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Catholic Church in Kerala rocked by child abuse scandal

OpIndia Staff
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Catholic Church in Kerala rocked by child abuse scandal

On 28th of last month, Father Robin Vaddakumchiryil (48), the vicar of St Sebastian church in Kottiyoor was arrested on the charges of sexually assaulting a minor girl. He was charged under the Prevention of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, which provisions for denying bail until the trial is over.

The victim, 16 at that time, was a student of IJM Higher Secondary School, Kottiyoor, where Father Robin was the manager. The incident, which occurred sometime in May 2016, came to light only after the victim gave birth to a child last month. On February 25, child line received an anonymous letter with details of the occurrence which then tipped the police.

Father Robin, who first tried to flee the country, has reportedly confessed to the crime. He had maintained a public life with carefully crafted image, having spoken against child abuse in the past. He was even invited as a chief guest at an event organised to create awareness about crime against children.

The Father also worked with some local media houses and tried everything to cover-up the incident.

Most shockingly, in order to save the church and the priest, the father of the child falsely admitted to raping his own daughter. It was only after he was arrested he realized the seriousness of the crime and spilled the beans. The family has denied that have accepted money from Father Robin to hush up the incident.

Now it turns out that Father Robin was a habitual offender against whom allegations of sexual abuse had kept surfacing over the years, yet he continued to occupy high positions in the church and in pubic eyes. Even the role of the Child Welfare Committee (CWC) of Wayanad district has been called into question. It has been alleged that the committee was constituted by those who protected the Church’s interests. It is also being alleged that child abuse is rampant in Kerala’s catholic sabhas.

Following these revelations and allegations, Kerala Government has disbanded the CWC of Wayanad district. As it turns out, the chairman of that CWC, Father Thomas Joseph Therakom, and a committee member Sister Betty Jose, are one of those accused of covering the child abuse incident. Father Therakom was also accused of helping the rape accuse Father Robin in fleeing the country. Both Father Therakom and Sister Jose who were absconding were among the three who surrendered on Friday 17th March.

The attempt to save the Father also came from authorities of the hospital where the minor gave birth to the child. The authorities helped in shifting the baby to a Foundling home on the same day of the birth. The CWC though didn’t record this development till 20th February and also signed a placement order without any verification. The superintendent of the Foundling home also surrendered with them.

The others accused in the case like a gynecologist, two nuns, an administrator, and a pediatrician are still absconding.

Main accused of Bihar sex scandal arrested, brother of Ravish Kumar still absconding

OpIndia Staff
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Main accused of Bihar sex scandal arrested, brother of Ravish Kumar still absconding

Almost a month has passed since Brajesh Kumar Pandey – the former Vice President of Bihar unit of the Congress party and brother of NDTV journalist Ravish Kumar – was accused by a dalit girl of sexually exploiting her when she was a minor. While a case has been filed and investigations are on, Brajesh Kumar is still absconding and off limits for the Bihar police.

The girl, who happens to be the daughter of a Congress leader as well, had named a businessman Nikhil Priyadarshi as the main culprit, while naming Brajesh Kumar and others as his accomplices. Nikhil was arrested last week by Uttarakhand police and was brought to Patna, where he is now in police custody along with his father.

The girl had complained that Nikhil and his associates ran a sex racket that trapped unsuspecting girls, including those from well to do families. These girls were sexually exploited by the gang and used for earning illicit money. Daughter of an IAS officer was reported to have committed suicide after becoming a victim of this racket.

Later, there were reports that political pressure was mounting to bury this sex scandal as it might involve many high-profile names in politics and administration. Reports claimed that pressure was especially put to let go Brajesh Kumar, as his brother Ravish Kumar was a renowned journalist enjoying media clout.

BJP leader and former Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar, Sushil Kumar Modi has now demanded to know why Brajesh Kumar was still not arrested. He has alleged that the Bihar Police was giving Brajesh Kumar a long rope and waiting for him to get bail from courts, so that they don’t have to arrest him and interrogate him under custody.

Brajesh Kumar is reported to be absconding and underground as his lawyers are filing bail applications in courts. The next hearing on his bail application is scheduled to take place on March 22.

Sushil Kumar Modi highlighted the fact that the police gave even Nikhil Priyadarshi a long rope and he was arrested almost three months after the girl filed the case, that too outside Bihar when courts rejected his bail applications.

Reports indicate that Uttarakhand police chanced upon Nikhil and his father while a routine checking and ended up arresting them. Even in Uttarakhand while on the run, Nikhil was reportedly planning to trap a girl. Both of them were brought to Bihar and now are lodged in Beur Jail in Patna. Nikhil’s father is a retired IAS officer.

While Nikhil is maintaining that he is innocent, an earlier report claims that Nikhil had threatened to “expose” many politicians and officers by uploading their “objectionable videos” on YouTube if he is troubled.

Local media reports had earlier compared this sex scandal to one “Bobby sex scandal” of 1980s that rocked state politics, as it involved many high profile people from Bihar politics and administration. That scandal was buried and one leader was reported as saying that the current scandal too should be buried to save democracy.

It needs to be seen if Nikhil spills the beans about the whole affair and if investigations into the case remain free from political pressure. Earlier reports about the complainant girl being harassed and Ravish Kumar’s brother still being out of bounds for Bihar police hint that some pressure might be at play.

How the media will rediscover UP after Yogi Adityanath’s appointment

Hemant Bijapurkar
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How the media will rediscover UP after Yogi Adityanath’s appointment

Yogi Adityanath was declared the BJP’s Chief Minister in Uttar Pradesh on Saturday, a week after the BJP stormed into power in the state after winning 312 of 403 seats in the recently concluded assembly elections. Eminent media-persons indulging in their way of Saturday Night frolic proceeded to completely discredit Vin Deisel  Yogi Adityanath before he had even sworn in as the Chief Minister.


There is indeed a dangerous transformation the state will witness in the coming days. If one goes by some media reports, UP until recently before the communal BJP took over was a really nice place which was flourishing under the regime of Akhilesh Yadav.

If it wasn’t, then how come the only hard hitting questions Rajdeep Sardesai could come up during his interview of Akhilesh Yadav were asking him about his favourite animal, favourite holiday destinations among others. Even a dedicated team of Economic Times was taking the pains of propagating the fact that Uttar Pradesh under Akhilesh had turned into a paradise bereft of that snake who indulged in selling apples to an innocent couple some time back.

But now as the very dangerous BJP and Yogi Adityanath have come to power thanks to an elaborate EVM fraud the atmosphere in the state would rapidly change from being a paradise to being what Gujarat became after tyrannical Modi took over.

Soon you would start hearing how UP has suddenly been thrown into anarchy, as the crime rate, which was very low, will suddenly risen. Even a couple of schoolkids brawling would be portrayed as two future VHP activists training themselves so that they can spread terror when they grow up.

An incident of two people who met in an accident and coincidentally had different religions would be portrayed as inter-religious riots breaking out in the state due to open endorsement by UP ruling party. Even if the both are from the same religion, subtle nuanced reporting will reveal how one of them was from a lower caste and how he was being oppressed by upper castes who had been emboldened by the BJP.

Revolutionary mathematics calculations like the one below would be undertaken by post truth Aryabhatas to conclude how atrocities on Dalits have seen a meteoric spike after the BJP came to power:


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We had seen the imaginative “Christianity under attack” routine, but soon, don’t rule out a sequel in the form of “Muslims under attack” as regular law and order incidents would be given a communal twist. Certain religions would be shielded though by calling them a “particular community”, whenever they are in the wrong.

Communal riots would become common-place. Even though UP has clocked over 7500 riots in a year in the past, journalists will argue that “data” is over-hyped and the “mahaul” is important, trying to underscore how UP has become exponentially unsafe after BJP came to power.

Even corruption would see a huge spike in the state and an incident of a citizen giving a packet of sweets to a politician celebrate his daughter’s wedding would be concluded as an example of blatant and uncontrolled bribery in the state.

Further, you would hear various quotable quotes which were supposedly uttered by Yogi Adityanath. With Modi as Gujarat CM, media had invented many quotes such as “action-reaction”, and in the case of Yogi, they have already begun creating some new quotes.

In order to protest against it all, a journalist would then make the supreme sacrifice of returning the awards he won for all the boxing competitions he took part in. Others would mass apply for visas to Pakistan or Syria. If they would be denied one due to security reasons, they would accuse the Modi government of imprisoning them in the country.

And last but not the least, every-time CM Adityanath utters words like gram, program, anagram, hologram, he would be accused of running a divisive Ram Mandir agenda.

Note: This is a piece of satire and should be read with a pinch of Tata Salt. The author may or may not have been paid by Tata for the last statement.

Author Rajiv Malhotra responds to a question that he has often been asked: should we support ‘liberal’ muslims

Rajiv Malhotra
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Author Rajiv Malhotra responds to a question that he has often been asked: should we support ‘liberal’ muslims

I am responding to numerous requests to give my views on Tarek Fatah. I want to first examine Benazir Bhutto and Fareed Zakaria, both well-known liberal Muslims. This gives insights into other liberal Muslims.

Bhutto and Zakaria established themselves as well-known liberal face of Islam by opposing Islamic radicalism. But this does not mean a love for Hinduism.

They postured as anti-radicalists on forums like CNN, playing to the global liberal market looking for liberal Islam. They told gullible westerners what these westerners want to hear in order to feel good about the future of western liberalism. But Bhutto’s anti-radicalism was merely an internal fight between two Muslim camps.

Likewise, in the case of Zakaria, He explicitly and assertively identifies as an Indian Muslim, which means he must comply with and believe in the core requirements of: exclusiveness of Allah, Mohammad as the final prophet, various Qur’anic injunctions concerning infidels, jihad, women and slaves.

As a history-centric religion of the Book, there is a formal definition of being a Muslim without the wiggle room to improvise one’s one version. Likewise, Shah Rukh Khan, despite all the pop culture drama, is a practicing Muslim. (Salman Rushdie is closer to being a true liberal, and even he did not show kindness towards Hinduism.)

There is nothing wrong about choosing to practice Islam. And I am glad there are a few liberal Muslims wanting to challenge their own radicals – at least in front of the public. But this Islam vs Islam is an internal war similar to the Reformation movement in Christianity. That movement took 200 years of violence to sort out. It has nothing to do with what either variety of Christian thinks of Hinduism – we are heathens to both varieties of Christianity.

I have spoken to Tarek once by phone and found him to be a pleasant, witty, fellow-Punjabi with strong opinions against Pakistan and the prevalent forms of Islam. He is classified as a liberal, left-wing Muslim and hence in opposition to the orthodox, radical Muslims. The promise he offers to Hindus is that he can battle radical Islam and Pakistan. This has caused confusion among Hindus who imagine that he, therefore, is a friend of Hinduism.

I want to encourage such liberal Muslims to fight their own fellow Muslims. But I don’t expect them to fight our battles as Hindus. Nor is it wise to hoist them as some sort of leaders of Hindus as far as ideas, policies, and strategies are concerned.

We must shoulder our own responsibilities and not try to escape the risk and burden of having our own adhikara. I often find weak Hindu leaders shirking responsibility by putting it on such shoulders in the same way as many Rajas turned over to the British to solve their problems.

By all means let’s use Islam vs Islam to divide, contain radicalism, and hopefully one day after several generations see them get reformed.

Here is my acid test of a true liberal Muslim: He must list all verses in Qur’an and Hadith that are the backbone of radicalism and demand that they must be declared hate speech. These should not be taught, and replaced by a truly liberal interpretation.

This reformation is what some Pakistani Muslims based in USA are trying to achieve through consensus building among intellectuals – not public bombast for limelight. This will take decades but if/when successful, it can bring sustainable liberalism in Islam.

Without such a genuine reform movement with a critical mass at the core, and based on amending the holy texts, any PR based shrill movement is going to be short lived and unstable. That can at best disrupt the enemy. But don’t let such a disruption become an opportunity for the likes of Bhutto, Zakaria and their lesser versions of “liberals” climb on our shoulders.

Use them as useful sepoys just like the West has deployed many Hindu sepoys against Hinduism. They must prove their value with concrete impact and get rewarded for the results produced.

(you can connect with Rajiv Malhotra on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and on Yahoo Group)

Did BBC declare Congress as one of the most corrupt political parties in the world?

OpIndia Staff
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Did BBC declare Congress as one of the most corrupt political parties in the world?

A list of top 10 most corrupt political parties is being shared on the social media in the last couple of days and it shows Congress being on number 4. Chances are that you might have received the same message as a WhatsApp forward in various forms, such as this:

10 most corrupt political parties of the world
The viral list being circulated (source)

The above list is being claimed to be published by the BBC, however, if you one cares to look closely at the source, it becomes apparent that the list is published on a website named “BBC News Point”.

This website is no way related to the British Broadcasting Corporation, the public broadcaster of the United Kingdom.

On further investigation, we found that this website, sounding like a sister website of BBC, was most probably being operated by Pakistanis. In fact, people in India most likely picked this up from Pakistani social media users, who shared the “news” because the list declared Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s party as the most corrupt one:



Many of those Pakistanis sharing the report were supporters of Imran Khan, the cricketer turned politician who is often termed as Arvind Kejriwal of Pakistan, enjoying similar support system online.

One can’t rule out that perhaps the ‘fake BBC website’ is operated by Imran Khan supporters because another article on the same website – published a day before the article containing the list of most corrupt political parties – lists 10 most popular political parties in the word, and lists Imran Khan’s party only the second behind USA’s Democratic Party!

The website cites no methodology or source for creating such lists and it appears that they randomly put names of political parties with primary aim of showing Imran Khan is good light while running down his political opponents.

So this is a case of a random listicle being taken seriously, and for sure the original BBC has not published any list that puts Congress party as one of the most corrupt political parties in the world. This is similar to the case when the mainstream media had confused a fake CNN website as being genuine CNN website. You can read about that incident here.

In fact, this ‘fake BBC website’ appears to have fooled the Google search’s algorithm too apart from common users, as the same link is being shown as a featured result when one googles “most corrupt political party in the world” today:

Google search snapshot
Google search results as at 4.15 PM on 19 March 2017

This reminds one of the incident from a few years back, when the Congress party appeared as top result when one googled the same phrase:

Most corrupt political party
Congress was shown as the most corrupt political party even in 2013 due to Google search algorithm (source)

We want to caution the readers that just because Google search results appear to suggest so, this can’t be taken as a “fact” even though it’s factually correct that governments headed by the Congress party in India have presided over many scams and have been found indulged in corrupt practices.

To quantify “corruption” and come up with any list or ranking that can be taken seriously, one would need proper methodology and rigorous data analysis – both of which are lacking in such claims.

Yogi Adityanath as CM shows that Modi won’t give up 2019 without a fight

Abhishek Banerjee
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Yogi Adityanath as CM shows that Modi won’t give up 2019 without a fight

It is an irony that the BJP’s smashing victory in Uttar Pradesh might actually have made it more difficult for Modi to win in 2019. The bigger the BJP gets and the more states it wins, the more “Mahagathbandhans” will rise, making the path to victory in 2019 steeper and narrower.

On the contrary, the BJP’s big defeat in Bihar, which gave the opposition some breathing space, also made it easier for Narendra Modi.  In Bihar, the BJP can at least sit back and hope for the alliance of desperate opposites to collapse under its own weight. Not so in Uttar Pradesh, where Mayawati and Akhilesh Yadav will now march in lockstep. There is another mahagathbandhan of Shiv Sena + Cong + NCP budding in Maharashtra.

So, you have there the equation for 2019. Three big Mahagathbandhans in  3 of India’s 4 largest states : Uttar Pradesh (80 seats), Maharashtra (48 seats) and Bihar (40 seats). The other state in the big four is West Bengal (42 seats), where the BJP is still a bit player.

What was Modi supposed to do here? Become another Vajpayee and fade into the sunset, leaving the Dynasty and its NGO jackals to snap up the economic gains founded on his five years of hard work?

By picking Yogi Adityanath as CM, Modi has shown that he will play his best hand for 2019. He wont go down without a fight, like left liberals wanted him to. The state of Uttar Pradesh will be run directly from the Prime Minister’s Office. Lucknow is too important for him not to deliver on his promises of development. But, honestly, what “vikas” could he possibly have given in (less than) 2 years that would have taken the BJP’s vote share from 40% to 51% so that he can fight the Mahagathbandhan?  Let’s be real.

Modi needed a big face, a regional satrap who transcends caste. If you want to be really politically incorrect, you could say he needed someone who can unite the 80% against the 20%. Did he have another option that would give him a realistic chance in the fight against the Mahagathbandhan?

So Modi went for broke. He went with the raw emotion of the grass-root BJP worker. Anyone who witnessed the wild celebrations of BJP workers in Lucknow yesterday would know that he had made the right decision. He will need every bit of that enthusiasm to fight the Mahagathbandhan.

With Yogi’s coronation, depressed liberals who had been hiding in the woodwork for a week, will now come out all guns blazing. Who knows, even the Samajwadi Times might start tweeting again. But why should Modi listen to the people who would never ever vote for him? Why not go with the man who was most popular among BJP workers and worked the hardest in the election? Should he be sidelined simply because some smug people suddenly claim to know the mind of the BJP supporters they didn’t know existed until a week ago?

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No, Modi went with the BJP worker. I trust Modi and Shah to know their mind rather than Barkha Dutt. Those who didn’t have a single clue about the mandate  until March 11 should not be in charge of interpreting the mandate.

Yes, Modi has gone with the BJP worker and rewarded the hardest campaigner and the biggest mass leader they have in Uttar Pradesh. Keshav Maurya, who was an inspired choice by Amit Shah as the party’s OBC face, has also been amply accommodated. The Modi-Shah team picked their top players, ran with their strategy and won big.

I would advise the right wing (not that they really need my advice) not to be perturbed by the outrage of left liberals. Ha! Does anyone really think that left liberals hate Narendra Modi any more today than they hated him yesterday?

Of course not. The left liberals want the BJP dead and gone. Done and dusted. Finished. Destroyed. Buried so deep under the ground that they wont find a trace of BJP in a thousand years. The appointment of one Hindutva firebrand as CM does not change their view of BJP. If yesterday they wanted the BJP buried 6000 feet under the ground, maybe liberals today want the BJP buried 6001 feet under the ground. Does it matter?

Because left liberals can live with everything, except BJP. They are happy to cuddle with Stalinists, but they can’t live with RSS. Do left liberals really care about inclusive politics? Ha! This, for example, is Shiv Sena for you.

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But this did not deter the left liberals media from discovering that Uddhav Thackeray is a mild mannered photographer with a heart of gold. Right around the time of the BMC polls.  So, if you are a left liberals and you are circulating speeches of Yogi Adityanath and pretending to be shocked, I am laughing at you.

Modi has begun the fight for 2019. And in order to fight this historic election, he has chosen to believe in his own. And by making Yogi the Chief Minister, he has made it clear that he won’t let the enemy whisper in his ear while the battle is in progress.

How journalists and politicians united to spread a lie about new UP CM

OpIndia Staff
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How journalists and politicians united to spread a lie about new UP CM

Although Yogi Adityanath was shown as enjoying popular support of many BJP supporters in various surveys before the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, he was not shown as any front-runner for the post of the Chief Minister after BJP scored a stunning victory in the polls last week.

If one believed mainstream media reports, leaders like state unit President Keshav Prasad Maurya and Union Minister Manoj Sinha were the front-runners, but BJP surprised the media and some of its supporters by announcing Yogi Adityanath as their choice for the new Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh.

Yogi Adityanath, who has won his Lok Sabha seat for five consecutive times since 1998 general elections, and who is known for his aggressive brand of Hindutva, immediately became the target of political commentary in media and social media once the appointment was confirmed.

While criticism of his brand of politics is valid, some media persons and politicians resorted to spreading blatant lie by claiming that Adityanath had delivered a hate speech calling for rape of dead Muslim women.

The lie was repeated by various supporters of these media persons and politicians. One of the earliest one to spread this lie was Sagarika Ghose, who immediately changed her stance when confronted:


The same lie was repeated by her husband Rajdeep Sardesai on national television, where no one confronted him:



Spotting the opportunity to do “secular” politics, the same line was repeated by some politicians like:


The truth is that Yogi Adityanath never said anything like that. The alleged speech was delivered by an unidentified supporter of Yogi Adityanath based on an undated video clip that went viral a couple of years back. In the video, the speaker is not seen, while the video plays images of Adityanath sitting on the stage when audio of the speech is heard. The speech was allegedly delivered at an event organized by Yogi’s outfit Hindu Yuva Vahini.

One can’t rule out malicious video editing, however, even if the video is considered genuine, it’s clear that Adityanath was not the one who delivered the deplorable hate speech.

It is also a fair criticism that if Adityanath was indeed present on the stage when such a speech was delivered, he should have registered his protest, but that doesn’t mean that facts are twisted to say that it was Adityanath himself who delivered the speech.

Furthermore, the same set of journalists and politicians support the likes of JNU student leaders who organized or were present at an event where anti-India slogans were shouted. If organizing an event or being present when something objectionable is being said is not a crime, the same benefit of doubt should be given to Yogi Adityanath too.

Nonetheless, while it’s totally legitimate to oppose Adityanath’s brand of politics, the use of blatant lie to push a propaganda has further lowered the standards of journalism and politics in India.

Why a Hindu Sadhvi in Delhi is forced to sell her temple

OpIndia Staff
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Why a Hindu Sadhvi in Delhi is forced to sell her temple

In Ghazipur village near Delhi, a Sadhvi named Shakuntala Gupta (67) has put up her temple for sale. The Sadhvi has been living alone in this Hazira Basti area for about 25 years and used to run a dairy. As there was no temple in her area, at some point of time after getting urged by local people she established one in her house. That’s when her real troubles began.

She says that, since the 1980s, the population of a “particular community” has been rising in her area. And things have changed so much now that instead of Hazira Basti this place is now informally known as Mullah colony.

She is quoted as saying that after she constructed her temple, people from that “particular community” started to pressurize her close it down. After she didn’t relent people started throwing pieces of meat near her temple and also converted a part of a nearby empty plot into a dump yard.

Complains to police didn’t yield much and a local Hindu organisation assisted her in installing three CCTV cameras near the temple which too reportedly were broken by people.

Now things have reached such a state that the Sadhvi is getting threats from people of that “particular community” and she claims that even acid has been thrown at her. After not being able take it anymore, she has now decided to sell the temple and leave the area. The head of Akhand Bharat Morcha Mr Sandeep Ahuja has demanded that the Sadhvi be provided police protection, it remains to be seen if she is provided the same.

Now to further clear up matters, a video featuring the Sadhvi has emerged wherein she explains all the atrocities committed on her in detail:

In short, in the video Sadhvi stated that she has been having problems since 2010. She claimed that the people from the “particular community” didn’t allow her to leave the locality for a few days from 5th March so much so that she and her cow had to stay hungry as a result. On 7th March a crowd gathered with the intention of assaulting anyone who came to pray at the temple. Later the crowd was dispersed by the local police giving her a bit of respite.

She described how on the 9th she reached out to the police station and to Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh for helping her out. She has also alleged that the people even want to assassinate her. She lamented the fact that she is fighting a lonely battle and no Hindu from the area was standing up for her. She even got a bit emotional when recalling her decision to leave the area and how she asked her detractors itself where should she move away to.

Another labourer from the area also speaks in the video above, confirming that the lady had been troubled by some people recently. He also reiterates that the trouble makers have begun throwing meat pieces around the temple area.

Even though the problem faced by the Sadhvi is of a very serious nature, newspaper Asian Age decided to completely sanitize their report by removing all communal references and just referred to the people of that “particular community” who are threatening Sadhvi as goons and anti-social elements. There was also no mention of any meat being thrown etc. in the newspaper report.

CVC denies source based report claiming all online data was lost in a crash

Hemant Bijapurkar
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CVC denies source based report claiming all online data was lost in a crash

CVC or the Central Vigilance Commission known as the country’s anti-corruption watchdog is responsible for addressing corruption and overseeing the vigilance departments of various central government institutions. So the proper functioning of the CVC is instrumental in ensuring fair and transparent functioning of the government institutions.

Hence when an India Today report titled ‘Jolt to PM Modi’s crusade against corruption as CVC’s portal crashes, data against corrupt officials deleted’, claimed that on November 28th 2016 the hard disk of the CVC’s portal had crashed and all the data stored online including that about corrupt officials was deleted, it sent alarm bells ringing.

The report claimed that the data didn’t have a backup and that the portal has not been functioning for about four months. According to the report the portal was maintained by Tata Consultancy Services and its contract with the CVC expired in December. The report claimed that after the ‘grave tragedy'(sic) the National Informatics Centre (NIC) took over the maintenance and tried retrieve old data without much success.

To back up the fact that the portal indeed was not working, the report quoted letters received by RTI applicants who were informed that they couldn’t be provided with the status of their application due to technical problems in the complaint portal of the commission:

 

Government sites crashing or malfunctioning or even being hacked are unfortunately a common phenomenon. But rarely have we heard about a site crashing and losing all its data. Data is often stored on the cloud, and sensitive data is almost always backed up. Hence, in this case, when it was reported that the CVC had lost all data, it was a big shocker. But this sensational bit of information that the data of all previous cases was permanently erased thanks to no backup in place, was based on good old “unnamed sources” and that’s where the problem lies.

As the India Today report threatened to snowball into a major controversy, this report by Outlook came out which quoted a senior CVC official Nilam Sawhney who has come out to completely deny the India Today’s claim that CVC’s entire online data was lost thanks to a server crash.

As per Sawhney, the technical problem being cited in replies to RTI applicants was not because of a data wipe but was because of difficulties which arose while migrating from a physical server to a cloud-based storage. Sawhney further explained that the CVC transferred the maintenance work from the TCS to NIC and it proceeded to migrate the data to a cloud storage rendering the earlier system(maintained by TCS) redundant. This led to some technical difficulties because of which some old data could not be read and that did not mean there was any loss of data as was reported in the India today article.

According to the Outlook report, the claim about data not being backed up was also denied. The agency claimed that as per practice it keeps a backup of any data at least for one year so it has all the data for the year 2015-16.

This above case is just another classic form of facts getting sidelined to give way for sensationalism and fear-mongering. The India Today report also conveniently called the data loss a jolt to PM Modi’s crusade against corruption. Some other reports also took a dig at Digital India.

In a similar incident last year, top media houses reported a story claiming that IRCTC’s site was hacked and personal data of around 1 crore users was feared to be robbed. IRCTC though clarified on the same day with a detailed press release explaining how they had checked their systems and found no evidence of any hacking whatsoever. Further, the Ministry from its Twitter handle explained that such news was common for the past 2-3 years and was most probably based on some people selling 1 crore email ids and phone numbers, claiming that they have obtained the same from IRCTC.

On a lighter note, the CVC data wipe claim if not disproved might have spurred conspiracy theories allegedly spearheaded by You Know Who that the CVC had deliberately deleted all the data so as to save the corrupt officials and that PM Modi was somehow responsible for the whole fiasco.

Kejriwal wishes Sindhi community 12 days prior to the actual date of the festival

OpIndia Staff
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Kejriwal wishes Sindhi community 12 days prior to the actual date of the festival

For AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal Twitter is like his second home, where he spends a sizeable part of his life. Taking a break from peddling the propaganda that EVM’s are a huge scam due to which AAP lost the polls, he decided to indulge in some positive tweeting. On Friday, 17th March he put out a tweet wishing the Sindhi community a Happy Cheti Chand:


Cheti Chand is a very important festival in the Sindhi community which is celebrated as a New Year’s Day just like Gudi Padwa is celebrated by the Marathi community. So it was indeed a touching gesture that Kejriwal had taken pains to remember the Sindhi festival and convey his greetings. Though there’s just a slight wrinkle: Cheti Chand is scheduled to be celebrated on 29th March of this year and not being celebrated on 17th March as wished by Kejriwal. Usually whenever people get some date wrong they make an error of about two to three days but Kejriwal has set a completely new precedent by making an error of a whopping 12 days.

And as is the case, whenever Kejriwal tweets people react and this case was no exception:


Though one user was skeptical from the outset:

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