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Vedanta claims that Chinese companies funded anti-Sterlite protests in order to capture Indian copper market

On Thursday, senior counsel for Vedanta, C Aryama Sundaram, told the Madras High Court that Chinese companies had funded the anti-Sterlite protests resulting in the shutting down of its copper smelter unit in SIPCOT at Thoothukudi. He alleged that these Chinese companies were interested in capturing the Indian copper market.

Sundaram made these allegations while pushing Vedanta’s plea challenging the Tamil Nadu government’s order shutting down its copper smelting unit in Tuticorin.

He told the division bench, “these companies promoted and funded the agitations and protests against Sterlite. India’s import bill for copper is $2 billion, the demand was being met by Sterlite earlier”.

He added that Sterlite had been supplying nearly 38% of India’s copper demand. After the plant was forced to close, this demand was met by foreign companies.

Sundaram later pointed out that in the SIPCOT industrial complex, there were 63 companies. This included 10 red category companies that handled hazardous material. Yet, the Sterlite plant is blamed for anything that goes wrong and the company has succeeded despite that.

He had also expressed his doubt on how anti-Sterlite protesters manage to gather 20,000 people. Sundaram said that the plant was closed by the government after the death of 13 people. Yet, in its pleadings in the court, the government claims environmental pollution as the cause.

He also pointed out that the CBI, which was conducting the probe into the firing, till now hasn’t called the company for an enquiry. Despite that, the company is punished with a closure order.

Yesterday, Vedanta had told the Madras High Court that NGOs and activists with vested interests had orchestrated the anti-Sterlite protests. The anti-Sterlite protest led to police firing killing 13 protesters. This led to the closure of the plant in May 2018.

The NGT has proven that the company was following all environmental norms and directed the government to reopen it. However, the Madras High Court intervened and rolled back the order to reopen the plant.

“TMC has become Total Muslim Congress”, West Bengal BJP chief Dilip Ghosh

West Bengal BJP chief Dilip Ghosh has said that Trinamool Congress has become Total Muslim Congress. Reacting to the Mamata Banerjee’s West Bengal government’s directive to build dining halls for mid-day meals in schools having 70% or more minority students, Ghosh said that TMC is a by-product of minority appeasement politics started by Congress.

Talking to India Today, Dilip Ghosh said, “TMC has become Total Muslim Congress, they do politics by dividing in the name of religion for vote. Partition also had happened due to this reason.” He said that it is very wrong to bring difference in children in the name of religion, saying it is dangerous for the country. They talk about Hind Muslim unity, but if they are separated from childhood on the basis of religion, how can it happen?

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMooD1ExIUg]

The West Bengal government has decided to construct dining halls in schools for the mid-day meal scheme, but in only those schools having 70% or more minority students. BJP has strongly objected to this religion-based decision, calling it appeasement politics.

However, the WB government has said that there will no discrimination in the dining halls on the basis of schools. All schools in a school where such halls will be constructed will be able to use it for having their mid-day meal. The govt said that as the halls are being constructed using funds from minority affairs ministry, hence it is being implemented in schools having a sizable population of minority students. The state government also said that it was done as per guidelines of the central government.

Our stance has not changed, Article 370 is a temporary provision: Home Minister Amit Shah in Lok Sabha

Union Home Minister Amit Shah, during his speech in the Lower House of the Parliament, made it clear that Article 370 is only a temporary provision and that there has been no change in the stance of the party on the issue.


Shah said, “Our stance on Jammu and Kashmir has and will remain constant. There has been no change in our position on Article 370. We have always maintained that Article 370 is only a temporary provision in our Constitution.”

The Home Minister’s statement is significant as there are great expectations from him with regards to the instability in Kashmir. People have been subjecting every statement and every comment of his to great scrutiny. Under such circumstances, his reiteration of the stance that Article 370 is a temporary provision is likely to ruffle many feathers and make a lot of politicians in Kashmir extremely uncomfortable.

During the speech in the Parliament, he also attacked Jawaharlal Nehru and blamed the Congress party for the instability in Kashmir. Taking a jibe at Congress MP Manish Tewari, who had claimed that situation in J&K was better under Congress government, Shah asserted that the enduring problem of Jammu and Kashmir is a legacy of the monumental mistakes made by then PM Jawaharlal Nehru.

Amit Shah has moved the J&K Reservation (Amendment Bill) in the Lok Sabha today. The Jammu and Kashmir Reservation (Amendment) Bill, 2019 amends the Jammu and Kashmir Reservation Act, 2004, which provides for reservation in appointment and admission in professional institutions for persons belonging to Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and socially and educationally backward classes. The Bill was passed by the Lok Sabha.

In the winter of his public life, why can’t Dr Manmohan Singh engage his own staff rather than being petulant?

The winter of public life is setting upon Dr Manmohan Singh.  By all accounts, it is doing no good to his feeble frame. Or self-esteem, never mind it wasn’t on the rack under the canopy of the Gandhis in the first place.

The 87-year-old former Prime Minister, twice over, is battling on many fronts and it isn’t just the aftereffects of multiple cardiac bypass surgeries he has had to endure on self. He seems to have been let down by his own women and men, or mother-son duo if you may, though the news doing public rounds is his anger the ruling dispensation of BJP at the Centre.

The latest bit is Dr Singh’s refusal to accept the trimmed numbers of his personal staff to five—two each personal assistants and peons and one lower-division clerk—against the 14 he perceives is his right. Dr Singh has been pretty dogged in pursuing the matter and given the number of letters he has shot across to PMO, one could only say that his one lower-division clerk is worth every single penny.

It’s a cry in the wilderness for nothing. A man who was used to 500 persons crowding PMO for a decade, is now left with just five. It’s a cut as drastic as the surgical strike he did on the state-command economy in the 90s. The setback is as much functional as psychological. You need translators and stenographers; Photostat operators and dispatch riders, drivers, carpenters and even cook!  There are weekly offs, one or two on leave due to marriage in the neighbourhood, and who pays for overtime in case the assistant is asked to stay back for the second shift?

There are bound to be letters and invitations to a man who once presided over the destiny of 1.30 billion people, even if by remote.  Phones must be ringing incessantly. Doorbells being pressed all so often. A posse of doctors and nurses pacing up and down the hall. Rent-a-quote journalists from The Indian Express and The Hindu spread on the couches of the living room. It’s a fair bit of nuisance.

A prime minister leaving his office is still worth the rank of a cabinet minister, says the rulebook. But it’s only for five years after he demits his office. It’s Modi’s second term now. Privileges aren’t for life, you see.

Can’t Dr Singh engage his own staff? But then he is no longer a Prime Minister drawing a salary of Rs 1.6 lakhs. He is no longer a Member of Parliament from Rajya Sabha too which is worth a lakh of rupees every month. (How he must be cursing the mother-son duo of Sonia and Rahul Gandhi who moved heavens to get an Ahmed Patel elected to Rajya Sabha but didn’t twitch an eyebrow in dumping Dr Singh’s candidature).

For many years, he drove Maruti 800. If Khushwant Singh’s book, “Absolute Khuswant” isn’t as fake as his Sikh history, Dr Singh once borrowed Rs 2 lakh from him to fight the 1991 Lok Sabha elections. Dr Singh’s progenies are academicians like him. Sonia and Rahul Gandhi are saving for the rainy days. Besides, what could you expect from a man who publicly tore your policy papers in front of whirring cameras? Or a Congress who saw him fit for no role during the 2019 General Elections even though the party was fighting for its’ life?

Modi doesn’t look a man who would junk the rulebook. On his person too, Modi has cash of only Rs 38,750 even though the fixed deposit is Rs 1.27 crores (as per the details in his 2019 Poll affidavit). How could the present PM help an ex-PM? Could Dr Singh appeal to former vice-president Hamid Ansari and his Muslim brethren given how charitable he was in declaring Muslims to have the first right on India’s resources? Could Capt. Amrinder Singh listen to the wails of a fellow Sikh and override his seething anger against the High Command who have unleashed a barking Navjot Singh Sidhu on his coattails?

Dr Singh has practically come to an end to his public life. Neither his own men and women want him, nor does the ruling dispensation have an affinity for him. The public base for Dr Singh, in any case, was flimsy. He flourished on the benign grants of Congress’ aristocracy. The plank has now been pulled from under his feet. And he doesn’t even have a straw to clutch on to. But then when Lutyens Delhi has been kind to even its own deities?

It is due to Nehru’s failures that one third of Jammu and Kashmir is under Pakistan: Amit Shah in Lok Sabha

Home Minister Amit Shah today slammed the policies of Nehru during and after partition. He stated that the issue of Jammu and Kashmir is a Congress legacy and then PM Jawaharlal Nehru’s failure.


Taking a jibe at Congress MP Manish Tewari, who had claimed that situation in J&K was better under Congress government, Shah asserted that the enduring problem of Jammu and Kashmir is because of the monumental mistakes made by then PM Jawaharlal Nehru.

“One-third of Kashmir is with Pakistan. Who is responsible for that? Despite Maharaja Hari Singh signing the instrument of accession of India, who stopped our advancing forces from conquering the remaining part of the Kashmir and settled with the current LoC? Who enforced the ceasefire? It was Jawaharlal Nehru who lost a significant part of Jammu and Kashmir,” Shah said.

Shah further asserted that PM Nehru didn’t take into confidence the people of the country before taking such a momentous decision. Shah said, “He didn’t take the public into confidence. He didn’t even take then Home Minister Sardar Patel into confidence while dealing with the issue of integration of Jammu and Kashmir with the Union of India.”

Shah continued, “A similar kind of problems arose in Junagadh and Hyderabad but that were successfully resolved because they were handled by Sardar Patel, but who was tackling the issue of Kashmir? Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. It is because of him, we lost the territory, the issue remains unsolved and hundreds and thousands of our soldiers have died and terrorism has spawned in the state.”

Manmohan Singh protests to PMO as Modi govt decides to reduce his staff size from 14 to 5

Former prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh has written an angry letter to the Prime Minister’s Office and Home Minister Amit Shah after the centre followed the existing rules to turn down a request from former PM to retain his full 14-member staff.

According to the reports, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi requesting him to allow him to retain his 14-member staff. As per the rules, former PMs receive rent-free accommodation for the rest of their life, medical facilities, 14 secretarial staff, six domestic executive-class air tickets, unlimited train travel, five years of office expenses along with SPG cover for one year and free electricity and water for life.

However, after five years, the Centre can reconsider whether it wants to give further re-extension to such allowances. Following the existing provisions, the NDA government had decided to reduce the size of personal staff support to 5 from 14. The five staffers include two personal assistants, one lower division clerk and two peons.

In a letter dated May 26, the PMO had informed Singh about the government’s decision to reduce the size of his staff.

Earlier, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh enjoyed full service of 14 staffs, which included officers of the level of director, under-secretary and deputy secretary, besides personal assistants and peons. It should be noted that the former PMs are entitled to full staff strength only for the first five years.

Interestingly, the Vajpayee government had permitted PV Narasimha Rao and Indra Kumar Gujral to expand their staff as per their need. The UPA government had returned the courtesy by allowing Atal Bihari Vajpayee to retain full staff which was later reduced to 12 after the late BJP leader expressed his willingness to cut down the staff size.

The Jammu and Kashmir Reservation (Amendment) Bill, 2019 passed in Lok Sabha

The Lok Sabha today passed the Jammu and Kashmir Reservation (Amendment Bill), 2019. Union Home Minister Amit Shah today morning moved the J&K Reservation (Amendment Bill) in the Lok Sabha and had said that this bill is not to please anyone but for those living near the International Border.

The new bill seeks to replace the existing Jammu and Kashmir Reservation (Amendment) Ordinance, 2019.

The Jammu and Kashmir Reservation (Amendment) Bill, 2019 amends the Jammu and Kashmir Reservation Act, 2004, which provides for reservation in appointment and admission in professional institutions for persons belonging to Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and socially and educationally backward classes.

The original Act provided for reservation in appointment to state government posts to persons belonging to socially and educationally backward classes. The Act defined socially and educationally backward classes to include persons living in areas adjoining the Actual Line of Control. The amendment will bring changes to the Act to include those persons living in areas adjoining International Border, within the ambit of this reservation making them par with people living near LoC.

Further, the Act states that any person who has been appointed on the basis of residence in an area adjoining the Line of Control must serve in such areas for at least seven years. The new bill extends this condition to persons living in areas adjoining the International Border as well.

The bill is also aimed at replacing the ordinance to provide 10 per cent reservation for economically weaker sections in Jammu and Kashmir. The passing of the bill in parliament will pave the way for reserving state government jobs to the youth of Jammu and Kashmir who are from economically weaker sections belonging to any religion or caste.

The 10 per cent reservation for economically weaker sections was introduced in rest of the country through the 103rd Constitution Amendment in January 2019.

In the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections, BJP President Amit Shah had asserted that the BJP government would scrap Article 370 of the Constitution which allows Jammu and Kashmir to have its own constitution, flag as well as the right to implement its own laws, except on issues that pertain to national security.

Apart from that, the BJP had also emphasised in its manifesto that it will also scrap Article 35 which allows the Jammu and Kashmir legislature to define permanent residents of the state and permits the J-K government to exclude outsiders from owning property and availing the benefits from the government.

ED summons Congress minister in Halal investment group scam, attaches IMA property worth over Rs 200 crores

The Enforcement Directorate has summoned Congress MLA and sitting minister in Karnataka BZ Zameer Ahmed Khan in the IMA Ponzi scam case. He has been alleged to have received the funds from accused Mansoor Khan, who has fled the country fearing death from the hands of influential and well-connected people in India.


As per the reports, there are other sitting MLAs named in the investigation who can be summoned by the ED as well. The Congress government in Karnataka had given this whole IMA Ponzi Scam a clean chit in January this year, despite alarms indicating that a scam was brewing. The preliminary investigation points towards the involvement of HDK cabinet ministers in the IMA Ponzi Scam.

Many ministers of Karnataka government are alleged to have been beneficiaries of this Rs 5000 crore scam in which over 50,000 investors were duped. Earlier this month, 7 of the IMA Jewels were arrested by the Karnataka police.

Enforcement Directorate has also initiated action against IMA Group and its Managing Director, Mohammed Mansoor Khan and has attached 20 immovable properties and bank accounts amounting to Rs 209 Crore under Prevention of Money Laundering Act(PMLA).


The founder and managing director of IMA jewels, Mohammad Mansoor Khan had suddenly gone missing on June 11, after an audio clip where he claimed he is ending his life due to financial distress went viral. Following this, many investors went to Khan’s office only to find it shut.

Moreover, in the audio clip released then, Khan accused senior Congress MLA Roshan Baig of arm twisting and refusing to return the Rs 400 crore which he had allegedly taken after he failed to get a Lok Sabha ticket for the recently concluded elections. Khan has also contended that he is being constantly hounded by many politicians and government officers who had taken money from him.

In his video-recorded message to Bengaluru commissioner Alok Kumar, Mansoor Khan asserted that he was ready to return to India and expose those responsible for the downfall of his business venture. Khan stated that because the actual culprits behind the scam are “big names at the state and central levels”, there was every possibility of him being killed as soon as he sets foot in India.

Recently, there were reports that the RBI had in a 2018 letter revealed the inaction of the JD(S)-Congress led Karnataka government against IMA jewels. The RBI had reportedly written a letter in November 2018 directing the Karnataka state government to launch an investigation into IMA jewels, a ‘halal’ investment group. However, the Karnataka Congress-JDS government ignored RBI warning and did not act against the ‘halal’ investment group.

The IMA group promised its investor that it is investing in businesses that are sanctioned as ‘halal’ under Sharia law. For instance, the ‘Sharia’ reportedly does not permit investments in companies that deal with banking and insurance, pork, gambling or entertainment.

No, The Dalai Lama is not a ‘Racist’ or ‘Islamophobe’ for defying the Multicultural Doctrine

In a recent interview with the BBC, the Dalai Lama has reiterated that Europe should belong to Europeans and that the larger strategic objective should be to return the Muslim and African refugees to their own lands after providing them with adequate training so that they can improve affairs in their own countries.


“A limited number is OK, but the whole of Europe eventually become a Muslim country? Impossible. Or an African country? Also impossible,” the 83-year-old Spiritual leader told the BBC in the interview published on Thursday. He stated, ‘European countries should take these refugees and give them education and training, and the aim is – return to their own land with certain skills.’

As expected, the Dalai Lama has been branded ‘racist’, ‘Islamophobic’ and ‘Xenophobic’ by people from expected quarters.


While the Left is pretending as if the sky has come crashing down, the opinions voiced by the Dalai Lama would have been considered perfectly normal by people throughout the history of the human civilization barring the past 10 or 15 years. He wasn’t saying anything outrageous or out of the ordinary.

The central theme of his opinions around the issue of migration revolves around the inability of Multiculturalism to be a viable alternative. Events of the past decade and a few years before that has demonstrated comprehensively that Multiculturalism just does not work. It leads to chaos, anarchy and a breakdown of law and order in the country.

That Western intellectuals and liberals are labelling the Dalai Lama racist over these comments only shows how far towards the Left western society has moved in a very short period of time. The Refugee Crisis in Europe has only aggravated the fault lines within European society that already existed prior to that. It has led to prominence political leaders who promise to deal with Islam with an iron hand. And as a direct consequence, the threat of terrorism has never been greater.

There’s also the fact that a significant percentage of these migrants have dual loyalties. A lot of them are not grateful to the European countries for taking them in and merely looking to take advantage of the benefits Europeans are offering them. A lot of them also travelled all the way to Europe with the explicit intent of conquering the lands in the name of Allah.

Consequently, crime rates have increased immensely and the administration and law enforcement authorities appear unwilling to enforce appropriate measures because they are too afraid to be called racists. All over the West, little girls are being sexually exploited by people who are predominantly Muslims and authorities have often been involved in a cover-up.

The migration of Muslims in Europe in large numbers has subsequently given rise to numerous vigilante groups, some of which do have Neo-Nazi inclinations. Groups such as Soldiers of Odin and Pegida appear non-racist on the face of it but others such as the Nordic Resistance Movement clearly have fascist inclinations.

More than that, the Christchurch Church attacks in New Zealand was clearly motivated by the Refugee Crisis. The White Terrorist himself was driven over the edge after the death of Ebba Akerlund, a partially deaf girl who was killed in a terror attack, on her way to meet her mother after school. Thus, it’s quite evident that Multiculturalism has triggered a two-way radicalization process.

The influx of people from very regressive cultures with extremely problematic worldviews, some of whom are terrorists or support terrorist organizations, has led to a situation where a significant section of the resident majority community is being radicalized at a furious pace. Some of them are even willing to commit physical acts of violence. Thus, it’s a communal tinderbox in Europe right now and the situation could deteriorate even further in a very short span of time.

In the United States of America as well, the rise of Donald Trump was fueled by entirely anti-illegal immigrant sentiments. Since then, there have been racist attacks committed both ways. Whites and Blacks, people from both sections of the community have been victims of hate crimes.

Therefore, clearly, the multicultural experiment has failed in catastrophic fashion and over the years, it has left the West much less safe than it was, perhaps, a couple of decades back. Dalai Lama is only speaking conventional wisdom here, he is being very compassionate when he says Europe should educate and train these people before sending them back.

If they are not, and it doesn’t seem they will be, Civil Wars in the near future and increased acts of terrorism appears extremely likely. People from different cultures don’t mix very well, it’s one of the fundamental basics of humanity. Individuals from diverse cultures can interact with each other without resorting to violence, however, when large groups of people from extremely different cultures are put in close proximity with the power dynamics thrown into the equation, as is inevitable in Democracies, conflict is destined to occur.

The Leftist solution to the problem of their own making is, of course, calling everyone who disagrees a ‘racist’ and a ‘Xenophobe’. According to them, the only reason why refugees cannot live in peace is their new homes is because there are racists within the majority community. Their analysis of circumstances are always uni-dimensional, therefore, they are unable to appreciate the complexities of human nature.

There are other important reasons why Europe has been forced to take in migrants. The falling birth-rates combined with the monstrous welfare states certainly contributed to the governments’ decision to import migrants from areas of high fertility. The crisis that Europe currently finds itself in is an inevitable consequence of the corrosion of religiosity caused by the invasion of the sacred by the culture of the Left.

It’s pretty obvious that no European government in the near future would follow the advice of the Dalai Lama. It appears pretty obvious that they are in no position to implement such measures. Europe is currently on a highway to hell and there doesn’t appear to be any way for them to opt out of the ride at this late hour.

Tulsi Gabbard might find the United State’s stance on religious freedom a joke

A new report—“Religious Persecution in the United States”–has burned Uncle Sam at the stake of religious discrimination on its land over the centuries. (The report has emerged in response to US acting chaste in condemning India in its Religious Freedom Report).

Hindus would be particularly distressed that Tulsi Gabbard, a Vaishnava Hindu and a devotee of Sri Krishna, seeking democratic nomination as a Presidential candidate in 2020, has been relentlessly attacked over her faith and ridiculed as one from the “Krishna cult.”

The report observes that it’s typical in the United States to demonize persons of Hindu origin as practising a “cult”, as has been the case over the decades with Hindu gurus who racked up millions of devotees in a short time and were thus seen a threat to the Protestant ethos of the land.

This year itself, Swaminarayan Temple in Kentucky was vandalized and black paint was sprayed on the deity as were the words on the wall: “Jesus is the only God.” In April 2015, a Hindu temple in north Texas met the same fate but the images sprayed were far nastier. The same year, two months earlier, Hindu temples in Kent and Seattle Metropolitan area was defaced and trashed.

The report notes with concern that anti-Hindu sentiments aren’t restricted to base and vile attacks from faceless bigots alone in the United States. Media mogul Pat Robertson calls Hinduism as “demonic”; Evangelical leader Albert Mohler insults the followers of Hindu faith as demonstrating “Satanic power.” Hindu prayers in the US Senate are disrupted by terming them as “abomination.”

The report also reminds the US State Department about “dot-busters”—a hate group in New Jersey alluding to “Bindis” on Hindu foreheads. Dotbusters had vowed to take all necessary step to drive Indians out of Jersey City.

The report terms the latest US censure against India as “unfounded” and wonders if it has anything to do with the “foreign funding” to NGOs being scrutinized and impounded by the Modi government, and “missionary” activities of its preachers being impeded.

The report also speculates if US rebuke against India has been nudged by the pro-Khalistan lobby in the United States and Canada who seek an independent country carved out of India and interestingly has no such demand on Pakistan which has under its control most of Punjab!!! It’s no secret that pro-Khalistani lobby “gifts” more than just goodwill to important political parties and members in the US Senate.

Lest it be taken as the work of a pro-Hindu lobby, the report cites the persecution of Japanese in the United States and it was much before the two came face to face during the Second World War. Laws were passed that openly discriminated against the Japanese. They were not allowed basic rights such as holding lands etc. Japanese were ridiculed as “yellow peril.” The New York Tribune found them “uncivilized, unclean and filthy beyond imagination.”

The report reminds the United States of its persecution even of its own brethren: In this case Catholic Christians. Since the time when the British Protestants took over the American colonies, Catholic Christians have faced persecution in the United States. Historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Sr. has characterized the prejudice against the Catholics as “the deepest bias in the history of the American people.” Mob violence, burning of Catholic property, the killing of Catholics are too many to be recounted here. President John F. Kennedy, a catholic, knew of this prejudice and kept away from Catholic churches. He declared in 1960: “I am not a Catholic candidate for President. I am a Democrat candidate for President…I don’t speak for my Church…my Church don’t speak for me.”

The report concludes with a reprimand to the United States and advises it not to believe in its own propaganda of being a “melting pot” where everyone is free to practice his/her own religion. It advises the US to mind its own business as India would surely do its own.

I conclude this piece with the advisory that the Report condemning “Religious Persecution in the United States” has been prepared and published by my own good self. I take full responsibility for the facts mentioned above as do I accept with humility all the praise which is bound to come my way.