Australia reached 24 for no loss in reply to India’s first innings score of 622-7 declared on the second day of the fourth and final Test on Friday in Sydney.
Brief Score:
India: 622 for 7 in 167.2 overs (Cheteshwar Pujara 193, Rishabh Pant 159 not out; Nathan Lyon 4/178).
Australia: 24-0 in 10 overs (Marcus Harris 19 not out; Mohammed Shami 0/9).
The Supreme Court on Friday said that an appropriate bench constituted by it will pass an order on January 10 for fixing the date of hearing in the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid land dispute title case at Ayodhya.
“Further orders will be passed by an appropriate bench on January 10 for fixing the date of hearing the matter,” a bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice S K Kaul said.
The Supreme Court on Friday directed the Centre to place on affidavit steps taken since September last year to set up a search committee for the Lokpal.
The apex court asked Attorney General K K Venugopal to file the affidavit on the matter by January 17.
“You have to ensure on affidavit the steps taken on the issue of setting up of a search committee for the Lokpal,” a bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice S K Kaul said.
When the attorney general said that since the last order of September 2018, several steps have been taken, the bench asked him “what all have you done till date. So much time is being taken”.
When the attorney general reiterated that several steps have been taken, the bench shot back “bring everything on record what you have done since September 2018”.
Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the NGO Common Cause, which has been pursuing the issue of Lokpal, said the government has not even made public the members of the search committee on its website.
The country’s services sector activity slowed slightly in December, as new work orders and business activity moderated from November’s recent high, while job creation saw a significant uptick, a monthly survey said on Friday.
The seasonally adjusted Nikkei India Services Business Activity Index fell to 53.2 in December, from 53.7 in November, amid softer growth of activity and new business.
Despite easing marginally, the services PMI was in the expansion territory for the seventh straight month. In PMI parlance, a print above 50 means expansion, while a score below that denotes contraction.
“India’s service sector continued to enjoy positive levels of activity in December, with new business and employment remaining on an upward path. However, except for jobs, rates of expansion slowed slightly to form a somewhat disappointing end to 2018,” said Pollyanna De Lima, Principal Economist at IHS Markit, and author of the report.
The survey further noted that business sentiment rose to a three-month high in December.
Factors like advertising efforts, new service offerings and predictions of an improvement in market conditions after the elections, all boosted business sentiment regarding the 12-month outlook.
“With business sentiment improving for the second successive month, the service sector looks set to sustain growth in 2019 despite predictions of some sluggishness prior to the elections,” Lima said.
Meanwhile, the seasonally adjusted Nikkei India Composite PMI Output Index, that maps both the manufacturing as well as services sector activity, was down from a 25-month high of 54.5 in November to 53.6 at December.
On the prices front, cost inflation at services firms softened for the third straight month to the weakest since May 2017.
“Subdued inflationary pressures and cooling economic growth add some support for a rate cut early next year,” Lima said.
The next meeting of RBI’s Monetary Policy Committee is scheduled between 5th and 7th February.
Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Friday demanded that Prime Minister Narendra Modi be investigated for corruption and for weakening national security by giving the Rafale contract to “his friend”.
Gandhi cited a media report on Swedish Telecom major Ericsson filing a contempt plea in the Supreme Court against Reliance Communications chief Anil Ambani and demanding that he detained.
“In addition to corruption, the PM should be investigated for weakening national security by giving the Rafale contract to his friend and international debt master, Anil Ambani,” Gandhi said in a tweet and tagged the media report.
In its second contempt petition in the Supreme Court against Anil Ambani, telecom equipment maker Ericsson sought his detention in civil prison and said he be barred from travel overseas unless he ensures payment of Rs 550 crore owed to it.
The company is locked in a battle with Ambani’s communication firm over pending dues.
The government has asked for public comments on the recommended amendments to the Information Technology (IT) Act that seeks to make it mandatory for the platforms such as WhatsApp, Facebook, and Twitter to trace “originator” of “unlawful” information, while also removing such content within 24 hours after being notified. As per the draft ‘The Information Technology [Intermediaries Guidelines (Amendment) Rules] 2018’ released, the intermediary after being notified by the appropriate authority should remove or disable access to unlawful content within 24 hours in the “interests of the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of the State, friendly relations with foreign States, public order, decency or morality, or in relation to contempt of court, defamation or incitement to an offence, on its computer resource without vitiating the evidence in any manner”.
This draft comes close on the heels of a recent Supreme Court order that gave a green signal to the government to frame guidelines or a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) to deal with the publication and proliferation of sexually abusive online content like child pornography, rape and gang rape videos and objectionable material through social media intermediaries like Google, YouTube, Facebook, and WhatsApp. The Centre’s draft SOP includes setting up of proactive monitoring tools for auto-deletion of unlawful content, deployment of trusted flaggers for identifying and deletion of unlawful content, setting up of a 24/7 mechanism for requisitions of Law Enforcement Agencies, and appointment of India-based contact officers.
Advocate and Cyber Law Expert Prashant Mali, who practices in the Bombay High Court said, “The IT Act, 2000 has aged while the technology has progressed and new threats like Fake News, contraband selling on e-commerce websites, cryptojacking, ransomware, online defamation, etc. have evolved. The IT Act needs to cover all these threats and should have deterrent punishment prescribed.”
When asked how the new amendments to the existing Act can help in securing social harmony, Mali asserted, “These new IT rules would make Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and social media more responsible towards Indian Law. Fake news has exhumed people’s lives in India and with social media, we’re turning Nero’s eye. While the rules like the removal of unlawful content within 24 hours are also becoming a norm in Europe and other countries, India with its huge population needs to implement these rule hitherto.”
Some key suggestions of the IT [Intermediaries Guidelines (Amendment) Rules] 2018 include: Enable tracing the originator of information on the platform, Disable access to unlawful acts within 24 hours of being notified, Deploy automated tools to identify and disable access to unlawful content, Report cybersecurity incidents with the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team.
The intermediary is also expected to preserve such information and associated records for at least 180 days for investigation purposes as against 90 days now.
Following fears of “Surveillance and Censorship” with the proposed norms, the government clarified that it does not regulate content appearing on social network platforms.
Pointing that a number of lynching incidents were reported in 2018 mostly due to fake news being circulated through WhatsApp and other social media sites, the government said that social media has brought in new challenges for the Law Enforcement Agencies including inducement for recruitment of terrorists, circulation of obscene content, spread of disharmony, and incitement to violence.
It said that the Minister for Electronics and IT Ravi Shankar Prasad, while responding to a calling attention motion on “Misuse of social media platforms and spreading of fake news” in Parliament, had conveyed the resolve of the government to strengthen the legal framework and make the social media platforms accountable under the law.
ACP (Samta Nagar Division) Subhash N Vele spoke to AV and said, “Nowadays, it is common in social media to defame someone, post fake news or post inflammatory posts that are harmful to the society. These are crimes under both the Indian Penal Code and the Cyber Act and are punishable offences. So, the government has appointed a number of officials in every police station to look after such cases. Such crimes are increasing day by day and our Cyber Cell is prepared to face them.”
Subsequently, the IT Ministry prepared the draft rules to replace the ones notified in 2011. The proposed rules state that intermediaries should within 72 hours, provide information or assistance asked for by any government agency or assistance concerning the security of the State or cybersecurity; or investigation or detection or prosecution or prevention of offence(s); protective or cyber security and matters connected with or incidental thereto.”
“I feel such amendments to the existing law are a necessity in today’s world considering the exposure of social media to the teenagers is very high. They are not matured enough to differentiate the right from the wrong and are easily manipulated into believing in someone else’s ideology. We have recent examples like Blue Whale Game which came into existence from the social media and caused a global catastrophe,” expressed Software Engineer Saurajit Bose.
He added, “Furthermore, the amendments should be carefully formulated in such a way that a person’s basic fundamental right ‘Freedom of Speech and Expression’ is not under jeopardy.”
By-Omkar Tavasalkar
(Any suggestions, comments or dispute with regards to this article send us on feedback@www.afternoonvoice.com)
Ever wondered how a messaging app could change political fate in India? The WhatsApp users in India may get astonished to learn that there is more to the messaging apps than interaction. These days it has become a political propaganda tool to porn sharing groups. Anything to everything, moral to immoral and fake to make believe as truth, this one particular app has not only grabbed your time, peace, and attention by making you addicted to it but it has also influenced your thought process and your mindset. It is conditioning you every day against one particular agenda. On the other day, Mumbai’s former senior cop, who is running an NGO now, sent me some literature and videos and asked me to react against one particular community. He said, “Why to resist them? They should be thrown out of our nation and only a particular party can do it”.
This is our nation and our government. I was shocked out of my life, but still, as a good reader and an investigative journalist, I tried finding facts. To my surprise, that post was picked from one fake website which propagates religious riots. If such educated people are falling in a trap to such things, then one can imagine about the common man of this country. What are we achieving out of it? No one knows. Similarly, there are many groups in the name of Dalits, Muslims or this party or that party, ideology and they just create impression and panic among their community people as if India is not safe for them. They too share photoshopped pictures, videos, fake write-ups and much more to make believe their point by endorsing one or the other political party and condemning the rival party. There are thousands of such groups and people are divided into those groups. The acclimatising goes on 24/7.
They just don’t stop there, the same post is circulated on social media by all the participants and from there, it again gets circulated further, this is how we are colluding entire ambiance against our country. Trust me, our country knows how to live with diversity, all those are born on this soil belong to this nation and this nation belongs to them. There is nothing to feel unsecured or threatened. You have both the sides; if some hate you, some are there in bulk to hold you. No matter whosoever rules you, they don’t change your life for sure.
WhatsApp is probably the best example of the vast potential that messaging apps hold. With over millions of active users, it helps them socialise. But the abuse of such apps needs to be monitored. Visual cues, such as photos and graphics portraying Modi as the saviour of the nation, alongside memes mocking the other party candidates were shared on social media and WhatsApp messenger by a team of dedicated Modi supporters, their numbers stretching into the far hundreds thousands. On the other hand, how fake is India’s PM and attacks on PM Modi with videos and pictures too get viral but in comparison the right-wingers are more aggressive. If you remember, there was a photo meant to show a younger, humble Modi sweeping the floors that went viral, and was later debunked as a doctored image of another man. That didn’t matter though for a very long time during and after the elections, the photo had become a symbol of Modi’s modest roots. It continued to be right-winger’s social media warfare not only as effective communication but also contributed to Modi’s win in the elections. However, the reality of their claims got exposed. Four-and-a-half years on and nothing has changed, rather it has become much worst. Just before the third anniversary of the Modi government, a mob in the eastern state of Jharkhand went on a killing spree, triggered by a simple WhatsApp message.
Three innocent men were beaten to death by an angry mob that wrongly believed those men were human traffickers, based on a warning that they received in the messages. The fake news problem in India is very real. In all, seven people lost their lives in two separate incidences in Jharkhand, in a fury that was born on social media and based on falsified information that the killers received over WhatsApp messenger. This fake information on WhatsApp builds fear psychosis among people. A couple of months after the Jharkhand incident, amidst a communal flare-up in the state of West Bengal, a BJP leader, Vijeta Malik, shared a screenshot from a local feature film showing a woman being molested, and tried to pass it as an image of Muslims molesting Hindu women. Vijeta is part of a far-right political movement that is pushing a Hindu supremacist (or Hindutva) chronicle. In fact, the ongoing tension itself was believed to have been a result of an image offensive to the Muslims circulated through Facebook and attributed to a Hindu boy. Vijeta’s one fake circulation created a lot of anxiety among the two communities. She created riot-like situation but no one took action against her. There are many such stories and numerous videos that get circulated on WhatsApp allegedly showing Indian Muslims celebrating the victory of Pakistan. All except one of those videos was genuine; it was from [Indian-administered] Kashmir. All the other videos, and there were multiple ones from around the country, were fake. Even the Rajasthan man butchering Muslim man was hailed high and funds were gathered to support his family and court case, later on, police discovered that he killed a wrong man for his own lust. Having investigated the sources of every single video, each could have led to communal tensions and violent incidents in parts of India. But we the people of the nation have become slaves to smartphone and IT Propaganda University. WhatsApp, which hit 1 billion daily users this summer, has been a breeding ground for misinformation for a long time.
While Facebook and Twitter are highly public spaces where news, photos, and videos generally flow freely, WhatsApp is more classified. This app was actually designed to keep people’s information secure and private, so no one is able to access the contents of people’s messages but now this has become a dangerous tool in people’s hand to propagate all that they want. People are afraid that bad things will happen if they say something wrong on social media. WhatsApp is kind of a safe place for people and they can discuss more conspiracy things. However, while WhatsApp-spread misinformation has become an increasing concern across the world, along with efforts to debunk it, this is somewhat a looming danger. Without facts checking, the users are irresponsibly passing the messages about crime, violence, politics, and communal riots. Now, all Indian political parties have geared up for 2019 Lok Sabha elections by making thousands of groups and communities, and the whoopla has already begun.
(Any suggestions, comments or dispute with regards to this article send us on feedback@www.afternoonvoice.com)
In a significant move to draw more tourists to Maharashtra, the state government has partnered with realty firm Mahindra Lifespaces to develop the coastal town of Murud as a destination for medical tourism and wellness.
The project will be developed under the Maharashtra Tourism Policy and will attract Rs 500 crore investment and generate 6,000 employment opportunities, chief minister Devendra Fadanavis’ office had tweeted on Wednesday.
This is expected to be one of the biggest investments in medical tourism and wellness industry in the state.
Mahindra Lifespaces’ wholly owned subsidiary Deep Mangal Developers has entered into the agreement with the state government, which will support the project by facilitating the necessary infrastructure across 1,300 acre of development.
This project will help drive investments and create opportunities for employment and skill development, the company said in a statement.
It will promote health and wellness, adventure, and culture and heritage tourism.
“Tourism has the potential to significantly improve the lives of local communities, contribute to economic growth and attract investments,” Fadnavis said.
In addition to driving tourism, the project envisions engaging local communities through education, skill development of youth and economic empowerment of women, among other areas, the statement said.
“This new initiative by Mahindra Lifespaces will help put Murud firmly on the global tourism map. It will also catalyse the growth of the local tourism industry, creating new jobs and business opportunities along the way,” Mahindra Group chairman Anand Mahindra said.
Last year, Mahindra Group had committed an investment of Rs 1,900 crore to develop a unique film-centric entertainment destination on its land at Kandivali in suburban Mumbai.
Senior Aam Aadmi Party leader HS Phoolka, who has fought the legal battle for the 1984 anti-Sikh riots victims, resigned from the party on Thursday.
The move comes amid speculation over possibility of an alliance between the Congress and the AAP for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
In a tweet, Phoolka said he will explain reason behind the move in a press briefing in Delhi Friday.
“I have resigned from AAP & handed over resignation to Kejriwal ji today. Though he asked me not to resign but I insisted. Will be briefing media tomorrow at 4pm at Press Club, Raisina Rd, New Delhi to explain the Reason of leaving AAP & my further plans,” he wrote on Twitter.
The AAP has not denied alliance prospects with the Congress, saying its political affairs committee will take a call after considering opinion of its leaders and workers from Delhi, Punjab and Haryana.
Former Congress leader Sajjan Kumar was recently convicted in an anti-Sikh riot case by the Delhi High Court, where Phoolka represented the victims.
Calling it a “grave lapse” on part of the Railway Ministry, a parliamentary panel said there was 60 per cent vacancy in staff for inspection and maintenance of railway bridges, which may compromise safety.
The report of the ‘Standing Committee on Railways on Maintenance of Bridges in Indian Railways: A Review’ also expressed concern over the fact that there existed no separate protocol for inspection and maintenance of bridges which were 100 years old or older.
“The Committee found high rates of vacancy in the staff dedicated for inspection and maintenance of bridges. As against a sanctioned strength of 7,669, the actual strength is only 4,517 (around 40 per cent). It is of the opinion that since bridges are the most vulnerable link on the railways, lack of manpower in this segment is bound to create gaps in inspection and maintenance which may compromise railway safety,” the report tabled in Lok Sabha on Thursday said.
The Committee recommended that the ministry should fill up these vacancies in the shortest possible time and that till such a time, it should set up some temporary measures like filling up these posts through deputation to tide over the shortage.
“The panel feels this is a grave lapse on the part of the ministry in ensuring safety of rail traffic…the committee therefore, direct the ministry to shake off its inertia and fill up these vacancies in the shortest possible time…” it said.
The report stated that bridges which were over 100 years old may not be compliant with modern rail paraphernalia or unable to withstand higher load and speed, resulting in accidents or compromise with punctuality and thus may need a separate inspection protocol.
“The Committee advise the ministry to device a protocol of inspection and maintenance to include a greater degree of safety/safeguards for bridges which come under this category while keeping their commercial interests intact,” it said, disagreeing with the ministry’s view that the age of a bridge had no direct bearing on its safety.
It recommended that the ministry use modern technology instead of putting undue strain on inspectors and their adherence to prescribed norms, and hence, there was the added risk of the possibility of subjectivity creeping in as perceptions are often open to interpretations.
Railways has a total of 1.47 lakh bridges, while 700 has been categorised as ‘important’, 12,085 as ‘major’ and 1.34 lakh as ‘minor’.
In the last three years, the railways has commissioned 8,611 new bridges. The 4,027 existing ones have been approved for rehabilitation, while in the same period, 2,347 bridges have been rehabilitated.
The parliamentary panel said against the total bridge population of 1.4 lakh, the railways has approved the rehabilitation of a minuscule number of bridges, which was “not proportionate to the number of bridges requiring upgradation”.
