According to the latest reports, there has been a steady rise in the conversions of Hindus in many districts of Uttar Pradesh. In the last 3-4 days, Chhattispur, Nevada and Bijawal villages of Khanpur area of Ghazipur district have witnessed a conversion of about 30 Hindu families. After the Azamgarh, Jaunpur and Mau district in Purvanchal, the cases of religious conversions in Ghazipur district are constantly going up. Hindus in the region are being lured by Christian proselytisers for religious conversion.
The locals residing in these villages have stated that these people first joined the prayer meeting in Bhullanpur under the Chandvak of Jaunpur. Women were not able to go there due to long distances. There was a brawl after which the administration closed the prayer there. After this, people started conducting their prayer meetings in the 3 villages under Father Foster’s leadership. Every Sunday crowds began to gather for prayer meetings. The people of these villages have accused the missionaries of giving monetary bribes to the families of the Scheduled Caste, Pal, Rajbhar, Yadav Musaar and two other Kshatriya communities of these 3 villages in lieu for conversion.
However, Hindu families who adopted Christianity have denied any conversion and are resolutely refusing to speak about the matter. But the symbol of Cross is visible on many homes in these villages. Some locals have claimed that there were pictures of Jesus Christ hanging on the walls of the converted Hindus’ houses. As the conversion news spread like a wildfire, the district administration sprung into action ordering an inquiry. As per the reports, SO Khanpur has taken the lead proselytiser into custody. It is alleged that such conversions have been going on in different areas of the district for the last one and a half year.
Worried about the rising incidents of conversions, a delegate of Akhil Bhartiya Kshatriya Mahasabha had reportedly submitted a letter to the Deputy District Magistrate, Kasimabad on Monday demanding immediate action to stop these illegal conversions. In the letter, they have asserted that the proselytisers are taking advantage of the poverty and illiteracy of Dalit slum dwellers for enticing them to convert to their religion.
It was also conveyed in the letter that an attempt was made to convert Dalits by organizing a program on November 6 in Khetabpur Gram Panchayat of Kasimabad Development Zone which was subsequently cancelled owing to the efforts made by the group.
Last year, a similar case of organised conversion was exposed when Christian preachers were deceptively converting the underprivileged children belonging to weaker sections of the society in Madhya Pradesh by providing them with inducements.
Pradhan Mantri Jan-Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) enrolled around 300 million people from the lower-income groups in the banking system in 1 year. Of the almost 32 crore bank accounts opened by all banks under the Pradhan Mantri Jan-Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) scheme, as high as 10.5 crores or a third of them were opened by State bank of India.
The SBI chairman informed that SBI has started to reap profits as a total of Rs 260 billion has been deposited with them under PMJDY so far, with an average of Rs 1800.
Pradhanmantri Jan Dhan Yojana enrolled 300mn people from low-income group in the banking system in 1 year. 32% bank accounts of the total accounts are held by SBI. Total of Rs 260 bn deposited in PMJDY,with an average of Rs1800,it has started to reap profits for SBI: SBI Chairman pic.twitter.com/bTzlQB4pM9
In total public sector banks accounts for 80 per cent of the total accounts open so far. The private sector banks have a dismal contribution in the same.
The reason being SBI offers certain zero balance savings accounts, where average monthly balance (AMB) rule is not applicable. SBI’s zero balance savings account does not require customers to maintain any particular minimum average balance. However, in other accounts, customers failing to meet the AMB requirements in a month have to bear certain penalty charges.
Jan Dhan Yojana is India’s mission for financial inclusion and last mile connectivity. PM Narendra Modi in August 2014, launched the scheme, just months after assuming office.
The PMJDY was launched with an aim to ensure financial inclusion for the masses, which includes features like deposits, remittance, credit, insurance, and pension. The accounts opened under this scheme don’t need to maintain any minimum balance. The beneficiaries are also provided with an accidental insurance of Rs 1 lakh and life cover of Rs 30,000. An overdraft facility is extended to the customers who successfully operate their accounts for at least six months. Rs 5,000 is the overdraft limit per family.
Moreover to expand the reach of banking services, all of over 6 lakh villages in the country were mapped into 1.59 lakh Sub Service Areas (SSA), with each SSA typically comprising of 1,000 to 1,500 households, and in the 1.26 lakh SSAs that did not have a bank branch, ‘Bank Mitras’ were deployed for branchless banking.
As reported, the success of the Jan Dhan accounts has found a mention in the World Bank’s Global Findex Report, 2017. As per the World Bank, India accounts for 55% of all the new bank accounts opened in the world.
According to the figures, in 2011 a mere 35% of Indian adults had a bank account. This rose to 53% in 2014. Since then the number has increased to about 80% of the total Indian adult population.
In a huge setback to the Gandhis, the Delhi High Court on Thursday refused to stay the order issued by the central government to vacate the ‘Herald House’ premises by November 15 after finding out that the Sonia Gandhi led Associate Journals Limited (AJL) had violated several regulations at the premises. The next hearing is scheduled for 22nd November.
There is no stay on the order asking Associated Journals Ltd to vacate the premise by Nov 15 after determination of the Perpetual Lease between the Government and AJL. However, SG Tushar Mehta assures the Court that the Govt would not physically take over the premises.
The Centre gave an oral assurance to the High Court that it will maintain status quo till 22nd November.
According to the reports, the mother-son duo of Sonia Gandhi and Congress President Rahul Gandhi, along with others accused in the National Herald scam had approached the Delhi High Court on November 13th against the Central Government’s orders to vacate the premises they occupy in Delhi.
Hearing the petition of Gandhis, the Delhi High Court adjourned the hearing of the National Herald Case till 22nd November and ordered to maintain a complete status quo to be maintained till next date of hearing.
Senior Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi appearing on behalf of the Gandhis has termed the eviction notice as “political motives”. “It’s malicious prosecution & impugned order vitiated by malafides & ulterior political motives,” said Singhvi while challenging the government’s order to vacate the Herald House.
Associate Journals Limited (AJL), which publishes Congress’ mouthpiece National Herald was sent a notice by Ministry of Urban Development on 30th October stating that the lease is being ended and they are to vacate the premises before November 15, after the Union Ministry had found that there were severe violations by the AJL.
The AJL controlled ‘Herald House’ is not currently being used for the specified purpose of printing the newspaper, which was the primary condition of leasing the land to the publisher at a highly nominal rate. The order had stated that the publishers would face action under the Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants) Act,1971 if they fail to comply with the evacuation notice.
National Herald scam is one of the most notable legal cases in Indian history, as the Gandhis are directly accused. The Mother-Son duo of Congress President Rahul Gandhi and his mother Sonia, along with their aides – Oscar Fernandez, Motilal Vohra and Sam Pithroda are alleged to have involved in massive ‘cheating and breach of trust’ in the acquisition of Associated Journals Ltd (AJL) by Young Indian Pvt Ltd (YIL), as assets worth crores of rupees had been allegedly transferred for purposes other than originally intended for a paltry sum. Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi got unconditional bail in December 2015.
This appeared on Firstpost yesterday, inside yet another article authored by some Nehruvian elitist.
Apparently, the level of parliamentary debate in India got worse in the 1960s. Why? Because “democracy deepened” in India, which apparently allowed people of “diverse backgrounds” to get elected. Not just those who were born to rich parents spent their lives schmoozing with British high society and then parked themselves in top positions once the British left.
What is shocking is that a mainstream outlet like Firstpost allowed such a ‘racist’ view to be published. One has to wonder how this managed to pass muster at the editorial desk. Did the ‘racism’ in these words somehow become more palatable simply because it was expressed in English?
I don’t think that a British media outlet today would allow something like this to go on their website! Complaining that the quality of debates got worse because democracy in India deepened and people of “diverse backgrounds” were elected?
But the Nehruvian intellectual class in India somehow still manages to deal in this kind of old world ‘racist’ rhetoric.
Except, it is not even racism in a strictly technical sense. Presumably, most of the Nehruvians are of the same race as the rest of us. This is one group of brown Indians expressing prejudice against other brown Indians because we don’t have privilege handed down to us by white masters of yesteryear.
Seriously, that’s messed up. And vile. And just pathetic.
If I had to describe the Nehruvian elite, I would say they are not even racist! They are worse.
The modern world is becoming a more integrated place every day. More and more voices are being heard and from all kinds of diverse backgrounds. And like racists anywhere, the Nehruvian elite is frustrated and angry.
What should I call them? Copycat racists, perhaps? You tell me!
And the frustrated Nehruvian elite is watching the world pass them by. This elite maintained a tight grip on the nation during the first four decades after independence. But the floodgates opened in 1991. The liberation that began in 1991 is heading towards a logical conclusion. The Nehruvian elite can feel their rising irrelevance; they can feel the nation slipping through their fingers.
So the frustrated Nehruvian elite hits out at the modern world with a deep bitterness. They seek emotional safety by talking about how great and powerful their ancestors used to be 70 years ago. Take Shashi Tharoor’s recent remark that a ‘chaiwala’ could become Prime Minister simply because of Nehru. That’s the typical zamindar mentality of the Congress, appropriating for themselves the credit for what other people have achieved through hard work.
No wonder Shashi Tharoor was mocked and brutally so.
Minor correction Dr. Tharoor, Nehru is the sole reason why humanity exists. Don’t trivialise his role to mundane matters like making Prime Ministers and all that 😉 pic.twitter.com/bRR7JO9XuC
Shashi Tharoor, you are wrong. Whatever Rahul Gandhi has today is because of Nehru. Leave Modi alone. He made his own path.
We need to understand that the Nehruvian elite is threatened by genuine merit and has an actively hostile attitude towards those who work hard to make something of themselves.
Bear in mind that Rahul Gandhi is hardly the first member of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty to become Congress President by taking over the reins from a mother or father. Jawaharlal Nehru himself became Congress President for the first time in 1929, taking over from Motilal Nehru who was the sitting Congress President at the time.
This chain nepotism has since seeped into India’s national consciousness and permeated all fields from business to cinema. If there is anything wrong with India, it is not the deepening of democracy. Rather it is the cementing of the culture of the dynasty.
The opportunity cost that the culture of the dynasty has imposed on our nation is immense. We have the second largest pool of human talent in the world. Why the huge mismatch between resources and outcomes? An answer is a small group of dynastic elites and their sycophants perched at the top, forming a permanent bottleneck.
Even if the Congress gets somewhere near power in 2019, remember that they will necessarily have to share that power with people of … let us say … “diverse backgrounds”. And the Congress might even have to stay in the background itself, propping up one of those people from “diverse backgrounds” as Prime Minister.
No wonder Nehruvian elite cannot stop complaining about the day India’s democracy began to deepen. It was never quite the same again.
The Mizo National Front (MNF) President Zoramthanga has ruled out the possibility of MNF forming an electoral front with any party in the upcoming Assembly elections.
When asked whether MNF will form an alliance with any party, Zoramthanga said that MNF is fighting against Congress as well as other small parties. He said he is confident his party will get over 25 seats in the 40-member Assembly.
“The Congress, which has been ruling the state for the last 10 years, is crumbling and is ravaged by an exodus of senior leaders,” he added.
“All churches, NGOs and the civil society here want a ban on alcohol, which the Congress government had lifted in 2014, after 17 years of prohibition. if we are voted to power, we will have a Mizo-type prohibition on the sale of liquor. Liquor sale is harming the social fabric and leading several families into a financial mess,” Zoramthanga said in response to a query on whether he will impose Bihar-like liquor ban.
Meanwhile, MNF senior VP Tawnluia has said that there is no chance of any post-poll alliance or coalition with the BJP as they are ‘ideologically completely different’. MNF has been believed to be close to the BJP as it is a constituent of the BJP-led North East Democratic Alliance.
Zoramthanga also said that BJP has no appeal in the Christian state. While he ruled out having an understanding with BJP, he expressed the possibility of aligning with the NDA if they have an MP in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
Assembling elections are around the corner in Mizoram and political parties are in full elections mode. Polls will be held on Nov 28 in Mizoram and the result will be declared on 11th December.
The All India Radio Casual Announcer and Comperes Union (AICACU) wrote a letter mentioning several cases of alleged mishandling of sexual harassment complaints to Menaka Gandhi last week. This came forward from different AIR stations in the wake of the recent #MeToo revelations.
Union Minister for Woman and Child Development (WCD) Maneka Gandhi has asked the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to probe these series of sexual harassment complaints.
In the cases which have occurred in the last few years, the victims, all women casual employees, some who have been working for over two decades, have not got any assignment since they complained. The accused are mostly permanent staff of All India Radio. Incidentally, the Internal Complaints Committee (ICC) in these cases comprised of permanent staffers.
In its letter to Gandhi, AICACU pointed out that “casual Announcers/Comperes/Radio Jockeys of AIR” find it difficult to “raise voice against any kind of suppression, harassment, injustice caused by the officials, as they always work under fear of losing the job. Female casual workers, who complain of sexual harassment are removed from the job and their witnesses whether males or females are also targeted the same way”.
In the past few days, more names in the media have surfaced where senior journalists are accused of sexual harassment. Journalist Vidya Krishnan has accused India Today Executive Editor and her former colleague Gaurav Sawant of having sexually harassed her in 2003. Sawant has refuted the claims and has sent a legal notice to the publication, the author as well as to Krishnan.
Another senior journalist who used to work at India Today, TS Sudhir, had another slew of allegations against him. He was also called out for alleged sexual misconduct by another colleague of his, following which his wife reached out to the woman and allegedly tried to threaten her.
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has published a report [pdf] that talks about the fake news industry in India. In their report titled “Beyond Fake News”, BBC has reached certain outlandish conclusions like ‘Nationalism is driving the spread of fake news” based on dubious data, incorrect interpretations, bias sample selection and selective information.
It was almost as if BBC decided the conclusion of their research and then reverse worked their data to suit their conclusion.
Following are just 5 aspects that prove beyond reasonable doubt that the BBC research is unreliable at best and fake news at worst.
1. Sample size
The BBC “research” has mentioned its sample size in no uncertain terms. For a publication as reputed as BBC, one would imagine that before publishing any research paper, their sample size for the survey would not only be comprehensive qualitatively but also quantitatively.
The BBC sample size as mentioned in their document is as follows:
Just 10 individuals were considered enough to represent the ever growing every online savvy youth in the 19-23 age group
As can be seen from BBC’s own document, the sample size used to “interview” based on which they came up with their conclusion was 40. 10 each from 4 age brackets.
At first glance itself, even a rookie would say that the sample size is abysmally low for a vast and diverse country like India.
If you explore the generally accepted norms for sample selection and sample size, one would realise that BBC is way off the mark and the sample size itself negates their entire survey, research and the conclusions reached thereof.
SurveyMonkey, a reputed survey website uses the following thumb rule:
Minimum sample size is suggested to be 50, while BBC thought 40 was enough
The chart above simply explains that the sample size is decided on the basis of the margin of error the surveyor is targeting and the confidence level that the surveyor wants in his survey.
Confidence level simple means how sure one wants to be that their sample accurately represents the population they wish to draw conclusions about. Margin or error would mean how sure one wants to be that the answers would accurately represent the views of the population.
To quote SurveyMonkey:
“So if, for example, 90% of your sample likes grape bubble gum. A 5% margin of error would add 5% on either side of that number, meaning that actually, 85-95% of your sample likes grape bubble gum. 5% is the most commonly used margin of error, but you may want anywhere from 1-10% for a margin of error depending on your survey. Increasing your margin of error above 10% is not recommended”.
According to SurveyMoney, 5% is the most common margin of error. Even if we take a small population size of 100, one would have to interview approximately 80 people to ensure that the margin of error is limited within 5%, according to the SurveyMonkey chart.
To put things in perspective now, India has a population of 1.3 Billion people. There are over 7.83 million active Twitter users in India and are set to rise to over 34 million in 2019. As of October 2018, there were as many as 294 million Facebook users in India. BBC’s survey sample size was 40.
Let me repeat that again. With the entire population of India exceeding a billion and with millions and millions of users using Twitter and Facebook, BBC decided to conclude that ‘Nationalism is the driving force behind fake news’ on the basis of 40 people. BBC’s sample size was 80 people from 3 countries and 40 people from India.
Even if we take the sample size of 1 million people (since the sample size doesn’t grow in the same ratio as population), BBC would have to interview 384 people to stick to a 5% margin or error. I reiterate they have interviewed 40 people.
It suffices to say that the shoddy sample size alone should be grounds to dismiss this report by BBC as bogus, propaganda driven and motivated.
In their defence, BBC has claimed that their analysis is qualitative. There is an age group 19-24, which is a very large and diverse group and is also the main consumer of the internet in India. For such a large group, the sample size is 10, which is half of what’s the minimum requirement is even if one buys BBC’s excuse of justifying their sample size. Though unconvincing, we are including BBC’s response here in fairness, which we don’t expect from BBC.
Even if we accept BBC’s theory, by the law of large numbers and Central Limit Theorem, the bare minimum requirement for sample size is 30 (n=30) to ensure that the sample is equally representative. This is important to ensure consistency and to ensure that all estimators are close to the population value. By the extension of this logic, what was required was that for all age-wise segregation, they should have picked 30 samples individually, for each segregation. Instead of that, BBC decided to pick a total of 40 samples rendering their sample inordinately inaccurate, biased and seriously dubious to be considered for the basis of any serious research on the subject.
This sample was used to determine “why people share fake news”. For such qualitative assessment where a humongous population is being painted with a broad brush, the statistics don’t add up.
It does not matter whether the study is qualitative or quantitative in nature. The early stage of designing a research study involves deciding upon a size of the sample which will render the estimated value to be as close to the population value. Hence, they got the design of their study wrong in the very initial stages of the research itself.
Besides, BBC doesn’t appear to have great knowledge of Qualitative Research. One of the ontological positions of Qualitative Research is that there are multiple realities and that there is no single objective truth. The purpose of Qualitative Research is not to arrive at objective truths that can apply across all situations but to generate hypotheses that could be tested using Quantitative methods. The focus of Qualitative Research is always on the subjects that are selected as participants and great care must be taken to ensure that the participants are genuinely representative of the larger population if one is to derive any meaningful understanding regarding the larger world. If the selection of subjects themselves are not done in a reliable fashion, then the conclusions derived from them won’t be applicable to any other group.
However, unlike BBC, we like to explore a little more and hence, the other glaring flaws in the report must be pointed out as well. However, this counter would only be indicative because if the entire report is to be countered, we would have to write a book that runs into over a hundred pages.
(Note: This point has been updated with relevant information)
2. BBC passed off truth as ‘fake news’ in its ‘research’
The BBC research on fake news is so shoddy, that they have passed on genuine news as “fake news” just to establish the “Nationalism leads to fake news” narrative.
In their research document, they have included one such.
A genuine news report has been cited as ‘fake news’ by BBC
This news of the citizenry fearing the IBC law and 2100 companies repaying bank loans worth Rs. 83,000 crores is NOT fake news.
It is verified and the absolute truth.
This news was covered by several mainstream media outlets. Following is a screenshot of a report published in Times of India.
This news was covered by OpIndia.com as well. One wonders then if the BBC is passing off real news as fake news and OpIndia is covering the real news, who is the fake news purveyor among the two? But I digress.
The muster of the researchers in this BBC fake news research paper is so abysmal that while the snapshot they have included says “diwaliya” which means bankruptcy, they have transcribed it as “Diwali”, the festival of lights in the following text. Had they known that it means bankruptcy, they’d have recalled that BBC itself had praised the law introduced by Prime Minister Modi as being “good for business”.
3. Doctored data set
BBC has put in some handles as seeders amplifiers etc. of fake news, and selection of these handles itself is based on ‘sources’ that are biased and have often peddled fake news – as we will see later in this article – and this selection is not just biased, but absurd.
Based on “fake news sources” identified by these fake news peddlers, the BBC report makes the following conclusion:
“After plotting the sources who have published fake news, on this network map a pattern does emerge, where we see that handles that have published fake news sit in the pro-BJP cluster”
First, BBC has included a Twitter handle called RealHistoryPix as a purveyor of fake news. This handle is a parody handle – as clearly mentioned in their Twitter bio – and often tweets things which are not ‘news’ or makes assertions on current affairs for satirical purposes. For BBC to identify this handle as a purveyor of fake news is simply outlandish.
On page no. 87, they name OpIndia.com, R Jagannathan and Swati Goel Sharma as three of the several accounts that Prime Minister Modi followed who are purveyors of ‘fake news’.
The BBC report says, “And of the 30 sources known to have published at least one piece of fake news, that sit in the pro-BJP cluster, the @narendramodi account follows 15 of them.” – this is where OpIndia is listed.
If “at least one piece of fake news” is the criteria, BBC qualifies liberally. Further, the “at least one piece of fake news” is an absurd criterion is what we’d see in the omissions section later in this article, where BBC didn’t care about many outlets that have published various fake news items, not just one.
The BBC then goes on to cover their shenanigans with some disclaimers. They say it is possible that these accounts may have spread fake news based on slippages of journalistic standards or because the ‘entities’ BELIEVE in the truthfulness of the claims. And then the clincher. BBC says “And finally, it is possible, though unlikely, that the independent fact checkers who have identified these sources as having published fake news have made errors”.
In all of this, they have provided no data as to why OpIndia, Mr Jagannathan or Swati Goel Sharma have been branded as fake news purveyors. None at all. The BBC survey conveniently ignores the deliberate fake news spread by their own sources and brands several others fake news purveyors with a disclaimer that they might be wrong.
The only reason one can imagine that these three entities would be included in this list is, that, all three have often exposed the bias and fake news furthered by their “sources” that have selected the handles, like this one by Swati Goel Sharma exposing Indiaspend, one of the BBC’s sources.
I would like to take this opportunity to challenge BBC and ask them to show instances where OpIndia has deliberately spread ‘fake news’. The two times or so that we did make a mistake, we updated our articles and the Editor tendered an unconditional apology. We would like to challenge BBC to show us where the same integrity has been shown by the very sources of fake news that they have considered an authority to help them with their research.
In fact, here is something that shows the lack of muster in the researchers and the BBC report itself.
In the BBC research paper, this website was, on Page 88, was listed in the Pro-BJP cluster. This itself is fake news.
BBC lists various Twitter handles to have published fake news, showcasing their bias and shoddy research
Then, as if BBC was fact-checking its own fake news, on Page 102, this website was listed in the Anti-BJP cluster.
BBC makes a u-turn?
Now, there could very well be two separate pages with that name, however, we couldn’t find one. For a ‘research’ to have presented no details of their dataset, this is an apology of a research.
Update: As we had guessed, there indeed appears to be two pages of the same name. However, BBC’s decision to include the supposedly ‘pro-BJP’ page in this analysis map is another example of shoddy work. You can read the details here.
4. Inherent bias in the introduction of the report itself
The introduction to the entire report itself indicates the BBC report’s bias and why they might have concluded that ‘Nationalism is the source of fake news’ in India. In their introduction to the long report, BBC writes:
Today, it is fair to say, the term ‘fake news’ carries a few positive associations. Today it is an inarguably negative term, irrespective of who is using it, though broadly speaking all users of the terms refer to misleading or false information. The term has been used by journalists and researchers in conjunction with words such as ‘crisis’, or even ‘democratic crisis’. As is well known, influential politicians around the world have taken up the term to connote any news that is critical of them and their achievements.
The text above has been referenced by BBC with a Quartz India article. The Quartz India article, when talking specifically about India, first quotes a CNN-News18 report that talks about Amit Shah joining 18,000 Whatsapp groups ahead of 2019 elections. They connect this quaint, insignificant report to a Times of India article from 2014 that spoke about Social Media being a pivotal campaigning tool for ALL parties. Then, the Quartz report connects the TOI report and the CNN-News18 report to 2 articles on BuzzFeed. Both written by Pranav Dixit, one headlined “Modi’s Political Party Creates Abusive Social Media Campaigns And Breeds Internet Trolls, Claims New Book” (the book was ‘I Am Troll’ by Swati Chaturvedi) and the other, headlined “Viral WhatsApp Hoaxes Are India’s Own Fake News Crisis”.
Pranav Dixit is a writer who, owing to his pathological hate for anything that doesn’t conform to his Leftist views, attempted to dox, stalk and threaten a woman who dared to simply disagree with him and happened to be right-leaning in her political views.
Swati Chaturvedi
In the first article written by Pranav, which has been referenced by BBC, Pranav talks about a book, ‘I Am Troll’ written by “journalist” Swati Chaturvedi, who, owing to the strong Left ecosystem has won accolades for writing gibberish.
Swati Chaturvedi, who abuses incessantly, tweeted tens of times targeting one Rahul Raj’s job. Eventually, she succeeded in getting him fired owing to constant character assassination sans proof. She willy-nilly included his name in her book.
She weirdly cooked up a story about actor Leonardo Di Caprio being invited to an RSS event. She lied. She attributed an image of a girl beaten up by a deranged jilted man to violence in a university called BHU, just to settle political scores. She has been accused of plagiarism. She has lied on national television about her book, which has been quoted by the BBC while promoting her book. She has been slapped with a defamation case for accusing a man of “being arrested for sexual harassment” when he never was. She has jeopardised the safety of intelligence agency officers by irresponsibly revealing their names and identities on Twitter. It is frankly a miracle she wasn’t booked under the Official Secrets Act.
She has spread lies about a simple speech by Amit Shah, the BJP Party President. She has merrily given credence to fake news, from a dubious website, which was later debunked. She has lashed out at the lady speaker of the house simply because she dared to discipline Congress President Rahul Gandhi after his unruly behaviour in the Parliament. Political party AAP spread lies about IAS officers being on strike, Swati Chaturvedi who is being used as a source in a survey about ‘fake news’ repeated that lie and furthered it. She has been accused of featured on a list who were extorting an absconding scamster. She bullied a young NCC cadet simply because the lady questioned Rahul Gandhi’s ignorance.
The BBC report mentions the Cambridge Analytica fiasco as one of the reasons for the fake news fiasco, interestingly, Swati Chaturvedi defended Congress when their name was taken by the whistleblower and even by a journalist who saw the Congress poster on Cambridge Analytica Chief’s wall. She lied blatantly about a BJP-RSS tussle. She lied about the Information and Broadcasting Ministry withholding funds from Prasar Bharati. She maliciously reported a speech by Indian politician Manohar Parrikar. She lied that Kanhaiyya Kumar attacker was a BJP office-bearer. She even spread her malicious propaganda against BJP minister after a train tragedy that claimed many lives at a Congress event. She wrote a lie-ridden, asinine report targeting India’s NSA’s son, Shaurya Doval which was debunked within minutes.
Even the Swedish Embassy cancelled their invite to Swati Chaturvedi after realising her reputation for being a purveyor of fake news.
5. Reliance on sources that are biased
This is where it gets really interesting. On pages 82 to 88, where the BBC research talks about the “fake news ecosystem”, they have set up a neat little malicious conundrum.
They first say that they have mapped the clusters that are followed by PM Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi. They identified a bunch of “fake news sources” and then drew the conclusion that the Pro-BJP fake news disseminators are far more closely knit than the Anti-BJP fake news disseminators. Notice that they don’t use the term pro-Congress.
How have they identified these “fake news sources”?
A large part of their methodology which has been repeated several times through the BBC report is:
As such, our analysis is not about ‘fake news sources’ (as that indicates there are sources who only publish fake news) but about ‘sources that have published fake news’. For the purposes of the Twitter network analysis, therefore, we define two categories, 1) ‘Sources of Identified Fake News’ and 2) ‘Likely Fake News Disseminatiors’. The ‘Sources of IdentifiedFake News’ are established in the two following ways:
A. Identified as fake news by a fact-checking site (one or more of the following: smhoaxslayer, altnews, boomlive.in,factchecker.in) or by the platform(e.g. Facebook/ Twitter)
B. Identified in the qualitative fieldwork by researchers or picked up from the /Unkill thread on Reddit.
Let us look at the sources that BBC has depended upon to identify ‘fake news disseminators’:
Altnews
The co-founders of AltNews are Pratik Sinha, who is pathologically anti-BJP and anti-Modi and one parody handle called ‘susu swamy’. Firstly, it is interesting to note that BBC would depend on a website that is co-founded by someone who likes to call himself a variant of urine. Either way, to attribute the status of non-partisan “fact checker” status to altnews reeks of an agenda.
When conferring the status of neutral fact checkers to Altnews, BBC never realised that when anti-BJP voices spread fake news, Altnews steps in to justify the same. Suddenly, it becomes “easy to fall prey to fake images” as “one is outraged about an incident”. Even fake news gets a “context”. It is deemed that these people had “unknowingly” shared a fake image. Worse, these people are made heroes for “admitting” that they lied. And Altnews cannot hide its happiness and is “glad” that the fellow communists have “regretted their mistakes”. We have covered these shenanigans in details here.
While Altnews justifies the fake news peddled by their ideological compatriots, they themselves have often been caught lying blatantly and have seldom corrected themselves. Recently, they sought to ‘fact-check’ a ‘clipped’ video of journalist Barkha Dutt but interestingly, left out the quotes where she was actually giving a context to the genocide of Kashmiri Pandits in the valley. Altnews ‘fact-checked’ a retired major from the Army, but willy-nilly refused to respond to his side of the story. Altnews fact-checked a fake image in circulation without bothering to name the ones using that fake image. The reason was rather simple. The ones sharing that image were their ideological comrades which included Swati Chaturvedi, a source BBC has relied upon. One of their co-founders happily furthers genocidal accounts wishing for death upon anyone who doesn’t subscribe to the leftist cult. The co-founder of Altnews spread lies about ease of doing business rankings. He shared a fake image of BJP leader BS Yeddyurappa right before the Karnataka elections.
Factchecker.in is the ‘fact-check’ arm of Indiaspend. Indiaspend itself peddles “research”just as bias as this fake news research by BBC. Perhaps it is no surprise that the two seem to be a match made in heaven. Considering the BBC research is about how fake news gets furthered, it is interesting to note that they have also relied on this website, whose parent organisation’s fake news was carried by some of the biggest names in media, including Barkha Dutt and Washington Post.
Indiaspend has also spread fake news about the rise in sexual harassment cases in Uttar Pradesh. Indiaspend employees too spread fake news about Narendra Modi while writing in other media portals like The Hindustan Times, no less.
The misinformation, bias, and propaganda by these outlets have been regularly exposed by us at OpIndia, and by alert observers like Swati Goel Sharma, who works with the Swarajya magazine where R Jagannathan is the editorial director.
These are the “sources” based on which the BBC report branded OpIndia, R Jagannathan and Swati Goel Sharma as handles that spread fake news. The BBC’s agenda is clear and it is also evident why these biased “sources” would include the three names as fake news purveyors.
6. What BBC missed
When they analysed the names of fake news purveyors, they have missed several such entities who are known to have political ideologies and spread fake news. Since BBC has taken it upon itself to name several handles as fake news purveyors sans proof based on the say-so of fake news purveyors themselves, here is proof of leftist propaganda websites and how fake news is spread with impunity.
The Wire
This list is only indicative. If one wants to access all articles that fact-check The Wire and bust their propaganda, please see here.
Earlier, Rahul Gandhi had shared The Wire’s comprehensively debunked hit job on Piyush Goyal with some caustic comments without realising his self-goal perhaps. He is no stranger to self-goals too. In fact, not so long ago he had done exactly the same when we at OpIndia has preemptively busted an imminent hitjob against the Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley. After our article, ‘The Wire’ had conceded that “there was not much of a story to pursue after all“, which is why they had dropped the story after receiving a response from Jaitley and his daughter’s firm. Mr Rahul Gandhi had then proceeded to plug the very article where ‘The Wire’ had admitted to no impropriety on the part of Arun Jaitley, in a bid to tarnish his image. We had then also speculated whether Rahul Gandhi actually knew of the imminent hitjob. They had conducted a hit job against Amit Shah’s son Jay Shah hitjob which was debunked by us comprehensively and the portal responsible for that hitjob is facing a 100 crore defamation suit, in which the court has already mentioned that a prima facie case exists against the portal. They had also recently conducted a hit job against Amit Shah which was debunked by us.
It is indeed interesting that the BBC would talk about ‘fake news’ without talking about the mainstream media has institutionalised the conjuring up and dissemination of fake news. OpIndia.com itself has fact-checked hundreds of such instances where the mainstream media has either lied blatantly, twisted facts or peddled a fallacious narrative owing to their political affiliation and/or ideological agenda. Those articles can be accessed here: Media Lies List.
In the BBC research paper, they observe that audiences following BBC News are 40x more likely to also consume NDTV.
That doesn’t really surprise me because BBC has not only missed taking cognizance of the heaps of fake news spread by NDTV but also ignored the lies spread by BBC itself (this “fake news research” apart).
Just recently the BBC had retracted an article they had published about a Sikh police officer getting death threats because he saved a Muslim man. These claims were summarily rejected by the police officials.
BBC’s inherent bias against the BJP is really no secret and hence, the conclusions of this ‘fake news research’ is no surprise either. BBC had shared an old report about EVM hacking just a day after BJP had swept the Uttar Pradesh elections and had just a few days ago ‘expressed regret’ over their Kaziranga documentary, also exposing their anti-India bias. This apology came after BBC was banned from filming in all national parks and sanctuaries in India, in 2017, for 5 years.
Congress and allies
The BBC loves “liberals” and any political ideology that conforms to their Left bias. They haven’t even bothered to include the institutionalised fake news that is peddled by Congress functionaries and even Congress President Rahul Gandhi.
In fact, the entire fiasco is rather amusing because Congress supporters had used a fake BBC article itself to sing songs of praises for Rahul Gandhi. BBC had been a mute spectator then as it is now.
BBC in its report says:
We have also used the term Twitter ‘amplifiers’. These are accounts that disseminate a high volume of content (defined as greater than 10,000 tweets), at least some of which is fake news, to a wide audience (defined as greater than 10,000 accounts).
I would like to point out to BBC that Rahul Gandhi himself has 7.8 Million followers and that BBC has reached the conclusion that “Nationalism drives fake news”, without taking into account the Left lies is an abomination.
He shared a story by The Wire which admitted that there was no wrongdoing on the part of Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. He used that article to allege impropriety. He was debunked multiple times. He continued to lie.
Congress party lied profusely after they deleted a Facebook ad of ‘Modi hatao desh bachao’ in Pakistan.
He lied about Congress signing a deal with Dassault when in power.
He lied, repeatedly, about the Statue of Unity being ‘Made in China’.
The list is frankly endless. These are just 10. There are several which can be accessed on OpIndia.com.
Conclusion
The ridiculous sample size should be the first indicator that the BBC research is bogus. Everything else, from their selection bias, to terming others ‘fake news purveyors’ based on the inputs of fake news purveyors themselves, points to the fact that BBC had already made up its mind as to what the conclusion of the report must read.
BBC had invited me to be a part of their panel discussion on fake news. Interestingly, the findings or the existence of this report was not informed to me at the time. I had refused to be a part of a panel that had fake news purveyors discussing fake news and also because I was deeply aware of BBC’s inherent bias. I was told that they want an OpIndia.com representative because they wanted to be ideologically fair.
The panel took place on the 12th of November. Clearly, this “research” had been in the pipelines for months and they had already decided, based on extremely shoddy data and methodology, that fake news purveyors were actually the harbingers of journalistic integrity and that the fake news emanates from primarily one side. The fact they asked for my presence was clearly, a mere formality so they can continue to wear their cloak of neutrality while peddling the worse form of fake news and propaganda.
BBC has proved itself to be a biased, leftist rag. I won’t mince my words because they have clearly not minced theirs in the shoddy propaganda literature that they call “research”. I will have no part of it now or in the future.
One can very well argue that this ‘study’ by BBC itself is a perfect example of how fake news is created and spread through a network of co-conspirators. A study that fails statistical muster has obvious errors, is biased in its approach, helps in the propaganda of a particular political ideology is being cited by every other media outlet as some scholarly work by impartial and ethical researchers. The irony can be missed only by those who have decided to close their eyes to the truth.
Next time BBC indulges in some real research, they should include their own shoddy journalism as one of the examples of fake news.
Days before elections in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh, the BJP has dismissed 53 ‘rebel leaders’ for ‘indiscipline’ and ‘anti-party activities. The party has dismissed defectors like senior leader Sartaj Singh, former minister Ramkrishna Kusmaria and Bhind MLA Narendra Kushwah ahead of the assembly elections.
According to the reports, Former Minister Sartaj Singh was earlier denied a ticket by BJP from the Seoni-Malwa constituency had joined Congress. The two-time MLA had cried in public after his name did not appear in the candidate’s list. The Congress had immediately named him as the Opposition party’s nominee for the Hoshangabad Assembly seat.
Former minister Ramkrishna Kusmaria had announced that he will contest as an independent candidate. He has also been thrown out of the party along with Bhind MLA Narendra Kushwah, Former Gwalior mayor Samiksha Gupta, Lata Mehsaki, Dheeraj Pateria and Raj Kumar Yadav. Samiksha Gupta had announced that she has quit the BJP to contest as an independent candidate in the upcoming elections.
The ruling BJP government led by Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan has been challenging the Congress to secure its hold on one of its most prized states, Madhya Pradesh. Shivraj Singh Chauhan has been the Chief Minister of the state since 2003 and he is fighting the assembly election to record his fourth successive term as Chief Minister.
While Congress party is a divided house in the Madhya Pradesh. One faction belonging to Kamal Nath and others loyal to Jyotiraditya Scindia are battling against each other to prove their control on the state Congress unit. Senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh has been struggling a silent war by recently admitting that Congress will lose votes if he campaigns or gives any speeches.
The elections to 230-member Madhya Pradesh Legislative Assembly will be held in a single phase on November 28 and the results will be announced on December 11, 2018.
Congress leader from Goa Joe D’souza, while paying respects to former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru on his birth anniversary yesterday stirred up a controversy by claiming that Sardar Patel was actually responsible for the partition and fanning the Hindu and Muslim divide during independence.
D’Souza could be heard saying, “The real unity of India, after Mahatma (Gandhi) was Jawaharlal Nehru. If you see the Statue of Unity, to be, it is this person. Nehru ji tried to bring India together. He, along with Gandhi didn’t want the partition to take place. But if you go to history, you would get to know the partition happened because of a person’s whom we now celebrate as the Person of Unity. Partition happened because we didn’t recognise the importance of minorities at that point in time. There was segregation of Hindu-Muslim even at that time.”
The music concert of a controversial artist, TM Krishna, where several other artists were also to perform, has been cancelled by the organisers. The show, which was part of two-day ‘Dance and Music in the Park’ festival at Nehru Park, New Delhi, was cancelled citing ‘exigencies of work’. It had also faced protests from after people called who called out TM Krishna’s alleged ‘bigotry and Hinduphobia’.
According to the reports, the Airports Authority of India (AAI) and the cultural body, SPIC-MACAY had jointly organised ‘Dance and Music in the Park’ festival. Incidentally, several members raised their objection against using public money to hold music shows involving an artist who allegedly holds objectionable views about India, its culture and art forms.
AAI on Tuesday informed SPIC-MACAY over email that it had decided to call off the concert citing “exigencies of work”.
“Because of some exigencies of work, we are not in a position to go ahead with the dance & music concert jointly organised with SPIC MACAY on 17th and 18th November 2018 at Nehru Park, New Delhi. Hence, we request you to kindly postpone to a new date and inform all concerned. The new date will be discussed with SPIC-MACAY soon,” the email said.
AAI Chairman Guruprasad Mohapatra said that some exigency has come up and AAI is not free on that day, hence it is unable to organise the concert. Whatever note we have given in the media, that is all, there is nothing more I want to say on this,” Mohapatra told to the media.
As soon as the event got cancelled owing to public pressure, TM Krishna has reportedly said, “Give me a stage anywhere in Delhi on November 17, I will come and sing. We just can’t let ourselves be cowed down by this kind of threats.”
TM Krishna, a notable Carnatic music artist, has been in news recently for his contentious views on Carnatic music after he had announced that he would compose and sing Carnatic songs to gods of other religion. His statements to belittle age-old traditions of Carnatic artform had caused furore across the country.
Recently, a concert of TM Krishna was cancelled in Maryland, USA and called out for his “Hinduphobia”. The organisers of the Maryland show was cancelled after TM Krishna had said that he would compose Carnatic songs for “Jesus and Allah” every month to shame people who had requested not to break the traditions of Carnatic Music.
Now, there are questions that have emerged as to whether the concert was cancelled because of TM Krishna’s Hinduphobia and the ensuing backlash, or some other reason.
1. Has the entire show been cancelled or would Dr Mansingh be performing still?
2. Have you cancelled the show because some people objected to Mr Krishna?
