Harry Brook, player in team Sunrisers Hyderabad (Photo: Twiiter)
Kolkata: Harry Brook did incur the wrath of Indian fans whose opinion about players is as fickle as English weather but he is happy that his maiden IPL hundred will “shut them up” for good.
Having scored 29 in three games so far, Brook came to his own with a 55-ball unbeaten 100 that ensured a 23-run victory over Kolkata Knight Riders in an IPL match here on Friday.
“I was putting pressure on myself a little bit. You go on social media and people are calling you rubbish. There’s a lot of Indian fans out there who’ll say well done tonight. But they were slagging me off a few days ago. Glad I could shut them up to be honest,” Brook said after the match.
While he predictably rated his three Test hundreds over an IPL ton, he was satisfied to get to the milestone with his girlfriend in the stands.
“My four Test hundreds will have to be over this one,” he said.
It was a “special night” and Brook insisted that he can bat at any position.
“It was a special night. Thankfully, we got over the line as well. Got a little tense in the middle. A lot of people say that opening the batting in T20 is the best time to bat.
“I am happy to bat anywhere. I’ve had a lot of success batting at five. Made my name there. The crowd was phenomenal tonight. I enjoyed it,” Brook said.
Tel Aviv: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has demanded that his son, Yair Netanyahu, to stop posting on social media, amid accusations that it is fueling tensions in Israel and exacerbating the dispute with the United States (US), local media reported.
A report by the Walla website stated that Yair Netanyahu, who usually tweets dozens of times a day, most of which are fierce attacks against his father’s enemies, has been absent from social media.
Netanyahu last tweet was on March 28, a day after the prime minister announced a freeze on the Judicial Reform Law and two days after the US State Department condemned his tweets.
The report said, quoting three right-wing sources close to the family, that Netanyahu and his wife Sarah told Yair that he was causing damage and asked him to “calm down” and keep a low profile, revealing that the demand sparked an intense conflict within the family.
As per Jerusalem Post, Prime Minister Netanyahu vehemently denies his son’s involvement and influence in decision-making, and in the press conference he called this week he said, “It’s ironic, my son is an independent person with his own opinions. My son Yair has no influence over my decisions.”
At the beginning of the week, Yair Netanyahu was seen at Ben Gurion Airport, heading to the United States. According to information obtained by Walla News, he is expected to stay there for several months.
Yair Netanyahu is one of the most powerful and influential activists on social media affiliated with his father and the Likud party, but his extremist stances and statements fuel protests against the government and cause Netanyahu to be embarrassed and harmed.
Senior officials inside the national security apparatus were briefed on the documents on April 6, the same day the leak was first reported by The New York Times, according to two other senior U.S. officials. And the Biden administration began looking into the leak only last week.
The delay has current and former officials asking why the breach went unnoticed for so long. And it suggests that there may be a large online blind spot in the U.S. intelligence gathering process.
“Federal government agencies do not proactively monitor online forums looking for threat-related activity,” said John Cohen, the former acting undersecretary for intelligence and analysis at the Department of Homeland Security. “If a person or entity were to post classified information on one of those forums, there’s a high likelihood that government officials would not detect it.”
Officials at the top ranks of the Pentagon, the intelligence community and at the Department of Justice are still scrambling to understand who first leaked the documents, how many classified U.S. documents may still be circulating and why they went unnoticed.
Current and former officials said while each agency is responsible for investigating breaches of intelligence within their own departments, there is no one office that is responsible for monitoring, for example, social media sites for classified leaks.
The Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Council, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Pentagon declined to comment.
The U.S. government — including the Pentagon and agencies in the intelligence community — maintains that it does not spy on Americans, and there’s an argument that monitoring these online forums — even for illegally leaked materials — could be considered just that.
“Do we really want the government monitoring everything said on social media sites? The answer to that is no. If you do that, you automatically get into civil liberties issues,” said a former U.S. intelligence official familiar with the document probe. “We haven’t yet figured out a way to square that circle between on the one hand protecting people’s rights to speak and on the other hand finding out what’s going on.”
Cohen argued this leak is a potential crime and threat to national security that means the First Amendment may not apply. “Depending on the circumstances, it is possibly illegal and likely not considered protected speech,” he said.
It’s still unclear exactly when the original leak took place and who is responsible for disseminating the classified material. But the story of how the documents ended up online in recent days, including on Twitter and Telegram, can be traced back to a small group of users on the messaging app known as Discord, a platform popular with gamers.
Members of a now-defunct server on Discord first began seeing sensitive government information about global topics, including about the war in Ukraine, this winter, according to two people who viewed content from that group.
One of the users of the group — who has since deleted his profile — first started posting the information in written, summary form sometime in the winter. Weeks later, beginning in January, the user began to post images of what appeared to be internal U.S. classified documents that had been printed and folded in half. Some of them were labeled “Secret” and “Top Secret.”
Weeks later, in March, one of the users from the Discord server reposted the images on a second group on the platform known as WowMao.
“He posted 30 plus … documents concerning the Russia-Ukraine war,” said the person who started that group, a well-known Filipino YouTuber named Mao. Mao described his server as “edgy” and said the person who posted the documents might have been trying to be “cool” or “funny.”
“He must have been around circles where there were hackers,” Mao said. “There are Discord servers where people post hacks they found and stuff they found off the dark web and they are only shared within those circles. And sometimes stuff gets leaked out from there.”
After being posted on WaoMao, the documents appeared on other social media sites including Twitter, Telegram and 4Chan. At least one of the images that appeared on those sites was altered to show higher Ukrainian and lower Russian death totals.
Over the past several years, multiple government agencies have become aware of the potential upside of monitoring specific online forums, Cohen said. The problem, however, is that there are certain legal limitations on what government officials can do to track Americans’ social media activity.
The FBI is allowed to go onto social media sites and other online forums to monitor activity when it has opened a specific case, Cohen said. The Department of Homeland Security can also monitor certain online activity — but only on forums that are open to the public. The intelligence community can also monitor social media messages, as well as other communications, of foreigners.
But in this case, the individual was not threatening acts of violence and there aren’t signs that the person was known to law enforcement for any other reason.
Various agencies throughout the U.S. government often communicate with social media platforms about content that deals with everything from misinformation and disinformation to election security, hate speech and posts that threaten violence. But it is unclear the extent to which the government asks companies to remove specific content from their sites, and whether companies comply.
Discord said in an emailed statement that in regard to the breach of classified material, the company is “cooperating with law enforcement.”
“When we are made aware of content that violates our policies, our safety team investigates and takes the appropriate action, including banning users, shutting down servers and engaging with law enforcement,” said Discord spokesperson Madeline Sarver, adding that the company uses a “mix of proactive and reactive tools” to keep content that violates its policy off the platform.
Officials in Washington are wary of developing methods that would allow them to detect and analyze threats online — a stance that has sometimes disturbed lawmakers.
In a House congressional hearing in December with Ken Wainstein, the head of DHS’s office of intelligence and analysis, Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) said she was frustrated that she and other people in her state had to learn about threats posed by right-wing extremists from outside the government.
“My district is where the raids happened for the plot to kidnap and kill my governor. But the government agencies — I understand it is a sensitive issue — but I couldn’t feel more strongly about the importance of you all getting left and right limits, getting really clear about it and then coming up to proactively talk to us about this issue,” Slotkin said. “No one wants to go after someone for free speech, but when you have double the incidents of antisemitism in my state, the question remains what is my government doing to help?”
Cohen argued that the government needs to find a way to more closely monitor activity online that does not threaten acts of violence or relate to terrorism but may still be illegal, such as the leaking of classified information. But he said that leaning on research or academic institutions that track illicit activity on the internet may be an easier path than asking law enforcement or intelligence agencies to do the monitoring.
In recent days, officials inside the Biden administration have also faced tough questions from allies about how the leak occurred and why the U.S. is just now racing to investigate. U.S. officials have also discussed with allies in Europe and Kyiv whether it plans to restrict the dissemination of classified intelligence about the war in Ukraine.
Top officials at the Pentagon and National Security Council have not answered detailed questions from the podium since the leaked documents appeared, but have said they take the leak seriously and are still investigating. NBC News reported Wednesday the administration is considering changing the way it tracks social media content.
It’s unclear exactly how many documents have circulated online since the original posting on Discord. Many of the users and servers where they first appeared have since vanished. But one person who viewed the documents on the original Discord server said they believe there are perhaps dozens of additional classified documents that have not been made public.
The winding trajectory of how the classified documents spread through social media is likely muddying the investigation into the leak.
“This is not your typical leak where it goes to the media or to a foreign power,” the former U.S. intelligence official said. “It’s going to make it a bit of a challenge for the FBI to try to figure out what’s going on here.”
Alexander Ward and Mohar Chatterjee contributed to this report.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
“Actions by Twitter or other social media companies to tarnish the independence of any public media institution are exceptionally harmful and set a dangerous precedent,” NPR CEO John Lansing said in a statement. | Charles Dharapak/AP Photo
NPR announced Wednesday it will cease posting to Twitter altogether after the social media company labeled the news outlet “state-affiliated media” last week.
“NPR’s organizational accounts will no longer be active on Twitter because the platform is taking actions that undermine our credibility by falsely implying that we are not editorially independent,” NPR said in a statement. “We are not putting our journalism on platforms that have demonstrated an interest in undermining our credibility and the public’s understanding of our editorial independence.”
The move makes NPR the first major media outlet to exit the platform.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Tacopina acknowledged that Trump draws blanket media coverage at nearly all times — but he said Google searches indicated a particularly intense surge of coverage of the charges brought by Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg earlier this month. Those charges include claims that Trump falsified business records to conceal hush money payments to a porn star to cover up an affair. Because those charges relate to Carroll’s claims of “sexual misconduct,” Tacopina said, there’s a particularly acute risk that jurors in the civil trial will conflate the issues.
Kaplan has seemed intent on charging ahead with Trump’s civil case despite the surrounding chaos caused by the indictment. He recently backed a bid to permit jurors in the civil trial anonymity, citing the potential threats to their safety caused by Trump’s rhetoric — particularly toward Bragg and the judge in his criminal case.
But Trump’s effort to delay the civil case until at least May 23 underscores the extraordinary challenge of subjecting a former president — particularly one who garners intense media coverage at all times — to a civil or criminal trial before an impartial jury.
Trump’s tangle of legal threats is only likely to intensify, as several other criminal matters approach the charging stage. That includes an investigation by Atlanta-area DA Fani Willis, who has said charging decisions for Trump and his allies are “imminent” in a case about his bid to subvert Georgia’s election laws in 2020. At the federal level, special counsel Jack Smith appears to be reaching the final stages of his probe into Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents after leaving office, and he’s begun penetrating Trump’s inner circle in a separate probe of Trump’s bid to subvert the 2020 election.
Tacopina didn’t mention those other looming matters. Rather he said he expected a “cooling off” period after the Manhattan indictment to arrive by late May, when the immediacy of the Bragg news had faded. The next big milestone in that case, he said, was in August, when Trump is expected to file a motion to dismiss his case.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
It took a long time to undo the government’s monopoly over the printing press. Scholar Nayeem Showkat details the evolution of the printing facility and allied newspaper sector in Jammu and Kashmir since 1858
Rising Kashmir Printing Press
Four centuries past the invention of Gutenberg’s press, dotted by fervent production of information, the Dogra rulers of the erstwhile State of Jammu and Kashmir acquired its first printing press Vidya Vilas Press in 1858. Its purpose was the printing official documents in Jammu. The facility was equipped with facilities to also print Persian and Devnagri script and it has published several books as well.
Pandit Bankat Ram Shastri from Banaras is said to be instrumental in helping the Maharaja in the establishment of the press. Meanwhile, Saligram Press was also established in the erstwhile State of Jammu and Kashmir. It is noteworthy that both the presses were endowed with the technology to print Urdu script as well, and as mentioned in Akhtar Shehanshahi, these facilities were cardinal for the birth of Urdu journalism in Jammu and Srinagar.
Translation Department
Roping in various eminent scholars under the supervision of Pandit Govind Koul, Maharaja Ranbir Singh, concurrently, established a translation department to translate books from Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian and English into Dogri, Urdu and Hindi. The books encompassing extensive areas of astronomy, geology, mathematics, physics, zoology, and chemistry, were printed for free distribution to scholars of government schools, pathshalas and madrasas.
With aforethought of higher studies in oriental languages, schools were instituted in every wazarat and tehsil, with two such principal pathshalas in Raghunath Temple, Jammu, and Utterbhani respectively, imparting instructions in Vedas, grammar, Kavya Shastra and Nyay. For the accomplishment of the desired goals, books were supplied free of cost, and scholarships were granted to the scholars and teachers.
A portrait of Maharaja Ranbir Singh, Pic: National Portrait Gallery London
Besides, Maharaja Ranbir Singh also constituted a body of scholars in view of the translation of shahparas (writings) of various languages into Urdu and Hindi, which triggered debates on their critical and historical context. The rationale behind his intention of floating an organisation called Vidya Vilas Sabha, was to bring together various intellectuals and literati as its members, to discuss and debate different literary issues for the promotion of various languages including Sanskrit, Persian, Hindi, Dogri and Urdu.
It was in that era that numerous manuscripts of Sanskrit and Persian were printed and translated into Dogri, Hindi, and Urdu. It is worth mentioning that a substantial number of texts written in the Sarada script of Kashmiri were transcribed into Devanagari. The library then consisted of around 5000 manuscript volumes, some of which were printed in Vidya Vilas Press.
The News Media
The watershed moment in the history of news media in Jammu and Kashmir came when Vidya Vilas Sabha started to publish a double-column bilingual – Urdu and Hindi (Devnagari script) – a weekly newspaper, Vidya Vilas Jammu, covering the proceedings of this sabha. This laid the foundation of the first-ever newspaper of the erstwhile State of Jammu and Kashmir.
However, according to the First Press Commission Report, an independent periodical namely Vrittanta Bilas was published from Jammu in 1867. Surprisingly, no evidence could be found to further substantiate it.
The reference of Vidya Vilas is found in Savaaneh Umri Akhbarat, which was published in June 1896 with the name of Akhtar Shehanshahi from Lucknow by Akhtar u Daula Haji Sayed Mohammad Ashraf Naqvi. The newspaper is said to have been started by Maharaja Ranbir Singh at the suggestion of Munshi Harsukh Rai, the editor of a Lahore-based popular Urdu newspaper Kohi-i-Noor.
Published from Vidya Vilas Press, Jammu, this newspaper came into existence in 1867. In contradiction with other writers, DC Sharma claims the year of its publication to be 1868.
Growing up in the shade of the palace, this weekly newspaper contained eight pages. However, according to Tahir Masood, the newspaper comprised 16 pages. The news on its right column used Urdu script and the left column had Devnagari script.
Most historians have referred to this news sheet as Bidya Bilas. It is notable that both the Hindi words Vidya and Vilas denote The Luxury of Knowledge. However, the word Bidya is the same in Urdu as Vidya, while no such word called Bilas exists in either Urdu or Hindi language.
It raises certain doubts regarding the usage of these words either due to the local parlance or it could have simply been a mistake of an inscription. So, the title of the newspaper may be written as either Vidya Vilas or Bidya Vilas.
With a subscription rate of 12 rupees per annum, the newspaper was published every Saturday. Khojo Shah Sadrullah was the manager, while Bakshi Krishan Dayal was the editor of the weekly. According to Akhtar Shehanshahi, Maharaja himself was the patron, with Pandit Bankat Ram as its owner.
Maharaj Ganj Press
Following his ardent interest in the development of the Urdu language, Deewan Kripa Ram recommended Munshi Harsukh Rai of Koh-i-Noor to establish a private Urdu printing press in Srinagar, alsopromising to offer him certain facilities for it. Consequentially, in response to the offer, came to the fore the printing press Tohfa-e-Kashmir, which was established by Rai in Sheikh Bagh Maharaj Ganj area of Srinagar in 1875.
The press brought out a weekly newspaper with the same name, Tohfa-e-Kashmir from Maharaj Ganj the next year. This is said to be the first newspaper ever published fromthe province of Kashmir, though the practice couldn’t sustain for long. It is the same press where Abdul Salam Rafiqi’s weekly Al-Rafiq was printedin 1896.
The periodical’s critical approach, however, led to its closure as well as that of the printing press Tohfa-e-Kashmir Press. Rafiqi, later on, is said to have published the newspaper from Rangoon. However, the claim of certain historians that Rafiqi resumed publication of this newspaper from Rangoon in 1906with the support of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan in Aligarh looks dubious as Sir Syed had died in 1898.
Further, the development of the printing press received a major setback when Muhammad Din Fauq submitted an application in 1904 seeking permission to initiate a newspaper from Srinagar. This request evoked an opposite reaction with the prime minister issuing a command for the formulation of a decree banning the setting up of a printing press. It was the time when the Moravian Mission under the leadership of Father FA Red Solob as the superintendent had already instituted a litho-press with an aim to publish the translated books in its Leh office.
Ranbir Takes Off
With no visible impact of the invention of the printing press five centuries ago on the erstwhile State of Jammu and Kashmir, the press here took a long to set in motion and develop. It was on March 27, 1924, Mulk Raj Saraf was conveyed the State Council’s order permitting the initiation of a newspaper in lieu of cash security of Rs 500 as laid down in the Jammu and Kashmir State Press and Publications Regulation Samvat 1971. Besides issuing a newspaper Ranbir, he was granted permission for initiating a printing press in Jammuunder section 5 of the Act.
However, with no clue about the printing press, Saraf on his query was apprised by the establishment that “the permission to a newspaper implied the starting of a press as well.” Maharaja also agreed to donate Rs 50 per year to Ranbir. Thus began the journey of the State’s first regular Urdu weekly Ranbir. Saraf in his autobiography claims to have initially thought to name his newspaper Pahari and printing press Dogra Press in place of Ranbir and Public Printing Press respectively.
The office of Ranbir was set up in Thakur Kartar Singh’s cutcha quarter near Rani Talab. Unable to afford a power-driven plant, a hand-driven litho printing machine was installed for printing Ranbir.
Besides that, owing to the lack of katibs (calligraphists) and machine men in Jammu and Kashmir, a government katib Munshi Taj Din assumed the job of calligraphist on the condition that the necessary material be supplied to him at his home instead of him coming to Ranbir’s office.
A Government Monopoly
It is noteworthy that the government had a complete monopoly on the printing press till that time. All the earlier Census reports including the report of 1911 were silent on the inception or existence of printing presses or periodicals in the State.
For the first time, it was only the Census report of 1921, which mapped the printing presses prevalent in the State of Jammu and Kashmir. The Census report of 1921 mentions a total of four printing presses in the industry of luxury category. Revealing that no private printing press remained in existence, all the printing presses have been specified as ‘Government of Local Authority’.
Front page of newspaper, Inquilab on July 17, 1931
It is recorded that one printing press was installed in Jammu, one in the central jail, and the remaining two litho presses also in central jails. The report further delineates that there was a printing press in the Jammu district employing 165 people including one direction manager, one supervising and technical staff, 17 clerks, 133 skilled workmen and 13 unskilled labourers.
One printing press called Printing Press (Jail) was also functioning in the Jammu district employing 31 workers including supervising and technical staff, two clerks, eight skilled workmen and 18 unskilled labourers. Similarly, there were two printing presses (jail) in Kashmir South, hiring 116 employees including four supervising and technical staff, two clerks, 37 skilled workmen and 73 unskilled labourers.
The Glancy Commission
In light of a paradigm shift across the world, Maharaja Hari Singh eventually accepted Glancy Commission’s suggestions and repealed the Jammu and Kashmir State Press and Publications Regulation Samvat 1971 on April 25, 1932. A new act, Jammu and Kashmir State Press and Publications ActSamvat 1989 came into force on the same day.
Largely on the lines of a similar law in vogue in British India, this Act liberalised the press in Jammu and Kashmir. This ‘gambit’ of Maharaja Hari Singh to liberalise the press in the princely State was not only lauded in the territory but across British India. The new Act legitimised publication of dozens of newspapers since May 1932.
Within a demi-decade of the enforcement of the new Act, a spurt in publication rate was witnessed in Jammu and Kashmir, subsequently resulting in the birth of several dozen newspapers. It is estimated that the number of newspapers increased to three dozen by the end of 1937.
Erstwhile Information Minister, Choudhary Zufiqar inspecting the archives section of DIPR Jammu and Kashmir in Srinagar.
According to the Census of India, 1941, the Indian union had some 3,900 newspapers including 300 dailies and 3,600 others, with a cumulative circulation of seven million. However, according to the Report, there were 44 newspapers in the State in the spring of 1941.
The document reveals that the growth of newspapers during the period (1931 to 1941) in Jammu and Kashmir was significant. In 1931, Jammu province had only one newspaper, and Kashmir province had none. However, in 1941, Jammu province had 24 newspapers, and Kashmir had 20 newspapers, making a total of 44 newspapers in the state. Interestingly, the report also mentions that Frontier districts did not have any newspapers until 1941, as indicated in the Census document.
Proclaiming that a fair number of such newspapers were issued punctually and regularly, the census data further revealed that while a portion of it couldn’t last long, others were published at uncertain intervals. The Census discloses that local newspapers were mostly printed in Persian (Urdu) script; a few were also printed in English (Roman) and Hindi (Devanagiri) script.
Though expounding that the standard of journalism has improved like never before, yet the Census data divulges that the influx of newspapers at that time was so high for a minimal newspaper-reading public that most of such newspapers would hover between life and death.
Surprisingly, the Census of India 1941 betrays that the first printing press in Jammu and Kashmir was installed in 1912. It further documents the growth of printing presses between 1931 and 1941, stating that in 1931, State of Jammu and Kashmir had eight printing presses, with four installed in Jammu province and four in Kashmir province.
In 1941, the number of printing presses in the State of Jammu and Kashmir had increased to 37, as per the Census of India report. Of these, 22 printing presses were present in Jammu province, while 15 in Kashmir. Needless to say, the Frontier districts remained without any printing press during both the time intervals discussed.
Text Books
The Census Report of 1941 notes that information about the publication of non- educational books in Jammu and Kashmir is mostly unknown. Albeit, it highlights that the number of non-educational books was small but increasing in the region.
No textbook, according to an official document, was printed in the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir till 1936. It was during Maharaja Hari Singh’s reign only that the textbook business was nationalised in the late 1940s. To ensure prompt publication of the approved manuscripts, and further accelerate the process of printing in the State, the services of all the private presses were rendered.
Abdul Salam Rafiqi, the first Kashmir journalist
The opulence of this milieu, armed with the freedom of expression, was further reinforced with various other platforms of generating public opinion like sabhas and societies set in motion. The Census of India betrays that a total of 435 sabhas and societies had been instituted in the princely State till the spring of 1941.
Since then, some of those itemised would perhaps have become obsolete whereas others may have emerged. Of these, 125 were classified as social, 258 as religious and 52 as political in nature.
It was the time when a foreign electronic printing machine from Lahore was also imported to Kashmir in 1932 along with an experienced machine-man namely Pandit Balik Ram for Ranbir. In 1943, Saraf purchased new machinery for his printing press – which was later named Prem Printing Press – for the purpose of enabling it to print English, Urdu, Hindi, Sanskrit, etc. An adequate number of newspapers from Jammu were now published at Prem Printing Press.
Post Partition Era
As a result, the literary activities in Jammu and Kashmir were further enhanced with the literati starting book shops and printing presses for the mass dissemination of literature across the length and breadth of the erstwhile State of Jammu and Kashmir.
Further, in an attempt to modernise the printing presses, the government of Jammu and Kashmir led by Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah installed new machinery in the government presses in the State. The presses were developed under a three-year plan and a team of officers was sent to visit the presses in other parts of India.
The government also intended to send some students to England for getting the requisite training in handling the modern printing press. The machinery costing Rs 94,000 was procured for Srinagar, while Rs 50,000 for Jammu.
These decisions were taken at a time when Kashmir had many printing facilities, up and running: Brokas Press, Nishat Press, Srinagar, Clifton Press, Srinagar, Guru Nanak Printing Press, Srinagar, New Kashmir Printing Press, Commercial Printing Press, Srinagar, to name a few.
However, it seems that the events that unfolded in the backdrop of partition had an impact on the press and printing industry of the erstwhile State of Jammu and Kashmir to the extent that the whole printing industry was back to square one.
Owing to the topography of Jammu and Kashmir and only a few printing presses in place, it is conspicuous from the Census report of 1961 that the state couldn’t progress much in the field of printing. So was the condition of those minuscule presses that most of the printing work of the erstwhile State of Jammu and Kashmir was outsourced to Aligarh Press. It was still the government press in Jammu and Kashmir which was well equipped, but not to the extent that it could handle large consignments.
A Grim Situation
The situation in the erstwhile State remained quite unchanged even two decades after partition. As is evident from the Report of the Enquiry Committee on Small Newspapers, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, New Delhi, 1965, the periodicals in Jammu and Kashmir mostly don’t own the premises housing the periodical.
Besides, the equipment used by the majority of the newspapers also doesn’t belong to them. It was also revealed that the majority of the press undertook works other than printing newspapers to sustain itself.
It came to the fore that a major chunk of newspapers in Jammu and Kashmir had no printing facilities of their own and used to print their newspapers at other presses. To much surprise, it was found that not a single newspaper in Jammu and Kashmir had subscribed to any news agency at that time.
Further, according to the report most of the newspapers in the State were not illustrated at all. It is remarkable that no newspaper in Jammu and Kashmir had its own block-making facility. The newspapermen in Jammu and Kashmir were of the opinion that a financial corporation should be established which would grant loans to newspapers for the purchase of printing presses and equipment.
One of the major concerns of the newspaper industry at that time was the lack of good printing presses in the erstwhile State. The report also unveils that otherwise obsolete and out-of-fashion litho presses were ubiquitous in Jammu and Kashmir.
The output of these presses was as little as 600-700 copies an hour. During the Committee’s visit to two printing presses in Srinagar, it was also revealed that most of the presses were installed on premises which were unsanitary.
The newspapers were informed by the Committee that since the government had taken some steps to facilitate the printing of certain newspapers at the government presses, yet owing to newspapers’ failure of paying the printing charges, the experiment failed.
With an intent to avail printing facilities at economical rates, the Committee was told by the publishers of various newspapers that the government should consider the establishment of printing estates on the lines of industrial estates.
The Calligraphists
Not only the lack of efficient printing presses but also the printing of Urdu script through the litho process was impossible without the help katib (scribe). It is noteworthy that Urdu newspapers had a monopoly in the media industry of Jammu and Kashmir.
So, there was an unprecedented demand for katibs, who were employed on a salary as well as a job-rate basis, with the development of the press in Jammu and Kashmir. The getup of a newspaper relied completely on a katib.
Nayeem Showkat (Media Scholar)
As per the recommendations of the Enquiry Committee on Small Newspapers, the katibs were to be provided training in Polytechnic Schools so as to standardise Urdu calligraphy. This recommendation was further supplemented with a note by Hayat Ullah Ansari, according to whom Urdu calligraphy was standardised centuries back, that instead of the breadth of the nib as a unit to fix the dimensions of letters, the measurement of graph paper should be used so that writings of different katibs would look similar.
Ansari also suggested some changes, particularly in joints of the letters, like meem goes so much down that it occupies upon the second line and in the same way markaz goes so high that it touches the upper line. These changes would further improve the quality of Urdu writing and will save much space, he suggested.
What made the erstwhile State of Jammu and Kashmir quite a peculiar case in this regard is that no school for katibs was established in the erstwhile State or in any other neighbouring state, thereby resulting in numerous printing faults arising from the low efficiency of katibs as was observed by the Committee.
(The writer is a Post-doctoral Fellow in Media Studies at the Indian Council of Social Science Research, New Delhi.)
Jamshedpur: An FIR has been registered against a person for allegedly posting objectionable message on social media against a particular community during the recent outbreak of violence over the reported desecration of a religious flag in Jamshedpur, officials said.
The case was registered on the directive of East Singhbhum District Deputy Commissioner Vijaya Jadhav, they said.
” The police detected such a message posted on the Facebook account of the accused, who targeted a particular religion and community,” an official statement said.
The accused person has been absconding and search is underway to trace him, police said.
“The district administration has been keeping a vigil on social media while urging people not to post/share any sensitive video, photo or messages on social media,” the statement said.
A total of 67 people have so far been arrested in connection with Sunday’s violence between two groups belonging to two different communities in Shastrinagar area, Deputy Superintendent of Police (Traffic), Kamal Kishore told PTI.
BJP leader Abhay Singh was among those arrested, police had said on Monday.
Meanwhile, the Jharkhand unit of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) on Tuesday demanded a high-level probe into the incident and stringent action against the perpetrators.
The demand was made after a delegation of the VHP led by its secretary Virendra Sahu met Jharkhand Governor C P Radhakrishnan in Ranchi, the organisaton said in a release.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday condemned Russians forces as “beasts” over the execution of a Ukrainian soldier, who appeared to be beheaded while still alive in a video published on social media.
Zelenskyy’s reaction comes as Kyiv is ramping up diplomatic pressure over Moscow’s presence in international forums ranging from the U.N. Security Council to the Olympics.
“There is something that no one in the world can ignore: how easily these beasts kill,” the Ukrainian president said in a video posted on Twitter.
“This video, the execution of a Ukrainian captive, the world must see it,” he added. “This is a video of Russia as it is, what kind of creatures they are, there are no people for them: a son, a brother, a husband, someone’s child.”
In recent days, two videos have appeared. One supposedly filmed by Wagner group mercenaries shows the bodies of two Ukrainian soldiers, whose heads and hands were cut off, and appeared on pro-Russian social channels. Another — seeming shot in the summer — shows a Russian use a knife to sever the head of Ukrainian prisoner, who appears to be pleading with his killer.
Ukrainian social media and street conversations are charged with anger and pain as people discuss yet more potential evidence of a Russian war crime in Ukraine. Officials from the Defense Ministry of Ukraine asked people not to share the video to spare the feelings of the relatives of the soldier, who might recognize him on the video. Other soldiers, tweeting from the frontline express grief and anger.
“Each of us could and can be in the place of that guy whose head was cut off by the Russians,” Vitaly Ovcharenko, a Ukrainian serviceman from Donbas, tweeted.
And Yaryna Chornohuz, Ukrainian marine and combat medic currently serving near the frontline town of Bakhmut, claimed the Russians posted the decapitation video to trigger a feeling of defenselessness, and helplessness in the face of evil. She saw it as a sign of cowardice.
“It is important not to become like the enemy who commits atrocities, because that is what they are counting on. The enemy expects that we will also cut off heads, and they will feed it to their zombie population. Such videos are spread on purpose with this goal, to raise the degree of severity and take advantage of it,” Chornohuz said in a post.
POLITICO was not able to independently verify the videos.
Last month, another video showed a Ukrainian soldier saying “Slava Ukraini” (Glory to Ukraine) shortly before being executed by Russian troops.
Zelenskyy called on world leaders to act, saying “action [was] required now.”
“This is is not an accident, this is not an episode. This was the case before,” the Ukrainian president added.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba also reacted to the execution video, saying Russia, which is currently presiding over the United Nations Security Council, “must be kicked out of Ukraine and the UN, and be held accountable for [its] crimes.
Slovakia’s prime minister, Eduard Heger, also strongly condemned the execution, saying that the video shows Russia has “no legal or human limits in evil doing,” calling the beheading “ISIS style” and adding that this will be punished and not forgotten.
Ukrainian authorities have called for the creation of a special tribunal to rule over war crimes committed by Russian forces since the launch of a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has already started an investigation into this alleged war crime. “We will find these non-humans. If necessary, we will get them wherever they are: from underground or from the other world. But they will definitely be punished for what they have done,” SBU Head Vasyl Malyuk said in a statement.
Moscow has denied committing war crimes in Ukraine — in spite of numerous reports showing otherwise, as well as the issuance of an arrest warrant last month against President Vladimir Putin over the forced deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia.
“We are not going to forget anything. Nor are we going to forgive the murderers,” Zelenskyy said in his video address Wednesday.
Wilhelmine Preussen contributed reporting.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
Billionaire-entrepreneur Elon Musk acknowledged he has made mistakes on social media, in an at-times bizarre interview with the BBC overnight.
“Have I shot myself in the foot with tweets multiple times? Yes,” Musk said. “I think I should not tweet after 3 a.m.”
Revealing the scale of the job cuts at Twitter since Musk bought the company for $44 billion last October, Musk said around 1,500 people currently work for the social media platform, down from “just under 8,000,” after a series of what he described as “painful” layoffs.
Musk defended the job cuts, claiming they were necessary to stave off bankruptcy. “This is not a caring, uncaring situation. It’s like if the whole ship sinks then nobody’s got a job,” Musk said, claiming that he had been “under constant attack” since buying Twitter.
The “pain level has been extremely high” since buying Twitter, Musk said. “Were there many mistakes made a long the way? Of course. But all’s well that ends well, I feel like we’re headed to a good place.”
The billionaire defended Twitter’s move to phase out its previous system of verifying notable accounts and personalities with a blue tick, and introduce a system where any user can pay for the tick instead. Several news organizations, including the New York Times and the Washington Post, have said they would not pay to keep their blue ticks.
“It’s a small amount of money, so I don’t know what their problem is,” Musk said. “We’re going to treat everyone equally.”
He said legacy blue ticks would disappear next week.
Asked whether he would sell Twitter for the same amount he paid for it, Musk said he wouldn’t — unless the buyer was as committed to telling the truth as he claimed to be. Last month, Musk said he thought the company was now worth $20 billion.
The live interview took place in Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters, and the BBC was given “about 20 minutes’ notice” that it would be going ahead, according to the British public broadcaster. Asked why he had agreed to sit down with the BBC, Musk said: “Spontaneity.”
Addressing a row over the decision by Twitter to label the BBC’s Twitter accounted as “government-funded media,” Musk said the tag would be updated. “I actually do have a lot of respect for the BBC,” Musk said. “We want it as truthful and accurate as possible — we’re adjusting the label to ‘publicly funded.'”
The interview took some strange turns, with Musk at one point saying he was “no longer the CEO of Twitter” and repeating his claim that his dog had replaced him in the top job.
The interview went for longer than expected, with James Clayton, the BBC journalist interviewing Musk, attempting to end the discussion on several occasions, but the entrepreneur insisting on answering questions from users on Twitter Spaces.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
Joe Biden managed to tread carefully around historic and current political sensitivities during the first part of his trip to the island of Ireland this week, marking 25 years since the U.S.-brokered Good Friday Agreement sought to secure lasting peace for Northern Ireland.
But not long after crossing from that U.K. region into the Republic of Ireland on Wednesday, the U.S. president made a major gaffe: He confused New Zealand’s “All Blacks” rugby team with the notorious “Black and Tans” British military unit that fought the Irish Republican Army a century ago.
At the end of a rambling speech in a pub Wednesday night, Biden — flanked by Irish Foreign Minister Micheál Martin and star rugby player Rob Kearney, a distant cousin — tried to pay a compliment to one of Kearney’s greatest sporting accomplishments. That would be when Ireland’s rugby team defeated New Zealand for the first time in 111 years, in November 2016 in Chicago. New Zealand’s squad is famously called the All Blacks, in reference to their uniforms.
Trouble is, Biden let slip a reference that could well reflect his affinity with Irish rebel history and its folk songs.
“He’s a hell of a rugby player, and he beat the hell out of the Black and Tans,” Biden said to audience laughter.
The Black and Tans were an auxiliary unit of Britain’s security forces that fought IRA rebels in their 1919-21 war of independence from Britain. Their name reflected the improvised and inconsistent colors of their uniforms.
The unrelentingly pro-Biden coverage on state broadcaster RTÉ, which televised his speech live, didn’t acknowledge the mistake. The commentator’s sign-off? “Well, that’s Joe Biden: a little bit sentimental, a little bit schmaltzy, but a thoroughly decent guy and a great friend to Ireland. The trip is off to a great start.”
But the gaffe and “Rob Kearney” blew up on social media in Ireland. Some listed the retired rugby fullback’s career accomplishments including, most famously, his single-handed defeat of the British forces a century ago.
“The greatest gift Ireland wanted from Joe Biden was a signature gaffe. And … didn’t he just go and give us one for the century,” tweeted comedian Oliver Callan.
Attempting to hose down the row on Thursday, Biden aide Amanda Sloat, the National Security Council senior director for Europe, said: “I think for everyone in Ireland who was a rugby fan it was incredibly clear that the president was talking about the All Blacks and Ireland’s defeat of the New Zealand team in 2016.”
She added: “It was clear what the president was referring to. It was certainly clear to his cousin sitting next to him who had played in that match.”
Lost in the shuffle was Biden’s other Kearney gaffe: He still hasn’t figured out how to say his name.
When introducing Kearney at the White House on St. Patrick’s Day, Biden called him Keer-ney. The Irish pronounce the name Kar-ney. Biden stuck with Keer-ney on Wednesday.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
