- Thursday, March 27, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
Here are news in brief from India for Tuesday, June 13, 2023:
India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has strongly criticised former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s allegations that the Indian government pressured the company to remove critical posts during the farmers’ protest, calling them false. Information and broadcasting minister Anurag Thakur accused Dorsey of attempting to cover up the misdeeds of the company during his tenure. Thakur stated that foreign forces often try to disrupt the democratic process during elections, but their attempts have failed in the past and will continue to fail. The BJP leaders refuted Dorsey’s claims and emphasised that Twitter had violated Indian laws and allowed anti-India activities on its platform. They also criticized the Congress party for supporting Dorsey’s assertions.
Indian national security advisor Ajit Doval and his American counterpart Jake Sullivan have unveiled a comprehensive roadmap for cooperation in critical technologies between India and the US. The roadmap, announced at the Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technologies (iCET) dialogue organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), focuses on seven high-technology areas including semi-conductors, next-generation telecommunications, and defense. Prior to the dialogue, Doval and Sullivan held restricted talks covering various bilateral and regional issues. The iCET initiative was announced by president Joe Biden and prime Minister Narendra Modi in May last year, aiming to enhance the strategic technology partnership and defense industrial cooperation between the two nations.
Two accused in the 2002 Best Bakery massacre case in Gujarat, Harshad Solanki and Mafat Gohil, have been acquitted of all charges by a sessions court in Mumbai. The court stated that no specific role was attributed to the accused based on eyewitness testimonies, unlike some of the previously convicted individuals. In the Best Bakery incident, which occurred two days after the Godhra train burning incident, a mob attacked and burned down the bakery, resulting in the death of 14 people. In 2003, all 21 individuals on trial were acquitted, but the Supreme Court ordered a reinvestigation and a fresh trial. Solanki and Gohil, who were previously shown as absconding due to their involvement in the Ajmer blast case, will likely be released from prison soon. The Best Bakery massacre was part of the communal violence that erupted in Gujarat following the Godhra incident, which claimed 56 lives.
In a terror funding case, India’s National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Tuesday attached properties of a Hurriyat leader, a day after attaching 17 properties of alleged terror financier and businessman Zahoor Ahmed Shah Watali. Properties of All Party Hurriyat Conference (APHC) separatist leader Mohammad Akbar Khanday alias Ayaz Akbar include nine kanal of land and a two-storeyed house in Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir. These were attached on the orders of Special NIA Court, New Delhi, under section 33(1) of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), the agency said in a statement. Khanday, currently lodged in Tihar Jail facing trial in the terror funding case, was the spokesperson-cum-media advisor of the Hurriyat Conference faction led by Syed Ali Shah Geelani. “He was raising and collecting funds from within India and abroad through various illegal channels and was using the same to sponsor and promote separatist and terrorist activities in Jammu and Kashmir,” the NIA said.
Santosh Kumar Suman, a minister of the eastern Indian state of Bihar, has resigned from chief minister Nitish Kumar’s cabinet, citing pressure to merge his party with the Janata Dal (United). He stated that he took this step to protect his party, Hindustani Awam Morcha, which was under threat. When asked about attending the Opposition party meeting in Patna, he explained that since his party was not invited or recognised, they would not be attending. Suman expressed that they felt unsafe and decided to part ways, using an analogy of various creatures in a jungle. He clarified that HAM will remain part of the ruling alliance and has no intention of joining the BJP-led NDA. Suman offered his resignation to Bihar parliamentary affairs minister Vijay Kumar Chaudhary, who handles discussions regarding participation in the state government.
Full-page advertisements appeared across major newspapers in Maharashtra on Tuesday, citing a survey that showed chief minister Eknath Shinde ahead of deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis in popularity. While the advertisement’s tagline was “Modi for India, Shinde for Maharashtra”, the chief minister sought to downplay it, saying both he and BJP leader Fadnavis were “in people’s minds” and working together. Shiv Sena minister Shambhuraj Desai said, “Our party has nothing to do with the advertisement. It may have been issued by a well-wisher of our party, Shinde and Fadnavis.” The advertisement did not carry the pictures of either Fadnavis or Shiv Sena founder late Bal Thackeray. Shinde, who split the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena last year and became chief minister, has always maintained that his Sena faction represents Bal Thackeray’s vision and ideology. As much as 26.1 per cent of people in Maharashtra want Eknath Shinde as chief minister while 23.2 per cent wish to see Fadnavis as the next chief minister, the advertisement claimed.
