PASSPORT SERVICES LINKED TO DIGILOCKER
Citizens can now submit various documents required for passport services through the Government’s DigiLocker app system in a paperless mode and are therefore not required to carry the original documents, the ministry of external affairs (MEA) announced on Friday. In a move that will also provide great relief to those who have lost their passports and aid them for re-issuing of the document, the MEA also announced it was “working on the idea of passport to be included as one of the documents in DigiLocker” to “help citizens to retrieve the passport whenever it is required” and which will also help them in the process of re-issuing in case of passport loss.
The MEA also said it was “working towards rolling out of ePassport for the citizens that are designed to increase security, making it more difficult to tamper with data recorded on a passport, thereby limiting the chances of fraud” and that “in the coming years, biometric passports would help improve immigration processes at airports which are equipped with automatic e-Passport gates”.
All this was announced by minister of state (MoS) for external affairs V. Muraleedharan on Friday at an event to “inaugurate ‘DigiLocker for Passport Seva’,” who also stated that “in the upcoming Passport Seva Programme V2.0, the use of emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning, Chat-Bot, Analytics, Robotic Process Automation (RPA) will further ease the citizen experience and expeditious service delivery”.
The DigiLocker is a flagship initiative of the ministry of electronics and IT and aims to provide access to authentic digital documents stored in a citizen’s digital document wallet. As per rules, these digital documents are on par with original physical documents and can therefore be accessed by citizens anytime and anywhere.
Acouple of IPL teams seem to have gone overboard in splashing crores on cricketers who are looking to rediscover their mojo after very poor outings in the last edition of the league played in the UAE. Considering that 130 countries around the globe are yet to lay their hands on the vaccine in the face of the Coronavirus pandemic, such splurging seems a tad extravagant. But then, chasing sporting success is an expensive but far from scientific pursuit. Perhaps, the extravagance has to be seen as part of a larger sport bubble that comes more as an entertainment package and is not to be equated with normal pay for work rewards in the lives and livelihoods of the people. The 2020 records of Chris Morris of South Africa, who at `16.25 crore has become the cash-rich league’s most expensive player at an auction, and Glenn Maxwell of Australia, who gets close to `13.25 crore (the approximate procurement cost of 5.7 lakh vaccines) bear no relation to the prince’s ransom being paid as salaries.
The teams seemed so overenthusiastic about foreign T20 all-rounders that they could not show the same largesse to homegrown talent. The riches showered on some youngsters in this annual auction like K. Gowtham, bought by Chennai Super Kings for `9.25 crore and M. Shahrukh Khan, picked up by the renamed Punjab Kings for `1.2 crore, may have been heartwarming as their potential to shine in the T20 format is being recognised. The champions Mumbai Indians, who were parsimonious compared to the likes of Royal Challengers Bangalore, who broke their bank at the auction on a couple of expensive buys, also chose to take on the cricketer with the famous surname — Arjun Tendulkar — at the modest starting price of `20 lakh. In cricketing terms, the hunt for impact players who can be expected to swing games with bat and/or ball seems logical enough. The timing of the commitment of millions seems a bit awkward when the world is vaccinating against the existential crisis posed by the virus.