Budget 2018-19

  The Central Board of Secondary Education (SBSE) had referred the matter to subject experts on Sunday and sought their feedback. The CBSE on Monday dropped a comprehension passage and the accompanying questions from the Class-10 English exam and decided to award full marks for it to students, following an outrage over the board allegedly promoting “gender stereotyping” and supporting “regressive notions”. The  Central Board of Secondary Education  (SBSE) had referred the matter to subject experts on Sunday and sought their feedback. In the Class-10 exam conducted on Saturday, the question paper carried a comprehension passage with sentences such as emancipation of women destroyed the parents’ authority over the children” and “it was only by accepting her husband’s way that a mother could gain obedience over the younger ones”, among others.Excerpts from the passage have gone viral on social media platforms with users calling out the board for supporting “misogynistic” and...

  Musk said during a conference call in January that he that he expects to be the CEO of Tesla for ‘several years’. Tesla Inc Chief Executive Officer  Elon Musk  is “thinking of” leaving his jobs and becoming an influencer, the world’s richest man tweeted on Thursday. “thinking of quitting my jobs & becoming an influencer full-time wdyt,” Musk said in the tweet, without elaborating. It was not immediately clear if Musk, a prolific user of the social media platform, was being serious about quitting his roles. Musk, who is also the founder and CEO of rocket company SpaceX, and leads brain-chip startup Neuralink and infrastructure firm The Boring Company, said during a conference call in January that he expects to be the CEO of  Tesla  for “several years”.

  Agrawal, who was appointed Monday to succeed Twitter founder and CEO Jack Dorsey, is 37, the same age as Meta Platform Inc. CEO Mark Zuckerberg Twitter Inc.’s new Chief Executive Officer  Parag Agrawal  is now the youngest CEO in the S&P 500, but apparently just barely. Agrawal, who was appointed Monday to succeed Twitter founder and CEO Jack Dorsey, is 37, the same age as Meta Platform Inc. CEO  Mark Zuckerberg . Citing security concerns, Twitter wouldn’t disclose Agrawal’s date of birth, but confirmed he was born later in 1984 than Zuckerberg’s May 14 birthday. Dorsey, at 45, was already among the dozen youngest CEOs in the collection of the largest U.S. companies. “I don’t think the age thing is that big of a deal, especially for companies like this. It could be an advantage,” said David Larcker, a professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, who studies CEO performance. “The fact that Dorsey is stepping down from the board, so he’s not going to be...

  Uttarakhand Chief Minister raised the stipend of MBBS intern doctors of state medical colleges from Rs 7,500 to Rs 17,000 per month Lauding the contribution of docto rs  and paramedical staff in combating  COVID-19 , Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami on Sunday raised the stipend of MBBS intern doctors of state medical colleges from Rs 7,500 to Rs 17,000 per month. Dhami took to Twitter to make the announcement and wrote: “Stipend to MBBS intern doctors of state medical colleges raised from Rs 7,500 per month to Rs 17,000 per month has been approved. The contribution of our doctors and paramedical staff has been commendable in reducing the impact of COVID-19 and providing prompt treatment to the victims.” This comes at a time when the country is battling the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.  Uttarakhand  currently has 623 total active cases, 3,27,464 total recoveries and 7,356 cumulative d...

  According to rules, significant social media intermediaries have to notify the details of their Indian-based chief compliance officer, nodal contact person and grievance officer The Minister for Electronics and Information Technology, Ravi Shankar Prasad, said Wednesday that Twitter has “failed to comply” with the new IT Rules that came into effect from May 26. Responding to reports about Twitter losing its safe harbour provision under its intermediary status in India, Prasad tweeted, “There are numerous queries arising as to whether Twitter is entitled to safe harbour provision. However, the simple fact of the matter is that Twitter has failed to comply with the intermediary guidelines that came into effect from May 26.” He added that Twitter was given multiple opportunities to comply with the new rules, but it failed to do so. MeitY had said on May 28 that major social media intermediaries have shared the details as required under the new IT Rules, 2021, except  Twitter , ...

  The ministry slammed Twitter’s statement on Thursday as an attempt to dictate terms to the world’s largest democracy. After  Twitter  alleged intimidation by police on the issue of ‘manipulated media’ tags, the government on Thursday condemned the statement issued by the microblogging platform as baseless, false and an attempt to defame India. The IT ministry asserted that representatives of social media companies, including Twitter, “are and will always remain safe in India”, and that there is “no threat to their personal safety and security”. The ministry slammed Twitter’s statement on Thursday as an attempt to dictate terms to the world’s largest democracy. Through its actions and deliberate defiance, Twitter seeks to undermine India’s legal system, the ministry added. “Government condemns the unfortunate statement issued by Twitter as totally baseless, false and an attempt to defame India to hide their own follies,” the IT ministry said. Earlier on Thursday, Twitter...

  Facebook has announced new measures to prevent its interest-based forums called Groups from spreading harmful content Facebook  has announced new measures to prevent its interest-based forums called Groups from spreading harmful content, like hate speech and misinformation. The measures come after the social networking platform faced criticism for its groups being linked to protests that led up to the Capitol riot in the US earlier this year. “We know we have a greater responsibility when we are amplifying or recommending content,” Tom Alison, Vice President of Engineering at Facebook, wrote in a blog post on Wednesday. These new changes will roll out globally over the coming months, Facebook said. The social networking giant said that when a group starts to violate its rules, it will now start showing them lower in recommendations, which means it is less likely that people will discover them. This is similar to its approach in News Feed, where the platform shows lower quali...

  Twitter has announced to let people use security keys as the only authentication method soon, adding that the micro-blogging platform will allow multiple security keys per account instead of just one Twitter  has announced to let people use security keys as the only authentication method soon, adding that the micro-blogging platform will allow multiple security keys per account instead of just one. Currently, Twitter users can use a security key to sign in and also need an authenticator app or SMS code as another 2FA (two-factor authentication) method.”Secure your account (and that alt) with multiple security keys. Now you can enroll and log in with more than one physical key on both mobile and web,” the company said in a tweet late on Monday.”And coming soon: the option to add and use security keys as your only authentication method, without any other methods turned on,” it added. Security keys are physical keys that connect to your computer using USB or Bluetooth. There ar...

  Snapchat on Tuesday launched its new entertainment platform ‘Spotlight’ for user-generated content in India Photo-messaging app Snapchat on Tuesday launched its new entertainment platform ‘Spotlight’ for user-generated content in India. According to the company, Spotlight surfaces the most entertaining snaps from the  Snapchat  community all in one place and will become tailored to each Snapchatter over time, based on their preferences and favourites. With over 5 billion snaps created each day, Spotlight aims to empower the Snapchat community to express themselves and reach a larger audience in a new way. Spotlight has been designed to entertain the Snapchat community while living up to the snaps’ values, with their wellbeing as a top priority. Spotlight content is moderated and doesn’t allow for public comments. Snaps submitted to Spotlight must respect the content guidelines to receive distribution. Snap’s $1m a day programme will also be available in India, celebrati...

  French cybersecurity says on Twitter that the Indian-made app was leaking email and other details about users Koo, the India-made response to Twitter, has denied a French cybersecurity researcher’s allegation that the app was leaking user data. Robert Baptiste, who goes by the pseudonym Elliot Alderson on Twitter, said late Wednesday night: “You asked so I did it. I spent 30 min on this new Koo app. The app is leaking of the personal data of his users: email, dob, name, marital status, gender.” Aprameya Radhakrishna, the co-founder of Koo, wrote on Twitter to deny the statement. “Some news about data leaking being spoken about unnecessarily. Please read this: The data visible is something that the user has voluntarily shown on their profile of Koo. It cannot be termed a data leak. If you visit a user profile you can see it anyway,” he said. Baptiste, in response, tweeted that Radhakrishna’s defence was “a lie”. He posted a screenshot of a Koo app user, claiming date of birth, mar...

  Twitter said it has taken steps to reduce the visibility of hashtags containing harmful content, which included prohibiting them from trending on Twitter and appearing as recommended search terms The government expects Twitter to fully comply with its legal notice in the matter of taking down accounts that were tweeting “ince­ndiary” hashtags related to the ongoing farmers’ protests. After a marathon meeting of top Twitter executives with officials in the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) on Wednesday, the government, in a strongly worded statement, said that “lawfully passed orders are binding on any business entity”. MeitY Secretary Ajay Prakash Sawhney, while stating that  Twitter  was welcome to do business in India, expressed strong displeasure to the executives of the American firm over the way it acted after an emergency order was issued to remove the genocide- related hashtag, according to the statement. ‘’Misuse of Twitter’s platform fo...

  Twitter removed former Malaysian PM Mahathir Mohamad’s tweet, for violating its rules banning the glorification of violence, shortly after a violent knife attack in Nice, which left three people dead Social networking platform Twitter on Thursday removed former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad’s tweet, for violating its rules banning the glorification of violence, shortly after a violent knife attack in Nice, which left three people dead. In a series of tweets, Mahathir Mohamad had said that “Muslims have a right to be angry and kill millions of French people for the massacres of the past”. It sparked an angry outburst on social media with many users calling out the former Malaysian prime minister. Cedric O, France’s Secretary for Digital Sector also condemned the post and urged Twitter to suspend the account of the former Malaysian prime minister and said in a tweet: “If not, Twitter would be an accomplice to a formal call for murder.” “I just spoke with the Managing Di...

  “Sham!” and “who the hell are you” scoldings dominated a Senate hearing where the CEOs of Twitter, Facebook, and Google took heat in a talking match with US lawmakers over the idea of free speech “Baloney!”, “sham!” and “who the hell are you” scoldings dominated a Senate hearing on Wednesday where the CEOs of Twitter, Facebook and Google took heat in a talking match with US lawmakers over the idea of free speech and alleged anti-conservative bias on the companies’ mighty platforms. The Congressional grilling quickly shifted into the realm of political circus around the social media content moderation dumpster fire. With less than a week to go for the US election, Republican lawmakers got an earful from critics for the timing of the “sham” hearing. At the heart of the heated arguments were 26 words tucked away in a 1996 US law – Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act. Section 230 states that “no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as th...

Facebook suspended Alex SpectreKogan over allegations that he lied when he said the data would be used for research purposes only   In a video published online in September, a social scientist named Alex Spectre made an earnest pitch for his new startup. Clad in the Silicon Valley uniform of open-collar shirt and blazer, Spectre boasted that his company -- Philometrics -- would revolutionize the way online surveys were done, making it easier for companies to design questionnaires that people would actually respond to on Facebook,  Twitter or other sites. Crucially, he said, the surveys could predict the responses for large groups from a small number of respondents and micro-target ads better. "The reality is working with big data, social media is incredibly difficult," said Spectre, who more commonly goes by Aleksandr Kogan, which he uses in his role as a Cambridge University researcher.  "You want to work with people who have a lot of experience. Y...