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Maoists allegedly threaten to kill Legal Rights activists for targeting ‘their own’ activists

OpIndia Staff
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Maoists allegedly threaten to kill Legal Rights activists for targeting ‘their own’ activists

Legal Rights Observatory is an activist group which reportedly uses legal measures to take on people and organizations which they believe are indulged in anti-national works. The group has claimed to have taken action against media groups, journalists, and even bureaucrats.

In the past, some of the activism which the group has claimed to indulge in is:

  • A legal complaint against journalist Rajdeep Sardesai for inviting a person named Nalini Sundar on his show while discussing about the Sukma attack in which 25 CRPF Jawans were martyred. Nalindi Sundar was introduced as activists fighting for tribal rights while she has been booked for murder of a tribal villager.
  • The group has claimed to have filed a complaint against newspapers for carrying an unverified press release by Maoists, which had claimed that CRPF jawans were indulged in rape and sexual exploitation of tribal women.
  • On 17th April, the group reportedly announced its intention to file a sedition case against NDTV allegedly for touting the Chinese line and calling Arunachal Pradesh a “disputed territory”.
  • In March the group claimed to have filed a complaint against Sagarika Ghose for her malicious tweet against Yogi Adityanath accusing him of issuing a statement he never did.

Now the group has made a sensational claim that a “death warrant” has been issued against their members by Maoists. They put out pictures of the alleged death warrant and a newspaper clipping to further their claim.

The alleged death warrant

The alleged death warrant dated 8th May has been issued by the South Sub Zonal Bureau of the banned CPI(Maoists). The alleged warrant states that after the Sukma attack, RSS backed elements were defaming the ‘revolution’ in the media and the social media. The alleged warrant further stated that the Legal Rights Observatory people while sitting inside the RSS headquarters in Nagpur were defaming Comrade Nalini Sundar, Comrade Kavita Krishnan and Comrade Bela Bhatia.

The alleged warrant then went on to claim that after a 9 day trial at the Maoist’s ‘court’ in Bastar, the Conveyor, General Secretary, Secretary and the spokesperson of the Legal Rights Observatory were sentenced to death. They were asked to appear before the ‘court’ by 31st May. This alleged warrant has been signed by a certain Ganesh Uike who is the Secretary Sub-South Zonal Bureau of CPI(Maoists).

The Legal Rights Observatory has put out a press release with regards to this alleged warrant. The release claimed that they won’t buckle under the pressure of Maoists and their terror threats. They claimed that as they had filed numerous cases against ‘Urban Naxals’ in the last 5 months, they were subjected to tremendous pressure.

The release also claimed that the influence of the Maoists is waning and that they are fighting their last battle for survival. The release also claimed that no office bearers of their organization would seek police protection. They also claimed that in response to the threat, they have resolved to intensify their legal campaign against the ‘Urban Naxals’ in the coming days.

This alleged death warrant was also circulating on social media and filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri too shared the picture:


This prompted Kavita Krishnan to threaten legal action for spreading what she called a ‘fake letter’:


Vivek Agnihotri then urged her to go ahead with the legal proceedings with a caution that it could expose her as well:


It is to be seen if Krishnan, known for her sympathies and support for various leftist groups, goes ahead with her legal threat and whether subsequent investigations throw up any active connections of people like her with the Maoists or expose the above ‘death warrant’ as fabricated.

Such death warrants are not rare though and Maoist groups are known to have issued them from time to time. They have not just issued such warrants but even killed people in kangaroo courts called ‘jan adalat’.

It should be noted that Buddha In A Traffic Jam, a movie directed by Vivek Agnihotri, had showcased how some people living in urban areas actively collaborate with Naxals and Maoists. Such collaborations and collusion has resulted in murders and other organised attacks against the state and people they disagree with. Sentencing of a DU professor had corroborated such links of Maoists with people who are termed “Urban Naxals“.

ICJ stays Kulbhushan’s hanging, but a long judicial process to come through

OpIndia Staff
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ICJ stays Kulbhushan’s hanging, but a long judicial process to come through

It is a big breakthrough in Kulbhushan Jadhav case and can be called a massive diplomatic victory for India. The Hague-based International Court of Justice has stayed the execution of the former Indian Navy officer who was sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court on charges of espionage and sabotage activities in Karachi.

The official twitter handle of the ICG tweeted last night (as per Indian Standard Time):


ICJ President Ronny Abraham reportedly wrote a letter to Pakistani government asking it to act in such a way which would enable the implementation of any order the ICJ may issue in the case.

“Referring to ‘the extreme gravity and immediacy of the threat that authorities in Pakistan will execute an Indian citizen in violation of obligations Pakistan owes to India’, India urges the Court to deliver an order indicating provisional measures immediately, ‘without waiting for an oral hearing’,” read India’s appeal in the ICJ.

The order came after India approached the ICJ against the death sentence handed down to Jadhav by Pakistan’s Field General Court Martial.

It could be noted that Pakistan had kidnapped the 46-year-old former Indian Navy officer from Iran where he was involved in business activities after retiring from the service. But Pakistan is blatantly lying claiming that it had arrested Jadhav from Balochistan on March 3, 2016.

India was not informed of Jadhav’s detention until long after his arrest. He has not been given a fair trial. Moreover, India has sought consular access for Yadav 15 times, but Pakistan has turned down India’s request every time. This is in clear violations to the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. Both India and Pakistan are signatories to the optional protocol of the Vienna convention on consular relations (VCCR).

This was for the second time that India won a case against Pakistan at the ICJ. In 1999, shortly after Kargil war, Pakistan had taken India to the ICJ after its military plane was shot down in Indian air space above the Rann of Kutch. India had strongly contested the case on the issue of jurisdiction. The ICJ had upheld New Delhi’s position.

Meanwhile, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj tweeted:


War veteran and Defence expert General GD Bakshi has asserted that Pakistani Military Court had no jurisdiction over Jadhav.

“ICJ has taken due cognisance of what India has said on Kulbhushan Yadav and issued a stay order over his execution. The fact of the matter is that Pakistani Military Court had no jurisdiction over him. He is not subject to the Pakistani Army Act,” General Bakshi said.

But this is just a victory in the round-1. There is a long judicial process to come through. The real game changer will be what India does now.

Senior advocate Harish Salve is representing India before the ICJ in Kulbhushan Jadhav case. Salve, the former Solicitor general of India, is one of the best legal eagles to tackle the case.

Undoubtedly, following the ICJ order, Pakistan has come under tremendous international pressure. It is time India prepares the dossiers properly and presents the case strongly. We can’t to do a Sarabjit Sing with Kulbhushan Jadhav. India must win the case, Kulbhushan Jadhav must be set free and united with his family back home. Pakistan must be bowed down for the blunder it committed.

Bengal is different and has its own rules: Imam Barkati on why he is still using red beacon

OpIndia Staff
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Bengal is different and has its own rules: Imam Barkati on why he is still using red beacon

The central government in an order which came into enforcement from 1st May, had directed all VIPs to remove the red beacon from their cars. Only the cars of Prime Minister, President, Vice-President, Chief Justice of India and the Lok Sabha speaker were exempted from the ban.

Even though PM Modi was exempted from the ban, he too decided not to use the beacon for setting an example for others. The Chief Justice of India too reportedly decided to do the same. Many union ministers and Chief Ministers were also seen removing their red beacons as images went viral on social media.

However, the Shahi Imam of Tipu Sultan Mosque of Kolkata, who for some reasons has got red beacon installed on his vehicle, has refused to comply with the government order.

In order to ascertain why he was not removing the beacon, he came on TV and this is roughly what he tried to put forth:


The Imam claimed that Shahi Imams have been respected from the British era and that they have been using the red beacon and will also continue to do so. He went further by claiming that the ministers have a smaller stature as compared to Shahi Imams.

When the news anchor asked as to who gave him the authority to use the red beacon, he avoided the question and stated that only the courts had the right to ask him this question.

When the anchor asked as to whether the state government had authorized him, he stated that he had ‘created the state government’ hence how could it question him. He also claimed that he had also been using the red beacon during the CPM era and no one could say anything back then.

When the presenter reminded him that no-one had the right to use beacons after the 1st May deadline, the Imam responded by claiming that no such order had come for West Bengal. When the presenter stated that the order pertained to the whole nation, the Imam stated that Bengal is different and has its own powers.

The Imam further claimed that this directive is nothing but a trouble which has been hatched by the BJP and RSS. He also claimed that he regularly talks with Mamata and even if Modi invites him he would not be paying him a visit. The clip ends with him stating that Modi may be your PM but he is not my PM.

Reports have also quoted the Imam saying that Mamata has personally given him permission to continue using the red beacon:


This behavior by the Shahi Imam is not new and he is regularly in the news for making controversial statements. On 8th May the Shahi Imam had stated that he would oust and beat up the Muslims who work for or join the BJP or RSS.

The Imam Barkati has also abused people on live TV and had offered Rs 25 lakh for whoever blackened PM Modi’s face.

A farrago of unrelated topics : Tharoor and ways of spotting liars

Abhishek Banerjee
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A farrago of unrelated topics : Tharoor and ways of spotting liars

If you have ever fancied yourself as a person with something valuable to say, you have probably wished to give a TED talk. As TED lays it out crisply on their website : “TED is a nonprofit devoted to spreading ideas, usually in the form of short, powerful talks (18 minutes or less). TED began in 1984 as a conference where Technology, Entertainment and Design converged, and today covers almost all topics — from science to business to global issues — in more than 100 languages.”

Everyone who is anyone has spoken at TED : American Presidents, Silicon Valley CEOs, top tier academics and the like. This is the sort of place where someone like Dr. Shashi Tharoor might be found discussing profound matters of world interest.

He is cool, isn’t he? More on this later in an unrelated part of this article.

It’s rather clear that it’s a tremendous honor to be in the list of Top 20 TED talks. One of these Top 20 talks was given by Pamela Meyer on “How to spot a liar“.

Pamela Meyer, whose fascination with the science of lying began with sitting through a lecture at her Harvard Business School reunion in 2006, is the author of the book “Liespotting : Proven Techniques to detect deception“.

I know. We all tell lies. As Pamela points out:

“By the time we enter this work world and we’re breadwinners, we enter a world that is just cluttered with spam, fake digital friends, partisan media, ingenious identity thieves, world class ponzi schemers – a deception epidemic.”

To be fair, I may have inserted a few unrelated links, but I hope you just focused on the text. If not, form here onward, just focus on the words.

The first symptom that Pamela provides in her list of liespotting techniques is “verbal dodging”, i.e. excessively formal language that the liar uses to create some psychological distance between her/himself and the lie.

Pamela goes on to illustrate this phenomenon with one of the most famous lies ever told (YouTube screenshot):

Bill clinton about Monika Lewinsky

She explains (emphasis added, not to prove any point, as you will discover later):

“Well, what were the telltale signs? Well, first we heard what’s known as a non-contracted denial. Studies show that people who are over-determined in their denial will resort to formal rather than informal language. We also heard distancing language — that woman. We know that liars will unconsciously distance themselves from their subject, using language as their tool.”

Enough about lying. Let’s come to the other topic of this post which is absolutely, blaringly, categorically, definitively and entirely unrelated to the discourse on liespotting techniques presented in any of the preceding paragraphs.

We will now have a discussion of how cool Dr. Shashi Tharoor is. You know, I think he becomes even more cool when I guess he would be angry. Like the time Arnab’s Republic TV claims to have some “expose” and for some reason #SunandaMurderTapes starts trending on top of Twitter.


A farrago? Well, thank goodness for the internet:

meaning of 'farrago'
Common people using informal language have to resort to use of dictionaries to understand such language.

Thanks to him, people of the cattle class have  now been enriched with this old Latin word for cattle fodder. Didn’t I tell you how cool he is?

This brings back memories. I think it was in 2013 that I learned words like “recuse” and “lacerate” how to properly use them in a sentence. And they said being a news junkie never did anyone any good.

Most importantly, we learn that no matter what, guys like Shashi Tharoor will always be cool.

BJP continues its surge in Odisha, two BJD leaders join the party in two days

OpIndia Staff
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BJP continues its surge in Odisha, two BJD leaders join the party in two days

Following Naveen Patnaik’s much-hyped Cabinet reshuffle, a crisis of sorts is brewing in the Biju Janata Dal (BJD). Recently, Patnaik has effected a massive reshuffle in his Cabinet and the party to counter the BJP’s surge. But the move seems to be counterproductive as the reshuffle rears serious resentment in the rank and file of the BJD over non-representation of several districts in the ministry.

Even as the Odisha Chief Minister was away in Delhi for an official tour, two BJD leaders have quit the party and joined the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Veteran BJD leader Jayaram Pangi, who was suspended from the party last month, joined the BJP along with hundreds of supporters today in the presence of Union Minister and BJP leader Dharmendra Pradhan.

“I was a disciplined member of the BJD. The party did not take 40 seconds to spoil my efforts of 40 years,” Pangi said at the BJP state headquarters in Bhubaneswar while accepting the BJP membership.

“Respecting the party and its leaders, I have joined BJP,” the tribal strongman said. “The BJD is doing exactly the opposite of what Biju Babu dreamt about Odisha,” the former Koraput MP said.

Yesterday, Amar Nayak, another BJD leader ahd joined the BJP in the presence of Pradhan. Nayak, a strong grassroot leader, belongs to Barchanana Assembly constituency of the politically hot Jajpur, the costal district which didn’t get any representation in Patnaik’s recent Cabinet reshuffle.

Meanwhile, senior BJD leader and Lok Sabha MP Baijayant Panda tweeted:


Panda is known for his plain speak. Earlier in March, the articulate Lok Sabha MP, while writing an Op-Ed in the leading daily ‘Samaj’, had asked his party to “introspect before it was too late”.

“Key positions in the party are no longer held by those who struggle for the party and may have given honest feedback, but rather opportunist from various fields, including those who had worked against the BJD,” Panda had written.

Post-Panchayat elections, there has been a huge outflow of workers and leaders from the BJD to the BJP. Reports suggest that a number of senior leaders of BJD are waiting to join the BJP in the run up to the 2019 elections.

In the last Pachayat elections, the BJP succeeded in making a giant stride in Odisha politics, leaving Naveen Patnaik’s BJD in a tailspin. Patnaik is staring at a strong anti-incumbency now.

Iran warns Pakistan of ‘surgical strikes’ if it does not stop cross border terrorism

OpIndia Staff
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Iran warns Pakistan of ‘surgical strikes’ if it does not stop cross border terrorism

In a development which could completely isolate Pakistan in the South Asian region, Iran has joined India and Afghanistan in ripping into Pakistan for sheltering and exporting terrorism.

Head of the Iranian armed forces Major General Mohammad Baqeri has warned Islamabad that Tehran would hit bases inside Pakistan if it does not confront the Sunni terrorists who carried out the cross-border attacks in Shia-majority country.

The statement came days after ten Iranian border guards were killed by Sunni terror group Jaish-al-Adl, which is sheltered in Pakistan. The terrorists had shot the Iranian guards with long-range guns, fired from inside Pakistan.

Jaish al Adl, a Sunni terror group, which operates from Pakistani soil believe that Shia-majority Iran does not conform to Islam. The terror group is responsible for carrying out several attacks against Iranian security forces in the past.  The terror organisation had claimed responsibility for the attacks that killed eight Iranian border guards in 2015 and 14 Iranian border guards in 2013.

“We cannot accept the continuation of this situation,” Major General Baqeri was quoted as saying by Iranian state news agency IRNA.

“We expect the Pakistani officials to control the borders, arrest the terrorists and shut down their bases,” Baqeri said.

Iran has hinted that it might be considering “surgical strikes” on Pakistani terror installations on the lines of India.

“If the terrorist attacks continue, we will hit their safe havens and cells, wherever they are,” the head of Iranian armed forces said.

In September last year, India conducted a surgical strikes on Pakistan’s terror installations in the wake of terror attacks on the Army camp at Uri which claims the lives of 19 Indian soldiers.

In 2014, Iran had warned that it would send troops to Pakistan to retrieve five Iranian border guards kidnapped by Jaish al Adl. Four of the Iranian guards were released a few months later, but one was killed by the terrorists.

Pakistan, which uses terrorism as an instrument of state policy, has been nurturing and paddling terrorism. It is a terror factory which is exporting terrorism in the South Asian region. The entire South Asian region has long been facing the consequence of Pakistan-sponsored terrorism.

Left-Cong establishment aligned journalists attack Arnab, defame even private citizens

Hemant Bijapurkar
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Left-Cong establishment aligned journalists attack Arnab, defame even private citizens

When Arnab Goswami was at the helm of Times Now, he used to command top ratings. After spending almost a decade working with the Times Group he quit the channel to launch his own venture Republic TV which became fully operational on 6th May.

Maybe out of nervousness or spite, this has resulted in the establishment media almost ganging up to go after Arnab Goswami and his channel.

From calling Republic TV a ‘BJP propaganda outlet’ to casting aspersions on its credibility (while the same media has broken records in producing fake news), the establishment seems to be doing it all.

Today, India Today’s Rahul Kanwal shared a screenshot of a post from a page named “BJP New Delhi” that announced the return of Arnab Goswami with his new channel. Kanwal then proceeded to conclude that Republic TV was 100% biased and was indulging in “Supari Journalism” (a term used by his senior Rajdeep Sardesai often to target Arnab) as the BJP was apparently going all out to promote it:


This was also picked up Sagarika Ghose who only yesterday was caught in being a party to peddling fake news and a so-called journalist who had tried to defame Indian army by peddling fake pics and recently supported a murderous troll who celebrated massacre of CRPF jawans:


As it turned out, there was a slight issue with the source cited by Rahul Kanwal. BJP spokespersons [1][2] were quick to point out that the page which Rahul Kanwal was quoting had no affiliation with the party and was an unofficial Facebook page. The Facebook page in question too clarified its About Us section to explicitly state that it was a Fan Page of BJP New Delhi.

Verifying this fact might not  have been a difficult task for Rahul Kanwal as just typing BJP Delhi in the Facebook’s search box leads one to the official verified page of BJP Delhi, which had no such ‘welcome’ message to Arnab Goswami or his channel.

Such a witch hunt against the Republic TV and Arnab by the establishment media has become commonplace since the channel launched 3 days ago.

Here are a few such instances of journalists aligned with the Congress and Left ecosystem not hiding their propaganda (where they turned blind eye towards Lalu-Shahabuddin nexus just to bash Arnab):


Things turned ugly today when this journalist-politician ecosystem tried to malign even private citizens by branding them BJP workers having access to Republic TV’s inner workings in their attempt to discredit Arnab Goswami.

One such case was related to author and entrepreneur Nupur Sharma, who is now considering legal action for being subjected to calumny and lies:


Along with Kapil Mishra, another big problem now awaits Kejriwal

Ashutosh Muglikar
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Along with Kapil Mishra, another big problem now awaits Kejriwal

It would be an understatement to say that the past few days have been eventful for AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal. On Sunday, erstwhile AAP minister Kapil Mishra had claimed to have seen Kejriwal taking Rs 2 crores in cash from Delhi’s Health Minister Satyender Jain.

Going a step further, Mishra made another claim that Kejriwal and a few of his associates had delayed and influenced the investigation into the Rs 400 crore tanker scam which was allegedly overseen by ex-CM Sheila Dikshit.

Mishra though seems to be in no mood to stop and on Tuesday put out a dramatic open letter to Kejriwal which was full of emotionally charged rhetoric. Mishra proclaimed Kejriwal as his guru and claimed that he was going to file an FIR against him. He called his battle against Kejriwal the biggest of his life and sought the blessings of Kejriwal so that he (Mishra) may emerge victorious.

Mishra then proceeded to equate himself with Arjun’s son Abhimanyu and claimed that his mission was to break the “Chakraviyu” of Kejriwal’s lies, deceit and corruption.

Mishra also claimed that Kejriwal was planning on disqualifying him as an MLA. He claimed that he was ready to resign as an MLA and proceeded to challenge Kejriwal to contest elections against him at the seat of his (Kejriwal’s) choice.

Mishra also claimed that he had received about 211 complaints of corruption against the AAP and the Delhi government after he shared an email address with the public.

If Kapil Mishra isn’t a handful for Kejriwal and co, they are facing a major challenge on the financial front as well albeit due to their own actions. OpIndia in the past had analysed various advertisements issued all over India by the Delhi Government vis a vis the Supreme Court Order in 2016. We believed that they could be in contravention of SC orders.

This year the Aam Aadmi Party was indeed found to be in violation of that and was asked to pay back Rs 97 crores to the state exchequer. The new Lieutenant Governor (L-G) of Delhi had ordered the party to pay from their own packets.

AAP then decided to to challenge the L-G’s order before the Delhi High Court. AAP in its plea sought quashing of the demand notice issued on March 30 by the Delhi government’s Department of Information and Publicity (DIP) on L-G Anil Baijal’s direction to recover the amount from it.

This has prompted the Delhi High Court to seek replies from the Center and the L-G regarding AAP’s plea. A notice has also been issued to Congress leader Ajay Maken, as he was one of the persons who had red flagged the wastage of taxpayers funds.

All this legal wheeling costs money. And as revealed in the past, the party certainly has some expensive tastes when it comes to seeking legal aid. This was evident by the fact that Kejriwal choose to employ the services of top lawyer Ram Jethmalani for fighting the defamation case which was filed against him by Arun Jaitley.

This had resulted in Kejriwal getting billed about Rs 3.22 crores but he and his aides apparently had no intention of paying the amount themselves and it was revealed that AAP was using Delhi taxpayer’s money to pay the bills.

Now when it comes to the Rs 97 crore ad case, the order has been challenged by “AAP” and not the Delhi Government. So legally the party needs to pay all the expenses out of its own funds.

It remains to be seen if it adheres to the rules and coughs up the money or like the last time decides to make certain maneuvers to make the taxpayers’ pocket a bit lighter.

Final battle against Maoist terror – where Indian government stands

Saswat Panigrahi
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Final battle against Maoist terror – where Indian government stands

‘SAMADHAN’ can wipe out the Maoist terror. Two weeks after the deadly Maoist attack snuffed out the lives of 25 CRPF personnel, this is what Home Minister Rajnath Singh said yesterday at a review meeting of the states affected by Left-Wing Extremism (LWE).

As he defines ‘SAMADHAN’, S stands for Smart Leadership, A stands for Aggressive Strategy, M stands for Motivation and Training, A stands for Actionable Intelligence, D stands for Dashboard Based Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and Key Result Areas (KRAs), H stands for Harnessing Technology, A stands for Action plan for each threat, N stands for No access to Financing.


Chief Ministers of ten Maoist affected states, Director General of Police of the Maoist infested states, District Magistrates and Superintendents of Police of 35 worst-hit Maoist-affected districts, National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi, Director of Intelligence Bureau and paramilitary forces and intelligence agencies attended the meeting.

e have many such meetings in the past. Therefore only the meetings or new acronyms can’t solve the intractable menace, provided every minutes of meeting be converted into actions. Currently, this is what is being planned:

Integrated strategy

The Home Minister stressed on an integrated strategy, emphasised on “unity of purpose” and spoke of a unified coordination and command to counter the Maoism.

“Along with strategic command, unified command is required at the operational and tactical level, besides intelligence sharing which was equally important,” Singh said.

“We have to bring aggression in our policy, there should be aggression in our thinking, aggression in our strategy, aggression in the deployment of security forces, aggression in operations, aggression in bringing development, aggression in road construction. We will have to be cautious that extremely defensive deployment may result in reduction of operational offensive,” he said.

The Home Minister said the states take the ownership in the anti-Maoist operations where Central Armed Police Force will cooperate fully. But, how many lives of CRPF personnel are lost before we have a single command for anti-Maoist operations across state borders?

Choking finances

In a much needed approach, the Centre is planning to choke the supply of funds to Maoists. A study by Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses estimated that the annual fund raising of the CPI (Maoist) through means such as extortion is a whopping Rs 140 crore annually.

The Maoists raise funds through donations, levy and extortions. No wonder, after the demonetisation drive in November last year, the Maoist funding suffered a severe setback. But, meanwhile, they have cultivated new source of funding. The Centre has identified illegal mining, poppy cultivation and extortion among the activities funding the Maoists.

“Economic resources play an important role in any war. Therefore, choking the financial resources of the left wing extremists is the most basic mantra in this fight,” the Home Minister said.

Maoist violence: Situation improving?

As many as 12,000 citizens had lost their lives in Maoist violence over the last two decades and of these, 2,700 are security personnel and 9,300 are civilians. The list of Maoist attacks is long.

On March 11 this year, the Maoists killed 12 CRPF personnel in the Sukma district of Chhattisgarh. In May 2013, the Maoists had attacked a Congress convey in Bastar district of Chhattisgarh, killing 25 Congress leaders. Senior Congress leader Mahendra Karma, the founder of Salwa Judum (a vigilante movement against Maoists), and former Union Minister Vidya Charan Shukla were among those killed. In April 2010, 75 CRPF personnel were killed in a Maoist ambush in Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh. In February 2010, the Maoists killed 24 personnel of the Eastern Frontier Rifles (EFR) in West Bengal’s West Midnapore district. The EFR personnel were in their sleep when the attack happened.

Several such attacks took place in Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra in the past.

Arguably, since 2014, there is a decline in Maoist attacks, decrease in the killing of security forces, decline in civilian casualty and increase in number of Maoists killed. Available data points to the fact.

Source: Home Ministry

Source: Home Ministry [pdf]
Earlier, there were 106 districts affected by Maoism. It has come down to 68 now. However, there is a long way to go.

The final battle

It is time the nation drew the final battle lines in the war against the Maoists. It is time India fought and won its last battle against the Maoists. There are two ways, the state can fight the war and the both should go in tandem.

One, the government must expedite its development push in the Maoist infested areas. The Maoists, who look for safe sanctuaries to run their activities, are scared of development because they use lack of development as a facade to exploit the innocent tribals and carry out their activities. Once, development reaches deep into the Maoist hinterland, the Left ultra will finally lose their constituency.

The government is precisely working towards it. The Union Home Ministry has given a go ahead for the construction of a whopping 5,412 km-long road connecting 44 Maoist-affected districts in nine states – Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Telangana, Bengal and MP. In addition, reports suggest that 2,178 mobile towers of 2,199 built are already operational in the red corridor.

Second and the most crucial and urgent means to fight the Maoist menace is the state must go for an all out war and crush the Maoist terrorists ruthlessly.

Maoists are terrorists and there should not be any further debate about it. There is no difference between the Maoists and their Islamic counterparts in Pakistan. In fact, well-known global intelligence company Stratfor had revealed that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) forged an alliance with the Maoists in a bid to destabilise the Indian state.

The Maoists are waging a war against the nation. They are a brute bunch of anti-nationals out to break India. They mock at the Constitution of India. They seek to destroy our republic, the fabric of our democracy and our rule of law.

The Leftist jholawallah noise notwithstanding, it is time to show no mercy to Maoists. Like their Islamist counterpart in Pakistan, Maoists only understand the language of bullets, bombs and drones. India must win the war against Maoists.

CNN-News18 journalist spreads fake news about gang-rape over beef eating in UP

Shantanu
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CNN-News18 journalist spreads fake news about gang-rape over beef eating in UP

In what appears to be an attempt to portray that gau-rakshaks (cow vigilantes) are running amok in Uttar Pradesh without any fear of law, Pallavi Ghosh, a journalist with news channel CNN-News18 today tweeted about an alleged incident from UP wherein a woman was apparently gang-raped for eating beef:


The tweet did not provide any other details about the alleged incident e.g. when and where in UP it happened. The journalist did not post any follow up tweet providing more details. The news channel where she works as a senior political editor also did not report any incident of gang-rape form UP today.

By evening, Uttar Prades Police took cognizance of her tweet, investigated about the alleged incident and clarified on Twitter that the said incident was “fictional”:


However even after getting caught for spreading lies, the journalist did not delete her tweet or re-tweet the clarification by UP Police so that her Twitter followers know about the truth. Instead she insinuated that UP Police endorsed ‘abuse’ directed towards her:


The conduct of the journalist shocked common people as she showed no remorse, and rather went on to accuse UP Police. People demanded that she be booked for spreading lies and communal disharmony.

It appears that the journalist picked up bits of her lie from a tweet by another TV journalist named Sagarika Ghose, who had posted a similar tweet yesterday. Sagarika had tweeted a link to a report dated 12 September 2016 in an website named The Independent about an alleged incident of gang-rape in Mewat, Haryana. The said report had quoted another NDTV report, in which the victims of the alleged gang-rape had said that they were raped for eating beef:


However, even back then Haryana police had debunked the beef angle just a day later, i.e. on 13 September 2016.

Why Sagarika tweeted about the incident 8 months later even though the ‘beef’ part of the story is suspect, is a mystery. Similar to Pallavi Ghosh, Sagarika also did not provide any context or clarification. Neither did she clarify that the beef angle was debunked by the police.

These two tweets beg the question whether this is plain incompetence of our some journalists to do basic fact-check before tweeting, or it is part of a larger propaganda to flare communal tensions in the country.

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