Sunday, March 21, 2010
Data privacy on social networking sites
I came across a discussion on a linked in group about data privacy on social networking sites.Though all of them have strict privacy rules but postings by users can still be viewed by other users(friends,friends of friends,other group users etc).Please follow the link to view the discussion,very interesting insights
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Rs 400 crore insurance scam
a 52 year old staff involved in fraud along with suspected involvement of employee cooperative society of railways employees.who you trust?
Fraud maid service agency in NCR
I read this compliant about fraudulent maid service providers in Gurgaon.I saw similar complaints on various websites including those of consumer forms.I think people should run a background check on a service provider too before hiring maid through them.A simple web check can be the first step.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Are you cheating on your partner
I came across this article & was wondering it would apply to how many of us.Experts say that if nature had its way, no one would be monogamous. “Every human being is polygamous by nature,” says Dr Kamal Khurana, a New Delhi-based marriage and relationship counsellor. “The concept of marriage was constructed to perpetuate the ideas of commitment and belonging.”
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Woman Faked Breast Cancer
Wednesday, March 10, 2010 11:29 AM
A Tennessee woman has plead guilty to charges of theft and forgery after she lied about having breast cancer. And she's not the only one.
Coworkers were concerned about 39 year old Keele Maynor from Chattanooga, TN when she told them that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer. She was a city employee and accepted donations of sick leave time, as well as financial donations from cancer groups. This would have all been fine, if it were true.
Model PhotoMaynor went so far as to say that her cancer was terminal and had spread to her kidneys and lungs and maintained a blog chronicling her health issues. It is estimated that Maynor accepted over $87,000 worth of assistance from coworkers, the city, and cancer groups. She will be sentenced in May, but will not serve more than six years in prison. She is currently out on bond and prosecutors are trying to determine what restitution is owed.
In a similar story, Trista Joy Lathern of central Texas told her coworkers that she had breast cancer, and no health insurance to pay for the extensive chemotherapy treatments. Out of concern for her and her family, the community rallied. Coworkers donated time off to her so that she could seek treatment and there was a benefit held in her honor, during which $10,000 was raised. There was only one thing wrong - she never had breast cancer.
It all started when she lied to her husband, claiming that she had breast cancer, in an effort to reportedly find sympathy and repair her struggling marriage. It would seem that the lie snowballed from there. The 24 year old Lathern even went so far as to shave her head to make it appear as though it had fallen out due to her cancer treatments.
In August, more than 100 people showed up at Waco’s Hog Creek Icehouse Saloon to participate in an all-day benefit organized to raise funds for Lathern's treatment. After collecting an estimated $10,000, Lathern went to a local cosmetic surgeon to inquire about breast augmentation. The physician was alarmed because he'd heard about the fundraiser, and Lathern didn't mention anything about cancer during her consultation. The physician contacted his lawyer who in turn contacted local authorities. In the meantime, Lathern traveled to Austin, TX and had breast augmentation performed there. Trista was arrested on November 4, 2009
Wednesday, March 10, 2010 11:29 AM
A Tennessee woman has plead guilty to charges of theft and forgery after she lied about having breast cancer. And she's not the only one.
Coworkers were concerned about 39 year old Keele Maynor from Chattanooga, TN when she told them that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer. She was a city employee and accepted donations of sick leave time, as well as financial donations from cancer groups. This would have all been fine, if it were true.
Model PhotoMaynor went so far as to say that her cancer was terminal and had spread to her kidneys and lungs and maintained a blog chronicling her health issues. It is estimated that Maynor accepted over $87,000 worth of assistance from coworkers, the city, and cancer groups. She will be sentenced in May, but will not serve more than six years in prison. She is currently out on bond and prosecutors are trying to determine what restitution is owed.
In a similar story, Trista Joy Lathern of central Texas told her coworkers that she had breast cancer, and no health insurance to pay for the extensive chemotherapy treatments. Out of concern for her and her family, the community rallied. Coworkers donated time off to her so that she could seek treatment and there was a benefit held in her honor, during which $10,000 was raised. There was only one thing wrong - she never had breast cancer.
It all started when she lied to her husband, claiming that she had breast cancer, in an effort to reportedly find sympathy and repair her struggling marriage. It would seem that the lie snowballed from there. The 24 year old Lathern even went so far as to shave her head to make it appear as though it had fallen out due to her cancer treatments.
In August, more than 100 people showed up at Waco’s Hog Creek Icehouse Saloon to participate in an all-day benefit organized to raise funds for Lathern's treatment. After collecting an estimated $10,000, Lathern went to a local cosmetic surgeon to inquire about breast augmentation. The physician was alarmed because he'd heard about the fundraiser, and Lathern didn't mention anything about cancer during her consultation. The physician contacted his lawyer who in turn contacted local authorities. In the meantime, Lathern traveled to Austin, TX and had breast augmentation performed there. Trista was arrested on November 4, 2009
1. Woman accuses niece of plotting to grab her house
By Chaitraly Deshmukh
Posted On Tuesday, March 02, 2010 at 11:15:05 PM
A 60-year-old woman, wife of a Spain based perfumery owner, has lodged a police complaint, accusing her niece of plotting to grab her house in Camp.
In her First Information Report (FIR) with the Cantonment police station, Hema Dayal Idnani alleged that her niece stole documents pertaining to purchase of her flat in Nalini Apartments in 2008 and moreover, locked up her mother Pamela (80) and their domestic help inside the flat for about five hours on January 11.
The Cantonment police filed a case of burglary, trespassing and criminal restraint against Hema’s niece, Kiran (44), after Hema lodged her FIR. No arrests have been made so far.
Hema says she lives in Spain with her husband and three children but rushed to India after coming to know that her mother and domestic help had been locked up inside the flat and lodged the police complaint.
In Hema’s absence, her brother Shankar Hariram Dayani and her mother Pamela, who otherwise live at Quarter Gate, take care of Idnani’s flat and at times stay there.
Hema said “I had purchased the 1,620 sq ft flat in 1978. However, since I live in Spain, I left the keys with my brother asking my sister-in-law, Komal, and mother Pamela to take its care in my absence.”
She alleged, “In 2008, my neighbour at Nalini Apartments spotted a woman getting duplicate keys of my flat prepared with the help of a keymaker. The woman said she was my niece Kiran and claimed that I had authorised her to take some documents from the flat and take them to Spain.”
Hema went on to allege, “I came to know about this only when my sister-in-law visited the flat in 2009 and found the lock changed. Somehow, she entered the flat and found the documents of its ownership stolen.
She informed me about the incident. I did not file a police complaint immediately as Kiran’s father had died just a few days back in Spain. I tried calling up Kiran but she did not respond to my calls.”
Hema also alleged, “This incident prompted me to ask my mother to shift to my flat. On my request, she went to live in the flat with domestic help Sudha. My sister-in-law too would frequent the flat. On January 11, somebody locked my mother and Sudha inside the flat.
They were later rescued by my sister-in-law. Enquiries with the security guards revealed that Kiran had been there with some men around the time they were locked up. My sister-in-law informed the police about the incident.
When I came to know about it, I came to Pune and after
discussing the matter with some relatives and a lawyer, decided to lodge a formal FIR.”
Sub-inspector Pradeep Chopade, who is investigating the case, said, “After Hema lodged her FIR, we went to Kiran’s house, but found it locked. Now we are trying to locate her. This could be a case of property grab. However, we are also probing other possibilities.”
2. Bosses get harsh on service
Falling standards may erode local firms' ability to wing it abroad, they warn
by Jonathan Peeris jonathanpeeris@mediacorp.com.sg 05:55 AM Mar 02, 2010SINGAPORE - They themselves sit at the apex of industry. But a panel of chief executive officers did not pull any punches yesterday when asked to assess the state of service here. The rot starts at the top, they agreed.
And, if the public has griped hard about service standards here, these head honchos at the inaugural CEO Industry Forum were equally withering.
CapitaLand CEO Liew Mun Leong called it a "severe deterioration" of service quality and an "appalling situation that appears chronic". NTUC Income chief executive Tan Suee Chieh believes Singapore is now at a "crisis point".
These alarm bells were rung yesterday against the backdrop of a recent survey by the Institute of Service Excellence at Singapore Management University (ISES), which found that only two out of eight service sectors, healthcare and finance, showed an improvement in customer satisfaction.
More recently, the Government announced Budget measures to help small and medium enterprises scale up and internationalise. But declining service standards here may erode the capability of local companies to export their services overseas, the businessmen warned yesterday at the forum organised by ISES.
Training and campaigns will not work if not supported by the right corporate culture, said Mr Liew. The industry players said there was no magic pill or quick fix; what is needed is a long-term commitment at the highest level to service excellence.
From product delivery to "the selling of expectations to the customer", how consistently these are done would be "an important differentiating factor to anybody who wants to build brands", said Mr Douglas Foo, CEO of Apex-Pal International, parent company of Sakae Sushi.
The ISES survey showed Singapore trailing behind not just the United States and the United Kingdom, but regional neighbours such as Hong Kong and South Korea. The Republic ranked ninth out of the 10 countries polled.
Entitlement culture?
One issue, though, that emerged at the forum was whether Singapore's slipping customer satisfaction levels was partly to do with factors other than service standards themselves, such as an entitlement culture among Singaporeans.
Mr Liew said a deep-rooted concept of master and servant, exacerbated by the presence of foreign domestic workers (FDWs) here, has contributed to the problem. He questioned why households here called FDWs "maids" instead of housekeepers or house assistants.
"The moment you call them maids or servants, your children will behave that way towards them. We need to get rid of this thinking that they're our servants," he said.
The other main driver of this entitlement mentality: Singapore's successful growth story. Mr Liew, the forum's keynote speaker, said Singapore was a "victim of its own success" - a result of not having to struggle like the previous generation.
Mr Foo added that an elitist mindset has been perpetuated in the school system here.
He related how he once wanted to implement a Gems (Go The Extra Mile For Service) programme for students at a prominent local school, to spend time working at Sakae Sushi outlets to learn about the difficulties faced by service staff. The school principal turned it down, saying her students were not destined for such jobs.
But the panellists agreed that such opportunities are the way to go. Ms Elim Chew, founder and managing director of retail chain 77th Street, said: "I always tell my staff, 'service and sales are everything'. If I didn't start out as a salesgirl, I'd never be sitting here today."
3. Pushkin Chandra's killers get life term (Lead)
Published on : Tuesday 02 Mar 2010 16:32 - by IANS
New Delhi, March 2 : A city court Tuesday awarded life imprisonment to two men convicted for murdering a gay man, Pushkin Chandra, and his friend Kuldip in 2004.
Additional Sessions Judge A.K. Kuhar sentenced Rajesh Rekhwar, 27, and Moti, 25, under Sections 302 (murder) and 308 (theft) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). The court also imposed a fine of Rs.3,000 on each of them.
Rekhwar's lawyer Aman Sareen, during the argument on quantum of sentence, said the court must see the circumstances in which the murders took place. Sareen also said that Rekhwar is HIV positive and his family - wife and three children - would suffer with harsher punishment.
Rekhwar's wife, who was present in the court along with their children, broke down after hearing the sentence.
Moti, who represented his case himself, said: “I have no criminal record and my family will suffer if harsh punishment is handed to me.”
Pushkin Chandra, 38, an employee with the United Nations Development Programme and son of a retired IAS officer, was found dead along with his friend Kuldip at his residence in Anand Lok here on the night of Aug 13, 2004.
The court has, however, acquitted Munna and Jai Kishore, who were accused of being involved in 'destruction of evidence' and 'keeping the stolen property' for lack of proof.
While convicting Rekhwar and Moti, the court relied on witness Hare Ram, the domestic help of Chandra's father. Ram had identified both the accused as the people last seen with Chandra and Kuldeep.
According to the prosecution, Ram was the first to discover the bodies and the last to have seen the victims alive. He was one of the 37 prosecution witnesses who deposed before the court.
"Chandra's belongings, including a DVD player, that were recovered by the police from Rekhwar's house also formed the basis of his conviction. The prosecution had also produced photographs clicked at an ATM in which Rekhwar was seen withdrawing cash using Chandra's ATM cards," the chargesheet read.
Rekhwar in his disclosure statement claimed that Chandra used to pick him and Moti from Connaught Place to have sex with them. Pornographic tapes of men engaged in same-sex activity were recovered from the murder scene. Pushkin's car and several other belongings were missing.
4. Hema’s watchman missing since theft
02 Mar, 2010 11:38 am ISTlMUMBAI MIRROR
Veteran actress and danseuse Hema Malini returned to the city on Sunday morning to be informed that her house at Gokuldham, Goregaon, had been broken into, and Rs 80 lakh in cash and jewellery stolen.
While thefts from celebrity homes are nothing new, it is the first time a burglary of such proportions has taken place in a high-profile home.
The Dindoshi police are now hot on the trail of one of the suspects, a Nepali watchman identified as Narendrakumar Udhnan Bisht, aged between 20 to 22 years. Bisht has been missing ever since the robbery came to light.
The stolen items included about Rs 75 lakh in cash and assorted jewellery including a gold waistband, diamond jewellery, bangles, gold chains and earrings totalling Rs 5 lakh.
A team of officers from the Dindoshi Police Station have already launched a massive manhunt for Bisht both in the country and in Nepal. Police revealed that Bisht was employed at the actor’s residence two and a half years ago.
According to investigators, Bisht had two accomplices. “Once we zero in on Bisht, further enquiries regarding his associates will be made,†said an officer. On interrogating Malini’s domestic help, police learnt that her watchman had been repeatedly asking about her trip to Nagpur.
A source said, “One of Esha Deol’s uncles called to tell her that their Goregaon house, located in a secluded spot near the Film City, had been burgled.â€
Esha then reached the bungalow and called up to inform her mother about the incident.
The bungalow is rarely used by Malini, who prefers to stay at her daughter’s home in Juhu.
The thieves apparently sneaked into the premises by breaking a window.
Police have detained the bungalow’s other security guard and the domestic help. “We have registered a case of theft under Section 379 of the IPC and are investigating further,†said senior inspector Vinayak Kakade of Dindoshi Police Station.
5. Avoiding identity theft during the tax season
on Mar 2nd, 2010 at 10:29am - by admin
While many consumers start ramping up their preparations for the tax season, they should keep identity theft on their minds as well as how much they may get in a return.
Recently, ID Analytics, a firm that provides identity theft support, said there are a number of things consumers can do to protect their identity during the tax season. Thomas Oscherwitz, chief privacy officer for the company, said that people should keep an eye on their mailboxes for their tax forms.
Any missing forms could act as a sign that a person’s identity has been compromised. Furthermore, tax filers should lock their forms away in a safe location that is out of the public eye.
The company also notes that the Internal Revenue Service does not approach people about tax issues through emails.
"Tax time is a prime time for fraudsters to target consumers with phony emails asking for their personal information," ID Analytics said.
Regardless of whether it involves taxes, experts note that consumers should be wary of any emails purporting to be from the government or their financial institutions. When in doubt, consumers should contact the organization that is allegedly attempting to interact with them.
6.Data theft creates notification nightmare for BlueCross
A break-in one evening last October at a shopping mall in Chattanooga, Tennessee, is proving expensive for BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee.
Over the past five months, the company has employed a small army of workers to sort through the aftermath of what has proved to be a large and complex breach. Late last year, BlueCross and forensics company Kroll OnTrack employed 500 full-time workers and 300 part-time employees, working in two shifts, six days a week, to piece together what happened, the company said in a letter posted to the Maryland attorney general's Web site over the weekend.
As with many data breaches, this one can be traced back to a burglary involving unencrypted data.
On Oct. 2, someone stole 57 hard drives from a closet at the health insurance company's training center in Chattanooga's Eastgate Town Center mall. The drives contained recordings of more than 1 million customer support calls, totalling 50,000 hours of conversation. There were also 300,000 screen shots, showing what BlueCross representatives had on their computer monitors at the time some of the calls were made.
In most of the calls, subscribers provided their BlueCross ID number, name and date of birth -- not enough information for criminals to pull off an identity theft scam. But in some calls, Medicare subscribers provided what's known as a Health Insurance Claim (HIC) number, which contains the subscriber's Social Security number. Many of the screen shots also include Social Security numbers, and that information can be used in identity theft.
So for the past five months, BlueCross has been sorting out which of its 3 million customers to notify of the breach. "Unfortunately, after checking with numerous vendors throughout the country, an electronic solution could not be formulated, and a largely manual review of audio and video files has been necessary," BlueCross said in the letter, dated Dec. 16.
"We made the decision that there is really no substitute for actually manually going through it and looking at the video screens or listening to the audio," said Roy Vaughn, a BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee spokesman. "It has to be reviewed."
To date, BlueCross has identified more than half a million affected customers and sent notification letters to about 300,000, according to the BlueCross Web site. As of Jan. 8, more than 110,000 work-hours had been spent reviewing the material.
The process has cost more than US$7 million so far, and it will be several months more before the notification effort is concluded, Vaughn said.
The average data breach costs $6.75 million, according to Michael Spinney, a senior privacy analyst with the Ponemon Institute. However, the BlueCross incident is more complex than a typical data breach, he said. "It sounds like they're going to be paying a lot more."
BlueCross is offering victims free credit monitoring, though Vaughn said most victims faced a "low risk" of having their personal information misused.
It is also auditing its security practices and has hired a former Department of Defense cybercrimes agent named Stephen Baird to conduct penetration tests of the company's security. BlueCross has also assigned two internal investigators to look into the theft, full time.
"We are determined to prevent any future thefts," the letter reads. "It is an understatement to say that BlueCross regrets this data breach.
7. Mum, daughter face maid abuse
By Elena Chong
A MOTHER and daughter pair have been accused of abusing their Indonesian maid.
Housewife Kassiammal V. Sinnathamy, 66, was charged on Tuesday with stepping on Ms Tarinah's hands while she was folding clothes in a bedroom at their Choa Chu Kang Crescent flat in mid-May last year.
Chandrakala Govindarajoo, 32, a freelance administration executive, allegedly grabbed the 24-year-old maid's left arm, dragged her to the floor, stepped on her left arm, kicked her back and slapped her face on June 16 last year.
She faces another charge of hitting Ms Tarinah's head twice with a white plastic bowl in mid-April.
Their lawyer, Mr Rajan Supramaniam, has made representations on their behalf and is awaiting a reply.
Their case will be mentioned on March 16.
If convicted, they face a jail term of up to three years and/or a fine of $7,500 per charge.
By Chaitraly Deshmukh
Posted On Tuesday, March 02, 2010 at 11:15:05 PM
A 60-year-old woman, wife of a Spain based perfumery owner, has lodged a police complaint, accusing her niece of plotting to grab her house in Camp.
In her First Information Report (FIR) with the Cantonment police station, Hema Dayal Idnani alleged that her niece stole documents pertaining to purchase of her flat in Nalini Apartments in 2008 and moreover, locked up her mother Pamela (80) and their domestic help inside the flat for about five hours on January 11.
The Cantonment police filed a case of burglary, trespassing and criminal restraint against Hema’s niece, Kiran (44), after Hema lodged her FIR. No arrests have been made so far.
Hema says she lives in Spain with her husband and three children but rushed to India after coming to know that her mother and domestic help had been locked up inside the flat and lodged the police complaint.
In Hema’s absence, her brother Shankar Hariram Dayani and her mother Pamela, who otherwise live at Quarter Gate, take care of Idnani’s flat and at times stay there.
Hema said “I had purchased the 1,620 sq ft flat in 1978. However, since I live in Spain, I left the keys with my brother asking my sister-in-law, Komal, and mother Pamela to take its care in my absence.”
She alleged, “In 2008, my neighbour at Nalini Apartments spotted a woman getting duplicate keys of my flat prepared with the help of a keymaker. The woman said she was my niece Kiran and claimed that I had authorised her to take some documents from the flat and take them to Spain.”
Hema went on to allege, “I came to know about this only when my sister-in-law visited the flat in 2009 and found the lock changed. Somehow, she entered the flat and found the documents of its ownership stolen.
She informed me about the incident. I did not file a police complaint immediately as Kiran’s father had died just a few days back in Spain. I tried calling up Kiran but she did not respond to my calls.”
Hema also alleged, “This incident prompted me to ask my mother to shift to my flat. On my request, she went to live in the flat with domestic help Sudha. My sister-in-law too would frequent the flat. On January 11, somebody locked my mother and Sudha inside the flat.
They were later rescued by my sister-in-law. Enquiries with the security guards revealed that Kiran had been there with some men around the time they were locked up. My sister-in-law informed the police about the incident.
When I came to know about it, I came to Pune and after
discussing the matter with some relatives and a lawyer, decided to lodge a formal FIR.”
Sub-inspector Pradeep Chopade, who is investigating the case, said, “After Hema lodged her FIR, we went to Kiran’s house, but found it locked. Now we are trying to locate her. This could be a case of property grab. However, we are also probing other possibilities.”
2. Bosses get harsh on service
Falling standards may erode local firms' ability to wing it abroad, they warn
by Jonathan Peeris jonathanpeeris@mediacorp.com.sg 05:55 AM Mar 02, 2010SINGAPORE - They themselves sit at the apex of industry. But a panel of chief executive officers did not pull any punches yesterday when asked to assess the state of service here. The rot starts at the top, they agreed.
And, if the public has griped hard about service standards here, these head honchos at the inaugural CEO Industry Forum were equally withering.
CapitaLand CEO Liew Mun Leong called it a "severe deterioration" of service quality and an "appalling situation that appears chronic". NTUC Income chief executive Tan Suee Chieh believes Singapore is now at a "crisis point".
These alarm bells were rung yesterday against the backdrop of a recent survey by the Institute of Service Excellence at Singapore Management University (ISES), which found that only two out of eight service sectors, healthcare and finance, showed an improvement in customer satisfaction.
More recently, the Government announced Budget measures to help small and medium enterprises scale up and internationalise. But declining service standards here may erode the capability of local companies to export their services overseas, the businessmen warned yesterday at the forum organised by ISES.
Training and campaigns will not work if not supported by the right corporate culture, said Mr Liew. The industry players said there was no magic pill or quick fix; what is needed is a long-term commitment at the highest level to service excellence.
From product delivery to "the selling of expectations to the customer", how consistently these are done would be "an important differentiating factor to anybody who wants to build brands", said Mr Douglas Foo, CEO of Apex-Pal International, parent company of Sakae Sushi.
The ISES survey showed Singapore trailing behind not just the United States and the United Kingdom, but regional neighbours such as Hong Kong and South Korea. The Republic ranked ninth out of the 10 countries polled.
Entitlement culture?
One issue, though, that emerged at the forum was whether Singapore's slipping customer satisfaction levels was partly to do with factors other than service standards themselves, such as an entitlement culture among Singaporeans.
Mr Liew said a deep-rooted concept of master and servant, exacerbated by the presence of foreign domestic workers (FDWs) here, has contributed to the problem. He questioned why households here called FDWs "maids" instead of housekeepers or house assistants.
"The moment you call them maids or servants, your children will behave that way towards them. We need to get rid of this thinking that they're our servants," he said.
The other main driver of this entitlement mentality: Singapore's successful growth story. Mr Liew, the forum's keynote speaker, said Singapore was a "victim of its own success" - a result of not having to struggle like the previous generation.
Mr Foo added that an elitist mindset has been perpetuated in the school system here.
He related how he once wanted to implement a Gems (Go The Extra Mile For Service) programme for students at a prominent local school, to spend time working at Sakae Sushi outlets to learn about the difficulties faced by service staff. The school principal turned it down, saying her students were not destined for such jobs.
But the panellists agreed that such opportunities are the way to go. Ms Elim Chew, founder and managing director of retail chain 77th Street, said: "I always tell my staff, 'service and sales are everything'. If I didn't start out as a salesgirl, I'd never be sitting here today."
3. Pushkin Chandra's killers get life term (Lead)
Published on : Tuesday 02 Mar 2010 16:32 - by IANS
New Delhi, March 2 : A city court Tuesday awarded life imprisonment to two men convicted for murdering a gay man, Pushkin Chandra, and his friend Kuldip in 2004.
Additional Sessions Judge A.K. Kuhar sentenced Rajesh Rekhwar, 27, and Moti, 25, under Sections 302 (murder) and 308 (theft) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). The court also imposed a fine of Rs.3,000 on each of them.
Rekhwar's lawyer Aman Sareen, during the argument on quantum of sentence, said the court must see the circumstances in which the murders took place. Sareen also said that Rekhwar is HIV positive and his family - wife and three children - would suffer with harsher punishment.
Rekhwar's wife, who was present in the court along with their children, broke down after hearing the sentence.
Moti, who represented his case himself, said: “I have no criminal record and my family will suffer if harsh punishment is handed to me.”
Pushkin Chandra, 38, an employee with the United Nations Development Programme and son of a retired IAS officer, was found dead along with his friend Kuldip at his residence in Anand Lok here on the night of Aug 13, 2004.
The court has, however, acquitted Munna and Jai Kishore, who were accused of being involved in 'destruction of evidence' and 'keeping the stolen property' for lack of proof.
While convicting Rekhwar and Moti, the court relied on witness Hare Ram, the domestic help of Chandra's father. Ram had identified both the accused as the people last seen with Chandra and Kuldeep.
According to the prosecution, Ram was the first to discover the bodies and the last to have seen the victims alive. He was one of the 37 prosecution witnesses who deposed before the court.
"Chandra's belongings, including a DVD player, that were recovered by the police from Rekhwar's house also formed the basis of his conviction. The prosecution had also produced photographs clicked at an ATM in which Rekhwar was seen withdrawing cash using Chandra's ATM cards," the chargesheet read.
Rekhwar in his disclosure statement claimed that Chandra used to pick him and Moti from Connaught Place to have sex with them. Pornographic tapes of men engaged in same-sex activity were recovered from the murder scene. Pushkin's car and several other belongings were missing.
4. Hema’s watchman missing since theft
02 Mar, 2010 11:38 am ISTlMUMBAI MIRROR
Veteran actress and danseuse Hema Malini returned to the city on Sunday morning to be informed that her house at Gokuldham, Goregaon, had been broken into, and Rs 80 lakh in cash and jewellery stolen.
While thefts from celebrity homes are nothing new, it is the first time a burglary of such proportions has taken place in a high-profile home.
The Dindoshi police are now hot on the trail of one of the suspects, a Nepali watchman identified as Narendrakumar Udhnan Bisht, aged between 20 to 22 years. Bisht has been missing ever since the robbery came to light.
The stolen items included about Rs 75 lakh in cash and assorted jewellery including a gold waistband, diamond jewellery, bangles, gold chains and earrings totalling Rs 5 lakh.
A team of officers from the Dindoshi Police Station have already launched a massive manhunt for Bisht both in the country and in Nepal. Police revealed that Bisht was employed at the actor’s residence two and a half years ago.
According to investigators, Bisht had two accomplices. “Once we zero in on Bisht, further enquiries regarding his associates will be made,†said an officer. On interrogating Malini’s domestic help, police learnt that her watchman had been repeatedly asking about her trip to Nagpur.
A source said, “One of Esha Deol’s uncles called to tell her that their Goregaon house, located in a secluded spot near the Film City, had been burgled.â€
Esha then reached the bungalow and called up to inform her mother about the incident.
The bungalow is rarely used by Malini, who prefers to stay at her daughter’s home in Juhu.
The thieves apparently sneaked into the premises by breaking a window.
Police have detained the bungalow’s other security guard and the domestic help. “We have registered a case of theft under Section 379 of the IPC and are investigating further,†said senior inspector Vinayak Kakade of Dindoshi Police Station.
5. Avoiding identity theft during the tax season
on Mar 2nd, 2010 at 10:29am - by admin
While many consumers start ramping up their preparations for the tax season, they should keep identity theft on their minds as well as how much they may get in a return.
Recently, ID Analytics, a firm that provides identity theft support, said there are a number of things consumers can do to protect their identity during the tax season. Thomas Oscherwitz, chief privacy officer for the company, said that people should keep an eye on their mailboxes for their tax forms.
Any missing forms could act as a sign that a person’s identity has been compromised. Furthermore, tax filers should lock their forms away in a safe location that is out of the public eye.
The company also notes that the Internal Revenue Service does not approach people about tax issues through emails.
"Tax time is a prime time for fraudsters to target consumers with phony emails asking for their personal information," ID Analytics said.
Regardless of whether it involves taxes, experts note that consumers should be wary of any emails purporting to be from the government or their financial institutions. When in doubt, consumers should contact the organization that is allegedly attempting to interact with them.
6.Data theft creates notification nightmare for BlueCross
A break-in one evening last October at a shopping mall in Chattanooga, Tennessee, is proving expensive for BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee.
Over the past five months, the company has employed a small army of workers to sort through the aftermath of what has proved to be a large and complex breach. Late last year, BlueCross and forensics company Kroll OnTrack employed 500 full-time workers and 300 part-time employees, working in two shifts, six days a week, to piece together what happened, the company said in a letter posted to the Maryland attorney general's Web site over the weekend.
As with many data breaches, this one can be traced back to a burglary involving unencrypted data.
On Oct. 2, someone stole 57 hard drives from a closet at the health insurance company's training center in Chattanooga's Eastgate Town Center mall. The drives contained recordings of more than 1 million customer support calls, totalling 50,000 hours of conversation. There were also 300,000 screen shots, showing what BlueCross representatives had on their computer monitors at the time some of the calls were made.
In most of the calls, subscribers provided their BlueCross ID number, name and date of birth -- not enough information for criminals to pull off an identity theft scam. But in some calls, Medicare subscribers provided what's known as a Health Insurance Claim (HIC) number, which contains the subscriber's Social Security number. Many of the screen shots also include Social Security numbers, and that information can be used in identity theft.
So for the past five months, BlueCross has been sorting out which of its 3 million customers to notify of the breach. "Unfortunately, after checking with numerous vendors throughout the country, an electronic solution could not be formulated, and a largely manual review of audio and video files has been necessary," BlueCross said in the letter, dated Dec. 16.
"We made the decision that there is really no substitute for actually manually going through it and looking at the video screens or listening to the audio," said Roy Vaughn, a BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee spokesman. "It has to be reviewed."
To date, BlueCross has identified more than half a million affected customers and sent notification letters to about 300,000, according to the BlueCross Web site. As of Jan. 8, more than 110,000 work-hours had been spent reviewing the material.
The process has cost more than US$7 million so far, and it will be several months more before the notification effort is concluded, Vaughn said.
The average data breach costs $6.75 million, according to Michael Spinney, a senior privacy analyst with the Ponemon Institute. However, the BlueCross incident is more complex than a typical data breach, he said. "It sounds like they're going to be paying a lot more."
BlueCross is offering victims free credit monitoring, though Vaughn said most victims faced a "low risk" of having their personal information misused.
It is also auditing its security practices and has hired a former Department of Defense cybercrimes agent named Stephen Baird to conduct penetration tests of the company's security. BlueCross has also assigned two internal investigators to look into the theft, full time.
"We are determined to prevent any future thefts," the letter reads. "It is an understatement to say that BlueCross regrets this data breach.
7. Mum, daughter face maid abuse
By Elena Chong
A MOTHER and daughter pair have been accused of abusing their Indonesian maid.
Housewife Kassiammal V. Sinnathamy, 66, was charged on Tuesday with stepping on Ms Tarinah's hands while she was folding clothes in a bedroom at their Choa Chu Kang Crescent flat in mid-May last year.
Chandrakala Govindarajoo, 32, a freelance administration executive, allegedly grabbed the 24-year-old maid's left arm, dragged her to the floor, stepped on her left arm, kicked her back and slapped her face on June 16 last year.
She faces another charge of hitting Ms Tarinah's head twice with a white plastic bowl in mid-April.
Their lawyer, Mr Rajan Supramaniam, has made representations on their behalf and is awaiting a reply.
Their case will be mentioned on March 16.
If convicted, they face a jail term of up to three years and/or a fine of $7,500 per charge.
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