Later you can go back to make sure the computer records and the paper ballots match. The important thing is to make sure that the paper trail is implemented everywhere. Because among other things the attacker knows where there is a paper trail and where there is not, and can just attack where there isn’t a paper trail. Most of the US already has this parallel record and gradually states have fallen into line. It is where India is able to get now that you are introducing the paper trail in so many parts of country. So we spent billions of dollars on new voting equipment.

It makes a lot of sense that if you need a computer science degree, or you need specialised education, or you need to bring in experts to do inspections in order to have assurance that your vote is counted, then that is anti-democratic.EVMs do not get rid of all of those problems with elections — they just sweep them under the rug. In the US we had this very difficult election in 2000 between George Bush and Al Gore for President of the US. We suggest a two-step mechanism where the user can first vote, then validate, and then drop into box. Volunteers are involved in counting the ballot and it’s all just a very orderly direct process to go from the voters’ intent to the election results. It ended up being delayed by more than a month because of the problems with certain ballots in Florida.

Many people are quite surprised when it turns out that computer scientists and security experts are among those most critical of EVMs. The problem was that some areas of Florida were using this ancient, obsolete, voting technology based on punch cards from an old-fashioned computer. It is more efficient than stuffing the booth ballots as you just need one techie to make these devices. The moment you press a button, in seconds it drops the ballot.So any electronic record that a computer maintains can be changed by that computer; that’s just how computers work and in order to have a record that is not hackable, it has to ultimately be something physical which is outside the reach of the computer.When you take apart the problem you start asking: what are computers doing? What risks do they introduce?It turns out that the benefits computers bring you are relatively small compared to the risks involved — primarily the risk of hacking, sabotage and system failure.If you have to declare election results, there should be a primary announcement. I think there is something fundamental about this. The ballot gets scanned by a computer and it gets dropped into a ballot box.

The world has a complex diverse voting system but a strong trend amongst developed countries is to move back towards paper, and where many of them never gave up paper, it is motivated largely by the transparency idea and cybersecurity. They do not work all the time and are easy to hack into, don’t preserve a permanent record of the vote that couldn’t be hacked, and do not have a permanent physical record. It is called optical scan voting and it is the most widely used system in the US. The new voting equipment was largely touch screen computers that are still very inferior to the EVMs India uses. Hari and I demonstrated in our study 10 years ago that with EVMs you can make a very simple electronic booth-capturing device, just clip it to the machine and it will do the booth-capture for you. And today about 80 per cent of the country has that paper record. That is why for very important kinds of documents and records we create an offline back-up we store somewhere.

It is the modern way to do things, the hi-tech way to do things.The best thing we can do with modern technology is to have a parallel record; a paper record and an electronic record, and we can evaluate them to make sure they agree. There is something fundamental about understanding why our leaders have been elected, and what the process has been, and about that being transparent enough without the help of outside experts like me and Hari. This is a huge weakness because anyone who can tamper with electronics can tamper with computer software and can completely change the vote. What we suggest is that the present voter verifiable paper trail is not completely secure; it cannot challenge the vote.Many other countries, especially in Europe, have always voted on pieces of paper.Since 2000, most of the US has reverted to machines that have some kind of paper record; either the voter is voting directly on the piece of paper which gets scanned by a computer to do a quick initial count, or computers that print a voter trail like the new EVMs designed in India.

That’s the best we can do.(Dr Alderman is professor of Computer Science at the University of Michigan College of Engineering. So you end up with this computer scan, this electronic record, as well as the ballot box papers. In a smaller country with simpler ballots like most of Europe, it could work well. Once we do that, an attacker, a criminal, who wants to change the results, needs to change the paper record and hack into the computers and so change both sets of records. That’s going to be harder than changing either the paper records or electronic records by themselves. In the US, too, as you have experienced in India, once a system is introduced it is hard to change quickly everywhere. Because what we found in computer sciences study after study after study is that electronic machines were susceptible to tampering and hacking. He was once briefly jailed for demonstrating security flaws in EVMs)  (Hari Prasad is technology adviser to the Government of Andhra Pradesh. But the US is one of the more complicated cases because we are so big and diverse a country, though not as big or as diverse as India.Why do people want Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs)? People see computerisation as the solution to all our Wire And Cables Factory problems

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"I have three brothers and four sisters to look after besides my mother."An environmental court banned mining in Meghalaya in 2014 because of the pollution threat to water sources and the risk to the miners."Frightened, Saheb said he had to fight to stop being dragged under the quickly rising water. (Photo: File | PTI) Bhangnamari (Meghalaya): Saheb Ali felt an icy wind, saw a wall of water hurtling towards him and desperately held on to an electric cable to avoid becoming one of the 15 men trapped for more than two weeks in the 370-foot-deep illegal coal mine in East Jaintia Hills district in Meghalaya."

Authorities say it had taken time to get men and machinery to the remote village.The deluge carried the five men almost 100 feet up the shaft, where they miraculously saw the mine lift coming down, with one man inside." But other jobs do not pay enough. I do not think they are alive."

My mother has asked me not to work in mines again.They had been working as miners in Meghalaya for five years.Saheb&China RG59 Cable Manufacturers39;s village of Bhangnamari in Assam is 400 kilometres (250 miles) from Ksan, but has paid a heavy price in India's latest mining catastrophe."I was pulling a wagon from a chamber when suddenly I felt a cold wind followed by the roar of water," said Saheb.Rat-infestedPoverty and a lack of jobs has forced thousands of migrants to risk their lives as "rat-miners" in Meghalaya.Poverty and lack of jobs has forced thousands of migrants to risk their lives as 'rat-miners' in Meghalaya. But no one knows the might of Allah, a miracle is possible," said the 21-year-old, a migrant worker."He somehow pulled us one after another into the box and we made it to ground level.Sudden delugeWork started as usual before dawn on December 13 at Ksan, Saheb recalled in an interview with AFP. As a labourer in Assam, Saheb said he earned Rs 300 a day.

Indian Navy divers were belatedly brought in at the weekend along with scores of emergency workers, engineers and heavy-duty machines to pump out the water."We do not know what will happen now, we are a large family.At least 20 men went down 115 metres (380 feet) into the shaft where coal was being mined in defiance of a court ban. I need to earn more money," Saheb said.Among them were three of Saheb's friends -- fellow so-called "rat-hole" miners from the same impoverished village -- whose fate he managed to escape and who he fears may now be dead.Mohammed Abdul Mia, Saher's father, blamed the delayed rescue effort, saying: "If the government had taken proper steps earlier to rescue them, I would have got my son back".

He told me that he will quickly send some money," Hussain's wife Obijan Khatun told AFP."Now I want the government to bring their bodies out so we can give them a proper burial."Saheb said he can still not believe his luck but fears for Saher Islam, Monirul Islam and Amir Hussain, all friends from Bhangnamari."'Where is the wind coming from?' I shouted.

I had never felt such a force inside the mine.But rat-hole mining has remained rampant. "I do not know what to do.The miners' families share the outrage expressed over the snail-paced rescue at the mine in the Jaintia Hills district. # He sounded very happy."Seconds later, he saw a deluge coming towards him.Amir Hussain, another of Saheb's friends, has a wife and three children."Is there any chance they are alive?". Scores have died in similar accidents in recent years.

Most had to hack out coal and load it onto carts which Saheb and four others then hauled back to the central shaft."It has been a long time."He spoke to me on December 13 before going to work. 15 men have been trapped for more than two weeks in a 370-foot-deep illegal coal mine in East Jaintia Hills district in Meghalaya."Me and four others grabbed electric cables hanging from the shaft roof and managed to stay on the surface.The missing workers were cut off when water from a river poured into the illegal mine -- a disaster that has made headlines amid increasingly desperate efforts to save the group. "We shouted for help but we knew no one would hear us," he said. Saher has his wife and three small kids," said Shah Alam Sheikh.The brother of Saheb's friend Saher Islam said Saher had signed up for the dangerous work to earn money to repay debts worth Rs 200,000

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Though Chandigarh held onto to the lead, Hyderabad showed their grit as they put themselves in contention for the title. Gaganjeet Bhullar along with team-mate Ajeetesh Sandhu proved that in good measure showing that one good round can dramatically change the direction of the game. The 27-year-old’s card was studded with six birdies, on the 2nd, 8th, 10th, 11th, 13th, and 18th, while his only missed shot came on the par-4 9th hole.

The experienced Bhullar, who had had two mellow rounds, finally came to the party, turning in the day's best card of six-under-66, while team-mate Sandhu produced the second best card at five-under-67.While overnight leaders, Dev Chandigarh headed in the direction of a wire-to-wire victory, the Hyderabad team stamped their authority in the tournament jumping to tied second from a poor seventh.

Bhullar said: “This round was long overdue.Bhullar began with a birdie on the opening hole. (Photo: Satish R.Meanwhile, Sandhu, struggling with the course over the past two days, finally got a hang of the greens. From thereon the 28-year-old, set the course on fire as he saved two more strokes on the front nine, while he carded as many as four birdies on the back nine, on the 10th, 11th, 14th and 17th holes.)                                 

Gaganjeet Bhullar of NSports Hyderabad in action at the Louis Philippe Cup golf in Bengaluru.Gaganjeet Bhullar of NSports Hyderabad in action at the Louis Philippe Cup golf in Bengaluru. (Photo: Satish R.)Perseverance pays.”. The Amritsar golfer however failed to provide the ideal finish, misreading the line on the 18th to end with a bogey.

Hyderabad and Take Chennai are at the second spot with a total of 12-under-420.As the Louis Philippe Cup headed towards the business end, newcomers NSports Hyderabad led by a determined Bhullar, stole the show in the city-based golf league on a sunny Friday afternoon

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