PANEL PROPOSES FDI HIKE IN DEFENCE SECTOR TO 49%
Josy Joseph, New Delhi
DNA
A high-level committee looking into defence expenditure has recommended a host of sweeping reforms, including a hike in the foreign direct investment (FDI) limit in the defence sector to 49% and divestment of defence public sector units (PSUs).
The committee has also recommended extensive use of information and communication technologies in the defence procurement process. "All contemporary armed forces and controlling ministries have adopted IT for network-centric operations and e-governance.
However, the Indian MoD and armed forces continue with their laborious, manual and paper-based transaction," the report says.
FIRST SMART CARDS BATCH TO BENEFIT 50,000 PEOPLE
Chandigarh
Hindustan Times (Chandigarh edition)
Smart Cards for the Public Distribution System (PDS) in city will now be a reality. HCL Infosystems has been assigned work of smart cards in city, which will benefit 50,000 families in the first batch by March 31.
Under a pilot scheme announced many months back, ration cards in Chandigarh will be replaced by modern smart cards to allow only genuine people to buy subsidised food grains.
UIDAI ENSURES UNIQUE ID ISN’T CRACKED BY ENTERPRISING FRAUDS
Subrahmanyan Viswanath, Bangalore
Deccan Herald
Those at the helm of the Unique Identity Authority of India (UIDAI) are preparing ways and means to beat your cheating, lying ways.
In the works is a slew of measures that would plug systemic loopholes which cheats, criminals and sundry others had hitherto been taking to grease their way into possessing dual identities, be it multiple passports, ration cards, credit cards and PAC cards. In other words, the UIDAI is attempting what no other authority in Indian governance has tried before: the road to obtaining an ID cannot be paved by cheating or bribing.
Once the Unique Identity (UID) number regime is firmly in place, it will become very difficult to duck the system and sneak in by employing ‘other’ means.
The consequences of attempting to defraud the system could prove disastrous for the adventurous and may even put the person in peril.
The UIDAI objective will be met by the underlying principle –“you are who you say you are.”
In fact, it will be the litmus test of the system’s reliability, for the UIDAI will not be issuing a card, which can be easily tampered with. The UIDAI will only issue an UID, according to a confidential paper accessed by Deccan Herald, and will not contain intelligence as, it observes, loading intelligence into identity numbers makes them suspectible to fraud and theft.
A typical UID will be a random number.
The Central ID Data Repository (CIDR) will perform a search on key demographic fields and biometrics for each new enrolment to ensure no duplicates exist.
The UID system is automatically aligned as a self-cleaning mechanism. The CIDR will only hold minimum information required to identify the resident and ensure no duplicates.
These will include a UID number which will be numeric and unique for all 1.2 billion Indians. It will only contain identity fields like name, date of birth, place of birth, gender, parents’ names and respective UIDs, address (permanent and present), expiry date, photograph and finger prints.
The biometric sub-system will have in-built response mechanisms in place to detect when an individual deliberately impersonates someone else, either real or fictitious. Since CIDR will store biometrics of residents, identity frauds will be easier to control.
Playing out different potential fraud scenarios, the authority says, it will not share resident data as it envisions a balance between “privacy and purpose” when it comes to information on residents.
As a result no one will have access to information in the UID database. The authority will simply answer requests to authenticate a person’s identity only through a Yes/No response.
Stating that it will offer robust and resilient form of online authentication in which agencies can compare demographic and biometric information of residents with the record stored in the central database, the document notes that technology will undergird the UIDAI system to ensure security and safety of information.
Incidentally, the authority, which plans to purchase fingerprint scanners, dual iris and face capture devices, live scan fingerprint equipments with their associated software, as a precursor to this, has invited manufacturers and authorised agents to submit bids for supply of biometric and fingerprint devices.
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