In October this year, movie director and journalist Avinash Das was caught spreading a Photoshopped image which attributed a fake quote to BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra. Even after he was countered by Patra saying that it is fake, Das had refused to apologise, instead, he had tried to justify it giving a political twist. Now again he has come up with another image which attributes a fake quote to UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.
Today Avinash Das tweeted an image of what appears to a Hindi Newspaper, the headline of the news item in the image says ‘another irresponsible comment by Yogi Adityanath, said our job is to save cows, not women’. A totally outrageous comment, no doubt.
But the fact is that Yogi Adityanath never made such comment, and the news clipping posted by Das is fake, which is circulating on social media for quite some time. This fake clipping was exposed to be fake several months ago.
In April this year, website thelallantop.com had done a fact check on the image, which went viral at that time. They had found that it was actually a satire article, which was circulated as real by many people. The original article was published on satire website rhumortimes.com, which is no longer working as its domain registration has expired. The About us page of the website clearly states that it is a satire website, screenshots of which were taken by thelallantop when the satire website was available.
Screenshot of original satire by rhumortimes.com
Other than caught spreading fake images, Avinash Das was also accused of sexual harassment and other crimes in the past. Earlier, he had worked in NDTV, Dainik Bhaskar, Prabhat Khabar and few other media organisations. He worked as output editor at NDTV for several years. According to reports, he was asked to leave the organisation because he was caught using the brand of NDTV for personal benefits.
After that Avinash Das joined as editor of DB Star, a Hindi tabloid from Dainik Bhaskar group. While working there, a female student of Journalism and Mass communication had levelled charges of sexual harassment against Das. He was a guest lecturer at the institute at the Makhanlal Chaturvedi National University of Journalism and Communication in Bhopal. After the investigation by a team of the university found the allegations to be true, Avinash Das was dismissed from his job by Dainik Bhaskar.
Apart from these, a defamation case was also filed against Avinash Das by journalist Shripal Shaktawat. It was alleged that Das had posted many objectionable and false statements against Shaktawat in a blog.
The Goods and Service Tax has become a boogeyman for the opposition and “intellectuals” who think Rahul ‘comes of age’ repeatedly, every few months. While the Congress had oppressed India with a whopping 31% indirect tax, the GST and especially the recent rate-slash on several items that benefit the middle-class has sent the band of clowns in a state of free-fall.
The Congress, for example, opposed the rate-cut tooth and nail. This is the same Congress whose President Rahul Gandhi was sliding his sleeves up in every election rally and calling GST “Gabbar Singh Tax”. The Congress specifically opposed the rate slash on 7 items that would benefit the middle-class. The out-on-bail Prince, who has suddenly found his conscience and has started talking about the interest of the people of India, deemed fit to oppose a tax cut.
While most of us were just about coming to terms with Congress’ stupendous double-speak, Rahul’s motley bunch of trick-turners decided to overshadow Rahul’s asininity by sounding even more ludicrous.
Pritish Nandy decided to display just how low one man’s IQ can possibly fall when one starts supporting Rahul Gandhi.
I find it offensive that the State is deciding what is good for us, what is sinful— and #GST reflects this. Why? Why should the State tell us what to drink, smoke, eat, what car we should drive, what airline ticket to buy, and whether to own a fridge? My choices are mine to make.
In a ridiculous tweet, Nandy said that he finds GST offensive. He said that the State is deciding what is “good for us” and what is “sinful”.
The enormity of the stupidity is mostly confounding. GST is a consolidated indirect tax. The government is certainly not deciding what one should eat, wear etc or what is supposed to be considered a “sin”. The GST simply puts a higher tax rate on luxury items and lower tax rates on necessities. So if you want to cruise around in a Lamborghini, you pay a higher tax compared to when, say, you want to buy Italian pasta. One would imagine at least this would sit well with Rahul Gandhi supporters, but one would be wrong.
This is not the first time that Modi baiters have travelled to the depths of moronery to pull out a hail mary argument.
Just like Pritish Nandy, Nidhi Razdan of NDTV had once wondered why the government should decide what temperature people’s air conditioner should be set to. Only, the government hadn’t done anything of the sort. The government had merely asked the manufacturers to set 24 degrees as the default setting. Government sleuths were not planning to raid people’s homes just as tired environmentalists, for example, was about to reach out for the remote and reduce the temperature to a nice, chilly 18 degrees.
Similarly, this government is merely deciding the tax one must pay on different goods. One can buy 10 luxury cars if one is willing to, and has the means to pay the taxes on it. Perhaps Pritish Nandy, just like Nidhi, thought that government agencies were going to keep an eye on everyone’s home to check the cars they drive, the food they eat or the temperature they set their AC to.
Either way, GST is a good and service tax and unfortunately, stupidity has not yet been included in GST slabs. In essence, Pritish Nandy is free to mouth-off ‘sinful’ platitudes as much as he wants.
India has formally taken the charge of operations at the strategic Chabahar port of Iran, giving a massive boost to its connectivity initiative towards the west and central Asia. The Chabahar port is one of the most successful strategic initiative taken by the Indian establishment aiding country’s efforts to support war-torn Afghanistan.
Reportedly, Iran has formally handed over the Chabahar port to India during a first meeting to implement the Chabahar Agreement signed between Iran, Afghanistan, and India. The Indian side at the meeting was led by joint secretary (Pakistan-Afghanistan-Iran) Deepak Mittal of the Ministry of External Affairs, while the Iranian team was led by Mohammad Ali Hassanzadeh, the deputy head of the Ports and Maritime Organisation.
“This is a major step forward in India’s efforts to support Afghanistan and also for regional cooperation,” an official in New Delhi said.
Behrouz Aqaei, director general of Sistan-Baluchestan Ports and Maritime Organisation, reportedly said that India Ports Global Limited (IPGL) has “officially started to run Shahid Beheshti port in Chabahar” and the company’s major tasks include loading and unloading operations, procurement and marketing.
The two sides met to discuss the matters involving customs tariffs, promoting customs transactions and rail transit, and the transportation process, Aqaei said. The meeting also included finalising the protocol to harmonise transit, roads, customs and consular matters for making the port attractive and to decrease logistics costs.
In addition to that, India and Iran are also set to finalise a “preferential trade” agreement (PTA) that will come into force in the future. Saurabh Kumar, India’s ambassador to Tehran had said talks between the two sides are being held to sign two agreements-a PTA and a joint investment agreement.
India and Iran first agreed to plans to further develop Shahid Beheshti port of Chabahar in 2003 but could not further the plan due to sanctions against Iran. In May 2016, Prime Minister Narendra Modi signed a bilateral agreement with his Iranian counterpart to refurbish one of the berths at Shahid Beheshti port and reconstruct a 600-meter long container handling facility at the port.
Chabahar is one of the most important strategic areas of influence for India, as it is located just 76 nautical miles (less than 150km) west of the Pakistani port of Gwadar, being developed by China. This makes it ideal for keeping track of Chinese or Pakistani military activity based out of Gwadar.
Chabahar, the only Iranian port with direct access to the ocean, lies in the Makran coast of south-eastern Iran is a highly energy-rich coast but underdeveloped free trade and industrial zone.
Image Source: 2thpoint.comchairan
The Chabahar project provides excellent connectivity opportunity to countries like Iran, Afghanistan and most importantly, bypasses the Pakistan land corridors and Karachi port to transport goods to the Central Asia region. India has already built necessary infrastructure in Afghanistan to bring more connectivity and also use the region for both economic and strategic initiatives.
India has already constructed the Zaranj-Delaram road in 2009 which is to provide access to Afghanistan’s Garland Highway, facilitating transport to four major cities in Afghanistan— Herat, Kandahar, Kabul, and Mazar-e-Sharif. From Chabahar, overland access to Zaranj in Afghanistan is also being built, which is about 900 km from the newly built port.
Chabahar port is important for India as it is easily accessible from Indian western ports of Mumbai and Kandla. Both Iran and India will have massive benefits from this project, as Iran receives much-needed investments in the region and India gets benefited from both strategic and economic point of view. Chabahar is set to open new trade and investment opportunities for India.
Clashes broke out at an event organised by the BJP in Basirhat, in the North 24 Parganas district of West Bengal on Monday, leaving 14 BJP supporters and six policemen injured.
Hundreds of BJP supporters had gathered for the non-cooperation rally organised by the BJP in West Bengal’s Basirhat town, approximately 100 km north of Kolkata.
The event was called by the BJP to protest against the Mamata Banerjee government’s refusal to grant permission to the BJP’s rath-yatras named as Ganatantra Bachao Yatra. The BJP which had approached the Supreme Court against the West Bengal’s government orders has called for a week-long ‘law violation programme’, which started from Monday.
As per reports, few people from the crowd allegedly started throwing brickbats at the police personnel who retaliated by wielding lathis at the BJP supporters. Many BJP supporters and police officers were injured in the conflict.
State BJP president Dilip Ghosh, who was present in the program, calling it an unfortunate incident, claimed that the stones were pelted by some ‘outsiders’, who were not associated with his party.
Ghosh said, “We were conducting our program in a peaceful manner, but the police started lathi charge on us without any provocation. Those who pelted stones were external, they have nothing to do with BJP.”
However, Trinamool Congress’ food minister and president of the TMC North 24 Parganas district, Jyotipriya Mullick, claimed that this was a well-planned attack by the BJP workers and Dilip Ghosh should be arrested for inciting violence.
“They are trying to disrupt the peace in the state and BJP workers are responsible for the Monday’s incident. They carried stones in pockets and threw them at the cops. Dilip Ghosh should also be arrested for inciting violence at the spot, Mullick claimed.
The Mamata Banerjee government had denied permission for the Rath Yatras planned by BJP claiming that the yatras will provoke communal violence in the state.
Earlier this week, an interesting aviation sector headline flashed on Indian media. In November 2018, the growth of the aviation sector slowed down to a 51-month low of 11%. In normal circumstances, a mature business will take 11% growth happily. For Indian aviation, it was a negative statistic – the growth had slowed down significantly.
Indian civil aviation market is slated to become the third largest market in the world behind that of the United States of America and China in another five years or so. Despite the individual airlines facing the heat of increased competition and high fuel prices, the market has been growing on the back of competitive airfares and increased demand.
In this backdrop, one of the demand drivers over the coming years in the civil aviation sector could be the Ude Desh Ka Aam Nagarik or UDAN program. Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi had spoken about the possibility of people wearing hawai chappals boarding hawai jahaj– how to make air travel affordable and possible for common citizens. For a country of India’s size, the air access has also been significantly limited. Many large towns do not even have an operational airport. Some which do aren’t served by regularly rostered flights.
This regional connectivity scheme was launched in 2016 where the government took the role of a market maker to broaden and deepen the aviation market. The idea was to bring on board some of the 425 odd Indian airports, which were unserved or underserved, with no regular scheduled flights. The government also planned to create a viability gap funding structure to promote flights from already connected cities and airports to the new regional locations.
When UDAN was planned, there was quite a lot of usual criticism around the lines of why the government should intervene. But unless there was a backstop, in this case, the central government, it would have been near impossible to develop new airports and attract airlines -after all, it was possible via a market mechanism, it would have already happened in all these years.
The government created the viability gap funding structure using a universal service type cross-subsidy model. A surcharge was levied on tickets on existing routes, which was then used to refund part of the ticket costs for the airlines flying on UDAN route. The participating airline would reserve a certain number of tickets on each flight at a low price – INR 2,500 for routes with flying time under one hour. The government would pay the airline a certain differential from the viability fund.
So far two rounds of UDAN route bidding has happened. The first was in April 2017. In this round, 128 new routes were awarded bringing aviation options to 43 regional airports of which 31 were unserved. Five airlines won the rights to fly on these routes. In the second round of bidding, 15 airlines, including those with helicopter operations, were awarded 325 routes. Bids for the third round were called in December 2018. The government now also plans to invite bids for international routes. This is being planned with an eye for connecting airports like Guwahati, which can be developed as India’ gateway to South East Asia.
The progress so far has been mixed. All the objectives of UDAN, as laid out before the first round of bidding, have not yet been met. Some airlines like Air Odisha and Air Deccan, which won the rights to fly in the first round, haven’t started operations in many cases. Some airports are still struggling to create the right infrastructure – clear flight paths and funnel approaches, perimeter security, and clear runways.
Yet, some cities have tasted success. Hubbali saw more than 45,000 flyers using the airport in July 2018. Nanded has seen connectivity increase, with an Amritsar flight which serves the Sikh pilgrims moving between the cities. Shirdi saw the upgrade of its existing airport and new flights were launched to several large cities, serving the pilgrimage destination. Adampur and Pathankot in Punjab and Nashik in Maharashtra have also benefited.
The Pakyong airport in Sikkim was constructed anew and opened to commercial flights earlier this year. Sikkim was so far only accessible via road, and the road closed many times a year due to bad weather. This airport, an engineering marvel, created a completely new commuting option for the hill state.
Several airports like Bhavnagar, Diu, Jalgaon, Jamnagar, and Mundra await the regularization of earlier flights awarded. Prayagraj has also been awarded several UDAN routes, which may get operationalized as the Kumbh Melanears.
Ultimately, even if a small fraction of all planned connectivity under UDAN thrives, it would have still served the purpose of expanding the Indian civil aviation landscape. The program was designed when Ashok Gajapathi Raju helmed the civil aviation ministry with Jayant Sinha as his deputy. Sinha has done most of the heavy-lifting in terms of planning, communication, and presenting the government point of view. Suresh Prabhu now leads the ministry, but Sinha continues to play an important role in the evolution of the program.
Since UDAN went live, India has added 25 new airports on the scheduled aviation map. Most airports existed earlier, but have been significantly upgraded to meet customer safety, security, and comfort standards. This infrastructure update is in line with the Modi government efforts, where public investment is leading the private industry participation.
Today prime minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the Bogibeel bridge over the Brahmaputra river in Assam. At 4.94 kilometer, this will be India’s longest Rail cum Road bridge. The first bridge over the Brahmaputra in upper Assam or eastern Assam, it will connect Dhemaji district on the north with Dibrugarh district in the south. The bridge has a three-lane road on the top deck, while the deck below carries two broad gauge railway tracks. This is around 100 km away from India’s longest bridge, the 9.76 km long Dhola-Sadiya bridge over the Lohit river, one of the three rivers that form the Brahmaputra river.
Like most other infrastructure projects in the state, this bridge also took a very long time to be completed. A bridge at this location was a demand of the people for several decades. Finally, in January 1997, the then prime minister H D Deve Gowda laid the foundation stone for the bridge. But that was limited to a foundation stone only, with no progress in the project. After a delay of 5 years, construction of the bridge was officially started by former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 2002, with a target to complete the construction by 2009.
Aerial view of Bogibeel bridge
State-run Rail India Technical and Engineering Services (RITES) undertook the pre-construction evaluations, geotechnical studies and prepared the detailed design of the bridge. But again, the project fell into more delays, and by 2011, only the major earthwork, building of guide bunds and dykes were completed. The river swells to more than 10 km during the monsoon at the location of the bridge, that distance was narrowed down to around 5 km with the help of guide bunds on both the banks of the river. The actual construction of the bridge started in 2011, with the work on the substructure of the bridge.
Gammon India won the contract for substructure, which included the well foundations and pillars for the bridge. Due to annual floods, most of the work on the substructure could be carried out only for 4-5 months a year, which caused delays in the progress of the construction. The bridge has 42 pillars, with a span length of 125 meters.
The substructure of the bridge under construction
The contract for the superstructure of the bridge was won by a consortium of Hindustan Construction Company (HCC), VNR Infrastructures and Germany-based DSD Brouckenbau. The superstructure is made of composite welded steel truss, and it is the first fully welded bridge of Indian Railways. The upper road deck is made of Reinforced Cement Concrete.
The contractors for the superstructure had set up fabrication, assembly and paint units on the south bank of the river, where the entire spans were welded together before launching on to the pillars using a launching unit. Several steel-working technologies were used for the first time in India in the construction of the bridge. Technologies from Sweden and Denmark have been used to build the structures. As the bridge is fully welded, it has resulted in the reduction in weight compared to riveted steel bridges.
The spans were launched onto the substructure using a mechanism of hydraulic jacks and cables. Using this system, the spans were pulled to the northern end of the bridge, while newer sections were added at the southern end. 1000 tonne hydraulic jacks were used to launch the spans, which were moved as a set of 10 spans. With each span weighing 1700 tonnes, the pulling power required to pull 10 spans at a time was equal to the power required to pull 26 Airbus A380 aircraft with maximum take-off load of over 650 tonnes, that too without wheels. The process of construction of the bridge is explained in this animated video:
A total of 78,000 tonnes of steel has been used in the bridge, equivalent to 10 Eiffel towers. Essar Steel supplied 20,000 tonnes of high strength steel plates for the superstructure. State-run Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) supplied around 35,400 tonnes of steel, which included TMT bars, plates, and other structural elements. As corrosion protection measures, apart from using special grade copper-bearing steel plates, a complex system of metallizing, hot zinc spray, epoxy, and aliphatic polyurethane coating was applied to the superstructure.
The initial sanction cost for the bridge was ₹3,230 crore, which includes land acquisition, earthwork, railway tracks and approach roads on both sides of the Brahmaputra river including bridges etc, apart from the main bridge. But the cost was increased to ₹4,857 crore as a result of cost escalation due to delays and few design changes, including the increase in the length from 4.31km to 4.94 km.
The bridge will connect the two railway lines and two national highways that run parallel on both sides of the Brahmaputra river. The railway track over the bridge will join the North East Frontier Railway’s Rangia-Murkongselek section on the north bank with the Lumding-Dibrugarh section on the south bank of the Brahmaputra river. On the other hand, the road link will connect National Highway 52 on the north side with the National Highway 37 on the southern side (as per old highway numbering system).
As the areas on the north side of the river are relatively less developed compared to the areas on the south side, people in Lakhimpur, Dhemaji districts will be immensely benefitted from the bridge. Dibrugarh, the second largest city in Assam, is just 15 km away from the bridge. Other than Assam Medical College and Hospital, this city is home to several private hospitals, Dibrugarh University, and many other educational and other important intuitions. Dibrugarh and nearby Tinsukia are also important trade hubs.
The bridge also provides a direct link between Dibrugarh and Itanagar, the capital city of Arunachal Pradesh. It will also provide an important link for people in Arunachal. Apart from providing direct access to places in Assam on the southern bank of Brahmaputra, it will also provide them with a direct link with the part of Arunachal that lies south of Assam, bordering Nagaland and Myanmar.
The Bogibeel bridge will be the third rail-road bridge over the Brahmaputra, and the fifth overall. The first bridge over the Brahmaputra river in Guwahati, the Saraighat bridge, is a rail-road bridge. The other rail‑road bridge is the Naranarayan Setu in the western part of Assam. Rest two are road only bridges, one of them near Tezpur in central Assam, and the other one is parallel to existing Saraighat bridge in Guwahati, which was completed last year after a long delay. Work on a second road bridge parallel to the Kalia Bhomora Setu near Tezpur is already going on.
Several other bridges over the mighty river have been announced in recent times. One of them is the 20-kilometer long Dhubri-Phulbari Bridge at the eastern end of Assam. It will be the longest bridge in India, DPR for which had been already finalised. Three more bridges over the Brahmaputra in Guwahati have been planned. Two of them have been approved and work will start soon, one at the eastern end of the city near Narengi, the other at the heart of Guwahati at Bharalumukh. The third bridge near Palashbari in the east is in the planning stage. Apart from that, four more bridges will be built at various locations in the Assam over the Brahmaputra between Guwahati and Dibrugarh.
The Central government has decided to rename three islands of Andaman and Nicobar to honour Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose. The Union government is set to rename Ross Island as Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose Island, Neil Island as Shahid Dweep and Havelock Island as Swaraj Dweep.
Reportedly, the NDA government has decided to rename these islands as a tribute to one of the country’s tallest leaders Netaji Subash Chandra Bose. The renaming also coincides with the 75th anniversary of Bose having hoisted the national flag in Port Blair.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will announce the new names during his visit to Port Blair on December 30 as the Union Home Ministry is said to have completed all the necessary formalities. Reportedly, a 150-meter flag will also be hoisted apart from a commemorative stamp and coin being released on the occasion.
After the Japanese had captured the islands during the World War II, Bose joining hands with Japan had hoisted the Indian flag in Port Blair on December 30, 1943. Bose had declared these islands to be the first territories of India to be freed from the British rule and had renamed them as Shahid and Swaraj islands.
PM Modi led NDA government has been reviving the legacies and heroics of various national leaders like Sardar Patel, BR Ambedkar, Subash Chandra Bose, who had been otherwise neglected during the Congress era. The legacy of Nehru-Gandhi Parivar had overshadowed the greatness of several national heroes and the Modi government has successfully attempted to bring back the lost stories our national icons.
Earlier this year, PM Modi had hoisted the tricolour at the Red Fort on October 21, commemorating 75 years since Netaji Subhash declared the formation of the Azad Hind Government.
Recently, Prime Minister had inaugurated ‘The Statue of Unity’- world’s biggest statue, dedicated to ‘Iron Man of India’-Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the country’s greatest statesmen and a unifier, who had been deliberately sidelined during by the Congress during Nehru era.
The BJP government in Uttar Pradesh led by Yogi Adityanath has also initiated the act of restoring the names of ancient cities which were renamed during Muslim invasions in the past. The Yogi Adityanath government had restored the name of Allahabad to Prayagraj. Faizabad district, where the Ayodhya town is located, was also renamed as Sri Ayodhya by the Yogi Adityanath government.
The Congress and especially, the Gandhi family have been heading towards imminent trouble in the AgustaWestland chopper case. The trouble looming large seems to have gotten one step closer to reality with AgustaWestland middleman Christian Michel saying he had access to internal meetings of the UPA government. He has also, according to Times Now, identified ‘AP’ as Ahmed Patel and ‘Fam’ as Family.
Times Now reports that Christian Michel has identified the notings in his diary and has confirmed that AP stands for senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel, the then-political secretary of UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and ‘Fam’ stands for the “Family”. However, he has said that he had no dealings with either.
He has also reportedly distanced himself from the note saying that the diary notings were not penned by him but by Guido Haschke, another suspected middleman.
Christian Michel is a middleman in the VVIP chopper deal between AgustaWestland and the Indian Air Force (IAF). Michel is one of the three middlemen in the deal was extradited to India from Dubai earlier.
On 1 January 2014, India cancelled the contract to purchase 12 VVIP choppers which were meant to ferry the President, Prime Minister and other VVIPs for the IAF after the CEO of Finmeccanica Giuseppe Orsi was arrested by Italian authorities. Christian Michel is suspected to have received kickbacks to the tune of Rs. 423 crores.
The authorities have long suspected that Christian Michel had unbridled access to the then UPA government. These suspicions did not come without reasons considering Economic Time reported that a letter written by Michel back in 2009 confirmed the extent of his access within the UPA government.
In this letter written by Michel to Giuseppe Orsi, he says that he had unbridled access to the UPA cabinet meetings and the Cabinet Committee for Security. He also says that he had access to conversations as classified as conversations between the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Hillary Clinton. He also claimed that he had the access to “pressurise” the PM through Congress party “elites”. Whether these elites were Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Ahmed Patel, or others, he doesn’t confirm.
According to the letter accessed by ET, Michel had prior knowledge of the CCS meeting schedules months in advance and had also confirmed to Orsi when the AgustaWestland chopper deal would be finalised.
Michel, in this letter, wrote to Orsi about one of the conversations between Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and PM Manmohan Singh where Clinton had expressed reservations about the deal and said that the choppers were so extravagant that even the USA had cancelled the deal. Michel said that Manmohan Singh was so desperate to maintain good relations with the USA, that he agreed to “look into it”.
Referring to a CCS meeting in July 2009, Michel wrote:
“We and the team (user, bureaucrat and key political elements) expected it to clear without a problem”, however, he adds much to their “nightmare”, the PM invited questions from all ministers asking them to raise them to the Defence Ministry which will be later routed back to the CCS. “This statement threw us to the wolves. Every minister, every lobby, group, Russian/American/French had questions. The finance minister saw his chance to flex muscles and take on the Defence Minister where there is a power struggle”, Michel wrote. Our project was on the edge of a cliff, he added after questions started pouring in. He added “we spent the whole of August regrouping, realigning and preparing our strategy for resubmission to the CCS. Our CCS note is huge. The new Defence Secretary has got brains… The Joint Secretary learnt his lesson. The National Security Advisor saw the PM at 4 pm yesterday”.
He also wrote that the Defence Minister is incompetent and “100% behind us”.
It is extremely evident from these revelations that Christian Michel had unprecedented access to all confidential meetings of the Congress government, including conversations with the then US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and sensitive CCS meetings.
With Michel naming Ahmen Patel and “family”, one wonders how long it would be before he backtracks his current statement that he had “no dealing with either AP or Fam” and spill the beans. Either way, the trouble seems to have only begun for the Congress and the Gandhi family.
Earlier it was revealed that Michel had travelled to India 300 times between 1996 and 2012. His visits stopped only after Orsi was arrested by Italian sleuths. Simultaneously, AgustaWestland’s internal audit had confirmed that Christian Michel had made dubious payments of Rs. 276 crores.
In a shocking incident, Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy has been caught on camera ordering the officials to encounter the accused involved in the murder of a Janata Dal-Secular (JDS) party worker, reported News9.
According to reports, CM HD Kumaraswamy was caught on tape ordering to ‘mercilessly kill’ the accused who have murdered H Prakash, a JDS leader belonging to Mandya. H Prakash was allegedly killed by four assailants due to personal rivalry in Karnataka’s Maddur town in Mandya district on Monday.
“He (Prakash) was a good man. I don’t know who killed him in this way. Kill the miscreant mercilessly. There will be no issue,” a visibly angry Chief Minister Kumaraswamy was heard saying in the viral video.
However, as soon as the video went viral, CM Kumaraswamy claimed that his statement was an emotional outburst as he was reacting to the death of a party worker and added that he did not issue any official orders regarding the encounter.
“It was not an order passed by me as the chief minister. It was due to anger. The suspects are wanted in two other murder cases. They were in jail and now they have killed one more person, this is how they are misusing bail,” he explained.
Honnalagere Prakash, a former Zilla Panchayat member, and JDS worker was attacked by four men while he was traveling in his car on Mysuru Road at the highway near Maddur. The assailants reportedly opened the car’s back door, where Prakash was sitting and attacked him with a machete. Reportedly, Prakash was alive after the attack but died of severe injuries later at Mandya Institute of Medical Sciences.
The Congress-JDS government headed by HD Kumaraswamy has been facing severe discontent within the coalition as few senior Congress leaders have expressed their disappointment over their non-inclusion in the cabinet. Senior Congress leader Ramesh Jarakiholi, who was expelled from the cabinet has also hinted at quitting the party and may join the BJP.
Karnataka has recently seen a large number of political killings. Several BJP and RSS workers have also been killed in the state in recent months.
Yesterday, Australian Cricketer Mitchell Johnson had accused that Times of India has published an interview with him which never took place. He said that he never sat for a question and answer session with the ‘interviewer’.
But Times of India had refuted the cricketer, saying the interview did take place, but it was not a formal one. They said that the journalist spoke to Johnson during the Perth test. TOI also said that the “interview” was carried out during several “informal sessions” and that it wasn’t a formal sit-down interview. The publication went on to accuse Johnson of having a faint memory. As a proof of the ‘interview’, TOI had a posted a photograph where both the reporter and cricketer was seen, but it seemed like a selfie taken by the reporter on a phone, not a photo clicked by a photojournalist. TOI had also argued that since Johnson says he agrees with some points made in the ‘interview’, this proves the conversation took place.
After the response by TOI, Mitchell Johnson has come up with an even stronger rebuttal against the claims made by the publication.
In Tweet posted today, he made five points responding to TOI. These are the arguments he has made:
A selfie is not proof an interview took place. I have taken thousands of selfies with fans over the years.
There are plenty of articles I have read that I agree with parts of them however this does not mean I had anything to do with them.
The format of the so called interview is Q & A and by your very own admission this did not take place.
When you say this interview was based on parts of a conversation that was spread out over the test match. Which parts? Does that mean the rest is just made up to suit you?
For the record now you have refreshed my “faint memory” I do recall this man lurking around during the test match trying to listen in on conversations I was having with other journalists. So I can only assume his so called Q & A was loosely based on parts of conversation he partially overheard me have with other people.
The cricketer has categorically asserted that he never spoke with the reporter of Times of India, and claims that the reporter must have overheard the conversation the cricket was having with other journalists, as the reporter was ‘lurking around’. He also says that thousands of fans take selfies with him, and such a photo can’t be proof that a conversation took place.
