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Scores of women devotees of Lord Ayyappan take to the streets to #SaveSabarimala

OpIndia Staff
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Scores of women devotees of Lord Ayyappan take to the streets to #SaveSabarimala

A protest was held today at Pandalam in Kerala against the Supreme Court verdict which permitted the entry of all women into the famous Sabarimala Temple. The protest is led by the Pandalam Royal Family which claim that the verdict will destroy the promise they made to Lord Ayyappan.


Various Hindu groups participated in the protests. Apart from the Pandalam royal family, members of the People for Dharma movement, members of the ‘Ready to Wait’ campaign, various members of Tanthri families and devotees of Lord Ayyappan were also part of the protest.


Scores of women have come forward demanding that an ordinance be issued against the Supreme Court verdict claiming that native traditions are being violated.


Public sentiment has been averse to the Supreme Court verdict and protests against it appear to be gaining momentum with every passing day. The following is a protest organized in previous days.


It is pertinent to remember that the only dissenter against the majority judgment of the Supreme Court was a woman, Justice Indu Malhotra, who asserted that the Court should not interfere with matters of deep religious sentiment. Although the protests are gaining momentum, it is still too early to say whether they will succeed in achieving their desired purpose.

All you need to know about what the Modi govt is doing to solve the NPA mess

Ujjwal Virendra Deepak
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All you need to know about what the Modi govt is doing to solve the NPA mess

Back in the 1980s, banks were institutions of trust and the branch managers were seen as powerful people. The sheer power of decision making on loan sanctioning, priority treatment to favourites and allocation of credit limit was delegated to branch managers and in absence of data analytics and technological tools, they were the most reliable source available. This made branch manager a much sought after position and banks, much like government offices of yesteryears.

As we understand, wherever loans related decisions are to be taken by individuals without credit exchange information and regulations and data based checks and balances, biases and favouritism creep in. The politically and socially powerful individuals encashed their relationships with the bank officials in the form of loans, that too at very low interest rates and against collaterals which didn’t carry much value. This led to rampant corruption and political influence in the decision making of banks eventually leading to a lot of wilful defaults.

Since the Modi government took charge in 2014, we are seeing a drastic change in the way we look at the banking system. The list of wilful defaulters has started being perused by media and the common man and defaulted loans (also known as Non Performing Assets, NPA) have become common discourse.  Defaulters like Vijay Mallya and cases of frauds by people like Nirav Modi have started surfacing in and it is to be credited to the Finance Minister Sh. Arun Jaitley under the able leadership of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Thousand of crores of loans are unpaid by business tycoons who are now absconding, taking shelters abroad. The transparency due to effective measures of the government is exposing the nexus between the power brokers and these wilful defaulters. This has put a big question mark on the credibility of the ‘reputed’ financial institutions.

According to Raghuram Rajan – “Often, big borrowers are given a royal treatment by the banking system. Banks go out of their way to accommodate the borrowers’ failures. Retail borrowers don’t have the benefit of such overwhelming courtesy.”
Right from the Prime Lending Rate to Banks treating borrowers on the basis of loan size is one of the major obstacles in achieving total financial inclusion and also a reason for the rising NPA problem.

What are Non-Performing Assets? Any principal amount of a loan or interest on it or any instalments which remain unpaid to the banks for more than 90 days are categorized as Non-Performing Assets. Their classification is as follows-

  1. Till 90 days: Grace period
  2. 90 days to 12 months: Sub-standard asset
  3. Beyond 12 months: Doubtful asset

In his statement to the Estimates Committee of the Parliament, Raghuram Rajan, the ex-RBI Governor has held the previous government responsible for the NPA mess. He said that a larger number of bad loans originated in 2006-2008 when Economic growth was strong. The gross lending increased manifold. From 1947 to 2007, in 60 years, banks gave loans worth 18 Lakh Crores while from 2008 to 2014; loans of the same banks scaled up to 52 Lakh Crores. He also said that scams, delay in probes, poor decision making are the reasons behind increased NPA. Banks consortium did not perform the necessary background checks of the debtor leading to wrong decisions.

Vijay Mallya got a loan of 990 crores on collateral of the dead Kingfisher logo. Political bosses pressurized banks to lend to the near and dear ones, thus encouraging crony capitalism. Raghuram Rajan also said that restructuring leads to evergreening. Restructuring of loans means a new loan replaces the outstanding balance on an older loan and is paid over a longer period, usually with a lower instalment amount. It is a kind of settlement between banks and debtors so that debtors get more time to repay the loans. Banks preferred to evergreen bad loans through restructuring rather than declaring them as NPA. As a result, there was a cascading of bad loans over a period of time, since restructured loans of today are the unpaid loans of tomorrow. On top of this, policy paralysis of the then government, delay in environmental and land clearances, failure to stop money laundering and smaller provisions for bad loans led to the failure of commercial enterprises adding to the NPAs even more.

In 2008, private banks were leading the list of banks with highest NPAs. ICICI bank topped the list of top 10 scorers of NPA, followed by small & medium sized private sector banks. This reflects a moderate condition of NPAs in public sector banks. By 2011 country’s large public sender lenders like SBI and Central Bank of India saw a significant increase in NPA while those of private banks began dipping. This is a clear signage of political interference, as a result, public sector banks started topping the charts with the highest NPAs.

By 2014, nearly all the banks having high NPAs were public sector banks. The NPA scam started showing prominently in the statistics of 2014. But why are NPAs still increasing after Modi government took over in 2014? Till 2014, only 2.5 Lakh Crore NPAs were shown, but after the asset quality review of RBI in 2015-16, the real NPAs were discovered to be around 8.5 Lakh Crores. Naturally, the newly discovered NPAs began showing up in statistics. Even though the accumulated NPA belonged to the 2008-2014 period, the interest on the principal amount began piling up leading to an increase in outstanding liabilities.

What has Modi government done to resolve the NPA mess? Under Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code 2016, banks will approach Debt Recovery Tribunals for recovery of loans with respect to individuals and partnerships. For companies and corporates, the banks will approach the National Company Law Tribunal. (NCLT). These tribunals gave teeth to the earlier helpless bankers and effective tools to bankers for recovery. The RBI, with its increased powers under the Banking Regulation (Ordinance) Act 2017, notified 12 top defaulters totalling to 2.5 lakh crore NPA for resolution in the NCLT. That is 25% of the total NPAs defaulted by just 12 companies (Bhushan Steel, Essar Steel etc).

Apart from these 12 defaulters, a number of corporate resolutions have been initiated in the NCLT in 2017, as shown below. Please note the steady increase in the cases filed every quarter.

  1. January to March 2017: 36 corporates undergoing resolution
  2. April to June 2017: 151 corporates undergoing resolution
  3. July to September 2017: 353 corporates undergoing resolution

(Source: Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India, Quarterly Newsletter for July-September 2017)

One of the other ways of cheating banks was that promoters started buying buy their own company’s assets through other companies at discounted prices? To resolve this, the government amended the section 29A of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code Act prohibiting the existing promoters from buying the assets of their own companies under resolution thus ensuring that the same management doesn’t return back.

Capital infusion is important in banks because it serves two purposes- capital adequacy and credit availability. Since NPAs have resulted in a lesser credit for the banks, they lent fewer loans. Lesser loans mean lesser capital for industry leading to slow economic growth. Thus, recapitalization of banks was crucial for them for smooth functioning. In this effect, the government announced the highest ever recapitalization of 2.11 lakh crore rupees in 2017-18. In this context, it may be noted that capital infusion from 2008-2017 was a mere 1.18 Lakh Crore.

But how is this recapitalization different from recapitalisation by previous governments? Earlier, the capital infusion was ad-hoc and not linked to the bank’s performance. This time, RBI is keen on not considering the capital infusion as a dole. Out of total 2.11 lakh crores, only 76000 crores are direct budgetary support. Rest 1.35 lakh crores will be raised through Recapitalization Bonds issued by the government. Banks will invest in those bond i.e. give their capital to the government. The government will, in turn, use that capital to subscribe to the shares of the stressed PSBs, thus investing capital in stressed PSBs.

RBI will bring stressed banks under Prompt Corrective Action, PCA and put restrictions on some of their functions to prevent further deterioration. The banks are selected on basis of 3 parameters- Net NPA, Return on Assets (RoA) and Capital to Risk-weighted Assets Ratio (CRAR). The PCA imposes the following restrictions-

  • Ban on bank from entering new business
  • Ban from accessing costly credit
  • The cap on management fees paid to the management
  • Temporary non-payment of dividend to shareholders, followed by reforms and capital infusion.

Provisions are safety nets for any advance by the banks. For example, if a bank lends Rs. 100, it keeps Rs.15 extra aside as contingency if the Rs 100 are not repaid. Here, these provisions act as safety buffers. RBI has tightened the provisioning norms for the banks to ensure any future bad loans are made up for.

Apart from the fact that banks have reported collection of thousands of Crores in total by penalising small account holders for non maintenance of minimum balance, petty transactions, chequebook issue charges which is contradictory to the Modi Government’s focus on increase banking activities, transactions and inclusion of poor people in mainstream banking, it is heartening to see that now the strict provisions would not let the nexus of some corrupt businessmen, politicians and bank officials loot the hard earned money of citizens who once believed that their money is safe in banks.

Prime Minister Modi has shown zero tolerance on malpractices of banks and industrialists who are responsible for high NPAs. This is the major reason that NPAs have become a subject of public discourse and the public has suddenly started cursing these defaulters which were hidden for decades now. The government is not shying away in disclosing the names of NPAs despite short-term bad publicity in context of public perception as PM Modi is known to take tough decisions, keeping in mind, long-term benefits and larger interest of the nation.

Recently, the finance ministry has again opened the case of consolidation to bring in a reform in the public sector banks by merging some smaller banks with the bigger ones. This plan was put on the back burner after some banks complained of a spike in bad debts due to RBI’s provisioning norms.

In the recent past, people were worried about their money being safe in the Banks as there was an issue of trust. However, these effective actions by the Modi government has planted the seed of trust again and if the banks upgrade their credit and appraisal mechanism and make them robust for performing the assessment of the viability of projects then the banks will perform well and the NPAs will come down drastically. This is possible with the help of Machine Learning Techniques without human biases and favouritism. Modi government has shown strong will in this direction and it can be foreseen that the banks will again become those institutions of trust for people.

Remember the time when getting a house loan was much more difficult than to repay it and compare it with today when you can apply for a loan with just a click on your mobile. Time is changing and is so the economy. This take-off from Economy to Digital Economy has to be safeguarded from becoming Debtors Economy.

We just need to bear with the temporary inconvenience for a better tomorrow! As of now, the Modi government has decided to follow the truth and dared to challenge the norm of political interference and powerful lobbyists.

(The author is the OSD (Officer on Special Duty) – Chief Minister, Government of Chhattisgarh)

Baghpat: 20 members of a Muslim family become Hindus

OpIndia Staff
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Baghpat: 20 members of a Muslim family become Hindus

20 members of a Muslim family have submitted an affidavit to SDM in Baghpat declaring that they are renouncing their current religion and accepting Hinduism. According to reports, after their affidavit, local Hindu groups have declared that they would perform sacred rituals for name changing and acceptance of Hindu practices for these people.

According to reports, the people belong to the Badrakha village in Chhaproli. The family of a man named Akhtar Ali have alleged that some Muslim goons had killed their elder son Gulshan Ali and had hanged his body from a pole near their garments shop. They have complained that despite complaints to police, the Muslim goons had kept harassing them and the police had declared Gulshan Ali’s death as a case of suicide. Tired of being harassed, 20 members of the extended family have decided to accept Hinduism.

The family members have alleged that they were unable to get justice for their son because the Muslim goons in their village were continuously harassing them and even threatening to kill them. Proper action has not been taken against the goons despite repeated complaints. They have alleged that 3000 Muslims were present when their son was murdered but nobody had come forward to help. The family has therefore decided that they will leave Islam and accept Hinduism because they believe they will not get justice as Muslims.

Following the submission of affidavits by these 20 people, workers of a local Hindu organisation named Hindu Yuva Sangathan had reportedly reached the SDM’s office and had welcomed the family members by embracing them. The organisation had reportedly today performed Hindu rituals to formally welcome the family members into the Hindu fold and change their names accordingly. As the news of this conversion spread, the district administration has reportedly formed an investigating committee to look into the matter. The family have confirmed to media that they are changing their religion on their own volition and not under any pressure.

Earlier, a family in Saharanpur, which had accepted Islam five years back, had come back to the Hindu fold.

I spy with my little eye, some Gandhi quotes ‘Liberals’ would never share

K Bhattacharjee
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I spy with my little eye, some Gandhi quotes ‘Liberals’ would never share

The nation is celebrating Gandhi Jayanti today and it is again that time of the year when liberals will lecture Hindutvavadis to take lessons from the life and deeds of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. And yet, there are some ideas and teachings of Gandhi that they conveniently ignore. Here, we shall look at a few quotes by Gandhi that liberals would do well to take lessons from.

If God gives me the privilege of dying for the Hinduism of my conception, I shall have sufficiently died for the unity of all and even for Swaraj.

Gandhi was a staunch proponent of cow protection as is evident from his words.

Cow preservation is an article of faith in Hinduism.

Gandhi gave more importance to cow preservation than the chanting of Mantras and the observation of strict rituals. Indeed, he was of the opinion that Hindus will be judged by their ability to protect cows.

Cow protection is the gift of Hinduism to the world. And Hinduism will live so long as there are Hindus to protect the cow…… Hindus will be judged not by their Tilaks, not by the correct chanting of Mantras, not by their pilgrimages, not by their most punctilious observances of caste rules, but their ability to protect the cow.

According to Gandhi, cow preservation is indeed a sacred duty.

The Cow is a poem of pity. One reads pity in the gentle animal. She is the mother to millions of Indian mankind. Protection of the cow means protection of the whole dumb creation of God. The ancient seer, whoever he was, began with the cow. The appeal of the lower order of creation is all the more forcible because it is speechless.

The cow is the purest type of sub-human life. She pleads before us on behalf of the whole of the sub-human species for justice to it at the hands of man, the first among all that lives. She seems to speak to us through her eyes: ‘you are not appointed over us to kill us and eat our flesh or otherwise ill-treat us, but to be our friend and guardian’.

Gandhi’s devotion towards cows is in stark contrast with liberals who constantly spread vile propaganda against Gau Rakshaks while giving a free pass to cow smugglers who are known to attack even the Police during their crime spree.

Mother cow is in many ways better than the mother who gave us birth. Our mother gives us milk for a couple of years and then expects us to serve her when we grow up. Mother cow expects from us nothing but grass and grain. Our mother often falls ill and expects service from us. Mother cow rarely falls ill. Here is an unbroken record of service which does not end with her death. Our mother, when she dies, means expenses of burial or cremation. Mother cow is as useful dead as when she is alive. We can make use of every part of her body-her flesh, her bones, her intestines, her horns and her skin. Well, I say this not to disparage the mother who gives us birth, but in order to show you the substantial reasons for my worshipping the cow.

My religion teaches me that I should by personal conduct instill into the minds of those who might hold different views, the conviction that cow-killing is a sin and that, therefore, it ought to be abandoned.

Cow protection to me is not mere protection of the cow. It means protection of that lives and is helpless and weak in the world.

Preservation of cattle is a vital part of Goseva. It is a vital question for India . . . There is urgent need for deep study and the spirit of sacrifice. To amass money and dole out charity does not connote real business capacity. To know how to preserve cattle, to impart this knowledge to the millions, to live up to the ideal oneself, and to spend money on this endeavor is real business.

Gandhi had a few words to offer to missionaries as well.

I recall having read, at the brothers’ instance, Madame Blavatsky’s Key to Theosophy. This book stimulated in me the desire to read books on Hinduism, and disabused me of the notion fostered by the missionaries that Hinduism was rife with superstition.

Given Gandhi’s intense dedication and devotion towards Cows, it is extremely hypocritical of liberals to chastise Hindus on the basis of only one side of the story while they do the most disservice to Gandhi by not adhering to his sermons on cow protection.

Source of Gandhi’s quotes on cow slaughter:  Bombay Sarvodaya Mandal & Gandhi Research Foundation

Karnataka: Congress MLA’s workers ransack Rani Channamma University for not ‘inviting’ him

OpIndia Staff
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Karnataka: Congress MLA’s workers ransack Rani Channamma University for not ‘inviting’ him

Karnataka Congress workers allegedly went on a rampage and ransacked Karnataka’s Rani Channamma University because their leader and MLA Satish Jarkiholi was not invited to the blood donation camp organised by the varsity. A voluntary blood donation camp was organised at the university auditorium when Jarkiholi’s supporters barged in and got into a heated argument with the university authorities, disrupting the blood donation camp.


The Congress workers even allegedly assaulted the vice chancellor of the university for ‘ignoring’ their leaders and slapped him and ransacked his office. They were upset that some BJP leaders were invited for some previous functions but the Congress MLA wasn’t invited for foundation laying of an underpass held a few days back. After allegedly slapping and assaulting the VC, the group then went about breaking windows and damaging interiors.

According to The New Indian Express, the VC went inside his cabin in a bid to escape the mob and has switched off his mobile phone and has been inaccessible to the media. The police reached the spot but by then the goons had fled. According to Times Now, the police has neither filed an FIR nor suo moto cognisance has been taken regarding the incident. It is believed that beause of the political clout, the police is hesitant to take action against them.

Modi government asks Facebook to submit report on recent privacy breach

OpIndia Staff
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Modi government asks Facebook to submit report on recent privacy breach

Facebook has entered a fresh brawl after the information leak of almost 40 million Facebook users. The controversy has come after the recent privacy breach which indicted the UK based Cambridge Analytica of stealing users data through Facebook accounts. Guy Rosen, Vice President of Product Management, Facebook, stated in a press call that vulnerability leading to this breach was introduced in July 2017. As a precautionary measure, Facebook has reset the Access Tokens or digital keys of other 50 million accounts, according to reports.

This has invited the wrath of governments across the world, including India. According to the Wall Street Journal, Ireland’s Data Protection Commission which safeguards European online data may impose a fine of $1.63 billion on Facebook in relation to the breach, if it is found that the social media giant violated the new strict privacy laws of the Europen Union.

Ravi Shankar Prasad led Ministry of Electronics and IT has asked Facebook to analyse and submit a report at earnest, as the breach has affected 270 million Facebook users in India. “The data of Indian users may have been compromised. In fact, we fear that the rot may run a lot deeper,” an IT ministry source said. Facebook officially has requested two 2 days to react and release a statement.

The electronic attack is theorised to have gained the access of user’s accounts and even the personal chats. This also leaves all the third party apps vulnerable, where the users have logged into using Facebook credentials, says a report.

It was only recently that Facebook was found guilty of taking the users’ privacy for granted. The nexus between Cambridge Analytica (CA) and the Indian National Congress was exposed, after the breaking of news that Facebook allegedly allowed CA to harness Facebook user data for election campaigning. Indian Government has already ordered a CBI inquiry in the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Thus, the fresh brawl can fuel more trouble for Facebook.

This stirred a fresh debate both in international politics and social media about the rampant misuse of private data. The dimension of reaping electoral benefits has even questioned the integrity of internet giants like Facebook. OpIndia had an interview with Jamie Barlett, the CA whistleblower, where he explained the modus operandi of such companies, and how they promote the client’s agenda in public and across the social media platforms.

‘Liberals’ have converted the social cause of Gau Raksha into a social evil

Shashank Bharadwaj
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‘Liberals’ have converted the social cause of Gau Raksha into a social evil

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, a ‘Mahatma’ for some, one of the most mystified individuals of the current times for others. Every self-proclaimed intellectual, especially the one claims to be both left and liberal, shoot quotes of Gandhi as if they are the true inheritors of most of his improbable ideas.

Even though the Left-wing despised M K Gandhi all his life, for them he is one of the most sought-after historical heroes today. The left-wing ‘liberals’ has always misused and selectively reused Gandhi as a way to legitimise any agenda whenever and wherever they thought it was necessary. The left has been successful in reducing Gandhi to a ‘binary’, as any disagreement with reference to Gandhi is not only considered false but also evil. The right-wing all these years have happily acceded to this assumption and even now fall prey to these idiocies of the left almost every day. ‘The Gandhi and Gau-Raksha’ is one such grey area, carefully shaped into a binary of ‘good and ‘evil’ by the ecosystem. A social issue has now been skillfully converted into a religious trap by the left and its media minions.

Gandhi even with some turnarounds, all his life was a staunch supporter of Gau-Raksha. The idea to bring a Gandhian reference to Gau-Raksha here is for a reason that the left has always found solace in Gandhian thought when they abuse the rest, but deliberately distances itself from Gandhian thought whenever it contradicts them. This is one of the reasons why ‘Gau-Raksha’ is such a bad word today.

In a reference to Gau-Raksha by Gandhi in one of his essays, “The cow is the purest type of sub-human life. She pleads before us on behalf of the whole of the sub-human species for justice to it at the hands of man, the first among all that lives. She seems to speak to us through her eyes: you are not appointed over us to kill us and eat our flesh or otherwise ill-treat us, but to be our friend and guardian.”

If at all Gandhi to be believed and followed today, most of the Indians would either be termed as a ‘Communal’ or ‘Lynchers’. The left, with the help of its ‘Lutyens-cabal’, has successfully vilified the cause of Gau-Raksha and has suitably changed it into a religious issue, even though the Gau-Rakshaks or ‘Cow-protectors’ has been at the receiving end of the violence. The recent Alwar incident is a classic case of how a false narrative can be floated and successfully sustained for a long time so that one community can be demonised.

Alwar, a district in Rajasthan has been at the forefront of a media onslaught for a phenomenon called ‘Gau-Rakshaks’ and so-called ‘lynchings’ occurred in the recent past. The people of one community are being demonised for what they thought or as Gandhi would have put it, ‘Dharma’ of cow protection. The villagers of Alwar simply did what they were doing all along – to protect their cows against the cow smugglers, who were incidentally Muslims most of the time.

An incident had occurred at Govindgarh village of Alwar when a group of villagers had complained to the police officials on a suspicion of illegal cow slaughtering being done in one of their neighbourhoods. The police promptly entered the house and found out that three Muslim women were illegally running cow slaughtering business. The police recovered more than 220 cow remains in an area which is predominantly Hindu dominated. Killing cows in Hindu religion is prohibited since it is worshipped as a deity and illegal slaughtering in the state will invite up to 10 years of imprisonment.

However, all the five accused, including three women are out on bail and no progress has been made in the case yet so far. This laxity of the police has shocked the villagers and are now feeling disinterested to take up the cause of Gau-Raksha anymore. The Lutyens media chose to remain silent, as in this case the accused was from a Muslim community, which would have compromised the new narrative they had vigorously built after the death of another alleged cow-smuggler Rakbar Khan.

Rakbar Khan or Akbar hails from Haryana, a resident of Mewat was caught by a group of villagers at Lalawandi near Alwar for allegedly stealing cows from cow shelters. The villagers threatened him and registered a complaint against him for smuggling. Khan was arrested by the police but, later died in the police station due to a shock after he was thrashed severely. It was followed by severe condemnation across the country and was rightly so. But, what was shocking to watch was the sheer propaganda done by the ‘Lutyens cabal’ to demonise one community, in an attempt to cover up the illegality of cow smuggling and slaughtering.

According to a comprehensive investigative report by Swarajya, the whole incident was falsely attributed as a lynching, as ground reports suggest that all the claims by Rakbar Khan’s associate of purchasing cows rather than smuggling fall flat as the evidence points finger at a different direction. But, the media chose to present only one side of the story to make sure the members of the Hindu community are presented as a part of ‘Lynching’ machinery aided by the present NDA government. The report went on to suggest many similar incidents has been falsely presented with little respect for facts. Interestingly, one such story says that media went on to extent of directing a crime scene involving the local people as part of a documentary production and presented them as ‘Gundays’ and violent ‘cow-vigilantes’ next day.

These disinformation campaigns have shocked common rural masses the across the country and are now discouraged to continue the service of ‘Gau-Raksha’. The nexus of illegal beef industry, heavily armed cow smugglers, political parties and of course the intelligentsia has made sure that the mafia runs without any hinderances. The state despite strong laws against cow smuggling has failed both victims and those people against all odds fighting to end this menace. Most of the villagers have now begun losing hope of any action against the cattle mafia. In fact, some state governments have put heavy taxation on cow protection and also started putting bounties on Gau-Rakshaks.

The Gau-Raksha according to Gandhi was a gift of Hinduism to the world. The Gandhi, whom the left-liberals fantasise, would have sat on a Dharna for the cause of ‘Gau-Rakshaks’ rather than what left-liberals claim to represent the choice of personal liberty even if it led to violence and bloodshed.

Vivek Tiwari murder: Congress and Left ‘activists’ give it a political spin

OpIndia Staff
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Vivek Tiwari murder: Congress and Left ‘activists’ give it a political spin

Vivek Tiwari and his colleague Sana Khan were heading home in his SUV after an event at a dealer’s office in Vibhutikhand, Gomtinagar in the midnight of 29th September 2018. As he crossed Maqdoompur, two constables Prashant Kumar & Sandeep Kumar, on their bike reportedly chased him & tried to intercept him. As Vivek refused to stop his car, Prashant shot a bullet at him which hit him on his chin after piercing through the windshield of the SUV. Vivek was taken to Lohia hospital where he succumbed to his injury while the doctor was tending to him.

However, Tiwari’s unfortunate death was used as a political platform to settle political scores and win brownie points. Senior Congress Minister Raj Babbar took a dig at Yogi Adityanath and accused him of fostering an ‘Army of goondas’ in khaki uniform in UP.


Raj Babbar has, however, maintained a stoic silence on the deaths of innocent citizens in West Bengal, let alone censuring Mamata Banerjee for the same.

Aisi Taisi Democracy (@AisiTaisiDemo), a comedian group, didn’t take much time to politicize the incident & took a potshot at UP Police by bringing in the caste angle insinuating that the UP police targets Dalits and Muslims while protecting the upper caste Brahmins and Thakurs.

Tweet by @aisitaisidemo, now deleted

However, after realising that Vivek Tiwari was a Brahmin, they deleted the tweet. Earlier, the Left activists have accused Brahmins of being rapists, as if the heinous crime has caste-specific perpetrators.

That is not all. When Vivek Tiwari’s widow, Kalpana, expressed her faith in the Yogi administration and the police, Shehla Rashid, student leader from JNU, trivialized Vivek Tiwari’s murder by attributing his murder to CM Yogi Adityanath. In a twitter conversation with Suvojit, who quoted Indian Express report regarding deceased Vivek Tiwari’s wife’s meeting with Yogi, Shehla mocked the deceased & his family by pinning the entire blame of Vivek’s murder on Yogi Adityanath.


Earlier, Shehla Rashid had insinuated that Union Minister Nitin Gadkari may be plotting to assassinate PM Modi.

Meanwhile, UP CM Yogi Adityanath had met with the deceased’s wife on Monday, 1st October, following which she had expressed her faith in the government. Kalpana Tiwari told news agency ANI, ” He heard what I had to say & assured help. I am in no shape to take any strong stand…I had said that I had faith in the government…today that faith has strengthened”.

It is unfortunate that in this hour of grief for Vivek’s family, Congress politicians & Left-leaning activists are more interested in furthering their political agenda than on sharing her anguish or perhaps reducing it.

HAL falling short in production of Sukhois despite production concessions by Air Force: Reports

OpIndia Staff
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With the ongoing Rafale controversy, suddenly the state-run Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) has become the most favoured company for Rahul Gandhi and opposition. But, serious concern has been raised in official quarters over delays in production of Sukhoi Su-30 MKI fighters by the company, according to a report.

India bought 50 Su-30 MKI jets directly from Russia in “flyway condition”, and 140 the jets were to be manufactured by HAL in its Nashik plant. Later, IAF placed two additional orders for the jet with the company for 40 and 42 jets respectively, thereby increasing the total order for HAL to 222 jets.

The first order of 140 jets was to be delivered by 2014-15. But HAL has built 107 fighters for that order and 33 planes are yet to be built. For the next two orders, HAL directly bought some fighters from Russian and delivered them to IAF, to bridge the gap in deliveries.

The production of the Sukhois has been delayed despite “production concessions” that IAF has granted to HAL. Such concessions are in various forms like the use of short-life components and delay in supply of role equipment etc. According to a senior IAF official, without these concessions, the delays would have been even more, which would have impacted the operational capability of the Indian Air Force. Against the sanctioned strength of 42 squadrons, IAF currently has only 31 squadrons, due to the retirement of old MiG21 aircraft and more than a decade-long delay in inducting new aircraft.

HAL assembles the Sukhoi Su-30 MKI fighter jet from knocked-down kits imported from Russia. As there was no technology-transfer agreement in the Sukhoi purchase deal, HAL can’t make the jets on its own.

Delays are not the worrying part with Su-30 made by HAL, the cost is also a major concern. While a fully built Su-30MKI imported from Russia costs ₹330 crore, but HAL charges ₹415 crore for the jets assembled at Nashik. The cost of knocked-down kits for a jet is around ₹270 crore, means HAL charging around ₹150 crore for assembly the jets alone.

The same cost difference is seen for other jets to made by HAL. According to a report by defence expert Nitin A Gokhale, India bought Hawk jet trainer from the UK in 2004 at unit price of ₹78 crores, but when it was licensed produced by HAL in 2005 it cost ₹88 crore, in 2010 it cost and ₹98 crore and in 2016 the company demanded 1.5 times the last procurement price.

In fact, most of the projects undertaken by HAL are running behind schedule, not just the Su-30MKI. The Intermediate Jet Trainer (IJT) project is delayed by 14 years, the work on IJT, which is christened as HJT-36, started in 1997, and the plane has completed hundreds of hours of test flights. But it is still not ready for induction, as according to IAF it remains “unfit” for service due to technological issues. The HTT-40 trainer being developed by HAL is also delayed by 6 years.

There are delays in Light Utility Helicopter (LUH) and Light Combat Helicopter (LCH) as well. The LCH is delayed by seven years, while the LUH is delayed by four years.

The most ambiguous project of HAL, the Light Combat Aircraft (LCT) Tejas is also marked by long delays. IAF placed an order for the 20 Tejas aircraft in the year 2006, and 20 additional Tejas fighters were ordered in 2011. But till now HAL has delivered only 9 Tejas jets.

The Congress party has betrayed every principle that Mahatma Gandhi stood for

K Bhattacharjee
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The Congress party has betrayed every principle that Mahatma Gandhi stood for

The surname Gandhi has been an integral feature of Indian politics ever since a certain Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi entered the movement for an independent India. Soon enough, he was honoured with the title of ‘Mahatma’ and his birthday on the 2nd of October is one of the three national holidays of India.

Considering Gandhi’s stature in Indian politics, it was only to be expected that Indians politicians would try and latch on to him for their own electoral prospects. And it is for certain that the Gandhi dynasty that has flourished in India for decades has as much in common with Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi as the Congress party in the current year has with the Congress party of yore.

The Nehru-Gandhi dynasty has transformed M.K.Gandhi into a political tool to beat the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) with. They themselves care very little about the principles that Gandhi envisioned and worked towards in his life. Gandhi’s dedication towards cow protection is well documented and well known. And yet, during the 1966 anti-cow slaughter agitation, the police fires upon the protesters and murdered quite a few of them, all under the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s watch.

More recently, Youth Congress leaders in Kerala butchered a cow mercilessly in broad daylight in Kerala’s Kannur and cooked it and served it. And if those leaders are to be believed, they did so with the approval of the state president of Youth Congress itself. In another instance, a Muslim cleric in Karnataka boasted that cows will be slaughtered in the state during Bakr-Eid in the presence of a Congress minister who did not raise any objection despite the fact that there’s a ban on cow slaughter in the state. Of course, after public sentiment was outraged following the Congress party’s irreverence towards cows, the party now promises Gaushalas in Madhya Pradesh ahead of Assembly Elections in the state. The Nehru-Gandhi dynasty has turned Gandhi’s principles into a cheap political gimmick.

The greatest legacy of M.K. Gandhi is his commitment to non-violence even when it was horribly misguided. One could argue that his opinions were misguided and possibly even deluded, however, his firm commitment towards the principles of non-violence is very difficult to refute. The Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, on the other hand, is completely detached from Gandhi’s nonviolence. They thrive on pitting one community against another, one caste against the other, fomenting trouble where there’s none and would stop at nothing to retain their grip on power. The Congress party has no compunction in supporting divisive figures like Jignesh Mevani who was caught on camera instigating people before violence erupted at Bhima Koregaon. And who could ever forget the Sikh genocide committed by the Congress party in 1984?

M.K. Gandhi worked significantly towards the upliftment of the lower castes. The Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, on the other hand, has exploited fault lines within Hindu society and kept them divided so that they could rule over them. They have substituted development of the lower castes with sowing resentment between different castes. Their senior leader, Mani Shankar Aiyer, uses casteist slurs against Prime Minister Modi who himself belongs to the OBC category with very little consequence.

In his heart, M.K. Gandhi was a devout Hindu. The Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, on the other hand, has done everything possible and more to undermine Hinduism. They have denied the existence of Shri Rama in the Court and their senior leader, Kapil Sibal, struggled hard to delay the resolution of the Ayodhya dispute. Congress President Rahul Gandhi reportedly told the US Ambassador that Hindu extremists were a greater threat to India than the Lashkar-e-Taiba. The Congress’ extensive efforts to establish the myth of saffron terror is quite well known. And if certain media reports are to be believed, Pakistani suspects were let off the hook without proper investigation during the same time it was busy furthering the narrative of Hindu terror. And of course, there was the Communal Violence bill which sought to mandate that only minorities could claim to be victims of communal violence.

The Congress party has transformed M.K. Gandhi into a political stick to beat the opposition with. They themselves care very little about the deeds of Gandhi and the ideas he fought for. It is indeed extremely banal that the Congress party would glorify him without caring to actually work towards any of the ideas he actually envisioned. The Congress party has long since abandoned his principles and his ideas, the only thing they have in common with him currently is the surname.

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