2 Congress-led House panels to examine WhatsApp case

NEW DELHI: The spying scandal appears headed for escalation, with two parliamentary panels deciding to examine the issue by seeking details from the government.
While the Centre has claimed that it was not aware of the WhatsApp snooping, the political opposition has been pointing fingers at the Modi regime since the scandal broke. Now, the parliamentary standing committees on home affairs and science and technology will start hearings on the scandal, with the former scheduled to meet on November 15.
Crucially, both panels are headed by Congress leaders - the home committee by deputy leader of opposition in Rajya Sabha Anand Sharma and the science and technology panel by Lok Sabha MP Shashi Tharoor.
As the home secretary is scheduled to brief the home committee on the situation in Jammu & Kashmir in the next meeting, Sharma said, "In that meeting, this issue will also be discussed and we will seek details from the secretary."
Tharoor added, "Cyber security is a major issue on our agenda and we are definitely going to take this up under that rubric. And we will be seeking clarifications from the government."
According to Tharoor, in the wake of the WhatsApp-NSO issue, it was critical to ensure that other social media platforms were not compromised similarly.
"It is vital that as a democracy, India remains vigilant about the risk of our freedoms being eroded by technological means. We must not, at any price, become a surveillance state like China," the Congress MP said.