GOVT PLANS ONE AUTHORITY FOR CYBERSECURITY

NEWDELHI: India may soon have a single authority or agency responsible for the entire spectrum of defensive cyber operations in the country, a senior official in a security agency said.

The move comes even as India faces renewed threat of cyber attacks and cyber terrorism. For instance, the breach in a part of a network of India’s largest civil nuclear facility, the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant in Tamil Nadu, in September.

According to the official, the plan is to rearrange and reorganize over a dozen agencies engaged in protecting India’s cyber infrastructure. Currently, these agencies have their individual control and reporting systems. The idea is to restructure these to ensure better coordination, the official added.

NEWDELHI: India’s factory output shrank for the second straight month in September at 4.3%, recording its worst performance since the present series was launched in April 2012.

All components of industrial output — mining, manufacturing and electricity — fell during the month, pointing towards a sluggish economy.

The persistent slowdown in industrial growth may force the Reserve Bank of India to go for another round of interest rate cuts in December, experts said.

Data released by the statistics department on Monday showed capital goods, which indicate investment demand in the economy, shrinking 20.7% in its ninth straight month of contraction, while both consumer durables and consumer non-durables also contracted, signalling a continuing slump in consumption demand.

“The sharp contraction in electricity generation in October 2019 is likely to have been led by multiple factors, including weaker demand from

NEW DELHI: After nearly a year of weak sales, India’s passenger vehicle industry recorded 0.3% growth in sales in October. The turnaround was, though, the only exception in the domestic automobile industry where all other segments recorded weaker sales last month.

A total of 285,027 passenger vehicles were sold in October, thanks to higher sales by market leader Maruti Suzuki India Ltd and new entrants Kia Motors India and MG Motor India.

industry following curtailed production schedules in some sectors, as well as lower domestic demand and farm offtake related to higher than normal rainfall,” Aditi Nayar, principal economist at CARE Ratings, said about the latest figures.