A letter to the Press Council of India on Hyderabad blasts coverage

February 27, 2013

To,

Hon'ble Justice Markandey Katju,

Chairman,

Press Council of India,

New Delhikatju

Sir,

Sub: Hyderabad Bomb blasts - Issue direction to the Media houses to stop Media Investigation and Trial – To stop terrorizing Muslim community and hatred among people – Reg.

With the reference to the subject cited above in the evening of 21st February 2013 an unfortunate incident of bomb blast took place in Dilsukhnagar area of Hyderabad in which almost 16 people were killed and hundreds injured. The dead belonged to all the religions and sections.

Immediately after the blast, electronic media both regional (Telugu) and national (Hindi & English) reached the spot and started live coverage along with their expert comments. Telugu channels which telecast both Telugu and Urdu news bulletin are completely different. In the Telugu bulletins they spread hatred against Muslims where in Urdu bulletin they are very cautious in reporting such hatred. So, the Telugu and Urdu news bulletin are completely different from each other. When the whole city was under shock, media and people arising out of their caste & religion were enquiring the safety of each other. The common people came into immediate action and were trying to help injured and dead to shift to the nearby hospitals. The thought of who carried the blasts never came to the minds of the common people but they were very much concerned about saving the lives of the blast victims. But the media without showing any such concern was carrying out their own style of reporting.

At the same time, media was reporting live along with speculations which diverted towards one community and as usual that was nothing but towards Muslims. The media started investigation and jumped on the conclusions and media room trial started. By giving their own sources they named the organizations behind the blast and also the names of Muslim youths. They even said that the planning of these blasts took place in October itself. The media is diverting and linking these blasts to the revenge of Afzal Guru and Ajmal Kasab. The media also said that it is the revenge of Akbaruddin Owaisi's arrest.

Before the state investigating agencies and central investigating agencies reached the spot, the media and Hindutva elements gathered due to which the evidence of bomb blasts lost. Though the police personnel reached there but did not try to control the Hindutva elements and media mob. The Hindutva elements raised the slogans of anti-Muslim slogans.

The first thing which the media announced is that the actual target of bomb blast was not the present place but it was the Saibaba Mandir (how media got this report no one knows). Then the media started explaining how the preparations of bomb blast took place. They even said that two days before the blasts the bomb planters were roaming in that area. Media even declared the names of the persons involved in the blast. The number of channels, that number of investigation and trial was going on and all the channels had same conclusions. The target of all these channels was Muslims. The matter of concern is that the media houses do not have any evidence or any information of this incident but had only speculations. But with the type of their reporting it seemed that they knew everything in advance. The media is even showing an injured Muslim youth in the blast as main suspect and unfortunately this person named Mirza Abdul Wasey became the victim of bomb blast for the second time. He was injured even in the Makkah Masjid blast as well. A person injured two times in the blast i.e. in Makkah Masjid bomb blast and Dilsukhnagar bomb blast became a crime, only because he is a Muslim.

The common people wondered that if at all the media houses knew all the facts then why didn't they inform the police? And if they did not alert the police then it means that they have indirectly helped the terrorists. Without any evidence targeting of one particular community is to increase their TRP ratings then that is nothing but helping the terrorists. Because in this country where plural society exists, these type of incidents are carried out only to propagate the hatred and division among the people and in the society. Such type of reporting of media is making the plans of terrorists easier. This type of reporting is nothing but act of terror. Because of this type of reporting, one particular community is completely isolated, traumatised and terrorized.

This committee wants to draw your attention towards this type of reporting of media houses which is propagating hatred among the people and isolating the Muslim community. The majority community is seeing them with suspect in every walk of life. The attitude of media has become the biggest threat to Muslim community and their life and liberty is at stake.

Dear sir, we want to say clearly that at this time, Muslims are the victims of bomb terror, police terror, media terror and mob terror. This is the ground reality.

Therefore, we request you to issue the direction to the media houses to stop their own investigation and media room trial against the Muslim community which is aimed at targeting Muslim community.

We request you to collect all the reporting of the media both electronic and print and investigate the news on this issue by forming a team of experts. Take against those media houses that have not spared a single minute to show and target Muslim community as terrorists.

Dear Sir, you are the chairman of Press Council of India, on behalf of common Muslims of India I question you, don't Muslims have right to life with dignity which is guaranteed by the constitution and is it crime to live this country as Muslims with their identity.

At this high time, I want to ask you, the media houses telecasting such news just to increase their TRP ratings in not an act of terror? As far as we know there are some rules and regulations to be followed by Media in reporting the news. But that is not applied while reporting on terror issues.

Hope this will be taken seriously, positively. We request you to intervene and stop it immediately so that our plural society of India can exist without any threat.

Thanking you,

Yours faithfully,

Lateef Mohammed Khan,

Gen. Secretary

Civil Liberties Monitoring Committee

Hyderabad

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Agencies
June 8,2020

Washington DC, Jun 8: Astronomers acting on a hunch have likely resolved a mystery about young, still-forming stars and regions rich in organic molecules closely surrounding some of them.

They used the National Science Foundation's Karl G Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) to reveal one such region that previously had eluded detection and that revelation answered a longstanding question.

The regions around the young protostars contain complex organic molecules which can further combine into prebiotic molecules that are the first steps on the road to life.

The regions, dubbed "hot corinos" by astronomers, are typically about the size of our solar system and are much warmer than their surroundings, though still quite cold by terrestrial standards.

The first hot corino was discovered in 2003 and only about a dozen have been found so far. Most of these are in binary systems, with two protostars forming simultaneously.

Astronomers have been puzzled by the fact that, in some of these binary systems, they found evidence for a hot corino around one of the protostars but not the other.

"Since the two stars are forming from the same molecular cloud and at the same time, it seemed strange that one would be surrounded by a dense region of complex organic molecules and the other wouldn't," said Cecilia Ceccarelli, of the Institute for Planetary Sciences and Astrophysics at the University of Grenoble (IPAG) in France.

The complex organic molecules were found by detecting specific radio frequencies, called spectral lines, emitted by the molecules. Those characteristic radio frequencies serve as "fingerprints" to identify the chemicals.

The astronomers noted that all the chemicals found in hot corinos had been found by detecting these "fingerprints" at radio frequencies corresponding to wavelengths of only a few millimetres.

"We know that dust blocks those wavelengths, so we decided to look for evidence of these chemicals at longer wavelengths that can easily pass through dust," said Claire Chandler of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, and principal investigator on the project.

"It struck us that dust might be what was preventing us from detecting the molecules in one of the twin protostars," added Chandler.

The astronomers used the VLA to observe a pair of protostars called IRAS 4A, in a star-forming region about 1,000 light-years from Earth. They observed the pair at wavelengths of centimetres.

At those wavelengths, they sought radio emissions from methanol, CH3OH (wood alcohol, not for drinking). This was a pair in which one protostar clearly had a hot corino and the other did not, as seen using the much shorter wavelengths.

The result confirmed their hunch. "With the VLA, both protostars showed strong evidence of methanol surrounding them. This means that both protostars have hot corinos. The reason we did not see the one at shorter wavelengths was because of dust," said Marta de Simone, a graduate student at IPAG who led the data analysis for this object.

The astronomers cautioned that while both hot corinos now are known to contain methanol, there still may be some chemical differences between them. That, they said, can be settled by looking for other molecules at wavelengths not obscured by dust.

"This result tells us that using centimetre radio wavelengths is necessary to properly study hot corinos," Claudio Codella of Arcetri Astrophysical Observatory in Florence, Italy, said.

"In the future, planned new telescopes such as the next-generation VLA and SKA, will be very important to understanding these objects," added Codella.

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Agencies
April 4,2020

Kozhikode, Apr 4: In a bid to maintain the lockdown amid COVID-19 outbreak, Police in Kozhikode is monitoring the situation using drone cameras and making sure that people are not breaking the law.

The police have so far arrested 41 persons who were out on a morning walk on Saturday during the lockdown in the backdrop of coronavirus outbreak.

The SHO of Town South Police Station informed that the accused were later released on bail.
At least 295 cases have been reported in the state so far.

Talking about COVID-19 testing, State Health Minister KK Shailaja told media: "Nine labs are conducting polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests in Kerala. We've received 2000 rapid test kits and will start rapid tests from tomorrow. If a person tests positive in rapid test, we need to confirm it with PCR test."

The total number of COVID-19 positive cases in India climbed to 3072 on Saturday, according to Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

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News Network
July 28,2020

Bengaluru, Jul 28: Congress leader Siddaramaiah on Monday alleged that BJP is trying to destabilise the Congress government in Rajasthan.

"It is the duty of the Governor to act according to the decision of the state cabinet. But he is acting like a central government puppet," he said at a protest organised here by Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC).

He said the Congress is protesting across the country to save democracy and save the constitution.

"We are not fighting through violence. We are protesting peacefully. The Constitution has given the right to protest in a democratic system," he said.

He accused the BJP of "being disrespectful" to the Constitution.

"Governments must walk within the framework of the Constitution. The Constitution gives everyone rights and duties. BJP destabilises elected governments and buys our legislators by horse-trading by spending crores of money. The same thing happened in Karnataka as well," he alleged.

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