Major News and Events of 03 March 2014

Notice to the center and all the state governments was sent by the Supreme Court acting on a petition which seeks for formulating guidelines so that HIV positive children are not subjected to discrimination during school admissions. The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights also received this notice. This was done after Naz Foundation (India) Trust requested the apex court to specify directions under the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 about the discriminatory approach the schools adopt when they come to know that the child is HIV positive or even turn them down. In the PIL it is mentioned that directions to be put in so that any child is not denied admission, is suspended, separated or expelled when they are HIV positive or even when their parents or guardians are affected. Naz Foundation has also urged for such children be put under "disadvantaged" group so that the government looks into the fact that the right of education of such a child is not denied.

Arvind Kejriwal, the AAP leader has requested the Election Commission to lay down a code for broadcast of opinion polls prior to the Lok Sabha election. In another letter, has had urged the News Broadcasting Standards Authority to look into the fact how opinion polls are manipulated by some news channels. He specified that there should be clarity to those who organize these polls and media which broadcasts and they be made accountable. At the same time he added that blanket ban on opinion polls was not favored by the AAP party. This letter comes in wake of a sting operation which specifies that public opinion will be crafted and manipulated through these polls before the elections. Kejriwal has pressed for criminal investigation regarding such manipulations.

BJP’s prime ministerial candidate and Gujarat CM, Narendra Modi has stated that NDA will expand more. He was addressing an election rally in Muzaffarpur. He stated that more parties will come and join NDA like the LJP. Paswan had left the alliance after the Godhra riots in 2002. He also stated that NDA was in fact National Development Alliance. He also specified that Nitish Kumar’s government was being soft on militants due to vote bank politics. He also said that the government was not able to provide employment to people in Bihar as 8.5 lakh had registered for employment in 2012 and only 2000 were provided with jobs. He also said that the parties were more interested in how to handle him rather than solving the country’s problems.

The eTailing awards for the first time have been conferred to e-commerce majors like Ebay.in, Amazon.in, Yepme.com, BigBazaar Direct, Jabong and Flipkart. These are the eCommerce industry awards. The "Online Retailer of the Year" award went to Jabong.com, while Yepme.com was adjudged "Web-only Brand of the Year". Flipkart.com got "Business to Consumer (B2C) Marketplace of the Year" and "Global Online Marketplace of the Year" was awarded to Ebay.in. Amazon.in got the "Path-breaking Debut of the Year". The awards were given at and Exhibition 2014 an event by eTailing India which brought together businesses in retail and eCommerce which had participation from more than 300 people and awards were conferred in 10 different categories.

Sunil Gavaskar has come strongly on the dismal performance of the Indian cricket team. He stated that work ethics was missing which is reflecting on their performance in the Asia Cup in Bangladesh. India lost by one wicket in the match against Pakistan on Sunday night. With the second loss in a row, now India cannot think of reaching the finals. Gavaskar stated that India should be doing away with the 'optional practice'. At the same time he praised Kohli of showing promise when he was captaining for the first time in a major tournament. Gavaskar also specified that the Indian top order was too confident.

CERT-IN the agency that does surveillance of the cyber threats, have specified a warning that the Virtual Private Network or VPN provided by Android in India is enabling hijacking of users’ personal data. The malicious activity has been seen in Android 4.3 Jelly Bean and Android 4.4 KitKat versions. Through this an attacker can edge past VPN configuration and it can be redirected to a third party server or reveal unencrypted communication. VPN is used by organizations through which people can connect through their laptops,mobiles and tablets to enterprise networks from remote locations. But malicious applications can redirect the VPN traffic to another address which can lead to divulging of the communication through email addresses, SMSes, applications, IMEI number. Those applications which use SSL for connecting to the servers and websites which have 'https' in their URL cannot be affected.