NEW DELHI: Signalling an aggressive push ahead of the West Bengal assembly elections, the Congress on Saturday said it will contest all 294 seats in the state and will not shy away from fielding a candidate against chief minister Mamata Banerjee in Bhawanipur.The announcement came after a meeting of the party’s Central Election Committee (CEC) in Delhi, where senior leaders held detailed discussions on candidate selection.AICC in-charge for West Bengal Ghulam Ahmad Mir said the party intends to put up candidates in every constituency, underscoring a full-scale electoral contest.“Anyone who contests from Bhawanipur will be a big leader for us. We are fielding candidates on all 294 seats and we are not leaving any seat vacant,” Mir told news agency PTI.The high-level meeting was attended by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, former party chief Rahul Gandhi, AICC general secretary (organisation) K C Venugopal, and several leaders from West Bengal.Senior figures including Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury and CEC members Ambika Soni, Madhusudan Mistry, Salman Khurshid, TS Singhdeo, KJ George, PL Punia and Amee Yajnik were also present.The move indicates Congress’ intent to reassert itself in a state where it has struggled in recent years, even as the electoral battle is expected to be dominated by the Trinamool Congress and the BJP.West Bengal will go to polls in two phases on April 23 and 29, with counting scheduled for May 4.

AI giant Anthropic has scored a major legal victory after the federal judge temporarily blocked the Pentagon from labelling the company a “national security risk.” According to a report by Business Insider, US district judge Rita Lin has granted Anthropic’s request for a preliminary injunction, halting both the Presidential Directive ordering federal agencies to stop using Anthropic’s technology and defence secretary Pete Hegseth’s designation of the company as a “supply chain risk.” The ruling means the designation cannot take effect while the injunction is in place, allowing Anthropic to continue doing business with defense contractors.Judge Lin criticized the government’s actions, saying they looked like “an attempt to cripple Anthropic” rather than a straightforward decision to stop using its AI tool Claude. She noted that one amicus brief described the Pentagon’s move as “attempted corporate murder.”

Anthropic welcomes the decision

In a statement, Anthropic said: “We’re grateful to the court for moving swiftly, and pleased they agree Anthropic is likely to succeed on the merits. While this case was necessary to protect Anthropic, our customers, and our partners, our focus remains on working productively with the government to ensure all Americans benefit from safe, reliable AI.”

Pentagon’s arguments against Anthropic

As per the BI report, deputy assistant attorney general Eric Hamilton argued in the county that Pentagon has raised questions of Anthropic’s “reliability and trustworthiness,” warning the company could manipulate its AI models or restrict access. Defense officials have accused Anthropic of putting “Silicon Valley ideology above American lives.” US President Donald Trump also attacked the company on Truth Social, calling it a “WOKE COMPANY” and claiming its actions put national security in jeopardy.

Read Judge Rita Lin’s complete remarks here

“Good afternoon to both of you. Yesterday, I disclosed a list of questions that I asked counsel to be prepared to answer today. Before we go down that list, I thought it might be helpful for the attorneys to hear kind of a general overview of my tentative thoughts on the case so far, and you’re welcome to sit down for that if you’d like. Then, I’ll invite you back up to address the questions.I will say that I do think this case touches on an important debate. On the one hand, Anthropic is saying that its AI product, Claude, is not safe to use for autonomous lethal weapons and domestic mass surveillance. Anthropic’s position is that if the government wants to use its technology, the government has to agree not to use it for those purposes. On the other hand, the Department of War is saying that military commanders have to decide what is safe for its AI to do, not a private company.It’s a fascinating public policy debate, and it’s not my role to decide who’s right in that debate — that is Secretary Hegseth’s call. The Department of War decides what AI product it wants to use and buy. And everyone, including Anthropic, agrees that the Department of War is free to stop using Claude and look for a more permissive AI vendor.I don’t see that as being what this case is about. I see the question in this case as being a very different one, which is, whether the government violated the law when it went beyond that.After Anthropic went public with this contracting dispute, defendants seemed to have a pretty big reaction to that. They took three actions that are the subject of this lawsuit. First, the president announced that every federal agency, not just the Department of War, would immediately ban Anthropic from ever having another government contract. So, that would include the National Endowment for the Arts using Claude to design its website — not allowed.Second, Secretary Hegseth announced that anyone who wants to do business with the US military has to sever their commercial relationship with Anthropic. So, if a company uses Claude to have a customer service chatbot, now they can’t do any defense work.Third, the Department of War designated Anthropic as a ‘supply chain risk.’ That label applies to adversaries of the US government who may sabotage its technology systems. It’s typically directed at foreign intelligence, terrorists, or other hostile actors.What is troubling to me about these three actions is that they don’t really seem to be tailored to the stated national security concern. If the worry is about the integrity of the operational chain of command, DOW could just stop using Claude. It looks like defendants went further than that because they were trying to punish Anthropic.One of the amicus briefs used the term ‘attempted corporate murder.’ I don’t know if it’s murder, but it looks like an attempt to cripple Anthropic. And specifically, my concern is whether Anthropic is being punished for criticizing the government’s contracting position in the press.Defendants say they were doing this because Anthropic’s ‘sanctimonious rhetoric’ was an attempt to ‘strong-arm the government.’ DOW’s records say that it designated Anthropic as a supply chain risk because it was ‘hostile in the press.’ So it looks like DOW’s punishing Anthropic for trying to bring public scrutiny to this contracting dispute, which, of course, would be a violation of the First Amendment. So I have a lot of concern about that, and I would like to hear more from the government about that.

I also have a lot of questions about — one, whether Congress gave defendants the authority to do this in the first place, and two, whether defendants violated Anthropic’s due process rights by not giving them notice and an opportunity to respond.The questions I put out yesterday really go more to those latter two topics. So, I want to start going through those questions, but I will just say that at the end of the questions, I’ll give both parties an opportunity to address the court. You can give me your reaction to the tentative thoughts that I gave you, and you can also just let me know anything else you think is important that I know about the case before I take it under submission.So let me just invite counsel back up to the podiums, and we’ll just go through the questions.”

Mumbai: The BEST has cancelled its plan to lease staff quarters at its prime Altamount Road plot, withdrawing a tender expected to fetch around Rs 263 crore. The tender was withdrawn on March 25.The proposal involved leasing 35 flats – 15 in Wing A and 20 in Wing B – on a 2,475 sq m plot at Cumballa Hill by opening it up for third-party residential use. Both wings are five-storey buildings. BEST published a notice on its website about cancellation of this tender. A BEST spokesperson did not respond to calls and messages when attempts were made to seek its version. The plan came under scrutiny earlier after the tender process moved unusually fast within the system, triggering concern among officials and activists. The e-tender was issued in late July, and key approvals across multiple departments were completed within hours on the eve of a top official’s retirement. The speed of clearances raised questions internally.Unions strongly objected, arguing that the plot, reserved for a power substation, could not be handed over to private parties for long-term residential use. Following the backlash, officials explored changing the reservation to enable leasing, sources said. BEST issued a public notice stating it planned to lease the quarters to generate non-fare revenue. However, the move drew criticism from citizen groups, who flagged concerns over the monetisation of public land and sought greater transparency. The plot houses a key receiving substation, which converts high-voltage electricity for local supply. It serves areas such as Malabar Hill, Nepeansea Road, Altamount Road and Cumballa Hill. The land is also designated for emergency utility use, limiting redevelopment. A third wing with eight flats was already leased earlier as part of the same complex.The issue of land monetisation came under the spotlight in Oct 2025, when activists submitted a white paper to the govt raising concerns over disposal of public assets. Around the same time, CM Devendra Fadnavis directed BEST to raise at least 40% of its revenue from non-fare sources. TNN