Friday, June 10, 2011
Credit cards for farmer loans
Sixty-five lakh farmers in Uttar Pradesh will be provided with credit cards to ensure that they get loans for agri products at minimal rates. However, the Uttar Pradesh government states that only those farmers will be included who are deprived of such loans.
In UP alone, there are around 2.17 cr farmers and families. Ranvijay Singh, deputy director of Krishi Vibhag, UP, said, "The credit cards will be provided by the nearest banks in villages and banks where farmers have their accounts."
According to the agriculture board, 30-35% lakh farmers do not have access to loans for harvest and almost 15-20% farmers are not eligible.
"The interest rate will be nominal at 4% as decided by the government. The main agenda is to make life easier for the farmers as many are deprived of loans which lead to massive losses to the farmers and the country as well," said Rajesh Gupta, joint director, Krishi Vibhag.
"This is a positive step towards ensuring that farmers in UP benefit as such loans will boost harvest," said Congress MLA Dr Bijender Singh.
5 June 2011 — The Sunday Guardian.
Mobiles pose threat to IT firms
More than 90% of Indian IT leaders believe that mobile phones and similar devices undermine data security of the organisation, says a survey report by ISACA, a non-profit global association of more than 95, 000 IT professionals.
The report says that mobile phones, whether employer-provided or personal, increase the chances of violation of privacy, compliance, liability, losing important data because of unencrypted format, hacking, storing company data in unsecured manner, access to dangerous or risky websites and unsecured Bluetooth or WiFi access. The report further said that more than 50% of the respondents recognise this risk from mobile devices and enterprises have introduced policies and systems to mitigate the risk.
The survey also indicates that 56% of respondents say that their enterprises do not allow installation of applications on mobile devices used for work activities. Mobile devices, in this case, include smart phones, flash drives, notepads, tablets and broadband cards.
Sandeep Godbole, a member of the ISACA India Task Force, said, "Mobile devices and mobile computing are posing tough questions to organisations related to intent and strategy.
The survey results present an interesting dichotomy. Around 43% enterprises in India have still not adopted cloud computing for any IT services."
The survey also indicates that 87% of the enterprises have effectively integrated IT risk management with their overall approach to risk management.
Niraj Kapasi,a certified information systems auditor, said, "There has been a gradual improvement in the scenario in India as compared to the previous findings, especially in aligning the enterprise risk management strategy with managing IT risks. However, much more needs to be done."
5 June 2011 — The Sunday Guardian.
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