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.