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Unhappy with offer of just one minister, JDU refuses to be part of the Modi 2.0 ministry, continue to be part of NDA

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Unhappy with offer of just one minister, JDU refuses to be part of the Modi 2.0 ministry, continue to be part of NDA

In a recent development, the JD(U) on Thursday announced that it won’t be joining the cabinet of the Modi government. The announcement came just before the swearing-in ceremony was about to begin at the Rashtrapati Bhawan. JDU chief Nitish Kumar said that inclusion of just 1 JDU legislator in the cabinet would have meant symbolic participation and that he has informed the BJP that they don’t need it.


However, clearing the air of suspicion, Kumar reiterated that his party is still a member of the NDA and there is no resentment for the cabinet berths. According to the sources, JDU was expecting at least 3 cabinet berths but the BJP’s offer of just 1 cabinet position was simply unpalatable for them. They were also reportedly unhappy with the portfolio offered to them. Initially, Rajya Sabha member RCP Singh was homed in on but Nitish Kumar’s last-minute negotiations with the BJP top brass didn’t yield the intended results.

JDU fought the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections in Bihar in coalition with BJP and Ramvilas Paswan’s LJP. JDU has sent 17 MPs to the new Lok Sabha and BJP has sent 16 from Bihar, along with LJP which has sent 6 MPs.

Kashimiri ISIS terrorist in custody of US forces in Syria, parents approach government to bring him home

OpIndia Staff
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Kashimiri ISIS terrorist in custody of US forces in Syria, parents approach government to bring him home

A Kashmiri youth named Aadil Ahmad Wada, who had allegedly joined the ISIS in 2013 has reportedly been arrested by the US-allied forces in Syria. Wada, an MBA from Queensland University in Australia, is believed to have informed his parents living in the Jawahar Nagar locality of Srinagar about his arrest through an audio message on March 25.

“We have been surrounded by US forces. I am performing Istikhara (special prayer by Muslims when in need of guidance) and we have decided to surrender with the family,” Adil told his father Fayaz Ahmad Wada in his last voice note. This confirms that he along with over 1,500 ISIS fighters and their families were intercepted and captured by US-led forces around March in Syria.

Wada’s family has since then been approaching Jammu and Kashmir police and other agencies seeking help to bring their son back. They have also sought an appointment with Governor Satya Pal Malik. The authorities have reportedly informed the family that the process would be initiated after the new government assumes office in New Delhi.

Wada had reportedly lied to his parents that he had got a job in an NGO in Turkey, after struggling to find one in Australia, Qatar, and Dubai. After migrating to ISIS-controlled Syria, he married a Dutch woman who had also joined the terror group.

After completing his MBA in Australia, Adil left for Turkey via Jordan on June 21, 2013, on an Indian passport after allegedly getting in touch with some radical groups based in Australia.

His family had been claiming that Adil was working in Syria and neighbouring countries, till his father received a message from his Dutch wife that she and their son were in custody of the US-allied forces.

Adil’s wife, according to the officials, contacted her husband’s family after being given access to the International Committee of Red Cross.

Meanwhile, Adil’s father, Ahmad said, “I have now approached the state authorities seeking help to bring back my son,” and added, “I have been informed that a formal process will start only after the new government assumes office in New Delhi.”

Last year we had reported how a 19-year-old Kashmiri student named Ehtisham Bilal, pursuing engineering at Uttar Pradesh’s Sharda University, had joined the terror group Islamic State (IS).

According to the reports, a picture of Ehtisham Bilal carrying a gun with an ISIS flag in the background had surfaced on social media, causing concerns that he had joined the Islamic terrorist outfit. In a purported audio message that had gone viral on social media, the B Tech student identified as Ehtisham Bilal pledged his allegiance to the ‘Islamic State’ group led by Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi.

We had earlier reported regarding a Muslim youth named Ashfaque Majeed who had allegedly joined the IS after he was brainwashed by Zakir Naik’s Islamic Research Foundation’s manager Arshi Qureshi. According to police, Majeed was belived to have fled the country along with his wife, one-year-old toddler daughter and other youngsters in 2016 to join the ISIS Terror ranks.

Full list of the ministers in the new union government that took oath along with Prime Minister Narendra Modi

OpIndia Staff
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Full list of the ministers in the new union government that took oath along with Prime Minister Narendra Modi

This is the list of Council of Ministers led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi that took oath today at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. The names have been listed in the order of taking the oath. Apart from PM Modi, 24 Cabinet ministers, 9 Ministers of State with independent charge, and 24 Ministers of State, have been inducted in the ministry. The total strength of the union government is 58.

Prime Minister:

  • Narendra Modi

Cabinet Ministers

  1. Rajnath Singh
  2. Amit Shah
  3. Nitin Jairam Gadkari
  4. D. V. Sadananda Gowda
  5. Nirmala Sitharaman
  6. Ram Vilas Paswan
  7. Narendra Singh Tomar
  8. Ravi Shankar Prasad
  9. Harsimrat Kaur Badal
  10. Thawar Singh Gehlot
  11. Subrahmanyam Jaishankar
  12. Ramesh Pokhriyal “Nishank”
  13. Arjun Munda
  14. Smriti Zubin Irani
  15. Dr. Harsh Vardhan
  16. Prakash Javadekar
  17. Piyush Goyal
  18. Dharmendra Pradhan
  19. Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi
  20. Pralhad Joshi
  21. Dr. Mahendra Nath Pandey
  22. Arvind Sawant
  23. Giriraj Singh
  24. Gajendra Singh Shekhawat

Ministers of State (Indipendent Charge)

  1. Santosh Kumar Gangwar
  2. Rao Inderjit Singh
  3. Shripad Yesso Naik
  4. Dr. Jitendra Singh
  5. Kiren Rijiju
  6. Prahlad Singh Patel
  7. Raj Kumar Singh
  8. Hardeep Singh Puri
  9. Mansukh Laxmanbhai Mandaviya

Ministers of State

  1. Faggan Singh Kulaste
  2. Ashwini Kumar Choubey
  3. Arjun Ram Meghwal
  4. General (Retd.) Vijay Kumar Singh
  5. Krishan Pal Gurjar
  6. Raosaheb Dadarao Patil Danve
  7. Gangapuram Kishan Reddy
  8. Parshottam Khodabhai Rupala
  9. Ramdas Athawale
  10. Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti
  11. Babul Supriyo
  12. Sajeed Kumar Balyan
  13. Dhotre Sanjay Shamrao
  14. Anurag Singh Thakur
  15. Angadi Suresh Channabasappa
  16. Nityanad Rai
  17. Rattan Lal Kataria
  18. Vellamvelly Muraleedharan
  19. Renuka Singh Saruta
  20. Som Prakash
  21. Rameswar Teli
  22. Pratap Chandra Sarangi
  23. Kailash Choudhary
  24. Debasree Chaudhuri

The portifolois of the ministers will be announced later.

16 terrorist camps active in Pakistan planning infiltration into Kashmir, 2 Pakistani nationals caught today

OpIndia Staff
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16 terrorist camps active in Pakistan planning infiltration into Kashmir, 2 Pakistani nationals caught today

Two Pakistani nationals were apprehended by the Border Security Force (BSF) in the Harami Nallah area in Runn of Kutch today. Both were caught along with their fishing boat, and they are being interrogated.


According to inputs received by intelligence agencies, around 16 terrorists camps are active inside the territory of Pakistan where terrorists are being trained to infiltrate into the Kashmir valley. “There are 16 terrorist camps, which have been activated in the last few months as per the reports received from intelligence agencies. More such camps are in process of being activated for the infiltration season”, said the Army sources.

The areas close to the LoC are under the scrutiny of the agencies. “The entire exercise by the Pakistani Army and the ISIS is under our watch and we are ready on the LoC and the international border to deal with any misadventure from their side,” the sources added.

Recently, Zakir Musa, most wanted terrorist and Chief of Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind was killed by security forces in an encounter in Jammu and Kashmir.

India records 51% decline in child marriages and 63% decline in teen motherhoods since 2000: Global Childhood Report 2019

OpIndia Staff
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India records 51% decline in child marriages and 63% decline in teen motherhoods since 2000: Global Childhood Report 2019

In the last few years, various reforms have led India to script various success stories. The Global Report on Childhood 2019 published by an NGO called Save the Children, has appreciated India’s performance in reducing child marriages and improving indicators related to child health, giving us another reason to feel proud. The report also suggests a 25% decline in the rate of child marriage worldwide.

An excerpt from the report reads, “India has greatly reduced child marriage through legal reforms, programs to educate and empower girls, and public awareness campaigns.”

India has witnessed a 51% decline in child marriages since 2000 and this percentage rose to 63% since 1999. Amongst the South Asian counterparts, India has succeeded in reducing child marriages whereas the decline in child marriages of girls under the age of 15 years has been rapid. The report claims that had the rate of child marriage remained unchanged, around 9 million underage girls would be married off in India today.

In comparison to these numbers, it is a huge achievement. The report also enlists a few factors that have helped in curtailing this menace. These include economic growth, increasing rate of girl education, proactive investment by government and its partners in teenage girls and increased public awareness about the woes of child marriage.

As per the report, India has also excelled in reducing the percentage of teen births. Decline in teenage pregnancies at the rate of 63% since 2000 and 75% since 1990 has been observed. This accounts for about three-quarters of the global reduction in teen births during this period. It has resulted in over 2 million lesser teen births now as compared to the year 2000.

The report also ranks India at number 113 out of a total of 176 countries in the ‘End of Childhood Index Ranking 2019’. These rankings are done based on the performance of individual countries across eight indicators- child health, education, labor, marriage, childbirth, and violence.

However, a lot still remains to be done in the areas related to child health and education. While the report shows a considerable decline in the cases of child marriages and teen births but the ultimate goal should aim at eradicating these problems from the roots.

Live updates: Narendra Modi swearing in ceremony

OpIndia Staff
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Live updates: Narendra Modi swearing in ceremony

As Narendra Modi takes oath as the Prime Minister of India for the second time, all eyes are on who will make it to the cabinet. Speculations about Amit Shah being part of cabinet has already been doing the rounds.

This blog will bring you the latest updates. Names of the the leaders from the BJP and alliance partners who will take oath. You don’t need to refresh the page to get the latest update:

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Congress shares fake news about Amethi BJP worker murder case, UP Police promises legal action, FIR registered

OpIndia Staff
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Congress shares fake news about Amethi BJP worker murder case, UP Police promises legal action, FIR registered

The Uttar Police has denied a rumour that is being spread on social media that a BJP leader is behind the murder of BJP worker Surendra Singh in Amethi. Singh was a former village head who was a close aide of Amethi MP Smriti Irani and worked on the ground during the campaigning for Smriti Irani ahead of elections. Local BJP workers and his family members had alleged that he was killed for working for BJP.

In development to the story, today several people started claiming that UP DGP has said that Singh was killed by a fellow BJP leader due to intra-party rivalry. Several office-bearers of the Congress party posted the claim on Twitter, quoting a report by Economic Times.


National Convenor of Congress Social Media cell tweeted that the close aide of Smriti Irani was killed by BJP workers who were his local rivals and not due to Congress conspiracy. She claimed that UP police had confirmed the same.


Several other Congress functionaries and supporters spread the same claim, all of them quoting media reports which were based on comments made by OP Singh, the Director General of Police (DGP) in UP. When the same claim was made by the official Twitter handle of Chandigarh Congress Sevadal, it came to the notice of UP police. The official Twitter handle of UP Police tweeted that this is a deliberate distortion of facts, and said that the reports they are quoting itself do not say that DGP named any political party was involved in the crime. They also informed that they are forwarding the tweet to Amethi police for taking legal action of spreading the rumour.


If we go by the media reports quoted by the Congress leaders, it becomes clear that the UP DGP didn’t name BJP or any other party while talking about the murder. His statement as quoted in the Hindustan Times reports is, “We have arrested three suspects. Two suspects are still absconding and we will nab them soon. On the basis of all evidence, it is very clear that this is a case of local level political rivalry.” NDTV also has published the same quote. The Economic Times has paraphrased the DGP but the comment is same as other reports.

Some Congress workers quoted a report from Khabarbar, which said that Singh was murdered due to a “local-level political rivalry within the BJP”. But the quote from DGP they have mentioned is same as the quote reported by Hindustan Times, which says that “the victim had local-level political rivalry.” It does not contain the words ‘within BJP’, which they have added in the report.

Congress social media team member, Gaurav Pandhi, who has earlier been caught spreading fake news, deleted his tweet after UP Police called out the lies. However, UP Police continued to maintain the tough stand. UP Police has promised a threadbare investigation and an FIR has been lodged in this regard already.


From the media reports quoting DGP and the clarification by UP police, it becomes clear that the DGP didn’t say Surendra Singh was killed due to rivalry in the BJP. He said Singh was killed to rivalry at the local level, which means at the Panchayat level. The DGP didn’t name BJP or any other political party, and the Congress leaders are deliberately distorting the comments of DGP to point fingers toward BJP for the murder.

Smriti Irani attended the last rite of Singh, and even gave her shoulder to the mortal remains of the victim in his last journey. She had said that she has taken vow that she will take death sentence for the culprits of the case, even if she has to go to Supreme Court.

Former Bhutan PM thrashes Indian media for getting the current Bhutan PM wrong

OpIndia Staff
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Former Bhutan PM thrashes Indian media for getting the current Bhutan PM wrong

The people of India are well aware of the sheer incompetence of the mainstream media of the country. However, it seems their reputation is now spreading far and wide and dignitaries of other countries have are also getting the taste.

Former Prime Minister of Bhutan, Tshering Tobgay, took to Twitter on Thursday to express his anger towards the Indian media for getting the picture of Bhutan’s current Prime Minister wrong. He said that it was a grave insult towards his country and although Bhutan may be small, she is India’s very close friend.


The current Prime Minister of Bhutan is Lotay Tshering and the two media outlets which got his picture wrong as can be seen in the photos attached by Tshering Tobgay are News9 and WION TV. Although WION TV managed to get the name correct, the picture they showed was of someone else. News9 showed Tobgay as the current Prime Minister of Bhutan.

The Indian mainstream media has earned quite the reputation for itself for getting the obvious things wrong. Sometimes, they perceive people arranging chairs at the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rally as an instance of agitated crowds throwing chairs. Sometimes, they deliberately portray random crimes as hate crimes to peddle their agenda.

It appears in New India, the mainstream media has decided to take a leap from being a complete embarrassment towards their own selves to becoming an embarrassment for the entire country.

ISRO and IAF sign deal to select and train astronauts for Gaganyaan project

OpIndia Staff
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ISRO and IAF sign deal to select and train astronauts for Gaganyaan project

On Thursday, Indian Air Force (IAF) signed an MoU with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to select and train astronauts for ISRO’s Gaganyaan project. ISRO’s first manned space mission is scheduled to happen in 2022.

The IAF tweeted yesterday informing that it had signed the MoU with ISRO for its ambitious Gaganyaan programme.


ISRO’s K. Sivan said, “This is the formal beginning of the screening and training of IAF candidates for the human space mission. We, that is ISRO and the IAF, will do it together”. The Institute of Aerospace Medicine (IAM) of the IAF would be heading the selection and training of the astronauts.

The selection process of the astronauts would take up to 12-14 months. Most of the basic training would happen in India and foreign help would be required for some advanced training.

The training would take place at the Human Space Flight Centre that was opened on January 31st at ISRO’s headquarters in Bengaluru.


The Gaganyaan mission would be headed by Dr VR Lalithambika, a control engineer who specializes in the advanced launcher technologies. In September 2018, ISRO had also unveiled its space suit and crew module for Gaganyaan.

Prime Minister Modi had previously announced in his Independence Day address on 15th August, 2018 that ISRO would three astronauts, including a woman, in a capsule that would orbit the earth for about week by December 2021 or 2022. In December 2018, the Government sanctioned a budget of Rs 10,000 crore for the Gaganyaan programme.

Kamal Haasan relegated to Tier-3 star status by Tamil Nadu Theater and Multiplex Owner’s Association

OpIndia Staff
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Kamal Haasan relegated to Tier-3 star status by Tamil Nadu Theater and Multiplex Owner’s Association

The Tamil Nadu Theater and Multiplex Owner’s Association has issued a revised share percentage proposal on Tuesday. Apart from making producers upset as their share percentages were reduced, fans were also unhappy as the statement revealed the market value of their favourite movie stars.

Things don’t appear to be going very well for Kamal Haasan. After a rather poor show at the Lok Sabha elections after much hype, he has been relegated to the status of a Tier-3 star by the association. Along with Haasan, stars such as Karthi and Vikram were also ranked in the third category.

Rajnikanth, as expected, appeared in the Tier-1 category. Vijay and Ajith too made the cut. Tier-2 featured stars such as Suriya, ‘Jayam’ Ravi and Dhanush. Tier-1 consists of the stars who have consistently delivered great results at the Market and are known to pull huge crowds to the theatres. Tier-2 consists of actors at the next step of the ladder while the Tier-3 is one step lower. Kamal Haasan, who was once considered a rival to Rajnikanth, is now considered to be a Tier-3 star while Rajnikanth continues to remain one of the biggest stars in Indian Cinema.

For movies featuring Tier-1 stars, as these are not expected to incur losses, ‘A’ centre theatres will provide 60% share to the distributors and producers while the rest will provide a 65% share. In the second week, ‘A’ centre theatres will provide a 55% share while the rest will provide a 50% share. For the second week, the figures are 50% and 55% respectively.

For movies featuring Tier-2 actors, the figures are 55% for A centre theatres in the first week and 60% for the rest. For Tier-3 actors, all theatres will provide only 50% share in the first week and 45% in the second.

Fans were reportedly unhappy with the ranking as it gives the fans of other actors who have featured in higher tiers the bragging rights. Producers, too, felt that the ranking should have been kept discreet.

Subramaniam, President of The Tamil Nadu Theater and Multiplex Owner’s Association said in his statement, “Producers have been increasing the remuneration of the actors and demanding higher share from theatre owners. If this trend continues, it will be very difficult to run theatres. In Kerala, none of the centres gives more than 60% share and we are only trying to adapting the same trend here. Whatever we mentioned in the statement is a mere suggestion. Our intention is only to regulate the business. As we couldn’t list out the names of all the directors and actors, mentioned only the important ones.”

Veteran director Bharathiraaja, who heads the ad hoc committee of Tamil Film Producers Council, said, “The statement of the Tamil Nadu Theater and Multiplex Owner’s Association sounds as if they have decided to vanquish all the producers and distributors who are already struggling to stay in the business. Though there is no President and administrative officers for the Tamil Film Producers Council, theatre owners should take any decision only after consulting the Government appointed ad hoc committee. If they try to bypass us, producers and distributors will stage a huge protest.”

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