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Uttar Pradesh: Imam Abdul Qadir rapes a minor girl in a mosque in Amroha, gets arrested

OpIndia Staff
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Uttar Pradesh: Imam Abdul Qadir rapes a minor girl in a mosque in Amroha, gets arrested

An Imam named Maulana Abdul Qadir of a mosque in Amroha of Uttar Pradesh was arrested on 15th October 2022 for raping a minor girl in a mosque. The girl used to come to the mosque for religious studies. She studies in the eighth standard. The accused Imam has been taken into custody by the Didauli Kotwali police.

The incident took place in a village in the Didauli Kotwali area. The minor girl was part of a truck driver’s family that lives here. The driver had gone out of the station while his wife and children were at home. His 15-year-old elder daughter is a student of Class 8 in the school in the same village. Every day, she used to go to the village mosque with other children for religious training.

Maulana Abdul Qadir Imam, a resident of village Racheta under the Police Station Asmauli of Sambhal district works as an Imam in this mosque. It is alleged that 15 days ago, Imam let other children go home and stopped the minor girl on the pretext of sweeping. He later took her to a room and raped her. He also threatened to kill her if she told anyone. After the incident, the victim went home and did not tell anyone about this incident out of fear.

On Friday, when her father returned home, the daughter informed him about the incident. Late on Friday evening, the truck driver reached Kotwali with his daughter and lodged a complaint against the Imam. Inspector-in-charge Parvez Chauhan said that an FIR had been registered and the accused Imam has been arrested and sent to jail. The medical examination of the victim is being conducted.

In Uttar Pradesh and other states, many such incidents have been reported earlier in which a Maulana is arrested for raping minor girls or boys. Now, a similar case has happened in Amroha and the accused Maulana Abdul Qadir has been arrested by the police.

The Wire claims Microsoft employee based out of Singapore ‘certified’ the fabricated documents in the Meta controversy

OpIndia Staff
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The Wire claims Microsoft employee based out of Singapore ‘certified’ the fabricated documents in the Meta controversy

The Wire has now claimed that a Microsoft employee, one Ujjwal Kumar, based in Singapore has verified their fabricated email exchange with Facebook’s parent company ‘Meta’. Founding Editor of The Wire Siddharth Varadarajan has claimed that one Ujjwal Kumar, currently employed at Microsoft in Singapore, has ‘passed the DKIM test’.

Varadarajan shared a screenshot of an email sent by Ujjwal Kumar of Microsoft used the manual method and corroborated that the dkimpy, a library that implements DKIM (DomainKey Identified Mail) email signing and verification.

Here is the email shared by Siddharth Varadarajan.

Ujjwal Kumar of Microsoft Singapore

In another separate tweet, Varadarajan had claimed that he had consent from Ujjwal Kumar to share the email and his finding regarding the so-called mail from Meta and had shared the screenshot.

Original tweet by Siddharth Varadarajan

However, few hours later, Varadarajan deleted the tweet claiming that he had the consent of Ujjwal Kumar to share details, he has deleted the tweet.

Facebook uses Microsoft’s email services. The Wire tried to use the service provider to ‘verify’ details about one of their clients, quite likely without their consent and it seems, Microsoft’s Ujjwal Kumar agreed. However, Varadarajan’s ‘expert’ who ‘verified’ Facebook/Meta email as ‘authentic’ suddenly went from okay with being named to being ‘anonymous expert’ here.

‘Animal cruelty’ activists in the UK spill milk in supermarkets to protest against dairy industry, irk even the vegans with this wastage of food

OpIndia Staff
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‘Animal cruelty’ activists in the UK spill milk in supermarkets to protest against dairy industry, irk even the vegans with this wastage of food

‘Animal cruelty’ activists in Scotland are being called out by internet users, including the vegan community, for spilling milk in supermarkets as a part of an awareness campaign.

Animal Rebellion, an NGO fighting against the supply of dairy, posted about one such ‘milk pour’ campaign from Waitrose supermarket in Edinburgh. It tweeted, “Milk Pours are currently happening across the UK.”

“All are concerned individuals calling on the government to give us a livable future, a #PlantBasedFuture,” the Twitter handle further added. The archived version of the tweet can be accessed here.

In the disturbing video, two female activists could be seen spilling milk on the floor of the supermarket while another activist was seen holding a poster that read, “Plant-Based Future.” A man could be seen walking up to them and questioning them about their behaviour.

Social media users were irked by the action of the ‘animal cruelty’ activists, who had no qualms about wasting food. Even the vegan community was forced to step in and point out how their actions are counterproductive.

“I am vegan. What the bloody hell do you think you are going to achieve by this. Work with farmers, and consumers. Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world – Nelson Mandela,” wrote one vegan activist.

One woman wrote, “I’m verging on vegan, and I agree. If anything, this sets the vegan cause back years.”

Another user emphasised, “Look at them pouring milk away in supermarkets, I think I’ll turn vegan” said no-one ever!”

Twitter user Paulo Alessandro tweeted, “This is disgusting behaviour. Some poor cleaner on minimum wage will be tasked with cleaning this up.”

Another user pointed out the elitism of the ‘animal cruelty’ activists. “People are struggling to survive and you think the best activism is wasting food and then having low-wage workers clean up your mess. You reek of elitism. Performance art is generally shit, as you have demonstrated here,” he said.

One Joolz Denby remarked, “Your entitled narcissistic stupidity will push the government to ban all protests, you are causing far more harm than good and adding to the daily burden the underpaid employees of that store have to deal with.”

Animal activists have been calling for a ban on the dairy industry due to the cruel and non-ethical treatment of animals. However, disruptive campaigns such as the one mentioned above are increasingly drawing the ire of common people, including those who might have been sympathetic to the cause.

With no clear goals in sight and unjustified use of disruption, the champions of animal rights activism are now finding themselves on shaky ground.

Tamil Nadu: Man arrested for asking people to buy only from Hindu shops for Diwali

OpIndia Staff
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Tamil Nadu: Man arrested for asking people to buy only from Hindu shops for Diwali

Ahead of the upcoming Hindu festival of Diwali, the Tamil Nadu police arrested a man on Wednesday (October 12) for asking people to buy only from Hindu shops.

As per reports, the man was identified as 32-year-old M Sakthivel. The district (Karur) coordinator of ‘Hindu Munnani’, a Hindu rights organisation, Sakthivel had distributed pamphlets asking everyone to purchase items from Hindu-owned shops.

A resident of Vengamedu Jyothidar Street, he had called upon his co-religionists to look for pictures of Hindu deities inside shops prior to purchasing any products from them.

Soft copies of the pamphlets also began doing the rounds of the internet. After taking cognisance of the matter, the Vengamedu police took Sakthivel into custody. Diwali is a Hindu festival which celebrates return of Shri Ram, Sita and Lakshman back to Ayodhya after slaying the demon king Ravan in Lanka.

He was booked under Indian Penal Code (IPC) Sections 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion), and 505 (public mischief). Besides the man, four of his accomplice have also been named in the case. He has been remanded to judicial custody.

When members of Hindu Munnani objected to Shakthivel’s arrest, the police arrested additional 27 members of the Hindu rights organisation.

In April this year, AIMIM (Inquilab) leader MA Qavi Abbasi also appealed to his community members to buy things only from Muslim-owned shops during the month of Ramzan.

“When they boycott us, we should also boycott them…The sleep of people gets disturbed in the morning. If they have objection to Masjid loud speakers, let there be tit for tat. They have started and we will end it. Lodge a complaint with the police and Pollution Control Board,” he had remarked.

He was also booked by the Hyderabad police but was not arrested in connection to the case.

Congress leader shares image of Nigerian crowd in Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra

OpIndia Staff
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Congress leader shares image of Nigerian crowd in Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra

Jitendra Patwari, State President of the Madhya Pradesh Congress, uploaded a fake image of a huge crowd on Twitter and portrayed it as the multitude of people participating in Congress family scion and revered figure in the party Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra. Several social media users pointed this out in comments to the post by Jitendra Patwari.

Tweet by Jitendra Patwari.

Twitter user Lala (@FabulasGuy) pointed out that the image was a stock photo and it was originally shot in Nigeria and not during the Bharat Jodo Yatra of Congress party.

OpIndia also reverse-searched the image and found that it is not a photo of Congress’s Bharat Jodo Yatra. The image was captured in Nigeria during the Azusa Street Revival crusade.

2019 protests in Nigeria

As one can see, the flood lights in the original image were digitally removed but the objects in the background were there.

The Azusa Street Revival was a historically significant series of Christian revival meetings held in Los Angeles, California. It was led by African-American preacher William J. Seymour.

The Congress has a long history of fabricating facts and presenting them in order to salvage its leaders and the Congress party’s sinking ship. Very recently, Congress shared a fake survey by the news channel Aaj Tak to claim that Rahul Gandhi is more popular than Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The Congress party praised its leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday (October 13) morning for apparently surpassing Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the people’s choice, based on a fake poll credited to the news channel Aaj Tak. According to the ‘photoshopped survey,’ the Congress scion has a 52% approval rating, while Prime Minister Narendra Modi has a 46% approval rating.

While boasting about the ‘changing public perception,’ the official handle of Delhi Congress tweeted, “The mood of the nation is changing. People have now decided to teach a lesson to those who make fake promises (hinting at the BJP and PM Modi).” The archived version of the tweet can be accessed here.

The now-deleted tweet by the Congress party.

The joy of the Congress party, unfortunately, was short-lived, as Aaj Tak was obliged to debunk the misinformation spread in its name.

The news agency clarified in a tweet that no such poll was done by their team and that the photograph published by the Delhi Congress had been manipulated.

Dear Western Media, get over your racism and stop making everything about Modi

Nirwa Mehta
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Dear Western Media, get over your racism and stop making everything about Modi

The entitlement Western Media, with a history of racist undertones against Indians, is baffling. Which is why, any pushback from the ‘dirty brown people who smell of curry’ feels like ‘attack’ to them. The legacy media houses are not quite used to anyone countering their narrative.

And then they are helped by propaganda outlets from India who have spent past one decade making PM Modi appear like a ‘fascist’ while they continue to speak whatever they wish to without consequences while journalists in opposition ruled states such as West Bengal get arrested for reporting anything remotely critical of Mamata Banerjee government. Western Media chooses to ignore these conveniently while giving patronage to people accused of financial frauds.

But the way Indian media one fine day woke up to a rude shock that what they say is not held sacrosanct by Indians anymore and an average Indian wants accountability of personal opinions and political inclinations being reported as news, the western media, too, will some day realise that Indians will not take things lying down.

Over the years we have called out international publications for their biased and racist reporting on issues concerning India. In fact, according to a research paper published in the Indian Institute of Mass Communication’s Journal Communicator titled “An Analysis of Global Coverage of Events in India,” the global media has produced news that is fully prejudiced and biased to gain from the market while at the same time pushing their agendas. We have seen this during the coverage of coronavirus pandemic – when people in India succumbed to the virus, blown out images of cremation grounds, without any respect for dignity of the dead, no such coverage was given to the lakhs who died due to virus in America, for instance.

Which is why the legacy Western Media gets all antsy when they are called out by common citizens of India for their racism and bigotry. Except, instead of introspecting and course correction, the western media thinks they are being criticised because of their ‘critical stand’ on PM Modi. Umm, it seems like the western media has taken lessons on how to obfuscate from their Brown Sepoys back home in India.

They make everything about Modi and think that the voices on Twitter echo the sentiments of Indians. Their Indian counterparts are so delusional and far away from ground realities that they think Modi is winning elections because of ‘hate’ while their blinkers don’t let them see that in past eight years more people in rural India (who do not really cry fascism on Twitter) now have toilets, drinking water and cooking gas. In fact, Congress leaders had mocked the fact that Modi was building toilets. These were eventually even picked up by Western media where their faithful Brown Sepoys wrote exactly what they wanted to hear to defame India. After all, how can a ‘third world country’ even dream of being a superpower when the real superpowers are busy getting offended over ‘being identified by wrong gender’.

Most people (I say most because as we have seen, not everyone feels so) in India will put India first, with or without Modi. Earlier your racist and biased reportage got a free pass because of lack of accessibility. But thanks to Internet, and that too cheap one, more people are reading what these western media publishes about us. And are not too happy with the biased reportage. Criticism of your reportage is not ‘hate’. You are a professional, at least that’s what you’d like to be called, one would believe, and if someone is calling you out, it is not because of your ‘faith’. You cannot use your faith as a shield when you are being criticised in your professional capacity.

‘Journalists are under attack’ is not an excuse for not being called out because you could not stop yourself from bringing in your bias in your reportage. You cannot play ‘young female reporter’ reporter and infantalise yourself when someone is showing you the mirror.

Congress’ lesson 101 in ‘intolerance’: Party leaders gloat after online attacks force YouTuber Shubham Gaur and India Today’s Saurabh Dwivedi to apologise

OpIndia Staff
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Congress’ lesson 101 in ‘intolerance’: Party leaders gloat after online attacks force YouTuber Shubham Gaur and India Today’s Saurabh Dwivedi to apologise

Even as Congress leaders and supporters have the habit of getting on the moral high horse and pontificating to others on the virtues of ‘tolerance’ and ‘dissent’, they do not necessarily subscribe to practising what they preach, as evidenced recently when a raft of Congress supporters took to social media to bully YouTuber Shubham Gaur and India Today staffer Saurabh Dwivedi for their critical remarks on Rahul Gandhi and the Congress party.

Congress supporters and sympathisers recently took to social media to attack YouTuber Shubham Gaur and Lallantop journalist Saurabh Dwivedi after their past remarks mocking the Congress party and Rahul Gandhi went viral on the internet. Consequently, both Gaur and Dwivedi were forced to issue an apology for speaking their minds out, after which Congress leaders gloated on Twitter at apologies they had managed to secure, apparently with the help of online bullying and targeted harassment.

Congress leaders and supporters bully Shubham Gaur and Saurabh Dwivedi into apologising for their past remarks, gloat over their apologies

Congress workers and leaders have made YouTuber Shubham Gaur apologize for his jokes about Rahul Gandhi. A video of his apology went viral on social media on 15th October 2022.

In this video, Shubham Gaur said, “Hello friends! I recently had a casual chat with the host of a podcast show. A clip from that chat was edited and circulated on social media. As it was a casual chat, I did not follow any barriers while using my words. So, I crossed the barriers. I do not favour any political party nor am I against any political party. So I realize that the words I used for Mr Rahul Gandhi in that discussion were not appropriate and I regret that. I assure his supporters who are pained by this, that I will not use such language for him again in the future. Thank you.”

Shubham Gaur shared a reel from his Instagram account on 14th October 2022. The reel contained the edited video clip of his podcast show in which he was making some jokes about Rahul Gandhi during a casual conversation with the host of the show. Congress leaders and workers reported the post and commented in large numbers asking the YouTuber to apologize.

As Shubham Gaur expressed his regrets, the Congress workers flagged his video to assert their ‘moral victory’. Congress worker Surj Thakur tweeted, “The apology from Shubham Gaur is here. I support your art and I hope it reaches new heights but let this be a message to all those artists – Things like this against my leader won’t be tolerated. Don’t cross a line with us or face consequences. Many congratulations in advance for your marriage.”

Similarly, Lallantop journalist Saurabh Dwivedi also had to proffer an apology after he was incessantly attacked on Twitter by Congress supporters and Rahul Gandhi admirers over his past tweets mocking the grand old party and the Gandhi scion.

After Dwivedi offered an apology for his past tweets and remarks, Nitin Agarwal, the national coordinator of the social media cell of Congress, tweeted the apology videos of Dwivedi and Gaur.

In this video, Saurabh Dwivedi says, “How should one articulate an apology or a regret? In the last 72 hours the screenshots of my old tweets from 2012, 2013, 2015, 2016, and 2017 are going viral on social media, especially Twitter. I have used the same language as those trolls. So what if I used that language for Rahul Gandhi at a time when The Lallantop was not even started? I used to think like that in those days. Should I say it was wrong? In some places, it was just for fun but in some places, it crossed the limits of parliamentary language.”

Not only did the Congress online trolls harass Shubham Gaur and Lallantop ‘journalist’ Saurabh Dwivedi for their views on Rahul Gandhi and Congress, but they also took great pleasure in their apologies, reflecting a smug pride in attacking the dissenters and forcing them to apologise for their remarks.

This comes even as Rahul Gandhi continues to wax eloquent on how his party has ‘tolerance’ for dissent and contrarian viewpoints, even as party trolls and leaders make a beeline to attack those who dare to oppose their views and refuse to align with the Congress ideology.

Congress threatens to initiate action against Scoopwhoop over old memes on Rahul Gandhi

The Congress party has frequently argued that the BJP is hell-bent on undermining democracy’s fourth pillar. Party officials, particularly Rahul Gandhi, have regularly decried the lack of press freedom in Modi’s era. Last year, the dynasty-run party practically cried hoarse about India’s decline in the press freedom rankings.

However, it’s no secret that from the times of Jawaharlal Nehru to the present Sonia Gandhi era, the Congress party has been highly intolerant when it comes to accepting criticism from the press. The Nehru-Gandhi dynasty has left no room for dissent and has acted strictly against the press whenever they have raised fingers against their misdeeds. One of the recent examples was how the entire Congress ecosystem went after Arnab Goswami with hundreds of FIRs and a concocted TRP scam just because he called Sonia Gandhi by her maiden name.

Just another example of this hypocrisy was on display recently when some Congress leaders took to the microblogging site Twitter to threaten the Delhi-based digital media company ScoopWhoop with legal action over some old memes of Rahul Gandhi. 

In April 2015, ScoopWhoop published an article titled: “These Rahul Gandhi Memes Will Tell You Why He Needs Special Treatment”, wherein it shared some hilarious memes about the Congress leader. It’s surprising, however, that it took the Congress leaders and their supporters a little over seven years to react to the memes shared by the digital platform. Several Congress leaders and their online supporters fell over themselves to bully Scoopwhoop and threaten them to remove the article.

The full-page ad on WSJ urging US govt to ban Nirmala Sitharaman and others, and its link to Rana Ayyub

OpIndia Staff
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The full-page ad on WSJ urging US govt to ban Nirmala Sitharaman and others, and its link to Rana Ayyub

On October 13, the DC edition of the Wall Street Journal carried a full-page advertisement that shocked India, as it urged the US government to impose sanctions on Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and 10 other Indians. Alleging that they have “decimated the rule of law by weaponising the institutions of the state to settle scores with political and business rivals, making India unsafe for investors,” the ad sought economic and visa sanctions against them under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act.

It has been already reported that the ad campaign was run by Ramachandran Viswanathan, a US citizen of Indian origin, who has been dubbed a ‘fugitive economic offender‘ by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in India. He wants the US govt to impose sanctions on the Indian finance minister, supreme court judges, ED officials and other govt officials because, in 2011, the Indian government had terminated a deal between his Devas and ISRO’s commercial arm Antrix over corruption charges.

Since then, Devas has been fighting legal cases against the Indian government in several countries, and have won favourable judgments in several international forums. But Indian authorities and courts maintain that Devas Multimedia Private Limited was established with fraudulent means, and last year, the NCLT ordered the liquidation of the company. The Supreme Court of India upheld the order for liquidation in January 2022.

With Devas being liquidated in India, its founder Ramachandran Viswanathan has stepped up his attack on the Indian government, and the ad in Wall Street Journal was part of it. The full-page advertisement was run by Frontiers of Freedom, a US based think tank, founded by Senator Malcolm Wallop.

The president of Frontiers of Freedom is George Landrith, and it is clear that the campaign was timed to coincide with the US visit of Nirmala Sitharaman. The finance minister is visiting the US to attend the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governor (FMCBG) Meetings.

George Landrith and his Frontiers of Freedom are campaigning against Sitharaman and other Indians for last several months, and in August this year, they had filed a petition with the US government against the same 11 persons named in the WSJ ad. Saying that the petition was filed on behalf of Ramachandran Viswanathan and in collaboration with his lawyers, the group called for economic and visa sanctions against the Indians under  Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act.

The petition said that it was filed in response to “Modi regime’s campaign of transnational repression against Mr. Viswanathan.” 

On the day the advertisement appeared, George Landrith posted it on Twitter, proudly announcing that his organisation has got the ‘newest ad’ published on page A8A of the DC edition of the Wall Street Journal. He said that the action “exposes Nirmala Sitharaman’s actions that have decimated the rule of law & investment climate in India.”

Landrith also tweeted that the ad will send a clear message to potential investors in India, that India is a dangerous place to invest. Apart from Nirmala Sitharaman, the advertisement named Antrix chairman Rakesh Sasibhushan, Solicitor General of India Tushar Mehta, supreme court judges Hemant Gupta and V. Ramasubramanian, special PC Act judge Chandra Shekhar, CBI official Ashish Pareek, ED director Sanjay Kumar Mishra, ED Asst. Director R. Rajesh, additional solicitor general N. Venkataraman, and ED Deputy director A. Sadiq Mohamed Naijnar.

On October 12, a day before the ad appeared in WSJ, George Landrith ranted against Sitharaman, repeating the allegations mentioned in the petition and calling her a human right abuser.  He also asked for her and the Indian government’s response to his petition.

George Landrith said that he posted the question to Sitharaman on Twitter as he was not invited to ask a question at “India’s economic prospects and role in the world economy” addressed by Nirmala Sitharaman in Washington DC on 11th October which he had attended. He alleges that “the decline in rule of law & gross abuses of human rights affect India’s investment climate”, and sought the Indian government’s response to the accusation.

Things turned more interesting after that, as George Landrith posted more tweets in the same thread, and tagged several other persons in those tweets.

In the first tweet that included Twitter handles of others, he tagged Rana Ayyub and author-journalist RN Bhaskar. In another tweet, he tagged author Prem Prakash and Times of India group journalist Ishani Duttagupta.

Tagging Rana Ayyub, he wrote, “The bottom line is this: If @NSitharaman, @BJP4India & @NarendraModi really believe that foreign investors will continue to ignore the abuse and harassment committed by the Indian gov’t, they are mistaken…”

Now, like Ramachandran Viswanathan, Rana Ayyub is also facing ED probe in a money laundering case, as she had raised a large amount of money through the fundraising platform Ketto to help victims of Covid-19, flood etc, but used only 10% for relief work, and kept the rest in her personal bank accounts. Incidentally, on 13th October itself, the Enforcement Directorate filed a prosecution charge sheet against Ayyub in the case.

Like Viswanathan, Ayyub is also claiming that this action against her in a criminal case is the Modi government’s targeted attack against her.

Like the WSJ ad, a full-page ad had appeared in Washington Post also, supporting Rana Ayyub. She has successfully used the anti-India, anti-Hindu and anti-Modi lobbies in the west to target the Modi government, and she has found mentions in even parliamentary debates and reports as an example of the Modi government’s alleged attack on freedom of speech.

Given the fact that George Landrith is making similar allegations against PM Modi and Nirmala Sitharaman, and then tagged Rana Ayyub, it can be logically concluded that she is also part of the same group lobbying against the Indian govt.

‘Index is an erroneous measure of hunger and suffers from methodological issues’: India rubbishes Global Hunger Report 2022

OpIndia Staff
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‘Index is an erroneous measure of hunger and suffers from methodological issues’: India rubbishes Global Hunger Report 2022

The Indian government on October 15 rubbished the Global Hunger Report 2022 saying it has an erroneous measure of hunger and suffers from serious methodological issues. 

“Misinformation seems to be the hallmark of the annually released Global Hunger Index,” read a statement released by the Indian government after Global Hunger Report 2022 placed India on 107, below neighbouring countries Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, and Bangladesh.

“The index is an erroneous measure of hunger and suffers from serious methodological issues. Three out of the four indicators used for the calculation of the index are related to the health of Children and cannot be representative of the entire population. The fourth and most important indicator estimate of the Proportion of Undernourished (PoU) population is based on an opinion poll conducted on a very small sample size of 3000,” the statement further added.

The statement also said that the Global Hunger Index Report is not only disconnected from reality but has also deliberately ignored efforts undertaken by the Government to ensure food Security for the population, especially during the Covid Pandemic.

“Taking a one-dimensional view, the report lowers India’s rank based on the estimate of the Proportion of the Undernourished (PoU) population for India at 16.3%. The FAO estimate is based on the “Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES)” Survey Module conducted through Gallop World Poll, which is an “opinion poll” based on “8 questions” with a sample size of ‘3000 respondents’,” the statement said. 

The government said the data used to arrive at the rating drawn from a narrow sample for a country of India’s size and through dubious methods is not only wrong & unethical, but it also reeks of obvious bias. It also accused the Concern Worldwide and Welt Hunger Hilfe, the publishing agencies of the Global Hunger Report, of not having done their due diligence before releasing the report.

The central government highlighted the prejudice and erroneous method used by the agency, pointing out how irrelevant, and questions not searching for factual responses were used in the survey to arrive at the Hunger Index. 

“The per capita dietary energy supply in India, as estimated by FAO from the Food Balance Sheets, has been increasing year-on-year owing to enhanced production of major agricultural commodities in the country over the years and there is absolutely no reason why the country’s undernourishment levels should increase,” the statement said. 

Besides, the centre also listed down measures it had undertaken to ensure food security for its close to 1.4 billion population. 

“Government is running the largest food security programme in the world. In the wake of economic disruptions caused by the unprecedented outbreak of COVID-19 in the country, the Government in March 2020 announced the distribution of additional free-of-cost foodgrains (Rice/Wheat) to about 80 Crore National Food Security Act (NFSA) beneficiaries at the scale of 5 Kg per person per month under the PM Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PM-GKAY), over and above the regular monthly NFSA foodgrains i.e., regular entitlements of their ration cards,” the centre enlisted while rejecting the Global Hunger Index Report.

It further highlighted the efforts the government took to help ensure food security during COVID-19. “So far, under the PM-GKAY scheme, the Government allocated a total of almost 1121 Lakh MT foodgrains to the States/UTs equivalent to about Rs. 3.91 Lakh Crore in food subsidy. The scheme has been extended till December 2022. The distribution has been done through State Governments, who on their own further supplemented the efforts of Central Government by providing pulses, edible oils and condiments etc to the beneficiaries,” the statement said.

Under Anganwadi Services, supplementary nutrition was provided to approximately 7.71 crore children up to the age of 6 years and to 1.78 crore pregnant women and lactating mothers. 5.3 Million Metric Tonnes of Foodgrains (comprising 2.5 Million Metric Tonnes of Wheat, 1.1 Million Metric Tonnes of Rice, 1.6 Million Metric Tonnes of Fortified Rice and 12,037 Metric Tonnes of Jowar and Bajra) were supplied.

Under the Pradhan Mantri Matri Vandana Yojna, more than 1.5 Crore registered women were provided Rs 5000/- on the birth of their first child for wage support and nutritious food during pregnancy and post-delivery period.

“The three other indicators apart from PoU, included in Global Hunger Index relate primarily to children viz. Stunting, Wasting and Under 5 mortality. These indicators are outcomes of complex interactions of various other factors like drinking water, sanitation, genetics, environment and utilisation of food intake apart from hunger, which is taken as the causative/outcome factor for stunting and wasting in the GHI. Calculating hunger based on main indicators relating to health indicators of children is neither scientific nor rational,” the statement concluded.

Andhra Pradesh HC prevents the state government from taking over the Ahobilam temple

OpIndia Staff
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Andhra Pradesh HC prevents the state government from taking over the Ahobilam temple

The Andhra Pradesh High Court ruled that the State’s decision to designate an “Executive Officer” to govern and supervise the operations of the Ahobilam Temple in Kurnool violates Article 26(d) of the Constitution and interferes with the Mathadipathis’ rights to administer. The division bench of Chief Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra and Justice DVSS Somayajulu said unequivocally that the Temple is a component of the Ahobila m Math in Tamilnadu.

The court disagreed with the State’s claim that the Temple and the Math are separate organizations. The bench ruled that although the Math is currently located in the State of Tamil Nadu and the Temple is currently located in the State of Andhra Pradesh, the former does not stop being a site of religious devotion for the main Math. The court also noted the fact that at one point in time both places would fall under the same composite state of Madras.

The court said, “Ahobilam Temple is an integral and inseparable part of Ahobilam Math, which was established as a part of the propagation of Hindu religion and for rendering spiritual service for propagating Sri Vaishnavism. The successive Jeeyars are the trustees of the Ahobilam Devasthanam and since the Government cannot appoint an Executive Officer for the Ahobilam Math, it has no power to appoint an Executive Officer for the Ahobilam Temple by treating it separate from the Math. Appointing an Executive Officer for Temple, which is a part of the Math, is violative of Article 26(d) of the Constitution of India, as the same affects Jeeyars’/Mathadipathis’ right of administration.”

The court added, “The mere fact that there is no physical proximity is unimportant if there is spiritual/religious or denominational oneness. Even if the Math and Temple are geographically apart if there is oneness or uniformity in the sampradaya, the practices, rituals, etc., the temple must be held to be appurtenant to the Math. The Mathadipathi cannot be reduced to the status of a mere employee or his powers cannot be denuded or taken away by the appointment of an Executive Officer, who will exercise all functions or control.”

The bench ruled that the State is not given general authority to supervise and govern math, and that interference in its operations should only be made where there are good reasons to do so, such as poor management. However, it was discovered in this instance that there was absolutely no support for the nomination of the Executive Officer.

Finally, the court observed that the Mathadipathis, whose appointment did not vest in or was exercised by the Government, continued to oversee the Temple beginning with the Endowments Act of 1927 and continuing through the Acts of 1951, 1959, and 1966 until the Act of 1987. The petitioners, who were devotees, had stated that, in accordance with the AP Charitable and Hindu Religious Institutions and Endowments Act, the State lacks the right to name the Executive Officer for the Math or Temple. They argued that the Maths should be granted a unique status and the authority to regulate their own affairs by citing Chapter V of the Act.

It was claimed that the government acknowledged the lack of a procedure for non-hereditary trustee appointments to the temple in 2014. The government’s representative, Advocate General S Sriram, has contended that Ahobilam Math and the Temple are independent organizations. He argued that a temple is a venue of public religious worship as opposed to math, which serves a certain community and hosts activities like spiritual services. He stated that the limits imposed by the Act with regard to Math do not apply to the temple since it provides unlimited access to the public in this circumstance.

After hearing both parties, the court ordered, “The State of Andhra Pradesh has no authority, jurisdiction, or entitlement under the law to appoint an Executive Officer of Sri Ahobila Mutt Parampara Aadheena Sri Lakshmi Narasimha Swamy Devasthanam (Ahobilam Math Temple).”

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