‘China could abuse AI to swing poll outcome’ Warning by Microsoft comes as India and South Korea go to polls this month and the US in November. North Korea could add to trouble. China is increasingly experimenting in memes, videos and audio generated by artificial intelligence to further its interests, said Clint Watts, General Manager, Microsoft Threat Analysis Center KOllam l Sunday l april 07, 2024 l `12.00 l PAGES 26 l city edition CHENNAI ■ MADURAI ■ VIJAYAWADA ■ BENGALURU ■ KOCHI ■ HYDERABAD ■ VISAKHAPATNAM ■ COIMBATORE ■ KOZHIKODE ■ THIRUVANANTHAPURAM ■ BELAGAVI ■ BHUBANESWAR ■ SHIVAMOgGA ■ MANGALURU ■ TIRUPATI ■ TIRUCHY ■ TIRUNELVELI ■ SAMBALPUR ■ HUBBALLI ■ DHARMAPURI ■ KOTTAYAM ■ KANNUR ■ VILLUPURAM ■ KOLLAM ■ TADEPALLIGUDEM ■ NAGAPATTINAM ■ THRISSUR ■ KALABURAGI Fight gets shriller as LS campaign picks up pace Muslim League imprint Democratic institutions on Cong manifesto: PM being destroyed: Sonia N a m i ta B a j pa i @ Lucknow BUCKET FULL OF HOPES KPCC president in-charge M M Hassan collecting funds from a trader in Palayam Connemara Market in Thiruvananthapuram as part of a crowdfunding intitiative. The cash-strapped Congress had decided to go for ‘bucket fund collection’ from the general public to meet the poll expenses | Vincent Pulickal | P5 I-T dept freezes CPM bank account E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @Kochi/T’Puram Even as Opposition parties accuse the central agencies of trying to cripple their electioneering at the behest of the BJP, the Income Tax department on Saturday froze a bank account of the CPM which has `4.8 crore. The account of the CPM Thrissur district committee in a nationalised bank caught the attention of IT investigators when `1 crore was recently withdrawn from it. The action was initiated by an IT special team tasked with monitoring the flow of black money in the backdrop of the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. According to an official, the details of the account was not mentioned in the I-T returns filed by the party . Meanwhile, the CPM state leadership condemned the action, alleging that the I-T department froze the account without prior notice or seeking any sort of explanation from the party . The account has been frozen after an unexpected interrogation of CPM Thrissur district secretary M M Varghese by the I-T sleuths at the Enforcement Directorate office in Kochi on Friday where , he was being questioned by the ED in connection with the Karuvannur Service Cooperative Bank scam. “The bank account, opened in 1998, is in the name of the CPM Thrissur district committee. Upon examining the party’s I-T returns, we discovered that the details of this bank account were not disclosed. Currently there is `4.8 , crore in the account. We have frozen the account and initiated an investigation. The transactions made through the account are under scrutiny. Furthermore, efforts are on to identify any additional accounts belonging to the political party in other banks across Kerala that were not disclosed in the I-T returns,” stated an IT official.● More on P2 Migrant’s death: Police confirm lynching, 10 held E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @ Kochi The police investigation into the death of a migrant worker in Valakom, near Muvattupuzha, on Thursday night is reported to have confirmed lynching. Officers on Saturday recorded the arrest of 10 persons who are suspected to have assaulted Asok Das, 32, who hailed from Arunachal Pradesh and had worked as a chef at a restaurant in Valakom. All the 10 — Vijesh, Anish, Sathyan, Suraj, Keshav, Eliyas K Paul, Amal, Athul Krishna, Emil, and Sanal — are residents of the village. Ernakulam Rural police chief Vaibhav Saxena said the preliminary probe revealed that the mob had assaulted Asok, in what could be an act of moral policing gone wrong. “Our initial conclusion was that Asok suffered injuries to the head and chest and that the mob had assaulted him. The postmortem confirmed the injuries. Based on the probe, we have arrested 10 persons who were part of the mob that tied Asok to a pole. We have booked those arrested for mur● More on P6 der,” he said. R a j e s h A s n a n i @ Jaipur While underscoring the futility of INDIA bloc in Uttar Pradesh and calling it a flopped film of two boys (Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav) of 2017 re-released in 2024, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday launched a blistering attack on the Congress in Saharanpur, charging that its manifesto released a day earlier had imprint of the erstwhile Muslim League. “The Congress manifesto completely bears the imprint of the Muslim League of the days of the freedom struggle. Its every page reeks of breaking India into pieces. And whatever part of the Congress is left is completely dominated by the leftists. Such a party cannot take India forward in the 21st century,” he said, adding the poll statement of the Congress showed it was completely cut off from the hopes and aspirations of today’s India. “On the other hand, we have worked without discrimination. Saturation coverage of our welfare schemes has been our mantra. We want the welfare initiatives to reach every section, every caste and everyone without discrimination. This is true secularism,” he added. In his pushback, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh accused the BJP of practising the “politics of divisiveness”. He sought to remind the prime minister that Jan Sangh founder Syama Prasad Mookerjee had joined a coalition government in Bengal with the Muslim League in the early 1940s. In its first mega show in Rajasthan, Congress biggies Sonia Gandhi, Mallikarjun Kharge and Priyanka Gandhi launched a scathing attack against the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a massive rally here to introduce the party’s manifesto to the public. Sonia said the country under Modi’s rule has been pushed towards dictatorship. She accused the Modi government of instilling fear in the country’s democratic institutions, adding the PM believes he is above the nation. The country’s freedom is not the product of the new leadership at the top but has been achieved through the struggles and sacrifices of their forefathers, she said, adding: “After so many years, the great light has dimmed. The injustice of darkness has increased all around. Our resolve should be to fight against this and seek the light of justice.” Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge accused Modi of confusing the people and failing to deliver. “You have not done anything for the country You only abuse Congress and the Gan... dhi family he claimed. ,” Priyanka Gandhi criticised the BJP’s association with corrupt individuals and accused it of prioritising industrialists over the welfare of the people. “All the schemes are for big industrialists. They say they will give a 5 kg ration but will not provide employment, will not let your children stand on their feet,” she charged. press Intake Taiwan quake: 600 still stranded | P11 Slow job market nixes india’s growth story | P12 Hit wave strikes IPL season with 6 S w a r o o p S w a m i n at h a n @ Chennai THE ongoing edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) is more than two weeks old. One of the patterns to have emerged from the 17th iteration is that, as it stands, the league is on course to see a new record for sixes in a single year. After Friday night’s match between Sunrisers Hyderabad and Chennai Super Kings, the 10 teams combined had managed 326 maximums for an average of 18 per match. What has changed when compared to the previous year is that the teams are clearing the boundary cushions at an unprecedented rate. As it stands, they are hitting at least one six every 2.1 overs, comfortably the best such metric in the history of the league. In 2023, it was one every 2.3 overs. Why is this the case? There are various reasons for this but the short answer is that uncapped Indian batters are comfortable in taking the aerial route (out of the top 25 leading six-hitters this year, four are uncapped Indians). The other pronounced rationale behind this sort of six-hitting lies in the teams (and players) valuing the art of boundaries: 80% of all T20 matches are won by teams who hit more boundaries. Even among the boundaries, sides who hit more sixes typically tend to win more matches. P13 pollscape Daya Bai backs out Kasaragod: Social activist Daya Bai has opted out of contesting in the LS elections. Daya Bai had expressed her intention to contest as an independent candidate from Kasaragod. P4 WITH THIS ISSUE Web of Slavery PLUS 12 PAGES
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