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Madhya Pradesh local bodies polls – do results hint at what may happen in assembly polls?

OpIndia Staff
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Madhya Pradesh local bodies polls – do results hint at what may happen in assembly polls?

In the recently concluded Municipal Nagar Palika and Nagar Palika Parishad elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Indian National Congress managed to secure 9 Presidential posts each with one seat won by an independent candidate and the result of another withheld under the orders of the Madhya Pradesh High Court. The BJP secured 194 Councilors while the Congress won 145.

In Raghogarh, which traditionally has been a Congress bastion, the Congress managed to win 20 out of the 24 wards while BJP nabbed the remaining 4. In Pithampur Nagar Parishad election in Dhar district, the BJP secured 23 out of 31 seats. In Omkareshwar Municipal Council of Khandwa district, the BJP managed to secure 12 out of 15 seats. In Anuppur district, in Jatihar Nagar Parishad, the BJP and the Congress secured 5 seats each with the remaining 5 won by Independent candidates.

Overall, the BJP and the Congress both managed to retain their own strongholds although the Congress did manage to win in some towns which have BJP MLAs. While the BJP will not be too concerned with the results, reports of infighting within the party in Dhar may well prove to be a cause for concern for Shivraj Singh Chouhan with Assembly Elections later this year.

Certain sections of the media have tried to portray the results of Raghogarh as a ‘setback’ for the BJP while revealing the dubious nature of their conclusions later in the same article. Raghogarh has been a traditional Congress bastion where it has ruled in the local bodies for the past two decades and hence, the domination of the Congress Party in the 2018 municipal elections come as no surprise.

People should analyse these results with some caution and not reach premature far fetched conclusions on the basis of Municipal Council election results which are mostly fought on local issues. The Congress and the BJP have both done well in their respective strongholds. The BJP has managed to win 194 wards of the 352 that went to polls which translates to 55% of the seats. The Congress, on the other hand, managed to secure 43% of the votes, slightly higher than its usual 40% vote-share during Assembly Elections.

Despite what certain media outlets would want you to believe, there has not been any significant ‘setback’ for the BJP. However, the results of certain wards in Dhar and Barwani districts where the Congress has managed to win will provide some food for thought for the party ahead of the Assembly Elections towards the end of the year. The BJP can not take the challenge from Congress as weak, the way perhaps they did in Gujarat.

Meanwhile, according to the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) report, 33% of the candidates contesting the Municipal Council elections are crorepatis and 16% of the candidates have serious criminal background. 2 out of 19 from the Congress, 1 out of 20 from the BJP, 2 from SHS and 5 independent candidates have declares serious criminal cases against themselves.

Exclusive: How the Gandhis tried to thwart Income Tax Dept’s investigation into National Herald case

Editorial Desk
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Exclusive: How the Gandhis tried to thwart Income Tax Dept’s investigation into National Herald case

Subramanian Swamy’s “nuclear bomb‘” in the National Herald case was finally out yesterday. Swamy produced in court an Income Tax assessment order against the Gandhi family owned company Young Indian. The findings of the order dated 27th December 2017, essentially underline what Swamy has been alleging and has been trying to prove in courts for so long. Thus it seems, the Tax department has done a lot of the work already.

Now, OpIndia.com has managed to access the 105 page Income Tax order, which details the proceedings. Besides some very serious observations, one can also see all the attempts made by the Gandhi’s to thwart and subvert the investigation. The Officer has recorded many such instances in the order itself.

1. The order states that upon receiving information from the Investigation wing, the Income Tax department re-opened the relevant year’s file for reassessment. At first, Young Indian (YI) raised objections against the reasons recorded in justifying the reopening. These objections were rejected by the tax department.

2. Next, the order states, YI filed a writ petition, before the Delhi High Court, against the reopening of the matter. Upon hearing the case, the High Court “dismissed the writ petition as withdrawn”. The Tax department’s order quotes an extract of the High Court’s

3. Next, the tax department’s order states that initially a CA named Ankit Aggarwal attended the proceedings and later on, written replies were filed. Many times, YI instead of furnishing a reply in response to the notices began questioning legality of issue of notice and power of the officer to call for information. Thus, the requisite information was not filed at all.

4. The order then details the full timeline of the case. The order notes that even though 44 opportunities were allowed to YI and others, on several occasions, they either challenged the validity of notice or challenged right of the officer to call for information and on many issues “either no information or cryptic information was filed”

5. The order further notes that this non-cooperative attitude created huge problem in completing the investigation within a reasonable period of time. However, the order notes, that the request of YI seeking multiple adjournments was also allowed in order to enable it to file reply within time period suitable to it.

6. Next, the order cites an example of “deliberate non compliance” and an “effort to withhold information”. A letter signed off by Mr Oscar Fernandes for YI, is appended which shows YI making technical arguments as to why it will not submit documents. The letter also claims that a “so-called political activist  has been carrying on a campaign for witch-hunt”.

All of the above findings in the Income Tax order point in only one direction: Young Indian and its promoters, the Gandhis, tried all means available to stop, delay and hinder the Income Tax Department’s investigation. They approached the courts, questioned the officer’s authority, tried to file legal lacunae and also politicized the matter, to try and stop the inevitable.

Actor Prakash Raj distorts Anantkumar Hegde’s remarks to mislead social media

Nithesh S
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Actor Prakash Raj distorts Anantkumar Hegde’s remarks to mislead social media

Prakash Raj, a famous South Indian actor has become the darling of the leftist media and commentariat because of consistent attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi of late. He has been vocal after the death of his friend Gowri Lankesh, a communist activist who was killed by unknown assailants last year, but the leftists blamed the murder on ‘right wing’ groups without any proof.

Mr Prakash Raj fails to condemn the state government for not catching the culprits. Instead he has resorted to a hashtag called #Justasking for questioning the Prime Minister regarding various issues. Yesterday he went on to distort the remarks of Anantkumar Hegde, union Minister of State for skill development, and misled people on social media. In a tweet, he said that the minister had called Dalits dogs:

What happened at the event 

The video of the controversial part of the speech clearly shows that he did not say the words ‘Dalits are dogs’. This is a plain misleading lie by the latest poster boy of the leftists. You can watch the video here:

The minister was speaking at a job mela in Ballari district of Karnataka. There were a few protestors at the venue who were protesting against his remark at the constitution. We had argued why the controversy surrounding the constitution was a farce in our earlier report. The media claims that these protesters were Dalits. The protestors blocked his vehicle and shouted slogans against him according to media reports.

A translation of the speech in the video above is :

“Only the strong are respected. The weak are not respected by their pet dogs as well. We are stubborn about the goal of awakening and empowering the youth of the country. We will not bother about barking stray dogs. I am not here to make jokes. I don’t care if people distort my comments, but I will tell things as they are. I can’t compromise regarding that.

Life should not become a lottery ticket. It should not be left to luck, but built with one’s sweat.  We are not here to give jobs to few and do some drama. We are not here to ask votes or do politics , there is a separate forum for that. We are here to ensure that the PM’s dream is realized. It does not matter which caste or which party you belong to. All of them must be engaged in the nation building exercise.”


Though the minister might have taken a potshot against protesters, he clearly did not use the words “Dalits are dogs”. And there is no proof to say that all protesters at the venue were Dalits as claimed by Raj.  In fact, media reports say that the protesters included farmer, labour and women organisations besides dalit organisations.

This episode is reminiscent of the time when PM Modi, in an interview had used a metaphor to convey his thoughts. He had said that when even a small puppy comes under the wheels of a car, the person in the back seat also feels bad, then how will he not feel sorry for the victims of the Gujarat riots. This statement was twisted by the opposition and the media as insensitive.

“Barking dogs” is a popular phrase in various languages and is used to refer to people who just are vocal and combative but are not constructive or brave e.g. “barking dogs seldom bite” is a popular idiom in English. To suggest that this phrase paints the entire group or every member of the group as a dog is plain distortion to further a political or ideological agenda. The media and Prakash  Raj ignore the part where Hegde says that people of all castes and parties have to be engaged in nation building.

Like his fellow comrades, Prakash Raj too is slowly deep diving into the practice of using half-truths and whole lies to gain a political mileage. Last month too, he was caught spreading fake news using his social media account. We can expect even more such lies from him as the Karnataka elections approach.

Indic Activists appeal for funds to help ‘Heritage Parampara’

OpIndia Staff
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Indic Activists appeal for funds to help ‘Heritage Parampara’

Often, we hear people on Social Media talk about the undying value of temples in nurturing the growth of our economy, culture and knowledge. Temples hold the balm of spirituality for our tired souls. The spark of knowledge, for our battered intellect. Temples seem to offer one the universe with the deities’ divinity.

On Social Media, we have often seen people put up gorgeous pictures of temple and its architecture. People have walked to temple and spoke about how even their journey to temple was a spiritual one. Full of stories untold. When one looks at those pictures, one wonders the enormity of our ancestor’s spirit. The devotion it must have taken for them to carve the stones armed with nothing more than a chisel and hammer. The days and years it must have taken to give a physical form, to divinity. A gift, to generations to come.

It then is fair to say, that is our dharmic duty to preserve what was handed down to us. It is perhaps the travesty of our times, that most us have lost the knowledge of our cultural past. And that is what Bangalore based Smt. Vijayalakshmi Vijayakumar tries to fix.

Smt. Vijayalakshmi along with few others formed a trust “Heritage Trust” a not-for-profit charitable registered trust, in 1994, for the promotion, preservation and dissemination of our heritage and culture through seminars, workshops and cultural festivals to bring us closer to our roots.

Since 2010 Heritage has been conducting thematic festivals: “Gudiya Sambhrama, The temple festival” and “Srishti Sambhrama the Earth Mother Festival”. Both are a celebration and a coming together of our cultural and natural heritage in haloed sacred spaces of worship and learning.

The Gudiya Sambhrama is conducted across multiple Bangalore temples each year between the period of January and February. The working committee of the Heritage Trust develops a theme for each year. Last year the theme for Gudiya Sambhrama was “Sacred Flowers”. The festival with theme ‘Sacred Flowers’ brought together over a hundred artists and scholars of repute from across the country. Starting in the month of January for five week-ends and 8 venues, 20 temples resounded with the rhythm of dancing feet and the melody of music mingling with mystical chants and temple bells.

The main goal of Gudiya Sambhrama is to inculcate a feeling of ownership of the Temples and oneness amongst all strata of the society. Towards this end every year the Trustees ensure that all people are participants of the festival- the flower sellers outside the Temples to the artiste and the audience all sections of the society are invoked with a sense of pride in their culture and traditions. The unique feature of 2017 was the inauguration of Gudiya Sambhrama at each venue by the regular flower supplier to that particular temple. The floral artist was felicitated and appreciated for the dedication to the temple. This was an effort to understand the important role that the floral artist plays in enhancing the experience of the devotee.

The Gudiya Sambhrama is spread across the Bangalore city over a period of 6 to 8 weeks. In 2017, it was performed at several locations across Bangalore – precincts of Gudada Ramanjaneyaswamy Devasthanam in Hanumanthanagar, HSR layout, Nandi Thirtha Devasthana in Malleswaram, Koramangala Ganapathi Temple and Banashankari.

A glimpse :

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhuMv-F5SGE]

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZWnskXKFQM]

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDmw_hxGIZI]

Apart from the main stage performances artists performed inside each of the 20 temples as part of the sangeetha and nrithya upachara to the Supreme. This was the highlight of the utsava to bring back the devopacharas in the temple as this practice is slowly fading away. Artistes have found devopacharas inspiring and uplifting.

This year the Gudiya Sambhrama starts on January 27th and has a unique flavour to it. The Festival will also hold a week long program on Bhagvaata Saptha with daily upanysam by Shri Dushyanth Sridhar. The dance and music programs will be presented through the date across venues. A special highlight is Bhagvaata Chintanam to be held by Swamini Svatmabodhananda.

 

The Gudiya Sambhrama is slowly becoming a flagship festival of the city of Bangalore, a Festival that the citizens can be proud of being associated with and spread the message of uplifting arts, culture and spirituality.

Smt. Vijayalakshmi is fighting to sensitise people through her thematic festivals. Everyone treads a different path in life, and every deed, done truthfully brings you closer to dharma. However, it is every Hindus duty to support the ones, who, against all odds, choose to tread the path of preserving our cultural heritage. It is perhaps our duty, to make their fight a little easier.

Indic Activists through the Indic Academy has donated Rs. One Lakh towards this year’s Gudiya Sambhrama. Typically, the Festival budget is around Rs. 15-17 Lakhs which is met with from sponsorships and donations. The Heritage Trust has followed a principle of not taking Corporate sponsorships which expect product display and other mentions by way of sponsorships to maintain the divinity of arts and culture. This year’s program with addition of Bhagvaata Saptaha has increased the budget requirements to Rs. 27.8 Lakhs.

GUDIYA SAMBHRAMA 2018 BUDGET DETAILS ESTIMATED BUDGET

Indic Activists appeal to you to donate and participate in this Temple Festival and make it enduring and memorable event.

Pleas find below bank details for HERITAGE PARAMPARA

NAME OF ACCOUNT  : HERITAGE PARAMPARA

NAME OF BANK          : STATE BANK OF INDIA

TYPE OF A/C               : CURRENT ACCOUNT 

ACCOUNT NO             : 37475950196

IFSC CODE                  : SBIN0003357

You can visit their Facebook page here

Mr Varadarajan, spare India’s blind heroes of your phoney intellecutalism

OpIndia Staff
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Mr Varadarajan, spare India’s blind heroes of your phoney intellecutalism

Welcome to modern day India, where even sportsmen representing the country are not allowed to feel patriotic. They are not allowed to celebrate their love for their country even if they win the sport’s top honour. They are not allowed to chant “Bharat Mata Ki Jai” or dedicate their victory to our armed forces, even if they manage to win by beating India’s arch rival and nemesis Pakistan. And if they do, they are not spared the usual labels, even if they are blind.

Yesterday, India won the Blind Cricket World Cup by defeating Pakistan in the finals which were held at Sharjah. As any Indian can imagine, it was one of the sweetest victories ever. Winning the World Cup, by beating Pakistan in the final is as good as it can ever get.

To celebrate the win, the team ran around the stadium, chanting slogans of victory and patriotism like “Bharat Mata ki Jai”. The captain of the team, Ajay Kumar Reddy, dedicated  the win to India’s armed forces. While they were celebrating their second consecutive World Cup, some had a problem. Tunku Varadarajan, a British Citizen living in the USA, and brother of Siddharth Varadarajan, the editor of TheWire, expressed his disgust as the Indian team celebrated:


While the above reaction can be termed as sad and unfortunate, it is sadly not unexpected. In the past, we have seen some intellectuals even call for India’s loss in the World Cup, to prevent the fueling of “extreme nationalism” that could spoil Indian harmony.

Vardarajan though, was given many a fitting replies on social media:


Others chose to mock Varadrajan’s achilles heel: The fact that his birth name is “Patanjali” and that he is known to block people who call him by that name:


Mr Patanjali AKA Tunku Varadarajan, you may have your warped world view where a sportsman cheering his country after a famous win qualifies as “jingoism”. But please spare our blind sportspersons, who have to work doubly hard to achieve this moment of glory.

Ramayana Festival of ASEAN starts in Delhi

Sanghamitra
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Ramayana Festival of ASEAN starts in Delhi

India is hosting the Ramayana Festival of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN). The five-day long festival is being organised by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) in the Kamani auditorium from 20th to 24th January 2018.

ANI news has reported that the festival will feature top performing groups from all the 10 ASEAN nations: Singapore, Indonesia, Philipines, Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Brunei, Thailand, Laos and Myanmar.

Dr Vinay Sahasrabuddhe, Chairman of the ICCR has stated that the festival aims to bring together the ancient performing arts traditions of the ASEAN countries. ICCR hopes this festival will enrich the ancient civilisational ties the ASEAN countries share and will promote harmony.


Ramayana is widely popular in ASEAN countries and often performed as a traditional art form featuring music dance and several variations of the Epic. In Thailand, the reigning king is always named Rama.

Prime minister Narendra Modi will host the nation heads of all the 10 ASEAN nations in this year’s Republic day celebrations. While this will be a major event in the geopolitical climate of the Asia Pacific region, the Ramayana Festival is aimed to propagate deep-rooted cultural and traditional ties among the ASEAN nations and India. Prime Minister Modi took to Twitter to welcome the  Ramayana Festival.


 

One crore antenatal checkups conducted under Pradhan Mantri Surakshit Matritva Abhiyan (PMSMA)

Nithesh S
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One crore antenatal checkups conducted under Pradhan Mantri Surakshit Matritva Abhiyan (PMSMA)

The Pradhan Mantri Surakshit Matritva Abhiyan (PMSMA) has been successful in reaching the one crore antenatal checkup mark after it was introduced in July 2016. Out of these, close to 25 lakh checkups have been conducted in high priority districts identified by the health ministry. This has played a key role in ensuring that expecting mothers receive medical checkups on 9th of every month as planned under the program. Medical care prior to childbirth can help in bringing down MMR (maternal mortality rate), a key index used to evaluate healthcare services in a country.

What is PMSMA?

PMSMA aims to provide quality antenatal care, free of cost, to all pregnant women on the 9th of every month. It also aims to provide antenatal services for expecting mothers in their 2nd /3rd trimesters at designated government health centres.

Pregnant women are provided MCP (Maternal and Child Protection) card to monitor their health. One of the critical components of PMSMA is to identify risky pregnancies and pay special attention to those women. A sticker indicating the risk would be pasted on the MCP for each visit (red for risky pregnancies and green for normal pregnancies). About 5.5 lakh risky pregnancies were identified under the program.

Another innovative aspect of this program is the engagement of private sector through IPledge49 campaign which encourages private practitioners to volunteer for the cause. The prime minister had requested private practitioners to provide free health checkups to pregnant women on 9th of every month through his Mann Ki Baat program on July 31 2016. To motivate volunteer ‘IPledgeFor9’ Achievers Awards  at district state and national levels have also been instituted to honor the volunteers.


Achievements of PMSMA 

The PM’s request and awards has paid rich dividends as per the statistics put out on a PIB release.

More than 4,800 private sector doctors have pledged to provide voluntary service under PMSMA. More than 385 private sector volunteers have provided services in the high priority districts such as Bilaspur in Chhattisgarh. Several of these volunteers have provided free services at nearby government health facilities more than 10 times in the past months.

In addition to this, the PIB release lauded Dr Pooja Upadhyay, a well-known gynecologist of Raipur who turned down the travel support offered by the government and instead, traveled all the way to Narayanpur, a remote left-wing affected district at her own expense to provide services under PMSMA.

In addition to this , the PIB release put out the details of maternal care services provided under the program at designated government healthcare centres so far.

In order to enable early detection of high risk pregnancies, 84 lakh haemoglobin tests, 55 lakh HIV tests, 41 lakh tests for gestational diabetes, 33 lakh tests for syphilis and more than 15 lakh ultrasounds have been conducted under the programme based on the individual requirements of pregnant women.

PMSMA is contributing in a big way to reduce preventable maternal death with the help of private sector and active participation of the public sector. The program is also a fine example of how charismatic leadership can lead to positive social change in the country.

Central Minister says Theory of Evolution wrong, gets slammed on Social Media.

K Bhattacharjee
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Central Minister says Theory of Evolution wrong, gets slammed on Social Media.

Minister of State for Human Resource Development, Satyapal Singh told reporters on Friday that the Theory of Evolution is “scientifically wrong” as there are no historical records which say that people saw apes turning into human. The Union Minister said,  “Darwin’s theory (of evolution of humans) is scientifically wrong. It needs to change in school and college curriculum. Since man is seen on Earth he has always been a man,” he said while speaking to reporters on Friday in Aurangabad. He further added, “Nobody, including our ancestors, in written or oral, have said they saw an ape turning into a man.”


People haven’t been too pleased with the performance of the NDA government in the education department and believe Narendra Modi hasn’t paid sufficient attention to the Ministry. The latest gaffe by Satyapal Singh only served to further concerns people already have with the workings of the Ministry for HRD.

People took to Twitter to express their disappointment and mock the Minister for his statement.


Until now, the only people who have demanded that evolution be dropped from the school curriculum are Christian fanatics and Islamic fundamentalists in the United States and other countries and that has been for largely theological reasons. The statements of Satyapal Singh, then, come as a shocker especially for a country the culture of which has never witnessed a conflict between science and spirituality.

Madhya Pradesh has passed death penalty law to punish rapists of girls below 12 years. Will Haryana follow suit?

OpIndia Staff
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Madhya Pradesh has passed death penalty law to punish rapists of girls below 12 years. Will Haryana follow suit?

Reports of rising number of crimes against women from Haryana in recent past have been disturbing the entire country. Sexual abuse of minor girls has been a particularly horrible subset of crimes against women. Therefore a higher level of punishment must be awarded for these criminals.

Madhya Pradesh law for rapists of girls aged 12 or below

In December 2017, Madhya Pradesh  became the first state to pass a law to punish rapists of 12 years or younger girls. The law titled ‘Dand Vidhi (Madhya Pradesh Sanshodhan) Vidheyak, 2017’ was unanimously passed by the assembly and sent for president’s assent. The law stipulates a punishment of death penalty or a minimum of 14 years rigorous imprisonment for rape of girls aged 12 or younger. For gang rape of minors, the punishment is 20 years. The law also considers disrobing, stalking and sex on pretext of marriage as a crime.

Will Haryana Follow Suit?

Following reports of rapes of minors, the Haryana Chief Minister told ANI that the government would consider a law proposing capital punishment for rapists of girls below 12 years if the reports of media are found to be true.


While legal provisions may serve as a deterrent to future crimes, the State Government must also focus on sensitization campaigns and faster disposal of rape cases, which are extremely important to send a strong message to the society regarding the government’s commitment to protect women.

Explosive revelations by Subramanian Swamy in Court sets Social Media buzzing

OpIndia Staff
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Explosive revelations by Subramanian Swamy in Court sets Social Media buzzing

After Subramanian Swamy revealed on Twitter yesterday that he was delivered documents related to the National Herald case which would speed up proceedings in the Court and his aide called it a ‘nuclear bomb’, there was a sense of excitement in the air. And events of the day certainly did live up to expectations. Subramanian Swamy revealed the IT Department Assessment order which punctures several holes in the Congress defense against Swamy’s claims.

People have now started hoping again that there just might be the slim chance that the Gandhis might indeed suffer the consequences of their actions.


Others noted the significance of the dates of the IT Assessment Order in light of the political games that have been in the news recently.


Some speculated on the identity of the mysterious person who ensured that the documents reach Subramanian Swamy.


However, there were others who were not so optimistic despite the explosive developments in the Court today.


But they did concede the critical importance of the revelations that were made today.


Nevertheless, one thing is clear. The Congress has been deeply rattled by the events of the day and judging from the relentlessness with which Subramanian Swamy is pursuing the case, they have every reason to be afraid.

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