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It’s the same old ‘renewed aggression at Doklam’ lie in a brand new ‘The Print’ package

Nupur J Sharma
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It’s the same old ‘renewed aggression at Doklam’ lie in a brand new ‘The Print’ package

It wasn’t too long ago, in October 2017 when we debunked the lies of renewed Chinese aggression at Doklam, but for some unexplained reason, this lie just doesn’t seem to die down.

I had explained that last time that for any Chinese troop build up to be of grave concern for India, the troop build up has to south of Sinchela Ridgeline.

As long as the PLA build up, or presence is not south of Sinchela Ridgeline and not between Batangla and Gyanmochen, it is preposterous to say that there is ‘renewed aggression’ by China. The dispute, as seen from the image, lies in South Doklam. North Doklam and beyond North Doklam, the Yadong area, is undisputed Chinese Territory and China is well within their democratic right to increase PLA presence in their own territory.

During the stand-off between India and China, India had objected to road construction in that area marked between blue and red lines. After disengagement, the status quo was agreed at 150m and that has not been breached.

The Print article claims that China has “occupied North Doklam” with armoured vehicles and 7 helipads. For the layman’s benefit, this is like saying India has “occupied” Sikkim by increasing the presence of its own troops in its own territory. As mentioned before, North Doklam and the area beyond North Doklam, Yadong, are undisputed Chinese territory and China can do as they please. One wonders then, what does The Print mean when it says that this poses “New trouble for India”?

PLA presence has always been there in Yadong and North Doklam and this phenomenon is nothing new. Increased presence, if at all, is of no relevance as long as the 150m status quo is maintained both by the Indian Army and PLA.

The Print article very cleverly says :

“The new images show concrete posts, seven helipads, new trenches and several dozen armoured vehicles close to the point where the Indian Army and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) troops were locked in a 72-day confrontation last year.

The discovery comes days after Army chief General Bipin Rawat said that China continues to have troops in North Doklam but also added that the deployment had thinned down recently.

However, new satellite imagery accessed by ThePrint from 10 December 2017 shows that the Chinese side is now well entrenched in the area, with heavy road building machinery still present close to the stand-off point”.

The author insinuates that the so-called build up of PLA is “close to the point where India and China were locked in a stand-off”. In an area like that of the Doklam plateau, a few kilometres can potentially take days to travel, hence this assertion doesn’t hold water unless the author gives the exact location of troop build up and proves that it is south of sinchela ridge.

Then, he goes on to quote the Army Chief, General Bipin Rawat who said that Chinese troops are present in North Doklam but the deployment has thinned. The author follows that by saying there is heavy machine deployment “close to the stand-off point”.

The author and The Print treacherously omit that North Doklam is Chinese territory and by repeatedly mentioning how it’s “close to stand-off point”, insinuate that there is already renewed aggression, an assertion that cannot be further from the truth.

A very interesting portion of the article says :

“A large number of troops seem to have been kept in tents under very good camouflage, but certainly not good enough for satellite imagery not to spot them”.

Firstly, the stand-off was triggered because of ‘pakka road construction in the disputed site’. When the author seeks to fear monger based on PLA troops, living in kaccha tents in their own territory, one can only be thoroughly amused. I wish someone also informed the author, that if the troop presence can be so easily tracked by commercial satellite imagery, the troops are probably not trying to hide at all. It’s their territory and they don’t feel the need to.

After a barrage of baseless assumptions, the author finally concludes with the central point :

“New roads have been constructed to cover the North Doklam plateau. Work is in progress to widen existing roads. Most of the roads have communication trenches running along them”.

The author ominously says that new roads have been constructed in North Doklam and there is work in progress to widen the existing roads. Again, to reiterate, they can build roads in North Doklam since it is undisputed Chinese territory. As far as the widening of existing roads are concerned, it is again not something that India objects to considering it’s in their own territory. The stand-off was a result of attempts to make new pakka roads in the disputed area, not widening of old roads in undisputed areas.

This embarrassingly oft-repeated lie was also responded to by National Security Analyst Nitin Gokhale.


Others pointed out that the Chinese are in their own territory and if they have 2 Battalions in their own territory, we have 2 divisions in ours, looking over them.


Just as the last time this lie was countered in October 2017, this time too the propagandists masquerading as journalists came out to express their glee. Now, either they are truly ignorant and have no idea that this is a lie, or they know this is a lie but would like to further it anyway, hoping, it hurts PM Modi’s image, even if it hurts India’s image in the process. Either way, the jubilance was discomforting.


These elements celebrating a lie, hoping that it were the truth, have conveniently ignored not only facts, but even the Army Chief General Bipin Rawat’s statement regarding the issue. The Chief said that they are present in North Doklam but the numbers have thinned down. That they have carried out infrastructure development, most of it temporary in nature. He said if they are there, we are also there (presumably, the chief meant that if they are present in their own area, we are present in ours too). He said if they come, India will face them but the mechanism of dialogue and to resolve such issues is functioning smoothly and he doesn’t expect any major trouble. But one has to be prepared.

The questions that plague this entire fiasco is two-pronged.

  1. Why is this lie being regurgitated over and over again, with ambiguous language and wild assertions so as to confuse the reader into believing that there might indeed be some renewed tension between China and India. Every time this lie has been regurgitated, the articles have deliberately or ignorantly missed mentioning that the PLA presence is in China’s own territory and not in Indian or disputed territory.
  2. Are the journalists and politicians who seem to celebrate every time this lie is regurgitated aware of the ramifications such misreportage can have? China is known to be extremely well versed with psychological warfare and perhaps for the very first time, India is standing toe and toe and flexing its muscles right back. These attempts to sow seeds of doubt and weaken the psychology of the nation hurts not China, but India.

Perhaps the most hilarious excuse for this kind of rabble rousing is that they are trying to “warn the army” to “stay alert”. I only wish they knew that the army knows it’s job quite well, and perhaps, they don’t need to concoct lies simply to get the army to do their job.

One thus wonders, whose side are they on?

 

Defence Acquisition Council Fast Tracks Procurement of Assault Rifles

Nithesh S
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Defence Acquisition Council Fast Tracks Procurement of Assault Rifles

The defence acquisition council (DAC) approved the procurement of assault rifles under the defence procurement policy. The council headed by the defence minister approved the procurement of 72,000 assault rifles and 93,895, odd carbines worth Rs 3,547 crore.

The army had been struggling under the UPA to replace aging indigenous INSAS rifles that had been inducted into the army in 1998. The parliamentary standing committee under UPA had admitted the shortage of key ammunitions as late as  2012. Paramilitary forces like BSF were also facing a shortage of arms at that time. The push for modernisation of forces has gathered moment after the 26/11 incident under the UPA.

The push for localising small arms received attention under the NDA government. The DRDO produced two varieties of rifles as per requirements of the army. 7.62×51 mm guns were rejected in June 2017. Another 5.56 mm rifle called ‘Excalibur’ designed indigenously was also rejected due to poor performance in 2016. The army complained that “excessive flash and sound signature” were observed in the rifles during the trials. However, time seems to be running out for the current government to wait till these defects are rectified.

The fast-track process can be used by the army only under two circumstances

  • to ensure expeditious procurement of urgent requirements of the regular and special forces, “foreseen as imminent during war and peace”.
  • Undue delay in procurement which affects preparedness of forces.

Reports suggest that the process for procurement will soon be initiated. The requirement can be fulfilled through government to government agreements as well. It appears that the bureaucratic hurdles for replacing the aging rifles and ammunition stock has been cleared.

Had the UPA regime meticulously acted on the requirement, the needs of armed forces could have been met through indigenous design and manufacturing. Nevertheless, the minister deserves credit for taking swift decision to meet the needs of armed forces.

The demand to stop ‘funding’ Hindu pilgrims as Hajj subsidy is gone is dishonest and evil

Rahul Roushan
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The demand to stop ‘funding’ Hindu pilgrims as Hajj subsidy is gone is dishonest and evil

On Tuesday, it was reported that the Hajj subsidy provided by the government will be ‘fully withdrawn’, effective from the current year. This withdrawal was fallout of a 2012 order by the Supreme Court of India that had asked the government to fully withdraw the subsidy in the next 10 years i.e. by the year 2022. The target has been achieved 4 years earlier than the deadline set by the apex court.

As soon as the news was ‘broken’ (though it was something expected to happen since 2012), there were various reactions, mostly welcoming the decision. It was seen as a truly secular step where the government is keeping its hands off religious business. BJP government muddled the water further by claiming that it was an extension of their policy of ‘appeasement to none’ but empowerment of Muslims at the same time.

A wily Owaisi used this spin bowling by BJP to play a reverse sweep and asked that if Hajj subsidy was being fully withdrawn, why should the government provide assistance to Hindu pilgrims (some state governments do) or spend big on Hindu events and festivals like Kumbh Mela?

Since an Islamist invariably finds an ally in a so-called left-liberal in modern times, this line of argument was soon picked up by some ‘liberals’, and they also asked why should the government not stop aiding Hindu pilgrims or pilgrimages. Outlook magazine immediately published an article titled ‘After Haj Subsidy Scrapped, Spotlight On State-Funded Hindu Pilgrimages, Including Rs 2,500 Crore By UP Govt For Ardh Kumbh’.

Yes, they are already imagining a “spotlight”. This spotlight is essentially the focus of the narrative they want to build. And that narrative is – Let’s now target Kumbh and other Hindu events, and force the government to stop aiding and supporting Hindu religious events and festivals (courts have already mauled many Hindu festivals). The narrative will argue that after Hajj subsidy is withdrawn, it is only fair that Hindu festivals too should not get government support.

Overtly, this line of argument might appear fair to you. For sake of equality, why should government not also withdraw benefits given to Hindu pilgrims if benefits given to Hajj travelers were withdrawn?

The answer lies in your question; “for sake of equality”.

The government may withdraw assistance to Hindu pilgrims and pilgrimages, but only after there is real equality between the way government treats Hinduism and other religions, especially the non-Indic religions. And for your information, the government does not treat them equally. That’s why this demand is unfair, dishonest, immoral, and in fact, evil.

Government is not fully out of organizing Hajj

Let’s first see what exactly is the truth of Hajj subsidy withdrawal. If you think that this means that the Government of India is not going to spend a penny on facilitating Hajj – a mandated religious travel for Muslims to Mecca in Saudi Arabia – after this year, you are wrong.

What is being withdrawn is only the subsidy that was granted on air fare. In fact, the Supreme Court order of 2012 followed some petitions that were filed by tour operators who were not happy with some rules of the Hajj policy (such as them requiring to have a bigger office, etc.) and some aspects of them were related to air fares.

The court in 2012 was not debating whether Hajj subsidy was against ‘secularism’ or whether it violated the Article 27 of the Constitution. A petition arguing that it violated constitution was already dismissed by the Supreme Court in 2011. OpIndia had filed a report about the same, which you can read here.

Hajj subsidy, rather the subsidy granted on air fare, was asked to be withdrawn by the court because they found that it didn’t make any great economic sense, and more importantly, the Holy Quran asks someone to undertake Hajj only if they can afford it themselves. Thus the court observed that such a subsidy was against Quran and hence should be done away with.

Yep. The withdrawal of subsidy was due to a Quranic verse, not due to any article of constitution. In fact, the 2012 order clearly says (referring to another order by the Supreme Court a year earlier):

“We also take note of the fact that the grant of subsidy has been found to be constitutionally valid by this Court.”

Yet, the aforementioned Outlook article says “It (court) said that this subsidy is not only unconstitutional but inconsistent with the teachings of Quran.”

This is where the argument is dishonest. Look how the Outlook journalist has imagined that the court found Hajj subsidy unconstitutional – even though the court explicitly said it was constitutionally valid – just to build an argument against Hindu events like Kumbh.

Nothing ‘secular’ about it

Now let’s come back to the issue of government spending money on Hajj. Yes, they will no longer be spending money on air fare, but this does not mean that the Hajj Committee of India will be abolished and the various Hajj Houses in various states of India will be closed and instead used for ‘secular’ purposes. Special ‘Hajj terminals’ have been built at many airports in India ([1] [2] [3] for example) and they are not going to disappear just because subsidy on air fare is being withdrawn.

Government will continue running them and the taxpayers will continue funding these institutions and entities, which are exclusively meant to facilitate a religious travel.

So on what basis are you really asking the government to stop helping organize Hindu religious events when the government has not really exited organizing the Hajj business? Get the idea of equal treatment now?

Secondly, the court had ordered that the subsidy money should rather be spent on welfare activities exclusively meant for Muslims, especially Muslim women, and the BJP government has said the same. Therefore, the money is still being used for ‘communal’ purposes, so please keep your secular spirits in check.

Now for the sake of argument, let’s say the government completely exits the Hajj business and closes down the Hajj Committee of India and Hajj Houses, then should Hindu pilgrims and pilgrimages stop getting any kind of government support?

No. Such a demand will still be unfair and immoral.

Government must exit all religious business for true secularism

It will continue to be unfair and immoral till the government controls Hindu temples and uses their money and assets for ‘secular’ purposes. We have already seen how a recent decision by the Maharashtra government virtually empowers the state to take over temple land and use it for public purposes.

There are various other issues related to government control of Hindu temples and this detailed talk by Sai Deepak – who is associated with a civil liberties group Indic Collective that is leading a campaign to free temples from government control (among many other initiatives they have undertaken) – can help you understand those:

In short, the government can’t treat Hindu temple money and assets as public property and Hindu religious events as private matter at the same time. This is immoral. The government is obliged to help with Hindu events, or for that matter, most public events. Any deployment of police to control crowd and public order is a basic government duty, and that can’t really be seen as “subsidy”. If it is subsidy, governments are subsidizing every Jumme Ki Namaz when in almost every city and town of India, Muslims offer prayers on roads or in public space on Fridays and there is invariably police deployment for the event.

Yes, there are some subsidies given by some state governments to Hindu pilgrims, but this is again a moral responsibility of the government that is often controlling those destinations and temples and earning from them. One may again try to dishonestly argue that Waqf board (which is a quasi-government body) ‘controls’ Mosques or other assets such as land, and thus government control over Hindu temples is not something exclusive to Hindus. This will be a dishonest argument but entirely expected from some quarters.

There is virtually no government control over the waqf assets, as they are supposed to be assets of ‘Allah’ and the government can’t use them for public purposes. It is mandated that the any revenue generated from waqf property is to be used only for welfare of Muslims, just what the court also said about the withdrawn Hajj subsidy money. On the other hand, remember, how it was argued that the gold in Padmanabhaswamy temple belongs to every Indian?

To sum it up, unless these inherent inequalities and discriminatory policies towards Hindus are changed, it is pure evil to demand that the government should stop aiding Hindu pilgrims and pilgrimages.

(the article was updated at 11:15 AM on 18th January 2018 to make a couple of points more elaborate by putting in some examples)

Despite some Indians asking #MatAaoIndia, foreign tourists come in record number

OpIndia Staff
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Despite some Indians asking #MatAaoIndia, foreign tourists come in record number

In October last year, Akash Bannerjee, Vice President of popular radio channel Radio Mirchi, who is known to be a hateful Twitter troll, and has also been accused of spreading a fake video on Twitter, shared a video on Twitter to run a campaign #MatAaoIndia. The video was shared following the despicable attack on the Swiss couple in Fatehpur Sikri. Minister of External Affairs, Sushma Swaraj had also taken to Twitter to ensure foreign tourists of the safety, law and order for everyone.

Banerjee eventually even tagged Swiss Broadcasting Company passive aggressively asking them to spread a word in Switzerland to tell the Swiss how India is unsafe and they should not come here. However, despite the fear-mongering propagated by the ad, the foreign tourists in India have crossed the 10 million mark for 2017. In fact, in January 2018 alone, the number of foreign tourists arriving in India is expected to breach the 1.2 million figure, the highest ever for any month in last two years.

According to the data released by tourism ministry there has been a growth of 15.2% in tourists in December 2017 over December 2016 with 2.41 lakh tourists arriving on e-Tourist visa as against 1.62 lakh in the previous year. Union tourism minister KJ Alphons said that the leap in tourism even pushed the country’s earnings to over 27 billion dollars. The minister also said that the sector is contributing 6.88 percent to India’s GDP while providing jobs 12 percent share of jobs in 2017.

The gang of so-called liberals who would hurt India just because Modi is the Prime Minister supported the hateful campaign of Banerjee and downplayed it by calling it ‘tourist safety campaign’ which had to be brought down because of ‘right wing trolls’.


Varadarajan was also called out for referring to those who did not agree with Radio Mirchi campaign as ‘trolls’.


But it seems the hateful campaigns to malign India’s image as a preferred tourist destination amongst foreigners has had no impact.

Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee’s picture defaced in a hoarding inside Jadavpur university

OpIndia Staff
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Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee’s picture defaced in a hoarding inside Jadavpur university

A picture of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, which was part of a hoarding put up inside the Jadavpur University in Kolkata, has been found to be defaced. This act has triggered condemnation from the university’s vice-chancellor and the state education minister Partha Chatterjee, who has assured strict action against the vandals.

The poster in question was put up by the university’s teaching and non-teaching staff wing affiliated to the Trinamool Congress, thanking Mamata for granting Rs 100 crores to the university.

This though possibly angered someone, who proceeded to do this this to the poster:

Defaced poster

As seen above the poster claims that Jadavpur University cares for Mamata as much as she cares for them. Below that, Mamata’s eyes and lips are blackened using black ink and graffiti mocking the message was also inscribed on it. The vice-chancellor called this act of vandalism as “very unfortunate” and claimed that this issue was being taken up with the students and faculty by the Executive Council.

While this episode played out, the vice-chancellor was confined to his office due to a sit-in organised by the university students, to protest against the attempt to dissolve student union.

Even though the Jadavpur university is in the limelight for this incident, this defacing business though is fairly common occurrence in the Jawaharlal Nehru University.

In 2015, the JNU Students Union’s (JNUSU) joint secretary had alleged that left wing vandals had defaced at least 15 posters, which contained the obituary of late VHP leader Ashok Singhal. These black and white posters put up by the ABVP, portrayed Singhal as a “revered emperor of Hindu hearts”.

A JNU councillor had alleged in 2016 that the door of his room was defaced, and a sticker of a national flag was also allegedly torn. The website of the JNU’s central library has also been subjected to vandalism, with a hacker named “Black Dragon”, defacing it.

Largest ever haul of Demonetised currency worth over Rs. 100 crore seized from Kanpur

OpIndia Staff
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Largest ever haul of Demonetised currency worth over Rs. 100 crore seized from Kanpur

As per reports by Times Now and ANI, a very large haul of demonetised currency has been seized by NIA in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh.

The seize happened yesterday when NIA raided a residential building in Kanpur, UP’s industrial hub. The cash is reported to have been stored in several rooms of a multistoried building. This is being stated as the single largest haul of demonetised currency seized so far. The largest count was Rs 40 crores seized from a lawyer’s house in New Delhi’s Defense Colony last year.

Times Now has reported that until last evening Rs 80 crores have been counted by NIA and the counting was still underway.


The raid was being carried out by NIA with the help of UP Police in the said building in Kanpur. NIA officials have estimated the total cash haul to well exceed Rs 100 crores. More details are awaited.

ANI has also reported that the demonetised currency was being counted and investigations are still on


According to the TimesNow report, sources have said that they are looking at the involvement of Government officers Another officer has reportedly said that the raid was conducted in Seesamau pocket of Kanpur and some people were detained from a hotel in Swaroop Nagar pocket.

The raid is being monitored by Inspector General (Kanpur Range) Alok Singh, according to reports.

After November 8th 2016, when Demonetisation was announced, the Government has consistently upped the ante to nab hoarders and defaulters. We had reported how the Income Tax department was all set to send tax notices to 1.16 Lakh tax depositors post demonetisation. We had also reported how Congress tried to debunk the historic step by spreading half truths and whole lies and had elucidated what Demonetisation had achieved after one year.

With this large cache of demonetised notes found by the authorities, it remains to be seen who the culprits are, that the NIA and police refuse to name for the moment.

With the new orange passport, Govt is being inconsiderate towards the orange phobia our Prince suffers from

Sanghamitra
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With the new orange passport, Govt is being inconsiderate towards the orange phobia our Prince suffers from

You read that right. We are serious and we are really concerned. Because contrary to popular belief most of us Indians do love Rahul Gandhi and are concerned about his issues. We have all seen adorable pictures of his childhood as a dimple-cheeked, beautiful boy growing up in the palatial premises of 10 Janpath or celebrating his birthday aboard an international flight with his illustrious family surrounding him. We are so used to the images of his happy, privileged, picturesque childhood that the very idea of a possible chronic childhood phobia haunting our beloved prince is very unsettling for us and the recent events have led us to be more certain of what we had long suspected.

Rahul Gandhi might have a condition called “Chrysophobia” or more accurately and less commonly known as Sandarakinophobia. Sandarakinos is the Greek word for the colour orange. (yeah, the vain Greeks and their grandiose terms! we thought so too). It is a real condition, people. And before you laugh it off, please pause and ask yourselves, don’t we all suffer from at least one kind of phobia? Spiders, cockroaches, heights, snakes, darkness, driving and the likes? Is it so uncommon? Why do most people tend to laugh it off? It is unfair. It is perfectly common and normal to have a phobia so save your cynical mind’s judgement of our beloved prince to yourselves.

The phobia is real. if you have doubts, google it and you will find that at least 250,000 Americans suffer from it. We are certain that many Indians have it too, though they would never admit. The fear comes from a bad experience in early life involving the colour orange (or, well, saffron). Incidents such as spilling orange juice all over oneself, or being left alone in an orange coloured room, of being bullied or humiliated before  classmates by splash of orange paint etc. People who have it, harbour a chronic fear of all things orange. Extreme cases might even see the person sleeping through the night, to avoid artificial lights, avoid buying anything orange, avoid looking at anything orange and some even avoid looking at the rising sun!

Our suspicions rose from the day Rahul Gandhi started being actively involved in politics. For he has been vocally opposed to anything saffron. From criticising RSS (they carry saffron flags) to Yogi Adityanath (because of his gerua vastra) and his court singers have followed suit. Even Baba Ramdev ‘s herbal and ayurvedic FMCG brand Patanjali has faced his ire. Heck, you and your party even branded the majority community of this country as terrorists simply because the colour saffron can be associated with them, of course, you retract now considering you might be the only patient who has electorally selective Chrysophobia.

More recently Rahul Gandhi spoke against the proposal for issue of new orange coloured passports for people with ECR status and his aversion to the colour was evident.

His party, Congress, has gone one step ahead and stood behind their prince to mainstream his phobia. They released a video titled “Orange is the new Blue”


Now, it did not take us long to realise that it is not his concern for citizens being discriminated against but his phobia speaking.  the MEA did make a proposal for issuing new passports with the orange coloured jacket, but that was NOT to discriminate among citizens. We already have three existing colours for passports. Blue for the public, Maroon for diplomats and White for officials. The statement issued by the MEA clarified further on this matter. There was a larger concern of doing away with the last page of the passport for the sake of single parents and adopted children. Rahul Gandhi may not be aware of this but the MEA’s decision of NOT making it compulsory for single and divorced women to mention the name of their husband or the father of the child was wholeheartedly welcomed by women of the country. Imagine a single mother having to run to a passport office again and again because she could not include the name of the father of her child. Wasn’t that discriminatory? Imagine a person who has fallen out with either or both his parents and does not want to include their name (s/) in his/her passport. Citizens did face such problems. Wasn’t that discriminatory?

Moreover, as different colour-coded government documents are not something new in India and state governments issue even different coloured ration card based on the income of families, we became certain Rahul Baba’s outrage against the proposed new passports can only be rooted in his phobia.

The statement of the MEA has made it clear that the new orange-jacketed passport norm will be applicable to only the passports with ECR status and that too only when their current passports expire. Any attempts to paint this issue in class divide and apartheid colours (pun intended) is pure disillusion and that brings us to the only real issue at hand, Rahul baba’s fear of the orange colour.

We get you, Rahul, we get your fears. It was totally unsympathetic for your party men to make a video that flashes more orange light than mirrors inside a bright orange room, or a bright sunrise in the morning (sorry for the mental image). We stand with you. You have nothing to fear from these new passports, as they are little things people carry in their pockets and they will only help MEA to assist ordinary citizens who have not qualified class 10th level and go to find employment in conflict-prone countries.

We will, however, understand you and even support you, in case you decide to protest against any of these following unnecessarily orange things;

Traffic cones

Sunrise/sunset

Tress in autumn season

The TV show named ” Orange is the New Black ”

Please remember, we support you in these trying times.

Israeli Prime Minister calls to unite against ‘Radical Islam’ terror

OpIndia Staff
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Israeli Prime Minister calls to unite against ‘Radical Islam’ terror

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister who is on his maiden visit to India, lashed out at ‘Radical Islam’ which is ‘challenging our way of life’. Netanyahu was speaking at the third edition of multilateral geopolitical conference Raisina Dialogue, where he called for an alliance of democracies and to strengthen the Indo-Israel ties.

Netanyahu said that in the democracies like India and Israel, our way of life is being challenged. He said that the quest for modernity and innovation is being challenged by radical Islam and its offshoots which could upset the international system. He suggested that to overcome this, one of the ways is to strengthen the ties between the two democracies.

Stressing upon the value of democracy, Netanyahu referred to India and Israel as natural friends. He said that the alliance of democracies is essential to secure the common future of the two countries.

Netanyahu said that after establishing military power and economic growth, Israel built the third power, that is political power. But he said that there is a fourth power which is the power of values and the most important of these is democracy. He said that the weak don’t survive, the strong do and one must hence, make tryst with the strong.

Referring to India’s growing economy, Netanyahu lauded the steps taken by Modi Government for ease of doing business. He further added that both India and Israel need to work towards cutting the bureaucracy.

While Israel has been tackling the turbulent relationship with the Islamic world over Palestine issue for decades, the ‘Radical Islam’ statement hit a chord with India, which has been facing cross border terrorism from Pakistan as well as terrorist attacks in Kashmir.

Study By IIM-B professor debunks claims of ‘jobless growth’

Nithesh S
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Study By IIM-B professor debunks claims of ‘jobless growth’

Rahul Gandhi and the Congress party have continuously accused the government of not fulfilling their promise of creating jobs for the youth of the country. He repeated this accusation in his recent visit to Amethi and praised job creation in China.  Labour bureau figures have been cited as the source for justifying this misconception.


However, a deeper analysis shows that this perception of poor job creation under NDA tenure may be false.

Concerns of poor job data by former NITI Aayog chief

Former NITI Aayog chief Arvind Panagariya had remarked that job data in India is not accurate in an interview to Hindustan Times. This is because the labour bureau data on jobs, which is collected every three months covers only those firms which have more than 10 employees. Jobs created in informal sector are not covered. He also said that a more accurate source for job data , the NSSO household survey (Employment and Unemployment Survey) ,is collected once in five years. This makes it difficult for the government to assess real numbers of jobs created or lost in the economy.

Existing surveys to measure employment are misleading

In a study titled  ‘Towards a Payroll Reporting in India’,  conducted by Pulak Ghosh (Professor IIM, Bangalore) and Dr. Soumya Kanti Ghosh, (Group Chief Economic Adviser, SBI) have tried to address the poor jobs data scenario in India’s formal sector. They call the existing surveys to measure employment as ‘most misleading’ in their report. The reasons cited for this remark are (emphasis added) :

Information was sought from around 11,179 units as a representative sample for 8 sectors at all India level.

  • Number of non-respondent not disclosed in the Survey
  • The survey result comes with a huge lag. In the Dec’17 month Labour Bureau has published employment situation as of Mar’17
  •  This is primarily an establishment survey for collecting information on employment in the unit; therefore, it does not provide any information on unemployment in the country
  • The survey is based on either record or response of the unit. However, verification of record has not been resorted to for collection of data
  • The Collection of Statistics Act-2008, is not applied to QES. Hence, all the information provided by the selected unit/ establishment is on a voluntary basis
  • The Scope of QES is limited to all establishments having 10 or more workers and the scope & coverage is further limited to employment in Non-farm Industrial economy covering 8 selected sectors (vis-à-vis universe of 190 industries)

A better method for collecting employment data

The researchers have studied payroll data generated for new employees ( in the age group of 18 to 25) in formal sector for the financial year 2017-18. They have got the raw data for the study from ESIC (Employees’ State Insurance Corporation), NPS (National Pension Scheme) and GPF (Government Provident Fund) to understand the real scenario of jobs in the country. The main findings of their study is captured in two graphs.

Graph 1

Graph 1 : This graph captures the total number of payrolls collected from various organisations

Graph 1 is a compilation of the total number of payrolls generated for new employees in the age group of 18-25. This is more reliable than the labour bureau data as there is a confirmation of the employee numbers because of the social security payment records for the entire workforce in formal sector.

Graph 2

Graph 2 Number of jobs created is equal to new payrolls generated as per the study

Graph 2 captures the data of EPFO (till November ’17 ) ESIC (till September ’17 ) NPS (till October’17). It finds out the number of new employees on the payroll tIll the end of these months and estimates the number of jobs that may be added to the economy by the end of fiscal year.

7 million new jobs in 2017-18 is a conservative estimate

While commenting on these two graphs researchers say that the study is the first such study on payroll situation in India. They also remark that it is a conservative estimate and inclusion of data from other professional bodies could show a higher number of jobs in the economy. They suggest that the job scenario could be properly understood if EPFO, ESIC & NPS in collaboration publish a monthly report of new payrolls in India . They suggest big data analyses to capture payrolls generated in informal sector as well.

Thus the myth of poor job creation under the Narendra Modi government could turn out to be false. If a similar study is done for previous fiscals, the number of jobs generated so far under the NDA government might end up higher than those posted by the labour bureau data. A better method for capturing job data needs to be set up by the government to capture the scenario at ground level to debunk false perceptions created by the media and opposition

Muslim group puts Rs 10 lakh bounty on Shia Wakf board’s head for calling Madrasas terror hubs

OpIndia Staff
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Muslim group puts Rs 10 lakh bounty on Shia Wakf board’s head for calling Madrasas terror hubs

Wasim Rizvi who is the chief of the Shia Central Wakf Board, has created a major controversy about a week back, after it was reported that he had written to PM Modi asking him to shut down Madrasas.

The reason given by Rizvi for this demand was that, the education imparted at the Madrasas allegedly encouraged students to become terrorists. He thus called for replacing Madrasas with schools affiliated to CBSE and ICSE, where Islamic education will be an optional subject. He also called the Madrasas a ‘curse’ and claimed that they created an Islamic atmosphere which influenced the students’ mind towards fundamentalism and terrorism.

These explosive claims of Rizvi now seem to be coming back to haunt him, as it has been reported that a Muslim organisation has announced a Rs 10 lakh bounty on his head. The organisation named All India Faizan-e-Madina Council (AIFMC) has also promised a free haj trip to anyone who brings them Rizvi’s head.

As per the organisation, Rizvi has hurt Muslim sentiments due to his “Madrasas produce terrorists” statement and claimed that Rizvi wished to ruin the social fabric of the nation. As per Moeen Siddiqui Noori, who is the head of this radical organisation, Rizvi has two days to either apologise for or take back his statement, otherwise Noori claims, the followers of his organisation would behead him.

AIFMC has a history of making such radical statements.

As per reports, AIFMC’s head Noori had issued a similar death threats to political commentator Tarek Fatah and Zee group’s media baron Subhash Chandra. He had also placed a bounty over BJP leader Subramanian Swamy’s head in 2013 after which he was arrested by the police.

Apart from this, Wasim Rizvi has also allegedly received a threat call on his phone on Sunday, from a man who claimed to be an aide of Dawood Ibrahim. The aide allegedly threatened to blow up Rizvi and his family. As per Rizvi, the caller asked him to seek pardon from Islamic clerics and also claimed that Dawood Ibrahim was annoyed ( by his statements).

As a result of this, an FIR was lodged in connection with this matter with the Sahadatganj police station in old Lucknow city.

Besides these aforementioned threats, Rizvi has also made an enemy in the form of Sofiyan Khan, who is the BJP’s district unit president (minority cell) of Azamgarh. Sofiyan has allegedly promised to give Rs 51,000 to whoever spits on Rizvi’s face and also burnt his effigy on Tuesday.

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