The Kerala Police have arrested five workers of the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI), the political wing of the radical Islamist organisation PFI, in connection with the murder of BJP’s OBC Morcha state secretary Renjith Sreenivasan in Alappuzha district on December 19.
The additional director general of Kerala Police Sakhare who is heading the investigation of the murder case confirmed the arrest. The arrested accused have been identified as Nishad, Asif, Sudheer, Arshad, and Ali. They are the natives of Mannanchery, the native village of (SDPI) state secretary KS Shan.
Kerala: Five SDPI workers arrested in connection with the murder of OBC Morcha State Secretary Renjith Sreenivasan.
Sreenivasan was killed in Alappuzha on 19th December.
But the main conspirators are yet to be arrested as it is believed that the main accused has fled to Karnataka.
The SDPI now made the oft-repeated allegation that Kerala police have forced SDPI workers to chant Jai Shri Ram. But Sakhare dismissed the allegation and said he would resign if the allegation was proved.
On Sunday (December 19) early morning, Sreenivasan was murdered in the presence of his mother and wife at his residence allegedly by members of SDPI which is the political front of radical Islamic outfit PFI.
Sreenivasan was also a lawyer by profession and he had contested as a BJP candidate from the Alappuzha constituency in 2016. Sreenivasan was brutally murdered hours after a local SDPI leader KS Shan was murdered by unidentified persons.
BJP to raise funds for family of Sreenivasan
As the political murders continue in Left ruled Kerala with the BJP and the RSS at the receiving end, the BJP has decided to raise funds to support the family of Sreenivasan.
Kerala BJP president K Surendran has issued an appeal to people and BJP supporters to donate a small portion of their savings to help the family of Sreenivasan who was brutally murdered by PFI terrorists.
We @BJP4Keralam request you all to donate a small portion of your savings to help the family of our beloved brother Swargeeya Ranjith Sreenivasan Ji, who was brutally murdered by PFI terrorists. pic.twitter.com/X0crHfykvg
On November 15, a 26-year-old Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) worker A Sanjith was hacked to death allegedly by the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) goons.
Online retail giant Amazon has removed all customer reviews for a book by Chinese premier Xi Jinping on its Chinese website, as asked by the Chinese govt. According to a special report by Reuters, the Chinese authorities had objected to any rating less than five, the highest customer rating on the website, for the book, after which Amazon removed all ratings and reviews, and has disabled any further customer rating.
The book in question is titled The Governance of China in English, which is a three-volume collection of speeches and writings by Xi Jinping, which talks about Xi’s doctrine of ‘Socialism with Chinese Characteristics’.
The book was made available on Amazon around two years ago. But after some negative reviews and less than five ratings for the book appeared on Amazon.cn, the Amazon site for China, the CCP authorities asked Amazon to remove them.
“I think the issue was anything under five stars,” one person told Reuters.
The American e-tail giant complied with this demand by the Chinese govt, and quietly removed all reviews and ratings for the book on its Chinese website. Reportedly, the company has also disabled ratings and reviews of the book on the site.
When one searches for 习近平谈治国理政, the Mandarin title of the book, on Amazon.cn, several listings of the book in its original Chinese version and translated versions in different versions appear, but none of them carries any ratings or customer review.
No ratings or review on Xi Jinping’s book on Amazon China
Amazon complying with the Chinese govt order to hide negative reviews of Xi Jinping’s book is part of an ongoing effort of the company to gain the favour of Beijing to protect its business in the country.
The Reuters report cites an internal 2018 Amazon briefing document that had talked about working with the propaganda of the Chinese govt to win favour in the country. The document said, “Ideological control and propaganda is the core of the toolkit for the communist party to achieve and maintain its success.” It had further said, “We are not making judgement on whether it is right or wrong.”
The document and the news agency’s interview with several people working with Amazon China reveal that the company has survived and thrived in China by helping to spread the Chinese Communist Party’s global economic and political agenda.
As part of this propaganda project, Amazon even created a separate portal on its main US website, Amazon.com, known as China Books. The sub-portal has over 90,000 China-related publications for sale, which is seen as a crucial effort to win support for Amazon’s businesses in China.
The document states that Amazon was having difficulties in obtaining a licence to sell e-books in China through its Kindle platform, and the China Books projects acted as a key element of safeguard against the problem.
The project is a joint venture between Amazon and state-owned China International Book Trading Corp. Amazon also has a partnership with the Chinese state propaganda arm National Press and Publication Administration.
In another major embarrassment for Pakistan, its embassy in Argentina on Wednesday posted a picture of PM Imran Khan and other senior officials on its official Instagram account, calling for the substitution of leadership in Islamabad for the revival of the country’s credibility and reliability.
“We may lose out the JF 17 deal with Argentina also,” the image shared by the Pakistani embassy in Argentina’s Instagram post read, adding, “Political substitution in Islamabad may lead to the revival of Pakistan’s reliability and credibility and reliability.” The post further stated that diplomats can’t be ‘la raison’ for the government’s failures.
Source: Instagram
Argentina was reportedly in talks with Pakistan to buy its JF-17, a military-grade fighter jet that it co-produces with the help of China. However, in the last few months, several reports have pointed towards the stalled talks over the fighter aircraft, with some suggesting that Argentina was not too keen to go ahead with the deal. In October 2021, it was reported by Eurasian Times that Argentina has put the talks about thunder fighter jets on the backburner as it explored more lucrative options elsewhere. It was reported that Argentina was negotiating an exclusive military deal with Russia.
However, Pakistan Embassy in Argentina has now claimed that their account on Instagram was compromised.
The Instagram account of the Embassy of Pakistan in Argentina was hacked a while ago. It has now been recovered.
Please note that all messages posted through this account in last one hour were not from the Embassy of Pakistan in Argentina.
Taking to Twitter, it said that the Embassy of Pakistan in Argentina was hacked but it has since been recovered. It also claimed that the message calling for Imran Khan’s replacement was not sent by the embassy.
Pak embassy in Serbia goes rogue
Earlier this month, the Embassy of Pakistan in Belgrade, Serbia had gone rogue as it took to Twitter to call out the Pakistan government for not paying its dues for the last three months. The embassy has shared a rap twist to Imran Khan’s ‘Aap ne ghabrana nahi hai’ to taunt Pakistan’s cash-strapped Imran Khan government.
While sharing the song composed by Artist Saad Alavi, that mocks Imran Khan for giving false hopes to the people of his country despite being bankrupt, the Pakistan Embassy Serbia Tweeted: “With inflation breaking all previous records, how long do you expect @ImranKhanPTI that we government official will remain silent & keep working for you without been paid for past 3 months & our children been forced out of school due to non-payment of fees Is this #NayaPakistan ?”
Pakistan is beset by a host of problems. From the precarious state of the economy to the rising food inflation in the country, the political mobilisation of the opposition to the declining credibility of the government, the Imran Khan administration is facing an unprecedented crisis staring at it in the face. Skyrocketing food inflation is one of the serious problems plaguing Islamabad. With its finances in bad shape, the government has scant control and resources to keep a check on the spiralling food inflation.
In fact, the situation is so precarious, that Pakistan’ military was also left with no option but to slash the defence budget in a bid to help the country emerge out of its financial woes.
This headline from the Indian Express is going to surprise you.
What? Is this for real? I mean, of course there were allegations of irregularities during voting in Kolkata municipal elections. That’s what elections in Bengal are all about – violence and intimidation by goons of the ruling party. It is an unbroken tradition of “liberalism,” handed down from Congress to CPI(M) to the TMC. And no, this is not the kind of “violence” you can report to Facebook and become a hero. In Bengal, ruling party supporters don’t bother with posting troll comments. In Bengal, there are no half-measures.
The surprise is how come an elite newspaper such as the Indian Express is reporting on this? Is the media really going to cut through the layers of liberal privilege and talk about the state that has been ground zero for lynching for the last 70 years? What will the liberals at the Press Club of India and India International Center say? Do they have no regard for secular and democratic values? This is not the India we grew up in.
In that India, there were 28,000 political murders in 20 years under Jyoti Basu, or a little over 5 political murders a day. And that’s just the official figure. No wonder Rahul Gandhi says he has never heard of “lynching” before 2014.
Relax. The elite media is not changing. To understand, read the line below the headline. They are talking about complaints from CPI(M) workers.
Wait! But isn’t the BJP the main opposition party in Bengal? Have they not made any complaints regarding election irregularities in Bengal?
Of course they have. But there’s no space for those complaints in this article. You can go read through the whole thing. You will find sentences such as:
“CPI(M) candidate from ward number 110 Tanusree Mondol said, “Our agents were forced to leave booths.“
“CPI(M) candidate of ward number 101 Atanu Chatterjee alleged that TMC polling agents were threatening his polling agent.”
“CPI (M) secretary of South 24 Parganas district Samik Lahiri said, “We are demanding re-polling ..””
The article goes on and on, quoting possibly every low level office bearer or candidate from CPI(M) that the reporters could possibly find. The word BJP does not appear anywhere in the article, let alone any quotes or reactions from its members.
That is liberal privilege. The people of Bengal may have elected the BJP as the main opposition to the TMC. But as far as elite media is concerned, the BJP does not exist. Apparently, there is no need to talk to them.
When we speak of the mandate of the people, we are generally thinking of who gets to be Prime Minister or Chief Minister. But we forget that when people are voting in a democracy, they are not just choosing a ruling party. They are also choosing an opposition. Once upon a time, the CPI(M) used to rule Bengal. Today they have been dethroned. But that doesn’t mean the CPI(M) automatically gets to be the “opposition.”
The people of Bengal also elected an opposition party, the BJP. The people gave 18 MPs and some 75 MLAs to the BJP. The CPIM does not own the opposition space in Bengal, they have to earn it. As of now, the people of Bengal have chosen the TMC to rule them. And they have also chosen the BJP to keep a check on possible excesses of the ruling party.
But the media does not seem to respect this mandate. For them, it is the CPIM that counts. Because the CPIM has liberal privilege. The CPIM is hurting, and so that is being reported. It is as if the BJP and its voters, workers and supporters, are all “unpersons.”
The people of Bengal might want the BJP to be the main opposition, but in the media, it is the CPIM that gets to have the voice.
How many seats does the CPIM have in Bengal? Zero. How many seats does CPIM have nationally? Maybe one or two. I didn’t check. But that stuff is all irrelevant. Because the CPIM has liberal privilege. Those with liberal privilege stand in the foreground, allowed to raise their voice. Those without liberal privilege are second class citizens at best, and “unpersons” at worst.
Look, they mentioned the BJP! After the CPM of course. So things are changing. The second class citizens of Indian politics have at least got a mention in the headline of the article.
“CPM, BJP seek…” How do you like the sound of that? Party with 1-2 seats is mentioned before the party with 300 seats. Imagine putting the name of a gully cricketer in a headline before the name of Sachin Tendulkar. That’s the difference liberal privilege makes.
You might say who cares? We know that the BJP is the main opposition in Bengal, not CPIM. But that is not how liberals see it. Because your memories won’t last, the written word will. Fifty years from now, the written record will show that there was poll violence in Bengal, and CPIM was the victim. The BJP never existed. Because it was the party of the “unpersons.”
Pakistan PM Imran Khan has expressed regret over his country’s decision to support the United States-led ‘war on terror’ in Afghanistan, adding that Pakistan joined the war only for ‘dollars’ and not in “public interest”.
Khan said Pakistan’s decision to join America’s 20-year-long war in Afghanistan was a ‘self-inflicted wound’ and one that was taken for monetary purposes and not by considering the welfare of the general public.
The observations were made by the Pakistani Prime Minister in Islamabad while addressing the officers of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “I am well aware of what considerations there were behind the decision. Unfortunately, the people of Pakistan were not a consideration,” said while speaking about Pakistan’s policy of extending support to the United States in their war against terrorism in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.
“The considerations, instead, were the same as in the 1980s, when we participated in the Afghan jihad,” he said while referring to the Soviet-Afghan war.
Imran Khan, who has often rued over Pakistan’s fight against terrorism, said he was in thick with the leadership in 2001 when the military ruler General Pervez Musharaff decided to become a part of America’s campaign in Afghanistan.
“We have ourselves to be blamed… as we let [others] use us, sacrificed the reputation of our country for aid and made a foreign policy that went against the public interest [and was devised] for money,” he said.
Imran Khan’s sympathetic attitude towards terror groups, particularly Taliban
While this is not the first time that Khan has felt remorse over his country’s decision to join the global fight against terrorism. Time and again, he has condemned the decision and indirectly sympathised with terrorists, blaming the West for the crisis bedevilling Pakistan. Recently, Khan was all-praise for the Taliban after it stormed the Afghan capital and exerted its control over the country. Days after the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, Khan heaped praises on the terror group, congratulating them on their victory and asserting that “Afghanistan had broken the shackles of slavery”.
In the past, Khan had hailed the Taliban and spoken in support of the terror outfit. It is his persistent praise and admiration for the Taliban which had earned him the moniker of ‘Taliban Khan’. The Pakistani Prime Minister has also been persistently beseeching the western countries to grant monetary assistance to the Taliban to build the strife-torn country. With the country’s Prime Minister commiserating with the Taliban, it is anybody’s guess how enthusiastic the Pakistani establishment would be to champion the cause of the Taliban.
Pakistan-The sword arm of Taliban
For years, Pakistan has pulled the wool over the West’s eyes by making deceptive claims of support to its war against the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Far from promoting western interests, it was assiduously working to safeguard, nurture and fortify the Taliban. When the west finally decided to call it quits of its disastrous campaign in Afghanistan, the Pakistan-backed Taliban displayed remarkable dexterity in seizing control of Afghanistan.
The lightning offensive of the Taliban, the simultaneous fall of Afghan provinces, the surrender of the Afghan forces, all hint towards a mega plan hatched to lay control of Afghanistan. In the current context and given their historical association with the Taliban, it won’t be a wild exaggeration to surmise Pakistani involvement in the comprehensive takeover of Afghanistan.
The Pakistani complicity in fostering the Taliban was acknowledged by the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken during his first testimony before Congress since the terror group took control of Kabul. Blinken stated that Pakistan is responsible for harbouring the Taliban and the terrorists from the proscribed Haqqani Network.
It is also worth noting that earlier this month, former Afghan vice president Amrullah Saleh too accused Pakistan of being in cahoots with the Taliban. He alleged that the Taliban are being micromanaged by Pakistan’s notorious intelligence agency–the ISI, adding that Islamabad is in charge of the war-ravaged country effectively as a colonial power.
The Supreme Court of Pakistan has heavily criticized the military establishment for misusing land for commercial activities. The land in question was meant for defence purposes, but Pakistan’s military built a shopping mall instead. The Falcon Mall, which came under the radar after the Supreme Court started hearing a case related to misuse of land in 2016, has been reportedly transformed into Air War College Institute.
PAF builds a commercial shopping mall on what’s supposed to be an Air Force base, calls it ‘falcon mall’.
Supreme Court says give back land you aren’t using for active military purposes.
As per reports, a three-judge bench of Pakistan’s Supreme Court was hearing the case related to the illegal use of the land owned by the cantonment board under the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) in Karachi. The mall was yet to be opened to the public. The case was first heard in 2016.
The Chief Justice had ordered the Retired Lt Gen Mian Hilal Hussain, defence secretary, to personally appear in the court to answer the questions related to the case. Hussain had assured the court that the land in question would not be used for commercial purposes. The court termed the case as an “embarrassment for the country”.
Falcon mall or defence college?
A massive fancy shopping mall called Falcon mall in the southern city of Karachi has now become a major source of embarrassment for the Pakistani military. @SaroyaHem talks to @ahmershaheen for more details
During the hearing, the Chief Justice mentioned that the cantonment lands across Pakistan had been misused for commercial activities. These land pieces include three bases that were originally meant for the Pakistan Air Force. At a naval base, wedding halls and hotels were reportedly constructed. It is noteworthy that in 2019, during the hearing of the case, the AG had informed the court that the money earned by “renting out the marriage hall” was given to the families of the martyrs. The court did not accept the argument and had said, “We know that who is doing what. It is not the matter of a single plot.”
The court further added that many army officials had bought lands and sold them which were being used by individuals to build houses. During the hearing in November this year, the apex court again questioned the authorities over the land misuse and said, “This land was given to you for strategic and defence [purposes and yet] you have started commercial activities on it. Were wedding halls, cinemas and housing societies built for defence purposes?”
The court also mentioned during the hearing that the Canteen Stores Department (CSD) was converted to an “open commercial department store”. The apex court further asked the Pakistan government to file a report about the illegal use of cantonment land.
Khalid Jawed Khan, Attorney General, Pakistan, informed the court that the government had formed a committee comprising of the three service chiefs to prepare a report on the land violation.
Furthermore, it was reported in November this year that the court was not happy with the report that the defence secretary had submitted. In the report, the government claimed that they had removed all the encroachments from the defence land, but in reality, those properties were still standing. The court said, “the report claims the (illegally built) buildings have been demolished, but they are still there.”
The secretary tried to convince the court that those commercial properties were part of the wider strategic objectives and said they fell under the category of “strategic defence”. Hussain said, “Whenever the army goes to the borders, these activities are carried out for the purpose of welfare and to keep the morale of the army high.” Amused by the weird explanation, the court said, “Secretary sahib everything is fine, but where is the cantonment there? All we can see there are houses.”
“All the land of cantonments must be restored to its original condition,” said the court. It further added that the court would examine the army laws and rules. The Chief Justice said, “The army is there for the country’s defence, not for doing business.”
A Reuters report states that the United Nations is proposing to pay USD 6 million for ‘protection’ in Afghanistan to the Islamist group Taliban-led government. The fund will be given to Afghanistan’s Interior Ministry personnel. Afghanistan’s Interior Minister is Sirajuddin Haqqani who is currently under U.N. and U.S. sanctions and also wanted by the FBI. The United States has offered a bounty of USD 10 million for information leading to his arrest.
As per the report, documents reviewed by Reuters said that the funds will be paid next year and the same will be used to provide wages to Taliban ‘fighters’ who guard the UN facilities and also give them food allowance as per an expansion of an accord with the former U.S.-backed Afghan government. As of now, there are about 3,500 UN personnel in Kabul and 10 field offices. This money will be reportedly used to help Taliban provide these UN employees security.
As per Reuters’ report, the UN document said that most of the USD 4 million security budget proposed for 2022 by the 20 UN agencies operating out of Afghanistan is the payment made to protect the UN personnel. This fund will boost the wages of Taliban ‘fighters’ who are ‘protecting’ UN personnel by $275-to-$319 per month. This will also provide them monthly food allowance of USD 90 per person. The remaining USD 2 million will be provided for ‘similar services’ as per the document.
Experts are skeptical as this fund to Taliban may violate the sanctions placed by US and UN against the top leaders of Taliban. Taliban and Haqqani Network remain designated under the US government’s counterterrorism sanctions programme.
Meanwhile, UN agency has said that it is going to cut food aid to war-torn Yemen because of lack of funds.
#UPDATE World Food Programme says "forced" to cut aid to Yemen due to lack of funds
"From January, eight million will receive a reduced food ration, while five million at immediate risk of slipping into famine conditions will remain on a full ration" pic.twitter.com/UhhVu76Ww4
As reported by AFP News Agency, UN agency World Food Programme said that it is ‘forced’ to cut aid to Yemen owing to lack of funds. From next year in January, about 8 million people will receive reduced ration and five million at immediate risk of slipping into famine will remain on full ration quota. The UN agency said it is ‘running out of funds’.
Since 2014, Yemen is in a state of civil war between Saudi-backed government and Iran-backed Huthi rebels and millions of people are on the verge of famine. As per AFP report, tens of thousands of people have died in the war and about 80% people in Yemen are dependent n the aid. World Food Programme, a UN agency said that desperate times have called for desperate measures and while they know cutting down on aid will send more people towards starvation, they have stretched ‘limited resources’ and are focussing only on the critical ones.
UN agency said that it needs about USD 813 million to help most vulnerable in Yemen through May and USD 1.97 billion during 2022 to deliver food assistance to the families who are on the verge of famine.
After Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra alleged that the Instagram accounts of her children were hacked, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has decided to lodge a suo motu complaint to probe the allegations. The ministry has decided to proactively probe the matter as Priyanka Gandhi Vadra or her children have not filed any complaint regarding the alleged hacking of the Instagram accounts.
Vadra and her husband Robert Vadra had alleged that the Instagram accounts of their children were hacked by the government in an attempt to snoop on politicians and their families. But even though they had threatened legal action over the allegations, no suspicious activities and posts were detected in their children’s Instagram accounts. Thererfore, before Priyanka Gandhi Vadra tries to make a political score out of wild allegations, the NDA government has decided to order a probe to puncture her claims.
According to reports, the allegations of Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will be probed by The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), which comes under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. CET-In is the nodal agency of the union govt to deal with cyber security threats like hacking and phishing, and has advanced technologies to trace hackers and combat cyberattacks.
During her campaign in Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh, the Congress general secretary had accused the BJP government of targeting the Opposition through raids and tapping phone calls of the Opposition leaders. She had also claimed that the government hacked into the Instagram accounts of her children.
“Let alone phone tapping they have hacked the Instagram accounts of my children. Do they not have any other work?” she said.
She upped the ante days after the Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav claimed his phone is being tapped by the BJP government.
Raihan Vadra is an active Instagram user but daughter Miraya inactive
The Vadra family’s son Raihan Cadra has a verified Instagram account with 17.9 k followers. Raihan mainly posts wildlife photographs and artwork. No political post or picture were found posted in his account. On the other hand, daughter Miraya is not active on Instagram, whose only two family photographs are seen posted on the account.
Robert Vadra relates account hacking with UP assembly poll
Robert Vadra claimed that for the last 10 or 15 days their accounts were hacked ever since “Priyanka started campaigning and people began joining in large numbers”. He had also claimed that they took so much time because they wanted to first confirm the matter. “This is not democracy, this is dictatorship,” he had added.
Asked whether the Congress party would improve its performance in UP this time, Vadra said it depended upon whether or not EVMs remain safe from tampering.
Robert Vadra claimed that the alleged hacking of the accounts is connected with the rising graph of the Congress Party and Priyanka Gandhi in Uttar Pradesh.
Earlier this month, the Karnataka Police achieved breakthrough success in connection with the repeated vandalism of Hindu Gods’ idols in the state. A man notorious for smashing and vandalising Hindu Gods’ idols was finally arrested by the police on December 10, 2021, from Saligrama village near the KR Nagar district of Karnataka.
The man told police he was breaking and desecrating idols of Hindu Gods because he thought people were being fooled and tricked into worshipping idols of stones. The police kept the identity of the arrested man under wraps citing security reasons.
The accused had broken ‘Shivlings’ after breaking into Sri Siddalingeshwara and Mahadeshwara temple located in Bherya village. The incident, which took place on December 7, had created quite a stir in the region.
As per a report, District Superintendent R. Chetan inspected the spot and commissioned a team under the leadership of the Deputy Superintendent of Police A.R. Sumith. The special team had launched an investigation into the matter and nabbed the culprit. The man had later confessed to his crime during interrogation.
The accused had thrown the idol of Shri Lakshmi Devi into a nearby well after deforming and dethroning the statue from the place where it was installed. The incident was under the jurisdiction of K.R Pet Rural police station. The accused also told the police that he had tried to break into Sri Anjaneya temple in Beeravalli village but had to abort his attempt after locals came to the spot.
As per police, the accused has been into breaking idols of Hindu Gods and Goddesses for a long time. He firmly believed that people were being deceived as they worshipped stones believing them to be Gods. It was also revealed that there was no robbery of gold and silver ornaments, embellishments, or cash kept in the temples that the accused broke into. Further investigation is on.
Past instances of temple vandalism and idol desecration in Karnataka
It is worth noting that the above-mentioned case is not an isolated incident of temple vandalism and idol destruction reported in Karnataka. In October 2021, the Baikampady Karkera Moolasthana Jarandaya Daivastana and Naga Brahma Peeta were vandalised by miscreants at late night in Mangaluru. The miscreants had broken open the cupboard and thrown all the belongings of the Davisthana. At the same time, the gates of the temple were also destroyed.
Earlier, in April this year, two people were arrested in connection to an incident where a condom was found in a temple’s Hundi (Donation box) in Manguluru. The temple belonged to the local Manguluru deity Lord Koragajja who is considered an avatar for Lord Shiva. The arrested were identified as Raheem (32) and Taufiq (35) from the Jokatte area in Mangalore, who confessed to urinating in Temple’s Hundi.
In November 2020, the Hoysala-era idol of Mahakali at the Doddagaddavalli Temple near Hassan district, Karnataka was found damaged. It was suspected that miscreants in search of hidden treasure took advantage of the lack of security and vandalised the idol in the process.
On December 22, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi claimed that the majority of India’s population is still not vaccinated. He used NDTV’s India’s Vaccination Equation to back his claim. According to NDTV, at the current rate, 42% of India’s population will be vaccinated by the end of December 2021. The target, according to the post, is to vaccinate 60% of the population by end of the year, which would require 61 million doses per day. NDTV said the dose per day rate is currently 5.8 million doses per day, and there is a shortfall of 55.3 million doses per day.
Source: Twitter
The actual vaccination data show different results
First of all, neither Rahul Gandhi nor NDTV included the fact in their calculations that India has yet to approve vaccination for people under the age of 18. Only those who have attained the age of 18 are eligible to get the vaccination for Covid-19.
According to The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), the estimated population of India as per 2020 data is around 137 crore (1,37,05,08,600). The number of people above the age of 18 stands at over 86 crore (86,54,56,491). That means 63% of the total population is eligible to get the vaccination shot. Even if we assume that the eligible population in the last year has increased by eight crores and round up the eligible population to 94 crores (which is according to a report in Hindustan Times), the eligible population would be 68%.
According to vaccination data available at the website of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, India has administered 1,38,95,90,670 doses of Covid-19 vaccines so far. The total number of people who have received both shots of the Covid-19 vaccine stands at 55,96,27,015. That means 59% of the total eligible population (assuming the eligible population is 94 crores) is fully vaccinated against the Covid-19 infection.
Source: MoHFW
In addition to that, there are another 27,03,36,640 people who have been vaccinated with at least one shot and waiting for their second shot of the vaccine. If these 27 crores get the second shot within the next 30 days, by the end of January, almost 83 crore people in India would be fully vaccinated, which would be 88% of the total eligible population.
It is noteworthy that we have already fully vaccinated population equal to the total population (not eligible but total) of the United States (33 crores), Russia (14 crores) and United Kingdom (6 crores) put together.
The government’s stand on the booster shot
The government of India has recently made it clear that its priority is to fully vaccinate all eligible population before starting giving the booster shot, that too if required. India is currently administering 55 lakh+ doses every day. Out of these, on an ordinary 43 lakh, people are getting a second dose every day. At the current rate, India would add another four crore fully vaccinated people by the end of December that would make the total of around 60 crores fully vaccinated people. The tally would stand at 66%, which is 6% above the target that is supposed to be achieved to avoid the third wave of Covid-19 in India.
Therefore, Rahul Gandhi’s claim that the majority of India’s population is not vaccinated is false.
