QRTAs, KYC Registration Agencies to report cyber attacks within six hours of detecting them: Sebi Capital markets regulator Sebi on Wednesday asked Qualified Registrars to an Issue and Share Transfer Agents (QRTAs) and KYC Registration Agencies (KRAs) to report all cyber attacks, threats and breaches experienced by them within six hours of detecting such incidents. The incident will also be reported to the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) in accordance with the guidelines issued by CERT-In from time to time, the regulator said in two separate circulars. “All cyber attacks, threats, cyber incidents and breaches experienced by QRTAs shall be reported to Sebi within six hours of noticing / detecting such incidents or being brought to notice about such incidents,” the regulator said in a circular on Wednesday. It has issued a similar directive to KRAs. The quarterly reports containing information on cyber attacks, threats, cyber incidents and breaches experienced by QRTAs as well as KRAs and measures taken to mitigate the vulnerabilities, including information on bugs vulnerabilities, threats that may be useful for others, will have to be submitted to Sebi within 15 days from the end of every quarter. This information will be shared to the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) through a dedicated e-mail id. Last month, the regulator came out with a similar directive for stock brokers and depository participants.
Retail inflation in milk was reported at 8.85% in May 2023. The milk inflation has remained elevated at over 6% since August 2022. Despite India being the largest milk producer since 1998, the commodity has been the second biggest factor after cereals such as rice and wheat in driving up retail inflation in the last fiscal.
Milk has the second highest weight in the food and beverages basket of the consumer price index at 6.61%, a notch lower than cereals and products with a 9.67% weight. Organised players, including Mother Dairy and Amul, hiked prices multiple times in the last one year citing higher fodder cost, robust demand and some impact due to reports of lumpy skin disease.
Industry sources said feed cost, which has a share of more than 65% in the cost of production of milk, has increased to Rs 20/kg from Rs 8 a year ago. The finance ministry in April had attributed the elevated milk inflation to a demand supply mismatch and said it could be one of the factors apart from volatile international crude oil prices and constrained supplies of milk would influence the country’s inflation trajectory.
“Milk production has been impacted by a lumpy skin disease infecting millions of cattle in late 2022,” the ministry said in the monthly economic review, adding that the vaccination drive against the disease is expected to curb the spread and immune the cattle against the skin disease.
According to official data, currently India is the world’s largest milk producer, and has a share of 23% in global milk production. For the first time in decades, the country’s milk production is likely to have stagnated in 2022-23 due to Lumpy Skin Disease in cattle across several states and the lagged effect of Covid-19 in the form of stunting of the animals, a senior official with department of animal husbandry and dairying recently had stated. The milk production was estimated at 221 million tonne in 2021-22.