Delhi factory fire highlights child labour, trafficking

Agencies
December 13, 2019

New Delhi, Dec 13: The Anaj Mandi Fire which took place last Sunday has again highlighted rampant illegal child labour in the national capital.

A petition filed before the High Court by NGO Bachpan Bachao Aandolan (BBA) said that "most child labourers working in these factories at Anaj Mandi and all over Delhi, especially in unauthorized colonies and where manufacturing units are illegally operating in residential areas, albeit under the noses of the State authorities, are overcrowded and lack windows."

Children are often made not only to work there but also sleep and eat there and their movement is severely restricted. These hubs of child labour are hotbeds of trafficking, as also illness, where children are kept like slaves, in addition to being open to disasters such as fire and other accidents as these structures are unauthorized and without fire clearances, the petition said.

Volunteers of the organisation after visiting the hospitals and speaking to the relatives of the victims found that there were a number of child labourers employed illegally in the factories in the building where the fire broke out.

They also found questionable persons at the hospital where the children are admitted, with special interest in the children rescued from the Anaj Mandi fire. The suspicion is that some of these persons could possibly be traffickers who had brought the children to Delhi for work from their native villages.

The Bachpan Bachao Aandolan has told the court that it has credible information that the children who have been admitted in the hospital are being tutored to say that they were only visiting the factory and did not work there. They are also being coerced to say that they are 19 years old -- above the age of minors.

According to the study released by BBA, an NGO under the Kailash Satyarthi Children's Foundation, has rescued 8,918 children from different industrial units since 2005. Of this, 8,408 children were rescued from illegal factory units.

"Figures available with us reveal that the children rescued in Delhi belonged to various states and that they had been forced to migrate in search of livelihood. More than half of such children belonged to Bihar while more than one-fifth (22%) of them came from Uttar Pradesh," the study said.

Around 63 people were injured of which 43 died in the massive fire that broke out in the factory early on Sunday.

The police registered an FIR against the owners of the factory and some others under Section 304 (culpable homicide) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) following which two persons were arrested.

"The owner of the building, Rehan, has been arrested. The case is now transferred to the Crime Branch," said Anil Mittal, Additional PRO, Delhi Police.

On Monday, the two accused were produced before a Delhi court which sent them to 14-day police custody. The police, during the hearing, told the court that identification of most of the deceased persons is not possible, though post-mortem examination of the bodies has already begun.

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News Network
January 27,2020

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.

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Agencies
May 26,2020

In a startling revelation, cybersecurity researchers have claimed that a hacker has posted personal details of nearly 2.9 crore Indian job seekers at one of the hacking forums on the Dark Web for free.

As part of the regular sweep over the Deep Web and Dark Web, researchers from cybersecurity firm Cyble came across an interesting item, where a threat actor posted 2.3GB (zipped) file on one of the hacking forums.

"The leak actually has a lot of personal details of millions of Indians Job seekers from different states," Cyble said in its blog on Friday.

This breach includes sensitive information such as email, phone, home address, qualification and work experience etc from job seekers spanning across states, from New Delhi to Mumbai and Bengaluru. 

Cybercriminals are always on the lookout for such personal information to conduct various nefarious activities such as identity thefts, scams, and corporate espionage.

"It appears to have originated from a resume aggregator service given the sheer volume and detailed information," it added.

Cyble indexed this information at ‘AmIbreached.com; – Cyble's data breach monitoring and notification platform.

Cyble researchers have identified a sensitive data breach on the dark web where an actor has leaked personal details of nearly 29 million Indian job seekers from various states. 

"Cyble's team is still investigating this further and will be updating their article as they bring more facts to the surface,” it said in a statement.

Cyble said it has acquired the leaked data. 

The same cyber security firm earlier exposed that Bengaluru-based edtech firm Unacademy was hacked.

According to Cyble researchers, nearly 22 million Unacademy user accounts were affected and the data was dumped and sold on Dark Web.

'We would like to assure our users that no sensitive information such as financial data or location has been breached," said Hemesh Singh, Co- Founder and CTO, Unacademy, in a statement.

In April, hackers sold personal data of a whopping 267 million Facebook users for just Rs 41,500 (approximately 500 Euros) that includes email addresses, names, Facebook IDs, dates of birth and phone numbers.

No passwords of the 267 million Facebook users were exposed by the hacker, according to Cyble.

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News Network
May 15,2020

New Delhi, May 15: Microsoft founder Bill Gates on Friday thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the interaction and stressed that combating the coronavirus pandemic requires global collaboration.

"Thank you for the conversation and partnership PM Narendra Modi. Combating the pandemic requires global collaboration. India's role is key as the world works to minimize social and economic impact, and pave the way to vaccine, testing, and treatment access for all," Bill Gates said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday interacted with philanthropist and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and discussed the global response to Covid-19 and the importance of global coordination on scientific innovation to combat the pandemic.

The Prime Minister underlined the conscious approach that India has adopted in its fight against the health crisis - an approach based on ensuring public engagement through appropriate messaging, a PMO release said.

He explained how this people-centric bottom-up approach has helped win acceptability for physical distancing, respect for frontline workers, wearing of masks, maintaining proper hygiene, and respecting lockdown provisions.

They agreed that given India's willingness and capacity to contribute to global efforts, particularly for benefit of fellow developing countries, it was important for India to be included in the ongoing global discussions for coordinating responses to the pandemic.

The Prime Minister also suggested that the Gates Foundation could take the lead in analyzing the necessary changes in lifestyles, economic organisation, social behaviour, modes of disseminating education and healthcare, that would emerge in the post-Covid world, and the associated technological challenges that would need to be addressed.

He said that India would be happy to contribute to such an analytical exercise based on its own experiences.

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