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India Justice Report 2019 shows country’s failing criminal justice system

India Justice Report 2019 shows country’s failing criminal justice system


Pic: Arun Ferreira

Sabrgangindia.in / by Sanchita Kadam

India has only 1 police personnel for every 663 individuals. Most states and Union Territories (UTs) spend less than Rs. 100 per prisoner per day.
The report also states that in India, per capita public spending on legal aid is only Rs. 0.75 per annum. In a country where over 1.25 billion population is eligible for free legal aid, the per capita spending of 75 paise is quite a disgrace.
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Israeli Spyware: India Turns to WhatsApp For Answers, But What Should We Really Be Asking?

Israeli Spyware: India Turns to WhatsApp For Answers, But What Should We Really Be Asking?

The Wire / by The Wire Analysis

While the home ministry says reports have attempted to malign the Centre, we need to know who wanted to snoop on Indian targets and how successful they were.
New Delhi: The Narendra Modi government on Thursday sought a detailed response from WhatsApp over the issue of an Israeli spyware allegedly being used to target Indian journalists and human rights activists through its platform.
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Kolkata Prof Got an Alert From Yahoo Over ‘Govt-Backed’ Email Snooping Attempt

Kolkata Prof Got an Alert From Yahoo Over ‘Govt-Backed’ Email Snooping Attempt

The Wire / by Sukanya Shantha and Anuj Srivas

Just around the time when news of Israeli spyware Pegasus being used to target activists and human rights lawyers was breaking in India, Partho Sarothi Ray, a 42-year-old Kolkata-based molecular biologist, was dealing with another peculiar problem.
His Yahoo email account had received an alarming message from the technology company: “We believe your Yahoo account may have been the target of government-backed actors, which means that they could gain access to the information in your account.”
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Rights are relative in New India: some have them, some cannot

Rights are relative in New India: some have them, some cannot

The Telegraph / by The Editorial Board

No country that claims to uphold human rights deprives prisoners of the right to self-improvement or the peaceful habit of reading. Yet Shalini Gera, an activist who went to visit the lawyer, Sudha Bharadwaj, imprisoned in Pune’s Yerwada jail since October 2018 for alleged links with the Communist Party of India (Maoist) in the – rather enigmatic – Elgaar Parishad-Bhima Koregaon case, had her birthday gift of two books returned.
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Pendyala tag allows daughters to meet Varavara Rao in jail

Pendyala tag allows daughters to meet Varavara Rao in jail

The Times of India / by Srinath Vudali

Hyderabad: Three daughters of Pendyala Varavara Rao, key accused in the Elgar Parishad case, are happy they didn’t drop their surname after marriage.
As luck would have it, the decision to retain the “Pendyala” name has helped them meet Varavara Rao, who is lodged in Yerawada jail in Pune for the past one year.
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Bhima Koregaon panel faces uncertain future

Bhima Koregaon panel faces uncertain future

Pune Mirror / by Shruti Ganapa

The Bhima Koregaon Commission’s future has been left hanging in the balance due to the delay in the formation of the Maharashtra government. The panel’s tenure ends on November 8, and the new chief minister needs to approve any extension.
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Complete list of journalists, politicians and activists targeted by WhatsApp spyware [Statement by Targeted Persons]

Complete list of journalists, politicians and activists targeted by WhatsApp spyware [Statement by Targeted Persons]

The Free Press Journal / by FPJ Web Desk

Facebook-owned WhatsApp on October 31 said Indian journalists, lawyers, human rights activists and politicians were among those globally spied upon by unnamed entities using an Israeli spyware Pegasus.
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OPEN LETTER TO THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA FROM PEGASUS TARGETED PERSONS

8/11/2019

Countercurrents.org / Press Release by Pegasus Targeted Persons

We, the undersigned, have all received messages from WhatsApp Inc. over the last fortnight, informing us that our mobile devices were the target by a highly sophisticated cyberattack.
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‘Life not comfortable in jail, Shoma has lost 7 kgs´

‘Life not comfortable in jail, Shoma has lost 7 kgs´

The Times of India / by Shishir Arya

Nagpur: “It’s Independence Day and the second year of my unfreedom begins. Last year on 14th August, I was shifted into the separate cell, my compact little world,” reads a letter written from Yerawada Jail by Shoma Sen, one of the five accused in Bhima Koregaon violence case, to her husband, Tushar Kanti Bhattacharya in Nagpur on August 15 this year.
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