Take down BJP posters with IAF pilot Abhinandan's photo: Election Commission to Facebook
New Delhi: With the model code of conduct (MCC) in place for the Lok Sabha polls starting April 11, the Election Commission on Tuesday directed Facebook to take down two political posters with the picture of Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman shared by BJP leader and Delhi MLA Om Prakash Sharma.
The posters – also carrying photographs of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP chief Amit Shah and Sharma – were shared on Facebook on March 1, Indian Express reported.
The action is likely the first such instance of a social media platform being pulled up for an MCC violation and has come soon after political parties were advised against using images of defence personnel in their campaigns.
While the MCC provisions have been applicable to social media since 2013, the EC has till now been unable to act against violations due to the lack of a mechanism to reach out to social media sites.
According to the English daily, after receiving a complaint about the posters on its cVIGIL app, the electoral body flagged the issue to Shivnath Thukral, Facebook’s director of public policy for India and South Asia.
The app is meant to enable voters and citizens to flag “malpractices”. Chief election commissioner Sunil Arora said cVIGIL allows citizens to post photos or video clips up to two minutes long. Once the submission is made, the user can track the complaint and follow it up. The identity of the complainant would be confidential.
While one poster shared by the BJP leader read, “Jhuk gaya hai Pakistan, laut aaya hai desh ka veer Jawan (Pakistan capitulates, the country’s brave heart is back), the other went on to laud the Indian prime minister for the pilot’s return. “Modi ji dwara itne kam samay main bahadur Abhinandan ko wapas lana Bharat ki bahut badi kootnitik vijay hai (Abhinandan’s return, through Modi ji, is a big diplomatic win for India).”
The Wire earlier reported that despite the EC asking parties to not use the armed forces for political advertisements or campaigns, most have been politicising the Indian Air Force’s strike in Balakot and Wing Commander Varthaman.
In most such instances, BJP has been the perpetual defaulter. However, even the Aam Aadmi Party has tried leveraging the Indian pilot’s release and return to the country.
courtesy : thewire.in
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
