Top Maoist leader Shankar Rao among at least 29 killed in major encounter in Chhattisgarh

Nearly 80 Air India Express flights were canceled after the cabin crew members went on a "mass sick leave", official sources said on Wednesday.

As many as 79 international and domestic flights were canceled after about 300 senior cabin crew members reported sick at the last minute and switched off their mobile phones.

The Air India Express management is currently trying to reach out to the crew, who are protesting against the new employment term at the Tata Group-owned airline, sources said.

The cabin crew has also alleged that there was a lack of equality in the treatment of the staff after the merger with Tata Group. They claim that some staff members were offered lower job position despite clearing interviews, sources said.

"A section of our cabin crew has reported sick at the last minute, starting last night, resulting in flight delays and cancellations. While we are engaging with the crew to understand the reasons behind these occurrences, our teams are actively addressing this issue to minimise any inconvenience caused to our guests as a result," an Air India Express spokesperson said.

"We sincerely apologise to our guests for this unexpected disruption and emphasise that this situation does not reflect the standard of service we strive to provide," the spokesperson added.

Guests impacted by cancellations will be offered a full refund or complimentary rescheduling to another date, the airline said.

Several passengers took to their social media accounts and complained about the sudden cancellations of their flights. They said that they had "no information" about the cancellations.

Some "very disappointed" passengers on X said that they had reached the airport when they were informed that their flights were canceled.

"We apologise for any inconvenience. Please be informed that your flight has been canceled due to operational reasons," Air India Express said in response to one of the posts on X.

Mangaluru, May 14: The Met department has sounded a yellow alert in 13 districts of Karnataka including the three coastal districts of Udupi, Dakshina Kannada and Uttara Kannada for next four days. 

The other districts are Belagavi, Dharwad, Haveri, Chikkamagalur, Chitradurga, Hassan, Kodagu, Mandya, Ramanagara, Shivamogga. These districts are expected to received 6-11 cm of rain, the department said.

On Monday Dakshina Kannada and Udupi experienced a monsoon-like atmosphere. Rain, accompanied by thunder and lightning, began in most parts on Sunday evening. In Udupi, rain showered in the early hours of Monday. While Kundapur and Udupi received moderate rains, Karkala experienced a heavy downpour.

The showers lowered the daytime temperature in both districts. Light rain fell in Mangaluru and its outskirts early Monday morning. Mangaluru city recorded a maximum temperature of 33.4°C and a minimum of 23.2°C on Monday. This is expected to decrease by two to four degrees in the next four days, according to the weather department. 

India is currently polling in the Lok Sabha elections, and AI-generated videos that spread disinformation have emerged as a major threat. As per a report, Meta approved several political advertisements manipulated by Artificial Intelligence that spread disinformation during Lok Sabha elections 2024.

Facebook reportedly approved ads that contained slurs towards Muslims in India like “let’s burn this vermin” and “Hindu blood is spilling, these invaders must be burned” along with disinformation about political leaders and other messages with Hindu supremacist language.

Another advert approved by the owner of Facebook and Instagram called for an opposition leader's execution who as per a false claim sought to “erase Hindus from India”. This ad contained the image of a Pakistan flag alongside the message.

The report comes at a time when the social media platform X had to recently take down an animated video shared by the Karnataka unit of the BJP after an Election Commission direction.

India Civil Watch International (ICWI) and Ekō, a corporate accountability organisation created and submitted these adverts to Meta's ad library to test the company's mechanism to detect and block harmful political content.

All adverts “were created based upon real hate speech and disinformation prevalent in India, underscoring the capacity of social media platforms to amplify existing harmful narratives," the report mentioned.

The researchers submitted 22 adverts to Meta in English, Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, and Kannada, of which 14 were approved. Another three were approved with small tweaks. However, once approved, the researchers immediately removed the ads before their publication.

The research concluded that Meta failed to detect the presence of AI-manipulated images in all of the approved ads.

While five of the adverts, including one with some allegations against PM Modi were rejected on charge of breaking Meta's policy on hate speech, the report noted that the 14 others approved targetted Muslims and “broke Meta’s own policies on hate speech, bullying and harassment, misinformation, and violence and incitement."

“Supremacists, racists and autocrats know they can use hyper-targeted ads to spread vile hate speech, share images of mosques burning and push violent conspiracy theories – and Meta will gladly take their money, no questions asked,” the Guardian quoted Maen Hammad, a campaigner at Ekō as saying.

In response, Meta clarified that they require advertisers to disclose their use of AI.

“When we find content, including ads, that violates our community standards or community guidelines, we remove it, regardless of its creation mechanism. AI-generated content is also eligible to be reviewed and rated by our network of independent factcheckers – once a content is labeled as ‘altered’ we reduce the content’s distribution. We also require advertisers globally to disclose when they use AI or digital methods to create or alter a political or social issue ad in certain cases," the company said in response.

Meanwhile, Meta has been accused in the past of failing to curb Islamophobia on its platforms.

“This election has shown once more that Meta doesn’t have a plan to address the landslide of hate speech and disinformation on its platform during these critical elections,” Hammad said questioning how one can trust Meta if it fails to detect even a handful of AI-generated images.