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This senior journalist from The Hindu hates facts, data, feedback, and Twitter

S. Sudhir Kumar
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This senior journalist from The Hindu hates facts, data, feedback, and Twitter

Ever since Narendra Modi took oath as the Prime Minister of India, the journalism landscape has gone through a massive change in the country. Somehow, the fine line between journalists and propagandists seem to have disappeared.

News, became a thing of the past, and opinions became the prime business of five-star journalists. Feedback got redefined as trolling and fact checking became a cumbersome task that just stood in the way of a good narrative.

Let me share an experience of mine, which has helped me conclude the above.

Back in March 2015, I was having a discussion with the Deputy National Editor of The Hindu on how the false narrative of “church attacks” was being peddled. In the course of the discussion, he had this to tell me:

Mr. Srinivas Ramani saying he was involved in the ‘business of serious journalism’ inspired many giggles, and like his journalism, couldn’t be substantiated with facts.

It was a simple discussion where I  was pointing out to him an article by Ms. Rupa Subramanya that called out the fake noise about the church attacks. Failing to provide counter facts, Mr. Ramani, just as any other journalist caught on the wrong foot, defended his lies by saying I have blinkers on and accusing me of being a troll.

In his now deleted tweet from August 2015, Srinivasan Ramani claimed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had promised to bring back black money in 100 days. I asked him to provide proof for the same and he, just like any other journalist caught on the wrong foot, changed tracks completely –

His response to me was drastically different from his initial assertion of PM Modi promising to bring back black money in 100 days! With his narrative disproved, he went on to accuse me of nitpicking; asked me to be objective; called me a bhakt; told me he is a busy man – basically, tried every trick in the book to avoid answering the queries I was posing!

He has since blocked me on twitter thus depriving me of the opportunity to read his many pearls of wisdom. However, on the evening of October 4th, he revealed his abusive self yet again, snapshots of which appeared on my Twitter timeline. In response to Prime Minister Modi’s comment that the RBI has projected a GDP growth on 7.7% in the coming quarters, he had this to say:

“They lowered projections to 6.7% in FY18, Mr PM. Follow the right people instead of buffoons & bigots on your TL & you will get right info.”

The flavor of the season is to raise fingers at the followers of PM Modi and the ones he follows, irrespective of the context. Nothing else can explain the abusive tweet above. But that is not the only thing that we need to talk about in that tweet.

Upon a cursory reading of his tweet, one would be shocked that the Prime Minister could get such basic details wrong. I mean, how can the PM be off by a whopping 1%? Thanks to Social Media ‘trolls’, we come to know that the RBI had released this data on the same day:

Upon closer inspection, one realizes that by Q4, RBI projected the growth to be 7.7%. The Prime Minister in his speech had clearly mentioned that RBI projected a 7.7% growth in the “coming quarters”. When this anomaly was pointed out, Srinivasan Ramani had an awesome response, as below:

  • Q4 is 3 Qs away and not coming quarter.
  • RBI overall projection for coming quarter is 6.7%.

The PM mentioned coming quarters (plural). Srinivasan Ramani heard it in singular form – as coming quarter, and therefore thought he could call those commoners whom PM Modi follows, as abusive. He reiterates that the PM spoke about “coming quarter” while the PM clearly mentioned “coming quarters”.

He then proceeded to tell us that RBI overall projection for “coming quarter” is 6.7%. Let’s look back at the table. Coming quarter is “Q2”. The projection for that is 6.4%. One would wonder why Mr. Srinivasan Ramani was having such difficulty in understanding basic numbers.

Users were continuing to point out his error, but he didn’t want to give up. So he came up with another gem:

Sorry. I disagree. Downward revision is the key for next FY..And you can’t cherry pick q4. EOD

“You can’t cherry pick” – I think Mr. Ramani wants The Prime Minister has to take permission from ‘intellectuals’ like Srinivasan Ramani before talking about data, which he failed to comprehend.

There is another key point in Srinivasan Ramani’s arguments. He keeps saying there is a downward revision for “FY18”, & “Next FY”.

Let’s take a look at RBI’s table again:

All projections are for the financial year 2017-2018.  That is “this FY” and not the “next FY” that Srinivasan is talking about. He also says there is a “downward revision” for “next FY”.  “Next FY” would mean 2018-2019! Clearly, for someone who is obsessed with data, this is not some minor confusion! The GDP in 2016-2017 says 6.6%. The projected growth for the entire 2017-2018 is 6.7%.  How exactly is this a “downward revision”?

Or is it because RBI projected another number at the beginning of the current Financial Year, and has revised it downwards? RBI has projected a 7.3% growth at the beginning of this year, and has now revised it to 6.7% . The downward revision is because of the poor growth in Q1, that has already passed us! So why the new concern about “downward revision” now?

Also, Srinivasan Ramani tells us that we should not be concerned with Quarterly growth, and only about the yearly growth. If so, as Deputy National Editor of his newspaper, can he ensure that not too much of space is given to quarterly growth figures? Can he ensure they don’t write any more editorials regarding the Quarterly growth?

The next pearl of wisdom is as follows:

Guess what? The Prime Minister has acknowledged the situation and said they are working towards reversing this trend, in the very same speech. He also mentioned his request to the GST council to solve all issues people have faced while filing GST. But looks like Mr. Srinivasan Ramani is not interested facts at all.

It is indeed astounding that a person with such scant regard for facts is the Deputy National Editor of The Hindu. A journalist who resorts to name calling at the slightest hint of a debate is a highly placed employee of a newspaper that has nearly 10 lakh circulation.

Don’t the readers who pay up for The Hindu deserve to be told the full truth, rather than these half baked ones? One wonders what the readers outside of the social media space are being fed.

Popular Bengali actress Nusrat Jahan insulted on Facebook for celebrating Durga Puja

OpIndia Staff
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Popular Bengali actress Nusrat Jahan insulted on Facebook for celebrating Durga Puja

Muslim actress Nusrat Jahan, who is a popular face in Bengali television, was trolled and called “devil” for celebrating Durga Puja. Jahan had shared a photo on Facebook for the Puja, for which, she was told what she is doing is not appropriate.

The comments on the same were appalling. One said that just for sympathy of fans, you have carried out immersion of your religion (Islam). One reminded her how the Hindus don’t have much respect for Muslims and implied that hence, she should not be celebrating Durga Puja. One called her 100% Hindu (for celebrating a Hindu festival).

And other asked whether she is a Hindu to take part in Hindu festivals? While one more called her a prostitute (presumably for celebrating a Hindu festival).

This is not the first time religious fanatics have trolled celebrities. Cricketers have borne the brunt of Islamic fundamentalists on social media since a while now.

Recently, Irfan Pathan had to fend off the trolls who has pounced upon his Instagram and Facebook page, after being irked by his photo with his wife who even though was wearing a Burkha, had exposed her hands and was wearing a nail-polish. He was also trolled for celebrating Rakshabandhan and told it is against Islam.

His Indian team colleagues too have been similarly targeted. Mohammed Kaif was recently trolled by the Islamists for posting a photo of him playing chess with his son. The trolls justified their attack by claiming that chess was haram in Islam. He was also similarly trolled in December last year by Muslim fundamentalists for doing Surya Namaskar. 

Mohammed Shami too has had his share of such incidents. In July he was trolled for celebrating the birthday of his daughter. They were offended especially by ‘the way Shami celebrated’ the birthday. He also in the past had to deal with angry comments for the photo of his wife in a gown.

Also it isn’t just Indian cricketers who have been plagued by such incidents. Even English cricketer Moeen Ali was recently trolled on twitter for drawing a picture because he was going against the traditions of Islam.

Indian Social Justice Warriors deserve to be called Mini Kim Jong-uns

Kausik Gangopadhyay
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Indian Social Justice Warriors deserve to be called Mini Kim Jong-uns

Gurmehar Kaur, a free-speech world-peace activist, has been accused of threatening young boys for making memes. And, this is nothing unexceptional from the Social Justice Warriors (SJW) of India. A JNU student named Shehla Rashid, another free-speech activist projected by media, had denied the right to free speech to a reporter of television news channel Republic.

There is stupendous authoritarianism from the Indian Social Justice warriors who are least tolerant of any dissident views, and interestingly most of them are present on various educational campuses. For example, Vivek Agnihotri had to face violence when he attempted a show of his anti-left movie at Jadavpur University in West Bengal.

Much of the Social Justice warrior-ship of India is worrisome from that perspective — it is violent intolerance wrapped in attractive packaging being sold to the youth.

When I find students in prestigious B-schools who have received fat salary packages, arguing romancing the left as a wonderful ideology, I see in them this hypocrisy of a Gurmehar or a Shehla in a diminutive form. They — driven by their ideological zeal — are almost completely hooked on enlisting the social problems than offering any solution for social betterment, very much unlike their pragmatic decisions in their personal sphere. This hypocrisy is an integral part of social Justice warrior-ship and is manifested in their action once they taste power.

Labels like “Born Communist” or own party affiliation are often integral part of a leftist debate. Therefore, I clarify here that my maternal grandfather Shanti Sarkar (whose pioneering role in establishing communist peasant movement in Bengal in pre-independence times is partially mentioned here [pdf]) was a functionary of a communist party for long years from pre-independence days. My father too—among many other relatives of mine — was a communist by heart during formative years of his life.

My mention of these facts regarding my family background is not to claim any air of superiority — after all, lakhs of Bengali families have sacrificed for the same communist cause — but if I wanted to claim the easy option of having a nice label instead of having right ideas, I could have easily accomplished that.

One needs to go beyond this self-labelling or virtue signalling. What ideas do Social Justice Warriors like Comrade Shehla Rashid put forth? When they talk about problems of social inequality like caste, religion, economic disparity, what solution do they offer? Going back to Marx, the only solution is creation of a dictatorship — justified as dictatorship of the proletariat — that abolishes ownership of capital.

All ideologies look wonderful in paper but what we should be interested in, is an application — a case study called North Korea.

Why North Korea? It is quite common to find harrowing human experiences in other communist countries such as description of Gulag in Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, or an personal account of fatal post-revolution living in Cambodia narrated in the movie The Killing Fields, based on Dith Pran’s experience, or dreadful stories of the Chinese cultural revolution penned by historian Jung Chang in the book Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China.

However, those human sufferings were all addressed by the respective societies through moving to different social structure by repealing the idea of the “dictatorship of the proletariat” to a large extent and by giving society back the ownership of the Capital. North Korea on the other hand, still continues with the original plan.

Hyeonseo Lee, the daughter of a North Korean army officer, braved authorities for her epic journey in search of her freedom from North Korea. The picture of North Korea she penned in her book makes me empathise with her. On the one hand, I feel blessed to know that our family did not need to hang the two portraits of any Indian version of “Kim Il-sung” and “Kim Jong-il” which were to be periodically examined by local party/government officials for cleanliness, and one can land up straight in prison for their failure to keep the portraits shinny and dirtless. On the other hand, I could visualise politicisation in every sphere of social activity and unacceptable intrusion even about personal choices that Ms. Lee stated.

My childhood experience with West Bengal was a definitely watered down version of hers yet strikingly similar — the Communist party used to decide which newspaper is acceptable at one’s home, or which dramas/theatres at a local club should receive the award, or whether personal letters could remain a personal affair.

Our Social Justice Warriors always complain about India’s tryst with social discriminations — mainly caste based. In North Korea, the State rigorously enforces Songbun system under which everybody is demarcated into 51 castes under three broad categories of “Loyal”, “Wavering” or “Hostile” and everybody’s destiny of life including choice of profession is decided at birth. Persons from the “Hostile” families are sent for manual labour; even if one of them, as was the case with Hyeonseo’s classmate, fortunately clears the university entrance test against great adversity, she is denied of the opportunity to higher studies by the State on account of her birth.

When famine struck North Korea, a province with more proportion of “Hostile” population was taken out of the ambit of the Public Distribution System, which is the only official channel for a citizen to get food legally. People were, therefore, compelled either to starve to death in hundreds or scavenging in the dirt for food. In a few exceptional cases, some of them resorted to cannibalism too. Right at that time, food was in abundance in the Capital city of Pyongyang, and the elite were completely unaffected by this famine to the extent that they were having their cosmetic surgeries too!

The ideological indoctrination in North Korea begins in the very childhood. When Hyeonseo entered her kindergarten school, her school had a jumbo picture in which a North Korean Soldier is killing a Japanese, an American and a South Korean soldier together, all using a single bayonet. This picture defied history, rationality and any idea of a global humanity. Yet this is only the beginning which eventually creates a perception in every person of North Korea that any American is a devil personified.

When Hyeonseo’s mother and brother met her would-be husband, an American, tolerating him just over a meal was too much for them on account of this intense ideological indoctrination. If our Social Justice Warriors are aghast with India for fighting Pakistan — a country which regularly exports terror to India — and apparently ignoring the goodwill of common people from Pakistan, they may note that every school in North Korea encourages students to kill South Koreans and Americans.

By now you must be thinking that if the Government of India is heavily denounced by our Social Justice Warriors, North Korea must be an insufferable state for them, Right?

Wrong! I did not find a single tweet from Kanhaiya, Rashid, and Gurmehar where they have ever criticised North Korea. So far, I failed to observe even any non-appreciative comment about North Korea from any affiliate organisation of any Communist party of India of any variety — forget about any real denouncement. When India made the nuclear detonation at Pokhran in 1998, the communists of India were aghast. When North Korea did the same in 2017, they are conspicuously mum.

It is not that our Social Justice Warriors don’t comment on international issues. They can’t stop talking about Israel, they can’t curse Trump and Putin enough, and recently they are all experts on Myanmar. But why is North Korea absent from their radar?

The only time some of them, or their friends, mentioned ever-mysterious North Korea is when Arun Shourie called some Indian media channels, which were not spewing venom against Narendra Modi, as “North Korean TV channels”.  It took a “Right Wing” Shourie for these left-wing activists to realise that North Korea may not be exactly the heaven. But that’s all. There are no speeches denouncing North Korea as the evil personified, as the epitome of casteism, social apathy, corruption and hate-mongering.

It is a fashion in leftist circles to compare any anti-left politician to Hitler and create a fear-mongering about an impending Nazi Germany if that politician receives authority. Contrary to popular perception, Nazis were “anti-bourgeoisie” socialists (who called themselves National Socialists) with a predominantly red flag, where red expressed “the social thought underlying the movement” (Mein Kampf; Volume 2 Chapter 7). If one self-declared brand of socialism can be used by the leftists to describe someone they hate, why should we not talk about another socialism called North Korea as the benchmark for the zombie Social Justice Warriors without introspection?

Why should not we call our own Social Justice Warriors “Mini Kims”?

Kejriwal uses sexist, misogynist language in Delhi Assembly, gets called out, but not by media

Nirwa Mehta
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Kejriwal uses sexist, misogynist language in Delhi Assembly, gets called out, but not by media

At a day long session in Delhi Assembly, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was his usual filmy self when he said “I am an elected CM of Delhi and I am not a terrorist”. The adrenaline then took him to another level where he screamed his lungs out.


AAP supremo was taking part in the discussion on a Bill to regularise guest teachers when he asserted by thumping his chest that he “owns Delhi” and he will “run Delhi”.

As if that was not enough, Kejriwal then made an extremely sexist and misogynist statement on the opposition and asked “mard ke bachhe ho to saamne aa ke rajneeti karo” as if “mard” ka bachha is what makes a person brave or weak.


This kind of 90s movie dialogues have only strengthened the deep rooted patriarchy. It is unfortunate that an elected representative would use such unparliamentary and uncouth language. The fact that his statement was received with loud cheers and table thumping can only show what kind of example he would be as a leader.

As expected, the mainstream media did not find fault with Kejriwal for his remarks, but the AAP supremo got called out on Twitter with help of some criticism and some humor:

Now Yogi Adityanath accuses Kerala’s CPM govt of encouraging Jihadi Terrorism

OpIndia Staff
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Now Yogi Adityanath accuses Kerala’s CPM govt of encouraging Jihadi Terrorism

The BJP has in recent days launched an outright attack against the ruling CPM establishment of Kerala, after the party launched a Padayatra to protest against the reported violence perpetrated in the state by the CPM government.

We had reported that after kicking-off the Padayatra, BJP President Amit Shah outright accused the Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan of being directly responsible for the murders of RSS and BJP workers. Later it was also reported that Senior BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad too had attacked the CPM government by alleging that it was the biggest patron of the cycle of violence and murder of opponents.

Now BJP leader and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath too has pointed his guns at the communist establishment in Kerala. While taking part in the same Padayatra, he alleged that the Pinarayi Vijayan government was encouraging Jihadi terrorism in the state.

He according to the report slammed the political killings of RSS and BJP workers in Kerala and asserted that the violence under Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan was increasing an environment for Jihadi terrorism to prosper in the state.

He also reportedly claimed that the Padayatra intended to show the mirror to the communist government of Kerala and wanted it to repent for its sins.

This ins’t the only time Radical Islam has been associated with Kerala’s CPM government. We had recently reported how a RSS leader too had alleged that Communists in the state get support of Muslim fundamentalists.

This isn’t the only reason why Yogi Adityanath has been in the news recently. It was reported that the Allahabad High Court on Wednesday had dismissed a petition which wanted the State’s Madrasas exempted from singing the National Anthem. The Court while dismissing the plea had observed that it was mandatory for every Madrasa to respect the national anthem and national song.

Such a petition was a result of Yogi government’s order which made it compulsory for Madrasa students to sing the national anthem and hoist the tricolour. This order was actually passed by the Yogi government as a result of instructions  from the Allahabad High Court.

‘Project Insight’ – Tax evasion is going to get difficult, and costly

Ashutosh Muglikar
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‘Project Insight’ – Tax evasion is going to get difficult, and costly

Digitization is proving to be a major partner for the Modi Government. Aadhaar based benefit delivery, ably supported by technology has proved beneficial in cutting leakages. As per the Finance Secretary to the Government of India, the Country saved a whooping 34,000 Crores due to Aadhaar linking. Apart from this, Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) schemes have further cut out 3.34 crore duplicate consumers under PaHAL (use of Aadhaar for claiming LPG subsidy) and a further 2.33 crore ration cards saving a whooping 50,000 crores is subsidies.

It is our general tendency to observe events in isolation and not as a part of a bigger plan or intent. Which is why, perhaps, we saw the opposition and the ‘neutrals’ who act like the mindless opposition, criticise each step in hyperboles. From demonetization to Aadhaar linking, every step was criticised as a stand alone reform rather than a part of the larger process to cleanse the entire economy. There seems to be substantial confusion as to why everything is going digital and Aadhaar based and ‘experts’ have only been able to provide hollow rhetoric in their attempt to criticise. Their standard response being that the state is trying to play the ‘big brother’. The aim of any government is to collect revenue and spend on activities like infrastructure, railways, defence, subsidies etc. It is towards the realisation of such goals, that these seemingly isolated steps come together to help the government.

It is a fact that India’s tax-to-GDP ratio  is below the emerging market economies (EME) and OECD (Organisation for Economic cooperation and Development) averages of about 21% and 34% respectively. Taxation is the key to long-term political and economic development. The Finance Minister himself has expressed the need to expand the tax base to achieve desired revenue levels. Hence it is important to know and understand how the Government intends to achieve the same.

GST and Demonetisation:

As explained in my previous article, demonetisation has given the government a wealth of information. One may safely assume that every old demonetised currency note today has a specific address and identity matched with Aadhaar (as its now compulsory to link bank account and Aadhaar). Similarly as explained in this article reverse charge mechanism under GST is going to expand the tax base further. This is already evident from the fact that many new businesses (previously unregistered) have registered freshly under GST.

All this data is being mined to generate automated notices seeking further explanations and information from the tax payers.

Project Insight:

Every document or Income Tax return filed with the department is an addition to the wealth of data. Few years back Central Board of Direct taxes decided to digitize every piece of data they had and match it with the respective PAN of the assessees To effectively process this data, “Project Insight” was launched. The basic tenets of this project are to collect information on a “Non-Intrusive Basis” to improve tax compliance and effective usage of information in administration of taxes.

A good tax system should be

  1. Fair
  2. Adequate
  3. Simple
  4. Transparent
  5. Should ensure administrative ease

One of the most important features of the new system (the integrated platform under ‘Project Insight’) is that it will mine Social Media accounts of people and match the same with their income levels and send automated notices via email and letters in case of discrepancies.

What one might wonder whether such a feature might infringe upon a citizen’s right to privacy, which has now been upheld by the court as a fundamental right.

Sometime back Government of India had signed a pact with the Swiss government for sharing of information. Project Insight will also be leveraged for implementation of Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act Inter Governmental Agreement (FATCA IGA) and Common Reporting Standard (CRS).

Just like the Centralised Processing Center (CPC) for IT Returns, a new Compliance Management Centralized Processing Centre (CMCPC) will also be setup as part of the Project for handling preliminary verification, campaign management, generation of bulk letters/notices and follow-up.

The department hopes that the new system shall ensure voluntary compliance and enable taxpayers to resolve simple compliance related issues online, without visiting the Income tax office. This should ensure minimal interface between the assessee and the Department . A common complaint across the spectrum is that department officials harass tax payers. Minimal interface would ensure lesser harassment and corruption.

As per reports Project Insight “will integrate enterprise data warehouse, data mining, web mining, predictive modelling, data exchange, master data management, centralised processing, compliance management and case analytics capabilities.”

In the first phase of this project, financial data like credit card bills, investment portfolios and bank statements will be moved to a centralised digital system.

The second phase will process this data and any mismatch will lead to notices being issued. The plan is to launch Stage 2 in December 2017.

Will this technological advancement and deployment ensure that the “good qualities” of tax administration are achieved? Only time will tell but as of now this seems to be a big step in the right direction.

Benami Law and the Way Forward

I have been a strong advocate of both demonetisation as well as GST. According to me both these reforms shall usher in a wave of unprecedented change in the long run. With the passage of stringent laws like Benami Act, the department needed this technological tool to make “sense” of the data that is with them. It is widely estimated that similar projects in other jurisdictions have saved billions of dollars for the governments. Will they do the same for us?

Tax Administration Reform Commission (TARC) under the chairmanship of Dr.Parthasarathi Shome, had recommended extensive use of Information Technology in the administration tax laws and governance of tax system in India.

GST, Demonetisation, Aadhaar PAN Linking, Aadhaar- Bank account linking, data mining using project insight is going to change the entire scenario. The “grid” is being completed. We are being ushered into a new era where tax evasion is going to be difficult and costly. Citizenry need to realise that tax compliance is one of the prime responsibilities of a citizen and it is perhaps a marker of a developed economy where evasion becomes increasingly difficult and costly.

While concerns regarding privacy and need for a law are genuine, we have seen excessive intellectualisation and fear mongering by the usual left liberal circles regarding Aadhaar and its seeding into various services.  Every loophole plugged and tax payer’s money saved, directly means that much lesser funds go into the pockets of the corrupt. I see no reason why the old, leaky system needs to continue. While the debate around privacy might in itself be hypocritical considering we live in times where globally, data is currency whether Aadhaar is taken into consideration or not. One may even wonder if privacy concerns are being used as a veil behind which an important reform is being scuttled by manipulating public sentiment with tales of the ‘big brother’. We have seen a political opposition bereft of issues and an establishment, independent of the government, working very hard to derail the progress of the nation. A ‘cabal’, so to speak, that insists on cutting off the nose, to spite the face. Perhaps it’s time they realise that India’s time has come. The path of progress might be laden with thorns, but a valley of roses await.

Twitter rips apart comedian who brazened it out after asking stupid questions

Hemant Bijapurkar
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Twitter rips apart comedian who brazened it out after asking stupid questions

Vir Das is a stand-up comedian who now a days seems to have started doubling up as a policy and economic watchdog on Twitter.

On 30th September the comedian put out a tweet questioning the Modi government about, where was the taxpayer’s money going when it came to basic governance issues:


It was certainly heartening to see that Vir Das had chosen to take interest in the nation’s affairs and exercise his democratic right to question the government.

A few days later a twitter user named @OnlyNakedTruth saw the tweets of Vir Das and decided to educate him about the performance of his government, which many felt Vir Das would have appreciated as he obviously looked very concerned about the nation in his tweet:


He in his subsequent tweets educated Vir Das about the Modi government’s good performance in improving the road, sanitation and railway infrastructure of the country. He also made Vir Das aware about the improvement in the Nation’s internal security [1][2] under the Modi government.

He later also commented about Vir Das’s less than average knowledge of the Nation’s current affairs:


It might have been expected, that any person in Vir Das’s position would have been very happy to know that the country is in a much better shape than what they thought and might have even felt humbled that a citizen had taken time out of his busy schedule to explain that to him.

Or just in case he thought the responses were not apt, he could have pointed out flaws in them, in a witty style, after all he’s a comedian!

But rather than responding in the aforementioned manners, Vir Das decided to come up with an extremely condescending response:


Such a response by Vir Das might give out a feeling that he was least interested in the affairs of the nation and the only purpose of his tweet was to either peddle his agenda or seek validation from the left-liberal nexus, which welcomes mindless bashing of anything Modi.

His dismissive response wasn’t taken kindly by many twitter users who decided to rip his response apart:


Even @OnlyNakedTruth decided to respond:


Later when Vir Das was obviously getting slammed left and right he decided to come out and in a veiled dig, dismissed his critics as trolls:


Such a response too is fairly common among a section of the society who routinely dismiss people as trolls when they have been exposed or don’t have any meaningful response in a perfectly normal debate.

How lies were used to claim that PM Modi lied about GDP projections

OpIndia Staff
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How lies were used to claim that PM Modi lied about GDP projections

Yesterday, at a function of the Institute of the Company Secretaries of India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi chose to defend his Government’s performance on the economic front. With a series of charts, facts and figures, he rebutted doomsday predictions by some in the media. One statement by him though was picked up for deeper scrutiny.

Modi said that RBI has predicted 7.7% growth in the coming quarters:


This speech came just hours after RBI’s monetary policy announcement. Very soon, people began comparing RBI’s statements with Modi’s claims. Deputy National Editor of The Hindu, had this to say:


He further comically claimed, in a now deleted tweet, that the next quarter was Q1 (April to June), that Q4 is four quarters away, and even that the PM was referring to Q4 of next year!

Another columnist with The Hindu, said this:


One would expect The Hindu journalists to be more careful with facts, considering just 24 hours back they were forced to withdraw a fake story after OpIndia called out their lies. Further, Senior Assistant Editor of The Hindu Vijaita Singh, re-tweeted a tweet which claimed that the RBI had initially given one figure, Modi quoted another, and then in hindsight, RBI modified its statement to save Modi:

When the media is out on full throttle, how can rival political parties be left behind. Sitaram Yechury of the CPI also claimed that Modi “changed” the RBI’s data:


National Coordinator of the Congress Social Media Team also made similar claims:


Another user associated with Congress’s social media team tweeted the same:


So did Modi change RBI’s outlook of 6.7% to 7.7%? Did RBI then back-track and change the data to save Modi?

Firstly, we need to get the timelines right, RBI’s monetary policy briefing began in the afternoon. PM Modi spoke in the evening, much after the briefing was over. The particular statement in question was made by Modi at around 6.50 pm.

In the briefing, RBI lowered to 6.7 %, the economic growth projection for the entire financial year of 2017-18. PM Modi though made a different statement. If you see the first tweet quoted in this post, it is clear that PM Modi had said that RBI has predicted 7.7% growth in the coming quarters. Video can be seen here:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a49j4UKF_Tg?start=45.15]

So firstly, there is a fundamental difference in the RBI Governor’s statement, which related to the full financial year, and PM Modi’s quote, which talked about upcoming quarters.

So now we come to the second question, did RBI actually predict 7.7% growth for coming quarters? Or did Modi make this figure up as claimed by media-persons and politicians? The answer lies in the RBI’s Monetary Policy Report, which was released shortly after RBI’s briefing, relevant portion is highlighted below:

Very clearly, RBI did predict 7.7% growth for Q4 of FY 2017-18, which basically is an upcoming quarter. So PM Modi’s figure is not baseless as claimed by some.

Now, the question again comes: Did RBI later add this to their outlook to save PM Modi from embarrassment? The answer to this also lies in the time-stamps of the following tweets:


Business news channels had reported this figure of 7.7% as early as 2.40 pm yesterday, a good 3-4 hours before PM Modi’s speech. This without a doubt proves that this figure was in fact released to public much before hand, and Modi had used this figure in his speech.

This TV actor is using Facebook to become another Owaisi

Nirwa Mehta
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This TV actor is using Facebook to become another Owaisi

“No one can touch anyone who’s with Shiv Sena, MNS, because they have lot of members… hence you should join Allah Ke Banday”, says TV actor Ajaz Khan, who is best known for making the threatening-ish video against singer Sonu Nigam after his ‘controversial’ tweet about azaan.

According to his Facebook page, what started out ‘NGO‘ named “Allah Ke Banday” has now metamorphosed into a political outfit through which he claims to reach out to Muslims to unite for the betterment of Muslim community. He has started collecting ‘membership fees’ of Rs. 1,200 for the year, on payment of which the member’s problems will be the organisation’s problems. The NGO page also posts ‘testimonials’ of the ‘poor people’ Khan has helped through collecting funds from people online. The ‘testimonials’ clarify most of the times that the ‘NGO’ offers help to all, irrespective of religion.

However, on closer inspection, one see Ajaz Khan’s page promotes more hate speeches and tries to create communal tension.

This video posted by Khan has a Muslim religious leader saying that the truth about government is not reaching to people because all “twenty seven 24 hour news channels are owned by Reliance” and “things are in place where they (government) is waiting till 2019 elections, following which India will be constitutionally be declared a Hindu nation. Teaching Qurans, running Madrasas and Mosques freely will be difficult. Not trying to scare you, but Muslims should unite.”

While posting this video, Khan says “Hindu rashtra declare kiya jaye ga 2019 election ke bad for sure Yaro ALLAH Ke Banday ko bada karna Hai jyda se jyda log ismai judo isko bada bana na Hai” [After 2019 election, (India) will be declared a Hindu Rashtra for sure. Friends, please join Allah Ke Banday to make it as big as we could.]

Sharing a video on Prime Minister Modi on Godhra riots, Khan posts “Chup Rahegi Zubane Khanjar To Lahoo Pugarega Aasteen ka . Ye Hai Sacchayi Narendra Modi ki Yaro dekho aur share karo inko Bhul mat Jana”

In an earlier video, which is now deleted, Ajaz Khan referred to Modi as Hitler after the BHU incident.

While being critical of the government is absolutely fair in a democracy like India, sharing hate speeches and inciting people to take law into their own hands is highly irresponsible behaviour, even if it is an out-of-work actor.

Twitter slams Sagarika Ghose for her double standards in reporting Kerala’s political violence

OpIndia Staff
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Twitter slams Sagarika Ghose for her double standards in reporting Kerala’s political violence

The political violence in Kerala which has claimed the lives of numerous BJP and RSS workers at the hands of suspected communists, is again in the news after the BJP announced a padayatra to protest against the same.

This foot march was kicked off by BJP President Amit Shah who in a strong worded statement, directly accused the current Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan of being directly responsible for the murder of more than 120 BJP and RSS workers in the state.

But on Wednesday, controversial journalist Sagarika Ghose had an interesting take on the whole issue of political murders in the state:


Such a response which possibly tried to bring the the gruesome deaths into “context”, resulted in a Twitter user mocking her:


She didn’t stop at that and used the aforementioned tweet as a pivot to make another statement:


Many twitter users felt that her response was a classic case of double standards and decided to respond:


As pointed above by a twitter user, Sagarika Ghose herself had indulged in carrying out such generalisation (which she now opposes), when she sensationally tweeted that mobs were killing Muslims across the country without providing any data to back the allegation, and only later deleted it after she was warned of police action.

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