News Analysis India

Tag: intelligence

  • Punjabi man arrested for passing sensitive information about Indian Army to foreign intelligence agency 

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: The Delhi Police has arrested a man for allegedly passing sensitive information about Army deployment to a foreign intelligence agency, officials said on Saturday.

    The accused has been identified as Harpal Singh, a resident of Tarn Taran in Punjab, they said.

    “A highly motivated and radicalised man was arrested for passing sensitive information to foreign intelligence agency. He conveyed details related to Indian Army personnel, Army movements, location of Army and BSF posts and bunkers on the outposts of India at India-Pakistan borders,” a senior police officer said.

    The money routed through hawala channels was used for funding the espionage operation, he said.

    Further details are awaited.

  • China Stepping-up Efforts To Influence President-elect Biden’s Administration: US Official

    A top US intelligence official has warned against an increase in China’s efforts to influence the incoming administration of President-elect Joe Biden. William Evanina, from the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence, said that China would now redirect its influence campaigns to the new administration, adding the Chinese were also focusing on people close to Biden and those close to officials in his new administration. 

    This comes following reports of alleged Chinese meddling in the recently-concluded US elections, which saw both candidates shower accusations at each other of being Beijing’s stooge. While Trump accused his rival’s son Hunter Biden of operating illegitimate businesses in China, Biden called out the president for having a Chinese Bank account. The United States intelligence community had warned prior to the election that China is trying hard to influence the election result. The US has also accused China of trying to steal COVID-19 vaccine research by targeting American firms since the beginning of the outbreak. 

  • Russia’s Putin Addresses BRICS Summit; Touts Nations’ Contact On Energy Research Platform

    While speaking at the BRICS virtual summit on Tuesday, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin said that all the BRICS nations have maintained ‘intensive contacts’ for the development of an Energy Research Cooperation Platform. Putin said, ‘Intensive contacts have been underway between our academic and scientific centres. Their coverage is truly impressive – from the ocean and polar research to astronomy and artificial intelligence. Experts from the five countries carry out joint energy research. Reports have been prepared on the projected development of the fuel and energy sectors in the BRICS countries until 2040.’

    Speaking further about the COVID-19 vaccine, the Russian President told BRICS leaders that coronavirus vaccines developed in Russia ‘work effectively and safely’ and urged the group of emerging economy nations to ‘join forces’ for the mass production of the shots. Putin’s remarks on the vaccine come after early results of large studies of several experimental Coronavirus vaccines, including a Russian one, were announced. The BRICS grouping comprises Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

    BRICS on Tuesday adopted a new counter-terrorism strategy to effectively deal with the menace, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi asserted that there is a need to ensure that countries supporting terrorists are held guilty, a call backed by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who dubbed such nations ‘black sheep of the family’.

  • Krunal Pandya luxury watches case investigated further by Customs at Mumbai airport

    Airport Customs will continue investigating the case related to India cricketer Krunal Pandya, who was detained at the Mumbai airport over suspicion of being in possession of undisclosed gold and valuables upon his arrival in the country from the UAE.

    The case will further be investigated by Mumbai Airport Customs. Krunal Pandya was detained on Thursday by officials from the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) at the Mumbai airport after four luxury watches were found in his baggage. It came to light the all-rounder had not declared the watches to the Customs while arriving from the UAE after the competition of Indian Premier League (IPL) 2020.

    DRI officials found that the four luxury watches, which were of Omega and Ambular Piguet, were not declared by Pandya to Customs and no duty had been paid for the same. The watches were suspected to be worth below Rs 1 crore in value.

    According to sources, Krunal Pandya was detained and questioned by DRI officials from 5:30 pm. The Mumbai Indians star reportedly said that he had no idea about the declaration procedure and Customs duty and so he had failed to declare the watches to Customs.

    The watches were seized and handed over to Mumbai airport customs for its valuation and Krunal was allowed to leave the airport around midnight. Once the valuation of the watches is done, Krunal will have to pay around 38 percent of its value as Customs duty and the adjudicating authority would further decide on the amount of penalty to be levied against Krunal.

  • Private data of millions of users of BigBasket leaked, sales on dark web

    News of BigBasket, a company that sells online grocery stores, has been reported to have broken into the data. According to cyber intelligence company Saabil (Cyble), personal data of about two crore users of BigBasket has been leaked due to data breach. In this regard, BigBasket has filed a complaint with the Cybercrime Cell in Bangalore. Sabile has told that a hacker has allegedly made BigBasket’s data available for sale for Rs 30 lakh.

    Saibal told the blog, “During regular monitoring of the Dark Web, Saabil’s research team found that BigBasket’s database is being sold for $ 40,000 in the cybercrime market. The SQL file size is about 15 GB with about 20 million Users have data. ” In this data, the names of the users, email ID, password, mobile phone number, address, date of birth, location and IP address are found.

    Bigbasket has said in its statement that a few days ago we got information about possible data breach. We are trying to assess it and verify the veracity of the claim. We have also lodged a complaint with the Cybercrime Cell of Bangalore in this regard.

  • Artificial intelligence should not become weapon of non-state actors: What PM Modi said at RAISE 2020

    Inaugurating a five-day global virtual summit on artificial intelligence (AI), Responsible AI for Social Empowerment or RAISE 2020, Prime Minister Narendra Modi highlighted how the use of AI will empower India and also warned against the pitfalls. In June, India along with Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Germany, New Zealand and others joined together to create the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI) for the responsible development and use of AI.

     While we discuss AI, let also have no doubts that human creativity and human emotions continue to be our greatest strength.They are our unique advantage over machines.

    — It remains our collective responsibility to ensure trust in how AI is used. Algorithm transparency is key to establishing this trust.

    — We must protect the world against weaponisation of AI by non-state actors.

    — Artificial Intelligence can be used for making our disaster management systems stronger.

    AI will have big roles in agriculture and in creating next generation urban infrastructure.

    — The National Educational Technology Forum is being formed. This will create an e-education unit to boost the digital infrastructure, digital content and capacity.

    — We launched ‘Responsible AI for Youth’ program this year in April. Under this programme, more than 11,000 students from schools completed the basic course. They are now building their AI projects.

    — India has recently adopted the National Education Policy 2020. It focuses on technology-based learning and skilling as a major part of education. E-courses will also be developed in various regional languages and dialects.

    — We want India to become a global hub for AI. Many Indians are already working on this. I hope many more do so in the times to come.