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The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has arrested Haryana Congress MLA Surender Panwar in an "illegal" mining-linked money-laundering case, official sources said on Saturday. The federal agency had raided the premises of the 55-year-old legislator in January. It had then arrested former Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) legislator from Yamunanagar, Dilbag Singh, and one of his associates in the case. The money-laundering case stems from several FIRs registered by the Haryana Police for probing alleged illegal mining of boulders, gravel and sand that took place in the past in Yamunanagar and nearby districts in spite of a ban imposed by the National Green Tribunal (NGT). The ED is also probing an alleged fraud in the "e-Ravana" scheme, an online portal that was introduced by the Haryana government in 2020 to simplify collection of royalties and taxes and prevent tax evasion in mining areas.

In what will go down as the most spectacular IT failure the world has ever seen, a botched software update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike Holdings Inc. crashed countless Microsoft Windows computer systems around the world on Friday.Microsoft Corp. and CrowdStrike have rolled out fixes, and systems are gradually being restored. But for several hours, bankers in Hong Kong, doctors in the UK and emergency responders in New Hampshire found themselves locked out of programs critical to keeping their operations afloat. Some businesses are facing the prospect of continued disruptions as the restoration process is, in some cases, requiring tech workers to manually reboot systems and remove faulty files.Also Read: Microsoft's CrowdStrike leaves business black and blue in India“This is unprecedented,” said Alan Woodward, professor of cybersecurity at Surrey University. “The economic impact is going to be huge.”The catastrophic failure underscores an increasingly dire threat to global supply chains: The IT systems of some of the world’s biggest and most critical industries have grown heavily dependent on a handful of relatively obscure software vendors, which are now emerging as single points of failure. In recent months, hackers have exploited this phenomenon, targeting vendors to bring down entire sectors and governments.Adding to the disruption, Microsoft experienced a separate and apparently unrelated problem with its Azure cloud service on Thursday that lasted for several hours. On Friday afternoon, the company said in a post on X that all Microsoft 365 apps and services had been restored.Also Read: Microsoft Outage:Here's list of services affected due to CrowdStrike blue screen errorBy Friday morning in New York, many systems were coming back online. CrowdStrike Chief Executive Officer George Kurtz said in a pre-6 a.m. post on X that the fault had been identified and the company had deployed a “fix.” It requires rebooting Windows machines and removing bad files, a very manual process typically performed by information technology professionals with administrative permissions. Many of those IT specialists faced challenges in carrying out those tasks remotely while Windows was crashing.Shares of CrowdStrike dropped 11% to $304.96 in New York trading, wiping out more than $9 billion in market value. It was their biggest single-day decline since November 2022. Microsoft shares fell less than 1% to $437.11.There have been outages before, but none that approached the scale of CrowdStrike’s, which hit airlines, banks and health-care systems, and whose repercussions are still being felt. In 2017, a series of errors within Amazon.com Inc.’s cloud service affected the operation of tens of thousands of websites. In 2021, issues at content delivery network Fastly Inc. took out the websites of several media networks, including Bloomberg News. Disruptions also incapacitated Amazon’s AWS cloud service.“This will be the largest IT outage in history,” said Troy Hunt, an Australian security consultant and creator of the hack-checking website Have I Been Pwned. “We’re really only starting to see the tip of the iceberg.”As businesses work to restore their systems, meanwhile, hackers have already found an opportunity for scams in the form of hastily created websites that claim to offer restoration services for machines brought down by the CrowdStrike crash.Microsoft cloud outage impact on airlinesAirport hubs from Berlin to Delhi struggled with delays, cancellations and stranded passengers at a time that was already particularly busy for travel. FlightAware said more than 21,000 flights were slowed globally, and travel disruptions were expected to stretch into the coming days.Also Read: Microsoft tech glitch: Airlines across globe affected, IndiGo, SpiceJet & Akasa say ops impactedUnited Airlines Holdings Inc. and Delta Air Lines Inc. gradually resumed operations on Friday. Other US carriers that had temporarily grounded flights included American Airlines Group Inc. and Spirit Airlines Inc., according to the Federal Aviation Administration.111875725Microsoft cloud outage impact on financeThe London Stock Exchange Group has resolved an issue that stopped the bourse from publishing news on its website via RNS, a service that publicly traded companies use to distribute price-sensitive regulatory announcements.A number of financial institutions were forced to revert to backup systems during the IT failure. Bankers at JPMorgan Chase & Co., Nomura Holdings Inc. and Bank of America Corp. were unable to log on for part of the day on Friday, and the trading desk at Haitong Securities Co. was out of action for about three hours. Thousands of JPMorgan Chase ATMs were down as well due to the CrowdStrike crash, Bloomberg reported. Some teller stations also weren’t working. The majority of the bank’s ATMs were operational as of late Friday in the US, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified because the details haven’t been publicly disclosed.Marsh, the world’s largest insurance brokerage, said that dozens of its clients are preparing to file claims over the matter.Microsoft cloud outage impact on healthcareThe disruptions also impacted critical infrastructure, including emergency services. Doctors at the UK’s National Health Service couldn’t access scans, blood tests and patient histories. Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York and Boston-based Mass General Brigham warned that the CrowdStrike issue was affecting patient care. Hospitals in Europe reported having to close clinics and cancel procedures. Read More: Hospitals from New York to London, Paris Struggle In Tech OutageNew York’s 911 and emergency systems were also impacted. New Hampshire’s emergency 911 services are functioning again after a failure in which operators could see calls coming in but couldn’t answer them.Microsoft cloud outage impact on automakersRenault was forced to halt production in the afternoon at its Maubeuge plant — on the Kangoo production line — and also at its Douai plant for lack of parts as suppliers got hit by the outage.Tesla Inc. Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk said on Friday that he has stopped using CrowdStrike software. “We just deleted CrowdStrike from all our systems,” Musk said in a post on his social media site X. He previously said that the outage “gave a seizure to the automotive supply chain.”Microsoft cloud outage impact on government agenciesUS federal agencies weren’t immune to the crisis. Employees at the FBI and Department of Justice were greeted Friday morning with a Windows error screen — dubbed the blue screen of death.The most significant impacts in the US are to health care, state and local police, plus some Department of Energy sites and the .gov domain, according to a person familiar with the consequences of the CrowdStrike outages on US government systems. Airlines and airports are now functional, and banks to a large extent too, the person said.

Milwaukee: Donald Trump, sombre and bandaged, accepted the GOP presidential nomination on Thursday at the Republican National Convention (RNC) in a speech that described in detail the assassination attempt that could have ended his life just five days earlier before laying out a sweeping populist agenda, particularly on immigration.The 78-year-old former US President, known best for his bombast and aggressive rhetoric, began his acceptance speech with a softer and deeply personal message that drew directly from his brush with death. Moment by moment, the crowd listening in silence, Trump described standing onstage in Butler, Pennsylvania, with his head turned to look at a chart on display when he felt something hit his ear. He raised his hand to his head and saw immediately that it was covered in blood."If I had not moved my head at that very last instant, the assassin's bullet would have perfectly hit its mark," Trump said. "And I would not be here tonight. We would not be together."Trump's address, the longest convention speech in modern history at just under 93 minutes, marked the climax and conclusion of a massive four-day Republican pep rally that drew thousands of conservative activists and elected officials to swing-state Wisconsin as voters weigh polls that currently features two deeply unpopular candidates. Sensing political opportunity in the wake of his near-death experience, the often bombastic Republican leader embraced a new tone he hopes will help generate even more momentum in an election that appears to be shifting in his favor. "The discord and division in our society must be healed. We must heal it quickly. As Americans, we are bound together by a single fate and a shared destiny. We rise together. Or we fall apart," Trump said, wearing a large white bandage on his right ear, as he has all week, to cover a wound he sustained in the Saturday shooting. "I am running to be president for all of America, not half of America, because there is no victory in winning for half of America."While he spoke in a gentler tone than at his usual rallies, Trump also outlined an agenda led by what he promises would be the largest deportation operation in U.S. history. He repeatedly accused people crossing the US-Mexico border illegally of staging an "invasion." Additionally, he teased new tariffs on trade and an "America first" foreign policy.Trump also falsely suggested Democrats had cheated during the 2020 election he lost - despite a raft of federal and state investigations proving there was no systemic fraud - and suggested "we must not criminalize dissent or demonize political disagreement," even as he has long called for prosecutions of his opponents.He did not mention abortion rights, an issue that has bedeviled Republicans ever since the US Supreme Court struck down a federally guaranteed right to abortion two years ago. Trump nominated three of the six justices who overturned Roe v. Wade. Trump at his rallies often takes credit for Roe being overturned and argues states should have the right to institute their own abortion laws. Nor did he mention the insurrection at the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in which Trump supporters tried to stop the certification of his loss to Joe Biden. Welcomes China The former US President reiterated an openness for Chinese automakers to build cars in the US as a way to boost the economy."Right now as we speak, large factories just are being built across the border in Mexico" by China to make cars to sell in the US, Trump said in the address. "Those plants are going to be built in the US and our people are going to man those plants," he said, adding that he would otherwise slap tariffs as high as 200% on each car to prevent them from entering the country. Agencies

DHAKA: The Bangladesh government has decided to impose a curfew across the country and deploy the army, BBC Bangla reported on Friday, citing Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's press secretary, amid widening student-led protests against government job quotas. An official decision regarding the curfew would be issued soon, the prime minister's press secretary, Nayeemul Islam Khan, told BBC Bangla. Three people were killed in the country on Friday as police cracked down on unrelenting student-led protests against government job quotas despite a ban on public gatherings, local media said. Police fired tear gas to scatter protesters in some areas, Reuters journalists said. One said he could see many fires across the capital Dhaka from a rooftop and smoke rising into the sky in several places. Telecommunications were also disrupted and television news channels went off the air. Authorities had cut some mobile telephone services the previous day to try to quell the unrest.111831842 Bengali newspaper Prothom Alo reported train services had been suspended nationwide as protesters blocked roads and threw bricks at security officials. Violence on Thursday in 47 of Bangladesh's 64 districts killed 27 and injured 1,500. The total number of those dead from the protests reached 105 on Friday night, AFP separately reported, citing hospitals. Reuters could not immediately verify the reports and police have not issued a casualty toll. The U.S. Embassy in Dhaka said that reports indicated more than 40 deaths and "hundreds to possibly thousands" injured across Bangladesh. In a security alert, it said protests were spreading, with violent clashes being reported across Dhaka. The situation was "extremely volatile", it said.111866729 The protests initially broke out over student anger against quotas that set aside 30% of government jobs for the families of those who fought for independence from Pakistan. The nationwide unrest - the biggest since Hasina was re-elected this year - has also been fuelled by high unemployment among young people, who make up nearly a fifth of a population of 170 million. Some analysts say the violence is now also being driven by wider economic woes, such as high inflation and shrinking reserves of foreign exchange. The protests have opened old and sensitive political fault lines between those who fought for Bangladesh's independence from Pakistan in 1971 and those accused of collaborating with Islamabad.111868760 The former include the Awami League party of Hasina, who branded the protesters "razakar" - making use of a term that described independence-era collaborators. International rights groups criticised the suspension of services and the action of security forces. The European Union said it is deeply concerned by the violence and loss of life. "It is vital that further violence is averted and that a peaceful resolution to the situation is found as swiftly as possible, underpinned by the rule of law and democratic freedoms," it said in a statement. Neighbour India said the unrest was an internal matter of Bangladesh and that all 15,000 Indians in that country were safe. Indians studying in Bangladesh were returning by road.111868421 Violence linked to the protests also broke out in distant London, which is home to a large Bangladeshi population, and police had to quell clashes between large groups of men in the east of the British capital. TELECOMS DISRUPTED, WEBSITES HACKEDFriday began with the internet and overseas telephone calls being crippled, while the websites of several Bangladesh newspapers did not update and were also inactive on social media. A few voice calls went through, but there was no mobile data or broadband, a Reuters journalist said. Even text messages were not being transmitted. News television channels and state broadcaster BTV went off the air, although entertainment channels were normal, he said. Some news channels displayed a message blaming technical problems, and promising to resume programming soon. The official websites of the central bank, the prime minister's office and police appeared to have been hacked by a group calling itself "THE R3SISTANC3". "Operation HuntDown, Stop Killing Students," read identical messages splashed on the sites, adding in crimson letters: "It's not a protest anymore, it's a war now."111870100 Another message on the page read, "The government has shut down the internet to silence us and hide their actions." The government had no comment on the communications issues. On Thursday, it had said it was willing to hold talks with the protesters but they refused. Many opposition party leaders, activists, and student protesters had been arrested, said Tarique Rahman, the exiled acting chairman of the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). Reuters could not confirm the arrests.