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Hindustan Times journalist accuses the media outlet of transferring her after Capt. Amrinder Singh’s complaint

OpIndia Staff
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Hindustan Times journalist accuses the media outlet of transferring her after Capt. Amrinder Singh’s complaint

Sukhdeep Kaur, a journalist with Hindustan Times, has claimed that she was transferred to Delhi by the media outlet in the middle of her children’s academic session after Captain Amarinder Singh, Chief Minister of Punjab, complained to the chairperson of the company against her.


Kaur further claimed that her salary for the month of August was withheld after she refused to accept the transfer and her contract, which was due for renewal in September, hasn’t been renewed.


One of her reports from August speaks of an amendment to a bill that would have made the Punjab state government bear the tax liability for the perks enjoyed by Captain Amarinder Singh. The original bill passed by the Congress government earlier mandated that ministers in the state cabinet pay taxes on their own for the same.

While Hindustan Times is yet to issue a statement on the matter, it is a widely known fact that the nexus of Congress politicians and media houses run deep. While bigwigs in the media often accuse the BJP of undermining the media’s ability to report facts, Congress has long been known for gagging voices and using various tactics to create a compliant ecosystem.

If Western ‘liberals’ can whitewash 9/11, imagine what they did to our history

Abhishek Banerjee
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If Western ‘liberals’ can whitewash 9/11, imagine what they did to our history

This is from the New York freaking Times, the supposed newspaper of record. See? It is now the “airplanes” which took aim and brought down the World Trade Center. The Islamic jihadis who were piloting those planes no longer exist in liberal memory.

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Interestingly, the number of victims of the terrorist attack has also been reduced, from close to 3000 to 2000. That’s a 33 percent reduction, less than twenty years after the attack happened.

After much ridicule, the New York Times deleted the tweet and posted a new one, still failing to mention Islamists anywhere.

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3000 people were “lost”? You mean like in the Bermuda Triangle? Thankfully, they got around to using the term “terror attacks” somewhere in the tweet.

One can imagine the New York Times newsroom, the eggheads sitting around, racking their brains, trying to come up with a way to mention 9/11 without any reference to Islamism. Language is a funny thing.

It is a symptom of just how much power Islamism exerts over the free world today. From human rights to feminism, every cause in the free world has been made subservient to the demands of Islamism. In the case of India, the old Western prejudices about Hindus have been reinforced by Islamist hatred for pagans and idolaters.  If you are wondering how a hate filled Hinduphobe could have been embedded as NPR producer in Delhi, there’s your answer.

In just twenty years, the terrorist attacks of 9/11 have been reduced to a footnote in global liberal discourse. The event is mentioned in dodgy language that obscures as much as possible who were the villains behind it.

Instead, “Islamophobia” is all the rage now, even if much of it is imagined.

How much has 9/11 become a footnote? An elected US Congresswoman by the name of Ilhan Omar referred to it recently as “some people did something.” The entire American liberal complex stepped in to defend her words. Incidentally, Ilhan Omar was speaking at an event organized by the Council of American Islamic Relations (CAIR), which was an un-indicted co-conspirator in a case involving terror funding in Palestine.

Yeah, that much of a footnote. You can go ahead and click the Washington Post link about this matter, which makes excuses for CAIR by saying  that the un-indicted co-conspirator thing is “true fact” that “lacks context.” Yeah, “lacks context.” Imagine being on a plane, when the passenger beside you says they were connected to Al Qaeda, but in a way that “lacks context.”

Now think about this : if they can whitewash 9/11, what have these liberals done to the interpretation of our several thousand year old history?

Look no further from what they have done even to our recent history. The Godhra carnage of 2002 has been wiped out of public memory. Even when it is mentioned, it is always presented as a controversy about who actually did it. Despite the fact that the offenders have all been identified and their sentences confirmed by the High Court a very long time ago. The truth has been forgotten, the smears remain.

In fact, the smears and conspiracy theories about Godhra are gradually being turned into the universally accepted version of history.

This is what happens to recorded history from 2002.

For propagandists of this magnitude, how simple is it to distort history from 1000 or more years ago, history that has to be surmised by piecing together scraps of evidence that are hard to come by?

The most infamous of these would of course be the Aryan invasion Theory (AIT). Yes, the liberal historians of today, led by their Emeritus queen, claim they never believed in AIT, but in the migration theory. Technically, they are right. But they had a far more devious strategy on AIT : first, they observe a strategic silence on the issue, allowing the AIT (and the Hinduphobia that comes with it) to circulate freely in the public sphere. The second is even more clever : they use the word “migration” for everything, including the Islamic invasions of India. Thus, the difference between “migration” and “invasion” is rendered meaningless. Yes, it’s devious. We are not dealing with amateurs here, but with established professionals with impressive CVs built in the course of their propaganda careers.

So how do we get back our past?

The old system is now so flawed, so moth eaten and so bigoted that it needs to be discarded in its entirety. The solution is long and painstaking and will likely not yield immediate results. The propaganda edifice of modern liberalism was not built in a day: nor will it go away in a day. We have to start from the ground level, building a whole new group of institutions that will question everything, write thousands of new books and operate with highest standards of academic rigor. You can’t “change” the textbooks because they are beyond redemption. The solution is to write new ones. For this, we will require an entirely new generation of professional historians who start afresh, from the same place where colonial historians began over a hundred and fifty years ago. No easy quick fixes.

Indian history as it is told in the official version, has failed. It’s worthless and a lie. We have to reread and rewrite everything.

Pakistan minister admits international community trusts India on Kashmir, blames its ‘ruling elite’ for destroying country’s image

OpIndia Staff
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Pakistan minister admits international community trusts India on Kashmir, blames its ‘ruling elite’ for destroying country’s image

Coming as a major embarrassment to Imran Khan, Pakistan Interior Minister Brig. Ijaz Ahmed Shah admitted on record that Pakistan has failed to convince the international community. He is heard saying that people across the globe trust India, not Pakistan, on Kashmir.

Speaking on Wednesday on a Pakistani news channel, Shah also blamed Pakistan’s ‘ruling elite’ including PM Imran Khan for destroying the image of the country. He furthered that Pakistan should now do some soul searching.


“People do not believe us. In the international community. We say they (India) imposed curfew in Kashmir, they are not giving medicines to people, people are being beaten, there is no food for the people but nobody believes us. They trust India. The ruling elite has destroyed the country and its name. We lost it. People believe that we are not a responsible nation,” he said.

On being asked by the anchor whether Prime Minister Imran Khan, late Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, retired Pakistan Army general and former President Pervez Musharraf and others were a part of the ‘ruling elite’, Pakistan’s Interior minister said, “It is not a one person’s role. Everyone has played a role. Pakistan should now do a soul searching.”

Shah’s remarks came at the backdrop of their Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi’ remark in the recent UNHRC session in Geneva, where he claimed that India has transformed Jammu and Kashmir into the largest “caged prison on this planet” after the abrogation of Article 370 and that Human rights were being “trampled with impunity” in the region.

Notably, Qureshi is the same Pakistani Minister who in a grand Freudian slip at Geneva admitted that Kashmir is very much a part of India.

Pakistan as been spooked ever since India has gone ahead to revoke Article 370 from Jammu and Kashmir which gave a special status to the state and also bifurcated it into two UTs. It has been running pillar to post trying to internationalise the Kashmir issue but has failed every attempt. Parody nation Pakistan has been shunned globally for its stereotypical rhetorics over Kashmir but the perturbed country refuses to abstain.

Apart from knocking all International doors, indulging in spreading malicious news and misinformation through various social media platforms and trying and creating chaos by pushing terrorists into the Valley, Pakistan’s Prime Minister plans to organise a ‘Big Jalsa’ in PoK’s Muzaffarabad on Friday to register protest against India even though his ‘standing for Kashmir’ stunt failed spectacularly.

Meet Chaudhry Fawad Hussain, one of the most deranged men in parody country Pakistan

Shashank Bharadwaj
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Meet Chaudhry Fawad Hussain, one of the most deranged men in parody country Pakistan

Pakistan, the cradle of Islamic terrorism, apart from representing the evil forces has also given the most deranged individuals to the world. One among them is Fawad Ahmed Chaudhry, also known as Chaudhry Fawad Hussain, the current heartthrob of Pakistan and Indian liberals, known for his Twitter antics and fake propaganda.

Chaudhry is now being humiliated by his own tweets as social media users have started digging out his old tweets.


He doesn’t really hold the Madarsas in high regard.


As someone who believes Pakistan produces best suicide bombers (the tweet where he said this is now deleted), he doesn’t really like the places which according to him produce them!


As it can be seen, he fondly refers to Madarsas as ‘suicide bomber making factories’.


Perhaps he’s just juvenile who posts WhatsApp forwarded messages without understanding what exactly they mean (which could be attributed to his low IQ), Hussain also has a little problematic views on marriage and relationships.


Because one hopes he means it when he says he opposes child marriage.


However, in the same breath, he is also oblivious of the fact that there are gay men in Pakistan.


But then when he has free time, he likes to trend hashtags on Twitter (we’re not sure if it was his way of earning extra income by doing paid tweets as an influencer).


The current minister of science and technology of Pakistan’s biggest fear if ‘Taliban’ comes (perhaps to power in Pakistan) is not of terror but of using khachhar (mule) as mode of transport.

From getting verbally thrashed by journalist Arnab Goswami to performing the role of parody country Pakistan’s Science and Technology Minister, Fawad has come a long way. Fawad Chaudhary’s display of deranged behaviour on the internet has made quite a sensation, to put it mildly. He is trending across social media platforms providing free and quality entertainment to users.

He became a laughing stock across the media after he was trapped by Indian social media activists following the revocation of the special status provisions of Jammu and Kashmir. It all started when Fawad Hussain in a show of his foolishness, had issued an appeal to Punjabis in India to refuse to serve the Indian Army in Kashmir after India revoked Article 370.

Soon, Chaudhary fell prey to the Indian right-wing meme team on Twitter, making himself a clown on social media. The Federal Minister for Science & Technology in Pakistan, Fawad Hussain was made to look like a fool after Pokershash, a popular account on Twitter had sent a direct message to Hussain where he had sent images of Bollywood actors to claim that they were RAW agents posted in Pakistan.

The humiliation inflicted upon to Fawad Chaudhary is not just limited to Indian social media users. In fact, the amount of respect that he receives in his own country is much less than he gets in social media. During a debate in Pakistan’s National Assembly, a Pakistan senator had likened Minister Fawad Chaudhry to a pet dog by calling him ‘dabbu’.

Fawad Chaudhary has time and again displayed that his IQ level is beyond redemption as for more than once now he has turned out to be the favourite bunny of Indian social media activists.

The dull-witted Fawad Hussain recently took to Twitter to tell the world that ‘informed sports commentators’ have told him that India had threatened Sri Lankan players that they will be ousted from Indian Premier League (IPL) if they don’t cancel their Pakistan tour. His tweets comes after Sri Lankan cricket players had decided to pull out of Pakistan tour following a security scare.

Except, Fawad Chaudhry’s tweet came hours after a prankster had sent him the very same message to him on WhatsApp that the decision by Sri Lanka was taken after the IPL authorities threatened Sri Lankan players that they would be thrown out of IPL if they go to Pakistan.

There seems to be no end to the lunacies of Pakistan and its citizens. Parody country Pakistan is an embarrassment in itself. After Indian government abrogated Article 370 which gave Jammu & Kashmir a separate status, Pakistani leaders are busy outdoing each other in proving who is a bigger idiot.

Muslim man becomes Hindu to marry a girl, becomes Muslim again after marriage, SC asks him to file affidavit

OpIndia Staff
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Muslim man becomes Hindu to marry a girl, becomes Muslim again after marriage, SC asks him to file affidavit

The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked a Muslim man, who had converted to Hinduism to marry a Hindu woman, to prove that his conversion was genuine. The court asked him to file an affidavit stating the same after the woman’s father moved the court alleging that the man’s conversion to Hinduism was a shame using forged documents and he had reverted to Islam soon after the marriage.

The incident is from Chhattisgarh where the Muslim man had married a Hindu girl in February last year after allegedly converting to Hinduism. Soon after the marriage, the father had lodged a complaint with the Supreme Court saying that the conversion was fake, and the girl had also expressed her willingness to go back to her parents. Accordingly, the court had passed an order and the girl went to her parental home.

But the man had filed a complaint with the police, and the police took the girl away and put in Sakhi centre. Later in High Court, the girl made a statement wiling to live with the man. When the High Court allowed her to live with her husband, her father approached the Supreme Court. The father said that the girl is not in a fit medical condition, and she is on medication for a long time because of depression and suicidal tendencies.

Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for the father, said that the conversion was sham as the man had reverted to Islam after the marriage, and said that the court should examine the issue as there is a racket in the name of inter-religious marriages.

But the bench of Justices Arun Mishra and M R Shah suggested that the religion of the man does not matter as long as his wife does not suffer. They said the court is for inter-faith and inter-caste marriages, and not against such kind of living together. The court said there is nothing wrong in inter-religious or inter-caste marriages but the interest of girls must be protected.

Emphasising that the must be a loyal husband a great lover, the court explained that they asked the man to prove his good intentions by filing an affidavit, to secure the future and safety of the girl. ‘We want to know whether he has converted for marriage or otherwise, has he changed his name? Has he taken all legal steps to change the name?’ the court asked in its oral order.

The man’s counsel senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi said that the court can’t intervene the choice of a woman to decide with whom she wants to live her life with. He said that the court can summon the girl to know ger response.

Senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, representing the girl, submitted that she wanted live with her husband.

Hearing all the arguments, the Supreme Court asked the man to submit his affidavit. The court also allowed the intervention application of the girl. The court also sought reply from the state government on the issue.

Faulty Factchecker shuts down hate crime database possibly due to lack of funds: Consequences of a new political order?

K Bhattacharjee
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Faulty Factchecker shuts down hate crime database possibly due to lack of funds: Consequences of a new political order?

IndiaSpend’s faulty FactChecker.in, which has a track record of manipulating facts to suit their preconceived agenda, has finally decided to pull down the ‘Hate Crime Watch’ (HCW) after being exposed several times for Hinduphobia and bias. In a series of tweets, factchecker.in announced that HCW was moving to a ‘new home’.

Newslaundry reported that the digital portal was suffering a financial crunch lately. The departure of a ‘key member’ contributed to the outcome as well. The media outlet mentioned unnamed sources saying that the digital portal was facing pressure from its entities. If this is indeed true, we can only speculate what the reasons behind the ‘pressure’ were.

The most obvious, of course, is that the investors were horrified with how their money was being used. Perhaps they felt pangs of guilt troubling their conscience as they saw the manner in which the database they funded was dividing within the country. Or maybe they realized the agenda that was being peddled was simply indefensible. Leftists will, no doubt, argue that it is further evidence of the ‘Undeclared Emergency’ that has gripped the country. The actual truth could very well be that the investors got sick of the agenda that was being peddled with their money and therefore, they asked them to pack their bags.

Factchecker.in’s biases and Hinduphobia isn’t really a secret. The database was tailormade to paint Hindus as villains and all Muslims as victims of the oppressive ‘Hindu Fascism’. We, at OpIndia.com, have reported on it extensively. A great deal of credit must go to Swati Goel Sharma of Swarajya Mag who has worked relentlessly to expose the database’s nefarious agenda. The Left might blame ‘Hindu Fascism’ again for the shutting down of HCW. But in truth, its rabid propaganda is much more likely to be the reason.

It’s been a good couple of days for Hindus on social media. First, a bigoted Hinduphobic journalist at National Public Radio was forced to resign after she suggested on Twitter that Indians would do well to quit Hinduism as it would help them in getting away from ‘piss drinking’ and ‘dung worshipping’. Her usage of the Pulwama terrorist’s rhetoric sparked a huge outrage on social media following she submitted her resignation at NPR. And now, the Hinduphobic database has been pulled down.

Unfortunately, people who use the same language as the NPR journalist and worse in India for the Hindu community continue to be regarded as ‘esteemed journalists’ and ‘intellectuals’ in India. It appears Western liberals have a slight bit more integrity than their Indian counterparts and that’s saying something.

Recent events also demonstrate the cultural change that is underway in the country with the reelection of Narendra Modi as Prime Minister. It appears Hinduphobic entities have realized that it’s no longer feasible to continue with their hateful rhetoric. One can only hope that people are experiencing a genuine change of heart. However, it’s far more likely that they are trying their best to survive in an apparently hostile political climate.

Radio Holocaust: Here is how NPR normalises genocidal Hinduphobia

Vamsee K Juluri
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Radio Holocaust: Here is how NPR normalises genocidal Hinduphobia

There has been tremendous pain and fear among Hindu listeners of National Public Radio over an incredibly insensitive, intolerant, and hateful tweet from an NPR producer (and coauthor of several recent NPR articles on India), Furkan Khan.

Now deleted tweet by Furhan Khan

This producer has since apologized, and NPR has shared with concerned Hindu organizations that she has also resigned from NPR.

NPR’s apology
This man called his victims “impure polytheistic cow-piss drinkers” in this video before blowing them up earlier this year. “Cow-piss” and “Cow-dung” are now common racist smears hurled at Hindus by mass killers and professors and journalists alike.
India’s most famous journalists, Indian-origin (and of late self-identified “Hindu”) professors in Europe, Cops, celebrities, all normalizing the same slurs about Hinduism as cow-dung and cow-piss worship that NPR’s journalist and JeM’s suicide bomber promoted.

However, it is not just the particlular employee that seems to have a twisted view of India, Hinduism and the workings of Islamic terrorism.

A Fanonian “White Woman and the Man of Color” Moment in which Lauren infantilizes people who would, had they been born in other skin colors, perhaps be called “Gymnasts” or “Yogis” and not “pole-dancers” in “underpants.”
“Blaming the victim.” A classic racist trope as described by Ella Shohat and Robert Stam. Kashmiri Hindus, the victims of a violent religious pogrom, are described as somehow being “weaponized”

A group of Hindus have started a change.org petition to appeal to NPR to review the Hinduphobic stand taken in its coverage and a more ethical and balanced approach towards reporting on Hinduism and Hindus.

(This article was originally published on Meduim.com and has been reproduced here with the author’s permission)

Kathua: Three terrorists carrying arms and ammunition in truck arrested, six AK-47 rifles recovered

OpIndia Staff
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Kathua: Three terrorists carrying arms and ammunition in truck arrested, six AK-47 rifles recovered

According to SSP Kathua, a truck carrying arms and ammunition has been recovered in the Jammu and Kashmir region. As per initial reports, three terrorists have been arrested and six AK-47 rifles along with Rs 4.5 lakh cash have been recovered from them.

The arms and ammunition were recovered during routine checking at Lakhanpur border in Kathua. It is reported that the weapons were being brought to Srinagar from Amritsar in Punjab. The truck was having Srinagar number plate.

Following the abrogation of Article 370 which gave special status to Jammu & Kashmir, Pakistan has time and again threatened India with ‘attacks’. There has also been an increased threat of terror attacks initiated by Pakistan supported by the Pakistan’s spy agency, ISI.

Earlier today we had reported how the Indian security agencies have recently cracked some code words being used by the Pakistani Army and terrorist groups along the other side of LoC to communicate with terrorists active inside Jammu and Kashmir. As per reports, the coded messages are being sent through FM stations installed along the LoC in PoK.

There had also been a sudden surge in the instances of ceasefire violation by Pakistan along the LoC at different sectors. A report by the Indian Army has mentioned that since August 5, there had been over 300 instances of ceasefire violation by Pakistan.

Many attempts by Pakistan’s BAT forces and terrorist groups to push infiltrators have also been thwarted by Indian forces.

Mumbai Metro: Trees can and should be replaced, but what happens to the cost of stalled infrastructure projects?

Anagha Paranjape-Purohit
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Mumbai Metro: Trees can and should be replaced, but what happens to the cost of stalled infrastructure projects?

Lately, it seems like if you have to create a strong enough opposition against a public project, all you have to do is sprinkle a few snippets of information about how the project damages the environment and voila, you have a perfect recipe for a stalled Infrastructure Project.

Cutting a tree has gained such an emotional repulse that just the thought of it sends ripples down the power corridor, threatening to unseat governments. Plus, the cutting of a tree is made out to be such a villainous act that anyone expressing the idea of cutting a tree has become the villain of the century. While protecting trees and forests is a noble thing to do, this one-sided argument while ignoring other aspects of the environment are more dangerous to the environment and to the overall approach of sustainable development.

In the world’s effort to combat climate change, efficient public transport systems that reduce air pollution is a much more valuable environmental service than trees. In fact, trees can be transplanted, compensated and more trees can be planted to combat the negative impacts of forest conversion. Most European countries have showcased that this can be done after the necessary infrastructure is established for the people.

What has triggered my article today is a series of Tweets published by Mumbai Metro, and arguments by Ashwini Bhide, a dynamic woman of the IAS cadre, who leads the Mumbai Metro team very smartly and ably.

Public infrastructure projects have a life cycle that’s long and complex. It’s exceptionally long in India mainly because of the democratic inefficiencies, amongst other things. So, we in India, anyways, sit on a public project far too long. Its either the approvals or the budgets, but we are already late when it comes to building public infrastructure projects. So more often than not, you will have experienced that a new project rarely brings with it the newness – it gets filled up by people the moment it’s built. The reason is that we end up building a project that was planned for 20 years ago but gets executed today when the reality has already exceeded all the projections.

In the past years, what differentiates the BJP government from Congress regimes before is that they have picked up speed when it comes to approving and executing public infrastructure projects. Whether it’s PM Narendra Modi in the Centre or CM Devendra Fadnavis in Maharashtra, the focus is on ensuring long-pending projects are given timely approvals, hurdles are removed and projects get off the ground. Even in doing so, most projects are already late, but at least the governments are fast-tracking the process to ensure that whatever benefits these projects have envisaged for the public will come as fast as possible, hopefully within a tangible span of 3-5 years.

So when most of these public infrastructure projects were actually languishing in the files on Babu’s desks, they caught no attention. The plans were there, the designs were the same. So technically, any objections to the design, alignment, location of sheds could have come earlier when the project life cycle could have accepted changes. This is similar to our vacation plans. So many destinations are feasible when we are planning a vacation, but very few modifications can be made once we take the first flight out.

Today, Metro projects are just like this. Decisions have happened long ago. People have taken objections,  governments and experts have worked on alternatives, presented them in Courts, wherever applicable, made changes wherever possible. Finally, the day has dawned where the project now demands execution and completion. Most public infrastructure life cycles will be similar to the Metro.

As citizens, it’s important to understand this life cycle. Any interference and demands to change the core approach or core design or core alignment of a public infrastructure project is akin to starting a project anew. This will not only put the project on a freeze, but the government and all of us stand to lose huge public money and public benefits of that project, probably forever. Inordinate delays are worse on the environment than the actual impacts of the project on the environment. The actual impacts will see mitigation and management during the course of project implementation. While, when a project is delayed everyone loses interest in the project, while environmental impacts continue to occur due to negligence and apathy. At the same time, the public loses out on the benefits of the project completely, although we have spent money on it.

Citizens have to mature themselves and understand that opposition to public infrastructure projects achieves only one objective – that of delaying project benefits while continuing environmental degradation of environmental resources somewhere else. In case of public transport projects, while trying to save trees, we may end up polluting the air due to private vehicular traffic on the city’s roads.

Below are some salient points from Mumbai Metro which shows the organisation’s passion and commitment to meet project deadlines, provide a better and efficient mobility system to Mumbai, arrest air pollution that is currently caused by private vehicles on the roads. We should be celebrating the Mumbai Metro’s and Ashwini Bhide’s commitment to the city and its infrastructure.

Mumbai Metro is a Green Mobility Project. It will offer a solution to get private vehicles off the roads, reduce congestion, reduce fossil fuels consumption and improve air quality in the city.

Alternative sites for the Metro shed were considered, like Backbay, Dharavi, MPT, Sariput Nagar etc, but these sites we neither at the end of alignment and they have many other technical and environmental issues.

Kanjurmarg land is not available, nor is it feasible.

If the Metro shed doesn’t happen on time, the entire project will be stalled, delayed. Currently invested Rs 11,000 cr will go waste.

Concretisation of land will not lead to flooding if the runoffs are dealt with properly and diverted to the storm waste system, either for recharge or as surface discharge.

Let’s compensate for the trees that need to be cut. As active citizens, help Mumbai Metro plant more trees.

Let not our single-minded approach to environmental conservation become the Death of Important Public Infrastructure projects in India.

Aviation scam: Deepak Talwar’s close aide Yasmin Kapoor arrested in 2017 FCRA violation case

OpIndia Staff
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Aviation scam: Deepak Talwar’s close aide Yasmin Kapoor arrested in 2017 FCRA violation case

The CBI last night arrested Yasmin Kapoor, a close aide of lobbyist Deepak Talwar in the FCRA (Foreign Contribution Regulation Act) violation case. The CBI had registered a case on November 16, 2017 on complaint from the Ministry of Home Affairs against Delhi-based private firms Advantage India, Accordis Healthcare Private Limited, Deepak Talwar, Sunil Khandelwal and Raman Kapoor and other unknown people over allegations of FCRA violations.

The CBI is investigating allegations of criminal conspiracy, forgery, making false statement before authority, use of forged documents and attempt to cheat by the accused. As per reports, Yasmin Kapoor, a close aide of Deepak Talwar, along with three others were taken into custody last night and will be produced before a special CBI court later today. CBI suspects that Kapoor played an active role in diverting funds received by Talwar’s NGO Advantage India. She was also allegedly involved in day-to-day working of companies related to Talwar.

The CBI had arrested Talwar in July this year and he has been in judicial custody since. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) had earlier found dubious deposits alleged to be the kickbacks paid by the international airlines into several accounts of extradited Congress era lobbyist Deepak Talwar. The ED had discovered Rs 270 crores deposited in Bank of Singapore by international airlines and another Rs 88 crore received in his NGO to influence some top ministers and bureaucrats in the previous UPA regime.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has also alleged that the ‘corporate lobbyist’, Deepak Talwar, who was involved in several aviation deals during the UPA regime, acted as a middleman in negotiations to favour foreign private airlines causing the loss to national carrier Air India. According to ED, Talwar received a huge amount of money in his bank accounts deposited by various airlines for allegedly compromising lucrative routes and flying destinations of India’s national carrier Air India and thus immensely benefitting foreign airlines.

The preliminary investigation by the Enforcement Directorate had revealed that three years after the Indian Airlines inked a deal to buy 43 aircraft from Airbus, the aircraft manufacturer floated a shell company based out of Singapore in partnership with the middleman Deepak Talwar and, another three years later, transferred USD 10.5 million in its accounts in two tranches.

The middleman Deepak Talwar, along with another high-profile fugitive, Rakesh Saxena, was extradited from UAE in the same plane of the government of India on January 30, 2019. Before that, the middleman in VVIP chopper scam Christian Michel was also extradited to India. Michel, in his deposition, had named a certain Italian Lady and ‘Italian Lady’s son R’ in the AgustaWestland scam.

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