There seems to be no end to the fighting between Congress leader Kapil Sibal and ‘journalist’ Barkha Dutt over the Tiranga TV fiasco, as latter has now decided to initiate criminal and civil proceedings against Kapil Sibal and his wife for cheating, fraud and refusal to honour the contract.
In a tweet, controversial ‘journalist’ Barkha Dutt, once the blue-eyed girl of the Congress ecosystem, threatened her former boss Kapil Sibal and his wife Promila Sibal for cheating and refusing to uphold the contract.
My last word on @NewsHtn saga. I will initiate criminal and civil proceedings against @KapilSibal and wife for cheating and fraud & refusal to honour contract. I hope the staff whom I support fully is able to get compensation of 3 months. Irony:Parliament media debate tomorrow
In her tweet, Barkha Dutt said that she intends to initiate proceedings so that the staff of Tiranga TV, whom she claims to support, fully get their due compensations of 3 months after they were arbitrarily sacked by Tiranga TV promoted by Kapil Sibal.
Just yesterday Barkha Dutt had written a complaint to National Commission for Women against Tiranga TV promoter Promila Sibal accusing her of abusing female staff members of the channel including Barkha Dutt. She had alleged that senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal and his wife-Promila Sibal had referred to the female employees of their channel Tiranga TV as Kutiya or Bitch.
The National Commission for women had taken cognisance of Barkha Dutt’s complaint against Tiranga TV promoters. It had also clarified that it is only taking up the matter of outraging the modesty of women.
On July 15, in a series of tweets, Barkha Dutt had alleged that journalists working at Tiranga TV were abruptly sacked, without any prior notice and they were not offered 6-months severance payout.
Barkha Dutt had also said that Kapil Sibal had threatened her of defamation suit for calling him Mallya. She had compared him with the fugitive liquor baron for not paying due compensation to fired employees and going to London. Dutt had said that she refuses to withdraw the comment, and will fight the case if required. Barkha Dutt had also accused Kapil Sibal’s wife of being insensitive to the plight of employees.
Later, in the evening, the crisis took an ugly turn when Kapil Sibal appointed bouncers at the Tiranga TV office to intimidate journalists who were sitting on a peaceful protest against the channel’s unprofessional conduct. Employees were apparently on an all-night sit-in dharna to demand a 6-month payout.
In a big relief to the rebel Congress-JDS MLAs, the Supreme Court pronounced its order in Karnataka MLAs resignation case stating that they cannot be compelled to participate in proceedings of the state assembly till the speaker decides on their resignations.
Reportedly, the three-judge Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi delivered an interim order stating that it was imperative to maintain Constitutional balance in the judgement.
The Supreme Court has ruled that the speaker has to decide on resignation of 15 MLAs in a time-bound manner and he cannot compel the rebel Congress-JDS lawmakers to participate in proceedings of Assembly till the Speaker rules on their resignation. The top court directed Karnataka speaker KR Ramesh Kumar to decide on the resignations of the rebel Congress-JDS MLAs under Article 190 in a time-bound manner.
The Supreme Court has also ruled that the rebel MLAs have the liberty to decide on whether they wished to attend the trust vote which has been scheduled to take place on Thursday, July 18.
Interestingly, the Supreme Court has refused to decide the issue of disqualification of the rebel Congress-JDS MLAs under the Tenth Schedule. The Supreme Court also said that the other larger legal questions need to be decided and deserved an answer only at a later stage.
The HD Kumaraswamy led Congress-JDS coalition government has now pushed into a corner with leaving them only option to seek trust vote on Thursday to prove their majority in the assembly. With 15 rebel Congress-JDS MLAs getting a huge relief from the Supreme Court, the Congress-JDS government will be short of numbers to prove their majority in the assembly.
The Congress party today gave an adjournment motion in the Lok Sabha over “tension at Indo-China border” despite Army Chief clarifying it that there is no such situation.
Last week General Rawat clarified said that had been no Chinese intrusion. He was addressing the reports of Chinese intrusion on the Line of Actual Control(LAC). Some Tibetans had hoisted the Tibetan flag on the occasion of Dalai Lama’s birthday on July 6th, which got the Chinese troop curious.
Army Chief General Bipin Rawat on ‘Chinese troop movements in Demchok’: We have already given an official statement on this. Aapko kyu nahi bharosa hota hai jab koi statement di ja rahi hai? Aap uss par bhi defence forces par shak karte hain toh isspe hume badhi sharam aati hai. https://t.co/BBRb11VLPy
“Celebrations were underway on our side by some Tibetans in Demchok sector. Based on that, to see what was happening, some Chinese also came opposite. Everything is normal,” he had said on 13th July.
However, despite the clarifications issued by the COAS, Congress gave an adjournment motion over non-existent ‘tension’ at the Indo-China border.
Not the first time
This is not the first time Congress has tried to question the armed forces and Indian government on matters relating to China. Following the 2017 Doklam standoff, Congress had actively fanned media speculations over renewed Chinese aggression at the standoff site. The Congress indulged in it despite the government’s clarification of the unchanged status quo.
On 8th July 2017, Rahul Gandhi had a meeting with the Chinese Ambassador to India Luo Zhaohui which was not made public. When some media houses reported the meeting, the Congress party termed it fake news. But later the meeting was confirmed by the Chinese embassy on its website.
The above happened when both the countries were engaged in the Doklam Standoff, which lasted till August 2017. Earlier this year, the then Congress President Rahul Gandhi had accidentally revealed that he had a secret meeting with the Chinese ministers during his Kailash Mansarovar visit.
The Kiwi Coach, Gary Stead hopes that ICC will review the World Cup final rule and allow the teams to share the trophy in case of a tie in super over.
New Zealand lost the World Cup final after the match was tied twice, and the winner was decided on the most number of boundaries.
“I’m sure when they were writing the rules, they never expected a World Cup final like that. I’m sure it’ll be reviewed.” Stead said.
On sharing the trophy, he added: “Perhaps when you play over seven weeks, and you can’t be separated on the final day then that is something that should be considered. It’s a very, very hollow feeling that you can play 100 overs and score the same amount of runs and still lose the game – but that’s the technicalities of the sport.”
The World Cup final was watched by more than 2 billion people across the globe, and it will go down in history as the most celebrated One Day International of all time. The two teams played an excellent cricket over 100 overs, and it was only because of the boundary rule that a World Cup winner was decided.
Over the last five years, the Narendra Modi led government has deregistered over 14,800 NGOs registered under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA), which were receiving funds from abroad, reports Times of India.
According to the reports, Union Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai responding to a written question in the Lok Sabha said the registrations were cancelled because the NGOs committed violations of the provisions of the FCRA.
The Home Ministry said that various NGOs and association in India received nearly Rs.50,000 crore as foreign contributions over a period of three years from 2015-16 to 2017-18.
Minister Rai also said Rs.16,894.37 crore foreign contribution has been received by various NGOs in 2017-18, Rs.15,343.15 crore foreign contribution was received by them in 2016-17 and Rs 17,803.21 crore in 2015-16.
As per Rai’s answer in the Lok Sabha, the foreign contributions to NGOs has increased in 2017-18 as compared to 2016-17.
The NDA government has been committed to the cracking down on foreign funding to NGOs that violate FCRA norms. Last year, MoS Home Kiren Rijiju had informed in the Rajya Sabha that the government had cancelled the FCRA registration of over 13,000 NGOs for FCRA violations.
Recently, the CBI had filed an FIR against advocate Indira Jaising’s NGO Lawyers Collective for alleged FCRA violations.
A CBI team has carried out a series of raids at the residence and office of mafia don turned SP politician Atiq Ahmad in Allahabad on Wednesday, reports Times Now.
#BREAKING: CBI has raided mafia don Atiq Ahmed residence in Allahabad.
Reportedly, the CBI officials have carried out raids with a heavy police deployment near SP leader Atiq Ahmad’s residence located at Atala area in Allahabad.
Speaking to Times of India, Brajesh Kumar Shrivastav, SP city, confirmed that a CBI team had conducted raids at Atiq’s house and his office premises.
CBI registered an FIR against Atiq Ahmad
The Central Bureau of Investigation had registered a case against former Samajwadi Party MP Atiq Ahmed and 17 others after real estate dealer Mohit Jaiswal had accused them of kidnapping and assaulting him inside a prison in December 2018.
An FIR has been filed by the Uttar Pradesh government against former Samajwadi party MP Atiq Ahmad on the direction of the Supreme Court on charges of extortion and kidnapping businessman Mohit Jaiswal.
The Case:
The Samajwadi Party leader, Atiq Ahmed had allegedly beaten up real estate businessman Mohit Jaiswal in Deoria Jail in Uttar Pradesh and had demanded extortion money from the businessman.
Jaiswal had accused SP leader of kidnapping him from Lucknow and alleged that he was forcibly taken to Deoria Jail. When he reached Atiq Ahmed’s barracks, he was asked to sign away his four companies worth Rs 40 crore to Ahmad. Jaiswal had said that he was thrashed by Ahmed himself and his goons inside the jail when he refused to do so.
Following the incident, the Supreme Court had directed to shift former MP to a high-security jail in Gujarat. However, Mafia-turned-politician was still lodged in Naini Central Jail and was not shifted to a high-security prison in Gujarat, despite a recent Supreme Court order to make the shift.
At a time when the IQ levels of self-proclaimed liberal progressive journalists are under serious questioning due to the often bizarre stands displayed by them, a journalist has claimed that Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf is the ‘official’ news agency of India.
Raju Narisetti, the Director and Professor of Professional Practice at Columbia Journalism School, New York, has mistaken the ruling political party in Pakistan for an Indian news agency, that too the ‘official’ news agency.
Image via Twitter
Narisetti, who has spent a long career in journalism working for various media houses like Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and many others, looked at a tweet from the official Twitter handle of Pakistan’s ruling political party and thought that it has come from the Press Trust of India, which he further claimed is India’s ‘official’ news agency.
Yesterday, Pakistan’s ruling party PTI had tweeted saying “Freedom of expression is the beauty of democracy but expressing the enemy’s stance is not freedom of speech but treason against its people”.
Narisetti was quick to conclude that the PTI there (despite the display image of the handle being the logo of the Pakistani political party) is the press Trust of India, hinting that press freedom in India is now in a slippery slope.
Twitter users were quick to slam the knee-jerk tweet.
this happens when your primary instinct is to run down India at the drop of a hat.. Handle to theek se check kar leta bhai.. https://t.co/rEXAlZ3ytS
Politician Omar Abdullah and Nidhi Razdhan of NDTV, who has done a fair share of fake news peddling herself, also corrected Narisetti. They also pointed it out to him that PTI is not an ‘official’ Indian news agency.
Via Twitter
Raju Narisetti has literally spent an entire career in the media and journalism industry. A career journalist like him making such an error and jumping to sly-hint a so-called ‘slippery slope of press freedom’ only displays that it is often the journalists themselves who are on a ‘slippery slope’ due to their prejudice and biases, not the press freedom in our country.
Senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal has claimed that senior journalist Barkha Dutt was sacked from Tiranga TV on 13th July two days before her sensational tweets on the Sibals. The Sibals, who are promoters of Tiranga TV have claimed that Barkha was fired on 13th July on ‘disciplinary grounds’ after she ‘levelled serious allegations’ against them. Kapil Sibal has reportedly said that since Dutt’s contract was terminated on 13th July on ‘disciplinary grounds’, she is not entitled to any further compensation.
Promila Sibal, Kapil Sibal’s wife and one of the promoters of the channel, said that Dutt’s contract was for a year and was due to expire in September 2019 and she was not entitled to any compensation beyond that. Dutt, however, had claimed that she was fired for speaking about the internal emails where she compared Sibals with Mallya for not facing the staff and going on a holiday to London instead.
Promila, however, refuted the claims and said that they were in London to ‘celebrate their grandson’s academic success’ and had not fled due to financial reason. She has even denied the allegations that the Sibals would use abusive language for female employees, calling them ‘kutiya’ or ‘bitch’. Calling the allegation ‘frivolous’, Promila said that neither she nor Kapil had met Barkha in last 3-4 months. Kapil Sibal, too, chimed in saying that Barkha wrote the accusation ‘as an afterthought’.
In fact, the Sibals have now put the blame of financial troubles of the channel on Barkha. They claim that they were hesitant to launch the channel but ‘reluctantly decided to go ahead with it’ after Dutt protested saying how many journalists had joined the channel giving up their current jobs. As Barkha had predicted, the Sibals also blamed the newly elected Narendra Modi government for the advertisers to back off. Lack of advertising revenues led to deepening of their financial troubles, they claim.
Barkha, on the other hand, has alleged that Kapil Sibal is ‘lying again’. She has claimed that her contract requires the Sibals to pay her a year’s salary if the channel shuts or terminates before. Dutt says that Sibal’s claims regarding her contract are patently false. “Contract clearly stipulates that if channel shuts before the year or even contract terminated, remaining period of a year to be paid. Sibal lies again,” she tweeted.
Tiranga TV’s sacked employees have been narrating their situation on social media for the last couple of weeks. However, things came out in the open after Barkha Dutt, in a series of tweets on 15th July, revealed how dire the situation with Tiranga TV is. She had confirmed that about 200 employees of the channel were sacked without adequate compensation. She had also revealed that Kapil Sibal and his wife had planned to blame Modi for the crisis at the channel, and added that there was no interference in the channel from the union government. Later that night, bouncers were sent to Tiranga TV’s office to intimidate the protesting employees.
Within hours of the launch of the campaign to raise Rs.6,00,000 to help Richa Bharti, the aid target has been met. The crowdfunding has reached beyond its target and it has now reached to Rs.7,20,000 within in a short span of time.
More than Rs.6,00,000 of planned funds raised within a few hours
Vikas Pandey, a BJP volunteer had initiated a campaign to raise funds for victim Richa Bharti. The aid money collected through a platform called Ketto.org intends to cover her legal aid to fight the bizarre order passed by the Ranchi court.
Friends
Please help our brave girl #RichaBharti in her legal fees. We have got in touch with her father and created this campaign to help her meet her legal needs. https://t.co/Zcr8EPUvUt
Earlier, Richa Bharti had raised a strong objection to the Ranchi Court ordering her to distribute copies of the Quran. She had said that the Courts never ask Muslim perpetrators to do Ramayan or Durga paath, and soon, she might be asked to convernt to Islam.
A 19-year old college student, Richa Bharti was arrested by Jharkhand police on Saturday for sharing a post on Facebook that criticized the thief Tabrez Ansari, who was killed in Jharkhand last week. In her post, she had questioned why Kashmiri Pandits did not take up arms despite after their genocide while people from other religious community became extremists.
The case against Richa Bharti
An FIR was filed against her by a local leader from the Anjuman Islamia Committee on the grounds that post she shared had hurt his religious sentiments. The FIR was filed immediately, and within 2 hours she was arrested by the SHO on Saturday.
The Ranchi Court judgement that asked Richa to distribute Quran
As the arrests resulted in severe outrage, a judgement by the Ranchi Court judgement added fuel to fire when it was ordered that she will be granted bail only if she distributed five copies of the Quran. Judicial Magistrate Manish Kumar directed Richa Bharti to donate a copy of the holy book to Anjuman Islamia Committee and rest four to the libraries of different schools and colleges.
Tabrez Ansari’s death
Tabrez Ansari, a 24-year-old man from Jharkhand, was allegedly, brutally beaten by a mob in Jharkhand on the 18th June on the accusation of theft. He had died on 22nd in police custody allegedly of cardiac arrest.
On a day when a Ranchi court ordered a Hindu girl to distribute 5 Qurans as a condition for her bail who was arrested for a Facebook comment, the activities of an organisation engaged in conversion to Islam in courts and other government organisations in Karnataka have come to light.
The state of Karnataka is home to Salaam Centre, an Islamic organization that engages in ‘Dawah’ or the Islamic practice of converting non-Muslims to Muslim. As per its website, it “is engaged in presenting the Quran, among non-Muslim brothers and sisters. It has introduced the teachings of Islam, the Quran and Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) to thousands of people.”
The website states further, “Its campaign ‘Quran for All’ was hugely successful in conveying the Quranic message to professionals such as doctors, police officials, teachers, advocates, judges, academicians, intellectuals, I.T. professionals and students.”
Its founder, Syed Hamid Mohsin, has even engaged in Dawah at the Karnataka High Court and has distributed copies of the Quran to the judges and advocates of the Court. He says on the website, “Soon after the successful programme of introduction and distribution of The Quran in the conference hall of the Karnataka High Court I thought, why not personally present The Quran to the Judges and advocates by visiting their offices. When I discussed this with a few Muslim advocates, they opined, it is perhaps not an easy task to visit the Judges’ chambers to present them with the copies of The Quran. I said; let us give it a try. This is the Word of God, and Allah will surely help us in this work.”
Quran distribution in City Civil Court of Bengaluru
Mohsin further states that meeting with the Judges continued for 12 days. He writes further, “The honourable Judges welcomed us warmly, on seeing the Quran in our hands they stood up respectfully. We presented to them The Quran, a book on The Life of Prophet Muhammad (s), Basic Islamic literature, and DVD of The Quran. They offered us seating next to them. They opened our gift box with utmost care and respect, and immediately started reading The Quran. Then they would start a discussion on The Quran, Prophet Muhammad (s), Islam, and Muslims.”
The Quran was also given to the libraries of the Court which didn’t have it until then according to Mohsin. It was also distributed to numerous advocates and other officers who work at the Court.
An advocate was quoted by Mohsin as saying, “I had received The Quran from you five days back and have read it. I did not find anything against Hindus in it. Whereas we were told that The Quran only contains poison against Hindus. We were also told that The Quran exhorts for Jihad against Hindus. But nothing of such sort is there in The Quran. After reading it my misunderstandings have been eliminated. Now I will study The Quran seriously and would try to dispel the misunderstanding in others.”
Quran distribution in police station
Mohsin has also studiously documented on his website numerous things about the Quran which non-Muslim judges of the Karnataka High Court have apparently told him. One of them supposedly said, “Yes, I would like to study The Quran to know what Message Allah has given foe all humanity. If the Quran contains Message for all human beigns then why have you kept this away from the humanity till now?”
Another apparently told him, “I have been observing from the past ten years that there has been gigantic level of atrocities on Islam and Muslims. Now as a remedial measure for these atrocities, you have to popularize The Quran for the next ten years. This has to be done on a bigger scale continuously. Otherwise things may turn worse for Muslims.”
It appears rather intriguing that the Karnataka High Court allowed itself to be turned into a ground for Islamic proselytizing given the fact that the Indian Judiciary continuously harps on and on about the secular nature of our Constitution.
Mohsin claims to have engaged in Dawah even at the Karnataka Legislative Council and can be seen presenting a Quran to the former Chief Minister of Karnataka, Siddaramaiah in a photo that was posted on its website.
Mr. Syed Hamid Mohsin, Chairman Salaam Centre presenting the book on Prophet Muhammad in Kannada language to Hon’ble Chief Miinister of Karnataka Mr. Siddaramaiah. Source: salaamcentre.in
The Salaam Centre claims to have engaged in Dawah at Police departments as well. In one post, it says, “The Salaam Centre has added one more feather to its cap by taking the message of the Holy Quran to the personnel of the Karnataka State Police. The initiative is likely to have very positive outcome. Insha Allah!” Not merely Police departments, the organization had distributed the Quran at the Head Quarters of Karnataka State Internal Security Intelligence as well.
The website says Mohsin is “a man with a mission, a mission to educate Muslims and millions of people so that the walls of ignorance are demolished.” It says further, “Mr. Mohsin conducted historic programmes for Introduction and distribution of Quran among the legal fraternity in the High Court of Karnataka, various district courts in the State, Police Headquarters and CID Head Quarters, State Intelligence Headquarters and various Government offices. The Institute of Management-Bangalore and the Cochin University are among the various educational institutions where such programmes were also held.”
While Mohsin’s actions are not illegal under the current statutes, it is indeed a matter of concern that arms of the supposedly secular state machinery are being targeted for proselytizing. Furthermore, an unstable demography is a recipe for chaos. Under such circumstances, Hindus are being targeted for conversion not only by Christians but by Muslims as well.
As a pagan faith that does not have an institutional concept of conversions, Hinduism is at a distinct disadvantage in this aspect. Therefore, for the explicit purpose of preserving the secular ethos of the country and to prevent demography for destabilizing further, a national law against proselytizing ought to be considered.
