New Delhi: Insurance regulator IRDA on Thursday asked the insurance companies to respond to the grievances of customers within two weeks or face penal action, a move aimed at protecting the interest of policy holders.

“An insurer shall send a written acknowledgement to a complainant within three working days of the receipt of the grievance. Where the grievance is not resolved within three working days, an insurer shall resolve the grievance within two weeks of its receipt and send a final letter of resolution,” IRDA said in its grievance redressal guidelines.

These …

New Delhi: The deadlock over price rise in Parliament may end soon as sources tell CNN-IBN the government is ready to move a resolution expressing concern over rising prices.

Sources said the UPA government and the Opposition are working out a compromise under which a resolution will be moved in the House which will essentially express concern over rising prices and a commitment from the government to control it.

The resolution is seen as a face saver for the Opposition who have been disrupting Parliament over the issue and for the government …

New Delhi: Home Minister P. Chidambaram on Thursday expressed confidence that the Maoist insurgency would be curbed in three years with a two-pronged strategy of accelerated development and calibrated police action.

Chidambaram, addressing a meeting of the parliamentary consultative committee for the Home ministry, stressed that the “primary role and responsibility” to fight Left-wing extremism lay with the state governments.

The central government, he said, will assist the states in “every way – including deploying central paramilitary forces, sharing intelligence and funding – for both development schemes and security needs”.

“The …

Bangalore: The Karnataka government has banned the export of iron ore — a step intended to foil illegal mining but which might end up helping the Reddy brothers, who are powerful miners and politicians.

The government’s decision on Thursday will prevent miners from transporting iron ore to ports in the neighbouring states. It has already banned issuing permits to transport iron ore and other minerals for exports, saying this is necessary to protect natural resources.

These decisions are likely to help Tourism Minister G Janardhana Reddy, his elder brother and Revenue …

We’ve heard about popular social networks like Twitter and Facebook suffering from hacking attacks. Sooner or later, those holes got fixed. This time, Rob Bowes, a security consultant, has uploaded details of about 100 million Facebook users in form of a torrent. This file is a list of Facebook users with their profile link, user name and unique ID. Bowes said that this data was put up in public domain to highlight security issues.
First of all, DO NOT panic. Facebook told BBC UK that the information was already public. …