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‘Mentally unstable’ Kunal Kamra abuses and heckles Arnab Goswami on a flight to Lucknow: Here is what actually happened

Nupur J Sharma
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‘Mentally unstable’ Kunal Kamra abuses and heckles Arnab Goswami on a flight to Lucknow: Here is what actually happened

In what appears to be a massive security breach, ‘mentally unstable’ ‘comedian’ Kunal Kamra abused and heckled senior journalist Arnab Goswami on a flight from Mumbai to Lucknow. Kunal Kamra then took to Twitter to upload a partial video where he is seen heckling Arnab Goswami, who is trying to ignore Kamra behaving like a lunatic.


He also tweeted that he gave Arnab Goswami a ‘monologue’ about his journalism.


He ended the tweet with ‘F*ck Arnab’ and wrote that Arnab refused to answer him and called him mentally unstable.

In the video uploaded by Kamra he can be heard heckling Arnab and asking him about how he could discuss Rohit Vemula’s caste. He also tells Arnab that he should be answering him since he supports Rahul Gandhi and is a part of the ‘Tukde Tukde Gang’. The video ends with Kunal Kamra calling Arnab Goswami a ‘Nationalist’ as if trying to imply that being one is akin to abuse.

While Kamra is trying to paint this as some sort of crusade in favour of ‘journalism’ and a tribute to his hero Rohit Vemula (a student who tragically committed suicide and a trail of vultures fed off him for mileage), the truth is far from it.

After Kunal Kamra’s video was uploaded, a passenger who was also in the Indigo flight 6E-5317 from Mumbai to Lucknow got in touch with OpIndia. He told us that he wanted to stay anonymous since the conduct of Kunal Kamra had scared him and he didn’t want to meet the same fate of being abused by a mentally unstable man.

Read: Rohith’s suicide note: What the leftists don’t want to read

Speaking to OpIndia, the co-passenger said that Arnab Goswami was sitting on seat 1-B and was on a call. This happened right before the flight started taxying and getting ready for take-off.

While the aircraft was taxying, Kunal Kamra walked up to Arnab Goswami. While the air hostesses told him to take his seat, he started shouting and saying that he will not take his seat before he talks to “this man”, meaning Arnab Goswami. While standing there, Kumal Kamra started abusing and even threatening Arnab Goswami. He used abusive words like ‘b*stard’ and terms that are too explicit to mention. During his tirade, Kunal Kamra also told Arnab Goswami that he had ruined his life and because of him, he had to seek mental help for a month.

Saying that he was a part of the Tukde Tukde Gang, the abuses against Arnab Goswami did not stop till the air hostesses had to escort Kamra back to his seat so the flight, which was already delayed due to Kamra’s theatrics could take off. After take-off, the air hostess asked Arnab if he knew who the man abusing him was, and Arnab is reported to have responded in the negative, saying that he seems to be a ‘mentally disturbed’ individual.

After the flight took off, Kunal Kamra resurfaced only to abuse Arnab Goswami yet again. At this point of time, Arnab was watching a movie on his laptop and summarily ignored the rants by Kunal Kamra. Kunal had continued to abuse Arnab at this point of time, calling him names. Frustrated at not receiving a response from Arnab, he got aggressive and started shoving his hand at him at which point, our source from the flight said that Arnab merely politely told him to remove his hand from his personal space.

Read: Propagandist Kunal Kamra heckles Arnab Goswami on a flight, here is how he can be banned from flying

Seeing Kunal Kamra get increasingly abusive and aggressive, almost trying to hit Arnab Goswami, the flight crew intervened and told him to take his seat. The pilot of the flight even had to make an announcement that inside the aircraft, seats had to be taken and this behaviour was not allowed.

Arnab is said to have deboarded and left the airport immediately while Kunal kept yelling inanities and abuses. The passenger who spoke to OpIndia said, “If this was the USA, Kunal Kamra would be behind bars on charges of terrorism”.

While this only goes to show that Kunal Kamra is a mentally unstable individual, it also raises questions on the security arrangement of Indigo airlines. It is rather astonishing that a mentally unstable person could simply heckle a respected and senior journalist is a security breach that Indigo must answer for. At this point in time, Indigo has not issued any statement.

Interestingly, Kunal Kamra has himself admitted that he pretended to use to Lavatory while heckling and abusing Arnab thereby proving that he was doing this in a concerted manner. The DGCA had in 2017 said that they would be preparing a no-fly list to tackle unruly passengers.

The statement back then said:

“The revised CAR deals with unruly behaviour of passenger onboard aircrafts. Unruly behaviour of passengers at airport premises will be dealt with by relevant security agencies under applicable penal provisions. The revised CAR will be applicable for all Indian operators engaged in scheduled and non-scheduled air transport services, both domestic and international carriage of passengers. The CAR would also be applicable to foreign carriers subject to compliance of Tokyo Convention 1963. 

Also speaking on the occasion the Minister of State for Civil Aviation Shri Jayant Sinha said that the new rules have been promulgated after a lot of deliberation and consultation with all stakeholders. The focus has been on ensuring onboard safety while maintaining an element of balance and safeguarding the interest of passengers, cabin crew and the airlines. 

The revised CAR defines three categories of unruly behaviour – Level 1 refers to behaviour that is verbally unruly, and calls for debarment up to 3 months; Level 2 indicates physical unruliness and can lead to the passenger being debarred from flying for up to 6 months and Level 3 indicates life-threatening behaviour where the debarment would be for a minimum of 2 years. 

The complaint of unruly behaviour would need to be filed by the pilot-in-command. These complaints will be probed by an internal committee to be set up by the airline. The internal committee will have retired District & Sessions Judge as Chairman and representatives from a different scheduled airline, passengers’ association/consumer association/retired officer of Consumer Dispute Redressal Forum as Members. As per the CAR provisions, the internal committee will have to decide the matter within 30 days, and also specify the duration of ban on the unruly passenger. During the period of pendency of the enquiry, the concerned airline may impose a ban on the said passenger. For every subsequent offence, the ban will be twice the period of the previous ban”. 

It remains to be seen that as per the 2017 CAR rules, the pilot of the Indigo flight will file a complaint about Kunal Kamra disrupting the flight. In September 2017, the government of India through the Ministry of Civil Aviation unveiled rules to tackle on-board disruptive and unruly behaviour by passengers which could put them on No Fly List. As per the rule, if the pilot-in-command of the said Indigo flight files a complaint, he could fall under level 1 of unruly behaviour which could bar him for 3 months. Moreover, as per DGCA orders, airlines are required to report unruly behaviour by passengers within 12 hours.

Further, per the video that Kamra himself uploaded, Arnab seems to have displayed remarkable calm at the face of Kamra behaving like a lunatic and abusing him. It is, in fact, telling, that Kamra only videotaped a small part of his “monologue” against Arnab and was careful to not mouth off the abuses he was otherwise hurling at Arnab.

Billion dollars vs billion people: Why we should be scared of Soros and the global left

Abhishek Banerjee
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Billion dollars vs billion people: Why we should be scared of Soros and the global left

April 1992. The UK General Election is about to happen. The left wing Labour Party, buoyed by favorable opinion polls, is hoping to unseat the ruling Conservatives. The Labour Party is on a high, right until the moment they begin counting the votes. In a stunning outcome, it is actually the Conservatives who coast to a majority, winning 336 of the 651 Parliamentary seats. Labour is far behind, with just 271.

Fine. Time to shrug off and accept the verdict. The people have spoken. In a democracy, the people are supreme.

Or are they?

Across the Atlantic, a group of wealthy investors in New York were getting ready, amassing billions of dollars. They were going to bet big money that the British Pound would sink, a so called ‘short position.’ Then, in one fell swoop, on the morning of Sept 16, 1992, they increased their short position to $10 billion and started selling pounds in a sudden flood.

The Bank of England tried to fight back, raising interest rates from 10% to 12% within hours. Remember that the RBI and the market spend months discussing even a 0.25% rate change. And we’re talking about a 2% increase here decided between 9 AM in the morning and noon. Imagine the panic.

But the Bank of England was overwhelmed, left helpless. The British Pound collapsed. In a month or so, the wealthy investors made over a billion dollars in profit.

The leader of that pack of investors? This man.

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George Soros

The name? George Soros.

He has billions of dollars. Do you know how much 1 billion dollars is? One billion is one thousand million. That’s 1 followed by nine zeros.

What’s the biggest sum of money you have ever seen?

Do you have what it takes to defend our democracy? Our sovereignty?

The UK was left economically devastated after the September 1992. Elections happened in 1997. The Conservatives lost miserably and couldn’t win power until 2010.

This man is now coming for us.

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George Soros wants to fight nationalism in India

Think about what India’s left wing elite could do with a billion dollars. Every public intellectual, every think tank, every newspaper editorial could be influenced. Think of the people that NGOs would hand all this money to. Think of the level of outrage that could be sponsored by a billion dollars.

What is our response? How are we going to defend ourselves?

True, the loopholes that Soros used to sink the British economy in 1992 have mostly been closed today. A French court in 2002 convicted Soros of insider trading in a case related to the French Bank Societe Generale.

But this is not about one man. This is about the entire global left that has drawn a bullseye around India and Modi. The UK didn’t realize the loophole until they were sunk in 1992. Somebody could find something else that is still out there; somebody who wants to take down India.

The UK was an economic superpower in 1992. If it could happen to them, it could happen to us. Imagine if the Indian Rupee was destroyed. Our markets would tank, our economy would sink, import bills would soar, the price of everything would go up immediately. There would be starvation and food riots in the streets.

Read: “You are a liar Mr George Soros”: Savio Rodrigues hits out on billionaire who committed USD 1 billion to ‘fight nationalism’ in India

Do you think the global left would not do this to us if they got a chance?

Something very significant for India happened in 2019, that economic doomsayers won’t talk about. India ended the year as officially the fifth largest economy in the world, a comfortable $200 – $250 billion ahead of the France and the UK. Our road was rocky, but we’ve made it to the top 5 at last. The GDP of European countries  and Japan haven’t moved an inch since 2011. That’s a whole decade. Brazil and Russia have both fallen backwards, dropped out of contention. But India has made its way where nobody else has, except for China of course. Clearly, we did something right when nobody else could.

But with great power come great risks. As soon as we entered the league of the top 5, our politics became internationalized. Our politics isn’t just about India any more. Global forces are out to get us because we matter so damn much! The age of innocence had to end one day and it has.

The global left has announced its intentions very clearly. They have declared war on the people of India.

We can stop them. I don’t have a billion dollars. But I have something better. I have a billion Indians who will share my fate if this country goes down. And we have the civilizational memory of being invaded, subjugated and colonized by foreign powers.

Over there in the West, they say nationalism is a dirty word. Because their nationalism has always been about subjugating others.

My nationalism is about liberty. A one thousand year struggle for freedom.

The colonizer is back and he wants to get inside our heads. At the very moment when India is set to breathe free, the colonizer is back. Shall we let them take over again?

The Quint defends Sharjeel Imam’s ‘cut off Assam’ speech, claims he meant only a ‘Chakka Jam’, compares it to imaginary ‘blockade’ of 2008 during Amarnath land agitation

Jinit Jain
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The Quint defends Sharjeel Imam’s ‘cut off Assam’ speech, claims he meant only a ‘Chakka Jam’, compares it to imaginary ‘blockade’ of 2008 during Amarnath land agitation

The Quint’s journalist Aditya Menon, infamously known for passing off an image from Syria as from Kashmir has attempted to rationalise Shaheen Bagh mastermind Sharjeel Imam’s secessionist and violent remarks by equating them with the ISI propaganda of blockades imposed in Kashmir by Hindu organisations in 2008.


Last week, a video had emerged in which Sharjeel Imam could be seen instigating Muslims of the country to break India by cutting of North-east from the rest of the country. He said, “If 5 lakhs Muslims are organised then we can cut the North-east from rest of India. If we cannot do permanently, at least we can cut North-east from India for months. Our responsibility is to cut Assam from India then Govt will hear our voice. If we have to help the Assam then we will have to cut the Assam from rest of India.”

Shockingly, Imam continued his fear-mongering by claiming that Muslims are being killed in Bengal. “We need to block Assam including the movement of Armed Forces and the supplies. Chicken Neck belongs to Muslims,” he claimed.

Watering down Imam’s dangerously secessionist speech, Menon argued that the former JNU student had simply asked for a “chakka jam or a blockade of the highways and railways leading to Assam”. However, in his pursuit to defend Imam, Menon cunningly drew a parallel with the Amarnath agitation in 2008 when Hindu organisations had allegedly blocked Jammu-Srinagar highway. Menon stated that if that wasn’t considered sedition, then Imam’s call to block the roads and railways leading to Assam should not be considered separatist either.

“Blockade is a legitimate form of protest. In 2008, several Hindutva organisations had blocked the Jammu Srinagar highway during the 2008 Amarnath agitation, cutting Kashmir off from rest of the country. Did anyone accuse them of separatism? And here, Sharjeel is merely talking about a blockade. The blockade hasn’t even taken place,” Menon contended.

Read: From The Wire to everything else, the Anatomy of an Islamist: Into the mind of Sharjeel Imam, the mastermind of Shaheen Bagh

There are two facets of the sophistry employed by Menon here. The first one is concerning the distortion of Imam’s incendiary speech. Menon seems to have cleverly ignored the reference to “Chicken Neck” that was raised by Imam in his speech. Imam categorically stated that Chicken Neck, a narrow stretch of land of about 22 kilometres located in the Indian state of West Bengal, that connects India’s northeastern states to the rest of India, with the countries of Nepal and Bangladesh lying on either side of the corridor, ‘belongs to the Muslims’ and exhorted them to take hold of the area to cut-off Assam and the North-East from the rest of India.

Basically, the article exonerates Imam of all allegations and mentions that if at all he is guilty of anything, it is just ‘intellectual arrogance’. It adds that the only punishment for that is ‘debate and more debate’.

The second aspect is about the false equivalence Menon tries to invoke in order to legitimise Sharjeel’s subversive assertions. The Amarnath blockade, which Menon refers to, in order to justify Sharjeel’s inflammatory remarks, erupted on May 26, 2008, after the central government ordered the transfer of approximately 99 acres of forest land to the Shri Amarnathji Shrine Board(SASB) in the main Kashmir valley to set up temporary shelters and facilities for Hindu pilgrims.

The decision was fiercely opposed by Muslims dwellers in the Valley, with organisations such as JKLF spearheading the protests and which saw participation from separatist leaders such as leaders Shabir Ahmad Shah, Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Mirwaiz Omar Farooq, leaders of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC). Pressurised by Muslim protest, the government revoked the land transfer order.

This did not sit well with the Hindus who felt offended by the government’s back-pedalling. At least 35 Hindu organisations staged a protest along the Jammu Srinagar highway demanding restoration of land to Hindus. Hindu outfits such as Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad protested outside the Kashmir House in Delhi against the revocation order issued by the government.

However, Menon did not feel the need to apprise his readers about the background that led to the protests staged by Hindus. In fact, Menon went ahead to falsely claim that Hindus blocked Jammu-Srinagar highway, cutting off Kashmir from the rest of India. But, to Menon’s chagrin, this theory of “blockade of Kashmir” is patently false as the Government of India, the Army, the District Administration, SASB unequivocally repudiated the allegations of the blockade and called it a myth.

In fact, no Hindu groups had rejected India’s constitution or praised Jinnah either.

Denying any blockade, the BJP too denounced the theory of blockade as “a lie perpetuated by the ISI”, of which there was no compelling evidence, and asserted that the people of the Valley were being misled with false propaganda, abetting the nefarious designs of separatists.

If this was not enough, Menon, in his article in the Quint, goes a step forward to claim that the government, unnerved by the ongoing Shaheen Bagh protests, made a scapegoat out of Sharjeel Imam. Menon floated a ridiculously far-fetched conspiracy theory that Sharjeel Imam was demonised by the government as a traitor so that the Shaheen Bagh protests can be branded as ‘anti-national’.

With this, Menon not only attempted to absolve Sharjeel of any wrongdoing, but he also proceeded to validate the Shaheen Bagh protests, which have been under the scanner ever since the start. Much before the video of Shaheen Bagh protests mastermind Imam spewing secessionist venom went viral, there were several instances that conclusively established the communal and anti-national undertones of the protests. However, going by Menon’s dubious past record and the Quint’s propensity for shoddy journalism, one is not surprised at the chicanery displayed by him to undermine government action against the anti-nationals.

Shaheen Bagh’s ‘organic’ protests: Viral video shows protestor talking about following strict instructions from ‘uparwala’

OpIndia Staff
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Shaheen Bagh’s ‘organic’ protests: Viral video shows protestor talking about following strict instructions from ‘uparwala’

Exposing the ‘organic’ anti-CAA protests occurring in Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh, a video has emerged wherein a Muslim woman protesting at that place is seen arguing and agitating with a News 18 reporter and while she does so, she divulges that they are following orders from ‘uparwala’.


In the video shared by Twitter account Political Kida, it can be seen that while one woman protestor speaking to the News 18 anchor says that things are being managed somehow, another woman intervenes saying that they have been instructed strictly by ‘uparwalas‘ not to give out any details.

This generates a heated exchange of words between the reporter and the protestor. The anchor asks the Muslim protestor as to who has been instructing them: “Kyon hain upar?” (who is above you’ll?) asks the reporter, which irks the lady, who then starts shouting at the reporter, until she is taken away by fellow protestors.

Since the CAA was passed by the Parliament, the group of protesters mostly comprising of Mulsim women blocked a road in Kalindi Kunj area that connects Faridabad- New Delhi- Noida. This has led to traffic inconvenience, increasing travel time from 20 minutes to several hours.

In just a week, many incidents have surfaced which laid the secessionist agenda of the ultra-left wing protestors at Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh area exposed. It is now sufficiently clear that this protest like all other anti-CAA riots, is anything but ‘organic’. In fact, it is another typical left-wing organised blatant communal event where protestors are openly batting for secession from India.

Read- Sharjeel Imam, Shaheen Bagh mastermind and The Wire columnist, booked under UAPA for his ‘cut Assam from India’ statement

Yesterday it was reported how, through its investigations, the Enforcement Directorate has revealed that the Islamic radicals of Popular Front of India(PFI) are behind the funding of the violent anti-CAA protests across several parts of the country that ensued following the passage of the Citizenship Amendment Act by both the houses of the parliament in December 2019.

The explosive investigation reports claim that the PFI spent about 120 crores in a month to orchestrate the violent riots in the country, naming eminent lawyers Kapil Sibal, Indira Jaising and Dushyant Dave also as the beneficiaries of PFI’s funding.

Moreover, a video had surfaced on January 16, which claimed Shaheen Bagh protestors were being paid Rs 500-700 to ‘protest’ in shifts. The man in the video who appeared to be a shopkeeper, claimed that the protesting women were paid between ₹500 and ₹700 on a daily basis. He added that the protestors work in shifts so that the crowd looks huge at all times of the day.

Sharing the video, the BJP’s IT cell head Amit Malviya had alleged that the Congress ecosystem is behind these “sponsored” protests. Even though OpIndia could not verify the authenticity of the video, it certainly raises doubts about the credibility of the organized Shaheen Bagh protests.

Propagandist Kunal Kamra heckles Arnab Goswami on a flight, here is how he can be banned from flying

OpIndia Staff
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Propagandist Kunal Kamra heckles Arnab Goswami on a flight, here is how he can be banned from flying

Propagandist Kunal Kamra, while on his recent flight resorted to bullying and heckling a co-passenger only because he was Republic TV’s Editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami, one of the most hated figures of left-liberal cabal.


In the above video, one can see Kamra being annoyingly deranged while heckling to Arnab who continues to ignore him. The video was shot and uploaded by Kamra, perhaps to win accolades from his buddies who equally hate Goswami. He also kept saying how he was heckling Goswami ‘for Rohith’, the University of Hyderabad student who committed suicide in January 2016.


This unruly behaviour was also appreciated by Congress workers.


And Radio Mirchi RJ who had earlier tried to lead a mob at Delhi Police HQ in wake of Jamia riots.


However, his targeted harassment soon got called out by netizens who demanded action be taken against Kamra for his behaviour which is even against aviation rules.


Netizens even questioned Indigo for their lack of action against Kamra for this unruly behaviour.


In September 2017, the government of India through Ministry of Civil Aviation unveiled rules to tackle on-board disruptive and unruly behaviour by passengers which could put them on No Fly List. As per the rule, if the pilot-in-command of the said Indigo flight files a complaint, he could fall under level 1 of unruly behaviour which could bar him for 3 months.

Meanwhile, Kamra might want to read Rohith Vemula’s suicide note which he insisted Goswami read.

Inspired by Shaheen Bagh protests, women in Mumbai start sit-in dharna against CAA, NRC and NPR

OpIndia Staff
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Inspired by Shaheen Bagh protests, women in Mumbai start sit-in dharna against CAA, NRC and NPR

Emulating Shaheen Bagh protest, hundreds of women have been on a sit-in protest on a road in Nagpada area in South Mumbai since the January 26 night in opposition to the CAA-NPR-NRC.

Inspired by the trenchant anti-CAA sloganeering witnessed at the Shaheen Bagh protests, in Delhi, dozens of women in Mumbai sat on the road holding anti-CAA placards and raising slogans against it. Some of the placards held by the protesters read:- “We stand against CAA, NRC, NPR”, “They tried to divide us”, “Respect my existence or expect my resistance”. Slogans hailing Hindu-Muslim unity were also raised by the demonstrators.

Despite repeated requests made by senior officials of the Mumbai Police, the women protesters have refused to budge from vacating the road. Senior Nagpada police station inspector Shalini Sharma said that the protesters were not permitted to sit on the protest but despite the refusal, the protesters continued camping at the road.

Similar to Shaheen Bagh protests, an overwhelming number of women protesters staging a protest in Mumbai are Muslims. The protest has seen participation from women from Madanpura, Jhoola Maidan, Apripada, and Mumbai Central areas, which are predominantly Muslim dominated.

In the aftermath of the passage of the Citizenship Amendment Act, that grants citizenship to persecuted minorities from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh, scores of women launched a sit-in protest in Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh since December 15, 2019, against the legislation of the Citizenship law.

There have been numerous incidents when anti-India slogans and communally charged-up remarks were made at the Shaheen Bagh protests, with recently, the mastermind of the Shaheen Bagh protests, Sharjeel Imam, blatantly called out Muslims to cut-off Assam and the North East from the rest of India. Imam also enunciated that the protests at Shaheen Bagh had no secular undertones and they were patently Muslim in nature.

Complaint filed against former Bombay High Court judge B. G. Kolse Patil for defaming Veer Savarkar

Shriya Gune
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Complaint filed against former Bombay High Court judge B. G. Kolse Patil for defaming Veer Savarkar

The Pune Police have registered a complaint against former Bombay High Court judge B. G. Kolse Patil under section 500 of the Indian Penal Code for his derogatory and defamatory statements against Veer Savarkar.

A video of Kolse Patil speaking about Savarkar went viral on social media a few weeks ago. In the video, he had claimed that Veer Savarkar was convicted for rape in England. The retired judge claimed that Savarkar had confessed to the rape accusation, after which he was convicted. He also claimed that Veer Savarkar had always opposed the Indian freedom movement, and he said that Indians need not fight the British but the Muslims and Buddhists and Christians in our own country.

https://youtu.be/auTL88kg_5A

Justice Patil had added that Savarkar’s philosophy was to kill Muslims, Christians etc, and to slit the abdomen of pregnant women to get the fetuses out. Savarkar worked against the Bahujan Samaj, and he is praised only because he is Brahmin, how long can we tolerate this, he had asked. The retired judge also claimed that nobody gave the Veer title to Savarkar, and he took it himself.

B. G. Kolse Patil had made the video in support of Rahul Gandhi who had tried to criticise Savarkar earlier. In the video, Kolse Patil said that Rahul Gandhi need not apologise for any of his statements against Savarkar.

The video was widely spread on social media, with most social media users wrongly identifying B. G. Kolse Patil as the CJI. The video had caused widespread outrage on social media due to blatant lies spread against Veer Savarkar.

Read- Kolse Patil, Ex- Judge, ‘Hindu terror’ theory fan & Elgaar Parishad organizer accused of sexual harassment

Following the release of the video, an upright citizen and Vivek Vichar Manch karyakarta from Pune Bharat Amdapure reached out to the Pune Police. He complained against Kolse Patil’s controversial video under sections 120, 499, 500, 503 504, 505, 506 of the Indian Penal Code defamation and also under section 65 B of the IT Act. Following this, the Pune Police registered the complaint in the NC register.

Kolse Patil is infamous for making such defamatory statements against Veer Savarkar, RSS and the BJP. He had contested the 2019 Lok Sabha election from Aurangabad constituency on ticket of the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi. It will be interesting to see if the Mahavikas Aghadi govt in Maharashtra takes any further action against the former judge.

Was forced to have sex with another convict: Nirbhaya case convict Mukesh seeks review of rejection of mercy petition

OpIndia Staff
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Was forced to have sex with another convict: Nirbhaya case convict Mukesh seeks review of rejection of mercy petition

Desperate times call for desperate measures. Challenging the dismissal of his mercy petition by President Ram Nath Kovind on January 17, one of the convicts in Nirbhaya gang rape and murder case, Mukesh Singh has now claimed that he was raped in Tihar jail where he has been an inmate since 2013.

Filing a petition in Supreme court seeking judicial review of the rejection of his mercy petition by the President, Mukesh’s counsel Anjana Prakash Tuesday claimed that his client was allegedly raped inside Delhi’s Tihar jail. “Courts only sentenced me to death. Was I sentenced to be raped?” the senior lawyer asked the court on his behalf.

Mukesh’s lawyer claimed that his client was forced to have sexual relations with Akshay, another convict on death row for the heinous gang-rape of a 23-year-old medical student.

“I haven’t been able to sleep in 5 years. When I manage to sleep, I dream of death and beating,” the lawyer said on Mukesh Singh’s behalf, submitting to the three-judge bench led by Justice R Banumathi that he has been kept in solitary confinement against the norms. Rules state that a death row inmate will be shifted to solitary confinement after his or her mercy petition gets rejected.

In fact, Mukesh’s lawyer even went as far as to claim that Mukesh’s brother and co-accused in the crime, Ram Singh was murdered in his Tihar jail cell in 2013. For the uninitiated, Ram Singh was the fifth accused in the case at the time and was reportedly driving the bus during the crime on the night of December 8, 2012.

The bench of the Supreme Court has reserved its judgement on plea until tomorrow.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, while rebutting the arguments presented by Mukesh’s lawyer, told the court that allegations that the convict was sexually abused and ill-treated in jail cannot be ground for mercy.

“Even if I assume that there was ill-treatment, it is not a ground for such relief. It is not a luxury jurisdiction that though I’m guilty of this heinous crime since I was ill-treated, I should be given mercy”, Mehta said.  He also stated that further delay in execution will have a dehumanising effect.

Mukesh Singh had moved the mercy petition before the President after the apex court had dismissed his curative petition against his conviction and death sentence. The court had also dismissed the curative petition of another death row convict, Akshay Thakur.

Appearing for Singh, lawyer Anjana Prakash alleged procedural lapses in dealing with his mercy plea by President as he said that all facts were not placed before the President.

Countering these claims Tushar Mehta told the bench that all the records, exhibits and the judgment in the case were placed before the President.

The bench, also comprising justices Ashok Bhushan and A S Bopanna, while reserving its judgement expressed shocked. “How can you say that these facts were not placed before his excellency the President? How can you say that there was non-application of mind by the President,” the bench asked the convict’s lawyer.

The bench is hearing Singh’s plea against the dismissal of his mercy petition by President Ram Nath Kovind on January 17. He has sought an urgent hearing on his plea against the dismissal of the mercy plea.

The trial court has issued black warrants for the execution of all the four convicts – Mukesh, Pawan Gupta, Vinay Kumar Sharma and Akshay at 6 am on February 1.

No such thing as free lunch: Read how foreign ‘donations’ are a serious danger to our national security

M Nageswara Rao
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No such thing as free lunch: Read how foreign ‘donations’ are a serious danger to our national security

There is no such thing as free lunch. Charity, especially that of the foreign variety, comes with stated or hidden agenda. Large amount of funding for the so called non-profit or non-commercial sector in India is generated as overseas ‘donations’ by various organizations that are affiliated to foreign State and non-State actors. Here is a snapshot of the foreign donations received by entities registered under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA-NGOs and FCRA for short, respectively), over the last two decades.

FCRA amounts received over the years

The data makes it evident that notwithstanding the political colour of the Central Government and the best efforts of the present one which has a better record of FCRA enforcement, the quantum of FCRA funds has been on relentless rise.

A humongous amount of Rs. 2,08,096 Crores of foreign ‘donations’ has been pumped into the country, in the last two decades, by foreign sources through official open channels by remitting to FCRA-NGOs. This discussion does not factor in the amount of foreign funds that gets into the country through illegal routes or otherwise camouflaged as foreign investment. Since it is extremely difficult to collect such data, one can only hazard a guess about its volume, details and purposes.

A further analysis of the FCRA data indicates that as on 1st April, 2017 the total amount brought forward by the FCRA-NGOs as unspent money from past foreign ‘donations’ is a whopping Rs. 15,907 Crores, more than 50% of which is lying with about 2% of the FCRA-NGOs. Interestingly, foreign donors continue to remit fresh funds every year to the same small group of entities. Why do foreign ‘donors’ continue to pour in big bucks to the entities that are already sitting on a staggering pile of cash? Or, are the foreign ‘donors’ supplying money to their representatives or donees to build cash reserves for some future plans? Whatever it may be, the prognosis seems very ominous!

Read: FCRA: Here are the welcome changes in the annual returns form for foreign-funded NGOs by the MHA that deserve praise

As a nation we have failed to ask ourselves an elementary question: Why should foreigners ‘donate’ such humongous amounts to certain Indians, unless they have an agenda? If their motivation is purely philanthropy alone, then why are they not donating their funds for the needy and destitute of their own countries? Why this unrequited love for India and Indians to the exclusion of their own people?

Serious concerns have been expressed from many quarters about the role of foreign funds in creating extraordinary influence, both subtle as well as obvious, on the executive, legislative, judicial, political, religious and economic processes of our country, under various guises such as humanitarian, human rights, gender justice and social intervention. It is also a truism that foreign funds have been the prime mover for changing the religious demography, interference in our indigenous religious traditions and practices, creating hurdles in our socio-economic progress, creating and aggravating various fautlines and the consequent unrest, colonising our minds and subverting our national discourse to suit certain sinister purposes. I am not going into all those details here lest this piece becomes a long dissertation.

Read: Modi government has cancelled registration of 14,800 NGOs in last five years for FCRA violations

Those who claim to represent the so called ‘civil society’ of India are ironically least funded by that society but mostly by the foreign sources, which is a pointer to the fact that the so called issues they are espousing do not resonate and have popular connect with the civilisationally rooted common Indians. Therefore, no self-respecting sovereign country much less a civilisational nation with aspirations of super power, can afford such blatant meddling in its domestic affairs.

India is not a beggar nation that needs foreign charity. Charity presupposes an unequal relationship, for, the receiving hand is always below the giving hand. Being one of the biggest emerging economies, we are capable of internally generating the money required for philanthropic, relief and rehabilitation, religious and charitable purposes. The institutionalised CSR funding is one such prime example. Given that we have rightly been refusing foreign aid even during disasters, it is high time that we revisit our public and legislative policy towards foreign ‘donations’, a substantial part of which are suspected to be funding the fifth columns and breaking India programs.

Read: George Soros vows to fight PM Modi and Nationalists: Here are some Indian ‘intellectuals’ and NGOs connected to him

It is heartening to note that the present Central Government has been very sincere and proactive in enforcing the FCRA. Yet, it hardly has any impact on the quantum of remittances for the simple reason that the problem is FCRA itself. Therefore, no amount of tweaking of the law can mitigate the danger. Hence, the only way to save the country from this serious menace which is endangering its unity and integrity by causing civilisational osteoporosis, is by banning all sorts of foreign ‘donations’, whatever may be their purpose.
However, there should be an exception to this, namely: India has long recognized the valuable contribution of its diaspora who have civilisational and emotional connect with India. It is mutually beneficial for India and its diaspora to strengthen this civilisational umbilical connection. Hence, donations made by the overseas citizens of India in their individual capacity from their personal funds, and not acting as agents or conduits for others, that too for the limited purpose of preservation, study, promotion and propagation of ancient Indian texts and traditional Indian knowledge, may be allowed.

Finally, it goes without saying that any foreigner who is genuinely interested in philanthropy and wants to help India is always welcome to donate to the Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund.

(Note: The author is a senior IPS officer. Views are personal.)

After PM Modi, Superstar Rajinikanth to appear in Bear Grylls’ Man vs Wild, both arrive in Bandipur forest for shooting

OpIndia Staff
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After PM Modi, Superstar Rajinikanth to appear in Bear Grylls’ Man vs Wild, both arrive in Bandipur forest for shooting

Popular adventurer and TV presenter Bear Grylls will shoot a special episode of his show, Man vs Wild, with Superstar Rajinikanth. The episode will be shot in Karnataka’s Bandipur National Park, established in 1974 as a tiger reserve under Project Tiger.

As per reports, both Grylls and Rajnikanth have arrived at the Bandipur forest in Karnataka to begin the shoot.

As per reports, the shoot will go for three-four days on varied locations. The makers have taken permission from the Bandipur forest department to carry on for the shoot. The show is the first collaboration of Rajnikanth with Bear Grylls.

Last year, the famous TV show presenter and adventurer had shot a special episode of Man Vs Wild with PM Narendra Modi, exploring the Jim Corbett National Park, Uttarakhand. In one of the previous seasons, Barack Obama was also a part of the popular wildlife show.

Read: Spending time with PM Modi in nature showed me how beautiful and vibrant India really is: Man Vs Wild host Bear Grylls

The special episode featuring PM Modi, which had aired for the first time on 12 August 2019 had become the most-watched episode of the show. With over 3.6 billion impressions globally, it had also surpassed the Super Bowl 53 in social impressions.


“As global citizens, we have a responsibility to protect the environment, which is essential for economic growth and sustainable development. Young people are an essential part of that effort,” he writes. He added that he hopes to return to work on a more ambitious plan which could encourage scouting to the youth who could then help shape the future of the country.

He added that if the Man Vs Wild episode starring PM Modi is indeed the world’s most-watched show, then it only reinforces his belief that it is the youth in India that holds the key to India’s future.

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