This Diwali, there was a special effort from the government to put the soldiers in the forefront of national consciousness. The Prime Minister himself celebrated Diwali amidst troops deployed on the remote frontiers, just as he had for the past two years. In addition, this year there was a drive to connect the soldiers, with people they fight to defend, via the ‘Sandesh to Soldiers’ campaign. People were encouraged to send their message to soldiers via social media and through the prime minister’s website and app, to express their feelings and regard for those who were far away from their homes during the festival, keeping us safe in ours to celebrate. People were also exhorted to light one lamp specially in the memory of the martyrs who had laid down their lives fighting for the nation.
Motivated by the Prime Minister’s call the residents, of 1200 MIG Flats in Rajouri Garden, New Delhi, led by Sanjay Bhatia, a social activist and a team of young boys and girls of the area, decided to take this a step further and honour the ex-servicemen living in their colony as well. On the evening of Deepawali, 30 October, the residents held a gathering in the central park and feted the ex-servicemen residing in the colony. There were several of them, varying in rank from Captain to Colonels, including a Vir Chakra winner. Most of them had taken part in 1962 and 1971 wars, and they narrated their memorable and exciting experiences. Bouquets were present to each officer by the Leader of the House, South Delhi Municipal Corporation of Delhi, Subhash Arya before each resident present lighted a diya for the fighting soldier.
This small gesture by the residents of one colony in Delhi meant so much to those elderly veterans who have been living unknown and unnoticed amidst them for years. Not only did it make them feel special on that day, it also helped the rest of the colony to recognise them. With the result that now, when they step out for a walk in the colony, every single person they encounter exchanges greetings with them.
This is an example of how small initiatives by the government can be taken even further by people themselves. While the government initiatives covered those who were serving, and those who had laid down their lives, a large number of people who served the nation but don’t fall in either category were included in this expression of thanks. How wonderful it would be if this idea is widely propagated, and emulated everywhere across the country. This would bring the people closer to the heroes amongst us, people who spent the prime of their lives in service of the nation, and our now spending the evenings of their lives living amidst us in unnoticed, unsung oblivion.
This was first posted on my blog http://swordarm.in/?p=1683
Yesterday we had revealed how Ravish Kumar’s NDTV India had got rewarded with a 24 hours black-screen by an Inter-ministerial committee (IMC) of the Information and Broadcasting ministry. The penalty of taking the channel off-air for one full day came after the IMC noted with “grave concern” that the channel had “revealed sensitive details like location of ammunition depot and the place where terrorists were held up, location of school and residential areas”.
Responding to this latest order, NDTV put out a short and tame statement today. It said that they were shocked that “NDTV has been singled out” when “every channel and newspaper had similar coverage”. Is this an admission of guilt? “look we did it, but so did they?”
They continued to claim that their coverage was balanced, and recalled the dark days of the Emergency. No sooner was the “E” word uttered, the usual suspects broke into wails on social media, crying “emergency”. It is pertinent to note NDTV did not put out any factual rebuttal to any specific issues, but just said that “NDTV is examining all options in this matter”.
The Editor’s Guild of India too put up a similar note, mouthing NDTV’s stance, crying emergency and censorship. Oddly, the note said that this was a “first-of-its-kind order to impose a black-out”, whereas the truth is that there have been similar orders of blackout for other reasons, like in 2007 when a channel called “Live India” was banned for a whole month and last year, when Al Jazeera channel was taken off-air for 5 days.
Now, we at OpIndia.com have exclusive access to the IMC’s deliberations, and which specific parts of NDTV India’s broadcast were found objectionable. We put out the relevant portions of the documents, for the readers to decide whether the punishment is fair.
The content was aired on NDTV India on 4th January 2016, from 12:25:45 hours to 12:31:25 hours while anti-terror ops were still underway at Pathankot. During this period, the anchor in the studio, reported about the press briefing of the armed forces, which had just concluded, and then proceeded to contact the correspondent on the ground, asking for further information. At this stage, i.e. at 12:28:16 hours, the IMC notes that the correspondent divulges “sensitive” information as below:
Excerpt 1: “sensitive” information
The correspondent revealed that 2 terrorists were nearby, and could have gone to an airport nearby, or to the 2nd army base. Thus, they (the army) want to scan the entire area bit by bit, with full precautions, only then will the operations be declared as over.
Next, the IMC notes that the anchor asks the correspondent what sort of challenges lie in scanning such a large area, where families, schools, helicopters and MIGs are present. To which the correspondent replies:
Excerpt 2: Information revealed
In the above paragraph, IMC noted that NDTV India gave away information such as details of ammunition stockpiled in the airbase, MIGs, fighter planes, rocket launchers, mortars, helicopters, fuel tanks which was likely to be used by the terrorists themselves or their handlers to cause massive harm not only to national security, but also to civilians and defence personnel. The channel also gave details of school and residential areas located in the airbase which could have been used by the terrorists or their handlers to cause violence to the innocent in the school and the residential area.
Part of the above broadcast was recorded by a social media user and uploaded to Twitter on the very same day. Here is the video:
The user also commented that the correspondent divulged the exact location of the ammunition store from the building where the terrorists are holed up. This corroborates with the findings of the IMC as well. According to the IMC, based on the above, NDTV India appeared to violate Rule 6(1)(p) of the Programme Code under Cable TV Network Rules, 1994:
No programme should be carried in the cable service which contains live coverage of any anti-terrorist operation by security forces, wherein media coverage shall be restricted to periodic briefing by an officer designated by the appropriate Government, till such operation concludes.
NDTV India responded to the above charges by saying that the entire coverage was deferred, and the details such as those of the weapons, ammunition and equipment present, and the presence of schools and residential areas, was already reported by the print media. NDTV India cited specific references of news items from the Indian Express, the Times of India, the Hindustan Times etc from 3rd and 4th January which revealed similar information. NDTV India also cited the press briefings by the army personnel, and finally said that “this was a case of subjective interpretation” hence the requested the Ministry to view the reportage from the perspective as given by them.
NDTV India was also given the opportunity of a personal hearing wherein the representatives of the channel reiterated the statements made in the written submissions.
The IMC noted that from NDTV’s reply, it was clear the the information regarding location and expanse of the assets at the airbase, was available in “bits and pieces” in various media, but, NDTV appeared to give out the exact location of the remaining terrorists, with regards to the sensitive assets around them, when they telecast in real time as follows:
Excerpt 3: Real time information
The correspondent clearly states that 2 terrorists are alive, and at the same place where the weapons depot is located. And that the army is worried that if the terrorists reaches this depot, then it would be much harder to contain the terrorists, because the depot has rocket launchers, mortar and other destructive weapons.
The IMC also noted that initially NDTV India stuck to the information revealed by armed forces press briefing, but later “changed its tone, and added a contrarian stance”. This can be seen from line two in excerpt 3 above, as per the IMC’s report.
From this the IMC determined that the information broadcast by NDTV India, was “neither based, nor limited to” to periodic briefing by a designated officer, and hence NDTV India was in violation of rule 1(p) as cited above. The IMC also observed that the guidelines governing the TV channels and Newspapers are different. They noted that “the reach of TV Is beyond physical borders and language barriers” and that “TV as an audio/visual medium have a far wider and instantaneous impact”.
IMC further noted that “threat to National Security cannot justified on any grounds whatsoever”, hence “no benefit of doubt could be given for their subjective interpretation as mentioned in the representation given by the channel”. IMC also took cognisance of the fact that this was not the first violation by NDTV group and that “there are previous incidents where the channel has violated the Program code in the Cable act”.
For deciding the quantum of punishment, IMC relied on para 8 of the Guidelines for up-linking from India, which gave the powers to the ministry to suspend permissions for 30 days, in case of first violation, and 90 days in case of second violation. Based on this, the IMC had initially recommended a 30 day ban for NDTV India.
However the I&B ministry informed the IMC, that rule 6(1) p which was violated by NDTV India was newly introduced in June 2015. The IMC then opined that perhaps news channels weren’t sensitised about the rule change, and since this was the first instance of violation by any channel of this new rule, the penalty of 30 days seemed harsh. Hence, they settled for a token one-day penalty. The IMC noted that this one day token penalty cut was recommended to ensure that NDTV India does not get away completely for this “huge indiscretion and violation of rules” and also its “unrepentant behaviour”.
This is one of the most ironic situations one can possibly have. Newslaundry claims to be “a media critique, news and current affairs portal” and as such was expected to be a place where “sabki dhulai” would take place, for their wrong or erroneous reporting. Instead, Newslaundry has now become the hub of such wrong, and biased reporting.
Take for example their coverage of the Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Awards, held in New Delhi. They tried to cover it by giving importance to a small speech by Indian Express Chief Editor, Raj Kamal Jha (who happens to be Congress sycophant Sanjay Jha’s cousin). It is entirely their prerogative on which speech they focus, but in their article, which was designed to put down PM Modi, they slipped in a piece of utter lies, which later if given the correct spin by successful media houses, can be used to show PM Modi as anti-dalit. This is what Newslaundry reported:
“……and enjoyed some thunderous applause when he made a bizarre and offensive comment about crimes against Dalits. Listening to the laughter from sections of the audience to Modi smiling and saying, “How would the BMW driver know if the one he’s running over is a Dalit?” was distressing. It underscored the need for criticism of the political establishment that Modi himself had encouraged earlier in his speech. Of course, he followed that sentiment up with a directive that the media should behave responsibly and not “divide” the nation, but that’s a separate problem.”
It is one thing to be snide and hateful to a person you hate, and it is quite another thing, to be blatantly untruthful, hiding the tone, tenor and context of a statement, just to make a point. The full quote and context of PM Modi is captured in the following video:
Media should criticise the Government as much as possible, I do not have any problem with this. Don’t report this wrongly. BUT, India is a country full of diversity and special identities. The unity of the country…., For you it is a story, and as soon as you publish it, you go after another story, but, sometimes it creates such deep wounds…..Earlier, whenever an accident would take place the news would be: ” in so-and-so village an accident took place in which a truck and a cycle rider, got injured, expired…”; Slowly, things changed, “in so-and-so village, in the day, due to rash driving, drunk driver, crushed an innocent person, “crushed“.” Slowly, reporting changed and became: “BMW car, crushes one Dalit“. Sir forgive me, but the person in the BMW car didn’t know that the victim was a Dalit. But we set fire to such matters. An accident should be reported, if worth making a headline, it should be made as an headline….
The intention of the entire statement of the PM was clear, he wanted the media to stop sensationalism, to stop bringing up caste, religion, creed and such divisive things, into news items where they had no relevance. We at OpIndia.com too have raised this issue umpteen number of times. Earlier this year, a Times of India journalist and Newslaundry co-founder were caught on social media fanning caste-hatred, by making an incident into an upper caste vs lower caste issue, when actually some of the perpetrators themselves were Dalits.
So it was the second stage of irony now, that when the PM was urging the media to stop sensationalism and stop bringing up “anti-dalit” narratives where none existed, Newslaundry chose to bring the “anti-dalit” angle. Clearly, the agenda driven “neutral” reporting of Newslaundry is exposed here.
P.S. They managed to put up a full transcript of the Indian Express’ Editor’s speech, but couldn’t put up the transcript of a small anecdote of the PM, which they had chosen to spin into an anti-dalit statement.
A lot has been discussed about the killing of 8 wanted terrorists who had escaped from a Bhopal jail after killing a constable. The usual suspects have been screeching “fake-encounter” at the top of their voices. But today, audio tapes allegedly recording the wireless conversations between the MP cops during the encounter have come out. CNN News 18 released those tapes on social media.
Listening to these tapes, it is clear that the SIMI terrorists were also firing at the police, but media is till trying to spin the content of the tapes. India Today, in its report based on the same tapes states that “the audio tapes do not suggest any exchange of fire”:
India Today’s report
But in the tapes, at exactly 1.15 minutes (as per CNN News 18 tape above), one can hear the police officers saying that the terrorists had fired at them. They repeat this 2-3 times. And an order comes that the firing must be responded to.
This one single line, disproves multiple theories of various left liberals and terrorist sympathisers that the SIMI terrorists were unarmed.
Thus, this stops being a cold blooded murder, and takes the colour of a full fledged battle where fire was exchanged by both sides. Still, CNN News 18, the media house which broke the tapes itself tried to perpetuate lies:
If media believes these tapes to be true, then they must take cognisance of this revelation. The information, that the terrorists indeed fired, negates many theories.
Firstly, it no longer is cold blooded, and the firing from the cops is fully justified. Secondly, the likelihood of this being a “Fake” and “staged” encounter decreases massively since the terrorists were firing. The cops wouldn’t have risked any more casualties, giving guns in the hands of terrorists of their own volition.
Another crucial point the tapes reveal is that the senior cops were not present at the venue and they were constantly saying on the radio that they are on the way. So if indeed this was a “staged” encounter, why would some cops be still on the way, instead of all being present at the scene of action?
Now the only issue with the encounter is that of “excessive force”. A cop at the start of the clipping did give the order to “finish of the matter” (kaam-tamaam), but the cops on the scene of the encounter appeared to have done that once the terrorists began firing. In such a situation, the police can easily claim that they were well within their rights to fire back and neutralise the terrorists. After all, these are men from a banned organisation like SIMI, wanted for multiple crimes including terror, who have escaped from the prison after slaughtering a constable.
Further, at exactly, 2 minutes into CNN News 18’s clips, the cops at the scene request for 2-3 ambulances to be sent, and the cops on the other end, reveal that they had already sent some ambulances. Next, at exactly 2.53 minutes into the clip, one can hear a cop saying “at least one must be kept alive, it is important”.
These again point out that irrespective of the orders they got, the cops at the scene did not want to “finish” every terrorist, but preferred to them to be incapacitated.
Does media have another set of tapes that prove the opposite? It appears highly unlikely because in that case, the policemen will appear to be contradicting themselves. Since it is a developing story, more evidence may come up which could again change the situation, but as of now, the media is plainly twisting facts.
On Monday, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had made serious allegations that he had heard some judges claiming that their phones were being tapped. The allegation was made in presence of Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, who quickly rubbished the allegations.
While making the allegations, Arvind Kejriwal had added a rider “I don’t know if this is true”, which is in line with his trademark “is this true?” style of posting messages on Twitter when he wants to circulate any unverified information or rumour.
Perhaps this “Is this true?” style has been adopted by Kejriwal to escape defamation cases that he has been facing due to his earlier allegations. The other strategy adopted, especially by party leaders like Ashutosh, is to credit some unverifiable information to “sources”.
But that’s not proving to be enough for Arvind Kejriwal in the latest case. Taking cognizance of his allegations, Delhi Police has written a letter to the AAP supremo to let them know about the details of the information he has.
“Phone tapping is an extremely serious matter and is not allowed without due authorization after following strict procedures mandated under law,” the letter written to Arvind Kejriwal reads.
“Please let us know of any incident or case of phone tapping that you have referred to in the course of your speech. We would also appreciate if you could inform us the source on which you base your allegations so that appropriate action can be initiated in the matter,” the letter concludes.
It should be noted that most people, including former judges and even the Congress party – which usually sings in tune with Kejriwal over allegations against the Modi government – had said that Arvind Kejriwal should provide proof before making such serious allegations about independence of judiciary.
Now the ball is in Kejriwal’s court and he has to respond to Delhi Police’s request of providing information. But given the track record of AAP supremo, it appears that he will use this opportunity to make another allegation.
Most probably, Kejriwal will claim that Narendra Modi is using Delhi Police to put pressure on him to reveal names of judges who could be targeted by the centre. We will wait for that tweet.
Things don’t seem to be going very well for NDTV. Forget “Acche Din”, even average “Din” have deserted NDTV group. The company is saddled with losses. It has a tax case against it alleging crores of evasion. As far as TRP’s are concerned, it languishes near the bottom among English News channels. Barkha Dutt’s show for example had hit NDTV so hard, that she rescheduled her show from the 9pm slot to 8pm. Just a few months back we had revealed how some “bot accounts” were seen propping up NDTV stories on social media. Now they are hit with something worse.
The issue of showing counter terrorism operations live on TV has been debated for long. This irresponsible aspect of live news was witnessed first during the Mumbai terror attacks of 2008 when Indian news channels almost acted as source of information for terror handlers.
The journalistic fraternity initially tried to defend their stand claiming it was their duty to bring truth to the viewers, however later they conceded that the media needs to realise the consequences of their actions. Showing counter operations live doesn’t serve any public interest, and it can only be misused by terror handlers.
Even at that time NDTV had particularly been criticised by the netizens for showing operations live. A blogger named Chaitanya Kunte had published a post titled “Shoddy Journalism” where he had blasted Barkha Dutt for her live coverage of Mumbai terror attacks.
The post went viral and earned a legal notice from Barkha Dutt, who objected to one paragraph where the blogger had cited Wikipedia to remark that Barkha was earlier responsible for some casualties during Kargil War, where she had gone for live reporting.
The blogger got scared and deleted his post, offering an unconditional apology to Barkha. This was perhaps the tipping point that made Barkha a villain in the digital world.
While Barkha still denies the Kargil casualty claim, she later admitted that the Mumbai terror attacks coverage could have been handled better by the media.
“There were some unwitting mistakes made by all of us as journalists. Unwitting. We didn’t calculate that there were handlers monitoring our broadcast in real time, no one from the government told us either,” she said in an interview last year.
However, it doesn’t seem like media has learnt from the mistakes it committed, especially NDTV. But luckily, it seems the Government, which was the fall-guy for Barkha last time, has got its act right this time. Maybe its the new dispensation which is not any more in her reach (read Radia Tapes).
On January 28th this year, the Information and Broadcasting ministry sent a show cause notice to NDTV India over its coverage of the terrorist attack on Pathankot airbase which “prima facie” violated norms. The I&B ministry had repeatedly asked for restraint by TV channels in their reporting of terror attacks especially when the operation is still on. Last year, the ministry had barred channels from airing live coverage of anti-terrorist operations by security forces by approving a new rule as per which broadcasters in such situations will have to restrict themselves to reporting periodic briefing by designated officers.
It now appears that the proceedings in the above matter have been completed, and NDTV India, has been ordered to be shut down temporarily by the government for their irresponsible coverage during the Pathankot terror attack in January this year.
Sources have told us that an Inter-ministerial committee of the Information and Broadcasting ministry (IMC) set up to look into this matter has recommended that the channel go off for one full day. IMC noted with “grave concern” that the channel had “revealed sensitive details like location of ammunition depot and the place where terrorists were held up, location of school and residential areas”. The IMC also noted that “NDTV India appeared to give out the exact location of the remaining terrorists in the Pathankot airbase attack during the live telecast”
NDTV India responded by saying that the information shared by the them was already reported in the National dailies. The IMC however observed that the guidelines governing the TV channels and Newspapers are different. They noted that “the reach of TV Is beyond physical borders and language barriers” and that “TV as an audio/visual medium have a far wider and instantaneous impact”. It appears the IMC is trying to draw a distinction between printing that an army post is in a particular town, versus actually showing the physical location of the post via videos and images, thereby making it easier to be located.
IMC analysed that the disclosure of sensitive information when anti-terrorist operations are underway causes alarm, “demoralisation of citizens and security forces” and collateral damage among other issues. IMC also observed that the information released on NDTV India “was neither based on nor limits to the information given in the media briefing by designated armed forces officers”
IMC noted that “threat to National Security cannot justified on any grounds whatsoever”, hence “no benefit of doubt could be given for their subjective interpretation as mentioned in the representation given by the channel”. IMC also took cognisance of the fact that this was not the first violation by NDTV group and that “there are previous incidents where the channel has violated the Program code in the Cable act”
NDTV can actually heave a sigh of relief since IMC had initially recommended a penalty of taking the channel off-air for 30 days, as per the new rules introduced in June 2015. However, eventually they settled for a “token cut” of one day, since this was the first instance of violation of the newly inserted provisions in the program code. The IMC noted that this one day token penalty cut was recommended to ensure that NDTV India does not get away completely for this “huge indiscretion and violation of rules. ”
Such penalties of going off air for TV channels are not completely new though. Another IMC of the I & B Ministry had found that Al-Jazeera channel had violated the programme code by showing wrong maps of India on repeated occasions and recommended that it be taken off air for five days in 2015. In contrast, NDTV got away with the same offence, by just putting up a text of apology, as noted in this article.
Early this year, NDTV India’s Ravish Kumar had begun sermonising the world, on how media should report matters. He took a dramatic approach, by turning the screen black and proceeding on a monologue, where only the audio could be heard. With this latest indictment of his journalistic practices, Ravish can very well repeat his theatrics, but this time without the audio as well. The black screen may be for just a day, but the black spot of shame will always remain on NDTV.
MUMBAI: Goregaon Social, a restaurant cum bar in Mumbai suburb has been forced to apologise and remove paintings and other interiors that were deemed “blasphemous” by some Christian groups. The complaints were filed yesterday and the restaurant was forced to oblige within hours and “offensive” interiors were removed the same day.
It all happened after an NGO called Watchdog Foundation found images such as Jesus Christ holding a leather bag and Moses holding a tablet computer highly offensive to Christians, especially Catholics. The NGO demanded arrest of the owner of the restaurant and closing down of the restaurant for this blasphemous act.
NGO’s demands were supported by the Archdiocese of Bombay, which had earlier forced the comedy group AIB to apologise for their jokes. The Archdiocese demanded that the restaurant be “closed with immediate effect, with cancellation of their Trade License, Liquor Permit, Health License, etc.”
Not only Christian groups, even political parties jumped onto this bandwagon. Student wing of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) asked its supporters to file FIR against the owners of the restaurant. BJP too joined the chorus with Mumbai President calling up police. An online campaign was also launched demanding arrest of the restaurant owner under IPC 295A, which gathered over 8000 signatures within a day.
With pressure rising, police visited the restaurant to take stock of the situation. The owners realized the gravity of the situation and immediately agreed to remove everything that was found blasphemous by the outraged people.
Last night, the Facebook page of the restaurant publicly apologised for the interiors and announced that all such paintings and interiors had been removed. They said sorry for hurting religious sentiments, and claimed that the paintings were intended to be satirical descriptions against consumerism.
The apology has been accepted by the Archdiocese of Bombay, but they added that they didn’t agree with the idea of satire and that ‘the message could have been conveyed in other ways’. They also said that they will ‘continue to monitor the situation in order to ensure that the religious sentiments were respected in both word and action’.
However the apology doesn’t seem to have satisfied many of the outraged Christians. Many comments on the Facebook page indicated that they wanted more action.
“I would have been happier if you didn’t have the liberty to do this in the first place” read one angry comment while other said that “government should initiate legal action against the proprietor and the interior designers.”
Similar sentiments were reflected by the NGO Watchdog Foundation which had raised the issue originally. Nicholas Almeida, a trustee of the foundation told Mid-Day that his demand of closure of the restaurant and arrest of the owner and interior designers was not “extreme”.
“We are soft-natured people, that is why we are easy targets in the city. Let them try something similar with Islam and see the consequences,” he was quoted as saying by the newspaper.
I then wanted to dig a little deeper into the antecedents of the players involved – primarily the organizations involved here. There are primarily two that I looked at – Center for Advocacy and Research, and World Vision.
Center for Advocacy and Research
Before getting into World Vision, a detour into the Center for Advocacy and Research (CFAR) is called for, for reasons that should become clearer later in this post.
As per the minutes of the 29th Statutory meeting of the NCPCR , held on Feb 10th, 2016 (the date is also somewhat pertinent), Agenda Item No. 3 was a proposal stated by Ms Rupa Kapoor, Member, NCPCR, on “Child Participation with an e-initiative” titled as “AskMantri.in” in collaboration with World Vision India Foundation.” The proposal was accepted, and the minutes tell us that a “meeting will soon be held with World Vision India Foundation to finalize the proposal.” Here is a screenshot of the Agenda Item:
Agenda 3 NCPCR Meeting Minutes
Do note that the minutes that have been uploaded are an optical scan of a printout of the document. The document itself would have been prepared not on a typewriter but a document processing application software like Microsoft Word. This digital document was not uploaded, or a read-only PDF version. What was uploaded is an image-based document that cannot be searched. Furthermore, the quality of the scanned document is such that even automatic OCR (Optical Character Recognition) software programs would find it difficult to accurately scan the document. Does the NCPCR not know how to upload text PDF documents? Or was the intent to deliberately obstruct easy searching of the minutes? One can only speculate, unless the NCPCR chooses to clarify.
Ms Rupa Kapoor, the Member of the NCPCR that suggested this collaboration with World Vision, was appointed in November 2015 (link). She was earlier a consultant with the Centre for Advocacy and Research (@delhicfar). Therefore, my detour on CFAR? What is CFAR?
For the year ending Mar 31, 2016, I was able to glean the following information from the CFAR website regarding the foreign contributions it received: (link): it received a total ₹7,76,05,923.73 (more then seven crore rupees)
According to Form FC-4 available for CFAR for the year ending Mar 31, 2015, from the FCRA site, CFAR had “Total Foreign Contributions” of ₹12,31,15,232.65 (more than twelve crore rupees).
For the year ending Mar 31, 2014, CFAR received a total of ₹7,22,61,679.42 as foreign contributions. (more than seven crore rupees)
For the year ending Mar 31, 2013, it received a total ₹11,07,36,619.72 (more then eleven crore rupees.
The striking factoid from CFAR’s FCRA receipts is how much it is reliant on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Consider the BMGF’s percentage of all foreign funding the FCRA received:
The BGMF provided 87% (₹6.4 crores) of all foreign funding to the CFAR in 2015-16
30% (₹3.4 crores) in 2014-15 – an anomaly that is worthy of a deeper investigation, in my opinion.
91% (over ₹10 crores) in 2013-14
85% (₹6.1 crores) in 2012-13
For an advocacy group that is so overwhelming reliant on one single foreign donor for its operations, it would be difficult for anyone to make the claim that CFAR is not overwhelming beholden to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. According to its Annual Report for the year ended (sic) 31st March, 2015 (link to pdf), its total receipts were ₹150,579,929.80 (fifteen crore rupees). In many ways, one could say that CFAR would probably not exist were it not for funding from the BMGF. To what extent BMGF directs the agenda of the CFAR is something we can only speculate on.
Other foreign donors to the CFAR include the Ford Foundation, Population Services International, and others. The Ford Foundation has a very disturbing past to it, where for several years it was at the forefront of funding research into fetal sex determination and then aggressively advocating sex-selective abortions in India – leading to millions of aborted female foetuses and the skewed gender ratio one sees today. I wrote about it earlier in 2016 on IndiaFacts, Was Ford Foundation Culpable In Aborting Female Foetuses In India?
As for Population Services International, (@PSIimpact), it is described as a “a $670 million organization that markets abortion drugs in the developing world.” (link)
Coming to the NCPCR and its connection with CFAR, in Nov 2015, Ms Rupa Kapoor, a consultant with the CFAR, was appointed Member of the NCPCR. Less than three months later, in Feb 2016, Ms Rupa Kapoor brought out a proposal to collaborate with World Vision to provide multi-platform access to children. The proposal was accepted. The multi-platform access looks more like a very efficient means to track children across offline and online media. The potential violation of the privacy of children has not been addressed or even hinted at in the minutes. The same cabal of self-proclaimed defenders and champions of children have kept strangely quiet on this possible violation of one of the most basic rights of children – of privacy. Strange indeed are the ways of these self-proclaimed champions.
Now let us turn to World Vision.
The World Vision Connection
World Vision is a $2.8 billion global “humanitarian” organization engaged in relief, development, and child welfare work. This is the organization that the NCPCR is collaborating with. For more information on World Vision, do give this blog post a read – World Vision India: A Quick Intro – on the India Happenings blog.
Apart from the NCPCR, where else is World Vision embedded within the government of India? At least two places can be called out:
World Vision India “is part of the Planning Commission Working Group on Women’s Empowerment and Child Development. This group provides input to the Planning Commission on issues of children and women, to be incorporated into the 11th five-year plan.”
World Vision India “is also part of the NGO steering committee of the National Disaster Management Authority, the premier agency dealing with disaster relief and preparedness in India.” [both references can be found on World Vision’s India website: https://www.worldvision.in/Advocacy]
So what exactly is World Vision? Let us see and read, in World Vision’s own words (bold-emphasis mine, all World Vision links accessed Oct 29th, 2016):
On its website (https://www.worldvision.org/our-work/faith-in-action), World Vision suggests donating $18 to provide one Bible that would help “Share the story of Jesus and the glory of God’s work.” It suggests donating $20 or more on a monthly basis to “Help Christian Commitment“
There are more strident, dogmatic statements from the World Vision Singapore website, which have since been deleted. One has to use the services of the Wayback Machine (https://web.archive.org/) to find an archived copy of the page. What does the now-removed-or-deleted page of World Vision’s Singapore website page say? (bold-emphasis mine, all World Vision links accessed Oct 29th, 2016)
“World Vision is an expression of the Church in mission on behalf of the poor and oppressed.“
“World Vision shares the Church’s commitment to disciple followers of Jesus Christ who bear witness to the Gospel by life, deed, word and sign, with the goal of encouraging people to respond to the Gospel.”
Even more disturbingly, World Vision seems to be a fanatical organization with a deeply bigoted and intolerant streak running through it. World Vision’s U.S. operations are headquartered in Federal Way (a city in the King County, sandwiched between Seattle and Tacoma), and which employ more than 1,200 people. All employees are required to sign a statement of faith affirming their belief in Jesus and the Trinity. In 2011, the US Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of three former employees of World Vision, thereby letting the ruling of the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals stand. World Vision won its right to fire workers who it suspected did not believe completely in Jesus or the Trinity. (see Supreme Court Won’t Hear World Vision Hiring Case | Gleanings | ChristianityToday.com and High court refuses World Vision hiring case | The Seattle Times).
Sterns had said that World Vision’s hiring policy is “vital to the integrity of our mission to serve the poor as followers of Jesus Christ.” [link] World Vision’s U.S. president, Richard Stearns, in a statement had this to say – “After four years of litigation, we at World Vision U.S. may now put this matter behind us, and continue our policy of hiring only Christians.“[link]
Such an organization has spread its tentacles into the government of India, and is advising the government on issues related to women and children. Its interference continues unabated, unquestioned, uninvestigated, even under a supposedly right-wing government.
Pause and ponder this point.
World Vision’s statements and the facts collated above should put to rest any doubt that might exist that World Vision is first and foremost – and primarily – a powerful, very well-funded, and aggressive evangelical organization that uses its financial clout to promote its evangelical agenda in countries. What is also not in doubt is that this organization’s India arm continues to receive hundreds of crores of rupees every year via the FCRA (Foreign Contribution Regulation Act) route. This money is deployed across more than one hundred districts in the country, and World Vision’s employees use this money to infiltrate almost every branch of the government.
From an evangelical perspective, missionary organizations target the poor, the vulnerable, the young, and the women for their soul-harvesting activities. These are the demographics that yield the greatest dividends. To that end, natural disasters present one of the best opportunities for evangelical organizations to spread the gospel and harvest millions of souls. The catastrophic earthquake in Nepal in April 2015, and the devastating tsunami in South Asia in 2004 are but just two such examples where natural disasters have been used for rampant conversion activities.
Therefore, it is but natural that such evangelical organizations infiltrate those departments of the government that focus on child and women welfare. The NCPCR and the Women and Child Development Ministry are prime targets.
Did the CFAR play any role in advocating the development of this privacy-invading platform targeted at children?
Was there any collaboration, consultation – formal or informal – between the CFAR, World Vision, the NCPCR, and Ms Rupa Kapoor?
Has any group looked into the privacy implications of this proposed initiative?
The role of Ms Rupa Kapoor in any case warrants a closer and thorough investigation – especially any links she may have with World Vision or other advocacy or evangelical groups. It would appear, prima-facie, that there are enough grounds for suspicion that she has been compromised and is more than willing to do the bidding of World Vision.
As of completing this second, and concluding, post, I had still not got any clarification – confirmation or denial – from either the NCPCR or the Hon’bl Minister, Ms Maneka Gandhi.
Ram Kishan Grewal, a former Army jawan, who was supposedly protesting over the One Rank One Pension (OROP) scheme, allegedly committed suicide on Tuesday under mysterious circumstances. The news was first broken by an AAP MLA, Commando Surender who claimed that Ram Kishan Grewal had come to Delhi to protest: “He was protesting at Jantar Mantar and had then proceeded to meet the Defence Minister with a group of fellow protesters when he consumed poison”.
The jawan purportedly left a suicide letter, in which he claimed that he still wasn’t getting OROP. A jawan had lost his life, and the political battle had just begun. Delhi CM Kejriwal was quick to try to extract political mileage from the scenario. He tried to visit the jawan’s family in the hospital but was detained by the police. He soon tried to play victim, but was exposed by social media:
Kejriwal had conveniently forgotten that in March this year, when a 40-year-old dentist Dr Narang, was beaten to death in front of his family by about a dozen people in West Delhi’s Vikaspuri area, it was Kejriwal himself who had tweeted that he would visit the family after a few days since he realised they were in a state of shock. Apparently in Kejriwal’s world, the family members of a jawan do not deserve such considerations since they can be used for politics.
Later Kejriwal tweeted that since a jawan had allegedly committed suicide due to non-receipt of OROP dues, it was proved that OROP was in fact not at all functional. But here again ordinary Indians exposed Kejriwal’s lies:
You are a liar @ArvindKejriwal. I have already got first TWO installments of OROP. Stop your nonsense & get on with governing Delhi. https://t.co/evYbkgWOnp
U r lying @ArvindKejriwal. My FIL got it and gave money to his grandkids money to buy crackers as I cannot afford it. Shame on u. https://t.co/QahkljqpQE
Soon, Kejriwal had to face another embarrassment as the CM who was in grief and shock, on the way to meet the grieving family of a jawan who had just committed suicide, was photographed at the venue in far better moods:
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If Kejriwal had entered the field how could Congress and Rahul Gandhi stay behind? When Rahul Gandhi tried to visit the family, he too was detained by the cops. And seeking to make Rahul a “hero” as per some Congress script, Congress leaders jumped in to sensationalise the issue, only to be brought to ground on social media. Randeep Surjewala claimed Rahul had been “arrested”, when he had only been detained:
Twitter users also wondered what moral grounds Rahul Gandhi had to protest against the Government which delivered the same OROP which his grand mother Indira Gandhi had withdrawn almost 40 yrs ago:
The Congi vultures out in force again.The boy whose grandmom repealed OROP has the gumption to protest OROP.
Even though Rahul Gandhi was portrayed to be in distress by Congress leaders, pictures showed otherwise. A beaming and smiling Rahul Gandhi was snapped right outside the hospital gate and again exposed by social media for his hollow sorrow:
Rahul Gandhi’s face — look at it closely. Grief writ large over a man committing suicide. This is genuine grief. Cameras do not lie. pic.twitter.com/5J2i6ARMkH
Soon a video emerged, showing Rahul Gandhi in a police station arguing with the cops. And social media users found that Rahul Gandhi was woefully uninformed about the issue. He was seemingly confused as to the person who was detained with him, was the father or the son of the jawan who committed suicide:
Worse, in the same video, towards the end, Rahul was seeing saying “Theek hai ho gaya” to the person recording the video, as if to signal one act of the drama was over:
इस वीडियो के अंत में जब राहुल वीडियो बनाने वाले से ‘ठीक है हो गया’ बोलते हैं तो मनमोहन सिंह के वीडियो वाला ‘ठीक है’ याद आ जाता है. ????pic.twitter.com/u6UPpQXYAF
Finally, late in the evening, Kejriwal tweeted that he too had been detained, and continued to live-tweet even while being detained, which again led to ridicule:
Sir, Phone aapke pass hai. Google Maps ki app par dekh lo! Present aur Final sab location dikh jaayengi 🙂 https://t.co/W4UGGNawZM
While social media exposes the hollowness of this vulture politics, it is important to investigate the alleged suicide, and the circumstances which led a brave jawan to take such a cowardly step.
The trouble with opposition generated and media sustained hype about anything that could be used to embarrass the government is manifold. First, there seems to be no issue too serious, no institution too sacrosanct to avoid politicisation and sensationalizing. We recently witnessed major opposition parties casting serious aspersions on the credibility of the army by asking the government to furnish proof of the operations that the DGMO briefed media about. One regional leader of the major opposition party even went as far as to call the operations fake, and instead of chastising him, his party Vice President built on that argument and accused the government of pimping the blood of soldiers.
Secondly, hype is sought to be built up around catchy phrases with scant regard to the connotations. Shallow arguments are built around superficial information just to grab eyes and ears. These are turned into gospel truth merely by frequency of repetition. And what is worse is that those responsible for speaking on behalf of the government also fall into the trap, trying to counter the narrative built to target them rather than demolishing it to build a more cogent one closer to reality.
Latest in this cycle is the storm being kicked up about the gunning down of eight fugitives from Bhopal jail belonging to the banned militant organisation SIMI and under trial for charges including terrorism, conspiring to murder and a previous jailbreak. They escaped from the prison in the middle of the night after killing a jail guard, and were killed by the police the next day in what is being touted as a ‘fake encounter’. The arguments being forwarded and theories being propounded range from absurd to bizarre, and converge towards a narrative that is being sought to be built, that the entire episode was a pre-mediated plot on part of the authorities to kill innocent Muslims.
What is being implied is that either they were deliberately allowed to escape so that they could be followed and killed, or maybe they were just picked up from the prison and taken to the place of the encounter and shot dead in cold blood. Grainy video footage of a few seconds from unknown sources are being purported as substantive evidence that the killing was in cold blood.
But if we step back from the noise and rhetoric to examine the facts, a clearer picture emerges.
Fact 1 – All the eight were under trial for heinous crimes including terrorism. Yes, they were not convicted criminals, but four of them had previously escaped from jail, a crime which doesn’t require much to prove in a court of law.
Fact 2 – While escaping this time around, they had murdered a jail guard in cold blood. Unless those making vague references to conspiracies are also alleging that the murder victim was a sacrificial goat in the elaborate plan by the authorities, the fugitives were also facing fresh charges of murder.
Fact 3 – The information about the presence of the fugitives near the encounter site was given to the police by villagers, with the sarpanch being on record on video asserting this. Scores of villagers witnessed the ensuing encounter from a distance. As per eyewitness accounts on video, the police asked the fugitives to surrender and also fired in the air. It was only when they refused to surrender, and started pelting stones that the police fired at them.
Fact 4 – One video shows one policeman firing into the supine body of one of the fugitives from close quarters.
If we piece together these facts, we can dispassionately arrive at some logical conclusions. There were definitely major lapses on the part of the jail administration, who don’t seem to have learnt anything from the previous escape by four of these under trial terrorists. But the eight had definitely escaped and were on the run. When confronted by the police at the encounter site, they did not surrender. Therefore, by no stretch of imagination can this be called a case of ‘fake encounter’, which implies that the whole incident was stage managed. That the police either picked them up from the prison, took them to the site and then killed them in cold blood. Or that they surrendered, and instead of arresting them, the police shot them. Neither of these versions are borne out by the facts listed above.
What the police can possibly be faulted for is ‘use of excessive force’. And how much force can be considered excessive while dealing with hardened criminals and suspected terrorists is a matter of the judgement of the person in charge on the spot. The fact that they had already killed a policeman while escaping would have been a factor in making this judgement. One of the primary responsibilities of the commander on the spot is to avoid casualties to own men, and the fugitives had already demonstrated the intent to do so. Whether they had the means to do so was not something that was easily discernible at the spur of the moment.
Another factor in deciding whether the force was excessive or not is the possible outcome if such force wasn’t used. Since it was obvious that the terrorists had no intentions of surrendering, and were instead launching stones at the cops (the police have even claimed there was some firing), failing to shoot them could have led to their escaping, and possibly carrying out terrorist attacks in future leading to death of innocent citizens.
Politicians with an axe to grind may go ahead and use the incident to castigate the police and target the government, even choosing to ignore or twist facts. But we, as ordinary citizens must realize and appreciate that such actions by the police and other security forces are aimed at protecting us. If we can’t give them even the slightest margin of error in decision and action, it is at our own peril.
This was first posted on my blog http://swordarm.in
