SRINAGAR: The Centre has blocked 14 messaging apps in Jammu and Kashmir region allegedly for spreading militancy. The decision was taken after gathering inputs from intelligence agencies.
The apps include Crypviser, Enigma, Safeswiss, Wickrme, Mediafire, Briar, BChat, Nandbox, Conion, IMO, Element, Second line, Zangi, Threema among others. These were allegedly used by militants in Kashmir to communicate with their supporters and on-ground workers, reported ANI.
“Agencies keep track of channels used by over ground workers (OGWs) and militants to communicate among themselves. While tracking down one of the communication, agencies found that the mobile application does not have representatives in India and it is difficult to track down activities happening on the app,” an official told ANI.
Following this, the Centre, with help from intelligence agencies, prepared the list of apps that do not follow Indian laws and pose a threat to national security.
The list was then forwarded to the concerned Ministry with a request seeking their ban under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000. The intelligence agencies informed that these apps are spreading propaganda in the Valley.
The move comes days after the Poonch attack which killed five Indian Army men. Following this, the Army had asked people to immediately report any suspicious activity and also to keep away from engaging in militant activities.
“The Central Govt and the army have been working together for the development of the area and people of this region so that they could be part of the mainstream of the country. Keeping this in mind, people of all the communities should walk shoulder to shoulder with the army,” it said in a statement here.
“Hence, the people of this area should keep away from such type of incident and activities in future, if someone is roaming suspected in the region, then the people of this area should immediately inform and assist the army and foil the major incident like Poonch,” the Army said, adding that people were equally responsible for the maintenance of peace in the region.
The army statement came a day after Director General of Police Dilbag Singh claimed they had uncovered the Poonch attack plot with the arrest of six locals for sheltering the militants before they carried out the attack, for which they used explosives and weapons delivered to them from Pakistan through drones.
Kupwara, Apr 28 (GNS): A road, connecting Zirhama – Jumgund areas in north Kashmir’s Kupwara district, has been blocked due to landslide even as clearance process is underway at the site.
Reports reaching GNS said that a huge landslide occurred along Zirhama – Jumgund, shutting it for all types of movement.
An official told GNS that the R & B Department has already started the clearance process on the road and hopefully it will be cleared in a while by now.
“To avoid any inconvenience, all types of movement has been restricted on the road till further orders”, the official said. (GNS)
Abortion rights campaigners won notable victories in Nebraska and South Carolina on Thursday, blocking a six-week ban in the first state and a near-total ban in the second.
In Lincoln, Nebraska, a vote to end debate so the bill could advance failed by one vote. Cheers erupted as opponents of the bill waved signs and chanted: “Whose house? Our house!”
Jo Giles, executive director of the Women’s Fund of Omaha, was brought to tears.
“Wow!” she said. “This was unexpected, but we’re so glad to have this win. We have fought so hard. This bill is not what the majority of women in this state wanted.”
In Columbia, South Carolina, senators rejected a bill that would have banned nearly all abortions in a state increasingly serving women across a region where Republicans have otherwise curtailed access.
Sandy Senn, a Republican senator, criticized the majority leader, Shane Massey, for repeatedly “taking us off a cliff on abortion”.
“The only thing that we can do when you all, you men in the chamber, metaphorically keep slapping women by raising abortion again and again and again, is for us to slap you back with our words,” Senn said.
The Nebraska bill would ban abortion around the sixth week of pregnancy. It is now unlikely to move forward this year. Since 2010, Nebraska has banned abortions after the 20th week. The new bill would have banned abortion once cardiac activity can be detected. It failed to get the crucial 33rd vote when state senator Merv Riepe abstained. He was a cosigner but expressed concern a six-week ban might not give women time to know they were pregnant.
A former hospital administrator, Riepe introduced an amendment that would have extended the ban to 12 weeks and add to the list of exceptions fetal anomalies deemed incompatible with life.
Riepe warned Republicans to heed signs that abortion will galvanize women to vote them out. He offered up his own election last year, noting that in the primary he was 27 points ahead but after the US supreme court’s Dobbs decision in June, striking down Roe, his margin of victory in the general election against the same challenger, a Democrat who made abortion rights central to her campaign, dropped to just under five points.
“We must embrace the future of reproductive rights,” Riepe said.
The failed bill included exceptions for cases of rape, incest and medical emergencies and made exceptions for ectopic pregnancies and IVF procedures. It allowed for the removal of a fetus that has died in the womb. It did not ascribe criminal penalties to women or doctors. It would have subjected doctors to professional discipline.
The bill’s author, Joni Albrecht, called it “the friendliest pro-life bill out there”. But she rejected a compromise that would exempt women and medical professionals from criminal penalties.
“This is simply not necessary,” Albrecht said. She also rejected Riepe’s amendment, saying her six-week proposal “was a big compromise” from a total ban she failed to pass last year.
Among those celebrating outside the legislature was Pat Neal, 72, of Lincoln, who has been fighting for abortion rights since she received an abortion in 1973, the year the Roe v Wade decision guaranteed the right.
“This gives me hope for the future,” Neal said. “It gives me hope that the direction we’ve been seeing – across the country – could turn around.”
In South Carolina, three near-total bans have now failed in the Republican-led chamber since the Dobbs decision. Six Republicans helped defeat the bill this year.
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The chamber’s five women filibustered the proposal in speeches highlighting the male majority they criticized for pushing abortion over other issues.
Penry Gustafson spent over 30 minutes on Wednesday detailing bodily changes throughout pregnancy. She said millions of women had not been heard. She emphasized her “pro-life” position but said the proposal left “no room for empathy, reality or graciousness”.
The bill would have banned abortion with exceptions for rape or incest through the first trimester, fatal fetal anomalies confirmed by two physicians, and to save the patient’s life or health.
Mia McLeod, an independent, criticized leaders who prioritized the ban over efforts to make South Carolina the 49th state to allow harsher punishments for violent hate crimes.
McLeod, who shared during debate that she had been raped, said it was unfortunate that women must reveal intimate experiences to “enlighten and engage” men.
“Just as rape is about power and control, so is this total ban,” McLeod said. “Those who continue to push legislation like this are raping us again with their indifference, violating us again with their righteous indignation, taunting us again with their insatiable need to play God while they continue to pass laws that are ungodly.”
Abortion remains legal through 22 weeks in South Carolina, a status that has drawn patients throughout the increasingly restrictive south-east.
The number of out-of-state patients has risen since the state supreme court struck down a 2021 law.
Opponents of the total ban said it would prevent safe access to the procedure and worsen alarmingly high maternal death rates and poorer outcomes for Black women.
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#unexpected #abortion #bans #blocked #Nebraska #South #Carolina
( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
Breaking it down: In a two-paragraph order, a three-judge panel of the appeals court denied the state’s request for a stay of the injunction from U.S. District Judge Mark Walker, who determined the anti-woke law is “positively dystopian.”
Florida’s Republican-led Legislature approved the legislation, FL HB 7 (22R), or the Individual Freedom Act, in 2022 to expand anti-discrimination laws to prohibit schools and companies from leveling guilt or blame to students and employees based on race or sex. Inspired by DeSantis, it takes aim at lessons over issues like “white privilege” by creating new protections for students and workers, including that a person should not be instructed to “feel guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress” due to their race, color, sex or national origin.
The law was challenged in several lawsuits, including one by FIRE and another by the ACLU, ACLU of Florida and Legal Defense Fund, both of which sued the state on behalf of students and educators. Despite the legal challenges, the DeSantis administration expects the policies to be found lawful.
“The Court did not rule on the merits of our appeal,” Bryan Griffin, press secretary for DeSantis, said in a statement. “The appeal is ongoing, and we remain confident that the law is constitutional.”
What’s next: There is no hearing currently scheduled in the case.
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#DeSantis #antiwoke #law #remains #blocked #Florida #colleges
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
SRINAGAR: The Srinagar-Jammu National highway has been closed for vehicular traffic due to shooting stones shooting stones near Sherbibi, officials said on Tuesday.
“Jammu Srinagar NHW is still blocked, clearance work is hampered due to continuous shooting stones near Sherbibi,” Jammu and Kashmir Traffic police in a tweet said.
The highway is the lifeline of the Kashmir and the main road link connecting valley with the rest of the country.
Kashmir bound trucks laden with essential supplies and other vehicles pass through the highway and fruit carrying trucks from the valley head for rest of the country through this road.
New Delhi: Over 1.6 million cyber attacks were blocked on Indian insurance companies every day in January, a report showed on Monday.
A total of 49,844,877 cyber-attacks were recorded on 114 insurance sector websites.
On average, insurance sector applications face 430,000 attacks each, which is close to the overall average of 450,000 attacks per app across all industries, according to the report by Indusface, an application security SaaS Company funded by TCGF II (Tata Capital).
The report also discovered that 51 per cent of the Indian insurance websites were attacked with DDoS requests which is much higher than the overall average of 30 per cent sites being attacked by DDoS requests.
Apart from the DDoS request attacks, the other key concern for the insurance sector in India is the rise of Bot attacks.
Over 6 million such bot attacks were documented in January.
“The rise of bot attacks on the insurance industry is concerning as these tend to be more sophisticated and surgical. The potential risks that Indian insurers face range from unauthorised access to financial data and other sensitive information, or even the internal systems of the insurance company itself,” said Ashish Tandon, Founder and CEO, Indusface.
The bot attacks mounted by hackers are of three major types — account takeover, card cracking and scraping.
Hackers usually use bot attacks to take over financial accounts and conduct credit card fraud via cracking and scraping.
Apart from the large volumes of sensitive and lucrative information such as credit card details, banking information and personal data of customers, the other key factor driving attacks on Indian insurance companies is the rise of vulnerabilities.
“Most of the insurance companies are on the path to digital transformation in order to cater to digitally savvy consumers. This has increased the number of applications, and the attack surface as well,” said the report.
“It is time to adopt a holistic solution like the AppTrana WAAP, that bundles VAPT, WAF, API Security, DDoS & Bot Mitigation and secure CDN in one platform,” said Tandon.
SRINAGAR: Srinagar-Leh national highway was closed, while several houses and a cowshed were damaged due a landslide in Rezin area of Sonamarg in central Kashmir Ganderbal district on Sunday evening.
Quoting an official the news agency KNO reported that the landslide triggered by heavy rainfall caused massive damage to houses and a cowshed and also blocked the Leh highway.
He said that officials were assessing the situation and taking steps to provide assistance to the affected people.
Meanwhile, in a statement, district administration said a landslide triggered at Rezin, leading to blockage of the highway.
“Some houses have been damaged by slide, however, no loss of life or injury had been reported. Area has been cleared, and residents of the affected area have been moved to safer places,” reads the statement.
It reads rescue teams and senior officers are also present on the spot and monitoring the situation closely.
“The highway will be cleared with the help of Beacon authorities. For any emergency or information, please contact these numbers 9906668731, 9419371774, 9541786731, 0194-2416478 and 0194-2416564,” it reads.
Ganderbal, Feb 19: Srinagar-Leh national highway was closed, while several houses and a cowshed were damaged due a landslide in Rezin area of Sonamarg in central Kashmir Ganderbal district on Sunday evening.
An official told the news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO) that the landslide triggered by heavy rainfall caused massive damage to houses and a cowshed and also blocked the Leh highway.
He said that officials were assessing the situation and taking steps to provide assistance to the affected people.
Meanwhile, in a statement, district administration said a landslide triggered at Rezin, leading to blockage of the highway.
“Some houses have been damaged by slide, however, no loss of life or injury had been reported. Area has been cleared, and residents of the affected area have been moved to safer places,” reads the statement.
It reads rescue teams and senior officers are also present on the spot and monitoring the situation closely.
“The highway will be cleared with the help of Beacon authorities. For any emergency or information, please contact these numbers 9906668731, 9419371774, 9541786731, 0194-2416478 and 0194-2416564,” it reads—(KNO)
SRINAGAR: The Jammu-Srinagar National highway has been closed for vehicular traffic due to shooting stones at Mehar-Cafeteria in Ramban, officials said on Wednesday.
“Jammu-Srinagar (NH-44) blocked at Cafeteria, Mehar, Ramban due to shooting stones” Jammu and Kashmir Traffic police in a tweet said.
The highway is the lifeline of the Kashmir and the main road link connecting valley with the rest of the country.
Kashmir bound trucks laden with essential supplies and other vehicles pass through the highway and fruit carrying trucks from the valley head for rest of the country through this road.
Islamabad: The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has blocked Wikipedia due to the website’s refusal to remove allegedly offensive or blasphemy material.
Earlier, the telecom regulator had degraded the portal’s services in the country, The News reported Saturday.
When a PTA spokesperson was contacted late Friday night and inquired about the blocking of Wikipedia, the official confirmed that “yes” it had been blocked.
On the instruction of the high court, the PTA degraded — disrupting and slowing access to the encyclopedia — website for 48 hours because there was blasphemous content on it, The News reported.
The PTA spokesperson stated that Wikipedia was approached for blocking or removal of the said content by issuing a notice under applicable law and court order(s).
An opportunity for a hearing was also provided; however, the platform neither complied by removing the blasphemous content nor appeared before the authority.
Given the intentional failure on part of the platform to comply with the directions of PTA, the services of Wikipedia were degraded for 48 hours with the direction to block/remove the reported contents, The News reported.
In case of non-compliance by Wikipedia, the platform has been blocked within Pakistan.
The restoration of Wikipedia’s services will be reconsidered if the reported unlawful content is blocked/removed.
Commenting on the development, digital rights activist Usama Khilji criticised the authorities for blocking the information portal.
“Wikipedia, World’s largest encyclopaedia, appears to be blocked in Pakistan by @PTAofficialpk.”
The Bolobhi director said that the courts and regulator must realise that Wikipedia is a crowd-sourced platform where anyone with an account can edit articles, which they can also do instead of blocking the entire website, The News reported.
