Archives for May 2022

Parmesh S Jain

The Bengaluru international airport police on Tuesday raided a hookah bar and arrested three persons operating the bar illegally.

Based on a tip off,a team of police raided cafe runway bar situated at Kannamangala gate and arrested the manager identified as Athikhur Rahman along with two of his employees.

The police have seized 13 hookahs,15 packs of flavoured tobacco and other equipments from them.

The bar was owned by Waseem Ahmed and Mohammed Salman .

The police have registered a case under various sections of the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act and also under Karnataka Police Act for further investigations.

LONDON: Elon Musk said Twitter would reverse its ban of former President Donald Trump if his purchase of the social media company goes through, signalling just how permissive the platform could become toward free speech under his ownership.

Speaking virtually at an auto conference, the Tesla CEO said on Tuesday that Twitter’s ban of Trump following the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol was a “morally bad decision” and “foolish in the extreme.”

“I think that was a mistake because it alienated a large part of the country and did not ultimately result in Donald Trump not having a voice,” said Musk, adding that he preferred temporary suspensions and other narrowly tailored punishments for content that is illegal or otherwise “destructive to the world.”

Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey voiced his agreement in a Tuesday tweet in which he said “generally permanent bans are a failure of ours and don’t work.”

Shares of Twitter dropped 1.5 per cent Tuesday to $47.24 per share. That’s 13 per cent below the offer of $54.20 per share — or $44 billion — that Musk made on April 14, a reflection of Wall Street’s concerns that the deal could still fall through. Musk emphasized Tuesday that it is “certainly not a done deal.”

Musk has repeatedly criticized Twitter’s content moderation decisions, including banning Trump for “incitement of violence,” but had mostly avoided saying what he would do about Trump’s account. He was pressed for more details Tuesday by Peter Campbell, an automotive correspondent for the Financial Times, which hosted the auto conference.

“If Musk is concerned that many people were upset that Trump was banned, he should see how many more people would be upset if Trump was not banned,” said Kirsten Martin, a professor of technology ethics at the University of Notre Dame. “Musk only appears to be worried about the opinion of a small group of individuals who incite violence or perpetuate hate speech.”

Trump has previously said that he had no intention of rejoining Twitter even if his account was reinstated, telling Fox News last month that he would instead focus on his own platform, Truth Social, which has been mired in problems since its launch earlier this year.

Musk appeared to take those claims at face value, saying Tuesday that Trump will be going to Truth Social along with a “large part” of the U.S. political right, creating a situation that’s “frankly worse than having a single forum where everyone can debate.”

A Trump spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment in response to Musk’s remarks.

While Trump was president, his Twitter persona functioned as a mix of policy announcements, often out of the blue; complaints about the media; disparagement of women, minorities and his perceived enemies; and praise for his supporters, replete with exclamation marks, all-caps, and one-word declarations such as “Sad!”

He fired numerous officials on Twitter and his posts, like his speeches at rallies, were a torrent of misinformation.

In announcing its ban of Trump in 2021, Twitter said his tweets amounted to the glorification of violence when read in the context of the Capitol riot and plans circulating online for future armed protests around the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden.

Musk’s remarks Tuesday raise questions about whether those banned besides Trump could also return. The long list of people banned from Twitter includes QAnon loyalists, COVID deniers, neo-Nazis and former reality star Tila Tequila, who was suspended for hate speech.

Other Trump allies that kicked off Twitter include Michael Flynn and Sidney Powell, Lin Wood and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who was permanently banned in January for repeatedly spreading misinformation about COVID-19 and vaccine safety.

White supremacist David Duke and the often violent Proud Boys organization have been banned, along with far-right trolls like one who goes by the name Baked Alaska, who promoted anti-Semitic tropes and faces charges stemming from his involvement in the January 6 attack.

Alex Jones, the creator of Infowars, was permanently banned in 2018 for abusive behaviour. Last year, Jones lost a defamation case filed by the parents of children killed in the 2012 Newtown, Connecticut, school shooting over Jones’ repeated claims that the shooting was fake.

Twitter, Musk said Tuesday, currently has a strong bias to the left, largely because it is located in San Francisco. This alleged bias prevents it from building trust in the rest of the US and the world, he said: “It’s far too random and I think Twitter needs to be much more even-handed.”

Earlier on Tuesday, Musk said he supported a new European Union law aimed at protecting social media users from harmful content after he met with the bloc’s single market chief.

EU Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton told The Associated Press on Tuesday that he outlined to Musk how the bloc’s online regulations aim to uphold free speech while also making sure whatever is illegal “will be forbidden in the digital space,” which Musk “fully agreed with.”

In a video Breton tweeted late Monday, Musk said the two had a “great discussion” and that he agrees with the Digital Services Act, which is expected to get final approval later this year. It will make big tech companies like Twitter, Google and Facebook parent Meta police their platforms more strictly for illegal or harmful content like hate speech and disinformation or face billions in fines.

NEW DELHI:  The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has taken action against nine pilots and 32 cabin-crew who failed pre-flight alcohol tests between January 1 and April 30 this year. 

Of them, two pilots and two cabin-crew members have been suspended for a period of three years for being positive for the second time, the aviation regulators said in a statement on Tuesday.

The remaining seven pilots and 30 cabin-crew members were suspended for three months as they tested breathalyser positive for the first time, it added.

According to the DGCA, four pilots and 10 cabin-crew members of IndiGo, one pilot and five cabin-crew members of Go First, one pilot and six cabin-crew members of SpiceJet, one pilot of Air India Express and four cabin-crew members of AirAsia India failed the pre-flight alcohol tests in the said period.

One pilot and two cabin-crew members of Vistara, one pilot of Alliance Air and five cabin-crew members of Air India also failed the test.

The DGCA had stated last month that airlines must ensure that 50 per cent of their cockpit and cabin-crew members are subjected to pre-flight alcohol tests on a daily basis.

Before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, all crew members were required to undergo pre-flight alcohol tests.

When the pandemic struck, the tests were suspended for a couple of months.

Subsequently, the tests were resumed but for only a small percentage of crew members.

“During the period of four months commencing from January 1, the DGCA has carried out 48 enforcement actions for violations of various requirements of the regulation regarding testing of crew for the consumption of alcohol,” the aviation regulator said.

Apart from the action against the 41 crew members (nine pilots and 32 cabin-crew members), the DGCA has also acted against seven crew members for “missing BA tests or not furnishing the declaration”.

India resumed full scheduled international flights on March 27 after two years of Covid-induced suspension.

The country resumed full scheduled domestic flights on October 18 last year.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The health department has stepped up surveillance for Nipah virus in the state and has asked hospitals to monitor patients reporting symptoms similar to the viral infection.

 Health Minister Veena George said monitoring will be increased in all districts, even though Nipah cases have been previously reported only in Kozhikode and Ernakulam. 

Vigil against the virus will be carried out with the cooperation of the forest and animal husbandry departments.

The health department will hold a workshop on its Nipah experience at Gender Park in Kozhikode on May 12.

Health workers, scientists from Indian Council of Medical Research, National Institute of Virology, State Institute of Virology, officers from forest and animal husbandry departments will attend.

Nipah virus has a higher mortality rate than other viral infections, even Covid. It is a zoonotic virus, which means it can be transmitted from animals to humans.

It can also be transmitted through contaminated food or directly between people. Nipah infection is considered an emerging infectious disease threat by the World Health Organization.

Nipah outbreak was first reported in Perambra in Kozhikode in May 2018 and later spread to adjoining Malappuram.

Sixteen people died. The outbreak was contained and declared over on June 10, 2018.

The virus was detected again next year in Ernakulam, but none died. The last reported case was in 2021, in a 12-year old boy from Kozhikode who died later. 

Fruit bats are considered the source of Nipah virus, though the health department could not establish the link of transmission from bats to humans.

The National Institute of Virology, Pune, had detected antibodies against Nipah in the samples collected from bats from the surroundings of the victims’ houses.

SHIMLA: Veteran Congress leader and former Union minister Sukh Ram has died, his grandson said on Wednesday.

He was 94.

He had suffered a brain stroke in Manali in Himachal Pradesh on May 4, following which he was admitted at the regional hospital in Mandi.

Later, the Congress leader was airlifted to Delhi and admitted to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) for better treatment on May 7.

Sukh Ram’s grandson Aashray Sharma said his body will be kept at Seri Manch in Himachal Pradesh’s Mandi for ‘antim darshans’ on Thursday.

“Goodbye grandfather, the phone won’t ring now (alvida dadajee, abhi nahi bajegee phone ki ghanti),” Aashray Sharma said in a Facebook post around 2 am on Wednesday.

However, the post did not mention when Sukh Ram breathed his last.

In another post on Wednesday morning, Aashray Sharma said Sukh Ram’s body will reach his home city Mandi on Wednesday at 6 pm.

His body will be kept at Seri Manch in Mandi for ‘antim darshans’ for the public to pay tributes on Thursday at 11 am, he added.

Aashray Sharma also posted his childhood photo with his grandfather.

Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur on May 7 had provided a state helicopter for airlifting the veteran political leader to Delhi for treatment.

Sukh Ram was the Union minister of state communications (independent charge) from 1993 to 1996.

He was a member of the Lok Sabha from the Mandi constituency.

He won in five assembly elections and was thrice elected to Lok Sabha.

In 2011, Sukh Ram was sentenced to five years imprisonment for corruption when he was communications minister in 1996.

His son Anil Sharma is a BJP MLA from Mandi.

Sukh Ram had represented the Mandi assembly seat from 1963 to 1984.

During his tenure as state animal husbandry minister, he brought cows from Germany which led to the increase in income of farmers.

He was elected to Lok Sabha in 1984 and served as a junior minister in the Rajiv Gandhi government.

Sukh Ram served as minister of state for defence production and supplies, planning and food and civil supplies.

Sukh Ram was the union minister of state (independent charge) holding the communications portfolio from 1993 to 1996.

While Sukh Ram represented the Mandi Lok Sabha constituency, his son Anil Sharma contested and won the assembly seat in 1993.

The Congress leader had won the Mandi Lok Sabha seat in 1996, but he and his son were expelled from the party after the telecom scam.

Subsequently, they floated the Himachal Vikas Congress Party, which entered into a post-poll alliance with the BJP and joined the government.

In 1998, Sukh Ram contested the assembly elections from Mandi Sadar and won by a huge margin.

His son Anil Sharma was elected to Rajya Sabha in 1998.

In the 2003 assembly poll, he retained the Mandi assembly seat but rejoined the Congress in the run-up to the 2004 Lok Sabha polls.

His son Anil Sharma won the Mandi assembly seat in 2007 and 2012 as a Congress candidate.

Prior to the 2017 assembly elections, Sukh Ram joined the BJP along with his son and grandson.

However, Sukh Ram along with his grandson rejoined the Congress right before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections to get a Congress ticket for Aashray Sharam but he could not win.

Sukh Ram was born on July 27, 1927.

His other grandson Aayush Sharma is an actor and married to Bollywood superstar Salman Khan’s sister.

KAMAREDDY/KARIMNAGAR: Advising those accusing Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao of amassing huge assets to first learn about his family background, MAUD Minister KT Rama Rao on Tuesday said that the TRS supremo was born in a rich family and has huge ancestral lands. 

Stating that he would be constructing a school with his own funds in his grandmother’s village, the Minister laid the foundation stone for the school building in Konapur village. The school building would be constructed at an estimated cost of Rs 2.50 crore and would be named after Chandrasekhar Rao’s mother Venkatamma Raghava Rao. The school would have 14 classrooms in a double-storeyed building and all facilities. “It will be a model for ot-her schools,” Rama Rao said.

“My grandmother’s native village was Posanpaly where her lands were submerged due to expansion of the village tank. The Nizam government paid compensation of Rs 2.5 lakh for the land. My grandparents then moved to Konapur and later to Chintamadaka village near Siddipet district where they purchased hundreds acres of land. It is where KCR was born. This is the history of the KCR,” Rama Rao said. 

He said that coming from an agricultural background, his father was aware of all issues faced by farmers. “Due to this, KCR has done a lot for farmers and introduced welfare programmes for all the people,” Rama Rao said. He said that was the reason the TRS government was concentrating on strengthening and improving infrastructure and facilities in all government schools under the Mana Ooru, Mana Badi programme.  

KCR’s advice to KTR

When Rama Rao was going about the house once owned by his grandmother, which is now in possession of someone else, he received a telephone call from the Chief Minister who enquired about the situation in the village. 

Chandrasekhar Rao advised Rama Rao to make an announcement with regard to sanctioning village requirements, improving infrastructure facilities and other development works. R&B Minister Vemula Prashanth Reddy, Government Whip Gampa Govardhan, district Collector Jitesh V. Patil, officials and others were present.

New pensions to be sanctioned soon

In Karimnagar, the Minister said that the State government will start sanctioning new pensions soon. 
Speaking after inaugurating two blocks of 2BHK units at Korutlapet in Yellareddipet mandal, he said that those eligible are getting these units without paying a single paisa as bribe. “No other State has such a scheme. Telangana govt has spent Rs 20,000 crore so far to construct about 2.70 lakh 2BHK units,” Rama Rao said.