India demands Twitter take down tweets critical of Covid handling

Coronavirus-mired country makes emergency order to censor dissentious posts

A woman takes care of her husband who has Covid-19 as they wait outside the casualty ward at Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital, in New Delhi, India. Reuters 

Family members mourn after a man is declared dead amid a surge in coronavirus cases in India. Reuters

A patient with breathing problems is seen inside a car while waiting to enter a hospital for treatment, amid the spread of the coronavirus in Ahmedabad, India. Reuters

India’s second Covid-19 wave is devastating, with more than new 200,000 coronavirus cases recorded each day. Reuters 

Dr Rajesh Bhagchandani, centre, a director at Apex hospital in Bhopal city, intubates a patient. He feels helpless that the hospital, which is now reserved for critically ill Covid-19 patients, cannot accommodate more people who require oxygen. Dr Rajesh Bhagchandani

Dr Himanshu Dewan, director of critical care at QRG hospital in Faridabad, a town near India’s capital New Delhi, says the number of deaths will climb because patients do not have access to treatment. Dr Himanshu Dewan

A health worker arranges oxygen cylinders that are being used for Covid-19 coronavirus patients at a private hospital in Allahabad. AFP

Dr Himanshu Dewan, director of critical care at QRG hospital in Faridabad, a town near India’s capital New Delhi, is acutely aware a patient could die on the road if turned by hospitals that cannot admit more Covid-19 cases . Courtesy: Dr Himanshu Dewan

A man carries an empty oxygen cylinder to get it refilled at a private refilling station, for his relative who is suffering from the coronavirus disease, in New Delhi. Reuters

Patients with breathing problems are seen inside an ambulance waiting to enter a Covid-19 hospital for treatment in Ahmedabad. Reuters

A health worker collects a nasal swab sample from a woman in Amritsar. AFP

An Indian police officer distributes face masks in Hyderabad. AP Photo

A health worker administers the Covidshield vaccine at a government hospital in Hyderabad. AP Photo

People wearing masks wait to test for Covid-19 at a hospital in Hyderabad. AP Photo

A health worker takes a mouth swab sample at a hospital in Hyderabad. AP Photo

Nuns wait to take a test for Covid-19 at a test center in Kolkata, Eastern India. EPA

India asked Twitter to take down dozens of tweets criticising its handling of the coronavirus pandemic, as cases in the country on Saturday hit a global record for the third straight day.

Twitter withheld some of the tweets after the legal request by the Indian government, a company spokeswoman told Reuters on Saturday.

The government made an emergency order to censor the tweets, Twitter disclosed on Lumen database, a Harvard University project.

In the government's legal request, dated April 23 and disclosed on Lumen, 21 tweets were mentioned.

Among them were tweets from Revnath Reddy, a member of parliament from the state of Telangana, Moloy Ghatak, a minister in the state of West Bengal and Avinash Das, a filmmaker.

The law cited in the government's request was the Information Technology Act, 2000.

"When we receive a valid legal request, we review it under both the Twitter Rules and local law," the Twitter spokeswoman said.

"If the content violates Twitter's rules, the content will be removed from the service. If it is determined to be illegal in a particular jurisdiction, but not in violation of the Twitter Rules, we may withhold access to the content in India only," she said.

The spokeswoman confirmed that Twitter had notified account holders directly about withholding their content and let them know that it received a legal order pertaining to their tweets.

The development was reported earlier by technology news website TechCrunch, which said that Twitter was not the only platform affected by the order.

India is in the grip of a rampaging second wave of the pandemic, hitting a rate of one Covid death in just under every four minutes in Delhi as the capital's underfunded health system buckles.

The number of cases across the country rose by 346,786 to reach 16.6 million, the health ministry said on Saturday. Covid deaths rose by 2,624 to a total of 189,544, according to Saturday's figures.

Health experts said India became complacent in the winter when new cases were running at about 10,000 a day and seemed to be under control. Authorities lifted restrictions, allowing the resumption of big gatherings, including large festivals such as Kumbh Mela and political rallies for local elections.

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