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By T N Ashok NEW DELHI: Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in India Thursday evening for a two-day state visit that has become a diplomatic flashpoint, testing New Delhi’s ability to maintain strategic independence amid mounting pressure from Washington and European capitals. The arrival marks Putin’s first trip to India since the Ukraine war began […]

The article Putin’s India Visit: A Stress Test Of Strategic Autonomy Amid Global Pressure appeared first on Latest India news, analysis and reports on Newspack by India Press Agency).

By Dr. Gyan Pathak When Indian rupee was falling in the Mumbai market against US dollar on Wednesday, December 3, 2023 – sliding past the 90-a-dollar mark for the second day, plumbing a new low of 90.29 in the morning trade after opening flat at 89.96, analysts were pegging the next level for the beleaguered […]

The article CEA’s Calmness Over Steep Fall Of Rupee Ignores Key Risks To India appeared first on Latest India news, analysis and reports on Newspack by India Press Agency).

By K Raveendran The steady erosion of trust between political parties and the Election Commission has become one of the more troubling developments in India’s democratic life, revealing an institutional drift that carries implications well beyond a single electoral cycle. The body entrusted with safeguarding the integrity of elections is expected to serve as an […]

The article An Election Commission That Treats Critics As Enemies Has No Place In Democracy appeared first on Latest India news, analysis and reports on Newspack by India Press Agency).

By Nitya Chakraborty What is happening to the INDIA Bloc which gave just a big jolt to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his NDA in 2024 Lok Sabha elections? The BJP for the first time since the taking over of Narendra Modi as PM failed to get majority and was forced to form a […]

The article Next Round Of Elections Are Just Five Months Away – Where Is The INDIA Bloc Doing? appeared first on Latest India news, analysis and reports on Newspack by India Press Agency).

Security analysts working on China-linked cyber espionage have deepened scrutiny of two Beijing-based organisations that appear to support the country’s intelligence infrastructure. The Beijing Institute of Electronics Technology and Application and its subsidiary Beijing Sanxin Times Technology Co., Ltd. are now under particular focus for allegedly supplying advanced steganography tools and network-penetration services to agencies tied to the Ministry of State Security.

BIETA has built a decades-long publication record in information hiding research, with around 40–46 percent of its 87 peer-reviewed papers between 1991 and 2023 devoted to steganography methods. Observers note that those outputs align with covert-communication and data-exfiltration requirements typical of state espionage missions. CIII, meanwhile, boasts copyright registrations for software capable of disguising malicious code within images, audio and video files, and has offered foreign-developed network simulation and penetration-testing tools that are frequently repurposed by advanced persistent threat actors.

Officials familiar with the intelligence landscape argue that BIETA and CIII function less like independent private firms and more like technology-enablement arms of China’s state-security apparatus. Evidence cited includes overlapping leadership — several BIETA executives have held or continue to hold roles within organisations tightly linked to the MSS — and a shared location: BIETA’s headquarters sit adjacent to the MSS First Research Institute in Beijing, a facility believed to be behind China’s mass surveillance infrastructure in regions such as Xinjiang.

The role of front organisations like BIETA and CIII expands beyond development of steganographic tools. According to analysts, these firms provide a bridge between Western technical innovation and China’s intelligence needs by acting as intermediaries for acquiring or licensing foreign cybersecurity and network-monitoring products. Through such supply-chain activity, capabilities like deep network simulation, cyber-range training and payload obfuscation may be imported under the guise of legitimate commercial transactions.

Linking BIETA and CIII’s activities to actual APT campaigns remains difficult, in part because those campaigns rely on clandestine infrastructure and rarely include public attribution. Nevertheless security researchers point to historical patterns: Chinese-linked APTs have employed image, audio and video steganography to deploy malware or smuggle exfiltrated data; such techniques were documented in operations as far back as 2013. These precedents match the capabilities now associated with BIETA and CIII’s publicly disclosed research and product catalogue.

Last year’s exposure of another contractor, i‑Soon, offered insight into how the wider ecosystem operates: leaked internal communications and product manuals revealed use of malware management platforms tied to major intrusion campaigns against governments and companies globally. That development affirmed concerns that front organisations could serve as staging grounds for supply-chain attacks, with steganographic delivery mechanisms functioning as invisible carriers for payloads.

A sophisticated attack on the liquidity pool of yETH — the liquid staking token index offered by Yearn Finance — drained millions of dollars in assets when an attacker minted an effectively unlimited amount of yETH and exchanged the bogus tokens for real ETH and other liquid-staking assets. Blockchain data indicate close to 1,000 ETH — roughly US$ 3 million — was swiftly moved through mixing service Tornado Cash in a single transaction, while the wider financial impact may scale significantly higher.

The exploit hinged on a critical flaw in the smart contract underpinning yETH’s “stableswap pool,” which permitted the creation of an unbounded number of yETH tokens. Immediately after minting, the attacker used those tokens to withdraw real ETH and other assets from liquidity pools tied to yETH, rapidly draining the pool. Multiple helper contracts deployed for the attack self-destructed soon after, making tracing efforts challenging.

Shortly after the event, Yearn Finance confirmed the breach and clarified that its core vault offerings — including V2 and V3 vaults — remain unaffected, noting the issue appears isolated to the legacy yETH pool. That distinction may have prevented a broader protocol-wide collapse, although internal assessments are ongoing to fully understand the exploit’s scope.

Further on-chain analysis by security firms suggests total losses could approach US$ 9 million, once damage to auxiliary pools — including a yETH–WETH pool — are accounted for. Nearly US$ 3 million in stolen ETH has already been funneled through Tornado Cash, rendering recovery difficult as funds are mixed and dispersed.

Market reaction was immediate: major cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin and Ether slid sharply during Asian trading hours, signalling heightened investor anxiety about DeFi security vulnerabilities. The incident has reignited scrutiny over legacy smart-contract code within decentralised finance platforms and underscored persistent risks associated with innovation outpacing security audits.

By Nantoo Banerjee It is encouraging to note that the government has decided to invest large sums of money in support of rare earth magnet manufacturing and substantially improve the country’s rare earth-based metals production to escape China’s global chokehold in this strategic sector. Presently, there are a few small Indian companies engaged in manufacturing […]

The article India’s Push For Self-Reliance In Rare Earth Magnet Making Is Laudable appeared first on Latest India news, analysis and reports on Newspack by India Press Agency).

By K Raveendran An evolving convergence of political intent and economic pragmatism is giving fresh momentum to the India–Russia relationship, placing the forthcoming summit in New Delhi as a significant moment in a partnership that has already weathered decades of geopolitical shifts. The visit of President Vladimir Putin, framed within the terminology of a ‘Special […]

The article Delhi Summit To See A New Strategic Reset In India-Russia Partnership appeared first on Latest India news, analysis and reports on Newspack by India Press Agency).

By Ashok Nilakantan Ayers SILICON VALLEY / SAN FRANSISCO / CALIFORNIA: The numbers are staggering. Microsoft has spent over $20 billion building data centres stuffed with the most powerful computer chips ever made. Meta is burning through billions more, weaving artificial intelligence into Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook. Google and Amazon are locked in a cloud-computing […]

The article The Great AI Gold Rush By US Big Tech Companies Through Huge Investment appeared first on Latest India news, analysis and reports on Newspack by India Press Agency).

By Nitya Chakraborty 2025 has been a golden year for the Chinese President Xi Jinping in global diplomacy. In the last ten months since taking over the U.S. presidency by Donald Trump on January 20 this year for the second non-consecutive term, Chinese supremo Xi Jinping is on the roll. At the Busan summit in […]

The article How President Xi Jinping Has Emerged Taller In Global Diplomacy In 2025 During Trump.2 Tenure appeared first on Latest India news, analysis and reports on Newspack by India Press Agency).

Stellar’s native token XLM jumped above $0.25 as U. S. Bank embarked on a pilot to issue a bank-grade stablecoin on the public Stellar blockchain. That move marks a notable shift for legacy finance, signalling growing institutional comfort with blockchain rails offering compliance, speed and programmability.

U. S. Bank, the fifth-largest commercial bank in the United States, is working in partnership with advisory firm PwC and the Stellar Development Foundation to test issuance of a custom stablecoin using the Stellar network. The pilot aims to evaluate whether a traditional bank can leverage a public blockchain for regulated payments by utilising Stellar’s ability to freeze assets and reverse transactions — features deemed essential for regulatory compliance and customer protection. According to a bank executive, those built-in safeguards helped make the network an attractive choice for a stablecoin pilot.

This institutional endorsement of Stellar coincides with the network’s ongoing development push. A major upgrade code-named Protocol X-Ray is slated for rollout in early 2026. The upgrade will support zero-knowledge applications, giving institutions optional privacy tools for confidential transfers while retaining blockchain auditability — a balance likely to appeal to regulated financial players concerned with compliance and confidentiality.

On-chain metrics suggest the network’s fundamentals are strengthening. Total value locked on Stellar’s smart-contract layer has climbed substantially this year, while transaction volume of stablecoins on the chain — including $AUDD, a prominent fiat-pegged token — has surpassed the $1 billion mark. Observers point out that this surge reflects genuine usage by businesses and institutions rather than speculative activity.

The market has reacted positively. XLM recorded a 2.6 percent uptick, rising from around $0.244 to $0.2505 over 24 hours, with trading volume surging about 45 percent above the daily average. That breakout cleared a key technical resistance near $0.246 and pushed the token past the psychologically significant $0.25 level, renewing optimism among investors who follow price action closely.

While the stablecoin pilot at U. S. Bank remains at an exploratory stage, the partnership underscores a broader shift in the financial sector toward embracing tokenised assets under regulatory guardrails. If the trial succeeds, other banks may follow, potentially driving further demand for blockchain platforms that combine compliance, efficiency and transparency.

By K Raveendran A quieter phase has set in around discussions on a potential trade agreement between India and the United States, yet the subdued optics conceal a period of more intense negotiation. Officials on both sides describe a process that has deliberately stepped away from public signalling, opting instead for steady and less visible […]

The article India, US Energy Alignment Shapes A Quieter Trade Push appeared first on Latest India news, analysis and reports on Newspack by India Press Agency).