egov February 2013

eGov Magazine

Dimensions of National Security: Challenges and Solutions • ICT in Policing, Intelligence, Prisons, Airport, Railways, Border Security, Homeland Security • Information security – Securing Networks, Communications, Data & Applications • Technological innovations for external defence and homeland security • Developments in cyber warfare and S Suresh Kumar Joint Secretary, Ministry of Home Cyber Crime: Protecting businesses and national assets • ASIA’S FIRST MONTHLY Affairs, Government of India MAGAZINE ON E-governance Dimensions of National Security: Challenges and Solutions • Dr Rajendra Kumar ` 75 / US $10 / ISSN 0973-161X Joint Secretary, DeitY, ICT in Policing, Intelligence, Prisons, Airport, Railways, Border Government of India february 2013 | VOLUME 09 security, Homeland security• Information security – Securing n ISSUE 02 n ISSN 0973-161X egov.eletsonline.com Networks, Communications, Data & Applications • Technological innovations for external defence and homeland security • V L Kantha Rao President and CEO, NeGD Developments in cyber warfare and Cyber Crime: Protecting Nandan businesses and national assets • Dimensions of National Jivesh Principal Secretary, IT, Government of Uttar Pradesh security: Challenges 4th Annualand Solutions • ICT in Po licing, Intelligence, Prisons, Airport , Railways and Border Homeland security • Information security Rail, Securing Networks, Gaurav Dwivedi Director, DeitY, Communications, Data security • Technological innovations Government of India for external defence and homeland security • Developments Securing the Nation Dr Govind CEO, National Internet in cyber warfare and Cyber Crime: Protecting in Cyber & Natural Domain businesses andExchange of India (NIXI) national assets • Dimensions of National security: Challenges and Solutions • ICT in Policing, Intelligence, Prisons, Airport, Dr Ashwini Kumar Sharma Railways, Border security, Homeland security • Information Managing Director NIELIT security – Securing Networks, Communications, Data & Maj Gen Dhruv C Katoch Applications • Technological innovations for external defence Director, CLAWS and homeland security • Developments in cyber warfare and Cyber Crime: Protecting businesses and national assets • Purushottam Sharma Dimensions of National Security: Challenges and Solutions • ADGP (CP&PR), Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh ICT in Policing, Intelligence, Prisons, Airport, Railways, Border Brigadier R Dahiya DDG, IDSA Security, Homeland Security • Information Security – Securing • CCTNS • DEFEncE Networks, Communications, & Applications • CYBER SEcURItYData • EntERPRIsE sEcURItY• Technological innovations for external defence and homeland security • • BORdER sEcURItY Developments in cyber warfare and Cyber Crime: Protecting Arun Kumar ADGP (Law & Order and Crime), businesses and national assets Dimensions of National Uttar Pradesh Sanjay Sahay Inspector General Of security: Challenges and Solutions • Challenges and Solutions Police, Eastern Range, Davangere, Karnataka • ICT in Policing, Intelligence, Prisons, Airport, Railways, Border Security, Homeland Security • Information Security – Securing 4th Annual Networks, Communications, Data & Applications • Technological innovations for external defence and homeland security8th•March 2013 6th March 2013 Swosti The Oberoi Developments in cyberPremium warfare and Cyber Crime: Protecting Securing the Nation New Delhi Bhubaneswar, Odisha in Cyber & Natural Domain businesses and national assets Dimensions of National

Secure IT

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ict for national security

Secure IT

2013

IT agility. Your way.

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Contents issue 2 n  volume 09

in person Bhupesh Chauhan

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in person Dr Rajendra Kumar

in person Maj Gen Dhruv C Katoch

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in person Brig. Rumel Dahiya

in person Dr Ashwini Kumar Sharma

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in person Jiwesh Nandan

in person Som Satsangi

in person V L Kantha Rao

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in person S Suresh Kumar

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in person Arun Kumar

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in person Abdul Ghani Mir

in person Shivaji Chatterjee

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in person Surendra Singh

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in person Rajeev Saxena

in person Gaurav Dwivedi

in person Dr Govind

46 Police Reforms

Next Generation Criminal Identification System for Police

48 Cyber Security Safeguarding the Enterprise

further reading Editorial 05 NIIT Technologies 30 event calendar 35 Radwin Article 39 Viewpoint 44 Digital Economy Policies 58

A New Model for National Security

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n a major step towards taking FIRs and other police data online, the State Government in Rajasthan has launched the ambitious Crime and Criminal Tracking Network & System (CCTNS) in Jaipur and Jodhpur on 1st February 2013. The CCTNS, a landmark e-Governance Mission Mode Project under the National e-Governance Plan(NeGP), has been initiated by the Ministry of Home Affairs at the Centre for enabling the sharing of information on crime and criminals among nearly 16,000 police stations in the country.

The current issue of eGov is our annual special on homeland security, defence, enterprise security and cyber security. In this issue we have covered the status of implementation of CCTNS in full detail. There is no doubt that once CCTNS gets fully implemented across the country, it will lead to a vast improvement in way of law and order machinery is being managed in the country. However, we also cannot afford to loose sight of the fact that with our society’s increasing dependency on ICT, the consequences of security breach can be extremely grave.

At stake are not just the monetary losses, the security breaches of information systems can potentially lead to disruption of internal processes and communications, loss of sensitive and classified information, and cause catastrophic damage to the functioning of many industries like banking and others. In this issue of eGov magazine, we have examined the area of security from every possible angle, with a special emphasis to ICT deployment. We have interactions with senior officials and experts in the areas of defence, policing and administration. Views from of private industry players have also been taken to present a comprehensive picture.

Beyond security, this issue of the magazine also takes an in-depth look at the work in e-Governance being done by Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY), and the IT departments in different states. We have coverage of NeGD, NIXI and some key Mission Mode Projects. The interview of Jiwesh Nandan, Principal Secretary, Information Technology & Electronics, Government of Uttar Pradesh, presents a succinct picture of the range of ICT initiatives that are being taken in Uttar Pradesh.

On 8th March 2013, we would have the event SecureIT 2013. This annual must-attend event will examine the new technology applications and services that are already in existence or will be deployed in future, to improve national security and to moderate the aftermath of natural and manmade disasters. In many ways this issue is an attempt to initiate a new kind of discussion on security related issues. These discussions, we hope, will be further deliberated at the SecureIT 2013 event and will essentially lead to logical conclusions.

I would also like to inform you that on March 6, 2013, we are organising the eOdhisa event in Bhubaneswar. This is a national level event, where the important officials from major government departments from the centre and the states will be participating. The Government of Odhisa is the Host Partner to the eOdhisa event. We look forward to seeing you at both the events. After all, it is very essential that all sections of society participate in the discussions on the ways by which all the security related issues can be deliberated and reached some logical conclusions and the scope of e-Governance can be further enhanced in the country.

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In Person

Dr Rajendra Kumar

Joint Secretary, Department of Electronics & Information Technology (DeitY), Ministry of Communications & Information Technology

e-Governance is Reaching the Citizens Directly

In a candid conversation with eGov magazine, Dr Rajendra Kumar provides his views on how e-Governance projects in the country are shaping up to keep pace with the rising expectations of the citizens

T

he tagline for the NeGP is “Public Service Closer to Home.” Is the agenda of bringing public services closer to the citizens being fully implemented through National e-Governance Plan (NeGP)? Please provide us with your view on status of e-Governance in the country.

If you see the e-Governance domain at a macro level, then you reach the conclusion that as a country we have done quite well during the last decade. We have been able to reach out to the citizens directly and in a more systematic manner through electronic mode. Now many more departments are able to offer their services to the citizens through electronic means.

The processing times for various services sought by the citizens have reduced drastically and there is more transparency as well as accountability. However, despite all the successes that we have had, we also realise that e-Governance continues to be a work in progress. We are currently working to develop new e-Governance systems that will get launched in the near future and we are also engineering further improvements in the systems that have already been rolled out. I believe that e-Governance can enable disintermediation of governance, the idea is to enable people to access the services directly, and on this count, the e-Governance systems launched in the country have been a success story.

Most of the projects that were initially conceived under the NeGP have by now been largely implemented. The SDCs and SWAN infrastructure is in place. So now there is the talk of NeGP 2.0. What kind of initiatives can we expect under NeGP 2.0?

The NeGP 2.0 is now in the very initial stages of conceptualisation. The next phase of e-Governance in the

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country should focus on ensuring the speedy availability of electronic services through devices like mobile phones and tablets that are already popular with citizens. The penetration of mobile phones in the country is much higher as compared to the penetration of computers and Internet. We have close to one billion mobile phones in the country, so if we can bring e-Governance services on the mobile platform, we will enable a very large section of the population to access these services. We have already launched the Mobile Service Delivery Gateway (MSDG) and mobile based services under a new initiative called “Mobile Seva”. The system is already operational and the details can be seen at our website: http://mgov.gov.in.The SMS gateway and Mobile App Store are already fully operational. About 150 departments from both Centre and the States are using the SMS gateway, developed by DeitY through C-DAC, to reach out to the citizens. Over two lakh SMS messages are being sent to the citizens every day for actual transactions and this number is increasing at a rapid pace. During the last one year, from January 2012 to December 2012, around 2 crore push SMSs have been sent. Our Mobile App Store already has 26 live and 50 demo applications which can be downloaded by the citizens for availing a range of government services.

The other aspect of the next phase of NeGP focuses on the development of an integrated information infrastructure. For instance, we are now focusing on cloud enabled data centres and integrated network connectivity. We are also aiming at rapid replication, under which the successful projects of one state can be replicated in other states with the necessary customisation. For rapid replication, we will be using the cloud platform in a major way. Once applications are developed and hosted on the cloud platform, then any other state or department can make use of it with the necessary customisations. This would save substantial costs and time.

In Person

Are there plans for a national rollout of the Mobile Service Delivery Gateway?

Yes, that is being done. This will lead to scaling up of the infrastructure, thus enabling many more departments, from both the centre and the states, to start using this as a common infrastructure. So the departments need not invest their own funds in creating their own infrastructure separately. This will lead to substantial savings in time and efforts. As I mentioned earlier, we have also developed a mobile App Store on the Android platform. The apps have been fully integrated with the back-ends of the government departments. There are apps that allow users to apply for a copy of duplicate birth certificate, submit a grievance for redressal, check the status of UID enrolment, etc. All the apps are free. There are many other requests that can be made through the mobile phone itself using the SMS pull service. The details can be seen at http://mgov.gov.in.

The Android platform is an open platform; anyone can add apps or make changes in it. So what about the security aspect of the e-Governance apps that are being created on the Android platform? What is being done to ensure that these apps are not tampered by hackers?

Actually, the main strength of the Android platform is that it is Open Source. There exists a large community of developers who are supporting the Android platform and making improvements in it on a regular basis. These developments help in making the platform more robust with passage of time. As it is Open Source, all the latest developments in the source code are available to our technical team for developing new applications. Our team is also following the relevant best practices to ensure security of the applications and the Mobile Seva platform.

Many of the e-Governance initiatives can prove to be much more fruitful if we had a foolproof system of online authentication.

What kind of initiatives are you taking in this area?

Dr Rajendra Kumar

Electronic authentication is of crucial importance for success of e-Governance initiatives.

At present,there is no uniform system for February 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

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In Person

online authentication of users of e-governance services. For accessing most services, people have to physically present themselves with a paper based identity proof at a government office. As a consequence, very few government services are truly electronic from end to end.

To address this issue, we are working on a system for introducing online authentication which will allow government departments to authenticate the identity of a user electronically. DeitY has recently notified the policy framework for this initiative, which has been named as “e-Pramaan”. The process of authentication would be completely electronic and would incorporate the Aadhaar based authentication mechanisms. Different government departments will be able to use e-Praman as a service to authenticate the identity of their users. The details of this initiative can be seen at the website: http://epramaan.gov.in.

span of time you are going to witness a large number of new services being launched under the Mobile Seva platform.

So how does the user start using the e-Praman website? Does he have to present himself at any government office to get a user ID and password?

No, the system is being developed in such a way that the entire process is online. The user needs to register at the e-Praman website, by providing his/her identification details like name, address, Aadhaar number, PAN number, ration card number, etc. In the background, the e-Praman gateway will do the verification electronically through the respective electronic databases. Once the verification is done, the user becomes a verified entity. Even those who are yet to get their Aadhaar numbers or those

“The key objective is to ensure that the projects are rolled out and services are delivered to the citizens” Many citizens in the country are unable to access e-Governance services as they are digitally illiterate or they lack access to computers or Internet. As mobile telephones are available to most people these days, the SMS services that you have mentioned can be tools for empowerment. Can you provide us with more details of the SMS service that you have launched?

Our Mobile Seva provides a host of SMS based services. In case of the departments that are integrated, the citizens can send an SMS and track the status of any request. For instance, if you have applied for a new ration card, you can track the status of your application at the ration card department through SMS. The Mobile Seva portal also provides a very easy and automated process for government departments to integrate their services and start offering them to the citizens. The details can be seen at the portal mentioned above. We are expanding at a rapid rate, so within a short

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who don’t have PAN card, ration card, etc. can also join in and register. They will also get a user ID and password. Once you are registered, you can do a single sign-on for accessing various services from different departments that are part of the e-Praman gateway. This service is not only secure; it also allows the users to avoid the hassle of logging in separately to each department’s portal.

Under the Capacity Building Scheme, we have set-up State e-Governance Mission Team (SeMT) and done much else.

Is that proving to be effective enough?

Capacity Building is a work in continuous progress. People have to be constantly trained so that they can make efficient usage of new technologies. National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) envisions establishment of an institutional framework for state-level decision-making including setting-up of State e-Mission Teams (SeMTs) having relevant expertise and experience to provide techni-

cal and professional support to the States and Union Territories. These SeMTs have been playing a very vital role in strengthening the capacities of different states for implementing e-Governance initiatives. Now states are capable of implementing more e-governance initiatives and have better knowledge of various aspects of e-governance projects. With every passing year, we are building a bigger and bigger pool of trained resources.

In your opinion what are the key challenges that are being faced in the implementation of e-Governance ideas in the country?

The key challenges, according to me, are to build capacities across central and state departments and ensure optimal usage of the entirecore ICT infrastructure that we have created under the NeGP. We need to avoid any duplication in creating the infrastructure. The key objective is to ensure that the projects are rolled out and services are delivered to the citizens. Recently, we have also started focusing on outcomes and transactions to judge the success of any e-Governance project. Transaction approach basically means that the number of transactions delivered to the citizens must be taken as a key indicator of the success of any e-governance project. The challenge is to ensure that the projects are delivering actual services to the citizens.

The CSCs in the country are expected to curb the incidences of digital divide, but now questions are being raised about the financial viability of these centres. How do we tackle the problem of financial viability?

With rising popularity of e-Governance services, and also due to the fact that CSCs are also offering B2C (business to citizen) kind of services, the CSCs have started doing reasonably well. The number of CSCs that are operational in the country has also gone up substantially during the last year. The CSCs are playing a vital role in the success of e-governance in the country; most of them are located in rural areas, where people don’t have access to computers and internet and rely on the CSCs for accessing government services. The B2C services being offered by CSCs are gaining maturity, and the VLEs who are enterprising are able to make reasonable profits.

In Person

Jiwesh Nandan

Principal Secretary, Information Technology & Electronics, Mining & Additional Sources of Energy, Government of Uttar Pradesh

The Vision for a Digitally Empowered Uttar Pradesh Jiwesh Nandan, sheds light on the new initiatives that are being taken in the State to improve governance through ICT

L

ot of work in the e-Governance area has already been done in Uttar Pradesh.

What is your view on the achievements in e-Governance so far? Please provide us with an overview of the most landmark projects that have been launched.

As far as e-Governance in Uttar Pradesh is concerned, as part of the NeGP, we have put in place the infrastructure that can facilitate a digital interaction between the various departments and people. The SWAN is operational; our State Data Centres are operational; our State Service Delivery Gateway (SSDG) is in operation; our State Portal is operational. All other hardware, software and basically infrastructure facility that is required for e-Governance is in place. Today we have almost 9000 CSCs (Common Services Centres) that are active. We also have a structure for providing digital services in urban areas known by the name of Lokvani Kendras.

How many Lokvani Kendras are there?

Currently around 1,200 Lokvani Kendras are active and operational. Through these Kendras and the 9,000 CSCs, we have started providing 26 government services from eight departments to the people.

The e-Delivery of services has started from 1st August, 2012. During the last four or five months, we have issued 15 lakh e-certificates to the people in 69 districts of Uttar Pradesh. The other six districts of the state are part of our e-District programme. Here also we have delivered about 15 lakh e-certificates. So overall in Uttar Pradesh we have already delivered more than 30 lakh e-certificates to the people in the

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last five months. If you look at the total number of e-certificates and e-services delivered then that would be more than a crore. This is a number that is not generally known to the people, and as far as I know, it is the highest in the country.

There is no doubt that the CSCs and the Lokvani Kendras are making significant contribution in helping every section of society gaining access to government services. But concerns are also being raised about the financial viability of the CSCs and the Lokvani Kendras.

What can be done to make such centres financially viable?

Let us very clearly understand that the CSCs and the Lokvani Kendras are not going to be very profitable enterprises. You see, in the entire lifetime how many times does an individual require a digital certificate or any other piece of government paper? The answer obviously is very few times. And the centre is only getting `10 for providing such a service. That too has to be shared with the VLE (Village Level Entrepreneur).

The profits, if any, are not going to be large. So you have to accept the fact that this is not going to be financially viable as long as we are only looking at G2C line of business for the CSCs and the Lokvani Kendras. This is clearly understood by the Government of India. That is why we are allowing these outlets to engage in other activities. B2C is also allowed. Many other kinds of businesses can also be conducted by the CSCs and the Lokvani Kendras. Such freedom is being allowed only to ensure that these centres can become financially viable. But the Government of Uttar Pradesh recognises the fact that even with these

In Person

initiatives, some of the centres, especially those that are located in remote areas, are not going to become financially viable. In remote areas, in small villages, there will not be sufficient opportunities for B2C or even G2C. But this does not mean that we should not have our centres there, we have to have the centres wherever the citizens of Uttar Pradesh are living.

That is why some centres, the loss making ones, will have to be run through government agencies. The private sector is not going to run the loss making units, as they want to have a profit.

So the government will have to shoulder that burden. We are now looking at a system where out of 18,000 centres, about 15,000 are run by private sector, and 3,000 are run by the government of Uttar Pradesh. This is the only way of ensuring the availability of all kinds of digital services from the government to citizens living in every part of the state.

Earlier you said that SWAN has been fully implemented in the state. What kinds of services are currently being provided through SWAN? What are the ways by which we can expand the scope of the services that can come through SWAN? All the departments in the state government are now connected to SWAN. Now the internal operations of different departments are in the process of being switched over to SWAN. There are many other activities that the state takes, in which also SWAN is being utilised. Our State Data Centre(SDC) is linked with SWAN. SWAN and SDC are playing major role in facilitating the recruitment for various departments in the state like the police, railways, etc. Different departments are making use of SWAN whenever there is the need. However, I would also like to add that there is a problem with the current structure of SWAN. Currently, SWAN is being managed by NIC, but there are some funding related issues that are leading to slower progress of the initiatives. This is a big issue. But I am not saying that if we had a private operator managing the SWAN, it would have worked in a better way. There are states like Madhya Pradesh, where they had private players managing their SWAN. Even that has not worked. So the solution, to my mind is, to find the finances within the state budgets to run the SWAN. With time, I am sure, we will be able to find a solution that is workable.

Jiwesh Nandan

February 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

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In Person

Currently most of the major IT companies in the country are based primarily in south India. Why are the north Indian states, like Uttar Pradesh, unable to attract significant IT investments? Are you developing some new strategies for bringing growth to the IT industry in the state?

We are now trying to attract major IT investments in the state. IT Industry can be a big job generator. So if all the software makers, the hardware makers, the BPOs, were to set up their establishments in Uttar Pradesh, it will lead to a big improvement in the employment situation.

We are very keen on making that happen. We have already announced a package of incentives for the IT industry. We are also developing an IT

department, and then provided to people in an easy to access digital format. In the state of Uttar Pradesh, we have started with the automation in the processes of eight critical departments. One of these departments is the revenue department; we have found that the services that are mostly required by vast majority of common people are related to the revenue department. Then there are our welfare programmes – women welfare, child welfare, minority welfare and other welfare programmes. The process of application for these welfare programmes, and the process by which the payment is made to the beneficiary, are also being automated. As a part of the e-District programmes, we are thinking of providing tablets to the Lekhpals, who happen to be the cutting edge functionaries in any tehsil. As of now we are running the e-District project in pilot form in six districts. Once the project gets

“Through 1,200 Lokvani Kendras and 9,000 CSCs, we are providing 26 government services from 8 departments” City in Lucknow. We are also now developing IT parks in different parts of the state. Many prominent IT players are showing interest in setting up their development centres in Uttar Pradesh.

The e-District project is being envisaged as something that can bring lot of benefits to people living in different parts of the state. What is your vision for e-District project? What kind of work has already been done under the project?

The districts in any state are the places where most of G2C interactions take place. So the e-District project has been conceptualised to improve this experience and enhance the efficiencies of the various departments at the district-level, to enable seamless service delivery to the citizen. Under the e-District project various citizen facilitation centres are going to be built at the district, tehsil, dub-division and block levels. Village-level front-ends are going to be established through Common Services Centres (CSCs) for delivery of services. The idea is that, whatever government services can be automated, should be automated within the

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launched in rest of the districts of the state, the number of citizen services that become available will increase manifold.

In many parts of the country land records are a big area of concern for the people. Land records get misplaced, lost, damaged. But Uttar Pradesh has been one of the pioneer states in digitisation of land records. What are the ways by which the system of land records maintenance in Uttar Pradesh can be further improved?

As you have rightly pointed out Uttar Pradesh is one of the early pioneers in the digitisation of land records. Anyone can go and see his or her land records through a computer from any part of the world. The digitisation of land records was completed three years ago. The system is completely secure and it is quite popular with the citizens. We have a system, where the land records get updated every week, because of the fact that there are transfers of land due to property transactions, gifts, inheritance, etc. You can also take a printout of the land records. The

system, as it has been designed, is perfect. In the next phase, we are trying to develop a system where you can get the land records digitally signed. Once this system is in place, you will be able to walk into an authorised centre and take a digitally signed land record. Today unsigned copies of land records are available to everyone. The site from which you can get the land records in Uttar Pradesh is called Bhulekh. It is located at: http://bhulekh.up.nic.in/.

Today many states are taking initiatives to use ICT solutions for improving security. Projects like CCTNS are being implemented.

What kind of work is being done in Uttar Pradesh in this area?

CCTNS is a mission mode project, for which lot of work has already been done in Uttar Pradesh. We are currently having a pilot for CCTNS in three districts. All the thanas of the state have been computerised and are being connected under the project. All the thana registers are being digitised and being placed online. Once the CCTNS project has been fully implemented in these three districts, it will start getting implemented in rest of the districts of the state. It will take about one year for the pilot project in these three districts to be completed, after which it will take about two or three years to expand the project to rest of the state.

Digital education has been making great strides in the country, but there are concerns that only a small section of the population might be able to benefit from the new educational technologies. What are the major initiatives that you are taking to bridge the digital divide?

The very popular step that we have taken now is giving digital devices for free to the students. Under this scheme this year 50 lakh laptops and 25 lakh tablets will be distributed in the state to all the students who pass out of Class X and Class XII. This will go a long way in bridging the digital divide, because it will lead to a situation where every school in the state would have hundreds of laptops and tablets. This will be costing the state `3,500 crore.

This I would say is the main strategy that we are using to bridge the digital divide – catch them young and give them the latest gadgets on which they can learn.

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Over 60 years of experience

Business Presence in more than 140 countries

Japan’s leading name in technology

in person

Som Satsangi

Vice President, Sales, Enterprise Group, HP India

Creating

world class IT infrastructure in India

H

P is the global leader in IT. The company also has a significant presence in India. What is your outlook on the government market in India?

For our enterprise business, the government plays a very significant role. We look at the government from many different verticals. There are projects that are being funded by the Central Government. There are those that are the initiatives of the State Government. There are also the Public Sector related initiatives. Major PSEs like IOCL, NTPC or BHEL and others have different kinds of needs that we are ready to provide. In fact, we are engaging with many different governments globally. If we look at the US Federal Government, whether it is the US Navy or the US Armed Forces, we are doing a lot of work in those organisations. Providing cutting-edge technology to government organisations has always been a huge business for us. In India, we have started from the Compaq days. HP PC continues to be very popular in the country.

Som Satsangi, in conversation with Dr Ravi Gupta, outlines his vision for the growth of HP’s business in India. He points out the work that HP is doing for major government departments in the country

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egov / egov.eletsonline.com / February 2013

The e-Governance field has made lot of progress during the last few years. What kind of work is HP doing in the e-Governance area?

In e-Governance area, we have done fairly extensive amount of work. We look at the

In inperson Person

e-Governance vertical from the state perspective, centre perspective and the PSU perspective. We distinguish between the three verticals because different kinds of solutions are required for each. In the centre, we have organisations like the UIDAI, the NIC and many e-learning portals that are doing excellent e-Governance work. The centre decides the policies and framework in accordance to which the e-Governance solutions are developed and implemented. The power reforms that have been undertaken during the last few years have led to a lot of e-Governance happening in the sector. The Accelerated Power Development & Reforms Programme (APDRP) has been very successful.

The banking and insurance sector is also growing very fast in the country. The government is also taking lot of new initiatives in the name of financial inclusion. How is BFSI sector doing for you?

In the Banking, Financial Services and Insurance (BFSI) area we enjoy a pretty good market share. We are doing lot of hard work in this area. We would appreciate if the government could speed up the process of new solutions development and deployments. There are some large tenders that we got more than one or two years ago, and now we are waiting for them to take off. We are the lowest bidder for these projects. The price at which we are prepared to work is highly competitive.

Please tell us about the ways in which the rupee-dollar fluctuations are having an impact on your business?

Some of our government bids were placed when the dollar was hovering in the range of Rs. 44-45. Manpower can be managed, but on the customs duty we have no control. We are struggling due to the dollar-rupee price fluctuations. We are working in various government ministries to find out ways by which we can manage the rapid currency fluctuations. It is not only us; no OEM can absorb such high fluctuations. That is one of the reasons that some of the large and complex projects we execute take a lot of time and the organisation goes into making losses.

The PSUs are more manageable. It is rare for any PSU tender to go on for more than one

year. Even in states the projects get executed in a more timely manner, probably because there could be lot few pulls and pressures being faced by regional governments.

In the last two years we have seen lot of new initiatives coming up. We have projects like the UIDAI and many others being launched by the government. What are the ways by which such projects have contributed to the growth of the government market?

Earlier we used to have small teams based out of Delhi. Now we have multiple teams sitting in each of the geographies helping us in doing our work for various government departments in centre and states. There is healthy growth in the work that we do for both–the centre and the states. In the next couple of years this business is going to be big. Some of these projects, like Aadhaar, will get implemented. Today, we can’t even imagine the kind of e-inclusion

most complex project, which may be required in government. We are in a position where we can work it out and help the government.

What is the impact of your solutions? Can you give us some examples where your solutions are at work?

We have executed the e-Procurement Project for the Government of Karnataka. We have done the entire e-Procurement for them.

Karnataka is the first state in the country to have the e-procurement system. We did implement this project and the impact today is so paramount that this is rated as one of the best e-auction and e-procurement sites across India. The system is leading to a lot of savings every month for the state government and that is why other state governments have started demanding such solutions.

In the BFSI space, creating the core banking solutions have been the thrust area. It has created bid e-inclusion. We have done work for Bank of Baroda and Bank of India. Another

“We need to develop and implement technologies that will enable us to make a difference in the life of every human being” and financial inclusion that Aadhaar can lead to. Every department will have some kind of connect with Aadhaar, so many organisations have started working on those things. In the next couple of years we are going to see big investments from the government happening.

HP will be playing a very critical role from technology standpoint and from enablement perspective.

What is your view of the kind of work that HP is doing?

HP is the only organisation which has such a wide range of products and solutions. We are offering a range of devices, technologies, desktop to laptop to handheld devices, server, storage, networking and much more. So we are the only company that has all the software tools, which can be managed and optimised to the last dot. Then, we have technological services and enterprise services to ensure our delivery capability to deliver from a normal project to

project that I would like to mention is the one that we have done for the Director General of Employment and Training (DGET). This is a vocational training programme, one that is dedicated to creating skilled workforce for crop mixing and other things. We have also worked with the NIC very closely for the completion of large and complex IT projects. The projects that we have done with the NIC are now being used by government departments at the centre and in the states.

Going forward, how do you see the business outlook changing in India?

Currently our population is close to one billion; it could even be more than one billion. To cater to the needs of so many people you need high-end technological solutions. We need to develop and implement technologies that will enable us to make a difference in the life of every human being.

February 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

19

In Person

V L Kantha Rao

President & CEO, National e-Governance Division (NeGD), Department of Electronics & Information Technology (DeitY), Government of India

Creating

Foundations for

Effective e-Governance “Given the wide spectrum in which NeGD today functions, and the request for kind of support that are being received by us, I visualise NeGD to evolve into a kind of a Think Tank where the blend of public

e

Governance has attained considerable amount of traction during the last few years. Please provide us with an overview of the work that NeGD is doing in the area of e-Governance.

The National e-Governance Division (NeGD) has been formed to support the Department of Electronics & Information Technology (DeitY) in programme management of the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP). NeGD also performs the role of the Secretariat to the Apex Committee on NeGP. Specifically, NeGD provides support to DeitY in the areas of programme management, technology management, capacity building, citizen engagement, evaluation of projects, etc. As part of the capacity building for NeGP, we are directly responsible for staffing and training of the State e-Mission Teams (SeMTs). DeitY has entrusted NeGD with the implementation of the World Bank assisted e-Bharat project. In recent times, we have played the role of catalyst and think tank for new and evolving thoughts around the EDS Bill, HR Policy for e-Governance, Citizen Engagement and Social Media Frameworks, National e-Governance Academy, Mobile Service Delivery Framework etc., on case-to-case and need basis. NeGD has also been extending support to other Ministries on formulation, implementation and various other aspects of their e-governance projects.

and private sector professionals will help us define and refine our country’s vision of e-Governance,” says V L Kantha Rao

The State e-Mission Teams (SeMTs) have been set up in many states and union territories. How effective have the SeMT teams been in furthering the cause of e-Governance in the country?

I believe that SeMTs have played a path breaking role in furthering the cause of e-Governance at state level. It is perhaps the best capacity building support that NeGP has provided to the states. In a recent study of the SeMT initiative, states have overwhelmingly suggested the continuation of the placement of SeMTs. They stated that the presence of these highly qualified personnel has provided the much needed support to the state’s IT department and has enabled the states to develop a state-wide, comprehensive and cohesive view of e-Governance projects. SeMTs have been instrumental in extending professional support to track the implementation as well as provide necessary inter-linkages between various e-Governance projects.

Please provide us with an overview of the capacity building work that NeGD is doing in different parts of the country.

NeGD undertakes capacity building at several levels. At the state level, through our implementing agency NISG, we conduct Specialised Training for e-Governance Programme (STeP: http://step.nisg.org/) that is aimed at building basic sensitisation and skills at all levels of governance. Next, we undertake highly specialised programme to develop Chief Information Officers (CIOs). The CIO programme is focussed on building specific skills required to manage large e-governance projects.

Finally, we conduct Leadership Meets in states which are directed at the political and bureaucratic leadership to ensure awareness about and support for e-governance programmes at the highest level. In addition, we conduct specific training programmes as needed by the states and the central ministries.

In what ways has NeGD contributed through the creation of core policies and by providing technical assistance, R&D and awareness?

As I stated earlier, NeGD plays a very important role in development of new ideas and does necessary research to enable informed policy formulation. Some of our notable contributions include EDS Bill, Citizen Engagement and Social Media Framework, Mobile Service Delivery Framework, HR Policy for e-Governance, Integrated Public Service Delivery Framework,

20

egov / egov.eletsonline.com / February 2013

In Person

V L Kantha Rao, President & CEO, National e-Governance Division (NeGD), Department of Electronics & Information Technology (DeitY), Government of India

February 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

21

In Person

RFP Toolkit, Interoperability Standards, etc. For each one of these, NeGD undertook necessary research, coordinated stakeholder consultations and held intensive discussions with states and ministries. All this was done in a time bound manner and I am happy to say that today our outputs are being implemented as policy measures by the government.

Tasks for NeGD Programme Management of NeGP, inter-alia including facilitating and supporting DIT in undertaking the following tasks and responsibilities assigned to DIT under NeGP: •

Facilitating implementation of NeGP by various Ministries and State Governments

•

Providing technical assistance to Central Ministries and State Line Departments

•

Serving as a secretariat to the Apex Committee

•

Undertaking technical appraisal of all NeGP projects to examine issues such as overall technology architecture, framework, standards, security policy, service delivery mechanism, sharing of

NeGD is also providing technical assistance to Central Ministries and State Line Departments. Tell us about the work that you are doing in this vertical.

The mandate of NeGD is to support the DeitY in the implementation of the NeGP. Since NeGP spans across various central ministries and states, we interact and provide necessary support to them in the areas of programme management, capacity building, technology management, etc.

We are an integral part of many MMP technical committees such as CCTNS, eBiz, MCA21, etc.

We are also playing an important role in formulation of new MMPs such as Education and Health.

Given our unique mix of skill sets, ministries and states are increasingly approaching us and we are happy to be of help to them.

e-Governance has seen lot of developments during the last few years. But the expectations of the people from the e-Governance area are also growing. So how do organisations like NeGD keep pace with the expectations of the people?

NeGD is not a project implementation agency, and does not come in direct contact with the public.

However, I NeGD is alive to the changing scenario in the field of public service guarantee and citizen charters. Electronic service delivery would increasingly become the medium of service delivery by public authorities and NeGD has a critical role to play in enabling implementing departments in keeping pace with people’s expectation through its research, assessment and awareness based activities. Towards this end, various initiatives on which NeGD has worked – EDS Bill, Citizen Engagement Framework, Mobile Service Delivery Framework, etc would be supportive. In addition, we are also working on compiling best initiatives in electronic service delivery and helping in rapid roll out of such methodologies across the states to enabling implementing departments meet the raising expectations of the public in a faster time-

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egov / egov.eletsonline.com / February 2013

common infrastructure etc.

•

Human Resource Development, Training and Awareness Building

•

Framing core policies, technical assistance, R&D, awareness and assessment and creation of organization structure

•

Acting as a Central Agency for an effective implementation of Capacity Building Scheme inter-alia involving provisioning of manpower at various SeMTs across States/ UTs

Positioning of a Capacity Building Management Cell for effective management of manpower at SeMTs together with management of other Scheme activities including training, setting up HR policies, etc.

frame. We are enhancing our capacity building initiatives to help build sufficient capacities within the government to cope with such rising demands.

In your opinion what are the key successes achieved by NeGD during the last few years. Where would you like to see NeGD in next five years?

In my opinion, NeGD’s success is a result of its unique blend of skill sets and therefore our successes too have been in areas as diverse as our human resources. On one hand we helped DeitY draft the EDS Bill and on the other the HR Policy for e-Governance. While one set of experts worked on the Integrated Framework for Service Delivery Framework other drafted the Citizen Engagement and Social Media Frameworks. While one team focussed on looking at integrating Mobiles in Public Service Delivery, another worked on standards for inter-operability framework for e-governance. As the expectations of citizens on public service delivery attain higher standards and as new technologies emerge, e-governance is striving hard to meet these demands.

With such an evolving domain, I visualise a greater role for NeGD in the coming years.

What are the strategies and the systems that NeGD uses for conducting the technical appraisal of all NeGP projects?

The appraisal of all projects is done in a holistic manner. Some of the key elements that we look for are - (1) government process reengineering, (2) leveraging of core service delivery infrastructure i.e. SWAN, SDC, CSC etc., inter-linkages with

other related MMPs, adherence to e-governance standards, capacity building, change management, awareness and assessment and, most importantly, citizen service delivery and service levels.

Tell us about your vision for e-Governance in the country?

Provide us with an overview of the role that NeGD is playing in facilitating the implementation of NeGP objectives by various Ministries and State Governments.

In my view, e-Governance is the future of service delivery to citizens. Citizen Charters and Public Service Guarantees that are being notified by governments can be best achieved by e-governance. In a few years, e-governance would transform the way services are delivered in the country. This larger goal requires tremendous effort on part of government departments.

NeGD would play an important role as a promoter of electronic service delivery as well as provide the necessary support.

The field of e-Governance is changing at a fast pace. Tell us about personal views on how you see NeGD developing over the next few years.

Given the wide spectrum in which NeGD today functions, and the request for kind of support that are being received by us, I visualise NeGD to evolve into a kind of a Think Tank where the blend of public and private sector professionals will help us define and refine our country’s vision of e-Governance.

National Security

Speakers@Past SecureIT Events

24

Kapil Sibal,Union Minister, Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Government of India

Shankar Aggarwal, Additional Secretary, Department of Defence, Government of India

R S Sharma, Director General and Mission Director, UIDAI

Ravi S Saxena, Additional Chief Secretary, Department of Science & Technology, Government of Gujarat

B Bhamathi, Additional Secretary and Financial Adviser, Ministry of Rural Development

N S Kalsi, Joint Secretary (Police II), Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India

Shambhu Singh, Joint Secretary (North East), Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India

S Suresh Kumar, Joint Secretary (CCTNS), Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India

Dr Gulshan Rai, Director General, Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (ICERT), DeitY, Government of India

Maj Gen (Dr) R Siva Kumar, Head (NRDMS) & CEO (NSDI), Department of Science & Technology, Govt of India

Maj Gen R C Padhi, MOGSGS, Military Survey, India Army

Dr Kamlesh Bajaj, CEO, Data Security Council Of India

Dr Ramachandran, Centre Director, National Technical Research Organisation, Government of India

Dr A P Singh, Deputy Registrar General of India

Sanjiv Mittal, CEO, National Institute for Smart Government

Raj Prem Khilnani, Director General, Anti- Corruption Bureau, Mumbai

Rajvir P Sharma, Additional Director General of Police, Bangalore Metropolitan Task Force

Puroshotam Sharma, ADGP (PR&CP) Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh

Ranjan Dwivedi, Member, Police Avam Pronnati Board, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh

Sharat Kaviraj, SP, State Crime Record Bureau, Government of Rajasthan

egov / egov.eletsonline.com / February 2013

National Security

Elements of National Security A nation’s economic well-being is inextricably linked to its national security and protection of its cyberspace Information technology is of key importance for the day-to-day operations of companies, organisations and governments. Our personal lives involve computing in the areas ranging from communication with family and friends, to online banking, interactions with utility companies, paying of taxes, and much else.

When it comes to government departments, the dependency on online technologies is on a much larger scale. A range of e-Governance initiatives have been launched over the past few years. Every government department is conducting a major part of its work through online systems. While such online systems do lead to more efficiency

and transparency, they also entail the risk of security breach.

Breaches of Information Systems in critical areas of governance can lead to negative impacts on the nation’s economy and its social fabric. To protect the nation’s information assets from external or internal attack we need to deploy systems that are based on latest technology. We need to come up with proper information security standards and guidelines. There can also be a third party audit before the actual implementation of any system.

In the pages that follow we are having coverage of an entire range of strategies and also the innovative ICT solutions that are being

implemented by the government agencies in the Centre and the States with the objective of enhancing national security. Security is such a vast domain that it is not possible for anyone to cover it from every possible angle. We have endeavoured to place the spotlight on key areas of security, which include the implementation of CCTNS, strategic issues in defence, cyber security and enterprise security.

The coverage of security related issues that we carrying in the magazine will be taken forward at the SecureIT 2013, India’s premier annual event on defence, security and disaster management, which is scheduled to be held on 8th March, 2013, in New Delhi .

Snapshots from past SecureIT events

Dignitaries at the dais launching the March 2012 issue of egov Magazine at Secure IT 2012

Shri S Suresh Kumar, Joint Secretary, MHA giving the momento to Shri Sharat Kaviraj, SP, SCRB, Rajasthan

Shankar Aggarwal, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Defence in interaction with the delegates

Shankar Aggarwal, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Defence (L) in conversation with R S Sharma, Director General and Mission Director,UIDAI (R) at Secure IT 2012

In conversation with R S Sharma, Director General and Mission Director,UIDAI

February 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

25

In Person

S Suresh Kumar

Joint Secretary (Centre-State), Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India

Policing

Takes a giant leap through CCTNS S Suresh Kumar, provides his views on CCTNS, landmark e-Governance Mission Mode Project under the National e-Governance Plan(NeGP). CCTNS

I

is being implemented to create a comprehensive and integrated system for effective policing and sharing the data of crimes and criminals

n the current law and order scenario of the country, the CCTNS Mission Mode Project appears to have a very significant importance for crime control. Please tell us how did the concept of CCTNS evolve?

The CCTNS (Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems) Programme has been conceived as a Mission Mode Project fully sponsored by the Government of India under the National e-Governance Plan. CCTNS has evolved from the knowledge and learnings gathered from the erstwhile Common Integrated Police Application (CIPA) programme. CIPA had been initiated to computerise and automate the functioning of police stations with a view to bringing in efficiency and transparency in various processes and functions at the police station level and improve service delivery to the citizens. However, the CIPA programme was found to be progressing too slowly. Also it was talking about only computerisation; it did not have the power for facilitating exchange of information. Even after the computerisation, the various police stations around the country would have remained like isolated islands. Around 2009, we came to this realisation that we need to go beyond CIPA. So based on all the best practices that were available at that point of time and on the advice of DietY, we went in for the CCTNS programme. CIPA has since been subsumed into the CCTNS programme. The goals of the system are to facilitate collection, storage, retrieval, analysis, transfer and sharing of data and information at the police station and between the police station and the state headquarters and the Central Police Organisations.

How smooth has been the experience of bringing CCTNS programme to the country so far?

Actually we have found that the existing process of procurement is a major stumbling block in the speedy implementation of CCTNS. Many states are finding it difficult to finalise the System Integrators (SI) for the implementation of CCTNS. The System Integrator has to be hired for supplying the software, the hardware, customising the software, integrate the entire set of processes and systems and also maintain the SLAs. The CCTNS is being planned in such a way that while the policy making is centralised, the actual implementation is being done at the state level.

Now states have very little exposure to procurement of this kind, so there are obvious hiccups. Some states had to go through a lengthy process; at times RFP (Request for Proposals) had to be issued three or four times. We did lot of capacity building for facilitating progress in the actual implementation. We also appointed project management units. We also had some issues with our own applications, but these have by now been resolved.

By when can we expect CCTNS to be fully implemented in the country? How much work has already been done, and how much remains to be done?

Most states in the country have now been able to select their System Integrators and so rapid progress is currently being made in the implementation. In various states the project is under different stages of implementa-

26

egov / egov.eletsonline.com / February 2013

In Person

S Suresh Kumar

February 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

27

In Person

tion. For instance, the state of Karnataka has already completed its entire implementation.

They are now at the cusp of bringing into operation their entire system of CCTNS. At the same time we have some states where the work is yet to start. It’s like a normal distribution curve, some people are very far ahead, and some are yet to start their operations.

Any application software is always a work in progress. It has to be constantly updated with new features. How do you ensure that the applications and hardware deployed in CCTNS do not become stagnant and keep evolving through new knowledge?

What about the data centres that will be needed for CCTNS? Are they fully operational?

The security systems deployed like Firewalls, etc., are built into the system so that is not an issue. But the fact is that the end users of CCTNS have the habit of constantly changing the goal posts. New requirements and requests keep coming in and that has to be implemented. Constantly enhancing the software does become a bit of a constraint.

All the data centres have been brought up.

The disaster recovery centres have also been brought up. All issues related to connectivity, permissions, etc., have also been resolved. The linking up of data centres with the NCRB is also complete. This is one major activity that has been completed. However, the issue that we are facing now is that of man management in data digitisation. This is a very heavy task as we have stipulated that the data for at least last 10 years should be digitised. Mostly the cases related to crime, property and the like, that are being digitised. The minor issues are not being digitised at the moment. The thing is that if a police station has at least 10 years of legacy data with itself, it will be able to function more smoothly. We are further improving our processes by implementing the lessons that we have learned so far. About 10 percent of the work for CCTNS has already been done.

By 31st March of this year another 30 percent will get done. By end of June 2013 we would like to complete another 40 percent. And the remaining 10 percent we would like to finish by end of August this year. We still have a few remotest police stations that are yet to come on the VSAT or the WiMAX. That will be resolved in next five or six months. We also face issues as many police stations are in the process of either being shifted, constructed or are not having enough space. These issues also need to be addressed.

Do you think that lack of electricity in certain areas can also be a cause for concern?

That is the case. Police stations in remote areas often have to do without any power supply for days. CCTNS would intend to embrace all available platforms, including mobile phones.

Emergency or intelligence alerts would be sent to senior police officers via SMS alerts under the system.

28

egov / egov.eletsonline.com / February 2013

information can you put on the internet? How much can people access? How much can they download?

We have also contemplated the idea of putting digital signatures on the FIRs filed online. You see, if you want people to file an FIR online, you have to be in a position to be able to ascertain the identity of the person.

Otherwise we could have miscreants filing online FIRs just to create a nuisance in the society. These issues are coming up, and we are hopeful that we will soon be able to sort out these issues. Ultimately the CCTNS system will be coming up on the National e-Governance Service Delivery Gateway (NSDG). The states will be coming up on the SSDG. Through these platforms lot of citizen

“CCTNS has evolved from knowledge gathered from the erstwhile Common Integrated Police Application (CIPA) programme�

What about the issue of language? Different states have different languages, so how does CCTNS centralise the data that is in different languages?

Many of the states are operating in Hindi or English. However, we do have states that are operating in regional languages like Marathi, Gujarati, Telgu, Tamil, and few others. Now we have transliteration software available with C-DAC. It does not do the translation, it only does transliteration. This software is expected to start providing more accurate results with usage. As you keep using and as you make new inputs, the system keeps improving on its own.

At times people in the country are unable to receive copies of the FIRs. This problem will get resolved with the CCTNS through which it is being said that people can download copies of the FIRs filed. But what is being done to take care of the privacy related issues?

There are lot of legal issues that are involved in this. Privacy issues are also there. How much

services will become available, thus leading to more transparency and accountability. For the services like passports, driving licences, etc., we will be able to conduct verification of the individuals in a quick and seamless manner. The past records of any citizen can be examined very easily.

CCTNS is also expected to improve the crime detection and investigation mechanism in the country by bringing many new tools and technologies to the police. Please provide us your views on this.

The most useful technology would be that of fingerprinting. We are developing an Automatic Finger Print Identification and Management System. A facial recognition system is also going to be implemented. We are also going to develop the system of mobile terminals, so that when people go to a scene of crime, they can record their experiences in a digital medium on the spot, instead of having to come back to their station and typing it on the computer. The GIS technology will be used to identify the location from where a particular call is coming.

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special feature

NIIT Technologies

NIIT Technologies

The First Choice of Customers

Long-term customer engagements—some spanning 15 years and more—have become the hallmark of NIIT Technologies Ltd

By Arvind Mehrotra, President, Asia Pacific & Middle East, NIIT Technologies Ltd

N

30

IIT Technologies is a leading IT solutions organisation, servicing customers in India and also in North & South America, Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Australia. The Company offers services in Application Development and Maintenance, Managed Services, Cloud Computing and Business Process Outsourcing to organisations in the Financial Services, Insurance, Travel, Transportation and Logistics, Manufacturing and Government sectors. The Company’s domain strengths, new approaches to customer experience management, robust outsourcing capabilities, and dual-shore delivery model, have made it a preferred IT partner for global majors in these select verticals.

of its specialisation. The revenue profile of the Company is diversified across the three main geographic areas of EMEA, America and Asia Pacific. Such diversification across geographies, has helped NIIT Technologies in avoiding the risk of single geography.

In India, the company has expanded its presence from Tier 1 cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai to Tier 2 cities like Ranchi, Bhuvaneshwar, Lucknow and others. NIIT Technologies has started diversifying into newer verticals as a thrust area for future growth. One such area is Cloud Computing, where the Company is targeting the SME market strategically with pointed solutions catering to the business needs of the market.

Strength through diversification

Serving the government sector

The vision of NIIT Technologies is to be the ‘First Choice’ of customers in its chosen verticals. The Company’s simple strategy of focussing and differentiating has enabled it to compete on the strength

The Government sector is an area of sharp focus for NIIT Technologies. For over two decades, NIIT Technologies has executed turnkey projects for various Government departments in India, Singapore

egov / egov.eletsonline.com / February 2013

and Australia. The solutions offered are custom-designed and are based on deep domain expertise and technological capabilities. The solutions address the unique and challenging needs of major Government organisations.

With a vast experience of delivering complex e-Governance projects around the world, the delivery model of NIIT Technologies has improved productivity & efficiency, saved costs, reduced wastage and brought about transparency in processes. Its agile and robust solutions and services model, add value to Government establishments in their numerous IT initiatives within multiple domains, In recent years the Government business in APAC has grown significantly, securing multiple multi-million rupee deals, viz the BSF-Intranet Prahari project; the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network System (CCTNS) program of the Union Home Ministry in 4 states (Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Odisha and Jharkhand).

The results of few more states are awaited.

These initiatives involve system integration, application development, complete Infrastructure setup & management, including Data Centres (DC), SAP implementation, rollout and training across multiple locations and historical data capture.

Successful Implementations NIIT Technologies recruits local talent for implementing and running many of the government projects. Such initiatives lead to improvement of the employment in the states.

Recently NIIT Technologies has successfully implemented an automated Content Management and Delivery system at Singapore Parliament. The BSF “Intranet Prahari” project has also been successful implemented. The Intranet Prahari project was inaugurated by the former Union Home Minster Shri P. Chidambaram.

For the unparalleled execution of key programmes and initiatives, NIIT Technologies has been recognised and rewarded with many prestigious accolades.

NIIT Technologies

special feature

Arvind Mehrotra President, Asia Pacific & Middle East, NIIT Technologies Ltd

• Education : MBE, BA Maths Stats and Management Program from Michigan • Recognition : Global Leadership Award, Chairman Quality Club and Presidents Club for speed and innovation • Passion : Music, Books (historical, humours) and Movies • Key Strengths : Team work, Ideation, Techno Commercial • Favourite Pastime : Watching Movies and Relaxing • Favourite Gadget : iPad & BlackBerry • Management Tip : Do it right the first time and have passion & heart for ideas • Fitness Mantra : Do it your way

February 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

31

special feature

NIIT Technologies

Developing New Ideas for e-Governance “The process of Change Management has to be approached scientifically and imbibed in an Organisations’ DNA, before introducing a new initiative,” says Arvind Mehrotra, President, Asia Pacific & Middle East, NIIT Technologies Ltd The e-Governance vertical in the country has seen large amount of developments in the last few years. Tell us about your view of the way in which e-Governance is developing. e-Governance has already moved from mere breadand-butter IT Infrastructure deployment to projects focussing on Capacity Building, Civic Engagement and People’s Participation, Data Digitisation and Migration. Now we have started moving from e-Governance to m-Governance, in which we can use mobiles for delivering government services.

Although the emphasis has been primarily on automation and computerisation, state governments have also endeavoured to use ICT tools for connectivity, networking, setting up systems for processing information and delivering services. The thrust has varied across initiatives, with some focusing on enabling the citizen-state interface for various government services, and others focusing on bettering livelihoods.

What are the landmark initiatives in e-Governance that NIIT Technologies has been a part of? What kind of initiatives would you like

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to be associated with in future?

We have been part of BSF & CRPF modernisations through the implementation of our projects Intranet Prahari & SELO, respectively. In BSF we’ve created an Enterprise-wide IT system encompassing HRMS, Financial Accounting, Payroll, Document Management & Inventory Management system for all BSF battalions across

237 locations. We have also developed the IT infrastructure, including the establishment of DC & DR and 10 mini-DC’s at BSF’s frontier HQ. In CRPF too we’ve created a similar IT system.

We are now associated as the SI partner in Union Home Ministry’s CCTNS project in four states. In this project, we will also be providing training to police personnel, ranging

from capacity building, change management workshops, rolebased and application-based training. We will be customising the CAS application as per each state’s requirements & also creating IT infrastructure that will manage operations from the Police HQ to Police Station. Going ahead, we will be focussing on Mission-Mode Programmes of NeGP like e-District, ULB’s etc.

NIIT Technologies

NIIT Technologies has developed many solutions for banking. Tell us about your solutions that are especially meant for promotion of financial inclusion.

What kind of role is NIIT Technologies playing in the rural areas of the country? Do you see the smaller towns and the rural areas as viable market?

There are both supply side and demand side challenges restricting inclusive growth.

From the demand side, the main barriers are the lack of awareness about financial services and products, limited financial literacy, and social exclusion. Many of the generic financial products are unsuitable for the poor. Banks and other financial services players are largely expected to mitigate the demand side processes that prevent poor and disadvantaged social groups from gaining access to the financial system.

Our suite of products in BFSI domain has been specifically designed for banks and MFI to meet the challenges in banking the unbanked in a cost effective manner. For example, BankingEasy, one of our BFSI products, captures customer enrolment details, facilitates unique identification and can offer multiple financial products. These features are enabled through the hand-held devices carried by the business agents on the field. The application on the hand-held devices can perform a biometric authentication even without a smart card. It has the functionalities such as Client enrolment as per KYC, Creation of Savings, Loans accounts, Issuance of identity cards, Online and Offline transactions, Cash Management and Agent Management and Reconciliation.

BankingEasy is targeted towards the complete spectrum of co-operative banking. The co-operative banking sector in India comprises of District Central Co-operative Banks, Primary Agricultural Credit Societies, Regional Rural Banks, and Urban Co-operative Banks. The service areas of

bility. The trade finance module is integrated seamlessly with the core banking solution to give an end-to-end perspective to the trade finance needs of the rural sector. The module supports multi-currency processing of trade products such as bank guarantees, inland bills and remittances.

Agricultural loans for Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACS), and Kisan Credit Cards are some of the key features.

Elaborate workflows for loan creation, sanction/rejection and disbursement are provided.

“e-Governance has already moved from mere bread-and-butter IT Infrastructure deployment to projects focussing on Capacity Building”

these banks are mostly in rural and semi-urban regions, exception being UCBs and Head Offices. The agricultural module in BankingEasy provides entire gamut of banking products and schemes for Loans, Deposits, Withdrawals and Subsidy Management, tailored for the rural sector.

Our CBS empowers banks to define products through its flexible product definition capa-

Extensive master information can be captured at multiple levels: PACS, Taluka, Village, Land, Crop and Farmer. In addition, there are schemes to meet the credit needs of dairy, handlooms, sugar and such other affiliated cooperatives.

In your opinion, what are the main challenges being faced by Government/ organisations in eService

special feature

delivery while working in the e-Governance area? Share with us the experience of NIIT Technologies?

Change Management is very important. As organisations, both Private as well as Government, transition towards sleeker business processes, the change is met with resistance.

A large number of projects fail, only because this transition is not handled correctly. The stakeholders are not taught and graduated into the new process, rather it is thrust on them as an additional load. The process of Change Management has to be approached scientifically and imbibed in an Organisations’ DNA, before introducing a new initiative.

This basic step goes a long way in successful implementations.

To ensure smooth Change Management, we conduct extensive training programs spread across multiple locations PAN India, enabling organizations to understand and changeover to the new system without bias. We have trained more than 75,000 personnel in the CCTNS projects, 40,000 personnel on the BSF Intranet Prahari Application, till date.

About Arvind Mehrotra

An Advance Management Program alumnus of the Michigan Business School, Arvind holds a Master of Business Economics degree from the Delhi University, where he specialised in Systems & Finance. He graduated from the Hindu College in Delhi as a Bachelor of Mathematical Statistics.

Arvind has an overall experience of 26 years, of which 10 years were spent in the User-Industry and 16 years in IT Services. He joined NIIT Limited in 1995 and then in April 2004 transitioned to NIIT Technologies.

In his current role as Independent Business Unit Head at NIIT Technologies, he presides over an area that includes the Middle East, India, Asia and Australia. He is also responsible for Cloud Services and IP Assets. He manages a team of 1700 plus resources in the region. Arvind’s core competencies are in Engagement Management, Technical Delivery, Process Management and Technology Management.

February 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

33

In Person

Arun Kumar

Additional Director General of Police, Crime and Law & Order, Government of Uttar Pradesh

Better Policing

Policing through CCTNS workshops for change management in different police departments.

Along with the implementation of new technologies and the training the personnel, the work of digitisation of the police records must also be going on under the CCTNS project. Please shed some light on that.

Arun Kumar provides us with his view on the implementation of CCTNS in Uttar Pradesh

W

hat kind of progress has the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network & Systems (CCTNS) Project made in Uttar Pradesh?

CCTNS, an e-Governance project of the Central Government, is being implemented all across the country. In Uttar Pradesh we have started the process of implementation of this project. We are currently at Phase 1 of the implementation process, which is also known as the Pilot Testing Phase. The pilot phase involves a capacity building of the manpower through a basic IT course, so that they are able to use the core application software that has been developed for the basic functioning of the police. We are providing them with training for networking, trouble shooting and other necessary areas. We are also conducting various

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I was coming to that. The second major component is the digitisation of the entire police records. We have taken up the digitisation of last ten years of police records. This work is now progressing at a healthy pace. The third major component is the customisation of software. The software for CCTNS has been developed by the Government of India, but at the State level we are customising the software and adding some new modules to it. The hardware implementation is also being looked after adequately. As Uttar Pradesh is a large stage, we have divided the CCTNS project into four different phases. In the first phase, the work for providing connectivity is going on. The project for connecting the various police stations to the State Data Centre has been given to BSNL. The State Data Centre is already functioning and hence the police stations in the Phase 1 area are getting connectivity. Very soon we expect the connectivity to be in place and after that our police stations will start working under the new e-Governance system.

The State Crime Records Bureau (SCRB) is a vital part of the CCTNS. What is your view of the SCRB functioning in Uttar Pradesh?

Our State Crime Records Bureau is set in similar ways like in most other parts of the country.

In the districts we have the Districts Crime Records Bureau. These DCRBs compile the details of the crime happening at the district level and provide the data to the SCRB, from where the data goes to the NCRB, which is the

National Crime Records Bureau. The implementation of CCTNS is fully synchronised with the working of SCRB and NCRB.

What is your vision for deployment of new technologies in the police department?

Basically what we are trying to do in the CCTNS project is linked to the police work.

The project will be helpful in the conduction of a range of duties that the police department is supposed to fulfil. In this project the common citizens will also have the facility of registering their complaints online. There will be facility for online verification for passports, arms licence, domestic helps, etc. We will have seamless integration with the passport office and other related departments. In the next phase we plan to integrate the other part of the criminaljudicial system that has to do with courts; systems like e-Courts will come up. Another area where we are using technology in a big way has to do with human resource management. The State of Uttar Pradesh is home to a huge force of more than 2.5 lakhs. We have given a unique number to each member of the force. The moment any person joins the force, they get a unique number. This unique number is linked to their entire data and it continues to be with them for as long as they are in service. When it comes to crime investigation and forensics, we are trying many new technologies.

These days the newspapers are full of stories about crime being committed against women. What kind of initiatives are you taking to prevent the occurrence of such crimes?

In order to control crimes against women we have come up with the 1090 service, which has been inaugurated by the Hon’ble Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. It has been a great success; a number of other states are now trying to replicate the scheme.

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Ushering Transformative Practices in Governance, Education & Healthcare

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16 - 18 May, 2013 The Lalit

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June, 2013 New Delhi

PSU Summit

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india’s premier ict event

HICC Hyderabad Andhra Pradesh

30 August - 1 Sept 2013 The Leela

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radwin

special feature

RADWIN Chosen By Belgium Police For Major Wireless Video Surveillance Project RADWIN’S wireless video solutions help reduce crime in Charleroi; systems transmit video from over 200 HD video cameras with superior image quality RADWIN, the global provider of Backhaul and Broadband Wireless Solutions has been chosen by the Belgium Police for a large-scale SAFE CITY project in the city of Charleroi.

RADWIN 5000 Point-to-Multipoint and RADWIN 2000 Point-to-Point systems have been deployed in a high-crime area in Charleroi, and are being used to deliver video from over 200 high-definition cameras installed throughout the city back to police headquarters. This allows the police force to effectively monitor public areas and swiftly respond to occurrences of crime and vandalism. Blue Vision telecom, RADWIN’s partner in Belgium, is in charge of project design and implementation.

RADWIN provides a unique solution for wireless video transmission. RADWIN 5000 base stations deliver up to 250 Mbps with highest uplink capacity. The systems have low visual impact and can aggregate traffic from multiple HD cameras and transmit video with superior image quality in real-time.

The powerful combination of outstanding performance, innovative technology and costeffective price makes RADWIN’s offering the best in the industry for high-quality video surveillance applications.

Geert Nauwelaerts and Wim Simons, managing partners at Blue Vision Telecom,

stated, “This deployment posed a major challenge because it required connectivity of 200 HD cameras in one square kilometer area.

No other manufacturer could guarantee the high performance of multiple wireless connections in such a congested area. RADWIN, however, proved this was possible. Incorporating advanced technologies such as GPS Synchronization which eliminates collocation interference, as well as MIMO and OFDM technologies, RADWIN’s solutions were the best fit for this project. The systems transmit video with the highest image quality that

meets the Belgium police’s rigid performance and technical standards.”

Yaron Ziv, RADWIN’s European Managing Director said, “We are proud to have been chosen for this project based upon our proven track record of building high-capacity wireless video networks worldwide. RADWIN today provides a comprehensive solution that delivers actionable surveillance information 24/7.

Our Point-to-Multipoint and Point-to-Point systems are delivering real results, improving the safety and wellbeing of the citizens of Charleroi, Belgium.”

About RADWIN RADWIN is a leading global provider of sub-6 GHz wireless broadband solutions that deliver voice, video and data to fixed and mobile users. RADWIN’s high-performance, telco-grade solutions serve telecom carriers and service providers, government and public safety agencies, cities, utilities and transportation organizations.

RADWIN’s solutions incorporate industry-leading technologies and interference-mitigation mechanisms to deliver high capacity and optimal coverage. RADWIN’s solutions are deployed by thousands of customers in over 140 countries. www.radwin.com

February 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

39

in person

Maj Gen Dhruv C Katoch

SM, VSM (Retd), Director, CLAWS (Centre for Land Warfare Studies)

INDIAN DEFENCE forces

ENHANCING Tech Capability

w

hat is the mandate of CLAWS? Over the years how far has CLAWS succeeded in fulfilling the vision with which it was founded?

The Centre for Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS), is an autonomous think tank on strategic studies and land warfare. This organisation is membership based and is registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860. It is governed by a Board of Governors and an Executive Council. It covers national security issues, conventional military operations and sub-conventional warfare. We are looking into everything that is in the open domain. The information that we collect for conducting our analysis, generally comes from open sources like newspapers or books. The Centre primarily focuses on conflicts in the region and military developments in countries within India’s strategic frontiers, particularly those in the southern Asian region. Our vision is to join various leading international think tanks in conceptualising different aspects of land warfare, with special reference to India and its extended neighbourhood. CLAWS aspires to attract leading strategic thinkers, defence analysts, scholars and academics and media persons to deliberate on all facets of land warfare up to the strategic level.

What is your view of the security situation in Indian subcontinent?

What are the major challenges that the Indian defence forces face?

When I look at the security situation today, I think we are at a period of peace regardless of what it is mentioned in the newspapers. There might

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egov / egov.eletsonline.com / February 2013

“When it comes to developing strategies for winning future conflicts, we have to first of all endeavour to understand the future, only then we will be able to cope with it,” says Maj Gen Dhruv C Katoch

In inperson Person

be tactical level of minor conflicts erupting at certain pockets of the border areas, but mostly we are at peace. I feel that this stability is going to continue at least till the end of this decade.

As a defence analyst, I think the major challenge that the Indian armed forces face is that of budget. India’s defence budget has remained reasonably constant over the years, but that is not the case with our neighbours. In case of China, the defence budget has been growing by 10-12 percent. My biggest fear is that by 20202025 periods, the differential will become so large that we might find it too difficult to make up. This is a concern that needs to be factored in. The second concern is related to our own defence industries. We import 70 percent and produce 30 percent of products of our defence requirements. I accept that it is not possible for any nation to produce 100 percent of its defence needs indigenously, but ideally we should be producing 70 percent in our own country and the rest 30 percent we can procure.

Staying on the subject of budget, it is also true that some western countries are spending major part of the defence budget in new technologies, but our budget is being spent mostly on the manpower. Do you think that there needs to be more focus on the technology also?

For cutting-edge technology we already have an institution like DRDO. DRDO is a brilliant institution; it has immense talent. Many brilliant scientists are working with DRDO. Some of their work is truly outstanding. For best results DRDO should focus on cutting-edge technology only, they should not be dealing with mundane issues. The mundane issues can be left to the civil industry that is where the public private partnership can come. When you look at the space programme or you look at the missile programme, these programmes have been successful only due to DRDO inputs. It is time that we tried to analyse where the DRDO should be, what should be their core focus area, and what kind of technologies they should be focussing upon.

proven fact that ICT is absolutely critical. Without cutting edge ICT, you can’t win. The question is, we don’t have any alternative. We are doing quite a lot of things. But it is also true that we have a very large border, and to man this large border, we need a large armed force. So it takes lot of money to change things. However, I think it is in the best interests of the nation to start implementing new technologies at a faster pace. When it comes to developing strategies for winning future conflicts, we have to first of all endeavour to understand the future, only then we will be able to cope with it.

These days many nations in the world are facing the prospect of a cyber war being waged. Do you think that India should go in for a cyber force to protect itself from a cyber attack?

I think the talk of cyber command has already been on for quite some time. However, I am not aware of the progress being made in this direction. But I think in due course of time the cyber commands will come in, there is no other option. The biggest problem with cyber warfare is that in this case the deniabil-

systems. In some cases, you even remove the ports, so that no one can plug in any device to download sensitive information. Then there is complete segregation between Internet enabled systems and standalone systems. If such rules are violated, then leakage of information becomes a possibility. But we do have safeguards in place. The leaks happen due to the fact that ultimately human beings make mistakes.

The focus of the armed forces is to ensure that the mistakes are kept to a bare minimum. These days we have satellites that can recognise a man on the ground even though they are hovering over the earth thousands of kilometres away.

Does that mean that we are moving towards a world where there can’t be any secrets? That might not be the case. After all, how can the satellites know what person to look for, how do they know what kind of information what person has?

Is CLAWS taking any stand on the internal threats that the country faces from Naxalites and other such groups?

We have done lot of research work in this regard. Internal security is an area of concern.

“For best results DRDO should focus on cutting edge technology only, they should not be dealing with mundane issues“ ity is very strong. In many cases, the nations are unable to confirm where the attack has originated from. Your vital installations get attacked, but you can’t take counter action as the origin of the attack is not known. We need to develop the capability of launching counter cyber attacks, once your enemies know that you are capable of hitting back, they will refrain from targeting you.

Please tell us about your views on how critical ICT is in enabling success of military missions?

Should we be examining the idea of accessing critical information through handheld systems like PDAs and Tablets, instead of just desktops and laptops? Is there a security risk in allowing handheld systems to access defence related data?

The question is no longer about how critical ICT can be for military missions. It is now a

The important thing is that all your classified materials are being processed on standalone

It is indeed a fact that lot of internal disturbances in the country are being fuelled by our external enemies. Certain nations that are our rivals supply such groups with ideology, funds, arms and information. In my view armed forces should not be involved in tackling of the Naxalites. This is basically a political problem and it should be handled politically. It is a question of Maoist ideology versus Indian ideology of democracy. So we have to take the fight with the Maoists to the level of the ideology. We have to make the idea of Indian democracy more attractive than the idea of Maoist ideology. If you go through our various journals and publications, you will find that CLAWS has been looking at these problems from the angle of ideological issues, economical issues, and government issues and more importantly from the issue rights of the people in tribal areas and the marginalised sections of the society.

February 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

41

in person

Brig. Rumel Dahiya

SM (Retd.), Deputy Director General, Institute for Defence Studies and Analysis (IDSA)

Shaping

India’s foreign & security policies

P

lease tell us about the mandate of IDSA. In your opinion, how far has IDSA succeeded in fulfilling its mandate over the years?

Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA) was established as a registered society in New Delhi on November 11, 1965; at that time the need was felt in the government for a research unit. The mission of IDSA was to provide objective assessments of issues relating to national and international security. The initiative for setting up the Institute came from then Defence Minister Shri Yeshwantrao Chavan, who was one of the Institutes’s founding members. Mainly IDSA has been established with the objective of providing strategic policies in a well-structured manner so that the government pick up ideas that are worth implementing.

Over the last forty-plus years, IDSA has played a crucial role in shaping India’s foreign and security policies, including those with respect to nuclear weapons, military expenditure, and conventional and non-conventional threats to India.

In our opinion, what were the main achievements of IDSA during the last 40 years?

“Main achievement of IDSA is to nurture talent; many scholars who have passed through the portals of IDSA have joined various arms of the government and the universities,” says Brig. Rumel Dahiya

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egov / egov.eletsonline.com / February 2013

Main achievement of IDSA is to nurture talent; many scholars who have passed through the portals of IDSA have joined various arms of the government and the universities. Our scholars have been writing in large number of books, periodicals, etc.

IDSA also writes on strategic issues concerning the nation’s security and policy. These too have been well received by the government and the reading public. So another notable contribution made by IDSA is the awareness on strategic issues that have been created. The government too has benefitted from the policy inputs that have come out of IDSA. IDSA is funded by

In in Person person

The core values that serve as IDSA’s guiding principles • Integrity and Honesty • Commitment • Professionalism • Pursuit of excellence • Teamwork • Innovation and Creativity

the Indian Ministry of Defence. It functions autonomously.

What is the view of IDSA on the security situation in Indian subcontinent? What are the major challenges that the Indian defence forces face?

In IDSA the scholars are free to carry out their own detailed research and then come out with their own views for debate and public discussion. However, in my opinion, the security situation in the region continues to be unstable. All the countries in the region are facing external or internal problems. The greatest challenge that the subcontinent faces is that of development deficit. Poverty, threat of terrorism and interference from outside the region are causes for concern. The most major challenge before us is one of development.

Peace can only be there when there is sufficient development. So we have work towards developing trust within neighbours and come up with ideas that enable the entire region to grow out of poverty, unemployment and internal conflicts.

Has IDSA done research on how ICT is nowadays proving critical for the success of military missions?

IDSA through its publications and lecture series has been highlighting the use of the ICT in warfare. In fact, ICT is important not only from the perspective of warfare but also for public good in general. Through ICT we can bring about an improvement in the delivery system, we can remove corruption – all these are the focus areas for IDSA. I would also like to point out that recently we have started working on the area of cyber security, which is a growing challenge not only from military point of view but also from the public services point of view.

Lot of damages can be done by cyber attacks on our critical infrastructure; classified data can be stolen from the computers owned by our

organisations. Many sensitive installations have already been targeted by foreign entities. IDSA has taken out its cyber security report, which has been well received. We are taking the issues related to ICT in warfare and the cyber security related concerns very seriously.

The fact is that technology is changing at a very fast pace. In a very short span of time many new versions of the same technology become available. What strategy should Indian armed forces use for implementing the best possible technology?

IDSA doesn’t focus on technical aspect of ICT. There is neither the mandate nor do we have technically qualified manpower to take the lead in this area. Our concern basically is to highlight the need for paying attention to it.

The armed forces have to choose new technology after evaluating all the pros and cons. A technology can lead to better targeting, better surveillance, better resource management,

There is no doubt that various agencies, including our armed forces, will take care of that responsibility.

These days we are having a vast proliferation of Internet enabled devices. Smartphones, netbooks, tablets are omnipresent. Is it possible that such devices can lead to the security being compromised? What can be done to enhance security in face of proliferation of devices?

The devices are getting more and more sophisticated with time and so the security risk is there.

We regularly hear about instances of the net enabled devices like smartphones and computers of senior functionaries in different countries getting hacked. These things do happen. In armed forces, they take adequate care to ensure that the sensitive information are only handled on standalone computer systems, which are not connected to the Internet. But the risk of someone copying the data by making use of pen drive or something else, is there.

“The greatest challenge that the subcontinent faces is that of development deficit” etc., but it’s very sophistication might also harbour the seeds of vulnerability. It might be prone to hacking. This is the dilemma. If you don’t use technology, you run the risk of failing to deploy your resources, but if you use it, you become vulnerable in some ways. Therefore, one has to develop both – offensive and defensive strategy.

The prospect of a cyber war being waged against the nation is becoming more and more real.

In such a situation, should India concentrate on developing a dedicated cyber force?

On this issue, there has already been lot of talk.

In America, they have established the cyber command. In our country they are trying to develop an organisation that will take care of defence considerations in the cyber domain.

I think, we need to decide, which agency will coordinate our efforts in the cyber domain.

So should we then presume that in this era of smart devices and Internet, it is now impossible to safeguard classified information?

I think safeguarding of a nation’s secrets is directly linked to whether everybody is careful or not. We have to refrain from putting anything that is of confidential nature on Internet connected computers. If we have secured intranet connections with the organisations, with which we have to share information for operational reasons, then the chances of information leakage become much rarer. Firewalls and security screening, access control to various sorts on information will help us in guarding the information. However, it is a fact worth considering that even the pentagon has been hacked. The best cyber defences in the world can also be breached. All the nations in the world are facing the challenge of safeguarding their classified information in face of the rapid advances in technology.

February 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

43

viewpoint

ICT Deployment Should Find More Favour in Government Fiscal Policies Creating an impulsion for ICT deployment has never been a priority in the financial policy-making or budgeting exercise

F

ebruary being the month for the Annual Budget of the Government of India, as an ICT for Development practitioner, this column writer considered it worthwhile to take a look at how much the financial and fiscal management system of the government have recognised the importance and impact of the ICT on our economy both in short and long terms.

It is now widely accepted that since the invention of electricity, steam engine, printing press, assembly line and so on, nothing of those could influence the civilisation so much as did the Information & Communication Technology. In this era of technology ICT is prevailing as a real global game changer, getting integrated virtually all aspects of economy and society thereby creating a newly-coined term as Digital Economy. The pace, at which ICT is getting adopted in the society in last fifteen years or so, has actually exceeded most optimistic forecast by the experts. We can say now that ICT is a major driver of global economy as well as improving the quality of life, with a specific centrality to economic growth and prosperity as it impacts most of the key parameters of the same, in both short and long term manner.

In India, or that way in any country, government is the prime ‘activity generator’ for the society. And ICT is impacting every sector of activity, farming to manufacturing to services, for the citizen and for the government as well. There is abundant use of hardware, software, application tools in the internal operations of organisations, governments, businesses, NGOs, CSOs, CBOs and so on. By the use of ICT human productivity is getting increased by 3 to 5 times that of non-IT capital. The key economic activities like productivity, market linkages and creating new markets, employment, higher quality goods and services, innovation and new products and services are impacted to a very high degree. And as the time is progressing it appears that potential of ICT is not

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to get exhausted very soon! The core technologies are continuously evolving and continue to get better, faster, cheaper, easier to use year-to-year, if not month by month. New applications in various sectors are getting added on a regular basis.

Given this impending scenario, establishing nexus between ICT deployment and consequent economic growth and prosperity, it would be order of the day to view a scorecard for our government, in regard to the financial policies, fiscal and tax incentives during budgeting exercises and other indirect finance-related regulations which would have directly or indirectly promoted deployment of ICT in governments and businesses. Was there any specific budgeting exercise happened (although remembering the Planning Commission Guidelines that 2-3 percent of the allocation can be expended on IT-related initiatives) so that a department in the state or in central government gets excited to get into whole hog ICT mode for its businesses? Was there any time any concrete financial policy direction so that a digital content development eco-system is established in an accelerated mode? Or, was there any direct financial policy for a particular social sector, say health, so that all hospitals, government or private, get incentivized to quickly convert to provide health services using various ICT means ? Was there any financial benefit announced for the very large government work force for acquiring an additional training/qualification in the area of ICT or e-government? (compare this proposition with the erstwhile government scheme of acquiring one additional increment for any government servant for adoption of planned family norm) Have we ever mandated the government PSUs, through some time-bound financial reliefs, so that they adopt ICT for their internal functions and also putting ICT for all external interfaces for the stakeholders doing businesses with them? In this context one good example could be to provide a time-bound tax relief regime for the PSUs with a mandate of incorporating total e-procurement solution for all the procurements undertaken by

the PSUs. The list of such questions could be long, incisive and also diverse for all possible and feasible propositions, where we could have expected more visible and accelerated changes in the area of ICT deployment in multitude of economic activities. But unfortunately answer to all such questions would be a ‘no’. Creating an impulsion for ICT deployment has never been a priority in the financial policy-making or budgeting exercise.

That special thrust from the think-tanks, who prepare the annual fiscal policy directions for the government, is sadly missing.

Accelerated deployment of ICT in all economic activities would be a very effective cause to usher in economic prosperity and to create digital economy for the country. It is high time that government appreciates that and takes proactive policies to create such regime. To bring in digital economy within a reasonable time and to set in faster pace in the implementation of electronic governance both in public and private sector, government should specifically design some comprehensive taxation and other fiscal incentives and reliefs for a pre-designated moratorium period, so that an impetus is created all around to get in to digitally-governed economy. We are yet to create a true ICT era in our country which can bring long term gains in the economy. After all there is a prediction in ‘The Wealth Report 2012’ by M/s Knight Frank (UK) that by 2050 India will climb up the podium from 4th position to the ‘Numero Uno’ – the largest economy. This is not going to happen for sure, unless we accept some initial loss in the short-term revenue battles, to win the long-term war for accomplishing top position of a developed economy!

Ashis Sanyal Consulting Editor, egov

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Police Reforms

Next Generation Criminal Identification System for Police Purushottam Sharma, ADG Police, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh; Chairman, National Technical Committee for Specialised Solutions, NCRB, New Delhi

C

riminals are rapidly increasing the scope of their activities through the aid of new technology.

Law enforcement agencies are facing major challenges in effectively tracking the movements of criminals and establishing their identity. With the objective of solving this major challenge, the government of India has come up with the CCTNS project, which aims to modernise policing activities in terms of tracking and creating database. Under CCTNS specialised solutions like the state of art NAFIS (National Automated Fingerprint Identification system) and FED (Fingerprint Enrolling Device), will become available to every police station. It will become easy to capture and circulate the Finger Print (FP) of arrested and convicted persons.

Urgent need for new technology We need to keep in mind that criminals and antisocial elements are capable of taking advantage of technological advances. However, the Police in the country have miserably failed to keep in step with the advances in technology and thus it is finding it difficult to apprehend the new generation of digitally savvy criminals. It would not be wrong to say that the police establishment has adopted technology at slower rate in comparison to the criminals. The technology used by police is either outdated or unsuitable and it exists in isolation leading to no data sharing amongst the states and within states too. But now we need to upgrade our technologies as the citizens of the country have high expectations from us.

Different state police forces in country have taken sporadic endeavours by adopting small projects in unstructured ways. In most cases, the desired results have not been achieved. Criminals are able to peddle their nefarious trade as the technological infrastructure at disposal of the police has been weak.

At present the state AFIS (Automated Fingerprint Identification System) exists at NCRB HQ and 22 other states headquarters. Eleven states in the country are yet to procure and install the system for criminal identification and tracking. Overall, AFIS has been making seminal contributions in law enforcement, but it also has a few shortcomings due to which the effective tracking of criminals is severely impaired.

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Purushottam Sharma

Police Reforms

Development of NAFIS As a consequence of aforementioned shortcomings, some states like Maharashtra and Karnataka have decided to upgrade the legacy application in order to match the international standard. In that regard, NAFIS ( National Automated Fingerprint Identification System) has been developed. In some states like Madhya Pradesh, AFIS and NCRB have almost stopped functioning and are lying defunct.

It is envisaged by TEC (Technical Evaluation Committee) that a uniform solution should be proposed to all the states, so that data can be shared in a seamless and easy manner.

NCRB has constituted a national level technical committee consisting of FP experts and technical experts, who have domain knowledge. It has been decided that we must design and procure a system that is of international standard and is geared to integrate all the criminal and identification related data from around the country in real time.

The Government of India has launched the e-Governance initiative called the CCTNS (Crimes and Criminals Tracking Networks and Systems). Under this project specialised solutions like NAFIS (National Automated Identification Systems) and FED (Fingerprint Enrolment Device) have been envisaged for tracking criminals based on FP and other biometrics. NCRB will serve as the nodal agency for NAFIS, which will have RQT (Remote Query Terminal) at all state /UT headquarters.

It has also planned to improve the quality of FP database and hence all police stations in country will be covered with 500 ppi (FBI certified and Forensic Grade) live scanners for capturing FP at source.

RQT ( Remote query Terminal - for all state /UT headquarter) will be installed at all States /UTs headquarters and will act like mini AFIS for interfacing with legacy data and onward

Shortcomings of AFIS • Most of existing AFIS are having outdated technology and have proprietary encoding and matching algorithms, which lack commonality and interoperability.

• None of these AFIS has interstate / inter AFIS connectivity module and

functionality and therefore no data portability and interoperability are achieved even amongst various versions of same vendor and AFIS of other vendors.

• All the existing AFIS have miserably poor capability to search Latent Print.

A seamless flow of data

The central server of NAFIS will have following components: • Application Server • Database Server • Communication Server • Transaction Server • Anti-Virus Server • Back-up Server • SAN • Disaster Recovery Server

transmission of queries as raised by states.

These RQTs will have the following features: • Full functioning NAFIS Application.

• Latest Configuration Computer + LED Display with minimum RAM 6GB, 1TB HDD. • Photo Quality Flatbed Scanner • Laser Printer • UPS 1KVA 1hr backup

The central NAFIS system will have the following capabilities: • Fingerprint/ Palm print Processing Engine • Fingerprint / Palm print Transaction Manager • Identity Management System (IMS) • Criminal Data Management System

• No AFIS has capability to store and search palm print and is not complete package of all required core functionalities • Most of state AFIS don’t have entire range of core functionality like slap segmentation and sequence validation etc.

(CDMS) and Case Management System (CMS) • Remote Query Queue/Priority Management System.

• Requisite hardware for NAFIS

The overall architecture of criminal tracking system is designed and made in such a way that the FP data flows in real time from police station to the NCRB. The specialized project provides the Fingerprint Enrolling Device (FED) at all police stations so that FP are captured at source. Proposed FED will be fully integrated and compliant with proposed National AFIS (NAFIS) system, i.e. FED will be directly operated from NAFIS application as well as from standalone application provided by vendor for local operation.

Standalone application includes Capturing, Ten Digit Slip printing in NCRB format, local 1:N search with facility of Capturing and printing of mug-shot taken from web camera and local database storage and retrieval of 100000 persons. The vendor will develop all necessary interfaces and tools for integration with NAFIS, AFIS. All required drivers and API will be procured by SI/OEM. The vendor has to provide complete data transfer module to the State Data Center which will work independently and on standalone basis with available connectivity , irrespective of availability of AFIS/NAFIS .

An IPS officer of 1986 batch of MP cadre, Purushottam Sharma is an engineering graduate from BITS Pilani (Raj). He passed his masters degree MBA from Northumbria University, UK. He is presently pursuing LLB from Bhopal University. He has done in- depth study and analysis of prevailing AFIS systems in country. He submitted report on “Benchmarking for AFIS” to NCRB which was circulated to all states for evaluation. He is actively involved as chairman for specialised solution under CCTNS.

February 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

47

Cyber Security

Safeguarding

the Enterprise “Attacks on the enterprise are getting increasingly sophisticated. Current solutions available do not seem to be adequate given the innovativeness, precision and persistence of these attacks,” says Sanjay Sahay, IGP, Eastern Range, Davanagere, Karnataka

R

esearch shows that 55 percent of the breaches require months or even years to contain (Verizon 2010 Data Breach Report). Sixteen percent of breaches are discovered via active and deliberate action. Only 24 percent of APT malware is detected by an anti-virus solution (Mandiant 2010). Logs are at the heart of monitoring and use of logs for the right purpose and in the right directions can be immensely useful. Mining of logs throws up data, which the professional can make a meaning of.

A safeguarded enterprise Safeguarded Enterprise is the sum total of a clear-cut perception, appropriate/integrated planning, documentation, meticulous execution and dynamic/robust maintenance of enterprise security policy at awareness, attitudinal, physical, systems, processes, application and data dimensions throughout the enterprise creating a near fail-safe enterprise.

Silos have ruled the world till we realised what a silo is and the way it feeds like a termite on a system, which is an integrated system, for namesake. So was the case of security in the Enterprise Business Architecture. Business, Information and Technology (BIT) were the three components. The new approach emanates from a Gartner White Paper published in the year 2006 titled ‘Incorporating Security into the Enterprise Architecture Process’. This

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led to the creation of Enterprise Information Security Architecture with four critical components of Business, Information, Technology and Security (BITS). BIT changed to BITS and security became a design component itself.

In the midst of the clamour for a fail-safe data regime, which would be nonetheless be a mirage, the importance of physical security should not be diluted. My visit to Indian IT companies in Bangalore has helped me confirm my belief that physical security stands at par with data security though the two are distinctly different thought processes, are different in execution and would remain to be complimentary for all times to come.

The goals of Enterprise Information Security Architecture is to provide a structure that is coherent and cohesive. As the business motive is predominant in a business enterprise, the business to security alignment in critical. Any disconnect would be critical to profitability and at times to the existence of the enterprise itself. The details ought to neatly spelt out, top down which should be synchronous in itself and synergise with the business strategy.

At the end of the day, this approach helps establish a common language for information, for its free flow, clarity of communication and timely and effective response mechanism for information security within the integrated enterprise.

Key Success Factors Awareness of the impending danger is the initiation of diagnosis. Objective diagnosis can only lead objective treatment and maintenance of a healthy enterprise both from the point of view of physical and data security. Security awareness

Sanjay Sahay in all its dimensions creates an environment where all success factors fall in place like a jigsaw puzzle, the people, the processes and technology. One the security awareness human platform are the two main technical components of Network Security and Application Security.

Operating System Security, Patch and AV Management and SIEM are the three components of the final layer which can be termed as the operating, functional and the analytical layer.

Security Architecture The key success factor is the synergy of people, processes and technology creating a seamless security architecture, which is optimally functional and has the capability to propel the enterprise to the next level. The people part comprises of user awareness, guidance, administration and effective monitoring of the system.

The processes part comprises of policies, standards, guidelines and audit capabilities. Last and

Cyber Security

the most important component in a technology driven world is technology itself manifested by the use of IPS, Firewall, AV, DLP and SIEM.

Defense of Depth “Defense of Depth” is a concept used to describe layers of defense strategies. The components at each layer work in tandem to provide one cohesive security mechanism. This layered approach also helps localize the impact, if one element of the mechanism is compromised. The defense of depth layers concentric circles begin moving outwards with the data at the bull or the innermost circle. The circles from the innermost to the final outside circle are data, application, host, internal network, perimeter, physical and policies, procedures and awareness.

At the Core Data centre, connectivity and the application are at the core of the enterprise security. The main purpose of a data centre is running the applications that handle the core business and the operational data of the organisation.

Secure application usage is the key to the creation of a secure enterprise.

Secure connectivity is the backbone. The Karnaktaka State Police broadband networking is a intranet named KSPWAN which is a combination of 39, 2 Mbps MPLS leased lines for big offices, 512 Kbps 1400 VPNoBB connections covering all police stations and small offices and 8Mbps internet leased line with and aggregation bandwidth of 32 Mbps working as

The common risks which the enterprise faces today • • • • •

Email attachments VPN Tunnel vulnerabilities Blended attacks Diversionary tactics Download from websites

a single network of 5,000 computers across the state working out of a single server located at the KSP Data Centre.

The choice of intranet over internet is the first decision towards security of the enterprise, which is slowly becoming the norm in enterprises across the globe.

Application/s is at the heart of the enterprise. An ERP created for the enterprise aligns to all its tasks and activities also takes care of all the staff functions, which run co-terminus with the business functions. Secure ERP on an intranet is what we are all heading for.

The Application Data Security Lifecycle (ADSL) The diagram clearly elucidates the role of different components of the ADSL. The lifecycle as is the case with concept and process starts with the assessment encapsulating the configuration/usage of servers and data, test configuration, evaluate the inherent risks and

Defense in Depth Layers Data Application Host Internal Network Perimeter Physical Policies, Procedures, Awareness

• Supply chain and partners added to the network • Microsoft’s SOAP • Renaming documents • Peer to peer applications • Music and video browsers

also assess how and by whom the data and applications are used.

Setting polices and controls are the subsequent tasks. The policies should be automatically created considering the right mix of business and security considerations with the flexibility to adapt to user changes and support granular policies and controls. Monitoring and enforcing is more important than creating the policies itself. The separation of duties should be ensured simultaneously with user accountability. The transaction details should be in a comprehensive manner and alerts and blocks should be resorted to in real time.

Security Information & Event Management (SIEM) SIEM, an intelligence platform helps safeguard the business by giving complete visibility into the activities across the IT infrastructure. It fulfils the functionalities, which will be not be emanated out of single activity logs and without this software system no correlation can be mapped or understood, leave aside taking any correctional action. Logs are the cornerstone of all activities and making meaning of the logs as per our requirements is of great importance. The functionalities being attended to by this software are asset discovery, threat detection, vulnerability assessment, event collection, correlation, event management and log storage. The SIEM capabilities comprise of data aggregation, correlation, alerting, dashboards, compliance and retention.

Cloud – The Final Frontier Cloud computing has turned out to be the final frontier, but enterprises my still take sometime to switch over to complete cloud environment.

There are large number of security issues/concerns associated with cloud computing, which can grouped into two, firstly security issues faced by cloud providers and secondly security issues faced by their customers. The provider February 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

49

Cyber Security

SE a new approach

Single Sign On

KSP Connectivity

Single Sign On, SSO, is a property of access control of multiple related, but independent software systems. Conversely, Single Sign Off, is the property whereby the single action of signing out terminates access to multiple software systems. The benefits we derive out of this system are as follows: • More secure • Reduces password fatigue • Reduces time spent for reentering passwords • Reduces IT costs – helpdesk calls pertaining to passwords etc • Security on all levels of entry/ exit/access to systems • Centralised reporting for compliance adherence

STATE POLICE DATA CENTRE E-MAIL FTP

DATABASE APPLICATIONS

8 Mbps

POLICE IT

Core Switch

Cloud - Virtualisation The extensive use of virtualisation in implementing cloud infrastructure brings unique security concerns for customers of a public cloud service.

Virtualisation alters the relationship between the OS and the underlying hardware – be it computing, storage or even networking. The

512 Kbps 32 Mbps

BSNL MPLS

CHIFE OFFICE

COD

2 Mbps

TYPE OF CONNECTIVITY

FPB

32 Mbps Aggregation Link 42 no’s of MPLS Links

use of this technology introduces an additional layer – virtualisation – that itself must be properly configured, managed and secured. Specific concerns include the potential to compromise the virtualisation software. While the concerns are largely theoretical, they do exist.

Challenges What we are witnessing today are advanced cyber threats, and collaboration is the key in dealing with them. No single organisation can respond positively given the nature of the challenge posed on enterprises today. There is need

Set Policies/Controls The Application Data Security Life Cycle

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Monitor / Enforce

VPNOBB

DPO 29

COP(3)

4 Mbps Internet Link

The Application Data Security Lifecycle

Measure

SP RLY

FSL

SE a new approach

Assess

INTERNET CLOUD

FIREWALL INTERNET GATEWAY

1400 no’s 512 Kbps VPNo88 Links

must ensure that their infrastructure is secure and client’s data and applications are protected.

The customer must ensure that the provider has taken proper security measures to protect their information.

WEB

DPO 1

DPO 2 PS/CIRCLE/SDPO PS/CIRCLE/ SDPO

VPNOBB PS/CIRCLE/ PS/CIRCLE/ SDPO SDPO

for the creation of an Advanced Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) for protecting the country’s enterprises from the rapidly evolving advanced and persistent cyber threats.

ACSC would strengthen short term defences and long term capability. Actionable intelligence to bolster an organisation’s defence in the short term and generate new defensive strategies and R&D in the longer term would be the logical guiding principle. The near term results would be application of front line analytics, medium term results would be the application of New “ Predictive Analytics” development and the long term results would true Research & Development which would throw up innovative security solutions for the enterprise. Though it would be time taking yet it would be worthwhile to leverage on sustainable and continuous research improving the enterprise security by leaps and bounds.

The other challenges include cloud computing with virtualisation. With mobility becoming the order of the day, this would remain an area of exclusive concern and most gadgets would be internet enabled where compromising security is easier than in a closed environment.

The complexity of IT security gets confounded with innumerable applications, the processing power, the World Wide Web interface, cross enterprise collaboration and the like.

Cloud computing, though in its nascent stage, has thrown a major challenge to IT security. A range of innovative ideas are needed to keep the IT industry growing in a secure environment and cause maximum benefit to the people.

in person

Abdul Ghani Mir

IPS, IGP Crime, Government of Jammu & Kashmir

Good Governance through Effective Policing

P

lease provide us with your view on the overall security situation in the state of J&K. Also what are the ways by which IT has contributed in improving the security situation?

Security situation has improved a lot. With rapid advances in IT, it is now impossible for us even to think of policing work without taking the role played by technology into account. In today’s world no organisation can be effective without IT. The job of the police is twofold – the first is the detection and prevention of crime and the second is maintenance of law and order. In both the areas there are limitless possibilities from IT. In our country we are already using IT for various e-governance initiatives and also in security related matters. With cyber crime on the rise, the criminals are no longer confined to national borders. The boundaries have got totally obliterated.

A person sitting in any foreign country can commit a crime and it can have impact on me here. The whole of the world is connected through IT and in order to catch that criminal we have to be strong in IT. For tracking, for maintenance of records, for having a data bank, we need IT in a big way. The time when we used to maintain records on paper and files is now gone. Earlier if you needed to find the record of any person, you had to write to some police station or office where the record is being maintained and they would rummage through paper files to come up with the record. Now we can find the same information by the click of a mouse. IT has helped the law enforcement agencies break out of the shackle of geographical boundaries. With IT you can do analysis, you can evaluate the threats in new ways.

What are the ways by which CCTNS will lead to police functioning becoming more citizen friendly and transparent? Please provide us with your views on how far CCTNS project has been implemented in J&K. The CCTNS is a centrally sponsored project that aims at creating a comprehensive and integrated system for enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of policing at the police station level through adop-

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Abdul Ghani Mir provides his views on the ways by which the technological innovations are leading to a vast improvement in the operations of the Police in Jammu & Kashmir

In in Person person

tion of principles of e-Governance and creation of a nationwide networked infrastructure for evolution of IT-enabled state-of-the-art tracking system. Before CCTNS there were other schemes and now CCTNS is there. Now CCTNS is in the implementation stage. I am personally of the opinion that once CCTNS gets implemented there will be a marked difference in the policing work currently being done in the country. This is because we will have seamless online access to the database of criminals. You can find the antecedents of the criminal persons at the click of a mouse.

How much time will it take for CCTNS to be fully implemented in J&K? As of now CCTNS is running a bit late, but we are in the process of implementing it. This is a very sophisticated system and there are certain challenges in managing it. The solutions to these challenges are being found and we will soon have the project in place. In another one and a half years, we will have CCTNS in place.

Even without CCTNS, many states have started computerising their police stations located in different parts of the states. Tell us about similar activities being taken up in Jammu & Kashmir?

With the advances being made by technology, I don’t think any police station can remain

tivity through an agreement with BSNL. Once NOFN gets implemented in the country, the connectivity will improve further. Connectivity with today’s technology is not a problem.

Tell us about the SCRB (State Crime Records Bureau), and the kind of work that is being done by it in J&K. The SCRB is devoted to maintaining the data on criminals. It presents the police force with analyses of crimes and criminals. This sort of data is important for enabling the police to do their work in an efficient manner. The SCRB also helps common man to keep track of all the absconders. Citizens can provide the police information on criminal elements.

“we need to a take a proactive attitude and prevent crimes before they can happen” unconnected. You can now have connectivity through broadband, through WiMax; you can even have connectivity through satellite. Every part of the world can be connected in many different ways. Different types of initiatives have been taken by police stations in different states to computerise the police stations.

But under CCTNS, all these efforts will get integrated. There will be an actual interlinking between the different government departments through CCTNS, so the police stations across the country will be connected in a seamless and effective manner. In Jammu & Kashmir, SWAN is yet to be fully implemented, but till the time that gets implemented, we are getting connec-

By itself law enforcement is a very difficult task. Can you tell us about the kind of challenges that a police officer or someone in the kind of senior position that you are, faces.

Policing is not rocket science, if you have dedication to the job, you can achieve good results.

I personally believe that in any field if you are a person of average intelligence and you honestly work hard, you will sail through. There is no substitute for hard work. Results can only come through hard work. At the same time, it is also true that specifically in the field of policing you have to deal directly with the concerns being faced by the citizens. A cop’s basic duty is

to provide the citizens with a sense of security.

That perception of security has to get established in the society. So a cop must understand the psychology of the different groups. You also have to understand the psychology of the criminals. You have to understand the psychology of the different stakeholders. You can’t afford to operate in isolation. You can’t take a decision all by yourself. You have to take the stakeholders with you. This understanding is very much needed and at the same time you need to work hard. One must have a professional attitude towards things.

What is your view on technologically upgrading the police forces?

It is very essential that we put technology to use for the betterment of human kind. The police must use technology for the benefit of the nation. As of now we may not be comparable to the UK, US or other developed western countries, but we are definitely making progress. We are, after all, a developing nation, and we are a developing nation in this area also.

What is your vision for security in the state during the next five years?

The vision for security is that you provide a sense of security to the public. We should not wait for crimes to happen and then react; we need to a take a proactive attitude and prevent crimes before they can happen. Police is very much a part of the governance infrastructure. So the ultimate aim of the policing exercise is to enable an effective system of governance to be in place. We will soon have CCTNS getting implemented across the country. This will lead to a vast improvement in the policing work.

February 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

53

In Person

Shivaji Chatterjee

Vice President and Business Head-Enterprise Division, Hughes Communications India Ltd. (HCIL)

Connecting Police Stations in Jharkhand try. The project will link the State and National Crime Records Bureaus, creating a central records database that can be accessed in realtime from any Police Station across the country.

In Jharkhand we have to connect over 400 police stations and state police headquarters.

What kind of connectivity solutions will you be providing in Jharkhand?

HCIL will provision the network with the assistance of a service provider (engaged centrally by MHA/NCRB) that will provide multicast and

“We have partnered NIIT Technologies for the CCTNS project, which is of crucial importance to homeland security,” says Shivaji Chatterjee. In conversation with Sunil Kumar

H

CIL is participating in the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network System (CCTNS) project for connecting the police stations in State of Jharkhand. Tell us about the role that you will be playing in this project?

CCTNS, a mission-mode project, is a part of India’s National e-Governance Plan (NeGP).

It will span all states and union territories and electronically link over 14,000 police stations and 6,000 higher police offices across the coun-

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running on foreign satellite and foreign technology — it is IPSTA high satellite. It has four years left from expiry and it is a propriety technology. It is also not used anywhere else in India. So it cannot be treated as a backbone for CCTNS sites.

What are the other services that you are providing to the central and state governments?

We participate in many projects. With the need of governance and centralized applications, they need for connectivity. We always see ourselves as a managed service provider,

“We see ourselves as a managed service provider, mainly providing services like connectivity, networking and integration” unicast satellite IP connectivity to 400 locations across the state using high performance and robust Hughes broadband satellite terminals.

VSAT is the best for providing this kind of connectivity. We have partnered NIIT Technologies for the CCTNS project, which is of crucial importance to homeland security. We look forward to jointly leverage our expertise and best practices to deliver a solution that provides for the most effective and efficient policing.

mainly providing services like connectivity, networking and integration. There are many large system integrators in the country that can provide software applications but they need network partner. We have several large companies like TCS, Wipro, HP, Infosys, Dell and ECIL that are involved in several significant projects. We are working with them as network partner. We are already part of CCTNS projects being done in Meghalaya and Nagaland.

Tell us about the CCTNS projects that are coming to other states?

Tell us about the projects that you have implemented for the Indian defence forces?

See CCTNs is coming up everywhere. Different states have come out with different execution plans, so places where they rely on setting up their own network they will participate and look at leveraging because the MHA has the directive to use SWAN and BSNL. The BSNL-owned VSAT is

We have been involved in creation of the border surveillance system for the Indian army. We have also been involved in the project for creation of an Integrated Communication System for the Navy.

In Person

Surendra Singh

Regional Director (SAARC), Websense

Solutions for

Secure Business Environment TRITON provides integration, innovation and reduced costs. DLP endpoint protection functions off network and uses registered (fingerprinted) data for Windows and Mac OS systems. Portable decryption secures data from endpoints on USB devices and portable media.

•

•

•

Provide us with an overview of the main features of Websense ACE.

Surendra Singh, talks about the security related solutions that Websense has developed. In conversation with Nikita Apraj

W

hat are the ways by which the TRITON Solution, developed

by Websense, provides comprehensive security?

TRITON is an architecture that unifies three areas of security– web, email and data. As the threats become blended and complex, organisations require real-time intelligence for dealing with all kinds of malware that can take away their confidential information.

Websense TRITON security solutions offer point-of-click protection with inline, real-time defences from Websense ACE (Advanced Classification Engine). ACE unites seven security defence assessment areas into a composite scoring model using predictive analysis. These unmatched real-time defences are backed by the Websense ThreatSeeker Network — the world’s largest security intelligence network — and the expertise of Websense researchers. Websense

Websense ACE (Advanced Classification Engine) delivers real-time security ratings to all products built on the Websense TRITON architecture. ACE uses seven defence assessment areas, which provide checks and balances to minimise false positives and improve accurate classification. Our approach to security is different as compared to that of most other vendors. We don’t rely on single threat analytics; instead we use multiple threat analytics. Today cyber criminals tend to research the profile of the employees of any particular organisation that they wish to target. They send a targeted ‘spear-phishing’ email, prepared after a thorough study of the user and the company and written in a manner that is designed to make the user think it is from an authentic source.

The mail takes the victim to a compromised website where malware is downloaded onto their machine without their knowledge. This can then be the first step in the surveillance of classified information in the organisation and sending it to servers located at other locations.

What kind of work is being done

by Websense ThreatSeeker Network?

The Websense ThreatSeeker Network is the world’s largest information security intelligence network. It seeks out threats contained within web, social media and email content. It unites more than 900 million endpoints and, with the help of Websense ACE (Advanced Classification Engine), analyses the content of 3–5 billion requests per day. The ThreatSeeker Network collects content in various online forms: web pages,

•

•

•

•

Real-Time Security Classification- ACE includes social media controls, and inspects web content for suspicious code.

Real-Time Content Classification- ACE employs advanced machine learning to quickly and accurately classify pages based on content.

Real-Time Data Classification- ACE classifies data with paring and decoding support to address outbound data theft.

Anti-Malware Engines- ACE applies multiple anti-malware engines to identify general and specialised malware.

Reputation Analysis- ACE uses more than twenty characteristics for assessment and reputation scoring that encompasses contextual awareness.

URL Classification- ACE uses this to apply current classification information for known pages, or to help assess new pages and links.

Anti-Spam/Spear-Phishing- ACE provides matchless protection against traditional and emerging email threats.

documents, executables, streaming media, emails, mobile applications and other Internet traffic. It processes this massive amount of data to identify trends in online threats. In turn, this intelligence informs further types of content to collect. The ThreatSeeker Network assesses popular websites to see if they’ve been hijacked. It uses hot news and social media topics to identify additional websites to assess. ThreatSeeker monitors viral sites and content and tracks geographical hot spots.

How does Websense view the Indian market? Tell us about your investments in the country?

Websense has made significant investments in India. In 2011, we invested in a local data centre to support our Cloud business; in 2012 we started our technical support centre in Chennai to better support our Indian customers. All this is backed by fairly large clientele in India. Websense works closely with the enterprise segment, and has clients in all industry verticals, including the government, IT, telecom and BFSI. Some of the Websense customers include TCS, Wipro, Cognizant, Infosys, HCL, Bharti, Vodafone and Idea.

February 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

55

In Person

Rajeev Saxena

Director, PSU & Commercial, NetApp India Marketing & Services Pvt Ltd

Government Needs Intelligent Infrastructure ance. NetApp provides a range of storage products that come with storage efficiency features like deduplication, flexible data storage, simplified data management and much else. All these features make storage infrastructure energy efficient. The same infrastructure can store and process more data while consuming lesser amount of energy. We also provide robust data protection solutions.

Rajeev Saxena provides an overview of the solutions for government departments that NetApp has developed. In conversation with Nikita Apraj

G

overnment data has grown exponentially in last few years.

Managing such a large amount of data must be a challenge for all government departments. What are the ways by which NetApp can help the government in addressing this challenge of data deluge?

The drive of government departments to deliver public services as cost effectively as possible through the online route has led to an explosive growth in data. NetApp collaborates with leading public service solution providers to deliver the highest levels of performance while keeping in mind the diverse regulatory requirements. The solutions from the ensemble of NetApp can lead to the rapid simplification of government data management and compli-

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What are the ways by which NetApp solutions improve public service delivery and collaboration among government departments?

Citizen service delivery has a citizen-side as well as a government-side to it. A citizen needs convenience of service. And as the number of services grows, the demand for enhanced services will also increase. But the increase in demand should not result in deterioration of service quality. Government needs to address this through intelligent infrastructure and data management. The infrastructure should be able to scale beyond limit without affecting the quality of the service. Second part to this is collaboration. If underlying architecture is unified, it can store all type of data whether it is file, email or databases. It facilitates various kinds of applications helping government departments to collaborate and become more efficient.

Please tell us about the NetApp unified storage architecture.

Unified storage architecture is generally related to multi-protocol. But in a real-time scenario it works differently. It creates a single end-to-end foundation for data management and protection, and enables the creation of a common storage pool that can be networked and shared across diverse set of applications with common set of management protocol. A non-unified architecture requires the deployment of a system to convert diverse applications, which creates silos of infrastructure. This increases

overall cost because of complex management, low storage utilisation and direct data centre costs incurred for power, space, and cooling.

Backup and data recovery (DR) processes are also complicated. Implementing a consistent DR strategy is difficult or impossible, and the need to tailor each DR solution for each storage silo leads to cost escalation. NetApp offers a single storage architecture across storage systems that range from workgroup or departmental solutions to full enterprise systems. That helps you choose the storage systems that are right for you along with an ability to scale.

Please tell us about notable projects NetApp has done in public sector.

We are engaged and working with partners around the globe to deliver high performance.

I would like to refer to a project being done by CERN. CERN has built a Large Hadron Collider (LHC) for discovering the most elusive particle in the universe. Scientists working on the project recently discovered the particle using an agile data infrastructure provided

by NetApp. The infrastructure developed by NetApp provides CERN with the ability to deliver impact faster through more effective search and data management. These solutions results in non-disruptive operations and are immensely beneficial to the particle research that is being done.

The public sector companies in the country are growing at a high pace. Tell us about the plans that NetApp has for public sector enterprises in the country.

We do have a range of dedicated resources that are engaging in various central and state government departments. Apart from this we are also participating in various public sector initiatives through our ecosystem partners. We are totally focused on providing the best of breed solutions for this vertical.

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Digital Economy Policies

An Initiative of Centre for Digital Economy Policy

Taxation Policies Affecting the Growth

of Domestic Indian IT Industry Dr Jaijit Bhattacharya, President, Centre for Digital Economy Policy Research; Director, South Asia, Hewlett Packard Arijit Sen, Chair of the Public Procurement Cell, Centre for Digital Economy Policy Research Parminder Singh, Expert on Taxation Policy, Centre for Digital Economy Policy Research

T

he Indian tax system is crippling manufacturing of Information Technology products in the country through an inverted Duty structure. The present rates of SAD in IT components increases the cost of a finished computer or laptop that is manufactured in India as compared to a direct import due to an inverted duty structure. Most components of computers attract a CVD of 10.3% and a SAD of 4% leading to an effective duty of 14.73% as against 10.3% CVD for finished goods. Some components attract 5% CVD and nil SAD. The total input duty on components is higher than the output duty on the finished product or duty on imported Finished Goods. The higher duty directly leads to a higher cost for manufacturers in excise exempt zones as such manufacturers cannot claim offset of input tax against output tax.

For manufacturers in DTA areas, there is overflow of input credit due to higher input tax versus output tax which again adds to the cost.

The inverted duty handicap for IT manufacturing Industry demoralizes component manufacturers looking at manufacturing in India negating incentives and schemes like the M-SIPS and National Manufacturing Policy formulated by the Indian government for IT manufactures.

Impact of CVDs on imported finished IT products on Domestic IT manufacturing Current rate of CVD on imported finished IT products is 10.3% which is equal to the excise duty levied on manufactured IT products in India. If a like product is not manufactured or produced in India, the excise duty that would be leviable on that product, had it been manufactured or produced in India, is the duty payable. If the product is leviable at different rates, the highest rate among those rates is the rate applicable. Such duty is leviable on the value of goods plus basic custom duty payable. If

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CVD on imported finished IT products is equal to excise duty levied on a like product manufactured or produced in India, it brings the cost of imported PCs on par with locally manufactured ones.

Impact of CVD on imported components on Domestic IT manufacturing Domestic manufacturing is impacted by the CVD on imported components. Even if PC manufacturers absorb the cost, a negative impact on pricing will exist between the imported and locally manufactured product.

The current rate of CVD on most components of computers is 10.3%, whereas the current rate of CVD on some imported components of computers is 5.0%.

Factoring in the Special Additional Duty (SAD) Special Additional Duty of Customs is imposed at the rate of 4% in order to provide a level playing field to indigenous goods which have to bear sales tax. The current rate of SAD to specified parts of PCs viz., Microprocessor for computer, other than motherboards, Floppy disc drive, Hard disc drive, CD-ROM drive, DVD Drive/DVD Writers, Flash memory and Combo drive is 0.0%, while the current rate of SAD on most components of computers like motherboards, cabinets, memory modules, graphic cards is 4.0%

Burden Imposed on Manufacturers by the Present Duty Structure in India The present rates of CVD and SAD increase the cost of a finished computer or laptop that is manufactured in India as compared to a direct import due to an inverted duty structure. Most components of computers attract a CVD of 10.3% and a SAD of 4% leading to an effective duty of 14.73% as against 10.3% for finished goods. Some components attract 5% CVD and nil SAD. The total input duty on components is higher than the output duty on the finished product or duty on imported Finished Goods. The higher

duty directly leads to a higher cost for manufacturers in excise exempt zones as such manufacturers cannot claim offset of input tax against output tax.

For manufacturers in DTA areas, there is an overflow of input credit due to higher input tax versus output tax which again adds to the cost.

Proposed Fiscal Policy Changes to Achieve the Manufacturing Goal of the Government of India From a taxation perspective, a clearly defined policy will allow existing mother plants to be able to operate at their full capacities with support from Government in terms of being deemed as Brownfield Clusters and given MSIP benefits that the government has outlined. Once the mother plants are operating at full capacity, the Government needs to engage with component suppliers so that a sustainable component eco-system is created in the country.

Specific tax policy changes that would promote domestic manufacturing in India • Exemption from CVD on 7 components of Computer - microprocessors for computers other than motherboards, floppy disc driver, hard disc drive, CD ROM drive, DVD drive / DVD writers, flash memory and combo drives meant for fitment inside the CPU or laptop, etc which is an additional cost to manufacturers of IT goods in Uttarakhand.

• Removal of SAD on other components that attract CVD of 10.3% and SAD of 4%, as duty on components is than duty on finished goods for manufacturing units based in Uttarakhand.

• No additional tax burdens on any of the components of IT manufacturing in order to prevent Duty Inversion in DTA zones.

the author is President, Centre for Digital Economy Policy Research; Director, South Asia, Hewlett Packard

davp 22111/13/0101/1213

Smt. Sonia Gandhi Chairperson, UPA

Over 1 crore pregnant women benefitted

Janani - Shishu Suraksha Karyakram

Prime Minister

Dr. Manmohan Singh

2.5 crore children vaccinated

ú Universal Immunisation

28,000 primary schools and 6000 upper primary schools opened

Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan

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Over 10.54 crore children being provided hot cooked meals in schools

Mid Day Meal Scheme

Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Government of India

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Scholarships to about 63 lakh minority students and 48 lakh SC students in 2011-12

Scholarship Schemes

Over 46,000 habitations connected through all-weather roads

Better Connectivity

Realising Dreams Building Futures

in person

Bhupesh Chauhan

Head – Government Business, EMC India & SAARC

New Technologies for e-Governance

P

rovide us with an overview of the role that EMC is playing in India?

Since opening its India operations in 2000, EMC in India has evolved to be a critical contributor to EMC’s long-term strategy by driving global innovation and revenue growth for this region. EMC’s operations in India are also multi-dimensional – which is common to very few markets around the world. We have been evangelizing our technology solutions for information storage and information infrastructure for more than 10 years now; and are market leaders for network storage since the last seven years. Last year has been one of many milestones in India – we clocked our 1500th enterprise customer, our 100th city where we have support services, and completed 10 years in India. Today, we address over 2500 customers. As it is one of the fastest growing economies and a country with immense human capital, India has been high on EMC’s radar for several years now. Despite being perhaps among the last major global IT companies to enter India (when we did so in 2000), we have been very dynamic and focused on growing our India operations.

What kind of response are your cloud based solutions seeing from the government departments in India? Please provide us some details on the government departments where your solutions have already been implemented.

“EMC has played a vital role in a number of flagship projects of the Government of India, including the UIDAI (Aadhaar) initiative, Passport and Census,” says Bhupesh Chauhan

60 egov / egov.eletsonline.com / February 2013

According to the EMC-Zinnov study, apart from IT/ITES, other verticals are spending less than 4 percent of the total IT spend on Cloud

in In person Person

computing with Government being one of the lowest with a mere 1 percent spent on the Cloud. However the scenario is under a rapid transformation and we see this as an opportunity since the Government is riding high on citizen services as part of the national e-governance program. Government is a very big vertical for EMC with the segment contributing over 20 percent of the overall revenues as compared to less than 10 percent a couple of years ago. EMC has played a vital role in a number of flagship projects of the Government of India including the UIDAI (Aadhaar) initiative, Passport and Census among others. Some key considerations for government would include evaluating the existing IT portfolio against tomorrow’s organisational requirements, map service level requirements and arrive at the kind of future infrastructure that’s required; evaluate the future IT requirement against budget outlay and Cloud vendor services and maturity levels available in the market to determine which IT services need to be move to the

RSA, The Security Division of EMC, is the premier provider of security, risk, and compliance solutions, helping the government sector and leading organizations succeed by solving their most complex and sensitive security challenges.

RSA NetWitness views these issues as interrelated and can help your organization address them with a single enterprise security platform.

Is Big Data a buzz word or is it really necessary for government departments and private organizations to find ways of managing it more efficiently?

The Big Data era has arrived in full force, bringing with it an unprecedented opportunity to transform governance and the way we work and live. Through the convergence of massive scale-out storage, next-generation analytics and visualisation capability, the technology is in place. What’s needed to fully realise its value is a vibrant, interconnected, highly-skilled and empowered data science community to

“Big Data era has arrived in full force, bringing with it an unprecedented opportunity to transform governance and the way we work and live” cloud and which need to remain physical; and finally, identify an end-to-end vendor solution provider to bring together different pieces from the larger ecosystem.

Security related concerns are always associated with data that is being handled by the government. These days there is some insecurity about the safety of the data that is being stored in the cloud. What kind security systems does EMC have to provide an extra layer of security to its clients?

As the businesses are focusing on transforming their digital strategies and the way IT will support them, the security risk landscape is also enhancing. Stance on security must change from preventing breaches to assuming you will be breached and to protecting your most critical assets. Government organisations must have a zero-tolerance approach to data leakage, insider threats, and zero-day and targeted malware.

reveal relevant trend patterns and uncover new insights hidden within. As per the latest EMC-IDC Digital Universe study, proliferation of devices such as PCs and smartphones worldwide, increased Internet access within emerging markets and the boost in data from machines such as surveillance cameras or smart meters has contributed to the doubling of the digital universe within the past two years alone, to a mammoth 2.8 ZB. The study further reveals that the digital universe will reach 40 ZB by 2020. India is one of the leading contributors to this digital information explosion.

Can Big Data be used to bring more effectiveness in delivering citizen services through e-Governance?

India, which has already set the stage with the ambitious Aadhaar project, the world’s largest biometric identity platform, has a classic opportunity to leverage Big Data to make radical improvements in citizen services. And, that is what makes Big Data an exciting space

to watch in the future. It is important to view the promise of a Big Data as a revolution for a better future. The attitude of Governments and businesses towards data will differentiate the progressive from the rest and define the impact they will have on their constituents.

To India, Big Data presents the roadmap for it to achieve its vision of becoming a knowledge superpower.

Tell us about EMC solutions for Data Centre automation.

EMC is helping transform the data centres. The first step to transform the data centre is virtualisation. More importantly, to exploit all the benefits of virtualisation, CIOs need complete infrastructure visibility and streamlined management, along with new levels of productivity and efficiency. This is where EMC storage, EMC de-duplication backup software and system offer the ideal solution to virtualized infrastructure challenges. Automation of various feature within storage like fully automated storage Tiering helps deliver sustained performance under unpredictable load scenarios at optimized cost levels.

In what ways is the cloud technology evolving over a period of time? What kind of developments can be seen in 2013?

Today, Cloud is revolutionizing the IT process by making it possible to run IT As-a-Service to drive maximum efficiency. By deploying a pool of elastic resources, IT is dramatically reducing hardware costs and making it simple to provision and help rapid application deployment to unleash the benefit of application to target audience. As users bring new devices to the workplace, they expect to operate them using both personal and enterprise resources. IT must provide a new end user computing model so they can maintain control over information and access, while allowing users to choose their own devices. EMC thinks of this as the new layering of IT which requires end-to-end security and management across layers. As IT transforms its operations to run ITAs-A-Service, its role will also transform – from an exclusive provider of IT services to a broker of IT services – some of which IT creates and delivers itself, some of which are delivered by service providers. This new role for IT combined with new cloud technology will drive maximum business efficiency.

February 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

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In Person

Gaurav Dwivedi

Director, Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY), Ministry of Communication and IT, Government of India

Bringing

better governance to Every district Districts are the de facto front-end of government where most Government-toConsumer, or G2C, interactions take place.

The e-District project was conceptualised to improve this experience and enhance the

M

any new e-Governance initiatives have been launched during the last few years. What are the special services that can be made available under the e-District programme? Please provide us with an overview of e-District.

e-District is a Mission Mode Project (MMP) under NeGP, with the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY) as the Nodal Department. The project is to be implemented by state governments or their designated agencies. This MMP aims at electronic delivery of identified high volume citizen centric services, at district and sub-district level. Basically the project is an attempt to bring together various sections of the e-Governance infrastructure that has been created in the country over the last few years by the Government of India and the governments in the states and Union Territories. The MMP envisages leveraging and utilising the four pillars of infrastructure namely, State Data Centres (SDCs), State Wide Area Networks (SWANs), SSDGs and CSCs, optimally to deliver public services electronically to citizens at their doorsteps. In terms of software and middleware, we have the National Service Delivery Gateway, the State Service Delivery Gateway, the Mobile Service Delivery Gateway and much else. Some components of this infrastructure are already completed, while others are in advanced stages of completion. We also have a very extensive network of over 98,000 Common Service Centres that have been established in the rural parts of the country.

efficiencies of the various Departments at the districtlevel to enable seamless service delivery to the citizen

What is your view of the way by which citizens are being provided various services through e-District?

Providing of services to the citizens is a process; it cannot be a single act. It can be that a citizen approaches a government office to avail of a certain service and it can also be that some citizens are entitled to a certain kind of service. In either case, the first step is the identification of the person who is going to avail of the benefits. Every government department has its own set of guidelines to ensure that proper procedures are followed in such cases. The citizen is also informed about the service or benefit in cash or something else that has been delivered to him. It is a fairly elaborate process; just having a front end where you can avail of a certain kind of service is not enough. You have to integrate the front end with the entire backend and thereby ensure that the entire workflow of any government department has been followed accurately. The e-District project accomplishes a seamless integration between the interface through which the citizens are availing of the service, and the government department from which the service is being delivered.

The processes through which various government departments do their work is fairly complicated. Is it possible that there can be a simplification of the processes once e-District is fully implemented?

We also understand that the processes in government work are rather complicated. e-Governance initiatives are not confined to simply converting what exists today into a computerised form, it is also about simplifying these services. Instead of asking the citizens to fill forms any number of times, the government departments can simply pull the information out of the database. For instance, when someone

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In Person

Gaurav Dwivedi

is applying for a driving licence, the person has to submit the proof of age. Now if the government machinery is able to automatically match the citizen’s date of birth through an existing database, then the citizen only needs to give name and identification. The person does not have to provide other details. The citizen does not need to make copies and attestation of certain documents. This simplifies the job for a citizen; it also simplifies the job for the officer whose job is to provide the service to the citizen.

What kind of progress is being made under the e-District project? Is the project on track?

It was in the year 2011 that the e-District project was conceptualised and approved, with the intention of creating an enabling environment and a platform for design, development and maintenance of applications relating to various departments and for providing of services to the citizens, at the district and sub-district levels.

During the implementation of the pilot phase of the project in 41 districts across the country, good number of learnings have taken place. Moreover, significant improvements have also taken place in technology, creating a great potential to improve the original architecture and implementation model of e-District. We have also come up with fairly extensive guidelines about how the various components of the infrastructure should get integrated for the achievement of the best possible results. And we are happy to note that at least two or three states would be able to provide a substantial number of services by the end of this financial year, which is March 2013. The project is doing very well in states like Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Madhya Pradesh. Uttar Pradesh is also doing well.

These are states with very heavy population density. The other states also have their plans in place.

According to government of India guidelines we are supposed to have all the states providing e-District services to their citizens by April 2015.

We are on track to achieve that goal.

Tell us about the kind of services that will become available under the e-District project?

There are actually 10 categories of services that all states are expected to provide under e-District project. Out of these five categories of services are compulsory and five are optional. Optional, in the sense that, the states can choose kind of services they would like to have. Within each category there are, on February 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

63

In Person

the lower side four to five services, and on the higher side, 10 to 15 services, that the states can provide. Certificates, for instance, is a category, but within the category you have birth certificates, death certificates, domicile certificates, etc. So when we come to the number of services, each of the states have around 50 services to offer. So there are 10 categories and 50 services in each state.

A project like e-District, which is being launched at a pan India level, must have its own set of challenges. Please tell us about the challenges that you have experienced.

As far as the challenges are concerned, the biggest challenge is that of process re-engineering.

Creation of an IT infrastructure, in its entirety, is only an engineering job, which is relatively simple thing to do. The more difficult thing is to look at the government processes and to identify areas where exists an element of delay exites, where the challenges occur, either for the citizens, who are trying to avail of certain service, or for the government officials, who are engaged in processing that service request.

This is something that needs lot of thought and

NeGP was approved by the Government in May 2006, with the following vision: “Make all Government Services accessible to the common man in his locality, through common service delivery outlets and ensure efficiency, transparency and reliability of such services at affordable costs to realize the basic needs of the common man”. it also needs lot of coordination between the various arms of the government. For instance, while the Department of IT is the nodal department for the implementation of IT initiatives in any state, the actual services belong to other service-providing departments. In order to achieve the best results, we need to have a good degree of coordination between the IT department and those departments. Process reengineering is the biggest challenge for the e-District project but it is also a great opportunity, as it can pave way for great achievement in e-Governance.

The CSCs are going to be the front end of e-District. What are the other ways by which citizens can access e-District services?

The CSCs are one of the front ends. There

The objectives of the e-District Mission Mode Project • Undertaking backend computerization of

portals by using the State Service Delivery

district and tehsil level offices to ensure electronic

Gateways.

delivery of high volume citizen centric services at

• Providing easy, anywhere and anytime access

the district level.

to government services (both informational and

• Efficient delivery of services with improved

transactional) to ensure reliability, efficiency,

Service Levels by undertaking extensive Business

transparency and accountability.

Process Re Engineering of identified services.

• Reducing number of visits of citizens to a

• Extensive Capacity Building and training of field

Government office / department for availing the

level functionaries to ensure smooth migration

services and thereby eliminating harassment.

to electronic delivery of e district services and

• Reducing administrative burden and service

phasing out manual delivery of services.

fulfilment time and costs for the government,

• Delivery of services through Common Services

citizens and businesses

Centers (CSCs) by leveraging the common

• Reducing direct interaction of citizen with the

infrastructure of SWAN, SDC, and SSDG.

government and encourage ‘e’-interaction and

• Development of applications to be hosted at the

efficient communication through portal

State Data Centres for delivery of services.

enhancing perception and image of the

• Delivery of all public services at district/ sub

government and its constituent departments.

district level in electronic form through state

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is now a growing trend of people accessing government services through their computers and Internet. People are also accessing government services through Internet enabled mobile phones. But this too is restricted to the urban areas. What we are trying to ensure is that our services should be available to the citizens in all possible platforms. Whenever a citizen wants to access a particular service from the government, the person should be allowed that convenience, but it is also true that currently the broadband penetration in rural parts of the country is fairly limited. As far as rural citizens are concerned, we have come up with the CSCs, which are Internet enabled and are mostly located in rural and semi-urban areas.

Today many of the crucial services like PDS, Healthcare and others have become MMPs on their own. So do you think that in effect the e-District programme is laying a wider ground work for many different departments to develop their systems and then turn into MMPs on their own?? e-District basically exists for two reasons. The first reason is that we want to bring together the various elements of the infrastructure that has already been created. The second reason is that e-District is designed to fill in the gap where the citizen is lacking any kind of service delivery. The e-District project is expected to discover the gaps and find ways of filling them. So if a particular department’s services are included in e-District, then it does not mean that the department cannot further develop services on their own. They can very well develop their own set of e-Governance programme, and once their programmes are sufficiently developed, then the e-District aspect of their programmes can be migrated to their own department. e-District is basically meant to fill all the gaps. You can say that e-District is laying the ground work for the different departments to develop their own e-Governance systems.

in person

Dr Ashwini Kumar Sharma

Managing Director, National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology (NIELIT)

Capacity Building for better e-Governance

leading to good Governance

N

IELIT has been playing a key role in improving the reach and scope of IT related education in the country. What is your vision for the organisation?

There is going to be a vast increase in the scope of work that NIELIT has been doing. NIELIT has been set up to carry out Human Resource Development and related activities in the area of Information, Electronics & Communication Technology (IECT). The organisation has its headquarters in New Delhi. It has branches in 23 cities across India - Agartala, Aizawl, Aurangabad, Ajmer, Calicut, Chennai, Chandigarh, Shimla, Gorakhpur, Lucknow, Patna, Gangtok, Itanagar, Imphal, Srinagar/Jammu, Shillong, Kohima/ Chuchuyimlang, Kolkata and Tezpur/Guwahati. The organisation is engaged both in the formal and non formal education in the area of IECT. It also concentrates on developing industry oriented quality education and training. It is establishing standards for becoming the country’s premier institution for examination and certification in the field of IECT. Today NIELIT is a National Examination Body, which accredits institutes/organisations for conducting courses particularly in the nonformal sector of IT Education & Training. Our vision for the organisation is to make NIELIT an institute of national importance in the field of IT, electronics, e-Governance and education. NIELIT can become of a stature that is similar to the IIT or IIM, with the permission and the blessings of the Hon’ble Parliament.

At times students face problems as they are unable to access course content in their own language. What steps is NIELIT taking to help such students?

NIELIT has developed CCC e-content in all the constitutionally recognised Indian languages except in Santhali. The e-contents of CCC has also been developed in Mizo and Kokborok. The e-contents have been made available on a dedicated e-learning portal “http://elearn.doeacc.edu.in” for free access by students.

We are in the process of developing e-content for other courses and we are also planning to conduct online examinations.

“Capacity building in the area of e-Governance is of great importance to the nation, and we are keen to contribute our mite in it,” says Dr Ashwini Kumar Sharma

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NIELIT is now undertaking projects concerned with capacity building in the field of e-Governance. Tell us about it.

As you might know, NIELIT will be undertaking projects to conduct e-Governance training for various cadres of Central and State Government officials with funding support of Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances. NIELIT

In inperson Person

has conducted one workshop for the Cabinet of Bihar. It is also conducting e-Gov Capacity Building for senior officers in Delhi Government.

Capacity building in the area of e-Governance is of great importance to the nation, and we are keen to contribute our mite in it. To take this up, our team of senior directors was in NISG (National Institute for Smart Governance), Hyderabad, for five days training in e-Governance project lifecycle. NIELIT centres in different parts of the country have been undertaking Capacity Building for improving the IT literacy and employability of ST & SC candidates.

Tell us about the work that you have been doing for NPR. NIELIT is the Nodal Implementing Agency on DeitY (Department of Electroncs and Information Technology) for the data digitisation for the creation of National Population Register (NPR) project of Registrar General of India (RGI).

Data digitisation work for UT Chandigarh has been completed on pilot basis in March 2012. In Phase I, the data digitisation work of 25 urban zones have been completed and data digitisation in respect of 19 rural zones are expected to be completed shortly. In Phase II, for 48 rural zones, the contract has been awarded to successful bidders and work is in progress and is expected to be completed by March, 2013.

You have been associated with IT Industry for almost 28 years.

Before taking over as MD, NIELET, you had been serving as Managing Director, RajCOMP, and Director Technical RajCOMP Info Services Ltd. In that capacity you had been instrumental in executing many IT and e-Governance Projects for the Government of Rajasthan. Tell us about the main issues that you have faced in bringing the benefits of IT to the masses.

Every IT project comes with its own set of unique challenges. And when the project is from the field of e-Governance, then the challenges become more complicated, as in such cases we also have to look at governance issues, along with IT. When a project is being implemented, multiple issues related to Vendor Management, Technical Management, Finance Management, HR Management, Legal Management and over and above the Expectation Management come to the fore. It is possible that the expectation of the end-users,

the citizens, could be totally different from the expectations of the policy makers. It is a difficult task to bridge the gap between the two sets of expectations. Also there can be mismatch in terms of time, cost and even the vision of any project due to changes in government or administrative setup.

While conceiving any e-Governance project, we tend to think that automation will automatically result in e-Governance becoming a reality. We tend to forget that the IT component in any e-Governance project is only 10 to 15 percent. The major component is management and implementation of the decision and policy of the government, and that is a much tougher task. At times, the financial considerations make it impossible for us to go for the best possible technology in e-Governance projects, so this too is a challenge. We are unable to hire the most talented experts as they require a higher salary, the government norms restrict the salary that can be paid to the experts. Moreover, when we are implementing e-Governance proj-

In your opinion what is the importance of field experience in the success of e-Governance projects? Should the government departments focus on having at least a few people who have the experience of working in the field? e-Gov Projects face major challenges in terms of shortage of experts having knowledge of technology with the IT companies. It also faces challenge in terms of commitment from the top and ownership of the project. It has been observed that those who have driven motorcycle in the field are different from those who know how to drive motorcycle on the blackboard. I am pointing out to the fact that issues being faced in the field are different from those discussed at policy making forums. At planning stage a project might seem very a project is very simple but when it is being implemented in the field, multiple issues related to Vendor Management, Technical Management,

“e-Governance projects will not be able to deliver at the ground level unless there is capacity building in a big way” ects, we think of pilots only and pilot hardly get rolled out because of multiple reasons.

During the last few years Rajasthan has achieved lot of success in e-Governance implementations. In your opinion what is the most critical factor for the successful execution of e-Governance Projects?

The capability of government departments to work as a cohesive team is important. A good team leader and support from the seniors are the key factors for success of e-Governance project. In Rajasthan, I achieved a degree of success in execution of NeGP Projects, after joining as the Managing Director of Rajcomp in June 2009. The projects that I was involved with are the CSC, State Data Centre (SDC), State Wide Area Network (SWAN), e-District, State Service Delivery Gateway (SSDG), etc. I have also contributed in the successful launch of the RPSC online. This all had been possible because of kind support that I have received from the Secretary (IT), Shri Sanjay Malhotra, Principal Secretary (IT), Shri Shrimant Pandey. I was also guided by the vision of the leader, Hon’ble Chief Minister, Shri Ashok Gehlot.

Finance Management, HR Management, Legal Management and over and above the Expectation Management starts. So field experience is of utmost importance.

You have taken over as the Managing Director of NIELET, a Government of India organisation, engaged in capacity building. What are the main challenges that you are facing in the new assignment?

The new challenge is a part and parcel of the assignments I have been executing because unless and until capacity building in the field of IT and e-Governance is undertaken for government employees and citizens, we will not be able to bring the real fruits of IT to our citizens. e-Governance projects will not be able to deliver at the ground level unless there is capacity building in a big way. In my humble opinion, my new assignment is nothing more than a continuation of the activities that I have been part of during my earlier years of service. It provides me with opportunities for using my past experiences of working with actual projects to design new course content and better ways of delivery through IT tools.

February 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

67

In Person

Dr Govind

Senior Director, Department of Electronics & Information Technology (DeitY), Ministry of Communications & IT, and CEO, National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI

NIXI - India’s

First and Only Neutral

Internet Exchange

A not-for-profit organisation under Section 25 of the Companies Act 1956, NIXI was registered on 19th June, 2003.

NIXI was set up for peering of ISPs among themselves for the purpose of routing the domestic traffic within the country, instead of taking it all the way to US/Abroad, thereby resulting in better quality of service (reduced latency) and reduced bandwidth charges for ISPs by saving on International Bandwidth. NIXI is managed and operated on a neutral basis, in line with the best practices for such initiatives globally

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P

Salient features of the policy cover lease provide us with an overview of the work that NIXI is doing in India.

National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI) has currently three operations: • The NIXI is the neutral meeting point of the ISPs in India.

Its main purpose is to facilitate exchange of domestic Internet traffic between the peering ISP members. This enables more efficient use of international bandwidth, saving foreign exchange. It also improves the quality of services for the customers of member ISPs, by avoiding multiple international hops and thus reducing latency.

• Government of India has authorised NIXI to operate and manage .IN Registry, since January 2005. Now .IN domain names are available to anyone on first-comefirst-served basis. For more details, please visit www. registry.in • Indian Registry for Internet Names and Numbers (IRINN), a division of NIXI, provides allocation and registration services of IP addresses and AS numbers, and contributes to the community by providing Internet-related information as a non-profit, affiliation-based organisation. For more details, please visit www.irinn.in.

Tell us about and the tariff policy that NIXI is following.

The Domestic Internet Scenario in India is unique with several large and small ISPs spread across a large geographical area. The policy followed by NIXI is basically focussed on addressing the concerns of the large as well as the small ISPs, while at the same time keeping the larger national interests in mind. The idea is to promote domestic hosting of content as well as saving foreign exchange by keeping domestic traffic within India.

egov / egov.eletsonline.com / February 2013

• The policy to be fair to large and small ISPs. The infrastructure invested by the large ISPs should be adequately compensated.

• The policy to provide benefit to the small ISPs who play an important role in the penetration of Internet throughout the country. Small ISPs should derive significant benefit by connecting to the NIXI. • The policy to encourage domestic content hosting in India: This is the only way Indian ISPs can insist on Peering with their western counterparts rather than paying hefty transit charges to them. This will result in the overall lowering of cost of bandwidth in the country.

Basic Routing Policy

• An ISP at any NIXI node must at a minimum announce all its regional routes to the NIXI router at that NIXI location. All ISPs connecting to that NIXI node are entitled to receive these routes using a single BGP session with the NIXI router. This will guarantee the exchange of regional traffic within a NIXI node. This is referred to as forced regional multi-lateral peering under the policy.

• In the event, one NIXI member is already providing transit to another NIXI member, the exchange of regional routes mentioned in above, may also happen using a separate private connection between the ISPs. • ISPs should announce only those routes that belong to their AS, i.e., their own network, and their customer routes at the NIXI. An ISP in any region can aggregate traffic from other ISPs in the region and connect to the NIXI through a single connection.

• The NIXI router will only exchange information but not carry any transit traffic.

• All NIXI members must ensure that they suitably and proactively upgrade capacity from time-to-time so that they do not end up dropping traffic that other peers are exchanging with them. An ISP must Upgrade its port capacity or take additional port if 95th percentile of its OUT or IN traffic in a month crosses 70% of its port capacity, for 3 months.

For more details, please visit http://www.nixi.in/en/ outing-and-tarrif-policy

In Person

What is an Autonomous System?

When should it be created?

An Autonomous System (AS) is a group of IP networks operated by one or more network operator/s which has a single and clearly defined external routing policy. Exterior routing protocols are used to exchange routing information between Autonomous Systems. An AS needs to be created if a network connects to more than one AS with different routing policies. Some common examples of Autonomous Systems are networks connected to two or more upstream service providers or exchange points, and networks peering locally at exchange points.

What is the procedure by which any ISP can join NIXI? What is the procedure for ISPs that fail to join NIXI? What are you doing to ensure universal coverage of ISPs by NIXI?

Dr Govind provides a comprehensive outlook on the initiatives that NIXI is taking to ensure that domestic Internet traffic remains in the country and there is proliferation of .IN domain names

The procedure by which an ISP can join NIXI is fairly simple. An ISP licensed by the Department of Telecommunications, Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Government of India, can become a NIXI peer. The member ISP must have its own AS number and use BGP4+ for peering. The membership fee is of Rs. 1000 plus applicable taxes per annum on an all India basis. To connect to NIXI, ISP have to become Ordinary member of NIXI by sending the following filled and duly signed forms and two copy of connection agreement with stamps on each page of the agreement: • Application Form for Ordinary Membership • NIXI Connection Agreement • NIXI Connection Form

Government of India has authorised NIXI as the .IN registry. What steps is NIXI taking to ensure the safety of .IN registry? Will some other domains also come under NIXI? • IN domain is one of the world’s most protected top level domains (TLD). Access to .IN domains is performed via a highly redundant, global, Anycast DNS network, which protects against massive distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks.

• IN registry is secured behind a 5 layer security ring with all critical components fully redundant hardware software and service February 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

69

In Person

•

•

•

•

•

provision including a completely functional and tested disaster recovery facility The .IN registry is also one of the few TLDs in the world to have deployed the domain name system security extensions (DNSSEC) technology which guarantees protection to users who click on a web site. DNSSEC ensure that they cannot be hijacked maliciously.

This is in fact the first TLD in South Asia to deploy such a high level of cryptographic technology for security at the domain level.

IN registry is also constantly monitored for threats and active measures are taken to mitigate abuse in coordination with CERT IN. In addition to this, there are additional scans and audits performed to ensure there are no known vulnerabilities Also, NIXI is expecting to administer the Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) in the near future. IDNs are the domain names in the native language.

Please provide us with some brief on .IN Registry?

The IN Registry was set up under National Internet exchange of India during January, 2005. NIXI is a Not-for-Profit Company under Section 25 of the Indian Companies Act, 1956, with the objective of facilitating improved Internet services in the country. Under NIXI, the IN Registry functions as an autonomous body with primary responsibility for maintaining the .IN ccTLD and ensuring its operational stability, reliability, and security. It will implement the various elements of the new policy set out by the Government of India and its Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Department of Information Technology.

What is the current status of the .IN Registry?

Registration of .IN domain stands at 1.67 million as on January, 2013. Presently, 92 Registrars have been accredited to offer .IN domain name registration worldwide to customers. It has helped

Vision of NIXI • To increase the quantum of traffic exchange from the present 17 Gbps to 100 Gbps.

• Connect all operational ISPs, data centres and content providers to the NIXI Nodes.

• Promote all ISPs, Network operations and other organisations to become Affiliate of IRINN. • Setting up Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) in country code top level domains (ccTLDs) operation in India.

• Reaching 5 million .IN domain registration by 2014

in proliferation of web hosting and promotion of Internet usage in the country. Two Data centres have been established in Delhi and Chennai, one acting as the primary and the other as a secondary with a maximum down time of 5 minutes. Also, IN Registry is planning to offer the Internationalised Domain Name (IDNs) in the near future. IDNs are the domain names in the native languages.

What is National Internet Registry?

The National Internet Registry is known as Indian Registry for Internet names and Numbers (IRINN). Indian Registry for Internet Names and Numbers (IRINN) provides allocation and registration services of IP addresses and AS numbers, and contributes to the society by providing Internet-related information as a non-profit, affiliation-based organization, and performing research, education and enlightenment activities.

What is the need of an NIR? To facilitate the allocation of IP resources to large number of small and medium companies within the country. Also the services to be charged in local currency to avoid exchange losses. It will also facilitates local training and development and would be providing local language support to the entities in India.

Tell us about and IRINN policy

IRINN Fee structure a) Resource Application fee (`25000 one Time) b) Annual Affiliation fee (Greater amount of two values , bassed on the below formula and Resources hold)

• FeeV4 = 25000x1.35 (log2 (Addresses)-8)

• Feev6 = 21999x1.35 (log2 (Addresses)-22) c) Reactivation fee (`1,00,000 ).

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egov / egov.eletsonline.com / February 2013

for its Affiliates?

IRINN policy is in line with Global and APNIC policies. It has the feature of Transparency and bottom up process for any policy changes.

IRINN Affiliates have freedom to choose the Registry(IRINN or APNIC). As we are in line with APNIC policy, maximum delegation size for IPv4 is restricted to /22 and minimum delegation size for IPv6 address is /32 for LIRs & /48 for Corporate affiliate. The main feature of the policy is to operate in a way that is consistent with regional and global resource management policies.

What is MyIRINN Portal? What are its key features?

IRINN affiliate has MyIRINN Portal, to manage their Internet resources with different tools as in MyAPNIC. Affiliate can manage following by login to MyIRINN Portal: • Modifying affiliate details • Billing Details • Public Details • Changing Login Password • Add/Manage/Delete affiliate contacts • Whois/rDNS management • Resource Request • View/Manage resources • Transfer resources • De-Allocate resource • Raise Request • Online Payment • Request History • Payment History • Second Opinion Request • Affiliate feedback

What is the present status of IRINN? IRINN is operational from December, 2012.

Till the date 44 affiliates have been registered under IRINN.

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