Indian court dismisses Yahoo case

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
2 March 2012 Last updated at 14:12 GMT Yahoo says there is no document to show that its website has violated any law The Delhi High Court has dismissed a criminal case against Yahoo India which was accused of hosting "objectionable" content on its web pages.

Yahoo was among 21 web firms, including Facebook and Google, accused of hosting material that could cause communal unrest.

Yahoo says there is no document to show that its website has violated any law.

The case was launched by journalist Vinay Rai. A separate civil lawsuit against the internet firms continues.

Judges in India have threatened to block sites that fail to crack down on offensive content.

Last month, Facebook and Google said they had complied with the court directive and removed "objectionable" material.

Late last year, Communications Minister Kapil Sibal met officials from Google, Facebook and other websites and said the government would introduce guidelines to ensure "blasphemous material" did not appear on the internet.

The Delhi High Court in January asked Facebook and Google India to "develop a mechanism to keep a check and remove offensive and objectionable material from their web pages" or "like China, we will block all such websites".

'May be revived'

"The summons issued against Yahoo India is set aside," the Press Trust of India quoted Delhi High Court Justice Suresh Kait as saying.

The judge, however, said that a private complaint against the website could be revived if credible and actionable evidence was filed against it.

Communications Minister Kapil Sibal has taken a strong line on the issue

Yahoo India's lawyer Arvind Nigam said summons were issued against the site "without application of mind by the trial court", he said.

"I wish to know what is the case against me," he added.

Yahoo has always maintained that the complaint filed in the court had nothing to do with its content as it was about alleged objectionable material retrieved from websites like Zombie, Orkut, YouTube, Facebook and Blogspot.

The criminal case has been brought by journalist Vinay Rai.

A separate civil lawsuit, which makes similar accusations, against a number of the same internet companies is proceeding. Yahoo is still involved in that. Microsoft successfully appealed to be dropped from it.

Many firms say it is impossible to pre-filter material.

Google India has argued that it is not feasible to pre-monitor material posted by "billions of people across the globe".

In an earlier court hearing, Google lawyer NK Kaul said that the issue also related "to a constitutional issue of freedom of speech and expression, and suppressing it was not possible as the right to freedom of speech in democratic India separates us from a totalitarian regime like China".

Facebook says policies are in place that enable people to report abusive content.

In December, Communications Minister Sibal said: "My aim is that insulting material never gets uploaded. We will evolve guidelines and mechanisms to deal with the issue. [The companies] will have to give us the data, where these images are being uploaded and who is doing it."

Mr Sibal was angered by morphed photos of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi, as well as doctored images of pigs running through Islam's holy city of Mecca.

View the original article here

In pictures: Indian photographer's journey through history

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
18 January 2012 Last updated at 14:49 GMT

News photos from around the world

24 hours of news photos: 2 March

Readers' pictures on the theme coffee break

The aftermath of a storm

Singer of 1960s group the Monkees has died

24 hours of news photos: 1 March 2012

24 hours of news photos: 29 February 2012

Protests and mass funerals continue in Syria

Police and bailiffs remove tents from Occupy camp

Dresses and fashions on the Oscar red carpet

View the original article here

VIDEO: Indian oil firm ONGC 'attractive'

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
1 March 2012 Last updated at 02:43 GMT Help

View the original article here

Indian court dismisses Yahoo case

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
2 March 2012 Last updated at 14:12 GMT Yahoo says there is no document to show that its website has violated any law The Delhi High Court has dismissed a criminal case against Yahoo India which was accused of hosting "objectionable" content on its web pages.

Yahoo was among 21 web firms, including Facebook and Google, accused of hosting material that could cause communal unrest.

Yahoo says there is no document to show that its website has violated any law.

The case was launched by journalist Vinay Rai. A separate civil lawsuit against the internet firms continues.

Judges in India have threatened to block sites that fail to crack down on offensive content.

Last month, Facebook and Google said they had complied with the court directive and removed "objectionable" material.

Late last year, Communications Minister Kapil Sibal met officials from Google, Facebook and other websites and said the government would introduce guidelines to ensure "blasphemous material" did not appear on the internet.

The Delhi High Court in January asked Facebook and Google India to "develop a mechanism to keep a check and remove offensive and objectionable material from their web pages" or "like China, we will block all such websites".

'May be revived'

"The summons issued against Yahoo India is set aside," the Press Trust of India quoted Delhi High Court Justice Suresh Kait as saying.

The judge, however, said that a private complaint against the website could be revived if credible and actionable evidence was filed against it.

Communications Minister Kapil Sibal has taken a strong line on the issue

Yahoo India's lawyer Arvind Nigam said summons were issued against the site "without application of mind by the trial court", he said.

"I wish to know what is the case against me," he added.

Yahoo has always maintained that the complaint filed in the court had nothing to do with its content as it was about alleged objectionable material retrieved from websites like Zombie, Orkut, YouTube, Facebook and Blogspot.

The criminal case has been brought by journalist Vinay Rai.

A separate civil lawsuit, which makes similar accusations, against a number of the same internet companies is proceeding. Yahoo is still involved in that. Microsoft successfully appealed to be dropped from it.

Many firms say it is impossible to pre-filter material.

Google India has argued that it is not feasible to pre-monitor material posted by "billions of people across the globe".

In an earlier court hearing, Google lawyer NK Kaul said that the issue also related "to a constitutional issue of freedom of speech and expression, and suppressing it was not possible as the right to freedom of speech in democratic India separates us from a totalitarian regime like China".

Facebook says policies are in place that enable people to report abusive content.

In December, Communications Minister Sibal said: "My aim is that insulting material never gets uploaded. We will evolve guidelines and mechanisms to deal with the issue. [The companies] will have to give us the data, where these images are being uploaded and who is doing it."

Mr Sibal was angered by morphed photos of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi, as well as doctored images of pigs running through Islam's holy city of Mecca.

View the original article here

In pictures: Indian photographer's journey through history

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
18 January 2012 Last updated at 14:49 GMT

24 hours of news photos: 27 February 2012

Dresses and fashions on the Oscar red carpet

Remarkable images of Auschwitz then and now

News photos from around the world

24 hours of news photos: 24 February 2012

Large-scale acquisitions of farmland in Africa

On show for the first time in the UK

24 hours of news photos: 23 February 2012

Readers' pictures on the theme games

Photographer Simon Annand's latest work

View the original article here

Activists query Indian killings

23 February 2012 Last updated at 14:43 GMT Human rights activist are demanding a judicial probe to investigate the shoot-out Human rights activists in India have questioned the circumstances in which five men were killed by police in Chennai (Madras) on Thursday.

Police say the men had carried out two audacious bank robberies in the city.

They say that arms and ammunition were recovered from the scene of a shoot-out in the city's Velachery locality.

But rights activists allege the men were killed in a staged gun-battle, commonly known as a "fake encounter". They are demanding a judicial inquiry.

The dead include four from the state of Bihar and one from West Bengal.

Reports say that about $66,000 (£42,000) was looted over the last month by armed men from the branches of the Bank of Baroda and the Indian Overseas Bank.

About 40 special teams were formed to catch the criminals.

Police circulated video images of a suspect allegedly surveying one of the banks robbed on Wednesday.

They say these generated calls from the public, and allowed them to carry out an operation against the robbers.

Police said that when they went to the area to check the background of the men, they were fired upon.

But the the police version of events is being hotly disputed.

Human rights advocates Sudha Ramalingam and Sankarasubbu are questioning the logic of going to a heavily populated area in large numbers when police were unsure of the men's identity.

A BBC correspondent who has been to Velachery says there are conflicting accounts in the area as to how the men died, with some residents saying they never heard any gunfire.

Others say they came out of their homes to investigate the noise, but were asked by police to go inside and shut the doors.

View the original article here

Indian court condemns crackdown

24 February 2012 Last updated at 04:31 GMT Thousands of Baba Ramdev's followers joined him in his protest against corruption India's Supreme Court has ordered the prosecution of policemen who were involved in a midnight crackdown on an anti-corruption protest led by yoga guru Baba Ramdev in June last year.

The court said the crackdown "struck at the foundation of democracy".

Around 30 people were injured as police fired tear gas to disperse thousands of his supporters.

A 51-year-old woman who was seriously injured in the incident died in hospital in September.

The crackdown was widely criticised. India's prime minister said it was "unfortunate" but that there had been no alternative.

Judges BS Chauhan and Swatanter Kumar said the police crackdown at Delhi's Ramlila grounds was an "assault on the very basic democratic values enshrined in our constitution" and could have been avoided.

'Unjustified and brutal'

They said the police had indulged in "unjustified and brutal acts" towards sleeping supporters by baton-charging them and using tear gas to chase them out of the protest venue.

"It is evident that it was not a case of emergency... It is a glaring example of trust deficit between the people governing and the people being governed," the judges said.

The court ordered the criminal prosecution of policemen and supporters of Baba Ramdev who had "behaved violently" during the incident. It also blamed the yoga guru for the violence.

The court also ordered compensation of 500,000 rupees ($10,200) to be paid to the family of Raj Bala, the woman who died in the incident.

The government had justified the crackdown, saying that the yoga guru had reneged on his promises during negotiations.

Authorities said that Baba Ramdev had gathered 50,000 people at a ground in Delhi after seeking permission for a yoga camp to be attended by 5,000 people.

The yoga guru has millions of supporters and his daily TV programme is watched by millions across India.

View the original article here

Etisalat to exit Indian venture

23 February 2012 Last updated at 07:16 GMT India is one of the world's fastest growing markets for mobile telephones with 893 million connections Abu Dhabi-based telecoms firm Etisalat says it is closing down its India operations after a recent Supreme Court order cancelled its licence.

Etisalat is the second company after Bahrain Telecom to exit its joint venture in India.

The Supreme Court recently cancelled 122 licences issued by former minister A Raja, who is accused of fraud.

India's auditors say the wrong awarding of licences cost the country $40bn. Mr Raja denies any wrongdoing.

India is one of the world's fastest growing markets for mobile telephones with 893 million connections.

The court ruling has come as a major setback for the government, which has been hit by a series of corruption scandals in recent months.

'Reduce cost'

"The decision of the Supreme Court of India to revoke all 122 licenses issued by the government in January 2008... has removed Etisalat's ability to operate from 2 June 2012," the company said in a statement.

It said the firm had decided to take "steps to reduce operating costs, including the suspension of its network and services".

"The decision has been taken in order to protect the interests of all stakeholders and to avoid incurring further costs at this time of rapid change and continued uncertainty in the Indian telecommunications sector."

Etisalat said it would decide on its future participation when there was "clarity on the auction process".

Etisalat owns a 45% stake in Etisalat DB, a joint venture with Indian real estate company DB Group.

View the original article here

Indian call centres 'in US fraud'

22 February 2012 Last updated at 15:15 GMT Fraud has globalised along with economies, a US federal trade commission official said Indian call centres were used to swindle millions of dollars out of Americans, say US federal officials.

Callers from the Indian centres posed as "phantom debt" collectors who targeted people who had applied for small online loans.

The Federal Trade Commission said two-California based firms and their owner had made $5m (£3.2m) from the fraud.

FTC officials said this was the first case of its kind as more than 10,000 people across the country were cheated.

"We think we have a really serious problem," said C Steven Baker, director of the Federal Trade Commission's Midwest Region, in Chicago.

"As economies have globalised, so has fraud."

Payday loans

A US court has frozen the assets of California-based firms American Credit Crunchers LLC, Ebeeze LLC and their owner, Varang K Thaker.

They have been charged with violating the FTC Act and the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, though no criminal charges have been filed.

Mr Thaker allegedly withdrew thousand of dollars that had been paid into the companies' accounts by victims of the fraud.

Mr Baker said it was not clear if the operation was directed from California or India.

He said authorities had received more than 4,000 complaints about debt-collection schemes in recent years.

The callers used personal data on their victims obtained from payday loan websites - which usually extend small, short-term loans at high interest rates to borrowers.

More than 20 million calls may have been made over the past two years, Mr Baker said, with collectors using aggressive and threatening language to demand payment for debts that did not exist.

"Nobody actually owed them a dime," Mr Baker said.

David Vladeck, director of the FTC's consumer protection bureau, said: "Consumers should not be pressured into paying debt they don't remember owing. Legitimate debt collectors must provide consumers with both written information about the debt, and instructions for protecting themselves if they don't think they owe the debt."

View the original article here

Indian city 'to be painted blue'

17 February 2012 Last updated at 05:00 GMT Calcutta landmarks, and the city's distinctive yellow taxis are to be painted blue The eastern Indian city of Calcutta is to be painted blue, a local minister has said.

Government buildings, flyovers, roadside railings, and taxis should be painted a shade of light blue, a minister in the ruling Trinamul Congress government said.

Owners of private buildings will be also be requested to paint them in the same colour, the minister said.

The capital of West Bengal, Calcutta is home to more than 14 million people.

"Our leader [chief minister of West Bengal] Mamata Banerjee has decided that the theme colour of the city will be sky blue because the motto of the new government is 'the sky is the limit'," Urban Development Minister Firhad Hakim told The Indian Express newspaper.

"From now on, all government buildings, whenever they are re-painted, will be done in sky blue. The owners of private buildings will also be requested to follow the same colour pattern. The necessary government orders will be issued soon."

The colour of the city's famous yellow taxis are going to be changed to light blue and white, while a number of famous landmarks are likely to be repainted too, reports say.

'Cosmetic change'

The owners of private buildings will have to pay from their own funds to repaint their premises, the minister said.

"Blue is a beautiful colour and is also soothing for the eyes," Calcutta mayor Sobhan Chatterjee said.

The announcement has been criticised by opposition parties and sections of the media.

A local Congress party spokesman said the government was "preoccupying itself with non-essential issues".

The city's Telegraph newspaper said the "notion of a cosmetic change is taken to unprecedented heights of innovation by the idea" of painting Calcutta blue.

"Finding the right colour combination is undoubtedly the crucial first step in making a city safer, healthier, cleaner and generally more user-friendly for its inhabitants," the newspaper wrote in an editorial.

"It could, with as little doubt, sort out its core problems - chaotic health care, inability to implement pollution control norms, arsenic in the water, archaic sewers and garbage disposal, bad roads, killer buses for public transport, an airport falling apart and beyond dismal, priceless paintings rotting away in public art galleries, to name a few."

Other Indian cities have colour-based themes.

The northern Indian city of Jaipur is famously dubbed the Pink City after its terracotta-colour dwellings.

In 2006, Aurangabad, a crime-infested city in the state of Bihar, was painted pink in order to uplift, according to authorities, its sagging morale and spirit.

View the original article here