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Murshidabad/Burdwan: Bengal chief minister Mama- ta Banerjee on Tuesday li- kened herself to a Royal Ben- gal Tiger, saying she is not a weak person who can be in- timidated by BJP. Addressing a rally in Bah- arampur, she said: “There is no reason to think I am weak, I am not a person to be afraid of anything. I am a strong person and will keep my head high as long as I live and till then I will live like a Royal Bengal Tiger.” At another rally in Mur- shidabad — home to Nawab Siraj-ud-Daulah who lost to the British after his man Mir Jafar joined the enemy camp — she hit out at Trinamool leaders who dumped the party to join BJP. “A few naughty cows left the party to join BJP like Mir Jafar did in the Battle of Plas- sey. They are now making a lot of noise — hamba hamba, ramba ramba, kamba kamba, dumba dumba… There are some others too. The sooner they leave the party, the better. An empty cowshed is better than having bad cows. Good riddance. I do not sell the par- ty for money,” she said. “Those who are corrupt bow their heads to corrup- tion. They have amassed huge wealth and are now afraid of getting caught in the cattle smuggling case or the coal scandal,” she said, referring to some TMC leaders whose names have cropped up in these cases without taking any names. Taking a dig at BJP, she said: “These people with muck all over are clean- ing themselves up in the BJP washing machine. They have all flocked together to BJP.” The TMC chief asked par- ty workers to respect women to consolidate her support among rural women, many of whom are beneficiaries of government schemes. . She spoke at length on “Ma, bone- ra (mother and sisters)” who run households, cook food for the family and also during fes- tivals — Durga Puja and Eid — and attend to family mem- bers when they fall sick. She harped on the women force soon after BJP president JP Nadda ticked off the state gov- ernment saying that Bengal had the highest number of hu- man trafficking and domestic violence cases. “My mothers and sisters, tell me if you can go out on the streets on your own. Do you take somebody along?” she said, adding that women in Bengal enjoy respect, freedom and peace better than BJP- ruled states of Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Haryana. Full report on www.toi.in ‘People With Muck Cleaning Themselves Up In BJP Washing Machine’ I am not afraid, will live like a Royal Bengal Tiger: Mamata Sukumar Mahato & Mohammad Asif TNN New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday shielded Congress leader Shashi Tha- roor and six journalists, in- cluding Rajdeep Sardesai, from arrest in any of the11FIRs lodged against them in Delhi, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Mad- hya Pradesh and Karnataka for allegedly stoking violence during the farmers’ tractor ral- ly on Republic Day through “fake news and views”. A bench of Chief Justice S A Bobde and Justices A S Bo- panna and V Ramasubrama- nian asked senior advocate Ka- pil Sibal, who appeared for Tharoor, “where is the danger of getting arrested” as solicitor general Tushar Mehta, appear- ing for Delhi and UP police, told the bench that there would not be any rush to arrest but a con- sidered view would be taken while investigating the FIRs. Sibal said police from other states were in Delhi and arrest of the seven people named in the FIRs appeared imminent. “Sedition charges are add- ed to the FIRs for mere tweets. Police from any of the states where FIRs are lodged can come and arrest,” he said. The bench said the petitions of Tha- roor, Sardesai and others were similar to an earlier case (filed by Arnab Goswami who faced 14 FIRs in Maharashtra, Chhat- tisgarh and Rajasthan for his alleged comments against So- nia Gandhi in the Palghar lynching case). The bench said Mehta could assure only about non-ar- rest of the accused by the police from Delhi and UP and not for other states. The SG attempted to pre-empt a protective order by assuring that he would speak with all other states, for whom he might appear in the next hearing, for not arresting the petitioners. When the bench appeared inclined to take the path laid in its judgment in the Goswami case that included protection from arrest, Mehta said, “The tweets were not innocent as is being made out in these pet- itions. We will show what hor- rendous effect these had on the violence that was unleashed in Delhi during the tractor rally. ” Full report on www.toi.in SC relief for Tharoor, Sardesai and five journalists Dhananjay.Mahapatra @timesgroup.com New Delhi: Facing the possi- ble arrest of its top executives and a financial penalty, Twitter finally started blocking ac- counts flagged by the govern- ment for “carrying inflamma- tory and divisive comments”. Top sources told TOI that the American microblogging giant, which has been under pressure over the past few days over comments made by users using the hashtag #ModiPlan- ningFarmerGenocide, has as- sured the government that it is looking into its concerns, and taking stock of the content on the handles mentioned in the notice sent by the IT Ministry under Section 69A of the IT Act. Sources said that of the 257 handles that had originally tweeted with the hashtag, 126 have been deactivated. Just a few days ago, Twitter had blocked them, before activa- ting them almost immediately citing “free speech” and be- cause it found the content “newsworthy”. It has now blocked many of them again. Similarly, of the 1,178 han- dles that the government sus- pected to have links with Khal- istani and Pakistani elements to spread misinformation and provocative content, 583 have been deactivated. A spokesperson for Twitter in India refused to respond. Af- ter American pop star Rihanna — who has a mammoth 101.6 million followers on the plat- form — and teen activist Greta Thunberg expressed solidarity with the farmers agitation, the online chatter around the issue grew in leaps and bounds. The IT ministry told Twit- ter that it was obliged to comply with its instructions as they were being given keeping pub- lic order in mind and in order to defuse tensions and hatred. “Twitter is an intermedi- ary and they are obliged to obey the directions of the govern- ment. Refusal to do so will in- vite penal action,” the IT minis- try said in a terse message, add- ing the “motivated campaigns” on the platform and the contro- versial hashtag around Prime Minister Narendra Modi were being run to “abuse, inflame and create tension in society on unsubstantiated grounds”. Twitter was told that if it did not comply with the de- mands of the government, then action would be taken against the company under Section 69A [3] of the IT Act, which talks about a jail term of up to seven years for senior company officials, and a finan- cial penalty. Twitter, which has its own content-moderation policy be- fore taking down any account, for now has decided to block the handles that were sought to be censured by the government. Under pressure, Twitter starts blocking handles flagged by govt Pankaj.Doval@timesgroup.com New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday relaxed the ‘complete’ gag order passed against controversial activist Rehana Fathima by the Kerala high court but allowed continuation of the restraint order for her not to make, share, or forward any comment, which may affect religious sentiments of any community. Agreeing to hear her plea against the HC’s gag order, a bench headed by Justice R F Nariman issued notice on her appeal and stayed one of the conditions of the HC as per which she was restrained to express her views in any form through any media. The court said the condition amounted to a complete gag order and stayed it. The HC while imposing bail conditions in a case lodged against her for hurting religious sentiments, had on November 23 said, “Till the trial is over, the accused shall not directly, indi- rectly or through any other person publish, transmit, share, upload or disseminate or pub- lish any material or any of her comments through any visual and electronic media, open to public.” The apex court stayed this condition. The Supreme Court, however, said oth- er condition imposed by the HC will con- tinue. The other condition, imposed by HC said, “She shall not directly or indirectly or through any other person, through print, visual or other electronic media make, share, forward, disseminate or propagate any comment, which may affect or has the propensi- ty to affect the religious feelings or sentiments of any community or group of society.” Top court relaxes ‘complete’ gag order on activist Rehana Fathima New Delhi: The government will soon issue guidelines for regulation of OTT (over-the- top) plat- forms like Netflix and Amazon Prime to ad- dress issues of sensitive and vulgar content. Replying to a Zero Hour mention in Rajya Sabha, in- formation and broadcasting minister Prakash Javade- kar said, “We are getting a lot of suggestions and com- plaints (about OTT plat- forms). Guidelines and direc- tions are ready. They will soon be implemented.” Earlier while raising the issue, Mahesh Poddar of BJP said some content and lan- guage on OTT platforms, which have grown in viewer- ship, was highly objectiona- ble and sexually discrimina- tory in nature. “Crude lan- guage against women is shown. The government should, without delay, con- trol them,” he said. TNN Guidelines for OTT platforms soon, says Javadekar SHIELDED FOR NOW: Shashi Tharoor (L) & Rajdeep Sardesai Kolkata/Berhampore: Calcutta High Court on Tuesday said it would hear on Thursday a PIL seeking a stop to BJP’s ‘parivartan yatra’ across Bengal, report Subrata Chattoraj & Sukumar Mahato. The petitioners urged for an interim order stalling the rallies till February 11, but a division bench said the matter would be heard first. In Berhampore, BJP’s yatra organisers tried to take the ‘rath (chariot)’ to Madhupur party office on Tuesday, triggering a stand-off with police. Earlier, police had halted the rally for a day and altered route in the wake of security arrangements for chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s visit. Cal HC to hear PIL against BJP yatra tomorrow HEAR HER ROAR: Mamata Banerjee TAKING STOCK OF CONTENT TIMES NATION THE TIMES OF INDIA, CHENNAI | WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2021 BSY OFFERS PRAYERS TO COWS TO CELEBRATE PASSAGE OF ANTI-COW SLAUGHTER BILL IN KARNATAKA COUNCIL MEHBOOBA: SENIOR J&K ADMIN OFFICERS AND POLICE HELPING BJP VIOLATE PEOPLE’S MANDATE IN DDC POLLS TIMES NEWS NETWORK CCI NG 3.7 Product: TOIChennaiBS PubDate: 10-02-2021 Zone: ChennaiEdition: 1 Page: TOICHP9 User: mahesh.ramesh Time: 02-09-2021 23:47 Color: <bha>B8BuVtyZKih68ivpJfKJ8LBVad2ZRNzZ1iie4qXB6Na9LYLGeOjUh8lgdJnOEOjTr/+Q1uiaJdZvMbydN4Uqjdvk00jfCPcHnrBrIHOqF4A2HGqTZMQoVMdVDR4HsmymSneXo0k97N8hjuE2qZ0N5ncGt4tWnndBoDDyzYFGRuI=</bha>
