THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, Kerala — When Congress leader Shashi Tharoor injured his head during a ritual at a temple in his constituency Trivandrum, his rivals immediately sprung into action. Many social media pages, mainly those supporting the BJP, made “Temple Run tragedy” memes, with Tharoor as the protagonist of the popular online game who is on the run from unknown assailants.

Janam TV, the right-wing channel which shot up the ratings chart with its shrill defence of “devotees’ sentiments” during the protests over women entering Sabarimala, said that Tharoor had suffered “God’s wrath” for hurting the beliefs of faithful Hindus. The BJP’s mouthpiece Janmabhumi claimed that the former diplomat was visiting temples to make up for irreverent references to Hindu gods and goddesses in his novels.

Tharoor has regularly been pilloried by his Leftist opponents for invoking his upper-caste identity in tweets and statements, but the BJP is playing a different game altogether. By forcing both the Left and Congress to follow the narrative it is setting in key constituencies, the BJP is not just polarising voters, it is also helping to erode the secular and progressive values Kerala has long been proud of.

Both the Nadar and Nair electorate will be deciding factors in the high-profile Trivandrum constituency, where Tharoor is aiming for a third consecutive victory and the BJP smells a chance to open its Kerala Lok Sabha account.

Tharoor, who has considerable clout among Nair voters, is now facing stiff resistance from BJP’s Kummanam Rajasekharan, who resigned from the post of Mizoram governor to fight the election. Among the three major candidates in the fray, the only one who refuses to invoke caste and communal sentiments is C Divakaran, a veteran CPI leader fighting from the Left Democratic Front (LDF). But even he has been forced to make a show of visiting temples this time in a bid to appeal to the Hindu vote.

Political observers point out that the obsession over which candidate visited which temple is a new phenomenon in Kerala. But the emergence of the BJP as a serious threat, at least in some seats, seems to have left the Congress-led United Democratic Front and CPI(M)-led LDF fighting to convince upper-caste Hindu voters polarised over Sabarimala that they are not anti-religion.

Apart from Trivandrum, this tendency is highly visible in seats such as Pathanamthitta, where the Sabarimala temple is located, and Thrissur. K Surendran and Suresh Gopi, the BJP candidates from Pathanamthitta and Thrissur respectively, have been openly invoking communal passions to ask for votes.

“I have never seen such a kind of hate campaigning in Kerala. Even during the Babri Masjid demolition days, there was no overdose of communal propaganda from BJP that resulted in polarization. Now, the secular parties are turning defensive when BJP and its candidates talk communalism, ignoring all rules against mixing politics with religion,’’ said scholar and writer Sunil P. Ilayidom.

Tharoor has been fending off right-wing misinformation campaigns for some time now. Three days ago, he received a legal notice for “picturising Hindu women in a bad light by saying that they used to have sexual encounters outside of their marriage”. The complainant, a Sandhya Sreekumar from Trivandrum, cites parts of his The Great Indian Novel, written in 1989, to back her case.

Tharoor says the quotes cited by the complainant have been taken out of context.

“The Great Indian Novel is now being misinterpreted and falsely propagated against me vehemently,” he said.

As Kerala enters the final phase of campaigning before it votes on 23 April, the poisonous statements have also been increasing.

BJP’s Kerala unit president P.S. Sreedharan Pillai has been condemned for his objectionable comment on Muslims in the context of the Balakot air strikes.

When the remarks sparked outrage, Pillai claimed his speech had been “heavily edited” in the video that is now being circulated.

“The BJP is now poisoning Kerala, only to open an account in this last citadel of secular politics. The party drew a blank in the 2014 general elections. Now it is eager to win at least one by invoking religion,’’ said writer Paul Zacharia.

Ilayidom points out that Kerala’s BJP leaders are taking their cues right from the top. Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

“Look at the unwarranted remarks of Narendra Modi during his election campaign in Mangalore in Southern Karnataka recently that people of Kerala are being sent to jail for invoking the names of Sabarimala and Ayyappa. It is a display of sheer irresponsibility from a prime minister who is treading a dangerous path to polarise voters on communal lines to grab power at any cost,’’ he said.

The Kerala police arrested thousands of men during the peak of protests, but that was for impeding the implementation of the Supreme Court order and attacking women, not for being Ayyappa devotees.

Dalit leader KK Kochu said that the election is seeing a large-scale rise of revivalism.

“Now, WhatsApp forwards targeting family groups are creating communal polarisation even in households. People are frequently getting messages saying that their faith is in danger and their centres of worship are under attack. These lies with communal overtones are creating a dangerous political agenda. Kerala has witnessed several instances of politicians whipping up caste and communal sentiments to get votes. But this kind of build-up is something new and dangerous to the fragile social fabric,’’ he said.

Just hours before a fire ripped through Notre Dame cathedral, one tourist captured a gorgeous photo of two strangers – a man and a young girl – playing in front of the building in the evening light.

The photographer, Brooke Windsor, is now hoping to track down the man who features in the photo, taken at 5:57pm local time on Monday night.

She shared the snap on social media just hours after news broke that a fire had destroyed the cathedral’s iconic spire and inflicted widespread damage – including the medieval roof made from thousands of oak trees.

Posting the photo on Twitter, Windsor said she almost went up to the man pictured and asked if he wanted the photo. “Now I wish I had,” she said. “Twitter if you have any magic, help him find this.”

Notre Dame, one of Europe’s most famous landmarks, was in the midst of renovations with some sections under scaffolding, when a fire broke out. Firefighters told a local news outlet they believe the blaze began in the cathedral’s attic.

French President Emmanuel Macron said France will launch a campaign to rebuild the cathedral, which is considered to be among the finest examples of French Gothic architecture.

Windsor’s photo, which depicts a moment of joy before the chaos, had been shared more than 80,000 times at the time of writing, with 150,000 likes.

In an update shared on Tuesday morning, she said she hadn’t yet been able to track down the people pictured, but added that she’s hopeful. “Yes, you may share this photo as you wish,” she tweeted. “Help us find the man and child.”

Many have their fingers crossed for some good news.

If you recognise the man pictured, get in touch: uklife@huffpost.com.

NEW DELHI―Five million men, most of whom belonged to vulnerable sections of society and worked in the informal sector, lost their jobs over the two years beginning late 2016 when Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced demonetisation, says a new report.

The ‘State of Working India 2019’ report was released on Tuesday by the Centre for Sustainable Employment (CSE), Azim Premji University, Bengaluru.

“This is a net figure and therefore, whatever jobs may have been added elsewhere, there have been enough jobs lost, on balance five million less work opportunities were there, so that is not a good thing for the economy. Particularly given that we have been seeing what appears to be a strong GDP growth. So, in this case, to end up with net job losses is not a good thing. We should be seeing a workforce increase rather than decrease,” said Prof. Amit Basole, the lead author of the report who heads CSE.

Basole added that data shows that the fall in jobs occurred around the time of demonetisation (in the four-month period between September and December 2016) and plateaued by December 2018 (September-December 2018 is the last four-monthly period the researchers looked at).  

The report says that job losses began around the time that Modi announced demonetisation, but is careful to add that it could not establish a “causal relationship” based on the data available. When HuffPost India asked Basole what could be the possible reasons for loss of jobs and employment opportunities, he said, “Apart from demonetisation and GST, as far as informal economy is concerned, I don’t see any other reasons.”

Modi, who is currently campaigning for a second term at India’s helm for the BJP, has avoided mentioning at his rallies the lofty promises on employment he had made before winning a massive mandate in 2014. Not only has his government been unable to provide meaningful jobs to all, policy missteps like demonetisation have only worsened the crisis in the Indian economy.

The government has also been accused of suppressing unfavourable jobs reports from its own agencies such as the NSSO. A Business Standard story based on the report said that India’s unemployment rate was at a 45-year high in 2017-18.

After an analysis of the labour force participation rate (LFPR) and workforce participation rate (WPR) for men with differing education levels, the CSE report says that the decline in both has largely been driven by less-educated men in both urban and rural areas.

It then builds on this finding to conclude that, “...there is a large differential impact by level of education. This is consistent with the idea that the informal sector, where we can expect the share of less educated men to be higher, was hit hardest by demonetisation as well as the introduction of GST.”

Evidently, the most vulnerable sections of the economy had been hit hard. 

The report has a few other significant findings as well.

• Overall unemployment has risen steadily post-2011 and reports say the unemployment rate was around 6% in 2018, double of what it was from 2000-2011.
• India’s unemployed is comprised largely of the higher educated and the young.
• The age group 20-24 years is “hugely over-represented among the unemployed”.
• Women, the report further confirmed, continue to face higher unemployment rates and labour force participation rates than men.
• Open unemployment is largely a concern for those under 35 years of age and those who are educated beyond Class 10, and particularly beyond Class 12. 

What’s the source?

A closer reading of the report shows that researchers arrived at the 5 million job loss figure after analysing data from the periodical Consumer Pyramids Household Survey conducted by the Centre for Monitoring of Indian Economy (CMIE), a private business information company, which conducts India’s only private sector national survey of households for measuring several indicators of household wellbeing, including employment. The researchers say they relied on the CMIE data because both official surveys for measuring employment and unemployment―one conducted by the Labour Bureau and another conducted by the National Sample Survey Organisation―have not been released by the government for the period under review―2016 to 2018.

The report also found little merit in the Modi government’s use of sector-specific data sources such as the Employee Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) database and the MUDRA database for assessing employment numbers as they only correspond to a small part of India’s workforce, and that too only the formal sector.

The report also dedicates a substantial section to possible solutions to the problem of unemployment.

“There are many different things that we should be doing at once. In the report we have selected four issues to look at. One is extending the employment guarantee to urban areas to take care of the concerns of the informal sector, other is providing public services in health and education which will also help us create jobs. Third point is if you are spending well, as far as possible on productive things in getting people to work, then fiscal deficit won’t be a worry. Last point is about industrial policy. We need to have a much more comprehensive approach towards it,” said Basole.

Kit Harington’s signature beard may be gone, but his distaste for “Game of Thrones” critics remains as strong as Valyrian steel. 

The British actor explained that he is “quite defiant” about the show in a Q&A for Esquire published on Monday amid mixed reviews from fans disappointed by the show’s final season premiere. The HBO fantasy juggernaut was watched by a record 17.4 million viewers on Sunday night, including some who felt the episode was tonally inconsistent while being light on the action and heavy on the scene setting. 

“I think no matter what anyone thinks about this season — and I don’t mean to sound mean about critics here — but whatever critic spends half an hour writing about this season and makes their [negative] judgment on it, in my head they can go fuck themselves,” said Harington, who portrays Jon Snow.

″’Cause I know how much work was put into this. I know how much people cared about this. I know how much pressure people put on themselves and I know how many sleepless nights working or otherwise people had on this show,” he continued. “Because they cared about it so much. Because they cared about the characters. Because they cared about the story. Because they cared about not letting people down.”

Other “Game of Thrones” cast members have already described the pains that went into filming the final season, especially the 55-day shoot to capture an epic battle.

Actors recalled harsh weather and exhausting days on set. Maisie Williams, who plays Arya Stark in the series, revealed there were moments when “you’re just broken as a human and just want to cry.”

That’s why Harington said he doesn’t “give a fuck” about the show’s reception. 

“In the end, no one’s bigger fans of the show than we are, and we’re kind of doing it for ourselves,” he said. “That’s all we could do, really. And I was just happy we got to the end.”

And the actor admitted that he, too, was critical when he first saw the script for the pilot episode back in 2009. 

“I remember thinking, What is this crock of shit? I don’t understand this. I’m going to have to read this again,” Harington recalled. “And I read it again. And I’m like, I still don’t get this shit at all. I think it’s kind of weird, but it’s HBO and alright, let’s do it. I would love to get this. And I think that’s what people feel when they start watching it. Or when they hear about it. Like, “No. Fantasy—weird.”

He added: “But you watch it, you invest in it, and you go, “Okay, I’ll buy into this world. Fine. I’m in.”

DAHOD — A video has surfaced on social media purportedly showing a Gujarat BJP MLA telling electors that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has installed cameras in polling booths to find out who was not voting for party candidates.

The MLA, Ramesh Katara, allegedly made the remarks while addressing a small campaign rally in support of BJP’s Lok Sabha candidate from Dahod, Jasvantsinh Bhabhor, in a village near two days ago.

In the clip, the MLA from Fatepura, which comes under the Dahod Lok Sabha constituency, is purportedly seen claiming Modi will stop giving work to the village if its residents do not vote for Bhabhor, a Union minister.

As the video featuring Katara and his controversial speech went viral, Dahod collector and district election officer VL Kharadi Tuesday issued a show-cause notice to him.

“We issued a show-cause notice to Katara on Tuesday morning for the alleged breach of the model code of conduct. He is required to tender an explanation in a day,” said Kharadi.

“Press the button (on EVM) having the photo of Bhabhor and lotus (BJP’s) symbol. This time, Modi saheb has installed cameras (in polling booths). While sitting there, he would know who had voted for the BJP and who voted in favour of the Congress,” Katara is heard saying in the video.

“If votes (to the BJP) will be less in your booth, you will be given less work. Modi saheb, while sitting there, would find out that you did something wrong.

“Your photos are there on election card, Aadhaar card and even on ration card,” said Katara, warning the villagers.

Bhabhor, the sitting MP, has been renominated by the BJP for the Dahod (ST) seat.

However, Katara has denied threatening voters and claimed facts have been “distorted” in the video.

Claiming malicious intention behind circulation of the clip, the ruling party MLA said he was just making voters in the tribal-dominated village aware of polling process in their own language.

Voting in all the 26 Lok Sabha seats in Gujarat will be held in a single phase on April 23 and counting of votes will take place on May 23.

Astonishing photographs reveal the inside of Paris’ Notre Dame cathedral as it burned on Monday evening.

Smouldering ash surrounds the stone altar in the transept of the cathedral – which dates back to 1163 – as flames illuminate the building’s stone walls.

Hundreds of firefighters battled to gain control of the fire after it began in the early evening and raged until around 3am (2am GMT). 

“The worst has been avoided,” French President Emmanuel Macron told reporters at the scene shortly before midnight.

Macron said France would launch a campaign to rebuild the cathedral, which is considered to be among the finest examples of French Gothic cathedral architecture.

In a message to Macron on Tuesday morning, the Queen said she was “deeply saddened to see the images of the fire which has engulfed Notre-Dame Cathedral” and extended her “sincere admiration to the emergency services”.

A French billionaire, Francois-Henri Pinault, announced a pledge of €100 million (£86.3m) to help efforts to rebuild Notre Dame.

A second French billionaire, Bernard Arnault, and his business LVMH, have pledged €200m (£173m) towards Notre Dame’s reconstruction.

“We will rebuild it together. It will undoubtedly be part of French destiny and our project for the years to come,” a visibly moved Macron added.

Broadcaster Andrew Neil said the destruction of Notre Dame’s wood-timber roof was “the greatest loss”.

“Medieval craftsmen built it using 5,000 oak trees. It lasted til tonight,” he said.

The cathedral’s main stone structure had escaped complete destruction by the time the fire came under control.

“We will continue to watch over any residual pockets of fire and cool down the areas that are still red-hot, like the wooden beam framework,” a fire service spokesman said in the early hours of Tuesday.

Distraught Parisians and stunned tourists gazed in disbelief as the inferno raged at the cathedral, which sits on the Ile de la Cite, an island in the River Seine and marks the very centre of Paris.

Thousands of onlookers lined bridges over the Seine and along its embankments, held at a distance by a police cordon. Some sang liturgical music in harmonies late into the night as they stood vigil, while others recited prayers.

World leaders expressed shock and sent condolences to the French people.

A huge plume of smoke wafted across the city and ash fell over a large area. People watching gasped as the spire folded over onto itself and fell into the inferno.

Firefighters battled smoke and falling drops of molten lead as they tried to rescue some of Notre-Dame’s treasures.

A centuries-old crown of thorns made from reeds and gold and the tunic worn by Saint Louis, a 13th century king of France, were saved, Notre-Dame’s top administrative cleric, Monsignor Patrick Chauvet, said. But firefighters struggled to take down some of the large paintings in time, he said.

The Paris prosecutor’s office said it had launched an inquiry into the fire. Several police sources said they were working on the assumption for now that the fire was accidental.

Macron cancelled an address to the nation that he had been due to give on Monday evening in a bid to answer a wave of street protests that has rocked his presidency. Instead he went to the scene of the blaze with his wife, Brigitte, and some of his ministers. He thanked and congratulated firefighters.

The French Civil Security service, possibly responding to U.S. President Donald Trump’s suggestion that firefighters “act quickly” and employ flying water tankers, said that was not an option as it might destroy the entire building.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel called the cathedral a “symbol of France and our European culture.” British Prime Minister Theresa May said her thoughts were with the French people and emergency services fighting the “terrible blaze.”

The Vatican said the fire at the “symbol of Christianity in France and in the world” had caused shock and sadness and said it was praying for the firefighters.

The Lok Sabha polls in Vellore constituency in Tamil Nadu have been cancelled after President Ram Nath Kovind accepted the recommendations of the Election Commission. 

The decision came after a large sum of cash was allegedly seized from the DMK candidate’s office a few days ago. The commission cited the suspected use of money power to influence voters in its recommendation.

The district police had filed a complaint against DMK candidate Kathir Anand as well as two party functionaries on the basis of a report from the Income Tax department on 10 April.

Vellore was scheduled to vote with the rest of Tamil Nadu on 18 April. It will be the first Lok Sabha seat to have had its elections countermanded over abuse of money power, according to The Indian Express.

Since the president signs the notification for Lok Sabha elections, it is he who rescinds it.

 (With PTI inputs)

An intriguing threesome of two male bald eagles and one female are raising a set of eaglets together to the delight of admirers.

Eagle trios are rare, but they do happen. The two males in this case, Valor I and Valor II, had previously been part of a trio with a female named Hope. But she went missing in 2017, and the two Valors partnered with a new female, Starr, later that year.

Now the three of them are dutifully raising their three eaglets in a wildlife refuge in a tree along the Mississippi River in Fulton, Illinois, NPR reports.

The entire affair has been captured on live webcam (above) by the Stewards of the Upper Mississippi River Refuge.

Researchers aren’t sure which male is the biological father of the eaglets, since both have been seen mating with Starr. The eggs hatched in late March and early April.

Valor I and Hope became a pair in 2012. Valor wasn’t a particularly good dad: He often didn’t sit on the nest as long as he should have, and didn’t bring any food back to the nest for Hope and the babies, according to a report by the Audubon Society. Their two eaglets eventually died.

Valor II, a far more responsible father, showed up the next year, but the first Valor hung around, too.

Researchers finally documented in 2016 that all three birds were sharing nest-building, incubation and hunting duties. Hope mated with both Valors.

In 2017, two eagles began relentlessly attacking the nest, and Hope vanished. The Valors managed to protect the nest and successfully raised a pair of eaglets. A new female, dubbed Starr by researchers, joined the boys, and this year all three are sharing baby-raising and hunting duties.

The webcam trained on the trio is particularly popular with eagle fans.

“We feel like it’s a pretty special nest,” Pam Steinhaus, a manager at the refuge, told the Audubon Society.

The trio is now expected to stay together for life.

BENGALURU, Karnataka — The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been using a Jaipur-based private company, Sarv Webs Pvt Ltd, to push political propaganda through mass-messages on WhatsApp, HuffPost India can confirm.

This could be a violation of Indian election norms, although lawyers say it is a grey area. HuffPost India spoke to Raman Chima, Asia Policy Director and Senior International Counsel at Access Now, an international non-profit, human rights, public policy, and advocacy group dedicated to an open and free Internet.

“If it’s advertising media pushed to people who didn’t sign up for it, it might potentially infringe the guidelines,” said Chima. “But not if it’s a service that people have opted into. Generally, this is a somewhat unclear area.” HuffPost India has written to the Election Commission for more information and will update this copy if the commission responds.

While newspapers have previously reported on WhatsApp groups run by BJP “volunteers”, HuffPost India can establish that the party is also using paid private vendors to run its social channels.

This has allowed the BJP to run covert, highly targeted campaigns aimed at specific groups, sliding into the inboxes of voters hours before they step out to vote.

HuffPost India established this link by triangulating BJP campaign expenditure statements submitted to the Election Commission of India, where the BJP said it paid ‘Sarv Web Pvt Ltd’ Rs 23,60,000 for messaging and voice services during the 2017 Gujarat campaign, interviews with a serving Sarv employee who confirmed that the company is still working with the BJP, screenshots shared by a source on the condition of anonymity, and Sarv’s own declaration on its website where the company said it works with the BJP for “improving information flow to mass scale”.

Given that WhatsApp messages are encrypted, there is no way for WhatsApp or anyone outside these groups — including the Election Commission of India — to monitor the content of these messages.

Sarv and the BJP did not respond to a HuffPost India email seeking comment. In an email, WhatsApp characterised such behaviour as abusive and said the platform removes over two million accounts per month for bulk or automated behaviour.

“Attempting to distribute content en masse on WhatsApp requires users to work around the design of our platform. Doing so exhibits signals that we use to identify abusive accounts,” the company said.

“When we are confident that an account is abusive, we ban the account from WhatsApp altogether. We then use the information available to us to reverse engineer past behavior to prevent similar abuse in the future.”

Whatsapp’s efforts to curb bulk-messaging, the company said, “are particularly important during elections where certain groups may attempt to send messages at scale.”  

This case, where the “certain groups” in question happens to be India’s ruling party, illustrates the challenge facing Facebook and WhatsApp, its subsidiary, in attempts to curb the viral transmission of fake news and propaganda on its platforms. 

While Silicon Valley platforms were once praised for advancing free speech and expression around the world, over the past few years, Facebook and WhatsApp have been accused of allowing bad actors to influence elections and even trigger riots against vulnerable groups.

This election, Facebook has embarked on a publicity blitz to highlight its many efforts to ensure its platforms are not used to unduly sway the election.

Yet platforms like Sarv make a mockery of WhatsApp’s recent attempts to curb viral messaging by restricting the number of times a message can be forwarded, and blocking abusive accounts.

“So our numbers get blocked from time to time but we have backups, and you can be sure your messages will get through,” the Sarv employee said.

Meanwhile Indian political parties — and the ruling BJP in particular — aren’t particularly interested in curbing fake news when it can be harnessed to their own ends. Earlier this month, HuffPost India revealed how the BJP has set up its own secretive political consultancy to spread fake news by operating networks of fake Facebook accounts.

How Sarv Works 

According to a current Sarv employee, the company maintains a huge cache of mobile SIM cards and sends the messages through multiple registered numbers.

As WhatsApp restricts the number of participants per group, each number is used to set up multiple groups, according to screenshots shared with HuffPost India. He also claimed that it has systems in place to beat WhatsApp’s automated checks (mostly).

A useful set of dashboards helps users keep track of all the phone numbers associated with a particular campaign, the number of WhatsApp groups each of these phone numbers is part of, and the number of messages sent, received, and read by group numbers.

The dashboards also track the number of replies to their messages, giving a sense of engagement levels within each group. The messages can be sent out on an automated schedule, to make the messaging service more efficient.

For the BJP’s Gujarat campaign for instance, Sarv created multiple WhatsApp groups for each constituency, and then created special campaigns to deliver tens of thousands of WhatsApp messages across thousands of WhatsApp groups on December 13, 2017 — one day before the final day of polling.

“Too many messages with the same content all over India is bad,” the Sarv employee said. “You need to customise your message for different groups, to do it without any problems.” The billed cost per message, the employee said, was about 18 paise (a quarter of a US cent).

It’s important to point out that Sarv isn’t the only company offering Whatsapp-based bulk-messaging, and the BJP isn’t the only client. Most political parties today, and many private companies use the service, while media houses have been exploring ways to connect with their readers over WhatsApp — which is itself rolling out “business accounts”.

Companies that use business accounts can set up automatic welcome messages, smart bots, and more, but it’s also very transparent. Businesses are verified, which makes it harder to pass off as ‘volunteers’.

Yet the Sarv service, as it stands, violates WhatsApp policies, and — in the context of election campaigning — reveals how political parties can reach out to voters without any oversight from traditional watchdogs like the Election Commission.

In the course of this election, HuffPost India peeked into a BJP supporter’s WhatsApp inbox to find a chilling selection of messages that seemed to cross the legal boundary between political expression and hate speech. HuffPost India couldn’t establish who these messages were originally sent by, but their content illustrates how easy it is to spread hate on Facebook.

For instance, one message sent on polling day in the first phase of the elections said, “Residents of Meerut, this is the last appeal.... you will find blood and flesh in your water tanks and taps... if you vote for the lover of slaughterhouses.”

WhatsApp Wallas

The BJP has invested a great deal of time and energy in harvesting millions of WhatsApp numbers of potential voters. Websites linked to the party ask potential voters to share their phone numbers, to be added to BJP groups.

For instance a website called Modi11, run by the Association For Billion Minds — the party’s in house political consultancy, asks volunteers to share their phone numbers with the party, and also offers WhatsApp “status downloads” that allow supporters to replace their WhatApp display photos with their favourite Modi photo (really).

The party has also employed an army of paid consultants to harvest the phone numbers of constituency level WhatsApp influencers, and plug their numbers into a centrally administered Google spreadsheet.

BJP office bearers have often spoken of the importance of social media platforms. In an interview with the Economic Times, Amit Malviya, head of BJP’s IT cell, said, “The upcoming elections will be fought on the mobile phone. In a way, you could say they would be WhatsApp elections.”

Data harvesting strategies like these have allowed the party to build a vast databank that can then be handed over to private vendors like Sarv, who can then unleash a barrage of propaganda.

WhatsApp has tried to curb the misuse of its platform by running public awareness campaigns about fake news, ads in print and television besides on video platforms like YouTube. It has also made a number of changes such as limiting the number of people you can forward a message to, added a tip-line for fake news, and improved privacy settings for groups.

But ultimately each of these measures are unlikely to prevent well-financed political parties, who just happen to run the government, from misusing the platform.

SMDH.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison recently chatted with constituents ahead of the country’s upcoming election in May. Morrison, who’s seeking reelection, greeted a Korean voter with “Ni Hao,” or “hello” in Mandarin. 

The constituent was quick to correct him, telling Morrison, “No, no, I’m Korean.”

The moment was pretty *cringe*.

Needless to say, Asians on the internet weren’t exactly pleased with Morrison’s mixup. And some pointed out that Morrison should’ve greeted the woman as he did every other Australian. 

Morrison has since attempted to make light of the flub, telling the crowd at Chinese Australian Liberal candidate Gladys Liu, that he’s “no Asian languages expert, so I’m gonna say g’day to everybody.” 

For the record, “hello” in Korean is “annyeong haseyo.” 

Official sources told PTI that the searches were held following “some inputs,” but did not elaborate. However, a senior I-T official told the The Indian Express that the Thoothukudi district administration had said the upper section of the house was being used to store cash.

An I-T official in Chennai told the daily they did not find anything.

Kanimozhi said the searches were being used to ‘terrorise’ the Opposition. “The Election Commission and the Income Tax department have become part of the Modi alliance… They are trying to terrorise opposition parties,” she said, NDTV quoted.

DMK president MK Stalin in a statement at Chennai said the raids were an outcome of “fear of a damning defeat,” for BJP’s candidate in Thoothukudi, Tamilisai Soundararajan. She is also the BJP’s state unit president.

Stalin said, “Crores and crores of rupees are kept in the house of Tamilisai Soundararajan’s (state BJP chief) residence, why no raids there? Modi is using IT, CBI, judiciary and now Election Commission to interfere in the elections. They are doing this as they fear losing.”

Following information about the raids, a large number of DMK workers gathered in front of Kanimozhi’s house expressing solidarity.

Stalin said his party would work towards ushering in reforms in the appointments of Chief Election Commissioner, Election Commissioners and State Chief Electoral Officer.

“If needed, we will not hesitate to approach the Supreme Court,” he said.

The raid at Kanimozhi’s residence came as the EC cancelled the Lok Sabha election to the Vellore constituency two days ahead of the polling following recovery of huge amount of cash allegedly from an associate of a DMK leader recently.

A government notification rescinding the polls said the EC was “fully satisfied that the current electoral process in Vellore has been seriously vitiated on account of unlawful activities of certain candidates and some workers of the political party.”

According to NDTV, Rs 204 crore unaccounted cash has been recovered in Tamil Nadu ahead of polls of which Rs 190 crore has not been attached to any political party or candidate yet.

(With PTI inputs)

Sources said instructions in this regard were sent to the two American companies on Monday after the Supreme Court refused to stay the April 3 order of Madras High Court that had directed the Centre to ban Tiktok app over concerns about access to pornographic content through it.

E-mails sent to Apple and Google did not elicit a response.

On Monday, the Supreme Court said the ban directive was just an interim order and that the high court is scheduled to hear the matter on April 16.

In its April 3 order, the Madras HC said it was evident from media reports that pornography and inappropriate content were made available through such mobile applications. It had also directed the media not to telecast video clips made with TikTok.

The app, which is owned by Chinese company ByteDance, allows users to create short videos and then share them.

In a statement on Tuesday, TikTok said it has faith in the Indian judicial system.

“We are optimistic about an outcome that would allow over 120 million monthly active users in India to continue using TikTok to showcase their creativity and capture moments that matter in their everyday lives,” it said.

DUBAI — A nine-year-old Indian girl on Tuesday won $ 1 million jackpot in Dubai Duty Free’s Millennium Millionaire - six years after winning a luxury car in the same raffle.

Eliza M, a grade school student, won the jackpot with ticket No.0333, the Khaleej Times reported.

Her father, identified as M. from Mumbai and a resident of Dubai for 19 years, said that he was a regular participant in the Dubai Duty Free Millennium Millionaire promotion since 2004.

With 9 as his lucky number, he decided to buy ticket No. 0333 online under his daughter’s name, Eliza, the paper said.

The girl is no newcomer to winning Dubai Duty Free promotions as she won a luxury McLaren Coupe in January 2013, the paper said.

She is the 140th Indian national to win a million dollars in the Dubai Duty Free Millennium Millionaire promotion since its inception in 1999.

“I have been buying tickets for the $ 1 million promotion since Series 43, and in fact, I have kept that ticket all this time. I never missed buying a ticket for every series including the Double and Multi-Millionaire Promotions,” the girl’s father said.

Following the draw, two more winners were announced in Dubai Duty Free’s Finest Surprise Promotion, each winning a luxury motorbike.

Mohammad Haneef Adam, a 23-year-old Dubai-based Indian national, won an Indian Scout Bobber.

A resident of Dubai for 20 years, Adam currently works in Sharjah.

As Facebook, YouTube and Twitter continue a slow purge of users who violate their policies prohibiting hate speech, some extremists kicked off those platforms have found a safe space on TikTok, the Chinese-made video-sharing app that’s become wildly popular among Generation Z.

Facebook banned Faith Goldy, a Canadian white nationalist, from its site earlier this month for posting xenophobic and racist content. But on TikTok, where Goldy still has an active account, she freely posts xenophobic videos about undocumented immigrants and calls for them to be physically ejected. Her message is the same on the two platforms, but the presentation is different: In her sarcasm-laden TikTok videos, Goldy draws on meme culture to appeal to the app’s younger audience.

Tim “Baked Alaska” Gionet, an anti-Semitic, far-right troll who was banned from Twitter for hateful conduct in 2017, is also active on TikTok, as is British conspiracy theorist Paul Joseph Watson. An editor and contributor at conspiracy-mongering website InfoWars, Watson joined TikTok shortly after YouTube, Facebook and Twitter banned InfoWars from their platforms in 2018.

Although its intended purpose was for users to create music videos, TikTok has allowed more sinister content to flourish, demonstrating a failure to enforce its own policies as a growing number of users ― many of them young ― flock to the app.

After launching in China in late 2016, TikTok rapidly became a leading short-video app in the United States. Similar in some ways to Vine, which was discontinued in 2016, TikTok allows users to create 3- to 15-second videos. It has been downloaded some 800 million times globally, surpassing Facebook, YouTube and Instagram to become the world’s most downloaded app in the first half of 2018.

Hate speech on TikTok largely flew under the radar until December, when Motherboard reported that it had found examples of “blatant, violent white supremacy and Nazism,” including calls for the murders of Jews and black people. TikTok, the news site concluded, “has a Nazi problem.”

In a statement to HuffPost, a TikTok spokesperson described the issue as “a challenge for the industry as a whole.”

“For our part we continue to enhance our existing measures and roll out further protections as we work to minimize the opportunity for misuse,” the spokesperson said. “There is absolutely no place for discrimination, including hate speech, on this platform.”

Watson, who mainly uses TikTok to spread misogynistic and Islamophobic tropes, has framed criticism of the app, such that coming from Motherboard, as an affront to free speech that’s being driven by “moral gatekeepers” in an effort to deprive “young men, predominantly young, white men ― God forbid ― of a space in which to express themselves.”

But so-called “moral gatekeepers” don’t get to decide who or what stays on platforms. The platforms do. The existence of discriminatory, hateful content on TikTok reflects the app’s negligence in enforcing its policies, which clearly prohibit both discrimination and hate speech.

TikTok’s user guidelines describe the platform as an “inclusive community” that does not allow content that “incites hatred against a group of people based on their race, ethnicity, religion, nationality, culture, disability, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, age, or any other discrimination.” Users are also prohibited from sharing content “that may trigger hostility, including trolling or provocative remarks.”

In the U.S., the Communications Decency Act shields platforms from liability for most user-generated content, leaving it to them to decide what material they will and will not allow on their sites. The social media giants, which have long struggled to draw a line between free speech and hate speech, are responsible for creating their own terms of use. But they’re not held accountable for ensuring that users adhere to those rules or for maintaining a safe and inclusive environment on their platforms.

“There’s nothing legally mandating that any of these companies do anything [to address hateful or extremist content], which is the hole that the Communications Decency Act has left,” said Heidi Beirich, who leads the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center. “The pressure to get hate speech and other violent stuff off platforms is entirely a result of either outside pressure, like bad PR, or activities that the platforms themselves have engaged in to try to reduce the amount of hate on their platforms.”

Beirich views strong content moderation as a “moral responsibility” for platforms generally and for TikTok in particular.

“TikTok panders to children,” she said. “They see cool videos, then they see racist things or content calling [white supremacist mass murderer] Dylann Roof a hero, and they’re going to end up going down a really bad path.”

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has alienated and infuriated a lot of people over the years, not least the British and U.S. authorities that oversaw his arrest and indictment last week.

But he’s also managed to accumulate an eccentric group of close friends and supporters, and many of these folks are back in the news as Assange faces extradition to the U.S. on a charge of computer hacking related to WikiLeaks obtaining classified military documents in 2010.

As Assange’s longtime confidantes call for his release, here is a look at the cast of characters surrounding the anti-privacy activist.

Chelsea Manning

Although Assange and Manning have never met in person, the two have a significant history that goes back to 2010. Manning, then a private in the U.S. Army, downloaded classified military information early that year and uploaded it to the WikiLeaks site. Assange then contacted Manning and the two began a frequent correspondence that resulted in Manning sending WikiLeaks a trove of additional classified documents that included diplomatic cables and war reports from Afghanistan and Iraq.

Manning pleaded guilty in 2013 to a variety of charges related to the leak, including espionage. In her statement of guilt, Manning detailed how she and Assange ― who was using the pseudonym Nathaniel Frank ― would message on a near-daily basis as they worked together and developed a friendship. But Manning said she later realized that in retrospect their friendly conversations were artificial and that she valued them more than Assange.

Manning, who was released from prison in 2017, is now back in jail after refusing a subpoena to testify to a grand jury that is investigating WikiLeaks.

Rafael Correa

Correa, who served as Ecuador’s president from 2007 to 2017, was one of Assange’s most powerful protectors while he was in office. Correa granted asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London to Assange in 2012, setting up a protracted fight with British and U.S. officials who sought to extradite him.

Although Correa defended Assange’s asylum as a matter of press freedom and human rights, many critics pointed out Correa’s own intimidation of the media in Ecuador as proof that his embrace of Assange was more of a political ploy to gain domestic support by defying the U.S. and Britain.

Correa consistently defended Assange throughout his presidency, but his successor, Lenin Moreno, was far less sympathetic to Assange’s plight. Moreno ultimately grew tired of defending Assange and decided to give the WikiLeaks founder up to British authorities. Correa, meanwhile, remains a vocal supporter of Assange and called Moreno the “greatest traitor in Ecuadorian and Latin American history” for allowing his arrest.

Pamela Anderson

Former “Baywatch” star and animal rights activist Pamela Anderson is one of Assange’s most famous and vocal supporters. She visited him multiple times during his asylum in London, blogged about him and lauded his work in interviews.

Anderson met Assange through mutual friend and fashion designer Vivienne Westwood, and reporters first noticed her visiting the embassy in 2014. Their meetings were an easy tabloid target, and there was widespread media speculation that they had begun a romantic relationship. Anderson declined to elaborate on the specifics their relationship, but has said she saw him frequently and the two were extremely close.

“Julian Assange is the most intelligent, interesting, and informed man in existence. Yes — I think he’s quite sexy,” Anderson wrote in a poem on her blog in 2017.

Anderson is a frequent defender of Assange, both against a Swedish woman’s allegation that he raped her in 2010 and the criminal charges he faces. After his arrest last week, Anderson tweeted heated criticisms of the U.K., the U.S. and Ecuador for their roles in Assange’s arrest.

Vaughan Smith

British police arrested Assange in 2010 after Swedish authorities announced they wanted to extradite the WikiLeaks founder for questioning after two women accused Assange of sex crimes. When Assange was released on bail, however, wealthy libertarian and video journalist Vaughn Smith offered him residence at his sprawling manor while the courts heard Assange’s extradition appeal.

Assange took refuge at Smith’s for several months in 2011, before he sought asylum at the Ecuadorian embassy in London a year later. Smith is a former British army officer who founded the Frontline Club, a gathering place for media figures in London where Assange often hung out and took temporary residence before his legal troubles escalated.

Since Assange’s arrest, Smith has done a round of media appearances criticizing the Ecuadorian officials for ending their protection and calling for his friend’s release.  

Kristinn Hrafnsson

Hrafnsson, a spokesperson for WikiLeaks since 2010, became the site’s editor-in-chief last year after Assange’s internet privileges were revoked at the Ecuadorian embassy. Hrafnsson was an investigative journalist in Iceland and joined up with WikiLeaks after the anti-secrecy organization gained support in his home country following its exposure of an Icelandic banking scandal.

After Assange’s arrest in 2010, Hrafnsson took on a greater role at WikiLeaks as the site’s primary media contact. As his official title has changed over the years, he’s been a staunch ally of Assange and vowed in recent days to continue WikiLeaks’ work regardless of how the charges facing its founder play out.

Jennifer Robinson

Robinson has been Assange’s personal lawyer since early 2010, months before WikiLeaks gained international recognition for publishing Manning’s stolen documents. Robinson is an Australian human rights lawyer and Rhodes scholar who previously worked as a legal advocate for the rights of West Papuan people in Indonesia.

Since Assange’s arrest in 2010 and throughout his subsequent legal troubles, Robinson has been one of the WikiLeaks founder’s most prominent defenders and repeatedly condemned U.S. attempts at extradition as an attack on free speech and press freedom.

Baltasar Garzon

Another figure in Assange’s legal team is Spanish former judge Baltasar Garzon, who defended the WikiLeaks founder in his extradition battles and fights with the Ecuadorian embassy over the terms of his asylum.

Garzon had a long and prominent legal career before helping Assange, including writing an international arrest warrant for Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. But Garzon ran into legal trouble himself after Spain’s Supreme Court disbarred him for 11 years in 2012 because he had illegally recorded conversations between defense lawyers and clients.

Garzon joined up with Assange months after being disbarred and has worked with him continuously in the years since. In 2018, Garzon took the lead in attempting to get Assange’s internet access restored at the embassy, as well as challenging Ecuador’s demands that he pay for his phone calls and clean up after his pet cat.

Garzon is involved in Assange’s legal defense following his recent arrest and indictment, saying his client is the target of “political persecution.”

Stefania Maurizi

Maurizi is an Italian journalist for the newspaper La Repubblica who has corresponded with WikiLeaks on its document releases since 2009. During Assange’s time in the Ecuadorian embassy, Maurizi visited him frequently, publishing exclusive interviews and reports on his conditions. When British authorities dragged Assange from the embassy last week, Maurizi noticed that he was still gripping a Gore Vidal book that she had brought him as a gift.

Maurizi has also pursued freedom of information cases against British authorities, seeking the release of documents related to Assange’s extradition. Her challenges forced a British tribunal to recognize WikiLeaks as a media organization, as well as exposed that U.K. authorities destroyed key emails with Swedish authorities related to Assange’s case.

Sarah Harrison

Harrison is a British-born editor for WikiLeaks who began working with the organization in 2010 as a researcher tasked with vetting Manning’s documents. She also began a romantic relationship with Assange around that time, according to The Washington Post, although Harrison declined to comment on those reports. Harrison rose to become a key figure in WikiLeaks, often appearing alongside Assange in court and taking a role on his legal defense team.

Before WikiLeaks, Harrison was a research intern with the non-profit Center for Investigative Journalism in London. Her connection to WikiLeaks began when Assange approached the center for help creating an archive of leaked documents and Harrison volunteered for the role. She also gained international attention in 2013 for helping get whistleblower Edward Snowden out of Hong Kong as U.S. authorities pursued his arrest.

The chaplain of the Paris fire brigade has been hailed a hero after entering the burning Notre Dame cathedral to help save the Crown of Thorns and other artifacts from the fire-ravaged building.

Jean-Marc Fournier has previously survived an ambush in Afghanistan and helped tend the wounded in aftermath of the Bataclan attack in the French capital.

Father Fournier told CNN he entered the cathedral with firefighters and policemen to help salvage some of the priceless treasures.

Thanks to keys and codes that he kept, emergency services were able to retrieve the Crown of Thorns, which some believe was placed on the head of Christ.

The cathedral says the artifact is its “most precious and most venerated relic.”

“The police took the crown and I took the holy sacrament (the wafers, or body of Christ),” Fournier said.

Fournier has been praised for his bravery on social media after Etienne Loraillère, the director of the French Catholic television network KTO, posted a picture of Fournier and commended the his actions.

An emergency services source who told MailOnline: “Father Fournier is an absolute hero.

“He showed no fear at all as he made straight for the relics inside the cathedral, and made sure they were saved.

“He deals with life and death every day, and shows no fear.” 

Four years earlier, Father Fournier helped to nurse the wounded when 89 people were massacred at the Eagles of Death Metal concert at the Bataclan.

Fournier previously spent seven years with the French armed forces, including a tour in Afghanistan, the Guardian reported, where he was involved in an ambush in which 10 soldiers were killed.

Father Fournier, who is in his 50s, started his career as Catholic priest in Germany, and then moved to the Sarthe department of France.

He joined the Armed Forces diocese in 2004.

Around 400 firefighters tackled the historic blaze through the night. The 19th century spire collapsed and was destroyed along with much of the roof.

NEW DELHI — Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan was on Tuesday issued a fresh show cause notice by the Election Commission for allegedly making inflammatory remarks at various places in Uttar Pradeh in the past few days.

The EC gave him 24 hours to respond to the notice saying prima facie he is guilty of violating the provisions of the model code.

Giving instances of his remarks, the EC said on one occasion, he had allegedly said that “fascists are trying to kill him”.

On another occasion, he had allegedly claimed that the prime minister has killed Muslims.

He had also allegedly said that criminals were occupying constitutional posts, in an apparent jibe at Rajasthan Governor Kalyan Singh.

The EC pointed out that FlRs have been registered under various sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Representation of the People Act against him in the cases.

The notice also pointed out that the Supreme Court has noted that religion and caste cannot be used by anyone while making any statement during electioneering.

“Now, therefore, the Commission, after considering the available material and extant instructions on the matter, has decided to provide you an opportunity to explain your stand regarding the said statements. Your explanation shall be submitted within 24 hours of receipt of this notice, failing which the Commission shall take a decision without further reference to you,” it said.

Not satisfied with the reply on “khaki underwear” jibe at BJP candidate Jaya Prada, the Commission had on Monday barred him from campaigning for 72 hours beginning Tuesday morning.

While Tuesday’s ban is pan India, Khan had faced a similar UP-centric ban in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls for his inflammatory remarks.

Looks like men with beards are going to be dogged with charges of bad hygiene.

That’s because a new study suggests that bearded guys actually have more germs than a dog’s fur.

Researchers at the Hirslanden Clinic near Zurich, Switzerland, wanted to determine whether evaluating humans and dogs in the same MRI scanner would be hygienic.

They did so by comparing the bacterial load in colony-forming units (CFU) of human-pathogenic microorganisms in specimens taken from 18 bearded men and 30 furry dogs.

The researchers also compared the extent of bacterial contamination of an MRI scanner used by both dogs and humans with two other MRI scanners used exclusively by humans.

Turns out all the bearded bros showed high microbial counts, compared with only 23 out of 30 dogs. In fact, seven of the men had so much beard bacteria they were at risk of getting sick, according to the BBC.

The jointly used scanner also had significantly lower bacteria counts than the scanners used only by humans.

“On the basis of these findings, dogs can be considered as clean, compared with bearded men,” study author Andreas Gutzeit told the BBC.

The study was published in February but went viral earlier this week.

However, some beard buffs are making cutting remarks about the study.

Keith Flett, founder of the pro-hirsute Beard Liberation Front, cast doubt on the report to the Daily Mail.

“I think it’s possible to find all sorts of unpleasant things if you took swabs from people’s hair and hands and then tested them,” he said. “I don’t believe that beards in themselves are unhygienic.

“There seems to be a constant stream of negative stories about beards that suggest it’s more about pogonophobia than anything else.” 

BANGKOK — A dog found swimming more than 220 kilometers (135 miles) from shore by workers on an oil rig crew in the Gulf of Thailand has been returned safely to land.

A worker on the rig belonging to Chevron Thailand Exploration and Production, Vitisak Payalaw, said on his Facebook page that they saw the dog swimming toward the platform last Friday.

He said they were lucky to spot it because if there had been waves it probably would not have been visible.

The dog made it to the platform, clinging to the support structure below deck without barking or whimpering, Vitisak wrote.

The crew managed to lower a rope and secure it around the dog’s neck and haul it up.

Vitisak said they speculated the dog might have fallen off a fishing trawler, and dubbed it “Boon Rod,” or “Survivor.”

The dog was delivered by boat to the southern port of Songkhla on Monday and was declared in good shape after being taken to the animal protection group Watchdog Thailand.

Vitisak said if the dog was unclaimed, he would like to take it to his home in northeast Thailand.