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ABP News has asked this question a dozen times in different ways, but they always get the same answer

Sanghamitra
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ABP News has asked this question a dozen times in different ways, but they always get the same answer

‘Can Modi Win in 2019’ is the new ‘Melody Itni Chocolaty Kyun Hai’. Everyone seems to be worried about this question. Well, questions are good, ‘Why did the apple fall ?’ led to the discovery of gravity. ‘Why did the stone cause ripples on the water’ led to the invention of the radio. Let’s face it, one guy’s ‘What can I do with my nasal mucus ?’ led to the discovery of Lysozyme, a natural antibiotic. Questions do lead to great things, but what about questions which, no matter how many times u ask, the universe keeps throwing the same answer back at you?

Something similar seems to be happening with ABP News. They are visibly obsessed with ‘Can Modi win in 2019?’. They have been asking this question since long but of late, they have become relentless. They have dedicated primetime shows, discussions and Twitter poll after Twitter poll. Let us have a look.


This is right after BJP swept over Uttar Pradesh. The questions continued. They tried asking in a different way.

ABP News poll

Perhaps the answer was not satisfactory. That’s admirable because a curious mind should never be satisfied with one experiment. They asked it again after the last budget. Modi’s coming back depends upon the fight the Congress puts up apparently, so, like a careful google searcher tweaking the keywords for the intended answers, they tried changing the words of the question. They asked instead: is the Congress ready for 2019? Which actually means, ahh, Can Modi win 2019? They did not seem to find what they were seeking, but they never gave up. They tweaked the words again and threw the question out to the universe, again.

When all else fails, always throw the question to the common public, in this case, Twitter users.

The quest in April.

When the Karnataka elections loomed closer, ABP News got into a super active mode. They began asking rapidly, repeatedly.

They tweaked the question again. But Twitter users are ruthless. Rahul Gandhi’s home newspaper has attempted Twitter polls too, though in a rather innovative way. National Herald thought they would win elections by blocking people en masse.

Unperturbed and unsatisfied, they went on…May 4th, 7th.

Come on now, ABP News, this is becoming ridiculous. May 8th.

Those of you who are beginning to think about Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, we request you to pause and rethink, sirs and madams. These people at ABP News deserve our applause for their persistence. Let us all wish them good luck, for it looks like they are going to keep at it till 2019 election results are out. After that, well, one can never run out of new questions, right?

Two years on, justice eludes Rajdeep Sardesai

Pratap G
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Two years on, justice eludes Rajdeep Sardesai

Many have said that the next World War will be a cyberwar, fought by expert hackers, over the internet. At the same time, India is moving towards a “Digital India”, exhorting every Indian citizen to have an online presence in some form or the other. But can Digital India move ahead without basic cybersecurity?

We just crossed the 2 year anniversary of a dark event in Indian history, when journalist Rajdeep Sardesai’s twitter account was “hacked” into. The mystery “hacker” had logged into Rajdeep’s account late that night and had done something very un-hacker like. Instead of random tweets, the hacker had chosen to abuse ordinary, private India citizens, via the direct message feature of Twitter:

From the above screenshots, the “hackers” modus operandi was clear. He was seeing the replies Rajdeep’s account was receiving from ordinary citizens, and scanning for any response which would have made Rajdeep angry. Such users who would have made Rajdeep angry were then responded to by the hacker, using the direct message feature. The response almost always involved abusing the user’s mother.

Rajdeep Sardesai, who normally loses his cool only in front of Madison Square Garden, was distraught at this “hacking” and decided to delete his account, only to resurface in a few days.

It has been 2 years now, but Rajdeep has not been given justice. The mystery “hacker” has not been traced and the police have not been able to provide even basic hints on about the possible suspects. We still do now know how the “hacker” managed to hack into Rajdeep’s account, while allowing Rajdeep full access to the same account, since before and after the abusive messages, Rajdeep was happily accessing and tweeting from his account for more than 12 hours post the “hacking” incident. This only shows the advanced techniques that the “hacker” was using.

The questions we must ask today are these:

  1. What happened to the “hacker”?
  2. Did Rajdeep file a police complaint? Or complain to Twitter?
  3. Have the police or Twitter apprehended the miscreant or have they reach close to catching him?
  4. If not, does it not damage the reputation of Rajdeep himself that his claim of being a victim of a hacking incident maybe fake?

The nation demands an answer. Until then, we must fight for Rajdeep Sardesai’s right to justice. We all know Rajdeep Sardesai is totally not capable of abusing people’s mothers late in the night.

Arvind Kejriwal’s relative, Vinay Bansal arrested in connection with PWD scam

OpIndia Staff
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Arvind Kejriwal’s relative, Vinay Bansal arrested in connection with PWD scam

Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) officials have arrested Vinay Bansal, son of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s brother-in-law, in connection with the PWD scam.


The ACB has also ordered an inspection into an alleged Rs. 10 crore scam involving Surendra Kumar Bansal, Kejriwal’s brother-in-law. The ACB had raided his residence and office premises last year. The ACB had registered three cases against Bansal and other senior PWD officers in connection with the alleged scam. The agency has also questioned six engineers of the PWD.

Special Commissioner of Police, Arvind Deep, confirmed Vinay Bansal’s arrest. He said, “He was a partner at the firm along with his father. In the PWD scam case, their company had submitted bills for purchasing materials for construction work. Our investigation revealed there are no such firms. The bills were fake. He was arrested today.”

In his complaint, Rahul Sharma, founder of Roads Anti-Corruption Organisation (RACO), had alleged that Kejriwal and PWD minister Satyendra Jain misused their office for grant of contracts to Bansal. However, they have not been named in the FIR. The organization had alleged that a firm linked to Bansal was involved in financial irregularities.

Vinay Bansal’s father had passed away last year. Viplava Avasthi of RACO had lodged an FIR at Delhi’s IP Extension Police Station demanding an investigation into the death of Bansal under “highly suspicious circumstances”. RACO had also alleged that it was receiving threats and abusive calls from anonymous numbers since it filed the complaint with the Economic Offences Wing.

‘You seem adjustable and compromising’ : Editor-in-Chief of ‘JK Monitor’ to the girl he was looking to exploit

Anubhav
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‘You seem adjustable and compromising’ : Editor-in-Chief of ‘JK Monitor’ to the girl he was looking to exploit

As students of journalism, we are made to learn about ethics and morality, there is an entire paper dedicated to journalistic ethics and how one should conduct themselves as a working journalist. But like a lot of other things that we learn in the classroom, this ethical and moralistic aspect of journalism also becomes meaningless in the professional world and sometimes it takes a sinister form as a 20-year-old English literature student of Presidency University, Kolkata found out.

Esha Mitra is a native of Mumbai. She wants to pursue journalism and just like any of us, wanted to do an internship to understand the culture and nitty-gritty of this work portfolio. She took to Linked.in to find suitable opportunities and during this process found out about JK Monitor, which is an online news agency based out of Kashmir. This immediately caught her fancy as she was particularly interested in Kashmir and its politics. She stated –

“I have always been interested in Kashmir, being from Mumbai I did not want to pursue an internship in any metropolitan city.”

Esha reached out to Ajmer Alam Wani, the editor-in-chief of J&K Monitor via Linked.in and was asked by Ajmer to contact him via Whatsapp. This is where things get murky. One does not expect an editor-in-chief of a news organization to get personal out of nowhere as Ajmer did when he asked Mitra about her display picture and inquired about her personal life and even romantic relationships.

As time went by, Ajmer’s behaviour took a turn for the worse. While enquiring about how would Mitra manage her accommodation in Kashmir, the editor offered his own home and also added that his family would go to a village for two months and he would be alone. This improper line of questioning and remarks went on and on. Ajmer remarked –“U seems quite adjustable and compromising”.

Mitra thought he was talking about the ability to adjust in an adverse situation and willing to make compromises to get the job done, but what came later exposed the heinous nature of this “person of the year” – Ajmer Alam Wani. Mitra after understanding the ill-natured advances made by Ajmer stated that she would have to consult her parents to put this predator of a man, off. This did not work as Ajmer went on to state how she is not willing to be at his place and how he was expecting ‘her company’.

Enraged and taken aback by the sheer exploitative nature of Ajmer, Mitra took to social media and wrote an article in which she states –

“As for concern of my safety, when he suggested living with him during the course of my internship at JK Monitor, specifying that his family would be out of town, one of my responses was also to inquire as to whether it is difficult to find a place to stay (like a hostel or a paying guest accommodation), to which his response was “Finding a place is not an issue, u will find it”. My reason for asking him this question was precisely to get an understanding of his intent, and not misconstrue his possible desire to assist me. However, it is clear from this response, that “safety” was not the concern, but rather that “I (he) thought, of getting ur (my) company”.

You can read her first-hand account of the incident here.

While speaking to Opindia, Mitra reflected upon why she took to social media and how this incident has affected her.

“I definitely wasn’t expecting this when I messaged someone for an internship, however, I am not surprised. In our current state of affairs, it has become second nature to exploit women for your own advantage wherever there’s the slightest scope for it. I spoke up about this, so all of us that are applying for internships right now can be wary of men like these.” – Mitra stated.

Ajmer Alam Wani was awarded the “Person of the Year” certificate for “Bravery in Journalism”. Little did people know that the “bravery” displayed by him would be in being brazen about exploiting women in the field of journalism.

It is indeed frightful how young girls looking for work opportunities are often exploited by men in power and it thus becomes imperative that the journalist community stands up for her, and many like her. Predators walk among us. And it is time we call them out.

Minor girl murdered by her own relatives for refusing to offer Friday Namaaz

OpIndia Staff
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Minor girl murdered by her own relatives for refusing to offer Friday Namaaz

In a shocking incident in Mumbai, a minor girl has been killed by her own aunts for not offering the Friday namaz. According to reports, the people responsible have been arrested.

The incident reportedly happened last Friday. The minor girl had lost her mother earlier and as her father barely makes ends meet, she was left in the care of her aunts. The girl was living with her aunts in the Antop Hill area in Mumbai since then.

The girl was reportedly asked by her relatives to compulsorily offer Namaz every Friday. The relatives reportedly became furious as the girl disobeyed to offer Namaz last Friday. One of the aunts reportedly strangled the girl with a dupatta in a fit of anger.

According to reports, the relatives of the girl took her body to the Sion Hospital and to cover up the crime, told the doctors there that she had died after slipping in the bathroom. But one of the doctors noticed some marks on her neck and alerted the authorities. Upon interrogation by the police, the relatives reportedly admitted to committing the crime.


Sudarshan Paithankar, SI, Antop Hill has reportedly stated that they have arrested two people for committing the crime.

The victim’s father was distraught at the crime and told media that the relatives could have told him if she was refusing to offer Namaz and added that those people do not listen to anyone.

Karnataka: Sting operation exposes Congress’ links with the ‘voter ID scam’

OpIndia Staff
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Karnataka: Sting operation exposes Congress’ links with the ‘voter ID scam’

We had reported earlier that a video had surfaced which hinted at Congress involvement in the huge controversy that has broken out over the alleged bribes for votes scandal. The video showed that the business cards and pamphlets of a Congress candidate, Munirathna, were discovered at the site where thousands of voter cards were discovered.

Now, Republic TV has reported that Munirathna has admitted that the cards and pamphlets discovered at the site did indeed belong to him. Munirathna’s admission comes as a huge embarrassment for the Congress party which has been pointing fingers at the BJP ever since the scandal broke out. As the Election Commission probes the matter, it will be interesting to see the candidate’s defence and that of his party.

In another revelation, Republic TV which has been doing an extensive coverage of the entire controversy claimed to have stung one of the touts involved in the operation. The tout confirmed that she had collected the voter cards for the Congress MLA.

The scandal broke out when thousands of voter cards were found at an apartment in Bengaluru along with laptops and printers. The Election Commission seized the contents of the apartment and confirmed that counterfoils which are used for new addition of names in the electoral rolls were also seized. It appears that the voter cards were collected for ‘need-based profiling’ of voters and it is suspected that attempts were being made to buy the votes of slum dwellers by bribing them with goods or services.

On last day of campaign, BJP is going all out in the crucial Karnataka elections

OpIndia Staff
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On last day of campaign, BJP is going all out in the crucial Karnataka elections

As the campaigning enters last day in the high octane Karnataka elections, the BJP is leaving no stone unturned to win it.


As per reports other than Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as many as 22 Union Ministers, Chief Ministers of two states, national president Amit Shah and other party functionaries are expected to campaign.

In fact, Amit Shah will be holding a press conference just two hours before the campaign deadline.

Prime Minister Modi also interacted with ST/SC/OBC and Slum Karyakartas of the BJP Karnataka via the Narendra Modi app.


Karnataka goes to voting on 12th May and the counting takes place on 15th May. Karnataka elections are considered a crucial milestone as a run up to the 2019 General Elections.

Rs. 15 crore payment fraud at Times of India, Mumbai, Police arrests 18

OpIndia Staff
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Rs. 15 crore payment fraud at Times of India, Mumbai, Police arrests 18

Mumbai Police Crime Branch has arrested 18 people after a complaint of cheating and forgery was filed by senior editor of The Times of India, Derick D’sa, who has accused his personal assistant Amit Mayekar of making fraudulent payments to the tune of Rs. 15 crore over five years. In a complaint, D’sa explains that how the crime happened over past five years under his nose, but he became aware of it only now when the auditors spotted it. D’sa has said that he signed over 1,000 ‘fake vouchers’ ostensibly in the names of freelancers and contributors which never wrote a single column for the publication in last five years. The matter only came to light last week as according to D’sa, he never bothered to check where he is signing.

According to reports, the police said D’sa’s personal assistant, Amit Mayekar, who was responsible for issuing payments to freelance journalists who contributed to the newspaper, allegedly created a bogus domain and got the complainant to “sign invoices which were prepared in the name of people who never contributed to the edition”. D’Sa has said that since this was a routine procedure, he trusted Mayekar. The police further said that those arrested are either Mayekar’s friends or family whose bank accounts were used to transfer money claiming they were being transferred to contributors.

This came to light when the accounts department brought to D’sa’s notice the suspicious invoices issued by Mayekar. Following investigation, the it was revealed that 78 people who were paid as ‘contributors’ since January 2013, have not written a single column for any of the editions of the publication. The police have registered the case under relevant sections of conspiracy, criminal breach of trust, cheating and forgery. Mayekar, who is on the run, had sought anticipatory bail from the sessions court last week.

People speculate a world with Rahul Gandhi as PM after he says he is ready for the job

OpIndia Staff
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People speculate a world with Rahul Gandhi as PM after he says he is ready for the job

With the Karnataka election campaign fast approaching culmination, Congress President Rahul Gandhi was quoted on Tuesday as saying that he was ready to become the Prime Minister if his party came to power.

As per a Times of India report, Rahul was heard saying that, him becoming the Prime Minister depended on the performance of his party and if it emerged as the biggest force, he would assume the position. Along with this, he also claimed that he was confident about Modi not becoming the Prime Minister in 2019.

The report claimed that such an admission by Rahul resulted in confusion within the Congress circles, who were worried about the statement deflecting attention from incumbent Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah. Later they seemed to have regrouped and party spokesperson Randeep Surjewala issued a statement that “Rahul is the natural choice for the PM”.

As a result of Rahul’s assertion, twitter users launched a hashtag named “#ifrahulbecomespm” and speculated how things would be if Rahul Gandhi became the country’s Prime Minister.

One twitter user created a cartoon strip set inside the Parliament where controversial journalist Rajdeep Sardesai becomes the Lok Sabha speaker:


Another trolled Rahul Gandhi for his supposed statement which expressed hope of inventing a machine which can convert potatoes to gold:


Some speculated whether Rahul’s famous gaffes would then be mainstreamed:


Some general jokes were cracked:


Apart from twitter, more importantly it remains to be seen how the Indian voters take to the prospect of having Rahul Gandhi as their Prime Minister, and whether it will end up helping or harming the party.

BJP President Amit Shah takes on Congress over fake voter IDs

OpIndia Staff
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BJP President Amit Shah takes on Congress over fake voter IDs

Bhartiya Janta Party President Amit Shah has come down heavily on Congress after Election Commission had earlier seized voter ids cards and counterfoils from an apartment in RajRajeshwari Nagar constituency. In a series of tweets, he accused Congress of employing undemocratic and corrupt ways in the ongoing Karnataka Assembly elections.

Shah accuses Congress of using illegal means for gaining power in the State stating that their corrupt and oppressive government will be rejected by the people.

He puts his faith in the people of the state and calls on the democratic people of the state, as well as the whole country, to rise up to the occasion and defeat the dangerous intents of the Congress of subverting the democratic electoral process. He expresses confidence that the vigilant public will make sure that freedom and democracy are protected at all costs.


He goes on to express faith in the Election Commission and hopes that the latter will ensure free and fair polling in the state and the country by thwarting such attempts so that the will of the people can’t be at the mercy of the “machinations” of the Congress party.

He then goes on to shame Congress party for putting up a fake face in front of people, faces of being pro-poor, pro-development or being a harbinger of social justice.


With less than 3 days before Karnataka goes to polls, the battleground Karnataka is heating up.

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