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Business Standard By Karan Choudhury, New Delhi, March 26 2018  Prime Minister Modi launched 'Digital India’ in 2014 after which Facebook and Google started meeting with the Prime Minister’s Office The Indian government may have ‘unfriended’ Facebook last week after it warned the social media giant from interfering and influencing next year’s elections. However, not so long ago, it used Mark Zuckerberg’s firm as well as Google for its magnum opus Digital India initiative. Since the launch of the programme in 2014, these two US technology giants have played an integral role in almost every aspect of the initiative. From educating people about the internet, connecting far-flung areas with a high-speed net, promoting entrepreneurship, building start-up incubators, women empowerment, to even running a voter registration campaign, cybersecurity and counter-terrorism, Facebook and Google have done it all for the government. How it all began? It all started after Prime Mi...

Dawn Anwar Iqbal  March 26, 2018 WASHINGTON: The Trump administration has added seven Pakistani companies to a list of foreign entities that presumably pose a significant risk to the national security and policy interests of the United States by allegedly engaging in nuclear trade. The move could undermine Pakistan’s ambition of joining the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), an elite club of countries that can trade fissile materials and nuclear technologies. The move forms a series of decisions aimed at putting a squeeze on Pakistan. The list, prepared by the US Bureau of Industry and Security, declares that all seven companies are “reasonably believed to be invol­ved, or to pose a significant risk of being or becoming involved, in activities contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the United States”. In all, a total of 23 entities added to the list that was published in the US Federal Register this week. Besides Pakistani companies, the list ...

Financial Express By:  PTI  | New Delhi, March 25, 2018   Confessional statements by 'Charlie', 'Romeo', 'Alpha' and five others are expected to be key evidence in the charge sheet filed in a court by the National Investigation Agency against 12 people, including Lashker-e-Taiba chief Hafiz Saeed, for funding anti-national activities in the Kashmir Valley. The NIA, while submitting the charge sheet in the case on January 18 this year, appended the eight confessional statements and code named those who have given the statements as ‘Charlie’, ‘Romeo’, ‘Alpha’, ‘Potter’, ‘Pie’, ‘Harry’, ‘Gama’ and an unidentified person. The NIA officials feel that the confessional statements will hold the key in nailing the culprits in the case. The probe agency, which registered a case against separatists in the Kashmir Valley on May 30 last year, managed to secure confessional statements on the flow of money, especially from Pakistan, from eight people accused in th...

Financial Express Reuters March 26, 2018 The Indian banking and financial services sector has seen its digital infrastructure expanding exponentially in recent years. Digital services such as Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yogna, Inter-bank ATM transactions through National Finance Switch (NFS), Immediate Payment Service (IMPS), etc., have brought banking to the customer’s doorstep like never before. At the same time, cyber threats are also increasing and the nascent ecosystem is already facing sophisticated cyber attacks. For instance, a Rs 25 crore heist at a bank recently was traced to a bug in a digital payment application that allowed pilfering small amounts from multiple accounts. Again, a mobile wallet company suffered a loss of Rs 19 crore due to vulnerabilities in its own online payment system. These incidents require stakeholders to gear up, prepare and collaborate to provide secure and reliable prepaid payment instruments to end-consumers. It was in this backdrop tha...

Financial Express Reuters March 26, 2018 The Maharashtra government conceded to the demands of the farmers, with the key demand being that of a loan waiver—promised to farmers before the last state assembly elections. The protest of Maharashtra farmers, who marched in thousands, has been followed by a mass sit-in in Rajasthan. There have also been reports of Uttar Pradesh farmers being mobilised to stand up for their demands. Clearly, there is disillusionment in the farm community with the current system. Depressed agricultural prices have strained farm incomes. Farmers are facing distress in large parts of the country, paradoxically, despite good harvests in the last two years. Some of the demands made by farmers, such as enhanced minimum support price, are in line with the promise already made by the government. The announcement by the government , to increase the MSP of crops to 1.5 times the cost of production, is yet to be backed by any sound implementation frame-wo...

News 18.Com Associated Pre ss March 26, 2018 Facebook said Monday that the information is uploaded to secure servers and comes only from Android users who opt-in to allow it. New York:  On the same day Facebook bought ads in US and British newspapers to apologise for the Cambridge Analytica scandal, the social media site faced new questions about collecting phone numbers and text messages from Android devices. The website Ars Technica reported that users who checked data gathered by Facebook on them found that it had years of contact names, telephone numbers, call lengths and text messages. Facebook said Monday that the information is uploaded to secure servers and comes only from Android users who opt-in to allow it. Spokeswomen say the data is not sold or shared with users' friends or outside apps. They say the data is used "to improve people's experience across Facebook" by helping to connect with others. The company also says in a website pos...

Indian Express By  Dipankar Ghose    March 26, 2018 11:12 am All these letters, recovered by the Chhattisgarh Police after exchanges of fire, tell stories — of increasing police and government influence in some areas; promises to intensify Maoist military and political schooling; of consolation, solace and loneliness. The letters carry no addresses. Most don’t even have names, for those would be a giveaway. Some may have already been delivered. Others perhaps en route, in the complex, hand-to-hand postal system that is the medium of communication for Maoists in the jungles of Bastar. It is difficult to tell. But all these letters, recovered by the Chhattisgarh Police after exchanges of fire, tell stories — of increasing police and government influence in some areas; promises to intensify Maoist military and political schooling; of consolation, solace and loneliness. In January this year, teams from the Chhattisgarh Police were on an intelligence-based operat...