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In a year, no more physical police verification for passports: Home Secy

Agencies
August 21, 2017

New Delhi, Aug 21: The physical police verification for getting a passport will soon be a thing of the past as the government plans to connect the service with a robust national database of crimes and criminals that will check the antecedents of applicants at the click of a mouse.

Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi said the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems Project (CCTNS) is expected to link with the passport service of the Ministry of External Affairs and it will replace physical police verification for passport applicants with online verification in a year.

"Police in some states are already using CCTNS for passport credentials. Police will be given hand held devices to go to an applicant's address and his or her details will be uploaded with the network. It will minimise contact with police and reduce time," he told reporters here.

Mehrishi was speaking after Home Minister Rajnath Singh launched a digital police portal under the CCTNS project, which aims to create a national database of crimes and criminals and connect country's all 15,398 police stations with it.

He said with the port, mandate of the CCTNS has been expanded by incorporating citizen centric services tenant verification, which could be done with the consent of the person being verified, quick registration of FIR in any crime and connecting the network with criminal justice delivery system.

Asked about the safety of the database, the home secretary said possibility of hacking was always there but enough safeguards have been put in place and the National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre has been roped in for the task.

The home minister said the digital police portal will provide citizens, facility for online complaint registration and request for antecedent verification.

"The police portal will provide 11 searches and 46 reports from the national database for state police and central investigation agencies. Central investigating and research agencies have also been provided logins to the digital police database to access crime statistics," he said after launching the portal.

Singh said the CCTNS has enabled 13,775 out of 15,398 police stations to enter 100 per cent data into the software. He said as of now the CCTNS national database has around 7 crore data records pertaining to past and current criminal cases.

Singh said the CCTNS project will help in realising the Prime Minister Narenda Modi's dream of 'Minimum Government Maximum Governance'.

A home ministry official said the CCTNS will facilitate pan-India search on complete national crime and criminal database that is accessible to the investigating officers throughout the country.

The CCTNS project will interconnect about 15,398 police stations and additional 5,000 offices of supervisory police officers across the country and digitise data related to FIR registration, investigation and charge sheets in all police stations.

The project has been extended by the government for one year till March 2018.

The one-year extension will help the government to comprehensively achieve the remaining goals of the CCTNS, which was conceived by the former Home Minister P Chidambaram when the UPA was in power.

With a total budget of Rs 2,000 crore, a sum of Rs 1,550 crore has been spent till 2016-17.

The inter-operable criminal justice system aims to integrate the CCTNS project with e-courts and e-prison data bases in the first instance and with the other pillars of the criminal justice system, another official said.

The integration will be achieved by providing access to the judiciary, police and prisons through a desktop dashboard to facilitate expeditious and informed decisions and aid investigations.

The full implementation of the project with all the new components would lead to a central citizen portal having linkages with state-level citizen portals that will provide a number of citizen-friendly services, the official said.

These include services like police verification for various purposes like issuance of passport, reporting a crime and online tracking of the case progress, online reporting of grievances against police officials, accessing victim compensation fund and legal services etc.

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News Network
August 4,2020

Bengaluru, Aug 4: With preparations underway for conducting exams for the final semester/ year students in the state, Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister Dr CN Ashwathnarayan on Monday directed the respective universities to conduct exams for the backlog papers as well.

"In the wake of COVID-19, it has been decided to hold exams only for the students of final semester/year courses. It has come to our notice that some universities have decided against conducting exams for final year students who have a backlog to clear from previous semesters. This is unpardonable," the Deputy Chief Minister said.

"Our intention is to see that the final year students finish their course. In the present situation, conducting only final semester exams won't help. We have to help the students in clearing their backlogs," added Ashwathnarayan, directing all universities to compulsorily conduct these exams.

Meanwhile, Ashwathnarayan thanked the staff and officials of various government departments who were responsible for successfully conducting the CET exams even amidst the difficult situation in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic.

"In all, 1,94,419 students had registered for the CET exams, of which 1,75,428 wrote the exams. The percentage of students who took up the exams this year was equivalent to that of the previous years, in normal times," the DCM informed.

"After we successfully conducted the exams, Arunachal Pradesh is going to conduct the Public Service Commission exams on the lines of how we successfully conducted the exams. Likewise, even our KPSC has said it will conduct the exams. We must appreciate the good work of the Karnataka Examination Authority (KEA), which has set an example for others," Ashwathnarayan said.

The deputy chief minister said that 33 colleges in various districts across the state faced shortage of land and that it is the responsibility of the District Commissioners (DCs) to get the lands sanctioned for all these colleges.
In Bagalkot district alone land has not been sanctioned for six degree colleges, he said.

Reacting to this, Bagalkot DC Captain Rajendra assured to look into the matter as soon as he receives the proposal from department officials.

"Similarly, there is shortage of land for five Diploma colleges and 28 ITI colleges in different parts of the state. The DCs must immediately pay attention to this. Once they get the land, buildings will come up within no time," the Karnataka deputy chief minister said.

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News Network
June 23,2020

New Delhi, Jun 23: The meeting between Indian Army's 14 Corps Commander Lt Gen Harinder Singh and his Chinese counterpart got over after around 11 hours, sources said.

"Today's meeting between the Corps Commander-level officers of India and China is over. The meeting which started at 11:30 am went on for around 11 hours. More details awaited," sources said.

The meeting started at around 11:30 am at Moldo on the Chinese side of Line of Actual Control (LAC) opposite Chushul to defuse the tensions in Eastern Ladakh sector due to Chinese military build-up, the sources said.

This is the second meeting between the two corps commanders. They had met on June 6 and had agreed to disengage at multiple locations. India had asked the Chinese side to go back to pre-May 4 military positions along the LAC.

The Chinese side had not given any response to the Indian proposal and not even shown intent on the ground to withdraw troops from rear positions where they have amassed over 10,000 troops.

India is also likely to discuss the change in rules of engagement on the LAC where the forces have been empowered to use firearms in extraordinary circumstances, sources had said.

They said India will also ask China to honour the commitment given during June 6 talks to disengage in the Galwan valley completely and other places.

The build-up of Chinese air assets including strategic bombers by the PLA Air Force in fields near Indian territory close to Ladakh is also likely to figure in discussions.

India and China have been involved in talks to ease the ongoing border tensions since last month.

However, last week as many as 20 Indian soldiers lost their lives in the face-off in the Galwan Valley after an attempt by the Chinese troops to unilaterally change the status quo during the de-escalation in eastern Ladakh.

The Indian intercepts have revealed that the Chinese side suffered 43 casualties including dead and seriously injured in the violent clash.

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News Network
March 5,2020

Mar 5: The fourteen Italians, who have tested positive for coronavirus, have been shifted to the Medanta Hospital in Gurgaon from an ITBP quarantine centre.

The hospital issued a statement on Thursday morning, saying these patients are housed on a completely separate floor, which has been quarantined and has no contact with the rest of the hospital.

There is a dedicated medical team wearing protective gear looking after these patients.All items used on the floor are isolated to that floor.

The isolated floor will completely contain the disease even with these asymptomatic persons. All other hospital operations are operating as normal, and there is no increased risk to patients, visitors or staff, the statement said.

Twenty-one Italian tourists and their three Indian tour operators were shifted out from an ITBP quarantine centre here on Wednesday as they were exposed to novel coronavirus.

An affected Italian couple is being treated at Jaipur's SMS medical college.

Officials on Tuesday said the foreigners have been sent to a private hospital in Gurgaon and a centre in the national capital while the Indians have been transferred to the Safdarjung Hospital.

Fourteen Italians and an Indian (driver), who were in the same group as the affected Italian couple, tested positive for the virus as per information provided by the Health Ministry.

The Italian tourists and three Indians were admitted to the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) force centre in Chhawla on Tuesday.

The Centre already has 112 people, 76 Indians and 36 foreigners, since February 27 after they were evacuated by an Indian Air Force (IAF) plane from China's Wuhan, the epicentre of the deadly coronavirus.

The first samples of these 112 people had tested negative when reports came in last week.

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