With targets ranging from prime ministers to presidents to high-ranking military officers, a global investigation into illegal cell phone infiltration and surveillance by governments using Pegasus, the Israeli spyware, has sent shock waves across the world.
In India, where more than 1,000 phone numbers featured in a leaked list of potential targets of surveillance operations, a controversy erupted after the investigations revealed the list to include journalists and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s political rivals.
Also on the list are names of some of the country’s top-most public health advocates — from a top virologist to officials of the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in India as well as country representatives of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, among others.