The Supreme Court on Wednesday reserved its order on the matter of referring the Ram Janambhoomi dispute to a court-appointed and monitored mediation.
Supreme Court reserves order on the issue of referring Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid title dispute case to court appointed and monitored mediation for “permanent solution”. pic.twitter.com/JoC907Mgcm
The Court further asserted that the involved parties will suggest the name of the mediators and that the order will be passed soon.
Advocate Rajeev Dhavan, appearing for Muslim petitioners in the case, said that the Muslim petitioners “agreeable to mediation”. The Hindus, however, were opposed to the idea and remarked that mediation will be a failure.
“You are looking at the outcome even before mediation is attempted. This is also about heart and mind and healing of relations,” Justice SA Bobde had said reacting to the opposition from Hindu parties involved.
Earlier, Justice Bobde had said, “We have no control over what happened in the past, who invaded, who was the king, temple or mosque. We know about the present dispute. We are concerned only about resolving the dispute.”
He also remarked that while the process of mediation is on, reports should not assign motive to anyone involved.
Supreme Court on Ayodhya Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid land dispute case: Justice SA Bobde says, “When the mediation is on, it should not be reported on. It may not be a gag, but no motive should be attributed to anyone when the mediation process is on.” https://t.co/PFTl4FNY54
Justice Chandrachud, too, expressed his concerns with mediation on the matter. “How do we bind millions of people by way of mediation? It won’t be that simple,” he said before adding “Desirability of resolution through peaceful talks is an ideal situation. But how do we go about it is the real question.”
For many months now, Rahul Gandhi has gone to town blaming the Modi government and even the Prime Minister personally for some impropriety in the Rafale deal even as the Supreme Court gave the deal a clean chit. Rahul Gandhi has also claimed that PM Modi “diluted” the Rafale deal as Congress was close to signing a deal for 126 Rafales while the Modi government has decided to purchase only 36 Rafales. He fails to mention that Congress was nowhere close to signing the deal and in that deal, it had decided on purchasing only 18 Rafales in fly-away condition while the Modi government is buying 36 in fly-away condition. Now, Congress leader and former Defence Minister AK Antony has stated, contrary to Rahul Gandhi’s tall claims that Congress delayed the Rafale deal in “national interest”.
As reported by Times of India, AK Antony has said that the Rafale deal was delayed by him as the Defence Minister due to “national interest”, and PM Modi, has ignored ‘national interest” by signing the deal.
AK Antony then proceeded to blame the NDA government for the delay saying that after the CAG report was submitted, Modi proceeded to cancel the original deal and renegotiate for 36 Rafales. Here too AK Antony forgets that the Congress MMRCA deal was stuck in limbo and essentially, there was no deal when the Modi government took over. In fact, the Congress government in the original MMRCA deal was negotiated for 18 Rafales in fly-away condition while the Modi government has ordered 36 jets in fly-away condition.
The senior Congress leader also said letters from “then stalwarts of BJP, Subramanian Swamy and Yashwant Sinha,” to the defence ministry, complaining of irregularities in UPA regime selecting Rafale as L1 caused a last-minute delay in finalising the deal.
Jaitley said that the UPA government gave acceptance of necessity (AON) for the Rafale jets. when UPA gave AON then in 2007 there was a tender invitation. He said that the government can acquire such jets in two ways. Either by tender or by the government to government agreement. After 6 bids came in, two were shortlisted. Eurofighter and Dassault. Then, during pricement, Rafale was chosen. He said that the Congress government sat on the decision for a long time. While the air force wanted the defence minister to buy the jets, the then defence minister’s colleagues were “pressuring him to not accept Rafale”. He said it was because of this pressure, that the defence minister had written in his file that the Dassault Rafale is fine, but the process by which they were considered L1, should be re-examined. He said that when he became the Defence Minister after the Modi government came to power, this was one of the first submissions made by the Indian Air Force.
Arun Jaitley had opened a pandora’s box in his Lok Sabha speech when he insinuated that the Rafale deal was delayed by Congress because of the Eurofighter.
Earlier, it was alleged that Eurofighter sales director had met senior leaders of two political parties in India to raise allegations of a scam in the Rafale deal. It is also rumoured that Rahul Gandhi had met the company officials when he was in Germany in August 2018. According to allegations, the narrative against the Rafale deal has been built up by experts in the US and Europe, based on inputs from Eurofighter.
It was revealed that Christian Michel, the middleman in the AgustaWestland chopper scam who has named ‘Mrs Gandhi’, ‘Italian Lady’s son R’ and has links to Kamal Nath’s family, was lobbying for Eurofighter over Rafale. In fact, even Sanjay Bhandari, who is a close associate of Robert Vadra was angling for Dassault offset agreement, which he did not get.
With the entire controversy refusing to die down, perhaps it would serve Congress well to first come clean and answer mounting questions on the Eurofighter link, Sanjay Bhandari and the Christian Michel revelations.
General VK Singh, Minister of State for External Affairs, and former Chief of Army Staff today took to Twitter to mock those who are asking for a figure of casualties of the air strikes carried out at Pakistan-based terror camps by Indian Air Force following the ghastly terror attack in Pulwama.
In his tweet, he said, it was 3:30 am. There were too many mosquitoes. So, I sprayed Hit (mosquito repellant). Now should I count how many mosquitoes died or sleep peacefully?
When questioned what he meant by his tweet, Gen VK Singh reportedly said, “Bombs were exploded, buildings were hit. Will people not be killed after an explosion of a 1000 kg bomb? If killed, then you make an estimate of number of people killed. I don’t know who wants to count it. It’s unfortunate.”
Later, General VK Singh has also said that the next time India does an operation like this and if the opposition still has doubts, they should be tied to the bottom of the fighter jet and taken to the target area. Then, once they see that the bomb has been dropped, they should be left in that stop itself to count how many people were killed. Then they can come back.
Union Min VK Singh: Agli baar jab Bharat kuch kare toh mujhe lagta hai ki vipakshi jo ye prashna uthate hain, unko hawai jahaz ke neeche baandh ke le jayein, jab bomb chale toh vahan se dekh lein target, uske baad unko vahin par utar dein, uske baad vo gin le aur wapas aajayein. pic.twitter.com/DsEy8bzVv8
Following the air strikes, even as Pakistan escalated the situation by attacking India’s military installations, there were few in India, including politicians like Mamata Banerjee and others who were casting aspersions on the air strikes and asking for the number of casualties.
Former Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah has stoked another controversy. Addressing an inaugural event for a lake rejuvenation project in Badami, he was caught on video saying that people with a Kumkum tika on their forehead scare him. He also questioned their work ethics and efficiency.
As per a report in Times Now, Siddaramaiah said at the event, “I am afraid of any person who wears kumkum on their forehead. You are wearing that Kumkum, will you do the work properly. I am afraid of people who wear that Kumkum. You have to perform well and finish work on time. I don’t know, I have this fear of people who apply such long Tikas on their forehead.”
The inauguration event of the project in Badami reportedly had begun with a priest performing a Puja. Siddaramaiah had targeted one of the contractors present who was sporting a Tika on his forehead.
In the same event, he reportedly also ignored a request from a person who belonged to the ST by saying, “All STs have voted for the BJP. What have you done for us?” He then proceeded to walk away without hearing what he had to say.
Siddaramaiah has often been in controversy for all the wrong reasons. Not long ago, he was caught on camera pulling the Dupatta of a female party worker at an event. Though it was later clarified that he was trying to snatch the mic and her Dupatta got pulled along with it. His menacing and arrogant behavior towards the woman was widely criticised.
Terrorist Afzal Guru’s son, who aspires to be a doctor has blasted the Times of India report for trying to portray him as a proud Indian, because he is not. In a video clip which was shared on social media last evening, Afzal Guru’s son Ghalib is seen expressing his anger at a report he read in the morning which had not only misinterpreted and misrepresented his words but also wrote ‘strange things’ in the report.
Afzal guru’s son is angry with Indian govt over killing his father and shares his hate ideology regarding Kashmir. @TimesNow twists his statement and showcased him as proud Indian. No wonder they are called presstitutes! pic.twitter.com/Fan0ZAi2aG
In the above video, Ghalib is heard saying, “Yeh inka basic issue tha ki mere passport ke baare mein unhone bola tha ki byte nikalenge aapke passport ke baare mein lekin jab maine unka aaj subah article padha to usmein clearly different cheezein thi. Maine simply… mera propaganda ek hi tha ki agar mere paas Aadhaar card hai, toh why can’t I have a passport? Yehi mere liye propaganda tha. Unko maine is liye bola tha ki for example is saal mera NEET ka second try hai… agar nahin hota, toh Turkey mujhe scholarship deti hai isiliye maine unko bola tha ki mera passport hona chahiye. Lekin unhone clearly different likha hai iske baare mein. Unhone thodi ajeeb cheezein bhi likhi hai. Mix up kiya hai ki main Indian citizen proud hoon. Ek cheez mein bolna chahta hoon ki How can I be a proud Indian citizen. Unhone mere papa ko maara hai. They have done injustice with my whole family. They have done injustice with whole Kashmir. Toh main kaise proud kar sakta hoon India ka? Mera yehi propaganda tha ki jab mere paas Aadhaar card hai to passport kyun nahin ho saka.”
Ghalib was angry at the Times of India report which apparently put words in his ‘propaganda’ and painted him proud Indian citizen out of their own imagination when he is clearly not. In their report, journalists Aarti Singh Tikoo and Rohan Dua said that Afzal Guru’s son was proud to own Aadhaar card and wants Indian passport next, implying his inclination to get the passport was his assertion of the Indian identity.
Times of India report on Afzal Guru’s son, Ghalib, painting him as ‘proud Indian’
The article goes on to quote Ghalib to have said, “I will be a proud Indian citizen when I get my passport.” However, if you listen to the new video, Ghalib is heard saying that the Indian State had killed his father and done injustice not only to his family but also to Kashmir. Hence, how can he be a proud Indian citizen?
Ghalib mentions that the only reason he wants a passport is that in case he does not clear the medical entrance exam NEET for the second consecutive year, he could study in Turkey which has offered him a scholarship. Hence, his only ‘propaganda’ (for giving byte to Times of India) was to get a passport which he has been applying for since 2013.
While it is possible that Ghalib may have changed his statement later, the fact remains that by playing up his statements, the Lutyen’s gang appears to be more interested in whitewashing Afzal Guru himself through his son.
Apparently, this is not the first time Times of India has tried to whitewash his views earlier too. Celebrity ‘journalist’ with questionable credibility Sagarika Ghose in 2016 had reported that the jeans-clad, Eminem fan, Ghalib wants to be a doctor by studying in AIIMS.
Sagarika on Afzal Guru’s son
Creating a romanticised version of Ghalib Guru, Sagarika was speaking to Ghalib soon after the Pathankot terror attack, which again was carried out by terrorists who wanted to avenge Ghalib’s father, Afzal’s death. She says that Ghalib has nothing to do with ‘Azaadi sentiment’ because he just wants to become a doctor, trying to portray that he was against the terror attacks being carried out in his father’s name.
However, in later part of the same article, when asked in as many words on what does he think about the Pathankot attack, he gives the politically correct answer by saying that no one should harm others, followed by a disclaimer that “if the Indian government has done something wrong then they will be punished.”
Ghalib Guru on Pathankot attacks
Clearly, Ghalib Guru believes not only that the Indian state and the Indian government have wronged his family and Kashmir, but that the Indian state should be “punished” too. And now he has expressed displeasure at being painted a proud Indian.
Afzal Guru, the terrorist convicted of the December 2001 Parliament attack was hanged on 9th February 2013. Afzal Guru has been an ‘inspiration’ of a sort for many terrorists who have taken to terrorism and joined various terror outfits. In fact, Adil Ahmed Dar, the suicide bomber who carried out the February 14 terror attack in Pulwama also belonged to the ‘Afzal Guru suicide squad’ arm of the Jaish-e-Mohammad.
Pakistan renewed its pretence of cracking down on terror when Pakistan’s chief terrorist and Mumbai terror attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed-led Jamaat-ud-Dawa and its wing Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation were formally placed in the list of banned organisations. Pakistan had also taken into ‘preventive detention’ for ‘investigation’ 44 terrorists of Jaish-e-Mohammad. In a recent interview, when asked to comment on this development, former Prime Minister of Pakistan, Parvez Musharraf admitted that Pakistan intelligence agencies, ISI, were hands in gloves with Jaish-e-Mohammad to carry out bomb blasts in India.
This stunning revelation was made on ‘Hum TV digital’ to a Pakistani journalist called Nadeem Malik. In response to the question, Musharraf said that this was a right move by the Pakistani government since he has been asserting for a long time that these are terrorist organisations.
He said that the assassination attempt on his life back in 2003 on the Jhanda Chichi bridge was carried out by Jaish-e-Mohammad and hence, he has always considered them as terrorists. He said that because of the terrain of the area back then, they had pressed the button late, and hence their assassination attempt had failed.
Nadeem Malik then asks Musharraf why he never moved to ban Jaish-e-Mohammad since he was all-powerful back then and it was only after 2007 that his powers started dwindling.
Musharraf then said that era was different and he doesn’t have an answer to why he couldn’t ban the terrorist outfit.
Parvez Musharraf then proceeded to make a stunning revelation. He said that Pakistan intelligence agencies were in cohorts with Jaish-e-Mohammad at that time to carry out bomb blasts in India and that is why no action was taken against JeM.
It is to be recalled here that Jaish-e-Mohammad was indicted along with Lashkar-e-Tayyaba in the Parliament attack of 2001 and most recently, they claimed responsibility for the Pulwama terrorist attack that was sponsored by Pakistan and claimed the lives of 44 CRPF soldiers. Recently, India had conducted airstrikes deep inside Pakistan territory against JeM terror camps in Balakot.
Earlier, Pakistan FM had admitted that the Pakistan establishment was in touch with Masood Azhar and it was evident that he was in their protection. Now with this revelation by Musharraf, it becomes evident that ISI and the Pakistan government is as involved in the terror attacks that take place on Indian soil and Pakistan’s pretence of cracking down on terror is just that, mere hogwash.
Days after reports claimed that Pakistan intended to kill Indian soldiers deployed in Kashmir by poisoning their ration, the Anti-terror squad in Maharashtra has arrested a doctor from Khultabad area of Aurangabad in Maharashtra for his alleged links with terrorists.
ATS officials have been questioning him for the last three days. According to a report by Times Now, the ATS officials revealed that the doctor is suspected to be involved in the conspiracy to poison food and water meant for the security forces. The revelation was made after a note issued by the criminal investigation department of Jammu & Kashmir on March 2 stated, “chatter floating by a Pakistani number claims that Pakistan MI (military intelligence) and ISI agents operation in Kashmir are planning to mix poison in ration stocks of security forces deployed in the region”.
The Intel came at a time when tension between the two countries remains very high in the aftermath of the Pulwama terror attack and the subsequent airstrikes conducted by the Indian Air Force to eliminate terrorist camps across the border.
Apart from this, the doctor, whose identity is yet to be disclosed by the ATS officials, is suspected to be involved in providing financial help to the terrorists. Further, he is also suspected to be in contact with nine suspected terrorists, arrested in January by the ATS from Mumbra and Aurangabad, for allegedly planning terrorist activities in the State and elsewhere.
In a series of raids, prior to the Republic day in January this year, Maharashtra ATS had busted an alleged ISIS-inspired terror module and arrested five persons from Mumbra and Thane, and four persons from Aurangabad. All the suspects were said to be working for the Popular Front of India, Bengaluru. The arrested persons had reportedly formed an organisation called ‘Ummat-E-Muhammadiya’.
As per the reports, the doctor arrested recently is suspected of having contacts with the nine arrested terrorists from Mumbra, Thane and Aurangabad. The ATS is also suspecting the doctor of having contact with terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir.
According to police, the arrested persons had said that they were planning mass killings. They had prepared a few chemical mixtures and were planning to mix the same with water and food at big public gatherings.
One of the arrested persons was said to be the son of Rashid Malbari, a close aide of Dawood Ibrahim.
Virulent anti-Modi economist and an ardent supporter of the Congress party, Kaushik Basu recently posted an image on Twitter where he claimed that it is a poster at Virginia Tech, Virginia, USA, and it carried the names of business and political leaders who have a Doctorate degree in Economics.
A poster in Virginia Tech on business and political leaders who have PhDs in economics. pic.twitter.com/udvqtLcY4s
The poster carried the photographs of world-renowned personalities such as Warren Buffet (CEO of Berkshire Hathaway), Michael Corbat (CEO Citigroup), Roger Goodell (NFL Commissioner), Li Keqiang (Premier, China), Elon Musk (CEO SpaceX and Tesla) and former Prime Minister of India, Dr. Manmohan Singh.
But contrary to the claim made by Basu, not everyone in the said picture has a Doctorate degree in Economics. Elon Musk only has a Bachelor’s degree in Economics, so do Michael Corbat, Roger Goodell and Meg Whitman (CEO Hewlett Packard). Warren Buffett has a Master’s degree in Economics while Li Keqiang and Manmohan Singh do have a PhD degree in the subject.
Therefore, the claim made by Kaushik Basu in his tweet is ostensibly false. Names of people having PhD are generally prefixed with the title Dr., and while the former Indian PM is addressed as Dr. Manmohan Singh, most others in the list don’t have that title added to their names. The poster that he shared contains the photographs of people who have a degree in Economics. The purpose was ostensibly to put Manmohan Singh in the company of other renowned figures in his field but it could certainly have been done without making false claims.
Basu, himself, as the Chief Economic Adviser to the Government of India oversaw India’s decline into a terrible economic crisis. He had also demanded that Demonetization should be rolled back. On Twitter, his most glorious achievement remains the through humiliation he received from the caustic yet brilliant Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
Today Pakistani news channel Dunya News reported that Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu has said that Indian army is scared. In its news bulletin, the channel reported that Sidhu has again attacked the Modi government over the ongoing India-Pakistan conflict, and has tweeted that the Indian Army is scared due to the situation. They have repeated several times saying that Sidhu has said “Bhartiya sena dari hui hai” in a tweet.
After the channel posted a tweet with the quote attributed Sidhu, he became the immediate target of criticism on Twitter. Sidhu is commenting against the Indian government for some time, but to say that the Indian Army is scared is highly objectionable. Therefore, we tried to find out whether he actually said this, and if he did, in what context.
Dunya News said that the comment was made on Twitter. But when we looked at his Twitter account, we could not find any tweet saying that Indian Army is scared. We also didn’t find any evidence of any deleted tweet, as alert users usually respond to such tweets immediately and many time screenshots are taken. He has posted two tweets today, one in English and the other one a Hindi version of the same. In that tweet, he says that “Army is sacred as the state”. He asks the government to stop politicising the top institutions like CBI, RBI etc, and asks that army should be left to fight battles, not elections.
If one compares this tweet with the Dunya News report, it can be seen that other than the comment about scared army, other comments made by Sidhu are the same in both. This means, there is a strong possibility that Dunya News misread sacred as scared, and reported on the basis of such wrong assumption.
It is important to note that while the channel said that Sidhu has tweeted the comments, they didn’t show the tweet on screen, which is usually done by TV channels while quoting from social media. Therefore, it can’t be said for certain whether they misread the tweet, or it was a deliberate distortion by them. But one thing is almost certain, although Sidhu has been making lots of anti-India comments, he perhaps didn’t say that Indian Army is scared.
The Communist Party of India (Marxist)’s unit of Maharastra has removed its state secretary Narasayya Adam from the Central Committee for three months, for reportedly praising PM Modi and CM Devendra Fadnavis.
“We’ve decided to suspend Maharashtra CC (Central Committee) secretary, Narasayya Adam, from the Central Committee for 3 months. This is a consequence of his speech at a public event in Solapur in presence of the Prime Minister & Maharashtra CM which hurt the party’s image” CPI(M), the highest decision making part of the party, stated.
CPI(M) Central Committee: We’ve decided to suspend Maharashtra CC secretary, Narasayya Adam, from the Central Committee for 3 months. This is a consequence of his speech at a public event in Solapur in presence of the Prime Minister & Maharashtra CM which hurt the party’s image. pic.twitter.com/mkyD7iyLvm
The suspended member, Narasayya Adam campaigns for affordable housing to people belonging to the unorganized class. Prime Minister Modi had laid the foundation stone for the construction of 30,000 houses for women involved in the business of making beedi, during his visit to Solapur last month. Adam is a former MLA from Solapur City Central.
This project will provide subsidy up to Rs 1.5 lakh to a family which owns land to build a house. In case of a landless family, the government will provide financial help of Rs 50,000 to fund suitable land to and build a house. In his speech, Narasayya Adam had said that he was grateful to “the dear Prime Minister Modi” for giving 30,000 houses to poor women of Solapur.
“I have been dreaming about this for seven to eight years. The coalition government (of NCP-Congress) had kept it on the back burner for three years. But our brave chief minister (Fadnavis) took out the file and gave to Modi Saab and that dream seems to be coming to fruition.” Adam had said. He had also wished another tenure for PM Modi as the prime minister. Adam said that by 2022, 30,000 houses will be built under the guidance of PM Modi.
