ICICI to implement SSL certificates for data protection

India’s largest private sector banks ICICI Bank on Thursday selected NASDAQ-listed Entrust Inc to provide standard SSL certificates.
This would enable protection of customer data when conducting transactions on the institution's website.
As part of the agreement, ICICI Bank standardised on SSL certificates for a five-year contract period, Entrust Inc said in a release.
"ICICI Bank understands the value of providing a trusted environment that helps protect against online fraud schemes," PTI quoted Entrust Chairman Bill Conner.
Implementation of cost-effective SSL certificates would help the bank to address fraud and better serve the needs of their overall security approach, he added.

Based on their current purchase, they have the ability to upgrade to extended validation SSL certificates when the time is right, he added.
Acting as a centrally-managed, self-service system, the Certificate Management Service reduces administrative hassles and lessens the risk of inadvertent certificate expiration by allowing customers to synchronise and control the timing of SSL certificate expiration, it added.
ICICI Bank which has a total assets of $92 billion offers a wide range of banking products and financial services to corporate and retail customers through a variety of delivery channels.
It has a network of about 950 branches and 3,300 ATMs in India and presence in 17 countries.

Zoo tigress attacks visitor, severs hand

A man's excursion to the zoo here along with his family turned into a tragedy when he was killed by a tigress after crossing the barrier and went near the animal's enclosure this afternoon to take photographs.
Zoo divisional forest officer Narayan Mahanta said 50-year-old Jai Prakash Bezbarua, who had gone to the zoo with his family, had crossed the line outside the enclosure for tigers from where visitors see the animals at Assam State Zoo.
He gave a slip to the guards on duty, who had stopped him from venturing near the barrier, and crossed to reach the last level from where the iron grills start to take photographs of tigers basking in the sun, he said.
As soon as the man put his hand inside the iron grill with his camera, the tigress, named 'Divya', caught it and was immediately joined by another tiger 'Gobardhan'.
Together, they severed Bezbarua's hand from his shoulder within a few seconds. Bezbaruah was rushed to Guwahati Medical College Hospital

Green dream bust? Delhi chokes on CNG

The green colour on autorickshaws is perhaps an indicator that Delhi is the only city to have introduced the CNG and made it mandatory on public transport .
But Delhi is more polluted today than it was five years ago when the CNG was introduced. A latest analysis by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) finds that pollution levels are on the upswing again after a few years of control.
In 2002, when CNG programme was initiated, RSPM or respirable suspended matter stood at 143 microgram per cubic metre. In 2005, they dropped to 115 microgram per cubic metre
In 2006, the levels of RSPM in winters were as high as 350 microgram per cubic metre - which means, more than double.
So what has offset the benefits of CNG? Delhi has more than four million registered vehicles and adds about 1,000 vehicles to its roads every day. Cars fueled by petrol and diesel- fossil fuels that emit toxic gases in Delhi's air.

So what's the solution?
“We need to do something to restrict the number of personal cars. It is really ironical that the public transport meets 60-70 per cent of the transport demand. Our policies are not encouraging public transport. In fact the tax burden on a person traveling in a bus is much higher than one traveling in a car. We are building flyovers for car owners and are not thinking about moving people but moving cars,” says Anumita Roy Chowdhary of CSE.
The automobile industry continues to add flashy models on the roads each day with little thought to how much carbon they emit. Until the government considers a tax for polluting vehicles, Delhi will continue choke in this toxic gas chamber.

Diana was against marrying Dodi

Princess Diana denied any intention of marrying Dodi Fayed in a conversation just a few days before the couple died, a friend testified on Monday.
Lady Annabel Goldsmith, testifying at the British inquest into the couple's deaths, said Diana had remarked that she needed another marriage "like a rash on my face."
Goldsmith, 73, said she would never forget those words because they were the last she had heard from Diana.
Fayed's father, Mohamed Al Fayed, has claimed the couple was the target of a plot directed by Queen Elizabeth II's husband, Prince Philip -- partly motivated, he alleges, by a desire to prevent Diana from marrying a Muslim.
Al Fayed says Diana and his son were on the brink of announcing their engagement when they died on August 31, 1997.
French and British police blamed the accident on their driver, Henri Paul, based on evidence that he was over the legal alcohol limit and was speeding through a tunnel at more than 60 mph when the car slammed into a concrete pillar. Paul also died in the crash.
Goldsmith said Monday that Diana clearly was having a "wonderful" time with Fayed, reporting that she had "never been so spoiled."
Reflecting on Diana's comment about a rash, Goldsmith testified: "I took it to mean that she was not serious about marriage to Dodi. She might have been having a wonderful time with him, I'm sure, but I thought her remark that she needed marriage like a rash meant that she was not serious about it."
Other witnesses have questioned whether the romance had developed to the stage of an intention to marry.
Diana's friend Rosa Monckton last week testified that it was "difficult to judge" the intensity of Diana's romance with Fayed, but Monckton said "it was clear to me that she was really missing Hasnat" Khan, a heart surgeon with whom she had had an affair.
Monckton testified that Diana said nothing of an engagement during a telephone conversation on August 27.
"She would have called me if she was going to do that," Monckton said.
Monckton also disputed Al Fayed's claim that Diana was pregnant. She said Diana had had her period during a holiday the two women shared in Greece 10 days before the princess died.
Goldsmith also rejected the pregnancy claim. "I would say 'impossible.' There was a reason for that (belief)," she said.
"I'm confident, on the face of it, that she would not have been" pregnant, Goldsmith said.
Diana's stepmother, Raine, Countess Spencer, testified that she also doubted the couple were engaged but thought it "highly likely" that the relationship could have progressed to marriage.
The countess also doubted that Diana, who "was brought up in quite an old-fashioned way," was pregnant.
"It would have been out of the question for her," she said.