Under-fire firm

The firm denied it had violated Facebook’s rules. A statement by CA said its “robust data protection policies complied with US, international, EU and national regulations”.

The recent allegations will not deter the firm and its India partner from continuing their collaboration till CA is found to “violate Indian law”, OBI’S CEO Amrish Tyagi said on Sunday.

According to a person familiar with the firm, it has had talks with the Congress and the BJP, with former Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa, who is making a bid to get re-elected in 2020, and with the Awami League, the ruling party in Bangladesh, which is seeking re-election in 2019.

“Nothing is confirmed yet. These are all preliminary talks,” said the person quoted above.

“We are in touch with Cambridge Analytica on the controversy. Their officials have denied the allegations and are exploring legal options. Nothing has been established yet,” Tyagi said. “We are partners. If something is established to be in violation of Indian law, then we will of course reconsider it.”

He added that social media legislation and regulation was complex and diverse in different jurisdictions. “What may be illegal and unethical in one place may not be in India and vice versa. So it is too early to say anything.” On its website, CA says it was contracted for an in-depth electorate analysis for the Bihar assembly elections in 2010. “Our client achieved a landslide victory, with over 90% of total seats targeted by CA being won,” it adds.

Tyagi, who is the son of the senior JD(U) leader and former Rajya Sabha MP KC Tyagi, worked for the JD(U)-BJP alliance in Bihar in 2010 through OBI. He then worked with the BJP, when Nitin Gadkari was party president, in Uttar Pradesh in 2012. OBI primarily does booth-level work for parties, looking at demographics and caste to bolster a party’s prospects on the ground, said Tyagi, who also worked on the Trump campaign’s outreach to the Indian-american community. “Through OBI, I have worked with individual candidates, including in the UP assembly elections of 2017. But Cambridge has not yet done any political project here.” When asked if they had conducted a similar profiling of Facebook users, he said, “Not at all. Cambridge does not have any project here. There is no question of having done social media work.” tity —0.1gm for 50litre of water — compared to the conventional chemicals that were mixed in a ratio of 5gm in 20 litres.

Valecha said the IGRS are highly toxic to insects, larvae or pupae but not harmful to humans and aquatic organism. “They are hormonal retardant and hamper the growth of mosquito into adults and ultimately kills them after 3-4 days,” she said. An SDMC official said the switch will come with some challenges. “The quantity to be added is so less (0.10 gm) that field officers get confused and end up adding more than prescribed dose,” he said. “For their convenience, spoons (marked with quantities) are provided but chances of error will remain high for first few weeks .Also though there is no study about the side effects of IGR, we suspect that its use may affect the flora and fauna of water bodies.”

But Valecha dismissed such fears and said that slight excesses would not affect humans or life at water bodies.

The second challenge could be of optics. “The previous insecticide (BTI) was grey in colour and had an odour so people believed us that something had been done to control mosquito breeding. But now, even if we spray the solution, people doubt us,” said an NDMC spokesperson.

Also, the IGR retards the growth of larvae and takes at least 3-4 days to kill mosquitoes. “Our field workers have already received complaints from residents about the solution being ineffective in killing the mosquitoes, and then we need to explain them the procedure in detail,” said NDMC spokesperson.

The civic agencies have also started training field officers to ensure that the new medicines are not overused or misused. cle was being driven illegally — its load should not have been protruding and the vehicle did not have a mandatory fitment that would have stopped the victims’ car from under-running into it.

It is unclear if the victims’ vehicle, a Toyota Innova, was speeding. Colleagues of the victims said the seven had initially planned to celebrate Wankhede’s birthday at a restaurant in Delhi’s Connaught Place. “But when they found the place too crowded, they took an impromptu decision to drive to Agra, see the Taj Mahal and return to work by Sunday evening,” said Apoorva, a doctor at the AIIMS emergency department. A second colleague said they were first alerted of the accident by Halam and Singh, who shared the location of the accident site through Whatsapp. “We first thought it was a relatively minor accident as Catherine was able to type and send the message,” said Priya, Halam’s batch-mate.

This was not the only fatal accident on the Yamuna Expressway on Sunday. At around 5.30am, a UP Roadways bus fell off the elevated road and into an underpass, killing two people on the spot. The driver is suspected to have fallen asleep. Since the 169-km expressway opened in 2012, there have been more than 100 deaths every year in fatal accidents on the stretch.