DHARMAPURI  THURSDAY  MARCH 25, 2021  `7.00  PAGES 14  CITY EDITION CCI TO PROBE ‘EXPLOITATIVE’ PRIVACY POLICY OF WHATSAPP The Competition Commission of India on Wednesday directed its investigation arm to conduct a probe into WhatsApp’s privacy policy INVESTIGATION TO BE CONCLUDED IN 2 MONTHS The move came after the fair trade regulator prima facie found the firm has contravened competition law provisions through its “exploitative and exclusionary conduct” in the garb of policy update. The CCI directed its investigation arm, the director general (DG), to complete the probe into WhatsApp’s updated privacy policy and submit a report within 60 days ■ CCI DISCLOSE TO WHAT EXTENT IS DATA SHARED ■ The Commission said users, as owners of their personalised data, are entitled to know the extent, scope and purpose of sharing of such information by WhatsApp with other Facebook companies WhatsApp claims the update does not expand its ability to share data with Facebook but offers transparency about data usage OBSERVATIONS ARE PRELIMINARY AND WON’T IMPACT THE MERITS OF THE CASE 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 Ball set rolling for appointing Ramana as CJI Will create Palani district, promises EPS EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE @ Dindigul/Karur Bobde recommends him for the high office; in-house SC panel dismisses Jagan charges EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE the influencing of the Andhra High Court to stay a probe into an FIR filed by the Anti-CorWITH just a month left for his ruption Bureau against former retirement, Chief Justice of Advocate General DammalapIndia S A Bobde has recom- ati Srinivas and 12 others, inmended the name of Justice N cluding his (Justice Ramana’s) V Ramana as his successor. two daughters, in the AmaraParallelly, an in-house in- vati land scam. quiry against Justice With Bobde sendRamana following a ing the recommendacomplaint by Andhra tion letter, Justice RaPradesh Chief Minmana is now in line ister Jagan Mohan to be appointed as the Reddy on allegedly 48th CJI. He is exmanipulating the pected to take over as Andhra Pradesh topmost judge of the High Court’s roster land on April 24 and to lean towards the will retire on August Justice N V Ramana Telugu Desam Party 26, 2022. Only twice and its founder N so far, the set proceThe call of Chandrababu Naidu, dure was not followed convention was dismissed, pav— first when Justice ing the way for his As per convention, A N Ray was appointappointment as the ed the CJI on April the CJI new CJI. 25, 1973 superseding recommends the A bland statement senior-most judge three senior-most issued by the Sujudges and next when of the Supreme preme Court said: “A Justice M H Beg was Court as his complaint dated 6th successor. The law appointed the CJI on October, 2020 sent by January 29, 1977 suminister puts it the Chief Minister of perseding Justice H before the Prime Andhra Pradesh to R Khanna. Minister who the Supreme Court Justice Ramana advises the was dealt with under President on such was appointed perthe In-House Procemanent judge of the appointments dure and the same, Andhra High Court on due consideration, stands on June 27, 2000 and functioned dismissed. It be noted that all as Acting Chief Justice of Andthe matters dealt with under hra High Court from March 10, the In-House Procedure being 2013 to May 20, 2013. Appointed strictly confidential in nature, as the Chief Justice of Delhi are not liable to be made High Court on September 2, public.” 2013, Justice Ramana was eleAmong other allegations in vated as a judge of the Supreme Jagan’s letter to CJI Bobde was Court on February 17, 2014. @ New Delhi Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami greets supporters during an election campaign in Dindigul district on Wednesday TOTAL 3,68,457 INDIA'S CASELOAD 47,262 ACTIVE FRESH CASES RECORDED IN THE LAST 24 HOURS 12 ‘LETTER BOMB’ 23,907 RECOVERIES IN A DAY CENTRE CONFIRMS DOUBLE MUTATION IN MAHARASHTRA S U M I S U K A N YA D U T TA @ New Delhi THE Centre on Wednesday officially announced the detection of a new double mutant Covid-19 virus, in addition to several variants of concern (VOC) that have been found in at least 18 states in India. This newspaper in its March 17 edition was the first to report the two mutations — E48Q and L452R — found together in about 20% samples in Maharashtra. This double mutation has not been seen anywhere else globally yet. The Union health ministry said since Indian SARS-CoV-2 Consortium on Genomics (INSACOG) began its work, 771 VOCs have been detected out of 10,787 positive samples shared by states. They include 736 samples that tested positive for the UK variant, 34 for of the South African variant and one of the Brazilian variant. These samples came from 18 states across the country . NATIONAL PARA ATHLETICS MEET IN DARKNESS A S H I M S U N A M @ Bengaluru “Such (double) mutations confer immune escape and increased infectivity These mu. tations have been found in about 15-20% of samples and do not match any previously catalogued VOCs,” the ministry said. Also, of the 2,032 samples from all 14 districts in Kerala sequenced so far, the N440K variant that is associated with immune escape has been found in 123 from 11 districts. This variant was earlier found in 33% of samples from Andhra Pradesh, and in 53 of 104 samples from Telangana. N440K has also been reported from 16 other countries, including the UK, Denmark, Singapore, Japan and Australia. Though VOCs and a new double mutant variant have been found in India, they have not been detected in numbers sufficient to explain the rapid increase in cases in some states, the Centre said. New cluster: Med college in Kanchi reports 52 cases S I N D U J A J A N E @ Chennai AS many as 52 first year MBBS students from a private medical college in Kancheepuram district have tested positive for Covid-19, even as the State Health Department is struggling to control new clusters. Speaking to Express, the Resident Medical Officer of the institute said, “At first, six students had tested positive for Covid on Sunday. They had shown mild symptoms. All students were tested after that, and till Tuesday totally 52 had tested positive. We don’t know , the source of infection. It could have spread to other students as they were attending classes together. Hostels have been shut and disinfection was also done.” The RMO further said 12 students were sent back home with their parents after an undertaking that they will be put under home quarantine. Another 40 are being treated at the Covid Care Centre in the hospital itself. “The students had been following social distancing. We have also been following all the SOPs,” said the officer. He added that a few students used to go home on weekends and the infection could have occurred from such students. Classes for the first year students began only a month ago. Meanwhile, in the last one week, 20 medical students in Karaikal had tested positive for Covid. The State has also closed down all medical colleges and ordered them to conduct online classes for students. Buck stops here, EC told on allegations of data breach Suez Canal blocked for now Massive cargo ship MV Ever Given gets wedged across vital trade route and could disrupt global shipments for days | P14 IF a last minute change of venue sounded extreme enough, paraatheletes at the ongoing National Para Athletics Championships were in for a rude shock on Wednesday night. For shot put was conducted with help from mobile phone lights and car headlights at the Sree Kanteerava Stadium. The Paralympic Committee of India (PCI) didn’t respond to calls but the videos doing the rounds painted a sorry picture about sport in India. This incident under the Bengaluru lights was the latest in a series of snafus the PCI has seemingly entangled itself in since March 21. First, they shifted the competition from Chennai to Bengaluru leaving some athletes stranded. Even if they couldn’t be blamed for that as TN government denied permission due to rising covid cases, the first day itself has eyebrow-raising episodes play itself out. First, deciding to organising a para meet at a venue not friendly to wheelchairs. Then, there were multiple reports of Covid-19 breaches, including not adhering to P13 SOPs, a fact acknowledged by Sports Authority of India. CHIEF Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami on Wednesday promised to create a new district with Palani as its headquarters. This is the second such announcement he has made after he promised to create another district with Arani (Tiruvannamalai) as its headquarters, last Sunday Giving a . fillip to micro-level administration, and to ensure that the people have easy access to government schemes, Palaniswami in the past four years carved out six new districts — Kallaku- “Union Home Minister Amit richi, Tenkasi, Chengalpattu, Shah has helped us whenever Tirupattur, Ranipet and Mayi- we asked for it. The Centre has laduthurai. As of now, Tamil provided `1 lakh crore to Tamil Nadu has 38 districts. Nadu for the construcEarlier in the day, tion of National Highwhile campaigning in way only because we Karur, Palaniswami rehave a very close allicalled his connection ance with them.” In anwith Prime Minister other development, vetDAYS TO GO Narendra Modi. “It was eran leader and DMK’s Modi who guided me agriculture wing State when I took over as the CM. He secretary, M Chinnasamy, shared his experiences as the joined the AIADMK in the presCM of Gujarat, and it was he ence of Palaniswami. Rajini who gave the good advice that Makkal Mandaram’s district has helped in the development chief Bagavan Paramasivam P4 of our State.” He further stated, also joined the party . H A R I S H M U R A L I @ Chennai SUEZ CANAL THE Madras High Court on Wednesday pulled up the Election Commission of India (ECI) over allegations of the Puducherry BJP unit accessing personal data of voters. Observing that it was a grave situation, it said that the Commission cannot pass the buck to the cyber cell authorities to investigate matter, and directed it to file a report within two days. The issue pertains to Anand, president of the Puducherry unit of the Democratic Youth Foundation of India (DYFI), alleging that the local BJP candidates had accessed phone numbers of voters from the Unique Identification Authority of India, and were creating WhatsApp groups for campaigning. The petitioner stated that multiple groups were formed specifically targeting voters in each booth. Anand further alleged that he had tried reaching out to the group administrator, and to his shock found that there were 952 such groups with all details of voters, created by the local P4 BJP unit. Thackeray starts damage control over allegations S U D H I R S U R YA W A N S H I @ Mumbai MAHARASHTRA Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray called an urgent meeting of senior Cabinet ministers at his residence on Wednesday to discuss the political situation following the explosive letter written by ex-Mumbai commissioner Param Bir Singh. The meeting was in the backdrop of the Supreme Court’s observation that Singh’s allegations against Maharashtra home minister Anil Deshmukh were “quite serious”. Singh had approached the SC challenging his transfer but the apex court directed him to approach the Bombay High Court. According to a minister who attended the meeting, the state government will take the legal course. “A strict message has to be sent to officers who go against the state. Besides, officers with links to the BJP and RSS should be identified to take action against them for leaking information to the Opposition,” he said. The Cabinet meeting was attended by deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar, NCP state president Jayant Patil, and Congress’ Balasaheb Thorat. Earlier, in a purported ‘clean-up drive’, the Maharasthra government had on Tuesday night transferred 86 police officers including 65 from the Mumbai crime branch, many of these officials close to Singh and suspended assistant police inspector Sachin Waze, who is the custody of National Investigation Agency (NIA) for his alleged role in the Antilia explosives scare case. The NIA has invoked UAPA provisions against Waze. POLITICAL PULSE Thumbs up for delivering development in Assam, but a big no for price rise I F upgrading of national highways and construction of roads in the rural belts of Assam could win an election, then the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party should race to power, leaving in its wake a Congress-led alliance and a large number of smaller, ethno-nationalist political parties. From Tinsukia in the eastern tip of the state to Nagaon in middle Assam and beyond, dumper trucks, JCBs, bulldozers and road rollers work through the day forcing traffic , to weave left and right at regular intervals. While rural roads are being metalled, the national highways are being fourlaned. “The BJP has done a lot of development work, it has made roads, toilets and houses,” said Sanjib Bora, an owner of a shack restaurant next to the na- ASSAM POLLS H KHOGEN SINGH @ Dibrugarh/Nagaon (Assam) tional highway in Chabua, Tinsukia. “People here will support the BJP for this.” Bora’s sentiment was endorsed by Dhanesh Pegu, also a roadside dhaba owner in Dhemaji district next to the recent- ly-opened Bogibeel bridge, the longest one on the Brahmaputra river. “Modi ne bahut kaam kiya hain (Narendra Modi has done a lot of work),” he said. “Take the Bogibeel bridge for instance, The foundation stone was laid by (H D) Deve Gowda, then (Atal Bihari) Vajpayee did some work but after that there was a Congress government both at the Centre and in the state but nothing happened. When Modi came he finished the bridge,” Pegu said. It’s no wonder then that from Modi, Union home minister Amit Shah, Chief Minister Sarabanda Sonowal and state finance minister Himanta Biswa Sarma to the ordinary BJP karyakarta (worker), development is one of the main ASSAM Dibrugarh Nagaon Source: Economic Survey 2017-18 talking points. “What we have done in the past five years the Congress could not do in 15,” said Tutun Kar at the party’s dimly-lit and sparse Nagaon district office. Assam’s Swachh Bharat Mission says more than 35.64 lakh toilets have been built since October 2014, with a 62% increase in households with the facility. As for housing, state ROAD NETWORK IN ASSAM (in km) Year 2011-12 2012-13 2013-14 2014-15 2015-16 2016-17 culture minister Naba Kumar Doley said in May 2020 that 2.7 lakh houses have been built under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana. The latest data on the increase in road network is not available but according to the Assam Economic Survey 201718, surfaced road increased from 21,200 kms in 2011-12 to 27,003 kms in 206-17. National Surfaced Unsurfaced National State Major road road Highway Highway dist. road 21,200 22,700 23,747 23,948 25,546 27,003 24,300 2,848 22,800 3,069 21,753 3,069 20,914 3,834 19,316 3,862.53 18,551 3,900 highways in the state increased from 2,848 kms to 3,900 kms in the same period. But the positive sentiment around the Assam gover nment’s development record is somewhat marred by the price rise. “Everything is so expensive now, dal prices have gone up and mustard oil now costs almost Rs 150 (a litre). I voted for Modi the last time, I am not 3,134 3,134 3,134 2,530 2,530 2,530 4,413 4,413 4,413 4,379 4,379 4,379 Rural road Urban road 36,544 36,544 36,544 36,544 36,544 37,030 1,409 1,409 1,409 1,409 1,409 1,615 sure this time,” said housewife Sarita Pegu in Dhemaji. Noor-ul-Islam in Nagaon concurs with Sarita on inflation. “There is no doubt the BJP government has brought development but what about the price rise? If they have given us Rs 2 in our bank accounts, they have taken away Rs 98,” he said. CONTINUED ON: P9