Paying Uncle Sam for Stealing Our Secrets

WASHINGTON Post, the German and Swiss broadcasters ZDF and SRF have revealed that German Federal intelligence Agency BND and NSA-CIA jointly owned a Swiss company called Crypto AG. Through Crypto AG, they hacked into encrypted … Read more

Defence Budget Allocations: Crunch Time

FOR a hyper-nationalistic government that boasts of a muscular military posture, the defence budget of 2020 strikes a discordant note. The finance minister, while presenting the union budget for the year in a dreary two-hour … Read more

The Novel Coronavirus and the Virus of New Cold War

FOR the first time, on two successive days, the number of new cases of the novel coronavirus (2019nCov) have dropped below 4,000 as against the earlier daily figures. The comprehensive measures the Chinese authorities have taken … Read more

2019-nCoV, a New Threat and Exemplary Action by the Chinese Authorities

IN two months, the novel coronavirus—or 2019-nCoV—has affected more people than the SARS virus had done in 2002-2003. While it is spreading faster, it is more infectious than SARS, the infections are less severe: the … Read more

After Trump’s Stupid Acts, Can the US and Iran Avoid a Disastrous Collision?

WITH the US walking out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)—more commonly known as the Iran accord—we all enter into a heightened zone of danger. Trump is threatening a war on Iran through … Read more

Airbus 320neo problems: DGCA playing with fire

Indian passenger carriers flying the highly troubled Airbus 320/321 neo (new engine option) family of aircraft with US major Pratt & Whitney 1100G engines have been given a reprieve by the Director General of Civil … Read more

Pax Americana and the Threat of Nuclear Armageddon

THE decade ends with two major threats to humanity: global warming and the threat of a nuclear war extinguishing our civilisation. We have dealt earlier with global warming and the refusal of advanced countries, particularly … Read more

Modi Claims His Government is Digital; Why is He Shutting Down the Internet?

MODI has been claiming that his government has become transparent with all its data and services now being on the internet. If this is true, why is his government shutting down the internet? In 2018, … Read more

Government Lying on NPR being Different from NRC

The BJP and the Modi government claim the National Register of Citizens (NRC) process is yet to start. The Minister of State for Home Affairs, G. Kishan Reddy, has said: “A countrywide NRC had not … Read more

New Data Protection Bill: From Protecting our Data to Creating a Surveillance State

THE government has come out with a Draft Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019 which differs significantly from its earlier version drafted by Justice BN Sri Krishna in 2018. Justice Sri Krishna has called these changes … Read more

Another COP-Out: This Time Madrid

COP 25 or the 25th Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has been underway in the Spanish capital, Madrid, for the past week and is currently mid-way through its … Read more

Telecom: From License-Permit Raj to License-to-Loot Raj

THE major private operators, along with the State run operators in the telecom sector, are currently reeling under a three year price war with Reliance Jio. This has hit their profitability, with Jio buying its … Read more