Hyderabad couple arrested for beheading baby as sacrifice during 'super blue blood moon'

Patna, Jan 23: "They should go wherever they want," Bihar Chief Minister and JDU supremo Nitish Kumar said on Thursday when asked of Prashant Kishor and Pavan Verma's repeated questions about the party's stand's on the newly enacted Citizenship Act.

"It is their personal decision. They should go wherever they want. We don't have an objection. Don't look at JDU in the context of statements by some people. JDU works with determination. We have a clear stand and don't have any confusion," the Chief Minister told reporters here.

"If they have something to tell, they should come and discuss it within the party. They should go wherever they want. They have my good wishes," he said.

JDU spokesperson and national general secretary Pavan Verma has questioned his party's alliance with the BJP in Delhi Assembly polls while Kishor has more than once made his differences with the party known on the issue of the amended Citizenship Act, and National Register of Citizens.

Lucknow, Jan 21: Defending his brainchild, the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), Union home minister Amit Shah on Tuesday said the new law will not be scrapped despite the countrywide protests against it.

Addressing a rally here to drum up support for the CAA, Shah also declared that construction of a Ram temple "touching the skies" in Ayodhya will begin within three months.

He said there is no provision in the amended law for taking anyone's citizenship away. "A canard is being spread against the CAA by the Congress, SP, BSP, and Trinamool Congress. The CAA is a law to grant citizenship," he added.

"I want to say that irrespective of the protests this will not be withdrawn," he added.

Shah challenged Congress leaders to hold a discussion with him on CAA at a public forum.

He named Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, Samajwadi Party's Akhilesh Yadav, Bahujan Samaj Party's Mayawati and TMC chief Mamata Banerjee while throwing the "challenge".

Congress has become blind due to vote bank politics,"he said. He also blamed the Congress for Partition.

Expressing concern over the ban imposed on TikTok by the government of India, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has reportedly called the development in the south Asian country “worrisome”.

TikTok was amongst the 59 Chinese apps that were banned in India but why it hogs the maximum limelight because TikTok had the second-largest user base in India with over 200 million users.

As per The Verge writer Casey Newton, Zuckerberg was worried about TikTok’s India ban. Although it soon cashed into the opportunity and released a TikTok clone “Reels”, the government’s reason behind banning the app in India wasn’t received well by Mark Zuckerberg. 

He had said that if India can ban a platform with over 200 million users in India without citing concrete reasons, it can also ban Facebook if something goes amiss on the security and privacy front.

Why Mark finds it particularly worrisome because Facebook is already involved in a lot tussle with the governments across the world involving national security concerns. 

“Facebook already faces fights around the world from governments on both the left and the right related to issues that fit under the broad umbrella of national security: election interference, influence campaigns, hate speech, and even just plain-old democratic speech. Zuckerberg knows that the leap from banning TikTok on national security grounds to banning Facebook on national security grounds is more of a short hop,” the report by Casey read.

Facebook till now has not faced any kind of issue in India but considering the debacle with the other governments, it is not entirely wrong to worry about its future in India if any national security issue arises. Back in 2016, Facebook’s Free Basics service, which means a free but restricted internet service, was banned in India by the telecom regulators. 

The TRAI had said that the Free Basic services were banned in India because it violated the principles of net neutrality. With Free Basics services, Facebook had planned to bring more unconnected users online. But since 2016, there has been no major tussle between the Indian government and Zuckerberg due to national security issues.