The National Technical Research Organisation, the ambitious project to protect India's cyber space, is all set to roll out in May. However, experts are sceptical on how the government will maintain a balance between cyber security and civil liberties, reports Vicky Nanjappa.
The recently busted pan-India terror module was in "constant touch" with people perceived to be close to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the feared leader of the Islamic State, receiving instructions for carrying out explosions at important places ahead of the Republic day.
29 years ago this August, Pakistan's dictator, the general who made jihad part of Pakistani State policy, died in a mysterious air crash. Did the KGB, the then USSR's dreaded espionage agency, assassinate Zia-ul Haq? Was India's RA&W responsible for blowing Zia's military aircraft out of the skies? Was it Zia's many enemies in Pakistan's military? Was it a box of mangoes as Mohammad Hanif speculated in his fascinating novel about Zia's death? Or was the assassin someone else?
29 years ago this August, Pakistan's dictator, the general who made jihad part of Pakistani State policy, died in a mysterious air crash. Did the KGB, the then USSR's dreaded espionage agency, assassinate Zia-ul Haq? Was India's RA&W responsible for blowing Zia's military aircraft out of the skies? Was it Zia's many enemies in Pakistan's military? Was it a box of mangoes as Mohammad Hanif speculated in his fascinating novel about Zia's death? Or was the assassin someone else?
'As the tanks roll down Delhi's Rajpath and the C-17s fly overhead, there could be a lot brewing in Hyderabad House,' says Surya Gangadharan.
29 years ago this August, Pakistan's dictator, the general who made jihad part of Pakistani State policy, died in a mysterious air crash. Did the KGB, the then USSR's dreaded espionage agency, assassinate Zia-ul Haq? Was India's RA&W responsible for blowing Zia's military aircraft out of the skies? Was it Zia's many enemies in Pakistan's military? Was it a box of mangoes as Mohammad Hanif speculated in his fascinating novel about Zia's death? Or was the assassin someone else?
Now the the job of searching out and destroying enemy submarines in the waters off India's coast will fall to the navy's new fleet of a dozen Boeing P-8I aircraft, reports Ajai Shukla.
The first women pilots in the fighter stream of IAF will be selected from the current batch at Air Force Academy.
"INS Kiltan strengthens our defence system and will be a shining armour in our 'Make in India' programme," Sitharaman said.
'Landmark developments herald the end of two decades of stagnation in the army's modernisation plans,' notes Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd).
Admittedly, EVMs too have a UID number and any convergence of data can make the secret ballot system a party of history, warns Dr Gopal Krishna in the 5th part of his series against Aadhaar.
Biometric authentication is based on the unscientific and questionable assumption that there are parts of human body that does not age, wither and decay with the passage of time.
Pride is all ours and of those who made a beeline to Halls 3 and 5 that showcased indigenous defence technologies at the Make In India Week.
As many as 69 assembly constituencies in the Yadav heartland, considered crucial for the ruling Samajwadi Party in the state, went to the polls in this phase.
However, police said that based on the description given by some school children, who spotted the armed suspects on Thursday, their sketches were issued late last night.
'As a member of Congress, it was important to meet with Prime Minister Modi. Promoting the India-US relationship is a priority. It is important to have a constructive dialogue with the biggest democracy in the world,' US Congressman Mike Honda tells Ritu Jha/Rediff.com
Delhi's Election Commission has detected instances of "paid news" relating to five candidates in the run-up to assembly election and added expenditure in this regard in their poll expenses.
'The purported jitters of the ministers under Modi, the intriguing part is that the stories churned out by the rumour mill have not so far been denied. For aught I know, they may not be true. Or, if true, all that Modi intended was to subject his ministers to a process of grooming to ensure that all of them adhere to a uniform code of propriety, discernment and credibility,' says the distinguished civil servant B S Raghavan.
'The government that is talking all the time about national security and national interests should be concerned.' 'When national interests are jeopardised by their own project, they should pause and listen.' 'Whether it is the BJP or the Congress, they all want control over the people.' 'They don't give a damn if anything happens to the people of the country; they are only interested in what they can get out of the data.'
'The Pakistanis were lulled adequately to provide one of the fundamental prerequisites for successful execution of such an option: Surprise.' 'The other requisite: Deception in terms of selection of areas for launch/time of offensive action,' explains Brigadier S K Chatterji (retd).
The Union Health ministry put the number of positive cases at 82, eight more since Thursday night, which includes the woman and a 76-year-old man from Karnataka who became the country's first coronavirus fatality besides 17 foreign nationals, Health Ministry officials said.
'We could crack IM modules in the country because one arrested member would spill beans on the other.' 'With ISIS, every module is different and is possibly being handled by different operators abroad.'
Aadhaar-related schemes and the Aadhaar Act exist on the assumption that Right to Privacy is not a Fundamental Right.
There are unprecedented political implications of identification based on 'biological attributes of an individual', such as employed by Aadhaar, warns Gopal Krishna.
'If we play our cards right, we may even benefit from the competition between the US and China as seen from increased investment from each of these countries into India.' 'The size of our market gives us an important lever of power which we shall have to play adroitly and intelligently,' points out Ambassador Gautam Bambawale -- who served as India's envoy to China -- in the Professor V M Dandekar Memorial Lecture 2019, delivered on March 8, 2019 in Pune.
Are hacker collectives like Anonymous and Legion black hats or white hats, or do they lurk in the space between the two? Dhruv Munjal reports.
It has been said that by 2025, India could become among the top five economies in the world. If India does become a $5 trillion economy but gets all its rivers polluted, food chain poisoned and genetic pool depleted and biometric database of Indians sold or stolen at the behest of commercial czars, will it not be a pyrrhic economic victory, asks Gopal Krishna.
India's cumbersome arms procurement procedures and a plodding Ministry of Defence bureaucracy have long been blamed for shortfalls in combat capability. Now there is another, more worrying, reason - a growing crisis of funds, magnified by the lack of tri-service coordination.
'These ISIS terrorists want to smash Western civilisation, smash India. For the time being though, their main target would be the US and Europe.'
'It is common knowledge that cash is anonymous.' 'When demonetisation was implemented, one of the intended objectives was to put identity on the cash holdings in the economy.' 'With the return of Rs 15.28 lakh crore in the formal banking system, the almost entire cash holding of the economy now has an address.' 'It is no more anonymous,' says Arun Jaitley.
'The government's proposal to store citizens' data including Aadhaar data under its Digital India initiative on cloud is violative of the citizens' human rights because the cloud is admittedly beyond India's jurisdiction.'
'Even though he knew full well that the manipulation went against the facts as he knew them, Pillai nonchalantly contented himself with stating that since the file came from the minister himself, he just passed it on as it was,' says B S Raghavan.
'Had they struck on the night of the 1st, there would have been hell to pay and had they been able to sneak further in, we would have had a greater problem,' says Lieutenant General H S Panag (retd), the former Northern Army Commander.
The linking of biometric UID/Aadhaar number to all public services makes "We, the People of India" worse than slaves, says Gopal Krishna.
Here's your weekly digest of the craziest stories from around the world.
Isn't National Intelligence Grid and UIDAI engineered by vested interests, asks Gopal Krishna.
The Indian Army and more recently the Indian Navy have already set up dedicated intelligence branches. It is surprising indeed that the IAF, where real time and timely intelligence is most vital for effective and safe prosecution of the air war, has still not done so itself, says Group Capt (retd) P I Muralidharan.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Investor Information - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances