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By demanding uninterrupted Hindi speech from Modi, Udupi serves a crisp response to language chauvinists

Nithesh S
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By demanding uninterrupted Hindi speech from Modi, Udupi serves a crisp response to language chauvinists

A new form of linguistic chauvinism unknown to Karnataka had been propped up by Siddaramaiah and Congress. This included resistance for Hindi signboards in Bengaluru’s Metro stations and a demand for a separate state flag. The issue of the flag and regional pride were presented as ‘game changing’ moves by media. The momentum of this fake ‘Kannada pride’ had proceeded to an extent where Modi, Amit Shah and Yogi Adityanath were called North Indian imports to Karnataka.


This is indeed a hilarious proposition because the Congress party was lead for nearly two decades by a woman of Italian origin. The issue of a state flag which was propped up to gain traction among the common people of Karnataka has died down. It is well known that the issue is not considered ‘important’ by the electorate in this election.

I am a Kannadiga. Yes, I love my language, but I have no problem in listening to a speaker of Modi’s stature in Hindi. In fact, my knowledge of Hindi has improved ever since I started following Modi during his 2014 Lok Sabha campaign. I knew that there were many Kannadigas like me who have no qualms about learning Hindi or listening to politicians speak the language. Today, I found visible evidence to this assumption at a Modi rally in Udupi.

People in the rally were visibly opposed to the Kannada translator interrupting the flow of Modi speech. Modi thanked the crowd for their love and remarked that language had not become a barrier between him and his Kannada speaking supporters.

This is a crisp response to the self-appointed protectors and defenders of Kannada language and local culture. In fact, Congress’ commitment to Kannada itself is questionable. Rahul Gandhi, the president of Congress was incapable of pronouncing the name of Bharat Ratna Sir M Visvesvaraya. He was also incapable of reciting a simple Basava vachana during a speech.


Unlike Rahul Gandhi, Modi pronounces Kannada words perfectly whenever he speaks the language. He can also pronounce names of important icons of Karnataka without major errors. Thus, the issue of ‘Kannada pride’ is not a major one in this election. BJP is in no way an ‘anti-Kannada’ party. Most of us in Karnataka have learnt Hindi voluntarily without ‘imposition’ as claimed by chauvinists/activists. Therefore it would be a fair assumption that a majority of Kannadigas love their language, love Modi and don’t hate Hindi.

And to my Kannadiga brothers who have somehow still fallen for Congress’ language card, let me tell you about a Gujarati guy I know who has learnt Kannada all by himself because he wanted to enjoy our Kannada movies in their original form. That’s how you win the hearts and promote your language.

Terrorist Hafiz Saeed’s ‘political outfit’ holds ‘convention’, uses Khalistanis for anti India propaganda

OpIndia Staff
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Terrorist Hafiz Saeed’s ‘political outfit’ holds ‘convention’, uses Khalistanis for anti India propaganda

26/11 mastermind Hafiz Saeed is using Khalistanis in Pakistan to push his propaganda against India. The terrorist leader had organised a convention on Saturday at the Nankana Sahib with the help of Gopal Singh Chawla, the general secretary of Pakistan Sikh Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (PSGPC).

Chawla, a pro-Khalistan separatist who pays frequent visits to LeT’s headquarter at Muridke, had helped organize a gathering of Milli Muslim League (MML), the political front of Hafiz Saeed’s terror organisation Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), at the Sikh holy shrine of Nankana Sahib. Inputs from the intelligence sources confirm that the convention was attended by Hafiz Saeed and MML president Saifullah Khalid.

The motive of the convention was to gather support from Sikhs for MML in the upcoming July general elections in Pakistan by stirring up anti-India emotions and to recruit potential volunteers for the separatist movement against India. Sources add that Chawla had assured full support from the Sikh community for MML candidates. He had earlier, under duress from Pakistani officials, stopped Indian officials from entering Gurudwara Punja Sahib on Baisakhi Day.

Abdul Rehman Makki, the brother-in-law of Hafiz Saeed, had allegedly used objectionable words against Guru Nanak a few days ago in Multan and denigrated the Sikh community by calling them ‘infidels’. No leader of the PSGPC had condemned Makki’s statements.

It is to be noted that the Election Commission of Pakistan had declined registration of Hafiz Saeed’s political party MML and the US has placed the outfit on its list of foreign terrorist organisations. Later Lahore High Court had allowed him to contest elections. A recent home ministry report had confirmed that ISI is training young Sikhs in Pakistan to be used against India.

Jinnah’s portrait in Aligarh Muslim University sparks row, BJP MP demands clarification from VC

OpIndia Staff
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Jinnah’s portrait in Aligarh Muslim University sparks row, BJP MP demands clarification from VC

BJP MP Satish Gautam has written to the Vice Chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University asking to take down the portrait of Mohammad Ali Jinnah which was reported to be hanging in the Student Union Hall. According to reports, the MP has asked VC Tariq Mansoor to explain what was the compulsion for putting up the portrait in the University walls.

Demanding the portrait be taken down, the MP has also reportedly added that it is fine if Jinnah was revered in Pakistan after the partition but his portrait should not be put up here in India. He reportedly further added that the University should rather celebrate the contributions of Raja Mahendra Pratap and Sir Sayyed Ahmed who had both played a crucial role in the establishment of the University.

Speaking to Times Now, MP Gautam stated that Jinnah’s portrait should find no place in India.


BJP MP Maheish Girri also took to Twitter to assert that Jinnah’s photograph in AMU is an example of the same mentality that gave birth to Pakistan.


According to reports, the AMU Students Union has claimed that Jinnah was conferred with honorary membership of the University before partition and many portraits of pre-partition leaders have been hanging on the University walls since 1920. Former AMU Student Union President Faizul Hassan has reportedly stated that Jinnah was granted a life membership of the Students’ Union in 1938 and the University has many other things from the pre-partition era like the Victoria Gate. He further asked whether the gate should be brought down as well.

The University Administration, however, has maintained that the Students’ Union is an autonomous body. The Public Relations Officer has reportedly stated that many people of eminence were conferred with the life membership including Mahatma Gandhi, VV Giri and CV Raman. He further added that the portrait is a part of History and it does not mean that the University is a part of their politics.

The hanging of Jinnah’s portrait has now sparked a row on the social media with many users condemning it.


As per latest reports, the Ministry of HRD has clarified that the decision on the matter, for now, will be taken by the VC and the ministry will decide on the issue only if it is escalated to their level by the written complaint. It is notable here that the Students’ Union of AMU has been in controversy recently for objecting to the University Administration’s invite to President Ramnath Kovind for the convocation ceremony. The University again hogged the limelight when one of its students was found to have joined the terror organisation Hizb-ul-Mujahideen.

‘I get inspired by what India is doing,’ says Michael Dell at an award ceremony in Las Vegas

OpIndia Staff
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‘I get inspired by what India is doing,’ says Michael Dell at an award ceremony in Las Vegas

Dell Technologies hosts a yearly award ceremony in Las Vegas to facilitate their notable customers for their excellence across the stages of digital transformation. It is here, Michael Dell, Chairman & CEO of Dell Technologies complemented India on its effort to transform its country and society digitally. He stated that he feels inspired by the kind of initiative the Indian government has taken up to aid technological progress within the country.

While addressing the media at Dell Technologies world, 2018, Dell stated, in response to a question by IANS :

“IndiaStack, for example, is a world-leading concept and as a techie, I get very inspired by what India is doing. It is an amazing government-led effort.”

Dell was referring to a government-led initiative to create a single-window approach by a set of API’s that allows various players, including governments and private players to utilize a digital infrastructure which in turn aids in the objective of solving India’s problems through presence-less, paperless and cashless service delivery.

The State Bank of India, won the “Trail Blazer Award” for their cloud-based data storage and their recently opened innovation centre to look into the possibilities of integrating AI, ML, and blockchain. India’s largest public bank has been riddled with allegations of red-tapism and Kafkaesque attitude towards customers in the past but things are changing and they are changing fast. Even 5 years ago, the idea of State Bank of India winning an award for their forward-thinking approach towards technology and integrating it with the services offered would have unthinkable.

This award is a testament to what Dell stated. The government has set a precedent by becoming the torchbearer of technology-driven solutions for contemporary problems. The flagship of the Indian public banking reflects what the new Indian approach towards technology is and will be.

Dell also stated the importance of governments understanding the importance of technology and how it can be used as an enabler to aid government objectives.

“Governments should understand that the Internet, broadband, and fibre are really important in next generation of the society”.  

This is not the first time that the incumbent Indian government’s technological policies have been praised by industry leaders. Previously institutions like IMF and World Bank have also praised Modi’s policy.

Family of Minor girl raped at Madrasa left traumatised by Islamists’ demand to marry her off to her rapist

OpIndia Staff
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Family of Minor girl raped at Madrasa left traumatised by Islamists’ demand to marry her off to her rapist

As revealed in an exclusive ground report by Swarajya, the family of minor rape victim who was reported to have been raped in a Madrasa, has been left traumatised due to a demand by Islamist trolls to marry her off to her rapist. Apart from Islamists, such a sickening demand was also made by a student leader of the Congress party.

As reported by us, in the said social media posts by Islamists, they called the rape a love affair before making the demand to marry her to the perpetrator. The student Congress leader took things to another level when he alleged that the minor herself wished to marry the accused named Sahbaz and called the whole incident as a fraud. He later topped it up by calling the poor girl his sister-in-law.

Following such online trolling, the teary eyed uncle of the girl was quoted by Swarajya as recounting his family’s horror at the “insensitive and sickening behaviour”. He commented how he wanted to lash out on social media against the trolls, but was rendered helpless owing to the possibly of the act revealing her identity.

Before breaking down in tears, he even took pains to clarify that his niece and the rapist weren’t in a relationship and neither had she made such a claim before the magistrate. He even claims that since being rescued, the victim has been blaming herself for her family’s trauma.

After lamenting about their difficulty in fighting the rape case owing to their poor financial condition, he expressed helplessness over fighting the propaganda maligning their girl. His only solitary hope with regards to the online trolling is that the perpetrators are sent to jail, for which he has pleaded to public groups for help.

The ground report also provides new insights into the whole incident.

It claims that on 21 April, the day of the girl’s disappearance she received a call from a friend of hers – a girl of her own age, who earlier used to be her neighbour. The two decided to meet up, and the victim’s friend supposedly guided her to a auto rickshaw where she was presumably waiting for her.

After reaching the rickshaw, the victim discovered that instead of the girl, a 17 year old boy was sitting in it. She though decided to accompany him to the said Madrasa in Ghaziabad as the boy was introduced quite often to her as her friend’s brother.

Soon after reaching the madrasa, she was allegedly given spiked water and snacks by the accused Muslim cleric, following which she passed out. She woke up the next morning in throbbing pain, and was finally rescued at about 10 PM. She has subsequently tested positive for rape.

As per the family, the police investigation in the incident has left much to be desired for, as the Muslim cleric was arrested a whole five days after the incident, following several protests. They allege that the police is trying to shield him by pinning the blame solely on the boy. They also claim to have not yet received the FIR copy from the authorities.

The police blocked Swarajya’s attempts to quiz them, by calling it a sensetive matter.

You can read the whole Swarajya ground report by Swati Goel Sharma here

Singer Sona Mohapatra claims Sufi Foundation threatened her over her latest video

OpIndia Staff
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Singer Sona Mohapatra claims Sufi Foundation threatened her over her latest video

Singer Sona Mohapatra had yesterday claimed that she has received a threating email from the Madariya Sufi Foundation asking her to remove her latest music video from all communication mediums. The Singer added in a series of tweets that the said foundation is calling her video vulgar and claiming that it will incite communal tensions.


The singer further tweeted that she had been called a ‘regular offender’ by the organisation and told her that in one of her older videos she was insulting Islam as she was ‘exposing her body’ and playing westernised music. She added that the foundation, along with the Nizamuddin Dargah has an issue with her recent video ‘Tori Surat’ alleging that they find it offensive because she is seen in the video wearing a sleeveless dress accompanied by dancers who were ‘body exposing’ according to the threat notice.


The Mumbai Police, taking cognisance of her tweet had offered help to the singer. The singer was asked details and was advised to visit the nearest police station to lodge a formal complaint.


Sona Later tweeted to express her thanks for the help and assistance provided by Mumbai Police to her. Many artists of Bollywood and social media users have condemned the threats allegedly issued to her and have expressed solidarity for the singer.

Threats to singers and artists in Bollywood over their work or statements are not new. Earlier, singer Sonu Nigam had faced several threats of violence and humiliation for slamming the use of loudspeakers during Azaan.

NDTV to sell part of subsidiary to landlord, to pay outstanding rent

OpIndia Staff
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NDTV to sell part of subsidiary to landlord, to pay outstanding rent

Media house NDTV seems to be in some tumultuous times. Late last year it was revealed that NDTV was laying off around 25% of its workforce via a “turnaround plan” which would see them go for a much “leaner operation” than before.

Today, NDTV informed the bourses via a regulatory filing that it had approved the sale of a part of their subsidiary, to their landlord. The filing further stated that this plan was approved at the last meeting of the Board of Directors and that the sale proceeds would be used to pay the outstanding rent.

In the filing, NDTV revealed that it had approved the sale of up to 7.38% stake of the Company @ Rs. 59,824/- per Equity share in Red Pixels Ventures Limited (RPVL), a subsidiary of NDTV, to A R Chadha And Co (India) Private Limited, the landlord of the office premises in New Delhi.

This sale comes barely a year after they had approved the sale of its Indian wear e-commerce firm NDTV Ethnic Retail to Nameh Hotels & Resorts.

In December last year. NDTV’s editorial director had indirectly revealed at least one of the reasons for the financial stress NDTV is facing. A senior journalist with NDTV and wife of Congressman Sonia Singh had taken to social media to tweet that NDTV was not getting any “official” ads. If indeed “official ads” refers to Government ads, then the claim that they have stopped, and this has caused financial stress, meant that NDTV was running on the revenue of such ads for the past few years, including UPA’s tenure.

As per an RTI reply, The Government of India had paid a whopping Rs 15.33 crores as advertisement expenditure to NDTV and its group companies from 01/05/2014 to 30/06/2016. It is not known if anything had drastically changed since then:

As per the latest viewership numbers, NDTV is still languishing at a distant fifth in the top 5 English news channels

Besides the plummeting popularity, NDTV has other woes as well. The CBI is hot on the heels of the founders of NDTV, the Roy’s, for alleged bank fraud. The SEBI too had recently fined NDTV  for certain disclosure lapses. The Income Tax Department too is after the company for tax evasion. All in all, no acche din here.

Editor-in-chief of ‘The News Minute’ gets called out for insensitivity over Sadhvi being sent beef recipes

OpIndia Staff
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Editor-in-chief of ‘The News Minute’ gets called out for insensitivity over Sadhvi being sent beef recipes

Sadhvi Saraswati, the president of Sanatan Dharma Parivar Seva Samiti, addressed a convention in Kerala, discouraging people to eat beef. Following which, her Facebook page has been inundated with messages from some Malayalis who have been sending her beef recipes as well as images of raw meat.

However, while sharing the story on the Malayalis who took sadistic pleasure in sending beef/meat images to Sadhvi Saraswati, The News Minute editor-in-chief Dhanya Rajendran used to ‘tears rolling down the cheeks’ laughing emoji to show her happiness and amusement at the same.

Rajendran, however, was called out for her insensitivity:


The News Minute also got backlash for lack of objectivity in reporting the story and legitimizing the trolls:


Many users pointed out that a plethora of messages sent to the Sadhvi were obscene sexist and downright criminal, but somehow The News Minute and their editor found it funny:


While deriding Hindus’ religious faith is not a new phenomenon in the Media, it is indeed surprising to see a new age platform show such insensitivity towards a young woman being subjected to online harassment.

Modi takes a dig at Rahul Gandhi, asks him to first pronounce ‘Visvesvaraya’ properly

OpIndia Staff
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Modi takes a dig at Rahul Gandhi, asks him to first pronounce ‘Visvesvaraya’ properly

The Prime Minister has kick-started a campaign blitzkrieg for Karnataka elections in Santhemaranahlli in Chamarajanagar today. He has chosen a village in Old Mysore province which is traditionally a Congress bastion. The campaign has begun from South Karnataka and is he scheduled to address 15 rallies over a period of five days.

The Prime Minister started his speech by remembering notable people from Chamarajanagar, the likes of G P Rajarathnam and Dr.Rajkumar and went on to accuse Congress of not having respect for country’s culture, people and even for national song Vande Mataram, which was, incidentally, cut short by Rahul Gandhi during one of his rallies.

Rahul Gandhi has been accusing the BJP and the PM of lying about their achievements regarding 100% village electrification. During his speech, Modi hit out at Congress about their failure to deliver promises of providing electricity to rural areas by 2014. He even accused Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh of deceiving and showing contempt and disrespect for poor and that Congress should at least have credited the workers and labours who had worked hard to fulfil the dream of 100% electrification.

Responding to Rahul Gandhi’s 15 minutes challenge for a debate, he mocked Rahul Gandhi and said he is just a ‘naamdhar’ and doesn’t have any work. That him speaking for 15 minutes is itself a big issue and he challenged Rahul to speak about the achievements of Congress government and also pronounce Sir M Visvesvaraya’s name properly at least 5 times.


Modi criticized Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Congress for mishandling the governance of state and also accused them of running`2+1 dynastic formula’ referring to Chief Minister’s candidature from two seats of Chamundeshwari and Badami and the fact that his son also got a ticket to contest from Varuna constituency. He accused Siddaramaiah of being asleep all the time and his government of being a 10% commission government.

He spoke about the achievements and various schemes like Saubhagya and Ujwala scheme. He challenged Congress to fight the election on the developmental plank, which he said was missing from Karnataka. He promised farmers of doubling their income by 2022 and spoke about the flagship schemes of Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bhima Yojana and Krishi Sinchai Yojana. He asked people to vote for developmental politics rather than Congress which stood for corruption and nepotism.

Piyush Goyal hits back at Rahul Gandhi after Congress President repeatedly targeted the Minister

OpIndia Staff
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Piyush Goyal hits back at Rahul Gandhi after Congress President repeatedly targeted the Minister

The Congress ecosystem has been targetting Union Minister Piyush Goyal repeatedly, through sympathetic leftist propaganda website ‘The Wire’ for the past few months. The earlier hitjobs against Union Minister were busted comprehensively by us. But that didn’t stop the Congress party of The Wire. They had recently again targeted Goyal with frivolous charges. The last hit job was also debunked by us.

Like a relay race, Congress and Rahul Gandhi had picked up on The Wire’s empty allegations and hit out at Goyal. Rahul Gandhi demanded that Piyush Goyal resigns over the frivolous allegations.


Piyush Goyal hit out at Rahul Gandhi by saying that before Goyal became a minister on 26th May 2014, he was a professional Chartered Accountant and Investment Banker, unlike Rahul Gandhi who has lived his life without an honest day’s work. He said he was a ‘worker’ and not a ‘dynast’.


Piyush Goyal also took a swing at former Finance Minister P Chidambaram and his son Karti Chidambaram who have been in the eye of the storm regarding their alleged involvement in the INX Media scam. P Chidambaram is also under the scanner for signing off on the 20:80 Gold Scheme that eventually benefitted 13 corporates including scam ridden Mehul Choksi’s firm.


While Congress and its President, Rahul Gandhi has repeatedly pointed fingers at Minister Piyush Goyal for transparent dealings that happened in the court of business before he became a Minister, the party is mostly silence on Karti Chidambaram and P Chidambaram’s sins that seem to be tumbling out of the closet now.

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