India Narrative

The spotlight turns once again on the Chinese social media app, TikTok , after the Orissa High Court says the mobile app needs to be regulated for its negative impact on the society. The court added that the government has social responsibility to put a fair regulatory burden on companies which help in proliferating such applications. “TikTok mobile app which often demonstrates a degrading culture, and encourages pornography besides paedophiles, and explicit disturbing content, is required to be properly regulated so as to save teens from its negative impact,” observed Justice SK Panigrahi. The court made these observations while granting bail to a woman whose husband had committed suicide after watching her intimate TikTok videos with another person. The woman and the co-accused face allegations of direct and indirect mental torture on the deceased. “It appears that the TikTok videos in the instant case has become the cause for tragic end of an innocent life,” Justice Pan...

Hit by disruption in consumer demand and supply due to the spread of Covid-19 and the nationwide lockdown , India’s gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 3.1 per cent in the January-March quarter of 2019-20. The nationwide lockdown, which was imposed from March 25, affected Q4 GDP. While this was the lowest in 11 years, it was much better than anticipated. GDP growth for the fiscal year 2019-20 stood at 4.2 per cent compared to 6.1 per cent in 2018-19, data released by the Central Statistics Office showed. The Reserve Bank of India had earlier pegged GDP growth for 2019-20 at 5 per cent. The Q4 FY20 GDP number at 3.1 per cent is better than expected, said Dhiraj Relli, managing director & CEO, HDFC Securities . The GDP growth figures for October-December quarter of 2019-20 was revised downwards to 4.1 per cent. The July-September quarter for the same year registered a growth of 4.4 per cent and 5.2 per cent for April-June quarter. India’s gross value added (GVA)—GD...

Ajit Pramod Kumar Jogi (1946-2020), Chhattisgarh ’s first chief minister and a prominent tribal leader, passed away today. He hit the headlines in national dailies in 2001 when, as Chhattisgarh chief minister, he opposed the sale of the public sector Balco to the Anil Agarwal-promoted Sterlite. Later, however, he got along well with Sterlite. He graduated from Bhopal’s Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology (then known as Maulana Azad College of Technology) in 1968 as a mechanical engineer, winning the University Gold Medal. He never needed the reservation quota except while entering the engineering course. Before qualifying for IAS, he was a lecturer in an engineering college in Raipur. His stints as IAS officer were marked both by innovative ideas and controversies. Almost after each posting, he faced charges of irregularities. He served as district collector at Sidhi, Shahdol, Raipur and Indore. During his stint at Sidhi, he cultivated veteran Congressman Arjun S...

Even after over two months of lockdown, the country’s healthcare infrastructure to deal with the coronavirus crisis presents a somewhat sorry picture. Sample this. An 80-year-old in Gurugram was found to be Covid-19 positive by the hospital authorities when she sought medical assistance for some other ailment. They asked her to leave the premises and search for a Covid-19 authorized hospital. She was given no support by the hospital authorities in searching one. She had to come back to home. “One of the hospitals which we called for Covid-19 treatment said that there was no bed available, the second one said that it had a bed but no ventilators. Finally, we managed to get her admitted in another hospital, but in all this precious time was lost. More than that, we felt helpless as we had no clue whom to call for assistance,” a family member of the patient told IN on condition of anonymity. There are many such examples. Another person recounted how she felt helpless when she...

The Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT-M) on Friday said its researchers undertook a major restoration project at the famous Chilika Lake – the largest brackish water body in Asia and the first Ramsar site of India – located in Odisha to help in tripling the population of the Irrawaddy dolphins while also benefiting over two lakh fishermen. According to IIT-M, its intervention in the year 2000 and continuous monitoring since then has benefited over 200,000 fishermen living in 132 villages as it resulted in a seven-fold increase of fish catch and tourists to co-exist with the lake ecosystem with minimal disturbance to the environment. Due to the successful restoration, the lake was removed from the threatened list (Montreux record) 1st from Asia. Chilika Development Authority also received the Ramsar Wetland Conservation Award and Evian special prize 2002 for outstanding achievement. In 1981, Chilika Lake was designated the first Indian wetland of international i...

US President Donald Trump should be lauded for taking on Twitter which, other Big Tech platforms, wants to censor everything that the Left-liberal establishment does not approve of. A good effect of Trump’s bold move has already come to the fore: Twitter has been forced to act against China’s misinformation campaign. The short-messaging platform  flagged  a couple of tweets posted by China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson. Warning labels were added to tweets from spokesman Lijian Zhao, one of which read: “It might be the US Army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan.” “If it were legal, if it [Twitter] could be legally shut down, I would do it,” Trump said while signing an executive order targeting Big Tech firms which have been silencing the voice of Rightists. The fact that Twitter acted over two months after Lijian posted the tweets shows that the Jakc Dorsey-promoted company is favorably inclined towards Beijing; concomitantly, it has a pathological bias against ...

With no change in the positions of the Chinese and Indian troops at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Galwan valley and Pangong Tso areas of Ladakh , India has decided to lay emphasis on dispute resolution through talks. Despite the strident tone set by Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday commanding his troops to be prepared for war, Chinese ambassador to India Sun Weidong said that the two countries should seek understanding through communication. Weidong was addressing Indian youth over a webinar hosted by the Confederation of Young Leaders. In Beijing’s true style, the tone has softened but not the intimidating situation on the border. And, in true Indian style, New Delhi too has been pursuing talks while maintaining forces at the border. India reminded the Chinese about the bilateral agreements signed between the two countries to resolve border issues. At the same time, India has ensured that senior officers on the border are in touch with their Chinese counterpart...

Security forces in Jammu and Kashmir are on a high alert after foiling a car bombing attempt ‘quite similar to that of the 2019 Pulwama attack’ by intercepting an explosives-laden car in the same district Thursday. The location of the car, fitted with 40-45 kgs of explosives, was close enough to target a security forces’ convoy or a defence installation. Further investigations by the Jammu and Kashmir Police revealed that the Santro car belongs to a Hizbul Mujahedeen militant from south Kashmir’s Shopian district. The explosive was kept in a blue drum inside the car. A bomb disposal squad reached the spot on Thursday morning. People were asked to move away from the vicinity. The bomb disposal squad then instead of defusing the explosive, exploded the vehicle. The Jammu and Kashmir Police tweeted: “A major incident of a vehicle-borne IED blast is averted by the timely input and action by Pulwama Police, CRPF and the Army.” As per reports, late on Wednesday night, a c...

Amid the growing tension with US President Donald Trump over fact-checking his tweets, Twitter has now flagged a couple of tweets posted by China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson. According to media reports, the warning labels were added to tweets from spokesman Lijian Zhao , one of which read: “It might be the US Army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan .” Twitter added the warning more than two months after the tweets were posted, reports The New York Times. The warning tags are marked with a bright blue exclamation mark inside a circle, following with the text that reads “Get the facts about COVID-19 ”. Once a user clicks on the link, it takes him to a page of tweets from the World Health Organization (WHO), which emphasises that the virus appears to have originated in animals in China, rather than a virus laboratory in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province. Zhao’s another tweet that originated in March criticised the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) for a lack of c...

The news of 174 migrant laborers returning to Jharkhand from Mumbai Thursday is heartening. Not having the strength to walk all the way till Ranchi and unable to get on to a train, they simply took a flight back home. They  could  take a flight. From not having ever dreamt of touching an airplane to actually flying in it was simply an unbelievable feeling for all of them. The credit for making the entire exercise possible went to the members of the Alumni Network of National Law School (ANNLS), Bengaluru, who had arranged the money for the chartered flight and coordinated with the Jharkhand government, including Chief Minister Hemant Soren directly. As the plane carrying the laborers landed at Ranchi’s Birsa Munda Airport — just about the same time 1,332 migrants deboarded the Shramik special train from Borivali at the Jasidih junction railway station in Deoghar, further away from Ranchi — Soren expressed his gratitude to the over 80 alumni for their initiative. ...