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(Kitco News) - India continues to advance its mission of integrating blockchain technology with various facets of the country’s economy as the Indian Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has announced the launch of a competition to create a new indigenous web browser that allows users to sign documents with crypto tokens.
The Indian Web Browser Development Challenge (IWBDC) officially launched on Wednesday as an open challenge competition that “seeks to inspire and empower technology enthusiasts, innovators, and developers from all corners of the country to create an indigenous web browser with its own trust store with an inbuilt CCA India root certificate, cutting edge functionalities and enhanced security and data privacy protection features,” the news release said.
Along with creating a web browser with “high accessibility and user-friendliness,” MeitY also wants it to be able to allow users to “digitally sign documents using a crypto token, bolstering secure transactions and digital interactions.”
The challenge was launched as part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s goal of moving towards an Aatmanirbhar Bharat, which translates to ‘self-reliant India,’ a phrase that is becoming more popular as the country advances its economic plans.
Shri Alkesh Kumar Sharma, Secretary of MeitY, said the launch of the challenge marks a significant stride towards an Aatmanirbhar Bharat, and the creation of an Indian browser would help strengthen India’s digital sovereignty
“Digital India has revolutionized how [the] nation functions, empowering citizens, boosting the economy and enhancing overall governance,” said Smt. Sunita Verma, Chief Vigilance Officer at MeitY. “As we move forward, embracing technology and promoting indigenous innovation will be pivotal in realizing the vision of a self-reliant, digitally empowered India.”
She went on to invite Indian innovators from the fields of academia, industry, start-ups, or individual entrepreneurs to participate in the challenge.
The competition will have three rounds. The first round involves selecting 18 entries out of all the applications submitted to advance to the next round. In the second round, the list of entries will be reduced to eight in preparation for the final round. A prize pool of 34 million Indian rupees ($411,000) has been set aside for the top three entries.
The winner will also receive additional support from the Indian government to further advance the capabilities of the browser they developed.
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RBI to integrate AI with UPI instant payment system
In other payments news on the subcontinent, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has proposed integrating artificial intelligence with its unified payments interface (UPI) instant payment system.
“As Artificial Intelligence (AI) is becoming increasingly integrated into the digital economy, conversational instructions hold immense potential in enhancing ease of use, and consequently reach, of the UPI system,” the RBI said in a press release. “It is, therefore, proposed to launch an innovative payment mode viz., ‘Conversational Payments’ on UPI, that will enable users to engage in a conversation with an AI-powered system to initiate and complete transactions in a safe and secure environment.”
The RBI added that the service would be “made available in both smartphones and feature phones-based UPI channels, thereby helping in the deepening of digital penetration in the country.” Initially, the service will be available in Hindi and English, and the RBI will add support for more Indian languages in the future.
The central bank also proposed adding near-field communication (NFC) technology to its “UPI-Lite” payment system to allow small-value transactions on UPI to be conducted in an offline setting. UPI-Lite currently processes more than ten million transactions a month, and the RBI is looking to promote further use of the system with the addition of NFC technology.
In addition to adding NFC capabilities, the RBI proposed increasing the transaction limits on UPI-Lite.
“By removing the need for two-factor authentication for small value transactions, these channels enable faster, reliable, and contactless mode of payments for everyday small value payments, transit payments, etc.,” the RBI said. “Since then, there have been demands for enhancing these limits. To encourage wider adoption of this mode of payments and bring in more use cases into this mode, it is now proposed to increase the per transaction limit to ?500.”
The overall limit will remain unchanged at ?2000 “to contain the risks associated with relaxation of two-factor authentication,” the RBI said.
The Reserve Bank Innovation Hub (RBIH) is also in the process of developing a “Digital Public Tech Platform” that “would enable delivery of frictionless credit by facilitating seamless flow of required digital information to lenders. The end-to-end digital platform will have an open architecture, open Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and standards, to which all financial sector players can connect seamlessly in a ‘plug and play’ model.”
“The Platform is intended to be rolled out as a pilot project in a calibrated fashion, both in terms of access to information providers and use cases,” the RBI said. “It shall bring about efficiency in the lending process in terms of reduction of costs, quicker disbursement, and scalability.”
