• Tamil Nadu solving the water crisis with AI: The Tamil Nadu government is one of the most advanced in AI adoption, and water management is well in their list. Under the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, at #6 is Ensure Access to Water and Sanitation for All. A water body comprises water, soil, vegetation, or construction within legal boundaries. Just like any ML-based system, images are fed to make the system learn and distinguish between these types. On-ground actual images are then captured (through satellite imagery) and used to find out if there’s an encroachment. Drones proved to be ineffective due to human interference and are not cost-effective either – that’s why satellite images work best under these conditions. The system knows what a water body looks like including the components mentioned above. And, it can call out instances of encroachment. But a very small encroachment (say a room 10 ft * 10 ft) may be hard to capture in its pixelated form in the satellite images. To address this, the system would require imagery data of higher resolution which is sensitive information and costly too. Read more...
• AI is helping pensioners in Telangana: The Telangana government has implemented RTDAI (Realtime Digital Authentication of Identity) to authenticate pensioners without any need for special hardware at the user’s end, nor does it require fingerprints or iris images. The Pensioners Life Certificate Authentication using a Selfie (PLCS) method deploys three levels of authentication – demographics (name, father’s name and address), photo, and whether the individual is alive. The system uses an AI-based liveness check solution (developed by a Bengaluru start-up) and an ML-based demographic comparison solution. After the one-time registration (consent) and authentication, the user can authenticate from anywhere and anytime. Read more...
• Karnataka is making precision public health a priority: When COVID19 cases began rising in India, Bengaluru was one of the first cities to report a positive case. The lockdown in April and May ensued, and Karnataka was actively working on deploying technologies like AI to control and manage the pandemic. The experience of managing COVID19 at the frontlines has emphasised the need to utilize data and AI at scale. Dealing with COVID19, containing its spread and saving lives has been the topmost priority for the government the past few months, but in this time, there has been a concentrated effort to harness technologies to manage the outbreak. Karnataka made headlines earlier this year for its track, trace, test, treat and technology approach – the strategy deployed by the state’s COVID19 war room. Read more...
• TN Govt to develop a voice user interface in Tamil: The Tamil Nadu e-governance agency (TNeGA) has expressed its desire to create the country's first voice user interface (VUI) in Tamil, to help residents fill up forms to avail government services. A voice user interface enables people to 'speak' and interact with devices using speech recognition technology. The goal of developing a Tamil-based government voice user interface is to lift the technological barrier between common folks and government e-services. The majority of people, like those from rural regions or old people, aren't tech-savvy and still depend on the local e-sevai centres because they either don't have access to a keyboard or face difficulties in operating it. Read more...
• AP to introduce AI-based ID system for pensioners: The Andhra Pradesh government has announced the introduction of an Artificial Intelligence (AI) based Realtime Beneficiary Identification System (RBIS). The RBIS will replace the age-old PDO system which is currently in place for pensioner identification. The system has already been deployed in East and West Godavaries and Krishan districts for the last three months, as part of an experiment. Read more...

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