FREE PRESS INDORE BHOPAL UJJAIN - PUNE MUMBAI VOL. 10 NO. 239 | BHOPAL | FRIDAY | FEBRUARY 12, 2021 | PAGES 14 ‘HUM DO, HAMARE DO’ IS RUNNING THE COUNTRY: RAGA’S JIBE AT GOVT Pg-7 Koo crosses 3-m users amid Twitter row NEW DELHI: Koo has in the last few weeks seen a massive surge in user base as Union ministers and government departments have endorsed the home-grown microblogging platform amid witter. From a spat with T information technology ministry using Koo to broadcast its stand on witter not fully complying T with its order to take down inflammatory content to ministers, including Piyush Goyal, urging people to switch platform, these developments have led to a surge in the userbase of the Indian rival. EDIT WELCOME CHINESE PULLBACK TO INDIA’S SATISFACTION Pg- 6 SC rejects activist Gogoi's bail NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court denied bail on Thursday to activist Akhil Gogoi, who is lodged in a Guwahati jail for his alleged role in the violent anti-CAA protests in Assam. Justices Ramana, Surya Kant and Aniruddha Bose dismissed Gogoi's bail plea. 50% tax rebate for those who registered vehicle with Gwalior RTO OUR STAFF REPORTER BHOPAL Fifty per cent tax exemption will be given to those purchasers who get their vehicles registration with the RTO, Gwalior and automobile dealers of other states will not be allowed in Gwalior Mela. The state government has issued the notification regarding this issue that those who will purchase the vehicles from the Gwalior Mela will have to pay only 50 percent of the life time road tax with rider. The tax has been exempted on non transport vehicles and small light transport vehicles. As per notification, vehicles can be sold only by the traders who had obtained the trade certificate from the Regional Transport Officer, RTO, Gwalior. The traders from other state cannot sell their in the Vyapar Mela. , Thirdly the vehicle will be mandatorily registered in the Gwalior RTO, temporary registration will not be permitted. The Gwalior Trade Fair will start from February 15. The tax has been exempted on non transport vehicles and small light transport vehicles. Jyotiraditya Scindia and Narendra Singh Tomar had demanded tax exemption of 50% taking plea that with this reduction of taxes, business will increase and overall it will not incur any loss to the govt from any angle. The Government had anticipated loss due to high tax rebate. ARMY TANKS begin pullback AGENCIES New Delhi Pact mandates China to move troops to Finger 8 from Finger 4 the India-China agreement disengagement in Underthe Chineseprocesswill easternon the Ladakh, army pull back its troops to east of Finger 8 areas in the northern bank of Pangong lake, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said in Parliament on Thursday, in what is seen as a significant step to dial down tensions in the key face-off site. Reciprocally, the defence minister said, Indian troops will be based at their permanent location at Dhan Singh Thapa post near Finger 3 areas. shots of a meeting between troops of the two sides. Official sources said withdrawal of tanks and other armoured elements from certain friction points is nearing completion while pulling back of troops from the North bank areas is being undertaken. Making a statement in the Rajya Sabha a day 23 Love Jihad cases lodged in a month after enactment of new law 'PEOPLE BEING converted as part of conspiracy' OUR STAFF REPORTER BHOPAL Twenty-three cases have been registered in a month since implementation of Love Jihad law. The state government has enacted the Religious Freedom law through an Ordinance. Seven cases have been registered in Bhopal division, five in Indore division, four each in Jabalpur and Rewa divisions and three cases in Gwalior division. State Home Minister Narottam Mishra said there was a conspiracy to convert women to other religion. A large number of girls are being forcefully converted to another religion for wedding to ruin their lives, he said. To stop that, the Religions Freedom Law has been enacted and it will be implemented with force, he said. Similarly, an act will be brought in to deal with the stone-throwers, he said, adding that a blueprint of No peace & tranquillity sans status quo ante on LAC: Rahul said that there be no peace and if is Rahul Gandhitranquillityandtherewill no status quo ante along the LAC questioned why the government is insulting the sacrifices made by the Indian soldiers. "No status quo ante = No peace & tranquility. Why is India insulting the sacrifice of our jawans and letting go of our territory," Rahul Gandhi asked on Twitter. His remarks came soon after Rajnath Singh gave a statement in the RS, making it clear that India has not conceded anything during the talks with China. after China announced the disengagement process, Singh said China will pull back its troops to east of Finger 8 areas in the northern bank of Pangong lake while the Indian personnel will be based at their permanent base at Dhan Singh Thapa Post near Finger 3 in the region. Similar action will take place at the southern eacting to the ConRgress's plan for protest against Kangana Ranaut's shooting in Madhya Pradesh, Home Minister Narottam Mishra said he was trying talk to her about it. Superintendent of Police in Betul has been directed not to let any problem come in the way of shooting, Mishra said, adding that Kamal Nath should keep his party workers under control. the act has been prepared. People involved in stonepelting will not be spared, and the stones of their house will be turned into dust, the state Home Minister said on Thursday. 30.10c. 12.90c Sunrise : 07.01 Sunset : 06.21 THOUGHT FOR THE DAY Spiritual wisdom cleanses our soul from thought pollution. bank of the lake as well, he said. In an identical statement later in the Lok Sabha, he said the disengagement process was "going on well", and that the implementation of the pact will "substantially restore" the situation to the one which existed prior to the standoff that erupted on May 5 last. Brahma Kumaris Biden admin urged not to issue H-1B to Indians till cap on Green Card removed WASHINGTON: An influential immigration advocacy group representing Indian-Americans on Thursday urged the Biden administration not to issue the most sought-after H-1B work visa to any individual born in India, till the time the discriminatory country-cap on green cards or permanent legal residency is removed. The current per-country cap on issuing of green cards in the US has resulted in Indian professionals, mostly from the IT sector, having to wait for decades for their legal permanent residency Issuing new H-1B . visas to more Indians would add to this agonising painful wait for green cards, Immigration Voice said in a statement. The statement came in response to the Biden administration's decision to allow employers of H-1B visa holders to begin registration online for the H1-B Visa lottery , starting March 9th this year, for the fiscal year 2022. Under the system, over 60,000 additional Indian nationals will unwittingly be lured to enter the United States this year (and every year) to “engage in a life of indentured servitude” where their very existence and the “lives of their families will be completely subject to the whims of their employer, new administrations, or even individual immigration adjudicators having a bad day said ,” Aman Kapoor, president of Immigration Voice. Citizenship Law after vaccination ends, says Shah THAKURNAGAR Union Home Minister Amit Shah Thursday said the process of granting Indian citizenship to refugees under the CAA, including to the Matua community of West Bengal, will begin once the process of COVID vaccination has ended. Accusing the opposition parties of misleading the minorities about the Citizenship (amendment) Act, he said, its implementation will not impact the citizenship status of Indian minorities. Shah said the Modi government had in 2018 promised it will bring in a new citizenship law and kept it when the BJP was voted to power in 2019. He said, after the country was hit by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, its implementation had to be kept in abeyance. "Mamata didi said we made a false promise. She started opposing the MUMBAI, Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari was denied permission to use a state government aircraft to travel to Dehradun on Thursday, triggering a row and inviting a strong criticism from the opposition BJP which sought an apology over the incident. Koshyari was scheduled to travel by a state government aircraft to Dehradun, but the permission to use the plane was not granted NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court Thursday refused to entertain a plea which raised the issue of overcrowding in jails amid the COVID-19 pandemic and sought direction to restrain the police from arresting people accused of offences carrying a maximum sentence of up to seven years. Chief Justice S A Bobde was informed that people accused of petty offences were being arrested in violation of the apex court judgement in 2014 which said that no arrest be made unnecessarily in relation to offences punishable by an imprisonment of seven years or less. “Where are the concrete cases which allege breach of Arnesh Kumar judgement (of 2014),” the bench, also comprising Justices A S Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian, asked senior advocate Colin Gonsalves who was appearing for the petitioners. even as the governor had boarded the aircraft, sources said. The governor later took a commercial flight to travel to the capital of his home state of Uttarakhand, a statement from the Raj Bhavan said. The Raj Bhavan secretariat and the state government sought to blame each other for the incident, which added a new chapter in the uneasy ties between the ruling coalition and the governor. The Raj Bhavan statement said the governor's secretariat had written to the government authorities seeking permission for the use of the aircraft "well in advance" on February 2. The office of the chief minister was also informed about it, the statement said. However, the Maharashtra government said the Raj Bhavan secretariat had been informed a day earlier bythe CMO that approval for use of the official aircraft has not been given. A statement from the CMO said the state government had taken serious cognisance that the official concerned at Raj Bhavan did not apprise the governor about the communication from the government (denying nod to use the aircraft). CONTD. ON P8 FOREST GUARD’S MURDER: A hush up to save influentials NIRUKT BHARGAVA Ujjain Murder of an unarmed forest guard by gun totting miscreants in Dewas forest known for quality timber, teak wood and herbivores has failed to break the slumber of the forest department. In fact, attempts have FREE PRESS EXCLUSIVE been made to hush up the entire case by blaming tribals. The police arrested four tribals of a nearby village within four days and claimed to have cracked the murder case. A 12 bore rifle and nine cartridges along with deer and pig horn were also seized. However, neither the police nor the forest department made any effort to search for the pig and deer skin. Besides, it’s a well established fact that tribals never use 12 bore rifles for hunting. So, are the police and the forest department hiding something which is quite evident to everyone? Sources claim that on February 4, forest guard Madanlal Verma was killed by timber mafia, who are close to powers-that-be. In fact, it is stated that Verma had found the armed mafia closing in on the tribal village. He immediately started clicking their pictures. Unluckily he was noticed , by the mafia and was immediately shot dead. The arrest of four tribals is said to be a blatant attempt to save a few powerful people. Wildlife expert Ajay Dubey told Free Press, “Murder took place in Bagli forest adjacent to Khivni sanctuary . Half of the Khivni sanctuary where , movement of five tigers was noticed recently has , been lost to timber and teak wood mafia. This fact is known to forest department headquarters in Bhopal too. CONTD. ON P8 Twitter-India war: Letter game, arrest threats but no action AGENCIES New Delhi The tussle between Twitter and the Union government reached its zenith on Thursday with a firebrand speech in the Rajya Sabha by IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad cautioning the micro-blogging platform to pay heed to the law of the land -- raising the pitch beyond issuing notices and social media posts. The war of words has been going on for over 10-15 days and we have seen a letter trail, social media outcries (latest example being Koo) and an "unusual" Twitter blog post but no stern action has been taken by the government to date. Legal experts argue that if the government can ban several Chinese apps including giants like TikTok and PUBG, why can't they act on US-based tech giants, and the government does not even need a data privacy law like the EU GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) to find a way to penalise Twitter if they have strong reasons that the company CAA and saying she will never allow it. The BJP always fulfils the promises it makes. We have brought this law and refugees will get citizenship. "As soon as the COVID vaccination process ends the process of granting citizenship under CAA will begin. All of you will be respected citizens of this country he ," said, addressing a rally here in the bastion of the Matua community Matuas, origi. nally from East Pakistan, are weaker section Hindus who migrated to India during the Partition and after the creation of Bangladesh. Many of them have been accorded citizenship. The Matua community with an esti, mated population of three million in the state, can tilt the scales in favour of a political party in at least four Lok seats and more than 30 assembly seats in Nadia, and North and South 24 Parganas districts. Maha guv denied nod to use state plane for Dehradun visit SC refuses to entertain plea on overcrowding in jails There will be no problem in Kangana's shooting WEATHER ‘WRISTS OF MAGIC’… Pg-12 NOT AN INCH LOST, DECLARES RAJNATH India and China have reached an agreement on disengagement in the North and South banks of Pangong lake in eastern Ladakh that mandates both sides to "cease" forward deployment of troops in a "phased, coordinated and verifiable" manner, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh announced in Parliament on Thursday, in a breakthrough after a nine-month border standoff. Sharing details of the pact to defuse the tense military face-off in eastern Ladakh that severely strained ties between the two Asian giants, Singh also assured the Rajya Sabha that India has not conceded anything in the sustained talks with China and it will not allow even an inch of its territory to be taken away by anyone. A video shared by the Indian Army showed the pulling back of three tanks of the Chinese People's Liberation Army(PLA) and one by the Indian side from south of Pangong Tso besides brief Quality at Value www.freepressjournal.in Disengagement at Pangong Lake News Brief `3 RNI No. mpeng/2010/35815 Regd. No. Indore MP/ICD 216/2021-2023 has repeatedly failed to comply with its directions. Twitter says it cannot suspend of block nearly 1,435 accounts specified by the government as it "does not believe that the actions it has been directed to take by the IT Ministry are consistent with the Indian law and violates fundamental right to free expression". Prasad replied in Rajya Sabha: "There is freedom of speech but Article 19A says that this is subject to reasonable restrictions". According to Virag Gupta, the lawyer of former RSS ideologue K.N. Govindacharya, who is arguing the social media Designated Officers' matter before the Delhi High Court, said that the IT Ministry can take action as per their "will power". "They have banned Chinese apps under the existing legal jurisprudence so that can take down the social media platforms too," Gupta told IANS. 'Buy why only Twitter? Why not WhatsApp that was embroiled in the Pegasus spyware controversy and Facebook that let Cambridge Analytica happen that compromised millions of Indians' data too?" he asked. The government can initiate action for suspension or blocking of intermediary apps or websites if they fail to comply with its directions."As per Section 69A (3), there is provision of seven years' imprisonment and fine," Gupta reiterated. In case Twitter fails to comply with the government directions, the latter has the powers to resort to penal consequences. "In that direction, appropriate FIRs can be registered against intermediaries and service providers and their top management can also be made liable for the said contravention under Section 85 of the Information Technology Act, 2000," said Pavan Duggal, one of the country's top cyber law experts. The government can exercise its power under the Section 69(A)(1).In case, any service provider or intermediary fails to comply with the provisions of the same, then there are penal consequences prescribed under Section 69A(3). 'UK variant of Covid will sweep the world' LONDON The Covid-19 variant, which was first detected in the UK's Kent last year, is set to become the dominant strain and is going to sweep the world, the head of the UK's genetic surveillance programme said. "The new variant has 'swept the country' and 'it's going to sweep the world, in all probability'," Sharon Peacock, Director of Covid-19 Genomics UK (Cog-UK) told the BBC. "Once we get on top of it or it mutates itself out of being virulent -- causing disease -- then we can stop worrying about it. But I think, looking in the future, we're going to be doing this for years. We're still going to be doing this 10 years down the line, in my view," Peacock added. Peacock also said vaccines approved for use in the UK appeared to work well against the existing variants of the virus in the country , the BBC reported on Thursday This week, the WHO has . announced that the Covid-19 variant, known as B.1.1.7, has been reported in 86 countries. In its weekly epidemiological update, WHO says the variant B.1.1.7 has shown an increase in transmissibility and some evidence of , increase in disease severity based on preliminary findings.