Archives for August 2021

New Delhi: The Congress on Thursday alleged that the party’s official Twitter account as well as that of a large number of its leaders and workers have been blocked by the microblogging site.

This comes close on the heels of the blocking of party leader Rahul Gandhi’s Twitter account after he shared pictures of the family of the nine-year-old alleged rape and murder victim last week in violation of the law.

Congress social media department head Rohan Gupta said the party’s official Twitter account and around 5,000 accounts of its top leaders and workers have been blocked by Twitter.

He alleged that Twitter is acting against Congress leaders under pressure from the government.

“Twitter is clearly acting under government’s pressure, as it did not remove the same pictures shared by the Twitter accounts of National Commission for Scheduled Castes for a few days,” Gupta said.

The Twitter accounts of AICC general secretaries Randeep Surjewala, K C Venugopal, Ajay Maken, party’s whip in Lok Sabha Manickam Tagore, Assam in-charge and former Union minister Jitendra Singh and Mahila Congress president Sushmita Dev have also been locked, the party said.

“So! After Shri @RahulGandhi, the Lord @narendramodi Ji and Vassal @Jack & @twitter have locked @rssurjewala, @ajaymaken & @sushmitadevinc. @INCIndia registers its protest and promises to continue the fight for each and all being wronged! We shall hold on @AshwiniVaishnaw Ji,” tweeted Pranav Jha, AICC secretary in-charge of party’s Communications Department last night. His account was later blocked too at night.

“The list goes on. @Twitter locks @JitendraSAlwar and @manickamtagore and many more. Doesn’t Modi Ji understand that we @INCindia’ns have a legacy of fighting even from behind the locks of kaala paani,” he had asked in another tweet.

“He thinks the virtual locks of Twitter will deter us from fighting for India,” Jha said.

The Congress has accused Twitter of acting against Gandhi’s account under pressure from the government.

Gandhi had tweeted pictures with the family of a nine-year-old victim of alleged rape and murder in Delhi last week.

The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) took cognisance of Gandhi’s tweet and directed Twitter to act against the Congress leader’s account for violating the privacy of a minor victim, mandated by the laws of the land.

Kabul, Aug 12 (AP) The Taliban captured a police headquarters Thursday in a provincial capital in southern Afghanistan teetering toward being lost to the insurgents as suspected US airstrikes pounded the area, an official said.

Fighting raged in Lashkar Gah, one of Afghanistan’s largest cities in the Taliban heartland of Helmand province, where surrounded government forces hoped to hold onto the capital after the militants’ weeklong blitz has seen them already seized nine others around the country.

Afghan security forces and the government have not responded to repeated requests for comment over the days of fighting. However, President Ashraf Ghani is trying to rally a counteroffensive relying on his country’s special forces, the militias of warlords and American airpower ahead of the U.S. and NATO withdraw at the end of the month.

While the capital of Kabul itself has not been directly threatened in the advance, the stunning speed of the offensive raises questions of how long the Afghan government can maintain control of the slivers of the country it has left. The government may eventually be forced to pull back to defend the capital and just a few other cities as thousands displaced by the fighting fled to Kabul and now live in open fields and parks.

The fighting around Lashkar Gah has raged for weeks. On Wednesday, a suicide car bombing marked the latest wave to target the capital’s regional police headquarters. By Thursday, the Taliban had taken the building, with some police officers surrendering to the militants and others retreating to the nearby governor’s office that’s still held by government forces, said Nasima Niazi, a lawmaker from Helmand.

Niazi said she believed the Taliban attack killed and wounded security force members, but she had no casualty breakdown. Another suicide car bombing targeted the provincial prison, but the government still held it, she said. The Taliban’s other advances have seen the militants free hundreds of its members over the last week, bolstering their ranks while seizing American-supplied weapons and vehicles.

Niazi criticized ongoing airstrikes targeted the area, saying civilians likely had been wounded and killed.

The Taliban used civilian houses to protect themselves, and the government, without paying any attention to civilians, carried out airstrikes, she said.

With the Afghan air power limited and in disarray, the U.S. Air Force is believed to be carrying out some series of strikes to support Afghan forces. Aviation tracking data suggested U.S. Air Force B-52 bombers, F-15 fighter jets, drones and other aircraft were involved in the fighting overnight across the country, according to Australia-based security firm The Cavell Group.

It’s unclear what casualties the U.S. bombing campaign has caused. The U.S. Air Force’s Central Command, based in Qatar, did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.

Meanwhile, the Taliban appeared to be pressing into the capital of Ghazni province, some 130 kilometers (80 miles) southwest of Kabul. Wahidullah Jumazada, a spokesman for the provincial governor in Ghazni, acknowledged the insurgents had launched attacks from several directions on the capital, but insisted the government remained in control.

The Taliban posted a video online claiming they had made it inside the provincial capital.

The success of the Taliban offensive also calls into question whether they would ever rejoin long-stalled peace talks in Qatar aimed at moving Afghanistan toward an inclusive interim administration as the West hoped. Instead, the Taliban could come to power by force or the country could splinter into factional fighting like it did after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989.

The multiple battle fronts have stretched the government’s special operations forces while regular troops have often fled the battlefield and the violence has pushed thousands of civilians to seek safety in the capital.

The latest U.S. military intelligence assessment is that Kabul could come under insurgent pressure within 30 days and that if current trends hold, the Taliban could gain full control of the country within a couple of months.

Shimla: Three more bodies were recovered from the landslide site in Himachal Pradesh’s Kinnaur district where the search and rescue operation resumed early on Thursday, raising the death toll to 13, officials said.

Three bodies were recovered from the Himachal Road Transport Corporation (HRTC) bus, which, along with other vehicles, was buried under the debris, State Disaster Management Director Sudesh Kumar Mokhta said.

The bus was found in a badly damaged condition, he added. Another vehicle, a Bolero, still lies buried under the rubble.

The rescue work, being carried out jointly by the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) and the members of local police and home guards, resumed at 6 am, Mokhta said.

The authorities had suspended the operation on Wednesday at around 10 pm.

The HRTC bus, which had been on its way from Reckong Peo to Haridwar via Shimla, was hit by the boulders after a landslide around Wednesday noon near Chaura village on national highway-5 in Nigulsari area of Nichar tehsil.

Ten bodies were recovered on Wednesday, while 13 others were rescued with injuries.

Several others are still feared buried under the debris.

Eight of the dead were found trapped in a Tata Sumo taxi during the search and rescue operation on Wednesday.

Sriharikota (AP)(PTI): ISRO’s GSLV rocket on Thursday failed to inject into the orbit, the country’s latest earth observation satellite EOS-03 due to a failure to ignite the cryogenic stage of the launch vehicle, prompting the premier space agency to declare the mission could not be achieved as intended.

However, the first and second stages of the rocket had performed normally, the Bengaluru-headquartered Indian Space Research Organisation said.

In a notification, ISRO said, “GSLV-F10 launch took place today at 0543 hrs as scheduled. Performance of first and second stages was normal. However, Cryogenic Upper Stage ignition did not happen due to technical anomaly. The mission could not be accomplished as intended.”

According to ISRO, the cryogenic upper stage ignition was scheduled to take place 4.56 minutes after the lift-off.

A formal announcement was also made at the Mission Control Centre by the range operations director, stating, “performance anomaly observed in the cryogenic stage. The mission could not be accomplished fully.”

ISRO Chairman K Sivan said, “(the mission) could not be fully accomplished mainly because there is a technical anomaly observed in the cryogenic stage. This I wanted to tell all my friends.”

ISRO, after facing hurdles caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, resumed its launch operations for the rocket to place the satellite with an objective to provide near real-time imaging of large areas of the country at frequent intervals and quick monitoring of natural disasters.

As the 26-hour countdown concluded on Thursday, the 51.70 metre tall rocket with four stages lifted off majestically at 05.43hrs, leaving behind a trail of thick orange coloured fumes.

The four-stage rocket was the first to carry a four-metre dia ‘Ogive Payload Fairing’ at the top of the vehicle to accommodate larger payloads.

The rocket was supposed to place the EOS “an agile state-of-the-art satellite into the Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit, 19 minutes after lift-off.

Thursday’s unsuccessful attempt to launch the satellite came in the wake of scientists postponing the earlier planned missions earlier.

The satellite, originally titled GISAT-1 weighing 2,268 kg was slated to be launched on March 5, 2020 but it was postponed a day before the lift-off due to ‘technical reasons’.

The Covid-induced lockdown further delayed the mission and once again it was scheduled for a March 28, 2021 launch but a ‘minor issue’ with the satellite forced yet another postponement.

The objective of Thursday’s mission was to provide near real-time imaging of large area regions at frequent intervals, for quick monitoring of natural disasters, episodic events and obtain spectral signatures for agriculture, forestry, water bodies as well as for disaster warning, cyclone monitoring, cloud burst and thunderstorm monitoring.

Before Thursday’s launch, ISRO had launched Brazil’s earth observation satellite Amazonia-1 and 18 co-passenger satellites in February this year.

Thursday’s mission is the eighth flight with indigenous cryogenic engine, 14th flight of the GSLV and also marks the 79th launch vehicle mission from Sriharikota.

Previous launches of GSLV rockets include the GSLV-MkIII-M1/ Chandrayaan-2 mission in July 2019 while GSLV-F11 successfully placed GSAT-7A in December 2018.

An earth observation satellite — EOS-01 — was launched in November 2020 by polar satellite launch vehicle PSLV-C49, ISRO said.

ISRO had made arrangements to watch the launch through its various social media platforms.

Palanpur: Police in Gujarat have registered an FIR against two persons and detained them after a video purportedly showing BJP MP Parbatbhai Patel in a compromising position with a woman went viral on social media even as the parliamentarian claimed the clip was doctored, said an official on Wednesday.

The FIR was lodged on Tuesday at the Tharad police station of Banaskantha district on a complaint given by the MP’s son, Shailesh Patel, said Deputy Superintendent of Police P H Chaudhary, adding the Local Crime Branch (LCB) is probing the case.

Parbatbhai Patel (72), the Lok Sabha MP from Banaskantha, denied any wrongdoing and claimed the video has been doctored and his face superimposed on the person seen in the clip, while his family alleged a conspiracy to extort money and defame them.

“In his complaint, Shailesh Patel has alleged that his father’s edited video was made viral on social media by the two accused – Magha Patel and Mukesh Rajput (both detained) as part of a pre-planned conspiracy.

“We have lodged an FIR under sections 389 (extortion), 500 (defamation), criminal conspiracy (120-B) of the IPC and under relevant sections of the IT Act,” he said.

Evidence collected so far suggests there was a conspiracy to malign the MP’s image and extort money from him through the video, said the DySP.

In the one-minute video, a man resembling Parbatbhai Patel can be seen hugging a woman on a sofa and getting intimate. It appears they were aware about the presence of some other persons in the room, including the one who was shooting the video.

According to Chaudhary, Magha Patel had earlier threatened on his Facebook page that he will “publish a video of Banaskantha’s top politician on August 15”.

Then on Tuesday, the same video, purportedly featuring Parbatbhai Patel, was shared in a WhatsApp group by Mukesh Rajput, he said.

“Both (Magha Patel and Rajput) were shown as accused in the FIR. They were detained for questioning by the LCB. Evidence given by the complainant and collected from the social media by police primarily establish that there was a conspiracy to malign the MP’s image and extort money from him through this video,” said the DySP.

He added that the video will be sent for forensic analysis to find out its authenticity.

Shailesh Patel told reporters that the video has been used for defaming his father and to extort money.

“Magha Patel has been threatening to release the video for some time. This is an edited video created only to defame my father. This is a conspiracy and the accused had earlier demanded money in exchange for not releasing the video,” said Shailesh Patel.

Parbatbhai Patel, who had previously served as a minister in the BJP government in Gujarat, claimed the video has been edited by superimposing his face on the person seen in the clip.

“Everyone knows about my character. I never indulged in any wrongdoings in my entire life. It is possible that my photo was used for making such an edited video.

“People have been trying to extort money from me since 2016 for this video. I had challenged them to release it if they want to,” said the Lok Sabha MP.

New Delhi: The Centre gave only 12-14 hours to the Delhi government to furnish data on deaths due to oxygen shortage during the second COVID-19 wave, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said on Wednesday, a day after he had claimed no such communication was received by it.

Sisodia’s statement came after Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya questioned the Delhi government’s claim of not having received any letter from the Centre inquiring about deaths due to oxygen shortage and tweeted the communication sent by his ministry on July 26 in this regard.

In the communication received by the Delhi government on July 26, the Centre gave time till noon of the next day to file the data, a mere 12-14 hours time frame, Sisodia said in response to Mandaviya’s tweet.

Sharing a snapshot of the mail sent to the Delhi government on Twitter and addressing Sisodia, Mandaviya had earlier in the day said it is not too late and he can send the data by August 13 so that the health ministry can reply to Parliament on the issue.

Sisodia claimed the time given till August 13 was not mentioned in Centre’s letter.

“It was never mentioned that the data can be submitted by August 13. If there is any such letter that says so then it must be shown by the Centre,” Sisodia said in a statement.

The Delhi government will “soon” submit a report to the Centre on the issue of deaths due to oxygen shortage in Delhi, he added.

Sisodia, who is also the nodal minister of the Delhi government for COVID-19, had on Tuesday claimed that the Delhi government had not received any letter from the Centre inquiring about deaths due to oxygen shortage during the second COVID-19 wave.

Last month, opposition parties had hit out at the government for informing the Parliament that no deaths due to oxygen shortage have been specifically reported by states and Union Territories during the second COVID-19 wave.

The central government at a press briefing on Tuesday said only one state has till now reported “suspected” deaths due to oxygen shortage during the second wave of COVID-19 after the Centre sought the data from them on such fatalities following the raising of the issue in Parliament.

“When the question was raised in Parliament, states were specifically asked this question and as per reports received only one state mentioned suspected death and no state has so far said that there were deaths because of oxygen shortage,” Joint Secretary in the Union Health Ministry Lav Agarwal had said while replying to a query.

According to the sources, 13 states and UTs including Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Odisha, Uttarakhand, Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh, Jharkhand, Himachal Pradesh and Punjab have responded to the query by Tuesday.

They said only Punjab has reported four “suspected” deaths due to oxygen shortage.

There were reports of deaths of COVID patients due to a shortage of oxygen in some hospitals in Delhi during the second wave of Coronavirus in April-May this year

New Delhi: Punjab CM Amarinder Singh on Wednesday met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and urged him to immediately initiate steps for the repeal of the controversial farm laws.

He also sought amendment to the relevant law for including farmers in free legal aid category, the chief minister’s office said.

The Punjab CM, who called on the prime minister here late this evening, submitted two separate letters, called for the immediate review and revocation of the three farm laws that have triggered widespread resentment among farmers of Punjab and other states.

Farmers have been protesting at Delhi borders since November 26 last year against the agriculture legislations and have demanded their immediate withdrawal.

The chief minister said the farmers’ agitation had the potential of posing security threats to Punjab and the country with Pakistan-backed anti-India forces looking to exploit the farmers’ discontent with the government, an official statement said.

He called for the prime minister’s intervention for the expeditious redress of the concerns of farmers.

He said the Government of India should explore an enduring solution to end the continued agitation as it was not only impacting economic activities in Punjab but also had the potential to affect the social fabric, especially when political parties and groups take strong positions.

Amarinder Singh noted that he had earlier too sought the prime minister’s appointment for a meeting with an all-party delegation from Punjab, his office said.

He also called for the need to compensate farmers for the management of paddy straw at the rate of Rs 100 per quintal and also to address the fears of DAP shortage, which could aggravate the farmers’ problems and the crisis triggered by the farm laws.

In another letter, the chief minister stressed that due to the fragmentation of landholdings and persistent disputes with lessees and various market operators and agents, farmers are facing heightened litigation these days that has caused stress on their meagre financial resources.

Stressing the need to reduce the farmers’ financial burden as a result of such litigation, he noted that the Central Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987 provides free legal aid to certain categories of persons, who are perceived to be the vulnerable sections of society.

Pointing out that the country’s farmers are also very vulnerable, he said they are, at times, compelled to commit suicide due to financial problems, even though they remain proud and prefer to till their land even at the cost of their lives.

“It is, thus, the need of the hour to amend Section 12 of the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987, to include farmers and farm workers in the category of persons entitled to free legal services to pursue and defend themselves in the courts to secure their livelihood, Singh was quoted as saying in the statement.

He felt this step would help reduce cases of farmer suicides and ensure better protection of their legal and financial rights.

The chief minister urged the prime minister to advise the central ministries dealing with farmer welfare and laws to carry out necessary amendments to the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987, in the larger interest of farmers