5 stories you must read today, September 26: From Indian reaction to NATO chief’s remark to Tirupati temple using AI for crowd management and more

India has reacted to NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte’s claim that US President Donald Trump’s tariffs on India for purchasing Russian oil were forcing Prime Minister Narendra Modi to press Russian President Vladimir Putin to clarify his Ukraine strategy, calling it entirely baseless. “NATO chief’s statement is factually incorrect and entirely baseless. We expect the leadership of an important institution like NATO to exercise greater responsibility and accuracy in public statements,” the MEA said in a statement. Trump has imposed a 25 per cent secondary tariff on India for buying Russian oil and has repeatedly claimed that New Delhi was funding the war in Ukraine. Read more

The Sri Venkateswara temple at Tirumala will soon have India’s first AI-powered pilgrim Integrated Command and Control Centre (ICCC), where artificial intelligence will be used for crowd mapping and prediction, facial recognition-assisted identification for missing people, and quick assistance for pilgrims. The Sri Venkateswara Temple, also known as Tirupati Balaji Temple, is one of the busiest temples in India, and earlier this year, a stampede there killed six and injured over 40 people. Read more

The Delhi High Court has held that attacking the dignity of a person using obscene and sexually suggestive language under the guise of free speech cannot be permissible. The court order came in a plea by BJP national spokesperson and senior advocate Gaurav Bhatia against defamatory content across social media from a live telecast that went viral recently. While the court ordered the takedown of posts containing obscene and sexually suggestive language, it refrained from issuing an ex-parte injunction against all such posts, including ones that the court deemed to be satirical in nature. Read more

Minister of State for Petroleum, Natural Gas and Tourism Suresh Gopi has doubled down on his demand that the proposed All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Kerala should be established in Alappuzha district. In the past few days, Gopi, the BJP’s only MP from Kerala and the party’s state leadership have disagreed publicly over his demand. While Gopi, the MP from Thrissur, wants AIIMS to be established in Alapuzha, the party leaders want the Union government to choose the location. The Kerala Government has proposed Kozhikode as the location for AIIMS. Read more

Search engine giant Google is likely to be hit with its first fine under landmark new EU tech rules in the coming months. The fines are related to charges brought in March that Google favoured its vertical search engines, such as Google Shopping, Google Flights and Google Hotels, over rivals. The penatly will likely be under EU’s Digital Markets Act, which aims to rein in the power of large companies, giving rivals room to compete and users more choice. Read more