India will battle rape with smartphone apps
India was recently shaken by the brutal gang-rape of a 23-year-old woman from New Delhi. Now, R. Jai Krishna reports that the country's tech sector is at work trying to engineer solutions to India's rape crisis:
Nasscom, a trade group that represents Indian technology companies, Thursday announced a contest to develop such applications, saying it aims to get companies to focus on areas such as safety for women.This came just a day after a government-appointed panel recommended the development of downloadable mobile phone applications that can help women in trouble, such as a one-touch function which can send a distress signal and the location of the phone to the police.
There is currently an app marketed by the Indian tech firm CanvasM dubbed "FightBack" that uses a panic button to send a caller's location data and a pre-set message to a number of contacts stored in the phone.
(AP Photo)
