-The Hindu One of the first things to get affected during natural disasters and accidents is the communication network. In a country where over a billion use mobile phones, providing mobile connectivity during a disaster, at least for emergency usage, is a priority. In this context, an IIT Madras team is developing a low-cost communication system that can enable rescue workers to communicate with a locally established centre and, through this centre,...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Participating as a volunteer in the Centre's financial literacy campaign for a cashless economy will yield academic credits to students of higher educational institutions, including the IITs. The Union HRD ministry has launched a scheme called the Vittiya Saksharta Abhiyan (Visaka) under which heads of institutions have been advised to give students credits for taking forward the Prime Minister's agenda. "Directors of all institutions should ensure that the necessary...

-Livemint.com The rich and the middle class have their digital wallets and credit cards; they can afford to wait two weeks, even 50 days, for their money to be exchanged One has to be astonishingly callous or exceptionally removed from reality to think that the poor are sleeping peacefully and only the rich are frightened, needing sleeping pills in the wake of the great currency-exchange drama playing out in India. For that’s...

-Hindustan Times New Delhi: The country’s human rights watchdog has issued notices to the Madhya Pradesh government and state police for the shooting of eight Islamist prisoners who had escaped from a Bhopal jail. The National Human Rights Commission sent notices the state’s chief secretary, director general of police, director general of prisons & inspector general of prisons for the killing alleged activists of the Students Islamic Movement of India. The men fled...

-The Hindu New Delhi: As Videos of the alleged police encounter of eight SIMI men who broke out of the Bhopal Central Jail continue to raise demands for a judicial probe, a series of Supreme Court judgments show that the law is heavily, even fatally, loaded against police officers found guilty of 'fake encounters'. One of the judgments even recommends death penalty to “trigger-happy” cops and compares them to Nazi war criminals...