NEW DELHI: A day after a report of alleged breach of sensitive data of the Kudankulam nuclear power plant (KNPP), space, atomic energy, science and technology minister Jitendra Singh asserted on Thursday that there was no breach of sensitive data from the largest nuclear power plant of the country.Rubbishing reports of breach of sensitive data related to units 3 and 4 of the Tamil Nadu nuclear plant, Union minister Jitendra Singh told TOI, “There is no breach of nuclear reactor data.” He also made it clear that there is no need for a review if nothing has happened.A day earlier, Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd, which is leading the construction and operation of reactors at Kudankulam, had said that its core systems were untouched by a “cyber security incident”, after ransomware group World Leaks posted a huge cache of files related to the N-plant on the dark web and claimed data breach.Reliance Infrastructure was involved in designing and building infrastructure for the plant’s unit 3 and unit 4 in 2018. NPCIL said the engineering, procurement and construction contract for the common services awarded to R-Infra are of conventional nature and are typically found in thermal power plants as well as other process industries.A day before, a Reliance Group spokesperson said, “The company was informed by Yotta Data Services Private Limited (Yotta), its third-party data centre service provider, of a cybersecurity incident involving an attempted ransomware attack that resulted in partial breach of data hosted on one of Yotta’s servers. Yotta has informed the company that the suspicious process was identified and terminated immediately, and the incident was contained and also that no ransomware execution, data loss, or lateral movement occurred, and services were restored.”On Wednesday, NPCIL executive director (CP&CC) Prateek Agrawal told TOI, “They (files leaked) are not related to nuclear safety or nuclear security systems. Like thermal power plants, tenders are issued for common services. Such common services are not associated with the core systems of the nuclear plant.”Just 1.6% of Isro scientists-engineers taken VRS or resigned during 2025-26: Dept of Space sourcesOn reports of an internal memo on tightening rules for voluntary retirement (VRS) for Isro employees amid a mass exodus claim, sources in the Department of Space clarified that “the number of scientists and engineers taken VRS or resigned during 2025-26 is 144, which is about 1.6% of sanctioned levels of scientist and engineers for the department of space”. “The trend is similar to the attrition levels noticed in previous years,” the sources said, clarifying that there is nothing alarming about it.
