost of borrowing from a bank. This would encourage inclusion of remote areas and communities. The recommendation to liberalise the norms for banking correspondents, while streamlining their regulation, and use mobile technology to cover the last mile, instead of asking banks to open yet more unviable rural branches, is hugely welcome. The focus should be on smartphones and their applications, as these will replace feature phones even in rural areas with remarkable speed not anticipated by the committee.

The committee does well to endorse direct cash transfers to administer subsidies. The use of Aadhaar to tag bank accounts of the beneficiaries will help reform the country’s subsidy administration and cut graft. The panel’s recommendation to link Aadhaar to each individual credit account and share the information with credit rating agencies makes sense. However, India must enact a robust privacy law to prevent any abuse of Aadhaar.

This piece appeared as an editorial opinion in the print edition of The Economic Times.

9230 - Government getting ready to convince Supreme Court about Aadhar Card - Economic Times

Government getting ready to convince Supreme Court about Aadhar Card

Aman Sharma, ET Bureau Dec 31, 2015, 04.00AM IST

NEW DELHI: The government is getting ready to convince the Supreme Court about Aadhaar card, seeking to preserve its status and putting the seal on a change of heart. Last year, the incoming Modi government hadn't seemed too enthusiastic about the unique identity programme, one of the UPA government's main achievements.

But it's emerged since as the engine driving the good governance agenda. More than 47 crore transactions involving delivery of government services have been carried out using Aadhaar this year.

The rise has been steady through 2015—to 7.9 crore transactions in November from 1.3 crore in January, according to a presentation made to the PMO and seen by ET. Since the inception of Aadhaar authentication services in 2010, more than 110 crore transactions have taken place.

Despite this and the level of enrolment— said to be close to 90% of the adult population— the Supreme Court is concerned that tying benefits to the unique ID may exclude the needy, besides the issue of privacy.

ET has learnt that the cabinet secretary will helm the drafting of a strategy along with senior government secretaries on extending Aadhaar to more government services.

Meanwhile, the government will seek to convince the Supreme Court about Aadhaar's utility. Aadhaar faces challenges on the privacy front with some critics concerned about access to the information of individuals.

In his Mann Ki Baat address recently, Modi said nearly Rs 40,000 crore had been transferred directly to the bank accounts, which was always one of Aadhaar's main aims— accurate targeting and zero leakage of welfare payments. It's been deployed to good effect in the rural jobs programme, another flagship UPA initiative. Out of 9.5 crore MGNREGS active workers, over 53% in 300 districts are now seeded with the ID and 2.84 crore payment transactions so far have been carried out using the Aadhaar payment bridge directly into accounts.

"There were a lot of complaints earlier regarding (rural job programme) payments," Modi said in his Mann Ki Baat on Sunday but these seem to have been resolved. He also said that about 15 crore people were now getting the LPG subsidy in their bank accounts, which the PM said was a world record.

According to information with ET, nearly 5.6 crore such transactions are completed every month using the Aadhaar platform— the rest are through the account-based transfer scheme— with 60% of 16.33 crore beneficiaries under the LPG Pahal scheme now seeded with the ID number.

The highest levels of government have also been informed that 66.3 crore transactions to transfer the LPG subsidy over the Aadhaar platform have been carried out till date. The online authentication platform is now capable of handling 10 crore transactions daily while Aadhaar saturation among the adult population has reached 90%, with the issue of 95 crore IDs.

ET VIEW

Aadhar of all benefits

The government needs to ensure that Aadhaar results in more efficient delivery of benefits to the intended users. If by linking all benefits, the government can demonstrate a perceptible reduction in leakages, corruption in the delivery system by reducing middlemen, and improvements by ensuring better accountability of all government benefits, that should be proof enough for the Supreme Court.

9229 - 2015: The Supreme Court stands up for its rights–and other rights - Indian Express

2015: The Supreme Court stands up for its rights–and other rights

The new year is scheduled to begin with a landmark ruling on a batch of petitions by political heavyweights, including Rahul Gandhi, Subramanian Swamy and Arvind Kejriwal.

- See more at: http://indianexpress.com/article/explained/2015-the-supreme-court-stands-up-for-its-rights-and-other-rights/#sthash.f2AfpyDy.dpuf

The unqualified independence of the judiciary, total freedom of speech and expression, and utmost concerns for the environment — in 2015, the Supreme Court lived up to people’s expectations by scripting several chapters that will contribute significantly to the history of judicial activism.

NJAC

The NDA government’s attempt to change the way judges are appointed in the country got a thumbs down from a five-judge Constitution Bench that quashed the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) by ruling that the new system threatened the independence of the judiciary.

By nullifying a constitutional amendment after 35 years, the court refused to surrender the primacy of the Chief Justice of India in making appointments to the higher judiciary. In a token of acknowledgement that the existing Collegium system was not adequately transparent, it agreed to consider suggestions for its improvement but wrapped up the proceedings on December 16 with little more than suggestions.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley called the quashing of the NJAC as “tyranny of the unelected” and maintained judges should not have the exclusive right to select judges – a position that was revisited after 22 years.

Section 66A IT Act

Expanding the contours of free speech on the Internet, the apex court struck down the much abused Section 66A of the Information Technology Act which authorised police to arrest people for social media posts construed as “offensive”or “menacing”. Snubbing the attempt by the NDA government to defend the law made by the UPA, the court did not hesitate in quashing the law “in its entirety” after it noted that Section 66A “arbitrarily, excessively and disproportionately” invaded the right to free speech, right to dissent, right to know, and had a “chilling effect” on constitutional mandates. The verdict had social media abuzz with accolades for the top court for junking a bad law made to regulate the cyber world.

Haryana’s law on minimum education for contesting panchayat polls

The Supreme Court upheld a Haryana government’s law to mandate minimum education as a pre-requisite for contesting panchayat polls – the first such legislation validated by the highest court in the country. Affirming the constitutional validity of the law that barred illiterate from contesting panchayat polls in Haryana, the court ruled that “it is only education which gives a human being the power to discriminate between right and wrong, good and bad”.

Jats in OBC central list

Issued by the UPA government but defended in the court by the NDA, a March 2014 notification to include Jats in the central list of the Other Backward Classes (OBC) category in nine states, however, failed to pass the muster. The apex court scrapped it by ruling that “caste” and “historical injustice” cannot blind a state in according backward status to a community and that new emerging groups such as transgenders must be identified for quota benefits. The historic judgment laid down new norms for identification of backward classes for the benefits of reservation and redefined the concept of affirmative action by the state. The issue of reservation came up again in a separate judgment when the court held that national interest requires doing away with all forms of reservation in institutions of higher education, and urged the Centre to take effective steps “objectively”.

Aadhaar

Still to get legislative sanction, the Aadhaar project was subjected to strict judicial scrutiny over the year as the government’s repeated pleas to let it use the UID card to link various services met with stiff opposition from rights activists who questioned the validity of the project and pointed towards the possible misuse of the data collected. The court allowed the government to use Aadhaar only for a few schemes and left the question of its validity to be decided by a Constitution Bench.

Unwed mother’s rights

As women decide to raise their children alone, the court ruled that an unwed mother can be appointed the sole legal guardian of her child without the consent of the father. It held that the procedural necessity of involving the father in a guardianship petition has to be dispensed with in the best interests of a child, for whom the mother has been the only caregiver.

Gujarat riots

In a first, the Supreme Court also acknowledged that attempts were made through “politics and activism” to influence the proceedings on the Gujarat riots in the top court as it rejected sacked IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt’s plea to investigate BJP president Amit Shah’s role for allegedly trying to scuttle a probe into cases of encounter killings.

Yakub Memon

The judiciary hit the headlines again for holding a pre-dawn hearing in a last-ditch attempt by human right activists to save 1993 Mumbai serial blasts mastermind Yakub Memon from the gallows. Memon was hanged hours after the court on July 30 rejected his second plea in less than 24 hours to stall the hanging.

Uphaar

The Uphaar ruling, however, generated a lot of controversies. Eighteen years after 59 people were killed in a blaze inside Delhi’s Uphaar cinema hall, its owners Gopal and Sushil Ansal, who had been held guilty of “criminal negligence”, escaped further jail terms with the Supreme Court noting that Sushil is “fairly aged” and his younger brother deserves “parity” with him. Sushil is 75, while Gopal is 67. Age was cited as the only factor enabling the duo to walk free after paying a compensation of Rs 30 crore each.

The Environment

The year ended with the apex court drafting yet another chapter in the history of environmental reforms in the national capital. Ushering in radical reforms to control the alarming pollution in Delhi, the Supreme Court banned registration of diesel SUVs and high-end vehicles in the city with engine capacity of over 2000 cc until March 31, 2016. It also stopped the entry of goods vehicles not bound for the national capital. It hiked the environment compensatory charges on commercial vehicles by a 100 per cent. The court clarified that no vehicle registered in 2005 or prior years shall be allowed to enter Delhi even after payment of the enhanced green cess.

Religion

The Supreme Court did not scruple about dealing with matters relating to religion and faith as it pronounced upon various pertinent matters. Asserting that “constitutional legitimacy must supersede all religious beliefs or practices”, it ruled that the appointment of priests in temples and other religious institutions cannot be denied to a person solely on the basis of “caste, birth or any other constitutionally unacceptable parameter”.

While dealing with a petition on banning of meat, the court sent a strong message amidst concerns over mounting curbs on individual liberties as it said that “a ban cannot be forced down somebody’s throat” and that the “spirit of tolerance” was paramount. In a separate order, the court also sought revisiting Muslim personal laws to ensure Muslim women are not left at unequal and disadvantaged position over issues like alimony and inheritance.

During the year, the top court also nudged the Centre over two significant issues – changing the juvenile law to criminally prosecute those aged between 16 and 18 as adults in certain cases, and bring in the Uniform Civil Code. While the juvenile law has been passed by both the Houses of the Parliament, the Uniform Civil Code is still to be introduced in its new avatar by the NDA.

Coming up in court 2016

The validity of Aadhaar, the BCCI spot-fixing case which is now under the scanner of the Justice Lodha panel, the coal block allocation scam cases also involving former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the Jayalalithaa graft case, social activist Teesta Setalvad’s bail plea, appeals by convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case for their premature release, black money, Vyapam scam, Sahara chief Subrata Roy’s continued jail term and the Maharashtra’s dance bar ban are some of the leading matters which the Supreme Court will continue hearing in 2016.

Also, the new year is scheduled to begin with a landmark ruling on a batch of petitions by political heavyweights, including Rahul Gandhi, Subramanian Swamy and Arvind Kejriwal, who have challenged the validity of the criminal defamation law in India.

- See more at: http://indianexpress.com/article/explained/2015-the-supreme-court-stands-up-for-its-rights-and-other-rights/#sthash.f2AfpyDy.dpuf

9228 - Digitization of PDS helped plug Rs4,200 crore in leakages: centre - Live Mint

Digitization of PDS helped plug Rs4,200 crore in leakages: centre

As a result of govt’s efforts, 6.14 million bogus or duplicate ration cards have been cancelled in the past two years, says food ministry

Sayantan Bera

Photo: Priyanka Parashar/Mint

Cleaning up the back-end of the subsidized public distribution system (PDS) has helped weed out over 6 million bogus ration cards, plugging leaks to the tune of Rs.4,200 crore in two years, the food ministry said on Monday.

In its bid to better target subsidies and ensure leakage-free distribution of foodgrains, the government used direct benefit transfer (DBT) and automated ration shops, a statement issued by the ministry said.

DBT allows the transfer of subsidies to bank accounts of beneficiaries, who then buy food from the open market. Automation ensures foodgrains are distributed via ration shops through point-of-sale (PoS) devices that authenticate beneficiaries and record the quantity of subsidized grains given to a family.

While DBT is presently used in only the Union territories of Chandigarh and Puducherry, PoS devices are used in 59,500 ration shops. The target is to scale this up to 150,000 shops by March 2016 and 542,000 by March 2017, the ministry said.

States are using central assistance to install PoS devices in ration shops that are linked to the Aadhaar unique identification numbers of beneficiaries.

The linking of Aadhaar numbers with ration cards has gone up from 8% to 39% between April and December, the food ministry said.

As a result of these efforts, 6.14 million bogus or duplicate ration cards have been cancelled in the past two years, stopping the diversion and misuse of PDS foodgrains amounting to about Rs.4,200 crore.

Plugging leaks in PDS through digitization comes on top of the DBT scheme for subsidized domestic gas.

Under DBT for LPG, or the Pahal Scheme, 147.4 million beneficiaries have received Rs.29,826 crore in their bank accounts since the scheme was relaunched in November 2014. The government expects to save Rs.15,000 crore in LPG subsidy every year that would have been lost to leakages.

To successfully implement the National Food Security Act (NFSA), the central government has focused on end-to-end computerization, which will bring transparency and check leakages and diversion of foodgrain, the food ministry said in its statement.

So far, the beneficiary database has been digitized in 33 states and Union territories, while 17 states and Union territories are being allocated foodgrains online. In nine states and Union territories, the entire supply chain has been computerized.

The food law was enacted by Parliament in 2013 and entitles beneficiary households to draw 5kg of foodgrains per person per month at a subsidized price of Rs.2-3 per kg. The scheme is expected to cost the government Rs.1.2 trillion in 2015-16.

While 11 states and Union territories are yet to implement the law, 25 have done so. States that are yet to roll out the law include Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

Presently, around 530 million people have been brought under the law.

A committee on restructuring the Food Corporation of India suggested in its report submitted in January that the government begin direct cash transfers of food subsidy because the existing delivery mechanisms lead to a leakage of as much as 47%. It estimated that cash transfers alone could save the exchequer Rs.30,000 crore every year.

Sayantan Bera

9227 - Former Maoists Reluctant to Accept Aid

Former Maoists Reluctant to Accept Aid

By VK Lakshmi Gayatri

Published: 29th December 2015 05:16 AM

VISAKHAPATNAM:  As they face threat to life from the Maoists, a large number of surrendered rebels and militia members are reluctant to receive government’s financial assistance in the north Andhra region. On humanitarian grounds, the police officials do their bit to make the payments even after bidding farewell to arms long back.

The police face tough time as the payments to the surrendered rebels must be done only through banks. As the surrendered Maoists do not have any identification proof like Aadhaar and ration cards, the bankers refuse to open the accounts. The police take personal initiative to help open the accounts. Even then several former comrades do not come forward to take the money as they cannot put to use the aid for personal needs at their dense forest hamlets.

As a strategy, the government offers some financial assistance, as per their rank in the Maoist movement, to the surrendered rebels for rehabilitation. Recently, the government increased the incentive from  Rs 5,000 to Rs 10,000. There are several cash rewards ranging from Rs 25,000 to Rs 4 lakh. During the past one decade a large number of Maoists, militia members and also sympathisers, for several reasons, surrendered before the police in the Visakhapatnam region.

According to the strict guidelines in the Maoists party, the surrendered persons should not receive any type of government aid like cash rewards and houses. Majority of the surrendered persons site health reasons to the Maoist leadership before bidding farewell. But the Maoists keep a tab on the lifestyle of the surrendered rebels and their revenue sources. There are several occasions when the Maoists severely beat up some of the surrendered Maoists for receiving cash awards. The Maoists impose various punishments on the surrendered persons, including excommunication.

“There is serious check from the Maoists on their former comrades’ lifestyle. If they find that the surrendered rebel purchased land or buffalo to lead a comfortable life, the Maoists take stringent action on them. Surrender is not a crime in the Maoist party, but it will be treated as a serious offence if they receive government aid. Once the lifestyle of surrendered rebels changes for the better, the Maoists fear that it may encourage other rebels and militia members to surrender. So they impose ‘killing’ as punishment,” a senior police officer lamented. 

Meanwhile, the surrendered rebels do not have any identity proof like ration, voter and Aadhaar card. In order to hide their identity when they are in the movement, the Maoists do not register their names in any government records. Though the government plead with the bankers to open more branches in the 11 agency mandals of the district, the banks are reluctant because of poor financial transactions and extremist threat. The cheques which were issued in the name of the surrendered persons lapse as they are not deposited in the banks before due date.

The police open accounts in only one nationalised bank in Visakhapatnam city in favour of the surrendered rebels for encashing cheques. Though the money is credited in their accounts, they are not utilising it.

“Where and how can they utilise. If a surrendered person uses money at his/her tribal village, the Maoists brand them as police informers. How they will keep their passbooks with them? During some friendly policing and community policing programmes, banners are displayed announcing that the surrendered Maoists received aid from the government and they join the hit-list,” said a senior police official engaged in the anti-Maoist operations in the agency.   Police superintendent K Praveen confirmed the same and said that due to the threat from the Maoists, the surrendered persons do not receive the government financial assistance. The surrendered rebels are scared of Maoists if at all they receive money from the government. After receiving the money their lifestyle changes, provoking the Maoists.  The surrendered rebels, who leave their tribal village, accept the aid.

9226 - Govt launches 22 new schemes under Digital India programme - Live Mint

Govt launches 22 new schemes under Digital India programme

Initiatives in areas such as digital infrastructure, digital empowerment and on-demand govt services unveiled

Saurabh Kumar and Moulishree Srivastava

Union minister for communications and information technology Ravi Shankar Prasad launches the new initiatives at an event in New Delhi on Monday. Photo: PIB

New Delhi: The government on Monday expanded its Digital India programme, launching new initiatives and broadening the scope of existing ones, to make more services accessible to the masses.

The 22 initiatives launched under the Digital India programme include projects in the areas of digital infrastructure, digital empowerment, on-demand government services and promotion of industry.

Under the programme, Prime Minister Narendra Modi plans to provide government services online, expand Internet connectivity to rural areas and boost manufacturing of electronic goods in the country.

“If the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government is remembered for laying down national highways, the Narendra Modi government will be known to have laid the digital highway of the country,” communications minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said while launching the initiatives in New Delhi.

The services launched on Monday include electronic payments for government services, a geographical information system (GIS)-based decision-support system, a request for proposal for selecting private cloud service providers for government departments, the setting up of an online laboratory for students to perform virtual experiments for all Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) schools, the incubation of 10 projects in the area of chip-to-system design and the development of a native operating system that will support text-to-speech technology for nine regional languages.

The government also announced the start of a new data centre for the National Informatics Centre (NIC) in Odisha entailing an investment Rs.189 crore and eight new software technology parks with an investment of Rs.78 crore. The new centres will take the total number of such parks in India to 62.

Prasad awarded three states and 55 districts across the country for significant contributions towards digital inclusion and innovative solutions.

“We would want all states to study the success of other states and emulate,” he said. He urged district magistrates and information officers to cooperate at the ground level to improve e-governance.

The government is also working on the concept of digital villages—rural areas that will have telemedicine facilities, virtual classes and solar power-based WiFi hot spots.

Speaking at the function, information technology secretary J.S. Deepak said digital governance is the best way to reach the remotest corners of the country.

“The basic objective should be to scale, because unless services are taken to the masses, digital inclusion will not succeed as asymmetry of information leads to asymmetry of opportunity,” he remarked.

Deepak said the curbs put on the use of Aadhaar unique identification number programme has made it difficult to implement Digital India initiatives.

The Supreme Court has through two orders limited the use of Aadhaar to the public distribution system, the distribution of cooking gas and kerosene, the rural jobs guarantee scheme, the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana, central and state government pensions and the Employees’ Provident Fund Scheme. The issue of whether Aadhaar violates privacy has been referred to a constitution bench of the court, which is still to be constituted.

Prasad said the communications ministry is committed to the launch of the payments bank of India Post by March 2017.

The Reserve Bank of India in August gave initial approval to 11 entities, including India Post, to set up payments banks within a period of 18 months. Prasad requested Kavery Banerjee, secretary, department of posts, to adhere to the timeline.

Banerjee, in her address, said the department of posts is working towards making all postal transactions real-time and rolling out citizen-centric services. She announced that the current banking customers of the postal department will have access to mobile and Internet banking by early next year.

Communications minister Prasad also announced that state-run Mahanagar Telecom Nigam Ltd (MTNL) will offer free roaming services for incoming calls across the country starting 1 January.

Saurabh KumarMoulishree Srivastava

9225 - Address financial exclusion based on faith: RBI panel -TNN

Address financial exclusion based on faith: RBI panel

TNN | Dec 29, 2015, 04.56 AM IST

MUMBAI: A Reserve Bank of India panel has recommended that banks open a separate window offering interest-free deposits and advances to address financial exclusion based on faith. This has once again brought to the fore the concept of Islamic banking, which former RBI governor D Subbarao had said was not possible since the concept of interest payment was ingrained in present regulations. 

The recommendation was one of the suggestions by the committee on 'Medium-term Path on Financial Inclusion', chaired by RBI executive director Deepak Mohanty. This is the first time that an RBI panel has gone way beyond the central bank's traditional domain. The RBI said that the panel was constituted taking inspiration from the remarks of Prime Minister Narendra Modi during RBI's 80th anniversary celebrations this year. 

In recommending interest-free products, the committee has dipped into a 2008 report by present RBI governor Raghuram Rajan during his stint as chairman of the Financial Sector Reforms Committee. Rajan had then said that certain faiths prohibit the use of financial instruments that pay interest. "The non-availability of interest-free banking products results in some Indians, including those in the economically disadvantaged strata of society, not being able to access banking products and services due to reasons of faith. This non-availability also denies India access to substantial sources of savings from other countries in the region," the report said. 

In interest-free banking, not only does the bank not pay interest it also does not engage in lending as a purely financial activity. The funding takes place on the basis of profit and loss sharing (PLS) by engaging in equity and trade financing. "An interest-free window is simply a window within a conventional bank through which customers can conduct business utilizing only Shariah-compatible instruments. At the inception of the window, the products typically offered are safekeeping deposits and the money so raised is deployed in trade-finance products for small and medium companies. 

The panel has also suggested that the government launch 'Sukanya Shiksha', a special bank account for girls who enrol into middle school, and regularly credit funds into this account to curb dropouts. It has also called for doing away with subsidies on farm loans and use the money for a crop insurance scheme to prevent distress if there is a crop failure. 

An earlier panel on financial inclusion constituted by Rajan and headed by banking veteran Nachiket Mor had suggested universal bank accounts by January 2016 and the creation of payment banks. With these two objectives almost achieved, RBI now aims to give inclusion a bigger push by using bank account infrastructure for social schemes and building last mile access to make these accounts more useful. 

The Mohanty panel has reiterated the Mor committee's recommendation that a 'unique biometric identifier' such as Aadhaar be a prime driver for inclusion. Another radical suggestion is to allow cash withdrawal for those opening accounts with issuers of prepaid instruments. This recommendation will give a big boost for prepaid instrument companies like Oxigen, Citrus Pay, Itz Cash and others.

To improve availability of credit, the panel suggests that a transaction history of the account holders be used and Aadhaar-linked credit eligibility certificates be issued to the underprivileged such as landless farmers. 

On credit to small businesses, the panel has expressed concerns over the viability of the Credit Guarantee Trust for Micro and Small Enterprises (CGTMSE), was which introduced in 2000, stating that the fund has become 'highly leveraged'. As against a corpus of Rs 5000 crore, the guaranteed loans stand at Rs 1 lakh crore. To reduce further pressure on the CGTMSE, the panel has suggested creation of multiple agencies to guarantee loans.

In its recommendation, the panel said that it is of the view that with the digitization of land records, which secures ownership, cooperative farming should be encouraged at the local level by panchayats. This would enhance the use of mechanization and reduce input costs and prices.

9224 - RBI's financial inclusion starts and stops with Aadhaar - Money Life

RBI's financial inclusion starts and stops with Aadhaar

MONEYLIFE DIGITAL TEAM | 29/12/2015 05:15 PM |  Follow

While the Finance Ministry is reviving its mission to mandatorily quote PAN for financial transactions, the RBI cannot think beyond Aadhaar for financial inclusion

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has come out with another strange idea for its financial inclusion drive. Instead of focussing on creating adequate infrastructure for the last-mile service delivery, the central bank thinks only government-to-person (G2P) cash transfer through Aadhaar number would make financial inclusion meaningful. This too without even bothering about the Supreme Court decision on not making Aadhaar mandatory for government schemes even as the Finance Ministry itself is issuing advertisements to quote permanent account number (PAN) for all major financial transactions. If the so-called unique identity is so sacred, why is the Finance Ministry placing emphasis on PAN cards for financial transactions? Does this also mean that financial transactions carried out by using Aadhaar are untraceable unlike where PAN is used?

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9223 - Govt mulls universal health insurance - Business Standard

Govt mulls universal health insurance

The government is holding talks with states providing cashless health insurance, such as Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat

Dilasha Seth  |  New Delhi 

December 28, 2015 Last Updated at 00:56 IST

After providing life cover and accident cover, the government is now working on a universal health insurance plan. To begin with, it will provide a seamless solution to the existing cashless health schemes in states by integrating those with the Centre's direct benefits transfer (DBT) platform. Later, these would be scaled up.

"Encouraged by the success of the social security schemes launched earlier this year, we are now looking at products in the health insurance sector by ensuring access. We are discussing it with states," said a government official who did not wish to be named.

The government is holding talks with states providing cashless health insurance, such as Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat. The idea is to provide their schemes through the DBT platform.

"We are building a DBT platform. Under that, we will provide SMS and phone call notifications on money transfers. Besides, we are building a web or smartphone app. Once the architecture is ready, we load health insurance on to it," said the official. The health insurance application would be put up on this platform which would facilitate a move towards a completely cashless digital economy, he added.

The states will be asked to tap the Centre's JAM trinity (Jan Dhan, Aadhaar and mobiles) and the subsidy payment platform. Aadhaar will help in direct biometric identification of targeted citizens, and Jan Dhan bank accounts and mobile phones will help in direct transfer of funds, cutting out all intermediaries.

The public financial management system (PFMS) and National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) will help with disbursement of health subsidies under DBT.

"Many states are providing cashless health insurance. If they give us the list of beneficiaries, they could plug into the DBT platform; that will facilitate accessibility and payment," said the official quoted earlier.

Tamil Nadu, for instance, provides the Chief Minister's Comprehensive Health Insurance Scheme through United India Insurance Company for people from the low income group, and New Health Insurance Scheme for cashless treatment of state government employees.

Karnataka has its Yeshasvini Health Insurance Scheme, covering both rural and urban population, mainly targeting farmers and labourers. The state also offers Jyothi Sanjeevini Scheme, a health insurance cover for government employees.

The Rajasthan government recently launched a cashless health insurance scheme to cover over 10 million people by tying up with New India Insurance.

Similarly, Punjab last month unveiled a compulsory health insurance scheme for all government employees and pensioners. Over 190 million bank accounts have been opened under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana; these have deposits of more than Rs 26,819 crore.

Direct transfer of LPG subsidy of more than Rs 17,446 crore has been made into Jan Dhan accounts from November 2014 to July 2015. The government already provides life and accident cover to people. It has sold over 20 million Jan Suraksha covers under the Pradhan Mantri Suraksha BimaYojana and Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti BimaYojana combined.