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Modi lookalike to contest against PM, Rajnath

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh now have an unusual candidate pitted against them:

Abhinandan Pathak, a lookalike of Modi, who is contesting form Lucknow and Varanasi as an independent candidate.

Pathak, 51, had campaigned for Modi in Varanasi and became a celebrity overnight with his strong resemblance to the Prime Minister.

"When Modi became Prime Minister, I gained recognition and respect. My resemblance of him was my biggest asset and the common people would offer me tea and request photographs. After demonetisation, things began to change and as disillusionment set in, I became a victim of the people's anger. There have been incidents where I have been beaten up only because I resemble Modi," he said.

Pathak switched his loyalty to the Congress and campaigned for the party in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.

"I am upset with the Congress because the party did not give me a ticket in these elections. However, I still support Rahul Gandhi and his policies," he said.

Abhinandan Pathak has been living in Lucknow for five year and works as a priest to earn a living.

“The main issues of my campaign will be the need for roti, kapda aur makaan", he said.

Pathak is a native of Saharanpur and has collected the security money for nomination through crowd funding. "I am asking for one rupee and one vote from the people and the response has been encouraging," he said.

In his affidavit filed with his nomination, Abhinandan Pathak says he has no immovable assets and only Rs 50,000 in his bank account. He holds a master's degree from Allahabad University.

All the ten proposers in his nomination papers are Muslims who are also his closet friends. He is separated from his wife and six children.

Ex-judge, ex-jawan, priest to fight PM in Varanasi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi appears all set to contest against an interesting array of candidates from Varanasi, when his parliamentary constituency in Uttar Pradesh goes to polls in the last phase on 19 May.

Apart from the PM-lookalike Abhinandan Pathak, a retired High Court judge C.S.

Karnan, who was convicted for contempt by the Supreme Court is said to be preparing to contest against the Prime Minister. He is also contesting from Chennai.

A sacked Border Security Force (BSF) constable Tej Bahadur Yadav who uploaded a video on the social media showing the substandard food being served to paramilitary troopers and was later dismissed is another contestant in Varanasi.

"I want to highlight the plight of jawans and how badly they are treated. By contesting from the PM constituency, I hope my voice will be heard," he said.

A group of 111 farmers from Tamil Nadu, and fluorosis victim Ansala Swamy are also among those set to take on Modi in Varanasi

The group of farmers led by P. Ayyakannuhad staged protests in Delhi in 2017.

There are others, too, like the victims of fluorosis from Nalgonda (Telangana) and Prakasam (Andhra Pradesh), led by activists Vadde Srinivas and Jalagam Sudheer. Fluoride contamination of groundwater is a serious issue in the two states and their aim is to talk about it from a place that will be in focus.

The more "serious" candidates among all of them, is the Bhim Army chief Chandra Shekhar 'Azad'. He has staged a road show in Varanasi on 30 March and has managed a large group of Dalit youths who are campaigning for him.

Prof Vishwambhar Nath Misra, a BHU professor and the chief priest of the Sankat Mochan temple in Varanasi, who is spearheading a campaign to clean the Ganga river, is also set to challenge Modi in Varanasi.

Top government troika set to retire

While the Prime Minister is not getting ahead of himself just yet on crucial appointments given that he is slap bang in the middle of the general election, the incumbent or leader of whatever the new formation emerges out of the ongoing polls, has to decide on three vital slots which free up. All three critical appointees are on extension, and their extensions run out around the time the new government takes over.

Two top security establishment personnel who are on six-month extension retire immediately after the new government is sworn in. Intelligence Bureau Director

Rajiv Jain retires on 30 May while A.K. Dhasmana, who heads RAW superannuates on 29 May. With both Anil Dhasmana and Jain having to go, India's security apparatus will get new blood, and given that these are one level political appointees, there is a veritable blue sky available.

Cabinet Secretary P.K. Sinha also retires after an extension on 12 June. Now this troika is vital to running the nation's bureaucratic steel-frame at one level and internal and external security requirements at another. The trinity has top billing in any government after the Prime Minister's Office, which includes the Principal Secretary and National Security Adviser in its ranks.

Though the Cabinet secretary's post is for a fixed tenure of two years, like home, defence and foreign secretaries, Cabinet secretaries usually get an extension mainly because the Prime Minister looks for continuity to manage the bureaucracy. In fact, in Sinha's case, there is a precedentboth K.M. Chandrasekhar and Ajit K. Sethserved for four years each, due to extensions.

Sinha, a 1977-batch UP cadre IAS officer, has thus managed a four-year term, though, again, as with his predecessors, extension of tenure does deny other eligible IAS officers the opportunity to occupy the top post in the bureaucracy. The extensions of Chandrasekhar denied the hope of Sudha Pillai of 1972 batch IAS to become India's first woman cabinet secretary. It was the case with Seth too. By extending Sinha's tenure, the PMO ensured that all contenders of 1980 and 1981 batch of IAS would have retired.

As per government rules, no government servant shall be granted extension in service beyond age of retirement of 60 years. But as per rule FR 56, extension in public interest may be given "for a period not exceeding four years in the case of Cabinet Secretary". Sinha, who was appointed in 2015 for two years, got his first extension of a year in 2017 and the second one has been given now.

Plea in SC to let women offer namaz inside mosques

A petition was filed in the Supreme Court this month pleading that Muslim women be allowed to enter and offer namaz inside mosques.

Petitioner Yasmeen Zuber Ahmed Peerzadeasked the apex court to declare the prohibition on entry of women inside mosques as "illegal and unconstitutional" as it violated the fundamental rights guaranteed under the Constitution.

Sikh pilgrims attend the Vasakhi festival at the shrine of Gurdwara Punja Sahib, the second most sacred place for Sikhs, in Hasan Abdal, some 50 kms from Islamabad, Pakistan, on 14 April 2019. Thousands of Sikh pilgrims also joined in from neighbouring countries including India for the harvest festival that marks the Solar New Year.

Pointing out that there was no mention of any gender segregation in either Quran or Hadith, the couple's counsel Ashutosh Dubey said: "Such practices are not only repugnant to the basic dignity of a woman as an individual, but also violative of their fundamental rights."

The petition has arraigned the Union Government, the Ministry of Minority Affairs, the Central Wakf Council, the Maharashtra State Board of Wakfs and All India Muslim Personal Law Board as parties to the case.

The petitioners said that there were no records stating that the Quran and Prophet Muhammad opposed women entering mosques and offering prayers, and in fact men and women have equal constitutional rights to worship, according to their beliefs.

Currently, women are allowed to offer prayers at mosques under the Jamaat-e-Islami and Mujahid denominations but are barred from mosques under the predominant Sunni faction, said the petition.

The petition also mentioned that in mosques where women are allowed, there are separate entrances and enclosures for worship for the two genders. The petition said that there should not be any gender discrimination at all, and that all Muslim women should be allowed to pray in all mosques, cutting across denominations.

The petition also alluded to the practice in Mecca, where "the faithful, both men and women, together circumambulate the Kaaba".

To support their argument, the petitioners cited the recent Supreme Court judgement allowing the entry of women in Kerala's Sabarimala Temple.

"The hon'ble court in the case of Sabrimala held that 'religion cannot be used as cover to deny rights of worship to women as it is against human dignity'. Prohibition on women is due to non-religious reasons and it is a grim shadow of discrimination going on for centuries," the petitioners said.

The Supreme Court has since sought response from the Centre, Central Waqf Council and the All India Muslim Personal Law Board on the plea.

WhatsApp spreading antivaccine news in India: WSJ Facebook has yet again come under critical observation in India after its

Sir Dominic Anthony Gerard Asquith, the British High Commissioner to India, lays a wreath to pay tributes to the martyrs of the Jallianwala Baghon the occasion of massacre's 100th anniversary at the Jallianwala Bagh Memorialin Amritsar, India, 13 April 2019. On 13 April 1919, the Lieutenant Governor of Punjab General Sir Michael O'Dwyer ordered British Gurkha troops, under the command of Brigadier-General Reginald Edward Harry Dyer, to open fire at a mass gathering at the Jallianwala Bagh. The incident became a turning point in India's independence from British rule.

Photo: IANS instant messaging app WhatsApp with 300 million users in the country became a medium for the rapid spread of anti-vaccine misinformation.

"Anti-vaccine misinformation, some of it from social media posts in the West, is spreading in India on WhatsApp, undermining efforts to root out measles and rubella in a country where tens of thousands of people are struck by the diseases each year," The Wall Street Journal reported recently.

Facebook and its family of apps is already facing pressure to stop promoting antivaccine propaganda to users amid global concern over vaccine hesitancy and a measles outbreak in the Pacific northwest.

Earlier in February, the social networking giant was reported to have allowed advertisers to promote anti-vaccine content to nearly 9 lakh people interested in "vaccine controversies".

According to the latest report, many of the same wrong stories that misled Americans on vaccinations are spreading via WhatsApp in India, where some vaccination programmes have been halted.

"Dozens of schools in Mumbai have refused to allow health officials to carry out vaccinations in recent months, largely because of rumours shared on Facebook Inc.'s popular messaging app about the supposed dangers," The Wall Street Journal added.

The social networking giant has not officially commented yet.

In March, Facebook’s Monika Bickert, Vice President, Global Policy Management, said on a blog-post that the social networking giant has decided to take action against accounts promoting vaccine hoaxes as identified by the World Health Organisation and Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in the US.

As part of the initiative, for its 2.32 billion global users, Facebook decided not to include pages that contained misinformation about vaccinations in news feed, search, recommendations or predictions. With over one billion users, Instagram decided to block content on vaccinations that could potentially contain wrong information from showing up in the explore tab and hashtag pages.

Fighting against the spread of misinformation on anti-vaccines, Amazon in March started removing anti-vaccine documentaries from its Prime Video streaming service after a CNN Business report highlighted the anti-vaccine comments available on the site.

Dubai Gurudwara to hold daily iftar during Ramadan

The United Arab Emirates’ only Sikh temple will host iftar for workers throughout the upcoming month of Ramadan, the chairman of the Guru Nanak Darbar Gurudwara has announced.

The Gurudwara in Dubai's Jebel Ali, which has been hosting an interfaith iftar during every Ramadan in the past six years, will offer the meals to workers in the area every day, Chairman Surender Singh Kandhari told Gulf News recently.

"There are a lot of Muslim workers in this area. There are not many places from where they can break their fast. We will invite these workers to have iftar at our Gurudwara."

He said the free vegetarian meal (langar) offered to every visitor in the Gurudwara will be given to those visiting to break the fast also.

"We will add dates, fruits, rose milk, buttermilk and some Indian snacks like pakora, samosa also for them. We expect to host 100 to 200 every day during Ramadan," said Kandhari.

He was speaking after an official ceremony marking Baisakhi, the Sikh New Year.

"This year is very important for us here in the UAE. It is the Year of Tolerance in the UAE, the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak, the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, 320th year of the birth of Khalsa Panth, and 100th year of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, which took place on Baisakhi. We celebrate Baisakhi to send out the message of love, peace, humanity and tolerance," Kandhari added.

3 Indian student teams win at NASA rover challenge

Three Indian student teams won awards in NASA's annual Human Exploration Rover Challenge at the US Space and Rocket Centre in Alabama USA.

The team from KIET Group of Institutions in Ghaziabad won the "AIAA Neil Armstrong Best Design Award" in the college/university division.

The Mukesh Patel School of Technology Management and Engineering from Mumbai won the "Frank Joe Sexton Memorial Pit Crew Award" in the college/university division.

The Mukesh Patel school also won the System Safety Challenge Award at the competition hosted by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Centre in Huntsville city.

Lovely Professional University from Phagwara, Punjab, won the STEM Engagement Award.

The International Space Education Institute of Leipzig, Germany, won first place in the high school division with 91 points and the University of Puerto Rico Mayaguez - Team 1 won the college/ university division with 101 points.

NASA astronaut and two-time spaceflight veteran Sunita "Suni" Williams also interacted with teams and participating in the activities.

"The creativity, skill and resourcefulness demonstrated each year on the rover course are the very traits that paved our path to the Moon in 1969, and the ones that will continue to carry NASA forward to the Moon again in 2024," said Bob Musgrove, NASA official.

Nearly 100 teams took part in the competition, hailing from Bangladesh, Germany, India, Mexico, Morocco and Peru.

The competition challenges high school and college teams to design, build and test human-powered roving vehicles inspired by the Apollo lunar missions and future exploration missions to the Moon, Mars and beyond.

The curious case of TikTok's rise in India

The rise of the Chinese short video-sharing app TikTok in India has been so spectacular over the past year that it is now nearly impossible for any social media user to not have come across its content.

These user-created videos that often contain memes, lip-syncing songs and sometimes sleazy posts regularly find ways to other popular social media sites including Facebook, WhatsApp and Share Chat. These are the platforms where most adult social media users are now getting introduced to TikTok.

For the young generation though, especially the teenagers and even younger kids, the app needs no introduction.

In fact, according to a new report from mobile app intelligence firm Sensor Tower, out of the 18.8 crore new users that TikTok added globally in the first quarter of 2019, 8.86 crore were from India.

Globally, TikTok has far crossed 1.1 billion installs and in the first quarter of 2019, it emerged as the third most installed app in the world, ranking behind only Facebook's WhatsApp and Messenger at No. 1 and No. 2, respectively, the analysis showed.

But how do you explain the dramatic rise of this app owned by Chinese tech company Byte Dance?

"The rise of TikTok (formerly Musical.ly), highlights where the future of the Internet in India is: video," leading tech policy and media consultant Prasanto K. Roy said.

"Of the 500 million smartphone and mobile broadband users in India, well over 300 million consume predominantly or only video. And as we get the next 200 million online by 2020, the video-only share will rise to over 70 per cent," he added, indicating the potential for further growth of video sharing apps in the country.

So far, the big drivers of Internet adoption in India have been WhatsApp, Messenger and Facebook, with additional help from shopping and taxi apps, and some streaming services such as Hotstar.

"No other app before Musical.ly/Tik Tok really went to a video-only, and especially an interactive video platform. For instance, its 'react' feature lets users to film their reaction to a video and its 'duet' feature allows users to film a video aside another video," Roy added.

Another reason for its growth is that the app allows people to express themselves even if they do not have the gift of the gab. So anyone who feel a little ostracized in platforms such as Facebook and Twitter may find solace on TikTok.

"TikTok caters to those who feel left out on other primarily-text platforms, either because of literacy or language inadequacy," Roy pointed out.

However, the growth of TikTok has not been without its share of controversies.

Hearing a petition filed by an advocate, the Madras High Court earlier this month asked the Centre to ban the app, saying it "encourages pornography" and is spoiling the future of youths and the minds of children.

TikTok said as part of its commitment towards providing a positive in-app environment for its users in India, it had removed over six million videos that have violated its "Community Guidelines".

It also said it has stopped allowing users below 13 years to login and create an account on the platform. IANS