chennai l tuesday l august 26, 2025 l `9.00 l PAGES 20 l late city EDITION SC asks Samay Raina, 4 others to apologise for disability jokes Supreme Court asked 5 social media influencers to display their apology in their shows for ridiculing persons with disabilities and rare genetic disorders Penalty to be considered later, says court Commercial content is not free speech A bench of justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi said the degree of repentance should be higher than the degree of offending and made it clear that the court would later consider imposing a penalty on the influencers—Samay Raina, Sonali Thakkar, Vipul Goyal, Balraj Paramjeet Singh Ghai, and Nishant Jagdish Tanwar—for offending disabled persons ■ ■ The five influencers are accused of making fun of the disabled and those suffering from spinal muscular atrophy and visual impairment Justice Bagchi said the influencers should be more cautious while creating humour, adding that those who use social media platforms to earn money can’t label their commercial content as free speech Petition Against the influencers was filed by Cure SMA Foundation of India 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 India alerts Pak on flash floods J i t e n d r a C h o u b e y @ New Delhi With the weather office issuing a red alert on Sunday predicting extreme rainfall over the next two days in J&K, India formally notified Pakistan about the potential risk of flash floods in the Tawi and Sutlej rivers as a gesture of good neighbourliness. The alert was sent through diplomatic channels rather than the Indus Waters Treaty framework, since India placed the Treaty in abeyance shortly after the Pahalgam terror attack on April 22. For its part, the Pakistan Foreign Office confirmed In- A damaged bridge following heavy rainfall in Jammu on Monday | PTI dia’s two alerts: on Sunday about the Tawi flooding, and on Monday on possible flash floods in the Sutlej. Retail Inflation revamp Govt to source price data from e-comm sites DIPAK MONDAL @ New Delhi IN a bid to make the official retail inflation data more updated, the government is planning to effect major changes to the way the data is captured and measured. As part of the overhaul, the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) will source data directly from e-commerce platforms such as Amazon and Flipkart. Speaking to this newspaper, MoSPI Secretary Saurabh Garg confirmed that the ministry will track prices from e-commerce platforms across 12 cities. He said the cities would be chosen on a random sampling basis. “Our effort is to collect data in a way that better represents the economy today he said. ,” Meanwhile, a Reuters report said the ministry plans to scrape prices from ecommerce sites in 12 cities with populations above 2.5 million. According to the report, e-commerce firms were told to share weekly average prices of goods with the government. These figures would be cross-checked against a broader dataset to guard against distortions. The objective is to build a more robust system for tracking retail inflation, given the rising share of ecommerce in household consumption. The government will also revise the base years. CPI’s base year will shift to 2023–24, while the GDP’s will be updated to 2022–23. Currently, both the GDP and CPI are calculated using 2011–12 as base year. The CPI product basket is also set for expansion and rebalancing. The number of items tracked will go up from 300 to 400. express read CM opens state-run journalism school BCCI races to find new team sponsor Chennai: CM M K Stalin on Monday inaugurated the Chennai Institute of Journalism (CIJ), funded by the state government, that will offer a one-year PG Diploma course in journalism starting this academic year | P2 CHENNAI: The BCCI find themselves in the curious position of having to bring on board a sponsor for one of the most visible slots — title sponsor for all Indian teams and also embossed on jerseys — within a twoweek period | P15 HC chucks CIC fiat to disclose PM’s degree E x p r e ss N e w s S e r v i c e @ New Delhi The Delhi High Court on Monday set aside a 2016 order of the Central Information Commission (CIC) that had directed the University of Delhi (DU) to disclose and allow inspection of records relating to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s bachelor’s degree. Justice Sachin Datta had reserved the judgment on February 27, pronounced the verdict on DU’s plea challenging the CIC directive. Justice Datta, in his verdict, found Narendra Modi, PM no implicit public interest in the information sought under RTI, adding educational qualifications were not in the nature of any statutory requirement for holding any public office or discharging official responsibilities. The marks obtained, grades, answer sheets, etc., are in the nature of personal information and are protected under Section 8(1) of the RTI Act, the court ruled. Sources said that the alert was directly communicated to the Pakistani government through the Indian High Commission (IHC) there. The IHC reached out to the Pakistani Foreign Office, instead of routing the information through the Pakistan High Commission in Delhi. Jammu experienced record rainfall on Sunday significant, ly increasing water levels in the Tawi, which could lead to a flood disaster in Pakistan. The Tawi in Jammu is a tributary of the Chenab, flowing through Jammu city before joining the Chenab, which eventually flows into Pakistan. HC appoints SIT to investigate kidney trafficking racket in TN JEGADEE S WA R I PANDIAN @ Madurai Expressing its displeasure over the failure of the state government to register an FIR in connection with the recent kidney trafficking incidents in Tamil Nadu, the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Monday appointed a special investigation team (SIT), headed by Inspector General of Police (South Zone) Prem Anand Sinha, to probe the racket and directed the team to file a progress report before the HC in a month. A bench comprising justices S M Subramaniam and G Arul Muru- gan criticised the state for not having shown enough sensitivity towards the issue, although it is related to the life of citizens. Even after the court repeatedly pointed out the gravity of the issue and need to file an FIR, the state continued to hesitate citing statutory bar, it said. Although Additional Advocate General (AAG) M Ajmal Khan and State Public Prosecutor Hasan Mohamed Jinnah, in response to the court’s oral instructions to suggest names for forming an SIT, submitted a list of police officers, the judges were disappointed.  P7