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A rewind to 2016 through a monthly news calendar

Hemant Bijapurkar
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A rewind to 2016 through a monthly news calendar

2017 has arrived and we are looking forward to how the new year will unfold. Right now many of you might be focused on just one or two issues, but a whole new year has the potential of taking you through a roller coaster ride of developments.

Just take a look how 2016 began and ended:

January:

The year started with Kejriwal’s Odd-Even scheme and regardless of all the denting and painting this scheme received from the media, some fundamental flaws of this scheme were exposed; like too many exemptions being provided, the public transport of Delhi not fully equipped to cater to higher demand, private cars not being the main source of pollution, and others, but the fact remains that an effort however flawed or ineffective was made in order to curb pollution.

Just around the same time, communal riots rocked Malda in West Bengal and most of the mainstream media, both due to tyranny of distance and the fact that the Hindu community was the victim, reacted with silence, denial and spin.

The Adarsh Liberal fever came back on Twitter. An anonymous twitter handle had coined the now legendary term ‘Adarsh Liberal’ which perfectly described the hypocrisy and the double standards of the self-declared liberal of India. Unfortunately, the handle remained dormant for the rest of the year. Will it make a comeback in 2017?

Next was the Rohith Vemula controversy where the opposition and the media started playing the caste card. Rohith’s suicide note itself was more an indictment of those Adarsh Liberals who were claiming to speak on his behalf.

February

JNU came into the national attention after some of its loony-leftist students proceeded to chant anti-India slogans and glorify terrorists like Afzal Guru and Yakub Menon. After national outrage and backlash against these students, Adarsh Liberals swung into action and lamented about the lack of free speech and the treatment meted out to ‘innocent’ students, but soon their hypocrisy was called out. This statement might sum up the liberals:

Indian liberals want free speech only for themselves. It’s a monopoly that they hanker for. JNU epitomizes this monopoly

In the aftermath, members of the armed forces who also get their degrees from JNU launched a Degree Wapsi campaign, and yes Kejriwal shared a fake Pakistan Zindabad video in order to target ABVP.

March

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and his world cultural festival found itself on the wrong side of the environmental activists, which culminated in him being at the receiving end of a smear campaign. Also in a case of a media outlet buckling under pressure, Marathi paper Loksatta was forced to apologize for its editorial critical of soon to become Saint Teresa.

April

A situation similart to that of JNU developed in NIT Srinagar after many students of NIT Srinagar celebrated India’s loss in the T-20 cricket world cup semi-final. Later things worsened after anti-India and pro-India students clashed in the college ground. Also the administration appeared like siding with the anti-India students and almost all non-local students were asked to vacate hostels. The issue further escalated after students were assaulted by the police and reportedly given death threats.

Away from J&K, in Delhi, Kejriwal lashed out at Ola and Uber, plus the second phase of the odd even scheme hinted at a scam.

And in the end of the month it looked like Rajdeep Sardesai had finally lost it after he proceeded to send obscene abuses to those who questioned him and his style of journalism.

May

Trupti Desai, who was championing the cause of women not allowed to enter religious institutions and was once hailed as a champion of the equality after she stormed into the inner section of the Shani Shingnapur temple, fell out of favour with the Adarsh Liberals after she declared her intent to enter the Haji Ali.

The month also saw the Right Wing women finally speaking up for themselves because abuses and attack they receive on social media is always ignored by the mainstream media.

And yeah a stand up comedian made his supposedly funny snapchat video about Sachin Tendulkar and Lata Mangeshkar.

June

AAP leader and former colleague of rape accused Tarun Tepal, Ashish Khetan went ballistic after news reports exposed questionable practices of the AAP government. Reportedly what irked him even more was the fact that his unofficial supporters cum journalists Hartosh Singh Bal and Rana Aayub too shared the story.

RBI governor Raghuram Rajan announced his intention of not seeking a second term. Trying to match ‘And they hanged Yakub’ headline by The Indian Express, Times of India referred to Lashkar terrorists as “rebels” on the front page.

July

Twitter started its dangerous trend of suspending handles mostly with right-wing ideologies when parody ‘Junta Ka Reporter’ handle was suspended. Modi Government went for a cabinet reshuffle and Smriti Irani was shifted from the HRD to Textile ministry which resulted in numerous sexist attacks on her by the Media and a section of Social Media.

The same Junta Ka Reporter, whose handle was suspended by twitter, published a satirical post titled ‘UNESCO declares Islam as the most peaceful religion of the world’. People mistook it as real and it went viral. UNESCO itself had to clarify that they hadn’t made any such declaration.

Barkha Dutt who had portrayed Burhan Wani as the son of a poor headmaster lashed out at Arnab after his veiled criticism of her. She later desperately tried to garner support for her cause, but it wasn’t very forthcoming.

August

The parliament passed the historic GST bill which, if things go right, would redefine Indian taxation from 1st April ’17. What is it, why is it so important, here’s a compilation of everything that you need to know about the GST.

America was gearing up for polls and in the Indian context it looked like a fight between Kejriwal and Sonia Gandhi.

Olympics concluded and gave out mixed feelings but we could have won a lot more medals had we allowed our journalists to compete. Plus on a even lighter note, here are some gemstones of The Ashutosh from the time when he was still a journalist.

September

September was really dominated by the AAP. It looked like the lucky streak AAP had enjoyed since its inception was coming to an end. With the party imploding thanks to sting operation of their Punjab Chief, sex-scandals, charges of exploitation of women, disgruntled party-men quitting the party, things certainly looked uncertain. If this wasn’t enough, the flaws in Kejriwal’s governance were out in the open after the deadly Chickenguniya outbreak in the capital. To be fair Kejriwal’s government wasn’t only at fault and other agencies mostly under the LG too failed to establish a synergy between the Delhi government in working for the people.

Apart from this controversy erupted over Reliance using PM’s photo in its advertisement, the NHRC probe concluded the mass exodus of Hindu’s from UP’s Kairana was a reality (though Adarsh Liberals still deny it) and NDTV grbbed headlines after it petitioned the NGT to put a stop to the Sagarmala project. We grabbed headlines after we ensured NDTV dismissed its petition.

And India carried out the famous Surgical strike in Pakistani territory wherein it obliterated terror bases near the LOC thereby completely rattling the Pakistani establishment. A lot was talked about Modi and Doval’s doctrine of offensive defense.

October

As the discourse over surgical strike still raged, Kejriwal surprised everyone by almost mimicking Pakistan’s stand on the issue by asking for proof of the surgical strikes. This resulted in him becoming really popular across the border with #PakStandsWithKejriwal becoming a top trend.

At the same time the debate over Uniform Civil Code too was raging with one side vying for equality and the other giving out the ‘reforms must come from within argument‘.

With the sentiments against Pakistan not lowering, many started objecting against having Pakistani actors in Bollywood flicks. It resulted in ADHM’s release getting into trouble as it contained a Pakistani actor.

Amidst all, Cyrus Mistry was unceremoniously ousted from the Tata Group chairmanship  and their battle continues till date. Najeeb Ahmed controversy and encounter of SIMI terrorists getting killed in an encounter were other highlights.

November pre-demonetization:

Outrage gripped twitter after many handles who lightly mocked AAP were getting suspended from Twitter. Arnab announced his descision to quit Times Now. Silence gripped the whole nation and we speculated as to what he might do next. And we were proven right after out of the 5 speculations we made, the one about him coming out with the new channel became true. Though we also had put out all possibilities except that of him moving to the Himalayas and creating avalanches due to his booming voices. NDTV India managed to get a token one day ban supposedly for giving out security locations while reporting on the Pathankot attack. While all were speculating, we managed to find the exact reason why this ban was imposed.

November post-demonetization:

Modi did a ‘surgical strike’ on higher denominations by holding them void from midnight of November 9th. People started queuing up in banks to either exchange or deposit the now defunct notes. Opposition members caught a whiff and started their politics. Rahul Gandhi visited a bank, Kejriwal vehemently opposed the move. Those opposed to the move stooped down to rumor mongering on multiple occasions. Some people started politicizing over some unfortunate deaths.

Kejriwal looked like spearheading the attack against demonetization by first heckling a BBC journalist and then spreading an image of a dead robber as a man killed due to demonetization.

In other news Sardesai interviewed ‘Tigress’ Sonia, our columnist spread awareness about how to go cashless and Supreme Court made national anthem compulsory in cinema halls.

December

A hackers’ group calling itself Legion announced its arrival. It hacked Rahul Gandhi and Congress’ twitter handle, website and claimed that they would leak incriminating e-mails of the party. It then hacked Vijay Mallya’s account and released his property details. And in what made him popular with a section of twitter, the group then hacked NDTV journalists Barkha’s and Ravish’s account and proceeded to leak some mails.

The new army chief was named disregarding the norm of seniority and people dragged in his religion, Kiren Rijiju was accused of a scam and Congress leaders came to his defence. Saif and Kareena named their kid after a bloodthirsty 13th century barbarian and people had varied takes on the matter.

Mamata Banerjee started her theatrics after starting to imagine conspiracies being hatched by the government to kill her. But she dept denying riots in Dhulagarh.

 

And the year ended with an address to the nation by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, though there were no surgical strikes this time!

The common threads to PM Modi’s New Year goodies

Gaurav
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The common threads to PM Modi’s New Year goodies

In Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s keenly anticipated address to the nation on New Year’s Eve, perhaps the biggest surprise to viewers was this: There was no “Mitron”. Jokes apart, this time there were no big surprises, no major shocks and perhaps for good reason, since people are by and large afraid of drastic changes one after the other.

We also did not get any statistics, any data, any figures about the impact of demonetisation. Perhaps those who expected such content from the Prime Minister are to be blamed, since Modi knows his audience well. His audience is entire Bharat, and not just India, and he knows they care two hoots about astronomical figures. India, may have to wait for the RBI or the Finance Ministry to satiate their demand. Bharat, has already got its due.

Some of the sops granted by Modi are as follows:

– Home loans for poor and middle class people in urban areas upto Rs 9 lakh will get 4 per cent rebate on interest and upto Rs 12 lakh will get 3 per cent rebate.

– The number of houses being built for the poor, under the Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana in rural areas, is being increased by 33 per cent. Loans of up to 2 lakh rupees taken in 2017, for new housing, or extension of housing in rural areas, will receive an interest rebate of 3 per cent.

– Banks have been asked to raise cash credit limit to small business to 25 per cent from 20 per cent.

– Credit guarantee for small traders to be raised to Rs 2 crore from existing limit of Rs 1 crore.

– All pregnant women will get Rs 6,000 in their bank accounts in an attempt to reduce child and woman mortality.

– Government to pay interest for 60 days on loans taken by farmers for Rabi season from district cooperative banks and societies.

– Higher interests for deposits made by senior citizens

– In the next 3 months, 3 crore Kisan credit cards will be converted to RuPay cards which will enable them to buy/sell directly through the card and there will be no need to rush to banks.

While some of the above measures are brand new, some like the scheme for pregnant women, is merely implementation of a promise given during the UPA era, showing us that India is at such a stage, where even just implementing old dormant decisions can impact many people.

As far as the common themes are concerned, firstly, Modi has identified his targets with surgical precision: the poor and lower middle class across urban and rural India, farmers, medium and small-scale traders, senior citizens and women. The section which he has deliberately ignored is the relatively lower in number, but more vocal salaried class. The reason for this selection could be the fact that demonetisation would have inconvenienced the first lot much more than the educated, tech-savvy, well-off salaried class. Naturally, Modi chose to rub a balm of relief on the most affected class.

Secondly, one cannot ignore the fact that the largest election in the country (after the general elections): The Uttar Pradesh election, is just a few months away. The target group would probably cover up more than 95% of the residents of Uttar Pradesh so this goodies-bag has to be seen as the bugle for the election campaign.

Thirdly, most of the sops like the multiple interest subventions, the raise in cash credit limits and the credit guarantee schemes are all loan related i.e. to avail the benefits, you have to opt for a loan. This is crucial because demonetisation has made banks flush with funds. Banks have to pay interest to the depositors, and if they do not loan out these funds, then banks will not earn any money. Thus, all the measures related to loans serve a dual purpose: Not only does the borrower get relief, the lending banks are also helped in mobilising idle funds. This movement of funds can generate significant economic growth in rural India.

Fourth, although these are sops, these are very different from the UPA era sops. Modi’s sops are targetted to the small income group: There is a cap on the housing loan taken and the deposits made by senior citizens, ensuring that only the truly deserving get the most benefit. Also, unlike earlier farm loan waivers, these are only interest rebates, which means you still have to take a loan and repay it, thus these sops are only for the doers and not for the slackers. There is a certain action demanded on your part to enjoy the benefits, and it is not a dole for doing nothing.

Understandably, these schemes have caused severe heartburn in the hearts of life-long Modi haters. Rajdeep Sardesai and Sagarika Ghose displayed their sheer insensitivity at the high Infant Mortality Rates and Maternity Mortality Rates in rural India.

Modi’s Gujarat Model was often targeted by these very people for being low on the human development indices, but when he tries to address this issue nation wide, the measures are ridiculed with an elitist, classist, mindset unseen in the vilest of trolls. Rajdeep later deleted his tweet.

With this slew of announcements, Modi may have deflated the expectations from the upcoming Union Budget, but while people have got the sops, they will be awaiting the big crackdown on crooks. It has already begun, but people will want more. More penal measures, more surgical strikes on black money hoarders are expected. Also one would expect that soon the Government will clean up the mess that is funding of political parties. Perhaps such measures were omitted from the speech because the address was primarily to soothe the nerves of those affected by demonetisation. For the punitive measures, we may have to wait a bit longer.

Editor’s Pick: The six articles of 2016 you must read

Editorial Desk
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Editor’s Pick: The six articles of 2016 you must read

We brought to you the most read articles on OpIndia.com for 2016, now we bring to you the must-reads of 2016 (well, we chose a random number 6 and tried to fit only as much, because otherwise we would have got such a long list, thanks to so many wonderful articles we received from our contributors):

It was early 2016, just after the JNU sloganeering incident, and Barkha Dutt promptly wrote a piece defending the sloganeers at JNU. But this was 2016, and we had social media on our side. And @UnSubtleDesi gave a fitting reply to Barkha Dutt’s letter. Dutt’s whitewash effort was torn down argument by argument.

Read: Open Letter to Barkha Dutt from a Social Media Sanghi communal troll

And perhaps, it was this unfettered power of social media, which had the people in the Ivory towers trembling. From there, began what seemed to be, a campaign to label every opposing voice as a “troll”, and thus an attempt was being made to silence the voices on social media. @shwetankbhushan showed us how NDTV’s Prannoy Roy, asking for “control” over “disgusting toxic trolls” was nothing but a smokescreen to establish control over social media. This narrative further played out later, when Maneka Gandhi foolhardily tried to police social media, and more recently, when a lying journalist once again tried to malign social media voices. A prescient piece by Shwetank Bhushan indeed.

Read: Bogey against Social Media “trolling”, a conspiracy against Free Speech in virtual world?

But this narrative against trolls failed because, like most campaigns led by the media, this was thoroughly partisan. An effort was made to portray as if all trolls emanated from the right wing political spectrum. To counter this, @ShefVaidya highlighted how she, her family and her kids were subjected to the vilest of “trolling” and abuses on social media. No Prannoy Roy wept for her though.

Read: Slander and abuse that right-wing women face on social media, which MSM ignores

Speaking of trolls, it was also the year when troll-in-chief Arvind Kejriwal’s so-called governance plan was exposed. It was up to @shwetankbhushan again to showcase Delhi’s plight to the country. Delhi was not getting even the basics right: Power was not as cheap as advertised, nor was it regular in supply, water woes continued, drainage had gone to the dogs leading to an epidemic. Delhiites may forgive Kejriwal for all his rants and antics, but will they forgive him for his misgovernance?

Read: His Honesty Kejriwal flying around while Delhi crying for Basics!

When we speak of forgiveness, we must speak about 2016 as the year when NDTV, one of the most left-leaning English media channels, was forced to apologise. Not forced by the Government or any judicial body, but by an ordinary Indian, the ubiquitous “troll”, as Prannoy Roy would call him. Read how an ordinary Indian used the tools at hand, to make sure NDTV apologises for its error. This indeed would serve as an inspiration many of us.

Read: How a social media user has forced NDTV into apologising for their “error”

From apologies, we move to apologists, and stand-up comedian @Nitin_Rivaldo, who in his searing piece titled “The apologists of Islamic terrorism, and their flawed arguments” destroyed all arguments of these apologists. The article was shared massively on the social media, and it deserves to be read and shared once again.

Read: The apologists of Islamic terrorism, and their flawed arguments

Top lies spread by the mainstream media in the year 2016

OpIndia Staff
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Top lies spread by the mainstream media in the year 2016

Year 2016 has been like every other year for Indian media. Imaginary reports, blatant lies, gross malicious misreporting have been the hallmark of the year, yet again. We bring to you, the Top 10 media lies of 2016:

1. Deaths due to Demonetisation

A major lie which was propagated by the media regarding demonetisation was the “deaths due to demonetisation” narrative. Last year we had the “Churches under attack” narrative and this year this.

In this piece, economist and columnist Rupa Subramanya took apart this propaganda, by sifting through the evidence. Subramanya showed us that, in most of the cases, someone died, shortly after demonetisation but there was no credible causal link between the two events. Also many of these stories had only a single source suggesting perhaps the version of the stories presented didn’t seem entirely credible even to other news organisations. In some cases even the family members of the deceased refused to blame demonetisation. Propaganda at its very best.

2. The JNU videos: Kanhaiya shouted seditious slogans and Pakistan Zindabad slogans were chanted at JNU

Arguably one of the biggest controversies of the year, was seen on the campus of JNU. First, we had News X and India News airing a doctored video of Kanhaiya Kumar, claiming it to be seditious. What Kanhaiya actually said was “Azadi” from social evils such as casteism etc. But the above 2 media houses showed this video by cutting the social evils part and showing Kanhaiya shouting only Azadi. Times Now too, in a way, did telecast the video, when Arnab egged Sambit Patra to show the video from his tablet, during a newshour debate.

The second lie was that some students at JNU were shouting slogans of Pakistan Zindabad at JNU. This video was later used by the likes of Kejriwal to claim ABVP was behind such slogans. What was actually a group of students, presumably from ABVP, shouting “Bhartiya Court Zindabad”, was shown by Zee News as if they were saying “Pakistan Zindabad”.

The police report abut JNU did not mention “Pakistan Zindabad” as a slogan but had many other slogans such as “Bharat ki barbaadi”, “Bharat tere Tukde honge” etc. The Delhi District Magistrate, in his report, also stated that the slogan can neither be “clearly heard” in the video, “nor in the transcripts of the JNU videos shot by the security staff”. This he says, showed that even the cops had doubts about this slogan. Even the ABVP students we spoke to confirmed that the slogans were “Bharatiya Court Zindabad” i.e. long live Indian Courts as a counter to the claims of “judicial killing” of Afzal Guru.

Some media houses then went on to suggest that ABVP shouted “Pakistan Zindabad” slogans, which was as big a lie as saying other JNU students shouted that slogan. Arvind Kejriwal was among the persons who spread this lie later picked up by media.

3. Murthal gang-rapes during Jat agitation

In February this year, Haryana saw violent protests by the Jat community, who were demanding reservations. Apart from arson and loot , there were claims that the protesters had raped some women who were travelling in private vehicles at Murthal in Haryana on the Delhi-Ambala national highway on the night of 22nd February.

A media report published in The Tribune, quoted the owner of a dhaba saying that a victim had come to his dhaba in naked condition. However, when ABP News asked him about the same, he denied being a witness to any such incident. Another eyewitness, a truck driver, also claimed that he had seen nothing and was in fact asked by the media persons to claim otherwise.

A more explosive report, filed by a reporter named Tarique Anwar, was published by Firstpost.com, which claimed to have an account of a rape victim. It quoted the victim, her husband, her mother, and even police officers. It was only in December, that it was proved that this entire report was fabricated. Firstpost had taken down the post with an apology and the reporter had been fired. The Punjab and Haryana High Court was suggested by its Amicus Curiae to prosecute the journalist and reports claimed he had admitted to his crime of fabricating evidence in the court.

4. BJP MLA breaks Uttarakhand horse’s leg

In March this year, all of India media was united in saying BJP MLA Ganesh Joshi was “caught on camera”,  “mercilessly” beating a horse and breaking the horse’s leg in a “beastly attack. The video based on which all media reports were framed showed the BJP MLA swinging a lathi in front of the horse. The sound suggested that the lathi was hitting the ground, and not the horse, which could have been done to scare away the horse. The stick was being wielded in-front of the horse while the horse’s hind leg was injured. How?

From the video footage one could clearly see that one of the protesters pulled something off a policeman riding the horse and in the commotion, the horse which was back-tracking tripped over what seems to be a step, fell, and hit a protruding metal rod. The horse’s leg was never hit by anyone but it got hurt when it hit the metal rod. Much after the initial outrage, some media houses began slyly admitting that the horse’s legs buckled and got stuck in a railing, which caused the injury, and not the BJP MLA’s stick.

5. Gau Rakshaks target Mumbai man Barun Kashyap for carrying leather bag

Barun Kashyap, made headlines this year when he claimed that he was abused and threatened by some gau-rakshaks (cow protectors) after they mistook his bag as made of cow leather. He wrote about his experience in a Facebook post, which was made popular on social media by self-declared liberal activists and some Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leaders who vouched for the 24-year-old executive being the “gentlest, most soft spoken kid”. His version of the story was reported by the mainstream media as gospel truth, and there was the usual commentary about how there was “rising intolerance” in India and how “right wing” elements were making India a “Hindu Taliban”.

However, on social media, people challenged Barun’s narrative and asked him to provide details and pictures to prove his claims. But instead of providing those details, Barun deleted the Facebook post itself. Almost 2 months later, after police investigated the case, it turned out that the culprits were not some gau-rakshaks but Barun Kashyap himself, who allegedly made up this entire story to create some news and gain some popularity. Police informed that the CCTV footage of the area and Barun’s mobile locations didn’t match the story claimed by the “creative” director. Even the vehicle registration number provided by Barun and the sketch of the auto-driver didn’t match any real auto or person after talking to about 180 auto drivers in that region. It was also noticed that Kashyap’s statements had significantly changed from his original claims.

6. Defence Minister Parrikar said “our” teams were working on the Boycott Snapdeal movement

This lie never dies, as we showed just last week how NDTV’s anchor Nidhi Razdan repeated this lie on her show. The entire issue is based on translating Manohar Parrikar’s speech, made in Marathi, at a defence event. Some in the media reported the translation as Parrikar saying that “our” team was working on the Boycott Snapdeal movement, after Aamir Khan’s controversial remark.

This one innocuous word “our” was then taken to construe that the BJP and the Government had its own team to boycott Snapdeal. We had analysed the video and put out a full translation, which revealed that at no stage did Parrikar use the word “our” for the team. He only claimed that he was aware of such a team working on it. The change in one word helped many liars to turn the narrative around.

7. Dalit boys thrashed by upper caste in Bassi, Chittorgarh

It all started with this Times of India story, titled: “3 Dalit teens stripped, beaten for stealing bike in Chittor”. According to the report, the boys stole a bike of an Upper caste man, and later a mob thrashed them. Nowhere did it cast any aspersions as to the constituents of the mob, but, a Times of India journalist, tweeted that the boys were “stripped & thrashed by upper caste”. This tweet was the used by many, including Barkha Dutt, who had earlier been caught spreading hysteria during the Christians under attack routine. Zee News also made a report on this, followed by AAP leaning blog, Janata Ka Reporter.

But even as this narrative was being peddled, other reporters and media houses reported that the arrested suspects belong to Meena (ST) and Dhakad (OBC) communities. The police also said that the robbers belonged to the nomadic tribe Kanjar & that they had been involved in criminal activities in the past and were charge-sheeted in two cases of theft. The police also said it was not a “caste crime”, since most of the 13 accused belong to either SC or ST categories.

8. New 2000 rupees note has a nano chip

Demonetisation saw a record number of rumours fly in media and social media, claiming all sorts of things. One of the biggest rumour was in fact spread by the media itself, including channels like Zee News and Aaj Tak. Both these channels claimed that the new Rs 2000 notes were fitted with some sort of nano GPS chips which made it easy for satellites to locate them. Of course, there is no chip.

9. Leonardo Di Caprio to attend RSS event to support beef ban

This has to be the most imaginative media lie of the year. Abusive “journalist” Swati Chaturvedi penned this masterpiece of fiction this year when she claimed that she had “exclusive” information that RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat was to host a grand event in London, with guests such as Leonardo Di Caprio, Sir David Attenborough and Richard Branson, while trying to push the message of a beef ban. She further went on to claim that she was told that “DiCaprio and Branson’s messages have already been received and are on song”.

Of course RSS denied this report from the very beginning categorically stating that “No Bollywood or Hollywood stars have been invited for the Mahashibir”. The event went on as scheduled and many media houses covered it. But not a single reported the presence of any of the above celebrities. There was no mention even of the messages received in advance, as claimed by Chaturvedi. Neither did the Chaturvedi blow her own trumpet claiming that her “exclusive” was eventually found to be true. Either the stars were wearing invisibility cloaks, or the original “exclusive” was completely baseless. Quite clearly, the report sprung from a fertile imagination.

10. Despite Gadkari’s Tall Claims, Road Construction Is Way Behind Target

This is a classic case of how to twists facts to suit a narrative. Bloomberg Quint, which claims to be a business magazine, made elementary “mistakes” in this piece. In this post, the journalists sourced their “data” from the NHAI page and included ONLY NHAI built roads in their article. The reality is that the Ministry headed by Mr Gadkari has 3 core divisions under it:

  • The NHAI
  • The National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation (NHIDCL)
  • The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MORTH).

All three combined fund and build highways in India. But the article took data from only one source and thus “proved” that the actual road construction speed was merely 15-16% of the target, when in fact, the performance on this aspect could very well be the best we have seen since independence. A detailed report explained this here.

BONUS:

Another major lie parroted this year was that the new Rafale deal was a big loss for India. These arguments was based on some half-cooked data, and weird analogies. We took them apart here.

For a complete list, visit this link.

Now Muslim fundamentalists attack Mohammad Kaif for doing Surya Namaskar

OpIndia Staff
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Now Muslim fundamentalists attack Mohammad Kaif for doing Surya Namaskar

Barely a week after cricketer Mohammad Shami was attacked by Muslim fundamentalists for sharing picture of his wife in sleeveless dress on Facebook, another cricketer Mohammad Kaif is now facing criticism for sharing a picture of him doing Surya Namaskar – a yoga pose – on Twitter.


Surya Namaskar has been attacked by Muslim fundamentalists earlier too, who consider it a form of idol worship, even though yoga gurus term it a physical exercise. The All India Muslim Personal Law Board, which is fighting to retain the triple talaq practice, had termed the yogic pose against Islam.

And this is why when Mohammad Kaif shared a picture of him doing this yogic aasan as a fitness lesson, he received some unsolicited advice from the fundamentalists:


Earlier, Kaif had supported Shami and spoken up against such fundamentalist thinking. This time too, he hinted that he didn’t care about such comments:


UPDATE: Appears that Kaif thought to play it safe before bodies like AIMPLB or some Maulana issues a fatwa, so he clarified that he had “Allah” at his heart while doing Surya Namaskar:


West Bengal school comes under attack for not celebrating the Prophet’s birthday

OpIndia Staff
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West Bengal school comes under attack for not celebrating the Prophet’s birthday

As Dhulagarh burnt on 13th December, there was another incident at Tehata – an area not far away from Dhulagarh – that failed to make news just like most of the communal skirmishes in West Bengal this year.

On 16th December, the Teacher-in-charge of Tehatta High School in Howrah district of West Bengal wrote a letter to the Uluberia police station apprising them of a tense situation building up. The letter revealed that some students of 9th and 10th standard of the school aided by outsiders, who were influenced by some local Islamic fundamentalists, had entered the school campus and forcibly celebrated Nabi Diwas (Birthday of Prophet Mohammed) on 13th December without taking permission from the school authorities.

Teacher-in-charge’s letter to the police

According to reports, those who entered the school premises forcibly, roughed up students and teachers, and also hoisted green Islamic flags atop the building. This forcible outside intervention in the functioning of the school led to school staff feeling insecure and communal tensions in the locality, thereby resulting in the school needing to be kept shut. This hampered the form fill-up of 10th standard students, who have to appear for board exams.

This report by Eenadu dated 20th December sheds more light on the incident. The report suggests that after staying closed for 7 days, the school was allowed to reopen only after the assurance that Nabi Diwas would be celebrated. A meeting took place between the administration, school authorities and representatives of Islamic groups. They agreed to a 15-min celebration of the religious event and removal of religious flags hoisted on the school building.

It appears that the protesters had argued that birthday of Prophet Mohammad should be celebrated on school premises because Saraswati Puja is celebrated. However, the school teachers explained that Saraswati Puja was celebrated because of age old tradition where goddess of learning has been worshiped in educational institutes. It was more of a cultural celebration than religious.

It should be noted that no other Hindu festival, not even Durga Puja that is celebrated widely in the state, are celebrated in government schools. However, the protesters were not convinced and they demanded that Nabi Diwas must be celebrated on the school premises. Rallies demanding the same were held in the area, declaring the teacher-in-charge of the school a “coward who ran to the police”:

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

The gravity of the situation can be realized after listening to the speech in the above video, reportedly from the same area. The leader is seen whipping up communal sentiments after claiming that no police force can stop them. In fact, he boasts that the OC of the police station called him up and asked him to forgive the teachers.

Not just that, the leader claims that even if Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee came there, they will not relent in their demands as they are united for their prophet and for Allah. He further gives a veiled threat to the teacher-in-charge that he may escape the net (by going to the police) but will not escape the pond (he has to live among these people only).

And it appears that the leader addressing the crowd in the video was right; their demands were met as per the Eenadu report above, and Nabi Diwas was agreed upon to be celebrated on the campus.

Now this could open up a Pandora’s Box with Islamic groups all over the state, especially in the areas with considerable Muslim population, demanding such religious celebrations on government school campuses. Not just that, other religious groups may also demand similar provisions to celebrate their festivals on school premises. Or will it lead to Saraswati Puja being banned from government schools to preserve communal harmony?

Mulayam-Akhilesh fight a fully fixed affair, claims leaked email – A Timeline

Hemant Bijapurkar
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Mulayam-Akhilesh fight a fully fixed affair, claims leaked email – A Timeline

Just last evening the desi Game of Thrones in the Samajwadi Party’s Yadav family looked like it was culminating with father Mulayam expelling his eldest son and UP CM Akhilesh from the party for the period of 6 years. He also sent his cousin Ram Gopal Yadav who was in the Akhilesh camp, packing.

Just when one thought that Mulayam was King of the World after defeating his foes, TV Today’s Rahul Kanwal stepped in with a leaked email. It was also tweeted three days earlier by another account:

The alleged email dated 24th July was sent by SP’s political consultant Steve Jarding, who wrote to his alleged friend Adwait Singh, a former student at Harvard stating that and we quote (emphasis ours):

“On the media push front, my two cents are to advice Yadav Sr to orchestrate family feud scenario. Implicate the uncle consolidate Yadav Jr’s clean image and project as future head of the party.”

The rest of the alleged mail talks about Jarding’s other agendas. Jarding has previously worked for Hillary Clinton, Al Gore and Spanish PM Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy.

The timeline of the event also fits if this indeed is the real email correspondence between SP’s political adviser and his friend. Even though Jarding’s appointment as political adviser was officially confirmed on 18th September, as stated by him in an interview he gave, the meeting between Akhilesh and him was first set up in June. So if he and Akhilesh first met in June, the family feud drama might have been one of his initial ideas as evident by this alleged email dated 24th June.

Also the whole feud began when somewhere in August when Shivpal Yadav threatened to resign alleging rampant corruption in the Uttar Pradesh government. This rift further deepened when Akhilesh removed Principle secretary Deepak Singhal in September.

If we are to believe this email that the plot was hatched somehwere in June or July, the family could have got a good one or two months to plan their moves. Also the advice to implicate Uncle too rings true as just Mulayam stated Ram Gopal Yadav was ruining Akhilesh’s future


Interestingly in the same interview Jarding was asked about the family feud.

How will you handle the feud in the Samajwadi Party family?

My experience is that most people know family matters are just that, “family matters”, and that they are normally worked out within family members who at the end of the day love each other regardless of differences… Families normally work through their differences and move on and that is as it should be and that is what I believe will happen here

We had also speculated that all this could be a fixed match in our report on UP elections. Karan Johar’s Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham’s grand family reunion ending might just get topped by the Yadav clan this new year!

Adwait Singh, who is mentioned in the email and is Jarding’s colleague and deputy director of the company, Steve and Partners, though has denied ever having such an e-mail exchange. “The email is a fake released with the intention of making trouble in a party when it is already caught up in an internal family feud. First, Steve only began working with CM Akhilesh Yadav from August this year, while this email appears to have been written on July 24.”

Rahul Kanwal too, who had tweeted the email out, now says Steve Jarding has denied the email:


Is this the truth, or is this damage control? One may never know.

Here are the top 10 most read articles on OpIndia in the year 2016

OpIndia Staff
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Here are the top 10 most read articles on OpIndia in the year 2016

Our website is barely two years old and we are still a small team, albeit hopeful of growth in the new year as we are now part of the Swarajya media group. We hope to continue receiving support from you as will keep our focus on mainstream media bias.

On an average, we published just around 10-12 articles per week in these two years, while other media houses publish thousands of articles, and yet we could create an impact thanks to your support.

These are the top 10 articles that you helped go viral and made them the most read this year. You can click on the preview images or the link below the images to read the respective articles:

1. 10 rumours related to demonetisation that you might have believed as true

Demonetisation was the buzzword of 2016, undoubtedly. It surely helped a lot of media organisations push up their TRPs as people needed to know what happens to their cash. But they also needed to know what not to believe, and for that OpIndia.com was there. Our top post was about top rumours related to demonetisation:

10 rumours related to demonetisation that you might have believed as true
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2. Why Indian media is against Arnab but India isn’t

The other newsmaker of 2016 was Arnab Goswami, who first went ballistic over ‘bharat tere tukde honge’ gang and then left his channel to announce his own venture. While the establishment media may hate Arnab, most people loved him. And that reflected in the traffic to our website too, with the following post – explaining why the common man was with Arnab – being the second most read article of the year:

Why Indian media is against Arnab but India isn't
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3. An open letter to Rajdeep “IAmAntiNational” Sardesai

While Arnab was singing the nationalist tune, his detractors declared themselves “Anti-National”. The one doing it proudly was Rajdeep Sardesai. His rants were responded by filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri, and that was our third most popular article of the year:

An open letter to Rajdeep "IAmAntiNational" Sardesai
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4. Exclusive: The exact reason why I&B Ministry recommended a token ban on NDTV India

This year also saw Pakistan backed terrorists launching attacks on our army camps. Media yet again faltered in their reporting of live terror situation. NDTV India was awarded a one day token ban, but the government of India could not show spine to stand by their own decision. Our exclusive article explaining why this one day ban was awarded to NDTV India got into the top 10 list:

Exclusive: The exact reason why I&B Ministry recommended a token ban on NDTV India
Click here to open in a new tab

5. THIS is why so many money launderers are getting caught. And it will only get worse

Demonetisation again. Apart from long queues outside banks and ATMs, what made news was daily raids and recoveries of suspected ill-gotten money by police and tax authorities. Surely not ‘achchhe din’ for money hoarders and launderers. Our article explaining why these guys were getting caught went viral:

THIS is why so many money launderers are getting caught. And it will only get worse
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6. Shocking: Rajdeep Sardesai loses cool, abuses Twitter users via Direct Message

Rajdeep Sardesai again. The angry young man (angry due to Madison Square scuffle he got into, and young due to standards set by our politicians) of Indian journalism got angry again and sent abusive Direct Messages to Twitter users. He later claimed his account was hacked, but didn’t appear to file any police complaint about this alleged cyber crime:

Shocking: Rajdeep Sardesai loses cool, abuses Twitter users via Direct Message
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7. Meet the journalism student who almost lost his career for shouting anti-Barkha Dutt slogans

If Rajdeep is there twice, how can Barkha be behind? The angry young woman (refer to her countless threats about suing people on the social media) had once got angry with one journalism student who shouted slogans against her in public. We carried interview of that student, which was among our top read articles:

Meet the journalism student who almost lost his career for shouting anti-Barkha Dutt slogans
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8. Barkha Dutt, you are not a terror sympathiser

And Barkha Dutt again. 2016 also saw Barkha openly attacking Arnab and lobbying for support in her tirade against Arnab, whom she accused of trying to gag media. She further claimed that Arnab had painted all other journalists as anti-national and “terror sympathiser”. Stand-up comedian Nitin Gupta explained to Barkha, in his style, why she was not a terror sympathiser. And it went viral:

Barkha Dutt, you are not a terror sympathiser
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9. How the ‘intellectual mafia’ works every time there is terrorist attack

Terror attacks and media coverage was another much talked about issue this year. An article contributed by one of our readers, Prashant Jha, who observed how the Indian media and “intelligentsia” changes tune with passage of time after any terror attack was widely read. It was a perfect observation and analysis for channels like NDTV and their ecosystem, how they go from caring for the nation to attacking those who are singing nationalist tunes:

How the 'intellectual mafia' works every time there is terrorist attack
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10. This guy has been replying to Rajdeep Sardesai’s tweets in style, and they’re hilarious

We get most of our traffic from the social media, and thus we keep a close eye on these platforms too. And we spotted a Twitter user “The Lying Lama” who was just killing it with his replies to some celebrity journalists. A collection of some of his best replies to Rajdeep Sardesai was one of the most read and shared articles this year:

This guy has been replying to Rajdeep Sardesai's tweets in style, and they're hilarious
Click here to open in a new tab

And with that, wishing you all a happy and prosperous and media-lies-free (sorry for the joke) 2017!

Why the Media will never cover this sob story about demonetisation

Mahesh Jagga
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Why the Media will never cover this sob story about demonetisation

“More you sweat in peace, less you bleed in war” is an old saying and I had planned well.

As the 50-day deadline of the Demonetisation exercise neared, the cash crunch should have ended by now and everything should have been in place. This was the time when media would be hunting for the story, any story, on how people were still suffering and things were as bad as three weeks back. And I wanted to be the story. Accordingly, I planned my trip.

I had chosen a time when tourist crowds would be huge, creating a seller’s market for hoteliers; Christmas weekend was ideal time. I had chosen a place which was in backyard of nowhere as far as communication facilities are concerned; Lavasa was ideal. I had not booked a hotel and confirmed before hand that most hotels were booked to capacity. And I had planned to reach there only later in the afternoon to reduce any chances of getting too many options.

The planning was meticulous; the execution had to be perfect.

We reached Lavasa around 4 PM and took the first trail leading to a hotel. The hotel had a board clearly stating that the credit / debit cards were not accepted there.

Luck is nothing but a designed consequence of perfect planning!

As the counter guy searched for the key to the room number 1, I stole a glance to the dashboard on his desk.  The numbers from 2 to 9 were struck out, only number 1 was staring happily at me. This was the last room available.

Everything was working out! To the last detail!

We saw the room, liked it, accepted the tariff and told the manager about our cash crunch. The tariff was 4000 and total cash available in my pocket was 3000. After listening to an unsolicited advice about keeping sufficient cash, always, we paid an advance of 2000 and acknowledged the unstated threat of the manager that if we could not arrange the balance in cash by evening, we would need to vacate the room.

Perfect! Now only one last piece had to fall in place. The ATMs should not have cash.

As we sauntered to the waterfront, we found the first ATM shutter down. I was almost jumping with the joy of one whose dreams are close to coming true. As we walked towards the second ATM, I began visualizing the fame and celebrity status, the invites and interviews, the memberships and grants and everything else that would come my way, once the last piece fitted into place.

The subsequent turn of events was kind of automated, like a self-fulfilling prophesy coming true. Once the second ATM was found to be cashless, the hotel would evict us, and events would follow the script.

Once evicted, we would go to the riverfront, take a picture of four of us along with our suitcases, looking miserable, dishevelled and famished, shivering due to cold, sobbing & crying alternately but trying to comfort each other.  I had carried a DSLR for this purpose; quality is important, you know.

It would begin with a tweet, “My cashless family forced to spend night on the footpath of Lavasa, starving, freezing in a winter night. #Demonetization is a success PM Modi?”  It would be instantly retweeted by a couple of Chief Ministers, their followers, paid or unpaid, their supporters in media, both paid and unpaid.

By morning, media would have the story, running it as ‘Breaking News’, showing our picture and talking to us over phone, asking us about how we spent the night, how are we feeling now and our view on the disastrous economic policies of the government.

By afternoon, one Chief Minister would demand Prime Minister’s resignation, another CM would compare our current position with Nazi concentration camps. By evening, the quiz master turned politician would arrive in Lavasa to do a dharna in our support. Another CM would declare us as #Demonetization martyrs and announce a compensation of two lakhs.

By evening I would be a celebrity. And the real fun would begin then.

I would get a short cut to the cosy club of intellectuals, I would be invited to lecture in JNU, feted at Literature festivals, a book contract would be within reach.

One of the clicks from our Lavasa holiday

As I was contemplating the title and contents of the book I would write (or copy), striding purposefully towards the ATM, I was distracted by a conversation between my son and a younger kid at the games corner. “I would buy two tickets you want using my mobile wallet and you pay me the amount of Rs. 300 in cash. We have run out of cash and need it.”  The kid agreed instantaneously and my son walked towards us proudly flaunting the three 100 rupee notes.

I was aghast! This wasn’t supposed to happen! People were supposed to fight each other in this situation, become enemies of those with cash, mock those without it but not help each other!

I was about to blame this incident on the innocence of the kid as my daughter walked up to a take away food-joint & told the person at cash register that she wanted to buy snacks worth Rs. 500 if he could swipe her debit card for Rs. 1500 and give her Rs. 1000 as cash. The counter boy agreed quickly and few seconds later, she walked back to us with one note of 500 (new) and five notes of Rs. 100!

My well laid plan was being blown to smithereens by my own family! They were hell-bent on changing my cashless status and crushing all my hopes and dreams!

While I was still in my grief-stricken state, my wife entered into shop selling creams, ointments, soaps and other things that they sell at tourist places. The purposefulness of her stride warned me that the ruins of my hopes were about to be subjected to another calamity and I followed her.

My nightmarish foreboding turned out to be true! Here too, the shopkeeper happily agreed to accept Rs 2000 through a mobile wallet while selling items worth Rs. 650.

Next hour or so, my family went around with the zeal of those fighting the scrooge of black money, converted the credit in cards and wallets into cash while they ate, shopped, played games and did what tourists do. By end of the evening, we had enough to pay hotel bill, in cash, and a lot more.

As I surrendered to the hopelessness and despondency of my shattered dreams, the astonishingly contrarian behaviour of the shopkeepers came back to trouble my mind. Since decades I had heard the oft-repeated saying, “90 out of 100 are corrupt but my India is great” and believed it. I always thought that the common man, especially the small businessman is corrupt or doesn’t care about corruption, doesn’t bother about colour of money, whether black or white, wants to avoid taxes, can resort to fraud or cheating when the opportunity offers itself.

But, here they were, having lost their business income over the last month or so due to cash crunch caused by demonetization, having stood in queues outside ATMs or Banks, only to deposit their hard-earned money or withdraw it, forced to shun the warmth of cash and adopt the cold cashlessness and unfamiliar technology, but still willing to go out-of-the-way to help a tourist who needed cash, without being legally or morally bound to do so, even waiving off the charges they would incur while encashing the credits they received.

Maybe what I had been taught about all Indians being corrupt was wrong.

Maybe, the inherent goodness of Indians had been covered by the black soot of a corrupt ecosystem that thrived in our beloved land and hence had become invisible. All it needed was one strong gust of wind, the wind of change, of a government with right intentions, to make the goodness start becoming visible, again, in patches though.

Some more scrubbing, washing & cleaning and this goodness can shine through.

Passing thought: Had I been a journalist, I could have crafted this story sitting on the couch at his my home, with a glass of scotch in my hand, hate in my heart and agenda on my mind. But alas! I am not a journalist and I had to live through this story to give it a life.

Social Media reacts as Modi gears up for another address after his demonetization announcement

OpIndia Staff
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Social Media reacts as Modi gears up for another address after his demonetization announcement

News has broken that PM Modi is planning to address the nation on New Year’s Eve. This will be his first address since the one he gave on November 8th wherein he announced demonetization. It would be delivered when 50 days of sacrifice which Modi had asked for ends and the country moves into a New Year. So naturally people reacted and speculations were rife as to what exactly Modi would announce this time round.

Here are some of the best we could find:

We know Modi likes to be a step ahead but this would be taking it to a whole new level


Well some would be glad after reading this:


Shocking if true!


Plausible, considering he is a teetotaler and also hails from Gujarat:


Is there a deal between Modi ji and alcohol companies?


Beware people!


Some displayed their poetic side:


Well maybe Modi would quote this Seinfeld clip to justify his decision:


Modinder this is unacceptable:


Have some of your speculations and reactions? Do let us know in the comments below..

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