Digital India — from dream to reality, via demonetisation

 

Digital India — from dream to reality, via demonetisation
 Aparajita Choudhury  30 November 2016

In the wake of demonetisation, Digital India no longer seems like such a distant dream. Prashanto Roy, VP and Head, NASSCOM Internet Mobile and E-commerce, said at BengaluruITE.biz 2016 that India before demonetisation had 78 percent of cash transactions by gross revenue and the remaining 22 percent came from RTGS, IMPS, and mobile wallets. However, in the three weeks since demonetisation, the number has come down to just 20 percent, with an increasing number of people using mobile wallets for payments.

However, accessibility is still a huge challenge in digital India because although a billion users are online,  only a small fraction is actually online in a meaningful way. Out of a billion mobile subscribers, 350 million are internet users, of which 90 percent use a mobile device. The top three apps in India by monthly average download are WhatsApp, Facebook, and Messenger.

When it comes to payments, the secure way of transacting digitally is through smartphones and not feature phones because SMS is very unsafe. Now when it comes to connectivity, it triggered one question: how will the smartphones connect? If it is via 4G, then there should be enough spectrum  for the same. But if one looks at the social pyramid of a billion mobile users, there is a huge section of illiterate masses on the way down the structure.

Challenges on the payment side

Though the adoption of digital payments has witnessed a rise, the payments themselves remain an issue. According to Priya Karnik, ‎Vice President — Business, at Paytm, digital payments have various aspects like connectivity, serving customers digitally, and digital literacy.

She said, “In financial services, we have to be very cognizant in terms of what have we achieved so far. We have more than a billion people with Aadhaar as an identity. India Stack is the foundation for us to launch financial services digitally and the Jan-Dhan Yojana. By mobile banking we don’t mean that we are accessing the banking interface via mobile, mobile payment goes beyond where we can use it commerce.”

Paytm currently has over 150 million registered wallet users and one billion offline merchants and performs seven million transactions a day. Priya emphasised that today, everyone from the chaiwala and kirana stores to the tender coconut water guy is accepting payment digitally. This revolution is creating a lot of opportunities for financial services providers which offer various financial services like micro lending, micro insurance, etc.

Addressing the issue of local languages has also become crucial in terms of reaching the rural and semi-urban areas. Therefore, Paytm recently launched a multilingual interface in 10 languages to overcome language barriers, enabling people to shop and pay in regional languages. The user interface will be available on Android in 10 different regional languages like Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Gujarati, Marathi, Bengali, Kannada, Malayalam, Oriya, and Punjabi.

Challenges in digital transactions

The key to the Digital India initiative is accessibility, which can be divided into two verticals — wired and wireless connectivity. The delivery of internet has to be seamless, affordable, and widely available. India’s position in the world of broadband services has been elevated with consumers’ changing preferences towards internet adoption.

Bala Malladi, CEO, ACT Fibernet, said, “If you want people to come on the digital bandwagon, you need to give a good experience, which comes from trial and adaptation. The trial is something we need to generate at both the government level and private level. The best way to make people experience something that they haven’t done earlier is through Wi-Fi. If you go to any Wi-Fi hotspot zone assuming that the backend technology is robust enough, this is a wonderful experience. The trial should be done with a little bit of adaptation and there is no other option but to have the backhaul network. I don’t see any alternative other than connecting and getting a reach to every village.”

Overcoming the challenges

Before conquering the challenges of internet services delivery, it is very crucial to ascertain the prevailing problems like availability of supporting infrastructure and literacy.

Jayant Bhatnagar, Director, Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DOT), said, “The problem of literacy cannot be solved overnight; we need infrastructure to do that. Therefore, we have developed equipment which will enable illiterate people to get access.”

C-DOT has developed a product called GyanSetu to bridge the gaps in connectivity and communication dissemination in the rural parts of the country. GyanSetu allows rural masses to connect to the internet in local language, bridging the digital divide between rural and urban areas by providing multi-lingual text and audio- and video-based solutions.

Ashish Arora, ‎CEO, Airtel Business, said that Airtel is working with state governments to create awareness of the internet. Airtel is working on a few projects in the villages of MP and UP, training women to improve education and awareness in digital literacy.

YourStory is a social media partner for BengaluruITE.biz.

PFLP mourns and salutes Comrade Fidel Castro, a revolutionary inspiration for the world

PFLP mourns and salutes Comrade Fidel Castro, a revolutionary inspiration for the world
Nov 26 2016
 

 Castro-Habash

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine -PFLP-extends its condolences to the Cuban people, the Palestinian people and the revolutionary movements of the world upon the loss of the former prime minister and president of Cuba and the historic international revolutionary leader, Comrade Fidel Castro Ruz, on Friday, November 25, 2016.

Castro’s internationalist revolutionary commitment to fighting imperialism and capitalism – manifest in the revolutionary victory against US imperialism and its puppet Batista regime in the 1959 Cuban revolution – conistently stood with the oppressed peoples of the world in their confrontation of imperialism, Zionism, racism and capitalism. Throughout his life, Fidel was a supporter and an example of revolutionary struggle in Latin America, in Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, El Salvador and throughout the continent. From Angola to South Africa, Palestine to Mozambique, Bolivia to El Salvador, Castro’s legacy of international revolutionary solidarity and struggle continues to serve as an example in practice that transcends borders toward revolution, democracy and socialism.

Fidel-Habash-Hilda

At a time when the world is witnessing the massive domination of imperialist powers, it is particularly critical at this time to cherish and learn from the legacy and reality of the Cuban revolution and its persistent defeat of US imperialism. The victory of the Cuban revolution was one that came through armed struggle, a victory that belonged to the entire people. Fidel and his comrades mobilized workers and peasants to fight together to ensure the victory of their revolution, not only at the moment of their triumph in 1959, but over the decades to come. Despite all contradictions, the Cuban revolution has remained an example of the nationalization of production, the division of wealth, and the construction of exceptional free education and health care systems.
Throughout Castro’s life, and throughout the history of the Cuban revolution, support for the Palestinian people’s national liberation movement and the Palestinian revolution has been central to its anti-imperialist approach that centered the construction of revolutionary alliances between the progressive forces and struggling peoples of the world. The Palestinian people and the Cuban people have stood fidel22together at all levels, in confronting imperialism and its forces, from Latin America to Africa to the Arab world. In the Tricontinental alliance and the Non-Aligned Movement, Cuba stood with the Palestinian people and their liberation movement in all facets of international struggle, building a revolutionary alliance for collective movement against imperialism, colonialism and its particular manifestation in Palestine, Zionism. Zionism has been a key weapon of racist oppression, a fact recognized by Fidel Castro and the Cuban people and state. This popular unity has not faded over the years; as Zionist weaponry pounded Gaza in 2014, Castro slammed this “repugnant fascism” against the Palestinian people. Dozens of Palestinian students continue to study in Cuba today through its long-running scholarship program.

As we mark the passing of Fidel Castro, we also remember his comrades: Che Guevara, Celia Sanchez, Camilo Cienfuegos, Haydee Santamaria, and many more who fought to create a new Cuba and build a revolutionary society. This is a moment not only for mourning and for memory, but also a time to revive our revolutionary ideas, for victory for Palestine, towards democracy and socialism.

“A revolution is a struggle to the death between the future and the past,” said Fidel Castro.

Throughout his life, he fought endlesly to bring that future into being. This moment calls on us to intensify, examine, and develop our Palestinian, Arab and international revolution to defeat Zionism and imperialism and fight for a future of liberation, justice, democracy and socialism.

வங்கி வரிசையில் வாழ்விழந்தார் வாழ்க்கைக் கிராமவாசி!

கும்பகோணத்தை அடுத்த பாபநாசம் இந்தியன் வங்கியில் பணம் எடுப்பதற்கு வரிசையில் காத்திருந்த முதியவர் மயங்கி விழுந்து உயிரிழந்தார்.

கபிஸ்தலத்தை அடுத்த வாழ்க்கை கிராமத்தைச் சேர்ந்த 75 வயது முதியவர் சுப்பிரமணியன்.

இவர் தனது சேமிப்பில் உள்ள பணத்தை எடுப்பதற்காக மனைவியுடன் அங்குள்ள இந்தியன் வங்கிக்கு சென்றுள்ளார். பணம் எடுப்பதற்காக நீண்ட வரிசையில் காத்திருந்த பொதுமக்களுக்கு நடுவே அவரும், அவரது மனைவியும் சிக்கிக் கொண்டுள்ளனர்.

இந்நிலையில் வரிசையில் கால்கடுக்க நின்ற முதியவர் சுப்பிரமணியனுக்கு திடீரென நெஞ்சுவலி ஏற்பட்டு மயங்கி விழுந்தார். அருகில் நின்ற அவரது மனைவி தையல்நாயகி, கணவரை தன் மடியில் வைத்துக் கொண்டு உதவி கேட்டுள்ளார்.

ஆனால், முதியவரின் உயிரை பொருட்படுத்தாமல் வங்கியில் நின்ற பொதுமக்கள் பணம் எடுப்பதிலேயே மும்முரமாக இருந்துள்ளனர்.
 
மேலும் சிலர் இந்த காட்சியை வீடியோ எடுத்துக் கொண்டிருந்தனரே தவிர உதவிக்கு யாரும் முன்வரவில்லை.

நீண்ட நேரத்திற்கு பிறகு வங்கி ஊழியர்கள் அழைத்த பிறகு அங்கு வந்த `108 மருத்துவக் குழுவினர்`, முதியவர் ஏற்கனவே உயிரிழந்துவிட்டதாக கூறினர்.

வங்கிக்கு பணம் எடுக்க வந்த இடத்தில் மனைவியின் மடியில் முதியவர் உயிர்விட்ட சம்பவம் பொதுமக்கள் மத்தியில் அதிர்ச்சியையும், சோகத்தையும் ஏற்படுத்தியுள்ளது.

பதிவு செய்த நாள் : December 04, 2016 - 09:07 AM

Stephen Hawking hospitalised in Rome

Stephen Hawking hospitalised in Rome for checks after not feeling well

File Photo: Mr Stephen Hawking

British physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking has been hospitalised in Rome for checks after not feeling well but his condition is not believed to be serious, a spokesman said.

Hawking, 74, who was in Rome to attend a conference at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and met Pope Francis on Monday, was taken to Rome's Gemelli hospital on Thursday night.

Both the spokesman and a Vatican source said Hawking, who suffers from motor neurone disease, was not believed to be in serious condition. The Vatican source said plans for Hawking and his entourage to leave on Saturday had not been changed.

A hospital source said Hawking would spend a second night in the Gemelli "as a precaution" but that "the situation was under control".

Hawking, author of "A Brief History of Time," speaks through a computer and travels with a staff that includes two nurses. He gave a talk at the Vatican on Nov. 25 on the origin of the universe.

The Gemelli is considered one of Rome's best hospitals and it is where popes are treated.

பாசிசம் நோக்கிய பயணம்

கள்ள நோட்டு மோடியை எதிர்த்து கழகம் வள்ளுவர் கோட்டத்தில் ஆர்ப்பாட்டம்

தமிழகச் சூழலில் ஏற்பட்டுள்ள மாறுதல்கள் காரணமாக, மோடி ஆட்சியின் `செல்லாக் காசு` அறிவிப்பை எதிர்த்து  12-12-2016 திங்கள் காலை வள்ளுவர் கோட்டத்தில் நடத்தத் திட்டமிட்டிருந்த கண்டன ஆர்ப்பாட்டம், 19-12 2016 திங்கள் அன்று நிகழவுள்ளதாக கழகம் அறிவித்துள்ளதை அறியத் தருகின்றோம்.

 

2016 நிர்மூலத்தில் நிமிரும் ஈழ மாவீரர்

 

 

Digital India

 

12 Projects You Should Know About Under the Digital India Initiative

 

Donald Trump speaks directly to Taiwan's Tsai Ing-wen

Donald Trump speaks directly to Taiwan's Tsai Ing-wen

President-elect speaks with Taiwan's president in a break from the US' "one China" policy.

The call comes at a time of worsened Taiwan-China relations since the election of Tsai earlier this year [EPA]

US President-elect Donald Trump has spoken with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, a move that is likely to infuriate China and complicate US relations with Beijing.
During Friday's discussion, Trump and Tsai noted "the close economic, political and security ties" between Taiwan and the United States, according to the president-elect's transition team.

"President-elect Trump also congratulated President Tsai on becoming president of Taiwan earlier this year," it said.

The call was the first such contact with Taiwan by a US president-elect or president since President Jimmy Carter adopted a one-China policy in 1979. As part of its so-called "one China" policy Washington shifted diplomatic recognition of China from the government in Taiwan to the communist government on the mainland.

Under that policy, the US recognises Beijing as representing China but retains unofficial ties with Taiwan. Washington is Taiwan's most important political ally and sole arms supplier, despite the lack of formal diplomatic ties.

Al Jazeera's Adrian Brown, reporting from Beijing, said that the response from the Chinese government was swift. "A spokesperson said China opposes any official contact or military interactions between the US and Taiwan.

"It is not what was said that will upset China, but the symbolism of the US president-elect directly speaking to the Taiwanese leader," he said.

Defending the move

As he came under fire for the move, Trump defended the contact on Twitter.

He first tweeted that Tsai initiated the call, one of several he has had with world leaders in recent days, and brushed off criticism for speaking directly with the leader.

"Interesting how the US sells Taiwan billions of dollars of military equipment but I should not accept a congratulatory call," Trump wrote in a second tweet sent an hour after the first one.

China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi Wang said that the so-called "one-China policy" is the cornerstone of US-China relations and that Beijing hoped that foundation would not be "interfered with or damaged" by Trump's move.

China views Taiwan as a renegade province.

During the election campaign, Trump referred to China as a currency manipulator and accused Beijing of raping the US economy.

The White House responded to the call by saying that "longstanding policy" on China and Taiwan has not changed.

"We remain firmly committed to our 'one China' policy," said Ned Price, a national security spokesman for President Barack Obama. "Our fundamental interest is in peaceful and stable cross-Strait relations."

The call comes at a time of worsened Taiwan-China relations since the election of Tsai's pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) earlier this year.

Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke by telephone on November 14. Xi stressed that cooperation was the only choice for relations between the world's two largest economies, and Trump said that the two had established a "clear sense of mutual respect".

Source: Al Jazeera News and Agencies

India Will welcome if US-Pak talk on terror:

India Will welcome if US-Pak talk on terror:


India today downplayed reports of US President-elect Donald Trump lavishing praise on Nawaz Sharif during a telephonic conversation but said it will welcome US-Pakistan talks to resolve the “issue of cross-border terrorism emanating from Pakistan.”

New Delhi, Publish Date: Dec 1 2016 11:32PM | Updated Date: Dec 1 2016 11:32PM

Will welcome if US-Pak talk on terror: India

"I will reserve my judgement. We have seen only one side of the conversation. And that conversation does talk about the US President-elect willing to resolve all outstanding issues of Pakistan. We believe that the most outstanding issue of the outstanding issues is Pakistan's continued support to terrorism.

"To that extent, we will welcome a dialogue between the US and Pakistan to resolve that issue," External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson VikasSwarup said.

 CONTINUED TERROR CANNOT BE ‘NEW NORMAL:’

 Earlier, talking tough in the wake of attack on an army camp in Nagrota, India today made it clear that talks with Pakistan cannot take place in an atmosphere of "continued terror", which it will never accept as "new normal" in the bilateral relationship.

External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson VikasSwarup also said the government is awaiting detailed information on the specifics of the Nagrota attack before it decides on the next steps.

"But I do wish to emphasise that the government takes this incident very seriously and will do what it feels is required for our national security," he asserted.

Asked if there would be bilateral talks on the sidelines of the Heart of Asia (HoA) Conference in Amritsar on December 3 and 4, he said, "We have not received any request from Pakistan for a bilateral meeting.

"India has always been open to talks but obviously it cannot be that talks take place in an atmosphere of continued terrorism. India will never accept continued terrorism as the new normal in the bilateral relationship," Swarup said.

India's sharp remarks come two days ahead of the conference where Pakistan will be represented by Sartaj Aziz, Foreign Affairs Advisor to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Earlier, Pakistani media reports had quoted officials as having said there would not be a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the HoA meet on Afghanistan.

Prime Minister NarendraModi and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani will jointly inaugurate the ministerial deliberations on Sunday where the Indian delegation will be led by Finance Minister ArunJaitley in the absence of External Affairs Minister SushmaSwaraj, who is ill.

Hitting out at Pakistan, Swarup said Pakistan is a country which has a long record of carrying out cross border terrorism which it regards as an instrument of state policy and which puts Islamabad at odds with the rest of the international community.

On the criticism that the attacks increased after the surgical strikes, he said, "It was our assessment at that point of time that there was an imminent threat based on hard intelligence about the location of armed terrorists who were ready to infiltrate from across the LoC and carry out terrorist activities on our side.

"This imminent threat was successfully neutralised through the surgical strikes. We should not look only at what happened but also at what did not happen, what was prevented through successful neutralisation of terrorists."

On the appointment of Pakistan's new army chief, he said it is an internal matter of Pakistan. India will judge Pakistan by its behaviour and its track record and not by change of persons, he added.

On Pakistan suggesting a joint probe in Uri strike, which India maintains was carried out by Pakistan-based militants, Swarup said this has happened in past also and instead of acting on the evidence provided by India, Islamabad engages in "pure propaganda ploys".

"Pakistan called for an international inquiry, we said we are happy even with their domestic inquiry. When we are giving you fingerprints, DNA of the terrorists who we believe came from Pakistan, why Pakistan cannot match this with its national database?

"That would be simplest thing to do, but Pakistan refuses to do that and instead engages in these pure propaganda ploys," the Spokesperson said, adding if Islamabad was serious about tracking down those behind the Uri attack, it should first bring to book those responsible for 26/11 strikes in Mumbai. Besides, it should also share with India the investigation details in the Pathankot air base attack for which a Joint Investigation Team from Pakistan visited the country, he said.

He also rejected Pakistan's allegation that India scuttled this year's SAARC summit, saying its members wrote "unanimously" to the Chair that atmosphere was not conducive for holding the meet.