Unique digital address for every home in India: Report
New Delhi: In a move aimed at enhancing service delivery and emergency response, the Department of Posts has unveiled a new digital addressing system that assigns a unique digital code to every residence and office across India.
The National Addressing Grid or the Digital Postal Index Number (DIGIPIN) marks a significant advancement over the traditional PIN code system. Unlike area-based PIN codes, the new system provides a 12-digit alphanumeric code that is unique to each property, as reported by The New Indian Express on Saturday.
“In a nutshell, it is a democratisation of the address system with each individual having a unique one. This is an open-source, geo-coded, grid-based digital address system,” TNIE quoted a senior official in the department as saying.
He explained that the initiative is still in its early stages, but as it evolves, individuals will be able to simply provide their name, house number, and DIGIPIN to ensure smooth and accurate delivery of services.
Developed in collaboration with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), IIT Hyderabad, and the National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC), the DIGIPIN system leverages latitude and longitude coordinates to assign addresses with pinpoint accuracy.
The official noted that the system would be particularly useful in ensuring last-mile delivery in remote and hilly areas, where homes often lack door numbers and rely on landmarks for identification.
The initiative aims to streamline not only mail delivery but also a broad spectrum of services, including emergency response and welfare programs. The official added that key government initiatives such as vaccination drives or distributing supplies to pregnant women could be carried out more efficiently if a DIGIPIN-based geo-locationing is implemented.
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FIDE Women's World Cup final: Humpy draws with Divya in first game
Batumi (Georgia), Jul 26 (PTI): Young Indian International Master Divya Deshmukh held her nerves to hold stalwart Koneru Humpy to a draw in game 1 of the FIDE Women's World Cup final, with both players having their share of opportunities to take the lead here on Saturday.
The draw with black means Humpy, the two-time World Rapid champion, holds a slight edge going in the second and final game under the classical chess rules in the two-game mini-match, and should the deadlock continue, games of shorter duration will be played to determine the winner.
Humpy employed the Queen's gambit accepted as black and it turned out to be a pretty fascinating game right out of the opening as Divya, 19, came up with a piece sacrifice early to deny the black king the right to castle.
Humpy was the first to err and, according to computers, Divya had things under control on the 14th move. However in her bid to recover the extra material, the Nagpur girl, who has secured a place in the Candidates tournament with her sterling performance here, missed a promising continuation.
What followed the exchange of all minor pieces and the ensuing queen and rook endgame gave enough counter play to both players. The game was eventually drawn after Humpy sacrificed her rook to force perpetual checks.
"The game saw an extremely sharp battle with the game ending in a draw in 41 moves. On move 7, Divya made her aggressive intentions clear by offering another pawn,
which looked like home preparation. Humpy made a practical decision of refraining from taking the pawn and a balanced position was reached by move 10 by white," said Grandmaster Pravin Thipsay, an Arjuna awardee and the first Indian to get a chess Grandmaster norm.
"However, instead of developing the undeveloped Knight, Humpy retreated the centralised Knight on move 10, giving huge positional advantage to Divya. Divya could have gained huge positional advantage on the 12th move by moving a rook. However, she chose to play for King side attack by sacrificing a piece instead.
"Humpy, too, erred at this stage and instead of moving the King to Queen side, moved it to the King side. Divya, on move 14, could have obtained a crushing attack by threatening a mate by developing her Queen. Instead she chose to exchange a pair of Bishops first, which enabled Humpy to defend her King by returning the piece," said Thipsay.
"Players thus reached a balanced Queen and two Rooks ending. Divya continued to play ambitiously and tried to attack Humpy’s King but the latter defended accurately and the game was drawn in 41 moves by perpetual check," he added.
In the play-off for the third place, Chinese players Zhongyi Tan, the former women's world champion and top seed Lei Tingjie also decided to split points out of a Queen’s gambit declined game.
The opening raised visions of a close contest between the two but having been knocked out of title race in the previous round, none of them wanted to take any huge risk. It was still a middle game when the players shook hands.
With the top two positions sealed for the Indians, the berth to the next Candidates is also assigned, while the player finishing third will also get an entry to the premier event scheduled for 2026.
Results: Divya Deshmukh (Ind) drew with Koneru Humpy (Ind); Zhongyi Tan (Chn) drew with Tingjie Lei (Chn).
