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Delhi police asks Kejriwal to share information on alleged phone tapping of judges

OpIndia Staff
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Delhi police asks Kejriwal to share information on alleged phone tapping of judges

On Monday, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had made serious allegations that he had heard some judges claiming that their phones were being tapped. The allegation was made in presence of Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, who quickly rubbished the allegations.

While making the allegations, Arvind Kejriwal had added a rider “I don’t know if this is true”, which is in line with his trademark “is this true?” style of posting messages on Twitter when he wants to circulate any unverified information or rumour.

Perhaps this “Is this true?” style has been adopted by Kejriwal to escape defamation cases that he has been facing due to his earlier allegations. The other strategy adopted, especially by party leaders like Ashutosh, is to credit some unverifiable information to “sources”.

But that’s not proving to be enough for Arvind Kejriwal in the latest case. Taking cognizance of his allegations, Delhi Police has written a letter to the AAP supremo to let them know about the details of the information he has.

“Phone tapping is an extremely serious matter and is not allowed without due authorization after following strict procedures mandated under law,” the letter written to Arvind Kejriwal reads.

“Please let us know of any incident or case of phone tapping that you have referred to in the course of your speech. We would also appreciate if you could inform us the source on which you base your allegations so that appropriate action can be initiated in the matter,” the letter concludes.

It should be noted that most people, including former judges and even the Congress party – which usually sings in tune with Kejriwal over allegations against the Modi government – had said that Arvind Kejriwal should provide proof before making such serious allegations about independence of judiciary.

Now the ball is in Kejriwal’s court and he has to respond to Delhi Police’s request of providing information. But given the track record of AAP supremo, it appears that he will use this opportunity to make another allegation.

Most probably, Kejriwal will claim that Narendra Modi is using Delhi Police to put pressure on him to reveal names of judges who could be targeted by the centre. We will wait for that tweet.

Ravish Kumar gets a dark screen- NDTV India to be shut down for 1 day, read why

OpIndia Staff
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Ravish Kumar gets a dark screen- NDTV India to be shut down for 1 day, read why

Things don’t seem to be going very well for NDTV. Forget “Acche Din”, even average “Din” have deserted NDTV group. The company is saddled with losses. It has a tax case against it alleging crores of evasion. As far as TRP’s are concerned, it languishes near the bottom among English News channels. Barkha Dutt’s show for example had hit NDTV so hard, that she rescheduled her show from the 9pm slot to 8pm. Just a few months back we had revealed how some “bot accounts” were seen propping up NDTV stories on social media. Now they are hit with something worse.

The issue of showing counter terrorism operations live on TV has been debated for long. This irresponsible aspect of live news was witnessed first during the Mumbai terror attacks of 2008 when Indian news channels almost acted as source of information for terror handlers.

The journalistic fraternity initially tried to defend their stand claiming it was their duty to bring truth to the viewers, however later they conceded that the media needs to realise the consequences of their actions. Showing counter operations live doesn’t serve any public interest, and it can only be misused by terror handlers.

Even at that time NDTV had particularly been criticised by the netizens for showing operations live. A blogger named Chaitanya Kunte had published a post titled “Shoddy Journalism” where he had blasted Barkha Dutt for her live coverage of Mumbai terror attacks.

The post went viral and earned a legal notice from Barkha Dutt, who objected to one paragraph where the blogger had cited Wikipedia to remark that Barkha was earlier responsible for some casualties during Kargil War, where she had gone for live reporting.

The blogger got scared and deleted his post, offering an unconditional apology to Barkha. This was perhaps the tipping point that made Barkha a villain in the digital world.

While Barkha still denies the Kargil casualty claim, she later admitted that the Mumbai terror attacks coverage could have been handled better by the media.

“There were some unwitting mistakes made by all of us as journalists. Unwitting. We didn’t calculate that there were handlers monitoring our broadcast in real time, no one from the government told us either,” she said in an interview last year.

However, it doesn’t seem like media has learnt from the mistakes it committed, especially NDTV. But luckily, it seems the Government, which was the fall-guy for Barkha last time, has got its act right this time. Maybe its the new dispensation which is not any more in her reach (read Radia Tapes).

On January 28th this year, the Information and Broadcasting ministry sent a show cause notice to NDTV India over its coverage of the terrorist attack on Pathankot airbase which “prima facie” violated norms. The I&B ministry had repeatedly asked for restraint by TV channels in their reporting of terror attacks especially when the operation is still on. Last year, the ministry had barred channels from airing live coverage of anti-terrorist operations by security forces by approving a new rule as per which broadcasters in such situations will have to restrict themselves to reporting periodic briefing by designated officers.

It now appears that the proceedings in the above matter have been completed, and NDTV India,  has been ordered to be shut down temporarily by the government for their irresponsible coverage during the Pathankot terror attack in January this year.

Sources have told us that an Inter-ministerial committee of the Information and Broadcasting ministry (IMC) set up to look into this matter has recommended that the channel go off for one full day. IMC noted with “grave concern” that the channel had “revealed sensitive details like location of ammunition depot and the place where terrorists were held up, location of school and residential areas”. The IMC also noted that “NDTV India appeared to give out the exact location of the remaining terrorists in the Pathankot airbase attack during the live telecast”

NDTV India responded by saying that the information shared by the them was already reported in the National dailies.  The IMC however observed that the guidelines governing the TV channels and Newspapers are different. They noted that “the reach of TV Is beyond physical borders and language barriers” and that “TV as an audio/visual medium have a far wider and instantaneous impact”. It appears the IMC is trying to draw a distinction between printing that an army post is in a particular town, versus actually showing the physical location of the post via videos and images, thereby making it easier to be located.

IMC analysed that the disclosure of sensitive information when anti-terrorist operations are underway causes alarm, “demoralisation of citizens and security forces” and collateral damage among other issues. IMC also observed that the information released on NDTV India “was neither based on nor limits to the information given in the media briefing by designated armed forces officers”

IMC noted that “threat to National Security cannot justified on any grounds whatsoever”, hence “no benefit of doubt could be given for their subjective interpretation as mentioned in the representation given by the channel”. IMC also took cognisance of the fact that this was not the first violation by NDTV group and that “there are previous incidents where the channel has violated the Program code in the Cable act”

NDTV can actually heave a sigh of relief since IMC had initially recommended a penalty of taking the channel off-air for 30 days, as per the new rules introduced in June 2015. However, eventually they settled for a “token cut” of one day, since this was the first instance of violation of the newly inserted provisions in the program code. The IMC noted that this one day token penalty cut was recommended to ensure that NDTV India does not get away completely for this “huge indiscretion and violation of rules. ”

Such penalties of going off air for TV channels are not completely new though. Another IMC of the I & B Ministry had  found that Al-Jazeera channel had violated the programme code by showing wrong maps of India on repeated occasions and recommended that it be taken off air for five days in 2015. In contrast, NDTV got away with the same offence, by just putting up a text of apology, as noted in this article.

Early this year, NDTV India’s Ravish Kumar had begun sermonising the world, on how media should report matters. He took a dramatic approach, by turning the screen black and proceeding on a monologue, where only the audio could be heard. With this latest indictment of his journalistic practices, Ravish can very well repeat his theatrics, but this time without the audio as well. The black screen may be for just a day, but the black spot of shame will always remain on NDTV.

Christian groups force Mumbai restaurant to remove “blasphemous” paintings

OpIndia Staff
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Christian groups force Mumbai restaurant to remove “blasphemous” paintings

MUMBAI: Goregaon Social, a restaurant cum bar in Mumbai suburb has been forced to apologise and remove paintings and other interiors that were deemed “blasphemous” by some Christian groups. The complaints were filed yesterday and the restaurant was forced to oblige within hours and “offensive” interiors were removed the same day.

It all happened after an NGO called Watchdog Foundation found images such as Jesus Christ holding a leather bag and Moses holding a tablet computer highly offensive to Christians, especially Catholics. The NGO demanded arrest of the owner of the restaurant and closing down of the restaurant for this blasphemous act.

NGO’s demands were supported by the Archdiocese of Bombay, which had earlier forced the comedy group AIB to apologise for their jokes. The Archdiocese demanded that the restaurant be “closed with immediate effect, with cancellation of their Trade License, Liquor Permit, Health License, etc.”

Not only Christian groups, even political parties jumped onto this bandwagon. Student wing of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) asked its supporters to file FIR against the owners of the restaurant. BJP too joined the chorus with Mumbai President calling up police. An online campaign was also launched demanding arrest of the restaurant owner under IPC 295A, which gathered over 8000 signatures within a day.

With pressure rising, police visited the restaurant to take stock of the situation. The owners realized the gravity of the situation and immediately agreed to remove everything that was found blasphemous by the outraged people.

Last night, the Facebook page of the restaurant publicly apologised for the interiors and announced that all such paintings and interiors had been removed. They said sorry for hurting religious sentiments, and claimed that the paintings were intended to be satirical descriptions against consumerism.

The apology has been accepted by the Archdiocese of Bombay, but they added that they didn’t agree with the idea of satire and that ‘the message could have been conveyed in other ways’. They also said that they will ‘continue to monitor the situation in order to ensure that the religious sentiments were respected in both word and action’.

However the apology doesn’t seem to have satisfied many of the outraged Christians. Many comments on the Facebook page indicated that they wanted more action.

“I would have been happier if you didn’t have the liberty to do this in the first place” read one angry comment while other said that “government should initiate legal action against the proprietor and the interior designers.”

Similar sentiments were reflected by the NGO Watchdog Foundation which had raised the issue originally. Nicholas Almeida, a trustee of the foundation told Mid-Day that his demand of closure of the restaurant and arrest of the owner and interior designers was not “extreme”.

“We are soft-natured people, that is why we are easy targets in the city. Let them try something similar with Islam and see the consequences,” he was quoted as saying by the newspaper.

Evangelical and FCRA Infiltrations in the WCD Ministry and NCPCR?

Abhinav Agarwal
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Evangelical and FCRA Infiltrations in the WCD Ministry and NCPCR?

In my earlier post Great Derangement Syndrome: The new bogey – Diwali and sexual abuse of children (published Nov 1, 2016) I looked at the statement allegedly made by The National Commission for Protection of Child
Rights (@NCPCR_) that sought to associate the Hindu festival of Diwali with a rise in child sexual abuse. As per the website of the Ministry of Women and Child Development (WCD), the NCPCR is an “associated organization” of the WCD.

I then wanted to dig a little deeper into the antecedents of the players involved – primarily the organizations involved here. There are primarily two that I looked at – Center for Advocacy and Research, and World Vision.

Center for Advocacy and Research

Before getting into World Vision, a detour into the Center for Advocacy and Research (CFAR) is called for, for reasons that should become clearer later in this post.

As per the minutes of the 29th Statutory meeting of the NCPCR , held on Feb 10th, 2016 (the date is also somewhat pertinent), Agenda Item No. 3 was a proposal stated by Ms Rupa Kapoor, Member, NCPCR, on “Child Participation with an e-initiative” titled as “AskMantri.in” in collaboration with World Vision India Foundation.” The proposal was accepted, and the minutes tell us that a “meeting will soon be held with World Vision India Foundation to finalize the proposal.” Here is a screenshot of the Agenda Item:

Agenda 3 NCPCR Meeting Minutes

Do note that the minutes that have been uploaded are an optical scan of a printout of the document. The document itself would have been prepared not on a typewriter but a document processing application software like Microsoft Word. This digital document was not uploaded, or a read-only PDF version. What was uploaded is an image-based document that cannot be searched. Furthermore, the quality of the scanned document is such that even automatic OCR (Optical Character Recognition) software programs would find it difficult to accurately scan the document. Does the NCPCR not know how to upload text PDF documents? Or was the intent to deliberately obstruct easy searching of the minutes? One can only speculate, unless the NCPCR chooses to clarify.

Ms Rupa Kapoor, the Member of the NCPCR that suggested this collaboration with World Vision, was appointed in November 2015 (link). She was earlier a consultant with the Centre for Advocacy and Research (@delhicfar). Therefore, my detour on CFAR? What is CFAR?

  • For the year ending Mar 31, 2016, I was able to glean the following information from the CFAR website regarding the foreign contributions it received: (link): it received a total ₹7,76,05,923.73 (more then seven crore rupees)
  • According to Form FC-4 available for CFAR for the year ending Mar 31, 2015, from the FCRA site, CFAR had “Total Foreign Contributions” of ₹12,31,15,232.65 (more than twelve crore rupees).
  • For the year ending Mar 31, 2014, CFAR received a total of ₹7,22,61,679.42 as foreign contributions. (more than seven crore rupees)
  • For the year ending Mar 31, 2013, it received a total ₹11,07,36,619.72 (more then eleven crore rupees.

The striking factoid from CFAR’s FCRA receipts is how much it is reliant on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Consider the BMGF’s percentage of all foreign funding the FCRA received:

  • The BGMF provided 87% (₹6.4 crores) of all foreign funding to the CFAR in 2015-16
  • 30% (₹3.4 crores) in 2014-15 – an anomaly that is worthy of a deeper investigation, in my opinion.
  • 91% (over ₹10 crores) in 2013-14
  • 85% (₹6.1 crores) in 2012-13

For an advocacy group that is so overwhelming reliant on one single foreign donor for its operations, it would be difficult for anyone to make the claim that CFAR is not overwhelming beholden to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. According to its Annual Report for the year ended (sic) 31st March, 2015 (link to pdf), its total receipts were ₹150,579,929.80 (fifteen crore rupees). In many ways, one could say that CFAR would probably not exist were it not for funding from the BMGF. To what extent BMGF directs the agenda of the CFAR is something we can only speculate on.

Other foreign donors to the CFAR include the Ford Foundation, Population Services International, and others. The Ford Foundation has a very disturbing past to it, where for several years it was at the forefront of funding research into fetal sex determination and then aggressively advocating sex-selective abortions in India – leading to millions of aborted female foetuses and the skewed gender ratio one sees today. I wrote about it earlier in 2016 on IndiaFacts, Was Ford Foundation Culpable In Aborting Female Foetuses In India?
As for Population Services International, (@PSIimpact), it is described as a “a $670 million organization that markets abortion drugs in the developing world.” (link)

Coming to the NCPCR and its connection with CFAR, in Nov 2015, Ms Rupa Kapoor, a consultant with the CFAR, was appointed Member of the NCPCR. Less than three months later, in Feb 2016, Ms Rupa Kapoor brought out a proposal to collaborate with World Vision to provide multi-platform access to children. The proposal was accepted. The multi-platform access looks more like a very efficient means to track children across offline and online media. The potential violation of the privacy of children has not been addressed or even hinted at in the minutes. The same cabal of self-proclaimed defenders and champions of children have kept strangely quiet on this possible violation of one of the most basic rights of children – of privacy. Strange indeed are the ways of these self-proclaimed champions.

Now let us turn to World Vision.

The World Vision Connection

World Vision is a $2.8 billion global “humanitarian” organization engaged in relief, development, and child welfare work. This is the organization that the NCPCR is collaborating with. For more information on World Vision, do give this blog post a read – World Vision India: A Quick Intro –  on the India Happenings blog.

Apart from the NCPCR, where else is World Vision embedded within the government of India? At least two places can be called out:
  • World Vision India “is part of the Planning Commission Working Group on Women’s Empowerment and Child Development. This group provides input to the Planning Commission on issues of children and women, to be incorporated into the 11th five-year plan.”
  • World Vision India “is also part of the NGO steering committee of the National Disaster Management Authority, the premier agency dealing with disaster relief and preparedness in India.” [both references can be found on World Vision’s India website: https://www.worldvision.in/Advocacy]

So what exactly is World Vision? Let us see and read, in World Vision’s own words (bold-emphasis mine, all World Vision links accessed Oct 29th, 2016):

Statement of Faith | World Vision
There are more strident, dogmatic statements from the World Vision Singapore website, which have since been deleted. One has to use the services of the Wayback Machine (https://web.archive.org/) to find an archived copy of the page. What does the now-removed-or-deleted page of World Vision’s Singapore website page say? (bold-emphasis mine, all World Vision links accessed Oct 29th, 2016)
  • “World Vision is an expression of the Church in mission on behalf of the poor and oppressed.“
  • “World Vision shares the Church’s commitment to disciple followers of Jesus Christ who bear witness to the Gospel by life, deed, word and sign, with the goal of encouraging people to respond to the Gospel.”

The article, Many Don’t Know of World Vision’s Evangelical Mission | Huffington Post, references a page from the Singapore website of World Vision – http://www.worldvision.org.sg/st_ourchristainfaith.php. Clicking the link takes you to the home page of the World Vision’s Singapore website, there is a HTTP 301. [permanent URL redirection]

Even more disturbingly, World Vision seems to be a fanatical organization with a deeply bigoted and intolerant streak running through it. World Vision’s U.S. operations are headquartered in Federal Way (a city in the King County, sandwiched between Seattle and Tacoma), and which employ more than 1,200 people. All employees are required to sign a statement of faith affirming their belief in Jesus and the Trinity. In 2011, the US Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of three former employees of World Vision, thereby letting the ruling of the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals stand. World Vision won its right to fire workers who it suspected did not believe completely in Jesus or the Trinity. (see Supreme Court Won’t Hear World Vision Hiring Case | Gleanings | ChristianityToday.com and High court refuses World Vision hiring case | The Seattle Times).

Sterns had said that World Vision’s hiring policy is “vital to the integrity of our mission to serve the poor as followers of Jesus Christ.” [link] World Vision’s U.S. president, Richard Stearns, in a statement had this to say – “After four years of litigation, we at World Vision U.S. may now put this matter behind us, and continue our policy of hiring only Christians.“[link]

In recent years, it emerged that 60 percent of World Vision’s funding for the Gaza Strip was diverted to the Hamas, a terrorist organization (see World Vision’s Christian Donations Funded Hamas – Israel Today | Israel News, World Vision funds $7.2 million per year to terrorist group allied to ISIS., ) Closer home, there were investigations and allegations that World Vision was involved in the gruesome murder of 80-year old Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati. See Laxmanananda Saraswati unmourned yet again for disturbing details of the case.

Such an organization has spread its tentacles into the government of India, and is advising the government on issues related to women and children. Its interference continues unabated, unquestioned, uninvestigated, even under a supposedly right-wing government.

Pause and ponder this point.

World Vision’s statements and the facts collated above should put to rest any doubt that might exist that World Vision is first and foremost – and primarily – a powerful, very well-funded, and aggressive evangelical organization that uses its financial clout to promote its evangelical agenda in countries. What is also not in doubt is that this organization’s India arm continues to receive hundreds of crores of rupees every year via the FCRA (Foreign Contribution Regulation Act) route. This money is deployed across more than one hundred districts in the country, and World Vision’s employees use this money to infiltrate almost every branch of the government.

From an evangelical perspective, missionary organizations target the poor, the vulnerable, the young, and the women for their soul-harvesting activities. These are the demographics that yield the greatest dividends. To that end, natural disasters present one of the best opportunities for evangelical organizations to spread the gospel and harvest millions of souls. The catastrophic earthquake in Nepal in April 2015, and the devastating tsunami in South Asia in 2004 are but just two such examples where natural disasters have been used for rampant conversion activities.

Therefore, it is but natural that such evangelical organizations infiltrate those departments of the government that focus on child and women welfare. The NCPCR and the Women and Child Development Ministry are prime targets.

Locations of FCRA Utilization Bank Accounts of World Vision India. (via https://indiahap.wordpress.com/ – interactive map here)

In any case, the questions to be asked here are:

  • Did the CFAR play any role in advocating the development of this privacy-invading platform targeted at children?
  • Was there any collaboration, consultation – formal or informal – between the CFAR, World Vision, the NCPCR, and Ms Rupa Kapoor?
  • Has any group looked into the privacy implications of this proposed initiative?

The role of Ms Rupa Kapoor in any case warrants a closer and thorough investigation – especially any links she may have with World Vision or other advocacy or evangelical groups. It would appear, prima-facie, that there are enough grounds for suspicion that she has been compromised and is more than willing to do the bidding of World Vision.

As of completing this second, and concluding, post, I had still not got any clarification – confirmation or denial – from either the NCPCR or the Hon’bl Minister, Ms Maneka Gandhi.

Disclaimer: views expressed are personal

Rahul Gandhi’s and Kejriwal’s vulture politics gets exposed by social media

OpIndia Staff
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Rahul Gandhi’s and Kejriwal’s vulture politics gets exposed by social media

Ram Kishan Grewal, a former Army jawan, who was supposedly protesting over the One Rank One Pension (OROP) scheme, allegedly committed suicide on Tuesday under mysterious circumstances. The news was first broken by an AAP MLA, Commando Surender who claimed that Ram Kishan Grewal had come to Delhi to protest: “He was protesting at Jantar Mantar and had then proceeded to meet the Defence Minister with a group of fellow protesters when he consumed poison”.

The jawan purportedly left a suicide letter, in which he claimed that he still wasn’t getting OROP. A jawan had lost his life, and the political battle had just begun. Delhi CM Kejriwal was quick to try to extract political mileage from the scenario. He tried to visit the jawan’s family in the hospital but was detained by the police. He soon tried to play victim, but was exposed by social media:


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Kejriwal had conveniently forgotten that in March this year, when a 40-year-old dentist Dr Narang, was beaten to death in front of his family by about a dozen people in West Delhi’s Vikaspuri area, it was Kejriwal himself who had tweeted that he would visit the family after a few days since he realised they were in a state of shock. Apparently in Kejriwal’s world, the family members of a jawan do not deserve such considerations since they can be used for politics.

Later Kejriwal tweeted that since a jawan had allegedly committed suicide due to non-receipt of OROP dues, it was proved that OROP was in fact not at all functional. But here again ordinary Indians exposed Kejriwal’s lies:


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Soon, Kejriwal had to face another embarrassment as the CM who was in grief and shock, on the way to meet the grieving family of a jawan who had just committed suicide, was photographed at the venue in far better moods:


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If Kejriwal had entered the field how could Congress and Rahul Gandhi stay behind? When Rahul Gandhi tried to visit the family, he too was detained by the cops. And seeking to make Rahul a “hero” as per some Congress script, Congress leaders jumped in to sensationalise the issue, only to be brought to ground on social media. Randeep Surjewala claimed Rahul had been “arrested”, when he had only been detained:


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Twitter users also wondered what moral grounds Rahul Gandhi had to protest against the Government which delivered the same OROP which his grand mother Indira Gandhi had withdrawn almost 40 yrs ago:


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Even though Rahul Gandhi was portrayed to be in distress by Congress leaders, pictures showed otherwise. A beaming and smiling Rahul Gandhi was snapped right outside the hospital gate and again exposed by social media for his hollow sorrow:


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Soon a video emerged, showing Rahul Gandhi in a police station arguing with the cops. And social media users found that Rahul Gandhi was woefully uninformed about the issue. He was seemingly confused as to the person who was detained with him, was the father or the son of the jawan who committed suicide:


Worse, in the same video, towards the end, Rahul was seeing saying “Theek hai ho gaya” to the person recording the video, as if to signal one act of the drama was over:


Finally, late in the evening, Kejriwal tweeted that he too had been detained, and continued to live-tweet even while being detained, which again led to ridicule:


And in this, a Pakistani even welcomed Kejriwal:


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While social media exposes the hollowness of this vulture politics, it is important to investigate the alleged suicide, and the circumstances which led a brave jawan to take such a cowardly step.

Analysing the SIMI encounter – a view from a veteran

rohitagarwal
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Analysing the SIMI encounter – a view from a veteran

The trouble with opposition generated and media sustained hype about anything that could be used to embarrass the government is manifold. First, there seems to be no issue too serious, no institution too sacrosanct to avoid politicisation and sensationalizing. We recently witnessed major opposition parties casting serious aspersions on the credibility of the army by asking the government to furnish proof of the operations that the DGMO briefed media about. One regional leader of the major opposition party even went as far as to call the operations fake, and instead of chastising him, his party Vice President built on that argument and accused the government of pimping the blood of soldiers.

Secondly, hype is sought to be built up around catchy phrases with scant regard to the connotations. Shallow arguments are built around superficial information just to grab eyes and ears. These are turned into gospel truth merely by frequency of repetition. And what is worse is that those responsible for speaking on behalf of the government also fall into the trap, trying to counter the narrative built to target them rather than demolishing it to build a more cogent one closer to reality.

Latest in this cycle is the storm being kicked up about the gunning down of eight fugitives from Bhopal jail belonging to the banned militant organisation SIMI and under trial for charges including terrorism, conspiring to murder and a previous jailbreak. They escaped from the prison in the middle of the night after killing a jail guard, and were killed by the police the next day in what is being touted as a ‘fake encounter’. The arguments being forwarded and theories being propounded range from absurd to bizarre, and converge towards a narrative that is being sought to be built, that the entire episode was a pre-mediated plot on part of the authorities to kill innocent Muslims.

What is being implied is that either they were deliberately allowed to escape so that they could be followed and killed, or maybe they were just picked up from the prison and taken to the place of the encounter and shot dead in cold blood. Grainy video footage of a few seconds from unknown sources are being purported as substantive evidence that the killing was in cold blood.

But if we step back from the noise and rhetoric to examine the facts, a clearer picture emerges.

Fact 1 – All the eight were under trial for heinous crimes including terrorism. Yes, they were not convicted criminals, but four of them had previously escaped from jail, a crime which doesn’t require much to prove in a court of law.

Fact 2 – While escaping this time around, they had  murdered a jail guard in cold blood. Unless those making vague references to conspiracies are also alleging that the murder victim was a sacrificial goat in the elaborate plan by the authorities, the fugitives were also facing fresh charges of murder.

Fact 3 – The information about the presence of the fugitives near the encounter site was given to the police by villagers, with the sarpanch being on record on video asserting this. Scores of villagers witnessed the ensuing encounter from a distance. As per eyewitness accounts on video, the police asked the fugitives to surrender and also fired in the air. It was only when they refused to surrender, and started pelting stones that the police fired at them.

Fact 4 – One video shows one policeman firing into the supine body of one of the fugitives from close quarters.

If we piece together these facts, we can dispassionately arrive at some logical conclusions. There were definitely major lapses on the part of the jail administration, who don’t seem to have learnt anything from the previous escape by four of these under trial terrorists. But the eight had definitely escaped and were on the run. When confronted by the police at the encounter site, they did not surrender. Therefore, by no stretch of imagination can this be called a case of ‘fake encounter’, which implies that the whole incident was stage managed. That the police either picked them up from the prison, took them to the site and then killed them in cold blood. Or that they surrendered, and instead of arresting them, the police shot them. Neither of these versions are borne out by the facts listed above.

What the police can possibly be faulted for is ‘use of excessive force’. And how much force can be considered excessive while dealing with hardened criminals and suspected terrorists is a matter of the judgement of the person in charge on the spot. The fact that they had already killed a policeman while escaping would have been a factor in making this judgement. One of the primary responsibilities of the commander on the spot is to avoid casualties to own men, and the fugitives had already demonstrated the intent to do so. Whether they had the means to do so was not something that was easily discernible at the spur of the moment.

Another factor in deciding whether the force was excessive or not is the possible outcome if such force wasn’t used. Since it was obvious that the terrorists had no intentions of surrendering, and were instead launching stones at the cops (the police have even claimed there was some firing), failing to shoot them could have led to their escaping, and possibly carrying out terrorist attacks in future leading to death of innocent citizens.

Politicians with an axe to grind may go ahead and use the incident to castigate the police and target the government, even choosing to ignore or twist facts. But we, as ordinary citizens must realize and appreciate that such actions by the police and other security forces are aimed at protecting us. If we can’t give them even the slightest margin of error in decision and action, it is at our own peril.

 

This was first posted on my blog http://swordarm.in

Thousands attend funerals of SIMI terrorists killed in police encounter

OpIndia Staff
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Thousands attend funerals of SIMI terrorists killed in police encounter

In a reminder of scenes that were witnessed when hordes of people attended the funeral procession of Mumbai bomb blasts convict Yakub Memon, thousands of people were reported to have attended the funeral ceremonies of eight SIMI terrorists who were killed in an encounter in Madhya Pradesh on Monday.

According to The Indian Express, whose headline “And They Hanged Yakub” could be argued to have legitimized such support to terrorists, over 2000 people took part in funeral processions of seven SIMI terrorists who were buried at various places in Madhya Pradesh on Tuesday.

Out of these seven, five belonged to Khandwa district of Madhya Pradesh where they were buried. Another terrorist hailed from Ujjai district and was buried there, while one belonged to Maharashtra, but since no one came to claim his body, police buried him in Bhopal where the encounter had taken place.

The body of the eight terrorist, that of Mujib Shaikh, was taken to Ahmedabad by his relatives, and latest reports suggest that a big crowd assembled there too for his funeral today.

Mujib was accused in Ahmedabad serial blasts and had earlier worked with terrorists and underworld dons like Dawood and Latif. Incidentally the character of Latif will be played by Shah Rukh Khan in the upcoming movie Raees.

This apparent support for terrorists among common Muslims can be argued to be a result of the usual “liberal” narrative where every terrorist – whether punished through lawful trial like Yakub or killed in a police encounter like these SIMI terrorists – is painted as a person who has been wronged by the state and the society. Ironically, the same liberal narrative claims to work against identity politics, while reducing Muslims to just their identity.

Arnab Goswami quits Times Now, why it happened & what is he going to do next?

OpIndia Staff
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Arnab Goswami quits Times Now, why it happened & what is he going to do next?

Editor-in-Chief of English TV news channel Times Now has reportedly resigned from the channel, if the chatter on social media and a report by The News Minute are to be believed.

The nation wants to know why it happened and what will happen next. We try to give these answers to the nation, but suggest you to take it with a pinch of salt as there is no official confirmation of Arnab’s quitting yet.

Why he quit:

Times Group is often seen as being soft on Congress while Arnab was seen as enemy number one by the Congress party. Maybe this led to the relationship between Arnab Goswami and management being strained beyond repair?

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. This could be another reason why his relationship with the management got strained?

Arnab Goswami realized that people don’t watch Times Now but watch him instead. He had grown bigger than the brand he was working for. Maybe he realized that it was time he worked only for his own brand? Entrepreneurship calling?

Arnab was increasingly being attacked by his own fraternity of journalists and there were concerted attempts to put him under pressure. Maybe he decided to take this battle to the next level by quitting and coming out as an independent warrior? Take the bulls by the horn?

Recently Mukesh Ambani – India’s richest man with investments in the media industry – publicly praised Arnab Goswami as the person he prefers to watch during the prime time. Was that a job offer that Arnab accepted?

What can he do next?

Join Network18 – the company that Mukesh Ambani bought a couple of years ago. Its TV channel continues to be laggard and needs rejuvenation. Who better than Arnab Goswami? Network18 has currently a CEO who was earlier with the Times Group, and many more high level ‘defections’ from Times Group have taken place in recent times.

Join Zee’s WION – Zee TV group has recently launched its English language TV news channel that aspires to be India’s first international news channel. Arnab too has earlier opined that the hegemony of the western media should end. Not entirely impossible, though looks uncertain as a possibility.

Help Rupert Murdoch launch Fox News in India – international media baron Murdoch did launch Star News in India way back when 24 hours news channels were new thing in India, but he quit due to FDI restrictions. Recently FDI restrictions were relaxed. So Arnab could help him make a comeback? Though that will be against his idea of ending the hegemony of the western media.

Start his own channel – with a name and following like his, money will not be a problem. And with distribution costs going down thanks to the DTH technology, starting a new TV channel won’t be such a hassle. The required government approvals could also come without hiccups as Arnab is not seen as any enemy by the current regime. When media people who are sworn enemies of the current regime are able to grow professionally and form their own ventures, Arnab surely can bank on no government roadblock to his plans.

Go entirely digital – maybe not a news channel, but Arnab starts a digital news venture. Arnab never joined Twitter, but he controlled what trended on Twitter. Digital is the buzzword today and he could get investors easily. No regulatory roadblocks or speed-breakers too unlike for a news channel. It could be a content generation company that syndicates content to Indian and global news platforms.

So what do you think? Maybe take out your crystal ball and tell us in the comments section.

Social Media outrages as second major Twitter account is suspended hours after mocking AAP

OpIndia Staff
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Social Media outrages as second major Twitter account is suspended hours after mocking AAP

Call it a coincidence or call it a coordinated attack. Last week an influential twitter user who goes by the handle “India_policy” found that his account had been abruptly suspended by Twitter. The suspension took place within hours of his tweeting something against Arvind Kejriwal. A screenshot of that tweet was shared by Arvind Kejriwal among his AAP trolls on Twitter and boom, India_Policy the account was suspended, probably after mass reporting by AAP fans:


Although the official reason given by Twitter was that the user had multiple accounts, a twitter account which specialises in suspending other accounts claimed credit for this suspension, claiming that the account India_Policy was “abusive” :


The fact was the account was never abusive, as was testified by Twitter users:




Today, something similar happened. Another extremely popular Twitter account, that of GabbbarSingh, which is well known for its funny tweets, was suddenly suspended. The common thread: just hours before his suspension, he too had mocked Arvind Kejriwal. And Twitter users were aghast at this arbitrary move again:


 


 


 


The user behind the account though wondered whether it was related to a tweet he posted about Shah Rukh Khan’s fans. But he was quick to add that it would highly odd if he was suspended for that, since many others had tweeted similar material: “But many had tweeted similar things, and it was also picked up by mainstream media. I don’t understand why they would suspend me for that,”

As of now, the account GabbbarSingh is suspended, and people on Twitter have no clue. Is it a mere coincidence that both the accounts had mocked Arvind Kejriwal and AAP hours before their suspension?

UPDATE: The account is back and it claims that the reason was something else:

Great Derangement Syndrome: The new bogey – Diwali and sexual abuse of children

Abhinav Agarwal
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Great Derangement Syndrome: The new bogey – Diwali and sexual abuse of children

Diwali (or Deepavali) is a time for celebration. Diwali is also a time for welcoming the return of the annual Great Derangement Syndrome. It is a rabid affliction which is marked by the apogee of a ritual that many Indians punctuate with long, haunting howls of dirges, for several nights at a stretch, every night, their penned faces pointed towards the west, the words contorted into a grotesque visage that seems to beg forgiveness for collective sins unknown. The climax of this annual ritual is a long, unbroken shriek of guilt that is somewhat quaintly reminiscent of the atavistic call of dogs to their savage masters out on their hunts. So powerful is this ritual that several people who have witnessed this ritual have lost their sanity. Let us take a look at once such recent example.It all began with a tweet on the 27th of October by @padhalikha that I was pointed to:


The screenshot embedded in @padhalikha‘s tweet was of a tweet by the controversial news channel, @NDTV, of a five-day awareness campaign on child sexual abuse launched by the The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (@NCPCR_), and which was jointly launched in Delhi by the AAP led Delhi government and the Childline Foundation (@CHILDLINE1098). .

Screenshot of tweet from NDTV

The campaign on awareness of child abuse is in itself is neither objectionable nor controversial. In fact, it should be lauded. What was controversial, or eye-brow raising at the very least, was this statement, attributed to the NCPCR in the news article:

“The awareness campaign is being undertaken in the city around Diwali as during this time children become susceptible to sexual abuses in large gatherings and as parents leave them in the custody of others while taking part in festivities,”

On a second reading, the insinuation was unmistakable – “around Diwali as during this time children become susceptible to sexual abuses.” The assertions were manifold.

  • First, that Diwali is a time when the sexual abuse of children rises.
  • Second, it is imputed that Diwali facilitates the sexual abuse of children because of “large gatherings” that leaves children “in the custody of others.“
  • Third, that Delhi as a city is more susceptible to the sexual abuse of children.
  • Fourth, the unsaid but clear assertion was that it was the Hindu festival of Diwali that made children more susceptible to sexual abuse than festivals of other religions.

The statement had been carefully constructed to establish an association between Diwali, and by association, Hindus, with child sexual abuse, and yet cloak it in a message of awareness. Why would anyone in their sane minds want to do something as egregious as associating the Hindu festival of Diwali with child sex abuse?

Veracity

I tried to ascertain the veracity of the statement attributed to the NCPCR. My first suspicion was that it was either an outright lie, a distortion, or a mis-attribution on the part of NDTV. It would not have been the first instance when NDTV would have done so, but I wanted to be sure.

Therefore, I looked around for other news sites that may have carried the same story. Sure enough, there was a story in the Business Standard on the 25th of October – a syndicated feed from PTI – with the same quote attributed to the NCPCR. So that it was a hit-job from NDTV could be ruled out.

I now went to the NCPCR’s website. After all, if this was a statement made by the NCPCR, and if the campaign had been launched by the NCPCR, there would have to be some mention of it on the Commission’s website. The NCPCR’s “Press Release” page had no mention of this campaign. I accessed the page on Oct 28th, and the page itself mentions it having been last updated on the 28th of October (“Last Updated On: 28/10/2016”). No press release on the NCPCR website. I even tried using a search engine to search the entire site for the statement. Nothing.

The third option was to tweet to the Women and Child Development Minister, Ms Maneka Sanjay Gandhi. Why Ms Maneka Gandhi? Because, as per the website of the Ministry of Women and Child Development (WCD), the NCPCR is an “associated organization” of the WCD. While it would be unreasonable to expect her to have direct knowledge of everything that goes on in the NCPCR, my hope was that she would notice the tweet and at least direct her ministry to get a clarification and thus close the matter.


As of writing this post, there had been no response or acknowledgment of the tweet.

Hence, it is important to summarize what I learnt:

  • I have not been able to verify with certainty that this is indeed a statement made by the NCPCR, as asserted by the PTI story. Evidence suggests that the NCPCR did in fact make this statement.
  • Neither the NCPCR nor the NWCD minister have chosen to issue a clarification.
  • The “campaign”, titled “Jagruk Raho, Chuppi Todo” has been launched jointly with the @AamAadmiParty Delhi Govt and @CHILDLINE1098.
  • The NCPCR is an associated organization of the Ministry of Women and Child Development, which is headed by Ms Maneka Gandhi.
  • Ms Maneka Gandhi recently met with the Delhi Chief Minister, Mr Arvind Kejriwal. She tweeted about the meeting.
  • The state of Uttar Pradesh goes to the polls in 2017. People widely believe the BJP has a good chance of coming to power in the most populous state in the Indian Union. The political stakes are huge for all parties involved.
  • There has been speculation that Ms Maneka Gandhi is strongly in favour of her son, Varun Gandhi, being annointed as the BJP’s Chief Ministerial candidate for the UP state elections (see Has the fight for Uttar Pradesh begun within BJP? for example)
  • There is a relationship between the NCPCR and WorldVision. (More on this later)

The Great Indian Derangement Syndrome (GIDS)

Diwali, or any Hindu festival and activity, is a legitimate target for assault in the eyes of an assorted gang of evangelicals, liberals, racists, Hinduphobes – many of whom are difficult to tell apart. While in the early days of this assault on Hinduism the masters and and agents were the same – as in the manufacture of atrocity literature around Sati for example – today a sophisticated level of separation and plausible deniability has been established between the two. The fanatical evangelist, the rabid liberal, none need to come to India to do their dirty work. They only need send their money to Indians, who gladly carry out the bidding of their paymasters. This model has now been perfected – these paymasters need not send huge sums of money. By infiltrating every arm of the government, these paymasters get the government – you, the taxpayer – to pay the bulk of the money required to exterminate the way of life, the culture, the religion of the very people who pay these breaking India forces.

In infiltrating and hollowing out a nation and culture from within, the modern-day educated Indian has been more than a willing tool, because of a near-complete lack of self-respect and awareness.

“The educated Indian, particularly the Hindu, suffers from such a deep loss of self-respect that he is unwilling to be recognized as such. He feels, in fact, deeply threatened by any surfacing or manifestation of the identity that he has worked so hard to, and has been trained to reject. … It is these people wearing various garbs – liberal, left, secular, modern – who oppose, more often than not from sheer ignorance, any attempt to introduce Indian traditions of thought in the mainstream education system – a classic case of self-hate taking the form of mother-hate.” [Kapil Kapoor, quoted in “Indian Culture and India’s Future”, by Michel Danino]

 The great Indian sage and philosopher, Sri Aurobindo, had said this about the class of “educated Indians” – “They will not allow things or ideas contrary to the European notions to be anything but superstitious, barbarous, harmful and benighted, they will not suffer what is praised and practised in Europe to be anything but rational and enlightened.” [Sri Aurobindo, reproduced in Michel Danino, “Indian Culture and India’s Future”]

In closing, what Swami Vivekananda wrote about what the Macaulayite education system does to the Indian is truer today that a hundred years ago:

“The child is taken to school, and the first thing he learns is that his father is a fool, the second thing that his grandfather is a lunatic, the third thing that all his teachers are hypocrites, the fourth that all the sacred books are lies! By the time he is sixteen he is a mass of negation, lifeless and boneless.” [Swami Vivekananda, “On India And Her Problems”, reproduced in Michel Danino, “Indian Culture and India’s Future”]

But today, that mass of negation, the modern-day Indian secular, liberal intellectual, is no longer lifeless. The spirit has been educated away into thin air, the poison of hate that has been injected into him (or her) has resulted in a vampire-like creature that stalks every walk of life. Preying on any vestiges of Hinduism that it can detect, it submits itself to ever more toxic bites from foreign funders, and in turn turns its fangs on his own country, its culture, its roots. This vampire-like mass of negation today will, in return for money and recognition from the west, will happily bring out statements that associate Diwali with child sexual abuse.

And yes, I still await a clarification from the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, or the Ministry of Women and Child Development, on its insinuating that Diwali causes a rise in the sexual abuse of children.

(The views expressed are personal)

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