Karnataka tops innovation ranking of states: Niti Aayog

Agencies
October 18, 2019

New Delhi, Oct 18: Karnataka has topped the first-ever innovation ranking of states, followed by Tamil Nadu and Maharasthra, a Niti Aayog sponsored report said on Thursday.

Bihar, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh, on the other hand, trailed on the list.

The India Innovation Index 2019, developed on the lines of Global Innovation Index (GII), looks into the innovation ecosystem of Indian states and union territories to help policymakers design policies to drive innovation across regions.

The report was released by Niti Aayog Vice Chairman Rajiv Kumar and Chief Executive Officer Amitabh Kant here.

The ranking was done in three categories -- 'Major States', 'North East and Hill States' and 'Union Territories (UTs)/City and Small States'. Sikkim topped in the North-East category, while Delhi was at the top in the UT segment.

Telangana, Haryana, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh were among the other states that topped the innovation index.

The report, which has captured trends and done deep-drive analyses of various factors that drive innovation at the country, state and pillar levels, envisages to help policymakers and corporates identify some of the issues at a sustainable level in India.

The index has been grouped under two major heads, enablers -- factors that will drive innovation in states and UTs, and performance -- that will measure the actual outcomes in the innovation competitiveness of states.

In terms of attracting investment, the top position was again bagged by Karnataka among major states, followed by Maharashtra, Haryana, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Telangana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.

Bihar, Jharkhand and Punjab were the least attractive states for investment.

Among North East and Hill States, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh and Tripura were the top three states; while among the UTs, Lakshadweep, Delhi and Goa were the top three regions.

"For a country as large as India, the sate of innovation needs to be understood at the regional level for effective policy formulation. A policy just at the national level is not enough. Each state needs to formulate its own policy, based on its unique resources and strengths and which caters to the specific needs," the report said.

Kumar said innovation has always been a driver of change and progress in any economy as it disrupts traditional practices and businesses.

"The first ever India Innovation Index will help create a conducive ecosystem for innovation to flourish across the country. Such an index will not only help to devise their own strategy for fostering an innovation climate, it will also enable them to benchmark their performance with other states," Kumar pointed out.

Amitabh Kant said that India Innovation Index is another initiative that has been launched by the Niti Aayog to analyse and enhance the innovation environment at the state level in India.

"The index will be useful to states and union territories by benchmarking their performance against their peers to understand reasons for differential performance and devise better strategies towards creating an environment that fosters innovation," Kant said.

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Agencies
February 20,2020

New Delhi, Feb 20: Microsoft has begun testing its free open-source software called "ElectionGuard" in a small Wisconsin town in the US that aims to make voting more secure, verifiable and efficient.

"ElectionGuard" will enable end-to-end verification of elections, open results to third-party organisations for secure validation, and allow individual voters to confirm their votes were correctly counted.

It enables government entities, news outlets, human rights organisations or anyone else to build additional verifiers that independently can certify election results have been accurately counted and have not been altered, according to the company.

The software would create a paper trail and assure voters their votes were properly tallied.

"On Tuesday, Fulton residents are using the technology while choosing who will join the local school board and hold a seat on Wisconsin's state Supreme Court," reports CNBC.

With the test, the company aims to see if voters like the experience and make sure everything works fine.

In May last year, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced "ElectionGuard".

According to Tom Burt, Corporate Vice President, Customer Security and Trust, voting system manufacturers will be free to build ElectionGuard into their systems in a variety of ways.

"These are exciting steps that enable individual voters to confirm their vote was properly counted, and assures those voters using an ElectionGuard system of the most secure and trustworthy vote in the history of the US," Burt said in a recent blog post.

"ElectionGuard" is not intended to replace paper ballots but rather to supplement and improve systems that rely on them, and it is not designed to support internet voting.

The software provides each voter a tracker with a unique code that can be used to follow an encrypted version of the vote through the entire election process via a web portal provided by election authorities.

During the process of vote-casting, voters have an optional step that allows them to confirm that their trackers and encrypted votes accurately reflect their selections.

But once a vote is cast, neither the tracker nor any data provided through the web portal can be used to reveal the contents of the vote.

After the election is complete, the tracker codes can be used by voters to confirm that their votes were not altered or tampered with and that they were properly counted, said Microsoft.

On the security front, "ElectionGuard" uses something called homomorphic encryption - which enables mathematical procedures "like counting - to be done with fully encrypted data".

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News Network
March 15,2020

Bengaluru, Mar 15: The Karnataka government on Saturday issued a statement saying that surveillance and containment measures against the spread of coronavirus have been increased in the state.

"In the wake of coronavirus scare, 104 Arogya Sahayavani (call centre) has reserved 20 lines for receiving calls for COVID-19," read the statement.

It also read that the dedicated seating at the 104 call centre has been increased to 40 and one person form 108 call centre will be responsible for coordinating with the ambulance services.

The statement also read that the government had arranged an orientation for the medical college staff to train them to deal with coronavirus patients.

While six people from the state were reported positive of coronavirus, the Union Ministry of Health, one amongst them was a 76-year-old man from the Kalaburagi region and he died due to co-morbidity.

The state Health Department Commissioner has said that the Telangana government has been notified about the man's death as he was also admitted to a hospital there.

So far, 84 people have been infected with COVID-19 in India.

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News Network
January 1,2020

Mangaluru, Jan 1: On the first day of 2020, Bajpe Police became somewhat of a Guardian Angel for a college student, who was wandering around the city in the wee hours of Wednesday, convincing and escorting him to his home safely, after coming to know about his residence.

According to Bajpe Police Probationary Sub-Inspector Anita Nikkam and Police Officer Devappa Hosamani, they noticed a youth, hailing from Handelu in Todaru and studying in a college at Moodbidri, wandering at around 0245 hrs.

When asked about his whereabouts, the boy did not respond initially. However, police managed to collect his address and his mother's phone number after half an hour of interrogation.

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