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How Ola landed in MapmyIndia’s crosshairs

Ola Co-founder and CEO Bhavish Aggarwal seems to have been stung by the nationalist bug lately. And the encounter could not have come at a more opportune time than when the ride-hailing firm was looking to buttress its position ahead of the stock market listing.

Kumar after launching several ventures that have locked horns with international giants is now embroiled in a tussle with MapmyIndia. While Ola, according to a August 23 PTI report, said the company has sent a legal notice to MapmyIndia and is awaiting their response, the ride-hailing company’s CEO is, for the first time, sailing in uncharted territory, battling against another swadeshi company that has a time-tested product.

Macron calls Telegram CEO’s arrest an apolitical move

French President Emmanuel Macron said the arrest in France of the CEO of the popular messaging app Telegram, Pavel Durov, wasn’t a political move but part of an independent investigation. Durov was detained Saturday at Le Bourget airport in a judicial inquiry opened last month involving 12 alleged criminal violations.

Durov is a citizen of Russia, France, the United Arab Emirates and the Caribbean island nation of St. Kitts and Nevis. Russian government officials have expressed outrage at his detention, with some calling it politically motivated and proof of the West’s double standard on freedom of speech. The outcry has raised eyebrows among Kremlin critics because in 2018 Russian authorities themselves tried to block Telegram but failed, withdrawing the ban in 2020.

Zuckerberg complains of censorship on Facebook

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg a letter submitted to a US congressional committee said he believes U.S. government pressure on his social media platforms to take down certain Covid-19 content in 2021 was “wrong,” and said he would resist similar attempts in the future. He also asserted that he did not plan on repeating funding efforts for U.S. election infrastructure ahead of the country’s presidential poll this year, donations that had drawn sharp criticism from Republicans.

Zuckerberg’s submission to the committee comes just over two months out from a tightly contested US presidential election race, with the spotlight on widespread online misinformation about the candidates.