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🤖 @Sunrise: Pakistan Raised Cyber Army Against India With Turkey's Help
1. 😒 Pak's Turkey-assisted cyber ops against India
Turkey helped Pakistan in 2018 to set up a cyber unit to carry out influence operations against India.
Context: Turkey's Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu revealed this in an interview with a local TV station.
Then minister of state for interior of Pakistan asked Turkey for help after a bilateral talk between Pakistan and Turkey.
Imran Khan was Pakistan PM and interior minister during this time. He had green-lighted this operation personally.
Turkey was more than happy to help the Islamic republic of Pakistan.
What did Pak want? To sow seeds of anti-India/anti-Hindu sentiments in South East Asian nations by using troll farms.
After Turkey agreed to help Pakistan in setting up this cyber unit, Ankara sent ops experts to Pakistan.
Reports suggest that more than 6,000 Pakistani officers have been trained by Turkey to carry out these ops.
Even though Khan is no longer PM, the Turkey-Pakistan cooperation has continued.
But why influence South East Asia? Islamism and Islamist elements already enjoy refuge in the region. For example, radical Islamic preacher Zakir Naik, on the run from Indian authorities, enjoys permanent resident status in Malaysia.
2. 🤫 Mamata Banerjee has gone quiet
The Bengal chief minister's usual angry rhetoric is curiously absent these days.
Huh? The last time the mercurial Banerjee issued an angry statement was with regard to former cricketer Sourav Ganguly.
Going by her standards, this was moderate as well.
She's gone quiet since then.
Nothing even on her go-to topics: the BJP and the central government.
What's changed? Jaideep Mazumdar explains why she may have gone quiet... at least for the time being.
> Besieged by scams
Banerjee is on the backfoot over the many scams in which her party men, including her top aides, have gotten caught.
Top scams: Recruitment scam in the state education department, cattle smuggling scam, the multi-agency probe into the illegal coal mining and coal smuggling racket are a few.
> Backlash over police action against teachers
Midnight police raids on young men and women who had cleared the Teachers’ Eligibility Test — and were on a dharna since they were yet to be given appointment letters — evoked sharp reactions.
Prominent intellectuals and cultural personalities came down heavily on the CM over police high-handedness.
There's fear of losing support of this bhadralok class, who lend a great degree of respectability to her rule.
> Lower fund allocation for central schemes
The flow of funds from the union government towards centrally-sponsored schemes like MNREGA, PMAY, and PMGSY is hurting the Trinamool badly in the rural areas of Bengal.
Apparently, many audits had detected widespread anomalies and defalcation of funds.
This BJP counter-offensive found a ready resonance among rural folks.
>> There's much more: read Jaideep Mazumdar's story.
This silence is temporary, though. Banerjee has built a political career on frequent confrontation with her political adversaries and even allies. Only a matter of time before she returns to her combative and rhetorical self.
3. 💣 New info in Coimbatore blast case
Tamil Nadu police have arrested K Afsar Khan, a relative of the deceased Jameesha Mubeen, taking the total number of arrests in the case to six.
Police found that the Maruti 800 car that exploded used to be parked near Khan’s house.
Khan had helped Mubeen by procuring explosive materials such as potassium nitrate, aluminium powder, sulphur, and charcoal online from Amazon and Flipkart.
He had been purchasing small quantities over the last few years.
The search of Mubeen’s house had yielded around 75 kg of explosives.
Where the investigation is headed: Police have written to Amazon and Flipkart asking for details of those who purchased explosive materials from their platforms in the last couple of years.
Kerala jail authorities have been requested info on visitors of Mohammad Azharudeen, an ISIS sympathiser connected with Mubeen, to find out if chemicals were procured from Kerala with his help.
Increased vigil on scrap dealers handling abandoned and condemned cars, checks on cars found parked for a long time.
The NIA is expected to take over the case in the next few days following the recommendation of the TN government.
4. Equal pay for men and women in Indian cricket
The BCCI announced equal match fee for both men and women cricket players of India.
BCCI secretary Jay Shah said in a tweet that the move was BCCI's "first step towards tackling discrimination."
The match fee for Indian Test, ODI, and T20 international games is Rs 15 lakh, Rs 6 lakh, and Rs 3 lakh respectively.
Reactions came in from several Indian women cricketers.
"Truly a red letter day for Women’s Cricket in India with pay parity announced for women and men," Harmanpreet Kaur, the captain of Indian women's cricket team, tweeted.
"This is a historic decision for women’s cricket in India! The pay equity policy along with the WIPL next year, we are ushering into a new era for women's cricket in India," Mithali Raj, the former captain, said in a tweet.
"This will motivate young girls in taking cricket as a career. It's also an imp. step in creating gender equality in the society & hopefully other sports will follow BCCI's footsteps," tweeted the recently retired pacer Jhulan Goswami.
More to come for Indian women's cricket: The maiden women's IPL is set to take place in March 2023. It will feature five teams and 20 league games with teams to play each other twice.
5. 🗞️ BJP IT head is suing The Wire
BJP leader Amit Malviya said today that he would be filing civil and criminal proceedings against The Wire.
>> "Not only will I be setting the criminal process in motion but I will also sue them in a civil court seeking damages as they forged documents with a view to align my reputation." — Amit Malviya
Context: The Wire had published a report on 10 October alleging that Malviya enjoys special privileges with respect to Instagram use.
The report claimed that if Malviya ‘reported’ a post on the platform, it would be taken down by Instagram, no questions asked.
Apparently, Malviya was on Meta’s cross-check or ‘X-check’ list, which had different rules.
The Wire published follow-up reports related to the matter too.
It didn't work out well for them. The two experts cited by The Wire washed their hands of the report.
Even the internal document which The Wire claimed showed Malviya's disproportionate influence in Instagram was called out as a 'spoof' created by Meta's own algorithm by a Meta executive.
So, The Wire retracted its Meta stories.
In an 'apology' released late night on 26 October, the opinion portal claimed that it had been 'subjected' to deception by a member of its Meta investigation team.
An updated footnote said: "The person responsible is no longer working with The Wire in any capacity."
6. 🙃 Pakistan goes down against Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe defeated Pakistan by one run in a T20 World Cup game.
Zimbabwe was defending a modest target of 131.
Pakistan stuttered all the way through to 129 for the loss of eight wickets.
Pakistan-born all-rounder Sikandar Raza was man of the match for his bowling figures of 3 for 25 off his four overs.
Pakistan is now down two on two after its loss to India in its first World Cup match.
Pakistan's road to the semi-finals just got that much bumpier.
7. 🌞 “Sunset, Moonset, Taj Mahal”
A shot of the evening sky over the Taj Mahal was yesterday's Astronomy Picture of the Day, or “APOD,” a NASA-based service.
Context: The picture, taken by Neelam and Ajay Talwar, captures the Sun and New Moon setting together on 25 October, as seen from Agra, a city on the banks of river Yamuna that is home to the Taj Mahal.
It was the day of the partial solar eclipse in some parts of the world, including India, when the picture was taken.
Which is why the Sun looks bitten into, shape-shifting into a Moon-like crescent as it slowly winds down for the day.
Neelam and Ajay Talwar are night-sky photographers.
Esteemed science photo service: APOD is based upon work supported by NASA.
It's a service of the Astrophysics Science Division at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and Michigan Technological University.
A new image is spotlighted on the APOD website every day, accompanied by a textual description by a professional astronomer.
APOD has hosted more than 9,900 daily images over the last 27 years.
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