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INX Media money laundering case: Chidambaram's counsel seeks transcript of ED interrogation

Agencies
August 27, 2019

New Delhi, Aug 27: Senior Congress leader and former finance minister P Chidambaramsought in the Supreme Court on Tuesday that the Enforcement Directorate be asked to produce the transcripts of his interrogation it had conducted on three dates in the INX Media money laundering case.

Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Chidambaram, told a bench of Justices R Banumathi and A S Bopanna that they have filed an application seeking direction to the ED to produce the transcripts of the questioning conducted on December 19 last year, January 1, 2019 and January 21, 2019 in the case.

The transcripts will show whether Chidambaram was evasive during his questioning, as alleged by the ED, Sibal said.

He told the bench that the ED cannot place documents in the court randomly and "behind the back" for seeking Chidambaram's custody.

"They are just producing documents at random and saying this is part of the case diary," Sibal said, adding, "They cannot place the documents behind the back and seek custody of accused."

Senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, also appearing for Chidambaram, referred to the constitutional and legal provisions and said that fundamental right of citizens under Article 21 (right to life and personal liberty) cannot be suspended.

Singhvi argued that the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) was amended in 2009 whereas the allegations in the case are of 2007-2008.

"You try and paint a person as a kingpin when these alleged offences did not exist at that time," he told the court during the arguments which will continue in the post lunch session.

On Monday, the apex court had extended till Tuesday the protection from arrest given to Chidambaram in the INX Media money laundering case lodged by the ED.

Chidambaram was the Union minister for finance as also home during the UPA-I and UPA-II government from 2004 to 2014.

The CBI had registered an FIR on May 15, 2017, alleging irregularities in the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) clearance granted to the INX Media group for receiving overseas funds of Rs 305 crore in 2007 during Chidambaram's tenure as the finance minister.

Thereafter, the ED lodged a money laundering case against him in 2017.

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Agencies
August 3,2020

Rajouri, Aug 3: Ashfaq Mehmood Choudhary, a 17-year-old boy from Chattyear of Jammu and Kashmir's Rajouri district, has developed a file-sharing app 'Dodo Drop' which would enable users to share audios, videos, images, and texts between two devices without Internet access.

While speaking to media persons, Ashfaq Mehmood said that the 'Dodo Drop' application is an alternative to the Chinese 'SHAREit' app. "The Indian government has banned several Chinese apps due to data breaching, and among those apps was SHAREit which was used for sharing files.

Users faced a lot of problems due to the ban, and so I decided to make this file-sharing app. With 'Dodo Drop', users can share audios, videos, images, and even texts," he said.

Ashfaq said that it took him four weeks to develop the application, and it was launched on August 1 this year. The 'Dodo Drop' application has a transfer rate of up to 480 mbps, which is faster than the SHAREit app and is "quite easy" to use.

"Users can transfer data comprising photos, videos, audios, apps, texts, etc. between two devices with no Internet access. The transfers are fully encrypted and secure," he added.

"Our Prime Minister has always asserted the need for decreasing the dependency on foreign products and apps and to focus on the development of India-based apps. I tried to be part of the initiative of 'Aatmanirbhar Bharat' by developing an India-based file-sharing app. I want to develop global-standard apps for India," he added.

"We support and cooperate with him. He generates his own income by working on some projects and utilises it. We will continue to support him," said Parvez Ahmed Choudhary, Ashfaq's father.

In July, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) banned 47 apps, which were variants and cloned copies of the 59 apps banned earlier in June. These banned clones included SHAREit Lite, Tiktok Lite, Helo Lite, BIGO LIVE Lite, and VFY Lite.

The 59 apps had been banned by the Centre in June in view of the information available that they were engaged in activities which were "prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity and defence" of the country.

Almost all the apps banned had some preferential Chinese interest and the majority had parent Chinese companies.

The ban came amid border tensions with China in the Eastern Ladakh region.

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News Network
May 27,2020

New Delhi, May 27: Professor Johan Giesecke of the Karolinska Institute, Sweden, on Wednesday claimed that India will ruin its economy very quickly if it had a severe lockdown.

Claiming that a strict lockdown may disrupt India's economic growth, Giesecke during an interaction with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said: "In India, you will do more harm than good with strict lockdown measures. India will ruin its economy very quickly if it had a severe lockdown."

While calling for a soft lockdown approach in India, he suggested that India has to ease restrictions one by one. It may, however, take months to completely come out of lockdown, he said.

He further criticised countries across the globe for having no post-lockdown strategy.

Emphasising on the disease, the Swedish health expert said that coronavirus is spreading like a wildfire across the world. "It is a very mild disease. Ninety-nine per cent infected people will have very less or no symptoms," he added.

Meanwhile, Ashish Jha, Director Harvard Global Health Institute and a recognised public health official, in interaction with Gandhi, called for a need to go in for an 'aggressive' COVID-19 testing to create confidence among people.

"When the economy is opened post-lockdown, you have to create confidence. There is a need for aggressive testing strategy in high-risk areas," he said.

He asserted that COVID-19 is not the last pandemic in the world, adding that "We are entering the age of large pandemics".

Jha further said that countries like South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong have responded the best to COVID-19 pandemic, while Italy, Spain, the US and the UK have responded the worst.

A few days ago, the Gandhi scion had interacted with former Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan and Nobel Prize Winner Abhijit Banerjee to discuss various issues related to the COVID-19 crisis.

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News Network
July 16,2020

New Delhi, Jul 16: With the highest single-day spike of 32,695 cases and 606 deaths reported in the last 24 hours, India's COVID-19 tally on Thursday reached 9,68,876, informed the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Thursday.

The total number of COVID-19 cases includes 3,31,146 active cases, 6,12,815 cured/discharged/migrated and 24,915 deaths.

As per the Ministry, Maharashtra -- the worst-affected state from the infection -- has a total of 2,75,640 COVID-19 cases and 10,928 fatalities. While Tamil Nadu has a tally of 1,51,820 cases and 2,167 deaths due to COVID-19.

Delhi has reported a total of 1,16,993 cases and 3,487 deaths due to COVID-19.

Meanwhile, as per the information provided by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), 1,27,39,490 samples have been tested for COVID-19 till 15th July, of these 3,26,826 samples were tested yesterday.

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