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The Citizen Lab is an interdisciplinary laboratory based at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto, Canada. It was founded by Ronald Deibert in 2001. The laboratory studies information controls that impact the openness and security of the Internet and that pose threats to human rights. The organization uses a "mixed methods" approach which combines computer-generated interrogation, data mining, and analysis with intensive field research, qualitative social science, and legal and policy analysis methods. The organization has played a major role in providing technical support to journalists investigating the use of NSO Group's Pegasus spyware on journalists, politicians and human rights advocates.
Jean Drèze is a Belgian-born Indian welfare economist, social scientist and activist. He has worked on several developmental issues facing India like social welfare, poverty and gender inequality.
Teejan Bai is an exponent of Pandavani, a traditional performing art form, from Chhattisgarh, in which she enacts tales from the Mahabharata, with musical accompaniments.
Salwa Judum was a militia that was mobilised and deployed as part of counterinsurgency operations in Chhattisgarh, India, aimed at countering Naxalite activities in the region. The militia, consisting of local tribal youth, received support and training from the Chhattisgarh state government. It was outlawed and banned by a Supreme Court court order but continues to exist in the form of armed auxiliary forces, District Reserve Groups, and other vigilante groups.
Gail Omvedt was an American-born Indian sociologist and human rights activist. She was a prolific writer and published numerous books on the anti-caste movement, Dalit politics, and women's struggles in India. Omvedt was involved in Dalit and anti-caste movements, environmental, farmers' and women's movements, especially with rural women.
Kathy Kelly is an American peace activist, pacifist and author, one of the founding members of Voices in the Wilderness, and, until the campaign closed in 2020, a co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence. As part of peace team work in several countries, she has traveled to Iraq twenty-six times, notably remaining in combat zones during the early days of both US–Iraq wars.
Binayak Sen is a naxal kingpin, paediatrician, and public health specialist. He is the national Vice-President of the People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL). He is the recipient of several awards including the Jonathan Mann Award, the Gwangju Prize for Human Rights, and the Gandhi International Peace Award.
Kodipakam Neelameghacharya Govindacharya is a founder Bharat Vikas Sangam, Eternal Hindu Foundation and Rastriya Swabhiman Andolan, Formally Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh pracharak, environmental activist, social activist, political activist and thinker. He was associated with Bharatiya Janata Party but is now a staunch critic of that party as much as he is a critic of the Indian National Congress.
The Naxalite–Maoist insurgency is part of an ongoing conflict between left-wing extremist groups and the Indian government. The Naxalites are a group of communist supportive groups, who often follow Maoist political sentiment and ideology.
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Anuradha Ghandy was an Indian communist, writer, and revolutionary leader. She was a Central Committee member of the Communist Party of India (Maoist). She was one of the founding members of the Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist), in Maharashtra.
Soni Sori is an Adivasi school teacher turned political leader of Aam Aadmi Party in Sameli village of Dantewada in south Bastar, Chhattisgarh, India. She was arrested by the Delhi Police's Crime Branch for Chhattisgarh Police in 2011 on charges of acting as a conduit for Maoists. During her imprisonment, she was tortured and sexually assaulted by Chhattisgarh state police. By April 2013, the Indian Courts had acquitted her in six of the eight cases filed against her due to lack of evidence. After release from prison, Sori began campaigning for the rights of those caught up in the conflict between Maoist insurgents and the government, in particular criticising police violence against tribespeople in the region.
Anand Teltumbde is an Indian scholar, writer, and human rights activist who is a management professor at the Goa Institute of Management. He has written extensively about the caste system in India and has advocated for the rights of Dalits.
NSO Group Technologies is an Israeli cyber-intelligence firm primarily known for its proprietary spyware Pegasus, which is capable of remote zero-click surveillance of smartphones. It employed almost 500 people as of 2017.
Pegasus is a spyware developed by the Israeli cyber-arms company NSO Group that is designed to be covertly and remotely installed on mobile phones running iOS and Android. While NSO Group markets Pegasus as a product for fighting crime and terrorism, governments around the world have routinely used the spyware to surveil journalists, lawyers, political dissidents, and human rights activists. The sale of Pegasus licenses to foreign governments must be approved by the Israeli Ministry of Defense.
Nandini Sundar is an Indian professor of sociology at the Delhi School of Economics whose research interests include political sociology, law, and inequality. She is a recipient of the Infosys Prize for Social Sciences in 2010. She was also awarded the Ester Boserup Prize for Development Research in 2016.
Malini Subramaniam is an Indian independent journalist, former head of the Chhattisgarh chapter of the International Committee of the Red Cross, and a regular contributor for India-based internet-based Scroll.in, reporting on human rights abuses from where she lived in the city of Jagdalpur in the Bastar district of Chhattisgarh state. She was viewed as a supporter of the Maoists and driven from Jagdapur by anti-Maoists and authorities.
The New Peace Process is an initiative of a conglomerate of tribal and non-government support groups and individuals, with the aim of bringing a negotiated settlement to the 50-year-old Maoist insurgency in Central India. Bastar Dialogues are a series of activities that started in mid 2018 by the New Peace Process to initiate a dialogue between the Naxalites and state security forces to restore peace in Central India.
The Pegasus Project is an international investigative journalism initiative that revealed governments' espionage on journalists, opposition politicians, activists, business people and others using the private Pegasus spyware developed by the Israeli technology and cyber-arms company NSO Group. Pegasus is ostensibly marketed for surveillance of "serious crimes and terrorism". In 2020, a target list of 50,000 phone numbers leaked to Forbidden Stories, and an analysis revealed the list contained the numbers of leading opposition politicians, human rights activists, journalists, lawyers and other political dissidents.
In India, the Pegasus Project investigations alleged that the Pegasus spyware was used on ministers, opposition leaders, political strategist and tacticians, journalists, activists, minority leaders, Supreme Court judges, religious leaders, administrators like Election Commissioners and heads of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). Some of these phones were later digitally & forensically analysed by Amnesty International's Security Lab on 10 Indian phones and the analysis showed signs of either an attempted or successful Pegasus hack. However, the Supreme Court of India stated that the technical committee had found 'malware' in 5 of the 29 phones, but not able to say conclusively that the malware found was Pegasus. The Chief Justice also mentioned that the government refused to cooperate in the investigation.
References
- ↑ "Academic Bela Bhatia Attacked, Threatened in Bastar". Wire.in. Retrieved 8 March 2017.
- ↑ "Why Chhattisgarh wants this researcher out". The Hindu. Retrieved 8 March 2017.
