New Delhi: ".....Proceed against them if you wish to," the Supreme Court gave a virtual green signal to the CBI to initiate action or legal proceeding against West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and state Law Minister Moloy Ghatak for their alleged role attempted to subvert the rule of law when prominent Trinamool leaders were arrested.
Trinamool leaders and Mamata's aides Firhad Hakim, Subrata Mukherjee, Madan Mitra and Sovan Chatterjee, who had quit Trinamool on eve of elections, were arrested by the CBI in the Narada sting case.
Mamata Banerjee resorted to her antics and rushed to the CBI office on May 17 after her colleagues were arrested and passed 'derogatory and defamatory' comments about the probe agency. CBI counsel and Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told the Supreme Court on May 25 (Tuesday) that Mamata sat on dharna for six-long-hours, while an unruly mob continued to swell in an organized way, causing obstruction to the functioning of the CBI.
The CBI said a large number of Trinamool Congress workers and supporters laid siege on the CBI building at Nizam Palace in Kolkata and tried to disrupt the process of law.
Justices Vineet Saran and B R Gavai said they did not approve of the conduct of the chief minister (Mamata) and state Law minister (Ghatak) in laying siege to the CBI office.
The bench said, “Why should the accused persons be made to suffer because of a dharna by the chief minister and Law minister?…Proceed against them if you wish to.” Now it will be for the CBI to take a decision and initiate action against Mamata Banerjee and her Law Minister.
The Calcutta High Court on Friday ordered the house arrest of the two Bengal ministers Firhad Hakim and Subrata Mukherjee and two others Madan Mitra and Sovan Chatterjee in connection with the Narada sting case.
The CBI has also sought transfer of the Narada bribery case over the citing the 'extraordinary circumstances' wherein West Bengal Chief Minister sat on a dharna at the CBI office.
However, the Supreme Court also wondered who is more in a position to influence the witnesses in the Narada case - those who were chargesheeted or those who have not been.
The five-member bench of the Calcutta High Court would now hear the case.
In the 52-hour footage videographed in 2016, Trinamool leaders Mukul Roy, Sougata Roy, Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, Prasun Bannerjee, Suvendu Adhikari, Aparupa Poddar and Sultan Ahmad (now deceased) and state ministers Madan Mitra, Subrata Mukherjee and Firhad Hakim and Iqbal Ahmed were seen accepting alleged bribes in the form of wads of cash in exchange for extending favours for a non-existent company.
Mukul Roy and Suvendu Adhikari are now in the BJP. In fact, Adhikari defeated Mamata Banerjee in the high voltage poll at Nandigram.
Twitter's confrontation with political parties and ruling regimes is not unique to India.
On Jan 8, 2021, Twitter announced permanent suspension of Donald Trump's account and said, "After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them — specifically how they are being received and interpreted on and off Twitter — we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence".
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| Co founder and CEO of Twitter, Jack Dorsey |
Prior to that confrontation went on for months. At one point in 2019, Trump had complained that Twitter had done "shadow banning" of the Republicans. Contrast these with Nov 12-13, 2016. As 'President-elect' Donald Trump told 'CBS 60 Minutes' : "The fact that I have such power in terms of numbers with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc...I think it helped me win all these races".
Indian parliament's standing committee on IT in February 2019 had disallowed its executive director Mahima Kaul to appear before the panel. BJP lawmaker and now Union Minister of State for Finance, Anurag Thakur, was the chairman of the panel and even BJP patriarch L K Advani was a member of the panel.
Among others were P Karunakaran of CPI-M and also BJP lawmakers Vinay Sahasrabuddhe and Praesh Rawal.
Twitter had fought with the US Congress and also legislature bodies of Singapore and European Union.
Now that the Twitter-Delhi police has come to the fore, various pros and cons are being debated.
BJP's Guru Prakash now says the Congress seems to have found an 'ally' in Twitter in its long drawn battle against the Modi government. For his part, Congress leader Salman Khurshid, also a former External Affairs Minister, says Delhi cops visiting the micro blogging platform's Gurugram and Delhi offices was like 'browbeating' the site.
Congress national convener Ruchira Chaturvedi even joined the bandwagon where 'demands' have started with hashtag #BanTwitterInIndia.
“And bhakts are trending #BanTwitterInIndia on Twitter. Didn’t they say they were moving to Koo? They are still here?” tweeted Ms Chaturvedi.
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Advani was member of IT panel of MPs
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After the US Presidential elections, it came to light even in the western media that much of the political content Americans saw on social media was actually 'not produced by human users'.
It was reported one in every five election-related tweets from Sept. 16 to Oct. 21 in 2016, - that incidentally Trump won against Hillary Clinton was generated by computer software programs called social 'bots'.
In circa 2020, Scott Nover wrote: "Joe Biden may have won, but it was Twitter’s election".
Nover is a Washington-based reporter who writes about social media for Adweek.
Bots are not only something fake and artificial and misleading, more importantly, they are biased.
Bots 'supporting' one candidate or political party 'A' can systematically produce overwhelmingly positive tweets in support of that particular view(s) about the candidate or party.
Studies across the world showed that this systematic bias can alter public perception and has influenced public mind. This is what makes social media platforms powerful and lethal.
According to government sources, in India, these bots have been largely popular among Left-liberal thinking and political parties and hence have certainly put BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in poor light.
Even the 'blue tick' measurement is most often misleading. It gives impression of genuine 'tweets' but they have been pro-Congress and anti-BJP in India. Around 2020 Presidential elections, these worked against President Trump and if analysts are to be believed, this resulted in Trump's defeat.
Even Democrats got a pleasant surprise when the poll results came in. The bots actually creates the 'false impression' that there is grassroots, positive, sustained support for a certain candidate or party. BJP believes these worked in India during anti-CAA protest and more recently during farmers protest.
Experts say Twitter provides metadata about the physical location of the device used to post a certain tweet. These create an impression that the tweets are localised but the fact could be bots operations may be in places like Georgia and Mississippi in the US.
Even the BBC reported on Nov 4, 2020 that "Twitter had earlier taken similar action over a post in which Donald Trump said for the first time that his opponents "are trying to steal the election".
In India too, BJP leaders and sympathisers know pretty well how anti-Modi and anti-governments have been sharing more time and space on social media.
Many say, the popular microblogging site has given unto itself a new role.
It is no longer a technology enabler platform and hence rules of the game must change and if 'Twitter takes on the role of an editor', the FDI policies on the foreign media should fall on them, says a BJP leader.
ends
Christian-majority Mizoram sheltering nearly 16,000 refugees from conflict-torn Myanmar
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| Bloomberg Quint snap |
Thousands of people from Myanmar, most of them Christians, are fleeing to bordering Mizoram state in India as the military continues its crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in the Buddhist-majority nation.
Mizoram state has officially informed the federal government in New Delhi that nearly 16,000 Myanmar refugees are now residing in the state, which neighbors Myanmar’s Chin state.
Most who fled to India share an ethnic affinity with Mizo people in Mizoram and have family relations with people in the Christian-dominated state.
In a letter to India's Ministry of External Affairs, senior Mizoram government official H. Rammawi said 15,438 people from Myanmar have taken shelter in Mizoram.
“The number of Myanmar refugees in Mizoram is increasing day by day,” he said.
State capital Aizwal alone has more than 6,000 people who fled Myanmar, according to the letter. With some 300,000 people in Aizwal, the influx would mean a 2 percent increase in the city’s population.
“The official figures might be still on the conservative side as many Myanmar nationals were staying in the homes of their relatives in Mizoram without disclosing their Myanmar background,” said Mozez Sailo, a social worker in Aizawl.
The refugees are residing in camps and individual houses with support from NGOs and social workers, Sailo said.
Christians, mostly Baptists and Presbyterians, make up about 87 percent of Mizoram's 1.15 million people. Catholics number only some 40,000. Mizoram Chief Minister Zoramthanga’s Mizo National Front (MNF) is an ally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Mizoram CM Zoramthanga recently said that the state would welcome any ethnic Mizo or other Myanmar citizens facing persecution for participating in pro-democracy protests in Myanmar.
The exodus of Myanmar refugees, mainly belonging to the Mizo ethnic group in Chin state, began following a brutal military crackdown on protesters in February.
The military, which took power by disposing of the elected government in a Feb. 1 coup, is continuing its armed action to crush a civil disobedience movement.
Sources said those who fled Myanmar include government employees, policemen and fire service personnel after the junta ordered them to take action against anti-coup protesters.
A Mizoram state official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said those who fled to Mizoram include at least 20 lawmakers elected in Myanmar’s November 2020 general election.
India shares an unfenced border stretching 1,643 kilometers with Myanmar, covering the four Indian states of Mizoram, Nagaland, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh. Mizoram alone shares a 404-kilometer porous border with Myanmar.
Due to diplomatic and strategic issues, the Indian government has not recognized the incoming people from Myanmar as refugees.
The federal Home Ministry headed by Modi's trusted lieutenant Amit Shah recently directed the chief secretaries of four northeastern states “not to entertain” Myanmar refugees.
The federal government has also instructed para commandos of an anti-insurgency crackdown force to seal the border and prevent entry from Myanmar.
India does not have a national refugee protection framework. A Home Ministry letter to state governments said they have no power to grant refugee status to any foreigner and India is not a signatory to the UN Refugee Convention of 1951 and its 1967 Protocol.
Myanmar’s General Min Aung Hlaing has declared a state of emergency for one year. Close to 5,000 people have been arrested, including politicians, journalists, lawyers and community workers.
Thousands have gone into hiding or have fled across the borders into exile. Nearly 800 have been killed by the police and military since Min Aung Hlaing seized power.
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