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Launching 5G services that promise ultra high-speed internet on cellphones, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said this is “a knock on the doors of a new era” and the “beginning of an infinite sky of opportunities”.
New India will not remain a mere consumer of technology, but will play an active role in the development and implementation of that technology, adding that 5G technology will revamp the entire architecture of the internet.
Among the three major telecom operators, Bharti Airtel immediately rolled out 5G services in eight cities including Delhi, Mumbai, Varanasi and Bengaluru, and said the rest of the country would get it by March 2024.
Reliance Jio is set to launch 5G in metro cities by Diwali this year, and in the rest of the country by 2023-end. Vodafone Idea has not announced a timeline yet.
Addressing the event, Modi urged telecom industry associations to launch awareness campaigns in rural areas on how 5G services can improve their lives.
Terming the launch of 5G services as a success of the government’s Digital India initiative, he said the programme is based on four key pillars: cost of device, digital connectivity, data cost and a digital-first approach.
From just 100 gram panchayats with optical fibre connectivity, we now have over 170 thousand panchayats connected with optical fibre. I’ve seen even the poor of the country always come forward to adopt new technologies. Technology has become democratic in its truest sense.
He said the utility of 5G is not limited to facilitating day-to-day activities, but it is a force that changes life altogether. Speaking to The Indian Express on the sidelines of the launch event, Union Minister of Communications Ashwini Vaishnaw said that under the first phase of the rollout, the government has shortlisted 200 cities and towns where it aims to launch 5G services in the next six months.
We should be able to cover 80-90 per cent of the country in the next two years. Asked about tariffs of 5G plans by telecom companies, he said “India will continue to remain an affordable country”.
At its peak, internet speeds on 5G could touch 10 Gbps; it is 100 Mbps on 4G. Latency on 5G is expected to be under 1 ms (millisecond); it is 10-100 ms on 4G.
For consumers, 5G will provide superior internet speed and low latency. At its peak, internet speeds on 5G could touch 10 Gbps, compared to the 100 Mbps peak of 4G. Similarly, latency under 4G is between 10-100 ms (millisecond), whereas it is expected to be under 1 ms on 5G. Latency is the time it takes for a device to send packets of data and get a response.
Calling for return to talks, India abstains on UNSC vote to condemn Russia (Page no. 1)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
Underlining that “escalation of rhetoric or tensions is in no one’s interest” and it is “important that pathways are found for a return to the negotiating table”, India Saturday abstained on a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution, which would have condemned Moscow’s “illegal referenda” and declared its annexation of four Ukrainian territories as invalid. The UNSC resolution was vetoed by Russia.
The UNSC could not adopt the resolution as Russia — a permanent member of the UN Security Council — vetoed it. It was supported by 10 of the 15 members of the Council, while China, Gabon, India, and Brazil abstained.
India is deeply disturbed by the recent turn of developments in Ukraine. We have always advocated that no solution can ever be arrived at the cost of human lives.
Urging that all efforts are made by “concerned sides for the immediate cessation of violence and hostilities”, the Indian envoy said: “Dialogue is the only answer to settling differences and disputes, however daunting that may appear at this moment. The path to peace requires us to keep all channels of diplomacy open.”
India’s Prime Minister has also emphasized that this cannot be an era of war,” Kamboj said, recalling Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s public remarks to Russian President Vladimir Putin in Samarkand in Uzbekistan, on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit.
Maintaining that India’s position has been clear and consistent from the very beginning of this conflict, Kamboj said the global order is anchored on the principles of the UN Charter, international law, and respect for sovereignty and the territorial integrity of all states.
Escalation of rhetoric or tensions is in no one’s interest. It is important that pathways are found for a return to the negotiating table. Keeping in view the totality of the evolving situation, India has decided to abstain on this resolution.
The 15-nation UN Security Council voted Friday on the draft resolution tabled by the US and Albania on “Illegal So-Called Referenda in Ukraine”, hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin, at a lavish ceremony in the Kremlin, signed treaties to annex the Ukrainian regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia.
Express Network
Centre hikes mid-day meal per child cooking cost by 9.6% (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 2, Social Justice)
After a gap of over two years, the cooking cost per child under the mid-day meal scheme is set to rise by 9.6 per cent, with the Ministry of Finance approving the hike proposed by a committee which has recommended inter-ministerial deliberations on linking the number of LPG cylinders per school to enrolment.
The decision, which is likely to come into effect from October, comes at a time school authorities and food rights activists across the country have been demanding more funds to run the scheme, which has 11.8 crore student beneficiaries, citing an increase in the prices of vegetables, pulses and cooking gas.
Since the last hike in early 2020, the cooking cost per child has been Rs 4.97 per child per day in primary classes (class I-V), and Rs 7.45 (class VI-VIII) in upper primary classes.
After the hikes come into effect, the allocation at the primary level and upper primary levels will be Rs 5.45 and Rs 8.17, respectively.
Cooking cost includes the prices of ingredients such as pulses, salt, vegetables, condiments, and fuel needed to prepare cooked meals.
The committee which revised the cooking cost has recommended that the Ministry of Education hold consultations with the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas to ensure “reliable and adequate supply” of LPG cylinders by linking its availability to enrolment in schools.
The Education Ministry has also been advised to hold talks with the Food Ministry to “offset inflation on pulses”, which is the major source of protein in hot-cooked meals provided under the scheme, which is among the largest initiatives in the world to enhance nutrition levels of school-going children.
Between 2010-11 and 2015-16, cooking cost increased by 7.5 per cent annually. In 2016-17, it rose by 7 per cent, and during the subsequent year, there was no change. The same year a decision was taken to link the cooking cost to the Consumer Price Index.
Subsequently, it rose by 5.35 per cent in 2018-18, 3.09 per cent in 2019-20 and 10.99 per cent in 2020-21. Now, sources said, the government is likely to devise a new ‘PM Poshan Index’ to track the change in prices of items in the mid-day meal basket and revise the cooking cost annually.
Indore cleanest city for 6th time in a row, Surat retains 2nd spot (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 2, Governance)
Indore was adjudged India’s cleanest city for the sixth time in a row, while Surat and Navi Mumbai followed it on the next two spots in the Central government’s annual cleanliness survey.
In the category of best performing states in ‘Swachh Survekshan Awards 2022’, Madhya Pradesh has secured the first position, followed by Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra.
Indore and Surat retained their top positions in the big cities category this year, while Vijaywada lost its third spot to Navi Mumbai.
Among the states having fewer than 100 urban local bodies, Tripura has bagged the top rank, according to the survey results.
President Droupadi Murmu on Saturday gave away the awards to the winners at an event here also attended by Union Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep Singh Puri and others.
In the category of cities having population fewer than one lakh, Maharashtra’s Panchgani was ranked number one, followed by Chhattisgarh’s Patan (NP) and Maharashtra’s Karhad.
Haridwar was adjudged the cleanest Ganga town in the category of more than 1 lakh population, followed by Varanasi and Rishikesh. PTI BUN Bijnor was ranked the first among Ganga towns with fewer than one lakh population. followed by Kannauj and Garhmukhteshwar respectively.
In to the survey, Maharashtra’s Deolali was adjudged the country’s cleanest Cantonment Board. The 7th edition of Swachh Survekshan was conducted to study the progress of the Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban) and rank the Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) based on various cleanliness and sanitation parameters.
The Survekshan has evolved from being an assessment of 73 cities in 2016 to covering 4,354 cities this year.
Economy
Tokenisation norms for card transactions: How do they work? (Page no. 17)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The Reserve Bank of India’s card-on-file (CoF) tokenisation norms have kicked in, which aim at improved safety and security of card transactions.
Now, for any purchases done online or through mobile apps, merchants, payment aggregators and payment gateways will not be able to save crucial customer credit and debit card details such as three-digit CVV and expiry date.
After multiple extensions, the RBI decided not to give any further relaxation in implementing these norms. We just wanted to make sure that the customer’s safety doesn’t get compromised because of problems faced in the implementation of tokenisation. The feedback we have from all stakeholders is that it is perfectly ready and the system can go on.
Close to 35 crore tokens have already been created. In September alone, 40 per cent of transactions, valuing around Rs 63 crore, were done using tokens.
Tokenisation refers to the replacement of actual card details with a unique alternate code called the ‘token’, which shall be unique for a combination of card, token requester, (i.e. the entity which accepts requests from the customer for tokenisation of a card and passes it on to the card network to issue a corresponding token) and the device.
In September 2021, the RBI prohibited merchants from storing customer card details on their servers with effect from January 1, 2022, and mandated the adoption of card-on-file (CoF) tokenisation as an alternative.
Following a series of representations from several industry players and digital payment platforms who anticipated disruption in online transactions from January 1, 2022, the RBI extended the implementation date of card-on-file (CoF) tokenisation norms by another six months to June 30, 2022.
The June 2022 deadline was further extended as the RBI felt that although considerable progress had been made in terms of token creation and transaction processing based on these tokens had also commenced, the concept was yet to gain traction across all categories of merchants. Subsequently, the deadline was extended till September 30, 2022.
Deputy Governor Sankar said that ever since the regulation on tokenisation was issued, the central bank was constantly talking to all stakeholders to ensure that the transition to the tokenisation framework was smooth.