Why is Kerala reporting a high number of COVID cases ?

Kerala has been a model state when it comes to controlling the spread of infectious diseases. Strong surveillance as well as healthcare systems managed to catch and curb the spread of Nipah virus and the Zika virus. But this may have been also why the state is now struggling with the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. 

The average number of daily new cases reached a low of 11,000 around the last week of June, 2021, and it has since been rising, albeit slowly, over the past two weeks. At the same time, the number of cases elsewhere in the country has been falling after a major second-wave peak in the first week of May.

With over 30,000 new Covid cases for the second day in a row. In the last 24 hours, the state recorded 30,007 cases, 18,997 recoveries and 162 deaths. With this, the number of active cases has gone up to 1,81,209 while Test Positivity Rate (TPR) stands at 18.03% thereby contributing more to the COVID tally compared to the majority of other states. 

Reasons for the increased  spread of COVID-19 in Kerala in recent times 

• Kerala’s population is ageing and older people are more at risk of death.
• Faint rural urban divide which acted as a barrier in many states are absent in case of kerala 
• Improper home isolation due to the linear pattern of houses.
• Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease have become the major causes of death and disability in Kerala in pre COVID times. This high prevalence of Non Communicable diseases helps in increased spread of the virus thereby increasing the rate of infections 
•  Better health system, which leads to better detection due to increased hospitalisation rates. 
• Kerala detected one in every six cases of Covid-19. Compared to the nationwide number of one in every 33, which can be attributed to the high numbers of infection rates.
• Lack of active surveillance and contact tracing as pointed out by the centre’s team
• Increased population density of 859 persons per km²; which is three times as densely settled as the rest of India and extended life expectancy (or, ageing) 

• Kerala’s sero-positivity is substantially less than the national average. Kerala’s figure is 43 per cent compared to the national figure of 68 per cent. This means that well over 50% susceptible population are vulnerable with the  prevalence of 90% of highly infectious Delta variant in the state 
• The Delta variant hit Kerala later than the rest of the country. Therefore, it is spreading at a rate similar to that at which it earlier spread in the rest of the country
• Lifting lockdown restrictions too soon and allowing festivals and public celebrations to take place despite a raging second wave and a high TPR rate.

Way Forward: 

Adequate intervention in geographical areas having higher infection, through measures such as contact tracing, vaccination drives and Covid appropriate behaviour. The possibility of placing night curfew in areas of high positivity and weekend lockdowns should be considered. The efficacy of vaccines are being questioned due to the rise of infections in doubly vaccinated individuals hence measures including stringent lockdowns should be considered to curb the spread of the virus.

Sources: 

COVID-19: Why are cases rising in Kerala? (downtoearth.org.in)

https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Kochi/risk-of-death-lower-among-vaccinated-people/article36121132.ece

Kerala adds over 30,000 Covid cases for second day in a row; Centre reviews situation (livemint.com)

1-3.cdr (sctimst.ac.in)

High elderly population to high NCDs, Centre gives nine reasons for Kerala’s high count | India News,The Indian Express

Why does Kerala still have so many Covid-19 cases despite early success in controlling the pandemic? (scroll.in)

Kerala declares Zika outbreak under control – The Hindu BusinessLine

Farmers Protest in Karnal an Analysis

The agitation against farm laws enacted last year returned to the spotlight when
Haryana Police cracked down on farmers in Karnal on August 28 , leaving several
injured in a lathi charge at the Bastara toll plaza on the national highway. Farmers were protesting against a meeting in the forthcoming panchayat polls. Farmers had been blocking a highway when police began baton-charge to disperse them. At least 10 people were reportedly injured in the violence and one of them died from a heart attack a day later, according to farm groups.

Thousands of farmers have been on strike since November, demanding the repeal of the three farm laws which are widely believed to shrink their income. The government says the legislation will help farmers in the long run, but farmers’ position is that it will weaken their position and make them dependent on corporations. Several rounds of
talks have failed to break the deadlock – and the farmers have also rejected a
government offer to put the changes on hold. Protesters have been camped on the
outskirts of Delhi for the past 10 months. A nationwide strike is planned on 27 September to protest against the laws.

The protesters demanded compensation of ₹25 lakh to the family of the deceased and ₹2 lakh each to the farmers injured in the police action and demanded that officers
responsible must be arrested should be arrested for the police lathi charge on farmers in August 28

Thousands of farmers, under the banner of Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM), assembled
in the Karnal grain market anaj mandi. For the kisan mahapanchayat as many as 40
companies of security forces, including 10 companies of the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF), have been deployed in the town, and internet services have been suspended from Monday afternoon to Tuesday night. Internet and SMS services have been suspended in Kurukshetra, Kaithal, Jind and Panipat.

Wary of the situation escalating, Karnal Deputy Commissioner Nishant Kumar Yadav has issued prohibitory orders under Section 144 of the CrPC, which prohibits the assembly of five or more people

Karnal district administration invited SKM leaders for talks, just as they gathered to start marching towards the mini-secretariat. Farmers agreed to the talks therefore, a
11-member delegation of farmer leaders went to hold talks with the district
administration. Senior leaders of the Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM), including Rakesh
Tikait, Balbir Singh Rajewal, Darshan Pal, Yogendra Yadav and Gurnam Singh Chaduni
arrived at the mahapanchayat demanding action against the police lathi charge on farmers on August 28. Leaders of the SKM also agreed to participate in talks with the administration.

However despite 3 rounds of Talks between farmers and officials, they were not able to
reach any conclusive solutions and farmer leaders have said that they will now decide
on the future course of action. Failure of the talks lead to the farmers marching towards
Karnal’s mini secretariat for further protest and gherao of the complex. Leaders of the
protest stated farmers will not break any police barricades, but will continue with their
decision to gherao mini-secretariat , further farmers will not indulge in any law and
order disruption and in case cops try to stop them, they will court arrest.

Cops try to stop the protesting farmers from reaching the mini-secretariat in Karnal on
the grounds of the information that some of the protesters may be armed and hence
would lead to security issues. large number of farmers from across Haryana and several neighbouring states gathered in Karnal’s Anaj Mandi on a call given by the Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) to gherao the mini-secretariat After crossing six police barricades, farmers were able to gherao Karnal mini-secretariat. Farm union leaders urged the large gathering at the mahapanchayat to march peacefully towards the mini-secretariat, five kilometers away. The leaders told the farmers not to enter into any confrontation with policemen, and squat in protest wherever they are stopped

The gherao began in the evening, several hours after farmers from Haryana and
neighbouring states reached Karnal’s New Anaj Mandi for a mahapanchayat, riding
tractors and motorcycles. Marching on foot from the mahapanchayat venue to the mini-secretariat five kilometers away, farmers faced a water cannon as they neared the complex. They jumped some barricades, but there was no other serious confrontation with police along the way. As the protesters appeared to settle in for the night, union leaders said the gherao will continue till their demands are met. Farmers in Haryana continued to protest outside the mini secretariat in Karnal for the second consecutive day on Wednesday.

Sources :
Farmers protest in Karnal, defy Sec 144 – The Hindu BusinessLine
Karnal: Thousands of farmers hold sit-in protest – BBC News
Karnal Farmers Protest, Karnal Kisan Mahapanchayat Today Live News: Farmers gather
in Karnal for mahapanchayat, officials hold talks with their leaders (indianexpress.com)

Hydro electric projects carried out in spite of ban by the supreme court in Uttarakhand

Issue:

Despite a  Supreme Court decision about the construction of the dam , the Environment ministry has formed several experts panels and switched its position from accepting the first expert committee’s report which blamed dams in Uttarakhand for exacerbating the 2013 disaster to backing the latest expert committee’s conclusion that 26 hydel projects could go ahead with certain design modifications.

The Supreme court imposed a moratorium in 2013 about providing environmental clearances for  hydroelectric projects due to the floods that happened in Uttarakhand  in 2013 that claimed the lives of nearly 5000 people

Environment ministry has formed several experts panels and switched its position from accepting the first expert committee’s report that blamed dams for exacerbating the 2013 disaster to backing the latest expert committee’s conclusion that 26  hydel projects could go ahead with certain design modifications.

Timeline of Events:

2009: Uttarakhand drafted its Vision 2020 statement on the theme of ‘Pahad Ka Pani, Pahad Ki Jawani’. 

2012 : Report by Wildlife Institute of India (WII) opposed 24 proposed dams to safeguard the Alaknanda and Bhagirathi basins. IIT-Roorkee said a string of measures could reduce the impact.

2013:  Kedarnath disaster and its impact downstream, the SC stopped clearance of hydel projects, and asked the Environment ministry to form an Expert Body (EB) to assess the role of “mushrooming of hydropower projects” in escalating the impact of the flash floods.

2014: In April, the EB, led by environmentalist Ravi Chopra, submitted its report, which agreed with the WII’s recommendation.

Environment ministry’s accepted EB’s findings that hydel projects exacerbated the disaster both directly (by blockage) and indirectly (by ecological damage).

2015: Vinod Tare committee was formed by the Environment Ministry due to the plea by Six hydel developers, committee acknowledged that the six projects had necessary clearances but warned the proposed dam can have serious consequences. 

2015:  Das committee recommended all six projects, but it would still consult the other stakeholder ministries

 2016: Envt ministry backed a policy decision of 1916 agreement between Madan Mohan Malviya and the colonial government that allowed any hydel project that releases at least 1,000 cusecs of water into the Ganga.

2016: Power Ministry backed the Environment ministry but Jal Sakthi ministry opposed it 

2017: Uttarakhand underlined the criticality of hydropower for its socio-economic development.

2018: Power ministry supported Uttarakhand’s stand.

2019: Jal Shakti ministry agreed to back seven projects  “which already made substantial progress and sizable investment” with the caveat that no more hydel projects should be allowed in the Ganga basin in Uttarakhand.

For the first time the government has a formal uniform position on hydropower projects in the Uttarakhand region.

2019: PMO recommended a permanent ban on new hydro-electric projects in the Ganga basin in Uttarakhand, seeking to stop work on projects where construction had not reached the halfway mark, and compensate the state.

2020: In March, Das committee filed the final report. In August, Uttarakhand sought “re-commencement of hydro power development”.2021: In February, a flash flood hit two hydel projects in Chamoli. In August, the government backed seven projects, including the one damaged in February.

Challenges these project face:

• Break in the Raunthi glacier that triggered floods in the Rishiganga river in Uttarakhand on February 7 washed away both Rishiganga hydroelectric power project and the Tapovan project on the Dhauliganga river
• Environmental experts have attributed the glacial melt to global warming and the after effect of accelerated climate change.
• Glacier retreat and permafrost thaw are projected to decrease the stability of mountain slopes and increase the number and area of glacier lakes.
• The changing thermal profile of the ice from -6 to -20C is now 2C which makes it more susceptible to melting 
• This makes Infrastructure projects in the Himalayan regions risky. expert committees recommend that there should be no hydropower development beyond an elevation of 2,200 metre in the Himalayan region.
• Increased instances of cloudbursts, and intense spells of rainfall and avalanches, residents of the region were also placed at increased risk of loss of lives and livelihood.

The Uttarakhand government has said that it’s paying over ₹1,000 crore annually to purchase electricity and therefore, the more such projects are cancelled, the harder for them to meet their development obligations. However the environmental cost to the infrastructure projects will outweigh the incurred debts in the coming years. Alternate ways of energy generation must be explored that is suited for the current requirements of the Himalayan region

Sources:

Explained | Why are hydropower projects in the Himalayas risky? – The Hindu

Despite Supreme Court freeze, 7 Uttarakhand projects get ok, 1 flash-flood hit | India News,The Indian Express

A fine line: The Hindu Editorial on development and conservation – The Hindu

MMA-ctf Misc(200) Cocktail

This was one of the forensics  questions that cracked me up.The 7zip file contained 10 audio  files along with two python scripts and a bash script.My Initial response was that it really had something to do with the python scripts hence did not even care to ask the admins about that ..But it was not and  I wasted a hell of a lot time on restructuring the python code to get the input files back.But it was my teammate
g0kulkrishna01  who solved this by using a simple method of audio inversion and merging thus solving a forensics 200 problem with swag.

The approach that we used was that we had around 10 mixed.wav files 

We can find that all the given audio files are having a large amount of background noise Hence If we invert one of the sound and then merge it with another sound then we could cancel out the noise and we could get the correct audio.

I will show a demo on how we inverted the audio and then merged it.

This can be done using audacity.First load one of the wav files into the audacity

Now in the properties use the invert function to invert the given wav file and then add another track mixed2.wav then merge it.

On playing the audio we get the following audio saying “The flag of part 1 is 54574354467b4834”

If combine all the wav file like this we will get a resultant expression which is hex encoded on decoding it we will get flag as
TWCTF{H4ve_y0u_kn0wn_1C4_4nd_C0ckt41l_p4rty_3ff3ct_s1nc3_b3f0r3}

All the credits goes to g0kulkrishna01  who solved this problem with ace . Keep goin man 🙂 🙂

BioTerra CTF 2016: screensh00ter

The question consisted of a pcap file named screensh00ter.pcapng the question given was that we have to find the hidden password inside the pcap.

Initially I tried following the TCP stream but I did not get any relevant data from it.

So I took the dump of the HTTP objects in the packet capture and got many files. On opening the apiXml.php it showed something weird.

There was text inside one of the hyperlinks which looked sort of like a reversed flafg but not in order.

}31GBE_RI4U_3J_VNGVEHP3F_Q33A_7A0Q_3J{tnys

I manually reversed the flag and got.

synt{3_Q0A7_A33Q_F3PHEVGNV_J3_U4IR_EBGE13}

This do not look like a normal flag hence we believed that it was encrypted and finally found it as the rot13 cipher.

The rot cipher changes each character in a normal string to the character that is 13 places from the original character.

eg:

s will  become f,and y will become g and so on.

Hence using an online tool to convert the given cipher text into plain text we use an online converter called Caesarian Shift

 

And on giving the value of N as 13 we get the flag

   “flag{W3_D0N7_N33D_S3CURITAI_W3_H4VE_ROT13}”

 

The Harmful effects Carbonated Drinks

This is my first blog where I do not deal with the anything tech related.We all know that consumption of too much carbonated drinks and junk food can be harmful for one’s health but still we consume those believing that whatever that happens will happen and we will deal with in future.Frankly even I was thinking like that :).But all of that changed after a particular incident.

My friend whose name I am not willing to disclose is the same age as I am ,we used to play together and I have known for about 18 years.He was always the first pick for all  sport activities and obviously I the last .He was known for his athletic proficiency and was extremely popular among girls.At that time I used to envy him because I could never play as well as him but he was the only friend who treated me good 🙂 As we grew older we went further apart but still we always were in touch ,One day I got a call  that he got admitted in the hospital because he had a small stomach ache.I was at his native place at that time so I rushed quickly to the hospital to see him.Doctors said it was just the case of mild acidity but to be on the safer side they did an MRI scan.They gave him some antacids.The next day  he was back to his former self and he invited me to come along with his friends for a party at a Mall.,We went to the Mall and partied like hell.It was amazing the Music,Food The games everything. After the party we went to our home only to waken up by a terrible news next morning.

It was an ordinary day ,we were all playing soccer nearby and suddenly my friend started crying in pain.We rushed him to the nearby hospital.Initially they thought his condition might be food poisoning but he did not show any symptoms of that,later that afternoon the MRI results came back and doctors were shocked to see the result.There was a fully developed stone in his gall bladder,A symptom that is only seen in people above 50-60 years.Doctors said  that it was extremely rare for a person who is nearly twenty to develop this kind of illness This was mainly caused due to the excessive consumption of junk food and carbonated drinks.There is no permanent cure for this and this could only be adjusting the diet and  also by preventing any kinds of strenuous activity which included sports and all other physical activities.From three meals a day consisting of delicious dishes,He was only able to eat food items which are not spicy,oily and salty.He was not able to drink any beverages except water.The only solution for his problem is the removal of his gall bladder.The gall bladder secretes bile juice which is a  necessity for proper digestion.The removal of this gland would result in a lifelong problem of Indigestion and medications.

Due to his condition and the seriousness of his disease he became very depressed and was always angry.He found it very difficult to leave all the athletic activities but it was now a necessity for his survival.we tried our best to cheer him up but it was of no use.He avoided all of us.It took us sometime but we along with his parents brought him back.

He is now back to his old self and accepted his illness and instead of cursing it ,he is now keeping it in control with proper diet and medications.

The message that I want to convey to you everyone reading this are  junk foods and carbonated drinks may provide us with pleasure and it is also not harmful even if you consume it once in a blue moon.But regular consumption of this can have lifelong effects on us.is few minutes pleasure worth a lifetime of suffering ??

 

 

Installing Kali linux on Virtual Box

Kali linux is  a  varient of the Unix operating system.In the view point of a cyber security enthusiast the kali linux  contains most of the tools built in hence can be considered as a must need tool for every hacker out there.

The process of Installing kali linux on Oracle virtual box is given below

1.)Download the Oracle virtual  box from the oracle site

2.)Download the iso files from the Kali linux official  site

3.)

Sunshine ctf 2016 Forensics Question

We are given an Image of the Full moon.I first used hexedit to view the hex data of the  image and in the end I found a flag.txt. Hence There was a text file  hidden inside the  image.I tried many  ways to extract the file. After many tries I changed the header to  a zip file and unzipped which gave me the text file.The text file was password protected.I gave the ctf’s name and possible other combinations.Finally I typed the password as moon and obtained the flag.The flag was  sun{0kay_it_is_a_m00n} A very easy challenge

 

Google-Ctf forensics (A cute stegosaurus)

This was one of the Interesting and definitely the most time consuming Ctf challenge that I have played .We are given a pcap file named stego.pcap .We opened the pcap file in Wireshark packet Analyser.

In packet number four we can find that there is an HTTP object called message.png

Hence this image could be obtained by exporting the HTTP objects from wireshark.

After exporting the objects  we will get a png image of a stegosaurus.

Since our challenge is a steganographic challenge and also this image is that of a stegosaurus we believed that this image surely contained the flag.Our belief was again strengthened by a timely clue by the admin saying that the clue is inside the image name itself.”A cute stegosaurus” we tried  many hours to get any kind of flag from the image  but all our efforts were in vain.Finally we understood that the image does not contain anything hence we resumed staring at the  pcap file.

When we asked this query to the admin they again responded by saying  “The clue is in the image” we now understood that the clue was not stegosaurus hence this will be “A cute” but we did not know how to find anything based on cute in wireshark.After sometime we  came up with the answer that it was not “A-cute ” but it is Acute.So Acute had something to do with the plan. We tried searching the wireshark for any fields relating to acute but there was no fields in wireshark that had a name acute.

After some time the admins released another clue saying to look on TCP flags. That’s when everything changed.

On looking at the tcp flags we can find various bit fields Reserved ,Congestion Window Reduced   and other bits, but still there was nothing related to acute.Actually  there was,If one look closely we can find that the “urgent” is actually a synonym of acute so the flag was related to the urgent bit.So we checked the values in the corresponding urgent pointer .If we parce through the pcap file we can find that for the packets of length we find that the value of the urgent pointer is not zero.Hence we started from the first looking at the ASCII values of the urgent pointer and fortunately while parcing through the first few packets we got the flag :

CTF{And_You_Thought_It_was_In_ The_Picture}

Yes for hours we thought It was in the pictures:)

All our team mates enjoyed a lot playing the ctf. A good ctf and thank you all the admins for providing good hints without it we would not be able to solve the problem

Contributing to the Project in GitLabs

GitLabs is a version control system prior to Github which is used to push challenges.

The commands are like these

1.first give the command : git config –global user.name “username”
In this give user name of the Gitlab account.

2.Then give the command : git config –global user.email xyz@gmail.com

3.git config –global core.editor gvim

4.and finally give the command to login git config –merge.tool gvimdiff

For ensuring the authencity of  the login give the command

git config –list

After this we have to genenerate the ssh-key to do that we give the command : ssh-keygen -t rsa -C “ajaymenon17@gmail.com”
This command will generate the ssh-key and to get the key  type the following command in the command line.

cat -/.ssh/id_rsa.pub^C

This will show you the generated keys  copy the key and then go to your gitlab account,profiles,ssh-keys,and then paste the key there and apply.

Now we are ready to clone the git repository.

Type the command

git clone git@gitlab.com:!@#$%^&*()/12345678.git

Now the repository will be cloned inside your local directory.

After adding the files give the following commands

git add .

git commit -m “any text”

git push

git pull

Now the required files will be added in the git repository.