In a shocking incident, a 21-year-old son mercilessly killed his father for disallowing him to play PUBG (PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds) in Karnataka.
The incident took place in Siddheshwar Nagar under Kakati police station, Belgaum, Karnataka at 5 am this morning, one Raghuveer Kumbar (21), a diploma course dropout who was addicted to PUBG, chopped off the head and the left leg of his father, Shekarappa Revappa Kumbar (61).
“Raghuveer Kumbar killed his father Shankar for cutting the internet connection. He was beaten badly before death for taking his phone and not allowing him to play PUBG game”, Belgaum police said.
Shekarappa, who retired as a carpenter from the district armed reserve police four months ago, had advised his son against mobile game addiction several times.
On September 8 (Sunday), Shekarappa reportedly scolded the youth after he found him engrossed in the mobile game for hours. This irritated Raghuveer who went out and started throwing stones at his neighbour’s glass windows to vent out his frustration. The neighbours, in turn, called the police who summoned Raghuveer and his father to the Kakati police station.
Raghuveer’s father told the police that his son was addicted to games such as PUBG and Final Combat. The police officer let them go after counselling the youth for nearly an hour.
Immediately after reaching home, the youth went back to playing games on his phone and continued till midnight. Shekarappa shouted at his son and asked him to go to sleep. He snatched his mobile phone and refused to return it to Raghuveer.
Raghuveer woke up at 5 am and attacked his father in his sleep with a vegetable knife, after locking his mother’s room from outside.
The mother who got up after she heard her husband’s cries, raised an alarm. A neighbour woke up and called the police. By the time the police arrived, the accused had already beheaded and cut off the victim’s leg. Raghuveer, who had escaped from the house, was nabbed by the police after a search.
Raghuveer confessed to the crime and said that his father’s objection to his playing on the mobile had angered him.
Police Commissioner B S Lokesh Kumar and other senior officials reached the spot and a case has been registered in Kakati police station.
This is, however, not the first incidence where the addiction to PUBG has turned fatal. In June we had reported how one 15-year-old minor boy from Bhiwandi in Thane district of Maharashtra allegedly killed his elder brother, Mohammad Shaik (19), for scolding him over playing the PUBG game on his mobile phone.
PUBG is an online multiplayer battle game developed by a South Korean Firm. Several concerns have been raised across the world regarding the addictive nature of the game, which also has a tendency to push children towards violent behaviour. Parents and educators say the game incites violence and distracts students from their studies.
In the month of May, a 16-year-old boy from Telangana had committed suicide after he was scolded by his parents for spending too much time being engrossed in the mobile game.
Recently, news surfaced that Mirror Now anchor Faye D Souza had quit Mirror Now and Vinay Tewari was poised to take over as the new Managing Editor of Mirror Now. While there was no clarity on why Faye had ‘quit’ her job, the ‘liberal’ ecosystem had already started fear-mongering and alleging that she had to ‘quit her job’ because she was a ‘fearless voice’ that ‘stood against’ PM Narendra Modi and Amit Shah.
Lawyer Karuna Nundy termed Faye D Souza as a ‘slayer of fascist ideas’ and ‘a voice of poor’ and said she has been ‘silenced as a prime time anchor’.
Fantastic @fayedsouza, slayer of fascist ideas and a voice for poor, marginalised Indians has been silenced as a prime time anchor. She’ll be great in her new @romedy Oprah style role, but
the blow to integrity and truth in prime time TV news is massive. https://t.co/Mv5RCIZOT7
Prashant Bhushan said that fearless Faye was ‘made to’ resign.
One of our finest TV journalists @fayedsouza has resigned (made to) from MirrorNow. She raised the biggest issues & spoke truth to power. Obviously it annoyed the establishment who then put pressure on the Times management to replace her. Very Unfortunate https://t.co/TNGRY1Vir6
Journalist Sakshi said that Faye resigned because she refused to ‘not be’ the voice of the poor.
U never spread hatred, u never shouted to put ur point across, u just followed the basic ethics of journalism @fayedsouza and women like us always look upto u. U have resigned from a job it just means u refused to not be people’s voice. More power to u ❤️ #FayeDsouzahttps://t.co/HG38jOrw2E
Congress too jumped in the mix. Shashi Tharoor and Sanjay Nirupam peddled the same agenda insinuating that it was because of the Modi government that Faye D Souza quit.
Its really sad to know that @fayedsouza is forced to resign.
Finally Mirror Now brand of real journalism is past. It will very soon follow its sibling Times Now type of fake journalism.
This is an absolute shame: https://t.co/DVFcG6MUYx
IF she was forced out by political pressure, she enters a Hall of Fame occupied by @bdutt, Karan Thapar, @ghoshworld &other illustrious names. But Indian media plunges further into darkness.
Hers was a voice of passionate sanity.
In fact, there was even a change.org petition that demanded that Faye D Souza be brought back to Mirror Now.
Now, however, Times Network has issued a statement clarifying that Faye will continue to be associated with Times Network and Mirror Now.
Statement by Times Network
The statement says that Faye D Souza played a pivotal role in establishing a strong position for Mirror Now, Faye is now moving away from managing daily operations of the brand and will now be responsible for creating and presenting flagship shows on Mirror Now in addition to steering new shows, IPs and ground events for the Network.
Faye D Souza too issued a statement after 2 days of speculation.
It is interesting, however, none of the individuals who tweeted blindly blaming the Modi government for Faye’s exit based on source-based rumours from an unreliable website has retracted their fear-mongering tweets that rue the state of press freedom.
The Enforcement Directorate has summoned Congress leader and former minister DK Shivkumar’s daughter on Thursday in a money laundering case involving her father. She has been asked to be present before the ED on September 12. The ED is investigating her trips to Singapore with her father DK Shivakumar in 2017.
The Income Tax department had found certain cross-border transactions which DK Shivakumar and his daughter couldn’t provide a satisfactory explanation to. The Enforcement Directorate believes that these transactions could be hawala transactions and therefore they have summoned Shivakumar’s daughter for questioning.
The alleged money laundering by DK Shivakumar came to light after raids by the Income Tax officials on August 2, 2017, at four flats in New Delhi, which led to the seizure of unaccounted cash worth Rs.8.59 crore without evidence of its source of income. These flats were linked to Shivakumar and associates Sachin Narayan and Sunil Kumar Sharma.
Another two associates, Anjaneya Hanumanthaiah and N Rajendran, employees of Karnataka Bhavan in New Delhi, had allegedly stored the cash in the flats on behalf of the Congress leaders. They had said that they were handling the money of Shivakumar, but later they had retracted their statements.
The I-T Dept had also revealed that Shivakumar and his associates had used hawala channels to transport unaccounted money on a regular basis. “Accused number 1 (Shivakumar) has set up an extensive network of persons and premises across Delhi and Bangalore in order to transport and utilise unaccounted cash”, the department had said in its complaint submitted at the Special Court for Economic Offences in Delhi.
Acting on PM Modi’s call to reduce single-use plastic, large hotel chains like the Marriott and Taj have taken a conscious decision to bring down single-use plastic consumption for a sustainable environment-friendly tomorrow. They will at first eliminate PET bottles on their premises and then reduce the use of single-use plastic altogether. According to some estimates, they consume two million plastic bottles a year.
The JW Marriott hotel property at Delhi’s Aerocity on Monday eliminated the last of its polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles, replacing these with QR-coded glass ones from it’s Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based bottling unit.
This 500 room property which on an average consumes 5,479 bottles a day first wants to replicate this model in it’s few select properties and eventually do away with PET bottles at all its properties. Prior to this Indian Hotels Company (IHCL, the Taj group) also went ahead with the decision to eliminate plastic bottles. The latter recently set up bottling units at select hotels in Delhi, Bengaluru, Maldives and Colombo, seeking to replace plastic bottles with glass ones.
Prime Minister while addressing the citizens of the country on the 73rd Independence Day from the ramparts of Red Fort urged people to eliminate the use of single-use plastic. With an aim to prevent environmental degradation, Modi stressed that citizens must buy indigenous products and must strive to make the policy of “Make In India” a success.
“The time for implementing such an idea has come. Teams must be mobilised to work in this direction. A significant step must come out by October 2 (Mahatma Gandhi’s birth anniversary,” he had said.
Moreover, in a bid to carry Modi’s initiative to junk single-use plastic ahead, the Railways have also planned to install 4000 plastic bottle crushing machines at stations. A passenger wanting to use them will have to key in his phone number into the machine and his phone will be recharged. Currently, 160 bottle-crushing machines are available at 128 stations.
The railways have also issued directions that from October 2 this year, single-use plastic will not be used on its premises. Railway Board Chairman V.K. Yadav has also asked railway staff to collect all the used plastic bottles at railway stations and send them for recycling.
Earlier, the ministry had issued instructions to all its vendors and staff across its network to use reusable bags to reduce plastic footprint.
While Pakistan always insists that Jammu and Kashmir is a disputed territory and refers to the area under Indian administration as India Occupied Kashmir, its foreign minister termed it as Indian state at an international forum.
#WATCH: Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi mentions Kashmir as “Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir” in Geneva pic.twitter.com/kCc3VDzVuN
While talking to media in Geneva, Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said, ‘if life has returned to normalcy, why India does not allow international media, international NGOs and civil society organisations to go into the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir and see for themselves what the reality is. They’re lying through their teeth, and once the curfew is lifted, the reality comes out, the world will wake up to the catastrophe that is underway right now.’ It is very rare for Pakistani leaders to acknowledge that Jammu and Kashmir is a state of India, and the Pakistan foreign minister did so in front of international media while trying to internationalise India’s decision to abrogate 370.
Qureshi is in Geneva to attend a session of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC). Addressing the session, he alleged human rights violations in Jammu and Kashmir by India, and called for the formation of a joint investigation committee to study the situation in the state. “The basic rights of people of India-occupied Jammu and Kashmir are being trampled with impunity by India. The people of this occupied land are suffering systematic and serial violations of their fundamental rights”, he said.
A leaked document has emerged which is reportedly the 115-page dossier which will be submitted by Pakistan in UN Human Rights Session (UNHRC) today.
Pakistan in its alleged dossier has once again used Congress’ ex-president, Rahul Gandhi’s quote to further its anti-India narrative. The dossier quotes remarks made by Rahul Gandhi in the aftermath of India’s decision to abrogate Article 370 for Jammu and Kashmir.
A leaked document, reportedly the Pakistani dossier to be presented by them at United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) today, circulating in Pak media circles. The opening page of the document shows quotes by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi & National Conference’s Omar Abdullah. pic.twitter.com/4JoFClPil6
In the aftermath of India’s decision to strip Article 370 and bifurcate the state of Jammu and Kashmir into two separate UTs, Congress supremo, Rahul Gandhi had taken to Twitter to castigate Jammu and Kashmir authorities and had cast doubts on the Indian government.
He had said that it had been 20 days since people of Jammu & Kashmir “had their freedom and civil liberties curtailed”. He could be heard speaking to the security forces that he would like to go to ‘any area which is peaceful’ and had concluded his video by saying that “it is very clear that things are not normal in Jammu & Kashmir.”
The former Congress President Rahul Gandhi had also ‘noted’ that “people dying” in Jammu & Kashmir, in light of events “going very wrong here”.
It’s been 20 days since the people of Jammu & Kashmir had their freedom & civil liberties curtailed. Leaders of the Opposition & the Press got a taste of the draconian administration & brute force unleashed on the people of J&K when we tried to visit Srinagar yesterday. pic.twitter.com/PLwakJM5W5
On 25th August, a day after Rahul Gandhi led a delegation of opposition leaders he had posted a video on Twitter where he is arguing with the security personnel at the Srinagar Airport for not being allowed as there are still certain restrictions in place to avoid any eventuality.
Pakistan had previously written to the UN accusing India of carrying out human rights violations in Jammu and Kashmir and had used this statement by Rahul Gandhi and other leftist leaders to further its narrative. This time again, Pakistan used the same statement of the Congress leader to advocate a similar narrative against India.
Pakistan has also used the stand taken by Rahul Gandhi and his political cronies to further its agenda against India earlier too. Even during the Pulwama attacks and India’s retaliatory Balakot airstrikes after that, Pakistan has used Congress and other opposition leaders’ statements to peddle its nefarious agenda.
Pakistani analysts and strategists in their media debates had even named the Congress as a ‘sympathiser’ of Pakistan. Recently, Imran Khan had even copied Rahul Gandhi’s favourite lines against RSS and the BJP and had stated that the RSS and PM Modi are planning a Nazi-like imposition of Hindutva ideology in India.
Pakistan is expected to move a ‘resolution’ seeking support for Pakistan’s case on Kashmir in the ongoing 42nd UN Human Rights Session. This is the last chance Pakistan has to catch the world’s attention over Jammu and Kashmir and Pakistan is trying to make the most of it by using Rahul Gandhi’s statements as their weapon.
It is now 2 weeks since the first part of this article was published. In this follow-up, we look deeper into the murky dealing of Zomato and its CEO Mr Deepinder Goyal.
Fines on Late Deliveries
Restaurant owners registered with Zomato for deliveries were sent a message, stating that, effective 20th August 2019, the following fines would be applicable on deliveries against delay in the processing of orders.
Fines imposed by Zomato
There was no other communication or intimation, nor was feedback from Restaurants sought, as is generally accepted trade practice, before implementing these drastic changes in the Zomato business model. As is their wont, the powers that be at Zomato decided to unilaterally change their business policy and conveyed the new policy without any concurrence or dialogue with the Restaurant Management.
For a Restaurant, their first priority is and will always be their walk-in customer. Any order received from an online aggregator like Zomato or Swiggy is incremental business, and hence, will be accorded lower priority as compared to a walk-in customer. Every businessman knows that incremental business from new verticals is always an add-on and not a substitute for the main business model.
The National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI), a restaurant trade association, played a vital role in quashing of this unilateral policy change by Zomato. They protested against the unilateral change at the highest levels. Though Zomato had taken unilateral action, NRAI advised its members against taking any drastic action such as logging off the delivery platform.
There was opposition to the unilateral change by the restaurant owners individually as well. Nearly every restaurant owner that we spoke to told us that they had called up their Zomato Relationship Manager to register their protests against such arbitrary and unilateral changes in policy. The Relationship Managers, who are the only bridge between the Restaurant and Zomato, were equally perplexed by the unilateral policy change, and simply told the restaurant owners to log off the Zomato delivery platform for the day as a sign of their protest.
By midday of 20th August 2019, the powers that be at Zomato realized that they had overplayed their hand and that the restaurant owners were calling their bluff, some having logged off their platform for the day. Zomato sheepishly and shamelessly retracted their unilateral policy change with the following message:
Dear Merchant(s),
We recently rolled out a policy to align the interests of users, Zomato and restaurants towards better user experience – which was not received well by some segments of the industry.
With immediate effect, we are suspending the policy communicated to you – we will collate more feedback and come back to you with next steps. Any charges that were levied today will be reversed.
Thank you for being a loyal partner to us. We look forward to continuing working with you.
-Team Zomato.
Personal attack on the President of NRAI by Zomato CEO
The #Logout campaign is being spearheaded by the National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI). As the voice of the Indian restaurant industry, NRAI represents the interests of more than 500,000 restaurants, which is a sector valued at more than USD 4 billion. The current President of NRAI, Rahul Singh, is the Founder & CEO of BTB Marketing Pvt. Ltd. which owns and operates “The Beer Café” across India.
Rahul Singh is a successful businessman in his own right, having set up a successful chain of more than 40 restaurants in India. As the President of the NRAI, it is his duty and responsibility to safeguard the interests of the members of the association. It is pertinent to note here that Rahul Singh, as President of NRAI was at the forefront of negotiating an acceptable solution to the deadlock between members of NRAI and Zomato. He was not negotiating in his personal capacity or as the owner of “The Beer Café”.
On 22nd August 2019, Mr Deepinder Goyal, the CEO of Zomato Media Pvt. Ltd., in a tweet, made an infantile attack on Rahul Singh and his business.
Zomato is logging out of the logout campaign. We have said enough and we are getting back to work. I am confident better business sense will prevail at the end.
Mr Deepinder Goyal, has in this tweet, compared his “Zomato Gold” offering with a loyalty program “Beerocrat” currently offered by “The Beer Café”. Comparing the two products makes no sense as they are as different as chalk & cheese. “Beerocrat” is a loyalty program exclusively for patrons of the “The Beer Café” & is not acceptable at any other establishment. The discount offered is voluntary and is a means to build customer loyalty and retention. None of these attributes is offered by “Zomato Gold” to its users.
The unwarranted personal attack on the President of the largest restaurant association in the country was in extremely poor taste. Mr Rahul Singh, maintaining the decorum of the office of the President of NRAI, has not commented or reacted to Mr Deepinder Goyals juvenile rants on Twitter.
In the meanwhile, all restaurants in Jaipur & Vadodara have logged off “Zomato Gold”. The exact number of restaurants logged off pan India cannot be calculated, as Zomato has since stopped displaying the number of restaurants that honour “Zomato Gold”. A rough estimate by the NRAI puts the number of logged off restaurants at about 2,500.
The greed of 1 man may be adversely affecting the investment scenario in India.
The recent logjam over “Zomato Gold”, has cast aspersions over the foreign investment scenario in India. Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., an investor in Zomato Media Pvt. Ltd., has temporarily halted fresh investments.
The article further states “They are not seeing the kind of opportunities in India within Alibaba’s ecosystem that will really compel them to invest. So, while they also have to work to get some exits, they would rather wait it out and not invest, rather than make risky investments,” said the second person, a senior investment banker who has worked on past deals with Alibaba.
The question that begs an answer is whether one person’s greed should be allowed to derail the investment environment in the country?
POS- Data Bully
Point of Sale or POS is a utility software used by restaurant owners primarily for billing. Many POS systems are software suites that include sale, inventory, stock counting, recipe management, vendor ordering, customer loyalty, human resource, accounting and reporting modules. A well-managed F&B business will have integrated all the above in their day to day activities.
Like most ERP solutions, POS Utility Suites (POS) have now shifted storage of the backend data from physical servers to the cloud. Hence, nearly every Restaurant that has implemented POS now stores all data related to their business on the cloud, usually hosted by the Software Company that has sold and implemented the software. The Service Level Agreement (SLA), signed & executed by both the Restaurant & Software Company clearly states that all Data stored on the cloud, including all Intellectual Property like recipes, belongs to the Restaurant alone.
After our previous article was published, we were approached by the CEO of one of the leading POS Utility Suites in India, who on the condition of anonymity, shared his experience while dealing with the CEO of a leading Online Food Aggregator.
The CEO of the Food Aggregator offered to buy out his POS Utility Suite. His grand plan was to implement the POS Utility Suite across all the restaurants listed on his platform for Delivery, initially at no cost to the restaurants. The Online Food Aggregators plan was to make the implementation of the POS mandatory for all restaurants registered for delivery on his platform.
While the Restaurant would get access to a world-class POS Utility Suite, their data and intellectual property could have been compromised anytime by the Online Food Aggregator. Recipes, the most vital intellectual property for any restaurant have to be defined in these POS Utility Suites to calculate inventory, consumption and costing.
Recent events have shown that ethics and principles are not the strongest suites of the said food aggregator. The CEO of the POS Utility Suite understood the nefarious intentions of the Online Food Aggregator and promptly recused himself from any such discussions. Meanwhile, the POS Utility Suite has done well for itself on its own, having established clients across more than 100 cities across India and overseas as well.
On a related note, another POS Utility Suite, Torqus Systems, was recently bought out by Dineout, a restaurant table reservation service company, owned by Times Internet. Only “Times” can tell whether they too have any such grandiose plans!
Swiggy: The Silent Perpetrator
With all the attention being directed at the brash CEO of Zomato, Mr Deepinder Goyal; their main competitors are equally if not more; guilty of using their platform and manipulating business unfairly. Swiggy, an Online Food Aggregator, is owned by Bundl Technologies Pvt. Ltd. The Bangalore based company, operating in over 100 cities, is headed by Mr Sriharsha Majety. The management is known to operate under the radar.
As observed in the previous article, the customer belongs to the restaurant with Swiggy or Zomato acting purely as a delivery agent. The Tax Invoice, FSSAI License, Health Permits, Statutory Compliances, etc. are all the responsibilities of the Restaurant preparing the food. The customer places an order based on the Goodwill & Reputation of the Restaurant built over many years at their own cost, expertise and effort.
The Swiggy platform is notoriously famous at data masking, wherein they never disclose to the restaurant the identity; neither name nor address or number of the customer placing the order. Swiggy has collated this data over the last few years, studied and analysed the ordering pattern of the customers in every locality, and used this data to curate a menu best suited for their own brands and kitchens.
Bundle Technologies Pvt. Ltd. has launched “The Bowl Company” & “Homely” brands exclusively on Swiggy. The menu at “The Bowl Company” comprises of “Single Serve Portions” of various cuisines, suitable for consumption in offices & homes by one individual, while “Homely” is traditional Indian meals served in “Bento Boxes”, again satisfying the appetite of one individual.
Both these menus have been curated by carefully “gleaning” the ordering pattern of customers of various restaurants across locations. The “gleaned” data never belonged to Swiggy in the first place. Swiggy has created a clear conflict of interest between itself and the Restaurants by launching their own brands. As per information available, Swiggy now operates more than 600 kitchens across India.
Interestingly, while a regular restaurant has to wait 45 days after listing on Swiggy’s platform to start accruing ratings, Swiggy owned brands automatically find themselves having top tier rating on their own App from the beginning.
Readers may verify for themselves, the unbelievably high number of reviews and ratings posted for both “The Bowl Company” & “Homely” on the Swiggy App against other reputed restaurants operating since few years. The link below shows a 4.4 rating for “The Bowl Company” based on 1000+ reviews. This outlet has been operational for less than a year now.
At the same time, an extremely popular outlet in the same locality, “Henny’s Gourmet” which has been operational for more than 3 years, has a 4.8 rating based on just 25+ ratings till date.
The high number of positive reviews and ratings for Swiggys brand on their own platform in such a short time span cannot be explained by any logic. The only plausible explanation one arrives at is “Manipulation”.
Taking into consideration the above, we wonder if the institutional investors at Swiggy are aware of these blatant data breaches, which may or may not attract punitive action in India, but are surely an offence under the recently enacted European Union General Data Protection Regulation (EU GDPR); as these investors also have operations in the European Union? Are the institutional investors willing to face consequences for the criminal actions of Swiggy?
We leave with the following question to our readers:
Can this manipulation and willful misrepresentation, be construed as a criminal offence?
Does Swiggy operate its own brand of restaurants in “Good Faith”?
Actor-turned-politician Urmila Matondkar who had joined the Congress party in March this year and lost the Lok Sabha elections from North Mumbai seat to BJP’s Gopal Shetty has tendered her resignation from the party.
Actor-turned-politician Urmila Matondkar resigns from the Congress party. She states ‘My political and social sensibilities refuse to allow vested interests in the party to use me as a mean to fight petty in-house politics instead of working on a bigger goal in Mumbai Congress.’ pic.twitter.com/QJdUIswMJk
While resigning from the Congress party, Urmila said that her political and social sensibilities do not allow her to let vested interests in the party to use her as a mean to fight petty in-house politics. Urmila’s reason for offering resignation from the party reveals that everything is not going well in the Mumbai Congress and the party is plagued with internecine battles.
The resignation comes merely after 5 months since she joined the party. The fallout among the Congress leaders in Mumbai has come out in open, especially after the party fared disastrously in the General elections 2019. Soon after Rahul Gandhi resigned from the post of Congress President, Milind Deora too had resigned from the post of Mumbai Congress President. Another senior Congress leader Sanjay Nirupam, is at loggerheads with Milind Deora as he hailed Deora’s removal as Congress Mumbai President.
When Eknath Gaikwad was made the acting president of MRCC, Sanjay Nirupam welcomed the move stating that Deora was not able to perform and energise the Congress cadres.
On May 16, a week before the election results were out, Matondkar had written to the party leadership criticising the conduct of close associates of Sanjay Nirupam – Sandesh Kondvilkar and Bhushan Patil.
In her letter, the former Bollywood actress had shared her grievance by highlighting the failure of party leadership at the local level on coordination, organising workers at grassroots, failure to provide proper resources to her by the two campaign coordinators. The actress-politician accused the duo of showing a “total lack of coordination, honesty and efficiency, ensuring a disastrous outcome”.
Urmila Matondkar also said that the joint poll rally addressed by senior Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge and NCP chief Sharad Pawar in suburban Borivali in April was organised in an “extremely shoddy” manner, bringing huge personal embarrassment for her.
In the letter, the 45-year-old Congress politician accused Nirupam’s aide Kondvilkar of calling up her family members and asking them for money to fund her election campaign. Matondkar alleged that Kondvilkar had asked her family members to speak to Congress treasurer Ahmed Patel for release of campaign funds.
She also claimed that the close aides of Nirupam also showed disrespect to North Mumbai district Congress president Ashok Sutrale. She sought disciplinary action against Kondvilkar and Patil and demanded changes at the organisational level to ensure a better and brighter future for the party.
In her letter, she said that she managed to run a decent campaign despite such difficulties and added she had highlighted certain issues with an intention to bring positive change in the party.
In her short stint within the Congress, Urmila, in during her campaign trails was welcomed with ‘Modi, Modi‘ chants and also managed to politicise the armed forces by using Wing Commander Abhinandan’s photo for campaigning. Within days of joining Congress, she had also proclaimed that Mumbai ‘belongs‘ to Congress.
Advisor to Jammu and Kashmir Governor, Farooq Khan, on Monday asserted that the administration in Jammu and Kashmir has successfully dealt with the law and order situation in the Valley in the aftermath of the Government’s decision to repeal Article 370 which provided a separate status to Jammu and Kashmir and to also bifurcate the state into two union territories.
Slamming Pakistan for spreading misinformation for creating an atmosphere of panic in the valley, the former IPS officer asserted: “Not a single bullet has been fired by security forces for over a month”.
Farooq Khan’s comment came on a day UN Human Rights chief Michelle Bachelet expressed concern on the restrictions in the state and asked India to ease the current lockdown.
Khan further added that all necessary actions were being taken to safeguard the lives of people and to make sure normalcy was slowly returning to the Valley.
“We have been successful in that (safeguarding lives). More than a month has now passed, but not even a single bullet has been fired by security forces and police to deal with the law and order situation. It is a big thing. It is the reality,” he said, adding they “will not be cowed down” by the Pakistani propaganda.
Khan told reporters that the Indian government is exposing the propaganda by Pakistan which “has bitterly failed to internationalise the issue of Kashmir by spreading lies”.
“China too has failed. Everyone in the world knows it well that Pakistan is spreading propaganda and has been a master of lies,” he said.
The slowdown Jammu and Kashmir has faced after government posed restrictions in the Valley post-abrogation of Article 370 is slowly getting normalised. “The situation in the Valley is slowly getting normalised. You will soon see children attending schools and normal trade and business will resume soon,” Khan said.
Condemning the recent incident where terrorists fired on a family in Sopore, in which a two-and-a-half-year-old child was injured, Khan said that is was nothing but “an act of frustration”.
Moreover, Khan rejected all the fake news pertaining to Jammu and Kashmir which have been maliciously promulgated by Pakistani propaganda channels, the diabolic Pakistani officials and few estranged Pakistani sympathisers within the Indian media.
Various social media sites like Twitter and Facebook have been crammed with fake news and misinformation about Jammu and Kashmir after the historic decision of abrogation of Article 370 and bifurcation of Jammu and Kashmir on August 5.
Last month, for this reason, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has written to Twitter, asking them to block at least eight accounts on its the micro-blogging platform, for allegedly spreading rumours about the prevailing situation in Kashmir.
In an interview with Sun TV, when questioned by the interviewer that as a Tamilian, having attained a big position, what does he want to say to ppl of Tamil Nadu, ISRO chief K Sivan had responded saying that he is an Indian first and joined the Space Research organisation as an Indian.
SunTV: As a Tamil, having attained a big position, what do u want to say to ppl of TN?
Sivan: First of all, I am an Indian, I joined #ISRO as an Indian & ISRO is a place where people from all regions & languages work, contribute, but I am grateful to my brothers who celebrate me pic.twitter.com/tES7uzNCJO
“First of all, I’m an Indian and I joined ISRO as an Indian. It is an organisation where people from all the regions, speaking different languages work together and contribute. However, I am grateful to my brothers who celebrate me,” Sivan answered.
The interview was taken by Sun News in January 2018. A clip from that interview went viral on social media today after many people shared it.
ISRO chief K Sivan has become a household name all over India ever since the Chandrayaan-2 mission was announced. His leadership skills, humble demeanour and calm response to constant media attention have earned him immense respect and admiration from all quarters.
ISRO, under K Sivan’s leadership, has achieved the remarkable feat of sending the Chadrayaan-2 orbiter to the moon. Though the Vikram Lander lost communication just 2.1 km away from the lunar surface, ISRO’s attempt to send a rover to the lunar south pole and almost succeeding at it was hailed all over the world, earning accolades for Dr Sivan and his colleagues.
ISRO Chairman Thiru.Sivan giving tight slap to divisive Sun TV(DMK backed channel) anchor who repeatedly tries to fuel regionalism. ISRO Sivan reiterates he’s proud to be an Indian & coming frm Tamil Nadu is merely a regional identity & not a separate national identity! HATS OFF! pic.twitter.com/XdoReczwFN
It is notable here that Sun News is owned by the DMK bosses who have made their political careers over a secessionist Dravidian politics, spreading the idea that the Tamil identity is different from the Indian identity. The humble and firm reply of the ISRO chief in the old interview, asserting that he identifies himself as an Indian first who comes from the state of Tamil Nadu, not only punctured an attempt to spread the idea but also showed how dearly the ISRO chief loves his nation.
