December 2017 spoindia

www.spoindia.org Vol. III | Issue 02 | December 2017 | Rs. 50

Honda strives to be a company which society wants to exist 36PG

Reliance Foundation Information Services – disseminating information for livelihood improvement

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FACE TO FACE | 32

‘The Public library movement will transform the reading habits in people’

Editor-in-Chief: Deepak Kumar Sahu Executive Editor: Dr. Vijay Anand Assistant Editor: Samrita Baruah Correspondent: Megha Copy Editor: C. M. Dutta Art Director: Rakesh Kumar Network Administrator: Ashok Kumar Singh Manager-IT: Subhash Mohanta Manager-SEO: Bidyadhar Behera

Smt. Meenakshi Lekhi, Indian

BUSINESS:

Member of Parliament in the Lok

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

Sabha

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FACE TO FACE

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Mumbai: Bureau office

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‘The Public library movement will transform the reading habits in people’ Honda strives to be a company which society wants to exist

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

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CASE STUDY 30 Reliance Foundation Information Services – disseminating information for livelihood improvement

NASSCOM Foundation witnesses a steep rise in CSR spending

COVER STORY 24

2G Spectrum Allocation – Who was at fault?

LEAD STORY 18

Bitcoin Vs Blockchain: How year 2018 will be

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How seriously does a patriarchal Indian society take female hygiene today?

SPOI ANALYSIS 28 BSNL Driving Digital India with Wi-Fi Strategy SKILL INDIA 38 Tech jobs trends in 2018 and Beyond EVENT 26 AAI along with ALIMCO pioneer cochlear implant surgery under CSR initiative

www.spoindia.org December 2017 | 3

Roads ahead for Digital Indian Literacy Indian language Internet to grow at an impressive rate....

Indian language Internet user base has grown at a CAGR of 41% between 2011 and 2016 to reach 234 million users at the end of 2016. This impressive growth has resulted in Indian language Internet users surpassing the English Internet users. Experts predict that by 2021, nine out of 10 new Internet users will be Indic language users. The growth of English language users has already slowed down and this growth of Indic language consumers online will lead to the creation of over 50 million jobs, mainly based on the demand for digital content in Indian language across various platforms.

To complement the power of Digital India initiative, it is important to build the Internet for India to empower the Indic language user. Currently Indic content online stands at .01% as compared to Chinese, which makes up 16% of content online. An increase in Indic languages on the Internet will cause an immediate impact on India’s businesses and economy. A large captive audience already exists for content in regional languages. Over 50 crore Indians use Hindi for their daily communication, while only 0.06% of websites are in Hindi.

This shows a huge mismatch in demand and supply.

Even a small percentage of each language speaker base makes for a huge user base. For example, 7% of Telugu speakers mean 7 million users. This is a huge market for any industry. With the growth in Internet reach and the decrease in Internet prices, people are consuming more digital content in their own language. Going forward, If both government sectors and private players partner up to ensure the development of the Indian Internet, the adoption of Internet services by Indian language users could potentially generate 53 million livelihoods by 2021. This is calculated assuming a job to user ratio in India of 1:10 and local language Internet user population of 536 million by 2021.

Indian language user’s time spent on internet platforms across categories will converge to transform these platforms as content aggregators. Also, this growth is possible because of mobile compatible content in Indian language enabled applications and websites that will increase adoption of online services among Indian language internet user. With the above growth figure, the opportunity seems promising and building multi language data analytics capabilities will generate insights for business and content generators. Another important thing is that localisation is an emerging trend in digital classifieds. This rests on the basis that users are more likely to transact with others in the same area. The survey also reveals that online digital entertainment user base will reach 392 million Indian language users by 2021.

As the growth of Internet user continues with the promising move towards digitalisation, it also opens new doors for development of the cyber security industry. With 5G technology arriving very soon, it will empower hackers to easily flood servers with enormous bandwidth at their disposal, thereby making attacks more drastic. It shows getting into more digital means inviting more dangers. With this the hard savings will go into investments into security. Rest assured, there is a growing focus on cyber security by the present Indian government and so you as a user can keep your fingers crossed.

I wish the readers a Very Happy and Prosperous News Year!

Deepak Kumar Sahu Publisher & Editor-in-Chief, SPO India www.spoindia.org 4 | December 2017 www.spoindia.org

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NEWS/INDUSTRY news

Close to Rs 5,000 cr spent on printing of new 500 notes

GST revenue collection goes down to its lowest in November

The government has informed the Lok Sabha that about ₹ 5,000 crore was spent on printing of new ₹ 500 currency notes post demonetization. As per the information provided by Minister of State for Finance P Radhakrishnan in a written reply, as many as 1,695.7 crore pieces of ₹500 denomination notes were printed till December 8.

The amount spent on production of ₹ 500 notes was ₹4,968.84 crore, he said.

T h e minister also informed that the RBI had printed 365.4 crore pieces of ₹ 2,000 notes at a cost of about ₹ 1,293.6 crore. About ₹ 522.83 crore have been spent on printing of 178 crore pieces of ₹ 200 notes.

The surplus transferred from the RBI to the government has declined by ₹ 35,217 crore in 2016 -17 mainly on account of increase in expenditure on printing of the currency notes.

GST collections fell for the second consecutive month to Rs 80,808 crore in November -- down from Rs 83,346 crore in October, possibly due to rate cuts in November. GST collection in September was over Rs 92,000 crore.

This is the lowest revenue collection under the Goods and Services Tax since its rollout on July 1.

"The total collection under GST for the month of December, 2017 has been Rs 80,808 crore till December 25," the Finance Ministry said in a statement. The December collection actually relates to taxes paid for the month of November.

The November figure may have been impacted by the major revamp of the GST tax structure brought in. At the November meeting held in Guwahati, the GST Council decided to slash tax slabs of 178 items from 28 per cent to 18 per cent while also reducing tax on several items in other slabs from mid-November ahead of the Gujarat elections.

Trend Micro detects Cryptocurrency Malware spreading through Facebook Messenger

Huawei India announces job cut, brings its workforce down by 30%

A new cryptocurrency-mining bot, named "Digmine", that was first observed in South Korea, is spreading fast through Facebook Messenger across the world, cyber-security major Trend Micro has warned.

After South Korea, it has since spread in Vietnam, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, the Philippines, Thailand, and Venezuela. It is likely to reach other countries soon, given the way it is propagating.

Facebook Messenger works across different platforms but Digmine only affects the Messenger's desktop or Web browser (Chrome) version. If the file is opened on other platforms, the malware will not work as intended, Trend Micro said in a blog post.

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In the wake of the current consolidation in the telecom industry, while also the Vodafone-Idea merger and sector-wide financial stress, Huawei Technologies has brought down its direct workforce in India by almost a third.

The economic stress caused in the sector after the disruption caused by billionaire Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Jio's entry,

and the amalgamation between Vodafone and Idea have proved to be a double setback for the network vendor's workforce.

A company source said, on the condition of anonymity said, that there has been a job cut since early this year with nearly 30% of the employees having now gone out of the company, while some of them who were in the field teams have been rehired on a contractual basis. The employees were asked to leave on the basis of performance, network shutdowns and declining telco business, the source added.

NEWS/Digital India

CM Parrikar launches farmerfriendly Jai Kisaan App by Adventz Group

In order to support and help farmers, Shri Manohar Parrikar Chief Minister of Goa, has formally launched the Jai Kisaan App, a mobile solution from “Adventz Group”, a conglomerate of agriculture, engineering & infrastructure, real estate, consumer durables and services companies led by Chairman Saroj Kumar Poddar.

Congratulating Jai Kisaan turning 50, the Chief Minister acknowledged Adventz Group company for being a “pollutionfree” and “no-problem” firm for at least two decades. He said, “The company, with its CSR and other activities, has proved the immense potential of Goa in ensuring that the state becomes self-sufficient in horticulture.” “Companies should ensure ‘responsibility, accountability and duty’ for the sake of inclusive growth and development for the farmers.” “The (Jai Kisaan) app will not only give the farmers database but also help them with the various initiatives of the government such as the health cards,” a reference to the Deen Dayal Swasthya Seva Yojana (DDSSY),” the Chief Minister added.

Digital connectivity improves in JK, high-speed broadband launched

As part of the initiatives under the Digital India programme of the Central government, Jammu and Kashmir Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh has launched a high-speed broadband internet service in the state. People from Jammu, Srinagar, Ladakh, and Katra would now be able to avail the benefits of the service.

During the launch, Singh said, "By improving digital connectivity and improving digital literacy in the country, we will be able to promote inclusive growth that covers electronic services, products, devices and job opportunities."

According to the minister, the launch of the service would assist in achieving the goal of the Digital India programme launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Facebook introduces Training Hubs to develop digital skill

acebook has recently introduced Facebook Digital Training and Facebook Start-up Training Hubs and personaliza million people in India by 2020, these online training hubs, which are being rolled out first in India and have been developed with local organizations, will provide digital skills and training for people in need of work, advise entrepreneurs how to get started and

help existing businesses and nonprofits get the most out of the internet.

Facebook Digital Training Hub provides free social and content marketing training (not just Facebook) for anyone – from students to business owners – who are looking to develop their digital knowledge and skills. The curriculum includes social media basics, how to build and create an audience, how to create content, how to measure online activity, and stay ahead of the curve.

Government to Reimburse MDR on Transactions Up to Rs 2,000

The government will bear the MDR charges on transactions up to Rs 2,000 made through debit cards, BHIM UPI or Aadhaarenabled payment systems to promote digital transactions, IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said.

MDR is charged on payments made to merchants through BHIM UPI platform and AePS (Aadhaar enabled Payment System).

The merchant discount rate (MDR) will now be borne by the government for two years with effect from January 1, 2018 by reimbursing the same to the banks.

The move will have an impact of Rs 2,512 crore on the exchequer. The decision was taken at the Cabinet meeting chaired

by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Prasad said.

"For all the transactions less than Rs 2,000 in value, the consumer and the merchant will not suffer any additional burden in the form of MDR," the minister said, adding this will lead to greater adoption of digital payment modes for such transactions.

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CSR/CORPORATE

GlobalLogic to support ANK Learning Centre at Gurugram

GlobalLogic has adopted ANK’s Gurugram learning centre with the objective of providing quality education to underprivileged children. As part of its association with ANK, GlobalLogic will support the newly launched Gurugram (Nathupur) centre fully, right from administrative to schooling needs. GlobalLogic has taken full ownership of setting up and running the school for the

next three years. Under the larger umbrella of providing education to the underprivileged, GlobalLogic also has a team of volunteers and representatives who are dedicating time and efforts towards mentoring and further ensuring development of these students.

With the launch of the GlobalLogic ANK centre at Gurugram, GlobalLogic along with its existing NGO associations and child education efforts will be able to positively impact the lives of more than 2200 kids. Located in an area marked by poverty and squalid living conditions, which is in sharp contrast to the highrises in the satellite city, the centre trains children coming from households who earn their living working as agriculture and dailywage labourers, house helps, masons and small shopkeepers.

Cognizant Employee Volunteering Program Outreach completes 10 years

Cognizant has recently announced that its employee volunteering program, “Outreach”, has completed ten years and impacted 4,50,000 lives through its work in the areas of education, community welfare and environment. During this period, over 100,000 Cognizant employees clocked in two million hours of volunteering across twenty countries, making Outreach one of the largest corporate volunteering efforts.

Outreach is entirely driven by the passionate employees of Cognizant, with financial and administrative support from Cognizant. It is inspired by Cognizant’s commitment to alleviating disparities in educational access and equity, and better preparing today’s students for tomorrow’s opportunities in a competitive world. Over the years, Outreach has also extended in its fold community welfare initiatives and the cause of environmental sustainability.

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Infosys Bangalore organizes “Teach Your Kid to Conserve”

On the occasion of National Energy Conservation Day, the Infosys Bangalore Development Center (DC) has recently organized a “Teach Your Kid to Conserve” initiative with an aim to engage employees to help their kids appreciate the importance of energy and its conservation.

This year, National Energy Conservation Day is being observed across the country on December 14 to raise awareness around global warming, and importance of energy conser vation.

The day also promotes and encourages citizens to make conscious effort towards saving and conserving energy in day-to-day life.

The Infosys Bangalore DC celebrated the day with numerous activities such as Infy Journalist, Treasure Hunt, Quiz, Message from Leaders, showcase of conservation products and more, to help employees to learn more about the conservation, while making it fun too. Further, a painting competition was also organized on the theme “Energy Conservation Day” over the week, and the drawings were displayed at the campus today.

Youth4work helping AICTEaffiliated Institutes to build on their skills

With governments initiative like Digital India, Startup India and Skill India and the focus of AICTE on Providing Skill based outcomes and trying to improve quality of education, this is an interesting development which has powerful use of tech that allow Millions of Youth in India to be publicly profiled, searchable & contactable for their skills.

It provides a platform to the students across the nation even from remote towns to showcase themselves.

All India Council of Technical Education, under which more than 10,300 technical institutions & about 80 Lac students are regulated, signed an MOU with Youth4work.com, a leading assessment and Skill profiling portal in India which has over 21 Lac Youth across India.

CSR/CORPORATE

Canon Celebrates Children’s Esri India partners with DST, rolls Month in line with Children’s Day out GeoInnovation

Staying true to its corporate philosophy of ‘Kyosei’ – living and working together for the common good, Canon India curates a month long Children’s Day celebration this year. Harnessing its compassion for children, with a firm focus on both its CSR initiatives viz. ‘Adopt a Village’ and ‘Support a Life’, Canon means to bring in a positive change in the life of these children and have a sustained and profound impact on their development.

With a number of considerate activities accomplished as a part of Children’s Day celebrations, the vision is to give these children a platform to experience the outside world, and inspire them to dream and work towards a brighter future for themselves. The initiatives are aimed at familiarizing the children with the fast and futuristic world outside, which remains beyond the purview of their day to day life. Realizing the significance of persistentefforts towards fulfilling the noble cause, Canon is determined to continue with such sustainable undertakings, to bring in a worthwhile impact.

Esri India has announced GeoInnovation – A Challenge for Startupreneurs, in partnership with the Department of Science and Technology (DST). GeoInnovation challenge is an exciting program for entrepreneurs who are building GIS technologyenabled start-ups. The aim of the challenge is to provide the startups with a platform to showcase their GISb a s e d business ideas and build a strong network with industry experts, investors and peer group.

Prof. Ashutosh Sharma, Secretary, Department of Science & Technology, Government of India, said, “All of us are aware of the change that the start-ups have brought about in the world and especially in India. I appreciate this pioneering partnership between this Department and Esri India, which will open up newer avenues for startupreneurs to explore the world of Geospatial Technology and create socio-economic values to the Government, businesses and communities. This will also help in creating opportunities for geospatial skills and jobs in India.”

Bharti Family pledges 10% of their wealth towards Philanthropy

Capgemini employees come together to raise funds under MoveFifty

The Bharti Family has pledged a part of their personal wealth for philanthropic purposes. The Family has decided to pledge 10% of their wealth, including 3% of their stake in group flagship Bharti Airtel, towards supporting the activities of Bharti Foundation, the Group’s philanthropic arm, one of the few professionally managed philanthropic bodies in India. With this commitment, the Bharti Family envisions to significantly step up the scope and reach of Bharti Foundation’s activities, and further enable the Foundation to develop and execute innovative development models to support the aspirations of India’s underprivileged including students of Satya Bharti Schools.

Set up in the year 2000, Bharti Foundation has grown in scale and stature, and evolved well beyond customary cheque book philanthropy to design and implement innovative development models, particularly in the area of education. Led by a full time CEO and COO, the Foundation’s team of over 200 highly motivated professionals and approx. 8000 teachers work across multiple programs in the areas of education of approx. 240,000 underprivileged children in rural India.

Capgemini employees around the globe got active to help celebrate the company’s 50th Anniversary and raise €100,000 to support three impactful educational projects through “MoveFifty”, the special birthday challenge with a purpose.

MoveFifty brought colleagues together in movement and engagement to raise money for three education-focussed charitable initiatives such as Ciudad Quetzal, Enlight and Cap Sur Le Code.

Over five months from June to October, Capgemini employees participated in MoveFifty to help raise the funds in two ways. First, it was through a physical challenge to accumulate as many kilometres as possible, in as many ways of movement as were possible to track (e.g. run, cycle, walk, jog), in support of a donation of up to €50,000 to be shared among the three projects, proportional to the number of kilometres dedicated to each one of them. www.spoindia.org December 2017 | 9

NEWS/GOVT.

AIM selects 1500 schools to set up Atal Tinkering Labs

Ganga Gram Project to make 4,470 Ganga Villages Swachh

NITI Aayog’s Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), Government of India’s flagship program to promote innovation and entrepreneurship nationwide in schools, universities and industry has selected additional 1500 Schools for establishment of Atal Tinkering Labs (ATLs). The addition of these schools will give a major boost to realize the vision of the mission to ‘Cultivate One Million children in India as the Innovators of tomorrow’. With this announcement of the new Atal Tinkering Labs, AIM, has selected 2441 Schools across India to establish ATLs to date since it began its operations over a year ago.

ATLs are innovation play workspaces for students between Grade VI to Grade XII, stimulating innovations combining science & technology. These open-ended innovation workspaces equipped with state of the art technologies like 3D printers, Robotics, Sensor Technology Kits, Internet of Things, and miniaturized Electronics etc enable the students to learn and solve local community problems using emerging Technologies.

The Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation (MDWS) has launched the ‘Ganga Gram’ – a project for sanitation based integrated development of all 4470 villages along the River Ganga.

The Ganga Gram Swachhta Sammelan was attended by more than 1400 delegates including 500 village sarpanches from all five Ganga States (Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, B i h a r , Jharkhand and West Bengal), State and District government officials, NMCG Members and Ganga Swachhta Manch volunteers.

Speaking on the occasion, Shri Nitin Gadkari, Minister for Water Resources, Ganga Rejuvenation and River Development appealed to the village sarpanches to pledge unconditional support to making River Ganga and Ganga Grams ‘swachh’.

States rank 50,000 Gram Panchayats under Mission Antyodaya

New Consumer Protection Bill to be introduced in winter session of parliament

In partnership with State Governments, Department of Rural Development has completed the ranking of 50,000 Gram Panchayats on parameters of physical infrastructure, human development and economic activities. The detailed ranking may be seen at missionantyodaya.nic.in. Other relevant data with regard to household deprivations as per Socio Economic Census, physical infrastructure as per the Census 2011 and the updated status of other selected villages are also available in the public domain.

This facilitates identification of gaps in a quest for Poverty Free Gram Panchayats.

50,000 Gram Panchayats have been selected in about 5,000 clusters to drive economic activities along with development of physical infrastructure and human development on a priority. Public institutions like Krishi Vigyan Kendras, MSME Clusters, other Skill Development Institutions will all be involved in developing the fullest potential of these clusters for enhancing productive employment and economic activities.

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Ram Vilas Paswan, Union Minister for Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution said that the new Consumer Protection Bill has been approved by the cabinet and is likely to be introduced in the present session of parliament. Shri Paswan said that the enactment of BIS act 2016 and Consumer Protection Bill are historical events in the history of consumer movements. It was stated

by Shri Ram Vilas Paswan in his presidential address on the occasion of National Consumer Day 2017.

The Union Minister further stated that existing Consumer Protection Act enacted in 1986 is 31 years old. Ram Vilas Paswan mentioned that the Government has embarked on modernizing the legislation on consumer protection to keep pace with the changes in markets to ensure fair, equitable and consistent outcomes for consumers; and to enable swift executive intervention in the nature of the class action to prevent consumer detriment. He commented that this is the age of technology, and educating the consumer and redressing his grievances in the digital world is important.

NEWS/GOVT.

NHAI creates National Highways 640 District Level Centres for Investment Promotion Cell Women to be set up The Government of India has approved a new scheme namely, (NHIPC) Pradhan Mantri Mahila Shakti Kendra for 2017-18 upto 2019-20

The National Highways Authority of India has created a National Highways Investment Promotion Cell (NHIPC) for attracting domestic and foreign investment for highways projects.

The cell will focus on engaging with global institution investors, construction companies, developers and fund managers for building investor participation in road infrastructure projects.

The Government has set an ambitious target of construction of 35,000 km. of National Highways in the next five years involving an investment of Rs. 5, 35,000/- crores under ‘Bharatmala Pariyojana’. Given the scale of investment required, both foreign and domestic investment from public and private sector is pivotal.

The primary focus of NHIPC will be to promote foreign and domestic investment in road infrastructure. The NHIPC will be working in close co-ordination with various connected Ministries and Departments of Government of India, State Governments, Apex Business Chambers like CII, FICCI, ASSOCHAM, and InvestIndia etc.

to empower rural women through community participation to create an environment in which they realize their full potential. The scheme is envisaged to work at various levels and at the national level (domain based knowledge support) and state level (State Resource Centre for Women) technical support to the respective government on issues related to women is provided.

Community engagement through College Student Volunteers is envisioned in 115 most backward districts as part of the Block Level initiatives. Student volunteers will play an instrumental role in awareness generation regarding various important government schemes/ programmes as well as social issues. District Level Centre for Women (DLCW) has also been envisaged for 640 districts to be covered in phased manner.

These centres will serve as a link between village, block and state level in facilitating women centric schemes and also give foothold for Beti Bachao Beti Padhao (BBBP) scheme at the district level.

Inter-state Electronic-way system Initiatives Taken To Reduce Debt to be made compulsory from Burden of Farmers To reduce the debt burden of farmers, the Government has February 1st, 2018 taken a few major initiatives. With a view to ensuring availability of

The GST Council has today decided to make the electronicway bill compulsory from February 1. If implemented, the bill will come two months ahead of the earlier plan and will thus make ferrying of goods quicker across states.

Under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) rules, ferrying goods worth more than Rs 50,000 within or outside a state will require securing an electronicway or e-way bill by prior online registration of the consignment.

“The rules for implementation of nationwide e-way bill system for inter-state movement of goods on a compulsory basis will be notified with effect from February 1, 2018. This will bring uniformity across states for seamless inter-state movement of goods,” the finance ministry said in a statement.

agriculture credit at a reduced interest rate of 7% p.a. to farmers, the Government of India in the Department of Agriculture, Cooperation & Farmers’ Welfare (DAC&FW) implements an interest subvention scheme for short term crop loans up to Rs. 3.00 lakh.

Under the said scheme, additional subvention of 3% is given to those farmers who repay their short term crop loan in time, thereby reducing the effective rate of interest to 4% p.a. for such farmers.

The Reserve Bank of India has issued directions for Relief Measures to be provided by respective lending institutions in areas affected by natural calamities which, inter alia, include, restructuring/rescheduling of existing crop loans and term loans, extending fresh loans, relaxed security and margin norms, moratorium, etc. www.spoindia.org December 2017 | 11

NEWS/Technology

MediaTek introduces 6-in-1 RINL – VSP Marketing Sales smartphone biosensor to monitor Mobile App launched Sri P Madhusudan, CMD, RINL-VSP has launched a new health issues initiative - “RINL Marketing Sales Mobile App” to facilitate

MediaTek has recently unveiled “MediaTek Sensio”, the first 6-in-1 smartphone biosensor module. MediaTek Sensio is a powerful advanced health monitoring solution which makes it easy to track heart rate information, blood pressure trends, peripheral oxygen saturation levels and more. Available as an embedded module in smartphones, MediaTek Sensio makes it possible for consumers to quickly check and monitor physical wellness on a device as they use their smartphone the most.

The MediaTek Sensio MT6381 is a comprehensive software and module solution designed specifically to deliver valuable health data, consisting of optical, electrical and processing components.

The customizable, compact solution means device manufacturers have the flexibility to embed the MediaTek Sensio module directly into all types of smartphones, versus using multiple sensors. With MediaTek Sensio, manufacturers are able to develop proprietary applications or leverage third-party applications and developer add-ons.

viewing of real-time sales data by Senior Executives of RINL through their mobile phones by providing necessary access and authentication.

By using this mobile app, real-time sales data for Steel, Pig Iron & Bi-products can be viewed with MTD (Month to Date) and YTD (Year to Date) values.

Sales reports of any previous date also can be viewed using this App. Sri Madhusudan commended the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Information Department (IT) executives for developing the new app and added that RINL is always using the technology for leveraging the advantages in business operations.

Vodafone M- Pesa helping rural Rajasthan go Cashless

Amazon.in announces Mobile Recharge facility with Amazon Pay

Supporting the Government of India’s Digital India programme, Vodafone M-Pesa has been helping urban and rural residents of Rajasthan to go digital and adopt a cashless living.

75% of total customers who all are paying EMIs of various banking & non-banking financial companies are eligible to pay their EMIs through M-Pesa.

Vodafone M-Pesa now has 14 lakh registered users across

33 districts in Rajasthan and most of them do their money transfers & EMIs payment easily even from remote rural areas for Rajasthan. Vodafone M-Pesa is a secure mode of payment for all Utility bills like Electricity, DTH, post-paid, and pre-paid recharges. To facilitate easy EMI Payments, Vodafone M-pesa has partnered with various non-banking financial companies which include Home Credit, Shree Ram Transport Finance, Capital First, Bajaj Finserv and Bajaj Auto Finance Limited. Vodafone Rajasthan customers can even pay EMIs for ESSKay Fin Corp.

12 | December 2017 www.spoindia.org

Amazon.in has announced the launch of Mobile Prepaid Recharges allowing customers of all telecom networks to seamlessly recharge their prepaid mobile phones, anytime, anywhere using the Amazon app or website. As an introductory offer, Amazon.in is offering great benefits to customers using

Amazon Pay Balance to recharge their mobile phones for a limited period. All customers will get flat 50% cash back up to INR 100 till December 31, 2017.

Shariq Plasticwala, Director – Payments, said, “With its superior experience, Amazon Pay has become very popular among customers who use it not just to shop on Amazon.in but across several categories including food and travel. The launch of mobile recharges has opened up another avenue for customers to utilize their Amazon Pay balance. We look forward to adding newer categories and innovating on behalf of customers as we continue to simplify the payments experience in India.”

NEWS/eGovernance

Govt launches NIC CERT as a measure to thwart cyber attacks

eNAM portal empowers farmers with critical agricultural information

Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has inaugurated the NIC-CERT in response to the Government’s need for an agile and responsive eco-system as a measure to prevent cyber attacks.

A setup of National Informatics Centre (NIC), Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, NIC-CERT has been established to create a comprehensive framework that integrates world class security components and inbuilt threat intelligence for detection, prevention and incident response.

Speaking on the occasion, the Minister of Law & Justice and Electronics & Information Technology said in the recent past there has been an exponential growth in cyber attacks leading to concerns of data theft which led to the Government drafting the Data protection Act. Setting up NIC-CERT, as per Hon’ble Minister is MeitY’s initiative under Digital India aimed at enhancing the security posture of NIC and the Government which will in turn lead to enhanced trust of the citizens.

Reverie Language Technologies has localized the Government of India’s eNAM platform in multiple Indian languages (Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Telugu, Tamil, Bengali, and Odia). By providing access to content in multiple languages, farmers can access the digital mandi for information like commodity trading details, commodity price graphs, and other critical commodity specific information.

Today, over 45 lakh farmers across the country use the eNAM platform to help make decisions on selling their crops. The platform allows the farmers to check, in real time, price quotations for different types of produce. It promotes realtime price discovery and transparency in the auction process, and gives farmers access to a nationwide market. Farmers can buy and sell online and get the best price, cutting out the middleman.

E-governance is stepping stone for good administration - UIDAI chief

Government to offer 300+ eCourses in Hindi, local languages

Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) Chairman J Satyanarayana has said that e-governance is a "stepping stone" for good administration and it is all about transformation.

"Technology, policy and governance are more or less interconnected deeply in several ways for these three things to function in a vibrant manner we need citizen centric policies, open technologies which will lead to good governance," he said.

He also said that good governance should have elements like efficiency, effectiveness, transparency, responsiveness, accountability, which is again supported by concepts like equity, consensus orientation, rule of law and inclusivity.

As part of its efforts to give a digital push to higher education, the HRD ministry has decided to offer nearly 300 online courses in Hindi and 10 other Indian languages on its online course portal Swayam.

To be launched in the next three months, these courses include subjects such as cloud computing, technical English for engineers, management accounting for decisionmaking, database management system and advertisement and publicity.

The courses are aimed at those looking at developing soft skills or supplementing their education. Students will be given certificates after clearing exams at the end of the courses. The languages in which these courses will be given include Hindi, Oriya, Tamil and Kannada.

"The idea is to target as many people as possible, so while there are 22 states with different languages, we are looking at reaching as many people through somewhat common languages," an HRD official said. www.spoindia.org December 2017 | 13

CSR/PSU

HPCL writes to Airtel Payments Banks for reversal of subsidy amounts

ONGC Para Games Reaffirms its Commitment as Equal Opportunity Employer

Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited has written to Airtel and sought a reversal of subsidy amounts that have been wrongfully credited to the Airtel Payment bank accounts.

A company statement said: “HPCL has requested that the subsidy amounts of consumers whose LPG subsidies have been wrongfully credited to Airtel Payment bank accounts be immediately transferred back to the customer’s earlier bank account or to the respective oil marketing companies.”

According to reports, ₹167 crore have been wrongfully credited to the Airtel Payment Bank interface through 31 lakh transactions.

The oil marketing companies and the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas have been getting a large number of complaints from consumers regarding non-credit of the LPG subsidy amounts into their earlier bank accounts for the past few weeks, the HPCL statement added.

The First edition of the 3-day ONGC Para Games, a unique HR initiative for the specially abled employees has evoked huge enthusiasm among the 120 participants, out of which 20 were lady sports enthusiasts. In spite of being physically challenged, the participants had shown their mettle and fighting attitude to take part in various sports.

Speaking on the occasion, D.D. Misra, Director-HR, ONGC said, “The philosophy behind conducting the ONGC Para Games is to provide similar sporting avenues to specially abled employees that the regular employees enjoy”.

Misra further pointed out that ONGC is an equal opportunity employer and all these initiatives are taken to accomplish this objective. ONGC Para Games, which kick-started on December 19, will be a regular Annual feature. The company is always supporting initiatives that seek to eliminate disparities of all forms against the physically challenged by not only creating opportunities for livelihood but also instilling confidence for growth at par with everyone in the society.

GSL Delivers 6 more Ships to Indian Coast Guard

NMDC CMD reviews Company’s Performance

Goa Shipyard Ltd. created yet another history in Indian Shipbuilding Industry, by delivering all 6 ships, each of 2400 Tonnes & 105 M long, ahead of schedule from Oct 2015 to Nov 2017 thus completing the 6 CG OPV project successfully.

The 6th and last of the ship “ICGS SUJAY”, delivered by GSL on 04 November 2017 was ceremoniously inducted into Indian Coast Guard by Director General Coast Guard Rajendra Singh on 21 Dec 2017 at GSL in the distinguished presence of RAdm Shekhar Mital, CMD, GSL and other dignitaries.

This state-of-the-art, largest and most advanced new generation vessels have been built in a record build period of 36 months as against 67 months built period taken for similar sized OPVs previously.

14 | December 2017 www.spoindia.org

N. Baijendra Kumar, IAS reviewed the performance of NMDC at the corporate review meeting held at NMDC’s corporate office, Hyderabad. Dr. Narendra K. Nanda, Director (Technical); Dr. T.R.K. Rao, Director (Commercial); Shri P.K Satpathy, Director (Production); Shri D S Ahluwalia, Director (Finance); Sandeep Tula, Director (Personnel); K. Vidyasagar, CVO; Heads of the Projects and Head of the Departments were present in the said meeting.

Baijendra Kumar congratulated all the employees of NMDC for the best ever performance in production & sales, similarly, turnover and profit of the company in the first half of the financial year 2017-18 has seen considerable growth.

During the review, it was conveyed that all the projects shall work more independently and encouraged all the personnel to give their best and take decisions faster for their individual growth which would help the organization to become more vibrant and dynamic.

CSR/PSU

MDL commissions ‘INS KALVARI’ Delegates from International into the Indian Navy Solar Alliance Member Countries The commissioning of the first Scorpene Class Submarine ‘INS KALVARI’ into the Indian Navy added another feather in visits REIL MDL’s cap. Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi commissioned the submarine at Naval Dockyard, Mumbai recently.

Commissioning of INS Kalvari reaffirms the giant strides taken

by Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Ltd (MDL) in the ongoing ‘Make in India’ programme.

MDL is constructing six Scorpene class submarines with Technology Transfer from M/s Naval Group of France.

Cmde Rakesh Anand, Chairman and Managing Director stated that the induction of Kalvari into the Indian Navy would be a game changer in the field of underwater warfare due to its superiority in all operational aspects.

The Delegate from International Solar Alliance (ISA) of 20 Member countries mainly from the surrounding of Tropical line of cancer visited REIL premises. REIL welcomed the Delegates from International Solar Alliance Member countries and apprised them about the Company i n c l u d i n g M a nu f a c t u r i n g facility, REIL Quality Assurance policy, Research & Development activities and various other operations of the Company in the areas of Electronics and Renewable Energy Sector.

The Delegate witnessed the live demonstration of products designed & manufactured by the Company, for the Renewable energy sector, such as SPV Modules & systems and for Dairy products such as Electronics Milk Tester, Automatic Milk Collection Station and Ultra Sonic Milk Analyzer. They took keen interest in the technologies variety of products and their applications for upliftment of rural areas.

BEML Launches New Wheel Loader

Employee Information Kiosk Inaugurated at VSGH

BEML LIMITED, a Mini Ratna Category-I Public Sector Company under the Ministry of Defence has launched 5.4 ton, 3.1 cum bucket Wheel Loader BL30-1. Designed and Developed

by BEML R&D, this high performance and rugged Wheel Loader was unveiled by Shri Amitabh Kant, CEO - Niti Aayog GoI in the

presence of Shri Deepak Kumar Hota, Chairman and Managing Director, BEML; Shobana Kamineni, President CII; Shri BR Vishwanatha, Director (Mining & Construction) and Shri RH Muralidhara, Director (Defence) were also present.

BL30-1 Frontend Wheel Loader is designed for maximum equipment utilization, with best- in- class fuel efficient engine, ergonomically designed cabin added to superior production performance. This wheel loader is suited for various loading applications and provides higher return on investment.

RINL has taken a step forward aiming to extend services closer to the employees by introducing an “Employee Information Kiosk” in Visakha Steel General Hospital (VSGH) premises.

Sri KC Das, Director (Personnel), RINL inaugurated the Employee Information Kiosk facility at Visakha Steel General Hospital. He said that RINL will always be ahead in providing best employee services and exhorted the employees to utilize the facility.

He mentioned that some more services are being made online to improve the employee services.

The Kiosk offers services like accessing the employee information services, pay services, medical history etc. Employees can use the kiosk for lodging quarter related complaints, online applications, CMD online and many more services. The kiosk can be accessed round the clock by the employees. Some more kiosks will be installed based on the utilisation. www.spoindia.org December 2017 | 15

CSR/NGO

Subhash Chandra Foundation introduces Esselerator program

Shri Subhash Chandra had recently launched the Subhash Chandra Foundation to commemorate 90 years of Essel Group and had pledged Rs.5,000 crore of his family wealth towards philanthropic initiatives of the Foundation. The Subhash Chandra Foundation has also announced the launch of its first-of-its kind initiative – the “Esselerator” program to identify and mentor entrepreneurs. The program has been launched in association

SpiceJet to play Santa to 25 NGO children

As part of its Christmas week celebrations, SpiceJet will play Santa for 25 children of an NGO - Mala Smriti Home, Noida.

"Under its 'Little Hearts, Big Love' initiative, SpiceJet, on December 21, took 25 children of the NGO and seven of their attendants to the Aapno Ghar Amusement Park in Gurugram on a three-day exciting adventure trip filled with innumerable joyrides,

with the Essel Group, one of India’s largest diversified business conglomerates, and will be powered by TiE Mumbai, a non-profit global community.

The program has been launched to identify and mentor entrepreneurs across start-ups in the fields of Media & Entertainment, MediaTech and EduTech. Driven by a desire of #LetsFuelIdeas, the program aims to co-develop and nurture “Early and Growth Stage Start-ups” that have the potential to grow into successful companies in the future.

a variety of foods, and other attractions," the airline said.

“The children, when they return to Mala Smriti Home on the evening of December 23, as the place they call their home will have been entirely renovated by the airline. It will have a brand new coat of paint and furniture, enhancing their comforts several fold, and will also be adorned with a Christmas tree, lights and other decor," added the release.

NGO: 50% BMC-run primary schools don’t have Class VIII

MHA names 32 select banks for NGOs to open account

Alleging violation of the Right to Education (RTE) Act, which mandates free and compulsory elementary education (till Class VIII) to every child in the age group of 6 to 14, a complaint by an educational rights NGO to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) says that nearly 50 percent of the primary schools run by the BMC do not have Class VIII. T h e educational rights group — Samaan Shikshan Mulbhut Adhikar Samiti has demanded that since many civicrun schools do not have Class VIII, which forces students to study in private schools or drop out, their entire annual fees and expenses towards freebies and other benefits, including mid-day meal, should be reimbursed by the BMC administration.

According to an RTE reply to the query filed by the NGO, 12, 02,027 students took admission in Class I of BMC schools between academic year 2003-04 and 2009-10. However, the same batches, when they passed Class VII, dropped to 1, 43,066.

16 | December 2017 www.spoindia.org

The home ministry has directed all NGOs and entities receiving foreign funding to open accounts in any of the 32 designated banks integrated with the government's public financial management system (PFMS) within a month. The ministry, in an order issued on December 21, said this would ensure a higher level of transparency in their foreign contribution receipts.

"The central government has decided that all banks where FCRA registered persons/ organisations have opened their FC (foreign contribution) account would be integrated with the PFMS for providing a higher level of transparency and hassle-free reporting compliance," the order said.

The Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 2010, provides for regulation of acceptance of foreign funds or foreign hospitality by certain individuals, associations, organisations and companies "to ensure that such contributions or hospitality is not being utilised for activities detrimental to the national interests.

NEWS/Urban Development

Bio-toilets in railway coaches by March 2019

Central Advisory Council set up for RERA implementation

Working in the space of Open Defecation Free (ODF) zones, the Indian Railways has decided to complete the work of installation of bio-toilets in coaches by March 2019. All railway workshops have been instructed to compulsorily install bio-toilets in all existing in-service eligible coaches undergoing mid life rehabilitation and periodical overhaul.

R e t r o fitment of bio-toilets in existing inservice coaches is also being done to a limited extent in coaching depots. Approximately 55 per cent of the total passenger carrying coaches over Indian Railways have been installed with bio-toilets.

Bio-toilets are an important step towards ‘Swachh Bharat’. It keeps tracks clear of human excreta.

The central government has set up a Central Advisory Council (CAC) to advice on matters concerning the implementation of the Real Estate (Regulation & Development) Act, 2016.

The Minister of State for Housing and Urban Affairs will be the Chairperson of the council that will comprise of total 30 members.

The said CAC has been set up to ensure that proper protection is provided to home-buyers with right implementation of RERA across the country.

Apart from the chairperson, the council will have 8 other members from the central government including Niti Aayog CEO, Secretaries of Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Department of Revenue, Economic Affairs, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion and Ministry of Corporate Affairs, showed a gazette notification from the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.

Bharatmala a big play for investors, but goal ambitious ICRA

ITPO to raise Rs 1,500 crore to fund hotel project

The Cabinet has approved the Bharatmala Pariyojana Phase-I, along with other programmes in October 2017 involving around 83,000 km, including Bharatmala's 24,800 km of national highway development by 2021-22.

"The Bharatmala programme has the potential to change the entire landscape, if implemented as per the plan... The new approach is unlike the projectbased approach adopted in the past (different stretches in different geographies), which led to inconsistent infrastructure development across corridors," Icra said in a statement.

There are ample opportunities for investors in the government's ambitious Bharatmala project and its success critically hinges on timely land acquisition and adequate funding, the rating agency said.

The commerce ministry's trade promotion body, India Trade Promotion Organisation (ITPO) plans to raise around Rs 1,500 crore through loans and by monetising some portion of land at Pragati Maidan in Delhi to part fund the Integrated Exhibitioncum-Convention Centre planned there.

The ministry is working on a cabinet note to monetise about 3.7 acres land for construction of a hotel in the upcoming exhibition complex. It will either be given on a long-term lease or on free hold to a private player.

"We plan to raise almost Rs 1,500 crore by means of institutional loans and monetising the land to set up a hotel," said L C Goyal, chairman and managing director of ITPO. ITPO, a mini-ratna public sector undertaking, runs the exhibition centre, which was inaugurated in 1972 by the then prime minister Indira Gandhi.

www.spoindia.org December 2017 | 17

lead story

Bitcoin Vs Blockchain: How year 2018 will be

….Is it worth investing???

Bitcoin or virtual currencies (VC) has grown to 20-fold rise to reach new high to 3000% this year. It is like the elephant in the room, a lot of people don’t want to talk about it because they have invested in it. Bitcoin does not have a legal status as a currency in most of the world, and authorities usually do not know how best to approach thefts. Some larger exchanges have replaced customer funds after a theft from the exchange itself, but at this stage they are not legally obliged to do so.

The entire process works with blockchain, which is a record of all transactions on a decentralised network of computers across the world.

18 | December 2017 www.spoindia.org

Bitcoin going Mainstream…

Bitcoin has provoked to gambling.

Bitcoin is a decentralized global digital currency that runs on a peer-to-peer network called the blockchain. It was launched in 2009 by a person or group of people operating under the name Satoshi Nakamoto. The currency obeys its own internal logic. Bitcoin has hit a tipping point of mainstream popularity. One of the biggest U.S. Bitcoin exchanges, Coinbase, had signed up some 12 million customers and is the world’s largest bitcoin broker and is available in the United States, UK, Canada, Singapore, and most of Europe. Bitfinex has dominated the world’s Bitcoin trade on exchanges, with a 41.72% market share over the last few

days, with the next biggest player is the US-based exchange being Coinbase with 25.78% market share.

At this time, the largest full trading exchanges by volume are Bitfinex (Hong Kong), Bitstamp (US), BTC-e (unknown), Kraken (US), Huobi (China and Hong Kong), OKCoin (China), BTCC (China), Coinjar (an exchange and wallet provider and is the market leader in Australia) and Zedpay for the Indian market, allowing users to buy, sell and store bitcoin.

Deposits can be made via any national online bank or through NEFT/RTGS. Registration with a PAN card is necessary to use the site's services. The Nasdaq Stock Market will start a bitcoin future site on its commodities trading platform in 2018.

Cryptocurrency, which is an umbrella term for Bitcoin and Altcoins like Ethereum, Dash, Monero etc, is bound to change the way we look at money. Industry leaders like Bill Gates and Richard Branson have expressed their support for Bitcoin and Blockchain technology. Bitcoin experts like Andreas Antonopoulos believe, “It’s the Internet of Money”. However, other financial gurus and investors such as, Warren Buffett and Nobel laureate Robert Shiller have called it a bubble. James Dimon, CEO, JPMorgan Chase criticising Bitcoin says, “If we have a trader trading Bitcoin, I would fire them in a second…It’s worse than Tulip Bulbs.”

Bitcoin has hit several milestones as it has surged from around $1,000 at the beginning of the year to a record of nearly $20,000 weeks back - from the introduction of bitcoin future trading on the CBOE and CME to the emergence of specialized investment products.

There are many interesting stories that point out how people have become significantly richer, luckier with their early investments in bitcoin. The Winklevoss twins, who fought a legal battle with Mark Zuckerberg over the idea behind Facebook, reportedly invested $11 million out of their $65 million settlement in bitcoin in 2013, which is now worth $1.6 billion. Then there are others like venture capitalist Tim Draper, who invested in the likes of Tesla, Skype and Hotmail, and who reportedly has bitcoins worth over $530 million.

Both Bitcoins and oil have common constraint of limited supplies. Total Bitcoins in circulation is 16,765,150. Total Bitcoins to ever be produced is 21,000,000.

Percentage of total Bitcoins mined is 79.83%. Total Bitcoins left to mine is 4,234,850. Total Bitcoins left to mine until next blockhalf is 1,609,850. Bitcoin price in USD is $16,368. Market capitalization in USD is $274,411,975,200. In case of bitcoins, it is just 21 million bitcoins that can be mined, whereas the lifespan of oil reserves is just around 50 years. In the case of bitcoins, the mining can be done for close to 150 years. More technology brains will put their minds and money in it. Before the end of the decade the supply may outstrip the demand, leading it to being eventually stabilized. Bitcoin and Ethereum are both cryptocurrencies, but

they're quite different, bitcoin entered this world as the first global cryptocurrency in 2009 and Ethereum came in 2015 as a potential alternative.In comparison, the experts says, bitcoin is better at storing value than Ethereum, at least for now, Ether has quickly become a preferred method for transferring wealth to and from people and entities.

So is Bitcoin Secure?

Bitcoin miners help keep the Bitcoin network secure by approving transactions.

Mining is an important and integral part of Bitcoin that ensures fairness while keeping the Bitcoin network stable, safe and secure.

Bitcoin nodes use the block chain to distinguish legitimate Bitcoin transactions from attempts to re-spend coins that have already been spent elsewhere. Since mining of bitcoins is going to get more and more difficult every 4 years, security of bitcoins will become more difficult with use of multi layered passwords and complex protocols. Like oil, bitcoins is a huge learning curve.

Bitcoin mining is the process of adding transaction records to Bitcoin's public ledger of past transactions or blockchain.

This ledger of past transactions is called the block chain as it is a chain of blocks. The block chain serves to confirm transactions to the rest of the network as having taken place. With Bitcoin, miners use special software to solve math problems and

are issued a certain number of bitcoins in exchange. This provides a smart way to issue the currency and also creates an incentive for more people to mine.

Bitcoin can also become volatile when the Bitcoin community exposes security vulnerabilities in an effort to produce massive open source responses in the form of security fixes. Unlike other investment avenues, cryptocurrencies are not regulated by government entities or banks. Because Bitcoin is on the internet, they are even easier to steal and much harder to return and trace. It is similar to how a theft from your personal wallet occurs due to a security or password lapse on your part, but you do not have any guaranteed way to recover your funds. There are however many Venture Capitalists who are investing in startups working on blockchains, accounting tools that use networks of computers to collectively sustain mutually trusted, shared ledgers of transactions, without relying on any outside institutions as middlemen.

The researchers from security firm GuardiCore Labs have recently analysed thousands of attacks launched in recent months and identified at least three attack variants—Hex, Hanako, and Taylor— targeting different MS SQL and MySQL servers for both Windows and Linux.

Even cryptocurrency mining virus is spreading through Facebook Messenger.

Like, if you receive a video file (packed in zip archive) sent by someone on your Facebook messenger — just don’t click www.spoindia.org December 2017 | 19

lead story on it. Once clicked, the malware infects victim’s computer and downloads its components and related configuration files from a remote command-and-control (C&C) server.

However despite RBI’s warning and cautioning people against the use of virtual currencies, 3,000 Indians are investing in Bitcoins daily. A domestic Bitcoin exchange said that it is adding over 2,500 users a day and has reached five lakh downloads. Zebpay, an appbased Bitcoin exchange, said it has had five lakh downloads on the Android operating system and is adding more than 2,500 users every day.

Why People use Bitcoin?

Bitcoin’s sound monetary policy is one of its most important features. It’s possible to see when new bitcoins are created or how many bitcoins are in circulation.

Bitcoins can be sent from anywhere in the world to anywhere else in the world.

No bank can block payments or close your account. Bitcoin is censorship resistant money. It makes cross border payments possible, and also provides an easy way for people to escape failed government monetary policy.

The internet has made information global and easy to access. A sound, global currency like Bitcoin will have the same impact on finance and the global economy.

The Indian Scenario…

At present, 1 Bitcoin equals to 929104.83 Indian Rupee Bitcoin. There are at least 15 bitcoin exchange forums, with the majority being set up over the past two years. However, like in many other countries Bitcoin has not become prevalent yet in India. This gets reflected in a speech by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in which he said, “Recommendations are being worked at.

The government’s position is clear, we don’t recognize this as legal currency as of now.”

This came after the Supreme Court of India issued a notice to the nation’s central bank and related financial ministries to hasten their regulatory mechanisms with regard to bitcoin.

To check the rise of Bitcoin users, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) issued its third warning about trading of virtual currencies such as bitcoin. Bitcoin trading soared in India recently with some of the country’s top exchanges Zebpay, Coinsecure, Unocoin, and Bitxoxo reporting a huge influx of new users as well as massive trade volumes. Some of the new interest in bitcoin comes from ‘high net worth’ individuals who might have pushed the tax authorities to send a 20 | December 2017 www.spoindia.org

“Cryptocurrencies could be difficult to understand and invest probably, because they are erroneously named.

The coins are created by users who 'mine' them by lending computing power to verify other users' transactions. They receive bitcoins in exchange. The coins also can be bought and sold on exchanges with US dollars and other currencies.

In the US and Canada, all digital currencies are given the status of commodities.

They are widely used in the derivatives market and can be bartered.” signal with this latest action.

Recently, it has been reported that multiple teams of detectives from the tax department, under the command of the Bengaluru investigation wing, surveyed the trading venues in Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kochi, and Gurugram.

Reports called this the first big action against the exchanges operating in the country, suggesting more to come. It is set to send notices to 4 to 5 lakh high net worth individuals (HNI) who were trading on this unregulated virtual currency across the country.

Official sources said that the department has found that out of the estimated 20 lakh entities registered on these exchanges, about 4 to 5 lakh were "operational" and indulging in transactions and investments.

Saurabh Agrawal, CEO and Co-founder, Zebpay, a Bitcoin exchange, agrees, "One needs to pay tax on profits made from investing in Bitcoin. One should declare the income while filing taxes.

Archit Gupta, Founder & CEO ClearTax, says, " Even though Bitcoins are not specifically mentioned in the income tax act, Bitcoins are assets which are usually owned so holder can gain from an increase in its value. In that sense, they acquire the definition of capital gains. Which is a wide definition as per the Income Tax Act. The worst part is that there is no authority like Sebi that you can approach for grievance redressal. The price of a Bitcoin has more than tripled. A leading investor says, “Investors should not put away more than 1-2% of net worth in bitcoin. You should be prepared to lose it".

Despite this, there are cryptocurrency dealers like Pluto Exchange that announced the launch of India's first mobile application for transacting in the virtual currency. The company’s Chief Executive Bharat Verma said that his company is all set to launch the country's first app-based wallet that enables bitcoin transactions using a mobile number.

While all other apps already in the market do transactions using bitcoin addresses, which are long and prone to error while copying. Pluto Exchange will change this scenario by enabling transactions using mobile numbers only, which are just 10 digits.

www.spoindia.org December 2017 | 21

LEAD STORY

How seriously does a patriarchal Indian society take female hygiene today?

As India continues to rise to become an emerging superpower, it is getting evidently important to work for the upliftment of the most neglected section of the society – the girls and women who now form 48% of the total Indian population. Of the many problems that they face, menstrual health is one major issue that has always been looked at as a stigma, with no one ready to talk about it in public because of it being a taboo in the Indian society Women in the Indian society face Men also don’t want to talk about the it makes the situation worse. It is been multitude problems with ‘menstrual same, as they try to stay away from things mentioned in different studies and reports hygiene’ being one of them. It’s been years which make them uncomfortable, but that in rural India women still uses massy that women are suffering from lots of issues it is important to talk about such things. cloths, and dirty things instead of sanitary due to the unacceptable behaviour towards Because he being a part of this society napkins as they don’t have enough money this cause. A key reason for such behaviour and surrounded by women all throughout to buy pads.

But fortunately now people have in the society is the unwillingness to talk his life, be it his mother, sister, wife or his about problems faced by women related to daughter, he too should be familiar with started raising their voices to bring in a menstrual health. It is in fact thought to be the problems that these people close to change and surprisingly there has been equal participation seen from the male a taboo to talk about such things openly, him face.

If we start counting the problems faced in the society. These kind of initiatives to not even inside one’s house. Women try to keep it low key since they do not find by women problems during the menstrual change the behaviour towards menstrual it comfortable discussing their personal cycle, the list just goes on increasing. health can be witnessed in Bollywood hygiene issues. Even if people try to talk The problems include - Skipping schools movies such as, ‘PHULLU’ ‘PAD MAN’ about these problems, ladies, especially during menstrual cycle, locking herself ‘TOILET – Ek Prem Katha’ etc. young girls become uncomfortable as it is in a room and staying alone, restriction been taught to them not to discuss these on participation in holy activities such A matter of concern... as ‘Pooja’ and so on. Specially hiding the issues openly.

In India, society plays a major role in Man too plays a role to some extent in problems during the cycles can create every phase of our life - be it education, aggravating this problem. It is understood bigger issues later. Ignorance of menstrual marriage, career, and so does in our that India still believes in patriarchal norms hygiene can affect the ladies badly and health. Indian society has set up some and social traditions which prevent the when they come to know the result of rules and regulations for boys and girls 21th century men to talk about such issues. the ignorance in the form of any disease and therefore the society judges a person 22 | December 2017 www.spoindia.org

Arunachalam Muruganantham is one of those personalities who have won the fight against all the taboos related to the menstrual health. He is the inventor of a low-cost sanitary pad making machine and is credited for innovating grass-roots mechanisms for generating awareness about traditional unhygienic practices around menstruation in rural India.

Arunachalam Muruganantham got refuse when he initiated to talk about periods problem. But he didn’t lose hope and started testing it on himself, using a bladder with animal blood, but became the subject of ridicule when the "sanitary pad" was discovered in his village. In 2006, he visited IIT Madras to show his idea and received suggestions.

They registered his invention for the National Innovation Foundation's Grassroots Technological Innovations Award and his idea won the award.

Now his invention is widely praised as a key step in changing women's lives in India. Muruganantham's machine creates jobs and income for many women, and affordable pads enable many more women to earn their livelihood during menstruation.

Pad Man is a movie based on the menstrual problem which woman faces every month, is featuring big names of the Indian cinema such as Amitabh Bachchan, Akshay Kumar, Radhika Apte, and Sonam Kapoor. Pad Man was envisioned to an be awareness film without focusing too much at the commercial aspect. (source Wikipedia)

Arunachalam Muruganantham Social Entreprenuer & Founder of Jayaashree Industries There are also a few web portals which cover and present stories related to the cause to support those people who shows courage to take such bold steps and also inspire people to raise their voices for the behavioural change of the society towards the issue. ‘THE BETTER INDIA’ is one of them, this kind of website supports woman issues and makes it concern worthy and they also provide opportunities to people who want to share their stories and inspire more people to take such steps.

(Source Wikipedia)

on basis of these norms. This is one of the biggest reasons why Indian women think over 1000 times before talking about menstruation or period as it seems a taboo.

And of course the society has enough control on the boys as they don’t realise that they should also talk on the topic as it’s a natural process which every girl has to go through. It is not a disease. A lot of bold steps/ initiatives have been taken to break such stereotypes and it is becoming apparent from different media coverages that these initiatives are started to get ample support from the society, though at some of time they too have faced lots of criticism.

Breaking stereotypes...

To break stereotypes, the Indian cinema needs to be credited for having taken some bold steps to showcase these issues on big screen, which is a clear reflection of the

changes happening in our society. Cinema is a medium which can connect people easily and also with visuals the impact it leaves on audience lasts for long time.

It also gives courage to unveil the real personalities and stop hiding behind the rituals. And the bold steps of Indian cinema can be seen in movies like ‘PHULLU’ and ‘PADMAN’. The participation of some of the biggest personalities of Bollywood show their enthusiasm and willingness to bring a change to our society and therefore interest has been shown for such kind of movies which are not made for profit but to implement social change. Besides the ones named, there are other movies which are made to bring a change in the society, specially changing the patriarchal mindsets that believe that talking about women’s issues publically is not less than a crime and also judges the character of the person.

Phullu movie is about an errand boy who eventually makes low-cost menstruation pads.

It also shows the difficulties of Indian boys as nobody tells them about the menstrual cycle so that they can become more supportive. The film is meant to teach the viewer about menstruation, a taboo subject in India.

(Source Wikipedia)

Raising voice to be continued...

It is a good thing to learn of instances of how the men of our patriarchal society are marking their presence in bringing in a change in everyone’s mindset. With this article we have tried to bring some focus on the issue which is a very common problem but has not grabbed much attention as it is related to the lives of the women. If not attended to at the right time, this might affect them as a slow poison. There is a huge list of non government organizations, corporates, web portals, movies which can be highlighted and praised for the initiative they have taken for making it a concern worthy topic. We will continue to praise and support such initiatives for bringing in behavioural changes and work for the upliftment of our mindset regarding the topic. In our next month issue we will try to bring in the participation of many such organizations that are working in this field and the actual changes happening in our society towards the menstrual hygiene of women in India.

By Megha

www.spoindia.org December 2017 | 23

COVER STORY

2G Spectrum Allocation – Who was at fault?

The question still remains unanswered of where did the Rs 1.76 lakh cr. disappear. Was no one at fault?

The second question that arises if is it a real loss or it a wrong calculation? If it is a wrong calculation, then what will be the next step?

The 2G scam remains as the biggest financial scandal in the history of the Indian telecommunication industry. The scandal was finally given a conclusion on December 21, 2017 with the pronouncement of judgment by the Special CBI Court. The 2G scam involved grant of 122 telecom licenses on first-come-first-serve basis in 2008 (when A. Raja was Telecom Minister), bundled with spectrum given at throwaway prices determined in 2001.

This allegedly caused the public exchequer a loss of Rs 30,984 crore according to CBI. The Comptroller & Auditor General had however put the loss at Rs 1.76 lakh crore.

The Supreme Court, in 2012, declared the first-come-first-serve process of allocating airwaves faulty and cancelled the 122 licenses belonging to 9 telcos.

24 | December 2017 www.spoindia.org

While probing the corruption case related to the spectrum allocation, the CBI in its report alleged that offences pertaining to five main issues — the cutoff date, violations of the first come - first served policy, dual technology approvals & spectrum allocation, eligibility of companies, and cheating the government exchequer by non-revision of the entry fee were committed. The Comptroller and Auditor General of India had estimated

the total loss to be Rs 1.76 lakh crore.

What is the 2G Spectrum Scandal?

The investigating agency, in its chargesheet filed in 2011 alleged that A Raja in conspiracy with his former private secretary R.K. Chandolia, decided the cutoff date for consideration of applications to be received upto September 25, 2007, to wrongly benefit accused Sanjay Chandra, Managing Director - Unitech Wireless (Tamil Nadu) Pvt. Ltd. and Shahid Balwa & Vinod Goenka of Swan Telecom Pvt. Ltd. The prosecution examined 153 witnesses, including the chairman of the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, Anil Ambani, his wife Tina Ambani and corporate lobbyist Nira Radia. The Ambani couple had however turned hostile.

Raja along with other politicians and bureaucrats was alleged to have awarded 2G mobile phone services licences arbitrarily to several telecom firms at knockdown prices on a first-come-first-serve basis.

The Delhi court fixed December 21,

2017 for pronouncement of judgment in the 2G Spectrum allocation scam case.

Special Judge O.P. Saini announced the date in the presence of the accused and counsel for the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate. The judge said he conducted the trial for seven long years but no one turned up with any legally admissible evidence. But if he felt that even a primafacie case was not made out, there were many stages at which he could have discharged the accused. Grover said."It is like saying I have crossed the bridge, I have crossed the river, I have crossed the mountains but I actually I did not want to come here," he said.

He further said in his brief order, “I have perused the files and will pronounce judgment on December 21 at 10.30 AM”.

The court asked all the accused to be present that day.

The verdict…

Former Telecom Minister A. Raja, DMK Rajya Sabha Member M.K. Kanimozhi and others have been facing prosecution in the case. The evidence from 29 defence witnesses was also recorded by the court. There are 19 accused in the money-laundering complaint filed by the Enforcement Directorate. It includes Kanimozhi, Raja and DMK leader M. Karunanidhi’s wife Dayalu Ammal.

Acquitting all 19 accused, including former Telecom Minister A Raja and DMK leader M.K. Kanimozhi, former Telecom Secretary Sidharth Behura and slamming the CBI for failing to produce evidence against them, judge OP Saini said that PMO officials Pulok Chatterjee and TKA Nair suppressed relevant and controversial part of Raja's letter to Singh regarding spectrum sale policy like adoption of first-come-first-served or first-pay-firstserved rule. All accused are now out on bail. Besides them, three telecom firms Swan Telecom Pvt Ltd (STPL), Reliance Telecom Ltd and Unitech Wireless (Tamil Nadu) Ltd. were also accused and are acquitted in the case.

Former Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh said he respected the court's judgment on the 2G case which has quashed all propaganda against UPA. “I don't want to boast anything. I think the court's judgment has to be respected, and I am glad that the court has pronounced

unambiguously that all these massive propagandas that have been against the UPA were without any foundation.”

Congress leader and senior advocate Kapil Sibal said, “The acquittal of all the accused in the 2G scam vindicated the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the UPA's stand that there was no scam in the allocation of spectrum and licences to telecom companies.” He further sought an apology from Vinod Rai who as the then Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) had in his telecom audit report estimated a massive presumptive loss of Rs 1.76 lakh crore to the state exchequer by allocating 2G spectrum licences at allegedly throwaway prices.

BJP Leader Subramanian Swamy, who was one of the petitioners on whose plea a CBI probe was ordered in the 2G case, said

that the government should immediately appeal in the Delhi High Court against the acquittal.

2G Scam, the biggest financial scandal in the history of the telecom industry in India, has concluded on December 21, 2017 with the pronouncement of judgment by the Special CBI Court. The issue involved grant of 122 telecom licenses on firstcome-first-serve basis in 2008 (when A. Raja was Telecom Minister), bundled with spectrum, at prices determined in 2001, allegedly causing a loss of Rs 30,984 crore to the public exchequer, according to CBI. The Comptroller & Auditor General had however put the loss at Rs 1.76 lakh crore.

The Supreme Court, in 2012, declared the first-come-first-serve process of allocating airwaves faulty and cancelled the 122 licenses belonging to 9 telcos.

The Numbers involved in the 2G Scam – Rs 22,000 crore loss caused to Exchequer as per CBI chargesheet Rs. 1.76 lakh crore estimated loss to Exchequer as per CAG estimates 80,000 pages length of chargesheet filed by CBI in April 2011 4,400 pages in the chargesheet which contain only testimonies of witnesses examined by CBI 154 total number of CBI witnesses in the case 3 cases filed - 2 by CBI and the 3rd by ED www.spoindia.org December 2017 | 25

EVENT

AAI along with ALIMCO pioneer cochlear implant surgery under CSR initiative Hearing impairment has a significant impact on the child and his family.

Considering the impact of hearing impairment, early identification and intervention during the critical learning years, has been found to be very important to minimize the impact of the hearing impairment in the child's over all development. Most of children who are born deaf or hard of hearing can learn to listen to their own voices, listen to the voices of others and listen to the sounds of life. An estimate shows that around 35,000 children need Cochlear Implant annually which is minuscule as compared to the provision of 500 numbers made under ADIP Scheme of Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disability (DEPwD) Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment (MoSJ&E) Govt. of India.

Therefore we look up to organizations other than the government to come forward and support this activity and accept it as an opportunity to bridge this void.

What is a cochlear implant?

• Prosthetic device • Surgically implanted inside the cochlea • Beneficial for children and adults with severe to profound hearing loss 26 | December 2017 www.spoindia.org

Who can be helped?

Children with hearing loss as young as 12 months old and within 5 years of age can be eligible for a cochlear implant The cochlear implant technology may help children who – • Have severe to profound hearing loss in both ears • Receive little or no benefit from hearing aids • Score 50% or less on sentences recognition.

For the first time in their corporate history, Airports Authority of India has come forward to help 115 Hearing Impaired children to overcome their hearing loss impairment through Cochlear Implant surgery under their CSR initiative. This is being done in association with Artificial Limbs Manufacturing Corporation of India (ALIMCO) a “Not for Profit” CPSE under the Ministry of Social justice and Empowerment, Govt. of India.

The summit was organized to showcase the success of the Cochlear Implant surgery initiative under CSR and to

Shri. Guruprasad Mohapatra Chairman - AAI “It is my immense pleasure and I extend my sincerest thanks to ALIMCO and the Ministry of Social Justice for recognizing our efforts and a humble contribution to this noble cause in such a gathering here today. The role of AAI is to primarily build airports and keep them safe, but apart from that mandate, CSR is also a big focus for us. Recently we took a conscious decision to work in areas of Public Health and nutrition with our CSR efforts. In that line we have signed a 6.9 crore MoU with ALIMCO to help those children who can undergo a cochlear surgery and are able to speak and hear again.

We are also working with Tata Memorial Hospital for helping the blood cancer students.”

introduce the children who have overcome hearing and speech disability and started hearing and speaking which is not less than a miracle. The event would highlight the impact CSR Project had made on the lives of these children and their families and how it would eventually bring them in the mainstream of life.

The Chief Guest of the event, Hon’ble Union Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment Shri Thaawarchand Gehlot graced the occasion. Smt. Shakuntla D. Gamlin, Secretary, Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilites, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Government of India and Smt. Dolly Chakraborty, Jt. Secretary (DEPwD) were also present during the function.

Shri. A K Sinha, Director – Ali Yavar Jung National Institute of Speech and Hearing Disabilities “It is a fact that a person who is deaf by birth also is dumb in most of the cases. But this myth is proven wrong by cochlear implant. Because after undergoing cochlear surgery, a person who was deaf by birth will be able to hear again and after a speech therapy, he will also learn to talk. Cochlear surgery can indeed be a boon in that case. Through AAI’s CSR initiative, cochlear surgery of 15 children was successful, out of which 5 students are present here today – 1 from Varanasi, 2 from Delhi, 5 from Kanpur and 1 from Mumbai. Good news is that AAI will be supporting another 100 children through ALIMCO for their cochlear surgery. Along with the support from the Ministry which we always receive, I would also request all the parents to come forward with their participation if they want to see their children hear and speak again.”

Shri. D R Sarin CMD – ALIMCO

Smt. Shakuntla D. Gamlin, Secretary, Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilites, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Government of India “I would like to place on record that the bold step taken by the Honourable Minister, Shri Thaawarchand Gehlot is indeed commendable. As we all know that cochlear implant is a very costly surgery and it is done on those children who have been suffering from hearing impairment since birth.

It is a very valued contribution to the dept. of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities and also to the cause of humanity by Airport Authority of India. I am very thankful to them for taking up this cause of equipping these children with hearing aids for them to lead a normal life. They would not be a burden anymore on their parents or on the society. 172 hospitals have been empanelled for carrying out these cochlear surgeries.”

“AAI’s support for this initiative is a clear reflection of the organization’s willingness to work for the disabled people. Shri Mohapatra’s immense contribution and keenness for this sector should be a example to all such organizations who want to do something for the society. We started this initiative in 2011-12 but it picked up from 2014-15. We picked up the cause of cochlear implant because it entails an expenditure of 6 lakhs and a economically deprived family cannot bear this cost.

The good part about this initiative is that we have been successful in covering many people from remote areas through this initiative. Going forward we would like to partner with many other corporate bodies and extend the benefits of this initiative to many other people who still are outside the radar.”

Shri Thaawarchand Gehlot Union Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment “Corporates have a responsibility towards doing societal good. Schemes introduced by the govt. would be successful only when these companies come forward and try to participate in whatever way possible in working for the society. The question that arises is why there is a need for participation from the corporate world. The cochlear implant surgery scheme is a new initiative. After Shri Narendra Modi became the PM of India, a lot of schemes and initiatives got introduced in the Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment. For instance, new scholarships have been introduced for students, 80% of the Divyanjans were given motorable devices, cochlear surgery was made available that saw 100% success rate and so on. This surgery if it is done on students who are below 5-6 years see 100% success rate.” www.spoindia.org December 2017 | 27

SPOI ANALYSIS

BSNL Driving Digital India with Wi-Fi Strategy

Authored by Adlane Felah, Senior Analyst, Maravedis LLC

India is known to have the second largest population in the world at 1.3 billion but it also has the second largest number of mobile subscriptions in the world.

However, despite much progress in the last few years, when it comes to broadband, India remains well behind its regional peers. This reflects the huge challenges still faced by the country to realize its full potential as a digital country.

Indeed, India ranks 134th in the 2017 ITU ICT Development Index and still has less than 25% broadband penetration today while Internet Penetration in rural areas is less than 16% in 2017 and that’s not even broadband. Indian authorities still use an outdated definition of broadband as “Internet access, with the capability of a minimum download speed of 512 kbps” while most countries define broadband at a minimum of 2Mbps and in the US, it’s even 25 Mbps. In 2016, DSL accounted for almost three-quarters of fixed broadband subscriptions, with fiber representing less than 2 per cent. There are over 1 million kilometers of optical fiber in the national backbone. We estimate the current number of Wi-Fi hotspots to be less than 100,000 including 15,000 from BSNL. Eight service providers offer fixed telephone and internet service but none nationwide. The two largest fixed telephone line operators, BSNL and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam, Ltd. (MTNL), are state-owned. BSNL operates everywhere except the cities of Delhi and Mumbai, where MTNL provides its service. BSNL had 21.2 million broadband subscribers as of September 2017 of which 9.54 million were wired broadband.

On the mobile side, there are 13 providers offering mobile cellular services, of which five have nationwide operations.

Mobile broadband using 3G technologies were launched in 2008. There have been a number of spectrum auctions for LTE since 2012, and operators have gradually been launching LTE using different frequencies. However just 59 per cent 28 | December 2017 www.spoindia.org

of mobile Internet subscriptions were broadband in 2016 and there is insufficient spectrum to provide 21th century broadband connectivity through LTE only. Thus, Wi-Fi has a unique advantage to reduce the digital gap in the country especially when combined with sufficient backhaul capacity through fiber. Wi-Fi has seen exponential growth everywhere due to the abundance of free spectrum and lower costs access points but not in India yet, why?

Obstacles to public Wi-Fi proliferation There are number of reasons why Wi-Fi has not been deployed to its full potential yet. Those include (but are not limited to): • Lack of incentives for operators to invest in Wi-Fi networks as Wi-Fi is often perceived as a free service so operators may not know how to monetize it.

• Currently, only 5.825 – 5.875 GHz band is allowed for outdoor deployment, and the spectrum bands. 5.150-5.350 GHz and 5.725 – 5.850GHz are not allowed for

outdoor deployment.

• Limited availability of facilitiesbased fiber or copper broadband specially in suburban and rural areas, constrains availability of Public Wi-Fi. • Lack of a framework on roaming between Wi-Fi networks and difficulties in onboarding and making payments for Wi-Fi access leading to a poor customer experience Indian regulatory authorities including the TRAI are looking into ways to reduce the barriers to Wi-Fi deployments to support the government telecom objectives such as Digital India.

Digital India is a flagship government program with a vision to transform India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy. It is an umbrella initiative covering a number of government agencies and departments and centered on three key areas • Digital infrastructure as a utility for every citizen; • Governance and services on demand; • Digital empowerment of citizens.

The project aims at connecting about 2,50,000 bigger villages with optical fiber.

The result will be to provide a capacity ranging between 100 Mpbs to about 1 Gbps at each end point in these rural areas.

As we shall see, BSNL is one of the leading enablers for the realization of the vision of a connected India.

BSNL Nationwide WiFi Rollout Project In light of the above situation and to meet the governments objectives for Digital India, BSNL has set to tackle the challenge with an ambitious nationwide roll out of Wi-Fi access points, leveraging its position as the largest backbone/fiber operator in the country. The phase one of that project is already complete where BSNL played its part in laying the optical fiber and contributed to 85% of the connectivity

with 200,000 kilometers of optical fiber.

This country-wide backbone represents the fabric around which the digital divide is being bridged in India, complemented with ubiquitous low-cost Wi-Fi. BSNL aims at deploying 100,000 access points within the next two years with about 15,000 Wi-Fi hotspots already live.BSNL plans to support 1 million concurrent user sessions when the project is complete.

The first phase consisted of deployment across five major circles, i.e. Noida, Pune, Kolkata, Chennai and Bangalore equivalent to 27 circles already live.

BSNL claims it has achieved the following KPIs in a record time: • Currently catering to 300,000 logins per month • 100 Mb free quota on first login for walk-in customers • 66,532 users catered from April to June 2017 • Amount of traffic 5238 Gbps Deploying a Wi-Finetwork requires a substantial CAPEX investment only viable if the proper monetization strategies are adopted. To that effect, BSNL has partnered with technology vendor Sterlite to adopt a ServiceManagement Platform that supports the widest array of uses cases and monetization approaches to WiFi. Those are summarized in the figure below: BSNL is in line with end-user expectations vis a vis Wi-Fi whether they are daily commuters or foreigners visiting the country. These users want Wi-Fi that simply works and provide them with a great experience from network discovery to onboarding to web surfing with as little friction from passwords and payments as possible including when roaming across India. At the same time, they want secure networks that they can rely on to conduct sensitive business such as banking. If they are going to be marketed products and services, consumers expect ads to be context aware and relevant to them.

On the other hand, venue owners and service providers need a management system that is agile and easy to implement so they can adjust their marketing strategies to rapid changes as well as test new offerings without requiring whole new software development.

Service providers want to be able to

monetize their Wi-Fi network both at the retail and wholesale levels. For example, launching new marketing campaigns geared at both their current subscribers as well as their competitor’s end-users or visitors through a simple to create captive portal.

They want to be able to make partnerships and deals with venues or brands quickly and test new business models including through MVNOs and roaming agreements.

BSNL strategy towards Wi-Fi is also in line with the level of industry confidence in Wi-Fi investment reported by is at its highest-ever as reported by the Wireless Broadband Alliance in its Annual Industry Report for 2017. The new global study by Maravedis has revealed that over 80 per cent of those surveyed feel as or more confident about Wi-Fi than they did a year ago.

As industry attention moves toward monetizing Wi-Fi, the study also highlights the services most important to monetization strategies for 2018 according to respondents included location based services (37.5 per cent), roaming (33 per cent) and marketing analytics (almost 33 per cent). The three Wi-Fi use cases tipped to drive near term revenue potential include: extending internet access and

media to a full smart home, richer and more efficient enterprise services driven by cloud managed networks and security, and expansion of the Wi-Fi roaming model.

Conclusions India is a leader in ICT-enabled outsourcing services. BSNL’s efforts in extending fiber-optic backbones to rural areas and deploying low cost and highquality Wi-Fi is expected to result in lower costs and greater affordability and likely to narrow the gap in ICT access between rural and urban areas. Sterlite Tech plays a central role in enabling BSNL to deploy, manage and monetize its Wi-Fi network thanks to its 2017 WBA award winning Wi-Fi Service Management Platform (SMP).

Sterlite Tech’s Wi-Fi Service Management Platform (SMP) is a modular, pre-integrated solution for Carrier Wi-Fi, Enterprise Wi-Fi, Public Wi-Fi, Smart City Services. With a comprehensive cloud ready platform, Wi-Fi SMP helps CSPs to offer innovative services and launch unique business cases, thus ensuring service differentiation, create new revenue opportunities and enhance customer experience. www.spoindia.org December 2017 | 29

CASE STUDY

Reliance Foundation Information Services – disseminating information for livelihood improvement One of the programmes of Reliance Foundation called “Reliance Foundation Information Services – RFIS” is disseminating localized livelihood (agriculture, livestock, fisheries, etc.) and non-livelihood advisories (local news, social messages, insurance, civic services, etc.) using different communication media (mobile platforms, local cable TV, Radio, Print) with the guidance of various knowledge providers (Universities, Government Departments, Banks, Hospitals, etc.).

As of date, 40 lakh individuals have been reached through various mobile platforms. Additionally, about 3.6 lakh users participated in multi-location audio/video conferences and various field based services interactions. 1, 48,550 farm animals were treated for various health ailments through livestock camps organized in partnership modes. Apart from these, weather based agro-livestockmarine advisories bulletins, early warning information are disseminated through 54 local cable TV networks, 7 AIR / Community Radio and 6 newspaper network. Presently the programme reaches Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and West Bengal.

Programme Name: Reliance Foundation - Information Services (RFIS) Key Principles behind the design of the programme: • To address the information poverty in various localized issues by providing tailor-made, quality answers to rural customer questions • To provide right information at the right 30 | December 2017 www.spoindia.org

platforms to share localized content in all languages made seamlessly available for sharing Objective: To provide “Right Kind of Information from the Right Sources to the Right People at the Right Time” towards livelihood improvement and knowledge empowerment Important Aspects of the Programme:

“Reliance Foundation Information Services is committed to bringing about rural transformation through efficient use of technology. The core aspect of the programme involves use of technological platforms for addressing the common problems faced by farmers, livestock owners, fisher folk, disaster affected and other marginalized communities. We link knowledge seekers with subject matter experts and technocrat knowledge providers through virtual platforms that help with relevant information at the right time.”

Senthilkumaran S., Programme Head, Reliance FoundationInformation Services time from the right source for making right decision to move up the value chain for higher income generation or knowledge empowerment • To develop framework for various need based dissemination technological

• Providing day to day triggers or reminders related to customer’s livelihood or general knowledge services (eg. remainders to livestock farmers to go for vaccination for foot and mouth diseases during march month) • Providing incremental or new information suitable to their practiced livelihood (e.g. providing information and importance of taking shepherd insurance, hydroponic technology based fodder management) • Providing new and latest trending information (e.g. cashless transaction, civic services, employment, importance of polio pulse vaccination) and • Making linkages with appropriate players (e.g. connecting with livestock insurance officials, azola preparation veterinary officials) to get the appropriate support at different levels and address the target audiences queries Customers: • Farmers (major crops) • Fisher Folk (both Marine and Inland) • Livestock farmers • • • •

Pregnant and Lactating women Rural Youth Micro-entrepreneurs General Public and

SPOI ANALYSIS • Extension Officials Themes Covered: • • • • • •

Agriculture, Horticulture, Floriculture Animal Husbandry Marine Fisheries, Inland Fisheries Health Education, Employment Government / Bank Subsidies – Loan – Entitlements, Civic Services • Micro-Enterprises • Early Warning & Disaster Management and • Market Modes to Reach the Customers: • Mobile based audio/text advisories • WhatsApp based audio/video/rich text advisories • Jio Chat based virtual camps – Plant disease diagnostic camps, Livestock camps • Multi-location audio/video conferences • Local cable TV/Radio/Print Medium network based bulletins dissemination (weather based agro-livestock-fisheries advisories); scroll and live phone in programmes in local cable TV • Providing advisories at field (demonstrations, trainings and knowledge on wheels based advisories dissemination and awareness creation) • Training at sea (knowledge on ocean) • Field based services – medical camps, livestock camps and plant diagnostic camps Programme Design • Listing out information and training needs from various secondary data, reports and direct inputs from various government departments’ institutions, opinions and observations of experts from that particular region, focus group discussions with communities.

• Identifying ground level grassroots network and cross checking the information and training needs with random network individuals • Mapping the institutions/organization/ individuals based on expertise and leadership in a field and partnering with them for sourcing knowledge/ information in the form of content

and resource persons for various programme activities • Disseminating need based information using different communication platforms and facilitating to organize discussions between knowledge seekers and knowledge providers using different communication platforms and engagements to address the issues and provide clarifications • Providing clarifications addressing questions through cloud telephony based Toll Free Helpline Number • Conducting joint research studies to assess impact and find out the midcourse corrections Testimonial “I own 5 Acres of farming land took 5 more acres on lease for cultivation.

I cultivated black gram this year in my field after this January Kharif Paddy crop. The crop hasn’t shown any growth even after 45 days of sowing. I applied many medicines but in vain. During the same time, Reliance Foundation organised a live program with Scientist Dr. Ramana from KVK, Ghantasala. He suggested me to spray 200 grams of Urea mixed into 10 litres of water across the field. The crop sustained and I got higher yield than my neighbouring farmers.”

- Katram Srinu, Chinnapuram, Krishna District, Andhra Pradesh

Digital platforms based Early Warning Dissemination RFIS has extensively disseminated cyclone and adverse weather conditions advisories for the Phailin, Leher, Helen, HudHud, Roanu, Vardha cyclones and Hailstorms in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu.

Collaboration between RFIS and large national institutions such India Meteorological Department (IMD) and Indian National Centre for Oceanographic Services (INCOIS) enables RFIS platforms to disseminate weather based agro, early warning (Phailin, Leher, Helen, HudHud, Roanu, Vardha and Hailstorms in the States of Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu) and other marine fisheries advisories.

Knowledge Providers Presently RFIS programme is in partnership with more than 620 knowledge partners (departments/ organizations/institutions/hospitals/ banks not individuals) for providing content, allotting experts for providing clarifications and extending services at ground.

www.spoindia.org December 2017 | 31

FACE TO FACE

‘The Public library movement will transform the reading habits in people’ cover books and on computers because e-learning is as much part of learning as the normal books. We have started a couple of projects; at least 54 of them are running now in NDMC, Delhi Cantonment and MCD areas.

We today find a decline in the reading habit among youths today. Do you have any innovative idea through which they can get attracted to these public libraries?

A woman of substance, Smt. Meenakshi Lekhi, Indian Member of Parliament in the Lok Sabha was upright in stating of how she always found her calling in working for the society, which does not pertain to just issues revolving around women but many other issues that continue to cripple the Indian society. One of them is the public library movement in India that is getting further boosted with the keen involvement of the MP herself and the transformation measures that she has initiated to revive these libraries. The idea behind this project is to inculcate the habit of reading in people and also for making the library a place that can be frequented by people who find interest in reading but unable to do so because of dearth of space. An excerpt from the interview -

Please tell us something about the transformation in the public libraries that you are initiating?

The transformation in the reading culture is what we constantly discuss when children are growing up. Early reading habits make an adult who is far more sound in terms of emotional stability, cultural values and knowledge.

The public library space or the 32 | December 2017 www.spoindia.org

exposure to books is something which needs to be inculcated at an early age.

We took this initiative with Angelique Foundation and decided to give young kids exposure to public library by renovating a couple of these libraries, which were either lying defunct or were in a dilapidated form or were not utilised properly. The idea was to create some space where people could happily spend time reading, both hard

If we are talking about youths who are in their teens or are in early adulthood and if they have focused on education only with the intention of passing exams, it is very hard to change those habits at later ages. But many a times there is a dearth of good places or a library for people, who look for such spaces to read or study. So we are catering to the people who have these reading habits; especially there is a large segment of enterprising and upcoming India who generally comes from the lower income strata, has small homes and very less space for quiet reading.

So we are providing them with space and facility with better quality books, internet and e-libraries so that those who are preparing for exams can avail these facilities.

Colony-wise, we have built these facilities for 100-150 people. I also got to know that there are people who pay 3000-3500 for a small reading space because in urban areas paucity of space is a major challenge. Particularly in my constituency, New Delhi I find people waiting in queues to get inside the library. So we decided to give all these for free, so that children with greater interests and higher goals start flocking.

We have also decided to put up a coffee machine.

What kind of memories do you

associate with a public library?

I have very pleasant memories of a public library in my growing years.

I grew up in Delhi and as a small child we used to have many functions organized in the public library and we used to look forward to attending those functions and conferences. Winning those debates and extempore speeches used to be a big achievement because as a prize we used to get a good book.

So that ways I was able to build my own library over the years with the books that I got as a prize. I think a book can be your biggest companion and whatever you read in a book stays with you forever in the form of memories.

It is the best investment one can make on books. The more time you spend on reading, there is a higher success of retaining things which otherwise would not be possible if you are not reading.

Also your thinking power improves knowledge gets widened, emotional quotient gets better. India is a country that has culturally promoted learning, we are people who respect Goddess Saraswati a lot and we just need to go ahead and promote that.

Apart from the public library movement, what other initiatives and causes do you associate yourself?

I got to work on women issues which are close to my heart but that is not the only identity I as a person have.

Women issues are important because I feel being a woman if I don’t stand for my own agenda who else will?

I started off as taxation & criminal law practitioner and I had those cases in hand that brings you to the limelight, which probably winning a good excise case will not. But if you help winning a case for a woman who have been a rape victim then that becomes news too. I obviously take pride in the kind of work that I have done not because I am a woman but because in spite of my occupation, I stood for women and I still work for them. I even made an app for women apart from the cases which I have fought during my career as a woman lawyer. The name of the app is Raksha; this was the time when nobody

did this kind of work and the year was 2014 when I had won the elections.

Good initiatives are taken care of and people get benefitted. Likewise Open gym was another initiative; I got elected in May and in October the first open gym was launched. Open gym is one good initiative when we talk of the ecology and energy conservation. When you look at the lifestyle of women around us, they will never spend the money to go to a gym. Even those who can afford to go to a gym will not do it because they cannot remain away from their homes because of work. They fail to understand that physical exercise is as important as any other activities that they do in life. So both affordability and mental conditioning happen to be the challenges to people that stop them from going to the gym. Opening Open gyms offered a solution to all these.

Also, open gyms are in open areas and are absolutely low on energy.

I came across a case study that documented the lives of 2 lower income women, for whom affordability, time, mental

&

physical

health

were some issues and how their

perception

their

lives

they

started

towards

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bonding while working out at the gym together and gave them a respite from their lonely life they were leading earlier.

I feel good that whatever steps I have taken are helping people, because at the end of the day whatever projects you undertake should yield positive result.

I have always worked for women issues and I take pride in doing that.

Maybe because I am from the same gender and that gives them the confidence to come up to me and talk about the issues they face. When women need to be drawn out, the right person has to be on the forefront for the success of the project. Plus faith and trust factor are very important.

And it is the trust that makes people leaders and others will stand by you.

Any message you would like to give through our medium on the kind of work you are doing for the society?

Women health is the most neglected area, not only in our country but elsewhere in the world. No women go out to get their health check-up done, unless a major problem crops up. When I was elected, my first fund went for funding 4 medical health vans that had X-Rays, blood testing facilities and other devices. Mostly we had to deal with issues like anaemia, premenopause & menopause and so on. I realized that since women do not get the time to come out of their homes after doing their regular household chores, sending the medical unit into their vicinity would be the best possible option. There they can avail all the medical facilities. The best part is that these units are connected to the Cloud, and every data scanned and entered goes into the cloud. So every time a woman comes, her medical records can be retrieved and the treatment carried out accordingly. I was also surprised to find out that many women have constipation as a problem and nobody would even talk about it and so they don’t know its cause and cure.

I certainly feel providing clean water, building toilets, and most importantly making people aware of health and sanitation issues can actually take away most of the lifestyle diseases. And so I will continue to work in these areas.

www.spoindia.org December 2017 | 33

SPOI FOUNDATION

NASSCOM Foundation witnesses a steep rise in CSR spending NASSCOM Foundation, at its flagship event, CSR Leadership Conference (CLC), has announced that the industry has widely accepted the 2% CSR rule with a trend of more companies coming out openly to declare 100%+ utilization of their CSR money for 2016-17.

This year, CLC went beyond discussing basic intervention areas, to talk about new developments, innovative tools and disruptive ways of making the ecosystem better, more impactful and efficient. In this process, the CLC will deep dive into Recalibrating Employability through CSR, Social Impact Investing, Leveraging Big Data for Impact, Unlocking the Value of Corporate Sustainability in the form of panel discussions, fireside chats and impact talks.

NASSCOM Foundation, in partnership with Goodera, released the report “Catalyzing Change”.

Some key highlights of the report are mentioned below • Growing number of companies spending 100% and above of the CSR funds, among both MNCs and Non-MNCs. 61. 6% of the surveyed companies reported spend of 100% or above their prescribed CSR budget. This includes 63.3% of the MNCs and 68% of the Non-MNCs. • While 57.57% of large companies, 53.3% of medium companies are spending 100% of CSR funds, an impressive 72.7% of small companies are spending 100% of CSR funds.

• Only 5% of companies surveyed reported spend of less than 50% of 34 | December 2017 www.spoindia.org

their CSR budget.

• Education remains the top focus area of companies’ CSR activities.

Especially in MNCs, 76% of MNCs reported highest CSR spend on education. Other MNC focus areas are 12% on hunger and poverty and 18% on gender equality.

• MNCs increasing liaison with government to tackle developmental issues. While overall, 43.3% of participating companies confirmed working with the Central/State

governments in their socioeconomic projects for 2016-17.

Speaking on the same, Shrikant Sinha, CEO, NASSCOM Foundation, said, “The IT BPM Industry has been at the forefront of social development initiatives and it is heartening to see the industry emerging as one of the most efficient and innovative adopters of corporate social responsibility.

Technology continues to prove a force multiplier in social impact with more than half of the companies that spent 100% or more of their CSR funds, claiming efficient use of technology to deliver innovative CSR programs aligned to the Government agenda.”

The event saw over 400 CEOs, CXOs, CSR Heads, HR heads of the topmost companies from across various industries with the NGO Leads, Government officials, thought leaders, Tech4Good champions, social innovators come under one roof to discuss and create collaborative and innovative ways of fulfilling the most important Social Development Goals for India.

The CSR Leadership Conference also had on showcase innovations from various social start-ups and NGOs like Sohum Innovation Lab, Neurosynaptic, EYE-D, Bleetech Innovations, Sankalptaru, Foundation for Ecological Securities, Headstreams, and CFBT, among others.

Through its unique NGO impact wall and Networking spaces, the CSR Leadership Conference also provided an opportunity to 100+ participating NGOs to showcase their work to the corporates and connect at a programmatic level.

www.spoindia.org December 2017 | 35

FACE TO FACE

Honda strives to be a company which society wants to exist Harbhajan Singh

Director - General and Corporate Affairs Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India Pvt. Ltd.

Despite being one of the youngest players in the Indian two-wheelers market, Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India Pvt. Ltd. has become the largest two wheeler manufacturer as well as the second largest two-wheelers company in India. Honda 2Wheelers India is also the fastest growing company in the country today with 4 factories in Haryana, Rajasthan, Karnataka and Gujarat. Harbhajan Singh, Director - General and Corporate Affairs - Honda 2Wheelers India throws more light on this aspect in a chat with SPOI -

Tell us about Honda 2Wheelers India's journey and its business philosophy?

Honda 2Wheelers India is the world’s largest manufacturer of two Wheelers, recognized the world over as the symbol of two wheelers. The ‘Wings’ arrived in India as Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India Pvt. Ltd. (Honda 2Wheelers India), a 100% subsidiary of Honda Motor Company Ltd., Japan, in 1999. Since its establishment in 1999 at Manesar, District Gurugram, Haryana, Honda 2Wheelers India has lived up to its reputation of offering the highest quality at the most reasonable price. The production at the Manesar plant started in 2001. The journey thereafter has been very overwhelming and we emerged as the company that has revived the scooter market in India. Our 2nd factory came up in 2011 in Rajasthan taking up our production capacity to 1.65 million units. The 3rd factory came up in Karnataka in 2013, and our capacity became 1.8 million. In 2016 February, we added another factory in Gujarat. Recently we have added another line in our Karnataka factory which has taken the production 36 | December 2017 www.spoindia.org

capacity to 2.4 million. Currently we are having a production capacity of 6.4 million units. Last year we had clocked 5.02 million units and this year our target is 6 million units. And that’s how the growth has been for Honda 2Wheelers India in the Indian market.

Honda 2Wheelers India operates on a principle, which is followed worldwide by all Honda companies. Maintaining a global viewpoint, Honda 2Wheelers India's philosophy is based on the company's guiding principle and advocates 2 fundamental beliefs - i.e. Respect for the Individual, & The Three Joys (Joy of buying, Joy of selling, Joy of manufacturing).

“Power of Dreams” - Honda encourages all its associates to pursue their dreams. That’s why we say we are a company built on dreams. The power of Honda’s dream will continue to lead to new insights and technologies in motorcycles and other fields of mobility. And Honda will spread the philosophy of The Power of Dreams across India. A country where a billion people carry dreams in their hearts, this philosophy is brought alive by “Sach Kar denge Sapne”.

How has been your company's CSR journey?

Since its inception Honda 2Wheelers India has been building up 4S set up, the fourth S being “Safety”. Under this Honda 2Wheelers India has been conducting road safety awareness to kids, adults, women adopting safety training parks etc.

Preserving the environment is at the top of the agenda for Honda 2 Wheelers and it is inspired by our vision of ‘blue skies for our children’. Honda 2Wheelers India’s CSR Policy is aligned to its vision of “the company that society wants to exist.”

Honda 2 Wheelers strives to build a culture of harmonious co-existence between people, society and environment.

Towards this end, Honda 2Wheelers India has been undertaking various initiatives aimed at making a difference in the society.

These initiatives initially were one off and driven by charitable motives. However, with the Companies Act, 2013, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in Honda 2Wheelers India has acquired a new meaning and is working towards creating sustained need based and impact oriented initiatives in partnership with the communities and

NGOs. These implementation partners and their proposals are tested on the anvil of being effective and impact-driven.

We have been spending money in all the factories wherever we operate. In Haryana it has been more than 15 crores, in Rajasthan 14 crore +, Karnataka has been slightly higher (most probably it is 18 crores) and our factory in Gujarat is somewhere close to 8 crores. We strive to be the company that the society wants to exist.

What are the key focus areas of CSR at Honda 2Wheelers India?

Honda 2Wheelers India is committed to build a sustainable business with strong social relevance and a commitment to inclusive growth and contribute to the society by supporting causes on various concerns including road safety, healthcare, environmental sustainability, promoting education, promoting sports and other rural development activities.

The company may conduct/implement CSR programs by itself and/or through registered trusts, societies and/or section 8 (previously section 25) companies with an established track record of at least three years in carrying on activities in the related area/s or as suggested by Ministry of Corporate Affairs vide circulars/ notifications.

One of our key focus areas is Safety we have been focusing in the area of safety, and thereby have built 12 safety riding parks which we operate throughout the country where we keep on giving training to the school children. Now we are coming up with a driving school in Karnal. Besides that we have recently done a project along with Haryana Police on NH1, in which we have signed a Memorandum with them.

We have put up 20 police assistance booths for traffic management at a gap of every 10 kms. Whenever any accident occurs, communication happens and the rescue team reaches to the spot. And these booths are equipped with a Honda bike and are manned by trained police personnel all round the clock. These booths are also equipped with surveillance cameras and the control room of the cameras are also inside the booth. As per the latest data received from the government, around 160 lives have been saved on NH1 because of this initiative. This November, we have also inaugurated another booth on

NH 8 Express Highway from Gurugram to Rewari and we will shortly inaugurate another booth on NH2. These booths are helping not only the police in traffic management and accident management but also in reducing crimes because the people around will be under CCTV coverage and the police presence is visible on the highways.

CSR is emerging as a vital aspect of doing business these days. What is your take on this?

I completely agree with this statement.

CSR, especially for the private companies helps them to connect with the local society. It creates a better relationship with the local people and enables the companies to penetrate into the social fabric of the surrounding community. This eventually increases their acceptability in the society.

How do you see the evolution and future of CSR in India?

CSR has a very long way to go. So far we as a company are concerned, we have tied up with Ernst & Young as a partner in monitoring and assessing the impact of CSR. Each and every CSR project that we take up, it is first vetted by E&Y whether it comes under Clause 7 of the Act and then only it is approved. Secondly, the impact assessment of these activities is also done by them.

Key CSR projects at Honda 2Wheelers • Environment - Project Harit Udaan • Road Safety - Traffic safety projects NH1 & NH2 & NH8,Haryana Vision Zero • Rural Sports - Outdoor& Indoor Stadium at Kolar, Behror, Malur • Education - Honda Technical centre of excellence - Vocational training center(Karnal, Lucknow, Bhubaneswar, Pune, Bangalore, Alwar) • Rural DevelopmentBus Stand at Kotkasim, Community centres(Fazilpur & Surana) • Health & Sanitation- MMU (Manesar, Karnal, Tapukara, Narsapura, Vithalapur) thru HelpAge India & Sulabh International.

The challenge that I see in CSR is the increasing political intervention. I personally feel that corporates should be given free hand in order to spend the CSR money rather than binding them with too many clauses. After all the money is being spent for the good of the society.

We are still at a nascent stage, so far as CSR is concerned. Many corporates that are having profits to a scale of 6000 – 10,000 crores do not have the infrastructure to put that money. Even if they have the infrastructure, the money does not flow to the grass-root level and the corporate social activities are not visible. So I think there is still a long way to go and the competence required to spend the money will take some time.

How has CSR been integrated with the business strategies to contribute to the company's bottom line?

People before Profits is the driving principle for us at Honda 2Wheelers India. Our highest commitment is towards sustaining and improving the environmental situation by doing as much as we can and engaging with communities at scale. Preserving the environment is at the top of the agenda for Honda 2 Wheelers and it is inspired by our vision of ‘blue skies for our children’.

As a responsible corporate, Honda 2Wheelers India is actively contributing to build a greener future. This philosophy permeates through processes, technology and our implementation mechanism. At a global level, Honda 2Wheelers India is striving to lead the efforts to realise a carbon-free environment and collisionfree society.

What is your opinion about the mandatory CSR law in India?

I think it has been a very good step.

We appreciate the move of Government to focus on community development, social, environment change in India after the CSR mandate. More and more companies are now doing CSR and the community is becoming aware after CSR mandate and Govt. guidelines. With the CSR law evolving companies have now started focusing on sustainability, involvement of stakeholders, community to create positive impact in society. www.spoindia.org December 2017 | 37

SKILL INDIA

Tech jobs trends in 2018 and Beyond

By Pradipto Chakrabarty, Regional Director, CompTIA India The transformation in the world of technology is happening at pace which we have not experienced in the past. Implementation of new cutting-edge technology is moving out from a drawing board stage to being practiced by organizations across the world. As more and more organizationsundertake the processof digital transformation to offer tech enabled products or services, IT roles and skills is undergoing radical shifts, something which we are already observing. This will affect the tech job scenario as we move into 2018 and beyond.

In-demand IT roles have started to shift towards including positions focused on advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), augmented and virtual reality (AR and VR), and the Internet of Things (IoT) along with exciting positions within cybersecurity, cloud computing and network technology.

Through these observations we have identified the following as some of the key job roles companies require as they transform their businesses and processes for the future • Cybersecurity Analyst: This individual will manage risk for organizations through use of relevant tools and techniques to gather vital end-point and network host data with the goal of identifying vulnerabilities.

• Network Engineer: This role will encompass coordinating between cloud and traditional networking resources to make a business’s communicate efficiently. They will need to know how to map technical network elements (e.g., a router, an edge device, a microdatacenter) to a company’s business needs.

• Vulnerability Assessment Manager: The role of a penetration tester has matured. Today’s pen tester does more than hack a server or use fancy security tools. Today’s pen tester takes a responsible approach and conducts strong, comprehensive tests to identify – and correct – unacceptable risks.

• Technical Support Specialist: Gone are the days when the help desk professional fixed PCs.The world needs more tech support specialists than ever before: today’s tech support engineer helps manage increasingly complex issues involving data management, authentication and network troubleshooting.

• Machine learning engineer: Machine learning use sophisticated programing such as R and Python to develop AI machines and systems that can learn and apply knowledge to perform tasks. These professionals will also work with complex datasets and algorithms to convert machines to intelligent machines.

• Network Analysts: Businesses are investing more heavily in their networks as IoT is fast becoming critical to 38 | December 2017 www.spoindia.org

In-demand IT roles have started to shift towards including positions focused on advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), augmented and virtual reality (AR and VR), and the Internet of Things (IoT) along with exciting positions within cybersecurity, cloud computing and network technology. manufacture tech enabled products. A growing number of “things” need to be connected in an efficient way, and that's going to be a major driver of demand there.

Network analysts in the coming years will combine their technical skill set with an understanding of how to apply it to provide real-time trending information on network traffic, and what those insights means for the business.

• Cloud engineer: Almost all businesses are mobbing their on-prem systems to cloud and are choosing a hybrid approach, with multiple vendors. In the coming years, cloud engineers will need to create solutions which are mix of multiple technologies. Gone are the days when an Amazon engineer only worked on AWS or Microsoft engineers only knows Azure.

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www.spoindia.org December 2017 | 39

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Date of Posting Date 29 & 30 Every Month

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40 pages including cover