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BJP delegation approaches EC office seeking additional security forces deployment in West Bengal

OpIndia Staff
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BJP delegation approaches EC office seeking additional security forces deployment in West Bengal

The BJP delegation comprising of N Sitharaman, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Bhupender Yadav and Kailash Vijayvargiya today approached the Election Commission demanding increased security forces deployment in West Bengal for the upcoming Lok Sabha assembly polls.


Requesting the EC to declare West Bengal as a super-sensitive state, Ravi Shankar Prasad asserted that Bengal’s dismal record in conducting free and fair elections is suggestive of the need to have additional security forces to man the polling booths. He also highlighted killings of 100 people in the recently concluded local body and gram panchayat polls in West Bengal.


Ravi Shankar Prasad further requested the Election Commission to initiate action against Rahul Gandhi for levelling unfounded allegations against PM Modi in his Ahmedabad rally yesterday, after the Model code of conduct had already kicked in.

Use of violence to browbeat opponents during the election time in Bengal is not a new phenomenon. In the past, the Trinamool Congress workers had attacked Panchayat candidates in West Bengal, forcing them to file their nominations via Whatsapp. It is also alleged that many opposition leaders are routinely thrashed by the workers of the ruling party TMC in West Bengal.

Rahul Gandhi says Chidambaram determined India’s economic future, forgets biggest economic scams took place under his nose

OpIndia Staff
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Rahul Gandhi says Chidambaram determined India’s economic future, forgets biggest economic scams took place under his nose

Rahul Gandhi, while addressing a gathering of students at Chennai, raked the North-South divide and claimed that the current government has a ‘North India-specific focus’. He then went on to claim that P. Chidambaram is from South India and determined the economy of the country for a decade.


The Congress President went on to say that it’s very important that Tamil Nadu is represented in senior positions in the Government of India. Perhaps he is not aware, the airstrikes at Balakot were conducted by the Indian Air Force when Nirmala Sitharaman, who hails from Tamil Nadu, was the Defense Minister of the country.

Given Chidambaram’s track record, Nirmala Sitharaman is perhaps much more adequately representative of the prowess of the people from Tamil Nadu than the former Union Finance Minister. It was under Chidambaram that the biggest scams of the country were perpetrated, it was under him that India was relegated to being a ‘fragile five’ economy, and it was under him that the NPA crisis proliferated within the country.

The revised GDP growth rate further showed that there wasn’t a single fiscal year during which India experienced a double-digit growth rate under the UPA, contrary to what was believed earlier. Towards the end of the UPA regime, the growth rate hovered around 5% due to terrible fiscal management. In 2012, India’s credit rating was lowered to negative by S&P. In 2013, they warned of a further downgrade to “junk” status and Morgan Stanley included India in the Fragile 5 economies.

The worst of it all was the UPA manufactured NPA crisis, which was a consequence of its reckless lending policy. Between 2004-13, the gross NPA nearly trebled. The debt of stressed firms rose from 1,372 crores to 6.689 crores in a matter of 6 years between 2008-14. Of course, it took the Narendra Modi government to implement the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code which led to the recovery of Rs. 3 lakh crores of stressed assets in merely two years.

While his performance as the Union Finance Minister was dismal, Chidambaram’s personal conduct does not appear appropriate by any means either. Both Chidambaram and his son, Karti Chidambaram, are accused in the INX Media scam and a charge sheet will likely be filed against him in the matter by the Enforcement Directorate soon as per reports.

Moreover, the CBI and other agencies are also probing another case involving Chidambaram and his son, the Aircel-Maxis scam. The CBI is probing alleged irregularities in grant of FIPB approval in Aircel-Maxis deal, while the ED is probing alleged money-laundering related to the deal.

Under such circumstances, it appears rather absurd that Congress President Rahul Gandhi ignores Nirmala Sitharaman while saying that people from Tamil Nadu should occupy positions of power in the Central Government. It’s even more bizarre that he then cites Chidambaram’s tenure as Union Finance Minister when he was incompetent at best and is under investigation by law enforcement agencies.

Not declaring Masood Azhar as global terrorist against regional stability and peace, US ahead of UNSC meet today

OpIndia Staff
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Not declaring Masood Azhar as global terrorist against regional stability and peace, US ahead of UNSC meet today

The United States of America, ahead of taking the crucial decision of declaring Masood Azhar a global terrorist, said on the eve of the UN Security Council meeting that, failure to declare the Jaish-e-Mohammad chief as a global terrorist, who meets all the criteria for the same, would be against regional stability and peace.

Masood Azhar has been instrumental in executing many terror strikes in India and he also involved in the attack on Parliament, the Pathankot air force base, army camps in Jammu and Uri, and the latest suicide attack on CRPF in Pulwama district of Jammu which claimed the lives of 44 CRPF personnel.

In the aftermath of the dastardly Pulwama attack, three permanent members of the United Nations  Security Council (UNSC), namely the US, France and Britain had moved a resolution to designate Masood Azhar as a global terrorist.

But, China, the all-weather ally of Pakistan which is one of the five veto-powered members of the Security Council, had blocked the previous attempts of these three nations asserting that there is not enough evidence against Azhar to designate him as a global terrorist.

Now, in the aftermath of the Pulwama attack, which has led to heightened tensions between India and Pakistan and amidst the global outrage, other members of the UNSC are hoping that Beijing would act prudently and would not oppose their move this time to designate Azhar as a global terrorist.

A day ahead of the crucial decision by the UN Security Council, the US Administration on Tuesday made it clear that there is enough evidence against Azhar to designate him as a global terrorist.

“Azhar is the founder and the leader of the JeM, and he meets the criteria for designation by the United Nations,” State Department Deputy Spokesperson Robert Palladino told reporters at his daily news conference, adding that JeM has been responsible for several terrorist attacks and is a threat to regional stability and peace.

Robert asserted that India and the US have always worked on the same platform when it comes to counterterrorism issues and that includes at the United Nations, he added. He also confirmed that the US shares similar views on the Jaish-e-Mohammed and its founder as India’.

However, Robert abstained from commenting on the deliberations inside the UNSC on this issue. “The United Nations Sanctions Committee, their deliberations, are confidential, and as such we don’t comment on specific matters, but we’ll continue to work with the Sanctions Committee to ensure that the designation list is updated and accurate,” he said.

Meanwhile, in response to a question on previous successful attempts by China to block the UN designation of Azhar, Robert asserted, “The United States and China share a mutual interest in achieving regional stability and peace, and that a failure to designate Azhar would run counter to this goal.”

Even after the ghastly terrorist attack in Pulwama last month, China has shown indifference to the matter, by refusing to label Azhar as a terrorist.

This is the fourth time that a proposal has been moved to brand Masood Azhar a global terrorist. The previous three attempts have been blocked by China.

Although China has been consistent in blocking India and the other nations efforts in declaring Azhar a global terrorist, it may change its position this time if India takes a transactional approach with China, according to former Ambassador to China and Bhutan Gautam Bambawale. He has said that China can stop using its veto every time India moves to ban Masood Azhar a terrorist if India does or give China something it needs.

Moreover, there were reports that China is thinking about changing its stand on Masood Azhar and not use the veto to prevent him from getting listed as a terrorist on March 13th when the proposal moved by France and supported by other UNSC permanent members under United Nations Security Council Resolution 1267 goes under consideration.

Therefore, there are high chances that Pakistan is taken by a surprise in the United Nations Security Council meeting scheduled to take place today.

Cardinal George Pell, third most senior Vatican official, sentenced to 6 years for sexually abusing minor boys

OpIndia Staff
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Cardinal George Pell, third most senior Vatican official, sentenced to 6 years for sexually abusing minor boys

Cardinal George Pell, who is third in seniority after the Pope in the Vatican, has been convicted and sentenced to six years in prison for sexually abusing two choirboys in the late 1990s.

According to the reports, George Pell, who was the former Vatican treasurer, is the most senior Catholic figure ever to be found guilty of sexual offences against children. Pell had abused young choir boys in a Melbourne cathedral in 1996 and 1997. The offences were done at the St Patrick’s Cathedral, months after Pell was inaugurated as archbishop of Melbourne. He had told the boys that they were trouble for drinking communion wine, and forced the boys into indecent acts.

Cardinal Pell, now 77, is an Australian prelate of the Catholic Church. He is also the finance chief at the Vatican and the Holy See in Rome, being appointed as the first Perfect of Secretariat for the Economy which was created in 2014 by the Pope. He is the third most important official in the Vatican after Pope and was believed to be succeeding the incumbent Pope. Pell was found guilty of sexual penetration of a child and four counts of committing an indecent act with a child last December after a secret five-week trial.

On Wednesday, Judge Kidd said Pell’s attack on the victims was “breathtakingly arrogant” adding that the cardinal had assaulted the boys with “callous indifference to the victims’ distress.” But the judge said Pell was “not to be made a scapegoat for any failings or perceived failings of the Catholic Church.” While sentencing Pell on Wednesday, judge Kidd said the cleric had committed “a brazen and forcible sexual attack on the two victims”.

In December, a jury unanimously convicted Pell of one charge of sexually penetrating a child under 16, and four counts of committing an indecent act on a child under 16. His conviction has rocked the Catholic Church, where he had been one of the Pope’s closest advisers.

A former senior adviser to Pope Francis, Pell showed no reaction when Chief Judge Peter Kidd handed down his sentence in a hearing broadcast live worldwide on Wednesday from Victoria’s County Court in central Melbourne.

George Pell was charged with historical sexual offences in June last year by Australian police. He took leave of absence from the Vatican to appear for hearings which began on March 5, 2018. The magistrate Belinda Wallington was to determine if there are enough grounds for the Cardinal to stand trial. Majority of the charges have been withdrawn by the prosecution or dismissed during the course of the trial. Some of the charges even date back to the 1970s.

In 2016, in hearings before the Royal Commission Into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse Cardinal Pell was accused of mishandling cases against clergy members while he was the leader of the Archdioceses of Melbourne and Sydney. The allegations emerged that he himself was involved in abuse since his priesthood days.

Ironically, George Pell was one of the inner circle of nine cardinals chose by Pope Francis to deal with issues such as sexual abuse of children by the clergy, fixing account books and financial reforms. The Pope had declined to remove Cardinal Pell after pressure mounted over the way in which the Church was handling such issues.

Pakistan shifted bodies, enough evidence that Indian airstrikes were successful: US based activist from Gilgit

OpIndia Staff
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Pakistan shifted bodies, enough evidence that Indian airstrikes were successful: US based activist from Gilgit

A video has been circulating in Pakistan where an officer from their Army can be seen admitting that more than 200 terrorists were killed in the airstrikes conducted by the Indian Air Force at Balakot. The video was shared on Twitter by Senge Hasnan Sering, a US-based activist from Gilgit.


Speaking to ANI, Sering said that he could not vouch for the authenticity of the video but claimed that Pakistan was “definitely hiding something very important” which happened in Balakot. He said, “Pakistan continues to claim that the strike happened and it damaged the forest area and some farmland. But then there’s no reason for Pakistan to cordon off the area for such a long time and not allow the international media to have an independent opinion on the situation there.”

“At the same time, the Jaish-e-Muhammad claims that its Madrassa was there. At the same time, there have been reports in the Urdu media of some dead bodies being transported from Balakot to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and tribal areas a few days or the next day after the attack happened,” he added. He further stated that there was “enough evidence” for people to “speculate with confidence” that the Indian airstrikes were successful as “Pakistan has not been able to prove otherwise”.

Pakistan has continued to maintain that Indian bombs had destroyed nothing but a few trees in the region. It was even considering registering a complaint against India at the UN for ‘eco-terrorism’. But, despite denials, it has refused international media organizations access to visit the site.

Senior leaders from the Opposition parties in India, especially the Congress, have been questioning the airstrikes as well despite mounting evidence. The likes of Digvijay Singh, Madhya Pradesh CM Kamal Nath, Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot, and Kapil Sibal have demanded evidence for the strikes claiming that there were some significant doubts regarding the matter.

The Indian Air Force has assured repeatedly that its strikes were successful. Reports have also revealed recently that 263 terrorists were eliminated in the attack on Jaba Top, including 16 JeM commanders.

Madhya Pradesh: Congress leader Mohammed Saghir accused of rape, case registered in Bhopal

OpIndia Staff
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Madhya Pradesh: Congress leader Mohammed Saghir accused of rape, case registered in Bhopal

A complaint has been filed against Congress leader and Leader of Opposition in Bhopal Municipal Corporation Mohammed Saghir on the basis of a complaint by a woman who has accused him of rape. A complaint has been filed under section 376 (Punishment for rape) and 506 (Punishment for criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code.

Saghir had earlier issued a notice to the mayor Alok Sharma for calling him ‘mentally sick’ and offering to bear the expense of his treatment.

This is not the first time Congress leader has been accused of rape. In October 2018, former Kerala Chief Minister from Congress named as accused in a rape case. Prior to that, in February 2018, a Congress MLA was booked for rape and abduction of a journalism student.

More details are currently awaited on the case pertaining to allegations of rape against Mohammed Saghir.

Karnataka: JDS MLA cuts off water supply to yoga centre after yoga guru praised PM Modi, says report

OpIndia Staff
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Karnataka: JDS MLA cuts off water supply to yoga centre after yoga guru praised PM Modi, says report

In a deplorable incident, Karnataka JDS MLA R Manjunath has resorted to vendetta politics after he decided to cut off the water supply to a yoga center as yoga guru Umamaheshwar Guruji had praised PM Modi for taking Yoga to a global stage.

According to TV9, Dasarahalli JDS MLA R Manjunath along with his aide JD(S) leader Hanumantharaju has cut off the water supply to Umamaheshwar Guruji’s ashram after the latter had praised Prime Minister Modi for his successful initiatives to take yoga into an international stage by declaring to celebrate International Yoga Day.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0v8STMLOLtU]

 

JDS MLA Manjunath, who was miffed over Yoga guru’s pro-Modi inclinations, has now allegedly resorted to cheap politics by creating problems for the Yoga guru.

Reportedly, the yoga center is functioning for the last 18 years and has been involved in a lot of charity works. Yoga guru Umamaheshwar Guru speaking to a local media outlet said that the center uses 500 liters of water every day. But ever since he started to appreciate Modi for his good works, the JDS leaders have not taken kindly to it.

”Modi has done a lot to publicise yoga on the global platform. It was due to his efforts that as many as 190 countries have accepted yoga as something divine and very useful. I have no issues in praising Modi because he deserves it. But the people under question have troubled us a lot, and have even taken the help of the police in troubling us,” said Umamaheshwar.

However, JDS leader Hanumantharaju rejected all these allegations, said,  “We are not aware of this Yoga center. He criticises former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda and chief minister HD Kumaraswamy. Why should he do that? A yoga guru must confine himself to yoga-related activities.”

ISI trained spy appointed to collect information about Indian Army arrested from Rajasthan

OpIndia Staff
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ISI trained spy appointed to collect information about Indian Army arrested from Rajasthan

A Pakistan spy who was detained near the International border on suspicion of spying for Pakistan has been arrested after intensive interrogation by a joint team of security agencies on Tuesday, said an official.

According to the Additional Director General of Intelligence, Umesh Mishra, Nawab Khan(36), a resident of Sam area near the Indo-Pakistan border in Rajasthan’s Jaisalmer district who was involved in espionage activities and was working as a jeep driver, was detained on Sunday.

Mishra further confirmed that Nawab who shared information with his Pakistani handlers through Whatsapp in code language was in lieu of money.

Khan had visited Pakistan last year where he got in touch with an agent of the ISI. Pakistan’s intelligence agency trained Nawab and in exchange for the money asked him to collect information related to the Indian Army movement and pass it on to them.

Similarly, on January 9th, the Military Intelligence Unit of the Indian Army has arrested a man named Nirmal Rai from the Kibithu village of Arunachal Pradesh. Nirmal, who was associated with the Indian Army as a porter from the last couple of months, was charged with sharing sensitive information with the Pakistan spy agency ISI.

In fact, several such imposters have been earlier detected from within the Indian Army itself. In October last year, an Indian Army soldier of Meerut Cantonment has been caught and several others detained by the Uttar Pradesh Anti-Terror Squad on the charges of espionage activities carried out on the directions of the ISI.

In another such case, a youth named Nishant Agrawal was arrested from Nagpur’s Brahmos Unit on October 8, 2018, for allegedly sharing defence secrets about India’s missile systems to his Pakistani ISI handlers.

In fact, in 2016 the Indian government had shared that more than 46 Pakistani spies had been arrested across India between the years 2013-16. Three Pakistani spies were nabbed in 2016 for getting information from people in BSF, taking the count higher.

The continuous spurt in the espionage activities carried out in sensitive locations of strategic importance does not only raise security concerns but also throws light on the loopholes within our system.

After milking the ‘Gandhi’ surname for decades, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra admits to having visited the Sabarmati Ashram for the first time ever

OpIndia Staff
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After milking the ‘Gandhi’ surname for decades, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra admits to having visited the Sabarmati Ashram for the first time ever

The Nehru-Gandhi dynasty has milked the ‘Gandhi’ name to the hilt. In fact, one could reason that the Dynasty’s rise to prominence was largely based on them claiming the Mahatma Gandhi legacy through their surname. With that history, it came as a surprise when Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, in her debut election rally, made a startling admission that after the decades she claims to have been in politics, this was the first time she had visited the Sabarmati Ashram.


In her Gandhinagar speech, Priyanka Gandhi admitted that it was the first time she was visiting Gujarat, and also the first time she had visited Mahatma Gandhi’s Sabarmati Ashram.

While praising the calm she felt when she sat under the trees and heard the bhajans being played in the Ashram. She said she almost cried thinking about those who sacrificed everything for India’s freedom.

It is, however, intriguing that it took Priyanka Gandhi decades to get to a point where she brought herself to visit the Sabarmati Ashram considering her family has long claimed the legacy of Mahatma Gandhi and even cashed in on it politically.

When Priyanka Gandhi Vadra joined Congress formally, amidst criticism of her having achieved nothing in the political sphere, Congress defended her by saying that though she has just about joined Congress officially, she has been working in the political sphere for decades. If one is to accept Congress’ arguments on face value, one is bound to ask why Priyanka Gandhi Vadra took decades to visit the Ashram whose legacy her family monopolises.

The monopolising of the name was such, that there is a theory about how the family assumed the name ‘Gandhi’. Compared to the others from the Dynasty, there is very little known about Feroze Gandhi.

An article in The Week says:

“There are many theories about his Gandhi surname. The most popular one says that Feroze was born to Faredoon Jehangir Ghandy and Ratimai, who lived in Mumbai. In his prime, Feroze was drawn to India’s independence movement. He soon got inspired by Mahatma Gandhi and changed the spelling of his surname from ‘Ghandy’ to ‘Gandhi’. Apparently, Feroze considered himself a Parsi. At the same time, he was not religious”. 

If this theory is true, the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty has cashed in on the Gandhi surname even though it was an assumed one and not their real name. It is thus shocking that Priyanka Gandhi Vadra visited the Ashram for the first time just when the country is heading into 2019 general elections.

The members of the Dynasty engaging in theatrics just for elections is not something new. Recently, an old, undated clip had surfaced that showed Rahul Gandhi performing puja. When asked by an NDTV journalist what he was praying for, Rahul Gandhi nonchalantly said that he didn’t know and he was only there because he was asked. It is evident that the Gandhi family believes in keeping up pretences to please their electorate and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra seems to be following those footsteps to the letter.

TMC’s candidate Nusrat Jahan, Mamata Banerjee and their connection with the infamous Park Street rape case

OpIndia Staff
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TMC’s candidate Nusrat Jahan, Mamata Banerjee and their connection with the infamous Park Street rape case

TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee had announced the list of names of TMC candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections yesterday. Among the names were some prominent ones of certain Tollywood celebrities and popular figures in West Bengal. Actress Nusrat Jahan has been listed as the TMC candidate for the Basirhat Lok Sabha seat.

While veteran Bengali actress and TMC MP Moon Moon Sen have been fielded against BJP’s Babul Supriyo, Nusrat Jahan and another actress, Mimi Chakraborty will contest from the Basirhat and Jadavpur seats respectively.

The announcement of Nusrat Jahan’s name has sparked discussions in the social media about the infamous Park Street rape case of Kolkata. One of the main accused in the infamous case, Kader Khan, was reportedly Nusrat Jahan’s longtime boyfriend. Nusrat was also accused of shielding him and lying to the police about his whereabouts. But, as pointed out in the Times Of India report from 2016,  Nusrat was curiously not named by the police in the charge sheet.

A woman named Suzette Jordan was offered a lift outside a Park Street, Kolkata night club by 5 men and was gang-raped by them inside the moving car on the night of 5 February 2012. The 5 accused were Kader Khan, Md Ali, Sumeet Bajaj, Ruman Khan, and Nasir Ali.

After much controversy and politicisation, 3 of the accused were arrested and the trial began. Jordan had volunteered to reveal her identity and had become a prominent women’s rights activist before dying of meningoencephalitis in a government hospital in 2015.

Kader Khan was absconding and was finally arrested four years later, in September 2016, from Greater Noida. The role of Kader’s then-girlfriend and Tollywood actress Nusrat Jahan was highlighted after his arrest. Reportedly, Jahan was in close contact with Kader Khan after the rape. Upon questioning by the police Nusrat had denied meeting Kader at the hotel room which was booked in their name.

As per reports, when the police raided a hotel in Mumbai just after Nusrat’s interrogation, it was found that it was booked by Nusrat and Kader for a day. After that Nusrat had returned to Kolkata and had booked tickets for Kader to travel to Patna. However, she had denied meeting him. Several lawyers and activists had demanded that she should have been charged for sheltering and helping a rape accused, but Jahan was not even named by the police in their charge sheet.

Mamata Banerjee had sparked outrage when she had dismissed the Park Street rape case as a ‘fabricated case’. Another female TMC leader, Kakoli Ghose Dastidar had stated that it was not a rape at all, but a case of “misunderstanding between a woman and her client”.

Such was Mamata’s wrath against the Park Street case was that she had even clamped down on a Bengali movie that had a storyline resembling the incident. Even Ranjit Pachnanda, the then Kolkata city police commissioner, had stated that the rape allegation was a “Campaign to malign the police and the government”.

Damayanti Sen, a female IPS office who was Kolkata’s first joint commissioner of police, was the person who cracked the case and stayed on a single-minded pursuit that eventually saw the culprits being sentenced. Even after the CM, politicians and several top bureaucrats had attempted to dismiss the case as fabrication, Sen had stayed on her pursuit and had identified the culprits. It was revealed later that Suzette was raped at gunpoint. Damayanti Sen was in turn, sacked from her post and sent to an ‘inferior’ post as the DIG (Training) at Barackpore.

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