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Salesforce Grabs Quote-to-Cash Firm SteelBrick for $360 Million

CRM giant Salesforce is working to fortify the quoting and billing functions of its software platform. To do so, the customer relationship management company just snapped up SteelBrick. Financial terms of Salesforce’s acquisition of the six-year-old startup were not disclosed in the announcement. But the technology giant’s regulatory filing reveals the deal is worth $360 million. That’s about half of the rumored price on the street. Salesforce […]

Yahoo Joins Facebook To Warn of State-Sponsored Hacks

While plenty of cyberattacks are still conducted by the stereotypical “hacker in a basement,” state-sponsored hacking is also on the rise — prompting Yahoo to become the latest tech company to offer warnings of such attacks. In a blog post earlier this week, chief information security officer Bob Lord said Yahoo will offer specific security suggestions to users who appear to be the targets of state-sponsored attacks. […]

Terrafugia to test futuristic flying cars

Vamien McKalin/Flying cars – it is something we view as more interesting than driverless cars. Who want cars driving us around when we can get in a car capable of  flying us from one destination to the next? Terrafugia is working to make this a possibility in the coming years. Recently, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) approved Terrafugia’s plan to test its flying cars in U.S. airspace. […]

Twilight of easy money

|By Matein Khalid| In retrospect, the last six years were a unique period in global central banking, an epic monetary experiment that averted a Great Depression after Lehman’s failure and interbank/credit contagion plunged the world into recession in 2008-9. Yet the Fed (and later Bank of Japan, ECB and even PBOC) quantitative easing also led to asset bubbles, credit market excesses, currency wars and the mispricing of […]

Cisco reviews code after Juniper breach; more scrutiny expected

The Cisco Systems logo is seen as part of a display at the Microsoft Ignite technology conference in Chicago, Illinois, May 4, 2015. Reuters/Jim Young BOSTON Networking equipment maker Cisco Systems Inc said on Monday it has launched a product review to look for tampering after rival Juniper Networks Inc’s disclosure found code in firewall software that made it vulnerable to cyber attacks. Juniper warned customers on […]

Foreign Hackers Accessed U.S. Power Grid 'Dozens of Times'

Foreign Hackers Accessed U.S. Power Grid ‘Dozens of Times’ Recently, a private security researcher hot on the trail of hackers who stole information from a California university’s housing files discovered something far more nefarious: the attackers had found a way into networks running America’s power grid. That security researcher was Brian Wallace. Those attackers appear to be based in Iran. According to his research, these bad actors […]

Oscar hopefuls of 2016: Can you handle it?

This time around, the movies are more than serious — they’re nightmare-inducing Why does Hollywood want to punish us? This year’s Oscar aren’t just heavy — it’s a given that the weightiest dramas pop up in theatres when Academy members are preparing their ballots. But this time around, the movies are more than serious. They’re nightmare-inducing. You’ve got a bear trying to eat a man and slow-motion […]

Christmas without mum

Our father died six years ago, and this year our mother died. As the eldest child, I became responsible overnight for my brother and sister. I’ve never not looked forward to this time of year. The fact that I get to eat my bodyweight in food without feeling an ounce of guilt plays a big part in my high spirits during the lead-up to Christmas. The lights, […]

AN ILLUSTRIOUS INHERITANCE OF LOSS

NATIONAL HERALD – FROM GLORY TO PITS

By Harihar Swarup

The National Herald was a child of the freedom movement. It was started by Jawaharlal Nehru. Nehru himself reported for the paper and Krishna Menon was its London correspondent. Mahatma Gandhi wrote in Harijan in 1942: “The National Herald is an institution.” From 1938 to 1942, it lived dangerously from day to day, ready to publish anything about the freedom movement, paying the penalty of successive securities, forfeited at the pleasure of authorities. It was ordered to submit its editorials to censorship, which it refused, and not given headlines to war news which it defied with ingenuity.

Nehru’s instructions were to try to live and serve the freedom movement but not to lower the flag. Gandhiji valued it as newspaper without fear. The newspaper was voluntarily closed under Gandhi’s call that new

BJP IN BAD SHAPE IN WEST BENGAL

MAMATA WOOING CONGRESS AGAIN

By Ashis Biswas

For the Bharatiya Janata Party in Bengal, the theme song could well be akla chalo re: Ironically, as the weakest opposition party in West Bengal, the BJP alone is not contemplating any alliance, with only a few months left before the 2016 Assembly polls.

Among other parties, the usually derided, much weakened Congress has emerged as the prime choice as an alliance partner both for the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the CPI(M). Interestingly, the Left camp remains divided over the question of political alignments. For instance, the CPI a firm ally of the Congress during the seventies, has put its foot down to any linkage with it, as have smaller parties like the SUCI or the CPI(M-L). The CPI’s logic: it points to its own remarkable decline over the years, which it sees as a consequence of its earlier reliance on

Exclusive – U.S. Justice Dept probes data breach at Uber: sources

The logo of car-sharing service app Uber on a smartphone over a reserved lane for taxis in a street is seen in this file photo illustration taken in Madrid on December 10, 2014. Reuters/Sergio Perez/Files SAN FRANCISCO The U.S. Department of Justice is pursuing a criminal investigation of a May 2014 data breach at ride service Uber [UBER.UL], including an examination of whether any employees at competitor […]

Juniper Warns of Spying Code in Firewall

Networking equipment maker Juniper Networks revealed this week that it had found spying code planted in some models of its firewalls. The products affected by the malicious code include those running ScreenOS, a Juniper operating system that runs several of the company’s appliances that act as firewalls and enable VPNs (virtual private networks). The vulnerable versions of ScreenOS include 6.2.0r15 through 6.2.0r18 and 6.3.0r12 through 6.3.0r20, according […]

American Muslims struggle with their identities

Mirvette Judeh began covering her hijab with a hoodie two weeks ago while in the car with her two young children. Someone might want to hurt their mother, she explained to them, because the head scarf easily identifies her as Muslim. “Now I have to have these conversations with my kids,” said Judeh, 39, who lives in southern California. “That’s what breaks my heart — to tell […]

INDIA HAS NO WORRY FROM LATEST FED HIKE

CHINESE SLOWDOWN HAS TO BE MONITORED

By Anjan Roy

At long last the US Federal Reserve – America’s central bank—has raised the interest rates, albeit hardly. This is the first hike in interest rates by the US central bank in over a decade.

The US Fed rate hike has been by a very small margin – from zero to just about 0.25% to 0.5%. It was so gradual and soft that the rate hike did not cause the disruptions in the global financial markets that everyone expected from such a decision.

The first question here is how will it affect India? It should not, and this has been borne out by what happened in the day after the Fed rate hike. The stock market remained more or less flat. The exchange rate also remained stable. The fund managers did not immediately think of taking money out of India and that left the financial markets unruffled.

But then w

Gold and rate hike fallout

|By Lawrence Williams| The initial reaction to the Fed’s first interest rate rise in nine years has been marginally positive for gold. Only time will tell if, on reflection by the market, its initial post-hike performance can be maintained, or improved upon.  It has already come down a little this morning trading in the mid to high $1060s after mid $1070s immediately post the announcement.  This fall from the […]

MODI-KEJRIWAL BATTLE MUST STOP

IMMEDIATE DIALOGUE NEEDED TO RESTORE HARMONY

By Kalyani Shankar

Differences of opinion between the Centre and the states are quite common in a federal structure. This is more so if different political parties rule in the state and at the Centre. It is not uncommon that some Chief Ministers have even walked out of the National Development Council or Inter State Council protesting against the Centre’s treatment of their states.   Chief Minister accusing the Centre of using the CBI as a weapon against him or her is also not new. In fact the CBI director Ranjit Sinha even described the agency as a ‘caged parrot.’ Whether this is true or not, the CBI is not an autonomous agency and the party in power has some control over it.

Therefore Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal’s tantrums about the over-enthusiastic CBI raid in his office on Tuesday is not surprising. Althoug

NEW BILL TO EASE PROCESS OF COMMERCIAL LITIGATION

FOREIGN INVESTORS MAY GET SOME RELIEF

By G. Srinivasan

For the country’s corporate sector apprehensive of long pendency in courts and protracted litigation on commercial disputes for resolution, help is on hand at long last. The NDA government has set off a flurry of activities on this front to give a whiff of long-felt comfort to assuage investors’ enduring worries on this count. In the ongoing winter session of Parliament, the Law Commission of India’s report with its draft bill on Commercial Division and Commercial Appellate Division of High Courts and Commercial Courts Bill, 2015 was tabled. Subsequently, the House Panel on Personnel, Public Grievances , Law and Justice   under the  chairmanship of Mr. E.M. Sudarsana Natchiappan also submitted its report, which also took due note of the Ordinance promulgated  by the Government on October 23, 2015 making certain improve

JAPANESE PM ABE AS A TOKEN HINDU

MODI DESTROYING MULTICULTURAL INDIA

By Amulya Ganguli

Narendra Modi may have his own reasons for flaunting his Hindu background, but to rope in visiting dignitaries subscribing to other religions to his own displays of faith is odd, to say the least. The sight, therefore, of the Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, participating in the Hindu ritual of offering aarti or obeisance to Mother Ganga in Modi’s company was without precedent in the world of diplomacy.

It is not known what was said in the tour schedule about this form of worship which must have been cleared by the Japanese before the visit. It is possible that Shinzo Abe presumed that he will merely be a witness to a puja like any other tourist. But to stand on the bank of the river as mantras are chanted and various invocations made was something which rarely constitutes a part of an official itinerar

PRAGMATISM NEEDED TO TACKLE KASHMIR ISSUE

SUSHMA’S TALKS IN KABUL HAVE POSITIVE NOTE

By Harihar Swarup

Kashmir always remains the core issue whenever India-Pakistan dialogue is resumed or breaks down. This time also, in the breakthrough in Islamabad with External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj’s visit and the decision to resume of a comprehensive bilateral dialogue, Kashmir remained the key issue. The Manmohan Singh Government had tried to kick-start stalled discussion through “the resumed dialogue” process, which met with the same fate of the composite dialogue following the killing of Indian soldiers almost three years ago. In the past, every time there was forward momentum in India-Pakistan ties, particularly on Kashmir, there were attempts by militants or the army to derail the process.

India and Pakistan were in striking range of an agreement on Kashmir in 2007 when Pervez Musharraf was swept from power

MAKING INDIAN INVESTMENT CLIMATE MORE BUSINESS-FRIENDLY

BUREAUCRATS HAVE TO CHANGE THEIR MINDSETS

By Subrata Majumder

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is committed to take India within top 50 in the World Bank‘s Ease of Doing Business in three years from the current rank of 130 out of 189 countries. Morgan Stanley Vice – Chairman Tom Nides reposed confidence in Modi’s leadership in fast-forwarding the economy. Arguing on Make in India, he said that Mr Modi was not for short term decision for instant gratification. Over the decades, Indian bureaucracy became the main tool to formulate the economic policies, no matter whether they were economists, scientists or statisticians or not.

Caught in the ambivalence of personal loyalty to ministers and Prevention of Corruption Act, passing the buck and shying away from decision making were the common practices of Indian bureaucrats. Clogged into huge paper works and multiple

Trump outbursts make US firms nervous

No topic has so dominated public discussion over the past week like Donald Trump’s call to indefinitely ban Muslims from entering the U.S. Editorial pages have raged, talk shows have engaged, even leaders of his Republican Party have forcefully rejected the proposal. One group of national leaders, however, has said little: corporate chiefs. A few, it is true, have spoken in broad terms, usually without mentioning Trump. […]

More than a million OPM hack victims still not notified

A man types on a computer keyboard in Warsaw in this February 28, 2013 illustration file picture. Reuters/Kacper Pempel/Files WASHINGTON More than a million victims of a massive hack of U.S. government computer files have still not been officially notified that their data was compromised and that they are eligible for free credit-monitoring protection, officials said on Friday. The government this week finished sending notifications through the […]

Facebook at Work for Enterprises To Launch Next Year

Currently being tested by several hundred companies, including the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Club Med, Facebook at Work is expected to see a wider rollout next year. Available for desktop and mobile devices, the app will function much like the regular Facebook, except that posts, messages and other content will be visible only to users with company work accounts. “More than 300 companies are part […]

MEDICAL NEGLIGENCE HAUNTS MADHYA PRADESH

BARWANI EYE-CAMP DISASTER IS A WAKE UP CALL

From L.S. Herdenia

BHOPAL: Negligence and indifference by the concerned officials and failure to enforce relevant rules and procedure caused another tragedy in Madhya Pradesh. A few days ago about 80 persons lost their lives following a massive blast caused due to careless storage of explosive material. Explosion took place in Petlavad, which was part of Jhabua-Ratlam parliamentary constituency, was lost by the BJP. Petlavad explosion was one of the causes, which led to BJP’s defeat in the by-election.

The same factors which caused Petlavad tragedy are responsible for another tragedy in which more than fifty persons nearly lost their eyesight, after they underwent surgery at a cataract operation camp organised by the government from November 16 to 24 in Barwani. The affected persons were later referred to the MY