NEW DELHI: India’s main opposition party said on Wednesday that a government plan to preload a state-run app on smartphones violates the privacy of users and the government needed to explain itself, escalating tensions on a matter that has sparked surveillance fears.
The Indian government has confidentially ordered companies including Apple, Samsung and Xiaomi to preload their phones with an app called Sanchar Saathi, or Communication Partner, within 90 days, Reuters was first to report on Monday.
The app is intended to track stolen phones, block them and prevent them from being misused, but privacy advocates and many of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s opponents have protested this week, calling it a surveillance tool.
On Wednesday, India’s Congress party urged parliament’s upper house to hold a discussion on “privacy and security risks” due to the government directive.
“The Government must clarify the legal authority for mandating a non-removable app,” senior Congress leader Randeep Singh Surjewala said in a notice to the parliament.
“The grave, serious and real apprehension is also that such compulsorily installed app can have a backdoor, thereby absolutely compromising the data and privacy of the user,” he added.
India’s telecom ministry has defended the move, describing it as a measure to combat “serious endangerment” of cybersecurity.
Apple does not plan to comply with a mandate to preload its smartphones with a state-owned cyber safety app and will convey its concerns to New Delhi, Reuters reported on Tuesday.
India’s Congress seeks parliament debate on state-run app for smartphones
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India’s Congress seeks parliament debate on state-run app for smartphones
- The Indian government has confidentially ordered companies including Apple, Samsung and Xiaomi to preload their phones with an app called Sanchar Saathi
Russia says captured Ukraine’s Siversk in key eastern region
- The Russian army in Ukraine is “confidently advancing along the entire front,” Putin said
- He said last month his troops were advancing on Siversk, home to around 11,000 residents
MOSCOW: Russia said Thursday its troops had seized full control of Siversk, a Ukrainian city in the eastern Donetsk region where fighting has intensified in recent weeks, though Ukraine denied the key settlement had been lost.
The Russian army has been slowly but steadily grinding through eastern Ukraine and taking ground from outnumbered and outgunned Ukrainian forces, with some of the fiercest battles taking place in Donetsk.
Russia’s military chief of staff, Valery Gerasimov, said Moscow’s forces had captured Siversk in a report to President Vladimir Putin during a televised meeting with army commanders.
The Russian army in Ukraine is “confidently advancing along the entire front,” Putin said, thanking the commanders and soldiers “for their combat work.”
Putin said last month his troops were advancing on Siversk, home to around 11,000 residents before the war, claiming that the Russian offensive was “practically impossible to hold back.”
The Ukrainian army’s eastern command denied Russian claims it had taken Siversk, saying that it “remains under the control of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.”
“The enemy is trying to infiltrate Siversk in small groups, taking advantage of unfavorable weather conditions but most of these units are being destroyed on the approaches,” it added in a Facebook post.
Siversk is located about 30 kilometers (18 miles) east of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, the last two major cities still under Ukrainian control in the Donbas — an industrial and mining region in Moscow’s sights.
Moscow earlier this month said it had captured Pokrovsk, a former road and rail hub also in Donetsk, but Kyiv claims fighting in the city is still ongoing.
Putin has said that Moscow is ready to fight on to seize the rest of the land it claims in eastern Ukraine if Kyiv does not give it up as part of a peace deal.
Eastern Ukraine has been ravaged since Russia launched its assault in February 2022, with tens of thousands of people killed and millions forced to flee their homes.
