10-Nov-2022: DigiLocker users can now digitally store health records and link them with Ayushman Bharat Health Account (ABHA)

DigiLocker, the authentic documents exchange platform under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has successfully completed its second-level of integration with Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM). The secure cloud-based storage platform of DigiLocker can be used now as a health locker for storing and accessing health records such as vaccination records, doctor prescriptions, lab reports, hospital discharge summaries etc.

DigiLocker had earlier completed level 1 integration with ABDM wherein the platform had added ABHA or Ayushman Bharat Health Account creation facility for its 13 crore users. The latest integration will now enable users to utilize DigiLocker as a Personal Health Records (PHR) app. In addition to this, ABHA holders can also link their health records from different ABDM registered health facilities like hospitals and labs and access them via DigiLocker. Users can also scan and upload their old health records on the app. Further, they can share selected records with ABDM registered healthcare professionals.

Highlighting the advantage this integration has for the users, Dr. R. S. Sharma, CEO, National Health Authority (NHA) said – “Under the ABDM, we are building an inter-operable health ecosystem. The different applications from both the public and private sectors partners integrating with ABDM are helping expand the reach of the scheme to more users and adding more functionalities. DigiLocker is a trusted and popular app to access authentic documents. Therefore, it is a significant development as users would now get to use it as a PHR app and get the benefits of paperless record keeping.”

Speaking about the integration, Shri Abhishek Singh, MD & CEO, Digital India Corporation said – “We are proud to extend the benefits of ABDM to our 130 million registered users. The platform has already helped generate close to 85 thousand ABHA numbers. With the health locker integration, we’re positive that more people would be able to easily link and manage their health records digitally. DigiLocker aims to be the preferred health locker for ABHA users.”

The health locker services are now available to all registered users of DigiLocker.

23-May-2022: Citizens can now access Digilocker services on the MyGov Helpdesk on WhatsApp

In a major initiative to make Government services accessible, inclusive, transparent and simple, MyGov today announced that citizens will now be able to use the MyGov Helpdesk on WhatsApp to access the Digilocker service. This includes creating and authenticating their Digilocker account, downloading documents such as PAN card, driving license, vehicle registration certificate, among others, all on WhatsApp.

Government under the leadership of Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has been working for “Ease of Living” through Digital India. In this context, the MyGov Helpdesk on WhatsApp is a major step to ensure governance and government services at the fingertips of citizens.

MyGov Helpdesk, will now offer a suite of services for integrated citizen support and efficient governance, starting with Digilocker services. The new service will enable citizens to access the following documents with ease and convenience, from the safety of their homes.

• PAN card
• Driving License
• CBSE Class X Passing Certificate
• Vehicle Registration Certificate (RC)
• Insurance Policy - Two Wheeler
• Class X Marksheet
• Class XII Marksheet
• Insurance Policy Document ( Life and Non-life available on DigiLocker)

WhatsApp users across the country can use the chatbot by simply sending ‘Namaste or Hi or Digilocker’ to the WhatsApp number +91 9013151515.

Since its launch in March 2020, the MyGov Helpdesk (earlier known as MyGov Corona Helpdesk) on WhatsApp has served as a critical instrument in fighting Covid-19 pandemic by offering people authentic sources of Covid-related information, along with critical uses like vaccine appointment bookings and vaccine certificate downloads. So far over 80 million people have reached out to the helpdesk, over 33 million vaccine certificates have been downloaded, and millions of vaccination appointments have been booked across the country.

With new additions like Digilocker, the MyGov chatbot on WhatsApp aims to build a comprehensive administrative support system for citizens to access resources and essential services that are digitally inclusive.

Offering Digilocker services on the MyGov Helpdesk is a natural progression and a step towards providing citizens with simplified access to essential services via WhatsApp’s easy and accessible platform. With almost 100 Million+ people already registered on Digilocker and 5 Billion+ documents issued till date, the service on WhatsApp will digitally empower millions by helping them access authentic documents and information, right from within their phones. This is in line with the vision of PM Shri Narendra Modi to streamline and improve delivery of public services.”

30-Mar-2022: DIGI Locker

DigiLocker platform currently has 1783 issuers. A list of the Issuer organizations and the issued documents available on DigiLocker is available at the “Issuers” tab at: https://www.digilocker.gov.in/statistics.

DigiLocker aims to empower citizens with all their lifelong documents in a single digital wallet and is in the process of adding all government-issued citizen-centric proof documents. DigiLocker already issues digital copies of Ration Cards for 15 States and Marriage Certificates for 17 States. Additionally, DigiLocker is in discussion with Passport Seva for the issuance of Passport.

DigiLocker team is constantly in touch with the concerned ministries/ departments for on- boarding new services. The integration of the ministries/ departments solely depends upon the administrative approvals issued by the respective ministries/ departments.

Various workshops for DigiLocker are being held in States/UTs to create awareness in the government departments about benefits of DigiLocker and step-by-step description on how to integrate with DigiLocker.

Around 494 Crore digital documents have been made available in DigiLocker till date from various Government, Semi-Govt, Private and autonomous departments/ institutions.

10-Oct-2022: Indian scientists find efficient way to quantify quantum entanglement in higher dimensional systems

Experiments on the quantum entanglement (where several particles behave like a single unit even when they are separated), which received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2022 has seen a major achievement by Indian scientists, who have found a simpler way to quantify the amount of entanglement in higher dimensional systems.

The study could help potentially enable better assessment of the efficacy of an entangled state for technological applications like quantum teleportation (a technique for transferring quantum information from a sender at one location to a receiver some distance away) where the success and accuracy of the process depends on the amount of entanglement as well as other quantum communication protocols.

Entangled state is a crucial state of quantum mechanics and can be used as a resource for quantum communication, quantum computation and information processing tasks that are impossible for classical systems. Higher dimensional systems (dimension greater than two) are proven to have advantages in both quantum computing and quantum communications. Thus experimentally realising higher-dimensional entangled states along with the studies of quantification of the entanglement are of critical importance.

So far, all the relevant investigations towards quantifying entanglement mainly focused on providing bounds (maximum/minimum) on entanglement measures. The existing method of characterising quantum state is Quantum State Tomography (QST), which can then be used to quantify entanglement. It requires determination of an increasingly large number of parameters as the dimension of the system grows. A method for empirical estimation of entanglement for any arbitrary dimensional entangled state was not available.

The scientists from Raman Research Institute (RRI), an autonomous Institute of the Department of Science and Technology, in a collaborative effort with scientists from the Institute for Quantum Computing, Canada have formulated analytical relations between statistical correlation measures and known entanglement measures for any arbitrary dimension. By using just two sets of measurements, they have experimentally quantified the amount of entanglement in a pair of three dimensional photonic qutrits at the Quantum Information and Computing lab at RRI, headed by Prof. Urbasi Sinha.

Their research published in the journal Quantum Science and Technology gives a more experimentally friendly and less cumbersome alternative to QST. It explores the percentage deviation of the entanglement of the given state from the maximally (100% entangled ) entangled state as quantified by two different entanglement measures. For the first time it experimentally demonstrates this non-equivalence between different measures of entanglement in higher dimensional quantum state.

The results can usher in a line of studies which can aim to shed light not only on deeper understanding of how entanglement is to be quantified but also on how to better assess the efficacy of an entangled state for a given technological application.

The central technological importance of the research rests in the context of quantum entanglement enabled information processing, quantum computing and quantum communication protocols, which lie at the heart of 21st century quantum technologies. For applications in quantum teleportation and remote state preparation, the fidelity of the process depends on the amount of entanglement given by a relevant entanglement measure. Hence, given any experimentally prepared entangled state, an a priori assessment of how much entangled the state is critically helpful.

7-Oct-2022: Harnessing quantum entanglement for futuristic energy storage technology

Experiments with entangled photons, and establishment of pioneering quantum information science that received the Nobel Prize in physics this year, also saw a new theoretical concept by Indian scientists exploring connections between the laws of thermodynamics and Quantum Information Theory (QIT). This new concept could facilitate harnessing quantum entanglement for futuristic energy storage technology.

The scientists have theorised a concept called ‘ergotropy’ that represents the amount of extractable work from a system by keeping its entropy (measure of randomness of a system) constant. The idea if harnessed can open pathways for putting quantum batteries to use in a way that is much efficient than its classical counterpart.

They have proposed thermodynamic quantities that capture a signature in multipartite quantum systems called ‘genuine multipartite entanglement where several particles behave like a single unit even when they are separated. 

According to thermodynamics, thermal equilibrium states are completely passive states as no work can be extracted from such a state even if many copies are available. But the situation becomes more intriguing when the states are entangled. 

Local thermality or local passivity of such states does not always imply that the global state is thermal or passive, and hence useful form of energy can be extracted under global operations. From a composite quantum system ergotropic work, therefore, can be extracted by different means.

One can probe the individual parts locally to get useful energy which can further be stored in a battery for later uses. Probing can also be done on the whole composite system, resulting in extraction of more work. The difference between work extraction from individual parts and work extraction from the composite system is called ergotropic gap. 

Ergotropic gap can be enhanced if the parts of a composite quantum system are prepared in an entangled state. This in turn provides an experimentally efficient method to detect entanglement which has established useful resource for several protocols, such as, quantum teleportation, quantum super dense coding, and secure quantum key distribution whose implications deeply impacted physics and computer science.

Dr. Manik Banik, scientist, S. N. Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences, an autonomous research institute under Department of Science and Technology along with his colleagues Dr. Mir Alimuddin (a Chanakya Post-Doctoral Fellow) and Mr. Samgeeth Puliyil (a BSMS project student from IISER TVM) have turned their attention to genuine multipartite entangled systems which have more drastic manifestations. In their Letter titled “Thermodynamic signatures of genuinely multipartite entanglement” published in Physical Review Letters they have highlighted that genuinely entangled states that are again of different types can be detected with the help of ergotropic gap.

Particularly, they have shown that suitably defined functions of ergotropic gap --minimum ergotropic gap, average ergotropic gap, ergotropic fill, and ergotropic volume -- can serve as good measures of entanglement in multipartite systems. Importantly, their proposed entanglement quantifiers are defined in terms of energy instead of entropy, which in turn makes it possible to measure these quantities in laboratory.

Identification, characterization, and quantification of entanglement are of extreme practical relevance. When the laboratories will be able to harness the ergotropic gap, pathways will open for putting quantum batteries to use, that will be extremely efficient over the classical counterpart, and hence the consequences will be far reaching in terms of mitigating climate change.