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The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Finance Ministry are at loggerheads again on the issue of setting up an autonomous entity to manage the government’s debt, estimated at Rs 18.44 lakh crore or almost 40 per cent of the GDP as on March 31, 2008.

At present, this function is managed by the RBI resulting in a conflict of interest situation where the central bank sets the short-term interest rate as a monetary authority and simultaneously sells government bonds as the country’s debt manager.

Rakesh Mohan, Deputy Governor, RBI, who chairs a committee on financial sector assessment (FSA) constituted by the government and the central bank in September 2006, has firmly opposed the setting up of an independent Debt Management Office (DMO) outside the central bank’s purview.

The FSA exercise, undertaken by India on its own for the first time based on a handbook prepared by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, is complete now and a comprehensive report on the stability and development of India’s financial sector will be published soon.

According to government officials, confirmed separately by sources in the RBI, in the last and final meeting of the FSA committee, Rakesh Mohan pointed out that divesting the RBI of its debt management functions was not prudent at a time when the government is running a high fiscal deficit. His views are that of the RBI. But the co-chair of the committee, Economic Affairs Secretary Ashok Chawla and member Arvind Virmani, currently Chief Economic Advisor in the finance ministry, both strongly recommended the desirability of setting up an independent DMO.

The Centre’s fiscal deficit, budgeted at 2.8 per cent of the gross domestic product in the beginning of 2008-09, is estimated to be around 7.9-8 per cent of the GDP, according to the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council. The RBI fears that political and government interference in the affairs of the DMO may cause irreparable damage, given the scale of its operations.

Finance ministry officials, however, contend that there is no right time to do the right thing. “In fact, tough choices should be made now, especially with the government’s borrowing programme increasing, huge savings can be made on interest payments. The RBI has never really wanted to cede control. It is now citing high fiscal deficit as a reason,” an official said.

When contacted, Virmani said his views were clear right from the time he headed a panel way back in 2001 on the issue. The panel he chaired then had recommended setting up a middle office within the finance ministry to develop a risk management framework in the first stage and an autonomous DMO backed by statute in the second stage.

The government had, in Budget 2007-08, announced its decision to set up an autonomous debt management office. But, with a reluctant RBI, it took a while - 18 months or so - before the finance ministry could even set up a middle office in its premises to initiate work on the Budget promise. It later set up an internal working group under Jahangir Aziz, former principal economic advisor, finance ministry that recommended setting up a National Treasury Management Agency to manage the government debt.

Aziz, who is now Executive Director, JP Morgan Chase Bank, NA at its Mumbai branch, said, that India’s debt as a percentage of GDP has stabilized over the last 6-7 years. “In Japan that has a DMO, the public debt-GDP ratio is much higher than India’s. High fiscal deficit and public debt cannot be reasons not to have a DMO,” he said.

According to Aziz, for the monetary policy to be more credible, it is important to remove fears in the market that monetary actions are taken to serve other interests. “For instance, today the market is always guessing if a rate cut or a reduction in the cash reserve ratio is a signal of higher government borrowings,” he said, adding that monetary action should not be influenced by the level of government borrowings.

Iceland’s government unveiled Tuesday a steep rise in its disputed commercial whale hunt, a sixfold increase allowing the killing of 150 fin whales and up to 150 minke whales a year. Iceland, which pulled out of an international whaling moratorium in 2006 after observing it for 16 years, had a quota of nine fin whales and 40 minke whales per year.

But outgoing Fisheries Minister Einar Gudfinnsson said the government would follow the recommendations of the Marine Research Institute, which suggested a quota of 150 fin whales and 100 to 150 minke whales a year over the next five years.

“I think that whalers will be satisfied by this quota,” Gudfinnsson told AFP.

Gudfinnsson is a member of the centre-right Independence Party, whose coalition government with the left-leaning Social Democrats collapsed on Monday following protests over its handling of the economic crisis.

The Social Democrats and Left Greens, who oppose whaling, have been asked by President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson to form a new minority coalition after the one led by Prime Minister Geir Haarde, of the Independence Party, resigned.

Foreign Minister Ingibjoerg Solrun Gisladottir, the Social Democratic leader, had blasted Gudfinnsson in May for authorising whale hunting again this year.

Conservationists blasted the new quota.

“I hope that the minister who will replace Einar (Gudfinnsson) will have the courage to recall this decision,” said Arni Finnsson, of the Icelandic Natural Conservation.

Iceland and Norway are the only two countries in the world that authorise commercial whaling. Japan officially hunts whales for scientific purposes, although the whale meat is sold for consumption.

Using an advanced method of facial reconstruction, a team of researchers at the Otago University in New Zealand, has revealed the face of an Egyptian aristocrat, dating back to 2,000 years.The 35-year-old female aristocrat has been part of the Otago Museum’s collection for more than a century.

The facial reconstruction of the mummy is the result of over a year’s work by a team from Otago University and they are confident that their modern day model is extremely accurate.

“I would say if somebody from that era comes and sees this reconstruction, I would say they would recognise her,” said Dr George Dias from Otago University’s Adanatomy Department.

The team developed an advanced method of facial reconstruction, which more accurately recreates the soft tissues like nose and skin surrounding the skull.

Previous methods have more guesswork and left the process open to artistic interpretation.

“We know there’s no such thing called an average face,” said Dr Dias. “You take two people from the same racial background, same age, same sex, the faces are different,” he added.

Four years ago, scientists in Egypt put the mummy of Tutankhamen through a CAT scan. There, the fragile skeleton of the young Pharaoh was already unwrapped.

But this new process is non-invasive, preserving the ancient artefact by editing the original CAT scan.

The mummy was then electronically unwrapped, stripping away her wooden sarcophagus, bandages, and remaining soft tissue, thus revealing an accurate 3D image of the skull inside.

The process also has genuine real world applications, in the area of Police forensics and cold cases.

The next step is using silicone skin, to create a more human face.

Aerospace firm Boeing has reported that their prototype truck-mounted laser has shot down an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) at a missile range in New Mexico, US.According to a report in New Scientist, mounted on a Humvee off-road vehicle, the Laser Avenger is an infrared laser with power levels somewhere in the tens of kilowatts range.

It is designed to take down the smaller variety of UAV, which are hardest for conventional air-defence weapons to target.

The power of its laser has been doubled since 2007, when it was shown off destroying a stationary improvised bomb.

Now it has tracked three small UAVs and shot one of them down.

The laser tracks an object and holds fire until the target is close enough for it to cause burning with a single blast.

Marc Selinger, a Boeing spokesman based in Crystal City, Virginia, has not disclosed at what distance this was achieved, saying it was “an operationally relevant range”.

“The feat is all the more important because the tracking was achieved against the complex, cluttered visual background of the New Mexico mountains and desert scenery,” he said.

The Laser Avenger is a modified version of an existing US Army air defence system that uses two Stinger missile launchers and a heavy machine gun, with one missile pod swapped for the laser and its target tracker.

“If funded by the Pentagon, the Laser Avenger could be available within a year,” according to Selinger.

Firing a laser multiple times would also be cheaper than firing many missiles, and could continue as long as power can be supplied.

However, Brown’s colleague Peter Felstead, editor of Jane’s Defence Weekly, said that the first battlefield lasers will not have UAVs in their sights.

“Laser weapons are more likely to be fielded first to counter rockets and mortars, and that capability is not that far away,” he said.

The Vatican has launched a YouTube channel devoted to the Pope in a bid to target online audiences and spread the teachings of the Catholic Church.Also, the Holy See revealed that it is planning to give Pope Benedict XVI a Facebook profile.

YouTube will showcase clips of the 81-year-old Pontiff in a renewed effort to engage with the tech-savy generation, reports the Telegraph.

“We are convinced that there are people interested in the pope’s message and that they, in their search for the meaning of life, are among the many who surf the web. It is for them that we have opened a YouTube channel,” said chief Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi.

The Vatican, however, had not paid Google, YouTube owners, to launch the channel.

“We didn’t pay a cent to Google,” Father Lombardi said, adding that the channel was the Vatican’s “offer” to the world.

The Pope’s debut on the site “writes a new page in the history of the Holy See”, the Vatican’s website said.

The Vatican will update the YouTube site with the most important papal news items of the day, with messages available in Italian, German, English and Spanish.

The largest single type of security breach is the stolen or lost laptop, according to the Open Security Foundation, yet these computers are among the least protected of all IT assets. The costs of a data breach can be huge, including the loss of trade secrets, marketing plans, and other competitive information that could have long-term business damage, plus the immediate costs of having to notify people if their personal information was possibly at risk from the breach. Particularly in a recession, enterprise management can’t afford to take these risks lightly.There is a way for IT to protect those laptops and the confidential information they contain: encryption. Without the combination of password security and encryption, any halfway-competent hacker has no problem siphoning hard drive contents and putting it to nefarious use.

[ Stay up to date on key security issues and solutions in InfoWorld's Security Adviser blog. | Keep abreast of the latest mobile developments in the Mobile Pulse blog. ]

Perhaps the most important advantage of full disk encryption, though — beyond the peace of mind it gives your business’s lawyers — is the “safe harbor” immunity that accrues under many data privacy regulations. For example, credit card disclosure rules don’t apply to encrypted data, and even California’s strict data-disclosure statute makes an exception for encrypted records — provided you can prove they’re encrypted. That’s trivial with full disk encryption but not so easy with partial encryption techniques, which depend on user education for safe operation.

A key challenge for IT in deploying encryption on its laptops is the sheer number of encryption options available. Some Windows Vista editions, as well as the forthcoming Windows 7, support Microsoft’s built-in BitLocker encryption, and numerous third-party encryption products cover the range of mobile operating systems from XP through Windows 7, Linux, and Mac OS X. Encryption granularity is widely variable as well, ranging from protecting individual files to encrypting virtual disks to deploying fully armored, hardware-based full disk encryption. Prices range from free to moderately expensive.

If you’ve put off laptop data security due to perceived technical shortcomings or high costs, you need to take another look at the field — before you lose another laptop.

The maximum encryption protection possible: TPM
Ideally, you’ll deploy the full-metal-jacket approach to laptop data protection: full disk encryption using the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) technology. If you can afford the cost, waste no time with inferior methods. All you need is a laptop containing a TPM security coprocessor and, optionally, an encryption-enabled hard drive from one of the major hard drive manufacturers.

The TPM is a chip soldered on to the laptop’s motherboard, providing hardware-based device authentication, tamper detection, and encryption key storage. The TPM generates encryption keys, keeping half of the key information to itself, making it impossible to recover data from an encrypted hard drive apart from the computer in which it was originally installed. Even if an attacker gets the user’s part of the encryption key or disk password, the TPM-protected drive’s contents can’t be read when connected to another computer. Further, the TPM generates a unique digital signature from the motherboard in which it’s embedded, foiling attempts to move the TPM chip itself to another machine.

TPM-enabled full disk encryption, especially hardware-based implementations of it, provides one other key benefit to enterprises: data erasure upon laptop decommissioning or repurposing. A common bugaboo in the enterprise is the accidental disclosure of data when seemingly worthless outdated laptops are discarded or sold, or transferred to another employee. Erasing sensitive information in such situations is not trivial, and even removing and physically mangling a laptop’s hard drive is no guarantee against disclosure. However, because TPM has absolute control over the encryption keys — remember, half of the key information is stored with the TPM itself — you can simply tell TPM to forget its keys, and the hard drive is instantly reformatted and effectively rendered nonrecoverable. Disk sectors aren’t zeroed, but no computationally feasible method exists today to decrypt the residue.

A great many enterprise-class laptops manufactured in the last two to three years shipped with embedded TPM chips; Apple’s Macs are a key exception, as none since 2006 include a TPM chip. But the TPM chips must be explicitly enabled to use them as the authentication mechanism for encryption.

If your laptops have a TPM chip, don’t try enabling it without carefully following the vendor’s instructions — otherwise, you could accidentally wipe out the laptop’s hard drive. Before enabling the TPM chip in a laptop, you must first take ownership of it, a process that establishes user and management-level passwords and generates the initial set of encryption keys. The management password lets IT administration monitor the inventory of TPM devices, recover lost user passwords, and keep track of usage.

A TPM works with the laptop’s resident operating system to encrypt either the entire hard drive or most of it, depending on the OS encryption implementation. (Microsoft’s BitLocker, for example, requires a small, unencrypted initial-boot partition). Alternatively, a TPM can interoperate with encryption-enabled hard drives to perform encryption entirely outside of, and transparent to, the operating system.

The TPM technology isn’t perfect, but it provides very solid protection in the most common incident, where a laptop is lost or stolen and the user has not left it logged in. If the laptop is powered off, TPM protection is absolute. Most implementations use 256-bit AES encryption, which is considered uncrackable for the foreseeable future. Powering up the device requires entering pre-boot credentials in the form of a password, a PIN, a smartcard, biometric data, a one-time-password token, or any combination of these. If the lost laptop is powered on (but not logged in), or just powered off, an attacker would have to use extraordinary procedures to recover the encryption keys from live memory.

However, if a lost device is powered up and logged in, a TPM provides zero protection. An interloper can simply dump the data off the hard drive in the clear using ordinary file copies. Thus, it’s essential that TPM-protected systems have noncircumventable log-in timeouts using administrator-protected settings.

To achieve the ultimate in full disk encryption protection requires hardware-enabled encryption on board the hard drive. Drive-based encryption closes all of TPM’s loopholes, since the encryption key is no longer stored in OS-accessible memory. Hardware-based full disk encryption also eliminates the performance penalty incurred by software-based full disk encryption, although with today’s fast, processors, that software encryption overhead is not noticeable to most users.

The cost for TPM protection starts at zero for Microsoft’s BitLocker, which is built into Vista Enterprise and Ultimate, Windows Server 2008, and the forthcoming Windows 7. Major laptop manufacturers also sell software bundles that enable TPM in any Windows version, including XP, such as Wave’s Embassy Trust Suite and McAfee’s SafeBoot. The advantage of bundled software is sole-source support and pre-tested configurations.

You can also roll your own software protection using stand-alone packages such as PGP Whole Disk Encryption.

All these products support a wide range of enterprise-class management tools that let you enforce uniform policies and centrally store encryption keys, including special data-recovery keys that solve the problem of lost passwords and prevent employees from locking employers out of their hard drives.

If you can’t do TPM, here’s your plan B for encryption
Although the deployment of TPM-based full description is ideal, you may count the cost of full disk encryption and come up short-funded, especially if you just refreshed your enterprise laptops with non-TPM models. Forklifting your entire laptop population is an undeniably expensive proposition, as is replacing the non-TPM laptops if your company has a mix of TPM and non-TPM laptops. If you can’t go all TPM, there’s a plan B that can give you much of the encryption benefits you need.

You might think that plan B involves partial disk encryption, typically deployed by designating specific folders on a laptop as encrypted; as files are moved into that folder, they are automatically encrypted. Apple and Microsoft have long offered this form of encryption, via FileVault on the Mac and the Encrypted File System tools in Windows XP and Vista. But this approach has a major flaw: It depends on users to properly store sensitive data only in encrypted form.

A variation of folder-level encryption is virtual disk encryption (VDE), in which a single disk file contains a virtual disk image that the user can mount when needed; this virtual disk collects all sensitive files in one location. Microsoft’s BitLocker offers this feature in all Vista editions, as well as in Windows Server 2008 and Windows XP. Third-party products such as PGPDisk and even free open source software programs such as TrueCrypt have VDE capabilities. Many of these third-party utilities are easier to use than BitLocker, so they can save you some implementation expense.

Another form of partial disk encryption is to apply encryption to specific files, typically those residing on corporate servers that users want to open locally. In this approach, users must enter a password every time they open a protected file. IT not only is on the hook to ensure that all sensitive files get encrypted but also has no way to stop users from simply saving the opened file as an unencrypted copy. Still, this protection is better than nothing and is widely available via free disk utilities. But key management can be a problem, and these file-level encryption tools generally don’t support multifactor authentication.

But the best plan B to TPM-enabled full disk encryption isn’t any of these partial disk methods. The best plan is software-only full disk encryption, in which either the operating system or a third-party program performs the same encryption as with TPM but uses another method to store the encryption keys, such as a thumb drive or a smart card.

The good news is that virtually all-TPM full disk encryption suppliers’ offerings, including BitLocker, can operate in this software-only mode, which relies on a removable hardware token so that you can use this approach for your non-TPM devices while having a consistent encryption method to manage across all your laptops.

It’s true that software-based full disk encryption is less secure than if you have a TPM-equipped laptop: The entire drive can still be encrypted, but a determined hacker will have more opportunities to gain access through compromised keys. For example, if the key-storage token is left with the notebook computer (how likely is that?), the hacker may be able to simply plug the token in and gain access to the drive contents. Even multifactor authentication in this scenario is subject to attack by inspection, since the key token is not tightly bound to the system motherboard.

Still, when TPM-enabled encryption is not an option, pure software full disk encryption can still give you considerable peace of mind, as well as provide the “safe harbor” benefits afforded encrypted systems in data-privacy regulations. Software full disk encryption solutions have also been around long enough that they’re available for most mobile computing platforms, including Linux and Mac OS X.

TPM technology changes to come
Although TPM full disk encryption with hardware-based encryption in the hard drive is the best you can do for data protection today, security researchers are constantly testing TPM’s mettle and devising improvements to it.

One potential vulnerability of today’s separate TPM chip implementation is that keys must be transported across conductors in the motherboard to the CPU for software-based full disk encryption, or to the hard drive for hardware-based full disk encryption. That could provide an entry point for a hacker. That’s why a major vendor trend is to move all TPM-oriented data manipulation on to the CPU chip set in the form of customized silicon. Intel has advertised its vPro solution, which is part of the upcoming Danbury processor and Eaglelake chip set. This feature will perform all encryption and decryption for SATA and eSATA drives without involving the CPU, OS device drivers, or even the hard drive itself.

Such an approach could make TPM even more secure. But there’s no reason to wait until such chips are standard in laptops. With today’s TPM-equipped laptops, and with the software-based fallback option for non-TPM laptops, you have a platform for a consistent, manageable, secure deployment strategy. Consider yourself lucky if you’ve successfully dodged the stolen laptop bullet thus far. But don’t tempt fate — or hackers. Implement some form of laptop encryption today.

Veteran technology executive Carol Bartz will takeover the reins of Yahoo! as Chief Executive, from its embattled founder Jerry Yang, as the Internet major looks for ways to make a turnaround. The appointment of Bartz culminates the nearly two-month long search for a Chief Executive, after Yang decided to step down in mid-November. Meanwhile, Yahoo!’s President Sue Decker would also resign from the company. Yang had come under fire in the wake of the Internet major’s reluctance for the USD 47.5-billion takeover offer from Microsoft, forcing the software giant to walk away from the bid.

Later, the much talked about proposed advertising deal with Google also collapsed. Sixty-year-old Bartz, whose appointment as Chief Executive and to Yahoo!’s board is effective immediately, was most recently the Executive Chairman of software maker Autodesk.

“She is the exact combination of seasoned technology executive and savvy leader that the Board was looking for.

,” Yahoo!’s Chairman Roy Bostock said in a statement on Tuesday about Bartz taking over as the Chief Executive.

Bostock added that Bartz met all of the criteria that the company had set for the search and “is the only person to whom we offered the job.” Interestingly, reports suggested that Decker was also in the race for the top post.

The statement noted that Decker would resign after remaining with the company for a transitional period. As Autodesk’s Chief Executive for 14 years, Bartz helped in transforming the firm into a leader in computer-aided design software.

Hiring an Arizona personal injury lawyer is one of the best things you can do to protect your rights after an accident. They will be able to handle all of the problems that you’ll face and it’s just a good idea to have an experienced professional on your side. You might not know just how to find one though. Don’t worry. It’s easier than ever before to find a perfect person to take up your cause. You just need to know the right places to look.

The first place to look should be the plethora of online sources for Arizona personal injury lawyers. There are plenty or directories and listings available that detail the lawyers ready for your business. There are usually even notes about past cases and experience, so you can narrow it down to a field of lawyers who are just right for your case. This is at least a good place to start your search. It’s also fairly easy to manage if you are stressed and busy with the other problems of the crash. Checking online directories should be easy to squeeze in during a few spare minutes.

Once you have your list narrowed, just start asking around. You can usually call and set up a consultation to get more advice and see what they’d do for you. I don’t know a better way to sort through the list of Arizona personal injury attorneys. If are looking to hire one, then you should invest this time to find the one that’s just right.

After talking the world of communication by storm, cell phones are now set to revolutionise the field of medicine as well.Scientists at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) have created a cell phone that can monitor the condition of HIV and malaria patients and test water quality at disaster sites and undeveloped areas.

UCLA electrical engineering professor Aydogan Ozcan has constructed the new innovative imaging technology, which has been miniaturized by researchers in his lab to the point that it can fit in standard cell phones.

The imaging platform, known as LUCAS (Lensless Ultra-wide-field Cell monitoring Array platform based on Shadow imaging), has now been successfully installed in both a cell phone and a webcam. Both devices acquire an image in the same way as using a short wavelength blue light to illuminate a blood, saliva or other fluid sample.

LUCAS captures an image of the microparticles in the solution using a sensor array.

As red blood cells and other microparticles have a distinct diffraction pattern, or shadow image, it becomes easier to identify and count them almost instantaneously by LUCAS using a custom-developed “decision algorithm” that compares the captured shadow images to a library of training images. Data collected by LUCAS can then be sent to a hospital for analysis and diagnosis using the cell phone, or transferred via USB to a computer for transmission to a hospital.LUCAS is not a substitute for a microscope but rather a complement. Unlike microscopes, which produces detailed images, images produced by LUCAS are grainy and pixelated.

The LUCAS platform’s advantage lies in its ability to nearly instantaneously identify and count microparticles, something that is time consuming and difficult to do with a microscope in resource-limited settings. Also, because LUCAS does not use a lens, the only constraint on size is the size of the chip it is built on.

“This technology will not only have great impact in health care applications, it also has the potential to replace cytometers in research labs at a fraction of the cost. A conventional flow-cytometer identifies cells serially, one at a time, whereas tabletop versions of LUCAS can identify thousands of cells in a second, all in parallel, with the same accuracy,” said Ozcan.

In the current study, Ozcan described an improvement in the LUCAS system, which he calls holographic LUCAS. This improvement allows for identification of smaller particles such as E. coli that were not previously possible.

In a new research, scientists have studied stone-handling behavior in several troops of Japanese macaques, which may shed light on the evolution of stone-tool use in early hominids.By watching these monkeys acquire and maintain behavioral traditions from generation to generation, the scientists have gained insight into the cultural evolution of humans.

Primatologists Michael A. Huffman, Charmalie A.D. Nahallage, and Jean-Baptiste Leca from the Primate Research Institute in Kyoto, Japan, assessed social learning exhibited by these macaques during stone-handling, a behavior that has been passed down from elder to younger since it was observed in some of the troops in 1979.

Stone-handling, in this study, included rubbing and clacking stones together, pounding them onto hard surfaces, picking them up, and cuddling, carrying, pushing, rolling and throwing them.

The scientists found, for example, that an infant’s proximity to their mother had a significant impact on the development of the infant’s stone-handling abilities.

In other words, infants with mothers who frequently exhibited stone-handling behaviors spent more time with their mother, about 75 percent of their time, during the first three months of life, and they also participated in stone-handling earlier in life than the other infants.

These findings suggest that the mothers’ frequent stone-handling caught the infants’ attention, and as a result, the infants acquired the behavior more quickly than other infants.

Furthermore, the primatologists reported that the stone-handling behavior changed with each generation as individual macaques contributed their own patterns of stone-handling, such as stone-throwing.

According to the authors, “The recent emergence of a unique behavior, stone-throwing, may serve to augment the effect of intimidation displays.”

“Research on such transformation may shed light on the evolution of stone-tool use in early hominids,” they concluded.