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Highlights of the Union Budget, and what’s there for you

Ashutosh Muglikar
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Highlights of the Union Budget, and what’s there for you

Under the UPA regime, we had seen discretionary spending, favouritism, crony capitalism based system that nearly ruined our economy. It was a challenge to pull the economy back after Modi government took charge in 2014, with the government requiring to keep the long term as well as short term needs in mind while budgeting.

This year’s Budget was in itself very unique. Firstly, it was preponed by a month so as to better plan the expenditure in line with monsoon cycle. Secondly, it removed the Plan and Non-Plan expenditure bifurcation. Thirdly, it was a merged budget encompassing the railways as well.

This year the Current Account deficit declined to 0.3% of the GDP from about 1%, the monsoons were good, crop sowing data showed excellent numbers, Foreign Direct Investment grew by about 36% in First half of 2016.

After the “war on black money” aka demonetisation, public was expecting a lot from this budget. So here is how the Finance Minister addressed each sector:

The budget was focused on 10 key aspects which are:

  • Farmers: Government committed to double the income in 5 years;
  • Rural Population: providing employment & basic infrastructure;
  • Youth: energising them through education, skills and jobs;
  • The Poor and the Underprivileged; strengthening the systems of social security, health care and affordable housing;
  • Infrastructure: for efficiency, productivity and quality of life;
  • Financial Sector: growth & stability by stronger institutions;
  • Digital Economy: for speed, accountability and transparency;
  • Public Service: effective governance and efficient service delivery through people’s participation;
  • Prudent Fiscal Management: to ensure optimal deployment of resources and preserve fiscal stability;
  • Tax Administration: honouring the honest.

In this article, we shall cover Farmers, Rural populace, youth and personal Income tax under the budget.

For Farmers

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has targeted agricultural credit in 2017-18 at 10 lakh crores. The Budget also provides for increased coverage under Fasal Bima Yojana scheme from 30% of cropped area in 2016-17 to 40% in 2017-18 and 50% in 2018-19; budgeted 9000 crore for the same.

The FM proposed setting up of new mini labs in Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVKs) and ensured 100% coverage of all 648 KVKs in the country for soil sample testing. The long term irrigation fund already set up by NABARD is proposed to be augmented by 100% to take the total corpus of this Fund to 40,000 crores.

The biggest move was setting up of Dedicated Micro Irrigation Fund in NABARD to achieve ‘per drop more crop’ with an initial corpus of 5,000 crores. Coverage of National Agricultural Market (e-NAM) to be expanded from 250 markets to 585 APMCs. This will ensure the farmers have an option to decide when and at what price they can sell their produce.

With a move to formalize agriculture sector and address the problem of “small farms”, the FM proposed a model law on contract farming to be prepared by the Centre and circulated among the States for adoption.

For Rural Folks

The FM set the agenda that the aim of the Government was to bring 1 crore people out of poverty. Probably taking cue from the success of Jal Yukt Shivar scheme in Maharashtra, the budget proposed building 5 lakh farm ponds by March 2018.

The FM allocated 48000 Crores to MNREGA, which is the highest ever till date, and together with the states contribution allocated 27000 crores to rural roads in this budget.

Allocation for Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana–Gramin was increased from 15,000 crores in to 23,000 crores in 2017-18 with a target and set a target to complete 1 crore houses by 2019 for the houseless and those living in kutcha houses. Allocation for Prime Minister’s Employment Generation Program and Credit Support Schemes was increased three-fold and Narendra Modi’s pet scheme the “Swachchha Bharat Abhiyan” too received considerable attention in this Budget.

This took the total allocation for Rural, Agriculture and Allied sectors is to 187223 crores.

For Youth

Proposal was moved for introducing a system of measuring annual learning outcomes in our schools, however the fine print on this is important. To spur innovation and grass root technology, an Innovation Fund for Secondary Education is proposed to encourage local innovation for ensuring universal access, gender parity and quality improvement in 3479 educationally backward districts of our country.

In a radical move, the FM suggested setting up of National Testing Agency as an autonomous and self-sustained premier testing organisation to conduct all entrance examinations for higher education institutions.

Building on the Skill India scheme, the FM proposed setting up of Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Kendras in more than 600 districts across the country and establishment of 100 India International Skills Centres across the country.

To bridge the Demand for skills and supply a Skill Acquisition and Knowledge Awareness for Livelihood Promotion programme (SANKALP) is be launched at a cost of 4000 crores. It is estimated that SANKALP will provide market relevant training to 3.5 crore youth and the next phase of Skill Strengthening for Industrial Value Enhancement (STRIVE) will also be launched at a cost of 2,200 crores.

Other sectors for jobs were leather, footwear, textiles and tourism.

For the Poor and the underprivileged

FM proposed setting up of Mahila Shakti Kendra with an allocation of 500 crores in 14 lakh Anganwadi Centres. Government has taken up fighting diseases like Measles, TB, Leprosy etc.

Affordable housing has been given infrastructure status which should technically enable them to tax breaks etc.

With the bulk of our labour in rural areas the government has taken up the task of legislative reforms to simplify, rationalise and amalgamate the existing labour laws into 4 Codes on (i) wages, (ii) industrial relations, (iii) social security and welfare, and (iv) safety and working conditions. This will surely benefit the Employers and employees.

For Personal Income Tax

The existing rate of taxation for individual assesses between income of 2.5 lakhs to 5 lakhs was reduced to 5% from the present rate of 10%.

To compensate the loss of revenue to the state the FM proposed a Surcharge of 10% of tax payable on categories of individuals whose annual taxable income is between 50 lakhs and 1 crore.

This effectively means that INR 12,500 relief was provided to those earning more than INR 5 lacs. Post demonetization the honest tax payers were expecting much more than this from the Government.

To rationalize the tax filing procedure the FM introduced Simple one-page form to be filed as Income Tax Return for the category of individuals having taxable income up to 5 lakhs other than business income.

Budget 2017: Nation waited for Dabangg, Jaitley said Hum Saath Saath Hain

Aashish Chandorkar
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Budget 2017: Nation waited for Dabangg, Jaitley said Hum Saath Saath Hain

The Union Budget 2017-18 was primed to be explosive – income tax cuts, banking transaction tax, securities transactions tax, long term capital gains tax, universal basic income, demonetization windfall – there was a whole bunch of things discussed, proposed, and speculated. And now, eventually all junked.

The nation – supporters of the government and the detractors alike – waited with a bated breath assuming Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will deliver a Dabangg budget – a Salman Khan at his caring, scheming, and edgy best. Instead, Mr. Jaitley has delivered a safe, defensive, conservative, and a wait and watch budget which gives a Hum Saath Saath Hain feel – a mild, please most, annoy least Salman Khan of the Rajashree Productions version.

What’s negative or unimaginative is the obvious. There is nothing much for the poll-bound states. That’s already a budget made for poor politics – good judgment has little space in governance anyway! The announcements of December 31st and the income tax cuts likely to benefit the lower middle class income tax payers are the only arsenal the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will have to take to the voters.

There is no demonetisation linked new stimulus, though a lot of the extra capex and Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) will be targeted as a counter. But the political space on the issue was ceded by not creating labels and buckets with direct links.

Also, the government decided to play it completely safe. Perhaps waiting for the Goods and Services Tax (GST) disruption, the government stuck to making top level announcements, creating few new schemes and presented an incremental view to consolidate. If this was a one day international game, Mr. Jaitley batted through the 30th to 35th over milking the opposition – to use a Ravi Shastri analogy.

On the macro-economic front, the government decided to continue on the path of fiscal consolidation. Fiscal deficit of 3.2% next year, revenue deficit of 1.9% and future promise of achieving 3% fiscal deficit should please the India focused economists from Mumbai. The Foreign Portfolio Investors got their clarity on the taxation on securities traded outside India – this should minimize the op-ed noise which was very loud in December. The allocations for the states will further go up this year, a welcome step.

The thrust on rural and agricultural spending is the big story. The MGNREGA allocation will be a record 48,000 cr. The emphasis will be on specific assets and not just on wage payments. This is a huge commitment, and it is quite possible MGNREGA morphs into a universal basic income (UBI) over the next few years, where universe implies rural universe.

Increased allocations for rural roads and affordable housing with relaxed norms for what constitutes affordable outside is aimed at boosting construction activity in the hinterland. There were announcements around making drinking water safer, linking upgrade in rural drinking water infrastructure to sanitation and creating a gram panchayat level tracking and monitoring index. The actual policy and implementation should make for interesting reading in this space.

Boost for jobs specifically was limited to announcements around packages in textiles and leather and footwear industries. The Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Kendras will be extended to 600 districts and this should see more private participation for skilling youth.  There were some announcements on a National Testing Agency, new medical seats and investments in digital platforms for learning.

The indication on treating transportation as one big subject was a positive. The 2.41L cr allocation across railways, roads, inland waterways and civil aviation was perhaps stated for the first time as an integrated number. If this leads to more coordination and lesser bureaucracy over the next few years, it will be a great move.

There were no fancy announcements on railways or metro trains and no cut down of expenditure on roads – the focus continues to be on creating new infrastructure, boosting core sectors and chasing the revival of the illusive investment cycle. Creating a fund for railway safety is a good idea. Focus on BharatNet with a more realistic target of connecting 150,000 gram panchayats on the broadband network should be welcome – this target can well be achieved realistically given the resources and expertise available.

The government stressed on the probity plank via a new mechanism to fund political funding. Electoral bonds with anonymous investments will be launched and cash donations for political parties over Rs 2,000 will be deemed illegal. The intent to act against issuers of bounced cheques is a good statement to make. Not allowing cash transactions over Rs 3,00,000 is a good idea, though that limit needs to progressively come down.

There are a few new thoughts – targeted spend to counter deadly diseases, a new pilot for Aadhar linked health record for senior citizens, abolishing the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB), land monetization to develop smaller airports, low noise divestment through Central Public Sector Enterprise (CPSE) exchange traded funds (ETFs), two new strategic crude reserves, enhanced defense spending, forward markets in agriculture integrating the Electronic National Agriculture Market, listing Railways CPSEs and doubling MUDRA covered lending.

The direct tax changes are obviously helpful but only a small step. Small firms paying less tax and earners less than Rs 5,00,000 annual income paying less tax are both great steps. Offsetting the tax revenue loss through penalizing those earning more than Rs 50,00,000 is a terrible idea, but then with hardly a million or two tax filers in that category, there is almost no political impact of such bad decisions. Perhaps before the next election, the government may want to co-opt the rich, but given how moneymaking is treated in India, no one should bet anything on it!

Structurally, killing the railway budget, the plan and the non plan classification, and allowing the budget allocations to be used before the monsoon onset by bringing the budget presentation forward are good themes. Hopefully another government will not undo any of these.

The TV channels hunting TRPs, newspapers waiting for streamers, and opposition waiting to label government as profligate and big-talking will be disappointed. Those looking at the budget as a vehicle to genuinely overhaul social problems – healthcare and education and to name two – will be disappointed as well.

This is an apolitical, conservative and a defensive budget. It reduces the importance of budget in the general policy making which in itself is not a bad thing as long as legislative action continues. Will it?

Rajdeep Sardesai tries to create sensation before budget, falls hopelessly

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

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

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

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


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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We recognize them by means of cultural symbols.

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

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

Symbols like this:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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


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

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


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

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


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

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


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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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


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

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

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

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


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


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

Donkey stopped from filing nomination papers for Uttar Pradesh elections

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

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

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


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

Donkey as UP CM
Gardabh Singh Yadav

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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


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

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

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

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

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

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