Pegasus spyware compared to 'bombing in Hiroshima' in India press, Modi's "Watergate"

[enhanced_deficit]

Pegasus spyware compared to 'bombing in Hiroshima' in India press, Modi's "Watergate"

Global Pegasus scandal seems to be encircling another world leader who had brandded himself as the closest "ally" of Donald vsg Trump behind Israel's Bibi Netanyahu. From media reports, his political fate could end up being same as that of Bibi who was just kicked out of gov. Trump himself is facing mutiple setbacks including recent arrest of his inaugration chairman for being "agent of a foreign country" on the heels of "stolen election".

'Pegasus is no different from bombing in Hiroshima'

Raut, in a column in Saamana, said that NSO, the Israeli company that owns the Pegasus, claimed it provides software only to the government of a country.
Express News Service |
July 26, 2021

For Modi and the BJP, Pegasus Is India's Watergate Moment

“Congratulations!” That was the most common message of support I received from friends and well-wishers after the July 18 news that my name was featured in a list of journalists whose cellphones had been targeted by the Israeli military-grade spyware Pegasus. I had known since June that I was on the list. My friend and colleague Siddharth Varadarajan, co-founder of India’s independent news portal The Wire—one of the 17 global media partners of this worldwide investigation—was somber when he first informed me. After I agreed to cooperate with the investigation, my device was checked by Amnesty International in early July. They found that my cellphone had been infiltrated by Pegasus as recently as a couple of days earlier.

The leaked data for the investigation, provided by the Paris-based nonprofit Forbidden Stories, indicated that my cellphone was first placed on the snooping list in July 2018, when I was a deputy editor at The Indian Express newspaper. That year, I won the prestigious Ramnath Goenka award for excellence in journalism, awarded for my reporting on three major news stories: the sacking and replacement of the head of India’s premier federal investigative agency, the Central Bureau of Investigation; the internal conflict and turmoil at the highest levels of India’s Supreme Court over allegations of corruption and induction of new judges; and the multibillion-dollar deal between India and France for Rafale fighter jets, where allegations of wrongdoing, cronyism, and overpricing had gained ground. The deal became a major issue in India’s 2019 national elections.

foreignpolicy.com/2021/07/21/india-israel-nso-pegasus-spyware-hack-modi-bjp-democracy-watergate/



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Modi government accused of spying on critics and opponents using Pegasus spyware
July 22, 2021
Just when Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist government is trying to recover from widespread international and local condemnation for its culpability in India's COVID apocalypse, it is now being derided for what some are calling India's Watergate.
A powerful surveillance tool called Pegasus, made by Israeli firm NSO and licensed only to governments, was allegedly used in India to snoop on mobile phones of up to 1,000 people over the past six years, according to a groundbreaking global collaborative investigation by a consortium called the Pegasus Project.
The Project comprised more than 80 journalists working for 17 media organisations around the world, including the Guardian, India's The Wire and the Washington Post.