Sunday, November 17, 2024
Home Blog Page 6814

Gautam Gambhir to bear full educational expenses of children of Sukma martyrs

OpIndia Staff
-
0
Gautam Gambhir to bear full educational expenses of children of Sukma martyrs

In a touching gesture, cricketer Gautam Gambhir has pledged to bear all the education related expenses of the children of the 25 CRPF jawans who were martyred in Sukma on 24th April. This attack was one of the deadliest by the Maoists in recent times.

The sacrifice by the CRPF jawans have now spurred Gambhir’s decision which was confirmed by his media manager:


According to reports the support would be extended via the Gautam Gambhir foundation and initial steps have already been taken in this regards. Gambhir was reportedly spurred to take this decision after he was shaken by the incident and the pictures of grieving daughters of two martyred CRPF jawans.

The Sukma attack had also evoked an emotional response from Gambhir on Twitter:


This tragic incident had also prompted the IPL franchise Kolkata Knight Riders, of which Gambhir is the captain, to wear black armbands during their match on Wednesday. This idea too was reportedly suggested by Gambhir.

Gambhir is known to be a vocal supporters of our security forces. Recently after the CRPF Jawans were assaulted by Kashmiri locals, Gambhir had taken to Twitter to support the armed forces, which had prompted certain trolls to attack him for his stance.

AAP feels tremors of MCD results with resignations and plain speak by leaders

OpIndia Staff
-
0
AAP feels tremors of MCD results with resignations and plain speak by leaders

The results of the MCD elections that were declared on Wednesday turned out to be a disappointment for the AAP after it managed to win only 46 of 270 seats, coming a distant second to the winner BJP which bagged 184 seats.

This electoral failure in their so called bastion, compounded by the recent disappointments in the assembly elections has started to affect the party in the wrong ways. Recent incidents of resignations by party workers and various leaders speaking frankly is resulting in the party feeling the tremors of the MCD elections.

Today AAP leader Bhagwant Mann openly came out to state that instead of finding faults with the EVMs, it was time to start finding faults within the party. He also asserted that no doubts were raised against the EVMs when he became a MP by a huge margin in 2014 and when AAP won 67 out of 70 seats in Delhi assembly elections.

Mann is not alone, AAP Minister Kapil Mishra too acknowledged that it was not proper only to blame EVMs for the loss and that the party should also introspect as to why it had to see such a day. An anonymous AAP MLA from Central Delhi too was in agreement with Mishra’s view.

These statements come after senior members of the party have taken pains to blame the EVMs for the loss. Deputy CM Sisodia had claimed that BJP’s victory in the MCD elections was due to EVM tampering. This view has been echoed by party leader Ashutosh.

Party leaders disagreeing with the party’s explanation for its loss isn’t the end of AAP’s problems. The party now also seems to be getting embroiled in some kind of a Resignation-gate.

On Wednesday party leader Alka Lamba had offered to resign following the party’s loss in the MCD polls. Initially it was thought to be a token gesture which all party leaders make after electoral setbacks. But the resignation episode has grown since then.

Now Senior AAP leader Sanjay Singh has resigned as the party’s in-charge in Punjab. Along with him the party’s Punjab co-observer Durgesh Pathak has also resigned. Apart from them, AAP’s Delhi unit convener Dilip Pandey and AAP’s Delhi in-charge Ashish Talwar have resigned from their posts.

All this upheaval seems to have forced Kejriwal to take an emergency stock of the situation by calling a meeting of his legislators. It remains to be seen how the party endures the crisis on its hand especially when there might be further bad news next month when the Election Commission is set to decide on a complaint which seeks the disqualification of 21 AAP MLAs for allegedly holding an office of profit.

MCD polls and the garbage heap of liberal hypocrisy

Abhishek Banerjee
-
0
MCD polls and the garbage heap of liberal hypocrisy

So the BJP went ahead and crushed the Aam Aadmi Party in the polls for the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD). One can only imagine the kind of pain this must have caused among certain sections of celebrity patrakars and analysts.

Here, they were grooming AAP to take the national stage, joyfully speculating on its prospects in Goa, in Gujarat, in Uttarakhand and even Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh (besides, of course, the “sure shot” victory in Punjab). And what does AAP actually do? It makes a fool of itself in Punjab, sinks without a trace in Goa, loses its deposit in Rajouri Garden and folds up below 50 wards in the MCD.

It is like the pain of an anguished parent who had been getting his child all the best coaching with the hopes of seeing him top the IIT entrance. Instead the child fails to even pass the 10th standard board exam.

The media does not seem to have immediately bought their child’s excuse that the questions on the board exam were deliberately biased against their kid. They haven’t openly backed the EVM excuse… yet.

But they have gone into full-throated whining against BJP winning the MCD polls allegedly on the issue of “nationalism” rather than “governance”.

Throughout the day, as the results came out and the analyses rolled in, the intellectuals mourned the degeneration of our democracy. It was said that the BJP had run the MCD into the ground. But they were still rewarded by the public. All because of “nationalism”, which is a dirty word in their dictionary.

An election has just been won on an issue other than governance. This totally new and surprising development surely opens a dark new chapter in the story of independent India.

Before April 26, 2017, few could imagine that politicians could go to the voters and ask for votes based on anything other than “governance”. By doing so, apparently, the BJP has gone where no party has ever gone before. The Pandora’s Box has been opened.

A sample of this vilaap may be found here in an article that appeared on NDTV:

Untitled

Someone has to call out this hypocrisy!

The BJP had a winning strategy for MCD. They went with it.  Loser “liberals” can’t hate on them simply because BJP won.

They say that BJP ruled MCD reduced Delhi to a heap of trash and still won. I don’t live in Delhi (sorry for this unpardonable offense), but I can certainly tell that this whining has just added to the garbage pile of liberal hypocrisy.

You folks care about agenda of “governance”? This was just a municipal poll. Nitish Kumar also had 10 years to run Bihar. Did you complain when Nitish Kumar went over to Rs 1000 crore convict Lalu Yadav to help win the election? Back in 2015, did the moral giants of today insist on Nitish Kumar running on the agenda of “governance”?

Forget that, in India, it has always been morally okay to use “secularism” to win polls. The BJP comes up with “nationalism” as a strategic counter and suddenly liberals wake up to realize that Indian democracy has lost its innocence. Ha!

Incidentally, other than secularism, the other big plank on which Nitish Kumar is running is a dubious moral crusade around “prohibition”. In enforcing this agenda, Nitish Kumar has broken every single one of the basic principles of a modern legal system, instituting legal punishment to whole families and even entire communities based on the “crime” of a single person consuming alcohol. As many as 44,000 people have been arrested in Bihar over this. Unlike the Maoists of Bastar, it is not clear whether these 44,000 people were entitled to human rights.

Some of Nitish’s over zealous ministers have gone so far as to promise the death penalty for alcohol. Not just any minister, but Mr. Abdul Jalil Mastan, who is actually the Minister in charge of Prohibition in the Bihar government. It is also a coincidence that Mr. Abdul Jalil Mastan is a member of the minority community, a coincidence that Islam sees alcohol as an absolute haraam and a coincidence that Muslims were the core votebank of the Mahagathbandhan that won Nitish the election in Bihar.

Agenda of governance?

Enough about Bihar. Believe it or not, Manipur is an actual state in the Indian Union. The Congress party had been ruling it forever. I don’t remember any intellectuals getting on their moral high horse about the agenda of governance when Okram Ibobi Singh tried to win the election by igniting the Naga vs Meetei fire.

Please! Don’t mention the infamous words on “tyranny of distance”. Mainstream media regularly goes to the most dangerous parts of Kashmir to do hard hitting stories on the pain of headmasters and their sons. They could have told the world what the Congress was doing in Manipur if they chose to. But why would they choose that?

Obviously, these are only recent examples. If I were really trying to compile a full list of elections where political parties didn’t contest on the plank of “governance”, Kanhaiyya Kumar would get his PhD before I finish my list.

Liberals have to come to terms with the fact that the BJP has beaten them silly in the MCD polls. The strawman that they dressed up as a superman to take on Modi has been sucker punched by the public. Why not just mourn in a dignified manner?

BJP’s Mission Bengal activated, Amit Shah’s new clarion call ‘Ebar Bangla’

Saswat Panigrahi
-
0
BJP’s Mission Bengal activated, Amit Shah’s new clarion call ‘Ebar Bangla’

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah has charted the party’s Mission Bengal during his three-day tour to the state. Shah’s Bengal visit is part of his 95-day-long countrywide whirlwind tour to galvanise the party cadre and expand the BJP’s footprints ahead of the 2019 elections.

Pertinent to mention that Shah’s nationwide tour has started from West Bengal. So why is Bengal important in BJP’s scheme of things? So far, the state has been one of the unconquered territories of the saffron party. This time Amit Shah is sanguine about the BJP striking gold in West Bengal.

On 26 April, Shah addressed booth level workers at Bhowanipore, the backyard of TMC chief Mamata Banerjee. Bhowanipore, which comes under South Kolkata Lok Sabha constituency, was once the stronghold of Syama Prasad Mookerjee, the founder of Bharatiya Jana Sangh, the precursor of the BJP.

“The BJP rules 70 per cent of the country. But I feel until it comes to power in Bengal, the mission of Ebar Bangla (Bengal Now) will not be accomplished. The lotus will bloom in Bhowanipore too,” the BJP president said.

Ebar Bangla (Now Bengal) is the new clarion call for the BJP in Bengal as the party readies itself to “liberate” the state from Mamata’s misrule and recreate a Sonar Bangla (Golden Bengal).

This is not to dispute that in the upcoming elections, the BJP is going to use Saradha chit fund scam and the Narada scam as its trump card.

Saradha chit fund scam, a financial scandal caused by the collapse of a Ponzi scheme run by Saradha Group, has put the Mamata Banerjee government in a tight spot. Deposits of as many as 17 lakh investors in the State – majority of them from low-income families – were duped.

Investigations have revealed that a lion share of the chit fund money had reached Bangladesh-based terror outfit Jamaat-e-Islami. A number of TMC MPs and MLAs were questioned and even arrested in connection to the case. Further, the CBI has booked 12 TMC leaders, including some ministers and MPs, in Narada sting case. After the Saradha chit fund scam, Narada sting has pushed the TMC into a further corner. Both the scams have big implications on Bengal politics.

“Let us free Bengal from the cycle of Narada and Sarada. Let us liberate Bengal from the politics of decades of decay,” Shah thundered.

The seven year long Mamata rule has seen wide minority appeasement and anti-Hindu politics with Bengal slowly turning into a communal cauldron. A wave of riots has hit the state hard.

“The situation in Bengal is worrisome. Instead of Rabindra Sangeet, the sounds of bombs are now heard in the state. TMC’s appeasement politics has attacked the very heart and soul of Bengal,” the BJP president said while addressing a Press conference in the city.

“Sonar Bangla has been destroyed over the years because of the politics of neglect and appeasement,” he added.

Pointing out the difference between the TMC and the BJP, Amit Shah said, “TMC used chit funds to take money from poor, while the BJP has initiated Jan Dhan Yojana and empowered the poor.”

“I am confident that in the manner the BJP is growing, we will emerge with highest number of Lok Sabha seats from the state,” he said.

In a powerful address to eminent citizens in the state at the historic Mahajati Sadan in Kolkata, Shah recalled that Bengal was once the centre of cultural nationalism.

“The politics of violence and appeasement by Mamata Banerjee cannot stop the BJP chariot in Bengal,” he said.

The BJP president has kicked up the party’s expansion drive from Naxalbari village in Siliguri on 26 April. Naxalbari was the birthplace of the Naxal movement in late 1960s and early 1970s. What had started as a left-wing peasants uprising took the turns of a violent Red Terror affecting the country.

Symbolism has its importance in politics. Amit Shah’s visit to Naxalbari, a day after 26 CRPF jawans were martyred in a Maoist ambush in the neighbouring Chhattisgarh, certainly bears its significance.

“This Naxalbari gave birth to violence that affects country even today. Here we pledge to Modiji’s motto of Sabka saath sabka vikas (Together with all, development for all),” he said.

“TMC may think that it can stop Modiji’s chariot in Bengal, but they cannot. The more they try to stop us, the more the lotus will bloom here,” the BJP president said. “In 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP will get the maximum number of seats in West Bengal,” a confident Shah said.

After launching the BJP’s Bengal expansion plan from Naxalbari, Amit Shah had a traditional meal served on a banana leaf at a tribal house.

A short and concise ‘Manifesto for a Liberal Hindu’

Shefali Vaidya
-
0
A short and concise ‘Manifesto for a Liberal Hindu’

Extremely eminent intellectual and one of the greatest thinkers of our times, Sagarika Ghose had written an article asking Liberal Hindus to write their own manifesto. As her suggestions, nay, commandments are binding upon the people of this nation, I have written a short and concise Liberal Hindu Manifesto. It will help all unwashed Hindus to be liberal and intellectual like Lady Sagarika. Someday, I hope to see this manifesto enshrined in our constitution as well: 

***

WE, THE LIBERAL HINDUS OF INDIA, having solemnly resolved to release a liberal manifesto, as ordered by the patron saint of liberalism, Saint Sagarika, do hereby declare that,

We may, at home, observe the Puja secretly, but on social media, we will dismiss all Hindu rituals as ‘mumbo-jumbo’. At the same time, we will visit some Dargah and click selfies with the skull-cap and dupatta over our heads.

We will, tweet about our dogs getting sick of Diwali firecrackers. We will also outrage against the Yulin dog festival and post heart-rending pictures of dogs in cages. We will also outrage against Jallikattu and write substandard blogs about how cruel the sport it. However, we will not break our silence over Eid slaughter. We will also refer to Gaurakshaks derisively, because cows are not animals worthy to be saved, except when we are talking about Jallikattu.

We will use euphemisms like ‘thugs’ and ‘misguided youth’ or ‘rebels when it comes to Naxals or Jihadi terrorists in Kashmir or Bastar. But we will refer to alleged Gaurakshaks as ‘terrorists’ or ‘saffron terrorists’, always.

We solemnly swear that there is Buddhist terror in Myanmar, there is Jewish terror in Israel and there is Hindu terror in India. Other than that, terror has no religion anywhere in the world. Whenever there are jihadi attacks anywhere in the world, we will refer to them as ‘incidents’.

We will wax eloquence about how serene Azaan calls sound when the muezzin’s voice blares into our ears at five in the morning every day, 365 days a year, but we will complain about noise pollution when loudspeakers are used during Ganesh Chaturthi or Ambedkar Jayanti.

We will never give up on equating an isolated incident of violence against Muslims by so-called Gaurakshaks with mass murders of our security forces by Maoists and Jihadis.

We will go orgasmic over ‘sufi qwawwalis’ but dismiss bhajans, even by classical singers as ‘cheap pandering to public taste’.

We will remember to pay token obeisance to Kabir but will never try to understand the depths of his Ram Bhakti, because, as liberal Hindus, we believe that Ram was a part of ‘mythology’, therefore he did not exist. However, we will insist Ram existed only when we talk about feminism. Because, then we can accuse him of not being fair to Sita.

We will dismiss Karwa Chauth as ‘regressive’ and ‘patriarchal’ year after year, but we will support the Muslim woman’s ‘right to veil’. We will also not utter a word against Triple Talaq, even when Muslim women want it repealed.

We will only talk about ‘human rights’ of stone-pelters, murderers, terrorists, jehadis and rapists. We will talk about how a stone pelter ‘had nightmares’ because he was tied to a jeep and was released unharmed, but we will not outrage against our soldiers being slaughtered and their bodies mutilated.

We will, talk about how yoga, ayurveda, meditation are universal legacies and how they have nothing to do with Hindu dharma. But when the government wants to introduce Yoga into schools, we will protest against the ‘imposition of Hindu traditions’ on students.

We will do all the things mentioned above, because we are the liberal Hindus, secure in our hypocrisy and because we understand that to be labelled ‘secular’, we have to demonise the faith in which we are born at every possible point.

Signed,
The Liberal Hindus Of India

Center and Supreme Court tighten the screws to make NGOs more accountable for their actions

Hemant Bijapurkar
-
0
Center and Supreme Court tighten the screws to make NGOs more accountable for their actions

The Supreme Court on Wednesday directed the Center to try and enact a law which would ensure regulation of government funds and prosecution of those NGOs which indulge in misappropriation of funds or fail to file annual statements.

If enacted, such a law would be a welcome step, as according to a CBI report in 2015, out of about 31 lakh NGOs operating in the country which received their funds from the govt and/or abroad, only a paltry 10% had filed their balance sheet.

The Supreme Court bench stated that about 950 crores of the tax-payers’ money every year was being disbursed to various NGOs, hence a law which would regulate the working and funding of the NGOs would be a welcome step.

This direction of the Supreme Court comes after the Center had submitted draft guidelines to the Supreme Court on 5th April which were intended to ensure greater accountability of NGOs and Voluntary Organisations (VO) which received Government funding.

These guidelines were submitted by the Additional Solicitor General Tushar Mehta after being directed by the bench of Chief Justice J S Khehar and Justice D Y Chandrachud.

These guidelines required the organisations to register afresh at the NGO Darpan portal operated by the NITI Aayog. This registration required details of the organisation’s past work, fund utilization, yearly audit reports and the key persons.

In the event of the organizations not utilizing or misusing the funds that were granted by the government, they would need to refund the whole or partial amount with 10% interest.

Furthermore a show cause notice would also be issued to the NGO to take corrective action if utilization certificate is not submitted or a material irregularity, missutilization or falsification is suspected. Plus in case of misappropriation of funds, a criminal investigation against key officials of the organisation would be initiated and the organisation would be blacklisted.

The Supreme Court bench though feels that these guidelines may not be enough as they may not be very effective in meeting the enormity of regulating about 30 lakh NGOs operating in the country.

While tighter norms may be a reality in the future, the government Council for Advancement of People’s Action and Rural Technology, which is responsible for disbursing funds to the NGOs, is doing its bit to ensure greater transparency. It has recommended that FIRs be filed against 159 NGOs for mishandling of funds and has also claimed to have blacklisted 718 NGOs for not following due process.

Even though this may be a good start, it might not be enough considering the number of organizations involved. But going by the events it is clear that NGOs won’t be allowed any financial free run just because they claim to be involved in working for the betterment of the society.

NDTV journalist asks people to send videos about no internet, over internet

Hemant Bijapurkar
-
0
NDTV journalist asks people to send videos about no internet, over internet

Ever since the by-polls in Srinagar on 9th April, the Kashmir valley has been seeing a fresh spurt in violence. Owing to these violent protests, the government blocked access to mobile internet from 17th April with the view that rumors via inflammatory messages, especially on WhatsApp, could further escalate an already violent situation.

Now it appears that in an order dated 26th April, the J&K government has decided to block access to 16 social media sites for one month and has directed various ISPs to follow the directive. The sites which are blocked include are popular social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp.

This no-internet in Kashmir story has been extensively picked up by the media and it has prompted NDTV journalist Sunetra Choudhury to make a peculiar request.

She decided to request her Kashmiri friends and followers over the internet to send her 30 sec videos about what life is like without the internet:


This request was odd considering how her followers who are without the internet would be able to log into Twitter (which is among the sites blocked) to check out her request and then after recording their videos about having no internet send them over to her via the internet.

This caught the eye of various Twitter users who decided to ‘troll’ her for her possibly naive request.
Here are a few:


Her response to all the ‘trolling’ was even more amusing. She decided to send all those who engaged with her, a link to buy her book about VIP’s in prisons:

She also seems to have accepted that she was spamming everybody as a possible retribution to all the ‘trolling’:


This does make one wonder as to was this tweet a deliberate attention seeking exercise so that she could promote her book?

Though she  does seem to have acknowledged that she erred in putting out that tweet asking for videos, it isn’t clear if the admission was sarcastic:


//platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsHaving said all that, the “life without internet” narrative in Kashmir is technically flawed considering that people in the valley can still access the internet via broadband services.

Anna and Arvind – How the relationship has changed over time

OpIndia Staff
-
0
Anna and Arvind – How the relationship has changed over time

The relationship between Aam Aadmi Party (APP) supremo and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his one-time mentor Anna Hazare has come a full circle.

Back in 2011, when the anti-corruption crusader launched the Jan Lokpal movement, Kejriwal was one of his key lieutenants. The movement turned into a political party by Kejriwal, who was accused of exploiting Hazare’s goodwill to create support for himself.

The party, named AAP, was floated in 2012 promising “clean politics”. The party soon tasted a quick success in the 2013 Assembly elections as Delhi was looking to go set free from the Congress rule. The AAP had won 28 of the 70 Assembly seats in a hung verdict. Party and Kejriwal had the blessings of Anna all through, even though he was against forming a political party.

After the BJP stayed out of the government formation, despite being the single largest party, Arvind Kejriwal became the Chief Minister with an outside support of the Congress. He resigned after 49 days and AAP decided to fight the 2014 general elections. This was one of the earliest instances when Anna criticized Kejriwal, calling him power hungry, though he wished the best for AAP.

Kejriwal apologized for his resignations and other antics after AAP failed to perform as per expectations in the Lok Shaba polls. He promised to work for Delhi, and thus in 2015 AAP swept the Delhi Assembly elections winning 67 of the 70 seats. That time, Hazare had congratulated Kejriwal saying AAP’s acceptability had increased among the people.

Kejriwal’s second second stint as the Chief Minister however was even more revealing than his first. The AAP, which was floated promising “clean politics”, was marred with corruption charges. A minister Sandeep Kumar appeared in a sex CD. The party faced serious allegations of illegal funding, and so on. Arvind Kejriwal tried to divert the twin issues of governance deficit and corruption by attacking Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Delhi Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung.

After Sandeep Kumar scandal broke out, Anna Hazare had expressed grief over the AAP’s condition saying that he had a lot of expectation from Kejriwal. “Kejriwal has worked with me for several years. I always told him that workers of an organisation should be well-mannered and behaved. They should be people with pure thoughts and should be people with clean image,” Hazare had said.

Later, an emotional Anna had written a letter to Kejriwal for the lack of transparency in the donations received by the party.

After the Assembly elections in Punjab and Goa, where the AAP faced humiliating defeat, Kejriwal raked up the issue of imaginary “EVM tampering.” Anna Hazare again lashed out at Kejriwal. “EVMs should not be done away with. Those who are voicing doubt over the machines are trying to take us back in time,” Hazare said.

In the MCD polls, the result of which was declared on 26 April, the BJP won a landslide and the AAP faced a crushing defeat. The AAP was quick to hide behind its imaginary “EVM tampering” blabber for the party’s poor show.

Meanwhile, Anna has lashed out at Kejriwal for the humiliating drubbing. “Arvind Kejriwal has lost the trust of people. There is a difference in what Kejriwal is saying and what he is doing,” he said.

It needs to be seen if Kejriwal responds to these statements and whether he tries to regain Anna’s and public’s confidence like he had done after Lok Sabha defeat.

Anna Hazare called ‘Sanghi Chaddi’ by AAP supporters for criticising AAP and Kejriwal

OpIndia Staff
-
0
Anna Hazare called ‘Sanghi Chaddi’ by AAP supporters for criticising AAP and Kejriwal

National Capital Territory of Delhi, which was turned into a fortress by the Aam Aadmi Party in the last assembly elections, had its outer walls breached today after the party suffered a humiliating defeat in the MCD elections. According to latest reports, the BJP was all set to win 185 out of 270 seats while the AAP was relegated to just about 40 seats.

As AAP looked set to lose another election, media persons thronged to social activist Anna Hazare for some reaction and he didn’t disappoint them in that regard.

Anna Hazare, who was guru of Arvind Kejriwal during the India Against Corruption campaign, claimed that there was a difference between what AAP was preaching and what it was actually practicing. Anna then reportedly blamed Kejriwal by claiming that his quest for power was one of the reasons behind the loss. Anna also slammed AAP over its persistent claims of a possible EVM hacking.

Anna Hazare has regularly been speaking out about the shortcomings of the party and its supremo. In December last year, Anna had written an emotional letter to Kejriwal about a lack of transparency in the funding received by the party and had also lamented about the party sidelining all its values. In April last year, Anna had stated that Kejriwal had dashed all his hopes after the Shunglu report came out about AAP’s possible involvement in bypassing the law, nepotism and financial irregularities.

This straight talk by Anna Hazare did not go down well with some AAP supporters, who then proceeded to bad mouth him, calling him Sanghi chaddi, BJP agent, namak haraam (disloyal) and such names:


If you don’t click and read this article, your left eye will swell and hurt

Kushal Mehra
-
0
If you don’t click and read this article, your left eye will swell and hurt

We are in unique times. We have officially entered the age of unwanted misdirected online hyperventilation. People literally read the headline of an article and start outraging without reading the content and applying their mind about whether what is being done is good or not.

And that’s why this article has been headlined that way, sorry for that.

A textbook example of this is the article that recently appeared in the Business Standard titled “Centre to SC: Cows need Aadhaar-like identification too”.

As soon as the article appeared on twitter the outrage games had begun. Aadhar and Cow in a single sentence – how can anyone not dispense immediate gyaan and take holier than thou position? And that’s exactly what happened. People immediately started how cow is just another animal and nothing sacred about it, and obviously, outrage over Aadhar.

This happened as people didn’t bother to read the content the article. First, let us see what the article itself says. Here is a small excerpt:

“Once the tag is fixed, the technician will use a tablet to update the number in an online database. He/she will also provide the cattle owner with an ‘animal health card’ recording the UID number, owner’s details, status of periodic de-worming and vaccinations of the animal as well as breeding details. This will help track the cattle along with all relevant details.”

How is helping a rural farmer by providing them with details of the status of things like periodic de-worming and vaccinations of the animal as well its breeding details a bad thing? Since when did scientific intervention become a bad thing?

Also notice how the headline of the article is mischievous and the content different. The headline says “Cows need Aadhaar”. This is clearly written to trigger certain cognitive responses amongst leftists and outragists. But the article itself talks about “cattle” as a general category. Heck, they go to the extent of sharing the exact numbers here “India has nearly 41 million buffaloes and 47 million indigenous and cross-bred cows that produce milk. UP has the highest cattle population (16 million) in the country, followed by Madhya Pradesh (9 million), Rajasthan (8.4 million), Gujarat (6.2 million) and Andhra Pradesh (5.4 million).”

Maybe the people who write the headlines of articles need to do some soul searching too. We have seriously developed a cognitive disorder. Clickbait journalism has officially usurped every other journalistic ethic. And it is kind of insulting to the average reader.

It is as if journalists in the mainstream media outlets have convinced themselves that the average reader is some hooligan who is looking for a daily dose of outrage. The headline of this article should have been “Government decides to tag cattle to improve quality standards”.

But that would mean that the government would be shown in positive light, and no outrage. And how can a media outlet be show casing the truth. The truth after all is boring. Especially if the truth is that the BJP government is doing something sensible.

I may not be an expert at cattle breeding but I have a little bit of experience of working in rural India. And from what I have seen and understood in my stint of working in rural India, this idea of the government to tag the cattle will be immensely helpful. Here are some of the benefits that I feel off the top of my head:

  1. Better cattle movement data.
  2. Cattle theft will be reduced gigantically. Especially in a country like ours where we have trigger happy Gau Rakshaks this move should be especially welcomed. If the cattle can be tracked the chances of them being stolen will be reduced significantly.
  3. One can monitor the fertility, health, feeding system and other welfare programs via this tagging system.
  4. One can keep track of the age of their cattle breed. It can help in determining whether you have a good-aged herd or not.
  5. Remember it’s not just cows, so one can also track if the meat from the cattle is hygienic and safe even in states where cow slaughter is banned. Lower risks of any disease spread due to contaminated meat.

These solutions mentioned above actually deal with a major chunk of issues related to cattle breeding.

But the reason I wrote this article is not that I wanted to show case my skill set as a cattle expert.

My reasons are different. I am trying to raise a different issue. My issue is that of intellectual laziness. People who outrage on the basis of headlines are intellectually lazy. And this kind of laziness can be very harmful for a society. It shows the lack of attention spans in our population. If we can’t even read an article and then form an opinion, what kind of a population are we becoming?

A study by computer scientists at Columbia University and the French National Institute says that 59 percent of links shared on social media never get clicked. But I’m sure a bulk of these links are getting comments and discussions!

Arnaud Legout who was the co author of the study says, “This is typical of modern information consumption. People form an opinion based on a summary, or a summary of summaries, without making the effort to go deeper.”

To cut a long story short most people Retweet or share articles on Facebook walls without reading a word of those articles themselves. In such a weird scenario, the media outlet can simply manipulate their minds by wording the headline to suit a particular agenda and their job is done. What do you think was done in the article that we discussed above?

In such a scenario we are in gross danger of the subversion of the truth and the socio-political landscape can be easily manipulated. This de-intellectualization of the discourse online is a serious threat to sanity itself.

1...6,8136,8146,815...6,964Page 6,814 of 6,964

Contact: [email protected]

About us

News and opinion website that brings you reports and narrative from a perspective often ignored or suppressed by the mainstream media of India.

Follow us

© OpIndia.com