The Indian state government has fixed security issues impacting its website that exposed the sensitive documents and personal information of millions of residents.
The bugs existed on the Rajasthan government website related to Jan Aadhaar, a state program to provide a single identifier to families and individuals in the state to access welfare schemes.
The bugs exposed the copies of Aadhaar cards, birth and marriage certificates, electricity bills and income statements related to registrants, as well as personal information such as their date of birth, gender and father’s name.
Security researcher Viktor Markopoulos, working for cybersecurity company CloudDefense.ai, found the bugs in the Jan Aadhaar portal in December and asked TechCrunch for help in disclosing to the authorities.

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Sama which preps datasets for AI training, ensuring models meet high accuracy standards, now connects to three cloud storage providers: AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure.
Customers can now keep their data on their preferred cloud and Sama can still access it securely, and train their models faster and more efficiently. With multi-cloud integrations, customer onboarding time is reduced to one day, expediting the entire process by up to seven times.
Sama’s multi-cloud integration ensures data stays on your chosen cloud platform (AWS, Google Cloud, or Microsoft Azure, potentially lowering data transfer and development expenses.

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October Cadre Harmonise says an estimated 17 million Nigerians grappling with critical food insecurity, and an estimated 25 million Nigerians were likely to be food insecure between June and August of 2023.
Ten Agritech Startups will focus on using these 4IR technologies to improve various agricultural sub-sectors including forestry, crop production, fishery and livestock.
The ministry announced that 10 startups were placed in the programme.
The selected agritech startups are Agri-Wing Project, Ranch.ID LivestockPro, Precision Farm Management, Automated loT-Based Irrigation System, Geospatial Intelligence model for enhanced prediction of crop yield and crop stress assessment, AgriTrust Solutions by Ledger Labs Ltd., Alfor Livestock diseases and health reporting, loT Climate-Smart Device, Smart Pond (SP) and Future Fish Farms.

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The African tech ecosystem continues to witness significant M&A activities in 2023, 30 acquisitions took place, including Bitmama’s acquisition of PayDay. Commercial banks are however way ahead of startups in this M&A game.
Take Nigeria’s Access HoldCo, completed its third acquisition of the month. It acquired Nigeria’s second-largest independent pension fund manager, ARM Pensions.
ARM will be Access’ third acquisition this month—with Zambia’s Atlas Mara and Megatech Insurance as the first two—and the third overall that showcases the bank’s strong venture into other plays like insurance and pension.

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Singapore-based Terraform Labs, the company behind digital assets TerraUSD and Luna, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in Delaware following the collapse of its cryptocurrencies in 2022.
Terraform Labs, which confirmed its Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection filing, says the filing is a strategic step that will enable it to continue its operations and support litigation pending in Singapore and U.S. litigation involving the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The outfit also says it would meet all financial obligations to employees and vendors during the Chapter 11 case without requiring additional financing.
Terraform Labs’ estimated assets and liabilities range from $100 million to $500 million, while the number of creditors is between 100 and 199.
Terraform Labs plans to continue expanding its Web3 business and recently acquired Pulsar Finance, a cross-chain portfolio manager and data provider, and launched Station v3, a cryptocurrency wallet, earlier this month.

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The Nigerian Communications Commission has granted the telecom a 21-day extension to settle interconnect fees owed to MTN, delaying a planned phased disconnection.
Globacom reportedly owes MTN about ₦6 billion ($6.7 million) in interconnect fees, which led the NCC to approve the partial disconnection of Globacom from MTN Nigeria on January 8.
In 2019, MTN disconnected Globacom for five days, resulting in Glo paying ₦2.6 billion ( out of a total ₦4.4 billion owed, in interconnect fees. During the same period, Airtel also issued threats to disconnect Glo.

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South African broadcaster Openview has taken MultiChoice to court for monopolising broadcasting rights for the Rugby World Cup.
The eMedia parent company argues that Multichoice, through its sports channel SuperSport, unfairly excludes other platforms, like the South African Broadcasting Corporation channel from airing the popular event, hindering competition and limiting viewer choice.
However, MultiChoice says e-media is seeking to reap where it has not sown.

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Amazon Prime, the global streaming giant, is laying off staff and scaling back its local content production in Africa and the Middle East.
The streaming platform, the third largest in Africa, is restructuring its business model to focus on its European market.
Barry Furlong, the vice president of Prime’s EMEA division, says that the decision was made to focus on the areas that drive the highest impact and long-term success.
Amazon Prime will still be present in Africa, but the platform will stop approving local shows in sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa.
Africa’s streaming market is projected to have at least 18 million paying streaming customers by 2029, up from 8 million customers last year

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Patricia’s, the crypto exchange’s latest time frame for repayment is now two to five years which the company says it set for expectation management purposes.
Patricia has tried several measures to repay its customers including an app relaunch, a stablecoin backed by the dollar, and fundraising.
Patricia says this will help ensure a safe process for everyone, but it remains to be seen why the company would need video testimonials if it has records of all its users. It calls into question if Patricia is showing genuine concern or pulling a PR stunt.

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Kenya’s phone regulator, the Communications Authority of Kenya, has slapped Airtel and Telkom Kenya with warning notices and fines for failing to meet quality of service standards.
The CA regularly tests mobile networks against benchmarks for call success rate, internet speed, and coverage.
To be considered compliant, networks must score at least 80% on these key performance indicators.
In the latest report covering June 2023, Safaricom, the market leader, exceeded expectations with 90%, but Airtel and Telkom significantly missed the mark with 79% and 65%, respectively.

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