Aadhaar, Again

Aadhaar, Again

Electoral roll data linkage to Aadhaar ecosystem is a big change. Ordinary citizens mustn’t suffer

22.12.2021

Amendments to the Representation of the People (RP) Act requiring voters to furnish their Aadhaar numbers to electoral registration officers were introduced, considered and passed in both Houses of Parliament, all in a few hours, without any meaningful debate. Union law minister Kiren Rijiju cited the need to clean up the electoral rolls – specifically, RP Act provisions barring people from being registered as voters from more than one constituency, and preventing bogus voting.

Rijiju also claimed the amendments met the Puttaswamy judgment’s triple test of legality, need, and proportionality, which is now used to assess the permissible limits of invasion of privacy. Yes, this Bill did pass Parliament unlike Election Commission’s 2015 seeding of over 30 crore voter IDs with Aadhaar. But the achievement of the legality requirement to meet privacy safeguards would have been bolstered manifold by a thorough discussion in Parliament, allowing further finetuning of the Act’s provisions. In following the template set by farm laws, GoI may have unnecessarily exposed itself to stiff legal challenges, even if street agitations like those by farmers don’t happen.

Since the Bill only sanctions Aadhaar number and not biometric verification, it essentially boils down to a test of identity between details in the voter ID and Aadhaar card. Even small variances in name, address, age etc could see lower level bureaucrats enjoying outsized discretion to accept or reject electoral roll entries. RP Act’s new Section 23(6) allows those unable to furnish Aadhaar numbers for “prescribed” reasons to produce alternate documents. But the poor, without other documents to prove their identities and whose details may vary between their Aadhaar and voter card, could be hit hardest.

Also, while Rijiju has said the linking is voluntary and not mandatory, amendments say electoral officers “may” ask for Aadhaar. This “may” may become worryingly widespread. Further, Section 23(5) suggests that GoI could notify a date in the gazette by which time every person in the electoral roll “may” intimate his/her Aadhaar number to authorities. The worry is what happens if a citizen doesn’t do this.

The right to vote is a statutory right and it mustn’t be denied to citizens without rigorous due process and just cause. EC must ensure every electoral roll entry struck off through this new process is independently verified by booth level officers on the ground. The impending big change to our electoral rolls should be foolproof and abuse-proof.

Dubai ruler must pay ex-wife $730m in divorce settlement

Dubai ruler must pay ex-wife $730m in divorce settlement

London:22.12.2021

A UK court on Tuesday ordered the ruler of Dubai to pay his ex-wife and their children close to £550 million ($730 million), in one of the most expensive divorce settlements in British history. The high court said Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum must pay £251.5 million to his sixth wife, Princess Haya Bint Al Hussein, and make ongoing payments for their children Al Jalila, 14, and Zayed, 9, underpinned by a bank guarantee of £290 million.

The settlement includes £11 million a year to cover security costs for Princess Haya and the children while they are minors. Judge Philip Moor said the family needed “water-tight security”, and that “absolutely uniquely”, the main threat to them came from Sheikh Mohammed, rather than outside sources. Haya, 47, fled to the UK in 2019 and sought custody of her two children. The princess, who is the daughter of the late King Hussein of Jordan, said she was “terrified” of her husband, who is alleged to have ordered the forced return to the Gulf emirate of two of his adult daughters: Sheikha Shamsa in August 2000 and her sister Sheikha Latifa, in 2002 and again in 2018. The settlement also includes a holiday budget of £5.1 million, an annual sum of £450,000 for the kids’ staff and around £275,000 for their animals, including two ponies and a horse.

Sheikh Mohammed, 72, is also the vice president and prime minister of the UAE. The final sum, despite being believed by some lawyers to be the largest public award ever ordered by an English family court, is less than half of the £1.4 billion that Haya had sought. The divorce bill eclipses the £450 million deal awarded Tatiana Akhmedova in her 2016 split from Russian billionaire Farkhad Akhmedov, at the time cited as UK’s most expensive divorce.

During almost seven hours of testimony, Haya, 47, said a large one-off payment would allow for a clean break. “I really want to be free and I want them to be free,” she told the court. A spokesman for the sheikh said he “has always ensured that his children are provided for” and asked for the media to respect their privacy. Earlier this year, a separate British family court judge determined that Sheikh Mohammed had ordered the phones of Haya and her lawyers to be hacked using the “Pegasus”spying software. AGENCIES

Why programme managers are so valuable in today’s digital era

Why programme managers are so valuable in today’s digital era

Diverse sets of people need to be brought together. That requires orchestrators

Sujit John & Shilpa Phadnis | TNN

22.12.2021

As we move towards autonomous driving, almost everything about a car is changing. RK Shenoy, senior VP of mobility solutions at automotive tech company Bosch Engineering and Business Solutions, says the company is having to combine electronics, including high compute platforms, with algorithms to identify objects, with software to autonomously run the vehicle, and with the mechanical aspects of the car.

To run such a programme, he says, they need people who are tech savvy, and also have large teams that are working on multiple functional areas – mechanical engineering, hardware, software, AI, cloud, connectivity. This is where programme managers are becoming vital.

“Programme managers need to manage functional areas that are different. They need to handle teams that are distributed across the world, because in no location are we able to have all the competencies required. We may have mechanical engineering and video analytics in Germany, while India does many of the sensors, and the systems to test, and then we do field trials in China, North America,” he says.

Autonomous cars are no exception. As digitisation seeps into every aspect of a business, it’s opening up a host of new opportunities for companies. While the first steps may involve digitising certain functions, the real value comes from combining many of these small projects to deliver an altogether new business offering to customers. Like the way Swiggy and Zomato, for instance, combined our smartphones with restaurant digitisation, and delivery network digitisation to offer us a delightful new food experience.

Srini Srinivasan, regional MD for South Asia at PMI, one of the world’s leading project management institutes, says the digital transformation journey of an enterprise consists of a lot of smaller projects that provide specific chunks of outcomes, which then roll into an overall umbrella that provides a much larger business outcome. “There are a few common threads to most of these programmes. Number one is the amount of complexity. It’s enormous. There is also the need for speed, agility, innovation,” he says.

So, he says, while programme management is about technology, it’s also about people, change management, cultural change, and about cross-functionality – “because everything that happens in a programme cuts across horizontally.” Kirti Seth, CEO of the IT-ITES sector skills council of Nasscom, and the head of Nasscom’s FutureSkills Prime programme, describes a programme manager as a “conductor of conductors.” Each project team, she says, is like a mini orchestra, and the programme manager has to conduct a bunch of these bands to play in harmony.

The programme manager, she says, must be first a business owner, because you need to understand the value you are driving. The tools and techniques must follow. And that needs to include digital fluency. “The programme manager does not necessarily know how to write an AI programme or a machine learning algorithm, but should definitely know what they can do,” she says.

Since the role requires dealing with a variety of people, the ability to collaborate and communicate are also vital. Seth says programme managers should be able to speak the language of their stakeholders, and not get lost in jargon.

SKILLING TO MANAGE

PMI has been working with organisations like Google, Microsoft, IBM, Amazon, and Nasa, to understand the future of programme management. Srinivasan says what they are learning is, historically, companies have chosen their most senior project managers to manage programmes. But those project managers grew up in a particular domain. But the breadth and scope of a programme is more than one domain.

So, today, at the centre of PMI’s skilling platform is a course called Programme Management Professional (PgMP), a global certification that is transferable across industries. It takes care of understanding the technical programme management requirements, and is augmented with other skills around collaboration, design thinking, critical thinking, and business agility. PMI has also created courses for junior and midlevel employees who would be involved in transformation projects. “We are looking at a completely new audience, which we call changemakers,” Srinivasan says.

Shenoy says the number of programme managers in Bosch is rising. About 10% of his 20,000 engineers in India are project and programme managers. Bosch has a tieup with PMI, and Shenoy says certification courses help a great deal. “We also have a reverse mentorship initiative for Bosch leadership and programme managers, where graduates who have recently come into the company become mentors to give us inputs on new technologies. At my age I cannot become an AI expert, but it was important for me to know what its capabilities are,” he says.

No proof to suggest that existing vaccines don’t work on Omicron: Govt

No proof to suggest that existing vaccines don’t work on Omicron: Govt

New Delhi:  22.12.2021

There is no evidence to suggest that existing vaccines do not work on Omicron variant of coronavirus, though some of the mutations reported on spike gene may decrease the efficacy of existing vaccines, the Rajya Sabha was informed on Tuesday.

"There are limited available data, and no peer-reviewed evidence, on vaccine efficacy or effectiveness to date for Omicron," Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said in a written reply. He was responding to a question on whether the vaccinations that are given in the country are effective to develop immunity for this variant.

"However, vaccine protection is also by antibodies as well as by cellular immunity, which is expected to be relatively better preserved. Hence vaccines are expected to still offer protection against severe disease and, vaccination with the available vaccines remains crucial," he added.

Listing the steps taken by the government after the news of the spread of Omicron variant of COVID-19 in various countries, Mandaviya said his ministry on the basis of risk assessment reviewed the existing travel guidelines and revised rules for international arrivals were issued on November 28 which were further amended two days later.

According to the guidelines, regions or countries have been re-classified as 'atrisk' based on epidemiological situation of COVID-19 there and reporting of Omicron variant from these countries. PTI

Third wave inevitable, but no cause for panic yet: Experts

Third wave inevitable, but no cause for panic yet: Experts

‘Omicron Has Raised Chances Of Cluster Outbreak’

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Mumbai:22.12.2021

Even as the Centers for Diseases Control announced 73% of the new coronavirus cases in the US are caused by the Omicron variant as against 3% last week, the Covid statistics at home too are slowly rising and experts believe the third wave — even if less severe than the previous one — is inevitable.

The Rt value or the effective reproduction value of the SARS-CoV-2 virus has gone up in a few states, including Maharashtra. An Rt value of 1 means one patient can spread the disease to one other person. In a tweet, epidemiologist Dr Giridhar Babu on Tuesday said states with an increase in Rt values on December 19 as compared to December 13 are Bihar, MP, Maharashtra, Uttarakhand, Tripura, Tamil Nadu, Assam, Odisha, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh, West Bengal, Manipur and Nagaland. India’s effective Rt is 0.89 as on December 19, he added.

In the week ending November 2, the Rt value in Maharashtra was 0.7 and kept steadily increasing — 0.82 (November 14), 0.96 (November 22) — before falling — 0.92 (November 29) and 0.85 (December 6). In the last two weeks, the Rt value in the state has again started rising: 1.08 (December 19).

The rising weekly caseload and Rt value are, as per doctors, an indicator of how the Covid graph will turn out in the next month. Rahul Pandit, a member of the state government’s task force on Covid-19, said there is no cause for panic yet. “Any rise in R value is a cause for concern and means the public health machinery should strengthen its surveillance and contact tracing,” he further stated. Shashank Joshi, also a task force member, said: “The third wave seemed remote a few months ago, but the emergence of the Omicron variant that spreads five times more rapidly than Delta has raised the possibility of cluster outbreak and the third wave.” Internal medicine specialist Swapneil Parikh said a third wave is inevitable. “Based on developments in other countries, cases in India too will increase. What remains to be seen is what… sort of load the third wave would put on hospital infrastructure,” he said. However, most doctors said immunity due to vaccine, past infection will blunt the severity of the possible Omicron wave.

Candidate in tears after getting one vote

Candidate in tears after getting one vote

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Surat:22.12.2021

Santosh Halpati, candidate of ward 5 in Chharwada village in Vapi taluka of Valsad district was in tears on Tuesday as results of the village panchayat polls were announced. Halpati got only one vote, most probably his own, despite having 12 members from his family as voters in the same ward.

“I live with my wife and son. My uncle’s family also lives in the same area, but I got only one vote,” a teary-eyed Halpati told media persons.

“My wife did vote, but I am not sure she voted for me. People are independent to vote for the candidate of their choice in a democracy,” he added.

Meanwhile, in Nagoi village of Olpad taluka in Surat district, Geeta Patel won the sarpanch election by eight votes against Karishma Patel. The results came as a surprise for many as Nagoi is the village of Mukesh Patel, minister of state for agriculture, energy and petrochemicals. The sarpanch candidate supported by the minister lost.

“My mother Geetaben won against Karishmaben who had the support of minister Mukesh Patel. It is not about any political party, but one man’s rule cannot be allowed in the village,” Geeta’s son Hemal Patel told TOI. Hemal too won from ward 3 of Nagoi village by 35 votes. Hemal is a leader of Khedut Samaj Gujarat.

“I went to (minister) Mukeshbhai earlier to seek his support, but he refused and supported Karishmaben,” Hemal added.

Yearend trips: Airfares shoot up

Yearend trips: Airfares shoot up

Hotel Tariffs Surge 40% In Hotspots

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Ahmedabad:22.12.2021

Airfares to key destinations including Goa, Delhi, Mumbai, Jaisalmer, Jaipur, Dehradun, and Bengaluru have skyrocketed about ten days ahead of the New Year’s Eve. With the eve falling on Friday, it will be a long weekend and people have planned their break accordingly to their favourite watering holes and party destinations. Despite the worries about the Omicron variant of Covid-19, plans for long weekend getaways are intact and consequently airfares have surged by a whopping 120% to certain destinations.

Anuj Pathak, the president of Tour Operators & Travel Agents Association of Gujarat (TAG), said: “Bookings are good this time despite concerns over the Omicron variant.” He added: “Those looking for driveable destinations are headed to Udaipur, Mount Abu, Kumbhalgarh, and Jodhpur.” He went on to say: “Whereas many other travellers are booking tickets to Goa, Jaisalmer, Jaipur, and even Jammu & Kashmir, owing to which airfares have surged.” In fact, some travellers have picked international destinations. “Places such as Dubai and Maldives are hot favourites and people are booking a three-night-four-day package to these destinations,” said Manish Sharma, chairman, Travel Agents Federation of India (TAFI), Gujarat. “Travellers are more confident this time around and are shelling out Rs 60,000 to Rs 1 lakh per person.” With more professionals working from home and the long weekend in perfect sync, people from across the city have chosen to travel out. Airfares have spiked 50-120% depending on the destination, even when booked about ten days in advance.

“With the dynamic pricing policy in place and limited connectivity to certain destinations, airfares have shot up,” Pathak said.

In fact, even hotel tariffs have surged across all these destinations. Ankit Bajaj, secretary, TAFI Gujarat, said: “People want to travel as many could not due to the Covid-19 outbreak last year.” Bajaj added: “With more demand, hotel tariffs across popular resorts as well as four-star and five-star properties have increased by at least 40%.” Industry sources said that road trips are increasingly being preferred for travel. “Road trips are usually a hit for the New Year eve getaways. However, this year, there is a dearth of cars,” said Virendra Shah, chairman, Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI), Gujarat. “With the wedding season kicking in and the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit around the corner, the availability of cars is a concern and cab fares have surged.”