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The Tamil Nadu State Commission for the Scheduled Caste & Scheduled Tribe has sought an explanation from the Tirupattur district collector for taking beef off the menu for a biryani festival in the district.

The commission’s notice was not before the three-day ‘Ambur Biryani Festival’, scheduled to be held between May 12 and 15 was cancelled by the district administration citing heavy rain forecast.

“The commission has received information by way of a petition that you, as the head of the District Administration, have arranged for a biryani festival at Ambur, proposing to exhibit in stalls for sales to the public, different items of the biryani which will number more than 20. In the press note, you have specifically stated that beef biryani shall stand excluded,” the letter, addressed to district collector Amar Kushwaha, stated.

Twitter Chief Executive Parag Agrawal announced in an email to employees on Thursday, which was seen by Reuters, that the company's leaders for the consumer division and revenue will depart the social media company.

The news comes as billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk is working to close a $44 billion deal to acquire Twitter, Reuters said.

Agrawal also said in the email that Twitter would pause most hiring and would review all existing job offers to determine whether any "should be pulled back," according to a report in Reuters.

As the Enforcement Directorate expressed its uneasiness in interrogating Trinamool Congress leader Abhishek Banerjee in Kolkata instead of Delhi and cited an incident in which CBI officials were prevented from discharging their duty in the state, the Supreme Court on Thursday said it will direct the Bengal government to provide protection to ED officials and the agency should interrogate the politician in Kolkata.

A bench of Justices UU Lalit, S Ravindra Bhat and Sudhanshu Dhulia said it seemed that as of now Banerjee was to be questioned as witness in the case and not as a potential accused, so the agency can question him and his wife in Kolkata. The agency told the bench that no complaint has so far been filed against the TMC leader.

The NIA has filed a chargesheet against a BSF officer among 11 accused in connection with a case of pilferage of weapons from CAPF armoury for supply to CPI (Maoist) cadres.

The officer, identified as Kartik Behera, was dismissed from service after his name emerged in the case. “The case pertains to pilferage of arms and ammunition and supply of the same to armed cadres of CPI(Maoist) and terrorist gang of Aman Sahu by the accused persons who had criminally conspired to use these arms and ammunition in executing terrorist attacks on security forces and also for the purpose of extortion. The case was originally registered in PS ATS, Ranchi, Jharkhand,” NIA said in a statement.

Net subscriber addition by Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio increased the overall telecom user base to over 116.69 crore in March 2022, telecom regulator Trai said in its monthly report on Thursday.

Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio led new customer additions in both mobile telephony as well as fixed line services segment in March.

"The number of telephone subscribers in India increased from 1,166.05 million at the end of February 2022 to 1,166.93 million at the end of March 2022," Trai's subscriber report for March said.