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Rahul Gandhi spreads misinformation and creates confusion regarding coronavirus vaccines. Here are the facts

Shashank Bharadwaj
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Rahul Gandhi spreads misinformation and creates confusion regarding coronavirus vaccines. Here are the facts

Senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday took to Twitter to mislead public over Government of India’s policy on inoculating the COVID-19 vaccine to citizens of the country.

In a bid to create confusion and mislead Indian citizens in midst of a pandemic, Rahul Gandhi, put together unrelated news which created headlines to cast aspersions that the central government is backtracking its statements on coronavirus vaccines.

Rahul Gandhi’s tweet on coronavirus vaccine

In his tweets, the Gandhi-scion Rahul Gandhi raised three points, entirely unrelated to each other, to insinuate that the Modi government had a confusing policy on inoculating coronavirus vaccine to the public.

Firstly, Rahul Gandhi invokes a statement a made by PM Modi on October 29 in which Prime Minister had said all Indians will be vaccinated once the coronavirus vaccine is available and no one will be left behind. In his interview to Economic Times, PM Narendra Modi had also said that a national expert group has been created to manage vaccine administration and chart the path. By stating that everyone will be vaccinated and no Indian will be left behind, PM Modi meant to say that no citizen will be denied the vaccine.

Most importantly, PM Narendra Modi had also clarified saying that initially, the government will focus on protecting the most vulnerable and the frontline workers. This is also how major countries are going forward with immunisation programmes. Prime Minister Modi had also added that coronavirus vaccine was still a work in progress and trials are on.

In his interview, PM Modi said that the entire country would be vaccinated in the coming days. However, as vaccine testing, production and inoculation would necessarily take time, it would be first given to the vulnerable sections of the society that will then be extended to other citizens of the country. PM Modi has categorically stated that anybody, who wishes to get vaccines, will be not left behind.

However, Rahul Gandhi, with all his political shrewdness, picked up a headline that depicted half-story to add his own theories to the statements made by Prime Minister. He did not stop there but connected Prime Minister’s statements on vaccine distribution to the month-old promise made by BJP in the run-up to the Bihar elections.

Rahul Gandhi co-relates BJP manifesto promise with Prime Minister’s official statements on vaccines

Raking up BJP’s promise of free coronavirus vaccines, Rahul Gandhi in his tweets tried to co-relate two different issues – firstly Prime Minister’s statements on coronavirus vaccines to all the citizens of the country and second being BJP’s promise of free vaccines to Bihar ahead of the assembly elections.

In the run-up to Bihar elections, Finance Minister and BJP leader Nirmala Sitharaman while releasing the BJP manifesto had promised free coronavirus vaccines in Bihar, whenever the vaccine is made available. However, the Congress party and its media establishment had then created a furore over her statement to again mislead public by stating that the Modi government was promising free vaccines only to Bihar keeping elections in mind.

In reality, the promise made by the BJP was clear and straight-forward. Health is a state subject and if BJP came to power in Bihar, the state government led by BJP would procure the vaccines for the centre and then would distribute and vaccinate people for free. Other states, too, can make such decisions regarding public healthcare.

Rahul Gandhi, despite knowing that Prime Minister’s statements and BJP’s statements are two different issues, tries to bring correlation between them.

Rahul Gandhi misleads public by twisting statements of Union government

Next, with premising the two independent statements made out by the Modi government and the BJP ahead of the Bihar elections, Rahul Gandhi tries to equate it with the recent statements made by senior officials of Union Health Ministry who had said there will not be any attempt to vaccinate people against COVID-19 ‘if people do not wish to do so’.

The Union Health Ministry officials had said that there will not be any attempts to vaccinate people against their wishes. The government has also said that it may not inoculate the entire country against coronavirus. This means priority groups will be inoculated with government support, while healthy citizens without any underlying health conditions may need to buy the vaccine like any other medical product.

Speaking to OpIndia, government sources have clarified that the secretary has been misquoted and he was speaking in the context of ‘compulsory vaccination’.

“This is a democracy. Even if you are in a priority group and have been identified as a vulnerable person, you will not be forced to take a vaccine,” a senior official of the government had said recently to News18.

The Modi government has been working on a consistent policy to distribute and deliver vaccines to every corner of the country. Ahead of vaccination drive, the Union government is focusing on two things – firstly, every individual who needs to be vaccinated will be vaccinated when the vaccine is made available for the public use and people who do not wish to take the vaccine can stay out of it. Secondly, the vaccine will only be free for a section of a vulnerable population and the rest of the country may have to pay a nominal amount to get vaccinated if it is not already covered under state governments.

It is pertinent to note that the choice of providing vaccines ‘free of cost’ or not completely rests on the state governments. The respective state governments has to procure the vaccines from the centre and then inoculate it to the rest of the public. If the state government wishes to provide vaccines for free, it is up to these state government to fund it through the state’s exchequer.

Unfortunately, Rahul Gandhi, despite all the clarification, continues to mislead the public by twisting and associating different statements put out by the Union government during different circumstances on COVID-19 vaccine.

At a time when the entire political class and its citizens need to be united to fight the never-ending battle against the pandemic, Rahul Gandhi attempts to put out misinformation in the public domain to confuse and create panic in the society that is eagerly waiting for vaccinations. It is shocking that Rahul Gandhi, instead of allaying fears of the public at the time of health emergency, has now chosen to play his pity politics on the issue of coronavirus vaccines.

Exposing hypocrisy of Congress, CPIM, Bharatiya Kisan Union and even Justin Trudeau over the Farm Bills 2020, point by point

Abhishek Banerjee
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Exposing hypocrisy of Congress, CPIM, Bharatiya Kisan Union and even Justin Trudeau over the Farm Bills 2020, point by point

What did the 2020 Farm Bills of the Modi government do? The Act merely gave farmers the option to trade freely outside of APMCs, anywhere within India. The other thing it did was to abolish the Essential Commodities Act of 1955.

Since then, thousands of farmers from Punjab have been agitating against the bill. And now they have brought their agitation to Delhi, along with a handful of farmers from Haryana with similar demands. So called ‘liberal’ media in Delhi, still chafing from an unfavorable outcome in Bihar, has lapped up the movement at their doorstep. They have branded it a general “farmers protest,” implying that the protesters somehow represent people from all across India.

For days now, we have been told that farmers from the rest of India want to join. We just haven’t seen any. This has been further explained by the conspiracy theory that farmers are being blocked by the police from entering Delhi. Half of India depends on farming, but apparently blocking a couple of roads have held off an agitation comprising around 60 crore people.

And now, every frustrated duck with a quack who is against Modi wants to be seen with the “farmers protest.” The Congress. The AAP, which is active in Punjab. The Dadis of Shaheen Bagh. Everyone. Even the Canadian Prime Minister who remembers how PM Modi ignored him for a whole week in India.

The astonishing part about these protests is not the hypocrisy, but the extensive documentary trail that these people left. There is so much evidence that one could compile a book on this, but let us run through the highlights quickly.

(1) Congress manifesto for 2019 promised exactly these reforms

Here it is, in writing. Quite literally, the exact same promise.

Congress manifesto

And as for the Essential Commodities Act, the Congress had this to say.

Congress manifesto

Again, the language could not be clearer. The Congress went so far as to dismiss the Essential Commodities Act of 1955 as belonging to the “age of controls.” Imagine the situation when the Congress manifesto appears to take a potshot at Nehru.

It doesn’t end here. There is also an extensive trail of evidence of Dr. Manmohan Singh advocating for states to amend the APMC act and give more freedom to the farmer (see here in 2012 and here in 2009). But in typical UPA fashion, he didn’t actually get anything done. And now when the Modi government has implemented their own manifesto item, the Congress opportunistically has a problem with it.

Additionally, even though the latest Farm bills say nothing about Minimum Support Price (MSP) and do not alter the existing MSP regime in any way, the matter of MSP has been dragged into these protests. So perhaps it makes sense to mention here what Dr. Raghuram Rajan had to say on MSP back in 2014, when he was RBI governor.

Raghuram Rajan on MSP

And for good measure, the article also says:

“He also said the Agriculture Produce Marketing Committee (APMC) Act, which governs marketing of agriculture produce, needs to be amended.“

MSP hikes cause inflation, eh? Bear in mind that Dr. Rajan also advised the Congress on key economic promises in their 2019 manifesto. Perhaps Dr. Rajan would like to do the nation a favor by explaining to the protesting farmers from Punjab exactly what is wrong with MSP hikes.

(2) Canadian government had opposed MSP for Indian farmers, PM-Kisan and even PM Fasal Bima Yojana

One of the unique features of this so called farmers protest is the involvement of a foreign government. The Canadian Prime Minister has tried to intervene in our domestic matter. And quite shockingly, his intervention has been welcomed by a large section of the ‘liberal’ commentariat in India.

First of all, the Canadian government has no standing to comment in a purely domestic matter of India. There has to be absolute clarity on that. But the intervention looks even more sinister when you realize that the Canadian government has essentially been at war with the farmers of India. From 2015 to 2019, Canada has vocally questioned India’s farm subsidies and repeatedly accused India of violating World Trade Organization (WTO) rules by means of MSP.

It gets even worse:

“Canada sought details of the PM-KISAN programme under which income support of Rs 6,000 per year is provided to small and marginal farmer families. … Canada also expressed doubt over the eligibility of the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana, a crop insurance scheme, as a permitted subsidy under WTO.“

Just think about the cruelty of that. Canada is a rich and highly developed country, with a per capita GDP of well over $40,000 USD. And yet Canada wanted to oppose a cash transfer of just Rs 6000 (roughly $80) a year to small and marginal farmers of India. Shame!

And today, with a straight face, the Canadian government tries to be the spokesperson for Indian farmers. This is like the wolf trying to speak for the lambs. Is Canada trying to stoke civil war in India by taking advantage of the particular demography of the protesting farmers who happen to be from Punjab and therefore mostly Sikh? And why is Canada getting support from Indian intellectuals? What do these intellectuals stand to gain from supporting a foreign government that is at war with Indian farmers? What will these intellectuals gain from civil war in India?

(3) CPI/CPI(M) did not even implement APMCs in Kerala

If you thought only the Congress and the Canadian government were being hypocritical, we haven’t even come to the so called farmers unions who are protesting. In media coverage of these protests, you must have come across numerous images of farmers holding the dreaded hammer and sickle flag. Indeed, the Left Parties came together to make a joint statement in support of the protesters.

Left parties being their hypocritical best

All state units? With the Communist Parties having their maximum strength in Kerala, I suppose we will see some large protests in Kerala. But you would be aghast to know the following:

“Being a state that has not implemented the Agriculture Produce Marketing Committee (APMC), farmers in Kerala feel that the opening up of trade with new farm laws might not make much impact in the existing trade systems in Kerala“

So there are no APMCs in Communist ruled Kerala at all! And yet, Communist parties are fearmongering that the new farm bills will lead to destruction of the APMCs and hurt the farmer! Well, it looks like irony just succumbed to the ‘Kerala model.’

(4) Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) demanded freedom from APMCs only in 2019

If you didn’t think it could get much worse, get a load of this.

What Bharatiya Kisan Union said on farm laws earlier

This is not a dream. You are not hallucinating. The BKU demanded in writing that the Indian farmer be liberated from the tyranny of APMCs. This is from the official Twitter account of Bharatiya Kisan Union, active since November 2015.

BKU Twitter account

You can go and check right now. The handle is very active at this moment, regularly posting updates on how they are leading the farmers protests. The industrial scale hypocrisy will blow your mind.

That’s all the hypocrisy I could find with a simple internet search and about an hour of spare time. I am sure there is much more out there.

Last but not the least, one thing needs to be said. While this article remains open for scrutiny, debate and criticism, the reader must be alert to a new kind of fraud that has taken off. These are left wing journalists who call themselves “fact checkers.” The intention is to dismiss anything critical of them with a banner headline that says “fake news.”

If you see such a headline, dig further. Remember, they are counting on you to read just the headline and skip over the rest. A genuine reason to label this article as “fake news” would be to show that I have altered the content of news sources, screenshots, etc presented herein. They won’t find that and they know it. What they might do instead is use weasel-words like “misleading” or “manipulated” below a banner headline calling it fake news.

What is “misleading”? And what is “manipulated”? Beware of some standard red flags (pun intended). No two policy proposals can be the same, word for word. In fact, no person can say the same thing twice in exactly the same words. Unless they can show that policy proposals from Congress, CPIM, the BKU and their new friend Canada were substantially different, don’t believe their labels. That is called debate, not fact-checking. Debate is most welcome, a sinister attempt to silence an opponent with a label is NOT.

As Rishi Bagree alleges threat to life, Bengal Congress files FIR, holds protests against him for ‘insulting’ Sonia Gandhi: Details

OpIndia Staff
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As Rishi Bagree alleges threat to life, Bengal Congress files FIR, holds protests against him for ‘insulting’ Sonia Gandhi: Details

The West Bengal Congress has filed an FIR in Kolkata against right-leaning social media user Rishi Bagree for his Tweet on the ongoing farmer’s protest, dated November 29.

Congress supporters, carrying placards and posters were seen raising slogans against the social media influencer and demanding his arrest in front of the Shakespeare Sarani PS in Kolkata. The protest was led by Rohan S Mitra, the son of the former president of the state unit of the Indian National Congress, late Somen Mitra. The Congress alleged that Rishi Bagree through his Tweet defamed Congress President Sonia Gandhi.

In the FIR lodged against him, Congress accused Rishi Bagree of trying to incite the public through his ‘provocative’ Tweet and intentionally insult the Congress President Sonia Gandhi, thereby provoking the public at large, with an intention to break public peace and cause riots. It also mentioned that he committed the offence of intimidation through his social media account.

The FIR had been lodged on December 1 under IPC sections 117, 153, 500, 504, 505 and 506. 1860 r/w Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, 2000 was also invoked.

Bagree’s tweet

Hinting at how the farmers protest at the border areas of the National capital has been orchestrated by the Congress to defame the Central government, Rishi Bagree had on November 29 Tweeted: “Khalistani terrorists Assassinated PM Indira Gandhi Same Khalistani Terrorists now wants to Assassinate PM Modi. In both case the beneficiary was the same – Sonia Gandhi”.

Bagree was indicating that the farmer’s protest is nothing but a well-planned conspiracy and a possible Congress-Khalistan nexus is behind this well-organised ‘organic’ protest, where Congress supporter disguised as protestors have been inciting farmers.

Following the protests and the FIR, Rishi Bagree took to Twitter to reveal how he was being threatened of severe consequences by the Congress goons over phone calls. “West Bengal Congress took out a Morcha against me for some tweets in which I indicated Khalistani-Congress nexus who are inciting farmers. They wanted my arrest & their Goons threatened me of severe consequences over phone calls. Finally they got a issue for upcoming Bengal polls”, Tweeted the social media user.

He shared how slogans were being raised against him as he Tweeted: “This is how they attack an ordinary citizen for airing a view against their party”.

In subsequent Tweets, he wrote how Congress supporters have taken out ‘Morchas’ against him and shared images where protestors led by Congress leader Rohan S Mitra, were seen burning his posters in front of the police station in Kolkata. He said that his life is under threat and if he gets killed, the Congress goons would be directly responsible.

Congress orchestrated ‘farm’ protests sees participation from pro-Khalistani elements

Despite Congress crying foul, the fact is that ever since the Modi government passed the three agriculture bills in the parliament which aimed to remove the middlemen from the sale and purchase of the produce, thereby profoundly benefitting farmers, the Congress party has tried to sow the seeds of doubts and apprehensions among the farmers to rally them against the Centre. 

The protests which are fuelled by the Congress party behind the veil of ‘farmer protests’ have seen participation from pro-Khalistan elements. On several instances during the so-called farm protests, banners of Khalistani proponent Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale were raised. Khalistani slogans marked the protests, and the alleged demonstrators were seen on camera gloating about the former PM Indira Gandhi’s assassination and menacingly threatening of dishing out a similar fate to PM Modi.

AltNews’ Pratik Sinha, who fancies himself as a ‘fact checker’, has been spreading fake news for several years: A sneak peek

OpIndia Staff
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AltNews’ Pratik Sinha, who fancies himself as a ‘fact checker’, has been spreading fake news for several years: A sneak peek

Fact-checking has become a rather ideologically motivated and lucrative business for many. Hiding behind the veil of ‘fact-checking’, several websites, especially one called AltNews and its founders like Pratik Sinha, spread Islamic propaganda and have often been caught spreading blatant lies themselves.

Recently, a social media user @BefittingFacts took to Twitter to expose the AltNews co-founder Pratik Sinha for flooding social media platforms with fake and misleading information. The social media user highlighted that Sinha, a self-described ‘fact-checker’, has an inveterate habit of spreading lies and distortions and has been doing so with impunity for the last few years.

The social media user posted a string of tweets exposing Sinha for spreading misinformation and lies. He shared various instances when the so-called ‘fact-checker’ was caught red-handed for disseminating propaganda.

The Twitter user said that Sinha, a Hindu-hater masquerading as ‘fact-checker’, made a career out of abusing and denigrating PM Modi through dubious portals such as Truth of Gujarat, eopinion and Alt News.

In the aftermath of demonetisation back in 2016, Sinha had shared images of people standing in long queues at financial institutes to allege that people had to go through hardships because of the Modi government’s decision. However, in doing so, Sinha shared a picture from 2014, about two years before the Demonetisation to portray that the decision had caused misery among people.

In another instance shared by the Twitter user, Sinha was caught using an image from 2004 to peddle the condition of cows in Gujarat in 2016. In the year 2016, Sinha shared another picture on his Twitter account where cows were seen lying on the road.

Sinha, in his bid to mock the Gau Rakshaks, commented, “Gau Matas rotting and being scavenged on in Gujarat. Where are the sons professing undying love for their mata?”

The image shared by Sinha was from 2004 when many cows had died because of Nitrate poisoning but Sinha felt no compunction in using a 12-year-old picture to ridicule the Gau Rakshaks.

Sinha also actively participated in perpetuating the lie regarding PM Modi’s alleged promise to transferring Rs 15 lakhs to bank accounts if elected to power.

However, Alt News, which boasts of being a “fact-checking” website, did not publish any article on Sinha’s lies about the purported promise made by PM Modi. Even other left-leaning websites such as BoomLive carried the fact check and declared that the claim of PM Modi promising Rs 15 lakhs in election campaigning was fake. But, Sinha and his portal conveniently skipped fact-checking this one.

Interestingly, this Rs. 15 lakh trope is being spread by Congress and its functionaries for the longest time. In reality, the Prime Minister had never promised that he would transfer Rs. 15 lakh in every citizen’s account. He had also mentioned Rs. 15 lakh as an indication of the quantum of black money stashed abroad.

The fourth instance where Sinha lied to his followers was regarding the clean Ganga initiative launched by PM Modi. Without delving into the details of the article, Sinha shared a screenshot of an article in which NGT said that public money was wasted and not a single drop of Ganga was cleaned.

However, Sinha glossed over the details of the article in which the NGT lauded PM Modi for coming up with the initiative of getting Ganga cleaned and rapped various state governments, including Akhilesh Yadav government in Uttar Pradesh for not following PM’s directives for the cleansing of Ganga.

In another tweet, @BefittingFacts shared one other instance when Pratik Sinha was caught peddling fake news. Quoting a social media user who shared a picture of a sobbing old man, Sinha mocked the late Arun Jaitley for his assertion that there was not a single day when the supply of currency during the days after demonetisation was inadequate.

As it turns out, the man in the question was not crying because of the misery of standing in the queue but he was crying because when he was waiting outside the bank when someone pushed him, a woman stepped on his foot. Additionally, the man even claimed that apart from this he didn’t face much problem during the demonetisation.

This is, by no measure, an exhaustive list of instances when Alt News co-founder Pratik Sinha was caught peddling misinformation and fake news. There have been umpteen incidents when Sinha had enthusiastically shared unsubstantiated and unverified news, just because the narrative suited his political leanings.

Pratik Sinha spreads fake news while attempting to ‘fact-check’ old picture of a Hindu Sadhu

Recently, Sinha was caught spreading fake news while attempting to ‘fact-check’ old picture of a Hindu Sadhu. On November 23, Sinha posted a tweet alleging that an image posted by popular Twitter user ‘TrueIndology’ on his Instagram account was fake. It appears from the tweet that Sinha reverse-searched the image and found the source as Getty Images, a stock image platform.

According to Pratik Sinha, the image source, which, according to him, was Getty Images, did not mention ‘snow’ anywhere in the post. However, the image was first used in a book titled “Kashmir: It’s New Silk Industry” by Sir Thomas Wardle, and it was published in 1904. In the book, on page 376, the title of the image reads, “Fakir or Holy Man on Lunka Island, Dal lake, sitting in the snow in winter.” The photograph was clicked by Geoffrey William Millais.

There have been other instances too when Sinha has purveyed lies and refused to formally acknowledge his mistake when caught for the same. However, Pratik is not the only one who is been lying through his teeth at AltNews. It seems like the leftist online rag AltNews is a lying factory, whose founders have an inveterate habit of spreading lies and misinformation.

AltNews co-founder Mohammad Zubair, booked under POCSO, unapologetically shares lies and disinformation

Another Alt News co-founder, Mohammad Zubair, has been similarly caught numerous times for spreading propaganda and lies under the pretext of carrying out ‘fact-checks’. In May 2020, Zubair shared an unverified report exonerating the Tablighi Jamaat members from their involvement in spreading the coronavirus outbreak. The report was thoroughly refuted by Delhi Police later on. 

Zubair’s ran a parody page of Subramanian Swamy on Facebook to befool his followers with lies and distortions. The page was called ‘Sususwamy’. The ‘fact-checker’ has often lied through this particular page to further his agenda. Among the more prominent ones was the lie about BS Yeddyurappa, the Chief Minister of Karnataka. Zubair had claimed that the veteran BJP leader had celebrated Tipu Sultan in the past and misled his audience using an image from a completely unrelated event to bolster his claim.

Then, there was the occasion on which Zubair shared a cropped video and claimed that some members of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) of Gonda, Uttar Pradesh had raised anti-national slogans during a protest rally against Pakistan in the wake of Pulwama terror attack. He urged his followers to share the video far and wide so that his political agenda would be fulfilled. Ultimately, the Gonda Police had to come forward and issue a statement clarifying that such slogans were never raised and asserted that the video was being used for ‘corrupt’ purposes.

Zubair had also shared a video in which he claimed that the Mayor of Surat was defying lockdown norms when he was prostrating before a Jain monk. In reality, the video was from a charity event and the Mayor was only performing an act of ritualistic obeisance as is the norm within the Jain community. This is not all. Zubair has gone to the extent of shielding the Islamic terrorists responsible for the brutal massacre in Sri Lanka last year.

Social Media user @iAnkurSingh meticulously cited 25 instances when Mohammed Zubair was caught of playing dangerous games of spreading misinformation and many times deleting those tweets once they go viral without quite issuing a clarification. That way, many a time, the screenshots of fake or misleading news went viral but the fact that he deleted the same after being called out for his lies does not. This was his typical modus operandi while sharing unverified stuff through his parody account of BJP leader Subramanian Swamy.

Mohammed Zubair charged under POCSO for doxxing the identity of a minor girl and harassing her

Most recently, an FIR was filed against Zubair in connection with a case where a minor girl child was threatened and tortured by AltNews co-founder Mohammed Zubair on Twitter. On August 7, Zubair indulged in an online spat with a Twitter user Jagdish Singh. The AltNews co-founder targetted a minor girl in his Twitter fight with this social media user.  Instead of replying to the user directly, Zubair had brazenly referred to a minor girl seen in the profile picture of the user Jagdish Singh, presumably his granddaughter.

After Zubair had highlighted the minor girl seen in the photo, Islamists had started to issue rape threats to the girl. Zubair’s tweet came under heavy criticism from social media users who accused him of shamelessly using a child to get back at a critic. However, the leftist online rag Alt News  came out in his support and stood by him claiming the complaint against him for targeting a minor girl in a Twitter fight was ‘misuse of legal apparatus’.

Propaganda website AltNews has been largely peddled as an authentic source of fact-checks by the entire Left cabal. Their articles are peddled by any anti-government, anti-Hindu riffraff that the ecosystem has to offer and they often claim that their method is rather elaborate and authentic. With patrons like Arundhati Roy, who regularly speaks in a language that can only be called one that resonates with Naxals and every element that wishes to tear India apart, AltNews has gained a reputation amongst right-thinking individuals as a mouthpiece of Islamists. The so-called fact-checking website regularly furthers fake news, obfuscates the truth, concocts details to shield Islamists and sometimes, even creates fake news simply to fact check it later.

Further, AltNews uses some standard tools to further their propaganda which invariably goes against the interests of the country. They peddle downright lies, muddle the waters, deliberately mislead, whitewash crimes and doxx anybody who tries to expose their methods.

Ahead of Tamil Nadu polls, Superstar Rajinikanth to launch his political party in January 2021

OpIndia Staff
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Ahead of Tamil Nadu polls, Superstar Rajinikanth to launch his political party in January 2021

Tamil superstar Rajinikanth today took to social media to announce that he will launch his own political party.

He said that he will make a formal announcement regarding the same on 31st December this year. The party will be launched in January 2021.

His fans have been waiting for him to take the plunge into politics since a long time now. They want him to lead the upcoming Tamil Nadu state elections. On Monday he met the members of Rajini Makkal Mandram (RMM), the political avatar of his erstwhile fanclub. Earlier there have been rumours that he would be joining the BJP. There were also rumours that he will not join politics because of his health issues.

In 2017, Rajinikanth had announced that he would join politics and contest Assembly elections, whenever held. Tamil Nadu goes to polls in 2021.

Mumbai: NCP workers protest against Yogi Adityanath, ruling parties claim he is trying to ‘take away’ film industry to UP

OpIndia Staff
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Mumbai: NCP workers protest against Yogi Adityanath, ruling parties claim he is trying to ‘take away’ film industry to UP

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath was in Mumbai to launch the 200-crore Lucknow Municipal Corporation bond in the Bombay Stock Exchange. He had also met several film personalities to discuss investments in UP’s upcoming Film City in Gautam Buddha Nagar district. CM Yogi has already met actor Akshay Kumar to discuss the possibilities. His Mumbai visit has, however, irked the ruling party alliance.

National Congress Party (NCP) and Shiv Sena leaders have raised questions over his visit, alleging CM Yogi is trying to ‘take away’ the film industry from Mumbai.

UP plans to setup the biggest film city in India

In September, Yogi Adityanath had announced that the UP government had allotted 1000 acres of land for the Film City in Gautam Buddh Nagar. On September 22, several film personalities met the Chief Minister in Lucknow, including filmmakers Subhash Ghai, Om Raut (director of Tanhaji), Tamil actor Rajinikanth and his daughter Soundarya, singers Kailash Kher and Udit Narayan.

NCP workers protested against UP’s Film City

NCP workers on December 2 protested against the upcoming film city in UP. They raised slogans against Yogi Adityanath, who was in Mumbai for his 2-day visit. NCP alleged that CM Yogi is trying to ‘take away’ the Film Industry from Maharashtra, and they won’t allow it at any cost. NCP leaders stated to media that Yogi is welcome in Mumbai but trying to ‘shift’ the film city from Mumbai to UP is not desirable. NCP’s Majeed Memom even claimed that Bollywood investors will not prefer to leave Mumbai.

However, NCP had decided that UP CM Yogi has come to ‘take away’ Bollywood’s film industry to his state and started protesting. It is not understood how they arrived at that conclusion since there are several film cities in India and there is no law to state that cinema industry investors cannot invest in another state.

‘No one can take any industry from Maharashtra’: CM Uddhav Thackeray

On December 2, Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray took a jibe on UP CM Yogi Adityanath and said no one could take any industry from Maharashtra. He said, “Maharashtra is not afraid of competition, but no one can forcibly take businesses away from the state, that will not be allowed. We are not jealous about anyone’s progress, but it has to happen through fair competition.” He further added that those trying to take away the industry would fail because the ‘magnetic’ strength of Maharastra is powerful, and it will stop things from going away.

CM Yogi to meet several producers, actors, and investors

According to the reports, a UP government spokesperson said that CM Yogi would meet Subhash Ghai, Boney Kapoor, Jatin Sethi of Zee Studio, Bhushan Kumar of T-Series, Randeep Hooda, Jimmy Shergill, Komal Nahta, and Raj Kumar Santoshi, among several others, to finalize the process of setting up the Film City in the state. He will discuss what facilities should be included in the Film City to make it more attractive for the filmmakers.

‘I am making a new Film City’:CM Yogi Adityanath

Answering to Shiv Sena’s Sanjay Raut’s meltdown over his visit to Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had said that he was not taking anything away from the state of Maharashtra and that he was building a new Film City in Uttar Pradesh. Raut had warned that it is not easy to ‘shift’ the Mumbai film city to another place. 

Congress MP Ravneet Singh Bittu claims Google and WhatsApp will buy wheat and hoard it to exploit farmers under new farm laws

OpIndia Staff
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Congress MP Ravneet Singh Bittu claims Google and WhatsApp will buy wheat and hoard it to exploit farmers under new farm laws

Amidst the ongoing protests by farmers along the Haryana-Delhi border, a video of Congress MP Ravneet Singh Bittu has gone viral on the social media leaving netizens in splits.

On Thursday, the Congress MP from Ludhiana – Punjab Ravneet Singh Bittu spoke to NDTV India in connection with the ongoing farmer protests along the Delhi border.

Speaking to NDTV India, the Congress MP emphasised on how the three laws passed by the Modi government was anti-farmer in nature. Bittu continuing to explain about the farm bills to the viewers, however, ended up goofing-up in a big way after he claimed that it is not the farmers who will benefit from the laws but the tech-giants such as Google and WhatsApp.

According to Bittu, the agitation against the Modi government is not just a farmer protest but was a “movement of more than 80 per cent people of the country”. The recently passed farm laws will not only cause harm to farm sector but also the retail sector of the country as it enables big ‘industrialists’ such as Reliance, Google, WhatsApp to buy wheat and rice in large quantities and to hoard it causing massive exploitation of farmers, the Congress MP claimed.

In the show, the Congress MP also went on to mislead the viewers by claiming that the farmers’ land are being snatched by the Modi government with the passage of these three farm bills.

However, he never clarified why the tech giants like Google would want to hoard wheat with new farm laws in place.

Clueless ‘protestors’ at Punjab farmer protests

Various videos have emerged on social media of the agitating ‘farmers’ from Punjab which show that many of them neither have any idea about the laws nor have they any clue on why they’re protesting. Some were even claiming that Chinese coronavirus is a myth. In fact, some even wanted to protest against all the bills passed by government amid the pandemic.

Considering all this, Congress MP’s cluelessness regarding farm laws is not too surprising.

Shanthi Joobi who became Asiya to marry Ibrahim alleges ‘love jihad’, says in-laws harassing her with obscene messages and threats

OpIndia Staff
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Shanthi Joobi who became Asiya to marry Ibrahim alleges ‘love jihad’, says in-laws harassing her with obscene messages and threats

As cases of grooming jihad increase in the country, in Dakshin Kannada, a woman named Asiya Joobi Ibrahim Khaleel Kattekar, who had converted to Islam to marry Ibrahim Khaleel Kattekar, alleged that her in-laws of forcibly keeping her away from her husband.

Met on Facebook, married after converting to Islam

According to reports, Shanthi Joobi who changed her name to Asiya Joobi Ibrahim Khaleel Kattekar after the conversion had met Ibrahim on Facebook. She hails from Kannur in Kerala. In July 2017, she married Ibrahim after converting to Islam. After marriage, the couple stayed at rented accommodations at many places including in Bengaluru and Mysuru.

Speaking at a press conference in which she was accompanied by members of Adhunik Human Rights Committee, she alleged that after her husband Ibrahim’s brother Shihab came to know about their marriage, he forcefully took Ibrahim away to their house in Sullia and did not allow him to meet Asiya ever since. She said that she had paid money worth over Rs 25 lakh on different occasions, and had given two luxury cars and two scooters to Shihab on his demand. According to Asia, when she tried to contact her husband, his family threatened to kill him. They have allegedly switched-off Ibrahim’s phone. Both sides have held discussions at Puttur and Sullia police stations but no settlement could be reached.

Husband’s brother sent her obscene messages

Asiya has alleged that when she went to her in-laws’ house, Shihab threatened to kill her. She further alleged that Shihab had been sending her obscene messages. She said that her in-laws continued to mentally torture her. Asia said that she had married Ibrahim thinking that she would have a secured life but no one supported her. When nothing worked for her, Asiya approached the media to voice her grievance. A team of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) have stepped in to help Asiya. On November 26, the VHP tea took her to Sullia police station to file a complaint against her husband’s family. The VHP has urged her to come back to the Hindu fold.

Asiya’a allegations of love jihad have been refuted by Muslim groups. Jamaat President, Ashraf said, “Religion has no role to play in love. To call it love jihad is wrong”. He said that the allegations against them that their organisation did not help Asia were wrong.

VHP’s ‘Love Jihad Task Force’ in Karnataka

A task force has been formed by the VHP to deal with cases of Grooming Jihad that have emerged in Karnataka. VHP District President Sharan P said that a youth team named ‘Love Jihad Task Force’ had been formed to counter cases of Love Jihad.

Swami Rajashekharananda said that there were 23 people in the task force including five lawyers and other activists.

The Karnataka government is also planning to enact a law to deal with cases of love jihad in the state. Earlier this month, Karnataka CM BS Yediyurappa had said that the state government would take strong measures to curb religious conversions due to Love Jihad. Recently, Uttar Pradesh had enacted a law to prevent unlawful religious conversions due to love jihad.

‘Friend’s dogs up for adoption as his bride doesn’t like dogs’ viral tweet on Twitter has bizarre twists

OpIndia Staff
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‘Friend’s dogs up for adoption as his bride doesn’t like dogs’ viral tweet on Twitter has bizarre twists

On 30th November, a tweet went viral in which a man had claimed that two dogs, a 6 year old black Labrador and a 3 year old golden Labrador were up for adoption.

Viral tweet calling for adoption of two Labrador dogs

In the tweet, Twitter user @somberiii claimed that his friend is getting married and is putting his dogs up for adoption as his bride does not like dogs. While some netizens showed willingness to adopt the dogs, many expressed anger at the man’s friend and his new bride.

Many suggested that the man should’ve called off the wedding instead.

Two days later, he tweeted that the dogs have been adopted.

Earlier too similar post have gone viral on social media where man had claimed that his wife does not like the dog triggering hateful messages towards the woman.

However, there is a twist in the tale.

Siddharth Vipin, Tamil Nadu based music composer took to Twitter to say that he is the real owner of these two dogs and they were never really up for adoption.

Siddharth Vipin’s tweet

Siddharth Vipin tweeted that he’s the owner of the dogs and the dogs were never up for adoption. Vipin had in August 2017 posted pictures of his two dogs.

Siddharth Vipin’s Instagram post

In fact, Siddharth Vipin stated that he just wanted a place which could foster his dogs for about a month as the place where he usually takes them is booked.

He said that he has been getting thousands of calls every day asking for adoption of his dogs.

In a further twist to the tale, a social media user and animal lover Megha Jose tweeted that she had indeed spoken to Siddharth Vipin and his team for adoption of the dogs.

She said that first his relative had called them up to look for home for the two dogs. Following that, her team got in touch with him to verify the request.

She said that knowing the reason why he was looking to get his dogs ‘adopted’ was sensitive, his identity was not revealed. She asked whether it was a sort of misunderstanding on part of everyone.

At the time of publishing this report, Siddharth Vipin has not yet replied. We shall update the report once he responds and clears the air.

Mirzapur: Three Brahmin boys found dead, family says they were murdered with eyes gouged out, police deny

OpIndia Staff
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Mirzapur: Three Brahmin boys found dead, family says they were murdered with eyes gouged out, police deny

In a shocking incident, three young boys of the same family in Bami village in Mirzapur district have been found dead. The family members are alleging that the boys have been killed and their eyes have been gouged out.

According to the reports, the three cousins – 14-year-old Sudhanshu Tiwari, 14-year-old Shivam Tiwari and 14-year-old Hariom Tiwari were mysteriously found dead near a pond near their village.

Reportedly, on Tuesday, the three youths had left to a nearby forest in search of berries and never returned to their houses leaving the parents worried. The parents began to search for their kids with the help of other villagers. However, they could not find these kids and returned home at night.

On Wednesday, the family along with the villagers again began their search for their kids. However, a search party informed that they had found clothes of one of the youths lying near the Lehdia Bandhi area in Bindhyachal.

Bodies found from water, family alleges murder, claims eyes have been gouged out

As soon as the family received information, they immediately rushed to spot only to know that their kids were dead. The police officials also reached the spot immediately. With the help of villagers, a search was conducted in the water reservoir and three bodies were found. As per some media reports the bodies had some injury marks and all thee had the eyes gouged out.

Due to the alleged injury marks, the family have been asserting that the children have been murdered. They also claimed that their eyes have been gouged out. The family of the children blocked the highway in a protest demanding an investigation into the case. However, the police is of the opinion that the boys may have drowned.

On social media, the images of the bodies are going viral and there are many claims that their eyes have been gouged out.

The family members also took the body from the police custody and protested near Lehangpur market along with the dead bodies of the deceased.

They were in the village to attend a wedding

Sudhanshu, son of Rajesh Kumar was the eldest child and has a younger brother and sister. Shivam, son of Rakesh Kumar was also the eldest and has a brother and sister. Hariom, son of Munnalal Tiwari was the eldest child of his parents too. Rakesh Kumar Tiwari and Munnalal Tiwari are both brothers and Rajesh Tiwari is a cousin.

Sudhanshu and Shivam were students of class 8 in Vindhyavasani Higher Secondary School. Hariom was in class 8 in an English medium school in Naini, Pryagraj.

The family had gathered at the village on the occasion of Rajesh Tiwari’s sister’s marriage on November 30. After the farewell ceremony on December 1, while the family went to rest, the three boys reportedly decided to go in search of berries in the woods.

Police deny murder or brutality angle

The mirzapur Police have denied murder or brutality in the case. They said that prima facie, it looks like a case of drowning. In a video, Mirzapur SP has stated that he was present at the scene and has seen the bodies. He asserted that the bodies had no injuries on them and the claims on social media that the bodies had eyes gouged out are wrong. The added that a team of 3 doctors will examine the bodies and then the cause of death can be assertained.

The SP added that they have started an investigation into the case.

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