On June 15, Lust Stories, an anthology of four short films, directed by Anurag Kashyap, Zoya Akhtar, Dibakar Banerjee, and Karan Johar, premiered on Netflix.

The film, which explored the idea of lust and sex from a woman's perspective, opened to rave reviews, especially Karan Johar's segment, which features a woman orgasming as the Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham title track reaches a crescendo in the background.

It's a genuinely hilarious moment and Johar was appreciated for his self-deprecating snark.

But the use of the track in a sexual context has apparently pissed off the Pedder Road-based Mangeshkar family. Why are they pissed? Because Lata Mangeshkar sang the title track.

Speaking to Bollywood Hungama, a family member said, "We wonder why he needed to use a Bhajan-like song sung in the most revered voice of Asia to show his heroine in an orgasmic state. He could have used any other song."

The family has been so unnerved by this situation that they've withheld the news from the legendary singer herself.

The family member further stated, "Why did Karan Johar use Lata Didi's immortal song in such an embarrassing situation? I still remember how ecstatic Karan was when Didi had recorded the song for Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham. He said it was a dream come true. Why turn the dream song into a nightmare now?"

Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Cum? Not for the Mangeshkars.

Also see on HuffPost:

NEW DELHI — The Ahmedabad District Cooperative Bank (ADCB), which counts Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) president Amit Shah as a director, was the repository for the largest number of demonetised Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes in the aftermath of demonetisation, according to information received under the Right to Information Act by Mumbai-based activist Manoranjan Roy.

The ADCB received deposits worth Rs 745.59 crore in demonetised notes, closely followed by the Rajkot District Cooperative Bank (RDCB), which received Rs 693.19 crore. RDCB is chaired by Jayeshbhai Vitthalbhai Radadiya, a cabinet minister in Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani's BJP-run government.

Opposition law-makers have seized upon the news to question the motives behind demonestisation — which was supposed to reduce corruption according to its architect, Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Congratulations Amit Shah ji , Director, Ahmedabad Dist. Cooperative Bank, on your bank winning 1st prize in the conversion of old notes to new race. 750 Cr in 5 days!

Millions of Indians whose lives were destroyed by Demonetisation, salute your achievement. #ShahZyadaKhaGayapic.twitter.com/rf1QaGmzxV

— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) June 22, 2018

The poor could not get their demonetised notes exchanged, more than 100 died in queues for their own hard-earned money. But Shri Amit Shah ji's bank had the maximum currency exchanged after notebandi. Saaf Niyat or Sahi Neeyat, now? #NoteScampic.twitter.com/ynBLDzItQ0

— Sitaram Yechury (@SitaramYechury) June 22, 2018

The news, first reported by IANS, was initially published by many news outlets only for many of them to take down the article without explanation.

The significant amount of money deposited in two rural banks, with politically influential directors, has revived concerns that rural cooperative banks across the country were used to launder large amounts of unaccounted wealth in the immediate aftermath of demonetisation.

"The amount of deposits made in the State Cooperative Banks (SCBs) and District Central Cooperative Banks (DCCBs) – revealed under RTI for first time since demonetisation – are astounding," Manoranjan S. Roy, the RTI activist told IANS.

HuffPost India has reached out to Roy, the RTI activist, and has written to the Ahmedabad Bank District Cooperative Bank and will update the story once they respond.

"What does the BJP need that could put it ahead of other parties?" During a car ride to a campaign venue in Uttar Pradesh in 2007, BJP president Rajnath Singh tossed an unusual question at his media assistant Prodyut Bora. The 33-year-old was taken slightly by surprise. He had been a part of the party for barely three years and didn't belong to a political dynasty. But he took his chance. Remember, this was 2007, barely a year after Facebook and Twitter had been launched; the IT industry was booming and no party, Bora felt, had a narrative that could attract this new voting class of young professionals.

A few months later, the Bharatiya Janata Party's 'IT Cell' was born, with Bora as a national convenor. Eleven years later, Bora, now also an entrepreneur in clean air technologies with an office in Gurgaon, says his brainchild has mutated beyond recognition.

"It's like Frankenstein's monster," he said.

How did you end up joining BJP?

I come from a middle class family where the first option was to get a job, so I had never been part of student politics or anything before. I studied literature in St Stephen's College and then did my post graduate diploma in management from IIM Ahmedabad. I worked, got married, and then finally joined politics when I turned 30.

That happened purely out of a whim.

I was a management consultant advising companies how to change. So I thought, if I can tell companies how to change, why not go and work for the change of the country — just kind of making your canvas bigger. And you're 30 and you think you can change the world and all that.

It was just around the time BJP had lost power, September 2004.

I was a great admirer of Mr Vajpayee, so I felt that this is a man who deserves to get elected again and I would definitely want to contribute. Of course we couldn't have known that his health would deteriorate so quickly. Nonetheless, with all those ideals and idealism, I joined the BJP in 2004. Then I set up the IT cell in 2007 and then I was tasked with the responsibility of running the communications office for LK Advani during 2009 general elections.

Soon after he joined, Bora was assigned to the media cell of the BJP in Delhi under Arun Jaitley. The convenor of the media cell at that time was Siddharth Nath Singh, who he directly reported to. Before Bora left to join politics, he had worked in the DT group which has cinemas in Delhi, his first job, he recounts with a hint of pride, was at Biblio, a celebrated literary magazine. In 2007, Bora was nominated from the cell to join Rajnath Singh during the state polls in UP as his media assistant and spent all of January 2007 traveling with him. Then in May-June, the party announced two new cells. One was Bora's IT cell, the other was the cow protection cell.

Why did the IT cell come to be?

One day we were going from Kanpur to Lucknow in a car, and Rajnath Singh asked randomly, "So Prodyut ji, what is that we should do in the party, that we aren't doing?"

I don't know how the light bulb of my brain got on, so I said, "Well Sir, as a management student, we were taught to always pay attention to CRM — customer relationship management. It's not just enough to sell a product, after that you got to maintain a relationship with the customer as well, so that he or she becomes a repeat customer. So if there can be CRM for the corporate sector, why not VRM -- voter relationship management — for political parties?"

He said, "That's a good idea, let's do this, but how to do it?"

I said, "Sir, there are already 25 cells in the party, let's make another cell and call it the IT cell."

After the cell was formed, some people in the party came and congratulated me, though a little confused. They said, "Congratulations on the Income Tax cell."

When you started the IT Cell, what is it that you wanted it to achieve?

This was the pre-social media age, and the first objective of the IT cell was automating the party. Before we got on to the voters and did voter relations, the party itself needed to be automated first. The second objective was to reach out to voters, the third was advising the party on IT policy matters.

What kind of policy matters did the cell advise the party on?

A lot of things, for example bandwidth. In 2007, bandwidth was a huge challenge. What should be the party's policy — BJP was the main opposition — on internet roll out? What should be our position on VOIP, it was discussed then but it has still not been rolled out in India. We set up the IT cell in about 15 states if I remember correctly. (Editor's note: In 2007, the tariffs were high enough that Internet companies offering cheap calls were a real risk to the bottom line of Airtel and Vodafone. The launch of Reliance Jio in 2016 however changed things dramatically, and today calling is close to - or even entirely - free, with data being king.)

What were the qualifiers that you looked at to induct people into the cell?

A majority of the people were basically IT enthusiasts and experts who were interested in the party. You know, it was purely about technology — it was not about cursing people and running trolls.

What were the significant achievements of IT cell during your tenure?

I think we were capitalising technology like no one else was doing. Even Congress-leaning media houses declared that BJP was way ahead of Congress when it came to technology. In terms of using IT to attract the youth — the early 2000s was considered to be the years of the IT boom — it was very successful. A lot of people who had not thought about politics had begun to think about it. Our interest in IT and using IT as a gateway, got a lot of them associated with the BJP. In terms of automating the party, we did a good job as well.

The charter of the IT cell that Bora shared with HuffPost India begins with the words -- 'Jai Vigyan (Hail Science)' -- and goes on to explain how though lawyers have dominated political parties, the party has noticed people from the IT industry gravitating towards politics.

"The second mandate of the IT Cell is to draw the best of IT talent and provide them a platform to operate in the public space. The IT Cell is inspired by the fact that the Indian independence movement was led by professionals," the document states.

It adds that the IT cells job would be to establish systems that would help party workers reach out to each other and to the public. It also invited IT professionals to join the party to discuss various issues listed as following:

How can IT be used for the greater public good, and not just for private profit?

How can it be used for providing better access to government and private services; for facilitating income-generating activities; and for bridging the urban-rural divide?"

After the BJP lost the general elections in 2009 and Rajnath Singh's tenure as the BJP President ended, Bora moved to his home state Assam as the state general secretary of the party. By then the leadership of the IT cell had changed hands and moved to Arvind Gupta, appointed by the new party president Nitin Gadkari. In 2015, Bora he quit the BJP and 2016 formed his own party, the Liberal Democratic Front in Assam. His party contested in the state elections in Assam in 14 seats and lost all of them. However, they plan to contest in the general elections again.

When you look back, what was the legacy you wanted to leave the IT Cell with?

My legacy doesn't stand. It has been turned upside down. It is like -- maybe this is a bad example -- but it is like asking Mr Vajpayee today what legacy he has left in the BJP. It's completely destroyed. Fortunately for us, we did not have social media. I mean it had just come in and in India, people had dismissed social media as something not happening...

Did you ever consider the possibility that social media will become a behemoth it is now?

Nobody thought! But we very enthusiastic about its implications. Back when we were just getting to understand it, it was all about democratisation of content, democratisation of voice, democratisation of access, multiple narratives — I mean those are the beautiful words.

We thought, until now we had media, now everyone can be media barons'. Nobody thought it would turn out to be what it is now.

When did you start feeling that the party has turned the IT cell into a polarising weapon?

I think it was the 2014 campaign. During the 2014 campaign, the IT cell was being controlled and managed completely from Gandhinagar. It was being run by the Modi team and I think the rot started there. The formal head of the IT cell was there peripherally but the entire thing was Modi's team. So Team Modi started the rot.

When you look at the IT cell today and what it allegedly does, what do you feel about it?

I mean, occasionally, its just painful to watch what they have done with it. But I try to be dispassionate about it as well. Institutions go up, go down and I look at the IT cell as a small institution that I had the privilege of setting up.

But it's no more a small thing. A few days back, there was news that in UP, BJP is looking to recruit 2 lakh people into the IT cell...

(Chuckles) When you have money, you can do anything. In those days, we didn't have money. See, I look at it this way — I was given a job. I did a good and honest job. Now somebody has driven it to the ground.

Also, you know we cannot keep talking about the IT cell in isolation. The IT cell carries out the mandate of the BJP president. Whatever directions the president kind of gives you, you do that.

During my time at the cell, we drafted out a charter, we showed it to Mr Rajnath Singh. He approved it and said, "Okay this is your job."

So today, whatever they are doing is a mandate that has come down from their president. I mean people should ask the party president what's going and not the IT cell.

Why did you quit the BJP?

I wanted to quit the day Mr Modi was made the prime ministerial candidate for the party...

Why did you feel that way?

Uncomfortable. Whatever has happened, I think I know too much. I was just uncomfortable. I think that it was not a good choice, it's a bad choice. But my colleagues said that everybody deserves a second chance, especially in public life and so does Mr Modi.

They also said, "That there are too many checks and balances in Delhi. There's a Supreme Court, the media is more intense, the Parliament... so we are sure he's going to change. Give him a second choice."

That I felt, was sane advice. So I gave him a chance, I waited. I resigned in February 2015, I gave him 10 months. Then when I saw that more of the same things were happening, I did the only honourable thing that could be done — quit.

Can you explain what you mean by 'same things'?

The same things that were happening in Gujarat — you know one man and the bureaucrats kind of running the show. The same thing is happening at the Centre. In fact, it's one man running the country and another man running the party. Just one man and his cabal running the country — the same kind of surveillance and pressure on the media, society and dissidence — what they did in Gujarat. Same thing they are doing across the country. One man taking all major policy decisions like it was in Gujarat — demonetisation, GST, this and that. In 10 months I could figure out that things will not change.

You joined the party in 2004. Before that, in 2001, the Gujarat riots happened and even before that Advani was widely acknowledged to be the architect unrest that led to the Babri Masjid demolition and the riots that followed. You said you wanted to do something for the country, so how did you overlook the party's communal history?

I didn't think there was any logic to this violence. In 2001, I was actually extremely proud of the fact that Vajpayee ji talked about 'rajdharma' and expressed his disapproval for Modi's discriminatory politics. (A letter obtained through RTI found that in a rare instance, Atal Behari Vajpayee had written to Modi after the riots reminding him what his job as a CM was and that was not to fan discrimination.)

It's another thing, that due to the intra-party politics, he could not fire Mr Modi, he wanted to. In that flight to Goa, everyone pounced upon him and he couldn't do anything. I empathised with his handicaps. Number one, he was running a 23-party coalition, his position was not one of absolute power. Within the party, I think, the control of the party was still with Advani. I felt he wanted things to change, but he couldn't change it. My attraction to the BJP was not BJP, it was not RSS, it was Mr Vajpayee.

How would you describe the trajectory of the IT cell?

The IT Cell's trajectory went a bit like SIMI's. The first president of SIMI, who was instrumental in starting it, is now a professor in United States and this is a banned organisation in India. He started SIMI with a different objective, you know, to help Muslim students who were backward. Using the power of education to help them progress, the founder later said, that was the idea behind SIMI.

Later, it became a banned organisation. The IT cell started with a very different mandate, it was not created to abuse people. I actually think, the people who joined in 2004, that wasn't even the culture of the party. The BJP used to be a cultured party, I mean there was some sense of it, some decorum within the party. Now it has crossed all limits.

Would you have advice on how to fix what the IT cell has become?

You cannot fix the IT cell until you fix the party's president.

After a photograph of the lynching in Hapur, that showed villagers dragging the injured in the presence of three policemen, went viral, the Uttar Pradesh police put out a statement of apology and have said that an inquiry has been ordered.

Earlier this week, Qasim, a cattle trader, was beaten to death and another man Shamiuddin was severely beaten up by a mob on rumours of cow slaughter.

The photograph of Qasim being dragged by villagers went viral on social media and was harshly criticised.

In a tweet, the Uttar Pradesh police have claimed that the police had just reached the spot and the victim was "unfortunately carried this way" because of the unavailability of an ambulance.

The statement also said, "We are sorry for the Hapur Incident. Law and order incidents often lead to unintended yet undesirable acts."

We are Sorry for the Hapur Incident.
Law & order incidents often lead to unintended yet undesirable acts. pic.twitter.com/w5Tsen9UxG

— UP POLICE (@Uppolice) June 21, 2018

The Indian Express reports that the three policemen, present on the spot, have been identified as SHO Ashwini Kumar and constables Kanhaiya Lal and Ashok Kumar.

Meanwhile, Hindustan Times reported that superintendent of police of Hapur, Sankalp Sharma, had denied the allegations against the police and maintained even after the apology that the photo was taken after the incident and Qasim was being carried to an ambulance.

A case has been registered against the mob that attacked the two men in Hapur's Pilakhuwa, but the police have not mentioned anything about cow slaughter.

In an earlier report, Hindustan Times said that the police denied the cow slaughter angle and said it was because of road rage.

"There were rumours of cow slaughter, but we did not find any cow or weapon used for slaughtering animals with the two victims," Sharma had told the newspaper.

Sanskrit shall be the coding language for future supercomputers, said Union Minister of State for Skill Development Ananta Kumar Hegde. Delivering an address on skill development, the BJP politician told reporters that Sanskrit is the right language to use for computer algorithm design.

He argued against the reliance on English in India, and said Sanskrit will be essential to build super computers, as the language can adapt to the needs of technology.

According to NDTV, he said: "While we are becoming too dependent on English in our country, we become unaware of the fact that eminent scientists of the world are coming to the view that Sanskrit is the language for future supercomputers."

He further added that Sanskrit is the only language which can adapt to the next generation of technology.

"The modern-day scientists have said that to be able to understand the next generation computer language, knowing English would not be enough" he said, according to Business standard. "One would have to learn Sanskrit. Whether we agree to this or not, Sanskrit is the only language that can adapt to the next generation technology.

Hegde did not, however, say anything about which scientists are saying this, or what facts his statements are based on, rather than just the vague allusion to "eminent scientists of the world".

The claim is most likely based on a paper by Rick Briggs about natural language programming and why Sanskrit is a good language for programming as it doesn't rely on word order in sentences. However, the article doesn't actually say that Sanskrit is the best way to program a computer, only that it is more easily parsed.

Further, the paper has nothing to do with supercomputers, and is instead of programming for artificial intelligence. The rules of Sanskrit might be useful for people working on AI to study, but actually writing code in Sanskrit is a different question altogether, with nothing to support the idea that writing code in Sanskrit makes any sense.

The BJP MP from Karnataka also talked about ayurveda, and how people would have to give up on modern medicines in favour of ayurveda. "The pharmaceutical industry is big in India and right now it is wholly dependent upon the chemical molecular drugs. But the US' Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has now approved ayurvedic medicine as a form of holistic medicine," he said.

However, this ignores the fact that that the FDA actually warns caution with ayurvedic products. Less than a year ago, the FDA issued a safety alert against certain ayurvedic medicines linked to lead poisoning. Recognising ayurveda as a form of holistic medicine is meant to make it easier to regulate, and not a sign of approval. And the FDA's latest import alert includes huge numbers of ayurvedic products that are used in India.

Hegde had also in the past called for the end of Islam, and then doubled-down, adding he was proud of what he said.

"They are living in India, they should obey to India. India means Hindu. There is no difference between India and Hindu because for the last thousands of years we have our own culture, our own living system. You so called intellectual people have divided that word. Hindu versus India," Hedge said to HuffPost India last year.

NEW DELHI -- The trigger, officers of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) in Delhi say, was the alleged assault on Chief Secretary Anshu Prakash by Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) lawmakers at the residence of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on February 9.

But there are many who see the response of the IAS officers, to not have one-on-one meetings with Delhi ministers, as being completely out of character with the ethos of the civil service as well as a tacit backing of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at the Centre against the AAP government in Delhi.

Kejriwal, has accused the Modi government of using the Lieutenant Governor's (LG) office in Delhi to transfer key officials, harass his ministers and stall the work of the AAP government since it was sworn in three years ago. The chief minister was, until Thursday, camped in the waiting room of LG Anil Baijal, protesting against what he called a "strike" by the IAS officers.

In this context, HuffPost India spoke with P.K. Tripathi, a former chief secretary of Delhi, about the power struggle between the LG and the CM, the many rows he had with the Home Ministry under P. Chidambaram, and if the IAS officers in Delhi went too far in opposing Kejriwal.

Although Tripathi served under the Sheila Dikshit-led Congress government in Delhi, with a Congress at the Centre, the bureaucrat says that governing the national capital is fraught with conflict and challenges.

Excerpts:

Why is there a power struggle between the LG and CM of Delhi?

The power struggle is built into the system itself. On the one hand, you have the Lieutenant Governor, who is a representative of the central government and who is defined as the "government" in various Acts. On the other hand, you have an elected chief minister, naturally aspiring to lead the government and do things for the city. The conflict is something inherent. It can only be transcended if both the CM and the LG are very mature people who look beyond their powers and egos. Since the LG is a constitutional position, the chief minister has to be very prudent, he has to take the LG along because the CM is the one who is ultimately responsible to the people.

When you say 'built into the system,' you mean the NCT Act (The Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi Act)?

Yes, in the NCT Act and various orders issued, the "government" has been defined as the Lieutenant Governor. All files have to go to the Lieutenant Governor for approval. The only way for things to work out between the Chief Minister and the Lieutenant Governor is through human relations. There is no room for scoring points if we are truly invested in improving Delhi.

Who takes precedence - the LG or the CM?

The LG takes precedence. There is no doubt about it. The chief secretary to convince the CM that something should not be rejected just because the LG is saying so. You have to convince the LG that what the CM is saying is public motivated and it is not political.

Who is the chief secretary more loyal to?

The chief secretary has to be more loyal to the elected government.

There is no room for scoring points if we are truly invested in improving Delhi.

How was your tenure as the chief secretary of Delhi?

It is not just my tenure. The chief secretary in Delhi plays a very important role because there is a divided government. There are subjects that are reserved for the Lieutenant Governor like law and order, service, police and land. The chief secretary is the chief secretary to both the Lieutenant Governor and the Chief Minister and must act as a bridge.

Can you give an example of bridge building?

The LG has the DDA (Delhi Development Authority) and the Delhi government is always short for the land. We have to beg the DDA for land and sometimes even the DDA does not have land, but there is a lot of land in the Gaon Sabha. So, I started moving proposals for the allotment of land for school and hospitals on Gaon Sabha land. The LG was agreeing to it until the DDA pointed out to him that if you agree to these proposals then there will no local area plan developed for a particular village and he stopped the allotments.

Then, I argued with him that if you go for a local area plan, it will take a few years to make it, but can you imagine any community that will not require a school or a hospital or water supply or power. And he agreed that for these four things, he would not agree with the DDA, he would continue allotting land, and the local area plans would be made in accordance to the land which has already been developed. So, there is a way out.

READ: Why The IAS-AAP Standoff Could Change The Civil Service Forever

There are many people who believe that the BJP government at the Centre is making it difficult for the AAP government to function.

That is one narrative. But what we have seen in Delhi in the past, when the Delhi government was Congress and the BJP was at the Centre, they were totally in sync. It was the smoothest five years. When the Congress was both at the Centre and in Delhi, there were problems. It all depends upon personalities and perceptions. The chief minister of Delhi has to understand that you are not a full CM, you need the cooperation of the Centre and of the various ministries, and you have to convince them.

It all depend upon personalities and perceptions.

What were the instances when the Centre and Delhi government were not in agreement during your tenure?

We wanted to remove all the Fair Price Shops in Delhi because everyone knows they are corrupt. The answer was direct cash transfer in the name of the lady of the house. We went to the Planning Commission and we argued out that we would like to do it. The Centre said that first you carry out a study, so we went to SEWA, the study proved that people would prefer it in Delhi, not for India, but in Delhi, where there is no shortage of food. If you are able to give money directly to the lady of the house and she has the freedom to purchase from wherever she likes, it solves a lot of problems, it roots out corruption.

But the Congress government (at the Centre) said that we have to look at the social dimension, the woman may get beaten up, the husband with the income might beat her up. So, it went through all these motions, but it never saw the light of the day

Nothing came of it at all?

When Mr. Jaipal Reddy became the minister, he understood, and we finished kerosene in fair price ships in Delhi. We gave gas chullahs and gas connections to Below Poverty Line families. But there were many other instances when the government did not respond to us.

What causes the most friction between the Centre and the Delhi government?

Manpower is a very important issue. You must have a set of competent people who are allowed to stay in Delhi. Of course, they must go to outlying areas also, but you must follow a rational policy. If you are interested in somebody, you allow him to stay, but somebody else, you transfer out. Even the chief minister's office staff was transferred without consulting her. I was the principal secretary at the time, but the secretary to the CM was transferred, the additional secretary to the CM, were transferred.

What did the CM (Sheila Dikshit) do?

The CM was finding it difficult to govern. Every day, your main officer gets transferred. Naturally, she was distressed. She went and met the Home Minister, explained to him, we have to govern Delhi, you cannot make polices that make Delhi ungovernable.

The CM was finding it difficult to govern.

What were the issues you faced with Mr. Chidambaram when he was Home Minister?

They (Home Ministry) would not listen. They would come up with brazen polices which would be totally difficult to implement. Later on, I had to have one-on-ones with Chidambaram in which I said you have to look at the governance of Delhi when it comes to transfers of officers. You cannot have a policy that treats Delhi like a platform where officers are available for shunting between two places. We had to go right up to Chidambaram, several times, which was a waste of time for him and for us.

That must have been frustrating?

It was very difficult. The chief secretary has to do development work, think of new policies, but if you are stuck arguing for days about transfers, it is a tremendous waste of time.

Can you give examples of the problem with transfers?

For example, you transfer 20 people at one go, disturbing the whole administration. The governance of Delhi cannot be a casualty at the altar of postings and transfers. They said that we will bring persons promoted to IAS from Arunachal Pradesh to Delhi. Fine, but you cannot bring officers from Arunachal, Mizoram or Goa, when they are 58-years-old. Bring them at the age of 40. How will they govern Delhi? They don't understand Delhi and Delhi governance is complex. We wondered why we had to argue when it was so self-evident. It was not in good taste. Now, they have made a joint committee of chief secretaries in which all this is discussed.

The governance of Delhi cannot be a casualty at the altar of postings and transfers.

Were there any big fails?

Many things could not get done. Like the water from Haryana, we constructed the Munak canal, we put all 500-600 crores of money into it and then Haryana refused to give water. It was Congress at the Centre, Congress in Haryana and Congress in Delhi, but it could not be resolved.

How was it resolved?

When you had a BJP government in Haryana, a BJP government at the Centre and the AAP government in Delhi, then the problem was resolved. Mr. Hooda of the Congress never released water, but Mr. Khattar of the BJP released the water, but the AAP government has never acknowledged it. To say that the BJP alone is creating a problem is not correct. When Congress was in all three places, we went right to the Prime Minister's Office, we went to Mr. Chidambaram, they could do nothing.

In the recent standoff between the AAP government and the IAS officers, there are sections that believe the IAS officers are backing the BJP against AAP.

IAS officers have a long career. They have to face several governments. The BJP is not there for all times to come so why should IAS officers do the bidding of the BJP. For 15 years, the Congress was there, were we doing the bidding of Congress? No. That is why you have a civil service that is apolitical. The role of the civil service to give advice. The CM can overrule the bureaucracy, but he should have the guts to overrule the bureaucracy. He should not have the bureaucracy write something they don't agree with.

The matter of the chief secretary is being investigated by the police. There are sections that believe the response of the IAS officers simply went too far.

If you beat somebody and that is not enough then I don't know what it is to go too far. That means the chief secretary can be beheaded and then only you can protest. Has any other chief secretary ever been beaten in independent India. It was the first time and too in the presence of the chief minister. It was an unprecedented action that got an unprecedented reaction. The officers are not happy about it. You only defy when you find there is no other way out and any more submission will only be misunderstood.

It was an unprecedented action that got an unprecedented reaction.

But wasn't the press conference out of character with the civil service?

Earlier, prime ministers and chief ministers were not tweeting every day. Now, the prime minister tweets, the chief minister tweets, only bureaucrats don't tweet. The press conference was necessary because only a one-sided projection from the AAP side twas coming. Everyone was feeling that only the IAS officers were at fault. It was necessary to clear public perception.

Should Delhi be given statehood?

It can't be. It would be foolish. So many committees have come and have made various suggestions and none have worked. Delhi is the capital. We had argued at one point of time that the police have to remain with the central government, but the traffic police can be given to the Delhi government because traffic is a municipal function. Delhi should be given more control over the municipal corporations. Why should licensing be with the police? The licensing department should come to the Delhi government. Delhi government should have some say in land use planning. These are the areas where more flexibility and more autonomy are required.

Also on HuffPost India:

SRINAGAR — Hours after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) pulled out of their alliance with the People's Democratic Party (PDP), and brought Jammu and Kashmir under the direct control of their government in New Delhi, a video shot by an Indian soldier made the rounds on Whatsapp.

The 54-second clip carried a message no one in Kashmir missed: A lone two-storey house stands amidst green fields and tall poplar trees, a typical rural Kashmir landscape. Within seconds a missile hits its base blowing the house to smithereens, sending clouds of dust, debris and smoke into the bright blue summer sky, like a scene from an active war zone.

The soldier turns the camera to his face and smiles selfie-style. Frantic commands over wireless crackle in the background — "keep tight cordon, keep tight cordon" — lest any of the trapped militants survive and try to escape from under the debris.

So mighty,professional & disciplined 700K Army with 1000's of elite commandos cannot send few men inside the civilian house in #Tral but blast it from safe distance. This is war crime. #HRC38#HRCVoteKashmir#Kashmir#StandUp4HumanRightspic.twitter.com/LuvnW7hAWD

— SRK (@shujakamili) June 20, 2018

So mighty,professional & disciplined 700K Army with 1000's of elite commandos cannot send few men inside the civilian house in #Tral but blast it from safe distance. This is war crime. #HRC38#HRCVoteKashmir#Kashmir#StandUp4HumanRightspic.twitter.com/LuvnW7hAWD

— SRK (@shujakamili) June 20, 2018

The release of the video, a police officer admitted, was a strategic decision. The footage was shot in 2016 when Indian soldiers killed a hugely popular and charismatic militant leader, Burhan Wani in July that year. The ensuing anti-India protests overwhelmed government forces for months.

"Brace up for a lot of this in the coming days", a senior security official told this reporter, referring to the video. The resurgent rebellious mood in the valley will have to be turned again.

New Age Rebellion

Kashmir valley, the epicenter of anti-Indian protest in the disputed state has been in the throes of a "new age" armed rebellion since Wani's death. Young men have taken to arms, particularly in southern Kashmir, almost as fast as they are killed in encounters with soldiers. A hardened counterinsurgency approach led by the army has met with a steady backlash in the form of sustained popular support for the armed militants.

The dynamic is very difficult for any Kashmiri leader to overcome because it requires antagonizing Delhi; more so for Mehbooba Mufti as chief minister because of her party's alliance with the BJP.

The support for rebels, who fight mostly with weapons snatched from policemen on the streets, often manifests itself in the thronging crowds that gather, as residents from entire clusters of villages swarm sites of gun battles between militants and government forces. They put their lives on the line, throwing stones at the soldiers to save the trapped rebels from frequent military cordons.

But, apart from pushing Mufti's PDP into a corner for the impossibility of reconciling with her ally's objectives in the state, Delhi's muscular military approach also eroded space for pro-India politics. The establishment was not able to hold a vote for Anantnag, the parliamentary constituency she vacated after ascending to the chair.

Jackboots and Elections

This is what BJP and the government in Delhi hope to change. Boots on the ground and regular elections to bolster its claims of democracy at work in Kashmir have long-been the twin pillars of New Delhi's campaign against the movement for self-determination.

Governor NN Vohra, who now rules the state, has the twin task of rebuilding the much shrunken pro-India constituency in Kashmir and putting down the prevailing rebellious spirit of the people. The public defiance received a boost recently with the first UN human rights report on Kashmir that sharply criticizes New Delhi for abuses in the region, particularly under the BJP's watch.

The advisors appointed for Vohra are also telling. BVR Subrahmanyam, an IAS officer is being brought in from Chhattisgarh, a state where the government has been at war with the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist).

The other advisor is K Vijay Kumar, a Tamil Nadu cadre IPS officer best known for catching the sandalwood smuggler Veerappan, but has likely been appointed as a result of his stint as inspector general of the Border Security Force in Kashmir between 1998 and 2001, when the counterinsurgency methods of his paramilitary force sent shivers down the spine of many in Kashmir.

"Even if they (ruling BJP) manage an amendment in (Article) 35A to enable children of those who have married non-state subjects to own land in Kashmir it will have huge electoral dividends for them in 2019"

In the 1990s, the BSF broke the back of urban militancy in Kashmir by brutal means like "Operation catch and kill" and the capacity to cultivate or coerce civilian informants, including women.

A top BSF officer who served in Kashmir at the time, KC Padhi, was recently awarded ten years in prison when a court convicted him of sexually exploiting young Kashmiri women.

Subramanyam and Vijay Kumar's appointments also point to a renewed, much-intensified counterinsurgency campaign in Kashmir in the months to come.

A PDP youth leader, Waheed Parra, who has been at the forefront of garnering youth support for the party didn't waste any time in warning Kashmiri people about what to expect after New Delhi took direct control.

"Those who have been criticising us these years will finally realise our essence with the time," Parra posted on twitter, referring to an oft repeated off- the- record assertion by his party's top leaders that the PDP cushioned Delhi's onslaught.

The assertion appears fallacious in the light of the UN rights abuses report. Just last week another anonymously shot video showed soldiers holding a group of young Kashmiri boys as human shields against stone throwing protestors in Pampore area outside Srinagar.

A top security official revealed that a new presence of Indian's special forces has been building up in Kashmir over the last many months.

Many fear that the BJP government in New Delhi may now start playing with Articles 370 and 35A — the legal provisions that underpin Kashmir's special status in the Indian union.

"Even if they (ruling BJP) manage an amendment in (Article) 35A to enable children of those who have married non-state subjects to own land in Kashmir it will have huge electoral dividends for them in 2019," said a political scientist who did not wish to be named.

The BJP's inability to fulfill these election promises has antagonized its voters in Jammu region who brought it to power in the state for the first time ever. But now, with the focus on the 2019 general elections, the BJP has put its ear to the ground in the Hindu dominated areas of the state.

The toppling of the coalition government may appear sudden but there were enough indications that the plan was in the making for long, only Mehbooba Mufti and her top party colleagues perhaps couldn't see it.

A top security official revealed that a new presence of Indian's special forces has been building up in Kashmir over the last many months.

"It certainly looks like a final push against this new militancy," he said. "It will remove the noise about politics of resolving Kashmir."

The magazine cover of a woman breastfeeding a child is not "obscene," the Kerala High Court has ruled.

"What may be obscene to some, may be artistic to other, one man's vulgarity is another man's lyric," the court said, as quoted by The Indian Express.

In February, the cover photo of actor Gilu Joseph breastfeeding in a Malayalam magazine named "Grihalalakshmi" stoked a huge controversy.

The magazine publisher, M.V. Shreyams Kumar, said the cover was aimed at removing social stigmas around breastfeeding.

"So many women have told us that they can't breastfeed their children without inviting stares," he said, earlier this year. "It is a natural beautiful thing that a mother does with her child. If some people see something objectionable, in this, they are the ones with the problem."

The image caption reads: Mothers tell Kerala, 'please don't stare, we need to breastfeed."

"Don't stare, we are #breastfeeding!"

Grihalakshmi March 1st Issue is out, which speaks about the importance of breastfeeding, and the taboos revolving around it. pic.twitter.com/CtobpNInMO

— Grihalakshmi (@Grihalakshmi_) March 1, 2018

A case was registered against the magazine and the actor by advocate Vinod Mathew in a court in Kerala and they were charged under the Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act 1986.

The two judge bench of Antony Dominic and Dama Seshadri Naidu said, "We looked at the picture with the same eyes we look at the paintings of Raja Ravi Varma. As beauty lies in the beholder's eye , so does, obscenity perhaps."

"May we observe, Indian psyche has been so mature for ages that it could see the sensuous even in yen sacred. The paintings in Ajanta and the temple architecture are cases in point," they said.

In an interview with The Indian Express in March, Joseph, 27, said, "It is a problem to interpret this sexually. Isn't it a beautiful thing? Why would you think it's wrong? Which god will you offend by feeding your child."

Those opposing the photo noted that Joseph was not pregnant and asked why she had posed for the cover photo.

Joseph also revealed that her family had opposed her doing the photoshoot, especially her sister, who is a nun.

The actor said that she said respected her family's opinion, but added, "I am extremely proud of my body and only I can have rights over it."

Also on HuffPost India:

There is a sour group of “Star Wars” fans who really want us to forget about Rian Johnson’s “The Last Jedi.” They dislike the film so much they’ve even gone so far as campaigning to raise money for a remake. 

Their (very reputable looking) website allows you to add your email address in support and even pledge a dollar amount toward the project, though no financial information is collected from visitors, so it appears purely symbolic.

The people behind the site claim they have unnamed producers who will ultimately cover the film’s budget.

“This is a campaign to provide Disney an opportunity to course correct with the Star Wars franchise,” the site’s mission statement reads. “The fans are completely divided and the core goal of Star Wars has been abandoned.”

The group, which insists “this isn’t a joke” in a pinned tweet, has just gotten the endorsement from maybe the most unlikely source: “Last Jedi” director Rian Johnson himself.

Vikas Mishra, a passport official, accused of humiliating an interfaith couple in Lucknow, has alleged that it was Tanvi Seth who had not complied with the rules for obtaining an Indian passport.

On Wednesday, Seth accused Mishra of humiliating her and her husband, Mohammad Anas Siddiqui, when they went to apply for passports at the Passport Sewa Kendra in Lucknow's Ratan Square.

After being transferred from Lucknow to Gorakhpur on Thursday, Mishra told the media that Seth's name in her Nikahnamma is Shadia Anas. According to the rules, Mishra said, he had to ask her whether she had changed her name.

There is a specific question which requires applicants to declare if they have ever changed their names, he said.

"She was showing nikahnama that had her name as 'Shadia Anas' but had said on documents that she has not changed her name. Why did she not endorse this on paper? I asked her to endorse her 'nikah' name, but she said she did not want to do that, which is when I sent her to the higher official," he said, The Times of India reported.

Mishra allegedly rejected the application of an interfaith couple, and asked the husband, Siddiqui, to convert to Hinduism.

Mishra denied saying, "It is a duty for a woman to get her name changed after marriage" or telling the Siddiqui that he should "convert to Hinduism."

"I myself have done an inter-caste marriage. I am not communal and respect and sit with people of all religions," he said.

On Thursday, in a series of tweets directed at External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, Seth, who married Siddiqui in 2007, described how she and her husband were allegedly shamed by Mishra. The official was transferred on Friday and the couple granted passports.

Referring to the passport officer, Seth wrote, "He spoke to me very rudely and was loud enough for others to hear while discussing my case. I have never felt so harassed ever before....He dint just put my passport on hold he even put my husband's passport on hold."

In an email to Swaraj, Seth said that the passport officer told her there was a problem with her file because she retained had her maiden name after marrying a Muslim. She quoted him as saying: "Aapke saath to masla hai. Aapne Muslim se shaadi ki hai to aapka naam Tanvi Seth kaisai ho sakta hai?"

"I have two asks mam, please help me and my husband get our passports issued and also take action against Mr. Mishra," she wrote. "What has happened to me today should not happen to other women like me/citizen."

The Twitter timelines of both Seth and Siddiqui are no longer available for general viewing.

READ: Passport Officer Shames A Hindu-Muslim Couple, Rejects Application, And Tells Husband To Convert To Hinduism

@SushmaSwaraj hello ma'am I type this tweet with immense faith in justice and in you and ironically with a lot of anger / hurt and agony in my heart because of the way I was treated at the Lucknow passport office at Ratan Square by Mr. Vikas Mishra the reason because I marri 1/2

— Tanvi Seth (@tanvianas) June 20, 2018

@SushmaSwaraj 2/2 married a Muslim and not changed my name ever. He spoke to me very rudely and was loud enough for others to hear while discussing my case. I have never felt so harassed ever before. The other workers at the office acknowledged his rude demeanour.

— Tanvi Seth (@tanvianas) June 20, 2018

@SushmaSwaraj Ma'am I never ever imagined that in a place like passport office we would have a people who are moral policing the citizens. He dint just put my passport on hold he even put my husband's @5220manas passport on hold. This is clear grudge. I was shocked at this 1/2

— Tanvi Seth (@tanvianas) June 20, 2018

@SushmaSwaraj behaviour. I have never felt so insulted in the last 12 years of my marriage with my husband. It is my personal choice to choose a name I want to after marriage. This is our family matter and last thing I expected to hear at the passport office was 2/3

— Tanvi Seth (@tanvianas) June 20, 2018

READ: Hindu-Muslim Couple Humiliated In Lucknow Get Passports, Official Transferred

Siddiqui toldNews 18 that Mishra not only humiliated him and his wife over the issuing of passports, but he also told him to convert to Hinduism.

"When he read the spouse's name as Mohd Anas Siddiqui, he started shouting at her and said that she should not have married me. My wife broke into tears, after which Mr. Mishra said that she should get all the documents corrected with a changed name," he said.

Siddiqui also told the news portal, "He said that I will have to convert to Hinduism else my marriage won't be accepted. He asked, 'You have to take the pheras and get converted to our religion, will you do so?'"

NEW DELHI -- India increased duties on a slew of farm products, steel and iron imported from the United States, a government notice said, joining the European Union and China in retaliatory action against President Donald Trump's tariff hikes on steel and aluminum.

India's move came a day after the EU's decision to charge higher import duties on a range of U.S. products.

In tariff rates issued late on Wednesday, India's commerce ministry named some varieties of apples, almonds, chickpeas, lentils, walnuts and artemia that would carry higher import taxes. Most of these are purchased from the United States.

India also raised duties on some grades of iron and steel products. Last month, India launched a complaint at the World Trade Organisation against the United States over the steel and aluminum duties after it failed to win an exemption.

It also gave a list of products to the WTO that it said could incur higher tariffs.

An official from the steel ministry said at the time that the new tariffs were intended to show displeasure at the U.S. action. Some of the new Indian rates will take effect immediately while the others would go into force on Aug. 4.

Rising trade tensions between the United States and some major economies have threatened to derail global growth.

China on Thursday warned that the interests of U.S. workers and farmers will be hurt by Washington's intent to impose higher tariffs on some imported products.

The passport officer in Lucknow, who allegedly humiliated and rejected the application of an interfaith couple, has been transferred. Meanwhile, Tanvi Seth and her husband, Mohammad Anas Siddiqui, have received their passports.

In a series of tweets, Seth thanked External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj today morning.

@SushmaSwaraj@rpolucknow Since the time we walked in to the RPO office this morning we were treated very well by Mr. Piyush Verma and all the officials. They apologised for the misconduct of the official yesterday. They looked at our documents and issued passports to us in 1/3 https://t.co/kx7PQo92po

— Tanvi Seth (@tanvianas) June 21, 2018

@SushmaSwaraj@rpolucknow contd no time .the way we have been treated today has been reflective of the impression we had about ministry of external affairs. They have been absolutely empathetic and caring about the way we felt and our issues from yesterday. 2/3 https://t.co/mOLRqImai6

— Tanvi Seth (@tanvianas) June 21, 2018

@SushmaSwaraj@rpolucknow@CPVIndia Thank you for the timely action and and understanding towards our feelings and issue. I am extremely satisfied with what has happened. https://t.co/mOLRqImai6

— Tanvi Seth (@tanvianas) June 21, 2018

READ: Passport Officer Shames A Hindu-Muslim Couple, Rejects Application, And Tells Husband To Convert To Hinduism

On Wednesday, a passport officer in Lucknow, Vikas Mishra, allegedly rejected the the application of Seth and Siddiqui, and asked the latter to convert to Hinduism.

In a series of tweets Seth, who married Siddiqui in 2007, described how she and her husband were allegedly shamed by a passport officer.

Referring to the passport officer, she wrote, "He spoke to me very rudely and was loud enough for others to hear while discussing my case. I have never felt so harassed ever before....He dint just put my passport on hold he even put my husband's passport on hold."

In an email to Swaraj, Seth explained that the passport officer was angry because she had retained her maiden name after marrying a Muslim. She quoted him as saying: "Aapke saath to masla hai. Aapne Muslim se shaadi ki hai to aapka naam Tanvi Seth kaisai ho sakta hai?"

@SushmaSwaraj hello ma'am I type this tweet with immense faith in justice and in you and ironically with a lot of anger / hurt and agony in my heart because of the way I was treated at the Lucknow passport office at Ratan Square by Mr. Vikas Mishra the reason because I marri 1/2

— Tanvi Seth (@tanvianas) June 20, 2018

@SushmaSwaraj 2/2 married a Muslim and not changed my name ever. He spoke to me very rudely and was loud enough for others to hear while discussing my case. I have never felt so harassed ever before. The other workers at the office acknowledged his rude demeanour.

— Tanvi Seth (@tanvianas) June 20, 2018

@SushmaSwaraj behaviour. I have never felt so insulted in the last 12 years of my marriage with my husband. It is my personal choice to choose a name I want to after marriage. This is our family matter and last thing I expected to hear at the passport office was 2/3

— Tanvi Seth (@tanvianas) June 20, 2018

@SushmaSwaraj it is your duty to change your name after marriage. The person who spoke to my husband later said if your wife's case would have come to me there wouldn't have been issues because her papers are complete.

— Tanvi Seth (@tanvianas) June 20, 2018

Siddiqui toldNews 18 that Mishra not only humiliated him and his wife over the issuing of passports, but he also told him to convert to Hinduism.

"When he read the spouse's name as Mohd Anas Siddiqui, he started shouting at her and said that she should not have married me. My wife broke into tears, after which Mr. Mishra said that she should get all the documents corrected with a changed name," he said.

Siddiqui also told the news website, "He said that I will have to convert to Hinduism else my marriage won't be accepted. He asked, 'You have to take the pheras and get converted to our religion, will you do so?'"

Siddiqui had also asked Swaraj and Prime Minister Narendra Modi to intervene.

@MEAIndia@CPVIndia@PMOIndia@SushmaSwaraj@passportsevamea : Sir/Ma'am, I request you to please help us. Getting a passport made has cost us humiliation, shame in front of so many officials and other applicants. PLEASE someone listen to our issue and address necessary actions.

— Anas Siddiqui (@5220manas) June 20, 2018

pic.twitter.com/Q31odW4fJI

— Anas Siddiqui (@5220manas) June 20, 2018

A report published by McKinsey&Company suggested that even a 10% increase in women's workforce participation could add $770 billion to India's Gross Domestic Product (GDP). In a report titled "The power of parity: Advancing women's equality in Asia Pacific", the consultants pointed out that women's work force participation in India is limited to just 25%.

According to the report, India is among the six countries furthest from gender parity in work. The others are Bangladesh, Japan, Nepal, Pakistan, and South Korea.

Overall, the report stated, by increasing women's participation in the workforce across countries of Asia Pacific, they could add 4.5 trillion to their collective annual GDP by 2025. The report added, "The largest relative GDP opportunity is in India, which could achieve an 18 percent increase over business-as-usual GDP, or $770 billion."

Women's participation in India has declined over the last decade. According to World Bank data, in 2008, women constituted 26.8% of India's workforce. By 2017, the number had dwindled to 24.7%. India's lags way behind the global and Asia-Pacific average of women's workforce participation as well. According to the McKinsey report, women contribute 36% to GDP and make up 37% of the workforce in the Asia-Pacific region. This is in sync with the global figures of 36% and 39%. The same report also questioned that with the kind of economic progress India has been witnessing, the number should have improved, but it hasn't.

The report, however, points out, "However, the positive news is that it has already progressed faster than any other Asia-Pacific country over the past ten years, largely due to advances in education and a reduction in maternal mortality (although from a lower base than many other countries in the region). India can now build on this achievement." It isn't clear the indicators they took into account while determining 'progress' because according to data from World Bank, participation of women has only declined.

While preparing the report, McKinsey said, they considered two strategies through which India can increase women's participation in the workforce. The first way suggested was by increasing women's access to 'digital technologies and financial products', which according to the company, will strengthen financial statuses of women and encourage entrepreneurship. Apart from that, the report suggests an overhaul of the social structure which has women spending too much time on unpaid care work like bringing children up, housework which are traditionally burdened just on women.

We talk about digital India, but with only 25 percent of adults using the Internet, India remains largely offline even today. A survey by Pew Research revealed that the global median is 75 percent, with India having amongst the lowest Internet usage in much of the world. The survey collected its data in 2017, so it's likely that the numbers have improved a little since then, although the big growth spurt would have taken place in 2016, when Reliance Jio launched in India.

In contrast, 96 percent of South Korean adults are using the Internet. Indian usage is more in line with sub-Saharan Africa, and although usage is better in the 18-36 years segment at 35 percent, usage amongst people above 37 years is only 13 percent.

The gap between more and less educated people is also starkly pronounced in India, at 42 percentage points. There is also a gender divide, with Indian men being at least 10 percentage points more likely to own a smartphone than Indian women. There's also a gender gap in the usage of social media, with 28 percent of men using it, while only 11 percent of women are on social media.

Given the low amount of adult users, it's not surprising that only 20 percent of adult Indian Internet users are on social media like Facebook and Twitter. As a percentage of the Internet users in India, that's a sizeable portion, and it highlights why Facebook tried to spread free Internet access (and Facebook approved sites) through its Free Basics program, which was eventually not permitted in India.

So, what about the Jio effect? Much has been written about the growth of the telecom network and how, with its low tariffs, it's gotten a new section of users onto the Internet. That is certainly the case, but the overall numbers remain low. According to the Pew survey, smartphone ownership went up hugely between 2013 and 2017, rising from 12 percent to 22 percent, but that still means that 78 percent of Indians are using feature phones, or no phone at all. Although this presents a good opportunity for phone companies and Internet companies, it also poses a challenge to digital governance, and the actual importance of social media in India.

You can read the full survey report here.

Earlier this month, the Modi government put out a tender for a tool to monitor every thing that citizens are saying about the establishment online — ostensibly to understand the sentiments of the people on social media.

Now, the legal challenge to this intrusive snooping is shaping up as well. Mahua Moitra, a former investment banker who is now a Trinamool Congress MLA from Karimpur in West Bengal, has filed a Public Interest Litigation against the proposed Social Media Communications Hub, making her one of handful of politicians to speak up about the dangers that this kind of untrammelled surveillance poses to us all.

"We've just filed a writ in the Supreme Court alleging the violation of the Freedom of Speech and Expression, the Right to Privacy, and the violation of Article 14 of the Constitution," Moitra's advocate Nizam Pasha told HuffPost. "If you look at the scope of work, the plan is to create 360-degree profiles of people making a buzz," Pasha added. "It calls for an interactive interface to spread nationalism. These are areas of great concern, because the language is very vague, and could easily be misused to target the opposition, and curb dissent."

The implications of a tool that allows the government to monitor every single Facebook post, tweet, or stupid joke that you've put up over the years, are clear: particularly at a time when scores of people are routinely arrested for making fun of Prime Minister Modi in their private Whatsapp groups.

Monitoring Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and more

The Ministry of Information has put up a Request For Proposals (RFP) to hire an agency for the creation of a "Social Media Communication Hub" through which it can create "360 degree profiles" and gather "personal data from social media and emails".

To make this possible, it will fork out a budget of Rs 42 crores to hire people in all 716 districts to monitor social media accounts. According to the tender request, the solution should be able to monitor a wide variety of sources, including Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and blogs, and also interestingly, to be able to listen to email, though what that means is not made clear. Unlike all the other accounts above, emails are not public, and how these would be accessed is not clear.

Pasha said there are no laws backing the creation of this kind of a surveillance hub, as it impinges on free speech.

"If someone knows they are being monitored, they cannot speak freely, this is a restriction," said Pasha. "Only some limited restrictions on speech are allowed. Because of this, we wished to bring up the matter in the Supreme Court urgently, before anyone could be selected for the tender, but the court decided that it will hear the matter after the vacation, which will be from July 2 onwards."

Few voices in opposition

Although a few other politicians have spoken out against the social media hub, none have gone as far as to actually do anything about it.

"They will misuse this tool to shape the narrative, influence the voters, to adopt unethical and unfair means to grab democracy rather than earn the trust," Congress spokesperson Jaiveer Shergill saidin May.

DMK Working President MK Stalin tweeted that the government's plan "raises serious issues of illegal surveillance and marks the beginning of a totalitarian regime". He urged the Centre to "stop all such unconstitutional endeavours".

Moitra too has filed the petition as an individual, rather than as a representative of the TMC.

"Please judge the petition on its merits, I don't want to make this about myself in the press," Moitra said. "This is an important issue, please focus on that."

A long-standing plan

The last date for this RFP was earlier May 31, but it was extended to June 18. The RFP has earlier floated in the past too - in 2017, and in 2016, the government had already shared plans to track social media - as an "early warning signal for possible flashpoints".

When the Union Budget was released earlier this year, the I&B Ministry under Smriti Irani carried out social media analysis with a team of six people to track people's reactions as the budget was read out.

Free speech activists are worried about how such a system could be misused. The Internet Freedom Foundation, a non-profit that advocates a free and open Internet, has sent a legal notice to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, asking for this tender to be cancelled.

A mass surveillance state

Privacy experts caution that monitoring tools like the Social Media Communication Hub are part of a broader shift towards the continuos surverillance of the citizenry.

"In China, a Social Credit Scheme builds off capacity for mass surveillance and uses big data analysis. It relies on detailed profiles of all its residents which are aggregated, analysed and stored on multiple data points." notes Apar Gupta, co-founder and volunteer at IFF.

"It is not out of place to remember that China also heavily censors its Internet. Reading the tender document one feels it comes from a heavy inspiration of the Chinese model," Gupta said in an interview. "Thankfully we have constitutional text and culture to protect us. Specifically, the Social Media Communication Hub is contrary to our fundamental rights to privacy and free expression. It is an insult to the nine-judge bench judgement that unanimously reaffirmed our fundamental right to privacy. We hope that the tender is recalled and cancelled failing which the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting will imperil the aspiration of a digital India, converting it into a digital panopticon."

China's social credit scheme promises to "allow the trustworthy to roam everywhere under heaven while making it hard for the discredited to take a single step."

You can lose points for traffic violations, or gain points by committing heroic acts that earn you an award. It becomes an extra document that people need to prove they are allowed to take loans to buy a house, for example, while others have talked about being unable to buy plane tickets even during emergencies.

India's Social Media Communication Hub may appear benign at first, but once such tools are in place, it is trivially easy to implement a system that can identify "anti-national" people online, and encourage them to be more "positive" instead.

In the chargesheet filed in the Ghaziabad madrassa rape case, the Special Task Force has said that the accused in the case drugged the 10-year-old girl, gangraped her and then destroyed evidence to save themselves.

The chargesheet filed before a court on Tuesday reveals that the accused lured the minor to an ice-cream parlour, kidnapped her and then took her to the madrassa.

According to a report in The Indian Express, the main accused first took the girl to the terrace of the madrassa where he asked her to hide, then he took her to the second floor after the cleric of the madrassa left.

The chargesheet reportedly said that only one accused in the case has been arrested and two others are still at large.

The accused who has been arrested was first thought to be a juvenile, but his bone ossification report found that he wasn't. He is said to be the one who lured the girl and brought her to the madrassa.

The chargesheet quoted in The Indian Express report states, "He offered her water laced with sedatives at night and she became unconscious, after which he and his friend allegedly raped her. With the intent to destroy evidence, he broke his and the girl's phones. The girl said in her statement under Section 164 of CrPC before a magistrate that he allegedly offered her water and she fell unconscious. In the morning, she woke up in pain and he asked her to change her dress after taking a bath."

The girl had gone missing on April 21 when she stepped out to buy something from a shop. The father of the girl reported it to the police who found her on April 22.

Despite the girl's phone being destroyed by the accused, the police were able to trace her back to the madrassa.

The girl, in her statement before a magistrate, said that the day she was kidnapped she got a call from her friend and then a boy who said was her friends brother. The boy lured her outside, first claiming the friend would also come to meet her but once she went out he kidnapped her and took her to the madrassa.

The queen knew we needed this album. She didn’t drop it when we wanted it, but she dropped it right on time. Taryn Finley

Jason Momoa isn’t just a pretty face. He’s also got a great sense of humor.

Case in point, the “Aquaman” star made a huge splash online this week when a photo of him posing with a married couple at Denver’s Comic Con went viral.

In the photo, which was posted to Reddit by a user named twoforjoy (who asked to be referred to by just her first name, Liz) over the weekend, you can see her posing with the 38-year-old Momoa prom style. Off to the side stands her husband, with the actor’s hand smashing his face.

The best part? After the photo was printed, Momoa inked his signature right over her husband’s face.

Staff working on the behalf of the Office of Refugee Resettlement are routinely drugging detained child migrants with psychotropics without their parents’ consent, according to legal filings.

Trump administration officials have repeatedly insisted that the family separation policy they implemented over the last six weeks is humane. But the ongoing lawsuit over the Flores agreement, a 1997 settlement that partly governs the detention of child migrants that the White House hopes to overturn, alleges a litany of wrongdoings at the ORR-contracted facilities.

The drugging allegations are among the most disturbing. One child cited in the lawsuit reported taking up to nine pills in the morning and another seven in the evening, without knowing what the medication was.

“ORR routinely administers children psychotropic drugs without lawful authorization,” a memo filed in the lawsuit on April 16 reads. “When youth object to taking such medications, ORR compels them. ORR neither requires nor asks for a parent’s consent before medicating a child, nor does it seek lawful authority to consent in parents’ stead. Instead, ORR or facility staff sign ‘consent’ forms anointing themselves with ‘authority’ to administer psychotropic drugs to confined children.”

Kashmiris, like people in distress elsewhere, search for solace in counterfactual thinking. Had Pakistan invaded Kashmir when India and China were fighting a war in 1962, Kashmir might have been liberated. Had Sheikh Abdullah not surrendered before Indira Gandhi in 1974, he would have been leading the insurgency from his grave as a hero. This thinking resurfaced on Wednesday when the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) walked out of the government in Jammu and Kashmir, exposing its alliance partner People's Democratic Party, especially the chief minister Mehbooba Mufti, to a deluge of dispiriting ridicule on social media.

Mehbooba's rival and former chief minister Omar Abdullah tweeted, "How I wish she had left with her head held high and her dignity intact".

She was cutting ribbons while the BJP was cutting her legs out from under her. How I wish she had left with her head held high & her dignity intact! She was J&K's CM, not of the BJPDP. https://t.co/I8NA5lN8pl

— Omar Abdullah (@OmarAbdullah) June 19, 2018

On Twitter, however, Abdullah was promptly reminded that he was no different; an allusion to his decision to stick to power while putting down a public uprising in 2010 with massive force. More than 120 street protesters were killed, thousands injured and hundreds arrested. This decision, he later admitted, led to National Conference's worst ever defeat in the 2014 assembly election. Expectedly, PDP had at that time asked Omar to quit.

Counterfactual thinking, psychologists have shown, can both be beneficial and adverse. But such thinking always reminds Kashmiris of their incremental disempowerment aided in large part by pro-India politicians during the past seven decades.

By pointing to Mehbooba's infirmity, Omar suggests the possibility of a 'dignified' recourse when faced with tough political choices, even though —when faced with similar circumstances — his party has flinched every time. Therefore, it becomes imperative to read PDP's shabby treatment at the hands of BJP in the context of past developments.

Familiar Trap

Immediate analyses of the BJP's decision to topple the government point to the familiar: The party gave the PDP no opportunity to score even symbolic victories in a place where symbolism has often passed for real politics; BJP is fortifying its turf, the resurgently nationalistic Hindu-majority Jammu region, for 2019 parliamentary elections and imminent fresh assembly polls in J&K. By ruling directly from New Delhi through Governor, the saffron party is potentially freer to carry out its dream agenda of "integrating Kashmir with India" by abrogating laws providing special status to the state in the Indian Constitution. Only in Jammu and Kashmir the governor has the power to legislate during his rule.

Then there has been an all-out offensive against militants, and by extension against their supporters—the majority of the Kashmiri population— during the past four years. The BJP had everything to gain from such muscular approach. But the PDP was left with burdensome task of justifying such policies at every step.

Now, at every political rally leading up to 2019 elections, BJP will revel in saying that during its rule in J&K, hundreds of militants were killed and anti-India dissent was crushed with unprecedented force. BJP can defend, in the "national interest", the partial or complete blinding of more than 1,100 street protesters, by pellet ammunition, since 2016. More than 200 civilian protesters have been killed.

For the PDP, such figures are a toxic blot on its tenure, particularly when Mehbooba Mufti, as opposition leader, rallied on Srinagar roads holding placards depicting gruesome injuries to street protesters in 2010. All PDP legislators and workers live in the neighbourhood of the families of dead militants and civilian protesters. No BJP legislator does.

Given the fanatical popularity of militants, especially in southern Kashmir that was PDP's stronghold, how will PDP go before the people and defend the killing of militants, most of them local boys, after claiming itself as their "representative" in the assembly during its first stint in power in 2002? Will a PDP legislator dare ask for votes in villages where militants give gun salutes to their fallen colleagues and people come in between militants and soldiers during a gunfight?

The party also failed miserably on two other fronts it claimed were its primary motives behind the alliance with BJP. First, development. By aligning with a party that is ruling at the Centre, PDP sold the idea that money will flow into J&K unconstrained. But in

April this year, a PTI report quoted home ministry officials saying that of the Rs 80,000 crore economic package PM Narendra Modi had announced in 2015 for Jammu and Kashmir, only 31 percent of the funds had been released and only 25 percent utilised so far. A 2.4-kilometre flyover in Srinagar, under construction since 2013, has missed several deadlines.

Second, the party faltered in facilitating dialogue on Kashmir, as promised in the Agenda of Alliance with BJP. In fact, the possibility of a dialogue seems remote as ever at present.

Troubling Legacy

By and large, this has been the legacy of every Kashmir-based pro-India party in Kashmir. When India had nearly lost Kashmir in the mid 1990s, Omar Abdullah's father and two-time chief minister Farooq Abdullah was coaxed into reviving electoral politics in Kashmir. He had been cooling off in London. The party fought the 1996 election believing the political autonomy the state enjoyed before 1953, or some variant of it, would be restored.

At the fag end of its rule, in 2000, the National Conference passed autonomy resolution in the state assembly with two-thirds majority (counterfactual wish: only if they had passed a bill). By then, the Congress that had sweet-talked the Abdullahs into elections, had been replaced at the Centre by the BJP-led NDA, which summarily dumped the resolution without even according it the dignity of a discussion in Parliament. Not having learnt lessons, National Conference again aligned with Congress in 2008, only to end up as a shadow of its former self.

Out of power, National Conference and PDP complain about loss of Kashmiri agency, only to end up weakening it further once in power. That is probably why Kashmiri novelist Mirza Waheed tweeted that "PDP will soon start talking about human rights of Kashmiris" after BJP broke off the alliance.

While straddling between perennially rebellious Kashmir and New Delhi, pro-India Kashmiri politicians have always ceded power. The counter argument runs that they never had any real power. True, but why sell this make-believe dabbling in electoral politics as the real thing? The net result of the abysmal failure of pro-India politics has already started showing up in the most resurgent phase of the current phase of the protracted anti-India insurgency. Despite all the military muscle, the state has not been able to hold by-poll for Anantnag parliamentary seat since last April.

All Mehbooba Mufti could do after the unceremonious end to her rule was to warn New Delhi that its "muscular policy will not work in Kashmir". This, after having partnered in executing the same muscular policy on ground for four years. Her remarks obviously met with scorn and one more counterfactual wish: only if she had stepped down in 2016 when the state was virtually at war with the people.

Update: Vikas Mishra, the passport officer, has been transferred. Tanvi Seth and her husband, Mohammad Anas Siddiqui, have received their passports.

A passport officer in Lucknow allegedly rejected the application of an interfaith couple, and asked the husband, Mohammad Anas Siddiqui, to convert to Hinduism.

In a series of tweets directed at External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, Tanvi Seth, a Hindu, who married Siddiqui in 2007, described how she and her husband were allegedly shamed by a passport officer named Vikas Mishra.

Referring to the passport officer, she wrote, "He spoke to me very rudely and was loud enough for others to hear while discussing my case. I have never felt so harassed ever before....He dint just put my passport on hold he even put my husband's passport on hold."

In an email to Swaraj, Seth explained that the passport officer was angry because she had retained her maiden name after marrying a Muslim. She quoted him as saying: "Aapke saath to masla hai. Aapne Muslim se shaadi ki hai to aapka naam Tanvi Seth kaisai ho sakta hai?"

"I have two asks mam, please help me and my husband get our passports issued and also take action against Mr. Mishra," she wrote. "What has happened to me today should not happen to other women like me/citizen."

He dint just put my passport on hold he even put my husband's passport on hold.

@SushmaSwaraj hello ma'am I type this tweet with immense faith in justice and in you and ironically with a lot of anger / hurt and agony in my heart because of the way I was treated at the Lucknow passport office at Ratan Square by Mr. Vikas Mishra the reason because I marri 1/2

— Tanvi Seth (@tanvianas) June 20, 2018

@SushmaSwaraj 2/2 married a Muslim and not changed my name ever. He spoke to me very rudely and was loud enough for others to hear while discussing my case. I have never felt so harassed ever before. The other workers at the office acknowledged his rude demeanour.

— Tanvi Seth (@tanvianas) June 20, 2018

@SushmaSwaraj Ma'am I never ever imagined that in a place like passport office we would have a people who are moral policing the citizens. He dint just put my passport on hold he even put my husband's @5220manas passport on hold. This is clear grudge. I was shocked at this 1/2

— Tanvi Seth (@tanvianas) June 20, 2018

@SushmaSwaraj behaviour. I have never felt so insulted in the last 12 years of my marriage with my husband. It is my personal choice to choose a name I want to after marriage. This is our family matter and last thing I expected to hear at the passport office was 2/3

— Tanvi Seth (@tanvianas) June 20, 2018

@SushmaSwaraj it is your duty to change your name after marriage. The person who spoke to my husband later said if your wife's case would have come to me there wouldn't have been issues because her papers are complete.

— Tanvi Seth (@tanvianas) June 20, 2018

Siddiqui and Seth work in a multinational company in Noida and they are parents to a six-year-old daughter.

Siddiqui toldNews 18 that Mishra not only humiliated him and his wife over the issuing of passports, but he also told him to convert to Hinduism.

"When he read the spouse's name as Mohd Anas Siddiqui, he started shouting at her and said that she should not have married me. My wife broke into tears, after which Mr. Mishra said that she should get all the documents corrected with a changed name," he said.

Siddiqui also told the news website, "He said that I will have to convert to Hinduism else my marriage won't be accepted. He asked, 'You have to take the pheras and get converted to our religion, will you do so?'"

Siddiqui has also asked Swaraj and Prime Minister Narendra Modi to intervene.

@MEAIndia@CPVIndia@PMOIndia@SushmaSwaraj@passportsevamea : Sir/Ma'am, I request you to please help us. Getting a passport made has cost us humiliation, shame in front of so many officials and other applicants. PLEASE someone listen to our issue and address necessary actions.

— Anas Siddiqui (@5220manas) June 20, 2018

pic.twitter.com/Q31odW4fJI

— Anas Siddiqui (@5220manas) June 20, 2018

Read update: Hindu-Muslim Couple Humiliated In Lucknow Get Passports, Official Transferred

Also on HuffPost India:

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India's chief economic adviser Arvind Subramanian is standing down after serving for nearly four years and would return to the United States, the finance minister said on Wednesday.

"He would like to go back to the United States on account of pressing family commitments," Arun Jaitley said in a Facebook post. "He left me with no option but to agree with him."

Subramanian, 59, joined as the chief economic adviser on Oct. 16, 2014 for a three-year term, which was later extended by a year.

The Indian-born, Oxford-educated economist was picked by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the post, which was left vacant by former International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief economist Raghuram Rajan when he took over the reins of India's central bank.

Subramanian had earlier worked with Rajan at the IMF.

He is currently on leave from the Peterson Institute for International Economics, where he is expected to return soon.

Subramanian has been earlier criticised by some members of Modi's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, including senior lawmaker Subramanian Swamy, for his frank views on the economy.

Praising Subramanian's contribution, Jaitley said his early diagnosis of the twin balance-sheet problem led the government to adopt the strategy of increasing public spending to support India's economic growth.

The economy grew 7.7 percent year-on-year in January-March, its quickest pace in nearly two years driven by higher growth in manufacturing, the farm sector and construction.

Subramanian also helped Jaitley in the implementation of a new nationwide Goods and Services Tax (GST) last July, which brought India's 29 states into a single customs union, and supported lower tax rates.

"Personally I will miss his dynamism, energy, intellectual ability and ideas," Jaitley said.

In response, Subramainan thanked Jaitley on Twitter for his generous words, adding it was his personal decision to return to researching and writing.

Rachel Maddow chokes up and cries on air as she struggles to deliver news that migrant babies and toddlers have been sent to "tender age" shelters pic.twitter.com/O6crm8cvyR

— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) June 20, 2018

A police complaint has been lodged against singer Sona Mohapatra in Puri, Odisha by an outfit called Sachetana Nagarika Mancha. Her 'crime'? She mispronounced a few Odia words while singing a bhajan which apparently amounted to 'disrespecting Lord Jagannath'.

According to a report on The Telegraph, trouble began soon after Mohapatra posted a video on her social media pages. The video was of a concert in Mumbai where she is seen singing a popular Jagannath bhajan 'Ahe Nila Saila

Several observers pointed out that she had mispronounced " Salabega" as "Salebega", "charana" as "charane" and " matta" as "maatra".

The Telegraph quotes Prasanna Kumar Das, the president of the Odia organisation as saying, "Her song has hurt and offended the Odia community and followers of the Jagannath cult." The organisation also burnt posters of the singer and demanded she seek the 'forgiveness' of the god.

Das also wrote to the state department requesting the government ask YouTube to pull down and 'ban' the video.

However, Odisha Pradesh Congress chief Niranjan Patnaik came to Mohapatra's defence. "She is neither born in Odisha nor can read the language, still sings Odia songs and bhajans. She might have mispronounced some words of the song. No one comes out to protest when the head of the state himself distorts the language and is known for vulgar pronunciations. Why should a singer be targeted?" Patnaik told OdishaTV.

Mohapatra had been pulled up for her rendition of another Odia classic Rangabati for MTV's Coke Studio. Coke Studio which is renowned for collaboration between artistes saw Mohapatra deliver a version of the popular number. While several people pointed out 'mistakes' in her pronunciation and puritans were generally against her interpretation of the song, the BJP's youth wing went a step ahead and filed a police complaint against her in Sambalpur, Odisha in 2016.

The original lyricist of the song Mitrabhaun Gauntia and composer Prabhudatta Pradhan also slapped legal notices on Mohapatra, Coca Cola, and MTV and sued them for Rs 1 crore for copyright infringement.

A BJP youth wing leader told Hindustan Times, "Our complaint is on two counts – first, they did not take permission from the original lyricist and composer and, second, they have distorted the song hurting the feelings of millions of people in western Oridha."

President Ram Nath Kovind has approved Governor's rule in Jammu and Kashmir with immediate effect, a day after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) broke ties with its ally the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Mehbooba Mufti resigned as chief minister of the state.

President #RamNathKovind has approved imposition of Governor's rule in J&K with immediate effect pic.twitter.com/U7c5qnI64u

— ANI (@ANI) June 20, 2018

The Indian Express reports that while Governor NN Vohra had earlier asked Mufti to continue as the chief minister and even spoken to other parties to look for alternative alliance, he submitted a report to the President suggesting Governor's rule.

Former chief minister of the state, Omar Abdullah, called for early elections fearing horse-trading by the BJP.

The J&K state assembly should be dissolved immediately & fresh elections should take place as soon as appropriate. The former DCM has admitted that BJP can't be trusted not to horsetrade for Govt formation. https://t.co/dbX4bK8goc

— Omar Abdullah (@OmarAbdullah) June 20, 2018

A senior PDP leader also feared the same. The PDP leader told The Indian Express, "We will have to start from scratch again. If the Assembly is not dissolved, there are chances that the BJP might want to stitch a new alliance in a few months. Every party has disgruntled elements and we are not different. We may face a split too."

Describing the decision to pull out of the Jammu and Kashmir government, BJP general secretary Ram Madhav told reporters, "Two issues were the basis of the coalition. One was to do all we could to restore peace and secondly to ensure equitable development of all three regions in the state. This has not happened, and in fact, the violence in the Valley has increased and this makes it difficult to continue."

Citing sources, The Times of India reported that another reason for the BJP to take the decision was PDP's alleged empathy towards 'soft separatism'.

Governor's Rule in J&K is different from President's Rule that is usually implemented in other parts of India when the elected government of the state falls.

In Jammu and Kashmir, Governor's Rule can be implemented for a period of six months under Section 92 of the Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir. The government can be in suspended animation or dissolved, and Governor's Rule can be extended beyond a period of 6 months.

Under Governor's Rule, J&K will be under direct control of the Centre.

Eight people, including five minors, were accused of listening to 'pro jihadi' songs during Eid celebrations at Nasriganj, Bihar, and booked for sedition by the local police, according to newspaper reports.

The minors, between 14 and 17 years, have been sent to a juvenile home, The Indian Expressreported.

The song, which followed several qawwalis, had lyrics on the lines of - 'We are Pakistani mujahids, protectors of Earth; if you challenge us even by mistake, we will cut you up" - according to locals, the newspaper reported.

A video of the event showed hundreds of people dancing to "the anthem of the terror outfits in Pakistan," which was being played by the DJ, Hindustan Timesreported. The police said that attendees were raising slogans in favor of Pakistan and terrorist organization, according to the HT report.

Eight persons, including Raja Khan, the organizer, the Ashish Kumar, DJ player and his driver Mukesh Kumar, have been booked under various sections of the Indian Penal Code including 124A (sedition) and 153 A (promoting enmity).

"The police took action after a video of the function surfaced. "We have sent the video for FSL test to check its veracity," Rohtas Superintendent of Police Satyaveer Singh told IE.

Distraught parents said the minors, who were dancing to the song, were not paying attention to its lyrics.

"Sedition charges against these little boys have hurt us badly. There has never been any communal riot in Nasriganj's history. In this town you can still hear azaan and Ram dhun going on simultaneously. We are trying to hire a good lawyer and pinning all hope on judiciary," a father said.

After a few days of nonstop reports from HuffPost, followed up by others, the Andhra Pradesh state government has finally decided to order an audit of all government websites. According to the New Indian Express, the trigger for the audit was the exposure of people who bought medicines from AP's Anna Sanjvini stores. HuffPost exclusively broke this story on Monday, about how the details of a man buying generic viagra were leaked by the state.

According to the report, Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu has directed the IT department to audit all the state portals. However, this activity was apparently already carried out in the first week of May, when 320 government websites were audited for vulnerabilities, after which HuffPost found instances of leaks still taking place.

"We have asked the Andhra Pradesh State Cyber Security Operations Centre (APCSOC) to conduct an audit of all the departments' websites to identify if any sensitive public data is available on them," Principal secretary of IT, K Vijayanand, told TNIE. "Here on, we will audit all the portals for both cyber security vulnerabilities and privacy issues. The audits will be done on a monthly basis."

However, there are a lot of challenges ahead. A report in Times of India, also published last night, revealed yet another data breach from Andhra Pradesh. In this breach, if you have access to a person's Aadhaar number (something that's been leaked in the past, and which can be found thanks to the number of places it's being seeded) then you can see data the government collected for its Praja Sadhikhara Survey (Smart Pulse Survey).

Security researcher Srinivas Kodali reported this to the government on Tuesday, and the site has since been disabled as well. "I have reported the security issue to the AP government. Just visiting the link and entering a number will give the information," Kodali told TOI. "The website has 4.5 crore peoples data, and all the details of the survey are here. The data is about smart pulse survey. The survey started in July 2016 and is ongoing. Earlier when similar breach happened, officials brought down the site."

Previously, AP government websites have been leaking all kinds of data, which is available through something called the People's Hub - a vast database that brings together data from different sources into simple and searchable dashboards.

We have reported exclusively on many of these data leaks which pushed the government into finally taking some steps to improve security. This includes a dashboard to track people in ambulances, with details about their conditions, so strangers can follow the progress of pregnant women with ease; another to let you search for and precisely geo-locate people on the basis of their caste and religion; and of course, the one that kicked off this latest round of introspection, a website that broadcasted the names and phone numbers of people buying medicines - like generic viagra and HIV medicines - from the state's Anna Sanjivini stores.

Sources told TNIE that private data was being uploaded due to lack of awareness, and that their efforts to prevent the same were being stone-walled by government officials who are afraid of being exposed and sharing data with other departments.

"Educating the governmental staff on the motivations of security policies, the importance of working safely and how to contribute to the security of their organizations can help mitigate the risk of security incidents and safeguard what is truly important - their data," a representative of security firm Kaspersky Labs told HuffPost.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday pulled out of its alliance with the Mehbooba Mufti led- People's Democratic Party (PDP) in Jammu and Kashmir.

Speaking at a press conference in New Delhi, BJP's vice president and general secretary, Ram Madhav, said, "It has become untenable for the BJP to continue with the alliance government in Jammu and Kashmir."

Three years ago, in March 2015, the PDP and the BJP had come together for the first to form the government in J&K, with PDP's founder Mufti Mohammad Sayeed as chief minister.

Sayeed, Mufti's father, has dubbed the PDP-BJP alliance as the meeting of "North Pole and South Pole."

The December assembly election, which recorded one of the highest voter turnouts in J&K, led to PDP emerging as the single largest party with 28 seats, BJP 25, National Conference 15 and Congress 12.

Mufti, who was sworn in as the CM in April 2016, three months after her father passed away, has resigned.

"We tried our best to run the government with the BJP. This had to happen. This is a surprise for us because we did not have any indication about their decision," Rafi Ahmad Mir, PDP's spokesperson, told ANI.

While the BJP-PDP alliance was never on a sure footing, tensions escalated following the rape of an eight-year-old girl in Kathua, Jammu, earlier this year. Two BJP lawmakers in the state, Lal Singh and Chander Prakash Ganga, who attended a rally supporting the accused in the rape case, were forced to resign.

In May, the central government had decided that it would not carry out anti-terror operations in J&K during the month of Ramzan. Last week, a few days after a well-known Kashmiri journalist named Shujaat Bukhari was gunned down in Srinagar, the centre ended the ceasefire and resumed offensive operations against terrorists.

An army jawan named Aurangzeb, who was abducted by militants in Pulwama, was also found dead, last week.

Madhav said today that there was no question of suspending anti-terror operations after Bukhari's killing.

"Terrorism, violence and radicalisation have risen and fundamental rights of the citizens are under danger in the Kashmir valley. Despite support from the Central govt, PDP failed to control the situation," the BJP leader said.

"Keeping in mind the larger interest of India's integrity and to bring the deteriorating situation in the state under control, it would be apt to hand over the governance to the governor of J&K," he said.

NEW DELHI -- In the nearly three decades that he served in the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), T.R. Raghunandan recalled just one instance in which officers made their dissent public.

The officers in Karnataka came together for a protest in Bengaluru in 1995, Raghunandan recalled, when the Supreme Court found their colleague, the state's urban development secretary, J. Vasudevan, to be in contempt of court and sentenced him to one month in prison.

"The protest was just for one day and we had gathered in our individual capacity," he said.

"That was nothing like this," Raghunandan said, comparing the protest in 1995 to the ongoing standoff between the Arvind Kejriwal government and the IAS officers in Delhi. "This is a sustained non-cooperation movement. IAS officers are taking political sides."

"The Indian Administrative Service has lost it," Raghunandan concluded.

'Things have changed a lot'

Current and former civil servants are divided on the question of IAS officers in Delhi having "lost it", but are in agreement about what has been lost: characteristic traits that long defined the civil service. For instance, IAS officers were known to swallow their pride and suppress their emotions when dealing with particularly unpleasant political bosses. Taking it on the chin, former officers say, was the norm.

An IAS officer in the Delhi government, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the days of silent suffering especially in the face of injustice were over.

"Things have changed a lot. Young IAS officers speak their mind. Almost every officer is on Twitter. Having a public face has become essential," the officer said.

The officer said the Twitter handle of the IAS officers in Delhi had helped counter the "lies" from the handles of the AAP and its chief, Arvind Kejriwal. "We have no choice but to use it," the officer said.

IAS Associations from different parts of the country have used Twitter to support their colleagues in Delhi.

We stand by our colleagues in Delhi and demand safety and security of all IAS officers and Government officials. Threats and physical violence have no place in a civilised society. pic.twitter.com/W20fCS3WFS

— IAS Association (@IASassociation) June 18, 2018

Things have changed a lot. Young IAS officers speak their mind.

Ashok Khemka, the IAS officer who challenged the Haryana government over handing out lucrative land deals to Robert Vadra, said that "speaking out in the civil service is very hazardous." "There is nothing noble about not speaking out," he said. "As an IAS officer, if you cannot speak for yourself then how can you speak for the public."

While Khemka believes in speaking out on public interest matters, the bureaucrat finds the actions of the IAS officers in Delhi to be a "gross over-reaction." "This is an out-and-out exercise in humiliation. Suppose it had been a BJP or a Congress government in Delhi, would IAS officers have done a similar thing?"

This is an out-and-out exercise in humiliation.

Sparring in public

Over the weekend, in an event described as "unprecedented," IAS officers in Delhi called a press conference to counter Kejriwal's claim that they were on strike. The chief minister and three other ministers of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government have been camping in the waiting room at the residence of Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal, demanding the IAS officers return to work and Delhi be given statehood.

The IAS officers have said they were never on strike and asked they not be made pawns in a political game. Varsha Joshi, Delhi's transport commissioner, said, "We are feeling frightened and victimised. We are being used for completely political reasons."

IAS officers had decided that - apart from "statutory meetings" like Assembly, board and cabinet meetings - they would not have any one-on-one meetings with the AAP ministers until Kejriwal had apologized for the alleged assault on Chief Secretary Anshu Prakash, who claims to have been beaten by AAP lawmakers in the presence of the chief minister on February 19.

Over the course of the past few days, former and current civil servants have sparred with each other in public.

K Sujatha Rao, who retired as the health secretary to the Government of India in 2010, wrote that IAS officers going on 'strike' was "unbelievable."

Unbelievable that IAS officers can go on "strike". They have constitutional responsibilities. How can they be so irresponsible? And the LG just looks the other way? Quite a bad precedent and yet another blow to the so-called iron frame holding the country together.

— K Sujatha Rao (@sujakrao) June 17, 2018

Harsh Mander, who resigned from the IAS after 22 years of service, and is now a prominent human rights activist, urged Delhi IAS officers to return to work. "Don't become a political tools," he tweeted.

I appeal to Delhi IAS officers to return to work, & report to elected government as democracy demands, while holding to your conscience. Don't become a political tool Serve Delhi's citizens, most of all the poor, ensuring their healthcare, education, housing, dignity, protection https://t.co/Lsd8csxSTU

— Harsh Mander (@harsh_mander) June 17, 2018

Jayadev Sarangi, a secretary in the Delhi government, hit back at Rao and Mander, accusing them of having "vested interests."

Having highest regards for Mr Mander and Mrs Rao, one fails to understand their compulsions in taking part in vilification campaigns against colleagues from IAS,who have appealed to the whole world that they are not on strike. Smacks of selective amnesia due to vested interests.

— DR JAYADEV SARANGI IAS (@jayadevsarangi) June 18, 2018

Deep division

Following Kejriwal's conciliatory tweet on Sunday, the AAP ministers and the IAS officers might actually reach a resolution this week, but the standoff — which has been called a "constitutional crisis" — has shaken the civil service community.

For those who believe that Kejriwal and his ministers have been mistreating IAS officers in Delhi, the stand taken by the bureaucrats is justified, especially in light of the alleged assault on the chief secretary.

Prakash, the chief secretary in Delhi, has alleged that the assault took place at the CM's residence, after a meeting on the release of funds for TV advertising for AAP, in which he had refused to contravene Supreme Court guidelines on the matter. AAP members deny the assault.

The matter is being investigated by the Delhi police.

P.K. Tripathi, who served as the chief secretary under the Sheila Dikshit government in Delhi, said the matter could have been resolved the night of the alleged assault.

"The chief minister could have driven over to the house the chief secretary that very night, apologized and assured him of his support ," he said.

The chief minister could have driven over to the house the chief secretary that very night, apologized and assured him of his support.

Khemka, the IAS officer from the Haryana cadre, said that given the Delhi police was investigating the matter with "due earnestness," perhaps even going "overboard," there was no reason for the IAS officers to have orchestrated a showdown.

"The chief minister could have shown grace and apologized, but what the IAS officers are doing is fraught with danger. Was it a suo-moto reaction or was there something else to it?" he said.

"If I were the Prime Minister, I would have asked the IAS officers to behave with an elected representative," Khemka added.

If I were the Prime Minister, I would have asked the IAS officers to behave with an elected representative.

The IAS officer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that the alleged assault on February 19 "broke the camels back," capping two years of "humiliation" endured by IAS officers.

While claiming to have heard the chief minister "roaring like a maniac" at another senior officer in the Delhi government, the IAS officer said that it was preposterous to link political motives to bureaucrats.

"What BJP? None of this has to do with the BJP. This is a question of our honour and safety. This is a question of working without a culture of fear and intimidation," the officer said.

This is a question of our honour and safety. This is a question of working without a culture of fear and intimidation.

There are others who believe the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) government at the Centre has tried to sabotage the Kejriwal government ever since AAP swept to power in February, 2015, winning 67 out of 70 seats in the Delhi Assembly. They view the LG and the IAS officers in Delhi as tools of the BJP.

Raghunandan, the former IAS from Karnataka, questioned why other foul mouthed politicians were not similarly boycotted. He asked why the IAS officers in Tamil Nadu had done nothing after VS Chandralekha, an IAS officer, had accused then chief minister J Jayalalitha of getting someone to throw acid on her face.

"IAS officers are tactically careerist and ambitious loners. They see the LG in control of their careers," he said. "They would not dare to do this with a Siddaramaiah or a Mamata Banerjee. They just don't see Kejriwal dictating their careers."

IAS officers are tactically careerist and ambitious loners. They see the LG in control of their careers.

Another IAS officer in the Delhi government, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that characterising bureaucrats as tools of the BJP or the LG was "false, unfair and malicious."

"Neutrality and anonymity are ingrained in us, but we were put in a position that we had to respond. Our most senior officer was attacked and assaulted and all they can say is the matter is sub judice," the officer said.

Neutrality and anonymity are ingrained in us, but we were put in a position that we had to respond.

Given that the BJP had less than a year remaining at the Centre and with no guarantee of coming back in 2019, Tripathi, the former chief secretary of Delhi, said that he didn't believe the IAS officers would be betting on the Modi government.

On the political leanings of the IAS officers in the Union Territories cadre, Tripathi suspected there was "lurking sympathy' for the Congress, but not for the BJP.

"In all probability, Modi will not be prime minister in 2019, and the BJP will be in a weakened position," he said. "Many of us are liberals and we can't adjust with the BJP."

Personalities versus parties

In the course of the past three years, Kejriwal has routinely accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of undermining his government and targeting ministers and officers working in Delhi.

Last month, the Delhi government's anti-corruption branch (ACB) arrested Kejriwal's relative Vinay Bansal on corruption charges. Last year, the AAP government accused the LG of blocking its plan to curb corruption by the doorstep delivery of public services. Kejriwal has famously remarked that he does not have the power to appoint his own peon.

Then, there are the overarching questions of Delhi's statehood and whether law and order should be handled by the Delhi government, not the Centre.

IAS officers, who have served in the Delhi government, recall the persisting power struggle between Delhi and the Centre, irrespective of party affiliations.

Tripathi, Delhi's chief secretary in the Sheila Dikshit government, said that it was "horrible" dealing with the Congress at the Centre, especially since criticizing the party in public was not an option.

"When Chidambaram was the home minister, it was terrible. It was so difficult to work with them, but we never made it public, we never took it to the media," he said.

When Chidambaram was Home Minister, it was terrible. It was so difficult to work with them, but we never made it public, we never took it to the media.

Tripathi believes that Dikshit's best tenure was when the Atal Bihari Vajpayee was prime minister, L.K. Advani was home minister, and Suresh Prabhu was the power minister. "It was a time of power reforms in Delhi," he said. "It was the trio of Atal, Advani and Dikshit that worked well."

The very "nature" of the Government Of National Capital Territory Of Delhi Act, 1991, according to Sindhushree Khullar, a retired IAS officer, who served as the first CEO of the National Institution for Transforming India (NITI) Aayog, makes for a tenuous relationship between the LG and the CM.

Khullar, who worked in two governments under Dikshit, recalled that it was tough when the the BJP was in power at the Centre, but harder when the Congress formed the central government.

"It had never been smooth but relationships have to be managed," she said. "In the case of the AAP and BJP, I'm not sure if the differences are worse or just more in your face."

In the case of the AAP and BJP, I'm not sure if the differences are worse or just more in your face.

Resolve it now

The IAS officers in the Delhi government that HuffPost interviewed said they had never stopped processing files or attending "statutory meetings."

As one IAS officer put it, "Meetings constitute a very small part of our work. The work of the government is all in the files. Files are the institutional memory of the government."

While IAS officers in Delhi are adamant about Kejriwal apologizing for the alleged assault on the chief secretary, they have welcomed his assurance about safety and security for the bureaucracy.

#DelhiAtWork#NoToStrike In the context of Honble CM's assurance, we await formal communication for a meeting with him in the Delhi Secretariat. We reiterate that we continue to be at work.

— IAS AGMUT Association (@IAS_Agmut) June 19, 2018

Khullar pointed out that IAS officers in Delhi deciding not to meet with ministers was not a question of illegality but one of propriety. In the long run, the retired IAS officer believes, AAP would win the perception battle in the public domain.

"Confrontation with the political executive cannot take one too far, beyond a point, you have to find a working relationship," she said. "The distrust here is too sharp and too deep, but the officers have carried it a little too far."

Also on HuffPost India:

According to a report published by the National Health Mission, the burden of family planning rests squarely on the shoulders of women in India. The report stated that between 2017-18, 93.1% of the sterilisations performed in India were on women.

According to The Indian Express, the report stated the following: "Women continue to bear an uneven burden of the terminal methods of family planning and sterilisation. As per HMIS in 2017-18 (till October) of the total 14,73,418 sterilisation procedures only 6.8 % were male sterilisation while 93.1 % were female sterilisation."

The report noted that though the ratio is still shocking, there's been some improvement over last year when 98% of the sterilisations performed in the country were on women.

Traditionally, women have been the ones who have had to undergo sterilisations due to a combination of factors that include the unwillingness of their male partners to use condoms and undergo sterilisations themselves.

The National Family Health Survey 2015-16 found that of the people surveyed only 5.6% used condoms as a preferred method of birth control, thereby burdening women to figure out ways to practice birth control. Problematic ideas of masculinity often make men decide against using contraception, as that is considered 'un-manly' in their world. Government commercials promoting male sterilisations also focus on how getting a vasectomy doesn't affect a man's virility and usually has a coy woman blushing as a man's trumpets how he is extremely virile even after getting the surgery.

As a result, surveys have found that many women undergo sterilisations without completely understanding the consequences or even realising that the process is permanent. A study conducted by the Population Research Institute had found that one out of three women in the sample set had not given informed consent before they were sterilised. They were either not told about the side-effects of sterilisation or didn't realise that the process was irreversible.

In 2016, the Supreme Court banned sterilisation camps after it was found that between 2010 and 2013, 363 women had died during or after sterilisation conducted in these government camps.

In March this year, Irrfan Khan revealed that he was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, called Neuroendocrine tumor.

🙏🏻 pic.twitter.com/JXD8NKwH3D

— Irrfan (@irrfank) March 5, 2018

All the projects that Khan was attached with were postponed as he flew down to the UK to seek treatment for the illness. Khan is still being treated and it isn't clear when he'll be discharged.

Earlier today, the actor spoke to Bombay Timesabout his illness.

He said, "The suddenness made me realize how you are just a cork floating in the ocean with unpredictable currents! And you are desperately trying to control it."

He also said that he experienced an enormous amount of pain and nothing was helping -- no consolations, no motivations, nothing. He felt drained, exhausted, listless in his hospital room, which was opposite the famous Lord's stadium in London.

"All I could do was to realize my strength and play my game better. This realization made me submit, surrender and trust, irrespective of the outcome, irrespective of where this takes me, eight months from now, or four months from now, or two years. The concerns took a back seat and started to fade and kind of went out of my mindspace."

The actor also thanked his fans and well-wishers for sending across positive, uplifting messages. "Each fills me with wonder, happiness, and curiosity."

You can read the entire interview here.

Also see on HuffPost:

Twitter seems to bring out the worst in people, as Microsoft discovered when it tried to train its bot Tay on the social network. It learned so much racism and bigotry that the project was a failure. The rise of 'nationalism' has made the online space a highly polarised one, and so it's perhaps not surprising that someone would broadcast their bigotry by refusing to accept customer service because the person who responded is a Muslim.

Twitter user Pooja Singh posted a tweet complaining about poor customer service on Airtel, and complained about one particular engineer. When Airtel responded on Twitter, the customer service agent closed the message saying, "Thank you, Shoaib."

Singh, who identifies herself on Twitter as a 'Proud Indian/Proud Hindu/Nation First/Love our army', wasn't having it. The management professional replied saying: "Dear Shohaib, as you're a Muslim and I have no faith in your working ethics because Kuran may have different version for customer service, thus requesting you to assign a Hindu representative for my request. Thanks."

Airtel responded by changing the customer service agent, and the next agent to reply was Gaganjot. This response by the company incensed a lot of people, including former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah who tweeted that he refuses to pay a company that condones such blatant bigotry, and AIPWA Secretary Kavita Krishnan, who tweeted asking Airtel to "stand by Shoaib".

Amidst all this, a second response by Airtel seems to have gone relatively unnoticed. Although the company switched representatives, it also tweeted at Singh and said, "Dear Pooja, at Airtel, we absolutely do not differentiate between customers, employees and partners on the basis of caste or religion. We would urge you to do the same. Both Shoaib and Gaganjot are part of our customer resolution team. If any customer contacts us for an ongoing service issue then the first available service executive responds in the interest of time. On your query, we will get back to you as soon as there is an update."

The company is actually at a difficult position where any action would lead to ire. An Airtel spokesperson talked to HuffPost and reiterated the above statement, before adding, "We request everyone not to misinterpret and give it unnecessary religious colour. The said customer has been responded to."

Although Airtel gets a huge number of customer complaints and queries every day - it is India's biggest operator - people we spoke to in the company said that this particular exchange was "strange", and not in keeping with the kind of complaints it normally gets.

But Twitter has steadily become a place where people feel the need to prove their nationalist credentials - even ones who don't live in India. Celebrity chef Atul Kochhar, for example, took to Twitter to complain about "Hindus being terrorised by Islam for 2000 years" after Priyanka Chopra apologised for an episode of her show Quantico, that had depicted Indian nationalists trying to frame Pakistan in a terrorist plot.

This time too, there was a lot of backlash which came up from the tweet, and Kochhar was fired from his job at the JW Marriott hotel in Dubai. In the highly normalised atmosphere of bigotry though, many Twitter nationalists took this as proof that Hindus were under attack.

Another incident that took place earlier this year had similar tones. A VHP member, Abhishek Mishra, tweeted that he canceled an Ola booking because "Driver was Muslim. I don't want to give my money to Jihadi People." Ola responded by tweeting that "Ola, like our country, is a secular platform, and we don't discriminate out driver partners of customers basis their caste, religion, gender, or creed. We urge all our customers and driver partners to treat each other with respect at all times." Mishra, who works as a social media advisor for VHP, continues to tweet like a 'nationalist'.

It's not all one-sided though, and there are times when the customer is the one who is being discriminated against. Just yesterday, Ola fired a driver for refusing to drop a customer to his location, with the driver saying he didn't want to enter a Muslim area.

In his complaint, the customer - a journalist - noted that he spoke to Ola, whose customer care was not particularly responsive, before taking to Twitter to complain, which resulted in some action. Ola then apologised, and on Monday, tweeted that it had "off-roaded" the driver, and added, "Ola, like India, believes in secularity and will never allow any sort of discrimination amongst its customers and driver partners."

ICICI Bank named group veteran Sandeep Bakhshi as its interim head, and said Chief Executive Chanda Kochhar would go on leave pending the completion of a probe over an alleged conflict of interest that has led to months of controversy for the lender.

Bakhshi, who currently heads ICICI's life insurance arm, will take up a newly created position of chief operating officer at the bank for a five-year term beginning June 19, pending regulatory approvals, the bank said in a statement late on Monday.

Bakhshi will report to the bank's board during the period of Kochhar's leave and will be responsible for handling all the businesses and corporate centre functions, ICICI Bank said. All the executive directors of the bank and its executive management would report to Bakhshi.

Kochhar, 56, who has been CEO of ICICI Bank, India's third-biggest lender by assets, since May 2009, has faced allegations of favouring Videocon Group, a consumer electronics and oil and gas exploration company, in the bank's lending practices. Videocon's founders had an investment in a renewable energy company founded by Kochhar's husband.

ICICI Bank's board, which had initially backed Kochhar calling the alleged nepotism charges against her "malicious and unfounded", last month said it would institute a probe headed by an independent person into allegations raised by an anonymous whistleblower.

"In line with the highest levels of governance and corporate standards, Ms. Chanda Kochhar has decided to go on leave till the completion of the enquiry," the bank said.

The bank has yet to provide any details of the probe. Local media has reported B.N. Srikrishna, a retired judge of India's Supreme Court, will lead the probe.

Bakhshi started his career with the ICICI group in 1986 and has looked after the group's corporate, retail lending and insurance businesses. He has headed ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Co Ltd since 2010 and helped take the company public in 2016.

"Bakhshi is part of the ICICI culture. So, from that perspective, he is the right choice as the senior-most person within the ICICI umbrella after Kochhar," said Shriram Subramanian, founder of proxy advisory firm InGovern.

"That should be taken favourably by investors," Subramanian said, although he criticised the bank's board for not having acted more decisively in tackling the controversy.

The bank's New York-listed shares rose 3.6 percent by 1647 GMT on the news. Its Mumbai-listed shares had closed 3.7 percent higher before the announcement.

Chanda Kochhar has not commented on the issue. Her husband Deepak Kochhar has denied any wrongdoing, as has the head of the Videocon group.

N.S. Kannan, currently an executive director at ICICI Bank, is set to be the new CEO of ICICI Prudential Life, the bank said.

While focus on sexual assault this past year has increased, dialogue about what happens in the aftermath of an assault has not.

Bengaluru -- A public website run by the Andhra Pradesh government tracks the exact location of state-run ambulances in real time, allowing anyone on the Internet to monitor the movement of these vehicles and obtain sensitive information about the patient — such as the pick-up point, why the ambulance was called, and the hospital to which the patient was taken — the HuffPost has found.

While the website doesn't publish the name of the patient, it reveals the pick-up point and the purpose of the visit — such as assault, pregnancy, heart attack, asthma, and so on — sparking fresh concerns over the kind of citizen data collected by state governments, the security of this data, and the total absence of laws laying out how such data should be stored, with whom it can be shared, and if private companies can harvest and monetise this data. The much anticipated Justice BN Srikrishna Committee report is expected to form the basis of a data privacy law; the report is expected to be submitted soon.

Apart from the inherent Handmaid's Tale style creepiness of monitoring the movements of pregnant women and victims of assault, broadcasting such data, privacy experts said, can cause citizens serious harm. The tracker also records information like if the ambulance's ignition switch is on, or off — revealing that such granular data gathering is now commonplace.

"Among the last things a person needing an ambulance wants is for their medical situation to be broadcast online without their consent," said Pam Dixon, founder and executive director of the World Privacy Forum. "Highly specific and sensitive health information should not be available about individuals online. This is especially so for information that is identifiable. It is not the government's role to disturb peoples' medical privacy."

The ambulance tracker is only the most recent of a long series of privacy breaches linked to Andhra Pradesh's ambitious People's Hub: a vast integrated database that merges citizen information across multiple government departments and presents the information as easy searchable dashboards.

Many of these dashboards — including the ambulance tracker — were initially available to the public. HuffPost has previously reported on how one public website allowed users to search and geo-locate homes on the basis of caste and religion, while another website broadcast the names, phone numbers and medical purchases — like generic Viagra and HIV medication — of anyone who buys medicines from the state's Anna Sanjivni stores.

Who is tracking all this tracking?

HuffPost sent a detailed questionnaire to the Chief Minister's Office Realtime Executive (CORE), the agency overseeing Andhra Pradesh's digital push, including the dashboard linked to the ambulance tracker.

Our calls were not answered; public access to the website was terminated after our email, but those with open sessions on the website — like this reporter — could continue to access the information.

Security researcher Srinivas Kodali, who first discovered this vulnerability, added the dashboard's use of Microsoft's Azure platform was a cause for concern.

"The risks are enormous," Kodali said. "This is the kind of data that could be used to identify people, and this is the kind of data that patients don't want anyone to have access to."

In a mailed response, Microsoft stated that it does not have anything to do with the design or deployment of the service, and all data belongs to the customer using Azure, not Microsoft. It wrote: "Our customers own all data relating to solutions and processes they run on our platforms. We build our services from the ground up with strong security and encryption built in to safeguard customers' data and provide industry-verified conformity with global standards."

"In this particular instance, we would like to clarify that Microsoft has not played a role in the design or deployment of the solution," Microsoft added.

Dixon, from the World Privacy Foundation, recommends that the data should be taken offline immediately, until a "thorough review of the system and its access controls is completed."

Beyond this however, she urged that a policy of "never posting identifiable medical of demographic information needs to be put in place." Beyond that, Dixon also called for regular audits of any system, to make sure any unauthorised access can be logged and tracked.

A lack of foresight

"We have not made the public policy choices with foresight," said Apar Gupta, a Delhi-based lawyer and a co-founder of the Internet Freedom Foundation. "Government has the most power over an individual," he said, and added, "Privacy protections have to be applied with a particular focus to how the government gathers data, processes it, and discloses it."

"The question to ask is, what is the purpose of stockpiling, and monitoring, this data?" he said. "What may help right now may even be state level legislation on data privacy. For example, prior to central RTI act, state governments made RTI laws. The same could happen for privacy. The government with AP is quite competent to bring in a data protection law at the state level."

By doing this, even before there is a national law on data privacy, the individual states can help ensure that the various data collection programs that are going on are not misused, and such laws will also help to plug leaks through audits.

"A lot of the harms are emerging from the digitisation of government data, such as leaks and the perception of surveillance," said Gupta. "This happens because there is no legal restraint on government to conduct these activities."

Editor's note: This article has been updated to reflect the statement sent by Microsoft to HuffPost India after the article was first published.

The Niti Ayog's landmark study on the 'Composite Water Management Index' has gathered much attention for its claim that 21 cities in the country, including Delhi and Bengaluru, will run out of ground water by 2020.

Himanshu Thakkar, coordinator for South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers & People, and water expert, agrees that India is facing an unprecedented water crisis, but has questioned the methodology behind the preparation of the report, and also some of its conclusions — particularly the ranking of Gujarat, Prime Minister Modi's home state, at No.1 amongst non-Himalayan states. This despite Gujarat's on-going water crisis at a time when the controversial Sardar Sarovar Dam received significant amounts of water.

Here are excerpts from the interview, lightly edited for clarity and brevity.

How significant do you think the Niti Aayog report is?

The message that it is giving is timely and important. But, the report as a lot of shortcomings. The objective is to improve India's water situation. The process is lax in basic requirements and comprehensiveness.

What do you think are the biggest shortcomings of the report?

It lacks credibility. This kind of a report should be done by independent people. There are 9 themes and 28 indicators in the report for deciding the water situation, but it misses out on so many crucial aspects. Water is not a commodity but an ecosystem. There is no mention of the whole ecosystem.

It has not taken into account several factors like industrial water consumption, climate change, flood management or agricultural water consumption.

Conservation of water has to be a democratic process. There is something called the State Water Regulation Act. None of the states have implemented it and there is no mention of that in the report.

"The report puts Prime Minister Narendra Modi's state at the number 1 spot with the water index score. Gujarat is facing the worst water crisis ever this year. This is after the Saradar Sarovar dam had the highest supply of water available this year."

They have mentioned Himachal Pradesh as one of the top performers of managing water resources when the capital of the state, Shimla, is facing an acute shortage of water.

Apart from Gujarat, the Niti Aayog report mentions that Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra are also top performers in managing water resources. Do you think the data is correct?

There has been a complete mismanagement of resources of water in Gujarat. They have mentioned Himachal Pradesh as one of the top performers of managing water resources when the capital of the state, Shimla, is facing an acute shortage of water. And this could have been completely avoided.

The way that the study is conducted, because of the way that they have framed the themes and indicators, they have ended up with a wrong and misguided result.

The report also suggest several measure like a 'Composite Water Management Index', incentive based mechanisms for groundwater restoration, consumption based water tariffs, supply networks for states and limiting private groundwater access. Do you think these will help the water situation in the country?

A lot of these things were already known. The problem won't be solved unless we have a full comprehensive report on the issues.

The report has mentioned that there are 12 million ground water reserves in India. That is not correct information. Several planning commission reports have mentioned that there are 30 million ground water reserves.

The report rightly says that the data on water in India is poor and lacks in rigour. Who collects the data in India? The Central Water Commission. However, the report has not named the institute. You can't start fixing the problem unless you them them.

If you go through the report, they have not name properly who has done the research. They have named some independent organisation called IP Global that has no great track record of work on water. It is an in-house study conducted by the Niti Aayog that did not have one participant from civil society or independent experts.

"It is the first ever such exercise and, in my eyes, does not have much credibility. They have various aspects to improve upon."

This report is the first time they have conducted such a study and it claims that it will transform India's water problem. They have also given top position to the Prime Minister's state.

It also talks about co-operative federalism. Look at what is playing out in Delhi. The Centre is not allowing the government to function. They have no data from Kashmir, Delhi or West Bengal. They say they did not get data from the states. Then how have they come up with this without data from those state?

Do you think that there is anything that can be a take away from this report?

The report itself is welcome. The warning they gave issued is right. It actually goes against the government. But in spite of that, it is the first ever such exercise and, in my eyes, does not have much credibility.

On the evening of June 16, both Anushka Sharma and Virat Kohli shared a video, where Sharma was seen schooling a man for throwing plastic on the streets, while seated in his car.

Thanks to the collective stardom of both of them, the video quickly went viral. "Why are you throwing plastic on the streets? Please be careful, you can't be throwing plastic around like that. Use a dustbin," she was heard saying in the video.

Saw these people throwing garbage on the road & pulled them up rightfully. Travelling in a luxury car and brains gone for a toss. These people will keep our country clean? Yeah right! If you see something wrong happening like this, do the same & spread awareness. @AnushkaSharmapic.twitter.com/p8flrmcnba

— Virat Kohli (@imVkohli) June 16, 2018

While any rational thinking person would just mend his ways, the man who was shamed has responded to the couple, claiming that Sharma was yelling at him "like a crazy roadside person."

He wrote, "So I happened to carelessly Litter a sq mm of plastic while driving ! A car passing by rolls their window down and there we have our wonderful @anushkasharma ranting and yelling like a crazy roadside person! While I'm apologetic for my carelessness , Mrs Anushka Sharma Kohli a little etiquette and politeness in ur dialogue wouldn't have made u a lesser star !! There are all kinds of manners and hygiene .. verbal etiquette is one of them !"

Disclaimer: i have no desire to gain any mileage from this post of mine... Horrible! So I happened to carelessly Litter a sq mm of plastic while driving ! A car passing by rolls their window down and there we have our wonderful @anushkasharma ranting and yelling like a crazy roadside person! While I'm apologetic for my carelessness , Mrs Anushka Sharma Kohli a little etiquette and politeness in ur dialogue wouldn't have made u a lesser star !! There are all kinds of manners and hygiene .. verbal etiquette is one of them ! The garbage that mistakenly went out of the window of my "luxury car"... Was way less then the garbage that came out from your mouth... From ur "luxury car's" window... Or the trashy mind @virat.kohli to shoot and post this online... For whatever gains... Now thats some serious trash!!!

A post shared by Arhhan Singh (@arhhansingh) on Jun 16, 2018 at 7:05am PDT

He further implied that Sharma and Kolhi perhaps did this for some publicity. "The garbage that mistakenly went out of the window of my "luxury car"... Was way less then the garbage that came out from your mouth... From ur "luxury car's" window... Or the trashy mind @virat.kohli to shoot and post this online... For whatever gains... Now thats some serious trash!!!"

If you thought that was it, things got even more dramatic when the said man's mother came into the picture, saying she now fears for her son's safety (!!!)

@anushkasharma @virat.kohli The last thing we would want is to get publicity out of your cheap STUNT in the name of CLEANLINESS! You both posted a video for your fans n followers by VIOLATING Basic Rights to privacy &you shamed my son in the video as well in your post content you both may be who you are in your fields, with millions of followers & all the PR backing you... you may be payed for your campaigning or maybe doing it for sheer publicity As a mother,I would like to state that you have not only shamed my son @arhhansingh on social media by not blurring his face, but youve also exposed him to unwanted hostility.... and danger from fanatics for such a small thing that you claim he has done but have no proof of anyways ? I am concerned about my sons SAFTEY !!! how dare you crush somebody's image/and morale and reputation and expose him to public hate, a boy who is on the verge of starting his ventures, ..just to prove what good citizens you both are to increase your fan following ?How dare you?? If you both really cared or bothered about cleanliness , then you would actively do something about all the garbage in your own lane.. you would make a noise and use your VOICE to urge the municipal authorities to take action atleast in the lane where you live,to start with, which you haven't . Posting videos of fake bravado just to fool your followers. If your intention was genuine then you would pull over and politely correct the person for littering IF THEY DID in a decent and real manner... and not by displaying such a rude and arrogant attitude, and then posting it for the world to see! You have caused a lot of grief with your post & this is morally and humanitarianly very wrong. You may be #AnushkaSharma or #viraatkohli in your house or on screen & the field...but on the streets you are just a citizen trying to correct another... DO IT WITH KINDNESS ....fear karma . And just FYI , he did not react badly, not coz of who you both are.. we couldnt care less,but only because he has a decent upbringing ! Unlike people like you, who seem to think that you are the empowered ones to talk and treat people as you wish !

A post shared by Gittanjali (@gittanjali.elizabeth) on Jun 16, 2018 at 12:19pm PDT

Editor's note: This was first published on Medium.com on June 16.

Political discourse is at it's lowest point in the country, at least in my lifetime. The partisanship bias is unbelievable and people continue to support their side no matter what the evidence, there is no remorse even when they're proved to have been spreading fake news. This is something that everyone — the parties and the voters/supporters are to be blamed for.

BJP has done a great job at spreading some specific messages with incredibly effective propaganda, and these messages are the primary reason that I can't support the party anymore. But before we get into any of that, I'd like everyone to understand that no party is totally bad, and no party is totally good. All governments have done some good and messed up on some fronts. This government is no different.

The Good:

1. Road construction is faster than it was earlier. There has been a change in methodology of counting road length, but even factoring that in it seems to be faster.

2. Electricity connection increased — all villages electrified and people getting electricity for more hours. (Congress did electrify over 5 lakh villages and Modi ji finished the job by connecting the last 18k so, you can weigh the achievement as you like. Similarly the number of hours people get electricity has increased ever since independence, but it might be a larger increase during BJP).

3. Upper level corruption is reduced — no huge cases at the ministerial level as of now (but the same was true of UPA I :/ ). Lower level seems to be about the same with increased amounts, no one seems to be able to control the thanedar, patwari et al.

4. The Swachh Bharat Mission is a definite success — more toilets built than before and Swachhta is something embedded in people's minds now.

5. UJJWALA Yojana is a great initiative. How many people buy the second cylinder remains to be seen. The first one and a stove was free, but now people need to pay for it. The cost of cylinders has almost doubled since the government took over and now one costs more than Rs. 800

6. Connectivity for the North East has undoubtedly increased. More trains, roads, flights and most importantly — the region is now discussed in the mainstream news channels.

7. Law and order is reportedly better than it was under regional parties.

Feel free to add achievements you can think of in the comments below, also achievements necessarily have caveats, failures are absolute!

The Bad:

It takes decades and centuries to build systems and nations, the biggest failure I see in BJP is that it has destroyed some great things on very flimsy grounds.

1. Electoral Bonds — It basically legalizes corruption and allows corporates & foreign powers to just buy our political parties. The bonds are anonymous so if a corporate says I'll give you an electoral bond of 1,000 crore if you pass this specific policy, there will be no prosecution. There just is no way to establish quid pro quo with an anonymous instrument. This also explains how corruption is reduced at the Ministerial level — it isn't per file/order, it is now like the US — at the policy level.
2. Planning Commission Reports — this used to be a major source for data. They audited government schemes and stated how things are going. With that gone, there just is no choice but to believe whatever data the government gives you (CAG audits come out after a long time!). NITI Aayog doesn't have this mandate and is basically a think tank and PR agency. Plan/Non-Plan distinction could be removed without removing this!
3. Misuse of CBI and ED — it is being used for political purposes as far as I can see, but even if it isn't the fear that these institutions will be unleashed on them if they speak up against anything Modi/Shah related is real. This is enough to kill dissent, an integral component of democracy.
4. Failure to investigate Kalikho Pul's suicide note, Judge Loya's death, Sohrabuddin murder, the defense of an MLA accused of Rape who's relative is accused of killing the girls father and FIR wasn't registered for over an year..!
5. Demonetization — it failed, but worse is BJP's inability to accept that it failed. All propaganda of it cutting terror funding, reducing cash, eliminating corruption is just absurd. It also killed off businesses.
6. GST Implementation — Implemented in a hurry and harmed business. Complicated structure, multiple rates on different items, complex filing... Hopefully it'll stabilize in time, but it did cause harm. Failure to acknowledge that from BJP is extremely arrogant.
7. The messed up foreign policy with pure grandstanding — China has a port in Sri Lanka, huge interests in Bangladesh and Pakistan — we're surrounded, the failure in Maldives (Indian workers not getting visas anymore because of India's foreign policy debacle) while Modi ji goes out to foreign countries and keeps saying Indians had no respect in the world before 2014 and now they're supremely respected (This is nonsense. Indian respect in foreign countries was a direct result of our growing economy and IT sector, it hasn't improved an ounce because of Modi. Might even have declined due to beef based lynchings, threats to journalists etc.)
8. Failure of schemes and failure to acknowledge/course correct — Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana, Make In India, Skill Development, Fasal Bima (look at reimbursements — the government is lining the pockets of insurance companies). Failure to acknowledge unemployment and farmers crisis — calling every real issue an opposition stunt.
9. The high prices of Petrol and Diesel — Modi ji and all BJP ministers + supporters criticized Congress for it heavily and now all of them justify the high prices even though crude is cheaper than it was then! Just unacceptable.
10. Failure to engage with the most important basic issues — Education and Healthcare. There is just nothing on education which is the nation's biggest failure. Quality of government schools has deteriorated over the decades (ASER reports) and no action. They did nothing on Healthcare for 4 years, then Ayushman Bharat was announced — that scheme scares me more than nothing being done. Insurance schemes have a terrible track record and this is going the US route, which is a terrible destination for healthcare (watch Sicko by Michael Moore)!

You can add some and subtract some based on personal understanding of the issue, but this is my assessment. The Electoral Bonds thing is huge and hopefully the SC will strike it down! Every government has some failures and some bad decisions though, the bigger issue I have is more on morals than anything else.

The Ugly:

The real negative of this government is how it has affected the national discourse with a well considered strategy. This isn't a failure, it's the plan.

1. It has discredited the media, so now every criticism is brushed off as a journalist who didn't get paid by BJP or is on the payrolls of Congress. I know several journalists for whom the allegation can't be true, but more importantly no one ever addresses the accusation or complaint — they just attack the person raising the issue and ignore the issue itself.
2. It has peddled a narrative that nothing happened in India in 70 years. This is patently false and the mentality is harmful to the nation. This government spent over Rs. 4,000 crore of our taxpayer money on advertisements and now that will become the trend. Do small works and huge branding. He isn't the first one to build roads — some of the best roads I've traveled on were pet projects of Mayawati and Akhilesh Yadav. India became an IT powerhouse from the 90s. It is easy to measure past performance and berate past leaders based on the circumstances of today, just one example of that:

Why did Congress not build toilets in 70 years? They couldn't even do something so basic. This argument sounds logical and I believed it too, until I started reading India's history. When we gained independence in 1947 we were an extremely poor country, we didn't have the resources for even basic infrastructure and no capital. To counteract this PM Nehru went down the socialist path and created PSU's. We had no capacity to build steel, so with the help of Russians the Heavy Engineering Corporation (HEC), Ranchi was set up that made machines to make steel in India — without this we would have no steel, and consequently no infrastructure. That was the agenda — basic industries and infra. We had frequent droughts (aakaal), every 2–3 years and a large number of people starved to death. The priority was to feed the people, toilets were a luxury no one cared for. The Green Revolution happened and the food shortages disappeared by the 1990s — now we have a surplus problem. The toilet situation is exactly like people asking 25 years from now why Modi couldn't make all houses in India air conditioned. That seems like a luxury today, toilets were also a luxury at some point of time. Maybe things could have happened sooner, maybe 10–15 years ago, but nothing happened in 70 years is a horrible lie to peddle.

3. The spread and reliance on Fake News. There is some anti-BJP fake news too, but the pro-BJP and anti-opposition fake news outstrips that by miles in number and in reach. Some of it is supporters, but a lot of it comes from the party. It is often hateful and polarizing, which makes it even worse. The online news portals backed by this government are damaging society more than we know.

4. Hindu khatre mein hai — they've ingrained it into the minds of people that Hindus and Hinduism are in danger, and that Modi is the only option to save ourselves. In reality Hindus have been living the same lives much before this government and nothing has changed except people's mindset. Were we Hindus in danger in 2007? At least I didn't hear about it everyday and I see no improvement in the condition of Hindus, just more fear mongering and hatred.

5. Speak against the government and you're anti-National and more recently, anti-Hindu. Legitimate criticism of the government is shut up with this labeling. Prove your nationalism, sing Vande Mataram everywhere (even though BJP leaders don't know the words themselves, they'll force you to sing it!). I'm a proud nationalist and my nationalism won't allow me to let anyone force me to showcase it! I will sing the national anthem and national song with pride when the occasion calls for it, or when I feel like it, but I won't let anyone force me to sing it based on their whims!

6. Running news channels that are owned by BJP leaders who's sole job is to debate Hindu-Muslim, National-Antinational, India-Pakistan and derail the public discourse from issues and logic into polarizing emotions. You all know exactly which ones, and you all even know the debaters who're being rewarded for spewing the vilest propaganda.

7. The polarization — the message of development is gone. BJP's strategy for the next election is polarization and inciting pseudo nationalism. Modi ji has basically said it himself in speeches — Jinnah; Nehru; Congress leaders didn't meet Bhagat Singh in jail (fake news from the PM himself!); INC leaders met leaders in Pakistan to defeat Modi in Gujarat; Yogi ji's speech on how Maharana Pratap was greater than Akbar; JNU students are anti-national they'll #TukdeTukdeChurChur India — this is all propaganda constructed for a very specific purpose — polarize and win elections — it isn't the stuff I want to be hearing from my leaders and I refuse to follow anyone who is willing to let the nation burn in riots for political gain.

These are just some of the instances of how BJP is pushing the national discourse in a dark corner. This isn't something I signed up for and it totally isn't something I can support. That is why I am resigning from BJP.

PS: I supported BJP since 2013 because Narendra Modi ji seemed like a ray of hope for India and I believed in his message of development — that message and the hope are now both gone. The negatives of this Narendra Modi and Amit Shah government now outweigh the positives for me, but that is a decision that every voter needs to make individually. Just know that history and reality are complicated. Buying into simplistic propaganda and espousing cult like unquestioning faith are the worst thing you can do — it is against the interests of democracy and of this nation.

You all have your own decisions to make as the elections approach. Best of luck with that. My only hope is that we can all live and work harmoniously together — and contribute towards making a better, stronger, poverty-free and developed India, no matter what party or ideology we support. Always remember that there are good people on both sides, the voter needs to support them and they need to support each other even when they are in different parties.

Bengaluru, Delhi and Hyderabad may run out of water by 2020, a study published by the Niti Aayog says. The 'Composite Water Management Index' report surveyed the ground water levels across India, among other factors, and predicted that 21 Indian cities will have no water by 2020.

"Although 93 percent of India's urban population has access to 'basic water', there are still sharp inter-city and intra-city inequities. Further, supply gaps are causing city dwellers to depend on privately extracted ground water, bringing down local water tables. In fact, by 2020, 21 major cities, including Delhi, Bangalore, and Hyderabad, are expected to reach zero groundwater levels, affecting access for 100 million people," the report said.

The study also found that the median state in a list on providing water supply on urban areas, could only provide water to 75 percent of the state's urban population. Bihar could only provide water to 20 percent of its urban population, and states like Rajasthan, Jharkhand and Kerala weren't faring to well either. Rajasthan could only provide 38 percent of its urban population with drinking water in 2016-17.

In comparison, Gujarat provided drinking water to 100 percent of its urban population, and Madhya Pradesh and Punjab were close behind.

The scenario, the report states, is vastly different when it comes to rural areas. In the foreword, Amitabh Kant, director of NITI Aayog wrote that 70% of the drinking water being supplied to households in India is contaminated. "With nearly 70 percent of water being contaminated, India is placed at 120th amongst 122 countries in the water quality index," he wrote.

The contamination of water is more rampant in rural areas, the report stated. According to surveys cited by the report, 800 million people in India live in rural areas and form 70 percent of the country's population. While 87 percent of these households get water, 'safe' water is a staggering challenge. "Currently, only half of the rural population has access to safely-managed water —far behind even our neighbors such as China and Bangladesh—resulting in one of the highest disease burdens due to water-borne diseases in the developing world, and about two lakh annual deaths from inadequate (or unsafe) drinking water," the report states.

The Centre on Sunday announced that the Ramzan truce in Jammu and Kashmir would be suspended amid clashes being reported from different parts of Kashmir on Eid.

The Centre, on request from the Mehbooba Mufti-led state government, had stopped "anti-terror" military activities in Kashmir in an effort to maintain peace in the state during the holy month of Ramzan.

Home minister Rajnath Singh took to Twitter to announce this decision:

The Security Forces are being directed to take all necessary actions as earlier to prevent terrorists from launching attacks and indulging in violence and killings.

— Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) June 17, 2018

The Government will continue with its endeavour to create an environment free of terror and violence in Jammu and Kashmir.

— Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) June 17, 2018

It is important that all sections of peace loving people come together to isolate the terrorists and motivate those who have been misguided to return to the path of peace.

— Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) June 17, 2018

Singh also said, "It was expected that everyone will cooperate in ensuring the success of this initiative. While the Security Forces have displayed exemplary restraint during this period, the terrorists have continued with their attacks, on civilians and SFs, resulting in deaths and injuries."

But was it really peaceful during the ceasefire? Reports suggest otherwise.

Hindustan Times reported sources as saying that between April 17 to May 17, 20 grenade attacks, 50 militant strikes and 41 killings were recorded in Kashmir.

Officials justified the suspension of the ceasefire saying the violence during ceasefire made the government re-think the extension of the ceasefire.

An officer told The Times of India, "Rise in the violence graph in the concluding days of Ramzan, including the killing of Bukhari and soldier Aurangzeb, vitiated the atmosphere on the eve of Eid. The need to ensure security of yatris arriving for upcoming Amarnath pilgrimage amid heightened terrorist activity made the government averse to the idea of extending the suspension of operations."

A civilian, Sheeraz Ahmad, was killed during clashes between security forces on Eid, and the police said that a grenade had exploded in his arms.

Before that, an army jawan, Bikas Gurung, was reportedly killed from Pakistan firing along the Line of Control in Rajouri district.

On June 14, only a couple of days before Eid, Poonch resident and rifleman Aurangzeb was allegedly abducted and killed by terrorists.

Mexico shocked the soccer world Sunday when it defeated defending champions Germany in a stunning World Cup opener. Perhaps most excited were Mexico’s fans ― so much so that those celebrating in the nation’s capital may have caused an “artificial earthquake” from jumping and cheering the team on.

Mexico’s Institute of Geologic and Atmospheric Investigations, which tracks geological activity, reported that at least two sensors in Mexico City recorded seismic movement around the same time player Hirving Lozano scored what would become the game-winning goal in the match’s 35th minute. IIGEA reported the activity was most likely due to people in public squares and parks watching the game and celebrating the goal. 

Seismologists in Chile also said they recorded artificial activity in Mexico City at the same time, according to USA Today.

Lozano described his game-winning goal as “the best goal of my life,” according to Reuters. No doubt, since it caused a small, but literal, earthquake back home.

Following the win, fans poured into the streets in Mexico City to celebrate the victory.

Although the Indian government remains all-in behind the controversial biometric ID project Aadhaar, and hopes to take it to the rest of the world - the idea seems to have hit a few snags in other places. Australia just announced its decision to discontinue the Biometric Identification Services (BIS) project, citing delays as the cause. However, Innovation Aus reported that the project is said to have been roughly $40 million over budget and returning a large amount of false positives.

The Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) inked a $46 million deal with tech company NEC Australia in 2016 to expand its fingerprint database with additional biometric features. Going beyond the fingerprint and iris that Aadhaar collects, the BIS would also look at palm prints, facial recognition, and footprints. However, two years down the line, faced with delays and overspending, the Australian government has shown willingness to pull the plug.

That's very different from what's happening here in India, where despite a mountain of leaks, some technical and some just very human, and huge costs involved, the Aadhaar seems here to stay.

In a statement, Michael Phelan, Chief Executive Officer of the ACIC, writes:

The Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) has decided to discontinue the Biometric Identification Services (BIS) project. This decision was taken in light of project delays.

The contract with NEC Australia to deliver the BIS project has today been terminated. The project was suspended by mutual agreement on 4 June 2018 while commercial negotiations were ongoing. NEC Australia was contracted to deliver the capability in April 2016.

NEC Australia says it is "extremely disappointed" with the decision. It said that the project "was ready to be handed over to the ACIC for System Acceptance Testing when the project was placed on hold by the ACIC".

Traveling alone can be refreshing, what with the ample alone time and lack of budgeting for a group of people. And traveling solo can be great for introverts, who tend to lose energy being around crowds anyway.

These 11 spots around America take being alone ― or at least with fewer people ― to another level. Several of these spots have populations in the single digits, so introverts can enjoy some much-needed space without worrying about meaningless small talk ― or talking at all.

But don’t let their small populations fool you. These places offer some cool activities, such as mermaid shows and hiking through Hawaiian sea cliffs. 

Check them out below.  

Even as Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal continued camping out at the waiting room of Raj Niwas, the official residence of Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal, officers of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) denied they were on strike.

Manish Saxena, a member of the IAS Association, said, "I would like to inform that we are not on strike. The information that IAS officers are on strike is completely false and baseless."

Varsha Joshi, Delhi's transport commissioner said, "Let us do our work. We are feeling frightened and victimised. We are being used for completely political reasons."

Kejriwal responded to the rare press conference by the IAS officers on Twitter, urging them to stop "their boycott of elected government and return to work."

My appeal to my officers of Delhi govt .... pic.twitter.com/YQ02WgaAtd

— Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) June 17, 2018

IAS officers have been miffed since Chief Secretary Anshu Prakash was allegedly assaulted by AAP lawmakers at the residence of the chief minister on February 19.

The IAS officers in Delhi have demanded an apology.

Meanwhile, Delhi Health Minister Satyendra Jain, who had been on hunger strike for almost a week, was hospitalised after his condition deteriorated.

Education Minister Manish Sisodia is also on hunger strike.

Kejriwal has accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)- led Centre of supporting the alleged strike by IAS officers, which, in turn, is stalling the work of the Aam Aadmi Parth (AAP) government.

The chief minister has also demanded that Delhi be given full statehood.

Four chief ministers, from Bengal, Karnataka, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh, have asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to intervene in what is being called a "constitutional crisis."

The four chief minister were not allowed to meet Kejriwal over the weekend.

The solidarity shown by four regional parties, the Trinamool Congress, the Telugu Desam Party, Janata and the Communist Party is India (Marxist) comes ahead of widespread speculation about a Grand Alliance to challenge the BJP in the 2019 Lok Sabha election.

The Congress Party, however, has not extended its support to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in Delhi.

Congress chief Ajay Maken asked Kejriwal to set aside his ego and apologise to the chief secretary.

Still remember the unabashed "apology" radio ads by Kejriwal after his 49 days gov in 2014. Now-apology from Majithia,Jaitely,Sibbal...

Why can't he just offer regrets to the CS and govern Delhi the way he is Constitutionally supposed to?Why should Delhi suffer his inflated ego?

— Ajay Maken (@ajaymaken) June 17, 2018

A missing Indonesian woman has been found dead inside the belly of a 23-foot-long python, village officials said.

Wa Tiba, 54, was last heard from on Thursday before she went to check on her vegetable garden near her village on Muna Island in central Indonesia, reported The Associated Press.

A search party on Friday discovered a reticulated python with a swollen belly about 50 yards from the garden where Tiba’s family found a few of her belongings earlier in the day, according to The Jakarta Post.

The villagers killed the snake and sliced it open to reveal Tiba’s dead body.

Warning: The video below is extremely graphic.

Bengaluru — If you are the gentleman who bought Suhagra 50, a generic version of Viagra, and some Vomiford anti-nausea drops, on June 13 from a government-run Anna Sanjivini store in Anantpur in Rayalseema, your name, phone number and purchases, were listed on an Andhra Pradesh government website — until HuffPost alerted the authorities.

The link has since been taken down (you're welcome).

An unsecured dashboard on the Anna Sanjivini website allowed anyone with an internet connection to access the names and phone numbers of everyone who has bought medicines from every single such store, HuffPost has learnt.

This interface, discovered by security researcher Srinivas Kodali, contains thousands of pages of daily data and each order shows the Order ID, the Store Operator ID, Customer name, Customer phone number, details of the medicines, and the money paid.

This latest privacy breach, experts say, vividly illustrates how the head-long push to digitise everyday government processes has been accompanied by a blatant disregard for the privacy of citizens.

Andhra Pradesh's careless indifference to the confidentiality of medical data acquires significance in the context of the draft Digital Information Security in Healthcare Act (DISHA).

This act will enable the sharing of personal health records between patients, hospitals, and clinics. This means an exponential increase in the quantum of confidential data flowing between government departments, and private parties — raising the repercussions of future privacy breaches in every Indian state.

"Medications indicate the possible conditions a person or someone in their family may have," said Pam Dixon, founder and executive director of the World Privacy Forum. "This information can be especially sensitive when employers gain access, or even just neighbours who learn of a sensitive condition."

Medical conditions like AIDS and depression continue to carry a stigma in India; publishing such data, Dixon noted, could cause real harm.

"People who are discovered by employers to have serious medical conditions can be fired, children can be treated unfairly in school due to a past or current medical condition," Dixon said. "People have quite literally been stalked and harmed as a direct result of inappropriate personal information disclosure."

Leaky Pradesh

This is not the first time the Andhra Pradesh government has unwittingly exposed its residents by publishing their intimate details online.

In April this year, Huffington Post revealed that it's possible to geolocate people in Andhra Pradesh by caste or religion down to their doorstep, allowing for the targeting of every minority family, in a state that has witnessed outbreaks of communal violence.

"This is an important issue because it is not the first time that something like this is happening in Andhra Pradesh," said Kodali, the researcher who first spotted both leaks. "But no one is held accountable for the loss of privacy for citizens."

Kodali said he wrote to the authorities when he discovered the vulnerabilities, but did not hear back from them.

HuffPost reached out to the Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty, the agency responsible for the Anna Sanjivini programme, but they did not respond.

HuffPost also reached out to the Chief Minister's Office Realtime Executive (CORE), whose dashboard leads to Anna Sanjivini. They locked down access to the site, but did not respond to HuffPost's questions.

"Governments do collect a lot of data. But it is rare for a government to also expose the data about its citizens in such an open fashion, as there are substantial risks of multiple types of harms associated with this kind of broad, identifiable data release," said Dixon, from the World Privacy Forum. "There are many risks with collecting the data. But there are far more risks with exposing the data to anyone with an Internet connection."

Private Interests

While the Indian government drags its feet over drafting a robust data privacy law, private companies are already hoovering up personal information wherever they find it, even if they don't quite know what to use it for.

For instance, a database of phone numbers, linked to the medicines purchased by the holder of that number — of the sort published by AP — can easily be leveraged by medical insurance companies looking to snoop on their clients before they sell them insurance.

"A couple of years ago, the election commission website had leaked people's voter ID data," said a Bengaluru-based start-up entrepreneur speaking on the condition of anonymity. "It was all just there district-wise as open PDF files.

"I wasn't sure if it would be useful, but I wrote a scraper to download all the voter IDs anyway, in case we could find a use later. I also did a few e-commerce campaigns where we bought people's data from brokers who had 'acquired' the data from IRCTC. I don't know how they got that, but I'm guessing someone junior somewhere probably put in a USB drive and just copied everything."

The Human Factor

"Whether it's a massive cybersecurity incident or small-scale one, about 80 percent of them point to having been caused by human error," said a representative from Kaspersky Lab, a multinational cybersecurity firm. "Even with the most secure systems, the human element can lead to leaks. So we go back to the people, the employees."

"Educating the governmental staff on the motivations of security policies, the importance of working safely and how to contribute to the security of their organizations can help mitigate the risk of security incidents and safeguard what is truly important - their data," the Kaspersky representative said.

KK Mookhey, the founder and CEO of Network Intelligence, a global cybersecurity company, agreed with this perspective.

"No system is fully secured and government systems don't necessarily have the highest security levels in place always," Mookhey said. "There's always a chance that a highly motivated set of attackers can find their way around the best defences in the world."

June marks the beginning of LGBTQ Pride month, but we believe true love is something worth celebrating all year round.

That’s why we’ve gathered 35 beautiful wedding pictures that show couples whose love for one another is simply undeniable. 

The Amazonian goddess is returning to the silver screen, and this time its the decade of decadence.

“Wonder Woman 1984” hits theaters November 2019, but we’re getting an early look at the 1980s version of the hero, thanks to actress Gal Gadot.

Gadot posted a photo of herself in full costume to her Twitter feed, saying “She’s back...”

I don't know a word in Odia. He has never heard anyone speaking Hindi. Will I scare him? What if he doesn't like me?

In the 20 hours I spent on a train to Cuttack from Delhi, I could only think of the hundred ways this could go wrong. It was August 2009 and I had spent the last couple of years doing the rounds of adoption agencies across the country, only to be turned away over and over again.

I started at my home, Delhi.

Each time I called up an agency, "Hello, I'm a single man and I want to adopt...'." they'd hang up before I could finish my sentence. The ones which were a little more considerate, would politely ask me to give up hope or find a woman to marry, and apply again.

And a year later, here I was, on a train, to meet the three-year-old boy who could change my life forever.

The odds were stacked against me right from the beginning.

I come from a conservative Marwari family in Delhi. No one had ever adopted in my family. So when sometime in 2007 I brought the idea up with my mother, she wouldn't have any of it. She just outright rejected the thought.

"Men in our family don't do such things. Get married and have a child," she insisted. I had married a decade before that and had been divorced three years later.

Back then, I was deeply disappointed by my mother, but on hindsight, I realise she was only a victim of the patriarchal conditioning she has lived all her life under. In her idea of masculinity, men don't bring up children single handedly, it's a woman's job. And they definitely don't adopt.

When I finally came to terms with the idea that I would be single for a while, but I wanted a child, I realised the toxic stereotypes that come in the way of men trying to adopt. The choice to not have a biological offspring is often tied to impotency and infertility. And if that were to be the case, instead of empathising, it would incite mockery and shame. So no wonder my mother threw a fit at the mention of me trying to adopt.

So then, I took the conversation outside home. I spoke to friends, some of who were very supportive. And then I spoke to my boss, the general manager of the government-owned telecom company I work in. My boss, surprisingly, told me that he thought I had all the qualities to be a parent and went ahead to write me recommendation letters. Some of my colleagues also did.

You'd think that would make the process easy?

It didn't.

What surprised me was that no one wanted to even meet me first. They could then proceed to do background checks, verifications and then take a decision on giving me a child. But no, I must have knocked on the doors of 20-25 adoption agencies across India -- in Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, and Odisha. The first few times I called, my heart would sink the moment the person on the other side asked, if I was married. Then it became a routine, I'd call, they'd reject.

And on the other hand, my mother was adamant, no one had the courage to speak to her. Then one day in 2008 I think, I just had enough. I walked up to my mother and announced, I'm going to adopt, no matter what. While walking out of her room, I prayed that this actually comes true.

But the rejections didn't slow down and hope was waning, and fast. One agency in Pune actually had the nerve to ask me that I was a single man, and how did I plan to bring up a child because men weren't meant to do this things.

Then finally, I got a call from this agency in Odisha, and I was on a train to meet a child, I could possibly adopt.

When I landed in Kendrapara on August 24, I could barely think. I was exhausted, agonising over what could happen and how this could fall apart, how I could come this close and yet again, lose. And then I met this boy, holding an agency worker's hand and looking at me with wide, curious eyes. Everything seemed like a daze, people, words I didn't recognise floating around me, workers shuffling around with papers, some others asking for documents that I robotically produced.

What stayed with me was the child's smile -- a confused, yet kind, smile. Almost a decade later now, I play and replay the moment in my head and it gives me the strength to deal with anything that could be thrown my day.

I had prepared for this moment in my head for years -- what I'd say, what I'd do. But in that moment, it all that flew out of the window. Amitesh didn't speak anything but Odia, so I took my phone out and it had pictures of my pet dog. I gingerly sat down beside him and showed him the picture. He started giggling immediately. In three years, that was perhaps the only thing I had heard that made me immensely happy.

Later, the agency led him away and things started to go downhill from there.

The owner of the agency first said, he'll have to see if the boy wanted to have me as a parent. Then, when it turned out that Amitesh did indeed like me, the agency suddenly said they couldn't have me take him as he had an eye problem. I just couldn't fathom their reluctance. I had recommendations, papers, literally my whole life laid out in front of them, yet they were unwilling. It wasn't like someone else, or better placed as a parent, was in line to adopt him. I was 38, had a government job, a home and everything else one associates with stability. Only, I was single.

Then in desperation, I got in touch with an activist in Odisha called Prashant Kanungo. The year before I had been making random calls to every person who others said could help me with the process. Kanungo was one of them. He then helped me and even spoke to the ministry and then it was found that there was no logical basis to the agency's unwillingness. A month later, in September, mother in tow, I landed in Kendrapara again. This time, to take my son home.

On the way, I could barely understand what Amitesh was saying, but just hearing his voice made me giddy with happiness. My mother too, had come around, by then. I fact, she look one look at my boy and forgot all the issues she has had before.

It's been nine years since then. There have been challenges, yes, but nothing that we couldn't deal with. My son has been in two schools, and when I got him admitted to these schools, I specifically spoke to his teachers about me being a single father. I think, without me having to explain much, he has also found his way to battle the stereotypes of parenthood.

Once, he said, the kids in his school had asked, "Amitesh, how come I've never seen your mother, only your father comes for meetings." The first time he was asked that, he brusquely dismissed it saying, 'mind your business'. The second time someone asked him, he said, "Your mother's hair is grey. My father's hair is grey. They are both human beings, now how does it matter if it's your mother or its my father?"

When he was younger, I used read him the story of Krishna. And told him, 'Lord Krishna had two sets of parents, you too have two sets of parents. Doesn't matter who or how many they are, your parents love you, and that's what matters'.

For the past three years, I used to take him to the adoption agency every year to meet other children there, to know where he came from and have no discomfort about it. We would sit and chat with the kids, play with them and make a short trip to Puri and then return to Delhi.

The adoption procedure has since then been revised and I'm so thankful to Maneka Gandhi for it. I may even considering adopting again now.

The one thing having my son taught me is to not pay attention to what people say. He has given me the strength to ignore gossip mongers. Honestly, in the kind of society we live in it's very easy to feel burdened by what people are thinking or saying about you. Other parents who are looking to adopt should also keep this in mind -- not everyone will be kind, and almost no one will let you be. That shouldn't weigh you down and definitely not waver your commitment to your child. And if you don't think you are strong enough to stand up to society, maybe think hard before trying to adopt.

That said, it's a long, scary road and if you're single, you'll probably be alone in it. But, once you're at the end of it, at least for me, it felt like I had just been surviving for all those years. And then suddenly, after I got my son, I started living.

(As told to Piyasree Dasgupta)

We kept getting more and more work and less and less time. Angela Gustavson, former Starbucks store manager

Eid Al-Fitr in Kashmir on Saturday was marked by clashes between protesters and security forces in Anantnag. A youth was reportedly killed, but police say that he died in a hand grenade explosion.

Greater Kashmir reported that youngsters took to the streets of Anantnag town after prayers at the Eidgah Hanfia and the Ahli Hadees.

The protesters allegedly pelted stones at security forces deployed in the area and the forces fired tear gas and pellets at the protesters.

It was reported that "anti-India" slogans were allegedly raised.

The report in Greater Kashmir said that one of those injured in the clashes, Sheeraz Ahmad, of Brakpora, died in hospital while 12 people were injured. It also reported that two youth were hit by pellets in their eyes.

The police reported that the injured were taken to hospital.

However, police said that Ahmad died of a hand grenade blast. They said in a statement:

"As reported by certain sections of media that one person died in clashes with security forces at Anantnag is refuted .

Preliminary investigation reveals that a Hand Grenade exploded resulting in the death of one Sheraz Ahmad S/O Gh Mohiuddin R/O Brakpora due to splinter injuries and his right hand got fully damaged .Further details are being ascertained."

Kashmir has been tense after journalist Shujaat Bukhari was gunned down on Thursday evening.

Apart from Anantnag, there were reports of clashes from other parts of Kashmir as well.

News18 reported that there were clashes in Sopore and Kupwara and stone pelting in Shopian. It was also reported that crowds protested against the death of nine-year-old boy in Pulwama as well.

A ceasefire had been declared in Kashmir by the Central government for the holy month of Ramzan, so that citizens could enjoy a peaceful month. However, whether the ceasefire will be extended will be decided on Sunday.

Eid-Ul-Fitr, which marks the end of the holy month of Ramzan, is being celebrated across the country on Saturday, except for Kerala, where it was celebrated on Friday.

While it was expected that Eid would be celebrated be n Friday, the Shahi Imam of Jama Masjid had announced on Thursday that because the moon was not sighted on that evening, Eid would be held on Saturday.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi took to Twitter calling for harmony and unity across the country on Eid.

Eid Mubarak! May this day deepen the bonds of unity and harmony in our society. https://t.co/lSeBAUc6JW

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) June 16, 2018

President Ramnath Kovind also took to Twitter to wish Indians celebrating Eid.

Id Mubarak and good wishes to all fellow citizens, especially to our Muslim brothers and sisters in India and abroad. May this happy occasion bring joy to your families and foster fraternity, understanding and mutual goodwill in our shared society #PresidentKovind

— President of India (@rashtrapatibhvn) June 16, 2018

Here are some images of people celebrating Eid across India:

Monuments were lit up for Chaand Raat

Politicians showed unity

Delhi: Former vice-president Mohammad Hamid Ansari, Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad and BJP's Shahnawaz Hussain after offering prayers at a mosque on Parliament Street #EidulFitrpic.twitter.com/VQvr3ij2Iw

— ANI (@ANI) June 16, 2018

#MadhyaPradesh: Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan & Congress' Kamal Nath at #Bhopal's Idgah as people offer Namaz on the ocassion of #EidulFitr. pic.twitter.com/dC5VKHNqxn

— ANI (@ANI) June 16, 2018

Delhi beat the heat to offer prayers

People offer Namaz at #Delhi's Jama Masjid on #EidulFitrpic.twitter.com/gp5P52fcvS

— ANI (@ANI) June 16, 2018

Mumbai braved rains

Rainfall lashes parts of #Mumbai; visuals from outside Marina Masjid #Maharashtrapic.twitter.com/qQXy1ZWLTE

— ANI (@ANI) June 16, 2018

Devotees offer Namaz in front of #Mumbai's Minara Masjid, on the occasion of #EidulFitrpic.twitter.com/dEJMn3W7gF

— ANI (@ANI) June 16, 2018

Kashmir offered prayers amid protests

Hundreds offered prayers in Hyderabad

#Hyderabad: People offer Namaz at Mecca Masjid near Charminar #EidulFitrpic.twitter.com/I2qZiPEci3

— ANI (@ANI) June 16, 2018

There was no distribution of sweets at Wagah Border

Following continuous ceasefire violation by Pakistan in Jammu & Kashmir, there was no exchange of sweets between the Border Security Force troops and the Pakistani Rangers at Attari-Wagah border on the occasion of #EidulFitr (File pic) pic.twitter.com/i8dzcN6S1S

— ANI (@ANI) June 16, 2018

Children had the best time