India’s voting machines are open to fraud, says group

The electronic voting machines (EVMs) used in India are vulnerable to fraud, and it is important for votes to be counted in a manner that can be seen and verified, a group of experts said Thursday.In a collaborative study, a team of Indian and international experts has revealed that even brief access to the voting machines can allow criminals to alter election results.As details of the machines’ design have never been publicly disclosed, and they have not been subjected to a rigorous, independent security analysis, the experts said in a statement that their research findings acquire vital significance.These findings, they said, were at odds with the Election Commission claims that weaknesses found in other EVMs around the world do not apply to the Indian product.But the statement said the findings of this group’s research “clearly show that India’s EVMs are far from being perfect and suffer from serious security vulnerabilities”.
This collaborative study was performed by a team of researchers from NetIndia Ltd, based in Hyderabad, the University of Michigan in the US and a non-profit organisation in the Netherlands specialising in electronic voting related issues.India has around 1.4 million EVMs, which record votes only for internal memory and provide no paper records for later inspection or recount. Here, trust is placed in the hardware and software of the voting machines.The researchers said they had shown that the EVMs can be attacked, either by replacing a small part of the machine with an identical component that can be silently instructed to steal a percentage of the votes in favor of a chosen candidate.These instructions can even be sent from a mobile phone.Another attack would involve the use of a pocket-sized device to change the votes stored in the EVM between the day of polling and when the votes get counted.“The simple design of the EVMs lends itself for such attacks. Our study has demonstrated two attacks on the EVMs. More such attacks are possible. These attacks are possible despite the existence of procedural checks and safeguards that the Election Commission has introduced,” said Hari Prasad, a computer engineer from Hyderabad who organised the study.The design of EVMs relies entirely on physical security of machines and the integrity of election insiders, including private technicians hired by the EVM manufacturers.The EVMs have no provisions for storing secrets to prevent manipulations by attackers having physical access to the machines.Rop Gonggrijp, a security researcher from the Netherlands, said: “Such machines have already been abandoned in Ireland, the Netherlands, Germany, Florida (US) and many other places. India should follow suit.”Gonggrijp added: “Computers can be programmed to count votes honestly. But since nobody can watch them, they might just as easily be programmed to count dishonestly.”Political analyst G.V.L. Narasimha Rao said the distrust among political leaders of all hues on voting machines was high. “It is about time India shunned paperless voting to make its election outcomes credible and verifiable.”
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Weather has been dry over CAP: Adilabad recorded highest 45 C

Hyderabad, Apr 29 : With the maximum temperatures rising at one or two places over Telangana and Rayalaseema and falling at one or two places over Coastal Andhra Pradesh(CAP), the weather has been dry over Coastal Andhra Pradesh today.According to the MET office here, isolated rain occurred over Telangana and Rayalaseema, while the weather has been dry over Coastal Andhra Pradesh.The chief amounts of rainfall recorded at Hakimpet(AP), Rayadurg (Anantapur dist) 2 each and Lakkireddipalli (Cuddapah dist) one cm.The temperatures were significantly above normal at one or two places over Coastal Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, and above normal at a few places over Rayalaseema. The highest maximum temperature of 45 degrees Celsius was recorded at Adilabad.The weather office predicted that isolated rain or thundershowers would occur over Telangana and Rayalaseema and over Coastal Andhra Pradesh durng the next 48 hours. The maximum and Minimum temperatures would be around 40 and 25 degrees Celsius, respectively.
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Amendment in Right To Information Act ,

(PIB NEWS) The Right to Information Act, 2005 provides that the State Information Commission shall consist of the State Chief Information Commissioner and Information Commissioners, not exceeding ten, as may be deemed necessary. No amendment of this provision is under consideration The Act has an inbuilt system of monitoring of the implementation of the Act. It provides that the Central Information Commission and the State Information Commissions shall prepare reports on the implementation of the provisions of the Act each year which are to be laid before each House of the Parliament or each House of Legislature, as the case may be. This information was given by the Minister of State in the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions, Shri Prithviraj Chavan in written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha.
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