New Delhi, June 17 : Four non-BJP Chief Ministers met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday at the meeting of the NITI Aayog's fourth general council meeting here and urged him to immediately resolve the problems of the Delhi government.
The four Chief Ministers - West Bengal's Mamata Banerjee, Kerala's Pinarayi Vijayan, Karnataka's H.D. Kumaraswamy and Andhra Pradesh's N. Chandrababu Naidu - have extended their support to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's sit-in protest at the Lt. Governor's office.
"I along with the Chief Ministers of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Kerala have requested the Prime Minister to resolve the problems of Delhi government immediately," Banerjee tweeted. She is in Delhi to attend the NITI Aayog meeting.
The meeting, chaired by Modi, was not attended by Delhi's Arvind Kejriwal among others.
In a bid to show their solidarity with Kejriwal, the four Chief Ministers on Saturday met and discussed a strategy to provide support to the AAP leader who wants IAS officers to end their non-cooperation with his government.
The four Chief Ministers visited Kejriwal's residence and met his family.
They also wrote to Delhi's Lt. Governor Anil Baijal seeking to meet Kejriwal, who is on a protest at Baijal's office-cum-residence, Raj Niwas. They said the permission was denied and wondered if this was possible in a "democracy".
At a joint press conference, they accused the Central government of "restricting the federal system" and termed it a threat to the nation.
"We will tell the Prime Minister to intervene in this matter and solve it. Had the President been here, we would have told him too. This is a democracy and that is not how a democracy functions. They (Centre and Lt Governor) are not allowing the government to function. They (Kejriwal government) say they are not able to work. What will they do? Their work has been obstructed and restricted," Banerjee had said on Saturday.
Kejriwal, along with Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia and Cabinet ministers Satyendar Jain and Gopal Rai, is camping at Raj Niwas since Monday demanding a direction to the IAS officers working in the Delhi administration to end their undeclared strike.
He also wants the central government to approve his government's proposal to deliver ration to the poor at their houses.
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Bengaluru: Three young tech enthusiasts from Bengaluru have devised an innovative method to bypass geographical restrictions on Apple’s AirPods Pro 2, enabling a hearing aid feature unavailable in India.
The feature, approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in September and available in over 100 countries, remains blocked in India. When 24-year-old Rithwik Jayasimha purchased AirPods Pro 2 for his grandmother, he discovered the restriction. Determined to find a workaround, he joined forces with his school friends, Arnav Bansal and Rithwik Ribhu, both of whom also had grandmothers dependent on hearing aids.
At a lab in Koramangala, the trio developed a solution using a Faraday Cage made of aluminium foil, copper mesh, a microwave, and an ESP32 chip. The cage blocked Wi-Fi signals, while the chip allowed them to spoof the AirPods' location to San Francisco using an open-source Wi-Fi location database. This geo-spoofing tricked Apple’s operating system into activating the hearing aid feature.
According to Jayasimha, the feature is significantly more user-friendly and advanced compared to traditional hearing aids. "With these AirPods, I could adjust settings like sound loudness and brightness easily, eliminating the need for audiologist visits," he said.
The self-taught innovators have already helped over 30 people enable the feature, sharing their methods online and assisting others at their home-based lab, 'Lagrange Point.'
The trio has previously worked on solutions like water-cooled suits for delivery personnel during heatwaves and adaptive clothing for Parkinson’s patients. Their next project involves developing devices to detect microplastics in food and water.
While Apple has not commented on their initiative, the tech enthusiasts hope the hearing aid feature will soon receive regulatory approval in India.