An overdue progress
Your newspaper reported the Prime Minister being one of the first recipients of Machine Readable Passport (MRP) along with fourteen other citizens of the country. Ten of them are quite prominent citizens. The five unmentioned must be the labourers and students. The PM, her cabinet colleagues, the army chief, and the FBCCI president all receive special treatment at the airports. Nobody dare harass them in any airport - it's the poor labourers who suffer for lack of proper papers. Wouldn't it have sent a better signal if fifteen labourers and students were the first to receive the new passports? One can't help but notice that the implementation of this project has come not only late, but it's so late that the deadline for a new technology -- the e-passport or biometric passport -- is knocking on the door. According to ICAO regulations, the government will have to start issuing biometric passports from the year 2014.
We all hope the government stays on its toes and start the process of introducing the biometric passport technology, and not leave it till the last minute again.
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