Ravi Shankar Prasad warns FB of strict action, says can summon Zuckerberg

On Wednesday, Union Minister for Electronics and Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad had a stern warning for Facebook Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg. “It will not be tolerated. We have got stringent powers in the IT Act, including summoning you to India,” Prasad said. 

The Opposition ridiculed Prasad for his “hyperbole”. Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Tejashwi Yadav tweeted: "...Stop this nautanki and solve the call drop problem first Mr IT Minister." However, the person in an unwanted fix was Janata Dal (United) spokesperson and former Rajya Sabha member KC Tyagi. Tyagi's son Amrish purportedly runs the website of Ovleno Business Intelligence — the Indian arm of Cambridge Analytica. The generally media-friendly Tyagi and his son kept themselves away from the spotlight.

Taking a dig

Political parties never shy away from taking a potshot at one another, especially at a large gathering. A similar situation prevailed at the conference organised by the Bhumi Adhikar Andolan held in New Delhi where leaders of nearly all political parties spoke. 

When Trinamool Congress Member of Parliament Dola Sen took the stage with Left leaders, she reminded the audience about her party's struggle in Nandigram and Singur in West Bengal. The jibe wasn't lost on the Left leaders as the TMC had then led the movement against the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led government.

Case of missing papers

The Ministry of Mines released a ‘Sand Mining Framework’at the third National Conclave of Mines and Minerals on March 20 in New Delhi. As soon as the launch session was over, the organisers were seen collecting all the copies of the framework. 

However, when various stakeholders — state government officials, executives of private sector mining companies, etc —asked for a copy, they were told it was not available anymore. Apparently, the ministry had got only 15-20 copies published and a peon, who was handling the copies after the launch, gave almost half of them to a stranger who asked him for it. 

The remaining copies were to be kept by ministry officials for their reference. When asked for a soft copy, the ministry's spokesperson said, he had neither a soft nor a hard copy of the framework.