The medical education department is planning to try this out at some exam centers on the recommendations of committees which probed the recent malpractices unearthed in nursing and post-graduate exams.

Medical education minister S A Ramadas on Monday said cheats are using hi-tech methods and invigilators themselves fear more complaints from students. “Some schools and colleges already use CCTVs to monitor teaching and students’ behaviour. If a examinee knows CCTV cameras are around, it acts as a deterrent __ like speeding motorists tend to slow down if there’s a camera on a main road,” he added.

The committees, which were constituted following media reports of malpractices and a raid by the minister himself, also recommended that CCTVs be switched on from the time of giving question-and-answer sheets to students till they are sealed in the security box by invigilators.

On receiving the award, Mr. Anand Jain, Partner, enterprise Software Solutions lab (eSSL) said, “It’s a wonderful moment for all of us at eSSL. We are delighted to receive the Frost & Sullivan Market Leadership Award in the Indian Biometric Market for the second time in a row*. We take this opportunity to thank all our customers for their continued support and for entrusting eSSL with opportunities to provide them with the worlds best Biometric and RFID-based solutions, which cater to HR attendance and access control needs. eSSL is committed to increasing customers’ performance by enhancing our portfolio to provide integrated and robust solutions.  We also thank Frost & Sullivan for felicitating us with this award, which is an inspiration to companies to perfom better.

The performance of different market participants in the Biometrics market were evaluated through primary research. The key officials within each company were interviewed to assess their relative position within the given market. The data thus obtained was subjected to intense analysis to narrow down on the award recipient.

Niju V, Deputy Director, Automation & Electronics Practice, Frost & Sullivan, South Asia and Middle East, said, “The biometrics market is dominated by large players and despite this concentration, eSSL has been able to carve out a niche for itself. The company has captured a significant share of the market by offering customized solutions. eSSL’s offering of value based pricing has been well appreciated by the customers and has become the cornerstone of its success in the biometrics market. The exciting part of eSSL’s focus on this market is its continuing investment in R&D activities, ensuring that this leadership position is sustainable in over the long-term”.

Frost & Sullivan is in the forefront of conducting research in the electronics markets to track the developments and competitive positioning of different organizations in an emerging and ever-evolving market.This assessment of organizations researched the best practices adopted by them and how they differentiate themselves within the ever-growing community of vendors, vying for user attention. Frost & Sullivan Best Practices Awards for the Indian Market are based on extensive research, analysis of the market and assessment of participants competing / operating in this market. The Award for Market Share Leadership is presented to a company that has demonstrated excellence in capturing the highest market share within its industry in a specific year

* Market Strategy Leadership award for Electronic Access Control Systems (India) in 2007

About Frost and Sullivan

Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, enables clients to accelerate growth and achieve best-in-class positions in growth, innovation, and leadership. The company’s Growth Partnership Service provides the CEO and the CEO’s Growth Team with disciplined research and best-practice models to drive the generation, evaluation, and implementation of powerful growth strategies. Frost & Sullivan leverages 50 years of experience in partnering with Global 1000 companies, emerging businesses, and the investment community from more than 40 offices across six continents. To join our Growth Partnership, please visit http://www.frost.com.

About eSSL

enterprise Software Solutions Lab (essl – http://www.esslindia.com) is headquartered in India’s leading software center, Bangalore – the location chosen by several leading multinational firms. Today, eSSL is a well-reputed software development company with excellent track record and several years of industry experience.We are recognized IT experts in the selected application domains and make every effort to advance our skills. As an industrial software laboratory, our key focus is to work closely with every business from large to small corporations and govt. based cooperatives worldwide in our efforts to bring responsibly produced products and services to a global marketplace.

Contact:

Caroline Lewis

Corporate Communications, South Asia

P: +91 98217 37935

F: +91 22 2832 4713

E: caroline.lewis@frost.com

Nimisha Iyer

Corporate Communications – South Asia, Middle East and North Africa

P: +91 98200 50519

F: +91 22 2832 4713

E: niyer@frost.com

Hundreds of employees work at various sections of 52 departments at KUD. The manual attendance system is said to be a cause for concern among the heads of various departments to keep track of the attendance of their subordinates. Their not being punctual was adding to the problem.

The biometric system is expected to instil discipline among the employees so their efficiency is increased. KUD has also installed IP-based CCTV at libraries, administration building, examination building and the main annex to keep a watch on the behaviour of students in libraries and the movement of employees elsewhere.

R M Vatnal, chairman of IT department, which designed and implemented the system, told `The Times of India’ that biometric system is being used in important departments like finance, administration and examination. The biometric devices installed at all other departments are yet to be activated. “The biometric system is being run on a trial basis in some departments. It should be in place at all the departments in the next two months,” he added.

WHAT’S NEW

Instead of signing in the register, the employees will have to put the impression of their fingers on the device to register their attendance daily. The fingerprints of all employees have been uploaded in the system. The fingerprint-specific system also checks registration of proxy attendance.

The biometric devices will be operated from the main server located at the IT department. “We will send attendance report of each department to the heads concerned everyday so they can know the regularity/ punctuality of their subordinates,” Vatnal said, and added that the new system has cost KUD around Rs 5 lakh.

Source: Biometrics Attendance System

PURPOSES :OFFICE : In office, it is generally used to store the details of theattendance of the employees, it also store the details of the break timings of variousemployee.

That is, instead of by a huge pile of ID this fiddle with print device does the work. Since details are stored in terms of electronic means therefore it saves the precious time as well as it saves from fraud. These keeps the records everlastingly in the computerso that any time you want to have a look you can always get it. 

HOME : In home, if someone want to keep a track of log that is, who is coming, when is coming, also in foreign it is used as a security like, in order to enter into the house one needs to scan the fiddle with if the device is plotted by the concerned fiddle with then only the person would be allowed to enter into the place or else it is generally attached with the security alarm so when the device does not find a match it blows the security alarm, thus it prevents the attack of burglars.

This rate has been full into adaption by our country also, after all why to stay behind, nowadays few Indian Jails also by this rate as because tracking every employee individually becomes very tedious so they are electronically protected. Thus, this device is proving very beneficial in technological, mechanical and user friendly point of view.

In a blog by one of the company’s engineers, Justin Mitchell, it was revealed that every day, people add more than 100 million tags to photos on Facebook. They do this because it’s an easy way to share photos and memories.

Mitchell says in his blog that while tags are an essential tool for sharing important moments, many people find tagging photos a chore.

Mitchell said that since October, the company has been working to make this process easier. First Facebook added group tagging, so users can type one name and apply it to multiple photos of the same person. Now Facebook is announcing tag suggestions, which will make tagging multiple photos even more convenient.

The new systems will use face recognition software – similar to that found in many photo editing tools – to match new photos to other photos a person is tagged in. Facebook then groups similar photos together and, whenever possible, suggests the name of the friend in the photos.

Users can disable suggested tags in their Privacy Settings, if so desired.

The feature will be debuting tag suggestions to users in the United States over the next few weeks.

On Thursday afternoon, Dr Suvidya Ingale and his wife took an hour-long break from their clinic for a visit to their daughter’s school. Not for a PTA meeting or for a school function but to give their thumb-impression for the biometric machine and get their photos clicked. The drive, started for security reasons, is being carried out for parents at all three branches of The Bishop’s School.

Later, in February, the school plans to introduce the same rule for guardians and school-bus drivers too.

The Bishop’s School which has got around 10,000 students in its three branches, will soon have a bio-metric system installed at the main gates.

Similar projects will be implemented by the second week of March at RIMS International School. The project, called RIMS-Connect, has been operational at its Mumbai branch since October 2010. The data collection activity for the Pune branch, that has around 300 students, is already complete. Other security measures taken by the school include 30 CCTV cameras, installed after the German Bakery blast. “The step was taken on the recommendation of police officials,” said Museeb Rais, director, RIMS.

Source:  School Security

A pilot project taken up by Bengaluru-based software entrepreneur — Mallikarjun Patil in a village school – Government Composite High School in Nagenahalli, Mysore taluk — has done wonders in controlling pilferage of food grains meant for mid-day meals and saved government lakhs of rupees. Ms G. Satyavathi, chief executive officer, Zilla Panchayat, Mysore taluk had sanctioned permission for the unique project.

“I had heard about the rampant misuse of government funds in the mid-day meal programme. I wondered how technology could be used to help reduce the pilferage and improve school administration in general. I devised a battery-operated biometric gadget using GPRS technology but I needed to conduct a field test to check its functioning.

I found this village school, which is 10 km from Mysore and I approached Ms Satyavathi, chief executive officer, Zilla Panchayat, Mysore taluk for permission. The pilot was launched in November last year with her support,” said Mr Patil. The biometric device has been tailor-made for remote villages, where power supply and net work connectivity are poor.

“The GPRS technology comes in handy to push the data from remote locations to the server in Bengaluru. We have also created various web reports, which have brought in greater transparency and has cut down on the paper work,” said Mr. Patil. He added that hardware is supplied by eSSL— a hardware firm in Bengaluru.

Deccan Chronicle visited the Government School in Nagenhalli to see how the device works.
The portable biometric device has a stored data of finger prints of all the students – from primary section to the high school and when they come to school at around 9 am they have to punch the machine to record attendance. Even the teachers including the heads of the institution have to record their attendance.

By 10 am Mr Patil gets the information on how many children have turned up for the day and he then sends an SMS to the head cook of the school on the amount of rice, lentils and vegetables she should use for the day. The names of regular absentees are sent to the head master — Rajendracharya and head mistress H. Hemaksha so that they can visit the child’s home and draw her/him back to school.

“The Deputy Director of Primary Education and department heads are kept in the loop on the teachers’ attendance. The web-based system also allows government to analyse the database on boy-girl ratio; caste and annual income of parents with the use of graphs and bar charts,” said Mr. Patil.

The Revenue Secretary, Rajiv Chawla, impressed with the project said that it’s a “foolproof method to check pilferage of food grains; students and teachers attendance. It’s a simple, inexpensive multi-purpose device, which has controlled many irregularities in government run primary schools; from the mid-day meal programme to checking teacher absenteeism and drop out rate of children,” said Mr. Chawla.

eSSL Mid Day Meal Article

Frost says that biometrics is gradually gaining ground at the expense of conventional methods of identification and security checks such as physical checks, photo IDs, tokens, and passwords.

The Indian Biometric Market report finds that the market earned revenues of INR 5.43 billion from the combined sale of biometric readers and cards in 2009 and estimates this to reach INR 52.55 billion in 2015.

“There is an increasing need to secure people, assets, information, and facilities by managing access control for authorized people,” says Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst Sagarina Rai. “The Indian biometrics market is receiving a huge boost from large-scale government projects, increasing public awareness, and rising security concerns.”

Owing to India’s large population, identifying oneself in the country is a major hurdle, especially in the rural areas. This has made a solid case for the use of biometrics in the interiors, says Frost.

Furthermore, due to a rapidly rising economy, there has been a spurt in the need for safety and security solutions among organizations dealing with private and confidential data. The escalation in security threats has also spawned a need for authenticated physical access to building premises, creating vast opportunities for biometrics companies.

Despite the market’s potential, the poor awareness, lack of a unified standard for biometric readers, as well as inadequate expertise and investments are restraining the market. India has not yet started manufacturing biometric devices domestically because the sensors have to be imported. Owing to a surfeit of imports, the market is flooded with low-cost, low-quality devices. As these devices often fail to meet quality standards, customers’ confidence in the technology is fast eroding.

Source: Frost & Sullivan

“Quite often I received complaint from patients that doctors do not visit their wards. Another common complaint of the doctors was that people, mainly men, enter the maternity wards without permission.

“To avoid such complaints and to bring in discipline in the functioning of the hospital, these equipment were installed,” said District Surgeon K. Jagadish.

State-of-the-art:District Surgeon K. Jagadish monitoring the

activity of the hospital staff on CCTV from his chamber in the Chitradurga

He told The Hindu that cameras have been installed in important places, including the maternity ward, post-neonatal unit, corridors and at the entrance of the hospital building.

Having set up a computer in his chamber, Dr. Jagadish says that he could monitor the routine activities of the hospital from right inside his office.

He said that in the absence of CCTV, he, most of the time, had had to visit each ward to resolve complaints. “I had to spend a considerable time of my administrative hours only for visiting wards to address these small issues.

“But now, this problem is solved. Using microphones installed at my desk, I can direct any staff member to resolve the issue. The technology has given me ample time to work on other important aspects of the hospital,” he said.

Dr. Jagadish said that being aware of the cameras monitoring them, even the staff members have become active in their duties.

About the biometric system, Dr. Jagadish said that thumb impressions of all 365 staff members have been captured in the machine. It has been mandated that all staff should use the machine four times a day during their duty hours.

“Once a month, I get the computer extract of the attendance marked in the machine and hand it over to the department concerned for disbursement of salaries,” he said.

Dr. Jagadish felt that such system should be adopted in all government hospitals of the State to bring in effective changes in their functioning.

Source:  The Hindu