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Colour of divinity and the nasty politics by chameleon mainstream media

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Colour of divinity and the nasty politics by chameleon mainstream media

While the rest of India was busy celebrating Makar Sankranthi and other festivals like Pongal, Lohri and Bihu, one MSM journalist from DNA, @rucha_sharma, wrote an article about how two Chennai based photographers were breaking stereotypes by depicting Hindu Gods and Goddesses in dark skin. The photographers being Bharadwaj Sundar and Naresh Nil from Slingshot Creations.

I had countered this puerile conjecture on twitter based on facts. However, unsurprisingly, the journalist in question decided to block me when she failed to counter facts and logic. So I decided to publish my rebuttal on a widely read public platform like OpIndia.


Rucha begins her article with factually incorrect assertion that :

“Even the gods and goddesses were not left out of this discussion since the day Raja Ravi Varma decided to depict Hindu deities, scenes from the epics like Mahabharata, Ramayana, or Puranas …. This possibly established that even the religious representation will lean towards fairness, even if Krishna, Ram, Shankar, etc were described as having darker skin tone.” 

She blames Hindus generically for their obsession with fair skin tone that they represent their Gods as fair-skinned. And the second assertion, that Raja Ravi Varma was particularly to be blamed for deliberately depicting even dark-skinned Gods in lighter shades.

Only if Rucha Sharma and her two “creative” Chennai based photographers had read Hindu scriptures, they would know that for us Hindus the divinity has no specific colour. We worship our Gods in various forms (and in formless Nirguna form too). The names, clothes, weapons and vaahanas of Gods represent various facets and therefore a simplistic binary interpretation as black and white is inaccurate and mal-intentioned.

Temples all over South India have pratimas made up of black stones only, be it Shri Krishna at Udupi, Sri Venkateshwar at Tirupati, Shri Rama at Rameshwaram or Devi Kanyakumari at the tip of Indian peninsula. But I will not limit my argument to south India.

Lord Krishna’s name itself as Shyam and Krishna indicate his dark-skinned body. Remember, the waning moon days are themselves referred to as Krishna Paksha in Hindu calendar. In two of the holiest temples north of Vindhyas dedicated to Sri Krishna – Nathdwara in Rajasthan and Jagannath Puri in Odisha, depict his skin tone as pitch dark. At Puri the contrast is more stark where the idols of fair-skinned Balarama and Subhadra are placed next to Krishna.

Vishnu, the preserver of holy Hindu trinity, is described as “megh varnam” (the one who is dark like rain laden clouds) in the most popular shloka dedicated to him.

And most Vishnu followers worship him every day in the form of dark “Shaligrama” stone.

And this is not limited to Vishnu or his avatars only – Lord Shiva is worshipped described as fair-skinned in the following hymn but is also worshipped as the dark-skinned form as Kaala – Bhairava in Ujjain, MP.

The photographer duo thought that they were doing a novel, path breaking social experiment by showing Durga as a dark coloured deity. Such ignorance is expected when the ‘cool dudes’ of Social Justice Warrior league don’t know that one of the forms of Navdurga (9 forms of Durga) is Kalraatri – the fierce blood thirty, demon vanishing Kali – the original feminist.

Later Rucha Sharma tried to change the goal post by claiming her article is not about religion. I would have bought her argument had she included, for example, the face of Jesus as reconstructed by some researchers. It was a far cry from the white Caucasian man he is now shown to be in most paintings.

Rucha also claimed how Raja Ravi Varma, the most famous Indian painter, was responsible for creating this cult of fair Gods and Goddesses. A simple google search would show you that it is a great affront to the legendary artist.

Raja Ravi Varma painted Hindu Gods in various shades and moods including painting Krishna as a dark-skinned boy when he meets Radha for the first time. Rama also appears as a dark-skinned man in his paintings when Rama comes across Sita before swayamvar.

So essentially we come back to the original question, who exactly is obsessed with fairness of skin if it isn’t the Hindu Gods themselves neither the painters like Raja Ravi Varma. Perhaps the culturally jaundiced eyes of some journalists and rootless uber cool photographers cannot find beauty in our culture and are forced to re-imagine the world through the eyes of social justice warriors.

Hopefully the readers can see through their shallow narrative and don’t fall for the self-shaming slogan  of “Indians are obsessed with fair skin”.

FIR lodged against Congress leader for controversial poster that appeared in Amethi

OpIndia Staff
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FIR lodged against Congress leader for controversial poster that appeared in Amethi

After a poster appeared in Amethi that depicted Rahul Gandhi as Shri Rama and Narendra Modi as Raavan, an FIR has been lodged against Congress leader Rama Shankar Shukla for the controversial poster. “Rahul ke roop mein bhagwan Ram ka Avtaar 2019 mein aayega Rahulraj (Ramrajya)”, read the poster. The Congress Party seems to have magically discovered new found love Shri Rama as the winds of change in the country gathers steam.

Rahul Gandhi’s recent visit to the State has been in the news recently, and for all the wrong reasons. During Rahul Gandhi’s  event, Congress MLC Deepak Singh was recorded abusing the Additional SP of Rae Baereli, only a short while before Rahul took the stage to address a public meeting. Clashes were reported during the same event where protesters claimed they were attacked by the workers of the Congress Party.


The FIR was lodged by the BJP leader Surya Prakash Tiwari. However, the District Congress party has denied any links with the poster. The poster is said to have been the idea of a certain Abhay Shukla, who claims to have no connections with the Congress. The poster appeared on December 14 ahead of the Congress President’s visit to Amethi.

“Prime Minister Modi promised us to bring black money back that is stashed abroad, but nothing happened. All the promises made by him were lies. We believe that in 2019, Rahul Gandhi will become the Prime Minister of the county and fulfil all the promises,” said Shukla.

MHRD signs MOU for student exchange program with state of Jammu and Kashmir

OpIndia Staff
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MHRD signs MOU for student exchange program with state of Jammu and Kashmir

Indian Army and the Government of India have been running many programs to integrate the youth of Kashmir into mainstream India. The estrangement of common people and youth has been engineered by separatists and Pakistani terror groups. Providing good educational opportunities to Kashmiri youth is an effective strategy to counter these influences. The government of India has been consistently trying to implement this strategy.

Schemes to improve educational opportunities for Kashmiri youth

The army and government of India are already taking initiatives to improve educational standards in the valley. Operation Sadhbhavana , which is implemented by the Indian army. The Army has established 53 modern English medium Army Goodwill Schools under the State Board and CBSE having all facilities. In addition to this assistance to approximately 2700 State Govt schools in terms of renovations, construction of additional class rooms, toilets, playgrounds, sports fields /facilities, provision of furniture, computers and educational software packages, stationery, books and school uniforms for poor students and assistance in setting up libraries and laboratories has been provided.

The Prime Minister’s Special Scholarship Scheme for Jammu & Kashmir is being implemented since 2011. The scheme aims to encourage the youth from Jammu & Kashmir to pursue higher education in educational institutions outside the state. 13014 students have benefited from this scheme between 2014 and 2016. However, these schemes have still not arrested the attraction of youth to militancy in the valley.

MHRD Support of J&K Government in Improving Education

The Government of India has signed an MOU with department of school education of J&K governmen to improve education . According to the MOU titled ‘School Education Transformation Roadmap’, central assistance to the state will be provided in four areas. They are

  • Curriculum support
  • School affiliation
  • Digital tools for improving education
  • Student exchange programs

The NCERT will be helping the state to improve its text books. In addition to this , the CBSE plans to give affiliation to the state’s school to ensure that the state meets national standards in education. The most important part of the MOU is the student education program.

The digital push of MHRD includes all schools of India. The ‘white board revolution‘, envisaged by the ministry hopes to introduce digital boards in government schools. The detailed policy for this scheme is yet to be formulated. The scheme is expected to improve educational standards in Kashmir as well.

The ministry plans to ensure that some students from Kashmir study in mainstream India and vice versa. The details and implementation of the student exchange program are still unclear.  This move is expected to help remove prejudices and misconceptions that are in the minds about Kashmir. Similarly , MHRD hopes that Kashmiri kids will integrate with the mainstream better when they spend some time outside their home state.

The new approach towards improving educational facilities and exposure to mainstream India might yield better results in comparison to past schemes. The success or failure of this new strategy will depend on effective implementation of the MOU.

9 years after Pakistani terrorists gunned down his parents, 11 year old Moshe returns ‘home’.

OpIndia Staff
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9 years after Pakistani terrorists gunned down his parents, 11 year old Moshe returns ‘home’.

Moshe turned 2 on 28th November, 2008, hours after terrorists from Pakistan killed his parents in Mumbai’s deadly attack lasted 60 hours, killing 166 people. His parents, Gabi and Rivka Holtzberg were killed in Chabad House, a Jewish cultural centre. When the terrorists gunned down his parents, during the well coordinated attacks, Moshe was saved by his nanny, who found him standing near his parents’ unconscious bodies.

Six months back, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Israel, he met Moshe, and invited him and his family to visit India any time they want for any period they want. In an emotionally charged meeting, Moshe had expressed his love for India and Prime Minister Modi and expressed his desire to visit the place he spent his childhood, which he could vividly remember. Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who was present during the meet, asked Moshe to come with him when he visits India in few months’ time.

Today, Moshe returned to Mumbai. “Shalom… bahut khushi (I’m very happy),” said a shy Moshe, who arrived at the Mumbai airport shortly after 8 am. He is visiting along with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyuhu, who is on his maiden visit to India, and will fly back with Netanyahu on 19th January. Accompanying Moshe is his former nanny, Sandra Samuels, who saved his life. Samuels, who was awarded an honorary citizenship by the Israeli government so that she could live in the country and be with Moshe, continues to share a unique bonding with the little boy.

India has issued long term visa to Moshe and his family so he could visit India any time he wishes. He remembers his connection to the Nariman House, which was left bullet spoked after the terrorists, whom Times of India referred to as gunmen, took under siege. He even said when he grows older, he wishes to come and stay here in his Mumbai home.

NDTV blames spammers for ‘call girl ads’ on their website, admits tech oversight

OpIndia Staff
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NDTV blames spammers for ‘call girl ads’ on their website, admits tech oversight

Hours after OpIndia carried a fact-checking article about claims on social media that NDTV was showing advertisements for ‘call girls’ on their website, the media group has responded and clarified about the matter.

Kawaljit Singh Bedi‏, the CTO (Chief Technology Officer) of NDTV claimed on Twitter that the obscene advertisements, which showed phone numbers to hire call girls in various cities of India, were the result of ‘spammers doing the spamming things’.


However, the NDTV’s CTO agreed that there was an oversight by the media house that allowed such obscene and illegitimate search results pages to be indexed by Google. He claimed to have fixed the problem.

This is in line with what our report had concluded. We had stated that NDTV was surely not carrying any advertisement or editorial content promoting ‘call girls’, but they were – either deliberately or inadvertently – allowing pages containing such information on their website to get indexed by search engines like Google.

We had further said that only NDTV can clarify whether this was deliberate (to attract more traffic by using even obscene and illegitimate keywords) or an inadvertent step (some oversight while automatically creating such pages). Mr. Bedi has now clarified that it was inadvertent and they have taken steps to fix it.

Mr. Bedi further pointed out that his problem was not unique to NDTV – a fact we had also highlighted in our report.


It should be noted that it will take some time before NDTV’s claim of having fixed the problem will start reflecting in search result pages on their website. As of now, NDTV continues to get some traffic from people searching for call girls online, and NDTV blames spammers for this extra traffic. As per traffic monitoring tools like SimilarWeb, NDTV currently gets over 60% of its overall traffic from search terms.

Punjab Congress Minister Rana Gurjit Singh Resigns after corruption charges

OpIndia Staff
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Punjab Congress Minister Rana Gurjit Singh Resigns after corruption charges

Rana Gurjit Singh, the current minister for power and irrigation in the Capt. Amarinder Singh led Congress government in Punjab has submitted his resignation to the chief minister. The news came in today after past several days of allegations and counter allegations.

Although Captain Amarinder Singh had not yet accepted the resignation, Rana Gurjit Singh has confirmed he has, in fact, submitted his resignation letter.

Allegations against him surfaced last year when the Indian Express published a report where it said he and his wife Rana Rajbans Kaur had taken loans from the same three companies that paid a firm, the firm then, in turn, paid for 50% of the bid amount for two sand mines. The sand mines were then allocated to two former employees of Rana Gurjit Singh.

The three companies are RJS Traders Pvt Ltd, RJ Tex fabs Pvt Ltd and Jay Aar Builders Pvt Ltd. The interesting thing to note was that RJS Traders Pvt Ltd has provided the same address as Rana Sugars Ltd, Rana Polycots Ltd and Rana Informatics Ltd, all owned by the family of the minister.

As per the affidavit filed by Rana Gurjit Singh, he has taken loans worth several crores from these companies. However, after repeated allegations, the Chief Minister had set up a panel of inquiry led by retired justice J S Narang. The panel gave Rana Gurjit a clean chit on the charges. At the same time, the panel had also asked the government to cancel all mining allocations and start fresh auctions. Later investigations unearthed that even if Rana Gurjit had himself not been involved in official board of the respective companies, his family members and employees had been. Even his cook had bid Rs 26 crore for the auctions. All the companies are mentioned are owned by the minister’s family members.

The Shiromani Akali Dal had also tweeted earlier alleging that Rana Gurjit had betrayed the Sikh community by “exonerating the Gandhis of the Sikh genocide of 1984”


The Aam Aadmi Party in Punjab has been demanding his resignation for several months now. Bhagwant Mann of AAP has led marches demanding the chief minister to sack Rana Gurjit Singh.

JNU Students protest against the VC for compulsory attendance and his alleged ‘loyalty to RSS’

OpIndia Staff
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JNU Students protest against the VC for compulsory attendance and his alleged ‘loyalty to RSS’

On 12 January 2018, the JNU administration put out a circular that stipulated norms for attendance for all students of the university. According to JNU’s circular, a student has to have a minimum of 75% attendance. It also made a further relaxation of 60% limit in case of valid medical grounds. These norms applicable to BA, MA, MSc, MTech, PG diploma, MPhil, Phd and all part-time programmes.

“MPhil and PhD students who are absent from the university on valid academic grounds must have prior approval from supervisor/chairperson of the center concerned and the competent authority”, the circular further clarified.

The new stipulations have been met with opposition from the JNU student body and JNU teachers association. While the teachers association has called maintenance of attendance records a needless bureaucratic exercise, the students have passionately opposed the new attendance rules.

So far the students have held protests against the notification and burnt the circular to express their anger. The JNUSU president Geeta Kumari has conveyed to the JNU administration that the surveillance is going to curtail academic freedom and destroy JNU culture.

A tweet by the handle @jnu_voice carried some disturbing images which mocked the office of Vice Chancellor. The tweet accused him of being loyal to RSS and BJP. A student , who appeared like a middle aged man in his 30s held a khaki pant on which the words ‘Boycott attendance’ was written.


The images posted were :

 

 

Twitterati responded to the tweet with these responses :


The new attendance rules have rattled the status quo in JNU. Though this reform seems to be a right move to instill academic discipline, it has not found support among the faculty and students so far. It remains to be seen how the VC reacts to these protests.

Congress’s recipe for Hugplomacy goes awry, Ram Madhav gives a befitting reply

K Bhattacharjee
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Congress’s recipe for Hugplomacy goes awry, Ram Madhav gives a befitting reply

In recent times, the Indian National Congress seems to have outsourced its Social Media management to people who are ill aware of the sensitivities of Indian Culture. While Rahul Gandhi attempts an image makeover to mold himself in the fashion of Justin Trudeau, his Social Media team’s strategy seems to reflect a remarkable disconnect with ground realities of India.

Recently, the Twitter account of the Congress Party posted a video which depicted Yogi Adityanath, the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, boiling in a kettle. The imagery that the video portrayed, needless to say, did not go down well with anyone.


The activities of the social media team have also come in for criticism due to multiple incidents where they spread half-truths and whole lies, and also in situations where the team goofed up.

And now, on the day that the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, arrived in India for a crucial diplomatic visit, the Congress social media cell took to Twitter to undermine the significance of the visit. Following in the path of Twitteratis who had much flak to offer the Congress, Ram Madhav, the National General Secretary of the BJP, took a dig at the Congress for its ‘Hugplomacy’ video.


The tweet carried a picture that showed Narendra Modi hugging the the Israeli Prime MInister while Rahul Gandhi was hugging a man who is now in prison after having been convicted in the Fodder Scam. And Dijivijay SIngh, the General Secretary of AICC, was seen embracing a radical Islamic preacher that has been facing the heat recently from the Indian government.

The Indian National Congress has upped its ante on Social Media but thus far, the BJP leaders seem to be doing quite well on their own. Recently, Narendra Modi himself complemented Yogi Adityanath for his smart reply to the Karnataka Chief Minister after the latter’s jibe after his visit to the state.


And after Yogi Adityanath, it is Mr. Ram Madhav today who has hit the ball out of the park. Well, the Congress will soon realize, if it keeps balling full tosses, they are going to be hit for sixes more often than not.

Irked by Kejriwal, Anna to now make his followers sign an affidavit that they won’t join politics

OpIndia Staff
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Irked by Kejriwal, Anna to now make his followers sign an affidavit that they won’t join politics

Anna Hazare, the mentor of Arvind Kejriwal has over the years become disgruntled with his protegee to a point that he has started to regularly criticise him.

The first divide between him and Kejriwal was noted soon after the latter resigned from his ill-fated 49 day government, when Anna called AAP “power hungry.”

After Kejriwal stormed to power in 2015 by winning a brute mandate of 67 seats, it looked as if things were mending between Guru and Chela, but AAP minister Sandeep Kumar’s sex CD surfaced, Anna expressed grief over the AAP’s condition saying that he had a lot of expectation from Kejriwal.

Anna in December 2016, signalled that their relationship was fractured beyond repair, by writing an emotional letter to Kejriwal for the lack of transparency in the donations received by the party.

Anna continued to take jibes at Kejriwal after the latter decided to start blaming EVMs for his party tasting defeats in assembly elections of Punjab and Goa. Anna took a contradictory position by claiming that the use of EVMs should continue and stated that, “those who are voicing doubt over the machines are trying to take us back in time”.

After Kejriwal suffered a humiliating defeat in the Delhi MCD polls, Anna was back, and claimed that Kejriwal has lost the trust of people.

Now Anna is back in the news again for the same reason. In New Delhi on Monday, Anna Hazare was asked whether a leader like Arvind Kejriwal would ever come out of his movement again.

Anna in response categorically dismissed the same by strongly asserting that he would make sure that it would never happen again. He claimed that earlier he wasn’t very alert regarding this matter, but henceforth if anyone wises to join him, they would need to sign an affidavit that they won’t join any political party or contest elections.


He had made a similar statement in December, 2017 by driving home the point that he hopes no Kejriwal emerges from his movement again.

It remains to be seen what response Kejriwal has, if any, to the disgruntlement of his former mentor and whether he would take solid corrective measures, to somehow try and mend the relationship between him and Anna.

The Congress-left response to Judge Loya case shows how 2019 is going to be an all out cruel war

India Speaks
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The Congress-left response to Judge Loya case shows how 2019 is going to be an all out cruel war

With tears in eyes, Anuj Loya yesterday urged NGOs and politicians to stop harassing his family over his father’s death. Little does Anuj know that the Lutyens Establishment loves nothing more than a useful cadaver. It will trample over a million grieving families if it helps them dislodge Modi in 2019. The Loya family is just one of the many pawns the Establishment is bringing together for a vicious assault on India’s foundations. And no matter how much Anuj Loya begs, his family will have to face the brunt of the machinations of a cruel elite.

You cannot start winning again if you fail to acknowledge why you lost in the first place. The Congress party, which is just one of the constituents of the Lutyens Establishment, has not made that mistake. Ahmed Patel and Sonia Gandhi have accurately identified how a gradual consolidation of the Hindu vote has helped Narendra Modi win in 2014 and then ratchet up unprecedented electoral victories since then. The strategy to get back power in 2019 is simple. Reverse the consolidation by lighting so many caste fires across the country that it exhausts the citizenry into electoral submission. And just as an insurance policy to ensure unambiguous victory, the Establishment shall also lead an offensive on every major institution which holds the country together. The crescendo of violent chaos this will create is expected to persuade the fatigued voter to hand the keys back to the Gandhi family.

Last week’s unprecedented Supreme Court drama is just another step in this direction. Politically critical verdicts like the Ram Janmabhoomi are imminent and the only option which benefits the Establishment is postponing the decision to beyond 2019. Best way to ensure that is by creating anxieties about the credibility of the nation’s highest court. In a country where bloodshed is permanently looming, the journey from such anxieties to domestic conflict is a short one. But then who cares about long-term consequences of such scorched-earth strategies if the obstinate Modi can be sent packing.

Let’s not forget the external factors at play here. India’s rise under Modi has been making multiple capitals across the world deeply uncomfortable. A dysfunctional neighbour was a gift which China took for granted till Doklam happened. For Pakistan, a weak neighbour who couldn’t fathom a response to a grave crime like 26/11 got replaced overnight with a country which knew how to extract a price for every misstep by Rawalpindi. One would be naïve to assume these countries will not try everything possible to influence the 2019 elections. At the minimum, the Establishment will not have to worry much about funding hurdles.

It is humbling how the mere vote of the Indian citizen can put all these efforts to nought. But the simplicity of the action should not cloud the fact that the Indian citizen has a difficult job at hand. Not only do they need to exercise their valuable right to vote, they need to do it without getting psychologically drained or mentally pummelled by the upcoming flood of chaos. The Establishment excels in confident deception – encouraging eager underlings like Jignesh Mewani & Umer Khalid to spill blood on the streets while figureheads like Rahul Gandhi issue grand-standing statements. A pliant media going all out to confuse the public by obfuscating the source of the turmoil only make the job of the ordinary voter more difficult. But then sustaining the world’s largest democracy was never going to be easy.

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