Daily PIB Analysis For UPSC/IAS | Free PDF Download- 26th October 2018 -

Table of Contents

Digital Warfare and laggard India

PRISM programme of USA’s National Security Agency (NSA)
NSA collected data from internet communications.
The scale of the programme was staggering.
According to the documents, the NSA was collecting data directly from the servers of US service providers.
The Guardian: showed that Microsoft had actively helped the NSA to circumvent its own encryption of web chats on Outlook.com.
Microsoft also permitted PRISM to access its cloud storage service SkyDrive, and monitor Skype chats.
Glenn Greenwald’s book No Place to Hide: NSA employees intercepted Cisco routers, intended for organisations targeted for surveillance, and implanted them with backdoors before shipping them on.
Bloomberg: China’s intelligence services had ordered subcontractors in China to plant malicious chips in Supermicro server motherboards bound for the US.
2014: Beijing banned government offices from buying Microsoft Windows, and security software from Symantec and Kaspersky Lab.
One year later, the ban was also applied to Cisco and Apple products.
President Trump, August 2018: signed a bill banning the use of Chinese Huawei and ZTE technology by the US government.
2014: Huawei was probed for hacking a BSNL network.
Over 60% of software and hardware being used by BSNL is sourced from either Huawei or ZTE.
September 2017: BSNL signed a MoU with ZTE for research and commercialization of future 5G technology.
Australia: banned Huawei from supplying equipment for 5G mobile network, citing national security risks.
Air Force Network (AFNET) was launched in 2010.
Present on that occasion was the Cisco country head because his company was a major supplier of equipment for AFNET.
The army’s latest communication backbone, Network for Spectrum (NFS), also uses Cisco equipment.
Despite Indian products being available, a concerted effort to use indigenous solutions is conspicuously absent, with the Army being the most laggardly in this regard.
The Quint,2016: revealed that the request for proposal for NFS equipment had been manipulated to favour Cisco.
The Indian Army mostly uses the Microsoft Windows operating system on its official computers.
PRISM target country: India stood at the 5th place.
2015: Northern Command of the army decided to adopt the Bharat Operating System Solutions (BOSS) for all its official computers.
BOSS is an indigenously developed open-source system by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing, an R&D organisation of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.
Three years later, the army is still debating the merits of BOSS, and the arguments are still centered on simplicity of usage, not the security of networks.
Instead of supporting BOSS, there is a push to return to Windows.

President

Shree Ram Nath Kovind inaugurated the four-day Global Arya Samaj convention in New Delhi.
Social organisations should spread awareness among the public that all festivals should be celebrated in such a way that there are no adverse effects on the environment and peace and harmony prevails.
Mr. Kovind said the autumn festive season is on during this time breathing problems increase in cities like Delhi due to pollution in the environment.
Remembering Swami Dayanand Saraswati, the President said, Swamiji was the brave warrior of social and spiritual reforms.
He said the steps he took for education, women empowerment and eradication of untouchability are relevant even today.
Mr. Kovind said, during the nineteenth century when the society was confined with superstitions and social evils, Swami Dayanand Saraswati brought renaissance and self-pride

Indian Polity

The Madras High Court today upheld Tamil Nadu Assembly speaker P. Dhanapal’s decision disqualifying 18 rebel MLAs of AIADMK.
The judgment was delivered in the case filed by the dissident MLAs of TTV Dinakaran group against the Speaker’s decision on grounds of anti-defection.
The case was referred to the third judge appointed by the Supreme Court after a divided judgment by the first bench of the High Court on 14th of June.

HM

57th Raising Day Parade of Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP)
Home Minister Rajnath Singh today said ITBP jawans have made supreme sacrifices while protecting the border in difficult circumstances at altitudes ranging from 9 thousand feet to 18 thousand feet.
He said the jawans are not only protecting Indo-China Border but also playing a responsible role in the country’s internal security in Left Wing Extremism affected areas.
The Minister said, he has himself visited the Border Out Posts at Indo-China Border and seen how the ITBP jawans perform their duties in difficult situations and low temperatures of -40 degrees Celsius and scarcity of oxygen.
Mr. Singh said ITBP Jawans who are also deployed in Indian Mission in Afghanistan have foiled many suicide attacks. He said ITBP’s work has been appreciated all over Afghanistan.

W&CD

Minister Maneka Gandhi has requested survivors of Sexual Harassment to register their complaints at www.shebox.nic.in
She said aggrieved women who have faced Sexual Harassment at Work can also formally approach NCW if they so desire.
She-Box portal is an effort to provide a speedier remedy to women facing sexual harassment at workplace. Once a complaint is submitted to the portal, it will be directly sent to the Internal Complaint Committee (ICC) or Local Complaint Committee (LCC) of the concerned employer.
Through this portal, the Ministry, as well as complainant, can monitor the progress of inquiry conducted by the ICC or LCC.

India’s neighbourhood

Sri Lanka has been chosen as the best travel destination among the list of countries to visit in 2019, with Germany and Zimbabwe just behind.
The projection done by Lonely planet said Sri Lanka topped the list primarily because travel has become much easier there since the civil war ended in 2009.
He said, travel products had hugely evolved in Sri Lanka, and now include diverse opportunities beyond mere beach holidays, from eco-tourism and yoga retreats to visiting national parks.
Tourists from India comprise the largest number of people visiting Sri Lanka.

Hong Kong, Macau, and Zhuhai

55km length
It is the longest sea-crossing bridge in the whole world.
9 years and $20 billion to construct.
6.7km section morphing into an undersea tunnel to let ships pass by.
The bridge will cut traveling time between Zhuhai-in mainland China and Hong Kong, to 30 minutes from 4 hours earlier.