UIDAI extends the deadline to deploy Virtual ID system to July 1

UIDAI has extended by one month to July 1 the deadline for service providers and agencies like banks and telecom companies to fully deploy Virtual ID system and accept these IDs in lieu of Aadhaar number.

The Virtual ID (VID) feature is aimed at giving users the option of not sharing their Aadhaar number at the time of authentication.

UIDAI - which had earlier said it will be compulsory for all agencies that undertake authentication to accept VID from their users from June 1, 2018 - has decided to give one more month after the user agencies said they needed more time to switch to the new system.

"We are ready but the agencies wanted some more time to switch to the VID system. We have, therefore, given one more month till July 1," UIDAI CEO Ajay Bhushan Pandey told PTI.

The extension was given considering the "difficulty and amount of internal work" involved for the agencies including telcos, banks, state governments, among others, he added.

Kasauli killing: Son behind bars, mother picks up pieces of her life from debris

Kasauli killing: Narayani Devi, whose son is accused of killing a woman officer leading a demolition drive against illegal construction, began her day early today, digging deep into the rubble of the guesthouse named after her to try and salvage what she could.

A day after her son Vijay Singh Thakur was arrested on charges of killing assistant town planner Shail Bala Sharma, the owner of the Narayani Guest House, a part of which is being demolished, was stoic, her face giving away little as officials and police kept hawk-eyed vigil on the site that has become the cynosure of national attention.

The court ordered demolition work of two of the four floors of the guesthouse, on the busy Dharampur-Kasauli road, is being carried out by different civil agencies of the Himachal Pradesh government under the careful watch of the Himachal Pradesh police, including commandos.

The slender elderly woman, dressed in a salwar kameez and wearing slippers, rifled through the debris of plywood, brick and mortar, picking up pieces of her life as it were, stopping occasionally to tell those engaged in bringing down the floors to be careful.