Parliamentary panel raises PM's Twitter account hacking issue, unhappy with IT ministry's reply

By Ashoke Raj
New Delhi [India], December 13 (ANI): The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology (IT) on Monday raised the issue of hacking of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Twitter account.
Sources in the committee told ANI that the committee members asked the officials of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), who were called for the agenda meeting today what was the reason behind compromised the PM's Twitter account and was there any initial report.
MeitY officials replied to the committee that, "the matter is under investigation," committee sources told ANI.
Another member told officials that the committee needs to know whether a team has been formed to probe the issue and what was suggested in the preliminary report.
MeitY officials informed the committee that, "The Prime Minister's Office is also taking up the issue with social media giant Twitter," sources told ANI.
Further, the parliamentary standing committee expressed dissatisfaction with the officials of MeitY and asked at its meeting today "How it can be possible to hack the PM account."
The Parliamentary Standing Committee summoned MeitY officials on agenda of evidence of the representatives of Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology on the subject 'Safeguarding citizens' rights and prevention of misuse of social/online news media platforms with special emphasis on women's security in the digital space."
Twitter on Sunday clarified that it took necessary steps to secure the compromised handle of Prime Minister Narendra Modi as soon as it became aware of this activity.
"We have 24X7 open lines of communication with the PM's Office and our teams took necessary steps to secure the compromised account as soon as we became aware of this activity. Our investigation has revealed that there are no signs of any other impacted accounts at this time," the Twitter spokesperson had said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Twitter handle was "very briefly compromised" and was secured later after the matter was escalated to the micro-blogging site, the Prime Minister's Office said on Sunday.
"The Twitter handle of PM @narendramodi was very briefly compromised. The matter was escalated to Twitter and the account has been immediately secured. In the brief period that the account was compromised, any Tweet shared must be ignored," PMO India had tweeted. (ANI)