India steps into the tech world: A step towards Atmanirbhar Bharat

  07-Sep-2020 12:15:16

Technology Covid India China



On May 12, our Prime Minister, Mr. Narendra Modi, addressed the nation and stated the need to become atmanirbhar i.e self-reliant. He said the need was brought home by the absence of domestic production of PPE when CoVID struck but India initiated and quickly ramped up PPE production. He further stated the need to become Self-reliant in every field and aspect. Moreover, after a few days, following the Galwan valley clash, India took the big decision of banning forty-seven Chinese apps including popular ones like camscanner which was being used by many people for education as well as the service sector during the time of the Corona Pandemic.Two final year Btech students, pursuing Civil engineering of IIT Bombay found it a golden opportunity and launched a free-of-cost, AIR Scanner to aid online education. These students are Rohit Kumar Chaudhary and Kavin Aggarwal, both students of IIT Bombay, who have developed an AI-based reading assistant and document scanner application called Air Scanner.

According to the Press Information Bureau, the app was launched on August 15, as an indigenous alternative to ban its Chinese counterpart. The students revealed they have been working on this idea for a very long time but when the various Chinese apps were banned, they realized that it was getting difficult for people in scanning, organizing, and sharing documents. At this time, they utilized their expertise in application development and built this document scanner app with a powerful reading assistant feature and named it AIR

After getting motivated by the prime minister’s vision of Atmanirbhar Bharat, the students have built a Made-In-India EdTech application which has some powerful and unique features. This app is no less and can give a tough competition to many existing non-Indian apps such as CamScanner and Adobe. Moreover, in the present scenario, this application is found to be extremely useful when the schools are involved in online education and work from home. The documents scanned with the help of a mobile camera will be saved in PDF format and stored in the device storage only. Hence, it is beneficial to both the students as well as the officials.

Rohit Kumar Chaudhary, in one of the interviews, revealed,

“AIR Scanner app does not collect any information about the user and all the documents are stored in the phone’s local storage. We are not using any cloud storage to store the documents of the users. The app guarantees complete user security.”

He further added,

“As of now, it is available in the English language only, but we are available to make it available in multiple languages which will make it easy for anyone to read in any language. Soon we are planning to convert this project into a start-up."

Talking about its special features, the app includes all the ideal documents scanner features such as scanning, organizing, and sharing the documents. As its name suggests, the application is powered by AI technology that understands the words of a page and a single tap on the word can display its meaning, related examples, synonyms, pronunciation details, and translation in more than forty languages. Another great option is that one can either import his or her books or capture newspaper snippets with the AI narrator reading it loud for them. Also, the exclusive safety features of the app make it more special.Chaudhary added that currently the app is available for android users only but soon it will be released for iOS users too.

Moreover, many other Indian apps have also stepped in the market and giving tough competition to the banned Chinese apps. Chingari is a video sharing app developed in India. After the banning of TikTok, it is becoming popular among Indians. It allows users to share videos, play games, and view news from around the world. Recently, it is available in Hindi, English, and in regional languages including Marathi, Gujarati, and Telugu.

Share it was another popular Chinese app that got banned by the Indian government. Its alternative apps include Share all, Jio Switch, and Smart Share. All three of them are the Indian apps having the same features as Share it and hence fulfilling the needs of Indians.

Recently, the Indian government banned some other apps too including the popular game- PUBG. Within a day, Indians found it’s alternative too and the app FAU-G will be launched soon. FAU-G is an Indian PUBG mobile alternative that is being published by NCore games based in Bengaluru and Indian game industry veteran Vishal Gonda and Mr. Akshay Kumar have also promoted it through their twitter handles. On September 4, actor Akshay Kumar tweeted,

“Supporting PM Narendra Modi’s Atmanirbhar movement, proud to present an action game, Fearless and United Guards FAU-G. Besides entertainment, players will also learn about the sacrifices of our soldiers. 20% of the net revenue generated will be donated to BhaaratKeVeer Trust. #FAUG. ”

The announcement of FAU-G came in a couple of days after the government banned PUBG which was quite popular among young Indian mobile gamers. Talking about FAU-G’s developer company, nCore games doesn’t have any popular games under its developer profile on Google play. However, the company’s site displays Rovio (Angry Birds maker as one of its partners. Moreover, the company has also worked as a partner on an acclaimed mobile battle arena game, Vainglory.

India has stepped ahead in the world’s tech market as well and is truly becoming self-reliant. These apps reflect the proactivity of Indians and their dream to see India, self-reliant and on the apex in every field.

By: Ishita Rai