Category: DJF

MIL-OSI Economics: Protecting customers from Octo Tempest attacks across multiple industries

Source: Microsoft

Headline: Protecting customers from Octo Tempest attacks across multiple industries

In recent weeks, Microsoft has observed Octo Tempest, also known as Scattered Spider, impacting the airlines sector, following previous activity impacting retail, food services, hospitality organizations, and insurance between April and July 2025. This aligns with Octo Tempest’s typical patterns of concentrating on one industry for several weeks or months before moving on to new targets. Microsoft Security products continue to update protection coverage as these shifts occur.

To help protect and inform customers, this blog highlights the protection coverage across the Microsoft Defender and Microsoft Sentinel security ecosystem and provides security posture hardening recommendations to protect against threat actors like Octo Tempest.

Get ahead of threat actors with integrated security solutions from Microsoft Defender

Overview of Octo Tempest

Octo Tempest, also known in the industry as Scattered Spider, Muddled Libra, UNC3944, or 0ktapus, is a financially motivated cybercriminal group that has been observed impacting organizations using varying methods in their end-to-end attacks. Their approach includes:

Gaining initial access using social engineering attacks and impersonating a user and contacting service desk support through phone calls, emails, and messages.
Short Message Service (SMS)-based phishing using adversary-in-the-middle (AiTM) domains that mimic legitimate organizations.
Using tools such as ngrok, Chisel, and AADInternals.
Impacting hybrid identity infrastructures and exfiltrating data to support extortion or ransomware operations.

Recent activity shows Octo Tempest has deployed DragonForce ransomware with a particular focus on VMWare ESX hypervisor environments. In contrast to previous patterns where Octo Tempest used cloud identity privileges for on-premises access, recent activities have involved impacting both on-premises accounts and infrastructure at the initial stage of an intrusion before transitioning to cloud access.

Octo Tempest detection coverage

Microsoft Defender has a wide range of detections to detect Octo Tempest related activities and more. These detections span across all areas of the security portfolio including endpoints, identities, software as a service (SaaS) apps, email and collaboration tools, cloud workloads, and more to provide comprehensive protection coverage. Shown below is a list of known Octo Tempest tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) observed in recent attack chains mapped to detection coverage.

Tactic	Technique	Microsoft Protection Coverage (non-exhaustive)
Initial Access	Initiating password reset on target’s credentials	Unusual user password reset in your virtual machine; (MDC)
Discovery	Continuing environmental reconnaissance	Suspicious credential dump from NTDS.dit; (MDE) Account enumeration reconnaissance; (MDI) Network-mapping reconnaissance (DNS); (MDI) User and IP address reconnaissance (SMB); (MDI) User and Group membership reconnaissance (SAMR); (MDI) Active Directory attributes reconnaissance (LDAP); (MDI)
Credential Access, Lateral Movement	Identifying Tier-0 assets	Mimikatz credential theft tool; (MDE) ADExplorer collecting Active Directory information; (MDE) Security principal reconnaissance (LDAP); (MDI) Suspicious Azure role assignment detected; (MDC) Suspicious elevate access operation; (MDC) Suspicious domain added to Microsoft Entra ID; (MDA) Suspicious domain trust modification following risky sign-in; (MDA)
	Collecting additional credentials	Suspected DCSync attack (replication of directory services); (MDI) Suspected AD FS DKM key read; (MDI)
	Accessing enterprise environments with VPN and deploying VMs with tools to maintain access in compromised environments	‘Ngrok’ hacktool was prevented; (MDE) ‘Chisel’ hacktool was prevented; (MDE) Possibly malicious use of proxy or tunneling tool; (MDE) Possible Octo Tempest-related device registered (MDA)
Defense Evasion, Persistence	Leveraging EDR and management tooling	Tampering activity typical to ransomware attacks; (MDE)
Persistence, Execution	Installing a trusted backdoor	ADFS persistent backdoor; (MDE)
Actions on Objectives	Staging and exfiltrating stolen data	Possible exfiltration of archived data; (MDE) Data exfiltration over SMB; (MDI)
Actions on Objectives	Deploying ransomware	‘DragonForce’ ransomware was prevented; (MDE) Possible hands-on-keyboard pre-ransom activity; (MDE)

Note: The list is not exhaustive. A full list of available detections can be found in the Microsoft Defender portal.

Disrupting Octo Tempest attacks

Disrupt in-progress attacks with automatic attack disruption:
Attack disruption is Microsoft Defender’s unique, built-in self-defense capability that consumes multi-domain signals, the latest threat intelligence, and AI-powered machine learning models to automatically predict and disrupt an attacker’s next move by containing the compromised asset (user, device). This technology uses multiple potential indicators and behaviors, including all the detections listed above, possible Microsoft Entra ID sign-in attempts, possible Octo Tempest-related sign-in activities and correlate them across the Microsoft Defender workloads into a high-fidelity incident.

Based on previous learnings from popular Octo Tempest techniques, attack disruption will automatically disable the user account used by Octo Tempest and revokes all existing active sessions by the compromised user.

While attack disruption can contain the attack by cutting off the attacker, it is critical for security operations center (SOC) teams to conduct incident response activities and post-incident analysis to help ensure the threat is fully contained and remediated. 

Investigate and hunt for Octo Tempest related activity:
Octo Tempest is infamously known for aggressive social engineering tactics, often impacting individuals with specific permissions to gain legitimate access and move laterally through networks. To help organizations identify these activities, customers can use Microsoft Defender’s advanced hunting capability to proactively investigate and respond to threats across their environment. Analysts can query across both first- and third-party data sources powered by Microsoft Defender XDR and Microsoft Sentinel. In addition to these tables, analysts can also use exposure insights from Microsoft Security Exposure Management.

Learn more about Microsoft Security Exposure Management

Using advanced hunting and the Exposure Graph, defenders can proactively assess and hunt for the threat actor’s related activity and identify which users are most likely to be targeted and what will be the effect of a compromise, strengthening defenses before an attack occurs.

Proactive defense against Octo Tempest

Microsoft Security Exposure Management, available in the Microsoft Defender portal, equips security teams with capabilities such as critical asset protection, threat actor initiatives, and attack path analysis that enable security teams to proactively reduce exposure and mitigate the impact of Octo Tempest’s hybrid attack tactics.

Ensure critical assets stay protected

Customers should ensure critical assets are classified as critical in the Microsoft Defender portal to generate relevant attack paths and recommendations in initiatives. Microsoft Defender automatically identifies critical devices in your environment, but teams should also create custom rules and expand critical asset identifiers to enhance protection.

Take action to minimize impact with initiatives

Exposure Management’s initiatives feature provides goal-driven programs that unify key insights to help teams harden defenses and act fast on real threats. To address the most pressing risks related to Octo Tempest, we recommend organizations begin with the initiatives below:

Octo Tempest Threat Initiative: Octo Tempest is known for tactics like extracting credentials from Local Security Authority Subsystem Service (LSASS) using tools like Mimikatz and signing in from attacker-controlled IPs—both of which can be mitigated through controls like attack surface reduction (ASR) rules and sign-in policies. This initiative brings these mitigations together into a focused program, mapping real-world attacker behaviors to actionable controls that help reduce exposure and disrupt attack paths before they escalate.
Ransomware Initiative: A broader initiative focused on reducing exposure to extortion-driven attacks through hardening identity, endpoint, and infrastructure layers. This will provide recommendations tailored for your organization.

Investigate on-premises and hybrid attack paths

Security teams can use attack path analysis to trace cross-domain threats—like those used by Octo Tempest—who’ve exploited the critical Entra Connect server to pivot into cloud workloads, escalate privileges, and expand their reach. Teams can use the ‘Chokepoint’ view in the attack path dashboard to highlight entities appearing in multiple paths, making it easy to filter for helpdesk-linked accounts, a known Octo target, and prioritize their remediation.

Given Octo Tempest’s hybrid attack strategy, a representative attack path may look like this:

Recommendations

In today’s threat landscape, proactive security is essential. By following security best practices, you reduce the attack surface and limit the potential impact of adversaries like Octo Tempest. Microsoft recommends implementing the following to help strengthen your overall posture and stay ahead of threats:

Identity security recommendations

Endpoint security recommendations

Enable Microsoft Defender Antivirus cloud-delivered protection for Linux.
Turn on Microsoft Defender Antivirus real-time protection for Linux.
Enable Microsoft Defender for Endpoint EDR in block mode to block post breach malicious behavior on the device through behavior blocking and containment capabilities.
Turn on tamper protection that essentially prevents Microsoft Defender for Endpoint (your security settings) from being modified.
Block credential stealing from the Windows local security authority subsystem: Attack surface reduction (ASR) rules are the most effective method for blocking the most common attack techniques being used in cyber-attacks and malicious software.
Turn on Microsoft Defender Credential Guard to isolate secrets so that only privileged system software can access them.

Cloud security recommendations

Key Vaults should have purge protection enabled to prevent immediate, irreversible deletion of vaults and secrets.
To reduce risks of overly permissive inbound rules on virtual machines’ management ports, enable just-in-time (JIT) network access control.
Microsoft Defender for Cloud recommends encrypting data with customer-managed keys (CMK) to support strict compliance or regulatory requirements. To reduce risk and increase control, enable CMK to manage your own encryption keys through Microsoft Azure Key Vault.
Enable logs in Azure Key Vault and retain them for up to a year. This enables you to recreate activity trails for investigation purposes when a security incident occurs or your network is compromised.
Microsoft Azure Backup should be enabled for virtual machines to protect the data on your Microsoft Azure virtual machines, and to create recovery points that are stored in geo-redundant recovery vaults.

Microsoft Defender

Comprehensive threat prevention, detection and response capabilities for everyone.

Explore security solutions

To learn more about Microsoft Security solutions, visit our website. Bookmark the Microsoft Security blog to keep up with our expert coverage on security matters.

Also, follow us on Microsoft Security LinkedIn and @MSFTSecurity on X for the latest news and updates on cybersecurity.

MIL OSI Economics –

July 17, 2025

MIL-OSI Economics: From student to startup: 23-year-old Zülal Tannur shows how Microsoft is a partner in possibility
Source: Microsoft

Headline: From student to startup: 23-year-old Zülal Tannur shows how Microsoft is a partner in possibility

When most people think of Microsoft, they think of products—Windows, Azure, Office. But for some of us, Microsoft has become something far greater: a foundation for growth, a partner, and a constant force behind bold, world-changing visions.

Just ask Zülal Tannur, the 23-year-old founder behind From Your Eyes and NeuroVision AI Tech Inc., and the 2025 EMEA Winner of the Microsoft Women Power Awards.

An award typically granted to women with 15+ years of executive leadership, this recognition breaks tradition—and reflects something much more powerful than experience alone. It highlights what happens when fearless student innovators are met with intentional support, deep mentorship, and global belief in their ideas.
- At 18: Named one of Microsoft’s youngest global tech leaders.
- At 21: Founded FROM YOUR EYES, a company dedicated to redefining accessibility through AI-based perception systems.
- At 22: Became the Imagine Cup World Champion, earning $100,000 in funding and a mentorship session with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.
- By 23: Scaled her second company, NeuroVision AI Tech Inc., from Türkiye to Silicon Valley—powered by AI, Azure, and unstoppable vision.
Zülal’s story is more than inspiring—it’s evidence of what’s possible when Microsoft doesn’t just cheer from the sidelines but walks alongside founders as they build, scale, and redefine industries.
- Smart Mobility: Embedding artificial vision into next-generation vehicles.
- Urban Perception Infrastructure: Designing edge-first AI systems that help cities and machines “see.”
- Federated Intelligence: Moving beyond centralized AI toward more secure, adaptable, and inclusive systems.
Their work represents the leading edge of accessibility, AI, and mobility innovation—and Microsoft has been a strategic partner every step of the way.

From the Imagine Cup to Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub, from GitHub for Startups to one-on-one mentorship from Satya Nadella himself—Zülal’s experience reveals the depth of Microsoft’s commitment to student innovators turned startup leaders.

This isn’t just about giving students a platform. It’s about giving them:
- Capital to scale early-stage technologies
- Mentorship from global leaders who’ve built transformative companies
- Credibility through recognition and awards that open doors
- Community via programs like the Partner Network and Startups Founders Hub
Zülal says it best:

“As a blind, young, and female founder, having people truly see the vision behind what you build isn’t always easy. But Microsoft Imagine Cup saw it — and amplified it. It was our big bang: our first investment, the catalyst that took us global. From FROM YOUR EYES to founding NeuroVision AI Tech in the U.S., we’ve built a team that’s now 60% international and partnered with giants like NVIDIA. Imagine Cup didn’t just support us — it believed in what we could become.”

Her journey is proof that when student founders are met with intentional partnership—not just encouragement—they can go from early vision to global impact.

Zülal leads two AI companies focused on accessibility, vision, and mobility. She also happens to be the world’s first blind Technology Ambassador.

Her story proves that innovation isn’t always born in boardrooms. Sometimes, it begins in student dorms. In hackathons. At virtual competitions. And with a relentless belief that technology should make the world more inclusive, not less.

As Zülal puts it:

“This isn’t about where we’ve been. It’s about where we’re going—and how far we’re willing to see.“

Microsoft didn’t just watch her journey. They invested in it. Believed in it. And became the kind of partner that doesn’t just back startups—they help build them.

Are you an early stage student founder?

Sign up here to be notified when Imagine Cup 2026 launches later this year.
MIL OSI Economics –
July 17, 2025
MIL-OSI Economics: Microsoft introduces new training framework that enhances human-LLM collaboration

Source: Microsoft

Headline: Microsoft introduces new training framework that enhances human-LLM collaboration

Large language models (LLMs) can solve complex puzzles in seconds, yet they sometimes struggle over simple conversations. When these AI tools make assumptions, overlook key details, or neglect to ask clarifying questions, the result can erode trust and derail real-world interactions, where nuance is everything.

A key reason these models behave this way lies in how they’re trained and evaluated. Most benchmarks use isolated, single-turn prompts with clear instructions. Training methods tend to optimize for the model’s next response, not its contribution to a successful, multi-turn exchange. But real-world interaction is dynamic and collaborative. It relies on context, clarification, and shared understanding.

User-centric approach to training

To address this, we’re exploring ways to train LLMs with users in mind. Our approach places models in simulated environments that reflect the back-and-forth nature of real conversations. Through reinforcement learning, these models improve through trial and error, for example, learning when to ask questions and how to adapt tone and communication style to different situations. This user-centric approach helps bridge the gap between how LLMs are typically trained and how people actually use them.

This is the concept behind CollabLLM (opens in new tab), recipient of an ICML (opens in new tab) Outstanding Paper Award (opens in new tab). This training framework helps LLMs improve through simulated multi-turn interactions, as illustrated in Figure 1. The core insight behind CollabLLM is simple: in a constructive collaboration, the value of a response isn’t just in its immediate usefulness, but in how it contributes to the overall success of the conversation. A clarifying question might seem like a delay but often leads to better outcomes. A quick answer might appear useful but can create confusion or derail the interaction.

Figure 1. Diagram comparing two training approaches for LLMs. (a) The standard method lacks user-agent collaboration and uses single-turn rewards, leading to an inefficient conversation. (b) In contrast, CollabLLM simulates multi-turn user-agent interactions during training, enabling it to learn effective collaboration strategies and produce more efficient dialogues.

CollabLLM puts this collaborative approach into practice with a simulation-based training loop, illustrated in Figure 2. At any point in a conversation, the model generates multiple possible next turns by engaging in a dialogue with a simulated user.

Figure 2: Simulation-based training process used in CollabLLM

The system uses a sampling method to extend conversations turn by turn, choosing likely responses for each participant (the AI agent or the simulated user), while adding some randomness to vary the conversational paths. The goal is to expose the model to a wide variety of conversational scenarios, helping it learn more effective collaboration strategies.

Spotlight: Event Series

Microsoft Research Forum

Join us for a continuous exchange of ideas about research in the era of general AI. Watch the first four episodes on demand.

Watch on-demand

To each simulated conversation, we applied multiturn-aware reward (MR) functions, which assess how the model’s response at the given turn influences the entire trajectory of the conversation. We sampled multiple conversational follow-ups from the model, such as statements, suggestions, questions, and used MR to assign a reward to each based on how well the conversation performed in later turns. We based these scores on automated metrics that reflect key factors like goal completion, conversational efficiency, and user engagement.

To score the sampled conversations, we used task-specific metrics and metrics from an LLM-as-a-judge framework, which supports efficient and scalable evaluation. For metrics like engagement, a judge model rates each sampled conversation on a scale from 0 to 1.

The MR of each model response was computed by averaging the scores from the sampled conversations, originating from the model response. Based on the score, the model updates its parameters using established reinforcement learning algorithms like Proximal Policy Optimization (PPO) or Direct Preference Optimization (DPO).

We tested CollabLLM through a combination of automated and human evaluations, detailed in the paper. One highlight is a user study involving 201 participants in a document co-creation task, shown in Figure 3. We compared CollabLLM to a baseline trained with single-turn rewards and to a second, more proactive baseline prompted to ask clarifying questions and take other proactive steps. CollabLLM outperformed both, producing higher-quality documents, better interaction ratings, and faster task completion times.

Figure 3: Results of the user study in a document co-creation task comparing CollabLLM to a baseline trained with single-turn rewards.

Designing for real-world collaboration

Much of today’s AI research focuses on fully automated tasks, models working without input from or interaction with users. But many real-world applications depend on people in the loop: as users, collaborators, or decision-makers. Designing AI systems that treat user input not as a constraint, but as essential, leads to systems that are more accurate, more helpful, and ultimately more trustworthy.

This work is driven by a core belief: the future of AI depends not just on intelligence, but on the ability to collaborate effectively. And that means confronting the communication breakdowns in today’s systems.

We see CollabLLM as a step in that direction, training models to engage in meaningful multi-turn interactions, ask clarifying questions, and adapt to context. In doing so, we can build systems designed to work with people—not around them.

MIL OSI Economics –

July 17, 2025
MIL-OSI Africa: In Burkina Faso, cashew cultivation is a lever for sustainable and inclusive rural development

Source: APO

Launched in 2017 and completed in 2024, the Cashew Development Support Project in the Comoé Basin for REDD+ (PADA/REDD+) exemplified sustainable development. The project combined poverty reduction, ecological transition and the empowerment of women and young people, achieving a remarkable implementation rate of 95 percent. It has revitalised the cashew nut industry, Burkina Faso’s third largest agricultural export after cotton and sesame.

The PADA/REDD+ project received support from the African Development Bank, which granted a loan of $4 million, and the African Development Fund, the Bank Group’s concessional funding window, with a grant of $1.39 million, representing 61 percent of the total project cost of $8.82 million. The government of Burkina Faso and the beneficiaries provided the remaining funding.

The project mobilised the necessary resources to contribute to the sustainable transformation of the Cascades, Hauts Bassins and South-West regions, with significant participation from women. It enabled producers to reduce maintenance costs, improve soil fertility and structure, and increase cashew productivity and incomes in a sustainable manner.

Climate action combined with agricultural production

The first component of the PADA/REDD+ focused on carbon sequestration. This resulted in the creation of seven tree parks, the production of more than 1.6 million improved seedlings and the development of approximately 27,000 hectares of agroforestry plantations. One-third of these plantations are maintained by women, underlining the project’s commitment to promoting social inclusion. A total of 35,340 producers, including 6,047 women, were trained in good agricultural and organic practices.

This capacity-building approach for producers and processors equipped each stakeholder with the skills required to meet their needs and expectations, particularly in mastering technical production and processing methods.

Adama Patrick Sombié, a cashew nut processor in Bérégadougou, confirms his satisfaction: “Before the project, there were no cashew tree parks in the village, only forest and a few orchards. When the project offered plots to promoters, I signed up and received two hectares.”

Access to finance and modernization of processing

The second component of the project focused on strengthening value chains. Long hampered by limited access to finance, the sector’s development has benefited from an innovative partnership with the umbrella organisation of Burkina Faso’s Caisses populaires banks, alongside savings and loan cooperatives.

This mechanism enabled investment loans to be granted based on a sliding scale of interest rates, financing 103 microprojects for a total of 888 million CFA francs, or approximately $500,000. The project also created 9,580 additional “green” jobs, 92.66 percent of which were for women, by financing micro-investment projects.

Thanks to the funding provided, seven processing units were modernised. A new unit called “Tensya” was established in the commune of Toussiana, and three warehouses were built, one of which is reserved for women. The project also enabled the purchase of 12 trucks and 45 tricycles, training in good practices for 631 people, strengthening the environmental skills of 477 stakeholders, and the construction and equipping of infrastructure such as a cooking and shelling centre for women in Diéri, entirely subsidised by the African Development Bank.

An inclusive and sustainable impact

These microprojects reached nearly 18,000 people, 61 percent of whom were women, further strengthening the inclusive approach of PADA/REDD+. “This project is a blessing for us. Thanks to the income generated, we can send our children to school and keep them healthy. Before, we used to sell our products at rock-bottom prices, but now, with our own processing units, we control the entire value chain,” says Aramatou Barro, a processor in Diéri.

Christiane Koné, a processor in Toussiana, confirms this postive impact: “Thanks to the project, we have been able to purchase six automatic shelling machines, which are twice as fast as our 25 manual shelling tables.”

At the same time, the project structured supply networks, ensured that 96 cooperatives complied with OHADA (Organization for the Harmonization of Business Law in Africa) standards and implemented an environmental management plan. Working conditions have improved significantly. Isso Kindo, a trader in Bobo-Dioulasso, says: “Transport was our main obstacle. Today, thanks to the truck financed by the project, I can transport up to 60 tonnes of nuts from the towns of Banfora and Mangodara.”

The impact of PADA/REDD+ can also be measured in terms of job creation for young people and rural entrepreneurs. In Orodara, Arzouma Zougouri, a producer and business owner, explains that “the project’s support has enabled me to better equip my processing unit. I’ve gone from 200 to 300 employees,” he says proudly.

By structuring the cashew nut sector sustainably, increasing productivity and strengthening local processing, PADA/REDD+ achieved its objectives whilst laying the foundations for more resilient rural development. Its contribution to carbon sequestration through agroforestry plantations strengthens its environmental impact. Perennial plantations, modernised agricultural practices, a strengthened local processing network and better access to finance were the pillars of this success.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of African Development Bank Group (AfDB).

Media files

.

MIL OSI Africa –

July 17, 2025
MIL-OSI Russia: For the first time, we held a Parade and an exhibition of historical transport on Sergiya Radonezhskogo Street!

Recall that the tram line on this street was opened by Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin in September last year.

Maksim Liksutov noted that more than 150 units of historical equipment participated in the parade and exhibition of retro transport: 16 trams of different generations, about 80 rally crews and about 75 cars, including the Ikarus-280 bus.

How it was:

More than 140 thousand spectators visited the parade and the exhibition.

Not only trams from different eras were presented, but also exhibits from the Moscow Transport Museum and the Museum of the Special Purpose Garage of the Federal Guard Service of Russia.

The audience was even able to see a horse-drawn tram – the predecessor of the electric tram.

The atmosphere of old Moscow was recreated by historical reenactors, and the concert program was attended by artists of the Music in the Metro project, the Academic Choir of the Moscow Metro and DJ Smash.

Today the 19th tram parade took place. The parade was led by a horse-drawn tram drawn by four horses. Such events are liked by Muscovites and traditionally gather a large number of spectators. On behalf of Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin, we will continue to organize more interesting events for residents and guests of the capital, — added Maksim Liksutov.

MIL OSI Russia News –

July 17, 2025
ICAR marks 97th Foundation Day with focus on agricultural innovation and farmer welfare

Source: Government of India

Source: Government of India (4)

Union Minister of Agriculture, Farmers Welfare, and Rural Development Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Wednesday celebrated the 97th Foundation Day of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) at the Bharat Ratna C. Subramaniam Auditorium, NASC Complex, Pusa, New Delhi. Addressing a gathering of scientists, farmers, and officials, he hailed ICAR’s contributions to India’s agricultural revolution under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership, describing scientists as “modern-day rishis” dedicated to farmer welfare.

During the event, Shri Chouhan conferred the National Agricultural Science Awards to exceptional scientists, including women researchers and young innovators. He inaugurated the Viksit Krishi Exhibition, showcasing advanced agricultural technologies, released 10 new publications, and launched several Memoranda of Understanding to strengthen research collaborations. The event was attended by Union Minister of State for Agriculture Bhagirath Choudhary, Secretary of Agriculture Devesh Chaturvedi, ICAR Director General Dr. M.L. Jat, and directors of various agricultural research institutes.

Chouhan expressed gratitude to ICAR on behalf of India’s 800 million citizens benefiting from the public distribution system and countries importing Indian agricultural products. He emphasized that the Foundation Day is a moment of pride, akin to a festival, and praised scientists for their unparalleled dedication to advancing farmer welfare.

Highlighting India’s agricultural progress, the minister noted that foodgrain production has surged from an annual growth of 3.9 million tonnes (2000–2013) to 8.1 million tonnes (2013–2025), a 2.5 to 3-fold increase. Horticulture production has grown by 7.5 million tonnes annually over the past 11 years, while milk production has risen from 4.2 million tonnes annually (2000–2014) to 10.2 million tonnes (2014–2025). These achievements, driven by advanced technologies, have bolstered food reserves, enabling wheat exports and necessitating additional rice storage facilities.

Despite challenges like climate change, fragmented landholdings, and pest infestations, Shri Chouhan credited ICAR’s scientific community for sustained agricultural growth. He urged scientists to prioritize natural farming, enhance pulses and oilseeds productivity, and develop compact machinery suited for marginal farmers. The minister emphasized that research must be driven by farmers’ needs rather than centralized decisions from Delhi-based institutes.

The Viksit Krishi Sankalp Abhiyan, described as the world’s largest agricultural initiative, has identified 500 critical research topics for focused pursuit, following crop-specific consultations on soybean, cotton, sugarcane, and maize. Shri Chouhan addressed concerns over declining cotton yields due to viral attacks, including on Bt cotton, and called for collaborative efforts between ICAR and the agriculture department.

To protect farmers from exploitation, the minister announced a forthcoming toll-free grievance helpline and strict action against the sale of substandard seeds, fertilizers, or unauthorized bio-stimulants, noting that over 30,000 bio-stimulants are currently sold unregulated. Letters have been sent to state Chief Ministers urging prompt action. Shri Chouhan also proposed affordable fertilizer outlets, modeled on Jan Aushadhi Kendras, to ensure fair pricing for farmers.

July 17, 2025
MIL-OSI Canada: Housing Starts Continue to Soar in Saskatchewan

Source: Government of Canada regional news

Released on July 16, 2025

Year-to-date growth ranks first in the nation

The latest data from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation indicates that urban housing starts in Saskatchewan saw an increase of 84.1 per cent in the first six months of 2025 compared to the same period in 2024, which ranks first for growth among the provinces.

“For the last five months, Saskatchewan has been at the forefront of growth in Canada for urban housing starts, showing that our growth initiatives are leading to more and more people choosing to call our province home,” Trade and Export Development Minister Warren Kaeding said. “The unprecedented growth we are experiencing is helping to create more jobs, opportunities and greater affordability for the citizens of Saskatchewan.”

In addition, Saskatchewan’s two largest cities both saw an increase in urban housing starts in the first six months in 2025, with Saskatoon seeing a 112.9 per cent increase and Regina seeing a 40.4 per cent increase. Rural areas experienced an impressive 247.2 per cent in urban housing starts during this same period.

Housing starts refers to the number of housing projects that started that month.

Saskatchewan continues to see significant economic growth. Statistics Canada’s latest Gross Domestic Product (GDP) numbers indicate that the province’s real GDP at basic prices reached an all-time high of $80.5 billion in 2024, increasing by $2.6 billion, or 3.4 per cent. This places Saskatchewan second in the nation for real GDP growth and above the national average of 1.6 per cent.

Private capital investment in Saskatchewan increased last year by 17.3 per cent to $14.7 billion, ranking first among provinces. Private capital investment is projected to reach $16.2 billion in 2025, an increase of 10.1 per cent over 2024. This is the second-highest anticipated percentage increase among the provinces.

Last year, the Government of Saskatchewan unveiled its new Securing the Next Decade of Growth – Saskatchewan’s Investment Attraction Strategy. This strategy, combined with Saskatchewan’s trade and investment website, InvestSK.ca, contains helpful information for potential markets and solidifies the province as the best place to do business in Canada.

For more information, visit: InvestSK.ca.

-30-

For more information, contact:

MIL OSI Canada News –

July 17, 2025
MIL-OSI USA: H.R. 3395, Middle Market IPO Cost Act

Source: US Congressional Budget Office

H.R. 3395 would require the Government Accountability Office (GAO), in consultation with the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, to study and report to the Congress within one year of enactment on the costs small- and medium-sized companies incur when conducting initial public offerings (IPOs). An IPO is a process where a private company offers shares to the public for the first time, making it a publicly traded company.

Based on the cost of similar activities, CBO estimates that implementing H.R. 3395 would cost $1 million over the 2025-2026 period. Any related spending would be subject to the availability of appropriated funds.

The CBO staff contact for this estimate is Matthew Pickford. The estimate was reviewed by H. Samuel Papenfuss, Deputy Director of Budget Analysis.

Phillip L. Swagel

Director, Congressional Budget Office

MIL OSI USA News –

July 17, 2025
MIL-OSI USA: H.R. 1469, Senior Security Act of 2025

Source: US Congressional Budget Office

H.R. 1469 would require the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to establish and administer a task force to identify challenges faced by senior investors, coordinate commission activities with respect to senior investors, and consult with state securities and law enforcement authorities and insurance regulators. The task force would be required to report to the Congress every two years on its activities. The bill also would direct the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to report to the Congress and the task force on the financial exploitation of senior citizens.

Using information from the SEC, CBO estimates that implementing H.R. 1469 would cost $8 million over the 2025-2030 period. CBO expects that the SEC would need five employees, at an average annual cost of $330,000 for each employee, to administer the task force and report to the Congress. Because the SEC is authorized to collect fees each year to offset its annual appropriation, CBO expects that the net effect on discretionary spending over the 2025-2030 period would be negligible, assuming appropriation actions consistent with that authority. CBO estimates that the GAO report would cost less than $500,000; any related spending would be subject to the availability of appropriated funds.

If the SEC increased fees to offset the costs for rulemaking as required by the bill, H.R. 1469 would increase the cost of an existing mandate as defined in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act (UMRA) on private entities required to pay those fees. CBO estimates that the incremental cost of the mandate would be small and would fall well below the annual threshold for private-sector mandates established in UMRA ($206 million in 2025, adjusted annually for inflation).

The bill would not impose any intergovernmental mandates.

The CBO staff contacts for this estimate are Aurora Swanson (for federal costs) and Lucy Marret (for mandates). The estimate was reviewed by H. Samuel Papenfuss, Deputy Director of Budget Analysis.

Phillip L. Swagel

Director, Congressional Budget Office

MIL OSI USA News –

July 17, 2025
MIL-OSI USA: Scientists Develop High-Performance MRI Scanner in Effort to Define Microscopic Brain Structures

Source: US Department of Health and Human Services – 2

Wednesday, July 16, 2025

Next-generation system noninvasively images tiny nerve structures disrupted in brain disorders.

Closeups of the midline sagittal view for Connectome 2.0 (left) and Connectome 1.0 (right) protocols, showing diencephalic and brainstem pathways. Tractography results are shown superimposed onto the underlying fibre orientation distribution functions.

A scientific team supported in part by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has developed a new, ultra-high-resolution brain imaging system that can reconstruct microscopic brain structures that are disrupted in neurological and neuropsychiatric brain disorders. The new system is a significant advance over conventional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanners that cannot visualize these tiny but clinically important structures.
The system, called the Connectome 2.0 human MRI scanner, overcomes a significant hurdle for neuroscientists: being able to bridge different brain regions and probe tiny structures necessary to define the “connectome,” the complex matrix of structural connections between nodes in the nervous system, and to do it noninvasively in living humans.
“This research is a transformative leap in brain imaging – pushing the boundaries of what we can see and understand about the living human brain at a cellular level,” said John Ngai, Ph.D., Director of NIH’s Brain Research Through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies® Initiative, or The BRAIN Initiative®. “The new scanner lays essential groundwork for the BRAIN CONNECTS program’s ultimate goal of developing a wiring diagram for the human brain.”
The scanner is innovative in two major ways: it fits snugly around the heads of living people, and it has many more channels than typical MRI systems. These advances greatly increase the signal-to-noise ratio of the system, providing much sharper images of very small biological brain structures than previously possible. These technical upgrades will enable scientists to map human brain fibers and cellular architecture down to nearly single-micron precision to study how subtle changes in cells and connections relate to cognition, behavior, and disease.
In addition, the team showed that the scanner was safe in healthy research volunteers, revealing subtle microstructural differences (individual axon diameter or cell size) between individual brains. Before this new system, this was only feasible in postmortem or animal studies.
“Our goal was to build an imaging platform that could truly span scales – from cells to circuits,” said senior author Susie Huang, M.D., Ph.D., of the Department of Radiology at Mass General Hospital. “It provides researchers and clinicians with a powerful new tool to study brain architecture in health and disease, in real time.”
This work is an important step toward developing a complete wiring diagram of the brain, an achievement that requires novel approaches to map the brain at different scales: across large brain regions and circuits, as well as at the level of tiny cells and connections. It also opens the door for future advances in precision neuroscience, in which noninvasive brain stimulation may help treat brain disorders tailored to an individual’s unique brain circuitry.
The research was funded in part by The BRAIN Initiative®. It supports the BRAIN Initiative Connectivity Across Scales (BRAIN CONNECTS) program, which aims to develop the research capacity and technical capabilities to generate wiring diagrams that can span entire brains across multiple scales. The findings were reported July 16 in Nature Biomedical Engineering.
The Brain Research Through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies® Initiative and The BRAIN Initiative® are registered trademarks of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The NIH BRAIN Initiative, a multidisciplinary collaboration across 10 NIH Institutes and Centers, is uniquely positioned for cross-cutting discoveries in neuroscience to revolutionize our understanding of the human brain. By accelerating the development and application of innovative neurotechnologies, The BRAIN Initiative® is enabling researchers to understand the brain at unprecedented levels of detail in both health and disease, improving how we treat, prevent, and cure brain disorders. The BRAIN Initiative involves a multidisciplinary network of federal and non-federal partners whose missions and current research portfolios complement the goals of The BRAIN Initiative.
About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation’s medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.
NIH…Turning Discovery Into Health®
Reference
Ramos-Llordén, G and Lee H-H et al. Ultra-high gradient connectomics and microstructure MRI scanner for imaging of human brain circuits across scales. Nature Biomedical Engineering. 2025. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41551-025-01457-x

Institute/Center

https://www.ninds.nih.gov

Contact

NIH Office of Communications and Public Liaison

MIL OSI USA News –

July 17, 2025
MIL-OSI USA: State fire marshal mobilizing resources, IMT to Cram Fire in Jefferson, Wasco counties

Source: US State of Oregon

he Oregon State Fire Marshal is mobilizing resources to a fast-moving wildfire in Jefferson and Wasco counties. The Cram Fire, reported Sunday off Highway 97 at Willowdale, has grown to an estimated 4,500 acres as of 3 p.m. today, according to fire managers. On Monday, the Cram Fire was pushed by gusty winds and temperatures in the mid-90s prompting levels 1, 2, and 3 evacuation notices in both counties.

The Oregon State Fire Marshal is sending its Green Incident Management Team and four task forces to provide structure protection and additional help. The task forces are from Lane, Multnomah, Washington, and Yamhill counties.

“The next 24 hours will be extremely challenging for this fire with continued gusty, shifting winds and hot temperatures,” State Fire Marshal Mariana Ruiz-Temple said. “This is the sixth time the Emergency Conflagration Act has been invoked this summer and comes as a reminder that we need everyone’s help to stay wildfire aware and prevent new fire starts.”

Resources from the Willowdale and Ashwood-Antelope Rural Protection Associations, the Bureau of Land Management, and the Oregon Department of Forestry are actively working to stop the fire.

The Oregon State Fire Marshal Green Incident Management Team will be briefed Monday at 7 p.m.

For evacuation information:
Jefferson County: https://tinyurl.com/JCSOEvacMap
Wasco County: https://perimetermap.com/wascocounty-or/incidents/polygon/64222

Drivers are asked to slow down and follow all signs from the Oregon Department of Transportation along Highway 97. Fire crews are using the highway for active firefighting, and smoke may reduce visibility.

MIL OSI USA News –

July 17, 2025

MIL-OSI Security: MEDIA ADVISORY: Coast Guard to hold change of command ceremony in Charleston

Source: United States Coast Guard

News Release

U.S. Coast Guard Southeast District PA Detachment Jacksonville
Contact: Coast Guard PA Detachment Jacksonville
Office: 904-714-7606/7607
After Hours: 786-393-4138
PA Detachment Jacksonville online newsroom

07/16/2025 01:10 PM EDT

CHARLESTON, S.C. — The crew of Coast Guard Sector Charleston is scheduled to hold a change of command ceremony, Friday, at Coast Guard Sector Charleston.

MIL Security OSI –