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Fact-Check: Kaushik Basu falsely claims Elon Musk, Warren Buffett, and several other world-renowned persons have PhD in Economics

Virulent anti-Modi economist and an ardent supporter of the Congress party, Kaushik Basu recently posted an image on Twitter where he claimed that it is a poster at Virginia Tech, Virginia, USA, and it carried the names of business and political leaders who have a Doctorate degree in Economics.


The poster carried the photographs of world-renowned personalities such as Warren Buffet (CEO of Berkshire Hathaway), Michael Corbat (CEO Citigroup), Roger Goodell (NFL Commissioner), Li Keqiang (Premier, China), Elon Musk (CEO SpaceX and Tesla) and former Prime Minister of India, Dr. Manmohan Singh.

But contrary to the claim made by Basu, not everyone in the said picture has a Doctorate degree in Economics. Elon Musk only has a Bachelor’s degree in Economics, so do Michael Corbat, Roger Goodell and Meg Whitman (CEO Hewlett Packard). Warren Buffett has a Master’s degree in Economics while Li Keqiang and Manmohan Singh do have a PhD degree in the subject.

Therefore, the claim made by Kaushik Basu in his tweet is ostensibly false. Names of people having PhD are generally prefixed with the title Dr., and while the former Indian PM is addressed as Dr. Manmohan Singh, most others in the list don’t have that title added to their names. The poster that he shared contains the photographs of people who have a degree in Economics. The purpose was ostensibly to put Manmohan Singh in the company of other renowned figures in his field but it could certainly have been done without making false claims.

Basu, himself, as the Chief Economic Adviser to the Government of India oversaw India’s decline into a terrible economic crisis. He had also demanded that Demonetization should be rolled back. On Twitter, his most glorious achievement remains the through humiliation he received from the caustic yet brilliant Nassim Nicholas Taleb.

Fact Check: Did Navjot Singh Sidhu say that Indian Army is scared as reported by a Pakistani news channel

Today Pakistani news channel Dunya News reported that Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu has said that Indian army is scared. In its news bulletin, the channel reported that Sidhu has again attacked the Modi government over the ongoing India-Pakistan conflict, and has tweeted that the Indian Army is scared due to the situation. They have repeated several times saying that Sidhu has said “Bhartiya sena dari hui hai” in a tweet.


After the channel posted a tweet with the quote attributed Sidhu, he became the immediate target of criticism on Twitter. Sidhu is commenting against the Indian government for some time, but to say that the Indian Army is scared is highly objectionable. Therefore, we tried to find out whether he actually said this, and if he did, in what context.

Dunya News said that the comment was made on Twitter. But when we looked at his Twitter account, we could not find any tweet saying that Indian Army is scared. We also didn’t find any evidence of any deleted tweet, as alert users usually respond to such tweets immediately and many time screenshots are taken. He has posted two tweets today, one in English and the other one a Hindi version of the same. In that tweet, he says that “Army is sacred as the state”. He asks the government to stop politicising the top institutions like CBI, RBI etc, and asks that army should be left to fight battles, not elections.

If one compares this tweet with the Dunya News report, it can be seen that other than the comment about scared army, other comments made by Sidhu are the same in both. This means, there is a strong possibility that Dunya News misread sacred as scared, and reported on the basis of such wrong assumption.

It is important to note that while the channel said that Sidhu has tweeted the comments, they didn’t show the tweet on screen, which is usually done by TV channels while quoting from social media. Therefore, it can’t be said for certain whether they misread the tweet, or it was a deliberate distortion by them. But one thing is almost certain, although Sidhu has been making lots of anti-India comments, he perhaps didn’t say that Indian Army is scared.

Maharashtra: CPI(M) suspends state secretary after he praised PM Modi for launching housing scheme

The Communist Party of India (Marxist)’s unit of Maharastra has removed its state secretary Narasayya Adam from the Central Committee for three months, for reportedly praising PM Modi and CM Devendra Fadnavis.

“We’ve decided to suspend Maharashtra CC (Central Committee) secretary, Narasayya Adam, from the Central Committee for 3 months. This is a consequence of his speech at a public event in Solapur in presence of the Prime Minister & Maharashtra CM which hurt the party’s image” CPI(M), the highest decision making part of the party, stated.


The suspended member, Narasayya Adam campaigns for affordable housing to people belonging to the unorganized class. Prime Minister Modi had laid the foundation stone for the construction of 30,000 houses for women involved in the business of making beedi, during his visit to Solapur last month. Adam is a former MLA from Solapur City Central.

This project will provide subsidy up to Rs 1.5 lakh to a family which owns land to build a house. In case of a landless family, the government will provide financial help of Rs 50,000 to fund suitable land to and build a house.  In his speech, Narasayya Adam had said that he was grateful to “the dear Prime Minister Modi” for giving 30,000 houses to poor women of Solapur.

“I have been dreaming about this for seven to eight years. The coalition government (of NCP-Congress) had kept it on the back burner for three years. But our brave chief minister (Fadnavis) took out the file and gave to Modi Saab and that dream seems to be coming to fruition.” Adam had said. He had also wished another tenure for PM Modi as the prime minister. Adam said that by 2022, 30,000 houses will be built under the guidance of PM Modi.

Our deployment remains undeterred to protect National Maritime Interests: Indian Navy responds to Pakistan propaganda video

In response to Pakistan Navy releasing a propaganda video claiming it has ‘detected’ Indian Navy submarine INS Kalvari, the Indian Navy has now released a statement saying that Indian Navy’s deployment remains undeterred to protect India’s maritime interests.

The statement issued by Indian Navy

The Indian Navy has said that as was stated in the Joint Press Conference on 1st March 2019, the Indian Navy remains deployed as necessary to protect National Maritime Interests.

The statement read, “Over the past several days, we have witnessed Pakistan indulging in false propaganda and spread misinformation. The Indian Navy does not take cognizance of such propaganda. Our deployment remains undeterred”.

Earlier today, the Pakistan Navy had released a propaganda video claiming that Indian submarine INS Kalvari was ‘detected’.


Many had theorised that the video was old. However, with the Indian Navy’s statement, it is evident that India is maintaining its Naval deployment to protect the Interests of India from an aggressive, terror exporting country like Pakistan.

After the Balakot airstrikes conducted by India deep inside Pakistan territory in Balakot against Jaish-e-Mohammad terror camps, Pakistan has been escalating the situation on the Line of Control. Pakistan has also tried its best to paint India as the aggressor and itself as the victim. However, the truth is far from it. While India targeted terror camps, Pakistan retaliated by trying to bomb India’s military installations. Since then, India has maintained a high level of preparedness for any misadventure that Pakistan might indulge in.

Madhya Pradesh: Mob pelts stones at a school bus after a goat was hit, leaves children injured and shaken

A school bus ferrying children in Quazi Palasiya in Indore, Madhya Pradesh, met with an accident after the brakes failed. The driver, in an attempt to save the lives of the children, steered the bus in a field. In that process, one of the goats which was grazing in the field died.

The owner of the goat Rizwana Bi got furious and entered the bus and beat up the driver, Mukesh. Later, her son Mohammad Alpesh then called up his friends who started pelting stones at the school bus.

There were reportedly around 50 students inside the bus at that time. The windows of the bus broke, leaving the school children hurt and traumatised. One of the teachers who was accompanying the children in the bus tried to stop the mob, but couldn’t succeed.

A security guard from the nearby government school came and dispersed the mob. He then called up the police authorities who came and took the children to a hospital. Nine children aged between 6 to 14 were injured by broken glass.

As per media reports, a police complaint has been registered against Rafiq, Shakeel, Rashid, Aarif, Sabir, Hakim, Naeem, Naseer, Javed, Naushad and Mohammad Alpesh, as well as Rizwana Bi and eight, are arrested. A case has also been registered against the driver, Mukesh, on behest of Hakim.

Here are 5 events that will follow the ‘preventive detention’ of 44 terrorists by Pakistani authorities

Pakistan has claimed to have taken 44 terrorists into ‘preventive detention’ for investigation. The terrorists include Mufti Abdul Raoof and Hamad Azhar, brother and son of Jaish-e-Muhammad chief Masood Azhar.

Preventive detention order

The Indian media should be careful to not see this as evidence of ‘statesman’ Imran Khan as they have been overeager to do in recent times. Such actions have been taken in the past as well when terrorists such as Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi and Masood Azhar were taken under ‘preventive detention’ before being released without any action.

Given Pakistan’s track record, there is a series of events we can expect from Pakistan if things proceed along expected lines.

1. The Interrogation phase

The Pakistani establishment will claim that it is interrogating the terrorists for their involvement in terrorism. Days will pass by without much news on the matter. Cliched statements will be issued from time to time to fend off international pressure on them to take action against terrorism. Meanwhile, the terrorists would enjoy the best facilities provided for them by the Pakistani Army, paid for by the Pakistani taxpayers.

2. ‘Investigation is going on’

When the charade of ‘preventive detention’ can’t be maintained anymore, a statement will be issued that the authorities are seriously investigating the series of charges against the terrorists. The political leaders will reaffirm their commitment to tackle the menace of terrorism and walk with their chests all puffed up.

3. Patience until International Pressure eases off

Currently, the Pakistani establishment is looking to avoid being blacklisted by the FATF. It has been given an October deadline to complete its action plan to get out of the grey list, failing which it might be blacklisted. Being in the FATF grey list makes it difficult for a country to get international loans. Therefore, until October, the Pakistanis will pretend to be extremely serious about its crackdown on terrorism.

3. A Quiet Release

After Pakistan has been removed from the FATF grey list, it will quietly release the terrorists back into the open. The purpose of ‘preventive detention’ has been achieved. It has avoided backlash from international watchdogs, bought itself time to crawl along until the next deadline. The terrorists, too, enjoyed a nice vacation at the taxpayers’ expense and are rejuvenated by their holiday.

4. Investigations are Dropped

Soon, the Pakistani authorities will claim that their thorough investigations have yielded no results and they have found no evidence to suggest that the terrorists are involved in any acts of terrorism. They will declare them to be messengers of peace who are involved in charity and social work. They will further chastise those who ever doubted their integrity. The terrorists will be exonerated and soon they will be back at work urging Muslims to wage jihad against Hindus.

5. Return-Resume-Restart

Things will then return to their normal state of affairs. The terrorists, now back out in the open, will resume their normal operations and with express approval from the Pakistani establishment restart their proxy war against India. They will again try to smuggle terrorists across the border with help from the Pakistani Army and carry on their efforts to bleed India with a thousand cuts.

Of course, after the airstrikes conducted by the Indian Air Force within Pakistani territory in response to the Pulwama terror attack, some things could change. The costs of terrorism have increased manifold for the Pakistani Army. Therefore, certain things may change going forward. However, it is unlikely that Pakistan will mend its ways following a single instance of airstrikes. More likely, they are just biding their time to look for the next best opportunity to strike back.

Congress party now doing international mahamilawat with Pakistan for political benefits: PM Modi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has issued a clear warning to Pakistan that India will take strict action if it continues terror activities against India. Speaking at a public rally in Dhar in Madhya Pradesh, Modi said that India has announced at the top of its voice that it has warned terrorists and supporters of terrorism that now they have no other way other than correcting themselves, and even if they don’t mend their ways, they have been told what will happen to them, what will be done to them. He was attending the Vijay Sankalp rally of BJP in Madhya Pradesh.


PM Modi said that while the entire world is saying that what India has done is right, it is the misfortune of this country that some people here do not agree with that. Targeting the Congress party for its comments after the Pulwama terror attack, he said that the party that ruled for the longest period is raising questions on the abilities of our defence forces. In this, one leader from Madhya Pradesh is seen very ahead. Modi was referring to Congress demanding proofs of the Balakot airstrike done by IAF, and comments of former MP CM Digvijay Singh on the issue. Talking about Digvijay Singh terming the horrific Pulwama terror attack as an accident today morning, the prime minister said that this is the mentality of Congress leaders. To save the terrorists, to take their side, Congress is now calling the terror attack an accident, he said.


https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsHe said that this is the special commander of the ‘naamdar’ family, who is now looking like a peace messenger encouraging terrorism. This is the same person who thought that the world’s biggest terrorist Osama Bin Laden was a messenger of peace. This person also had given a clean chit to Pakistan in Mumbai terror attack and wanted to mislead the course of the investigation, Modi attacked Digvijay Singh referring to his attempts to pin the blame of the 26/11 terror attacks on RSS.

Modi also took a dig at former Congress president Sonia Gandhi, saying that don’t forget, one courtier of the royal family had informed the entire world that when the terrorists were killed in Batla House encounter in Delhi, the person running the government through remote control could not stop tears. How can we expect that such a Congress party will finish terrorism, Modi asked. Due to such soft approach towards terrorism, earlier terrorists were not given a fitting response after terror attacks, he said.

PM Modi also said that India did the air strike on Pakistan, but some people in India are feeling sad for the same. Referring to Pakistan using comments of Congress party leaders, he said those who do maha‑milawat in India are indulging in international maha‑milawat. They are partnering with Pakistan for political purposes. These people attack Modi, and Pakistan claps on that. While papers here are full of their comments, on TV channels there also only faces of these people are only seen, Modi said.

Narendra Modi said that after the airstrike on Jaish camps, when Pakistan had become silent, got isolated in the entire world, these people came forward to save the prestige of Pakitan. Some people started asking for proof, some started asking the number of dead bodies, while some even started to project Pakistan as angel of peace. When the entire country has become one on this decisive fight against terrorism, some people are trying to weaken it by misleading people, Modi added.

Prime Minister Modi also talked about various development and welfare measures undertaken by his government.

We are at war and it will be won the day we recognise and expose the ‘chronic deserters’ of India

“A battle lost or won is easily described, understood, and appreciated, but the moral growth of a great nation requires reflection, as well as observation, to appreciate it” – Frederick Douglass

Matru Prem and Rashtra Prem are emotions that mirror each other. Isn’t it natural to unconditional love the forces that created you from nothing to at least something? Everything else is adulterated except the infant’s unconditional love for his parents.

Patriotism is the same feeling, it’s unadulterated, joyful and inspiring. It’s an empowering association with one’s national identity.

India is intrinsically patriotic. One has always seen the spontaneous outpouring of unbridled love for the nation, be it a cricket victory or war. For most, patriotism is an exhilarating feeling until one comes across a section of people I call “Chronic Deserters”.

So who are these Chronic Deserters?

Are these turncoats or just true-blood traitors? Perhaps, they are worse. They stand for nothing except hate. Hate for India’s glorious culture, vibrant customs and diverse traditions. They call Lord Ram a misogynist. Krishna, a mere mortal. The Ramayana and Mahabharata, fictional folklores. They make fun of our gods, call us ‘cow piss drinkers’, much like the terrorist who rammed his explosives-laden car into a CRPF convoy in Pulwama.

They have invaded our society. Manipulated our history books. Branded us as brainless, brown slaves. Made us pity ourselves. But it all changed in 2014 when there was a Hindu resurgence.

As a society, we fought back and broke the shackles of slavery. We started talking about our real heroes. As kids, we were told India is only about Mughals and the Gandhi Nehru dynasty. Is this actually possible?

Can a 10,000 old civilisation lack heroes? Then what is this about? This is the oldest rule of colonialism. Destroy the King, Burn the Kingdom, destroy the culture, ridicule the customs and eventually give the subject a chronic inferiority complex. A feeling of a society trapped in a black hole, a feeling of hopelessness.

Is this new? Not by a long shot. This is the basic component of colonialism. Colonialism doesn’t work on physical prowess and warfare alone. Psychological warfare trumps physical warfare.

Lack of motivation, feeling of hopelessness, pity and self-loathing are perhaps emotions that can even destroy the world’s best armies. The United States of America suffering a bitter thrashing at the hands of Vietnam was a perfect case in point.

These chronic deserters are not new in the Indian context

The lust for power and cultural hatred have produced legendary traitors like Jaichand and Mir Jafar.

These short-sighted people have compromised the security and safety of the nation for immediate gratification.

These chronic deserters or pseudo-liberals in common parlance have some quintessential traits. They repeat the same flawed logic over and over again. Their tropes are almost set in stone with the hope, that repetition would obfuscate their absurdity. Some of them are:

1) Terrorism has no religion but rape has a religion. (Inspite of India having lower rape percentile numbers)

2) Eating beef is a litmus test for modernism.

3) The Indian army is an aggressor in Kashmir and Kashmir should get plebiscite.

4) Pakistan is a land of saints. A peaceful country.

5) India is a land of intolerance irrespective of the fastest increase in the minority population in the world.

6) There are Hindu terrorists irrespective of no such incidents.

7) Triple talaq is liberation for Muslim women, the problem lies with Sati irrespective of its abolition 100 years back.

8) Sabarimala preaches oppression of women, Triple talaq doesn’t.

9) Bursting crackers in Diwali is a pollution menace but doing it a new year reduces pollution.

10) Navratri increases noise pollution but everything else is music to the ears.

This hypocrisy is staggering and hardly amusing. This cabal has geniuses: they spot seamen’s in balloons and call it Hindu pride, write articles claiming Ramayan happened in Afghanistan, call Imran Khan (fondly known as Taliban Khan to the rest of the non-delusional world) a statesman inspite of supporting World’s most dreaded terrorists, accept doles for writing pro psephological articles but talk about honesty and integrity, give out the survivors details during terrorism operations, talk about national security, abuse people on social media daily and cry victim, whining about trolls.

Our fault lies in not recognising their deceitfulness. These people use Guerrilla warfare to destabilise us, discourage us. It’s time to worry because they are back. They are back to demoralise us and they are back to demotivate us. These two faced people will try everything in the book to make us believe that we are losing the war. Don’t believe in their propaganda, identify them and expose them.

It’s time to unite and it’s time to destroy the enemy. While the Army, Navy and Airforce do so regularly on the border and they stand a post so you and I can sleep in peace, the question that we must ask ourselves is whether we are willing to identify these chronic deserters and make them irrelevant? Will we remember that a war is won on more on psychological strength than physical strength.

We will win the war the day we expose these Chronic Deserters.

Karnataka: In viral video, Congress leader gives call for PM Narendra Modi’s assassination

Displaying another low point in India’s politics, Belur Gopalakrishna, a senior Karnataka Congress leader has shockingly called for the assassination of Prime Minister Modi.

According to the local reports, in a month old incident, Belur Gopalakrishna was speaking at a party event, where he had made statements asking BJP supporters to assassinate Prime Minister Narendra Modi. A video of Gopalakrishna’s speech was posted by the Karnataka BJP on its official Twitter handle.


“Today, those people who praise Nathuram Ghodse for assassinating Mahatma Gandhi. I feel that such people should not be in this country. If they try to murder the democracy, I will challenge them to shoot Narendra Modi and no one else needs to be killed in the country anymore,” said Gopalakrishna.

As per reports, Gopalkrishna was addressing a party event on February 4 to condemn a so-called Hindu group that had enacted the assassination of Gandhi.

Meanwhile, the opposition party in the state, BJP has accused the Congress leader of trying to instigate people for the assassination of the PM.

The Karnataka BJP also questioned Congress President Rahul Gandhi’s dubiousness regarding his politics of hate. “Well, Rahul Gandhi, we remember you saying you don’t endorse hate politics but now that your own party leader has openly called for the assassination of democratically elected PM of this Nation would you act on him? If you don’t act it clearly means you endorse his words,” tweeted Karnataka BJP.

However, Gopalakrishna has claimed that he had made these comments a month ago and questioned the BJP why is it making an issue out of it now.

IAF’s Su 30MKI combat aircraft to be equipped with Spice-2000 bombs used for the airstrikes in Balakot

The Indian Air Force’s Sukhoi-Su 30MKI combat aircraft will be equipped with Israeli Spice-2000 bombs which were used for the airstrikes inside Pakistan late last month. The airstrikes had eliminated targets of the terrorist group Jaish-e-Muhammad.

“At the moment, the only aircraft which is capable of delivering the bombs on enemy targets is the Mirage 2000. But now the Air Force is putting them on the Su-30s as well to further enhance their firepower,” government sources were quoted by ANI.

According to the sources, the Su-30MKI has already carried out trials where they launched the Spice-2000 bombs on ground targets. “After a few more trials, the Su-30 fleet would be equipped with these bombs which rely on coordinates and satellite pictures of the target to home in and destroy the intended targets,” the sources are reported to have said. It is believed that once the integration is successful, it will be a great force multiplier for the IAF.

As we had reported earlier, The Mirage 2000s used in the airstrikes carried the Spice ‘smart bombs’ made by Israel’s Rafael Advanced Defence Systems. Each Spice-2000 is approximately a 1000 KG air to ground bomb that can be launched from a distance of 100 km. Israel had used these same bombs in Syria.

The Spice bombs use a Digital Scene Matching Area Correlator (DSMAC) technology. The technology enables it to match the target as it zooms in, with pre-fed images apart from the GPS coordinates. They also come with anti-GPS jammer, which means the enemy cannot manipulate its homing device.