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Munger District Magistrate gives unique gift to driver retiring after 36 years of service

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In a heartwarming gesture, the District Magistrate of Munger, Bihar, Udaykumar Singh, drove his driver, Sampat Ram, home on his last day of service. Ram, who had been in service for over three decades retired on 31st December, 2017, was even given extension of one year of service.

Another employee also retired along with Ram, and a celebratory function was held for both the employees to thank them for their service.

Ram had been appointed as the District Magistrate’s driver in 1983 where after service District Magistrate’s of Lakhisarai, Jamui, he was appointed at Munger where he served for last 32 years.

Twitter users, too, appreciated this gesture by the District Magistrate.


This goes out to show that a kind gesture indeed goes a long way.

Union Minister takes to twitter to call out Rahul Gandhi’s criticism of smart city project

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Congress President Rahul Gandhi in recent days has decided to become proactive in trying to debunk the ‘success stories’ of BJP governments. In order to do that, he is seen as cutting corners and spreading lies, like alleging that Modi had doled out Rs 33,000 crores for the Nano plant in Sanand, which was debunked by TATA itself via an official statement.

Rahul Gandhi was again back to attacking Narendra Modi on Sunday by targeting the ambitious smart city project:


As seen above, Rahul Gandhi decided to use extremely derogatory language against Modi supporters by insinuating them to be his slaves. Over and above that, he decided to question the progress of smart cities by alleging that just 7% of a total Rs 9,860 crores has been used for the project.

And when the ‘master’ tweets, how can the official Congress Twitter account stay far behind:


While people didn’t dignify Rahul Gandhi’s slurs with a response, they did come out to bust his allegations about the smart city project, and one of them was Hardeep Singh Puri, the Minister of State for Housing and Urban Affairs:


As tweeted out by the Minister, the 7% figure thrown around is merely payments made for work already concluded and the government actually needs to pay a total 31% of the cost as tendering and work has began for projects worth Rs. 32,000 crores.

As per the infographic tweeted by him, states like Jharkhand and Gujarat have projects worth Rs. 2,716 crores and Rs. 5,835 ongoing/completed. In case of Jharkhand the total expenses have already shot up to 182.4% of the total planned cost: 

He further decided to attack the Congress, by claiming that the Congress ruled states were actually the one which feature at the bottom of the smart city ranking:


OpIndia columnist Ashutosh Muglikar too decided to educate Rahul Gandhi and the Congress regarding the smart city protect:


As pointed out by Ashutosh, the total cost of the smart city project comes up to a total of Rs. 1,35,459 crores, and is sub divided into 2,855 projects. So far 147 of these projects have been completed and a further 396 projects worth Rs. 14,672 cores are currently going on. Apart from this tenders have already been issued for 283 projects costing Rs. 16,549.

So clearly, these points raise the question as to from why did Rahul Gandhi and the Congress decide to spread half truths regrading the project, when clearly they were way off the mark in assessing the truth of the matter.

Tension flares in Bundi, Rajasthan, as Hindus stopped from performing Puja at Mandhata ki Chatri

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Communal tension gripped Tiger Hill in Bundi, Rajasthan, after conducting of Mandhata Puja in Tiger Hill was objected to by people of ‘particular community’ as there is a Dargah nearby. Media reports have not specified which community was opposing the Puja. The conducting of Puja was opposed since the entry to the temple and the dargah is common, which could lead to communal discord.

Internet services have been suspended in the area till 3rd January in a bid to stop further flaring of communal tension and section 144 has been imposed which prohibits unlawful assembly of people.

As per reports, the call to conduct the Puja on 1st January at the temple was called by religious group, but the same was denied by the authorities since it was against the decision of the peace-keeping committee. To prevent any untoward incident, the police had made arrangements to block the movement of worshippers. However, devotees in large number thronged the venue and when police tried to stop them, the crowd started marching, following which police carried out lathicharge on the devotees. This led to communal tension in the town. Additional forces from nearby cities like Jaipur have been called in. Heavy checking of vehicles and buses coming into the city was being conducted to prevent activists from coming to the city.

The Mandhata Balaji cenotaph is believed to have been constructed by the queen of Bundi in the memory of her nephew but in 1942 the cenotaph was demolished after lightening struck it.

Last year in April, too, devotees were stopped from carrying out restoration work at the temple which led to communal tension and section 144 was imposed.

Violence erupts during celebration of British victory over Peshwas, which Jignesh Mevani attended

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A few days ago it was reported that controversial Dalit leader Jignesh Mevani and JNU student of ‘anti-national slogans fame’ Umar Khalid, would be attending an event to celebrate the victory of British East India Company over an army led by Peshwa Baji Rao II of Maharashtra, who headed the Maratha empire.

We had reported how, even though it was a victory of imperialists over our own Indian rulers, certain practitioners of alternative history have spun it as a ‘Dalit victory’ as the British army was supposedly comprised of Dalits and other lower castes while the ruling Peshwas were Brahmins.

Jignesh and Khalid were supposed to speak at the bicentennial celebrations of this ‘victory’ which were going to take place on 1st January, 2018. As per reports, both Jignesh and Khalid ended up attending the event, and were also joined by mother of Rohith Vemula.

The event did take place but not before the whole celebration marred by serious violence in the Pune district, which resulted in the death of one person. As per reports, the violence began when a group of people and those heading towards the war memorial in Bhima Koregaon got into a heated quarrel, in a village called Vadu. This fight, the report claims, triggered stone pelting and the violence began.

The initial altercation took place at about 11:30 AM on Monday and was supposedly started due to disagreements over some hoardings. The violence resulted in 25 vehicles getting torched and 50 others got damaged. Among the vehicles damaged was a police van. A total of five persons were injured, out of which one later succumbed to his injuries. Apart from Vadu, other villages named Sanawadi and Shikrapur too were engulfed in violence.

After the news about the violence spread, Dalit groups decided to protest against it in Pune and Aurangabad. The police in order to quell the violence, blocked the Pune-Ahmednagar road, apart from imposing section 144. The mob perpetrating the violence was brought into control by the police at about 1:30 PM. The authorities also stationed two CRPF companies at Shikrapur to prevent further trouble.

One report claimed that the main event ‘celebrating’ the victory at Jay-stambh in Bhima Koregaon was largely peaceful and the full force of the violence was felt in the nearby villages.

While it is not clear as to who started the violence, Vishwas Nangre-Patil, the IGP (Kolhapur range) claimed that trouble broke out after a few people with saffron flags visited the area and later villagers started pelting stones, and indulged in arson.

When Donald Trump came out to prove Rahul Gandhi wrong

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US President Donald Trump began his new year by successfully managing to send twitter into a tizzy, after coming up with this:


As seen above, Donald Trump has come out to claim that the US has been stupid in doling out about $33 Billion to Pakistan in form of foreign aid. He later alleged that Pakistan in return has given back lies, deceit and a safe haven to terrorists. By ending his tweet with “No More”, he possibly signalled a curtailment of Pakistan’s privileges in the future.

Apart from possibly tightening the noose around Pakistan, Donald Trump might have alsp successfully achieved a possibly hidden objective of, proving Rahul Gandhi wrong.

Trump wasn’t always this miffed at Pakistan and in October, portrayed that he was getting along pretty well with the country:


As a result of this, then Congress vice-President Rahul Gandhi decided to take a dig at both PM Modi and Trump:


This dig was in reference to PM Modi and President Trump’s visible affection towards each other, during the former’s visit to America.

Now that Trump has strongly come out against Pakistan, some might remark in jest that Rahul Gandhi has been proven wrong by Trump, when it comes to his outlook of Trump’s Pakistan policy. One twitter user did just that:


Though it remains to be seen whether PM Modi had anything to do with this, anti-Pakistan ’tilt’ of Trump.

While Trump appears to be very angry on Pakistan today, going by his social media track record, it might happen that few weeks down the line, he starts singing Pakistan’s praises again. Possibly as a result of this, many were sceptical of Trump’s words:


Like people have questioned above, it remains to be seen whether these tall words translate into some form of a tangible action, like severely restricting (if not completely stopping), the aid to Pakistan.

But, as seen in the past year, certain actions by the Trump administration, might provide a faint glimmer of hope.

We had reported how, the US had proposed to convert Pakistan’s grant to buy military hardware, into a loan. Later it was also reported that Pakistan was to receive US defence aid only if it managed to show sufficient progress in fighting terrorism.

Truth about Modi government ‘taking credit’ for women travelling alone for Hajj

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In November last year, it was reported that the Modi government had lifted the ban on Muslim women, aged above 45 years, travelling to Hajj without a male guardian (Mahram). The same was said by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his radio address Man Ki Baat yesterday.

While the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) objected to this move by the Modi government (their objection came only after Prime Minster mentioned it in his radio address to the nation), some journalists and ’eminent personalities’ have been peddling a totally different narrative:

As seen in the above image, an article published on India Today’s DailyO claims that Saudi Arabia and not the Modi government should be receiving credit for women being able to travel alone for Hajj. The article in the content quotes these guidelines provided by Saudi Arabia, when it comes to women Hajj travellers:

“Women over the age of forty-five (45) may travel without a mahram with an organised group. They must, however, submit a no-objection letter from her husband, son or brother authorising her to travel for haj with the named group. This letter should be notarised.”

Even though the article was giving credit to Saudi Arabia for letting women travel alone, it strangely didn’t mention as to when did the Saudis actually bring in such a reform.

A journalist associated with the Telegraph though claimed that the rule was changed by the Saudis, ‘last year’:


As a result of all this, many, such as this ‘journalist’ and senior Congress leader, decided to attack the Modi government:


So what is the truth of the matter? Did the Modi government unfairly claim credit for a reform, where he played no role in?

It is true that the government of India can not change the rules for entry into Saudi Arabia. However, unlike what is claimed by the Telegraph journalist, Saudi Arabia had not made any visa rule change ‘last year’ to enable women above the age of 45 to go to Hajj without a male guardian. Such a rule appears to have existed for long.

This article published way back in 2001, which sought to guide United States’ Hajj pilgrims about the procedures to get a visa for their pilgrimage, talks about this relaxation for women above 45 years of age.

Apart from this, even a 2012 CNN report talks about Saudi Arabia sending back 1000 Nigerian girls for not being accompanied with male guardian, stated that, “Saudi law requires each female pilgrim under the age of 45 years to have a male sponsor during the pilgrimage journey, regardless of nationality” i.e. a distinction for women above 45 years of age was available much before ‘last year’ as some journalists are claiming.

This ironically was also confirmed by AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi, who said that such a regulation was issued ‘many years ago’ by Saudi Arabia:


Owaisi though contradicts himself when he blames Modi for taking credit while acknowledging that such a regulation was issued many years ago. Then shouldn’t have a Prime Minister changed the rules ‘many years ago’ to bring it in sync with Saudi visa rules? Why were rules not changed untill Narendra Modi became the Prime Minister?

This though raises another question, what ‘ban’ did the Modi government actually lift, when as per Saudi regulations there was no such ban at all?

First of all, rules have been changed for those applying through the Hajj Committee of India i.e. those seeking the Hajj subsidy and wanting to travel though the official travel channel between Saudi Arabia and India. These rules are framed by the Government of India, and not by the Saudi Arabia.

Kamal Farooqi, a member of the committee that recommenced to do away with the requirement of having a Mahram for women above 45 years of age, had said in October last year that this was done after consulting various stakeholders. Nowhere he said that this change in rule was required because of any change in visa rules by Saudi Arabia.

Further, if one checks the website of Embassy of Saudi Arabia where Hajj visa details are given, the clause about Mahram requirement has not been changed at least since 2013 (older snapshots are not available on archive.org and in all probabilities the rules would have been similar to those for other countries i.e. women above 45 years of age allowed without Mahram when traveling in groups).

So the claim that there was any “recent change” in visa rules specific to Mahram requirements for women above 45 years of age does not appear to be based on any documentary evidence. It is more likely a rhetoric to put Modi government in an embarrassing position.

Essentially, Saudi Arabia allowed Indian women above 45 years of age to travel in groups without a Mahram for many years, but the Hajj Committee of India had stricter rules. These rules could have been relaxed earlier, including during the UPA years, but was done only this year. And if Modi government is taking credit for it, it is not unfair.

Javed Akhtar’s Twitter meltdown should not be missed

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Lyricist Javed Akhtar has been spending his new year’s eve defending plagiarism charges for some of his blockbuster hits like Sholay in a full fledged Twitter meltdown that has now entered its third day.

It all started when Javed Akhtar gave a vile response to a Twitter user who was disappointed by Akhtar’s stand. Akhtar’s arrogant tweet got Twitter users riled up who pointed out to him that even his most celebrated work, Sholay, has parts which are lifted from various movies.


When a user pointed out a scene which seems to have been inspiration of the famous scene of Thakur family murder in Sholay, Akhtar wasn’t too happy.


When Twitter users pointed out that Akhtar should really be ashamed of plagiarising content for the classic film Sholay, he threw some more attitude around.


When another user pointed out the irony over Akhtar getting upset when Ram Gopal Varma directed the bizarre film Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag inspired from Sholay, when Sholay itself had scenes lifted from other films, Akhtar’s response reeked of arrogance.


After the ‘father’ jibe, he even did a ‘nephew’ taunt.


Rather than being humble and apologising for his abusive remarks, Akhtar continued his tripe on Twitter, assessing people’s IQ.


But as another user pointed out, perhaps the money couldn’t buy dignity.


This is not the first time Akhtar has had a rather public breakdown on social media. Earlier this year, the master of words Javed Akhtar had called Gold medal winning athletes as “hardly literate” persons. Just because they seemingly differed from his world view on an issue.  The same Javed Akhtar has been slammed on social media time and again for his blatant shows of hypocrisy (1)(2). More recently he was exposed on social media, as he tried to defend Triple Talaq by bringing in false equivalence.

Social media is indeed a great leveller.

Why we can do without the hypocrisy of Mahatma Gandhi’s grandson

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Whenever , Gopalkrishna Gandhi picks up a pen to write , he somehow manages to produce articles that are filled with hypocrisy. Throughout his life, he has failed to call out the fraud of Jawaharlal Nehru and his daughter , who fooled the country by using his ancestor’s surname. When his political masters are in power, he enjoys their patronage. When his political masters are out of office, he indulges in blatant propaganda. If the Mahatma was alive today, he would have truly admonished, junior Gandhi’s behavior.

There are three important reasons why we must call out so called  pseudo-secular intellectuals like Gopalkrishna Gandhi. Firstly, they fail to criticize the Congress party for corruption during their tenure in office. Secondly, they shamelessly collude with the Congress party of the day, which is morally, ethically and ideologically bankrupt. Lastly, intellectuals like Mr Gopalkrishna Gandhi lack vision and original ideas about the future of India. They always piggy-back on the quotes of Mahatma Gandhi and Tagore or memories of independence movement to further their own political propaganda.

In the editorial of The Hindu titled On another New Year’s Day: Mahatma Gandhi’s ‘khorak’ a 100 years ago, he quotes a part of the speech given by M.K. Gandhi on 1st January 1918, in Ahmedabad:

It was about securing three basic necessities which he spelt out as: “Air, water and grains.” He spoke in Gujarati and his key sentence was: Hava pani ane anaj e khorakna mukhya tattvo chhe (air, water and grains are essential to human nourishment). If Swaraj, he said, means self-rule, then securing these three khorak means securing Swaraj. Explaining himself with typical concision, Gandhi said: “Air is free to all but if it is polluted it harms our health… Next comes water… From now on we must take up the effort to secure water. Councillors are servants of the people and we have a right to question them.”

Mr Gandhi goes on to write about climate change, water crisis and hunger in India. He gives credit to some of his activist-friends for their pro-farmer activism. And then, he plunges into his regular propaganda of intolerance, majoritarianism and polarization with these lines:

While these three essential khorak essential for India to ‘simply live’, as Mr. Sainath has put it, struggling for breath, what are we getting instead, and on a priority? Three other khorak: the hava of intolerance, the pani of polarisation and the anaj of uniformity. And why? Because these distract, they divert attention from the real life-and-death crises.  Intolerance, blowing strong since 2014, is likely to blow stronger in 2018. Polarisation, tried and tested in the 2014 election, then fielded formally in Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat, is likely to be tried with greater impunity in the elections due in 2018. And as for uniformity, the India of many-grained people, all secure in their plurality, is now being dispossessed by an India which believes in codes being uniform rather than civil.

Real life and death crises were existing even when Manmohan Singh was in office. They were there even when Gopalkrishna Gandhi was governor of West Bengal. As per 2011 census, income of 21.9% of the population was  below the poverty line [pdf]. In 2014, 18,452 villages did not have access to electricity. As per 2011 census, 53.1% of the households in India do not have a toilet in their homes.  Life and death issues are not new people under the present day BJP government. For a change, some good work is being done to address them.

Polarization was, and has been the favorite tool of INC. Sonia Gandhi’s famous phrase ‘maut ke saudagar’ was nothing but blatant polarization. Intolerance for organisations like RSS is deeply rooted among Congress leaders. Mr Gandhi’s attempt to stamp these traits as features of the BJP alone are a mockery of facts and logic.

Apart from the hollowness of Mr Gandhi’s analysis it is absolutely essential to assess the three khoraks on which Mr Gopalkrishna Gandhi and his pseudo-secular bandwagon survive on.

The Gandhi scion must have forgotten that he and his masters in the Congress party survive on the hava of dynasty. Without it, they would have failed to make it to the second page of any local newspaper. This hava  of Nehru-Gandhi dynasty is kept alive by servants of the durbar in media houses like NDTV. If not for these loyal journalists, nobody in their right minds would consider a person of Rahul Gandhi’s caliber as Prime Minister- material.

Mr Gopalkrishna Gandhi’s political masters in political establishment survive on the pani of pseudo-secularism. How else could a secular government get into perverse schemes like Haj subsidy. Which sane government would have reversed the Shah Bano judgement? Who has created vote banks in the name of BJP -scaremongering ? Which party’s MP argued in Supreme court in favour of the practice of Triple Talaq? The answers are well known. Mr Gandhi’s political masters have held on to power in the country using the policy of divide and rule, which was originally devised by the British.

The secular bandwagon to which Mr Gandhi belongs, survives on the anaj  of corruption and crony capitalism. Otherwise , how could they survive for so long in office ? Who sold out national resources like 2G spectrum and coal blocks? Who got kickbacks in Bofors scam and Agusta Westland episode ? Who is out on bail in the National Herald case ? The politicians whom Mr Gopalkrishna Gandhi serves have sowed the seeds of corruption deep into the political system of this country.

So, on the very first day of this year, I would like to say, no thanks to the advice and lectures of self-proclaimed left-liberal intellectuals screaming against intolerance, majoritarianism and polarisation in this country. No thanks, Mr Gopalakrishna Gandhi. This country can do without yet another hypocrite like you.

Muslim law board objects to Modi govt’s decision to let women go to Haj without male guardian

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On 19th November, the Union Minority Affairs Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, took to twitter to inform that, 4 Muslim women from the state of Kerala had applied to go to Haj without an accompanying male guardian who is also known as “Mehram”.

This as per Naqvi was a result of the Modi government lifting the ban on Muslim women travelling to Haj without a male guardian. This ban was lifted on women aged above 45. Earlier these women only got government permission for Haj travel, if they fulfilled that particular condition.

When a panel constituted by the Ministry of Minority Affairs had made the recommendation for the same, it was criticised by a number of Muslim clerics who termed it as “un-Islamic” and “against Sharia”. But it was accepted by the government anyway.

Now it seems that the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB), isn’t happy with this decision of the Modi government and has objected to the same.

As reported, Maulana Abdul Hamid Azhari, the secretary of AIMPLB has stated that this is a religious matter and not something which can be brought up as a legislation to be passed in the Parliament.

As per Azhari, Islam states that a woman cannot travel for more than 78 miles or longer than three days without a male guardian to any place, including Haj. He also claimed that 99% of the Muslims follow their religion based on guidelines of religious authorities.

While addressing the possibility of a woman not having a male guardian or not being able to afford taking a guardian along, Azhari said that the woman as a result is ‘exempted’ from having to travel to Haj.

This isn’t the only time, the AIMPLB has decided to come in the way of reforms favouring the Muslim women.

The board had decided to put up a stiff resistance to protect the practice of instant Triple Talaq, which included engaging senior lawyer Kapil Sibal, to argue its case in the supreme court.

When the practice was eventually banned by the apex court, the AIMPLB decided to protest against the bill to criminalise Triple Talaq. If the bill is passed into a law by the Rajya Sabha they have already made their intention clear about approaching the Supreme Court against it.

Ishrat Jahan, one of the Triple Talaq petitioners, joins the BJP

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Ishrat Jahan, one of the five petitioners in the landmark Supreme Court verdict which pronounced instant triple talaq invalid, joined the BJP yesterday in Howrah. Recently, the Lok Sabha has passed the Triple Talaq Bill which criminalises Triple Talaq. Jahan said she joined the BJP since it supported the cause she was fighting for.

Jahan had faced social boycott and character assassination in Howrah after the Supreme Court verdict invalidating instant triple talaq. Jahan was also being ostracised by her in-laws and neighbours in Howrah’s Pilkhana.

30 year old Jahan’s husband divorced her in 2015 from Dubai, over the phone and allegedly took away her 4 children. Thankfully, the children, who were allegedly taken to Ishrat’s husband’s relative’s place were later on traced by Kolkata Police. In her fight for social justice, she has faced financial losses and now she has to face abuses as she is called “dirty woman”, “enemy of men” and “anti-Islam”.

She had written a letter to West Bengal Chief Minister accusing the West Bengal Police of not providing enough safety and security to her. A copy of the letter was also sent to  Vice President M. Venkaiah Naidu, West Bengal Governor K.N. Tripathi, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, the chairperson of National Commission for Women Lalitha Kumaramangalam and Howrah Police Commissionerate, among others.

TMC leaders Siddiqullah Chowdhary and Idris Ali had allegedly used derogatory words for Ishrat after the triple talaq verdict. The leaders, however, maintained that they had only voiced their opinion criticising the Supreme Court’s verdict and had not used abusive language for Ishrat.

The party leadership had since asked the TMC leaders to not voice any of their opinion on this subject matter without keeping the leadership in the loop.

In 2001, when Ishrat was 14, she was married in Bihar, where she and her husband lived before shifting to Pilkhana in Howrah. She was one of the five petitioners who filed a petition in the Supreme Court against triple talaq.

Since the August verdict, Ishrat has removed the naqab and shown her face to the world. “I realised that I am not a victim anymore. I want other women to see me and understand that if an ordinary woman like me can fight for her rights, so can they,” said Jahan, reported Times of India explaining the reason why she decide to remove her naqab.

Jahan had added that just a court verdict will not change anything unless the society and community brings about a change where people help a vulnerable and helpless victim instead of assassinating her character. She said instead of coming out in support of her, people had mocked and ridiculed her for standing up for justice.