-The Hindu Government seeks to address cyber attacks without compromising free speech and privacy National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon on Monday opened up the national security regime to the private sector, with the launch of a cyber security report titled ‘Recommendations of Joint Working Group on Engagement With Private Sector On Cyber Security’. The Hindu was the first to report that such an initiative would be launched this week. “The enormous potential for...

Remember Arjun Sengupta Committee Report? It’s the same report which put paid to government’s shifting poverty estimates by asserting that almost 80% Indian survive on less than Rs 20 per day. Known as the National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganized Sector (NCEUS), the report has gone missing from the public domain. The official website of NCEUS is no more working: http://nceus.gov.in, raising doubts regarding someone, somewhere trying to hide...

-The Times of India   Bihar seems to be becoming a pensioners' paradise with the state spending the highest amount on account of pension among all states, 48% of its revenue earnings. Along with some north-eastern states, Bihar's expenditure on pension, administrative services (salaries etc) and interest payments adds up to more than its total revenue generation.  According to budget documents of state governments, Bihar is the only one among non-special category states...

India's Maoists have spread north-east, gaining a foothold in the strategically located states bordering China and Burma, officials and analysts say. The Maoists are filling the void created by dwindling ethnic insurgent groups like the Ulfa, an Institute for Conflict Management (ICM) report says. One key Assam official told the BBC that boys thought to have gone south for jobs had instead joined the rebels. The Maoists have become squeezed in their traditional...

A section of Congress is set to back the demand of chief ministers of BJP and other Opposition-ruled states to reject the Seeds Bill, 2010, in its present form. Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, spearheading the campaign against the bill, has told Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar that the bill, whose avowed purpose is to facilitate production and supply of seeds of quality, will put the peasantry...