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Home Minister P Chidambaram's pet project of establishing a National Intelligence Grid (NATGRID) to track terror and money laundering is likely to be vetted by the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) next month. Informed sources said that a 900 page Detailed Project Report (DPR) that has been prepared to answer the queries raised by the sceptics within the government, including the Prime Minister, on the efficacy of the NATGRID has been sent to the CCS members to study. NATGRID envisages a powerful real-time 24X7 networking of 21 databases with enforcement agencies having analytical capability to cross-link different pieces of information and flag "tripwires" to indicate some unlawful or terrorist activity is in progress or likely to take place.

The Supreme Court of India on Wednesday lifted its gag order on the media that restrained the latter from broadcasting and publishing former Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh's taped conversations with top politicians and Bollywood stars. File photo of Amar Singh (Pic: BCCL) A two-judge bench comprising Justices G S Singhvi and A K Ganguly dismissed Amar Singh's petition to prevent the broadcasting and publishing of his taped conversations, and vacated its interim order passed on February 27, 2006 restraining the media from making contents of the conversation public.

NEW DELHI: Security agencies will soon be equipped to intercept emails and cyber chats in real time through the Centralised Monitoring System (CMS). The high-tech CMS, expected to be operational in a year, will be set up in 30 locations across the country, including Delhi and state capitals.

As the government tries to put a legal framework in place for phone-tapping, a 126-year-old law has come to its rescue. Sources in the law ministry say, thanks to a provision in the Indian Telegraph Act 1885 that allows government in public interest to intercept messages, a new law may not be required at all. However, a directive - instead of a new law - may not take care of some of issues on tapping that have constantly been raised by experts. For instance, India is one the few countries, where tapping can be carried out without a court warrant.

With registration process under the Unique Identity Card scheme (UID) 'Aadhar' ending by June in Mysore district, district authorities have initiated steps making the quoting of UID or enrolment identification (EID) number compulsory at various levels in the state government offices in the district. This seems contrary to what the Unique Identification Authority of India or the UIDAI had said earlier that it would be optional.

MYSORE: Don't have Aadhar number? You could be in trouble. In a move to meet the June-end deadline for the unique identification (UID) number scheme, the Mysore district administration has made it mandatory for learner's licence or driving licence. If you have already applied for Aadhar, just quote the enrolment number to get the licence.

"NEW DELHI: "Right to privacy," like other fundamental rights in the Constitution and statutory rights under various laws, will soon become a reality. Union Law Minister Veerappa Moily indicated that a bill in this regard would be introduced in the monsoon session. The Right to Privacy Bill (a copy is with The Hindu) is to provide for such a right to citizens of India and to regulate collection, maintenance, use and dissemination of their personal information. Talking to The Hindu, Mr. Moily said the bill also provided for penal action for violation of such right."

To ensure elimination of bogus ration cards, the central government is pushing states to go for biometric ones, taking the help of unique identification (UID) numbers. States have been asked to take a lead in distributing biometric ration cards, as identification of beneficiaries for issuing ration cards is a state subject. States like Gujarat, Haryana and Maharashtra have already launched pilot projects to make biometric ration cards. A senior food ministry official said a biometric ration card would be different from a regular one. It would have barcoded details of the beneficiary, with a picture of the head of the family. The card can be read at any ration shop through a machine that will then be matched with the fingerprint details of the beneficiary to eliminate duplication or misuse.

Search giant Google Inc has settled with US regulators investigating privacy problems that cropped up in its botched roll-out of social network Buzz, the Federal Trade Commission said. Under the deal, Google agreed to have independent privacy audits every two years for the next 20 years. "This order technically applies only to Google but we think that many of the provisions of the order are good business practices" that the rest of the industry should follow, said Jessica Rich, deputy director of the FTC's Consumer Protection Bureau.

"The Supreme Court on Tuesday indicated that its order gagging the media from publishing and telecasting the tapped conversation of former Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh with top political leaders and Bollywood stars may be lifted. "We don't have to vacate the injunction as there is nothing surviving in your petition since it was done on forged documents," observed a Bench comprising Justice G S Singhvi and A K Ganguly. "Your incursion of privacy is established but your cure lies against Reliance which intercepted your calls. You have other remedy." "

"The Central Information Commission has directed the Raja Sabha Secretariat to disclose the details of private and pecuniary interests declared by MPs, including their commercial and business interests and remunerative positions held by them. Acting on an appeal filed by Anil Bairwal of the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), Chief Information Commissioner Satyendra Mishra asked the House to release the "register of members' [commercial and business] interest" containing details of their business and commercial interests such as "remunerative directorship, regular remunerative activity, shareholding of controlling nature, paid consultancy and professional engagement.""

For those agitated over the big brother snooping on their lives, there is more bad news in store as India's external intelligence agency, the Research & Analysis Wing (R&AW) has been notified by the UPA government as an "authorised agen-cy" to legally intercept phone calls, e-mails and all forms of data, voice and electronic communications with immediate effect. This is the first time in R&AW's history since its inception in 1967 that it has been allowed to snoop on Indian citizens in addition to its espionage activities abroad.

A government panel set up to examine security threats regarding 15 forms of communications, including Google's Gmail, Research in Motion's BlackBerry services, Nokia's email offerings and internet telephony among others, that cannot be tracked by law enforcement agencies here, has recommended that no service be banned purely on the grounds that it cannot be monitored. It has recommended that in the short term, India can force operators who offer such services to either locate their servers in the country or share encryption keys with security agencies and assist security agencies here in monitoring these services.

Cyber Crime police on Friday evening arrested an internet hacker, Vangalapudi Vijaya Kumar, 23, for swindling Rs 30,600 from an HDFC Bank customer. Vijaya Kumar, a resident of Boduppal and a native of Krishna district, secured the internet banking user name and password of a cyber cafe visitor. He used the details to purchase online a mobile phone (Nokia N-97) worth Rs 30,600 on December 3. On December 8, he sold the mobile instrument for Rs 20,000 to one Shahnawaz Zubair, a mobile vender at Jagdish Market, Abids. Through the IMEI number of the phone, the duo were traced and arrested, an official press release said.

BANGALORE: The Centaur Hotels' website, centaurhotels.com, appears to have compromised personal information of its hotel guests, in what seems to be a case of poor internet security protocols implemented by the site. This allowed website visitors on Saturday to obtain and view details of passports, driving licences, pan numbers, credit cards, and other forms of personal identification provided by its guests. Centaur Hotels, a unit of the Hotel Corporation of India (HCI), is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the National Aviation Company of India that runs national carrier Air India. It runs a hotel near the Delhi international airport and another in Srinagar.

The State-level pilot project of the biometric census for the National Population Register (NPR) began here on Friday. Speaking at the inaugural function, Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan, Minister for Revenue, said that the creation of a comprehensive database of the population would enable the people to avail of the benefits and services under various government programmes more effectively. It would not only aid the planning process, but also strengthen the security of the nation, he said. An iris scan was conducted on the Minister and his fingerprints and photograph were taken during the inaugural function

PANCHKULA: Following the footsteps of UT police, Haryana police is also mulling over to procure unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) for the force. Senior officials of Haryana police including ADGP (law and order) B S Sandhu on Tuesday witnessed the demonstration of an Israeli-made UAV ' Micro B ' at Sector-5 parade ground. Bangalore-based company officials demonstrated the vehicle for around one-and-a-half hours and Haryana police officials saw the pictures taken by the machine.

After months of uncertainty, the government on Monday gave its in-principle approval to National Intelligence Grid (NATGRID), which will facilitate robust information sharing among law enforcement agencies to combat terror threat at home and abroad. Read more at: http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/natgrid-gets-cabinet-approval-110816?cp

So much so, it has asked the telecoms department to make it mandatory for all mobile phone companies to secure suitable clearances from LEAs before running the Tiger application on their networks. "Use of the (Tiger Text) application by Indian telecom service providers can create operational problems for national security agencies

NEW DELHI: Indian law enforcement and national security officials are drawing up plans that will give them technology capabilities to cut off all internet services during emergencies. After a series of recent meetings on cyber security held at the prime Minister's Office at South Block, all government departments have been asked to jointly work on developing technologies and also invest in enhancing R&D capabilities to enhance the Centre's control on internet services within the country, officials aware of the development told ET.