A woman who appeared in India's Olympic contingent in the opening ceremony has apologised for an "error of judgement".
Madhura Nagendra told the NDTV news channel she was a cast member at the event, and had not gatecrashed it.
Indian team officials were angered by the woman's presence and had sought an apology.
The head of the London 2012 organising committee, Lord Coe, said she was a cast member who got "slightly over-excited" and joined the ceremony.
Ms Nagendra became known as "the woman in red" because of the colour of the top she was wearing.
She said she had entered the cast after "rounds of audition" and did not walk into the stadium "off the streets".
"[It was an] error of judgement [that] I landed up walking with the athletes. I think I have hurt the sentiments of my people. I apologise," Ms Nagendra said.
"There was chaos. Thousands of people were walking. I was blinded and as a result there was an error of judgement."
Ms Nagendra said she was "hurt" by the criticism of her act on social media outlets.
"I am a proud woman of India with a lot of enthusiasm. I was taken aback by the criticism. I hope this incident will be forgiven and I want to move forward."
India is fielding 81 athletes at the London Games.
Govt planning data centres for states
IT companies HP and IBM are expected to benefit the most if India goes
the cloud way, as most operational data centres have been built and are
being operated by the two firms. NEW DELHI: At a time, when private enterprises are only testing the waters around cloud computing, the central government has made a bold decision to migrate critical information infrastructure on the cloud.
The department of information technology is planning to set up a national cloud-based network that connects all state data centres, which would make that the backbone of national e-governance plan, which when completed would deliver many government-to-citizen and government business services via the internet. In effect, each of the 28 states and 7 Union territories will have a private cloud of their own.
The Department of IT has invited proposals from IT companies like HP, IBM, Cisco and Dell to set up and maintain private clouds in each state. The move may cost the Centre less than Rs 100 crore, and will help the exchequer prevent wastage on duplication of resources.
State data centres, built at a cost of Rs 4-5 crore each, are operational in about 16 states. UP, Punjab, Assam, Mizoram, Jharkhand, Chattisgarh are laggards , even as states in the south have fully-functional data centres.
The move will save taxpayer's money and time, as IT resources like servers and storage will be shared amongst departments and also provide elasticity and on demand services. "SDC will now be operated as a private cloud for each state and will be managed by a third party," said the draft tender put out by the Department of IT, last month.
An India-based e-governance official at a US-based IT firm told ET that the company had been making presentations to the government for the last six months on cloud adoption, as other governments are adopting across the world.
The official expects the final RFP to be out in 2-3 months, as the new IT Secretary J Satyanarayana has come on board. The public cloud computing market in India is expected to grow at $685 million by 2014, according to research firm Zinnov Management Consulting.
US IT companies HP and IBM are expected to benefit the most if India goes the cloud way, as most operational data centres have been built and are being operated by the two firms.
"The IT department at center has been talking about setting up cloud computingbased services for a while now but what remains to be seen is how fast these services will be set up," said Prof Sadagopan, Director of IIIT, Bangalore and Chairman, Core Committee Meeting at the Centre for E-governance , Karnataka. "Once established, it'll be a big shift from our current PC culture, but we also need greater understanding of the data security challenges that could arise out of this."
India to launch mission to Mars in 2013
Hot on the heels of China's announcement of its plan to launch a lunar rover in 2013 comes this news from India: in 2013, it'll be launching a mission of its own, not to the Moon, but all the way to Mars. Ambitious, to be sure, but India has even bigger plans in the works.
The Indian Space Research Organisation has just confirmed that it will be sending an orbiter to Mars in 2013. The $90 million satellite will carry about 55 pounds worth of science payload (made up of as many as nine individual instruments), and will "focus on life, climate, geology, origin, evolution and sustainability of life on the planet," the organization says. That's not much of a focus, if you ask me, but then, I'm not a Martian scientist or anything. Oh wait, yes I am!
Anyway, this Mars mission is just a stepping stone for India, which is gearing up to send a manned mission into space in 2016. That will make it the fourth nation to put a human into space using domestically-developed hardware, and the second in just a few years after a huge gap following the Soviets and the U.S. back in the 1960s. This is an exciting time for space exploration, with new countries and all sorts of private companies getting into the game, and we wish India the very best of luck at getting to Mars on its first try.
Via AFP
The Indian Space Research Organisation has just confirmed that it will be sending an orbiter to Mars in 2013. The $90 million satellite will carry about 55 pounds worth of science payload (made up of as many as nine individual instruments), and will "focus on life, climate, geology, origin, evolution and sustainability of life on the planet," the organization says. That's not much of a focus, if you ask me, but then, I'm not a Martian scientist or anything. Oh wait, yes I am!
Anyway, this Mars mission is just a stepping stone for India, which is gearing up to send a manned mission into space in 2016. That will make it the fourth nation to put a human into space using domestically-developed hardware, and the second in just a few years after a huge gap following the Soviets and the U.S. back in the 1960s. This is an exciting time for space exploration, with new countries and all sorts of private companies getting into the game, and we wish India the very best of luck at getting to Mars on its first try.
Via AFP
India: We DO have the BlackBerry encryption keys
RIM: Er, I think you'll find you don't
Indian government officials have apparently claimed that Research in
Motion has handed over the skeleton keys used to encrypt BlackBerry
communications – once again ignoring the fact that such keys don't
exist.The Times of India has reported that RIM "agreed to hand over its encryption keys" to the Asian nation, and allowed lawful intercept of all email, messaging and other communications. The paper claims to have viewed internal government documents confirming this. According to the Times:
[RIM] has now handed over this infrastructure to Indian agencies, internal government documents reviewed by ET reveal.
BlackBerry users come in two varieties: corporate users connected to a BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES), and consumers who connect to a RIM-managed BES. Corporate users create their encryption keys when setting up their BES, and communication between the handset and the BES is secured against all but the best-funded of governments. Consumers are issued a key by RIM, and connect to their geographically nearest – and RIM-managed – BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES).
When BlackBerry Messenger (BBM - an instant-messaging service unique to RIM) was implicated in the 2011 riots, the UK police were able to wander along to the UK-based BES server and peruse all the messages and emails exchanged by rioters without breaking any encryption. The Data Protection Act provided all the power they need, with RIPA providing police with similar access to companies running their own BES – though in that case, the biz owners themselves hold the keys, hence the problem with the Indian government's claims.
The problem for India was that RIM had no local BES, so consumers were connected to one in Canada and subject to Canadian law. What seems likely, though RIM won’t confirm it, is that RIM now has a BES server located within India where the local authorities can browse communications just as easily as their UK counterparts.
But that's no help against companies, or groups, who run their own BES (the basic version of which is free). Where a local BES is used, RIM never has access to the encryption keys, and RIM has resolutely resisted informal requests to create a back-door in their software – rightly believing that if such a move became public (as it inevitably would) it would destroy the only area (security) within which RIM still has credibility.
The Times of India claims a government spokesman told them that RIM had provided such a back door, but it's not the first time we've heard a claim of this type. Back in 2010, the Indian government claimed RIM was providing access to communications, at least twice, then it made roughly the same claim in October 2011, and again in February this year, so these new claims have to be taken in that context.
The Indian government is trying to reassure its population (and voters) that no foreign company will prevent it from intercepting communications, but it risks its own credibility by repeatedly claiming to have access to encryption keys which simply don't exist.
Glad Team Anna's intentions are now in the open: Soni
Social activist Anna Hazare during the Team Anna's agitation against corruption at Jantar Mantar -PTI
Asserting that nobody can hold the government to ransom, Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni said, "We have always said that these people seemed inspired by politics. It is good that whatever the intention was has come out clear. Many of the stances they took seem to suggest this. I am glad that they have gone ahead."
Her reaction came after Anna Hazare announced that he will give support for a political alternative in the country. Soni also said that if Team Anna enter politics, "then they will themselves understand, the compulsions, responsibilities of politics, how much you have to work in politics and especially that if we work honestly in politics, it is not easy."
Soni said that it was not correct for anyone to use defamatory language against MPs or anyone holding constitutional position. The Minister said that it was everyone's right to enter public life and Team Anna should go ahead and contest elections if they wanted to change the system.
"Everyone has right to enter politics and fight elections. If they think that every member of parliament has a bad reputation (I don't want to use the words they had used) then they themselves should fight to become a member of Parliament," Soni told reporters here. Soni also said that she was happy that the fast had been called off and that it was not proper that a democratically elected government is held to ransom by such agitations.
"I am glad that they have agreed to call up their fast, its a good thing because things can't work under pressure in a democracy. You can't hold the government to a ransom. A government elected to office by people of the country," she said.
Congress General Secretary Digvijay Singh, a bitter critic of Team Anna, also took a jibe at them, saying his opinion about their real intentions has now been confirmed.
"Just as I always said, Team Anna's political ambitions are out in open! People should see for themselves the reality behind this 'MOVEMENT'!" Singh said on his Twitter handle.
Soni was asked by reporters if she thought the decision to announce launching of a political alternative was an exit strategy used by Team Anna to end their fast.
"Only they know what was their motive to sit for fast. I had on two or three occasions in my personal capacity asked them that they should please clear their motives - whether they want to join politics or end the fast," she said.
Soni also said that those accusing the government of not having brought the Lokpal should understand that the Bill was now a property of the Parliament.
"Now they have made their point and accuse the government of not bringing the Lokpal. This isn't the truth. Lokpal Bill was passed by Lok Sabha, Lokpal Bill was passed by Rajya Sabha by government in office," she said.
"It wasn't passed because everybody wanted to discuss it further and further, Lokpal Bill is with a select committee of Parliament. It is the property of the Parliament, so they must understand before accusing the government from morning till night," Soni added.
Meanwhile, Team Anna on Thursday announced that it would end the indefinite fast on Thursday evening. Anna Hazare's announcement on calling off the agitation demanding Lokpal Bill at 5 PM Thursday came on a day when a group of eminent personalities, including jurist V R Krishna Iyer and former Army Chief Gen V K Singh, appealed for an end to the fast as the health of Arvind Kejriwal and two others deteriorated.
No game or sport has 'National Game' status: Sports Ministry
We
may be assuming Hockey, the game which fetched six consecutive Olympic
gold medals, to be our national game but the fact is none of the games
or sports played in the country has the status of ‘national game.’In an RTI reply, the Sports Ministry has made it clear that it has not declared any sports as national game whereas the web portal of Government 'www.india.gov.in' has posted an article glorifying field hockey under the heading National Game.
The curiosity about national symbols drove Lucknow-based 10-year-old Aishwarya Parashar to file an RTI application to the Prime Minister's Office seeking certified copies of orders related to declaration of National anthem, song, sport, animal, bird, flower and symbol.
Her queries were transferred to the Home Ministry, which forwarded the query related to National Sport to the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports.
In a reply, Sports Ministry Under Secretary Shiv Pratap Singh Tomar wrote in Hindi to Aishwarya that the Ministry has not declared any sport or game to be the National Game.
Surprisingly, the government portal under the head National symbol has given details of 14 such symbols which include - flag, bird, flower, tree, Anthem, River, Aquatic Animal, State Emblem, Calender, Animal, Song, Fruit, Game, Currency Symbol.
The portal says,"Indians of all demographics backgrounds across the world are proud of these National Symbols as they infuse a sense of pride and patriotism in every Indian's heart."
I-T returns:Biggest power blackout makes some Indians happy?
Aug 1: The biggest power blackout in India, which also has been termed
as the world's worst-ever power collapse, affected more than 60 crore
people in more than 20 states in India. However, it seems that the power grid failure brought some good news for many Indians who have failed to file their Income Tax (I-T) returns on time.The Income Tax department earlier had announced Jul 31 as the last date for filing returns. The department has made filing of income tax returns mandatory for all Indians especially for those whose annual income is Rs 10 lakh and above. Untill 2011, filing income tax returns was optional.
However, citing the pathetic condition of the country on Tuesday, Jul 31 the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) decided to extend the deadline and thus announced Aug 31 as the last date for filing the returns.
CBDT issued a statement saying, "This has been done in respect of assesses who are liable to file such returns by 31st July 2012 as per provisions of section 139 of Income Tax Act, 1961."
Tuesday's collapse was believed to have been triggered by four states withdrawing power from the northern grid at the same time. This led to a transmission failure at Agra.
Nearly, 500 trains stopped running all of a sudden. Vehicular movement was also affected. Traffic came to a grinding halt in many cities across north and east India.
Thousands of patients in hospitals suffered because doctors could not perform urgent surgeries in the absence of electricity.
Seeing how grave the situation was, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee even declared a holiday in her state to enable professionals and workers to reach their homes as soon as possible.
Due to the grid failure, hundreds of miners were trapped underground in Asansol and Sodedur. The mines are operated by the Eastern Coalfields Ltd.
Total 22 states including 9 from North India, 6 from East India and 7 from North-East India were affected over the power failure. The names of all 22 states have been mentioned below:
- Jammu and Kashmir
- Himachal Pradesh
- Punjab
- Uttarakhand
- Haryana
- Delhi
- Bihar
- Uttar Pradesh
- Rajasthan
- Chandigarh
- Chhattisgarh
- West Bengal
- Jharkhand
- Orissa
- Assam
- Sikkim
- Meghalaya
- Tripura
- Nagaland
- Manipur
- Mizoram
- Arunachal Pradesh
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)