Breaking barriers: Hindus and Muslims unite for development

Jan 27: Bollywood Film Director Anurag Kashyap, who has been vocal about his political views on social media, slammed Union Minister Amit Shah and accused him of being 'cheap'.

"How timid our Home Minister is. Its own police, its own goons, its own army and security increases and invades unarmed protestors. Amit Shah has crossed the extent of cheapness and inferiority. History will spit on this animal," Kashyap tweeted.

The film director has taken an active part in the anti-Citizenship Act protest rallies and was against the Jawaharlal Nehru violence. He also came in support of his contemporary Deepika Padukone when the latter faced backlash for showing up at JNU in support of the students.

New Delhi, Mar 15: Dozens of Hindu activists held a cow urine party in New Delhi on Saturday to protect themselves from the new coronavirus, as countries around the world struggle to control the deadly pandemic.

Members and supporters of the All India Hindu Mahasabha staged fire rituals and drank from earthen cups to fight the Covid-19 virus at the gathering in New Delhi dubbed a "gaumutra (cow urine) party".

"Whoever drinks cow urine will be cured and protected," Hari Shankar Kumar, a volunteer at the event, said as he served the remedy in brown clay cups.

Governments and scientists have said no medicine or vaccine is available to protect or cure people of the infection that has killed more than 5,400 people and infected nearly 150,000 across six continents.

Two people have died in India while more than 80 have fallen ill, and the government has ordered the closure of some land routes into the country and cancelled all visas to stop the spread of the virus in the world's second most populous country.

Members draped in saffron clothes chanted Hindu hymns at the fire ritual as devotees sang paeans for the sacred animal.

"We have gathered here and prayed for world peace and we will make an offering to the corona (virus) to calm it," Chakrapani Maharaj, the group's leader, told reporters before gulping down a cup of urine.

He then offered a glass to a devil-shaped caricature of the virus to "pacify" it.

He urged people to adopt the "tried and tested" practice of drinking cow urine to ward off diseases, and desist from killing animals and eating meat.

"The coronavirus is also a bacteria and cow urine is effective against all forms of bacteria that harm us," claimed Om Prakash, a participant from the neighbouring state of Uttar Pradesh.

One legislator from the BJP last week suggested use of the urine as well as cow dung can cure the coronavirus.

Bengaluru, May 21: The COVID-19-induced lockdown saw a spurt in crybercrimes in India with Kerala recording the highest number during the period, according to an analysis of IT security solutions provider K7 Computing.

The report analyses various cyberattacks within India during the pandemic and reveals that threat actors targeted the States with COVID-19-themed attacks aimed at exploiting user trust.

The sudden surge in the frequency of attacks witnessed from February 2020 to mid-April 2020 indicates that scamsters across the world were exploiting the widespread panic around coronavirus at both the individual and corporate level, the company said in a statement.

These attacks aimed to compromise computers and mobile devices to gain access to users confidential data, banking details and cryptocurrency accounts.

The key threats seen during this period ranged from phishing attacks to rogue apps disguised as COVID-19 information apps that targeted users sensitive data.

Phishing attacks were noticed more in Tier-II and Tier-III cities while the metros fared better.

Smaller cities saw over 250 attacks being blocked per 10,000 users.

Users from Ghaziabad and Lucknow seem to have faced almost six and four times the number of attacks, respectively, as Bengaluru users.

In Kerala, regions like Kottayam, Kannur, Kollam, and Kochi saw the highest hits with 462, 374, 236, and 147 attacks respectively, while the state as a whole saw around 2,000 attacks during the period, the highest thus far in the country.

This was followed by Punjab with 207 attacks and Tamil Nadu at 184 attacks, the statement said.

A majority of the recorded attacks were phishing attacks with sophisticated campaigns that could easily snare even the most educated users, it said.

These attacks were aimed at heightening users fears and creating a sense of urgency to take action.

The report noted phishing attacks where scamsters posed as representatives of the United States Department of the Treasury, the World Health Organisation, and the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

Users were encouraged to visit links that would automatically download malware on the host computer such as the Agent Tesla keylogger or Lokibot information-stealing malware, infamous banking Trojans such as Trickbot or Zeus Sphinx, and even disastrous ransomware.

Other attacks included infected COVID-19 Android apps like CoronaSafetyMask that scam users with promises of masks for an upfront payment; the spyware app Project Spy; and seemingly genuine apps that are infected with dangerous malware like banking Trojans such as Ginp, Anubis and Cerberus, it was stated.