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Muted outrage over fatwa against AR Rahman betrays double standards of some “activists” again

Rahul Roushan
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Muted outrage over fatwa against AR Rahman betrays double standards of some “activists” again

In India, every few months some rabble-rouser stands up and puts across his view of how others should live their life, and then tried to enforce it via illegal means. Most often, such views are archaic and sometimes backed by religious pretext. Although a majority of Indians would probably not support such maniacs, there has been a rise in such incidents.

One such recent incident was involving Raza Academy. The academy, whose members are suspected to have burnt two constables alive, issued a Fatwa against A R Rahman for scoring music in a film which they considered to be sacrilegious and mocking Islam. Such acts are in the same vein as people burning M F Hussain’s paintings, who eventually chose to run away rather than fight such elements.

What India needs is to come together and fight against all such attacks on freedom, but what we see is a “politically correct” stand, which depends on the background, religion and sometimes even caste of the offenders.

In the immediate case, one was shocked to see the stunning silence from Bollywood, which did not stand in unison against the Fatwa by Raza Academy. These are the same guys who are ready to start signature campaigns urging people to not to vote for Modi, or to write letters on behalf of overstaying FTII students.

As usual the media also played its part. This issue was not debated like a random statement from a random Sadhvi. Nor was it linked to attack on Freedom of Speech. Some even feigned ignorance of the acts of Raza Academy.

Times of India today put out an infographic of different acts of Moral Policing in India:

15_09_2015_011_027_002

As you can see, what Times of India did was only highlight a particular section of Moral Police. No mention of any Fatwas. No mention of a Communist leader who was arrested just 2 months back for attacking a couple who he believed were not married. No mention of Shirin Dalvi, an Urdu journalist forced into hiding for reproducing Charlie Hebdo cartoons.

Times of India mentioned the attack on AIB’s roast, but for some reason failed to highlight that even a Catholic group called “Maharashtra Christian Youth Forum” led a Morcha which culminated into filing an FIR against AIB. And perhaps even more troublesome in the AIB case, was the apology AIB was forced to give to all Christians, by the Archdiocese of Bombay.

The problem here is simple. Such selective outrage against only those miscreants who do not subscribe to your ideology defeats the entire fight. What we need today is to call out the Raza Academy in the same loud and shrill voice as we call out the Ram Sene.

The usual “Adarsh Liberal” outrage brigade which hangs by every word of certain miscreants, might feel they are doing a great service to the nation by standing up against such forces. But in reality, such selective biased attacks on only a section do great disservice to the cause of fight against moral policing and other transgressions on our freedom.

Open letter to fellow Indians from a Jain youth over meat ban

Ankit Jain
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Open letter to fellow Indians from a Jain youth over meat ban

Dear friends,

I know many of you are very angry these days as we Jains are supposed to have taken your rights to eat meat. We intolerant bunch of goons have reportedly taken away your personal liberty. We are the Taliban, if some liberal activists are to be believed.

All these become easy for you to believe because these activists are in media and they control what you read in the newspapers or hear on TV. It also becomes easy for you to think they are telling the truth because the current ruling party, the BJP, has a national president who is Jain by religion.

Today, the media claimed that Haryana, another BJP ruled state, too had banned meat. Whereas the truth was that it had just appealed some slaughter houses to remain closed for Paryushan Parva, our festival of self purification. An appeal was presented as a ban to you!

And this has led people to believe that Jains are asking for such bans. I say this because I have been subjected to such taunts and abuse on Twitter. People have mocked my faith, my customs, and some even threatened to throw meats loaves in my house in protest.

And I wonder why so much hate! Because I didn’t even ask for this ban!

The media never cared to tell you but I hope you know the truth that this ban has existed for decades. And no, it is not a ban on you eating any meat – you are still free to do that – but a ban on slaughter houses for a few days and a ban on sale of meat in some selected regions of India. In fact, in states like Rajasthan, the duration of this annual ban has actually been reduced this year when compared with the duration during the Congress rule.

Yes, you are going to tell me that it doesn’t justify the ban just because it existed for all these years. I am not even telling you that. But just take a chill pill for a moment, and think – if this ban existed for so many decades, why did you not hear any outrage or protest over this all these years?

Have you not become pawn in the politics of some selected parties? Congress was the party that introduced such bans in many areas and now they are protesting against the same. Shiv Sena too was a party to the decision by virtue of controlling local bodies, and even they are now protesting.

Do you seriously not see the politics here? And this politics is being helped by those in the media who wear the mask of neutrality and intellectualism.

All these decades nobody had a problem as they thought it was not a big deal if the slaughter houses remain closed for a few days in a year, that too in some areas where Jain population reside. It was about giving up limited personal liberty on select days to show respect to fellow Indians. Even courts upheld this view.

Don’t we give up our personal liberties on 3 national holidays? They are dry days and we can’t buy liquor. Technically that is also ban, and that is nationwide. This meat ban is not nationwide.

Don’t we give up our personal liberties when we hear loud azaan five times a day from a local mosque or loud music from a local pandal during various pujas? Remember, personal liberty is also about choosing what you are exposed to.

Nearly all leading restaurants and meat shops offer only halaal meat in order to respect Muslim sentiments. Will it not be unreasonable if Hindus start demanding jhatka meat just to insist on personal choice and liberty? Hindus don’t insist on that because they have “adjusted” to accommodate fellow Indians.

Yes, apart from “jugaad”, other thing we Indian do is “adjusting”. We care for each other and adjust to make space for each other.

But now it looks like my country is all set to demand individual liberties.

And it’s not a bad thing. We as a society have to evolve.

Ever since Narendra Modi became the Prime Minister of India, many people have evolved and started growing up (by their own admission). Our stand up comedians have evolved – they don’t make the same jokes. Our journalists have evolved – they have now started seeing things (like this meat ban) that they were blind to all these years.

So my dear friend angry with Jains over meat ban, you too have the right to evolve. We all have the right to evolve. I just hope that this evolution and growing up is not selective.

Keeping this in mind, I appeal to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to lift this meat ban as it is hurting the sentiments of Indians who are evolving very fast. Sentiments of Jains will be taken care of by those who care and those who can adjust a little.

We Jains might appeal to people in our localities to close meat shops for a few days and if they do that voluntarily, we will be happy that they care for us. But please don’t enforce anything.

I can’t take any more hate due to my surname.

Package to Bihar – Reparation for decades of injustice?

Guest Author
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Package to Bihar – Reparation for decades of injustice?

Las Vegas makes an average of 90 billion dollars per year with 150,000 hotel rooms with 85 percent occupancy throughout the year. How was this city built? labourers working for Hoover dam would spend their free time gambling. Small gambling dens opened in Las Vegas to serve them. By 1935, Hoover Dam was completed and thirsty soil of Nevada could get soaked in the water of Colorado River and huge business empires were built with regular supply of electricity and water.

After the devastating floods of 1954 in Bihar, a dam similar to Hoover dam was to be  built by India to protect the fertile plains of Bihar from constant risk of flooding by Kosi River. Suitable location for Kosi Dam lies in Nepal and high handed treatment by Nehru or economic embargo of Nepal by Rajeev Gandhi forced Nepalese rulers to keep this project awaited till now. 73% land of Bihar is under constant threat of flood as it is plain land with all the rivers originating in Nepal.

While Kosi Dam was being planned, Nehru took abrupt decision to shift the funds to the construction of Bhakra dam. There could be many reasons behind this decision.
He may have wanted to compensate Punjab for its division. Punjabi lobby may have affected the decision of Central Government. If Kosi Dam had been built, it would be in Nepal technically and Nehru could not boast of it as “India’s modern temples” in his own words or he could not build his goliath height statue at the entry gate as he built at Bhakra dam. It could also be because of his anger against Bihar for 1947 riots when Bihar was the only place where Muslims were at receiving end, or may be because of his ego tussle with Bihar CM Krishna Singh. There can be many speculations but the end result is that Bihar remained far below in the priority list of Congress.

At present, average per capita income of Punjab is 4 times higher than Bihar. If you survey the farms of Punjab, majority of the farm labourers come from Bihar. When NREGA income stopped labour migration to Punjab, Labour shortage in punjab was a common news in papers and punjabi farmers would offer free train ticket, higher wages etc to lure them to Punjab. An article written by ex deputy chief of Planning Commission Mr. N.K Singh shows more light to the issue of Step Motherly behaviour of Centre towards Bihar. You can read it here.

When Bihar was still not divided, it was one of biggest producers of minerals and coal which was transported to different cities of India. Cheap raw material and cheap labour force could help establish factories in Bihar and Jharkhand and give it leverage to compete with States having upper hand because of access to seaports etc

In 1948, the then Finance Minister T.T Krishnamachari introduced Freight Equalization policy. Under this policy, basic raw materials were made available at the same price across the nation. The stated objective of this policy was to encourage development nationwide. But when have good intentions trumped market realities! This policy made sure that industries found no incentives whatsoever to invest in mineral rich but extremely poor states like Bihar. It subsidized the cost of transporting raw materials and thus nullified the advantage of Bihar and other such states.

In words of Arnab Mukherji and Anjan Mukherji: “The asymmetry was acute, since there were no reciprocal benefits in terms of either industrial or agricultural goods and services that Bihar might have needed but did not have. There was no parallel industrial incentive given for capital to enter Bihar either. In the process, for a period slightly longer than four decades, the policy environment directly hurt industrialization and growth possibilities in Bihar and other mineral-rich states and created the paradox of a mineral-rich state also being among the poorest in incomes.”

As this table shows, Bihar was never allocated the amount of money as per projected plan allocation on basis of national average. It has been compared with Punjab which is also a land locked state with agricultural economy. The source of this table is : Central Planned Inequality by Mohan Guruswamy which you can read here.

Another major factor for backwardness of Bihar was volatile political situation. Congress high command never allowed any CM to last for 5 years after 1961. From year 1961 to 1990, in 29 years there were twenty three chief ministers and 5 presidential rule. Due to this highhandedness of Congress, socialist parties formed by leaders who were output of JP movement gained power and Laloo Yadav became chief Minister. By his second term, he had become ruthless. He formed his own party and won elections after elections with help of Gundaraj and MY equation. If a stable Government was allowed to rule Bihar, it would be a different   story.
After the rise of BJP, Bihari voters got another option and alliance of JDU and BJP won handsomely. But the period when Bihar was being ruled by NDA, India was being ruled by Congress led UPA. They had no interest in Bihar as Congress has negligible presence in Bihar. It is a Congress mukt state in true sense. Nitish Kumar dumped BJP because of miscalculation that Modi won’t be able to win. Nitish did not want to disturb his Muslim vote that he had nurtured for a long time.

Recently Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a package of 125,000 crores for development of Bihar. It created unease in few people from other developed states with complains of unnecessary favour for Bihar. This state has got most fertile Gangetic plane but not of use because of regular flood fear, It has potential to become the food bowl of India. With such fertile land and hard working labour force, Bihar can produce 6 crops a year and same farmers who are forced to become rickshaw pullers in Delhi and die of tuberculosis, they can afford a good life too. This amount is very small if compared to the budget difference of last 60 years and losses due to freight equalisation policy.

If Koshi Dam project had not been shelved, Bihar would serve as backbone of India. Talent pool of Bihar is strong to get big margin of seats in IITs, UPSC and other engineering colleges. If BJP wins, this will be the first time a stable BJP government will be in the state and in the Centre too. It will help change the face of Bihar. It is most important to note that package announced by our PM is not an electoral bribe but a long awaited reparation for all the wrongs that Bihar faced. It is time to help this state get its share of honour, the state which gave birth to religions, the state which gave great emperors like Ashoka and Chandragupta Maurya. The state of Kautilya. Time has come to regain the lost glory.

Hope is one thing Biharis have never abandoned.

– @navneet2frn & @AlKunwar

Another social media celeb troll shown reality on twitter for hypocritically calling other people trolls

CrimeMasterV2
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Another social media celeb troll shown reality on twitter for hypocritically calling other people trolls

If you’re a Bollywood gossip journalist or a self-proclaimed liberal stand-up comedian who used to make jokes on physical or religious or economic or mental appearances of celebrities, you better stay away from demeaning others as trolls for doing the same. At least that’s what a ‘huge’ section of social media users want you to believe.

A day Sonam Kapoor was defended for orthogonally using ‘misogyny’ by same people who used to crack jokes on her IQ, actress Sonakshi Sinha also received a similar reception. When the social media was trolling Sonakshi for her tweets on the meat ban, a gossip journalist — Rituparna Chatterjee, Deputy Editor, Huffington Post India — jumped into the scene and tried to opportunistically milk the situation by creating a listicle out of tweets to highlights troll game on the social media. To her bad luck, this time, many smart trolls who are bored of reading such hypocrisy for a long time, walloped her ruthlessly this time.

Rituparna Chatterjee tried to gain some eyeballs from Bollywood and the social media through this tweet


Soon after, she was shown her similar tweets on Sonakshi Sinha mentioning zero humour jokes on her forehead.


Ironically, the article promoted by Rituparna reads:

Body shaming is a common problem on social media platforms and women and men are often expected to conform to impossible standards of beauty.

It did not end there. When Sonakshi facepalmed on the irony, Rituparna tried hard to prove that she is not a ‘hypocrite’ because she has grown and learnt now


However, smart trolls were quick to find her recent tweets


and,


I would repeat the same edifying lines again:

Body shaming is a common problem on social media platforms and women and men are often expected to conform to impossible standards of beauty.

It did not end even here. People found a plethora of tweets written by her on many celebs which included jokes on boobs and cleavage


The probable final move made by Rituparna was not surprising at all. She blamed the Right Wing for trolling her and departed with an easy excuse: I have grown — an admittance which she will never accept when some other person will give.

Media reporting old wine in new sensationalized bottle, but BJP has got to act

Editorial Desk
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Media reporting old wine in new sensationalized bottle, but BJP has got to act

Indian Mainstream Media has been regularly reporting half-truths and whole lies. Till the end of August 2015, we could track a total of 134 lies printed in Indian Media. That is more than 1 lie every alternate day. And media is not stopping at that. Now they have devised new means to report half-truths: sensationalizing news items.

We have observed a trend, where various news, specially actions by Governments, are being reported in a sensationalist manner. The attempt being to project the news as something which is happening for the first time.

Clarification: We are not trying to say “Oh UPA did this so NDA can do it too”. We are only saying shit had happened earlier too, just the way it is being spun is different. Here are some examples:

1. Govt orders all officers to turn up for Modi’s I-day address. “Tone and Tenor of circular surprises many”

The Hindu published this news article a few days back. Apparently a Central Government circularUntitled mandated that all officials be present at the PM’s Independence Day speech. Not very alarming right?  Well The Hindu made it sure that it would alarm you by adding a theme to this news that suggested this circular had “surprised many by its tone and tenor”, thus trying to propagate the myth of “Fascist Modi” regime etc. Eventually, under “Letters to the Editor”, The Hindu carried a communication from the PIB which clarified that the circular was no different from those published earlier and that “The sub-headline that said, “Tone and tenor of Cabinet Secretary’s circular come as a surprise to many”, borders on sensationalism and an exaggeration of facts.”

2. Mumbai cops raid Hotel rooms. Seem to have declared war on an easy target: sex

A bit of background first: In 2009 a minor girl was raped in a Madh Island hotel in Mumbai. Locals then requested cops to conduct surprise raids on hotels to check crimes. As the years went by, a regime changed happened, and suddenly a raid in 2015 became “a war on sex”. Soon internet commentators began presenting the 2015 raid in isolation, questioning if we are “now becoming” a nanny state? Is the new Government indulging in Moral Policing etc. Again, a fact, taken out of context, spun and sensationalized, to target a Government. While random raids maybe justified, the haphazard handling of the suspects by the cops should have be questioned. But it soon turned into a slugfest accusing the new Maharashtra Government of moral policing. It is also important to note that the locals welcomed these raids.

3. Government issues notices to TV channels on Yakub coverage. 

The Government invoked Section 1(d), Section 1(g) and Section 1(e) of Rule 6 of the Programme Code prescribed under the Cable Television Network Rules, 1994 and asked TV channels why they should not face action by airing certain content which “showed disrespect to the judiciary and the President of India”. Whatever be the merits of this case, the usual suspects began raising the bogey of “Modi Government throttling media” etc. Mihir Sharma even went on to challenge people:


And reminded he was. Rightly or wrongly, the current Government was just following cues from the past regimes. In 2012 an advisory was issued based on the same rule 6 (1) e. In 2013 an advisory from the Government “threatened TV news channels with cancellation of their licences for comparing the prime minister with leaders of other political parties“. So is this a a new problem? Or is it something all Governments in India have been doing?

4. Government blocks Porn in India

In an inept response to a PIL in the Supreme Court, the Indian Government went on to ban Porn sites in India. Stupid? Yes. Unnecessary? Yes. First time? NO. In 2013 too, the Government went for “a blanket ban on several websites” hosting Porn. Difference in reactions to both the bans is stunning. While media commentators linked the 2015 ban to a “cultural agenda” of BJP, did you hear such voices in 2013? Or did they echo in chorus that the 2013 UPA Government just doesn’t understand the internet? Two wrongs do not make a right, but wrongs done by different people need to be dealt similarly?

5. Meat ban in Mumbai during Jain festival

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is enforcing a ban on sale of meat in Mumbai on 4 days which are the days of Jain ritual of Paryushan. The action, seems retrograde considering why should an entire city suffer for the festival of a community. No sooner did this news come, we had MSM and other commentators again linking this to BJP’s “agenda”. But again is this something new? Apparently not. In 2004, during the highly secular rule of Congress-NCP, the State Government itself had passed a similar resolution, where the BMC was asked to shut down slaughter houses during the Jain fasting season. In 2011 too, another Municipal corporation had enforced similar bans for 3 days which Jains consider holy. This report suggests that such bans were in place from at least 2008. In 2012, even the High Court forbade the sale of meat during Paryushan.

These are just 5 recent examples, which were news from the past one month. If we want to go back further, we can talk about Maharashtra Beef Ban response, even when Beef was banned in many Indian states for decades. And these are only a few incidents. We’re sure we’d have missed a few. And we’re equally sure that many more will come.

The takeaways from this trend can be:

A. Ruling parties may change, but at least in some aspects “Governance” has remained the same.

Despite being traditionally the ‘conservative’ party, BJP of late has attracted support of constituencies that are libertarians, so the party should change its mindset if it respects its voters. Also, if the party speaks against ‘appeasement’ of Muslims, it can’t be seen doing the same to another group (as in the case of meat ban for Jain festival), even though this was done by past regimes. It is simple, if you claim to be different from the rest, you truly have to be different.

B. Media will try to link each and every happening to its narrative of a “Fascist Government” even without acknowledging that some or many of these actions may have been endorsed by “secular” Governments in the past.

Here again, one cannot muzzle the media, but BJP spokespersons have to be sharper. Many of them appeared clueless on some of the above issues and it was upto social media to dig up the archives.

Once again, we are not justifying actions of the current Government by showing the past. Each of the above action is debatable, some even grossly wrong. But it shows how MSM is ready to cherry pick data and create a new narrative or stick it to a narrative which has already been created. In this case the chosen narrative is “India is becoming a fascist country under Modi”. The last narrative was “Christians under attack” when robberies were called “communal vandalisms”.

Maharashtra Government’s words twisted in attempt to create “Emergency” by Rumour Landmines

Gaurav
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Maharashtra Government’s words twisted in attempt to create “Emergency” by Rumour Landmines

Recently, Director Vivek Agnihotri wrote about “Rumour Landmines” who used social media to spread untruths. The piece was in context of the “Naresh Kanodia heading Oscar Jury” rumour which we had written about. And now, the “Rumour landmines” were at it again. This time it was an alleged “undemocratic” order issued by Fadnavis led Maharashtra Government, which would lead the country to being another “North Korea”. So first let us meet the “rumour landmines”:


1
(Tweet was later deleted)


Another highly misleading report was this one on India Today. So what did Maharashtra Government actually do? The Government’s circular (in Marathi) can be accessed here, The English version of the guidelines can be found at the bottom of the same file. We would like to present a brief summary of the same.

Firstly, the Government referred to the sedition case which was filed against Aseem Trivedi for his cartoons, in 2011. It noted that after legal advice from the Advocate General, charges of sedition were dropped against Trivedi.

Next the Government said that in order to prevent such actions by police in the future, some guidelines were being issued to the cops now, which they should keep in mind while invoking section 124 A i.e. Sedition. The guidelines were:

1. In order to slap Sedition charges, words, signs etc must bring the state/Central government into hatred/contempt/disaffection AND must be with the intention of inciting violence/creating public disorder

2. Words or signs against politicians or public servants will be considered seditious only if the words or signs show the politicians and public servants as representatives of the Government.

3. Anything expressing disapproval of government and criticising government seeking a change via lawful means will not be seen as seditious.

4. Just because something is disgusting or vulgar it cannot be seditious

5. Before applying any charges of sedition, a written opinion giving reasons, must be obtained from the district law officer. Further, within 2 weeks, a written opinion must be taken from the Government Public Prosecutor.

The circular further said that the above guidelines should not be seen as all-encompassing and specific facts of the matter must be looked into before using section 124 A.

So in short, the Government tried to remove ambiguity in application of Sec 124 A, and gave clear guidelines which said that acts which incite violence, are not looking for legal means, are targetted at Government representatives, can be considered seditious, but only after a written opinion from district law officer has been taken. Sounds fair right?

Certain media reports, like this one, carried news very similar to the above translation. Yet “Rumour landmines” latched onto some obscure media reports or some ill-thought translation by some alleged journalist. No one bothered mentioning that the guidelines clearly stated that the cops must take a written opinion from a legal officer before enforcing such sections. No one bothered understanding that it was clearly specified that something can be seditious only if it incites violence or uses illegal means.

So what is it that makes some “journalists” blindly believe anything which can be said to be being anti a section of the Political class? Is this incompetence? Or something more?

Karnataka Doctors shouting for help but Indian MSM cannot hear them

Guest Author
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Karnataka Doctors shouting for help but Indian MSM cannot hear them

“Down with Fascism”
“Gajendra Go back”
“Smriti Irani Hai Hai”

The slogans rent the air in the FTII campus in Pune. Local, national and even international media followed the antics of a few middle aged students, ever eternal rebels without a cause, while political games were played and students willingly became pawns.

A few months pass, and there’s a similar protest against the government in Karnataka. Karnataka Association of Resident Doctors (KARD) have gone on an indefinite strike. But the contrast between the two couldn’t have been sharper.Services

No politician tweeted their support. No film celebrities attended the event. No minister or “social activists” bothered with us. And, India, once again proved that our bureaucratic DNA is that of any Soviet influenced, essentially socialist country. This in spite the fact that the just 2-3 days ago, the striking doctors were beaten up by the Karnataka Police.1

What are the doctors fighting for? A stipend hike, for Karnataka resident doctors are paid the least in India, and this is in spite of having such huge centres of medical excellence like Bangalore, Hubballi and Manipal. The average resident doctor in a state government hospital in Meghalaya earns more than twice earned by a similar resident doctor in Karnataka

Lest it be thought to be in a purely economic context, we have a more basic need too. Even as the country burns with suppressed anger over one sexual assault case after another, assault cases against Doctors, some even with sexual component, rarely get highlighted. Hospital administrations, with active support from civil authorities, suppress such news even as media in a well Orchestrated campaign, maligns doctors for so called “medical negligence”

Delayed, denied and murdered justice:

Karnataka govt has been sitting on this proposal for almost 2 years now. All assurances, all public statements have been pure face saving measures. There has been no increase in the stipend from 8 years now, and the steep increase in living costs is anyone’s guess

I write this article after having been made to wait for almost 4 hours by the authorities in Vidhana Soudha. I merely ask this one simple question: would a doctor making you wait for 2 years for his/her attention be worth the doctor Tag that they get?

– Dr. Aakash Raj

How long will Kalburgis, Dabholkars, Pansares of India be threatened for speaking against religion?

Rahul Raj
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How long will Kalburgis, Dabholkars, Pansares of India be threatened for speaking against religion?

On 30 Aug 2015, M.M. Kalburgi, a renowned Kannada writer, research scholar and rationalist was shot dead by 2 gunmen at his residence. Kalburgi, served as the vice-chancellor of Kannada University in Hampi had drawn annoyance of Hindu extremist groups for denouncing superstition and idol worship in the past.

After preliminary investigations, police has stated a possibility of property dispute within his family circle as a reason of his murder; however, they have also not denied the alleged involvement of right-wing fringe elements.

Interestingly, social media was quick to conclude that Hindutva Terrorists are involved in it. The conclusion was primarily drawn from a tweet of a Bajrang Dal activist who tweeted some spiteful tweets and later deleted it.

Bhuvith Shetty

The unfortunate event was very soon given a political color by the left-wing intelligentsia, senior leaders took no time to convert this into a BJP related news.


Surprisingly, many political and learned individuals, who jumped to conclude the involvement of fringe groups, didn’t even bother to acknowledge that U. R. Ananthamurthy died a natural death from renal failure and cardiac arrest on 22 August 2014, and was not killed by any fanatics.  Ramesh Kulkarni, a VHP state secretary, denied any role of rightwing groups and also said, “We condemn this killing, I guarantee you that no rightwing organization is involved in the killing. We train to protest, not to kill.”

Nevertheless, the involvement of extremist groups in society can’t be undermined. Kalburgi had been receiving threats from the fringe elements in the past. He was provided protection for 8 months, but he recently opted to remove special protection for him. He was not the first victim of social threats; before him, Narendra Dabholkar and Govind Pansare had been shot dead by some Hindu extremists organizations. A similar celebration was also seen among CPM followers for the death of RSS leader from Kerala.

The Bajrang Dal leader Bhuvith Shetty, who tweeted in celebration on the death of Kalburgi, was arrested by police on 31 August 2015. The CM of Karnataka has also assured that “Whoever is behind this, we will catch them and punish according to law”. Hope justice is served soon.

Did CPM “comrades” kill 3 innocent dogs to celebrate Kerala RSS leader’s death anniversary?

OpIndia Staff
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Did CPM “comrades” kill 3 innocent dogs to celebrate Kerala RSS leader’s death anniversary?

Exactly a year back, an RSS leader from Kerala, Kathiroor Manoj was hacked to death by unidentified assailants. The cops had said that the assailants hurled a crude bomb at Manoj, who was travelling in a vehicle. Manoj lost control of the vehicle and it crashed into a pole. Manoj was then hacked to death by a group of men.

Two months back, the CBI narrowed in on ex CPM MLA and current CPM Kannur district secretary P Jayarajan and was likely to be made an accused in the case. Manoj, on the other hand, was an accused in a case of attempted murder of this same Jayarajan. CBI noted that all the accused in the Manoj murder case are either CPM members or sympathisers.

Last week, Thiruvonam, a small village in Kerala, saw violence, after the killings of a CPI(M) worker in Kasargod and a BJP worker in Thrissur. These incidents triggered a chain of violence in many parts of Kerala with the house of BJP Kannur district president K Ranjith coming under a crude bomb attack.

And today, on September 1 2015, the dead bodies of 3 dogs were found hanging from an electric pole. This is the exact same pole into which Manoj’s vehicle crashed into exactly 1 year back, when he was attacked by suspected CPM goons. The cops have till now claimed that some unidentified “anti-social elements” were behind this dastardly act of hanging dogs from the flagpost.

But a picture which has gone viral on social media may have clues as to who is behind this act.

Untitled

The post says:

“One year since the rabid dog is dead. Hundred red salutes to the Kathiroor comrades who did this. Comrade Kasim”

In what seems to be a reference to CPM (who are known to address each other as “Comrade”), the post seems to be celebrate the hanging of the dogs which were apparently hanged as a a grim reminder of the murder of RSS leader Manoj, which took place at the same spot, exactly 1 year ago.

Further, Jain Raj, son of current CPM Kannur district secretary P Jayarajan shared the following post on Facebook, and soon deleted it. This was reported by a Malayalam TV channel, Janam TV:

Untitled

 

The slogan in the image says:

“This day is an energy/power for us.This day is an enthusiasm /excitement for us”.

Does “This day” refer to Manoj’s death anniversary? Why does this day give them “energy”? One year back, when Manoj was killed, Jain Raj had hailed the murder in a Facebook post, which he later deleted. He had said:

“Since how long we have been waiting to hear this good news. Congratulations dear comrades. Feeling xcited,”

This is eerily similar to the case of the Bajrang Dal activist who had tweeted in celebration of the killing of a rationalist in Karnataka and had even threatened another rationalist with dire consequences. Bhuvith Shetty, the Bajrang Dal leader who had tweeted this was today arrested by the police. It remains to be seen if the above facebook post also leads to similar actions.

(with inputs from @RevolutionMonk)

Top Lies spread by Indian Media in August 2015

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Top Lies spread by Indian Media in August 2015

Big Lies:

1. 1 August 2015: India Today group – Salim Khan says Salman being targetted for his religion. 

India Today ran an interview of Salim Khan done by Rajdeep Sardesai and presented a blaring headline Screenshot_2015-08-01-22-54-06 that Salim Khan says Salman is being targetted because of being a Muslim. There were two interviews done, one in English and one in Hindi. Initially the English interview was released. In this version Salim Khan doesn’t even come close to saying anything like this. Yet, as seen in screen-grab of the same interview, the tickers claim he said something like this.

The 2nd interview in Hindi was later released. In this again, Rajdeep repeatedly goads Salim Khan to give him the answer he wants:

Rajdeep: Is Salman a soft target because he is a Muslim?

Salim Khan: Not only Muslim, Muslim and a celebrity. If an ordinary Muslim from behrampeda or bhindi bazaar would have given this statement, would this road be closed then?

From the above Salim Khan made it clear that If Salman was being targetted for being a muslim, other muslims too would have been targetted. But the difference between Salman and other muslims was he is a celebrity, hence he gets targetted. Editor of India Today, Shiv Aroor too accepted that since they have put it in quotes, it should have been an exact quote. Obviously it was a massively twisted quote. Perhaps this is what prompted India Today to later delete the tweet which said “Salim Khan says Salman being targetted for his religion”

2. 3 August 2015: Hindustan Times – Asaram turns saint in the pages of NCERT textbook

This story began with an ANI News report which said in Rajasthan in a class III textbook, Asaram was listed as Untitled“Country’s famous saints”. Hindustan Times went ahead with this story and for reason claimed that this was found in an NCERT textbook. They even got quotes from various individuals panning the NCERT board. Fact is, if one checked the NCERT textbooks for class III from Rajasthan, such a chapter is not present in any of the books. Eventually, the Hindustan Times published a small corrigendum apologising for their incorrect report, although the web version still carries the wrong report. This was after the MHRD forced them to issue a corrigendum.

3. 5 August 2015: The Hindu – Govt orders all officers to turn up for Modi’s I-day address. “Tone and Tenor of circular surprises many”  A Central Government circular

Untitled mandated that all officials be present at the PM’s Independence Day speech. Although this is a routine cricular, The Hindu made it sure that it would alarm you by adding a theme to this news that suggested this circular had “surpised many by its tone and tenor”. As it turns out, a few days after this front page burst, The Hindu had to publish a small clarification in the inner pages which said that their earlier story was an “exaggeration of facts” and that the circular in question was in line with the “standard practice”.

4. 6 August 2015: India Today – Sonia says Naga Peace deal Unacceptable.  India Today claimed that Sonia Gandhi had termed the Naga Peace Deal “unacceptable”. UntitledThey published a story with this title, but nowhere in the story was the exact quote of Sonia Gandhi given, where she claimed the deal was “unacceptable”. As it turns out, she never said this but it could have been said by Sitaram Yechury of CPI(M). Sonia on the other hand, seemed more miffed at being kept in the dark about this historic deal. India Today showed great speed an alacrity and deleted the wrong tweet and corrected the story on the very same day, and gave it a new headline “Sonia says Naga peace deal shows Modi govt’s arrogance”

5. 11 August 2015: TheWire.in – BJP, Including Modi when he was CM, blocked GST for political ends. This claim has been made repeatedly by Congress leaders but it was surprising to see a news site take this stand too. We had written a separate post on this, where we showed via news articles of the time, that Non-BJP states including Congress states had opposed UPA’s GST bill for various reasons. Also, the BJP states which did oppose GST then, had clearly spelt out their reasons and demands, and since these demands were now satisfied and the GST bill was amended, they had supported this revised GST. TheWire.in did not include both these facts in their one-sided post which was written by M K Venu.

6. 15 August 2015 : Mail Online – The terrible plight of Indian elephants In the above piece, it was claimed that Elephants are tortured at the Guruvayur temple in Kerala. It claimed that Elephants were “Chained to the same spot for 20 years, Beaten into submission at secret jungle training camps.” All the claims made in this article were demolished in a detailed post by Prem Panicker on a blog.

7. 18 August 2015: All Media – Major relief for Congress in National Herald case, sources say Enforcement Directorate will close it We had written a separate post on this, where we showed how various news sites like CNN IBN, India Today, Firstpost and Zee News had misreported this news. First of all, none of the stories highlighted the fact  the National Herald case with the ED was different from the National Herald case going on in courts. Secondly the ED never had any open National Herald case, so question of “closing” it never arose. ED only refused to file a PMLA case in the issue on “technical grounds” and since it felt it was too early. Some reports suggested this was due to “lack of evidence”. Keeping in mind all these distortions, the use of the phrase “major relief” was highly misleading.

8. Reuters and then Indian Media – Pakistan cancels Commonwealth conference to highlight ‘Kashmir issue’ The story begins with Pakistan, the host nation, not inviting the J & K speaker at the Commonwealth conference in Islamabad. To this, India objected strongly and threatened to boycott the conference. Now, as per the Reuters report (which was written by a Pakistani journalist based on inputs of Pakistani officials), Pakistan cancelled the conference “to raise the Kashmir issue”. This was perceived as a “hardening of stance by Pakistan”, to “provoke India“, by many Indian MSM outlets. Fact is, Pakistan did not cancel the conference. The Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) issued a statement that the Executive Committee cancelled the meet because Pakistan did not invite the J & K speaker. In fact, certain sites like The Hindu and CNN IBN even reported that This should have been considered a  out of  members of the CPA executive committee voted to cancel the talks because Pakistan had ” violated the CPA constitution by not inviting an eligible member” . This was a diplomatic win for India, but it was portrayed in the media differently.

9. 21 August 2015: All Media – Misbah Quadri denied flat in a Mumbai colony for being a Muslim. This news broke in May 2015. Soon after it surfaced, follow up reports suggested the story was false but only now has the story been proved to be false. Quadri had then claimed that she was being discriminated against because of her religion and was not being given a flat in a colony. The media did not employ any sort of fact check and blared the story all over. Later some outlets like Hindustan Times & Mid-day decided to look at the other side and did not find evidence to back her claim. Now, the cops have finished the investigation and found no evidence to support her claim. There were other Muslim families living in the same colony and none had been persecuted.

10. 21 August 2015: Times Now Congress Sweeps Civic Polls in Rajasthan First the cold facts and figures: In the Rajasthan Civic Polls, BJP managed to win clear majority in 66 of the 129 local bodies, and claimed to be able to form the board in another 14 bodies. Even if we take 66, it is above the 50% of 129 and can surely mean only 1 thing. Yet, Times Now had this coverage: “Congress Sweeps Civic Polls, Makes Lalitgate Inroads “. To add to the joke, On the very next day, Times of India carried a story in print as well as online, which contradicted Times Now. It said “BJP sweeps Civic Polls in Rajasthan, Congress fails to capitalize on Lalitgate”. Yes 2 media outlets from the same group had 2 different interpretations of the same set of numbers!

11. 21 August 2015: PTI – India’s GDP Can Double in 3 Years: Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu PTI claimed that Suresh Prabhu, at a fucntion in Kolkata claimed that India’s GDP can double in 3-3.5 years. Simple arithmetic would show that to achieve this India would have to grow at a minimum of 20 odd % per year (compounded annually). Even the improbability of this figure did not throw off PTI. Hence, Minister Suresh Prabhu had to clarify on twitter. He said this was a case of “complete misreporting” and he had said it would take 6-6.5 years for GDP to double. He also expressed his frustration that so many sites were carrying PTI’s wrong report. We could find 2 sites, which relied on an IANS report, which correctly reported that Suresh Prabhu had 6-6.5 years.

12. 21 August 2015: PTI – India calls off NSA level talks with Pakistan. PTI reported this Breaking News which was soon picked up by all media outlets. It was based on PTI’s interpreattion of India’s strongly worded response to Pakistan’s statement on the NSA level talks. India had only said that they cannot talk if Pakistan does not honour its commitments, but PTI in the hurry of being the first to break this news, misreported it completely. ANI News, was 3 minutes late as compared to PTI, but had the facts right after they confirmed the same with Government sources.

13. 22 August 2015: Janata Ka Reporter and Hindustan Times – Delhi court says Delhi police’s action was ‘actuated by political vendetta,’ on Commando Surinder’s arrest In what in reality is an exhibit of poor knowledge of English and legal terms, Janata ka Reporter and Hindustan Times claimed  that a Delhi court had stated that Commando Surinder’s arrest was “actuated by political vendetta”, and hence he was given bail. The exact statement of the court is as follows:

“Furthermore, it has been averred that this case is actuated by political vendetta. Thus, no prejudice is likely to be caused to the prosecution in case the accused persons are admitted to bail,”

The key word here is “averred” which both the media outlets seem to have misunderstood. “Averred” means to have been “stated” and in legal parlance, means “allege as a fact in support of a plea”. In the current context, the judge had said that the defendant i.e. Commando Surinder had stated that the case was of political vendetta. It was not the judge’s observation, as interpreted by Janata ka Reporter & Hindustan Times. Also, the reason for giving bail was that “none of the offences for which they have been booked were punishable with jail term for more than seven years and there was no chance of their absconding or fleeing from justice“.

14. 24 August 2015: All Media – The “Pervert” who “molested” Jasleen Kaur This case is far too well known now. Mid-day , DailyO & Times Now called him a “Pervert”. His crime was reported to be “sexual harassment” and “molestation”. These are just a few examples but media, relying only on the version of Jasleen Kaur branded a Delhi youth as a criminal. All this, even when Jasleen’s first tweet only claimed that the guy had made “obscene remarks”. Later, an independent eyewitness trashed Jasleen’s version and said although the guy might have violated a traffic law, it was a standard altercation between Jasleen (who was volunteering to be manage traffic) and the guy. Many more issues further came up and slowly Jasleen’s claims seemed to be exaggerated to the say the least. But MSM had ruined the “pervert’s” name on the very first day, without a basic cross check.

15. 26 August 2015: All Media – Sensationalised reporting of Census data. “Lies, damned lies, and statistics”, is an age old phrase, and Indian MSM, when faced with huge data like the Religious Census figures, used all sort of twisted arguments to present whatever they wanted. Some like The Hindu and NDTV reported that “Muslim population growth slows” while not mentioning that Hindu population rate of growth also fell, and Muslim rate of growth was still the highest among all religions. PTI claimed that “Hindu population declined”, but the fact is the absolute population of Hindus grew, only the proportion of Hindus declined.

 

Miscellaneous Lies:

1. 3 August 2015: PTI – Sonia pulls up Agriculture Minister for ‘outrageous’ statement on farmers’ suicides This PTI report was carried by Mid-day as it is , and was later changed by Mid-day when the error they carried from the PTI story was pointed out. The report said “Sonia pulls up Agriculture Minister”. Since Sonia neither appointed the minister, nor is in power, she couldnt technically “pull up” the minister. Mid-day editor Sachi Kalbag accepted the error and changed the headline later.

2. 4 August 2015: CNN IBN – BJD joins JDU, CPI, CPM, RSP, NCP, TMC, AAP & Congress protest against suspension of MPs from LS IBN claimed that along with other UPA faithfuls, BJD too protested against the suspension of Congress MPs from the Lok Sabha for unruly behaviour. Fact is BJD did not join the protest. This was pointed out by numerous twitter users and even BJD MP Baijayant Jay Panda refuted this news.

3. 5 August 2015: The Hindu – Right-wing group attacks FTII This lie is actually from July but since we did not notice it then, it is being reported now. As can be seen from the attached screenshot, The Hindu had Untitled reported that “Right Wing groups” had attacked FTII. This is apparent from the google search result and the byline which appears with the post. But when one actually went through the post, one could see that it clearly mentioned “unidentified vandals”. The only mention of a “right wing group” was of some group called “Patit Pavan Sanghatana”, which as the report itself says, had only rallied behind Mr. Chauhan  and protested against FTII. Did The Hindu make the inference that this group itself were the vandals? If so, why did they later change their headline to: “FTII seeks police protection”. It seems The Hindu was caught on the wrong foot and then hurriedly corrected itself.

4. 9 August 2015: Dainik Bhaskar – Rahul Mahajan was a close friend of Radhe Maa. Rahul Mahajan was one of the few celebrities who openly came out against God-woman Radhe Ma, posting her pictures in “indecent clothing” on Twitter. Yet, Dainik Bhaskar in their report claimed that Rahul was once an “inseparable friend” of Radhe Ma. Rahul took objection to this false claim and clarified on twitter that far from being a friend, he had never even met Radhe Ma. Bhaskar subsequently updated their post.

5. 18 August 2015: Indian Express and ABP News (at least) – Preity Zinta to IPL officials: Some of my players may have been linked to suspicious activity

News reports from a section of media claimed that Zinta had told BCCI officials  that some players from Kings XI Punjab may have indulged in “suspicious activities” linked to throwing matches. The reports also claimed that Zinta had said that she had felt at times that some IPL matches involving her team had followed a pre-decided pattern. Preity in her response on twitter blasted these media houses for the “inaccurate & extremely irresponsible & malicious” story. She clarified that she ahd only suggested  random polygraph tests to prevent corruption. She also said “A constructive conversation to genuinely make a difference to the game is turned into a destructive article for sensational purpose“. She also said she was very proud of her team  and under no circumstance will she tolerate slander towards her or her team.

6. 25 August 2015: All Media: Sensex records biggest ever fall

Multiple media outlets reported that “Manic Monday” on 25 August the Sensex crashed to its biggest single-day fall ever. The Sensex fell by 1624 points, nearly 6%. But this was not the biggest single-day fall, neither in absolute terms nor in percentage terms (which is more important). One of the days when Sensex had logged higher intra-day losses was on 31 January 2008 when it lost 2063 points i.e. 10.8%. There other occasions too when it recorded larger falls.

7. 25 August 2015: All Media: Anurag Kashyap gets into a brawl with MMA fighter, gets injured!

Multiple Media houses (some have deleted the story now) reported that Anurag Kashyap got injured in a fight with a MMA fighter. This was absed on Kashyap’s Instagram posts where he posted pics of a bandaged eye. As a caption for one of the pics, he said: “Now they put a plaster, this is what happens when you get into a brawl with a MMA fighter”. MSM took off from here, did not bother doing a cross check into his claims and reported it. As it turns out, Kashyap revealed in a Facebook post that he was actually doing a prosthetics test for his eye and he planted the “MMA fighter” part to trap and expose the media. And the media obliged.

8. 25 August 2015: CNN IBN: OROP not financially feasible nor sustainable – Arun Jaitley

Late on 25 August, IBN group was the only one reporting this news. Instantly everyone 1 assumed that OROP had been shelved since IBN reported that Jaitley, the Finance Minister, himself had said OROP is not feasible. The odd thing here was nobody else was reporting this story, no other media house. Only Firstpost, which is a part of the IBN group, reported this, that too based on IBN’s tweet itself. After a few minutes IBN deleted the said tweet. This was after BJP National Gen Secretary Ram Madhav declared on twitter that the news is false. Further, a few days later, the Defence Minister made a statement saying that only “small gaps are being filled in OROP now”.

9. 27 August 2015: IBN 7: Syed Tarikh Pirzada says Rahul Gandhi and Kejriwal musy break Hindus on caste line to break India

Pirzada is a Pakistani commentator who often makes anti-India remarks. But this remark was not by him. In fact it was a tweet by a parody account but IBN 7 took it to be real and manufactured a news piece on it.

10. 26 August 2015: Hindustan Times – Muslims in Gujarat decreased by 34.52% between 2001 and 2011

In their print edition, Hindutan Times published the following infographic 1which said population of Muslims in Gujarat had come down from 45.92 lacs in 2001 to 30.07 lacs in 2011. This sort of data fits perfectly in the narrative that “Muslims are being persecuted in Gujarat”. But this data is totally false. A look at the official data released by the Census department shows that the population of Muslims in Gujarat in 2011 was in fact 58.46 lacs, and the figure of 30.07 lacs reported by Hindustan Times was only of Male Muslims in Gujarat. Unintentional error? which went unchecked at multiple levels? Even when the massive drop of 34.52 % would have raised alarm bells that something somewhere is wrong?

January 2015: 7 Lies

February 2015: 8 Lies

March 2015: 9 Lies

April 2015: 18 Lies

May 2015: 20 Lies

June 2015: 20 Lies

July 2015: 27 Lies

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