December 16 gang-rape victim died in India, not Singapore: Accused

New Delhi, Jul 20: Reiterating that China has still occupied India's territory, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Monday attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi saying that he has fabricated a fake strongman image to come to power which has now become India's biggest weakness as he has to protect the idea of 'Chhapan Inch'.

Taking to Twitter, the Congress leader posted a video message and wrote, "PM fabricated a fake strongman image to come to power. It was his biggest strength. It is now India's biggest weakness."

In the video message, speaking on "China's Strategic Game Plan" the Congress leader said: "What is China's strategic and tactical game plan? It is simply not a border issue. The worry I have is that the Chinese are sitting in our territory today. Chinese don't do anything without thinking about it strategically."

"In their mind, they have mapped out the world and they are trying to shape the world. That's the scale of what they are doing. That's what Gwadar is, that is what belt and road is. It is a restructuring of the planet. So when you are thinking about the Chinese you have to understand that that is the level at which they are thinking," he added.

Now at the tactical level, they're trying to improve their position. Whether it is Galwan, whether it's Demchok or whether it is Pangong Lake. The idea is to position themselves, he said.

"They are disturbed by our highway they want to make our highway redundant and if they are thinking larger scale, they want to do something with Pakistan in Kashmir. So it is not simply a border issue. It is a border issue designed to put pressure on the Prime Minister of India," the Congress leader said.

"And they are thinking of putting pressure in a very particular way. And what they are doing, is that they are attacking his image. They understand that it in order for Mr Narendra Modi to be an effective politician; in order for Mr Narendra Modi to survive as a politician, he has to protect the idea of--Chhapan Inch. And this the real idea the Chinese are attacking. They are basically telling Mr Narendra Modi that if you do not do what we say, we will destroy the idea of Mr Narendra Modi as a strong leader," he added.

Gandhi continued saying, now the question is, how will PM Narendra Modi react. Will he take them on? Will he take on the challenge and say absolutely not, I'm the Prime Minister of India. I do not care about my image I'm going to take you on. Or will he succumb to them?

"The worry I have so far is that the Prime Minister has succumbed. The worry I have is, the Chinese are sitting in our territory today and the Prime Minister has said publicly they are not, which to me tells me that is worried about his image and defending his image," said Gandhi.

"And if he allows the Chinese to understand that they can manipulate him because of his image, the Indian Prime Minister will no longer be worth anything for India," he added.

New Delhi, May 13: Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will address a press conference in New Delhi at 4 pm on Wednesday.

The information regarding the press conference by the Union Finance Minister was given through a tweet by the Ministry of Finance today morning.

Sitharaman's press conference comes a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced USD 265 billion fiscal stimulus to deal with COVID-19 situation in the country. The package is the second largest in Asia after Japan.

"I announce a special economic package today. This will play an important role in the 'Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan.' The announcements made by the government over COVID, decisions of RBI and today's package totals to Rs 20 lakh crore (USD 265 billion). This is 10 per cent of India's GDP," the Prime Minister said in his address to the nation on Tuesday.

"This economic package is for our small-scale industries, MSMEs, which are the means of livelihood of crores of people and is the strong base of our resolve for self-reliant India. To prove the resolve of self-reliant India, the emphasis has been given on land, labour, liquidity and laws, in this package," he added.

The PM had also said that the economic package is for "the country's workers, farmers, who are working hard day and night for the countrymen in every season. This economic package is for the middle class of our country, who pays tax honestly and contributes to the development of the country."

He had announced that the fourth phase of the nationwide COVID-19 induced lockdown would be in "new form with new rules."

Several India-based firms are spoofing the World Health Organisation (WHO) by creating fake Gmail accounts and luring business leaders in disguise of informing them of latest COVID-19 announcements and hack their personal and financial information, Google has warned.

These "hack-for-hire" firms, many based in India, have been creating Gmail accounts spoofing the WHO, largely targeting business leaders in financial services, consulting, and healthcare corporations within numerous countries including, the US, Slovenia, Canada, India, Bahrain, Cyprus, and the UK.

"The lures themselves encourage individuals to sign up for direct notifications from the WHO to stay informed of COVID-19 related announcements, and link to attacker-hosted websites that bear a strong resemblance to the official WHO website," security researchers from Google's Threat Analysis Group said on Wednesday.

The sites typically feature fake login pages that prompt potential victims to give up their Google account credentials, and occasionally encourage individuals to give up other personal information, such as their phone numbers.

On any given day, Google's Threat Analysis Group (TAG) said it is tracking more than 270 targeted or government-backed attacker groups from more than 50 countries.

Last month, it sent 1,755 warnings to users whose accounts were targets of government-backed attackers.

"Our team of analysts and security experts is focused on identifying and stopping issues like phishing campaigns, zero-day vulnerabilities and hacking against Google, our products and our users," said the tech giant.

Google continues to see attacks from groups like Charming Kitten on medical and healthcare professionals, including WHO employees.

"We're seeing a resurgence in COVID-related hacking and phishing attempts from numerous commercial and government-backed attackers," said the company.

Government-backed or state-sponsored groups have different goals in carrying out their attacks: Some are looking to collect intelligence or steal intellectual property; others are targeting dissidents or activists, or attempting to engage in coordinated influence operations and disinformation campaigns.

Google said that since March, it has removed more than 1,000 YouTube channels that were part of a large campaign and behaving in a coordinated manner.

"These channels were mostly uploading spammy, non-political content, but a small subset posted primarily Chinese-language political content similar to the findings of a recent Graphika report," said the company.

Several cybersecurity firms have seen a spike in COVID-19 related scams and hacking attempts. Hackers are also creating scam sites similar to COVID-19 relief packages.

Researchers at Check Point Software Technologies revealed in mid-May that they have seen 192,000 coronavirus-related cyber-attacks per week over the past three weeks, a 30 % increase compared to previous weeks.