NEW DELHI: Actuated by the need to provide immediate rescue to women in distress, the Narendra Modi government wants an “alert app” in existing mobile handsets which when pressed would trigger an alert to the police. The alert—a voice call or an SMS—will also be beamed to family members and friends.When pressed, the App will dial an emergency number and an SMS/data would be sent to Police Control Room in a predefined format. The Ministry of Home Affairs has been tasked with “up-gradation” of the existing smartphones and outlining the “format” of the SMS. The SMS would contain the calling mobile number location details (through GPS).These (calls) will be “allotted priority” even when there is congestion in the network. Plus, any distress call will be serviced by available telecom service providers even if the caller is not its customer. For the feature phones, long-pressing a key, for three to five seconds, would establish a voice call to the emergency number and send a distress SMS. The Police will then fetch the location from the telecom service provider.Also, the government has decided to install “alert button” in public transport vehicles which will immediately send details of the vehicle, its registration number, details of the driver to the Police Control Room assisting in prompt rescue. The initiative to have “panic buttons” in mobile handsets was initiated by Maneka Gandhi.Having a single-touch emergency system is a much-needed, great idea. But as with every great public utility system, a ‘panic button’ is as good as its last-mile connectivity. What will make this more than a ‘100’ number is not just its single-step procedure but also the GPS-enabled system bringing the nearest law-enforcers to the location without the usual layers of human participation. Which means the right people will have to respond swiftly and correctly to the panic beacon. Which, in turn, means training personnel to respond to the system accordingly.