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Army Chief attacked for talking tough against those who help terrorists in Kashmir

OpIndia Staff
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Army Chief attacked for talking tough against those who help terrorists in Kashmir

In Kashmir, the army faces attack from multiple corners. While Pakistan backed terrorists launch direct attack against army camps and assets, these terrorists receive cover from locals. Army usually doesn’t deal with these locals, who are tackled by state police or the CRPF. The clashes between these locals and police forces have often turned violent and last year saw a spate of deaths due to violent clashes.

However, when such locals deliberately try to confront the Army and sabotage their operations, the Army can’t be expected to remain mute spectators. The Army can’t wait for police forces to arrive, as the terrorists can escape under this cover.

Take a look at this video below that shows how some locals actively try to halt Army operations, with Army not taking any action against them:



Yesterday, while paying homage to martyrs of Bandipora, Army Chief General Bipin Rawat hinted that he had enough of locals trying to provide cover to terrorists. He claimed that this local support was among the reasons for higher casualties to the security forces in recent times.

Gen Rawat reiterated that Army wanted people-friendly operations, but warned that if some civilians chose to actively assist the terrorists or become a hindrance to the army, the army will treat them as anti-national elements and go after them.


From the video, it can be seen that General Rawat did not tar entire Kashmiri youth as anti-national; he was very particular about those who pick stones and guns against the army. His exacts words, which you can hear in the video above, were:

We would now request the local population that people who have picked up arms, and they are the local boys, if they want to continue with the acts of terrorism displaying flags of ISIS and Pakistan, then we will treat them as anti-national elements and go helter-skelter for them. They may survive today but we will get them tomorrow. Our relentless operations will continue.

However, his statement was claimed to be one that will alienate the Kashmiri youth and anger the locals.

The most unfortunate part was that even the Congress, the oldest national party of India, chose to twist Army Chief’s statement. Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad claimed that the Army Chief was threatening “kids” of Kashmir:


Following such distortions, Union Minister for Law and Justice Ravi Shankar Prasad had to appeal to the Congress to keep the Army and the Army Chief outside of politics.

But while politicians are expected to play politics, many in the media too chose to toe the same line and twist Gen Rawat’s statement. Take for example this article published on DailyO, a website owned by India Today group. First it tries to insinuate that Gen Rawat was “favoured” and got something that he didn’t deserve::

It’s both unfortunate but not unexpected that General Bipin Rawat sounded exactly like the establishment in the Centre that picked him as the chief of Army staff, superseding not one but two of his then seniors, particularly Lt-Gen Praveen Bakshi.

The article further adds:

The less said of Modi government’s Kashmir policy, the better. Not only did the regime completely mishandle the uprising in the Valley in the wake of Hizbul militant Burhan Wani’s death, allowing pellet guns to be fired at agitators and blinding, maiming hundreds of protesters, while fatally shooting at least 120 of them during a three-month lock down, it has persistently and systematically alienated the ordinary Kashmiri, particularly the Kashmiri Muslim with its myopic and Hindutva-laced stance on the conflict-torn state.

Yes, a statement by an Army Chief worried about losses of lives of his jawans was twisted, manipulated, and stitched with tags of Modi, Hindutva, Muslims, and everything the writer could conjure up.

As we had pointed out in an article earlier, this obsession to link Indian Army with “Hindutva” is very dangerous and pernicious, and all it helps is in building a narrative for second partition of India. You can read the article by clicking here.

Perhaps those who are lecturing the Army Chief to choose words more carefully should exercise the same caution themselves, unless of course these words are chosen carefully to achieve the objective that Pakistan aims to achieve by using the Indian media.

How sexual offenders are mainstreamed by the left liberals

Shwetank Bhushan
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How sexual offenders are mainstreamed by the left liberals

Recently an article was published in The Punch Magazine (the revamped avatar of The Byword) titled “Dibai, the Qasba where Intizar Husain was born” profiling Intizar Husain, a significant fiction writer in Urdu of the 20th century from Lahore, on his first death anniversary.

No, neither the article nor the subject matter caught my attention, but I was perturbed by the identity of the writer of the article. On further investigation, I observed that apart from all other credentials of the author, it nowhere mentions that Mahmood Farooqi is also an incarcerated rapist.
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Let me tell you that this is not new, is rather a systematic pattern, how the Khap-elites rehabilitate members of their ecosystem even if one is a convicted rapist serving a sentence in jail. Yes, the writer of that piece Mahmood Farooqui is a convicted rapist of a foreigner student and also the co-director of the movie Peepli Live.

Last October, William Dalrymple plugged an article titled “With prisoners as actors, filmmaker charged with rape directs play in Tihar” in a tweet smartly striking off the words from the headline “charged with rape” feeling proud of his rapist colleague:

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It was countered here, calling it the standard template how a convicted rapist is quietly rehabilitated by ‘left-liberal elites.’ The next moment, the super liberal torch bearer of ‘freedom of expression’ blocked me on twitter.

Before I explore this further, let me first try to explain this pattern, how these feminists, women empowerment cheerleaders (the left-liberal mafia) cannot survive without their incestuous ecosystem of sexual predators and how they brazenly rehabilitate them into the mainstream despite them being accused/charged with gruesome sex crimes.

First let me remind you of the case of climate scientist Director General of TERI, R K Pachauri. When the complainant, a young researcher, refused to succumb to his “carnal and perverted desires,” she said, Pachauri responded by “threatening me that he will not give me any more work in his office and that I should leave TERI, or he will transfer me to some other division,” reported the Caravan.

R K Pachauri was first booked by Delhi Police on charges of outraging the modesty of a woman, molestation, stalking, sexual harassment and criminal intimidation and was also found guilty of similar charges by an internal complaints committee (ICC) of TERI. He is presently out on bail pending further investigation.

This detailed and investigated Caravan report, on Pachauri’s leadership at TERI and the sexual harassment case, suggests that he is supposedly a serial offender. Not one, not two but a third woman also alleged that she was sexually harassed by Pachauri while she was working as his secretary in 2008.

Given this, it is baffling to see TV debates or several subtle articles and pre-planned interviews the liberal mafia presented in his defense. Here, The Guardian published an article claiming that the embattled climate scientist has broken his silence in a series of interviews. This baffling defense was well countered here in this piece though.

In yet another perplexing incident, sexual harassment accused Tarun Tejpal was attempted to be rehabilitated among the ‘intelligentsia,’ because how can one understand the Idea of India without inputs from an accused molester, the left-liberal mascot.

Has anyone forgotten the Tejpal ‘fingertips’ story, one of Indian journalism’s most sordid scandals? The apology letter, the “recusing” of himself and the “penance of laceration” and the determination of the young colleague to expose his assault on her?

Twitter created ‘extraneous noises.’ A renowned columnist and author Swapan Dasgupta declined the invitation in protest and also wrote this searing piece: “Thank God For “Extraneous Noises“. It was in response to Bachi Karkaria, organizer of the literary festival, announcing on Twitter that Tejpal had been asked not to attend because the festival did not want “extraneous noise.”

swapan

It was interesting to notice that only the noise bothered Bachi Karkaria, and not the grievous charges.

The Times Literary Carnival invited Tejpal as a panelist on the subject of the “Tyranny of power.” Frankly, him being offered a platform like this in itself was “tyranny of power.” Manu Joseph, a journalist, was to be the moderator, with writer and now scriptwriter Basharat Peer and politician Mani Shankar Aiyar as the other participants.

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Remember Tejpal’s defense in the sexual harassment case by the Delhi’s Khap-elites? It began with TV debates then articles on video footage of the corridor outside the lift where the assault happened..

In this The Outlook piece “What The Elevator Saw,” Manu Joseph, puts a question mark that hangs over what had happened inside the lift.

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In the story, Mr. Joseph refers to Tejpal’s text message to the complainant, “the fingertips” as the “most destructive message a public figure had sent out in recent times.” In his view, “the message,” Mr. Joseph argues, “was either sent by a foolish rapist who was implicating himself through this evidence to a competent journalist whose area of particular interest was law and rape. Or perhaps, it was sent by a drunken man who thought he was flirting,” he concludes.

Yes, indeed, the same Manu Joseph who was picked as the moderator. Much before this, Bachi Karkaria herself wrote a piece in Times of India editorial ‘Trial by media‘ brazenly defending Tarun Tejpal.

Tejpal at the lit-fest was the most vivid proof that the Lutyens incestuous cabal is alive and kicking.

The festival director had defended the decision to include Tejpal on the panel and had told Scroll.in that, “The panel has nothing to do with his personal case. The case is not going to form any part of the discussion, and we have always found Tarun to be an articulate panelist.”

Some others felt that the principles of free speech and presumption of innocence (Tejpal himself apologized, publicly as well as privately before the matter became a police case ) could be applied to the decision to invite Tejpal. The ecosystem started to point out that TOI does have the right to invite him to their festival and that people can choose not to attend.

True. We have a legal system, and Tejpal is only an accused sexual offender and has not been convicted, yet. Inviting him to the LitFest reflects on the organizers, not Tejpal.

Many outraging about Tejpal being part of a Lit-Fest, do not understand that it’s routine in the Oxbridge-Khap-Cabal. Did you forget that the Taliban leader Mullah Zaeef was also invited to Tehelka’s Think2013  to tell the gathering how Taliban had equal rights for women and all? Fired from Penguin for the alleged sexual harassment, David Davidar finds a platform at a book fair.

This socially and intellectually influential Peepli Live co-director Mahmood Farooqui is one such incarcerated rapist, a ‘dastangoi’, the Khap elders are attempting to rehabilitate.

At first, the attempt was made to create confusion on the merits of the prosecution by continuously publishing articles defending the rapist. For example:

  1. Farooqui’s conviction a victory for rape victims, but does it taste all sweet?

  2. Why the Mahmood Farooqui Judgment is Deeply Flawed

Several other such op-eds were surfacing almost every day to create doubt in public mind. But soon the details of the judgement started taking rounds in the public domain, contrary to the Lutyens Khap claims.

The special fast-track court sentenced Farooqui to seven years’ rigorous imprisonment for the rape. The judge observed, “… it can be safely held, that the testimony of prosecutrix, being truthful and credible when the prosecutrix was alone with the accused… the accused, taking advantage of the situation, raped the prosecutrix.”

Once again, very systematically, using book reviews and other “neutral” platforms that never mention the rape conviction, an attempt is being made to mainstream the fellow member.

On December 09, 2016, Scroll.in featured this: “A dastangoi tells the story of the Pakistani author Intizar Husain” of course without mentioning “other credentials” of the author Mahmood Farooqui.

On January 13, 2017 the Live Mint published a book review: “A Requiem For Pakistan—The World Of Intizar Husain” in which Mahmood Farooqui intersperses the story of Intizar Husain’s life with his own.

On January 16, 2017, The Hindu featured another noble side of this convicted rapist: “Tihar inmates wield the pen” It says that the idea of newspapers by and for Tihar inmates was put forward by several prisoners, prominent among them being Mahmood Farooqui, co-director of film Peepli Live.

One by one, articles are surfacing in India and also internationally on different sites and print, be it The Hindu, Scroll.in, or the Live Mint. None mention that he is a convicted rapist. Much more will follow. It is a standard template how sexual predators are quietly rehabilitated by their Khap-elder elites.

They wanted money for making Bhojpuri films, so ISI offered them train derailment job

OpIndia Staff
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They wanted money for making Bhojpuri films, so ISI offered them train derailment job

There have long been allegations about a possible ISI hand in the recent sabotage attempts against the Indian Railways. As reported earlier, ISI man Shamshul Hoda had contacted Nepal based Brij Kishore Giri who in turn hired others to sabotage the railways and is believed to have perpetrated the Kanpur train accident which left over 140 dead.

Now as per latest reports, Brij Kishore Giri and others lured into this criminal act were allegedly seeking to invest the money earned from the ISI into the Bhojpuri film business. Brij Kishore reportedly is an actor, who owns a film studio in Nepal and has acted in a number of Bhojpuri films.

Bhojpuri song
One of the Bhojpuri songs involving the suspects

He was lured with a promise of earning several lakhs which he wanted to pump into his films. It has been claimed that at that time he was working in a movie called ‘Ae Moray Jaan Tohray Mein Bas Le Hamray Pran’.

Apart from him, two other persons involved in the conspiracy, Gajendra Sharma and Mukesh Yadav who were reportedly contacted by Giri, were also involved in Bhojpuri show-business. Gajendra Sharma reportedly made low budget films in Motihari and also owned a music studio which was leaking money. Mukesh Yadav, who was amongst the first to be arrested, is believed to be a songwriter and singer.

The railway sabotage conspiracy is anything but abetting and the Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu himself had claimed in the parliament recently that there were as many as 18 sabotage attempts including 7 blast attempts recently.

This whole operation is believed to have been masterminded by one Shafi Saikh, who is an ISI operative and kingpin of the Fake Indian Currency Notes operation, which was given a huge jolt via demonetisation.

Digivijay Singh stoops to new low: Tweets morphed image to attack Amit Shah

OpIndia Staff
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Digivijay Singh stoops to new low: Tweets morphed image to attack Amit Shah

After advocating deranged conspiracy theories claiming that RSS was behind the gruesome 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, Digvijay Singh’s credibility, or whatever little was left of it, had collapsed completely. Still, this senior Congress leader, known to be close to Rahul Gandhi, enjoys a position of respect within the Congress. He frequently fires off completely baseless remarks, much like Kejriwal from AAP or Donald Trump in the US.

Today, in an act of sheer desperation (probably going by the mood in Uttar Pradesh), Singh resorted to tweeting a morphed image trying to show BJP President Amit Shah in poor light:

The picture shows Amit Shah bending and welcoming radical politician Asaduddin Owaisi from the AIMIM. The idea was probably to depict how Amit Shah is thankful of the likes of Owaisi and AIMIM, who by contesting in Uttar Pradesh, are helping to split the “secular” vote.

Digvijay Singh did mention that he felt the picture was morphed because Owaisi was wearing a saffron coat, but eventually ended saying that it could also very well be true. But it appears that Digivijay Singh was following the Kejriwal model of “Is it true?”, to spread half-truths and whole lies.

Social media users caught Digvijay Singh and presented him with the original image:


It is in fact a picture of Modi and Shah, and Owaisi’s picture has been photoshopped over it. If one observes closely, even the morphing work is so poor that a significant portion of Modi’s white hair is visible even in the picture tweeted by Digvijay, clearly indicating that it is a fake. It is odd that a senior politician like Digvijay Singh who has a fine eye even for “Tunch Maal”, could not see this “Safed baal”. Also, it is important to note that Digvijay Singh did not delete the tweet even after being alerted by multiple people that it was clearly a fake.

Social media though is ruthless, and Digvijay Singh was relentlessly trolled for his act:


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The way Indian media works, it is unlikely that this “post- truth” tweet, will be called out by anyone.

Telangana govt to provide financial assistance to non-Hindu drivers in partnership with Uber

Srikanth Ramakrishnan
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Telangana govt to provide financial assistance to non-Hindu drivers in partnership with Uber

The Telangana government seems to have gone places in terms of discrimination against cab drivers belonging to the Hindu community in Hyderabad with a very curious case of minority appeasement.

It all dates back to December 2015, when the State Minorities Commission (SMC) issued notices to the police, transport department and Uber itself, for allegedly cheating a taxi driver who had committed suicide.

President of the Telangana State Cabs and Bus Operators Association, Syed Nizamuddin had claimed that the suicide was result of cheating as Uber had caused many people to leave their regular jobs and become drivers with a promise of Rs 70,000 as monthly salary. Since the driver who committed suicide was a Muslim, the issue was taken to SMC, which in turn sent notice to Uber and other parties.

In 2016, Uber partnered with the Tata Group to enable drivers to purchase their own vehicles. Under the scheme, drivers could purchase an Indica or Indigo from Tata Motors using flexible loans from Tata Capital Finance and get insurance from Tata AIG. A smart move given that Uber and Ola classify their drivers as self-employed “partners” rather than direct employees.

This was followed by strikes by unions against Uber and Ola claiming that they were taking away their livelihoods, similar to strikes and protests in other cities like Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru. Some of them claimed that new financing scheme was unfair to them as they had bought cabs at higher interest rates from private parties earlier, and that Uber was favouring those drivers who got cabs under the new scheme.

Now in what appears to be a bid to weaken this strike by cab drivers, the State Minority Finance Corporation has started what it calls a ‘driver empowerment program’. Under this scheme, drivers of non-Hindu communities will be given financial assistance to own cars, which will get business from Uber. Perhaps Uber agreed to be a part of it to ‘strengthen’ their case where they were accused of pushing a Muslim driver to suicide.

Now this brings about a few points to ponder:

  1. Why did the case of the cab driver committing suicide go to the minorities commission? Suicide is suicide, irrespective of who the victim is, and while it is no longer a crime to attempt suicide, Section 306 of IPC still makes abetment a crime. If at all the suicide was related to Uber’s alleged promise, then an investigation is needed. But why was religion made a factor? How was that even relevant?
  2. As a journalist, I have had numerous conversations with Uber drivers across India, and one thing is clear. Uber does not promise a ‘salary’. Uber does not employ drivers. They put it on record that drivers are self-employed and partners, but not employees. Further, Uber clearly does state in such situations that the driver can earn up to Rs xx, subject to the drivers’ performance. Given the flexibility and freedom of working hours that are available, it is up to individual drivers how much they make.
  3. The most crucial point: Why is the Telangana government going to the extent of giving financial assistance only to minorities? Are all Hindu cab drivers assumed to be rich? Further, our constitution explicitly prohibits [pdf] discrimination on the basis of religion. It also clearly states that the state shall not discriminate in the case of public employment, and while giving loans to partner with a private party cannot be considered public employment, it is discriminatory under the Right to Equality. After all, a government entity is providing the loan. While the state has the rights to make special provisions to backward classes and SC/ST groups, there is no mention of special provisions on the basis of religion.

Is this a calculated move by Telangana to use a private player to engage in minority appeasement rather than directly employ them in a state-run Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC) where it would be deemed illegal? And has it been done to break protesting drivers on religious lines?

Will India’s population get wiped out in 2 years? Aaj Tak thinks so!

Hemant Bijapurkar
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Will India’s population get wiped out in 2 years? Aaj Tak thinks so!

News channel Aaj Tak and its Executive Editor Punya Prasun Bajpai, who amassed a cult following after his ‘Krantakari’ interview of Arvind Kejriwal, seem to have been caught in somewhat of an embarrassing situation again after they put out stats, which if indeed true would mean that India’s whole population would be wiped out in about two years.

As pointed out by Twitter user Spaminder Bharti (parody account of AAP leader Somnath Bharti), yesterday Aaj Tak put out a tweet (now deleted) which claimed that people in India were dying at an alarming rate of 20 people per second.

The deleted tweet

The news clip, which was aired on TV and seen (and most probably believed) by thousands of people, was saved by the same Twitter user. You can see and hear the astounding claim in the video clip:



This video begins with Punya Prasun Bajpai, the krantikari journalist, in a grave tone announcing that in this country 20 people die each second due to pollution. The report starts with tragic music playing in the background and they put out the stats. Again, the voice proclaims that 20 people die each second due to pollution.

So doing some basic mathematics which we are sure many might have already done we decided to unravel the 20 deaths per second claim:

Number of Seconds per year = 60*60*24*365 = 3,15,36,000/-

Therefore if 20 people are dying per second then total deaths in one year = 20*(31536000) = 63,07,20,000/-

That is according to Aaj Tak there are about 63 Crore deaths per year due to pollution! And our total population being about 121 crores should get wiped out in about 2 years! Be very scared and tell that crush of yours that you love her as two years later you are going to be gone!

Now on a bit of a serious note, Aaj Tak has quoted a ‘State of the global air‘ report [pdf] compiled by a Boston based Health Effects Institute, which claims that:

India now rivals China for among the highest air pollution health burdens in the world, with both countries facing some 1.1 million early deaths from air pollution in 2015.

So assuming that the report is true, the total people perishing due to pollution in our country is about 11 lakhs which in itself is extremely high and steps should indeed be taken to bring down the number. But those steps shouldn’t include fear mongering by media houses bereft of good mathematicians.

In case you are wondering the total people dying due to pollution per second in this country based on the 11 lakh figure turns out to be roughly about 0.034 deaths per second*.

(* total deaths per second = (total deaths in a year)/(total seconds in a year))

In a proposed ‘License Raj’, Congress MP wants people to compulsorily spend less on weddings

Hemant Bijapurkar
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In a proposed ‘License Raj’, Congress MP wants people to compulsorily spend less on weddings

Congress MP Ms Ranjeet Ranjan, who is wife of Bihar strongman Pappu Yadav, has introduced a bill in the parliament which seeks to cap the spending in Indian weddings and and make them more spartan. The Marriages (Compulsory Registration and Prevention of Wasteful Expenditure) Bill, might be taken up in the next session of the Lok Sabha. One of the proposals in the bill is:

If any family intends to spend more than Rs 5 lakh towards expenditure on marriage, such family shall declare the amount proposed to be spent in advance to the appropriate government and contribute 10 per cent of such amount in a welfare fund which shall be established by the appropriate government to assist the poor and Below Poverty Line (BPL) families for the marriage of their daughters.

This bill if passed would render most families at the mercy of wedding authorities who can easily and create a kind of a wedding terrorism where authorities can raid such weddings which they feel has spent more than 5 lakh but hasn’t informed the government.

Also one might argue that the idea of imposing 10% surcharge on weddings above 5 lakh, to be used for funding poor people’s wedding, is a good idea, but to ascertain the amount the authorities might carry out a total audit which would feel no less than that of an IT raid. And giving that amount to the poor ‘impartially’ is a completely different ballgame.

Plus the fact remains that such an expenditure of wealth at weddings isn’t such entirely a bad thing. To explain it simply, the money being spent is private wealth and every expense has a beneficiary. So for every money spent, someone else – a caterer, a florist, a music band, a cab owner, et al. – is earning it and improving his/her financial situation. The only people who might be unhappy with such a scenario are communists, who are never happy when someone apart from them is earning money.

While the rationale and aspects of the bills can be and should be debated, the media chose to report it in a way that put the onus on the government, even though it was a private bill introduced by a Congress MP, which was not mentioned in the headlines:


The Economic Times completely jumped the jun and reported that the bill was actually introduced by the BJP government before retracting:

The original headline given by The Economic Times, which they later changed.

Also this introduction of the bill might be a bit hypocritical as the wedding of the MP who has proposed the bill, Ms Ranjeet Ranjan, was herself married lavishly if one goes by this report. This report talks about Ms Ranjan arriving to Purnia in a Private jet, the roads of the town getting decorated, hotels getting booked. Something which can hardly be covered in Rs 5 lakh.

Also, just in case you thought that this idea of regulating expenses in weddings was a novel idea, it’s not. In Pakistan, there is a law that stipulates that one cannot keep more than one dish at a wedding and cannot put up any unnecessary decoration.

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

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

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

New York Times cartoon

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Jury’s still out on this one:


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


One reminded Swamy of another embarrassing incident:


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


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

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

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

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

Q1) What was the case?

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

Q2) What is the Supreme Court verdict?

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

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

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

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

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

Q6) So has Sasikala surrendered yet?

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

Q5) So what is the Governor going to do?

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

Q7) What is a composite floor test then?

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

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

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

 

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