SHASHI THAROOR: NO NEED FOR JPC INTO PEGASUS, IT PANEL WILL DO ITS DUTY

Ruling out a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe into alleged surveillance using the Pegasus spyware, Congress leader Shashi Tharoor, who heads the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology, said Wednesday that the committee will “do its duty” and that the subject is “already on the mandate of my committee”.

Tharoor said there was no need to set up a JPC to look into the disclosures since the standing committee and the JPC have identical rules.

He said the government has been saying that they have done no unauthorised surveillance. He said while one must take the government’s word for it, “but if they are implying that there was authorised surveillance, then they will have to explain on what basis it was authorised”.

“The implied allegation is that a government agency has been using a software intended for tracking criminals and terrorists and used it for the partisan political benefit of the ruling party. Because if you look at the list of people who have been tapped, the figures are either Opposition politicians or journalists or people of other kinds of similar interest to the ruling party such as the (Ranjan) Gogoi harassment case family… the lady and her family, secretaries of leaders and so on,” he said.

Tharoor said the laws are very clear about surveillance. “Interception of communications is only supposed to be authorised on grounds of national security or the prevention of a crime. There are rules and procedures governing that. If you read the IT Act of 2000, sections 43 and 66 read together… hacking … which is to introduce any malware or spyware into a computer device, computer network etc is actually against the law which is punishable by three years in prison or 5 lakhs or both.”

“So given that hacking is not legal under the IT Act… so basically either the government says that no unauthorised events took place, which means either it authorised it but in that case whoever authorised it runs up against the blatant illegality of the authorisation. Otherwise, if our government didn’t do it, some other government had to have done it because NSO claims that the software is only sold to governments… And that too governments that are vetted by them and then approved by the Israeli government. So in these circumstances, either way it is serious,” he said.

THREE WEEKS AGO, NSO ADMITTED MISUSE RISK

Barely a fortnight before the global expose on the alleged misuse of its flagship spyware, Israel’s NSO Group, in a policy document, acknowledged that “the customers for Pegasus are states and state agencies” who may be “tempted to limit fundamental freedoms”.

Prepared on June 30, the policy document said NSO Group has 60 customers — states and state agencies — in 40 countries. Of these, 51% are intelligence agencies, 38% law enforcement entities and 11% military.

“There are a wide variety of additional government-driven risks that could flow from our technologies. These could include rights associated with the legal and judicial process, such as freedom from arbitrary arrest and detention and similar abuses… as well as invasions of freedom of thought, conscience and religion, restrictions on freedom of movement or participation in civic life,” the Group said in the report.

Admitting that strict confidentiality restrictions limit its “ability to do much more,” the report said the company “cooperates with states to try to ensure that when abuses occur within their jurisdictions those affected have access to effective remedy”.

'NO DEATH DUE TO OXYGEN SHORTAGE', CLAIMS GOVT

Opposition parties on Wednesday reacted strongly to the central government's claim in the Rajya Sabha that no deaths due to lack of oxygen were specifically reported by states and UTs during the second Covid-19 wave.

The Union government on Tuesday said in the Rajya Sabha that there was an unprecedented surge in demand for medical oxygen during the second wave and it peaked at nearly 9,000 MT compared to 3,095 MT in the first wave, following which the Centre had to step in to facilitate equitable distribution among the states.

Responding to a question on whether a large number of Covid-19 patients died on roads and hospitals due to acute shortage of oxygen in the second wave, Minister of State for Health Bharati Pravin Pawar noted that health is a state subject and states and UTs regularly report the number of cases and deaths to the Centre. "Accordingly, all states and UTs report cases and deaths to the Union Health Ministry on a regular basis. However, no deaths due to lack of oxygen have been specifically reported by states and UTs," Pawar said in a written reply.

Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut on Wednesday said people whose relatives died due to oxygen shortage during the second wave of Covid-19 pandemic should "take the Union government to court".

But Maharashtra health minister Rajesh Tope on Wednesday said there is no record of a single death that occurred due to the lack of medical oxygen in Maharashtra. The state never made any statement about deaths due to a shortage, he told newspersons.

Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain on Wednesday said there have been many deaths due to oxygen shortage in Delhi and many other places across the country. "Hospitals and the media had been flagging oxygen shortage issues daily. Television channels showed that how hospitals were running out of the life-saving gas. It is completely false to say that no one died due to oxygen shortage. There have been many deaths due to oxygen shortage in Delhi and many other places across the country," he said.

Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra alleged that the fatalities happened because the government increased oxygen exports in the pandemic year and did not arrange tankers to transport it. "No initiative was shown in setting up oxygen plants in hospitals," she said.

KEY COVID NUMBERS

Current Active Cases Countrywide: 4,03,605

New Cases in last 24 hours: 41,691

Recovered in last 24 hours: 38,812

Change in no. of Active cases in last 24 hours: + 2,369

No. of deaths in last 24 hours (Total Covid Deaths so far): 510 (4,19,021)

Daily Tests (Tuesday): 18,52,140

Daily Positivity Rate (Proportion of Positives among total Tested): 2.3%

Percentage of Population Vaccinated (At Least One Dose / Two Doses): 24.7% / 6.5%

INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

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TOKYO 2020 (IN 2021), AN OLYMPICS LIKE NO OTHER

For the thousands athletes who have descended upon Tokyo, the five Olympic rings have ended up being a metaphor for all the hurdles they’ve had to hop and jump through simply to reach there.

This was all too evident at a football-field-sized waiting hall inside the Haneda Airport on Wednesday. People from hundreds of nationalities — athletes and coaches, umpires and broadcasters — were herded into this vast space, where they waited nervously for their Covid-19 reports. A negative test would bring momentary relief before the cheery volunteers lead them to the next challenge.

And there have been many. The pandemic means the Olympics will be unlike any other. The journey, for many here, began months before actually boarding the flight. The organisers, at the start of the year, announced a whole bunch of rules, written in cold bureaucratic language. One had to download four mobile apps, register on five extranets, fill half-a-dozen excel sheets and read as many PowerPoint slides, take Covid-19 tests daily for seven days before departure only at centres approved by the Japanese government, agree to get tested every day after arrival and finish tons of paperwork.

For 14 days after arrival, movements of everyone, including athletes, will be tracked via GPS to make sure they don’t go anywhere they aren’t supposed to. Security officials have been stationed at the entry/ exit points of hotels, and the public have been told to take pictures of violators and post them on social media.

Athletes and coaches have stressed that the focus will shift from these issues to the actual Games the moment the Olympic cauldron is lit on Friday. But that won’t change one reality: for thousands, reaching Tokyo has been like an Olympic sport in itself.

US LIFE EXPECTANCY DROPPED 1.5 YRS IN 2020 DUE TO COVID

Life expectancy in the US fell by a year and a half in 2020 to 77.3 years, the lowest level since 2003, primarily due to the deaths caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, the US CDC said on Wednesday. It is the steepest one-year decline since World War Two, when life expectancy fell 2.9 years between 1942 and 1943, and is six months shorter than its February 2021 estimate, it said.

“Life expectancy has been increasing gradually every year for the past several decades,” Elizabeth Arias, a CDC researcher who worked on the report, said. “The decline between 2019 and 2020 was so large that it took us back to the levels we were in 2003. Sort of like we lost a decade.” Deaths from Covid-19 contributed to nearly three-fourths, or 74%, of the decline and drug overdoses were also a major contributor, the CDC said. The CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) last week released interim data showing that US drug overdose deaths rose nearly 30% in 2020.

Disparity in life expectancy between men and women also widened in 2020, with women now expected to live 80.2 years, or 5.7 years longer than men — six months more than foreseen in 2019.

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MAMATA TRIES TO RALLY OPPOSITION FOR 2024

“We have to unite, for our people, for our country. People will never forgive us if we don’t,” said Bengal chief minister and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday, using the “July 21 Martyrs’ Day” platform to pitch for a united “front” of opposition parties to take on the BJP in the 2024 general election.

Shahid Diwas is marked every year on July 21 to commemorate the death of 13 Youth Congress workers in police firing in Kolkata in 1993 during a protest rally being led by Mamata. This has been an annual event since the TMC was formed in 1998.

Mamata urged senior opposition leaders “not to waste a single day” and to set aside “self-interest for national interest” to “work together... and create a front” to take on the “goli and gaali ka sarkar”. “Khela hobe in 2024 in every state in the country till the BJP is ousted,” she said. “Bura na mano, Modiji. Mohabbat kaam ki baat se hota hai, man ki baat se nahi (Don’t mind, Modiji. Work, not talk is proof of love),” she added.

Her first effort at reaching out to audiences beyond the state via a virtual address, saw leaders of opposition parties attending the screening of her speech at the Constitution Club in Delhi.

NCP chief Sharad Pawar and his daughter and party MP Supriya Sule, senior Congress leaders P Chidambaram and Digvijay Singh, Samajwadi Party MPs Jaya Bacchan and Ramgopal Yadav, DMK MP Thiruchi Siva, AAP MP Sanjay Singh, RJD’s Manoj Jha, Keshav Rao (TRS), Priyanka Chaturvedi (Shiv Sena) and Balwinder Singh Bhundar of the Shiromani Akali Dal were seated among the TMC MPs present at the programme.

“Elections are two-and-a-half years away but we need to start work together. (Even) independence is at risk with the BJP — a highly loaded virus, even worse than corona — in office. A country cannot run like this,” she said, adding that the BJP-led government was now “only a conductor of (central) agencies”.

FARMERS GET GREEN SIGNAL TO PROTEST AT JANTAR MANTAR – WITH SOME RIDERS

The Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) has granted permission to farmers, who have been protesting against the Centre’s farm laws at the Singhu, Tikri and Ghazipur borders since last November, to hold staggered protests at Jantar Mantar starting today.

Farmers plan to protest against the government and hold ‘Kisan Sansads’ on each working day of the Parliament until the monsoon session ends.

In a letter to the Additional Commissioner of Police (Headquarters), Delhi Police, Additional CEO of DDMA Rajesh Goyal said the Lieutenant Governor had given his approval for a “staggered protest at Jantar Mantar by maximum 200 protesting farmers/members of the Sanyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) every day from July 22 to August 9, between 11 am and 5 pm”. The protests will not be allowed on Saturdays and Sundays.

Police sought a clarification from the L-G as restrictions on gatherings are still prohibited in the city as part of Covid-appropriate behaviour. The letter states that protesting farmers will use “designated buses and six members of one separate group by a designated SUV on a given route under a police escort, subject to strict observance of Covid-appropriate behaviour”.

INDIA SUCCESSFULLY TEST-FIRES NEW-GENERATION AKASH SURFACE-TO-AIR MISSILE

The Defence Research and Development Organisation successfully flight-tested the new-generation Akash surface-to-air missile system from an integrated test range off the Odisha coast on Wednesday.

The new variant of the Akash missile (Akash-NG) can strike targets at a distance of around 60 km and fly at a speed of up to Mach 2.5.

"The flight trial was conducted at around 12:45 PM from a land-based platform with all weapon system elements such as ultifunction radar, command, control and communication system and launcher participating in the deployment configuration," the Défence Ministry in a statement. "The flawless performance of the entire weapon system has been confirmed by complete flight data captured by these systems. During the test, the missile demonstrated high manoeuvrability required for neutralising fast and agile aerial threats," the ministry said.

SIDHU’S SHOW OF STRENGTH IN AMRITSAR

In what is seen as a show of strength, nearly 60 Congress MLAs, out of a total 77, gathered at the residence of new state party chief Navjot Singh Sidhu in Amritsar on Wednesday, amid a suspense over a possible truce between him and CM Amarinder Singh.

The MLAs joined by Sidhu boarded luxury buses and went to pay obeisance at the Golden Temple, where a large number of Congress supporters gathered.

LINGAYAT SEERS COME OUT IN SUPPORT OF YEDIYURAPPA

Karnataka CM B.S. Yediyurappa, 78, Wednesday held what appeared to be a show of strength with seers of the Lingayat community, among others, days after his meeting with PM Narendra Modi in New Delhi sparked rumours of a change in leadership in the southern state.

On Wednesday, over three dozen seers, mainly from the Lingayat community, met the chief minister — a Lingayat himself — at his official residence in Bengaluru with some of them raising slogans in his favour.

The delegation was led by Siddalinga Swamy of the Siddaganga Mutt, considered one of the most powerful mutts in the state.  Speaking to the media later, he said: “It is not a Lingayat fight. Yediyurappa is a Karnataka leader. He has done well. Why should he go? We want him to continue till the next assembly elections due in April 2023.”

CAA, NRC WILL NOT HARM INDIAN MUSLIMS: RSS CHIEF

Asserting that the Citizenship Amendment Act and the National Register of Citizens are issues that have nothing to do with Hindu-Muslim divide, RRS chief Mohan Bhagwat claimed on Wednesday that a communal narrative was being peddled by some to gain political mileage.

"After Independence, the first prime minister of the country had said that minorities will be taken care of, and that has been done so far. We will continue to do so No Muslim will face any harm due to CAA," he said after launching a book in Guwahati, titled 'Citizenship debate over NRC and CAA-Assam and the Politics of History'.

The citizenship law is will provide protection to persecuted minorities in the neighbouring countries, the RSS chief underlined.

"We reach out to the majority communities, too, in these countries during a calamity.... So if there are some who wish to come to our country due to threats and fear, we will definitely have to help them out," he said.

EDITORS GUILD OF INDIA SEEKS PEGASUS PROBE

The Editors Guild of India Wednesday expressed shock at the Pegasus Project expose that has revealed suspected attempts to snoop on thousands of journalists, activists, academics, NGO employees and lawyers, among others, by multiple governments. These include dozens of Indian citizens, including opposition leaders, journalists and Union ministers.

“While some of the instances of surveillance might have been targeted against those who may be seen as credible national security threat, what is disturbing is that a large of such targets were journalists and civil society activists. This is a brazen and unconstitutional attack on freedom of speech and press. This act of snooping essentially conveys that journalism and political dissent are now equated with ‘terror’. How can a constitutional democracy survive if governments do not make an effort to protect freedom of speech and allows surveillance with such impunity? The Guild demands an urgent and independent inquiry into these snooping charges, under the aegis of Supreme Court of India.”

BRISBANE GETS 2032 OLYMPICS

Brisbane was awarded the 2032 Olympics on Wednesday, triggering wild celebrations and fireworks as it became the third Australian city to host the Summer Games after Melbourne and Sydney.

International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach confirmed the widely expected result after delegates voted 72 to five with three abstentions at the IOC session in Tokyo. “The International Olympic Committee has the honour to announce that the Games of the 35th Olympiad are awarded to Brisbane, Australia,” Bach said.

2024 Olympics will be held in Paris while Los Angeles will hot the games in 2028

INDICATORS

(Indian Stock Markets were closed yesterday on account of Eid al-Adha)

Nasdaq 14,632 (+133) Dow 34,798 (+286), S&P 4,359 (+36)

US$-Rs. 74.39 GBP-Rs. 101.59, Euro-Rs. 87.64, UAE Dhm-Rs.20.25, Can$-Rs. 58.85, Aus$- Rs. 54.52

GBP 0.73 /US$, Euro 0.84 /US$, Jap.Yen 110.12 /US$, Aus$ 1.36 /US$, Sing 1.36 /US$, Bang Taka 83.25 /US$, Can$ 1.26 /US$, Mal Ring 4.23 /US$,

Pak Re 160.38 /US$, Phil Peso 50.23 /US$, Russian Rouble 74.20 /US$, NZ$ 1.44 /US$, Thai Baht 32.81 /US$, Ukraine Hryvnia 26.98 /US$

Bitcoin - USD 31,878

Dollar Index 92.78 Brent Crude 71.96 BDI 3,058

Gold world Spot Price USD/aoz 1,800 India (Rs. per gm 24k/22k) 4,812 / 4,712, Silver (Rs. Per KG) 71,500

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Keep on going, and the chances are that you will stumble on something, perhaps when you are least expecting it. I never heard of anyone ever stumbling on something sitting down. - Charles F. Kettering

OFF TRACK

Before the start of a particularly lurid trial, the judge turned to women spectators who packed the courtroom: “Perhaps you are not acquainted with the type of case to be tried today. Some things will be said which are the kind a respectable woman should not hear. In view of this, will all respectable women please leave the court?. Not a woman moved.

After a moment, the judge turned to an usher: “Now that all the respectable women have left, will you show the remaining women out?”