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Rajdeep Sardesai tries to create sensation before budget, falls hopelessly

Rahul Raj
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Rajdeep Sardesai tries to create sensation before budget, falls hopelessly

Union Budget 2017 got into controversies much before it was presented. The government had advanced the session by a month citing that the move will make the process efficient. The objective was to move the Budget exercise early so that all ministries, government-owned entities, and others concerned get their sanctioned amount before April 1. Coincidentally, during the initials months of the year, the nation will also witness elections in five states – Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur. This has led to resentment in opposition parties which have been arguing that budget may give unfair advantage to BJP in all these states. The opposition wrote to President and Chief Election Commissioner, however, the dates remained unchanged.

Today, while the date controversy was still into the air, E. Ahamed, an IUML parliamentarian from Kerala passed away.  Mr. Ahamed suffered a cardiac arrest during the President’s address to the joint sitting of Parliament on On 31 January 2017. This created buzz in media to start discussions on possibilities of delay and adjournment of the budget session. However, like always, Rajdeep Sardesai surpassed people’s expectation,

At 7:21 in the morning, Rajdeep was ready with his narrative.


Within some time, he also broke the news that union budget will be postponed by a day.

People have tasted this kind of sensational journalism by Rajdeep in the past.  Rajdeep is not a journalist who carry a great reputation among his peers. When senior journalists started questioning his hurried conclusions, he deleted this tweet.


Meanwhile Rajdeep was doing more interesting things on Television. When I switched to India Today, I saw Rajdeep asking his panelists, ‘An MP has passed away. Will it not be insensitive to present the budget today?’ Within next 30 minutes I heard him using the word insensitive more than 10-15 times. By 10, Rajdeep had a fair idea that Budget is not going to be postponed. Scared to face public humiliation, he started playing with words. ‘If the budget is not postponed by a day, it will certainly be postponed by a few hours,’ asked the clueless Rajdeep.

After seeing that he is still on a slippery wicket, Rajdeep changed his gears to anti-BJP stance. He called a BJP spokesperson and asked him to agree that government is under pressure. Then he called a NCP leader to ask whether the budget session should be delayed by a day or not. During the same time, he was smartly digressing from the core discussion by questioning the intent to have an early budget during an election season. The panelists on his show looked perplexed because Rajdeep was mixing incoherent arguments to create illogical narratives. When the panelists told him that never before the date of budget is shifted, the clueless Rajdeep started talking about possibility of setting new tradition. During the same time, he also talked about ire of opposition which BJP will have to face due to insensitivity.

I couldn’t tolerate it more, so I changed the channel. Later when I checked twitter, Sardesai was preaching opposition and trolls.

ISIS slogans warning of attacks on Nepal and Modi found in Army area in Himachal

OpIndia Staff
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ISIS slogans warning of attacks on Nepal and Modi found in Army area in Himachal

Local administration and police in the Solan district of Himachal Pradesh are investigating the case of ISIS slogans being written at various places in an army cantonment area. These slogans warn that ISIS will carry out blasts in Nepal as well as locally in India.

The slogans were discovered by local residents living around the cantonment area in Subathu, Dharampur, where earlier this month a Hindu temple was defaced with similar slogans about the terrorist group.

Unlike in the case of temple defacement, when stencils were used to print the slogans, this time slogans on walls and posters are handwritten. The slogans have been written in Hindi, English and Urdu.

The slogans warn that from Subathu to Nepal – which is at around 700 kilometres away – 3 blasts will be carried out. The language used in the posters is patchy, and it appears to be warning that electronic items like TV, computer, washing machine will be used to carry out these attacks:

ISIS poster in Himachal
Handwritten poster warning about ISIS attacks in Nepal and India

Along with the posters warning such attacks, the slogans on walls also hint that Prime Minister Modi will be another target of the attacks by the ISIS:

ISIS targets Modi
Narendra Modi too have been mentioned in the ISIS supporting slogans

Reports suggest that such posters and slogans have been put up at various places in the area including post office, local shops, at a park, and a toll barrier – all of which are in the vicinity of the cantonment area. An ISIS flag too is reported to have been recovered.

The development has once again alerted the local administration and police, which is still to crack the temple defacement case. With the latest incident happening in an army area, army too has decided to increase patrolling and install cameras for monitoring the situation.

An ISIS agent was arrested from Himachal last month, and now these two incidents of ‘ISIS coming soon’ slogans appearing in the same month in the same district has made people wonder if the terror organisation has created a network in the state that is increasingly becoming emboldened.

The Tax Department’s squeeze after Demonetisation is here: Watch out

OpIndia Staff
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The Tax Department’s squeeze after Demonetisation is here: Watch out

In early December 2016, we had published this report titled “THIS is why so many money launderers are getting caught. And it will only get worse”. An excerpt from there is as below:

We are right now in a dynamic situation since the window till 30th December to deposit old notes is still open. Banks are still accepting old notes and data is being generated even as we speak. Come January or February, all this data will be frozen and will be a gold-mine for analysts.

Any dormant account suddenly being triggered (egs: shell or dormant companies being used to launder cash) or any account which usually has lower volumes, or any newly opened accounts showing sudden increase, or any accounts showing a deposit and an instant transfer or withdrawal, all these anomalies will be crystal clear from the data of the banks. It would be only a matter of time before sleuths begin identifying and investigating the parties concerned.

And finally, that time has come. If the number of raids during the demonetisation period shocked you, the number of people under the net now will astound you. The Finance Ministry today announced that they had launched Operation Clean Money (Swacch Dhan Abhiyan).

The Ministry further stated that they are only in the “initial phase of the operation”, which basically involves e-verification of large cash deposits made during 9th Nov to 30th Dec 2016. The Ministry explained that data analytics has been used for comparing the demonetisation data with information in Income Tax Department (ITD) databases. This basically means comparing the deposits in banks with the general profile of that specific person, to ascertain whether the volume of cash deposits is commensurate with the person’s profile.

The Ministry further informed that in only the “first batch”, about 18 lakh persons have been identified in whose case, cash transactions don’t appear to be in line with the tax payer’s profile. This means as of now, 18 lakh persons have been picked up for preliminary enquiry based on the first batch of analysis.

This may give rise to fears of tax terrorism, but the Ministry further informed that the Income Tax Department has enabled online verification of these transactions to reduce compliance cost for the taxpayers while optimising its resources. The taxpayer will be able to submit online explanation without any need to visit Income Tax office.

Email and SMS will also be sent to the taxpayers for submitting online response on the e-filing portal. A detailed user guide and quick reference guide is also available on the portal. Data analytics will be used to select cases for verification, based on approved risk criteria.  If the case is selected for verification, request for additional information and its response will also be communicated electronically. The information on the online portal will be dynamic getting updated on receipt of new information, response and data analytics.

Such a mechanism is already in place in the Income Tax Department’s site, where people are traced on the basis of TDS filings, and online responses are sought. In most of the cases the matter gets cleared up without any personal interaction with the person. If this new mechanism is based on similar principles then it would be a welcome relief to the honest tax payers who have been inadvertently picked up for checking in the above pool of 18 lakh assessees.

All said and done, this is just the beginning, as is indicated by the Finance Ministry. There are many more checks and balances left to be explored which can bring even more suspected crooks under the spotlight.

Dholkal Ganesha : the broken idol will be our future if we don’t wake up

Abhishek Banerjee
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Dholkal Ganesha : the broken idol will be our future if we don’t wake up

Let me ask you a series of questions. See how many can you answer:

1. What are the names of your parents?
2. What are the names of your grandparents?
3. What are the names of your great grandparents?
4. What are the names of your great great grandparents?
5. What are the names of your great great great grandparents?

Obviously you can answer (1) and (2) quite easily. Myself, I would fizzle out at the 3rd question. And hats off to you if you can name even 2 of the 32 people appearing in Question 5.

But these people existed. They are part of who we are even though we have never heard their names. And what of our ancestors from generations ago, from hundreds of years ago.

This nation belonged to them just as this nation belongs to us now. We hold it in trust so that we can pass it along to the next generation. It’s a pact between generations. For we all must pass, but Eternal Bharat lives on.

But how do we remember this pact when we cannot even name our ancestors from 5 generations ago? How do we recognize who we are and what is our place in this world?

We recognize them by means of cultural symbols.

It’s in the symbols of Bharat, it’s the languages we speak, it’s the stories we tell.

With his eyes wide open, a young child listens to his grandmother narrate the fascinating tale of Krishna driving Arjuna’s chariot. Then, he goes out and sees the same image carved into a rock wall from thousands of years ago. He understands that thousands of years ago, his people used to tell these same stories. He understands that this land and its people are forever his.

Symbols like this:

Ganesh idol
The Ganesha idol in Dantewada district of Chhatisgarh is at least 1000 years old

It’s the Dholkal Ganesha, sitting on a 13000 feet high hilltop in Dantewada in Chhattisgarh. Right there, suddenly in the heart of the forest, there is the mark of the ancestors from 1000 years ago. It’s one of the faces of eternal Bharat.

They can come with a hundred lies about Aryan invasion, they can send a hundred JNU professors with fake narratives of tribal separatism, but they cannot deny this. This silent stone figure is mocking them and their lies. O sons and daughters of Macaulay, come hither and deny this…

They couldn’t deny it. So in frustration they had to do this:

News about Bastar Ganesh statue
The idol was not found on the Republic Day, when a group of pilgrims went to the hilltop

The Commies did it just like the savages they truly are. This empty spot where the idol stood for 1000 years shows what Commies always do:

Statue of Ganesha destoryed
This is what was left where Ganesha rested

Destroy and move on. Leave the land barren and leave the civilization orphaned.

This empty hilltop is the metaphor of the future that the “left liberals” want for our nation. This is their “idea of India”.

As I always say, the “idea of India” is that there is no India at all.

No, this was no fashionable “church attack”. So no one cared. Last I checked, they were busy saving some some Bollywood movie or something. Because those movies are priceless artwork. Ganesha idols are no art. They are eyesore.

Pay no heed to this 1000 year old statue that was just destroyed by the army wanting “Azaadi”. It’s not like this one was irreplaceable.

But what is more disturbing than the liberal silence is the Hindu silence. Let’s get this straight. We have to grow up and stop referring to the “liberals” as hypocrites. These so-called liberals are not hypocrites. They are just enemies.

Why would they care about this Ganesha statue? It symbolises an eternal Bharat that they want to wipe off the planet. Things are going their way. If there was a war between India and Pakistan, would you care about the losses on the Pakistani side? Of course not. Because that’s your enemy.

The question is why we Hindus are not speaking up about the loss of our civilization. If we go silent, the enemy will cleanse this Bharat of every symbol of our nation. The pact between generations will forever come to an end. No one in this land shall speak of Krishna and Arjuna ever again. It will become a land of empty hilltops and a lost people.

Well, we already are a land of broken idols. From Kashmir to Dantewada:


When Vijay Goel hit Shekhar Gupta and Barkha Dutt for a six

OpIndia Staff
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When Vijay Goel hit Shekhar Gupta and Barkha Dutt for a six

Vijay Goel, the union sports minister, hasn’t had a smooth ride ever since he assumed office. After taking charge just weeks before the Olympics, Goel got panned for clicking selfies at various sporting events and for alleged rude behaviour. Recently, he got in a public spat with Dangal star Zaira Wasim on Twitter even though he meant to support her.

Yesterday another controversy was created when the official PIB (Press Information Bureau) account tweeted this:


The picture showed Vijay Goel at the inauguration of the 2nd T20 World Cup for the visually impaired players. He was seen blindfolded, holding a bat and maybe waiting for a ball to arrive.

Immediately, it was declared insensitive by celebrity journalists Barkha Dutt and Shekhar Gupta:


Apart from these two, others like journalist Sunil Jain and Robert Vadra’s brother-in-law Tehseen Poonawala too joined in bashing Goel, interpreting his gesture as insensitive towards the visually impaired players.

However, the minister soon opened their eyes by showing them another pic:


So the fact of the matter was, the idea of playing blindfolded was that of Blind Cricket’s officials who thought such an event would create awareness and encourage the players. Goel was just following a promotional idea that involved players of the Indian team as well.

He further lamented that journalists like Barkha and Shekhar were targeting him without verifying facts (well, entirely his fault if he thought journalism in India meant verification of facts):


While Barkha acknowledged Goel’s response, Shekhar Gupta was not willing to admit his mistake (again, Goel’s fault if he thought that journalism in India meant accepting one’s mistakes):


To be fair to the organisers and Vijay Goel, playing blindfolded looks like the accepted norm for expressing solidarity with blind sportsmen. Just last September blindfolded members of Barcelona FC, which included Messi, Busquets and Rakitic, took on the Spanish Blind National Football team ahead of the Paralympic games in Rio.

AAP IT head shares fake survey after Kejriwal attacks news channel for real survey

OpIndia Staff
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AAP IT head shares fake survey after Kejriwal attacks news channel for real survey

Once upon a time, AAP and its supremo Arvind Kejriwal used to be a big fan of media and surveys, which used to show AAP gaining popular support. The survey findings were not unexpected as the party had emerged from a popular movement aided by the mainstream media and thus people wished to give it a chance. AAP used to put findings of such surveys on their campaign posters, especially during the Delhi assembly polls.

The party made an impressive debut in 2013 Delhi assembly elections though Kejriwal resigned after just 49 days in power. Then came the 2014 general elections, where the party performed impressively in Punjab winning 4 Lok Sabha seats. And then in 2015, it swept the Delhi assembly elections. Many surveys indicated that AAP could repeat its Delhi performance in Punjab assembly elections too.

Two years have passed since then. The party has seen internal feud that led to acrimonious exit of founder member Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav, who now accuse the party of being as good as any other political party. Governance in Delhi is marred with controversies. And the party has been accused of hiding its source of funding. In Punjab too, the party is embroiled in various controversies.

As a result, recent surveys have indicated that AAP many not sweep the elections as was being predicted earlier. Some surveys have even predicted that it could actually end up at the third position.

This made Arvind Kejriwal make a U-turn and he started asking people to not trust pre-poll surveys by the media. This article (click here) explains the U-turn of Kejriwal over the issue.

Now Kejriwal has gone a step ahead and accused a news channel of taking bribes for showing AAP on the third spot in a pre-poll survey. Kejriwal made this accusation on Sunday against TV channel News24:



Not just he accused the channel’s owner of taking bribes, he called some journalists (without taking names) “dalaal” (pimps):


This is not the first time Kejriwal has referred to journalists as pimps. Earlier he had identified former Indian Express Editor Shekhar Gupta as a pimp.

On expected lines, Kejriwal was not attacked by the journalistic fraternity as he continues to enjoy considerable support among them. Earlier Kejriwal had shared a picture on Twitter that showed a newspaper page being designed. This suggested that he had loyal supporters working in newspapers who leak to him the news even before it’s published.

Nonetheless, after Kejriwal attacked media and declared the unfavourable pre-poll survey “paid”, his team has now gone ahead and started circulating images of surveys that show AAP winning around 100 seats in Punjab. Some of these are the old surveys, while others are fake.

One such fake survey was shared by the IT head of the Aam Aadmi Party Ankit Lal, which claimed that Today’s Chanakya – the research group that had correctly predicted 2014 general elections and 2015 Delhi assembly election results – had predicted 100 seats for the party in Punjab elections:


This was a clever attempt to use the credibility of Today’s Chanakya to push party propaganda. However, this lie by Ankit Lal – who has a rich record of spreading lies and misinformation – was called out by Today’s Chanakya itself that clarified that they had not undertaken any pre-poll survey.


And as it always happens, the IT head of the party had not bothered to remove the tweet or the image. Why let facts get in the way of good propaganda, eh?

Donkey stopped from filing nomination papers for Uttar Pradesh elections

OpIndia Staff
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Donkey stopped from filing nomination papers for Uttar Pradesh elections

Elections in India are celebrations of the Indian democracy, and every election sees some colourful personalities adding some spice to these celebrations. Same is being seen in run up to Uttar Pradesh elections these days.

We have already seen a Samajwadi Party candidate hit himself with shoes in a rally to beg for votes, and another independent candidate declaring that his only motive to fight elections was to fool the people and earn money through dubious means:


Now a local political party called “Bahujan Vijay Party” has declared a donkey as its candidate for the post of the Chief Minister. The donkey, which has been named “Gardabh Singh Yadav”, was taken to file nomination papers as a candidate from Lucknow Cantonment constituency on Monday, but was reportedly stopped by the police from doing so.

Donkey as UP CM
Gardabh Singh Yadav

The “national” president of Bahujan Vijay Party, Keshav Chandra claimed that Gardabh Singh Yadav i.e. the donkey will prove to be a hardworking Chief Minister, who will not fool people or demand any VIP privileges.

He conceded that the donkey was illiterate, but said that no rule prevented illiterates from becoming the Chief Minister of any state.

He further said that the donkey had not paid any money to buy the ticket from the party and it deserved to become the Chief Minister because the donkey’s father wanted so.

Bahujan Vijay Party was formed in October last year by Keshav Chandra and he has got ‘sandals’ (chappal) as party symbol. Keshav had fought elections on a couple of occasions earlier himself but lost his deposits both the times. This time, he decided to make a point by fielding a donkey, which obviously remained a symbolic act.

However, Keshav can be in trouble for this stunt because only a few days back UP Police filed an FIR against a candidate because he came to file his nomination papers riding a donkey. He was booked under sections of the Prevention of Animal Cruelty Act.

Arnab changes his channel’s name from ‘Republic’ to ‘Republic TV’ after Swamy’s intervention

OpIndia Staff
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Arnab changes his channel’s name from ‘Republic’ to ‘Republic TV’ after Swamy’s intervention

Within a week of BJP leader and former Union Minister Subramanian Swamy revealing on Twitter that he had complained about former Editor-in-chief of Times Now Arnab Goswami naming his TV channel “Republic”, it has now been revealed by Swamy that Arnab has decided to change the name of the news and current affairs channel.

In a letter written to the Minister of Information & Broadcasting, Swamy had argued that any commercial venture being called “Republic” was a violation of the Emblems and Names (Prevention of improper use) Act of 1950. We had explained in detail why Swamy had a point.

Interestingly, Swamy had, in a way, suggested the solution too on Twitter on the same day. While responding to a query by a user, he said that Arnab was free to name his channel something like “The Republic” but he can’t call it only “Republic”:



And now, Swamy has shared on Twitter a letter purportedly written by Arnab Gowami to the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, where Arnab is informing the government that he was changing his channel’s name from “Republic” to “Republic TV”:


Arnab changes the name of his news channel
Letter written by Arnab Goswami to the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting

The letter was written two days back and it informs the ministry that trademark application (most probably a fresh application) has been made in the name of “Republic TV” and the application for uplinking and downlinking of the channel was also being made in the same name. A new logo too has been designed for the purpose of re-branding and renaming.

The letter further requests the ministry to treat all correspondence to have been made in the name of “Republic TV” instead of “Republic”.

So it looks like Swamy has won this round. Or maybe Arnab doesn’t want any spanners to be thrown into his plan that would delay the launch of his news and current affairs channels and is playing safe. The channel is expected to be on-air in a couple of months.

The social media handles of “Republic” were not re-named at the time of publishing of this report. Renaming of the handles will confirm that the re-branding exercise has been initiated. This report will be updated if the handles are renamed or any clarification is issued by Arnab Goswami or his company.

Why Ram Guha deserves place in BCCI, and the changes that are already happening

Subhash
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Why Ram Guha deserves place in BCCI, and the changes that are already happening

Since domain expertise is the in-thing these days, Ramachandra Guha has been appointed as one of the folks who will run BCCI.

Sources said that the panel that was looking into the appointment of people to run BCCI was not particularly keen on Guha’s appointment. However, the game-changer was when someone pointed them to Guha’s twitter bio which said “failed cricketer”.

The appointment panel was then convinced Guha was the most eligible man to run cricket in the true Nehruvian tradition of meritocracy and he must have first right on BCCI and its resources.

Given this development, right handers – both bowlers and batsmen in the Indian team and its fringes – are now practising batting and bowling left-handed to save their spots in the team. Someone tipped them off that a culling of the right-handed was coming up.

Ashish Nehra whose surname is one letter away from Nehru’s is said to be the happiest man with this development. “Along with my name being very close to Chacha ji’s, I’m a leftie. Also, on my day, I can win the match for either my team or the opposite team within minutes – this shows my bipartisan credentials. Mr Guha will love this. I’m in this team till eternity,” he was heard saying.

The team’s captain Virat Kohli, not exactly known for his tolerance towards opposing teams was seen rehearsing for an “Intolerance is rising in India” press conference to help him cement his secular credentials and his position as captain of the Indian cricket team.

Sources said, a senior journalist said to be close to Guha, called up Virat Kohli and suggested to him not to order his bowlers to bowl to the fields he sets as captain. Indian democracy and the right to dissent must also percolate into the Indian team, he was told.

The Indian cricket team, while on the field, cannot become an authoritarian fascist regime where the captain calls the shots, but it must be driven by democratic consensus where everybody conducted meetings, conferences and sports literature festivals to arrive at a decision of whether fine-leg should be up and whether we need a second slip, Virat Kohli was told.

R Ashwin who won a spate of Man Of The Series as well as ICC Awards in the last few months is said to be mulling over returning all his awards to the ICC protesting rising intolerance in India as well.

Some cricketers were mulling over an FTII-like agitation against the appointment of Guha and other unrelated people to run BCCI. However, someone pointed out to them that their situation was totally different. Gajendra Chauhan had at least faced the camera for years on the small screen while Guha had not played cricket successfully, by his own admission. Hence, the cricketers had no case while FTII had a very strong case.

“Look. If someone is involved in one field, then you can protest against his appointment somewhere saying he’s no good. But if you’re an expert in no domain at all, it gives you a clean slate to enter any domain without the baggage of expertise. So, there is no use protesting against Guha,” advised a senior cricketer in this potential rebel group and the rebellion crashed even before it took off.

A couple of young cricketers were seen trying to google the meaning and pronunciation of “tryst” since the word out on the field was that only an impassioned rendition of the famous “Tryst with destiny” speech of Nehru – The Almighty and Omniscient, would allow one through the selection barriers to the Indian cricket team.

Meanwhile, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, being the proactive cricketer that he is, apparently called Guha for some advice. “Sir. I’m not sure which batting combination is right. Is it Raina before Yuvraj or Raina after Yuvraj?”

“Mr Dhoni, are you trying to make fun of my iconic book titles? If you behave like a paid troll, I’ll get you fired!” shot back Guha.

While this was largely the situation in India, world over, other cricket teams were now quaking in their boots and telling their respective boards they wouldn’t travel to India any more. An unnamed international cricketer on condition of anonymity said, “First of all, Indian pitches are dust bowls. Now with the arrival Guha into cricket administration, their team’s spin department will become very dangerous. No point going there and losing with our inability to handle their outrageous spin.”

Meanwhile Chetan Chauhan is very happy. He just added “failed fashionista” in his CV to settle the debate once and for all over his appointment as Chairman of NIFT.

Historian Ram Guha included in panel to manage the BCCI, reactions pour in

Hemant Bijapurkar
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Historian Ram Guha included in panel to manage the BCCI, reactions pour in

The Supreme Court today appointed its own panel of 4 administrators that would run the BCCI and also carry out the reforms laid out by the Lodha Panel.

The panel will be led by Ex-CAG Vinod Rai and other members include MD of IDFC Vikram Limaye, former Indian women’s team captain Diana Edulji and pop-historian cum Nehru fan Ramachandra Guha (that’s right).

Apart from Diana Edulji, none of the panelists appear to have a professional background in cricket and Ram Guha is a self proclaimed ‘Failed cricketer’ (as per his Twitter bio). And as expected, people reacted to this development with surprise and wit.

Here are some of the reactions (and predictions):


Plus there would be no toss, opponents would be given first right to choose:


And India’s tour to England would be called as Discovery of England:


Any critics of the team would immediately be blocked from watching cricket:


A state of emergency would be imposed in those cities which would have low stadium attendances:


This very important piece of history would no longer be overlooked


With immediate effect!


Then centuries later this history can be twisted by liberal filmmakers under the garb of artistic freedom:


Maybe Boxing federation would be more apt:


Some also talked about Vinod Rai’s appointment to the panel:


Finally an explanation on why the SC made such appointments:


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