AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal has been making all sorts of allegations against the Central Government’s demonetisation scheme: He has alleged that some people were already in the know, has outright lied on many issues, and has termed it a big scam.
He had even given a 3-day deadline to the PM to roll it back, after which he had warned that he would be ready for a “kurbaani” (sacrifice) for the country as well:
3 din ke andar isko wapas lo, nahi to desh mein bagawat hogi. Desk ke liye kurbani deni pade, to denge: Arvind kejriwal #Demonetisation
But even as the AAP supremo is going all-out against the scheme, some leaders have now started taking a different line. Probably AAP’s tallest leader in Goa, and even tipped to be the CM candidate at one time, Dr. Oscar Rebello has come out in support of the demonetisation scheme.
Rebello first shot to fame in 2006-2007 as the (former) convener of Goa Bachao Abhiyan opposing the state government’s new Regional Plan (RP). He has ever since been involved in many social causes as an activist.
Goan media reported that in a press conference, Rebello stated clearly that certain things which happened as a result of demonetisation which are good for the country:
Big blow to counterfeit currency
Almost entirely choked off terror-funding, which will be hugely beneficial for the country
Politicians, builders who hoarded huge amounts of cash, they are completely flummoxed as to what to do with their money
He went on to add that even though the above benefits are seen, the implementation of the scheme has been disastrous and that the market lacks liquidity.
This is a marked departure from all out attack on demonetisation by Kejriwal, who has called the entire scheme a sham and a scam with ulterior motives that is not for the good of the country. AAP has usually shown doors to people, including senior leaders like Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav, when they have differed from Kejriwal’s views, so it remains to be seen whether any action will be taken against Rebello by the central leadership.
However, any action would be difficult since Rebello is the most popular and most credible face of AAP in Goa, and with the assembly elections coming up, any action against him would seem suicidal. For now, Kejriwal may just have to brazen out this embarrassing development.
G Janardhan Reddy is a man who has always hogged the limelight for the wrong reasons, be it by being indicted and jailed for the Karnataka mining scam to the recent controversy of him throwing a 500 crore wedding for his daughter around the time when demonetization was announced.
The wedding of his daughter was lavish to say the least, with the wedding cards having LCD screens, and him creating replicas of their ancestral Bellary home at the wedding venue for the effect of seeing his daughter off from his own home.
Such a lavish display of wealth plus his connections with the BJP looked like being an ideal punching bag for the eminent politicians and media persons:
Reddy is reported to be spending Rs 500 cr on his daughter’s wedding. How did Reddy get so much money in new currency? Will the PM answer? https://t.co/fpBuuoczGj
Reddy, on his part clarified that he didn’t spend entire money in cash on a single day, for an event of such a grand scale requires months of preparation. However, that was not going to impress the Income Tax department.
The IT department has now served a notice containing 15 questions notice to Reddy to seek the details of the expenses incurred. His mining company in Bellary also been raided. Not just that, the event management firms which planned and executed his wedding also found taxmen at their doors.
This despite the fact that Reddy was supposed to have declared his wealth under the Income Declaration Scheme (IDS) earlier, as reported here. As pointed out in the report, it is entirely plausible that with such an infamous reputation of having illicit funds, Reddy probably wouldn’t have risked such an ostentatious display of wealth if he didn’t have his flanks covered. Nonetheless, the IT department acted and some celebrity journalists outraged.
Now a similar high scale wedding of the son of the Small-scale Industry Minister of Karnataka, Ramesh Jharkholi has taken place. It has been largely ignored by celebrity journalists and politicians who outraged on Reddy, even though the event took place on early this week.
The wedding had a whopping 1.5 lakh guests in an air-conditioned mandap. A helipad was built for VVIP guests. The day of the wedding clashed with that of a debate in the assembly on an important debate about the drought situation in Karnataka, but the former got the higher priority with many Congress MLA’s skipping assembly for the wedding.
The Congress leader has been fortunate that neither the celebrity journalists have outraged nor the Income Tax department has sent any notice so far. If and when the department does it, would be interesting to see if the notice is welcomed or is spun as a case of political vendetta against one’s opponents.
Among the politicians who are vociferously opposed to the demonetization initiative undertaken by the Central government, two stand out – Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee and Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal. More than anyone else, it has been Mamata who opposed demonetization from day one, labeling it ‘draconian.’
Soon she was joined by Mr. Kejriwal who, let me remind you, came to limelight on the issue of ‘eradicating corruption’, and the other usual suspects Rahul Gandhi, Mayawati, Mulayam Singh Yadav, Sitaram Yechuri, Laloo Prasad Yadav and others of their ilk.
Only in India, it is possible that a politician like Mr. Kejriwal, who got elected on the platform of ‘cleaning up politics and the system’ and ‘eradicating all forms of corruption and black money,’ today stands shoulder to shoulder with Mr. Laloo Prasad Yadav – who is a convicted for siphoning off millions of rupees, that too from animal fodder of all things – protesting against one of the most important initiatives launched in our memory to eradicate corruption.
But the level of hypocrisy exhibited by TMC Chief Ms. Mamata Banerjee is of a whole different level. It is unmatched, and unparalleled.
Reacting to the demonetization issue, Ms. Banerjee had recently said, ‘There are millions of real stories across cities, towns, villages about demonetisation affecting the marginalized. Here is only one example. Tea garden owners have expressed difficulty to pay wages on time. This could lead to frustration among poor workers, most of whom are tribals.’
Perhaps you find it a normal statement from her, but for me it’s nothing less than Hitler claiming that ‘the Jews stand to be persecuted if demonetization is not rolled back.’
It is because the Delhi media has not told you in detail about these tribals and tea garden workers, towards whom Mamata Banerjee is suddenly so compassionate. What Ms. Banerjee has conveniently forgotten is that the tribals and tea garden workers are already STARVING TO DEATH.
Since 2011, when the Trinmool party came to power, over 500 people have starved to death in the tea gardens of Darjeeling, Terai and Dooars. In Red Bank alone, close to 175 people have starved to death till date. Yet, speaking at a TMC rally prior to the recent assembly elections on April 2014, Ms. Banerjee claimed, “there have been no starvation deaths and no one has died of starvation in the tea belts of North Bengal.”
Starving husband and the helpless wife. For more pictures and a report, click here.
Ignorance is one thing, but willful ignorance and outright denial of facts, especially when one is occupying the chair of a Chief Minister, is criminal and nothing less.
None in the media reported this, but only five days ago, three tea garden workers died due to starvation related malnutrition in the shut tea gardens owned by Duncans. A day before that, a 19 year old girl had died in the shut down Manabari tea garden, as her family could not afford to take her to the doctor.
A helpless mother cries, as her 19 year old daughter is no more. She couldn’t afford her treatment.
Even as I write this, there are, thousands of children who have gone off to sleep on an empty stomach, hundreds of mothers who are dying of starvation, and hundreds of fathers who are suffering from acute malnutrition in the tea gardens of Darjeeling, Terai and Dooars.
Why was Ms. Banerjee silent about their plight till now? And now she’s planning to blame it all on demonetisation?
Ms. Banerjee says, she is concerned about the ‘poor,’ well let me ask her this – what have you done till date, to help eradicate miseries of these people?
Three major tea garden in Darjeeling hills – Dhootrey, Kallej Valley and Peshok are owned by Trinmool Congress Rajya Sabha MP KD Singh. Since mid-2015 his company, the Alchemist Group haven’t paid the workers proper wages, bonuses or ration. Numerous representations have been sent to Ms. Banerjee, including a very high profile visit by GNLF leaders prior to the Bengal assembly elections.
After GNLF announced their support to TMC, Ms. Banerjee had said the issue would be resolved within 15 days. It’s been close to 7 months, and TMC hasn’t done anything to resolve the issue. People in these gardens have continued to suffer, they didn’t get their Dushera or Diwali bonus, neither have they received proper wages. If Ms. Banerjee actually cared, wouldn’t she have taken the Member of Parliament, whom she nominated, to task a year ago itself and made him pay the workers dues?
If she does care for the poor, what’s stopping her from helping the hundreds of thousands of ‘poor’ tea garden workers, who are suffering due to the indifference by her own government?
Moreover, TMC’s close links to numerous ‘chit fund’ companies, which has drained lives savings from millions of poor people is very well known. In our region too, companies like Sharada, Rose Valley, Basil etc. operated freely under the guise of Govt of WB Sanctioned Entity. They literally looted millions of people, and yet the self-nominated ‘champions of poor’ Mamata has not shown any mamata towards them. Why so?
Hundreds of thousands of people had their lives savings wiped out due to Chit-fund. Yet no Mamata and concern for them.
In our hills, these victims of ‘chit fund’ companies have organized themselves under the banner of ‘Chit Fund Pidit Janta’ and have continued to send multiple reminders to her office, requesting her to help return their lives savings, yet she has conveniently chosen to ignore them.
So when Mamata uses the shoulders of these very people to train her guns at the center, she stands exposed.
Politics in the name of religion and the ‘poor’ has left millions of our countrymen suffering for decades, and in brazenly asking for the central government to roll back demonetization initiative – citing inconvenience to the poor, Mamata reeks of hypocrisy at best, and criminal at worst.
(Upendra M Pradhan writes the column Voice of Darjeeling for www.darjeelingtimes.com and is editor at large at The Darjeeling Chronicle. Pics courtesy: Pallawib Singcok and Vikki Thapa/ The Darjeeling Chronicle)
The mainstream media has mastered the Art of Obfuscation – especially when it comes to headlines. TRPs trump the truth, almost always (I’m using the term TRPs figuratively; it includes, viewership, circulation, clicks, shares, etc.).
In the current era of information overload and short attention spans, few read beyond the headlines or the tweets. And more often than not, the news is so predictable – that most readers can even adequately guess the pattern of news contents.
Knowing well that most people don’t read beyond headlines, the headlines are worded such, that they deliberately obfuscate the way media wants to. Take an example from yesterday.
Army killed two terrorists in Bandipora in Kashmir. In the operation, some Indian currency, including the new Rs 2000 notes, were recovered from them. If your read the headlines or tweets from media houses, you will believe that terrorists, presumably from Pakistan, were having huge cache of new currency notes:
After reading these, you will start wondering how did they get this cache of new currency notes? Is Pakistan already printing fake currency notes (a rumour many have spread)? Is our banking system compromised? And obviously, has demonetisation failed (because we just need a sensationalist headline, like death tolls, to conclude that)?
In fact, some articles didn’t leave that to your imagination and went on to suggest that the demonetisation goal of striking hard on the fake currency and terror funding networks had failed:
Bingo! Mission Accomplished.
Whether done for agenda or for TRPs by the respective media houses, the sensationalist headlines were used for nothing else but agenda and misinformation by political Smart Alec’s and their sidekicks on the social media.
Look at these reactions:
If you haven’t drilled into the news report details by now – can you guess how much of this new currency was with those terrorists?
A grand total of “Two notes”. Yes, Rs 4000/-.
Is it a big deal for two new notes to find their way to terrorists through their handlers, supporters, well-wishers in the valley? In fact, reports confirm that security forces raided private houses after receiving information about the terrorists. So those private houses of local residents can’t provide two terrorists with one new note each? Internet is splashed with people clicking selfies with new 2000 rupees notes, but we are to believe that no one in India has seen those?
Unless of course the editors in each of our reputed media houses think that terrorists in Kashmir live in snow caves beyond Siachen where Pakistan supplies them everything, and that Article 370 debars RBI to release the new currency in Kashmir valley, or that new currency has been only home delivered only to BJP supporters alone so far.
To be fair, there was one media house that did report the news with accurate headline telling readers that only two new notes, along with cache of arms and old currency notes, were recovered from the terrorists. And guess what, the report has got just one share on Twitter and another on Facebook (till the time of filing this report):
Not sensationalist, so not shared?
So truth is struggling to register its presence while lies have ubiquitously found its way everywhere.
Least we can expect is this article being widely shared, so that media knows that truth also sells, not just TRPs. Assuming that they care about the truth.
As the country progresses in the era of demonetisation, there has been no shortage of rumour mongering as was continuously reported by us [1] [2][3]. One of those who appear to have emerged as the front runners in rumour mongering to spread panic among the masses is Arvind Kejriwal and his supporters.
We did a piece recently exposing how AAP on 13th November used news clips of 2015 in order to spread panic among the people. The news piece from 2015 reported how RBI planned a mass leave on 19th November 2015 to protest against Modi Government’s alleged intrusions. Posting such a news just before 19th November 2016 exposed AAP’s intent, i.e. to make people believe this is a recent news.
AAP’s supremo Arvind Kejriwal later went a step ahead and shared a picture of an alleged poor bank customer who had killed himself out of utter frustration of being unable to withdraw cash. The truth however was that the man was a bank robber and committed the act after he was trapped by locals. The tweet which Kejriwal shared was later deleted, the twitter account of Youtuber Abhishek Mishra who was the brain child behind the rumour was reported to the cops and the account was deactivated, yet Kejriwal’s false tweet exists and he has not apologised for his lies.
After getting repeatedly exposed and panned heavily, one might feel that Kejriwal would have learnt his lesson and would finally stop spreading false news. But today he tweeted this story from a little known site:
पिछले हफ़्ते 6000 cr लोन माफ़ कर दिया, अब ये? ऐसे उड़ाओगे हमारा पैसा?
The allegations that the Government might be using the demonetised cash and bank deposits to fund crony capitalism were pretty severe. But Kejriwal’s tweet was fully exposed on social media:
This was a fraud of epic proportions. First of all, the news of SBI proposing to give a loan to Adani was from 2014 as noted from the Indian Express article. Presumably some miscreants made a clone site of India Today in which they passed off this old report as news from 4 days ago. It might be noted that ‘indialivetoday.com’ to the unobservant eye might easily have passed off as Indiatodaylive, thereby giving credence to Kejriwal’s tweet. Not just that, Kejriwal even retweeted a tweet by an AAP-leaning journalist which shared the same news.
When we last checked, the site had changed the date of the article to November 18, 2014, thereby completely back-tracking. The journalist too had deleted his tweet carrying the misleading news. Yet Kejriwal still believes and has already spread the rumour that this news is as recent as 4 days back.
Kejriwal’s tweet is intact. Just like the earlier case where Mishra, the original tweet and tweeter both have disappeared but Kejriwal’s tweet remains. Because his job is to spread rumour, not spread the reality?
The 2nd level of this fraud by Kejriwal and the site is the fact that way back in April 2015 itself, it was reported that this proposed loan from SBI to Adani had not materialised.
So try to gauge the extent of Kejriwal’s lies: He blindly trusts an unknown site which posted a 2 year old news item as a recent one. He uses this to link the news to demonetisation to incite the public. The site back-tracks but Kejriwal is firm. The underlying news event which was supposed to have happened, never happened. And Kejriwal’s blind followers have lapped it up and are posting this news as fact on every social media forum.
Can this be a coincidence? AAP shares a 2015 news report. Kejriwal shares a hoax death tweet. Kejriwal again shares a 2014 news item which never happened. In all three cases neither AAP nor Kejriwal retract or offer any apology.
Are these honest mistakes? Or is this a plan? Is this the next progression from Kejriwal’s “Is it true” campaign? If so Indian politics may have just descended into very dark days.
NEW DELHI: Rajya Sabha MP and lone warrior Dr. Subramanian Swamy was outspoken and politically incorrect as always when he expressed his views about humour and the Indian sociopolitical scenario at a book launch event here.
The event, held at India Islamic Cultural Centre on Monday evening, was to launch the book Unreal Aliens written by Karthik Laxman, founder of the news-satire website The UnReal Times. The event was also attended by NITI Ayog member Bibek Debroy, and was moderated by Rahul Roushan, founder of Faking News and currently with Swarajya group, of which OpIndia.com is now a part
Rahul Roushan, Subramanian Swamy, Bibek Debroy and Karthik Laxman at the book launch event.
Both Prof. Debroy and Dr. Swamy lamented that the space for humour was shrinking gradually from public lives, and especially so in the Indian parliament, where proceedings are becoming more and more acerbic and acrimonious with each session.
While Prof. Debroy outlined how the first amendment to the Indian constitution itself was a factor in causing this decline not only in the parliament but in the society too, Dr. Swamy was more direct in his criticism.
Dr. Swamy blamed Indira Gandhi for introducing this “intolerance” against humour in the parliament. He said that Mrs. Gandhi, unlike her father, would weigh every statement on a scale that didn’t have the aspect of humour or satire at all. There was snooping on people for their statements, and even innocuous statements said in jest would be twisted for political purposes under the Indira Gandhi regime, the BJP leader said.
“These days media is doing the same,” he said about deliberately twisting statements of people that are said in jest or satirically.
When asked if he can name a few politicians from today’s era who have sense of humour, Swamy said he would need to think for 24 hours before replying.
But he showered compliments on some parliamentarians from the old era for having a sense of humour.
“(Atal Bihari) Vajpayee had a very good sense of humour. I didn’t like him but I’ve to admit that he had it,” Swamy said in his inimitable style.
“Even Rajiv Gandhi had a good sense of humour,” he added. When asked if Rahul Gandhi had inherited some of that (sense of humour) in his view, Swamy said, “He (Rahul Gandhi) has no sense at all.”
Apart from Rahul Gandhi, Swamy trained his guns at Finance Minister Arun Jaitley too, whom he blamed for bad implementation of the demonetisation drive, which he otherwise hailed as a good step.
In fact, Swamy said, in jest of course, that aliens should take away Arun Jaitley. The context was the book Unreal Aliens where aliens invade the earth, especially India, and how the Modi government tackles the issue. Even Dr. Swamy features in the book, apart from Arvind Kejriwal and Arnab Goswami and many other public figures from politics, Bollywood, and media.
Prof. Bibek Debroy was all praise for the book and recommended it for having a wholesome laugh. He also shared a funny anecdote on how he once thought that a name plate with “Vivek Oberoi” printed on it was a mistake around his name, and he got it changed, only to notice later that the Bollywood actor was also present at the event.
Karthik Laxman, author of Unreal Aliens, was asked why did he choose aliens as challenge for Modi government over something like thousands of clones of Arvind Kejriwal.
“I wanted to write humour, not horror,” he said, “Also, you can find a purpose behind any steps by aliens, the same can’t be said about Mr. Kejriwal.”
Unreal Aliens has been published by Penguin India and can be bought online from Amazon.
“Demonetisation may hit fee reimbursement” screamed this front page headline of The Hindu on Nov. 21st . They were alluding to the fee the Telangana state government has to reimburse for all engineering colleges in the state. To save you the pain of reading through the whole report, here is the summary:
State government owes more than Rs 2000 crores to engineering colleges from the last 2 years.
It has recently released ~Rs 250 crores only.
It has promised to release ~Rs 600 crores “soon”.
In a totally unrelated topic, the report states that the state government is claiming losses to the tune of ~Rs 2000 crores due to demonetisation.
The Hindu is therefore running a story that demonetisation will impact further payments!
The sheer logic behind running this story boggles the mind. This problem has been pending for more than 2 years and amounts were not even released in hay days. In fact, there was the exact same problem back in 2012 too! It looks like the latest fad in town is to blame all teething problems to the demonetisation drive!
“Telangana set to lose Rs 2000 crores per month” – screamed the front page headline on November 11, 2016. However, on November 16, 2016, the same newspaper, The Hindu had a front page report that told us that Telangana is losing ~ Rs 1000 -Rs 1250 crores per month.
So what changed from the 11th to the 16th? Upon reading the headline on 16th, one would assume that the change is because of the cut in expenditure. But a detailed reading of the report tells us that nothing changed from the 11th to 16th! Both the times there is a reference to the CM talking to the governor once, with “supporting statistics”. It looks like a mere miracle that the losses came down by a whopping 50% in just 5 days, without doing anything! Perhaps we wait for a few more days, and this problem is gone then?
“Demonetisation: Severe cash crunch compels citizens to seek psychiatric help”, screamed this headline of First Post. The first case study itself sent me into a tizzy. Let me summarise it for you (all emphasis mine):
A student went to a renowned psychiatrist
He felt “tormented” because his dad didn’t give him his weekly pocket money of Rs. 1200/-.
He claims he cannot drink tea or eat a snack. Neither can he borrow because he has already piled up on debt.
First of all, it beats me why anyone would want to carry high denomination notes to drink tea in canteen. Secondly, if a student who despite getting Rs.1200/- per week has piled up debt in college canteen, then he needs to go see a financial adviser and not a psychiatrist! Thirdly, it does not mention anywhere that the student approached the doctor only because of this *crisis*.
The article goes on to mention another case study, because of the impact of marriage planning. This sounds like a genuine problem, given how anxious we can get during marriage, even in good times! The article then stops giving any more examples and merely talks about “most cases”. To top it all, we also come to know that psychiatrists are thinking that the “fabric of trust” in this country is breaking because of demonetisation!
“Modi’s demonetisation of old 1000 and 500 rupee notes, a blunder in every imaginable way” screamed the headline (headline has been changed later) in Economic Times. I read through the article. It is based entirely on hearsay. Sample these points:
Over 90% of the transactions in India are cash transactions,
More than 90% of the cash in India is not black money .
As per a recent estimate, only 6% of black money is kept in the form of cash.
The “Recent estimate” of 6% was from another news report from Hindustan times, which was interpreting this data from IT raids in the past one year. The 90% has been pulled out of thin air, and random conclusions that link this with what Mao did to sparrows in China are being thrown at the readers!
What do you do when you run out of pictures? Use them again! Take a look at the image below.
The whatabouttery of the image is baffling too. I can walk into a jewellery shop at 10 am any day and can click a picture of an empty shop! Secondly, the headline on Nov 15 says that “Small traders hit hardest”. How come jewellers are now “small traders”? If buying gold was another way to get rid of black money, isn’t it a good thing that this is being moderated now? But no, the papers won’t tell you that!
“Revenge No Development Strategy” – screamed this headline on Times of India. I was desperate to read some articles that talk about alternatives to the current move announced by Prime Minister Modi. This article was mentioned on an MP’s timeline, so I checked it out. After doing some comparisons with countries like Pakistan, Vietnam, North Korea, Zimbabwe etc, the author tells us that “Modi also chose an odd moment to attack corruption, which appeared to be in retreat.” Whoa, retreat? The source of this information is the “rebound” in our rankings from being the 95th most corrupt country to 76th! Nice job, let’s pat ourselves on the back and go back to citing these numbers to the people of the country!
Apart from the privatisation of banks (I still don’t know how this will help control black money, because the author just mentions it as the only good idea and doesn’t discuss further!), we get to read about another possible way. “There is also a better way to downsize the black economy, which Modi’s government tried but with underwhelming results.” He tells us that Indonesia’s income declaration scheme imposed only a 4% tax on black money, so a lot more was recovered. Now – the headline makes sense! Don’t think about revenge on those poor black money hoarders! Let’s perhaps molly coddle the black money hoarders into getting them to pay much much less tax than what the salaried class pays!
Apart from the shameful coverage of linking many unfortunate deaths to this demonetisation drive, the media is also trying to whip up passions across a section of the society by writing such contradictory, sometimes meaningless articles in their publications! Nothing better was anyway expected from the English media. As a parting shot, take a look at the image below, with the caption –“Vendors at Musheerabad Fish market in Hyderabad wait for customers”.
Is it just me, or do you also not see any “vendors” in the picture?
As one tuned into India Today, the screens flashed ‘Biggest interview of the decade’. Sonia Gandhi was giving her first interview in many years and she was giving it to Rajdeep Sardesai, their consulting editor. To say Sonia Gandhi has been reclusive when it comes to overtly dealing with the fourth estate would be an understatement with only an address to the nation being some form of in front of camera communication.
Many viewers speculated the possible questions which would have been asked. Many probably created a wish list of the questions they would want asked encompassing topics like Demonetisation, the Surgical strike on Pakistan, the separatist protests in Kashmir, the Congress Party’s poor performance in recent elections, Robert Vadra so on. And so it began, the interview was set in the Swaraj Bhavan formerly owned by Motilal Nehru which was the birth place of Indira Gandhi.
THE INTERVIEW:
The first question thrown by Mr. Sardesai, ‘When did you first meet Indira Gandhi?’ looked a bit odd considering Sonia Gandhi was the one getting interviewed, but could have been plausible considering the proximity of the interview’s date with that of Indira Gandhi’s birth anniversary. It was followed by what was Indira like at home, then what influence did she (Indira) have on her (Sonia’s) politics and life. Flags probably were beginning to be raised in viewers mind about the arc of the interview.
Then he asked Sonia about the allegations that she, Indira, and the rest promoted dynasty politics. Finally it looked like Rajdeep was done easing Sonia in and real question were starting to prop up but again he went, ‘what are the central ideas and values of Indira’, the first response to it by Sonia was, many might have guessed, ‘Secularism’.
One thing led to another and Rajdeep managed to ask as to was Indira practising vote bank politics. If not already clear, Sonia’s response brought the whole interview into perspective. She responded, ‘We are discussing Mrs. Gandhi, and I don’t like to discuss politics’. At another point too when Sonia sensed Rajdeep was drifting away from her set rules, she used the same rebuke.
There surely have been instances where the questions in an interview appeared fixed but in this case the whole topic was pre-decided and no attempt was made to keep this fact under wraps. It was an eulogy to Indira Gandhi, in the words of her daughter-in-law, being asked ultra-soft-ball questions by a friendly face. And all the ‘interview of the decade’ looked like offering was underarm full tosses!
In short, questions were asked to Sonia about Indira and the various aspects of her life which Sonia Gandhi remembered with surprising clarity. Rajdeep’s tone and body language remained extremely docile, supportive and probably sycophantic, completely unlike the one during Smriti Irani’s interview.
It wasn’t the first time Mr Sardesai had interviewed Mrs Gandhi; he did another interview with her back in 2005, when there there were real questions like her reaction to corruption in politics, allegations of her being the real power behind Manmohan Singh, etc. though the tone still remained the same. One thing which remained EXACTLY the same was Rajdeep’s admiration for Sonia, who he said “fought like a Tigress”:
So was the interview only agreed upon after Sonia Gandhi was assured of being asked questions only regarding Indira Gandhi? Did it not violate the “moral compass” of the profession he strives so hard to follow?
Another thing that struck us was Sardesai repeating ‘I ask you this because’ after some questions, did Sardesai desperately tried to justify his logic in order to escape Sonia Gandhi’s displeasure for asking some rare questions that did not follow the pre-decided path?
Was this Sonia Gandhi interview a part of a grander plan of the Congress to promote Indira Gandhi and her image so to benefit the party in upcoming elections? A grand white-wash of Indira Gandhi, and maybe promoting Priyanka Gandhi as the modern Indira Gandhi?
As for the reactions we turned to twitter, many dug up Rajdeep’s old tweets to show him the mirror:
Ever wondered what it would be like if Bal Thackrey was iviewed by Saamna. Now, we know. pic.twitter.com/kmmH91XOkW
And finally, someone at home might not be very happy after such easy questions were asked, as evident by her past record of keeping stringent standards in interviews:
“Charmingly enabling questions”! The Modi years will go down in history as the lowest point for India’s press! https://t.co/6l9tGfxegu
As expected, ever since the 8th November demonetisation move kicked in, the usual suspects are having sleepless nights. The list of hoaxes around the demonetisation scheme haven’t stopped coming in as the anti Modi brigade queues up to cash in on the uncertainty after the move.
The photoshop machines have been working over time printing new hoaxes faster than RBI can print new currency notes forcing OpIndia.com to dispel those rumours at the same rate .
The latest mob attack being on the new currency notes. The mobsters after having tried all ways possible to discredit the humble currency notes have now moved on to play the time tested, hardest to dispel, photoshopping routine for their propaganda.
In the latest trick to confuse and paralyse masses, photoshopped images of the new currency is being circulated. Some of these pictures are of the Rs 500 notes where they claim they received new notes from ATM which are only half printed while others claim they got Rs 2000 notes which were misprinted.
Just days before this, a hoax of an incorrect Hindi language print on the Rs 2000 note was made viral by the same group, with suggestion that the Rs 2000 note was printed in hurry and that demonetisation should be rolled back because the Government and RBI are ill prepared.
After all the hoaxes being busted on this site alone, the latest attempt was hundreds of Congress and AAP affiliated handles suddenly claiming to have withdrawn washed off Rs 500 notes. Here are two such geniuses:
This chap has already deleted his tweets which were retweeted over 1000 times and has now moved on to the next hoax which is already debunked (note the hashtag):
Two more tweets claiming the 500 note half printed, one of them mentioning it’s a Whatsapp forward. These were deleted later too:
There is no proof that these notes actually exist other than the deleted tweets based on Whatsapp forwards. The notes clearly look badly photoshoped. The other rumour being spread is that the Rs 2000 notes having a lot of mis-prints with hundreds of handles tweeting about it.
Some error rate in currency printing is but natural and banks replace these notes. RBI has made errors before and has come forward and issued clarifications earlier. But for now this remains unconfirmed too
Meanwhile the assault on the new currency continues unabated with you-tubers making them pass through stress tests usually reserved for nuclear bunkers and it looks they are holding up nicely, you can relax and appreciate the crispiness of your new notes.
Editor-in-Chief of English TV news channel Times Now, Arnab Goswami, had resigned from the channel earlier this month. Arnab had virtually single-handedly taken Times Now to a position where it was the undisputed TRP leader in the English news market. Obviously, when it was revealed that he would be leaving, it came as big shock, and everybody had 2 questions:
1. What next for Arnab?
2. What next for Times Now?
In this report, we had tried to guess what Arnab could be upto next. And now it has been revealed what Times Now would do without Arnab.
Some were wondering whether Times Now would follow the route of Times of India, which is much softer on many issues. Of late, Arnab had strictly disassociated himself with other Times Group brands, especially Times of India. He announced that he didn’t support the Aman Ki Asha campaign by the group. So this would fit the narrative.
Social media today was also rife with rumours that Rajdeep Sardesai would be roped in at Times Now. This was probably based on the fact the his wife Sagarika Ghose is already with Times of India and now the entire Times Group could be their fiefdom. It would also go along with the thought that Times Now was seeking to re-position itself.
This of course would have led to Times Now losing a massive (if not the entire) chunk of their viewer base. While most other English language channels followed the unwritten leftist-liberal rules, Times Now had broken them, and a Rajdeep would have just ensured that Times Now would have become just another channel.
But now, these rumours have been quashed as none other than the Editor of News-X has revealed that Rahul Shivshankar who was an anchor and news editor at News-X would now move to Times Now:
Confirming that @RShivshankar is joining Times Now as Chief Editor. The best editor in the business moves on. All the best
This will probably be an astute move for both Times Now and Rahul Shivshankar. First of all, Shivshankar has modelled his approach to be very similar to Arnab. Both of them are very aggressive and tow similar editorial lines. So this would seem a natural promotion for him.
Times Now also seems to have realised that they have created a brand positioning for themselves, which cannot and should be changed overnight. Hence they have chosen Shivshankar, to possibly continue the tone and tenor of the channel, as managed by Arnab. It is also interesting to note that Shivshankar was a former Times Now employee and had worked along side Arnab.
Shivshankar though will have huge shoes to fill since Arnab was the sole eyeball-winner on Times Now and it remains to be seen if the audience will continue to be faithful to Times Now. Also, News X isn’t really anywhere close to the “Gold standard” in journalism. So will he be as credible a face as Arnab Goswami to Times Now’s millions of viewers? At least till Arnab starts his new venture, Times Now will hope that Shivshankar manages to catch the pulse of the nation.
