Mobile makers should install "SoS" button for women safety: Finance Minister

On the first anniversary of December 16 brutal act that jolted the country, the Centre approved several proposals for improving women’s safety under the Nirbhaya Fund.
Finance Minister P. Chidambaram announced that mobile handset makers will have to introduce an SoS alert button to ensure that women in distress can be reached by the police in the minimum possible time.

Proposal from the Ministries of Home Affairs and Information Technology:

The police administration will be integrated with the mobile phone network to rapidly respond to distress calls. The scheme will be launched in 157 cities in two phases (55 in phase I and 102 in phase II).

Proposal from the Road Transport Ministry:

A programme ‘Security of women in road transport in the country’ will be launched in 32 towns, each with a population of over 1 million. The expected cost is about Rs. 1,700 crore. Under this scheme, public transport vehicles will have GPS for easy tracking, CCTVs and more women drivers and conductors, among others measures.

Proposal from the Railway Ministry:

It proposes to start a public scheme for establishing an SoS alert system in trains in select zones. The facility will cover all service providers from all telecom circles. It will have a call recording facility and a call centre.

What is Nirbhaya Fund?

Nirbhaya Fund is a Rs. 1000 crore fund was announced by Finance Minister P Chidambaram in Budget 2013-14. The fund is aimed at enhancing the safety and for empowerment of women. It was named after Nirbhaya- the pseudonym given to the victim of the incident to hide her identity.

What is SoS?

SOS is the widely used description for the International Morse Code distress signal (· · · – – – · · ·). Earlier, SOS was used as the maritime radio distress signal but from 1999 it was replaced by the Global Maritime Distress Safety System. SOS is still recognized as a visual distress signal.

What is the composition of SOS?

The SOS distress signal is a continuous sequence of three dits, three dahs, and three dits, all run together without letter spacing. The three dits form the letter S, and three dahs make the letter O, so “SOS” became an easy way to remember the order of the dits and dahs. SOS is the only 9-element signal in Morse code, making it more easily identifiable, as no other symbol uses more than 8 elements.

What is the full form of SOS?

It must be noted that SOS is not an abbreviation and there it does not stand for anything. Although some phrases like “save our ship“, “save our souls” and “send out succour” were popularly associated with SOS, these may be regarded as mnemonics.

Month: Current Affairs - December, 2013