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1. If it is government-related hacking, the bodies that bought Pegasus are likely to be state enforcement agencies or local police forces rather than the Centre. Alternatively, it's theoretically possible the Centre is also a client of NSO, and bought products such as Pegasus and gives access to the tech with states' enforcement apparatuses in some way?
2. If the hacks originated at a state level, then besides local activists being more relevant to their immediate concerns, it's possible they would have wanted to pick less prominent targets to decrease the risk of discovery and blowback. Most cops would presumably shy away from going directly after Delhi-based senior advocates and lawyers (including an ex-ASG), who've got plenty of political connections and the ear of the Supreme Court. Picking on local activist lawyers, who are less well-known and connected, would strategically be a much safer option.
Fascinating theory. Ignoring your implied global conspiracy between 'leftists', tribal and dalit rights activists, ISIS supporters and terrorists and pro-Palestine protestors, for now, this is hugely unlikely to be the work of a single nation state or an agency like Mossad or the CIA for several reasons.
1. Mossad and the CIA are widely presumed to have even more sophisticated tools in-house than the ones sold by companies such as NSO. It is also highly unlikely, especially following the Snowden revelations, that CIA/Mossad would cast such a dragnet and risk discovery and international incidents, over what seem to be relatively low-value targets on an international espionage level (unless this is an elaborate false flag operation to sow general confusion in the world, which would be more of a North Korea or possibly Russia playbook, who also have their own tools in-house).
2. The use by several independent nation states of Pegasus and other NSO tools has been confirmed (and admitted to by NSO) several times in the past. There is no evidence suggesting that one or two nations (like Israel or the US) would be responsible for a global spying operation using those tools, when it's much more documented and likely that the dozens of countries that are NSO customers have been using the tools for domestic law enforcement.
3. Since NSO tools such as Pegasus are effectively sold as a service to countries, all of them are using similar toolkits at the same time, all over the world, to independently hack whoever they're hacking (purportedly in accordance with local laws). In this case, however, those hacks apparently left a global digital trail via the WhatsApp servers, pointing to wide global use of the NSO products, which happened over a similar time period.
Interesting - as far as I understand it, I don't think that's technologically possible on WhatsApp, due to the "end-to-end" encryption technology it and similar uses, unless WhatsApp's implementation is severely broken. That encryption technology (if not hacked in some way), by definition should make it impossible for a third party to interpose themselves into a WhatsApp or similar encrypted call between two people (also known as a "man-in-the-middle attack", which is exactly what this kind of encryption is designed to prevent).
There are, however, two reasonable explanations for how it could have happened. 1. Inadvertent human error: i.e., while talking to you, your client accidentally butt/ear-dialed / conference-called the WhatsApp number of a random person like his phone/internet company (which is fairly easy to do with 2 taps on the screen).
The second less likely option is that either of your actual phones were hacked, but it seems very unlikely your cable guy would have any interest in doing that and if the hacking was half-way competent (which it would have to be to insert itself into WhatsApp calls), it would be very small effort to also clear the caller log (at least of the hacked device), or to listen in on the conversation in a much more discreet and untraceable way.
It's not so much about breaking them first but when it comes to student protests these days, and in light of the frequency of these, it seems sensible to wait them out a little bit and see how they develop, how (and whether) student organisation crystallises and how the administration reacts and engages (if at all), before publicising them further.
But we've been keeping an eye on the AIL situation since Sunday and will continue to monitor.
On a side note - AIL is in a pretty interesting position. As far as I understand, it's de facto private, though more than 90% of students are there under either military or state reservation, and nearly the entire admin and teachers are ex-military. If joining this kind of university as a student, why would you not expect the administration to be very top-down / archaic?
It's not really a comment on quality but it was interesting (and somewhat unusual) for all 16 associates and partners to be NLU products... Just a minor sign of the times and/or possibly L&L graduate recruitment policies.
The article had been updated a few minutes after initial publication with those details, so it's possible the commenter had the article open for a while and only left a comment later...
You do have a point... Have removed some of heavily voted on comments for now.
Will take a look if possible to figure this out a bit, whether votes are maybe possible to disable on certain comments, relating to individuals, in promotion stories, for instance?
Are there any actual concrete plans for NLU Goa? Because once it opens, what are the odds that it would debut in the top 10 in the CLAT preferences immediately? :)
21 on are listed on the CLAT website as part of the consortium, which excludes NLU Delhi and NLU Sonepat, making 23, and J&K would be 24 by that count. However, if Uttarakhand is taking admissions (which seems unlikely), then J&K could be 25th. But it's quite hard counting NLUs as there are probably quite a few that have been sanctioned on paper, haven't got off the ground, or have started construction but not yet admissions or are in differing stages of existence / publicity.
Thanks for pointing out, have updated the story slightly with the second-to-last paragraph from the order.
It does seem like at least a partial victory for Luthra on that front, though you're right, if the firm forces the issue a client who wants to move is not going to look charitably at the situation...
Thanks - good question. However, since there was no change of control, does this make sense as PE?
We have generally tended to not classify as M&A / PE where a majority investor is just buying out the minority stake of the other party. Please let me know if you have any thoughts on this though.
Thanks - sometimes pages can take up to 15 minutes to fully update with latest comments, articles leaving the paywall, etc, due to caching. Have reduced that period to 5 minutes and it hopefully it'll be a little faster (and we'll check if it affects performance).
Actually, forgot about that one - is it still current or just simmering away in the background? Will follow up - if anyone has any other questions, please do share in the comments and we'll put across and see if we can get a response.
Fascinating comment, throwing up lots of questions that have little to do with being left or right 'bent' (providing we stick with 'bents' that are broadly democratic):
1. Do you think every single person amongst the 1.9m people declared non-citizens is an illegal immigrant? Is it possible that any mistakes were made in the initial drawing up of the list, under the rules?
2. Do you believe that every single one of the 1.9m has the education or financial resources or educational levels necessary to appeal effectively before the Tribunal, to get a fair hearing and ensure the process under the law is carried out?
3. Do you believe in the Rule of Law and that everyone is entitled to fair process under the law, irrespective of their economic status or background?
4. Do you believe that lawyers should uphold the Rule of Law?
5. Do you think it's ok for lawyers to help the less privileged exercise their constitutional rights for free, or they should only help those who have lots of money?
Would be interesting to hear your thoughts on each of the above or for others to add questions they have for 'Guest'.
Haha, yes, your help would be much appreciated and we can certainly arrange something for you. Can you please get in touch directly via email or chat perhaps?
On this point, which seems to be a bit of a meme / troll thing now. Please share whether anything substantial has actually been achieved by whoever is at the centre of the #NationaliseNLU movement? It seems like the government has shut the door on it pretty hard. Is there any NLU that is still actively involved in the core of the project?
1. We asked for more information from the alumns, but they weren't very helpful and never shared that letter.
2. Is it ethical? Presumably, yes, very much so. You could even argue that alumni have an ethical / fiduciary duty to take an interest in the process and the future of the institution. Please do point out any potential conflict you imagine though...
Neither of those replies are unfortunately answers to that question, which I agree is interesting. One is basically insulting the new batch, the other is talking about good looks. :)
We have actually made a few inquiries but it's not a super simple process since websites and profiles of most NLUs are out of date. But we are working on some stuff on that front and will hopefully have some more data soon...
To be fair, we heard about their 75 hires a few weeks ago and requested a full break-down by NLUs and more information (since readers / comments seem quite interested in those stats). When they compiled these, they decided to send out a full press release to their media contacts, which I guess worked out quite well for them judging by coverage in mainstream media also ;)
Hiya - it would help for people to participate if there was more info available somewhere. Is there a web or Twitter account or FB page or something with more information about the organisation of this protest? And are various SBA's in support of this?
Don't want to be pessimistic, but honest question on #NationaliseNLUs: even if all NLUs jointly went on a strike, the government probably has bigger fish to fry on its education agenda, judging by its prior statements, right? Why would it care?
And even within legal education, the 'bad' NLUs still comparatively have better standards than most of the 1,500 other law schools that are dotting the country, so a valid question is whether improvement should start from the top or the bottom (with the BCI?).
I'd be really surprised if FM applied - he seems very happy at Nalsar...
1. If it is government-related hacking, the bodies that bought Pegasus are likely to be state enforcement agencies or local police forces rather than the Centre. Alternatively, it's theoretically possible the Centre is also a client of NSO, and bought products such as Pegasus and gives access to the tech with states' enforcement apparatuses in some way?
2. If the hacks originated at a state level, then besides local activists being more relevant to their immediate concerns, it's possible they would have wanted to pick less prominent targets to decrease the risk of discovery and blowback. Most cops would presumably shy away from going directly after Delhi-based senior advocates and lawyers (including an ex-ASG), who've got plenty of political connections and the ear of the Supreme Court. Picking on local activist lawyers, who are less well-known and connected, would strategically be a much safer option.
1. Mossad and the CIA are widely presumed to have even more sophisticated tools in-house than the ones sold by companies such as NSO. It is also highly unlikely, especially following the Snowden revelations, that CIA/Mossad would cast such a dragnet and risk discovery and international incidents, over what seem to be relatively low-value targets on an international espionage level (unless this is an elaborate false flag operation to sow general confusion in the world, which would be more of a North Korea or possibly Russia playbook, who also have their own tools in-house).
2. The use by several independent nation states of Pegasus and other NSO tools has been confirmed (and admitted to by NSO) several times in the past. There is no evidence suggesting that one or two nations (like Israel or the US) would be responsible for a global spying operation using those tools, when it's much more documented and likely that the dozens of countries that are NSO customers have been using the tools for domestic law enforcement.
3. Since NSO tools such as Pegasus are effectively sold as a service to countries, all of them are using similar toolkits at the same time, all over the world, to independently hack whoever they're hacking (purportedly in accordance with local laws). In this case, however, those hacks apparently left a global digital trail via the WhatsApp servers, pointing to wide global use of the NSO products, which happened over a similar time period.
There are, however, two reasonable explanations for how it could have happened. 1. Inadvertent human error: i.e., while talking to you, your client accidentally butt/ear-dialed / conference-called the WhatsApp number of a random person like his phone/internet company (which is fairly easy to do with 2 taps on the screen).
The second less likely option is that either of your actual phones were hacked, but it seems very unlikely your cable guy would have any interest in doing that and if the hacking was half-way competent (which it would have to be to insert itself into WhatsApp calls), it would be very small effort to also clear the caller log (at least of the hacked device), or to listen in on the conversation in a much more discreet and untraceable way.
But we've been keeping an eye on the AIL situation since Sunday and will continue to monitor.
On a side note - AIL is in a pretty interesting position. As far as I understand, it's de facto private, though more than 90% of students are there under either military or state reservation, and nearly the entire admin and teachers are ex-military. If joining this kind of university as a student, why would you not expect the administration to be very top-down / archaic?
Will take a look if possible to figure this out a bit, whether votes are maybe possible to disable on certain comments, relating to individuals, in promotion stories, for instance?
It does seem like at least a partial victory for Luthra on that front, though you're right, if the firm forces the issue a client who wants to move is not going to look charitably at the situation...
We have generally tended to not classify as M&A / PE where a majority investor is just buying out the minority stake of the other party. Please let me know if you have any thoughts on this though.
1. Do you think every single person amongst the 1.9m people declared non-citizens is an illegal immigrant? Is it possible that any mistakes were made in the initial drawing up of the list, under the rules?
2. Do you believe that every single one of the 1.9m has the education or financial resources or educational levels necessary to appeal effectively before the Tribunal, to get a fair hearing and ensure the process under the law is carried out?
3. Do you believe in the Rule of Law and that everyone is entitled to fair process under the law, irrespective of their economic status or background?
4. Do you believe that lawyers should uphold the Rule of Law?
5. Do you think it's ok for lawyers to help the less privileged exercise their constitutional rights for free, or they should only help those who have lots of money?
Would be interesting to hear your thoughts on each of the above or for others to add questions they have for 'Guest'.
1. We asked for more information from the alumns, but they weren't very helpful and never shared that letter.
2. Is it ethical? Presumably, yes, very much so. You could even argue that alumni have an ethical / fiduciary duty to take an interest in the process and the future of the institution. Please do point out any potential conflict you imagine though...
And even within legal education, the 'bad' NLUs still comparatively have better standards than most of the 1,500 other law schools that are dotting the country, so a valid question is whether improvement should start from the top or the bottom (with the BCI?).