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Narendra Modi set to return as Prime Minister in 2019: Jan Ki Baat’s latest opinion poll

OpIndia Staff
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Narendra Modi set to return as Prime Minister in 2019: Jan Ki Baat’s latest opinion poll

Jan Ki Baat has released the results of its latest survey ahead of the Lok Sabha elections predicting an NDA government after the 2019 general elections.

Speaking to OpIndia.com, Pradip Bhandari, the Founder and Chief Editor of Jan Ki Baat, said, “The most important takeaway from this survey is that Narendra Modi will be returning as Prime Minister in 2019 and he is all sure to get a second term. The survey has been done on the basis of a seat-by-seat and state-by-state analysis over a period of 2 months, sampling 5 lakh voters.”

In its survey, which sampled 5 lakh people from all over the country, the polling agency predicted a victory for the NDA with 304-316 seats and the BJP to emerge as the single largest party with 248-260 seats.


The survey also predicted the Congress to increase its tally at least from the 44 it secured in 2014. The UPA, on the other hand, is expected to win between 117-126 seats. Consistent with the disparity in the number of seats, the NDA is likely to secure a vote-share close to 50% while the UPA is predicted to manage only 39%.

In Madhya Pradesh, the NDA is likely to win 22-25 seats while the UPA is slated to win between 4-7. In Bihar, the former is expected to win between 28-33 seats while the rest may go to the UPA. In Uttar Pradesh, one of the most crucial states for the BJP, the party will likely lose a significant chunk of seats it had won last year. However, it is still expected to win more than 40 seats. The SP-BSP alliance appears set to win anything between 25-33 seats.


The BJP will compensate for the expected loss of seats in Uttar Pradesh by making major gains in Odisha and West Bengal. In Odisha, Naveen Patnaik is expected to suffer significantly as BJP makes inroads into the state. The BJP is expected to win anything between 8-12 seats. In West Bengal, the BJP is expected to win at least 11 seats.

A major surprise came from Tamil Nadu where the UPA was expected to sweep the state. However, according to Jan Ki Baat, the two alliances are now locked in a fierce battle and currently, it is the NDA which appears to have the slight upper hand.


Bhandari stated further, “In Karnataka, despite the Congress-JD(S) alliance, the BJP will emerge with the maximum seats. It might increase its seat tally by 2-3 seats. The simple reason is that the Congress and the JD(S) are cutting into each other’s votes. The Congress and the JD(S) cadres are fighting a battle between themselves.”

“The Congress is only gaining in 3 states: Punjab, Kerala and Chhattisgarh. There are no other seats where the Congress is showing substantial gains. Congress crossing 100 seats on its own is not possible, it’s not true. In Rajasthan, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh, the BJP is poised to get a majority of the seats. In Maharashtra, the Shiv Sena-BJP alliance appears set to win more than 35 sets,” he added.

Shatrughan Sinha goofs up the day he joins Congress, praises Congress leader Shaktisinh Gohil as being backbone of BJP

OpIndia Staff
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Shatrughan Sinha goofs up the day he joins Congress, praises Congress leader Shaktisinh Gohil as being backbone of BJP

Former BJP rebel leader Shatrughan Sinha joined the Congress today. While interacting with mediapersons right after joining the grand old party, Sinha ended up praising Congress leader Shaktisinh Gohil of being the backbone of “BJP” in Bihar and Gujarat.


“Our very good person, who has been the backbone of Bharatiya Janata Party especially in Bihar and in Gujarat, Shaktisinh ji… ” Sinha says before being corrected by the audience that Shaktisinh Gohil is a Congress leader and not the BJP leader. To that, Sinha says he said it mistakenly because today is also the BJP foundation day and since he is still new to Congress. He added that it was not intentional.

He will be contesting from Patna Sahib constituency on Congress ticket.

When NDTV deleted interview of ex-Navy Chief because Shekhar Gupta was possibly angry at ‘darling of foreign vendors’ comment

OpIndia Staff
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When NDTV deleted interview of ex-Navy Chief because Shekhar Gupta was possibly angry at ‘darling of foreign vendors’ comment

A couple of days back, it was reported that chargesheet in AgustaWestland scam mentioned names of some journalists. Soon it was revealed that one of the journalists named was Shekhar Gupta, whom arms dealer Christian Michel is supposed to have ‘influenced’ to tone down articles about AgustaWestland deal.

Michel, the middleman in the deal, was extradited in December 2018 from Dubai and is currently in custody. Investigative agencies have been grilling him about kickbacks and how the deal to buy the VVIP helicopters was sealed. Michel has reportedly revealed many names, some directly and some in code names like Fam, AP, RG, etc. Shekhar Gupta’s name was mentioned directly in parts of chargesheet accessed by media outlets.

Once the news spread, Shekhar Gupta issued a statement, via his news portal ThePrint, declaring that “The claim in the Enforcement Directorate chargesheet against Christian Michel, a key suspect in the AgustaWestland VVIP helicopter deal scam, that Michel had admitted to hiring the services of a person named Guy Douglas to influence Shekhar Gupta to tone down an article in The Indian Express, is 100% unruth, laughable, and utterly preposterous.”

In the same statement, Gupta further claimed that he was actually at the forefront of media investigation into the chopper scam and the story was broken first by The Indian Express under his leadership. He also raised suspicion over ‘timing’ of this reported revelation by Christian Michel.

Post this statement by Shekhar Gupta, not much has been talked about the incident. However, this is not for the first time Shekhar Gupta’s name has come up while talking about foreign companies indulged in defence deals.

Around 4 years back in October 2014, a controversy had erupted, especially online, when NDTV abruptly took down an interview of former Navy Chief Admiral DK Joshi, which was titled “Ex-Navy Chief’s Explosive Disclosures”.

One wondered why would a media outlet delete something that was “exclusive” and “explosive” by its own admission. Such an interview will be something a media organisation will flaunt, not hide.

In February 2014, Admiral Devendra Kumar Joshi became the first Indian Navy Chief to resign from his post taking responsibility of a series of naval accidents. The accident that triggered his resignation was fire at INS Sindhuratna on 26th February 2014 off Mumbai coast, leading to death of two officers. Admiral Joshi resigned the same day and his resignation was accepted within a couple of hours, which many felt was unceremonious towards a decorated officer.

Few months later, NDTV’s senior defence journalist Nitin Gokhale could get an exclusive interview with Admiral Joshi where he tried to find out under what circumstances the former Navy Chief had to resign. Admiral Joshi, in the interview, lamented about a dysfunctional and inefficient model armed forces were saddled with. He said that the system needed reforms, but vested interests were stalling such reforms.

The former Navy Chief said that such vested interests had authority but no accountability, while armed forces have accountability – due to which he resigned – but no authority. The interview was indeed explosive as it revealed how the UPA regime neglected issues around national security.

“Exclusive: Former Navy Chief blasts UPA govt” and “Scathing appraisal of Anthony years by Ex-Navy Chief” were some of the sub-headlines NDTV used for the interview.

However, within a couple of days, this exclusive and explosive interview was deleted by NDTV. The video recording of the interview was pulled down, and even the report with the transcript of the interview was gone.

Could it be pressure from Congress leaders that made NDTV delete the interview? After all, it has been claimed that NDTV took editorial lines from the Prime Minister’s Office when Manmohan Singh was the Prime Minister. But that possibility is mostly ruled out because the portion of the interview where Admiral Joshi blasts the UPA government is still available on NDTV’s website as part of a show of Barkha Dutt, who was then with NDTV.

So if not pressure from the Congress party, why was the interview deleted?

The mystery was solved to a large extent three years later in October 2017, when Nitin Gokhale spoke about it in a Facebook post. He revealed the circumstances around which the interview was pulled down, due to which he resigned from NDTV within a month as he thought such censorship could happen again.

“After its telecast at least five times in both Hindi and English, NDTV management deemed contents of the interview with Adm DK Joshi to be defamatory and decided to drop it. My suspicion was more than being defamatory, Admiral Joshi’s barbs hit some old NDTV associates and friends hard and therefore the decision to remove the interview and its full transcript. All the high sounding principles of supporting and protecting everyone’s freedom of expression, went out of the window the moment one of the own NDTV insiders was attacked. There was no regard for the Admiral’s FoE.” – Nitin Gokhale wrote on Facebook.

So what were these barbs by Admiral Joshi that is supposed to have hit some ‘old NDTV associates’?

In the interview, Admiral Joshi was not only critical of the UPA regime, he also criticised some parts of media for immature and malicious reporting on defence matters. The following statement by Admiral Joshi gives a hint about the ‘old NDTV associate’ Nitin Gokhale hinted at in his Facebook post.

“There were these two newspapers, one of which had invented the coup theory; this reporter was the darling of foreign vendors, and to show his importance he would author articles like ‘the reporter is in country abc at the invitation of vendor xyz’,” Admiral DK Joshi had said in the interview.

It requires no special knowledge or decoding to understand that Shekhar Gupta and Indian Express are being referred to when anyone talks about the “coup theory”. Another allusion to Shekhar Gupta can be inferred from the latter part of the sentence, because Gupta once said that it’s fine for journalists to go on foreign trips if this fact is mentioned in the article.

However, Admiral did not name Shekhar Gupta directly. OpIndia asked Nitin Gokhale if he was ever told directly or indirectly that Shekhar Gupta was unhappy with the interview and wanted it pulled down.

“I was never told directly that Shekhar Gupta was unhappy with the interview or wanted it pulled down, but it was pretty clear from the newsroom conversations that the management had been spoken to by someone who was close to them. So the management took a stance that the content was defamatory and pulled down the interview,” Nitin Gokhale told OpIndia.

Whether Shekhar Gupta actually called up anyone at NDTV to express his displeasure or whether someone in top management of NDTV voluntarily realised that the vague references to Shekhar Gupta was ‘defamatory’ is known only to Sekhar Gupta and NDTV top management, but the references in the interview and the circumstances mentioned in Nitin Gokhale’s Facebook post don’t leave much to imagination.

Nitin Gokhale doesn’t regret having resigned from NDTV after this incident. He had written:

“I thought it’s time to move on and leave behind a place which outwardly is suave, sophisticated and ‘liberal,’ but in reality is full of nepotism, favouritism and clannish, designed to protect and promote PLUs (for the uninitiated, People Like Us—public school educated, residents of tony neighbourhoods, children of wealthy and/or people in high positions). To be fair, a plebeian like me had been allowed to enter the world of NDTV not because any favour was being done but because that was the need of the time in 2006. To be fair, I enjoyed the stint and gained a higher profile because I proved my worth but an unseen glass ceiling always existed for us ‘outsiders’.”

The deleted interview was backed up and uploaded on YouTube by a user and can be seen below. Readers can ascertain for themselves if there could be some other reason why NDTV deleted the interview:

Former Congress leader representing Christian Michel claims he didn’t reveal any names, accuses ED of leaking the charge-sheet

OpIndia Staff
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Former Congress leader representing Christian Michel claims he didn’t reveal any names, accuses ED of leaking the charge-sheet

Aljo Joseph, the former Congress leader, serving as a defence counsel of the middleman Christian Michel has alleged that his client had “never named anybody” to the investigative agencies and accused the Enforcement Directorate (ED) of leaking the details of the supplementary charge sheet before sharing it with him.

Appearing for the middleman Christian Michel, lawyer Aljo Joseph said, “He was asked to provide possible initials for the people and that is all he did. He has not named anybody as is being leaked in the media.” On Joseph’s plea, the Special Judge Arvind Kumar issued a notice to ED seeking its response by Saturday.

Joseph also asked the courts to seek an explanation from the ED as to how the charge-sheet got leaked to the media outlets. Joseph insinuated that the agency “surreptitiously” passed on the charge-sheet to the media outlets which are sensationalising the matter by publishing the same in instalments, thereby perpetuating bias even before the court has taken cognisance. On this, the Judge responded claiming that an order can’t be passed without hearing ED’s explanation. The court will decide today if the accused can be summoned and on the cognisance of the charge sheet.

In its 4th supplementary charge sheet filed by the ED, several explosive revelations made by middleman Christian Michel were included. The charge sheet revealed that Michel made attempts to influence media through his aide Douglas, who was in touch with prominent journalists such as Manu Pubby and Shekhar Gupta, asking them to tone down their articles in Indian Express to sway public opinion. Most significantly, however, the charge sheet reveals that as per Christian Michel, ‘AP’ in the retrieved documents stand for Ahmed Patel and ‘Fam’ means Family. The charge sheet also mentioned that there was a nexus of air force officials, bureaucrats and top-brass Congress politicians who colluded to ensure that the contract was awarded to AgustaWestland.

It is interesting to note here that Aljo Joseph was a former Congress leader who was the national in-charge of the legal department of Indian Youth Congress, the youth wing of the party, before being expelled by the party. He was often seen photographed with senior Congress members including Ahmed Patel. Realising that a Congress leader appearing before the court in the VVIP chopper case in which senior Congress leaders including Sonia Gandhi are named will raise eyebrows, he was unceremoniously thrown out of the Congress.

Video: ‘Indians like Monkeys’ says Sam Pitroda, Rahul Gandhi’s top advisor

OpIndia Staff
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Video: ‘Indians like Monkeys’ says Sam Pitroda, Rahul Gandhi’s top advisor

Congress’ Sam Pitroda seems to be on a slandering spree. After first casting doubts on the Balakot airstrikes and then calling the middle class ‘selfish’ for being unwilling to pay more taxes, he now calls Indians using mobile phones as ‘monkeys playing with a new toy’.


In a video clip shared by Republic TV, Pitroda, Rahul Gandhi’s top adviser and long-time Congress loyalist is seen saying that Indians are not using connectivity effectively.

Pitroda says, ” Indians are not using connectivity effectively. But you know it’s world over today, this is a new toy. So all of a sudden every monkey you have is given a new toy and they are fiddling with it. Okay. They don’t know what to do with it yet. I think it will take 5-10 years to figure out that you can do a lot more with it than you are doing now. Today, it is entertainment, you know, gossip lies. Lies get amplified on social media.”

Pitroda’s comments have created strong reactions on social media.


Pitroda had also tried to downplay the 26/11 Mumbai attacks recently. He had stated just because 8 people came and did something, you cannot blame an entire nation(Pakistan) for it.

Pitroda had recently also tried to defend Rahul Gandhi’s proposed NYAY scheme and also said that even though taxes will have to be raised, the middle class should not be selfish and have a big heart. He had stated that to help the poor, the middle class should be ready to pay more taxes to fund the scheme.

Also Watch:

Did ABP News ‘censor’ a clip from PM Modi’s interview where he slammed them and mentioned OpIndia’s expose on Rahul’s deals?

OpIndia Staff
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Did ABP News ‘censor’ a clip from PM Modi’s interview where he slammed them and mentioned OpIndia’s expose on Rahul’s deals?

ABP News had conducted the interview of Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently. In the over an hour-long interview, PM Modi had discussed many issues, from India’s growth story, defence, politics, and the upcoming elections.

However, one interesting aspect of the interview was that though it was telecast on Friday morning, there were no discussions of a point where the PM had reacted on a question over the Rafale deal.

PM Modi was asked by Rubika Liyakat whether it is a lie that the NDA government had favoured Anil Ambani’s company in the Rafale deal. PM Modi had responded to the questions that whether the ABP News crew have no trust on the Supreme Court, the CAG, the statements given by the French President or even the statements given by the government of India in the parliament.

PM Modi had stated that ABP News had not dared to question the 6-month long ongoing lie that is being peddled by Rahul Gandhi without a shred of evidence, but it does not trust the Indian government and institutions when they say that there has been no scam.

PM Modi then further slammed ABP News saying that, they take up a random statement from social media and debate over it for hours, but in the last 10 days, an Online portal (OpInida) had reported about the corruption and shady dealings that were done by the Gandhi family with all documents and evidence, but ABP has not seen it fit to discuss it. Even when the finance minister holds a press conference over the exclusive report, ABP blacks out the press conference.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8Zr1VtvChQ]

The above clip was nowhere to be seen in the morning telecast of the interview. However, clips of it started surfacing in the social media and also uploaded by ABP’s YouTube channel later in the day.

This has led to many people in the social media speculate whether ABP had deliberately ‘censored’ this part of the PM’s interview where he slams their journalistic ethics and holds them accountable for not daring to question the Gandhi family even when they peddle lies repeatedly.


Interestingly, the entire transcript of the interview was uploaded by ABP soon after the morning telecast yesterday and the discussion over Rafale and the PM’s sharp reply to ABP were nowhere mentioned. Effectively, the entire portion of the discussion about the news channel not daring to ask questions to the Gandhi family was ‘censored’ out.

However, the video clip and other smaller clips of the discussion over Rafale and ABP’s failure to cover OpIndia’s expose started surfacing later in the day. When the interview was telecast later in the evening, the clip was there. In their YouTube channel too, the short clip has been uploaded with the title ‘PM Modi became upset over questions on Rafale’.

This has given rise to many questions and speculations. Did ABP News intentionally censor the discussion out? If they had saved the specified part of the interview for later, why was the discussion not present in the transcripted text of the ‘whole interview’ uploaded by them?

A few years ago Doordarshan too, had come under the scanner for ‘censoring’ a part of the then Gujarat CM Narendra Modi’s interview where he had stated that Priyanka Gandhi is like his own daughter. It was alleged that DD had ‘censored’ the part of the interview on the then Congress government’s order, which the then government had denied.

So, did ABP News actually attempt to do something like that but later realised that they might land in trouble as things do not remain hidden for long in the age of social media? Or did the PMO ask them about the absence of some very crucial remarks made by the PM in their morning telecast so they hurried to put it back? ABP has not offered an answer yet.

Nauroz vs Navreh: Priyanka Gandhi invents a new spelling, or did she invent a new festival in confusion?

OpIndia Staff
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Nauroz vs Navreh: Priyanka Gandhi invents a new spelling, or did she invent a new festival in confusion?

Congress General Secretary for Uttar Pradesh East and Congress President Rahul Gandhi’s sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra today took to Twitter to wish Kashmiri Pandits on their new year festival, Navreh. Except, she spelt it ‘Nauroz’.


Gandhi, whose grandmother has Kashmiri roots, seems to have either invented a new spelling for the festival or confused it with the Parsi festival Navroz. Priyanka and Rahul Gandhi’s grandfather, Feroze Gandhi was a Parsi. Or maybe she just invented a new festival in confusion.

Many Twitter users pointed it out that she seems to have confused the two festivals, especially since Navroz was celebrated just few weeks back.


The Kashmiri Pandits, especially, seem to have not taken it too well.


Clearly, not too happy.


Navreh is a new year for the Kashmiri Pandits which falls on the first day of bright fortnight of Chaitra month. On the eve of Navrah, a thaali filled with rice, curd, bread, walnuts, inkpot, paper, pen, mirror, flowers, silver coin and the almanac of the next year is kept ready to be seen the first thing next morning. Navroz is the Parsi new year which was celebrated on March 21 this year. However, from what it appears, Priyanka seems to have either confused the two festivals of her Kashmiri and Parsi roots or she has invented a new spelling of the Kashmiri festival.

Modi ministers in five years – Home Minister Rajnath Singh

Keshav
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Modi ministers in five years – Home Minister Rajnath Singh

In the earlier articles in this series, we looked into the achievements of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. In this part, we take a look at the achievements of Rajnath Singh, Minister of Home Affairs.

Rajanth Singh has been associated with RSS since the age of 13. He was the professor of Physics after completing the Masters in Physics from Gorakhpur University. I am sure, that most of us don’t know this fact that he is such a highly educated person. Later he was associated with Jan Sangh and became MLA for the first time in 1977. In 1984, he was elected the president of Uttar Pradesh Bhartiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM), the youth wing of the BJP, and in 1988 he became the national president of BJYM. In 1991, he was appointed as Minister for Education in Uttar Pradesh government led by Kalyan Singh. His achievements from that tenure include bringing of the historic anti-copying act to stop copying in exams. This was one of the reasons why the BJP government in UP wasn’t re-elected again, as opposition made an issue out of it with such impunity as if cheating in exams is a fundamental right. After Mulayam Singh came to power in 1993, he repealed this act.

So, we as a country need to decide whether we need to stand by such politicians who for their short-term benefits, are ready to play with the future of the country or those people who without caring for political fallout, take decisions in the interest of the country. Even today copying in exams is the menace in few north Indian states including UP and Bihar.

Rajnath Singh had also included Vedic Mathematics in the syllabus. Later in 1997, he became the president of BJP in Uttar Pradesh and was elected as Chief Minister of UP in 2000. In 2003, he took charge as Union Minister of Agriculture. During this tenure, he initiated a few epoch-making projects including the Kisan Call Centre and Farm Income Insurance Scheme. He also brought down interest rates on Agriculture loans and also established Farmer Commission. After BJP lost power in 2004 elections, he became BJP national president in December 2005 and continued to hold the post till December 2009. He was re-elected as BJP national president in 2013. After Narendra Modi took over as PM in 2014, he was appointed as Minister of Home Affairs and subsequently handed over the BJP presidency to Amit Shah.

Here are few notable achievements of the Home Ministry under the leadership of Rajnath Singh.

Control on terror activities – The most important and noteworthy achievement of MHA under Rajnath Singh is that the ministry has kept the country mostly terror-free except the disturbed areas. There hasn’t been a single incident of bombing/terror attacks anywhere in the country except for Jammu and Kashmir, Naxal dominated areas, some isolated incidents in North East and two attacks on army camps and one recent small-scale attack in Punjab. Bomb blasts and casualties caused because of it are things of the past. This is the single biggest reason, at least for me, and should be for all Indians to vote this government back to the power.

According to a recent RTI reply by the MHA, between 2004 to May 2014, 850 innocent citizens died of terror attacks in the hinterland of the country that is except for Jammu and Kashmir, the North Eastern States and Naxal affected area. This figure is measly 21 from June 2014 till December 2018. This shows how internal security has improved during Rajnath Singh’s tenure as home minister. During UPA, every major city of India saw terror attacks and people getting killed in them.

Naxalism – Considerable reductions in Naxal violence is another hallmark of the performance of Union Home Ministry. Centre has brought down Naxal affected districts to 90 from 144. Fatalities have been brought down to 263 (Civilians and Security Forces) in 2017, the last full year data available, from high of 1005 in 2010.

Cracking down on NGOs – This government has cracked down on various NGOs which were operating in the country violating norms. Many of such NGOs often derailed developmental works through their agenda, and some of these NGOs were also notorious for religious conversions in the garb of humanitarian aid. According to Home Ministry data, close to 16,000 NGOs have lost their FCRA registration, since 2014 thereby debarring them from accepting foreign aid, which was often used to here to promote the donor agenda, rather than service of people. Even NGOs like Greenpeace and Amnesty weren’t spared for not adhering to laws. While Greenpeace was forced to shut its two offices in India and cut down staff, Amnesty India tried to skirt the ban by forming a shadow entity for accepting foreign aid, for which recently Enforcement Directorate (ED) raided them.

Rohingya Crisis – Rohingya refugees from Myanmar have been regularly entering in India illegally since 2010. However, we Indians were not aware of this, and meanwhile, they made their biggest settlement in the city of Jammu. Jammu being part of the state of Jammu and Kashmir, article 370 should be enforced which prohibits Indians from other states to buy land and settle there. In such conditions, illegal refugees reached Jammu and made their biggest settlement and that too around sensitive army bases? Wasn’t it a part of some sinister agenda? This government exposed Rohingya problem, by saying it would start their deportation soon, but however as usual liberals like Prashant Bhushan came to their rescue, and got a stay from Supreme Court, and that’s why the government couldn’t repatriate them. In fact when threat to security of Jammu and Kashmir was given as one of the reasons for their deportation, former CM of the state Omar Abdullah rushed to their defense, and tweeted that such threat was never pointed out to him in joint security coordination meetings, to which senior journalist Shekhar Gupta asked him on Twitter that, threat aside, how can they live in J&K despite article 370, to which Omar Abdullah replied him privately in a message.


What was it which he couldn’t say publicly? Wasn’t it a sinister move to change the demography of the Hindu majority Jammu region? Thanks to Modi government, Rohingyas and their security threat have been exposed. They would be sent back with due process.

National Police Memorial – Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated National Police Memorial in Delhi in honour of all policemen who died in the line of duty till date all over the country. The project was conceived and completed by MHA. It is often seen that police forces are less celebrated than armed forces but their contribution in maintaining internal security can’t be ignored.

This memorial was first conceptualized during NDA – 1 government led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee and the foundation stone was laid by the then home minister Lal Krishna Advani. It took NDA – 2 led by Narendra Modi to complete the memorial and dedicate it to the nation and fallen policemen. It points out the contempt with which UPA government treated police martyrs just like it kept pending National War Memorial pending for 60 years, which was also completed and inaugurated by Narendra Modi government.

E- FRRO – Foreigners Regional Registration Offices have now been made online which offer 27 different Visa/Consular related services to foreigners visiting India, thereby doing away with the need of foreigners visiting these offices other than exceptional cases.  This move has greatly been beneficial for foreigners visiting India.

Bharat Ke Veer – Bharat Ke Veer is an online portal from where you can contribute to the family members of paramilitary who are martyred in the line of duty directly in their bank account. This portal was an idea of film star Akshay Kumar, who presented it to Home Minister Rajnath Singh. He liked this idea, and the portal was established. Every beneficiary family’s donation amount is capped at Rs 15 lakh, beyond which the amount goes to the corpus fund set up for the benefit of martyred paramilitary personnel. A committee decides on the allocation amount from this fund. After the Pulwama attack which killed 40 of our CRPF men, there was a surge of donations on this portal. As per the dashboard, all 252 martyr families of paramilitary personnel till now has got full Rs 15 lakh as donation from common public, beyond the compensation given to them as per the government rules.

Single emergency number 112 – MHA took an initiative to launch a nationwide single emergency number 112 by subsuming all other emergency numbers like police (100), fire (101), ambulance (108) and women’s helpline (1090) on the lines of USA’s 911. In case of an emergency, you just have to dial 112 and required help would reach to you within 10 – 12 minutes. MHA is further planning to bring down response time to 8 minutes.

Cyberdost Twitter Handle – with the advent of the internet and social media, the number of cyber-crimes are on the rise. Cybercriminals use new modus operandi to fool people time to time, because after a particular time, people get aware of previous modus operandi of these criminals. Therefore, MHA has taken an initiative to launch a twitter handle @Cyberdost, which regularly posts updates about cyber security and new modus operandi of cybercriminals. This initiative shows how the Modi government thinks out of the box, and work like a corporate which is very different from the usual bureaucratic setup. Cybercrime needs a cyber-solution and not bureaucratic file movement and hence the twitter handles to educate people.  It has also launched web portal www.cybercrime.gov.in to report cyber crimes directly through the website, without going to the police station.

National Register of Citizens (NRC) – The process of updating the NRC for Assam has entered its final phase. This is an exercise to identify legitimate Indian citizens before the cutoff date of 24th March 1974. Updating the NRC for Assam, which was originally prepared in 1951 and never updated since then, is a long-standing demand of people of Assam to identify illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.  However, successive Congress governments didn’t dare to implement it on some pretext or the other as it would have struck of illegal immigrants living in Assam of Indian citizenship which is it’s vote bank. It took the orders of strict orders of Supreme Court and BJP government in both centre and Assam to update the NRC. MHA started NRC update exercise and according to draft NRC, around 40 lakh people couldn’t prove their citizenships. Amit Shah has promised to implement NRC in entire India, to throw all illegal immigrants out of the country, it BJP is voted back to power.

Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) revoked from certain areas – AFSPA has been a bone of contention in North East as well as Jammu and Kashmir. It gives sweeping power to forces, to arrest or kill anyone on mere suspicion. There have been instances of misuse of this power by forces. Therefore, there is large scale opposition to this act from the residents of these states. MHA has revoked AFSPA from entire Meghalaya, Tripura, and parts of Arunachal Pradesh, as these areas were declared insurgency-free and are no longer classified as disturbed areas. Was the AFSPA removal possible without central government curbing down violence in these areas? These are stellar facts which show the performance of government on the internal security front.

 

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.

Watch: Karnataka Congress leader’s close aide Amanullah Khan wants BJP leaders beheaded

OpIndia Staff
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Watch: Karnataka Congress leader’s close aide Amanullah Khan wants BJP leaders beheaded

In a shocking video that has surfaced, Amanullah Khan, a close aide of Krishnarajapuram Congress MLA Byrati Basavaraj has called for the beheading of BJP leaders.


As per MyNation, BJP spokesperson Prakash has lodged a protest and sought Khan’s arrest. Another party spokesperson, Malvika, too has sought his suspension from Congress.

Rahul Gandhi’s distasteful attack on PM Modi, says ‘joote maar ke utara Advani ji ko stage se’

OpIndia Staff
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Rahul Gandhi’s distasteful attack on PM Modi, says ‘joote maar ke utara Advani ji ko stage se’

Congress President Rahul Gandhi today hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi while addressing a rally in Maharashtra. Gandhi attacked PM Modi making a veiled reference to allotting of the Gandhinagar seat, which traditionally belonged to senior BJP leader L K Advani, to BJP President Amit Shah for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.

In his reference, however, Rahul took his recent lying spree a bit further and depicted the decision of giving the ticket to Amit Shah over the 91-year-old BJP veteran as an act of violence.


Gandhi used Advani’s name to mount attacks on PM Modi and while attacking him he crossed the line of decency by using crass language for a senior leader like L K Advani. He said, “Hindu dharm me sabse jaruri hota hai guru. Modi ji ka guru kon hai? Advani ji. Stage se utha k niche fenk diya guru. Joote mar k utara Advani ji ko stage se. Aur fir Hindu Dharm ki baat karte hain (BJP talks of Hinduism. A Guru is supreme in Hinduism. But Modi ji hit his Guru L K Advani with a shoe and threw him out),” said Gandhi.

Apparently, Gandhi imagined this ‘act of violence’ in his head and questioned, “Hindu dharm mein kahan likha hai ki logo ko marna chahiye? Kahan likha hai ki hinsa karni chahiye? Kaha likha hai mujhe dikhao?”(Where is it written in Hinduism that one should beat people up, commit violence on people? Show me).

It was interesting to see that Gandhi was trying to suggest that L K Advani was disrespected by the BJP and PM Modi while himself using the most inappropriate language for such a senior leader.

It is, however, ironical that Rahul, the latest prince of Congress dynasty, who became party president just because of his family name, chosen over dozens of senior and more capable Congress leaders, used LK Advani’s name to further his narrow political attack on PM Modi.

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