Republic Top 10 Headlines: Twitter breaks silence, Mayawati mocks SP, COVID update & more

Twitter Breaks Silence After Losing 'legal Shield'; Strives To Comply With New IT Rules

In its first reaction after losing the "safe harbour" immunity in India, Twitter reiterated that it is making all possible efforts to comply with the new IT rules. A Twitter spokesperson stated on Wednesday that the interim Chief Compliance Officer had been retained by the company, the details of which will be shared with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology soon. While it earlier appointed a Nodal Contact Person and a Resident Grievance Officer on a contractual basis, it had also invited applications for the aforesaid three posts on LinkedIn.

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Mayawati Mocks SP After BSP Rebel MLAs Meet Akhilesh Yadav; Says 'expelled Them Long Ago'

A day after 9 rebel BSP MLAs met Akhilesh Yadav, former UP CM Mayawati lashed out at the Samajwadi Party for trying to portray a split in her party. Contending that SP practises the "disgusting" politics of horsetrading, revenge and casteism, she pointed out that the MLAs in question- Hakim Lal Bind, Vandana Singh, Ramveer Upadhyay, Anil Kumar Singh, Aslam Raini, Aslam Ali, Mujtaba Siddiqui, Hargovind Bhargava and Sushma Patel had been expelled ahead of the Rajya Sabha polls in October 2020. They were accused of collaborating with SP in a bid to defeat BSP's candidate Ramji Gautam.

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Kolkata Police Questions BJP's Mithun Chakraborty Over Controversial Election Speech

The Kolkata Police are virtually questioning actor and BJP leader Mithun Chakraborty over his controversial speech during election campaigning for West Bengal polls. The development comes after an FIR was registered against the actor in Maniktala after his speech. Earlier in May, TMC worker Mrityunjoy Paul had filed a police complaint against West Bengal BJP chief Dilip Ghosh and the actor-turned-politician Mithun Chakraborty for "instigating and provoking" BJP workers. 

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Mehul Choksi Appointed 'dummy' Director In His Firms, Republic Uncovers Modus Operandi

Even as fugitive Mehul Choksi is opposing his extradition to India, Republic TV has exposed the modus operandi of the Punjab National Bank (PNB) scam. Along with his nephew Nirav Modi, he has been accused of allegedly siphoning off Rs 13,500 crore of public money from the PNB using letters of undertaking. This important investigation centres around the revelations by Dinesh Bhatia who was a Director in Choksi's firms Gili India Ltd and Nakshatra Brand Ltd.

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Twitter, Congress Leaders Among 9 Named In FIR By UP Police Over Ghaziabad Viral Video

In a big development on Tuesday night, the Ghaziabad Police registered an FIR against Twitter, Twitter India and 7 others over the video of an elderly man from Uttar Pradesh which has gone viral. It showed an elderly man Abdul Samad Saifi being assaulted, his beard being forcibly cut by unknown persons and being allegedly asked to chant slogans of Jai Shri Ram and Vande Mataram. It has accused AltNews co-founder Muhammad Zubair, Congress leaders Maskoor Usmani, Salman Nizami and Shama Mohamed, journalists Saba Naqvi and Rana Ayyub and news publication The Wire of trying to give a communal spin to the incident.

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Pakistan Linked NGOs 'mopped Up' Funds In India's Name During COVID-19 Crisis: Report

As India is witnessing a second wave of COVID-19 pandemic, help came from all around the world. However, some organisations used the crisis time to collect funds in the name of charity. The United States-based Pakistan-linked charity organisations started collecting funds in name of helping India in the COVID-19 Crisis. The organisations after collecting millions of dollars sent a small amount in the name of help to India, according to the DisInfo Lab report.

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Twitter Ban: UP Minister Cites Communal Content After Social Network Loses 'legal Shield'

After Twitter lost its intermediary status over its failure to comply with the new IT rules, Uttar Pradesh Minister Sidharth Nath Singh welcomed the move accusing the platform of allowing communal hate to be peddled in India. Speaking to Republic TV, the UP Minister said, "We are nearing the elections and the Opposition particularly the SP which has a track record of communal tension in the state is looking to come to power through polarisation. They are blaming the Hindus, creating a tension between Hindus and Muslims, and therefore rightly the government has applied the law of land. The law of the land has to prevail to maintain peace and we are very proud that in the last 4 years of Yogi Aditynath's rule there has been no major incident of communal violence." 

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India Reports 62,224 New COVID-19 Cases, 2,542 Deaths In 24 Hours; Active Cases Below 9 L

Continuing the rapid fall in new cases, India reported over 62,000 new COVID-19 infections in the last 24 hours, bringing the country's total caseload to over 2.96 crore. After more than 2,500 deaths in the same period, the death toll in the country has risen to near 3.80 lakh. According to data released by the Union Health Ministry on Wednesday morning, India has reported 62,224 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the total number of cases in the country to 2,96,33,105. The death toll has risen to 3,79,573 after 2,542 people have died as a result of the deadly infection.

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BJP Asks Top Leadership To Connect With Party Workers & Public Through Various Campaigns

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has decided to mark and celebrate at least seven events in June and July to engage with party workers and the public, ranging from Yog Diwas to training health volunteers under 'Sewa hi Sangathan. The party has assigned its top officials to review these events to ensure that they are carried out efficiently by party workers. The party General Secretary Arun Singh, National Secretaries Vinod Tawde and Bisweswar Tudu will be in charge of the Yog Diwas celebrations and publicity, while Arun Singh and national secretaries Sunil Deodhar, DK Aruna, Alka Gurjar, and Omprakash Dhurve will be in charge of the tree plantation drive.

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Ghaziabad Viral Video: Union Min Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi Alleges 'conspiracy' To Defame India

Two days after an elderly Muslim man was physically assaulted and harassed by a mob in Ghaziabad's Loni, Union Minister for Minority Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi has alleged that the incident is a 'dangerous conspiracy' as it has been given a 'Communal twist'. In the incident, the Muslim man had claimed that he was held at gunpoint by a mob who forced him to chant a religious slogan. The video which emerged on social media soon became viral across the country, leading to Ghaziabad Police to issue a statement. 

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