Project Pegasus: According to reports, many governments of the world including India are spying on personalities like human rights activists, journalists, and lawyers, through a special software named Pegasus.
According to reports, more than 40 journalists, 3 prominent opposition leaders, 1 constitutional authority, 2 sitting ministers in Narendra Modi’s government, current and former heads and officials of security organizations, and a large number of businessmen were on the list of potential or past victims of Project Pegasus.
The Guardian and the Washington Post have alleged that many governments around the world, including the Indian government, spy on popular figures through special software called Pegasus. These figures include prominent human rights activists, journalists, and lawyers. The Indian government has denied these allegations.
These journalists appeared in the report:
- Rohini Singh – Journalist, The Wire
- Freelance journalist Swati Chaturvedi
- Sushant Singh, deputy editor at The Indian Express
- SNM Abdi, former Outlook journalist
- Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, former editor of EPW
- MK Venu, Founder of The Wire
- Siddharth Varadarajan, Founder of The Wire
- Senior editor of an Indian newspaper
- Rupesh Kumar Singh, a freelance journalist from Ramgarh, Jharkhand
- Siddhant Sibal, Journalist at the Ministry of External Affairs of Vion
- Santosh Bhartiya, Senior Journalist, Former MP
- Iftikhar Geelani, former DNA reporter
- Manoranjana Gupta, Editor-in-Chief of Frontier TV
- Sanjay Shyam, Journalist from Bihar
- Jaspal Singh Heron, Editor-in-Chief of Dainik Rozana Pehredar
- Syed Abdul Rehman Geelani, former Professor at Delhi University
- Sandeep Unnithan, India Today
- Vijeta Singh, The Hindu’s Home Ministry journalist
- Manoj Gupta, Investigative Editor, TV18
- 4 current and 1 former employee of Hindustan Times Group (Executive Editor Shishir Gupta, Editorial Page Editor, and former Bureau Chief Prashant Jha, Defense Correspondent Rahul Singh, Former Political Correspondent Aurangzeb Naqshbandi covering Congress).
- A reporter for the Hindustan Times group newspaper Mint,
- Prem Shankar Jha, a senior journalist who writes on security matters
- Saikat Dutta, former national security reporter
- Smita Sharma, former TV18 anchor and diplomatic reporter for The Tribune
What allegations has the Guardian made?
According to the Guardian newspaper, this spy software was sold by the Israeli surveillance company NSO to the governments of various countries. According to the revelations of the Guardian newspaper, more than 50,000 people are being spied on thanks to this software.
The consortium’s analysis of the leaked data includes information on at least 10 governments suspected of being customers of NSOs, which were entering numbers into a system. Data from countries like Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Morocco, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Hungary, India, and the United Arab Emirates has been released. The Guardian claims this came to light after an investigation by 16 media organizations.
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