Why Vijay Rupani resigned as Gujarat CM and how it might help BJP

The Bharatiya Janata Party will sink like the Titanic if Prime Minister Narendra Modi is left in command, stated firebrand saffron party leader Subramanian Swamy in an X post on Monday.

"If we in BJP want to see our party sink like the Titantic Ship then Modi is the best to command," he said, adding, "By-Election results show BJP is cracking up to sink forever."

Swamy's post comes after the I.N.D.I.A. bloc managed massive gains in the assembly bypolls, whose results were declared on Saturday. The coalition managed to win 10 of the 13 seats, restricting BJP to only two victories. An Independent candidate won the 13th seat.

Among the I.N.D.I.A. bloc, TMC and Congress were the biggest winners, bagging four seats each, while AAP and DMK managed one each. BJP also lost the Badrinath seat in Uttarakhand, in what is seen as a blow by the Congress following the saffron party's loss in Ayodhya in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

Congress sought to project a larger political message in the Badrinath victory saying that Hindutva followers were being electorally bashed up in places of significance to Hindu religion.

Swamy has been railing against BJP top leaders like Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah for some time now. When the Modi government declared June 25 as the 'murder of Constitution day', Swamy remarked on X "What was Mody [Modi] or Amit Shah’s contribution to actively opposing the Emergency?", adding, "Credit snitching is a bad disease."

Recently, he also spoke on the consequences Modi's visit to Russia would have on India-US relations.

After the Lok Sabha polls, which saw Modi return to power for a third term, albeit with diminished margins, and only with help from alliance partners Nitish Kumar and JD(U) and Chandrababu Naidu and TDP, Swamy remarked, "The most devastating outcome of the 2024 Lok Sabha Election Results could be that Modi will find his assembled crowds evaporated before he could say 'namaste'."

"The surprise is that he did not realise that in a democracy no one can take the people for granted," he had concluded.

Microsoft has announced an investigation into the Azure cloud server outage in the US and other parts of the world.

The outage caused temporary grounding of flights of low-cost carrier Frontier Airlines in the US.

"Our systems are currently impacted by a Microsoft outage, which is also affecting other companies. During this time booking, check-in, access to your boarding pass, and some flights may be impacted. We appreciate your patience," the company said on X.

Now, the ground stop has been lifted, and the company is in the process of resuming flight operations.

In India, SpiceJet, IndiGo, Air India Express and Akasa Airlines also faced difficulties. Most of the passengers were unable to do their web checkin online.

"Due to infrastructure issues with our service provider, some of our online services, including booking, check-in and manage booking services will be temporarily unavailable," Akasa Airlines said in a statement.

"Our systems are currently impacted by a Microsoft outage, which is also affecting other companies. During this time, booking, check-in, access to your boarding pass, and some flights may be impacted. We appreciate your patience," said IndiGo on X.

"As our systems are impacted by an ongoing issue with Microsoft Azure, we are experiencing high volumes at contact centre. Please contact us only if your travel is within 24 hrs," added IndiGo.

"Global digital infrastructure issues with cloud services are temporarily impacting operations across multiple airlines, airports and other businesses globally. As a result, our website, reservation and airport check-in systems are also impacted. Please plan your travel and keep sufficient time in hand for airport procedures. We regret the inconvenience and appreciate your patience and understanding during this time," said Air India Express on X

Currently, the affected airlines are doing manual check-ins and boarding processes at the airports.

Down under, Sydney Airport in Australia is facing service outage. It has requested the passenger to leave home early to avoid delays.

"A global technical outage has impacted some airline operations and terminal services. Flights are currently arriving and departing however there may be some delays throughout the evening.   We have activated our contingency plans and deployed additional staff to our terminals.   If you're travelling today make sure you leave plenty of time to come to the airport and check with your airline regarding the status of your flight," Syndney Airport posted the message on X.

"CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity firm that services numerous industries, was down across parts of the world Friday morning, halting news broadcasts and grounding flights," reported reported.

"I am aware of a large-scale technical outage affecting a number of companies and services across Australia this afternoon. Our current information is this outage relates to a technical issue with a third-party software platform employed by affected companies," said the office of Australia's National Cyber Security Coordinator Michelle McGuinness on X. 

Hong Kond Airport is facing IT service outage and has now switched to manual check-in and boarding processes.

Air France and Paris airports are also facing similar issues, reported Reuters. Add to that, Paris Olympic committee said that its IT operations have been impacted by a global cyber outage.

"We have activated contingency plans in order to continue operations," the organising committee said in a statement.

Taiwan's two major airlines, China Airlines and Eva Air, have been spared are unaffected.

Even Microsoft 365, which offers access to Word, SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business, Teams, Intune, PowerBI, Microsoft Fabric, Microsoft Defender, Viva Engage and other productivity tools has become inaccessible to clients around the world, including major cities across India.

The Microsoft 365 service health status reads-- "Users may be unable to access various Microsoft 365 apps and services".

Indian Government's statement 

“MEITY (Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology) is in touch with Microsoft and its associates regarding the global outage. The reason for this outage has been identified and updates have been released to resolve the issue. CERT is issuing a technical advisory. NIC network is not affected,” said Ashwini Vaishnaw, Minister for Railways, Information & Broadcasting, Electronics & Information Technology, Government of Bharat. 

Computers with CrowdStrike cybersecurity applications are struck with Blue Screen of Death (BSoD) issue.

Indian Computer Emergency Response Team has recommended user to follow the process shared by CrowdStrike on Reddit below:

Step 1: Boot Windows into Safe Mode or the Windows Recovery Environment.

Step 2: Navigate to the C:\Windows\System32\drivers\CrowdStrike directory

Step 3: Locate the file matching “C-00000291*.sys” and delete it.

Step 4: Boot the host device normally. This should fix the BSoD problem. 

A family of four from Kerala, who had just returned to Kuwait after a vacation, died in a tragic fire at their Abbasiya residence on Friday night. The victims are Mathew Mulackal (40), wife Lini Abraham (38) and children Irin (14) and Issac (9), all hailing from Neerattupuram, Alappuzha.

The family returned to their Kuwait flat on Friday evening, after a month-long vacation in Kerala. The fire, believed to have been caused by an air conditioning unit malfunction, broke out around 9 p.m. Preliminary reports suggest that the family died from inhaling toxic fumes.

Mathew was employed with Reuters, while Lini worked as a nurse in Kuwait. They had returned from their vacation just ahead of the reopening of their children's school. 

The family had recently built a new home in Kerala, which was completed a year ago. During their vacation, they visited the house for a blessing ceremony but couldn't stay long due to their return schedule.

Fire brigade and police have launched an investigation. The Indian Ambassador in Kuwait, along with Union Ministers, are taking measures to repatriate the bodies to India. 

"Embassy @indembkwt expresses its deepest condolences on the tragic demise of Mr Mathews Mulackal, his wife and 2 children due to fire in his flat in Abassiya yesterday night," the Indian Embassy in Kuwait said in a post on X.

"Embassy is in touch with his family and will ensure early repatriation of mortal remains," it added. Mathews Mulackal is survived by his mother and three siblings.

"Mathew has been working there for the past 15 years. His wife is a nurse. The children are studying there. They left after their vacation on Thursday night from Nedumbassery and reached Kuwait on Friday," a relative told the media on Saturday.

Notably, this happened more than a month after a massive blaze at a building in Kuwait killed 46 Indian nations. Authorities say an electrical short circuit in the room of the guard on the ground floor of the building caused the blaze. Of the 196 residents in the housing facility, 175 are Indians, 11 are Filipinos and the rest are from Thailand, Pakistan and Egypt.