NEW DELHI (Reuters) – The prime minister’s office moved to quell an outcry over a reported $211 billion loss in revenues from the sale of coalfields on Thursday, after months of pressure over a slew of scandals that have weakened the government.

The Times of India earlier published part of a leaked draft report by the auditor’s office that calculated massive revenue losses, causing a furore in parliament and driving stocks lower.

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – The Indian prime minister’s office moved to quell an outcry over a reported $211 billion loss in revenues from the sale of coalfields on Thursday, after months of pressure over a slew of scandals that have weakened the government.

The Times of India earlier published part of a leaked draft report by the auditor’s office that calculated massive revenue losses, causing a furore in parliament and driving stocks lower.

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India’s weak economy is exposed to an extended euro zone crisis, the coalition government is under great strain, and a massive corruption scandal is raising the still unlikely scenario of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s second term being cut short before a general election due in 2014.

State elections in early March could put Singh’s Congress party under severe pressure.

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Aakash, the “$35″ computer launched last year in India as the world’s cheapest tablet, has run into problems and companies will be invited to bid again to make the device after complaints of poor performance and hiccups rolling out a pilot model.

The government has hailed the Aakash tablet as an achievement of Indian frugal engineering that would end the digital divide in a country where only one in every 10 of its 1.2 billion people use the Internet.

NEW DELHI, Feb 22 (Reuters) – A “$35″ computer
launched last year in India as the world’s cheapest tablet has
run into problems and companies will be invited to bid again to
make the device after complaints of poor performance and hiccups
rolling out a pilot model.

The government has hailed the Aakash tablet as an
achievement of Indian frugal engineering that would end the
digital divide in a country where only one in every 10 of its
1.2 billion people use the Internet.

MOREH, India (Reuters) – As dusk falls on a lonely police station in the eastern tip of India, a young policeman nervously keeps an eye on the Arakan hills above him, dotted with poppy fields.

Just 22 bumpy miles from the capital of India’s restive Manipur state, he and his colleagues are outnumbered by gunmen from a faction of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland, one of half a dozen insurgent groups operating near India’s border with Myanmar.

MOREH, India, Feb 22 (Reuters) – As dusk falls on a
lonely police station in the eastern tip of India, a young
policeman nervously keeps an eye on the Arakan hills above him,
dotted with poppy fields.

Just 22 bumpy miles from the capital of India’s restive
Manipur state, he and his colleagues are outnumbered by gunmen
from a faction of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland,
one of half a dozen insurgent groups operating near India’s
border with Myanmar.

Feb 7 (Reuters) – A hacker released the source code
for antivirus firm Symantec’s pcAnywhere utility on Tuesday,
raising fears that others could find security holes in the
product and attempt takeovers of customer computers.

The release followed failed email negotiations over a
$50,000 payout to the hacker calling himself YamaTough to
destroy the code.

By Frank Jack Daniel

(Reuters) – Hackers sought $50,000 from U.S. anti-virus firm Symantec Corp in return for the stolen blueprints to its flagship products under what the company says was a sting operation run by an undisclosed law enforcement agency via emails.

The company said the emails were in fact between the hacker and law enforcement officials posing as a Symantec employee.

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – A weak economy exposed to an extended euro zone crisis, growing strain on the government coalition, and looming state elections that mean progress on tough reforms are unlikely are some of the risks to watch in early 2012 in the world’s largest democracy.

RATINGS (Unchanged since January unless stated):

S&P: BBB-

MOODY’S: Baa3

FITCH: BBB-

The cost of insuring against default on 5-year sovereign debt traded around 88 basis points at the start of February, down around 20 points from the start of the year.