Living in the grey: how India’s senior citizens became a soft target for cybercriminals

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Synopsis
Many facets of life in India are going digital in a hurry. Alongside, far too many people are falling victim to online scams, the older generation being a soft target. If the authorities don’t act soon enough, country’s more than 138 million senior citizens may become all the poorer for its big strides in digitalisation.

It was not that long ago that Ravindra Goud retired from his job as a senior section engineer at South Central Zone of Indian Railways. The 60-year-old has been living a quiet life in Hyderabad ever since. That bliss of retirement was shattered when online scammers swindled him one evening in March earlier this year. One single mistake. That was all that the thieves wanted to make away with INR25,000. That mistake happened when Goud clicked on a