Why do you find this surprising?
Both India and Hungary are currently governed by anti-democratic right wing administrations (Modi and Orban). Not that surprising to see the State try to abuse power.
The list for India is weird though. It has a lot of names which are in the pro current establishment camp and some of their own leaders as well.
Could it be some other state snooping on them or has it found usage by non state actors as well?
Ah, that's incorrect. The first article released yesterday released names of 40 Indian journalists. I see a few pro Modi names there. https://thewire.in/media/pegasus-project-spyware-indian-jour...
As far what's to come: "The numbers of those in the database include over 40 journalists, three major opposition figures, one constitutional authority, two serving ministers in the Narendra Modi government, current and former heads and officials of security organisations and scores of businesspersons."[1]
These will be released in further articles of the series "Project Pegasus"
[1] https://thewire.in/government/project-pegasus-journalists-mi...
It’s not that weird when you look at it. Most news agencies are privately owned. These journalists aren’t born stooges of the Government. Many of them were forced to become pro-Government when the Government threatened to pull advertising by Public corporations on their networks. That’s one lever. Having dirt on the journalists? Another lever.
In fact, I would argue, that they have a mandate from its people ( hence they are democratic ) and their program is very open about the changes they propose ( which may unpopular in EU salons, but not for an ordinary citizen ).
This market has been developing for the past 2 decades there are a lot more players than NSO and most of them aren’t in Israel.