Tag: india

Whistleblower Exposes TransUnion’s Shocking Outsourcing Scandal: Sensitive U.S. Data and Intelligence Databases are Being Handled by Underpaid Workers in India

In an alarming revelation sent to The Gateway Pundit by a reader who wished to remain anonymous, a former Senior QA Analyst for TransUnion has detailed how the company’s outsourcing policies, reliance on H1B visa workers, and mandatory DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) training have systematically displaced American tech workers—including those working on critical U.S. intelligence databases.

The anonymous source, who worked in the intelligence database sector for over 17 years, revealed how their role evolved from an entry-level assistant to a senior analyst responsible for training law enforcement officers and overseeing the quality assurance of highly sensitive databases.

These restricted systems are used by local, state, and federal law enforcement, as well as other government agencies, for intelligence gathering and investigative purposes.

Yet despite their extensive experience and dedication, the whistleblower’s position was ultimately eliminated as TransUnion shifted operations offshore to India.

The whistleblower disclosed that TransUnion moved thousands of U.S.-based jobs to offices in Chennai and Pune, India, leaving sensitive Personally Identifiable Information (PII) and critical intelligence databases in the hands of foreign workers.

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FDA Knows That China and India Drug Quality Is Poor, But Independently Collects and Tests Only about 0.001%

Quality control errors during pharmaceutical manufacturing are unfortunately common occurrences. The majority (around 50%) of employees that work in pharmaceutical manufacturing tend to have duties which are safety/quality-control related, but apparently even that isn’t enough. 

Even with a major focus on quality, there is still an estimated 2-3σ (sigma) level of imprecision when it comes to pharmaceutical manufacturing. That corresponds to 66,807 to 308,537 defects per 1,000,000 opportunities. But with pharmaceutical development being so complicated, there could be more than 1,000,000 “opportunities” for error. 

The above listed error calculation – while alarming enough – was referenced in small-molecule pharmacology. However, increasingly complex pharmaceuticals (such as today’s widely used biotechnological products, including GLP-1 diabetes/weight loss or mRNA products for Covid-19) have molecular weights that can be thousands times larger than small molecule compounds. That could mean an even greater opportunity for error. 

The FDA is abundantly aware of pharmaceutical fragility and potential quality shortcomings, including at the highest levels of its leadership. 

In fact, Dr. Michael Kopcha, the current Director of the FDA’s Office of Pharmaceutical Quality (OPQ), wrote and published the above published Six Sigma calculation, lamenting the imprecise nature of pharmaceutical manufacturing – back in 2017. 

Any alteration in structure that occurs during manufacturing has the potential to vastly change a compound’s clinical activity, including a change from therapeutic drug into a poison.

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Putin Brings Peace Between China And India – Violent Himalayan Border Region May Be Quieted

This year’s BRICS Summit in Kazan, Russia has produced more than expected, beyond the trade and reserve currency foreshadowed developments, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has begun the process of implementing a peace deal on the Himalayan border, long a violently contested area.

The deal was put together on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit.

India and China have begun implementing an agreement to end a military standoff on their disputed Himalayan border, the two sides said on Friday, in the biggest thaw between the Asian giants since deadly clashes between their armies four years ago, reported Reuters.

Troops who were eyeball-to-eyeball at two points on the frontier in India’s Ladakh region in the western Himalayas had begun pulling back, an Indian government source said, heralding an end to the standoff.

The process began on Wednesday and is expected to conclude by the end of the month, a senior Indian army official said.

“According to the recently agreed solution between India and China … their frontline armies are implementing relevant work, with smooth progress so far,” Lin Jian, a spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry said.

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India plans to launch a pilot project for facial recognition at airports for foreign nationals

Digi Yatra is a mobile-based platform that allows air travellers to store their ID and travel documents securely. The platform uses facial recognition to eliminate the need for physical ID checks, streamlining the airport experience, according to Hindustan Times.

Digi Yatra is currently only available for domestic flights within India but a pilot project for international visitors will be launched next year.

India has not yet launched an e-passport, which contains an embedded microchip storing biometric data, such as fingerprints or facial recognition.  So, a pilot project of Digi Yatra will be conducted with the help of foreign passengers who hold electronic passports (“e-passports”).

“Countries within the European Union, Singapore, etc have launched e-passports. A significant number of their citizens hold such passports. So, the pilot project will be done with their involvement,” Digi Yatra Foundation CEO Suresh Khadakbhavi said on Tuesday.

The Digi Yatra Foundation is a not-for-profit private company which is a consortium of five private airports that have a combined shareholding of 74%, and the Airports Authority of India holds the remaining 26%.

The company describes its Digi Yatra as [emphasis added]:

Digi Yatra is a Ministry of Civil Aviation, Govt. of India led initiative to make air traveller’s/ passenger’s journey seamless, hassle-free and Health-Risk-Free. The Digi Yatra process uses the single token of face biometrics to digitally validate the Identity, Travel, Health or any other data that is needed for the purpose of enabling air travel.Frequently Asked Questions, What is Digi Yatra? Digi Yatra Foundation

The pilot project will initially be implemented between two countries and will enable international visitors to use facial recognition as a boarding pass, with the Digi Yatra platform being made accessible in both regional and international languages.

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Japan And India Disagree With Biden’s Claim They Are “Xenophobic”

Japan and India have both responded to Joe Biden’s charge last week that they are “xenophobic” because they have not embraced mass immigration.

As we highlighted, Biden asserted that Japan and India are facing economic struggles while the US economy is performing well “because we welcome immigrants.”

“Think about it,” Biden said during a fundraiser, “Why is China stalling so badly economically, why is Japan having trouble, why is Russia, why is India, because they’re xenophobic. They don’t want immigrants. Immigrants are what makes us strong.”

Fox News reports that the Japanese Embassy responded to the comments, stating “We are aware that the U.S. government has clarified that President Biden’s comment was made in the context of explaining that the U.S. is a nation of immigrants and that immigrants make the U.S. stronger, and that his comment was not made with the intent of undermining the importance and permanence of the Japan-U.S. relationship.”

However, Japanese officials added “It is unfortunate that some of the comments were not based on an accurate understanding of Japan’s policies, and we have raised this point to the U.S. government and explained Japan’s positions and policies once again.”

India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar also took issue with Biden’s remarks, pointing to the country’s GDP growth and urging that India is an open society.

“I haven’t seen such an open, pluralistic, and diverse society anywhere in the world,” the minister stated during an Economic Times event, adding “We are actually not just not xenophobic, we are the most open, most pluralistic and in many ways the most understanding society in the world.”

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Three Men Arrested and Charged With Assassination of Sikh Separatist Leader in Canada

Three Indian nationals were arrested in Canada on Friday and charged with with the alleged assassination of a prominent Sikh separatist, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who was born in the Republic of India and who had been living in exile in the nation of the maple leaf flag.

According to Canadian police, the suspects, Karanpreet Singh, Kamalpreet Singh, and Karan Brar, are accused of conspiring to commit the murder using a firearm on June 18, 2023.

This incident has escalated diplomatic tensions between Canada and India, especially after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau linked the Indian government to the murder, which India has vehemently denied.

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An assassination plot on American soil reveals a darker side of Modi’s India

The White House went to extraordinary lengths last year to welcome Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a state visit meant to bolster ties with an ascendant power and potential partner against China.

Tables on the South Lawn were decorated with lotus blooms, the symbol of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party. A chef was flown in from California to preside over a vegetarian menu. President Biden extolled the shared values of a relationship “built on mutual trust, candor and respect.”

But even as the Indian leader was basking in U.S. adulation on June 22, an officer in India’s intelligence service was relaying final instructions to a hired hit team to kill one of Modi’s most vocal critics in the United States.

The assassination is a “priority now,” wrote Vikram Yadav, an officer in India’s spy agency, the Research and Analysis Wing, or RAW, according to current and former U.S. and Indian security officials.

Yadav forwarded details about the target, Sikh activist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, including his New York address, according to the officials and a U.S. indictment. As soon as the would-be assassins could confirm that Pannun, a U.S. citizen, was home, “it will be a go ahead from us.”

Yadav’s identity and affiliation, which have not previously been reported, provide the most explicit evidence to date that the assassination plan — ultimately thwarted by U.S. authorities — was directed from within the Indian spy service. Higher-ranking RAW officials have also been implicated, according to current and former Western security officials, as part of a sprawling investigation by the CIA, FBI and other agencies that has mapped potential links to Modi’s inner circle.

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High Court In India Rules That Viewing, Downloading Child Porn Is Not A Crime

The Supreme Court of India is hearing arguments from child protection organizations after the Madras High Court ruled that downloading and watching child pornography is not a criminal offense. In January, the High Court dismissed charges against 28-year-old S. Harish, who was caught in possession of two pieces of child sexual abuse material on his cell phone. 

According to OpIndia, in addition to claiming Harish was innocent because he’d never viewed child porn before, Madras High Court Judge N. Anand Venkatesh also noted that it was “done in privacy without affecting or influencing anyone else.”

The defendant claimed that the CSAM had auto-downloaded after he received it through the popular messaging app WhatsApp, which his attorneys maintained is not a criminal offense under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offenses (POCSO) Act and the Information Technology (IT) Act.

“To make out an offense under Section 14(1) of the Protection of Child from Sexual Offenses Act, 2012, a child or children must have been used for pornography purposes. This would mean that the accused person should have used the child for pornographic purposes. Even assuming that the accused person had watched child pornography [videos], that strictly will not fall within the scope of Section 14(1) of the Protection of Child from Sexual Offenses Act, 2012,” explained the judge at the Madras High Court.

Harish had his charges quashed, with the judge explaining that merely downloading and watching child pornography would not be considered a criminal offense under the POCSO Act and the Information Technology law. The decision lead to outrage from child protection groups.

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SECRET INDIAN MEMO ORDERED “CONCRETE MEASURES” AGAINST HARDEEP SINGH NIJJAR TWO MONTHS BEFORE HIS ASSASSINATION IN CANADA

THE INDIAN GOVERNMENT instructed its consulates in North America to launch a “sophisticated crackdown scheme” against Sikh diaspora organizations in Western countries, according to a secret memorandum issued in April 2023 by India’s Ministry of External Affairs. The memo, which was obtained by The Intercept, lists several Sikh dissidents under investigation by India’s intelligence agencies, including the Canadian citizen Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

“Concrete measures shall be adopted to hold the suspects accountable,” the memo says. Nijjar was murdered in Vancouver in June, two months after being named as a target in the document, a killing the Canadian government said was ordered by Indian intelligence.

The memo addresses India’s growing concerns about its reputation due to activism from Sikh dissident organizations and portrays its political enemies as extremist or even terrorist organizations. Titled “Action Points on Khalistan Extremism,” using the name Sikh activists use for a separatist state, the document lists several Sikh activist organizations it blames for engaging in “anti-India propaganda,” as well as acts of “arson and vandalization” targeting Indian interests in North America.

The document instructs officials at its consulates to cooperate with Indian intelligence agencies to confront the groups Sikhs for Justice, Babbar Khalsa International, Sikh Youth of America, Sikh Coordination Committee East Coast, World Sikh Parliament, and Shiromani Akali Dal Amritsar America. It suggests that Nijjar and several other “suspects” are affiliated with one of these groups, Babbar Khalsa International. Babbar Khalsa International is proscribed as a terrorist organization in the U.S. and Canada, but the other organizations named in the document are considered legal in both countries.

A leader of one of another of the listed groups, Sikhs for Justice, was the target of an Indian assassination plot, according to federal prosecutors in the U.S. The indictment, unsealed last week, accused Nikhil Gupta, an Indian national, of working with Indian officials to kill Sikhs for Justice general counsel Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, an American citizen based in New York.

The leaked April memo from India’s Ministry of External Affairs does not explicitly order the killings of Sikh activists. Instead, it calls on Indian consular officials operating in the U.S. and Canada to work in cooperation with India’s Research and Analysis Wing, a foreign intelligence agency; the National Investigation Agency, a counterterror police force; and the Intelligence Bureau, an internal security agency akin to the FBI. Aside from Nijjar, a number of people accused in the document of having ties with BKI are believed to be based in Pakistan or currently incarcerated in India.

The Indian government did not respond to a request for comment. While the U.S. and Canada have both now charged India with orchestrating assassinations against Sikhs in the West, the secret document obtained by The Intercept is the first public evidence showing that the Indian government was targeting these specific Sikh diaspora organizations and dissidents.

Those involved in Sikh diaspora advocacy said that the Indian government frequently characterizes any political activity by Sikh separatist organizations as militant or extremist in nature.

“The Indian government and media consistently aim to manufacture a narrative that describes any type of political advocacy for Khalistan or Sikh sovereignty as ‘Sikh extremism’ as a pretext to justify a repressive security-based response,” said Prabjot Singh, an activist and editor of the Panth-Punjab Project, a digital platform focusing on Sikh politics and sociopolitical issues. “It’s important to recognize that this is a strategy that India employs in Punjab to justify crackdowns on Sikh political organizing, while misusing diplomatic resources abroad to try and enlist other countries as partners in this effort.”

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Indian man charged with assassination plot aimed at Sikh activist in NYC

The Justice Department announced charges against an Indian man who’s accused of directing an assassination plot.

Nikhil “Nick” Gupta was charged on Wednesday after an Indian government employee who works on security and intelligence encouraged him to take out a Sikh activist who supports a sovereign state in northern India, the Department of Justice said.

The defendant conspired from India to assassinate, right here in New York City, a U.S. citizen of Indian origin who has publicly advocated for the establishment of a sovereign state for Sikhs,” said Manhattan prosecutor Damian Williams in a statement.

It’s the second such incident announced in the past week. According to President Joe Biden’s administration, investigators foiled another plot to kill a Sikh separatist in the United States.

Among the most startling details in the Justice Department’s statement is an alleged revelation from Gupta to an undercover DEA agent that another Sikh leader, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, “was also the target.”

In fact, he revealed, “We have so many targets.”

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