How BJP's online campaign proved vital for success

May 20, 2014

New Delhi, May 20: With the BJP registering a thumping victory in the general election, significant credit goes to the party's online campaign to tap the general psyche by connecting with millions of youngsters.
modionlineVikas Pandey, a 30-year-old software architect, headed the social media campaigns like "I Support Namo" on Facebook and Twitter, as a volunteer for the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the then prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi.
He said the credit for such success should be shared by countless volunteers, mainly students and retired people.
Son of Gorakhpur mayour and BJP leader Dr. Satya Pandey, he said he involved himself with the political campaigning after meeting Modi in 2010. During this first meeting Modi asked him to make better use of the social media for the party's political success. Since then he started devoting his professional expertise as a 'swayamsewak' (RSS volunteer), without any fees for person or his fellow volunteers' services.
Pandey said the social media played a vital role in the current election in not only getting the BJP's desired message across but also influencing the public imagination at large to vote.
"Though Facebook was our main focus, we also got many volunteers from Twitter and Google+," Pandey said.
Asked whose baby the online campaign was, Pandey said he felt inspired by the Aam Aadmi Party's success in the 2013 Delhi assembly elections to turn the tables by getting non- partisan, self-motivated volunteers from the social media.
The rest was the team's dedication and determination for success.
"Our target was the middle and the upper middle class," Pandey said.
Due to these people, he said, "our team of volunteers could bypass non-favourable or negative views expressed in the mainstream media against the BJP or Modiji to reach out to voters directly".
"On Facebook, we have pages like 'I Support Namo', 'SanghParivar.Org', 'RSS', among others with over 45 lakh (4.5 million) likes. On Youtube, we started Narendra Modi's official Youtube channel, now India's most popular online political channel. And the 'I Support Namo' channel, which is now India's second most popular.
"On Twitter, I run many IDs such as @sanghparivarorg and @isupportnamo with more than 1.5 lakh followers," he said.
Asked about the secret of such an effective campaign in the polls, Pandey said it was all about "smart planning and team work, and in-depth knowledge of technology".
Since Facebook has an estimated 90 million members in India and Twitter has 30 million from India, he said they played a huge role in the polls.
The "I Support NaMo" page on Facebook now has over 23.5 lakh likes and its posts are read by over 2.5 crore people per week at times, "which is more than most of the newspaper readers", Pandey noted.
Pandey also worked during the Delhi assembly polls.
He said he has worked with various cells of the BJP in several state elections in the past."I created various ideology-related groups on Orkut with over 500,000 members in 2008," Pandey said.
Asked about the number of people involved in the NaMo campaign, he said: "We provided thousands of volunteers to the 'Vote for India Mission 272+' through social media networking in Delhi, Ghaziabad, Noida, Faridabad and Gurgaon and reached out to around 1.5 lakh voters.
"Our volunteers reached out to one lakh voters in Mumbai, to 20,000 voters in Shimla, to 50,000 voters in Pune, and to around 50,000 voters in Varanasi in the last one month."
Pandey, who dedicated the success to his team of volunteers, said that though activities on the ground have stopped, "future communications will be maintained so that they help spread the good work done by the government and even help in upcoming state elections".

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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
June 3,2020

Jammu, Jun 3: A mob on Tuesday disrupted the last rites of a coronavirus victim in Jammu and Kashmir and forced his family members to flee with the half-burnt body, prompting intervention by the administration which later ensured the cremation at another place as per protocol.

A 72-year-old man, hailing from Doda district, became the fourth victim of the novel coronavirus to die in Jammu region. He breathed his last at the Government Medical College (GMC) hospital on Monday.

"We had set out for the funeral along with a revenue official and a medical team, and had lit the pyre at a cremation ground in Domana area when a large group of local residents appeared at the scene and disrupted the last rites," son of the deceased said.

Only close relatives of the deceased, including his wife and two sons, were present during the cremation. They had to flee with the half-burnt body in an ambulance to save their skin from the mob which pelted stones and attacked them with sticks.

"We had sought permission from the government to take the body to our home district for the last rites, but we were told that all necessary arrangements were in place, and that we would not face any trouble during the cremation," the victim's son said.

He also alleged that the security officials present at the scene were of no help.

Two policemen who were present there failed to act against the unruly crowd, while the accompanying revenue official went missing, he said.

"The ambulance driver and other staff from the hospital helped us a lot and managed to take us back to the GMC hospital with the body the government should have come out with a better plan to conduct the last rites of coronavirus victims, taking into consideration the past experience and problems encountered during the funeral of such victims," the victim's son said.

Later, the body was taken to a cremation ground at Bhagwati Nagar area of the city, where it was consigned to flames in the afternoon in presence of senior civil officials, including additional deputy commissioner and sub-divisional magistrate under tight security.

"My uncle was admitted in the hospital last week and died on Monday afternoon. He was suffering from various ailments, especially lungs and heart diseases. Before shifting him to GMC hospital Jammu, he underwent a coronavirus test in Doda which came negative," nephew of the deceased said.

However, he said, the victim's second test after his admission in the GMC hospital came positive on Sunday.

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News Network
February 18,2020

New Delhi, Feb 18: India emerged as the world's fifth-largest economy by overtaking the UK and France in 2019, says a report.

A US-based think tank World Population Review in its report said that India is developing into an open-market economy from its previous autarkic policies.

"India's economy is the fifth-largest in the world with a GDP of $2.94 trillion, overtaking the UK and France in 2019 to take the fifth spot," it said.

The size of the UK economy is $2.83 trillion and that of France is $2.71 trillion.

The report further said that in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms, India's GDP (PPP) is $10.51 trillion, exceeding that of Japan and Germany. Due to India's high population, India's GDP per capita is $2,170 (for comparison, the US is $62,794).

India's real GDP growth, however, it said is expected to weaken for the third straight year from 7.5 per cent to 5 per cent.

The report observed that India's economic liberalisation began in the early 1990s and included industrial deregulation, reduced control on foreign trade and investment, and privatisation of state-owned enterprises.

"These measures have helped India accelerate economic growth," it said.

India's service sector is the fast-growing sector in the world accounting for 60 per cent of the economy and 28 per of employment, the report said, adding that manufacturing and agriculture are two other significant sectors of the economy.

The US-based World Population Review is an independent organisation without any political affiliations.

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