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Commissioner of Income Tax rejects NDTV’s application for stay on tax demand, instructs to pay Rs 131 crores

OpIndia Staff
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Commissioner of Income Tax rejects NDTV’s application for stay on tax demand, instructs to pay Rs 131 crores

Amidst murmurs that the tax department is going easy on New Delhi Television Company (NDTV), news has now emerged that NDTV’s tax woes are, in fact, increasing. In a filing with the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) late last night, NDTV informed the bourses that their application for stay on a tax demand was rejected by the Principal Commissioner of Income Tax.

The filing by NDTV stated that the company had received an order from the Principal Commissioner of Income Tax, rejecting the application for stay of demand and directing the Company to pay Rs. 131.04 crores, partly by way of adjustment of refund of Rs. 23 crores and partly in 3 installments payable on 15th April, 15th May and 15th June 2018 of Rs. 36 crores, 36 crores and Rs. 36.04 crores respectively.

It may be recollected that NDTV had earlier received an order under section 271(1)(c) of the Income Tax Act, 1961 from the Income Tax Department levying penalty of Rs. 436.80 crores for the assessment year 2009-10. NDTV had the filed a Writ Petition before the Hon’ble High Court of Delhi (High Court) against the above said order issued. The High Court had refused to intervene and had directed NDTV to file an appeal before the Commissioner of Income Tax (Appeals) and to approach the Assessing Officer for stay of the penalty order.

Now, the Principal Commissioner of Income Tax, has rejected this application for stay of demand. With this, the Commissioner has directed NDTV to pay 30% of the total demand i.e. 30% of Rs 436.80 crores, in a staggered manner, by 15th June 2018. It remains to be seen how a perennially loss making entity like NDTV will pay up.

Non-bailable case registered against Jouhar Munavvir, professor accused of making sexually coloured remark in Kerala

OpIndia Staff
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Non-bailable case registered against Jouhar Munavvir, professor accused of making sexually coloured remark in Kerala

Koduvally Police have registered a non-bailable case against Jouhar Munavvir, a teacher at Farook College in Kozhikode, for allegedly making objectionable, sexually coloured comments against women.


The case has been registered under sections 354 A (IV) and 509 (word, gesture or act intended to insult modesty of a woman) of the IPC. As per reports, at a gathering of Muslim families at Vattoli, Koduvally, the teacher had remarked, women do not cover up their breasts ‘properly’ and display them like watermelons. ‘I am teacher of a college where 80 per cent of the students are girls and of that, majority are Muslims. These girls are not wearing dress as per the religious tradition. They are not covering their chests with hijab. But showing part of it is like slice of red water melon being displayed’, the professor is reported to have said to the family counselling gathering in the audio clip that has gone viral. The professor had also reportedly slammed women for wearing leggings, saying the girl students hold the purdah up deliberately to to show off the leggings. He warned the women wearing such ‘immoral’ dresses that this will lead them to losing both physical and spiritual worlds.

These remarks sparked a unique protest where women took to Facebook to post topless pictures holding watermelons. However, Facebook has reportedly removed these pictures and blocked user accounts for posting such pictures.

Rajasthan Court orders FIR against Hardik Pandya over a tweet posted by his parody account

OpIndia Staff
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Rajasthan Court orders FIR against Hardik Pandya over a tweet posted by his parody account

Cricketer Hardik Pandya might get into trouble for no supposed fault of his, after a Rajasthan Court has ordered an FIR to be filed against him, for a tweet which was posted from a parody account of his. These comments were made on 26th December, 2017.

As per initial reports, a special court in Jodhpur had directed the police to file an FIR on Wednesday, based on a complaint which was filed D.R. Meghwal, a supposed member of Rashtriya Bhim Sena. Madhusudan Sharma the special judge in question of Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe cases passed the order, after Meghwal alleged that Luni police station’s in-charge was refusing to file a case against the cricketer.

Media reports have claimed that the tweet in question is transcribed as, “Which Ambedkar ??? The one who drafted a cross law and constitution or the one who spread the disease called reservation in the country”.

As per the complainant Meghwal, the comment was derogatory towards Ambedkar and attempted to spread hate and caste division in the society. He thus demanded that Pandya be given adequate and suitable punishment.

Things though soon unravelled and subsequent media reports have claimed that the tweet in question was actually posted by a parody account of Pandya. This is the tweet in question:

Rajasthan Court orders FIR against Hardik Pandya over a tweet posted by his parody account
Tweet screenshot via TOI

As seen in the above screenshot, the twitter handle of the account in question is “sirhardik3777”. Which is different from the verified twitter account of Hardik Pandya which is, @hardikpandya7. The parody or fake account has since then been either deactivated or deleted.

The turn of events also seems to have resulted in some media houses deleting their earlier reports about Hardik Pandya getting into trouble owing to “his” tweets:

Rajasthan Court orders FIR against Hardik Pandya over a tweet posted by his parody account
Article on Hardik Pandya deleted

If the events described by the media reports are indeed true, then it raises the question as to why did the complainant and the court did not verify the basic facts before filing the case and ordering an FIR respectively.

It is time Yoga is taken up as a wellness program by the Government of India

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It is time Yoga is taken up as a wellness program by the Government of India

“Yoga is an invaluable gift of India’s ancient tradition. It embodies the unity of mind and body; thought and action; restraint and fulfilment; harmony between man and nature; a holistic approach to health and well-being. It is not about exercise but to discover the sense of oneness with yourself, the world and nature. By changing our lifestyle and creating consciousness, it can help in well being. “Let us work towards adopting an International Yoga Day,“ Narendra Modi in his address to the United Nations on 27 Sep 2014. A total of 177 nations co-sponsored the resolution, which is the highest number of co-sponsors ever for any UNGA resolution of such nature.

India can promote Yoga creatively and meaningfully both domestically and internationally. With India putting itself on the world map with its ‘Make In India’ projects, Foreign Policy and Defense capabilities – Yoga can reinforce the soft power of India. We see how the West has appropriated Yoga and turned it into “Aerobics”. Repackaged our cultural and traditional heritage and commercialized it as one of its own. It is thus time to not only reclaim what is rightfully ours but also take it to the world as Bharat’s gift to mankind.

To that end, it is essential that Yoga is taken up as a wellness program by the government and for that, it needs to go beyond just celebrating ‘International Yoga Day”.

Yoga in schools and colleges:

Yoga should be taught in schools and colleges across India. This will be an invaluable gift to students. Studies in the USA have shown how Yoga, when taught to children has had dramatic effects on their well-being. Children in India are currently being denied their heritage by way of an education system where they spend 15-18 years and never taught Yoga.

The world of today is way more complex and competitive. Children are subject to a huge amount of pressure, stress and distractions simply because the world is a very different place. Imagine an army that has powerful weapons yet sends its soldiers to war without ammunition. We’re doing that to our children in India by depriving them of Yoga in our education system.

Teaching Yoga in schools and colleges will help our children to develop physical fitness and inner strength. We look upon just our demographic of a young population as a strength. Imagine how much stronger we will be as a nation when our youth are strengthened and empowered with the knowledge and practice of Yoga.

While schools have sports day drills with pompoms and props, Yoga would be an invaluable addition that goes beyond ‘Physical Training’ to holistic development.

Yoga at airports :

We are now traveling a lot – for work and leisure. Travel tends to mean a disruption in one’s schedule of exercise and meditation. It need not be so.

All Indian airports should have a meditation room where people can practice Meditation / Yoga / Pranayama in a quiet, serene and secure space  This will help those who already practice it to continue even when travelling. It would inspire other travellers to explore Yoga / Meditation.

As per an Economic Times news report, last year 100 million passengers travelled domestically within India. Global air travel data indicates 4 billion passengers in 2017. These are staggering numbers that would only grow in the years ahead.

Bigger airports like Mumbai / Delhi should have larger spaces for this where trained teacher and videos for basic yoga can be made available.

The government of India can take up spaces in international airports – especially those that are vibrant transit hubs like Singapore, Frankfurt, Dubai, London, Qatar etc. Passengers often have long transits at these airports. GOI can take up spaces that can be managed by organizations like Art of Living / Isha Foundation, or any other institution where there can be an introduction to Yoga by way of videos, live classes by a trained instructor. This would be the best way to showcase India while making a positive difference miles away in a foreign land. It would also be the FIRST case of a marketing initiative that makes a positive impact as opposed to merely being communication that a person passively receives. There may be a nominal fee for some of the services which would make this (to some extent) a revenue-generating initiative.

Organizations like Isha Foundation / Art of Living have an international Footprint. They would be able to arrange for trained yoga teachers in various locations. A common curriculum can be evolved so that irrespective of which org manages the space – the structure and content would be largely common.

A yoga/meditation room at all Indian and most international airports is a need and a solution towards

  • a calmer, healthier world
  • establishing the soft power of India very emphatically
  • showcasing the wisdom of Hindu culture

We increasingly see Spa facilities and wellness centres spring up at various Airports across the world. This can be an invaluable addition to the wellness services at Airports.

 

It is time that India reclaims her heritage and shows it off to the world like it should. Yoga and Meditation make an excellent starting point.

(This article was written by Savitha Rao)

Islamic group files complaint, seeks a ban on TV show that talks about Triple Talaq

OpIndia Staff
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Islamic group files complaint, seeks a ban on TV show that talks about Triple Talaq

An Islamic association named Raza Academy has filed a complaint against a TV show named ‘Ishq Subhan Allah’ which sought to highlight the Triple Talaq issue in a mature manner. The TV show has also taken into account the recent Supreme Court judgement on the matter.

The academy has sought a ban on the show as it is depicting Islam in a ‘wrongful manner’. It felt that the visual media can affect children badly. As per reports complaint under sections 124A, 153A, 153B, 504, 292, 293 and 295A have been filed. The academy has also sought a ban on the show under section 95 of criminal procedure act. The complaint by the academy claims that the programme “shows Islam in a bad light, the scripts of the entire serial is made to understand that Islam religion needs a lot of changes, revival, amendments”

Talking about the show to DNA on March 8, Deepak Rajadhyaksha – Deputy Business Head of Zee TV, had said, “Ishq Subhan Allah asks viewers to pause and reflect on the true interpretation of religion in our daily lives. It questions the true importance we accord to a woman’s choice in every decision that a couple makes, including entering the institution of marriage as also ending it with dignity. Even as the triple talaaq awaits sanction in the Parliament, it is our endeavour to get people to evaluate for themselves if it is fair for men to be able to single-handedly annul a marriage they had entered into with a woman’s full consent. Why should she now play the role of a passive, mute spectator and not be empowered instead, to have a say in its termination? Our protagonist Zara, much like the forward-thinking middle class of today, is taking charge of her destiny and asking these pertinent questions, paving the way for a better future for millions of women like her.”

Perhaps the Raza foundation is concerned about the reformative streak in the TV show. The Deputy Business Head, Zee TV told Indian Express, “Yes, we have heard about this, but are yet to receive any official intimation from the authorities.” We need to wait and watch if the move leads to a ban on the TV show or not.

‘What Siddarmaiah has done now was rejected by UPA’ says Amit Shah on Lingayat row

OpIndia Staff
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‘What Siddarmaiah has done now was rejected by UPA’ says Amit Shah on Lingayat row

Siddarmaiah government in Karnataka has resorted to all tactics to gain an edge over the BJP in the upcoming assembly polls. The government has decided to recommend the Lingayat community for a minority religion status to the centre. The move has caught the attention of the entire nation and has raised hopes for the Congress party about its prospects in the elections.

The national president of the BJP, Amit Shah in an interview to Navika Kumar of Times Now has made some remarks on the move by Congress government in Karnataka. He said that the people were aware that it is an election move. He further questioned as to why this was not done when both state and centre had Congress governments in 2013. The BJP president also remarked that the UPA government had rejected the proposal when they were in power.


When asked about fears of losing Lingayat votes, Amit Shah said that Yeddyurappa was not fielded as a CM candidate because of his caste identity. He added that Yeddyurappa was a declared as a CM candidate because he was a senior leader and former CM of Karnataka. He said that the Congress move was an example of Caste politics. One of the Congress ministers, Shamanur Shivashankarappa had visited New Delhi in 2013 to put forward the demand in New Delhi, but nothing had come out of the visit.

Thus it appears, that the BJP president is not scared to confront the matter in upcoming elections.

Javed Akhtar abuses a columnist who expressed a politically incorrect opinion

OpIndia Staff
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Javed Akhtar abuses a columnist who expressed a politically incorrect opinion

Noted lyricist Javed Akhtar on Wednesday decided to train his guns on columnist Francois Gautier, who raised an objection over reports of actor Aamir Khan making a movie on Hindu epic the Mahabharata.

As per that report, Aamir has been handed a whopping Rs 1000 crore budget for the movie series which will be co-produced by Mukesh Ambani. It claimed that Aamir has considered making Mahabharata as his dream project, and wished to play the character of Karna. He though expressed doubts over his physique and reportedly claimed that he might play the role of Lord Krishna in the films.

Gautier though didn’t take this report kindly and proceeded to raise his objections over the same:


Javed Akhtar took objection with this tweet and decided to abuse the person in question, instead of coming up with an articulate and reasoned response:


Incidentally, it isn’t the only time Javed Akhtar has been in the news for his tweets. It was reported how he had made demeaning comments against noted sportsmen like Virender Sehwag and the Phogat sisters, because they didn’t agree with his point of view, over the Gurmehar Kaur fiasco. Similarly, he has been seen demeaning ordinary citizens and at one point in time having a complete meltdown on Twitter while battling plagiarism charges.

Indian Army calls out misleading news report headline, ‘Times of India’ apologises and retracts

OpIndia Staff
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Indian Army calls out misleading news report headline, ‘Times of India’ apologises and retracts

The Times of India today published a news article titled ‘How suspended army man pulled off burglaries’. It was about a series of burglaries reported in Delhi in recent weeks. The arrested culprit Dharambir was a previous civilian employee at Military Engineering Services, but TOI reported him as ‘rogue army man’.

The social media handle of the Indian Army which is named for the Additional Directorate General of Public Information ( @adgpi) called out the misleading headline in a tweet.


The army social media handle pointed out that the arrested suspect Dharambir (54) was a civilian previously working with the MES and he was suspended. He was arrested on Tuesday after a number of burglaries in the Delhi Cantonment area. Two other persons named Deepak alias Prasanjeet and Dheeraj were arrested with him after being intercepted by police in the Dwarka sector 1 area. The TOI report also added that they were inside a Hyundai car with Haryana number plate. They were allegedly taking the stolen goods to their hideout.

Time of India has since changed the article headline to ‘how suspended MES officer pulled off burglaries’ and added a correction regretting their previous error.

Usual suspects float conspiracy theories as Congress tries to distance itself from Cambridge Analytica

OpIndia Staff
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Usual suspects float conspiracy theories as Congress tries to distance itself from Cambridge Analytica

Even as Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg vowed to ‘step up’ to fix the data privacy issues faced by the social networking giant following the revelation that British data consulting firm Cambridge Analytics created psychological profiles, which may have been used to influence electoral politics, conspiracy theories have started floating around, the best of which is that the entire Cambridge Analytica data breach allegations are created to ‘divert attention’.

Abusive troll masquerading as journalist Swati Chaturvedi, who is known for spreading lies and bigotry, was quick to blame a headline that pointing out the fact that Congress at one point reportedly hired Cambridge Analytics is a tactic to divert topic by the BJP.


She is an old hand at floating conspiracy theories that certain things are done by Modi only to divert the topic on hand. She even blamed ED raids on former union minister P. Chidambaram in a corruption case as ‘diversion tactic’ by the BJP.


She’s not the only one who thinks so. Congress President Rahul Gandhi, too, thinks the news is a ‘diversion’. Except, in his case, he thinks the news is a diversion tactic from the 39 Indians killed in Mosul by ISIS.


Congress’ official Twitter handle, too, put up a poll which even goes a step further by giving 4 options to choose from.


This is not the first time the Congress has floated theories about topic diversion.


Interestingly, Congress is not the only party to blame ‘topic diversion’ when they find themselves in a soup.

Way back in 2012, the foresighted leader Arvind Kejriwal had raised such doubts.


Kejriwal also tried to blame his inefficiency to on ‘evil forces’.


Many others have also followed suit.

Like how JNU protestor Shehla Rashid, who’d rather let an injured child bleed than clear up the traffic jam created by protestors, also thought bullet train was brought in to divert topic from journalist Gauri Lankesh’s murder.


She also thought Modi government brought in demonetisation to divert attention from a missing student from JNU.


Makes one wonder what all diversion tactic they practised all these years they were in power and controlled the narrative.

India to tighten vigilance along Indo-Bangladesh border to stop infiltration and border crimes: Tripura CM

OpIndia Staff
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India to tighten vigilance along Indo-Bangladesh border to stop infiltration and border crimes: Tripura CM

India will strengthen vigilance on the Indo-Bangladesh border to prevent illegal immigration and other criminal activities along the border, Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb said on Wednesday. Deb told the media, “(Home Minister) Rajnath Singh said he would seek the feasibility of installation of CCTV cameras on the fencing along the India-Bangladesh border for better border management.” Tripura shares over 800 km of border with Bangladesh.

The young Chief Minister, who assumed the office after the BJP ended over two decades of Left rule, added, “He also said that his Ministry would consider setting up the Central Control and Monitoring Rooms so as to prevent any illegal activities on the border.”

Home Minister Rajnath Singh assured that appropriate measures will be taken to ensure the proper maintenance of roads along international borders. He said, “The border security and infrastructure along the frontiers must be strengthened to stop infiltration, border crimes and to prevent inimical activities.”

Illegal immigration from Bangladesh and crimes along the border have been a thorn in India’s side for decades. The demographic shift underway in Assam as a consequence of illegal immigration is perceived to be a major security threat. Rampant cattle smuggling across the border is a serious cause for concern as well. Not too long ago, a BSF officer was killed by cattle smugglers in Tripura. Under such circumstances, it is of paramount importance that the border is well guarded and that appears to be a strong priority for the new government in the North Eastern state.

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