Friday, November 15, 2024
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Congress mouthpiece National Herald exposed for publishing blatant lies

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The National Herald newspaper was founded by Jawaharlal Nehru in 1938. Since then, it has always been as a mouthpiece for the Congress party. In 2008, it had ceased operations completely, and from being a Congress owned entity, it became a personal asset of Rahul and Sonia Gandhi (along with property worth thousands of crores of rupees), via their company Young Indian.

This takeover was deemed as a scam by BJP leader and former union minister Subramanian Swamy, and the case is still on. A detailed explanation of how this is a clear case of impropriety is explained here.

Meanwhile, in November last year, National Herald was relaunched by Rahul Gandhi, albeit in a digital avatar. The relaunch can be considered as a puzzling move since the Congress has many mouthpieces and stooges masquerading as independent media houses and journalists. But now, it maybe is clear why this decision was taken. National Herald might have been relaunched with the sole intention of spreading gross untruths, which other media houses may refuse to publish in an era when lies are pointed out by the alert readers.

One such case was exposed by lawyer Kartikeya Tanna on social media. In a series of tweets, Tanna referred to an article published in the National Herald, which was riddled with falsehoods.

Titled “How a hospital paid for from PM’s Relief Fund went to Adani“, the piece made the following assertions, which were used to paint an image that the handing over of a hospital to Gujarat Adani Institute of Medical Sciences was done with malafide intent:

Fiction: The National Herald article claimed that the Gujarat Government, “through a series of manoeuvres” handed over GK Hospital, Bhuj, to Gujarat Adani Institute of Medical Sciences (GAIMS). The post further quoted the version of the PIL filer, Adam Chaki, that the Gujarat Government had “without giving any reason, rejected offers from highly qualified groups like Narayan Hrudayalaya Institute of Cardiac Sciences, Bengaluru and Manipal Group of educational institutions”

Fact: Tanna referred to the judgement of the Gujarat High Court, which trashed the appeal filed by Adam Chaki. The judgement made note of the terms offered by other institutions and how GAIMS had offered the best possible terms to the Government:

Importantly, in the closing remarks, the court had this to say:

We are also convinced by the fact that the State Government has taken all possible steps to safeguard the general public interest and by this venture of the State Government a citizen will not be put to any loss or will not be deprived of any basic medical facilities which otherwise he would have got from the civil hospital which was earlier being managed by the Society but, on the contrary, with modernisation of the hospital and with introduction of super-speciality teaching hospital equipped with the state-of-the-art medical equipments the quality of medical services will be much – much better.

This High Court verdict without doubt clarifies that there was no hanky-panky in the dealing. But National Herald chose to ignore this important point, in order to further an agenda.

Fiction: The National Herald article also stated that the above case, had now reached the Supreme Court, where it was pending. It may be noted that this was stated in the above article, which was published on 17th February 2017.

Fact: As Tanna pointed out, contrary to claims that the case was still pending, the case was actually disposed by the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court had trashed the appeal of Chaki, saying  that the Court had “heard the learned counsel for the parties at some length and it did not see any error of law on jurisdiction” in the High Court’s order. In fact, this order was passed by the Supreme Court way back on 1st December 2016, so the contention of National Herald that the case was still pending was a blatant lie.

From just these 2 lies peddled by the National Herald, it should be clear as to why Rahul Gandhi chose to revive this dead publication. But Mr. Tanna was not done yet. He also pointed out that the permission given to GAIMS to run a medical college was given in 2009, by the Health Ministry, Government of India:



If at all this entire procedure had been done at the instructions of then Gujarat CM Modi, why did the then Congress Government at the centre allow a medical college to be started by the same person at the same hospital?

This in fact is what “Post-truth” and “Fake news” is all about. But will anyone from Indian media stand up and question National Herald, and the Gandhi family that owns it? Does anyone in India have the moral standing to do so?

Not the first time NGO run by AAP MLA’s father-in-law has landed in trouble

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On Thursday, in an unfortunate incident in Delhi, nine students who were served mid-day meal at Government Boys’ Senior Secondary School, Deoli in Delhi, fell ill and had to be rushed to hospital. Investigations found a dead rat in the meal, which most likely resulted in the kids falling sick. The kids are believed to be out of danger now.

Later details started to emerge about an NGO by the name of Jan Chetna Jagriti Evam Shaikshanik Vikas Manch, which was contracted to deliver the meal to this particular school. As it turns out, the director of the NGO Kunwar Pal Singh, is the father-in-law of AAP’s Ambedkar Nagar MLA Ajay Dutt, and it’s not the first time the NGO has been in trouble over supplying mid-day meals.

In May 2013, it was one of the 17 NGOs whose mid-day meal didn’t meet the necessary nutritional requirements, due to which its payments were withheld. However, it appears that they continued to be in business despite failing to meet standards.

It is not clear if the new AAP government carried out an audit of the NGOs that were serving mid-day meals in Delhi schools, or whether all those in business under the Congress regime were allowed to continue. Or was this particular NGO given preferential treatment because one of its director happens to be an AAP MLA’s relative?

Nitish doesn’t want his Bureaucrats to drink but why spare the MLAs?

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Nitish Kumar, who had enacted prohibition in the state of Bihar from 1st April 2016, is now seeking to bolster his assault on alcohol. The Nitish cabinet amended the state prohibition law earlier this week, after which bureaucrats, judges or magistrates caught drinking anywhere in the world would be punished. Drinking anywhere would result in them either getting dismissed or suspended or getting salary cuts.

Since prohibition was enacted, Nitish has been making claims about the advantages of prohibition like a drop in crime rate (which as it turns out is indeed true), improved eating habits and promotion of communal harmony. This move also seems to have benefited the women in rural areas who were the ones egging Nitish Kumar for the ban and also contrary to popular perception, people in Bihar don’t seem to be generally against prohibition.

This ban has also been praised by PM Modi. Though when we look at other examples of prohibition in either India or abroad, there aren’t many encouraging signs with people anyway finding ways to procure alcohol which almost always results in a strong bootlegging network often been run by criminals, maybe these effects are yet to catch up in Bihar where the prohibition is just 10 months old.

 

Also without getting into the pros and cons of the prohibition, this latest order of the Nitish might be taking things a bit too far. If there’s no rule in a region which prevents someone from drinking alcohol and the fact remains that the officials were already banned from drinking on duty, then why should such rules be extended to their personal life? Also isn’t it a case of a government infringing in the private lives of its citizens and them getting denied their freedom of choice?

Furthermore, if Nitish Kumar is indeed concerned about the alcohol problem, why doesn’t he extend the same rules to the MLAs, MPs and other politicians? Isn’t it in the ‘spirit’ of democracy that if it applies to the officials, it should also apply to the politicians?

Having said that, it’s extremely unlikely that the Nitish government would be able to punish officials if they end up sipping wine in Napa Valley or getting passed out drunk in Ibiza. Also there have been instances where the Russian Space agencies have allowed astronauts to consume alcohol, so the next record ISRO might set up would be to transport 104 Bihar officials into space.

Though guess after this decision, for some youths the dream of having a government job has somewhat subsided.

Activist beaten up by cops for tweeting against poor quality of roads

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On 27th January a twitter user by the name of Shivansh Sirji tweeted to Noida Police, the UP Police and its DG about accidents happening on a patch of a road and the lack of action of the local police to prevent it. He reportedly saw a motorbike skidding on a patch near Barola Crossing while he was returning home from Noida Phase 2.



In line with the efficiency seen on Social media these days he soon received a reply from UP police asking for more information:

He also received a reply from the Noida Police twitter account:


At this moment one might believe that after showing great efficiency on Twitter the police might either have resolved the complaint or maybe done nothing in this regard but as it turns out they had other plans.

According to this report, a Sub Inspector by the name of Vijender Bhadana reached the spot and started beating Shivansh. To make matters worse he was taken to the Sector 49 police station where he was threatened that he would be implicated in an Arms Act case and then forcibly made to write a letter clarifying that his Tweet was fake, which was also shared on the Noida Police twitter account:


As reported, Shivansh somehow managed to save himself after getting in touch with the UP Police PRO, Atul Srivastav who helped him out. He was later contacted by the Senior Superintendent of Police, Gautam Budh Nagar, Dharmender Yadav, and ordered a probe into the matter.

It makes one wonder whether the Police officers became enraged because he called their inaction shameful or they were irked by the fact that someone had dared to question them? Plus one may be perplexed by the fact that such a stifling of freedom of expression has not been made an outrage point by the media which is not surprising as now a days one of the prominent publications of India is busy cheer-leading the supposed achievements of the current UP government.

This incident becomes so much more unfortunate when one realizes that on one hand ministers like Sushma Swaraj and Suresh Prabhu have pioneered the use of social media in order to help the people in need and on the other some institutions are using social media hound and trample upon normal citizens.

Army Chief attacked for talking tough against those who help terrorists in Kashmir

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In Kashmir, the army faces attack from multiple corners. While Pakistan backed terrorists launch direct attack against army camps and assets, these terrorists receive cover from locals. Army usually doesn’t deal with these locals, who are tackled by state police or the CRPF. The clashes between these locals and police forces have often turned violent and last year saw a spate of deaths due to violent clashes.

However, when such locals deliberately try to confront the Army and sabotage their operations, the Army can’t be expected to remain mute spectators. The Army can’t wait for police forces to arrive, as the terrorists can escape under this cover.

Take a look at this video below that shows how some locals actively try to halt Army operations, with Army not taking any action against them:



Yesterday, while paying homage to martyrs of Bandipora, Army Chief General Bipin Rawat hinted that he had enough of locals trying to provide cover to terrorists. He claimed that this local support was among the reasons for higher casualties to the security forces in recent times.

Gen Rawat reiterated that Army wanted people-friendly operations, but warned that if some civilians chose to actively assist the terrorists or become a hindrance to the army, the army will treat them as anti-national elements and go after them.


From the video, it can be seen that General Rawat did not tar entire Kashmiri youth as anti-national; he was very particular about those who pick stones and guns against the army. His exacts words, which you can hear in the video above, were:

We would now request the local population that people who have picked up arms, and they are the local boys, if they want to continue with the acts of terrorism displaying flags of ISIS and Pakistan, then we will treat them as anti-national elements and go helter-skelter for them. They may survive today but we will get them tomorrow. Our relentless operations will continue.

However, his statement was claimed to be one that will alienate the Kashmiri youth and anger the locals.

The most unfortunate part was that even the Congress, the oldest national party of India, chose to twist Army Chief’s statement. Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad claimed that the Army Chief was threatening “kids” of Kashmir:


Following such distortions, Union Minister for Law and Justice Ravi Shankar Prasad had to appeal to the Congress to keep the Army and the Army Chief outside of politics.

But while politicians are expected to play politics, many in the media too chose to toe the same line and twist Gen Rawat’s statement. Take for example this article published on DailyO, a website owned by India Today group. First it tries to insinuate that Gen Rawat was “favoured” and got something that he didn’t deserve::

It’s both unfortunate but not unexpected that General Bipin Rawat sounded exactly like the establishment in the Centre that picked him as the chief of Army staff, superseding not one but two of his then seniors, particularly Lt-Gen Praveen Bakshi.

The article further adds:

The less said of Modi government’s Kashmir policy, the better. Not only did the regime completely mishandle the uprising in the Valley in the wake of Hizbul militant Burhan Wani’s death, allowing pellet guns to be fired at agitators and blinding, maiming hundreds of protesters, while fatally shooting at least 120 of them during a three-month lock down, it has persistently and systematically alienated the ordinary Kashmiri, particularly the Kashmiri Muslim with its myopic and Hindutva-laced stance on the conflict-torn state.

Yes, a statement by an Army Chief worried about losses of lives of his jawans was twisted, manipulated, and stitched with tags of Modi, Hindutva, Muslims, and everything the writer could conjure up.

As we had pointed out in an article earlier, this obsession to link Indian Army with “Hindutva” is very dangerous and pernicious, and all it helps is in building a narrative for second partition of India. You can read the article by clicking here.

Perhaps those who are lecturing the Army Chief to choose words more carefully should exercise the same caution themselves, unless of course these words are chosen carefully to achieve the objective that Pakistan aims to achieve by using the Indian media.

How sexual offenders are mainstreamed by the left liberals

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Recently an article was published in The Punch Magazine (the revamped avatar of The Byword) titled “Dibai, the Qasba where Intizar Husain was born” profiling Intizar Husain, a significant fiction writer in Urdu of the 20th century from Lahore, on his first death anniversary.

No, neither the article nor the subject matter caught my attention, but I was perturbed by the identity of the writer of the article. On further investigation, I observed that apart from all other credentials of the author, it nowhere mentions that Mahmood Farooqi is also an incarcerated rapist.
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Let me tell you that this is not new, is rather a systematic pattern, how the Khap-elites rehabilitate members of their ecosystem even if one is a convicted rapist serving a sentence in jail. Yes, the writer of that piece Mahmood Farooqui is a convicted rapist of a foreigner student and also the co-director of the movie Peepli Live.

Last October, William Dalrymple plugged an article titled “With prisoners as actors, filmmaker charged with rape directs play in Tihar” in a tweet smartly striking off the words from the headline “charged with rape” feeling proud of his rapist colleague:

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It was countered here, calling it the standard template how a convicted rapist is quietly rehabilitated by ‘left-liberal elites.’ The next moment, the super liberal torch bearer of ‘freedom of expression’ blocked me on twitter.

Before I explore this further, let me first try to explain this pattern, how these feminists, women empowerment cheerleaders (the left-liberal mafia) cannot survive without their incestuous ecosystem of sexual predators and how they brazenly rehabilitate them into the mainstream despite them being accused/charged with gruesome sex crimes.

First let me remind you of the case of climate scientist Director General of TERI, R K Pachauri. When the complainant, a young researcher, refused to succumb to his “carnal and perverted desires,” she said, Pachauri responded by “threatening me that he will not give me any more work in his office and that I should leave TERI, or he will transfer me to some other division,” reported the Caravan.

R K Pachauri was first booked by Delhi Police on charges of outraging the modesty of a woman, molestation, stalking, sexual harassment and criminal intimidation and was also found guilty of similar charges by an internal complaints committee (ICC) of TERI. He is presently out on bail pending further investigation.

This detailed and investigated Caravan report, on Pachauri’s leadership at TERI and the sexual harassment case, suggests that he is supposedly a serial offender. Not one, not two but a third woman also alleged that she was sexually harassed by Pachauri while she was working as his secretary in 2008.

Given this, it is baffling to see TV debates or several subtle articles and pre-planned interviews the liberal mafia presented in his defense. Here, The Guardian published an article claiming that the embattled climate scientist has broken his silence in a series of interviews. This baffling defense was well countered here in this piece though.

In yet another perplexing incident, sexual harassment accused Tarun Tejpal was attempted to be rehabilitated among the ‘intelligentsia,’ because how can one understand the Idea of India without inputs from an accused molester, the left-liberal mascot.

Has anyone forgotten the Tejpal ‘fingertips’ story, one of Indian journalism’s most sordid scandals? The apology letter, the “recusing” of himself and the “penance of laceration” and the determination of the young colleague to expose his assault on her?

Twitter created ‘extraneous noises.’ A renowned columnist and author Swapan Dasgupta declined the invitation in protest and also wrote this searing piece: “Thank God For “Extraneous Noises“. It was in response to Bachi Karkaria, organizer of the literary festival, announcing on Twitter that Tejpal had been asked not to attend because the festival did not want “extraneous noise.”

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It was interesting to notice that only the noise bothered Bachi Karkaria, and not the grievous charges.

The Times Literary Carnival invited Tejpal as a panelist on the subject of the “Tyranny of power.” Frankly, him being offered a platform like this in itself was “tyranny of power.” Manu Joseph, a journalist, was to be the moderator, with writer and now scriptwriter Basharat Peer and politician Mani Shankar Aiyar as the other participants.

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Remember Tejpal’s defense in the sexual harassment case by the Delhi’s Khap-elites? It began with TV debates then articles on video footage of the corridor outside the lift where the assault happened..

In this The Outlook piece “What The Elevator Saw,” Manu Joseph, puts a question mark that hangs over what had happened inside the lift.

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In the story, Mr. Joseph refers to Tejpal’s text message to the complainant, “the fingertips” as the “most destructive message a public figure had sent out in recent times.” In his view, “the message,” Mr. Joseph argues, “was either sent by a foolish rapist who was implicating himself through this evidence to a competent journalist whose area of particular interest was law and rape. Or perhaps, it was sent by a drunken man who thought he was flirting,” he concludes.

Yes, indeed, the same Manu Joseph who was picked as the moderator. Much before this, Bachi Karkaria herself wrote a piece in Times of India editorial ‘Trial by media‘ brazenly defending Tarun Tejpal.

Tejpal at the lit-fest was the most vivid proof that the Lutyens incestuous cabal is alive and kicking.

The festival director had defended the decision to include Tejpal on the panel and had told Scroll.in that, “The panel has nothing to do with his personal case. The case is not going to form any part of the discussion, and we have always found Tarun to be an articulate panelist.”

Some others felt that the principles of free speech and presumption of innocence (Tejpal himself apologized, publicly as well as privately before the matter became a police case ) could be applied to the decision to invite Tejpal. The ecosystem started to point out that TOI does have the right to invite him to their festival and that people can choose not to attend.

True. We have a legal system, and Tejpal is only an accused sexual offender and has not been convicted, yet. Inviting him to the LitFest reflects on the organizers, not Tejpal.

Many outraging about Tejpal being part of a Lit-Fest, do not understand that it’s routine in the Oxbridge-Khap-Cabal. Did you forget that the Taliban leader Mullah Zaeef was also invited to Tehelka’s Think2013  to tell the gathering how Taliban had equal rights for women and all? Fired from Penguin for the alleged sexual harassment, David Davidar finds a platform at a book fair.

This socially and intellectually influential Peepli Live co-director Mahmood Farooqui is one such incarcerated rapist, a ‘dastangoi’, the Khap elders are attempting to rehabilitate.

At first, the attempt was made to create confusion on the merits of the prosecution by continuously publishing articles defending the rapist. For example:

  1. Farooqui’s conviction a victory for rape victims, but does it taste all sweet?
  2. Why the Mahmood Farooqui Judgment is Deeply Flawed

Several other such op-eds were surfacing almost every day to create doubt in public mind. But soon the details of the judgement started taking rounds in the public domain, contrary to the Lutyens Khap claims.

The special fast-track court sentenced Farooqui to seven years’ rigorous imprisonment for the rape. The judge observed, “… it can be safely held, that the testimony of prosecutrix, being truthful and credible when the prosecutrix was alone with the accused… the accused, taking advantage of the situation, raped the prosecutrix.”

Once again, very systematically, using book reviews and other “neutral” platforms that never mention the rape conviction, an attempt is being made to mainstream the fellow member.

On December 09, 2016, Scroll.in featured this: “A dastangoi tells the story of the Pakistani author Intizar Husain” of course without mentioning “other credentials” of the author Mahmood Farooqui.

On January 13, 2017 the Live Mint published a book review: “A Requiem For Pakistan—The World Of Intizar Husain” in which Mahmood Farooqui intersperses the story of Intizar Husain’s life with his own.

On January 16, 2017, The Hindu featured another noble side of this convicted rapist: “Tihar inmates wield the pen” It says that the idea of newspapers by and for Tihar inmates was put forward by several prisoners, prominent among them being Mahmood Farooqui, co-director of film Peepli Live.

One by one, articles are surfacing in India and also internationally on different sites and print, be it The Hindu, Scroll.in, or the Live Mint. None mention that he is a convicted rapist. Much more will follow. It is a standard template how sexual predators are quietly rehabilitated by their Khap-elder elites.

They wanted money for making Bhojpuri films, so ISI offered them train derailment job

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There have long been allegations about a possible ISI hand in the recent sabotage attempts against the Indian Railways. As reported earlier, ISI man Shamshul Hoda had contacted Nepal based Brij Kishore Giri who in turn hired others to sabotage the railways and is believed to have perpetrated the Kanpur train accident which left over 140 dead.

Now as per latest reports, Brij Kishore Giri and others lured into this criminal act were allegedly seeking to invest the money earned from the ISI into the Bhojpuri film business. Brij Kishore reportedly is an actor, who owns a film studio in Nepal and has acted in a number of Bhojpuri films.

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One of the Bhojpuri songs involving the suspects

He was lured with a promise of earning several lakhs which he wanted to pump into his films. It has been claimed that at that time he was working in a movie called ‘Ae Moray Jaan Tohray Mein Bas Le Hamray Pran’.

Apart from him, two other persons involved in the conspiracy, Gajendra Sharma and Mukesh Yadav who were reportedly contacted by Giri, were also involved in Bhojpuri show-business. Gajendra Sharma reportedly made low budget films in Motihari and also owned a music studio which was leaking money. Mukesh Yadav, who was amongst the first to be arrested, is believed to be a songwriter and singer.

The railway sabotage conspiracy is anything but abetting and the Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu himself had claimed in the parliament recently that there were as many as 18 sabotage attempts including 7 blast attempts recently.

This whole operation is believed to have been masterminded by one Shafi Saikh, who is an ISI operative and kingpin of the Fake Indian Currency Notes operation, which was given a huge jolt via demonetisation.

Digivijay Singh stoops to new low: Tweets morphed image to attack Amit Shah

After advocating deranged conspiracy theories claiming that RSS was behind the gruesome 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, Digvijay Singh’s credibility, or whatever little was left of it, had collapsed completely. Still, this senior Congress leader, known to be close to Rahul Gandhi, enjoys a position of respect within the Congress. He frequently fires off completely baseless remarks, much like Kejriwal from AAP or Donald Trump in the US.

Today, in an act of sheer desperation (probably going by the mood in Uttar Pradesh), Singh resorted to tweeting a morphed image trying to show BJP President Amit Shah in poor light:

The picture shows Amit Shah bending and welcoming radical politician Asaduddin Owaisi from the AIMIM. The idea was probably to depict how Amit Shah is thankful of the likes of Owaisi and AIMIM, who by contesting in Uttar Pradesh, are helping to split the “secular” vote.

Digvijay Singh did mention that he felt the picture was morphed because Owaisi was wearing a saffron coat, but eventually ended saying that it could also very well be true. But it appears that Digivijay Singh was following the Kejriwal model of “Is it true?”, to spread half-truths and whole lies.

Social media users caught Digvijay Singh and presented him with the original image:


It is in fact a picture of Modi and Shah, and Owaisi’s picture has been photoshopped over it. If one observes closely, even the morphing work is so poor that a significant portion of Modi’s white hair is visible even in the picture tweeted by Digvijay, clearly indicating that it is a fake. It is odd that a senior politician like Digvijay Singh who has a fine eye even for “Tunch Maal”, could not see this “Safed baal”. Also, it is important to note that Digvijay Singh did not delete the tweet even after being alerted by multiple people that it was clearly a fake.

Social media though is ruthless, and Digvijay Singh was relentlessly trolled for his act:


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The way Indian media works, it is unlikely that this “post- truth” tweet, will be called out by anyone.

Telangana govt to provide financial assistance to non-Hindu drivers in partnership with Uber

The Telangana government seems to have gone places in terms of discrimination against cab drivers belonging to the Hindu community in Hyderabad with a very curious case of minority appeasement.

It all dates back to December 2015, when the State Minorities Commission (SMC) issued notices to the police, transport department and Uber itself, for allegedly cheating a taxi driver who had committed suicide.

President of the Telangana State Cabs and Bus Operators Association, Syed Nizamuddin had claimed that the suicide was result of cheating as Uber had caused many people to leave their regular jobs and become drivers with a promise of Rs 70,000 as monthly salary. Since the driver who committed suicide was a Muslim, the issue was taken to SMC, which in turn sent notice to Uber and other parties.

In 2016, Uber partnered with the Tata Group to enable drivers to purchase their own vehicles. Under the scheme, drivers could purchase an Indica or Indigo from Tata Motors using flexible loans from Tata Capital Finance and get insurance from Tata AIG. A smart move given that Uber and Ola classify their drivers as self-employed “partners” rather than direct employees.

This was followed by strikes by unions against Uber and Ola claiming that they were taking away their livelihoods, similar to strikes and protests in other cities like Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru. Some of them claimed that new financing scheme was unfair to them as they had bought cabs at higher interest rates from private parties earlier, and that Uber was favouring those drivers who got cabs under the new scheme.

Now in what appears to be a bid to weaken this strike by cab drivers, the State Minority Finance Corporation has started what it calls a ‘driver empowerment program’. Under this scheme, drivers of non-Hindu communities will be given financial assistance to own cars, which will get business from Uber. Perhaps Uber agreed to be a part of it to ‘strengthen’ their case where they were accused of pushing a Muslim driver to suicide.

Now this brings about a few points to ponder:

  1. Why did the case of the cab driver committing suicide go to the minorities commission? Suicide is suicide, irrespective of who the victim is, and while it is no longer a crime to attempt suicide, Section 306 of IPC still makes abetment a crime. If at all the suicide was related to Uber’s alleged promise, then an investigation is needed. But why was religion made a factor? How was that even relevant?
  2. As a journalist, I have had numerous conversations with Uber drivers across India, and one thing is clear. Uber does not promise a ‘salary’. Uber does not employ drivers. They put it on record that drivers are self-employed and partners, but not employees. Further, Uber clearly does state in such situations that the driver can earn up to Rs xx, subject to the drivers’ performance. Given the flexibility and freedom of working hours that are available, it is up to individual drivers how much they make.
  3. The most crucial point: Why is the Telangana government going to the extent of giving financial assistance only to minorities? Are all Hindu cab drivers assumed to be rich? Further, our constitution explicitly prohibits [pdf] discrimination on the basis of religion. It also clearly states that the state shall not discriminate in the case of public employment, and while giving loans to partner with a private party cannot be considered public employment, it is discriminatory under the Right to Equality. After all, a government entity is providing the loan. While the state has the rights to make special provisions to backward classes and SC/ST groups, there is no mention of special provisions on the basis of religion.

Is this a calculated move by Telangana to use a private player to engage in minority appeasement rather than directly employ them in a state-run Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC) where it would be deemed illegal? And has it been done to break protesting drivers on religious lines?

Will India’s population get wiped out in 2 years? Aaj Tak thinks so!

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News channel Aaj Tak and its Executive Editor Punya Prasun Bajpai, who amassed a cult following after his ‘Krantakari’ interview of Arvind Kejriwal, seem to have been caught in somewhat of an embarrassing situation again after they put out stats, which if indeed true would mean that India’s whole population would be wiped out in about two years.

As pointed out by Twitter user Spaminder Bharti (parody account of AAP leader Somnath Bharti), yesterday Aaj Tak put out a tweet (now deleted) which claimed that people in India were dying at an alarming rate of 20 people per second.

The deleted tweet

The news clip, which was aired on TV and seen (and most probably believed) by thousands of people, was saved by the same Twitter user. You can see and hear the astounding claim in the video clip:



This video begins with Punya Prasun Bajpai, the krantikari journalist, in a grave tone announcing that in this country 20 people die each second due to pollution. The report starts with tragic music playing in the background and they put out the stats. Again, the voice proclaims that 20 people die each second due to pollution.

So doing some basic mathematics which we are sure many might have already done we decided to unravel the 20 deaths per second claim:

Number of Seconds per year = 60*60*24*365 = 3,15,36,000/-

Therefore if 20 people are dying per second then total deaths in one year = 20*(31536000) = 63,07,20,000/-

That is according to Aaj Tak there are about 63 Crore deaths per year due to pollution! And our total population being about 121 crores should get wiped out in about 2 years! Be very scared and tell that crush of yours that you love her as two years later you are going to be gone!

Now on a bit of a serious note, Aaj Tak has quoted a ‘State of the global air‘ report [pdf] compiled by a Boston based Health Effects Institute, which claims that:

India now rivals China for among the highest air pollution health burdens in the world, with both countries facing some 1.1 million early deaths from air pollution in 2015.

So assuming that the report is true, the total people perishing due to pollution in our country is about 11 lakhs which in itself is extremely high and steps should indeed be taken to bring down the number. But those steps shouldn’t include fear mongering by media houses bereft of good mathematicians.

In case you are wondering the total people dying due to pollution per second in this country based on the 11 lakh figure turns out to be roughly about 0.034 deaths per second*.

(* total deaths per second = (total deaths in a year)/(total seconds in a year))