NITISH SLAMS ‘SNOOPING’, FAVOURS TALKS WITH FARMERS

PATNA: Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar on Monday denounced the alleged phone tapping of prominent personalities, including journalists, in India using Israeli Pegasus spyware.

“There are some bad aspects of technical evolutions. Sometimes, technologies, which are largely beneficial, can be misused also. But it is not good that the technology should be misused to trouble someone,” the chief minister said while responding to a query during his Janata Durbar (people’s court).

Kumar also favoured a dialogue with the farmers to resolve their months-long agitation on Delhi’s borders against the three new farm laws.

“The central government has been holding talks with the farmers. The dialogue between the government and agitating farmers should continue to break the deadlock,” he said, while appealing to farmers to be considerate and put off their protest in view of the Covid-19 pandemic. “Everyone has the right to protest. But given the pandemic situation that the country and the world are grappling with, it is not good for the people to remain on dharna continuously for so long,” said Kumar.

The CM said the farmers’ protest was confined to a few states, which reaped rich harvest and earned handsomely through procurement. “The new farm laws do not pose any issue for Bihar’s farmers,” he said.

To another query over rising prices of petroleum products, Kumar said he would take up the issue with the central government.