Ever since his many TV appearances wearing a muffler, Arvind Kejriwal and muffler have become synonymous. In fact AAP supporters even coined a phrase “MufflerMan” for him, and trended it on Twitter for quite some time. Now Twitter users are wondering whether Kejriwal’s muffler protects him from cold or is it only for the optics.
Twitter user @rishibagree shows us this pic, in which Arvind Kejriwal, Sanjay Singh and Vishal Dadlani are sitting for a meeting, along with others. In this pic, he points out, that while all three of them are sitting together, Kejriwal needs a Muffler all around his head, and a sweater to protect him from the biting cold, Sanjay Singh is comfortable with a sweater, while Vishal Dadlani doesn’t need either and is sitting in a plain T-Shirt. Either atmospheric temperature changes with position or Kejriwal has a very low tolerance to cold while Dadlani, who lives mostly in Mumbai is more resistant to cooler climates
Another Twitter user @Durgeshrai2013 has posted another picture of Kejriwal, this time from an interview with Barkha Dutt. He notes that while Barkha Dutt is comfortable in her normal Salwar-Kameez, Kejriwal needs his muffler and sweater to sit just 1 metre infront of her. Did somebody keep a window open next to Kejriwal? We must rebuke Barkha for this inhospitable treatment meted out to poor Mr Kejriwal
Twitter user @ajayrdave also had similar views:
Shame on you @BDUTT what kind of person you are.. cant you afford simple room heater. @ArvindKejriwal bapu had to use mufler in closed room.
Harsh Mander, who was earlier appointed by Sonia Gandhi as a member of the “extra-constitutional” National Advisory Committee, has written an article recently, which glorifies and supports evangelical conversions by Christian missionaries.
Senior journalist and contributing editor at NewsLaundry.com, Mr Anand Ranganathan has, in a series of tweets revealed what could be Mr Mander’s motives behind such a post, and how it could be a clear case of “conflict of interest”. The tweets are reproduced as below:
A characteristically opinionated, devoid of facts, openly evangelical & pro-conversion piece by Harsh Mander. Sad. http://t.co/xejF9mSxJQ
Biology claims that about 60% of human brain consists of fat, Geography claims that about 70% of the earth is covered with water, WHO claims that 80% of the current polio cases are associated with Pakistan, but importantly, statistical claims leapt to another level when honourable Justice Markandey Katju, in 2012, claimed that “90 per cent of Indians are idiots” and “80 per cent Hindus and 80 per cent Muslims are communal”.
By the time, humans could have collected data to verify his claims about 90 per cent of the Indians, the former Chairman of Press Council of India and erstwhile Judge at the Supreme Court of India bombarded the universe with a series of jaw-dropping arguments. In one of his latest Facebook posts, written on 13 January 2015, Markandey Katju recommends Indians to elect beautiful women for all positions.
Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović, who will become the President of Croatia in February 2015.
After quoting an example of the Croatian President, he expresses his concerns about the reality of promises made by politicians and then posts a link which directs to this photo (on the right) of the Croatian President.
The next section of this Facebook post ends with his usual last words, “Hari Om!”, but Justice Katju further spread his wings of wisdom, and in his blog, he suggests Katrina Kaif to be made the next President of India, with the condition that she sings ‘ Sheela ki Jawaani’ on her Inaugural.
If you are not convinced by his pictorial arguments just because you are troubled by his claims that 90% of Indians are idiots, you must calm your nerves. Not all idiots are bad people. Even though our dignified Justice Markandey Katju believes that 90% of Indians are idiots, he also statedthat 99% of people are good. In a Facebook post written on 8 Jan 2015, Katju went beyond boundaries and quantified that 99% Pakistanis are good people, and so are 99% Indians and 99% Bangladeshis, Nepalese, Sri Lankans, Burmese, Americans, Europeans, Chinese, Arabs, Africans, etc.
On 25 December 2014, when Indians were joking and outraging on “Ghar Wapasi” and “Religion Conversion”, Justice Katju left millions dumbstruck by a single post which insinuates sexism, misogyny, patriarchy, orthodoxy and dogmatism. In his Facebook post titled Gay Relationships and Gay Marriages, Justice Katju throws cosmic enlightenment on gay marriages, responsibilities of women, relationships, George Bernard Shaw, and suggests that ‘gay marriages serve no social purpose‘.
Apart from discussing the purposefulness of gay marriages to serve nature’s requirement for continuing human species, he infuriates women by saying, “To fulfill this role of nature, a woman has to get hold of a man, not merely to make her pregnant, but also to look after her and provide for her financially while she is performing this role.”
He further fuels the anger by adding, “it is not men who pursue women, but women who pursue men. It is the Life Force which drives women to pursue and catch a mate, who will then look after her while she is performing nature’s serious and vital function of continuing the species”.
Long before delving into politics, culture and morality, Justice Katju also displayed his poetry lover avatar. In a series of tweets to Rajdeep Sardesai, Sagarika Ghose and Barkha Dutt, he appeals journos to tweet Urdu Shayari. Before deleting these tweets, he expressed his grief about lack of poetry sense in people:
One can’t ignore his role in legalizing passive euthanasia, a death sentence for fake encounters, justice in the case of land-grabbing of village community land and many other landmark judgments, but then we can also not neglect his cosmic enlightening Gyan.
A few days back, Goa’s Youth Affairs Minister, Ramesh Tawadkar became infamous for claiming that the state will try to make Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender youth (LGBTs) “normal”. Social Media went after his skin and so did the national MSM. As it turns out, the Goa State Youth Policy has no mention of such centres. In fact I reproduce the only paragraph where LGBT is mentioned in the entire document:
It needs to be recognised that all young people within an age group are unlikely to be a homogenous group. There will be different segments of youth with varying needs and aspirations that need to be addressed.
These are disadvantaged youth due to socio-economic conditions including SC/ST/OBC, young women, dropouts from formal education, marginalised/migrant youth, youth at risk and in conflict with law including substance abuse, human trafficking, hazardous occupations, juvenile offenders etc., differently abled youth, youth with chronic physical & mental ailments, marginalised/migrant youth, stigmatised youth (LGBT), geographically disadvantaged youth (rural/mining/forest/slums).
The above paragraph indicates, the Government considers LGBTs as “disadvantaged youth” because they might have been “stigmatised“. Further, the document say, one of the objectives of this policy, is “To inculcate values of tolerance, at the same time recognizing and respecting the diversity lifestyle of various sections”
Both these statements seem pretty sympathetic to the cause of LGBTs and in no way indicate that the Government intends to “normalize” them by opening any centre, because they feel LGBTs are abnormal. So how did the Minister say this? What was his basis to announce something which the Government hadn’t planned? I decided to see the actual video where the Minister says this. Below I quote a transcript of the relevant portion:
Reporter: In the case of Lesbians and Gays aap kya karne wale ho, unko aap vapas, are you going to make them normal?
Minister: Unko Normal banana ke liye centre banayenge
Reporter: How?
Minister: Alcoholics Anonymous centre hote hai na, isi tarah se centre for gays and lesbians
Reporter: How will you train them?
Minister: Training deke medicines deke
Reporter: To make them normal?
The first question needs to be asked to the reporter, on where did he get the idea for this question? A highly leading question, which doesn’t bear relation to anything in the policy. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any video of the entire press conference, but I can only imagine the Minister making a general statement saying they will normalize disadvantaged or stigmatised youth. The wily reported could have picked up from here and put up that question as a trap, in which our dear Minister fell wilfully.
Eventually, the way it was played on media was, as if the Minister and the Government, had proactive plan to “normalize” LGBTs, when in fact the policy was in fact very sympathetic to the cause of LGBTs. Of course, this is not an attempt to exonerate the minister, who should have been alert and realised that the question wasn’t very straight. He should have made it clear that any centres the Government has planned are for other individuals and not for “normalizing” LGBTs.
Last week BJP MP, Sakshi Maharaj made his infamous comment that “A Hindu woman must have at least four children“. This of course drew the ire of most people and he even trended on Twitter for some while, thanks to all the outrage. Today, another BJP leader, Shyamal Goswami from West Bengal has gone on to say that “Hindu women should have five children”. And as we write this, he is being discussed on Social Media, may trend on Twitter, but will surely get the honour of featuring on some prime time News debates.
But we are more concerned about those other individuals who make similar statements, which encourage more kids per family, but are never covered by any News Channel, nor do they trend on Twitter. Its time we recognise the stupidity efforts of these outstanding individuals also and give them their due:
1. Syro-Malabar Church – Kerala: Catholics should have 5 children
The Syro-Malabar Church (SMC), apparently India’s largest church with 3.6 million members, supported large families way back in 2011. This was in response to a report by a committee which suggested penalising those with more than 2 children (from any religion). In fact one of the dioceses under SMC, even declared a cash prize of Rs 10000 for the fifth child.
2. Dr Zakir Naik – No Need for Population Control
In this video uploaded in 2012, Dr Zakir Naik, noted speaker on Islam, clearly says that family planning is not necessary since “Allah will take care of everyone”. Even on this facebook page, Zakir Naik makes it clear that “Family Planning is Haraam”. Arnab if you’re reading, pls stop this discrimination and have Dr Naik on your show as well!
Way back in 2008, the Archbishop, in a letter read in churches in Kerala, reiterated the Church’s opposition to abortion. He also asked his church brethren to “honour couples with more children.”
HYDERABAD: A video has come out showing a Muslim cleric in India leading a funeral prayer, where he praises and endorses the murder of cartoonists and satirists of the French magazine Charlie Hebdo.
This is the second major incident of someone in India openly supporting the Charlie Hebdo killers. Earlier a former minister of Uttar Pradesh had announced reward for the killers. This time the support for terrorists has come from South India.
OpIndia.com has found out that the video was shot in Hyderabad, the common capital of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, and the cleric is Maulana Mohammed Naseeruddin, who is a well known and respected cleric and Khateeb in the old city.
In the video, Maulana Naseeruddin is seen describing the Charlie Hebdo terrorists as “martyrs” and making dua for their afterlife.
“Our lives are of no meaning if someone, who has insulted the prophet, is still alive,” he is heard telling the gathering of local Muslims in the video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzlaEPqiG2w
The funeral prayer held in absentia, known as Ghaibana-Namaz-e-Janaza, and the gathering took place in the Saidabad area of Hyderabad. The Maulana is also heard condemning the Unity Rally that took place in Paris on Sunday.
Later, talking to the reporter Abuaimal Akram, who uploaded the video on YouTube, Maulana Naseeruddin justified the act of terror at Charlie Hebdo’s office as a deed sanctioned by Islamic traditions.
In fact, he went out to claim (at 3:26 minutes onward in the video above) that Prophet Mohammad himself had ordered executions of people who had mocked or insulted Islam and Allah.
Maulana Naseeruddin further claims that as per the Islamic traditions, those insulting the faith and the prophet shouldn’t be forgiven, but killed. He adds that since there is no global leadership of Muslims, it become the responsibility of every Muslim to make sure that such offenders don’t go unpunished.
“What they (the terrorists) did was completely jaayaz (legitimate) as per shariyat laws,” he claims.
Concluding his interview, Maulana says that he endorses what was done by the terrorists in the French magazine office and that’s why he decided to lead this special prayer.
The incident has not attracted any mainstream media attention yet, and the video is being shared by some people on the social media.
While some may say that this Maulana is a fringe voice and should be ignored, it should be noted that Maulana Mohammed Naseeruddin is not any random Muslim cleric.
Around 4 years ago, he became the symbol of Muslim victimization in the secular-liberal narrative when he was acquitted by a POTA court in Gujarat for lack of evidences after he spent 5 years in jail.
Though the court had clarified that he was released for lack of evidences, his case was highlighted by many secular-liberal commentators as being an example of how Muslims were wrongly detained and charged for crimes they had not committed by the Indian establishment.
Earlier in 2011, Maulana Naseeruddin had led Ghaibana-Namaz-e-Janaza for Osama Bin Laden too, but that incident was overshadowed as many others, including Kashmiri leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani had done the same. Now he has done the same, probably being the first Indian Muslim cleric to publicly glorify the France killings.
In wake of these incidents, which exposes his mindset where he endorses extra-judicial killings and terrorism, OpIndia.com hopes that the commentators realize that maybe they had jumped the gun four years ago.
BAGHPAT: Castesim remains the biggest threat the Hindu society faces in many parts of India, especially rural India – a fact that was highlighted once again when a dalit family was not allowed to perform the last rites of a 17-year-old girl who died after prolonged illness.
As reported by Amar Ujala, there are three cremation grounds in Sinauli village in the Baghpat district of Western Uttar Pradesh, with two of them controlled by local strongmen (assumed to be belonging to non-dalit castes) and one left for dalits.
When Pradeep, a local villager, visited one of those two cremation grounds to perform last rites of his daughter Ashu, he was asked to go to the cremation ground where dalits are “allowed”.
Apart from being shocking and disgusting, this action can easily be deemed criminal under the SC-ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, however the local administration is reported to have taken no action against the culprits.
The family could finally perform the last rites in another cremation ground, while the administration is reported to be looking into the issue of intimidation and land grabbing.
This incident also shows why the focus of Hindu groups should be to provide equal rights and respect to dalits and lower castes, rather than indulging in ham-handed activities like “gharwapasi”.
Earlier, many dalit families in the Western UP had threatened to embrace Islam if they were not provided equal rights such as access to temples and cremation grounds. It is a shame that such discrimination takes place even in present times.
There have been reforms initiated by some governments, such as Narendra Modi, when he was the Chief Minister of Gujarat, initiating a program that gave dalits rights that were exclusively reserved only for Brahmins by tradition. Similar steps were taken by the Bihar government too.
Hindu groups like VHP, Hindu Mahasabha, Dharm Raksha Manch, and others need to realize that they should be working on similar projects rather than creating headlines that embarrass their co-religionists.
But before that, the UP government led by Samajwadi Party, which claims to believe in “social justice”, should punish the goons who denied basic human dignity and rights to this dalit family of Sinauli village.
Back in 90s when Govinda was the prime face of comedy in India, and he was literally hauling the humor scene of India, a new generation of kids was tussling to reinvent other genres of comedy. The Great Indian Laughter Challenge, launched in 2005, entered as a game changer for many unknown faces who were earlier struggling to sell their humor. The show emanated hope and optimism to many suppressed individuals who wanted to voice their opinions, their anger, and their frustration through humor. During this phase, when people with new faces were creating audience to appreciate slapstick and loud humor, Twitter arrived, and with Twitter arrived additional ladders for many of those new generation folks who were bubbling to ooze dark and insult comedy.
This new generation standup comics raised the standard of humor and tolerance in India, they unlocked new channels to convey many serious social concerns with subtility and class, but in the process of carving new paths, many of them started evolving from performers to priests, and then from priests to preachers. Since some of these standup comics, who became the new revolutionary rockstars, started getting compliments for standing against existing institutions, they decided to attack establishments with more and more insult.
It is not that India didn’t have people writing dark satire/comedy in the past. Poets like Dinkar, Parsai, Muktibodh were publishing sarcasm on the socio-political system in India, long time back in the 70s; books like Raag Darbari, Jeep par Sawar Illian, Bishrampur Ka Sant written to mock the political realities of India. Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro, released in 1983, is one of the finest dark comedies produced by Bollywood. Nonetheless there is a difference: earlier books/scripts were written with lots of investigations with attacks focused on ideological differences than on personal choices.
Role and involvements of these standups became more complex when apologetic Indian intellectuals and political ideologists who thrive on attacking the Indian cultural values found a symbiosis with these stand up comics. For this new symbiotic system, BJP and RSS were the prime targets for ridicule: statements issued by these parties became targets for criticism. Ancient texts like Vedas, Ramayana, Mahabharata, and even literature written in Sanskrit language started getting ridiculed just because BJP/RSS talked about it. Jokes on Hinduism became neoliberal literature, while jokes on other religion became communal tools.
There are two big issues with this evolved system:
– Unlike the satirists of 70s, these standups have gained publicity by mocking everything related to the existing Indian culture, that too without research. Therefore, they motivate people to attack social system, even without knowing what and why to attack
– These standups switch their morality gears according to their convenience. So, while they advocate freedom of speech while delivering sexist, racist, communal jokes, they take a moral stand against right-wing leaders leaving a loose statement. Fundamentally, being a socialist means treating everyone equal, but then they change gears and claim that leaders are different and they should not speak loose statements.
On Friday night, renowned Bollywood lyricist, Urdu poet and Rajya Sabha MP Javed Akhtar tweeted an image that showed Jashodaben, the estranged wife of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. However, within minutes, he deleted it.
The image was supposed to be a joke on BJP MP’s Sakshi Maharaj’s statement that Hindu women should produce four kids to counter Muslim population threat.
It showed Union Ministers Uma Bharti and Smriti Irani, along with Jasohdaben, getting “confused” if they should follow Saskhi Maharaj’s suggestion.
The image was re-tweeted by around 100 users before it was deleted by Javed Akhtar.
Deleted tweet by Javed Akhtar
While some thought that it was a good joke, many Twitter users were quick to point out that this was unfair to someone like Jashodaben, who is a victim of child marriage.
Furthermore, Jashodaben is no active member of BJP, who could be dragged into such a political cartoon. Many argued that it was in poor taste and not expected from someone like Javed Akhtar.
Maybe Mr. Akhtar realized that the picture was indeed unfair to Jashodaben, and thus he deleted it.
He later claimed that he never intended to tweet the picture in first place and agreed that it was indecent and poor in taste:
Some one sent me a tweet which was indecent n in poor taste while trying to delete it by mistake it got retweeted . Please ignore it .
The clarification by Javed Akhtar is a bit stupid as he can’t delete someone else’s tweet. Maybe he meant someone sent him a “message” (on say, WhatsApp?) but wrote “tweet” instead? That’s only possible explanation. However, in that case it will be interesting to know who sends him such images. Maybe it is someone connected to West Bengal, as the image has a watermark in Bengali language.
One Bengali connection of Javed Akhtar is Farhan Akhtar, his son, who had earlier helped TMC Youth Wing in 2011. Maybe Farhan and family are still getting some unsolicited “forwards” from TMC youth wing!
Or was it a case of strong distaste for Modi getting the better of Javed Akhtar’s literary tastes?
Whatever be the reason or source of the image, it surely caused a little storm on Twitter.
However, the most intriguing response was from Reham Khan, whom Pakistani cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan recently married.
