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How sensationalist media obfuscated the truth about terrorists having Rs. 2000 notes

soulinexile
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How sensationalist media obfuscated the truth about terrorists having Rs. 2000 notes

The mainstream media has mastered the Art of Obfuscation – especially when it comes to headlines. TRPs trump the truth, almost always (I’m using the term TRPs figuratively; it includes, viewership, circulation, clicks, shares, etc.).

In the current era of information overload and short attention spans, few read beyond the headlines or the tweets. And more often than not, the news is so predictable – that most readers can even adequately guess the pattern of news contents.

Knowing well that most people don’t read beyond headlines, the headlines are worded such, that they deliberately obfuscate the way media wants to. Take an example from yesterday.

Army killed two terrorists in Bandipora in Kashmir. In the operation, some Indian currency, including the new Rs 2000 notes, were recovered from them. If your read the headlines or tweets from media houses, you will believe that terrorists, presumably from Pakistan, were having huge cache of new currency notes:

Google News search results for terrorists with new 2000 rupees notesANI's misleading tweet

After reading these, you will start wondering how did they get this cache of new currency notes? Is Pakistan already printing fake currency notes (a rumour many have spread)? Is our banking system compromised? And obviously, has demonetisation failed (because we just need a sensationalist headline, like death tolls, to conclude that)?

In fact, some articles didn’t leave that to your imagination and went on to suggest that the demonetisation goal of striking hard on the fake currency and terror funding networks had failed:

Misleading and probably agenda driven reporting by Rediff

Bingo! Mission Accomplished.

Whether done for agenda or for TRPs by the respective media houses, the sensationalist headlines were used for nothing else but agenda and misinformation by political Smart Alec’s and their sidekicks on the social media.

Look at these reactions:

Digvijay Singh spreading panic through misleading information

Congress member spreading misleading information

Chief Rumour Monger Arvind Kejriwal playing his part

If you haven’t drilled into the news report details by now – can you guess how much of this new currency was with those terrorists?

A grand total of “Two notes”. Yes, Rs 4000/-.

Is it a big deal for two new notes to find their way to terrorists through their handlers, supporters, well-wishers in the valley? In fact, reports confirm that security forces raided private houses after receiving information about the terrorists. So those private houses of local residents can’t provide two terrorists with one new note each? Internet is splashed with people clicking selfies with new 2000 rupees notes, but we are to believe that no one in India has seen those?

Unless of course the editors in each of our reputed media houses think that terrorists in Kashmir live in snow caves beyond Siachen where Pakistan supplies them everything, and that Article 370 debars RBI to release the new currency in Kashmir valley, or that new currency has been only home delivered only to BJP supporters alone so far.

To be fair, there was one media house that did report the news with accurate headline telling readers that only two new notes, along with cache of arms and old currency notes, were recovered from the terrorists. And guess what, the report has got just one share on Twitter and another on Facebook (till the time of filing this report):

Not so irresponsible headline
Not sensationalist, so not shared?

So truth is struggling to register its presence while lies have ubiquitously found its way everywhere.

Least we can expect is this article being widely shared, so that media knows that truth also sells, not just TRPs. Assuming that they care about the truth.

Kejriwal caught spreading false information again to hurt demonetisation drive

OpIndia Staff
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Kejriwal caught spreading false information again to hurt demonetisation drive

As the country progresses in the era of demonetisation, there has been no shortage of rumour mongering as was continuously reported by us [1] [2] [3]. One of those who appear to have emerged as the front runners in rumour mongering to spread panic among the masses is Arvind Kejriwal and his supporters.

We did a piece recently exposing how AAP on 13th November used news clips of 2015 in order to spread panic among the people. The news piece from 2015 reported how RBI planned a mass leave on 19th November 2015 to protest against Modi Government’s alleged intrusions. Posting such a news just before 19th November 2016 exposed AAP’s intent, i.e. to make people believe this is a recent news.

AAP’s supremo Arvind Kejriwal later went a step ahead and shared a picture of an alleged poor bank customer who had killed himself out of utter frustration of being unable to withdraw cash. The truth however was that the man was a bank robber and committed the act after he was trapped by locals. The tweet which Kejriwal shared was later deleted, the twitter account of Youtuber Abhishek Mishra who was the brain child behind the rumour was reported to the cops and the account was deactivated, yet Kejriwal’s false tweet exists and he has not apologised for his lies.

After getting repeatedly exposed and panned heavily, one might feel that Kejriwal would have learnt his lesson and would finally stop spreading false news. But today he tweeted this story from a little known site:


The allegations that the Government might be using the demonetised cash and bank deposits to fund crony capitalism were pretty severe. But Kejriwal’s tweet was fully exposed on social media:


This was a fraud of epic proportions. First of all, the news of SBI proposing to give a loan to Adani was from 2014 as noted from the Indian Express article. Presumably some miscreants made a clone site of India Today in which they passed off this old report as news from 4 days ago. It might be noted that ‘indialivetoday.com’ to the unobservant eye might easily have passed off as Indiatodaylive, thereby giving credence to Kejriwal’s tweet. Not just that, Kejriwal even retweeted a tweet by an AAP-leaning journalist which shared the same news.

When we last checked, the site had changed the date of the article to November 18, 2014, thereby completely back-tracking. The journalist too had deleted his tweet carrying the misleading news. Yet Kejriwal still believes and has already spread the rumour that this news is as recent as 4 days back.

Kejriwal’s tweet is intact. Just like the earlier case where Mishra, the original tweet and tweeter both have disappeared but Kejriwal’s tweet remains. Because his job is to spread rumour, not spread the reality?

The 2nd level of this fraud by Kejriwal and the site is the fact that way back in April 2015 itself, it was reported that this proposed loan from SBI to Adani had not materialised.

So try to gauge the extent of Kejriwal’s lies: He blindly trusts an unknown site which posted a 2 year old news item as a recent one. He uses this to link the news to demonetisation to incite the public. The site back-tracks but Kejriwal is firm. The underlying news event which was supposed to have happened, never happened. And Kejriwal’s blind followers have lapped it up and are posting this news as fact on every social media forum.

Can this be a coincidence? AAP shares a 2015 news report. Kejriwal shares a hoax death tweet. Kejriwal again shares a 2014 news item which never happened. In all three cases neither AAP nor Kejriwal retract or offer any apology.

Are these honest mistakes? Or is this a plan? Is this the next progression from Kejriwal’s “Is it true” campaign? If so Indian politics may have just descended into very dark days.

Rahul Gandhi has no sense at all, forget any sense of humour: Subramanian Swamy

OpIndia Staff
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Rahul Gandhi has no sense at all, forget any sense of humour: Subramanian Swamy

NEW DELHI: Rajya Sabha MP and lone warrior Dr. Subramanian Swamy was outspoken and politically incorrect as always when he expressed his views about humour and the Indian sociopolitical scenario at a book launch event here.

The event, held at India Islamic Cultural Centre on Monday evening, was to launch the book Unreal Aliens written by Karthik Laxman, founder of the news-satire website The UnReal Times. The event was also attended by NITI Ayog member Bibek Debroy, and was moderated by Rahul Roushan, founder of Faking News and currently with Swarajya group, of which OpIndia.com is now a part

Book launch of Unreal Aliens at India Islamic Center
Rahul Roushan, Subramanian Swamy, Bibek Debroy and Karthik Laxman at the book launch event.

Both Prof. Debroy and Dr. Swamy lamented that the space for humour was shrinking gradually from public lives, and especially so in the Indian parliament, where proceedings are becoming more and more acerbic and acrimonious with each session.

While Prof. Debroy outlined how the first amendment to the Indian constitution itself was a factor in causing this decline not only in the parliament but in the society too, Dr. Swamy was more direct in his criticism.

Dr. Swamy blamed Indira Gandhi for introducing this “intolerance” against humour in the parliament. He said that Mrs. Gandhi, unlike her father, would weigh every statement on a scale that didn’t have the aspect of humour or satire at all. There was snooping on people for their statements, and even innocuous statements said in jest would be twisted for political purposes under the Indira Gandhi regime, the BJP leader said.

“These days media is doing the same,” he said about deliberately twisting statements of people that are said in jest or satirically.

When asked if he can name a few politicians from today’s era who have sense of humour, Swamy said he would need to think for 24 hours before replying.

But he showered compliments on some parliamentarians from the old era for having a sense of humour.

“(Atal Bihari) Vajpayee had a very good sense of humour. I didn’t like him but I’ve to admit that he had it,” Swamy said in his inimitable style.

“Even Rajiv Gandhi had a good sense of humour,” he added. When asked if Rahul Gandhi had inherited some of that (sense of humour) in his view, Swamy said, “He (Rahul Gandhi) has no sense at all.”

Apart from Rahul Gandhi, Swamy trained his guns at Finance Minister Arun Jaitley too, whom he blamed for bad implementation of the demonetisation drive, which he otherwise hailed as a good step.

In fact, Swamy said, in jest of course, that aliens should take away Arun Jaitley. The context was the book Unreal Aliens where aliens invade the earth, especially India, and how the Modi government tackles the issue. Even Dr. Swamy features in the book, apart from Arvind Kejriwal and Arnab Goswami and many other public figures from politics, Bollywood, and media.

Prof. Bibek Debroy was all praise for the book and recommended it for having a wholesome laugh. He also shared a funny anecdote on how he once thought that a name plate with “Vivek Oberoi” printed on it was a mistake around his name, and he got it changed, only to notice later that the Bollywood actor was also present at the event.

Karthik Laxman, author of Unreal Aliens, was asked why did he choose aliens as challenge for Modi government over something like thousands of clones of Arvind Kejriwal.

“I wanted to write humour, not horror,” he said, “Also, you can find a purpose behind any steps by aliens, the same can’t be said about Mr. Kejriwal.”

Unreal Aliens has been published by Penguin India and can be bought online from Amazon. 

How Indian media tried to link every issue in the world to Demonetisation

S. Sudhir Kumar
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How Indian media tried to link every issue in the world to Demonetisation

“Demonetisation may hit fee reimbursement” screamed this front page headline of The Hindu on Nov. 21st . They were alluding to the fee the Telangana state government has to reimburse for all engineering colleges in the state. To save you the pain of reading through the whole report, here is the summary:

  • State government owes more than Rs 2000 crores to engineering colleges from the last 2 years.
  • It has recently released ~Rs 250 crores only.
  • It has promised to release ~Rs 600 crores “soon”.
  • In a totally unrelated topic, the report states that the state government is claiming losses to the tune of ~Rs 2000 crores due to demonetisation.
  • The Hindu is therefore running a story that demonetisation will impact further payments!

The sheer logic behind running this story boggles the mind. This problem has been pending for more than 2 years and amounts were not even released in hay days. In fact, there was the exact same problem back in 2012 too! It looks like the latest fad in town is to blame all teething problems to the demonetisation drive!

“Telangana set to lose Rs 2000 crores per month” – screamed the front page headline on November 11, 2016. However, on November 16, 2016, the same newspaper, The Hindu had a front page report that told us that Telangana is losing ~ Rs 1000 -Rs 1250 crores per month.

x

So what changed from the 11th to the 16th? Upon reading the headline on 16th, one would assume that the change is because of the cut in expenditure. But a detailed reading of the report tells us that nothing changed from the 11th to 16th!  Both the times there is a reference to the CM talking to the governor once, with “supporting statistics”. It looks like a mere miracle that the losses came down by a whopping 50% in just 5 days, without doing anything! Perhaps we wait for a few more days, and this problem is gone then?

“Demonetisation: Severe cash crunch compels citizens to seek psychiatric help”, screamed this headline of First Post. The first case study itself sent me into a tizzy. Let me summarise it for you (all emphasis mine):

  • A student went to a renowned psychiatrist
  • He felt “tormented” because his dad didn’t give him his weekly pocket money of Rs. 1200/-.
  • He claims he cannot drink tea or eat a snack. Neither can he borrow because he has already piled up on debt.

First of all, it beats me why anyone would want to carry high denomination notes to drink tea in canteen. Secondly, if a student who despite getting Rs.1200/- per week has piled up debt in college canteen, then he needs to go see a financial adviser and not a psychiatrist! Thirdly, it does not mention anywhere that the student approached the doctor only because of this *crisis*.

The article goes on to mention another case study, because of the impact of marriage planning. This sounds like a genuine problem, given how anxious we can get during marriage, even in good times! The article then stops giving any more examples and merely talks about “most cases”. To top it all, we also come to know that psychiatrists are thinking that the “fabric of trust” in this country is breaking because of demonetisation!

“Modi’s demonetisation of old 1000 and 500 rupee notes, a blunder in every imaginable way” screamed the headline (headline has been changed later) in Economic Times. I read through the article. It is based entirely on hearsay. Sample these points:

  • Over 90% of the transactions in India are cash transactions,
  • More than 90% of the cash in India is not black money .
  • As per a recent estimate, only 6% of black money is kept in the form of cash.

The “Recent estimate” of 6% was from another news report from Hindustan times, which was interpreting this data from IT raids in the past one year. The 90% has been pulled out of thin air, and random conclusions that link this with what Mao did to sparrows in China are being thrown at the readers!

What do you do when you run out of pictures? Use them again! Take a look at the image below.

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The whatabouttery of the image is baffling too. I can walk into a jewellery shop at 10 am any day and can click a picture of an empty shop! Secondly, the headline on Nov 15 says that “Small traders hit hardest”. How come jewellers are now “small traders”? If buying gold was another way to get rid of black money, isn’t it a good thing that this is being moderated now? But no, the papers won’t tell you that!

“Revenge No Development Strategy” – screamed this headline on Times of India. I was desperate to read some articles that talk about alternatives to the current move announced by Prime Minister Modi. This article was mentioned on an MP’s timeline, so I checked it out. After doing some comparisons with countries like Pakistan, Vietnam, North Korea, Zimbabwe etc, the author tells us that “Modi also chose an odd moment to attack corruption, which appeared to be in retreat.” Whoa, retreat? The source of this information is the “rebound” in our rankings from being the 95th most corrupt country to 76th! Nice job, let’s pat ourselves on the back and go back to citing these numbers to the people of the country!

Apart from the privatisation of banks (I still don’t know how this will help control black money, because the author just mentions it as the only good idea and doesn’t discuss further!), we get to read about another possible way.  “There is also a better way to downsize the black economy, which Modi’s government tried but with underwhelming results.” He tells us that Indonesia’s income declaration scheme imposed only a 4% tax on black money, so a lot more was recovered.  Now – the headline makes sense! Don’t think about revenge on those poor black money hoarders! Let’s perhaps molly coddle the black money hoarders into getting them to pay much much less tax than what the salaried class pays!

Apart from the shameful coverage of linking many unfortunate deaths to this demonetisation drive, the media is also trying to whip up passions across a section of the society by writing such contradictory, sometimes meaningless articles in their publications! Nothing better was anyway expected from the English media. As a parting shot, take a look at the image below, with the caption –“Vendors at Musheerabad Fish market in Hyderabad wait for customers”.

x3

Is it just me, or do you also not see any “vendors” in the picture?

The fixed interview of the decade: Rajdeep talks to “Tigress” Sonia

Hemant Bijapurkar
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The fixed interview of the decade: Rajdeep talks to “Tigress” Sonia

THE BUILD UP:

As one tuned into India Today, the screens flashed ‘Biggest interview of the decade’. Sonia Gandhi was giving her first interview in many years and she was giving it to Rajdeep Sardesai, their consulting editor. To say Sonia Gandhi has been reclusive when it comes to overtly dealing with the fourth estate would be an understatement with only an address to the nation being some form of in front of camera communication.

Many viewers speculated the possible questions which would have been asked. Many probably created a wish list of the questions they would want asked encompassing topics like Demonetisation, the Surgical strike on Pakistan, the separatist protests in Kashmir, the Congress Party’s poor performance in recent elections, Robert Vadra so on. And so it began, the interview was set in the Swaraj Bhavan formerly owned by Motilal Nehru which was the birth place of Indira Gandhi.

THE INTERVIEW:

The first question thrown by Mr. Sardesai, ‘When did you first meet Indira Gandhi?’ looked a bit odd considering Sonia Gandhi was the one getting interviewed, but could have been plausible considering the proximity of the interview’s date with that of Indira Gandhi’s birth anniversary. It was followed by what was Indira like at home, then what influence did she (Indira) have on her (Sonia’s) politics and life. Flags probably were beginning to be raised in viewers mind about the arc of the interview.

Then he asked Sonia about the allegations that she, Indira, and the rest promoted dynasty politics. Finally it looked like Rajdeep was done easing Sonia in and real question were starting to prop up but again he went, ‘what are the central ideas and values of Indira’, the first response to it by Sonia was, many might have guessed, ‘Secularism’.

One thing led to another and Rajdeep managed to ask as to was Indira practising vote bank politics. If not already clear, Sonia’s response brought the whole interview into perspective. She responded, ‘We are discussing Mrs. Gandhi, and I don’t like to discuss politics’. At another point too when Sonia sensed Rajdeep was drifting away from her set rules, she used the same rebuke.

There surely have been instances where the questions in an interview appeared fixed but in this case the whole topic was pre-decided and no attempt was made to keep this fact under wraps. It was an eulogy to Indira Gandhi, in the words of her daughter-in-law, being asked ultra-soft-ball questions by a friendly face. And all the ‘interview of the decade’ looked like offering was underarm full tosses!

In short, questions were asked to Sonia about Indira and the various aspects of her life which Sonia Gandhi remembered with surprising clarity. Rajdeep’s tone and body language remained extremely docile, supportive and probably sycophantic, completely unlike the one during Smriti Irani’s interview.

It wasn’t the first time Mr Sardesai had interviewed Mrs Gandhi; he did another interview with her back in 2005, when there there were real questions like her reaction to corruption in politics, allegations of her being the real power behind Manmohan Singh, etc. though the tone still remained the same. One thing which remained EXACTLY the same was Rajdeep’s admiration for Sonia, who he said “fought like a Tigress”:

Much like he used to keep saying Rahul Gandhi has “come of age”.

THE AFTERMATH:

So was the interview only agreed upon after Sonia Gandhi was assured of being asked questions only regarding Indira Gandhi? Did it not violate the “moral compass” of the profession he strives so hard to follow?

Rajdeep Sardesai' tweet

Another thing that struck us was Sardesai repeating ‘I ask you this because’ after some questions, did Sardesai desperately tried to justify his logic in order to escape Sonia Gandhi’s displeasure for asking some rare questions that did not follow the pre-decided path?

Was this Sonia Gandhi interview a part of a grander plan of the Congress to promote Indira Gandhi and her image so to benefit the party in upcoming elections? A grand white-wash of Indira Gandhi, and maybe promoting Priyanka Gandhi as the modern Indira Gandhi?

As for the reactions we turned to twitter, many dug up Rajdeep’s old tweets to show him the mirror:


One eminent journalist though gave her approval


People’s rebuttal


And finally, someone at home might not be very happy after such easy questions were asked, as evident by her past record of keeping stringent standards in interviews:


Congress and AAP Social Media supporters gang up again to spread panic about new currency notes

Aditya (reviewero)
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Congress and AAP Social Media supporters gang up again to spread panic about new currency notes

As expected, ever since the 8th November demonetisation move kicked in, the usual suspects are having sleepless nights. The list of hoaxes around the demonetisation scheme haven’t stopped coming in as the anti Modi brigade queues up to cash in on the uncertainty after the move.

The photoshop machines have been working over time printing new hoaxes faster than RBI can print new currency notes forcing OpIndia.com to dispel those rumours at the same rate .

The latest mob attack being on the new currency notes. The mobsters after having tried all ways possible to discredit the humble currency notes have now moved on to play the time tested, hardest to dispel, photoshopping routine for their propaganda.

In the latest trick to confuse and paralyse masses, photoshopped images of the new currency is being circulated. Some of these pictures are of the Rs 500 notes where they claim they received new notes from ATM which are only half printed while others claim they got Rs 2000 notes which were misprinted.

Just days before this, a hoax of an incorrect Hindi language print on the Rs 2000 note was made viral by the same group, with suggestion that the Rs 2000 note was printed in hurry and that demonetisation should be rolled back because the Government and RBI are ill prepared.

After all the hoaxes being busted on this site alone, the latest attempt was hundreds of Congress and AAP affiliated handles suddenly claiming to have withdrawn washed off Rs 500 notes. Here are two such geniuses:

whatsapp-image-2016-11-21-at-4-13-53-pm

This chap has already deleted his tweets which were retweeted over 1000 times and has now moved on to the next hoax which is already debunked (note the hashtag):

captureshandilya

Two more tweets claiming the 500 note half printed, one of them mentioning it’s a Whatsapp forward. These were deleted later too:

whatsapp-image-2016-11-21-at-4-14-31-pm

There is no proof that these notes actually exist other than the deleted tweets based on Whatsapp forwards. The notes clearly look badly photoshoped. The other rumour being spread is that the Rs 2000 notes having a lot of mis-prints with hundreds of handles tweeting about it.

whatsapp-image-2016-11-21-at-4-14-21-pm

whatsapp-image-2016-11-21-at-4-14-10-pm

It’ll be hard to say with 100% surety if these are fake or real. But considering how hard the rumour mills are working (look at some other rumours like SBI waves off Mallya loan, Kejriwal passes thief’s suicide as innocent citizen committing suicide because of demonetisation and top 10 rumours about demonetisation) it will be foolish to not wait till facts are clear.

Some error rate in currency printing is but natural and banks replace these notes. RBI has made errors before and has come forward and issued clarifications earlier. But for now this remains unconfirmed too

unconfirmed

Meanwhile the assault on the new currency continues unabated with you-tubers making them pass through stress tests usually reserved for nuclear bunkers and it looks they are holding up nicely, you can relax and appreciate the crispiness of your new notes.

Revealed: The man who will replace Arnab Goswami on Times Now

OpIndia Staff
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Revealed: The man who will replace Arnab Goswami on Times Now

Editor-in-Chief of English TV news channel Times Now, Arnab Goswami, had resigned from the channel earlier this month. Arnab had virtually single-handedly taken Times Now to a position where it was the undisputed TRP leader in the English news market. Obviously, when it was revealed that he would be leaving, it came as big shock, and everybody had 2 questions:

1. What next for Arnab?

2. What next for Times Now?

In this report, we had tried to guess what Arnab could be upto next. And now it has been revealed what Times Now would do without Arnab.

Some were wondering whether Times Now would follow the route of Times of India, which is much softer on many issues. Of late, Arnab had strictly disassociated himself with other Times Group brands, especially Times of India. He announced that he didn’t support the Aman Ki Asha campaign by the group. So this would fit the narrative.

Social media today was also rife with rumours that Rajdeep Sardesai would be roped in at Times Now. This was probably based on the fact the his wife Sagarika Ghose is already with Times of India and now the entire Times Group could be their fiefdom. It would also go along with the thought that Times Now was seeking to re-position itself.

This of course would have led to Times Now losing a massive (if not  the entire) chunk of their viewer base. While most other English language channels followed the unwritten leftist-liberal rules, Times Now had broken them, and a Rajdeep would have just ensured that Times Now would have become just another channel.

But now, these rumours have been quashed as none other than the Editor of News-X has revealed that Rahul Shivshankar who was an anchor and news editor at News-X would now move to Times Now:


Image result for rahul shivshankar

This will probably be an astute move for both Times Now and Rahul Shivshankar. First of all, Shivshankar has modelled his approach to be very similar to Arnab. Both of them are very aggressive and tow similar editorial lines. So this would seem a natural promotion for him.

Times Now also seems to have realised that they have created a brand positioning for themselves, which cannot and should be changed overnight. Hence they have chosen Shivshankar, to possibly continue the tone and tenor of the channel, as managed by Arnab. It is also interesting to note that Shivshankar was a former Times Now employee and had worked along side Arnab.

Shivshankar though will have huge shoes to fill since Arnab was the sole eyeball-winner on Times Now and it remains to be seen if the audience will continue to be faithful to Times Now. Also, News X isn’t really anywhere close to the “Gold standard” in journalism. So will he be as credible a face as Arnab Goswami to Times Now’s millions of viewers? At least till Arnab starts his new venture, Times Now will hope that Shivshankar manages to catch the pulse of the nation.

After surgical strike on unaccounted cash, next attack on undeclared gold and real estate?

Nitin Rivaldo
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After surgical strike on unaccounted cash, next attack on undeclared gold and real estate?

Although the term “Black money” creates an impression of a person hoarding unaccounted hard cash, the truth is slightly different. “Black money” or unaccounted wealth is now not only stored in Cash but also in Gold and Real Estate. One major criticism of the demonetisation scheme is – Oh, the cash component of black money is minor. Most of it is in Gold and Real Estate.

So is the demonetisation scheme unwarranted?

Nope. You had to start somewhere. What-about Gold, What-about benami properties, cannot be the rationale to counter a measure to tackle other forms of ill-gotten wealth. And cash is the only practical starting point from the point of view of maximum compliance.

Could you have gone after gold first or Benami property first? If Yes how? How would you make sure that people suddenly started declaring all undeclared and unaccounted Gold and Benami Property and clean up the mess in 50 days? If some genius has a plan, I would have happy to hear it!

On the contrary, the current plan follows a logical path. It started with IDS and now is the turn of demonetization to clean up unaccounted cash. And now one can go after other form of assets.

Imagine that in February if Modi says – declare all your Gold that you bought without bills and make it white by paying 50% penalty on the value.

Do you think people would do it? I think Yes. For they would have seen what happened to the cash that was not declared. People were forced to burn it, or they faced risk of facing IT notices and paying massive penalty.

There will be fear that what if Modi comes out with some scheme in future where the government could open all your bank lockers to check for undeclared gold? The risk of losing it all will force people to declare those assets to the government during the first declaration drive, if they do it.

The key is the crooks need to be gone after with a carrot and stick approach, and the stick needs to be a real stick, not some imaginary hypothetical twig. Can you imagine the response the IDS scheme would have got if there were clear indications that post the IDS scheme, the Government will bring in demonetisation? Those people who did not opt for it now know that the threats issued during the IDS scheme are not hollow. And this will be playing on their minds, and it is precisely this which needs to be tapped further, to extract the harder-to-crack assets such as Gold and Benami properties.

It’s not easy to get rid of gold or benami properties so easily. You can’t sell your gold because you won’t easily find a buyer who is willing to buy it without any paperwork. Also, there could already be a cash squeeze in the market because of demonetisation.

So people will be stuck with their gold or other undeclared assets in that situation. Those who declare first can save some of it in IDS kind of scheme. Those who don’t risk losing all of it. So when the government comes up with another amnesty scheme targeted especially at gold or real estate, trust that the conversion rate will be better next time.

Gold and Real estate are black money reserves. They are sort of a Savings Account of black money, while Cash is the current account of black money (not saying all cash is black money). Government has gone after the current account of black money. Savings accounts will be the next.

The Coldplay concert finally took place, but here are some who tried to stop it

Srikanth Ramakrishnan
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The Coldplay concert finally took place, but here are some who tried to stop it

British rock band Coldplay’s much awaited appearance at a concert this month in Mumbai had run into some trouble recently thanks to some fringe outfits.

The concert, announced earlier in September grabbed media attention when rumours surfaced claiming that tickets would be priced between Rs. 25,000 and Rs. 5 lakh. Later on, the organisers of the event, Global Citizen confirmed that a majority of the tickets would be available free of cost while around one-fifth of them would be available for sale at rather high prices, intended for VIPs. Global Citizen, on their website, describes itself as a “Social Action Platform” to solve social problems with an aim to end Global Poverty by 2030.

The concert held on 19 November in Mumbai, featured Coldplay as the lead act. Interspersed with the music, were global leaders, social workers, celebrities  and business magnates, promoting the 3 sustainable development goals chosen by India, as well as pledging crores of rupees in support to these social causes. Global Citizen’s CEO Hugh Evans, states that the concert is a result of meetings between Coldplay’s lead vocalist Chris Martin (also GC’s Creative Director) and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

However, the run up to the concert was not smooth. It attracted opposition from two political parties, and the shocking fact is that neither the Shiv Sena nor the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena were among those.

Spokesperson of the Congress, (which has been reduced to a fringe outfit electorally), Sanjay Nirupam, who had termed the Surgical Strike conducted by the Indian Army “fake”, had complained to the State Election Commission asking for the concert to be scrapped, citing it violated the Code of Conduct for the Upcoming Civic Elections.

He alleged that the BJP-led Government of Maharashtra, which had given a 75% concession to the organisers to hold the event at MMRDA Grounds in Bandra-Kurla Complex. He claimed that the BJP was using this for political gains by generating goodwill among the public. The Congress’ ally, the NCP too chimed in asking for the concert asking for it to be postponed.

Nirupam, and his associates in the INC and NCP however, were wrong. The Election Code of Conduct, which came into effect after polling dates were announced on 17 October is not valid for the districts of Mumbai (City and Suburban) and Thane. The Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) comprising of seven municipal corporations, mostly within these three districts, is set to go for polls only in early 2017.

Perhaps some in the party realised that it was a futile fight, which is why Congress leader Milind Deora tweeted out stating that it was “unwise” to demand any ban on the concert. Eventually, Deora even took to the stage at the concert, with Poonam Mahajan and Aditya Thakeray, to spread the word for the social causes taken up.

One may wonder if the Congress planned to rake this controversy up only to blame the BJP government later, if the concert was delayed or cancelled. In the wake of the recent controversy surrounding the release of Karan Johar’s Ae Dil Hai Mushkil, any delay or cancellation of the concert would have reflected very badly on the Fadnavis government.

Global Citizen had further stated that it planned to organise more such events for the next 15 years with this year being the first one. A ban or rescheduling of the event would have sent out an incorrect message that India is not the right destination for global concerts. Maybe Congress leaders like Sanjay Nirupam had this in mind?

Another fringe group that targeted the event was the Aam Aadmi Party. Party convener for Maharashtra, Anjali Damania went on to file a PIL in the Bombay High Court. Why? The Tax exemption granted by the Fadnavis government. But the exemption was justified as the event was of charitable nature, for majority of the tickets were given out free.

Despite such hurdles, the concert took place. There were usual rants about why PM Modi sent out a message by a few social media commentators, but in the end, India could host an event of international standards.

Rajdeep Sardesai places his prejudices over ethics of journalism

OpIndia Staff
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Rajdeep Sardesai places his prejudices over ethics of journalism

Rajdeep Sardesai’s personal views for Modi are no more a secret. From remote villages in Bihar to posh corridors of Madison Square, Rajdeep — as a preacher, as a boxer, as a saint, as an anchor — has left no stone unturned to express his visceral hatred for Modi. India, as a democracy, has always tried to protect personal beliefs and opinions of individuals. After 2014, it was feared that Modi government will strangulate freedom of expression, but ironically, the attacks on Modi didn’t attenuate, rather they grew manifold.

However, Rajdeep is much more than an individual opinion holder; he is an opinion maker. He heads and has headed top-positions of media houses which act as eyes and ears of the nation. With such pivotal accountability, one is expected to act prudent and responsible. Sadly, Rajdeep differs to maintain that, again and again.

As expected, Rajdeep has been very critical of the demonetisation scheme from the first day. By the time Modi finished his speech, Rajdeep tweeted his scepticism:


Since then, his concerns and criticisms have remained intact in various forms. From subjugation of lower classes to sufferings of patient undergoing medical emergency, his tweets have covered a wide spectrum of narratives.


A recent article published in Navhind Times, a Goan daily, claims that Sardesai pointed out that sixty per cent of the country’ population has been troubled by  demonetisation. Sardesai also added that few media houses are providing biased news on it.Sardesai

Interestingly, on-the-field reactions to Rajdeep’s queries are substantially different from tweets published by Rajdeep. The following video demonstrates how Rajdeep was trolled when he tried to nudge people on the “inconvenience” factor. Contrary to the views published in the Navhind Times, Rajdeep was contradicted by all his interviewees, who expressed that they are willing to take the inconvenience.


If these were the responses received by Rajdeep, he should answer how did he arrive at the 60 per cent figure.

If these were the responses received by Rajdeep, he must answer where is the objectivity gone from his journalism.

If these were the responses received by Rajdeep, he must answer why is he mixing facts with prejudices.

It is also odd to note that Rajdeep chose to refer to a news report in an unknown Gujarati publication in April 2016, which, as he claimed, knew about the move of scrapping Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes eight months before the announcement. It is odd because, India Today, the same organisation where Rajdeep works, had debunked this here. They revealed that the “news” was published on 1st April 2016, also known as April Fool’s day, and the editor of the daily, Kirit Gantara himself confirmed that it was a prank, adding that “It is just a coincidence that the Modi government took such a decision. It’s a sheer coincidence.”

The Press Council of India states that the fundamental objective of journalism is to serve the people with news, views, comments and information on matters of public interest in a fair, accurate, unbiased, sober and decent manner.

In fact, Rajdeep knows the answer, he always knew it.


 

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