Pegasus & a missile system were centerpieces of USD 2 bn deal between India and Israel in 2017: NYT
New York, Jan 29: The Israeli spyware Pegasus and a missile system were the centerpieces of a roughly USD 2 billion deal of sophisticated weapons and intelligence gear between India and Israel in 2017, according to a report in The New York Times.
A massive controversy erupted last year when the NSO Group hit the headlines with the alleged use of its Pegasus software by some governments to spy on journalists, human rights defenders, politicians and others in a number of countries, including India, triggered concerns over issues relating to privacy.
The NYT, in a report titled The Battle for the World's Most Powerful Cyberweapon', said that the Israeli firm NSO Group had for nearly a decade been selling its surveillance software on a subscription basis to law-enforcement and intelligence agencies around the world, promising that it could do what no one else -- not a private company, not even a state intelligence service -- could do: consistently and reliably crack the encrypted communications of any iPhone or Android smartphone.
The report also referred to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Israel in July 2017 - to become the first Indian prime minister to visit the country.
For decades, India had maintained a policy of what it called commitment to the Palestinian cause, and relations with Israel were frosty. The Modi visit, however, was notably cordial, complete with a carefully staged moment of him and (then Israeli) Prime Minister (Benjamin) Netanyahu walking together barefoot on a local beach, it said.
They had reason for the warm feelings. Their countries had agreed on the sale of a package of sophisticated weapons and intelligence gear worth roughly USD 2 billion -- with Pegasus and a missile system as the centerpieces. Months later, Netanyahu made a rare state visit to India. And in June 2019, India voted in support of Israel at the UN's Economic and Social Council to deny observer status to a Palestinian human rights organisation, a first for the nation, the report said.
PTI has reached out to the government for a reaction to the NYT report but there was no immediate response.
Last year, a row erupted over Israeli spyware Pegasus allegedly being used for targeted surveillance in India.
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".
In October last year, the Supreme Court set up a 3-member independent expert panel to probe the alleged use of Israeli spyware Pegasus for targeted surveillance in India, observing the state cannot get a "free pass" every time the spectre of national security is raised and that its mere invocation cannot render the judiciary a "mute spectator" and be the bugbear it shies away from. The NYT report said that the FBI too had bought a version of Pegasus, NSO's premier spying tool.
It was around last summer that the FBI decided not to deploy the NSO weapons. It was around this time that a consortium of news organisations called Forbidden Stories brought forward new revelations about NSO cyberweapons and their use against journalists and political dissidents. The Pegasus system currently lies dormant at the facility in New Jersey.
An international investigative consortium had claimed that many Indian ministers, politicians, activists, businessmen and journalists were potentially targeted by the NSO Group's phone hacking software.
The report said that since 2011 when NSO introduced Pegasus to the global market, it had helped Mexican authorities capture Joaqu n Guzm n Loera, the drug lord known as El Chapo .
European investigators have quietly used Pegasus to thwart terrorist plots, fight organised crime and, in one case, take down a global child-abuse ring, identifying dozens of suspects in more than 40 countries, it said.
In a broader sense, NSO's products seemed to solve one of the biggest problems facing law-enforcement and intelligence agencies in the 21st century: that criminals and terrorists had better technology for encrypting their communications than investigators had to decrypt them. The criminal world had gone dark even as it was increasingly going global, according to the report.
However, over the years, "the many abuses of Pegasus had also been well documented .
Mexico deployed the software not just against gangsters but also against journalists and political dissidents. The United Arab Emirates used the software to hack the phone of a civil rights activist whom the government threw in jail.
Saudi Arabia used it against women's rights activists and, according to a lawsuit filed by a Saudi dissident, to spy on communications with Jamal Khashoggi, a columnist for The Washington Post, whom Saudi operatives killed and dismembered in Istanbul in 2018, the NYT report said.
The report said that its yearlong investigation, which included interviews with government officials, leaders of intelligence and law-enforcement agencies, cyberweapons experts, business executives and privacy activists in a dozen countries, shows how Israel's ability to approve or deny access to NSO's cyberweapons has become entangled with its diplomacy.
Countries like Mexico and Panama have shifted their positions toward Israel in key votes at the United Nations after winning access to Pegasus, the report added.
Amidst a raging controversy worldwide, Israel established a committee in July to review the allegations of misuse of the NSO group's surveillance software and hinted at a possible "review of the whole matter of giving licences".
NSO's then chief executive, Shalev Hulio, had then welcomed the move saying would be "very pleased if there were an investigation so that we'd be able to clear our name .
Hulio also claimed that there was an effort to smear the whole Israeli cyber industry".
Israel, in November last year, distanced itself from the controversy triggered by the NSO Group after the US blacklisted the technology firm, which had developed the Pegasus spyware that was allegedly used to target government officials, activists and journalists globally, saying that it is a private company and it has nothing to do with the policies of the Israeli government.
The US sanctioned the Herzliya-based company over alleged misuse of its phone-hacking spyware in countries across the world, including in India.
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PIL in SC seeking action against racial violence targeting northeastern citizens
New Delhi (PTI): A PIL was filed in the Supreme Court seeking judicial intervention to address the "continuing constitutional failure" to prevent and respond to racial discrimination and violence against citizens from northeastern states and other frontier regions.
The PIL was filed on December 28 in the backdrop of the brutal killing of Anjel Chakma, a 24-year-old MBA student from Tripura, who succumbed on December 27 to grievous injuries sustained in a racially motivated attack in Selaqui area of Dehradun.
Anjel from Unakoti district's Machmara went to Dehradun after completing his graduation in Holy Cross School, Agartala, to pursue MBA, where he was stabbed to death in the presence of his younger brother Michael.
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The family members of Chakma want capital punishment or at least life imprisonment for all the accused involved in the incident. Anoop Prakash Awasthi, a Delhi-based lawyer, has made the Centre and all the states and Union territories as parties to the PIL.
"That the present writ petition is being filed seeking issuance of writ under Article 32 of the Constitution seeking issuance of writ in the nature of mandamus, order, direction or any other appropriate writ for the violation of fundamental rights as under article 14, 19 (1) a & (g) and 21, and thus seeking judicial intervention to address the issue of racial discrimination and violence against Indian citizens from the north-eastern states and other frontier regions of India," the plea said.
"We are Indians. What certificate should we show to prove that?" words that tragically became the last recorded assertion of Anjel Chakma about his constitutional belonging before the confrontation escalated into brutal violence, it said while recounting the offence leading to his death.
The plea referred to media reports about Chakma's death.
The attackers allegedly assaulted and stabbed both brothers and Chakma sustained severe injuries to his neck and spine, remained unconscious throughout his treatment, and died after more than fourteen days in intensive medical care, it said, adding his death triggered widespread anguish, protests, and demands for justice across the country.
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"Issue an appropriate writ (ad interim till a legislation is made) in the nature of formulating comprehensive guidelines, recognising 'racial slur' as a separate category of hate crimes and determining punishment for the same," the plea said.
It sought a direction to the Centre and the states to create a "nodal agency or a permanent body or commission or directorate" at the central level as well as at the level of each state where such racial crimes can be reported and redressed.
"Direct the respondents at central level as well as at the level of each state to make and create a dedicated special police unit in each district/metropolitan area to address the racial crimes," it said.
The plea sought a direction to the Centre and the states to organise "workshops and debates at educational institutes on the issue of prevailing racial discrimination and ways to redress the same".
The petition said that despite the unmistakable hate-based and racial motivation behind the crime, India's criminal justice system lacks any mechanism to recognise or record racial bias at the initial stage of investigation.
As a result, such offences are treated as ordinary crimes, "erasing motive, diluting constitutional gravity, and perpetuating a pattern of impunity", it said.
The plea said that the killing of Chakma is not an isolated incident but part of a long-standing pattern of racial abuse and violence against citizens from the northeastern states.
The petition recalls earlier cases, including the death of Nido Taniam in 2014 and numerous assaults on students and workers in metropolitan cities, incidents that have been formally acknowledged by the Centre in parliamentary replies but, according to the petitioner, remain unaddressed through any dedicated legislative or institutional framework.
