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CBI summons wife of Mamata Banerjee’s nephew in coal smuggling case, Abhishek cries political vendetta: Details

OpIndia Staff
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CBI summons wife of Mamata Banerjee’s nephew in coal smuggling case, Abhishek cries political vendetta: Details

Rujira Banerjee, wife of Trinamool MP Abhishek Banerjee, has been summoned by the CBI over a coal pilferage case. Abhishek Banerjee is also the nephew of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

The senior Trinamool leader has responded to the summons on social media. He said that they will not be intimidated and they have full faith in the law.

Rujira Banerjee has been summoned in the case for the first time. The CBI had conducted raids related to the matter the previous week. An FIR had been registered earlier in November 2020 against Anup Manjhi alias Lala, Eastern Coalfield Ltd General Managers Amit Kumar Dhar and Jayesh Chandra Rai for their alleged involvement in the coal smuggling scam.

The names of ECL Chief of Security Tanmay Das, Area Security Inspector, Kunustoria Dhananjay Rai and SSI and security in-charge Kajor area Debashish Mukherjee were mentioned as well. It is alleged that Manjhi was involved in illegal mining and coal theft in Kunustora and Kajoria.

Prashant Kishor’s I-PAC controls social media accounts several TMC leaders, most of them are not even aware of their existence: Report

OpIndia Staff
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Prashant Kishor’s I-PAC controls social media accounts several TMC leaders, most of them are not even aware of their existence: Report

With just two months left months to the West Bengal assembly elections, the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress is preparing to unleash an extensive social media campaign. To counter the massive BJP wave in the state, Mamata Banerjee and her new ally Prashant Kishor is centralising the entire social media campaign in the run-up to the state elections, which is going decide Mamata Banerjee’s political future.

According to a Sunday Guardian report, most of the TMC leaders’ social media handles are now being handled by Prashant Kishor’s Indian-Political Action Committee (I-PAC). The senior party leaders, including ministers, MPs and MLAs, have surrendered their social media accounts to IPAC members, who manage their day-to-day social media campaigns.

However, a select few “big” leaders of All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) have employed their own personal social media staff, unlike those of the rest of the MPs and MLAs whose passwords have been given to the social media team of the political consulting group – Indian-Political Action Committee (I-PAC) that is now working to keep Mamata Banerjee-led AITC in power in West Bengal.

Some of the senior leaders who have refused to give IPAC any access to their social media accounts, including that of Facebook and Twitter are – Mamata Banerjee’s nephew Abhishek Banerjee, Rajya Sabha MP Derek O’Brien, Minister Firhad Hakim, and party Lok Sabha MPs Mahua Moitra, Mimi Chakraborty and Nusrat Jahan.

These ‘celebrity’ leaders are managing their own social media campaigns and have shown no interest to surrender their accounts to Prashant Kishor. The IPAC, instead of directly controlling these accounts, now sends tweets and content for Facebook to these senior leaders, who may or may not share it further.

Party leaders are unaware of their social media accounts, Twitter ‘verifies’ all the handles

Former Rajya Sabha MP Dinesh Trivedi, who recently quit TMC, had also alleged that his social media handles were taken over by I-PAC members, who often post “abusive tweets”.

The Twitter and Facebook accounts of several TMC leaders, including MPs and MLA, were created on social media platform only after the 2019 general elections, especially after I-PAC took over the campaigning of Trinamool. The Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress had joined hands with IPAC after a humiliating Lok Sabha elections. And social media accounts for several party leaders were directly created by I-PAC, and the leaders themselves were not aware of this. Several Trinamool Congress party leaders have revealed that they are not even aware that they have Twitter accounts in their names, while their accounts regularly post content on social media platforms.

Read- Bengal elections can finish career of Prashant Kishore, and he is desperate, can his media friends save him?

Interestingly, the Twitter accounts of all the TMC leaders were immediately “verified” within days, based on a list sent by the office of Abhishek Banerjee to Payal Kamat, who handles “public policy and government” at Twitter. Most importantly, Kamat had worked for Indian-Political Action Committee as their communication manager from August 2015 to April 2018.

Al-Badr terrorist Rah Hussain Bhat arrested in connection with IED recovered at Jammu bus stand

OpIndia Staff
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Al-Badr terrorist Rah Hussain Bhat arrested in connection with IED recovered at Jammu bus stand

Days after the Jammu and Kashmir police recovered an improvised explosive device (IED) from a bus stand in Jammu on the occasion of the second anniversary of the Pulwama attack, they have now arrested a terrorist associated with the radical Islamist outfit Al-Badr.

As per reports, the accused has been identified as 55-year-old Rah Hussain Bhat. In a statement, the Jammu and Kashmir police said, “Rah Hussain Bhat (55), an overground worker of Al Badr terror outfit has been arrested in the case of recovery of IED at the Jammu bus stand on February 14.”

The cops informed that Bhat was in touch with Pakistani terrorists who were involved in the planning of the IED attack in Jammu. Reportedly, Bhat hails from Batbagh-Hunipora village in Nehama of Pulwama district. As per officials, he was apprehended during a raid in his hometown. He is the 5th accused arrested in the case so far. Four other accused arrested so far include Athar Shakeel Khan, Qazi Wasim, Abid Nabi and Suhail Shah.

Major terror attack foiled, IED recovered

Security forces were able to prevent a major terror attack by recovering explosives in a crowded bus station in Jammu and Kashmir. An Improvised Explosive Device (IED) weighing seven kilograms was recovered near the Jammu Bus Stand by Jammu and Kashmir police on February 14. According to the reports, two persons have been arrested in connection with the recovery, identified as Suhail and Qazi.

Suhail belongs to the Pulwama district, and he is a member of the Al-Badr outfit. The IED was recovered based on a specific intelligence input about it. K DGP Dilbagh Singh said that Pakistan is trying to activate the dormant terror group named Al Badr, and some Kashmiri students studying in Punjab were being used by terrorists to further their activities.

Delhi govt distances itself from Education Director’s comments saying students will get marks even if they write questions in place of answers

OpIndia Staff
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Delhi govt distances itself from Education Director’s comments saying students will get marks even if they write questions in place of answers

Days after the contentious video of Directorate of Education (DoE) director Udit Prakash Rai went viral on social media, the Delhi government has issued a statement distancing itself from the actions of the IAS officer.

In a video that surfaced on Thursday, Udit Prakash Rai was heard advising Class XII students of a Delhi government-run school on how to ace the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) exams. He had gone for an inspection at the said school. Rai claimed to have a word with the CBSE and told the students that they will get marks even if they don’t answer the questions, provided they fill the answer sheets with anything and not leave them blank.

“If you don’t know the answers, write anything. Copy the questions in the answer slots but don’t leave the answer sheet blank. We have spoken to your teachers and they have said that they will mark you provided something is written in the answer sheets. We have also told the CBSE that if a child writes something, they should be marked,” he told the students.

The DoE Director also requested teachers to allow students to write in Hindi if they are unsure about English spelling. “If they can’t write in English. If there is a problem in writing an answer, if they can’t write a spelling in English, let them write in Hindi. These small things have to be told so that children can get at least 40-45 marks,” he emphasised.

While sharing this video on Twitter, Delhi BJP media Head Naveen Kumar wrote, “Did you become IAS by writing questions in the answer section? The Education Director of Udit Rai is telling the children in the school – do not leave the paper blank. Even if you write the question, you will get 2 marks. Manish Sisodia, what level have you done for education in Delhi, that’s all Aam Aadmi Party has an education model only in advertisements.”

In a letter to Arvind Kejriwal, the national president at All India Parents Association Ashok Aggarwal demanded ‘necessary action’ against the IAS officer. “Such a person seems undeserving to be the director of education,” he wrote. He has also asked Delhi Education Minister Manish Sisodia to issue a public statement and take full responsibility for the actions of the Directorate of Education in degrading education.

Delhi government distances itself from DoE Director

While speaking on the development, a senior official of the Delhi government claimed that the comments of the DoE Director was taken out of context. In a statement distancing itself from the controversy, the Delhi government said, “The part of the DoE’s speech is out of context.”

Although one CBSE official had earlier remarked that only the DoE can provide ‘context’ and ‘clarification for the video, another official told The Quint that such statements undermine the credibility of the CBSE Board and its marking system. The official also added that marks are awarded as per procedures and not on ‘whims and fancies.’

In India, Hindus are never lynched

Nirwa Mehta
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In India, Hindus are never lynched

Lynch. Dictionary.com defines ‘lynch’ as “to put to death, especially by hanging, by mob action and without legal authority”. But in India, if you are a Hindu and have fallen victim to a mob of other religion, you will find the ‘liberals’ trying to their whitewash the crime of your perpetrators or, you know, blame you for your own murder.

Earlier today, Delhi Police arrested four more accused in the sensational Rinku Sharma murder case in Delhi. They were identified through a CCTV footage.

See how Rinku was beaten up with lathis and sticks till one man wearing a black shirt comes with a knife and stabs him from behind? Notice how they were joined by at least three women? None of them tried to stop the mob from killing Rinku Sharma.

You know how the ‘liberals’ reacted? Here is an example.

Rinku Sharma was ‘murdered’, not ‘lynched’ by a Muslim mob. Because, obviously, Hindus don’t get ‘lynched’. That Rinku was a Bajrang Dal activist and had participated in Ram Mandir donation collection drive obviously had nothing to do with him killed. It is just an old feud.

But remember, when 15-year old Junaid was killed in a moving train in 2017 over seat sharing? Here is what the Punjab and Haryana High Court observed:

Extract of High Court Judgement

But you know how media had reported? FirstPost claimed Junaid was killed because of accusations of him carrying beef.

FirstPost on Junaid killing

Times of India too had made the same assertion.

Times of India on Junaid killing

Multiple protests were held by celebrity protestors across the country under the ‘Not in my name’ banner.

Shabana Azmi during ‘Not in my name’ protest

See how a murder of a Muslim boy had turned communal in just few days? A bit of headline mischief by certain media houses and the ‘Hindu nationalists’ were accused of making India a dangerous place for minority Muslims.

But if a Hindu is murdered by a Muslim mob and act is also caught on camera, somehow the ‘liberals’ will find a way to blame him for their own murder. ‘Rinku Sharma brought the knife that killed him’ reports were written and widely shared. Because, clearly, if Rinku Sharma didn’t want to be lynched, he just shouldn’t have taken birth.

And why just Rinku Sharma. When Aam Aadmi Party leader Tahir Hussain and his accomplices are accused of leading a mob that killed IB officer Ankit Sharma during the Delhi riots in 2020, it was not communal. So what if Ankit Sharma was stripped naked to check his religion. Not communal at all. Or when Ankit Saxena was murdered by his Muslim girlfriend’s family in 2018 in Delhi in what was reported as a well-planned strategy, no ‘not in my name’ protests took place.

So you see, Hindus are never lynched by particularly peaceful community in India because of their being Hindus.

That is how mainstream media and the celebrity professionals want you to believe. What is good for the goose should be good for the gander.

Don’t let another Rinku Sharma be lynched by a communal mob because you chose to either stay silent or justify this.

Self criticism for the online right: Why are we giving liberals a free pass on the economy right now?

Abhishek Banerjee
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Self criticism for the online right: Why are we giving liberals a free pass on the economy right now?

They want to talk about some fake political “scientist” leading “farmer protests”? Okay, so we will start debating the ideas of this unqualified non-intellectual. We will criticize him, debunk him, expose him and more generally make this individual the centerpiece of national attention.

Then, they want to talk about some climate “activist.” So we oblige. They talk about how she is a wonderful person who wants to fill the world with rainbows and unicorns (and smoke from crop stubble burning). They will write revolutionary poetry about her spending a couple of days in custody. We will take that on and “expose” the hypocrisy of climate groups, sinister meetings with possible Khalistanis, speculate and debate her motivations and so on…

They want to talk about high fuel prices? So, we will talk about that. If the prices of onions were soaring right now, we would talk about that too… But they are not, so we will talk about fuel. When the price of fuel goes down and the price of onions goes up, we will talk about onions.

The following taunt probably applies to me as much as anyone else on the online right. Are we opponents of the liberals or their court jesters?

They choose the topics, they set the agenda. We desperately debate and try to debunk them. They have nothing but contempt for our ideas, our words and our very existence. On the other hand, we try to engage with them, persuade them and generally make them feel like they are the most important people in the world.

The question is: Why are the news cycles all being set by the liberals?

Do you remember the Bihar state elections? Those may seem like a long time ago, but it has barely been three months. Why? Because immediately after the election results were declared, liberals switched the news cycle to the so called farmers protest. Remember how excited journalists could hardly stay on their feet when the exit polls from Bihar came out. Remember the electric atmosphere in TV studios that night? And remember them swooning over the crowds at Tejashwi’s rallies?

Do you think Bihar would have been forgotten in 24 hours or less if liberals had got the result they wanted? But we let it happen. We stopped talking about Bihar because they stopped talking about Bihar! Imagine that.

The same applies right now to the economy. How are we letting the biggest story in India slip through the cracks? Anyone care about the economy? Why aren’t we talking about the economy?

By all accounts, India has pulled off an absolutely stunning turnaround after the body blow from Covid. The GDP growth may turn out positive in the Oct-Dec quarter itself, bringing India out of technical recession. Most forecasters agree that India will show the highest GDP growth among all major economies in 2021. Everything is on a high, be it auto sales or electricity consumption. The GST collection in Jan 2021 rose 8% over Jan 2020 to an all time high of Rs 1.2 lakh crore. Even in the pandemic year, India saw 13% growth in FDI. Only one other major country showed positive FDI growth in 2020 and it was China, which was far behind at just 4%.

No wonder the Sensex is zooming. Forex reserves have reached unprecedented levels. Note that even during the pandemic, while other BRIC currencies like Brazilian Real and Russian Rubles collapsed by 25-33%, the Indian Rupee held firm, falling no more than 3-4%.

This is remarkable. It is a stinging slap in the faces of all those screaming headlines by both “economists” (and all weather experts) from last year. When the government spoke about a V-shaped recovery last year, they were roundly mocked. Well, the V-shaped recovery is right here.

But why aren’t we talking about this? How did the economy go out of the headlines? Or more precisely, why did we let them take it out of the headlines?

Remember when India’s GDP dropped by a 23.9% in the April-June quarter last year? Anyone with any sense could see that this was the fallout of a once in century pandemic. But liberals didn’t buy the explanation. They blamed the government for pushing India into a recession. They couldn’t stop talking about the economy back then. And they went on news shows and ridiculed people for talking about anything else.

Okay, so why are we talking about some 21 year old now instead of talking about our great economic recovery. If liberals insist she was not a threat to anyone, they should ignore her, no? And talk about the economy like they wanted to back in August or September.

But this post is not about the liberals. This is about the online right indulging whatever the left wants to talk about.

Remember their point about worst performing economy? That has vanished too. The -24% figure was just for one quarter in the whole year. The final number for 2020 will be around -7%. For comparison, countries such as the UK have seen a 10% contraction in 2020. So the “worst performer” tag was just an illusion. A momentary thing because India adopted the strictest lockdown in the world. By all accounts, it worked. The pandemic stalled.

All nightmare projections about collapse of India’s healthcare system were proved wrong. During the lockdown, hundreds of millions of people received food aid through a digitized system with minimal leaks. Once the lockdown was lifted, there was V-shaped recovery in the economy. And all of this was achieved with minimal stimulus, which saved our fiscal math.

The ‘smart people’ second guessed us at each stage. More so, they heckled us at each stage. They made no secret of their contempt for everything India did during the pandemic. They reveled in their belief about how wrong we were.

When the green shoots began to emerge in October, they screamed “pent up demand.” For a while. Then, one by one, they felt silent. Never in history have so many ‘smart people’ been wrong about such a big thing on such a global scale.

So why aren’t we rubbing the egg on their faces? Why aren’t we heckling them till they emerge from under their desks, mumbling excuses for their claimed status as international experts? If any of their doomsday predictions had come true, do you think they would have let us be?

So how about we don’t wait for them this time. How about we start drawing the line on mainstream media, social media and all available forums and demand that people talk about the economy? How about we demand that these liberal experts (qualified economists and otherwise) explain their past remarks or publicly eat crow? Let’s not allow this moment to pass. They would not let it go. So why should we?

The Quint quietly changes headline after hailing China’s Galwan Valley casualties as ‘martyrs’: Details

OpIndia Staff
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The Quint quietly changes headline after hailing China’s Galwan Valley casualties as ‘martyrs’: Details

China has admitted, finally, that it did suffer casualties during the Galwan Valley Clash. Gallantry Awards were conferred to four men of the PLA which indicates that the actual number of casualties were much higher. Social media users noticed an incongruency between the manner in which one far-left media portal reported the event.

The Quint reported that China had finally admitted that 4 PLA soldiers were “martyred” during the Galwan Valley clash. When the Indian Army had said that they had suffered casualties as well immediately after clash, The Quint had reported that the Indian soldiers were “killed” during the clash. The incongruency between the two reports did not sit well with people on social media.

According to an archived version of the report from the 19th of February that was published at 9:02 a.m. on the said date, the headline initially carried the word ‘martyr’.

Galwan Valley
The original headline for The Quint report

However, it was subsequently updated 3 hours later at 12:22 p.m. The headline in the updated report said “killed”. The URL of the report, nevertheless, continued to carry the word ‘martyred’.

Galwan Valley
Updated headline of The Quint report

While it is true that the Indian Army does not recognize the word ‘martyr’ as an official term, The Quint’s usage of the same for Chinese soldiers does reflect the underlying mindset that leads to such reports. However, it appears that The Quint seems to have realised its error pretty quickly.

Russia reports world’s first case of humans infected with H5N8 strain of bird flu

OpIndia Staff
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Russia reports world’s first case of humans infected with H5N8 strain of bird flu

At a time when the world is recovering from the Coronavirus pandemic, another health emergency seems to be knocking on the doors as Russia on Saturday said that country’s scientists have now detected the first case of transmission of the H5N8 strain of avian flu to humans. The highly contagious H5N8 strain is lethal for birds, however, it was never reported to have spread to humans.

Seven workers at a poultry plant in the south of the country were infected with the virus following an outbreak among the birds there in December. All seven of them are now out of danger, said Anna Popova, the head of Russia’s health watchdog Rospotrebnadzor. She also confirmed that there was no sign of human to human transmission of the virus yet. The Russian scientists had isolated the genetic material of the strain from the infected seven workers.

Popova also noted that important scientific discovery will further tell if the virus can further mutate. “The discovery of these mutations when the virus has not still acquired an ability to transmit from human to human gives us all, the entire world, time to prepare for possible mutations and react in an adequate and timely fashion,” Popova said.

According to the reports, the Russian scientists have now alerted about the looming threat of Avian Flu’s human transmission to the World Health Organization. “Information about the world’s first case of transmission of the avian flu (H5N8) to humans has already been sent to the World Health Organization,” said Anna Popova.

Recently, the Avian Flu outbreaks of the H5N8 strain was reported from Russia, Europe, China, the Middle East and North Africa. Other strains – H5N1, H7N9 and H9N2 – have been known to spread to human. However, it is the first time that H5N8 is mutated to infect humans.

The Vector Institute in Siberia said on Saturday that it would start developing human tests and a vaccine against H5N8.

How new CCTV footage debunks The Print’s malicious narrative that tried to blame Rinku Sharma for his death

OpIndia Staff
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How new CCTV footage debunks The Print’s malicious narrative that tried to blame Rinku Sharma for his death

New CCTV footage has emerged that shows the brutal manner in which Rinku Sharma was murdered in Delhi. Furthermore, the video also captures one man, a part of the mob, carrying a knife with him in his hand. It further debunks the narrative employed by the secular-liberal media to whitewash the hate crime.

Shekhar Gupta’s The Print had quoted the family of the accused to peddle the narrative that it was the Bajrang Dal activist who had brought the knife that was used to murder him. The CCTV footage clearly demonstrates that a member of the mob was carrying a knife as well.

While it is possible that Rinku Sharma had picked up a knife later in self-defence as well, the allegation that it was him who brought the knife and started the fight clearly falls flat. Based on the CCTV footage, four more people identified as Deen Mohammad, Dilshan alias Aftab, Faiyaiz alias Sadri and Faizan alias Nirale were arrested, raising the total number of arrests in the case to 9.

The Print report had further claimed that Rinku Sharma was drunk on the fateful night in order to blame him for his own death. It is a familiar pattern that has emerged where secular-liberal media provides platform to the family of the accused in order to whitewash the crime when the accused belongs to a community the media considers a protected class.

From the Pulwama attack to the Delhi Riots, the media has demonstrated an overeager tendency to absolve the accused of all guilt and blame the victim instead. In the aftermath of the former, the Indian security personnel were blamed for radicalising the terrorist while in the second instance, Tahir Hussain was portrayed as acting in self defence.

The familiar pattern was once again repeated in the case of Rinku Sharma where he was blamed for his death.

Pakistan-origin British boxer Amir Khan’s wife Faryal Makhdoom criticised for accusing fan of being lesbian in her hijab pic

OpIndia Staff
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Pakistan-origin British boxer Amir Khan’s wife Faryal Makhdoom criticised for accusing fan of being lesbian in her hijab pic

Faryal Makhdoom, the wife of Pakistan-origin boxer Amir Khan, was heavily criticised by her followers for allegedly making homophobic comments on social media by referring to one of her fans as ‘lesbian’.

The 29-year-old Pakistan-American model Faryal Makhdoom had posted a picture of herself dressed in a lilac satin attire with a matching headscarf. She had captioned the image with the words, “Thank you God for blessing me much more than I deserve @kiyahabayas #AD”.

Image Source: Faryal Makhdoom/ Instragram/ Daily Mail

A fan of Faryal posted a comment on her image saying, “What’s next, bikini?’ alongside a bikini emoji.”

To which Faryal responded in a seemingly negative tone, asking whether the social media user was a lesbian.

Image Source: Dailymail

Unimpressed by the response, another follower asked Faryal, “WTF? Are you homophobic?”

Faryal Makhdoom got a mixed response on Instagram after some of her followers stood in support of the model. Even though some users did not like her comments, some users said it was not a big deal and asserted that her homophobic comments are being exaggerated.

“How about you just unfollow her if it triggers you that much. Does it pay your rent or feed your soul to be bad mind on her post,” wrote one follower. Another wrote, “She can say what she wants. Get over her and get off her page you bunch of toddlers.”  

Image Source: Dailymail

One Instagram user also accused her of posing while covering full body in one picture while wearing revealing outfits in other when she should be taking care of her ill mother in law instead, since not doing so is ‘haram’ in Islam.

Comment on Faryal Makhdoom’s Instagram post

Some Instagram users also accused her of wearing abaya and other Islamic outfits for fashion and being a ‘convertible’ and not having dedication to Islam.

Well, not just Faryal, even her husband British boxer with Pakistani roots Amir Khan is known for major goof-ups. In 2019, Amir Khan had created a controversy after he made remarks claiming that Pakistan’s chances of winning the world cup depend on how they fix matches.

Perhaps, in a Freudian slip, Amir Khan, while analysing the prospects of the Pakistan cricket team in the 2019 cricket world cup, had said that the results depend on various aspects, including how the Pakistani cricket team fixes the games. Amir Khan’s statement had left Pakistani fans perplexed and red-faced.

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