Safety and security of citizens is the top priority of government: Kishan Reddy

Hyderabad: Union Minister of state for Home Affairs G Kishan Reddy on Saturday said that the safety and security of citizens is the top priority of the Centre.

Speaking at the two-day All India Seminar on "Cyber Security and Image Processing", Kishan Reddy said that the Union Ministry of Home Affairs has taken a series of proactive steps for safety and security of the country. "Every individual want secure life and safe nation, safety and security of citizens is top priority of our government," he said.

Kishan Reddy said that with the growing use of Information technology need is to simultaneously protect the public and private infrastructure from cyber attacks and cyber incidents. Prevention of this requires a combination of institutional structure processes technology and cooperation. "Our govt has recognised it as a threat and opened a separate division in the Ministry of Home Affairs to deal with matters related to cybercrime and cybersecurity in 2017," he said.

The MHA has set up an Indian Cyber cum coordination centre to tackle internet related crimes such as cyber threats and child pornography. The Centre will be the nodal point for the entire country in the fight against cybercrime, preventive misuse of cyberspace because of terrorist groups.

Crimes and criminals tracking network and system is being constantly upgraded, digitalisation of data and developing a national data base soft crimes and criminals will help and enhance the operational efficiency of the crime investigative agencies, Shri Reddy added.

Kishan Reddy also said that the women safety is top priority of the government and Ministry of Home Affairs set up a new women safety division in 2018 to strengthen the measures and safety of women. For prevention of cyber crimes against women, our govt has taken various steps such as cyber crime prevention against the women and child scheme, an important initiative of the Ministry of Home Affairs.

Our focus is on the increased use of Information Technology in the criminal justice system and enabling a supporting ecosystem for forensic sciences and criminal records. We have initiated to set up a nationwide emergency response system to respond to the needs of women and distress across the country, dept of telecommunications has already allocated an emergency number 112 for this system, the Minister added.

In different states, police have launched an application called "Himmat" which receives digital signals from distressed women users of mobile phones.

Kishan Reddy said that the Ministry of Home Affairs was taking up 'smart fencing' on the Indo-Pak border and Indo–Tibet border. "Then, any activity at the border can be monitored from North Block in New Delhi and accordingly immediate action can be initiated," he said.

While discussing the tackling of natural disasters, he said special efforts are made to make the best use of expertise available in space science, science and technology, meteorology, earth science and seismology, not only in our country but worldwide to save people from natural disasters. Our government liberalised the visa process in India and E-Visa has been gained considerable popularity.

Kishan Reddy said that "I am confident that many useful innovation ideas would come during these discussions in this seminar which would be beneficial to the stakeholders as well as the framing the policies of different state governments and central government".

Hyderabad Police Commissioner Anjani Kumar, Chief Executive Officer of Cyber Security Centre for Excellence DSCI New Delhi Dr. B. Sriram attended the seminar and gave their address. Dr. G. Rameshwar Rao Chairman Institute of Engineers India (IEI) Telangana State Chapter, K. Subbi Reddy Member IEI were also present on the occasion.