Facebook reportedly fired Oculus founder for being pro-Trump

Agencies
November 12, 2018

Washington, Nov 12: Facebook's firing of Oculus VR co-founder Palmer Luckey last year was reportedly on the grounds of him supporting US President Donald Trump, a media report has said.

According to a Wall Street Journal report on Sunday, Luckey was asked to leave after he donated $10,000 to an anti-Hillary Clinton group during the 2016 US presidential elections.

"His donation sparked a backlash from his colleagues. Six months later, he was out," the report added. Facebook had acquired Oculus in 2014 for $2 billion. Luckey never revealed why he left Facebook.

The WSJ spoke with people familiar with the matter, who said Luckey's support for Trump upset several at Facebook, as well as many in the Silicon Valley.

"Luckey's ouster from Facebook was a harbinger of battles that have broken out over the past year over the overwhelmingly liberal culture of Silicon Valley, which has given the tech industry public-relations headaches and brought unwanted attention from Washington," the report noted.

While testifying before Congress about data privacy earlier in 2018 though, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg denied Luckey's departure had anything to do with politics.

Reacting to the WSJ report, Facebook said details about specific personnel are kept strictly confidential.

"We always made it clear that any mention of politics was up to Palmer, and we did not pressure him to say something that was not factual or true," Quartz reported, citing a Facebook statement.

In October, Luckey said his exit from Facebook was not of his own choosing.

"I can't talk about it too much, but I'll say that it wasn't my choice to leave," Luckey told CNBC.

Luckey left Facebook amid controversy surrounding his political contributions and financial support of far-right groups.

Another Oculus co-founder Brendan Iribe also announced to leave the social networking giant in October.

"So much has happened since the day we founded Oculus in July 2012. I never could have imagined how much we would accomplish and how far we would come. And now, after six incredible years, I am moving on," Iribe said in a Facebook post.

Several key Facebook executives have quit over the last months.

The Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger left the company in September.

Zukerberg's goal to monetise WhatsApp forced the mobile messaging service's co-founders also to leave.

One of them, Brian Acton, told Forbes that Zuckerberg was in a rush to make money from the messaging service and undermine elements of its encryption technology.

WhatsApp Co-founder Jan Koum left Facebook in April.

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News Network
July 4,2020

New Delhi, July 4: India on Friday reported its highest single-day spike of COVID-19 cases with 22,771 cases reported in the last 24 hours, said the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

With these new cases, India's coronavirus cases tally has gone up to 6,48,315, out of which there are 2,35,433 active cases in the country and 3,94,227 cases have been cured/discharged or migrated.

As many as 442 deaths due to COVID-19 have been reported in the last 24 hours taking the number of patients succumbing to the deadly virus across the country to 18,655.

As per the Union Health Ministry, Maharashtra -- the worst affected state due to COVID-19 -- has a total of 1,92,990 cases which is inclusive of 8,376 deaths. Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu, the second worst-affected state, has a total of 1,02,721 cases and 1,385 fatalities. Delhi's tally of coronavirus cases stands at 94,695 which is inclusive of 2923 deaths due to the virus.

The Centre said that the recovery rate has further improved to 60.80 per cent. The recoveries/deaths ratio is 95.48 per cent : 4.52 per cent.

The Indian Council of Medical Research, earlier on Saturday, said that the total number of samples tested up to July 3 is 95,40,132, out of which 2,42,383 samples were tested yesterday.

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News Network
March 12,2020

Bhopal, Mar 12: The Madhya Pradesh Congress on Thursday took a dig at Jyotiraditya Scindia, who broke ranks with the party and joined BJP on Wednesday, by pointing out that neither Prime Minister Narendra Modi nor Amit Shah had not even put out as much a tweet to welcome him in the party, and construed it as "humiliation" for the "maharaja".

"Not even a tweet by Narendra Modi-ji or Amit Shah-ji to welcome Scindia-ji! Modi-ji, Shah-ji, at least do not do it so soon. It has not even been 24 hours yet and you guys have already started humiliating him...!" Madya Pradesh Congress tweeted in Hindi.

Taking a jibe at Mr Scindia, a member of the erstwhile royal family of Gwalior who ended his 18-year-long association with the Congress party on a bitter note, the state Congress said: "He is a maharaja, the one whose history is often mentioned by Shivraj-ji (former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan)."

On Wednesday, Jyotiraditya  Scindia joined BJP in New Delhi in the presence of party president JP Nadda. He had resigned from Congress a day earlier after meeting Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Mr Scindia will file his nomination for the Rajya Sabha elections on March 13. He is expected to go to Bhopal today.

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News Network
June 8,2020

New Delhi, Jun 8: Places of worship on Monday across the country reopened after staying shut since March due to the COVID-19 induced lockdown.

Scores of temples, mosques and gurudwaras were seen opening up keeping in view the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) issued by Union Home Ministry to prevent coronavirus spread.

As per Ministry of Health guidelines, touching of idols/holy books, choir/singing groups, etc are not allowed.

In Delhi, people gathered at Gauri Shankar Temple in Chandni Chowk to offer prayers. With national capital seeing a rise in coronavirus cases, the devotees were seen wearing masks and taking precautions. People were also seen offering prayers at Kalka Ji Temple.

Several people arrived at Sri Bangla Sahib Gurudwara to offer prayers. Devotees were made to pass through the disinfectant tunnel before entering the Gurdwara in order to prevent the virus.

In Uttar Pradesh, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath offered prayers at Gorakhnath Temple after state government allowed re-opening of places of worship from today.

Devotees were seen offering prayers at Eidgah Mosque in Lucknow.

Devotees also offered prayers at Shree Dodda Ganapathi Temple in Basavanagudi, Bengaluru.

Hanuman Garhi Temple in Ayodhya also reopened on Monday.

Prayers were offered at Durga Mata Mandir near Jagraon Bridge in Ludhiana, as the government has allowed reopening of places of worship.

Although religious places have opened in most of the states, however, there are some states which are yet to do so.

Preparations related to Yatra of Char Dhams including Badrinath have been completed, however, local representative of the areas from where the routes of this yatra pass have requested the government to not allow the commencement of the Yatra.

Based on the assessment of the situation, the Odisha Government ordered that all religious places/places of worship for the public will continue to remain closed till June 30.

Earlier, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) said that religious places and places of worship for public, hotels, restaurants and other hospitality services along with shopping malls will be permitted to open from June 8.

However, these facilities will not be able to resume operations inside containment zones designated by authorities in states.

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