Modi Govt's Extensive Digitization Drive Elimininates 5.8 Crore Fake Ration Cards Through e-KYC

Prime Minister Narendra Modi -led Indian government's extensive digitization drive has successfully eliminated 5.8 crore (58 million) fake ration cards through Aadhaar-based authentication and e-KYC verification. This initiative is part of the broader effort to reform the Public Distribution System (PDS), which serves 80.6 crore beneficiaries.

The digitization efforts have significantly reduced leakages and ensured that food grains reach the intended beneficiaries.

The One Nation One Ration Card scheme allows beneficiaries to access their rations anywhere in India using their existing cards.

The government has deployed 5.33 lakh electronic Point of Sale (e-PoS) devices at fair price shops to facilitate Aadhaar-based verification during distribution.

The Union Food Ministry said that almost all of the 20.4 crore ration cards have been digitalized, with 98.7% of beneficiaries’ credentials being validated through biometric identification and 99.8% being connected to Aadhaar.

This digital transformation has set a global benchmark for state-sponsored food security initiatives, ensuring targeted delivery to genuine beneficiaries while eliminating ghost cards and fake entries from the system.

The Real Reason Behind Demonetization 2016 in India

India’s demonetization in 2016 was a significant economic move announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on November 8, 2016. One of the main objectives was to tackle the issue of black money in the economy. The government aimed to bring unaccounted wealth into the formal banking system.

The production and smuggling of fake Indian currency notes (FICN) have been significant issues, with India's two closest neighbours— Pakistan and Banglades being implicated in these activities, so much so that a significant portion of both these countries' economy were dependent on FICN.

The demonetization move was also aimed at eliminating counterfeit currency or FICN, which was believed to be used for funding illegal activities, including terrorism.

Pakistan has been a major source of high-quality counterfeit Indian currency. The Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) of Pakistan is often cited as being involved in these operations. Fake currency from Pakistan is typically smuggled into India through various routes, including a couple of digital payment companies and some national banks where illegal migrants and intruders were already employed to help circulating FICN or counterfeit Indian currency, as well as via direct borders and transit points in Nepal and Bangladesh.

Around 2016-17, Bangladesh replaced Pakistan as hub of fake Indian currency as there have been numerous seizures of counterfeit notes at the India-Bangladesh border, with significant quantities being confiscated. Bangladeshi syndicates have been using sophisticated methods and materials, sometimes smuggling paper from countries like Saudi Arabia and Malaysia to closely match the consistency of genuine Indian notes.

Soon after demonetisation announcement by PM Modi, Pakistan economy started crashing and ironically, the FICN dependent entities in India faced the heat sooner than Pakistan & Bangladesh, which include real estate builders, film production houses, and one or two aviation companies, said a big Indian conglomerate's employee who was aware of this 2016-17 scenario but she doesn't wants to be named.

In early 2023, Bangladesh too started facing severe inflation and a significant drop in the value of the Bangladeshi Taka.

Many of the real estate projects in and around Delhi/Gurgaon, which were directly/indirectly related to the two countries, were halted as the demonetization badly affected the fake currency circulation. This was evident to prove that these were apparently sponsored by FICN activities in Pakistan & Bangladesh.

By reducing the cash circulation, the Modi government intended to lower corruption levels, as cash transactions are often linked to corrupt practices. The move was also aimed at eliminating counterfeit currency, which was believed to be used for funding illegal activities, including terrorism.

In addition, promoting Digital Transactions was another goal of the Modi government to encourage digital and cashless transactions, thereby increasing transparency and reducing the reliance on cash.

The demonetization was also seen as a measure to cut off funding for terrorist activities by invalidating high-denomination notes that could be used for such purposes.

The immediate aftermath saw significant disruption, including cash shortages and long queues at banks. However, it also led to an increase in digital transactions and brought a large amount of money back into the banking system.

The counterfeit currency operations often involve complex international networks, with routes passing through countries like Sri Lanka and Dubai before reaching India. Indian authorities, including the Border Security Force (BSF) and the National Investigation Agency (NIA), have been actively working to combat these activities, leading to several significant busts and arrests.

High Profile Execs of Microsoft and AWS Quit Event Over Fake Profiles of Female Speakers

High-profile tech executives of Microsoft and AWS have pulled out of an upcoming developers conference after accusations that the organizer fabricated female speakers' profiles, reported Bloomberg.

Leaders in the developer community - including Microsoft's Scott Hanselman and Kelsey Hightower, a former developer advocate at Google - cancelled their appearances at DevTernity, which has tickets costing as much as $870, said the report.

Participants discovered the fake profiles after Gergely Orosz, who runs a popular tech newsletter, posted on social media that he had identified fabricated profiles of women on DevTernity's speakers list. He also claimed to have found fake women's profiles on the speakers lists for previous and future events.

"It struck a chord with the developer community, which saw the practice as misleading and potentially deceitful, and a step backward from their goal of diversity in male-dominated tech events," explains the Bloomberg report.

Gregely Orosz, showing profile of one of an alleged fake speaker, wrote on X (formerly Twitter)," DevTernity has had fake women speakers listed for years. Here is fake Anna Boyle’s “colleague” fake Natalie Stadler claimed to be at Coinbase (no such person ever worked there ofc - I checked). She “spoke” in 2022 there as well. Just incredible."

DevTernity has had fake women speakers listed for years.

Here is fake Anna Boyle’s “colleague” fake Natalie Stadler claimed to be at Coinbase (no such person ever worked there ofc - I checked).

She “spoke” in 2022 there as well.

Just incredible.https://t.co/q4mpwrw3ym pic.twitter.com/2sdhEcuORc

— Gergely Orosz (@GergelyOrosz) November 25, 2023

The event's organizer, Eduards Sizovs, said in a post on X (Twitter) that he “auto-generated” a fake woman’s profile after a female speaker had dropped out of the conference, but that it was a placeholder and not meant to imply a more diverse conference. He later removed the fake profile.

"... you know that I have high standards of work and professional ethics. You know that DevTernity has been my life's work, and DevTernity is the event that I love and deeply care about. We've always delivered on the promise, and the event has been highly regarded by both speakers and attendees. It's all the result of hard and ethical work. 8 years in a row," Eduards said in an X post.

Almost half of the 23 speakers still listed on the event’s website have withdrawn from the conference, according to social media posts and interviews with panelists. 

Fake Reviews on E-commerce Platforms Misleading Consumers Under Govt's Radar

To measure the immensity of fake reviews on e-commerce platforms which mislead consumers into buying online services or products and to further prepare a roadmap, the Department of Consumer Affairs (DoCA) in association with the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) announced that they will be holding a virtual meeting today, along with various stakeholders.

DoCA, which comes under the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, administers the policies for Consumer Cooperatives, price monitoring, essential commodity availability, consumer movement and control of statutory bodies and also responsible for Consumer Protection Act (2019).

Today's discussions between DoCA, ASCI and other unnamed stakeholders will be broadly based on the impact of fake and misleading reviews on consumers and possible measures to prevent such anomaly. Secretary of DoCA — Shri Rohit Kumar Singh, has written to all stakeholders: E-Commerce entities like Flipkart, Amazon, Tata Sons, Reliance Retail and others besides, Consumer Forums, Law Universities, Lawyers, FICCI, CII, Consumer Rights Activists etc. to participate in the meeting.

Along with the letter, Shri Singh has also shared a Press Release of European Commission dated January 20th, 2022 highlighting results of an EU-wide screening on online consumer reviews across 223 major websites. The screening results underlines that at least 55% of the websites violate the unfair commercial Practices Directive of the E.U. which requires truthful information to be presented to consumers to make an informed choice. 

Further, in 144 out of the 223 websites checked, the authorities could not confirm that traders were doing enough to ensure that reviews were authentic, i.e., if they were posted by consumers who had actually used the product or service that was reviewed.

The letter states — "It is relevant to mention that with growing internet and smartphone use, consumers are increasingly shopping online to purchase goods and services. Given that e-commerce involves a virtual shopping experience without any opportunity to physically view or examine the product, consumers heavily rely on reviews posted on e-commerce platforms to see the opinion and experience of user who have already purchased the goods or service. As a result, due to fake and misleading reviews, the right to be informed, which is a consumer right under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019 is violated."

‘Since the issue impacts people shopping online on a daily basis and has a significant impact on their rights as a consumer, it is important that it is examined with greater scrutiny and detail,’ the letter states.

In September 2020, Britain's competition reported that Facebook and eBay removed hundreds of accounts, pages and groups involved in the illicit business of fake reviews.

COVID-19 Accelerates Brand Safety Risk to 5-Times - Report

Helps save more than $ 200 million in ad frauds with an average savings run rate of 22% per client

Gurugram, 21st July 2021: mFilterIt, the leading global Fraud Detection & Prevention Company aims to sensitize the marketers and brand custodians on an industry wide challenge : Brand safety risk increases five folds owing to Covid19 pandemic.

With online channels gaining relevance and digital becoming the mainstream interface in this Covid era, India alone has witnessed 65% of businesses losing money on account of online fraud & brand infringements. This not only impacts the reputation and value of the brand but also hitting the funnels and revenues for brand custodians and advertisers alike.

The rise in 24*7 online culture has further exacerbated the issue of brand safety as the shift in consumer behaviour, from offline to online mode, has made it clear that brands need to steer away from advertising in unsafe environments, not get caught in whirlwind of fake scenarios . Brand’s safety is brand’s responsibility where trust is no longer a compliance but a brand differentiator in today’s digitally evolved era.

Work From Home becoming a part of our regular practice has opened us up to less-controlled work environments and has led to an increase in vulnerabilities. Fake customer care, job offers, copy-cat websites, fake discounts, and content piracy are among the highest types of frauds that have topped the charts in India. The scamsters and hackers representing notable brands, convince the users to send in their personal details leading to committing financial fraud or malicious activity. The sectors that have been a victim of these frauds are BFSI, FMCG, Ecommerce, retail, automobiles, and entertainment (OTT platforms).

‘Brand Unsafe’ content has been on an increase on social media platforms. The three leading categories of content taken down by the social media platforms Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are – Spam, Adult & Explicit Content, and Hate Speech & Acts of Aggression. In an encouraging trend, led by the awareness, brands are increasingly deploying mFilterIt solutions backed by Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Social Listening to shield against the surging risks.

mFilterIt has enabled its serving brands to resolve ad fraud leaks and saved over $ 200 million with an average savings run rate of 22% per client. It is today the fastest growing Indian company that serves local and global brands and is present across the globe serving some of the biggest clients like Unilever, Amazon, Flipkart, HDFC, Cred, ITC etc.

Amit Relan, Co-Founder and Director said, “Covid 19 has led to several changes in how organizations operate and how consumers access information. The marketers, brand owners, and advertisers should work together and change this adversity into an opportunity to create a new normal that cleanses the ecosystem and puts an end to brand erosion. By using Martech solutions, deploying forces backed by AI and ML we have helped hundreds of brands to help increase their KPIs and campaign performance. It has instilled the confidence in our clients to approach inorganic freely and pragmatically."

Founded in 2015, mFilterIt is one of the world’s fastest-growing top Ad Fraud Detection & Prevention service companies. It is a new-age company that caters to protecting digital integrity across platforms. mFilterIt believes in the power of deep tech and data science to create transformational growth in our customers.

Today, the company works with more than 130 clients across 15 countries in the globe which includes Amazon, Flipkart, Unilever, HDFC, ITC, Oyo, Cred, Starzplay, Careem, and many more esteemed clients. The company has 2.5 Billion device coverage and validates 350+ Million transactions daily.

mFilterIt believes in harvesting the power of data science and deep tech to enable all stakeholders’ confidence in the digital ecosystem and manufacture transformational growth for their clients. They are an extended arm of 6d Technologies, a tech enterprise catering to 68+ countries across 6 continents.