09042024-TTB-01.qxd 4/8/2024 11:59 PM Page 1 13 CHANDIGARH | GURUGRAM | JALANDHAR | BATHINDA | VOL. 144 NO. 98 | 14 PAGES | ~5.00 | REGD. NO. CHD/0006/2024-2026 ESTABLISHED IN 1881  HARYANA HARYANA’S NAGAL STUNS WORLD NO. 38 ARNALDI SPORT /thetribunechd CONG MANIFESTO AIMS TO MAKE COUNTRY STRONGER: FAROOQ J&K COMBINED STOCK MARKET CAP CROSSES ~400L CR BUSINESSS DISRUPTIVE TECH WILL RESHAPE COMBAT, SAYS ARMY CHIEF BACK PAGE tuesday | 9 april 2024 /thetribunechd www.tribuneindia.com TMC leaders seek ouster of heads of probe agencies, detained at EC office Allege ‘misuse’ of ED & NIA , insist on level playing field during elections New Delhi, April 8 Accusing the NIA of resorting to excesses during its probe into the Bhupatinagar bomb blast case, West Bengal’s ruling Trinamool Congress leaders today held a “dharna” outside the Election Commission office here, demanding that the watchdog rein in central probe agencies and provide a “level playing field” to all parties for the General Election. The 10-member TMC team comprising sitting and former MPs first met EC officials and sought the removal of the chiefs of the NIA, Enforcement Directorate, CBI and Income Tax department so that the “BJP could no longer use these agencies to corner political rivals”. Sitting MPs Derek O’Brien, Abir Ranjan Biswas, Sagarika Ghosh, Dola Sen, Saket Gokhale, Shantanu Sen and Nadimul Haque and former MPs Vivek Gupta, Sudip Raha and Arpita Ghosh were part of the delegation. The protesting TMC leaders, who said they would not lift the “dharna” till their demand was met, were removed forcibly by the Delhi Police within minutes and taken to the Parliament Street NIA summons 3 Trinamool leaders in WB blast case TMC leaders protest outside the office of the Election Commission of India in New Delhi on Monday. ANI CONG MOVES EC AGAINST PM OVER ‘MUSLIM LEAGUE’ REMARKS ■ The Congress has complained to the EC against PM Modi’s remarks targeting it and comparing its LS poll manifesto with that of Muslim League ■ A delegation of Congress leaders met EC officials and raised several issues, including the police station. Addressing the media, Rajya Sabha member Dola Sen said the sudden burst of activity by the NIA in the blast case, which occurred in 2022, was an use of pictures and large cut-outs of the PM in government buildings and colleges ■ It complained Modi had said that Cong manifesto ‘attempted to divide the country and impose the pre-Independence ideology of Muslim League’ alleged ploy to harass and arrest TMC workers before the poll. Sen said the two TMC functionaries arrested in the case on Saturday were picked up in the dead of ‘Role in hawala transactions’: ED grills Kejriwal’s PA, legislator New Delhi, April 8 The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Monday questioned Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s personal assistant Bibhav Kumar and AAP MLA Durgesh Pathak in the excise policy-linked money laundering case. Their statement was recorded under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), officials said. Both of them have been questioned in this case earlier too. Pathak is a member of AAP’s political affairs committee and national executive and incharge of its organisation building team. The ED has alleged Rs 45 crore of the Rs 100 crore bribe was taken through hawala route from South Group and used in AAP’s Goa election campaign in 2021-22. It has cited statements of Dinesh Arora, a close aide of former Deputy CM Manish Sisodia, and other individuals from several companies involved in routing cash payments. These persons were managed by former AAP communications incharge Vijay Nair and Pathak, the ED has alleged. Sources said Kumar’s questioning was essential in connection with the engagements of Kejriwal who was SUN ECLIPSED AAP MLA Durgesh Pathak at the ED office in New Delhi. PTI COURT DENIES BAIL TO BRS LEADER KAVITHA ‘JAL BOARD GOT ~28K CR, BUT NO ACCOUNTABILITY’ A Delhi court on Monday denied interim bail to BRS leader K Kavitha, arrested in the alleged Delhi excise policy scam, saying prima facie she not only destroyed evidence, but was also instrumental in influencing witnesses and might continue to do so. BACK PAGE Delhi Jal Board received over ~28,400 crore since 201516, but it didn’t use funds as per norms, Delhi’s principal finance secretary told the Supreme Court during a hearing on AAP’s plea alleging non-disbursal of funds to the water utility. BACK PAGE arrested by the ED in this case last month. He is currently lodged in the Tihar Jail. The agency had alleged in its earlier chargesheets that at least 36 accused, including former Delhi Deputy CM Manish Sisodia and Kumar, “destroyed, used or changed” 170 phones to conceal evidence of “kickbacks” worth thousands of crores of rupees in the alleged scam. The IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity) of Kumar’s mobile number is stated to have been changed four times between September 2021 and July 2022, according to the ED chargesheet filed before a local court last year. — TNS night without informing the local police. She also accused NIA sleuths of molestation of women during the raid and continued on page 9 edit: Battleground Bengal BBC shifts India newsroom ops to private entity New Delhi, April 8 The BBC has handed over its newsroom publishing licence in India to a private company, Collective Newsroom, a first for the public broadcaster’s global operations anywhere in the world. The move comes a year after searches at its offices by the I-T Department. Collective Newsroom, founded by four former BBC staffers, will commence operations from April 10. It will produce content for the BBC’s digital services in English, Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, Punjabi, Tamil, and Telugu. The restructuring was prompted by new rules that imposed a 26 per cent FDI limit in digital media sector. — TNS New Delhi, April 8 The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Monday summoned three Trinamool Congress (TMC) leaders asking them to appear before it for questioning in connection with the Bhupatinagar blast case, sources said. The leaders, Manab Kumar Karaya, Subir Maity and Naba Kumar Ponda, have been told to appear before NIA officers in Kolkata on April 8, the sources said. The trio had skipped NIA summons last week. An NIA team was allegedly attacked by a mob on April 6 when it had gone to arrest two main suspects in the 2022 blast case in East Medinipur district, leading to a political slugfest with West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee accusing the investigators of assaulting the villagers. An NIA officer was injured when the mob allegedly attacked the team that went to arrest TMC’s Manobrata Jana and Bailicharan Maity. — TNS The sun photographed during the solar eclipse at Mazatlan in Mexico on Monday. REUTERS TRI-SERVICES CONFERENCE Eyeing joint ops, but uniqueness of each service to be intact: CDS Ajay Banerjee Tribune News Service New Delhi, April 8 The Chief of Defence Staff, Gen Anil Chauhan, has laid stress on developing of a “joint operational culture” for the armed forces while underlining the need to respect the uniqueness of each service and its role during war-time. He was speaking today at the first-ever tri-services’ conference on “brainstorming for change” in New Delhi. The Navy and the Indian Air Force which are relatively smaller in size as compared to the Army have internally ROADMAP FOR THEATRE COMMANDS ■ The theaterisation initiative also figured in the discussions ■ According to theaterisation plan, each of the theatre commands will have units of the Army, Navy and IAF ■ All of them will work as a single entity looking after secuexpressed fears of their operating philosophy getting overwhelmed by the creation of a new structure being planned as theatre commands — or joint commands. A joint and integrated operational structure After son, Birender leaves BJP, settorejoinCongressafter10yrs Chandigarh, April 8 Former Union Minister Birender Singh is set to join Congress on Tuesday after a gap of 10 years with the Haryana stalwart announcing his resignation from the BJP today. His son Brijendra Singh had joined the Congress on March 10 and it was expected he would follow suit. The fatherson duo had defied the BJP on several occasions, be it supporting farmers’ protest over farm laws (now repealed) or women wrestlers’ sexual harassment allegations against BJP MP Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh. Talking to mediapersons in Delhi, Birender said he had resigned from the primary BIRENDER SINGH JJP STATE CHIEF QUITS Less than a month after the BJP and JJP parted ways in Haryana, the JJP faced another setback on Monday with state chief Nishan Singh quitting the party. membership of the BJP and sent his resignation to party president JP Nadda. “My wife Prem Lata, who remained MLA from 2014 to 2019, has also quit the party. Tomorrow, we will join the Congress,” he added. Birender had served as Union Minister of Rural Development, Panchayati Raj, Sanitation and Drinking Water from 2014 to 2016 and later as Union Minister of Steel from 2016 to 2019 in PM Narendra Modi’s Cabinet. His wife had served as BJP MLA from Uchana Kalan in Jind from 2014 to 2019 after defeating former Deputy CM Dushyant Chautala. The JJP leader went on to defeat her in 2019. The political career of the 78-year-old leader, who is from Jat icon Sir Chhotu continued on page 9 INDIA’s Cong, NC seal seat pact, Mufti left out Arjun Sharma TO CONTEST 3 SEATS EACH IN J&K, LADAKH Jammu, April 8 A day after the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) announced the candidature of its chief Mehbooba Mufti from Anantnag, the Congress and National Conference (NC) on Monday finalised a seat-sharing agreement for all six seats in J&K and Ladakh. Both parties will contest three seats each. While the NC will field candidates in the ■ NC to field candidates in Anantnag, Baramulla and Srinagar ■ Cong to contest Udhampur, Jammu and Ladakh seats PDP STILL PART OF ALLIANCE: KHURSHID Congress leader Salman Khurshid said PDP was still part of INDIA. “Since J&K is small in area, there wasn’t much scope for seat adjustment,” he said. Anantnag, Baramulla and Srinagar constituencies, the Congress will contest the Udhampur, Jammu and Ladakh seats. The announcement was made by NC vice-president Omar Abdullah and Congress leaders Salman Khurshid and Pawan Khera at a joint press conference in New Delhi. With this, the PDP which too was a , member of the alliance, has been left out and is set to divide the vote bank in the upcoming elections. Refuting reports of a split in the INDIA bloc in J&K, Khurshid said the PDP was a part of the alliance, although a seat-sharing agreement could not be worked out with it. Omar said, “The National Conference will support Congress candidates in Udhampur, continued on page 9 To unmask deepfakes amid poll, YouTube tells creators to mark AI content Aksheev Thakur Tribune News Service New Delhi, April 8 To check the spread of misinformation ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, online video sharing platform YouTube has asked content creators to label synthetic and artificial intelligence-generated content. YouTube has introduced a new tool that helps content creators disclose the content that is made with altered or synthetic media, including generative AI. At a press briefing, YouTube’s India Director Ishan John Chatterjee said the firm had long-standing policies in areas like manipulated content, incitement of violence, hate speech and harassment. In India, more than 2.25 million videos were removed for violating community guidelines from October to December 2023, he said. Some examples of content INTRODUCES NEW TOOL TO DETECT SYNTHETIC STUFF ■ YouTube has introduced a new tool in Cre- ator Studio to let viewers know content they are watching is altered or synthetic ■ Tool requires creators to disclose if content is made with synthetic media, including generative AI that requires disclosure include: Digitally altering content to replace the face of one individual with another’s, or synthetically generating a person’s voice to narrate a video; ■ Disclosures will appear as labels in the expanded video description ■ But for videos on sensitive topics such as news, elections, finance or health, the disclosures will be visible on video itself altering footage of real events or places and showing a realistic depiction of fictional major events, like a tornado moving towards a real town. The company has launched additional features to support viewers during the Lok Sabha poll. “When viewers search for voting-related topics, links to authoritative information on ‘how to register to vote and c m y b how to vote’ may display, and point viewers to credible third party sources. We have information panels giving topical context for topics prone to misinformation. For example, at the top of relevant search results and under videos related to EVMs, we append an information panel directing viewers to the Election Commission’s FAQs on the technical and administrative safeguards on voting,” he said. He said YouTube’s policies uniformly applied to all forms of content, including elections — regardless of the political viewpoints expressed. Recently, PM Narendra Modi had, in his conversation with Microsoft founder Bill Gates, underscored India’s cautious approach towards embracing artificial intelligence while acknowledging the need for regulations to mitigate potential misuse. rity challenges in a specified geographical territory. ■ At present, the Army, Navy and the Air Force have separate commands ■ Theatre commands are being planned to integrate capabilities of three services envisages all three forces working in tandem under a common military commander. The CDS said a “de novo” approach was needed towards traditional concepts. “The capabilities of each continued on page 9 ‘Like disrobing of Draupadi’: HC on Tarn Taran incident Chandigarh, April 8 Drawing a parallel between the parading of a semi-naked woman in a Tarn Taran village allegedly by her son’s in-laws and historical “chirharan of Draupadi by Kauravas”, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has taken suo motu cognisance of the matter for treating it as a PIL. The Bench today issued notice of motion to Punjab before directing the removal of the offensive material from social media. INSIDE BSP fields AAP MLA’s father from Ferozepur Jalandhar: The BSP on Monday declared Surinder Kamboj (68), father of Aam Aadmi Party Jalalabad MLA Jagdeep Goldy Kamboj, as the candidate from the Ferozepur Lok Sabha seat. Surinder joined the BSP on Saturday in Jalandhar. His candidature was announced by BSP in-charge, Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh Randhir Singh Beniwal in press release. INSIDE IN BRIEF Respond to Punjab plea on Shanan: SC to HP NEW DELHI: The SC has asked the HP Government & Centre to respond in three months to Punjab’s suit against HP’s bid to take control of Shanan project. TNS SC junks Sanjay’s plea against Guj HC order NEW DELHI: The SC has rejected AAP leader Sanjay Singh’s plea against a Gujarat HC order refusing to quash summons to him in a defamation case. TNS ED questions Sena (UBT) leader in ‘khichdi’ scam MUMBAI: ED on Monday grilled Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Amol Kirtikar over “irregularities” in the distribution of khichdi by BMC during the pandemic. BACK PAGE