'WhatsApp accounts belonging to Kashmiri users have begun to expire as the region completed 120 days of an internet blockade on Tuesday. The social media platform deletes accounts that have stayed inactive for that long. Several Twitter users shared screenshots showing that friends and family members based in Kashmir had exited WhatsApp groups they had been part of – most likely without their knowledge. A Facebook spokesperson confirmed to BuzzFeed News that the disappearances from WhatsApp groups were the result of the company’s policy on inactive accounts.
'What happens when you ask leaders in the Narendra Modi government why they resent criticism? You get publicly hauled over the coals – and told you “hurt national interest” – by a whole army of Bharatiya Janata Party ministers and senior leaders. On Saturday, Bajaj Group chairman Rahul Bajaj asked a group of ministers – including Amit Shah, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal – some tough questions on lynching, Pragya Thakur and the government’s ability to accept criticism...
'At the start of this month we asked the following question: Can the Indian government confirm it did not use WhatsApp spyware on Indians? We weren’t the only ones. A group of journalists, lawyers and human rights activists that had been targeted by the spyware, known as Pegasus, wrote to the government two weeks ago asking the same question. The matter was also brought up in the Parliamentary Committee on Information Technology, despite an attempt to prevent a discussion by the Bharatiya Janata Party members. And Members of Parliament have put the question directly to the government...
'The police here have registered an FIR against an Aligarh Muslim University professor for sharing posts on social media that allegedly hurt the morale of the security forces in the Valley. The FIR cited an “inappropriate post” in which the assistant professor, whose husband is based in Kashmir, referred to the communication blackout in the Valley immediately after the abrogation of Jammu and Kashmir’s special status. “Sach mein sampark toot jana kitna khatarnak aur dukhad hota hai, chahe Chandrayaan ho ya Kashmir,” the post said on the “pain” caused by losing contact.
'The Home Ministry has neither confirmed nor denied whether it purchased the Pegasus malware, in response to an RTI query. “It is informed that no such information is available with the undersigned CPIO”, says the response from the Cyber and Information Security Division of the Home Ministry. The RTI query was filed by Saurav Das, a Puducherry-based member of National Campaign for People’s Right to Information, on October 23. What do we make of the reply? The reply is actually a non-answer. S.K.
'...In the offending tweet from October 24, @RealHistoriPix called out a BJP MP for not visiting the family of 42-year-old Pancharam Rithadia from Chembur – who killed himself by jumping in front of a train over police inaction in finding his daughter who had gone missing in April 2019. During the funeral last week on October 25, hundreds took to the streets to protest against the police, and some violence also broke out.
'The Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy government in Andhra Pradesh on Wednesday issued an order for taking legal action against “false, baseless and defamatory news”, restoring a controversial government order (GO) kept in abeyance during his late father’s regime 12 years ago. While the 2007 order issued during late Rajasekhara Reddy’s tenure as chief minister was limited to print and electronic media, Wednesday’s GO made social media posts also liable for legal action.
'...On Thursday, the Indian Express reported that the Facebook-owned platform said journalists and human rights activists in India have been targets of surveillance by operators using Pegasus. WhatsApp recently made details of this clear in a broader disclosure before a US federal court in San Francisco. It is still unclear the extent of this threat and how many WhatsApp profiles were compromised... Rathod is one of the lawyers handling the Bhima Koregaon case in which nine activists and lawyers have been arrested since June 2018.
'A Rashtriya Janata Dal leader was arrested on Tuesday, October 29, in Bihar for posting a video on Facebook, where he questioned Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's ban on liquor and criticised him for his wrong policies, according to the police. Opposition RJD leader Sachin Kumar Choudhary was arrested in Madhubani district after his video criticising the CM had gone viral. Choudhury, who is the vice president of the district RJD unit, was arrested from his village by Madhubani Police IT cell in charge Shailesh Kumar.
'Twitter has been accused of bowing to Indian censorship and suppressing freedom of speech in Kashmir, after nearly one million tweets were removed. Almost 100 accounts were also made inaccessible to locals in the last two years, spurring claims that Twitter is contradicting the very values it purports to uphold. The findings were revealed in a study by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) on Friday, showing that Twitter agreed to block more accounts in the region than in every other country combined...'
