Microsoft has issued an emergency patch for its Internet Explorer browser, aiming to fix a critical flaw that allowed hackers to take over computers merely by steering them to infected websites.
Microsoft Wednesday took the rare step of issuing the patch after numerous security experts advised people to switch to rival browsers until Microsoft fixed the problem. Microsoft usually releases patches on a set schedule and this is only the third emergency patch in the last three years.
The flaw has been in circulation since the first week of December. So far, more than two million computers are believed to have been infected, according to PC Magazine.
The vulnerabilities are found on copies of Internet Explorer 7, as well as IE6 and IE5. The patch is designed to prevent attackers from downloading malware onto users’ computers if they visit a malicious Web site, or a legitimate Web site that has been infected.
Transport minister Mathew T Thomas said that if diesel prices are lowered by 14 %, the government will think of cutting bus fares too. He was speaking at the question hour session in assembly here on Thursday.
He also said that the monthly revenue from KSRTC has been raised to Rs 90 crore. He said that shopping markets would be set in 59 KSRTC bus stations.
Declining fuel prices pushed down inflation sharply for the sixth consecutive week to 6.84 per cent, the lowest in nine months, a development that could prompt the Reserve Bank to take more bold steps to boost economic growth. Inflation dipped by 1.16 percentage points from 8 per cent in the previous week, primarily on account of reduction in prices of petrol and diesel announced by the government in the first week of the month.
It was 6.21 per cent in the week ended March 1, 2008. The rate during the corresponding period last year was 3.84 per cent.
The government reduced the per litre prices of petrol and diesel by Rs 5 and Rs 2 respectively with effect from December
6 in the wake of falling prices of crude oil in the international market. Also, the prices of those items which are not decided by
the government came down during the week. The index of ‘fuel, power, light and lubricants’ fell by 3.7 per cent, as prices of petrol, jet fuel (Aviation Turbine Fuel), naphtha and furnace oil declined by 10 per cent, 7 per cent, 23 per cent and 15 per cent
respectively.
In addition to fuel items, the prices of fruits and vegetables, various pulses steel, pig iron and certain metals too declined during the week. RBI has taken a host of measures releasing as much as Rs 3,00,000 crore to fuel growth and with the inflation coming down further, it might take more steps to boost industrial output. Apart from fruits and vegetables, prices of imported edible oil, rice bran oil and coconut oil also declined.
The index for chemicals and chemical products group declined by 0.6 per cent and transport equipment and parts declined by 0.5 per cent during the week. However, the prices of non-food articles group rose by 0.1 per cent due to higher prices of fodder, groundnut seed, gingelly seed and raw cotton. In the manufactured products category, atta (by 2 per cent), groundnut oil and ghee (by one per cent) and cotton seed oil became dearer during the week.
The inflation data of the week does not capture the impact of four per cent excise cut across the board announced last week on December 7 as a part of the stimulus package to revive the slowing Indian economy. The inflation for the week ended October 11 stood at 11.30 per cent, up from the provisional estimates of 11.07 per cent.
Moderation in the rate of economic growth is the current policy concern but the economy should return to its high growth trajectory once global conditions return to normal, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said on Wednesday.
In its annual report on the banking sector for the year ending June 2008, the RBI said an industrial sector slowdown could adversely affect the profitability of the corporate sector and credit risk.
“The overall long-term macroeconomic outlook continues to be favourable with moderation of growth being the current policy concern,” the RBI said in the 508-page document.
Data last week showed industrial output fell in annual terms in October, the first such fall in more than 13 years.
Governor Duvvuri Subbarao said last week the RBI may have to lower its 7.5-8.0 per cent growth forecast for the fiscal year ending March 2009. The economy has grown at or above 9 per cent for the past three fiscal years.
In the report, the RBI said there were downside risks from India’s increasing global integration, such as a sustained outflow of capital, financial contagion and slowing world growth.
It said active liquidity management was key to the current policy stance and the use of a combination of instruments to absorb excessive pressures had helped cushion the impact of the global crisis on local markets.
Since October, the RBI has slashed key interest rates and banks’ cash reserve requirements, made more funds available at its market operations, and indirectly extended credit lines to mutual funds and non-banking companies.
To reduce the probability of future crisis, the RBI said it and the Government should continue to adopt global best practices for prudential supervision and regulation.
“Consequently, the role of fiscal space in promoting financial stability has once again come into prominence,” the RBI said.
In a U-turn, President Asif Ali Zardari has said there is still no “real evidence” that the terrorists who attacked Mumbai came from Pakistan nor had it been established that the lone arrested attacker Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab hailed from the country’s Punjab province.
“Have you seen any evidence to that effect. I have definitely not seen any real evidence to that effect,” Zardari told BBC in an interview.
Zardari, who earlier acknowledged that the perpetrators of the Mumbai carnage of November 26 could be ‘non-state’ actors from Pakistan, made these remarks while responding to a question on assertions from India, US, Britain and other countries that the 10 terrorists who struck at Mumbai came from Pakistan.
On being told that the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown as well as Indian and Western intelligence agencies had stated that the Mumbai attack had originated from Pakistan, Zardari said: “Investigation is an evolving process. It has not been long enough for anybody to… even the foreign minister of India has said they are still investigating.
“I think we will hold that judgement till proper investigation and conclusive evidence is shared between Pakistan and India. We are hoping that will happen because we have asked for a joint investigation.”
About Kasab and the admission by his father living in Faridkot village in Pakistan’s Punjab province that he was indeed his son, Zardari said: “We are investigating that position. There are disputed positions in the Press. Some say what you say and some say to the contrary. So I would say the investigation is ongoing. I would not jump to a conclusion.”
Zardari said Islamabad was prepared to act if adequate evidence of any Pakistan complicity in the attacks emerged.
“If that stage comes, and when it comes, I assure you that our parliament, our democracy, shall take the action properly deemed in our constitution and in our law,” he said.
Zardari also said that Hafeez Sayeed, the leader of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) would remain under house arrest.
“Let me assure you that if there is any investigation to be found pointing towards his involvement in any form of terrorism, he shall be tried for that reason,” Zardari said. JuD is accused of being a front for Lashkar-e-Taiba blamed for the Mumbai terror attacks.
The Pakistani President said that while he was not in denial about LeT’s continued activities, “when you ban an organisation they emerge in some other form.”
Zardari said he would support any request from Britain to question terror suspects held by Pakistan but a final decision in the regard would be made by the Pakistani parliament.
Thai protesters today tightened their hold on Bangkok airport, where two people were wounded in a blast and thousands of travellers left stranded by demonstrators vowing to topple the government.
Two grenade attacks elsewhere in the capital deepened the sense of lawlessness after demonstrators stormed the airport last night, dramatically stepping up their campaign against Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat.
Suvarnabhumi Airport, a major Southeast Asian hub for millions of passengers, was closed down as guards from the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) protest movement sealed off roads to the facility.
‘I have been informed by Thai Airways that 3,000 passengers are stranded at the terminal now,’ airport director Saereerat Prasutanont told AFP, adding that 78 outbound and incoming flights were affected.
‘Protesters refused to negotiate with anyone except the prime minister,’ said Saereerat. Police said 8,000 demonstrators, most wearing yellow clothes in a traditional symbol of loyalty to the revered monarchy, had camped out at the three-billion-dollar airport overnight.
Another 1,500 were moving towards the terminal from Government House, the prime minister’s office in central Bangkok which demonstrators have occupied since August, paralysing the government.
‘It’s not fair,’ said Vanessa Sloan, 31, from Florida, who arrived at the airport last night and was supposed to fly on to the northern city of Chiang Mai today. ‘We spent the night here after all the check-in staff ran away,’ she said. ‘No one is here to help.’
Former ASI V V Augustine who investigated the Abhaya case during the initial days committed suicide. Augustine who was interrogated by the CBI yesterday, was found dead at his residence in Chalachirra at Chingavanam. His body was recovered from the backyard of his residence with wrist slit. The police have also recovered a suicide note from beside the body blaming CBI for the suicide. Augustine was also subjected to narco- test earlier.
Augustine who was ASI then at Kottayam West Station prepared the inquest report of the Abhaya murder case. It was alleged that Augustine who reached first at the Pious Xth Convent after Abhaya’s death, also involved in destroying many of the crucial evidences. It was estimated that the present CBI team was also planning to include him in the accused list.
Infosys co-Chairman Nandan Nilekani feels India can do a lot better with the use of Information Technology as it has a vibrant and growing democracy than its most talked about rival China.
“Technology is extremely powerful as a liberal force in its ability to empower citizens and minimise sway of the state. It would strengthen India’s advantage as an open, democratic society and would ensure that information knowledge and services flow unimpeded,” says Nilekani in his book ‘Imagining India, Ideas for the New Century’, which was released on Monday.
Nilekani’s China reference though not direct is evident from his frequent use of the world ‘open society’. He has quoted Tom Friedman, noted ‘The New York Times’ columnist and Pulitzer Prize winning author, who says, “I don’t think that this century can belong to a country that censors Google.”
Friedman was replying to a question if he saw China as the emerging superpower of the century.
Nilekani says this speaks ‘multitudes of how critical information technologies have become to a country’s economic strength and how India’s particular advantage – its combination of open society and its positive attitudes to IT — can transform our country in the coming years’.
“India’s potential here to become an open, wired economy, unregulated by any kind of ‘intellectual licence permit raj’ can be a strength difficult to beat in today’s information age,” says the best-known global face of Indian IT industry.
But there are conditions, according to Nilekani, to achieve this success rate from the usage of IT.
“Our open society is the ideal ground for the IT-led transparency in governance. But to realise this vision we have to take IT-led transformation from the sidelines of public policy and make it the centre-piece of our development and reform strategy,” he suggests.
Nilekani has put a lot of faith in the talent of this country. The talent that made India the centre of global delivery in IT over the last 15 years has now developed the skills and experience it needs to apply these learnings at home, he says.
“In the next 15 years, these very skills can help us build the kind of politically and economically inclusive environment that can take India into a second phase of dramatic, technology-driven growth,” he said.
The book outlines Nilekani’s vision for a resurgent India, both economically and politically. It lays out the challenges and the opportunities that face us even as we stand in the cusp of…
American International Group says it has completed a $40 billion preferred stock sale to the US Department of Treasury under TARP.
Says to use proceeds to reduce borrowings under original credit agreement with Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
New York: Chandrayaan is on its way to the moon, regarded by many Indians as a god, but ‘devout Hindus - many of them, no doubt, rocket scientists - see no disharmony between ancient Vedic beliefs and contemporary scientific practice’, according to a New York Times opinion article.
A week before India’s moon mission was launched Oct 22, millions of Hindu women embarked on a customary daylong fast of Karva Chauth, meant to ensure a husband’s welfare, broken at night on the first sighting of the moon’s reflection in a bowl of oil, Tunku Varadarajan wrote in the NYT Wednesday.
Reverence for the moon, he said, extends to the website of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), which carries this verse from the Rig Veda, a sacred Hindu text that dates back some 4,000 years: ‘O Moon! We should be able to know you through our intellect,/ You enlighten us through the right path.’
The seeming contradiction between religion and science, between reason and superstition is resolved in India by its ‘modernity of tradition’, Varadarajan writes, borrowing the phrase from the political scientists Lloyd and Susanne Rudolph.
Varadarajan is a professor of business at New York University and the opinion editor at Forbes.com.
He notes that the Hindu astrological system is predicated on lunar movements, but clarifies: ‘The genius of modern Hinduism lies in its comfort with, and imperviousness to, science.’
He relates how days after Apollo 11 landed on the moon, a model of the lunar module was placed in a courtyard of the most venerable temple in Varanasi, the holy city.
‘The Hindu faithful were hailing man-on-the-moon; there was no suggestion that the Americans had committed sacrilege,’ Varadarajan writes, adding - with a caveat against exaggeration - that science sometimes struggles to co-exist with faith in the US in ways that would disconcert many Indians.
The opinion piece writer then also concedes that India’s first lunar mission is no doubt a grand political gesture - space exploration in the service of national pride.
‘This kind of excursion may provoke yawns at NASA, but judging from round-the-clock local coverage it has received, the mission has clearly inflamed the imagination and ambition of Indians. Yes, even moon-worshipping ones.’
IANS