Dharwad: Police officer who had sought VRS after facing CM's anger, attends duty
Dharwad (Karnataka), Jul 3 (PTI): Additional Superintendent of Police Narayan Baramani, who had sought voluntary retirement from service (VRS), after facing the Chief Minister's anger during a Congress rally in April, on Thursday said he was attending to his duty.
He said that Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, Home Minister G Parameshwara, and higher officials spoke to him.
He did not comment on the episode and the status of his VRS, citing that he is in a disciplined department.
"As I'm in a disciplined department, I have shared my feelings with my higher officials. The Chief Minister, Home Minister, and higher officials have spoken to me in this regard. I'm attending duty," Baramani told reporters.
Siddaramaiah, on April 28, had lost his cool and made a gesture by raising his hand at a police officer on the stage, as a group of women, allegedly BJP workers, tried to disrupt his speech during a rally in Belagavi.
As a group of women who were amidst the large crowd showed a black flag and shouted slogans during his speech, visibly upset Siddaramaiah summoned the Additional SP rank officer onto the stage. He addressed him in singular and said, "Come here, who is the SP? What are you doing?".
The CM was then seen making a gesture by raising his hand at the officer out of frustration, but withdrew it immediately, and subsequently instructed him to remove the people who were creating a disturbance.
"Having been publicly insulted and humiliated by the behavior of the Chief Minister on a public platform for a mistake I did not commit, I have no other option but to seek voluntary retirement," Baramani's purported letter to the Home Department said.
Sharing the contents of the letter, Leader of Opposition in the Karnataka Assembly R Ashoka, in a post on 'X', on Thursday, alleged that the morale of the police department has been damaged by the Congress government.
"Whether the incident in which you raised your hand at Additional SP Narayan Baramani on a public platform was due to your arrogance of power or frustration at leading a failed government, or with a feeling that you will have to relinquish power soon, I will leave that to your introspection," he told Siddaramaiah.
"But your action has damaged the self-respect of a dutiful officer. It has brought down the morale of the entire police department. It has hurt the morality of the bureaucracy, and the self-confidence of the workforce has collapsed," he added.
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SC slams WhatsApp, Meta over privacy policy, says will pass interim order on Feb 9
New Delhi (PTI): The Supreme Court on Tuesday came down heavily on Meta Platforms Inc and WhatsApp while hearing their appeals against a Competition Commission of India order imposing a penalty of Rs 213.14 crore over the privacy policy, saying tech giants cannot “play with the right to privacy of citizens in the name of data sharing”.
A bench comprising Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul M Pancholi said that it will pass an interim order on February 9. The top court ordered that the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology be made a party to the petitions.
It was hearing appeals filed by Meta and WhatsApp against a National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) judgment that upheld the CCI’s findings of abuse of dominance, while granting limited relief on advertising-related data sharing.
"You can't play with the right of privacy of this country in the name of data sharing. We will not allow you to share a single word of the data, either you give an undertaking...you cannot violate the right of privacy of citizens,” the CJI said.
The bench said the right to privacy is zealously guarded in the country and noted that the privacy terms are “so cleverly crafted” that a common person cannot understand them.
“This is a decent way of committing theft of private information, we will not allow you to do that... You have to give an undertaking otherwise, we have to pass an order,” the CJI said.
