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No difference between TMC and a terrorist organisation: Chandra Bose calls TMC goons as ‘Jihadi brigade’

OpIndia Staff
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No difference between TMC and a terrorist organisation: Chandra Bose calls TMC goons as ‘Jihadi brigade’

West Bengal went into the last phase of polls today. Rampant incidents of violence have been reported from various constituencies in the state. Commenting on the hooliganism the TMC workers have been resorting to in the entire election season, Subhash Chandra Bose’ kin and BJP leader from South Kolkata constituency Chandra Kumar Bose, on Sunday said that TMC workers were behaving like “terrorists” and “jihadis” in West Bengal.

Speaking to ANI Bose said, “Last night, I was getting calls from my workers from different booths that they have been threatened by TMC’s ‘jihadi’ brigade that if you sit as booth agents for BJP, you’ll be murdered. There’s no difference between a terrorist organisation and TMC,” furthered Bose.


On April 24, CK Bose was reportedly heckled by the TMC goons who had stopped him when he was going to file nomination from South Kolkata. Throwing light on Mamata Banerjee’s autocracy and flawed law and order situation, the South Kolkata’s BJP candidate alleged that the Kolkata Police stood there in silence while his party workers saved him.

This election season has witnessed several incidents of violence under Mamata’s regime in the state. Moreover, electoral polls in West Bengal are often greeted with violent skirmishes and clashes between competing parties. With Mamata Banerjee at the helm of affairs in West Bengal, TMC goons are empowered to run amok carrying out their depraved activities with impunity. It is widely believed that TMC goons are protected and sheltered by TMC leadership which further emboldens them to execute their nefarious activities.

Recently, following the clashes between BJP and TMC goons after BJP President Amit Shah’s roadshow in West Bengal, in a midnight crackdown on BJP leaders and workers, dozens of BJP karyakartas including BJP Delhi spokesperson Tajinder Bagga had been detained by Kolkata Police.

Moreover, continuing the trend of political violence, TMC goons allegedly attacked and heckled BJP candidate Arjun Singh in Barrackpore.

Recently, BJP leader Arvind Menon and some district leaders were attacked by TMC goons while BJP’s Tuhim Mondal’s house ransacked. Similarly, a BJP booth president in Jhargram, Raman Singh was beaten to death, allegedly by TMC goons.

A week ago, the TMC goons had also attacked the cavalcade of BJP leaders Himanta Biswa Sharma and Dilip Ghosh in Kanthi Lok Sabha constituency. A large group of TMC goons had blocked the road, smashed the windscreens and had damaged over 20 motorbikes in the cavalcade while West Bengal police watched as mute spectators.

Moreover, BJP Asansol candidate Babul Supriyo was also attacked and his car vandalised when he had gone to visit a polling booth in his constituency during the ongoing elections after villagers had threatened to boycott polls following the non-deployment of central forces in some polling booths.

‘Journalists’ now use the fall of the Left in Australia to console themselves and insinuate that Modi can meet the same fate

Jinit Jain
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‘Journalists’ now use the fall of the Left in Australia to console themselves and insinuate that Modi can meet the same fate

As the 2019 Lok Sabha elections draw to a close, enthusiasts are now waiting for the exit polls with bated breath. However, some familiar suspects have upped the ante to discredit the exit polls even before they had started to trickle in. One such attempt is made by the Print editor Shekhar Gupta through his tweets forewarning his followers to bear in mind how all exit polls have been defied in Australia and a conservative coalition had won the elections there.


Another controversial journalist Rana Ayyub seemed to concur with Shekhar’s assessment that traditional coalitions have the potential to defy the exit polls. Such tweets from Shekhar and Rana also indicate that they have already resigned to the fact that most of the exit polls will predict Modi victory against the opposition alliance.


While there’s no guarantee that all the exit polls will be accurate all the time, but may help in ascertaining the larger trend. Exit polls are conducted to detect in advance the pulse of the nation. They are carried out to establish the general trend and identify the pattern or ideology espoused by the voters to forecast election victory with greater certainty.

In the case of Australia, the ideologically left-leaning Labour party was predicted by all exit polls to sweep the elections. However, the conservative Prime Minister ended up seizing a stunning victory. Though his victory has defied the exit polls, many journalists like Shekhar fail to notice forest for the trees. In opposition to the exit polls, the Conservatives may have registered a victory, but the more telling fact is that they have successfully defeated the Left ideology of the Labour party. It is rather disingenuous of journalists to run down the exit polls without factoring in the other aspects that have a profound impact on the results.

Across the world, the left has been rapidly ceding its political space to the conservativist oppositions. Left-leaning journalists and intellectuals world over have persistently refused to acknowledge the obvious undertones implying the rise of their ideological opponents. There are examples galore how the people around the world, disenchanted by the hollow liberal principles have switched the sides against the left. Japan, India, US and now Australia have seen a rise of anti-leftist government in their respective political space. Even after the US elections, the liberals couldn’t bring themselves to the fact that a Republican, much less Donald Trump has won their presidential elections.

Shekhar and Rana can seek solace in the fact that exit polls were defied in Australia, but to their dismay, the opposition alliance in the Indian context is ideologically close to Left-Liberalism and the leftists. Moreover, the purported opposition alliance is fragmented and the parties forming the opposition alliance are fraught with insecurities. In such a gloomy scenario, it might as well be wishful thinking that the opposition alliance which reflects a left-liberal ideology and with untrustworthy parties would be able to defy the exit polls.

Modi ministers in five years – Ravi Shankar Prasad, Minister of Law Justice and Minister of Electronics and Information Technology

Keshav
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Modi ministers in five years – Ravi Shankar Prasad, Minister of Law Justice and Minister of Electronics and Information Technology

In the series on the performance of various ministers in the Modi government, let’s take a look at Ravi Shankar Prasad, the Minister for Law and Minister of Electronics and IT

Ravi Shankar Prasad’s father, Thakur Prasad was a senior advocate in Patna High Court, and one of the founders of Jan Sangh, the predecessor of the BJP. Ravi Shankar Prasad also is a designated senior advocate in Supreme Court of India. Like many others In BJP, Ravi Shankar Prasad also started as a student leader in 1970s, and was active in the student movement against Indira Gandhi, led by Jayprakash Narayan, popularly known as JP movement. He was also jailed during emergency. He then was associated with ABVP – the student wing of RSS, and held many posts in ABVP.

In 1995, he was inducted in the national executive of the BJP. He was the person to file PIL in infamous fodder scam of Bihar, in which Lalu Prasad Yadav, former CM of Bihar is currently serving the jail term. He was first elected to Rajya Sabha in 2000. In September 2001, he was appointed as Minister of State for Coals and Mines. He also held charge for Ministry of Law and Justice and Ministry of Information and Broadcasting as Minister of State during Vajpayee government. In 2014, after Narendra Modi took charge as Prime Minister, he was inducted as Cabinet Minister for Law and Justice and Electronics and IT. He also held the charge of Telecom Ministry for some time in Modi government. In these elections, he is contesting for a Loksabha seat for the first time from Patna against Shatrughan Sinha. Let’s have a look at his tenure as minister in Modi government.

Mobile factories – Make in India is a one of the prestigious campaigns by Modi government to promote manufacturing in India, which will create jobs domestically, as well has reduce import, thereby saving decreasing country’s reliance on imported goods, and saving prestigious foreign exchange. Under Make in India, and due to conducive ecosystem created as a part of the campaign, the number of mobile phone manufacturing units in India has gone up to 120 in last 5 years compared to just 2 before 2014. This includes the world’s largest mobile phone factory by Samsung in Greater Noida from where Samsung intends to satisfy domestic demand as well as export handsets to rest of the world giving a boost to India’s exports. While Rahul Gandhi can assure voters about mobiles made in Bharatpur, Chitrakoot, Kishangarh, while completely ignoring that geolocation used by manufacturers is denoted as a country, and not as a particular place, Narendra Modi and Ravi Shankar Prasad have already made it a reality. Today most mobile phones in India come with ‘Made in India’ stickers. Those who have purchased new mobiles in the last few days would be witness to that. Given that India is a country, where almost everyone owns a mobile phone, and is a thriving market for mobile phones, imagine the kind of foreign exchange the country has saved in last four years, since Modi government assumed power in New Delhi.

Digital India – Digital India is another hallmark scheme of this government, with an aim to do almost all possible governance is done through web minimizing human interface at the government offices, and reducing corruption. However for Digital India to succeed, country needs strong digital architecture, backed by websites of different departments and provision of services through digital means. Various initiatives like checking the attendance, online procurement have been started. This government has taken several steps to strengthen the digital footprint of the government. Every top functionary of the government, and all the ministries, now have verified and active Twitter handles, and Facebook pages through which much of interaction happens between the common man. Almost every ministry and department now has an interactive and updated website through which common man can access almost all the information. On this performance dashboard, which is updated daily, people can see the progress made by the government in different areas. His role in Digital India, and success of the Digital India campaign can be adjudged from the fact that, he was featured among top twenty most influential world leaders in Digital and e-Government, and only one to be featured from India in digital government by a UK based NGO.

On the party front, the BJP mandated its ticket aspirants to have Facebook and Twitter accounts, which proves party practices what it preaches. It is a well-known fact the having much better online presence was one the most important factor in BJPs win in 2014. So much so that the Congress which was reluctant to have online presence was forced to catch up with BJP almost after two years of BJP sweeping Loksabha elections.

NJAC – National Judicial Appointment Commission (NJAC) was brought in by the Modi government to democratize, and streamline appointment of judges to the High Courts and the Supreme Court by the way of 99th amendment bill, which are currently appointed to opaque, and arbitrary collegium of the Supreme Court of India, in which government’s role is merely reduced to that of a post office, which is not envisaged by the Constitution of India. Constitution of India provides for appointment of Supreme Court Judge by the President of India (Government – as president is titular head and has to act in aid and advice of cabinet of ministers led by Prime Minister), and appointment of judges of High Court by the President in consultation with Chief Justice of India, and the Governor of concerned state (meaning state government).

However current collegium system doesn’t consult the government, as envisaged by the Constitution which is by far, very much unconstitutional, and that too by the Supreme Court of India, which is the highest custodian of the constitution. Even former CJI JS Verma, whose landmark verdict, known as second judges case, paved way for collegium system said, it is not working as envisaged and the government should bring national commission for appointment of judges. Interestingly, Justice JS Verma, the judge who authored the majority opinion in the Second judges case, also did not hide his dissatisfaction at the functioning of the Collegium. He also said, “my 1993 judgment which holds the field, was very much misunderstood and misused. It was in that context that I said the working of the judgment now for some time is raising serious questions, which cannot be called unreasonable. Therefore, some kind of rethink is required.”

Government sought to replace the collegium system by bringing in NJAC bill and got it passed through both houses of parliament and ratified by 2/3rd states as it is a requirement for constitutional amendment bill, however Supreme Court struck down the law going back to the collegium system, giving the signals that Supreme Court is not year ready to accept the primacy of executive in appointment of judges. It is also to be noted that India is the only country in the world, where judges appoint judges and executive has no role in appointment of judges.

This article throws an interesting light on how SC judges are appointed, including former PM Jawaharlal Nehru’s concern on what Pakistan would think, if India supersedes a Muslim SC judge as CJI. However the judge in question was to be superseded not because of his religion, but on account of mental infirmity.

Archaic laws – Modi government has repealed 1500 archaic laws, which had become obsolete and had become of no use, and came into the way of smooth administration. A maze of laws enables corrupt to find loopholes and escape. Many unnecessary laws corrupt ordinary citizens, who find it expensive and time-consuming. All the governments since independence could manage to repeal 1,301 laws in last 66 years, however Ravi Shankar Prasad under vision and guidance of Narendra Modi, has managed to repeal 1500 laws by July 2018.

Justice clock – It is often said that ‘Justice delayed is Justice denied’. PM Modi suggested the installation of justice clocks in all courts, showing pending cases, and the rate of disposals in every court to rank every court and to install a sense of competition amongst all the courts. It is the first step in seeking judicial accountability from Indian judiciary, which is infamous for being laggards. Currently, there is one justice clock ticking at Jaisalmer House in New Delhi, which houses the department of justice.

Digilocker – Under Digital India, the government has come with a unique initiative called Digilocker. As the name suggests, it is digital locker which is Aadhar linked, available to every citizen of India, in which a citizen can store his/her documents like mark sheets, driving license, property documents etc. in digital format. One can directly pull digital copy into his respective diglocker, from participating government organisations of central and state government. These participating organizations are increasing day by day, and in a few days’ time, all your documents can be stored virtually on digilocker. Government hasn’t only given storage facility, but has issued instructions that these virtually stored documents would be treated at par with hard copies, and there is no need to submit hard copies for any verification. For e.g. even if you don’t possess a physical driving license and registration certificate (RC) while driving a car, and if a traffic constable asks, you can show your digitally stored driving license and RC using mobile phone to the traffic cop and he has to accept it a valid license and RC.

UMANG App – Umang App is a one-stop app where the range of government services can be accessed. Unified Mobile Application for New-age Governance is a full form of UMANG. As the name suggests, its a unified app to access a range of government services like PF, tax payments, gas cylinder bookings etc. As per UMANG website, currently 362 services of 73 departments of 18 states are available on UMANG, obviating the need of having different apps of different departments on phone.

 

The author is journalism pass out from Indian Institute of Mass Communication, New Delhi. After dangerously flirting with the idea of left during his IIMC days, due to the proximity of the IIMC with JNU, a den of radical leftists, he became firmly aligned to right after realizing the futility of the left. He tweets at @kpophale.

Sidhu may have ambition of becoming CM, Congress does not tolerate indiscipline: Captain Amarinder Singh

OpIndia Staff
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Sidhu may have ambition of becoming CM, Congress does not tolerate indiscipline: Captain Amarinder Singh

Responding to Navjot Singh Sindhu‘s remarks backing his wife Navjot Kaur Sidhu’s allegations of denying her a Lok Sabha ticket from Amritsar, Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh said that he had no difference of opinion with Sidhu but the timing of his statement was wrong. He said that Sidhu’s statement just a day ahead of the election might affect the party, if at all, and not him.


The Chief Minister said that it was fine if Sidhu wanted to replace him and become the Chief Minister as people do have ambitions. “I have known him since childhood, I have no difference of opinion with him. He probably wants to become the Chief Minister and replace me, that is his business”, said the Captain.

When asked about a disciplinary action would be taken against such comments, Singh said that the Congress Party never tolerated indiscipline and that he was sure that the party would look into the matter after the election. “It is up to the central leadership to take notice of this and I have read news reports on this. I am sure they will look at it after the elections. Congress Party does not believe in indiscipline. I have seen this for 50 years, they will not accept things where you can damage the party. Otherwise, you are free to say what you want. If anyone from Punjab damages the party, it is wrong”, he said.

Navjot Singh Sidhu’s wife had alleged that she was denied the Lok Sabha ticket from Amritsar Chief Minister Amarinder Singh and Congress Punjab affairs-in-charge Asha Kumari had said that she could not win from the constituency. Sidhu had also come out in support of his wife and said that she would never lie.

What global trends suggest and what it means for PM Modi: Pollsters have a tendency to significantly underestimate right-wing votes

K Bhattacharjee
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What global trends suggest and what it means for PM Modi: Pollsters have a tendency to significantly underestimate right-wing votes

With the last phase of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections underway, it is only a matter of hours before the Exit Polls are released. While the Opinion Polls prior to the elections had indicated a BJP victory, the Exit Polls are expected to hint towards the same. However, such numbers, as global results have shown, must be treated with a fair bit of caution.

It all began with the 2014 Indian Lok Sabha elections. While most had predicted the BJP to emerge as the single largest party, none apart from Today’s Chanakya had predicted the utter rout of the Congress and the UPA and a single party majority in the Lower House of the Parliament. Since then, the legitimacy of such polls have come under severe scrutiny and they are on the verge of being discredited. Let us now look at some global events that have shaped that impression.

1. United Kingdom’s European Union Referendum (2016)

In the immediate run-up to the polls, most polling agencies had given the Remain Campaign the edge. Some had even given them a resounding victory. In TV studios as well, it felt like the Remainers had already won.

YouGov gave the Remain Campaign a victory with 4% (52%-48%). Populus predicted a victory for the Remainers with a margin of 10%, Ipsos Mori gave Remainers a 3% edge. ComRes gave Remainers a lead of 8% on the basis of those expressing an intent to vote. Only TNS and Opinium gave the Leave Campaign a slender victory with 2% and 1% margins.

When the results were eventually declared on the 23rd of June, the UK had voted to leave the European Union. The Leave Campaign had managed to secure a victory with a margin of almost 4%, 3.89% to be precise. Thus, even those who had predicted a Brexit victory came nowhere close to accurately predicting the margin of victory. It became evident that they had severely underestimated the hidden Brexit voter.

2. The US Presidential Elections (2016)

Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 US Presidential Elections is regarded as the greatest upset in the history of democratic politics. Ever since Trump announced his campaign, absolutely no one apart from Trump’s close associates gave him any chance of victory.

“Donald Trump will never be the Republican nominee,” was the cry until the last moment of his announcement as the official candidate from the Republican party. “Donald Trump will never be President,” was the cry till he secured the 271st delegate. And the Opinion Polls of the voters reflected that opinion.

Every single poll going into Election Night gave Hillary Clinton a significant edge over her Republican rival. The lowest margin of victory was 1.9% while most gave her between 3-4% while some even gave her a more than 4% margin of victory. While these polls could be said to have predicted the national aggregate accurately as Hillary Clinton did win the popular vote by a fairly large margin, they failed spectacularly to ascertain the delegates the candidates would win.

Source: Wikipedia

In the run-up to it, none of the pollsters apart from the Los Angeles Times gave Donald Trump any serious chance of victory. More than that, media outlets gave Hillary Clinton outlandish chances of victory. Huffington Post gave Hillary Clinton a 98.2% chance of victory on Election Day, CNN gave her a 91% chance of victory the day before polling, Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight, widely considered to be one of the best pollsters around, gave the Democratic candidate more than a 70% chance of winning.

However, by the time the night was over, Donald Trump was declared the President-Elect of the United States of America. Hillary Clinton was so devastated that she could not bring herself to address her people the same night. Since then, the Liberal camp, unable to believe what had exactly happened on the 8th of November, has descended into harbouring delusions about Russian Collusion.

3. The Australian Federal Elections (2019)

In a ‘miracle victory’, incumbent Prime Minister Scott Morrison managed to retain power as all 151 seats in the House of Representatives and 40 of the 76 seats in the Senate went to polls. The centre-right coalition managed to win 73 seats while the Australian Labor party won 65 with the fate of 7 seats still in doubt.

In the run-up to the polls again, every single pollster had predicted Morrison to lose. The mood was such that even the man himself considered it a miracle. “I am standing with the three biggest miracles of my life here tonight and tonight we have been delivered another one,” he said while addressing his supporters with his wife and daughters.

To be able to truly gauge the magnitude of the upset, one needs only read this tweet by a senior journalist.


Social Media is abuzz ever since the results were declared and people are expressing their disgust towards such polls.


The Left-Liberal crowd are having a complete meltdown on social media over the results. Opinion Polls had them convinced that they were winning the elections comfortably. However, things haven’t worked out very well for them.

What It Means for Lok Sabha Election 2019

Opinion Polls have consistently failed to accurately predict results is not the only lesson to take from here. More than just failing to predict elections, they have regularly underestimated the support for Center-Right political parties.

The reasons for this could be numerous. Firstly, it could be the result of the confirmation bias on the part of the pollsters themselves. Unconsciously or consciously, they have projected their own sentiments on to the populace they surveyed. Secondly, it could be the fact that Western countries have become so polarized that expressing any right-wing political opinions at all gets one labelled a Nazi, people are much less inclined to reveal their true political preferences to pollsters. Therefore, the percentage of the silent right-wing vote is significant enough to change the results completely. Thirdly, it could be the fact that the pollsters themselves are not very competent at their job and are prone to getting things wildly wrong.

Thus, with Exit Polls expected to be released very soon now, people should take them with a pinch of salt. If the current elections follow the general trend, then again for this election, pollsters will underestimate the vote-share of the NDA quite significantly.

Modi ministers in five years – Prakash Javadekar, Ministry of Human Resources

Keshav
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Modi ministers in five years – Prakash Javadekar, Ministry of Human Resources

In this series on the performance of various ministers in the Modi government, let’s take a look at the Human Resources Ministry.

Prakash Javadekar also started as a member of ABVP, the student union affiliated to RSS. During the Emergency, Javadekar participated in student movements against the government. During this period, he led several protests and was under arrest for several months.

From 1984-1990, he first served as secretary, and then the general secretary in the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha, the youth wing of BJP. In 1989, he was appointed state secretary and campaign chief of the Bharatiya Janata Party in Maharashtra, a position he held till 1995. Javadekar was elected to the Maharashtra Legislative Council between 1990 and 2002. He also was the executive president of the state planning board and then chairman of the task force on IT in the Government of Maharashtra.

In 2008, he was elected to the Rajya Sabha as a Member of Parliament from Maharashtra. He was re-elected from Madhya Pradesh in 2014. After 2014 elections, he was first appointed as Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Environment, Forests and Climate Change. Later in 2016, he was elevated as Cabinet Minister and given charge of HRD Ministry. Some of the achievements mentioned of MHRD are prior to Javadekar taking charge, during Smriti Irani’s tenure, however for the sake of compilation they are mentioned in Javadekar’s profile.

Swachch Vidayalaya under Swachch Bharat – Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his first speech as PM from Red Fort said, “all schools in India need to have separate toilets for girls, so that girls aren’t forced to leave school midway, and this should happen within next one year, and by next Independence Day we should be able to announce, that no school in India is without separate toilets for girls”. Prime Minister Modi is known to set ambitious target for himself, as well as his colleagues, and also known to achieve them. When he announced this target, MHRD rolled out ambitious Swachch Vidyalaya Scheme, with an aim to construct toilets in the schools, mostly government, which either lacked toilets completely, or lacked separate toilets for girls. When the scheme was started, it was seen that around 2.63 lakh government schools didn’t have adequate toilet facilities, and over 4.1 lakh toilets needs to be constructed to achieve 100% sanitation in schools. MHRD started work on war footing, and achieved the target in one year, as per target set by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Further MHRD launched Swachch Vidyalaya Puraskar to recognize, inspire, and celebrate excellence in sanitation and hygiene practice in schools. The awards have been started to honour schools that have undertaken significant steps towards fulfilling the mandate of the Swachh Vidyalaya Campaign. Dashboard of toilet status in schools can be seen here.

UDAAN – Udaan scheme was launched in November 2014, CBSE to address the low enrolment of girl students in prestigious engineering institutions and the teaching gap between school education and engineering entrance examinations. This project supports about 1000 selected meritorious girls from the economically weaker section, to prepare for the engineering examination. Objectives of Udaan and details about the scheme can be seen here.

National Academic Depository (NAD) – NAD was launched in September 2016, to develop a digital depository for school learning certificates, degrees and other academic awards of higher education institutions, on the pattern of a securities depository in line with the vision of Digital India. NAD is an initiative to provide an online 24X7 store-house of all academic awards, to help in safe storage, easy retrieval and validating the authenticity of academic awards. As on latest data, around 3.36 crore academic awards have been stored into NAD. More than 1,000 academic institutions including School Boards have on-boarded NAD and more than 5 lakh students have already registered on NAD.

New IITs – As per the BJP’s manifesto to have an IIT, IIM and AIIMS in every state, 6 New IITs at Jammu, Bhilai, Goa, Dharwad, Tirupati and Palakkad have been established and ISM Dhanbad was converted into an IIT.

New IIMs – In 2014-15, six new IIMs were announced for the states of Punjab, Bihar, Maharashtra, Odisha, Himachal Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh. Accordingly, IIMs were started functioning from 2015 – 16 session from temporary campuses at Amritsar, Bodh Gaya, Nagpur, Sambalpur, Sirmaur and Vishakhapatnam. In the next budget, an IIM was approved for Jammu and Kashmir and it has also started functioning in Jammu.

Global Initiative of Academic Networks (GIAN) in Higher Education was launched in November, 2015. This program seeks to invite distinguished academicians, entrepreneurs, scientists, experts from premier institutions from across the world, to teach in the higher educational institutions in India. More information on GIAN can be found here.

SWAYAM (Study Webs of Active Learning for Young Aspiring Minds) – The Ministry of HRD has embarked on a major and new initiative called ‘Study Webs of Active Learning for Young Aspiring Minds’ (SWAYAM), which will provide one integrated platform and portal for online courses, using information and communication technology (ICT) and covering all higher education subjects and skill sector courses. Till date, more than 28 Lakhs learners have been enrolled in 1000+ MOOCs courses that have been run through SWAYAM. More information about SWAYAM can be found here.

National Digital Library (NDL) – MHRD, under its National Mission on Education, through Information and Communication Technology, initiated the National Digital Library of India (NDL India) project, to develop a framework of virtual repository of learning resources, with a single-window search facility. In this digital library, more than 1.5 Crore e-books and documents are available. Over 30 lakh students are already taking benefit of this. NDL can be accessed here.

National Rankings for Higher Education Institutions – National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) launched in 2015 to help Indian Educational Institutions to participate in the world rankings with greater confidence. More information about NIRF can be seen here.

Smart India Hackathon – A unique IT Initiative under which students are encouraged to apply knowledge to real life situations, and to find innovative solutions to the day to day problems. Details about Smart India can be found here.

IMPRINT – IMPRINT was launched in November, 2015 to channelize the research in premier institutions into areas, that can have the largest social and economic good for the country. Under this initiative, research projects under 10 selected domains are jointly funded by MHRD, and other participating Ministries/Departments. These domains are Healthcare, Energy, Sustainable Habitat, Nano Technology Hardware, Water Resources and River Systems, Advanced Materials, Information and Communication Technology, Manufacturing, Security and Defence, and Environmental Science and Climate Change. 142 research projects with an outlay of Rs. 323.16 crore for 3 years with joint funding from MHRD, and participating Ministries in the ratio of 50:50 have been approved and currently under execution. More details about IMPRINT can be found here.

Uchhatar Avishkar Yojana (UAY) – UAY was launched in October 2015, with an annual investment of Rs 250 crore, to promote innovation of a higher order as per the needs of the industry, and thereby improving the competitive edge of Indian manufacturing. The project envisages collaboration between the academia and industry – within or outside India. 87 projects at a cost of Rs. 265 crore with joint funding from MHRD, participating Ministries, and industry in the ratio of 50:25:25 have been approved, and currently under execution. Under UAY Phase-II, 65 projects with a total cost of Rs.139 crore for a period of 3 years has been approved. In an interview HRD minister Prakash Javadekar spoke about it.

National Testing Agency (NTA) – NTA has been created as an autonomous, and self-sustained premier testing organization, to conduct all entrance examinations for higher education institutions in the country, to reduce the workload of CBSE and other organizations. In 2019, NTA would be conducting entrance tests like NET, NEET and JEE for the first time.

NEET – National Entrance Eligibility Test (NEET) is being implemented in the country for admissions to medical colleges, and all admissions to medical colleges are done on the scores of NEET, saving students, hassles of registering, travelling and appearing for multiple entrance exams of different universities, saving time, money and efforts. It is also proposed to have a similar single entrance exam for engineering courses as well. Earlier NEET was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 2013. Centre and Medical Council of India approached Supreme Court once again, to review the original judgment, and in April 2016, SC overturned its previous decision, and ordered that the admissions to the medical colleges would be done only on the basis of NEET exams.

More autonomy to IIMs – Modi government passed the IIM bill in 2017, to give more autonomy to premier Indian Institutes of Management, which are located all over India. This autonomy completely removes government control over IIMs, and their functioning would be controlled by their respective boards. This bill also gives power to IIMs to award postgraduate degrees instead of postgraduate diplomas as they do currently.

Institutes of Eminence – Institute of Eminence (IoE) scheme was first announced in budget 2016. Later Prime Minister Narendra Modi while speaking at centenary celebrations of the University of Patna said, ‘no Indian institution is ranked in top 500 institutes of the world. “Isn’t it a slur on us? Shouldn’t the situation change in a country that has had an unmatched legacy in the field of education, with institutions like Nalanda, Vikramshila and many more? Modi had said. This scheme is follow up of budget announcement, as well as Prime Ministers announcement and is aimed at developing world-class institutions which would put India on the global education map. 20 Institutions (10 public and 10 private) will be offered greater autonomy, and freedom to decide fees, course durations and structures. The 10 selected public institutions would also receive a grant of Rs 1000 crore over 5 years, while the 10 private institutions would not receive any financial assistance.

Under this scheme, it is expected that the selected institutions will come up in the top 500 of the world ranking in 10 years, and in top 100 of the world ranking eventually over time. To achieve the top world ranking, these Institutions shall be provided with greater autonomy to admit foreign students up to 30% of admitted students; to recruit foreign faculty upto 25% of faculty strength; to offer online courses upto 20% of its programs; to enter into academic collaboration with top 500 in the world ranking Institutions without permission of UGC; free to fix and charge fees from foreign students without restriction; flexibility of course structure in terms of number of credit hours and years to take a degree; complete flexibility in fixing of curriculum and syllabus.

Till now the government has granted IoE tags to total 6 (3 public and 3 private) institutions. Public institutes include Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, IIT Delhi and IIT Mumbai while private institutions include Jio Institute (Greenfield Category), BITS, Pilani and Manipal University.

More autonomy to universities and institutions – Prime Minister Modi had pitched for reducing government (UGC) role in universities and granting them more academic freedom and autonomy in as early as January 2015, 8 months in his tenure as Prime Minister while inaugurating 102nd Indian Science Congress at Mumbai. Accordingly MHRD has started granting more autonomy to universities and institutions. Experts have welcomed this move. As of now 60 universities and institutions have been granted autonomy.

UGC to be replaced by the Higher Education Commission of India (HECI) – Modi government has proposed to replace the age-old Universities Grant Commission (UGC) with HECI to keep up with the time. Accordingly, the government has placed a draft of the bill in the public domain and invited stakeholders’ comments on it. This bill would be brought in parliament, and when parliament clears it, UGC will be replaced by HECI. How different HECI would be in functioning from UGC can be read here and here. One of the piquant features of HECI is it would be fully digital without any physical file movement. Existing UGC staff would be absorbed in HECI and would be trained for functioning in digital mode.

National Education Policy (NEP) – Modi government decided to bring in new National Education Policy (NEP) which was last formulated in 1986, and updated in 1992. A panel of experts was formed with senior scientist K Kasturiranjan appointed as chairman to prepare a new NEP. This panel has now submitted draft NEP to the government. Government has said that it would soon make draft policy public and invite comments on it.

Vedic Education Board – HRD ministry has decided to set up a new Vedic Education Board, by the name of Bhartiya Shiksha Board (BSB). BSB will standardize Vedic Education across the country, and will have the power of drafting syllabus, conducting exams, issuing certificates, like any other board. This is big move in the direction of recognizing ancient Indian texts like Vedas and other scriptures, which was always held in contempt by the previous Congress governments.

Atal Tinkering Labs – Atal Tinkering Labs (ATL) are dedicated works spaces where students from class 6th to class 12th, learn innovation skills and develop ideas that will go on to transform India. The labs are powered to acquaint students with state-of-the-art equipment such as 3D printers, robotics & electronics development tools, sensors etc. The lab activities are designed to spur the spark of creativity, and go beyond regular curriculum, and textbook learning. The labs will let students explore skills of future such as design, and computational thinking, adaptive learning and artificial intelligence. ATLs will be hubs of innovation, where young minds will accelerate their ideas to solve unique local problems. ATLs are part of Atal Innovation Mission. This is for the first time that any government is talking about innovation and adaption of new technologies for school children. As of now 5,441 schools have established ATLs. ATLs functions under Atal Innovation Mission which has been started by NITI Aayog.

First University in Ladakh – Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently announced that the government will establish the first university in the Ladakh region of Jammu and Kashmir. Despite being the largest geographical area in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, owing to appeasement based politics of valley based political parties, Ladakh was always ignored on many developmental issues. Not having a single university, in such large area, made Ladakhis dependent on valley even more. Now Narendra Modi government has started correcting these anomalies.

 

The author is journalism pass out from Indian Institute of Mass Communication, New Delhi. After dangerously flirting with the idea of left during his IIMC days, due to the proximity of the IIMC with JNU, a den of radical leftists, he became firmly aligned to right after realizing the futility of the left. He tweets at @kpophale.

Water scarcity looms over Maharashtra as 26 dams report zero levels

OpIndia Staff
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Water scarcity looms over Maharashtra as 26 dams report zero levels

According to statistics put out by the Water Conservation department of the state government, 26 dams in Maharashtra have hit zero water storage level as on May 18.

As per reports, the water storage levels in dams of the Aurangabad Division comprising of Aurangabad, Beed, Hingoli, Parbhani and Osmanabad districts, was 0.43 per cent as against 23.44 per cent at the same time last year.

The department has informed that the dams in this division Paithan, Manjara, Majalgaon, Yeldari, Siddeshwar, Lower Terna, Sina Kolegaon and Lower Dhudna, all have zero storage levels at the moment.

In May last year, the water storage level was 34.95 per cent in Paithan, 21.24 per cent in Manjara, 17.5 per cent in Majalgaon and 52.03 per cent in Lower Terna.

The dams of Kadakpurna and Pentakli in Buldhana, Gosikhurd, Dina and Nand in Nagpur Division, Upper Tapi Hathnur in Jalgaon, Waki, Bham, Bhavli and Punegaon in Nashik Division, Dibhe, Ghod, Pimpalgaon Joge, Wadaj and Temghar in Pune, Bhima, Kundali Tata and Lonavala Tata in Solapur, have also hit the zero storage level as on May 18.

Tisgaon dam in Nashik and Totladoh in Nagpur have 0.01 and 0.08 per cent water respectively.

In a total of 103 large, medium and small dams in the state, the water storage stood at 11.84 %, as opposed to 23.73% last year.

According to Sanjay Lakhe Patil, a social activist, the state government’s distribution of fodder camps for cattle in the drought-affected regions was not proper. He termed the situation as ‘animal farm’ where only the fittest would survive. He said, “Only the strong political leaders got cattle camps, fodder, water in their districts in large numbers, whereas drought relief should have been distributed equitably.”

He further alleged, “There is no surface and groundwater in most parts of the state. The water quality supplied through tankers is of very poor quality. This is affecting the health of children and pregnant women in rural areas. The government was in election mode and ignored drought-relief measures. It is monitoring such work from AC offices.”

The Central Water Commission has issued an advisory to the Maharashtra government stating that water storage is the lowest in reservoirs here in a decade. Monsoon prediction of the IMD and Skymet is about a delayed one. It will be disastrous if there are no rains in June, he claimed. He had petitioned the Bombay High Court on drought management under the Disaster Management Act, 2005.

NCP chief Sharad Pawar and Congress state unit president Ashok Chavan have been constantly attacking the Devendra Fadnavis government on the drought situation in the state. However, the BJP has said the technology is being put into effective use for monitoring the drought situation.

2019 World Cup preview: India – One of the favourites but the much debated “Number 4” remains a concern

Sandeep Singh
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2019 World Cup preview: India – One of the favourites but the much debated “Number 4” remains a concern

India is one of the favourites going into the showpiece event of world cricket in England, and for very good reasons. They have the most successful opening pair in world cricket right now, they have the best batsman in the world, one of the best finishers in the game’s history, they have the best fast bowler in the world, and they have an exciting spin duo that can deliver wickets during the crucial middle overs of an innings.

However, despite having most bases covered, one area for concern that remains with this Indian side is the middle order, the butt of long running jokes on Social Media. Since the Champions Trophy final defeat in June 2017, India tried a number of batsmen at the number 4 spot before deciding on KL Rahul and Vijay Shankar as the 2 options for this World Cup. Between them, they have played 23 ODIs with limited success, Rahul averages 13 at Number 4 in his 3 games there while Shankar has batted 5 times in total in ODIs, none of them at Number 4, where he will be expected to slot in if he makes it to the playing XI ahead of Rahul.

MS Dhoni at 5 seems to be gaining some of his old form back this year after a lean 2018. He is averaging 82 in ODIs this year, though with a much lower strike rate than his career numbers. However, as he showed during the IPL, he can still bring out the big hits at the death when required. India will be hoping desperately that he continues in that rich vein of form for another 6 weeks.

Happily for India, Kedar Jadhav has been declared fit for the World Cup. Jadhav is a crucial component of this team structure, being the only batsman among Indian 4-5-6 who can score at a 100+ strike rate right from the start, and his strange bowling provides a valuable option to the Captain during the middle stages. Whether he remains injury free for the entirety of the tournament remains a big question mark as he doesn’t have a great fitness record till now.

The premier Indian all-rounder, Hardik Pandya’s form in the IPL must have been so heart-warming for the team management. After a rough start to the year when his career went into a limbo thanks to a Koffee With Karan episode, Pandya has made a strong comeback for the national team followed by some breath-taking performances in the IPL on the way to the title.

In the bowling department, India boasts of one of the best bowling line-ups in this World Cup spearheaded by World’s Number 1 bowler Jasprit Bumrah. The spin twins Kuldeep and Chahal have been irresistible since they came together for India and have almost always delivered wickets when the Captain needed. Mohammed Shami has been in great form recently, and Bhuvneshwar Kumar, after a lean 2018, has been showing signs of returning to form, though you expect Shami to get into the XI ahead of him on current form.

One would back India to be in the Semi-finals at the end of the round robin league with the quality that they have in their ranks. However, at the back-end of the tournament, much will depend on the form of the top 3 if they have to win the whole thing. If 2 out of the top 3 click, nothing is impossible for this side as they have shown repeatedly over the last few years.

India’s squad: Virat Kohli (Captain), Rohit Sharma (vice-captain), Shikhar Dhawan, KL Rahul, Vijay Shankar, MS Dhoni (wicket-keeper), Kedar Jadhav, Dinesh Karthik, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jasprit Bumrah, Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Shami

Modi ministers in five years – Dr. Harsh Verdhan, Minister of Science and Technology and Minister of Environment

Keshav
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Modi ministers in five years – Dr. Harsh Verdhan, Minister of Science and Technology and Minister of Environment

This is an analysis of the performance of Science & Technology, and Environment minister Dr. Harsh Verdhan in this series on ministers of Modi government.

Dr. Harsh Verdhan is a member of RSS since young age. He is ENT surgeon by profession. In 1992, he was first elected as MLA to Delhi Legislative Assembly, and was reelected in 1998, 2003, 2008 and 2013. He was first elected to Loksabha in 2014, from Chandni Chowk constituency in Delhi, by defeating senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal. He continued his ENT practice while being in politics, albeit in low profile due to constant responsibilities of public office. He is a pioneer of Oral Polio Vaccination (OPV) program in India. As Minister for Health of NCT of Delhi, he first implemented program of mass immunization, against polio in Delhi successfully in 1993. In 1995, this program was implemented nationally.

The ‘Polio Ravivars’ we see today is a brainchild of Dr. Harsh Vardhan, where a particular date is selected for immunizing all children under 5 against Polio. Due to the success of this program, and continuous efforts by the government, India was declared polio-free country in 2014. In 1997, he was instrumental in passing the Delhi Prohibition of Smoking and Non-Smokers Health Protection Act, in Delhi Assembly, which was one of the first anti-tobacco laws, implemented by any state government.  Under this law, smoking was prohibited in public places. It also prohibited the sale of smoking substances, such as tobacco and bidis to anyone below the age of 18. Tobacco products could not also be sold, or stored within 100 meters of any educational institution. This law was also later enacted at the national level.

Let’s have a look at the achievements of Dr. Harsh Vardhan.

Atlas for Visually Impaired (India) – Dr. Harsh Vardhan released the Special Edition of Atlas for Visually Impaired (India) in English Braille in February 2017. Braille Atlas has been prepared by National Atlas and Thematic Mapping Organisation (NATMO) under Department of Science & Technology.

Nakshe portal – Topographic maps or Open Series Maps (OSM) containing natural and man-made geographical features, including terrain or topography have been  made available for free download, from “Nakshe” web portal in PDF  format through Aadhar enabled user authentication process, in line with Digital India program of the Government of India.

SERB Distinguished Investigator Award – A new scheme called SERB Distinguished Investigator Award (SERB-DIA) was approved for early identification, and empowerment of exceptional scientists. The scheme aims to recognize, and reward the young scientists who have performed extraordinarily well, in the SERB supported projects, under its Extra Mural Research scheme, but are yet to reach the stage of advanced professional recognitions, like SS Bhatnagar awards/ JC Bose fellowships etc. The awardees will receive honorarium of Rs 15,000/- per month, for a period of 3 years, and will be awarded a project to further develop their research.

TARE (Teacher Associates for Research Excellence) Mobility Scheme – TARE has been formulated and approved by SERB, which aims to activate the latent and unused R&D capacity in our colleges, and state universities that lack science and technology infrastructure and culture. The TARE scheme allows undertaking of part-time research by the faculty, working in a regular capacity in State Universities or Colleges by integrating them in academic institutions such as IITs, IISc, IISERs, National labs, etc. located in the same city where the faculty member is working.

MANAK (Million Minds Augmenting National Aspiration and Knowledge) – In line with the Start-up India initiative of the government, MANAK scheme has been initiated to foster culture of scientific innovation among school children of class 6th to 10th. This scheme is aimed to broaden the base of innovation pyramid, to produce future entrepreneurs in large numbers. The program has been targeted to encourage children to visualize, and analyze needs of the society inspire them, to devise innovative ideas to address them.

Interdisciplinary Centre for Cyber Security and Cyber Defence of Critical Infrastructures – An Interdisciplinary Centre for Cyber Security and Cyber Defence of Critical Infrastructures at IIT Kanpur has been established, to create India’s first such research centre. The centre is established to promote research, education, training, and spawn start-ups to create technological safe guards to protect country’s critical infrastructure.

Quantum Information Science & Technology (QuST) – This new program aims at developing next generation and futuristic computation, communication and cryptography systems.

Initiative to Promote Habitat Energy Efficiency (I-PHEE) – A new national program on “Initiative to Promote Habitat Energy Efficiency (I-PHEE)” to improve energy performance of buildings and cities has been launched. It would support enhancement of knowledge, and practice to save energy in design, construction and operation of buildings. Out of 105 research proposals, 31 have been recommended for funding.

Materials on Energy Storage (MES) – MES program is to support Research and Development activities, aimed at innovative materials for energy storage, and to build energy storage device, with enhanced output for multifunctional applications. Efficient use and further increase of renewable energy, and demonstrating its value in terms of flexibility, in the energy systems are the prime objective of the initiative. 18 out of 130 proposals received were approved for funding.

SERB now 100% online – Science and Engineering Research Board has become 100% online, for processing of all proposals under its various schemes. This has helped thousands of scientists to submit their proposals, and see the decisions online without wasting time in paper correspondence. This has also improved the speed of decision making, and transparency, on the submitted proposals.

Online Processing of INSPIRE – Innovation in Science Pursuit for Inspired Research (INSPIRE) program which has 5 components and enrolls nearly 1.5 lakhs students every year. It has now completely made online, right from submission of application to release of scholarships/ fellowships etc. to every student under the scheme through web-based system. It is completely functioning in online, and paperless mode since Modi government assumed power at the centre. Students from across the country applying for INSPIRE are now saved from hassles of offline mode.

An online web-based system has been introduced, for Fund for improvement of science and technology infrastructure (FIST) scheme which supports R&D infrastructure. Processing of proposals, right from submission of applications, to release of funds to the departments and colleges, has now  become easily accessible, and transparent with this initiative.

Greater Access of High-end Equipment/Facilities – A common web portal is being developed, which will be populated with the name of high-end equipment, and facilities available with the institutions and universities and their online booking, and use in a transparent way. This will facilitate researchers/ students the access of these facilities.

India Science & Technology (S&T) Portal – Development of an ambitious India S&T Portal has been initiated, with the objective to provide one stop information center to school students, scientists and the society at large on various schemes and programs, activities, and major achievements in Science and Technology (S&T). This would be a 360-degree view and connect to all the stakeholders and activities of S&T in India.  An internet-TV channel on S&T, is also in the advanced stages of planning and execution. Currently, systems are being set up for production of contents.

Ministry of Environment –

Intended Nationally Determined Contribution – India declared its Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDCs) in the run to COP-21 at Paris Climate Change Conference in December 2015. According to INDC India will reduce the emissions intensity of its GDP by 33 – 35% by 2030 from 2005 levels, which can be termed as significant. Ujjwala Yojana, E Vehicles, LED Bulbs are the schemes launched by government to fulfill its commitment at Paris Climate Change Conference.  India has also committed to increase its tree cover, to create additional carbon absorption of 2.5 to 3 billion tonnes of CO2 or equivalent gases.

National Air Quality Index – Air pollution has emerged as a major problem in India in recent years. However lack of proper data is a big roadblock to tackle this menace. To overcome this government launched National Air Quality Index in October, 2014 to monitor the quality of air in major urban centers across the country on a real-time basis. 

Construction & Demolition Waste Management Rules were notified for the first time.   Under these rules, duties have been separately earmarked for waste generators, service providers and contractors, state government and local authorities, CPCB and SPCBs and duties of concerned central ministries.

Air pollution has increasingly been becoming a serious concern, predominantly for health of the people. The impact of air pollution is not limited to health, but it gets extended to agriculture and general well-being of human, floral and faunal population. Therefore the government has formulated the National Clean Air Program (NCAP) as a long-term, time-bound national-level strategy to tackle the increasing air pollution problem across the country in a comprehensive manner. The overall objective of the NCAP is a comprehensive management plan for prevention, control and abatement of air pollution besides augmenting the air quality-monitoring network across the country. City-specific air pollution abatement action plan for 100 polluting cities of the country similar to one for Delhi, have been formulated under the NCAP. Increasing number of monitoring stations, data dissemination, public participation on planning and implementation, setting up of Air Information Centre for data analysis, resource apportionment studies, setting up of national inventory are key components of NCAP. Guidelines for indoor air pollution and setting up of rural monitoring stations not addressed till date as some of the key components under NCAP.

 

The author is journalism pass out from Indian Institute of Mass Communication, New Delhi. After dangerously flirting with the idea of left during his IIMC days, due to the proximity of the IIMC with JNU, a den of radical leftists, he became firmly aligned to right after realizing the futility of the left. He tweets at @kpophale.

After Anjana Om Kashyap, now Shweta Singh calls out Rajdeep Sardesai’s bias among others

OpIndia Staff
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After Anjana Om Kashyap, now Shweta Singh calls out Rajdeep Sardesai’s bias among others

It seems like a section of the media is finally finding its voice when it comes to calling out the blatant bias within the fraternity. Earlier, Anjana Om Kashyap had called out Rajdeep Sardesai and just how pliant he is. Now, Sweta Singh has called out the blatant bias in the Left media and even Rajdeep Sardesai among others.


Sweta, the Aaj Tak Editor said that when politicians display their faith, their pictures have been released in to the world by the Media itself. But it is only now that people seem to have an issue.

Sweta was alluding to the coverage accorded to Narendra Modi’s Kedarnath visit that seemed to ruffle the ‘Liberal’ feathers.

Several left journalists had slammed the media itself for giving the Prime Minister the coverage when he was visiting Kedarnath to offer prayers.

Among others, the journalist who seemed most distressed was Rajdeep Sardesai, who is incidentally, from the same media organisation as Sweta Singh.


Rajdeep Sardesai said that on polling day, “news” channels happily showed images of PM Modi’s Kedarnath yatra. He urged that people should not forget that PM is actually a candidate in Varanasi. He then said that ‘moral’ code of conduct is above the ‘model code of conduct’. He also said that the EC was missing in action.

After Anjana Om Kashyap, Sweta Singh is the second journalist from the India Today family to counter and slam Rajdeep Sardesai’s hypocrisy. Anjana Om Kashyap had sarcastically said that she knows of one journalist who conducts coaching for asking on air questions. He is the same journalist who himself could not ask questions beyond ‘saas bahu’ and he now goes around distributing certificates to other journalists. She also said that he was frustrated for having to wait outside the door and not being let in.

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