Smartphone and feature phone companies need to go revamping again! The Government of India, now, wants all the mobiles in the country to have a GPS and in-built panic button to contribute to women safety measures. This is compulsory, announce the authorities!
From the January 1st 2017 the in-built panic button, and from January 1st 2018 the global positioning system, has to be included respectively, in the Smartphone and the feature phones, announces the Government of India. This is compulsory for the mobiles in India, decided the Government. The decision has been taken keeping women security in mind and this will also help in keeping a tab on the security forces. Talking about this the Minister of Communications and Information Technology, Ravi Shankar Prasad stated “Technology is solely meant to make human life better and what better than using it for the security of women?” 
Phones which are based on features but which don’t have an Android or an iOS operation system have to make sure that they add the panic button that the users can use by pressing the 5 or 9 numeric key. This pressing will automatically make an emergency call. Smartphone owners can either press the power button three times in quick succession or they can press the panic button specially put in for a long time to indicate to the authorities. This move of adding the panic button and the in-built GPS will help the agencies find the person in time of an emergency, fast.
The market is full of smart phones and feature phones though the latter show more of a sales figure. GPS may have been announced as mandatory but will the feature phone users upgrade to the more expensive models? They purchase feature phones because they are more pocket friendly so are they willing to invest more money in this new technological change? This is a debatable issue and because of this, the implementation may turn out expensive for many. The economical range of feature phones that can be obtained at Flipkart costing about Rs 700-1500, do not have the GPS button, so what do we do?
With the influx of Smartphones, the feature phones are slowly marching their way out, and this may prompt the Government to give a boost to the growth of the Smartphones. Now the question arises whether the Smartphone companies will be willing to introduce the buttons for the Indian audiences? You may not believe it but you can’t make a “100” dial from the Apple’s iPhone. Safety is most needed thing for the women who live in rural areas and tier 2 and tier 3 areas and they need this feature in their phones, the rich smart women are able to purchase the sophisticated Smartphones. Another important thing is to get the adequate response from the authorities when the panic button is pressed.
