‘Digilocker’ can be used instead of driving licence: Director General of Police

The app was launched in July, 2015 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
 
Published: 17th August 2018 02:27 AM |

 
Image used for representational purposes.

By Express News Service

CHENNAI: Clearing the doubt whether motor vehicle riders will be exempted from prosecution if they use the national digital locker system called ‘Digilocker’ instead of carrying their original licence, the Director General of Police issued a statement that this facility was valid.The app was launched in July, 2015 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Centre-certified app can be downloaded onto the mobile phone which would help store documents, including licence, on DigiLocker which, when shown on demand to the department, is considered as the original.

This is mainly aimed at helping one consolidate all important papers at one place and avoid carrying hard copies of the documents.However, previously the state police were confused because under the Motor Vehicle Act, every motorist is to carry original driving licence and according to section 130 of the Act, the driver of the motor vehicle in any public place shall, on demand by any police officer in uniform, produce his/her licence for examination by any police official.

After complaints were filed from across the state seeking clarification on the issues, the statement said the Digilocker app is also valid. Explaining the app, a senior police officer said one has to link his or her Aadhaar car and the cell number, provided the inspecting officer is also registered as a requester on the app to cross-check the documents.

The system provides 1GB of storage space in which users can store identification cards issued by multiple authorities, education certificates, PAN cards, driving licence as well as vehicle ownership documents and is part of the NDA government’s Digital India push to curtail the use of physical documents.
However, in certain cases including impounding, the original licence has to be produced, the statement added.

Sections available

My Certificates: Which enables users to update the URI’s of the documents issued to the user by government departments or other agencies. The other lists of documents which are uploaded by the user which are within 10MB in size. Only pdf, jpg, jpeg, png, bmp and gif file types can be uploaded.

My Profile: The user profiled as available in the UIDAI database.
My Issuer: Details of the issuers’ names and the number of documents issued to the user by the issuer.

My Requester: Details of the requesters’ names and the number of documents requested from the user by the requesters.

Directories: The complete list of registered issuers and requesters along with their URLs.

When Vajpayee touched her feet

SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

MADURAI, AUGUST 17, 2018 00:00 IST



Vajpayee paying obeisance to Chinnapillai at a function in New Delhi in 2001.Special arrangementHandout 

Chinnapillai was presented the Stree Shakti Puraskar by the former PM in 2001


For Chinnapillai, leader of Kalanjiyam — a women’s self-help group (SHG) of the Madurai-based Dhan Foundation — what happened on January 4, 2001, in New Delhi is still the stuff of dreams.

She had gone to the national capital at the invitation of the Union Ministry of Women and Child Development, draped in her best cotton sari and wearing her worn-out rubber slippers, to receive the Stree Shakti Puraskar from the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Her name was called out.

After presenting her the award, the Prime Minister looked into her eyes and then the unthinkable happened. He quickly bent to touch her feet. She tried to hold his hands, but he completed his obeisance. She reciprocated the gesture.

Fond memories

Ms. Chinnapillai melted in the applause that filled Vigyan Bhavan. Her eyes welled up with tears. Later, in his speech, Mr. Vajpayee said that he saw ‘shakti’ in Ms. Chinnapillai’s face.

She is shocked that the man who touched her feet as Prime Minister has died. She made a vain attempt six months ago to meet him on a visit to New Delhi. “I would have gone to New Delhi to pay my respects to the departed leader, but I am not well now,” she said.

Ms. Chinnapillai, a resident of Mathur village in Madurai district, owes her global fame to Mr. Vajpayee. And the moment which makes her shudder, remains frozen in her memory.

Now, robots greet passengers at Chennai airport

STAFF REPORTER

CHENNAI, AUGUST 17, 2018 00:00 IST




Tech friend:Humanoid robots interacting with visitors at the Chennai airport on Wednesday.Special Arrangement 

‘Mitra’ deputed on a trial basis at the domestic terminal

The Chennai airport has two new staff to assist passengers.

Named Mitra, the humanoid robots, were deputed on Wednesday to guide passengers inside the terminals.

The two robots — one each at the departure and arrival halls of the domestic terminal — greeted passengers on Independence Day and interacted with them.

Airports Authority of India (AAI) officials said they would soon introduce the robots in the international terminal too after seeing the response from passengers.

“These are on trial basis for now. They can walk around the terminal, wish passengers and talk to them. In a few days, we will programme them to assist passengers on various queries and guiding them to security checks and respective boarding gates,” an official said.

A bunch of children who came to the airport to see the robots were thrilled to communicate with it.

T.N. gave him the numbers to become PM

B. Kolappan

CHENNAI, AUGUST 17, 2018 00:00 IST



Vajpayee with Jayalalithaa. 

First the AIADMK and then the DMK proved ideal allies of the BJP

The BJP may be struggling to find its feet in Tamil Nadu, but it was this State that offered the required numbers to A.B. Vajpayee to become the Prime Minister in 1998 and again in 1999.

The shifting sands of politics both in the State and the national level saw the DMK, the AIADMK and the MDMK abandoning their Dravidian moorings and joining hands with the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the late 1990s.

In 1998, AIADMK leader Jayalalithaa, smarting under the rout in the 1996 election, knit together an alliance that included the BJP. The front secured 30 Lok Sabha seats in that election.

The series of bomb blasts that rocked Coimbatore on February 14, 1998, just ahead of an election campaign meeting of the then BJP president L.K. Advani also played a major role in the victory of the AIADMK-BJP combine.

Besides the AIADMK, other constituents of the alliance — the PMK, MDMK and Vazhapadi K. Ramamurthy, who won the Salem constituency — were accommodated in the Union Council of Ministers. However, the relationship between the BJP and the AIADMK proved to be a roller-coaster ride from the beginning. Jayalalithaa turned sharply critical of the Vajpayee regime after some time. Jayalalithaa also sought to take credit for the formation of the Vajpayee government when she declared that it was the AIADMK that introduced the party to the people of Tamil Nadu. Her remark that Mr. Advani suffered from “selective amnesia” further strained their ties.

Political storm

Subsequently, a ‘tea party’ hosted by Janata Party leader Subramanian Swamy brought together Jayalalithaa and Congress leader Sonia Gandhi and caused a political storm. Though she withdrew the support of her party MPs, her allies, including the MDMK and the PMK, stayed with the BJP alliance.

Soon after the Vajpayee government fell, losing the trust motion by one vote, the DMK stepped in to fill the gap created by the AIADMK. It was Murasoli Maran who said “No party is untouchable” and cleared the path for an alliance between the BJP and the DMK for the 1999 election. The alliance won 26 seats.

Mop-up round for MBBS, BDS vacancies begins

SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

CHENNAI, AUGUST 17, 2018 00:00 IST



One more chance:The results of mop-up round of the counselling will be announced on August 20. Candidates will have to report to their respective colleges between August 21 and 26.

FILE PHOTOG_SRIBHARATH 

3,042 seats available; candidates have to lock their choices by August 19

The medical counselling committee of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) has called for a mop-up round for the 3,042 vacancies for MBBS and BDS seats in deemed universities and ESIC medical colleges.

Registration for the mop-up round began on Thursday and will end at 5 p.m. on August 18. Candidates will have to lock their choices by August 19 and the results would be announced on August 20. Candidates will get five days’ time from August 21 to 26 to report to their respective colleges.

After the mop-up round, the DGHS will provide the vacant seats to the respective colleges and will also provide a merit list of candidates who can be called for counselling.

Among the deemed universities in the State, the most number of seats vacant in the management/paid category are in Chennai-based Sree Balaji Medical College and Hospital with 116 seats, followed by ACS Medical College and Hospital, which has 81 vacancies.

The colleges are banking on the final mop-up round that would permit them to call students based on the merit list handed to them by the DGHS.

A smooth affair

Medical college officials, however, said seat filling had been smooth though two court cases had eaten into the time allotted for the admission process.

A source in Sri Ramachandra Medical College said it was among the first to fill all the seats last year also and it expected to do well this year too.

T. Gunasagaran, Dean of Saveetha Medical College, said in the mop-up round, they would fill 15 to 20 seats.

“The process has gone smoothly and people have understood the process well. The candidates know they will have to make a firm choice,” he said.

MASTER STROKE

When I persuaded Wadekar Sir to let me open

SACHIN TENDULKAR  17.08.2018

It’s really shocking, very troubling to hear that Wadekar Sir is no more. Our relationship went back a long way. It was in 1992 when he joined the team as manager. We’d grown up hearing stories about the brand of cricket he brought into the Mumbai camp — the khadoos way of playing the game.

We first went to Zimbabwe and from there to South Africa with him, and during that trip, grew familiar with him. It took us time, around six months, to break the ice, but over a period of time, I got to know him really well.

The three of us —Vinod (Kambli), Wadekar Sir and I spent a lot of time together. Post practice, we would go to his room, or he would come to ours and chat a lot. With us, he was like a friend. We were really close to him. The age difference between us was never a factor. I could tell him anything and so could he.

On the morning of our ODI against New Zealand at Auckland in 1994, our opener Navjot Singh Sidhu, woke up with a stiff neck. By then, we (me and Wadekar) had built a good rapport, so I could walk up to him and tell him anything. I went to him and said: ‘Sir, give me one chance to open the innings. I know I can go out there and hit the bowlers. And if I fail, I’ll never come to you.’ I told him to discuss this with Azhar (Mohammad Azharuddin, the then India skipper), and since I was the vice-captain, the three of us could meet.

That’s where good coaches come in. They understand all these things. Deep within, he must’ve somewhere had that confidence that I could go out there and do it. It worked beautifully (I scored 82 off 49 balls), also because of the relationship we shared — we had trust and confidence in each other. For the first two years of my ODI career, I used to bat at No. 6, and then for another yearand-a-half, I batted at No. 4. But after that game, things changed. I could actually go out and control the game, rather than terms being set for me.

We had complete confidence in him. He brought the best out of us. In that period, we really stretched and focused hard and he played a huge role in that. He was at the forefront of putting together a formidable team in place — one that would be unbeatable at home. To play three spinners here was his brainchild. He was very shrewd. He knew how to stay a step ahead of the game. He had a great cricketing mind.

We kept bumping into each other after he quit as the India manager in 1996. I last met him during the launch of the Mumbai T20 league. Vinod (Kambli) and I went to his house to offer our condolences, and we’ll go today for the funeral too. (AS TOLD TO GAURAV GUPTA)

HEART TO HEART

Wadekar: The link between India’s two Little Masters

Ajit is gone, but Arre, kaay re, will remain with me

SUNIL GAVASKAR: 17.08.2018

Sunil, sorry, he is no more’. Those devastating words conveyed to me that ‘my captain’ Ajit Wadekar had passed away. Just a little while earlier, I was trying to help put him in the car to rush him to the hospital since the ambulance was going to take another 15 minutes to arrive and even then it looked like it was a hopeless battle.

Ajit Wadekar was my captain when I made my debut for Mumbai in the Ranji Trophy and he was my skipper when I got my India cap. So for me he was always ‘captain’. That he was from Shivaji Park Gymkhana and I was from Dadar Union Sporting Club, its great rival, then made no difference as I was a fan first. Those days there was hardly a single weekend where you didn’t read about Wadekar getting a century. He was so prolific in local and Ranji Trophy cricket that it was a surprise to many that he made his India debut as late as 1966 against Garry Sobers’ West Indies team. Five years later, it was against Garry Sobers’ team that he led India for the first time and went on to win the series, beating West Indies for the first time. A couple of months after that he led India to another historic win when India beat England in England for the first time.

He was unkindly called a lucky captain by those who couldn’t stomach the fact that he had replaced the charismatic Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi as the skipper. The then Chairman of selectors, batting legend Vijay Merchant, was also pilloried by some for it was his casting vote that made Wadekar the new Indian captain then. Even after these twin wins and another in India a year later, neither Vijay Merchant nor Ajit Wadekar got the credit they deserved for bringing India those hat-trick of wins. Ajit retired from Test cricket suddenly when he was left out of the West Zone team for the Duleep Trophy by a committee led by another Indian great, Polly Umrigar and thereafter concentrated on his banking career and also cricket administration with the Mumbai Cricket Association.

He also was a successful manager/coach of the Indian team in the early ‘90s. When some of us sportspersons requested the Maharashtra Government for a plot of land to build an apartment block, it was Ajit who took the lead and there was Umrigar also in the society formed showing that he harboured no hard feelings towards his senior. Being the promoter, he got the top floor of the building when it was built and since I was on the floor immediately below him, he used to always joke, ‘I am the only one on top of Sunny’. In recent times, with my travel schedule, we hardly met but whenever we did, he would as usual come up with a joke in his easy drawl.

There’s hardly been a day when I haven’t mimicked his arre kaay re at least once and not just me but even Sachin Tendulkar told me that he too says the same at least once a day.

My captain is no more but he will always be with me when I say, arre kaay re. RIP, Captain.

PMG





Sunil Gavaskar (right) is introduced to Queen Elizabeth II by his captain Ajit Wadekar at Lord’s in the 1971 series



Sachin Tendulkar says Ajit Wadekar played a vital role in his progress