In a major decision to combat the menace of ‘grooming jihad’, the Uttar Pradesh government is reportedly planning to withdraw a decades-old scheme that promoted and incentivised interfaith marriage in the state, reports Times of India.
According to the reports, the Uttar Pradesh government’s Intercaste & Interfaith Marriage Incentive Scheme, that was started in 1976, promoted and rewarded interfaith couples with a monetary incentive. The scheme was initiated by the national integration department in Uttar Pradesh.
However, the Uttar Pradesh government has now reportedly decided to withdraw the controversial scheme amidst the rising number of forced conversions and ‘Grooming Jihad’ cases. The significant decision also comes days after Uttar Pradesh government had brought an ordinance to curb the rising menace of Grooming Jihad cases in the state, where increasinv number of non-Muslim women are being targeted under false identities and later forced to convert.
The Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Ordinance, 2020, which has been promulgated with the approval of the Governor, will now land offenders in jail for up to 1 to 5 years and attract a fine of Rs 15,000. Under the new law, the offenders proven guilty for mass conversion will attract a jail term of 10 years.
No amount has been released this year: Uttar Pradesh govt
Reportedly, the interfaith couples had to apply to the district magistrate within two years of marriage to become the beneficiaries of the scheme. After verification, the district magistrate forwarded the application to the UP national integration department.
Speaking to TOI, a senior government official said 11 interfaith couples were beneficiaries of the scheme last year and got Rs 50,000 each in UP. The officer added that no amount has been released this year. The four applications that were filed remain pending as it will be reconsidered after the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion ordinance, the officer added.
Earlier in 2017, the state government had also added a caveat to the scheme stating that the interfaith couple will not be eligible for the scheme if either gets converted after the marriage.
UP Minister Shrikant Sharma said that the scheme exists for now. He said, however, that he cannot comment on its continuation. Speaking on the ordinance, the UP Minister added, “The ordinance means to stop forced conversion and punish those who hide their identity to cheat their partners.”
Uttarakhand to follow Uttar Pradesh, to scrap the scheme
Uttarakhand, which retained most of the laws from the parent state Uttar Pradesh, had also continued with the controversial 1976 scheme to provide incentives to interfaith couples for their marriage.
However, Uttarakhand has decided to withdraw the scheme after a controversy had erupted recently in the state after a district administration shared a notice regarding the same.
In an order passed by Tehri Garhwal district’s social welfare officer recently, it was specified that the government had decided to incentivise and promote interfaith and intercaste marriages in the state in an effort to bring unity in the society and country at large. Under the scheme, the social welfare department in the state would provide Rs 50,000 to a person marrying outside his caste or religion.
The Uttarakhand government faced a lot of criticism for the notice, alleging that such schemes will only promote religious conversions and ‘Grooming Jihad’ (Love Jihad) in the state. following the controversy, the order was revoked and a probe was ordered by the CM.
“We do not allow anyone to use Twitter to manipulate or interfere in elections or other civic processes”, said Twitter in early October 2020. Little did people know, however, that Twitter would become a driving force behind information vital to the democratic process being censored thereby tarnishing the democratic process.
In the run-up to the US elections, Twitter played a significant role in censoring content that was inconvenient to now President elect Joe Biden. According to a report by Twitter itself, the social media giant labelled 3,00,000 tweets related to the US elections in just 15 days, between October 27th and November 11th. In fact, in a heinous act of censorship, Twitter had the gumption to censor the then President Donald Trump on election night itself.
Tweet by Donald Trump censored on election night
Earlier, his tweet was censored for vowing to enforce law and order in the wake of massive riots across the country.
It is pertinent to understand here that one may or may not agree with Donald Trump’s assertion of the elections being stolen. However, while the election is yet to be officially called and hearings to establish the authenticity of the voting process is still on, Twitter unilaterally decided what information American citizens should or should not read. While Twitter did not even desist from censoring the President of the United States, it also censored an important story that had surfaced in the run-up to the US Presidential Elections.
An investigative story by the New York Post, showing shady deals between Hunter Biden, Joe Biden and China was censored militantly by Twitter. Any tweet that shared the story was masked. The New York Post Twitter account itself was locked by Twitter for publishing that story and sharing it on Twitter.
In the investigative report the New York Post had asserted that they had accessed material from a damaged Macbook Pro, which revealed that Hunter Biden, Joe Biden’s son, had introduced a businessman from Ukraine to his father while the latter was Vice President of the United States. It is pertinent to note here that Hunter Biden at the time was appointed to the Burisma Board and received a salary of $50,000 per month.
The report had published several documents and mentioned a video that proved that Joe Biden met Vadym Pozharskyi, an adviser to the board of Burisma, where the extent of the Biden family’s involvement, and the sacking of a prosecutor, allegedly after pressure from the then VP Biden, is now under scrutiny.
Later, Fox News confirmed those reports. Furthermore, Fox News also reported that Joe Biden himself was in on a deal that involved Hunter Biden, his son, and a Chinese company.
By all accounts, this was an important story that could have changed the course of the US elections. The authenticity of this story or whether to base their vote on this story should have ideally depended on the citizens of the United States. One of the central principles of a thriving democracy is that the people have access to all the information and then, based on that information, they are free to make their decision. However, Twitter proved to be a great impediment to the election process itself when it chose to censor the story.
Ted Cruz, the junior states senator from Texas questioned Jack Dorsey of Twitter and asked him who elected him to take such decisions. Jack, in the process, was caught lying and fumbling his way through.
The obvious question that would arise in the minds of the people would be to wonder if the election result truly would have been any different had Twitter minded its business and not censored just one story that exposed the proximity of the Biden family to China and the corruption that seemingly ran deep.
The question was answered by a survey that claimed that one in six people who voted for Joe Biden would have changed their mind had they got the full information about the Hunter Biden story.
In a survey, 4.6% of Biden’s voters said they would not have selected him had they been aware of his son’s China money affair. According to a McLaughlin & Associates poll done for the Media Research Center, 36% of Biden voters were not aware of the scandal. And 13% of those said they would not have voted for Biden had they known.
While the mainstream media was equally complicit, Twitter outright censored the story, almost militantly. With the survey surfacing, it becomes clear that Twitter played a pivotal role in the outcome of the US Presidential Elections, deliberately hiding vital information about one of the candidates from the voters.
With Twitter admitting that it has a left-bias, it becomes evident that what they did, and got away with, during the US elections was only a blue-print of the times to come.
Only today, Twitter censored a Tweet by Amit Malviya, the IT cell head of the ruling party of India.
Tweet censored by Twitter
The backstory to this is rather interesting. Rahul Gandhi, the leader of Congress party had shared an image with an insinuation that the police was beating up an old farmer. While Khalistani elements have taken over the farmer protests, the opposition parties are trying to prove that the protest is still spearheaded by farmers. That apart, in this exact moment where this picture was captured, the old farmer was not being beaten up by the police.
Twitter, instead of flagging the original picture with misleading claims, flagged a ‘fact-check’ video by Amit Malviya and added the label that read ‘manipulated media’.
Of course, this label itself might not have far-reaching implications as far as any democratic process is concerned, but it is pertinent to note that this is the first time a label like this has been applied to ANY Indian Twitter handle. Several fake claims have been shared by several politicians of the Congress party and even the so-called ‘fact-checkers’ that Twitter seems to have relied on, however, none of those claims was ever flagged. With Twitter’s admitted Left-wing bias, nobody needs to wonder which side they would choose to censor and the trajectory is rather evident with the censorship of Malviya’s tweet.
The inherent control that Twitter wishes to wield over elections, as clear from their own election guidelines
In an ‘update‘ by Twitter on what steps they plan to take to ensure that elations are free and fair, there are several problematic plans that they have put into place that expose just how much power they wish to wield over information flow. Here are some excerpts and why they are problematic:
1. Twitter in its blogpost says that they have ensured that in the ‘trends for you’ page, they will only show trends with ‘added context’ where Twitter itself will add a description and a “representative tweet or article”.
Twitter election update
This clearly signals to Twitter moving from being just an intermediary and wading into editorial control. Also, Twitter can thus decide what information they choose to show when a subject is trending on Twitter. So for example, if everyone was talking about how Khalistanis had taken over the farmer protest, they could choose to plug a shoddy article from some Left-leaning portal exclusively that whitewashes the Khalistani slogans being raised.
2. They admit that they reinforced the claims that the election process is safe evenjhough the Republicans were alleging something completely different, and, more importantly, there was a legal process underway.
Twitter election update
Now, whether those claims are true or false, Twitter as an intermediary has no right to control the narrative or decide what people should or should not read. Whether there was fraud or not, is presumably for the US courts to decide. Whether to believe that fraud was done or not, is for the American people to decide after reading all the information available from both sides of the spectrum. Twitter is not an election expert, as was even pointed by Ted Cruz and therefore, it has no right to issue verdicts.
If they indulge in such blatant propaganda, in this case, Twitter is free to define the counters of any conversation that voters might want to hold. An intermediary’s job should be to ensure free and fair conversation around elections. If the left media is free to present their side, so should the ‘right’. The eventual decision on what should be believed and what should not be, should be left up to the readers and voters. However, Twitter wishes to ensure a strict hold on which direction the conversation should go.
3. Twitter admits that they slowed down the process of information dissemination
Twitter has also admitted that they slowed down the process of information dissemination.
Twitter election update
Twitter in its update has admitted that the reach of tweets reduced by 20% after they introduced their new feature. Mind you, this feature does not work with every account. It only works with accounts and tweets that Twitter deems necessary. Here too, they have assumed the role of an editor to decide which tweet’s reach should be limited and which tweet should be amplified.
4. Twitter has no plan to stop this madness
Twitter has made it exceptionally clear that they will continue to interfere in elections.
Twitter election update
It is pertinent to note that they have claimed that they will “protect integrity of election conversation” and they have done this for “many elections around the world”.
I would like to remind our readers what a recent survey found:
4.6% of Biden’s voters said they would not have selected him had they been aware of his son’s China money affair. According to a McLaughlin & Associates poll done for the Media Research Center, 36% of Biden voters were not aware of the scandal. And 13% of those said they would not have voted for Biden had they known.
This was a direct consequence of Twitter brutally suppressing this story.
It is therefore evident that Twitter has no plans to stop its interference in elections around the world. With the censorship of Tweet by Amit Malviya, the indication is rather clear – the next target is India and the central government has to be on its toes to ensure that Twitter does not censor any side, no matter how ludicrous the claim, and let democracy take its own course.
Facebook an equal participant in election interference and must be brought to its knees as well
Facebook is an equal participant in its election manipulation. We all remember the story of Cambridge Analytica and how it was manipulating user data to push voters in a particular direction.
The detailed analysis of Facebook’s policies will be saved for another article, however, it is pertinent to note who controls the dissemination of information on Facebook and who decides which pages and posts are to be censored.
The Facebook Oversight Board has been a cause of much consternation ever since it was proposed. Ultimately, when the board to regulate content on the social media platform was set up, it created quite the stir after it was revealed that 18 of the 20 members were linked to the American Billionaire and prominent Democrat donor, George Soros.
Since then, another revelation has come to light. One of the members of the Facebook Oversight Board is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, a terrorist outfit banned in multiple Arab and Western countries, in addition to being a Nobel Peace Laureate. The Nobel Peace Prize does not carry much meaning at this point given the fact that Barack Obama, another winner, went on to bomb Libya into slavery apart from plunging the entire Middle-East into further chaos.
But membership of the Muslim Brotherhood does carry a lot of meaning. The Middle-East Online (MEO) reported in June that Yemeni journalist and activist Tawakkol Karman, co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011, is a member of the terrorist outfit who was awarded a place in the Facebook Oversight Board in order to regulate the platform’s content.
According to the report, Tawakkol Karman was formerly a member of the Islamist Yemeni Islah Party (YIP) that was backed by the Muslim Brotherhood. She called the MB “one of the victims of official tyranny and terrorism in the region.” The MB acknowledged their ties with her and proudly congratulated her after she won the Nobel Peace Prize.
Our full report on Facebook’s Oversight Board and how it is run by people close to George Soros, who vowed to fight nationalism, and a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, can be read here.
Reach of Facebook and Twitter in India – the country it plans to interfere with next
There are certain statistics that we need to look at before we understand just how detrimental censorship on social media can really be.
Worldwide, Twitter has over 336 million monthly active users and 100 million daily active users.
23% of the Internet population is said to be on Twitter.
Top 5 countries on Twitter accounts for 50% of overall Tweets.
2 billion Queries are served by Twitter on a daily basis.
83% of the World’s Leaders have Twitter accounts.
There are 24.6% verified Journalists on Twitter.
Twitter now can handle 18 quintillion user accounts.
500 million people view Twitter without logging in.
In fact, in India alone, we have over 34.4 million monthly active users on Twitter.
While the Twitter statistics are from 2019, the following Facebook statistics are from October 2020.
Facebook users across the world (Source: Statista)
With such a massive reach of both Facebook and Twitter, it is imperative that the government ensures that the social media giants remain intermediaries and don’t take on the roles of editors, elected representatives or even Soros-esque clandestine disruptors who want to ensure that their political ideology is enforced upon the world – by manipulation or censorship.
There is a protest, a riot or a corruption scandal. The public needs to know the facts about what is happening on the ground. You can’t just believe what any random person tells you. So, who do you trust to tell you the truth?
The “fact-checkers” of course. They will examine what people are saying all around. They will weigh the evidence and ascertain the facts on the ground. And then they will tell us what really happened. That’s why they are called fact-checkers, right?
Wait a minute. Didn’t we already have an entire class of people who claimed they were doing exactly this already? I don’t remember any prominent “fact-checkers” say ten years ago. What did we do back then? Did we just put our faith in random people?
Ah, I remember. We used to have people called “journalists.” They would reach out to people on the ground, weigh the evidence, ascertain the facts and tell us what really happened.
So what happened to these journalists? There are plenty of people still around who call themselves journalists.
I will tell you what happened. The journalists lost all credibility, that’s what. Why did they lose all credibility? Because bit by bit, we realized that journalists were just feeding us an agenda, not reporting facts.
What does a con artist do when their fraud is exposed? They can’t function any longer under their old name. Because everyone knows they are a fraud. The con artist simply comes back under a new name, wearing a fake moustache. That’s exactly what “fact-checking” is. A new name for the same old fraud of agenda driven journalism.
Ten years ago, a “reputed” newspaper or news channel would go out there and pretend to report facts. And most people would have believed it. But, over the years, they lost credibility. In story after story, situation after situation, their bias and agenda got exposed. Once upon a time, people would be surprised if you showed them examples of media bias. People used to look up to journalists. Those who grew up in the 90s will remember movies and serials where journalists were cast as heroes. Today, nobody would do that. The public has become wiser. They have no respect for journalists any more.
The con artists have had to rebrand themselves. The new way to suppress your opinion is to claim they are “fact checking” you.
Consider this. There is a riot. The journalists say that community X burned 10 houses of community Y. Ten years ago, those reports would have been the last word. But today, everyone has a phone with a sophisticated recorder and camera, and a social media account to broadcast their views across the planet. Today, someone will hit back by showing that community Y burned 50 houses of community X in another part of town.
And so it will keep going back and forth. Everyone has a bias. Journalists know they can’t win this.
So they create this new myth of a “fact-checker.” An unbiased angel who descends from above and brings you the facts. The angels find one guy who disagrees with you. Instead of calling it an opinion, they scream that you have been “fact-checked” and proven to be false. That’s the headline: FACT-CHECK! As long as you claim to be “fact-checking,” you have a magical aura of neutrality and moral superiority.
And now that fact-checkers have certified one particular version of the story, it becomes fact. Big Tech can now seize upon this certificate and censor you. It happened exactly the way it would happen ten years ago. Back then, they censored your version because journalists disagreed with it. Now they censor your version because fact-checkers disagree with it.
“Fact-checking” sounds like a new business. Not enough people have figured out their tricks yet. And it certainly sounds like a noble thing to do. Just like journalism, back in the day.
I challenge you: show me one difference between the job description of a journalist and a fact checker. If it walks like a duck, if it looks like a duck and if it quacks like a duck, it’s a duck! You can’t seriously fall for this.
Ten years ago, the online right waged a battle against “journalism.” And they won. The con artists are back. Dressed as fact-checkers. The struggle starts all over again.
In a setback to Congress supporter Saket Gokhale, the Attorney General KK Venugopal has declined to give his consent to initiate contempt proceedings against activist-author Shefali Vaidya, reports Live Law.
Saket Gokhale, who claims to be an ardent follower of Gandhi-scion Rahul Gandhi, had sought the permission of the Attorney General to file a contempt petition against writer Shefali Vaidya under Section 15 of Contempt of Courts Act, 1971, alleging that she had made some objectionable comments against country’s judiciary.
Responding to the letter received by Congress supporter Saket Gokhale seeking action activist Shefali Vaidya, Attorney General KK Venugopal said that the tweets posted by Shefali Vaidya on her Twitter page, which according to Gokhale was contempt of court, were made almost a year back.
Attorney General KK Venugopal Declines Consent to @SaketGokhale to Initiate Contempt Proceedings against @ShefVaidya on the ground of Limitation since her alleged tweet was posted one Yr ago pic.twitter.com/eZ55Qiosmp
The Attorney General KK Venugopal said that according to the Section 20 of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971, one cannot initiate any contempt action either suo motu or otherwise after the expiry of one year from the date of the allegedly contumacious conduct.
“In these circumstances, therefore, without going into the merits of your request, no action can be taken against Ms Shefali Vaidya. I accordingly decline consent,” the AG Venugopal said.
The tweets posted by Shegali Vaidya, against which Gokhale wanted to file contempt of court case, were posted in 2017, 2018 and 2019. Last month, he had posted screenshots of the tweets he had targeted, saying that he was “working on an interesting contempt of court petition”. In the tweets, Shefali Vaidya had criticised the apex court on the ban on firecrackers during Diwali, and other contentious observations made in other cases.
Been working on an interesting contempt of court petition since yesterday.
A little glimpse of it.
Now hope the law is really equal for everyone in the eyes of the Attorney General For India. pic.twitter.com/SXtMRzeVqq
Needless to say, Saket Gokhale wanted to file a contempt case against Shefali Vaidya as a retaliatory move after the Attorney General had allowed contempt of case to be filed against left-liberals who had severely criticised the Supreme Court for granting bail to Republic TV Editor in Chief Arnab Goswami.
AG gives consent to initiate contempt action against far-left trolls
The decline of consent by Attorney General KK Venugopal comes a day he had granted his consent to initiate contempt proceedings against comic artist Rachita Taneja for making derogatory remarks against the country’s judiciary.
Terming the comic artist’s grave efforts to malign judiciary, KK Venugopal said that the act was an “audacious assault and insult to the institution”.
A law student had approached the Attorney General urging him to grant the necessary permission to initiate a contempt proceeding against comic artist Rachita Taneja, the founder of web-comic Sanitary Panels, following her two Tweets dated November 11 and 12. Through her cartoons, the comic artist had insinuated a quid pro quo relationship between the apex Court and the central government, alleging that on the govt’s direction, the court granted interim relief to Republic TV Editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami.
While granting the consent, the AG stated that the tweets by Sanitary Panels has a clear implication that Supreme Court is biased towards the ruling political party BJP, which is somehow interested in protecting Republic TV Editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami.
Last month, Attorney General KK Venugopal had also granted his consent to initiate contempt of court proceedings against far-left troll masquerading as a ‘stand-up comedian’ Kunal Kamra. A Mumbai based lawyer had sought the Attorney General’s permission to initiate contempt proceedings against Kunal Kamra for his tweets against the Supreme Court after the apex court had granted bail to Arnab Goswami.
Former cricketer and actor Yograj Singh, father of ex-cricketer Yuvraj Singh, has joined the ongoing farmers’ protests. He was seen giving provocative speeches among the farmers challenging PM Modi and HM Shah to show guts and come among farmers alone.
Yograj Singh justifies “Indira thok di…” comment
Speaking to a local Punjabi news channel Rozana Spokesmen, Yuvraj Singh’s father Yograj Singh justified death threat to PM Modi. When the anchor asked him about the statements made by the farmers wishing the death of PM Modi, Yograj tried to justify them by saying, “As you sow, so shall you reap.”
He said in the end, it is the fight of the sentiments. There is nothing wrong with making such statements. Pointing out to PM Modi, he said that the government should not make any statements that may divide the people of India. During the current agitation, a Sikh farmer from Punjab had said that if we can kill Indira, we could kill Modi as well.
He further accused central government of carrying out ‘atrocities’ worse than those carried out by barbaric invaders like Babur, Aurangzeb and the British. Comparing PM Modi with the devil, he said, “I have seen him [PM Modi] and other leaders in the central government. Their faces look like the face of the devil.”
Speaking in Punjabi, he said, ‘PM Modi may not know that devil and God are not on good terms. He has brought his life to the point where people will treat his, his cabinet ministers, and RSS leaders’ graves just like they treat the graves of Aurangzeb. They will burn borrowed lamps and spit on the graves. Does the Prime Minister want his life to be like that?’
Singh threatened PM Modi and said the border of Delhi is sealed. “If they open the borders and the situation comes to a clash, I challenge PM Modi to remove CRPF, BSF, Army, and Police and come alone. Then we will see how things go ahead,” the said.
He further threatened, “I want to remind you that Punjabis have conquered Delhi 18 times. It can be conquered 19th time. Don’t push us to that point. The stock of your bullets will burnout, but the Punjabis who are ready to face the bullets will keep coming. If you shoot even a single bullet, the way Mughals were rooted out, the countdown of your government will begin.”
Threatening Home Minister Amit Shah, he said, who knows how many days he has left. He alleged that the HM Shah had removed Sikh security guards from his security. He challenged Shah to bring Adani and Ambani as they are his friends to Punjab then we will see how they will go back.
‘Everyone here is a ‘Jarnail’’
In another video, Yograj was seen giving another provocative statement. While targeting PM Modi for being Gujarati, he said he had spent 15 years with Gujaratis in Mumbai. “These people would take a u-turn even if they swore on their mothers, sisters, and daughters,” he said.
Mentioning separatist Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, Yograj urged the farmers to raise another Bhindranwale amongst themselves. “Every person here is a ‘Jarnail.’ If you want to save Punjab, ensure that power is in your hands. If the power is in your hand, you will see a new sun rising from the land of Punjab,” he said.
Delhi farmers’ agitation
Since new farmers’ laws were notified after President’s approval, the farmers especially in the state of Punjab are agitating against them calling them anti-farmers. Some of the Farmers’ Unions’ leaders alleged that the government is planning to end MSP and Mandi system. They also alleged that government is helping corporate and they will take away farmers’ lands. Such misinformation has been refuted not only by the union ministers but also by the Prime Minister on several occasions. It was also found that the government has been trying to talk to the farmers for the last two months, but they denied all the requests.
Not only are some of the protestors completely clueless about the reason behind protests, some are not even farmers. Moreover, Bharat Kisan Union, one of foremost Farmers’ union had last year asked to end the Mandi system and allow the open sale of the crop. Now that the government has taken a step in that direction, same union is opposing it for political gains.
Further, the celebrity protestors have now hijacked the protest. The entry of “Shaheen Bagh’s dadi,” Yogendra Yadav, Khalistani supporters, opposition parties, and Bheem Army Chief and others in the protest is raising more questions over the actual motive behind the agitation. Reports have suggested that people living close the Delhi borders are facing problems in arranging food, water and medical care due to these protests.
On December 1st, the Calcutta High Court directed the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India to audit the distribution of relief to those affected by the Amphan Cyclone in West Bengal. Responding to a number of petitions alleging large scale irregularities and corruption in the distribution of relief money funded by the central govt, the High Court made the CAG a party to the writ petitions, so that it can comprehensively carry out the order of the court.
The order issued by a bench of Chief Justice Thottathil B. Radhakrishnan and Justice Arijit Banerjee said that in the wake of various suffering of the people in West Bengal as a result of Cyclone Amphan, the central govt had rolled out schemes, along with similar schemes in other states impacted by the cyclone. The complaints of the different petitioners are that the State Government through its officers had made unauthorized and illegitimate pick and choose of persons to whom the benefits were doled out and that the Amphan schemes were not operated in the manner as envisaged either by the Union of India or the State Government, the order states.
It further notes that petitioners have contended that there is no transparency in the so-called distribution of Amphan relief and there is no material available in the public domain in terms of the provisions of the Right to Information Act or otherwise, which would enable the citizenry to access information regarding the identity of the persons to whom such benefits have been provided. As a result of the same, a large number of people, who were true and real victims of Amphan, have suffered also the loss of support by way of relief schemes.
The petitioners also had alleged that the list of Amphan relief beneficiaries shown on the website of the State Government does not reflect the true state of affairs.
The High Court said that CAG has the necessary constitutional, statutory and administrative sanction, power and authority to conduct such inquiry as is necessary to ensure that there is financial audit and performance audit of the utilization of the Amphan relief fund. The Calcutta High Court asked the CAG to complete the probe within 3 months.
However, the probe by CAG will not stop the state government or any other agency to continue with distribution of Cyclone Amphan relief.
It may be noted that in June this year, West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee was forced to order a probe after allegations of large-scale corruption by TMC leaders in cyclone Amphan distribution had emerged. The state govt had decided to provide ₹20,000 each to 5 lakh people who had suffered damage to their houses due to the cyclone, but soon, more than 2000 complaints were filed with the CM alleging corruption.
Several TMC gram panchayat members and their relatives who own pucca houses and didn’t suffer any damage had received the relief, while genuine victims didn’t receive the same. Amazingly, some TMC leaders had actually justified getting money despite not suffering any damage, saying that the relief is meant for distribution among citizens, and that’s why they had also availed the same.
Following the allegations, the state govt had ordered a probe. But the fact that High Court has asked the CAG to probe the matter indicates that the state govt ordered probe didn’t yield any result.
In a major breakthrough, the UK has authorised Pfizer/BioNTech to make the Chinese coronavirus vaccine available across the country from next week. A report in The Guardian states that the first doses of the vaccine will arrive in the coming days.
The UK has purchased 40 million doses of the vaccine which has shown to have 95% efficiency in final trials. This is enough to vaccinate 20 million people with two shots each. Of these, 10 million doses will arrive soon.
A report in BBC states that the immunisation will start in coming days for people in high priority group. As per the report, care home residents, staff, people over 80 years of age and other healthcare and social care people are in high priority. Once more stock is available, others will also be vaccinated.
Usually, development of vaccine takes years, sometimes as long as decade. However, the coronavirus vaccine has developed within a span of ten months from concept to reality. The world was hit by the pandemic which originated in China sometime in November 2019.
UK is currently 7th most affected country in terms of total positive cases. Almost 60,000 people in UK have lost their lives due to the pandemic.
The central government, ahead of its meeting with the Farmers’ Union on Tuesday, reportedly prevented political activist and self-proclaimed psephologist Yogendra Yadav from inviting himself and presenting himself as a part of the delegation of farmers that held talks with the government.
The government did not want any political personality to be associated in negotiations with the farmers’ union and expressed their displeasure when Yogendra Yadav tried to project himself as a farmers’ representative.
Initially, the farmers’ union raised concerns to the government over the invitation being extended to only representatives from Punjab. In a bid to have a representation from across the country, they proposed 4 names in the delegation in addition to the 32 representatives from Punjab.
This four representative included— Gurnam Singh Chaduni from BKU Haryana; the national president of the Rashtriya Kisan Mazdur Mahasangh Shiv Kumar Kakka from Madhya Pradesh; the general secretary of the All India Kisan Sabha Hannan Mollah; and Swaraj India president Yogendra Yadav.
Amit Shah objected to my presence in the meeting: Yogendra Yadav
However, the Indian government objected to the inclusion of Yogendra Yadav’s name in the list. Yadav, speaking to the media, has claimed that it was Home Minister Amit Shah who had ‘personally objected’ to his presence. Shah had reportedly told the farmers that Yadav was a political leader and that they were only interested in having talks with the actual stakeholders, i.e the farmers, not the politicians.
“Though the farmers union decided that the invitation to the meeting would be accepted only if the four representatives were also added to the delegation, I was informed that Amit Shah personally objected to me being a part of it. The government said that I was political. The farmers’ union were ready to boycott the meeting but they went ahead with it on my insistence,” Yadav said as quoted by the Indian Express.
However, some other leaders have stated that many farmer leaders from Punjab did not want Yadav in the meeting either, because there is a growing resentment among the leaders over some ‘politicians’. As per the Hindu report, many Punjab farmer leaders were miffed at Yadav for trying to shift the protest venue to Burari grounds. Besides, the fact that some politicians like Yadav have been hogging all the limelight despite not contributing enough for the movement has also created displeasure among many leaders who have been ignored by media despite bringing thousands of protestors to Delhi.
Meeting between Centre and Farmers’ delegation remain inconclusive, to meet again on Thursday
The central government on Tuesday proposed to establish a committee to look into issues raised by farmers protesting against new farm laws, but it was rejected by representatives of the farmers’ union during their marathon meeting with three union ministers that ended without any resolution. As the meeting remained inconclusive, the government called for another round of discussions on Thursday.
The government has asked farmers’ bodies to identify specific issues related to the three new farm laws and submit those by Wednesday for consideration.
Food delivery app Swiggy recently stoked controversy by responding to a troll account taking an extreme political side. The controversy erupted after a far-left troll account had tweeted a hypothetical argument with a ‘Bhakt’ friend. Responding to the tweet, Swiggy decided that it would be good for their brand to join a troll account in mocking ‘Bhakts’ – a label often used by left-liberals to target Hindus and BJP supporters.
The tweet by the troll read, “Had an argument with my Bhakt friend over farmers protest. He said that we are not dependent on farmers for food. We can always order food from Swiggy. He won”.
Swiggy, through its official Twitter account joined the bandwagon and responded to the troll saying, “sorry, we can’t refund education”.
Swiggy responding to the Left troll
The tweet by Swiggy led to uproar across social media platforms. Several Netizens expressed displeasure saying that the tweet was derogatory. After Swiggy had decided to take a distinct political stand, Netizens also threatened to boycott the food delivery app.
For a food delivery app to wade into political mudslinging was rather inexplicable since it could only hurt their clientele. The marketing strategy, if at all it was that, was suicidal at best. To under the stand taken by Swiggy, social media user Vijay Patel started looking for which marketing agency handles business by Swiggy. He found, that it was a company called ‘Webchutney’ that had partnered with Swiggy and their antecedents explained why Swiggy chose to tweet what it did.
Vijay Patel discovered how the marketing agency, Webchutney, pushes its political and ideological agenda through its clients such as Swiggy.
Webchutney CEO and his own political bias
According to Patel, Webchutney handles social media marketing of Swiggy. Trying to understand the political bias, Patel delved into the nature of some tweets by the Chairman of Webchutney – Sidharth Rao.
It turns out that Rao himself has a distinct political bias and often takes to Twitter to mock and berate not just BJP supporters but also Hindus in general, or by extension.
Recently, Rao had liked a tweet posted by self-proclaimed ‘fact-checking’ website AltNews‘ founder Pratik Sinha. Pratik Sinha, who has a history of spreading fake news, had taken a sly at Hindus for believing in what he called a ‘dysfunction religious system’. Rao agreeing to his views promptly liked the tweet.
Image Source: Vijay Patel
Rao had also shared a tweet by controversial moviemaker Anubhav Sinha that took a sly on Hindus. It is pertinent to note that Sinha has a history displaying Hinduphobia. In fact, it is pertinent to note that he was an important part of the anti-CAA protests that led to the Delhi anti-Hindu riots. In the past, he had also tried to whitewash Kashmiri terrorists by claiming that the ‘Azadi’ slogan did not originate in the state. Further, in his movie ‘Article 15’, Sinha had indulged in blatant Hinduphobia by including anti-Brahmin propaganda.
Netizens argued that any individual in the country is entitled to his views on social media, be it political or ideological and it is not even an issue if Sidharth Rao was expressing his anti-Modi bias on social media platforms. However, Rao and his company Webchutney seems to have crossed the line by putting out their political ideals on social media via the platform of its clients, the netizens said.
Creative head follows his boss, displays his anti-Modi bias
Not just the chairman, but others from the Webchutney team seem to have a pronounced political bias that has now crept into their work and working actively to take down brads like Swiggy with them.
Responding to a tweet by PTI informing that PM Modi had announced a week-long campaign from August 8 to 15 to free India or garbage, Sanket in his tweet had asked, “where will the Bhakts go?”. Sanket, who thought his joke was funny, was referring to Bhakts as ‘garbage’.
Image Source: Vijay Patel
In another tweet, Sanket was caught mocking Ram Janmabhoomi Trust chairman, who had tested positive for the coronavirus just a week after he had shared the stage with PM Modi during the ‘Bhoomi Pujan’ event of Ram Mandir at Ayodhya.
Image Source: Vijay Patel
There were plenty of tweets by Sanket that displayed his staggering bias. In one, he invokes the Gujarat 2002 riots, which was a trope that expired in 2014 itself. Further, he retweeted a tweet claiming that the Prime Minister has control of the Judiciary.
Webchutney and its employees flee from social media platforms
After tweets of the CEO of Webchutney and its employees went viral, Webchutney not only locked its Twitter and Instagram accounts but also seems to have removed its Facebook account.
Ironically, the Webchutney Twitter profile, which wrote ‘bravest agencies on the planet’ in its Twitter bio, has locked its profile on Twitter so people who don’t follow them cannot view their tweets.
Image Source: Bajrangi Pikachu(@zLaTaNPiKaPi29)
Interestingly, it is not just the account of Webchurney that has now been protected. The Twitter accounts of the company’s CEO and their employee Sanket has also been locked.
Image Source: Vijay Patel
Webchutney embroiled in a MeToo controversy
Interestingly, the anti-Modi and anti-Hindu tweets are not the only things that define the marketing company. Webchutney was also embroiled in the MeToo controversy two years back. In 2018, Utsavi J, a former employee of the Webchutney had alleged that the then Creative Director of the company – Omkar Sane misbehaved with her. Sharing one of her bizarre experience with Omkar Sane, Utsavi had said that Sane had asked her whether her legs opened as wide as his.
Image Source: Vijay Patel
As one of its employees caught involving in indecent behaviour, an embarrassed Webchutney had to fire its creative director for the misconduct.
Swiggy, Webchutney yet to respond
Two days after being caught pushing anti-Modi propaganda on social media, neither Swiggy nor its marketing agency Webchutney has responded to the ongoing controversy.
As private citizens, people are free to hold their political views, however, when those political views start defining a company that has nothing to do with politics, the company must come forward to explain.
OpIndia has emailed Swiggy and Webchutney for their response to this controversy. As soon as we receive a response, this article will be updated with it.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is often referred to as ‘Canadian Pappu’. It is because marketing gimmicks and PR stunts carried out by Rahul Gandhi’s team often appear inspired from Trudeau’s. Here are a few examples of similar stunts carried out by the two political leaders over the years.
Appear ‘intelligent’
In 2016, Justin Trudeau gave a ‘quick lesson’ in quantum computing to a reporter.
Trudeau giving quantum computing ‘lesson’ to a reporter.
Of course, he was hailed by everyone as international media swooned over the ‘boyishly handsome’ leader. Few months later, our boy Rahul Gandhi decided he will address a gathering on Artificial Intelligence.
Rahul Gandhi wanted to address a gathering on AI
However, days later it was clarified that he was just going to address a gathering of Indian Overseas Congress and not really speaking on AI.
Fitness
Canada’s Trudeau has regularly appeared on various lists as one of the ‘fittest’ world leaders. He boxes, picks up a kid with one hand and gets clicked doing other sporty stuff because of which he is often called ‘fit’.
Justin Trudeau as one of the fittest leaders
And so, what does Rahul Gandhi do? Yes, he is suddenly an expert in Aikido, a Japanese martial art.
Rahul Gandhi expert in Japanese martial art form
One fine day, the nation wakes up with news that Rahul Gandhi not only knows Aikido, but he is apparently a ‘black belt’ in it. Oh and not only that Rahul is apparently a shooting expert too. Videos of Rahul Gandhi doing some Aikido moves, the first and only time we got to see him do it, went viral after Congress social media team released them.
Pidi and Kenzie
Remember how Pidi became famous after Congress lost Assam as Rahul Gandhi chose to play with his pet dog instead of discussing party problems? Trudeau did it first. No, not losing elections. But wowing the world with his pet dog.
Trudeau got a puppy
In 2016, Justin Trudeau took to Twitter to announce they got a puppy.
Obviously, the media swooned again over the ‘cute’ Trudeau family.
A year later, Rahul Gandhi revealed his ‘cute’ friend.
Ppl been asking who tweets for this guy..I'm coming clean..it's me..Pidi..I'm way ? than him. Look what I can do with a tweet..oops..treat! pic.twitter.com/fkQwye94a5
Of course, Rahul Gandhi was hailed as ‘cute’ and ‘cool’ and ‘funny’ for having a dog who does tricks.
Except, he was also given a truth pill by former Congress leader Himanta Biswa Sarma.
Sir @OfficeOfRG,who knows him better than me.Still remember you busy feeding biscuits 2 him while We wanted to discuss urgent Assam's issues https://t.co/Eiu7VsuvL1
Trudeau, in another random act of kindness, helped a man on wheelchair board the metro.
What does our boy do?
Rahul Gandhi’s random act of kindness
‘Good guy’ Rahul Gandhi comes to rescue of a journalist who was injured. Few days later, Congress workers beat up a journalist in Tamil Nadu for clicking pictures of empty chairs at public rally of Congress leader.
Fans
Justin Trudeau has fans. Not just fans, screaming fans.
In 2017, Rahul Gandhi very randomly tweeted birthday greetings to a 107 year old grandmother of a very vocal Congress supporter.
Dear Dipali, Please wish your beautiful grandmother a very happy birthday and a merry Xmas. Please also give her a big hug from me. Best, Rahul. https://t.co/lcp8NUa8Di
He also gave a ‘big hug’ to the lady who expressed desire to meet him as he was ‘handsome’.
He also called her personally and wished her.
And as if this was not enough @OfficeOfRG Mr.Gandhi called and personally wished my Nani!! This is #TrueHumaness. Thank you all of you for the blessings for her . Each one of them matter. https://t.co/ftvZ1pmhsJ
But wait. What Rahul Gandhi does today, Justin Trudeau has already done yesterday.
Justin Trudeau wishing 120 year old lady
The 120 year old lady had expressed her desire to meet Canadian PM Justin Trudeau for her birthday.
Compare and contrast
Rahul Gandhi and Justin Trudeau both come from strong political families. Rahul Gandhi’s father, grandmother and great grandfather have all been prime ministers of India. Trudeau’s father Pierre Trudeau was also Prime Minister of Canada. And while under Trudeau’s leadership Liberal Party in Canada won the 2015 elections, under Rahul Gandhi’s leadership, Congress had one of its most humiliating defeats in 2019 general elections.
Whether Rahul Gandhi is indeed inspired from Justin Trudeau or not no one knows, but the similarities in their PR strategy are too stark to not notice. And it is for this that Trudeau gets to be known as Rahul Gandhi equivalent of Canada.
