Daily Briefing: Police at Twitter’s door after BJP ‘toolkit’ posts flagged

Read the latest on India's covid wave, Twitter India getting a notice from Delhi police, an exclusive piece by Prabhat Jha, epidemiologist and Director of the Centre for Global Health Research in Toronto and more.

The Big Story

Months after the Government threatened to jail Twitter India employees for refusing to take down tweets about farmer protests, a team of Delhi Police personnel knocked on the doors of the social media platform’s Delhi and Gurgaon offices to ostensibly serve a notice over the BJP’s “toolkit” allegations. Twitter had flagged some posts by ruling party leaders alleging a Congress plot to malign the Prime Minister and the Central Government as “manipulated media”.

Only in the Express

And in what could be a potential flashpoint between the Centre and US-based social media platforms, the deadline set by the former for Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to appoint a chief compliance officer and a nodal contact person is set to expire in two days. They are now at risk of losing immunity from legal prosecution for content posted on their platforms.

Prabhat Jha, epidemiologist and Director of the Centre for Global Health Research in Toronto, on why we should be counting the dead separately for urban and rural India.

From the Front Page

With access to Internet and smartphones becoming a barrier for many looking to book slots for Covid vaccination in the 18-44 age group, the Centre has now enabled on-site registration and appointment for this age group. 

Even as pharma giants Pfizer and Moderna told states they would not sell them Covid vaccines directly and would deal only with the Centre, it is unlikely that India will be receiving doses any time soon. The reason: several other countries are ahead of India in line, waiting for delivery of their confirmed orders. 

Must Read

CPM and Congress leaders in Kerala are up in arms after the Lakshadweep administrator approved a slew of proposals  ranging from a ban on beef to disqualification of panchayat poll aspirants with more than two children. The proposals also include the anti-goonda Act in the island territory where the crime rate is very low. 

Southern states have figured prominently on India’s oxygen express map of late, with deliveries of liquid medical oxygen to Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka having spiked the most sharply over the last four days.

And Finally…

Tamil Nadu allows a maximum of 50 people to attend wedding celebrations. But more than three times that number attended a mid-air wedding ceremony on board a chartered SpiceJet flight. Videos of the ceremony emerged on social media with passengers being seen without masks or face-shields and not following social distancing norms. 

 

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