WUNRN
INDIA - WATCH-LIKE DEVICE FOR
WOMEN'S SECURITY, AGAINST SEXUAL ATTACKS
Thomas Coex/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
The Indian government plans to launch a watch to control crime against women.
By
R. Jai Krishna and Saptarishi Duttab - January 25, 2013
Imagine you are walking. Alone. Down a dark street. A man approaches. He gets aggressive. What do you do next?
Look at your watch?
As part of a briefing about electronic innovations planned for this year by the department in charge of electronic innovations, the Indian government unveiled early plans for a new device it hopes will reduce crimes against women. It is a watch that can alert authorities and family members that you feel you are in danger and start filming at the same time.
The initiative was unveiled by Kapil Sibal, information technology minister, earlier this week. He said the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing, a unit within the Department of Electronics and Information Technology, is working on the proposed gadget. The government noted in a subsequent press release that it would be timely given “unfortunate incidents of crimes against women in particular.”
This was an apparent reference to the Dec. 16 gangrape of a 23-year-old physiotherapy student on a moving bus in the center of India’s capital; she later died of her injuries.
The wrist-borne device, Mr. Sibal said, would, upon the pressing of a button, send a text message to the nearest police station as well as pre-selected family members. A global positioning system within the watch would notify them of the wearer’s coordinates.
Mr. Sibal said the government would come up with a prototype by mid-year and then farm the idea out to companies for production. The government has held initial talks on manufacturing the product with state-run telecom equipment maker ITI Ltd., according to the government’s release. ITI’s chairman, K.L. Dhingra, confirmed the discussions to India Real Time: “In case the government decides, we are very much interested to manufacture it.” The watch will be sold in two variants, one for $20, the other for around $50, Mr. Sibal said.
It also will have an inbuilt video that, upon activation, would shoot for 30 minutes, the minister said.
Of course, in an ideal world, long before then, the cavalry would have arrived — in the form of the cops and family to save the day.
But how realistic is that?
Not very, say women’s safety advocates. And the government’s track record in previous electronic innovations isn’t exactly encouraging.
Activists say that the device may be better than having no device at all. But the ability to alert authorities is only one tiny piece of a much larger puzzle about the responsiveness of the police to sexual assaults.
For instance, many women’s advocates complain that cops are reluctant, in general, to register rape and other sexual-assault cases that are presented to them in the police station by victims. Are they likely to rush to the aid of every possible victim that sends an SMS? Perhaps a watch that changes mindsets would be more effective.
“I don’t think this will make any difference in controlling rape cases,” says Sehba Farooqui, a woman’s rights activist in Delhi.
Then there is the question of the government’s ability to deliver on its promises regarding both women’s safety and technology.
In the wake of the Delhi rape, a new hotline was established by the local government for women to report sexual assault to the police. But, that, too, has had its share of technical glitches. The calls sometimes go unanswered or attendants are slow to pick up.
The government also has struggled to deliver on a low-cost tablet, known as Aakash, that Mr. Sibal and others made much of in the prototype phase.
Still, the effort may be of some value. Mr. Sibal noted that, with the same technology, parents would be able to keep tabs on their children.