Pratap Bhanu Mehta: What the Pegasus scandal means for Indian democracy / Shoaib Daniyal: Spyware attack threatens pillars of India’s electoral democracy

NB: It should be clear by now that the world is overrun by tyrants who worship nothing but power for its own sake. Our own artists of deception have made this obvious over the past seven years. All that we know, believe and love, all knowledge, all ideals of justice, all that constitutes human life, must now pass over to the control of the self-appointed Chief Patrons of Nationalism. It's the Age of Big Brother. It symbolises the ongoing criminalisation of the Indian state. We may choose to resist or to surrender. DS

The Pegasus scandal is a matter of grave concern for Indian democracy. The widespread and unaccountable use of surveillance is morally disfiguring. Privacy is not about the wish to hide, as is often asserted. It is about having a space of one’s own where our thoughts and being are not the instrument of someone else’s purposes. It is an essential component of dignity and agency. So surveillance needs to be treated as a moral affront. Pegasus is a chilling software. It is not just eavesdropping on conversations; it can be used to access the entire digital imprint of your life. It renders helpless not just the owner of the phone hacked but everyone who is in contact with them.

In this particular scandal, the institutional stakes for Indian democracy are very high. For starters, the allegation that the phones of the woman who had complained of sexual harassment against a former Chief Justice, and her family, might have been subject to this form of surveillance is chilling. The Supreme Court handled the matter in an extraordinarily sordid way, violating procedural propriety and natural justice. If the shadow of Pegasus also hangs on the case, the court will be seen not just as an error-prone institution, but one whose proceedings are possibly impacted by shadowy surveillance. This is a serious charge and should not be made lightly. But for the same reason, this suspicion needs to be removed as emphatically as possible….

https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/pegasus-surveillance-scandal-indian-democracy-7414271/

Shoaib Daniyal - SC, EC, Opposition: Spyware threatens pillars of India’s electoral democracy

A Supreme Court staffer and her family were selected as potential targets days after she accused the Ranjan Gogoi, the Supreme Court Chief Justice at the time, of sexual harassment. Also on the list was Ashok Lavasa, an election commissioner who had ruled that Prime Minister Modi had violated the Election Commission’s model code of conduct during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Lavasa’s name was added to the list of potential targets just weeks after his action against Modi…

https://scroll.in/article/1000604/supreme-court-ec-opposition-spyware-attack-threatens-pillars-of-indias-electoral-democracy

"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face, forever" - George Orwell’s Final Warning

Socrates: If the whole is ailing the part cannot be well / Ajit Prakash Shah: Darkness at noon, felled by the judiciary

STANISLAV MARKELOV - Patriotism as a diagnosis

मध्यमार्ग का अवसान : दिलीप सिमियन

Society of the Spectacle / 'इमेज' - 'Image': A Poem on Deaths in the Age of Covid

Naxalites should lay down their arms and challenge the ruling class to abide by the Constitution

Bharat Bhushan: It suits the RSS to allow BJP to encourage defections from other parties

Swati Chaturvedi: It Was BJP Who Made It Mamata vs Modi. Too Far

Modi says Congress committed 'sin' of partition // The Non-politics of the RSS

The Supreme Court, Gandhi and the RSS

A whiff of evil

The Broken Middle - on the 30th anniversary of 1984

Alexandre Koyré The Political Function of the Modern Lie

The emperor's masks: 'apolitical' RSS calls the shots in Modi sarkar

एक बात हमेशा ज़हन में सवाल खड़े करती है A question that stays with me... / Ravish Kumar's Speech at Berkeley (2019)

The Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi: Inquiry Commission Report (1969)

The Abolition of truth

 YANN PHILIPPIN - Sale of French Rafale jet fighters to India: how a state scandal was buried

Anne Michel and Simon Piel - Rafale case: Fresh moves towards a corruption investigation

Bharat Bhushan - Scania Scandal: Need to step up to the challenge

Cutlet for Cutlet

Rafale Papers: France opens judicial probe into fighter deal with India, new revelations emerge // Opposition Parties Say it's Time for Investigation in India Too

Pinjra Tod activist Natasha Narwal's father dies of Covid day before her bail hearing // That Monday will not come, Judge Sahib

WANTED: Immediate Justice in the Bhima-Koregaon Conspiracy. By Cedric Prakash

Colin Gonsalves: Refusal of bail to Sudha Bharadwaj is based on inadmissible evidence

Pratap Bhanu Mehta: The loneliness of Varavara Rao, Anand Teltumbde, Sudha Bharadwaj tells a disquieting tale

Pratap Bhanu Mehta - The biggest casualty in the Alok Verma affair has been the SC’s authority 

RSS and Modi brazenly intimidating the Supreme Court

Prem Shankar Jha: The Shadow of Haren Pandya’s Case Lies Long Over Justice Arun Mishra

Nikhila Henry - Ex CJI Gogoi's RS Nomination Calls All His Judgments Into Question, Says Legal Expert

Ajaz Ashraf - A police officer's account of being harassed for stopping a riot in Rajasthan

Bharat Bhushan: No one critical of the government seems to be innocent any longer / Delhi Police arrests 22-year-old environmental activist, calls her key to foreign hand




Popular posts from this blog

Third degree torture used on Maruti workers: Rights body

Haruki Murakami: On seeing the 100% perfect girl one beautiful April morning

The Almond Trees by Albert Camus (1940)

Satyagraha - An answer to modern nihilism

Rudyard Kipling: critical essay by George Orwell (1942)

Three Versions of Judas: Jorge Luis Borges

Goodbye Sadiq al-Azm, lone Syrian Marxist against the Assad regime