New Delhi: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi arrives at IGI Airport in New Delhi, Thursday, March 23, 2023. A Surat court on Thursday convicted Gandhi in a criminal defamation case filed against him over his alleged ‘Modi surname’ remark. (PTI Photo/Ravi Choudhary)
Surat district court on Monday granted bail to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in the Modi surname defamation case.
Gandhi had appealed against his conviction at the distinct court in Surat, Gujarat for which hearing will begin on May 3. The Congress leader’s sentence in the case has been suspended till the disposal of his appeal.
Rahul Gandhi was convicted in the case after a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader filed a case stating that his comment calling those with ‘Modi’ surname thieves was derogatory to Other Backward Classes (OBC).
“You’re removed. You’re breaching protocol and disorder in the committee room,” Fallon told Patricia Oliver, as she continued to speak about her son, who was killed in the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. After Joaquin Oliver’s death, his parents co-founded a gun reform group and have previously staged civil disobedience actions.
After the Olivers were removed by Capitol Police from the Rayburn hearing room, two officers pinned Manuel Oliver to the ground in the process of making an arrest, putting his face on the floor.
“Back up or you’ll go to jail next,” one officer shouted at Patricia, in response to her speaking to the officers and leaning over the arrest, according to video of the incident. The second officer kicked Patricia away. Patricia eventually made her way back into the committee room while the panel was called into recess.
“It was really awful,” said Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.) “They took them out of the room, and there was a sound like there was some big scuffle in the hallway.”
Fallon, who chaired the committees’ joint hearing on the Second Amendment, said it was unclear to him why the Oliver arrest occurred. He described hearing “a lot of ruckus” in the hallway from his position on the dais.
Then, during the panel’s brief recess, Cicilline and Fallon had a verbal altercation over the Olivers’ removal — a clash that Fallon described as more of “an intellectual exercise.”
The Democrat, however, maintained in an interview after the hearing that during the break Patricia Oliver had the right to “speak as loudly as she wants.”
Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) tweeted his disappointment with how the scene played out, accusing Fallon of “escalating” the situation and saying the Olivers should have gotten a warning. (Immediate removal is standard practice for disruptive attendees at congressional hearings.)
Frost ran out of the hearing and witnessed the arrest of Manuel Oliver, asking “what’s going on here?” and being repeatedly told to “get back sir” by the police.
The first-term lawmaker and gun safety activist, who got his start in the wake of the Parkland shooting in his home state, declined to comment following the arrest.
“Anyone who disrupts a Congressional hearing and disregards a law enforcement officer’s orders to stop are going to be arrested,” Capitol Police spokesperson Tim Barber said in a statement to POLITICO.
Capitol Police say that Manuel Oliver refused to stop shouting and attempted to get back into the hearing room, which resulted in the arrest. He was not put in jail, but cited and released.
Patricia Oliver was not arrested, according to the Capitol Police, “because she followed the lawful directions of our officers.”
Fallon said he would look into if any lawmakers encouraged Patricia Oliver to reenter the committee room, saying that such a move could “lead to censure that could lead to removal from committees.”
Nicholas Wu and Olivia Beavers contributed.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
And, of course, the battle over TikTok comes as the U.S. and China circle each other in an escalating battle for geopolitical and technological dominance around the world. On Thursday, just as the hearing was set to start, Beijing said it would fight any forced sale, and lawmakers were quick to point to the statement as evidence that TikTok couldn’t be free of governmental interference.
Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) said, “It’s hard to say with any certainty that China would not have any influence.”
Chew said the company’s $1.5 billion “Project Texas” is establishing a new subsidiary — TikTok U.S. Data Security — that would ensure all U.S. data is secured and stored in U.S.-based servers run by Oracle. “The protections are storing American data, on American soil, by an American company, looked after by American personnel,” Chew said.
Bipartisan doubts
Over the course of several combative exchanges, it seemed that lawmakers from both parties weren’t buying his explanations or defenses.
Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) — the top Democrat on the panel — was skeptical: “The Chinese Communist government can compel companies based in Beijing, like TikTok, to share data with the Communist government through existing Beijing law or coercion.”
Another Democrat — Rep. Anna Eshoo of California — questioned how ByteDance’s TikTok will respond to China’s data security law that requires Chinese companies hand over data requested by the CCP. “How does TikTok convince the Congress of the United States that there can be a clean break? Why would the Chinese government side step their national law … in terms of user data?” she asked.
“I have seen no evidence that the Chinese government has access to that data,” Chew said. “They have never asked us, we have never provided it.”
“I find that actually preposterous,” Eshoo said. “I don’t believe that TikTok — that you — have said or done anything to convince us the personal information of 150 million Americans — that the Chinese government is not going to give that up.”
Rep. Bob Latta (R-Ohio) asked if ByteDance employees have access to U.S. user data.
“After Project Texas is done — the answer is no,” Chew said. “Today, there is still some data that we need to delete.”
A TikTok spokesperson said the Project Texas deployment is still underway, and that all U.S. user data that pre-dates Oracle cloud transition last June is currently being deleted from the company’s servers in Virginia and Singapore.
Last year, reporting found that four ByteDance employees accessed data of U.S. reporters — and the employees were later fired. The Department of Justice is reported to be investigating ByteDance’s surveillance of journalists.
Rodgers and Pallone also said their bipartisan federal privacy bill could be a way to address data collection concerns around TikTok. The American Data Privacy and Protection Act — which advanced out of committee last year with nearly unanimous support — will be reintroduced again in the coming weeks.
“We simply cannot wait any longer to pass the comprehensive privacy legislation,” Pallone said.
Pallone grilled Chew on whether he’d support specific provisions of ADPPA. “I actually am in support of some rules on privacy,” Chew said. When asked, Chew said the company doesn’t collect “precise GPS data at this point,” or health data, and does not sell U.S. data to data brokers.
But the ranking member appeared unconvinced. “The commitments that we would seek to achieve those goals are not being made today. You’re going to continue to gather data, you’re going to continue to sell data,” and continue to be controlled by the Communist party, he said.
The politics of a popular app
TikTok is wildly popular in the U.S. — and is the number three the most-downloaded app on the Apple app store behind two other China-based apps — the Temu shopping app and CapCut video-editing tool, which is also owned by ByteDance. TikTok is particularly in-demand with younger Americans — and that will make it politically difficult for the Biden administration to do anything sweeping. Given it’s enormous user base, only the biggest and wealthiest tech companies could conceivably afford it, and a sale to one of those giants would almost surely run afoul of Biden’s antitrust regulators, who have been waging an aggressive campaign to rein in Big Tech companies like Google and Facebook.
Still, the White House is pressing forward. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States — a secretive panel made up of a number of Biden administration agencies — has reportedly told TikTok’s Chinese owners that they must sell the app or risk an outright ban. And President Joe Biden signed a bill into law last year banning TikTok on all federal devices, while more than 30 states have also banned the app on state government devices.
At the same time, an outright ban runs the risk of angering younger voters, not to mention the various content creators who have been canvassing Capitol Hill in recent days to argue against such a move.
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in comments Thursday if the app was banned nationwide, the creators will find a home elsewhere. “I absolutely believe in the market if TikTok were somehow to drop away tomorrow,” Warner said on CNN. “Whether it’s an American company, a French company, an Indian company, there will be a replacement site where people can still be creative and earn that kind of living.”
Been tried before
Washington has been wrangling with what to do about TikTok for years, even as the app has become deeply enmeshed in American popular culture.
Last fall, TikTok reportedly reached an agreement with the Biden administration on setting up the TikTok U.S. Data Security entity, which would have its own board of directors that is approved by the administration and ensures all U.S. data is secured and stored on U.S.-based servers run by Oracle. But the two sides have been fighting over the potential national security risks ever since.
The Trump administration also made its own bid, issuing an executive order in 2020 seeking to ban the app in the U.S. if it didn’t find a U.S. buyer quickly — which it failed to. That effort was swiftly struck down by a U.S. court, and any move by the current White House to outright ban the app would almost surely face similar legal hurdles.
With those previous failures in mind, a bipartisan group of lawmakers is pushing legislation they say would help Biden successfully move forward with a ban.
Warnerused Chew’s prepared testimony to endorse his bill with Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) — the RESTRICT Act — which would give the executive branch authority to prohibit some technology from foreign adversaries. “While I appreciate Mr. Chew’s willingness to answer questions before Congress, TikTok’s lack of transparency, repeated obfuscations, and misstatements of fact have severely undermined the credibility of any statements by TikTok employees, including Mr. Chew,” Warner said in a statement.
There’s no House version of the RESTRICT Act yet, but Rep. Lori Trahan (D-Mass.), a member on House Energy and Commerce, said she likes the Senate bill. “It certainly seems like a better approach than legislation previously introduced in the House,” she said in an interview on Tuesday.
The Thune and Warner teams are actively engaged with the House and would welcome a House version, a Senate aide told POLITICO.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday granted bail to a woman, allegedly having links with the banned Popular Front of India (PFI) and behind the bars since January 28 for filming proceedings in an Indore court.
Additional Solicitor General K.M. Natraj, representing the Madhya Pradesh government, submitted before a bench of Justices Ajay Rastogi and Bela M. Trivedi he would not oppose if law intern Sonu Mansoori is granted bail.
According to the police, the woman allegedly had links with PFI and had filmed the court proceedings at Indore at the instance of the banned group.
The bench, in its order, said: “After having heard learned counsel for the parties and taking into consideration the material on record, we are inclined to release Petitioner No. 2 – Sonu Mansoori from jail, to which the learned Additional Solicitor General appearing for the State has no objection. Ordered accordingly.”
“It is directed that Petitioner No. 2 shall be released from jail forthwith on furnishing personal bond of Rs 5,000 to the satisfaction of the trial court. Let this order be communicated through the Registrar General of the High Court of Madhya Pradesh forthwith. The interim application is disposed of accordingly.”
The police had claimed that Mansoori filmed the court proceedings during the hearing of a case connected with Bajrang Dal leader Tanu Sharma.
Lahore: Over 10,000 policemen launched a major operation at Imran Khan’s Zaman Park residence here and arrested dozens of workers of his party even as the former Pakistan prime minister is in Islamabad to attend a hearing in a corruption case.
The police personnel removed barricades from the entrance of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party chief’s residence and removed all camps the PTI activists had erected to protect their leader.
During the operation, some 10 workers reportedly were injured and over 30 were arrested.
Footages on social media show police beating PTI workers after entering Khan’s residence, where the 70-year-old leader claims his wife Bushra Bibi is also present.
Punjab caretaker government information minister Amir Mir told reporters that the police operation has been launched to clear the Zaman Park area.
“Zaman Park had become a no-go area. As many as 10,000 Punjab police took part in the operation to clear it. We had also reports that the members of banned organisations were also hissing there,” he said.
The minister further said a number of PTI workers have been taken into custody.
During the operation, Mir said three policemen and six PTI workers suffered injuries.
He said that police had search warrants for Imran Khan’s residence. “The anti-terrorism court had issued the search warrants of Khan’s residence and (only) after that police entered his house,” he said.
The ousted prime minister, decrying the police operation, tweeted: “(As I left for Islamabad to attend Toshakhana hearing) meanwhile Punjab police have led an assault on my house in Zaman Park where Bushra Begum is alone.” “Under what law are they doing this? This is part of the London Plan where commitments were made to bring absconder Nawaz Sharif to power as quid pro quo for agreeing to one appointment.” Khan, in a video message, said the incumbent government wanted to put him in jail at the demand of its exiled leader Nawaz Sharif. “They wanted to hold elections after sending me to jail. They have completely been exposed,” he said.
Today’s action comes as the Lahore High Court earlier on Friday granted a request by Punjab IGP Dr. Usman Anwar to search Khan’s Zaman Park residence as part of an investigation into attacks on police teams, Dawn newspaper reported.
Khan also tweeted the siege of Lahore was not about ensuring his appearance in the court but aimed at imprisoning him and preventing him from leading the PTI’s election campaign.
The PTI leader has been in the crosshairs for buying gifts, including an expensive Graff wristwatch he had received as the premier at a discounted price from the state depository called Toshakhana, and selling them for profit.
Established in 1974, the Toshakhana is a department under the administrative control of the Cabinet Division and stores precious gifts given to rulers, parliamentarians, bureaucrats, and officials by heads of other governments and states and foreign dignitaries.
Khan was disqualified by the Election Commission of Pakistan in October last year for not sharing details of the sales.
The election body later filed a complaint with the district court to punish him, under criminal laws, for selling the gifts he had received as prime minister of the country.
Khan, who has vehemently denied those charges, is set to be indicted in the case.
Meanwhile, Islamabad police have issued a traffic advisory, stating that due to tight security measures around the Judicial Complex in G-11, citizens may face difficulty in traffic movement, leading to inconvenience.
The Islamabad administration on Friday night imposed Section 144 in the capital, prohibiting private companies, security guards, or individuals from carrying weapons. It is mandatory for drivers to carry their vehicle registration documents while driving.
The government had on Friday shifted the venue of the additional sessions court to a comparatively safer Judicial Complex for the hearing of the case after the PTI raised security concerns, Dawn reported.
Islamabad: Pakistan’s electronic media watchdog on Saturday banned satellite television channels from broadcasting live coverage of events outside the Islamabad court where former prime minister Imran Khan is set to appear in a corruption case against him.
Khan, the 70-year-old chief of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, is scheduled to appear before the court of Additional District and Sessions Judge (ADSJ) Zafar Iqbal to attend proceedings on the complaint filed by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) for allegedly concealing details of gifts in his assets declarations.
In an advisory issued Saturday, the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) stated that it has been observed with concern that satellite TV channels are showing live footage and images of a violent mob, and attacks on police and law enforcement agencies.
“Such footage/images were seen on TV screens without any editorial oversight during a recent standoff between political party workers and law enforcing agencies in Lahore wherein, a violent mob used petrol bombs, injuring armless policemen and blazing police vehicles. The live telecast of such footage on different satellite TV channels created chaos and panic among the viewers and Police.”
The Pemra letter said that such activism by the mob not only jeopardises the law and order situation but also makes public properties and lives vulnerable.
The airing of such content violates a judgment of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, the media regulator said.
According to a statement, Pemra referred to the clashes between PTI workers and law enforcement personnel outside Khan’s Zaman Park residence, saying it had “observed with concern” that satellite TV channels were “showing live footages (sic) /images of a violent mob, attacks on police and law enforcing agencies”.
Pemra, in its order, said that it has prohibited live/recorded coverage of any kind of rally, public gathering, or procession by any party, organisation and individual for March 18, including from the judicial complex, Islamabad.
The regulator further said that the license will be suspended in case of non-compliance with the order.
Khan has been in the crosshairs for buying gifts, including an expensive Graff wristwatch he had received as the premier at a discounted price from the state depository called Toshakhana and selling them for profit.
Khan was ousted from power in April last year after losing a no-confidence vote, which he alleged was part of a US-led conspiracy targeting him because of his independent foreign policy decisions on Russia, China and Afghanistan.
Since his ouster, Khan has been clamouring for immediate elections to oust what he termed an “imported government” led by prime minister Shehbaz Sharif.
Sharif has maintained that elections will be held later this year once the parliament completes its five-year tenure.
Islamabad: A local court in Islamabad is set to resume on Saturday the hearing of Toshakhana case against former Prime Minister Imran Khan, who avoided arrest despite a protracted effort by law enforcement personnel to apprehend him for skipping multiple previous hearings.
The PTI leader is scheduled to appear before the court of Additional District and Sessions Judge (ADSJ) Zafar Iqbal to attend proceedings on the complaint filed by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) for allegedly concealing details of gifts in his assets declarations.
Accompanied by a convoy of his party workers, the PTI chief has departed from his residence in Zaman Park, Lahore, and is en route to Islamabad, according to the party, Dawn reported.
The government on Friday shifted the venue of the additional sessions court to a comparatively safer Judicial Complex for the hearing of the case after the PTI raised security concerns, Dawn reported.
The Chief Commissioner Office Islamabad issued a notification declaring Court No 1 Judicial Complex at G-11 as the venue for the hearing of the case filed by the district election commissioner against Imran, terming it a “one-time dispensation”.
In the last hearing on Thursday, the court rejected Imran’s plea seeking the suspension of non-bailable arrest warrants issued for him, Dawn reported.
Republicans, meanwhile, decried what they suggested was a lack of transparent communication from the EPA, which has met skepticism for its assurances that the community’s air and water are safe.
“A month after the accident, it’s clear to me that EPA’s risk communication strategy fell short,” said top committee Republican Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.). “The initial delays in messaging and response has meant that the residents still do not trust these results enough to feel safe.”
Republicans highlighted that first responders arriving on the scene didn’t immediately know what chemicals they were dealing with. In addition, residents still don’t believe EPA assurances that the air and water are safe because it still doesn’t smell right, Capito said. And, Republicans suggested that the EPA hasn’t provided direct answers on where the soil removed from the site is being shipped.
Capito grilled Debra Shore, EPA’s regional administrator, about how it is handling waste removal at the accident site, echoing complaints from Ohio Republican Sen. J.D. Vance that large amounts of contaminated soil remain. When the soil is disturbed, “it brings the odor and then here comes a lack of trust right back down onto the community,” Capito said.
Shore reported that tests of the contaminated soil revealed only low levels of dioxins, which will allow the waste to be transported to facilities qualified for disposal as soon as Thursday.
Democrats also sought to pin down Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw about whether his company will support a bipartisan rail bill that Vance is offering with senators including Ohio Democrat Sherrod Brown
and Pennsylvania Democrat Bob Casey.
“It’s bipartisan — that never happens around here on the big bills,” said Casey. “It’d be a good start by Norfolk Southern to tell us today — in addition to what they’re going to do for the people of Ohio and Pennsylvania — tell us today that they support the bill. That would help, if a major rail company said: ‘We support these reforms, and we’ll help you pass this bill.’”
Shaw did not directly answer the question. But later in the hearing, Shaw praised provisions included in the bill that intend to tighten tank car standards and increase training for first responders. He also mentioned his desire to improve the devices on tracks that detect overheating wheels, which investigators are eyeing as a factor in the derailment.
Other Democrats, including Brown and Vermont Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, criticized Norfolk Southern for what they characterized as focusing more on profits than rail and chemical safety.
“Norfolk Southern chose to invest much of its massive profits in making its executives and shareholders wealthy at the expense of Ohio communities along its rail tracks,” Brown said. He noted that in the last decade, Norfolk Southern eliminated 38 percent of its workforce.
Sanders tried to get Shaw to commit to providing paid sick leave for its workers — one of the changes the Biden administration is seeking. Shaw demurred.
At various points senators also sought to pin Shaw down on specific actions the railroad would take to make residents whole, including compensating people for long term medical costs and economic damages. Shaw responded to that and other attempts to pin him down on specifics with: “We’re committed to doing what’s right for the folks in East Palestine.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders answered: “What’s right is to cover their health care needs. Will you do that?”
Shaw only replied that “everything is on the table.”
“All of us are committed to doing what’s right,” Sanders shot back. “But the devil is in the details.”
Opening the hearing, Shaw apologized for the derailment and pledged “to improve safety immediately.”
“I want to begin today by expressing how deeply sorry I am for the impact this has had on the residents of East Palestine and the surrounding communities,” Shaw said. “I am determined to make this right.”
He said that while federal investigators have preliminarily found that the three-person crew behind the controls “was operating the train below the speed limit and in an approved manner,” it is still “clear the safety mechanisms in place were not enough.”
Norfolk Southern has announced safety changes in the wake of the accident that are tailored to addressing the likely cause — an overheating wheel on a car carrying plastic pellets, which then caught fire. The railroad industry as a whole has also made new safety promises, though they are also tailored to the specific likely cause of the accident.
Still, Shaw acknowledged that those voluntary initiatives “are just the start.”
“The events of the last month are not who we are as a company,” Shaw said, referring not just to the East Palestine derailment but at least two other incidents since then, including one this week that resulted in the death of a conductor.
Alex Guillén contributed to this report.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Former Delhi deputy chief minister and senior AAP leader Manish Sisodia has been arrested by the Enforcement Directorate on Thursday in connection with the excise policy case.
Sisodia has been sent to Tihar jail.
(This is a developing story. Refresh for more updates)
