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#MeToo: Actor Niharika Singh speaks out against Nawazuddin Siddiqui; condemns liberals and feminists for their duplicity

OpIndia Staff
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#MeToo: Actor Niharika Singh speaks out against Nawazuddin Siddiqui; condemns liberals and feminists for their duplicity

Former Miss India and actor Niharika Singh has come forward with her own account of ‘Me Too’ and has documented the harassment and abuse she endured during her struggles in the film industry in a lengthy post on social media. In her post, she has named Bhushan Kumar, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Sajid Khan and Rituparna Chatterjee and others.

The purpose of the post, says Niharika, was to “expand my own understanding of what constitutes abuse, who we choose to punish and whom we are willing to forgive.” Her ordeal in the industry, as per her account, began when a model who had assisted her in finding an apartment attempted to molest her sister who was staying with her. She writes, “That model’s career was on its way down and one day, after a few drinks, he ended up getting violent and tried to molest my sister. When she opened up to me, I went to his studio, broke whatever I could, gave him a few slaps, screamed expletives and told him to never show his face again. That episode shook both my sister and me and I blamed myself for not being able to ensure her safety.”

Niharika then mentions her encounter with Bhushan Kumar in whose film she was supposed to feature. She wrote, “Bhushan Kumar called me to his office to sign ‘A New Love Ishtory’ where he gave me an envelope as a signing amount for the film. It contained two 500 Rupee notes (less than 14$). I got a text from him later that night- ‘I would love to know you more. Let’s get together sometime.’ I wrote back saying- ‘Absolutely! Let’s go on a double date. You bring your wife. I’ll bring my boyfriend.’ He never wrote to me again.”

Nawauddin Siddiqui, however, is the Bollywood star who features the most prominently in her post. She describes how he had once grabbed her after she opened the door to her home and wouldn’t let go. “After a little coercion, I finally gave in,” she says about that incident. Later, she claims she would go on to learn that Nowaz (as the actor is referred to in the post) had lied to numerous women, told each of them a different story with one of them even calling her up and yelling at her on the phone. At that point, she had told him that she did not want to see him again.

Niharika met Nawaz again after three years at Cannes in 2012. Soon, after a brief spell of tears, she assured him that he could call him if he ever needed to talk but on the condition that he would never lie to her again. A year later, during the shoot of a movie that he had offered her, Nawaz again “begged” her to be sexually involved with him but she refused and asserted that she could only be his friend. She claims that later, after a promotional event at Ahmedabad, Nawaz had tried to grab her again. But she managed to walk away.

Then in 2017, Nawaz’s memoir ‘An Ordinary Life’ co-authored with writer Rituparna Chatterjee and published by Penguin Random House included a completely “fabricated” account of his relationship with Niharika that was published without her knowledge or consent, she claims. She adds further, “A senior theatre and television actress Sunita Rajwar who had known Nawaz since her NSD days confirmed his ‘extraordinary lies’ and filed a case. He offered a token social media apology withdrawing the book. I ordered the book online a week later and it was delivered to my house.”

Niharika also offers a severe indictment of the manner in which self-proclaimed liberals and feminists conducted themselves during the entire episode. She says, “Director Anurag Kashyap, Nawaz’s mentor and close collaborator who chose to turn a blind eye towards sexual harassment within his own company, continues to support Nawaz and his story. Writer Rituparna Chatterjee with her completely unethical, defamatory and poorly researched book is not apologetic either.”

Then adds, “News channels and publications regurgitated the sensational content from the book along with images from different phases of my life adding further fabricated layers to the story. This public scandal was one of the biggest controversies of 2017. Penguin Random House took no responsibility and remained silent. Filmmakers, Writers, Publishers, Journalists, Lawyers -nobody can take a high moral ground. They were all complicit in this collective public shaming.”

Niharika also condemns feminists like Kavita Krishnan and Nandita Das for ‘allying with predators’. She states, “Women in power like Nandita Das and Kavita Krishnan have all shown professional and political allegiance with predators and enabled them through their silence or solidarity. Lending their voices to ‘survivors’ of the #Metoo movement now only comes across as fraudulent.”

The former Miss India’s account also mentions Sajid Khan who she claims told her that she should commit suicide. Her story was shared in a series of Tweets by journalist Sandhya Menon and can be read here.

Welcome to India, Jack. If we were like Twitter, you’d have been ‘blocked’ or ‘shadow banned’ at arrival

Nupur J Sharma
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Welcome to India, Jack. If we were like Twitter, you’d have been ‘blocked’ or ‘shadow banned’ at arrival

Dear Jack Dorsey,

Welcome to India! I am given to understand that you are in this gorgeous, mesmerizing and pleasantly chaotic land for a town hall meeting at IIT-Delhi, one of our premier educational institutions. While here, you also met with the Dalai Lama, a man of unwavering faith and love for his land and people.

You mentioned in your tweet that you are here to ‘experience it all’. Let me tell you what you can expect to witness in India.

We are a strange yet captivating bunch of people. You might stop at a chai shanty and overhear 5 friends arguing vociferously about some political issue that might not even affect their lives directly. While it may appear as their heated argument would invariably end their presumed friendship, in a few moments, you would see them share a sutta and talk about something completely different.. all smiles.

You will hear tales of violent clashes between Hindus and Muslims, but while you drive through the by-lanes of this great land, you will notice Hindus and Muslims live as family members, who have their share of troubles, but a family nonetheless.

We are basically a potpourri of ideas, beliefs, faiths, ideologies, views, feelings, emotions, and every human element that the English language can possibly define. We fight, we argue, we hate, we love, we survive.

In India, we are used to diametrically opposing views. Sometimes, we sort it out. Often, we don’t. But either way, we survive our differences whether we like it or not.

With the internet revolution, our astronomically diverse culture has spilt over to your platform. Twitter. As you have admitted in the past, Twitter employees are left-leaning and that is perfectly alright, considering even your employees have the right to their political ideology. However, in India as elsewhere in the world, there is a growing sense of discomfort with freedom of speech being selectively curbed.

We have repeatedly watched in agony as some handles with diverse political views, mostly right-leaning have been suspended willy-nilly for the most asinine reasons. We have watched with disappointment as some genuine abuse was ignored only because it came from the people who perhaps conform ideologically to Twitter’s inherent bias. We have watched as several accounts are ‘shadow-banned’ where the reach of their voice is curbed.

Twitter, I would assume was meant to be a platform for the exchange of ideas and not just a microblogging website where homogenous views survive in an echo chamber. However, that doesn’t seem to be the case.

If the platform you and your team nurtured is meant to be a platform that furthers only the left ideology, there is absolutely no harm. What is problematic, however, is Twitter espousing a particular ideology while wearing the cloak of neutrality. Personally, I believe freedom of expression has limits. Limits that, in India, are imposed by our Constitution itself. And because I believe in the limits to freedom of expression, I would never aspire to create or run a platform like Twitter.

Anyone who believes that freedom of expression must be curbed based on the morality and confirmation bias of the CEO and his team is not fit to run a platform like Twitter, considering, Twitter has positioned itself as a neutral microblogging website for everyone, with no bias at all. While abuse must be curbed, branding divergence of views as abuse merely to target ideological opponents is dictatorial at best, fascism at worst.

Any public opinion platform has to try extremely hard to not impose their own value and moral structure on the people who use that platform. And Twitter seems to be failing miserably at it. The left-leaning might believe that the Islamists of yonder were fuzzy little teddy bears. But for a historically aware Hindu of India, who knows about the brute force that the Islamist rulers used to kill, rape, maim and convert their ancestors, that might not be the case. Is it acceptable for Twitter to impose its employee’s belief system on to a user of the platform? Even with the Saudi money, a semblance of thought neutrality would be expected out of Twitter.

I could give you specific examples, Jack, but at this point, it seems futile since Twitter itself is full of such examples from across the globe.

While in India, I would urge you to soak in the beauty of disagreement. The glory of tark-vitark (argument-counterargument). Soak in the art of vehement disagreement but more or less peaceful co-existence. We just celebrated Diwali where we worship the triumph of good over evil. Beyond our Gods and Goddesses, this festival is also about overcoming one’s own demons to gather the courage and do what’s right.

When in India, Jack, you must indeed ‘experience it all’. And experience the virtue of diversity and co-existence, you must, because God knows, you need it. You need it because you have assigned yourself as the moral guardian of the users of your platform and taken it upon yourself to decide what is good speech and bad speech. You need it because you have imposed the worst form of thought control over people.

You need it because a platform like Twitter has reduced freedom of expression to a joke. You need it because while appointing yourself the left-liberal guardian of the universe, you have pocketed Saudi money that pretty much shatters every tenet that your platform pretends to stand for. You need it because I, as a right-leaning journalist, and many like me all over the globe believe that we run the risk of our voice being curbed simply because we don’t conform to your worldview. You must either declare that Twitter is only a left-leaning echo chamber or give us our right to voice our opinions back. No strings attached.

A large chunk of this nation doesn’t agree with you and Twitter’s Left bias. If we were like Twitter, Jack, we would have blocked or shadow banned you on arrival. We didn’t. Perhaps that’s the lesson you can carry with you.

Rahul Gandhi and the eternally changing amount of ‘industrialists’ loans waived off’ by Modi

OpIndia Staff
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Rahul Gandhi and the eternally changing amount of ‘industrialists’ loans waived off’ by Modi

Addressing a rally in poll-bound Chhattisgarh’s Kanker region, the Congress President Rahul Gandhi once again resorted to spreading lies about the Industrialists’ ‘loans waived’ by the present regime. This time around, he alleged that the Modi government has waived loans worth Rs 3.5 lakh crore of 15 select industrialists since 2014.

“Modiji gave Rs 3.5 lakh crore to the 15 richest people of the country in last 4-5 years. For running MGNREGA scheme in the country, an amount of Rs 35,000 crore is needed yearly but he waived loans worth 10 times that amount of 15 select industrialists,” He was quoted as saying by PTI.

The Gandhi dynasty scion held a massive roadshow in the incumbent Chief Minister Dr. Raman Singh’s constituency Rajnandgaon. Targeting PM Modi, Gandhi alleged that the prime minister did not fulfil the promises he made to people ahead of the 2014 election. Continuing with his habitual tirade against the Modi government, he claimed that the government is helping cronies while ignoring the distressed farmers.

But it appears that evoking ridiculous sophistries about loans being waived off for industrialists is a sinister ploy often employed by Rahul Gandhi while addressing rallies in rural India. In November 2016, addressing a large group of Congress activists in Bhiwandi, Rahul Gandhi claimed that the Modi government had then waived off loans worth Rs 1.1 lakh crores of big industrialists. During campaigning for Gujarat assembly polls in 2017, Rahul Gandhi inexplicably increased this figure by astounding 20000 Crores to Rs 1.3 lakh crores and repeated the same trite. In Karnataka, he went a step ahead and conjured up another grand figure- Rs 2.5 Lakh crores of industrialists’ ‘loans’ being waived off by the Modi Government, again with no proof whatsoever.


With such glaring inconsistencies in figures quoted by Congress president without providing any credible evidence to back his claims, one is left to wonder if Rahul Gandhi is simply using it as a political plank to fool unsuspecting farmers and garner their sympathy votes or is he a victim of hallucinations about imaginary loans being waived off by the government. Or maybe he is simply not intelligent enough to grasp the nitty-gritty of loan waivers. In fact, his lies were exposed when he failed to differentiate between loan waivers and loan write-offs.

The BJP has maintained that it has not waived off a single rupee of loans given to industrialists. BJP President Amit Shah categorically denied waiving off of any loans extended to the industrialists. Yesterday, the BJP held a presser refuting the wild allegations made by Rahul Gandhi. The BJP stated that the Congress party has been in the Dhritarashtra mode for 10 years for the shell companies and has suddenly been weeping for them after demonetisation.

Rahul Gandhi does a Mevani, poses with a PM Modi lookalike

OpIndia Staff
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Rahul Gandhi does a Mevani, poses with a PM Modi lookalike

Congress President Rahul Gandhi, it seems, has taken a leaf out of controversial Gujarat MLA Jignesh Mevani’s book. In a picture that has been doing the rounds of social media, the scion of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty can be seen posing with a person who dresses up as Prime Minister Modi.

Earlier this year in June, Mevani had tweeted a picture of himself where he could be seen admonishing a person dressed up as Narendra Modi and ordering him to ‘end his drama’ and answer people on the promises he had made regarding employment opportunities.

Though people on social media often take Rahul Gandhi’s activities as a source of entertainment, imitating Mevani was perhaps considered a little too juvenile, even for Rahul Gandhi.


It is not very surprising that Rahul Gandhi thought it wise to use a Modi look-alike for his political agenda considering the head of the Congress IT cell had recently shared a tweet where she had called the nation’s PM as ‘bird dropping.’

Only yesterday, a senior Congress leader declared that it was time to burn Narendra Modi alive. Even though BJP supporters proudly admit that Rahul Gandhi is their ‘Star Pracharak’ and he ensures people choose BJP, taking a poor imitation of the PM to keep him company during rallies is perhaps not a very good idea.

BJP to collect data of Triple Talaq victims, help in rehabilitation and employment

OpIndia Staff
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BJP to collect data of Triple Talaq victims, help in rehabilitation and employment

Bharatiya Janata Party after passing the ordinance on triple talaq has now decided to further help the victims of this evil practice by collecting data of the victims in order to rehabilitate them, as per reports.

BJP is planning to do this by launching a campaign which will kickstart on Nov 13 from Machhhariya in Naubasta. The minority wing of BJP has also decided to appoint ‘teen talaq Pramukhs’ in every district of the state. According to BJP Minority Wing Chief Haider Abbas Chand, “Dr Nazia Alamand Shahnaz Khan has been appointed the chief of this entire campaign. The minority wing will be appointing 100 ‘triple talaq Pramukhs’ across the state. These women members will be given the job of collecting data of all the triple talaq victims in their district and reach out to them.”

“We will also provide legal assistance to help them in their fight against injustice. There is no mention of triple talaq in Quran. Even Islamic countries have banned the practice. We will also provide Quran in Hindi to those women who don’t understand Urdu,” Chand said.

“Educated women who have sound knowledge of Shariat and law and who can bring a social change in the lives of the victims of triple talaq will be appointed as Pramukhs. Each of the 93 organisational districts and six regional units will have a triple talaq Pramukh and some of the victims are already working with us to eradicate this social evil,” told Nazia Alam reportedly told the media.

Alam said that a survey will be conducted in the month of December to ascertain the number of triple talaq victims and efforts will be made for the integration of the victims with the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY) to make them self-dependent.

BJP Minority Wing will also launch awareness campaigns to dispel the wrong notions surrounding the holy Quran and Shariat.

It is notable here that the central government had brought an ordinance to make triple talaq a punishable offence in September. Triple talaq is a practice in some Muslim communities where the husband can pronounce ‘talaq’ three times and abandon his wife. There have been hundreds of cases where Muslim women were abandoned by their husbands over trivial issues through the practice.

No end to Communist zeal: Police may deploy choppers to airlift women into Sabarimala shrine

OpIndia Staff
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No end to Communist zeal: Police may deploy choppers to airlift women into Sabarimala shrine

In what may possibly be an unprecedented move, the state machinery is going hammer and tongs in implementing the Supreme Court’s decision of allowing women of a specific age group to enter the abode of Lord Ayyappa in Sabarimala, which was until now banned for them.

The Kerala police is actively contemplating on airlifting women devotees to Sabarimala from Thiruvananthapuram or Kochi as a last resort to save them from a sea of ‘Save Sabarimala’ devotees protecting the Sabarimala Temple from desecration.

According to sources, 560 women have registered their interest to visit the temple when it opens for the 41-day Mandalam-Makaravilakku period on November 17. When the Sabarimala shrine was opened the last time after the SC’s verdict, more than 2000 people swamped its entrance out of which only 200 of them were real devotees while the remaining simply came to register their protest against the Supreme Court verdict.

Officials have confirmed that most of the women who have registered their intent to visit the shrine appear to be educated professionals. Apart from them, 3.20 lakh men have also enrolled themselves on the portal to reserve their darshan time.

The police have deployed its personnel to ensure the safe passage of the ‘devotees’ inside the shrine but due to an overwhelming presence of resolute protestors, the police is seeking entry in the temple through more practical ways. To this end, the police is considering airlifting women who have registered their interest with them to the Sabarimala shrine through Choppers.

Kerala police have sought concurrence from the Forest department to use a landing spot cleared in the 1980s for the former PM Indira Gandhi’s visit to the temple. On approval, the police will then ensure a safe passage for these alleged “devotees” from the landing spot to the temple and back.

Two petitions seeking a review on the apex court’s verdict regarding entry of women in the temple is pending with the SC. The Kerala police have stated that their stand is to refrain from using violence against the protestors but if the SC dismisses those 2 petitions, the will have no option but to use force in order to implement the SC verdict.

However, the Kerala HC has already rapped the Communist government on the knuckles, asking them to stay away from meddling in the temple affairs and letting the rituals be carried out as per traditions. The communist government in Kerala is using this opportunity to settle political scores with their ideological opponents by using the brute force of police machinery against the peaceful Sabarimala protestors. Kerala HC has already expressed its displeasure over mishandling and police excesses meted out to Sabarimala devotees.

List of Ajit Jogi, Amit Jogi’s misdeeds are endless, and Congress is silent even after they have left the party

GujaratRiots.com
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List of Ajit Jogi, Amit Jogi’s misdeeds are endless, and Congress is silent even after they have left the party

With Assembly elections soon to be held in Chhattisgarh, and BSP and CPI having formed an alliance with Ajit Jogi’s party, the Jogis are in the news again. Ajit Jogi is the first Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh. He ruled for 3 years from November 2000 when the state was carved out of Madhya Pradesh to 4 December 2003. A mechanical engineer from the Maulana Azad NIT (then REC) in Bhopal, he later passed IAS. He then joined Congress and was close to Rajiv and Sonia Gandhi. His wife is Renu Jogi and son is Amit Jogi.

It will take an encyclopedia to even compile the list of illegal acts committed by the Jogi family. Let us first see the issues involving Amit Jogi, the son of Ajit Jogi:

1. Amit Jogi is the prime accused in the Ram Avtar Jaggi murder case. The then NCP Chhattisgarh treasurer Jaggi was murdered on 4 June 2003. A few months earlier senior Congress leader V C Shukla had left the Congress to join NCP along with his supporters. Ajit Jogi, the then Chief Minister, was miffed at this and managed to get back many of Shukla’s men from NCP back to the Congress. But Ram Avtar Jaggi did not return and stayed with V C Shukla and was murdered on 4 June 2003. Even the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) under the UPA, which was called a ‘Caged Parrot’ by the Supreme Court and was thus in a way, a Congress Bureau of Investigation, said that Amit Jogi was the brain and the prime conspirator in this.

Amit Jogi (as well as Ajit Jogi) was acquitted by the trial court in 2007. But the CBI filed an appeal against his acquittal. Actually, the CBI urged the Central Government to give permission for filing an appeal, which was delayed for 4 years, and as soon as the permission was granted, it filed an appeal.

In Feb 2006 CNN-IBN reported that Ajit Jogi had also been named as a co-conspirator in the case of the murder of Chhattisgarh state NCP treasurer Ram Avtar Jaggi after two of the several accused turned approver and gave statements in a Chhattisgarh court. Ajit Jogi was ultimately acquitted in the case due to lack of sufficient evidence, but 19 were convicted, which included 4 Congress workers. The then NSUI state President, Ejaz Dhebar’s brother Yahyaha Dhebar was convicted and given life term, as was Chiman Singh, who actually shot Ramavtar Jaggi dead. Singh was a close associate of Ajit Jogi.

2. Amit Jogi took the IAS exam in 2001 despite being a US citizen under the SC category when his father Ajit Jogi was the Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh.

3. The Times of India reported that his parents got an ST certificate for him in 1986 at Bilaspur though he was a US citizen at that time, which is illegal.

4. It is alleged that Amit Jogi gave the IAS on the fake ST certificate, though he claims he had informed the UPSC of his being a US citizen. But it is not possible to give IAS ‘informing’ anyone of being a non-Indian and the concerned people also denied any communication of this nature. This would mean that the charge that Amit Jogi used his fake certificate made in 1986 to give IAS seems to be true.

5. Amit Jogi was a US citizen and got Indian citizenship only in July 2004. His Indian visa expired on 31 October 2003 yet he continued to stay illegally in India even more than 1 and a half months after his visa expired. He was a holder of US passport, on a long-term visa, valid for five years from its issue in October 1998.

6. The CBI, during the UPA era as per the SC, also said in July 2005 (Under UPA rule) that Amit Jogi was behind the sting operation of the late Dilip Singh Judeo.

7. Even Congress loyalist Outlook reported the role of Jogis in this case.

8. Of course, now it has come to light that Amit Jogi gave 3 different versions of his birthplace and date of birth. The Hindu had reported that Jogi submitting multiple dates and birthplaces in different forms and affidavits is curious. In his application dated December 15, 2001, for registration as an Indian citizen under Section 5(1)(A) of the Citizenship Act, 1955, Amit Jogi stated that he was born on August 7, 1977, in Dallas, Texas, U.S.A. On August 26, 2002, during his father’s tenure as Chief Minister, Amit Jogi applied for a State of Chhattisgarh Domicile Certificate in which he claimed he was born in Bilaspur on August 7, 1978, a full year after the date mentioned in his application form for Indian citizenship.

Even in this application, Amit Jogi added another variation in his supporting affidavit, claiming his birthplace was Village Pendra, Bilaspur District.

However, Amit Jogi was issued a Domicile Certificate on the basis of his application by the Collector, Raipur, affirming Chhattisgarh as his birthplace.

On August 27, 2004 (during the BJP government’s rule in Chhattisgarh) Amit Jogi went on to apply for a Scheduled Tribe (ST) Certificate. In his application and sworn affidavit, Amit Jogi claimed that he was born on August 7, 1977 — not in Dallas, but in Gaurela, Pendra Road.

However, the Patwari’s certificate submitted by Amit Jogi along with his application states that he was born in Saarbahara Village Tehsil Pendra Road, District Bilaspur.

Apart from these glaring discrepancies within the same application, the validity of his claim for ST status has been hugely debated after the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes held that Ajit Jogi is not a Tribal. This was challenged by Ajit Jogi on the ground that the Commission has no power to probe an individual’s caste status.

After a prolonged legal battle, the Supreme Court ordered a fresh enquiry into his caste status on October 13, 2011.

After this exposure of 3 different versions of Amit Jogi’s birth certificates, Congress leader Rashid Alvi was asked by TV channel CNN-IBN to explain this issue of his birth certificates. He replied: “We will find out the truth and get back to you.” The Congress Party has still not broken its silence on this issue, even when the Jogis have left the party, which they left in 2016. Rahul Gandhi was and is, deafeningly silent on this issue ever since 2013.

These are just the issues involving Amit Jogi. The Cash-for-MLAs scam of 2003 in which Ajit Jogi, Amit Jogi and Sonia Gandhi are all named on tape as being involved is given here.

Ajit Jogi’s issues:

1. KODAR DAM: First case of financial impropriety was filed in 1980-81 when the Kodar dam was under construction during Jogi’s collectorship in Raipur. This was when as IAS he was Collector and had not resigned from IAS to join politics.

2. HELP TO CIA: During his collectorship in Indore in 1981-85, he was accused of stealing design papers from CAT, Indore (a defence installation) and selling them to the CIA. The charges were never proved but another charge of appropriating land belonging to Church of North India to build a colony was also instituted.

3. FAKE CERTIFICATE: Jogi’s ST certificate has been issued by a Pendra tehsildar in 1967. All cases challenging it has been clubbed in the Bilaspur High Court, which will also decide whether the SC/ST Commission of India order proclaiming him an SC (and NOT an ST which he claims) is correct.

4. JUDEV SCAM: The CBI is investigating the Judev VCD. It has tracked certain e-mails by Amit Jogi claiming to have carried out a Tehelka II. Along with Amit, Ajit Jogi is also alleged to have been behind the CD. We have seen CBI and Outlook showing their hands in Amit Jogi’s issues above.

Ajit Jogi said a lot more about the Judeo CD than anyone would know. Immediately after Dilip Singh Judeo’s press conference in Raipur on 16 November 2003 (Sunday), Jogi had called a press meet where he said the money transaction had taken place in the Taj Hotel in New Delhi. He had also said the money paid to Judeo was more than what Bangaru Laxman had accepted from the Tehelka frontmen. However, neither the newspaper that broke the story nor cable news channels had given these specifications. Then how could Ajit Jogi have known this unless he had a hand in the entire episode? This was also alleged by the BJP leader Arun Jaitley.

Congress loyalist weekly Outlook also gave details of Jogi father-son duo’s hands in the case.

5. In May 2011, there was a Lok Sabha bypoll to Bastar seat in Chhattisgarh. Ajit Jogi was caught on camera distributing cash to voters at an election rally in Bastar, where LS by-poll was held on May 8.

As a matter of fact, the LS bypoll was held due to death of sitting MP Baliram Kashyap, whose sons were killed by Naxals in September 2009. He was the man who Ajit Jogi tried to install as Chief Minister in December 2003 after losing polls by wooing some BJP MLAs through money and forming a government with Congress support in the infamous Cash-for-MLA case.

6. In July 2013 there were further reports of caste certificate of Jogi being fake. The Telegraph reported that the Raman Singh-led BJP government is set to make public a report that says the Congress leader is not a tribal and possesses a fake caste certificate. The state government had set up a high-level, quasi-judicial body to look into Jogi’s caste certificate on a directive from the Supreme Court, which had found evidence on his caste inconclusive while dismissing a petition a few years ago.

7. Ajit Jogi is also accused of using forged documents while applying for petrol pumps in 1996. BJP spokesman, Prakash Javadekar, said on November 2003 that two separate affidavits filed by Jogi in November 1996 said that he was domiciled in Delhi and that the combined income of his family was “not more than Rs. 50,000” in 1993-94 and 1994-95. However, the BJP claimed that it had obtained an income certificate of his wife, Renu Jogi, from the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Medical College, where she was then working, showing that her income in 1993-94 was Rs. 85,946 and in the following year it was Rs. 95,170.

Armed with this “document”, Nand Kumar Sai, the BJP’s candidate against Mr Jogi in the Mirwahi Assembly constituency in Chhattisgarh, in the 2003 polls filed a case with the Metropolitan Magistrate, Patiala Courts charging Jogi with cheating.

8. In April 2003 Ajit Jogi claimed to present an IB document as proof of ‘witch hunt’ by the then NDA government. But this document was also fake, and the Central Bureau of Investigation filed a charge sheet in October 2003 against Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Ajit Jogi for using forged documents to tarnish the Intelligence Bureau’s image.

In March 2003, Jogi had alleged that IB’s Special Directorate had launched an operation code-named ‘Black Sea’ to target opposition leaders in the run-up to the elections in Congress-ruled states. The IB all along has denied that there was an operation codenamed ‘Black Sea’.

9. In November 2013, while campaigning before the Chhattisgarh polls, he said addressing tribals that they will get an ‘electric shock’ if they press any button than the Congress’ on the Electronic Voting Machine on the polling day while voting. This is on video recording. This is an offence- intimidating voters with fear and basically misguiding gullible tribals. He got a notice from the Election Commission for this.

10. Ajit Jogi also used government aircraft for party President Sonia Gandhi’s work which is also not permitted. The Election Commission trained its ire on former Chhattisgarh chief minister Ajit Jogi and Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh for having used state government aircraft during the December Assembly elections but let off Congress president Sonia Gandhi lightly for a similar act.

The Commission had issued a show-cause notice to the Congress in Nov 2003 asking why it should not be de-recognised in the wake of its president Sonia Gandhi and Chhattisgarh chief minister and Speaker having used the Chhattisgarh government aircraft for travel while the model code of conduct was in force. The Commission directed the Congress that it must reimburse within 30 days either from its own funds or by recovering from Mr Jogi the total costs of the seven flights undertaken by him and the two flights taken by Ms Gandhi in the Chhattisgarh government aircraft.

These are legal cases. But there are several other doubts and suspicions on Jogi also. He also said as Chhattisgarh CM in February 2003 that tribals are not Hindus. He said that any religion the tribals embrace is their first, and thus it is not conversion if they become Christians! He had the audacity to say this, as Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh!

The Congress, which is claiming to be ‘more-Hindu-than-you’ has never once condemned Jogi for this statement, nor has it given any clarification on it, on whether it thinks that tribals are Hindus or not.

Rahul Gandhi, who famously tore up an ordinance of the UPA Government aimed at saving the tainted, has all along kept a deafening silence on all the above issues. And he had the audacity to give MLA tickets to both Ajit and Amit Jogi in the December 2013 Assembly elections in Chhattisgarh!

Today, CPI and BSP are allies of the Jogis, and they too have no answer on the antics of their alliance partners. The role of the media in all this is also of course, reprehensible. It allowed the Congress to go scot-free on the issue of Amit Jogi’s 3 different versions of birth certificate for as many as 3 years after 2013 until 2016 when the Jogis were in the party. Far from asking Rahul Gandhi or the Congress to explain, it covered up the issue.

Incompetent, uncouth, entitled: There is a lot which is common between Acosta and Indian media

K Bhattacharjee
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Incompetent, uncouth, entitled: There is a lot which is common between Acosta and Indian media

A lot has been happening in the United States of America recently. The midterm elections, mass shootings, Antifa attacking Fox News’ talk-show host Tucker Carlson’s home and so much more. Even among all these high-profile incidents, one particular event that has attracted special attention is Jim Acosta’s grandstanding at a White House press conference and the subsequent revoking of his White House press badge. And then the media went on to claim that the President had justified the decision with a ‘doctored’ video.


Many on the media have called it an attack on the Free Press. However, unless the Free Press has been granted freedom from the restrictions of decency, courtesy and common sense, then it most definitely isn’t an attack on Free Press. It can be clearly seen from the video that Acosta does try to prevent the intern from doing her job and uses the occasion to grandstand instead of trying to get some serious answers.

Acosta’s antics aren’t anything new. They have been going on ever since President Trump took office. On several occasions in the past, Acosta has shouted and yelled at the President, refused to hand over the mic to his colleagues and ate into the time allotted to other reporters.


However, as always, the media decided to abandon all principles and side with Acosta just because he is one of their own. It’s merely tribalism and the media is acting as a protected class watching over its own regardless of truth and honesty and integrity.

The incident also goes on to show that the media behaves like partisan hacks and their primary agenda is political, not commitment towards objective truth. ‘Independence of the Media’ merely refers to a media that can blatantly push a partisan agenda with complete freedom and without any consequences.

As bad as the liberal media is in the USA, it’s nowhere nearly as bad as it is in India. In India, although journalists do not heckle in the manner Acosta did, they completely whitewash events that go against their favoured narrative and even attempt to humanize terrorists. And worse, they do not suffer any consequences for their transgressions either.

In retrospect, there are a lot of similarities between liberal media in the two countries. In India, the media portrays those arrested in connection with alleged violence and an alleged assassination plot to murder the Prime Minister as mere dissenters and human rights activists. The media even deny that there is such a thing as an ‘Urban Maoist’ and throws fits at the Prime Minister for using that word. Meanwhile, in America, the media for a long time portrayed Antifa as a peaceful group despite all evidence to the contrary.

Moreover, the mainstream media in both countries have a clear political agenda that is so obvious that they must take us for fools if they honestly believe that there is any way they could come across as neutral. And yet, they continue to parade around wearing the mantle of neutrality while publishing one hit-job after the other to aid and assist a particular party.

Is there any difference between the likes of Jim Acosta who believe it is their duty to oppose President Trump because they regard him as evil and the likes of Rajdeep Sardesai who will twist everything under the Sun and paint it with anti-Modi colour merely because they do not like the fact that Modi is unabashedly Hindu? Is there any difference between the incompetent, uncouth and entitled manner in which Acosta behaved and the manner in which Indian media conducts itself? What is it if not entitlement when an income tax raid on Raghav Bahl becomes a matter of “freedom of the press”? What is it if not being uncouth when Rajdeep Sardesai came down to blows in Madison Square just because he encountered some Modi supporters? What is it if not incompetence that our media peddles half-baked fact and total lies time and again with impunity? There is not much of a difference, really.

There’s nothing surprising that there are remarkable similarities between the media in the two countries. Because, after all, the profession has been consumed by the ideology of progressivism and Indian liberalism, for all its grandstanding, is merely western progressivism with a time lag.

It’s not surprising that over time, a group of individuals working in the same business come together to form a union to serve and protect their own interests. It’s only natural, especially considering the influence communism has had in the 20th century. Factory workers form unions to protect their own interests and those in the media form organizations such as the Editors’ Guild to serve their own interests. There is not much difference between the two.

The viewers have started realizing that commitment to truth is much lower down in the list of the media’s priorities. The media has decided that its primary duty is to be the moral guardian of the society. And when morality comes into the picture, there is very little scope for a quest for objective truth.

The media can either continue portraying itself as a victim and defend uncouth, ill-mannered brats while proclaiming themselves to be the moral guardians of society or they can pursue truth and report objective facts. They cannot have both.

Expelled BSP leader accuses Mayawati of selling the party’s Lok Sabha ticket for 5 crores

OpIndia Staff
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Expelled BSP leader accuses Mayawati of selling the party’s Lok Sabha ticket for 5 crores

Former MLC and expelled Bahujan Samaj Party leader, Mukul Upadhyay has alleged that BSP supremo Mayawati had sought money from him for giving Lok Sabha ticket, according to reports. Upadhyay has accused that the BSP supremo demanded 5 crore rupees for the party’s ticket to Aligarh.

Upadhyay made the revelation hours after he was expelled from the party. He also alleged that his brother Ramveer Upadhyay, who is a senior party leader and former power minister, plotted against him for political ambition.

He claimed that his elder brother, Ramveer Upadhyay, conspired against him as he wanted to get the Aligarh Lok Sabha ticket from BSP for his wife Seema. The expelled leader revealed that party coordinators asked him to deposit Rs. 5 crore in the party fund in lieu of the Aligarh constituency ticket.

The BSP has refuted the allegations levelled by Mukul Upadhyay. Chief Zonal Coordinator of the BSP for Agra-Aligarh division Sunil Chhittor clarified to reporters that Upadhyaya was rattled by his expulsion and was making wild and baseless allegations. The party has insisted that Upadhyay was expelled because he was trying to defect to BJP.

It is notable here that the BSP is expected to form an alliance with Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. While there were earlier speculations that Mayawati will be a part of the Mahagathbandhan under Congress leadership. However, the BSP has refrained from any alliances with Congress before the assembly elections in 4 states scheduled later this month. Instead, it has formed an alliance with Ajit Jogi’s party in Chhattisgarh.

As Delhi grapples with air pollution, CM Kejriwal takes a private trip to Dubai: Reports

OpIndia Staff
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As Delhi grapples with air pollution, CM Kejriwal takes a private trip to Dubai: Reports

The national capital is choking with severe air pollution as winter sets in and smog makes the air difficult to breathe, its CM has left the country for a private trip. According to a report in the Times Now, the Delhi CM has left for Dubai with his wife Sunita Kejriwal on a private trip.

Reportedly, Kejriwal has taken an Air India flight to Dubai last night. The report claims that power minister Satyendra Kumar had also taken a week-long trip to Dubai recently.

The Delhi government is, however, maintaining complete silence over the trip and not giving any information to the media, the report added. Many people have expressed their displeasure at the CM leaving for a foreign trip while the city is struggling with hazardous levels of air pollution.


Former AAP leader Kapil Mishra has also criticised the timing and secrecy of the CM’s trip.


It is notable here that Delhi’s air pollution has remained in ‘severe’ category since a couple of days. The Delhi government has been criticised on several occasions for its failure to curb air pollution levels. Last year, it was revealed that the Kejriwal government had been sitting on Rs 787 crores of environment cess collected and had been busy bickering with the CMs of the neighbouring states while Delhi’s air remained toxic.

The National Green Tribunal had also slammed the Kejriwal government for not taking sincere steps to curb pollution. The Delhi HC had also slammed the Delhi government for their lack of good governance.

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