Hollywood, do us a simple favor and continue casting Henry Golding in everything. 

After making anybody with a pulse swoon over him in “Crazy Rich Asians,” Golding is set to make his first foray into the action genre with the G.I. Joe spinoff “Snake Eyes,” multipleoutlets report. 

The 32-year-old actor, who worked as a hairstylist and travel presenter before his breakout role in the Jon Chu-directed rom-com, will star as the titular mute ninja commando in the film helmed by “Divergent” director Robert Schwentke.

The fan-favorite character has been a mainstay in the G.I. Joe franchise and was previously played by Ray Park in 2009’s tepidly received but commercially successful “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra” and its 2013 sequel “G.I Joe: Retaliation.”

In previous iterations, the black-clad Snake Eyes never revealed his face or uttered a word, which seems a waste of Golding’s on-screen charisma, but we’re keeping our minds open. 

The spinoff, which will be penned by “Beauty and the Beast” screenwriter Evan Spiliotopoulos, will reportedly find the mercenary “seeking revenge for his father’s death by joining a ninja clan, in the process finding acceptance,” according to The Hollywood Reporter. 

The in-demand actor is keeping busy with his next leading role in the holiday rom-com “Last Christmas,” starring Emilia Clarke in her first post-“Game of Thrones” gig.

Golding will also be seen in the upcoming Guy Ritchie crime thriller “The Gentlemen” and is expected to reprise his character in the two planned “Crazy Rich Asians” sequels currently in development based on the novel’s follow-ups. 

And if the English actor looks as good in an action movie as he does in a tuxedo, maybe the internet will get its wish and make Golding the next James Bond. 

Superwoman has evolved. 

YouTuber and soon-to-be late-night host Lilly Singh announced in an Instagram post Tuesday that she’ll no longer be known as “Superwoman,” the moniker under which she rose to fame. 

Singh, who’s used the nickname for almost a decade, wrote in her post that when she initially chose it for her YouTube account, she didn’t think much of it. It just matched her MSN messenger screen name. 

“Based on a song by Lil Mo and Fabulous, I used to call myself Superwoman growing up because like any kid I wanted so badly to deal with life’s obstacles like a hero,” she explained in her post. “As I grew up, I held on to this belief that everyone could be their own superhero.”

Singh wrote that she hasn’t wavered from her philosophy. And though she understands that it’s been “heartwarming” to hear fans address her by her superhero name, she feels “even more empowered by the name Lilly.” 

“Lilly has become an even bigger hero than Superwoman on this journey through my life. Lilly encompasses everything it took to get to where I am... and it’s a place I’m proud to be.”

Officially shedding her old name, Singh concluded, “Today my biggest and best super powers lay within Lilly and thus Lilly I shall be.”

Over the past few months, Singh has experienced several watershed moments. The comedian came out as bisexual in February, announcing that she was “fully embracing” all her traits as superpowers. The next month, NBC announced that Singh would be taking over NBC late-night host Carson Daly’s time slot, making her the only female late-night host currently on a major broadcast network. 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his address on India’s 73rd Independence Day, referred to the abrogation of Article 370 and asserted that his government neither nurses problems nor keeps them pending. India, he said, is now one nation with one Constitution.

Even during his address to the nation on 8 August, three days after the government’s shock move to repeal Jammu & Kashmir’s special status, Modi had said that Article 370 and Article 35A have given nothing but secessionism, terrorism, nepotism and widespread corruption to the state. “After the removal of this flaw from the system, the people of Jammu and Kashmir will not only have a better present but also a bright future ahead.”

In an interview to IANS on Wednesday, he reiterated that “For years, intimidation ruled the roost. Let us now give development a chance.” He assured the people of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh that these regions will develop as per the wishes of the local people. 

For Modi, ‘development’ has become a refrain while talking about Jammu and Kashmir, and the government is at pains to make it seem like everyone in J&K is happy with the move. But media reports trickling in from the Valley, which is still under lockdown, paint a very different picture. Safwat Zargar’s reports for HuffPost India make it clear that the arbitrary, illegal detentions continue, and that protests are being dealt with violently, using pellet guns. With the communication blackout still in place, we are still to hear from ordinary Kashmiris themselves about what exactly is happening to them.  

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What Modi said about Jammu and Kashmir on August 15 2019:

“Our government does not delay decisions. We neither nurse problems nor keep them pending,” Modi said while referring to Article 370.

Previous governments made efforts in the past 70 years to deal with Kashmir, but it did not bear results, he said, adding “a new approach was needed”.

Within 70 days of the new Government, Article 370 has become history and 2/3rd members in both the Houses of Parliament supported this step, he added. 

The Prime Minister also said that Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh can contribute in a big way in India’s development. “We can return the region to its past glory.”

What Modi said last year:

In his Independence Day 2018 speech, Modi had said that the path shown by Atal Bihari Vajpayee is the right one. “We want to move ahead on that road. Vajpayeeji said Insaniyat, Jamhuriyat, Kashmiriyat (humanism, democracy, Kasmiriyat)–with these three basic elements we want to develop Jammu & Kashmir. Whether it is Ladakh or Jammu or Srinagar valley.”

“We want balanced development where an ordinary person’s aspirations are fulfilled, infrastructure is strengthened; we want to move ahead with brotherhood in our hearts. We do not want to move on the road of bullets and abuses, we want to move ahead with love and affection with the Kashmiri people who have stood with us in patriotic fervour.”

Meanwhile, what’s happening in Kashmir?

Since the government abrogated Article 370, the entire region has been under lockdown and communication services remain snapped. With the information blackout, we have had to depend on disparate news reports to find out what is going on in Kashmir. 

Some journalists told Al-Jazeera that the situation is “unprecedented” and that they are sending their stories and photographs through USB drives with people flying out of Kashmir. Local journalists are still unable to do their jobs properly, with no mobile or Internet to aid their work. A Newslaundry report says that in Srinagar, local journalists “often have to lie to get past paramilitary check-posts”. 

The government’s ‘All is Well’ claims are also at odds with stories published by some Indian media organisations, as well as foreign ones such as BBC and Reuters. While BBC and Al-Jazeera have released videos of demonstrations taking place in Srinagar, the government has dismissed them as “fabricated”.

Women’s rights activist Kavita Krishnan, who just returned from a five-day fact-finding mission from Kashmir, told HuffPost India’s Betwa Sharma that “people feel a complete sense of anger and betrayal. There is helplessness, frustration.”

She also said that children have been arrested in Kashmir. “They have been picked up from their homes in the middle of the night from their beds and they are held indefinitely, illegally, either in army camps or in police stations. They are being beaten up. Their parents have no way of ascertaining whether their children will disappear or be returned.” 

The decision to abrogate Article 370 has also claimed at least one civilian victim — a 17-year-old boy — in Srinagar, as HuffPost India had reported before. 

Government officials, as Safwat Zargar points out in this HuffPost India report, have refused to tell journalists how many people have been arrested or detained in Jammu and Kashmir after the revocation of Article 370. IAS officer-turned-politician Shah Faesal was detained in New Delhi on Wednesday without cause and taken to an undisclosed location. Meanwhile, three former Chief Ministers — Farooq Abdullah, Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti — continue to remain under detention.

Additional Director General Munir Khan on Wednesday said that while restrictions in Jammu have been lifted, they will continue for a while longer in some places in Kashmir.

Even the promises of investment and development in Kashmir have being questioned by Sheikh Ashiq, the president of the Kashmir Chamber of Commerce & Industry, who told HuffPost India’s Piyasree Dasgupta that Kashmir needs peace and assurance before jobs. 

“How will we prosper when the situation is very far from being normal in the state. We don’t have working landlines, internet and mobile phones and how can I explain how this will be good for any business?” he asked.

(With PTI inputs)

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PORT OF SPAIN — Captain Virat Kohli said the blow to his right thumb during India’s successful run chase against the West Indies in the third ODI has not resulted in a fracture and he “should be good” to play in the first Test starting on 22 August.

In the 27th over of India’s run chase, Kohli was hit on the right thumb by a Kemar Roach bouncer. The skipper was seen to be having some pain but after being attended to by the physio, he continued batting to lead India to a series-clinching six-wicket win. 

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“I don’t think it’s a fracture otherwise I wouldn’t have continued (batting). It’s just a split of the nail,” Kohli said at the post-match presentation ceremony on Wednesday.

Asked about the condition of his thumb at the post-match press conference, he said. “Luckily, it’s not broken. When I got hit I thought it was worse than what it turned out to be. But it’s not broken so I should be good for the first Test.”

Kohli hit 114 from 99 balls, his 43rd ODI century and second of the series after the 120 in the second match here, which guided India to a 59-run win under D/L method.

India won the three-match ODI series 2-0.

The first Test between the two sides begins on August 22 at North Sound.

“I have spoken on several matters, but what I have not said is also important,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said towards the end of his Independence Day address from the ramparts of Red Fort in New Delhi.  It may just have been the most accurate part of his speech.

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Here’s a bunch of things the prime minister left out his speech:

1. Kashmir

What he said: Modi hailed the scrapping of Article 370 and Article 35A, calling it “an important step in making Sardar Patel’s dreams come true.” He also expressed happiness over India finally having “one nation, one constitution”. 

“If Article 370 was so important, why it was not made permanent?” he asked.

What he left out: The Supreme Court had in 2018 said that Article 370 had permanent status. 

Kashmir is in its 11th day of communication blockade. At least 300 political leaders and workers (the numbers could be higher, but the government won’t confirm) have been arrested. People have been protesting the removal of special status for Jammu and Kashmir, though the government has again denied this. Reports have highlighted incidents of detentions, stone-pelting and use of pellet guns by security forces in the region.  

2. Laws passed

What he said: Modi hailed the passing of Triple Talaq and UAPA bill in the Parliament. “In the first 10 weeks of current government we have repealed 60 obsolete laws,” he said.

He also claimed that every day for the past 5 years, his government had removed at least one law that burdened the people.

What he left out: Bills moved by the government on Triple Talaq, terror and transgender rights have been criticised for criminalising Muslim men, for its potential for misuse against critics of the government, and for being violative of the rights of the transgender community, respectively. The RTI Amendment Bill, passed amid protests by the opposition, significantly weakens the landmark legislation that aimed to make the government more transparent and accountable to people. Opposition members have said the ruling party was railroading the passage of bills through Parliament without allowing for proper discussion. Only 26% of bills had been sent for scrutiny to House committees by the first Modi-led government. (The bill to remove Jammu and Kashmir’s statehood was moved and passed in two days.)

3. Children

What he said: “We can’t leave our children helpless. We have passed tough laws for their protection,” Modi said in reference to POCSO amendments. He also emphasised on the need to make sure “we do justice to the aspirations of our children” while talking about population explosion.

What he left out:Children are being detained in Kashmir, activist Kavita Krishnan said after her return from a fact-finding mission in the region. “They are being beaten up. Their parents have no way of ascertaining whether their children will disappear or be returned. There is no case that is registered, no FIR.”

HuffPost India’s ground report from Assam highlights the plight of children whose parents have been detained in camps as NRC is implemented in the state.

And that brings us to...

4. ...Assam NRC

What he said: Nothing. There was no mention of the NRC in Modi’s speech. The prime minister only said the northeast was beautiful and should become a tourist hub.

What he left out: The deadline for publication of the final NRC list is August 31. It is still not clear what the government plans to do with the lakhs of people who may just be stateless after that date.

The process of re-verification has led to panic among people in the state, The Wire reports, with many unsure whether the government’s direction complied with Supreme Court orders. The rush to travel to attend the re-verification hearings have led to multiple accidents and grievous injuries. 

A HuffPost India report also found that the BJP-led Assam government was building a biometric database of those excluded from the NRC with the help of the UIDAI. 

5. Environment

What he said: Modi asked farmers to reduce the use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides that destroyed the earth. “We don’t have the right to destroy Mother Earth,” he said. He also urged people to stop the use of single-use plastic.

Modi said the government would work on the Jal Jeevan Mission to improve access to water for every citizen. He added that the movement towards water conservation had to take place at the grassroots level.

What he left out: Any mention of climate change and the government’s efforts to address it. This is particularly ironic, given Modi appeared on Bear Grylls’ show three days ago to promote the conservation of the environment. In 2018, he was awarded UN’s highest honour for environmental action. Multiplereports have shown his government’s poor record on the environment and its roles in weakening India’s green laws.

Large parts of the country are currently battling unprecedented levels of flooding, and experts say it’s high time the government takes into account the impact of climate change on India’s weather patterns. But Modi’s own environment minister Prakash Javadekar has been reluctant to acknowledge this, saying at a recent event in Maharashtra that it would be “wrong and unscientific to attribute the current flood situation to climate change”. 

6. Economy

What he said: “We have controlled inflation and are working to increase development. The fundamentals of the economy are strong.” 

He said the government would invest Rs 100 lakh crore on modern infrastructure, which he said will contribute to increasing employment.

He also urged the consumption of local products to improve rural economy and the MSME sector.

What he left out: The auto industry is facing its worst crisis in decades, with over 3.5 lakh people laid off in four months. Maruti Suzuki’s chairman RC Bhargava said he expects the prime minister and finance minister to directly intervene to fix the crisis, but it may not be that easy. Economist Jayati Ghosh has said low inflation rates could be another symptom of India’s economic slowdown. Multiple factors point to a slowdown in economic activity and hence, GDP growth.

The RBI has revised India’s GDP growth for 2019-20 downward to 6.9% from 7%. Meanwhile, economists have said they do not trust the numbers being put out by the government and are creating their own benchmarks.

It didn’t end well for Emilia Clarke’s Daenerys Targaryen in “Game of Thrones,” but the actress is on to a new gig now.

A trailer just dropped for her first project since the epic HBO series concluded in May, and she’s no queen. In “Last Christmas,” she’s a saleswoman at a London Christmas store who nearly died from a life-threatening illness. (Clarke in real life had two aneurysms during “Game of Thrones.”)

In a preview for the rom-com due out Nov. 8, her Kate meets hunky dude Tom (Henry Golding from “Crazy Rich Asians”), and she gets many chances to show her comedic chops in an elf costume. Michelle Yeoh (also from “Crazy Rich Asians”) co-stars.

Emma Thompson, who wrote the script, pops in as Clarke’s mother.

Kate drinks too much and gets a bird turd splattered in her eye.

The film looks likes sweet holiday candy ― and we’re craving some.

A teenager whose phone was confiscated by her mum has managed to go viral after tweeting from, of all things, a fridge.

The 15-year-old runs an Ariana Grande fan account and was concerned, after her electronics were taken away, that she would lose followers. 

(The reason for the confiscation? Getting too distracted by devices while cooking and starting a fire, the Guardian reported.

She first managed to get on to Twitter on a Nintendo DS, but was busted by her ever-vigilant mum.

She then managed to do it from a Wii U using its Image Share function…

Then, eventually, ended up using the family’s LG Smart Fridge. All of the source labels – the bit at the bottom of a tweet that tells you where it was tweeted from – check out.

Yes. You can tweet from a fridge now.

What a bizarre future we live in. Because smart fridges themselves are a bit silly, aren’t they – using the bar codes and expiry dates of product to let you know when you’re running low on something or you need to throw food out.

Clever in theory, but… expiry dates are just suggestions anyway. They’re a massive contributor to food wastage, and cost consumers loads of money. Smelling, feeling and generally examining your food is a much better indicator.

[Read More: How To Tell If An Egg Is Fresh – We Bin 720 Million A Year]

Not everything has a bar code. If you buy loose products, your smart fridge won’t know what they are. What about leftovers, or a cake you’ve made, or products from a multipack sold by a lawbreaking off-licence employee? What if you’re deliberately letting bananas get overripe so you can make banana bread out of them, or keeping bread in there make it stale enough for French Toast? That overpriced artisan kombucha is surely going to be off grid.

Fridges are just one of the many products that arguably don’t need to be online but have ended up internet-enabled anyway. We’re bombarded with “smart” versions of things that were just fine – water coolers, blenders, kettles...

There’s a great Twitter account called Internet Of Shit that collects these things. Anyone want a smart fork? That’s a SMART FORK. 

I’d suggest this fork is smarter than the person paying for it

We still don’t have flying cars, millions of people die from preventable diseases, we’re destroying the planet at an alarming rate, but we’re dedicated to solving problems that don’t exist.

Tweeting from a fridge? Well done, Dorothy, but god damn it.

It’s long been said that an apple a day keeps the doctor away – but you should add a cup of tea, some broccoli, a handful of blueberries and an orange to that, because a new study suggests these foods will make you live longer. 

The somewhat unusual combination provides a high daily dose of flavonoids, which are naturally-occurring compounds found in some food and drink.

The latest research, from Edith Cowan University in Australia, suggests consuming a high amount of flavonoids each day protects against heart disease and cancer, therefore lowering a person’s overall risk of death. 

Researchers from ECU’s School of Medical and Health Sciences analysed the diets of more than 53,000 people over 23 years and found those who regularly consumed “moderate to high” amounts of flavonoid-rich foods were less likely to die from cancer or heart disease than others. 

[Read More: 5 Small Diet Changes To Make For The Sake Of The Environment]

The study found a lower risk of death in all who ate flavonoid-rich foods, but the protective effect appeared to be strongest for those at high risk of chronic diseases due to cigarette smoking and those who drank more than two standard alcoholic drinks a day.

Participants consuming about 500mg of total flavonoids each day had the lowest risk of a cancer or heart disease-related death.

“It’s important to consume a variety of different flavonoid compounds found in different plant based food and drink,” lead researcher Dr Nicola Bondonno said. 

“This is easily achievable through the diet: one cup of tea, one apple, one orange, 100g of blueberries, and 100g of broccoli would provide a wide range of flavonoid compounds and over 500mg of total flavonoids”.

 While the research established an association between flavonoid consumption and lower risk of death, why this happens is still unclear, Dr Bondonno said.

“Alcohol consumption and smoking both increase inflammation and damage blood vessels, which can increase the risk of a range of diseases,” she explained. “Flavonoids have been shown to be anti-inflammatory and improve blood vessel function, which may explain why they are associated with a lower risk of death from heart disease and cancer.”

Additional research is needed to look more closely at which types of heart disease and cancers were most protected by flavonoids, the researchers said.

But until then, it won’t hurt to add a tea-fruit-salad-broccoli combo to your shopping list. 

LONDON — Cricket could be part of the 2028 Olympics as the ICC is working towards getting the sport included in the roster for the Los Angeles Games, MCC World Cricket Committee chairman Mike Gatting said.

The BCCI recently coming under the ambit of National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA), an affiliate of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), could be key to the final outcome as it is mandatory for all sporting federations’ doping policy to be overseen by the premier body.

Former England batsman Gatting said ICC’s new chief executive Manu Sawhney told the MCC’s Cricket Committee that progress had been made to ensure the game’s inclusion in the world’s biggest sporting event.

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“We were talking with Manu Sawhney the ICC chief executive, and he was very hopeful we can get cricket into the 2028 Olympics,” Gatting was quoted as saying by ESPNcricinfo.

“That’s what they’re working towards at the moment and that would be a huge bonus for cricket worldwide, it would be fantastic.”

In the beginning of this year, batting legend Sachin Tendulkar also batted for cricket to be included in the Olympic Games.

Gatting said, “It’s two weeks, that’s a good thing about it, it’s not a month, so it’s one of those (events) where scheduling for two weeks should be fine once every four years once you do the first one.

“You’re going to have — one hopes — a four-year period, once you know you’ve been accepted into the Olympics, that gives you a chance to actually shape your two weeks, so it’s not as if it is butted into the schedule. 

“I think the next 18 months will be very interesting as to how we do that. One of the problems has been negated, where the BCCI is now working with NADA, the drugs agency, which it wasn’t previously a part of.

“That will help a long way towards the sport being whole, which is what we need it to be to apply for the Olympics, both men and women to play and all countries to comply,” he said.

Women’s cricket was recently inducted in the 2022 Commonwealth Games roster.

Nintendo’s hybrid console is not available officially in India since the company isn’t present here like Sony and Microsoft are. That hasn’t stopped specialist game stores and enterprising merchants from importing the hardware and accessories on their own. Despite not having an official presence, Nintendo hardware and first-party software is in a much better position in the country as compared to the Xbox One. The Nintendo Switch Lite releases next month and the upgraded Nintendo Switch with much better battery life has started showing up on store shelves across the world. While there already are people buying a Nintendo Switch each day in India, new hardware will always see more people jump into an ecosystem. If you’ve bought a Nintendo Switch recently or plan on getting the Nintendo Switch Lite or upgraded Nintendo Switch in the future, this set of games is for you.

The best five games to buy for your Nintendo Switch in 2019

Super Mario Odyssey

While most people were blown away by The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild in the Nintendo Switch’s first year, Super Mario Odyssey is a lot more consistent in its quality. Barring some visual issues, Super Mario Odyssey is just about the best Nintendo game you can play on the Nintendo Switch both alone and with a friend in co-op. It has superlative level design, excellent music, and a ton of replay value with loads of secrets spread across the plethora of levels. Super Mario Odyssey is a must have game on Nintendo Switch.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild isn’t a perfect game at all. Despite the annoyances with some of the later story segments and the weapon durability initially in the game, it remains an essential purchase on Nintendo Switch with the freedom it offers during exploration and the amazing interactions between all the gameplay systems. You aren’t going to play this game for a fantastic story because it lacks one but the core gameplay and puzzles are remarkable and well worth your time. It also suits portable play brilliantly and looks great in handheld mode.

Splatoon 2

A lot of people are a bit uncertain on Splatoon 2 in 2019 since the last major update for it recently arrived. Despite some uncertainty on future content, Splatoon 2 is has a great single player mode, superb online modes, and only really falters with how it handles disconnections. It is one of the most polished multiplayer experiences available on the system and one that will keep you entertained for a long time with tons of weapon and gear options and a massive paid expansion if you crave more solo content.

Fire Emblem: Three Houses

I know Fire Emblem: Three Houses only just released, but it manages to do a lot very well and surpass even the best recent Fire Emblem games. Instead of just using the base of the Nintendo 3DS entries, Fire Emblem: Three Houses borrows from the likes of Trails of Cold Steel and Persona to create a massive cast of characters that complement each other brilliantly across the non-battle aspects of the game. The battles are excellent tactical encounters that keep you on your toes at all times. It also helps that the developers for this game have added multiple difficulty options to ensure all kinds of players can have a ton of fun while putting in dozens of hours into the four varied story paths available here.

Dragon Ball FighterZ

Specialist retailer Games The Shop just announced a Freedom Sale that has pre-orders on multiple games discounted. With this sale, you can save Rs. 350 by using the code ‘FREEDOM’ at checkout online or in store. If you’d like to take advantage of this offer in store, you can view a list of Games The Shop store locations here. One thing to note is that you will need to place individual orders to get the discount on each item that is eligible for the sale. This is also only valid on prepaid orders.

Games The Shop Freedom Sale end date

The Games The Shop Freedom Sale is valid from August 13 till August 18 in store and online.

Games The Shop Freedom Sale Japanese game discounts

• Final Fantasy VII Remake for PS4 – Rs. 3649

• Death Stranding for PS4 – Rs. 3649

• Code Vein for PS4 – Rs. 3149

• Code Vein for Xbox One – Rs. 3149

• Monster Hunter World: Iceborne Master Edition for PS4 – Rs. 3149

• eFootball PES 2020 for Xbox One – Rs. 3149

• eFootball PES 2020 for PS4 – Rs. 3149

The complete list of games that are eligible for the promotion is here.

The Mako Reactor is your one-stop destination for everything Japanese gaming in India.

AHMEDABAD, Gujarat—Your phone is the most personal piece of tech you own. It holds your private chats, knows where you are and have been, tracks your every Internet move, and is equipped with multiple microphones as well as cameras. So when an app asks for a permission that grants it an all-access pass to one of your phone’s sensitive data modules, it’s wise to tread cautiously. 

But on Android, which still features a lax set of design guidelines and ambiguous permissions, it’s difficult for users to gauge an app’s data request. 

Take Paytm, for instance. Say you are installing its app for the first time to pay an electricity bill or recharge a phone number. As soon as you launch the app, you’re presented with three consecutive permission prompts asking whether it should be allowed to make and manage phone calls, read your contacts, and send as well as view SMS messages. Then you select your preferred language, and again, a pop-up interrupts you with a local media access permission, before you can start using the app.

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Paytm didn’t tell you ‘why’ it wanted those permissions. Even though Paytm likely wants SMS access for OTP auto-verification, you are handing over a key to all of your existing and future texts to the app, while you’ll only use the OTP once, when you first log in. It’s the same story for most apps on Android.

Paytm has no reported history of data misuse. But the consequences of not taking care of app permissions can be quite serious. Over a month ago, it was found that an app that streamed devotional songs was covertly harvesting sensitive user data for building credit ratings. 

Truecaller, a few weeks before, accidentally signed up over 100,000 users for its digital payments service by automatically sending a text message. By granting it SMS access, users enabled the Truecaller app to send messages on their behalf. 

Another major permissions mishap happened last year when a report brought to light that Facebook has been scraping Android users’ phones for collecting call history and SMS data. It was an optional feature for “improving the friend recommendation algorithms”.

Facebook pitched the prompt as a harmless feature and failed to explicitly highlight it will be storing all that information permanently on its servers.  

Several popular apps on Android demand an exorbitant amount of permissions at boot. Reliance Jio’s MyJio is one such app and asks a staggering six permissions including access to call logs. 

Since none of the permissions are technically required, these designs are also against what Google hoped to achieve by bringing dynamic permissions to Android four years ago. On Android versions before 6.0, users were forced to accept all the permissions before the app was even installed. Google put an end to this by adding runtime requests that allowed developers to ask for permissions only when it was essential for a feature. But four years later, apps are still running wild.

Google is partly at fault here as well. Android still has a range of fundamental shortcomings that enable app developers to easily exploit users’ security. For instance, if a developer wants an app to automatically verify one-time passcodes as soon as the message arrives, they have no option other than to grant it access to your SMSes.

In contrast, iOS doesn’t have a third-party SMS permission at all. Instead, for OTP auto-verification, iOS itself stays on the lookout for OTP messages, copies the code whenever it detects one, and adds an option in the virtual keyboard. 

Android apps are occasionally packaged with irrelevant permissions too. Paytm features a Body Sensors permission. HDFC Bank’s app has a microphone permission. However both Paytm and HDFC Bank declined to comment about these permissions. 

“In the case of activity recognition permission they are meant for tracking physical activity via built in sensors. This could be misused for third party to most likely deliver targeted ads. Free apps often comes with a price which is losing a little bit of privacy here and there”, Lukas Stefanko, Malware and Security Researcher at ESET. 

In a few instances, however, permissions that may seem unrelated do exist for a reason. Ixigo Trains, an app for booking as well as tracking trains in India, comes with a Physical Activity permission. Ixigo says “it was introduced as a part of Ixigo’s live running status feature which ensures that travellers know exactly where their train has reached in real-time. The ‘Physical Activity Module’ through the user’s handset helps figure out if the train is stationary or moving.”

So why do apps request so many permissions even when they clearly don’t need them? 

Many of the times when apps are asking for permissions that don’t appear to be related to the features they’re providing, it’s because the permission is actually needed for advertising. If an app doesn’t have any location-based features, it might still end up including the GPS permission solely because it wants to show ads that are specifically relevant to you and where you are.

One of the more popular advertising companies, One by AOL, recommends including a myriad of permissions such as microphone and Bluetooth access in its starter documentation.  

With millions of services tussling for your attention, a developer also needs to ensure it’s doing everything to keep you from leaving. That’s where engagement trackers come in.

When you launch Hotstar, it immediately initializes a Facebook tracker, an ad service called Moatads (which has been categorized as malware), a marketing analytics platform Appsflyer, an app engagement platform owned by CleverTap, and more. 

“This is the case with many types of aggressive adware that we discover. Many of them have more than five ad SDKs integrated in their code, where each SDK has its own needs in terms of permissions. For this purpose, many apps request many permissions, many of which are required for ad purposes only.” stated Nikolaos Chrysaidos, Head of Mobile Threat Intelligence and Security at Avast. 

Adding to the complex nature of the problem, a study revealed that if two unrelated apps come embedded with the same analytics SDK, they both can feed off of each other’s permissions. If app A has the location permission and B doesn’t, and both use the same SDK, there’s a chance B can still go ahead and collect your GPS data, because the common SDK is dumping the data in a shared storage space on your phone. 

Most of these loopholes are expected to be resolved on Android’s next major release, Q. But if history is any indication, the majority of Android phones will never receive that update. A measly 10% of Android users today are on the 9.0 build, an update Google rolled out a year ago. About a quarter of Android users use a version below 6.0 and don’t have access to dynamic permissions. 

“The open nature of Android, and the large number of users still using really old versions of Android makes this an impossible problem to solve,” commented Abhay Rana, a software developer at Razorpay. 

Game Of Thrones star Sophie Turner has doubled down on her comments about the backlash to the final series of the show, claiming she is “entitled” to feel “defensive”. 

The last season of the hit fantasy series proved to be highly divisive among fans, with over a million of them signing a petition to have it remade with “more competent writers”. 

After previously hitting out at the petition, Sophie has now explained why she feels so strongly about defending the show’s conclusion. 

Speaking to The Wrap, the Sansa Stark actress said: “The fans are incredible and so loyal, and we love them because of the fact that they’re so, so passionate. I cannot fault them there.

“But when people were saying that there was no effort, that the writers were terrible … The most effort was put into this final season. We were shooting for an incredibly long time, nearly 11 months. We did the most night shoots anyone has done ever, I think.

“I felt a little defensive, and I think I’m entitled to feel like that.”

The controversial petition was set up after the penultimate episode, which saw Daenerys’ decision to torch the city of King’s Landing, along with the innocent people in it, with many fans claiming it was a betrayal of her character.

Arya and Gendry’s romance was also a topic of debate, as was the decision to kill Cersei and Jaime Lannister with a load of falling rubble.  

Addressing it previously, Sophie called the petition “disrespectful”, although admitted she found it unsurprising. 

“People always have an idea in their heads of how they want a show to finish, and so when it doesn’t go to their liking, they start to speak up about it and rebel,” she told The New York Times.

“It’s a shock for sure, but I think it’s just because it hasn’t gone their way.

“So many people worked so, so hard on it, and for people to just rubbish it because it’s not what they want to see is just disrespectful.”

Sophie’s comments were echoed by other cast members, including Bran Stark actor Isaac Hempstead Wright who called the petition “ridiculous” and “absurd”, while Jacob Anderson – aka Grey Worm – branded it “insulting”.

Game Of Thrones bosses recently addressed the Change.org petition, with the president of HBO – the network on which the show aired in the US – claiming that remaking the final series is “not something we seriously considered”.

Kourtney Kardashian loves her “little stripes” and so do her fans.

Earlier this week, the eldest Kardashian sister shared a snapshot of herself in a bathing suit on the Instagram account for her lifestyle brand, Poosh. Fans quickly noticed something: She hadn’t edited out her stretch marks.

Considering the stars of “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” often post carefully crafted images on their social media pages, it’s notable that the 40-year-old didn’t FaceTune the marks out.

“Thank you so much for not editing out your stretch marks!!” said one commenter, which led Kardashian to respond, writing that she loves “my little stripes.” 

Here’s what some other users had to say:

While the move to show off her body in its natural state is great, Poosh hasn’t been totally well received since its launch earlier this year.

We all have that friend on social media: The one who can’t go a day without checking in at the gym (Day 432 ― yep, they’re still at it! #nodaysoff).

The one that can’t pass up sharing the umpteenth #tbt photo of their wedding (#takemeback).

The one whose Instagram stories are 43 slides long. (And uh oh, they went to a concert last night, so be prepared for some blurry, loud-as-hell footage of that lo-fi rock band you loved in college.)

The one who virtue signals every chance they get. The one whose whole feed is selfies. (You love their face, but at this point, you’re kind of sick of seeing it.) 

Sometimes, this is all the same person. Ugh.

In the social media age, every one of us is a content machine. It’s not just influencers who do it; we’re all our own personal brand, strategically revealing bite-sized parts of our lives and personality that, in the aggregate, look really, really impressive (or at least seem so). 

Unfortunately, sometimes our friends’ online selves aren’t nearly as lovable as they are in person. What do you do when you adore your friend IRL, but find them a little bit obnoxious online? 

Lest you think I’m sub-writing (or whatever the journalistic equivalent of subtweeting is), I wouldn’t be sharing this if I didn’t fear I was becoming that friend: Am I over-posting my articles on my Instagram story, when maybe I should just keep the work-related stuff to Twitter? Posting too many food pics?

I was even one of those Grainy Concert Video People last week, sharing a few zoomed-in clips of Elvis Costello performing deep cuts at the Greek Theatre on Instagram. (“Very niche flex but OK,” an internet friend replied, which, yes, ouch, accurate.) 

Sam Higgins, a comedian in Brooklyn, has been on both sides of this admittedly first world, Seinfeldian problem, too: “I post and then my inner monologue goes, ’What if no one actually cares?’” he said. 

When he’s on the other side of it, he takes full advantage of the “mute” buttons on Twitter and Instagram. 

“I mute but I like to think of it in the same light as avoiding bringing up irreparable climate change at a wholesome family event ― good for everyone involved,” he joked. (How many friendships do you think the mute button has saved?)

Ryan, a 27-year-old who works in communication in Chicago, avoids Facebook altogether because of the things his family and friends post. He considers the site the “epicenter” for his “least favorite kind of content.”

“It’s hard to put into words, but Facebook is like a steady stream of the least self-aware content on the internet,” he said. “Emotionally manipulative, long political screeds, incessant FOMO pictures. The worst part is, considering I know most of my network IRL, I can’t unfriend them.”

If we’re all semi-aware of how annoying we can be online, why are we still posting what we do?

We’re social animals. Sharing on social media doesn’t just allow us to package ourselves in a way that shows off our best, most “likable” angles, it bonds us, too. 

We like the performative nature of social media ― that with each carefully composed food pic or vacation photo, we have a say in how people perceive us ― and we like watching others document their lives and self-create, too.

As Danah Boyd, a principal researcher at Microsoft, wrote in 2009, it’s not much different than how our parents and grandparents would bring out photo albums when friends were over. We just took that inclination and ran roughshod with it.

“We know that there is the notion of Too Much,” she said. “There are only so many baby photos you can see of a baby that’s not related to you before you scream Too Much. There are only so many home videos that you can see until you scream Too Much. And there are only so many vacation photos you can see until you scream Too Much.” 

The problem is, “Too Much” is relative. Your friend who’s a new mom might think her near-weekly #unfiltered photos of motherhood are a breath of fresh air, while you think they’re a little attention-seeking. Your cousin’s 34 hashtags on his ab-baring thirst trap might bring in the followers and rows of fire emojis, but it also gives you secondhand embarrassment.

As a good friend, you “like,” anyway. And since most of us feel obligated to “like” everything our inner circles post, there’s really no way to know if you yourself have crossed into Too Much territory. 

“That’s the thing,” Florida-based psychotherapist Amy Morin told HuffPost. “When we initially post about something, we get positive reinforcement through likes, comments and shares. That sends the message to us that people enjoy what they see and it signals our brains to keep sharing.”

Unlike our grandparents showing off their photo albums, we’re not privy to the “eye rolls and head shakes people give our photos when we post too much.” 

And unlike our grandparents’ day, in some industries, hustling on social media is essential if you want to make a dent. If your friend is self-employed, freelancing or otherwise trying to make a name for themselves in a field where online networking is expected (entertainment, tech, journalism, even researchers and professors at universities), they’re expected to share their work to some extent.

Given that, if your pal is gearing up for a book launch and posting about it every other hour, you might consider (lovingly! kindly!) muting them for a bit. Or grin and bear it, like Eli Savage, an artist and college student in Pennsylvania, tries to do. 

When his friends in arts-adjacent fields get intense with the self-promotion, he stays supportive. If their attitude starts to bleed into their actual offline interactions, though, he’s out. 

“Sometimes, people start to think self-promotion is acceptable to any extent and in any form and in any place,” he said. “In one instance, I just cut my losses and stopped being friends with the person, because I was starting to get the sense that their willingness to hang around me was entirely dependent on what I could do for their brand as an artist.”

Ultimately, that might be a solid test for dealing with your oversharing friend: Does it impact your real-life dealings with them? If not, live and let live and move on. 

If you’re wondering if you might be the offending party, balance your more self-involved postings with content people are genuinely interested in. A 2016 study on social media etiquette suggested it’s not open-book authenticity we value most in who we follow, it’s a person’s ability to contribute something to cultural conversations. In other words, your friend would rather hear your thoughts on the new season of “Stranger Things” than the strange thing your toddler did yesterday. 

“Most people would rather that someone post about how they’re sad they have to wait a whole week for the next ‘Game of Thrones’ episode than post about how they’re sad about being romantically rejected,” said Hannah Schacter, an assistant professor of psychology at Wayne State University in Detroit and one of the study’s co-authors. (Thanks for revealing how cold-hearted we are, social science.)

Post more about TV shows and other cultural phenomenon, and recognize that the performance of our online selves isn’t the complete picture. As New Yorker writer Jia Tolentino has said, in real life, there’s a performance and then a backstage — but the internet doesn’t have a backstage area. Even in 2019, there are certain things we keep hidden. 

“The internet wants us to be attached to it all the time, but plenty of us are like, ‘Well, I refuse to do that,’” Tolentino told Longreads recently. “Plenty of us still do have a backstage that we have insisted on in our personal lives, which is kind of heartening.”

When your friends get a bit obnoxious online, relish that you’re one of the few people that has access to their true selves, their backstage. You get to see the moments that aren’t polished and Facetuned for their social feed: their laughs that give way to snorts, the shitty moments in their lives that balance out the “I have some personal news...” braggy posts about their careers.

All this being said? By all means, skip through their crappy concert videos on Instagram. You’re their friend, not a saint, and no one wants to watch those.

A 26-year-old journalist working with Kashmir’s largest English daily, Greater Kashmir, was picked up by security forces from his home during a midnight raid on Wednesday, his family said.

Irfan Amin Malik, a resident of south Kashmir’s Tral town, reports from the volatile militant hotbed of south Kashmir’s Pulwama district for the newspaper.

Kashmir has witnessed a massive crackdown on mainstream political leaders since the abrogation of Article 370 and the bifurcation of the state into two Union territories. However, this is the first reported instance since then of a journalist being detained.

Authorities have refused to put a precise figure to the number of politicians, trade unionists, lawyers, rights activists and civilians arrested, detained, or placed under house arrest since August 5.

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According to Malik’s family, a group of armed soldiers “wearing black bandanas” arrived at their house in Tral at around 11:30pm on Wednesday. 

“We don’t know whether it was police or army. But the way they carried out the raid, it looked like they had come to arrest some big militant,” Haseena, Malik’s mother, told HuffPost India.

On Thursday morning, the family found that Malik was detained at the Tral police station.

“Officials at the police station said they have no information about the reason behind Irfan’s detention,” said Malik’s father, Mohammad Amin Malik, a government employee.

Haseena said she was allowed to meet her son inside the police station. “He was not inside any lockup but was taking a stroll inside the garden of the police station. He said he was not mistreated by the police but was nervous about why was he kept under custody,” she said.

The family then visited the office of Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), Awantipora, Tahir Saleem. 

“He asked us whether Irfan has done any reporting. We told him that he hasn’t been doing any work since the lockdown…we assured him that he has not done any mistake. After that, he left for police station Tral. We were expecting that he (SSP) might have told officials (there) to allow Irfan to go home but when we reached there, the officials there said that SSP didn’t tell them anything in that regard,” said Malik’s father.

With the communication blockade across Kashmir valley continuing on the 11th consecutive day, the news of Malik’s arrest became public only on Thursday afternoon when his family reached the media facilitation centre set up by the government for daily briefing of journalists in Srinagar.

The family had also travelled to the newspaper’s office in Srinagar’s Press Colony, but it was shut due to the ongoing Eid holidays.

When contacted, Awantipora SSP Saleem said he has “no information” about Malik’s arrest. However, he acknowledged that the scribe’s family met him on Thursday.

“I have no information so far. The family met me but I am assessing what actually happened,” he said.

During the media briefing on Thursday, J&K government spokesman Rohit Kansal said he was informed about the detention “just now”. “We are collecting all the details about it and we’ll revert to you as soon as possible,” he said.

A post graduate in Mass Communication from Islamic University of Science and Technology (IUST), Awantipora, Malik started working for Greater Kashmir in 2016. “He’s a meritorious student and was awarded a gold medal by the university,” Haseena said.

In early July, before the abrogation of Article 370, Greater Kashmir’s editor-in-chief Fayaz Ahmad Kaloo and printer publisher Rashid Makhdoomi were summoned by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in early July. While the investigation agency didn’t officially state any reason behind their summoning, reports said that Kaloo and Makdhoomi were grilled by the agency for a week. The central agency also questioned the owner and editor of another Srinagar-based English daily Kashmir Reader.

In one of the most heartbreaking moments (there are quite a few) from the new season of Sacred Games, a Muslim police officer is talked down by his senior after he takes a quick break to read namaaz.

Later on, at his residence, he and his wife speak about the incident and also about not finding flats in Mumbai, even entertaining the idea of settling in a far-flung ghetto.

As they sit in silent submission, there isn’t anger or raging fury on their faces, there’s muted frustration, helplessness and overwhelming agony. It’s a moment that, one imagines, is indicative of the current psyche of Indian Muslims, who have been pushed to the peripheries, as leaders from India’s ruling Hindu nationalist party continue to make communally-divisive comments and hate crimes directed at the community see a sharp spike under the current regime.

Based on the novel by Vikram Chandra, Sacred Games 2 dropped on Netflix this Thursday. Hindi cinema’s enfant terrible terrible Anurag Kashyap returns to direct Ganesh Gaitonde’s track (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) while Vikramaditya Motwane is replaced by Masaan’s Neeraj Ghaywan to helm Saif Ali Khan’s storyline in the new season.

As moody as it’s melancholic, as introspective as it is philosophical, Sacred Games 2 sets off on an exploratory voyage where cops and gangsters battle ideas of existentialism and the karmic burden of murder even as the perilous subversion of religion and spirituality continues to feed an ideological project.

If you are expecting a nail-biting, edge of the seat thriller, Season 2 isn’t it. Instead, it’s more of the same. The results are mixed. The show, especially the first four episodes, demand patience and attentiveness. I saw the season twice over and it’s more satisfying to watch it the second time as one discovers easter eggs that are generously strewn all over the initial episodes.

Kashyap and Ghaywan, along with writers Varun Grover, Dhruv Narang, Nihit Bhave and Pooja Tolani, lay down the blueprint that’d eventually make Gaitonde and Sartaj’s tracks intersect within the first few minutes of episode 1. The idea is to pay excessive attention to detail and timelines. While Sartaj’s track chronicles his present-day efforts to contain a potential nuclear attack on Bombay (which I read as a metaphor for the city’s traffic woes), Gaitonde’s track is about his missing years - what happened to him when he flirted with international waters before ultimately returning to his lone lover, Bombay, and submitted himself to its fatal charms.

Sartaj Singh, along with Aamir Bashir’s Majid unravel the underworld links that threaten to cripple Bombay while Singh is simultaneously driven to untangle connections between the Aashram, led by an Osho-like Guruji (Pankaj Tripathi) and the impending attack on Mumbai. In fact, the Aashram track in Sacred Games 2 is quite similar to Netflix’s Osho documentary Wild Wild Country with Kalki Koechlin’s Batya Abelman appearing as a proxy of Ma Anand Sheela.

It appears that the writers have worked on fixing the problem of not having substantial, well-rounded characters essayed by women. Amruta Subhash, who plays a RAW agent, is central to this season’s plot while Surveen Chawla’s Jojo Mascarenas and Koechlin’s Batya all have well-fleshed out roles with complex backstories that instruct their emotional pathways in the present.

Gaitonde’s infatuation with Mascarenas is pivotal to his self-discovery but it’s his dangerous dalliance with Bombay that ultimately determines his fate. Locked away in Mombasa in Kenya, the only way for him to assuage his grief of being robbed of the sights and sounds of his muse is to slide back in her arms. Bombay, unlike the shadowy characters he meets on his way, doesn’t betray. While Siddiqui’s transition into the abyss of spirituality is compellingly chronicled, his meteoric rise is Kenya is established simplistically without any real obstacles. His hatred for Suleiman Isa, too, seems like a creative blindspot as it doesn’t reach anywhere conclusively. The writing here could be sharper.

On the other end of the moral spectrum is Sartaj Singh. Haunted by his past, broken by his present, and uncertain of his future, he is on a downward spiral and gets sucked into a world of spiritual terrorism. It’s appropriate then that the hallucinatory drug that triggers agonising moments of unbearable truth in thee show is a transparent red pill (a nod to the Matrix?)

Despite belonging to the other extremes, Sartaj and Gaitonde, the show eventually argues, are more similar than they’d like to believe. Gaitonde is a voice in Sartaj’s head, Guruji is a voice in Gaitonde’s head. The voices give the characters and by extension, the show an inward, interrogative gaze, confronting the viewers to look beyond the cheap gratification of a cat-and-mouse police procedural and uncover its psychical world. Both characters suffer tremendous mental trauma and are unable to reconcile with their past. Their distance of time and space is aesthetically merged when they take the pill and confront their inner demons. Both are tied by their shared quest for escape, atonement and purpose.

“What’s there to save in this world?” is an oft-repeated line in the show which culminates with an unlikely moral awakening, one that a city devoid of humanity badly seeks but perhaps doesn’t deserve.

The show’s pace, handled with great precision by editor Aarti Bajaj, kicks in towards the fifth episode when the show’s central idea, of the horrors of religious fundamentalism masking itself under faux ideas of salvation and fulfilment, comes into sharp focus.

Though it makes a solitary reference to the lynchings of minorities, Sacred Games 2 treads a relatively safe political territory as compared to its predecessor. While the Aashram may’ve parallels with several outfits - both overt and covert - that project peace but enable Hindu terrorism, it’s offset by an equally sinister depiction of Islamic extremists.

“Religion is business, War is business,” Gurujee, a reliably good Pankaj Tripathi, declares. His smile, a sign of quiet composure to his followers, reveals his own joy at deceiving the world. And Tripathi is outstanding in feeding off this power play.

Swapnil Sonawane and Sylvester Fonseca’s darkly-lit, melancholic frames carry ample hues of tungsten yellow and soft blues capturing Bombay in all its poetic sadness with the gentle amber of the night illuminating the haunting darkness of both, Sartaj and Gaitonde’s lives. The distinct colour palette of the two stories blends seamlessly towards the end as their tracks begin to melt into one another and become one whole, reinforcing Aham Brahmasmi, the philosophical chant repeated by members of the Aashram.

In any other show, the spiritual mumbo jumbo would’ve appeared pretentious and vain but delivering what is undoubtedly his career’s greatest performance, Nawazuddin Siddiqui holds it together with unshakeable conviction, his eyes gleaming with such magnetic intensity, it’s hard to look away from him. Khan, on the other hand, is subdued and understated, internalising his pain and rationing his anger, only allowing the bare minimum to reach the surface.

In an ensemble where every character delivers their best and gets a closure (or a sense of it), it’s sad to see Amruta Subhash’s Kusum Yadav (a key character performed with delicious subtlety by the Marathi actor) just disappear into oblivion towards the end.

But despite these shortcomings, the sophomore season of Netflix’s beloved show is a delectable slow burn with dramatic philosophical undercurrents.

At a time when bigotry and religious indoctrination has been insidiously mainstreamed, Sacred Games 2 is as instructive as it is enjoyable, a timely drama that critiques blind devotion to kurta-wearing men spewing poisonous rhetoric, all under the garb of spiritual nourishment. Sounds eerily familiar.

The Supreme Court will on Friday hear a petition relating to the crisis in Kashmir that began over 10 days ago. One petition challenges the centre’s decision to scrap provisions of Article 370, while another, by Kashmir Times editor Anuradha Bhasin, seeks the removal of restrictions on the media in Jammu and Kashmir.

The Supreme Court had on Tuesday refused to interfere with the centre and the Jammu and Kashmir government imposing restrictions, including the shutdown of communication services, after the abrogation of Article 370, saying that “reasonable time” should be given to authorities to ensure normalcy as the “situation is very sensitive”. 

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What are the petitions?

Pleas challenging scrapping of Article 370

On Friday, a three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi will hear ML Sharma’s petition, which challenges the August 5 Presidential order through which Article 367 was amended, making Article 370 redundant, Bar&Bench reported.

After the order, home minister Amit Shah told the Parliament that Centre had decided to abrogate Article 370 and divide the state of Jammu and Kashmir into two Union Territories. A Bill and resolution to this effect were passed in both Houses of the Parliament within two days.

The advocate in his plea has claimed that the presidential order was illegal since it was passed without the consent of the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly.

Plea by Kashmir Times editor Anuradha Bhasin

Restriction and a communication shutdown have been imposed on Kashmir since the intervening night of August 4-5.

Journalist Anuradha Bhasin has asked for the restoration of all modes of communication, including mobile Internet and landline services, throughout Jammu and Kashmir in order to allow the media to practise its profession.

Bhasin has also sought immediate relaxation of all restrictions on freedom of movement of journalists and media personnel in Kashmir and some districts of Jammu.

She has sought framing of guidelines to ensure that the right and means of media personnel to report and publish news is not unreasonably curtailed through the issuance of orders by the authorities or any other authority suspending telecom or internet services.

The journalist has also sought a direction for setting aside or quashing any and all orders under which all modes of communication have been shut down.

What has the Supreme Court said so far?

The top court had on Tuesday said it will have to wait for the “real picture” to emerge and look into “all the pros and cons” before going into the issues raised in the “poorly drafted” and “very carelessly filed” plea with perhaps the petitioner also not knowing the truth of the situation.

A bench comprising Justices Arun Mishra, M R Shah and Ajay Rastogi heard Tehseen Poonawalla’s plea which challenged the centre’s decision to impose restrictions and “other regressive measures” in Jammu and Kashmir following the revocation of the provisions of Article 370.

The court took note of the centre’s stand that it was reviewing the situation in the region on a day-to-day basis as also the reports from district magistrates and relaxations were being ordered accordingly.

The court asked authorities to ensure that no life was lost there and posted the matter after two weeks.

Attorney General KK Venugopal told the court not a single death has been reported since last Monday after the restrictions were imposed (though HuffPost India reported last week that a 17-year-old civilian drowned while trying to escape from CRPF personnel).

“We are with you on the issue of right to liberty of the people. But we should have a real picture before us,” the bench told senior advocate Maneka Guruswamy, arguing for Poonawalla.

Poonawalla’s petition had also sought a direction from the court for the release of leaders such as former chief ministers Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti, who are under detention, as well as the setting up of a judicial commission to inquire into ground realities.

He said the decisions taken by the Centre violated fundamental rights guaranteed under Article 19 and 21 of the Constitution.

The National Conference has also filed a petition posing legal challenges to the changes made in the constitutional status of J&K, contending that these have taken away the rights of its citizens without their mandate.

According to PTI, the petition has been filed by NC MP Mohammad Akbar Lone and Hasnain Masoodi, a retired judge of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court, who ruled in 2015 that Article 370 was a permanent feature of the Constitution.

This, however, is not among the petitions being heard on Friday.

Meanwhile, China has asked for “closed consultations” in the UN Security Council to discuss the Kashmir issue and a UN diplomat told PTI that a meeting could take place as early as Friday.

(With PTI inputs)

Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), two of Israel’s sharpest critics in Congress, have been barred from entering the country ahead of their proposed visit to the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, Israeli officials said Thursday.

“The decision has been made [and] the decision is not to allow them to enter,” Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely told Israel’s Reshet Radio, Reuters reported.

Israel decided to ban the freshman lawmakers in response to their support for the pro-Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.

BDS seeks to put economic pressure on Israel to recognize the movement’s demands, which include equal rights for Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel and the country’s withdrawal from the occupied territories.

Under Israeli law, supporters of the movement can be denied entry to the country. The decision to bar the congresswomen comes after Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Ron Dermer, said last month that Omar and Tlaib would be allowed to visit.

“Out of respect for the U.S. Congress and the great alliance between Israel and America, we would not deny entry to any member of Congress into Israel,” he said.

President Donald Trump tweeted Thursday that it would show “great weakness” if Israel allowed Omar and Tlaib to visit, calling the congresswomen “a disgrace.”

Omar and Tlaib condemned Netanyahu’s decision in separate statements, with the Minnesota lawmaker calling it Israel’s version of Trump’s Muslim ban.

“Denying entry into Israel not only limits our ability to learn from Israelis, but to enter the Palestinian territories,” she said in a statement. “Sadly, this is not a surprise given the public positions of Prime Minister Netanyahu, who has consistently resisted peace efforts, restricted the freedom of movement of Palestinians, limited public knowledge of the brutal realities of the occupation and aligned himself with Islamophobes like Donald Trump.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended the decision to block their visit in a Facebook post, saying no other country “respects America and the American Congress more than the State of Israel.”

“A week ago, Israel warmly welcomed some 70 Democratic and Republican members of Congress, who expressed broad bipartisan support for Israel, which was also demonstrated a month ago in a resounding bipartisan vote against BDS in Congress,” he wrote. “However, the itinerary of the two Congresswomen reveals that the sole purpose of their visit is to harm Israel and increase incitement against it.”

Last year, Omar and Tlaib became the first Muslim women elected to Congress. Tlaib, an American of Palestinian heritage, has family in the West Bank. 

Netanyahu in his statement Thursday said Israel’s minister of the interior would “consider” a humanitarian request from Tlaib to visit her relatives if she “pledges not to act to promote boycotts against Israel during her visit.”

The two congresswomen have been criticized roundly by Republicans, as well as some members of their own party, for speaking out against America’s relationship with Israel. Some Republicans, including Trump, have accused them of being anti-Semitic, though Omar and Tlaib have made clear they take issue with the Israeli government ― not with Jewish people.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Netanyahu’s decision was “deeply disappointing” and called on him to reverse it.

“Israel’s denial of entry to Congresswomen Tlaib and Omar is a sign of weakness, and beneath the dignity of the great State of Israel,” she said in a statement. “The president’s statements about the Congresswomen are a sign of ignorance and disrespect, and beneath the dignity of the Office of the President.”

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC broke with Trump to condemn Netanyahu’s decision.

Omar and Tlaib have not formally announced a date for their proposed trip. It could begin as early as this weekend, Reuters reported, citing sources familiar with the planned visit.

This story has been updated with statements from Netanyahu, Omar, Tlaib and Pelosi.