As all political opponents in Haryana gear up for the upcoming Assembly elections, Congress party in the state is going through immense turbulence. The internal discord shows up as the ex-party chief of Haryana, Ashok Tanwar has alleged the party of selling tickets to “undeserving” candidates and called his supporters to protest outside the AICC headquarters in Delhi on Wednesday.
Delhi: Former Haryana Congress Chief Ashok Tanwar holds protest outside Cong HQ, says, “For 5yrs I gave my blood&sweat for Congress.Leadership in Haryana has been destroyed.We’ve been dedicated to the Party.Why give tickets to those who’ve recently joined&criticised Cong earlier” pic.twitter.com/DgatGHgcYN
“For 5yrs I gave my blood&sweat for Congress. Leadership in Haryana has been destroyed. We’ve been dedicated to the Party. Why to give tickets to those who’ve recently joined&criticised Cong earlier,” said the ex-party chief while protesting outside Cong HQ.
In a voice message, the Congress leader had said that some people were out to ruin the Congress. “Come to AICC headquarters to save your interests as well as to save the interests of the party,” said Tanwar in the message.
Hundreds of Tanwar’s supporters had created a ruckus outside Sonia Gandhi’s residence on Tuesday alleging discrimination with them in the selection of candidates. Police had to be called as his supporters blocked the road outside Sonia’s residence.
Alleging that those who worked hard for five years to strengthen the Congress were being ignored in the distribution of tickets, Tanwar furthered that CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda was conspiring against him and his camp.
“Those who have worked for the party in the last five years are ignored in ticket distribution. The persons who have worked against the party are considered by former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda,” alleged the miffed leader.
Sources said that the party is even considering giving tickets to turncoats. As many as 10 leaders from different parties have been offered tickets by the Hooda camp to sway Tanwar’s supporters, said a leader.
Meanwhile, a worker belonging to Tanwar’s faction took the name of senior party members like Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Ghulam Nabi Azad, alleging that they were responsible for giving tickets to “undeserving” candidates.
They raised slogans against Azad who is the in-charge of the party’s Haryana affairs.
Ashok Tanwar has been involved in a bitter fight with Hooda after the former was shown the door as state chief by the latter. Such grave is the situation that Bhupinder Singh Hooda had almost threatened to split the party because of his antipathy to Ashok Tanwar.
As per sources, Tanwar had demanded the following seats: Rania, Kalawali, Dabwali, Ferozpur, Badhshpur, Fatehabad, Panipat rural, Sirsa city, Assand, Julana, Rai, Bawal, Ateli, Radour, Narwana, Kalanaur and Narnond, but incidentally was not even given any one of the seats.
The state will be going to polls on October 21, along with Maharashtra, while the counting of votes will be done on October 24 in a single phase. The BJP has already issued names of 78 candidates.
A tweet posted in 2018 by a Pastor from Sweden declaring teen star climate activist Greta Thunberg as the successor to the Jesus Christ has resurfaced in the wake of her ‘How Dare You!’ speech before the United Nations.
“Announcement! Jesus of Nazareth has now appointed one of his successors, Greta Thunberg,” the church reportedly tweeted on December 1, 2018. The Limhamns Church had previously tweeted several sentiments of climate activism.
?Lucka 1❄️
Kungörelse! Jesus från Nasaret har nu utsett en av sina efterträdare, nämligen Greta Thunberg.?
The 2018 tweet of the church has now appeared again on social media platforms following Thunberg’s appearance at the United Nations earlier this month in which she had warned about climate change during her speech, which has gone viral too.
“My message is that we’ll be watching you,” Thunberg warned the world leaders. “You all come to us young people for hope, how dare you? You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words and yet I’m one of the lucky ones … We are at the beginning of mass extinction and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you?” Thunberg had said in her animated speech.
Reportedly, the Church is known for its climate change activism, noting on their official website, “When the Amazon burns, we gather to fight for Mother Earth together.”
However, the church later said that the tweet was being misinterpreted. After some backlash in December when the tweet was published, the church posted a second tweet that suggested “success” could be interpreted in more than one way and apologised for the for hurting the sentiments. The Church had even quit the Twitter following the backlash it had received after the incident.
Kära twitter,
Har vi sårat någon ber vi om ursäkt, det har aldrig varit vår mening. Vår mening har varit att på vårt sätt tala om Jesus Kristus. Nu lämnar vi arenan. Tack för engagemang, glädje och debatt.
Gud välsigne er!
Jonas Persson, församlingsherde
“Dear Twitter, If we have hurt someone we apologize, it has never been our meaning. Our meaning has been to talk about Jesus Christ in our own way. Now we leave the arena. Thank you for your commitment, joy and debate. God bless you! Jonas Persson, the ward pastor,” said the Church.
There were several websites that had reported that it was the Sweden Church that had made this declaration, however, that was not entirely true. It was a Church in Sweden, however, the Swedish Church to which most of the Swedish congregation belongs had not made any such statement.
The 16-year-old Greta Thunberg last week had denounced world leaders for failing to tackle climate change in a speech at the start of a climate summit at the United Nations in New York. The dramatic speech made by Greta at the UN climate summit has received mixed reactions, with some sections even accusing her of being a left-wing created phenomenon.
A ten-year-old boy was mercilessly stabbed and his throat was slit while he was sleeping in the hostel of a Madarsa in UP on Tuesday. The student was rushed to the Medical College Hospital in Meerut in a critical condition.
The incident reportedly occurred in the Madarsa Islamiya Arabiya Ahle Sunnat Faiz-ul Uloom Rahmania in the Mohammadabad village under the Gajraula station limits.
The police suspect an insider’s role in the crime. They have detained two Madarsa staffs for questioning.
According to reports, the blood trail led the police straight to the room of the hostel, where the victim was sleeping along with 16 other children. “There were 17 students in the hall when the attack took place. All of them were sleeping. Assailants entered the room clandestinely and slit the student’s throat and stabbed him. The attackers fled after a student woke up to the pandemonium and started shouting for help,” said a madarsa staffer.
Hearing the screams, the other madarsa staffers woke up and rushed to the hall.
The principal of the Madarsa took the child to a nearby community health centre (CHC), from where he was referred to the Medical College in Meerut.
The knife used in the crime belonged to the common kitchen of the madarsa. The police later recovered it from a field next to the seminary’s boundary. They confirmed that “there were visible attempts to wipe the stains.”
Superintendent of Police (SP) Vipin Tada and Gajraula Station House Officer (SHO) D.K. Sharma reached the Madarsa and started the investigation in the case. They have registered a case against unidentified persons.
SP Tada said, “Police have registered a case and detained two persons from the madarsa on suspicion. There were bloodstains on the floor of another room of a suspect. The culprit tried to wash it with water. We suspect that someone from the madarsa is involved in the attack. The cause of the attack is yet to be ascertained.”
Google Map now lists over 57,000 public toilets in 2,300 plus cities across India on its platform, giving a major boost to PM Narendra Modi’s flagship project, the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. The announcement had been made on the eve of Mahatma Gandhi’s 150 birth anniversary.
Users can now type ‘public toilets near me’ on Google Search, Google Assistant or Google Maps and get instant locations of public toilets near their area.
“We believe that making information about public sanitation facilities easily accessible to people is a key element for social good – one that also constitutes the cornerstone of the government’s Swachh Bharat campaign to promote clean habits and hygiene,” said Anal Ghosh, Senior Programme Manager of Google Maps on Tuesday as part of the announcement.
“For this campaign, our product and engineering teams together built a new process to integrate toilet listings into Google Maps seamlessly,” said Ghosh adding that more than 2.5 lakh users are already searching for public toilets every month across Google Search and Google Maps.
Google Maps result for public toilets
The initiative was initially launched in 2016 as a pilot project in three cities, namely, in New Delhi, Bhopal, and Indore as a joint initiative with the Swachh Bharat Mission and Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.
In addition, the ‘Google My Business” platform has helped the government take ownership of these listings on Google Maps so they could monitor visits, ratings, reviews and more, thereby, gaining insights that could help them take necessary action to maintain and upgrade toilets, the company informed. Moreover, Google Maps’ active Local Guides community continues to share feedback on toilets in their locality.
Last year, Google Maps ran a campaign to spread awareness that resulted in 32,000 reviews, photos, and edits being added to public toilets across India by local guides.
The Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, a flagship initiative of PM Modi’s government, which was launched in 2014 with an aim to clean up the streets, roads, and infrastructure of India’s cities, towns, and rural areas, had been termed as the ‘biggest sanitation movement’ in the world by the World Bank. This initiative has received several acclamations from organisations like the World Health Organisation (WHO) and UNICEF.
Under the NDA government’s flagship scheme the ‘Swachh Bharat Abhiyan’ (clean India mission), over 93 per cent of rural households in India now have access to toilets out of which around 96.5 per cent households have used the facility.
PM Modi, in September last year, while launching ‘Swachhta Hi Seva’ campaign had said the sanitation coverage in the country has increased from almost 40 per cent to nearly 90 per cent and asserted that the ‘Swachh Bharat Mission’ is playing a central role in creating a healthy India.
The United States today raised concerns of possible terror attacks in India engineered by Pakistan based terror outfits in retaliation to India’s move to abrogate Article 370, stripping away the separate status of Jammu and Kashmir and the subsequent bifurcation of the state into two union territories for exercising tighter control.
The US intelligence agencies have observed that Pakistan based terror organisations might launch terror attacks in India unless Pakistan “keep a lid on these terror groups”.
The Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs, Randall Shriver, while responding to a question on China’s support to Pakistan on the issue of Kashmir after India repealed articles 370 and 35A of its Constitution that gave temporary special privileges to Jammu and Kashmir said, “I believe that many want Pakistan to keep a lid on terror groups that might conduct cross-border activities as a result of the Kashmir decisions, and I don’t get the impression that China wants that kind of escalation or would support that.”
Shriver further continued saying that Chinese support to Pakistan on Kashmir is largely diplomatic and political in nature. “Chinese have resolutely supported Pakistan on international forums. There are discussions ongoing if Kashmir would be taken up in the UN. China would support that. But in terms of anything beyond that, it is highly improbable to me,” the Pentagon official said.
Regarding the relationship between China and Pakistan, Shriver said that they have has long-established ties with each other and are facing stiff competition from India. He also added that India is seeking a stable relationship with China.
“We have discussed with India about our relationship with China. They want a stable relationship with China, but there’s no doubt that there are rising concerns and competitiveness there as well. So I believe on a range of issues to include Kashmir, China has titled towards Pakistan,” Shriver said.
In addition to this, Shriver also remarked upon the External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar’s ongoing visit saying that the United States is having consultations with him.
Ever since India abrogated Article 370 from its Constitution, Pakistan has been jockeying at international forums and requesting countries to condemn India’s move and pressurise her into revoking its decision. However, most of the countries have disregarded Pakistan’s shrill rhetoric.
A desperate and isolated Pakistan facing humiliation across the world for its state-sponsored terror policy attempted to create chaos as their proxies – radical Islamists and pro-Khalistani terrorists had thronged to the NRG stadium, the venue of the “Howdy, Modi!” to try and disrupt the community event to be addressed by PM Modi. An OpIndia investigation has revealed the protest organisers’ relationship with these radical Islamist and pro-Khalistani elements earlier.
An investigation conducted by India Today has revealed that there have been direct links between Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf and Khalistani and radical Islamist groups that had created chaos at the NRG stadium during the “Howdy, Modi!” event on September 24. Shockingly, the shabby plan of Pakistan to disrupt the “Howdy, Modi” rally was devised directly while keeping Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan in the loop.
According to the Sunday Guardian investigation, the protests also got support from Islamic organisations linked to terror group Hizbul-Mujahideen.
The visit of Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan to the US and the subsequent propaganda carried out by the Pakistani establishment against India since the abrogation of Article 370 was aided by massively funded “Pakistan friendly” media coverage in the US and global press on the issue of Kashmir. The India Today Open Source Investigation (OSINT) has now threw light on the methods and characters employed during this campaign by the Pakistani deep state.
Behind the Imran Khan’s propaganda in the United States, the investigation reveals that a shell NGO and an advertising blitzkrieg backed by PR firms in the US was responsible for anti-India protests that were carried out by pro-Pakistan groups with the support of Tehreek-i-Insaf and organisation linked to Hizbul Mujahideen.
The NGO – International Humanitarian Foundation Inc
An NGO named International Humanitarian Foundation Inc. (IHF) was behind the Pakistani campaign, which was the main organiser of the anti-India protest in Houston on September 22 at the NRG Stadium in Houston. On September 27, the New York Times ran a full-page ad with false and misleading headlines like “The Seizing of Kashmir is Blatant Racism,” and “8 Million Under Siege by a Million Soldiers Since August 5th.” The sponsor for the advertisement was listed as the International Humanitarian Foundation.
According to advertising rates of the New York Times, this advertisement alone would have cost at least $100,000 to the IHF.
Further, the website of International Humanitarian Foundation, which is managed by a resident of Houston but who is originally from Rawalpindi, became active in July-August this year. IHF which claims to be an international humanitarian non-profit has no visible body of humanitarian work in any other region of the world on any other issue. The NGO was brought into existence in July, after the announcement of the “Howdy, Modi!” event specifically with a purpose to disrupt the event.
Image Source: India Today
Reportedly, the individual behind the website and the Facebook page also runs a Twitter handle of the “Overseas affairs of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)” and is a prominent PTI voice of Houston. A major gathering to discuss on how to disrupt the Modi event was held on September 4 at a restaurant in Houston where PTI leaders, along with Khalistani faces, met to raise funds for the anti-Modi protests.
Among those who were present in the meeting was one Atif Khan who is the President of PTI, Houston Chapter. Later, his efforts to disrupt the “Howdy, Modi!” was praised by Imran Khan who met him personally on September 24.
Pakistan Federal Minister Ali Amin Gandapur was also present at a similar event attended by the same group of people which was held just one day before the “Howdy, Modi!” event, to make sure that everything was in order. We had reported how the terror state of Pakistan had put its dirty hand to ransack the event after Pakistan’s federal minister for Kashmir affairs, Ali Amin Gandapur was seen outside the venue of Houston event.
The Sunday Guardian investigation states that other prominent stakeholders of a local news channel owned by Pakistani nationals were a part of these strategy meetings. The event was also attended by Sajjad Burki, who is a senior leader of the PTI overseas wing.
Further, a major part of the funding for the protests was arranged by the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), whose Houston unit president, Sultan Salahuddin, was himself present in the meeting and was given special attention because of the hold he has over the Muslim population of the area.
The Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) is a “domestic affiliate” of the terrorist organisation of Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), which is a banned organisation in India. The Jamaat’s terror wing is Hizbul Mujahideen. With PTI and ICNA behind the protest event to disrupt the event, elaborate planning was put in place. The mosques in the area were used by the protesters to broadcast messages asking people to enrol themselves in large numbers for the protests.
The Khalistani terror sympathisers of the notorious “2020 Punjab referendum”, which calls for a separate Khalistan, was also involved in the protest rally at the Houston. The organisers arranged free bus rides for protesters from many religious sites, including the Miskah Islamic Center, a Houston-based organisation that works towards conserving and promoting Islamic culture.
At least 20 prescribed points of shuttle service, comprising 120 buses were arranged by the organisers to carry the protesters and drop at the venue of the protest. More than 700 volunteers were engaged in this process.
The OpIndia investigation earlier had also revealed details regarding how radical Islamists and Khalistanis backed by IHF in Houston had organised anti-Modi protests ahead of ‘Howdy, Modi!’ event.
The PR Firm pushing Pakistan’s anti-India agenda:
A report published by the O’Dwyer PR, a US-based platform which publishes rankings of the PR companies in the United States, stated that IHF had signed a $50,000 contract with a US-based PR firm Fenton Communications.
Pakistan’s newspaper Dawn had reported that Imran Khan even held a meeting with David Fenton, the founder of Fenton communication in New York during the visit.
The O’Dwyer report further claims that the IHF is run by representatives of Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI). Atif Iqbal Khan who is also president of Houston chapter of PTI and very close to Imran Khan is linked to IHF, who had reportedly posted a message on his social media page thanking the designer for preparing the NYT ad-design on short notice.
Interestingly, the terror state of Pakistan backed IHF spent money worth $150,000 for advertising and PR over 12 days alone. In addition to these costs, the cost of logistics which includes “free park and ride” in Houston and New York could take the expenditure amount by the purported humanitarian organization to its double.
The details of the investigations reveal how deeply the anti-India lobby abroad is connected with Pakistan and terror organisations that find support and shelter in Pakistan. The anti-India lobby, be it pro-Khalistani elements or the groups claiming to be concerned about Kashmir invariably find support and backing from the Pakistani government. The extent of the expenses, PR campaign and depth only show how far Pakistan is willing to go to protray a negative image of India to the world.
Popularly hailed as Dr Jhatka and King of Jhatka evolution on Social Media, Ravi Ranjan Singh, the chairman of Jhatka Certification Authority, amidst the raging debate over halal and jhatka meats, explained in detail the conceptual difference between the two and the underlying deeper shenanigans associated with the sale of halal meat.
In an exclusive interview to OpIndia, Singh stated that halal is a broader Arabian concept which means “Permissible Legitimate” and meat is simply a minuscule part of it. The concept of halal extends to many more things. Singh said that the faith of Islam is based on the beliefs of halal and haram which is different from the ancient understanding of halal. He further added that the halal certified food is Islamic halal and it is in accordance with the Islamic beliefs, but it usually perceived as universal halal. “Islamic halal is permissible according to Islam but it may not be permissible to others who are not Muslims,” Singh said.
Singh argues that a restaurant or a food outlet should offer consumers with the option of having halal or jhatka meat and not just cravenly submit to the Muslim diktat of serving only halal meat, that may flout the beliefs of non-Muslims. Singh said that the Jhatka ritual demands an instant sacrifice of the animal, sparing it the torture of slow and painful death, a characteristic of halal way of killing animals.
Singh expounded that in the Jhatka ritual, the connection between the spinal cord and brain is instantly snapped, resulting in the instant death of the animal while in the halal ritual, the animal’s jugular vein is slit and it is left to bleed to death.
The chairman of Jhatka Certification Authority mentions that he or his organisation is not against the halal type of meat but against the imposition of halal on non-Muslims who do not particularly believe in the ideal cherished in Islam. Citing Indian parliament and Indian Railways who only serve halal meat, Singh said that a customer should have a choice of opting for halal meat or jhatka meat instead of only having the option of choosing halal meat.
A petition filed by Singh in 2009 in the parliament seeking inclusion of jhatka meat alongside halal meat in the Indian parliament and Indian Railways is still pending. “It is Indian parliament and Indian railways, not a Muslim parliament or Muslim railways. We are not sitting in Syria. If you want to serve meat, serve both types of meat or else stop serving meat altogether. You cannot force me or anybody to else to consume meat procured through Islamic procedures,” Singh asserted.
Update: Indian Railway and IRCTC have denied the claim that only halal meat is served on trains, read the detail response bellow.
When questioned about other dimensions that determine a product to be halal, Singh replied that there are multiple phases through which halal had gained prominence in the world. “Before Islam, Jews propounded halal in form of Kosher. The method of painfully slaughtering the animal is similar so I disapprove it. However, I don’t oppose it because no Jew is going to be killing for not having kosher,” Singh said.
“There are umpteen conditions to be adhered too for a product to be halal certified. One of them being animal has to be face Mecca while being slaughtered. I have no objection with this stipulation as i believe either it is sinful to consume meat or it is not, it is not going to be virtuous depending on the direction in which it faces,” Singh added.
However, one of the most objectionable conditions that accompanies halal, according to Singh, is “no employment or financial benefit granted to a Kafir (non-Muslim)”. Singh listed another contentious condition which said that a certain part of profit made by halal products goes towards financing jihads. “When I’m buying halal certified products, I’m directly funding my own death. Any halal certified product-chips, chocolate, meat, purchased by me is financing my death. Even vegeterian products are halal certified. It has no relation with the meat but a part of it goes into supporting jihad,” Singh said.
According to Singh, halal supporters claim that the amount earmarked for jihad is basically zakat that goes into religious charity. However, there is no mechanism to check how this religious charity is used by Islamic institutions, contends Singh. “This jihad is nothing but a fight against the non-believers until they embrace Islam. This is not halal, this is halalonomics aimed at converting non-Muslims into Muslims,” Singh affirmed.
In an explosive revelation, Singh asserted that the Municipal outsourced Jhatka slaughterhouse plant in Delhi’s Ghazipur area continues to provide halal meat as the outsourcing company is owned by a Muslim. “There are 3 plants for procuring raw meat in Delhi. 1 is halal plant, the other one is jhatka and the third one is for big animals like buffalo. However, cow meat can be easily mixed with buffalo meat. All the three are owned by Muslim outsourcing company and halal continues to be the mode of slaughter in all three of them. There should be a mechanism in place to check the operations of such plants,” Singh said.
Singh claims that his fight is not against halal products but against the forceful foisting of halal meat on the consumers. He asserted that many people who have joined in his campaign to make jhatka meat easily available for public consumption were the ones who had never had meat in their life but they understood the logicality of his arguments and thus stood behind him in his demand to have jhatka meat.
Singh admitted that the limitations attached to jhatka are more profound than halal as halal is now pervasive across the world with anyone living in Brazil or in Tamil Nadu would instantly realise what halal stands for. Besides meat, there are halal airways, halal medicines, halal hospitals etc. In contrast to this, Singh said that there certification of jhatka upholds the idea of torture-less death of animals throughout the value chain and no support or monetary donation to terror groups.
Update: Although Ravi Ranjan Singh claimed that Indian Railway serves only Halal meat, IRCTC, which supplies food on Indian Railway trains, has rejected this claim. When OpIndia reached out to Railways for their comments on the issue, an official in Railway Ministry said that IRCTC does not specify Halal or Jhatka for the meat they serve. They informed that IRCTC follows ISO and HACCP guidelines for selecting suppliers of poultry and meat. The ministry also informed that this issue was raised earlier also in 2010, when IRCTC had issued a detailed explanation.
OpIndia has accessed a copy of the statement issued by IRCTC, which states that IRCTC does not have any specific guidelines issued by the railway ministry regarding dietary preferences of various religious and social communities. It informs that IRCTC does not mention the type of meat like Halal and Jhatka for poultry or meat served to railway passengers, nor such specifications are mentioned in its tenders for procuring the same. The IRCTC statement says that it sources meat only from HACCP certified suppliers through tenders, and FS&SAI has also not specified any coding in regard to method of slaughter.
The Jammu and Kashmir administration has freed almost all local leaders in Jammu who were kept in house arrest following the abrogation of Article 270. Almost all leaders of Conference (NC), Congress and Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers Party (JKNPP) in the Jammu region has been released from their detention. They were under preventive detention since August 5 when the Articles 370 and 35A were abrogated by the union government.
NC leaders Devender Rana and SS Salathia, Congress leader Raman Bhalla and JKNPP leader Harshdev Singh are some of the prominent leaders to be released from house arrest.
Prominent leaders from the Kashmir region continues to be under preventing detention in Srinagar, including former CMs Farooq Abdullah, Ohousemar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti.
The decision to end the detention of the leaders came after the government announced elections for Block Development Council in the state, the second tier of the Panchayati Raj system. According to reports, since the Jammu region remained peaceful, and the situation has come back to normalcy in the state, the decision to end the preventive detentions was taken.
On 29th September, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Electoral Officer had announced that the Block Development Council election will take place on 24th October in the state. Elections will be conducted in 310 out of 316 blocks in Jammu and Kashmir, across Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh regions. Counting will take place on the same after the voting is over on 24th. The entire process of election will be completed before 5th November. It may be noted that the state will get divided into two union territories, Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh, on 31st October.
J&K chief election commissioner Shailendra Kumar had also informed that electoral rolls will be revised after BDC polls, and new voters will be added to the roll as many people will be eligible to vote in local body elections after the abrogation of Article 370. The Panchayat elections for vacant seats in the state will be conducted using the revised electoral list.
Assistant Director of Doordarshan Podhigai TV, the Tamil channel of DD, R Vasumathi, has been suspended for dereliction of duty. She had reportedly blacked out the speech of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He was addressing IIT-Madras during the Convocation.
Doordarshan is a public service broadcaster found by the Government of India. Though autonomous, it does not have the liberty to blackout the speech of the Prime Minister of India as any private channel has the liberty to do.
As per reports, the Prime Minister’s office sought an explanation from Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting Prakash Javadekar on why Doordarshan Podhigai, the Tamil channel of DD in Chennai had not telecast live the speech of PM Modi on Monday.
Reportedly, DD Podhigai was busy telecasting a Tamil song and a drama when Prime Minister Modi was delivering a speech at the prize distribution ceremony of the Singapore-India Hackathon and the 56th annual convocation of IIT-Madras.
Narendra Modi had attended the convocation ceremony on the 30th of September where he addressed the students. Addressing the gathering, the Prime Minister said, “In front of me is both a mini-India and the spirit of New India. There is energy, vibrancy and positivity. I could see dreams of the future in your eyes. I could see the destiny of India in your eyes”.
Congratulating the parents and teachers of the graduating students, Narendra Modi also lauded the support staff. “I also want to highlight the role of the support staff. The silent, behind the scenes people who prepared your food, kept the classes clean, kept the hostels clean”.
Popular social media site Twitter is facing outage across the world today, with many users unable to post updates and images. Twitter dashboard management app Tweetdeck is most affected as it has stopped working for most users, while Twitter web interface and phone apps were working intermittently.
We’ve been experiencing outages across Twitter and TweetDeck. You might have had trouble Tweeting, getting notifications, or viewing DMs. We’re currently working on a fix, and should be back to normal soon.
Twitter said that they are aware of the outages across Twitter and Tweetdeck, and working on a fix. They said that the microblogging should be back to normal soon.
A Tweetdeck outage map shows that the app is down across the globe, particularly in North America, Europe, India etc regions. This map is based on people reporting about the outage they are facing.
Initially, when users tried to log into Tweetdeck, they were redirected to Twitter web interface. After some time, Tweetdeck started loading, and while it loaded tweets, most people are not able to post tweets and direct messages through the app. Users are also unable to share webpages using the Twitter share button on such sites.
