'Last week, when Union home minister Amit Shah defended the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill (now Act) in parliament, he dismissed concerns that it was targeting India’s Muslims and asked the community not to have any fears.
'Several Twitter users claiming to be Muslim took to Twitter this week to share an identical piece of text announcing their support for Citizenship Amendment Bill, which was signed into law by President Ramnath Kovind on Thursday... When Alt News examined the Twitter profiles and previous messages of some of the people declaring support for the Act, it found that several among them used to identify as Hindus. The sudden shift to Muslim identities occurred after the citizenship legislation was introduced in Parliament earlier this month...'
'WhatsApp accounts belonging to Kashmiri users have begun to expire as the region completed 120 days of an internet blockade on Tuesday. The social media platform deletes accounts that have stayed inactive for that long. Several Twitter users shared screenshots showing that friends and family members based in Kashmir had exited WhatsApp groups they had been part of – most likely without their knowledge. A Facebook spokesperson confirmed to BuzzFeed News that the disappearances from WhatsApp groups were the result of the company’s policy on inactive accounts.
'What happens when you ask leaders in the Narendra Modi government why they resent criticism? You get publicly hauled over the coals – and told you “hurt national interest” – by a whole army of Bharatiya Janata Party ministers and senior leaders. On Saturday, Bajaj Group chairman Rahul Bajaj asked a group of ministers – including Amit Shah, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal – some tough questions on lynching, Pragya Thakur and the government’s ability to accept criticism...
'At the start of this month we asked the following question: Can the Indian government confirm it did not use WhatsApp spyware on Indians? We weren’t the only ones. A group of journalists, lawyers and human rights activists that had been targeted by the spyware, known as Pegasus, wrote to the government two weeks ago asking the same question. The matter was also brought up in the Parliamentary Committee on Information Technology, despite an attempt to prevent a discussion by the Bharatiya Janata Party members. And Members of Parliament have put the question directly to the government...
'The police here have registered an FIR against an Aligarh Muslim University professor for sharing posts on social media that allegedly hurt the morale of the security forces in the Valley. The FIR cited an “inappropriate post” in which the assistant professor, whose husband is based in Kashmir, referred to the communication blackout in the Valley immediately after the abrogation of Jammu and Kashmir’s special status. “Sach mein sampark toot jana kitna khatarnak aur dukhad hota hai, chahe Chandrayaan ho ya Kashmir,” the post said on the “pain” caused by losing contact.
'The Home Ministry has neither confirmed nor denied whether it purchased the Pegasus malware, in response to an RTI query. “It is informed that no such information is available with the undersigned CPIO”, says the response from the Cyber and Information Security Division of the Home Ministry. The RTI query was filed by Saurav Das, a Puducherry-based member of National Campaign for People’s Right to Information, on October 23. What do we make of the reply? The reply is actually a non-answer. S.K.
'...In the offending tweet from October 24, @RealHistoriPix called out a BJP MP for not visiting the family of 42-year-old Pancharam Rithadia from Chembur – who killed himself by jumping in front of a train over police inaction in finding his daughter who had gone missing in April 2019. During the funeral last week on October 25, hundreds took to the streets to protest against the police, and some violence also broke out.
'The Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy government in Andhra Pradesh on Wednesday issued an order for taking legal action against “false, baseless and defamatory news”, restoring a controversial government order (GO) kept in abeyance during his late father’s regime 12 years ago. While the 2007 order issued during late Rajasekhara Reddy’s tenure as chief minister was limited to print and electronic media, Wednesday’s GO made social media posts also liable for legal action.
