Hold on to your seat belts!!

Excitement was never like this!!Reading blogs was never such fun!!Presenting:the ranting,gyan,opinions and experiences of the batch of 2010 at Jamnalal Bajaj Institute Of Mangement Studies.

This blog is all about the world around us,as seen from the eyes of a bunch of rosy eyed B-schoolers.It would take you through all the stuff around us that you will surely enjoy checking out and experiencing.

So fasten your seat belts,and let the journey begin!!

Nandan Nilekani's new role:an oppurtunity unfolds for India

So Nanadan Nilekani has stepped down as board member of Infosys.The reason:He landed a role as the head of the Unique Identification Authority,the agency at the helm of providing biometric identification to the more than billion citizens of our country.He will be holding a rank equivalent to that of a cabinet minister in this new assignment of his.

Firstly,let's try and figure out just about how huge this operation is.The first obvious hurdle is India's huge population.But since nothing much can be done in that regard now,let's move on to technical specifications of such systems that can be challenging:

Universality:This means that every person to be issued an ID should have the features that the biometric test is based on.Or we can say that we cannot have an ID based on physical feautures that are not universal.So if having five fingures in a hand is taken as a criteria,Hrithik Roshan would overqualify.

Uniqueness – This means that the biometric should reliably and conclusively separate individuals from one another.So we need a combination of two-three inputs that makes the chance of false idetification zero.The problem in India is that if there's a one in a miilion chance of my identity being shared by someone,I've got more than 1200 people who could pose a threat to me.I sure don't want to be in jail for a murder that someone else commited through my identification.The reverse is a good option though!!

Permanence – It measures how well a biometric ID resists aging. There are only two types of people who never age:

1)Dev Anand(will never be old)

2)A.K Hangal(was never young)

The rest of us change with age and hence the biometric system should take care of that cataract filled iris or those wrinkled fingerprints.When I am 60,I wouldn't like to be identified as Sharad Saxena,who incidentally resembles me:



Collectability -This denotes ease of acquisition of the biometric information for measurement. Now that would really set Nandan Nilekani thinking.India comprises of more than 6 lakh villages.Hence setting up bio metric measurement camps would be no mean task.

If implemented properly,this would be a great developement for India.It could mean the absolute elimination of middlemen,with correctly identified people directly getting the benifit of the government's social spending.It could also mean that filling up of forms,voting etc could be accompanied with a biometric swipe,making the process faster and more authentic.

But one question that remains unanswered is that of no conflict of interest between Nandan Nilekani's two roles,one at Infosys which he has left to keep the record straight,him still being very much a Infosciyan at heart;and the other as the head of this committee that will give business to all the IT majors in the country.Despite Nilekani's unblemished image,the chances of favoritism cannot be ruled out.I guess time is the best judge for that.