New Delhi: Republic TV reporter and prime show anchor Vikas Sharma passed away on Thursday night. His demise news has sent shock waves across the media industry.

According to the Republic network, the anchor died due to COVID-19 complications.

Vikas is one of the prime reporters of Republic TV and he appears as prime time anchor at 9 PM on Republic Channel.

Reportedly, he took his breath at around 9 pm, the Republic Bharat report said.

Meanwhile, many personalities from the media industry and R Bharat’s audience are offering their condolences to Vikas Sharma’s untimely death.

Chennai: England captain Joe Root won the toss and elected to bat in the first Test against India at the M A Chidambaram stadium here on Friday.

For India, veteran pacer Ishant Sharma and seasoned left-arm spinner Shahbaz Nadeem are back in the playing XI along with regular skipper Virat Kohli who is back from paternity break.

Star all-rounder Ben Stokes, Jofra Archer and Rory Burns returned to the side after missing the series in Sri Lanka while Zak Crawley misses out due to injury. England picked James Anderson over Stuart Broad in the eleven.

Root is playing the 100th Test match of his career after having made his debut during the series against India in 2012.

India: Virat Kohli (captain), Rohit Sharma, Shubman Gill, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Rishab Pant (wk), R Ashwin, Washington Sundar, Ishant Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah, Shahbaz Nadeem.

England: Joe Root (captain), Rory Burns, Dominic Sibley, Ollie Pope, Dan Lawrence, Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler (wk), Jofra Archer, Dom Bess, James Anderson, Jack Leach.

Ghaziabad (UP): A Bharatiya Kisan Union official here lodged a complaint on Thursday alleging that some miscreants had opened a fake Facebook page of farmer leader Rakesh Tikait and posted obnoxious photos on it.

A complaint along with screenshots of the page were sent to Kaushambi police station officials, BKU press cell in-charge Shamsher Rana told PTI adding that an acquaintance had informed him about the fake ID.

Superintendent of Police (City 2) Gyanendra Singh said action would be initiated as and when police would receive the complaint in writing.

Rana had received a friend request from the fake ID and got alerted as he was already connected with Tikait on the social networking site, the complaint stated.

Going through the fake ID, Rana saw that the BKU leader’s photo was affixed as the profile picture and some images of adult film actors were also seen on the page.

The IP address mentioned on the ID originates from Ludhiana district in Punjab, Rana alleged in the complaint.

New Delhi: As several Bollywood and cricketing stars rallied around the government in its pushback to the global celebrities expressing support for farmers’ movement, senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Wednesday said the damage done to India’s global image by the government’s “obduracy and undemocratic behaviour” can’t be remedied by a cricketer’s tweets.

India hit out at global celebrities such as singer Rihanna and climate activist Greta Thunberg for their support of the farmers’ protests. Several Bollywood and cricket stars as well as top ministers also rallied around the government in its pushback.

“For GoI (government of India) to get Indian celebrities to react to Western ones is embarrassing. The damage done to India’s global image by GoI’s obduracy & undemocratic behaviour can’t be remedied by a cricketer’s tweets,” tweeted Tharoor, who served as the minister of state for external affairs from May 2009-April 2010 during the UPA II government.

Tharoor’s tweet came after cricketing stars Sachin Tendulkar, Anil Kumble and Ravi Shastri used the twin hashtags — #IndiaTogether #IndiaAgainstPropaganda — to amplify the pushback to the global celebrities.

“Withdraw the farm laws & discuss solutions with farmers & you’ll get #IndiaTogether,” tweeted the former UN under secretary general.

Another senior Congress leader P Chidambaram said it is good that Rihanna and Greta Thunberg can wake up the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA).

“Come on MEA, when will you realize that people concerned with issues of human rights and livelihoods do not recognize national boundaries? Why did MEA comment on the military coup in Myanmar? Why is it ‘deeply concerning’ to the MEA?” he said in a series of tweets.

Why does MEA regularly comment on issues that are “internal” to Sri Lanka and Nepal, the former Union minister asked.

“Why did the PM of India comment on the assault on the Capitol building in Washington by the Trump storm troopers? It is sad that someone erudite and worldly wise like Mr S Jaishankar should allow such puerile reactions by the MEA,” Chidambaram said.

Earlier, former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi, at a press conference, refused to comment on the tweets by the international celebrities extending support to the farmers’ protest, saying “this is our internal matter”.

Adding to the voices of Rihanna and Thunberg were American actor Amanda Cerni, US Vice President Kamala Harris’ niece Meena Harris, ‘Serendipity’ star John Cusack, who retweeted a post by Ugandan climate activist Vanessa Nakate reading, “Let us talk about what is happening in India right now #FarmersProtest”, and former adult star Mia Khalifa who asked, “What in the human rights violations is going on?! They cut the internet around New Delhi?! #FarmersProtest.”

In a statement, the Ministry of External Affairs earlier slammed the remarks made by Rihanna and other celebrities and activists on farmer protests, saying the facts on the issue must be ascertained before rushing to comment on it, and asserted that the “temptation” of sensationalist social media hashtags and views is “neither accurate nor responsible”.

Mumbai: A deputy commissioner of police (DCP) in Mumbai on Wednesday filed a criminal defamation complaint against Republic TV editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami for certain claims made during the coverage of the Sushant Singh Rajput death case.

Goswami’s lawyers claimed that the tweets referred to in the complaint filed by DCP Abhishek Trimukhe were from a fake Twitter account as their client “is not on social media”.

Trimukhe’s complaint, filed before the sessions court here, also named ARG Outlier Media Private Limited which owns Republic Media Network, and Goswami’s wife, as she is one of its directors.

“There were some tweets which misrepresented Trimukhe.

He had written about it to the Maharashtra government. The state home department gave its sanction (to file a complaint),” a senior police official said.

The complaint has been filed under Indian Penal Code sections 499, 500 (defamation) and 501 (printing or engraving matter known to be defamatory).

Goswami made “grossly false”, “malicious” and defamatory statements during the coverage of actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s death by suicide last year, it claimed.

These defamatory statements were telecast on the channel Republic Bharat during a discussion about phone records of actor Rhea Chakraborty, Rajput’s girlfriend, it said.

“The said defamatory attacks have been made with a singular view of assassinating his (Trimukhe’s) official character and thereby…maliciously and deliberately causing undue humiliation of the Mumbai Police Department,” the complaint said.

Goswami also tweeted the contents of the telecast to a larger audience, the complaint said.

A statement from Goswami’s legal team said that “he is not on social media” and the tweets to which the complaint referred was a fake Twitter handle impersonating the journalist.

“On the other parts, the Republic Media Network will respond legally as per due process,” it said.

Bengaluru The government is considering allowing air traffic controllers, operated by private entities, to manage drone operations in the Indian airspace below 1,000 feet, said a senior Civil Aviation Ministry official on Wednesday.

“The drone ATC (air traffic controller) will be called UTM (unmanned traffic management) and it will collaborate with the manned traffic management, which is being handled currently as a sovereign function by the Airports Authority of India (AAI),” said Amber Dubey, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Civil Aviation.

The AAI, which works under the ministry, manages all manned aircraft operations in the Indian airspace. A passenger aircraft generally flies at a height of around 30,000 feet.

“The airspace below 1,000 feet is lower airspace and it would be the main playground of drones. For that, we may have a system of private ATCs, which would be managed by private operators,” Dubey said at a session organised by industry body FICCI at Aero India 2021.

“It could be a government agency or a private agency, it is something that would evolve,” he added.

The AAI cannot handle drones because they would be flying at 5 feet to take care of crops to about 1,000 feet in the airspace, Dubey mentioned.

Drone technology is moving way faster than the regulations so we have decided that we need to start a parallel activity, he said.

New Delhi: Actor Kangana Ranaut on Tuesday held little back in taking on international pop star Rihanna for coming out in support of the farmers protesting on the outskirts of Delhi since November against the centre’s agricultural laws.

Calling the demonstrators “terrorists”, Ms Ranaut, who has 3 million Twitter followers versus Rihanna’s over 100 million, said they were trying to divide India and called the singer a “fool”.