Days after four cine-associations and 34 movie production houses filed a petition against Republic TV and Times Now over the coverage of Bollywood-drug nexus, it has been revealed that the original petition included more TV news channels which were dropped in the final petition, without informing some of the petitioners. OpIndia has accesses email exchanges between Solicis Lex, the law firm representing CINTAA (Cine & TV Artists Association), and the Producers Guild, which discuss about possibility of adding more channels in the petition so that it does not look like targeted against two channels.
On 15th October, an office bearer of Producers Guild of India wrote to Solicis Lex, saying that as there are total 38 petitioners in the petition, they have decided that only one law firm will represent them all due to logistical issues. The official writes that there are more media houses ‘who have also indulged in defamation, vilification and slander against the industry’, and they are ready to have a discussion to add more defendants to the case.
Replying to the email, Ameet Mehta, managing partner of Solicis Lex, wrote on behalf of CINTAA that the ambit of the petition should also include more channels, “which inadvertently may have been missed out in petition by the Producers Guild”. The law firm suggested the addition of the following channels:
Aaj Tak
NDTV
CNN-IBN
Editors Guild of India
Zee News
India TV
India Today
ABP News
It may be noted that Editors Guild of India is not a new channel, but the same was included in the list by the law firm. Giving the justification for adding these additional respondents to the case, the email stated, “Otherwise the petition is going to look like a targeted audience against two new Channels”.
Interestingly, the mail by the law firm official representing CINTAA states that as per original plan, they were to include all major news channels in the plea, and they were surprised to see the final petition. “Let me reiterate and remind that it was a clear understanding that we will be making all major news Channels, party to this. However, we were little surprised to see the final petition only limiting to two news channels”, the mail stated. This means, CINTAA was kept in dark about limiting the petition only to Republic TV and Times Now.
“We have to either make it really look fair or just then we delete all and keep two,” Ameet Mehta added. He also suggested that keeping respondents like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube in the petition look as ornamental parties which have no meaning.
“Lets be fair and move ahead. We are with PG and do not wish to be let out of this. However an amendment is urgently needed”, the mail stated. The law firm also as the Produces Guild that in case they do not want to add the mentioned channels as parties to the case, CINTAA should know the reason of the same as petitioners.
Twice every year, in April and in October, the International Monetary Fund releases its World Economic Outlook (WEO) database. It contains detailed estimates and predictions on every possible economic parameter of virtually every country in the world.
This April, in an unprecedented move, the IMF released a near empty WEO report, containing a few topline figures on a couple of the most watched parameters. And a handful of predictions, pretty much all of which proved to be wildly off the mark.
And no serious person would blame them for being off the mark. Predictions depend on models. With the Coronavirus, all bets are off. There are no precedents and therefore no reliable models. The best minds and best algorithms in the world are working blind. The IMF realizes this too, which is why they made few predictions as it is. This October, they have released a more detailed report, but it’s all guesswork, really.
So why would media seize upon this one prediction from the IMF report?
Article by the Economic Times
And then there are these people.
Tweets by the usual suspects
I won’t blame Rahul Gandhi. He is jealous of PM Modi and is generally not very bright. Faye D’Souza and Shekhar Gupta are media people and they don’t know anything about anything. But there is Kaushik Basu, allegedly an economist with a reputation to protect. What’s his excuse?
Okay, so let us read the same IMF report. Doesn’t it also predict that India will see a GDP growth of 8.8% next year, making us the world’s fastest growing economy? Doesn’t the same IMF report also say that this is a one year blip and India will easily pull ahead of Bangladesh in per capita GDP next year? Like I said, predictions mean very little in the Coronavirus era. But the question is why one piece of fiction is more headline worthy than another? Politics, right?
Here is a piece of real data. Did you know that from independence to 2006, India’s per capita GDP was always less than Pakistan? Yes, in all those decades with all those Bharat Ratna winning Prime Ministers that we read about in history books, India was always struggling behind Pakistan. I’m linking to the World Bank database. Dear Kaushik Basu, feel free to check my data. Shekhar Gupta and Faye D’Souza, let me know if you can read a simple graph. Dear Rahul Gandhi, feel free to tweet about this any time. Sixty years to catch up to Pakistan!
Let us now come back to the general foolishness of making predictions in the era of Coronavirus. After an absolutely horrible first quarter of the Financial Year, India’s economy did so well last month that they’re calling it the “September surprise.” Will this continue? We have literally no idea. Anything is possible.
It isn’t just India. After contracting at a record pace in April, the UK economy surged to a remarkable 9.1% growth in June. Expectations improved and economists thought they would get around 5% in August. The real number : 2.1%. Has anybody heard of such dizzying variations in such a short amount of time? That too for a highly formalized economy like the UK. Imagine now what predictions mean for India in this environment. And predictions for Bangladesh? Seriously?
Everyone is driving blind: policymakers, economists, stock brokers, entrepreneurs and consumers. Nobody knows what will work and why. Except, of course, for journalists who have two eyes properly fixed in the back of their heads, with perfect 20/20 hindsight.
Seriously, does anybody know when or where cases will surge, or when we might have to impose the next lockdown? Here is the Coronavirus curve for France.
COVID cases graph
So 22,591 new cases in France yesterday and 105 deaths. France has 6.5 crore people, comparable to say Gujarat. The numbers for Gujarat yesterday: 1175 new cases and 11 deaths.
Did you know that France’s healthcare system is ranked the best in the world by the WHO? That’s how it fared.
Right now, cases in India are on the decline. Can anybody really say when they could start exploding again? The Mumbai local trains start today: will that lead to disaster? We don’t know. But how long could we have kept them from running?
And yet, the international press and even domestic media is on the offesive against India. The accusation: why is India doing as badly as the US?
Uh, excuse me? A generation of Indians who were ready to sacrifice everything for a chance to send their kids to American shores just had a heart attack. In 2019, the Indian government announced that we finally have enough toilets. We weren’t quite ready with one ventilator per Indian, so forgive us for that.
If one year ago, I had told you that in a pandemic, India would fare just as well or even better than the US or Western Europe, you would have laughed at me. And yet, here we are: The US has 657 deaths per million. France has 485. Sweden has 579. Canada has 262 deaths per million. How about India?
We have 82 deaths per million, among the lowest in the world. Smearing India by claiming that we are undercounting deaths can only go so far. It cannot explain the huge gulf between 82 deaths per million and 657 deaths per million.
If one year ago, I had said that in a health crisis, Bihar would emerge as the superstar and Kerala as the worst performer, would you have believed me?
So that’s Coronavirus. It has taken every reputation and every form of ego, put them in the juicer and spun them around at top speed. We are dealing here with an enemy more powerful than we can even imagine. It can turn everything upside down.
The small minds cannot understand this. And some big minds don’t want to understand this. A few months ago, they told us about the Kerala model of fighting the virus, apparently the best in the universe. That flopped miserably. Now they have a new pitch: the Bangladesh model of economics.
But there is the old saying about fools rushing in where angels fear to tread.
Article by LiveMint
The Nobel Prize for arrogance and ignorance must therefore go to Mint, which did a “deeper analysis” of the IMF data. What did they find? That while Bangladesh will again fall behind India in per capita GDP from 2021 onwards, they are projected to beat us one more time in 2025!
2025!
Hey Mint, we don’t know what the virus could do to us in the next one year, let alone five. We literally have no idea what could be the after effects of this virus on the human body. Are those who look like they are recovered really recovered? Will they survive five years? We have no idea. Did you see how the search for the vaccine keeps stalling? And if there is a vaccine, where is the time to do a decade long study of possible side effects? Who knows … the vaccine may be more dangerous than the virus itself. Maybe we all take the vaccine and then it gives us all cancer in five years. Yeah, we could all die. It’s a real possibility. This could be the end. Like seriously.
There is no scientific principle that says things will always turn out fine for humanity. We are tiny beings on a speck of dust orbiting a moderate sized star in one galaxy among billions in the universe. We could disappear tomorrow and it wouldn’t matter one bit.
Let me explain how dire the situation is. As on date, the survival of humanity itself is hanging in the balance. And you’re reading predictions about 2025. Good, we need the optimism. And a clown to laugh at.
The entire Bollywood industry seems to have started a war they cannot possibly win. The Bollywood industry backed by the A-listers who run their own production houses had filed a suit in the Delhi High Court to stop Arnab Goswami, Republic TV, Pradip Bhandari and Times Now from ‘defaming’ Bollywood. While Times Now was also included in the petition, after the constant hounding of Republic TV, it was largely seen as a battle to take Arnab Goswami down.
The suit had asked them to take down all “defamatory” content published by them against the film industry. The Bollywood bigwigs are reportedly upset at the alleged use of words like “dirt”, “filth”,” scum”, “druggies” and expressions such as “all the perfumes of Arabia cannot take away the stench and the stink of this filth and scum of the underbelly of Bollywood” to describe the film industry.
The lawsuit — filed by four industry associations and 34 production houses, including the ones owned by Shah Rukh Khan, Aamir Khan, Salman Khan, Akshay Kumar, Karan Johar, Ajay Devgn, Anil Kapoor, Farhan Akhtar, Rohit Shetty, Vinod Chopra, and Ashutosh Gowariker had asked for the channels to be barred from conducting a “media trial”.
However, now the Bollywood industry seems to be harking ‘Retreat’!
In a statement on behalf of the production houses that have filed the civil suit against Republic TV and Times Now, a statement was released to the media that said that the suit was not aimed at the two channels specifically, but “entire media”.
A fresh press release by DSK Legal, representing 34 production houses and four film associations, stated that the relief sought from Delhi High Court would be applicable not merely to the two news channels earlier named but to any content on any news channels, individual persons or on any of the digital platforms.
“Our clients, the trade associations and production houses of the Hindi film industry which have filed a suit before the Hon’ble Delhi High Court on October 12, 2020 against certain named television news channels and digital media platforms seeking injunctive relief as stated therein, clarify that the suit is not just seeking orders against the channels and platforms named in the suit, but also against unnamed defendants referred to as John Doe/ Ashok Kumar,” read the statement.
It added: “This means that any orders passed in favour of the plaintiffs would apply to all television channels and content on digital platforms which may be found violating such orders. Our clients have also come across some others publishing such content and will be adding certain specific additional defendants to the suit. Our clients also wish to clarify that as specifically stated in the plaint, they are not seeking a blanket gag order against media reportage of investigation of cases, as our clients find is being erroneously reported.”
Days after Bollywood production houses and artist associations had come together to file a suit in Delhi high court against Republic TV and Times Now to restrain them from making remarks against the film industry, the Cine & TV Artistes’ Association (CINTAA), one of the petitioners in the suit, has now passed a resolution to make way for the possibility to include other media networks and news channel in their petition filed in the Delhi High Court.
Interestingly, in a letter released by CINTAA on Thursday, the artistes’ association had also said that it may add media and news channels other than the two media channels already added in the suit filed before the Delhi High Court. The CINTAA’s decision to include other media networks in their suit is now being viewed as an attempt by the Bollywood industry to lay the ground for a tacit retreat in the case that was seen as an action specifically to target Republic TV and Arnab Goswami.
It is specifically being seen as a retreat against Arnab Goswami and Republic TV since in the first para, they specifically mention ARG Outlier Media Ltd, which is Arnab Goswami’s company. Also, because the Bollywood industry has been up-in-arms against Arnab Goswami over his coverage of Sushant Singh Rajput case and the drug bust by NCB in which several big Bollywood names have come up so far.
When the entire Bollywood industry had decided to go after Republic TV and Times Now, far more than Times Now, the liberal establishment had celebrated that the industry was training its gun against Arnab Goswami and that, it was time to pull him down. However, with the massive support that the channel gets, it seems that even the Bollywood big-wigs have realised that going after Arnab Goswami is simply bad optics for the high and mighty in the industry, who now seem to be whining after the dirty truth about their industry seems to be tumbling out, post the Sushant Singh Rajput death and the drug bust by NCB.
Sandip Ssingh, a friend of Sushant Singh Rajput, has sent a defamation notice through Advocate Rajesh Kumar to Arnab Goswami and Republic TV under Section 499 of the Indian Penal Code, which is punishable under Section 500 of the Code. He has claimed Rs.200 crore as compensation. Sandip posted the notice on his Instagram account and wrote, “It’s payback time” in the caption.
In the notice, Sandip S Singh said that he was termed as a “key conspirator” and murderer” by Republic TV and editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami. He also alleged that someone from the news channel got in touch with him and asked for monetary benefits for the channel if he wanted to stop the news from being aired against him. As he refused, the notice stated that the channel carried out several reports and made serious allegations against him.
Alleging extortion attempts, the notice states that the allegations made by Republic against Sandip Singh were baseless and without any evidence. It also mentioned that the channel invited one Smita Parikh to defame Sandip further. It highlights a series of reports carried out by Republic TV that allegedly defamed Singh.
Notice mentions reports that allegedly defamed Sandeep
According to the notice, the reports on 3rd, 5th, 14th and 20th August had ‘malicious content’ and were aired to defame Sandip Singh. In one of the media segments, as per the notice, a panellist had alleged that Sandeep “insisted that the ambulance” carrying Rajput’s body “will go to Cooper hospital”. It was also alleged that the PR team of Sandeep had clicked a photograph to distribute in the media. The notice further claims that a few reports on Republic TV had suggested that Sandeep was against the CBI probe. It also mentions a hashtag #ArrestSandeepSingh that was run by the channel.
Sandip Singh’s notice also states that from 22nd to 24th August, Republic TV correspondents had entered his residents and had harassed the security guards and domestic helpers. According to Sandip, it was another attempt to defame him.
Case to be filed in case Republic TV does not reply in 15 days
The notice has asked the channel to remove all the content from every platform and apologize to Sandip S Singh and include ‘true facts’ about him in the apology. In case Republic TV does not send a reply to the notice within 15 days, a case would be filed in the court seeking damages for defamation.
Sushant Singh Rajput case
Actor Sushant Singh Rajput was found dead in his apartment on 14th June. The case has taken several twists and turns. Several allegations were made against his ex-girlfriend Rhea Chakraborty, her family, Mumbai Police, and several Bollywood celebrities. After his father filed a complaint in Bihar, a request was made to handover the case to CBI. During the investigation, some connections with a drug cartel and money laundering came into light after NCB and ED were also roped in. As of now, the three investigation agencies are looking into the case. Rhea Chakraborty, the main accused in the drug case, recently got bail. Her brother Showik is still in jail.
Rahul Gandhi s back. Well, he has been back for a while actually but nobody has been paying him attention. He tried a Hathras stunt but there all the limelight was taken up by sister Priyanka, and since speeches are kinda no-go during the coronavirus pandemic, all he had were tweets.
Tonight, when he woke up in the morning, Rahul decided to tweet, again. This tweet, however, caught our attention. Because there was something wrong with it. He has tweeted the names of certain geographical locations and has asked people if they know what is common among them.
Rahul’s tweet
Rahul has asked what is common between the “countries”: Pakistan, Korea, Iraq, Vietnam, Syria and Afghanistan. But there is a glaring geopolitical faux pas here. “Korea” is not a country. There is no country called “Korea”. There are countries named South Korea and North Korea, actually named the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. But unless something really really magical had happened in the last few days, they are separate counties. The Korean Peninsula is a region.
Rahul Gandhi’s tweet is still there. He is yet to cite the thing that is supposed to be common between the names of places he has tweeted. Here are a few guesses though:
Jijaji Robert Vadra is yet to buy land in those places
Places that are supposed to have better weed than Bangkok
Places where the Gandhi family doesn’t have bank accounts yet
Since none of the Congress-ruled states have got a mobile factory that Rahul Gandhi kept promising all through his election campaign, the names probably mean places where he is planning to import mobiles from.
In a horrifying incident, on the 13th of October 2020, a woman self-immolated in front of the Uttar Pradesh Vidhan Sabha. She has now reportedly succumbed to her injuries. The victim had set herself on fire on the 13th outside the Uttar Pradesh Vidhan Sabha due to harassment by her in-laws. The victim, Aisha, whose original name was Anjana Tiwari was married to one Akhilesh Tiwari. After getting a divorce from Akhilesh Tiwari, she fell in love with a person named Asif. She married Asif after converting to Islam and changing her name to Aisha.
According to the woman, Asif left for Saudi Arabia soon after their marriage. She accused Asif’s family of harassing her. She said that she had made an unsuccessful attempt of filing a complaint against her in-laws in Maharajganj police station. She wanted to meet the Chief Minister, therefore, she set herself on fire in front of the Vidhan Sabha.
As per a report in Zee Hindustan, the woman, in her complaint letter to the DIG had stated that she was working in a shop with her sister where she had met Asif. As per the woman’s letter, Asif had raped her and had later, to escape rape charges, had convinced her to get married. Asif had allegedly called a maulvi to get married to Anjana and the couple had been living in a rented house in Maharajganj. As per the report, Asif had soon left to work in the Gulf and from there, he had been pressurising her to convert to Islam. The woman’s complaint had also stated that Asif’s family had rejected Anjana. Asif had also stopped sending money to Anjana to sustain herself and when she approached Asif’s family, she was rejected and harassed by them. She had also alleged that Asif’s family had forced her to convert to Islam.
In a turn of events, the Uttar Pradesh police arrested a Congress leader named Alok Prasad, reportedly the son of Congress veteran and former governor of Rajasthan Sukhdev Prasad. Alok was arrested by Lucknow police on inputs from Maharajganj police for allegedly provoking the woman to set herself on fire. According to the information provided by the police, Alok was also in the vicinity near the place of the incident at the Vidhan Sabha when the woman set herself on fire.
As is the norm with the media, this story was mostly lost in the cacophony of televisions news and political correctness. The mainstream papers that did cover this heinous incident, watered down the incident to hide the identity of the woman and her in-laws.
For example, the Times of India published two reports on the incident. In the first report, their headline had no indication that the marriage was an inter-faith marriage and that, The Hindu woman who had converted to Islam was harassed to a point where she had to set herself on fire.
In the first report, the headline simply read, “Women tries to immolate self in Lucknow”.
In the article copy, the only sentence that revealed the identity of the victim and the fact that it was an inter-faith marriage, was one sentence buried deep in the report.
Times of India Report.
The second report of Times of India where they covered a Congress leader being arrested for abetment and inciting the woman to set herself on fire, also only makes a passing reference of this material fact that can easily be missed by a reader.
Times of India report
Only in passing, does Times of India mention how the woman got married in 2014, but later separated from her husband and “started living with a man from another community”.
The fact that the woman was a Hindu and the man from “another community” was a Muslim is completely hidden. If anyone reads the Times of India report, they could very well think that the woman was a Muslim woman who was living with a Hindu man.
On the contrary, when the Times of India is often more than happy to identify victims by the religious or caste identity if the victim belongs to either the Muslim community or the Scheduled Caste.
Times of India Report
Times of India Report
Times of India Report
While Times of India has no problem in identifying the victim by their religious or caste identity when the victim is a Muslim or a Dalit, the paper has shied away from identifying victim Aisha, whose original name was Anjana Tiwari.
Clearly, it is not only the identity of the victim but also the identity of the perpetrator that matters to the media. When it comes to shielding the identity of the accused who belong to the Muslim community, the media often falls over each other to write benign headlines and leave out essential details from their articles to peddle their agenda.
Indian Express actually went a step further and covered this case in a manner far worse than the Times of India.
In an article that covered how the victim had succumbed to her injuries after she had burnt herself in front of the Vidhan Sabha, Indian Express covered how a Congress leader had been held for abetment. So far so good.
But here is the catch – in their headline, instead of identifying the victim or the perpetrators with their religious identities, that would actually give an accurate picture of the incident, Indian Express identified the Congress leader with his Dalit identity.
Indian Express report
The Indian Express headline read, “UP woman who set herself afire dies, Dalit Cong leader held for abetment: Police”.
In the entire article by the Indian Express, there was absolutely no evidence that a Hindu woman who had converted to Islam had burnt herself to death after harassment from her Muslim in-laws. The name of the victim was absent from the entire report.
The aim of identifying the Dalit identity of the Congress accused was simple – to how how the Yogi Adityanath government persecuting Dalits. This has been the pet subject of the establishment and it went to extreme lengths to peddle this narrative during the Hathras Case as well, which as it turns out, was not as simple as the media had first projected.
It is interesting, however, that Indian Express chose to identify the Dalit identity of the accused Congress leader but not of the victim or the in-laws who drove the woman to burn herself to death.
The establishment often identifies Dalits by their identity because they believe that by virtue of them being Dalits, they are at a greater risk of being oppressed than, for example, Brahmins or any other factions of the Hindu society. They also identify the identity of Dalits because, despite atrocities heaped on Dalits, by virtue of them being Hindus, by Muslims, they wish to further the ‘Jai Bheem Jai Meem’ trope that essentially says that Dalits and Muslims are brothers in arms against oppression by Hindus.
In this case, Indian Express has tacitly tried to peddle a Dalit victimhood narrative by identifying the caste of the accused Congress leader and shielded the Muslim perpetrators that drove a Hindu woman who had converted to Islam to suicide by harassment.
By all accounts, this was a deeply sectarian crime since Asif, the husband of the Hindu woman had first raped her and then forced her to marry him to escape charges of rape. Then, the woman had also alleged that she was forced to convert to Islam.
After all these material evidence, Indian Express deliberately left out the identity of the victim or the Muslim perpetrators and instead, chose to highlight the caste identity of the Congress leader who has been accused of abetment of suicide and instigating the woman to self-immolate in front of the Vidhan Sabha.
Clearly, the media in on a crusade to whitewash heinous crimes against Hindus, shield the Muslim perpetrators and create caste divide between Hindus and the Indian Express article is a prime example of it.
Days after Bollywood production houses and artist associations had come together to file a suit in Delhi high court against Republic TV and Times Now to restrain them from making remarks against the film industry, the Cine & TV Artistes’ Association (CINTAA), one of the petitioners in the suit, has now passed a resolution to make way for the possibility to include other media networks and news channel in their petition filed in the Delhi High Court.
In a letter released by CINTAA on Thursday, the artistes’ association has now said that it may add media and news channels other than the two media channels already added in the suit filed before the Delhi High Court. The CINTAA’s decision to include other media networks in their suit is now being viewed as an attempt by the Bollywood industry to lay the ground for a tacit retreat in the case that was seen as an action specifically to target Republic TV and Arnab Goswami.
It is specifically being seen as a retreat against Arnab Goswami and Republic TV since in the first para, they specifically mention ARG Outlier Media Ltd, which is Arnab Goswami’s company. Also, because the Bollywood industry has been up-in-arms against Arnab Goswami over his coverage of Sushant Singh Rajput case and the drug bust by NCB in which several big Bollywood names have come up so far.
The letter released by CINTAA informing about their decision to add other media networks as respondents in their suit.
Earlier this week, Bollywood’s leading associations and production houses had filed a suit in Delhi High Court against Republic TV, Arnab Goswami, Pradeep Bhandari, Times Now, Navika Kumar and Rahul Shivshankar.
The Bollywood industry had joined hands together to take on Republic TV and Times Now in the Delhi high court by restraining them from making any remarks against the film industry in wake of the mysterious death of Sushant Singh Rajput and subsequent drug scandal that has emerged.
The suit had asked them to take down all “defamatory” content published by them against the film industry. The Bollywood bigwigs are reportedly upset at the alleged use of words like “dirt”, “filth”,”scum”, “druggies” and expressions such as “all the perfumes of Arabia cannot take away the stench and the stink of this filth and scum of the underbelly of Bollywood” to describe the film industry.
The lawsuit — filed by four industry associations and 34 production houses, including the ones owned by Shah Rukh Khan, Aamir Khan, Salman Khan, Akshay Kumar, Karan Johar, Ajay Devgn, Anil Kapoor, Farhan Akhtar, Rohit Shetty, Vinod Chopra, and Ashutosh Gowariker had asked for the channels to be barred from conducting a “media trial”.
However, with CINTAA now deciding to include other media networks and news channels in the suit against Republic TV and Times Now, it has now diluted the case filed against the two media networks.
As Bollywood was hailed for taking on Arnab Goswami, now, CINTAA seems to have laid the ground for a retreat after the action was viewed as one specifically targeted against Arnab Goswami and his channel, Republic TV.
Anjana Tiwari alias Aisha, who had self-immolated in front of the UP Vidhan Sabha on Tuesday, 13 October, has succumbed to burn injuries. She had been admitted in Lucknow’s Civil Hospital in a critical condition after her self immolation attempt.
The woman had alleged rape and forced conversion attempt by Asif in complaint letter
As per a report in Zee Hindustan, the woman, in her complaint letter to the DIG had stated that she was working in a shop with her sister where she had met Asif. As per the woman’s letter, Asif had raped her and had later, to escape rape charges, had convinced her to get married. Asif had allegedly called a maulvi to get married to Anjana and the couple had been living in a rented house in Maharajganj. As per the report, Asif had soon left to work in the Gulf and from there, he had been pressurising her to convert to Islam. The woman’s complaint had also stated that Asif’s family had rejected Anjana. Asif had also stopped sending money to Anjana to sustain herself and when she approached Asif’s family, she was rejected and harassed by them. She had also alleged that Asif’s family had asked her to convert to Islam.
The woman had set herself ablaze near the UP assembly on Tuesday. Police personnel on duty at the vicinity had doused the fire and had admitted her in hospital.
Congress leader’s son arrested for provoking
Alok Prasad, the son of Congress veteran and former governor of Rajasthan Sukhdev Prasad was arrested yesterday by the Lucknow police for allegedly provoking the woman to set herself on fire. He was also resent in the vicinity where the incident happened.
Earlier in July, another Congress leader named Anoop Patel, along with an AIMIM leader Kadir Khan was arrested for provoking a mother-daughter duo to self-immolate in front of the Vidhan Sabha. Investigating the issue, police had stated that the women had met the Congress leader some days before and he had advised them to self-immolate, also promising to bring the media when they do it. Patel and the AIMIM leader were arrested for abetment of suicide.
On 14th October, Facebook and Twitter limited the spread of a New York Post report that allegedly exposed Joe Biden. Sohrab Ahmari, op-ed editor at New York Post has called it a ‘digital civil war’. In the report, NYP revealed that Hunter Biden introduced a businessman from Ukraine to Joe Biden while he was Vice President of the United States.
This is a Big Tech information coup. This is digital civil war.
I, an editor at The New York Post, one of the nation’s largest papers by circulation, can’t post one of our own stories that details corruption by a major-party presidential candidate, Biden. pic.twitter.com/BKNQmAG19H
Joe Biden has categorically denied having any knowledge of the business his son was doing in Ukraine and had stated that they never discussed his work in Ukraine while he was VP. However, an email reportedly sent on the 17th of April, 2015 by Vadym Pozharskyi, an adviser to the board of Burisma, to Hunter Biden says, “Dear Hunter, thank you for inviting me to DC and giving an opportunity to meet your father and spent [sic] some time together. It’s realty [sic] an honor and pleasure.”
It is pertinent to mention here that the email in April 2015 was sent a year after Hunter Biden was appointed to the Burisma Board at a salary reported to be $50,000 a month even though he had no prior experience in the energy sector. Another email sent in 2014 reportedly shows Pozharsky asking Hunter Biden for “advice on how you could use your influence” to further the company’s interests. It is widely believed Hunter Biden was paid the money for access to his father Vice-President Joe Biden.
What did New York Post report say?
In the report, the New York Post alleged that they have accessed material from a damaged Macbook that was brought to a service center for repair. The customer who brought the laptop never collected the laptop or paid for the services. The shop owner said he repeatedly tried to contact the client. Though he could not identify the owner as Hunter Biden, he said the laptop had Beau Biden Foundation’s sticker on it.
The report has several documents and mention of a video that proves that Joe Biden met a businessman from Ukraine when he was Vice President of the United States. A few days back, reports had suggested that there are chances that Biden had helped his son Hunter using his influence as the VP of the United States in his business in Ukraine. The Biden Camp has categorically denied all the allegations.
Censorship by Facebook
Within hours after the revealed was revealed by New York Post, Facebook spokesperson Andy Stone said in a tweet that Facebook would be reducing the distribution of the said post. He said, “While I will intentionally not link to the New York Post, I want be clear that this story is eligible to be fact-checked by Facebook’s third-party fact-checking partners.”
This is part of our standard process to reduce the spread of misinformation. We temporarily reduce distribution pending fact-checker review. https://t.co/vf3CBvLmjj
In another tweet, where he quoted Sheera Frenkel, a reporter from the New York Times, that it is a standard process that they follow with every questionable story. Some time back, Facebook had announced that they would be taking steps to ‘ensure’ that there are no fake reports or content that may affect the 2020 elections. It has been alleged that Facebook is using its policies to censor the content they disagree with.
Andy Stone is a long-time Democratic operative as evidenced by his bio on Twitter itself. He has a long history of working for the Democrats including Sen. Barbara Boxer of California and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
Censorship by Twitter
While Facebook restricted the spread of the post, but it is still allowing the users to post the story, Twitter had moved a step further and was not allowing the link to be posted on its platform at all. If someone tries to post the link, a message appears that says, “We can’t complete this request because this link has been identified by Twitter or our partners as being potentially harmful.” For those links that had already been posted on Twitter before it got censored, a message appears if someone clicks on them that says, “Link may be unsafe.”
Twitter has posted a thread explaining why it had blocked the URL. The images in the article contain personal information like email addresses and phone numbers that are against their policy. It also violated the Hacked Material Policy that was brought into force in 2018. It says, “Commentary on or discussion about hacked materials, such as articles that cover them but do not include or link to the materials themselves, aren’t a violation of this policy. Our policy only covers links to or images of hacked material themselves.” As the articles included the material, Twitter blocked it, as per their explanation.
We want to provide much needed clarity around the actions we’ve taken with respect to two NY Post articles that were first Tweeted this morning.
Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter, quoted the explanation thread and said, “Our communication around our actions on the @nypost article was not great. And blocking URL sharing via tweet or DM with zero context as to why we’re blocking: unacceptable.” Though Twitter has explained the action, their action has opened doors to severe criticism.
Our communication around our actions on the @nypost article was not great. And blocking URL sharing via tweet or DM with zero context as to why we’re blocking: unacceptable. https://t.co/v55vDVVlgt
On his Twitter account, President Donald Trump posted a link to a CNBC report on the issue and said that it is terrible that Facebook and Twitter decided to censor the report by New York Post. “It is only the beginning for them. There is nothing worse than a corrupt politician,” he added. Several other noted personalities have criticized Facebook and Twitter for the censorship.
So terrible that Facebook and Twitter took down the story of “Smoking Gun” emails related to Sleepy Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, in the @NYPost. It is only the beginning for them. There is nothing worse than a corrupt politician. REPEAL SECTION 230!!! https://t.co/g1RJFpIVUZ
Has anyone pointed out that the FB comms guy is admitting that they are censoring the Hunter Biden news story *BEFORE* it is fact checked by their hacks???
Business reporter at New York Post, Noah Manskar, said on Twitter that Twitter had locked the primary account of New York Post (@nypost) because the article had “hacked material” that violated Twitter’s policy. “Twitter says this was done because of the lack of authoritative reporting on where the materials in our Biden story originated,” he added.
Twitter says this was done because of the lack of authoritative reporting on where the materials in our Biden story originated. Per the story, the emails came off a copy of a hard drive obtained by Rudy Giuliani; original hard drive was left at a Delaware computer repair shop https://t.co/2SoCUJ7gkr
In a separate report commenting on the censorship of its Hunter report, NYP said, “Facebook and Twitter are not media platforms. They’re propaganda machines.” It stated, “An executive of one of the most powerful media platforms in the country, who brags about his years working as a partisan Democratic operative, publicly boasting of his attempt to keep Americans from learning something embarrassing about the Democratic presidential candidate. And then a major competitor rushes to completely suppress the same story.”
Notice issued to Facebook by United States Senator, Josh Hawley
Josh Hawley, US Senator from Missouri, has issued a notice to Mark Zuckerberg, CEO Facebook, to explain his company’s stand on the issue. The notice mentioned that an official spokesperson of Facebook has publicly said that Facebook will reduce the reach of the report. Zuckerberg has been asked to answer several questions, including if it is a standard practice of Facebook to reduce the distribution of a post before they have fact-checked it. The notice also raised the question of why Facebook publically acknowledged that they are going to fact-check a report.
The notice mentioned a report by NYP where it was alleged that the employees of Facebook had donated around $5 million to the Biden campaign. In comparison, only $239,000 have been donated to Trump’s campaign. It asked what steps Facebook took to ensure that the political preference of the employees at Facebook is not influencing the decision making process in such cases.
The investigation into the conspiracy to spread caste violence and riots in Hathras Case is revealing new details. As per a report in Jagran, upon interrogation with the four arrested PFI-link persons, it has been revealed that they were trying to create a violent, riots like situation in the area and were even in touch PFI members who are accused in Delhi Riots.
The four arrested persons are reportedly associated with the Campus Front of India, a sister organisation of PFI. The police investigation and statements of the four arrested persons have reportedly revealed that while coming to Hathras, they were in constant touch with PFI office-bearers in Delhi. Interestingly, the same PFI office bearers were arrested and interrogated for their involvement in the Delhi riots too.
Involvement of PFI’s Delhi Riots accused under investigation
The Jagran report states that the UP police, ED and CBI may also interrogate the PFI office-bearers in Delhi over their involvement in the Hathras riots conspiracy. On October 5, the Uttar Pradesh Police had arrested four people, Siddiqui of Nagla in Muzaffarnagar, Siddique of Malappuram, Masood Ahmed of Jarwal in Bahraich district, and Alam of Kotwali area in Rampur district in connection to the Hathras case. The accused were reportedly in touch with PFI’s state secretary in Delhi Mohammad Ilyas. Police sources have also revealed that Masood was provided money from a bank account that belongs to PFI. ED has submitted in court that they are trying to ascertain whether the funds were for instigating riots in Hathras.
The four persons have been booked under UAPA for planning and conspiring to create riots in Hathras.
It is notable here that PFI’s involvement in Delhi Riots in under scrutiny and Delhi Police’ special cell has invoked UAPA upon 15 of the 21 arrested individuals in the case. Several charge sheets have also been filed in the case. Though the 3 PFI office bearers, Danish Ali, Mohammad Ilyas and Parvez Ahmad secured bail within a few days of their arrest, the police is still looking for evidence against them. They are also accused of providing funds to arrested AAP leader Tahir Hussain for orchestrating riots in Delhi.
Kapil Sibal had approached SC for securing one accused’s release
Senior advocate and Congress leader Kapil Sibal had approached the Supreme Court for securing the release of Siddique Kappan, a PFI Kerala member and a journalist who was arrested by the UP Police in Hathras conspiracy. Sibal had moved a habeas corpus plea in the SC. The SC had adjourned the plea and had asked Sibal to approach the Allahabad High Court.
