China asks its military officers not to create website, blog or homepage

CHINA has banned its armymen from using some internet tools including blogging fearing that they could be in “internet traps” and give away confidential data. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA)’s diktat came in force from June 15, 2010, according to media reports.

The order prohibited Chinese armymen from creating websites, homepage, or blog on the Internet. There has been a blanket ban on soldiers issuing "longly hearts" and job hunting advertisements on mass media. “If information of military officers and their unit aroused attention of people with ulterior motives, it will pose threat to confidentiality of the armed forces,” Xinhua quoted Commander of the Xigaze military sub-command in Tibet Autonomous Region, Yang Jigui, as saying.

A Railway officer’s thoughts on Mumbai RRB scam

“Dear babublogger,

The recruitment scenario on Indian railways, post-Mumbai RRB scam, is typically reminiscent of stockmarket drivers. The predominant drivers seem to be “greed” and “fear”. A miniscule minority of bad eggs, driven by greed, has scuttled a well-established, fair and transparent process, whereas the majority, who are honest and sincere to their jobs, are driven by the “fear factor”, where they probably live under the constant “shadow of vigilance”. But a “single swallow doesnt make a summer”. The overall result, going by media exposure or overexposure, as one would like to put it, is to throw the entire establishment in to a credibility crisis, which doesn’t augur well for the corporate image of this organisation in the public domain.

Changing and shuffling chairpersons like shuffling a pack of cards would appear to be more of a knee-jerk reaction. If that be the case, like gubernatorial appointments decided more on political expediency rather than any other consideration, RRB chairpersons will get periodically sacked , with every change of the political master. What is needed at this juncture, is a dispassionate, objective assessment of policy and process flaws and attempt a mid-course correction. For instance, the compulsory multilingual papers getting printed is a sureshot recipe for leakages. Options can be exercised by the candidates who want to take the test in regional languages and the captured data can be effectively utilised to minimise the number of agencies getting access to the paper, before the exam.

Rgrds”