February Spo india 2018

www.spoindia.org Vol. III | Issue 04 | February 2018 | Rs. 50

Yogi’s Development Agenda Reaches New Height

WHO’S OWED HOW MUCH 58% 1$7,21$/,6(' %$1.

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Growing NPAs is the biggest worry for PSBs today Reason behind growing NPAs in PSBs ...… details in the coming issue | 20pg www.spoindia.org February 2018 | 1

2 | February 2018 www.spoindia.org

COVER STORY | 20 Editor-in-Chief: Deepak Kumar Sahu Executive Editor: S Mohini Ratna Assistant Editor: Samrita Baruah Correspondent: Megha Copy Editor: C. M. Dutta Art Director: Rakesh Kumar Network Administrator: Ashok Kumar Singh Manager-IT: Subhash Mohanta Manager-SEO: Bidyadhar Behera

WHO’S OWED HOW MUCH

BUSINESS: Vice President: Prasanna Rout General Manager: Ashok Ranjan Dash Marketing Manager: Dipendra Kumar

CORPORATE OFFICE:

58%

A-84A/3 Rose Apartment, Paryavaran complex IGNOU Road, New Delhi - 110 030 Tel: 011-41656383, 46061809 Email: edit@spoindia.org

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Bangalore: Bureau office Marketing Manager: S. Kamala Kar D-103 G.F., Ashish JK Apartments Thubarahalli Extended Road Bangaluru - 560066, Tel: 080-49530399 Mobile: 08904205750/9916134482

Mumbai: Bureau office Regional Manager (West): Anil Kumar Anurag Residency, 203 - “B” Wing, Plot No-5, Sector-9, Kamothe, Navi Mumbai - 410 209 Tel: 022-65561292, Mobile: 08108017479

Chennai: Bureau office Branch Manager: Mr.Parthiban K A2, R.C.Residency, Cholambedu Road, Thiruvenkada nagar, Ambathur, Chennai - 600 053 Mobile: 09840055626

Hyderabad: Bureau office Branch Manager: Sunil Kumar 32-161/3, 202 Neha Paradise, Nr. Maissamma Temple, Venketeswara colony, Ramakrishna Puram Hyderabad - 500056, Telangana, Tel: 040-32989844/ Cell No. 08100298033

Kolkata: Bureau office Marketing Officer: Kiran Kumar 67 Sarada Park, Garia, Kolkata - 700 084 Mobile: 09903088480 Printed by Deepak Kumar Sahu and Published by Deepak Kumar Sahu on behalf of Deepak Kumar Sahu and Printed at Pushpak Press Pvt. Ltd. Shed No. 203 - 204, DSIDC Complex, Okhla Industrial Area, Phase-I, New Delhi-110 020 and Published at A-84A/3 Rose Apartment, Paryavaran complex, IGNOU Road, New Delhi - 110 030 Editor - Deepak Kumar Sahu

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News- 6-12 CORPORATE INITIATIVES – 14 14 CSS corp conducts computer literacy training program INTERVIEWS 16 ‘India as a unique country is progressing at an impressive pace’ OPEN YOUR EYES 18 ‘We are actively working towards skilling people in their professional journey’

CYBER SECURITY - 26 26 Cyber security & citizen of 2030 ROUND ABOUT 33 Did Budget 2018-19 omit IT? SPECIAL COVERAGE 34 Uttar Pradesh Investors Summit-2018 brings 4 lakh Cr. Investments

COVER STORY 20 Growth of bad loans in india growing in double digits

SPO FOUNDATION 35 Sharp NGO runs a comprehensive Health Care Programme in association with Chambal Fertilizers– District Kota, Rajasthan

SPO SPECIAL 23 Water atms to quench thirst for safe drinking water

CASE STUDY 36 The rule of the green thumb – innovation and sustainability

TECHNOMANIA 24 Is whatsapp secured for group chats?

TECHNOMANIA 37 Issue of Data Sovereignty should be prioritised!

www.spoindia.org February 2018 | 3

Good cyber hygiene is essential to combat the majority of current threats In the new digital and mobile world where there is no longer a perimeter, the detection and protection of data using point products is just not good enough. The industry is moving to cyber solutions that adapt protection based on the context of user behaviour, and we need inspirational and driven leaders to help customers and partners address this paradigm shift.

Globally, India continues to be one of the few growth markets for print media. In 2018, though Print media is likely to continue its robust growth, it will be the slowest rate among other media platforms like TV, Radio, Digital, etc. but print will continue to remain the most credible source of information, despite the fact that most people now, consume news from social media. While many of the corporates are planning for their move to digital mandate at the core of the brand communication strategy, the challenge for a PR firm of getting coverage in print will remain dominant, as most clients will want their stories to “see the ink” in print.

In 2017, Indian internet users spent about 34% of their time on social messaging and an average Indian spends 7 times more time on their mobile phone than on watching TV and 14 times more than on reading print material. 2018 expect the media consumption habits will change further with TV news viewing decreasing further - more people will consume news / views online – ‘on-the-go’ on their mobile device.

Secondly, more and more organisations are beginning to employ machine learning and artificial intelligence as part of their defences against cyber threats. One application could be to use deep learning algorithms to improve the effectiveness of their attacks. This shows that AI and its subsets will play a larger role in facilitating cyberattacks in the near future.

Going forward, the growth of digital and new-age media will continue to bring a major change in the media consumption habits, not only in terms of content but also in mode and time. With a huge population getting together on a single platform, online messenger services like ShareChat, WhatsApp will become the biggest media channel to make or break stories. However, the golden times are going to be over for the social media companies including Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp because of the emergence of data sovereignty policy that will soon come to India. 80 countries globally are ready with their policy into Data sovereignty.

Cyber security is a strategic enterprise risk that goes far beyond information technology. A strong cyber security strategy should align to the business vision, objectives and innovation projects. If implemented effectively, it can enhance product integrity, customer experience, operations, regulatory compliance, brand reputation, investor confidence and more — leading to a return on your cyber investments.

Deepak Kumar Sahu Publisher & Editor-in-Chief

4 | February 2018 www.spoindia.org

www.spoindia.org February 2018 | 5

NEWS/GOVT.

NER’s regional Centre for Agriculture to be inaugurated with Israeli collaboration

ISRO planning to launch Chandrayaan-2 around April: Dr Jitendra Singh

A delegation led by Israeli Ambassador to India, Daniel Carmon met the Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) of the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh. Various issues of common interest including startups, food processing, innovation and technology were discussed during the meeting.

The Israeli Ambassador informed that a Centre for Agriculture, with collaboration of Israeli expertise, is going to be inaugurated in Mizoram on 7th March this year. This will be the first such centre in the North East region of India that is being established with Israeli collaboration, he added. Set up with a cost of Rs 8-10 crore, this centre is exclusively for processing of citrus fruits. The project has been set up with the tripartite collaboration of Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Government of India, Government of Israel and State Government of Mizoram.

The Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) of the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh said that Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is planning to launch Chandrayan-2 Mission around April this year.

Chandrayaan-2 is the country's second mission to the moon, he added.

He was addressing a press conference on the achievements of Department of Space and Department of Atomic Energy.

The Minister said that ISRO has achieved many milestones in the recent years which include launch of 104 satellites in single mission in February last year and the launch of South Asia Satellite which will boost ties with neighbours. He said that India is a frontline nation in the field of space technology and the scientists need to be complimented for it. The space technology is being utilised by various ministries and departments.

Cabinet approves creation of National Urban Housing Fund

Cabinet approves India-Morocco Agreement in Railway Sector

The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi has given approval for creation of National Urban Housing Fund (NUHF) for Rs.60, 000 crores. This fund will be situated in Building Materials and Technology Promotion Council (BMTPC), an autonomous b o d y registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860 under the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.

M o r e than 17 lakh houses have been grounded and about 5 lakh houses have been completed.

Under Credit Linked Subsidy Scheme (CLSS), wherein housing for EWS/LIG/MIG beneficiaries is being sanctioned by the Banks/ HFCs to the eligible beneficiaries under the PMAY (Urban), the responses have grown significantly.

6 | February 2018 www.spoindia.org

The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister has given its ex-post facto approval to the Cooperation Agreement between India and the Moroccan National Railways Office (ONCF) to develop long-term cooperation and partnership in different areas of railway sector. The Cooperation Agreement was signed on 14thDecember, 2017.

The Cooperation Agreement will enable technical cooperation in the following areas • Training and staff development; • Expert missions, exchange of experience and personnel; and • Mutual technical assistance, including exchanging of experts.

The Ministry of Railways have signed MOUs for technical cooperation in the Rail sector with various foreign Governments and National Railways. The identified areas of cooperation include high-speed corridors, speed raising of existing routes, development of world class stations, heavy haul operations and modernization of rail infrastructure, etc. The cooperation is achieved through exchange of information on developments in areas of railways technology & operations, knowledge sharing, technical visits, training & seminars and workshops.

NEWS/GOVT.

India inks US$100-billion agreement with NBD for Rajasthan Water Sector

In order to deal with the water shortage in summer, a loan agreement for financing of Rajasthan Water Sector Restructuring Project for the Desert Areas was signed between the Government of India and the New Development Bank (NDB) recently in New Delhi. This is the first tranche loan of US$100 million approved by the NDB under the Multi-Tranche Financing Facility of US$345 billion for this project.

The objective of this project is to rehabilitate the 678-km-long “Indira Gandhi Canal system� built during 1958-63 to prevent seepage, conserve water, and enhance water use efficiency, as mandated by both national- and state-level policies on water use.

The Loan Agreement was signed by Govind Mohan, Joint Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs, on behalf of the Government of India, and Shaohua Wu, Director General, Project Financing, on behalf of NDB.

Ministry of Railways to train apprentices in different disciplines

As part of the Skill India initiative, the Ministry of Railways has been contributing in a big way to provide training to apprentices in various disciplines training in categories like Fitter, Turner, Machinist, Welder, Painter, Carpenter, Electrician, Refrigerator and AC Mechanic, Mechanic (Motor Vehicle/Diesel), etc, for long.

The Ministry of Railways has kept a target of training of 30 thousand apprentices in its 16 Zonal Units and 7 Production Units.

In addition to over 4,000 persons already undergoing training in various establishments 26,000 training slots for apprenticeship training have been notified for the year 2017-18. An Employment Notification has been issued earlier in the week for recruitment of 62,907 staff in Level 1 pay scale and, out of these, apprentices trained in Railway establishments will be given preference to the tune of over 12,000 vacancies which is in line with the recent amendments made in the Apprentices Act, 1961

Government to add new provisions in PPF scheme

Having a thought to make some changes in the Public Provident Fund while retaining the basic elements of the scheme like tax exemptions and the interest rate policy, the Union Government is introducing new facilities such as allowing investors to opt out of the scheme before the completion of five years.

The government has proposed several amendments to the laws governing small savings schemes such as PPF and National Savings Certificate, which have raised apprehensions about subscribers losing out on several benefits.

Investment in small savings schemes can be made by a guardian on behalf of a minor under the provisions proposed in the Bill and the guardian may also be given associated rights and responsibilities.

There was no clear provision earlier regarding deposit by minors in the existing laws and the new element has been incorporated to promote savings among children. Similarly, a specific provision has been inserted to allow operation of small savings accounts by differently-abled persons.

Rs 4,719 crore was spent on CSR in first 8 months of 2017-18

Companies have spent Rs 4,719 crore towards CSR activities in the first eight months of the current fiscal, according to the government. Private sector entities have however accounted for a major chunk of the expenditure.

Under the Companies Act, 2013, certain class of profitable entities are required to spend at least two per cent of their threeyear average annual net profit towards CSR activities.

Based on filings made by companies in the MCA21 registry, the total CSR spending stood at Rs 4,719 crore till November 30 of current financial year, according to a written reply given in the Lok Sabha by Minister of State for Corporate Affairs P P Chaudhary. Out of that amount, Rs 3,393.17 crore was spent by private sector companies while Rs 1,325.83 crore came from public sector undertakings.

In 2015-16, the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) expenditure was Rs 13,827.86 crore, higher than Rs 9,564.77 crore recorded in 2014-15. www.spoindia.org February 2018 | 7

CSR/CORPORATE

Sony Pictures Networks sponsors football tournament for underprivileged youth

Nestlé India inaugurates clean drinking water facilities in rural Rajasthan

Sony Pictures Networks India (SPN) is sponsoring the 2nd edition of the National Inclusion Cup (NIC), which is the only national football tournament of its kind for underprivileged youth. The NIC is being held from 20-23rd February at Tiger Play, Lokhandwala, Mumbai and is organized in partnership with the NGO, Krida Vikas Sanstha (Slum Soccer).

The first edition of the NIC in Feb 2017 saw participation of 40 teams (24 men and 16 women) from different states of India and a team from Nepal.

The best performing players from the NIC were selected to represent India in the Homeless World Cup 2017, in Oslo, Norway. A portable pitch along with sidings was also imported from Scotland through SPN support to help them practice for the Homeless World Cup. Team India had their best performance ever in the tournament as the Indian women’s team ranked 7th and men’s team stood at 18th.

Reaffirming its commitment to providing clean drinking water, Nestlé India in association with the Government of Rajasthan inaugurated clean drinking water facilities in Badnagar.

A total of 12 water purification units have been installed in Manjri Kala, Chandoli, Bhaisroardgarh, Umand, Abdulpur, Angai, Langra, Panchodi, Panota, Sirohi, Badnagar and Khadin since 2017, as a part of Nestlé India’s clean drinking water project in the primary health centers of rural Rajasthan.

Commenting on the partnership, Minister of State (IC) for Sports and Youth Affairs, Col. Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, said, “Access to clean drinking water is a human right. The government aims to build drinking water facilities to ensure a healthy future for all. The partnership with Nestlé India will strengthen our efforts towards addressing the issue of clean water sources in vulnerable communities across Rajasthan. I am hopeful that this association will help make a difference to the lives of people.”

Vidyasaarathi and TATA Housing to provide scholarship for girl students

Infosys Foundation inks MoU with Kailash Satyarthi Children’s Foundation

Vidyasaarathi, an education scholarship portal powered by NSDL e-Governance Infrastructure Limited (NSDL e-Gov) has announced its partnership with TATA Housing who will be offering scholarships to girl students. Through this partnership, TATA Housing aims to recognize, promote and financially assist the deserving girl students belonging to economically weaker sections of the society. This partnership will open up new avenues for Vidyasaarathi to expand its portfolio in the educational scholarships space; thus catering to a number of underprivileged students.

The scholarship is relevant to students pursuing civil engineering (B.E/ B.Tech.), Bachelors in Architecture (B.Arch) and MBA in Construction Project Management (CPM). The eligibility criteria for B.E / B.Tech scholarship is that the student needs to be pursing the courses and must have an overall minimum percentage of 50% right from SSC and above.

8 | February 2018 www.spoindia.org

Infosys Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Infosys, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the “Kailash Satyarthi” Children’s Foundation for a grant to create a child-friendly village focussed on improving children’s health, providing education and creating a nonviolent environment.

Infosys Foundation will disburse this grant over the next three years.

This project will be aimed at creating, Child labour-free villages, Benefits for 10,000 children, women and youth through education, vocational training and career counselling, 100-per cent enrolment and retention in schools, Creation and recognition of a Bal Panchayat (children’s governing body) within the Gram Panchayat (village governing body), Zero incidences of child marriage and other social evils in villages, Improved child protection mechanism in the villages, Proper water, sanitation and hygiene in the villages, and Awareness about government schemes.

CSR/CORPORATE

Shell with Oath to bring its campaign on ‘cleaner energy solutions’

Oath has announced a global deal with Mediacom and Shell to take the energy brand’s “Make the Future” campaign into its next phase. The new phase brings the content of its “On Top of the World” music video to life through a crafted WebGL “Globe” activation, created by Oath’s RYOT Studio global solutions team in collaboration with UNIT9, allowing people to explore the five cleaner energy projects featured within the music video through its interactive design.

The music video itself features five global artists and celebrates five cleaner energy solutions supported by Shell across four continents that are helping provide access to cleaner energy and support local communities. This content will reach Oath’s millennial and mobile audiences across five markets (US, UK, Brazil, Singapore, and India) using Tumblr and its Yahoo Gemini and BrightRoll premium video distribution and syndication channels, driving audiences to the interactive “Globe” to explore the content.

Ingersoll Rand participates at the TERI World Sustainable Summit 2018

Ingersoll Rand has joined leaders from around the world at the TERI Annual World Sustainable Development Summit (WSDS), February 15-17, in New Delhi. Ingersoll Rand, as a co-associate partner of the Summit, led the thematic track “Affordable and Efficient Cooling: Maximizing Climate Benefits with Refrigerant

Change.”

Randal Newton, vice president of enterprise engineering for Ingersoll Rand joined experts from environment, energy and sustainability services on the panel, to share views on how to address the demand for cooling through better designs for buildings, enhancing energy efficiency of air conditioning equipment and systems, and implementing next generation refrigerants that have lower global warming potential without compromising safety, efficiency or performance.

RLG to promote e-waste recycling Enjay IT Solutions to support in India tribal girl education in Gujarat

Reverse Logistics Group (RLG) India has recently announced the launch of its flagship campaign “Clean to Green” in India.

The campaign is focussed on spreading mass awareness and sensitizing consumers on how and where to dispose electronics in a responsible manner. The campaign has been launched in compliance with the stringent e-waste management rules which are set to come into effect in India and will seek to minimize the impact of substandard ways of e-waste disposal on the environment.

On the eve of the Clean to Green launch, RLG organized an enriching panel discussion on “Reimagining E-waste: Creating Sustainable Solutions for India”. The panel discussion with experts was aimed at analyzing the obligations under the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) legislative frame and stressed on the need for a coherent multi-stakeholder cooperation to ensure the safe disposal of e-waste.

Enjay IT Solutions has embarked on a CSR initiative to support the cause of the girl child education in the tribal villages of Gujarat. The initiative is in partnership with the Rotary Vapi riverside – the Rotaract Club in Vapi.

Enjay IT solution has embarked on this initiative as part of their ‘Linkedin Sales Navigator Training’ course for the trade fraternity where the training fees are directly shared by the participants to the Rotaract Vapi Riverside NGO. The NGO has adopted and has been managing the ‘Kanya Awas Chatralay’ – a girl’s school and hostel, located at Dabkal village in tribal Gujarat. The school caters exclusively to the education of tribal girls and has classes from 3rd to 10th Standard.

Speaking about this initiative, Limesh Parekh, CEO, Enjay IT Solutions said, “There are several small villages in India where the nearest school is over 20 -30 kms away and there is seldom any reliable source of public transport available." www.spoindia.org February 2018 | 9

CSR/PSU

BEL to restore Doddabommasandra Lake

Bharat Electronics is setting up a 10 MLD (million litres per day) Sewage Treatment Plant to rejuvenate the Doddabommasandra Lake at a cost of Rs. 13.5 Cr. BEL has taken up this initiative as part of its Corporate Social Responsibility activities, in collaboration with the Karnataka Lake Conservation and Development Authority (KLCDA), BBMP and the Revenue Department.

The foundation stone for the installing and commissioning of the proposed Sewage Treatment Plant was laid today (Saturday, February 17, 2018) by the Chief Guest D V Sadananda Gowda, Hon’ble Union Minister for Statistics and Programme Implementation, Government of India. Krishna Byre Gowda, Hon'ble Minister for Agriculture, Government of Karnataka, presided over the function. Sampath Raj R, Hon’ble Mayor, BBMP; Gowtama M V, CMD, BEL and Nataraj Krishnappa, Director (Other Units), & Chairman, CSR Apex Committee, BEL, were also present.

The Doddabommasandra Lake contributes to recharging of groundwater in the Doddabommasandra watershed region. The lake covers an area of 50.31 hectares (124.35 acres).

NTPC Felicitates 18 Brave Hearts

With an endeavour to acknowledge, salute and applaud heroic acts of courage, NTPC felicitated India’s 18 brave hearts who were conferred with the esteemed National Bravery Award 2017 on Republic Day. Out of the courageous seven girls and eleven boys who were honoured at a function held at NTPC’s Power Management Institute, three brave souls were felicitated posthumously.

Congratulating the award winners on behalf of NTPC, Ajit Bhatnagar, Executive Director (PMI), said “The courage and compassion showcased by these children is commendable. Their bravery, valour and sacrifice serves as an inspiration for all Indians to dutifully perform their responsibilities towards humanity. We salute them and wish them all luck and success for their future endeavours.”

Emerging as one of the leading integrated power majors, NTPC strongly believes in supporting and encouraging acts that have a positive impact on the society at large.

Indian Oil Kavi Sammelan brings RINL CMD inaugurates new MTs poetry lovers together Induction Programme

The 33rd edition of ‘Indian Oil Akhil Bharatiya Kavi Sammelan’ was held at Siri Fort Auditorium in New Delhi. The much-awaited annual poetry confluence lived up to its reputation of being one of the top cultural events of the city and the

national calendar. The brightest luminaries in the field of HindiUrdu poetry regaled the discerning audience at the event that inaugurated by A K Sharma, Director (Finance), Indian Oil, by lighting the traditional lamp, in the presence of Anish Aggarwal, Director (Pipelines) and invited poets.

10 | February 2018 www.spoindia.org

Shri P Madhusudan, CMD, RINL-VSP said that RINL is known for operational efficiency and its competency levels beings very high among the employees and that they have established high standards in the technological discipline. He made this observation while inaugurating the induction & orientation programme of new Management Trainees (MTs) of February 2018 batch.

Sri Madhusudan said that the new trainees should give importance to punctuality, creativity and teamwork to go up their career ladder, he added.

He gave an overview of the Steel Industry in the country and in particular, the growth story of RINL. He congratulated them on their decision to opt for employment in RINL and he foresaw a bright future for them in VSP. Shri PC Mohapatra, Director (Projects), Shri KC Das, Director (Personnel), Shri VV Venugopal Rao, Director (Finance), Shri PK Rath, Director (Operations) in their speeches said that RINL believes in gender equality and social empowerment and congratulated them on joining the RINL fraternity.

CSR/PSU

BEML hands over the first intermediate car unit to BMRCL

BEML has delivered the first intermediate car unit to BMRCL. This intermediate car unit shall be integrated with the existing 3car train sets to form 6-car train sets, which will eventually double the present passenger carrying capacity of the Metro.

At a function held at BEML Bangalore Complex, Shri D.K. Hota, CMD, BEML handed over the Metro Car Unit to Shri Mahendra Jain, I.A.S., MD, BMRCL and Addl. Chief Secretary,

Urban Development, GoK, in the august presence of Shri Ananth Kumar, Hon’ble Minister for Chemicals & Fertilizers and Parliamentary Affairs, Shri K.J. George, Hon’ble Minister for Bangalore Development & Town Planning, GoK. The occasion was also graced by Shri. P.C. Mohan, Hon’ble MP; Shri S. Raghu, Hon’ble MLA and Shri M. Narayanaswamy, Hon’ble MLC.

ONGC organizes workshop to address Oil & Gas crisis management

ONGC has recently organized the first Oil & Gas Field Crisis Management Workshop for Indian E&P in Delhi. The aim of the workshop was to provide a common platform for quick response and mitigation of Oil & Gas field crisis in the Indian E&P industry and to showcase the capabilities of ONGC to deal with oil field crisis situations.

While addressing the workshop, Shashi Shanker, CMD, ONGC, said, “ONGC accords the highest importance to safety standards and has groomed its Crisis Management Team into a ‘best-in-class’ unit to tackle any kind of Oil & Gas well blowout and well control incidents. “Collaboration of Indian upstream companies will leverage each other’s strength in tackling crisis situations,” he added.

Also sharing his own experiences in mitigating various crisis situations V.P. Mahawar, Director (Onshore), ONGC, remarked that the E&P industry requires the high level of investments and involves risk, uncertainties and surprises.

DVC DSTPS Contributes to Submarine Karanj constructed development of Open Defecation by Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders free launched

DSTPS Andal under its CSR ambit has undergone with an agreement with PHED Asansol, RCFA, Water Supply Circle PHED Asansol for construction of Individual Household Toilet at Srirampur Gram Panchayat of which the project cost is 46.34 Lakh. The amount will be utilized in the construction of 300 Individual Household Toilet in different villages of Srirampur Gram panchayat.

After construction of this 300 IHL, every household of the panchayat will be covered under 100% sanitation and the whole panchayat will be read as Open Defecation Free (ODF) Panchayat in a true manner.

In this connection, Chief Engineer & HOP DSTPS, Shri S.N Jha handed over the Cheque of Rs.43 lakhs to Superintending Engineer RCFA, W/S Circle PHED Asansol Shri N.C Basak, Executive Engineer RCFA; W/S Circle PHED Asansol Shri Champak on Wednesday 21st of Feb 2018 in the presence of Chief Engineer (Secretariat) DVC Kolkata, Shri A.K Verma; Chief Engineer (O&M) Shri M. Debdas and Sr Joint Secretary (Dev) Shri Biswajit Sen, in a programme at DVC DSTPS conference hall.

Karanj, the third Scorpene class submarine being constructed

by Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders for the Indian Navy was launched on 31 January 2018, by Reena Lanba. Admiral Sunil Lanba, Chief of the Naval Staff was the chief guest on the occasion. Shri Arvind Sawant, Hon’ble Member of Parliament; VAdm Girish Luthra, FOC-in-C, WNC and VAdm D M Deshpande, CWP&A were present during the launching ceremony.

This event reaffirms the giant strides taken

by Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Ltd (MDL) in the ongoing ‘Make In India’ programme, which is being actively implemented by the Department of Defence Production (MoD).

The submarine was then towed to Mumbai Port Trust, for separation from the pontoon.

The contract for the construction and Transfer-of-Technology for six Scorpene submarines in series, has M/s Naval Group (formerly DCNS) of France as ‘Collaborator’ and are being built

by MDL. www.spoindia.org February 2018 | 11

CSR/NGO

Tally Education forges partnership with NGO “Win Over Cancer”

BEST along with Ratna Nidhi Trust to make Mumbai disability free

Tally Education has joined hands with Win Over Cancer, a not-for-profit organization which provides support to cancer patients. The initiative is aimed to mitigate the aftermath of socioeconomic impact on the cancer survivors and their family members, by providing skill development and helping them attain financial stability.

On partnership, Manish Chowdhary, CEO, Tally Education Pvt. Ltd, said, “There are a number of families impacted by cancer and the financial liabilities that come with it. We commend the work done by Win Over Cancer in the country, and are humbled to be partnering with them to uplift the cancer survivors and their families. Through our network, most beneficiaries will be able to get certified at their hometown. Tally will jointly work with Win Over Cancer on placing the beneficiaries in a job. Being certified on the latest GSTready software will equip them to gain meaningful employment and become financially independent.”

In a one-of-its-kind campaign to “make Mumbai disability free”, BEST buses will now have posters in collaboration with google.org grantee Ratna Nidhi Trust – “if you know any polio or accident-affected victim, you can call 7498989292. They will get Jaipur foot or polio callipers, absolutely free of charge from Ratna Nidhi Trust.”

PTC Foundation signs MoU with ALIMCO

NGO sets World Record of conducting 2,501 blood tests in 6 hours

PTC Foundation Trust (PFT) and Artificial Limbs Manufacturing Corporation of India (ALIMCO) have signed a MoU on 5th February in New Delhi for Rs. 50 Lakhs for Distribution of Aids and Assistive Devices to Persons with Disabilities at Gautam Budha Nagar District under the CSR initiative in the presence of Shri Amar Prasad, Head (CSR) & Shri D.R. Sarin, CMD, ALIMCO. ALIMCO is a “Not Fo r P r o f i t ” C e n t r a l Public Sector Undertaking working under the administrative control of Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment, Govt. of India and has been manufacturing various types of aids & appliances on mass scale to meet the requirements of the Persons with Disabilities (PwDs), across the country.

As per the MoU signed between ALIMCO and PFT (PTC Foundation Trust), distribution camps will be organized at Gautam Budha Nagar for an estimated cost of Rs 50 Lakhs.

12 | February 2018 www.spoindia.org

This is a continuation of the programme launched by Mayor of Mumbai, in association with Ratna Nidhi Trust, called the Make Mumbai Disability Free Campaign. The BEST (Brihanmumbai Electricity Supply and Transport Undertaking), the civic transport and electricity provider public body based in Mumbai, has joined hands with Ratna Nidhi Trust for this noble cause.

Anil Sadashiv Kokil, Chairman, BEST, said, “We look forward to partner with Ratna Nidhi Trust and ensure that more Mumbaikars get this powerful message of Make Mumbai Disability Free."

A social organisation from Bhikangaon town in Madhya Pradesh's Khargone district has got its name registered in the Golden Book of World Records by conducting blood tests on as many as 2,501 people within a period of six hours.

The organisation, Lakshya Parivar broke the previous record set at California in the USA, where blood tests were conducted on 1,460 people in six hours, Asia head of Golden Book of World Records, Manish Vishnoi, said.

Lakshya Parivar set the record on Wednesday.

"In a period of six hours, Lakshya Parivar conducted blood tests on 2,501 people," Vishnoi said.

Vishnoi presented the certificate of the world record to Chandan Sharma, convener of the organisation.

The Golden Book of World Records team recorded the entire process on cameras.

According to Chandan Sharma, his organisation chose the Valentine's Day to set the record to send a positive message to the society.

Can collaborative CSR model address societal issues?

S Sathappan Corporate Social Responsibility Aspire Systems It has been close to 4 years since the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) rules were implemented in the country.

This was done to give an impetus to CSR spending in the country. However a new recommendation by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs suggests that corporates can now collaborate with each other on social issues for a better outcome. In a move that could benefit the corporate sector at large, the government has allowed companies to enter into collaboration with each other to engage in corporate social responsibility (CSR).

“Collaborations, across sectors, for the achievement of a common cause, are usually beneficial as they result in a pool of resources and efforts,” says Pooja Murada, director, Communications, Sehgal Foundation. “The collective effort with a single objective can lead to its desired objective through structured planning, creative solutions, timely execution, and judicious use of all resources. On the corporate side, collaborations if are complementing and not competitive in nature happen between companies having a common development agenda, can bring about desired results. transparent,

, an action plan that leverages each stakeholder’s expertise and clear metrics to track impact can bring comprehensive programme for beneficiaries and achieve scale. The understanding and planning in the beginning should also plug expected challenges like competition, lack of attributable impact, insecurity about the brand strength of partners.”

According to her, for the implementation organisation, a clear reporting structure should be defined to avoid any ambiguity.

According to S Sathappan, Corporate Social Responsibility, Aspire Systems collaborative CSR model among organizations will definitely bring more expertise and resources to the table and will create a broad and structural impact to address key societal issues. “The scale and impact of CSR projects will definitely increase through this collaborative model.

Organizations working on similar thematic areas like Education, Health, Environment etc can work together and contribute resources to develop and execute large & sustainable CSR projects.”

Collaborative projects for corporates...

The S M Sehgal Foundation engages in strategic partnerships to build strong synergies and collaborate with organizations that help make a positive impact on the lives of rural people. The foundation continues to strengthen its knowledge base and expand village interventions by working with government, nonprofits, academia, media and corporate organizations.

“For example in the government sector, some of the esteemed partners are the Department of Science of Technology (DST), Government of India; National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), National Bank For Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD).

Multilaterally, we have partnered with the UNDP, UNICEF, Millenium Alliance (MA), UNESCO and others; bi-laterally with organizations such as the Embassy

Pooja Murada Director, Communications, Sehgal Foundation of Japan ('From the People of Japan') and the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany. Amongst corporates, projects have been initiated with: The Coca Cola Foundation, Mosaic, Bayer, Maruti Suzuki India Limited, Oracle, PI Foundation and others,” Pooja said.

Aspire Systems is not working on any collaborative models with other corporates but it does work with multiple stakeholders like non-profits, educational institutions, government agencies etc. in its CSR programs.

“We have worked with corporates on some of employee volunteering programs like coastal clean- up, tree plantation, support to sports event etc. In this case also, the program was conceptualized by non-profits and they forged partnerships with corporates from different regions and brought them together to realize project goals. Typically we see such partnerships during emergencies/natural disasters when lot of corporates come together to work/ support rehabilitation efforts – food, shelter, clothes etc. We definitely have plans in mind to work with organizations having similar mind set like us and working on similar development projects,” Sathappan sums up. www.spoindia.org February 2018 | 13

Corporate Initiatives

CSS Corp Conducts Computer Literacy Training Program CSS Corp has held a 'Computer Literacy Program' at a Government Girls Higher Secondary School in Chennai from January 11 to February 2, 2018. This initiative is done to engage the students in Digital Literacy for which they carried out various training programs and set up a computer lab in the school.

CSS Corp’s objective is to reach out to students to augment their computer knowledge. The entire CSR activity was executed with the involvement of CSS Corp employees.

Keeping the CSR initiative in mind, they conducted engaging sessions with the students led by the employees. The activities involved: • Training and conducting workshops on safe internet usage for higher secondary students • Populating useful tips on importance of safe disposal of e-wastes to higher secondary students • Career counselling on their overall development for 8th and 9th grade students • Setting up a computer lab with 25 refurbished desktops & UPS In the past, they have also conducted digital literacy programs for Grade – 11 students for close to 2000 students across schools in Chennai like Government higher secondary schools at Perungalathur, Tambaram, Saidapet and P. K Government Higher Secondary School at Ambattur. n 14 | February 2018 www.spoindia.org

www.spoindia.org February 2018 | 15

InterviewS

‘India as a unique country is progressing at an impressive pace’ T.V. Mohandas Pai, the Chairman of Manipal Global Education and a former director of Infosys has been an active persona in the field of promoting quality education and also reforming the business ecosystem in the country. Sharing his views on Digital India and India 2020, Mohandas Pai tells VARINDIA of how India with its unique set of problems still manages to take small strides in the path of development -

What are your views on Digital India?

Digital India is an initiative of the PM of this country to create one single virtual nation.

As a country, we have 29 large states, many of them bigger than most of the countries in Europe. These states have large population and it becomes very difficult to link them all together into 1 single country, because we are divided by state borders, by groups, by distances and most importantly by lack of access. Digital India seeks to create one single, virtual nation by making sure that every Indian has a smart device with a good data plan, which will help them to connect with each other. Through this connectivity, Digital India will deliver eGovernance services to every single Indian. Every Indian would then be able to get government services, certificates like birth or death, medical services, appointments to government hospitals, meetings with government officials, admissions into government schools, and all such government services for which people had to earlier stand before an officer.

Digital India will give access to high quality education to every child in India. If the govt. of India gives every child a tablet with rich multi-media content connected with 3G/WiFi, every child will be able to bridge the digital divide. This will level the field between the rich and poor, between good schools and schools that don’t have teachers, between urban and rural areas and give access to every child the equal quantum of information.

Digital India should also give access to health for all Indians. Our health records could be kept digitally and we can retrieve 16 | February 2018 www.spoindia.org

these records to go to any hospital of our choice for treatment.

The next area for digital India will be financial services, through which every Indian will have a bank account, a DBT (Direct Benefit Transfer) for any government money that they get as subsidy, and the government on its part will also be able to monitor if the money is being routed to the proper person.

Hence Digital India is a massive initiative to get every citizen in the 21st century access to services, education, health that would help in making their lives much richer.

As a technology evangelist, how do you see cyber security in India?

Cyber security is not a big issue. There is enough security software available, except in the case when you have a cyber attack of a deep intensity. If we take simple precautions, then we can avert cyber attacks. If we work with proper intuition, it should not be a major problem.

With India moving to digital payment system, how prepared is the country to handle any major cyber threat?

The payment system is secured, since

it is controlled by the Central Bank of India. It is automated, you can encrypt information, and the data can move safely.

There have been very few cyber attacks if you are aware that have been aimed at stealing someone’s money. But most of the time people have lost money because of carelessness. It is not because of system issues. Even in the Aadhaar case which was reported recently, the journalist purchased a stolen password to hack into a network. So I would say that UIDAI should be careful in letting out passwords in public.

How do you see India 2020?

I think India is doing very well, especially those parts that are connected.

It would be unwise to compare India with Singapore or any other advanced nations because we know Singapore has only 5 million people, while Bengaluru itself has 10 million people, and UK has got 65 million population while India has 1.3 billion population. The only country we should compare ourselves with is China, and we are possibly 10 years behind China in terms of network connectivity, use of internet or use of any technology.

But I would still say that India is a very unique country and is progressing at an impressive pace. It has its own set of complex problems. It has people in different stages of development. India has a high quality IT industry. We have 32,000 start-ups getting $95 billion in investments. So if we compare India with China, the path for us is very clear.

Things are improving and with initiatives like Digital India succeeding, there would be no looking back. n

www.spoindia.org February 2018 | 17

open your eyes

‘We are actively working towards skilling people in their professional journey’ Youth4work.com is a talent assessment platform with 2 million users and a plethora of information and skill development tools at their disposal. It’s CEO, Rachit Jain tells SPO India of his company’s take on skilling and its aim to help the right talent get the right opportunity -

Could you tell us more about your company and your initiatives in the area of skilling?

Youth4work is a Youth centric platform where assessment is a tool that helps identify the talent that each individual pursues; how talented they are amongst the others who have a similar talent.

There are basically 3 aspects on our product Prepare/Assess yourself > Improve yourself > Showcase your self • Prepare/assess – Here we actually help the youth to prepare for exams ( h t t p : / / w w w. p r e p. yo u t h 4 wo r k . com/) & assess their own skills ( h t t p : / / w w w. yo u t h 4 wo r k . c o m / onlinetalenttest) • Improve – here based on their skills, rank and pursuit we suggest the right online course to people (www. ed.Youth4work.com) • Showcase – The Tested and Ranked profiles are showcased. They can be searched by anyone - http://www. youth4work.com/talent.

Apart from skill tests which are free for all, we monetize on freemium models on Prep, Online courses & connecting youth to companies.

Youth4work’s USP is wholly based on the advanced technology. We have always been stood up when it comes to helping our users, like going multilingual, or a tie-up with AICTE to facilitate jobs and internships. We are mainly a Tech company with Product and tech being the core part of our 18 | February 2018 www.spoindia.org

DNA and serving the users to the best of what we can as the blood that flows in our veins.

We have built and captured each and every interaction with our users using advance machine learning algorithms got deep insights on every user for their skills, interests and profiles. We even have a advance AI that helps us compare millions and come out with relevant details vs others and learn from other users to able to enhance data that we show to the other users.

What is your take on skilling in India? How far is skill gap a challenge in the country?

Youth4work relies in its offerings.

We are the only platform that starts the support right from the finding of

college/ institute to getting the dream job. Youth4work.com is a ‘People Platform’ which empowers youth to assess themselves, improve their talents and showcase themselves for their talents and professional achievement.

We call what we are building ‘Human Tech’ which gathers intelligence and deep insights on each and every member of Youth4work.

Youth4work is a platform which helps individuals to assess their innate abilities, improve their skills and then connect them to right employers. We are concentrating on skillset whereas all the competitors are working on numbers. This approach has also impacted the engagement of Tier I and Tier II candidates who are not able to cope up with current skills required in the market. We have observed that

many candidates are also actively taking up our online courses made available through our partners in order to add feathers to their professional profile.

a part of Rojgar Mela, organized

by Brilliant Computer Institute, in Dibiyapur, Auraiya near UP to provide employability.

Which are your flagship skilling initiatives?

How do you try to meet the skill gap that still persists today with your initiatives?

An initiative by ‘Youth4Work’ is taken in providing unique opportunities in the need of the hour — p ractice modules for 600+ skill job roles to prepare for NSDC’s final certification exams, which help youth to understand the job requirements in a unique way.

Over 20000 youth from nearly 20 top skilling institutes across the country have tried and tested themselves on these practice tests to improve their candidature for certification. This talent pool automatically gets matched with industry requirements of skilled manpower. We have signed a MoU with AICTE to help the engineering students to get employability.

NSDC’s training partner, Brilliant Computer Institute along with its premium partner ‘Youth4Work’, unitedly with partner companies like Swarn Management had become

I started with an aim to help the right talent get the right opportunity.

And I never got deviated from my mission in spite of the challenges.

Our Mission Statement is - Be the Human Technology that proactively assists people in their professional understanding & journey in a transparent & intelligent way, Inspire Creativity and Passion & Optimism in Individuals and Help organizations tap the true potential inside youth in India, with the effective talent matching.

What is your perception about Government of India’s emphasis on skilling? Has it changed post the launch of programmes like Skill India?

Skills and knowledge are the driving

New H1-B Visa rules get tougher The Trump administration has announced a new policy that makes the procedure of issuing H-1B visas to those to be employed at one or more third-party worksites very tough. The move will hugely impact Indian IT companies and their employees. The new policy demands that the company would have to prove that its H-1B employee at a third-party worksite has specific and nonqualifying speculative assignments in speciality occupation.

“When H-1B beneficiaries are placed at third-party worksites, petitioners must demonstrate that they have specific and nonspeculative qualifying assignments in a specialty occupation for that beneficiary for the entire time requested on the petition,” the USCIS said in a statement. “While an H-1B petition may be approved for up to three years, the USCIS will, generally limit the approval period to the length of time demonstrated that the beneficiary will be placed in non-speculative work and during which the petitioner will maintain the requisite employeremployee relationship,” it added.

The H-1B programme offers temporary US visas that allow companies to hire highly skilled foreign professionals working in areas with shortages of qualified American workers. Indian IT companies, which are among the major beneficiaries of H-1B visas have a significant number of its employees deployed at third-party worksites.

forces of economic growth and social development of any country. Since the government introduced National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) in India to support livelihood opportunities, many private as well as independent enterprises have emerged to partner with it with an objective of encouraging skill development for youth by providing monetary rewards for successful completion of approved training programs.

What is your 5-year vision for the company?

We feel the opportunity and the need is bigger than only jobs. The need is to build people intelligence, which personalises information and guides people to connect and collaborate.

That is important as about 300 million people will enter India’s workforce in next few years. We would like to be the de facto platform where every youth, who is connected to the Internet, comes on board with us to improve oneself and become part of a talent community. n

Maharashtra government’s roadmap for achieving trilliondollar economy gets applaud “If India aims to become a superpower, Maharashtra has to become the growth engine of the country and state government’s initiatives for growth in all sectors promise to achieve the same”, said Amitabh Kant, CEO, Niti Aayog.

He was speaking in the seminar on ‘Journey to Trillion Dollar Economy’ at Magnetic Maharashtra: Convergence 2018.

The seminar was chaired by Chief Minister Shri Devendra Fadnavis. Amitabh Kant appreciated the presentation made

by Chief Minister to unveil the roadmap for achieving trilliondollar economy. India has taken a leap in the list of ease of doing business and Maharashtra has a remarkable contribution to this achievement, said Amitabh Kant.

Sanjay Reddy, Vice Chairman, GVK said that most of the projects mentioned in the presentation of Chief Minister are a reality today. Many infrastructural projects like Metro are going on in full swing.

Pawan Goenka, MD of Mahindra and Mahindra emphasized the need to reskill manpower to cope up with Industry 4.O. www.spoindia.org February 2018 | 19

COVER STORY

Growth of bad loans in Indi

The total outstanding loans by wilful defaulters rose to Rs 92,376 cr. at the end of financial ye

time, there has been close to 10% increase in the number of wilful defaulters on an annual basi

At a time when the government is determined on recapitalising public sector banks, it has been

National Bank (PNB) fraud case, Punjab National Bank's loan wilful defaulter list stands at Rs

revived tensions in the Indian banking sector. Data suggests that there are roughly 9,339 wilful

total, the liabilities of these defaulters stand at Rs 1, 11,738 crore. State Bank of India has the h

Top Icons in the

From Jatin Mehta to Vijay Mallya, here are the top Indian businessmen who fled country after defaulting on hu In less than a week’s time, new names – Nirav Modi, Mehul Choksi and allegedly Vikram Kothari – have added th

Jatin Mehta

Vijay Maliya Kingfisher - 3,000 crore

Lalit Modi IPL - 7,000 crore

Jatin Mehta, chairman, Winsome Diamonds and Jewellery, a listed company, and group firm Forever, owes Rs 68 billion to 15 banks in India. A citizen of Saint Kitts, an island country with whom India has no extradition treaty, Mehta has left few assets behind.

Winsome first defaulted on loans in 2013. It cited $1 billion derivative losses suffered by its United Arab Emirates (UAE) clients as the reason for the default. The ED has asked Dubai to expedite its response to India’s letters rogatory (LR) relating to Mehta’s Winsome Group. In 2016, India had sent LR to the UAE.

Vijay Mallya diverted most of the Rs 90 billion he borrowed from a SBI-led consortium of lenders. The fugitive’s trial began in a London court last December.

The trial is aimed at laying out a prima facie case of fraud against Mallya, who has been based in the UK since March 2016. The hearing is still continuing and is expected to conclude in the next few months. Mallya’s lawyers went through a series of expert witness statements to establish that there are no grounds to force the liquor baron to return to India to face allegations of fraud involving his now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines.

Lalit Modi left India in 2010 following alleged financial irregularities in the Indian Premier League’s 2009 season. He has taken shelter in London.

Indian security agencies say they are pursuing former IPL chairman but in May 2017, the ministry of external affairs said it had yet to submit a formal extradition request to the UK, an essential procedure for bringing Modi back to India. The ministry made the disclosure in response to an RTI filed by an Indian news agency. The ED explained the delay, saying, “Before sending extradition request against the fugitive, it is necessary to file a charge sheet against him; that is yet to be submitted in court.

Winsome Diamonds & Jewellery 5,500 cro re

20 | February 2018 www.spoindia.org

ia growing in double digits

ear 2016-17, from Rs 76,685 crore at the end of last fiscal 2015-16, a rise of 20.4%. At the same

is. It increased to 8,915 at the end of March as against 8,167 in the previous fiscal.

n held back again by a string of loan frauds and rising wilful defaulters. With the recent Punjab

s 14,600 crore; up 17% from a year ago and predicted to cost the bank over Rs 20,000 crore, has

l defaulters, who have the capacity to repay their debts but have refused to do so in the past. In

highest amount of wilful defaults amounting to Rs 27,716 cr., involving 1,665 borrowers.

Defaulters list

uge loans. Needless to say, the public is feeling cheated as law enforcement agencies are often caught napping. hemselves to the fugitives list.

Nirav Modi 11, 363 crore

Mehul Choksi 5,280 crore

Vikram Kothari 3,695 crore

Nirav Modi who is the main accused in over Rs 110 billion Punjab National Bank (PNB) scam have left the country and there is no official confirmation where they have gone. The ED has raided dozens of Modi’s premises and seized diamonds, gold and jewellery worth Rs 56.7 billion. On February 14, PNB said that it had discovered fraudulent and unauthorised transactions of Rs 113 billion at the Mumbai branch. The income tax department has warned in an internal note that domestic banks could take a hit of more than $3 billion from loans and corporate guarantees provided to Modi and Choksi.

Mehul Choksi has unpaid loan worth Rs 5,280 crore. During the searches at Gitanjali Group, investigative agencies have seized crucial documents, including an agreement between Gitanjali and a consortium of 31 banks. The exclusive details mentions that the 31-bank consortium sanctioned a 'working capital facility' of Rs 5,280 crore to the Gitanjali Group, which has not been repaid till now. The loan was cleared in October 2016, and the agreement was revised in October 2017. The document shows the Mehul Choksi firm has utilised the 'working capital facility'. Choksi is the bigger defaulter than his nephew and high-profile jeweller Nirav Modi.

Vikram Kothari another defaulter and the promoter of Rotomac Pen, was reported to have allegedly left India after defrauding public sector banks of Rs 8 billion. Kothari denied speculation of his fleeing the country and was arrested in Lucknow. Rotomac has taken a loan of more than Rs 8 billion from over five state-owned banks – Allahabad Bank, Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, Indian Overseas Bank and Union Bank of India.

Last year, BoB declared Rotomac Global as “wilful defaulter”. Subsequently, the company moved the Allahabad High Court seeking removal of its name from the list of wilful defaulter.

www.spoindia.org February 2018 | 21

COVER STORY Punjab National Bank, the country’s second largest government bank, also has the highest share of wilful defaults in its books among the big banks. Of its gross bad loans or non-performing assets (NPAs) worth Rs 57,519 crore, 25 percent are on account of borrowers who have deliberately defaulted.

PNB had, on February 14, informed the exchanges about detecting USD 1.77 billion fraud at its Brady House branch in Mumbai, and named the firms led by Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi’s Gitanjali Group, and some other diamond and jewellery merchants as suspects.

PNB has been putting out the list of wilful defaulters since June 2013 which it continued till May 31, 2017. Since, then it is only listing out those wilful defaulters with outstanding of Rs 25 lakh and above with their names/proprietorship from June last 2017.

Of these, the notorious case of Jatin Mehta owned Winsome Diamonds, formerly Forever Precious Jewellery and Diamonds alone has an exposure of nearly 1,650 crore to the bank. Another Rs 266 crore to MBS Jewellers, Rs 69 crore to C Mahendra Exports, Rs 45 crore to Gem Star Company, Rs 35 crore to Bansal Diamonds, Rs 35 crore to KBM Gems and Jewellers, Rs 30 crore to Ghansham Das Gem and Jewels, Rs 29 crore to Future Jewels, Rs 17 crore to Jai Mata Jewellers, Rs 10 crore to Tanaaya Gem and Jewellery and some smaller exposures to little known firms such as Diamond Mushrooms and Diamond Mine Chem India.

For now, PNB would be more worried about the massive fraud amounting to about Rs 11,400 crore (USD 1,771.69 million) involving billionaire jeweller Nirav Modi who has now fled the country leaving bankers, investigative agencies and the media chasing him at the rate of the knots.

The curious case of Nirav Modi...

In a letter, Modi wrote on February 15/16 to the Punjab National Bank management, in which he pegged the money his companies owe to the bank under Rs 5,000 crore. Modi had already left the country along with his family in the first week of January, before the alleged scam became public.

Central government agencies — the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate — have registered cases on the complaint by the bank, and launched nationwide searches on dozens of offices and residences of the alleged fraudsters. The bank has named Modi’s brother, his American wife Ami, and uncle Choksi besides some others in the FIR. Nirav Modi, against whom PNB has filed a complaint was allegedly helped by a former bank employee, Gokulnath Shetty.

He was a deputy general manager in the foreign-exchange department in one of its branches in Mumbai. Shetty allegedly issued several fake letters of undertaking (LoUs) from PNB without any collateral for Modi. The bank claims that for seven years the employees then bypassed the lender's internal messaging system in order to avoid detection.

Sunil Mehta, CEO & MD- PNB said that the bank would take all the legal action to bring the perpetrators to the book and that it will also honour all its bonafide commitments, which may require paying back loans to other Indian Banks which have granted loans to Nirav Modi against the fraudulent Letter of Undertakings (LoUs) issued by PNB. 22 | February 2018 www.spoindia.org

Bad loans quadrupled over the last four years...

RBI has defined wilful default as one where the unit or borrower has defaulted in meeting payment or repayment obligations to the lender despite the capacity to honour these commitments. It also includes those who have siphoned off or not utilised funds for the specific purposes for which finance was availed of. Secondly, borrowers who have disposed of or removed movable fixed assets or immovable property given for the purpose of securing a term loan are also wilful defaulters. “Most of these cases are fund diversion by promoters using the companies promoted by them,” banking sources said.

The available data shows that bad loans in the Indian banks are growing at an alarming rate. Last year (until Sep'17), bad loans grew by 27% while they increased by 38%, 67%, and 35% in the previous three years (2013-16). This means that the amount of bad loans has more than quadrupled from Rs. 28,417cr to over Rs. 1, 11,738cr between Sep'13 and Sep'17.

The total gross NPA in the Indian banking system totalled up to around Rs 9 lakh crore. And while the rate of growth in NPAs is showing signs of slowing down, the overall problem is still far from any sort of quick resolution. There are many reasons and no one reason can be attributed as the biggest problem.

State-owned banks have reported wilful defaults of Rs 93,357 crore involving 7,564 borrowers as of September 2017, according to data available with the Credit Information Bureau of India Ltd (CIBIL). This is a 340 per cent surge in less than five years as total wilful defaults were just Rs 25,410 crore in 2013.

Another interesting information that has come to light is that banks have written off Rs 3, 60,000 crore in the last 10 years.

Rating firm Crisil said the total gross NPAs in the banking system might rise to Rs 9.5 lakh crore by the end of this fiscal. The acute rise of NPAs that banks are trying to limit, skyrocketed in 2015, increasing significantly from Rs 3.2 crore recorded at the time. This development took place after the RBI asked banks to recognise NPAs. Total outstanding loans due to public sector banks by wilful defaulters amounted to Rs92, 376 crore, according to the Finance Ministry data. n

SPO SPECIAL

Water ATMs to quench thirst for safe drinking water Access to safe drinking water remains one of India’s biggest challenges, and is the first priority of public health.

According to UNICEF (Hyperlinked for the reference), only a quarter of the total population in India has drinking water on their premises and nearly threequarters of all diseases in India are water borne, caused by contaminants in the water supply. Globally, nearly a billion people live without access to safe water.

Around 2,000 people and 6,000 children die every day from water-related diseases and out of these, children under the age of five are most vulnerable. This issue is magnified due to growing population, rapid urbanisation and the increased competing demand for water from agriculture and industry.

Providing safe drinking water both in urban and rural areas is thus an imperative, but faces a considerable challenge especially as infrastructure needed to deliver drinking water both in urban and rural areas is either nonexistent or needs substantial upgrades to meet demand. Treated water is at risk of recontamination due to aging pipelines.

Hence, most homes in India, especially urban homes use point-of-use (POU) water purifiers to treat their water.

These POU treatment devices range in technology from basic candle filter to sophisticated ultraviolet technology (UV), ultra-filtration (UF), nano filtration (NF), reverse osmosis (RO) and others.

However, rural homes still rely on settling of water in the container, cloth filtration, boiling and at times use alum, bleaching powder depending upon availability and knowledge.

Providing that last-mile safe water access in regions that face acute groundwater contamination thus becomes a crucial challenge. It is estimated that approximately 66 million Indians use water sources containing excess fluoride and another 10 million have excess arsenic in their groundwater.

This gap is now being filled with off-grid

water treatment plants. It is observed that half of these water treatment plants fail within a year of installation.

Providing affordable safe drinking water sustainably remains a challenge.

However, Safe Water Network India, a non-profit registered Trust, through its innovative intervention - Water ATMs linked to the water purification plant that uses ‘IOT’- Internet of things, is providing reliable safe drinking water through entrepreneurs.

What is a water ATM? A water ATM is an automated water vending machine that dispenses safe drinking water. The machine works like a bank ATM, though it provides water instead of money. These Water ATMs linked to the purification plant use ‘IOT’- Internet of things using cloud technology that gives real time updates on plant performance, indicative water quality and consumer usage. This real time data is processed into intelligent dashboards that have made the safe water delivery sustainable. The plant performance data helps cost and time saving through preventive maintenance and action such

that plant down time is reduced to less than 2%. The consumer purchases water through coins and Smart cards ensuring transparency of accounts. Thus operational and financial sustainability is established and communities get reliable and uninterrupted drinking water supply.

Another benefit of these Water ATMs is that it helps generate livelihoods as these are owned and operated by women SHG or entrepreneurs. Each Water ATM on an average employs 2-3 people in the village for distribution, consumer marketing, operator, etc. The operator finds it intuitive and easy to manufacture and dispense water.

The consumers say that these Water ATMs are a big boon to them, convenient and easy to use as it dispenses safe water 24/7 round the year. They purchase their daily water on the ‘pay per use’ basis using coins or Smart cards in their glass, bottle or 10 liter, 20 liter containers whenever they want. Thus, the time spent on long queues for water collection is saved benefitting mostly women and the girl child. Another advantage observed in the Water ATM usage is that consumers collect water in their own container thus reducing environmental hazard of plastic packaged drinking water bottles and high expense.

The Water ATMs safe drinking water solution delivered by Safe Water Network India is also helping towards achieving the UN SDG Goal 6 on provisioning safe drinking water; Goal 8 on Decent Work and Economic Growth; and Goal 10 on Reduced Gender Inequalities, while the research has proved that 75% men collect drinking water from the iJal station.

Safe Water Network India is providing water access in rural/peri-urban and urban space to more than 7.25 lakh people through their water purification treatment plants called ‘iJal Stations’ that are linked to Water ATMs.Clearly, a winwin situation for everyone.

By Ravindra Sewak, Country Director - Safe Water Network www.spoindia.org February 2018 | 23

Technomania

Is WhatsApp secured for Group Chats?

WhatsApp is an extremely popular mobile messaging service with more than 1 billion daily users. It is really an amazing figure, and the company prides itself in the apparent security it affords for all its users.

Some of your most personal moments are shared with WhatsApp, which is why WhatsApp had built an end-to-end encryption system into the latest versions of the app. Back in May 2016, WhatsApp has introduced this end-to-end encryption for all its users across its platform. With end-to-end encryption, your messages, photos, videos, voice messages, documents, and calls are secured from falling into the wrong hands.

Therefore a million dollar question arises on the end-to-end encryption. Not to forget WhatsApp has implemented Moxie Marlinspike’s code.

Tech giants and researchers are however questioning about the Encryption standard, as there are multi-million users database out there on WhatsApp and if whether WhatsApp server is using the ultimate solution to safeguard its users’ identity.

While this raised the bar for privacy in the digital messaging sphere, it has become increasingly difficult for the company to keep security standards up, especially when it comes to dealing with group chats. A report says that German

24 | February 2018 www.spoindia.org

Ideally, WhatsApp's end-to-end encryption ensures that only you and the person you are communicating with can read what is sent, and nobody in between will be able to read it, not even WhatsApp. Your messages should be in your hands.

That's why WhatsApp says, they doesn't store your messages on their servers once they are delivered to the recipient. And endto-end encryption means that WhatsApp and third parties can't read them anyway.

researchers have now reportedly found a way to breach WhatsApp's security and sneak into group chats. This raises a severe privacy concern. The research further said, “Anyone who has access to and controls over WhatsApp's servers could insert new people into an otherwise private group without much hassle”.

So far we know that only an administrator of a WhatsApp group can invite new members, but WhatsApp does not have a mechanism to authenticate that invitation. Its servers can hence spoof the invitation allowing the addition of a new member to a group with no interaction on the part of the administrator. The smartphones of each participant in the group then automatically share secret keys with the new member, giving the new participant full access to future messages.

However, the statement by Facebook, who owns WhatsApp, went along the lines,

“not governments, not even us can read your messages.”

Facebook’s Chief Security Officer Alex Stamos, responded, “Read the Wired article today WhatsApp – scary headline!

But there is no [sic] a secret way into WhatsApp groups chats.” Stamos further pointed out in his tweets that everyone in the group would see a message that a new member has joined, so this wouldn't be a stealthy strategy for government spying. He further added, "The content of messages sent in WhatsApp groups remain protected by end-to-end encryption."

WhatsApp uses part of a security protocol developed by Open Whisper Systems, a company that has its own fully secure messaging app Signal (for iOS and Android). However, it's also good to be aware that not everyone trusts the company's word, in part because of privacy issues surrounding its parent company Facebook and also its implementation of encryption.

WhatsApp has the ability to force the generation of new encryption keys for offline users, unbeknown to the sender and recipient of the messages, and to make the sender re-encrypt messages with new keys and send them again for any messages that have not been marked as delivered.

If WhatsApp covertly changed security keys of a user, the company could, according to Tobias Boelter, a cryptography and security researcher at the University of California, 'disclose its messaging records, and can effectively grant access due to the change in keys' at the request of government agencies.

WhatsApp claims this loophole exists so that if someone changes their phone, their automatic security key, messages will still be sent so as not to disrupt service.

This is, to be fair, a valid point, as not doing so would disrupt the service of 1 billion people relatively frequently.

WhatsApp has recently released a feature which would enable its users to delete

any message sent accidentally to another user or in a group provided the message is deleted within seven minutes of being sent. However, a new report has surfaced on the internet which claims that these deleted messages can be easily accessed.

It seems that the deleted message is actually present in the notification log of the device.

Launch of WhatsApp Payments App...

After building a huge user base and features for individual consumers, the social media giant Facebook is now targeting small business in India to monetize its services further. Facebook which owns WhatsApp and Instagram has in the last one year started various initiatives that offer small business a host

of services from targeted advertising, to marketplace, as well as communication services. Considering that India has more than 51 million small-scale business they are a client base for Facebook and the sheer number indicates an increased revenues.

The messaging app, WhatsApp has also announced the launch of its business app for small businesses. This is a part of the WhatsApp-for-Business initiative that was launched in September last year. The app was tested with MakeMyTrip and BookMyShow in India since September.

While you book your ticket through Makmytrip.com, you will get the alert through WhatsApp message. The app aims to make it easier for small companies to connect with their customers and for

individual WhatsApp users to connect to business.

To sell, the business can take a photo of the item, give it a product name, description and price and post it.

However, the final transaction happens offline. WhatsApp Payments has been in works since last year and now, it's finally available for users on both Android and iOS. WhatsApp promises that the Payments will enable normal users of the application to transfer money with the same ease as sending a text message.

After the completion of the setup the user will be able to send other individuals using WhatsApp and Facebook.

WhatsApp is also looking to venture into the digital payments space in India. The transactions in WhatsApp Payments will be made through bank accounts linked to Unified Payments Interface (UPI), allowing users transact between accounts of different banks.

WhatsApp commands a strong user base of 250 million across India. Introducing a person-to-person payment feature for all of them gives the messaging application an advantage from the get-go over other digital transaction applications. To put things in context, Paytm has 180 million users in the country, MobiKwik 25 million users across the country for a cashless, hasslefree experience while shopping, dining, travelling, whereas Google Tez another UPI-based payment application, crossed 12 million users in India last year, four months after its launch.

While not in India, there is also Facebook payments through which users can link their Messenger account to a debit card, and pay friends with a quick message, or make an e-commerce purchase via Messenger and Marketplace on Facebook.

WhatsApp has taken a few hits and been in the news recently and the somewhat limited understanding of encryption means it can be a bit confusing. n www.spoindia.org February 2018 | 25

Cyber Security

Cyber Security &

Citizen of 2030

Cyber Security & Citizen of 2030 was jointly organized by the Center For Knowledge Sovereignty (CKS), Center for Joint War Studies(CENJOWS) and two schools - DPS Bhagalpur and DPS Ranchi. The knowledge partner was Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC). The topic for discussion was - Cyber Security and the citizen of 2030.

Shekhar Dutt SM Chairman Angika Development Society Former Governor of Chattisgarh Life cannot exist without challenges.

There are security difficulties, challenges in technical solutions, but the entrepreneurs and enterprising people will identify those challenges, meet them squarely and come out as a winner. In fact I remember during a discussion at Harvard School, the man addressing young entrepreneurs said that if one does not find challenges on the horizon, go beyond it, seek out challenges and then deal with it. When I used to serve in a desert area, someone asked me what is so unique about the desert. I said that when you go up to a sand dune, you will find another sand dune before you, and as you go up that, you will find another dune and so on. So that is the principle of life; you keep meeting new challenges and deal with them as you go about. It was a team of young people who had invented the Internet in the mid 30’s, and thereafter it was young entrepreneurs who launched various applications for the internet. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, 2 enterprising youths of Estonia found Skype. This is indeed encouraging.

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Lt. Gen Vinod Bhatia PVSM, AVSM, SM (Retd.), DG – Centre for Joint Warfare Studies I would like to quote our honourable PM, who while addressing the Combined Commanders Conference of senior military leaders in December 2015 on board our aircraft carrier Vikramaditya stated “Beyond the immediate, we are facing a future where security challenges will be less predictable; situations will evolve and change swiftly and technology changes will emerge. The threat may be known but the enemy will be invisible. Domination of cyber space will become increasingly important.”

It is not just the borders that need to be guarded, but cyber space is the new area that equally needs to be protected. The enemies at the borders are however visible but the cyber enemies are not.

Every nation faces the same threats. Cyber or security is not confined to India alone. Some of the countries have taken steps to mitigate these threats. In our case we have been little slow but we have been taking slow and steady steps. It is noteworthy that there are 450 million internet users and so the threats appear to be even more intense. Also we have not incorporated cyber education in our curriculum.

Lt Gen. Dr D B Shekatkar PVSM, AVSM, VSM (Retd.), Chairman -CKS If you are well in life, India will surely do well -this was stated by Swami Vivekananda 100 years back. And you the students will be the one who will abide by this principle. By 2030, most of you who are studying in schools would reach the age of 30 and will be in the peak of your career of your life. Today social media is impacting the minds of people very fast. It is both horrifying and alarming at the same time. Most of you are aware that all the good things in the world started from India. The things which start from India remain for a long time and they don’t disappearthat is the power of India. We have our cultural roots and heritage and the world is looking at India with great hope. This brings me to the next point that knowledge is power. While 19th century was the century of muscle power, 20th century when we were born is the century of money power; we could buy anything with the power of money. The current 21st century is the century of knowledge power. And this knowledge power will be threatened by cyber security.

Lt. Gen. V M Patil AVSM, PVSM (Retd.) Vice Chairman – CKS The 20th century saw 2 world wars and a number of regional conflicts. But the form of warfare was very different back then, like Soviet Russia was dismantled after 45 years of cold war without firing a single bullet. But that has changed with the coming of technology. An established Egyptian government was thrown to winds by Arab Springs entirely by social media; now in our own country in the last few years we have seen social media playing hell with the university campuses here in Delhi and other parts of India. Implication of all these is that there is a potent danger from the social media and the emergence of cyber technology.

Let’s not shy away from it and also let’s not adopt the practice of banning. Banning is not the answer and ignoring is not the solution. Time has come for us now to bring in cyber technology as part of the educational system, may be not from the earlier standards but when children reach 8th and 9th standard and thereafter make it a part of their curriculum.

Lt. Gen. Vinod Khandare AVSM, SM, DG – Defence Intelligence Agency The wars of today (in view of national security) and tomorrow will be a combination of kinetic and nonkinetic wars. The requirement of military hardware will continue. When we look at our understanding or concept of warfare, we look at planes, satellite, submarine, ships, tanks and guns. That will continue because it is one of the most importance things for resistance where you have to keep you national interest safe.

What is most important now is the non kinetic means which is regulating and controlling these kinetic majors. So while it is the man behind the weapon system it is also the technology which the man behind weapon system is going to use. Today if you carry a mobile phone, willingly you are carrying an identity card without being forced to do so; voluntarily you are surrendering you data, location with all the technologies available to the super powers without naming anyone. The location of each of the important and very important person is known, their itinery is known and it requires no miracles to know who is moving where.

Vinit Goenka Member Governing Council - CRIS, Secretary - CKS If we keep our data in someone’s house, he is going to use it and according to a famous Marathi phrase - the one who protects the pond will always taste the water. If my data is outside my precinct, it is going to be used for their purpose against my wish. Can we have the data within my precinct? I am not talking about the censorship that China loves to talks about, but I would like everyone to visit every websites on this earth. But then we need to see that any kind of data is not going outside the precinct and we strongly advocate it.

The myth of ‘Vasudev Kutumbhkam’ does not hold true anymore. This myth should be broken in front of the students of today. There is no such thing, we live in a real world and our neighbours are our real challenge. We are a nation and we cannot afford to become weak.

Rear Admiral S Y Shrikhande AVSM (Retd) Technology remains the primary instrument for cyber security and cyber offences. I had learnt long ago that ‘loose lips sink ships’. The unsaid thought of ‘loose lips sink ships’ rightfully points out to the need for prudence. This is my first and over arching proposition that prudence as an individual means you are cautious about what you speak in the context of where you speak. It encompasses the attitude of building caution in ensuring security of information that has to become second nature. It is difficult to say that how long these will save the future of children. The safety of the individual, the safety of the institution, of the society and the nation are all linked in a hierarchy. It is believed that once the prudence is internalized, it becomes an attitude which is linked to virtual connectivity. And we must remember that in the earlier days when we used to pay for calls, there was the element of fiscal prudence. But today it is free and that creates its own problems. www.spoindia.org February 2018 | 27

Cyber Security Brig (Retd) Manjeet Singh DACIDS (DIARA) The cyber world is a hugely complex word. Today we have 3.7 billion of users, 500 million in our own country.

Added to it are the mobile devices which are all across. We have one billion mobile devices, out of which 30% are smartphones. And to add to that we now have one billion IoT on the network. So see the complexity which has been added.

IoT is going to become 50 billion across the world by 2020. So it’s a hugely complex world of cyber space in which we have to operate as common cyber citizens and the cyber warriors of tomorrow. There are two types of network on which we operate and function - first is the Air gapped networks which have also been built on imported hardware. So how much we are secured is a question mark. Second is the dependence on internet, like any other citizen we at the army too have to function by depending on the internet.

Jayadeva Ranade Cabinet Secretariat - RAW We have a new kind of warfare in cyber space - sci-war, cyber threats and media. Our biggest challenge other than China is Pakistan. China has set aside $90 billion for expanding its footprint across the globe for propaganda and moulding the people’s mind. It is primarily including the cyber domain to extend its reach. 80% of the main service providers in our telecommunication industry are Chinese companies. Huawei and ZTE complete them and they today cover Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Maldives. It is their system that is operating there, whether it is a landline or a wifi. So, we need to really look at it and start thinking how we can set up either a parallel system or a system that in course of time will take over.

We say that we have a problem of manpower, but I can rightly point it out where this manpower is. All our best designers and developers are sitting abroad. We all are IT coolies who are living here. We are doing backend operations for all the large MNCs which indeed are very low end and we need to upgrade that. And the way to upgrade this is by starting cyber security, cyber training and cyber awareness.

Amitabh Mathur, IPS Former Head Aviation Research Centre - RAW I speak more as a novice on the subject of security but also as a concerned human being or as a concerned citizen of the country. I say that change is inevitable. Technology is upon us and in many manifestations of this cyber world; we are getting constantly overwhelmed by technology. Hyper connectivity in our daily lives has the potential to erode our humanity in unprecedented ways. Now phones, screens have changed the way we interact with each other. A study was conducted in which it revealed that 89% of people are interrupted by their telephone, WhatsApp and SMS messages while they are in a conversation. 82% of the respondents have said that use of devices had a negative impact on their social interaction. These are very important statistics.

Science gathers knowledge faster than the society gathers wisdom, so we must learn from this and I think this is the lesson for the younger students who have these gadgets in hand which allows them access to anything in the world.

Dr S D Pradhan Former - Joint Intelligence Committee I would focus only on what is happening beyond the borders particularly in the last 5 years in USA, Russia, UK and China as they have all linked it with cyber force and have all come up with a national cyber strategy. I think we as a nation must also take into account cyber force for developing a counter attack to the threats as this is what is happening in all the four countries. There are three things in common - one, they have linked it with national security and they talk of cyber warfare. Second, they talk of deterrents that while using cyber force what deterrents they can use and accept surrender from the adversary. And third, reliance on domestic equipment - China has done it in a very methodical manner. It has developed a strategic support force which is mainly for cyber warfare that gives support to the PLA and PLAAF. 28 | February 2018 www.spoindia.org

Pradeep Arora Chairman of cyber security group If you look at the users today - the users of internet and all the mobile devices are exploding day by day. As the tariffs of data and calls have started fallen, the users have also started moving on to the cities, and this included not only the literate population but also the people who are semi literate or illiterate. We are forcing them today to use these mobile devices for accessing their own financial assets, accessing their own data as we already refer to it. And as we all are trying to find the solution, there are challenges that citizens are going to face in accessing their own data and what we on behalf of the government is delivering to them. So possibly one of the solutions lies in providing them a safe environment - maybe we need apps, safe frameworks which can also be made available to the children.

Dr B V L Narayana Director - CRIS I was looking at two things and these two really worries me. I am from a public service system. I give services to every citizen of India and therefore I am always worried when a citizen doesn’t get a service. For me security and safety do not distinguish itself, it is always a problem when both are merged. Whether my technology fails and I don’t give a service is a problem, whether a citizen creates a problem and then doesn’t allow other citizens to get service is always a problem. Therefore I don’t distinguish between safety and security in any manner. My other problem is as technology progressed, we have also adopted technology and IT in a very -very large way. I don’t know how many of you know that all the trains which are running on our systems come under computer control. The entire network - planes and trains are running on systems today. We are now even trying to run trains without manpower in some system. This might create a challenge again if we do not monitor these systems 24x7.

Dr Vipin Tyagi Executive Director – C-DOT There are some cyber tips. Like ‘Laalach nehi karna’ (don’t be greedy on the net). There are honey pots deliberately placed to get all the information out of you. If you find something too good, verify it first. Always have 3 different strategies to verify it, especially when you share something that is very private or dangerous for you if it is divulged to a 3rd person. You are dealing with a stranger till the time you don’t get your 3 factor verifications done. Pornographic sites have embedded mechanism for capturing the mindset that you have. They take you gradually to a stage where you start getting harm. So draw a line when you realize that you are experiencing something which is anti-social. Also you should switch off your location data on your mobile phone, so that your location does not get tracked. Too many apps on your phone also create problems.

Delete the apps that you do not use much. Anything that has foreign characters in it, try to avoid it because that particular mail or message is designed to trap you into revealing something.

Rajesh Kumar Srivastava Pro Vice Chairman - DPS (Bhagalpur & Greater Ranchi) There is a contradiction in whether you adopt technology to a limit or not. Technology has taken us in its grip whether we like it or not but there is also the need to make our youth aware of the use of technology – both defence and offensive mechanism. I am proud to announce the creation of the first Cyber Forensic Lab machine intelligence analysis across the country with the help of NTRO. The creation of an intelligence agency coordinating the intelligence arms of 3 military services that has long been called for by senior intelligence Indian military officers was formally recommended by the cabinet group of ministers headed by the then Deputy PM of India, Shri Lal Krishna Advaniji. The committee also recommended a national security doctrine that is yet to be adopted. The cabinet group of ministers investigated the various intelligence lapses during the Kargil war and recommended a comprehensive reform of the Indian intelligence agency.

Avadhesh Mathur, IPS Cabinet Secretariat - RAW I would like to highlight 3 challenges with respect to cyber terrorism which impinges upon national security – • The character of terrorism has changed. With passage of time, terrorism has transformed into cyber threat. We have also seen that now newer technologies are emerging - machine intelligence, big data, robotics which we see as a boon to mankind. But at the same time, we should be aware of the challenges that these technologies might pose for us.

• The 2nd challenge is the invisible element. We know that the hacker who is sitting thousand miles away from us is invisible to us. In most of the cases cyber crimes are committed with the cyber criminal remotely operating everything.

• The 3rd challenge is that of sensitization. I remember we used to visit different organizations and speak about the security of their computers. They are simple scientists who only are involved in their work. If you try to tell them these things, they won’t try to understand.

Dr. Vatsala Joshi Pande OSD (Research) to Hon’ble Speaker – Lok Sabha Secretariat We cannot handle cyber world in the way the nation handles agriculture and industry. When we got independent, we were into agriculture and only looked into only 1 aspect of production – which is to increase production to feed our citizens. It was a similar case in industries too, where we looked at increasing GDP without understanding the pollution effects. But in case of cyber world we have to look into totality. Cyber world is both a very individual and collective point. So as an individual and as a nation, we have to be very well versed in using the internet. This point should go into policy decisions as well. Personally I feel that the public representatives should be aware about these cyber threat aspects in totality, so that policies can be framed accordingly and a general awareness is created among the masses. Knowing the cyber world properly will bypass half the danger of cyber threats.

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Cyber Security Uma Sudhindra Member Governing Board – IIM Vizag Since the Kargil war we have relearned the timeless lesson that we always do not get to fight wars which we are prepared for or inclined to. On June 27th this year, terror struck at a place not far from Mumbai; however, unlike 26/11 most people did not even realize that a terror has struck. 26/11 was witnessed by the whole world. This attack of 27th June was a quiet attack but yet crippled India’s largest container port - the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust.

The terminal with the capability of 1.8 million container units came to a complete halt. The attacker was a malware called Petya and the hackers were faceless attackers from an unknown place.

Fortunately, the damage was contained. Now imagine if this has happened in an airport, Delhi Metro, electricity grid or even our nuclear stations. Since the beginning of internet revolution, more than 26, 000 defaced websites and 91 lakh infected systems have been detected in India. This is despite the fact that 77% of cyber attacks are still going unreported. The smartphones, laptops, applications that we use and search engines all are hackable.

Nothing is impregnable.

Pavitran Ranjan Cyber Security Research Center When you start looking at cyber security from the perspective of information warfare, it’s a totally different perspective. We are one of the oldest civilizations in the world but we are a very young nation. There is a reason behind it, because in the last 1000 years we have been repeatedly invaded and ruled over. If you study history you realize most of our wars were lost by treachery from within. One of the topic is “Can national security be outsourced?” We cannot outsource national security to China or to any other nation. While we think about China, we immediately see a red flag. They have an authoritarian regime and have open laws as far as cyber security is concerned. Information warfare is a concept which is primarily American. By 2030, if we do not do a drastic course correction, I see a very difficult time again. Our entire infrastructure is being built on compromised multinational MNC appliances, hardware and software with relevant and confidential documents all at the backend. So you realize how much we are at a danger.

Dr. Arunima Chakravorty Principal - DPS (Bhagalpur & Greater Ranchi) Nowadays we do almost everything online like shopping, banking, emotional mapping to socializing and card making.

All of these make the internet which we call the cyber space very vulnerable and attractive target for criminals. We should be focusing more on cyber essentials and cyber experience while teaching and its consequence as students are very vulnerable to cyber crime. In a very recent study conducted by Uninor in some of the states, it highlighted that one-third of the school going students have experienced cyber crime in the form of cyber stocking, deformation, cyber bulling and hacking. Children rarely speak about their online activities and experience and in case if they do so parents are very ignorant about it and take it as a small happening. Parents remain under the impression that children are on the net doing their projects assigned by the school. But this should not be the case. Parents should closely monitor of what their kids are doing while they are online.

Ajay Ranjan Mishra Director - Digital Transformation Consulting at Ericsson One of the reports says that in 2013, 4.4 trillion gigabytes of data were generated, in 2020 we would have 44 trillion gigabytes of data and by 2030 there will be an annual increase of almost 54% of data. So that would be a huge amount of data. Mark Zuckerberg bought WhatsApp for $20 million. Children know that it is free to download, yet he paid that amount. The defense budget for our country was around $53 billion this year. But Zuckerberg invested $20 billion which is more than 1/3rd of the budget that we have for defense.

Couple of days ago there was a report that President Obama told Zuckerberg about fake news element on the Facebook which might have impacted the US elections.

The kind of data that would be generated in another 13-15 years is mindboggling, if we do not try to address the threats or mitigate those threats from today itself, it would become a major problem as compared to what we might have seen or experienced on the borders.

Bharat Panchal Head – Risk Management SVP, National Payments Corporation of India When we are talking about civil society, the major talk is around application, device and public infrastructure that we are using as a citizen. The fact remains that Mobile Disruption has recently taken the country by storm. We have today close to 1bn mobile handsets, but there are 10% or more that are routed devices which we are not aware of. The incident that happened last year - the data of 3.2mn debit cards getting breached is an example to show. The maximum incidents were reported from China and the maximum withdrawal that happened outside India was in China. The major issue what we are facing today is that today’s generation and the next generation is a complete disjoint. Today’s generation is not educated enough on how to take care of cyber security. I think this is the right time to adopt a policy that we have mandated to have a cyber security defense system.

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Sumitra Goenka Member - CKS As a parent I feel a lot needs to be done in India today. We have a population who are not technology literate or tech savvy but their children are exposed to technology to such an extent that parents have no idea about how alarming the situation is. So I believe that more interaction with all the stakeholders is necessary and the government and academia should come together to make sure that the cyber security threats and problems that the people are not aware of is addressed at the grassroots level.

The second area which I see is the cyber security targeting technology and the agriculture industry. India is an agrarian society; there are a lot of upcoming technologies in the food sector. It is becoming smarter with use of smart containers, AI and IoT. So this sector is most vulnerable to such attacks, especially the supply chain management. If we don’t have safeguards to protect ourselves then the entire country and food security will be compromised.

Dr. Savita Kakar Chief Scientist - DRDO Indigenization is one solution we have in hand and DRDO and other organizations are taking steps towards it.

But for doing that the private industry, DRDO and academia have to come together because I have found that there is a lot of knowledge lying barren but they are in the form of compartments. So we have to come together to do work of such magnitude. It is very easy to say that we want to indigenize things but it is very difficult to accept. Generally we are more overwhelmed by imported stuff. Whatever products we are indigenizing, when they go to the user, instead of accepting and giving any suggestions, they start comparing them with the imported stuff. People have to change this mentality and they need to start accepting things. We have suddenly started doing indigenization and we might not be able to deliver the products of imported level. So, definitely some motivation is needed to accept these things.

Ambika Khurana Public Policy - Government and Regulatory Affairs, IBM We cannot outsource our security to China. The world has been talking about ‘China Plus One’ model but we as Indians are absolutely tired of Chinese products. So while we try and shun the usage of these Chinese products, we absolutely must understand that it is time that our Make In India campaign that our Prime Minister Modi started with a lot of fervour and excitement is really supported. It is very crucial time for all of us as Indians whether we work for Indian companies or other multi-national companies, that we completely support Make In India. We also firmly want the Government of India to strengthen public private partnership so that our knowledge, expertise which has been gained over multiple years of working across geographies can be leveraged within India. I represent a company that is 107 years old. India is one of our base in terms of employees, research and software labs. We are very enthusiastic about working closely with the Government of India.

Professor Chandan Chowdhury Associate Dean – Indian School of Business On 22th September, when I used to be a managing director in an MNC, I received an email that I have to do a remittance to HSBC bank for acquiring a company. My president then got into a call with me telling me to do it immediately. It was actually not my president but a robot; the email was a fake email. My point is that the size of the cyber world is increasing. We cannot run away from it and we have to protect it. We know about in US this month the identity and confidential data of 143 million people have been hacked. The government of India might have removed 500, 1000 rupee notes but now cryptocurrency like Bitcoin is becoming very popular. The value of Bitcoin in 19 months has increased by 10 times which resulted in many people investing in it. Now if you look at Bitcoin itself, we had a huge catastrophe with a company called Bitfinex where 65 million dollar worth of bitcoin was actually hacked.

Commander L R Prakash (Retd) Director – CDAC Why do we need indigenous and open source initiative? First is money, which is going into the software industry. One thing common with all the software companies is that none of them has an Indian flag. Where is this money going then – if it is going in the license fee, or research fee abroad then we are directly spending our money in enriching other nations. There is a set of 3 Microsoft products which every PC has - the windows operating system, the patch management system that gets your windows updates and Microsoft Office – they put out disclaimers stating that they don’t collect any personal data from you. But the truth is that they basically are collecting everything from its users. A combination of these three software essentially means that they map your entire network; they map your entire organisation, your users and your users’ network.

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Cyber Security Rahul Aggarwal Director - PWC In 2030, technology will be 13 years old from now. By using technology you can control anything. We hear of Driverless cars, which will gain momentum in coming years; or electricity in a house being controlled, this is how technology is changing. Our dependency on technology and IT is very high. You can access information services and transaction services online by merely sitting at home.

So if all this is happening, how are we going to manage it? What are the areas as a govt., as a private corporate and as a society we need to address? That’s what we need to discuss. But from our perspective, whatever research we have done, most of the countries will always have a critical infrastructure for the financial sector, defence sector, transport sector etc. Every country has defined it. If the critical infrastructure is not available for the society at large we have a major disruption. From the govt. perspective, critical infrastructure always needs to be protected.

Prof. Dr. Sharad Sinha National Council of Education Research and Training I feel like we are in a world where technology is outnumbering technology.

The technology which is in place to make us secure is making us more insecure.

There are a lot of challenges as an academician which I see that are coming up in the years to come. In a class room we see a lot of things happening nowadays. Children are biologically becoming isolated, but getting united with their smartphone and other devices. They are becoming more psychologically challenged. They talk to their devices, but do not communicate or do not talk to their parents or teachers. Even if they talk, the communication has become very less. I foresee in the forthcoming years that all our books will be digitized, robots will take up as teachers and will have a new role of a digital guru in classrooms and schools and teachers especially will disappear from the scene as all the information will be available online to study.

Sanjukta Mookherji Sahani NGO JaagoTeens & Cadence Before you do anything on the web/internet, please be sure that you do not fall into wrong hands. Think, whether you would like the same things said about you. There are a whole lot of rules and norms that can be followed while you are online. Just because you are anonymous on the web does not mean that you are not traced.

You need to get this into the mindset of your children that whenever they are into trouble or into any embarrassing situation, they should first come to their parents or teachers. The second thing is when you accept friends request, you see that you know him/her personally. Always have a second channel of verification whether you know that person or not. Always have a passion for learning as young students and a passion for science and technology.

By 2030, you can be rest assured that you are going to face huge competition from intelligent robots.

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ROUND ABOUT

Did Budget 2018-19 omit IT? Budget in India is a big affair. The budget build-up starts much before its presentation. Media and people immediately get affected by the Budget proposals thereafter, speculating about various fiscal provisions the Finance Minister may resort to.

Every group or industry segment or trade union has their own axe to grind. I still have to find an industrialist who would happily say, “Hey Finance Minister, our sector is doing well. You may withdraw the sops that have been extended or impose new levies on our profits or revenues.” As humans, our aim is to maximize from every opportunity that is presented before us.

I must confess that I am not a great follower of budget pre-build-up and post comments. But this year’s Budget was somewhat different. One of the IT magazines sought my comments on the impact of proposals on the IT sector in the Budget.

My effort to gain some insight into the Budget proposals on IT did not bear any positive results. I did not hear any comment by an expert on the impact of Budget proposals on the ICT sector. I got more educated by reading the tickers in the TV channel that I watched, which displayed that there was an increase in the import duty on certain goods like mobile phones, medical devices and a few more items primarily to create an enabling situation for the domestic industry to produce more as a part of the “Makein-India” program. Luck would have it while penning this piece, I read about the first rollback of the Budget proposals.

Even before anyone has pointed out the incongruity, the increase in import duty on medical devices was withdrawn. There was a twist in the story. It attributed the withdrawal to the pressure being exerted by the US medical device lobby.

IT industry is going through a radical transformation. According to reports published by major consulting organizations, approximately 100,000 IT professionals will be rendered obsolete every year, and they need retraining in new technologies. The Finance Minister during his Union Budget 2018 said that

the government will explore Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning technologies.

He added that the global economy is transforming into digital economy, thanks to the development of cuttingedge technologies in the digital space.

“Technologies like Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things, 3D Printing, and initiatives like Digital India, Startup India and Make in India would help in establishing itself as a digital economy,” he said. He added that Niti Aayog will establish a national program to direct the efforts in the area of AI, including research and development of its applications. “We would invest in research, training and skilling in Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Digital manufacturing, Big Data Analytics, Quantum communications and others,” he said. In addition, the Finance Minister should have provided financial initiatives to the private sector in setting up retraining programs in these new technologies.

Necessitating skilling of IT employees as they have been lately burdened with the pressure of feeling redundant, will go a long way in curbing job loss by creating and defining new roles for employees.

Not only will this help in job creation but will also advance the nation in the competitive global space. These efforts will also assist the government to move

towards its Digital India vision.

But the apprehensions expressed from different quarters should merit our consideration. The primary concern is about the intrusion into the privacy of a person, family or community by using technology. A technology platform will have two uses. One for using it for the welfare of the people, such as extending civic facilities online to cut down the drudgery, such as ticket booking which can be done from the comfort of your office or home. Earlier, you would have bored a hole in your pocket while making a lightning call from Delhi to Chennai or any other stations. Now, one can call at any time anywhere at a fraction of that cost. There are several such examples, which one can take up from ordinary life.

Then, what is the flip side of technology? First and foremost, the loss of privacy since technology can be used to peep into your private life. Why should state know about what you buy from a medical store or the disease that you like to disclose only to your doctor, family and loved ones. Why should your health profile land up in the hands of your business competitor? At a macro level, why should a country’s secret be in the public domain, particularly with your enemy country? Wiki leaks behind us the media trials and tribulations that it has triggered, one should draw a line between the information that can be shared and one that it should be exclusively protected – be it about an individual or a society or a state?

I do not think anyone has a straight answer for that. I feel it has to evolve. The society where technology plays the major role in connecting and blending the ethos of different groups and segments should come out with unique cultural moorings that balance people’s needs for welfare and progress to that of the requirements of the statecraft. That cannot come through an authoritarian disposition or court rulings or fiats. Maybe, it has to evolve through consultations, compromises and understanding each other’s needs and deeds. n www.spoindia.org February 2018 | 33

Special Coverage

Uttar Pradesh Investors Summit2018 brings 4 lakh Cr. Investments The Uttar Pradesh Investors Summit2018 concluded with various MoUs signed for implementing projects to the tune of Rs 4.28 lakh crore. The event was inaugurated by PM Narendra Modi and the closing plenary address was given by the President of India - Ram Nath Kovind. Other political stalwarts who graced the occasion are Yogi Adityanath, Chief Minister-Utter Pradesh in the presence of 20 Union ministers including six Cabinet heavyweights - Finance Minister and Minister of Corporate Affairs, Arun Jaitley; Minister for Road Transport & Highways, Shipping and Water Resources, River Development & Ganga Rejuvenation, Nitin Gadkari; Defence Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman; Home Minister, Rajnath Singh; Minister of Railways and Coal, Piyush Goyal and Information and Broadcasting and Textiles Minister, Smriti Irani.

The signalling could not have been stronger as the prime minister, the Central government, the BJP party and the Sangh are all solidly behind Yogi and committed to the cause of Uttar Pradesh. With Lok Sabha elections expected anytime in the coming 12 months, it was a very significant message for the people of the state, who have not experienced this kind of an alignment between Lucknow and Delhi in a long time.

The two-day event was attended by 5,000 delegates and over 100 speakers. The event had witnessed the heads of states and governments, ministers, leaders from the corporate world, senior policy makers, heads of international institutions and academicians from around the world coming together to further the cause of economic development in the state.

The guest list at the dinner included former Mauritius President and Prime Minister Anerood Jugnauth and his wife Sarojini; Ambassadors of The Netherlands, Czech and Finland; delegates from Japan and Thailand and Mahindra group chairman Anand Mahindra and cardiovascular and cardiothoracic surgeon Dr Naresh Trehan.

“The union government has transferred a larger share of tax revenues as well as economic and policy responsibilities to the states. Increasingly, the economic future of India is being written by states and state governments, such as that of Uttar Pradesh,” the President said in his speech.

“PM Modi and CM Yogi want to make UP a dream destination 34 | February 2018 www.spoindia.org

for investors, who are very excited to attend the summit. We want to make it a history. We have already signed 900 MoUs," said UP's industry Minister, Satish Mahana.

Finance minister Arun Jaitley said, “The “investment cycle” cannot be started in states if they run with social divide which had been the case with Uttar Pradesh in the past. Yogi Adityanath’s leadership has the capability of taking tough and difficult decisions and the government under his leadership had brought about an improvement in the law and order situation and also provided political stability in the state.”

He further said that the defence corridor to be set up in Bundelkhand would increase the demand for specialised workforce, adding that the state government should adopt skill development programme to make the investors realise that trained personnel too were available in UP along with land and incentives.

Railway minister Piyush Goyal made quite a few announcements for UP. These included the start of a heritage train between Bahraich and Lakhimpur Kheri, connecting the Katarniaghat and Dudhwa wildlife sanctuaries in UP, increasing capacity of the Rae Bareli coach factory from the existing 500 coaches to 3000 coaches in the next three years in phases, setting up of rail ancillary factory in the industrially backward Fatehpur district, opening a coach refurbishment factory near Jhansi and revival of an electric loco shed in Gorakhpur.

IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said that Digital India cannot be achieved without a Digital UP. Top industrialists, including Gautam Adani, Mukesh Ambani, Subhash Chandra, N Chandrashekharan, KM Birla, Shobana Kamineni also addressed various sessions. n

SPO FOUNDATION

Sharp NGO runs a comprehensive Health Care Programme in association with Chambal Fertilizers

– District Kota, Rajasthan

A healthy being has the ability to grow as an individual and become a contributor in the growth of the country. However a lot of factors are responsible for the development of an individual including his/her surroundings, infrastructure and government policies. We at Sharp NGO make sure that CSR is in the DNA for the companies and not only a compliance requirement.

SHARP NGO has been advocating various issues that have brought change in the behaviour of people towards their health. In association with Chambal Fertilisers, SHARP NGO has been running a Comprehensive Health Care Program in Kota District of Rajasthan for the past three years. The NGO has targeted 26 villages and 33 schools, where health camps and sessions are helping people to make informed health choices.

The programme in its initial stages engaged stakeholders to participate and gathering of people for maximizing the impact. This process included involvement of Health workers, conducting training workshops for them, discussing their basic requirements and the ways that could improve their health conditions. Other than empowering stakeholders, SHARP has conducted comprehensive health camps and specialized health camps targeting men, women, children and elders.

The specialized camps include Gynaecology camp for women, Dental Camp for community, eye camp under which 3411 people received spectacles and 11 people were operated for cataract. Specialized camp such as orthopaedic camp, were held for elderly, where the medical team could talk about geriatric health care and understand

detailed medical problems that the individual face.

To sustain the programme, SHARP has also collaborated with government RBSK programme for school health check-up. The Anganwadi & Asha worker training programme was conducted and the main objective of the training was to understand the role of the Anganwadi & Asha worker in bringing about better community & to motivate Anganwadi & Asha worker workers in mobilising community participation.

SHARP conducted capacity building program for school teachers. Since sustainability and success of any educational program depends solely on the levels of training and passion of teachers, so in this phase, appointed teacher coordinators from the schools were sensitized on the importance of the program and trained on the methodology of the execution.

Awareness programmes such as Cancer, Breast Cancer, Menstrual Health and Management have been organized for the women and girls in schools and communities. Nukkad Nataks have been organized for AntiTobacco sessions. Sanitation sessions have been helpful to the school children such that they themselves audit their school toilets on regular bases.

SHARP through this programme has reached more than 15000 people and 10000 children who have actively participated and benefitted from various activities conducted by the NGO. n www.spoindia.org February 2018 | 35

CASE STUDY

The rule of the green thumb – innovation and sustainability As a rule, the ‘how’ of the matter weighs more than the ‘what’ of the matter.

Confusing? Well not really. A simple example makes it clearer: Agriculture is an important sector of the Indian economy.

Hence, creative, innovative and costeffective solutions to the challenges this sector faces are of paramount importance.

Of course, some of these solutions are results of painstakingly long research and development processes, some are application of traditional methodologies handed over across generations and some are an amalgamation of both the traditional and the modern.

Farmers in East Champaran, Bihar, have been cultivating traditional crops such as wheat and paddy, alternated with vegetables and mustard since they can recall. The reason being simple: This is what they have always done, so why bother with change? However, the challenges which sprung up over the course of time such as temperamental weather with flooding on one hand and long dry spells on the other, depletion of soil quality due to monoculture and an unorganized trade market have resulted in serious contemplation and change in course of action. The need for diversification, for one, was strongly felt.

Arvind Rana, program leader, Agriculture Interventions, Sehgal Foundation, says, “Understanding the emerging challenge led us to propose the use of banana cultivation, and that too of a special kind – the G 9 variety. This variety boasts of good shape and size, is heavy on productivity, responds well to tissue culture and can be completely ‘eradicated’ if so required. The latter is important as this prevents the growth of unwanted new plants which interfere with the existing sown pattern of crops. Moreover, this variety can be grown with other crops easily and is also a good return on investment.

Usually, the variety costs INR 15 per plant.

The yield stands at twenty – thirty dozen bananas per tree, with prices slotted at INR 20-30 INR/dozen.”

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Of course, the initiative which began as a demonstration now sees many farmers readily contributing towards the procurement of the sapling, which was not the case a few months ago. The eighteen month cycle of yield is also practical and adds to the list of benefits for the farmers.

Hence, a simple intervention can enhance the profit for the farmers significantly, with almost no additional or ‘new’ production cost.

Jokhu Sah, village Sitakund, talks about his experience with the intervention.

“The first time we got to know about this intervention was during one of the meetings organized by the foundation. Constant

hand-holding, at the initial stages, helped us resolve a challenge which cropped up.

Usually, I cultivate peas and cauliflower on my field, however, alternating it with banana helped procure extra income due to which I plan to expand the area of banana cultivation. This is not all, the success has inspired others to reap benefits too; where initially doubt reigned, there is now a healthy curiosity and openness to try something new.”

The long-term objective of the intervention is sustainability. “When an intervention is introduced, it is important that it comes with the sustainability tag.

Hand-holding is an initial and important aspect, but this has to mature into a selfstanding, independent and beneficial long-term model. Otherwise, the point is understandably lost,” adds Rana.

It is also important to understand the apprehensions that come with suggested change. Many farmers do know about the cultivation of banana but the initial step does come with a certain amount of apprehension.

Explains Dinesh Kushwaha, village Amwa, “I did not know about this specific variety of banana – the ‘tissue banana’ or the G9 variety as it is called. Based on the suggestion of the foundation’s field members, I did sow the variety on half an acre of my land, but was nervous about the outcome, which is why I cultivated potato and cauliflower alongside too.

The result, however, was very satisfying.

I could sell the fruits for about INR 250300 per plant, which resulted in additional earnings of around 1.5 – 2 lakhs rupees.

This, of course, will encourage me to expand the cultivation besides helping me buy machinery. In fact, this option is a great solution for small land owners, as different types of vegetables can also be grown alongside the banana crop.”

Sometimes, innovation is as simple as doing things, stuck in a certain pattern, in a better way. After all, the human mind has a unique ability to learn, unlearn, relearn and apply – the essence of innovation. n

Technomania

Issue of Data Sovereignty should be prioritised!

The increased digitalization of organizations, driven by the rapid adoption of technologies such as cloud computing and data analytics, has increased the importance of data. Enterprises are increasingly adopting cloud-based services in order to take advantage of the many business benefits of not having to purchase, manage, upgrade, and replace systems and applications. Of course, all amidst all this data still has to “live” somewhere. But a question is whether all types of data keeping is necessary?

With the technology evolving and prominence of Social media and cloud computing, it creates anytime-anywhere access to information and systems. Most customers don’t give much thought to where their data is stored. That needs to change. Data Sovereignty covers privacy regulations that a government mandates for digital data that has originated, been converted, or stored “in the country.”

Data created in a country will be subject to the laws of that country. Data Sovereignty privacy regulations are designed to keep sensitive data inside a country’s borders and strictly define what data may be exported across borders. These laws vary from country to country and region to region.

Digitisation is essential to India’s transition into a digital native country. It’s also true that data sovereignty presents technical and legal challenges when moving on-premises systems and information stores to the cloud. Privacy and datahosting laws vary by country and state, and some are stricter than others.

To maintain data sovereignty, organizations need to guarantee that their data remains within the jurisdiction that they choose and remains governed by the laws of that jurisdiction. Encryption replaces sensitive data with a mathematically derived value which, ideally, can only be read by an authorized entity-machine or human that has the same encryption keys that were used to create the value. A survey says that the little lock icon on a browser’s URL

line indicates that data, such as a payment account number (PAN), is encrypted as it flows between the browser and the online store. This level of security is now ubiquitous for financial web transactions and helps to ensure that no “man in the middle” can read the encrypted PAN and other information.

Many countries are drafting stricter data residency and sovereignty laws, which require data to remain in the country in order to protect their citizen’s personal information. Private corporations are also adapting similar policies for their digital data. Ideally, a country’s data has to be inside the country itself.

Technology companies have come up with various innovative features to attract the subscribers and viewers to post their pictures, videos through their platform.

The question that comes is why they are giving everything for free. It is simple, they want the data. This data can be used in many ways like target advertisements, buying patterns, social behaviours, your circle of people around you and many more.

Location, Boundary and Security are three important things to be controlled with the power of law of land. As on today 80 countries have their own data sovereignty laws. The strictest data sovereignty laws, like those in Germany, France, and Russia, mandate that its citizens’ data is stored on physical servers within the country’s physical borders. There are even some specific industries – governments come

to mind – that demand the same. For example, certain United States federal agencies require their data be stored exclusively within the United States and the countries within the European Union (EU) have restrictions on the transfer of PII data to countries outside of EU. Businesses use data to create value, and many can only maximize that value when data can flow freely across borders, yet a growing number of countries are enacting barriers that make it more expensive and time consuming, if not illegal, to transfer data overseas.

Canada passed its Digital Privacy Act, which not only strengthened its existing Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, but counteracted significant portions of the Patriot Act. In case of Germany, companyand employee-specific data in particular cannot leave Germany.

As the global economy shifts further into a connected information space, the relevance of data protection and the need for controlling privacy will further increase. Data protection is a global issue, the information economy is increasingly prominent and it promises to provide many opportunities, but could also generate some potential drawbacks.

However, the benefit of cloud computing is that data can be easily and quickly transferred to multiple locations across the globe – but, along with sovereignty issues, that also brings data security and privacy concerns. n www.spoindia.org February 2018 | 37

MOVEMENT

Shri Rajesh Kakkar takes over as Director (Offshore) in ONGC

Shri Rajesh Kakkar, has taken over charge of Director (Offshore) of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) today.

Shri Kakkar has more than three and a half decades of experience in the various aspects of operations and management in both offshore and onshore fields.He is well-known for his people management and interpersonal skills to foster the team approach to the operations.

As Director (Offshore), he will look after oil and gas production from ONGC’s offshore fields that contribute 70% and 78% of ONGC’s domestic crude oil and gas production respectively.

Neelesh Kumar Shah Appointed as NBCC Director (Project)NEW FACES IN PSUS NEW DELHI: Shri Neelesh Kumar Shah, who was Sr. Executive Director (Engg) with NBCC, has been appointed Director (Projects) of the Company by the Government of India.

Shri Shah has been serving the Company since 1985 when he joined the organisation as Assistant Engineer. Shri Shah assumed the charge of Director (Projects).

Shri P.K. Pujari Appointed Mr KR Vasudevan Assumes Chairperson of Central Electricity Charge of Director of Finance in Authority Mahanadi Coalfields Limited Govt has cleared the appointment

of Shri P.K. Pujari, (Retd IAS) Former Secretary Power, has been appointed as Chair-Person, Central Electricity Authority.

K R Vasudevan has assumed the charge of the Director (Finance), Mahanadi Coalfields Limited, a subsidiary of Coal India Limited under Ministry of Coal, Government of India.

Sanjay Singh, IAS has been appointed as Administrator, USOF under Department of Telecommunications; to replace Aruna Sundarajan, IAS.

Sameer Kumar Khare, IAS, has been appointed as Joint Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs replacing Usha Titus, IAS.

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