Manoj Baitha, the Bihar BJP leader who is accused of running over nine schoolkids with his car in the Dharampur village of Bihar’s Muzaffarpur district on Saturday, has surrendered earlier today.
Muzaffarpur Hit & Run Case: Earlier visuals of accused Manoj Baitha at Sri Krishna Medical College in #Muzaffarpur. He has surrendered to Police & has been shifted to Patna Medical College for further treatment. pic.twitter.com/BoqVVQD6An
He has been shifted to Patna Medical College & Hospital for treatment of the injuries he suffered during the accident. Yesterday, the BJP had slapped a six-year suspension on him. As per CCTV reports was driving the car when it spun out of control while trying to save a woman hit by a truck. All the nine schoolkids lost their lives. He, as per reports, escaped with his driver soon after the accident.
The Nitish Kumar government has already announced a compensation of Rs 4 lakh for the schoolkids’ next of kin and has decided to bear the medical expenses of 24 others who have been injured in this incident.
It has been alleged that the BJP leader was intoxicated at the time of the accident, even though stringent prohibition has been imposed in the state.
As per initial reports, this incident took place at about 1:30 PM on Saturday when the kids were returning home from the school located near NH 77. The kids mainly belonged to daily workers and marginal farmers who had been demanding that the school be relocated away from the highway.
The protesters also blocked traffic for several hours on the route and vandalised infrastructure including that of the school’s.
Exit poll results for three states that polled today to elect their state assemblies are out. NewX -Jan ki baat has come out with predictions for all three states and it predicts a victory for NDA in all three states.
The exit poll for recently concluded Tripura elections is out. It predicts a victory for the BJP NPP combined in the state. This is in line with the NewsX Jan ki Baat opinion poll that had been conducted prior to the election. The exit polls suggested that NDA may get 35-45 seats in the final tally. The main opposition which is the CPI(M) may get 14-23 seats in the 60 seat assembly. The state was considered as a red bastion so far.
Exit polls for Meghalaya gave an upper hand to the BJP ally NPP (National people’s party), while BJP took second place. In this state as well, NDA is set to come to power. Since NPP is BJP’s ally, NDA will get the requisite numbers to dislodge an existing Congress government in the state. NDA together can win 31-39 seats in the 60 member assembly.
In Nagaland as well, NDA is set to come to power in spite of a neck to neck fight with rivals in the state. Exit polls predict that NDA can get 27-32 seats while main opponent NPF (Naga People’s Front) can get 20-25 seats in 59 seats that went to poll.
Earlier today, scientist and a columnist at Newslaundary, Anand Ranganathan lost his cool. Mr Ranganathan is known for many things including leading a team of scientists who identified a peptide molecule that can effectively prevent the interaction between malaria parasites and receptors found on RBCs thereby preventing the parasites from invading the RBCs and causing the disease. He is also known to maintain his composure under the most terrible circumstances, after all, he has a scientist’s temper. His articles and tweets are researched painstakingly. A man not known for frivolous rants.
Today, however, Anand lost his cool on a contributor at left-leaning website Newslaundry, Meghnad, with good reason. It started when Meghnad posted a tweet with a screenshot of Anand Ranganath’s profile, which showed that Ranganathan had blocked him. He expressed surprise at him being blocked.
Meghnad has since deleted the tweet, hence the screenshot of his tweet for posterity.
Meghnad then went on to mock with his friends on his getting blocked by Ranganathan and favouriting tweets which mocked, insulted and called Ranganathan names. While Meghnad has the right to do whatever he pleases, Ranganathan, too, having lost his patience with constant name-calling, decided to go ahead and block the negativity coming his way.
But it seems like he had had enough. He tweeted a response as to why he blocked him. Since towards the end of his brutal reply, he has written he may shortly delete the tweet, here is the reply he had originally posted.
Text of tweet posted by scientist and columnist Anand Ranganathan.
While Anand said he’d delete the tweet and maybe he wants to forget and forgive all, we are not going to let it go. Because this is an important lesson for those, who believe in the sham of “neutrality” that some people and organizations profess. Most of such “neutral” people and organizations are either left-leaning or they are on their path to becoming left-leaning. Newslaundary was not leftist to start with, but it went on that path very soon, and now it is just another left-leaning outlet.
It is, therefore, the living proof of O’Sullivan’s law.
The law, coined by British journalist and commentator John O’Sullivan in 1980s, states that “All organizations that are not actually right-wing will over time become left-wing.”
I remember when Madhu Trehan started Newslaundry around 2012, they positioned it as a media critique website. The positioning was perfect. In the aftermath of the Radia tapes controversy, faith in media was at rock bottom and people were looking for new media or alternate media. Many right-wingers supported it too, some I know even subscribed to it – i.e. paid their hard-earned money to these bunch of self-declared media messiahs – as they thought it was a whiff of fresh air in the stale stench of moribund left-leaning mainstream media outlet.
Today the website stinks just like any of those other mainstream media outlets. The media person Newslaundry attacks, is Arnab Goswami because currently, he is anything but a leftist. Example:
News about Arnab on Newslaundry is more than the news about Barkha, Rajdeep and Sagarika combined. Just a glimpse of their bias.
Newslaundry is currently infested with bearded bigoted leftists, who are happy to play second fiddle to the same old establishment media.
So why did it happen? What exactly does O’Sullivan’s law indicate? Why would any organization, unless actually and expressly right-wing, become left-wing over time and never remain neutral?
It is because the way leftists behave. It is because of the tribalism and intolerance of the left.
Leftists, despite claiming to believe in free speech and diversity, are the real fascists who can’t tolerate dissent. Like how students at the Leftist bastion Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) gheraoed and held the vice-chancellor, registrar and other officials hostage? And how a year later, JNU teachers’ association decided to hold a kangaroo court against him? And how an invite to Arvind Gupta, founder-member of “Digital India Foundation”, which is a non-profit trust and think-tank aiming to foster digital inclusion and adoption, was cancelled at JNU because he led Prime Minister Modi’s digital campaign in 2014? It is amusing when they, of all people, talk about freedom of speech and freedom to dissent.
The leftists, for all their talk of tolerance and inclusivity, resorts to shameless tribalism every single time, at every given opportunity. A leftist will always pick another leftist when he has the authority to hire. One leftist student organization member gets a job in media and then one after another card-carrying members join the organization.
On the other hand, a right-winger, who is often economic right-winger too, thinks about objective factors such as what would bring profitability etc. and he could pick up a left-winger for employment. Perhaps, for a traditional “right winger”, for want of a better word, political ideology wouldn’t even factor in when it comes to the task at hand.
And more often than not, the right-winger in a media organisation is mocked at and ridiculed by co-workers. I have experienced it first hand where I was condescendingly called a ‘Bhakt’ for trying to follow up a story which showed Narendra Modi, who was then the Chief Minister of Gujarat and prime ministerial candidate for the BJP back in 2013, in good light. The bullying was so much that now I have turned right-winger enough to root for Modi even in for 2024 elections.
Speaking of bullying, we wonder why Ranganathan is being bullied, especially since he has been more neutral than most self-proclaimed neutral media houses? Could it be because Ranganathan had called out Rajdeep Sardesai’s hypocrisy more than once? Or the one time he caught Vinod Dua lying? Or how he was among the first to point out Hindustan Times’ ‘Hate Tracker’ was biased and shoddy piece of journalism? Or how he exposed Congress’ hypocrisy based on Shashi Tharoor’s tweet? Or even recently how he called out Shashi Tharoor on his ‘Hindu’ claims?
Anand Ranganathan isn’t being hounded because he blocked some pretentious pseudo. He is being hounded because he refused to belong to a leftist tribe. Because he refused to be identified as a “kabaali” of the left Kabaal. He is being hounded because he dares to have a mind of his own. He is being hounded because he dared to choose the truth over the left ideology. Anand Ranganathan being hounded to end of his tether is a result of the left malaise. Is a result of shameless tribalism. Is a result of the pretense of neutrality gone horribly wrong.
Sunday morning we woke up to the news of the untimely demise of actor Sridevi. Even as the condolence messages from fans were pouring in, India media decided to lower its bar in vulture journalism by floating bizarre conspiracy theories around her death. Social media users panned the media for their attempts to speculate about the cause of Sridevi’s death, with little or no facts in hand.
But what is “speculation”? In general, the forming of a theory or conjecture without any firm evidence to back the same is deemed to be speculation. In the case of Sridevi’s death, discussing the following could be termed “speculation”:
Discussing how Sridevi could drown in a tub, How could Sridevi just drop dead, How could Sridevi have such medical issues without no known history of heart ailments? How could Sridevi, a fitness freak, have such health issues and how could she die so early in her life?
The above would be speculation since we do not know the entire facts of the case, the incident, the chain of events which led to her death, Sridevi’s health or her personal issues. Discussing such issues invariably gives rise to suspicions of foul play and something being amiss, thus one ends up speculating as to how something like this could happen.
But, what if the above issues are discussed in a question and answer format, and instead of asking “How could Sridevi have drowned in a tub”, if the question is put as, “How could anyone drown in a tub?”? Would that still be speculation?
According to NDTV, this is not speculation, because this was what was done by Nidhi Razdan on her show last night.
The very first question from Nidhi, went to a Doctor on the panel, and this is what she asked:
“What drowning in a bath-tub means. Because, it has happened to celebrities before, but people just find it hard to understand, its a bath-tub not the sea”
That is how you ask the question: “How could Sridevi drown, in a bath-tub, which has hardly any water?” when you want to ride the moral high horse of “we are not speculating”.
Later on, Nidhi went on to ask another Doctor on the panel this:
“I have another question which a lot of people have, which is that, can you just drop dead? just like that, with no heart history, being perfectly healthy, fit, eating the right foods, exercising, and yet, can you just drop dead?”
That is how you ask the question “How can such a fit actress like Sridevi, who has no public history of heart problems, just drop dead?”.
It may be noted here that this debate was held after the death certificate of Sridevi had said that she had died of “accidental drowning”. “Dropping dead” is considerably different from “Accidental drowning”. So if Nidhi was speculating about Sridevi’s death by alluding she “dropped dead”, then she was plain wrong on the facts, or she was just spewing irrelevant gibberish because “dropping dead” had nothing to do with Sridevi’s case.
In both the cases, the doctors “speculated” over various reasons which can cause this, and ended by saying “but we should not speculate”. Luckily, we did not hear any theories of how foul play could have been involved, but there was plenty of speculation as to the various possible reasons. Nidhi of course had asked them to speculate about these reasons, with her questions.
For NDTV, Nidhi and her colleagues, this is not speculation. Simply because, there were questions posed to some doctors, and the questions were not specific about Sridevi. For NDTV, it doesn’t matter that the questions fit perfectly to Sridevi’s case or that they were asked in a show which intermittently ran a ticker saying: How Did Sridevi Die?
Nidhi Razdan didn’t jump inside a tub like some other reporters, but in spirit, she was right there. In her shameless questioning, while maintaining the pretence of dignity, she probably proved herself to be at least on par with the rest of the crowd. The only sad thing here is, at least the other channels will get TRPs.
The Kerala government has decided to withdraw cases against former legislators in the infamous Kerala Assembly Brawl case. A case was registered against 6 LDF MLAs for damaging public property. However, when the LDF came to power in 2016, V Sivankutty, one of the accused, wrote to the Chief Minister alleging political vendetta. The LDF government then decided to withdraw the cases after consultation with the law department.
The 6 accused LDF MLAs accused were KT Jalaal, Kunjahammed Master, K Ajith, C K Sadasivan, E P Jayarajan and V Sivankutty. Violence ensued in the Kerala Assembly during the presentation of the budget by then Finance Minister of Kerala K.M. Mani. LDF legislators broke mikes, threw chairs, climbed atop tables and even threw the Speaker’s chair into the well of the House. The Police had to resort to water cannons and lathis to disperse the LDF workers that had gathered outside the Assembly.
Earlier in January, opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala had stated that any move to withdraw the cases against the LDF MLAs will be legally challenged. The opposition’s response to the withdrawal of cases remains to be seen.
The BJP filed a complaint to the election commission bringing to its notice some objectionable messages aired on Radio Mirchi on voting day in Meghalaya. Meghalaya voted to elect its legislative assembly today.
The complaint alleged that the advertisements on the Radio Channel asked people not to vote for BJP as it was an ‘anti- Christian Party’. The complaint further said that the advertisement was aired at 12:38 PM today. The complaint copy as shared on @airnewsalerts is below.
Complaint filed by BJP to election commission
The complaint asked EC to punish the radio channel and the advertiser for trying to communalise the election on polling day. This is an illegal act as the Supreme Court in its order passed in January 2017 had said that asking for votes on the basis of caste, creed or religion was unacceptable under Representation of People’s Act.
This is not the first time Radio Mirchi has run into trouble with their motivated campaigns. In October last year, Radio Mirch had run an ad campaign titled “Mat Aao India” that represented India in a poor light urging foreigners to not travel to the country. They had aired this campaign after a Swiss couple was attacked in Agra. Aakash Bannerjee, the Vice President of Radio Mirch had shared the video addressing foreign tourists visiting India, urging them to not visit us. At first he reached out to Swiss Broadcasting Company and passive aggressively informed them about the attack that took place yesterday. After about 10-12 hours of posting it, he put another tweet in the same thread, addressing same organisation saying how India is not safe for tourists and they should not come.
The I&B ministry had then issued a show cause notice to Radio Mirchi for running the anti-India campaign.
Now that the Vineet Jain owned Radio station has run into trouble again, it remains to be seen if the radio channel and its advertiser will be brought to book as per law.
A Christian pastor and his associates were beaten up on Monday in Bihar’s western Champaran region over charges of them carrying out religious conversions. At the time of the incident, the pastor named Joseph and his associates were heading to the James St. Paul’s church in Bettiah to take part in a prayer ceremony.
While they were on a bus travelling to their destination, one of the co-passengers asked as to where they were heading. When the bus entered the city, the passenger started a commotion that they indulged in religious conversions. After they got down at the stop, they were greeted by dozens of bike-borne youths who surrounded them and starting an assault.
The police including the city’s station house officer later rushed to the spot after being notified of the incident and brought the situation under control. The aggressors though managed to run away but the police have lodged an FIR in this matter.
It’s not yet clear whether the accusations of religious conversions have any merit or whether it was merely used as a pretext to beat up the pastor and his followers.
Regardless of this incident, recent days have seen law enforcement authorities of acting against pastors allegedly carrying out forced religious conversions.
It was reported in December that the Madhya Pradesh police had arrested a Catholic priest and detained 40 others, over accusations of them forcibly converting Hindus to Christianity. The man who made the complaint alleged that he was converted to Christianity by being offered money. It was also alleged that one of the fathers present in the group also asked villagers to take holy dips in the pond and embrace Christianity.
It was also reported how the Mathura police had arrested 7 Christian preachers after they were accused of carrying out forced conversions in a UP village. These preachers were alleged to have distributed Bibles among the citizens and even allegedly started insulting other deities while praying at one of the villager’s house.
An Andhra couple too was arrested for attempting to convert Tribals to Christianity. Back then the police rescued nine kids aged below 14 years of age from the couple, who allegedly were teaching the kids about the Christian faith, under the guise of running an orphanage and old age home.
Mohammad Faisal Siddiqui, a migrant worker from Uttar Pradesh, was lynched to death by a mob on suspicion of being a child lifter in Jaipur. A case was registered against Mahender alias Gopi and Nishant Modi in connection with the crime. Part-time Journalist and full-time propagandist, CJ Werlemen who has an infamous reputation for spreading half-truths and lies, latched on to the crime to promote his narrative of Hindu extremism.
India: a 25-year-old Muslim man was beaten to death by a Hindu extremist mob in Uttar Pradesh, after he was falsely accused of kidnapping. pic.twitter.com/ChLrHDkWNv
Uttar Pradesh Police, who have been active on Twitter in countering lies spread on social media, rebuked the Hinduphobic propagandist for falsely claiming the crime took place in Uttar Pradesh.
Dear @cjwerleman, We wish you were responsible enough to go through the videos you post. A simple google would let you know that Jaipur is in Rajasthan and not in UP. Defame responsibly to avoid getting defamed yourself! #UPPolicehttps://t.co/XZ2CV5lAsI
Werlemen falsely gives the heinous crime a communal narrative. Even National Herald, which is the mouthpiece of the Congress Party, does not paint the crime in communal colour. The sole reason why Werlemen screeches about a fictional Hindu extremist bogey is that the victim is a Muslim and the perpetrators seem to be Hindu. If that were evidence enough to prove that the lynching was a consequence of Hindu extremism, then all crimes where Muslims are victims and Hindus perpetrators would be cited as examples of Hindu extremism and all incidences of crimes against Hindus by Muslims, even a brawl between drunkards, would have to be regarded as Islamic terrorism. It becomes quite evident that Werlemen’s primary agenda is against Hinduism and he is clutching at straws to prove the existence of Saffron Terrorism.
CJ Werlemen is guilty of spreading lies in the past. During the violence at Kasganj, the US-based columnist accused the Uttar Pradesh police of taking help of Hindu extremists to arrest Muslims. he had to delete his tweet after UP police rebutted his claims.
@Uppolice
An FIR has been written regarding the incident which you are referring to and accused have been arrested.
There is no private person accompanying the raiding police team. They are part of the special Operations group of the District police.
Very recently, Werlemen again accused the RSS of harassing an inter-religious couple but according to reports, the couple were being harassed by goons who had been arrested after the video emerged on social media. The names of the accused are Hemant, Anis, Nadeem, Suhel and one was still absconding.
CJ Werlemen has been a regular offender. His obsession with relating everything to Hindu extremism and inventing lies out of thin air seems to have gone over the edge. However, he is unlikely to mend his ways as agenda trumps everything.
Cardinal Mar George Alencherry who is accused of wrongdoing in a land transaction involving Church properties has reportedly made a startling comment in the Kerala HC. He claimed that only the Pope can punish him under Canon law if he had committed any wrongdoing in the land sale case.
The Cardinal has been accused of favouring a middleman who sold Church land worth 27 crores for a price of 13 crores. In spite of selling below its market value, the Church had received only 9.3 crores. A local publication named Covai Post reported that the Cardinal blamed demonetisation for the unpaid balance. Covai Post also claimed that the Pope had been approached for taking action against him, but nothing had been done so far. However, another source says that a Vatican official was examining the complaint.
Justice Pasha, who was hearing the case responded to the Cardinal by saying that the Pope had no jurisdiction in India. He ordered the police to file a case if they got a complaint in this matter under IPC (Indian penal code). He clarified that Canon law had no validity in India. The judge had also observed that the Cardinal was only a custodian of the church properties and wondered if he had the right to sell its properties.
Reports suggest that the land was being sold in order to repay the loan taken to set up a medical college. The medical college project had been abandoned and therefore, the land bought for the purpose had to be sold by the church. In the process of these activities, a middleman named Saju Varghese and the Cardinal have been accused of underselling the property.
This Sunday the nation woke up to the sorrowful news of Bollywood Diva Sridevi’s sudden death. Initial reports claiming that she suffered cardiac arrest were disbelieved by many. What ensued was prime-time debates rife with speculation and deplorable tactics, discussing the possible causes of her death.
Now, the Government of Dubai Media Office has confirmed that the case has been “closed”. In a series of tweets, the twitter handle of the media office put out their findings:
The office says that the Public Prosecutor’s Office Dubai has decided to hand over the body of Sridevi Kapoor to her relatives after the investigation of her death and the closure of the incident. The decision to release the body came after all the investigations and procedural matters followed in such incidents were completed, in order to determine all its circumstances and ensure that justice was done within the framework of the law.
The release also says that the medical report showed that the death “came as a result of her drowning in her hotel room after losing consciousness”. The office also tweeted that the case was now closed:
Dubai Public Prosecution stressed that all regular procedures followed in such cases have been completed. As per the forensic report, the death of the Indian actress occurred due to accidental drowning following loss of consciousness. The case has now been closed.
The reason for unconsciousness however has not been disclosed by the media office as of now. Will this closure bring an end to the gossip in Indian media circles? Or will it raise even more questions?
