Congress leader Ajay Maken is contesting from the New Delhi constituency where he is facing off against BJP’s Meenakshi Lekhi this election. Maken had lost to Lekhi in 2014 but has won the Lok Sabha seat twice before, in 2004 and 2009.

Maken, who was chief of the Delhi Congress, had stepped down from the post in January 2019.

Maken was reportedly a big supporter of an alliance between the Congress and AAP in Delhi for the Lok Sabha polls. The talks fell through.

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In an interview to Hindustan Times, Maken later said, “If there had been an alliance, we would have won on all seven Delhi seats by margins of 2-3 lakh each. Now, we won’t win all seven seats and the margins will be smaller.”

But he said, Congress was in a direct fight with the BJP.

Maken has claimed there’s massive discontent among government employees over the seventh pay commission recommendations.

He’s also claimed to be the first person in the country to include environment in his 2004 poll campaign and said he accords priority to pollution as an election issue.

Maken has sought to leverage maximum traction out of social media.

“My voters have made me victorious in three out of four re-elections from the same constituency! Reason is Simple-I never lose touch and am easily accessible for development works!,” he tweeted recently while sharing a video of a meeting with people in a locality.

Maken has said AAP’s promise of full statehood for Delhi would be a disaster and the law and order in Delhi will become “as bad as Uttar Pradesh or Bihar”.

Maken said Congress supports the Delhi government having full administrative powers, barring three things the areas of land, law and order and police. He also said the Lieutenant Governor should act on the aid and advice of the council of ministers.

(With PTI inputs)

Emilia Clarke has spoken out about the rogue Starbucks cup that made it into a scene in Sunday’s episode of “Game of Thrones.”

The cup’s positioning in front of her character, Daenerys Targaryen, during the banquet of Winterfell led some fans to blame the British actress for the blunder.

Liam Cunningham, who plays Davos Seaworth in HBO’s epic fantasy drama, hinted as much in an interview Tuesday with late-night TV host Conan O’Brien. “Emilia probably drinks too much coffee,” he quipped.

Clarke, however, apparently attempted to clear her name on Wednesday with a photograph she posted to Instagram. It shows her with “Thrones” co-stars Jason Momoa (Khal Drogo) and Peter Dinklage (Tyrion Lannister).

Clarke is clutching a coffee cup ― but it’s not branded Starbucks.

“Did I just stumble upon the truth here?!” she captioned the image. “The cup bearer does not drinketh the Starbucks tea…”

Check out the post here:

Clarke also dismissed the notion that her picture was a spoiler. Momoa, whose character perished in an earlier season, was “a lost wanderer coming home for a mid filming cuppa,” she wrote.

The photograph does not totally prove Clarke wasn’t responsible for the cup blunder, and her Insta-defense likely would not convince a court of law, presided over by the High Sparrow or otherwise.

But it did open up further speculation about who should be blamed.

Some eagle-eyed fans turned their attention to Sophie Turner (who plays Sansa Stark) with the emergence of this picture of her carrying a Starbucks cup that Bella Ramsey (who plays Lyanna Mormont) shared online:

HBO has since edited the cup out of the scene.

Cricketer-turned-politician Gautam Gambhir has created ripples in political circles since he joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and was eventually announced as party candidate for East Delhi. 

Gambhir is pitted against Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) candidate Atishi and Congress’ Arvinder Singh Lovely. 

He is a former India opening batsman, who retired from cricket in December last year. Announcing his retirement, he had said that the “irritable noise of ‘It’s over Gauti’” has triumphed over his will to continue.

Gambhir made 58 Test appearances for India, accumulating 4154 runs at an average of 41.95. His 147 ODI games fetched 5238 runs, while in 37 T20 Internationals, he scored 932 runs.

He joined BJP in March this year and said he joined politics to find solutions to problems faced by people. He said his vision is clear and he will go to people with the agenda of development. 

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Gambhir, according to ANI, said that the development of the whole of Delhi, not just East Delhi, will be his party’s priority. 

In his “vision document”, he said conversion of Ghazipur landfill into a green space, utilisation of waste to generate energy, clean Yamuna project and a Delhi University campus in East Delhi are on his agenda.

Gambhir is the richest among all the candidates in fray for the Lok Sabha election in Delhi with total assets worth Rs 147 crore.  

Clash with Atishi

Gambhir and Atishi have clashed with each other since their candidature was announced by their respective parties. AAP has accused Gambhir of circulating a pamphlet with “obscene and derogatory” remarks against Atishi.

The BJP nominee responded by saying that he will withdraw his candidature if AAP can prove its charges.  

Atishi has also accused Gambhir of holding two voter identity cards from Rajender Nagar and Karol Bagh constituencies. 

Gambhir has, however, reiterated that he has only one voter identity card and that AAP was making baseless allegations against him.

Atishi had raised an objection over the nomination papers filed by the former cricketer, but the complaint was rejected by the returning officer of the polls. 

(With PTI inputs)

NEW DELHI — The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear on Friday the issues relating to decades-old, politically sensitive, Ayodhya’s Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid land dispute case which was referred to mediation for exploring the possibility of an amicable settlement.

A notice was put up on the apex court website which said that the matter will be heard by a five-judge Constitution bench comprising Chief justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices SA Bobde, DY Chandrachud, Ashok Bhushan and S Abdul Nazeer.

The matter will come up for the first time on Friday since 8 March order of the top court which had referred the case for mediation to a panel headed by former apex court judge FMI Kalifulla.

Spiritual guru and founder of Art of Living foundation Sri Sri Ravishankar and senior advocate Sriram Panchu, a renowned mediator, are the other two members of the panel of mediators.

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The apex court had said that the mediation process would commence within a week and the panel would submit the progress report within four weeks.

The panel was asked by the apex court to hold in-camera proceedings and complete them within eight weeks.

The Constitution bench had said that it does not find any “legal impediment” to make a reference to mediation for a possible settlement of the dispute.

The bench was told earlier by Hindu bodies, except for Nirmohi Akhara, and Uttar Pradesh government that they oppose the court’s suggestion for mediation. The Muslim bodies supported the proposal.

While opposing the suggestion of mediation, Hindu bodies had argued that earlier attempts of reaching a compromise have failed and provisions of Civil Procedure Code (CPC) require public notice to be issued before the start of process.

The top court had directed that the mediation proceedings should be conducted with “utmost confidentiality” for ensuring its success and the views expressed by any of the parties including the mediators should be kept confidential and not be revealed to any other person.

However, it had refrained from passing any specific restrain order at this stage and instead empowered the mediators to pass necessary orders in writing, if so required, to restrain publication of the details of the mediation proceedings.

The top court had fixed the seat for mediation process in Faizabad of Uttar Pradesh, around 7 km from Ayodhya, and said that the adequate arrangements including the venue of the mediation, place of stay of the mediators, their security, travel should be forthwith arranged by the state government so that proceedings could commence immediately.

It had also directed that the mediation proceedings be held in-camera as per the norms applicable to conduct the mediation proceedings.

Fourteen appeals have been filed in the apex court against the 2010 Allahabad High Court judgment, delivered in four civil suits, that the 2.77-acre land in Ayodhya be partitioned equally among the three parties — the Sunni Waqf Board, the Nirmohi Akhara and Ram Lalla.

On December 6, 1992, the Babri Masjid, constructed at the disputed site in the 16th century by Shia Muslim Mir Baqi, was demolished.

Has HBO found a “Game”-changer?

Soon to be without the hit “Game of Thrones,” the cable network hopes to grab viewers with a new show ― an adaptation of the graphic novel “Watchmen.”

A trailer (watch below) for creator Damon Lindelof’s “Watchmen” series dropped on Wednesday, quick-cutting viewers through “an alternate history where superheroes are treated as outlaws,” as HBO put it.

HBO said the show will “embrace the nostalgia” of the graphic novel, but will move beyond the source material.

The preview hints at a tense dystopia where time is of the essence. Men dressed in Rorschach masks lock and load, and the police are told that they were “just hibernating.”

Regina King, Jeremy Irons and Don Johnson lead an extensive cast.

Director Zack Snyder’s 2009 “Watchmen” film version closely followed the 1986 DC Comics work and grossed about $185 million worldwide.

HBO’s “Watchmen” is expected to premiere later in 2019.

Little Archie Harrison no doubt has a wardrobe full of baby clothes to wear – and now his parents have another to add to the collection.

Prince Harry was presented with an Invictus Games babygrow during the launch of Invictus 2020 in The Hague, the Netherlands, today. 

The new dad was pictured holding the mini bodysuit up against his own Invictus Games shirt, showing how tiny it really was.

[Read More: See the first photos of baby Archie Harrison here]

Getty photographer Chris Jackson shared the sweet shot on Instagram, which showed Harry laughing as he held up the babygrow.

“What a proud dad, I am so happy for him and his beautiful family,” one commenter wrote.

Another said: “We need a baby Archie in this in one year when the Invictus games start haha.”

Prince Harry arrived in the Netherlands this morning to launch next year’s Invictus Games. In 2020, the sports event for physically and mentally injured soldiers will be held in the Zuiderpark in the Netherlands city. 

He stayed there until lunchtime, but then headed back to continue his paternity leave with his wife and son at home, according to PA.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle introduced their two-day son to the world yesterday, and revealed his name to be Archie Harrison. They posed for a photo call, giving the world its first glimpse of the royal baby, before taking their son to meet the Queen. 

Sophie Turner and Joe Jonas may have downplayed their love of camp at the Met Gala, but their impromptu Las Vegas wedding was brimming with it.

Or at least according to the couple’s sister-in-law, Priyanka Chopra.

The “Quantico” star spilled a whole lot of tea about the quirky couple’s nuptials to Access on Wednesday, calling it “so fun” and “so Jophie” (her nickname for the couple).

Chopra, 36, said that she, her husband Nick Jonas, 26, Turner, 23, and Joe Jonas, 29, were all in Las Vegas for the 2019 Billboard Music Awards on May 1 and that “Joe had this idea that he wanted to do this” after the show, Chopra said.

“He had these little black cards that we all got and we were randomly inviting our friends, like people that we met. We were like, ‘OK, we’re going to the chapel right from here, please arrive.’”

So, the random guest list ended up including Diplo — who streamed the entire thing on Instagram live — DJ Khalid, and Dan + Shay, who performed an acoustic version of their song “Speechless” while Turner walked down the aisle. 

The two were married by an Elvis impersonator at Chapel L’Amour inside A Little White Wedding Chapel, but the fun didn’t end there.

“It was so funny! I mean, we were driving around this pink Hummer limo. I was outside the window. It was just epic,” said Chopra. She added that she had “long hair extensions” that she thought were “going to fly out of the window. It was that kind of night — a Jophie kind of night.”

The actress said that the couple is still “going to have this amazing, beautiful wedding, obviously.”

Chopra also compared her elaborate ceremony to Nick Jonas to her new in-laws’ whacky one.

“It’s exactly who and what we stand for,” Chopra explained. “Nick and Joe both are so different but are best friends, and that’s what’s beautiful about their relationship. And you can see that in the weddings, as well. It was very reflective of the two of them and us as couples, you know?”

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg wields an unprecedented amount of power and his “dangerous” company must be broken up by government regulators, according to a co-founder of the social media giant.

Chris Hughes, who helped launch Facebook out of a Harvard University dorm room he shared with Zuckerberg in the early 2000s, called on the government to take action against Facebook in an op-ed published in The New York Times on Thursday.

“We are a nation with a tradition of reining in monopolies, no matter how well intentioned the leaders of these companies may be,” Hughes wrote. “Mark’s power is unprecedented and un-American. It is time to break up Facebook.”

The Federal Trade Commission made a huge mistake allowing Facebook to buy Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014, Hughes wrote. About 70 percent of Americans use social media and these acquisitions made it so the vast majority are engaging with Facebook products, he noted.

Hughes, who left Facebook in 2007 to volunteer for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, said the company’s co-founders never imagined what kind of impact their trademark News Feed algorithm could have on the world, including influencing elections and empowering nationalist leaders.

“Mark is a good, kind person,” Hughes wrote. “But I’m angry that his focus on growth led him to sacrifice security and civility for clicks.”

“I’m worried that Mark has surrounded himself with a team that reinforces his beliefs instead of challenging them,” he added, noting that Zuckerberg controls 60 percent of voting shares at Facebook. “Facebook’s board works more like an advisory committee than an overseer.”

At this time, regulators can do little to shield emerging companies from Facebook’s aggressive tactics. Facebook’s strategy of either copying a new venture’s innovations (see: Snapchat’s Stories feature), kneecapping a budding company’s growth or acquiring it has scared away investors, Hughes said.

Because of this, Hughes theorized, no major social networking companies have been founded since 2011.

In his op-ed, Hughes laid out specific steps the government should take to weaken Facebook’s far-reaching grasp on the technology communications industry, including breaking up the tech empire into multiple companies. 

Hughes called on the government to enforce existing antitrust laws by undoing Facebook’s Instagram and WhatsApp acquisitions and banning future acquisitions for several years. 

Beyond breaking up the company, Hughes wrote, the government must create a new agency to regulate tech companies with the focus of protecting privacy. 

Facebook in recent years has come under fire over its collection of users’ data and its failure to protect their private information. The company predicted last month that it would face a $5 billion fine from the FTC for failing to adhere to a 2011 consent decree, which prohibited Facebook from sharing any private information beyond what users already agreed to.

The FTC had been investigating the Cambridge Analytica scandal since last March after news broke that the data-mining firm accessed the data of as many as 87 million Facebook users without their consent.

“Because Facebook so dominates social networking, it faces no market-based accountability,” Hughes wrote. “This means that every time Facebook messes up, we repeat an exhausting pattern: first outrage, then disappointment and, finally, resignation.” 

Hughes also urged Congress to pass a landmark privacy bill to “specify exactly what control Americans have over their digital information, require clearer disclosure to users and provide enough flexibility to the agency to exercise effective oversight over time.” 

The new tech oversight agency proposed by Hughes should create guidelines for acceptable speech on social media, he said. Zuckerberg has been accused of allowing misinformation and bigoted rhetoric to spread freely on his platform until only recently.

“This idea may seem un-American — we would never stand for a government agency censoring speech,” Hughes wrote. “But there is no constitutional right to harass others or live-stream violence.”

In a portion of an interview with NBC’s Kate Snow that aired Thursday morning, Hughes called Zuckerberg “extremely powerful” and described the company he helped bring to life as “dangerous.” More of the conversation is set to air later Thursday on “NBC Nightly News.”

“I take responsibility for not sounding the alarm earlier,” Hughes wrote in his op-ed. “An era of accountability for Facebook and other monopolies may be beginning.”

“Collective anger is growing, and a new cohort of leaders has begun to emerge,” he concluded. “This movement of public servants, scholars and activists deserves our support. Mark Zuckerberg cannot fix Facebook, but our government can.”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), one of a number of public servants urging Congress to take action against monopolies such as Facebook, backed up Hughes’ call for action in a tweet Thursday.

It isn’t the first time Warren has made such a statement. She announced a proposal in March as part of her 2020 presidential campaign to break up companies like Facebook, Amazon and Google to make it easier for entrepreneurs to compete in the tech sector.

“Today’s big tech companies have too much power  ―  too much power over our economy, our society, and our democracy,” she wrote in a post published on Medium at the time. “They’ve bulldozed competition, used our private information for profit, and tilted the playing field against everyone else.” 

Hughes isn’t the first former Facebook executive to speak out against the company’s practices as well as its negative effect on civil society at large.

Sean Parker, Facebook’s founding president, warned in November 2017 that the company intentionally exploits “a vulnerability in human psychology” that is likely having harmful effects on mental health.

A month later, Chamath Palihapitiya, who joined Facebook in 2007 and became its vice president for user growth, said he had “tremendous guilt” for growing a platform that’s “ripping apart the social fabric of how society works.”

“The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops we’ve created are destroying how society works,” he said. “No civil discourse, no cooperation, misinformation, mistruth. And it’s not an American problem. .... This is a global problem.”

Hughes echoed his former colleagues’ concerns, writing in his op-ed that Facebook’s business model is to capture “as much of our attention as possible” and to “encourage people to create and share more information about who they are and who they want to be.”

“Some days, lying on the floor next to my 1-year-old son as he plays with his dinosaurs, I catch myself scrolling through Instagram, waiting to see if the next image will be more beautiful than the last,” he wrote. “What am I doing? I know it’s not good for me, or for my son, and yet I do it anyway.”

He added: “We pay for Facebook with our data and our attention, and by either measure it doesn’t come cheap.”

Head over to The New York Times to read Hughes’ full op-ed.

This article has been updated with more previous criticism of Facebook.

Prince Harry flew to the Netherlands on Thursday to kick off the 2020 Invictus Games.

It’s his first official solo royal appearance since he and Meghan Markle welcomed their baby boy, Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor, on Monday. 

Dennis van der Stroom, a former soldier who took part in a bike ride with Harry during the event, spoke with People about his conversation with the Duke of Sussex. Van der Stroom said that he’d lost his mother and bonded over it with the duke. 

“We talked about our shared experience of missing a mom,” Van der Stroom said. “He said missing a mother is like missing some kind of security, how you need that as a son and it falls away when you lose your mother.” 

Van der Stroom added, “He said he meets a lot of people in his work who have lost a mother, father, sister, brother or relatives and when he hears their story, as he heard my story, he said he doesn’t feel so alone.” 

The prince, whose son was born on Monday, also spoke about his time with Archie and the broader impact of the little one’s birth. 

“Above all he said he was just amazed by the miracles in the world, and how his child has made a lot of people happy. He also told me he’s really happy that his son is so far very quiet,” he added. 

NEW DELHI — Economists and investors are increasingly showing that they have little or no confidence in India’s official economic data – presenting whoever is elected as the next prime minister with an immediate problem.

There have been questions for many years about whether Indian government statistics were telling the full story but two recent controversies over revisions and delays of crucial numbers have taken those concerns to new heights.

The government itself has admitted there are deficiencies in its data collection.

A study conducted by a division of the statistics ministry in the 12 months ending June 2017 found that as much as 36 percent of the companies in the database used in India’s GDP calculations could not be traced or were wrongly classified.

But the ministry said there was no impact on GDP estimates as due care was taken to adjust corporate filings at the aggregate level.

Last December, the government held back the release of jobs data but an official report leaked to an Indian newspaper showed the unemployment rate had touched its highest level in 45 years.

Economists and investors are now voting with their feet – by using alternative sources of data and in some cases creating their own benchmarks to measure the Indian economy.

Ten economists and analysts at banks, think-tanks and foreign funds interviewed by Reuters said they were moving to use alternative data sources, or at least official data of a different kind.

Among the numbers they prefer are fast-moving indicators like car sales, air and rail cargo levels, purchasing managers’ index data, and proprietary indices created by the institutions themselves to track the economy.

Many economists said they were stunned when the government upwardly revised GDP growth for 2016/17 to 8.2 percent from 6.7 percent, although the demonetisation of high value notes hit businesses and jobs in that financial year.

“Our response has been to spend time developing an Indian Activity Index, which takes a range of time series data that in the past were strongly correlated with real GDP growth and extract the common signal from them,” said Jeremy Lawson, chief economist at Aberdeen Standard Investments, which manages more than $700 billion in assets.

The preliminary evidence from the index, which includes components like car sales, air cargo and purchasing managers’ index data suggests the government has over-estimated GDP growth, he said.

“Our index would suggest that there was stable growth, rather than the rapid acceleration suggested by the GDP figures,” he said, referring to three years of data from 2014.

Even those close to the government have said the lack of accuracy in the official data makes it much more likely that authorities will miss major swings in activity and be unable to react quickly to head off a crisis. It is also a problem for investors who may be misled into thinking the economy is more robust than it really is.

MISSED FARM CRISIS

The economic wing of the Rashtriya Swayemsewak Sangh, the fountainhead of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, said the government and the Indian central bank missed anticipating a farm crisis that has now gripped the countryside, with low crop prices driving down farmers’ incomes.

“The fact is the government advisers and the monetary policy committee of the central bank could not diagnose the farm crisis, deflationary conditions in rural economy, and ignored the need to boost growth,” said Ashwani Mahajan, the co-convenor of the group, Swadeshi Jagran Manch, adding the government was now taking steps to address the problem.

The delayed response has cost Prime Minister Narendra Modi at least some support in the countryside in the current general election – although most political strategists still think he can probably hang onto power.

The opposition and other critics have said Modi suppressed jobs data and “massaged” economic growth numbers in an attempt to show that his government has done better than the previous administration.

A spokesman at Modi’s office said no official was available for comment as they were busy with the election while a finance ministry spokesman referred to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s previous comments.

In a blog in March, Jaitley criticised economists for doubting the credibility of data and accused them of running a fake campaign against the government.

IDLE CAPACITY

Some investors have been burned by believing in India’s high growth story.

Private power producers invested billions of dollars based on expectations of electricity demand that didn’t pan out in the rural economy. With economic growth pegged at over 8 percent a year, they had expected a pick up in demand by small businesses and household.

Many of the power producers are now facing bankruptcy and legal disputes as many of the new plants they built are working at about 60 percent of capacity.

In the real estate sector, developers said, it could take 3-4 years to clear about 500,000 unsold flats in and around New Delhi that were built on the assumption of higher income jobs in urban areas.

To be sure, the proportion of the Indian economy that is based on the unofficial sector, such as household enterprises, makes it a nightmare to assess economic activity.

PC Mohanan, former acting chairman of the national oversight body for statistics, who resigned to protest government interference over the release of the jobs figures and back series data on GDP, said the government hasn’t allocated the resources it needs to measure activity given the growth in the economy.

Gita Gopinath, the International Monetary Fund’s chief economist, told an Indian TV channel last month the IMF had raised the issue of “transparency” with Indian officials in data collection and, in particular, measurement of the GDP deflator - the adjusted inflation rate used to estimate real GDP.

In a statement, the statistics ministry said it was working to address the issue.

A senior official earlier said they were open to suggestions for improvement, just not “politically motivated” criticism.

There are already plans to revamp data compilation and capture the nuanced relationship between prices and real GDP, he said.

We have no tears left to cry because this is so ridiculous it’s funny.

Fashion house Givenchy tweeted a teaser of its new face Thursday. The short clip shows the silhouette of woman as her high ponytail elegantly cascades downward.

“GUESS WHO? THE NEW FACE OF #GIVENCHY, REVEALED TOMORROW,” the tweet reads, and unless you’ve been living under a rock, it’s very obviously Ariana Grande.

It’s unclear if the teaser was supposed to be tongue-in-cheek (it was written in all caps, which could be interpreted as excitement or sarcasm). But then again, why waste money on a teaser that says you’re going to reveal the new face tomorrow when you pretty much already did?

Whatever the method behind this madness is, people on Twitter couldn’t help themselves. Instead of giving sincere answers, they delivered snark:

Grande also coyly confirmed it on Twitter by posting a still of the teasers:

But who knows, maybe Givenchy will surprise us all and its new face will be Charo.

Taylor Swift, the self-identifying queen of snakes, has a major thing for the mother of dragons and all else Westeros. 

The pop star revealed she counts herself among the legions of “Game of Thrones” fans in her first sit-down magazine interview in nearly three years.

Swift was a relatively late adopter of the HBO fantasy series, but became so enamored with the characters that major players like Arya Stark and Daenerys Targaryen served as inspirations for her last album, “Reputation.” 

“I just feel so lucky to exist when ‘Game of Thrones’ is coming out,” Swift told Entertainment Weekly for a May cover story. 

“These songs were half based on what I was going through, but seeing them through a ‘Game of Thrones’ filter. ... ‘Look What You Made Me Do’ is literally Arya Stark’s kill list,” Swift said, adding that the polarizing single also has Cersei and Daenerys vibes.

“‘King of My Heart’ was influenced by Khal Drogo and Daenerys,” she continued. “It’s even got this post-hook of drums — I wanted them to sound like Dothraki drums.”

The singer also revealed that she wrote the thumping “I Did Something Bad” after Arya and Sansa Stark conspired to kill Littlefinger back in Season 7.

And in case you don’t believe Swift takes her stanning seriously, she sports pins featuring the “Game of Thrones” women on the magazine’s cover, alongside pins highlighting some other pop culture inspirations. 

“Game of Thrones” has shaped her “entire outlook on storytelling,” the singer said, and led her to model album releases after the show by dropping Easter eggs for her fans to discover. Ahead of the release of her currently untitled seventh studio album, the Grammy winner has left breadcrumbs for followers to pick up on social media and in music videos, encouraging fans to swap theories about the direction of her next project. 

“I found ways to get more cryptic with information and still be able to share messages with the fans,” Swift told Entertainment Weekly. “I aspire to be one one-millionth of the kind of hint dropper the makers of ‘Game of Thrones’ have been.”

And just like the rest of us, Swift also has her suspicions on who will end up on the Iron Throne when the series wraps up in the coming weeks. 

“Daenerys, Arya, or Sansa,” she said. “But if I’m being realistic, I think Sansa has the skill set and the ability to delegate and put on a brave face but a stoic demeanor ... “Arya [would] be Hand of the King.” 

“Game of Thrones” has proven to be popular among celebrities as of late, with Drake, whom Swift also credits in the interview as another big influence, giving a shout-out to Arya Stark during an acceptance speech at this month’s Billboard Music Awards.

Entertainment Weekly’s latest issue with the full Taylor Swift interview hits the stands on Friday.

NEW DELHI — BJP’s East Delhi candidate Gautam Gambhir sent a notice to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia and Atishi on Thursday demanding their apology after being accused of being involved in distribution of “obscene and derogatory” pamphlets against his AAP rival.

In the notice, the trio was asked to withdraw their allegations against the cricketer-turned-politician and tender an unconditional apology.

In response, AAP’s Manish Sisodia said the party would file defamation case against the BJP.

Earlier in the day, Gambhir had said he would withdraw from the Lok Sabha contest if the charge was proved against him.

“I declare that if its proven that I did it, I will withdraw my candidature right now. If not, will u quit politics?,” he said in a tweet addressed to Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) supremo Kejriwal and Atishi, the party candidate from East Delhi.

Atishi broke down reading a pamphlet containing “obscene and derogatory” remarks against her on Thursday. She alleged that the pamphlets were distributed in the constituency by her Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) rival.

Gambhir slammed Kejriwal in a series of tweets, saying he was “ashamed” to have him as the chief minister of Delhi.

The political atmosphere in the national capital vitiated hours before the poll campaigning concluded on Friday evening, with the BJP and the AAP indulging in a bitter blame game.

Gambhir tweeted:

The Supreme Court on Friday granted the three-member mediation committee time till 15 August for exploring the possibility of an amicable settlement in Ayodhya’s Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid land dispute case.

The panel had submitted report and sought time till 15 August. The court said nobody would come in way of mediation process.

The court has allowed parties to raise objections before the panel till 30 June.

The matter was heard by a five-judge Constitution bench comprising Chief justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices S A Bobde, D Y Chandrachud, Ashok Bhushan and S Abdul Nazeer.

The mediation panel is headed by former apex court judge F M I Kalifulla and includes founder of Art of Living foundation Sri Sri Ravishankar and senior advocate Sriram Panchu, a renowned mediator.

The bench was told earlier by Hindu bodies, except for Nirmohi Akhara, and Uttar Pradesh government that they oppose the court’s suggestion for mediation. The Muslim bodies supported the proposal.

While opposing the suggestion of mediation, Hindu bodies had argued that earlier attempts of reaching a compromise have failed and provisions of Civil Procedure Code (CPC) require public notice to be issued before the start of process.

Meghan Markle just had a baby boy, and may soon also have a twin.

Tanya Ricardo of Houston loves the Duchess of Sussex so much that she’s willing to go under the knife to look like her.

“She’s graceful, a very, very graceful woman,” Ricardo told “Inside Edition.” She added: “I want what she has that I don’t.”

Ricardo, a 30-year-old oil industry professional and mother, recently underwent six hours of surgery getting eight different procedures, including liposuction under her chin and on her tummy, hips and lower back; a Brazilian butt lift; and cheek contouring and filler.

“She has these great curves. What I want is to achieve the same thing through here,” Ricardo said while pointing at her hips and mid-section, “and get rid of this so that I have a great, flat stomach.”

Ricardo admitted her decision to become a Duchess double has sparked strong reactions from friends and family.

“They say I’m very crazy for doing this, but I don’t care,” she said.

Time Magazine on Friday revealed it was featuring PM Narendra Modi on its international cover with an essay by writer Aatish Taseer titled ‘India’s Divider in Chief’.

The moniker began trending on Twitter soon after.

In its tweet on the latest issue, set to release on 20 May, the magazine asks, “Can the world’s largest democracy endure another five years of a Modi government?”  

There was the usual Twitter army of supporters who outright denied the article’s contention that another term for Modi’s government would sound the death knell for Indian democracy.

Some readers strongly agreed with the article, pointing out egregious mistakes the Modi and his BJP-led government had made.

But an overwhelming number of responses to Time’s tweet was just one word or a repetition of it. 

Some users emphasised on this sentiment with extra ’O’s.

And at least one person didn’t want to leave any room for doubt. 

On 12 May, Sunday, voters in Northeast Delhi will decide whether to send sitting MP Manoj Tiwari back to Parliament. They also have the option of turning to an even more familiar face—three-time chief minister Sheila Dikshit, who is contesting an election for the first time after her shock defeat to Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief Arvind Kejriwal in 2013, and AAP’s Dilip Pandey.

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Tiwari, a popular Bhojpuri actor and singer, had defeated AAP’s Anand Kumar in the Puravanchal-dominated (Uttar Pradesh and Bihar) constituency in 2014 with a margin of over 1.4 lakh votes. Scroll pointed out that Tiwari, who’s from Bihar, has created quite a few controversies in his tenure.

He invited the Supreme Court’s wrath for breaking the lock of a house sealed by municipal officers (the top court closed contempt-of-court proceedings in November) and more recently, drew flak for campaigning in military fatigues after the Balakot airstrikes.

Tiwari has said that his campaign promises include maintenance of roads and drainage system, as well as restoring the Yamuna floodplains.

Four years after it published an “exclusive” interview with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on his reform promises, Time magazine has published a cover story that may have taken the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) by surprise.

While the 2015 cover said “The world needs India to step up as a global power. One year in, can Prime Minister Narendra Modi deliver?”, the 2019 version, published two weeks before India finds out if Modi will return for a second term, is titled “India’s Divider in chief”. 

The difference is stark.

Time had also featured Modi on its cover in 2012 with the question, “Modi means business but can he lead India”. At that time, he was the Gujarat chief minister who was beginning to make his PM ambitions clear.

The most recent cover story, written by Aatish Taseer, is a far cry from the hopeful tones of the earlier ones.

A few hours after Time’s latest cover was unveiled, “India’s Divider in Chief” began trending on Indian social media platforms as those for and against Modi either exulted or criticised the move. 

The same year that Modi was last featured on the Time cover, he was included in its list of 100 Most influential People, with former US president Barack Obama writing a testimonial for him. Ironically, Obama called him “India’s reformer-in-chief”.

Taseer’s essay calls Modi “merely a politician who has failed to deliver, seeking re-election” and says he shudders to think of “what he might yet do to punish the world for his own failures” if he gets a second term. 

As if to balance Taseer’s essay, Time has also published an article by Ian Bremmer that calls Modi India’s “best hope for economic reform”, even as it allows that he can “fairly be accused of fanning flames of hostility toward India’s Muslim population”. Inexplicably, Bremmer’s article does not mention the Modi government’s disastrous demonetisation gambit, the standoff between the government and RBI (which led to two central bank governor’s resigning during Modi’s term), jobs crisis and multiple other criticisms that can be levelled against it. 

Time is not the first global news outlet to call out the communal damage wreaked in Modi’s regime. Two weeks ago, The Economist published a strongly worded editorial, which was headlined “Agent Orange”.  

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“Indians, who are in the midst of voting in a fresh election, would be better off with a different leader,” the piece said, while detailing how Modi has “cowed the press, showering bounty on flatterers while starving, controlling and bullying critics.”

While a single story in Time will not affect any votes in India, for Modi, who has taken pride in travelling abroad often to meet world leaders and is never shy of advertising his friendship with them, this would likely be a blow. 

The Time piece will appear in the 20 May 2019 print issue of Time, just a day after the last phase of voting. 

Here are the five major arguments that Taseer makes in his Time cover piece:

1. ‘Modi proved himself a friend of the mob’

Taseer says that India had a long history of politically instigated sectarian riots, most notably the anti-Sikh riots. Congress, though hardly blameless, Taseer says, was able to separate itself from the actions of the mob. 

“Modi, by his deafening silences after more recent atrocities, such as the killing of more than 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, in his home state of Gujarat in 2002, proved himself a friend of the mob.”

2. ‘Atmosphere of poisonous religious nationalism’

Taseer says that not only has “Modi’s economic miracle failed to materialise, he has also helped create an atmosphere of poisonous religious nationalism in India”.

He referred to BJP’s candidate for Bangalore South Tejasvi Surya’s statement that “If you are not with Modi, then you are strengthening anti-India forces”. Taseer argues that the Muslims in India have been subjected to episode after violent episode, “in which Hindu mobs have carried out a series of public lynchings in the name of the holy cow”.

3. Modi’s record on women’s issues is ‘spotty’

On the one hand, Taseer says, Modi made opportunities for women and their safety a key election issue; on the other hand, “his attitude and that of his party men feels paternalistic”.

BJP chief Amit Shah, according to Taseer, “speaks of women as having the status of deities, ever the refuge of the religious chauvinist who is only too happy to revere women into silence”.

4. Leading ‘India down the road to a profound anti-intellectualism’

Referring to the appointment of Swaminathan Gurumurthy on the board of the Reserve Bank of India, Taseer says that it was Gurumurthy who, in a quest to deal with the menace of “black money,” is thought to have advised Modi to announce demonetisation, causing huge economic havoc from which the country is yet to recover.

He also mentions Modi’s statement in 2014 when he claimed that plastic surgery existed during the time of Ganesha. “We worship Lord Ganesha,” Modi had said while adding that “There must have been some plastic surgeon at that time who got an elephant’s head on the body of a human being and began the practice of plastic surgery.”

5. ‘India’s places of learning have been hollowed out’ 

Modi, Taseer says, has “presided over a continuous assault on the grove of academe, where the unqualified and semiliterate have been encouraged to build their shanties.”

Academia in India was dogmatically left-wing, he argues, but rather than change its politics, Modi attacked the idea of qualification itself. India’s places of learning have been hollowed out, the administration and professors chosen for their political ideology rather than basic levels of proficiency, he says in the cover issue.

Congress veteran Digvijaya Singh, who is the party’s candidate for Bhopal in the 2019 elections, is taking on BJP’s Pragya Singh Thakur, an accused in the 2008 Malegaon blast case.

Bhopal has been a bastion of the saffron party for the last two decades. It is among the eight Lok Sabha seats in Madhya Pradesh that will vote on 12 May in the sixth phase of elections in the state.

The last time that a Congress candidate won from Bhopal Lok Sabha seat was in 1984. Former President Shankar Dayal Sharma had got this seat for the party.

Singh has served as the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh for ten years from 1993 to 2003. He had previously contested from the Rajgarh seat and won twice in 1984 and 1991. 

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Bhopal is one of the most keenly watched seats in the elections. This is because Thakur, according to The Indian Express, had alleged that Singh conspired to get her falsely implicated in the 2008 Malegaon blast case. She had described Singh as an “anti-Hindu leader who called Hindus terrorists”.

The BJP has propped her as an answer to the Congress’ “Hindu terror” conspiracy. Party chief Amit Shah had also lashed out at Singh for coining the term “Hindu terror”. 

In an interview with The Economic Times, Singh dismissed claims that he was the first one to use the term “Hindu terror”.

The Congress candidate is fighting the polls on his vision for the development of Bhopal. He has berated the Narendra Modi government for demonetisation, GST, and its failures to keep poll promises, according to The Print, but skips any mention of cow vigilantes or mob lynching incidents or anything about minorities.

In an interview with The Hindu, Singh said that he did not want to drag religion into politics and wants to fight the elections on the issues of jobs, poverty and infrastructure.

However, hundreds of sadhus on Tuesday trooped to the Madhya Pradesh capital to seek votes for Singh and campaign against Thakur.

They were led by Namdev Tyagi alias Computer Baba. They held a yagna in the form of Hath Yoga, followed by a road show. Computer Baba, who was recently appointed chairman of a river trust by the Congress government in the state, has extended his support to Singh. 

Digvijaya Singh performed a havan in the presence of these sadhus, Times of India reported. The Bhopal District Collector ordered an inquiry into the events.

(With PTI inputs)

Beijing has vowed to retaliate after Donald Trump raised duties on 200 billion US dollars (£155 billion) of Chinese imports from 10% to 25%.

China’s Commerce Ministry said would take “necessary countermeasures” but gave no details.

The increase went ahead after US and Chinese negotiators began more talks in Washington aimed at ending a dispute that has disrupted billions of dollars in trade and shaken global financial markets.

But what does this actually mean?

China and the US are currently engaged in a battle of wills over trade between the two countries. So far its effects are mostly felt in those two countries but if things escalate it could have serious global repercussions. 

In sum, this stuff really matters.

What are tariffs?

Tariffs are used to protect a country’s own industries against competition from abroad. 

Take the UK textile industry for example – a factory in the UK making t-shirts has to pay its staff the minimum wage and adhere to relatively strict safety standards, both of which increase the cost of production.

But a factory in a country like Bangladesh for example, can pay its staff less and therefore charge less for its t-shirts.

Tariffs aim to level the playing field. 

Why is Trump so obsessed with tariffs?

It’s all about balance.

A trade deficit is the difference between the value of imports and exports between two countries.

The trade deficit between the USA and China is huge – Americans spent $323.3bn more on Chinese goods last year than the Chinese spent on American goods. 

This is essentially US dollars flowing out of the country into the pockets of foreign players. If they decided to sell these dollars all at once, it could seriously devalue the US currency.

By increasing tariffs, Trump aims to make Americans spend less on Chinese goods and more on American goods, thereby reducing the deficit.

In the latest round, Trump has targeted Chinese-made internet modems, routers and other data transmission devices.

Why is this a bad thing? 

Because China can impose tariffs on American goods as well and when a tit-for-tat escalation occurs it can become what’s known as a trade war.

Who Usually Wins A Trade War?

In short, nobody.

There hasn’t been an international trade war since the 1930s, in part because American leaders knew their history and were aware of how disastrous the last one was.

Enter Donald Trump.

Only it’s not easy in the slightest.

The internationally-respected Fraser Institute, notes of the “horror story of the United States’ anti-trade Smoot-Hawley Act of 1930” which triggered the last global trade war:

“Most economists believe the result was disastrous. World trade fell by 66% from 1929 to 1934; US exports and imports to and from Europe each also fell by about two-thirds. The causes were varied but one influential study, though it examines trade only through to 1932, estimates that the Smoot-Hawley inspired trade war caused half the decline.

“Benefits? The depression worsened for farmers and workers, the supposed beneficiaries. Smoot and Hawley were defeated in their re-election bids.

“The results would be worse now.”

Who loses?

In a worst-case scenario - everyone. But even before a global trade meltdown occurs, any American who produces goods to export to China will be hit hard.

A good example of this is beef. China imports a significant amount of American beef but the ongoing trade dispute has seen China impose higher tariffs on the meat.

This means Chinese consumers have been spending less on US beef which has had a serious effect on American farmers.

Politically, this is extremely risky for Trump – farmers form a core part of his support base and he can’t afford to lose them in the run up to the 2020 presidential election.

Could it affect the UK?

Yes, pretty disastrously if things escalated to a point outlined above by the Fraser Institute.

But even if things didn’t get that bad, we could still be hit – China isn’t the only country being hit by Trump’s tariffs and last month he announced $11bn of EU-produced goods including everything from aircraft and aircraft parts to cheese, wine and olives would be subject to tariffs.

Obviously, Britain doesn’t plan to be part of the EU for much longer but post-Brexit we will have to negotiate a trade deal with the US and tariffs will undoubtedly play a part.

Speaking about the latest round of tariffs, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire, said further escalation could “destroy” jobs across Europe.

He said there is “no greater threat to world growth”, adding: “It would mean that trade tariffs go up, fewer goods would circulate around the world and jobs in France and in Europe would be destroyed.”

What’s the bigger picture?

Even without the trade war, China-US relations have continued to deteriorate, with an uptick in tensions between the two countries over the South China Sea, Taiwan, human rights and China’s plan to re-create the old Silk Road, called the Belt and Road Initiative.