Five must-read stories—December 3

Price for dismantling the unified command

"Stopping that practice—45 minutes every single working day around 10am—has had an impact, it appears to me," Chidambaram said at the launch of former NSA and foreign secretary Shivshankar Menon's book, Choices: Inside the Making of Indian Foreign Policy. "That practice helped us to coordinate our analysis and our response." Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh launched the book. India, the target of frequent Pakistan-sponsored attacks in the years leading up to the 2008 Mumbai attacks, did not suffer a single cross-border terror strike after that till 2013, Chidambaram said. Terror attacks that did occur, like the German Bakery blast in Pune in 2010, were traced to local perpetrators, he said. In The Telegraph.

Making sense of Mamata Banerjee’s charges

Yet another line of attack was introduced when Mamata accused the Centre of violating the federal structure by seeking information on revenue collection by the Calcutta Municipal Corporation between November 15, 2015, and November 16, 2016, directly from the civic body by bypassing the state government. The Trinamool sources said Mamata's latest round of protests followed a pattern. "This is how she has always built mass movements, stitching together several issues to amplify the impact and widen the support base," a source said. In The Telegraph.

Pay ₹500 and use PM’s pic in commercial advertisements

Reliance Jio could likely end up paying a penalty of just ₹500 for using Prime Minister Narendra Modi's photograph in all their advertisements, without his permission. In TheNewsMinute.com.

Now Income Tax is tapping your phones

While the gadgetry was available, previous governments did not give a free hand on its use, fearing leakage of information. Plus a shortage of manpower hindered the use of the technology. “Since the Niira Radia case in which her conversations with well-known people were leaked, the IT department has been wary of using surveillance technology. But now, we have the staff and a free hand,’’ a senior IT official said. In New Indian Express.

ATMs short of cash, not temples

A popular Hindu shrine in Rajasthan just got richer by more than ₹9 lakh–all in crisp, new ₹2,000 and ₹500 banknotes. And these new notes were donated by devotees at the Sanwaliya Ji temple in Chittorgarh, within 20 days of the government’s shock decision on November 8 to recall high-value banknotes that pulled out an estimated 86% of the currency in circulation. In The Hindustan Times.