10:13 Pakistan isn’t that big that India can’t destroy it: Mother of slain sepoy: In Meerut, the mother of Sepoy Ajay Kumar who lost his life in the encounter with terrorists in #ulwama yesterday, says, “Pakistan has killed so many sons. Pakistan isn’t that big that India can’t destroy it. India can destroy it in one day. I’m proud of my son, he sacrificed his life for the country.”
10:00 Goodbye, Major Dhoundiyal : Another day, another funeral in Uttarakhand. Just as the state had come to terms with the death of Major Chitresh Bisht who was killed at the Line of Control over the weekend, it received the news of another’s death — Major Vibhuti Dhoundiyal.
Major Dhoundiyal had died in an encounter with terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pulwama yesterday. He was just 34 years old. Major Dhoundiyal, a resident of Dehradun, is survived by his wife Nikita Kaul.
He was among four army men killed in an encounter with Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorists in Pulwama just a short distance away from the spot where over 40 Central Reserve Police Force jawans were killed last week in a suicide attack by the Pakistan-based terrorist group.
Major Chitresh Bisht was killed on Saturday while defusing a mine on the Line of Control in Nowshera sector of Rajouri district on Saturday. He was cremated in Haridwar on Monday afternoon.
Image: Nikita Kaul salutes her husband’s body in a final farewell. Major Dhoundiyal was killed in an encounter yesterday. Pic: ANI
09:46 Dehradun mourns its brave son :
People pay their respects to the mortal remains of Major Vibhuti Dhoundiyal who was killed in an encounter with terrorists in Pulwama in Kashmir, yesterday. Major Dhoundiyal was a resident of Dehradun.
Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat expressed grief at the incident saying the entire country stood with the martyr’s family.
09:13 RSS wing wants ‘hurdles’ for Chinese firms doing business in India:
The RSS-affiliated Swadeshi Jagran Manch has urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to create hurdles for Chinese companies doing business in India as China continues to block New Delhi’s attempts to designate Masood Azhar, whose JeM carried out the terrorist attack on a CRPF convoy in Pulwama, as a “global terrorist”.
In a letter to Modi, SJM co-convener Ashwani Mahajan Monday said the dastardly terrorist attack in Pulwama has shaken the conscience of the nation and at this time steps should be taken to prevent the economic gain of any nation that directly or tacitly supports such terrorists.
“It is widely known that the Chinese government continues to block our nation’s attempts to designate Masood Azhar, chief architect of these terror attacks, as a ‘global terrorist’.
“At such a time, we believe it is imperative that the government create similar hurdles for Chinese companies that are using India for their economic gain,” Mahajan said.
Welcoming the government’s decision to withdraw the most favoured nation tag and raise customs duties for all products imported from Pakistan, he said India should not allow Chinese companies to capture its user data without any restrictions and monitoring, as data is new oil.
He claimed that in the past two years there has been a proliferation of Chinese social media and e-commerce companies and other applications in India.
A number of them have in recent weeks been called out by the media as well as various concerned citizens for having undesirable content.
Such apps have been banned in various countries including Indonesia. These apps are known for sharing the details of children and being an open ground for child pornography and possibly anti-national activities. — PTI
08:33 13 killed, 18 injured as truck runs into marriage procession in Rajasthan:
A speeding truck ran into a marriage procession in Rajasthan’s Pratapgarh district fatally hitting 13 people, four of them children, while leaving 18 others injured, police said Tuesday.
The accident happened near Ramdev temple on State Highway-113 Monday night when the truck, going to Banswara from Nimbahera, rammed into the marriage party moving on the roadside, Choti Sadri DSP Vijaypal Singh Sandhu said.
Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot said he was deeply saddened to hear about the accident. “My heartfelt condolences to the grieved families. I pray for speedy recovery of injured people (sic),” he tweeted.
He said the injured were rushed to a government hospital in Choti Sadri and later on 15 of them, who were critically hurt, were referred to a facilities in Udaipur.
Nine of the deceased have been identified as: Daulatram (60), Bharat (30), Shubham (5), Chotu (5), Dilip (11), Arjun (15), Ishu (19), Ramesh (30) and Karan (28), police said.
The DSP said the truck driver apparently could not see the procession.
He said the bodies are kept in a mortuary for postmortem and an investigation is underway. — PTI
08:32 Saudi vows to ‘de-escalate’ India-Pak tensions after Pulwama attack:
Amid growing tension between India and Pakistan after the Pulwama terror attack, Saudi Arabia on Monday said its main objective is to “deescalate tension” between the neighbouring countries and it hopes that Delhi and Islamabad would resolve the dispute peacefully.
According to Dawn, while addressing the joint press conference in Islamabad, Saudi minister of state for foreign affairs Adel bin Ahmed Al- Jubeir said, “Saudi Arabia’s objective is to try to deescalate tension between the neighbouring countries. I hope that both countries would be able to resolve the dispute between them peacefully.”
The Saudi minister’s comments came in the wake of the terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pulwama in which 40 CRPF personnel were killed when their convoy was targeted by a suicide bomber of Pakistan-backed Jaish-e-Mohammad.
This development is crucial as Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman arrives in India on today.
The minister was addressing a joint press conference with Pakistan’s foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi in Islamabad during the state visit of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman.
He also slammed Iran for accusing Pakistan of the recent attack on Iran Revolutionary Guards and said Tehran itself is a “chief sponsor of terrorism”.
The remarks by the minister came after the visit of the Saudi crown prince’s visit to Pakistan.
Al-Jubeir said, “It was strange [for] the foreign minister of the world’s chief sponsor of terrorism to accuse others of engaging in terrorist activities”.
Al- Jubeir accused Iran of “sponsoring” terrorism “since the Iranian revolution of 1979”, adding that Iran had “established terrorist groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Houthis in Yemen. He said that “Iran had been implicated” in terrorist attacks that took place in other countries, including Saudi Arabia and the United States.
Earlier, MBS announced a US$ 20 billion bailouts for Pakistan. — ANI
Image: Pakistan PM Imran Khan and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman.
08:10 Puducherry CM ends sit-in after talks with Lt Governor:
Puducherry Chief Minister V Narayanasamy on Monday ended his sit-in in after a meeting with Lt Governor Kiran Bedi, saying “partial success” was achieved on various demands.
Narayanasamy was staging a dharna in front of the assembly, which entered its sixth day on Monday, over various demands such as increasing assistance under old age and widow pension schemes.
The chief minister also said he and his cabinet colleagues also suspended other agitations, including jail bharo and the fast slated for February 20 and 21.
“We are suspending all the agitations slated for the next two days against Kiran Bedi as we could score partial success on various public issues at the meeting we had with her,” Narayanasamy said at a press conference after a over four-hour-long meeting with Bedi at her office here tonight.
He said after the talks with the Lt Governor he and his cabinet colleagues met at the committee room and it was decided “unanimously” by ministers and legislators that “the agitations including jail bharo and massive fast slated for February 20 and 21 are suspended”.
Narayanasamy also said the dharna outside the assembly was also called off immediately after the meeting.
He said the talks were held at the invitation of the Lt Governor on various issues listed by him in his letter sent to her on February 7 .
“Most of the important issues, including payment of monthly assistance to 10,000 new applicants under old age and widow pension ,and auctioning of the cooperative sugar mill to raise funds to pay farmers and workers were discussed, and the Lt Governor accorded her approval to these schemes,” the chief minister said. — PTI
00:03 UK parliament report on fake news labels Facebook as ‘digital gangsters’:
Social media giants like Facebook need much stricter regulations to prevent them getting away with behaving like “digital gangsters”, a UK parliamentary report on fake news concluded.
In its final report at the end of an 18-month investigation, the House of Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Selection Committee accused Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg of showing contempt for British parliament in refusing three separate demands to give evidence, and instead sending junior employees unable to answer all the questions.
Companies like Facebook should not be allowed to behave like digital gangsters’ in the online world, considering themselves to be ahead of and beyond the law, the report notes.
“By choosing not to appear before the Committee and by choosing not to respond personally to any of our invitations, Mark Zuckerberg has shown contempt towards the UK Parliament, notes the report, which is extremely critical of Facebook’s online model.
The committee began conducting its inquiry into the spread of fake news last year in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica data breach scandal, which revealed widespread misuse of public data by the now-defunct British company.
The committee’s ‘Disinformation and ‘fake news’: Final Report’ reiterates the role played by CA’s parent company, SCL Group, in some foreign elections in countries like India, which had also been among the conclusions of its interim report last year.
“Democracy is at risk from the malicious and relentless targeting of citizens with disinformation and personalised ‘dark adverts’ from unidentifiable sources, delivered through the major social media platforms we use every day,” concluded the report.
“The big tech companies are failing in the duty of care they owe to their users to act against harmful content, and to respect their data privacy rights,” it added.
— PTI
Source: Rediff