Since the coronavirus outbreak, the lives of people have changed irreversibly. Everything has become online now, and technology has allowed people to do things that could not have been possible earlier.
However, as they say, everything has a downside, the adaption of technology has not been an easy task for people, and many have become a figure of fun when things at their end went terribly wrong.
In a similar incident, a virtual courtroom hearing in southwest Texas has now become an internet sensation after an attorney inadvertently appeared on screen as a computer-filter-generated cat. The viral video ‘Cat lawyer’ that is doing rounds on the internet has left netizens in splits.
The faux pas occurred at a local Texas court in Texas, United States when Presidio County Attorney Rod Ponton arrived in Zoom court in the form of a cute little kitten.
For about 40 seconds, the lawyer struggled to remove the filter. The judge, who was rather co-operative was seen helping Rod Ponton while other lawyers smiled looking at the Ponton’s struggle.
The 394th Judicial District Court Judge Roy Ferguson spoke to Ponton and informed him that a cat filter was on. Ponton said he was ready to proceed even in the ‘cat’ form.
“I’m prepared to go forward with it. I’m here live, I’m not a cat,” Ponton said. To which the Judge responded saying, “I can see that”.
The kitten catastrophe of lawyer Roy Ponton has now taken over the internet and has become the fodder for a meme fest.
Speaking to BBC’s Radio 4, the lawyer later told, “I did not know that Zoom could turn me into a cat and I did not know that a cat Zoom could make me an internet celebrity but it all happened in a matter of few hours. It turns out it provided a good laugh for the country.”
Earlier in India, former AAP leader Alka Lamba had once live-streamed her Facebook interaction with the cat filters on, creating a laugh riot on social media. Before that, Pakistani minister Shoukat Yousafzai had live-streamed a press conference with cat filters on, turning himself into a white and black kitten.
Rajya Sabha Chairman Venkaiah Naidu on Thursday schooled AAP MP Sushil Kumar Gupta for quoting a report from a Sweden-based institution against India, during the question hour in the Upper House today.
“Sweden ka V-Den…yeh kya hain…humko kya sambandh hain?” (What is this question? What report it is? What is the concern of Sweden’s Widen institute here?, said a visibly angry Naidu when the AAP leader attempted to cite the ‘democracy report‘ by Sweden’s V-Dem Institute to attack the central government.
‘Quoting some report from somewhere’, the visibly irked Venkaiah Naidu shuts up the AAP MP
Angered by the fact that the AAP leader resorted to a random foreign report to discuss India’s internal issues, Naidu scoffed at Gupta: “Quoting some report from somewhere, these are all political….”.
Not letting the AAP leader speak a word further, the RS Chairman lambasted, “Woh apne aur dekhe… the countries which are commenting at the internal affairs of India, they should look inwards”, said Naidu schooling the Aam Aadmi Party leader.
The AAP leader, who was on Tuesday, marshalled out of Rajya Sabha along with two other colleagues for misbehaving during the Zero Hour, was attempting to pose a question at Union Information and Technology minister Ravi Shankar Prasad when the latter was lashing out at social media platforms encouraging anti-India propaganda.
‘Double standards won’t be allowed’: IT Minister RS Prasad
IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, in plain and simple terms, cleared in the Rajya Sabha today that the double standard of the social media platforms will not be allowed in India. “Be it Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or Whatsapp, action will be taken if these platforms are misused,” the union minister said while replying to a host of answers during the Question Hour in the Rajya Sabha.
Prasad furthered that if these companies want to work and tap the Indian market, they are welcome to do so, but they would have to comply with the Indian laws and the Constitution.
Irate by Twitter’s brazenness in complying with the Indian government’s orders to take action against those Twitter handles which have been spreading anti-India propaganda, Prasad said: “What is the issue that when there is violence in US Capitol Hill, social media platforms stand by police investigation but when Red Fort is breached, the same platforms go against the Indian government? Red Fort is the symbol of our pride. We won’t allow this double standard.”
Angered by the interference from international celebrities and governments on the ongoing farmers’ protests, the central government had, earlier in the week issued a new notice to Twitter directing it to block 1,178 accounts found to be from Pakistan peddling Khalistani secessionism. This was an addition to the government’s earlier notice asking them to ban 257 anti-India social media accounts for making hate speech.
However, Twitter showed its reluctance to comply with the central government’s notice under Section 69A of the IT Act.
Days after Maharashtra state government fumed over ‘delay’ in appointment of 12 Members of Legislative Council (MLC) by the Governor, he was denied permission to fly the state plane to Uttarakhand. Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari was to go to Dehradun on Thursday by the state government plane. However, he was informed that he did not have the permission after he boarded the aircraft. His office then booked a commercial flight for him.
As per media reports, the Governor’s office had booked the plane but the permission for the same did not come till last minute. Apparently, the Governor was informed that he does not have the permission after he boarded the plane. The Governor’s office has said that the Governor’s Secretariat had written to the Maharashtra government for use of government aircraft on 2nd February 2021. The Chief Minister’s office was also informed regarding the same.
While Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajay Pawar claims that he does not have any clue regarding this, Shiv Sena’s Vinayak Raut has brazened it out and claimed that since the Governor did not have the permission, he should not have gone to the state aircraft. BJP leader and former Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said that this step by the Maharashtra government is a black chapter for the state. Calling it a ‘child act’, Fadnavis said that the permission was deliberately denied to insult the Governor.
Meanwhile, Maharashtra Congress chief Nana Patole had said that the state government will move court over the alleged delay in appointment of MLCs. The Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress alliance government has recommended 12 names for appointment to the Council under the Governor’s quota. However, the BJP said that whether to approve or not is the Governor’s prerogative.
On February 09, Enforcement directorate raided at the home of NewsClick founder and Editor-in-Chief Prabir Purkayastha. Soon after, Editor’s Guild of India claimed that the raids are an attempt to curb the Freedom of Expression of press and media. However, sources have revealed that ED found several incriminating documents and suspicious financial transactions.
According to the sources in ED, NewsClick had received Rs.10 crore under Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) from an American company. Interestingly, NewsClick’s owner Prabir Purkayastha has no idea for what purpose the American company transferred the money to his company’s account. He could not give any proof of work that he has done for the particular company.
Further investigation revealed that another US-based company gave them Rs.20 crore and marked it as ‘Export Remittance’. The money was transferred because NewsClick had uploaded content on a portal named People’s Dispatch.
Sources revealed that Purkayastha also took Rs.1.5 crore rupees in the name of maintenance. Interestingly, he had hired a ninth-class pass electrician for maintenance at his office. The money he took was without any documentation, which made it impossible for him to explain the transaction to ED.
The connection between CPI and Newsclick
During the investigation, it was revealed another NewsClick employee had received Rs.52 lakh from an American company. The same person has connections with CPI as he works in the IT cell of CPI and manages Twitter accounts of CPI leaders.
What all ED found made it clear that NewsClick has not much to do with journalism, but it is a nexus between foreign agencies that are trying to propagate their agenda in India. Sources also claimed that Purkayastha had received Rs.20 lakh to open a company with Gautam Navlakha who is one of the main accused of Bhima Goregaon Riots and currently lodged in jail.
NewsClick also allegedly received money from different companies registered at the same address. One such company is a defence supplier as well. It is still unclear why a defence company paid money to a media agency in India. Above all, why would such a company pay someone who is currently lodged in jail on riots charges?
OpIndia’s report on funds received by Newsclick and its links to Navlakha
On February 09, OpIndia had published a detailed report on foreign funding worth Rs.30 crore received by NewsClick where we explored its links with Gautam Navlakha. In our report, we mentioned how Purkayastha and Navlakha were directors of a company called Startacus Software Private Limited. ED sources also talked about funds Purkayastha received for opening a company with Navlakha. Interestingly, Gautam Navlakha was an “Independent Partner” of PP NEWSCLICK STUDIO LLP where he was appointed to the position on April 17, 2017.
The OpIndia report details Purkayastha’s decades-old association with Navlakha and the suspicious sources of foreign funding. Gautam Navlakha was an “Independent Partner” of PP NEWSCLICK STUDIO LLP where he was appointed to the position on the 17th of April, 2017. It is pertinent to note here that PPK NEWSCLICK Studio Private Limited, the current owner of Newsclick, was incorporated on the 11th of January, 2018, 10 days after the Bhima Koregaon violence.
The current status of PP NEWSCLICK STUDIO LLP says, “Converted to CMP and Dissolved”. It is also to be noted that Prabir Purkayastha and Gautam Navlakha were appointed as Directors of SSP in September 1993.
In an interview on Hindi news channel Aaj Tak, Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) spokesperson Rakesh Tikait, who has emerged as one of the prominent leaders leading the ‘farmers’ agitation against the three Farm Bills passed by the Centre in September 2020, inadvertently admitted to his global links.
Speaking to journalist Prabhu Chawla on Aaj Tak’s show Seedhi Baat, Tikait confirmed that the organisation he is associated with has its branches in 73 countries and he has an alliance with the Indian branch. The BKU spokesperson further added that the organisation he is associated with has also been protesting in Brazil, where efforts are being made to convert Brazillian labourers to farmers. “Brazil main hum mazdoor se kisaan bana rahe hai”, said Rakesh Tikait.
Watch Rakesh Tikait Confirming that he is part of organisation of 73 Countries. They are even working on what is happening in Brazil.
Indian Protests now is part of what Govts are planning for next 50 Years. They are against Multinational companies pic.twitter.com/kQDDG4jBaW
Amusingly, though, here too, Tikait pretends to be absolutely clueless about the international stars, such as Rihanna, Mia Khalifa and environmental activist Greta Thunberg who had backed the farmer’s protest, he accidentally, concurs to the International support the farmers’ protest has been drawing.
Answering to Prabhu Chawla’s question on whether they have been drawing support from all the 73 branches of the organisation across the globe, the BKU leader confirmed that all those members whose ideological preferences are similar to his have been supporting him.
Taikat, who came under the scanner for egging on the protesters to use brute force and violence during the tractor rally on Republic Day, confessed during the interview, that the organisation he is associated with intends to adjudicate policies for the next 50 years, inadvertently disclosing the larger conspiracy behind the ongoing agitation.
During the entire interview, Rakesh Tikait appeared extremely confused as he did not know what he exactly wants from the government or for what exactly have they been protesting for the last 75 days. The only thing he could recollect at this time was that they are against the big multinational companies entering the fray.
When the journalist told Tikait that the Govt’s paddy procurement at MSP has reached a record high this year, the confused Taikat started beating around the bush. Every time, journalist Prabhu Chawla tried questioning Taikat about government’s claim that it has purchased a record high of paddy at MSP this year, Tikait cuts him short. Here, the confused BKU leader, was heard saying, that their only demand is that the government should assure that the traders would also buy the farmer’s produce at MSP or a price higher than the MSP.
The BKU leader further claims that during all the 11 rounds of negotiations between the protesting farmers and the government, none of the ministers spoke to them. They were reading out from paper slips which they were carrying, he claimed. “Hum toh sarkar ko dhoond rahe hain…sarkar hain kahan? (we have been looking for the government, where are they?), said Taikat, as he further demanded that the Prime Minister of India should provide them with his personal number for negotiations.
Rakesh Tikait has been the face of the ongoing farmer’s agitation. He has been trying his best to milk the protest to kick start his political career. For the uninitiated, the FIR, filed by Delhi police to probe a larger conspiracy and criminal design behind the violent tractor rally on January 26 in Delhi, mentioned Bharatiya Kisan Union(BKU) leader Rakesh Tikait for spearheading and inciting the mob that wreaked havoc in Delhi.
A video of Tikait asking protesters to carry sticks, flags during the tractor rally had gone viral on the internet. But as the tractor rally carried out by protesters devolved into chaos and disarray, with protesters resorting to violence and vandalism, Tikait refused to shoulder the responsibility of the violence and pushed the blame on the Centre and the Delhi Police for the Republic Day disruption.
In a bizarre incident, a hospital trust in the United Kingdom has instructed its staff to adopt ‘gender-inclusive language’ for its perinatal services, including referring to ‘breastfeeding’ as ‘chestfeeding” and “mother” with “mother or birthing parent”.
As per reports, the Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust has decided to be more “gender-inclusive” to respect ‘trans and non-binary birthing people’. In doing so, they have now changed the post-natal terminologies and instructed their staff to use phrases such as “human milk”, “chest milk”, and “milk from the feeding mother or parent” instead of the word “breastmilk”. They have somehow concluded that the word ‘breast’ is discriminatory.
This particular health trust has become the first to formally implement the “gender-inclusive” policy for its maternity services, which will now be referred to as “perinatal services” because the word ‘maternity’ is not “gender-inclusive”.
The trust has also changed terminologies of “woman” with “woman or person”, “father” with “parent”, “co-parent” or “second biological parent”.
A policy document of the trust said that gender identity could be a source of oppression and health inequality. It further said, “We also recognise that there is currently biological essentialism and transphobia present within elements of mainstream birth narratives and discourse.”
The trust has also said that the staff need not stop using the word “woman” or other terms describing motherhood, but they should consciously start adding in the word “people” and other more inclusive languages.
One 19-year-old youth named Rahim Khan has been arrested by Faridabad police for stalking and harassing more than 50 women and girls online from his fake accounts. According to the reports, the accused had morphed images of these women and uploaded it online. The police said that the youth was harassing more than 50 girls and women by stalking them on social media platforms through a fake identity.
The accused Rahim Khan morphed images of women through various morphing mobile applications, the police said. He also harassed and stalked them on social media platforms and sent vulgar messages using the fake identity of a woman. Rahim Khan had targeted minors too by morphing their pictures.
Shared morphed images, asked for nudes
The police arrested the accused after a complaint was received at the RP Puram police station on Tuesday from one of the victims, who alleged that an unknown person was sending her morphed pictures from an Instagram handle “ch_rahim_khan786”. She had said that the handle demanded her nude photos.
The police obtained the details of the Instagram account and traced the location of the accused. Rahim Khan was nabbed from his house in Haryana’s Faridabad, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Southwest) Ingit Pratap Singh said.
During interrogation, Khan has confessed about his involvement, saying that he had harassed over 50 girls and women across the country for personal satisfaction. The police have recovered evidence, including chat details, video clips, and various women’s photographs from his mobile phone.
Self-proclaimed ‘fact-checker’ Zubair from Alt News was again caught on Thursday notoriously spreading fake news on social media. This time he has tried passing off 4-year-old news as a current one to berate Hindus.
A Twitter user going by the handle @SmokingSkills shared a screenshot of Zubair’s Tweet and the original piece of news to call out the lie of the Islamist propagandist who has regularly uses social media to spread misinformation and lies.
Mohammed Zubair, who has quietly deleted the Tweet after being called out, had shared a Hindi article in his Tweet, which he posted in the afternoon today. In his attempt to demonise Hindus, Zubair highlighted that a ‘Baghwadhari’ (saffron-robed) baba absconded with Rs 15-20 lakh temple offerings. While sharing the screenshot of the Hindi report, Zubair carefully edited out the date of the report, so that he could pass it off as a current report.
Mohammed Zubair’s now deleted Tweet
However, Zubair’s painstaking efforts soon went in vain, as Twitter user Smoking Skills shared that screenshot of the original report which was published by Hindi Daily Dainik Bhaskar, 4-years-ago.
The 4-year-old news item was about a fake Sadhu who had apparently collected donations from villagers and absconded with temple funds.
Zubair and Alt News peddle misinformation and lies quite frequently. In fact, last year, activist Ankur Singh in a series of tweets took it upon himself to lay bare Zubair’s penchant to lie and rumour-monger.
In a thread that ran over 25 tweets, Singh had exposed Mohammed Zubair’s constant lies, misinformation habit of quietly deleting those tweets once they go viral without issuing any clarification.
Prior to this, an FIR has been lodged against AltNews co-founder Mohammed Zubair under stringent POCSO Act for online harassment of a girl child.
Made-in-India microblogging app Koo has received considerable backing from the netizens after union ministers and official accounts of ministries started moving to the app. However, soon questions were raised about the financing and ‘Chinese investment’ in the app.
As per the reports, Shunwei Capital, a Chinese investor, has a small single-digit stake in the company at present. However, the stake is now being bought by the other companies.
In a tweet, co-founder Aprameya Radhakrishna replied to the questions raised over app’s Chinese connection.
Koo is an India registered company with Indian founders. Raised earlier capital 2.5 years ago. Latest funds for Bombinate Technologies is led by a truly Indian investor 3one4 capital. Shunwei (single digit shareholder) which had invested in our Vokal journey will be exiting fully
Aprameya in a tweet confirmed that there is a single-digit Chinese investment in Koo app, but it happened during the time when the capital was raised 2.5 years ago. He said, “Koo is an India registered company with Indian founders. Raised earlier capital 2.5 years ago. Latest funds for Bombinate Technologies is led by a truly Indian investor 3one4 capital. Shunwei (single-digit shareholder) which had invested in our Vokal journey will be exiting fully.”
Koo has raised almost Rs 30 crore from the investors, which will be more than enough to take back the control of single-digit stakes from the Chinese company.
Koo is adding more servers to meet the demand
As thousands of new accounts are popping up on Koo app, the current server cluster is unable to manage the load. Thus, there have been periodic server outages. Koo is quickly adding servers to match the demand.
We have got more love than we expected. Our systems are facing more load than ever. Thank you for placing your trust in us. Our team is working on overdrive to fix it. We request your patience and support through this time. Let’s do this together!
Aprameya in a tweet said, “We have got more love than we expected. Our systems are facing more load than ever. Thank you for placing your trust in us. Our team is working on overdrive to fix it. We request your patience and support through this time.”
Face-off between the Indian government and Twitter
In recent times, the Indian government and Twitter have locked horns Twitter’s inaction against accounts that were inciting violence and spreading misinformation. MeiTy had sent several orders to block accounts that tried to paint a picture as if PM Modi is planning genocide. After Twitter denied to take action against some accounts associated with press, leaders and journalists, government departments started to move to Koo and urged people to join the platform. The support for the app from government officials resulted in a spike that no one had anticipated.
OpIndia’s interview with Koo’s Aprameya
Recently, OpIndia’s Rahul Roushan discussed with Koo’s Aprameya where they talked about the future plans, policies, freedom of expression and political atmosphere on social media apps. You can read more about the discussion here.
On February 10, left-leaning American newspaper Washington Post published a report alleging that the Bhima Koregaon case accused were falsely implicated in the case by planting fake evidence on their computers. Following up on an earlier report by Caravan making the same claims, the Washington Post report quoted an alleged forensic study of the ‘electronic copy’ of a laptop belonging to one accused Rona Wilson by an American company to claim that incriminating letters were planted in the laptop by a hacker.
Quoting a report from Arsenal Consulting, a Massachusetts-based digital forensics firm, the report claims that Wilson’s laptop was hacked using malicious emails. Arsenal claims to have recovered PDF files in a hidden folder in the laptop, which contained the letters that became part of the charge sheet against Wilson. According to police, the email letters show that Wilson was in contact with a top Maoist leader named Comrade Prakash, and he had sought guns and ammunition from the banned left-wing terror group, and had also urged them to assassinate PM Modi. However, now the alleged forensic study by Arsenal Consulting claims that Rona didn’t write these letters, and these were planted by hackers during a course of 22 months between 2016 and 2018.
The Washington Post report was subsequently carried by several Indian media houses, and it was shared widely by left-liberals in India, claiming that it proves how the entire case against urban naxals is baseless.
While the left-liberals want everyone to believe that the Arsenal Consulting is absolute truth, there are several problems with the report. The main point made by Arsenal supporting the hacking claim is that the PDF files in the hidden folder were made using MS Word versions 2010 and 2013, while the version of MS Word installed on the laptop was 2007. Therefore, those files must be planted by a hacker, the report claims.
This is a highly questionable claim, because the Maharashtra police had stated that they had recovered email correspondence between Rona Wilson and the Maoist leader, and the MS Word is not an email application. Emails will be stored in the server of the email provider, and their local copy will be stored in the computer if the user was using an email application, like Microsoft Office Outlook or Mozilla Thunderbird. There is no way to claim the emails were fake based on PDF files created by MS Word, they are completely unrelated computer applications.
The report by Arsenal Consulting mentions several PDF, RTF (rich text), ORG (Lotus organiser) files, none of them related to emails. The report has not recovered any known email database files like PST and OST files, and does not mention any forged email. Therefore, while the charge sheet said Rona had exchanged emails with Comrade Prakash, the ‘forensic report’ only recovered offline document files. Therefore, the report has nothing that can claim that the emails were forged.
Some of the ‘planted’ files recovered by the company
Moreover, the fact that Wilson’s laptop had a different version of MS Word can’t be conclusive proof that he didn’t create the PDF files. He may have simply used a different computer to create them, and later copied them to his laptop. A US based IT company can’t be competent enough to claim that the accused didn’t had another computer, or had not access to any other computer, that is almost an impossible claim make based solely on a copy of a computer.
The Washington Post report also claims that the Arsenal Consulting report was based on a forensic study of the ‘electronic copy’ of the laptop, which is a curious and confusing nomenclature. It is notable that the laptop is in the possession of police as it was seized by them, and the US based company can’t have access to it. However, the Arsenal report states that it had received a hard disk containing ‘forensic images’ and ‘police work product’ related to Wilson and other accused in the Bhima Koregaon case. It can be assumed that they were referring to a clone copy of the hard disk from the laptop, which was reportedly handed over to the defendants on a court order. Arsenal further stated that they received copies of a Toshiba hard disk installed in the HP laptop and a SanDisk thumb drive attached to the same.
Although clone copies of hard drives are exact replica of the original, it is not impossible to tamper with them. To prove that the cloned disk has not been tampered with, the hash values of the disk have to be matched with the original, and unless that is done, it can’t be determined that the copy is actually a clone of the original disk.
A forensic expert working in a Pune based cyber security company, who refused to be named, said that forensic analysis done on clones is not unheard of and they are employed in situations when original hardware is not in possession. However, he said that he can’t comment on the accuracy of the report without seeing the details, but agreed that a forensic analysis on clone may not be the same as a forensic analysis on the original, as there are chances of tampering with data in the cloned disk after it has left the custody of the police.
In view of this, it can be concluded that the alleged forensic study by the American firm can’t be proof that the evidence was planted in the laptop.
