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Today is indeed a historic day in the long fight for the rights of the LGBT community

OpIndia Staff
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Today is indeed a historic day in the long fight for the rights of the LGBT community

On Tuesday, a bench consisting of Justice Rohinton Nariman, Justice Indu Malhotra, Justice AM Khanwilkar Justice DY Chandrachud and Chief Justice Dipak Misra began hearing a set of petitions, filed in order to challenge Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code.

This section of the IPC is intended to combat “unnatural offences,” ensuring that “whoever voluntarily has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal shall be punished with imprisonment for life, or with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to ten years, and shall also be liable to fine.”

It becomes apparent section 377, holds the crux of not only prohibiting homosexuality but also criminalising any instances that get reported. Furthermore, such a law was first imposed by the British in 1860, which believed that the primary reason to ban homosexuality, was because it was against the “order of nature.” What causes most of the debate and outrage today, is the question of whether or not such a law falls in line with our expectations of a pluralistic nation. What makes the day significant, is the fact that this law has been repeatedly revisited over the last decade.

Back in 2009, homosexuality had been decriminalised by the Delhi High Court, which said in its 105-page judgement that, “As it stands, Section 377 denies a gay person a right to full personhood which is implicit in the notion of life under Article 21 of the Constitution.”

However, in December 2012, the Supreme Court decided to reverse the decision. The thrust of the decision was based on the suggestion that a “miniscule fraction of the country’s population constitute LGBT” as it claimed that ‘in over 150 years less than 200 people were prosecuted for committing an offence under the section’.

It is also well worth noting that the Supreme Court of India decided to hold the Right to Privacy as a fundamental right in August 2017, calling the right to privacy and sexual orientation- “the core of the fundamental rights guaranteed by Articles 14, 15 and 21 of the Constitution.” The mentioned verdict directly clashes with the earlier judgement and therefore might hold significance today in Court.

The Supreme court revisiting Article 377 would imply a thorough reconsideration of what it terms an ‘unnatural offence’, and while bestiality needs a law criminalising it, the Court’s refusal to delay the hearing concerning homosexual acts means they will take a strong stance on the infringement upon the right of several stakeholders.

While the nation awaits the court’s judgement, it is safe to say that this will go down as a truly historic day in the Indian society.

Modi giving Rs 1000 crores to Ambani’s Jio Institute? How lies were spread over ‘Institutes of Eminence’ list

OpIndia Staff
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Modi giving Rs 1000 crores to Ambani’s Jio Institute? How lies were spread over ‘Institutes of Eminence’ list

The Ministry of HRD had yesterday announced that six institutions, 3 public and 3 private will be granted the ‘Institutions of Eminence’ (IOE) status. The IOE status enables the institutions to get full autonomy and special incentives to establish them as world-class institutions.


The public institutes granted the IOE status were IIT-Bombay, IIT-Delhi and IISC-Bangalore. The 3 private institutions that were given the IOE status were Jio Institute by Reliance Foundation, Manipal Academy of Higher Education and BITS Pilani. HRD Minister Prakash Javedkar had also shared that the 3 public institutes will get a funding of about 1000 crores over the next five years to help them achieve world ranking.

However, soon after the names of the IOE were announced, criticism and backlash on social media followed. Most of it was directed against the inclusion of Jio Institute by the Reliance Foundation. Though there were several people criticising and questioning the inclusion of a yet to be a functional institution like the Jio Institute in the IOE list, there were many handles spreading misinformation that the Jio Institute will be receiving a government grant of Rs 1000 crores. Due to some very prominent handles spreading false information, soon it caught the attention of the general public too and the whole narrative of ‘Modi giving 1000 crores to Ambani’s institute’ was being circulated on social media.

Congress’ AICC Jt Secretary, National in-charge, NSUI also indulged in the same lie.

So-called journalist Paranjoy Guha Thakurta also peddled the lie without cross checking facts.

It was pointed out that even the Outlook Editor who was allegedly sacked from the Magazine indulged in furthering this false narrative.


This was the deliberate spreading of false information because the HRD Minister had already mentioned that the grant of Rs 1000 crores will be for public institutes only and not the private institutes. On the basis of the inclusion of a yet to be functional institute in the IOE status the HRD Ministry later issued a clarification stating that Jio’s inclusion was due to its greenfield status.


In its clarification, the Ministry of HRD shared that the clause 6.1 of the UGC regulation 2017, for Institutes of Eminence Deemed to be Universities, does provide for a proposed institution to be considered under the status provided it meets the required criteria. Hence a separate category of applications was invited from the sponsoring organisations for setting up new greenfield projects.

They stated that the EEC ( empowered expert committee) had received a total of 11 applications under the greenfield projects and from them, only the Jio Institute had met the specified criteria. The 10 other institutes that had applied under the category reportedly included Airtel’s Bharti University, Anil Agarwal’s Vedanta University in Odisha and KREA University in Bangalore which has former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan as an advisor.

The HRD Ministry stated that the criteria for greenfield projects to be considered under IOE were:

  1. Availability of land for construction of the institution
  2. Putting in place a core team of highly qualified and widely experienced individuals
  3. Making funds available for the institution
  4. A strategic vision plan with clear annual milestones and action plan

The document also clarified that the private institutions selected under IOE will not be given government funding.

Though the HRD Ministry clarified its stand on selecting the Jio Institute, many on social media questioned the decision.


Though there are mixed opinions about selecting a yet to be established institution like the Jio Institute under the IOE tag it was once again clear that just to further the agenda of criticising the government, deliberate lies are often being spread over social media. Blaming the PM for being partial to certain industrialists has long been the attack tool for the opposition and certain selected media outlets. It was another such attempt.

Cleric wants separate country for Indian Muslims if Sharia courts are not allowed

OpIndia Staff
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Cleric wants separate country for Indian Muslims if Sharia courts are not allowed

As reported by Times Now, J&K Deputy Grand Mufti, Nasir Ul Islam, has yet again come up with a ludicrous proposal, demanding a separate country for Indian Muslims. This seditious and bizarre comment came hours after All India Muslim Personal Law Board’s (AIMPLB) proposal for opening Shariat courts in all districts of India was rejected by the BJP, and was incidentally supported by Congress minister.


He said that the God’s law run supreme and the laws of the Quran can’t be secondary to man-made laws. When asked what he would do if they are not allowed to open Sharia Courts, Nasir Ul Islam said that any resistance from the BJP means it doesn’t want Muslims to stay in India, ‘in that case, we urge them to give us a separate nation.’

This is not the first time Islam has spoken about a separate nation, previously too in January this year, the Kashmir Deputy Mufti had absurdly established that the Muslims in India should demand an independent country as they were bound to live in pathetic conditions in the existing scenario.

He had then sparked a row by saying that, “Muslims are being harassed in India in the name of love jihad, cow vigilantism and what not. The population of Muslims is second largest in India. Pakistan was formed with only 17 crore people. If the Muslims continue to suffer in India, then we will have to form a new country. The Muslim community should ask for a separate country.”

AIMPLB is planning to move the proposal for establishing Shariat courts for discussion at a meeting in Delhi on July 15. BJP lawmakers have criticised this demand and have called it unconstitutional.

A senior member of AIMPLB, Zafaryab Jilani, was quoted saying that at present there are 40 such Shariat courts in Uttar Pradesh, and they plan to open such courts in every district of the country, with the objective of resolving their matters by themselves in light of Shariat laws instead of going to other courts,” clearly disrespecting the Indian judiciary system.

Rightly rejecting this proposal, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spokesperson Meenakshi Lekhi had said that there was no place for Shariat court in this country as this is not the Islamic Republic of India.

The demand for a parallel judiciary based on Islamic Sharia laws is a recipe for another Pakistan and the country needs to resist this onslaught on the Nation’s secularism.

The ‘Krantikari’ duo is back: Punya Prasoon Bajpai creates fake news, Kejriwal shares it with impunity

OpIndia Staff
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The ‘Krantikari’ duo is back: Punya Prasoon Bajpai creates fake news, Kejriwal shares it with impunity

Arvind Kejriwal, the Chief Minister of Twitter, and Delhi, when he gets the time, is out to create mischief again. After parking himself on the LG’s sofa that tired him enough to take a vacation to Bangalore after, has taken to Twitter to spread fake news which was already debunked 24 hours ago.

Arvind Kejriwal tweeted a video clip from ABP News in which Poonya Prasoon Bajpai is seen talking about how the Prime Minister and the Government lied about farmer’s income doubling.

He writes “Watch this video. If the Prime Minister himself lies openly to the people of this country, what hope do we have? Salute to Poonya Prasoon Bajpai who, even in today’s situation, had the courage to show this”


We had reported how this news peddled by ABP and Punya Prasoon Bajpai is fake and downright concocted. The clip from ABP News where Punya Prasun Bajpai is talking of a female farmer who interacted with Prime Minister Modi last month through the NaMo app.

Bajpai claims that their correspondent got in touch with the female farmer who, on being asked by PM Modi if her income has doubled, had replied in affirmative. The camera then pans towards a woman, Chandramani Kaushik from Chhattisgarh, who is shown walking around near her home.

The correspondent asks her if her income has doubled from the farming of rice (dhaan). Kaushik says, ‘no’. The voiceover says that Chandramani has ‘revealed’ that a team from Delhi had gone there to ‘instruct’ her to answer in a particular manner with the PM and say yes if the question of doubling of income comes up. However, we do not get to hear these claims. Chandramani, on camera on ABP News only says that she was ‘asked’ if she would be able to speak in front of the PM.

However, another video emerged later of the same woman saying, “I had told the Prime Minister about doubling my income by processing the pulp of sitafal. They are talking about agriculture, but I had said that pulp processing led to a doubling of my income. I had told the PM that earlier, while sitafal cultivation got us around Rs 50, after training we get double the amount by processing pulp.’

‘I was talking about pulp only and not rice. Only and only sitafal has led to doubling of my income,’ she said.

It was proven that the ABP News and Punya Prasoon Bajpai had lied to the nation and tried to mislead the people about the initiative of the government, and in the process, used an innocent farmer for the purpose.

It says a lot about our Twitter Chief Minister, who basically runs his government from social media, when he shares news debunked hours ago as fake. Perhaps it was by design because truth doesn’t matter when it comes to propaganda and especially since Arvind Kejriwal and Punya Prasoon Bajpai share an interesting past.

It is worth mentioning here that in 2014, during a scripted interview of Arvind Kejriwal with Bajpai, the mic was left on and the camera was left rolling. A video thus surfaced where Arvind Kejriwal is seen telling Bajpai to play up the parts of the interview where he sounds like a revolutionary, and Bajpai was seen not only obliging Kejriwal but also giving him tips.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKxVitIACH8]

The “revolution” is here indeed.

Ambulance carrying critical patient stuck after Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik’s convoy gets priority passage

OpIndia Staff
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Ambulance carrying critical patient stuck after Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik’s convoy gets priority passage

An ambulance carrying a critical patient got stuck in a traffic jam for about five minutes in Odisha’s capital of Bhubaneswar as a result of Naveen Patnaik’s passing convoy, OTV has reported:


In the above video it can be seen that an ambulance is trying to pass through a stretch of traffic purportedly created due to the CM’s convoy, while the patient’s well wishers anxiously sit inside the vehicle.

Following the incident, CM Patnaik was attacked by Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee’s president Niranjan Patnaik, who claimed that the feudalistic mindset of the CM was on full display.

Incidentally reports of medical patients suffering due to convoys of Chief Ministers are nothing new.

It was famously reported on multiple occasions [1][2] how ambulances got stuck in traffic at various intersections, in order to allow the convoy of the Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiahs to pass. After a similar incident had again taken place in February 2017, the Chief Minister had assured that such incidents would not be repeated in the future.

All hope though is not lost in this regard as in July of last year, it was reported how a Bangalore cop had been rewarded for stopping the convoy of erstwhile President Pranab Mukherjee, in order to allow an ambulance to pass.

The Chinese Economic Crisis: A comprehensive explainer

Lakshmisha K S
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The Chinese Economic Crisis: A comprehensive explainer

June 2018 has been one of the worst months from a Chinese economic perspective. The RMB has been on free fall with the decline of more than 3% since Jan 2018. The Shanghai Composite has declined to lowest levels in the year with a drop of 20% from Jan 2018.

These are however symptoms of a larger crisis. To understand, one has to go back to 2008, the global financial crisis. China to stabilize its domestic economy and quell unrest, let loose a fiscal and monetary stimulus. This resulted in a boon in infrastructure splurge and a rise in property prices. This unrelenting spending tap has now created a Frankenstein monster. Popular wisdom holds that the Chinese economy is driven by exports and that trade is the main driving factor for economic growth. However, the Real estate now accounts for an estimated 25% of the Chinese economy including both direct and indirect contribution. To understand the implications of the above statement, the below factors need to be considered.

  1. More than 80 per cent of Chinese household wealth is held in land and real estate. Only about 10 per cent is held in financial assets, mostly bank products such as checking and savings accounts.
  2. The household debt to GDP ratio has increased from 10% in 2006 to 50% today. This is driven by an increase in the leveraged purchase of household assets. A clear indication of high prices is the fact that mortgage payments to disposable income are now at 90%+ in China. This would imply that the household has to save every penny earned to pay for a mortgage.
  3. Due to Financial repression, there are few alternatives for Chinese savers to invest in. Hence the significant source of savings is redirected to high-risk Wealth Management Products which offer higher returns. The assets under WMP have grown into USD 15 trillion. These, however, come with increased risks and most of the funds are invested in Corporate and Local Government Debt.  Unlike traditional stock-based investment products like Mutual funds where the investor bears the full risk of investment, most of these WMP’s promise fixed rate of returns. In case of loss of the underlying asset value, WMPs will be forced to default on the payments. 
  4. Land revenue constitutes the single most source of revenue for Chinese local government. Unlike in other countries, Chinese local government bodies don’t have the right to raise taxes (both direct and indirect). The only sources of revenue are – Revenue from land sales, Debt and the Central government funding. Estimated 18% of the revenue of local government is sourced from the sale of land.
  5. China’s high savings rate could be overestimated. As per Bloomberg, official savings rate includes government-mandated social-security contributions. Other government surveys show that Chinese households only save about 29 per cent of their actual income. After accounting for the fact that Chinese household income is equal to 44 per cent of GDP. 
  6. This has created a mountain of debt across all sections of the Chinese economy. The Debt to GDP ratio for China stands at 282% as compared to 70% in India. Nearly 2/3rds of these debts are owned by Non-financial corporate entities including local government SPE’s and Zombie corporate entities. The Return On Assets (ROA) for State Owned Enterprises (SOE) is trending at 2-3%. Hence most of the debt is currently lying in unproductive sectors of the economy. China will have to enter into a significant restructuring involving huge loan haircuts to solve this problem. Based on 2017 OECD estimates, the liability to asset ratio of non-financial state-owned enterprises is around 60% in 2015. What’s more, the main driver of the advance was short-term debt.

Any central banker can control only 2 of the 3 monetary levers – Interest rates, Capital flow into the country and Exchange rates.  China’s central bank PBOC is similarly facing a different variance of the trilemma.

  • To stave off economic recession, the central bank has to reduce the cost of capital and infuse liquidity. Thus it would make sense to cut interest rates and reserve ratios. Any increase in interest rate would ripple through all sectors have both households will be impacted by higher mortgage costs, firms will find it harder to re-service debt resulting in a drop in both consumption and investment demand.
  • Today China’s 1 yr yield rate of 3% is only 0.7% higher than US 1 yr rate of 2.33%. Thus for any investor, investing in riskier Chinese bonds would make sense only if the RMB can appreciate, otherwise taking into currency hedging costs, Chinese bonds are less attractive compared to US bonds
  • The underlying economic weakness combined with the unwinding of the easy monetary policies including QE is causing the RMB to decline against the USD. This will force even more of the capital to flee before further depreciation of RMB.

Hence PBOC governor Yi Gang has the unviable task of balancing the restructuring the mountain of debt while ensuring no significant drop in investment and consumer confidence. This is a herculean task and previous efforts of similar bubbles have ended in a disaster like with Japan in the 1980s and the US prior to 2008 showdown.  Beijing has studied Japan’s example and apparently sees forcibly bursting such bubbles as a mistake.

There is however little fear in global policy and economic circles of the coming Chinese economic crisis. The communist mandarins have been successful for the past 20 years to stave off repeated calls of Chinese economic recession and lead the country into unprecedented economic growth and prosperity.  However, the reality is that the vast tools at the disposal of the mandarins have been used to effectively manage the short-term risk and kicking the proverbial can down the road. This is only creating a bigger problem to be solved in the future.

In the much-publicized book “This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly” by Reinhart and Rogoff. Each time there has been a speculative bubble driven by an unparalleled rise in debt levels, an economic recession has followed. But this time is indeed different, however from the perspective of economic management of Chinese officials and their ability to prove their naysayers wrong. It is different, purely because of one factor and that factor is Donald Trump and his trade wars.

The real cost of the tariffs levied by the US would be minimal, however in conjugation with the complexity of managing economic slowdown and growing debt pile would be significant. The tariffs inject a certain sense of volatility and unpredictability to the markets. These uncertainties and the general unpredictability of Trump policies towards China can make any complex and well planned economic management haywire. Trump presidency is like dumping Chinese bubbles into a stack of needles and all it needs is one small trigger to begin the big burst.

18,000 government schools in Uttarakhand to chant ‘Bhojan Mantra’ before mid-day meals

OpIndia Staff
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18,000 government schools in Uttarakhand to chant ‘Bhojan Mantra’ before mid-day meals

As reported by the Indian Express, the Uttarakhand government has decided to instruct all the 18,000 government-run schools covering 12 lakh students to chant the ‘Bhojan Mantra’ (a mantra for food) before having mid-day meals. The mantra may also be painted on the walls of the kitchens in all schools.

The Uttarakhand education minister Arvind Pandey and other officials suggested including chanting the Sanskrit prayers in the school’s curriculum. However, it will it be mandatory for students to chant the prayers. It is also made sure that the decision is not forced upon any students and implementation is left to the discretion of the school authorities and the students.

“In the review meeting, the school education minister and several officials of the school education department suggested that the Bhojan Mantra be chanted before children eat the midday meals. We are planning to send out instructions for it to the concerned offices. However, chanting the mantra or painting it on the kitchen walls won’t be compulsory. It will be left to the discretion of the school authorities and the students.” R. K. Kunwar, Director, School Education, said.

He also said that there were several decisions taken during the meeting to include the Yoga practice in the daily curriculum, creating awareness about great Indian national leaders, more emphasis on Kumaoni- Garhwali languages in the region and also starting the school day with either Gayatri Mantra or Saraswati Vandana.

Recently, the Central government has also decided to include the values and knowledge systems of ancient India in their textbooks. NCERT textbooks will now have additional information on Ayurveda, Upanishads, Smritis, Yoga and other scientific achievements of ancient India in areas such as Astronomy, Metallurgy, Chemistry and Indian Philosophy.

Respected Sushma ji, you just got royally played by the Left

Vinay Mangal
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Respected Sushma ji, you just got royally played by the Left

I won’t ascribe any concealed or unscrupulous motive to what Sushma Swaraj did on Social Media after the recent ordeal she faced. As an individual and respected woman, she can fight this out to its logical end. But it is equally necessary to address Sushma Swaraj, the politician.

Dear Sushma Ji,

You just got played and am saying this with extreme candour and I absolutely don’t mean to say that it’s some naivety on your part or the ordeal of Social Media abuse you went through is not worth condemnation. Lest some recently-turned-friendly Lutyen’s operator catches me with this innocuous article and forces you to block me, I hope I have made myself clear.

The world around us is changing rapidly and so are the means and ways to communicate. You may know all this better than anyone as you are a part of a party and a movement which rode heavily to their success based on these new mediums of communication.

Social Media is what we should perceive as this big Chaupal or a Mandali, where everyone can come and opine on any matter while addressing each other or people of significance like you, directly and without any censorship. At least to this point, India has resisted censorship and upturned the draconian like section 66A to make sure that the medium remains free.

Now in this big Chaupal, people bring in the same human problems as would anyone in such open forums. People are many times and very much like in real life can be bitter, irrational, abusive and jealous. But the disadvantages are far outweighed by the gigantic benefits, which any ‘right-wing’ party (for the want of a better phrase) reaps with such democratisation of opinions and views.

And sadly, this is where you need to think like a politician.

You are a foreign minister and you must know that worldwide, the left wing, which includes all the left parties like the Democrats, the Labour, large part of EU constituents, the Main Stream Media and the news start-ups mushrooming with their backing, the NGO and their nexus and the Academia including Ivy leagues, all of them are hell-bent on choking conservative or right-wing voices on Social Media and otherwise.

The reasons are obvious. This free exchange of opinions and information is a bane to their make-believe world, which they belligerently sell to the public to create and endure their vote banks. Left owns the traditional media, traditional media is threatened by Social Media and left is threatened by the ‘right’ which is using Social Media to win elections, and hence, these two (left and media) have joined hands.

Social Media has come as one of the biggest deterrents to their non-stop bogey of lies and concealments.

So their strategy is clear:

1) Create a frenzy about online harassment (naming it hate) and fake news.

2) Play an equal-equal game and create a perception that it’s akin to physical harm or leads to it.

3) Conflate racism, feminism and other such pet issues with this. Create guilt by association and make an indecipherable mix.

4) Push advertising brands/top companies (with their SJW executives) to lap this up and start bullying their employees and then Social Media platforms

5) Push Social Media platforms directly. Bully them through controversies like Milo-Twitter or Cambridge Analytica FB kinds so they start censoring on their own.

6) Once reaching the peak of the repeated news cycle and one-sided discussions on this issue, make final moves like bringing in laws/legislation and often overriding free speech, basis a separate category for hate speech and fake news (case point Germany, Britain, Australia, Sweden).

7) Start jailing people (read conservatives, for example, in Britain) and fining people on Social Media who don’t comply (Germany, for example).

8) Officially appoint Left dominated groups and ‘NGOs’ to define and monitor hate speech. Align all Social Media companies to take their services (for example, SPLC in the US). This coupled with the fact that the biggest Social Media companies of the world are already leaned heavily to left and share similar thought process (e.g. Google and Reddit).

9) Ensure giants of Social Media maintain their monopoly by banning competing platforms and Applications. Apple and Google with 98% smartphone OS share, did exactly that.

And finally, the checkmate move: Let all banning and castigation be done to conservatives, right-wing parties and their supporters.

So while Ivanka can be called a feckless c*** on national television, a conservative Roseanne gets her highest-rated show cancelled just because she indirectly compared women to monkeys on Social Media. So while a Rajdeep can message people with the choicest abuse and still prevail, an abusive handle like ‘sususwamy’ can be turned martyr overnight but right wing lot getting their account blocked day in and out for merely suggesting inconvenient truths.

Any right-wing party or supporter must know that Social Media is the only platform they got after decades of compromised mainstream media instrumental in forming opinions.

So this is where you are got played by left, Sushma ji.

Observe this sudden and selective support which you are getting from the designated Lutyen’s bigwigs and ecosystem loyalists and recognise where exactly it’s leading to.

Indian Left wants to regulate Social Media and they are using you as a solid vehicle for this thought and subsequent action.

Do you see how every BJP minister or lawmaker, small or big, is now having a reporter pushing mike to their faces and asking the same question about your online harassment? Do you think they care about a BJP minister? Do you observe how the so-called right wing handles prop overnight, abuse and vanish? Coincidence?

Left has sensed an opportunity to indulge a strong right-wing leader and many supporting voices on ‘curbing this hate-on-Social Media’ issue, so that tomorrow when some right-wing trigger happy neta or someone from Left ecosystem moves a PIL or legislation in this effect, right-wing voices are mellowed down and stifled.

And Sushma ji, you are handing this opportunity to them on a platter, sadly.

Garrett Walker thinks of Frank Underwood as his good friend and confidante, and all this while Frank was telling us to ‘Shake with your right hand but hold a rock in your left’. The Left is holding a rock at this very moment, waiting.

After Pranab Mukherjee, now Ratan Tata to share stage with RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat

OpIndia Staff
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After Pranab Mukherjee, now Ratan Tata to share stage with RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat

Weeks after former President and one of the senior most Congress leader Pranab Mukherjee visited Nagpur to attend an RSS event with its chief Mohan Bhagwat, prominent business tycoon and former Tata Sons Chairman Ratan Tata expected to attend a meeting with Bhagwat as well. According to a report in the New Indian Express, Ratan Tata is scheduled to attend an event organised by RSS affiliate Nana Palkar Smriti Samiti on August 24 to share a dais with RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat.

As per the report, Nana Palkar Smriti Samiti is an NGO dedicated to serving patients and has a 10 storied premise near the Tata cancer hospital in Mumbai and serves to patients visiting the hospital. A senior worker of the Nana Palkar Smriti Samiti has reportedly stated to the New Indian Express that Tata had visited their premises a few years back and their work is known to him. He further added that since they are connected with Tata hospital and are inspired by RSS, they have invited both Ratan Tata and RSS chief Bhagwat to the concluding ceremony of the 100th birth anniversary celebrations of Nana Palkar and golden jubilee of the NGO. He added that formal announcement of the event will be made soon.

Ratan Tata had met RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat back in December 2016 when he had visited the RSS headquarters in Nagpur. He had spent some time at the national headquarters and later the Tata trust had helped in building a  hospital in Nagpur. During his visit, Ratan Tata was accompanied by BJP spokesperson Shaina NC and he had paid his tributes to the memorial of RSS founder Dr Hedgewar.

The Tata Trust has been involved in many charity projects in Nagpur city. It has initiated an outreach centre of the cancer hospital in the city and has helped to revamp the 150-year-old mental hospital in the city. The first phase of the National Cancer Institute was inaugurated in August 2017, by Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis. The institute is aided by corporates like ONGC and Coal India. Tata Trust has been key in providing training and support to the doctors at the institute.

Former President Pranab Mukharjee’s attendance at the RSS event had caused quite a meltdown among Congress leaders and so-called liberals of India. However, any meltdown over the scheduled event where Ratan Tata will share a stage with RSS chief is yet to be seen.

After hobnobbing with Kejriwal, ‘Krantikari’ Punya Prasoon Bajpai now peddles fake narratives

OpIndia Staff
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After hobnobbing with Kejriwal, ‘Krantikari’ Punya Prasoon Bajpai now peddles fake narratives

Today’s entry for irresponsible journalism is courtesy ABP News where a peasant woman from Chhattisgarh has trashed reports which, according to her, misrepresented her story in the recent interaction with the farmers. Yesterday, Congress President Rahul Gandhi shared a video on Twitter, a clip from ABP News where Punya Prasun Bajpai is talking of a female farmer who interacted with Prime Minister Modi last month through the NaMo app.


Bajpai claims that their correspondent got in touch with the female farmer who, on being asked by PM Modi if her income has doubled, had replied in affirmative. The camera then pans towards a woman, Chandramani Kaushik from Chhattisgarh, who is shown walking around near her home.

The correspondent asks her if her income has doubled from the farming of rice (dhaan). Kaushik says, ‘no’. The voiceover says that Chandramani has ‘revealed’ that a team from Delhi had gone there to ‘instruct’ her to answer in a particular manner with the PM and say yes if the question of doubling of income comes up. However, we do not get to hear these claims. Chandramani, on camera on ABP News only says that she was ‘asked’ if she would be able to speak in front of the PM.

One Parshuram Bhoyar, Sarpanch of the village, then came on camera to claim that a team had come and instructed them what to speak. That Chandramani spoke what was told to her and that her claims of doubled income are not ‘visible’. The voiceover then asks whether the government has started telling lies?

In the clip, one can see how Chandramani is not the one who claims that she was ‘instructed’ to talk about her success story and lie to the PM and the nation. It was the claim of the Sarpanch, which was passed off as Chandramani’s claim. MyNation, a new website backed by Asianet news and being headed by former Mail Today editor Abhijit Majumder, which had earlier interviewed the sexual harassment victim of Congress IT cell, got in touch with Chandramani and found out the truth.

As per MyNation, ‘Kaushik had told PM Modi that her income had doubled after shifting from the traditional paddy-centric agriculture to fruit-pulp processing.

She had also told him during the interaction that while growing rice (“dhaan”) had been unprofitable, the new venture doubled her income. She said women had formed a self-help group and now marketing the pulp which brought them substantially more returns than just selling the fruit.’

In the interaction video uploaded by MyNation, it can be seen that Kaushik never said her income had been doubled by sowing rice/paddy. She clearly told the PM that the secret was her shifting to fruit and pulp processing. The key was ‘sitafal’ or ‘sharifa’ (custard apple).

Meanwhile, in a new video statement, Kaushik has debunked the fake narrative peddled by ABP News.


Chandramani Kaushik clarified that “I had told the Prime Minister about doubling my income by processing the pulp of sitafal. They are talking about agriculture, but I had said that pulp processing led to a doubling of my income. I had told the PM that earlier, while sitafal cultivation got us around Rs 50, after training we get double the amount by processing pulp.’

‘I was talking about pulp only and not rice. Only and only sitafal has led to doubling of my income,’ she said.

It is unfortunate that the media has not only outsourced fact checking to the audience instead of being vigilant themselves but also blatantly started peddling fake narratives to defame Modi. At the time of this report, neither ABP News nor its Managing Editor Milind Khandekar has reacted to this.

Interestingly, when Punya Prasoon Bajpai, the ‘journalist’ who hosted the show tweeted by Rahul Gandhi was earlier spotted with Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal speaking in a hushed voice where Kejriwal appeared to be telling Bajpai of playing up the part where he appears like a revolutionary.

Very revolutionary journalism indeed.

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