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Uttarakhand: Harish Rawat wins floor test, President's Rule to be revoked

On 11 May, the Supreme Court announced that the Harish Rawat-led Congress in Uttarakhand has won the floor test. The Apex Court has said that Harish Rawat can take charge as the Chief Minister of Uttarakhand.

According to ANI, Attorney General Mukul Rohtagi told the apex court that Harish Rawat had proved majority on the floor of the house. The central government will revoke President's Rule in Uttarakhand, the AG said. The Harish Rawat-led Congress government sought a vote of confidence in the assembly on 10 May following an apex court order.

With nine Congress rebels barred from voting, the strength of the 71-member assembly was 62. Sources said, 28 MLAs voted for the BJP. It is to be confirmed yet.

UK denies Mallya's deportation request, agrees to consider extradition

The United Kingdom has declined India's request to deport liquor baron Vijay Mallya from the country. However, it has agreed to consider a request for an extradition under a treaty with India. "Can't deport Vijay Mallya over invalid passport, consider requesting mutual legal assistance or extradition, UK tells India," ANI quoted the Ministry of External Affairs as saying.

According to reports, the UK has told the Indian authorities that even though Mallya's diplomatic passport has been revoked, he has been staying in UK on a valid visa.

"The UK Government has informed us that under 1971 Immigration Act, the UK does not require an individual to hold a valid passport in order to remain in the UK if they have extant leave to remain as long as their passport was valid when leave to remain or enter UK was conferred. At same time,UK acknowledges the seriousness of allegations and is keen to assist the government of India," MEA spokesperson Vikas Swarup said.

After Rocky Yadav's arrest, warrant issued against JD(U)'s Manorama Devi for storing liquor

An arrest warrant was issued on 11 May against suspended Janata Dal United MLC Manorama Devi, after spurious liquor was found at her residence. This came a day after her son Rocky was arrested in connection with a case of road-rage killing.

An arrest warrant has been put out against Devi after liquor bottles were found at her Gaya house while the police were looking for her son, who was accused of killing a teenager. Late on 10 May, Manorama Devi, MLC of the ruling JD(U), was suspended from the party for a period of six months by party chief and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.

According to reports, Devi's home has been sealed. The lawmaker has allegedly gone into hiding.Rakesh Yadav alias Rocky, the main accused in the alleged murder of teenager Aditya Sachdeva in a road rage case, was arrested in the wee hours of 10 May from a construction company office.

Gujarat govt powering ahead with new casteless quota for the poor

The BJP government in Gujarat is rushing to implement its new quota of 10 per cent reservation for the poor who do not come from already reserved Scheduled Caste / Scheduled tribe backgrounds before college admissions begin this month.

"The Gujarat government is committed to honestly implement 10 per cent reservation for non-reserved poor people. We have issued the notification and have instructed all educational institutions to start admitting students as soon as the results of classes X and XII are declared. The process will start within a month," said Gujarat education minister Bhupendrasinh Chudasama according to The Indian Express.

5 feared dead after cloudburst in Himachal

Four tourists and a tourist guide were feared killed on Tuesday after a cloudburst struck the car they were travelling in at Chewadi, Himachal Pradesh.

Three other travellers in the car were rescued and taken to a local hospital. All the tourists were from Nawanshahr subdivision of Punjab's Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar district and were travelling to the Sutlej river for a rafting expedition, according to Superintendent of Police DW Negi.

Saranprit Singh, Harpreet Singh, Abanjot Singh, Amana and Titu (the guide) are yet to be found. A search is in progress, according to ANI.

Meanwhile, Sukhbir Singh, Fateh Singh and Kamaljit Singh are in hospital in Suni.

Twitter bars spy agencies from buying bulk user data from analytics firm

Until now, US national security agencies, including the FBI and CIA, had been able to query treasure troves of Twitter data through software from Dataminr, the New York-based analytics company in which Twitter owns a 5 percent stake.

Agents could enter search terms such as "Isis" or "jihad" and view more tweets, over a longer period, than what a standard Twitter search would offer, people familiar with the process said.

Apparently not wanting to seem too close to US spies, Twitter has blocked any future such sales, the company confirmed on Monday.

Twitter maintains the power to veto Dataminr's contracts with its customers, typically news organizations and financial analysts, the Guardian has reported.

The US tech industry and Washington have had a tense relationship as of late, yet many of the sticking points have been related to surveillance of westerners. When it comes to combating Islamic extremism, American tech firms, including Twitter, have voluntarily assisted.

It remains unclear why selling data to US spies that it sells to private companies is a bridge too far for Twitter.

Facebook has been suppressing right-wing news?

Several former Facebook staffers have claimed that the social media site buries conservative-leaning news within its Trending section - the bar of topics currently located on the right hand side of users' timeline.

Gizmodo reports that former contracted "news curators" - who all wished to remain anonymous - had significant influence on what news was included in Facebook's ranked news list.

According to the social media company, the trending news list pulls topics based on popularity, engagement, while also factoring a user's location and interests, the Independent has reported.

But the former contracts said that the ranked lists were not formed so organically.

"Depending on who was on shift, things would be blacklisted or trending," an anonymous source said.

Other anonymous contractors said that if a topic were popular on a conservative website - such as Breitbart or Newsmax.com - curators could include the same story in the trending list if it were "from a more neutral outlet that wasn't as biased," such as the New York Times or the Washington Post.

Curators also said they were instructed by the company to "inject" stories into the trending pipeline, despite lack of popularity.