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Tamil Nadu: Evangelist IAS officer caught trying to practise Christian ‘faith-healing’ inside govt hospital, police called

OpIndia Staff
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Tamil Nadu: Evangelist IAS officer caught trying to practise Christian ‘faith-healing’ inside govt hospital, police called

An IAS officer in Tamil Nadu named Umashankar, who has been in news for several times because of his evangelical activities at work, had to be rescued by police from the patient ward of the Rajiv Gandhi General Government Hospital in Chennai after the attendants of a patient showed a strong disagreement against his ‘faith healing’ activities.

As per the report of Daily Thanthi, The trouble started when Umashankar and his team went to Ward number 46 and tried to preach Christianity to some patients. The relative of a kidney patient was enraged by this and called in his associates who gathered there and objected to religious activities inside hospital wards. They called the police seeking action against the preaching IAS officer.

After the police intervention, Umashankar allegedly showed his government identity when a sub-inspector asked him why he is forcing the ‘faith-healing’ activities on patients despite their objection.

Reportedly, Umashankar said that it was to comfort the patient and ‘provide solace’. He also claimed that they had got the oral permission to reach out to patients. He said, “As we were comforting, there were a few who rejected it. There were some patients without attendants, whom we comforted. We prayed for them and offered biscuits. But on Sunday, a person created ruckus and called the police to arrest us. I intervened and asked under what provision action can be taken against us. Article 25 of the Constitution grants a fundamental right for a person to freely practice and propagate religion.”

However, hospital dean Dr. R Jayanthi said no kind of religious preaching was allowed inside the hospital and added they have sent circulars regarding this. Dr Jayanthi said, “No such permission was granted to anyone to conduct any religious preaching in the hospital premises.”

Umashankar was previously suspended as a poll observer in Madhya Pradesh after reports of his ‘faith-healing’ activities emerged. He was posed on electoral duty at the Sidhi constituency in the state. The State Election Commission had repeatedly warned him against conducting such activities but Umashankar was determined to do so.

In 2015, the Tamil Nadu government restricted him from preaching and propagating religion over concerns of communal tensions after he was reported to be participating in the ‘anti-homosexuality’ campaign run by ‘Tamil Nadu Christian Progressive Federation’, a quasi-socio-political fundamentalist outfit not much well known outside Kanyakumari district.

The bureaucrat also posts his religious preaching and faith healing videos on a Youtube channel known as DayofLord Jesus.

Watch: Former Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia joins BJP

OpIndia Staff
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Watch: Former Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia joins BJP

Two days after quitting Congress, former Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia has joined the BJP.

Scindia joined the BJP in presence of BJP national president JP Nadda.

Scindia had tendered his resignation from primary membership of the grand old party on 9th March, 2020 to interim Congress President Sonia Gandhi.

On Tuesday, Scindia had reached Prime Minister Modi’s residence along with Home Minister Amit Shah. Following that, he posted his resignation on Twitter. In an unprecedented move, a day after Scindia quit, Congress ‘expelled’ him for anti-party activities.

I am Hindu, and I can’t play victim

kabirpandit
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I am Hindu, and I can’t play victim

When the controversial AAP MLA Amanatullah Khan tweeted about Tahir Hussain being punished because he is Muslim, and that being Muslim is the biggest crime in India, he received more than 21 thousand likes. Amanatullah is not alone, these past few days the ‘Ganga Jamni Tehzeeb’ club members which include leftover (and irrelevant) socialites from the Congress Ecosystem, JNU Junkies, Rana Ayyub and her clones and some publications in India and abroad have been working overtime to express horror over lost Muslim lives. 

Yes the Delhi riots were horrible and innocent lives of both Muslims and Hindus were lost, it’s a tragedy we need to learn from because we must co-exist! The great puzzle however is how 20 crore Indian Muslims have the sole privilege to be certified as victims over all other Indian communities even when they face greater sufferings.

Myriad witness accounts and videos have emerged which point fingers at Tahir. Interestingly Tahir Hussain also circulated a video where he is pleading as a defenceless dove, the video was trashed as a poor green screen creation within minutes of its release, yet Amanatullah seems convinced that Tahir is an innocent lamb who is being victimised.

Read: Tahir Hussain is innocent: Radical Islamist outfit Jamat-e-Islami backs murder accused AAP leader, alleges he is being ‘framed’

That the victimhood card is a clever and a hugely successful ploy is not the point, it’s those millions of Hindus who have suffered for centuries yet never complained, never played victim, also needs some attention.

For now let’s leave aside the destruction of Hindu institutions, murder and mayhem during the 800 years of bloody invasions to look at some other stories from our recent past conveniently erased from our history books 

Just a 100 years ago thousands of Malayalee Hindus were raped, butchered and forcibly converted to Islam under what is sugar coated as the ‘patriotic’ Malabar rebellion against the British who had put a stop to the fantastic Khilafat  (Caliphate) Movement. In spite of leaders like Ambedkar saying “The blood-curdling atrocities committed by the Moplas in Malabar against the Hindus were indescribable”, Annie Bessant asking the Mahatma to go to Malabar and see the horror meted out on Hindus for himself. But since we don’t complain Gandhiji simply refused to believe his brothers could do any wrong. 

This may well have been the beginning of our peculiar behaviour where the Hindu’s ‘offered the other cheek’ instead.

Hindu genocide from Portuguese occupied Goa is one more case which no one ever talks about. Goan Hindus who refused to convert had to die or flee for their lives right up till Goa’s Independence in 1960, yet we simply have no sense of this misfortune. 

1947 saw the worst kind of human tragedy where lakhs suffered terrible loss of lives, property and more. Both sides of my family migrated from West Punjab now in Pakistan with no more than a shirt on their back. Growing up I only heard cheerful stories of life in Lahore, what I was never told was how they had to live in the Kingsway Camp (refugee camp) in Delhi for nearly 2 years before they found a decent house. None of my aunts and uncles ever discussed the hardships they had to face and never once expressed any hatred for Muslims!

All the Punjabi and Bengali Hindus who fled their beloved homeland to save their lives and honour in 1947, collected shattered pieces of their banished lives and worked through extreme suffering and hardships to prosperity. 

One would think India’s independence should’ve put a permanent stop to  all oppression against Hindus. The fact is  we continued to face tyranny in our home land right through the 20thcentury.

Most Indians have no clue of the Tamil Brahmin exodus in the 60s and 70s. They were so traumatised by the bigoted Periyarists, that they had to leave their homeland to cities like Mumbai and Delhi where they could live in peace. 

Has anyone ever heard them talk about it? TamBrams as they are affectionately called used the ‘Brahmastra’ (ultimate weapon), that of educating themselves to arrive at the board rooms of fortune 500 companies.

Little over 35 years ago the Sikhs in Delhi were butchered and five years later it was the turn of Kashmiri Pandits. Here again there are no instances of playing the perpetually wounded, anger yes, but no victimhood. Both the Sikhs in Delhi and the Pandits of the Valley had lost their businesses only to resurrect them through grit and hard work.

So what is this phenomena which keeps us from playing victim even after our Gurus were martyred, women raped, children killed and families forcibly converted? 

Read: Glorifying Aurangzeb and forgetting Guru Tegh Bahadur: The dangers of losing our identity

Is it our DNA, shaped over thousands of years of Karma, Dharma and Eternity of Life?

Is it the light of education which shows us the path in adversity? Or is it an overdose of Gandhi quotes?

Are we are too proud to acknowledge failure?, or maybe it is our curriculum which pushed us into a guilt zone or sorts?  

Or have the years of oppression have made us so thick skinned that anti-India and anti-Hindu tirades no longer make a difference. They did it then, they are doing it now, we will continue to survive. 

The Kashmiri Pandits in the North to Punjabi’s to Bengali’s in the East and Goans in the West to Tamil Brahmins & Malayalee’s in the South never shed a tear, they recreated, they reinvented, they soared even higher! May be this is why the Hindu civilization continues to live and thrive and we never have to  play the victim hood card game!

We will continue to believe in ‘Sarva Dharma Sambhava’ while they chuckle at our naïvete’

Faye D’Souza comes up with ‘Cheat Sheet for answering the WhatsApp uncle’s on CAA and NRC’, displays her ignorance

Shriya Gune
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Faye D’Souza comes up with ‘Cheat Sheet for answering the WhatsApp uncle’s on CAA and NRC’, displays her ignorance

Faye D’Souza, the very woke, liberal, intellectual journalist recently posted a video captioned ‘Cheat Sheet for answering the WhatsApp uncle’s on CAA and NRC’. Madam Faye is providing ready answers to her woke followers for the questions asked to them about CAA and NRC. Faye calls all those strongly supporting CAA and NRC as ‘WhatsApp uncles’.

So, here’s what I, one of Faye’s WhatsApp uncles, feel about this video.

Faye says that every citizen of this country has the right to protest against any law even after it is duly passed by the government. Looks like Faye madam does not know the basics of civics and constitution. In India, laws are not passed by the govt but the legislature which comprises of MPs not just from the ruling party but from all parties, across ideologies. Faye compares protesting against laws passed by our govt to protests against tyrannical laws passed by the British. Faye must have forgotten that the British were foreign Invaders. We did not elect them to make laws for us. The protests were to challenge their authority and not against the laws passed by them per se.

But today, we are in a free country governed under our own constitution and by our own people who we elect every five years. Telling people that they have a right to protest against laws passed is one thing and encouraging people to feel that their protests are like those during our freedom struggle is another thing. Faye and the likes of her are encouraging people to challenge the authority of our institutions by coming on the streets. Since Faye asked her followers to read the constituent assembly debates, I want Faye to once read those debates. She will find there these thoughts that Dr. Ambedkar had expressed, “We must…hold fast to constitutional methods of achieving our social and economic objectives. It means we must abandon the bloody methods of revolution. It means that we must abandon the method of civil disobedience, non-cooperation and satyagraha. When there was no way left for constitutional methods for achieving economic and social objectives, there was a great deal of justification for unconstitutional methods. But where constitutional methods are open, there can be no justification for these unconstitutional methods. These methods are nothing but the Grammar of Anarchy and the sooner they are abandoned, the better for us.” 

Faye further says that the argument that CAA doesn’t affect any Indian citizen is incorrect. Faye must know that the argument is that CAA does have nothing to do with the citizenship of any existing citizen. This argument came in response to fear-mongering carried out by liberals like Faye that Muslims in India will be thrown out because of CAA. Faye says that CAA is basing Indian citizenship on religion. This is absolutely wrong. CAA is an amendment to the Citizenship Act, 1955 which provides for various ways of acquiring Indian citizenship. CAA is not creating any new way for acquisition of citizenship. It is merely a provision facilitating the acquisition of citizenship by people belonging to persecuted minorities in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan who have entered India on or before 31 December 2014. It is not a provision creating religion-based citizenship for the future. It is simply giving relief to those who have suffered persecution of the ground of religion. That too because there was a history of partition based on religion and we had promised open doors to those who may want to come to this side of the border. So, CAA does not affect any Indian citizen, nor does it affect the secular fabric of the nation.

Faye further says that CAA is for persecuted minorities but the act nowhere talks about persecution not does it provide how the people will prove they are persecuted. Faye must not be aware that CAA like every other act has a statement of objects and reasons. This statement of objects and reasons talks about religious persecution of minorities in these 3 countries and also about the history of partition. Further, the persons for whom this act is made presumes the fact of persecution and does not ask these persons to prove the same. The presumption is based on statistics. Minority population has fallen tremendously in these countries and that is because of state-sponsored persecution.

What Faye says next is so riddled with ignorance and misinformation that it is actually funny. Faye finds no sense in selecting these 3 countries. She says Afghanistan does not share borders with India. She also says that we should’ve included people from Tibet and Tamilians from Shri Lanka in CAA. I wonder how such an intellectual fail to understand simple logic. Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh are 3 of the 7 countries that share land borders with India and have an official state religion. No other countries qualify for inclusion in this category that is made based on these criteria. Tibet is not a recognised country but a part of the Republic of China. Moreover, India has already provided to asylum to a large number of Tibetans escaping persecution in China, including the Dalai Lama.

Also, the benefit is given to people in these 3 countries on the ground of religious persecution. Sri Lankan Tamils do not qualify for inclusion on this ground. There has to intelligible differentia which Faye seems incapable of comprehending. She argues that CAA has left out the Jews, atheists, agnostics and in the very next statement claims that CAA is to single out Muslims. I hope Faye realises the contradiction. One more thing she needs to understand is that Muslims are the majority in these 3 countries and they cannot be included in CAA as its purpose it limited to giving relief to persecuted minorities. Faye claims that Afghanistan was never a part of United India. Not her fault, she must’ve missed classes where the history of Maurya and Gupta and other Indian dynasties were taught. She must not be knowing where Gandhari came from. Afghanistan was part of the Mughal empire also, a big surprise that she does not know this fact.

Faye asks why are people who are protesting against CAA being called Desh Ke Gaddar. Now I don’t know what else should those be called who wish for the prime Minister’s death and who talk of cutting off northeast from the rest of the country or who pelt stones at the police and burn buses and riot all over Delhi. Faye says that the govt is pushing through NPR and not clarifying anything as to NRC. She should also tell her followers that NPR is a regular exercise carried out in every 10 years. The govt is not clarifying on NRC because they have not yet drafted or decided the policy on NRC. If only these woke kids had the patience to wait till govt takes a decision and then ask as to what that decision is. In conclusion, Faye is seen preaching the importance of conversation to the govt. Looks like she was out when the Prime Minister and home minister sat through the sessions in both houses of parliament and answered all the question on CAA and NRC’.

Shaheen Bagh is not India. The govt has given answers to the people of India from the platforms and forums from where they are obliged to do so.

So, next time if Faye and her woke friends try to pass off lies, misinformation and anti-govt opinions as information and education, they must realise that WhatsApp uncles like me are watching and calling their lies out.

Delhi riots: AAP leader Tahir Hussain being investigated by ED over money laundering charges, PFI links under the scanner too

Jhankar Mohta
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Delhi riots: AAP leader Tahir Hussain being investigated by ED over money laundering charges, PFI links under the scanner too

The Enforcement Directorate has booked suspended Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) councillor Tahir Hussain, arrested for the brutal murder of IB sleuth Ankit Sharma, for inciting riots in the Delhi, and the Radical Islamist group Popular Front of India (PFI) and some others on charges of money laundering and alleged funding of the recent anti-Hindu riots in Delhi, officials said on Wednesday.

The central probe agency has also filed a criminal case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) against Tahir Hussain. His alleged links with the Popular Front of India (PFI) are also being investigated.

Similar charges have also been pressed against the Popular Front of India (PFI) which is already facing a separate PMLA probe. 

Moreover, the Delhi Police Crime Branch have arrested Irshad, Abid and Shahdab. All are residents of Mustafabad. They were allegedly with the suspended AAP Councilor Tahir Hussain on the day of violence (February 24) and are said to be very close to him.

Prior to this, the Delhi Police had apprehended Tarik Rizwi, Liaqat and Riyasat in connection with Delhi riots and had interrogated one for hiding murder accused Tahir Hussain.

The AAP leader Tahir Hussain is currently under police custody. Tahir Hussain had gone missing soon after the FIR was registered against him for his direct involvement in the murder of Ankit Sharma, on the complaint of Ankit’s family. The Delhi police had filed a case against the AAP leader under Section 302(a) for murder, in the Dayalpur police station of Delhi.

The role of Aam Aadmi Party leader Tahir Hussain in the brutal murder of Intelligence Bureau (IB) employee Ankit Sharma and also inciting riots in the Delhi has now been under scanner.

On February 29 (Saturday), the radical Islamist organisation, the Popular Front of India (PFI) came out in support of the AAP leader Tahir Hussain and claimed that he had been a victim of “vicious politics”. The PFI has squarely blamed the Centre for the violence in Delhi and also hit out at the Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for suspending Tahir Hussain.

Earlier, a report of UP State Intelligence has revealed the role of Bhim Army and PFI in orchestrating simultaneous violence in Aligarh and Delhi.

Delhi restaurant does not allow customers to enter because they were wearing Indian ethnic wear

OpIndia Staff
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Delhi restaurant does not allow customers to enter because they were wearing Indian ethnic wear

In a shocking incident, a restaurant in Delhi refused to allow its customers as they were wearing Indian ethnic wear. The incident allegedly occurred on Tuesday at a restaurant named ‘IVY – The Island Bar’ at the Vasant Kunj area in the national capital. A Twitter user by the name Sangeeta K Nag posted the video the microblogging site on Tuesday.

In the video, the hotel staff can be seen refusing entry to the lady and another person by citing rules that they do not allow people wearing Indian ethnic wear. “A restaurant in India allows ‘smart casuals’ but not Indian wear! Whatever happened to pride in being Indian? Take a stand!,” she tweeted.

Soon, netizens called out the restaurant’s behaviour for not letting a patron enter for wearing Indian wear.

Congress leader Sharmishtha Mukherjee called it the ‘colonial mindset’ of restaurant for not letting the customer in for wearing Indian clothes.

While many bars and restaurants across the globe have a dress code, disallowing customers because of Indian attire is something that is unheard of.

The Print publishes fake report claiming only ₹1,000 each allotted per year for 498 ‘stalled’ railway projects, Indian Railway rubbishes the claim

OpIndia Staff
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The Print publishes fake report claiming only ₹1,000 each allotted per year for 498 ‘stalled’ railway projects, Indian Railway rubbishes the claim

On March 9, The Print run by Shekhar Gupta published an article saying that Indian Railway has put as many as 498 projects under temporary freeze due to unavailability of funds. But this article, written by Srinand Jha, has turned out by another fake news published by the portal run by the president of Editors Guild.

The article said that while ₹6.75 lakh crore will be needed to complete the pending projects, govt has decided to allocate only ₹1000 per year as a token sum to keep those projects alive on paper, which comes to total ₹5 lakh per year. It says that there are many unviable projects in the list, but the govt is unable to abandon them due to political compulsions, and that’s why they are being kept active on paper. The Print claimed that the Modi government has failed in executing Railway projects, as it failed to review and prioritise them. They also say that the government has been “preoccupied with flashy schemes such as the Mumbai-Ahmedabad high speed rail”, and that is one of the reasons why other projects of Railways are not progressing.

Responding to the article on The Print, the Railway Ministry has issued an official statement debunking the statements made by it. The statement says that 498 Railway projects of 49,069 km length, costing Rs. 6.75 lakh crores are in different stages of planning/sanction/execution, out of which 8,979 km of railway tracks have been commissioned and ₹1.54 lakh crore has been incurred upto March 2019. The statement says that throw-forward of these projects in ₹5.21 lakh crore, and ₹36,614 crore was provided for those projects for the financial year 2019-2020, not ₹1000 per projects as claimed by The Print.

The projects include 188 new lines totalling 21,295 km, where ₹85,536 crore has been spent upto March 2019 and ₹14,848 crore was allocated for 2019-20. For 55 gauge conversion projects totalling 7,275 km, ₹19,640 crore has been spent and ₹3,465 crore was provided for current fiscal. For 255 track doubling projects of 20,500 km, expenditure of ₹48,352 crore has been made the 2019-20 budget allocation for the same was ₹18,301 crore.

The statement says that, to ensure faster development of Railway network and value for money (which is quite scarce and costly) a thorough review of all projects had been carried out by the Ministry of Railways. During the review, it was realised that, execution work on 99 projects of total length 8,810 km is held up for various reasons, viz. non-acquisition of land by State Government, forestry issues, no response of the State Government for sharing the cost of the project, non-adhering by the State Government to the already committed cost-sharing arrangement for cost-sharing projects, projects financially unviable, law and order problems etc. Since Railway resources were getting wasted without commensurate returns, hence, Railway had no option but to temporarily freeze such projects for further expenditure. Most of these projects are un-remunerative in nature as well.

Therefore, expenditure on 99 projects only have been temporarily kept in abeyance, not 500 projects as claimed in the article of Shri Srinand Jha.

Read: Congress lies about Budget 2020, claims Modi Govt has reduced funds for Indian Railways: Here are the facts

Based on a review of projects, funds were allocated in a rational manner. Hence, the money has been allotted to the projects which are in advance stage of completion, important New Line & National Projects, executable & Important Gauge Conversion projects and the projects which are important from the throughput enhancement considerations. Thus, the focused attention is given in fund allotment, rather than thinly spreading the resources, as no organisation in the world can have unlimited funds for execution of projects, the statement adds.

The statement also notes that the rate of commissioning of projects have vastly improved during the Narendra Modi government compared to Manmohan Singh government. 7386 km were commissioned during UPA-I and 7599 km during UPA-II govt, a total of 13124 km was commissioned during the first perm of Modi govt.

Some of the highlights of project commissioning during UPA and NDA govt are:

  • Commissioning of new line during 2014-19 was 3035 Km against 1727 Km during 2009-14, which is 76% more w.r.t. 2009-14.
  • Commissioning of Doubling during 2014-19 was 6096 Km (including 1000 km of DFC) against 1875 Km during 2009-14, which is 225% more w.r.t. 2009-14.
  • 2,519 km of doubling/3rd line/4th line (including 1000 km of DFC) has been commissioned during 2018-19, which is highest ever in the History of Railways.
  • Average commissioning per day has been 7.2 Km/day during 2014-19, in comparison to 4.1 Km per day from 2004-14, which is around 75% more w.r.t. 2004-14.
  • During 2018-19, 3596 Km New Line/Gauge conversion/Doubling (including DFC) has been commissioned at a pace of 9.85 Km/ day, which is highest ever progress.
  • During 2014-19, 111 complete projects were commissioned of 9,565 Km length costing around Rs.70,000 Cr.
  • During the last 5 years, 245 projects (53 New line, 26 Gauge Conversion & 166 Doubling) of 20,572 Km & costing around Rs. 2.5 Lakh Crore have been included in the budget.
  • Budget Outlay (without PPP) during 2014-19 was Rs. 1,30,131 Cr. against Rs. 57,635 Cr. during 2009-14, which is 126% more w.r.t. 2009-14.

The Budget outlay for 2019-20 was initially Rs. 30198 Cr., which subsequently increased to Rs. 38,803 Cr., which is 237% more than Average Annual outlay of 2009-14 (Rs. 11,527 Cr). 96% of Indian Railway traffic moves on around 51% route Km of network, which needs to be decongested by multi-tracking, so that, bottlenecks in the system can be removed for enhancing Safety, punctuality and ensuring faster & heavier movement of traffic. Therefore, as per the push given by PM Modi, for fast pace execution of projects, a new paradigm shift has taken place in the planning of projects, so that, available resources are utilized judiciously for optimum results.

Contrary to claim made by The Print that no review and prioritisation of projects have taken place, the statement informs that 58 Super Critical & 68 Critical projects have been identified for resource allocation and execution at a faster pace. Super critical projects are targeted for completion by December 2021 and Critical projects by March 2024. So far, 11 Super Critical Projects of around 451 Km length & costing around Rs. 4500 Cr. have been completed & commissioned, out of which, 9 Super Critical Projects (including 1 in North-East Region) of around 326 Km length & costing around Rs. 3500 Cr. have been completed & commissioned in current year. During 2019-20 so far, 25 projects of around 1168 Km length have been fully completed & commissioned. During 2019-20 itself, the section from Haldibari to International Border (Bangladesh) was commissioned in January 2020.

The Railway network also greatly expanded in the North East Region, which had seen minimal expansion after what was built by British govt before 2014. In the last 6 years, all Gauge conversion works in North East Region have been completed. Barak Valley in Assam, Manipur, Mizoram got connected to Broad Gauge network during this period. Capitals of three states, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh & Tripura, have been connected with main Indian Railway network and works are in progress on remaining five.

Read: Modi govt announces major Railways reforms to break a 150-year-old legacy: Railway Board restructured, cadres to be merged

The statement issued by the Indian Railways says that the completion of any Railway project depends on various factors like quick land acquisition by State Government, forest clearance by officials of forest department, tree cutting permission,  shifting of infringing utilities (both underground and overground), statutory clearances from various authorities, geological and topographical conditions of area, law and order situation in the area of project site, number of working months in a year for particular project site due to climatic considerations, encountering unforeseen conditions like earthquake, flooding, excessive rains, strikes of labour, orders of Hon’ble Courts, situation and conditions of working agencies/contractors etc.  All these factors vary from project to project and site to site and affect the completion time and cost of the project. 

Talking about plans for future, the statement says that Indian Railway has decided to complete 7 national projects in the 5 years, which are Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramula new line, Bhairabi-Sairang new line, Dimapur – Kohima new line, Jiribam-Imphal new line, Tetelyia-Bynihat new line, Bhanupali-Bilaspur-Beri new line and Sivok-Rangpo new line. Projects connecting India with Nepal & Bangladesh have been taken up & planned to be completed in the next five years.

Talking about specific held up projects mentioned in The Print article, the statement says that most of them are held up due to non-cooperation of state governments. Bargachia-Champadanga project, Sivok-Rangpo new line project, modifications in Champadanga-Tarakeshwar, Amta-Bagnan & Janghipara-Furfura Sharif sectors are held up due to non-acquisition of land by West Bengal govt. Ratlam-Dungarpur via Banswara is held up because Rajasthan govt is not honouring their commitment of providing land free of cost and sharing 50% construction cost of the project. Ankola-Hubli new line project is held up due to court cases, forestry and wildlife clearances etc. For Araria-Galgalia new line project, only 50% of the land has been handed over by the Bihar government.

Therefore, these projects are stalled not because of lack of funds as claimed by The Print, but they are stalled because of various issued which are beyond the control of Railways. Most of them are held up because of the inability of the state governments to acquire and hand over land, while others are stuck in courts.

Moreover, the claim that only ₹1000 per year has been allocated for 498 projects is an absolute lie, as explained in detail. Only 99 projects are held up due to various reasons, most of which are not under the control of Railways.

Shekhar Gupta’s ‘blow hot, blow cold’ approach. Read how ThePrint writes contradictory analysis on Scindia quitting Congress

OpIndia Staff
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Shekhar Gupta’s ‘blow hot, blow cold’ approach. Read how ThePrint writes contradictory analysis on Scindia quitting Congress

Former Union Minister and four-time MP Jyotiraditya Scindia’s decision to quit the Congress party has not only came as a shock to the party but also to its media ecosystem, which had failed to predict the political moves of the Scindia-scion.

The utter shock and panic was quite visible on Tuesday, as one of the party’s stalwarts who had a deep connection with the Lutyens system was now out of the Congress party, hitting another nail on party’s coffin.

Perplexed by the major political development, the ‘liberal-secular’ media ecosystem came up with various conspiracy theories to spin the political event to make sure the first family of the Congress party was kept away from any attack.

In a similar attempt, ThePrint – run by Shekhar Gupta, which has a history of shoddy reporting and peddling fake news, on Tuesday came up with two ‘reports’ to analyse Jyotiraditya Scindia’s decision to quit the Congress party. Interestingly, in an attempt to weave conspiracy theories, both of these reports contradicted themselves.

In a report titled “Inside story of how Rahul Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi forced Jyotiraditya Scindia to dump Congress” written by DK Singh, The Print initially claims that Jyotiraditya Scindia decision to quit from the Congress party comes after Mother-son duo of Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi considered the former Guna MP as a threat and attempted to sideline him following the electoral success of Congress party in the Madhya Pradesh.

ThePrint article claiming Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi forced Scindia to dump Congress

However, ThePrint soon contradicted itself writing another report by linking his exit from the party to a sustained campaign by the BJP contrast to what it had written early in the day blaming the Gandhis for Scindia to leave the party which he had served for 18 years.

Read: Two articles, one dangerous agenda: Shekhar Gupta led The Print furthers the ‘righteous Jihad’ narrative

In another report titled “BJP’s year-long game-plan in MP that led to Jyotiraditya Scindia’s Congress exit”, journalist Ruhi Tiwari claims how seeds were sown to make Scindia quit Congress and join BJP, as far back as 2013 when the Congress lost its third straight assembly election in Madhya Pradesh.

ThePrint also claims that it was BJP’s year-long plan to get Scindia to quit Congress

Further, she claimed that Scindia’s decision to quit the Congress, however, came due to impending Rajya Sabha polls that laid fertile ground for what the party had been trying to do for the last year. Interestingly, the second report contradicts the first as it pins the blame on Gandhis for Scindia’s exit while the first ‘scoop’ claimed that it was BJP’s gameplan to get Scindia to get him into their fold by making him quit the Congress party.

In one article, ThePrint says Scindia was exploring option of joining the BJP since last two months, in other, it claims the ‘plans’ were set in motion soon after the December 2018 state assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh. One article credits the BJP for playing the ‘masterstroke’ and getting Scindia to quit Congress while other suggests that Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi pushed him away.

Peak monkey-balancing.

ThePrint analysis on Scindia’s resignation

Nirbhaya rapist Mukesh’s lawyer trying to further defer the execution: Know the legality

Aastha Tiwari
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Nirbhaya rapist Mukesh’s lawyer trying to further defer the execution: Know the legality

In another preposterous attempt to save the rapists of Nirbhaya from the death penalty, Advocate ML Sharma, on March 6, 2020, claimed that his client Mukesh must be given a chance to restore his legal remedy (curative petition). He said the limitation period to file a curative petition was three years from the date of dismissal of the review plea and therefore he still has till 2021 to file the petition.

The concept of limitation is simple- you cannot be given forever to file a case, there should be an end to litigation. If you have a just cause, come to the court within a time frame. Don’t sleep over your right! Therefore, Schedule given under the Limitation Act provides for the time period within which filing of any suit/appeal/application is permissible. It is important because if there is no time frame within which the suit or application can be filed, the case will go on for ages. He is relying on Article 137 of schedule given under The Limitation Act which states that for any application for which no period of limitation is provided in the Act, the limitation of such application is three years from the date when the right to apply accrues (in this case dismissal of the review petition).

Therefore, Mukesh Singh through his lawyer is now asking the court to “restore” the rights available to him, and allow him to file curative and mercy petitions till July 2021 (after 3 years from 2018 when his review petition was rejected). What he, unfortunately, forgot to refer was the Handbook on Practice and Procedure and Office Procedure of the Supreme Court of India that explains in detail the procedure and requisites that shall be fulfilled for filing a curative petition.

Read: Lawyers of Nirbhaya’s rapists have been using the loopholes in the law to defeat the purpose of law. Read How

The handbook, apart from stating other important points related to the curative petition also specifically mentions that it shall not be governed by the provisions of The Limitations Act, 1963. Which means the law on which the defence lawyer is relying upon is not applicable in this particular case. The handbook, however, mentions that the same must be filed within a reasonable time from the date of the judgment. Now, it is a trite law that reasonableness is a ‘question of fact’, meaning thereby that it will depend upon the facts of the case to decide the time frame under which curative petition can be filed. In the present case, everything that had to be done has already been done. The saga has been going on since the last 8 years. The convicts were given chances time and again to prove their case. Court, just to make sure that their right of being heard is not violated, kept postponing the dates.

Sometimes the convict is not mentally fit, sometimes his lawyer is not available. Everyone knows that there is no legality in their claims. The defence lawyer is not only ‘creating’ the loopholes in the law, a law which is well established but also maligning the image of the amicus curie without any basis. He claims that Vrinda Grover “falsely” informed him that Mukesh had to file a curative petition within 7 days of the death warrant on January 7. This argument holds no water for two reasons, first being that, as per the order passed by the Delhi High court on Feb 5, 2020, all four convicts in the Nirbhaya gangrape-murder case have been directed to avail all their legal remedies within the next seven days. Second, is that all the petitions have been entertained and decided by the courts on merits. Filing the petition again on the same grounds is defeating the purpose of curative petition i.e. “to meet the ends of justice”. Unfortunately, the one who should be protecting the law is abusing it. As per a study, in 91% of delayed cases, it was lawyers who sought more time as compared to a much lower 36% in cases that were disposed of in time.

Having done the analysis of counsel-side and court-side delays, it concludes that 82% of all delays could be attributed to lawyers and not the judges per se. It is time that our Supreme court take strict actions against those who are deliberately trying to twist the law as per their own convenience.

Mamaji Returns? Main gaya hi kahan tha? Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s cryptic tweet amidst MP crisis

OpIndia Staff
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Mamaji Returns? Main gaya hi kahan tha? Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s cryptic tweet amidst MP crisis

Amidst the Madhya Pradesh government crisis, former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister and senior BJP leader Shivraj Singh Chouhan today took to Twitter to let everyone know he has been around all the time.

Early this morning, Chouhan wished his ‘brothers and sisters’ and ‘nieces and nephews’ a very good morning. Quoting the tweet, The Hindu journalist Nistula Hebbar said, ‘#MamajiReturns?’. Chouhan has earned the monicker ‘mamaji’ (maternal uncle) from his supporters in Madhya Pradesh.

To that, Chouhan replied, ‘Nistula ji, main gaya hi kahan tha? (Nistula ji, when did I even leave?)’.

On Monday, senior Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia tendered his resignation along with 20 other Madhya Pradesh Congress MLAs. This led the MP state government on the verge of collapse. The BJP has maintained that should the Congress government in MP fall and should BJP come to power, Chouhan will be the Chief Minister.

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