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Swedish embassy cancels event involving abusive journalist after social media protests

On Sunday, many people on Twitter expressed anger and disappointment with Embassy of Sweden in India and Maneka Gandhi, the Union Cabinet Minister for Women and Child Development, for organising and attending an event respectively that linked “Press Freedom” with “Online Trolling”.

Following is the poster of the event that attracted this anger:

There were two main reasons why people were angry:

  1. Journalists, especially in India, often try to curb criticism by labeling anyone who disagrees with them as “troll” and this event was seen as giving legitimacy to that view by linking “press freedom” to “trolling”.
  2. One of the guests invited – a person named Swati Chaturvedi – is an abusive writer known for targeting BJP leaders and supporters through her fictitious writing. Presence of a BJP minister with such a person raised eyebrows.

Presence of Barkha Dutt, another controversial journalist alleged to be anti-BJP, was also one of the reasons some BJP supporters wanted Maneka Gandhi to not attend this event. People didn’t hide their anger against Maneka Gandhi and the BJP for gracing such an event:


Some users also called for the sacking of Maneka Gandhi by using the #sackmaneka hashtag:


Although many people thought that this was another Twitter outrage that will die down with time, earlier today it was revealed that the Embassy of Sweden had cancelled the event:


//platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsOpIndia.com called up the Embassy of Sweden and we were informed that the event indeed has been called off. When we asked for official reason, we were told that there were “conflicts of schedule”.

However, the embassy confirmed that the event has been cancelled and not postponed. “An event on similar lines might be organised in future, but as of now, this event is cancelled,” an embassy official confirmed.

Boy gets education loan after writing to PM, bank had rejected due to father’s credit rating

During the global recession years of 2008-2009, Mr. S Thakur, an executive with an IT company in Gurgaon was finding it difficult to maintain his finances and support his family. He had to take a salary cut to save his job and ended up defaulting on a couple of credit card payments, which damaged his CIBIL rating.

Things became normal in coming years, but little did Mr. Thakur know that his credit card defaults could prove to be a stumbling block in the study plans of his younger son Sumit 8 years later. Sumit had completed his B. Com course from Kolkata in 2014 and was working in a local company and preparing for higher education at the same time. He wanted to get an MBA degree.

On 18th March this year, Sumit got an admission offer from Institute of Management Technology (IMT), Hyderabad to pursue the Post Graduate Diploma in Management (PGDM) course, which is akin to getting an MBA degree. IMT on its website had suggested Punjab National Bank (PNB) as one of the banks to go for education loan. PNB’s website also listed IMT as an institute for which they do provide education loans.

24-year-old Sumit secured provision admission at IMT Hyderabad after paying the required 50,000 rupees and applied for an education loan of 12.6 lakh rupees at PNB in Kolkata on 24th March, so that he is able to pay the first installment of the course fee by 15th April. He thought that a nationalized bank will easily sanction the loan for an approved institute and course.

However, till 6th April, PNB didn’t sanction him the loan. He was getting worried and asked the bank officials the reason. His father’s poor credit history was one of the reasons why the bank refused to give him a loan, Sumit told OpIndia.com

Sumit tried to argue that the reputation of the college and the course where he was seeking admission to, and his own academic background should be the factors behind sectioning the loan, not his father’s financial history, but that didn’t help. Sumit didn’t know what to do next.

Around the same time, Sumit had read about an incident where a Muslim girl from Karnataka wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and had got her education loan sanctioned. The girl had reportedly referred to Prime Minister’s ‘Beti Bachao Beti Padhao’ scheme in her letter.

Though he didn’t exactly fit in the ‘Beti Padhao’ scheme, Sumit tried to test his luck. He googled how can one write to Prime Minister’s Office and discovered the website enabling grievance redressal by the Government of India.

He wrote about his plight on the above website and addressed it to the Prime Minister’s Office on 7th April. Meanwhile IMT had extended the last date of submission of first installment of the fees from 15th April to 29th April. Sumit decided to wait for a couple of weeks, and if no help comes, he’d have to forget his MBA plans and ask IMT to refund his 50,000 rupees.

On 20th April – little less than a couple of weeks since he wrote to the Prime Minister’s Office – Sumit received a call from the PNB officials who told him that his education loan will be sanctioned. The officials told him that they had received communication from higher ups inquiring about the incident.

A happy and a little confused Sumit then logged onto the aforementioned website to discover that the Prime Minister’s Office had forwarded his complaint to the PNB’s Kolkata Circle Office on 19th April i.e. just the previous day.

Sumit thanked the officials (and his stars) and he told the bank officials that there was nothing to worry about as there was no demand by him for any punitive action and that this was just a centralized grievance redressal system at work. His motive of using the grievance redressal system was to get clarity on the education loan process, not to extract some penalty from the bank or any employee.

Education loan letter to Sumit Thakur
The loan sanction letter by the PNB to Sumit Thakur

The first installment of the fees has now been submitted to IMT Hyderabad and Sumit is now all set to pursue his dreams of higher education starting next month. He and his family are happy to have experienced this grievance redressal first hand.

“Previously people would think thrice before even approaching their local councillor for any help. And now you can write straightaway to the PMO and get help sitting in your room. If this isn’t good governance, then I don’t know what is!” Sumit’s father told OpIndia.com reacting to the whole development.

Another ISIS terrorist from India killed, this time in Afghanistan

A 30 year old man from Kerala who was believed to have joined ISIS was reportedly killed in a drone strike in Afghanistan. The man named Bexin Vincent was a convert from Christianity and had married a girl called Nimisha. They both had slipped out of India when she was pregnant.

This piece of information was reportedly conveyed to his family which lives in Kasargod, North Kerala via the messaging app named Telegram on Saturday. The sender of the message is believed to be a youth named Ashfaq Majeed, who along with at least 19 others, had reportedly joined the Islamic State last year.

This news is in line with various reports which over time have shed light over the possible fate which has befallen the Indian citizens who have joined ISIS.

  • It was reported in March that a 24 year old man called Hafeezuiddin who hailed from the same place of Kasargod was killed in a similar drone strike in Afganisthan. His death was also conveyed to his family using the Telegram messaging app.
  • About 20 ISIS recruits from India were reportedly killed when the USA dropped the ‘Mother of all bombs’ in Nangarhar province of Afghanistan on 13th April.
  • In November, 2016 it was reported that a 22-year-old youth from Kalyan named Aman Naeem Tandel who had left for Syria in 2014 was killed.
  • It was reported in April, 2015 that three ISIS fighters including one named Abdul Rahman from Maharashtra had so far died fighting in Syria. In November of that year, the Indian security agencies released the names of 6 Indian youths who had died after joining the ISIS.

Apart from getting killed there have also been cases about the fighters returning back to India after they were reportedly ‘disillusioned’ by the Islamic State:

  • Arif Majeed an engineering student who had joined the Islamic state in May, 2014 returned back to the country in November of the same year as he was completely ignored and had to clean toilets and fetch water for fellow terrorists.
  • A youth named Subahani Haja Moideen too returned to India in October 2016, five months after joining the terror group as he was reportedly disillusioned by the senseless violence the group was perpetrating.

Journalists or donkeys? When media thought potholes and donkeys are same thing

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Uttar Pradesh is famous and infamous for many things, but donkeys are hardly one of those, at least in literal sense. Except for the former Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav’s election speech about “Gujarat Ke Gadhe” where he referred to a tourism ad about Wild Asses of Gujarat by Amitabh Bachchan, you can hardly think of something that links Uttar Pradesh and donkeys in recent past.

But if the Indian mainstream media is to be believed, donkeys roaming on roads are one the of the biggest challenges in the biggest state of India. Sample these headlines from the mainstream media outlets that found their way into Google News today:

fake news about Yogi Adityanath
Indian mainstream media reporting fake news

As per these media reports, Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh Yogi Adityanath has promised to make Uttar Pradesh roads donkey-free. Times of India was one of the earliest to report the same. They claimed that Yogi Adityanath said the following:

“UP came to be known as the place where donkeys crowd the streets and where it was completely dark after nightfall. We have now decided to ensure that by 15 June, UP’s streets are donkey-free.”

The report quoted news agency ANI as the source. But did ANI really report so?

Since the average reader these days is more aware, alert, and knowledgeable than an average journalist, very soon people found what ANI had actually reported:


So Yogi Adityanath meant potholes! This is what he actually said:

“UP came to known as the place from where potholes in roads start and where it was completely dark after nightfall.”

And then he went ahead to announce that by 15th June, potholes will be removed and electricity will be provided for 24 hours in district headquarters.

But for our journalists, he was apparently talking about donkeys (gadha) not potholes (gaddha). A person with basic knowledge of Hindi or a basic level of context could have understood what was being talked about, but not the media that confidently went out to report that Uttar Pradesh roads were to be made donkey-free!

Here was a Chief Minister who was promising something with a deadline, but the media thought he was cracking some joke. The original culprit it seems was the Times of India, after which other media organisations blindly copied their report adding their own take. People on Twitter slammed Times of India for this shoddy journalism:

Times of India deleted their report after this embarrassing incident, though other reports are still live (at the time of writing this report).

This incident also shows the perils of ‘chain news’ reporting by our media, where just one mainstream media outlet has to err (or lie deliberately) and that fake news will be repeated by other media organisations to an extent that people start believing the fake news as real incident. Just that this time it was too bray-zen.

While this incident is funny and we can discard it with a few laughs, do note that it demonstrates how dangerous media incompetence is. Thanks to this blind chain reporting by the mainstream media, a deliberate lie can also be circulated and people made to believe in something that never happened, as we had earlier seen in the case of EVM controversy in Bhind in Madhya Pradesh.

A touching gesture – IAS officers to adopt families of martyred soldiers

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At a time when the nation is mourning over the death of 25 CRPF personnel, killed in a Maoist ambush in Sukma district of Chhattisgarh, a very touching gesture has come from the IAS Officers Association.

In a unique initiative, the country’s elite administrative service officers will adopt families of the martyred soldiers of the defence forces and Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF). This is a first of its kind move from the IAS Officers Association. The association represents all members of Indian Administrative Service (IAS).

The official twitter handle of IAS Officers Association tweeted:

“It would be in the national interest that the civil servants proactively contribute in this endeavour,” Indian Civil and Administrative Service (Central) Association said in a statement.

“It is proposed that each member of the Indian Administrative Service adopts one family of a martyred soldier. The family may preferably from the state to which the officer belongs and will be serving for a large part of his or her career. It would be appropriate that the IAS officers adopt one family of a martyred soldier in their first place of posting as Subdivision magistrate,” the association said.

“Senior officers, or those from state civil services, can also adopt such families voluntarily,” it said.

The associations have further asked the officers to provide support and assistance to the families of the martyred soldiers in the following ways:

  • Oversee and ensure that all dues of the martyred soldiers be paid to the dependents.
  • Ensure that the children of the martyred soldier continue getting good education.
  • Mentor and guide the children of martyred soldiers so that they can pursue their career of their choice.
  • Provided benefits to the martyred families from various schemes being run by the government – Skill India, Start-up India, Digital India etc.
  • Provide adequate medical help when any member of the martyred family is seriously ill or injured.

“We are requesting state governments and the central government to issue the necessary instructions in this regard to all concerned so that this arrangement gets institutionalised at the earliest,” the IAS Officers Associations said.

Earlier, cricketer Gautam Gambhir had pledged to bear all the education related expenses of the children of the 25 CRPF jawans martyred in Sukma.

According to available data, the death toll of the Army soldiers stood at 64 in 2016. In the same year, 65 security personnel were killed by Maoists. This year so far, 54 security personnel have been killed in Maoist ambush.

Bahubali! A trick by the RSS?

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“WHY DID KATTAPPA KILL BAHUBALI?” This was a burning question in the year that went past us. Much more burning and invoking than ‘The Newshour’ by Arnab Goswami. I wonder why did Arnab not ask this question when he had the chance.

Anyways, I suggest Mr. S.S Rajamouli should be awarded with Nobel Peace Prize for finally revealing why did Kattappa kill Bahubali. There were instances of lovers breaking up, peddlers getting killed, muslims joining ISIS, all because they couldn’t find the key to the mystery. Some people believe that Salman Khan’s ‘Hit & Run’ case of 2002 was the aftermath of this question. It is said that Salman went into the future to see Bahubali that day. He did love the film but was so overwhelmed by the Kattappa suspense that he ran his car over the pedestrians (So sorry! I meant the driver).

Let’s leave it be because he got acquitted at the end of the day, giving us another chance to watch his super logical films, which probably surpasses the abilities of Christopher Nolan.

Yesterday, second installment of this epic movie by Rajamouli was released. Finally, the answer to the question was served for the price of a silver platter. But was this question the end of Bahubali? Isn’t there anymore question to this franchise? Is this all we get after 2 years? If you think yes, then I beg to differ! This answer gave birth to another question and that is “Was Bahubali a trick played by RSS?”

Before we get into this question, let me tell you something about the RSS. RSS is an institution which serves to the Indian people, teach them the Indian history, vedic ways of our culture and much more. RSS is often blamed for ‘Hindu Terrorism/Saffronisation/Communalism’ by the Left Liberals who support the students at JNU for chanting Anti-India slogans as Freedom of Expression.

Now you must be thinking how did it strike me that RSS can be involved in the making of Bahubali! No it didn’t! I overheard a conversation of two Left Liberals in the Delhi Metro (Don’t blame me of snooping and eavesdropping! They were too loud while exercising their right of FoE). I recall, I heard them say why wasn’t Bahubali a muslim character in the film? (afterall, all the Bahubalis around the world are Muslims like Baghdadi, Dawood, Al-Jawahiri, Owaisi, Mulayam Singh etc)

I wanted to stop them right there for spreading minority complex in the minority community but I didn’t (afterall they chant inclusiveness all day long). I wanted to know how Left Liberals looked and sounded like after they log off from their social media accounts. I kept to their conversation and it went as

A – Not only should he be a Muslim character but also the fact that he got betrayed by his countryman. It makes perfect sense.

B – Yes. You are absolutely right. You know I think that RSS was a part of this movie, both parts!

A – How? What did you notice? You must have analysed I am sure. These Sanghis leave clues everywhere.

B – Firstly, remember how Kattappa insults the Muslims(sic) by not accepting the sword they offered and then furthermore breaks it into two halves in a duel. Such disrespect I tell you..! Only Sanghis can think of such demeaning tricks.

A – Wow man! I never thought of it. We can use it on the social media to show their real colours. The degenerate communalists that they are.

B – This isn’t just it! Why was the queen called ‘Ma’ and not ‘Ammi’ ? Ammi means the same thing. They could have easily taken the word, but no, how can the RSS survive if Muslims prosper!

A – OMG! Dude you are a legend. How do you do this kind of in depth analysis? Pretty intense huh!

B – I haven’t seen Bahubali 2 yet. Just wait and watch. I will bring out the hypocrisy of these Sanghis.

A – I heard that in the second part, the role of Tammanna Bhatia has been decreased.

B – Why wouldn’t it be man? These saffron agents can’t see our women getting empowered. They are the owners of patriarchy.

A – I think you are right. RSS must have had an influence in the movie. After all they don’t like lovers roaming around and the Kattappa suspense was a reason for many breakups in our country like Arbaaz and Malaika, maybe.

B – See! Now you get it. Arbaaz and Malaika. Hindu Muslim pair, sanghis call it love jihad. They were the reason why this beautiful couple broke up.

Hearing this, an elderly man interrupted their ‘RSS analogy’ session and said, “You damned souls! Read the newspaper already! Stop acting like your stupid leaders. You have to bear the burden of this nation’s heritage and sovereignty. First you blamed Modi, then Yogi of being communal and intolerant towards the Muslims. Don’t you know about the Gorakhnath Temple operated by Yogi? Don’t you know who heads the cattle of Yogi? Such moronic youth this generation has become. How can you call someone names when you can’t even know little facts. If you will turn out to be this stupid then who will stop this nation from becoming another hotspot for terrorism to grow?”

My thoughts were hijacked by this man’s sheer words. I almost forgot the stupid things that I just heard from the two gentlemen standing next to me. I was happy for the moment. But then, happiness doesn’t last long. It was my stop to de-board. As I managed to pass through the crowd, I managed to hear a familiar voice say, “These RSS crooks……”

The Left liberals were off to analysis, again.

JNU prof pays tribute to Sukma martyrs, gets car pelted with stones

JNU really has seen a lot. There was the surreal spectacle of card carrying Communists explaining why theirs is a politics of promoting free speech. Played on all channels, mind you. Video tweeted approvingly by several politicians who could even be India’s democratically elected Prime Minister(s) in the near future (as per the wishes of the Indian mainstream media).

Let’s see what happens when this is put to test.

Dr. Buddha Singh is a faculty member at JNU and an Associate Dean of students. He decided to exercise his free speech and organize a Tribute meeting for the martyrs of Sukma and Kupwara on the evening of April 28. Here is the poster for the event:

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Not surprisingly, some didn’t take kindly to the saffron, white and green.

The reaction was swift and unforgiving.

Today, Dr. Buddha Singh has tweeted out a picture of his car, which was vandalized by stone pelting:


Stone pelting? Wonder where they got that idea? Any guesses?

And yes, unlike some people who got invited to write against troll terror in the Hindustan Times, Dr. Buddha Singh has in fact complained to the police:


Will there be anguished editorials about the shrinking space for dissent in our universities? The last time they came out in full flow to defend the right to chant “Bharat ki barbaadi”. Will they come out and speak up for the right to pay tribute to our martyred soldiers?

Perhaps we all know the answer.

This is not the only or first time though that the left-dominated JNU has seen such violent or intolerant reactions from the leftists, who appear amenable only to a particular kind of events. Back in 2010, the leftist students had organized an event that was seen as celebrating the massacre of 76 CRPF jawans who were martyred in Dantewada that year. Last year everyone witnessed how an event to glorify Afzal Guru was held. Such events are routine, only that a few have now come under public scrutiny recently.

The intolerance and violence by leftists was on full display – despite the media trying its best to hide it – earlier this year at Ramjas College in Delhi. Before that, left leaning JNU students had forced the university to cancel invite to a speaker they didn’t agree with, and on another occasion the hooliganism of such students forced a helpless professor to touch their feet who pleaded to be allowed to enter his office.

Manish Sisodia claims his Twitter account was hacked after it shared tweets insulting Anna Hazare

Social activist Anna Hazare, who was the guru of most of AAP’s current top brass, had criticized the party and the leadership saying that there was a difference between what the party preached and what it actually practiced. He also said that Kejriwal’s quest for power was one of the reasons why AAP lost. Anna’s criticism came after AAP lost the recently concluded MCD elections

This had aggrieved some of AAP supporters who had then proceeded to bad mouth Anna Hazare by using vile comments like Sanghi chaddi and namak haraam (disloyal) among others.

This fever also seems to have caught Delhi’s Deputy CM Manish Sisodia whose official twitter account started retweeting tweets last night, which were casting aspersions on Anna’s character:

Screenshot of anti-Anna tweets
The anti-Anna tweets that were shared by Sisodia

There was more:

It is one thing for ordinary AAP supporters to badmouth Anna, but it’s another when a senior leader of the party, who is also the Deputy Chief Minister of Delhi, starts re-tweeting them.

Now after about 14 hours post the incident was highlighted, Sisodia came out to claim that his account was hacked when the messages were retweeted. He also claimed he wasn’t even able to delete them. Maybe he isn’t aware that one can’t delete retweets but can easily un-retweet them:


He also claimed that he had the utmost respect for Anna and appealed to people to not believe the messages that were on his Twitter page for hours:


Interestingly this realization that his account was hacked came after Arvind Kejriwal put out a message on Twitter which called for introspection:


It remains to been seen whether the AAP government launches an investigation in order to probe the matter and catch the culprits who were responsible for the alleged hack, or this incident will also end up like the case of Rajdeep Sardesai, who had similarly claimed hacked account after people complained about him abusing common Twitter users.

ISIS targeting converted Hindus for terror operations in Indian subcontinent

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Jamaat-Ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh or JMB is a terrorist organization which operates from Bangladesh. It was reported to be behind the Dhaka Terror attack of 2016, which put Bangladesh on international terror map.

What makes this JMB even deadlier, especially for India, is the fact that it is now believed to be coordinating with the ISIS to spread terror in Bangladesh and India. Some of the larger plans of the JMB are publicizing the presence of ISIS in India and to also spur recruitment for the group.

Now it seems both the JMB and the ISIS are indulging in an unique radicalization process which is:

Targeting Hindus who have converted to Islam for spreading their terror operations in the Indian subcontinent or otherwise

Here are are few incidents on which the above assertion is based:

  • On 27th April authorities arrested three terrorists namely Tamim Dari, Kamrul Hasan and Md Mostofa Majumdar who were reported to be the members of a certain Sarowar-Tamim group of JMB. Bomb making materials, plastic explosives and armaments were recovered from the trio. Out of the three the terrorist Tamim Dari is stated to be a Hindu convert.
  • Acting on a tip, Bangladeshi counter-terrorism operatives raided a house on 21st April which reportedly acted as a hideout of neo-JMB members. As the operation went on the team recovered 15-16 Jihadi books along with various weapons. The report suggested that the house was owned by a man named Abdullah who had converted from Hinduism in 2012. He was previously named Provat Kumar Batul and after his conversion had also married a Muslim girl.
  • Such incidents about converted Jihadis have also emerged in India. According to a January 2017 report, the NIA had so far arrested 52 suspected ISIS terrorists. Reportedly 15% of these or roughly 7-8 terrorists were converts from Hinduism and Christianity. Apart from this, there were other interesting factors. About 80% of these 52 terrorists had acquired formal education and rest had gone to Madrasas. Also 20 out of the lot were believed to be engineers.
  • Reports surfaced in January 16 which claimed that an ISIS terrorist who threatened Britain in a video was believed to be British Indian youth named Siddhartha Dhar who had converted to Islam and relocated to Syria in 2014. Siddhartha had taken up the name Abu Rumaysah after his conversion.

This appears to be part of strategy by ISIS to target groups, which for various reasons, either feel victimised or have an axe to grind with non-Muslim ethnic groups. Earlier, Rohingya Muslims were also reported to have been identified as potential recruits by the ISIS.

AAP supporters hurl filthy abuses at each other over Kumar Vishwas

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The humiliating defeat in MCD polls, which came after similar defeats in Goa and Punjab assembly polls, have taken heavy toll on the Aam Aadmi Party. Former party leaders like Yogendra Yadav and Mayank Gandhi criticised the party for losing track, which was followed by current leaders like Bhagwant Mann and Kapil Mishra too calling for serious analysis rather than coming up with EVM tampering excuse.

The latest to join this plan speak was senior leader Kumar Vishwas, who in an interview to a news channel echoed similar sentiments. Somehow this didn’t go well with some die-hard supporters of Arvind Kejriwal who decided to attack him and his supporters.

These supporters included a vocal and known face of AAP’s online support base named Navendu Sigh, who had earlier met Arvind Kejriwal in person. He led the attack against Vishwas calling him “Laundiabaaz”, “Kaamraaj” and “pervert”. It is interesting to note that these same supporters used to attack BJP and media when they questioned about alleged affairs of Kumar Vishwas.


Navendu Singh has since deactivated his account, but not before claiming that Kumar Vishwas was spreading his photoshopped pictures after he spoke against the poet-leader.


He also tweeted that Kumar Vishwas and his team were trying to harass and scare him for speaking against the party.


This mud-slinging between Kumar Vishwas supporters and Arvind Kejriwal supporters continued for hours. One supporter claimed that abuses and libelous statements like branding someone a rapist were being used in the party:


The mess didn’t stop here. Ankit Lal, the head of social media cell of AAP threatened above supporter by tweeting pictures of shoes:


The worst was yet to come. Aam Aadmi Party keeps mentioning that party supporters receive death threats from rival parties. However, this time the ugly fight between party members soon escalated to FIR and death threats.


The supporters of AAP are unleashing all their weapons which against each which they used against other supporters of other parties a few days back. One of the supporter of AAP has rightly pointed out that AAP is killing itself and no one else can be blamed for it.