Over Rs 100 cr loss in army spendings in 2009-11:Defence audit

October 24, 2012

in

New Delhi, October 24: An internal audit report of the Defence Ministry has detected a loss of over Rs 100 crore in spendings by six army commanders between 2009 and 2011, prompting Defence Minister A K Antony to order strict checks and balances on expenditure.

The army, however, contested the loss of Rs 100 crore in procurements and insisted that no rules have been violated.

The Defence Ministry had ordered the Controller of Defence Accounts (CDA) to audit expenses made by the army commanders under their special financial powers of up to Rs 125 crore to procure urgently-required items for troops.

Taking a strong view of the financial mismanagement under its departments, Defence Minister A K Antony has decided to impose strict checks and balances on expenditure made under special financial powers by all officials under the Ministry having such authority.

The audit report has assessed 55 transactions made by the commands between the period 2009-11 when present Army Chief Gen Bikram Singh was heading the Kolkata-based Eastern Command.

The report suggests that certain equipment, including Chinese communication equipment, has been purchased from grey market. Mismanagement in milk procurement in Northern Command has also been suggested by the report.

It also mentions the procurement of binoculars by the Eastern Command from a foreign vendor when the same were available at lower prices in the Indian market.

Ministry officials said efforts are being made by the Defence Minister to streamline the entire financial management system of all the departments under the Ministry.

The Ministry is putting in place checks and balances especially in organisations where no such measures existed. The steps are likely to include appointment of auditors for ensuring that all rules and regulations in financial management are observed and followed.

A budget of around Rs 125 crore and Rs 50 crore for army commanders of Northern and Eastern Commands respectively and Rs 10 crore each to other four commands, has been provided for meeting the rebikraquirements of these unforeseen situations, the report suggested.

The internal audit report said there was a loss of around Rs 30 crore in procurement of special packaged milk in the Northern Command.

"Procurement of extra quantities of both tetra packed milk and fresh milk, over and above the authorised quantities as per scales has resulted in excess expenditure of Rs 94 crore during a period of two years and these losses are required to be regularised," it said.

The report has also suggested the review of the special financial powers of the army commanders and other officials.

In its response to the contents of the report, the Army Headquarters said, "On the issue of communication sets with Chinese components, they were procured on DG S&D rates which have been included in the list after thorough inspection by them."

However, it is under arbitration as the vendor was not able to reveal the original equipment manufacturer, the army headquarters added.

The Army said it has already responded to observations raised in the audit report of the Ministry and "no observations have been found to be true"

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News Network
March 5,2020

New Delhi, Mar 5: Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan assuring that the government has the coronavirus crisis under control, is like the Titanic captain telling passengers not to panic as his ship was unsinkable, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said on Thursday.

Gandhi's remarks came after Vardhan's assurance in Parliament that the government is taking all necessary measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 (coronavirus disease) in India.

“The health minister saying that the Indian government has the coronavirus crisis under control, is like the Captain of the Titanic telling passengers not to panic as his ship was unsinkable,” Gandhi said in a tweet.

“It's time the government made public an action plan backed by solid resources to tackle this crisis,” he said.

RMS Titanic was a British passenger liner that sank in the North Atlantic Ocean in the early morning hours of April 15, 1912, after striking an iceberg during her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York.

Gandhi has been raising concerns over the coronavirus infection since long. In a February 12 tweet, he had said coronavirus is an extremely serious threat to “our people and our economy”.

“My sense is the government is not taking this threat seriously. Timely action is critical,” he had said.

Earlier this week, Gandhi had hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the detection of fresh coronavirus cases in the country, saying he should quit wasting India's time “playing the clown” with his social media accounts when India is facing an emergency.

With the message of “Here's how it's done”, Gandhi had also tweeted a video of Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong addressing Singaporeans on how to deal with the coronavirus.

The number of coronavirus cases in India is 29, including 16 Italians, the government had said on Wednesday, adding all international passengers will now be screened at airports, amid growing concern over the spread of the respiratory infection.

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Agencies
May 26,2020

In a startling revelation, cybersecurity researchers have claimed that a hacker has posted personal details of nearly 2.9 crore Indian job seekers at one of the hacking forums on the Dark Web for free.

As part of the regular sweep over the Deep Web and Dark Web, researchers from cybersecurity firm Cyble came across an interesting item, where a threat actor posted 2.3GB (zipped) file on one of the hacking forums.

"The leak actually has a lot of personal details of millions of Indians Job seekers from different states," Cyble said in its blog on Friday.

This breach includes sensitive information such as email, phone, home address, qualification and work experience etc from job seekers spanning across states, from New Delhi to Mumbai and Bengaluru. 

Cybercriminals are always on the lookout for such personal information to conduct various nefarious activities such as identity thefts, scams, and corporate espionage.

"It appears to have originated from a resume aggregator service given the sheer volume and detailed information," it added.

Cyble indexed this information at ‘AmIbreached.com; – Cyble's data breach monitoring and notification platform.

Cyble researchers have identified a sensitive data breach on the dark web where an actor has leaked personal details of nearly 29 million Indian job seekers from various states. 

"Cyble's team is still investigating this further and will be updating their article as they bring more facts to the surface,” it said in a statement.

Cyble said it has acquired the leaked data. 

The same cyber security firm earlier exposed that Bengaluru-based edtech firm Unacademy was hacked.

According to Cyble researchers, nearly 22 million Unacademy user accounts were affected and the data was dumped and sold on Dark Web.

'We would like to assure our users that no sensitive information such as financial data or location has been breached," said Hemesh Singh, Co- Founder and CTO, Unacademy, in a statement.

In April, hackers sold personal data of a whopping 267 million Facebook users for just Rs 41,500 (approximately 500 Euros) that includes email addresses, names, Facebook IDs, dates of birth and phone numbers.

No passwords of the 267 million Facebook users were exposed by the hacker, according to Cyble.

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News Network
May 2,2020

New Delhi, May 2: With 2,293 new cases in the last 24 hours, the highest number of cases in a single day, India's COVID-19 tally reached 37,336 on Saturday, including 1,218 deaths, according to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
As many as 71 deaths were reported in the last 24 hours.

Out of the total number, 9,951 people have been cured/discharged/migrated.

In the state of Maharashtra, the number of coronavirus positive cases has crossed the 10,000-mark with at least 485 deaths.

The positive cases in Maharashtra has reached 11,506, including 1,879 discharged cases.

After Maharashtra, Gujarat has the most number of COVID-19 cases (4,721). The state has reported 236 deaths, while 735 people have been discharged.

The Centre on Friday extended the ongoing nationwide lockdown for two more weeks with effect from May 4 till May 17 while allowing different sets of relaxations in red, orange and green zones.

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