The protests in India are over the Chief Election Commissioner removing millions of voters from the electoral rolls. Multiple groups are protesting in Delhi and other states, led by the Indian National Congress (the biggest opposition party), the Cockroach Janata Party (a satirical organisation) and the All India Students Association. The government cunningly thwarted the protestors plan to shut down Delhi by shutting it down themselves, cancelling trains and metro services across the city.

The protests in France are over cuts to school funding and rising cost of living. Both the protestors and police forces have been more violent than in India, with a city hall burned down.

The protests in Albania are over the sale of an island and nearby wetlands to US President Donald Trump's son-in-law, rumours that the Albanian government was working with Israel to move Palestinians to a concentration camp in Albania, and general corruption. Protestors took over Parliament and burned down the Supreme Court and the Education Ministry.

India and Russia have signed a treaty to make it easier to hire temporary employees. India needs alternative employment for those who lost their jobs due to the US-Iran War, and rubles to pay for fuel and fertiliser imports from Russia. The treaty also includes Pension, social security, medical insurance and compensation for laid-off employees.

Following several days of protests over irregularities in the revision of electoral rolls, leader of the opposition Mallikarjun Kharge will submit a memorandum to Supreme Court Chief Justice Surya Kant tomorrow (Monday).

The protests are over the removal of millions of voters in the decadal voter roll revision, due to changes in the exclusion criteria made by Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, allegedly despite objections from the other two Election Commissioners. Opposition parties argue that the stricter criteria are designed to preferentially exclude poorer and less educated voters, who are more likely to vote for them. Mr Kumar has also been accused of asking another civil servant to run for the ruling BJP.

A brief recap of the protests can be found here. The government put up barricades around New Delhi, cancelled several trains and flights, suspended internet services to parts of Delhi, and arrested several protestors and even some journalists and opposition leaders. There have been reports of police brutality, such as a complaint that a policeman, one Vivek Bhagat, assaulted a female reporter, and that the All India Students' Association's female President was detained by male policemen. The scale of the protests means that police are having difficulties maintaining control, with one case of a protestor confiscating the keys of a police bus.

Newspaper ad found at the Sretomorozsk railway station in the new Genshin Impact expansion. The new region is based on the Russian Empire, with traditionalist nobles (like Grand Duke Turzov) resenting a somewhat reformist Tsaritsa. The Rokot are family-friendly Bolsheviks.

Tesseract is a web client for Lemmy that was found to be secretly and arbitrarily blocking users, communities and even entire instances. You can see if you're one of the kool kidz by running

curl -s https://tesseract.dubvee.org/tesseract/api/system/policy | base64 -d | gunzip > policy.json

and grepping your name / instance. Further details can be found in this post.

The poem above is adapted from Bertolt Brecht's The Burning of the Books, which can be read here. If you would rather read it in the original German, go here.

Tesseract is a web client for Lemmy that was found to be secretly and arbitrarily blocking users, communities and even entire instances. You can see if you're one of the kool kidz by running

curl -s https://tesseract.dubvee.org/tesseract/api/system/policy | base64 -d | gunzip > policy.json

and grepping your name / instance. Further details can be found in this post.

The poem above is adapted from Bertolt Brecht's The Burning of the Books, which can be read here. If you would rather read it in the original German, go here.

Sometimes on phone reviews I read that a certain model, often one released in a Western market, uses NFC for payment. In my country, mobile payments use QR codes so any phone with a camera can use them. Does NFC have any advantage over such a system?

Context: https://www.ft.com/content/8f5f18fb-311d-4df0-805c-063b292506b3

Mirror: https://archive.is/c4JHd

I'm just glad ma boy Kyryll Chudomirovich is well prepared for the weather. Frostmoon Scions more like Frostbite Scions, eh?

Thirty members of the Indian parliament, including Opposition Leader Rahul Gandhi, were detained by police following a protest against suspected voter fraud in recent state elections. Rahul Gandhi's Indian National Congress party had found fake and duplicate voters in the electoral rolls, and accused the election commission of colluding with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. The Election Commission rejected his claims, following which digital rolls were briefly unavailable from the EC website.

The protest also focused on a 'special revision' of voter rolls in the state of Bihar, where elections are scheduled later this year. The requirements for inclusion were criticised as being unreasonably complicated, and likely to disproportionately affect the poor, illiterate, and migrant labourers.

India has one of the highest rates of (desktop) Linux usages in the world - hovering around 10% according to StatCounter. Why is this? One reason is concerns over software controlled by foreign countries - particularly the US and China. But another is cost.

The first major boost for Linux and other free software in India came in 2006, when VS Achuthanandan - who passed away today - was elected Chief Minister of the state of Kerala. His government came up with a policy to shift all government computers to free software, starting with schools and colleges.

When the financial benefits became apparent, other states and the Union government followed suit.

Glazers will say it's to keep the posers out.

In a landmark case on the separation of powers between India's Union (Federal) and State governments, the Supreme Court ruled that state Governors - who are appointed by the Union Government - must assent to a bill if it is placed before them a second time by the State Legislature. The SC also ruled that the ten bills that had been pending with Tamil Nadu Governor RN Ravi for months could be deemed to have received his assent.

The Governor's assent was historically seen as a mere formality in the passage of a bill. But over the last few years, state governments not led by the BJP - which leads India's Union Government - have complained that Governors reject or delay assent for bills passed by them. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin, whose government brought this case to the Supreme Court, hailed the verdict as a victory for federalism and all state governments.