KAPURTHALA, PUNJAB: Aadhaar will soon be linked to the motor driving licence, said Ravi Shankar Prasad, Union IT Minister at the ongoing 106th edition of the Indian Science Congress at Lovely Professional University (LPU) here on Saturday.
“This will prevent violators from making new or duplicate driving licences in their hometown or some other state,” said Prasad while addressing a gathering here.
Further speaking on the controversial Aadhaar project through a detailed presentation, Prasad said that the Supreme Court of India has upheld the constitutional validity of Aadhaar and the project is applauded by International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World bank.
While flashing his Aadhaar from the dais, the IT Minister said that it has only basic demographic details like his name, age, father’s name and permanent address of Patna and not his caste, religion, medical record, income or sexual preferences and hence he cannot be trolled.
Further pressing upon the need of Aadhaar, Prasad said that it is a low cost technology. “A single Aadhaar cost Rs 82 only and the data is kept in safe and secure custody in Bengaluru and Manesar,” said Prasad.
The minister also added that the government is soon going to formulate stringent data safety laws to safeguard the privacy of citizens and to secure their data from going into wrong hands.
“Aadhaar will soon be linked to the motor driving licence of the Indian citizens”
- Ravi Shankar Prasad, Union IT Minister
The minister said that the digital profile of India consists of 123 crores Aadhaar digital identities, 121 crore mobile phones, 45.6 crores smart phones, 56 crores internet users, 51 per cent growth in e-commerce and 29 crores Facebook users.
The digital transformation mission consist of digital access, digital inclusion, empowerment and bridging the digital divide amongst citizens.
The IT minister further claimed that India has the lowest cost of mobile internet in the world and the mobile data consumption grew 1680 per cent between June 2014 and June 2017. He said that presently India is going through a BPO revolution and soon women in urban and rural areas can form groups and can run a BPO from their homes.
Women scientists are biggest minorities in India: Smriti Irani
While pressing upon the need to promote women scientists in India, Irani said that out of the 2.8 lakh scientists employed with various scientific research institute across India, only 14 per cent are women.
“The number of women scientists in India is roughly 35000 only and hence is the largest minority in the country,” said Irani. She also added that over 81 per cent of the women in the stem cell field feels that gender bias is there in the performance evaluation.
The minister also raised concern about the lack of awareness amongst the women scientists in India to commercialised and patent their inventions.
ISC ‘hijacked’ by Politics, Plenary sessions got delayed, Empty stalls harassed visitors
The third day of the Indian Science Congress turned into an event of political vendatta to highlight the achievements of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government.
To begin with, Union textiles Minister Smriti Irani arrived late by an hour as her flight got delayed. This caused lot of harassment to the officials who had left the exhibition stalls vacant to attend the inauguration ceremony of the Women Science Congress. This also caused lot of harassment to the visitors especially the children coming to far flung places from rural Punjab in extreme weather to visit the exhibition.
Immediately after her, followed the visit to Union Law Minister Dr. Ravi Shankar Prasad who too came armed with a detailed presentation of Digital India.
While the minister went on for about an hour to convince people about the reliability and safety of Aadhaar project and how secure the data is of citizens collected through various e-governance missions, the officials who were seated since morning could only leave the venue around 4 pm, an hour before the closing time.
On Sunday also, similar chaos were witnessed at the LPU campus during the visit of Union HRD Minister Prakash at the event. More political leaders from the Union cabinet are expected to arrive at ISC on Monday.