Imran Khan invites Kapil, Gavaskar, Sidhu, Aamir; nod awaited to invite PM Modi

News Network
August 2, 2018

Islamabad, Aug 2: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) party on Wednesday was waiting for a government nod to invite Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi even as it has already sent out invitations to some of the Bollywood and Indian cricket stars, for the prime minister-elect Imran Khan’s oath ceremony next week.

The PTI is likely to form a coalition government headed by 65-year-old cricketer turned politician, Imran Khan.

The guest list for the swearing-in ceremony, sources said, includes some of Khan’s contemporaries in the cricket world, the legendary Indian cricketers, Kapil Dev, Sunil Gavaskar, Navjot Singh Sidhu and actor Aamir Khan whose blockbuster movie ‘Lagaan’ was centered around cricket in colonial India.

Sources said the invitations to the Indian celebrities were sent out on the basis of the good rapport Khan shares with them. In his victory speech, following the July 25 general elections in which the PTI emerged as the single largest party, Khan reminded his critics in media that his connection with Indians was from the days of playing cricket and traveling in India.

Though the invites to the non-governmental guests have already been sent, the PTI has asked the Foreign Office (FO) to confirm whether foreign heads of states could be invited to the prime minister’s swearing-in ceremony, scheduled to take place in Islamabad on August 11, three days before the country’s Independence Day. Sources said the PTI leaders in a meeting with the Foreign Office today sought permission to invite Modi and other foreign heads of Saarc states to the ceremony.

However, a day earlier, the PTI had denied news reports that it was considering inviting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other heads of Saarc countries.

In an informal conversation with reporters outside the Supreme Court after meeting the chief justice of Pakistan Mian Saqib Nisar, the PTI’s spokesperson Fawad Chaudhry said that the party has asked the FO if it would be possible to invite foreign dignitaries, including Indian PM Narendra Modi, at a short notice. “The FO is yet to respond on the matter and we are waiting for it,” Chaudhry said. He said the party had already invited celebrities like Amir Khan, Kapil Dev and Sunil Gavaskar for the ceremony.

On Tuesday, Iftikhar Durrani, PTI’s media head, said, “We have note extended any invite nor was this issue discussed during Monday night’s telephonic conversation between Khan and Modi.”

The trend of inviting Saarc heads was started by Prime Minister Modi in 2014 for his oath ceremony. Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif travelled to New Delhi to attend the event. However, the India-Pakistan relations went south after Pathankot and Uri cross-border attacks by Pakistan based terror groups.

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Agencies
January 6,2020

The Cambridge Analytica scandal is far from over. New explosive details leaked by a whistleblower shows that the extent of the rot is far deeper than previously thought.

An anonymous Twitter account, @HindsightFiles, has started releasing the documents, apparently on behalf of Brittany Kaiser, a former employee of the now defunct British data analytics and consulting company Cambridge Analytica.

"Democracies around the world are being auctioned to the highest bidder. We release the documents that explain how," reads the biography of the @HindsightFiles.

The document will reveal previously unreleased emails, project plans, case studies, negotiations and more spanning over 60 countries.

"Over the past two years I have given evidence to investigators, journalists and academics to analyse what happened at Cambridge Analytica, and how our data was used to influence democracies around the world. In the name of shedding light on these dark practices, I am releasing documents and emails in full for the public good," Kaiser, who worked with Cambridge Analytica from 2014 to 208, was quoted as saying.

"I do this to strengthen the case for data rights and enforcement of our electoral laws online globally. We should all be seeking more ethical digital future for ourselves and our children," added Kaiser who starred in the Oscar-shortlisted Netflix documentary "The Great Hack".

The details released so far includes links to material on the firm's activities in Malaysia, Kenya, Brazil and Iran, an addition to the John Bolton archive.

Over the next months, more than 100,000 documents relating to work in 68 countries are set to be released, according to a report in The Guardian.

More than one and a half year after the Cambridge Analytica scandal first became public, US regulators last month said that the now-defunct British data analytics and consulting company engaged in deceptive practices to harvest personal information from tens of millions of Facebook users for voter profiling and targeting.

According to Kaiser, the Facebook data scandal was part of a much bigger global operation designed to manipulate people in collaboration with governments, intelligence agencies, commercial companies and political campaigns.

The unpublished documents contain material that suggests the firm collaborated with a political party in Ukraine in 2017 even while under investigation as part of Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election, said The Guardian report.

"There are emails between these major Trump donors discussing ways of obscuring the source of their donations through a series of different financial vehicles. These documents expose the entire dark money machinery behind US politics," Kaiser was quoted as saying.

Similar tactics were deployed in other countries that Cambridge Analytica operated in, including Britain, she claimed.

The files released by Kaiser suggest that Cambridge Analytica offered to help United Malays National Organisation (Umno), the party of Malaysia's Former Prime Minister Najib Razak, to influence the voting of 40 parliamentary constituencies in the 14th General Election (GE14) in 2013.

Umno, according to the leaks, requested the company to prepare a proposal to regain 13 seats, The South China Morning Post reported on Saturday.

In 2018, Razak claimed that he had never engaged Cambridge Analytica in any way.

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News Network
January 9,2020

New Delhi, Jan 9: The Union government has removed the central security cover of Tamil Nadu Deputy Chief Minister O Paneerselvam and DMK leader M K Stalin, officials said on Thursday.

They said while Paneerselvam had a smaller 'Y+' cover of central paramilitary commandos, Stalin had a larger 'Z+' protection.

The security cover of these two politicians has been taken off from the central security list after a threat assessment review was made by central security agencies and approved by the Union home ministry, they said.

Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) commandos were protecting these two leaders of Tamil Nadu.

However, they said, the central security cover will be formally taken off after the state police takes over their security task, they added.

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News Network
March 19,2020

New Delhi, Mar 19: Lawyer of Mukesh Singh, who is one of the four death row convicts in the Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder case, on Thursday mentioned a petition before the Registrar of the Supreme Court seeking an urgent hearing in the matter.

Advocate Manohar Lal Sharma, through the petition, sought directions to bring call record, documents and reports of his client through any probe agency and passed appropriate directions and measure to ensure justice in the matter.

The petition, however, has not sought a stay on the execution, which is scheduled for the morning of March 20. The petition is likely to be taken up for hearing today.

Earlier today, the apex court dismissed the curative petition of Pawan Gupta, another convict in the matter, who claimed juvenility at the time of the crime.

This comes as the four convicts -- Mukesh Singh, Akshay Singh Thakur, Vinay Sharma and Pawan Gupta -- are scheduled to be hanged at 5.30 am on March 20.

Meanwhile, several other petitions are also pending in the matter in different courts.

The case pertains to the brutal gang-rape and killing of a 23-year-old paramedical student in a moving bus on the night of December 16, 2012, by six people including a juvenile in the national capital. The woman had died at a Singapore hospital a few days later.

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