GUEST LECTURE

Dronacharya Group of Institutions, Greater Noida organized Guest Lecture on “India 112 a G2C National Emergency Response Services in Digital India” on 11th March, 2016. The guest lecture was organized with an objective to explain the India’s 112 Sevice recommended by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India last year. Col. Mahesh(Mike) Khera (Chief of Strategy and Business, AVG Technologies) India and Sri Lanka was the Guest Speaker of the event.

Dr. S. K. Bagga (Director, DGI, Greater Noida) in his welcome speech introduced the guest speaker and welcomed him to proceed with lecture.

Col. Mahesh (Mike) khera explained the “Digital India Concept”. Digital India is a campaign launched by the Government of India to ensure that Government services are made available to citizens electronically by improving online infrastructure and by increasing Internet connectivity or by making the country digitally empowered in the field of technology. It was launched on 1 July 2015 by Prime Minister, Narendra Modi. The initiative includes plans to connect rural areas with high - speed internet networks.

Col. Mahesh discussed the “India’s 112 Service”. He told India will have 112 as the number for seeking any emergency services including police, fire and ambulance. The emergency system will also be integrated with the road transport ministry, a process that involves setting up an emergency button on buses. He discussed the aim of the project which was to integrate emergency call numbers like those for police (100), fire (102) and ambulance (103) into one to not only act as "receivers" of emergency calls but also as "responders" in a very quick time. Further he explained that Under the scheme, a Centralized Operations Centre will be set up in Delhi, with call centre’s in the state capitals which will receive distress messages from mobile phones, landlines, SMS, email, online chats, panic buttons in public transport, VoIP, mobile applications or Internet of Things. "Not only women but anyone in distress will be able to connect through voice or data and help will reach them within minutes,"

Col. Mahesh also explained the role of Technology Regulatory Advisory Committee (TRAC) and Institution of Electronics and Telecommunication Engineers (IETE) and introduced National Family Location & People Monitoring (NFLPM) as constituent services at nominal monthly subscription under National Emergency Response Services (NERS). The chief constituents of NERS is people safety and public security. The motto of the NFLPM program is to stop crime before it can happen. The service can also help to prevent and contain even terrorist and communal violence. Instead of dialing to different emergency numbers, people in need of help can now just call 112, which will direct the call to the relevant departments and agencies for immediate help. This is toll free number, accessible with mobile and landline phones even with no balance or outgoing call facility.

NFLPM is awesome for family safety and security involving women, children, elderly persons and spouses. Whether the person is traveling or not, the sense of safety and security provided by NFLPM is highly comforting. Some illustrative scenarios are enumerated below :

1. The victim can press a button on the mobile and send an alert in less than two minutes along with the location to family, friends and police asking for help. The location data can be used by the 3 PCRs to reach the victim location in 10 minutes from the time panic button was pressed.

2. If not in a position to press any button on the mobile, the victim can press a key on the wearable wrist band to achieve the same results or even shake the mobile vigorously for the needful.

3. The person can be anywhere, so long as there is a mobile network, the real time and accurate location of the victim plays a very big role in the rescue operation giving much longer reaction time to the entire search and rescue efforts.

In the end there was questionnaire session followed by details discussion on Government Projects. The seminar was concluded with vote of thanks by Ms. Gunjeet Kaur (Program Coordinator, DGI).

The lecture was very useful for the participants as they came to know about the India’s 112 service and benefits of the same.