Haryana: Mobile internet suspended in Nuh ahead of Abhishek Yatra
The order was issued by the Home Department under the authority of Additional Chief Secretary Sumita Misra.
The move appears to have come all of a sudden as Nuh Deputy Commissioner Vishram Kumar Meena, on Wednesday, had told The Indian Express that there is no plan for any internet ban.
However, on Sunday night, Meena said that after a meeting with all stakeholders in the evening it was decided that mobile internet will be suspended in the district.
'All preparations are in place. Cutting across party, community and religious lines there will be people at 41 welcome points for the yatris… I personally reviewed the preparations today too and the yatra will be conducted peacefully and smoothly'.
The order states that the ban is aimed at preventing the spread of misinformation and maintaining law and order in the district.
It has been issued under Section 20 of the Telecommunications Act, 2023, and Rule 3 of the Telecommunications (Temporary Suspension of Services) Rules, 2024. The suspension covers mobile internet services (2G, 3G, 4G, 5G, CDMA, GPRS), bulk SMS (excluding banking and mobile recharge), and all dongle services on mobile networks.
Voice calls, individual SMS, banking SMS, mobile recharge services, internet services provided through broadband and lease lines for corporate and domestic households will remain unaffected.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Indian Express
24 minutes ago
- Indian Express
Agri red lines: India's last-minute pullout from RCEP offers cues to why the US trade talks have hit a wall
India's last-minute decision in November 2019 to withdraw from joining the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), a mega-regional pact and the most expansive regional trade agreement that India had ever negotiated, was triggered by a belated rethink in New Delhi policy circles. The build-up to RCEP, and the last minute jettisoning of the deal by New Delhi, seems to be coming full circle. As the India-US trade talks head into a wall with the 50 per cent tariff looming in the horizon, the dairy and agri sectors, and the issue of GM crops, are proving to be red lines that New Delhi is clear it will not breach, given the political cost of this decision. While the negotiations for the deal have been constructive and there was a clear sense by end-June in New Delhi that an agreement was close, events have spiralled into a tailspin since then. 'Diplomatic and non-trade issues' that cropped up have effectively pushed the deal aground, as reported by The Indian Express. Meanwhile US President Donald Trump has ratcheted up the pressure, primarily because India appears to be staying firm on issues rather than caving in, as a number of other countries have done to bag a headline tariff deal. While that frustration in Washington DC has played a part in the talks heading downhill, diplomatic issues such as India's rebuttal of some claims made by Trump have contributed to the downward spiral in relations. Now with the 50 per cent tariffs on India's exports to the US a reality, at least as things stand today, the real cost of the tariff impact from India's perspective can be tangibly calculated. The uncertainty so far was proving to be a bigger problem than the tariffs themselves. More than the loss of competitiveness, the high tariffs could dent the positioning of India as a viable China plus-one-alternative, which has already helped New Delhi emerge as a competitive player in high-value assembly such as mobile handsets. The imposition of higher tariffs on India is part of Trump's negotiating playbook, which has consistently followed a pattern: keep throwing in a big tariff number to unsettle the other side and then gain leverage on the negotiating table. China too faced 145%, before tariff came down to 30%, and the EU was threatened with 30% just before its final tariff talks, with that number coming down to 15% after the deal was struck. Whenever negotiations have stalled with other countries too, President Trump tends to escalate matters as part of a strategy to seek leverage. Other than China, most other countries including the EU, South Korea and Japan had rushed in to wrap up deals within days. Clearly, a decision has been taken in New Delhi to weather the tariff impact, while continuing backchannel negotiations. Also, these secondary tariffs, while being imposed under the guise of Russian oil purchases funding the Ukraine war, seem to be less about Russia and more about India. While some are reading this as Trump's attempts to corner Russia, it is clear that a genuine attempt to throttle Moscow would have warranted a stronger action on China, the biggest buyer of Russian oil. Ironic still is the fact that Europe continues to buy non-coal minerals from Russia while the US too has stepped up its purchase of uranium and palladium from that country. In terms of impact on India, while the US is the country's largest export destination, nearly a quarter of the Indian exports, including pharmaceuticals and sectors such as electronic goods, have a concessional duty impact while entering America at this point in time. India has already started a graded tapering off of Russian oil since June. That is not particularly difficult from an economic standpoint, especially at this point, given that the gap between Brent crude and Russian Urals grade, which used to be $30 in 2022, is now down to around $5 per barrel. The effective landed price adjusted for shipping and the higher insurance on Russian cargo comes to about $2-3 per barrel. The whole economic impact is perhaps overstated in these current circumstances, and switching back to other grades of crude would be possible. But then there could be a price surge in Opec oil, if India were to substitute the entire 1.7 million barrels per day that it currently buys from Russia to West Asian crude. That could impact everybody, including America. Given India's hard redlines on agri trade and dairy, New Delhi was prepared to offer something in return. Like Japan did with concessions on rice, even as it walked away with a favourable deal for its auto sector. India has indicated its willingness to offer concessions on high-value purchases that the US is keen to package as part of its tariff-setting exercise and has said it is open to purchasing three big-ticket items from the US: defence equipment, natural gas imports and nuclear reactors. On specific sectors such as auto, India has communicated its openness to a quota system that progressively opens up market access in that sector over a span of multiple years, like it did in the UK deal signed last week.
Indian Express
2 hours ago
- Indian Express
112 illegal Bangladeshis deported from Mumbai region; total this year jumps to 719
In a major crackdown on illegal Bangladeshi immigrants in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), the police on Thursday deported 112 people — 92 from Mumbai, and 20 from Mira-Bhayander and Thane. As per documents accessed by The Indian Express, while the immigrants were taken to Pune on Wednesday, they were later transported to the Assam-Bangladesh border in a special Indian Air Force (IAF) aircraft on Thursday, where they were handed over to the security forces of Bangladesh. With the deportation of 92 immigrants from Mumbai on Thursday, the total number of deportations from the city alone has climbed to 719 this year, said a senior police officer. By comparison, a total of 152 Bangladeshi nationals were deported from Mumbai in the whole of 2024. The documents show that the illegal immigrants were detained from across the city between June 12 and August 5. While 92 of them were from Mumbai — 40 women, 34 children and 18 men — the breakup of the 20 who were detained and deported from Mira Bhayander and Thane was not available. 'This time the government decided to drop the illegal immigrants at the Assam-Bangladesh border, which is highly secured and manned by the Indian Army and it is next to impossible to enter through the border there. They were handed over to the Bangladesh border security force,' a police officer said. Another officer on condition of anonymity said, 'From January 1 till August 5 this year, the Mumbai police have deported 719 Bangladeshi nationals staying illegally in the city.' The deported Bangladeshi nationals were detained by various police stations across the city and most of them were detained in the last week of July after they were ascertained to have violated visa norms and entered India illegally via the Indo-Bangladesh international border. A senior IPS officer said, 'They were deported to Bangladesh under Section 3 (2) (c) of the Foreigners Act 1946 after completing the required legal process.' The deportation started in February this year when the first lot of 12 people were sent back across the border. The crackdown on illegal Bangladeshi nationals gained momentum after the arrest of Shariful Islam, a Bangladeshi national who allegedly attacked Bollywood actor Saif Ali Khan inside his Bandra residence on January 16. Shariful was found to have a duplicate Aadhaar card with his photo and an Indian SIM card, which he allegedly procured illegally in India. Describing the details of the operation, a senior police officer said once their informants tipped them off about suspicious people at building construction sites across the city, they were called to the police station. Following this, police collected evidence — call data records (to check if they had made international calls regularly to Bangladesh) or bank transactions — and then they were detained for legal procedure. The documents show that out of the 92 deported from Mumbai, the highest number were from Andheri's Amboli area, from where a total of 11 were apprehended. The data further showed that in at least four cases only the mother was found to be staying with her minor kids illegally.
Indian Express
4 hours ago
- Indian Express
Outrage back home as priests and nuns from Kerala are stopped by right-wing activists in Odisha
Tension prevailed in a village in Odisha's Balasore district after workers of a right-wing group stopped vehicles carrying Christian nuns and priests on suspicion that they were engaging in forced religious conversion, police sources said. Citing allegations that some of the nuns and priests, who were from Kerala, were assaulted, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and Opposition leader V D Satheesan condemned the incident. The local police, however, said the nuns and priests were not harmed and that no complaint had been filed. The incident occurred on Wednesday evening at Gangadhar village under Basta police station in Balasore district, where the nuns and others came to attend a memorial service. According to Basta police inspector-in-charge Ranjit Sahu, they received a call from a local person about the incident, following which the police team reached the village. 'There was tension when the police team reached the spot. But we managed to disperse the crowd and convinced them that they had come to attend the memorial service. The nuns and priests were not harmed in any manner,' Sahu told The Indian Express. Sahu said police haven't received any written or oral complaint from anyone in this regard. 'We have done a station diary entry of the incident for the sake of record,' said the inspector said. Police also said they had no information about allegations that mobile phones of the priests and others were forcibly taken by the mob. The Catholic Bishops' Conference of India (CBCI) on Friday strongly condemned the incident and expressed 'deep anguish' calling it a 'blatant violation' of constitutional rights and dignity of minorities. The Bishops' body urged the Odisha government to take 'swift and decisive action' to prosecute the perpetrators, and to ensure the protection of minority communities. 'We further urge the authorities to safeguard the fundamental rights guaranteed under the Constitution, so that every citizen may live and practice their faith without fear,' said a statement issued by CBCI. The CBCI added that it would continue to monitor the situation and stand firm in its commitment to defend the rights, dignity, and safety of all citizens, especially the Christian community. Kerala Chief Minister Vijayan took to social media and said the incident was part of a 'witch hunt'. 'Reports of an assault on Keralite Catholic priests and nuns by Sangh Parivar goons in Jaleswar, Odisha, on false charges of religious conversion, reflect the ongoing communal witch-hunt against Christians in the country, exemplified by the arrest of nuns in Chhattisgarh weeks ago. Such Hindutva vigilantism, enabled by the regime's impunity, must be unitedly resisted by secular & democratic forces,' the Vijayan wrote on X. Also condemning the incident, Kerala Opposition Leader V D Satheesan alleged that over the last year, Christians in BJP-ruled states had faced 835 attacks. Kerala Catholic Bishops Conference (KCBC) also expressed concern. 'The Indian constitution gives freedom of religion for all people However, the present situation shows that this right is not protected. The government should take stern action to protect the religious rights of the people and their right to live without fear,' said Father Micheal Pulikkal of the KCBC. The incident comes just weeks after two nuns from Kerala were arrested in Chhattisgarh on charges of forceful conversion and later released on bail. That incident had also led to uproar in Kerala.
