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The court cannot be rendered a mute spectator simply by calling the matter a subject of national security, the Supreme Court said on Wednesday as it appointed an expert committee to look into the allegations of surveillance using the spyware Pegasus. Israel’s NSO Group says it sells the spyware only to governments and its agencies.

The court rejected the government's request that it be allowed to form a committee, saying "justice must not only be done, but also be seen to be done".

The expert committee...

• will be overseen by former Supreme Court judge R.V. Raveendran.
• along with former R&AW chief Alok Joshi and cybersecurity expert Sundeep Oberoi.
• three members from academia in technical committee: Naveen Kumar Chaudhary (National Forensic Sciences University, Gandhinagar), Prabaharan P (Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Kerala) and Anil Gumaste (IIT-Bombay)

The court also said:

• In a democratic country, indiscriminate spying on individuals cannot be allowed except with sufficient statutory safeguards...
• It is undeniable that surveillance and the knowledge that one is under the threat of being spied on can affect the way an individual decides to exercise his or her rights...
• This is of particular concern when it relates to the freedom of the press, which is an important pillar of democracy.
• The union government in its limited affidavit did not shed any light on their stand or provide any clarity as to the facts of the matter at hand.

Note: SC was hearing a batch of petitions, including by the Editors Guild of India, journalist Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, and Rajya Sabha MP John Brittas. Thakurta's was among the 67 phones that were successfully infiltrated or had shown traces of Pegasus, according to an analysis by Amnesty's cybersecurity experts.

It matters: With the Supreme Court's decision, India finally gets a formal probe into the Pegasus allegations, three months after several publications revealed a database of over 50,000 numbers selected as possible targets of surveillance by clients of NSO Group.

In France...

• The state cybersecurity agency, Anssi, has found traces of Pegasus spyware in phones of five French cabinet ministers. Their numbers were in the database.
• It has also found "identifiers" of Pegasus in phones of journalists working for France 24 journalist and Mediapart. Their numbers too were on the database.
• France has also pressured Israel to investigate NSO Group after media reports said the database included a number once used by French President Emmanuel Macron.
• Morocco is suspected to be behind these French attacks.

In the UK...

• A British court found that the phones of his ex-wife of the Dubai monarch and her lawyers were hacked using Pegasus as part of a "sustained campaign of intimidation and threat" during the custody battle over their children. UAE is suspected to be a client of NSO Group.

The Indian government, however, has not initiated a probe. Union IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw told parliament in July there was "no illegal surveillance" but did not explicitly acknowledge or deny the use of Pegasus.

• At least 160 numbers in the 50,000-database are of Indians. These include Rahul Gandhi, former election commissioner Asok Lavasa and activists and scholars accused and detained in the Bhima Koregaon-Elgar Parishad case.
• Analysis by Amnesty's cybersecurity experts showed successful hack or traces of Pegasus in phones of journalists M.K. Venu, Sushant Singh, Siddharth Varadarajan, Paranjoy Guha Thakurta and election strategist Prashant Kishor.

China’s "unilateral decision" to enact a border law that empowers its troops to “combat any acts” that undermine the sovereignty can have implications on existing bilateral arrangements on border management and is a concern to India, the spokesperson for India's external affairs ministry said.

• “Such unilateral move will have no bearing on the arrangements that both sides have already reached earlier, whether it is on the boundary question or for maintaining peace and tranquillity along the LAC in India-China border areas,” the statement said.
• "We also expect that China will avoid undertaking action under the pretext of this law which could unilaterally alter the situation in the India-China border areas."
• "The passage of this new law does not in our view confer any legitimacy to the “so-called” China Pakistan ‘Boundary Agreement’ of 1963, which Government of India has consistently maintained is an illegal and invalid document".

The law: Beijing’s rubber-stamp legislature had earlier on Saturday adopted a new border law that effectively intends to legitimise its border aggression. The law, which comes into effect on January 1, says the People's Liberation Army “shall carry out border duties” including “organising drills” and “resolutely prevent, stop and combat invasion, encroachment, provocation and other acts”, the law says.

• Easing restrictions: The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (US CDC) has given clearance to people vaccinated with Covaxin to travel to the US, though with conditions attached. It has included the vaccine in the list of vaccine candidates that meet its criteria for exception under the category of ‘Participants in certain Covid-19 vaccine trials’ The US CDC decision came on a day when the WHO deferred its decision on granting emergency use listing to Covaxin, citing the need for “additional clarifications”.
• The conditions: The US CDC stated on its website that “any ‘covered individual’ claiming this exception has official documentation of clinical trial participation.” The documentation could include a clinical trial letter, participant card or modified vaccination card, with the entire vaccination schedule being completed at least 14 days prior to the flight’s departure. However, it’s not clear if the exception applies only to those who got the jab during Covaxin’s phase 3 clinical trials, in January, or also to those who got it after it was granted emergency use authorisation (EUA) in March
• Not just the US: Oman became the 10th country, other than India, to include Covaxin in its list of Covid-19 approved vaccinations, which will allow all travellers from India who have received both their doses of the vaccine at least 14 days prior to the date of departure, to skip quarantine on arrival in the country. They will, however, also require a negative RT-PCR test report, according to a statement by the Indian embassy in Muscat.

Meanwhile, Covaxin’s manufacturer, Bharat Biotech’s US partner Ocugen, said it has submitted an application under the Investigational New Drug category to the US FDA to conduct clinical trials in the US — this after the US drug regulator in June had rejected EUA for Covaxin and asked it to go for Biologics Licence Application (BLA) with additional data.

The European Union's top court Wednesday ordered Poland to pay 1 million euros a day for not complying with the bloc's judicial rules as the EU stares at its biggest crisis since Brexit.

The issue:

• The dispute has been running for nearly a year, and stems from Poland's right-wing government's attempt to control its judiciary through a law to discipline its judges. The European Court of Justice (ECJ) considers this an affront to its judicial standards.
• European politicians had tried to negotiate the way out of the dispute, fearing not to set in motion another Brexit-like crisis. Poland is the largest eastern member of the union.
• But Poland's ruling nationalists Law and Justice (PiS) say the European Union executive, the European Commission, is overstepping its mandate by trying to stop its judicial reforms.

And now? The ECJ imposed its largest yet penalty a day on a member nation for not dismantling the disciplinary forum for its judges.

Amarinder Singh. The former Punjab chief minister on Wednesday said that his new political party "will have a seat-sharing with BJP" and won't "be allying with BJP”. He added that the outfit was yet to be named. "Let’s wait for the Election Commission which will decide the symbol, he said. “Once the party is announced, we will fight on all 117 seats [for the Punjab Assembly]."