×

UPSC Courses

DNA banner

DAILY NEWS ANALYSIS

Monthly DNA

03 Jan, 2020

18 Min Read

Success of facial recognition tech depends on data

GS-II :

Syllabus subtopic: Statutory, regulatory and various quasi-judicial bodies

Prelims and Mains focus: About the AFRS system and its uses in various fields; about NCRB: its objectives and functions

News: Facial recognition software is now an integral part of policing, globally. Last month, the police used its automated facial recognition system (AFRS) to screen crowds at PM Modi’s rally on the citizenship law in Delhi.

What is the purpose of AFRS software?

  • AFRS is a software that recognizes, records and matches faces against various government databases from photos and videos taken from public and private sources.
  • Its purpose is to find missing children, who may be recorded on CCTV; track criminals across a country; and in the case of Modi’s rally, recognize people who were likely to raise protest slogans at the rally, based on footage recorded from earlier protests. According to reports, people at Delhi’s Ramlila Maidan had to pass through a metal detector, during which a camera captured a photo of their faces and scanned it against a database in a matter of seconds.

How does the software work?

The police’s AFRS is different from the facial recognition systems used on smartphones. The latter is based on the ISO 19794-5 standard meant for consumer biometrics; the police’s software is more “restrictive”, as per the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) document seeking proposals for the system. It measures facial features and uses the measurements to create a “template” to be matched against others, says an American Bar Association study. Law enforcement’s software is meant to work in various light conditions; detect make-up, plastic surgery or ageing; and work against sketches of subjects.

Can facial recognition technology be beaten?

A review of the London Metropolitan Police’s facial recognition system by academics from the University of Essex in July 2019 showed that the system had erred in 81% of the cases. However, law enforcement bodies worldwide have adopted the system, although there are enough reports for and against the software.

Which databases does AFRS have access to?

The NCRB document says AFRS should be able to check against various databases. Besides the criminal database, it mentions the passport database; the Aadhaar database that includes your photo may be used too. It mentions the Immigration, Visa and Foreigners’ Registration Tracking database, the ministry of women and child development’s Khoya-Paya and the National Automated Fingerprint Identification System. It can match a photo against many and compare one photo with another. The more the data, the better is the output.

What is the scope of India’s AFRS?

NCRB’s proposal clearly states that while a centralized web application will be hosted in the crime record bureau’s data centre in Delhi, it will be made available to “all police stations of the country”. That means AFRS certainly stretches on a national scale. Furthermore, Delhi Police also required the software to work on Android, iOS and Windows platforms. “NCRB has already proposed the provision of mobile data terminals to each police station,” states the proposal document.

About National Crimes Record Bureau (NCRB)

  • NCRB was set-up in 1986 to function as a repository of information on crime and criminals so as to assist the investigators in linking crime to the perpetrators based on the recommendations of the Tandon Committee to the National Police Commission (1977-1981) and the MHA’s Taskforce (1985).

  • NCRB was entrusted with the responsibility for monitoring, coordinating and implementing the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network & Systems (CCTNS) project in the year 2009. The project connects 15000+ police stations and 6000 higher offices of police in the country.

  • NCRB launched the National Digital Police Portal. It allows search for a criminal/suspect on the CCTNS database apart from providing various services to citizens like filing of complaints online and seeking antecedent verification of tenants, domestic help, drivers etc.

Functions:

  • Entrusted to maintain National Database of Sexual Offenders (NDSO) and share it with the States/UTs on a regular basis.
  • Designated as the Central Nodal Agency to manage technical and operational functions of the ‘Online Cyber-Crime Reporting Portal’ through which any citizen can lodge a complaint or upload a video clip as evidence of crime related to child pornography, rape/gang rape.
  • Compiles and publishes National Crime Statistics. Crime in India, Accidental Deaths & Suicides and also Prison Statistics.
  • Serve as a principal reference point to policymakers, police, criminologists, researchers and media, both in India and abroad.
  • IT-based Public Services like Vahan Samanvay (online matching for Stolen/Recovered vehicles) and Talash (matching of missing persons and dead bodies) is maintained.
  • Maintains Counterfeit Currency Information and Management System (FICN) and Integrated Monitoring on Terrorism (iMoT) applications.
  • Assists various States in capacity building in the area of Information Technology, CCTNS, Finger Prints, Network security and Digital Forensics through its training centres.

Source: Livemint

India, Nepal to hold talks on Kalapani

GS-II : International Relations Nepal

India, Nepal to hold talks on Kalapani

Syllabus subtopic: India and its neighbourhood relations.

Prelims and Mains focus: on the Kalapani dispute between India and Nepal; on the Treaty of Sagauli

News: Nepal and India will resolve the Kalapani border issue through dialogue, the Ministry of External Affairs said on Thursday.

Context:

  • Nepal has raised objections after India released its new political map in November last year following the reorganisation of Jammu and Kashmir.

  • Nepal claimed that Limpiyadhura, Lipulek, and Kalapani areas were shown under India’s territory even though they lie within the Nepalese territory.

  • India has said the new map accurately depicts its sovereign territory and it has in no manner revised its boundary with Nepal.

Background

  • Nepalese territories including Darjeeling were handed to the British East India Company as concessions under the Sugauli treaty which was signed in 1816 at the conclusion of the Anglo-Nepalese War.

  • Under the treaty, the Nepalese-controlled territory that was ceded included all areas that the king of Nepal had won in earlier wars such as the kingdom of Sikkim in the east and Kumaon and Garhwal in the west.

Source: Indian Express

In Haryana, scientists develop India’s own brain template, Brahma

GS-III :

Syllabus subtopic: Science and Technology- developments and their applications and effects in everyday life Achievements of Indians in science & technology; indigenization of technology and developing new technology.

Prelims and Mains focus: about the Brahma brain template; its need and significance

News: A team of scientists led by senior scientist Pravat Mandal at the Nueroimaging and Nuerospectroscopy Laboratory (NINS) of the National Brain Research Center (NBRC), in Manesar, Haryana, has developed a brain template, Brahma, which will show intrinsic details about the anatomy of the Indian brain.

Background

This comes close on the heels of Mandal in December leading a team that had developed a technology that uses the brain’s stress levels and pH for early identification of brain disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, depression and schizophrenia.

What is a brain template?

  • Brain template is a gross representation from various brain images to understand brain functionality in diseased conditions.
  • Studies have so far been conducted to develop a standard brain template that is compatible to different populations, though the human brain is highly different in shape and size between individuals and basic demographies, according to scientists. Research was focused to develop the population specific brain template to understand this variability.

Significance of Brahma

  • Brahma will be a crucial guide for Indian brain scientists as doctors have so far relied solely on US and Canadian brain templates for anatomical details for surgery and treatment of Indian patients. However, the American template may differ from the Indian one.

About the Brahma project

  • The project, funded by the department of science and technology (DST), took more than two years to complete.
  • The research was conducted taking volunteers from across India, from all states, for true representation of an Indian brain template. The critical data was generated at NBRC using the state-of-the-art magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans using 3T Philips Scanner.
  • Brahma can be used for research and later can be validated for clinical use for surgical procedure. This template will be available for academic use free of charge.

Signficance of Brahma

  • Brahma will be a crucial guide for Indian brain scientists as doctors have so far relied solely on US and Canadian brain templates for anatomical details for surgery and treatment of Indian patients. However, the American template may differ from the Indian one.

  • How Brahma is important is simple to understand. If we want to go to any part of India, we use Google maps and we reach there. Similarly, for any brain study or surgical procedure in India, scientists and clinicians previously used US or Canadian MNI (Montreal Neurological Institute) template to analyse the data or plan surgery as there was no detailed template from Indian brains.

  • The brain has huge complexity and brain functionality is not completely understood till date. It will be immensely important to conduct multimodal brain study to understand psychiatric disorders such as depression, schizophrenia and bipolar disorders. The development of the Indian brain template will be helpful to achieve more accurate and precise allocation of brain regions in neurosurgery.

Source: Livemint

Air defence command plan on

GS-III : Miscellaneous

Air defence command plan on

Syllabus subtopic: Various Security forces and agencies and their mandate

Prelims and Mains focus: about the move and its significance; CDS: mandate and functions

News: In his first meeting with the officials of the Headquarters Integrated Defence Staff, the Chief of the Defence Staff, General Bipin Rawat, outlined priorities toward creating an air defence command and common logistics support pools as part of measures to create jointness and synergy among the three services.

  • The areas identified for jointness and synergy include the creation of common logistics support pools in stations where two or more services have their presence.

  • Gen. Rawat directed various branch heads to come up with recommendations for inter­service synergy and jointness in a time-bound manner.

  • Emphasising the collegiate system of functioning, he directed that all three services and the Coast Guard must be consulted and their views obtained in a time-bound manner. Decisions will, however, be taken to ensure the optimisation of resources.

  • Efforts will be made to cut out infructuous ceremonial activities, which are manpower intensive.

Significance of the move and concerns associated

  • The air defence command and common logistics support pools are steps toward creating theatre commands in future, which is also in the mandate of the CDS. However, there is no consensus among the services on theatre commands and the Indian Air Force (IAF) has been especially opposed to the move.

  • On this issue, Gen. Rawat stated after assuming charge on Thursday that “we are copying western methods and what others have done” and “we have to find a system which suits India.”

  • Defence officials said a joint services Act is also being worked out which is being formulated by the Army Adjutant­General’s branch in coordination with the Navy and the IAF. The three services are currently guided by their respective Service Acts.

Mandate of CDS

The broad mandate of the CDS includes bringing about jointness in operations, logistics, transport, training, support services, communications, repairs and maintenance of the three services, within three years of the first CDS assuming office.

Source: The Hindu

India records less than 100 tiger deaths for the first time in three years

GS-III :

Syllabus subtopic: Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment

Prelims and Mains focus: about the tiger population stats across the country; about NTCA: functions and significance

News: For the first time in the past three years, the number of tiger deaths in a year in the country has been less than 100.

Context:

  • According to data from the Ministry of Forest Environment and Climate Change (MoEFCC), there were 84 cases of tiger deaths in the country and 11 cases of seizures (in which a tiger is presumed dead on the basis of body parts seized by authorities). Both put together, the number of tiger deaths in 2019 was 95.

  • In 2018, the number of tiger deaths recorded was 100 (93 mortalities and seven seizures). The number was 115 (98 mortalities and 17 seizures) in 2017, and 122 (101 mortalities and 21 seizures) in 2016.

Significance

  • These figures should be seen in the context that tiger numbers in the country were growing.
  • The last tiger census report, released in July 2019, had placed the number of tigers in India at 2,967, up by a third when compared with the numbers reported in 2014.

Reasons for reduction in tiger deaths

  • The reduced numbers of tiger mortalities are because of surveillance, good management of Tiger Reserves and a lot of awareness and education programmes on tiger conservation. ‘

  • Using technology to maintain surveillance on tigers has also come as an added advantage.

Tiger deaths across states

  • Madhya Pradesh, which has the highest number of tigers in the country (526, as per the last census), recorded the most number of cases (31) of tiger deaths.
  • This was followed by Maharashtra, which reported 18 deaths. Karnataka, another State with high tiger population, recorded 12 deaths, and Uttarakhand recorded ten deaths.
  • Tamil Nadu recorded seven cases of tiger deaths.
  • Deaths were also recorded from non­tiger bearing States like Gujarat, where a tiger had strayed into the State and died.

Way ahead

With the increase in tiger numbers, more areas in the country need to be declared Tiger Reserves. Currently, there are 50 Tiger Reserves in India with an area of about 73,000 sq. km.

About National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA)

  • It is a statutory body under the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change constituted under enabling provisions of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, as amended in 2006, for strengthening tiger conservation, as per powers and functions assigned to it under the said Act.

  • It has been fulfilling its mandate within the ambit of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 for strengthening tiger conservation in the country by retaining an oversight through advisories/normative guidelines, based on appraisal of tiger status, ongoing conservation initiatives and recommendations of specially constituted Committees.

Functions

  • Ensuring normative standards in tiger reserve management
  • Preparation of reserve specific tiger conservation plan
  • Laying down annual/ audit report before Parliament
  • Instituting State level Steering Committees under the Chairmanship of Chief Minister and establishment of Tiger Conservation Foundation.
  • According approval for declaring new Tiger Reserves.

Source: The Hindu

Other Related News

02 January,2020
RBI’s Operation Twist may boost lending, growth

RBI’s Operation Twist may boost lending, growth Syllabus subtopic: Indian Economy and issues relating to planning, mobilization of resources, growth, development and employment.   Prelims and Mains focus: About the RBI’s Operation Twist; its need and impact   New

Relief for govt as GST collections remain above Rs.1 trillion mark

Relief for govt as GST collections remain above Rs.1 trillion mark Syllabus subtopic: Indian Economy and issues relating to planning, mobilization of resources, growth, development and employment.   Prelims and Mains focus: About GST; reasons for delays in compensation to states &n

RBI extends relaxation in NBFC norms till June

RBI extends relaxation in NBFC norms till June Syllabus subtopic: Indian Economy and issues relating to planning, mobilization of resources, growth, development and employment.   Prelims and Mains focus: About the liquidity crisis in the NBFC sectors and efforts of RBI to improve the l

Gaganyaan, Chandrayaan­3 in mission mode, says ISRO

Syllabus subtopic: Science and Technology- developments and their applications and effects in everyday life Achievements of Indians in science & technology; indigenization of technology and developing new technology.   Prelims and Mains focus: about Gaganyaan; Chandrayaan-3: their sig

Kerala for steps to curb alien plants’ growth in NBR

Syllabus subtopic: Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment   Prelims and Mains focus: about Senna Spectabilis: threat posed by it and measures taken to check its spread   News: The Kerala Forest and Wildlife department is gearing u

RBI launches app to help visually impaired identify notes

Syllabus subtopic: Science and Technology- developments and their applications and effects in everyday life Achievements of Indians in science & technology; indigenization of technology and developing new technology.   Prelims and Mains focus: About the MANI app and its significance

Free trade agreement with Mauritius near finalization

The free trade agreement with Mauritius near finalization Syllabus subtopic: Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India and/or affecting India's interests Prelims and Mains focus: on the proposed India-Mauritius FTA and its significance; India-Mauritius economi

01 January,2020
FM unveils Rs.102 tn infra push to reignite growth

FM unveils Rs.102 tn infra push to reignite growth Syllabus subtopic: Indian Economy and issues relating to planning, mobilization of resources, growth, development and employment. Prelims and Mains focus: on the government’s move to boost infrastructure investments and the role of NIP;

Core sectors shrink for fourth straight month

Core sectors shrink for the fourth straight month Syllabus subtopic: Indian Economy and issues relating to planning, mobilization of resources, growth, development and employment.   Prelims and Mains focus: about the eight core sectors of the Indian Economy and their performance; Index

DoT kick-starts process to roll out 5G, trials likely in Jan-Mar

Syllabus subtopic: Awareness in the fields of IT, Space, Computers, robotics, nano-technology, bio-technology and issues relating to intellectual property rights.   Prelims and Mains focus: about 5G; its advantages and significance in development of various sectors   News: The

Current account deficit narrows to 0.9% of GDP

The current account deficit narrows to 0.9% of GDP Syllabus subtopic: Indian Economy and issues relating to planning, mobilization of resources, growth, development and employment.   Prelims and Mains focus: about the Current Account Deficit (CAD) and the reasons for it narrowing down

Taiwan passes law to combat China influence

Taiwan passes a law to combat China's influence Syllabus subtopic: Effect of policies and politics of developed and developing countries on India's interests, Indian diaspora. Prelims and Mains focus: about the bill passed by Taiwan; China-Taiwan dispute; difference between One China p

Bhima-Koregaon village prepares for historic day

Syllabus subtopic: Modern Indian history from about the middle of the eighteenth century until the present- significant events, personalities, issues Prelims and Mains focus: About the Bhima Koregaon conflict; its outcome and significane News: Lakhs of devotees, neo-Buddhists, members of Ambed

Odisha tribals still suffering from hunger, malnutrition

Syllabus subtopic: Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources.   Prelims and Mains focus: about the findings of RTF regarding malnutrition among tribes in Odisha; about juanga and Paudi Bhuyan tribe   N

Toppers

Search By Date

Newsletter Subscription
SMS Alerts

Important Links

UPSC GS Mains Crash Course - RAW Prelims Answer Key 2024