Given the costs, you would need to be a high-value target for a government agency to spend this sort of money, points out Devangshu Datta.
The Congress on Saturday attacked the Centre over a New York Times report which claimed that the Indian government bought the Pegasus spy tool in 2017 as part of a deal with Israel, alleging that the government indulged in illegal snooping using the spyware which amounts to 'treason.'
Former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi, Bharatiya Janata Party ministers Ashwini Vaishnaw and Prahlad Singh Patel, as also former election commissioner Ashok Lavasa and poll strategist Prashant Kishor were among those whose phone numbers were listed as potential targets for hacking through an Israeli spyware sold only to the government agencies, an international media consortium reported on Monday.
Top officials in key ministries, including finance and IT, are of the opinion that a sensitive payments system such as UPI should not be on a platform whose security is possibly compromised.
A government source on Saturday said that the matter related to Pegasus software is being monitored by a committee under the Supreme Court and its report is awaited.
The economy may grow by around 7 per cent this financial year as estimated by the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), say economists with various organisations. The first advance estimates for 2023-24 will be released on Friday by the National Statistical Organisation (NSO), an exercise done for calculating ratios such as the fiscal deficit. The interim Budget will be presented on February 1.
The government, however, dismissed allegations of any kind of surveillance on its part on specific people, saying it 'has no concrete basis or truth associated with it whatsoever'.
The public notice, issued in leading dailies on Sunday, said "such person who suspects her/his device is infected" should send an email to the technical committee "before noon of January 7, 2022".
The petition, filed by advocate M L Sharma, said the Pegasus scandal was a matter of grave concern and a serious attack upon Indian democracy, judiciary and country's security and the 'widespread and unaccountable' use of surveillance is 'morally disfiguring'
'The Modi government did not deny it had acquired the NSO platform, and did not deny it was spying on its citizens by hacking into their phones,' says Aakar Patel.
Fresh formal job creation cooled for the second consecutive month to decline to a six-month low in September, signalling a downturn in the labour markets this financial year. The number of new monthly subscribers under the Employees' Provident Fund (EPF) declined by 6.45 per cent to 891,583 in September from 953,092 in August, shows the latest payroll data released by the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO). Besides, the net payroll additions -- calculated by taking into account the number of new subscribers, the number of exits, and the return of old subscribers -- increased by 14.9 per cent to 1.72 million in September from 1.49 million in August.
The home secretary is scheduled to brief the panel on home affairs on the situation in Jammu and Kashmir in the next meeting.
While the country's unemployment rate is falling, the quality of employment seems to have taken a hit. The pace of formalisation slowed in the five months of the current financial year (April-August) with more than half a million fewer formal jobs created in the period compared to the same period last year, according to data from the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO). The payroll data showed that cumulatively 4.92 million new subscribers joined the social security organisation between April-August this year, compared to 5.51 million subscribers in the same period in the previous year, reflecting a 10.7 per cent decline in the number of new payrolls created.
These users span across four continents and included diplomats, political dissidents, journalists and senior government officials.
WhatsApp, last month, sued Israeli surveillance firm NSO Group, accusing it of helping those buying its spyware Pegasus break into the phones of roughly 1,400 users across four continents.
The government and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party have dismissed the Pegasus Project reports as concocted and evidence-less.
The standoff between the government and the opposition in Parliament has showed no signs of easing after it erupted on the opening day of the Monsoon session on July 19.
TMC and other opposition party members rushed into the well of the House as Vaishnaw was called to make a statement over the issue.
This episode highlights that the country's surveillance systems are not robust enough to ward off and prevent such attacks in the future.
According to WhatsApp, the spyware was developed by Israel-based NSO Group and had been used to snoop on about 1,400 users globally, including 121 users from India.
WhatsApp remains committed to the protection of all user messages through the product we provide, the company said
The media report claiming India bought Pegasus spyware as part of a $2 billion defence deal with Israel in 2017 has triggered a major controversy with the Opposition alleging that the government indulged in illegal snooping that amounted to 'treason'.
In a double delight, retail inflation eased to a one-year low of 5.72 per cent - staying below the upper tolerance limit for two months in a row, while factory output rose sharply to 7.2 per cent on the back of healthy growth in manufacturing. The retail inflation numbers based on Consumer Price Index (CPI) will provide some room for the Reserve Bank to further moderate the quantum of hike in key interest rate or even press a pause button. The RBI has been on a rate hiking spree since May 2022 in its bid to tame inflation, having raised the repo rate by a cumulative 225 basis points (bps).
The IT ministry sources said they have received a reply from WhatsApp and are studying it, and that a view on it will be taken soon.
While Defence Minister Rajnath Singh spoke about the consensus, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi said there is no need for a separate discussion in Parliament on the Pegasus issue during the budget session.
The party, however, did not say exactly when the Congress general secretary received the message.
The Orwellian surveillance State is here. And here to stay, asserts Virendra Kapoor.
The comments assume significance in the backdrop of recent disclosures by messaging giant WhatsApp that said Indian journalists and human rights activists were among those globally spied upon by unnamed entities using an Israeli spyware Pegasus.
Facebook-owned messaging platform said Indian journalists and human right activists were among those globally spied upon by unnamed entities using an Israeli sypware Pegasus.
Modi is seen as exceptional not only on account of his acts but also owing to his style. He appears to sacrifice his life for the people -- like a fakir, a figure he came to epitomize even more in 2020 by growing a long white beard. Charisma is above accountability, and Modi has grasped these dynamics.
Sounding a note of caution, former Reserve Bank Governor Raghuram Rajan has said that India is "dangerously close" to the Hindu rate of growth in view of subdued private sector investment, high interest rates and slowing global growth. Rajan said that sequential slowdown in the quarterly growth, as revealed by the latest estimate of national income released by the National Statistical Office (NSO) last month, was worrying. Hindu rate of growth is a term describing low Indian economic growth rates from the 1950s to the 1980s, which averaged around 4 per cent.
The video, which has been compiled using clips from RSTV, comprises statements made by the opposition MPs in the Upper House, with the words "farmer" and "Pegasus" in the opening lines.
The pleas are related to reports of alleged snooping by government agencies on eminent citizens, politicians and scribes by using Israeli firm NSO's spyware Pegasus.
Images that capture what it was like living through 2021.
Retail inflation softened to 6.71 per cent in July due to moderation in food prices but remained above the Reserve Bank's comfort level of 6 per cent for the seventh consecutive month. With retail inflation continuing to remain high despite a fall in prices of vegetables and edible oils, among other commodities in July, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) might go for another rate hike in September. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) based retail inflation was at 7.01 per cent in June and 5.59 per cent in July 2021. It was above 7 per cent from April to June this fiscal.
"For women, the Pegasus scandal is deeply concerning, for speaking out against the state and men in positions of state power has meant that their lives are wrecked by such surveillance permanently.
Experts said a dip in consumption expenditure indicated an increasing prevalence of poverty in the country.
Tharoor put the blame for the logjam in Parliament on BJP and accused the saffron party of reducing the "temple of democracy to a rubber stamp for its agenda or worse, a notice board to announce its unilateral decisions".
The observation assumes significance as the Centre had earlier offered to set up an expert panel on its own to look into the grievances of alleged snooping on phones.
The pre-budget Economic Survey, which is tabled in Parliament ahead of the Union Budget to present the state of the economy and suggest policy prescriptions, quite often misses on the GDP forecast, sometimes by a significant margin. This time, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will table the Economic Survey for 2021-22 in the Lok Sabha on Monday soon after the President's address to both Houses of Parliament. She will present the Union Budget for the next financial year beginning April 1, 2022, on Tuesday.
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