450% Rise in Assam Cyber Crime

By Pankaj Sarma



















Guwahati, Jul 3 : There has been a phenomenal rise in the number of cyber crime cases registered in Assam, according to the latest figures released by the National Crime Records Bureau.

The NCRB report, titled Crime in India, 2013, which was released on Monday, shows that the number of cyber crime cases in Assam registered under the provisions of Information and Technology Act, 2000, leapfrogged from 28 in 2012 to 154 in 2013, an increase of a whopping 450 per cent.

In terms of percentage increase of cyber crime cases, Assam ranked second among the states in the country, only behind Uttarakhand.

Of the 154 cases registered in the state last year, 111 cases were registered under Section 67 of IT Act, which relates to obscene publication/transmission in electronic form.

The remaining cases were registered under Section 66 (1) of the IT Act, which pertains to hacking computer systems causing loss/damage to computer resource/utility.

Two persons were arrested last year in connection with cyber crime cases in Assam.

Both were in the age group of 18-30 years, the report said.

Not a single case of cyber crime was registered in Mizoram and Nagaland in 2012 and 2013, the report said. Arunachal Pradesh witnessed a decline in cyber crime cases from 12 in 2012 to 10 in 2013. In Tripura, the number of cyber crime cases registered remained unchanged in 2012 and 2013 at 14.

Assam additional director-general of police (CID) Mukesh Sahay said greater Internet penetration was one of the reasons for the increase in cyber crimes in the state.

“With the rising popularity of social networking sites, there has also been an increase in the cases of defamation on those sites,” Sahay said.

“We have received a number of cases related to defamation, threats and personal attacks made through social media,” he said.

“There has also been a rise in cases of financial frauds in cyberspace, which has contributed to the increase in total number of cyber crime cases,” he added. Sahay said a majority of these financial frauds were online banking frauds and credit cards frauds.

Last year, an official of the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) Ltd at Duliajan had lodged a police complaint after Rs 4 lakh was siphoned off by unidentified criminals from his bank account at SBI’s Dispur branch by hacking into his netbanking account.

“While there has been an increase in cyber crime cases, we have also detected and solved many such cases,” Sahay said.

On June 12, CID sleuths had arrested two youths — Jiaur Rahman, 25, and Illias Rahman, 23, — on charges of fraudulently withdrawing lakhs of rupees from bank accounts of different persons through Internet banking.

“Some people also misuse the Internet and social media for rumour-mongering, which had led to thousands of people from the Northeast fleeing Bangalore in 2012,” he said.

To deal with the menace, the state police have set up a cyber crime cell and a cyber forensic laboratory at the CID headquarters.

“We provide regular training to police personnel from the districts on cyber crime investigation at the CID headquarters,” Sahay said.

How World Cup Goalies Prepare for and Handle Penalty Shoot-Outs

By David Gendelman

THE ASAHI SHIBUM/GETTY IMAGES

Brazil's Júlio César, who performed well in a penalty shoot-out against Chile.

The World Cup’s knockout stage began this weekend. From here on out, each match must have a winner and a loser, and if the game is tied after 120 minutes of open-field play, it gets decided by penalty kicks. On Saturday, Brazil played Chile in the very first of these matches, in the tournament’s Round of 16, and it ended with the most dramatic penalty shoot-out since Italy beat France in the 2006 World Cup final. You got the sense that everything Brazil had put into hosting this year’s event was at stake—not just the money or the national pride Brazilians take in their own soccer superiority, but also the public’s tolerance for the outright absurdity and lack of humanity of the government’s investment in the tournament. The Brazilian team doesn’t have to win the World Cup to keep its people’s political dissatisfaction at bay, but it has to get pretty close. The Round of 16 is not close.

The immensity of the moment became very clear after Brazil won the shoot-out, and half of its team collapsed on the field in uncontrollable, hysterical tears. But it had also become clear a few minutes earlier, when its goalkeeper Júlio César started crying before the penalty kicks even began. Brazil has never been known for its goalies, and César is no exception—he plays in the M.L.S., after all, having signed with Toronto F.C. earlier this year after losing his starting job at Queens Park Rangers, a team that spent last season in England’s second division. But after leading Brazil to its shoot-out victory over Chile on Saturday, César is an afterthought no more.

“Penalties are almost the only time when the goalkeeper becomes a real hero,” said Bodo Illgner, a former goalkeeper and an analyst at beIN Sports. “With all his good performances throughout the match, he still needs a striker to score the goal, and then the striker gets all the spotlight. But a goalkeeper is able to get all the spotlight when he saves it in a penalty shoot-out.”

Illgner would know. As the goalkeeper for the 1990 World Cup–winning West Germany team (which featured a striker by the name of Jurgen Klinsmann, the current coach of the U.S. national team), Illgner led Germany over England in a semifinal win in penalties.

“We’re at such a disadvantage when it comes to penalty kicks that we’re not expected to save it,” said Brad Friedel, a goalkeeper at Tottenham in England’s Premier League who, remarkably, despite this disadvantage, saved the only two penalty kicks he faced for the United States at the 2002 World Cup (in matches against South Korea and Poland), when the U.S. advanced to the quarterfinals. Statistics back Friedel up. In open-field play in the World Cup, strikers score on 80 percent of penalties. “All the pressure is on the striker,” he said.

When the moment arrives for an end-of-the-match shoot-out, “you try to transmit all this pressure on him even more,” Illgner said. “You try to demonstrate strength with your body language, maybe you try to talk to him a little bit, play the cool role, show that you are in charge, that you are not worried.” It might work too. As the strikers step up to take the kick, you can often see fear emblazoned upon their faces like an emotional tattoo. In World Cup penalty shoot-outs, strikers’ success rate drops to 70 percent.

Intimidation isn’t the only weapon a goalkeeper has at his disposal in penalty situations. Nowadays, he has seen and studied all of the opposing team’s penalty kickers. He goes into the moment knowing those players’ preferences and tendencies in nearly every circumstance.

But as you get further into the shoot-out, players who have never before taken a penalty step up to the spot 12 yards from the goal. In these cases, a goalkeeper is “going to have to try to detect all that you can,” Friedel said. “I want to see what the planting foot is doing. I want to see where his body weight and shape is. Most of the times, the ball goes where the planting foot is placed, in the direction the toe is pointed. Not every time, but if you’re working on a percentage basis that’s what I try to do.”

In many instances, the new strikers are defenders. “The defensive player tends to make the secure shot,” Illgner said. “The secure shot, from my perspective, was always the diagonal shot. So the right footer would go for the left corner. But then you take this observation into consideration and you see how does this player cross the ball, how does he run with it, how does he play the foot finally. After all these things, then you make the final decision.”

You’ll also see goalkeepers jumping up and down before a penalty kick, waving their hands in the air, and faking a move to one side or the other. “I just try to get in the other player’s head as much as I can before the penalty is taken,” said Raul Fernandez, the goalie for the Peru national team and the M.L.S. team F.C. Dallas. “The movement is a big part of the goalkeeper’s defense.”

“It’s always a game of he thinks that I think that he thinks that I think, and it goes on and on and on,” Illgner said. “As a goalkeeper, once you get into the player’s mind, it’s 1-0 for you already. Because his only concern should be to see the ball, to know where he wants to go, and to hit the ball as good as he can.”

Sunday’s match between Costa Rica and Greece also went to penalties, which Costa Rica won. Its goalkeeper Keylor Navas made only one save of the four taken by Greece, a brilliant diving one on a shot by Theofanis Gekas. It turned out to be the only one necessary. Afterward, Navas was mobbed by his teammates and named Man of the Match, while the Greek players fell to the ground in despair.
Not all penalty shoot-outs have as much riding on them as the Brazil-Chile one seemed to. But maybe what sells penalty kicks as the final decider of a tied match—when nobody really wants the game to end with one—is that they all feel like they do. The World Cup comes only once every four years and a penalty-shoot-out loss in any knockout-stage match breaks the heart of the players, the fans, and often an entire nation. That’s drama enough.

David Gendelman is research editor at Vanity Fair. Follow him on Twitter at @gendelmand.

Manipur People Complain of Internet Connectivity

By Anushri Mondal

Imphal, Jul 2 : Regardless of whether it is the service provided by private companies or the government owned BSNL, internet connectivity is always a serious problem in this remote corner of the world.

This is despite the fact that almost everyone, right from the school going kids to working professionals, have started depending on internet for various purposes these days. Of course, the problem of internet connectivity is something that affects almost all users at one time or the other.

But in Manipur, the problem is so 'chronic' that almost every internet user in the state has come to live under the impression that the internet service is like that only. But the truth is that the same device which makes us to wait for hours without end in trying to open a home page in Manipur, works with lightning speed when use in other parts of the country.

Why this is happening so when the subscribers are paying the same rental charges, nothing less or nothing more? BSNL and other private internet service providers definitely owe an explanation to their users for poor connectivity of the internet service being provided in Manipur.

On the hand, adding more woes to the internet subscribers, all the telephone lines and cable wires of BSNL in Imphal areas have been lying non repaired for the last two weeks after the same were damaged during the eviction drive carried out for road expansion along the road stretch from Keishampat to Kwakeithel in Imphal West district.

Interestingly, BSNL authority at Imphal has come up with the most unusual excuse to any request for repairing the damaged telephone, saying that the state government did not give any prior information about the eviction drive that led to damaging its telephone lines.

Perhaps, it is because of this kind of attitude that an increasing number of private service providers are making en-route into a domain which used to be under the control of the government owned BSNL and doing better business.

NLUP To Continue Another 5 Years in Mizoram

Aizawl, Jul 2 : As has been decided by the 13th meeting of New Land Use Policy (NLUP) Apex Board, on June 5 under the leadership of Chief Minister Lal Thanhawla, New Land Used Policy (NLUP), the flagship programme of the Mizoram government shall be continued for another 5 years, an official release today said.

A discussion meeting in connection with this was convened today at NLUP Implementing Board Conference Hall here under the leadership of H.Liansailova, Vice Chairman, State Planning Board.

Besides NLUP Line Departments, officials from Revenue, Rural Development and Planning Department, and experts from NABARD, College of Veterinary Sciences & Animal Husbandry (Selesih) and MZU, took part in the discussion meeting.

J.H.Rothuama, Chairman, NLUP Implementing Board briefed the members over important matter pertaining to the flagship programme, after which the Officials and experts discussed comprehensively over how to carry out the NLUP hereafter.

The NLUP Line Departments and the experts also reviewed the initiatives under NLUP in the past 5 years.

The NLUP Line Departments are asked to ready the work-plan for continuation of the NLUP by July, 2014, the same to be chalked out in consultation with experts.

The meeting today resolved that after the work-plan is ready by the Line Departments, the same shall be discussed in consultation with the Central Ministries concerned, and then DPR shall be prepared.

The meeting held the opinion that chalking out a plan for better NLUP will not be a difficult one, as the Mizoram flagship programme has affinity with the NLUP (National Land Use Policy) of the new Central Government.

Newmai News Network

22 Die of Scrub Typhus Infection in Mizoram

Aizawl, Jul 2 : At least 22 people have died due to scrub typhus infection from ticks since 2012 in Mizoram, a state health department official said today.

492 patients suffering from scrub typhus infection were treated during the same period, Dr Pachuau Lalmalsawma, Nodal Officer for the state Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP) said.

Lalmalsawma said that the ticks carrying scrub typhus virus were mainly concentrated in Champhai district bordering Myanmar, while ticks carrying Indian Tick Typhus virus were mainly found in south Mizoram's Lunglei district.

The scrub typhus carrier ticks are extremely small and very difficult to detect in the jungle, but the bite could be fatal, he said.

Iraq crisis: What is a caliphate? All you need to know

Dubai: Sunni jihadists have declared an "Islamic caliphate" on territory they have seized in Iraq and Syria, reviving a system of rule abolished nearly one century ago.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL, renamed itself simply as the Islamic State, and ordered the world's Muslims to obey Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, now the "caliph" or successor to the Prophet Mohammed.

What is a caliphate?
After the Prophet Mohammed died in 632 AD, his followers agreed on the caliphate system, meaning succession in Arabic, as the new mode of rule.
The caliph's main duty was to implement Muslim law in the land of Islam and spread it across an empire that expanded from what is now western Saudi Arabia.
The first caliph was appointed in two stages, under which representatives of Muslim communities chose Abu Bakr and then submitted his name to the public seeking their backing.
But from day one Muslims differed on the concept of the caliphate -- a mainly Sunni system that Shiites contest as they believe the cousin of the prophet, Imam Ali, and his offspring had a divine right to lead after Mohammed's death.
Under the caliphate, a whole governing structure was developed and expanded as the territory of the state stretched in all directions. The caliph had ministers and appointed rulers in the widespread emirates.

How long did it last?
Zealous Muslims believe the caliphate lasted until it was abolished following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I.
But it is generally thought to have lasted in its original form for just three decades, during the reign of the first four leaders, known as the Four Rightly Guided Caliphs.
Several dynasties fought for power and ruled in the empire's vast territories, including the Omayyads in Damascus (661-750), Abbasids in Baghdad (750-1258), and the Ottomans in Turkey (1453-1924).
The succession process was hereditary and rulers all adopted the title of caliph.
In March 1924, the founding father of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, constitutionally abolished the caliphate.

What were its boundaries?
The land where Islam flourished has never been limited by a constitution, and expansion to spread the religion was always considered part of the caliphate's role.
At its peak, Ottoman rule covered the Middle East and North Africa, the Caucasus and parts of Eastern Europe.

Are any movements calling for the revival of a caliphate?
Political Islam in general calls for the rule of sharia law as a system of life, including politics.
The founder of the Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, Hasan al-Banna, considered the caliphate a symbol of Islamic unity, and reinstating the system was one of its goals. But Banna argued the caliphate needed to be preceded by cooperation agreements between Muslim states to pave the way for an eventual union led by an agreed-upon imam.
Hizb ut-Tahrir, or the Party of Liberation, a pan-Islamic group formed in 1953, is known for focusing on unifying Muslim countries in a caliphate.

Did Al-Qaeda want a caliphate?
An Islamic state has been the "great dream" of Al-Qaeda since the 11 September, 2001 attacks on the United States, according to Mustafa al-Ani, from the Gulf Research Centre.
ISIL's declaration is only a "nucleus for the caliphate that would expand with the collapse of established states," he argued.
In 1996, the Taliban established an Islamic emirate in Afghanistan which it ruled until the jihadist group was ousted by a US-led offensive in 2001. But the leader of the Taliban did not adopt the caliph title, preferring the rank of Amir al-Muminin, or commander of the faithful, another title carried used by caliphs.

Does the caliphate have a future?
The Islamic State could remain in place "in the current situation which is characterised by the weakness of the government in Baghdad and the absence of a foreign intervention," said Ani.
But the jihadists would have to "liquidate other Islamist groups" not loyal to them and crush any attempt at revolt within the territories they control. They would also have to strengthen their defences and impose the rule of Islamic courts.

Kaladan Waterway Phase To Be Completed By Next March

The construction site of Sittwe port under Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport Project (Photo-EMG)

The Kaladan Project support committee has announced that they will finish the waterway phase of the multi-transit route between Sittwe and the Indian border by March 2015.

The Multi-Modal Transit Transport Project aims to create a trade route between Sittwe port, in Rakhine State, and the land-locked region of Mizoram, in northeastern India, via river and road transport.

The waterway phase involves constructing an integrated port and inland water transport system, including dredging a navigational channel 158 km along the river Kaladan from Sittwe to Paletwa.

"The waterway project will be completed by the end of March in 2015. The whole project will be completed later than the expected deadline is 2016. A waterway project from Paletwa to Setpyitpyin has been cancelled and it's decided that only a road will be built as a replacement," said a top-ranking official from Myanmar Port Authority.

He added that the Indian company ESSAR which is carrying out several phases of the project will have to request more money from the Indian government to complete the road project.

The expressway which will connect Paletwa to the Indian border will cost an estimated US$ 140 million.

In April 2008 the Indian government signed a deal for the Kaladan Project with the former military junta, aimed at easing commercial access to the remote and landlocked regions of north-eastern India.

Six 300-tonne vessels will also be built under the project but equipment still needs to be imported to Myanmar, according to the support committee.

Not Confrontation But Transformation

By Sanjoy Hazarika

In his home on a high, windy hill above the broken road that passes for a national highway in Nagaland, Niketu Iralu told us of his work and how he and his wife, Christine, have created a welcoming environment that embraces dialogue among differing groups in the North-Eastern region.

Listening to their stories, a friend from Delhi said, “I really find it hard to believe that people like you exist in this world.”

The Iralu home in Zupsha, near Kohima, is always filled with music, the cooking of many meals and talk. Friends, associates and well-wishers contribute — villagers come with sacks of grain, others bring meat, some send fresh vegetables.

Young Nagas come to share problems, political leaders drop in as do powerful bureaucrats, grizzled village elders and church figures. Bodo activists from Assam tell of concerns, so do Assamese scholars and writers.

For many years, Niketu and Christine have worked tirelessly to build a fabric of reconciliation among communities, binding the wounds of conflict in a place that is breathing peacefully after half a century of bloodshed.

This is not an isolated trend: Across the North-East the Iralus and others are part of a growing band of quiet foot soldiers who are marching to the tune of a different drummer, working for peace, discussions and the restoration of rights.

A group with which I am closely associated organises boat clinics for the unreached on the islands of the Brahmaputra, partnering the National Rural Health Mission, in an innovative effort that has reached over 1.3 million people with healthcare.

A former army doctor and his wife have set up a network of Bodo women weavers, which spreads the message of productive peace. An inventor wins prizes for new simple creations that peel vegetables and fruits.

These are not noisy activist groups seeking change through confrontation but transformation through dialogue. Of course, there are also outspoken organisations such as the Naga Mothers Association, which battles human rights violations as well as the new enemies of drugs and alcohol, and Manipur’s Irom Sharmila in her unending hunger strike against the AFSPA.

One sturdy group in Nagaland that has refused to bow to the formidable might of militants is the Action Committee Against Unabated Taxation (ACAUT).

Started a few years ago by a team that includes Kekhiye Sema, a former IAS officer, the ACAUT has taken the armed factions head-on, accusing them of extorting the Nagas dry and enabling New Delhi to exploit differences among the major Naga armed factions.

Last November, it organised a public meeting of people fed up with the daily extortion – ranging from tea-shop owners and professionals to government officials and business persons. The most powerful group, the NSCN (I-M), ‘banned’ the meeting but over 25,000 defied the diktat.

The ACAUT’s efforts go beyond criticising the ‘underground’ groups. A majority of the cadre here with ULFA and other factions live in ‘designated camps’ while unending dialogues continue. Smaller breakaway groups buck dialogue by hitting vulnerable groups and officials.

Under its banner of ‘One tax, One government’ (Nagas and most hill tribe groups in the NER are not covered by income tax), the ACAUT wants all the armed and political factions to unite and take the discussions with New Delhi forward.

This represents the missing factor in talks that have eluded settlement and which the Government of India could tap into: Consulting civil society, which has mobilised for a common cause.

(Sanjoy Hazarika is director of the Centre for North East Studies and Policy Research, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. The views expressed by the author are personal.)
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