New Delhi, May 13 -- Back in the day, all we had to rely on were paper records. When we visited a doctor, we carried along with us a file containing all our medical records-prescriptions, diagnostic results, etc, for the doctor to review before treating what currently ailed us. When we went to our bank, it was always with passbook in hand, so that the history of our transactions could be manually updated in its pages for our record.

This allowed us to do with this information what we pleased. If we needed a second opinion, we carried that same file to a new doctor so that he or she could read through it without needing to speak to our primary physician. If we applied for a loan from some other bank, we simply showed them our passbook so ...