The 19th edition of the Indian Premier League began in Bengaluru on Saturday, 28th March, with the first match of the tournament taking place at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium. The defending champions, Royal Challengers Bengaluru, are facing Sunrisers Hyderabad in what promises to be a thrilling start to the tournament that will go on for two months till the 31st of May.
The inaugural match of the Indian Premier League (IPL), 2026, commencing at Bengaluru’s M. Chinnaswamy Stadium on Saturday (March 28, 2026), is set to witness a high-octane contest between Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) and Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH).https://t.co/7DybJc38qu
RCB will begin their title defence with a new captain in Rajat Patidar, while Sunrisers Hyderabad will be led by stand-in skipper Ishan Kishan after Pat Cummins was ruled out of the tournament due to an injury. While the cricketing action is set to take centre stage again, this year’s opening carries a heavy emotional weight, as it marks the first match at the venue since last year’s tragic stampede that claimed 11 lives.
The Chinnaswamy stampede tragedy
The excitement around RCB’s historic IPL win last year quickly turned into horror on 4th June, when a stampede broke out outside the Chinnaswamy Stadium while celebrating their victory. The franchise had just ended its 18-year-long wait for an IPL trophy, defeating Punjab Kings in a thrilling final.
A huge crowd had assembled to get a glimpse of the players during a victory parade and felicitation ceremony. However, there was a complete lack of proper planning and crowd management outside the stadium. In this tragic incident, at least 11 people lost their lives, including a child. More than 50 people got injured.
#BREAKING Video: Virat Kohli takes part in celebrations inside Chinnaswamy stadium. Earlier, 11 people lost their lives in a stampede outside the Bengaluru stadium.
The injured people were immediately shifted to hospitals such as Bowring Hospital and Lady Curzon Hospital. However, the event inside the stadium was not completely cancelled but was shortened, drawing criticism from many quarters.
Deputy Chief Minister D. K. Shivakumar had said, “There was no fault of the police, as the crowd was beyond anyone’s control.” However, the statement did little to calm the outrage.
Meanwhile, BCCI secretary Devajit Saikia admitted lapses, saying, “Organisers should have planned RCB’s IPL-winning celebrations better.”
No opening ceremony this year: BCCI
The Board of Control for Cricket in India has decided not to hold any opening ceremony for IPL 2026. This decision has been made as a tribute to the victims of last year’s tragedy.
Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) secretary Devajit Saikia said, “Due to last year’s tragic incident on 4th June, there will be no formal function on the day of the start of IPL-2026.” “The BCCI is not organising any cultural or entertainment show… as a mark of respect to the departed souls,” he added.
At the same time, the Karnataka State Cricket Association (KSCA) has reserved 11 permanent seats inside the stadium in memory of those who lost their lives. RCB players are also expected to wear jerseys with the number 11 during practice sessions as a tribute.
Interestingly, while the opening ceremony has been cancelled, the IPL Governing Council is planning a grand closing ceremony on the day of the final, which may also be hosted in Bengaluru.
All the accused have been granted bail
Despite the serious findings, all the accused in the case have been granted bail on 12th June, 2025, by the Karnataka High Court. Those granted relief include RCB’s marketing head Nikhil Sosale and three senior officials from DNA Entertainment Networks, director and vice-president Sunil Mathew, manager Kiran Kumar and ticketing official Shamant Mavinakere and Kiran Kumar.
The interim relief was granted by the bench headed by Justice SR Krishnakumar. The court, while granting interim relief, directed the accused to surrender their passports. The petitions challenged the legality of their arrests, with the defence alleging procedural lapses.
During the hearing, Advocate General Shashi Kiran Shetty argued that RCB had played a key role in the incident. He told the court that the franchise’s social media posts had “invited the whole world” without providing clarity on entry or ticketing.
According to the state, lakhs of people gathered outside the stadium due to this confusion, leading to a situation that quickly went out of control.
CID probe points to major lapses
In November last year, the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) completed its probe and is preparing to file a massive chargesheet running over 2,200 pages. The investigation has placed direct responsibility on RCB, KSCA, and DNA Entertainment Networks.
According to media reports, the chargesheet includes CCTV footage, eyewitness testimonies, statements from injured victims, and accounts from police personnel present on duty. The findings highlight serious lapses in planning and coordination.
Investigators found that there was no proper crowd-management plan in place. There was also no clear security blueprint from the event organisers, and crucial decisions taken before the event were not communicated to the police.
One of the key triggers identified by the CID was confusion around ticketing. The probe suggests that unclear communication led to a massive crowd gathering outside the stadium, far beyond its capacity of around 35,000 people.
The report also points out that private security arrangements failed to handle the situation, leading to uncontrolled crowd pressure and eventually the stampede.
High court closes suo motu PIL
On 26th February this year, the Karnataka High Court closed the suo motu Public Interest Litigation (PIL) that it had initiated after the stampede.
The Division Bench of Chief Justice Vibhu Bakhru and Justice C M Poonacha also noted the state government’s submission that it has proposed the Karnataka Crowd Control (Managing Crowd At Events And Venues Of Mass Gathering) Bill, 2025, for effective management and control of crowds at sponsored events and venues of mass gathering, including political rallies, jatras, conferences, etc.
The government has also introduced a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for crowd management, which will be implemented until the proposed law is passed.
The court accepted these measures and disposed of the petition, effectively bringing an end to judicial monitoring of the case at this stage.
Justice still elusive for victims
As IPL returns to Chinnaswamy Stadium with packed stands and renewed excitement, the memories of last year’s tragedy remain fresh for many families. While theatrics like cancelling the opening ceremony and reserving seats have been made, questions around justice continue to linger.
The CID has pointed to clear lapses of the incident. The courts have granted bail to the accused. The PIL has been closed. The victims’ families are still waiting for justice.
In many ways, the story of the Chinnaswamy stampede is not just about a tragic incident, but also about what followed: delays, legal battles, and a lack of closure.
Wikipedia, notorious for letting anti-India and anti-Hindu editors use the platform for publicising biased information about individuals and entities, has sparked a fresh controversy rooted in the biasedness of its editors. Amidst an intense edit war on the Wikipedia page for the blockbuster film Dhurandhar and its even more successful 2026 sequel Dhurandhar: The Revenge, Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales made a rare personal intervention on the article’s Talk page.
Wales explicitly rejected the attempts made by one of the editors, “Kautilya 3” to label the movie a “propaganda film” in the article’s opening sentence using the so-called encyclopedia’s ‘neutral’ “WikiVoice”.
Wales’s intervention was not about judging whether Aditya Dhar’s directorials are propaganda, but about protecting Wikipedia’s principle of Neutral Point of View (NPOV).
“…it is also clear that the movie has no other motive other than” is your analysis. Our analysis, as Wikipedians, is not sufficient to override NPOV. In order to use a pejorative label in Wikipedia, we need consensus (which means very close to unanimity, not just a majority) in both the sources and in the community of editors in good standing. To say that this is “perfectly sourced” is obviously wrong as well – there are sources for the side of the debate that claims that the film is propaganda – but there are also sources detailing the controversy,” the Wikipedia co-founder wrote.
Jimmy Wales stated that Wikipedia cannot pick sides, particularly on issues where reliable sources express strong disagreement.
“Strong no – It is deeply inappropriate to take one side of a debate in the first sentence of an article by saying something in WikiVoice which is contested.. NPOV is policy which can not be overridden by anyone, not even by local consensus or an RfC. The many sources which call it propaganda are important, and should be reported on of course, but not in WikiVoice. Here are some direct quotes from policy which are crucial here and which must be upheld by anyone closing debates of this nature: “Wikipedia aims to describe disputes, but not engage in them.” “Avoid stating seriously contested assertions as facts. If different reliable sources make conflicting assertions about a matter, treat these assertions as opinions rather than facts, and do not present them as direct statements in wikivoice.” “Prefer nonjudgmental language.” That’s all from WP:NPOV. The best technique in situations like this is to attribute the views to the relevant parties,” Jimmy Wales wrote.
As Jimmy Wales’s intervention upheld Wikipedia’s core Neutral Point of View (NPOV) policy, the pages for Dhurandhar films were temporarily locked to experienced editors to stop the warring. Ultimately, the explicit “propaganda film” tag was removed from the lead.
However, the so-called ‘critical’ opinions calling the two films propaganda remain in the reception and “Factual accuracy and political messaging” sections.
Anti-Hindu Wikipedia ‘Editor’ Kautilya 3 behind the push to label Dhurandhar as ‘propaganda’: Jimmy Wales’s intervention reinforces OpIndia investigation
Ever since the release of the film Dhurandhar in 2025, the Islamo-leftist coterie in India, and Pakistani Islamists alike, have been burning the midnight oil to push the ‘propaganda’ tag against Dhurandhar. Anti-Modi/BJP ‘Journalists’, YouTubers like Dhruv Rathee, and social media trolls have intensified their attacks further after the release of Dhurandhar: The Revenge earlier this month. There is a collective effort ongoing to portray the movie as pro-Modi government propaganda. This nefarious agenda found its soldier on Wikipedia in one of the editors, Kautilya 3.
Kautilya 3, is a UK-based Wikipedia editor, who was booked by Manipur police in 2024 for promoting enmity between communities in Manipur and propagating anti-Meitei hatred.
OpIndia reported recently how the discussions on the talk pages of Ranveer Singh starrer films reveal a pattern where certain editors have consistently attempted to insert politically loaded descriptions into the Wikipedia articles on the films, while others have pushed back, accusing them of selective sourcing, cherry-picking, and pushing a one-sided narrative.
Wikipedia editors openly pushed back against Kautilya 3’s attempt to label Dhurandhar films as a piece of propaganda. [Archive link 1] [Archive link 2]
One of the editors, “KabirDH”, explicitly flagged bias and bad-faith sourcing. He stated, “Whilst I agree that elements of the film are definitely aimed at promoting or showing a certain party in a good light, the sources being used to do this, as are the users, are completely bad faith.” He further questioned the credibility of the sources that were being relied upon. He added, “This is an obviously pro-Trinamool Congress (and therefore, anti-BJP) individual, who is using the Calcutta Telegraph to further propagate his views.”
Several editors flagged the violation of Wikipedia’s NPOV and other rules.
UnpetitproleX, one of the editors, rejected the claim that reliable sources had conclusively labelled the film as propaganda. “The fact remains that The Independent does not call the film a ‘propaganda film’ in its own voice.” Emphasising balance, he added, “But we also have a large number of sources that do not call the film propaganda… We cannot simply ignore these; we take into consideration all reliable sources when determining WP:DUE weight,” UnpetitproleX noted.
This blatant attempt at pushing a ‘propaganda’ tag against a film that does not toe the usual ‘Aman ki Asha’, Pakistan and Islamist-sympathising narratives was also seen when Dhurandhar 1 was released in December 2025.
The archived talk page of the first film, Dhurandhar, shows that the attempt to brand the film as propaganda began much earlier, and the controversial editor Kautilya3 played a crucial role in pushing this narrative. [Archive Link 1] [Archive Link 2]
On the talk page of the first film, Kautilya3 went beyond merely citing critics and instead advanced his own interpretation of the film’s messaging. In one of the most striking interventions, he wrote, “It is also demonstrated that it has propagandised the Modi government’s counterterrorism strategies.”
Uday Reddy elaborated his position, attempting to justify the use of the term “propaganda” by stating, “Propaganda means… ‘information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote a particular cause…’… In this case, there are [sources].”
In another comment, he doubled down, “My text… says that the film ‘propagandises’ Modi government’s policies. It is a fact that it does.”
Several editors, however, raised strong objections to Reddy using selective sources to push his ideological agenda against the film.
OpIndia dossier revealed anti-India and anti-Hindu shenanigans of Wikipedia and Kautilya 3
Back in 2024, OpIndia published a dossier detailing how Wikipedia is not a free, editorial-intervention-free encyclopaedia which relies on the voluntary work of thousands of unpaid, passionate volunteers across the globe, as claimed by the Wikimedia Foundation.
OpIndia concluded that Wikipedia’s “NPOV” (Neutral Point of View) guidelines do not mean that the entire spectrum of views would find equal representation in the article.
The outcome of NPOV is simply that whatever details are mentioned in the “reliable source” would be mentioned. The pool of “reliable sources” itself is tainted since the editors and administrators, who have disproportionate power in Wikipedia, ensure that “right-wing” (non-Left) sources are deprecated or blacklisted, essentially barring sources from being cited as reference material in any of the Wikipedia articles. The Dhurandhar-Wikipedia episode serves as a perfect example of this. Kautilya 3 cited the usual leftist sources like BBC and The Hindu, among others, to label the film as ‘propaganda’.
Kautilya 3 has consistently been pushing the Islamo-leftist agenda on Wikipedia. Earlier, a section on the 2020 anti-Hindu Delhi Riots was added to the Hindu terror Wikipedia article. In this section, Kautilya 3 added that a police investigation into the incident had revealed that the perpetrator belonged to AAP and therefore, it was a ‘conspiracy’ to create strife. Basically, the Wikipedia editor stated that the Delhi Police investigation should be removed since the Delhi police specifically is not a reliable source of information, while the left-leaning media is.
Kautilya3 is an Indian-origin UK-based doctor, Uday Reddy, who was booked in India for spreading disharmony between communities with his anti-India edits on Wikipedia. He works as a professor at a University in the United Kingdom. Reddy was booked by the Manipur Police over accusations of publishing inflammatory posts and statements on social media platforms. His X handle was withheld in India.
The complaint against him alleged that Reddy may have links with Khalistanis elements in Canada. The complaint stated that Uday Reddy has been working online to create tensions between Meitei and Kuki communities on religious grounds in Manipur. The FIR has been registered with a police station in Imphal East district under Sections 117 (abetment), 295-A (insulting religious sentiments), 153-A (promoting enmity between communities) and other relevant provisions of law.
“The accused person deliberately with malicious intention, insulted the Meitei’ religious beliefs and promoted enmity between the Meiteis and other communities on religious grounds,” the complaint stated.
Manipur Police had issued a statement wherein it said that Uday Reddy used to host spaces on social media platforms and allegedly directs people in Manipur on how to create unrest and trouble against law enforcement personnel.
Previously, Reddy was criticised for spreading propaganda about the Meitei community, particularly in the context of the Manipur crisis.
In one of the discussions, he was called out for his failure to accurately address Manipur’s history, specifically the Anglo-Kuki war.
Besides, Kautilya 3 also has a record of demonstrating his anti-Hindu bias. In April 2022, he accused Hindus of “weaponising” Ram Navami against Muslims. In a post on X, he wrote, “Hindutva nationalist organisations, spearheaded by RSS and BJP, have weaponised the festival to create Hindu Muslim frictions, causing riots and deaths, in which the Muslims have been the major sufferers.”
Contrary to Reddy’s claims, it was Muslims who attacked Hindus across India on Hindu festivals like Ram Navami and Hanuman Jayanti. In fact, processions related to festivals of Saraswati Puja and Ganesh Chaturthi too have been attacked, which are benign festivals related to the celebration of wisdom and knowledge.
The anti-Hindu bias of Wikipedia editors is also evident from its page about the 2002 Godhra carnage, in which 59 Hindus were burnt alive in a bogey of the Sabarmati Express while returning from Ayodhya. The train bogey was set ablaze by a Muslim mob. However, if one searches for it, a Wikipedia page titled “Godhra Train Burning” shows up. Wikipedia calls it ‘train burning’ since they do not believe that the fire was indeed set by a Muslim mob, essentially to burn Hindus alive.
Wikipedia article’s first paragraph says that the cause of the fire that burnt 59 Hindu pilgrims to death “remains disputed” even though multiple people have been convicted for burning the Sabarmati Express train in Godhra. Even Indian leftists have almost stopped claiming that it was an accident, but the Wiki article in the first paragraph says that “The cause of the fire remains disputed”.
The truth, however, is “disputed” only in the imagination of Wikipedia editors and not in reality.
On 27th February 2002, the Sabarmati Express was scheduled to reach Godhra station at about 3:30 am. On that day, the train was running four hours late. As such, it arrived at Godhra by 7:40 am. 8 minutes later, a mob of 2000 Islamists set 59 Hindus, including 25 women and 15 children, on fire in the coach S6 of the train in Godhra’s predominantly Muslim area – Signal Falia.
31 Islamists were found guilty of the Godhra massacre on February 22, 2011, by the trial court (with only 11 receiving the death penalty and 20 receiving life in prison), and all 31 convictions were affirmed by the Gujarat High Court in October 2017, resulting in everyone receiving a life sentence.
Not only this, in February 2003, an accused person made a judicial confession in which he acknowledged that Godhra was a well-planned attack and that he had personally participated in it.
Forget intellectual integrity or unbiasedness; one of the Wikipedia editors demonstrated that this Jihadi-sympathizing lot has a dearth of common sense as well. When confronted that the article was biased and that the court of India, with ample evidence, had convicted people for act of arson, Vanamonda93, a Wikipedia editor, known for anti-Hindu bias, claimed that the Wikipedia policy required them to maintain “neutral point of view” – which means summarising information from “reliable sources” – and not what the courts say.
Basically, leftist media reports are more reliable for Wikipedia editors and court judgments.
In addition, Wikipedia editors have also indulged in defamation of the sacred Hindu chant of Jai Shri Ram, relying on Islamo-leftist media reports. The opening paragraphs of the Wikipedia article itself disparage the religious chant, claiming it to be used as a war-cry to perpetrate communal violence against Hindus. The sources referenced to make this outlandish claim are mostly opinion pieces from Scroll, EPW, NYT and authors like Christophe Jaffrelot and Nandita Menon. The Wikipedia article essentially suggests that, contrary to its true meaning, Glory to Shri Ram, the chant Jai Shree Ram is a communal war cry, particularly invoked to target Muslims.
OpIndia dossier highlighted how Wikipedia picked up news reports from usual left-leaning sources, which framed non-communal cases of disputes between Hindus and Muslims, fake claims of ‘Jai Shri Ram-chanting mobs attacking Muslims, to vilify the sacred Hindu slogan.
Wikipedia page on Jai Shri Ram has been deliberately kept one-sided. The ‘talk’ page reveals that there was a section someone had added which spoke about the usage is in such fake cases; however, it was removed – the move justified due to flimsy reasons by ‘Kautilya3’, the very editor booked in Manipur for creating strife.
In this section, a clearly fake account (Postaltoad) lists down why the source mentioned for the fake Jai Shri Ram crimes is not reliable. Further, the account claims that the instances where either Muslims or sympathetic media blatantly lied about the involvement of Jai Shri Ram. Ram in the crime are “minor incidents” and therefore must not be added, making a case for the removal of the section completely. Thereafter, Kautilya3, the very man booked in Manipur, says that even if the Logical Indian was a “reliable source”, the section on fake crimes attributed to Jai Shri Ram should not be added because it just makes a “BIG DEAL” out of minor instances.
In another conversation, Kautilya3 says that fake cases are of no interest to “US” because Wikipedia is not a fact-checking website. Newslinger goes further, claiming that the co-founder of Wikipedia is also not a reliable source.
There was another conversation, a contributor says that the sentence in the introductory paragraph should be changed. His edit suggestion was rather reasonable, keeping intact that Left bias of the introduction as well; however, it was rejected by Kautilya3, saying that the most prominent use of Jai Shree Ram is to perpetrate violence against Muslims.
OpIndia analysis found that the page on Jai Shri Ram was created by an account which no longer exists. In his log, it is evident that he only made edits to some Bollywood pages and the only page of significance created was Jai Shri Ram. It is, therefore, entirely possible that this account was merely a pseudonym which was used to create the page and then deleted. Currently, the page is being manned by two main accounts – Kautilya3 and Newslinger.
Wikipedia also indulges in blacklisting sources, which reveals their inherent content bias. Most non-Left sources were banned for usage in Wikipedia. The list of deprecated sources and blacklisted sources indicate how the articles on Wikipedia are doomed to be biased because of the sources which are considered reliable and the ones which are not. The decision to deprecate sources itself stems from the Left bias that the editors seem to suffer from.
For Wikipedia, Qatar’s state-funded jihadi propaganda outlet Al Jazeera, which peddles fake news and has reporters with links to Islamic terrorist groups like Hamas, is a reliable source. The UK’s state-funded BBC is also a reliable source; however, the Indian state news channel Doordarshan does not feature in the list.
Right-wing media outlets like OpIndia and Swarajya are banned and blacklisted; however, Islamo-leftist rag TheWire, despite its several disinformation campaigns, Newslaundry, Scroll, Print, etc., are marked reliable.
When a retired naval officer publicly accused The Wire of misquoting him in an article that downplayed India’s naval achievements, his statement could not be added to The Wire’s Wikipedia page. His own clarification on Twitter was considered a “self-source”, and OpIndia, which reported his rebuttal, was blacklisted. As a result, The Wire’s misreport stood uncontested, a perfect illustration of how Wikipedia’s Neutral Point of View collapses when neutrality itself is defined by ideology.
In one case, the editors first agreed and then stonewalled the addition of a section about how TheWire fake news led to violence in the Northeast and other fake news that was spread by the publication. In the end, another editor said that the individual should go ahead and add the portion about TheWire causing violence with its fake news. However, when that information was added to the Wikipedia article, Kautilya3, who has been booked in Manipur for inciting hate, reverted that edit.
In another section, Kautilya3 and other editors ensure that an FIR against TheWire was not mentioned, claiming that FIRs are “very normal” according to TheWire and therefore, it should not be mentioned since they are very common.
However, in the case of blacklisted sources like OpIndia, the FIRs against those publications are prominently mentioned.
These examples are just a drop in the ocean, OpIndia’ dossier contains numerous such cases, and detailed information on how Wikipedia and its several of its editors are pushing anti-India and anti-Hindu narratives and lies in the content they claim to be ‘neutral’.
Is Wikipedia an unbiased intermediary or a biased publisher? What OpIndia research found
OpIndia’s research paper revealed that the structure of Wikipedia itself gives unmitigated power to a handful of individuals who are called ‘administrators’. There are only 435 active administrators in the entire world who have the power to ban editors, blacklist sources, ban contributors and decide the edits that should be made or reverted on articles.
Soon after OpIndia released the dossier, Facebook, another Left-leaning platform that has been accused of election interference in the USA and many such instances of furthering the political interest of a certain ideology, banned the dossier to restrict its viewership.
Wikipedia claims to be an intermediary which depends on the wisdom of the crowd without content intervention and editorial line, based on ‘reliable sources’ and maintaining a neutral point of view. This, however, is far from the truth, as evidenced in OpIndia research. Wikipedia meets all the standards of publishers. They collate information on current events and historical events, they pay their editors and administrators, and they are easily accessible by the people at large on the internet.
Given that Wikipedia has an editorial stand based on the personal opinions and biases of its editors and administrators, the evidence cited in the OpIndia dossier suggests that they are no longer eligible to be considered an intermediary. OpIndia recommended that once declared a publisher, Wikimedia would have to have its offices in India, set up a grievance redressal system and submit to Indian laws about illegal content which undermines the sovereignty of India or creates disaffection.
The findings of the research paper prepared by OpIndia Editor-in-Chief Nupur J Sharma reveal that despite not having offices or presence in India, Wikipedia has been funding entities and individuals with anti-India ideology and even links to Islamists and Khalistanis, to further its own business and ideological interests in the country. Wikipedia not only collects funds from India in the form of donations but also spends millions of dollars in India and toes an absolutely biased and rigid editorial line, all while claiming to be an intermediary and not a publisher to escape any accountability before the Indian law.
Besides, declaring Wikipedia as a publisher, OpIndia also recommended that Wikipedia’s financial transactions be scrutinised. The OpIndia dossier titled Wikipedia’s War on India can be read here.
Wikipedia co-founder, Jimmy Wales, once said Wikipedia’s mission was to “make the sum of all human knowledge available to everyone.” Today, that mission appears conditional, as knowledge is welcome only if it conforms to one side of the political spectrum. The very guideline that demands “Neutral Point of View” has been hollowed out, because neutrality now depends entirely on which sources are allowed into the conversation.
As the OpIndia dossier concluded, “If the pool of reliable sources itself is tainted with ideological bias, the ‘Neutral Point of View’ merely remains a requirement where all versions of the Left are prominently added.”
In an interview published by Politics Home in October 2025, Wales unapologetically defended Wikipedia’s own internal censorship, that is, the blacklisting of sources he has personally deemed unreliable in the past. He insisted that “the idea that we should take sites that routinely publish crazy conspiracy theories and nonsense just doesn’t make any sense.”
Previously, Jimmy Wales himself admitted as well that he is the final arbitrator of content on Wikipedia. “Final policy decisions are up to me, as always,” he once said.
According to Wikipedia itself, “The contributors or editors of Wikipedia participate subject to many policies and guidelines governing behaviour and content. These rules are supervised by various authorities: Jimmy Wales, nominally in a position of ultimate authority, although he has deferred in most instances to the leadership of Wikipedia, the ~34 present Bureaucrats or Crats, the ~700 active Administrators or Admins, and another group called the Arbitration Committee or ArbCom with 15-18 members or Arbs, depending upon the rules adopted each year. In July 2012, there were 14 active arbitrators identified, all of whom were administrators, although this is not a set rule. The Wikimedia Foundation or its designated agents also have the authority to impose bans against IP addresses for pages, topics, or the entire site. The Arbitration Committee “has no jurisdiction over official actions of the Wikimedia Foundation or its staff”.
In fact, Larry Sanger, the co-founder of Wikipedia, has categorically stated as well that Wikipedia has a pronounced Left bias. In several interviews and talks, he has spoken extensively about how Wikipedia skews the scale of balance, leading to the information being an inaccurate representation of reality, ridden with Left bias.
Jimmy Wales created an Arbitration Committee, which is essentially Wikipedia’s Supreme Court. This Committee is an extension of the decision-making power he formerly held as CEO of Bomis Inc., to take over his role in resolving complex disputes between users. Bomis Inc was a for-profit private company which was co-founded in 1996 by Jimmy Wales for ventures like Nupedia and Wikipedia.
By 2007, the for-profit company was shut down, and all the Wikipedia-related sources were transferred to Wikimedia Foundation, a nonprofit charitable organisation, also founded by Jimmy Wales.
The content on Nupedia, the predecessor of Wikipedia, was less in comparison to Wikipedia. For example, in its first year, Nupedia had only 21 articles while Wikipedia had 200. However, Larry Sanger has criticised how Jimmy Wales sacrificed authenticity for volume while shifting from Nupedia to Wikipedia. The Wikimedia Foundation was established in 2003, 2 years after Wikipedia was started by Jimmy Wales. OpIndia dossier highlighted the relationship between Google and Wikipedia, and how the former granted millions of dollars as ‘gifts’ to Wikipedia over the years through Tides Foundation.
Tides Foundation is notorious for funding several anti-Hindu, anti-India organisations and elements. The Foundation gave grants to Hindus for Human Rights (HfHR), which has links to Islamists and Khalistanis, and was formed in 2019 by two Islamist advocacy groups, the Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC) and Organisation for Minorities of India (OFMI). Tides also funded AMAN Public Charitable Trust (AMAN). This trust is connected to the NewsClick-China funding scandal, where it is alleged that Chinese entities funded NewsClick, a Delhi-based pro-China propaganda outlet funded by CCP stooge Neville Roy Singham, to disrupt Indian sovereignty.
Conclusion
OpIndia has consistently been highlighting how Wikipedia is populated by several editors who are driven by anti-Hindu and anti-India ideological biases and are inserting these biases in the pages they edit, as exemplified in the case of Dhurandhar films. Jimmy Wales’s intervention and direct calling out of his platform’s editors indulging in mindless labelling of a film as ‘propaganda’ based on biased sources, reinforces OpIndia’s investigation into Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, Kautilya 3 and the anti-Hindu and anti-India activities the so-called ‘free-for-all-to-edit encyclopaedia’ indulges in.
Gujarat’s Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel has said that the GIFT City has emerged as a “vibrant reality driving economic growth,” given the rapid growth in financial activity and international participation seen in the project. He said that the project has evolved from an initial concept into a fully operational international financial hub.
The CM underscored the transformative impact of GIFT City on the state’s economy, positioning it as a catalyst for job creation, infrastructure development, and global financial integration. A presentation on the GIFT city outlined the rapid maturation of India’s first fully integrated global financial and IT hub, making clear that GIFT City is no longer a vision but a functioning ecosystem already delivering substantial benefits to Gujarat through employment, investment inflows, and world-class infrastructure.
Located between Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar, GIFT City was envisioned by Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a world-class finance and IT zone that would serve not only India but the entire world. As the Chief Minister highlighted, the project is now operational and scaling rapidly, acting as India’s gateway to global capital, institutions, and financial systems. This progress directly supports Gujarat’s ambition to become a leading economic powerhouse.
Strong operational momentum
The latest figures demonstrate robust growth. More than 1,150 IFSCA-registered entities are now operational within GIFT City. The banking ecosystem has expanded to $106.7 billion, a near seven-fold increase in a short period, while the capital markets ecosystem has reached $80 billion. Monthly exchange turnover has surpassed $100 billion, with $101.8 billion in February 2026, reflecting high liquidity and active market participation. Additionally, 349 funds have been launched with a targeted corpus of $80 billion.
These metrics, the Chief Minister noted, establish GIFT City as an active financial system rather than a future pipeline, bringing tangible economic activity and revenue potential to Gujarat.
A major highlight for the state is the influx of high-quality employment opportunities. Several leading organisations have announced significant hiring plans by 2030, including ANSR (5,000+ jobs), Jaypee Capital (3,000+ jobs), Befree (1,500+ jobs), Hexaware (1,000+ jobs), Junomoneta (1,000+ jobs), Deloitte (1,000+ jobs), HCL Technologies (1,000+ jobs), PwC (600+ jobs), Wipro (500+ jobs), and KFintech (450+ jobs). This structured build-out spans consulting, technology, financial services, and backend operations, promising thousands of skilled positions for Gujarati youth and professionals migrating to the state.
Infrastructure projections reinforce this employment boom. Between FY2026 and FY2030, GIFT City plans substantial floor-area expansion across domestic tariff area (DTA) and special economic zone (SEZ) areas. The DTA will add 10.25 million square feet supporting approximately 52,300 employees, while the SEZ will contribute 12.26 million square feet supporting around 84,600 employees. In total, the incremental employment potential exceeds 136,000 jobs. Approximately 7,500 residential units are also planned by 2030, ensuring a tightly integrated live-work ecosystem.
Since December 2025, GIFT City has attracted a diverse range of participants, including financial services firms such as Jio BlackRock and IIFL, legal and advisory practices like Khaitan & Co and Trilegal, as well as insurance intermediaries and global/domestic financial service providers.
This broadening participation across capital markets, advisory, insurance, and investment services signals growing confidence and strengthens Gujarat’s position as a preferred destination for both domestic and international capital.
Regulatory framework
Over 30 regulations and multiple frameworks have been implemented as part of regulatory architecture, aligned with international best practices. These include unified licensing for TechFin and service providers, as well as local foreign-currency settlement mechanisms, which reduce operational friction for global players.
In 2025, TechFin regulations introduced a single registration covering more than 50 services, with 118 entities already registered. These measures enhance ease of doing business and support Gujarat’s goal of seamless integration with worldwide financial systems.
World-class infrastructure and smart-city features
GIFT City is being developed as India’s first truly engineered, self-sustaining smart city. Infrastructure priorities include pedestrian-friendly shaded walkways, intelligent traffic management, integrated mobility solutions, city-wide Wi-Fi, two additional metro stations, and enhanced connectivity to Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar.
An important feature is the fully integrated underground utility tunnel system, the first of its kind in India, spanning 16 km. 6 km has been completed and 5.7 km under construction. The tunnel carries pipelines for water, drainage, district cooling, waste, and storm water. Automated waste collection and centralised utility networks further distinguish the city.
Building development is advancing steadily: 29.47 million square feet have been allotted across 71 buildings, with 6.32 million square feet already completed across 29 buildings. Another 1.75 million square feet was finished in FY2025–26, while 19.50 million square feet (66 per cent of allotment) is under construction across 38 buildings. An additional 5.46 million square feet across 15 buildings is expected to be completed in FY2026–27.
Social infrastructure is keeping pace to create a “live, work, thrive” environment, with a destination mall, central park, international school (IB/Cambridge curriculum), sports arena, golf range, F&B zones, and weekly events programming.
Key institutional and innovation hubs
Notable developments include the Fintech Institute, housing GIFT IFI and IFIH, in partnership with IIT Gandhinagar, Ahmedabad University, UC San Diego, and Plug and Play for startup incubation. Plans for an international branch campus for foreign universities are also underway.
The GCC engagement pipeline is strong, with 23+ global clients engaged, four confirmed leads, and 11 qualified leads. The Fintech Innovation Hub, launched in January 2025, has already onboarded 37 startups, launched three certification programmes, and trained over 400 participants.
Mature financial, insurance, and leasing sectors
The capital markets ecosystem features 208 registered fund management entities, more than 200 bonds listed worth approximately $70.9 billion, and operational NSE IX–SGX Connect with average daily derivatives turnover of $4.8 billion.
Banking has grown from $14 billion in assets in 2020 to $106.7 billion in 2026, with 37 banks operational (20 foreign, 17 domestic), including global names such as DBS, Credit Agricole, Deutsche Bank, Citi, HSBC, JP Morgan, MUFG, Mizuho, Standard Chartered, and Qatar National Bank. A key innovation is the 2025 Foreign Currency Settlement System, enabling local FX settlement without routing through global intermediaries.
Insurance has attracted 65 registered entities, including global reinsurers such as Korean Re, Saudi Re, and Africa Re. Aircraft leasing involves 35 firms managing 372 aviation assets, while ship leasing has 36 entities and 34 ships leased. These high-value segments mark a strategic shift: India is moving from a consumer of global financial services to an owner and creator of financial value.
International universities already operational include Deakin University, University of Wollongong, and Queen’s University Belfast, with the University of Surrey in the pipeline.
Recent updates include Wipro’s AI-powered office expansion from 150 to 500 employees, the first IPO through GIFT IFSC, and a fintech accelerator for women.
Globally, GIFT City has conducted more than 40 interactions at the World Economic Forum in Davos, alongside engagements in Milan (dual listing and ESG), Zurich (diaspora investment), Hong Kong (fund structuring), and Germany & Austria (insurance, treasury, and fintech). Domestically, initiatives include banking forums with over 100 banks, Vibrant Gujarat participation, and a reinsurance summit drawing 400+ participants.
A fully operational global financial ecosystem
The Chief Minister emphasised that GIFT City is now a policy-driven, globally benchmarked financial ecosystem integrating capital markets, banking, technology, talent, and infrastructure. “GIFT City stands today as a powerful testament to India’s rising stature in the global financial ecosystem. What began as a bold and futuristic idea has now developed into a fully operational international financial hub, placing Gujarat and India firmly on the world map of finance and innovation,” he said.
By delivering high-skill jobs, cutting-edge infrastructure, and diversified financial services within Gujarat, the project is not only elevating India’s global standing but also generating sustained economic growth, urban development, and opportunities for the people of Gujarat.
The latest piece by BBC Hindi on India’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve is not journalism in any rigorous sense; it is narrative construction masquerading as concern. Published on March 28, 2026, it fear-mongers about India’s petroleum reserves, arguing that India has just 5 days of Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
Source: BBC Hindi
However, it didn’t take long for social media users to call out the BBC for indulging in alarmism and peddling fear about another country, an approach that risks triggering artificial scarcity, as misinformation spreads rapidly and convinces people that fuel is genuinely in short supply in India.
Sanjeev Sanyal took to X to condemn the BBC. He tweeted: “This is the state-owned media channel of one country trying to spread canards about oil supplies in another country.”
This is the state-owned media channel of one country trying to spread canards about oil supplies in another country pic.twitter.com/vCrygORwuw
“BBC News Hindi is spreading misinformation by claiming that India has only 5 days of petrol left. Such false reporting creates unnecessary panic and confusion among people. Strict action should be taken against the spread of misinformation @HMOIndia,” tweeted a social media user.
BBC News Hindi is spreading misinformation by claiming that India has only 5 days of petrol left.
Such false reporting creates unnecessary panic and confusion among people. Strict action should be taken against the spread of misinformation @HMOIndiahttps://t.co/Cgcw1qAof3
At a time when global anxieties around the Strait of Hormuz are already heightened, the article chooses not to inform but to inflame, not to contextualise but to selectively present fragments of truth in a way that manufactures panic.
The Five-Day Myth: A statistic without context
At the heart of BBC Hindi’s claim lies a clever but deeply misleading sleight of hand. The article asserts that India’s strategic reserves can barely meet five days of demand, a statistic presented as though it defines the country’s entire energy security architecture. What is conveniently downplayed, even though mentioned in passing, is that these strategic reserves are only one component of a much larger, layered system.
India’s total petroleum buffer, when operational stocks held by oil marketing companies, crude in transit, refinery inventories, and strategic reserves are taken together, stands at roughly 74 days. The average reader, however, is nudged toward the five-day figure, because that serves the intended narrative of vulnerability.
Government’s position: Ignored, not refuted
This is where the contrast with the government’s position becomes stark. Union Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri has categorically clarified that India’s crude supply position is secure, that volumes have already been procured in excess of what the Strait of Hormuz would have delivered, and that there is no shortage of petrol, diesel, or LPG anywhere in the country.
These are not rhetorical reassurances but grounded operational realities, further evidenced by the 28% surge in LPG production within days and the active diversification of sourcing from countries such as the United States, Russia, Norway, and Algeria. Yet, for BBC Hindi, these stabilising facts are not the story; they are inconvenient footnotes to be buried beneath alarmist framing.
A familiar template: Crisis optics over context
What emerges, then, is not an isolated editorial lapse but a pattern that has become all too familiar. Whether it was India’s handling of COVID-19, the constitutional abrogation of Article 370, or the construction of the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, Western media outlets, and the BBC in particular, have repeatedly foregrounded crisis optics while backgrounding structural realities.
The technique is consistent: zoom into points of friction, strip away context, and present a distorted picture that aligns with a preconceived narrative about India’s governance under Narendra Modi.
Strategic reserves: Misunderstood by design
The irony is that even within its own reporting, BBC Hindi inadvertently undermines its alarmism. The article acknowledges that maintaining excessively large reserves during periods of high crude prices is economically inefficient, a point energy experts themselves concede.
Yet this nuance is quickly overshadowed by comparisons with countries like Japan or South Korea, whose storage capacities are cited without accounting for the fundamental differences in their energy models, economic structures, and strategic doctrines. Strategic petroleum reserves, by design, are emergency buffers, not primary supply channels.
India’s model, which blends strategic reserves with robust commercial and transit stocks, is tailored to its own consumption patterns and geopolitical realities. To judge it through a simplistic, one-size-fits-all metric is not analysis; it is intellectual laziness dressed up as critique.
The geopolitical reality: Risk managed, not ignored
The broader geopolitical backdrop, of course, is real. Tensions in West Asia, disruptions in LNG production, and threats to the Strait of Hormuz do pose risks to global energy flows.
But what BBC Hindi fails to acknowledge with any seriousness is India’s proactive response to precisely these risks. The government has not passively awaited disruption; it has actively diversified supply chains, secured alternative cargoes, explored non-Hormuz routes despite higher logistics costs, and ensured a steady inflow of energy resources.
This is what strategic foresight looks like. Yet, in the BBC’s telling, preparedness becomes invisibilized while hypothetical scarcity is amplified.
The subtext: Manufacturing doubt, not delivering insight
There is also an unmistakable political subtext to this framing. By amplifying fears of fuel shortages, the article does more than misinform; it feeds into opposition-driven narratives of crisis and incompetence, subtly eroding public confidence in state capacity.
It reinforces a long-standing Western media trope that views India not as a complex, adaptive system but as a perpetually fragile state waiting to falter. That this framing persists despite repeated evidence of resilience says less about India and more about the ideological priors shaping such coverage.
When narrative overrides nuance
In the end, the issue is not that BBC Hindi chose to examine India’s petroleum reserves. Scrutiny is both necessary and welcome. The problem lies in how that scrutiny is conducted, through selective statistics, incomplete context, and a predisposition toward pessimism.
In matters of energy security, where variables are interconnected and dynamic, isolating a single data point to construct a narrative of impending crisis is not just misleading; it is irresponsible.
Strip away the framing, and the reality is far less dramatic. India is not staring at a fuel collapse; it is navigating a volatile global environment with a calibrated mix of reserves, diversification, and policy intervention. The BBC article would have you believe otherwise, not because the facts demand it, but because the narrative does.
Ram Navami celebrations in the country have come under attack in various areas in the past couple of days. Several incidents of stone and brick pelting by Islamists on Ram Navami processions and devotees have come to light in multiple states, including Bihar, Jharkhand, Maharashtra and West Bengal. Many civilians as well as policemen sustained injuries in the attacks. Here are some of the incidents of violence during Ram Navami processions:
West Bengal: Communal clashes during Ram Navami procession in Murshidabad
An incident of stone-pelting, violence and vandalism during a Ram Navami procession was reported in the Raghunathganj area of Murshidabad on Friday (27th March). The attack was reportedly triggered by the music playing in the procession. As the procession headed towards Mackenzie Park in Raghunathganj, an argument broke out between Hindu devotees and local Muslims, which resulted in the violence. At least 12 people were arrested by the polie and prohibitory orders were issued to maintain law and order.
Subsequently, communal clashes erupted again in the Jangipur area of Murshidabad, West Bengal, when a Ram Navami procession was passing through the area. As the procession reached the Phultala intersection in Jangipur, several Islamists started hurling stones and bricks at it. This led to violent clashes and the market shutdown.
Upon receiving information about the clashes, a heavy police force, accompanied by central forces, rushed to the scene. The security personnel resorted to a lathi charge to disperse the crowd. Security personnel were deployed in the area to maintain peace in the area.
Speaking to the media after the incident, DIG Murshidabad Ajit Singh said that teams of police have been formed to carry out raids. He said that the miscreants involved in the attack will be identified through CCTV footage, and strict action will be taken against them.
#WATCH | DIG Murshidabad Ajit Singh Yadav says, "An incident occurred here during Ram Navami procession. We have deployed more forces and senior officers. Situation is under control…But we have formed our raid teams. Raids are being carried out in various locations. CRPF and… https://t.co/6xF6nBZCo5pic.twitter.com/dyXVby9GRE
Jharkhand: Stone pelting on Ram Navami procession in Dhanbad
Some people from the Muslim community pelted stones at a Ram Navami procession on Friday (27th March) in the Bhikrajpur area of the Dhanbad district of Jharkhand. At least six people were injured in the stone-pelting. According to police, the stone-pelting started after an argument between two teenagers from the Hindu and the Muslim community escalated.
Teams of police and additional security forces immediately reached the spot and brought the situation under control. Deputy Commissioner Dhanbad, Aditya Ranjan, said teams of police are patrolling in the area and that stringent action would be taken against the culprits.
“Today, after the disturbances during the Ram Navami procession in Bhikhrajpur, I visited the area late at night. The administration swiftly took action to control the situation and deployed additional security forces. The investigation into the incident is ongoing, and strict action will be taken against the anti-social elements involved in the disturbances. The situation is currently normal, police patrolling continues in the area, and an appeal has been made to the people to maintain peace,” DC Dhanbad said in an X post after the incident.
आज भिखराजपुर में रामनवमी जुलूस के दौरान हुए उपद्रव के बाद देर रात क्षेत्र का दौरा किया। प्रशासन ने त्वरित कार्रवाई करते हुए स्थिति को नियंत्रित कर अतिरिक्त सुरक्षा बल तैनात किया। घटना की जांच जारी है, उपद्रव में शामिल असामाजिक तत्वों की पहचान कर सख्त कार्रवाई की जाएगी। फिलहाल… pic.twitter.com/qhzI1ixEVd
Six people were arrested by the police in connection with the violence, and prohibitory orders were issued in the area. The police are interrogating the arrestee, and an investigation into the matter is underway.
Rajasthan: Stone pelting on Ram Navami procession in Jodhpur
An incident of stone pelting on a Ram Navami procession in Jodhpur, Rajasthan. According to locals, some bike-born intoxicated men from the Muslim community hit some devotees, including women, in the procession. This led to a heated argument between the devotees and the men, and soon the argument escalated to violence and stone pelting between the two groups. The police arrived at the scene and controlled the situation. The police detained some of the people involved in the violence. An investigation is going on into the matter.
Other similar incidents of attacks on the Ram Navami processions
Similar incidents of attacks on Ram Navami processions happened in Maharashtra’s Ahilyanagar and Mumbai, Jharkhand’s Garhwa, and parts of Bihar. In Ahilyanagar, Maharashtra, a Ram Navami procession was attacked with stones and bricks by Islamists around 4:00 pm on Thursday (26th March) as it reached a mosque situated at Sayyad Baba Chowk in Srirampur city. Several devotees were injured in the attack, and an FIR was registered.
In Mumbai, Maharashtra, Hindu devotees putting up flags to welcome a Ram Navami procession were attacked near a mosque in the Malvani (Malad) area. Videos of the incident went viral on social media. Police intervened and erected barricades to prevent further clashes. A complaint was filed by Hindu devotees against the attackers.
In a similar incident, Islamists pelted stones at a Ram Navami procession in the Garhwa district of Jharkhand on Thursday evening (26th March). Some members of the Muslim community blocked the procession near the Kauakhoh Shiv Chabutra and pelted stones. A few incidents of communal tensions flaring up during the Ram Navami procession were also reported in some areas of Bihar, after which the police ramped up the security.
A screenshot of a purported article by Islamo-leftist portal The Wire, advocating for ‘Bahujan’ content creators to “conquer” porn, which the author, Suraj Yengde, calls the “last frontier”, has gone viral online. As per the viral screenshot, the Dalit rights activist argues that Ambedkarite ideology must penetrate the ‘frontier’ of pornography for ideological expansion by targeting Brahmin women. Though the screenshot carries believability given the anti-GC shenanigans of both Yengde and The Wire, it is fabricated, rather satirised.
In the viral screenshot, the headline of the article that was never published reads,“The Case for Dalit ‘Porn’ – Why Bahujan Content Creators Must Conquer this Last Frontier.”
Meanwhile, the summary reads, “Every ideology needs pop-culture tools to expand. While Ambedkarite ideology has enough auto-tune songs and Reels, we are failing at pornography, the largest consumed content. Revolting as it may sound, Bahujan content creators must work on porn ideas e.g. a Brahmin or Yadav housewife having sex with a sanitation worker who comes to clean toilet.”
OpIndia scanned The Wire’s website and social media handles to check if the article the viral screenshot features was ever published, modified or deleted. It turned out that no such anti-Brahmin piece was written by Suraj Yengde, nor was it published by The Wire. As per our research, the viral screenshot is most likely fake.
Siddharth Varadarajan, the Founding Editor of The Wire, put out an X post on 27th March, blaming ‘casteist, Hindutva-infected Hindus’ for the creation and circulation of the fabricated screenshot, claiming that these people fabricated a fake story and tried to pin it on ‘respected scholar’ Suraj Yengde and The Wire.
Hatred and perversity among casteist Hindus, especially those infected with Hindutva, knows no bounds. Some of them have gone to the extent of fabricating a fake 'story' based on their sick minds and tried to pin it on a respected Dalit scholar, and on The Wire. https://t.co/XKYd6g0R9X
“Hatred and perversity among casteist Hindus, especially those infected with Hindutva, know no bounds. Some of them have gone to the extent of fabricating a fake ‘story’ based on their sick minds and tried to pin it on a respected Dalit scholar, and on The Wire,” Varadarajan wrote.
The screenshot is fake, but why did people think it was real?
While Varadarajan was quick to drag ‘casteist’ Hindus and Hindutva into the matter, and hailed Suraj Yengde as a ‘respected scholar’, the fabricated screenshot landed as plausible since it neatly fitted into the pattern of Yengde’s anti-Brahmin rhetoric rooted in caste ‘conquest, as well as The Wire’s persistent anti-Hindu propaganda.
Yengde has written numerous articles on ‘Brahminical patriarchy’, with an obsessive focus on Brahmin women. His articles and social media posts often villainise upper-caste Hindus for supposedly not marrying their daughters to Dalits due to their belief in caste purity.
Suraj Yengde’s anti-Brahmin rhetoric goes beyond scholarly commentary and is seeped into blatant misogyny and objectification of Brahmin women, as exemplified by his social media posts.
In one such post, Yengde wrote, “Brahmin girls salivate over Dalit man. Ask me.”
In another post, Suraj Yengde, while responding to a Brahmin man’s post, asked the Brahmin community to “give away” their daughters to Dalits, as if they are some objects, and are expected to share their ‘privilege’ among Dalits, as if the women are things that should be passed around.
He also has a record of distorting Hindu history and scriptures to peddle anti-Brahmin propaganda.
In addition to sexualisation and objectification of Brahmin women, Yengde harbours blatant hatred for them, calling them the “weapons of deflection” and having no sympathy for them.
With such a demonstration of caste-revenge fantasy, extreme extrapolations like the porn-industry “last frontier” claim come across as real. There have been many occasions when Dalit ‘social justice’ activists advocated for ‘claiming’ upper caste women as some sort of trophies of historical payback.
Read this thread 👇 We have hundreds of videos, lakhs of posts who express same desires for GC women.
There are multiple instances of Dalit voices and activists openly objectifying general-caste women, especially in India. Not just politicians, even IAS officers have given statements asserting that women of the general caste are some sort of trophies or objects that must be shared with Dalits for the social justice agenda to become successful.
Excerpts from Dalit Nation magazine👇
"If you want to finish brahmins, marry brahmin women. Dalits should marry brahmin women & take them out of their varna. Brahmins will have no women left to marry & breed. They'll die a natural death & become extinct"
Also, with the influence of Western liberal ideas of segregating everything from food, music, and literature into distorted binaries of ‘black and white’, Indian Liberals too have started a movement of copy-paste, applying the same ideas in an Indian context, which is inherently wrong, because Indian cultural nuances have not worked in Western parallels. Indian cultural diversity has evolved in its own distinct hues where Western categorisation cannot fit.
screenshot of an article in Vice
There has been a plethora of articles, books and discussions about Dalit food, Dalit music, Dalit ‘Gods’, Dalit practices and whatnot, where Indian Left-liberals, in their desperate efforts to fit into Western SJW circles, categorise Indian socio-cultural aspects into the dishonest and insufficient binaries of Dalit Vs Upper Caste. These discussions have often turned into ludicrous comparisons and wrong claims.
Screenshot of an article justifying and supporting porn as a ‘weapon of destigmatisation’
The plausible believability of the viral screenshot is an effect of the collective mainstreaming of such debates. Satire is a humorous take on what is happening in society. The fact that elements of a distinct ‘Dalit’ identity were mixed with the usual left-liberal sexual ‘liberation’ tropes to create the satirical screenshot, and that seemed so ‘real’ to many, is also a satire in itself.
An investigative series by Fox News has revealed that the Chinese Communist Party stooge Neville Roy Singham pumped nearly $600 million in his pro-China information and narrative laundering network spread across five continents. Roy Singham has been funding several organisations that are involved in anti-India activities.
Roy Singham’s network, often described as the “House of Singham” is operating a sophisticated “information laundering” or “narrative laundering” machinery that picks up specific issues, transforms raw activism into polished propaganda, which is then amplified the Roy-Singham-funded network to sow discord in the US, India and other major democracies while burnishing a Communist China’s image as a ‘benevolent’ counterweight to ‘imperialism’ and ‘fascism’.
This pro-China transnational network helmed by Neville Roy Singham comprises non-profits, activist groups, think tanks, and media outlets, operating as the propaganda machinery of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Several Roy Singham-funded organisations are consistently pushing anti-India and pro-China narratives in India.
TriContinental: CCP stooge Neville Roy Singham funds, the propaganda machinery delivers
TriContinental, a Massachusetts-based Marxist think tank created by ‘journalist’ Vijay Prashad, was one of the nonprofit companies that received funding from Neville Roy Singham and promoted Chinese propaganda. Neville Roy Singham is on the international advisory board of the said think-tank, accused of financing Chinese propaganda using American non-profit organisations. He is also the editor of Left Word Books and Chief Correspondent at Globetrotter.
TriContinental has been consistently pushing pro-China and anti-India narratives through its articles and newsletters. Amidst the ongoing war between Iran and the joint US-Israel front, TriContinental criticised the Modi government’s foreign policy, citing the supposed silence after the sinking of the Iranian warship IRIS Dena in the Indian Ocean as ‘self-inflicted humiliation’. The piece authored by economist Bodapati Srujana also cried hoarse over PM Modi’s visit to Israel.
TriContinental presented the sinking of the IRIS Dena in the Indian Ocean as India’s ‘failure’ to protect the Iranian frigate that participated in India’s MILAN 2026 naval exercise. This alarming misrepresentation came even as the ship was operating approximately 20 nautical miles west of Galle, within the SAR region under Sri Lankan responsibility, nowhere near India’s territorial waters. Despite this, India had offered sanctuary to IRIS Dena three days before it was torpedoed by a US submarine. Just because IRIS Dena partook in an Indian naval exercise, the Indian Navy was not obliged to provide a safe escort to the Iranian warship all the way back home. India could only have extended a humanitarian hand in the form of search and rescue operations, which the Indian Navy was already conducting.
Similarly, TriContinental published an article last year on how India was navigating its way as US President Donald Trump launched a tariff war. Somehow, the leftist propaganda outlet inserted China in the picture and showered praises on the country.
The organisation’s website is replete with articles glorifying Chinese Communist history and technological advancements, giving an impression that China under a Communist regime is a utopia that the rest of the world should replicate.
What inspires TriContinental is the Tricontinental Conference held in Cuba in January 1966, since it led to the creation of national liberation Marxism. In addition to an inter-regional office, TriContinental has its offices in Argentina, Brazil, India, and South Africa. Karl Marx and his works remain the outfit’s central inspiration.
In 2024, TriContinental, which has Vijay Prashad as its treasurer, registered a total revenue of $857,945 with expenses standing around $3,745,069.
Neville Roy Singham has poured millions into various pro-China and anti-India propaganda outlets, including People’s Dispatch, where Vijay Prashad has contributed numerous articles. People’s Dispatch is a media portal that touts itself to be an “international media project with the mission of bringing to the world voices from people’s movements and organisations across the globe.” In one of the articles from January 2020, Prashad has sympathised with the JNU protesters and inveighed against the Modi government.
In June 2025, People’s Dispatch published an article calling India’s foreign policy “shameful”, over India’s abstention from Spain’s UN resolution seeking an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. The Marxist propagandist authors of the piece, Dr Josephine Varghese and Varkey Parakkal, attributed the supposed shift in India’s policy towards Palestine and Israel to the so-called “Hindutva-Zionist” alliance.
Besides the usual anti-India and anti-Hindu propaganda, People’s Dispatch also peddles fake news. In February this year, the Roy Singham-funded Marxist propaganda outlet published an article headlined: “300 million on the streets in a historic national strike in India”, claiming that such a massive number of people were hitting the streets to protest against the new labour codes and the US-India trade deal understanding.
While there was an agitation, the claim of “300 million” participants, which was also amplified by the left liberal coterie, including other propaganda organisations funded by the Roy Singham network, was exaggerated. Such inflated numbers are often repeated by pro-anarchist groups, ideological publications, and political actors looking to project a sense of crisis. India has a population of over 1.4 billion people. In a country of this scale, even large mobilisations can happen without paralysing the nation.
Calling every protest “unprecedented” or proof of systemic collapse is misleading. Despite some protests here and there, normal life was largely unaffected across all states. Normal life was largely unaffected.
People’s Dispatch has, on multiple occasions, displayed its blatant disdain for Hindus. The propaganda outlet also sympathises with and glorifies radical leftists like Narendra Dabholkar, Gauri Lankesh, Govind Pansare, Kalburgi, among others.
Moreover, People’s Dispatch and Vijay Prashad have been involved in attempts to spark global backlash against India for its defence relations with Israel.
The Dispatch, which regularly villainises Israel as genocidaire, while never really condemning Hamas’s October 7 massacre, framed the Adani-Elbit drones-manufacturing joint venture in Hyderabad, Tata’s Project Nimbus system, and Reliance Jio’s partnerships in Israel as ‘complicity’ of Indian companies in ‘genocide’ of Palestinians.
This propaganda piece was authored by Vijay Prashad and one Sudhanva Deshpande, peddled blatant lies about the Adani-Elbit defence manufacturing venture. While it was true that Israel used Hermes 900 drones in its operations in Gaza, there is no evidence that India has exported Hermes 900 drones or any ‘missiles’ to Israel for use against Iran. This entire claim that the Adani-Elbit defence manufacturing unit in Hyderabad is making drones for Israel’s war against Iran is an absolute propaganda spin.
People’s Dispatch, like most Islamo-leftist propaganda portals, frames the 2020 anti-Hindu Delhi Riots as ‘Hindutva’ violence against oppressed, suppressed, depressed Muslim ‘minorities’ while in reality, it was a pre-planned Islamist conspiracy against Hindus.
It also paints Islamists like Umar Khalid, Khalid Saifi, Sharjeel Imam, and Gulfisha Fatima, who are accused of orchestrating and inciting the riots under the pretext of anti-CAA protests, as ‘victims’.
In one of the articles, the publication laments the delay in the hearing of Umar Khalid, the accused mastermind of the riots, blaming it on courts postponing his bail hearings.
Contrary to the victimhood narrative pushed by the Islamo-leftist propaganda cabal, Umar Khalid’s prolonged incarceration is his own doing. OpIndia has reported earlier that out of the 14 adjournments in 2023 and 2024, 7 delays and adjournments were sought by Umar Khalid himself. It therefore becomes evident that the withdrawal was certainly not because of the famed “delay” in hearing. While the Islamo-leftist ecosystem continues to cry ‘injustice’, it is the alleged failed forum shopping attempts of the accused’s lawyer that have Khalid rotting in jail for so long.
OpIndia’s analysis has been corroborated by former Chief Justice DY Chandrachud’s statement that the real problem lies in the mindset of some lawyers and political groups who want their cases heard only by certain judges. Highlighting what OpIndia has reported multiple times, the former CJI said that court records showed that Khalid’s legal team, led by Sibal, had sought at least seven adjournments before finally withdrawing the bail plea in February 2024, citing “a change in circumstances.”
NewsClick: Neville Roy Singham-funded media outlet has been under radar for peddling pro-China propaganda
Neville Roy Singham’s Justice and Education Fund donated $10.5 million to Delhi-based pro-China propaganda outlet, NewsClick. Vijay Prashad has contributed several propaganda articles to NewsClick. Prashad is the nephew of Brinda Karat, a CPI(M) leader and wife of Prakash Karat, also a senior CPI(M) leader, whose email exchanges with Neville Roy Singham earlier revealed their close ties in the NewsClick Chinese funding scandal.
NewsClick first made headlines when it came under the radar of the Enforcement Directorate in 2021. The portal was reportedly accused of fraudulently receiving foreign funds amounting to around Rs. 38 crores. As a New York Times investigative report published in 2023 unravelled Roy Singham’s network’s alleged Chinese funding and propagandism, Vijay Prashad dubbed it “McCarthyism”.
Vijay Prashad has also been a council member of the Progressive International, an international organisation that mobilises leftist activists and groups globally. OpIndia earlier highlighted how this outfit persistently publishes propaganda articles and statements peddling the insidious Muslim victimhood narrative to slander the Modi government. The Progressive International hosts a dozen anti-India, particularly anti-Hindu propaganda pieces authored by notorious anti-Hindu and Islamic terror apologist elements like Harsh Mander. The Progressive International also has Islamo-leftist cheerleaders like Jayati Ghosh and former Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn as its council members.
Progressive International also has a Tides Foundation connection. The outfit has a pro-Hamas group, the Arab Resource and Organising Centre, as one of its members, which is sponsored by the Tides Foundation. Now, Tides Foundation has a Roy Singham-funded NewsClick connection.
Tides Foundation is notorious for funding several anti-Hindu, anti-India organisations and elements. The Foundation gave grants to Hindus for Human Rights (HfHR), which has links to Islamists and Khalistanis, and was formed in 2019 by two Islamist advocacy groups, the Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC) athe nd Organisation for Minorities of India (OFMI).
Tides also funded AMAN Public Charitable Trust (AMAN). This trust is connected to the NewsClick-China funding scandal, where it is alleged that Chinese entities funded NewsClick to disrupt Indian sovereignty.
Among Indians introduced by Neville Roy Singham to his larger team, who worked with Tricontinental, one of the nonprofits that the New York Times said was involved in pushing Chinese talking points, were Prabir Purkayastha, Srujana, Prasanth, and Vijay Prashad.
Prashad also has close ties with Urban Naxal P Sainath, whose propaganda portal PARI recently removed references to Singham after his connection with the Chinese propaganda arm had come to light.
Newsclick’s anti-Hindu bias is not hidden. Moreover, Newsclick is also under scrutiny for its alleged connections with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). In 2023, an investigation by the New York Times uncovered an ecosystem of activist organisations, non-profits, shell corporations, and their intimate ties to China and Chinese propaganda, with Neville Roy Singham at its helm. A Delhi Police chargesheet filed in 2024 called the Chinese state the “ultimate paymaster”, with funds routed to stoke anti-India narratives, especially regarding Kashmir, and farmers’ protests. The case is ongoing in the court.
In 2021, OpIndia conducted a detailed investigation into the links of NewsClick and uncovered how it was linked to several individuals who regularly spew venom against India, from Urban Naxals to those like Teesta Setalvad, Abhisar Sharma and several others. That investigation by OpIndia can be read here.
People’s Forum pushing narratives seeped in Kashmir separatism, anti-Hindu tropes, and obsession with Kerala’s ‘Communist’ Model
The Fox News report analysed the financial transaction flows of the House of Singham via publicly available records and found that there is one organisation by the name People’s Forum, which received $22.4 million from Neville Roy Singham.
From three organisations, GS Donors Advised Philanthropy Fund for Wealth Management Inc., and the two apparent shell companies, Roy Singham allegedly pumped $278 million into six nonprofits, one
People’s Forum, which, like several other Roy Singham-funded propaganda factories, has been one of the major instigators of anti-Israel protests in the US since October 2023. CodePink, co-founder and Neville Roy Singham’s wife, Jodie Evans, donated over $20.4 million to the organisation between 2017 and 2022. However, People’s Forum’s propaganda peddling activities are not confined to the US alone; rather, it extends to India as well. The outlet has been pushing anti-India narratives since 2019.
Over the years, ‘The People’s Forum’ has been organising teach-in sessions, seminars and movie screenings to disseminate a distorted idea of Jammu and Kashmir to its global audience.
Previously, the pro-China propaganda outlet has called for the secession of the integral part of Jammu and Kashmir and extended support to extremist elements, calling for ‘Azadi.‘ On March 18, 2019, the organisation conducted a 1 hour 50 minute 50-minute-long session, presenting India as an ‘occupying’ force in Jammu and Kashmir. The Forum calls the integral part of the Indian territory “Indian occupied”, even as the only portion of Jammu and Kashmir that is actually illegally occupied is— the Pakistan-occupied-Jammu and Kashmir.
The outfit also has a history of platforming rabid India-haters and Pakistan’s ISI-linked elements to push anti-India narratives. One such is Hafsa Kanjwal, who had earlier downplayed the Pulwama terror attack in an opinion piece in The Washington Post.
In 2019, Kanjwal appeared at a People’s Forum-hosted seminar as an instructor. Kanjwal has maintained close ties with convicted ISI agent Ghulam Nabi Fai through her organisation ‘Stand With Kashmir (SWK)’. She is an Assistant Professor at Lafayette College and featured prominently in several events of ‘The People’s Forum.’
On 14th September 2019, the Neville Roy Singham-funded organisation conducted another ‘teach-in session’ dubbed ‘Self-Determination and Solidarity in Kashmir.’ The anti-India event was sponsored by the likes of ‘Codepink’, founded by Neville Roy Singham’s wife, Jodie Evans.
“This teach-in is geared towards building solidarity between the Kashmiri and Palestinian anti-occupation movements. The instructors will give a history of the Kashmiri struggle for self-determination, provide an analysis of the Indian occupation of Kashmir, and reflect on the ties between India and Israel, as well as the need for greater mobilization between the Palestinian and Kashmiri solidarity movements,” the synopsis of the programme read.
In March 2023, Hafsa Kanjwal was invited by ‘The People’s Forum’ to promote his book ‘Hostile Homelands: The New Alliance between India and Israel.’
The People’s Forum also promoted his propaganda film on the Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir, titled ‘Out of Sight.’
In the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, The People’s Forum conducted a seminar by a Communist Party-affiliated Student Federation of India (SFI) leader, V Srinivasa Rao.
The event titled ‘Make the land proud: India’s Peasant Struggles and the 2019 Election’ hoped to capitalise on the growing resentment of farmers towards the Modi government and impact the outcome of the polls.
The description of the seminar gave away the anti-India outfit’s nefarious agenda–
“Earlier this year (2019) more than 160 million peasants and workers went on strike in India. In the last few years, India has seen an upsurge of peasant struggles across the country as the Indian politics have moved to the far right under Modi’s rule.This has been one of the largest general strikes in the world. The workers, exhausted by almost three decades of neoliberal policies and by the attack on their rights, came onto the streets to make their case for better livelihoods and workplace democracy. Because of India’s government policies, agrarian distress is acute: An average of 12,000 farmers committed suicide every year of this government’s rule.“
Unsurprisingly, the pro-China and pro-Communist propaganda organisation funded by Neville Roy Singham also has a record of disseminating the myth of the ‘Kerala Model’ in one of its events.
In an April 2020 event, The People’s Forum claimed, “While Indian PM Modi follows the example of fellow neoliberal strongmen around the world, and fails to protect lives from this pandemic while downplaying the crisis, Kerala offers a different example. The state of Kerala, led by a coalition of leftist and communist parties, has set the standard in successful testing, containment, and socialized care for the well-being of its people. How has this been achieved in Kerala, and what can we learn from this experience? Join researcher Subin Dennis and journalist Prasanth R for the discussion.“
Back in October 2019, the Neville Roy Singham-financed organisation held a seminar on Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and launched an attack on Hinduism under the pretext of condemning ‘Hindutva’.
“Gandhi, a practicing Hindu, also believed in love as a fundamental human emotion and practice and he was able to weave this love of everyone and all creation into all his beliefs, principles and practices. Gandhi’s Hinduism was not exclusive and excluding and did not identify an ‘other’. It is important to differentiate Gandhi’s Hinduism from today’s Hindutva.“
It has become a convenient tactic for Islamo-leftists to use the term Hindutva to attack Hinduism. In reality, they do not make any such distinction. Interestingly, the event was co-sponsored by Hindus for Human Rights (HfHR).
Earlier, HfHR was also seen endorsing the Hinduphobic event titled, ‘Dismantling Global Hindutva’ conference. As per OSINT handle ‘Disinfo Lab’, HfHR was formed in the year 2019 by the Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC) and the Organisation for Minorities of India (OFMI).
Sunita Vishwanath, the co-founder of ‘Hindus for Human Rights’ had also tried to create hysteria and panic among Indian Muslims about the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in 2019.
“We are especially appalled by the most recent nightmare of the Kashmiri people, and the situation of 1.9 million people in India who are rendered stateless due to the imposition of the travesty called the National Register of Citizens,” she claimed.
Sunita Vishwanath is also the co-founder of an organisation named ‘Women for Afghan Women’, which is funded by George Soros’ Open Society Foundations (OSF)/ Open Society Institute (OSI). In October 2023, the X (formerly Twitter) account of HfHr was withheld in India.
Through his Open Society Foundation, which began operations in India in 1999 by offering scholarships and fellowships to pursue studies and research at Indian institutions, George Soros has made great strides in creating disorder in India. Soros-linked entities lend support to anti-India elements to undermine Indian democracy, all while in the name of ‘strengthening’ it.
In 2023, Vishwanath attended an event at the National Press Club, Stanford University, where Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was present.
Sunita Vishwanath had backed Zohran Mamdani, a Democrat Socialist, a serial liar, and a Hinduphobe, during his NYC mayoral election campaign. Mamdani, who once called Hindus ‘Harami’, peddled blatant lies about the 2002 Gujarat Riots, and claimed imaginary erasure of Gujarat Muslims, received financial and propaganda support from anti-India Islamist outfits like CAIR and IAMC.
Vishwanath’s HfHR was founded in the year 2019 by two Islamist advocacy groups named Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC) and the Organisation for Minorities of India (OFMI).
Interestingly, Shanti Singham, the sister of Neville Roy Singham, made significant financial contributions to the Parliamentary Action Committee (PAC) named New Yorkers for Lower Cost, which backed Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani during the last New York City mayoral elections. Shanti Singham contributed around $1,000 in June 2025, while her husband, Daniel Goodwin, donated $3,500. Goodwin previously served as the executive of Neville Roy Singham-owned Thoughtworks software company.
Shanti Marie Singham holds a key position at the CCP-linked East China Normal University in Shanghai. She shares her brother’s political ideology and is reported to be an important player in the furtherance of the same.
What Neville Roy Singham, with the backing of the CCP, has built is not a philanthropy or activism network but a Marxist-Maoist transnational apparatus designed to weaponise issues, nonprofit laws, digital media, and every other resource at hand to undermine rival states, influence policy decisions, and gain a geopolitical edge. This is a form of modern subversion. Fuelled by both ink and blood, this is a subtle, sophisticated and effective tactic of ensuring that the enemy state is eaten up by CCP-cultivated termites.
India’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, has undergone a remarkable transformation over the past nine years—one that extends far beyond administrative change and reflects a broader narrative of development, governance, and social progress. Under the leadership of Yogi Adityanath, the state has embraced a vision of “reconstruction” that is steadily translating into a roadmap for sustained prosperity.
Perhaps the most visible shift has been in the realm of law and order. Once frequently associated with crime and disorder, Uttar Pradesh has repositioned itself as a safer and more stable destination for both citizens and investors. The government’s tough stance on organized crime, including stringent action against mafia networks and the high-profile demolition of illegally acquired properties, has reinforced a sense of security among the public. This improved law-and-order environment has also played a crucial role in unlocking economic potential by boosting investor confidence.
On the economic front, Uttar Pradesh has made significant strides. The state’s ambition to become a trillion-dollar economy is not merely aspirational but grounded in strategic planning and policy execution. A balanced approach to development—encompassing agriculture, industry, and services—has been central to this progress. In agriculture, efforts such as ensuring Minimum Support Price (MSP), expanding irrigation infrastructure, and promoting technological interventions have improved productivity and farmer incomes. Simultaneously, initiatives like the “One District, One Product” (ODOP) scheme have revitalized traditional industries and enabled local products to gain global visibility, strengthening the MSME ecosystem.
Infrastructure development has emerged as a cornerstone of Uttar Pradesh’s growth story. The construction of major expressways, including the Purvanchal Expressway, Bundelkhand Expressway, and the ambitious Ganga Expressway, has significantly enhanced connectivity across regions. These projects are not just about faster transportation; they are catalysts for industrial growth, regional integration, and job creation. Additionally, the expansion of airports and the development of metro rail systems in cities have contributed to modern urbanization and improved quality of life.
The energy sector has also witnessed considerable progress. Ensuring reliable electricity supply—especially in rural areas—has been a key priority. The extension of electrification to remote villages and the push for uninterrupted power supply have strengthened the rural economy and supported small-scale industries. Energy reforms have thus played an essential role in bridging the urban-rural divide.
In the social sectors of education and healthcare, the government has undertaken several reforms aimed at improving access and quality. The transformation of primary schools through infrastructure upgrades, digital learning initiatives, and teacher training programs has begun to yield positive outcomes. In healthcare, the expansion of medical colleges, upgradation of district hospitals, and effective implementation of welfare schemes like Ayushman Bharat have improved healthcare accessibility for millions. These measures have contributed to building a more inclusive development framework.
Women’s empowerment has been another important pillar of the state’s development agenda. Programs such as Mission Shakti have focused on enhancing women’s safety, dignity, and economic participation. Self-help groups have been actively promoted, enabling women to become financially independent and play a more significant role in community development. This focus on gender inclusion reflects a broader commitment to equitable growth.
Digital governance and transparency have further strengthened the administration. The digitization of government services has reduced bureaucratic delays and minimized corruption, making public services more accessible and efficient. Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) mechanisms have ensured that welfare benefits reach intended beneficiaries without leakages, thereby enhancing trust in governance.
Tourism has also received a significant boost, particularly through the development of religious and cultural sites. Landmark projects such as the Kashi Vishwanath Dham corridor and the grand construction of the Ayodhya Ram Mandir have not only revitalized India’s spiritual heritage but also attracted global attention. Cities like Varanasi, Ayodhya, and Mathura are witnessing increased tourist inflow, contributing to local economies and job creation.
Despite these achievements, challenges remain. Issues such as unemployment, disparities in educational outcomes, and the rural-urban divide continue to demand attention. While the state has made progress in addressing these concerns, sustained efforts and policy innovation will be necessary to ensure that growth is both inclusive and equitable.
The journey of the past nine years demonstrates that Uttar Pradesh is steadily shedding its earlier image as a lagging state and emerging as a dynamic contributor to India’s growth story. This transformation is not merely the result of policy measures but also of a clear vision, strong political will, and consistent governance.
In conclusion, Uttar Pradesh’s reconstruction over the past decade represents a significant chapter in India’s development narrative. The “golden resolve” for prosperity is not just a slogan but a tangible process that is reshaping the state’s economic and social landscape. If this momentum continues with the same focus and commitment, Uttar Pradesh is well-positioned to become not only a key driver of India’s economy but also a model of large-scale transformation on the global stage.
‘Dhurandhar: The Revenge’, directed by Aditya Dhar, hit the theatres on 19th March this year. The film, which has been a raging hit among the public, highlighted the poor state of security and intelligence apparatus in India during the Congress-led UPA era (2004–2014).
It drew a sharp contrast with the national security approach of the Modi government and its resolve to take firm decisions in the interest of the country. Soon after the release of the film, netizens began sharing news stories from the early 2010s to highlight the appeasement politics and grim state of affairs during the UPA era.
The trend started on Friday (20th March) with the re-sharing of a Dec 2014 tweet by a Pakistan handle ‘@afzaal_k’, which talked about the arrest of gangster Uzair Baloch at the Dubai airport.
In ‘Dhurandhar 2’, Uzair Baloch is one of the most talked-about characters of the movie due to the sheer brutality of his role. He is the brother of the notorious gangster Rehman Dakait. Baloch’s character brought a barbaric and unpredictable energy to the big screen.
Netizens heaped praises on Aditya Dhar for his peak detailing and bringing historical accuracy to the film. This sparked off discussions about other aspects of ‘Dhurandhar: The Revenge’, such as Congress-led UPA’s failure to act on intelligence that could have prevented the 26/11 attacks.
Lack of political will, decision-making ability and friendliness with Islamists on the part of the UPA regime became the focus of the discussion on social media. Netizens dug up old tweets which showed how India was truly in a messed-up state.
1. Friendliness with Islamists
A series of tweets dating back to early 2010s show how the UPA regime delayed the execution of Islamic terrorist Afzal Guru, who orchestrated deadly attack on the Indian Parliament.
In order to avoid facing flak from Muslims, the Congress described his hanging as a ‘decision taken as per law’ and not a ‘political decision.’
The Court ordered Afzal Guru’s execution for October 2006, but the UPA deliberately froze his mercy petition for 7 long years to appease a specific vote-bank.
After Afzal Guru was executed on the orders of the Supreme Court of India, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh expressed unhappiness over delay in informing the terrorist’s family.
Sources: PM upset over delay in informing Afzal Guru's family about his execution.
Congress leader Salman Khurshid had infamously said that party supremo Sonia Gandhi cried after the Delhi police neutralised the Batla House terrorists in 2008.
Reactions: Pictures of Batla case brought tears in Sonia's eyes: Salman Khurshid: http://t.co/ctW1ZVXR
The Congress party, which manufactured the lie of ‘Hindu terror’ during the UPA era, attempted to blame Hindus for terror attacks in Malegaon, Mecca Masjid and Samjhauta train.
Samjhauta blast, Mecca Masjid, Malegaon blast. By planting bombs & then blaming minorities: HM Sushil Kumar Shinde
In May 2010, WikiLeaks reported that Rahul Gandhi went on to tell a US envoy that so-called ‘Hindu terror’ groups are a bigger threat in India than LeT.
FLASH: Rahul Gandhi spoke to US envoy about Hindu terror group, said Hindu terror is bigger threat in India than LeT – WikiLeaks #ht
The Congress party, which signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), was fraternising with China when its troops were 19 km inside the Indian territory. Salman Khurshid had infamously said that he would love to live in Beijing.
Imagine your Foreign Minister fraternising with the Enemy, saying he wants to live in Beijing when Chinese troops were 19km inside Indian territory at the exact same time https://t.co/Fs9xvzAqvbpic.twitter.com/ByKwNdLMvO
In May 2010, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh had infamously said that India needs Chinese experts for infrastructure projects in Arunachal Pradesh, which China fraudulently claims as its own.
4. Scared of theUS
While the Congress party is claiming that the Modi government has somehow failed to navigate the ongoing US-Iran conflict and hold India’s interests, it must be mentioned that the ‘scared’ Congress-led UPA government had banned urea imports from Iran ahead of Hillary Clinton’s visit to India.
Exclusive: India bans urea imports from Iran ahead of Hillary's visit http://t.co/gfw3Y0mh
It is well known that the Congress government remained a mute spectator after Pakistan orchestrated one of the deadliest terror attacks on Indian soil on 26th November, 2008.
Old India
This was when Pakistan’s Home Minister flew into Delhi and told Indians that Kargil martyr Captain Saurabh Kalia had died due to bad weather.
The authorities have recently dismantled a significant Pakistan-tied espionage ring in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh. 22 people have been nabbed, including 6 minors who were involved in various spy operations throughout the nation, and alarming revelations have been emerging during the investigation.
They set up CCTV cameras and utilised them, social media and encrypted applications to transmit live footage of troop movements, routes and weaponry to Pakistan. Solar-powered CCTV cameras were deployed at Delhi Cantonment and Sonepat as 50 additional spots were to follow suit across India, including the Delhi-Jammu railway corridor. Police have retrieved the cameras and forwarded them for forensic analysis. The cell phones of the accused have also been confiscated.
These people also created WhatsApp groups to disseminate visuals of key structures, including railway stations and temples, as well as GPS coordinates of such crucial places, along with other information, to foreign numbers. They were compensated for their services with funds via intermediaries who also passed orders to them. The costs range from Rs 500 to several thousand.
The money trail is under inquiry. Ganesh, a citizen of Nepal who has been imprisoned, informed the police that a handler, Sardar Jora, used hawala to send funds to the country. Afterwards, it was moved to accounts in India or distributed through cash after being channelled using casinos, businesspeople and mobile routes. The middlemen took a 20% cut.
A potential terror-plot in motion
The actions indicated a pre-attack monitoring effort, not solely espionage. The online training modules were imported, and more than 450 files have been traced to Pakistan.
“Sameer downloaded an app from Play Store to capture and transmit material and was trained online to use it. He also lured several boys into the gang with money and got them to carry out reconnaissance. In the last year alone, he added more than 12 youths to the group,” the police outlined.
The focus was also to entrap women and minors to lower suspicion. The recruitment also concentrated on young adults with technical abilities, including experience at mobile repair shops, CCTV technicians and even rudimentary networking knowledge.
The names Sardar Jora, also known as Sarfaraz or Zora Singh and Shahzad, referred to as Bhatti, who are based in the Islamic Republic, along with Waqar alias Vicky Jat, have surfaced in the case. Jat was running a parallel syndicate similar to the other two and was in touch with the arrested individuals.
The accused were working on the directions of their Pakistani handlers and pretended to be Hindus to participate in anti-national activities through espionage and reconnaissance. They changed their identities out of the fear of being exposed and to evade detection, just as Suhail Malik posed as Romeo, Naushad Ali disguised himself as Lalu, Sameer presented himself as Shooter and Sane Iram masqueraded as Mahek.
Interestingly, Naushad had opened a shop for fixing punctures at a petrol pump a few months ago in Nachauli village of the Faridabad district in Haryana.
Muslims pretended to be Hindus, love jihad angle suspected
The probea also found that Muslims working to establish ISI network India were using Hindu names and attire. For example, Suhel alias Romeo wears a sacred thread and a Rudraksha around his neck, and puts a Tilak. Naushad, Iran and other Muslims arrested in the case also similarly pretended to be Hindus.
It is believed that they not only alter their names for anti-India acts, but love jihad could also serve as a motive for the same, and the security agencies are looking into it. Notably, Suhail, Naushad and Sameer were scheduled to travel to Jammu-Kashmir and Leh-Ladakh for recce on the orders of their Pakistani master. However, Suhail abandoned the mission to attend his Hindu girlfriend’s birthday. She resides in Himachal Pradesh’s Baddi, and he met her as Romeo. According to sources, he could be a part of a love jihad gang.
Suhail, Meera Thakur, Ganesh, Hrithik Gangwar, Naushad and Sameer visited Haridwar and Rishikesh a few days prior. They bathed in Ganga at Har ki Pauri, performed Ganga Aarti and then did surveillance following the darshan at Mansa Devi and Neelkanth Mahadev temples. Afterwards, the group arrived at Sikar’s Ringas railway station in Rajasthan by train and went to the Khatu-Shyam temple and then proceeded to an army camp situated approximately 15 kilometre away and returned after carrying out their illegal scouting.
A conspiracy to target the Hindu community
Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agents maintained constant communication with Suhail and Iram and told them to increasingly recruit young Hindu men and women into the network. Economically disadvantaged youths fell victim to their sinister scheme. They were intended to be exploited in dangerous plans with high risk to life. The responsibility for storing weapons was also going to be handed over to them.
The Pakistanis were persistently instructing them to reach out to more Hindus and give them access to critical information after they are deemed completely reliable. They were asked to refrain from unveiling the identities of their associates in the neighbouring country in light of any doubt or unsurety. The pair upheld this approach.
Suhail successfully targeted several people from the Hindu community after which Shiva Valmiki, Raj Valmiki, Hrithik and Praveen joined the spy-web. Parveen was deeply trusted by Suhail and the handlers and was assigned the task of setting up cameras in Sonepat. According to the agencies, the aim was to defame the Hindu community and protect the Muslims.
Suhail also directed his attention at those who had received education only from the 5th to the 12th grade. He added mobile mechanics, daily wage earners, fast food and fruit vendors to the network as they needed help to meet their internet expenses. They were enticed with the promise of financial incentives and taken to different areas under the guise of filming reels.
They completed their assigned duties ensuring that their true intentions remained under wraps. They even travelled in groups and transmitted details regarding Israeli hotels and VVIPs alongside of areas such as Connaught Place and Paharganj in the national capital.
Speeches of Maulana Masood Azhar, Hafiz Saeed were used to brainwash
The accused, including Suhail and Iram, were scared after brothers Zeeshan and Gulfam, who tried to behead ex-Muslim Saleem Wastik, were shot dead by the Uttar Pradesh police during an encounter. They began to distance themselves from the Pakistani handlers. Suhail even talked about this with them. Hence, the Pakistanis indoctrinated him over an extended period.
The ISI handlers claimed that the Islamist siblings were not actually deceased but had achieved martyrdom and would enter paradise. It was asserted that the earthly existence pales in comparison to the life in heaven, and they declared the pair as martyrs. The audio and video recordings of the inflammatory speeches of Jaish-e-Mohammed supremo Muhammad Masood Azhar Alvi alias Masood Azhar’s and Lashkar-e-Taiba founder Hafiz Muhammad Saeed were sent with the goal to brainwash.
Masood Azhar rambled about “jihad, martyrdom and jannat” in these old addresses which proved effective and all the Muslim accused continued their ties with the Pakistanis. They also succeeded in luring Hindus in Pune where Suhail spent three years and worked as a baker. However, it was merely a front as he was receiving money and directives from the ISI. There he targeted those who were in the same profession. Suhail was awarded Rs 10,000 for every video clip he provided.
The involvement in firing at Salman Khan’s house
An attack occurred at the residence of Bollywood actor Salman Khan in 2024. The involvement of Mumbai gangster Mohammad Khan, also known as Wasim Chikna, was uncovered in relation to this incident. The probe has disclosed that Meera, Ganesh, Suhail, Iram and Sameer executed reconnaissance of the house for Wasim who was later caught alongside others.
Their handlers are discovered to be in various nations, including Pakistan, Malaysia, Dubai, the United Kingdom, Nepal, Canada, amonng others. The investigation has shown that all the accused using fake names had Indian SIM cards and employed Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) for their calls. This method allowed them to conceal their actual location and edit the phone number.
The present matter is under inquiry as agencies are looking for other active spies and the identities of these handlers. The investigators are also examining the places whose details had been dispatched to the Pakistanis and the devices that were utilised for this. The police have assured that the masterminds will be revealed soon.
OTP and SIM given to foreign actors
An investigation into an OTP and SIM supply ring was initiated simultaneously. The accused sent Indian OTPs overseas, allowing those outside India to use Indian numbers for social media and WhatsApp accounts. The payments were between Rs 500 and Rs 5,000.
The foundation of SIM acquisition was a collection of interchangeable strategies, comprising pre-activated SIMs via agents, phishing, snatching and falsified IDs. UPI was applied to transfer funds, but personal accounts were not used. There was limited traceability because the amount circulated through Jan Seva Kendras, small businesses and cash withdrawals.
Air Force civilian staffer arrested
On 22nd March (Sunday), a civilian Air Force worker was apprehended on suspicion of espionage for Pakistan at the Chabua Air Force Station in the Dibrugarh district, Assam, in a separate case. He was working as a Multi-Tasking Staff member and has been identified as 36-year-old Sumit Kumar, a native of Prayagraj. He is charged with offering critical Air Force intelligence to his handlers for money. He has been in continuous touch with them since 2023.
Kumar divulged vital details concerning Air Force facilities, such as Air Force Station Chabua and Air Force Station Nal in Bikaner. Confidential data on commanders and staff was supplied in addition to the positions of fighter planes and missile systems. He also aided Pakistani agents in establishing social media accounts with mobile numbers that were listed in his name.
Kumar was moved to the Central Interrogation Center in Jaipur after he was taken into custody. He has been booked under pertinent sections of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and Official Secrets Act. He was eventually arrested after Jhabararam from Jaisalmer was nabbed in January. The authorities busted a larger spy network that highlighted Pakistani ties as a result of the latter’s interrogation and thorough probe.
