China snoop gate: Zhenhua big data leak suggests Beijing snooping top Indians: All you need to know
A Shenzen-based Chinese technology company Zhenhua having links with the Chinese Communist Party is snooping on top Indian leaders, VVIPs, with the list including 10,000 prominent people and organisations.
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A Shenzen-based Chinese technology company Zhenhua having links with the Chinese Communist Party is snooping on top Indian leaders, VVIPs, with the list including 10,000 prominent people and organisations. According to The Indian Express report, those being monitored by Zhenhua Data Information Technology company include Prime Minister Narendra Modi, President Kovind, CDS chief Bipin Rawat, Sonia Gandhi, Former PM Manmohan Singh, top bureaucrats, academicians, journalists and the list just doesn't end.
China snoop gate -- monitoring over 10,000 Indian personalities, organisatons | What we know- China's Shenzen-based technology company Zhenhua is monitoring close to 10,000 prominent people, organisations in India.
- These people include PM Narendra Modi and wife, President Kovind and family, CDS Chief Bipin Rawat and family, Congress interim chief Sonia Gandhi and her family, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and family, Chief Ministers Mamata Banerjee, Ashok Gehlot, accorind to Indian Express report.
- The list also include other key leaders such as Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh to Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, Naveen Patnaik and Shivraj Singh Chouhan.
- Cabinet Ministers Rajnath Singh and Ravi Shankar Prasad, Nirmala Sitharaman, Smriti Irani, and Piyush Goyal are also part of the list on which Chinese company is keeping an eye using hybrid warfare.
- Not only the politicians, but people in the Defence including Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) Bipin Singh Rawat, atleast 15 former Chiefs of the Army, Navy and Air Force are also being snooped.
- In the judiciary, Chief Justice of India (CJI) Sharad Bobde, brother judge AM Khanwilkar, Lokpal Justice PC Ghose, Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) GC Murmu are being monitored.
- The list just doesn't end here. Chinese company is also keeping an eye on personalities including start-up tech entrepreneurs like Nipun Mehra, founder of e-payments app Bharat Pe and Ajay Trehan of AuthBridge, an authentication technology firm.
- Top industrialists Ratan Tata and Gautam Adani are also among 10,000 who are being spied on.
- Not just these eminent personalities as even Indian burreaucrats holding key positions including academicians, journalists, scientists, pepole in the sports, entertainment fraternity are being monitored too.
- Religious figures, activists, and even those accused under financial crime, corruption, smuggling of gold and drugs, arms, wildlife, terrorim are also among 10,000 on which China is keeping an eye.
- This development has come at a time when China is at loggerhead with India over the border row at the Line fo Actual Control (LAC). Both the nations are indulged in a stand-off ever since May, with the situation further detoriating after June 15, 16 clash.
- Meanwhile, Shenzen-based Zhenhua has claimed that it works with Chinese intelligence, military and security agencies, therefore it becomes a matter of concern for the Indian security agencies to guess the purpose of China monitoring top Indians at a time when relations between both the countries are at record low.
- Making an explosive revelation, The Indian Express said that it used big-data tools, investigated the meta data from Chinese company Zhenhua's operations to extract Indian entities that constituted what the company called overseas Key Information Database (OKIDB).
- The database included tonnes of entities from Untied States, United Kingdom, Japan, Australia, Canada, Germany and the United Arab Emirates, that was "obtained through a network of researchers from a source connected to the company based in Shenzhen City in Guangdong province, south-east China," the Indian Express said.
- The company in talks here -- Chinese firm Zhenhua's which is monitoring top Indians -- stated its goal of mining data to achieve its agenda of hybrid warfare -- a non-military way to achieve dominance or influence.
- The tools which this company calls it in own words are "information pollution, perception management and propaganda."
- Established in April 2018, Zhenhua has set up 20 processing centres across the world including Chinese government, military among its clients.
- The Indian Express also mentioned that a questionnaire sento the email mentioned in Zhenhua website www.China-revival.com, was not achknowledged. In fact, it seems to appear that the website has been pulled down, since it is no longer accessible.
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