India News
Modi Govt to tighten laws as WhatsApp rejects demand for software to trace message origin

Whatsapp has rejected Modi government’s demand for making software to trace origin of a message on its platform, said media reports.
The response has prompted the government to consider issuing new, stringent guidelines by September to amplify the accountability of internet and social media companies under Indian law and to ensure they react quickly to stop the spread of rumours or offensive content on their platforms, according to a report in The Economic Times, quoting an official.
A WhatsApp spokesperson said, “Building traceability would undermine end-to-end encryption and the private nature of WhatsApp, creating the potential for serious misuse. WhatsApp will not weaken the privacy protections we provide.”
People rely on WhatsApp for all kinds of “sensitive conversations”, including with their doctors, banks and families. “Our focus remains on working closer with others in India to educate people about misinformation and help keep people safe,” the spokesperson added.
WhatsApp Head Chris Daniels had met IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad earlier this week. After the meeting, Prasad told reporters that the government has asked WhatsApp to set up a local corporate entity and find a technology solution to trace the origin of fake messages circulated through its platform as well as appoint a grievance officer. He acknowledged the role played by the Facebook-owned company in India’s digital story, but was stern that WhatsApp could face abetment charges if it did not take action to tackle the issue of fake news being circulated on its platform.
Daniels had declined to comment on the proceedings after the meeting. Briefing reporters on his talks with WhatsApp’s Daniels, minister Prasad said the company (WhatsApp) has agreed to set up a corporate entity in India, appoint a grievance officer in the country as well as follow the local laws of the land.
The Indian government has served two notices to WhatsApp seeking details of actions it has taken to curb the menace. In its response, WhatsApp had informed that it is building a local team, including having an India head, and has introduced new features to let its users identify forwarded messages.
WhatsApp has also restricted the number of forwards that can be done at a time. Besides, the company is also running advocacy and education programme to help people spot fake news. Last month, WhatsApp top executives, including COO Matthew Idema, met IT Secretary and other Indian government officials to outline various steps being taken by the company on the issue.
Now, with WhatsApp refusing to build software to trace origin of messages, the government is contemplating notification of fresh clauses under existing intermediary guidelines under Section 79 of the Information Technology Act, said ET quoting an official.
“The draft of the guidelines is ready and a legal firm is vetting it. It should be out by September,” the person said.
The proposed guidelines will mandate global internet and social media firms to name a grievance officer in the country tasked with responding to complaints within a few hours, as well as ensure there is traceability of content.
The intermediary guidelines under Section 79 of the IT Act, which was notified in 2011, mandates companies to follow “due diligence” and allowed time up to 36 hours for companies to remove objectionable content and name a grievance officer on its website for response.
However, these guidelines were not stringently enforced. Currently, internet firms such as Google and Facebook, which also owns WhatsApp, are categorised as intermediaries which act as facilitators and do not actively take part in creating or modifying information.
“The ball is now in our court, we have to come out with guidelines under Section 79 of the IT Act and then we can take it to WhatsApp (or any other internet company) and say you are not complying with them,” the government officer told ET. “These will provide us with tools to enforce (things), right now they say that they are endto-end encrypted so can’t trace the origin of messages,” the official said.
The move by the government to mandate the traceability of messages circulated will open up a “can of worms” since the law will also be binding on text messages on cellular networks, said the ET report quoting legal experts.
“The government can’t expect officials of companies to take decisions on content within a few hours, something the courts will take many years to decide,” said Rahul Matthan, partner at law firm Trilegal. “There are some sites such as Facebook which curate the news feed and play some control, and we can put responsibility on them, but all messages don’t need to be reviewed to solve this,” ET quoted him as saying.
The report said privacy experts are of the view that the proposed guidelines, if enforced, could potentially violate the Supreme Court’s past verdict during the 2015 Shreya Singhal judgement.
“The Section 79 rules were subject to review and reading down by the Supreme Court of India in its landmark Shreya Singhal judgment. Any change to them would impact constitutional rights, and requires great care and open discussion,” said Raman Jit Singh Chima, global policy director at Access Now, a digital advocacy group. “It’s unfortunate that the government body tasked to manage this — the Cyber Regulation Advisory Committee –appears to not be meeting or engaging with stakeholders publicly.”
Trilegal’s Matthan said the Supreme Court has asked the government to come up with a law against lynching and not against the messenger. “The legislature can’t amend the concepts which have been laid down by the apex court during the Singhal judgement,” he added.
India News
Video of boys donning sarees, skirts, towels on College’s ‘mismatched days’ in Maharashtra goes viral, users laud their confidence | WATCH
Some students can be seen wearing skirts, towels, sundresses, dhoti, and frocks as they walk with confidence and pose for the camera. The video also shows the guard making a video of the whole scenario as he cracks a smile.

A video has come to light from Maharashtra’s Ulhasnagar Smt. CHM College where the boys won the hearts and praise of many for confidently walking into the college premises while wearing women’s clothes on mismatched day. The video was shared by one of the students and went viral after it surfaced.
In the video, male students can be seen entering the college premises while wearing a variety of clothing which are of the opposite gender. The students can be seen entering the college hand in hand with their peers.
Some students can be seen wearing skirts, towels, sundresses, dhoti, and frocks as they walk with confidence and pose for the camera. The video also shows the guard making a video of the whole scenario as he cracks a smile. Toward the end of the video, two students can also be seen posing for the camera as they make hearts by joining their hands.
Watch video here:
Of late, fashion trends have allowed many to explore and push the limits of their fashion. Many also dismiss the binary and wear clothes of whatever gender.
Users reaction
After the video of the incident went viral, many users came forward to add their take on the incident as one user wrote that they love how open-minded the country is becoming. One user wrote how confident the male students look in a skirt.
One user wrote and highlighted how happy the security guard looked watching this new phenomenon which they don’t witness in their usual days.
One user wrote and lamented why their college doesn’t practice similar days such as mismatched days, implying that the male students look like they are having fun.
One user wrote and praised the students who came towards the end of the video and made a heart, implying how wonderful and confident they looked wearing whatever they wished to wear.
India News
Videos show Amritpal Singh’s private militia Anandpur Khalsa Force in weapons training, target practice | WATCH

As the hunt for fugitive Khalistani leader Amritpal Singh continued for the seventh day today, videos of the ‘Waris Punjab De’ chief private militia christened ‘Anandpur Khalsa Force’ or AKF, have emerged on social media platforms.
Visuals doing the rounds on social media show the members of notorious Khalistan sympathizers private army donning body armor emblazoned with the AKF logo, undergoing weapons training in a forested area, which is reportedly a make-shift shooting range constructed in Amritpal Singh’s native village of Jallupur Khera.
Watch the videos here:
According to the Punjab Police, Amritpal’s former gunman, Tejinder Singh Gill alias Gorkha Baba, revealed during questioning that the ‘Waris Punjab De’ supremo ran a highly organized network to train recruits in his protection force, with extensive weapons training and target practice.
Tejinder told the police that Amritpal Singh had formed a private militia called the Anandpur Khalsa Force or AKF who underwent extensive arms training at a makeshift shooting range in the Jallupur Khera village.
Singh’s former bodyguard told the cops that AKF recruits underwent rigorous arms training and target practice and were accorded ranked as per their seniority.
Meanwhile, reports today claimed that the fugitive Khalistani may be headed for Delhi, a day after his last known location was traced to Haryana.
An NDTV report quoting sources said the security has been heightened across the national capital as its suspected that the notorious ‘Waris Punjab De’ chief may be headed to Delhi after last being spotted in Shahabad in Haryana’s Kurukshetra.
On Sunday, Amritpal Singh and his associate Papalpreet Singh, had stayed at Shahabad home of a woman identified as Baljeet Kaur, who was arrested yesterday, Punjab Police said.
A video with a time stamp of Monday, doing the rounds on the internet yesterday showed the fugitive Sikh preacher dressed in a white shirt and blue jeans, trying to hide his face with an umbrella as he was departing from the Baljeet Kaur’s house in Shahabad.
On Thursday, the Punjab Police arrested Amritpal Singh’s former gunman and notorious associate, Tejinder Singh aka Gorkha Baba.
A report quoted DSP Payal Harsimrat Singh of the Punjab Police as saying that Tejinder Singh, a resident of Punjab’s Mangewal village, was nabbed by the Khanna police.
A nation-wide crackdown was launched to nab Amritpal Singh after the dreaded Khalistani leader and his supporters armed with swords and guns, stormed a police station in Ajnala on the outskirts of Amritsar city last month and clashed with police for the release of one of his aides Lovepreet Singh.
Entertainment
Salman Khan death threat email linked to UK number, cops say

The email ID through which a death threat was sent to Bollywood actor Salman Khan is linked to a UK-based mobile number, the Mumbai Police has said.
According to reports quoting sources in the Mumbai Police, the email ID from which the threat was made revealed that it was linked to a mobile number in the UK and efforts are underway to trace the person under whose name the number was registered.
Mumbai Police probing the threat e-mail case received by actor Salman Khan have found a British link.
Last week, gangsters Lawrence Bishnoi, Goldie Brar and Rohit Garg were booked under sections 506(2),120(b) and 34 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) in a case registered at the Bandra Police Station for allegedly sending threatening emails superstar Salman Khan’s office.
Salman Khan is currently under a Y+ category security cover provided by the Mumbai Police; a step taken by the Maharashtra government after the superstar had received a similar death threat from Lawrence Bishnoi gang earlier.
A death threat letter was sent to Salman and his father Salim Khan last year, which was discovered by the Khans’ security team near the Bandra Bandstand promenade outside the actor’s Mumbai home where Salim goes for his routine morning run.
In October last year, the Delhi Police revealed that in the purported plan to assassinate Salman Khan, the member of the Lawrence Bishnoi gang tried to befriend the staff of the actor’s farmhouse in Mumbai in a bid to ascertain the details about the timings of his entry and exit.
Earlier this week, security was tightened outside Salman Khan’s Galaxy Apartments after he received a death threat via an email from the Lawrence Bishnoi gang.
The email, reportedly sent by Rohit Garg, mentioned that Lawrence Bishnoi wants to meet Salman Khan in person. Bishnoi wants Salman Khan to apologize in public for killing blackbuck in 1998.
The e-mail stated Salman Khan must have seen the interview given recently to a news channel by Lawrence Bishnoi, and if not, he should see it. It further said if Khan wants to close the matter, he should talk face-to-face with Goldy bhai (Goldy Brar), adding there is still time but “agli bar, jhatka dekhne ko milega (next time you’ll have to face the music).”
Lawrence Bishnoi warned the actor that he would crush his ego sooner or later if he doesn’t apologize.
Lawrence Bishnoi is currently behind bars after was he arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on November 23 last year for allegedly hatching a conspiracy to recruit youth for carrying out terror attacks in Delhi and other parts of the country.
The notorious gangster is also suspected to be behind last year’s brutal gangster-style murder of popular Punjabi singer-rapper Sidhu Moosewala. Bishnoi is the prime suspect in Moosewala’s killing.
In a recent controversy, a Punjab-based news channel allegedly aired a live interview of Bishnoi from inside the Bathinda jail, however, the Punjab Prisons administration denied reports that the program was shot inside any prison in the AAP-ruled state.
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