10.07.2008

• The politics surrounding the Indo US nuclear deal
• While I was away from the computer for the last 5 days, some quick development happened on this front.
• The Left decided to withdraw its support and served a letter to that effect to the President.
• Shortly thereafter, a statement from the IAEA said that India’s draft nuclear safeguards accord with the International Atomic Energy Agency has been given to the IAEA’s board of governors for approval.
• The Government (more correctly the Congress party) has firmed up its plans of surviving the Left’s withdrawal of support by teaming up with Samajwadi Party. Reportedly it had gathered adequate numbers to win a no-confidence motion. Look at these numbers: The UPA’s numbers are Congress (154), RJD (24), DMK (16), NCP (11), PMK (6), LJP (4), IUML (1). UPA along with sympathetic parties such as JMM (5), MDMK(2), JD(S) (2), PDP (1), RPI (1), SDF (1), three independents would have 231. With the support of SP (38 MPs including one of Lok Tantrik Party), the RLD (3), Raj Babbar, TRS (2) the tally would go up to 275. If the NC (2) and Trinamool’s Mamata Banerjee vote for the government, the figure would stand at 278.
• The PM participated in the G8 summit and the entire G8 has extended its whole-hearted support for the deal.
• In the wake of the bombing of Indian embassy in Afghanistan, some excellent analysis of the situation made in today’s ET deserves our attention. It is especially very useful for those having Political Science as a subject of study – especially the international affairs paper.
• Look at it here.
• Whither the institution of ‘independent directors’!
• “Has the institution of independent directors any role to play in the way the subprime crisis has unfolded? What lessons can the institution of independent directors draw from this crisis?” If you are asked a question like this one, you can’t get any better answer than this one from TT Ram Mohan. Worth a read. Look at it here.
• It gives you definitive ideas on as to who can be considered ‘independent’ and how the institution has taken a beating in recent times because of its failure to either predict or prevent the subprime fiasco.
• I refrain from giving any excerpts from this article, because I consider that every one of us should read this at least once.
• Cache poisoning attacks – the new internet bug
• A new vulnerability in the DNS (Domain Naming System) that was discovered some six months ago -- cache poisoning attacks -- made news today; because a fix was found by the computer industry heavy weights.
• An attacker with the ability to conduct a successful cache poisoning attack can cause a nameserver’s clients to contact the incorrect, and possibly malicious, hosts for particular services. Attackers could use the vulnerability to route internet users wherever they wanted no matter what website address is typed into a web browser.
• Want to know whether or not your DNS server is vulnerable for these attacks? Check out this link.