Tamaal Roy, CEO, Biomatiques

Biomatiques Identification Solutions Pvt. Ltd. showcased breakthrough iris recognition technology at the Gartner Symposium/IT Expo in Goa.

Biomatiques is a Surat-based firm and one of the 14 companies in the world to come up with iris-enabled identification solutions. Some major players in the field of Information Technology from across the country participated in the event as well.

The Gartner Symposium/IT Expo is specifically designed for CIOs and Senior IT Executives, providing business leaders with the strategies, insights and tools to lead the next generation of IT and achieve business outcomes.

Speaking at the occassion, Tamaal Roy, CEO, Biomatiques, said, “The concept of iris recognition as a method of biometric identification is not new, however in India it is still raw. Many of us are not even aware of the fact that there is a difference between iris and retina identification. Hence, apart from creating awareness about the same, making this technology available for the common masses is the need of the hour. Security should not be mistaken for luxury; in fact, it should be treated as a necessity. And our production methodology is completely in sync with the Make In India initiative.”

Iris recognition uses random textures that are visible in the eye, using the eye to confirm someone’s identity. Unlike voice, fingerprints and facial structure, iris patterns have far more random patterns. An algorithm is created to map the iris, and the random patterns formed are used to create a unique barcode which is unique for every individual. The probability of duplication for voice recognition is 1 in 500, facial recognition – 1 in 1000, fingerprint – 1 in 10,000, Apple touch ID – 1 in 50,000, and Iris recognition – 1 in 15,00,000.

Earlier this year, Biomatiques had launched its latest range of products which are ultimate in terms of access and security. A leader in the field of iris recognition technology, Biomatiques is the first Indian company to get Standardisation Testing and Quality Certification (STQC) from Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY).

Roy further said, “What is interesting is the fact that earlier cost was an issue with this technology; however, we have made this technology available at the cost of finger- print technology, making it affordable with better security control and identification assurance. Biomatiques is the only Indian manufacturer of iris recognition technology which provides fool-proof and accurate security measure that will help protect businesses from fake identities. Our specialisation includes Access Control, Time and Attendance, Identity Management, Single Sign-On and Enterprise Mobility Management.’’

Juniper Networks has appointed Kevin Walker as security Chief Technology Officer, who will be responsible for accelerating the company’s security product roadmap.

Walker will serve on the senior leadership team and report to Jonathan Davidson, who is the Executive Vice President and General Manager of Juniper Development and Innovation (JDI).

Recently, Walker served as the Vice President and Assistant Chief Information Security Officer at Walmart.com. Prior to this, he also worked with security and networking companies like Intuit, Cisco Systems, Symantec and Veritas Software, including Chief Information Security Officer, Chief Security Strategist and Director of Information Security across technology.

The Union Minister for Labour & Employment, Bandaru Dattatreya has launched the digital signatures-based Online Registration of Establishments (OLRE) in a function held at the Head Office of the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation.

Speaking at the launch, Bandaru Dattatreya explained that the online registration will be done once the applicant employer registers himself on the OLRE portal. Subsequent to creation of User ID and password, the employer will have to register his/her digital signature. Thereafter, the PAN number of the employer would be verified online. On successful verification of PAN, the employer will be able to apply online for code number which would require the employer to upload the relevant documents after digitally authenticating the same. Later, the name of the applicant employer would be auto populated in the application in owner-details field. All details related to the code number shall be available for the applicant employer on the login. The code number to the applicant employer shall be allotted immediately on successful submission of the application which would mean that the process is successfully completed.

“The facility will not only reduce the workload of the employer, but will also reduce the paperwork for both employer as well as the EPFO. It will be a quick and hassle-free process. The process of applying for a branch code by any employer already having the PF code will remain unchanged and will be available through the ECR login. The validation of only one code number can be done through this facility for a given PAN number and for any subsequent code for any branch or establishments under same PAN number, the application will be through the ECR portal. As a result of this facility, the employer would have a digital signature at the time of application itself and this can be used by employer for other areas such as the Online Transfer Claim Portal and authentication of KYC details of members joining the establishment. The use of paperwork would be reduced significantly and the filing of documents would be as per the convenience of the employer,” the Minister said.

Shankar Aggarwal, Secretary, Labour & Employment, also applauded the efforts made by EPFO in introducing user-free services in recent past and stated that the software launched would especially be a big leap forward in fulfilling the mandate of the Government in ensuring the ease of doing business in the country, which is one of the prime areas of concern for the administration today. He further encouraged EPFO to introduce more such ventures in the days to come.

K.K. Jalan, Central PF Commissioner stated that EPFO is committed to strengthen the eGovernance system and to provide better services to its stakeholders. EPFO has already launched a number of eGovernance initiatives such as Electronic Challan-cum-Return, Member e-passbook, SMS governance, payment through National Electronic Fund Transfer, electronic return to collect the missing details of members, etc. This process is not going to stop and EPFO would continue its efforts to make the working more transparent and convenient for all stakeholders.

In addition to this, the Labour Minister also honoured a few officials of the Organisation for their efficiency and diligence.

A Khammam court in Telangana has granted divorce to a couple after hearing one of the petitioners over Skype.

M Venkata Ramana, Senior Civil Judge of Khammam, based on a recent judgment of Hyderabad High Court, used Skype to interact with the woman who was in the US, before granting divorce.

As per Basava Punnaiah, counsel for the woman, her client had requested the court to grant her divorce from Kiran Kumar. Since she has been living in the US for past two years and could not attend the court hearing.

The counsel said, “First, the judge asked my client to identify her father and husband through Skype. After she did, he asked the final opinion about the divorce for which she said she wanted. Based on that, the judge granted divorce.”

The couple got married in 2012 and soon there were differences between them. The man filed ‘Nullity of Marriage’ petition in the court, while the woman had filed a petition under IPC section 498 (A) (Domestic Violence).

The woman later went to US to pursue higher studies and later both the familes came to an understanding.

The counsel also said, “The couple filed a divorce with mutual consent petition in the court.”

“She gave power of Attorney to her father. However, in divorce cases, the court would like to hear both petitioners personally. As she is in USA and not able to attend the court, we filed a petition requesting the court to hear her version through Skype, for which the judge agreed,” Punnaiah added.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has invited firms from Singapore to participate in the proposed divestment of Navratna Public Sector Undertakings.

At a media briefing about Modi’s meeting in Singapore, Anil Wadhwa, Secretary (East), Ministry of External Affairs, said, “There were broadly 14-15 key issues, including skills development, urban development, tourism, civil aviation and financial services that were discussed in the meetings.”

India is looking at selling stakes in PSUs, which are classified into three categories – Maharatna, Navratna and Miniratna – to raise around Rs 70,000 crore in the current fiscal.

“Apart from seeking investment in the PSUs, the Prime Minister also talked about various other areas of cooperation, including smart cities, defence services, culture, economic cooperation and financial services,” Wadhwa further said.

Vijay Vishwas Pant, a 2004 batch IAS officer of Uttar Pradesh cadre, has been appointed as Personal Secretary to Kalraj Mishra, who is the Union Minister for Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSME).

The post fell vacant after Manoj Dwivedi, a 1997 batch IAS officer of Jammu & Kashmir cadre, was posted as Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Commerce.

Currently, V V Pant is serving in the State as Managing Director, Paschimanchal Vidyut Vitran Nigam Limited.

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) implementing the Aadhaar project may soon be the sole agency for enrolment of residents and collection of biometric data across the country, with the National Population Register (NPR) project withdrawn from the work.

“At a meeting held recently chaired by the Cabinet Secretary regarding the growth of the UIDAI project, along with the Ministry of Communications & IT, it was decided that there will be no further enrolments under the NPR of the Home Ministry,” a source said.

The source said, “The government is in the process of withdrawing the NPR project from enrolments mainly because of their slow progress in the job.”

Until now, both UIDAI and NPR were entrusted with the task of enroling residents and collection of their biometric details, which are used for generating a 12-digit Aadhaar number and issuing a National Multipurpose Identification Card (NMIC).

A decision was made that the 12-digit unique identification number will now on be issued by UIDAI for the entire population and NMICs for all residents will be issued under the NPR project, using the UID generated by the authority.

At the moment, UIDAI has been given the job for 24 states/UTs for Aadhaar enrolments whereas the remaining 12 states/UTs are under the NPR project.

As per the UIDAI web portal, 94.22 crore Aadhaar numbers have already been issued by the project.

The source also said, “Since the decision on the bifurcation of enrolment work was taken by the Cabinet Committee on UIDAI, now this proposal of withdrawing NPR may also go to the Union Cabinet for their perusal.”

In February 2014, UIDAI was asked to cover Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh, since enrolment did not make much progress in these densely populated states.

The government wishes to complete the enrolment process under the unique identification project at the earliest to use Aadhaar as a tool to provide subsidies and benefits under various social schemes directly.

The Delhi Government has launched a mobile app to rescue homeless people.

The users can take pictures and post those on the app, after which rescue operation will be initiated. The Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board (DUSIB) will automatically locate the person and the nearest team will be sent. The users will have a list of shelters and can inform about the closest shelter.

The user will also be informed via email and phone notification after the completion of a rescue operation.

A total of 198 shelters have been created, which have the capacity to accommodate 16,338 homeless people. Moreover, DUSIB has formed 23 rescue teams and a 24-hour control room has been set up which will receive complaints on homeless people as well as request for donations.

IRCTC, the world’s largest eCommerce portal in India, after having an improved infrastructure and server capacity, now has the ability to book around 7200 tickets every minute. In April this year, they broke their own record by booking 13.4 lakh tickets in a single day.

Around two to three years back, the failure rate of IRCTC was as high as 30 per cent, with one of the main reasons being payment gateway issues.

However, over the last few years, IRCTC has made a huge improvement not only in their own payment mechanism, but it also added support for third party booking mechanisms such as Mobile Wallets, IMPS Payments, their own IRCTC Wallet, among other payment methods.

Currently, they have added another payment channel, namely MobiKwik Wallet. So, over 25 million wallet users can book tickets on IRCTC Mobile app using this Wallet now.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has said that the consultation paper it had issued recently is not on Net Neutrality, rather it seeks views of stakeholders on the differential pricing for data services that are being offered by operators.

However, some are seeing differential pricing as part of the overall debate on Net Neutrality, a principle which is against any priority being accorded to an entity in the Internet traffic flow on account of payments made to service providers like telecom companies.

Amidst a debate over zero-rating plans and telecom firms offering discounted tarrifs for accessing websites, TRAI, a few days ago, came out with a consultation paper, seeking views if such differential pricing should be allowed.

At an event, RS Sharma, Chairman, TRAI, said, “We are saying that it is a specific issue which we have raised, that may be a part of net neutrality… This is a specific problem which has come to the notice of TRAI and we are consulting the stakeholders as to what their views are.”

Sharma further said, “There are examples which have happened in the recent past where content providers and telecom service providers (TSPs) have tied-up, and it is being proposed that if their content goes via the telecom companies’ pipes or networks, then there will be free or near free data charges.’

“Effectively, what has happened is that telecom companies, in a way, are creating a differential pricing regime for different websites. So, that is the question which we have asked in the consultation paper whether it is appropriate or not,” Sharma added.

Initially, TRAI had issued a paper on over-the-top (OTT) players and whether they should be regulated for providing competing services like telecom operators.

Sharma also said, “TRAI had not issued any paper on net neutrality as such. The Authority had issued an OTT paper and basically the issue in that paper was different.”

In the consultation paper, TRAI is seeking comments on whether the steps should be taken to ensure that the principles of non-discrimination, transparency, affordable Internet access, competition, market entry and innovation are adhered to, if differential pricing is allowed.

Printing and IT giant Ricoh India has said that it is going to invest Rs300cr for setting up a data centre and a state-of-the-art business zone at its Gandhinagar-based facility.

Manoj Kumar, MD & CEO, Ricoh India, said, “This will be our third data centre in India.”

He added, “We have a facility at Gandhinagar since the last two decades, where we run our toner refilling operations, along with a warehouse and a logistics support centre. Now, we are planning to set up our data centre as well as a business zone in that facility with an investment of Rs 300 crore.”

The business zone, once set up, will serve as a one-stop destination for other companies, as they will get support of Ricoh’s IT and communication infrastructure to run their operations.

“The time-frame of investment would be around two-three years. Though we already have two data centres in India — one in Kolkata and another in Delhi — this will be much larger in capacity.

This centre will help us in strengthening our presence here through services like cloud computing and data storage,” Kumar said.

As per the Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the company, Anil Saini, the company is working closely with the Government of Gujarat to strengthen the IT infrastructure in the State for Unique Identification Number (UID) or Aadhaar Project.

Saini said, “We are working closely with Gujarat Informatics Ltd (GIL), Sate’s nodal agency for IT services. We have recently supplied 1,500 UID kits to the agency to set up permanent Aadhaar enrolment centres at 400 locations across the State.”

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) recently announced new Internet of Things (IoT) systems and networking solutions that enable customers to collect, process and analyse IoT data more efficiently.

“Hewlett Packard Enterprise has one of the industry’s most comprehensive portfolios of IoT solutions, offering compute, connectivity, data analysis, security and a strong ecosystem, all aimed at simplifying IoT for customers and driving business outcomes,” said Neelam Dhawan, Vice President and General Manager, Enterprise Group and Country Managing Director, Hewlett Packard Enterprise India. “The new solutions today are important elements of our strategy of delivering more connectivity and computing power at ‘the edge,’ and helping customers maximise the value and minimise the risks from IoT at the speed of business.”

As per Gartner, 6.4 billion connected things will be in use in 2016, up 30 per cent from 2015. The rapid proliferation of IoT devices, data and connectivity has the power to enable the creation of new offerings, improved efficiency, better decision-making, and more effective risk-management across organisations.

Delivering business outcomes today quickly and securely requires intelligence to enable real-time decisions at the edge. Moving computing power, data acquisition and data management to the edge of an organisation’s network, outside of the traditional data centre, allows faster access to relevant data, requires less bandwidth to transport useless data, and ultimately accelerates the time to insight for organisations.

The new HPE Edgeline IoT Systems are the result of a joint partnership between HPE and Intel to help deliver proven, open solutions for the IoT market. The HPE Edgeline IoT Systems 10 and 20 sit at the network edge, enabling customers to securely aggregate and analyse data in real-time and control devices and things. Available in ruggedised, mobile and rack-mounted versions, the systems are suitable for a wide spectrum of industrial, logistics, transportation, healthcare, government and retail applications and have been certified to work with Microsoft Azure IoT services.

The first new HPE Edgeline IoT Systems are available now and unify IoT data access with device management, configuration and control. The products include:

• HPE IoT System EL10 – A rugged price/performance-optimised edge gateway designed for entry-level deployments and built with long lifecycle components.
• HPE IoT System EL20 – A rugged performance-optimised edge gateway with additional features for higher compute capabilities and ease of installation, designed for more demanding high-volume deployments and built with long life cycle components.

Future members of the Edgeline family will offer investment protection and scalability, as they incorporate HPE’s proven Moonshot system architecture. Moonshot technology offers powerful computing capability while using significantly less energy and space than typical servers, which are important advantages for IoT.

Kaspersky Lab, one of the world’s fastest growing IT security vendors and the world’s largest privately held vendor of endpoint protection solutions, has bagged the Directorate General Supplies and Disposals (DGS&D) rate contract agreement to address the need of IT security for the government organisations. The contract will be operational till 31st October 2016.

Through the rate contract agreement supported by UMG Solutions, an exclusive bidder on behalf of Kaspersky Lab for DGS&D rate contract, the company will be able to cater its security solutions for the government institutions.

Kaspersky Lab targets to enhance its customer base in various government sectors. Altaf Halde, Managing Director, Kaspersky Lab, South Asia, said, “We will be able to expedite the Digital India revolution by offering our security solution to various government institutions and verticals, including State, Central, PSUs, Defence and other departments. This development also compliments the government’s initiative for the Smart Cities project”.

Punit Gopalka, CEO, UMG Solutions, said, “We believe that the Digital India revolution and the present simple purchase process of DGS&D Rate Contract will aid the Central and State Government departments as well as Defence to make use of the best solutions from a world leader- Kaspersky Lab to fulfil their IT security requirements.”

On this new development, Ajaykumar Joshi, Director, Channel Sales- Kaspersky Lab, South Asia said, “Kaspersky Lab is one of the fourth biggest IT security vendors in the world according to IDC rating and is detecting 325,000 new malicious files every day. With such expertise we are confident to support and contribute to the government’s initiative.”

DSCI-NASSCOM organise 10th Annual Information Security Summit in New Delhi

By Akanki Sharma

New Delhi: The National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) and the Data Security Council of India (DSCI) together organised the “10th Annual Information Security Summit” on Dec 16-17, 2015 at J W Marriott in New Delhi.

The two-day summit that started with the lighting of the traditional lamp, saw participation of various industry experts and a large number of senior officials from the government sector.

The participants dwelt at length upon the present-day cyber threats and implementation of possible solutions to neutralise those. A number of issues like Simplifying Security, Data Breach, Internet Fraudsters and Cyber Security Risk, among others, were addressed by them.

Addressing the audience, Kartik Shahani, Regional Director-India & SAARC, RSA, said, “While we have seen growth of technology, threats have also increased. With the large number of applications people are using these days, it is becoming difficult to remember the passwords. So, we require solutions to protect the data of all those accessing Internet.”

Taking the proposition forward, NIIT Chairman Rajendra S Pawar said, “By the time cyber security industry becomes $35 billion, which is our target for 2020, we are looking at greater people’s participation in this, directly or indirectly.” He went on to reflect on how people’s participation can take the security industry to the next level.

“Making Prevention a Reality with the Power of a Next-Generation Security Platform” was the theme of the presentation of Riyaz Tambe, Head of Systems-Engineering, India & SAARC, Palo Alto Networks. He talked about the common trends in data breaching, like past-based Firewall, Static IPS, use of O-Day Malware and ID certificates. He also said that 100 per cent visibility is one of the pillars of effective network security. The security platforms, like Wildfree, Threat Prevention Security and UKL Filtering, provided by Palo Alto Networks were also introduced to the audience.

Satinder Singh, Director-Technology, India & SAARC, FireEye Cyber Security, underlined that for prevention of threats, the prerequisites are early detection and instant response for quick containment.

“Intelligence and expertise in threat detection and initiating counter-measures are as important as technology itself,” he concluded.

A number of people also came up with suggestions and reactions on Twitter, with #AISS15 trending on the popular social networking site.

Top social networking sites roped in to mitigate woes of commuters from odd-even formula

The Government of Delhi has joined hands with Google and Twitter to provide live information on bus services, their routes and timings during the odd-even formula implementation in Delhi.

The Delhi Transport Minister, Gopal Rai, had meetings with the officials of Google and Twitter in order to support the initiative. Rai also informed that the Government is in talks with the officials of Google and Twitter to provide real-time information of public transport, like routes of buses in a particular area. With this, people will easily get to know about bus information through a link soon to be available on Twitter and Google.

Currently, Google Now and Google Maps are frequently used to search for the locations. However, to know how Twitter is planning to do the same will be interesting.

Google provides bus timings near one’s area which is simply approximation and some information from DTC centres. But it is for the first time that both Google and Twitter will be helping a person to update him/her on when a bus will be arriving to one’s location, along with the nearest bus stop.

Moreover, if someone is new to an area, Google and Twitter will be providing him/her information about the nearest bus stops as well as the buses to take them to their destination.

The government will soon launch one-page form for basic certificates, says Union Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions Jitendra Singh

The government has announced that a large number of government services such as birth or death certificates will soon be converted into a one-page format.

Union Minister Jitendra Singh also launched a single-page application form for pensioners on a day which has been observed as Good Governance Day.

At a press conference, Singh said, “For different schemes, you have voluminous forms. Today, we are releasing one-page application form for pensioners. We plan to convert all multi-page or voluminous forms to single-page within a year.”

He added, “The aim behind this initiative is to make the forms as simple and small as possible for the beneficiary. “There should be relevant and minimum information asked for in an application form for government services and not repetitive ones.”

He also said that he is coordinating with state governments and Union Territories to repeat the same system.

The Minister said, “Every month we will be holding meetings with at least two central government departments and reviewing forms available for different services under them. Efforts will be to simplify the whole procedure and we hope to achieve the target of single-page form for all government services within a year’s time.”

Sanjay Kothari, Secretary in Personnel Ministry, said, “The government plans to integrate Aadhaar number with government services so that people do not have to fill out whole details.”

“We will be integrating Aadhaar database for the services. But this will be possible only when all the people have Aadhaar numbers. It will further benefit people as they will not be required to fill out basic details like their residential address, among other things,” he added.

Singh informed that workshops have already been conducted with the National Social Assistance Programme of the Ministry of Rural Development, Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO), Employees State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) and Directorate General, Labour Welfare of the Ministry of Labour and Employment for simplification of the application forms.

Since last year Good Governance Day is observed on December 25, coinciding with the birthday of the former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

The Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY) has been aggressively promoting an app culture in the country under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

As per the department, 666 applications were made active on different app stores, along with 62 others in the demonstration stage the last year. These were developed by the 10 Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) units all over the country.

Officials from DeitY informed that the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) has ordered them to get apps made for specific purposes and promote these as part of the Digital India initiative. It is because the smartphone penetration in the rural and urban areas has drastically increased.

Experts believe that in comparison to the websites, apps for specific purposes are easier to make and use on a smartphone. One requires a computer to operate a website since it may be heavier than an app.

A senior DeitY official said, “Earlier, the focus was on developing websites but now we are slowly shifting the focus to developing more smartphone applications. The PMO believes that they have more penetration in rural areas since the number of smartphones is way more than desktop computers and laptops. As apps are more basic, the adoptability in rural areas is more.”

According to DeitY, the government apps are finding a lot of takers in the rural areas and apps on various aspects of eGovernance, agriculture, basic healthcare, sanitation and education are being downloaded a lot of times.

The official further added, “A large number of apps are based on education, designed for rural school teachers to help them teach children. These are basic applications, which aid teachers in helping students learn English and languages, algebra, calculus and other subjects. Teachers are able to stay abreast of the current curriculum from these apps and students get a free tutorial.”

That apart, there are apps for farmers, which help them understand the seasonal crop cycles and let them know about new biofertilisers, manure, also helping them to understand which seeds would help them get maximum yields. The official added, “We have even developed an app which helps fishermen in coastal areas locate regions where the density of fish is more.”

For promoting these apps in rural areas, the government is reaching out to gram panchayat heads and school teachers. They tell people about how these apps would benefit them and help them establish a direct connect with the government. The government also plans to promote these apps at its common service centres (CSCs) in rural areas.

The Government of India is launching the “Start-up India,” movement on January 16th, 2016 in New Delhi. The event aims at celebrating the entrepreneurship spirit of country’s youth and will be attended by CEOs and founders of top Start-ups (over 1500) from across the country. The closing session will be addressed by the Hon’ble Prime Minister of India, Shri Narendra Modi who shall formally launch the initiative and unveil the Start-up Action Plan.

Union Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs Arun Jaitley shall inaugurate the event in Vigyan Bhawan at 9.30 am on the same day. Minister of State for Commerce and Industry, Nirmala Sitharaman, shall be the Guest of Honour for the event.

The event shall be a non-stop day long global workshop on Start-up Entrepreneurship and shall include panel discussions on various topics such as:

• “Unleashing Entrepreneurship and Innovation: What do Indian Start-ups Need to Grow and Prosper”
• “Celebrating Women: Stories of Innovative Women Entrepreneurs”
• “How digitisation will change India’s future”
• “Making Indian Healthcare Leapfrog”
• “Financial inclusion is within reach”Apart from this, the session “Show Me the Money: How do we Capitalise Entrepreneurship?” shall be chaired by the Minister of State for Finance, Jayant Sinha. Also, a unique question and answer (Q&A) session titled “Face-to-face with Policy makers” is also being organised wherein secretaries from the Key Government Ministries and Departments will answer questions on how Government will be creating an enabling ecosystem for Start-ups. The objective is to reinforce commitment of the Government towards creating an ecosystem that is conducive for growth of Start-ups. The panel shall comprise of Secretaries from Department of Revenue, Department of Human Resources and Development, Department of Corporate Affairs, Department of Financial Services, Department of Economic Affairs, Department of Science and Technology, Department of Biotechnology, Department of Electronics and Information Technology, Department of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises and Department of Skill Development. Additionally, the panel will have representation from Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI) and Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI).

The event shall also feature interactive talks with global leaders and venture capitalists such as Masayoshi Son (Founder and CEO, SoftBank), Travis Kalanick (Founder, Uber) and Adam Nuemann (Founder, WeWork). A delegation of over 40 top CEOs and founders of Start-ups, Venture Capitalists and Angels investors from Silicon Valley will be attending as special guests for the event and will be taking part in interactive Q&A sessions.

Besides, Google shall be conducting an innovative session titled “Launchpad Accelerator”, which will involve live pitches being made by early stage Start-ups to potential investors. Nikesh Arora, President & Chief Operating Officer, SoftBank, shall be interacting with participants on aspects relating to Startup funding. A virtual exhibition is also being organised as part of the event to showcase some of the unique and innovative work done by Start-ups in the country.

As Prime Minister Narendra Modi had indicated as part of his last “Mann ki baat” radio programme, a full action plan of Start-up India shall be launched as part of the event. The plan shall highlight initiatives and schemes being undertaken by the Government to address various aspects relating to developing a conducive Start-up ecosystem in the country.

Considering the importance of this event towards promotion of Start-up culture in the country, the event will be telecast live in IITs, IIMs, NITs, IIITs and Central Universities and to youth groups in over 350 districts of India.

Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) is organising this event, along with Invest India and Start-up ecosystem players iSpirt, YourStory, NASSCOM, SheThePeople.tv and Kairos Society and youth wings of FICCI and CII.

C H Sudheer Kumar Reddy, a 2010 batch IPS officer, has assumed charge as the Superintendent of Police.

Reddy is a graduate in B. Tech from Pondicherry Engineering College and is a native of Narsaraopet in Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh.

He has served as Additional Superintendent of Police at the communally sensitive Bhatkal in Dakshina Kannada district, and later as Superintendent of Police in the Criminal Investigation Department (Cyber Crime).

IT giant Sify is planning to build its infrastructure in Hyderabad with an investment of approximately Rs 132 crore.

Kamal Nath, Chief Executive Officer, Sify, said, “We have set up a subsidiary of Sify in North America for the go-to-market collaboration. We will be providing bundled solutions to our customers.”

He also added that the centre will serve customers across Banking Financial Services and Insurance (BFSI), manufacturing, retail and eCommerce sectors.

In the first phase of the project, there will be an investment of USD 2 million. Thereafter, an amount of USD 8 million and USD 10 million will be infused over the next two years. The 1.5 acre land required for the delivery centre has been alloted by the Telangana Government. The centre will become operational by mid 2017 with a workforce of 3000 people.

Currently, keeping its focus on services in SMAC (social, mobile, analytics and Cloud), Sify has six tier-III data centres for state governments in India.

K T Rama Rao, Minister for IT and Panchayati Raj, Telangana, said, “We are in discussions with multiple organisations to build their data centres in Hyderabad and are contemplating setting up a data centre campus over an area of 50 acres in the city.”

Kamal Nath said, “With annual revenues of Rs 1,250 crore in 2014-15, Sify currently generates over 90 per cent revenues from 4000-plus enterprise customers in India. “We have set a target of generating 50 per cent of our revenues from global clients by 2020.”