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Bengaluru: The opposition BJP in Karnataka on Thursday (July 18) warned the Congress government in the state to be prepared for the wrath of the people if it fails to table the bill that mandates reservations for Kannadigas in the private sector in the ongoing Legislative session.

The party slammed Chief Minister Siddaramaiah for taking an U-turn on the Karnataka State Employment of Local Candidates in the Industries, Factories and Other Establishments Bill, 2024, which was cleared in the Cabinet meeting on Monday and put on hold late Wednesday night after uproar by the industry.

Clarifying on the decision to hold back the bill, Siddaramaiah said on Wednesday that the draft bill intended to provide reservations for Kannadigas in private sector companies, industries, and enterprises is still in the preparation stage.

A comprehensive discussion will be held in the next Cabinet meeting to make a final decision, he said.

BJP state president B Y Vijayendra in a post on 'X' asked, "Why did you bring the bill to give employment to the kannadigas? Why did you hold it back? Why mess with the lives of Kannadigas? Do you need Kannadigas to insult?" "Let the government present the job reservation bill for Kannadigas, which has given hope to lakhs of unemployed people in rural areas who were deprived of job opportunities despite their qualifications, in the current session, or else be ready to face the anger of Kannadigas," the Shikaripura MLA said.

Vijayendra condemned the 'cowardly decision' of putting the bill on hold which 'insulted Kannada-Kannadiga-Karnataka'. The bill aims to provide employment to Kannadigas.

The BJP leader sought to know why the government, which had moved forward to address the demand of the pro-Kannada fighters, after many years of struggle to protect the employment rights of the children of this land, gave up within a day.

It seems that the lobby of the anti-Karnataka forces, which suppress the self-respect of the country, the self-esteem of the Kannadigas, has prevailed over the chief minister, forcing him to take a 'U-turn' three times within a day, Vijayendra alleged.

"Fearing the split in the INDI Alliance, Delhi's big 'hand' must have tied the hands of the chief minister, otherwise how can he take an escapist decision to sideline the bill that will improve the lives of Kannadigas?" the BJP state president said.

The people of the state will never forgive the Congress leaders if the Congress government and the chief minister held back the 'pro-Kannada bill' in an attempt to divert public attention and also mislead the investigation into the Karnataka Maharshi Valmiki Scheduled Tribes Development Corporation (KMVSTDC) and Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) scams that have rocked the state, he said.

Bareilly: The programme proposed by the local political group Ittehad-e-Millat Council (IMC) to conduct mass marriage of men and women of other religions who have converted to Islam has been postponed after the district administration denied permission for the event.

IMC chief Maulana Tauqeer Raza Khan, who had announced to organise the event, said, "We work within the ambit of the law. The mass marriage program will be held only after the permission of the administration. We sought permission from the administration, which was not given. The program will not be held without the permission of the administration."

IMC state in-charge Nadeem Qureshi said the city magistrate did not give permission to convert and perform the marriage of couples. The program has been postponed for now, he added.

"The marriage of men and women who have converted from Hinduism to Islam will be conducted and in the first phase, five couples will get married, in which the men and women will complete the process of conversion and embrace each other," the IMC chief had earlier said.

The IMC had sought permission from the district administration for the event but their request was denied on Tuesday evening.

District Magistrate Ravindra Kumar said late on Tuesday night that the IMC had sought permission from the city magistrate to organise an event for religious conversion and marriage.

"The permission for the same has not been given and the religious conversion and marriage program has been postponed by IMC. The administration has received the letter from IMC informing about the postponement of the program," the officer said.

"The mass marriage ceremony will be held on July 21 at 11 am in Khalil Higher Secondary School. Permission has also been sought from the administration for this," he added.

The IMC chief's proposed 'mass marriage programme after conversion' resulted in a controversy with Hindu organisations staging a protest and seeking action against Khan here on Tuesday.

The protestors also submitted memorandums to the district magistrate with their demands.

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.