The weekend saw a sharp exchange of tweets between our soon-to-retire telecom regulatory chief Mr R.S. Sharma and advocates of privacy. He is an unabashed believer in the security of Aadhaar. This, for the uninitiated, is like a social security number that is now being linked to everything under the sun — bank records, financial statements, income tax returns, phone numbers and even competitive examinations.

Sharma has claimed, and he’s probably right, that no harm could come to him if his Aadhaar details were to be made public. This has been consistently echoed by UIDAI, which claims a “security perimeter” around the collected biometrics of every individual in the Indian subcontinent. As such, Aadhaar represents the most massive honeypot of sensitive biometrics ever compiled on the planet. This author takes the government’s claims on the security of the biometric database, and the claims that said database has never been breached, at face value.

PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - Prime Minister Hun Sen’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) said on Monday it had won all 125 parliamentary seats up for grabs in a general election a day earlier that critics said was neither free nor fair.

About 5.5 million Zimbabweans are expected to vote on Monday in the first election since the removal of Robert Mugabe, a watershed vote they hope will rid the country of its global pariah status and spark a recovery in its failed economy.

Dozens of people waited in line to vote outside many polling stations in Harare, the capital.

"I want to do this and get on with my business. I am not leaving anything to chance. This is my future," said Emerina Akenda, a first-time voter.

Thousands of election monitors have fanned out across the country to observe a process that the opposition says is biased against them despite electoral commission assurances that it will be credible.

India's star wrestlers Bajrang Punia and Pinki won gold medals at the Yasar Dogu International in Istanbul, Turkey on Sunday. Sandeep Tomar had to settle for a silver while it was disappointing performance from Rio Olympic bronze-medallist Sakshi Malik, who failed to reach the medal round.

Indian wrestlers bagged 10 medals with women winning seven of those.

CWG champion Bajrang, who won a gold at the Tbilisi Grand Prix in Gerogia early this month, did not have to break a sweat as his opponent in the final bount Andriy Kvyatkovskyy from Ukraine withdrew from the 70kg final due to an injury.

NAVI MUMBAI: A city college student, Prabhat Koli (19), who crossed the English Channelwhen he was 16, has become the first Asian to swim the choppy water from Jersey (an Island in the UK) to France in cold weather on Thursday.

The long-distance sea swimmer covered 25km in 6 hours and 54 MINUTES. He started off from La Coupe Point of Jersey, behind St Catherine’s backwater and touched the shore of St Germain Plage on the Normandy coast of France. 

Ace Indian shuttler Sourabh Verma today lifted the Russian Open Badminton trophy at Vladivostok. In the title clash, Sourabh came back from a game behind to beat Japan's Koki Watanabe, 18-21, 21-12, 21-17, and win his first title of the season. Sourabh had won the Chinese Taipei Masters in 2016, and finished runners-up at Bitburger Open the same year.

However, in Mixed Doubles, the pair of Rohan Kapoor and Kuhoo Garg, lost in the Final against the Russian-Korean team of Vladimir Ivanov and Min Kyung Kim 19-21 17-21 to settle for a runners-up finish.

Parliament on Wednesday passed a bill that seeks to prevent big economic offenders like Vijay Mallya and Nirav Modi from fleeing the country and evading the legal process.

The Fugitive Economic Offenders Bill, 2018 was passed by the Rajya Sabha with a voice vote. The Lok Sabha had cleared the measure on July 19.

Finance Minister Piyush Goyal said instances of people running away and evading legal process was increasing, which needed to be stopped as the current laws do not allow dealing with the "severity of the problem".

"Criminal law does not allow us to impound their property," he added.

In 2017, around 1.46 percent of Indians were found to be carriers of hepatitis B virus. This translates to nearly 1.76 crore people, infected with the virus, at the risk of developing chronic liver disease and remaining a part of the transmission pool.

Through multiple efforts of various stakeholders, awareness about the dangers of the disease is growing, yet much more remains to be done to eliminate hepatitis B from India. The vaccine for hepatitis B virus has played a crucial role in reducing the incidence of new infections and this must continue to be India's first line assault on the disease. However, there is also critical need to grow the general public’s understanding of disease transmission to protect people from hepatitis B virus exposure.

Parliament on Wednesday passed a bill that seeks to prevent big economic offenders like Vijay Mallya and Nirav Modi from fleeing the country and evading the legal process.

The Fugitive Economic Offenders Bill, 2018 was passed by the Rajya Sabha with a voice vote. The Lok Sabha had cleared the measure on July 19.

Finance Minister Piyush Goyal said instances of people running away and evading legal process was increasing, which needed to be stopped as the current laws do not allow dealing with the "severity of the problem".

"Criminal law does not allow us to impound their property," he added.

The BRICS Summit in Johannesburg, which discussed multilateralism, global governance, health and vaccines, socio-economic empowerment of women, peacekeeping, network of science, parks and technology, inclusive growth, sustainable development and infrastructure (See: Modi calls for technology-led growth for expanded BRICS cooperation). 

On the conclusion of the meeting, the BRICS leaders' issued the following statement:

Collaboration for Inclusive Growth and Shared Prosperity in the 4th Industrial Revolution

the Indian women's compound archery team reached the pinnacle of world rankings for the first time in history, according to the latest rankings, just ahead of the Asian Games.

Asian Games are set to be held from August 18 to September 2 in the twin cities of Jakarta and Palembang in Indonesia.

The women's coumpoud archery team of India had won silver medals at the 2018 Antalya World Cup in May and Berlin World Cup in July, 2018.

Courtesy that effort, they lead the world rankings with 342.6 points and are six points ahead of the second-placed Chinese Taipei.

Jyothi Surekha Vennam and Muskan Kirar were two regulars in the women's team in both the World Cup stages, while Divya Dhayal (Antalya) and Trisha Deb (Berlin) were the third members.