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ZeeNews Manish Shukla September 23, 2018 Pakistan’s ISI has started making attempts to hamper the upcoming panchayat elections in Jammu and Kashmir. According to sources, the ISI has constantly been pressuring terrorists in the state to carry out attacks. For this purpose, the spy agency of Pakistan has deputed its officials at Jamaat-ud-Dawa offices in Lahore and Karachi. Pakistan’s ISI has started making attempts to hamper the upcoming panchayat elections in Jammu and Kashmir. According to sources, the ISI has constantly been pressuring terrorists in the state to carry out attacks. For this purpose, the spy agency of Pakistan has deputed its officials at Jamaat-ud-Dawa offices in Lahore and Karachi. The ISI operatives, stationed at the offices of most wanted terrorist Hafiz Saeed’s JuD offices, are carrying out online campaigns for terrorists. Sources have told Zee News that the ISI has hired technical experts for the purpose and is paying them a salary between ...

The Hindu Legal Correspondent September 23, 2018 Poll panel tells Supreme Court that it can’t be allowed as free speech. Repeated publication of propaganda lauding the achievements of a candidate in an election is nothing but “paid news”, the Election Commission of India has told the Supreme Court. Politicians cannot say that it is part of their fundamental right to free speech to spew out “motivated propaganda”. The EC has asked the court to declare whether it amounts to “paid news” if widely circulated daily newspapers cover statements issued by, and in the name of, a candidate that are not only laudatory of his or her record and achievements but also are a direct appeal to voters by the candidate. ‘Unequal advantage’ “If such motivated propaganda is allowed in the garb of free speech during the election period, candidates with a strong network of connections and undefined relationships will exploit their sphere of influence in society and will have the uneq...

NDTV PTI September 23, 2018 WhatsApp users can now reach out to the company's support team directly from the app under Settings tab and if they wish to escalate the complaint, they can contact the grievance officer Mobile messaging app Whatsapp has appointed a grievance officer for India and detailed out a process on its website for users to flag concerns and complaints,   including those around fake news. Meeting one of the key demands made by India to curb fake messages that triggered mob killings, the Facebook-owned company has updated its website to reflect the appointment of a 'Grievance Officer for India'. The update mentions that users can seek help through the mobile app, send an email or write in to grievance officer Komal Lahiri, who is based out of the US. According to Lahiri's LinkedIn profile, she is the senior director, global customer operations and localisation, at WhatsApp. A WhatsApp spokesperson declined to comment on the mat...

The Hindu Priyanka Pulla September 22, 2018 First detected in Karnataka only in May this year, the fall armyworm, a native of the Americas, has already spread as far as West Bengal and Gujarat, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake. Priyanka Pulla reports on the deficiencies in India’s quarantine regime It is a hot day in September, and two men are prising open the leaves of maize in a field in Karnataka’s Chikkaballapur district. The crop is two months away from being harvested, but the leaves look diseased. Some have streaks of white on them, while others are peppered with holes. Soon, one of the men, entomologist Arakalagud Nanjundaiah Shylesha, spies the culprit behind these holes — a small greenish-brown worm with dark lines along its length and an inverted ‘Y’ on its head. It looks like any of the thousands of pests that infest fields in India each year, but this one is special. It is the fall armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda), a native of the Americas, whic...

Hindustan Times Yashwant Raj and Imtiaz Ahmed September 24, 2018 Pakistan has been raising Kashmir at the UN but no other country has joined it in making it an issue or even talking about it. India will be ready for Pakistan’s “one-trick pony” act at the UN – raising the bogey of Kashmir – as it seeks to call attention to pressing issues of global significance such as enhanced multilateralism and action on climate change. Reeling from the Indian decision to call off a New York meeting of the foreign ministers of the two sides, Pakistan is expected to complain bitterly at the UN and raise Kashmir forcefully, as well as at several multilateral forums and meetings held on the sidelines. India considers the UN a multilateral forum for deliberating multilateral issues, and not bilateral problems. “Single-act plays (as enacted by Pakistan) have no resonance” in these forums, India’s permanent representative to the UN, Syed Akbaruddin, told reporters on Sunday, effectively fi...

The Economic Times PTI September 21, 2018 BEIJING: US President Donald Trump will not back down from the ongoing trade war with China and make it "unbearably painful" for Beijing, former White House chief strategist and Trump's aide Steve Bannon said Friday.  Trump has been ramping up pressure on China in the last three months to reduce the USD 336 billion trade deficit in the USD 710.4 billion bilateral trade slapping three rounds of sanctions.  On Tuesday, Trump slapped 10 per cent tariffs on USD 200 billion worth of Chinese imports and the duties which will rise to whopping 25 per cent at the end of the year.  This is the third round of tariffs imposed by Trump. China for its part is retaliating by imposing tariffs on a range of US exports.  Trump also alleged that China had been unwilling to change its unfair trade practices and the new additional tariff structure would give fair and reciprocal treatment to American firms.  Tru...

The Indian Express Sushant Singh September 12, 2018 Rafale offset: Govt denied role but ex-French President Hollande says, ‘Indian Govt proposed Reliance, had no choice’ Former French president Francois Hollande said: “We didn’t have a say in that. It was the Indian government that proposed this service group (Reliance), and Dassault who negotiated with Ambani. We didn’t have a choice, we took the interlocutor who was given to us.” Francois Hollande, who was President of France when the deal for 36 Rafale fighter aircraft was announced and signed with India, has said Anil Ambani’s Reliance Defence was chosen as the offset partner by Dassault because the Indian government had “proposed” its name. “We didn’t have a say in that. It was the Indian government that proposed this service group (Reliance), and Dassault who negotiated with Ambani. We didn’t have a choice, we took the interlocutor who was given to us,” Hollande was quoted by French news website Mediapart.fr ...

DAWN Anwar Iqbal September 25, 2018 WASHINGTON: The United States has stopped publicising body counts of Taliban and IS fighters, a decision indicative of major change in policy of forcing the Taliban to participate in the US-backed peace process. Diplomatic sources in Washington point out that decision to discontinue highlighting enemy deaths in Afghanistan coincides with renewed efforts to encourage direct talks between US and Taliban officials. In July, US diplomats held face-to-face talks with Taliban officials in Qatar, the first in many years. The New York Times described the meeting as “a reversal of a longstanding US policy” of insisting that Afghan government officials must participate in any talks with the Taliban. Last week, a Taliban delegation arrived in Dubai for talks with Red Cross officials for securing the release of their prisoners in Afghan and US custody, apparently with US endorsement. This is one of key Taliban demands for joining the Afghan peace...