MHA panel wants IIT-D help to fight cyber crime
NEWDELHI: The inter -ministerial committee on phone frauds (IMCPF) Monday suggested profiling of cyber crime victims by the Indian Institute of Technology (Delhi) and ranking of e-wallet companies as important measures necessary to tackle online fraud in India.
The committee, constituted by the ministry of home affairs (MHA) in September this year, has recommended that Iitdelhi should undertake an elaborate exercise of profiling victims of cyber crime, particularly those perpetrated through phone, to assess the most vulnerable sections of people in terms of their social standing, age group, and education, among others.
It has suggested that e-wallet companies should regularly publish data of cyber fraud committed by misusing their portals, eventual goal of the exercise being to rank the e-commerce websites.
In a statement the MHA said the decision can enable customers to make an informed choice before subscribing to e-wallet services.
Moreover, as part of customer alert mechanism, banks or e-wallet firms will be asked to provide additional information through alerts to customers, including names of “beneficiaries” of a financial transaction.
The recommendations were made during a high-level meeting presided over by home Minister Rajnath Singh. NEWDELHI: Retail inflation quickened to 3.58% in October, the fastest pace in seven months, spurred by rising food and fuel prices, virtually ruling out the possibility of an interest rate cut by the Reserve Bank of India in its 6 December monetary policy review.
Measured by the Consumer Price Index of CPI, retail inflation rose by 3.28% in September.
Combined food inflation in October was 1.9% in October, compared with 1.25% a month ago as vegetable prices increased by 7.47% from 3.92% in the previous month.
Prices of milk and egg increased modestly and fruit and fish prices came down marginally.
Data released by Central Statistics Office showed that inflation in urban India, at 3.81%, was higher than that in rural India, at 3.36%.
There is little likelihood of rate cuts in the immediate future, with the CPI inflation expected to track a rising trend in the second half of the financial year and print at around 4.5% in March 2018, analysts said.
To be sure, the GST Council’s decision on Friday to cut the tax rate on 177 items from 28% to 18%, leaving only 50 items under the highest tax slab, is expected to partially ease inflationary pressure on consumers as and when companies start passing on the benefits by cutting prices.
“We continue to expect an extended pause amid non-unanimous voting by the MPC (Monetary Policy Committee) in the December 2017 policy review,” said Aditi Nayar, principal economist at rating company ICRA Ltd. Calls for RBI to lower rates had become louder after economic growth decelerated to 5.7% in the quarter ended June, the slowest pace in three years.
The MPC in August cut its key policy rate by 25 basis points to 6%, the lowest since November 2010. The panel left rates unchanged in its October review. A basis point is a hundredth of a percentage point.
AGREEMENTS SIGNED India on Monday signed four agreements, including one to step up cooperation in the defence sector, after PM Modi held talks with Philippines President Rodrigo