2019 has been an extremely fruitful year for us at OpIndia. It has been a year of growth and prospects. It has been a year where we bettered our own performance and continued to get undying support from the ones who matter: our readers.
These are the top 10 articles that you helped go viral and made them the most read this year. You can click on the preview images or the link below the images to read the respective articles:
1. NDTV suspends Deputy News Editor for celebrating Pulwama terror attack, may take further action
Nidhi Sethi, Deputy News Editor of NDTV, had posted a comment on Facebook which seemed to glorify the terror attack by Jaish-e-Muhammad. She had written, “where a grisly 44 has been proven to be greater than the mythical 56”. With this, she had added a hashtag #HowstheJaish, a take on the famous dialogue ‘How’s the Josh’ from the recent movie Uri: The Surgical Strike.
NDTV had announced on its official Twitter handle that the news organisation strongly condemned the comments made by the Editor. She was suspended for 2 weeks. This news report became the most read report of 2018 on OpIndia.com.
2. Here is what may have triggered Rajdeep Sardesai’s own colleague slamming him for being a pliant journalist
After the 2019 interview that Prime Minister Modi gave to Aaj Tak, Anjana Om Kashyap took to Twitter to sarcastically say that she knows of one journalist who conducts coaching for asking on-air questions. She said he is the same journalist who himself could not ask questions beyond ‘saas-bahu’ and he now goes around distributing certificates to other journalists. She also said that he was frustrated for having to wait outside the door and not being let in.
This report became the second most-read article of 2019.
Read why Anjana may have been talking about Rajdeep Sardesai.
3. Filmmaker Daniel Shravan says rape victims should carry condoms and cooperate in rape to avoid their murder afterwards
Amidst the spate of gruesome rape and murder incidents being reported from across the country and the horror that followed the Hyderabad rape and murder, filmmaker Daniel Shravan had suggested a shocking measure to tackle the growing menace of sexual assault and murder.
Shravan had suggested that instead of calling for police help, women should carry condoms and save themselves from the fate of murder. He suggested that when women are assaulted by rapists, they should cooperate in the act and offer the rapist a condom so that they are not killed afterwards.
Read the other horrific comments by this “filmmaker”.
4. Here is why Prannoy Roy and Radhika Roy were stopped at the airport and were not allowed to leave the country
NDTV founders Prannoy Roy and his wife, Radhika Roy, were prevented from leaving the country recently. In a statement published on its website, the channel had called it a ‘subversion of media freedom’. NDTV in a statement said that they had been stopped on the basis of a “fake and totally unsubstantiated corruption case” filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation about an ICICI Bank loan that their company, RRPR Holdings, had taken.
While NDTV cries hoarse about ‘freedom of the press’ being curbed, the allegations of financial impropriety against Prannoy Roy and Radhika Roy, the promoters of NDTV are extremely grave. More importantly, judicial bodies and statutory investigation agencies have found them in violation of major laws and in some cases held them guilty of fraud, manipulation and use of “deceptive financial instruments” to hide real ownership of NDTV.
Our investigative report about the shenanigans that led to the ICICI loan scam and the details of the ICICI loan scam by NDTV became the 4th most-read article of 2019.
5. Sagarika Ghose calls the most decorated officer of the Territorial Army an ‘idiot’ because he respectfully disagreed with her assessment of ‘war’
Sagarika Ghose is not exactly known for her intellect. In the past year, Sagarika Ghose had once assumed that she knows far more than the man who trains with the Indian Army every year and has pledged to fight for his country when the need arises.
Sagarika Ghose had in July 2019, resorted to calling Major Navdeep Singh an ‘idiot’ while arguing about military matters and wars.
This report became our 5th most-read article of the year.
Read why Sagarika Ghose went mental:
6. ‘Mea culpa’: Rajdeep Sardesai finally admits Modi wasn’t responsible for 2002 and that media sensationalised the riots
In an interview, Rajdeep Sardesai, the Michelangelo of Indian journalism, who made a career out of demonising Narendra Modi for Gujarat riots seems to have finally found some remorse for his relentless campaign against Prime Minister Modi for the unfortunate incidents that followed after the train burning at Godhra that left Hindus dead.
Surprisingly, after years of lies, Rajdeep Sardesai had in this interview admitted that he personally believed that Modi was not responsible for the 2002 riots that followed after the Godhra massacre.
Read what Rajdeep Sardesai had said.
7. What you did in that ICU is not journalism, Anjana Om Kashyap, it is insensitive, creating a nuisance and endangering lives
In June 2019, there was an outbreak of Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES) in Bihar some other places. The death toll in Bihar went up to a shocking 100.
A video came to light earlier where Anjana Om Kashyap, a senior journalist from the India Today group was seen heckling and questioning a doctor inside the ICU.
OpIndia’s editorial called out the irresponsible journalism, making it our 7th most-read article of 2019.
8. Who is instigating violence in colleges: Congress, NSUI, a sinister WhatsApp group and anti-CAA protests
The country has been seeing massive violence by Muslim mobs after the Citizenship Amendment Act was passed by the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. OpIndia had infiltrated a WhatsApp group which revealed how NSUI, Congress’ student’s wing, was organising and coordinating anti-CAA protests that had often become violent.
You can read the investigative report here.
9. Interview: Former RAW officer makes further shocking revelations about Hamid Ansari after alleging that he endangered lives of RAW officers in Iran
Former RAW (Research and Analysis Wing) officer had recently made explosive allegations. He had alleged that former Vice President Hamid Ansari who has served as Indian Ambassador to Iran between 1990-92, endangered the lives of RAW officers in Tehran and even ended up exposing the RAW set-up in Tehran. Journalist Chiranjeevi Bhat conducted an interview with Former RAW (Research and Analysis Wing) officer NK Sood who made further revelations about his time in Iran, Hamid Ansari and the vilified scientist Nambi Narayanan.
Read the explosive interview:
10. Shobhaa De wrote an article advocating ‘plebiscite in Kashmir’ under influence of Pakistani establishment, reveals Abdul Basit
In an interview with one Pakistani blogger, Farhan Virk who calls himself a part of ‘Team IK’ (Team Imran Khan), the former Pakistani High Commissioner to India, Abdul Basit has revealed that he managed to influence ’eminent’ journalist Shobhaa De to write an article on Kashmir in the aftermath of terrorist Burhan Wani’s death.
Read the shocking revelations and which article of Shobhaa De was presumably talking about.
And with that, Team Opindia wishes you all a happy, prosperous, opinionated and media-lies-free (sorry for the joke) 2019! We hope you enjoyed reading our articles as much as enjoyed publishing these gems for you!
