Online stores under DoT scanner

Some online adult toys and  adult lifestyle stores have come under the scanner of the Department of Telecom (DoT), which wants to regulate such webstores under section 67, 67A and 67B of the Information Technology (IT) Act, 2008 for "selling and promoting alleged objectionable products illegally".
A telecom department note mentions online stores like flipkart, Imbesharam.com, thatspersonal.com and OhMySecret.com, which, it feels, are violating rules under the IT Act.
It also refers the names of the CEOs of these portal including Sachin Bansal (flipkart), Raj Armani (IMbesharam), Samir Saraiya (thatspersonal.com) and Vinodh Reddy (OhMySecrets.com).
There are "few online selling websites, which are openly promoting and selling alleged objectionable products illegally," says the note referring to these websites.
The DoT said this was brought to its notice through a letter from the ministry of information and broadcasting and a complaint by one Harit Kumar to the Delhi police, alleging objectionable content being shown on websites.
The other two portals are also explicitly adult stores but it is not clear why flipkart has been mentioned along with them. None of the CEOs were available for comments.
G Krishna Kumar, an IT professional from Bengaluru, said they could have come to the government's notice as they don't have checks and balances that such sites require for their access.
He said measures such as giving access to only those who register their age as 18 years and above would probably satisfy the regulating agencies.
"For adult content sites, it must be mandatory to have a login (assuming that the individual will provide the correct details). It finally depends on how truthful the individual is," said Krishna Kumar.
Incidentally, Facebook requires a person creating a login ID to be at least 13 years old while Google has age requirements as defined by individual countries. Youtube, for example, displays a warning screen when adult content appears, saying "only users who are 18 or older can watch it".

Is your mobile certified for SAR radiation?

Sunday, 11 January 2015 - 7:20am IST | Place: New Delhi | Agency: dna

A letter written by India's only authorised lab and certifier of specified absorption rate (SAR) of radiation in a mobile handset to the customs chief in New Delhi brings out rampant misuse and violation of government rules on the same.
Bharat B Jain, chief executive officer (CEO) of BNNSPEAG Test and Calibration Laboratory India Pvt Ltd, told dna he has come across some instances of fake SAR conformance certificates being issued by a Delhi-based entity AB Mobile Standards India Pvt Ltd and has brought it to the notice of the customs.
"This forging of SAR compliance certificate is not only causing a revenue loss to the test lab but also resulting in unchecked mobile phone radiation to general public," Jain wrote in his letter to the Commissioner of Customs Bhushan Kumar Bansal.
What has surprised Jain is that the customs has cleared mobile handsets imports on production of these forged documents. As evidence, he has provided a copy of SAR conformance certificate issued to Maxx MobilE Communications Limited's MX425e model by AB Mobile. The model was made manufactured by United Creation Technology Co Ltd.
"It has come to our notice that under-mentioned organisation (AB Mobile Standards India Pvt Ltd) is giving forged SAR certificates to various mobile manufacturers and importers, who are submitting these to customs for clearance of these phone by illegally using ILAC (International Lab Accreditation) symbol," he states in the letter.
And while Jain is still awaiting response from the customs authority, ILAC – the international body of which his company is a signatory – has already addressed his concerns.
An e-mail sent to him by Sharon Kelly of ILAC has verified that AB Mobile was not an ILAC signatory.
"AB Mobile Standards India is not authorised to use the ILAC MRA Mark as shown on the SAR conformance certificate provided (to us)," she wrote to Jain.
ILAC, which is a global mobile testing and certification body, has taken the matter further and will be carrying out a probe to check whether testing by AB Mobile was done at an accredited laboratory.
"However, this would need to be confirmed with AB Mobile Standards and CNAS (China National Accreditation Service for Conformity Assessment), the accreditation body in China that is a signatory to the ILAC MRA because the conformance certificate indicates the laboratory used was based in China," she assured Jain in her email.
ILAC has said it will use the evidence given by Jain to contact AB Mobile Standards and advise them against inappropriate use of the ILAC MRA Mark.
G Krishna Kumar, telecom professional from Bangalore, said even though India has set guidelines on acceptable SAR level for mobile phones sold in the country, its implementation was a challenge.
"It is worthwhile to note that SAR value by itself does not guarantee that the phone is safe to be used continuously for hours. Data suggests that a SAR value of 1.6 W/kg (watt per kilogram) means that the phone can safely be used for about 18-20 minutes of continuous talking (with phone held against the ear) in a day," he said.
According to him, the government or the phone makers or the telcos needs to educate general public on these aspects.
He said the government should mandate the over 150 mobile phone makers to provide the radiation details for all phone models launched in India over the last one year. "This should be available both online and in all the retail outlets," said Krishna Kumar.

Companies need to have Rs 100 crore net worth to participate in airwave auction

Monday, 5 January 2015 - 7:10am IST | Place: New Delhi | Agency: dna
Praveena Sharma

Aircel and Tata Teleservices Ltd (TTL) may find it challenging to bid for airwaves in the coming auction with the inter-ministerial committee (IMC) on spectrum auction reiterating its decision on net worth eligibility of bidders.
The committee has retained its earlier decision, where it had made it clear that only those with net worth of over Rs 100 crore, irrespective of whether they were holding spectrum or license or were new entrants in a band or a circle, could participate in the upcoming airwave auction. For the North East region and J&K service area, the net worth requirement for companies has been fixed at Rs 50 crore.
The telecom panel is of the view that strong balance sheets of those bidding for airwaves would ensure efficient roll out of quality telecom services.

Bengaluru-based telecom professional G Krishna Kumar said while IMC was justified in wanting to invite financially strong players, it should have also taken into consideration how the current competitive market had eroded the net worth of many of them.

"The criteria of having companies with healthy balance sheets to participate is good as it can help in maintaining requisite quality of service. However, due to the highly competitive market, telecom companies have paid exorbitant prices," he said.

Citing example of state-owned telecom company BSNL, he said positive net worth wasn't always necessarily an assurance on quality of service; "BSNL has positive net worth but their quality of service has been wanting".

Kumar said to make the telecom sector healthier, the government needed to address the areas: One, to make available more spectrum and two, reduce the intense of competition that currently exists in the market. "There has to be more spectrum availability. Currently, Indian telcos have less than 20% spectrum compared to their peers in other country. Secondly, we still have 8-12 players in each circle. I think government needs to help with easy M&A (merger and acquisition) guidelines, which will help the overall industry and also the general public," said Kumar.
A note on the minutes of IMC meeting, held late last month, says the committee had decided to hold on to its earlier view on the net worth as it felt lower availability of funds with a bidder would lower its capacity to raise funds, which in turn could hamper smooth running of its operation, expansion plans and quality of service.
It also felt that it was in line with the existing principle related to net worth requirement in the Unified License conditions for authorisation of additional services. However, it has clarified that the criteria did not "preclude" bidders with negative net worth: "Bidders have option of getting the net worth of such promoters of the company counted for participation in the auction for allotment of spectrum, who have directly in their name at least 10% equity share in the total equity of the company".
One of the reasons put forth by the panel was that in view of the government's Digital India initiative it was crucial to ensure the financial strength of bidder for faster roll out of services. Kumar said Digital India was already gaining traction with reports suggesting that there will be 10-15 million 4G (fourth generation) subscribers in India by next year.

Government begins net policing, orders blocking of 32 websites

Thursday, 1 January 2015 - 7:30am IST | Place: New Delhi | Agency: dna

The latest to come under its scanner are 32 websites, which have been ordered by the department of information technology to be blocked under Section 69A of the Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000 and the IT (Procedure and safeguards for blocking of access of information by public) Rules, 2009.
Arvind Gupta, the head of Bharatiya Janata Party’s national IT cell, tweeted that these sites on the Net, including vimeo, github, sourceforge and others, have been found carrying “objectionable content” and so directed to be blocked by the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) on security grounds.

An IT department’s note sent out to the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) orders them to “immediately block the access” to all 32 URLs.
Its dictate is reminiscence of the previous government’s similar move where it blocked over 200 websites in a day last year. It led to massive outcry against “censorship of the Internet” and resulted in the UPA government backtracking on it.
Though, after the Bangalore incident, the sentiment on the Net governance is different today.
Som Mittal, former president of IT lobby body National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM), believes Internet needs to be governed to a certain extend if it is being used for “unintended purposes”.
“You saw what happened recently on the Twitter (referring to Bangalore case). Internet is a powerful (internet) tool and can be misused to spread sentiments that could be harmful for impressionable users. We should censor only when the freedom (on the Net) is misused (for such purposes). The government should then step in,” he said.
However, he feels that what happened in China during the Hong Kong protest was “clearly censorship”. “What we are advocating is self-governance of the Net,” said the former Nasscom chief.
G Krishna Kumar, a senior IT professional based in Bangalore, is also of the view that government has all the right to block websites. 
“In fact, countries like US, Germany and Japan have clear Internet censorship guidelines. India is much better than China where thousands of websites are blocked including most popular ones like Facebook, Youtube, etc,” he said.
In the current context of blocking 32 websites, however, he said it was not clear why websites like github or sourceforge, which are sites meant for open source based collaborative software development, have been blocked. 
“Instead of blocking a website, can the government enforce strict checks and balances to these website or content providers so that only specific accounts can be blocked?” asked Krishna.
 

Telcos eye 117 MHz of idle spectrum from defense, broadcasters, BSNL

Thursday, 6 November 2014 - 6:10am IST | Place: New Delhi | Agency: DNA

Faced with severe crunched for spectrum, telecom operators are eyeing close to 116.5 megahertz (MHz) airwaves held by the defense sector, broadcasters and state-owned BSNL to expand their network and improve the quality of their service.
These spectrum, which are in the 2,100 MHz, 900 MHz, 700 MHz and 800 MHz bands, have been lying idle with their present owners or will be rendered idle once they shift to new technology.
Rajan Mathew, director general of Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), said while telecom companies were struggling to maintain and improve the quality of their service with the current quantity of spectrum available with them, there were many who were sitting on spectrum that are not being utilised.
"There is ample spectrum that can be freed but nobody is ready to vacate. There is a need to look at whether there was a way to reconfigure their (those agencies where airwaves are lying idle) holding for optimal use and globally harmonise the frequencies," he said.
According to him, defense had close to 15MHz in the 2,100 MHz that could be vacated while another 100 MHz in the 700 MHz could be freed from broadcasting firms which were moving to digitisation and 1.5 MHz of unused spectrum in the 900 MHz could come from BSNL.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has also recommended in its report submitted to the Department of Telecom to free up idle spectrum for the commercial usage by telecom service providers from these sectors.
Individual operators in India gets allocated roughly 15-20% of spectrum compared with that allocated to their peers in advanced countries. India has about 265MHz of spectrum across all the bands, while the US, Europe and Brazil have between 450 to 600 MHz allocated. In the 1800 MHz, Europe has at least 2 to 2.5 times more spectrum allocated compared to India.
G Krishna Kumar, vice president in the Mobile and Connected Devices Division at Bangalore-based Symphony Teleca, said better spectrum availability with telecom operators will improve the quality of service that can be offered to the consumers. Simply put, it would mean there would be lesser call drops and better internet connection.
He believes the government would do well to consider the License Shared Access ( LSA) technology that helps in efficient use of unused spectrum between license holders. This system has already been piloted in Europe.

A smart way to create 100 smart cities

G Krishna Kumar | Published: Oct 28 2014, 02:16 IST

The success of participative governance has been patchy in India. Government bodies need to show much more willingness to embrace public participation

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision to create 100 smart cities has resonated well both in India and across the world. While each state is pitching 4-5 cities to figure in the final list, many countries have shown interest in supporting the initiative in specific states. Recently, France offered to invest in creating smart cities in Himachal Pradesh.
The idea of smart cities is timely considering that urbanisation is inevitable. Sample this: as much as 75% of population in advanced countries live in cities, and 70% of world's population will live in cities mainly in developing countries over the next 30 years. During this period, India is projected to add about 400 million people in urban areas.
While smart city as a concept has gained popularity over the past few years, there is vagueness in the definition. Rightly so, as multiple aspects including governance, public transport and traffic, waste management, entertainment and safety, among others, need to be considered.
A recent survey by the IESE Business School, called "Cities in Motion", rates Tokyo, London and New York as the top smart cities in the world. The survey considers parameters including governance, urban planning and environment. The survey indicates that these three cities have a clear vision and consistent implementation of their strategic urban plans.
Rationalising/integrating urban bodies
Should India create 100 new smart cities or improve the existing ones? India has 53 cities with over 10 lakh population and there are hundreds of smaller cities. It makes sense to improve existing cities and aim at making them �smart� rather than creating new ones which are bound to take significantly longer time.
It is a given that each Indian city has different priorities. We need to rationalise the existing infrastructure and then look for improvement. Here, information and communications technology (ICT) can play an important role in the rationalisation process. For example, Mexico city's chaotic bus service got transformed into the most dependable public transport using ICT, through demand-supply matching and providing better service to the commuters. We can also learn from other countries in improving public transport ticketing using ICT. Japan's FeliCa or London's Oyster card are great examples of hassle-free ticketing service.
The concept of smart cities should be incorporated in the urban planning bodies and a holistic approach is required. How about integrating transportation and traffic planning with urban planning? This will make the urban planning department completely responsible and accountable for a city's traffic and public transportation. Why should the traffic police be responsible for traffic planning? Instead, we should let the traffic police focus on educating and improving responsible driving among the public.
How many times do we get frustrated at the utter lack of coordination between government organisations resulting in wastage of effort/money and causing public nuisance? Roads are nicely tarred and within a few days the sanitation/water supply department begins work on the same stretch of road! As a first step, can we get such simple things aligned amongst urban local bodies and fix ownership?
The government should expand on the PPP-based initiatives and replicate success stories in passport service and airports. Further, Nobel laureate Jean Tirole's suggestion to improve the PPP model through periodic independent evaluation is worth considering in India as well. Further, e-governance must be given the right thrust as it can bring in better transparency and can reduce corruption.
Creating the right ecosystem
India needs a strategy to enable and sustain a strong smart city ecosystem. The government must embark on an initiative making innovation as an enabler for Indian smart cities. The sole aim should be realising affordable India-specific solutions.
Institutions of national importance such as the IISc, IITs and IIMs produce some of the best talent in the country. Can we utilise this talent more effectively? Also, can these institutions be held accountable in certain areas from conceptualisation to implementation?
The ministry of human resource development (MHRD) should consider adding specific aspects around smart cities such as introducing urban planning as a specialised course. Subjects such as traffic and transportation engineering should also be popularised. Students should be encouraged to pursue specialised courses by creating the right demand environment.
ICT will play a major role in enabling smart cities and India is quite uniquely positioned in terms of the IT ecosystem. We have the technology know-how, skilled and mature manpower. IT industry, often seen as export-oriented, can have a great opportunity to make significant contribution in enabling e-governance or providing high-end analytics that can help the common man.
The success of participative governance (where the government departments and the general public work closely in prioritising improvement actions for the city) has been patchy in India. Reports suggest that few cities such as Surat and Pune have performed well, but most large cities have miserably failed. There can be many �valid� reasons, but we need government bodies to show much more willingness to embrace public participation.
It will take a while for Indian cities to figure among the world's best smart cities. That's fine and perhaps Janaagraha's annual survey of Indian cities could be a starting point for assessing Indian cities on smart city parameters.
A holistic approach is needed in rationalising the existing systems. Making our cities "smart" is a milestone, and not an end-goal in India's quest to create top-class cities.

The author is adviser, Centre for Educational and Social Studies, Bangalore. Views are personal
krishnak1@outlook.com

Smart Cities Need Right Policy

By G Krishna Kumar Published: 22nd September 2014 06:00 AM

 

Smart city has become a buzzword, thanks to PM Narendra Modi’s vision of creating 100 smart cities. The Kyoto-Varanasi partnership agreement that was signed during the PM’s visit to Japan has only increased the curiosity about smart cities.
The Japanese have managed to keep the cultural heritage of Kyoto and other cities intact while ensuring best-in-class infrastructure. Who can miss the magnificent Kinkaku-ji temple? The city has an excellent mix of well-maintained new and old-age structure, and the clean Kamogawa river. Kashi is planned to be developed as a smart city while preserving its heritage. Getting Kashi anywhere close to Kyoto will be a herculean task. Let us hope to see some visible difference.
Before we look at Indian smart cities, let us understand the global scenario. By 2050, 70% of the world’s population will live in cities. It is established that cities directly contribute in increasing national GDP and also improved productivity and innovation. The concept of smart cities is aimed at solving the rapid urbanisation challenges. Using Information and Communication Technology (ICT) as the core focus, smart cities are expected to combine a sustainable future with continued economic growth and job creation.
Smart cities can be created by adding “smartness” into existing cities or building new cities with best-in-class physical infrastructure and Internet connectivity.
Examples abound on the smart city initiatives in Singapore, Spain’s Barcelona and South Korea’s Songdo. In fact, China plans to move over 250 million people to smart cities by 2025.
Singapore, which already boasts superlative infrastructure, is taking “smartness” to the next level and aims to become the first “Smart nation”, through the Smart Nation Platform or SNP. Essentially, a plan in improving policy making and implementation along with a seamless feedback mechanism from the citizens to help in continuous improvement and providing better quality of life to the people.
This involves high-end sensor-based ICT infrastructure to collect data from various places in the city, analyse the data and provide real-time information to people—often called “situational awareness” for the public. It could be insights on traffic congestion, parking space availability or weather or any other useful information.
In India, while many private players have initiated smart cities, Gujarat International Finance Tec-city or GIFT is the most visible government initiative. GIFT is located close to Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar. The land area of 3.58sqkm is more than twice that of Tokyo’s Shinjuku or Paris’ La Defense. GIFT’s green belt area is over 20 times that of London’s Dockyards.
The government has identified four corridors—Delhi-Mumbai, Bangalore-Chennai, Amritsar-Kolkata and Vizag-Chennai—for building smart cities. Details from the urban development ministry’s draft concept note on the 100 smart cities is awaited. Union urban development minister Venkaiah Naidu has indicated that the state governments will play a dominant role in the formation of smart cities. A recent news report estimates an annual funds requirement of `35,000 crore for the smart cities. We will require India-specific measurement criteria and a smart city index that reflects the basic infrastructure and how “smart” a city is. Also, it is important that rural areas closer to the smart cities directly benefit from the new infrastructure.
Isn’t it is intriguing that the most planned city in the country, Chandigarh, is not already a smart city? Now, “New Chandigarh” is being planned to be developed as a smart city.
Building new cities is necessary, however it could take decades to complete. Hence, the government must focus on improving basic infrastructure in the existing cities and towns.
Broadband connectivity alone will not suffice. The government should accord paramount importance to improving transparency and creating a less corrupt system. Importantly, we need basic civic amenities to be improved and a reliable public transport system.
Can the existing infrastructure be better utilised? For example, Bangalore’s deplorable daily commuting woes are well-known. Roads are choked and at the current pace of its implementation, no one is sure when the Metro can go beyond joy rides. While we wait for it, what prevents the state government or the railway ministry from introducing local trains using existing broad-gauge lines connecting east and west Bangalore as most of the infrastructure is in place?
Using ICT, it is easy to provide traffic updates on mobile phones. But, won’t we love a hassle-free commute through better infrastructure, than being informed of a daily 45-minute jam? The current infrastructure is so fragile that a downpour will leave most cities in absolute disarray.
Once we have the basic infrastructure, “smartness” can be added through ICT—creating surveillance systems for public safety, providing efficient emergency services, adding intelligence or improving e-governance.
The government’s responsibility in creating the right policy framework and implementation plan for building smart cities is clear. However, what is most important and often overlooked is the need to change our mindset/attitude towards the city/town we live in.
There are cases in many cities/towns, where the government has created simple infrastructure like tiling the footpath or footpath grills/safety grills to help pedestrians. In most cases, the structures are damaged/destroyed or go missing. Essentially, someone has used it for personal gains. Why do we have difficulty in maintaining public structures and why we can’t care for them?
Perhaps, we should learn from the Japanese. For example, across the country mirrors are fixed at road junctions and blind turns for the safety of motorists—the mirrors remain never go missing. Why are the Japanese sensitive about public assets? Is it love for their country or that they are a disciplined race? We need a change in our mindset to appreciate and safeguard public property. It is appalling to see educated people being indifferent. A sustained awareness campaign is needed starting with the schools to enforce the right attitude. More interactive sessions with bureaucrats or ministers on the lines of the recently held PM-students session can help reinforce the message.
Smart cities can provide tremendous economic growth. However, improving basic infrastructure in the existing towns and cities is paramount. Most importantly, we need to demonstrate improved civic sense for building a smarter India!
The writer is adviser,Centre for Educational and Social studies, Bangalore.
Email: krishnak1@outlook.com