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Huge cache of arms recovered from Gurmeet Ram Rahim’s Dera Sacha Sauda headquarters

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A huge cache of arms were recovered from the headquarters of Gurmeet Ram Rahm’s Dera Sacha Sauda on Monday by the Haryana Police. This headquarter situated in Sirsa, was one of the venue of the raids which the police has been carrying out from the last few days.

According to the reports, a total of 33 weapons have been recovered from the Dera which include 9-mm pistols, single and double-barrel rifles and a modified carbine. This comes days after petrol bombs and 4 rifles including an AK 47 were recovered from his supporters during the violence which was perpetrated after Gurmeet Ram Raheem’s arrest. He has since then been sentenced to 20 years in jail.

Dinesh Kumar the SHO of Sirsa Sadar, while confirming the recovery of these arms stated that the target was to seize all the legal and illegal arms possessed by the Dera followers. According to him all the followers inside the Dera possessed such weapons and their total number is estimated to be 67. Today 33 of these arms were recovered. The SHO also stated that strict action would be taken against those who were found possessing such arms.

Even the pictures of this arms haul were shared with the mediapersons:


The revelation that the Dera supporters may be in possession of such large number of weapons becomes more worrying, considering the large scale violence which was perpetrated by the supporters immediately after Ram Rahim was found guilty. The violence included large scale arson and vandalism of vehicles, public property and even train compartments. This raises the questions as to whether the supporters planned to use these weapons for some ulterior purpose and how many weapons apart from the known 67 are there in their possession?

#KnowYourLegacy: Congress social media plays quiz, gets trolled

Congress social media team has been running various polls with #KnowYourLegacy hashtag asking questions about Congress leaders, mostly centred around the Nehru-Gandhi family. While we had earlier reported about Congress having their “oops” moment yesterday. Much to everyone’s amusement, 24 hours later, earlier today morning, they tweeted the same poll, with same options.

But by then, #KnowYourLegacy hashtag was picked up and people started reminding Congress of the “other” legacy Congress leaders have left behind.


Seems like the new social media head of Congress, Divya Spandana, is sticking her neck out in doing something new by setting higher bars for self goals.

2 years after becoming the CM, Kejriwal finally decides to take charge of a Ministry

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Arvind Kejriwal was sworn in as the Delhi CM in February 2015 after winning 67 out of 70 seats in the assembly elections. After winning by such a huge margin people expected that Kejriwal would embark upon a development drive which was wasn’t hindered by coalition partners like his previous 49 day stint as Chief Minister.

But soon people were a bit surprised when it was reported that Kejriwal had decided not to hold any ministerial portfolios and the explanation given for the same was that he would oversee all the ministries via “modern technologies” and will try to bring in “systematic changes.

This “lack of portfolio” continued to be a point which was used by Kejriwal’s opponents to attack him, who called him the only CM in the country without a portfolio. Finally this May, reports came out which suggested that Kejriwal was ready to assume the responsibilities of a portfolio soon, as part of a strategy devised by his party insiders to reportedly reunite with the people on the ground.

Now according to reports, just a day after a substantial reshuffle took place in the Modi government, a small reshuffle has also taken place in the Kejriwal government with the Chief Minister himself assuming the responsibility of a ministry. The reports claimed that Kejriwal has taken charge of the water ministry because he was unhappy with the performance of the incumbent minister Rajendra Pal Gautam. Incidentally this ministry was held by rebel AAP leader Kapil Mishra until the time he was sacked from that position in May.

The reason given for choosing the water ministry is that water and sewage would be the focus of the government. The supporters of Kejriwal also confirmed the speculation that apart from being the water minister he would also be the Chairman of Delhi Jal Board.

On one hand this was a positive news for Kejriwal, on the other hand it was reported that Kejriwal was in further trouble with regards to the 2nd defamation case filed against him by Arun Jaitley. Kejriwal who was earlier slapped with a Rs 10,000 fine by the Delhi High Court, has now been asked to pay Rs 5,000 over his delay to submit a reply to the defamation case.

Cabinet Reshuffle: How media and their ‘sources’ got it all wrong

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Narendra Modi led NDA Government on Sunday had third reshuffle since formation in May 2014 inducting a fresh set of ministers. Nine new ministers were included in council of ministers and four were promoted to Union Cabinet.

Most media not only had it all wrong about who gets which ministry, but they even went on a different tangent when Nirmala Sitharaman swore in as India’s first full time female Defence Minister. Previously, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who had chosen to handle the portfolio as PM herself, handled it briefly. However, most media houses which claimed to have exclusive information about Cabinet reshuffle had it all wrong.

Times Now had an exclusive story on how Arun Jaitley, who was handling additional charge of Defence, will retain the same.

In fact, even as ministers were swearing in, NDTV journalists were busy “Breaking” news through their exclusive sources that Jaitley is retaining Defence.


The sources at NDTV were in full form.


Except, Prabhu is now the Minister of Commerce and Industry.


Before that the sources were of the opinion that either Sushma Swaraj or Suresh Prabhu might get Defence.


While some wondered if it could be Nitin Gadkari


But earlier, Economic Times had said Gadkari could be made the Railways Minister and Prabhu to be shifted to environment ministry. There were also speculations that Radha Mohan Singh could be asked to go whereas he continues to remain the Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Minister. NDTV sources also said that “Janata Dal (United)’s Ram Chandra Prasad Singh and Santosh Kushwaha are tipped to be ministers” while neither of them were made ministers.

Sources at Times of India also said AIADMK leaders, Thambi Durai and K Venugopal, may also be inducted in the cabinet.

One thing was yet again clear that no leaked stories make their way to media lobbies.


Others agreed too.


Even as some senior journalists hid their frustration at not being in the know of who gets which ministry behind series of emojis.

Congress repeats the same “oops” moment it had 24 hours ago

Yesterday we had reported how the IT Cell of the Congress was involved in a gaffe of sorts because of a poll it had run via its Twitter account:

The poll they ran yesterday

The poll, a part of its #KnowYourLegacy segment features general knowledge question on Congress leaders. This though was soon deleted by the party after it realised that it had been turned into a joke by people who voted for “Donkey” in large numbers. The people as a result had a good time poking fun on the party for its antics.

Now 24 hours later, in a huge amazement to many the Congress tweeted the same poll with the exact same options as if nothing had happened:

The same poll 24 hrs later

Incidentally the Congress even pinned this poll to its timeline for further reach and this time the “Donkey” was again predictably emerging as the clear winner. The wordings of the text were slightly different but the IT cell decided to keep the same options intact which were the main problem to begin with.

The people as a result were left flabbergasted:


Even the Social Media head of the AAP who himself has been a part of controversies, decided to take pot shots at the Congress:


The Social Media coordinator of the Congress as a possible response made personal attacks against those ridiculing the poll:


The poll though would have been completely innocuous had they just replaced “donkey” with “mule” which doesn’t receive the same amount of ridicule as the former, but its not yet clear as to why they didn’t do so. Also the poll was not yet deleted at the time of the publication of the report.

Nirmala Sitharaman to handle Defence Ministry, ‘liberals’ get into a tizzy

Cabinet rejig took place today where nine new members were inducted in the Union Cabinet. Amongst other things, Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, who got promoted to cabinet rank from Minister of State, broke the ceiling of becoming India’s first full time woman Defence Minister.

While many hailed it as a great and important step in gender balance representation in the top ranks in Indian politics, feminists and liberals on Twitter immediately went into action to dismiss it.

It all started with how Sitharaman is not the first woman to head Defence.

Conveniently forgetting that handling the portfolio which you allocate to yourself when you are the Prime Minister of a country isn’t same as being a full time minister.

Which was immediately followed by,

And then, someone had to bring in the fact that Sitharaman holds an MA in Economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University.

And of course, there was a lot of hope, positivity and optimism exuded by the same.

Seems like not being able to know the inside information before official announcement is not going down too well for some people.

Yet another “oops” moment for Congress

Sunday morning, Congress IT cell ran a series of “polls” with the hashtag #KnowYourLegacy. These are general knowledge multiple choice questions on Congress leaders, mostly Nehru Gandhi family members. However, they had their faux pas moment when one of the questions looked like this.

As per initial trends, donkey was emerging as the winner of the poll. As soon as they realised what a joke that quiz turned into, Congress social media team deleted the tweet. However, Twitterati were quick to take screenshot for posterity.


Soon, reactions flowed in.

 


Digs were even taken on Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi.

Bihar Congress on the verge of a split with its rebels planning a JD(U) switch

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The Congress party might be in for a shock of sorts after it has been reported that its MLAs from Bihar are planning to rebel and join the JD(U). According to the report, 14 out of the current 27 MLAs have formed an informal group and are just 4 MLA’s short of the 2/3rd needed to formalise a division.

The news about the split comes just two weeks after two Congress leaders, Jyotiraditya Scindia and Jaiprakash Agrawal, had held a meeting with their state MLAs in Patna, in order to seek their views about the political scenario in Patna.

In order to mitigate the possibility of the split, the Congress leadership summoned its Bihar State Chief Ashok Choudhary and Congress Legislative Party (CLP) leader Sadanand Singh to New Delhi on Thursday. After summoning them, the Congress President Sonia Gandhi reportedly expressed her unhappiness over the state leadership’s failure to prevent such a situation.

Reports also claimed that the state leaders have been unhappy with the party’s leadership because of its decision to wholeheartedly back Lalu Prasad Yadav. The leaders reportedly feel that Lalu might now allow the party to expand its base among the Muslim rulers.

The motive behind some of the MLAs wanting to switch is reportedly not just the lure of possible portfolios and privileges but also their upper caste constituents being resentful of the return of the Yadav aggression.

The Congress has now blamed the BJP and Nitish for trying to split the party and claimed that Nitish and BJP’s unprincipled politics have been exposed. The party also claimed that the split had been prevented but it remains to be seen how accurate this claim is.

Incidentally party leaders trying to rebel and join the JD(U) is a bit ironic considering the JD(U) itself might be heading for a split of its own. We had recently reported how an internal war like situation was developing inside the JD(U) with veteran party leader Sharad Yadav and other senior leaders not being happy about Nitish’s decision to join hands with the BJP. This tussle hasn’t been quelled yet after Sharad Yadav was seen sharing the stage during Lalu’s anti-BJP rally.

Are the recent GDP numbers really as bad as they are being made out to be?

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The quarterly GDP growth has come down to a 3 year low of 5.7% in Q1 2017-18, this as a result has resulted in various individuals fearing for the Indian Economy. But minus the noise and doomsday forecasts, let’s look at the underlying data to understand the economy better and see if the GDP numbers are really as bad as they are being made out to be.

First let us also understand that some of the government measures were ‘’meant’’ to be disruptions in the short run with a view to streamline the economy in the medium to long term.

The GVA (Gross Value Added)[PDF] which essentially is GDP without the Net Indirect Taxes (NIT=Taxes on products – Subsidies) has grown at roughly the same pace as last quarter at 5.6%. This quarter, the difference between GDP and GVA growth has narrowed down to just +0.1% from 0.5% in the last quarter. This then implies that government’s Net Indirect Taxes were very low.

A significant part of this low NIT has to do with early presentation of the budget, which meant government expenditure like subsidies were much higher than same quarter previous year while the revenue stream continues throughout the year. To be precise, revenue expenditure net of interest payments increased by roughly 27% y-o-y in Q1 compared to same quarter last year.

The second important insight from the data was the growth in Core GVA (GVA excluding agriculture and public administration). During my interactions, many experts had argued that overall numbers are not reflecting the true picture as agriculture growth was mainly due to favourable monsoon and had very little to do with real changes on the ground.

Also, growth in public administration was cited as a conscious government action to propel growth and stymie the ill effects of demonetisation. A move which was not sustainable without growth in other sectors. Indeed, they seemed right in their assessment as Core GVA growth was just 3.8% y-o-y in Q4 FY17. The Core GVA growth at 5.5% y-o-y in Q1 FY18 is one of the biggest positives from the latest GDP numbers. This reflects that other sectors have started picking up.

The Demonetisation impact was expected to be more pronounced in Q4 FY17 with its impact waning in subsequent quarters. The bounce back in services sector growth from 5.7% in Q4 FY17 to 7.8% in Q1 FY18 including turn around in construction sector from -3.7% to +2.0% in same period reflects that distortionary impact of demonetisation has ebbed away.

Manufacturing sector slowed down to 10 quarter low at just 1.2% y-o-y growth compared to 10.7% in same period last year and 5.3% in previous quarter. While manufacturing sector is facing a slowdown owing to many factors including over leveraged corporate sectors and contraction in bank credit to these sectors. Deficient demand and low levels of capacity utilisation are another factors hampering the sector. Specific to this sector was the disruption caused due to GST roll out which led to destocking of inventories through various discounts offering which weighed negatively on its growth performance.

External sector is another cause for concern as the Real Effective Exchange Rate (REER, 36 Currency Basket), which measures the broad value of Indian rupee against major currency of major trading partners have appreciated by as much as 18.7% since Oct’13. Compare this to a mere 2.7% appreciation between Apr’09-Oct’13 period and this reflects that our exports are losing competitiveness internationally due to higher relative value of rupee.

While the growth numbers are indeed a cause for concern and introspection by the government as well as all the RBI and Industry, the outlook for the economy has many positives which may pull back the economy towards achieving its full potential.

Given the lagged impact of demonetisation in Q1 FY18 and the GST roll out expected to have distortionary impact in the next quarter as well, it would be prudent to look at the annual numbers as a conjoint of two halves with growth picking up from Q3 FY18 onwards.

Agriculture performance is expected to be robust again while consumption continues to be the driver. Further easing of interest rates could not only stimulate demand in the economy, it would help improve our external sector performance as well.

With RBI referring 12 companies to NCLT (National Companies Law Tribunal) for resolution of stressed assets and there is speculation that more companies may be referred to NCLT basis performance in Q4 FY18, such pro-activeness on part of RBI is a good sign.

6 Banks have also been put under PCA (Prompt Corrective Action) plan of RBI for early resolution of their NPA problem. The RBI Governor publicly mentioned in the presence of finance minister recently that Government and RBI are working closely for an early resolution of Banks NPA problem. These moves raises expectations for an early resolution of the twin balance sheet problem which could then lead to increased investment and capacity creation in the economy.

An unbiased and practical analysis tells us that it would be reasonable to expect annual GDP growth to be in the 7.1%-7.3% range for entire FY 2017-18. While this may still be below the full potential of the economy, it would be prudent to expect a movement towards the same. And yes, India will continue to be the fastest growing major economy of the world.

Disclaimer: Figures mentioned are based on government’s official release (http://www.mospi.gov.in/press-release) and author’s own calculations. Views are personal.

HuffPost is happy to believe in ancient aeroplanes as long as you say that a Muslim invented them

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I have long believed that in order to expose the real face of the Liberal-Islamist axis, we have to look at what is happening inside the Muslim world (and not just inside the free world). For example, in the free world, you will see liberals actively promoting “whiny” complaints about the media spreading so called “Islamophobia” (see for example, this TEDx talk at Stanford).

Even though liberals actually control most of the media, they still promote this “whining” to increase the guilt among free societies, which results in ever more pandering towards the Muslims. While we in the free world wallow in self-condemnation over supposed “Islamophobia”, liberals almost never tell you what the media looks like in the Islamic world. Sample this bone chilling kids’ TV program that tells the ‘heroic’ story of a girl who walks in on her mom getting ready to become a suicide bomber!

The same doublespeak can be found in the way liberals make a show of supporting science and rationality over here in India but you will see how the same liberal outlets are happy to promote the opposite in the Muslim world.

Here is the HuffPost India, gladly trashing “unscientific” claims at the Indian Science Congress:

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Okay, first of all, they are wrong about the Pythagoras Theorem part. It is an established and near universally accepted fact within the academic community that ancient Indians were well aware of Pythagoras Theorem. That HuffPost would even try to present well known facts as “lies” means they probably were counting on the low self esteem of Indians who have passed through the colonised education system.

But what about the Vedic aeroplanes part? Surely that’s ridiculous and deserves to be mocked? Yes. And you might well do that.

But interestingly one hand HuffPost India is debunking this so called “bad science” and on the other hand, HuffPost Maghreb is actively promoting the same thing:

Don’t believe me? See this editorial:

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Published in Maroc (Morocco) and therefore written in French, the headline (translated) tells you the story of the world’s “First Aviator” Abbas Ibn Firnas and how he inspired Leonardo da Vinci. Well, let’s find out the amazing story of this amazing Muslim man from around the year 880 CE (at the time when Muslims ruled over Spain).

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Which translates to:

“He launched himself from the top of a tower and managed to hover for a while before he crashed. Result : two broken ribs but a very promising beginning. It was thus that the first glider in the history of humanity was created, ancestor of Boeings and propellers that allow us to fly in the air today. ”

Wow! The ancestor of Boeing aeroplanes! How do we know this actually happened? A short trip to Wikipedia provides us a reference :

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That’s right : there is no evidence that this flight actually happened, except for one Moroccan historian who wrote about this nearly seven centuries after the death of Ibn Firnas! 

In fact, reading the actual words of the Moroccan historian on Wikipedia, the flight seems even more implausible. It is said that Ibn Firnas covered himself with feathers and attached a couple of wings, then flew around and managed to land at the same place where he started.

That’s not gliding, that’s controlled flight on wings powered by human muscles! And no, that’s also not possible. The Editor of Huffington Post is most welcome to try it out himself/herself for verification purposes.

Of course, when I researched the Ibn Firnas story further, I didn’t find any real academic references for this “flight” (naturally). However, I did find a blog that actually complains about skeptics like me, accuses us of being prejudiced against Muslims and tries to establish that the flight actually happened by quoting the Moroccan historian in “full context”.

And that’s where I learned what Ibn Firnas saw during his flight:

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To be fair to Abbas Ibn Firnas, he was definitely a genius, a man way ahead of his time who made many advances in physics and technology. After all, they named a crater on the moon in his honour. But Ibn Firnas did not invent a flying machine, let alone an “ancestor” of Boeings and propellers. The only people who seem to believe it are outlets like the HuffPost. And no, Ibn Firnas was also not the first person to attempt gliding flights (if he attempted it at all). The Chinese would have beaten him to it by several centuries.

And yet, HuffPost had no difficulty passing it off as real history and real science a “story” of a scientifically impossible feat, full of mythical references, written by one person seven centuries after the death of the supposed hero! For them, it was the ancestor of Boeing…

So much for caring about science and reality.

Science has always fascinated the human mind. That is why in every age, in every era, there have existed impostors who have tried to fool people in the name of science, like the alchemists who used to have “secret formulas” to turn lead into gold.

The HuffPosts and the larger Liberal complex of today claim to be inheritors of the spirit of inquiry that drives science. They are not. Instead, they are inheritors of those impostors who have tried to mislead people in the name of science.