Slashdot Mirror
India Makes It Compulsory For Phones To Have a 'Panic Button' (cio.com)
Reader itwbennett writes: Starting in January 2017, all feature phones sold in India will need to have a panic button that will alert "police, designated friends and relatives, for immediate response in case of distress or security related issues," said Minister of Communications, Ravi Shankar Prasad, on Twitter late Tuesday. The measure is one of many responses by the Indian government to the growing women safety issues in the country. Furthermore, starting in January 2018, mobile phones will also be required to have GPS systems to help pinpoint the location of the affected person in the event of harassment or distress, said Prasad.Mashable has more details.
I have an idea, to avoid false alarms, we could require 2 more buttons instead of just one. The user would need to press once on a button and twice on the other.
There is no growing women safety issues.
There is growing international (and national) awareness to the general un safety/danger for women.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Most of India lives in very tight quarters, if you think cities like New York and Tokyo are cramped then Dehli would shock you. Also they select children with a preference for boys over girls (not to Chinese degree, but it still is certainly a 'thing'), with boys in a often superior cultural role over girls. Combine these two and it's no surprise some boys can't keep their hands to themselves. I bet many feel safely anonymous most of the time. They also have a culture social class structure to make this all the worse.
So I'm not terribly surprised that this combination has lead to severe issues.
we are all invisible unless we choose otherwise