Bed-blocking scam: Did Tejasvi Surya apologize after levelling false allegation against Muslim staff? He calls it ‘fake news’

News Network
May 7, 2021

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Bengaluru, May 7: BJP Yuva Morcha national president and Bengaluru South MP Tejasvi Surya has rubbished reports that he apologised to those working at a municipal covid war room in Bengaluru.

Mr Surya, who is known for provocative remarks, had visited the facility on Tuesday and broadcast the video live, reading out the names of 16 Muslim staff who he accused of corruption in the allocation of hospital beds as the city and Karnataka struggles with a massive spike in covid infections.

The MP’s attempt to give communal tinge to ‘bed allotment scam’, however, evoked a backlash after it came to light that his allegation against Muslim staff was false.  

Fact checks over the claims that these 16 Muslim members of the war room were involved in a bed allocation scam led to a deadend, as only one of these 16 was part of the team of bed allocation — and he had joined it temporarily just last week to replace another employee who had a personal emergency at home. The other 15 — most of them young graduates in their early twenties — were members of other teams involved in indexing, home isolation supervision and discharge of patients who finished quarantine period.

On Thursday, Mr Surya once again visited the covid war room. Several news portals reported that the MP tendered apology for levelling false allegations. 

“My employees called me to say that Surya had visited the war room. He apparently told them ‘I have nothing personal against any of you. If anyone or any community is hurt emotionally by my visit, I apologise for that. I wanted to probe the bed allocation scam which had come to my notice, but if my actions had hurt anyone, please accept my apologies,’ he told the staff," said Shivu Naik, project manager of the Crystal Infosystems and Services, the agency that had hired and delegated manpower for the hurried war rooms of the BBMP.

“Those 16 were part of a 212-member team deployed at BBMP for various tasks — and there was no reason why they were targeted,” Naik was quoted as saying by news18. 

According to The News Minute, Mr Surya on Thursday (May 5) revisited the Bengaluru South COVID War Room at around 7 pm, and apologised to the 200-odd people working there.  “About the numbers that were leaked? I’m saying from our side, I’m really sorry. This was not our intention. We didn’t know that they would get leaked. That’s not in our hands... I was given a list, and told these are the people who work here who were removed for such-and-such reasons. I just read out the list. That list just had these names. I read them out and asked why these people — how these people were hired — all this happened in front of you. There are many things here I don’t want to get into all that with you,” the MP was quoted as saying.

Meanwhile, Mr Surya today took to social media to rubbish the reports about his apology. "When one has no news, they create fake news," his office posted on Twitter, responding to the news reports.

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News Network
January 17,2025

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Despite the announcement of a ceasefire deal, Israel has intensified its airstrikes and artillery shelling on Gaza, especially its residential buildings, killing more than 100 Palestinians.

Gaza’s civil defense said on Friday at least 101 Palestinians, including 27 children and 31 women, have been killed by Israeli strikes in Gaza since the ceasefire announcement on Wednesday.

The attacks have also left more than 264 injured, according to the rescue agency.

Most of the killings came in Gaza City.

The report comes as Israeli attacks have shown no sign of slowing on the ground, with dozens of strikes reported on Friday.

In northern Gaza’s Jabalia, nine members of a Palestinian journalist’s family, including women and children, were killed.

Two more Palestinians were killed in a separate Israel airstrike in the Jabalia al-Balad area, in the north of Gaza. 

Jabalia has come under fierce attack since the Gaza ceasefire announcement this week. On Thursday, at least 20 were killed in one attack in the area.

At least five others were also killed in another attack that targeted a home, east of Khan Younis City, in Southern Gaza on Friday.

To the west of Khan Younis, three people were killed in attacks on tents housing displaced people.

Another tent was targeted in Nuseirat camp in central Gaza, killing one person.

That's while Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would convene his cabinet later on Friday to approve the long-awaited ceasefire.

Israel launched a genocidal war on Gaza on October 7, 2023, after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas waged the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the Israeli regime's decades-long campaign of bloodletting and devastation against Palestinians.

The regime’s bloody onslaught on Gaza has so far killed at least 46,788 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured more than 110,453 others. Thousands more are also missing and presumed dead under rubble.

The ceasefire, announced on Wednesday, consists of three phases and would come into effect on Sunday over 42 days.

The truce deal stipulates that a large-scale prisoner exchange will occur, including the release of 1,000 prisoners from Gaza and hundreds of detainees serving lengthy sentences.

The first stage involves the release of 33 captives, including "children, women, female soldiers, men above 50, and the wounded and sick," as well as a gradual, partial withdrawal of invading Israeli units.

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News Network
January 20,2025

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Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanekzai, the Taliban's acting deputy foreign minister, delivered a powerful plea to his senior leadership, urging them to reopen schools for Afghan girls. In a speech that resonated as one of the strongest criticisms of the Taliban’s policies on female education, Stanekzai emphasized the injustice and non-compliance with Islamic Sharia law that the current restrictions represent.

“We request the leaders of the Islamic Emirate to open the doors of education,” he declared, invoking the teachings of Islam. “In the time of the Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him), the doors of knowledge were open to both men and women.” His words underscored the historical precedence and religious justification for granting education to all.

Stanekzai did not shy away from highlighting the gravity of the issue. “Today, out of a population of forty million, we are committing injustice against twenty million people,” he stated, pointing to the female population of Afghanistan who remain deprived of their fundamental right to education.

His remarks come as a rare public rebuke of the Taliban’s ongoing school closures for girls, a policy that has faced internal disagreements and widespread international criticism. Sources indicate that the decision was enforced by the Taliban’s supreme spiritual leader, Haibatullah Akhundzada, despite opposition within the group.

The Taliban’s shifting stance on women’s education has drawn sharp condemnation globally. After initially promising to reopen high schools for girls in 2022, they reversed course, leaving the doors of secondary education and universities firmly closed to female students. The administration has claimed it is working on a plan for reopening these institutions but has yet to announce any concrete timeline.

Stanekzai’s speech adds to the chorus of criticism from Islamic scholars and the international community, who have called for the Taliban to honor women’s rights in accordance with Islamic principles. Western diplomats have made it clear that formal recognition of the Taliban government hinges on significant policy changes, particularly in the area of women’s education.

As of now, there has been no immediate response from a Taliban spokesman in Kandahar, where Haibatullah Akhundzada resides, regarding Stanekzai’s statements.
 

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News Network
January 18,2025

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Israel’s Unit 8200 is a secretive cyber warfare team that is said to be building the artificial intelligence (AI) systems that helped the regime commit the genocide against Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip. According to a report, Unit 8200 is building AI systems for global tech and AI companies.

Former Unit 8200 members who specialize in AI, machine learning and big data are working for Meta, Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Open AI and Nvidia, which is an AI company determined to be the biggest in the world, the ¡Do Not Panic! website reported on Friday.

Former Unit 8200 spies specializing in AI are based worldwide, from San Francisco to New York, Spain to Switzerland, and London to Jerusalem al-Quds.

The report also said that AI leaders from Unit 8200 are now working for AI start-ups or heralded by corporate media as the next generation of AI.

The report revealed that most of these AI people have expressed support for Israel’s genocidal war against the people in Gaza. It was also exposed that not a single person from these people ever voiced opposition to Israel’s mass murder in Gaza.

Advocacy groups have also said AI and machine learning is central to the architecture of occupation and apartheid established before the genocidal Gaza campaign, from the use of facial recognition technology, and AI-directed guns at checkpoints, to spy apps known as ‘Blue Wolf’ and ‘Red Wolf’.

According to another report published in November last year, Israel has been employing an AI firing system jointly manufactured by an Indian arms company during its genocide in Gaza.

Citing documents and news reports, the Middle East Eye (MEE) news portal reported on November 20 that the occupation forces have been using the Arbel system since the beginning of the Israeli regime’s bloody war on Gaza.

Arbel was unveiled at a defense expo in Gandhinagar in the Indian state of Gujarat in October 2022 as a co-venture between Israeli Weapons Industries (IWI) company and India’s Adani Defense & Aerospace.

At the time, several Indian media described it as “India’s first AI-based firing system.”

In April 2024, IWI introduced Aber as a new “computerized small arms system” designed to increase combat lethality.

India, which is the largest purchaser of Israeli weapons, has in recent years become a major co-producer of Israeli weapons.

Israel unleashed its bloody Gaza onslaught on October 7, 2023, after the Hamas resistance group carried out its historic operation against the usurping entity in retaliation for the regime’s intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.

The Tel Aviv regime has so far killed at least 46,788 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured 110,453 others, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

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