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Punjab: AAP government’s claims of controlling stubble burning fall flat, farmers start burning farm residue ahead of Diwali

OpIndia Staff
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Punjab: AAP government’s claims of controlling stubble burning fall flat, farmers start burning farm residue ahead of Diwali

As winter is approaching, the annual stubble-burning session in Punjab has returned as per schedule. In the state, more than 700 farm fires have been reported so far, despite the state government claiming to have chalked out an extensive month-long program to curb the practice of stubble burning in the state.

On Monday, the state saw four farm fire incidents, two in Amritsar and one each in Ludhiana and Kapurthala, according to data from the Ludhiana-based Punjab Remote Sensing Centre.

According to the data, 718 farm fire incidents occurred between September 15 and October 10. As per the data, the state recorded 244 and 150 farm fires on the same day in 2020 and 2021, respectively.

Despite the state government assuring more crop residue management machines and launching massive awareness campaigns against stubble burning, farm fires continued.

It is worth noting that merely one-third of crop residue management machines deployed by the Punjab government has been used by farmers to curb stubble burning. Punjab Pollution Control Board member secretary Karunesh Garg in conversation with Economic Times pointed out that there are 90,000 crop residue management machines available for farmers to use, however, due to a lack of awareness the usage of these machines is very low. He also informed that awareness campaigns are being run to increase the usage of crop residue management machines, which can make a significant difference in stubble burning incidents.

The number of stubble-burning incidents, however, is expected to increase in the coming days, as paddy harvesting has been delayed by at least 10 days due to rains last month.

In September, Union Minister for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Narendra Singh Tomar urged the state governments of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, and the National Capital Territory of Delhi to work toward zero stubble burning in the near future. He promised all centre’s assistance to accomplish this mission.

According to Tomar, Rs 600 crore has already been provided to the states this fiscal year, and they have an unspent amount of Rs 300 crore that should be used properly. Furthermore, approximately 2 lakh machines have been made available to the states. According to the Minister, the Centre and the concerned States must collaborate on long-term planning and engage in multi-pronged activities to meet the target of Zero Stubble Burning within a specified time frame.

The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) issued a warning on Friday that Delhi’s air quality is likely to deteriorate to the poor category in the coming days.

Over several years, stubble burning has been one of the main causes of air pollution over the national capital region (NCR) and other parts of the Indo-Gangetic plains prior to the onset of the winter season.

Notably, the Punjab government issued guidelines on October 12 for residents to use firecrackers during Diwali and other festivals over the next three months. Residents will be permitted to set off firecrackers only for two hours on Diwali, from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m., according to the guidelines. 

It is worth noting that the Union Environment Minister Bhupendra Yadav held a virtual meeting with his state counterparts from Delhi, NCR, and Punjab on controlling vehicular, industrial, and dust pollution, as well as stubble burning, just a day before the Punjab government, issued guidelines. During the meeting, one of the most important topics of discussion was stubble burning.

“The issue of vehicular pollution was also deliberated upon in the meeting, and the states were informed about strict action being taken to ensure that all vehicles have the pollution under control (PUC) certificate,” the ministry said in an official statement. System of road traffic management was also discussed.”

Central government to provide one-time financial aid to set up torrefaction and pelletisation plants

The central government has announced that individuals and companies will receive one-time financial assistance to set up torrefaction and pelletisation plants to ensure a steady supply of paddy straw for co-firing in thermal power plants and industries.

The establishment of these plants will help to solve the problem of stubble burning while also generating income for farmers, said Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav on Thursday at a workshop on “Guidelines for grant of one-time monetary assistance for setting-up of pelletisation and torrefaction plants to promote utilization of paddy straw.”

According to the guidelines, financial assistance of Rs 14 lakh per tonne per hour plant production capacity (up to a maximum of Rs 70 lakh per proposal) will be provided for the establishment of new pelletisation units.

Notably, Torrefaction plants will receive Rs 28 lakh per tonne per hour plant production capacity, subject to the total financial support of Rs 1.4 crore per proposal.

The government has set aside Rs 50 crore for use in accordance with the guidelines. Individuals and businesses setting up new plants and units using only paddy straw generated in Delhi, Punjab, and Haryana, as well as NCR districts of Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, can apply for financial aid.

Notably, Paddy straw burning in Punjab and Haryana is one of the causes of the national capital’s alarming increase in air pollution levels in October and November. Farmers set fire to their fields to clear crop residue since the window for rabi crop wheat is very short after paddy harvest.

Punjab produces approximately 180 lakh tonnes of paddy straw each year. The state recorded 71,304 such fire incidents in 2021, 76,590 in 2020, 55,210 in 2019, and 50,590 in 2018, with many districts witnessing a high number of stubble-burning incidents, including Sangrur, Mansa, Bathinda, and Amritsar.

Arvind Kejriwal, the leader of the AAP, had previously blamed the Punjab government for failing to control farm fires in the state. “If you look closely, there are only a few Haryana locations in it.” “Stubble is being burned throughout Punjab, particularly in Bathinda and Amritsar,” he said at the time.

However, under the AAP regime, the same Amritsar district is a major hotspot of farm fires. Amidst all this, the Punjab government issuing guidelines for bursting firecrackers on Diwali seems to be a deliberate attempt to divert attention from pollution caused by stubble burning and the AAP government’s failure to contain it.

The Wire ties itself in knots as tech experts call out their photoshopped screenshots of ’emails’ to target Meta and BJP

Anurag
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The Wire ties itself in knots as tech experts call out their photoshopped screenshots of ’emails’ to target Meta and BJP

On October 15, the Meta vs Wire saga took more turns and twists after The Wire published a “rebuttal” to Meta’s assertations that the alleged expose by the leftist portal was based on fabricated evidence. In its rebuttal, The Wire made several claims to justify its expose. However, most of their claims faced speculations and raised even more questions over the authenticity of the whole fiasco.

Meta’s Communication head Andy Stone said, “I know – and whoever is now going to increasing lengths to fabricate this story knows – this is completely false. I never sent, wrote, or even thought what’s expressed in that supposed email, as it’s been clear from the outset that @thewire_in’s stories are based on fabrications.”

For those who are unaware of what has been happening, The Wire has claimed that the NDA-led Central government of India has been provided by Meta (Facebook and Instagram’s parent company) with extensive power to remove any content from the platform(s). To prove their point, The Wire provided “evidence” of a post removed within minutes of getting published as it was flagged by Bharatiya Janata Party IT Cell Chief Amit Malviya.

While Meta and The Wire have locked horns over the alleged expose, there has been no official statement from Malviya or the union government in the matter. Notably, The Wire had made such allegations before as well with the “Tek Fog” application, where they had claimed that BJP’s tech team had created an application to bombard the social media platforms with posts against those who speak “ill” of the government, its leaders and the party. However, there was not any evidence to price the allegations, and the matter got faded away.

The Wire’s “expose” on Tek Fog came at the time of the Uttar Pradesh state assembly elections, and now the Meta “expose” came at the time of the Gujarat elections. Both states are incredibly crucial for the BJP.

Former colleague of Andy raised red flags at The Wire’s report

Brent Kimmel of Squarespace who has worked with Andy as Tech expert, raised red flags over The Wire’s report. He pointed out that the ‘receipt’ confirmation made by the server only proves that the network request was made. He said, “It means nothing in terms of whether or not a person (let alone a specific person) received it, viewed it or interacted with it in any way. You simply can’t do “gotcha” journalism over email.”

Furthermore, he pointed out that the language was not what Andy would have used. “Also, read the email and read like… Anything Andy ever wrote. Diction is completely off, obviously an ESL composer.”

He added that he hadn’t talked to Andy in over a decade but worked with him in a high-pressure environment. he said, “I would have remembered if he spoke to his colleagues that way. He doesn’t.”

‘They read the email,’ claimed The Wire

The first claim that The Wire made in their report was the emails they sent on the @fb.com extension were opened by the respective receivers. They used a technology called ‘superhuman’ that allows the sender to check if and how many times the receiver opened the email. This technology has been around for quite some time, and several email clients and extensions add the feature to your email clients.

The Wire used ‘Superhuman’ application to track if the email they sent was opened or not. Source: The Wire.

It adds a 1×1 pixel external image in the email. Whenever someone opens an email, it records the information. Most security experts see it as an invasion of privacy of the receivers, but the technology has thrived for years because of its use in business communication.

Though OpIndia cannot verify independently as of now if what they are saying is true or not, ethically, The Wire, a platform that talks in length about privacy, has done something extremely unethical. Superhuman faced extreme criticism in 2019 over the feature. They were tracking the location of the receivers and logging them. After much criticism, they made several changes, and the CEO had to say that they were making the changes publicly.

Superhuman made several changes in tracking mechanisms after criticism in 2019. Source: Superhuman’s Blog

Superhuman still has the feature and claims it is “for business purposes” to make it easier to close the “deals faster.” OpIndia has sent an email to Rahul Vohra, Founder, and CEO of Superhuman, to get his views on the use of the platform for “expose” and how he feels about the invasion of privacy for that matter. We are waiting for a reply from Rahul on the matter and will add or publish it as an additional report when and if we get a reply from him.

Superhuman says its tracking system helps businesses in cracking deals more effectively. Source: Superhuman.com

It is noteworthy that experts in the field have raised concerns over the matter. Martin Obiols, a cybersecurity expert, said, “Do not praise people using clients that provide read-statuses for email. This is a huge privacy violation regardless of its purpose of doing it. I seriously do not understand how these tools are allowed under data privacy laws.”

Not to forget, most email clients, including Gmail, stop external images from loading as a security feature. How Superhuman managed to get around such features in Meta’s email client is another matter of concern. If this claim is true, Meta is not using the required security features.

Superhuman or any app is NOT fool-proof evidence

Another important point is, as Superhuman has STOPPED tracking the location, there is another way to say that someone has read it. Say The Wire sent it to someone else in BCC or forwarded the email to someone else, and the other receiver opened the email. The tracking will be based on the same pixel image. In that case, it will show that the email was opened by the recipient.

Let’s take an example. Say I want to track if my boss Nupur J Sharma read the email I sent. I used Superhuman or another application to do so. She read I got the information, and it’s done. This was the first scenario. In the second scenario, I want to implicate my boss read the email but ignored to acknowledge it. In that case, I would BCC it to my personal email ID, or I will forward the email to someone else. When the email gets opened by me or someone else, I can show that my boss opened the email as there is no way to trace the location from where the email was opened. Now I am the devil at my office! This is why such tracking applications cannot be solid evidence in an expose like this.

The DKIM mumbo-jumbo!

Now, The Wire made its way to technical in the next step. The Wire claimed that they used a python-based open-source tool called dkimpy to verify if the email came from an authentic source or not. There is way too much technical jargon in the report that needs simplification. Basically, this tool allows the user to ensure of the email came from an authentic source or not. It checks the header (code-based technical information) of the email and matches it with the sender’s digital signature.

Ideally, this system not only traces the source but also provides information if anything was changed in the email during the transit. In case you are unaware, there are ways to modify the email while it travels from the source to the destination. Codes can be injected, information can be altered, and so on. This is why encryption of the data is essential.

Anyway, this is where The Wire made a blunder that was noticed by a Twitter user Technical Trading Guru that goes by the handle @techtradeguru on Twitter. We will not go into the DKIM claim authenticity but point out the alleged photoshop saga that raised questions over The Wire’s report.

At 12:01 AM, techtradeguru pointed out that the screenshot of the emails from Experts used in the report to verify their DKIM claim had the date wrong. The emails were received in 2021, as per the screenshot.

We checked and verified the claim using WayBackMachine by Archive.org. Here is the screenshot of that particular section in The Wire’s report with timestamp 12:51:59 on WayBackMachine. Please note that WayBackMachine uses GMT timestamps. IST timestamps are not available.

The Wire report had screenshot that showed date from last year. Source: Waybackmachine

After techtradeguru and others pointed it out, The Wire changed the screenshots, and it showed 2022 as the year. This screenshot was timestamped 14:32:41 on WayBackMachine.

The date in the screenshot was changed. Source: WayBackMachine.

The current version of the report contains the identity of one of the Microsoft employees who checked the authentication of the dkimpy used by The Wire and allegedly confirmed that DKIM signature test of the email has passed. It is notable that Facebook is using Microsoft’s email services.

The current version of the report. Screenshot was taken by OpIndia at 11:27 AM on October 16, 2022.

However, there was another set of blunders made by them. First, the new screenshot was evidently photoshopped. Techtradeguru pointed it out and said, “They have copied the first 2 of 2021 and pasted in place of 1. I have done the pixel analysis.”

We made a GIF of the images he mentioned in his tweet to make it easier to understand. Ideally, when there should have been more space between “2022” and “at” in the screenshot which was missing. It shows that the screenshot was a photoshopped version of the older screenshot and not a new one.

The date was allegedly changed in photoshop without keeping the spacing in mind. Source: Techtradeguru.

Moreover, they changed the date but did not change the day. The 2021 and 2022 calendars are not identical in terms of Days. That means 12 October and 14 October in 2021 and 2022 fell on different days of the week. Multiple Twitter users pointed out this particular mistake made by The Wire. In both screenshots, the days remained Friday and Wednesday respectively. Trying to justify this discrepancy, Wire claimed that it was due to the fact that the dates were incorrectly set on TailOS, a Linux-based portable OS. But netizens pointed out that even if the date is wrongly set in the system, it will not result in a mismatch between the day and date, if it shows the wrong date, it will show the day corresponding to that wrong date only.

It was pointed out by tech expert Pranesh Prakash in a detailed Twitter thread on The Wire’s latest report. He wrote, “Now, @thewire in is saying the incorrect dates are due to TailsOS being used and being set to the wrong date. Except, it doesn’t take a genius to realize that even were that true, TailsOS would show: Thursday, October 14, 2021 and Tuesday, October 12, 2021 NOT Fri & Wed.”

We verified the days of all four dates and here is the screenshot compilation from Google.

The days were messed up in The Wire’s report. Source: Google.

The Wire’s report, the reporter who wrote the report, and the Founding editor have claimed that the date was messed up because the OS was recently re-installed on the reporter’s computer, and the OS (TailsOS) that they use has a history of messing up the dates after installation. They further claimed that the new screenshot was taken after setting the date right. However, they failed to provide any explanation of the wrong Days of the week in the screenshots. No matter how messed up the OS is after re-installation, it cannot take the Day of the week wrong.

Siddharth, Founding Editor of The Wire claimed it was a human error but not a photoshop. Source: Twitter.

Also, Pranesh pointed out that the difference in year would not have been possible. He said, “If TailsOS was used to receive an email, Tails must have connected to Tor. However, Tails “automatically synchronizes the system time at start”, Tor fails w/ wrong time, & apps use UTC. So if time can’t be off by *a year*, only few hours (to match Tor IP).” The TailsOS connects to the Internet through the anonymous network Tor.

Moreover, most people who have used the Internet and web-based services must have seen that several of such services do not work if the date in the system is wrong. Nowadays most systems automatically synchronise the time with the web, and therefore we don’t face such issues. But for Wire to claim that an exclusively Internet-based OS didn’t synch the time and it was wrongly set manually raised suspicions.

There is a lot to the story that The Wire has presented. As experts have pointed out mistakes and some experts have offered to independently check the DKIM claims, it will be interesting to see how the story moves further.

Uttar Pradesh: Imam Abdul Qadir rapes a minor girl in a mosque in Amroha, gets arrested

OpIndia Staff
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Uttar Pradesh: Imam Abdul Qadir rapes a minor girl in a mosque in Amroha, gets arrested

An Imam named Maulana Abdul Qadir of a mosque in Amroha of Uttar Pradesh was arrested on 15th October 2022 for raping a minor girl in a mosque. The girl used to come to the mosque for religious studies. She studies in the eighth standard. The accused Imam has been taken into custody by the Didauli Kotwali police.

The incident took place in a village in the Didauli Kotwali area. The minor girl was part of a truck driver’s family that lives here. The driver had gone out of the station while his wife and children were at home. His 15-year-old elder daughter is a student of Class 8 in the school in the same village. Every day, she used to go to the village mosque with other children for religious training.

Maulana Abdul Qadir Imam, a resident of village Racheta under the Police Station Asmauli of Sambhal district works as an Imam in this mosque. It is alleged that 15 days ago, Imam let other children go home and stopped the minor girl on the pretext of sweeping. He later took her to a room and raped her. He also threatened to kill her if she told anyone. After the incident, the victim went home and did not tell anyone about this incident out of fear.

On Friday, when her father returned home, the daughter informed him about the incident. Late on Friday evening, the truck driver reached Kotwali with his daughter and lodged a complaint against the Imam. Inspector-in-charge Parvez Chauhan said that an FIR had been registered and the accused Imam has been arrested and sent to jail. The medical examination of the victim is being conducted.

In Uttar Pradesh and other states, many such incidents have been reported earlier in which a Maulana is arrested for raping minor girls or boys. Now, a similar case has happened in Amroha and the accused Maulana Abdul Qadir has been arrested by the police.

The Wire claims Microsoft employee based out of Singapore ‘certified’ the fabricated documents in the Meta controversy

OpIndia Staff
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The Wire claims Microsoft employee based out of Singapore ‘certified’ the fabricated documents in the Meta controversy

The Wire has now claimed that a Microsoft employee, one Ujjwal Kumar, based in Singapore has verified their fabricated email exchange with Facebook’s parent company ‘Meta’. Founding Editor of The Wire Siddharth Varadarajan has claimed that one Ujjwal Kumar, currently employed at Microsoft in Singapore, has ‘passed the DKIM test’.

Varadarajan shared a screenshot of an email sent by Ujjwal Kumar of Microsoft used the manual method and corroborated that the dkimpy, a library that implements DKIM (DomainKey Identified Mail) email signing and verification.

Here is the email shared by Siddharth Varadarajan.

Ujjwal Kumar of Microsoft Singapore

In another separate tweet, Varadarajan had claimed that he had consent from Ujjwal Kumar to share the email and his finding regarding the so-called mail from Meta and had shared the screenshot.

Original tweet by Siddharth Varadarajan

However, few hours later, Varadarajan deleted the tweet claiming that he had the consent of Ujjwal Kumar to share details, he has deleted the tweet.

Facebook uses Microsoft’s email services. The Wire tried to use the service provider to ‘verify’ details about one of their clients, quite likely without their consent and it seems, Microsoft’s Ujjwal Kumar agreed. However, Varadarajan’s ‘expert’ who ‘verified’ Facebook/Meta email as ‘authentic’ suddenly went from okay with being named to being ‘anonymous expert’ here.

‘Animal cruelty’ activists in the UK spill milk in supermarkets to protest against dairy industry, irk even the vegans with this wastage of food

OpIndia Staff
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‘Animal cruelty’ activists in the UK spill milk in supermarkets to protest against dairy industry, irk even the vegans with this wastage of food

‘Animal cruelty’ activists in Scotland are being called out by internet users, including the vegan community, for spilling milk in supermarkets as a part of an awareness campaign.

Animal Rebellion, an NGO fighting against the supply of dairy, posted about one such ‘milk pour’ campaign from Waitrose supermarket in Edinburgh. It tweeted, “Milk Pours are currently happening across the UK.”

“All are concerned individuals calling on the government to give us a livable future, a #PlantBasedFuture,” the Twitter handle further added. The archived version of the tweet can be accessed here.

In the disturbing video, two female activists could be seen spilling milk on the floor of the supermarket while another activist was seen holding a poster that read, “Plant-Based Future.” A man could be seen walking up to them and questioning them about their behaviour.

Social media users were irked by the action of the ‘animal cruelty’ activists, who had no qualms about wasting food. Even the vegan community was forced to step in and point out how their actions are counterproductive.

“I am vegan. What the bloody hell do you think you are going to achieve by this. Work with farmers, and consumers. Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world – Nelson Mandela,” wrote one vegan activist.

One woman wrote, “I’m verging on vegan, and I agree. If anything, this sets the vegan cause back years.”

Another user emphasised, “Look at them pouring milk away in supermarkets, I think I’ll turn vegan” said no-one ever!”

Twitter user Paulo Alessandro tweeted, “This is disgusting behaviour. Some poor cleaner on minimum wage will be tasked with cleaning this up.”

Another user pointed out the elitism of the ‘animal cruelty’ activists. “People are struggling to survive and you think the best activism is wasting food and then having low-wage workers clean up your mess. You reek of elitism. Performance art is generally shit, as you have demonstrated here,” he said.

One Joolz Denby remarked, “Your entitled narcissistic stupidity will push the government to ban all protests, you are causing far more harm than good and adding to the daily burden the underpaid employees of that store have to deal with.”

Animal activists have been calling for a ban on the dairy industry due to the cruel and non-ethical treatment of animals. However, disruptive campaigns such as the one mentioned above are increasingly drawing the ire of common people, including those who might have been sympathetic to the cause.

With no clear goals in sight and unjustified use of disruption, the champions of animal rights activism are now finding themselves on shaky ground.

Tamil Nadu: Man arrested for asking people to buy only from Hindu shops for Diwali

OpIndia Staff
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Tamil Nadu: Man arrested for asking people to buy only from Hindu shops for Diwali

Ahead of the upcoming Hindu festival of Diwali, the Tamil Nadu police arrested a man on Wednesday (October 12) for asking people to buy only from Hindu shops.

As per reports, the man was identified as 32-year-old M Sakthivel. The district (Karur) coordinator of ‘Hindu Munnani’, a Hindu rights organisation, Sakthivel had distributed pamphlets asking everyone to purchase items from Hindu-owned shops.

A resident of Vengamedu Jyothidar Street, he had called upon his co-religionists to look for pictures of Hindu deities inside shops prior to purchasing any products from them.

Soft copies of the pamphlets also began doing the rounds of the internet. After taking cognisance of the matter, the Vengamedu police took Sakthivel into custody. Diwali is a Hindu festival which celebrates return of Shri Ram, Sita and Lakshman back to Ayodhya after slaying the demon king Ravan in Lanka.

He was booked under Indian Penal Code (IPC) Sections 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion), and 505 (public mischief). Besides the man, four of his accomplice have also been named in the case. He has been remanded to judicial custody.

When members of Hindu Munnani objected to Shakthivel’s arrest, the police arrested additional 27 members of the Hindu rights organisation.

In April this year, AIMIM (Inquilab) leader MA Qavi Abbasi also appealed to his community members to buy things only from Muslim-owned shops during the month of Ramzan.

“When they boycott us, we should also boycott them…The sleep of people gets disturbed in the morning. If they have objection to Masjid loud speakers, let there be tit for tat. They have started and we will end it. Lodge a complaint with the police and Pollution Control Board,” he had remarked.

He was also booked by the Hyderabad police but was not arrested in connection to the case.

Congress leader shares image of Nigerian crowd in Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra

OpIndia Staff
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Congress leader shares image of Nigerian crowd in Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra

Jitendra Patwari, State President of the Madhya Pradesh Congress, uploaded a fake image of a huge crowd on Twitter and portrayed it as the multitude of people participating in Congress family scion and revered figure in the party Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra. Several social media users pointed this out in comments to the post by Jitendra Patwari.

Tweet by Jitendra Patwari.

Twitter user Lala (@FabulasGuy) pointed out that the image was a stock photo and it was originally shot in Nigeria and not during the Bharat Jodo Yatra of Congress party.

OpIndia also reverse-searched the image and found that it is not a photo of Congress’s Bharat Jodo Yatra. The image was captured in Nigeria during the Azusa Street Revival crusade.

2019 protests in Nigeria

As one can see, the flood lights in the original image were digitally removed but the objects in the background were there.

The Azusa Street Revival was a historically significant series of Christian revival meetings held in Los Angeles, California. It was led by African-American preacher William J. Seymour.

The Congress has a long history of fabricating facts and presenting them in order to salvage its leaders and the Congress party’s sinking ship. Very recently, Congress shared a fake survey by the news channel Aaj Tak to claim that Rahul Gandhi is more popular than Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The Congress party praised its leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday (October 13) morning for apparently surpassing Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the people’s choice, based on a fake poll credited to the news channel Aaj Tak. According to the ‘photoshopped survey,’ the Congress scion has a 52% approval rating, while Prime Minister Narendra Modi has a 46% approval rating.

While boasting about the ‘changing public perception,’ the official handle of Delhi Congress tweeted, “The mood of the nation is changing. People have now decided to teach a lesson to those who make fake promises (hinting at the BJP and PM Modi).” The archived version of the tweet can be accessed here.

The now-deleted tweet by the Congress party.

The joy of the Congress party, unfortunately, was short-lived, as Aaj Tak was obliged to debunk the misinformation spread in its name.

The news agency clarified in a tweet that no such poll was done by their team and that the photograph published by the Delhi Congress had been manipulated.

Dear Western Media, get over your racism and stop making everything about Modi

Nirwa Mehta
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Dear Western Media, get over your racism and stop making everything about Modi

The entitlement Western Media, with a history of racist undertones against Indians, is baffling. Which is why, any pushback from the ‘dirty brown people who smell of curry’ feels like ‘attack’ to them. The legacy media houses are not quite used to anyone countering their narrative.

And then they are helped by propaganda outlets from India who have spent past one decade making PM Modi appear like a ‘fascist’ while they continue to speak whatever they wish to without consequences while journalists in opposition ruled states such as West Bengal get arrested for reporting anything remotely critical of Mamata Banerjee government. Western Media chooses to ignore these conveniently while giving patronage to people accused of financial frauds.

But the way Indian media one fine day woke up to a rude shock that what they say is not held sacrosanct by Indians anymore and an average Indian wants accountability of personal opinions and political inclinations being reported as news, the western media, too, will some day realise that Indians will not take things lying down.

Over the years we have called out international publications for their biased and racist reporting on issues concerning India. In fact, according to a research paper published in the Indian Institute of Mass Communication’s Journal Communicator titled “An Analysis of Global Coverage of Events in India,” the global media has produced news that is fully prejudiced and biased to gain from the market while at the same time pushing their agendas. We have seen this during the coverage of coronavirus pandemic – when people in India succumbed to the virus, blown out images of cremation grounds, without any respect for dignity of the dead, no such coverage was given to the lakhs who died due to virus in America, for instance.

Which is why the legacy Western Media gets all antsy when they are called out by common citizens of India for their racism and bigotry. Except, instead of introspecting and course correction, the western media thinks they are being criticised because of their ‘critical stand’ on PM Modi. Umm, it seems like the western media has taken lessons on how to obfuscate from their Brown Sepoys back home in India.

They make everything about Modi and think that the voices on Twitter echo the sentiments of Indians. Their Indian counterparts are so delusional and far away from ground realities that they think Modi is winning elections because of ‘hate’ while their blinkers don’t let them see that in past eight years more people in rural India (who do not really cry fascism on Twitter) now have toilets, drinking water and cooking gas. In fact, Congress leaders had mocked the fact that Modi was building toilets. These were eventually even picked up by Western media where their faithful Brown Sepoys wrote exactly what they wanted to hear to defame India. After all, how can a ‘third world country’ even dream of being a superpower when the real superpowers are busy getting offended over ‘being identified by wrong gender’.

Most people (I say most because as we have seen, not everyone feels so) in India will put India first, with or without Modi. Earlier your racist and biased reportage got a free pass because of lack of accessibility. But thanks to Internet, and that too cheap one, more people are reading what these western media publishes about us. And are not too happy with the biased reportage. Criticism of your reportage is not ‘hate’. You are a professional, at least that’s what you’d like to be called, one would believe, and if someone is calling you out, it is not because of your ‘faith’. You cannot use your faith as a shield when you are being criticised in your professional capacity.

‘Journalists are under attack’ is not an excuse for not being called out because you could not stop yourself from bringing in your bias in your reportage. You cannot play ‘young female reporter’ reporter and infantalise yourself when someone is showing you the mirror.

Congress’ lesson 101 in ‘intolerance’: Party leaders gloat after online attacks force YouTuber Shubham Gaur and India Today’s Saurabh Dwivedi to apologise

OpIndia Staff
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Congress’ lesson 101 in ‘intolerance’: Party leaders gloat after online attacks force YouTuber Shubham Gaur and India Today’s Saurabh Dwivedi to apologise

Even as Congress leaders and supporters have the habit of getting on the moral high horse and pontificating to others on the virtues of ‘tolerance’ and ‘dissent’, they do not necessarily subscribe to practising what they preach, as evidenced recently when a raft of Congress supporters took to social media to bully YouTuber Shubham Gaur and India Today staffer Saurabh Dwivedi for their critical remarks on Rahul Gandhi and the Congress party.

Congress supporters and sympathisers recently took to social media to attack YouTuber Shubham Gaur and Lallantop journalist Saurabh Dwivedi after their past remarks mocking the Congress party and Rahul Gandhi went viral on the internet. Consequently, both Gaur and Dwivedi were forced to issue an apology for speaking their minds out, after which Congress leaders gloated on Twitter at apologies they had managed to secure, apparently with the help of online bullying and targeted harassment.

Congress leaders and supporters bully Shubham Gaur and Saurabh Dwivedi into apologising for their past remarks, gloat over their apologies

Congress workers and leaders have made YouTuber Shubham Gaur apologize for his jokes about Rahul Gandhi. A video of his apology went viral on social media on 15th October 2022.

In this video, Shubham Gaur said, “Hello friends! I recently had a casual chat with the host of a podcast show. A clip from that chat was edited and circulated on social media. As it was a casual chat, I did not follow any barriers while using my words. So, I crossed the barriers. I do not favour any political party nor am I against any political party. So I realize that the words I used for Mr Rahul Gandhi in that discussion were not appropriate and I regret that. I assure his supporters who are pained by this, that I will not use such language for him again in the future. Thank you.”

Shubham Gaur shared a reel from his Instagram account on 14th October 2022. The reel contained the edited video clip of his podcast show in which he was making some jokes about Rahul Gandhi during a casual conversation with the host of the show. Congress leaders and workers reported the post and commented in large numbers asking the YouTuber to apologize.

As Shubham Gaur expressed his regrets, the Congress workers flagged his video to assert their ‘moral victory’. Congress worker Surj Thakur tweeted, “The apology from Shubham Gaur is here. I support your art and I hope it reaches new heights but let this be a message to all those artists – Things like this against my leader won’t be tolerated. Don’t cross a line with us or face consequences. Many congratulations in advance for your marriage.”

Similarly, Lallantop journalist Saurabh Dwivedi also had to proffer an apology after he was incessantly attacked on Twitter by Congress supporters and Rahul Gandhi admirers over his past tweets mocking the grand old party and the Gandhi scion.

After Dwivedi offered an apology for his past tweets and remarks, Nitin Agarwal, the national coordinator of the social media cell of Congress, tweeted the apology videos of Dwivedi and Gaur.

In this video, Saurabh Dwivedi says, “How should one articulate an apology or a regret? In the last 72 hours the screenshots of my old tweets from 2012, 2013, 2015, 2016, and 2017 are going viral on social media, especially Twitter. I have used the same language as those trolls. So what if I used that language for Rahul Gandhi at a time when The Lallantop was not even started? I used to think like that in those days. Should I say it was wrong? In some places, it was just for fun but in some places, it crossed the limits of parliamentary language.”

Not only did the Congress online trolls harass Shubham Gaur and Lallantop ‘journalist’ Saurabh Dwivedi for their views on Rahul Gandhi and Congress, but they also took great pleasure in their apologies, reflecting a smug pride in attacking the dissenters and forcing them to apologise for their remarks.

This comes even as Rahul Gandhi continues to wax eloquent on how his party has ‘tolerance’ for dissent and contrarian viewpoints, even as party trolls and leaders make a beeline to attack those who dare to oppose their views and refuse to align with the Congress ideology.

Congress threatens to initiate action against Scoopwhoop over old memes on Rahul Gandhi

The Congress party has frequently argued that the BJP is hell-bent on undermining democracy’s fourth pillar. Party officials, particularly Rahul Gandhi, have regularly decried the lack of press freedom in Modi’s era. Last year, the dynasty-run party practically cried hoarse about India’s decline in the press freedom rankings.

However, it’s no secret that from the times of Jawaharlal Nehru to the present Sonia Gandhi era, the Congress party has been highly intolerant when it comes to accepting criticism from the press. The Nehru-Gandhi dynasty has left no room for dissent and has acted strictly against the press whenever they have raised fingers against their misdeeds. One of the recent examples was how the entire Congress ecosystem went after Arnab Goswami with hundreds of FIRs and a concocted TRP scam just because he called Sonia Gandhi by her maiden name.

Just another example of this hypocrisy was on display recently when some Congress leaders took to the microblogging site Twitter to threaten the Delhi-based digital media company ScoopWhoop with legal action over some old memes of Rahul Gandhi. 

In April 2015, ScoopWhoop published an article titled: “These Rahul Gandhi Memes Will Tell You Why He Needs Special Treatment”, wherein it shared some hilarious memes about the Congress leader. It’s surprising, however, that it took the Congress leaders and their supporters a little over seven years to react to the memes shared by the digital platform. Several Congress leaders and their online supporters fell over themselves to bully Scoopwhoop and threaten them to remove the article.

The full-page ad on WSJ urging US govt to ban Nirmala Sitharaman and others, and its link to Rana Ayyub

OpIndia Staff
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The full-page ad on WSJ urging US govt to ban Nirmala Sitharaman and others, and its link to Rana Ayyub

On October 13, the DC edition of the Wall Street Journal carried a full-page advertisement that shocked India, as it urged the US government to impose sanctions on Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and 10 other Indians. Alleging that they have “decimated the rule of law by weaponising the institutions of the state to settle scores with political and business rivals, making India unsafe for investors,” the ad sought economic and visa sanctions against them under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act.

It has been already reported that the ad campaign was run by Ramachandran Viswanathan, a US citizen of Indian origin, who has been dubbed a ‘fugitive economic offender‘ by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in India. He wants the US govt to impose sanctions on the Indian finance minister, supreme court judges, ED officials and other govt officials because, in 2011, the Indian government had terminated a deal between his Devas and ISRO’s commercial arm Antrix over corruption charges.

Since then, Devas has been fighting legal cases against the Indian government in several countries, and have won favourable judgments in several international forums. But Indian authorities and courts maintain that Devas Multimedia Private Limited was established with fraudulent means, and last year, the NCLT ordered the liquidation of the company. The Supreme Court of India upheld the order for liquidation in January 2022.

With Devas being liquidated in India, its founder Ramachandran Viswanathan has stepped up his attack on the Indian government, and the ad in Wall Street Journal was part of it. The full-page advertisement was run by Frontiers of Freedom, a US based think tank, founded by Senator Malcolm Wallop.

The president of Frontiers of Freedom is George Landrith, and it is clear that the campaign was timed to coincide with the US visit of Nirmala Sitharaman. The finance minister is visiting the US to attend the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governor (FMCBG) Meetings.

George Landrith and his Frontiers of Freedom are campaigning against Sitharaman and other Indians for last several months, and in August this year, they had filed a petition with the US government against the same 11 persons named in the WSJ ad. Saying that the petition was filed on behalf of Ramachandran Viswanathan and in collaboration with his lawyers, the group called for economic and visa sanctions against the Indians under  Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act.

The petition said that it was filed in response to “Modi regime’s campaign of transnational repression against Mr. Viswanathan.” 

On the day the advertisement appeared, George Landrith posted it on Twitter, proudly announcing that his organisation has got the ‘newest ad’ published on page A8A of the DC edition of the Wall Street Journal. He said that the action “exposes Nirmala Sitharaman’s actions that have decimated the rule of law & investment climate in India.”

Landrith also tweeted that the ad will send a clear message to potential investors in India, that India is a dangerous place to invest. Apart from Nirmala Sitharaman, the advertisement named Antrix chairman Rakesh Sasibhushan, Solicitor General of India Tushar Mehta, supreme court judges Hemant Gupta and V. Ramasubramanian, special PC Act judge Chandra Shekhar, CBI official Ashish Pareek, ED director Sanjay Kumar Mishra, ED Asst. Director R. Rajesh, additional solicitor general N. Venkataraman, and ED Deputy director A. Sadiq Mohamed Naijnar.

On October 12, a day before the ad appeared in WSJ, George Landrith ranted against Sitharaman, repeating the allegations mentioned in the petition and calling her a human right abuser.  He also asked for her and the Indian government’s response to his petition.

George Landrith said that he posted the question to Sitharaman on Twitter as he was not invited to ask a question at “India’s economic prospects and role in the world economy” addressed by Nirmala Sitharaman in Washington DC on 11th October which he had attended. He alleges that “the decline in rule of law & gross abuses of human rights affect India’s investment climate”, and sought the Indian government’s response to the accusation.

Things turned more interesting after that, as George Landrith posted more tweets in the same thread, and tagged several other persons in those tweets.

In the first tweet that included Twitter handles of others, he tagged Rana Ayyub and author-journalist RN Bhaskar. In another tweet, he tagged author Prem Prakash and Times of India group journalist Ishani Duttagupta.

Tagging Rana Ayyub, he wrote, “The bottom line is this: If @NSitharaman, @BJP4India & @NarendraModi really believe that foreign investors will continue to ignore the abuse and harassment committed by the Indian gov’t, they are mistaken…”

Now, like Ramachandran Viswanathan, Rana Ayyub is also facing ED probe in a money laundering case, as she had raised a large amount of money through the fundraising platform Ketto to help victims of Covid-19, flood etc, but used only 10% for relief work, and kept the rest in her personal bank accounts. Incidentally, on 13th October itself, the Enforcement Directorate filed a prosecution charge sheet against Ayyub in the case.

Like Viswanathan, Ayyub is also claiming that this action against her in a criminal case is the Modi government’s targeted attack against her.

Like the WSJ ad, a full-page ad had appeared in Washington Post also, supporting Rana Ayyub. She has successfully used the anti-India, anti-Hindu and anti-Modi lobbies in the west to target the Modi government, and she has found mentions in even parliamentary debates and reports as an example of the Modi government’s alleged attack on freedom of speech.

Given the fact that George Landrith is making similar allegations against PM Modi and Nirmala Sitharaman, and then tagged Rana Ayyub, it can be logically concluded that she is also part of the same group lobbying against the Indian govt.

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