While the furore over China’s aggression in Eastern Ladakh is seemingly at an all-time high, a detailed investigative reportage carried by a major national daily has all the elements to rattle nerves. By now, the political and bureaucratic establishments have been compelled to learn the acrid reality that China has hatched an espionage conspiracy and has been successfully pursuing it for quite a long time not with any human intervention, but exclusively through 24x7 virtual monitoring of over 10,000 prominent citizens of India including the President, PM, several sitting and ex CMs and Ministers including that from the Northeast, bureaucrats, hierarchies of judiciary, journalists, academicians and even actors and sportspersons! The news has taken all by surprise and has been raised in Parliament too by the Opposition with the clamour for an in-depth probe. The matter is serious indeed keeping in mind the long-reaching ramifications it entails in terms of national security and privacy of citizens and it’s a new challenge to face which is much different from a conventional war. The phrase doing the rounds after this major expose which must be hailed as a fine example of investigative journalism is “hybrid warfare” and even though it sounds like sci-fiction stuff, it’s absolutely real, very alarming and sure to inspire goosebumps for anybody.

The entity in focus is a Shenzhen-based data mining company which actually works for the Chinese intelligence agencies in a covert fashion and by now had tracked ‘big data’ of over 10,000 Indian individuals and organisations with professional finesse by monitoring their digital footprints across social media platforms. This meticulous accumulation of data has resulted in formation of an “information library,” which as the next step has been milked to form a “relational database” for a more critical analysis of the social behavioural pattern of individuals and institutions. It doesn’t end here as even private information such as movements of ‘targets’ are also being tracked through AI tools and the final outcome is “threat intelligence services.”Apparently it will seem all harmless as the majority of common netizens will be driven by the notion that a data bank, even if surreptitiously accumulated by an enemy country and in spite its hugeness cannot lead to anything disastrous. But the fact is, when put together in a broader framework, it’s a 'valuable' input for tactical manoeuvring that might bring lethal effects on the political, economic and technological fronts, besides security aspects.

It’s no surprise that the report has unearthed how vulnerable it is for the frontier zones comprising the entire NE including Arunachal, UT of J&K and Ladakh as at least 180 politicians and bureaucrats of these places have featured on the ‘target’ list.

The big question is how to neutralise these heinous ultra-technology-driven manoeuvres. It will need overwhelming counter-efforts and it’s also a big test for India’s IT strength for sure.  

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Kenter Joya Riba

(Managing Editor)
      She is a graduate in Science with post graduation in Sociology from University of Pune. She has been in the media industry for nearly a decade. Before turning to print business, she has been associated with radio and television.
Email: kenterjoyaz@easternsentinel.in / editoreasternsentinel@gmail.com
Phone: 0360-2212313

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