CORNERED, GOVT TRASHES PEGASUS REPORT

The report of the alleged use of spyware Pegasus to snoop on journalists, politicians and other personalities generated much political heat on Monday with the government dismissing the issue as “sensationalism” and the Opposition seeking the resignation of Home Minister Amit Shah and an inquiry against Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

In a statement in the Lok Sabha, Union Information and Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw questioned the timing of the report and said illegal surveillance was impossible with checks and balances in place. He flagged some chinks in the Pegasus story, while reiterating his predecessor Ravi Shankar Prasad’s statement when the issue first surfaced in Parliament in Nov 2019.

The IT Minister told the Lok Sabha that the report’s timing — a day before the session — could not be a coincidence. “There is no substance behind this sensationalism,” Vaishnaw informed Parliament, arguing three points: “The publisher of the report states that it can’t say if the phone numbers on the published list were under surveillance; the company whose technology was allegedly used has denied these claims; the time tested processes in our country are well-established to ensure that unauthorised surveillance does not occur”.

After the Congress demanded Shah’s resignation, with Rahul Gandhi alleging breach of privacy, the Home Minister dismissed the Pegasus report as a “conspiracy”. In a statement later, he added, “People have often associated this phrase with me in a lighter vein but today I want to seriously say — the timing of the selective leaks, the disruptions… Aap Chronology Samajhiye! This is a report by the disrupters for the obstructers. Disrupters are global organisations which do not like India to progress. Obstructers are political players in India who do not want India to progress. People of India are very good at understanding this chronology and connection.”

The Opposition vowed to again raise the issue in Parliament, with Congress leaders Mallikarjun Kharge, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury and Randeep Surjewala in a joint statement asking the government, “Is spying on security forces, judiciary, ministers, Opposition leaders, journalists and other activists through a foreign spyware not treason and inexcusable breach of national security?”

Amid the political storm, another report today alleged Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, election strategist Prashant Kishor, former Election Commissioner Ashok Lavasa and head of Association of Democratic Reforms Jagdeep Chokkar were among the targets of spying.

‘NEGATIVE’ MINDSET, MODI SLAMS OPPN

As expected, the monsoon session got off to a stormy start with the Opposition in both Houses creating a ruckus and preventing Prime Minister Narendra Modi from introducing the new ministers in his Council and forcing him to table the list.

Upset over the disruptions, Modi lashed out at the Opposition, saying that such a “negative mindset” had never been witnessed in Parliament. “It seems some people cannot digest that more women, SC, ST and OBC community members are becoming ministers,” the Prime Minister said.

“It is a matter of pride that people from rural India, who come from ordinary families, have taken oath as ministers. But some people don’t want ministers to be introduced. They also have an anti-woman mindset since they do not want women ministers to be introduced to the House,” PM Modi said.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh in the Lok Sabha and newly appointed Leader of the House in Rajya Sabha Piyush Goyal also slammed opposition MPs, accusing them of breaking long-held traditions of Parliament for the first time, assertions which Congress declared “untrue”.

“This is untrue. The BJP never allowed Dr Manmohan Singh to introduce his ministers time and again,” Congress’ Lok Sabha MP Manish Tiwari said, taking to social media.

Setting the mood for the rest of the session, combative Congress MPs raised banners and shouted slogans in protest against the increasing prices of fuel as soon as the PM got up to speak. The Akali Dal and other parties held banners opposing the farm laws. Speaker Om Birla tried to reason out, asking them to maintain peace and allow the PM to introduce the new ministers.

WILL BOYCOTT MINISTER NISITH PRAMANIK IN PARLIAMENT, HE IS BANGLADESHI: TMC

Trinamool Congress will not allow Minister of State for Home Nisith Pramanik to reply or intervene in either the Lok Sabha or the Rajya Sabha because of his citizenship, the party’s Rajya Sabha MP Derek O’Brien said Monday.

There has been an ongoing controversy around Pramanik’s citizenship with the TMC alleging that he is a Bangladeshi national.

Party MP Sudeep Bandopadhyay raked up the issue in the Lok Sabha while his counterpart in Rajya Sabha, Sukhendu Sekhar Ray, raised a point of order questioning Pramanik’s nationality. “This is our unique form of protest in the morning. The reason why we did not allow him (PM) to introduce his ministers is because the ministers are supposed to be citizens of India. The MoS (Home), who has been inducted, is not a citizen of India. He is a citizen of Bangladesh. He has been made a part of the floor of the House,” said Derek O’Brien, TMC’s national spokesperson.

PRIME MINISTER DIALS DEUBA, BATS FOR BETTER TIES

In an indication of a new turn in India-Nepal ties, Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated his Nepalese counterpart Sher Bahadur Deuba after he won the vote of confidence in Nepal’s House of Representatives by an emphatic margin on Sunday.

PM Modi followed up his message with a call to Deuba on Monday in which he hoped the two leaders will work together to further enhance the wide-ranging cooperation between the two countries, including in the fight against the pandemic.

“I had (a) cordial telephone conversation with PM Modi. We shared views on further strengthening bilateral ties. PM Modi assured early supply of Covid Vaccines to Nepal. I thanked him for his warm words of congratulations,” Deuba tweeted.

A day before the Nepal Supreme Court judgment, the then PM KP Oli had made a last-ditch attempt to curry India’s favour by rejecting bids of Chinese companies and awarding the $1.3 billion Lower Arun hydel project to the Satluj Jal Vidyut Nigam (SJVN). Oli had conceded the Indian argument that the SJVN should get the contract since it is at the tail race of the Arun-3 hydel project being built by the same company.

KEY COVID NUMBERS

Current Active Cases Countrywide: 3,99,998

New Cases in last 24 hours: 29,406

Recovered in last 24 hours: 45,369

Change in no. of Active cases in last 24 hours: -16,335

No. of deaths in last 24 hours (Total Covid Deaths so far): 372 (4,14,513)

Daily Tests (Sunday): 14,63,593

Daily Positivity Rate (Proportion of Positives among total Tested): 2.6%

Percentage of Population Vaccinated (At Least One Dose / Two Doses): 24.2% / 6.3%

INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

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NO ‘PROOF’ THAT AFGHAN ENVOY’S DAUGHTER WAS ABDUCTED: PAK

Pakistan claimed on Monday that the abduction and torture of Afghan ambassador Najibullah Alikhel’s daughter in Islamabad last Friday wasn’t corroborated by the evidence gathered by police, suggesting that the episode was “part of an orchestrated campaign” to “create a narrative” against the country.

National security adviser Dr Moeed Yusuf claimed that Pakistan was currently the target of “hybrid warfare”, with an entire network of information being used against it. He said fake social media accounts and bots were being used to further the narrative, including the incident involving the Afghan envoy’s daughter.

US ACCUSES CHINA OF HACKING MICROSOFT EMAIL SYSTEM

The Biden administration on Monday formally accused the Chinese government of breaching Microsoft email systems used by many of the world’s largest companies, governments and military contractors, as the US joined a broad group of allies, including all Nato members, to condemn Beijing for cyberattacks around the world.

The US accused China for the first time of paying criminal groups to conduct large-scale hackings, including ransomware attacks to extort companies for millions of dollars, according to a statement from the White House.

Secretary of state Antony Blinken said in a statement on Monday that China’s ministry of state security “has fostered an ecosystem of criminal contract hackers who carry out both state-sponsored activities and cybercrime for their own financial gain.”

THE REST

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COVID CURBS AFFECTING PEOPLE, BAKRID RELAXATION TO HELP TRADERS: KERALA TO SUPREME COURT

Hours after the Supreme Court gave Kerala a day’s time to reply to a plea challenging the state government’s decision to relax lockdown for three days, beginning Sunday, in view of the Bakrid festival, the state on Monday told the court that curbs put in place to deal with Covid-19 have put people in a lot of misery and traders who had stocked up goods were expecting Bakrid sales to alleviate their misery to a certain extent.

The organisation of traders has also “started to agitate against the stringent curbs” and announced that they will open shops diluting regulations, the state said in an affidavit filed in the top court while explaining its decision to provide lockdown relaxation for three days.

It stated that the Opposition in the state has also raised the traders’ demand and sought more relaxations.

It, however, did not grant any immediate stay on the Kerala government’s decision to relax lockdown for three days. The court fixed it for hearing on Tuesday, even as the applicant urged the bench to pass “immediate orders”, as Tuesday is the last day of the relaxations allowed and no purpose would be served if action is deferred.

AMARINDER-SIDHU TRUCE STILL ELUSIVE

The suspense over a possible truce between Punjab CM Amarinder Singh and the newly-appointed Punjab Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu continued on Monday as Captain maintained a studious silence on the appointment of the Amritsar East MLA as the new PPCC chief. The photo op which would have signalled a slight softening of strained relations between the two leaders remained elusive on Monday even as Sidhu mobilised the support of party MLAs and ministers with back-to-back meetings in Chandigarh and its neighbourhood.

Amarinder had made it clear to the Congress high command on Saturday that he would not meet Sidhu until the cricketer-turned-politician publicly apologised for his “personally derogatory” tweets against him.

Both Sidhu and Amarinder are shoring up support by meeting legislators and party functionaries and there is a question mark over the two leaders working together in the run up to the polls in about six months. Sidhu’s loyalists claimed that he had hosted almost 60 (of the total 80) Congress MLAs ever since he held his first meeting with a group of party leaders after his return from Delhi last week on Thursday.

A WORD ABOUT HOW PEGASUS INFECTS

Pegasus aka Q Suite, marketed by the NSO Group aka Q Cyber Technologies as “a world-leading cyber intelligence solution that enables law enforcement and intelligence agencies to remotely and covertly extract” data “from virtually any mobile devices”, was developed by veterans of Israeli intelligence agencies.

Until early 2018, NSO Group clients primarily relied on SMS and WhatsApp messages to trick targets into opening a malicious link, which would lead to infection of their mobile devices. A Pegasus brochure described this as Enhanced Social Engineering Message (ESEM). When a malicious link packaged as ESEM is clicked, the phone is directed to a server that checks the operating system and delivers the suitable remote exploit.

In its October 2019 report, Amnesty International first documented use of ‘network injections’ which enabled attackers to install the spyware “without requiring any interaction by the target”. Pegasus can achieve such zero-click installations in various ways. One over-the-air (OTA) option is to send a push message covertly that makes the target device load the spyware, with the target unaware of the installation.

This, a Pegasus brochure brags, is “NSO uniqueness, which significantly differentiates the Pegasus solution” from any other spyware available in the market.

Theoretically, astute cyber hygiene can safeguard against ESEM baits. But when Pegasus exploits a vulnerability in one’s phone’s operating system, there is nothing one can do to stop a network injection. Worse, one will not even be aware of it unless the device is scanned at a digital security lab.

The best one can do is to stay up to date with every operating system update and security patch released by device manufacturers, and hope that attacks become rarer. And if one has the budget, changing handsets periodically is perhaps the most effective, if expensive, remedy.

RAJ KUNDRA ARRESTED IN PORN APPS CASE; BUSINESSMAN ‘KEY CONSPIRATOR’, SAYS POLICE

The Mumbai police crime branch Monday arrested businessman Raj Kundra for being the alleged “key conspirator” in a case of making pornographic films and publishing them through mobile applications.

Kundra is the husband of actor and businesswoman Shilpa Shetty.

The Property Cell of the Mumbai crime branch had in February this year registered an FIR in connection with the case and arrested nine persons soon after. Kundra’s name came up during the interrogation of the accused, police officers said.

On Monday, Kundra was summoned for questioning, following which he was placed under arrest.

In the racket busted by the crime branch, the police had said women were lured into acting in pornographic movies with promises of roles in web series.

MANIPUR FREES ACTIVIST AFTER SC GIVES IT 6 HRS TO COMPLY

In another order that protects liberties, the SC on Monday gave the Manipur government six hours to release activist Leichombam Erendro, detained since May 13 for a social media post on the inefficacy of cow dung and urine against coronavirus after state BJP chief Prof Tikendra Singh succumbed to the viral illness.

A bench of Justices D Y Chandrachud and M R Shah granted bail to Erendro on furnishing a personal bail bond of Rs 1,000 without any sureties and ordered the state’s BJP government to ensure his release before 5pm. Erendro was released at 4.45pm, his lawyer said.

Forty-year-old Erendro was arrested on May 13 for his Facebook post over state BJP chief S Tikendra Singh’s death due to Covid. He had posted: “The cure for Corona is not cow dung & cow urine. The cure is science & common sense. Professor ji RIP.” The jibe was at certain functionaries of the party underscoring the medicinal properties of cow dung and urine.

He was arrested after state BJP vice-president Usham Deben Singh filed a complaint alleging that the post had “deliberately and wilfully insulted and outraged religious feelings and sentiments” of BJP workers and family members of the deceased.

PRODUCTS SOLD IN INDIA ARE VEG: MONDELEZ

The maker of Cadbury chocolates, Mondelez India, has clarified that products it manufactures and sells in India are “100% vegetarian”. Mondelez was responding to a screenshot shared on Twitter by a consumer, displaying a chocolate pack produced by the MNC in Australia, in which the MNC stated: “Please note, if any of our products contain gelatin in the ingredients, the gelatin we use is halal-certified and derived from beef.”

As consumers reacted strongly to the screenshot, with some even creating a hashtag to boycott Cadbury, the Indian subsidiary of the American foods major got into action to issue the clarification on the social media platform. Mondelez India said the ‘green dot’ on the wrapper signifies that it’s vegetarian.

ROHAN BOPANNA SLAM INDIAN TENNIS BODY OVER LOST MEDAL CHANCE, AITA RESPONDS

Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna have slammed the Indian tennis association (AITA) for denying the country “a very good shot at a medal” and for “misleading the players, the government, media and everyone else” by stating there is still a chance for Bopanna to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics.

Bopanna said in a social media post on Monday that the International Tennis Federation (ITF) did not accept any entry request for him and Sumit Nagal, who qualified for the men’s singles event.

He said this was in contradiction to AITA pairing him with Nagal for the men’s doubles competition by withdrawing Divij Sharan’s nomination. Bopanna and Sharan were not able to directly secure a place for the men’s doubles event at Tokyo Olympics.

Sharing Bopanna’s post, Sania Mirza said this also means a genuine shot at a mixed doubles medal has also been let go of, indicating there were plans to field Bopanna and herself in the mixed doubles event if Bopanna had got a Tokyo ticket. Sania herself will be playing in the women’s doubles section along with Ankita Raina.

The AITA had paired Bopanna and Divij Sharan for the men’s doubles event but the team failed to make the cut because of its low combined rank of 113. However, after Nagal made the cut for the men’s singles on July 16 following large-scale withdrawals, AITA saw hope in getting a men’s doubles team’s entry since singles players were being given the priority to fill the doubles draws. The AITA announced that it has changed the combination by pairing Bopanna with Nagal.

AITA Secretary General Anil Dhupar, meanwhile, hit back at Bopanna’s allegations, saying qualification for the Olympics should not have been left at the mercy of withdrawals. “I don’t know why he is saying all this. If you are so good why are you depending on people’s withdrawal? You are a world-class player you should enter the Olympics on your own, why are you depending on withdrawal.

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THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

We get our most important education not through books but through our work. We are developed by our daily task, or else demoralized by it, as by nothing else. - Anna Garlin Spencer

OFF TRACK

A baby boy was just born. He looked quite normal, except that he was laughing - and laughing real hard. All the doctors and nurses were examining the little guy in front of his worried parents. He just kept on laughing, his tiny fists all closed and tears rolling from his eyes.

One at a time, a pediatrician unfolded his tiny fingers to check if his hand was all right, and guess what he found?

The birth control pill.