2 Indian techies in US create India's first SmartGaon: Modi
New Delhi, July 29 : Indians abroad are still emotionally attached to their ancestral village, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Sunday citing the example of two Indian IT professionals in the US who have developed the 'SmartGaon' mobile app that connects the village internally and with the wider world.
In his Mann Ki Baat radio address, Modi made a reference to Yogesh Sahu and Rajnish Bajpai, the developers of SmartGaon, which also serves as a one-stop information centre and a marketplace for farmers.
"It so happened that once I was interacting with Indian youth in San Jose town of America hailed as a technology hub and I appealed to those young people to think over how could they use their talent for India's benefit," he said.
"The SmartGaon app is not only connecting the villagers with the whole world but now they can obtain any information on their own mobile phones. Residents of the village Taudhakpur in Rae Bareilly, the village chief, District Magistrate, CDO and every one joined in to create awareness amongst the masses."
Taudhakpur has become the India's first SmartGaon village. It has CCTV cameras, public address systems, street lights, regular health check-up events, almost uninterrupted power supply and also a Wifi zone.
All initiatives undertaken in the village are updated, recorded, tracked and monitored on the app.
The app has other key features such as a villagers' directory, news and events calendar, health and information centre. Besides, the app's Gram mart feature has created a popular marketplace for farm produce.
"This app is actually bringing in a digital revolution in the village," Modi said.
The US-based Sahu and Bajpai are currently involved in carrying forward the project to six more villages in Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra.
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Delhi: Woman finds hidden cameras in rented home, landlord's son held
New Delhi, Sep 24: A 30-year-old man has been arrested for allegedly installing spy cameras in the bedroom and washroom of his female tenant's home in east Delhi's Shakarpur area, police said Tuesday.
The victim, a civil service aspirant, was staying alone in the house for the past few months and would handover the keys to her landlord’s son Karan before going out of town, they said.
The matter came to fore after the woman noticed some unusual activity on her WhatsApp, Deputy Commissioner of Police (east) Apoorva Gupta said
"After being advised to check her linked devices, she discovered that her WhatsApp account was logged into an unknown laptop and she promptly logged out of it,” she said.
The woman became more suspicious and began searching her apartment for hidden cameras or surveillance devices and she found one in the bulb holder of her bathroom, the officer said.
Following this, she made a PCR on Monday. A police team conducted a thorough search and found another camera installed in the bulb holder of her bedroom, Gupta said.
The woman told police that wherever she went out of town, she gave her house keys to Karan, who lives on a different floor of the same building, she said.
During interrogation, Karan admitted that three months ago, when she left for her hometown in Uttar Pradesh, she had handed over her keys to him, the DCP said.
Taking advantage of this, Karan bought three spy cameras commonly available in electronics markets and installed one in her bedroom and the other in her bathroom, she said.
Since these cameras could not be operated online and used a memory card to store videos, Karan persistently requested the woman to give the keys of her house under the pretext of repairing electrical fixtures and fans as he wanted to transfer the recorded videos from the memory card to his laptop, she said.
During further investigation, another spy camera was recovered from Karan's possession, along with two laptops used to store the recorded videos, a police officer said.
A case under Section 77 (voyeurism) of the BNS was registered at Shakarpur police station and Karan was arrested, the police said.
Karan is a graduate and also preparing for competitive exams for the last seven years. He is differently abled, they said.
According to the police, he was never involved in criminal activity before.
