tirupati l friday l february 26, 2021 l `7.00 l PAGES 12 l late city EDITION U.K. court rules Nirav modi can be extradited to India The fugitive diamantaire will now have to face trial in India in the `14,000-crore Punjab National Bank scam case British Home secretary to sign the order 14-day window to challenge decision District Judge at Westminster Magistrates’ Court, Sam Goozee, will send his findings to the Secretary of State for Home Affairs, Priti Patel, who is authorised to order an extradition under the India-UK Extradition Treaty. She has two months to make that decision. The Home Secretary’s order rarely goes against the court’s conclusions | P7 ■ ■ ■ Nirav Modi has 14 days to approach the High Court and seek leave to appeal after the Home Secretary has made her decision known Any appeal, if granted, will be heard at the Administrative Division of the High Court in London Nirav Modi is currently lodged at Wandsworth Prison Barrack #12 If extradited, He will be Lodged in Mumbai’s Arthur Road prison CHENNAI ■ MADURAI ■ VIJAYAWADA ■ BENGALURU ■ KOCHI ■ HYDERABAD ■ VISAKHAPATNAM ■ COIMBATORE ■ KOZHIKODE ■ THIRUVANANTHAPURAM ■ BELAGAVI ■ BHUBANESWAR ■ SHIVAMOgGA ■ MANGALURU ■ TIRUPATI ■ TIRUCHY ■ TIRUNELVELI ■ SAMBALPUR ■ HUBBALLI ■ DHARMAPURI ■ KOTTAYAM ■ KANNUR ■ VILLUPURAM ■ KOLLAM ■ WARANGAL ■ TADEPALLIGUDEM ■ NAGAPATTINAM ■ THRISSUR ■ KALABURAGI Centre tightens control on social media content New rules for stricter monitoring of objectionable messages R i t w i k a M i t r a @ New Delhi young astronomer K Kyvalya Reddy, who brought laurels to AP by bagging a certificate from IASC for provisional discovery of an asteroid, being felicitated by Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy at Tadepalli on Thursday I Express AP to ramp up testing, Covid-19 surveillance E x p r e s s N e w s S e r v i c e @Visakhapatnam/Kurnool/Vijayawada In the wake of spurt in Covid-19 cases in five States, the AP government has directed district administrations to strictly enforce Covid Appropriate Behaviour (CAB) among the public and ramp up testing to face possible second wave of corona. Following the Centre’s directive to the States to be on alert about possible second wave, the government has already increased sample testing. The number of tests per day has been increased to 30,000 from less than 20,000 a no special few days ago. There is a marginal rise in advisory the number of daily Covid count with the Despite spurt in increase in tests. In Visakhapatnam, 2,000 RT-PCR tests Covid-19 cases in some States, no are being conducted a day though the disspecial advisory trict has a capacity to do 6,000 to 7,000 tests. for the people Andhra Medical College Principal and entering Andhra Covid Special Officer PV Sudhakar said Pradesh has been the number of Covid tests will be increased issued, said progressively to 6,000 a day within a week. principal secretary The surveillance will also be enhanced. M Ravi Chandra “Though the situation is not alarming, there should be no room for complacency . The number of positive cases, which were 15 on Wednesday came down to eight on Thursday However, , . there is a likelihood of increase in cases by the second week of March if the present trend continues,’’ he said. People should mandatorily wear face mask. If necessary fines should , be imposed on violators to prevent the spurt in Covid cases. The health infrastructure created earlier for treatment of CovP4 id cases can be used if necessary he said. , Biggest cricket stadium and shortest game v e n k ata k r i s h n a B @ Ahmedabad THE grandeur of the Narendra Modi Stadium will dwarf most things. For the last two days, focus has only been on the state of the art facilities. In less than two days the focus has shifted to the heart of the ground — the pitch. A strip with spin and unpredictability produced a match that ended in less than two days giving it the moniker — the shortest Test in post-War era. The wicket around the batsmen looked like a patch of dust where any spinner who could land the ball would get a wicket. No wonder Joe Root got five wickets giving aw ay j u s t eight r uns. And the England captain summed it up perfectly after the match, which India won by 10 wickets. “It is a real shame. It is a fantastic stadium and 60,000 people came to watch and I feel for them. They came here to see a James Anderson, Jofra Archer, Virat Kohli and instead they saw me taking wickets.” This was far from an ideal Test wicket. Seventeen wickets fell on Thursday. It was a turner from the first day and was turning blind on second. Ironically this Test failed to , do just that. In this, it can be argued that it was loaded too much in favour of the ball. Tests are not meant to get over P11 in two days.  The Centre on Thursday announced sweeping regulations for social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, online streaming or over-the-top (OTT) services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, and messaging apps like WhatsApp and Telegram to protect users’ interest and curb fake news and other harmful content. Social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter will have to deploy automated tools to remove objectionable content. In the case of a government or court order, they must take down the flagged content within 36 hours. The new rules will require messaging to enable ‘traceability’ so that the sender of harmful messages could be identified. Experts fear this could result in compromising end-toend encryption. Also, if a social media platform decides on its own to remove a user’s content, it must inform the user in advance and explain reasons. Digital news media publishers should follow Press Council of India’s norms of journalistic conduct and adhere to the Over The Top  Social media intermediaries to publish a monthly compliance report on complaints received, action taken, and content removed proactively  Social media platforms must remove content depicting nudity, sexual acts or morphed images of women within 24 hours of receipt of complaints  Code of Ethics for OTT platforms, online news and digital media entities  A grievance officer should be appointed to deal with complaints  OTT platforms to self-classify content into five age-based categories - U (Universal), U/A 7+, U/A 13+, U/A 16+, and A (Adult)  If a social media platform removes any content on its own, it must explain the reason to the user, who will have the opportunity to contest it  OTT platforms must deploy age verification mechanisms for A-rated content and implement parental locks for U/A 13+ or higher programme code under the Cable Television Networks Regulation Act. This, according to Information and Broadcasting Prakash Javadekar, will provide a level-playing field to all media platforms. The new laws, called Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021, came into effect from Thursday However, social . media platforms will be given an additional window of three months to come under the purview of the new regime. According to the government, the new rules will establish a “soft-touch self-regulato- ry architecture and a Code of Ethics and three-tier grievance redressal mechanism” for news publishers, OTT platforms and digital media. The grievance redressal mechanism stipulates that publishers must address complaints within 15 days. The selfregulating body will be led by a retired judge or an eminent person and have not more than six members. However, cyber experts are not impressed. “The new rules can be interpreted to target websites/platforms. It may hamper right to free speech and expression,” said lawyer Ankur Raheja.  P7 kuppam continues to be tdp bastion, asserts naidu TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu, who began his three-day visit of his Assembly constituency Kuppam on Thursday, told the party cadre that nothing is lost despite the defeat of the party backed candidates in the panchayat polls I P4 ceasefire Guns fall silent on LoC as both sides reach truce M AYANK SIN G H @ New Delhi Guns fell silent on the Line of Control and the International Border India shares with Pakistan on WednesdayThursday midnight in a surprising de-escalation of tensions after both sides agreed to strictly observe all bilateral ceasefire agreements and protocols. The truce came about two weeks after China announced disengagement of troops in the Pangong lake in Ladakh from standof f positions and both sides pulled back their troops. In the space of a fortnight, both the volatile China and Pakistan frontiers have become tranquil, indicating hectic back channel diplomacy giving peace a , unexpected booster shot in the often troubled neighbourhood. “Both sides agreed for strict observance of all agreements, understandings and cease firing along the Line of Control and all other sectors with effect from midnight 24/25 February 2021,” both countries stated in a joint statement. Indian Army officials at- tributed the truce to the realisation on both sides of collateral damage as innocent civilian lives were needlessly lost in the cross-border firing. “One of the aims is to safeguard the lives of innocent civilians as we are bound to retaliate to ceasefire violations,” said a senior Army officer. This agreement will be a big relief for the people living on the border and their cattle. The Union home ministry has built community bunkers in the villages along the LoC to safeguard the lives of civilians caught in the border crossfire. As many as 70 civilians on the Indian side of the LoC were killed in the cross-border firing between 2018 and 2020 while 341 others were injured during the same period. However, there won’t be any let up in the deployment of forces. “The operational posture will not have any change and we will follow the policy of zero tolerance to any action from the other side of the LoC,” the officer said.