KOLKATA: Smart tokens and cards on the Metro network may well be on their way out. Metro Railway has already begun work on a project to introduce a system that will allow smartphone users to simply flash their phones at the gates for rides. The Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS) has already been asked to develop a software for this.
“We have been constantly working towards providing better passenger amenities. We would like fewer people to queue up for tokens or recharge of smart cards. As a first step, we are trying to introduce an online recharging facility for smart cards. Many people have complained that it’s tedious to queue up for recharging. Once this system comes into affect, they can simply log in from anywhere and top up their balance. We are also on the way to introduce mobile ticketing on smartphones,” said Indrani Banerjee, CPRO, Metro Railway .
Once this system is launched, mobile users will just need a special SIM and maintain a balance in the attached e-wallet. Every time they wish to use the Metro, they will have to key in the originating station and destination. A QR code will be generated, which will be accepted by the Automatic Fare Collection and Passenger Control (AFCPC) gate when the mobile screen is brought close to the sensor. The fare will automatically get deducted from the e-wallet.
The concept is based on a technology called Near Field Communication (NFC). The software will enable the smart gates to support NFC. Under this technology , the smart card is placed inside the phone itself through the SIM. People may not need to get double-SIM phones for this.Existing SIM cards can be upgraded to have this feature. The system in the cellphones is likely to be hardware-based as software-based smart cards are still not a secure mode for currency storage for transportation.NFC readers have now become a part of smartphone news. The system was introduced by the Hong Kong Metro in 2015.
“There will be several demonstrations by CRIS before we are satisfied. We can’t take a chance with this as there would be chaos if something goes wrong and people are unable to enter stations even after paying. We will continue with smart cards and tokens, though, as not everybody will be comfortable with this system. However, we are sure there will be fewer people queuing up at counters,” Banerjee said.

MUMBAI, OCT 20:
Tata Teleservices on Thursday launched its mobile device management solution in the Indian market.

The MDM service ensures a secure access to official data and emails over mobile devices, data recovery in case of theft/ lost device scenarios, management of tablets and smart phone devices across multiple Operating Systems (OS). The offering will be available on a monthly rental model as well as a fixed upfront payment model.

Speaking on the launch of MDM, Prateek Pashine, President – Enterprise Business, Tata Teleservices, said: “Enterprise mobility is the need of the hour today but it comes with a host of challenges. With more employees accessing company information on mobile devices, the challenge for CIOs has increased significantly. Most organizations have made sizeable investments in terms of securing access to company information through laptops and PCs and are exploring ways to secure data and applications on the mobile phones and tablets. In these days of BYOD, a device management that works across handsets, operating systems and service providers and easy to configure is the need of the hour, and Tata Docomo’s MDM does just that.”

The solution is targeted at industries which employ a large mobile workforce or permit employees to access company information over their mobile devices such as Banking, Financial Services and Insurance (BFSI), Manufacturing, FMCG, Retail, Government, Pharmaceuticals, Logistics, e-commerce and Market Research.

According to a research report by The Radicati Group, Inc, The worldwide revenue for the EMM market will total $1,760 million by year-end 2016.This figure is expected to grow to over $4.5 billion by year-end 2020. This represents an average annual growth rate of 27% in the next four years.

KOLKATA: A smartphone loaded with games, a large packet of chips and two bars of milk chocolates were all a kidnapper had to offer to the kids, aged 5 and 6, to lure them away from their home and hold them captive for three days seeking a ransom from his parents.
At Beckbagan, behind Quest Mall, where the kids live, every family knows each other. But the kidnappers had no difficulty whatsoever to lure them away from their doorstep. “The uncle had given us the phone and chocolates and asked us to come with him. He had promised he would give us more chocolates and a better phone with many other games. So we followed him,” said Umar Ali (name changed on request), 5, one of the kidnapped kids.
His cousin sister, Rehana (name changed on request), 6, said they were first asked to board a bus of route 45 and got down at Ramleela Maidan and spent some time at the mela ground before another man and woman took them in a car and locked them at a house. “We used to cry and ask them to let us go home. But the uncles and aunty would not listen. They gave us two mobiles to play games. I tried to call home from one of them but the calls did not connect,” Rehana on Monday said.
The kids, however, said that none of the kidnappers hit or assaulted them. “They used to say , our parents have left us with them as we were very naughty .They asked us not to cry or disturb them or our parents would never take us back,” said Rehana. Umar’s father Anwar Ali, who works at a leather-wallet manufacturing unit in Puddapukur, said, the kids were first picked by Mirazuddin, who happened to be a cousin brother his wife Raunak. “Mirazuddin had come to our home on Friday afternoon, had lunch and then was playing with our kids. He left home around 5.30pm and since then we could not find our kids.We later called him back to our house and asked him about my son and niece but he said he had left them at our doorstep. We handed him over to police,” said Ali.

“Both the kids are crazy about playing games on mobile. Whenever I return home, my son snatches my phone and starts playing games. But I had never thought he was so addicted that somebody could kidnap him luring him of mobile games,” said Ali.
The family received the first ransom call at 9pm that night. The kidnapper asked for Rs 3 lakhs. The next morning, they were told to come and wait under the big clock at Howrah station in the afternoon. The family said they do not have so much of money and settled the amount at Rs 1.6 lakhs.
“I waited at the station for over two hours but did not receive any call. The entire station was infested with policemen in plainclothes but none came to receive the money,” said Syed Raunak.
The next morning, they received another call around 9.30am and were informed that the kids were left behind at Konnagar station in Hooghly and asked the family to collect them.

NEW DELHI: In a move aimed at checking any possibility of leakage of information through hacking of communication devices, Union ministers have been asked not to carry mobile phones in Cabinet meetings.
The Cabinet Secretariat has recently issued a directive to private secretaries of the concerned ministers in this regard.
“It has been decided that smartphones/mobile phones will henceforth not be permitted inside the meeting venues of Cabinet/Cabinet Committees,” it said.
The private secretaries have been asked to appropriately brief the ministers on this.
The move assumes significance as security agencies have raised doubts over the security of mobile phones which are prone to hacking.
Official sources said the measure will ensure that the discussion, which is mostly sensitive, during cabinet meetings remains secret.

Such an instruction has been issued from the government for the first time.
Earlier, ministers were allowed to bring mobile phones with them which would be kept either on silent mode or preferably switched off

Melinda Gates says she is concerned about the fact that more than a billion women in the developing world don’t have access to cellphones.

“The cellphone is the basic building block,” for reaching poor women with the financial services they need, the co-founder of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation told The Wall Street Journal in an interview.

“There is a gap in access to phones and financial services for women,” she said last month. “We want to first close the mobile phone gap and then focus on financial services.”

Close to 1.7 billion women in low- and middle-income countries don’t own mobile phones, according to estimates from GSMA, a global association of cellular service providers. More than 400 million fewer women than men have cellular phones in those countries.

More than half of that gender gap is in India, creating a kind of digital purdah for the women of the subcontinent, who often find themselves barred by fathers and husbands from taking advantage of technological leaps that benefit men as outlined in a recent article in The Wall Street Journal.

ENLARGE
Only around 30% of internet users in India are female, according to estimates by the Internet and Mobile Association of India. A government survey in 2014 found that 9% of females surveyed knew how to do an internet search or send an email compared with more than 16% of males. Meanwhile, the country has close to three men on Facebook for every woman, according to consultancy We Are Social. In most other parts of the world, the ratio is about one to one.

Mobile phones are dramatically bringing down the cost of providing basic financial services, but too often people outside the formal banking system who would benefit most from easier access to savings, small loan and money-transfer facilities can’t be reached using the new technology because they don’t have mobile phones.

The Gates Foundation is working with mobile operators and others in the GSMA Mobile Money Programme, which is trying to encourage more mobile money services to the close to two billion people in the world who are unbanked, or outside the formal banking system.

For financial inclusion in emerging markets like India, a digital inclusion of women is particularly important, said Ms. Gates, because women are more likely than men to use financial services and more likely to use them in a way that will benefit their families.

“We know that if a woman has economic assets, she plows the money back into her family,” she said. “If a woman can save 1, 2, 3 dollars, she can protect against future health shocks in her family.”