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Protests Erupt Across the U.S. Amid Internet Shutdown in India and Manhunt for Activist

Protests Erupt Across the U.S. Amid Internet Shutdown in India and Manhunt for Activist

(CTN News) – The search for Sikh activist Amritpal Singh in India has sparked protests in major cities worldwide, including Los Angeles and New York.

The protests mirror civil disturbances in India’s Punjab state, where demonstrations broke out on Sunday in many towns, including Ajnala and Mohali, and resulted in the government cutting off internet service to 27 million people.

Protests in US and India Over Search for Sikh Activist

Supporters of the Sikh separatist movement to form a nation named “Khalistan,” meaning “the land of Khalsa,” demonstrated outside Indian embassies and consulates in the United States, waving flags and chanting. Protests of a similar nature have occurred in the United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada.

There is a wide range of causes that have Sikh activists congregating. They rapidly planned rallies in places like Chicago and Sacramento, California, to bring attention to India’s opaque rule of law, its history of human rights atrocities, and the search for and likely arrest of Singh.

Singh is a public face for several movements. In a short time, he rose to prominence in India for his outspoken stance against drugs, care for Punjab’s water crisis, and criticism of the government.

Inspector General Sukhchain Singh Gill of the Punjab Police and Indian media report that the search for him continues. “creating disharmony among classes, attempt to murder, attacking cops and preventing them from carrying out their duties,” Gill told The Times of India.

Sikh Youth Alliance of California organizer Kunarveer Singh believes the diaspora must take action.

If “no one else is going to speak up for us,” he said, “then you have to do it yourself.” “There is no information blackout. So if they can’t do it there (in India), we certainly will.

He said the protesters’ opposition to India’s treatment of religious minorities was not limited to their fury over Amritpal Singh.

These demonstrations represent the best efforts of those of us living in exile. On the ground, he said, “all Sikhs in the diaspora can protest and make sure the Western Hemisphere knows that India is not a democracy even though it calls itself one.”

According to Kunarveer Singh, protesters would keep marching until Amritpal Singh was released. There are many Sikhs with the surname Singh, and the ones included here are not necessarily related.

It is no surprise that the activist is so well-liked, according to Harpreet Singh, a Sikh expert on South Asian cultures and languages and a chaplain at Harvard University.

“Many of the people who have been implicated in the drug epidemic have been part of the Indian government,” he claimed, referring to the drug crisis in Punjab.

Harvard professor Singh commented that he is not shocked by the Indian government’s reaction to Amritpal Singh’s prominence because religious minorities are frequent targets in India, especially in light of the persistent development of Hindu nationalism.

India’s transformation into a Hindu nationalist state has a deep historical foundation. He explained that the persecution of Sikhs now stems from their desire for religious freedom in India, a country where Hinduism is the majority religion.

Neither the Indian Embassy nor the Punjabi provincial police responded to demands for comment.

Internet Shutdowns and Protests in Response to Search for Sikh Activist

According to Namrata Maheshwari, the Asia Pacific policy counsel at Access Now, a non-profit internet advocacy organization, internet services were first interrupted in Punjab on Saturday and extended over three days.

The Times of India reports that the suspension has been extended in several regions and will last till Friday afternoon.

For the last five years, India has led the globe in internet shutdowns, with at least 84 in 2022 alone, according to a new analysis by Access Now.

According to the organization, a shutdown is an attempt to “exert control over the flow of information” by targeting “a specific population or within a location.”

According to Maheshwari, the Indian government routinely employs such blackouts, but this is one of the largest the group has ever seen.

She argued that the internet shutdown ran against the values of India, which is often regarded as the world’s greatest democracy.

“The internet is a crucial medium for exercising the freedom of expression,” she added. “The ability to exchange information, verify it, and communicate freely is essential to journalism and political engagement.”

India’s Internet Shutdowns Come Under Scrutiny Amid Search for Sikh Activist

The ability to report accurately and in real-time without internet connectivity is next to impossible. It’s antithetical to democratic principles since it muzzles debate and criticism.

In India, users cannot access the Twitter accounts of Rupi Kaur, United Sikhs, and Canadian MP Jagmeet Singh, among other famous Sikh people and organizations.

Recent events have, for many Sikhs, brought back memories of 1984, when the Indian military destroyed the Golden Temple complex, sparking anti-Sikh riots that ultimately led to the death of Prime Minister India Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards.

Human Rights Watch reports that following her murder, mobs of non-Sikhs kidnapped, murdered, and raped thousands of Sikhs. The Congress Party typically provoked these riots.

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Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding, But Still Accounting 48% Search Revenue

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Google is so closely associated with its key product that its name is a verb that signifies “search.” However, Google’s dominance in that sector is dwindling.

According to eMarketer, Google will lose control of the US search industry for the first time in decades next year.

Google will remain the dominant search player, accounting for 48% of American search advertising revenue. And, remarkably, Google is still increasing its sales in the field, despite being the dominating player in search since the early days of the George W. Bush administration. However, Amazon is growing at a quicker rate.

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Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding

Amazon will hold over a quarter of US search ad dollars next year, rising to 27% by 2026, while Google will fall even more, according to eMarketer.

The Wall Street Journal was first to report on the forecast.

Lest you think you’ll have to switch to Bing or Yahoo, this isn’t the end of Google or anything really near.

Google is the fourth-most valued public firm in the world. Its market worth is $2.1 trillion, trailing just Apple, Microsoft, and the AI chip darling Nvidia. It also maintains its dominance in other industries, such as display advertisements, where it dominates alongside Facebook’s parent firm Meta, and video ads on YouTube.

To put those “other” firms in context, each is worth more than Delta Air Lines’ total market value. So, yeah, Google is not going anywhere.

Nonetheless, Google faces numerous dangers to its operations, particularly from antitrust regulators.

On Monday, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled that Google must open up its Google Play Store to competitors, dealing a significant blow to the firm in its long-running battle with Fortnite creator Epic Games. Google announced that it would appeal the verdict.

In August, a federal judge ruled that Google has an illegal monopoly on search. That verdict could lead to the dissolution of the company’s search operation. Another antitrust lawsuit filed last month accuses Google of abusing its dominance in the online advertising business.

Meanwhile, European regulators have compelled Google to follow tough new standards, which have resulted in multiple $1 billion-plus fines.

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Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding

On top of that, the marketplace is becoming more difficult on its own.

TikTok, the fastest-growing social network, is expanding into the search market. And Amazon has accomplished something few other digital titans have done to date: it has established a habit.

When you want to buy anything, you usually go to Amazon, not Google. Amazon then buys adverts to push companies’ products to the top of your search results, increasing sales and earning Amazon a greater portion of the revenue. According to eMarketer, it is expected to generate $27.8 billion in search revenue in the United States next year, trailing only Google’s $62.9 billion total.

And then there’s AI, the technology that (supposedly) will change everything.

Why search in stilted language for “kendall jenner why bad bunny breakup” or “police moving violation driver rights no stop sign” when you can just ask OpenAI’s ChatGPT, “What’s going on with Kendall Jenner and Bad Bunny?” in “I need help fighting a moving violation involving a stop sign that wasn’t visible.” Google is working on exactly this technology with its Gemini product, but its success is far from guaranteed, especially with Apple collaborating with OpenAI and other businesses rapidly joining the market.

A Google spokeswoman referred to a blog post from last week in which the company unveiled ads in its AI overviews (the AI-generated text that appears at the top of search results). It’s Google’s way of expressing its ability to profit on a changing marketplace while retaining its business, even as its consumers steadily transition to ask-and-answer AI and away from search.

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Google has long used a single catchphrase to defend itself against opponents who claim it is a monopoly abusing its power: competition is only a click away. Until recently, that seemed comically obtuse. Really? We are going to switch to Bing? Or Duck Duck Go? Give me a break.

But today, it feels more like reality.

Google is in no danger of disappearing. However, every highly dominating company faces some type of reckoning over time. GE, a Dow mainstay for more than a century, was broken up last year and is now a shell of its previous dominance. Sears declared bankruptcy in 2022 and is virtually out of business. US Steel, long the foundation of American manufacturing, is attempting to sell itself to a Japanese corporation.

Could we remember Google in the same way that we remember Yahoo or Ask Jeeves in decades? These next few years could be significant.

SOURCE | CNN

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2024 | Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

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Washington — Trump Media,  The Supreme Court announced Monday that it will not hear an appeal from social media platform X about a search warrant acquired by prosecutors in the election meddling case against former President Donald Trump.

The justices did not explain their rationale, and there were no recorded dissents.

The firm, which was known as Twitter before being purchased by billionaire Elon Musk, claims a nondisclosure order that prevented it from informing Trump about the warrant obtained by special counsel Jack Smith’s team violated its First Amendment rights.

The business also claims Trump should have had an opportunity to exercise executive privilege. If not reined in, the government may employ similar tactics to intercept additional privileged communications, their lawyers contended.

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Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

Two neutral electronic privacy groups also joined in, urging the high court to hear the case on First Amendment grounds.

Prosecutors, however, claim that the corporation never shown that Trump utilized the account for official purposes, therefore executive privilege is not a problem. A lower court also determined that informing Trump could have compromised the current probe.

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Trump utilized his Twitter account in the weeks preceding up to his supporters’ attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, to spread false assertions about the election, which prosecutors claim were intended to create doubt in the democratic process.

The indictment describes how Trump used his Twitter account to encourage his followers to travel to Washington on Jan. 6, pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to reject the certification, and falsely claiming that the Capitol crowd, which battered police officers and destroyed glass, was peaceful.

musk trump

Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

That case is now moving forward following the Supreme Court’s verdict in July, which granted Trump full immunity from criminal prosecution as a former president.

The warrant arrived at Twitter amid quick changes implemented by Musk, who bought the company in 2022 and has since cut off most of its workforce, including those dedicated to combating disinformation and hate speech.

He also welcomed back a vast list of previously banned users, including Trump, and endorsed him for the 2024 presidential election.

SOURCE | AP

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The Supreme Court Turns Down Biden’s Government Appeal in a Texas Emergency Abortion Matter.

Supreme Court

(VOR News) – A ruling that prohibits emergency abortions that contravene the Supreme Court law in the state of Texas, which has one of the most stringent abortion restrictions in the country, has been upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States. The United States Supreme Court upheld this decision.

The justices did not provide any specifics regarding the underlying reasons for their decision to uphold an order from a lower court that declared hospitals cannot be legally obligated to administer abortions if doing so would violate the law in the state of Texas.

Institutions are not required to perform abortions, as stipulated in the decree. The common populace did not investigate any opposing viewpoints. The decision was made just weeks before a presidential election that brought abortion to the forefront of the political agenda.

This decision follows the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that ended abortion nationwide.

In response to a request from the administration of Vice President Joe Biden to overturn the lower court’s decision, the justices expressed their disapproval.

The government contends that hospitals are obligated to perform abortions in compliance with federal legislation when the health or life of an expectant patient is in an exceedingly precarious condition.

This is the case in regions where the procedure is prohibited. The difficulty hospitals in Texas and other states are experiencing in determining whether or not routine care could be in violation of stringent state laws that prohibit abortion has resulted in an increase in the number of complaints concerning pregnant women who are experiencing medical distress being turned away from emergency rooms.

The administration cited the Supreme Court’s ruling in a case that bore a striking resemblance to the one that was presented to it in Idaho at the beginning of the year. The justices took a limited decision in that case to allow the continuation of emergency abortions without interruption while a lawsuit was still being heard.

In contrast, Texas has been a vocal proponent of the injunction’s continued enforcement. Texas has argued that its circumstances are distinct from those of Idaho, as the state does have an exemption for situations that pose a significant hazard to the health of an expectant patient.

According to the state, the discrepancy is the result of this exemption. The state of Idaho had a provision that safeguarded a woman’s life when the issue was first broached; however, it did not include protection for her health.

Certified medical practitioners are not obligated to wait until a woman’s life is in imminent peril before they are legally permitted to perform an abortion, as determined by the state supreme court.

The state of Texas highlighted this to the Supreme Court.

Nevertheless, medical professionals have criticized the Texas statute as being perilously ambiguous, and a medical board has declined to provide a list of all the disorders that are eligible for an exception. Furthermore, the statute has been criticized for its hazardous ambiguity.

For an extended period, termination of pregnancies has been a standard procedure in medical treatment for individuals who have been experiencing significant issues. It is implemented in this manner to prevent catastrophic outcomes, such as sepsis, organ failure, and other severe scenarios.

Nevertheless, medical professionals and hospitals in Texas and other states with strict abortion laws have noted that it is uncertain whether or not these terminations could be in violation of abortion prohibitions that include the possibility of a prison sentence. This is the case in regions where abortion prohibitions are exceedingly restrictive.

Following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which resulted in restrictions on the rights of women to have abortions in several Republican-ruled states, the Texas case was revisited in 2022.

As per the orders that were disclosed by the administration of Vice President Joe Biden, hospitals are still required to provide abortions in cases that are classified as dire emergency.

As stipulated in a piece of health care legislation, the majority of hospitals are obligated to provide medical assistance to patients who are experiencing medical distress. This is in accordance with the law.

The state of Texas maintained that hospitals should not be obligated to provide abortions throughout the litigation, as doing so would violate the state’s constitutional prohibition on abortions. In its January judgment, the 5th United States Circuit Court of Appeals concurred with the state and acknowledged that the administration had exceeded its authority.

SOURCE: AP

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