Social networking giant Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerberg on Tuesday visited the Taj Mahal in Uttar Pradesh’s Agra city and said: “It is even more stunning than I expected.”

“I’m in India for our Townhall Q&A tomorrow (Wednesday), and I decided to visit the Taj Mahal. I’ve always wanted to see this,” Zuckerberg posted on Facebook along with his picture in front of the monument to love.

“It is even more stunning than I expected. It’s incredible what people can build — and what love can motivate us to build,” he added.

Zuckerberg, who hosted Prime Minister Narendra Modi last month in the US, is scheduled to hold a Townhall Question and Answer session at the IIT-Delhi on Wednesday.

The event is being seen as a very positive one, especially after Zuckerberg described Indians as “one of our most active and engaged communities” on the social media.

“More than 130 million people use Facebook in India. I’m looking forward to hearing directly from one of our most active and engaged communities,” Zuckerberg had said.

Voicing concern over incidents of intolerance, including the killing of Kannada thinker M M Kalburgi, a group of scientists has petitioned President Pranab Mukherjee, urging him to initiate “suitable actions”.

Holding that a highly polarised community is like a nuclear bomb close to criticality, they also appealed to the Centre and state governments to act against “anti-human, anti-civilisational act.”

“We, the scientists, are concerned about the recent developments with reference to intolerance, polarisation and spread of communal hatred resulting in the death of innocent people, rationalists,” they said.

The petition, signed by scientists and academicians including Naresh Dadich, former Director of Pune-based The Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) and G Rajasekaran of The Institute of Mathematical Sciences (IMSc) besides some from Jawaharlal Nehru University and Harish-Chandra Research Institute, Allahabad, lauded the President advising people to show respect for all thoughts.

“We urge you to take serious note of these developments and initiate suitable actions,” it said.

In a separate petition to the Centre, state governments and people at large, they appealed to “stop the spread of communal hatred and polarisation in society,” pointing out that India had been a plural country where communities allowed space for each other.

Arun Shourie, who had launched a stinging attack on the Modi government on Monday, is no longer a member of BJP, the party said as it sought to dismiss the criticism of its one-time influential leader who was also a minister in the previous NDA government.

BJP general secretary Arun Singh said Shourie’s membership ceased after he did not renew it during the recent membership drive.

All members have to renew their membership after every six years and Shourie did not do so this time round, he said.

“Arun Shourie is no more a BJP member. He did not renew his membership,” he said.

At a press conference in the party headquarters, Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu rejected Shourie’s attack on the government, saying “his views are shared neither by the party nor by the public”.

“I do not agree with this. This is not the opinion of party nor public,” he said in a brief response.

Shourie, a strong supporter of Modi during the Lok Sabha election campaign last year, had said the Centre believes that managing economy means “managing the headlines” and that people had started recalling the days of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

“The way to charaterise policies of the government is — Congress scaled plus a cow,” he had said.

Rejecting the charge, Naidu said there has been “no scam, no scandal and not even one mistake” under the government and BJP had been winning elections across the country.

“We are a democracy, he (Shourie) has his opinion, but the country’s opinion is different,” Naidu said, adding the people were supporting the Prime Minister in all parts of the country.

Politics over beef found a new address as the Kerala House in Delhi took buffalo meat off its menu after a “raid” by 20 policemen over a complaint from a fringe group. Amid raging controversy after row over allegations that beef curry was served at Kerala House in Delhi, beef will be served in Kerala House from Wednesday noon, said sources on Tuesday.

After a day of protests against what many saw as bullying, Kerala House decided to bring back buffalo meat, sending a message that reinforced Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy’s strong words in a letter to the Prime Minister.

“I would like to inform you that the Kerala House staff canteen serves authentic vegetarian and non-vegetarian Kerala cuisine and the items in the menu are entirely within law,” Mr Chandy wrote to PM Narendra Modi, accusing the Delhi Police of overstepping its brief.

On Monday evening, the official guest house of Kerala in the capital swarmed with policemen after a call from activists of the Hindu Sena group, who had visited the canteen and noticed “beef fry” scribbled in Malayalam on a handwritten menu.

Kerala Chief Secretary Jiji Thomson has categorically denied that cow meat was served at Kerala House and said they will wait for “police action” in the wake of their complaint over the incident. “I totally deny that cow meat was served in canteen of Kerala House. Only buffalo meat is served,” Thomson said.

Chandy also called inquiries made by the Delhi Police into Kerala House’s beef procurement illegal and unlawful. Police officials had questioned Kerala House and canteen staff on where the meat was being sourced from.

“Kerala House is where all the ministers and government officials stay. Delhi Police should not have entered the premises. The raids were wrong. This is not a commercial establishment,” he said.

However, in the light of the events on Monday, Kerala House has temporarily taken buffalo meat off its menu. Noting that the Resident Commissioner of Kerala House has lodged a police complaint, Thomson further said “we will wait for police action”.

“I was told that some persons gate-crashed into Kerala House, the police had also entered. The resident commissioner has made a complaint to the DCP over their (gate-crashers’) entry. We will wait for the police’s action now,” he said.

A PCR call complaining about beef curry being served at Kerala House near Jantar Mantar had thrown police into a tizzy on Monday.

Police said that a team had to be sent there to avert any “untoward incident” after the call complaining about beef on the menu was received by police control room at around 4:15 PM on Monday. The caller had claimed to be from a fringe right-wing group.

“The policemen took no chance and the input was immediately passed on to Parliament Street police station, from where a team was sent to Kerala House to deal with any potential violence,” a police official had said.