Govt has no plans to ban NSO Group: IT Ministry

India is not planning to ban the Israel-based NSO Group, whose Pegasus software has been at the centre of several surveillance controversies over the last couple of years, the Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology said today in response to a question in the Rajya Sabha. Rajeev Chandrasekhar (pictured) was responding to Samajwadi Party MPS Vishambhar Prasad Nishad and Sukhram Singh Yadav's questions asking the government whether the US has blacklisted NSO Group and Candiru for providing Pegasus spyware which has been maliciously used to target journalists, embassy workers and activists. Chandrashekhar said in a written response that “no such information is available in the Ministry”.