New York (AP): Tesla CEO Elon Musk has subpoenaed his friend and former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey as part of an effort to back out of his USD 44 billion agreement to acquire the company Dorsey helped found, according to court documents.

Twitter and Musk are headed for an October 17 trial in Delaware that should determine whether or not Twitter can force the billionaire to go through with the acquisition.

Twitter has subpoenaed a host of tech investors and entrepreneurs connected to Musk, including prominent venture capitalist Marc Andreessen and David Sacks, the founding chief operating officer of PayPal.

Musk has claimed that Twitter failed to provide adequate information about the number of fake, or spam bot , Twitter accounts, and that it has breached its obligations under the deal by firing top managers and laying off a significant number of employees.

Musk's team expects more information about the bot numbers to be revealed in the trial court discovery process, when both sides must hand over evidence.

Twitter argues that Musk's reasons for backing out are just a cover for buyer's remorse. Shortly after Musk agreed to pay 38 per cent above Twitter's stock price, the stock market stumbled and shares of the electric-car maker Tesla, where most of Musk's personal wealth resides, lost more than USD 100 billion of their value.

The subpoena was served last week. It asks Dorsey for documents and communications related to the acquisition, as well as information on the effect of fake or spam accounts on Twitter's business and its measurement of daily active users.

A lawyer representing Dorsey did not immediately respond to a message for comment on Monday. (AP)

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Bengaluru (PTI): Temples in Karnataka have started preparations to stock wooden logs fearing that the LPG shortage could hamper the ‘Prasada’ preparation and distributions to the devotees.

The looming LPG crisis in the state in the wake of Iran-Israel conflict has made the temple managements jittery.

According to the Akhila Karnataka Hindu Temple Archakas Federation (AKHTAF) president M S Venkatachalaiah, there is no immediate crisis in the temples.

“We have LPG cylinder stock that can last for a week but if this scarcity continues then there will be a problem in serving Prasada (offerings to the deity) to the devotees,” AKHTAF president said.

He added that many temples in the state have started stocking wooden logs to overcome the LPG crisis.

“Our temples have started preparing to store wooden logs to prepare Prasada though currently we don’t have a problem, at least for a week,” Venkatachalaiah told PTI.

Another priest working in a temple belonging to the state Endowment Department said the temples may have to go back to the traditional way of cooking as done in the ancient time using wood.

The LPG crisis has not affected the mid-day meal programme for government school students yet, though there was a meeting in the Education Department to find ways to tackle if crisis deepens, sources associated with the Mid-day Meal programme said.

Meanwhile, the largest partner of the Mid-day Meal programme in the country is Akshaya Patra.

The NGO said they do not depend much on LPG gas cylinder.

“The LPG crisis has not affected us. Our kitchens are steam-based, and we generate steam through boilers which run on electricity. That’s point number one. Point number two—gas is used only for very minor things, mainly for seasoning. That is the tadka,” an Akshaya Patra executive told PTI.

According to him, the NGO has has a gas reserves for about nearly one month across India, though gas is used in very small quantities every day.

He pointed out that the Mid-day meal programme will not be affected because in one or one-and-a-half weeks, schools will close owing to summer vacation.

Akshaya Patra feeds 23.5 lakh children across more than 24,000 schools across India, in 16 states and three Union Territories, he said.