India is known for its rich cultural, religious, and linguistic diversity but this often plays a role in hampering communications throughout the country — a problem that can be easily resolved using the cutting-edge technology that we see around us today. Taking this idea forward, the Indian government has launched e-Aksharayan — a desktop software for converting any scanned or printed Indian language documents into fully editable text. Screenshots Of What Appears To Be e-Aksharayan Software At Work (source-Wikipedia) The application, which is available in seven Indian languages, was launched yesterday by Ajay Prakash Sawhney, Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). At the…
Author: Loknath Das
Facing an intense public scrutiny over data leaks amid privacy concerns, Facebook has now called for the entire tech industry to come and protect people’s data. According to David Baser, Director of Product Management at Facebook, nearly every day, news comes out from a different company about personal data that got into the wrong hands. “Even if we’re all taking steps to shore up our privacy protections, we won’t find the answers in a silo. Companies are connected and our technology ecosystem can’t be reversed. “So we need to work together on standards and best practices to make data portability a reality…
All critical personal data on people in India should be processed within the country, a government panel said on Friday. The recommendation comes at a time when data breaches are becoming common globally and there is heightened scrutiny by governments on how companies handle user data. The panel, headed by former Supreme Court judge B.N. Srikrishna, also presented a draft bill – Draft of Personal Data Protection Bill, 2018 – that will go before parliament designed to enhance data protection. The legislation could affect how global companies store data in India. The panel said “personal data determined to be critical”…
The apex court will impose a fine of Rs. 5,00,000 per day on social networks to prevent offensive content A bench of Justice Madan B. Lokur and Justice Deepak Gupta granted one month to the social media sites to ensure a foolproof mechanism to prevent uploading of objectionable materials. The Supreme Court on Friday raised concern over irresponsible behaviour of search engines and social networking sites like Google, Facebook, WhatsApp, and Yahoo in promoting objectionable material leading to lynching of people, and warned imposing Rs. 5,00,000 per day on them if they fail to develop a foolproof mechanism to prevent uploading of such material. A bench…
You know that girl from TV – the one whose Instagram always looks perfect even with #nofilter? Or what about that amazing singer on musical.ly whom you can’t believe is only 14? And then there’s that kid whose Snapchat stories of Coachella got 500 views. Your kids may be following people like this right now. Obsessing. Over. Every. Detail. And starting to feel kind of crappy about it. Keeping tabs on the rich, famous, and just-plain-cool is nothing new, of course. But social media can take that fixation to a pretty dark place. The feeling is common enough that some…
Earlier this month Germany’s Federal Court of Justice granted the parents of a deceased teenager full control of her Facebook account. The basic argument was that social media accounts should be inherited just as books and letters are. The fact that this teenager died in 2012 and the case took several years to resolve underscores the massive and uncertain role social media plays in modern life. Last week Abu Dhabi Public Prosecution ordered the arrest of three social media influencers after they used social media to post videos of themselves taking part in the “In my feelings challenge”. This is…
The U.K. government should increase oversight of social media like Facebook and election campaigns to protect democracy in the digital age, a parliamentary committee has recommended in a scathing report on fake news, data misuse and interference by Russia. The interim report by the House of Commons’ media committee to be released Sunday said democracy is facing a crisis because the combination of data analysis and social media allows campaigns to target voters with messages of hate without their consent. Tech giants like Facebook, which operate in a largely unregulated environment, are complicit because they haven’t done enough to protect…
Delhi Finance Secretary Renu Sharma has expressed concern over less than 10 per cent expenditure of the budget allotted to the public works department in executing various government’s projects in the first quarter. According to a PWD official, an explanation regarding the less expenditure will be sent to the government. The finance secretary held a review meeting of the expenditure on July 25, where project-wise status was discussed. Projects like remodelling of hospitals, construction of poly clinics, ITO Skywalk and strengthening of Ring Road from Ashram to AIIMS, among others, were taken up for discussion, drawing ire of the finance…
Opposition’s spokesman on finance Mark Golding can be easily numbered among the parliamentarians who take their jobs of representing inside Gordon House very seriously. So, it was no surprise that he grasped Finance Minister Dr Nigel Clarke’s invitation to attend last Thursday’s disclosure on proposals to transform the Bank of Jamaica (BoJ) into a modern central bank detached from the dictates of the finance minister, at the Jamaica Pegasus hotel in New Kingston. Golding’s questions included whether there would be opportunity for the issue to be discussed in Parliament prior to the tabling of the amending Bills and the accompanying…
Twitter posted record profit on Friday with second quarter revenue that beat financial analysts’ estimates and said penalising misbehaving users this year had paid off even though monthly usage had dropped. Twitter, like bigger rival Facebook, has been under pressure from regulators in several countries to weed out hate speech, abusive content and misinformation, better protect user data and boost transparency on political ad spending. The social media firm increased removals and suspensions of accounts in recent months, saying this was one reason the number of monthly users fell by 1 million to 335 million in the second quarter from the previous…