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‘They were small satellites’ – how prejudiced foreign media tried to deny India her success

Gaurav
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‘They were small satellites’ – how prejudiced foreign media tried to deny India her success

Sometimes all it takes is one cartoon. In September of 2014, the New York Times, which is often pummelled by the President of USA Donald Trump, and is known for its anti-India bent, had published the following cartoon:

New York Times cartoon

The racist cartoon showing India in poor light had been published just after India successfully put the Mangalyaan robotic probe into the orbit around Mars. The total cost of the mission was put at 4.5 bn rupees, making it one of the cheapest interplanetary space missions ever. Only the US, Russia and Europe (European Space Agency) had previously sent missions to Mars, and India succeeded in its first attempt – an achievement that eluded even the Americans and the Soviets.

Eventually New York Times had to apologise for their cartoon after public outrage.

Cut to 2017 and this time the New York Times (NYT) was joined by Financial Times (FT) in subtly underplaying yet another astounding feat by India:



These news reports were of course covering Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) launching 104 satellites into orbit in a single mission. With this successful launch, India had smashed the previous record by the Russian Space Agency which had launched 37 satellites in one go.

Of the 104 satellites, 101 satellites were from international clients. Of the 101 international co-passenger nano-satellites, 96 are from the US, and one each from Israel, Kazakhstan, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates. Two Indian nano satellites also rode piggyback on the PSLV rocket along with the 714 kg CARTOSAT-2 Series satellite for earth observation

Cartosat-2 Series, which is the primary satellite, will provide remote sensing services after coming into operation. Images sent by it will be useful for coastal land use and regulation, road network monitoring, distribution of water and creation of land use maps, among others. The two Indian Nano-satellites INS-1A and INS-1B were developed as co-passenger satellites to accompany bigger satellites on PSLV. The primary objective of INS (ISRO Nano Satellite) is to provide an opportunity for ISRO technology demonstration payloads, provide a standard bus for launch on demand services.

Instead of lauding India’s achievements, NYT and FT chose to snidely point out that many of the satellites were in fact of smaller size. If indeed it was so easy to launch such smaller satellites, we wonder why an overwhelming majority of such satellites belonged to advanced nations such as USA which can easily send them in to orbit. The fact that international companies chose ISRO, shows that ISRO had what the market needed: reliability, technical expertise, at a fraction of the cost.

In fact, the real challenge in carrying so many satellites is not their weight, but the difficulty in launching so many of them in different orbits, without any of them crashing into each other.

Dr. K. Sivan, Director of the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), Thiruvananthapuram, had explained the process and the challenges involved earlier this year:

“The satellites will be separated from the launch vehicle in different directions. The separation angle and time of separation will be such that one satellite will not collide with another. The satellite that gets launched first will move at a relatively faster velocity than the next satellite that is launched. Due to different relative velocities, the distance between the satellites will increase continuously but the orbit will be the same. When the vehicle reaches the orbital condition, we will wait for the disturbances to die down before the preparation for separation begins.”

An error of even one degree difference in separation angle combined with relative velocity can cause a collision and hence such a task of simultaneously launching over a 100 satellites requires a high degree of skill. NYT and FT could have learned this if they had talked to an actual scientist, but instead FT chose to quote Sonia Gandhi’s pet economist Jean Dreze, from the time he criticised India’s Mangalyaan mission, as “part of Indian elite’s delusional quest for superpower status”. FT also chose to juxtapose the spending on our space program against poverty alleviation measures.

The attitudes of NYT and FT’s reporting showed that they still couldn’t come to terms with the fact that a seemingly third world nation had galloped ahead in the space race, or at least one leg of the race. Has NYT or FT ever questioned USA’s exorbitant expenditures of various sectors even when an estimated 43.1 million US citizens (13.5% of the total population) live in poverty?

Or perhaps is it a growing worry that India is on the cusp of developing a name for itself in the International market for having a robust, technologically advanced satellite launching system, which also enjoys a huge cost advantage. The global market for nano and micro-satellites, is set to grow close to $3 billion in the next three years. ISRO sources point out that some 3,000 satellites will be ready for launch in the next 10 years for navigation, maritime, surveillance and other space-based applications.

ISRO has fast made a name for itself for its low cost services, which are attracting a lot of foreign customers as new private players like SpaceX are yet to improve their cost effectiveness. For a satellite launch, SpaceX can charge around USD 60 million, while ISRO charged an average of USD 3 million per satellite between 2013 and 2015. The forex revenue for ISRO’s commercial arm, Antrix Corporation, went up 204.9 percent in 2015.

While NYT and FT may mock nano-satellites, Prakash Chandra, a science writer, rightly mentions here that smaller sized satellites are the future:

Having a large number of small satellites instead of a few heavy ones makes sense as they could cover the same piece of ground more frequently — say, every 15 minutes — for collecting imagery. This could spell a revolution in the way satellites are used — whether it is helping fishermen identify catches, keeping track of crops, or detecting natural disasters like floods and earthquakes. Similarly, increasing miniaturisation in electronics makes redundant the use of heavy satellites for telecommunications and remote sensing. Smaller satellites deliver better coverage at a fraction of the cost.

He argues that this is exactly where India could make a killing since as satellites become smaller and less expensive to build, launch vehicles need to be correspondingly cheaper so that the number and rate of launches could be higher to keep launch costs down.

A more mature international media would have realised the significance of this launch and allowed India to bask in the glory of the PSLV, but petty minded publications like NYT and FT have exposed themselves, while trying to show India down. It started with a Cartoon, India has replied with a Cartosat, and the game is still on!

Dr Swamy’s ‘U Turn’: Typo or ‘call from above’

Hemant Bijapurkar
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Dr Swamy’s ‘U Turn’: Typo or ‘call from above’

Subramanian Swamy just scored a major victory yesterday after Sasikala was convicted and was showered praises by his many supporters. But the utopia was short lived and today he was embroiled in somewhat of a controversy when he tweeted that Mayawati might pull off a Donald Trump to win the UP state elections:

This tweet (now deleted) did ruffle a few feathers as many were surprised that a senior BJP leader and someone of the stature of Dr Swamy was openly predicting that rival Mayawati would win the important UP election even when the voting isn’t complete. Though about an hour after tweeting it he clarified that it was an oversight and he had actually wanted to write NaMo instead of Mayawati.

The people on social media as usual were ready with reactions:

The Jury’s still out on this one:


Some people asked for a bit of a leeway for Dr Swamy based on his age:


One reminded Swamy of another embarrassing incident:


True, if anybody can put out such a clarification its Swamy


Knowing the unpredictable Dr Swamy, this “oversight” could well even be a form of trolling, but whatever might have been the reason, it can’t be denied that he handled the whole issue with grace. A couple of Days back AAP leader Somnath Bharti was embroiled in a similar incident when he put out a tweet praising Modi. But rather than sticking to his guns or providing a plausible answer, he proceeded to claim that his account was hacked.

Sasikala, Panneerselvam and Tamil Nadu: what’s going on

Hemant Bijapurkar
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Sasikala, Panneerselvam and Tamil Nadu: what’s going on

Almost a week ago we put out an article detailing what the whole hullabaloo in the Tamil Nadu politics was. Now things have reached a crescendo after the Supreme Court convicted Sasikala in a 19-year-old disproportionate assets rendering her unable to contest elections for 10 years and needing to serve imprisonment for 4 years. So below is a summary about the whole affair and the way forward in Tamil Nadu politics in an easy to read Q&A format:

Q1) What was the case?

A) Going back to the basics, Sasikala and former CM J Jayalalitha were accused of amassing disproportionate assets worth about Rs 66.65 crores during Jayalalitha’s CM tenure from 1991-96. Sasikala’s relatives V N Sudhakaran and Elavarasi were also accused. In May 2015, Jayalalithaa, Sasikala and two other accused were acquitted by the Karnataka High Court in the disproportionate case. The Karnataka government then moved the Supreme Court against the high court’s ruling. Today the Supreme court delivered its verdict.

Q2) What is the Supreme Court verdict?

A) The High Court conviction of the 3 accused (Sasikala and her 2 relatives) was restored in full with the convicted directed to surrender before the trial court. This verdict was in relation to the appeals filed by Karnataka Government against the May 11, 2015 acquittal of  Jayalalithaa and Sasikala. Sasikala was sentenced to four years in prison and as she had already served 6 months of imprisonment she would now spend 3.5 years behind bars. She also has been barred from contesting elections for the next 6 years.

Q3) Sasikala jailed so problem solved, Panneerselvam becomes CM right?

A) No, not so fast. Even though Sasikala has suffered a huge blow she is not going out without a fight. Remember the MLA’s she has held hostage well are still holed up there and Sasikala has fielded her personal Pannerselvam (Edappadi Palaniswami) as her proxy who yesterday afternoon was elected as the leader of the AIADMK legislative party at the resort and hopes to stake claim to form the government. The resort MLA’s though might finally have some respite after 50 cops entered the resort building this afternoon by acting on the complaint received about abducted MLA’s.

Q4) So Panneerselvam hasn’t won yet? I like that guy!

A) No he hasn’t won yet. Last evening he was stopped from entering the Guantanamo Bay Golden Bay Resort (Where all MLA’s are currently residing) where he claims 11 MLA’s supporting him are being pressured to stay against their will. His game plan involves getting as many MLA’s possible which would scuttle the chances of the Sasikala camp from reaching the 117 majority mark. Panneerselvam currently has the support of 11 MLA’s out of 137. Yesterday evening Panneerselvam again went to Jayalalitha’s memorial, the place where it all began and was joined there by Jayalalitha’s niece, Deepa Jayakumar, who signalling the times to come, announced her intention to work with Panneerselvam. Speculations are rife about her being projected as Jayalalitha’s heir sometime in the future.

Q6) So has Sasikala surrendered yet?

A)  She didn’t surrender yesterday and in a press conference after getting all emotional broke down in tears and blamed the DMK for the DA case. Today morning she went to Jayalalitha’s Poes Gardens residence where she(Sasikala) too resided. From there at around 11am she left for Jayalalitha’s memorial at Marina beach and prayed there for some time. In the morning the Supreme Court had rejected her plea to seek more time for a surrender. She has finally left for Bangalore where she would surrender before a court and get lodged into Parappana Agrahara prison. Though as a way to set her house in order she made Dhinakaran her nephew the Deputy General Secretary of the party and the AIADMK organisation secretary Nellai Karuppasamy Pandian resigned in protest over the appointment.

Q5) So what is the Governor going to do?

A) Governor Vidyasagar Rao is literally the kingmaker. Most likely he will order a composite floor test. For helping him arrive at the decision he had consulted heavyweights like AG Mukul Rohtagi, Constitution expert Soli Sorabjee and former Solicitor general Mohan Parasaran, two out of the three experts recommended this floor test. As per reports the decision of the Governor should be should arrive today but there are reports which suggest that the Governor now is not keen to order the floor test but would now ask Sasikala’s loyalist Palanisamy to form government and prove his majority.

Q7) What is a composite floor test then?

A) As there is more than one party staking claim, the governor would call a special session to find who has the majority which will be found via ballot boxes or electronically or via a voice vote. The one who has it would be asked to form the government, in case of a tie the speaker can cast the vote.

Q8) Frankly everything has become so complicated, it’s not cool anymore. What should I do?

A) If that is the case then thank god  you are not one of those who had to read the 570 page verdict or continue to stay imprisoned in that resort. And if you are into football then you can forget everything and fully concentrate on the Championship League’s Round of 16.

 

SRK booked for vandalism, it was ‘gareeb’ vendor’s complaint against ‘Raees’ superstar

OpIndia Staff
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SRK booked for vandalism, it was ‘gareeb’ vendor’s complaint against ‘Raees’ superstar

Last month, a person had died and many commuters had to face inconvenience as Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan (SRK) had undertaken a train journey from Mumbai to Delhi to promote his movie Raees.

Many people had back then wondered if SRK had taken prior permission from Railways and whether this promotional event was charged for by the railways. One activist even demanded an FIR against SRK and Railway officials for breaking rules.

While there is no official word from Indian Railways yet, a complaint has been registered against SRK accusing him of “rioting” (legal term for any force or violence used by a group of persons) and as per reports, an FIR has been filed.

And this complaint has not been filed by any activist but a 32-year-old man who runs a food stall at platform no. 1 of Kota Railway station. This man, named Vikram Singh, claims that SRK and his fans caused physical injury and monetary losses to him.

As per Vikram, SRK waved at the crowd and threw gifts like football among them, which caused a stampede like station at the platform as his fans rushed to collect the souvenirs thrown by the superstar.

In the ensuing pandemonium, Vikram’s stall was overturned and goods were trampled upon by the crowd. Not only it caused damage to the goods and physical injuries to him, Vikram claims that someone in the crowd even stole money from his cashbox while he was trying to save his stall and himself.

Since the incident happened on a railway station and Railways didn’t appear to be one of the complainants, Vikram had to file a complaint with the GRP (Government Railway Police) himself. He first filed the complaint in the railway court, which in turn forwarded it to the Kota GRP police station.

The police have now registered the case and have started investigations. It now remains to be seen if the case will drag on and on for years or if SRK could reach out to Vikram and settle this outside court.

Not everyone is a ‘Presstitute’ – a note on job losses in the media

Mohan Sinha
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Not everyone is a ‘Presstitute’ – a note on job losses in the media

People getting the vicious satisfaction of seeing so many “presstitutes” (their words, not mine) lose their jobs have very little understanding of how newsrooms and media houses are run. All media houses have editorial policies and every employee – no matter how high or low – has to follow that policy. It’s either that or his/her job.

All those who lost their jobs in the latest round of retrenchments were lower and middle-level employees who were simply making a living. They were workers in the printing departments, district correspondents, mofussil reporters and photographers. None of them were the decision-makers.

How many of those who were perched on the top of the industry ladder or were decision-makers were handed out pink. slips? For that matter, how many highly paid editors lost their jobs? I am pretty sure, NONE.

Like a lot of other lower and middle class people around the country who take the bus or the train to work every morning these people too slog to put food on the table, pay for their kids’ education through school and college, look after their aged parents, and wonder every day what will happen to their families if something were to happen to them. What is the fault of a photographer in a small town who rides on his scooter every day looking for the perfect photograph that will fetch him a pittance? And if the editor of the newspaper tells him he cannot supply that photograph to anyone else. he will have to scour the city for another perfect picture to supply to his next client. All this, just so that he can make a living. I know of stringers living in villages who are still paid per word. Imagine being paid Rs 300 or Rs 500 per article and have just two pieces appear every month. And for many, that is their only source of income.

I’ll give you my own example. I began working in a newspaper in 1985 and today I am embarrassed to say that if it hadn’t been an ancestral property from my maternal side, which we sold to buy a 3BHK, I wouldn’t be able to afford my own home on my salary.

Honestly, there is no such thing as a free press. As an Assistant Editor did I have the right to decide what stories we should use in the newspaper? No I didn’t. Yes, I could make a judgement call on a story that came in late at night, but even there the editorial policy was sacrosanct. I couldn’t just take a story that praised Rajiv Gandhi just because I liked him. I had to keep in mind that my newspaper didn’t believe in praising anyone.

Between 2000 and 2005, I worked for a newspaper that was going national with a vengeance. Did I have the right to decide on the kind of stories I could take? No, again. In neither of the two cities where I headed the news desk, could we carry anything that could hurt the ruling dispensation. Instructions were handed down to us on the kind of stories we could use. We couldn’t speak against the State government because it could hurt the business interests of the media house. Any stories that were against the State or the CM had to be vetted by the editorial department in Delhi.

Resident Editors at most of these mofussil editions are nothing but glorified bureau chiefs. Do they have the authority to take decisions on any stories that were inimical to the State government? Your guess is as good as mine.

There are stifling restrictions vis-à-vis reporting on stories that were inimical to the interests of the owners, various individuals or groups. Time and again, stories are killed or watered down for one reason or another. One cannot do a story about the corrupt practices of politicians…One cannot report on a fraudulent scheme run by a big business house… There were so many such instances.

I remember one story that we had in our pocket. It could have shaken the particular state government. The reporters put their heart into the story. It was a perfect story with not one fact missing, including the names of the big-time politicians involved in a huge scam. It went to HQ for approval. That was the last we saw of the story. When it finally appeared you wouldn’t have known if it was from some state of the Indian Union, or Timbuctoo. Why was the story watered down? Because the management was worried that publication of the story would have jeopardised its business interests. Would you blame the reporter for this? Of course not, but when it comes to cost-cutting that poor kid will be the first to go.

A former editor who I had worked with for a short while, lost his job because he wrote something against a chief minister. The chief minister wasn’t satisfied with the fact that the editor in question had been removed from his post, and wanted him out of the organisation, and he was hounded out. And it wasn’t as if the CM in question was clean as a whistle.

Some years ago a senior editor of a well-known newspaper, during another such retrenchment drive, told me that many of the senior staff who were being laid off by a media house had, in fact, been hired on fat salaries only to ensure they would not write stories that harmed the group’s business interests. Now that keeping these people on board was proving costly they were being shown the door!

While I agree that running a newspaper is big business and not social service anymore, someone in the higher echelons of power has to take a stand. That is something a lot of newspaper establishments never do. And that is where the lower- and middle-level employees suffer. And not just the journalists.

It’s sad, really, because journalists, photographers, DTP operators, designers, and all those involved with the business of publishing a newspaper have nothing to do with the policies formulated by the management. They are just small cogs in the big wheel, but they are the first to be sacrificed when it is time for the management to cut its losses. Think of the poor machine operator in the printing press. All he does is run the machinery that prints the newspaper. Is he a “presstitute”? Can he be blamed for the editorial policies of a newspaper? For all you know, the guy is a Modi supporter.

When The Telegraph announced there would be retrenchments I called a former colleague now working in that newspaper. He was just one of the senior editors, a family man, with wife, aged parents, and a teenaged daughter, doing his job to the best of his abilities. He was understandably worried that he might lose his job. I could feel the worry in his voice and I felt sorry for him. I haven’t had the courage since that day to call him to ask if he still has a job.

After three decades in the media I can honestly say that I have seen many of those in my profession give their blood, sweat and tears for a job which at the end of the day, gave back very little in terms of monetary recompense. None of these people were presstitutes. They just followed orders handed down to them by people who decided on how a story should be done, why, and who to target. Those guys are still around and prospering.

(the article first appeared on author’s blog. It has been republished here with permission in wake of recent layoffs at Hindustan Times and The Telegraph, and the resultant reactions by some on social media.)

Sagarika Ghose writes humour column on USA-Mexico border wall

Ashwin S Kumar
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Sagarika Ghose writes humour column on USA-Mexico border wall

After her super-hit humorous piece titled “Tamil Teri Maa” Sagarika Ghose now privileges OpIndia.com with her insightful views on the USA-Mexico border wall:

The Mexican president is surely a busy man this Valentines Day. Enrique Nieto may have had his Bailamos moments with his darling angel Angelica Rivera by the riverside, but there’s one thing he surely can’t Escape from – the border wall, proposed by the neighboring president. It’s time for Nieto to take the Mickey out of the Donald.

He surely intends to have this issue buried faster than he could eat a Burrito, but having an aggressive neighbor tackled is no piece of Taco!

He could perhaps start off by trying to explain to the US president about the impracticality of it all – but it’s Trump! Enlightening him can be harder than pronouncing Enchiladas, because he is no encyclopedia!

The challenge Enrique faces is huge – not only should he come up with an extraordinary move, one that would leave even the Donald, of all people, gawking in awe like Guacamole, but he should do it real fast! He just can’t afford to be as slow as a tortoise on Tortillas! Defeating Trump’s Chalupa-like chutzpah is next to impossible.

Nieto knows he needs to do something soon and that he will do something soon. But the big Quesadilla of a question is – what will he do?

For every liberal democrat in America who loves his or her Salsa, there are two staunch Trump fans, even from Tulsa!

What will he do to reaffirm to Mexicans and liberal Americans, that he truly believes what the Donald says is a load of mumbo-jumbo and not a bowl of delicious Gumbo?

Until he acts decisively, the party continues for the millions of Trump fans, still dancing around in glee, yelling “Naacho!” over their nachos!

(Just in case you are wondering, obviously it is not written by Sagarika Ghose. It is a work of satire.)

Indian blind cricket captain blasts media for misquoting him over Virender Sehwag

OpIndia Staff
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Indian blind cricket captain blasts media for misquoting him over Virender Sehwag

Earlier today, The Indian Express reported that the captain of the blind cricket team of India, Ajay Kumar Reddy was unhappy with a congratulatory tweet by former Indian opener Virender Sehwag, where Sehwag had termed them “the other men in blue”.

Indian team for the visually impaired players had won the T20 Blind Cricket World Cup title on Sunday, following which Sehwag tweeted this:


This was rather an innocuous tweet that was re-tweeted by almost 4000 twitter users, but Indian Express claimed that this tweet was not appreciated by the captain of the winning team.

“We wear the same blue jersey, represent the same tri-colour and play with equal pride and passion then why term us as ‘other’?” Indian Express quoted Reddy as saying.

The newspaper also made this (the allegation that Indian blind team captain is unhappy with Sehwag) their headline, even though it was just a small part of the report.

As a result, the report was used by many to question Sehwag over his apparent insensitive comment. The issue was raised even by a Congress IT cell executive, who has earlier been caught sharing wrong information and fake pictures.

The Congress IT cell executive was instantly rebuked and corrected by Sehwag, who pointed out that “the other men in blue” was not a phrase coined by Sehwag, but it was the official campaign theme for the blind cricket team.


This rebuke by Sehwag was followed by a video message by Ajay Kumar Reddy himself, who claimed that the media had wrongly quoted him and he had no reason to be unhappy with Sehwag, who has been quite supportive of the team.



Sehwag acknowledged the message of Reddy and asked him not to be upset over this misquoting by the media. The aggressive batsman also suggested the media to try some positive stories, instead of going for clickbait stories.

It is not for the first time that campaigns related to the blind cricket team has been converted into a controversy by the media. Earlier we had seen how some journalists wrongly blamed sports minister Vijay Goel for a photograph that was part of the campaign.

Such behaviour by media can be explained only on three grounds – ignorance of facts, deliberate distortion out of malice, or obsession with being politically correct.

Sagarika Ghose tries ‘humour’ on Tamil politics, comes up with idli-dosa, gets panned

OpIndia Staff
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Sagarika Ghose tries ‘humour’ on Tamil politics, comes up with idli-dosa, gets panned

Former TV journalist and serial tweeter of inane stuff, Sagarika Ghose scored yet another self-goal today after creating a lazy stereotypical article under the garb of  “humour”.

The article was titled, ‘Tamil teri maa? Even those who don’t understand Tamil, can see that the OPS-Sasikala battle is spicier than sambhar ?.’ (that smiley in the end is actually part of the title)

First one might wonder what she meant by “Teri Maa” and the fact that sambhar isn’t really very spicy, the content makes it worse with lazy writing and the same old  phrases like Madrasi, Sambhar, Dosa, Rajinikanth, Chennai Express, scattered around.

Understandably people weren’t really happy about the stupid stereotyping of South India and reacted:


Teri Maa is actually a uncouth distortion of the word Theriyuma which means ‘Do you speak Tamil’.

Read the below excerpt at your own risk:


We frankly don’t know:



Even though the article came with a disclaimer, rather ironically, that it was intended to bring a smile to one’s face, it didn’t quite work out that way. Perhaps the only ones smiling after reading the article were the “Internet Hindus” (a term Ms. Ghose claims to have coined) who knew that Sagarika would now be panned for her writing.

To put the article in a nationwide context, imagine someone living in a western country writing an article about India where she paints the whole country as a land of snake charmers, makes fun of Indian’s accent, languages, quotes Slumdog Millionaire among others. Ms. Ghose just did that on a regional scale.

The main problem is not that she has no sense of humour (one may not have), the main problem is that she thinks she has.

Victory vs growth – the dilemma BJP has to solve in the run up to 2019

Abhishek Banerjee
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Victory vs growth – the dilemma BJP has to solve in the run up to 2019

Here is the BJP’s current strength : 281 Lok Sabha MPs and 10 sitting Chief Ministers. Additionally, the party is an active contender for power in at least 3 large states I can think of (Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Karnataka) and a bunch of smaller states (Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Manipur, etc). In the last two and half years alone, it has established first time Chief Ministers in 3 states (Haryana, Maharashtra and Assam).

What is terrifying to other political parties in India is that despite it appearing to have reached its full potential thanks to the “Modi wave” of 2014 general elections, the BJP is still growing in strength. In states where it was present as junior partner, it has now started to become the main challenger. It happened in Bihar, and it appears to be happening in Odisha:


What? How? Local elections are supposed to be a cakewalk for the ruling party, especially with Navin babu being the face of Odisha. But the BJD has barely limped past the BJP in the Zila Parishad Polls. It is ridiculous to talk about a “Modi wave” in Odisha local polls. This is a success achieved on the ground by an RSS/BJP cadre that is ever hungry for success.

On a side note, the elite media said that the poor were worst affected by demonetization. I guess the following result means that there is little poverty in Kalahandi district of Odisha:



Coming back to my main point, while such explosive growth may bring jubilation to a right-wing impatient to see a collapse of the Congress ecosystem (a decades old entrenched ecosystem that will take time and grit to destroy), it is not without “near term risks” in the 2019 General Elections.

Such amazing success actually comes with heavy downsides. For instance, Navin Patnaik would have been one of the first partners the BJP could have counted on if it fell short of 272 seats in 2019. That possibility becomes tougher now.

In fact, a result like this one opens the door for an alliance between BJD and the Congress. At the same time, the door for any pre-poll or post-poll arrangement between BJD and BJP is closing. For one, such an alliance would be unfair to the BJP’s own workers, who have toiled hard to build up some anti-incumbency against the near invincible Navin babu. The BJP leadership in Delhi doesn’t even have the moral right to nullify those hard won gains by aligning with the BJD.

The same pattern is repeating all across the country with the BJP’s growth threatening the vote base of every other party. Bihar was just a trailer, where arch rivals came together to form  a Mahagathbandhan against the BJP. Simultaneously, even though Nitish Kumar has softened his stance towards the BJP, there is simply not enough space for a renewed alliance with the JD(U). Why? Because the BJP already has 22 sitting MPs of its own in the 40 seats of Bihar, not to mention 6 MPs of the LJP (and another 3 MPs of Upendra Kushwaha). Where is the space to offer Nitish Kumar? And again, such an alliance would be unfair to BJP workers who have grown the party in Bihar all the way to a winning position. It is not for Modi and Shah to step in now, declare an alliance and block their way in the last mile.

There’s Maharashtra, where the Shiv Sena is only a heartbeat away from joining hands with the Congress. Because of the egoistic and irrational nature of the Shiv Sena top leadership, the Sena may have shunned an alliance this time with the MNS, chances are that defeat in the BMC polls will make them wiser before 2019. Why? Because the BJP is now the dominant party in Mumbai; it has laid claim to Chhatrapati Shivaji and is making a successful bid for the Sena’s Marathi voters. The BJP’s growth is leaving no option for its opponents but to gang up.

Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and soon Mumbai may be glimpses of what “post-Congress politics” would look like in the short term. Here’s the simple arithmetic : most elections are won by a margin of about 5% votes. At many places, the Congress has been reduced to a rump party, which still polls 5-10% votes. Ironically, this makes the Congress a very attractive alliance partner for regional parties.

Generally speaking, if the Congress begins to rent out its 5-10% votes in each state to a regional player, the alliance will prevail over the BJP. That is why Rahul Gandhi is much welcome as a junior intern to Akhilesh Yadav : Rahul’s party will never rise again in Uttar Pradesh and Akhilesh Yadav could definitely use the 5-10% legacy vote attached to the Congress. If the BJP wins a majority in Uttar Pradesh, things could arguably get even worse, since even a BSP+SP+Cong+RLD combine in 2019 cannot be ruled out.

Not to mention Karnataka, where the Congress could ally now with Deve Gowda’s JD-S so as to save itself from a certain defeat. And we still don’t know all the “impossible” things that could happen as the BJP keeps growing in West Bengal and Kerala.

My final remark is that while the whole opposition “ganging up”  might give the BJP supporters a sense of unfairness, it actually isn’t unfair. Modi and Shah have stated their aim to turn the BJP into a dominant political system like that of the Congress in the 50s and 60s : right from Panchayat to Parliament. It’s a daring play and they have thrown the gauntlet right before all other parties in the country. It would in fact be unfair to expect the opposition to just roll over and die.

A “world conquest” like attitude runs the risk of making way too many enemies way too soon. It remains to be seen if Modi and Shah have the strategic depth and patience to carefully coax the raucous world of Indian politics into a unipolar ecosystem headed by the BJP.

This is why AAP leader Somnath Bharti deleted his tweet praising PM Modi

Hemant Bijapurkar
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This is why AAP leader Somnath Bharti deleted his tweet praising PM Modi

AAP leader Somnath Bharti who has a wide range of controversies to his name from allegations of domestic violence to being a spammer selling porn domains toilet found himself in the limelight again, when he sent out a tweet praising Prime Minister Modi for making it easier for the people to buy homes:

The ‘controversial’ tweet, now deleted.

Soon, almost predictably, he proceeded to delete the tweet. While some alleged that AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal himself had called up Bharti and asked him to delete the tweet, Bharti claimed that his account was actually hacked when the tweet was pushed from his account:



People found it tough to believe that a hacker would just share a news article instead of tweeting something more scandalous. Say, something like ‘Modiji allows us to work, but we watch and make porn clips’ or ‘Kejriwal is coward and psychopath’.

Speculations that Kejriwal himself might have called up was inspired by an earlier event, when back in 2015, the then Arunachal CM Nabam Tuki was forced to delete his tweet praising the Centre, allegedly at the behest of Sonia Gandhi, after Congress suddenly decided to oppose the peace initiated by the Modi government:

A tweet praising Modi government that was deleted under political pressure from Congress high command

Even if there was no call from Kejriwal, perhaps it made sense for Somnath Bharti to delete his tweet, because, as seen time and again, it can be very dangerous for non-BJP leaders to praise Narendra Modi.

Last year in November a leader at a BSP rally proceeded to praise PM Modi over demonetisation, only to see himself get into a scuffle where his mike was snatched. Others though have received harsher punishments; in 2009, a CPM MP was expelled for praising Modi, in 2013 Lalu’s estranged brother in law Sadhu Yadav was expelled from the Congress for praising Modi, in 2014 RJD had suspended a legislator for praising Modi, a JDU MLA was expelled and 2 MPs were suspended for the same, and the list goes on.

So almost invariably, praising Modi means public humiliation or a suspension/expulsion from your party. With Somnath Bharti belonging to a party whole supremo is a self-proclaimed arch nemesis of Modi, one can only imagine what fate awaited Somanth Bharti had he not deleted the tweet.

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