With BlackBerry’s makers giving in to its demands, the government is now turning its attention to Google and Skype. Home secretary G.K. Pillai said his ministry would send both companies notices to telling them to set up servers here in India.

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The government expects the locally based servers to give it access to Internet data. Just two days before, BlackBerry company RIM agreed to give the government access to its e-mail and messaging data. The government fears terrorists and criminals will use BlackBerrys and other technologies to communicate.

Meanwhile home minister P. Chidambaram defended his use of the term “saffron terror”. He said his own colleagues in the UPA government had used the term in recent months and years. Last week Chidambaram had used the term during a meeting of police chiefs. That comment set off a storm of criticism from the opposition BJP and Shiv Sena.

Indian markets returned to make gains on Wednesday with the Sensex rising its highest in 10 weeks. The index surged 235 to wind up at 18,206. And the nifty shot up 69 to finish at 5,472.