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Kerala floods: Why Rajiv Malhotra has a point

Murali KV
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Kerala floods: Why Rajiv Malhotra has a point

The Constitution of India allows the right to “Freedom of conscience and free profession, practice and propagation of religion”. However, it is “subject to public order, morality and health and to the other provisions of this Part”. This has been rightly interpreted by the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India that it is fine to propagate, which is to espouse the views of a religion or theological philosophy, but it is unconstitutional (illegal and unlawful) to convert somebody. In fact, to avoid any confusion the Hon’ble Apex Court defined what is propagation and how it cannot mean conversion: “to transmit or spread one’s religion by an exposition of its tenets”. An exposition is similar to the inter-sampradaya samvād(roughly equating to a discussion) or vivād(roughly equating to a debate) that the ancient Bharatiyas used to have to settle religious (theological) and/or philosophical disagreements, and of course this involved mutual respect. However, neither Islam nor Christianity believe in mutual respect but believe in the absolute damnation of the non-believing infidels.

One might argue that it is an insult to the dignity of man to claim non-believers will be eternally damned in hell. The Hon’ble Apex Court has repeatedly held that the right to life, the “protection of life and personal liberty,” entails the right to dignity. To quote the Hon’ble judges themselves dignity has been elucidated as something that is “innate” in man, as being guaranteed in the preamble of the constitution (“assuring the dignity of the individual”), “an obligation on the part of the Union to respect the personality of every citizen and create the conditions in which every citizen would be left free to find himself/herself and attain self-fulfillment”,  “is a subset of liberty”, and even observing that “the fundamental rights” themselves “emanate from basic notions of liberty and dignity”.

Thus, when the two tenets are considered together, one can say that for the Evangelists to convert people during disasters, to propagate the theories of eternal damnation and to claim that the disaster itself was a result of the people being “non-believers” goes against not just the legality that no religion is free to convert by force or fraud, but also is in direct contravention of a person’s fundamental right to life and dignity.

Yet, such an obvious reasoning of the constitutional law had to be reiterated overtly by the Hon’ble Supreme Court especially with regards to conversions by “force, fraud or allurement.”

In fact, undermining the constitution, the dignity of human life and natural justice, in the name of ever-mutable chameleonic versions of “secularism”, the Left cabal of India has spearheaded a movement to not only violate human dignity but to put the mere existence and survival of its so-called majority population under threat. This fact again is born by empirical data from across the globe:

  1. Almost the entire native American population (Red Indians) has been wiped out. In today’s population count and density of population, it will be like a genocide of the Indian population 13 times over. In pure numbers, it will be about 1,721 crores of people! It was committed under the banner of Christianity.
  2. Same happened in Australia, where the natives (the Aboriginals) were decimated and Australia is more than two times the size of India, in today’s population count and density that works out to about 265 crores of people murdered in the genocide. Again, under the banner of Christianity. So much for the religion of love!
  3. To add to all this there were hundreds of crores of Africans, Asians and Indians who were mercilessly eliminated in man-made (“Christian Colonialism” in Karl Marx’s own words) famines, and enslaved in the global slave trade and indentured labour industry, etc. (Marx K (1951) Articles on India(People’s Publishing House).

Some geniuses tend to argue that these are historic events and the Christian world (roughly the West, and its non-White sepoys and apes of the West) has largely reformed itself. Is it reflected in the data? Is there evidence for any reform within the Christian Umma? From the ongoing global Christian Churches’ child sex abuse to child trafficking to the Rwandan genocide of just a couple of decades ago, there seems to be no sign of an abatement to the two millennia old atrocities of the Christian Church. (1–4)

Yet the Left in India and the unholy nexus of the Left-and-Right in the West blame the Hindus and their leaders such as Rajiv Malhotra for being honest about the reality of facts. The facts of over many hundreds of centuries written in blood, tears and manacles of billions of lives.

Pope Francis himself claims that “suffering is a call to conversion”. When this stance of the popery is nowhere close to anything even remotely conscientious, how can it be allowed legally under the guise of freedom of conscience? Is it not oxymoronic?


And, there are several such examples of how the Evangelists have travelled to ravaged, disaster-stricken lands to use that opportunity to convert people to their religion, stripping them of their basic right to dignity.


It stands to reason then, what was wrong in what Rajiv Malhotra stated? The Evangelists have proved, time and again, that their main aim during calamities is to convert people to Christianity and not necessarily to help the victims.

Why should the victims of the Kerala flood be stripped off their right to dignity in the face of such hardship? Why should any victim feel the need to either convert or be denied the necessary aid to just survive? While chameleonic “secularism” forces people to look the other way and not weigh the merits of an argument, it is imperative to evaluate the arguments here with sound reasoning and not sacrifice the dignity of the victims at the altars of political correctness founded on nebulous and misplaced secularism.

Sources:

  1. Doyle TP, Sipe AWR, Wall PJ (2006) Sex, priests, and secret codes: The Catholic Church’s 2000-year paper trail of sexual abuse(Bonus Books, Inc.).
  2. Wikipedia contributors (2018) Catholic Church sexual abuse cases. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Catholic_Church_sexual_abuse_cases&oldid=836032052 [Accessed April 21, 2018].
  3. The Silence of the Lambs: Are Protestants Concealing a Catholic-size Sexual Abuse Scandal? – (2018) Available at: https://www.hindupost.in/world/the-silence-of-the-lambs-are-protestants-concealing-a-catholic-size-sexual-abuse-scandal/ [Accessed August 18, 2018].
  4. Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. Available at: https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/front [Accessed March 18, 2018].

While Captain Amarinder Singh slams Sidhu, Punjab Congress Chief supports the Sidhu-Bajwa hug

OpIndia Staff
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While Captain Amarinder Singh slams Sidhu, Punjab Congress Chief supports the Sidhu-Bajwa hug

Punjab Congress Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu’s visit to Pakistan for Imran Khan’s oath-taking ceremony and his subsequent hug with Pakistan Army Chief General Qamar Bajwa has been widely criticised in Indian mainstream and social media. Even Punjab CM Captain Amarinder Singh has slammed Sidhu for showing affection towards General Bajwa who is responsible for killing hundreds of Indian soldiers.

But Congress machinery as a whole has been defending Sidhu’s action. First, Congress defended Sidh travelling to Pakistan as a ‘personal decision’ and now Punjab Congress Chief Sunil Jakhar has come out openly in support of Sidhu and his controversial hug. According to reports, Jakhar has stated that Sidhu has shown ‘sportsman spirit’ in accepting the invitation from Imran Khan and India has nothing to lose in Sidhu’s ‘diplomatic act’.

Sunil Jakhar even referred to Sidhu’s claim that General Bajwa had spoken to him about opening the Kartarpur border on the occasion of Prakash Parv. Jakhar reportedly stated that the BJP government should take the matter of Pakistan opening the Kartarpur border to diplomatic levels and the ball is now in the court of Ministry of External Affairs as the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak is approaching.

Jakhar also brought up the issue of PM Modi sending a congratulatory letter to Imran Khan for becoming Pakistan’s new Prime Minister. He reportedly stated that PM Modi should explain what he has written in the letter and how the letter is different from letters written by Dr Manmohan Singh which he used to term as ‘love letters’.

In the oath-taking ceremony, Sidhu was seen sitting next to the President of PoK. Many have criticised Sidhu’s show of affection towards General Bajwa. Captain Amarinder Singh, the Congress CM of Punjab had stated earlier that it was wrong for Sidhu to hug General Bajwa because many Indian soldiers have been killed by Pakistan and regardless of who pulls the trigger, it is General Bajwa who is responsible for the deaths.

Reliance rubbishes claims of a potential deal with Alibaba in retail

OpIndia Staff
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Reliance rubbishes claims of a potential deal with Alibaba in retail

As per a Livemint report on the 20th of August, a mega deal between Chinese company Alibaba and Reliance was on the cards as Alibaba looked to acquire a large stake in Reliance retail to challenge the dominance of Flipkart and Amazon in the Indian market. The media outlet also quoted anonymous sources claiming that there was meeting between Jack Ma, the Executice Chairman of Alibaba, and Mukesh Ambani, chairman of Reliance Industries Ltd in July in Mumbai to discuss the proposal for a potential $5 billion deal.

However, reacting to the report, Reliance has issued a clarification stating that the claims of the report are untrue, which Livemint has updated in its initial report. The clarification, as reported by Livemint, reads, An RIL spokesperson on Monday said that there has been no discussion with Alibaba or anyone else on acquiring a stake in Reliance Retail Ltd. Also, there was no meeting between Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani and Alibaba’s Jack Ma in Mumbai in July-end.”

The Livemint report on Reliance and Alibaba and the subsequent clarification by Reliance Industries highlights the problems with anonymous source based reporting in mainstream media today. Many politicians have claimed, including the President of the United States, that reporters are predisposed to inventing fictional anonymous sources to further a particular political agenda. And the freedom that is accorded to the press in a democratic country allows the media to escape without any consequences for their inaccurate reporting.

Supreme Court says no to the use of None of the above (NOTA) in Rajya Sabha elections

OpIndia Staff
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Supreme Court says no to the use of None of the above (NOTA) in Rajya Sabha elections

The Supreme Court today issued an order barring the use of option ‘None of the above (NOTA)’ in the elections to the Rajya Sabha citing it should be applied in direct polls only.

A Bench led by Chief Justice Dipak Misra, AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud questioned the validity of the Election Commission’s notification, which allows NOTA as an option in the ballot papers for Rajya Sabha polls.

The top court said Rajya Sabha elections were an indirect form meant for proportional representation of states in the council of states. The apex court had questioned the poll panel’s notification, said that NOTA was meant to be exercised by individual voters in direct polls.

Shailesh Manubhai Parmar, the Congress MLA, who was also the chief whip in the Gujarat assembly during the controversial Rajya Sabha polls, had filed an appeal in the Supreme Court regarding the use of NOTA in the Rajya Sabha elections. He had challenged the poll panel’s notification allowing the NOTA option in ballot papers.

The Gujarat Congress leader had petitioned and stated that the NOTA provision would encourage “horse-trading and corruption”, if allowed in the Rajya Sabha elections.

Earlier, the top court had objected to introducing NOTA and has warned that it could lead to the legitimization of cross voting. Justice Chandrachud had said, “The idea of NOTA in Rajya Sabha elections was to prevent cross-voting, But allowing NOTA is like allowing cross-voting through the back door.”

The Chief Justice Dipak Misra had said, “We cannot tolerate the prescription of NOTA in Rajya Sabha elections. Why should the Supreme Court be a part to an unconstitutional principle?”

Interestingly, both the BJP and Congress are opposed to the provisions of NOTA in RS elections. The BJP is of the view that, since there is no secret ballot voting Rajya Sabha election, the purpose of NOTA was not much of use. While, the Congress claims that it is violative of the Constitution and electoral laws and will be “recipe for corruption”.

The Election Commission in its circular in 2014, had included the provisions of the option NOTA in the Rajya Sabha elections, after it was included in the  entire election process of the country after the Supreme Court’s judgement in ‘People’s Union for Civil Liberties vs. Union Of India’ in 2013. The Election Commission has defended the NOTA, saying that every member had the right to not vote and abolishing it would be against the conduct of election rules and also unconstitutional.

Chattisgarh: Naya Raipur to be renamed ‘Atal Nagar’ in honour of the former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee

OpIndia Staff
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Chattisgarh: Naya Raipur to be renamed ‘Atal Nagar’ in honour of the former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee

To honour the former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the Chattisgarh government has decided to change the name of Naya Raipur to Atal Nagar.

The Chattisgarh Government led by Dr Raman Singh has also decided to rename the Bilaspur University after Bharat Ratna Atal Bihari Vajpayee and will also include the biography of the former Prime Minister in the school textbooks.

Addressing a press conference, Chattisgarh chief minister Dr Raman Singh said, “The Smart City of Naya Raipur will be now called as Atal Nagar”. He further said that the Government Medical College of Rajnandgaon will be renamed after Vajpayee. Along with this, the government has decided to rename the central park of Naya Raipur to honour the former PM.

Along with this, many state government buildings and institutions of the state will be named after Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The state government will also initiate government awards to honour people who have rendered exceptional service to the society.

The state of Chattisgarh was formed during the NDA government, led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee in the year 2000. The Atal Bihari Vajpayee government had created three states of Chattisgarh, Jharkhand and Uttarakhand from Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh respectively, to uplift the poorest regions of the country by giving financial and administrative autonomy.

The former Prime Minister passed away on 16th August following a prolonged illness and was cremated in Rastriya Smriti Stall with full state honours.

IndiaSpend’s factcheck website : A classic case of how fact-checkers peddle an agenda

Nirwa Mehta
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IndiaSpend’s factcheck website : A classic case of how fact-checkers peddle an agenda

Recently, a site called ‘factchecker.in’ took up a noble initiative of tracking ‘cow-related hate crimes’. They claim that since National Crime Records Bureau does not collect data on cow-related hate crimes, they have collected the data of over eight years. To build their database their team ‘collected, analysed and verified print and online news reports in the English media, which tend to have the widest nationwide coverage’.

The catch here is, that vernacular, local media reports which have a far wider reach and circulation, many of which are not covered by mainstream English media, are not included in this database. They also have an option where the readers could report incidents, which their team would ‘verify’ before adding to the database. Except, we tried to find the submit option on the page, but couldn’t find one.

They claim that readers could submit reports of cow-related hate crimes, but there is no such option on their page where one could make such submissions.

While they claim that their data is collected from 2010, their database in 2010 shows zero ‘cow-related hate crimes’.

9-year collage of lynchings where data before 2014 show hardly any incidents.

As one can see, in 2010 and 2011, no cow-related hate crimes were found by ‘fact checker’, and in 2012 and 2013, 1 incident each. All these 4 years were under the UPA. But could it be possible that no such incident took place in these years?

In March 2011, Times of India had reported how the roads linking to Bihar border are proving ‘silk routes’ for cattle smugglers. An article published in The Hindu published on 13th February 2010 speaks of how one Nasir was beaten with an iron rod when he was trying to purchase an old cow from Hindu farmers in Karnataka. The same report talks about how a father and son were brutally assaulted, stripped for several hours and paraded near Udipi by a mob for the same ‘crime’. Meaning, these incidents did happen in 2010 and 2011 and covered in English papers, but were not covered.

Hindi papers and vernacular papers have been late in digitizing their archives and there is a possibility that these incidents of cow-related violence are stashed in the paper archive. In spite of that, a little bit of research led to the revelation that crimes related to cows indeed took place between 2010 and 2013.

On 13th April 2012, it was reported in Jagran that two men who were illegally transporting cows were apprehended by police and arrested in Jammu. On 29th November 2002, Jagran reported three men were arrested in Bihar for not only illegally transporting cattle but even beating them up. Bhaskar had reported on 17th October 2013 that villagers had attacked police in Vadodara when the police team tried to stop cow slaughter on Bakri Eid. Perhaps mob of villagers and cow smugglers attacking police is not crime enough for ‘factchecker.in’.

These were examples before the Modi government was formed in 2014. Starting with the latest in 2018. ‘Factchecker.in’ claims that there have been 12 incidents of cow-related crimes in the year till August 2018. Since they claim that the database is dynamic and is updated regularly, one would assume that at least in 2018 when penetration of digital media is even deeper than 2010, they would have more crimes to report. However, the bias in reporting is evident from the stories which, despite being covered by English media (because it seems vernacular and Hindi media is not relevant and glamorous enough in the elitist, English speaking media circles)

For example, last week, two sadhus were killed in Auraiya, Uttar Pradesh, because they opposed cow slaughter. This was widely covered in Hindi as well as in English national media. However, the same is absent from the ‘interactive’ map of ‘factchecker’. Perhaps opposing cow slaughter is not ‘cow’ enough.

Discounting that since it is a BJP-run state, the killing of few Hindu sadhus who oppose cow slaughter is not worth making it to news, moving down south, in Karnataka, a Muslim mob running illegal cow slaughterhouse attacked an India Today journalist (English news channel) in Ramnagar district. This, too, was covered by English media but fails to make it to the list here. So, not only did the Editors Guild remain silent on the attack on a journalist by the mob, the ‘factchecker’ which also has many senior journalists in the team, fails to mention it even if it out of solidarity with their fraternity.

Earlier this month, in Madhya Pradesh, a cow was reportedly raped by one Chhotu Khan. The news, too, failed to make it to the coveted list of ‘cow-related crimes’. Perhaps raping a cow is not crime enough. These three incidents are all from August. You could read more incidents, many of which were not covered by the ‘factchecker’ here.

This biased reporting of ‘facts’ which are twisted as per convenience and narrative is not new. Earlier we had reported how Hindustan Times had started a similarly biased ‘hate tracker’ which focussed only on identity-based crime reporting of Dalits and Muslims. Their hate tracker also conveniently ignored hate crimes against people belonging to certain political or religious inclination are conveniently ignored, and so are crimes perpetrated by people belonging to certain political or religious ideology. The ‘hate tracker’ was supposedly tracking hate crime from September 2015 onward, but had conveniently missed out on reporting hate crimes when the victim was a Hindu or the one time when one Farooq, who identified himself as an atheist and a free thinker was killed by a radical Muslim group.

But the mainstream media has been actively promoting how the ‘cow-related’ violence has increased in India after Modi came to power. Sujoy Ghosh, a columnist with OpIndia, had written about how IndiaSpend (the same people who run the ‘factchecker’) have regularly indulged in peddling this narrative. They had earlier filed a report how 87 people had died in cow-related violence since 2010, of which 97% of the crimes happened after Modi came to power. The above ‘interactive fact-check’ map is an extension of the same report’. As can be seen even then that their ‘research’ was based on ‘Google search’ with particular keywords.

So, a ‘fact-checker’ instead of reaching out to police to find out details of crimes committed, relies only on English media and only Google search with a particular set of keywords because why try finding out facts if you can outsource it on readers. This is not the first time ‘factchecker.in’ has been caught on the wrong side, peddling half-baked truth. Earlier too they had engaged in sensationalising an opinion masquerading as factsheet on Power Ministry. Last year in April, factchecker.in got it all wrong and ‘fact-checked’ a misreported news on passport rules.

Perhaps it is time ‘factchecker’ starts taking its name a little seriously.

Congress demands action against Delhi BJP spokesperson for calling Rajiv Gandhi ‘father of mob lynching’

OpIndia Staff
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Congress demands action against Delhi BJP spokesperson for calling Rajiv Gandhi ‘father of mob lynching’

The Congress party has called for action against Tajinder Bagga, BJP Delhi spokesperson, for a tweet in which the BJP leader referred to the former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi as the father of mob lynching.


Bagga had also conducted an online poll on Twitter in which he asked people who killed more innocent Indians: Ajmal Kasab, Afzal Guru or Rajiv Gandhi. In the poll where over 30,000 people voted, 89% of the voters believed that the father of Congress President Rahul Gandhi was responsible for the deaths of more Indians than the two terrorists.


Spokesperson for the Congress, Akhilesh P. Singh, demanded that Prime Minister Modi take action against Bagga for his remarks and should he fail to do so, Singh claimed that it should then be assumed that Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party endorses the remarks made by Bagga.


Manjinder S. Sirsa, Delhi MLA, strongly defended the remarks against Rajiv Gandhi made by Bagga after Singh tweeted against him. He asserted that there was nothing wrong with what Bagga said.


Bagga’s remarks were made in light of the Sikh genocide in 1984 where Congress leaders are accused of organizing a concerted slaughter of Sikhs in response to the assassination of Indira Gandhi. Then Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi had infamously responded when asked about the brutal murders, “When a big tree falls, the earth shakes”. Many people interpreted Rajiv Gandhi’s remarks as being supportive of and justifying the heinous crimes that were committed against Sikhs.

The farther you are from Geneva, the less you matter to Shashi Tharoor

Abhishek Banerjee
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The farther you are from Geneva, the less you matter to Shashi Tharoor

Shashi Tharoor is a class apart, a member of the political aristocracy. I think that even Shashi Tharoor would agree with that, although he probably would not frame it as an insult. And that he would use a lot of big English words that have fallen by the wayside several hundred years ago.

What I mean by the political aristocracy is a class of zamindars who see India as their fiefdom. These people are only nominally attached to any one political party, one ideology, one religion or even one country. Their real aim is to make hay both coming and going. They are the members of the global elite, a group that thrives on other people’s money (OPM) while passing judgement on the same ‘cattle class’ during their high-class sojourns in Geneva, Paris and New York.

Earlier on, when the story of Kerala floods had not yet hit the peak of the prime time news cycle, claims of ‘neglect’ became extensive fodder for the Communist Break India trolls. There was some political gravy there and it was not long before Tharoor decided to dig in and get some.

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That is some serious irony from a man who had described the people of the North East as “hilarious” and “outlandish” only a week or so before that. And a man who belongs to a political party where the top post has been reserved for members of one particular family since time immemorial. And big talk for the Congress Party that packed off the mortal remains of Former PM P V Narasimha Rao to be cremated as far from Delhi as possible.

But here is something more interesting. On Aug 16, Shashi tweeted this:

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Ok. Again, a dig at the Govt of India for (presumably) neglecting Kerala along with the words “We are coping with our own resources.” Here, the word “We” appears to have been used by Shashi for the Govt of Kerala. It is curious that Shashi would do that, considering that his Congress Party is in the opposition in Kerala. What did I tell you about an amoral global elite that will go any side their bread is buttered, a group that owes no allegiance to any party, state, region, religion or country?

Anyways, I guess Shashi Tharoor could argue that he used the word “we” in the sense of “we the people.”

So let us find out what happened between Aug 16 and Aug 20.

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What do you know! In four days, Shashi has done a full 180-degree turn and is now in Geneva for “consultations” on Kerala floods. What happened to the Govt of India is the only entity that is authorized to approach the UN?

I’ll tell you what happened:

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So, amid 350 people or so dying in floods in his home state of Kerala, Tharoor has found an excuse to go on a trip to Geneva. This is what happens when we are ruled by an amoral global elite. This is what always happens when Communists take over a state in the name of “serving the people.” The people get left behind while the aristocrats and their cronies enjoy.

We all know about Kim Jong Il splurging on fine wines while the people of North Korea were reeling under famine. This is how Communism works. In this case, the people of Kerala are literally drowning as Tharoor’s plane lands at the wonderfully scenic International Airport in Geneva.

And what “consultations” is he supposed to hold with the UN and other international human rights agencies? What was the need to go to Geneva? Did these international agencies refuse to return Shashi’s emails, Facebook messages as well as calls on Skype and Whatsapp?

A hint for Mr Tharoor: if they are not responding to you on Facebook, Twitter, Skype or Whatsapp, my guess is that they don’t want to talk to you.

Or Shashi could just have tried the old-fashioned phone call. The country code for Switzerland is +41. Give it a try Shashi; because it totally works.

I would also invite you to examine carefully the language in Shashi’s tweet, where he says he is in Geneva in ‘close consultation’ with Chief Minister’s Office in Kerala. You know what that means?

It means that there is a chance that Shashi’s trip to Geneva is being funded by the people of Kerala. And I am guessing that he ain’t travelling ‘cattle class’ nor staying in some youth hostel. No way, those tickets and hotels aren’t coming cheap. Mind you that it’s still peak tourist season in Europe so prices are through the roof for last minute bookings.

Shashi Tharoor should clarify who is funding this trip. Is it coming out of personal funds or from the much bankrupt Kerala state treasury? If it is coming out of the state treasury, will they at least have the decency not to take it from the Disaster Relief Fund? Don’t bet on it though, considering how the Kerala CM uses state resources.

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You have to admit though that Pinarayi Vijayan is a more down to earth Communist, not a man of aristocratic tastes. All he wanted to do was use the state’s Disaster Relief Money for a helicopter ride to a CPI(M) conference in Thrissur. Also, you could argue that the CPI(M) is the greatest disaster to have ever struck the state of Kerala.

Meanwhile, the people of Kerala have to get used to the fact that the farther you are from Geneva, the less you matter to aristocrats like Shashi Tharoor.

Kerala flood: While ‘liberals’ fan north-south divide, Kerala CM expresses gratitude to central govt

OpIndia Staff
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Kerala flood: While ‘liberals’ fan north-south divide, Kerala CM expresses gratitude to central govt

Chief Minister of Kerala Pinarayi Vijayan has expressed sincere gratitude to the central government and Prime Minister Modi for the assistance provided during the on-going relief work in the aftermath of the Kerala floods in an interview with Vasudha Venugopal of Economic Times.

While certain people have been using the tragedy to further their own political agenda and fan regionalist sentiments and fuel a North-South divide in the country and ‘liberal’ intellectuals have been resorting to fanning separatist sentiments in the wake of the Kerala floods, Kerala CM Vijayan and Prime Minister Modi has perhaps displayed how in the time of crisis, politics should play second fiddle federal cooperation.

Despite several probing questions, CM Pinarayi Vijayan remained steadfast in his claims that the central government had provided much assistance during the course of the relief work and he hoped that the centre will allocate more funds after a fair reassessment of the situation.

When prodded if the Center had undermined the seriousness of the tragedy by not declaring the floods a ‘natural disaster’, CM Vijayan responded, “I need to make it clear in no uncertain terms that the Government of India was forthcoming and responded positively. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and home minister Rajnath Singh visited the flood-hit areas and have been understanding the situation fully. The army, navy, air force and coast guard have been fully involved with the rescue operations from the beginning and they were part of the planning and execution. As regard to the interim advance, I am happy that they announced Rs 600 crore as two lots (Rs 100 crore after the first spell of floods and Rs 500 crore now) and I am hopeful that they would assess the situation and grant more assistance in the coming days. We have also requested the union government to consider the calamity as something of severe nature to provide all-around assistance, including from multilateral organisations for rehabilitation and reconstruction”.

CM Vijayan also expressed his “sincere gratitude” to the Prime Minister. When asked about how his meeting with the Prime Minister and the officials went, Kerala CM said a preliminary report has been submitted and he was sure that the Prime Minister understood and that his responses were very positive. He mentioned that he has been in constant touch with PM Modi over the phone and because of his intervention, cabinet ministers were also extending assistance.

When asked about Congress’ assertions that 500 crores are not enough relief, CM Vijayan agreed with that assessment but also said that he considers that amount as an advance and he was sure more aide would follow.

Head priest and sevekar brutally murdered inside vandalised Temple premises in Karnal, Haryana

OpIndia Staff
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Head priest and sevekar brutally murdered inside vandalised Temple premises in Karnal, Haryana

The priest of a temple and one of the sevadars were brutally murdered and another 3 persons were injured in a gruesome attack at a temple in Haryana. According to reports, the priest Vinod Kumar and sevadar Sultan Singh were killed inside the Bhai Behen temple complex in Manglora, Karnal while 3 others were grievously injured in a violent attack.

According to reports, the Bhai Behen temple complex is located within walking distance of the Manglora police station. On Sunday morning when some local villagers went to visit the temple, they found it locked from outside and heard the priests groaning in pain. When local police entered the temple, they reportedly found 5 people, including the head priest Vinod Kumar brutally attacked and tied up. Vinod Kumar and Sultan Singh were already dead while 3 others, namely, Ravindra Sharma, Ajay Singh and Harjinder grievously injured.

Police have reportedly stated that they had been stabbed. Some reports state that their tongues have been severed too.

The police reportedly found the temple vandalised too. The donation box of the temple was broken, empty bottles of liquor and used condoms were reportedly scattered too. The temple is managed by a local trust and the priest and sevadars were reportedly employed by the trust to look after the temple.

Karnal SP Surendra Singh Bhoria has inspected the crime scene and has informed the media that the police is investigating every possible angle behind the crime. Dog squad and forensic teams have been engaged too.

This is the second such incident of murderous attack on temple priests. On August 15, two priests of a temple in Auraiya, UP were tied up and stabbed to death while another was grievously injured inside a temple in the Bidhuna area. UP police had arrested five suspects who had admitted that they had killed the priests because the priests were trying to oppose cow slaughter in the area.

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