(This column first appeared in Times of India on July 19, 2021)
- Pegasus refuses to fade away. It’s back in the news a couple of years after the surveillance application first hit headlines. The scale is much bigger this time. And India seems to be again on this unlovely list. Whether or not Pegasus was bought and used by government agencies should ideally be determined via a credible inquiry. At stake is a vital question: Were journalists, activists and others being officially spied on? Chatter on this will continue till a convincing answer is available. It bears mention here that governments not on the Pegasus list don’t have clean hands either. Many technologically advanced countries are, in fact, at the heart of snooping, using cutting edge software tools…