Access driving licence, RC on your mobile

New Delhi: You can now access digital copies of your driving licence, vehicle registration certificate and insurance papers on the mobile phone using the DigiLocker app, which Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari said would arrest corruption and bring in transparency.

Launching the Digital Locker with Driving Licence and vehicle registration system service, Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari said,"There will be a few, who will be unhappy as they will no more have 'Lakshmi Darshan' (bribe money)."

Road transport and IT ministries jointly launched on Wednesday integration of DigiLocker with driving licences (DLs) and vehicle registration certificates (RCs), which enables the user to download these digitally verified documents. Under this arrangement, the transport ministry's National Register has been integrated with DigiLocker.

Once the data from the remaining RTOs is updated in the National Register, the digital copies of those driving licences and vehicle registration certificates will also be available via DigiLocker.

This is seen as the largest integration under DigiLocker system so far as the national registry of the transport ministry has 19.6 crore RCs and 9.2 crore DLs.

"All such downloaded documents will have the QR code to authenticate them and as per the IT Act all digitally signed documents will be treated at par with the physical issued documents," said an IT ministry official. He said they will soon start campaigns to make personnel of all enforcement agencies aware of this provision.

Launching the service, Gadkari said,"There will be a few, who will be unhappy as they will no more have 'Lakshmi Darshan' (bribe money)."

In order to access the digital RC and DL, one needs to first sign up for a DigiLocker. He then needs to download the DigiLocker app. In the mobile app he will have to select the issued documents section. The enforcement personnel such as traffic police can verify the soft copies offline using the QR code.

Inputs with TNN

Aadhaar to link with students’ exam forms to avoid duplicating

Patna: The Bihar School Examination Board (BSEB) would launch a drive for the first time in India to link Aadhaar number with students' examination formsto avoid duplicating and facilitate easy access to documents.

"Students who do not have Aadhaar cards are requested to apply for the same so that they can also benefit from the move," BSEB chairman Anand Kishor said.

The initiative will be implemented from the BSEB's compartmental exams, which are scheduled for November. "While submitting examination forms, students will have to specify whether or not they have Aadhaar numbers.

Those who do, will have to mention it on their forms. Students who do not have Aadhaar cards are requested to apply for the same so that they can also benefit from the move," BSEB chairman Anand Kishor said on Saturday.

The decision was taken after Kishor had a talk with Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) DG Ajay Bhushan Pandey, who was in Patna on Friday.

Inputs with TNN

7th Pay Commission makes cabinet secretary richer than President

New Delhi: The Union home minister is reworking salaries of the President, Vice-President and governors in view of seventh pay commission award raising the pay-packet of all government employees. In fact, the latest pay-revision has created an anomaly in that the salary of the President is Rs 1 lakh less than that of the cabinet secretary.

7th Pay Commission makes Cabinet Secretary Pradeep Kumar Sinha richer than President Pranab Mukherjee.

At present, the President gets Rs 1.50 lakh per month, the Vice-President Rs 1.25 lakh and governor of a state Rs 1.10 lakh. After implementation of the 7th pay commission's award, the cabinet secretary, who is the top-most bureaucrat in the country, gets Rs 2.5 lakh per month and a secretary in the Union government draws Rs 2.25 lakh per month. The home ministry is now working on a proposal to set right this anomaly and raise the emoluments of the President, Vice-President as well as governors of states. Official sources said the home ministry proposal may be submitted for the Union Cabinet's approval next week. After the Cabinet gives its nod, bills to this effect will be tabled in Parliament.

Salaries of the President, Vice-President and governors were last hiked in 2008 when the Parliament approved a three-fold increase. Till 2008, the President's salary was Rs 50,000, the Vice-President's Rs 40,000 and a governor's Rs 36,000.

In addition, proposals are also expected to be moved for raising the pensions of former Presidents, spouses of deceased Presidents, former Vice-Presidents, spouses of deceased Vice-President and former governors.

TNN

Let's find the truth, and not loopholes

Dec 25 2015 : The Times of India (Bangalore)

The nation is hardly bothered to know whether Bollywood actor Salman Khan was drunk or not. Whether he was driving on the D-day or not? What concerns every citizen of this country is why it took 13 long years for the system to decide a simple matter of fact? Why was the tax payers' money and prime time on visual media wasted to debate a matter-of-fact issue which, in any progressive society , would have taken a few days to be decided?

After everything is over, there is typical hue and cry and chestbeating about the `botched up' investigation by police. Nothing surprising or amusing. Like a compass needle that always points towards north, the accusing finger for every ill in our country points towards police. Why did no one talk about it when he was slapped with five-year imprisonment? How could two judgments based on exactly the same set of evidence and arguments be diametrically opposite! Irrespective of whether the investigation was perfect or otherwise, the fact is, that it remained unchanged while the judgment swung from one extreme to the other. Imagine two levels of police set-up taking such a diametrically contradictory stand on the outcome of an investigation.Mayhem would have let loose.

Police get 60 days to finalize investigation by collecting every possible evidence most of which is from non-cooperative and hostile sources. No one wants to unnecessarily get entangled in somebody else's problems. Same system gives 13 years for the defence to search loopholes and technical flaws in the investigation! Finding deficiencies is not difficult in any case.

In fact, if Kasab and perpetrators of Nirbhaya's rape could afford, and had it been politically correct to defend them, enough deficiencies and technical loopholes could have been found in those investigations too to get them acquitted. Thank God they could not afford.

The battle between prosecutor and the defence is that of un-equals.A lowly paid prosecutor whose job is to stitch hurriedly collected evidence and witnesses, many of whom are reluctant and pliable, is pitched against a highly paid battery of defence whose single-point programme was to find loopholes, deficiencies and technicalities in the investigation and get their client acquitted.

It is disheartening to see the acquitted accused, flashing victory signs and reposing his faith in the judicial system. Every accused claims  let law take its own course but in reality , every possible impediment is put in the way of the law taking its own course. Every accused exploits our criminal justice system to his her advantage by searching loopho es and loose-ends for hisher benefit Not surprising that every accused has full faith in our system. His/her confidence comes from the ability to delay .

The only person who has little expectation from the system is the victim. Here the victim is left wonde ring what did he get from the system after 13 years of ordeal. Only fault of his was that he was poor and had no capacity to plead his case. Does the responsibility of finding the truth only rest with police?

Expecting a standard of proof “beyond all possible doubt“ instead of “clear and convincing“ to declare any accused as `guilty' places an un reasonable burden on the prosecuion and ill-numbered and ill-equipped police. Let us not forget that we have a collective mandate to find the ruth and not merely the loopholes!

 

Colonel  N K Balakrishnan ( Retd ) ,

[Tri Services Veterans] [TNN]

Delay in opening sluice gates caused flooding

TNN | Dec 9, 2015, 04.11 AM IST

 

CHENNAI: The flood that ravaged Chennai last week was not a natural disaster, but one caused by the state bureaucracy's failure to regulate release of water from Chembarambakkam reservoir (lake) in the outskirts of the city.

Those privy to developments in the state secretariat during the last week of November say that in the wake of international weather forecast agencies predicting 500mm of rain for Chennai on December 1 and 2, public works department (PWD) officials had advised the PWD secretary and other senior bureaucrats on November 26 to bring down the water level in the reservoir from 22ft to below 18ft so the lake could absorb heavy inflow four days later. There was not much rain between November 26 and 29 and Adyar river, too, which originates from this lake, had very little water.

The proposal to release lake water was caught in bureaucratic red tape. Sources said the PWD secretary waited for chief secretary's nod to open the sluice gates — and whose nod the chief secretary was waiting for still remains a mystery. In effect, the disaster caused in Punjab by heavy release of water from the Bhakra Nangal dam two years ago was repeated in Chennai.

Orders to open the Chembarambakkam sluice gates — rather flood gates — were not received till the city received was pounded with rain and the reservoir started overflowing. "The state administration maintained that the release from the reservoir into Adyar river was only 33,500 cusecs (cubic feet per second; 1 cubic ft is 28.3 litres of water), which is the maximum capacity of the gates, from December 1 night onwards. But the actual release was more than double that, and nobody has any idea how much it was because water was overflowing from Chembarambakkam after the reservoir reached its full capacity of 24 feet. The problem was compounded as Athannur lake breached, releasing about 5,000 cusecs into the Adyar," said a highly placed source in PWD.

In effect, Adyar was carrying more than one lakh cusecs of water on December 2 and 3, said a senior IAS official, who was coordinating rescue operations. "The city has paid the price for having a bunch of bureaucrats who don't have the guts to act on their own. We were lucky that the reservoir, despite overflowing, did not breach," he said.

"Flooding of Chennai and suburbs could have been averted by better management of water release," said Madras Institute of Development Studies professor S Janakarajan. The administration should not have viewed Chembarambakkam in isolation. The lake and Adyar river are connected to about 200 tanks, he said. Even if 33,500 cusecs had been released from Chembarambakkam, by the time the water reached Saidapet, it would have swelled to 60,000 cusecs because of additional flow from other water bodies enroute. The administration failed to gauge this and hapless people paid the price for it, he explained.

Janakarajan said the government should view all water bodies, roughly 3,600 of them, in Chennai, Kancheepuram and Thiruvallur districts as one watershed as they are hydrologically connected to one another. "If the government cleans up all those water bodies, they can hold about 30 tmcft (thousand million cubic feet) of water. Moreover, it will also prevent flooding in future," he said.

The magnitude of the disaster was more because there was no advisory issued to people living in low-lying areas, warning them that their homes could get flooded. To add to the misery, Chennai city police officers were instructed to keep their cell phones switched off (much before mobile phone towers went down) and carry out all communications only through wireless sets. Hence, people in distress could not seek help by reaching out to officials in their locality.

TOI's repeated efforts to get responses from the chief secretary and PWD secretary went in vain. Some pertinent questions that remain unanswered are: Whose orders were the bureaucrats waiting for to open the reservoir sluices? Will anybody be held responsible for the lapses? And, at least now, will the government put a standard operating procedure in place to keep reservoirs at safe levels? Will a better system be evolved to warn people living on river banks before gates are opened?

 

 [Times of India]