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Ten days after the MVA govt fell in Maharashtra, Rahul Gandhi finally ‘gets upset’ with Congress, sends an ‘observer’ to state

OpIndia Staff
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Ten days after the MVA govt fell in Maharashtra, Rahul Gandhi finally ‘gets upset’ with Congress, sends an ‘observer’ to state

Nearly ten days after Uddhav Thackeray resigned as the CM and the state’s Maha Vikas Aghadi Govt, crumbled, Congress’s senior leader Rahul Gandhi awakened from his deep slumber and realised that he is “very upset” with his party in Maharashtra. Reportedly, the Gandhi scion has now decided to appoint an observer to take stock of the political situation in Maharashtra.

The decision came a day after Maharashtra Congress chief Nana Patole met Sonia Gandhi on Thursday. He approached the party’s national president with complaints against some leaders, including former chief minister Ashok Chavan, for being absent during the floor test sought by the now Maharashtra CM Eknath Shinde and cross-voting during the Legislative Council elections.

Notably, as many as 11 Congress MLAs abstained from the floor test on July 4, in which Eknath Shinde received the backing of 164 legislators, while the ousted Maha Vikas Aghadi, of which Congress was also a part, got only 99 votes.

Patole, according to sources, also informed Gandhi about the cross-voting by seven Congress MLAs during the June 20 Legislative Council elections, where the party’s official candidate Chandrakant Handore, a well-known Dalit leader, had to suffer a humiliating loss.

Reportedly, Rahul Gandhi and AICC general secretary K C Venugopal were also present at Sonia Gandhi’s residence when Patole met her.

Sources said that the Congress supremos were stunned by the absence of 11 Congress MLAs during the trust vote. Moreover, they were also upset at Maharashtra leaders for not following directives to oppose the renaming of Aurangabad as Sambhajinagar during the last Cabinet meeting chaired by the then Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray. Rahul Gandhi expressed his displeasure about the state of affairs in the state and appointed an observer who would visit the state and assess the political situation in Maharashtra.

Notably, while the Shiv Sena party was struggling to sort the political crisis in Maharashtra, the NCP and the Congress who were in coalition with the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government had deliberately kept away from the surging heat. The NCP supremo had stated that the ongoing political crisis was an internal matter of the Shiv Sena party and not the NCP. Meanwhile, the Congress party was also busy glorifying the perky and playful facial expressions of its leader Rahul Gandhi who was being questioned by the Enforcement Directorate in the National Herald case then.

Interestingly, the Congress drama was happening when the Maha Vikas Aghadi government in Maharashtra was in the middle of a grim crisis, inching towards collapse. Shiv Sena leader Eknath Shinde on June 21 rebelled against the MVA government and demanded a re-alliance of Shiv Sena and BJP. He stated that Shiv Sena was stepping far away from its policies of Hindutva and that it was disrespecting the ideologies of party supremo Balasaheb Thackeray. He also added that the Shiv Sena formed by Balasaheb Thackeray was different from the one that is led by CM Uddhav Thackeray.

On June 29, Uddhav Thackeray announced his resignation as the state’s chief minister and a member of the MLC live on social media, hours before the no-confidence motion on that day. The floor test was cancelled owing to Thackeray’s exit, and the administration was taken over by Eknath Shinde as Chief Minister and Devendra Fadnavis as Deputy Chief Minister of the state of Maharashtra.

India slams Germany for its ‘uninformed’ comments on arrest of Mohammed Zubair: Here is how Berlin jailed a journalist for 3 years without trial

OpIndia Staff
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India slams Germany for its ‘uninformed’ comments on arrest of Mohammed Zubair: Here is how Berlin jailed a journalist for 3 years without trial

India on Thursday, July 7, came down heavily on Germany for its recent remarks on the arrest of Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair, saying the independence of the country’s judiciary is well recognised and that such “uninformed” comments are “unhelpful and should be avoided”.

“In itself, it’s a domestic issue. Let me emphasise that there is a judicial process underway in this case and I don’t think it would be appropriate for me, or anyone else, to comment on a case that is sub-judice,” External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said at a press briefing.

“I think the independence of our judiciary is well recognised and uninformed comments are unhelpful and should be avoided,” Bagchi asserted.

India’s strong response came after the German foreign ministry spokesperson said in a media briefing criticized the detention of Mohammed Zubair, the co-founder of leftist propagandist portal Alt News who was arrested by the Delhi Police under Section 153, 295 of the Indian Penal Code.

Section 295 deals with deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage reli­gious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or reli­gious beliefs while Section 153 concerns wantonly giving provocation with intent to cause riot.

The arrest came weeks after Mohammed Zubair’s old social media posts mocking and insulting Hindu Gods and Goddesses had gone viral on the internet.

Earlier this week, Germany had unsolicitedly and presumptuously commented on the arrest of Mohammed Zubair, the co-founder of leftist propaganda website Alt News, who was taken into custody for hurting the religious sentiments of Hindus with his offensive comments on Hindu Gods and Goddesses.

“India describes itself as the world’s largest democracy. So one can expect democratic values like freedom of expression and freedom of the press to be given the necessary space there,” an official of the German foreign ministry had said.

“Journalists should not be persecuted and imprisoned for what they say and write. We are indeed aware of this specific case and our embassy in New Delhi is monitoring it very closely,” the official had stated.

The German foreign ministry spokesperson added that the European Union has a human rights dialogue with India and the freedom of expression and freedom of the press are a focus of those discussions.

As Germany lectures India, here’s how it sentenced a journalist 3 years in prison for reporting from eastern Ukraine

While Germany has gone above and beyond to lecture India on morality, human rights and the democratic value of freedom of speech and expression, it is worth bearing in mind that nation’s own arbitrary decision to imprison a German independent journalist living in eastern Ukraine’s renegade Donbas area for three years without a trial and labelling her a Russian terrorist for her pro-Russian reporting.

In a video shared by Press TV on its YouTube channel on July 6, German journalist Alina Lipp shared how she was hounded and persecuted by the German government for interviewing Ukrainian citizens and reporting her findings.

According to media reports, Alina Lipp was reportedly subjected to a criminal investigation in her own native country because she exposed crimes done by Ukrainian soldiers against people in the war-torn nation’s eastern Donbas region. Lipp’s YouTube channel was closed. Her PayPal account was also blocked. The German authorities went on to freeze her and her father’s bank accounts. On top of that, the German prosecutor allegedly seized €1,600 from her bank account without further ado or any notice or explanation.

Speaking to Press TV journalist Johnny Miller, Alina Lipp stated how she was facing criminal charges from the German government and that she had received a letter from judicial officials in her own nation threatening her with a three-year prison sentence.

“The news that I said was that Ukraine is shelling civilians already for eight years, and I also said that this is a genocide and that people here and Donbas support the special operation of Russia. This reporting turned out to be a criminal act for German, so they took 1,600 euros from my bank account and didn’t even tell me about it,” she said, adding how the German authorities froze her and her father’s bank account without providing any prior information.

“They just want to put me in prison for three years. It’s unbelievable. They opened this case because I’m saying and I’m sharing my opinion, so there’s no free speech anymore in Germany,” the local journalist remarked.

According to the Press TV journalist Johnny Miller, Lipp was not even allowed to defend herself at a court hearing.

In videos shared by Twitter user @Robert17022841, the German journalist is heard saying, “The German authorities have now started to persecute me. First, they deleted my material on the Internet. Then they blocked my bank account, then blocked the bank account of my father, and yesterday I got this letter from German authorities that they opened now a criminal case against me. So, these are the documents, and for Germans the support of the Special Operation in Ukraine is a criminal act, for which you can get three years in prison.

In the letter they write on the 24th of February I published a report on Telegram saying the de-Nazification began, and that the people of the Donbas region support Russia in the decision to start this Special Operation, and I was also saying the Ukrainians were killing the people here in Donbas already for several years. Also, they are writing that on the 12th of March I published a video in which I said that Ukraine was doing a genocide in Donbas.

What is interesting in the letter is that they are not going to invite me to a hearing, because ‘this would disturb the investigation. So, they are persecuting me, but don’t want to hear me out.

What is happening to me now can happen to all independent journalists and bloggers, and that’s why I would like to propose to you dear colleagues, that we are going to start to work together more, to support each other against the censorship in the west.“

It is shocking how Germany has the nerve to lecture India on human rights and the democratic virtue of freedom of speech and expression when their own journalists are under threat of government persecution for speaking their minds.

Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been confirmed dead, reports Japan media

OpIndia Staff
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Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been confirmed dead, reports Japan media

According to officials, former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been confirmed dead, reported Japan’s NHK WORLD News. He was earlier shot at earlier while delivering a speech in the city of Nara, near Kyoto.

On Friday, former Prime Minister of Japan Abe Shinzo was attacked by a miscreant who shot him in the city of Nara. Abe was attacked from behind while he was delivering a speech in western Japan. He has been immediately taken to hospital and was undergoing treatment. However, he has now been declared dead.

According to the reports, Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was in the city of Nara on Friday to address a campaign event. The leader was delivering a speech at the event ahead of Sunday’s upper house elections when the sound of gunshots was heard. Abe showed no vital signs after he was shot and was immediately shifted to the hospital injured.

According to the eyewitness, the accused arrived from behind at the time when the former PM was delivering the stump speech. “The first shot sounded like a toy. He didn’t fall and there was a large bang. The second shot was more visible, you could see the spark and smoke”, the eyewitness was quoted.

Kerala: Government medical college hosts lecture on ‘Gender Politics’ where male and female students were separated with a curtain

OpIndia Staff
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Kerala: Government medical college hosts lecture on ‘Gender Politics’ where male and female students were separated with a curtain

The Thrissur Government Medical College hosted an Islamist conference where male and female students were separated by a curtain. Ironically, gender politics was the topic of the Taliban-style gathering. According to a report by the Organiser Weekly, Abdulla Basil, a controversial Islamist, organized this meeting under the banner of the extremist group Wisdom.

The program was titled ‘The Lives and Ideals Behind Gender Politics’. Lectures on gender politics and discrimination were delivered in this program, which were attended and listened to by both male and female medical students. In these lectures, a curtain was used to separate the female students from the male students. This was revealed by a photograph of the program that quickly went viral on social media. Clearly, this is an adoption of the Talibani model in which male and female students are separated by curtains in classrooms in a similar manner.

The Taliban-ruled Afghanistan was the cause of headlines in September 2021 when classroom partitions or curtains were used to isolate the male students from the female students. Because the decision amounted to gender-based discrimination, the Taliban government had drawn criticism from a variety of social media users.

The program was organized by an Islamic organization in the government medical college. Image Source: Hindupost.in

Abdullah Basil said that the meeting in the medical college was organized to discuss ‘gender politics’. He added that he feels pity for those who can’t digest the standpoint of religion towards gender discourse, which is quite different from that of liberalism.

Male and female students were separated by a curtain. Image Source: Hindupost.in

The incident came to light after an officer bearer of the group that organised the event posted the photographs on social media. When netizens objected to the segregation of students based on gender, the officer bearer defended the act and said that people were just showing their frustration. The group also defended its action saying there was nothing wrong with a curtain being put up segregating the students on the basis of their sex.

In the meanwhile, the College Union of the medical college has distanced itself from the event, saying that the college has no links to the programme. “It is not the stand of our college to encourage such activities. This college always stands with progressive thoughts,” a statement issued by the union said.

Growing Islamic radicalization in Kerala has been a cause of worry in the recent few years. A report from September 2021 led to a rise in suspicions about the existence of Islamic State sleeper cells operating in the state. While following this Talibani practice, Kerala’s state medical education policy has been particular in preaching anti-Indic agenda. In October 2020, Kerala State Medical Education Director Dr. Ramla Beevi issued a diktat stating that the Raksha Bandhan festival will not be celebrated in government medical colleges.

VIT Bhopal: 7 Hindu students penalised for reciting Hanuman Chalisa. Here is what we know so far

OpIndia Staff
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VIT Bhopal: 7 Hindu students penalised for reciting Hanuman Chalisa. Here is what we know so far

About 7 students of Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT) have been asked to cough up ₹5000 as penalty for reciting Hanuman Chalisa in their hostel rooms.

The incident took place in the Bhopal campus of the institute. As per reports, a group of 20 students had collectively recited the Hindu devotional hymns in their room.

Following a complaint by students of other classes, the college management clamped down on 7 second-year students. A notice was sent, asking them to pay ₹5000 as fine for leading the ‘Hanuman Chalisa recital programme’.

The development was confirmed to Bhaskar by a senior VIT official. He claimed that individuals are at liberty to perform puja in their rooms. The official warned that group events could not be conducted even inside hostel rooms, without seeking prior permission.

The college management has also sought a report from the hostel warden. The second-year students have launched a protest against the decision of VIT Bhopal. They have accused their juniors of ratting them out.

MP Home Minister reassures students

This has promoted even the State government to take cognisance of the matter. While speaking about the development, Madhya Pradesh Home Minister Narottam Mishra assured the students that the college would not impose any fines on them.

He added that the stance of the State government has been communicated to the college. “No fine will be imposed, we have informed the college. If Hanuman Chalisa is not chanted in Hindustan, then where it will be?… We can make students understand…,” Mishra emphasised.

Supreme Court grants interim protection to Zee News anchor Rohit Ranjan in misleading news on Rahul Gandhi case

OpIndia Staff
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Supreme Court grants interim protection to Zee News anchor Rohit Ranjan in misleading news on Rahul Gandhi case

Zee News anchor Rohit Ranjan has been granted interim protection from arrest by the Supreme Court after multiple FIRs were filed against him on complaints of the Congress party. A bench of Justices Indira Banerjee and JK Maheshwari issued orders restraining authorities in multiple states from taking coercive steps against Rohit Ranjan.

“We direct that no coercive steps be taken against by respondent authorities or take him into custody in relation to DNA program on July 1,” the court said in its order.

Appearing for Ranjan, Senior Adv Siddharth Luthra said that multiple FIRs were filed for the same offence in Noida, Jaipur and Chhattisgarh. He also informed that Rohit Ranjan has already apologised for the error in the show.

Rohit Ranjan had moved Supreme Court after Chhattisgarh police had initiated action against him for a misleading claim made in the show Daily News and Analysis on Zee News, which is being hosted by Ranjan after Sudhir Chaudhary left the network last week. In the show on July 1, Rahul Gandhi’s comment on the attack on his office in Wayanad by SFI goons were used as his comments on the Kanhaiya Lal murder by mistake.

Both Rohit Ranjan and Zee News had apologised for the mistake, but still Congress party had filed multiple FIRs.

In the plea, it was argued that the channel had received a video of Rahul Gandhi’s interaction with the press from news agency ANI, and a trainee producer made the mistake of using the comments on attack on his office in the context of the Udaipur murder. After the error was realised, the show was retracted and the channel had expressed regret on air.

The plea is seeking clubbing all the FIR, and quashing of the same.

In a significant development, the bench also said that as multiple FIRs were filed in multiple states against the same person for the same alleged offence, the TT Antony case will apply. In the T.T. Antony vs State Of Kerala case in 2001, the Supreme Court of India had ruled that when a second FIR is filed in the same case, if it is not significantly different from the first case, it will not be valid and such FIRs can’t be filed.

According to the landmark verdict of the apex court, subsequent FIRs can only be filled if there are additional discoveries in a case and additional charges are slapped against the accused. While the bench of Justices Indira Banerjee and JK Maheshwari has agreed to upheld this ruling, earlier the bench of Justices Surya Kant and J. B. Pardiwala had refused to follow it in Nupur Sharma case. As dozens of FIRs have been filed against former BJP spokesperson for her comments on Prophet Mohammad, she had filed a plea to club all of them and transfer them to Delhi, but the Supreme Court had rejected that petition.

Biden administration sold a million barrels of oil from US Strategic Petroleum Reserve to Chinese state-owned firm where Hunter Biden is an investor: Report

OpIndia Staff
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Biden administration sold a million barrels of oil from US Strategic Petroleum Reserve to Chinese state-owned firm where Hunter Biden is an investor: Report

The Biden administration in the United States has reportedly sold over a million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to a Chinese state-owned company that had received a $1.7 billion investment from BHR Partners, one of the equity firms owned by Hunter Biden. The US Energy Department claims that the action will help American consumers and offset “Putin’s price hike.”

The Energy Department authorised the sale of 950,000 barrels of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to Unipec, the trading division of China Petrochemical Corporation, in April. The whole company generally referred to as Sinopec, is owned by the Chinese government. The Biden administration claims that the measure will “help lower energy costs” and “address the pain Americans are feeling at the pump.”

12 of the 126 bids that the Energy Department received were chosen to receive a portion of the offering. One of the 12 companies chosen to purchase 950,000 barrels of crude oil in the “price-competitive sale” was Unipec America, Inc. It is worth noting that the disclosure comes on the heels of a Reuters article revealing that the Biden administration had just released five million extra barrels of crude oil from the strategic reserve to other countries. About a million barrels of the most recent release were sent to China.

The Unipec sale, according to the Biden administration, would help American consumers and the global economy in response to Vladimir Putin’s proxy war against Ukraine and would balance “Putin’s price hike.”

The disclosure regarding the March sale to Sinopec has already sparked calls for a probe. The sale, according to Daniel Turner, executive director of the energy advocacy group Power The Future, needs further scrutiny and investigation.

Connection of Bidens with China

The Bidens and Sinopec have an older relationship. The private equity company BHR Partners was co-founded in 2013 by Hunter Biden, son of Joe Biden. BHR purchased a $1.7 billion stake in Sinopec Marketing in 2015. In 2017, Biden purchased a ten per cent stake in BHR through an LLC named Skaneateles, in which he is a lone owner.

The New York Times was notified by Hunter Biden’s attorney last year that Hunter no longer holds any direct or indirect equity stake in either BHR or Skaneateles. According to information from China’s National Credit Information Publicity System, Skaneateles still owned 10% of BHR as recently as March. On company records in Washington, D.C., Hunter was still listed as the sole proprietor of Skaneateles at the time. The Chinese records may have been accurate or they may have needed to be corrected, but it is unclear. A number of US publications have been questioning the relationships of the Biden family with Chinese companies.

This is not the first time Joe Biden has been accused of having a conflict of interest because of his son Hunter Biden’s actions. Earlier this year, Iowa and Wisconsin senators disclosed bank documents revealing that Hunter Biden was paid by a corporation with ties to the Chinese Communist Party. Senators Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson delivered the necessary records on the House floor on March 28th and 29th, 2022.

Hunter Biden is already being investigated by the FBI for his financial transactions. According to a 2020 investigation, Hunter Biden has contacts with Chinese persons associated with the Chinese regime. Ye Jianming is one of the men with whom Hunter supposedly had business. Ye Jianming is a Chinese oil magnate who created CEFC and has not been seen since 2018.

Furthermore, Hunter Biden is facing several accusations of probable tax evasion, money laundering, and lobbying for foreign corporations. Hunter Biden’s old laptop sparked outrage as photos and emails tying him to Ukrainian gas giant Burisma got exposed. Russia had shared on March 25, 2022, that Hunter Biden and his investment company Rosemont Seneca had sponsored the Pentagon’s bioweapons research in Ukraine.

Alt News’ Mohammad Zubair gets interim bail for 5 days in Hindu saints defamation case in UP, to remain in judicial custody in Delhi

OpIndia Staff
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Alt News’ Mohammad Zubair gets interim bail for 5 days in Hindu saints defamation case in UP, to remain in judicial custody in Delhi

The Supreme Court has granted interim bail to Alt News co-founder and propagandist Mohammed Zubair in a case filed in the Sitapur District of Uttar Pradesh. Zubair petitioned the Supreme Court challenging a lawsuit filed in Uttar Pradesh’s Sitapur district over a tweet in which he referred to Hindu seers as “hate mongers.”

However, Zubair will remain in police custody as the bail has only been granted in the FIR dated 1 June 2022. The court has granted him relief for 5 days and has ordered that he will not be leaving the jurisdiction of the “Delhi Magistrate” and will not post anything on Twitter. The court has also ordered that Zubair shall not tamper with electronic evidence in Bangalore or anywhere else.

Arguing for Zubair, his counsel Colin Gonsalves argued in the court that Zubair is the one who captures hate speech and he has been put in jail. To which, the Solicitor General, appearing from the side of the state, stated that his tweets led to a law and order situation and that it is an irony that he runs a fact-checker website.

SG mentioned that he has suppressed information to his advantage. He stated that an earlier application for bail was rejected by the Sitapur court and that was not before the bench during the hearing. The order of a Delhi court rejecting his bail and granting remand was also not presented before this court.

SG also mentioned that there is a money angle associated with him and that his involvement is being probed. SG explicitly pointed out before the court that a single tweet is not in question and that “his overall conduct is being investigated.” The case was heard by a bench of justices Indira Banerjee and JK Maheshwari.

On June 1, Khairabad Police of Sitapur district in Uttar Pradesh filed a First Investigation Report (FIR) against Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair for using derogatory language against Mahant Bajrang Muni Udasin, Rashtriya Sanrakshak of Rashtriya Hindu Sher Sena along with Yati Narsinghanand and Swami Anand Swaroop. The FIR was registered based on the complaint of Bhagwan Sharan, district head of Rashtriya Hindu Sher Sena, under sections 295(A) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Section 67 of the Information Technology Act, 2000.

The Sitapur court in Uttar Pradesh rejected the bail plea of Alt News co-founder and propagandist Mohammed Zubair on Thursday 7th July 2022. Judge Abhinav Srivastava denied the bail on the grounds that the accused may influence witnesses or commit similar new crimes. It was observed that the case was serious in nature and non-bailable, therefore he could not be released on bail.

Chinese netizens, assorted leftists celebrate as Shinzo Abe’s life hangs in balance after an assassination attempt: Is it the 90-year-old grudge?

OpIndia Staff
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Chinese netizens, assorted leftists celebrate as Shinzo Abe’s life hangs in balance after an assassination attempt: Is it the 90-year-old grudge?

On Friday, former Prime Minister of Japan Abe Shinzo was shot from behind in the city of Nara in Japan leaving him battling for his life. Abe was attacked while he was delivering a campaign speech in western Japan. He was immediately rushed to the hospital where his condition remains critical.

As the news of the attempt on Abe’s life started filtering out, celebrations began in China as all the social media platforms, including Weibo, Wechat and Youku were flooded with messages cheering the shooter.

Chinese internet users on Weibo were hailing the shooter as a hero and were wishing that Abe does not recover from his gunshot wound.

The messages on another highly popular Chinese platform Wechat were hardly any different with the Chinese nationalists in the mood for celebrations after hearing about the assassination attempt on Shinzo Abe.

Chinese nationalists were not the only ones pleased to see that Shinzo Abe was struggling for his life after the assassination attempt. There were several tweets from communists around the world trashing Abe, and feeling good about his ‘impending’ death.

Some of those trashing Abe didn’t even know who he was or what his politics was, but didn’t want to miss a chance to join the internet mob criticising him.

Why the Chinese nationalists hate Shinzo Abe

The reasons why the Chinese hate Shinzo Abe date back almost 90 years. There are more recent reasons as well, but to understand the Chinese reaction, we have to learn in brief about Nobusuke Kishi, former Prime Minister of Japan.

It all started with the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in China in 1931, and subsequently, a man by the name of Nobusuke Kishi becoming the Deputy Minister of Industrial Development in the newly formed Japanese puppet state Manchukuo.

Kishi had total control over the economy of Manchukuo in his new role, and he was tasked with the industrialisation of the region to support the national defense state. Kishi achieved that and delivered huge profits by allegedly employing the Chinese as slave labourers in the huge industrial plants he had set up in the region. There were widespread accusations of racism and abuse against the Chinese while Kishi was in Manchukuo. He subsequently returned to Japan and played his part in keeping the Japanese war effort going during the early years of Japanese involvement in the second World War. Kishi had also voted for the war in 1941 against the United States and Great Britain.

After the Japanese surrender in August 1945, Kishi was branded as a Class A war criminal and held at Sugamo prison. However, he was identified by Americans as the ideal man to lead post-war Japan, which meant that Kishi was never indicted or put on trial for his role in the second world war and was released in 1948.

Kishi soon returned to active politics in post-war Japan, helped to establish Liberal Democratic Party (the most influential Japanese party to date) in 1955, and went on to become the Prime Minister of Japan in 1957.

In his personal life, Nobusuke Kishi had a son Nobukazu Kishi, and a daughter named Yoko Kishi. Yoko Kishi married a politician by the name of Shintaro Abe. The second son of Yoko Kishi and Shintaro Abe is Shinzo Abe, who has been shot earlier today leading to much joy among the Chinese.

Apart from his ancestry, Shinzo Abe is also disliked in China for his strong nationalist stand and his attempt to revive the Japanese military for its self-defence. Abe has also been accused by his critics of trying to take the country back to the days of Imperial Japan through his “right-wing” and “revisionist” policies.

‘Nupur Sharma was not wrong, If Islamic clerics think she was wrong, they should first explain how’: Scholar Atiqur Rahman

OpIndia Staff
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‘Nupur Sharma was not wrong, If Islamic clerics think she was wrong, they should first explain how’: Scholar Atiqur Rahman

In a debate show hosted by Pradeep Bhandari in India News, Islamic scholar Atiqur Rahman stated that Nupur Sharma was not wrong in what she said about the life of Prophet Muhammad. The Islamic scholar lamented the atmosphere of hate and threats created via social media and stated that Islam has the scope to discuss and forgive.

During the news debate, VHP leader Vinod Bansal raised the issue of how many Islamists are giving open death threats and proclaiming that they will kill anyone who raises questions on Islam. Pradeep Bhandari had noted that india is a liberal democracy and not an orthodox theocratic state where criticism of religion means strict punishment.

VHP’s Vinod Bansal stated, “I support Atiqur Rahman’s statement that there should be a discussion on the life of Prophet Muhammad, because there are many things to be learned from his life. This is a country where we discuss about the lives of Bhagwan Ram and Krishna, to learn things and get inspired from their teachings. So why should we not learn from Prophet Muhammad too?”

Bansal further asked Atiqur Rahman, “As far as Nupur Sharma is concerned, she had quoted from Islamic texts, the same details have been said by many Islamic scholars and mentioned in Islamic texts. I want to ask, what was wrong in her statement? Did she quote wrong? Were her style and mannerism wrong? Or is it the Islamic texts that have mentioned wrong details? Why are Islamists calling for her beheading?”

To this, scholar Atiqur Rahman replied, “No, Nupur Sharma was not wrong. She was not wrong. If any Islamic scholar or Muslim thinks she was wrong, Islam has such wide scope that she can be forgiven and given a chance that some senior Islamic cleric explains to her how she was wrong.”

Pradeep Bhandari appreciated the statement by Rahman, adding that this is how debates should be about religion where any misconceptions are cleared through dialogue and sharing of ideas, not by giving threats.

In the same debate, Atiqur Rahman further asserted that if a follower of Islam does not have the knowledge or faith in his own texts and beliefs that he can invite Nupur to come and discuss whatever confusion or questions she had about Islam and the life of the Prophet, he has no right to come on media/social media. I invite criticism against Islam, and Prophet Muhammad, so I can get a chance to explain to the world what was his message, how was he chosen by Allah to spread his message in the world.”

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