Selected reports from the day.
1. ‘The movie is not stuck, the makers are’: CBFC member Vivek Agnihotri explains how The Wire twisted facts around ‘No fathers in Kashmir’
Leftist propaganda website, The Wire, in a story, headlined “This Film on Kashmir Sought CBFC Clearance 6 Months Ago – and Is Still Waiting” asserted that while the censor board, CBFC, has claimed that it has accorded the movie ‘No fathers in Kashmir’ with an A certification, the director of the movie claims that the CBFC has, in essence, banned the movie.
OpIndia.com reached out to Agnihotri to understand what trouble was the movie running into.
Vivek said that the movie has substantial Jihadi propaganda and anti-Army, anti-India rhetoric and several people throughout the certification of the movie wanted several cuts. Agnihotri said that if the director wanted, he could release the movie even tonight with the A certification.
2. Four policeman dressed in plain clothes accompanied two women to Sabarimala on Jan 2: Police to Court
On Thursday, a senior officer of the Kerala police made a disturbing revelation to the Kerala High Court stating that four policemen disguised as civilians protected and aided two middle-aged left-wing women to enter the Sabarimala shrine on January 2nd.
athanamthitta Superintendent of Police (SP) T Narayanan while informing the Kerala High Court claimed that the two Communist party workers- Bindu and Kanaka Durga were allowed to enter the Sabarimala shrine through the gate meant for the staff of the Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) accompanied by the Kerala policemen. He further said that in view of security reasons, the policemen had to accompany two women to “Sannidhanam”
3. Another PM aspirant? Posters of ‘Akhilesh for PM’ seen in Lucknow
The political impact of the proposed ‘Mahagathbandhan’ or grand alliance of opposition parties in the upcoming general elections is still obscure, however, it has definitely given way for the several opposition leaders to aspire to be the country’s next Prime Minister.
Reportedly, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav seems to have also thrown his hat in the possible contest of being the Prime Minister candidate of the Mahagathbandhan as posters have already propped up in Uttar Pradesh to position SP Chief Akhilesh Yadav as the prime ministerial candidate of the grand alliance which intends to fight the incumbent BJP in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
4. Only Citizenship Amendment Bill can save Assam from becoming another Jammu and Kashmir: Himanta Biswa Sarma
The Architect of Bhartiya Janta Party’s rise in north-east and Assam’s state finance minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has said that only way to stop Assam from becoming like Jammu and Kashmir is Citizenship Amendment Bill along with enforcement of clause 6 of Assam Accords and ST Status to six tribal communities.
Asserting that the state is witnessing a major demographic shift, he added that for Assam the bill is like the ‘Last Battle of Panipat’.
He also said that people who are responsible for bloodshed in Jammu and Kashmir should not be sermonising him on the issue of secularism. “We are committed to protecting Jati, Mati, Bheti (Identity, land and homeland)” He added.
5. Rahul Gandhi lies: This time about hate mongering
Congress President Rahul Gandhi has lied again. This time, however, it is not about his favourite topic, Rafale, but about another one of Congress legacies: hate mongering. While addressing a public gathering in Amethi yesterday, Rahul Gandhi said that Prime Minister Modi indulges in spreading hatred. He insinuated that PM Modi has been directly responsible for making different sections of people fight each other.
Since Congress President seems to be suffering from memory loss, here is a friendly reminder on who actually is spreading hate.
6. Pro-Congress troll Abhishek Mishra posted communally charged posts on Internet to earn money
Pro-Congress troll Abhishek Mishra, who has been recently arrested by Delhi Police for offensive posts which hurt religious sentiments has reportedly revealed that he used to earn money by posting communally sensitive posts to earn money. However, he has claimed that he does not know the source of such income.
As reported by The Times of India, Mishra has been thrown out of his house by his parents following which he took to making communally charged posts to earn money. 10 laptops have been seized from him and police believe more people could be involved in it. The police are also verifying the IDs with which he took the Internet connections as well as the SIM cards for his phone which was used to run his profile. Reportedly, both the IDs were found to be of someone else’s.
7. Nidhi Razdan of NDTV twists Piyush Goyal’s statement to claim Railways failed in fulfilling jobs creation promise
NDTV’s Nidhi Razdan last night conducted a debate claiming government’s jobs promises remain unfulfilled, especially, with a focus on a statement by Piyush Goyal regarding Railway ‘ecosystem’. She had claimed that last year Union Minister for Railways Piyush Goyal had said that the railways could create 10 lakh jobs in one year whereas he now puts the figure at 2.5 lakhs.
However, what Nidhi has conveniently chosen to not tell her viewers is that her claims on Piyush Goyal’s statement from a year back are partial. Piyush Goyal in his October 2017 statement had said that the ‘Rail ecosystem’ can create 10 lakh jobs a year and even that, was twisted by Nidhi.
8. Fact-check: Rahul Gandhi lies yet again, this time about MGNREGA
On the occasion of addressing a Congress rally in Odisha, Congress President Rahul Gandhi made a series of unfounded allegations to mount his attack on the Modi government. In one of the allegations levelled by Rahul Gandhi, he claimed that the Modi government is destroying NREGA. But contrary to what Rahul Gandhi would have us believe, Modi government has, in fact, strengthened the MGNREGA scheme.
9. Rahul Gandhi accidentally reveals he had a secret meeting with Chinese ministers during his Kailash visit
During the much-published visit of Rahul Gandhi to Kailash Mansarovar in September last year, he had a meeting with a couple of Chinese ministers. And this sensational revelation has come from Rahul Gandhi himself, not from any other source.
While talking about job loss due to automation, Rahul Gandhi said that he had met Chinese ministers during his visit to Kailash Mansarovar. Rahul Gandhi made these comments while addressing a town hall meet titled Reimagining India in Bhubaneswar today.
10. OpIndia investigates: How true is Congress claim that no planes are available for charter because BJP booked them all
Recently, the Congress party claimed that 2019 was a fight of the unequal. It claimed that BJP had booked all available chartered planes for 2019 and that Congress was not struggling.
We decided to get to the bottom of the issue by trying to hire a chartered plane ourselves. Of course, we wouldn’t really have the funds to go through with it, but we did attempt to take a quotation for the same. We found thatchartered aircrafts are available and any claim to the contrary is certainly either a figment of the imagination or a bold lie.
