Congress will have alliances, but Rahul 'may not be' PM face: Shashi Tharoor

May 14: Customs officials on Wednesday intercepted China-bound consignments of raw material for masks, misdeclared as packing materials for pouches, in large quantities, a senior official said.

It has also seized multiple shipments containing 5.08 lakh masks, 57 litres of sanitiser and 952 PPE kits bound for the US, the UK and the UAE, the official said.

The export of such goods is prohibited by the government in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"On the basis of specific intelligence, 2,480 kg of raw material for masks was intercepted by air cargo export, Delhi Customs. The goods were misdeclared as packing materials for pouches and were being illegally attempted to be smuggled/ exported to China," he said. 

These goods are prohibited for export as per the latest guidelines issued by the Directorate General of Foreign trade (DGFT), he said, adding that investigation into the case is under progress.

In another catch, the air cargo officers intercepted multiple shipments containing 5.08 lakh masks, 57 litres of sanitiser in 950 bottles and 952 PPE kits at the courier terminal in New Delhi. These were attempted to be smuggled or exported out of the country, the official said.

"These goods are also prohibited for export," he added. 

These items were being illegally exported to the United States, United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates. "No arrests have been made so far," the official said.

Days after Twitter accounts of several billionaires were hacked to engineer a crypto scam, Twitter on Saturday said it is embarrassed, disappointed and, more than anything, sorry for what happened with some of its high-profile users as attackers successfully manipulated its employees and used their credentials to access internal systems, including getting through the two-factor protections.

In the first detailed summary of the "social engineering attack" via a crypto scam that hit at least 130 users this week, Twitter said for 45 of those accounts, the attackers were able to initiate a password reset, login to the account and send Tweets.

"We are continuing our forensic review of all of the accounts to confirm all actions that may have been taken. In addition, we believe they may have attempted to sell some of the usernames," the micro-blogging platform said in a statement.

For up to eight of the Twitter accounts involved, the attackers took the additional step of downloading the account's information via "Your Twitter Data" tool.

This is a tool that is meant to provide an account owner with a summary of their Twitter account details and activity.

"We are reaching out directly to any account owner where we know this to be true. None of the eight were verified accounts," said Twitter.

The company said the attackers were not able to view previous account passwords, as those are not stored in plain text or available through the tools used in the attack.

"Attackers were able to view personal information including email addresses and phone numbers, which are displayed to some users of our internal support tools," informed Twitter.

In cases where an account was taken over by the attacker, they may have been able to view additional information, Twitter added, saying its forensic investigation of these activities was still ongoing.

"We are actively working on communicating directly with the account-holders that were impacted".

The company said it will soon restore access for all account owners who may still be locked out as a result of the remediation efforts.

The New York Times reported on Friday that the Twitter crypto scam can be traced back to a group of hackers who congregate online at OGusers.com, a username-swapping community where people buy and sell coveted online handles.

The report said that the Twitter hack is not from Russian, Chinese or North Korean hackers but was done by a group of young people, "one of whom says he lives at home with his mother".

New Delhi, Mar 7: Prime Minister Narendra Modi turned emotional on Saturday when a woman beneficiary of his government's generic medicine programme told him that she had seen God in him.

Dehradun-resident Deepa Shah, who suffered paralysis in 2011, was interacting with the prime minister through video-conference on the occasion of Jan Aushadhi Diwas.

"I have not seen god, but I have seen God in you," she said, tears rolling down her eyes.

Modi was visibly emotional as the woman repeated her remark.

She also thanked the Uttarakhand chief minister and others who had helped her all along and said doctors had once told her that she cannot be cured.

"But on hearing your voice I have become better," she told Modi while profusely thanking the prime minister for his efforts to reduce the cost of medicines.

An emotional prime minister paused for a moment before telling her that it was her courage that had won over her disease and that she must carry on with the spirit.

Shah was expressing her plight and how she had suffered due to high cost of medicines after she suffered from paralysis in 2011 and has now started saving Rs 3,500 every month after benefitting from the government's low-cost generic medicines programme.

Soon after Shah rose to express her views, Modi asked her to sit and speak as he said she was uncomfortable while standing.

"You have defeated disease with your own will power. Your courage is your god and that same courage has given you the strength to emerge from such a big crisis. You should carry on this confidence in you," Modi told her.

He said some people still keep spreading rumours about generic medicines, going by their past experience, wondering how can medicines be available so cheap and that there must be something wrong with the medicine.

"But, by seeing you countrymen would gain confidence that there is nothing wrong in generic medicines. These medicines are not at all of inferior quality than any other medicine. These medicines have been certified by the best laboratories. These medicines are made in India and is 'Make in India' and are cheap," the prime minister said.

He said there is demand for generic medicines from India across the world and the government has made it mandatory for doctors to prescribe generic medicines to patients, unless necessary.