The robotic surgery facility in the Safdarjung Hospital (SJH) New Delhi was dedicated to the nation by the Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare Dr Harsh Vardhan, here today.

Safdarjang Hospital is one of the biggest tertiary care referral centre of India, under Ministry of Health and Family Welfare catering to all poor patients of uro-oncological cancers like prostate, kidney, bladder cancers and kidney failures, from different parts of country.

It is also the first Central Government hospital in India to start this latest Robot Surgery facility for all poor patients for free. Robotic surgery has the advantage of providing minimally invasive surgery, reducing significantly the morbidity & mortality of critically ill, cancer and kidney failure patients. The Robotic system provides 7 degrees of freedom, 3-D vision, 10 times magnification and better dissection with more precision. The operating time also decreases resulting in improvement in turnover of patients and decrease in waiting list of patients for surgery significantly.

Union Minister of Home Affairs Shri Amit Shah will inaugurate the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Joint Exercise on Urban Earthquake Search & Rescue (SCOJtEx-2019) on 04th November, 2019 at 1500 Hrs at Dr. Ambedkar International Center, New Delhi. Union Minister of State for Home Affairs, Shri Nityanand Rai will be the chief guest for closing ceremony scheduled for 07th November, 2019.

On the initiative of Government of India, the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) is hosting “Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Joint Urban Earthquake Search & Rescue Exercise (SCOJtEx.)-2019” of all 08 SCO member countries, with the aim to rehearse the disaster response mechanism, share knowledge, experience, technology & also for mutual coordination, etc. This exercise shall also provide an opportunity to enhance the coordination & co-operation involving multi-agency operations in an earthquake scenario.

The four day long simulation exercise shall be held from 4-7 November, 2019 at Delhi. The participants of all 08 member countries namely China, India, Kazakhastan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan shall be participating in this exercise.

In a first, the Government of India has constituted a special award titled ‘Icon of Golden Jubilee of IFFI’ which will be conferred upon the eminent film personality Shri S Rajinikanth.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address ‘Sawasdee PM Modi’ community programme in Bangkok at 6 PM IST today. Several Members of Indian diaspora in Thailand will participate in the event.

Where is it? Gottiprolu lies on the right bank of a distributary of river Swarnamukhi about eighty kilometers from Tirupati and Nellore.

What has been unearthed? Among many other antiquities unearthed are one life size Vishnu sculpture and a wide variety of pottery of the early centuries of current era. The excavation revealed the presence of brick-built structures in different sizes and forms.

The available brick sizes are comparable with the Satavahana / Ikshvaku period structures in Krishna valley.

On the basis of the brick size and associated findings they can be placed anywhere between 2nd – 1st century BCE or little later (nearly 2000 years old).

Other interesting antiquity retrieved is the molded female terracotta figurine with two hands lifted upwards. Other major retrieved antiquities unearthed are copper and lead coins, iron spear head, stone celts, terracotta beads, ear stud in semi precious stone and hopscotches.

What do they indicate? The proximity of the site to the seacoast suggests that the site could have served as a strategic settlement involved in maritime trade. These settlements could have been an important trade centre as indicated by the presence of imitated amphorae wares that were mostly used to transport liquid commodities.

The findings of assorted stone tools of Palaeolithic and Neolithic periods from secondary contexts suggest that prehistoric people also occupied this area. A series of broken terracotta pipes fitted into one another revealed about the civic amenities maintained by the occupants of this site. The drainage system pattern is understood by the exposed remains of the drainage at the site.

It marks the occasion of the birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.

Background: The government, in 2014, decided to observe Sardar Patel Jayanti Day as Ekta Diwas. This occasion provides an opportunity to re-affirm the inherent strength and resilience of the nation to withstand the threats to its unity, integrity and security.

About Sardar Vallabhai Patel: Sardar Patel is credited with uniting all 562 princely states in pre-independent India to build the Republic of India.

Role in the Indian National Movement: 1917– Elected as the Secretary of the Gujarat Sabha, the Gujarat wing of the Indian National Congress.

1918– Led a massive “No Tax Campaign” that urged the farmers not to pay taxes after the British insisted on tax after the floods in Kaira. His effort to bring together the farmers of his area brought him the title of ‘Sardar’. Supported the non-cooperation Movementlaunched by Gandhi and Patel toured the nation with him.

1928– When the lands of farmers were seized after they refused to pay the extra tax to the government, Patel helped the farmers by striking a deal between the government and farmers’ representatives. 1930– Imprisoned for participating in the famous Salt Satyagraha movement initiated by Mahatma Gandhi.

1931- Elected as the President of Indian National Congress in its Karachi sessionwhere the party deliberated its future path. Patel was also compelled to use coercion by launching ‘Operation Polo’to liberate and integrate Hyderabad after the Nizam of Hyderabad entertained false hopes of either joining Pakistan or remaining independent.

The Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019 also comes into effect from 31st October 2019.

Here is what has changed in Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh: The Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir and the Ranbir Penal Code will cease to exist.

The Union Territory of J&K will have a legislature while the UT of Ladakh will have no legislature.

Both the Union Territories will have Lieutenant Governors as administrators who will be appointed by the President of India. Their tenure will be determined by the President.

Four sitting members of the Council of States representing the existing state of Jammu and Kashmir shall be deemed to have been elected to fill the seats allotted to the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir.

Legislative assembly of J&K: The Delimitation of Parliamentary Constituencies Order, 1976 shall stand amended as directed in the Second Schedule of the Act.

The Election Commission may conduct the elections to the House of the People for the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir as per the allocation of seats specified in the Delimitation of Parliamentary Constituencies Order, 1976 as amended by this Act.

The provisions which are applicable to “Union territory of Puducherry” shall also apply to the “Union territory of Jammu and Kashmir. The total number of seats in the Legislative Assembly of the Union territory of Jammu and Kashmir to be filled by persons chosen by direct election shall be 107.

Seats shall be reserved for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes in the Legislative Assembly of the Union territory of Jammu and Kashmir. There shall be a Council of Ministers consisting of not more than ten per cent of the total number of members in the Legislative Assembly, with the Chief Minister at the head to aid and advise the Lieutenant Governor in the exercise of his functions in relation to matters with respect to which the Legislative Assembly has the power to make laws.

Abolition of legislative council: On the abolition of the Legislative Council, every member thereof shall cease to be such members. All Bills pending in the Legislative Council immediately before the appointed day shall lapse on the abolition of the Council.

Powers of Lieutenant Governor: The Lieutenant Governor of Ladakh shall be assisted by advisor(s) to be appointed by the Central Government.

Lieutenant Governor of Union territory of Jammu and Kashmir may nominate two members to the Legislative Assembly to give representation to women, if in his opinion, women are not adequately represented in the Legislative Assembly.

The Chief Minister shall be appointed by the Lieutenant Governor and the other Ministers shall be appointed by the Lieutenant Governor on the advice of the Chief Minister.

The Ministers shall hold office during the pleasure of the Lieutenant Governor and the Council of Ministers shall be collectively responsible to the Legislative Assembly. Before a Minister enters upon his office, the Lieutenant Governor shall administer to him the oaths of office and of secrecy according to the forms set out for the purpose in the Fourth Schedule.

High Court: The High Court of Jammu and Kashmir shall be the common High Court for the Union territory of Jammu and Kashmir and Union territory of Ladakh. The Judges of the High Court of Jammu and Kashmir for the existing State of Jammu and Kashmir holding office immediately before the appointed day shall become on that day the Judges of the High Court.

The expenditure in respect of salaries and allowances of the Judges of the common High Court shall be allocated amongst the Union territory of Jammu and Kashmir and Union territory of Ladakh on the basis of population ratio.

All India Services officials: The members of the cadres of Indian Administrative Service, Indian Police Service and Indian Forest Service for the existing State of Jammu and Kashmir, on and from the appointed day, shall continue to function on the existing cadres. The centre will be in direct control of the Jammu and Kashmir police and law and order matters.

He instructed all the Deputy Commissioners to work hard to make India successful in this examination.

Background: Cabinet has already given ex-post facto approval to the Agreement between India and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) for participating in the Programme for International Students Assessment (PISA), which will be conducted by the OECD in 2021. The Agreement was signed on 28th January 2019.

India’s participation in PISA: India had taken part in Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in 2009 and bagged the 72nd rank among 74 participating countries. Then UPA government had boycotted PISA, blaming “out of context” questions for India’s dismal performance.

Later, the HRD Ministry, under the NDA-II government, revisited this decision in 2016 and the Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan (KVS) had set up a committee to review the matter and submitted its report in December 2016. The report recommended for participation in test in 2018. However, India missed the application deadline for the 2018 cycle.

About the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA): It is an international assessment that measures 15-year-old students’ reading, mathematics, and science literacy every three years. First conducted in 2000, the major domain of study rotates between reading, mathematics, and science in each cycle.

PISA also includes measures of general or cross-curricular competencies, such as collaborative problem solving. PISA is coordinated by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), an intergovernmental organization of industrialized countries, and is conducted in the United States by NCES.

Top performers: In 2012 PISA test, schools of Shanghai in China topped reading, mathematics and science test, followed closely by Singapore. In 2015, Singapore, Japan and Estonia were ranked as top three countries, in that order.

What makes PISA unique? PISA is the only international education survey to measure the knowledge and skills of 15-year-olds, an age at which students in most countries are nearing the end of their compulsory time in school.

PISA is also unique in the way it looks at: Public policy issues. Literacy. Lifelong learning.

What might have gone wrong for India in 2009? India performed very poorly – ranking 73rd out of 74 countries that participated in that round, finishing ahead of only Kazakhstan.

The result was so shocking that many people assume that it must have been an aberration. Some feel that the students may not have been prepared for the test. Others believe that the students may have been tested in English, which they were not proficient in (actually, all students were tested in their medium of instruction.)

Still, others feel that the performance must have been poor because only government schools were tested – our private school students would have done much better. But a well-publicized study by Education Initiatives (EI) in 2006 and repeated in 2012 established that even students of our top schools would perform well below the international average in grade 4.

Why assessments like the PISA turn out to be difficult for most Indian students? The mentality that questions can be only from the textbook. Very poor reading ability. Process of answering questions – pattern-matching versus problem-solving. When Indian students encounter PISA-type questions, many of them freeze at the first sign of the unfamiliar and decide that they have not ‘learnt this question type’ and cannot solve it. Low understanding of processes or concepts and even comprehension skills.

Way ahead: Each of the above represents an entrenched, yet solvable problem in the Indian education system. Though there are no quick-fix solutions, there are key levers available to create change: Changing the pattern of Board Exam questions – and teacher training starting with teachers from grade 5 or so are two strong levers in our control.

Lymphatic filariasis: Also called as elephantiasis, it is Caused by infection with parasitic worms living in the lymphatic system. The larval stages of the parasite (microfilaria) circulate in the blood and are transmitted from person to person by mosquitoes.

May Cause abnormal enlargement of body parts, and leading to severe disability and social stigmatization of those affected. The parasites are transmitted by four main types of mosquitoes: Culex, Mansonia, Anopheles and Aedes.

Triple drug therapy: The World Health Organization (WHO) is recommending three drug treatment to accelerate the global elimination of lymphatic filariasis.

The treatment, known as IDA, involves a combination of ivermectin, diethylcarbamazine citrate and albendazole. The plan is to administer these drugs for two consecutive years. The life of the adult worm is hardly four years, so it would die a natural death without causing any harm to the person.

Need for and significance of the therapy: Lymphatic filariasis poses a grave threat to India. Over 40% of worldwide cases are found in India. Since 2004, two drug therapy for lymphatic filariasis has been in place but the addition of the third drug now will give a boost to the overall campaign. India has missed earlier deadlines to eradicate the disease by 2015 and 2017. The global deadline now is 2020 and the three drug approach may help the country get there.

Global Alliance to Eliminate Lymphatic Filariasis: It is an alliance of partners from 72 LF endemic national country programmes, NGOs, private sectors, academic and research institutes and international development agencies that assists WHO’s Global Programme to Eliminate Lymphatic Filariasis.

What is NHP? Prepared by the Central Bureau of Health Intelligence (CBHI). Covers comprehensive information on demographic, socio-economic health status, health finance indicators, health infrastructure and health of human resources in the country.

Objective: To create a versatile database of health information and making it available to all stakeholders in the healthcare sector.

The NHP highlights substantial health information under major indicators: Demographic indicators (population and vital statistics). Socio-economic indicators (education, employment, housing and amenities, drinking water and sanitation). Health status indicators (incidence and prevalence of common communicable and non-communicable diseases and RCH), etc.

The health finance indicators provides an overview of health insurance and expenditure on health, both public and Out of Pocket Expenditure (OOP), etc. Human resources provides an overview of availability of manpower working in the health sector. Health infrastructure section provides details of medical and dental colleges, AYUSH institutes, nursing courses and paramedical courses, etc.

Key findings: Life expectancy in India has increased from 49.7 years in 1970-75 to 68.7 years in 2012-16. life expectancy for females is 70.2 years and 67.4 years for males.

Diabetes and hypertension rate are high among Indians while dengue and chikungunya are a cause of great concern to public health. Highest population density of 11,320 people per square kilometre was reported by the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT) whereas Arunachal Pradesh reported the lowest population density of 17. High incidence in the young and economically active population.

There has been consistent decrease in the birth rate, death rate and natural growth rate in India since 1991 to 2017:

As on 2017, India has registered birth rate of 20.2 per population of 1,000 and death rate of 6.3 while the natural growth rate was 13.9 per population of 1,000. The birth rate in rural areas was higher than in the urban. The death rate and natural growth rate were also higher in rural areas as compared to the urban.

The population, however, continues to grow, as the decline in the birth rate is not as rapid as the decline in the death rate. The infant mortality rate (IMR) has declined considerably (33 per 1,000 live births in 2016), however differentials of rural (37) and urban (23) are still high.

The Total Fertility Rate (TFR) for the country was 2.3 whereas in rural areas it was 2.5 and 1.8 in urban areas during 2016 as per the latest available information.

Mumbai had the highest amount of bonds at ₹1,880 crore, followed by Kolkata at ₹1,440 crore, Delhi at ₹919 crore and Hyderabad at ₹838 crore, while all other cities accounted for ₹1,051 crore from March 2018 till October 2019.

About Electoral bonds: What are electoral bonds? Bonds that allow donors to pay political parties using banks as an intermediary.

Key features: Although called a bond, the banking instrument resembling promissory notes will not carry any interest. It will be a bearer instrument. It will not carry the name of the payee. It can be bought for any value, in multiples of Rs 1,000, Rs 10,000, Rs 1 lakh, Rs 10 lakh or Rs 1 crore.

Eligibility: May be purchased by a citizen of India, or entities incorporated or established in India. A person being an individual can buy electoral bonds, either singly or jointly with other individuals.

Only the registered Political Parties which have secured not less than one per cent of the votes polled in the last Lok Sabha elections or the State Legislative Assembly are eligible to receive the Electoral Bonds.

Need: The electoral bonds are aimed at rooting out the current system of largely anonymous cash donations made to political parties which lead to the generation of black money in the economy.

How will the Bonds help? Encourage political donations of clean money from individuals, companies, HUF, religious groups, charities, etc. After purchasing the bonds, these entities can hand them to political parties of their choice, which must redeem them within the prescribed time.

Why is there a controversy? The introduction of the electoral bond scheme is part of what appears to be a growing trend away from transparency and accountability, two values which were already sparse in relation to Indian political parties.

Opponents to the scheme allege that since the identity of the donor of electoral bonds has been kept anonymous, it could lead to an influx of black money. Others allege that the scheme was designed to help big corporate houses donate money without their identity being revealed.

Key findings: India’s unemployment rate in October rose to 8.5%, the highest level since August 2016.

Urban unemployment rate at 8.9%, is more than the rural unemployment rate of 8.3%.

Highest unemployment rate in Tripura and Haryana, at more than 20%. Lowest in Tamil Nadu at 1.1%. Rajasthan saw its unemployment rate double between September and October 2019.

Why this is a cause for concern? CMIE findings are in line with the findings of the latest Periodic Labour Force Survey, which had estimated an unemployment rate of 6.1% between July 2017 and June 2018, the worst in 45 years.

The data also comes on the back of other indicators showing a downturn in the economy, including the core sector output in September posting its worst contraction in at least 14 years. Earlier, August’s industrial output shrank at its fastest rate in more than six years.

Another research estimates that between 2011-12 and 2017-18, employment declined by an unprecedented nine million jobs (a 2% drop), with agricultural employment declining by 11.5%. In the same period, employment in the service sector increased by 13.4%, while manufacturing employment dipped by 5.7%.

While employment has been declining, the number of working age people who are “Not in Labour Force, Education and Training” has continued to increase — from about 84 million in 2011-12, it has now crossed 100 million.

What causes this? Most of the decline in employment has happened due to the fall in the number of workers in agriculture and a sharp fall in the absolute number of female workers- Roughly 37 million workers left agriculture in the last six years. During the same time, 25 million women workers were out of the workforce.

While the trend of workers moving out of agriculture is seen since 2004-05 and is welcome, it also points to the rising vulnerability of farm production.

Way ahead: No doubt, the problem is not new and even earlier governments are to be blamed for the mess that the economy is in. Unfortunately, blaming the data or earlier governments does not make people who are looking for jobs vanish from the country. Stagnant wages and jobless growth are not just indicators of a weakening economy, but also a recipe for political instability and a crisis in the countryside. The least that is expected of the government is an acknowledgement of the extent of the problem and then try to address it.

Need of the hour: Falling manufacturing employment and decelerating construction employment growth are bad news for the economy.

To sustain the growth of income, improve standard of living, and to reduce poverty, employment opportunities in manufacturing and construction (although a transitory sector) is necessary.

About the Polavaram project: It is a multi-purpose irrigation project. The dam across the Godavari River is under construction located in West Godavari District and East Godavari District in Andhra Pradesh state and its reservoir spreads in parts of Chhattisgarh and Orissa States also.

The project is multipurpose major terminal reservoir project on river Godavari for development of Irrigation, Hydropower and drinking water facilities to East Godavari, Vishakhapatnam, West Godavari and Krishna districts of Andhra Pradesh.

The Polavaram project was accorded national status in 2014 in the Andhra Pradesh Bifurcation Act and its design was changed.

AQI entered the “severe plus” or “emergency” category. Background– Pollution levels and indicators: An AQI between 0-50 is considered ‘good’, 51-100 ‘satisfactory’, 101-200 ‘moderate’, 201-300 ‘poor’, 301-400 ‘very poor’ and 401-500 ‘severe’. Above 500 falls in the ‘severe-plus emergency’ category.

Measures announced under GRAP- Severe+ or Emergency- (PM 2.5 over 300 µg/cubic metre or PM10 over 500 µg/cu. m. for 48+ hours): Stop entry of trucks into Delhi (except essential commodities). Stop construction work. Introduce odd/even scheme for private vehicles and minimise exemptions. Task Force to decide any additional steps including shutting of schools.

Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP): Approved by the Supreme Court in 2016. It works only as an emergency measure. As such, the plan does not include action by various state governments to be taken throughout the year to tackle industrial, vehicular and combustion emissions. When the air quality shifts from poor to very poor, the measures listed have to be followed since the plan is incremental in nature.

Has it been helpful? It has created a step-by-step plan for the entire Delhi-NCR region and getting on board several agencies including pollution control boards, industrial area authorities, municipal corporations, regional officials of the India Meteorological Department, and others.

It has been successful in fixing accountability and deadlines. For each action to be taken under a particular air quality category, executing agencies are clearly marked.

Coordination among as many as 13 agencies from four states is simplified to a degree because of the clear demarcation of responsibilities. Three major policy decisions that can be credited to EPCA and GRAP are the closure of the thermal power plant at Badarpur, bringing BS-VI fuel to Delhi before the deadline set initially, and the ban on Pet coke as a fuel in Delhi NCR.

To address this menace, we need a permanent solution which might include the following: Strict enforcement of lower pollution norms: Trucks and buses mixing kerosene and diesel should be impounded, and fined. Buses from other states should be allowed to enter Delhi only if they meet certain pollution norms.

Constant monitoring of garbage dumps such as those in Bhalswa and New Ashok Nagar and any fire incidents at these places need to proactively put out. Complete ban on burning of leaves in Delhi through the year. All construction activity in Delhi should be done with draping, to ensure that dust and dirt doesn’t fly into the air. This is done everywhere else in the world.

Dust soppers can be run through Delhi roads regularly, every morning. To prevent burning of wood etc during peak winters, build shelters for the homeless to sleep at night in the winters. Some of this has been done by the govt. More needs to be done. Move Brick kilns out of Delhi within 3 years. This was done with tanneries almost 20 yrs ago.

What does the AFSPA mean? In simple terms, AFSPA gives armed forces the power to maintain public order in “disturbed areas”.

They have the authority to prohibit a gathering of five or more persons in an area, can use force or even open fire after giving due warning if they feel a person is in contravention of the law.

If reasonable suspicion exists, the army can also arrest a person without a warrant; enter or search premises without a warrant; and ban the possession of firearms.

What is a “disturbed area” and who has the power to declare it? A disturbed area is one which is declared by notification under Section 3 of the AFSPA. An area can be disturbed due to differences or disputes between members of different religious, racial, language or regional groups or castes or communities.

The Central Government, or the Governor of the State or administrator of the Union Territory can declare the whole or part of the State or Union Territory as a disturbed area. A suitable notification would have to be made in the Official Gazette. As per Section 3, it can be invoked in places where “the use of armed forces in aid of the civil power is necessary”.

What’s the origin of AFSPA? The Act came into force in the context of increasing violence in the Northeastern States decades ago, which the State governments found difficult to control. The Armed Forces (Special Powers) Bill was passed by both the Houses of Parliament and it was approved by the President on September 11, 1958. It became known as the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, 1958.

What are the special powers given to army officials? Under Section 4 of the AFSPA, an authorised officer in a disturbed area enjoys certain powers. The authorised officer has the power to open fire at any individual even if it results in death if the individual violates laws which prohibit (a) the assembly of five or more persons; or (b) carrying of weapons. However, the officer has to give a warning before opening fire.

The authorised officer has also been given the power to (a) arrest without a warrant; and (b) seize and search without any warrant any premise in order to make an arrest or recovery of hostages, arms and ammunitions. Individuals who have been taken into custody have to be handed over to the nearest police station as soon as possible. Prosecution of an authorised officer requires prior permission of the Central government.

What has been the role of the judiciary? There were questions about the constitutionality of AFSPA, given that law and order is a state subject. The Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of AFSPA in a 1998 judgement (Naga People’s Movement of Human Rights v. Union of India).

In this judgement, the Supreme Court arrived at certain conclusions including: (a) a suo-motto declaration can be made by the Central government, however, it is desirable that the state government should be consulted by the central government before making the declaration;

(b) AFSPA does not confer arbitrary powers to declare an area as a ‘disturbed area’; (c) the declaration has to be for a limited duration and there should be a periodic review of the declaration 6 months have expired;

(d) while exercising the powers conferred upon him by AFSPA, the authorised officer should use minimal force necessary for effective action, (e) the authorised officer should strictly follow the ‘Dos and Don’ts’ issued by the army.

Has there been any review of the Act? On November 19, 2004, the Central government appointed committee headed by Justice B P Jeevan Reddy made the following recommendations: (a) AFSPA should be repealed and appropriate provisions should be inserted in the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967; (b) The Unlawful Activities Act should be modified to clearly specify the powers of the armed forces and paramilitary forces and (c) grievance cells should be set up in each district where the armed forces are deployed.

The 5th report of the Second Administrative Reforms Commission on public order has also recommended the repeal of the AFSPA. These recommendations have not been implemented.

The surveillance was carried out “between in and around April 2019 and May 2019” on users in 20 countries across four continents.

In response, WhatsApp has sued the NSO Groupin a federal court, accusing it of using WhatsApp servers in the United States and elsewhere “to send malware to approximately 1,400 mobile phones and devices (‘Target Devices’) for the purpose of conducting surveillance of specific WhatsApp users (‘Target Users’)”.

Concerns: Tools that enable surveillance into our private lives are being abused, and the proliferation of this technology into the hands of irresponsible companies and governments puts us all at risk.

WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, is the world’s most popular messaging app, with more than 1.5 billion users worldwide. About a quarter of those users — more than 400 million, or 40 crore — are in India, WhatsApp’s biggest market.

So what exactly is Pegasus? How it works? It is a spyware that works by sending an exploit link, and if the target user clicks on the link, the malware or the code that allows the surveillance is installed on the user’s phone. Pegasus is installed without the user’s knowledge or permission. Once Pegasus is installed, the attacker has complete access to the target user’s phone.

Pegasus delivers a chain of zero-day exploits to penetrate security features on the phone and installs Pegasus without the user’s knowledge or permission. A “zero-day exploit” is a completely unknown vulnerability, about which even the software manufacturer is not aware, and there is, thus, no patch or fix available for it.

The Pegasus method: To monitor a target, a Pegasus operator must convince a target to click on a specially crafted ‘exploit link’ which allows the operator to penetrate security features on the phone and installs Pegasus without the user’s knowledge or permission. Once the phone is exploited and Pegasus installed, it begins contacting the operator’s command and control servers to receive and execute operator commands, and send back the target’s private data, including passwords, contact lists, calendar events, text messages, and live voice calls from popular mobile messaging apps. The operator can even turn on the phone’s camera and microphone to capture activity in the phone’s vicinity.

Demands by Indian govt? The government has pulled up WhatsApp for not disclosing to Indian authorities the details of the spyware attack launched on Indian citizens through the Israeli software Pegasus, despite at least a couple of high-level meetings between the two sides in the past few months.

However, WhatsApp appeared to counter the Indian government, saying it had in May “quickly resolved a security issue and notified Indian and international government authorities.”

However, the government points out that though the WhatsApp informed CERT-In, or the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team, it failed to communicate the fact that Indian citizens had been affected by it.

WhatsApp was legally bound under Section 70(B) of the IT Act, 2000 to inform the government about the details of such attacks (on Indian citizens), which they failed to.

SFIO comes under the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA). It is a multi-disciplinary organisation that investigates and guides prosecution in white-collar fraud requiring expertise in forensic auditing, corporate law, information technology, capital markets, taxation, and other allied fields.

It was established in 2003, based on recommendations by the Naresh Chandra Committee on Corporate Audit and Governance.

It received statutory powersunder the Companies Act, 2013. Cases are assigned to the SFIO based on the scale of financial misappropriation or extent of public interest that is at stake.