Even as Udta Punjab is facing trouble from the draconian chief of Censor Board, Pahlaj Nihalani, cartoonists are also feeling the heat of censorship, but from the party which professes to be of a liberal bent: Congress. The Congress party has seen a steady decline in vote share and popularity all over the country. The number of states under its rule has come down to a handful, the largest state being Karnataka.
Satish Acharya, a professional cartoonist, he has mocked many political parties, and famous personalities in the past. He has been vocal on various issues and has attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his policies quite often:
But Acharya’s luck ran out when he dared to poke fun at Congress CM of Karnataka Siddaramaiah and Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi. Echoing the fact that Congress in India was losing its grip, Acharya drew the following cartoon:
The cartoon that Congress could not tolerate
It seems the political masters in Karnataka were not “tolerant” enough. Congress, which has earlier used censorship as a tool to silence critics on social media, was at it again. Yesterday Acharya remarked on Facebook that he had been getting calls from local Congress party leaders to remove his cartoon hung for public display, because it was “hurting”. He also revealed that although Congress claimed it was “hurt”, Municipality authorities claimed he should remove it because it violated a “No Flex” rule.
The truth though was out today. Acharya was forced to remove the cartoon from the hoarding on his building. Acharya claimed that Kundapura Municipality officials gave the excuse of “No Flex” drive, but unofficially they admitted to being under lots of pressure from the local Congress leaders to remove it.
censorship
‘This skeleton’ says a lot about the misplaced priorities of Congress party in India. pic.twitter.com/YZkXa7SIeS
Now as a form of protest, against this intolerance shown towards an artiste, Acharya has decided to help spread his cartoon as far and wide as possible. He has made the same cartoon his Facebook profile cover and is urging his fans to share the cartoon as much as possible.
Call it economic illiteracy or plain malicious intent, Indian media has done it again. India posted a GDP of 7.6% for the last financial year, which positioned it as the fastest growing large economy in the world. But some media reports were out to find non-existent chinks in this data. The Deccan Chronicle for example ran this headline:
Deccan Chronicle
The popular site “The Logical Indian” too attempted to raise questions about the GDP, albeit with dubious logic and poor English. The central question revolved around the data point in the GDP figures which is called “discrepancies”. The Deccan Chronicle chose to rename this technical term as “errors”, which made it appear as if the the GDP data itself is erroneous.
So what are these “Discrepancies”? It was well explained in this article on the Wall Street Journal:
Understanding these “discrepancies” requires first understanding that an economy’s size can be measured in three ways: by totalling up the value of all goods and services that are produced, by totalling up the amount that gets spent on those goods and services, or by totalling up what’s earned by selling those goods and services.
In theory, all three methods should yield the same number: GDP. In reality, it’s complicated. And in India, it’s even more complicated.
The country’s statisticians first calculate GDP from the production side, with GVA and taxes and subsidies as outlined above. They then compute another GDP estimate by adding up various kinds of spending, from personal consumption to business and government investment. But because timely, reliable spending data aren’t available in India, the two GDP estimates don’t usually match.
The difference between them is what’s labeled “discrepancies.” And this amount, whether positive or negative, gets added to the expenditure-based estimate in the reported data so that the two estimates come out equal, just as they would be in an ideal world.
In short, “discrepancies” is an element inserted just to balance the GDP equation, so that it fits the theoretical formula. The country’s chief statistician T.C.A. Anant further explained that:
Discrepancies don’t represent an actual part of the economy. They are inserted just to make an accounting relationship hold true. If India collected better data on expenditure, discrepancies would be closer to zero.
He reiterated that “it doesn’t make sense to say that the magnitude of discrepancies is causing GDP growth to be overstated”. These views were echoed on twitter by economists such as Dr Bibek Debroy and Dr Arvind Virmani, who were almost at wit’s end explaining the technical jargon to lay people. Even Huffington Post reported that the analysts and economists they talked to had no reason to doubt the GDP figures. Later, Debroy, who is also a member of the Niti Aayog, even wrote an article to explain the point in layman’s terms:
I asked someone what her income was last month; she gave me a figure and produced a pay-slip. I then sought to know how she had spent the money; she thought of various items but couldn’t account for Rs 15,000. I told her, I believed neither her income figure nor her pay-slip. I am sure you agree mine was a stupid statement.
Notice that just because I have been unable to explain how some income was spent, that income doesn’t vanish into thin air; any more than Rs 15,000 from a pay-slip becomes “spin”. There is no dispute about those goods and services (their value) having been produced.
In summation, India has more data from the supply side, but inadequate data from the expenditure or demand side, which is why although supply side information gives the correct picture due to better data availability, expenditure side information falls short, hence the variable which is unknown is labelled as “discrepancy”. “Discrepancies” are essentially a balancing item, but also represent components which do not fit into a specific category. Also, in case of India, inventory data is quite poor, so looking at both inventory and discrepancies helps narrow the impact over time. To call this discrepancy an “error” is nothing short of malicious intent.
Pahlaj Nihalani is back in news. This time for Udta Punjab.
I would not like to discuss Nihalani because it is useless to talk about an incompetent man who has done no good for Indian cinema even after facing enormous internal and external criticism. It will also be futile to delve into roles and responsibilities of Censor because at the end we would be rephrasing same old discourses which we have been doing for years. But this time I want to talk about many of those intelligent cinema artists who can possibly bypass the stupidity of censor and society, but they don’t. First, let us quickly walk through the post-Censor controversy on Udta Punjab.
The drug-themed Bollywood film Udta Punjab, co-produced by Anurag Kashyap, picked limelight when media reported that The Central Board Of Film Certification (CBFC) has demanded 89 cuts and removal of any references to Punjab politics. Like most of the news stories, this story first ran rife on media and social media, then it was exaggerated with lies and finally fabricated into a political narratives. Not long back, on 28th May 2016, Anurag emphatically mentioned that Udta Punab is not banned, and people should not spread rumours. This was in repsonse to media stories doing the rounds that the film had been completely banned:
For the record ,”Udta Punjab” is not banned. The examining committe has deferred the decision to Revising and due process is on.
Udta Punjab gathered attention from media and social media. As expected, within no time, Udta Punjab became a BJP-Modi thing. Anurag Kashyap had to again request people not to make it a political tool, but then there are some who wait for such opportunities:
#UdtaPunjabCensored आप क्या खाएँगे, क्या पहनेंगे, क्या बोलेंगे, क्या देखेंगे, क्या पढ़ेंगे – अब ये सब RSS और मोदी जी तय करेंगे। v scary
As on today, the war is still on — with theories, conspiracy theories and conspiracy theories behind conspiracy theories.
Back to the discussion of cinema artists in India. Before I talk about status of art in modern India, let us agree to some harsh realities of the Indian society. Non-commercial art has a very small market in India. It is neither very well appreciated nor acknowledged by the majority of the Indians. Had it not been true, many good artists would not have died penniless. Had it not been true, the decent earning middle class people would not have downloaded TBs of music and movies from pirated sites despite several appeals from artists. Had it not been true, parents and teachers would not have demotivated kids for spending time on music, dance and paintings. Some artists do enjoy adulation and prosperity, but the percentage of such artists is so low that it brings more despair than hope. It directly and indirectly means that most of the artists have to drive art on their own by creating an ecosystem which can stand, struggle and change attitudes of people.
Sadly, it doesn’t work that way. Anurag may be feeling that he is living in a North Korea type censor system today, but the reality is that when voices are suppressed in the entertainment industry, when artists are sexually, mentally and physically exploited in the entertainment industry, when junior artists are discriminated in the entertainment industry, then most of the intelligent artists choose to selfishly stay silent due to fear of future.
But apart from this selfish cocooning for survival, there is a bigger complication within the cinema fraternity. Many of the cinema related artists don’t want other artists to grow. Due to limitations of opportunities, long struggle and inflated egos, many of these artists undergo a Darwinian evolution those-who-doesn’t-agree-are-wrong syndrome. If you talk to these peddlers of Mayanagri, most of them would talk about their works and would not leave a chance to demean and malign other struggling artists.
For my convenience, I will take the recent example of Buddha in a Traffic Jam, written and directed by Vivek Agnihotri. I chose this movie because of couple of reasons a) it is a very recent example b) Vivek Agnihotri is a good friend of mine. When students of JNU and Jadavpur University created a violent ruckus in their campus and opposed the screening of the movie because of ideological differences, not many people involved with film-making stood up to this hooliganism. Even those who did, added disclaimers that it was a bad or a propaganda movie. During an interview of Vivek, Abhinandan from Newslaundry conceded that he was painting the movie as a propaganda movie even without watching it. He also admitted that after watching the movie he agrees that he was wrong. Abhinandan was gracious enough to accept his mistake, others didn’t even care. Sure, the Udta Punjab case is not exactly comparable with what happened to Buddha in a Traffi Jam, but it reveals a mindset.
There are several examples of hypocrisy of liberal artists, but I will pick Varun Grover because I know him from my college days. I know his passion for cinema, I know how after quitting a well paying job, he has struggled for cinema and I also remember that he contributed INR 4,000 for my college play, even when he was struggling to survive. Another reason why I picked his name is that his platform Aisi Taisi Democracy often talks about hypocrisy of Indians, and during Vivek’s case it did the same what it jokes on.
Varun often talks about independence of art, but when Buddha in a Traffic Jam was under attack, he supposedly supported the FoE with many disclaimers, as if he is doing favour” to art and free speech. He couldn’t even resist himself from slyly mentioning how the movie is getting benefited due to controversy
It’s just a film – no matter how provocative or against your world-view it is – stopping it gives it way more power than screening it does.
Varun didn’t stop here. He also shared and promoted tweets which were intended to make personal attacks on Vivek.
There are several similar examples.
Given the fact that Nihalani is incompetent, people have political biases, and art doesn’t have a strong support in India, here are some points to ponder:
If an artist lampoons other artist, who and what is harmed the most?
If a set of artists declare works of artists with different ideologies as propaganda and inferior form of art, why would they get support from the other sets of artists, when needed?
We can easily figure out the answer.
P.S: It is important to mention here that Vivek Agnihotri completely backed Anurag Kashyap and his movie and Kashyap too acknowledged this in the media.
Having followed both PM Narendra Modi and CM Arvind Kejriwal on twitter for a while, I noticed a distinct pattern to the way they each of them tweets. To confirm my impressions, I did a detailed analysis of their tweets over 50 days (1 Apr to 20 May 2016) and tried to broadly group them into different categories. For ease of comparison, I tried to make the categories as similar as possible.
Modi vs Kejriwal
Wherever this was not possible, I tried to group them into bigger categories which would be common (For example – Governance affairs). And since the volume of tweets over the fixed period were also substantially different – the PM tweeted almost twice as much as the CM of Delhi – I converted the number to percentage for comparison.
The resulting compilation threw up some very interesting data points which give a great insight into the thought process and leadership styles of the two leaders. It also gives a fair idea about what they’re preoccupied with. The detailed comparison is as per the table below, followed by some observations I have had.
Observations based on this limited, 50-day study:
1. The highest percentage of tweets by Arvind Kejriwal are ones attacking / criticizing others (44%), and by Narendra Modi are about government business (50%). Therefore, the former spends far more time in attacking others while the latter spends more time talking about his work.
2. Both devote almost an equal proportion of their tweets to compliments. However, the PM’s complimentary tweets are more varied, and include festival greetings for almost all denominations of the country. Three of Arvind Kejriwal’s tweets are self-congratulatory.
3. Just 27% of Arvind Kejriwal’s tweets are about his government’s activities, as compared to 50% by the PM. Apart from attacking others, he also tweets about affairs of other states. Some of his tweets are also offered as explanations / self-defence to criticism. While the PM also faces quite a lot of criticism, this is not reflected in his tweets.
Conclusions
While the readers are invited to draw their own conclusions after studying their data, my takeaway from this is that Arvind Kejriwal should spend less time in attacking other people, and focus more on the governance of Delhi for which he has been elected.
The news of controversial journalist turned AAP leader Aashish Khetan threatening journalists online is still fresh in our minds. When some journalists tweeted a link to a very damning report of the corrupt practices being followed by AAP the party and also its Government, Khetan lost his cool and admonished them and even went as far as threatening them. Perhaps the realisation that this information will open a pandora’s box was what led to the outburst.
One of the allegations made in the report was that AAP had appointed as many as 25 journalists on the governing bodies of 28 colleges funded by the government affiliated to the Delhi University. They achieved this by dissolving the governing bodies despite opposition from the university and hundreds of non-permanent teachers. Apparently, most of them were working journalists, many of whom report and write about AAP. The list of these journalists got leaked online and can be verified from here (some of them have rejected the appointments):
As columnist Anand Ranganathan noted on twitter, most of the names of journalists are mentioned as “recommendations” but it seemed that the recommendations were accepted in totality. Two very prominent names on the list were those of journalists M K Venu, founding editor of thewire.in, a leftist site, and that of Saba Naqvi, a journalist and TV panelist. While Mr M K Venu rejected the appointment, Saba Naqvi happily chose to accept AAP’s gift to her.
What might have been the reason to give Saba Naqvi this honour? Surely it had nothing to do with her hagiography of the messiah of Delhi, Arvind Kejriwal? The other ex-journalist who wrote on AAP, Ashutosh is already in AAP.
After the leak that Saba Naqvi had indeed been appointed on a Governing council, old media followed the code of Omerta, with no one reporting this news, while social media began asking tough questions of this journalist. She had remained silent when she was appointed, but now, the justification given by her on twitter, after she was questioned, was this:
Saba Naqvi’s response
Has a journalist, who is supposed to be an independent, unbiased reporter, openly accepted that her single-minded goal is to thwart the RSS? Is this the role of a journalist? Can the bogey of RSS be raised to justify the acceptance of a political handout? The appointments were recommended as early as July 2015. It is almost a year now. Did we see any disclosure or announcement from Naqvi for so long, before this leaked out?
It is not illegal for anyone to accept political handouts and largesses. Many parties do it and have done it in the past and so also journalists have also accepted the same. But once journalists openly admit that their agenda is not reporting, but is rather to keep a section of the society at bay, for which they have a visceral hatred, then the so-called journalism of such journalists must be placed under scrutiny.
Take for example this flowery “tribute” to Arvind Kejriwal and AAP offered by his co-opted political appointee, Saba Naqvi. This was written long after the appointment to the Governing Council.
A tribute
Is this a fair, unbiased, honest assessment of AAP then? Or is this a piece which is written out of gratitude to dear leader who rewarded a hack? The entire article only speaks of the glories of AAP rule, some maybe genuine, some maybe over-hyped. A rally in Punjab means AAP gets entry into “new terrain”. The odd-even scheme which failed in reducing pollution is hailed for reducing traffic and “the special ability of Kejriwal and his young party to do unconventional things“. The piece is littered with praise and adulation for the great leader.
Naqvi signs off the piece as “Delhi-based author and journalist”, no disclosure about her being appointed by Arvind Kejriwal, the person who she is deifying, on the governing council of a college. This is how journalism works in India.
Or take the time when AAP’s nationwide ad frenzy had created a furore. For days on end, Delhi based AAP advertised in virtually every part of the country, with double-page “advertisements”. The ads, were designed to give the effect that they were news reports, whereas they were actually advertisements. Eventually it was revealed that the Delhi Government had splurged over Rs 15 crores in 3 months on this blitzkreig. And Saba Naqvi came to the defense of her benefactor AAP:
Really ironic to see those who are fine with BJP and Modi ads get into a state about AAP ads. 2014 most expensive media campaign!!!
Firstly, the use of whataboutery as the only means to defend her benefactor Kejriwal.
Secondly, comparing the advertisement expense of a national party, to that of a regional party which has electoral presence in only 2 small Northern Indian states.
Thirdly, the ad expense during a national election campaign being compared to the ad expense when there are no state elections coming up in which AAP is contesting.
Fourth, the AAP ads were paid for by the Delhi Government, i.e. by Delhi’s common taxpayer, whereas BJP’s 2014 ad campaign was paid for by the party, not from taxes collected for the welfare of the state.
To a layman, the argument put forth by Naqvi may seem illogical, but when you consider she has been benefited by AAP, it all makes sense.
There seems to be a growing conflict of interest situation. Naqvi praises Kejriwal in her book, gets a plum posts, goes on to further praise Kejriwal. All fine, but until you consider she is supposed to be a journalist. Ironically, this is what she wrote on “Augusta Patrakars” (she spells Agusta as Augusta):
We can question the accepted practice in the media of accepting hospitality from anyone, but just the act of going on a sponsored trip does not make a journalist corrupt. Personally, no one ever offered me such trips as I am unlikely to accept a corporate sponsored trip. But that’s me and my personal code.
Seems she broke her personal code for AAP? Or are only foreign trips included in her code? As this secret is now out, that she is one of the journalists who were rewarded by AAP, we must now wait and watch how many media houses drop her from their shows, their columns, or at least educate the reader about her background. And we must also wait for Naqvi, to claim that she is being attacked by Hindutva misogynistic bigots for being a free-thinking muslim woman, and not for her gross impropriety as a journalist.
Yesterday was the verdict of the Gulbarg massacre that took place during the 2002 riots in Gujarat. The 2002 riots were one of the worst riots which ever took place in Gujarat, a state which is prone to communal riots. Before 2002, the worst riots in Gujarat’s history took place in 1969 during the rule of Hitendra Desai, a Congress chief minister. The riots saw the death of over 660 people (official number) whereas, the unofficial number is pegged at over 2000, most of which were Muslims.
I don’t want to get into how fair/unfair the verdict is. I am no legal expert.
But I will take it upon myself to correct the international media when they write about my beloved Gujarat. I was going through this New York Times piece on the verdict.
I want to show how an international publication either misrepresents the facts, or chooses to completely ignore stating them.
Ellen Barry, South Asia bureau chief of NYTimes, in her article writes
A judge in Ahmedabad, Gujarat’s largest city, acquitted 36 people for lack of evidence, including a police inspector and a midranking official in the Bharatiya Janata Party, led by Mr. Modi.
Agreed. I like how she describes Ahmedabad as Gujarat’s largest city, but misses out on the fact that it was no ordinary judge. He was a special judge appointed for the special court.
Rest of the article is in poor taste, but I will not let my political inclination cloud my dislike for the lack of facts.
However, my blood started boiling when she quoted Teesta Setalvad and described her as “an activist who has spearheaded a campaign to prosecute Gujarat officials”. She very conveniently forgot to give the disclaimer that Setalvad is accused by the residents of the Gulbarg society of embezzling donation money they collected for building a museum. Although the Supreme Court has said Setalvad and her husband should not be arrested, they have been told to provide all documents needed.
Barry could have given this little disclaimer to give the international readers a fair chance at getting a balanced view.
Moving along, Barry then describes how the 2002 riots started.
The Gujarat riots began on a February morning, when a train carrying Hindu pilgrims was surrounded by a mob of Muslims and caught fire at a train platform in Godhra. An investigation later concluded that the fire had been accidental, but it was widely blamed on Muslims. The remains of 59 people burned to death on the train were displayed in Ahmedabad, stoking anti-Muslim fury.
Pay attention to the point where Barry claims the train carrying Hindu pilgrims “caught fire”. To substantiate this, Barry links back to another NYT piece, this time from 2002 itself. And oddly, this piece does not even contain the word “caught”. All it says is the train was “set on fire” and multiple occasions:
An angry Muslim mob Wednesday morning set fire to a train loaded with Hindu activists………..some in the mob, who had been stoning the coaches, set fire to the train, probably with gasoline from a nearby pump….”
So Barry has no basis of saying that the train “caught fire” and in fact her own provided links show a contrarian view. Further, note how Barry says:
An investigation later concluded that the fire had been accidental, but it was widely blamed on Muslims
Again Ellen Barry is playing with facts. A Judicial Commission set up to enquire into the incident had found that it was indeed set on fire, and courts had sentenced several people based on this. But Barry was probably referring to the report by the second commission set up, the Bannerjee Committee, which was set up by UPA 1, and which contradicted the first report. Barry chose deliberately to hide the fact that courts had subsequently thrown out the Bannerjee Commission report, even restraining the Centre from tabling the committee report in Parliament or taking any further action on it. How convenient of Barry.
This is how Times of India describes Bhana’s alleged involvement:
ATS officials said Bhana, who was on the run for 14 years, was staying in the slums of Andheri (east) in Mumbai under the fake identity of Mohammed Umar for the last seven years. He even did some petty work on contractual basis at the Brihan Mumbai Municipal Corporation. “We have seized some forged identity documents from him,” said an ATS official.
In 2002, Bhana was an independent councillor in the Godhra municipality, representing Polan Bazar ward. His arrest is considered a prized catch as investigators say he was involved in the alleged train burning conspiracy “right from the beginning till the end.”
J K Bhatt, inspector general of police, ATS, said, “We suspect that Bhana could have visited Pakistan while being on the run. He was staying in Mumbai for the last seven years. We are probing whether he had procured a fake passport.” He was remanded in eight-day SIT custody.
Elaborating on Bhana’s role in the train carnage, ATS officials said that he was present at a meeting in Aman Guest House where the conspiracy to burn the train was hatched on February 26, 2002. “Bhana had allegedly instructed other conspirators about the attack plan and directed them to store 140 litres of petrol to burn the coach,” said Bhatt.
J R Mothaliya, member of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing Godhra train carnage, said that Bhana was involved in the “entire planning, right from the beginning till the end”.
Bhana was arrested on May 18, 2016. By the way, NYT did not report on Bhana being arrested. Guess it wasn’t important enough. Guess, Barry has finally adopted Indian and Indian media when it comes to reporting news.
So called South Asia bureau chief for NYT, Ellen Barry, welcome to India. We love you
The Congress social media team has often been caught peddling untruths on social media. Just 2-3 months ago, a Congress IT cell member who has now been thrown out, was caught spreading a photoshopped “survey” showing PM Modi in bad light. After our expose the account apologised and deleted the tweet. Yesterday, Congress leader Ajay Maken too was caught in a similar situation when he was shared picture where he tried to claim that “Service Charge” which is not a tax but a source of income for restaurants, was also one of the taxes levied by Governments:
A. Calling service charge a tax
B. Blocking GST, preventing unification and then crying on Twitter
Congress #FTW. https://t.co/gCWVDDPC5o
Add to this the fact that Congress and AAP trolls love to harass independent, free thinking women online, like Shefali Vaidya, only because she supports BJP. Shefali has already told us how she was harassed, abused and even her child was threatened on social media.
Combine the above: photoshop skills of Congress and and the pathological hatred for people supporting the BJP then what you get is this: Congress IT cell members and spokespersons spreading fake pictures of a social media post which is touted to be made by Shefali Vaidya, but which actually belongs to a fake profile.
These are the tweets by Rachit Seth who claims to be from the “Indian National Congress MSM Communication Department” and of Gaurav Pandhi who claims to be a member of “Digital Communication at Indian National Congress”.
Tweets of Congress IT cell
Congress spokesperson Priyanka Chaturvedi too tried to help spread the above image by replying to a tweet by another Congress sympathiser (the original tweet was later deleted):
This comes from the great right wing ‘intellectual/journalist/columnist’ ???????????? god bless their wisdom.@scotchism
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsThey claimed that the post was by Shefali Vaidya, whereas the post was actually by a facebook profile called “Shefali Vidya”. The profile seems to have been created recently, and seems to be posting only messages which could serve as embarrassment to Right Wing supporters. Further, although the profile is named “Vidya” the screenshot used by the Congress IT cell says “Vaidya” which clearly shows that photoshop was used. So a fake profile’s screenshot is photoshopped and used to malign and harass Shefali Vaidya.
Photoshop experts
When Shefali pointed out to both Pandhi and Chaturvedi that the screenshot is not hers and is fake, both of them did not pay heed to her points but ridiculed her:
Pandhi’s replyChaturvedi’s reply
Being a national spokesperson and a woman, it was expected that at least Chaturvedi would sympathise with a woman being harassed. But party loyalties are stronger than ties of humanity hence she chose to ridicule and ignore Shefali Vaidya. //platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Recently we read reports in all media that contrary to the initial “prima facie” reports, the meat found at Dadri was indeed beef or rather more specifically: “of cow or its progeny”. While the nature of the meat does not take anything away from the fact that a very gruesome and vile crime occurred in Dadri, the reporting of the latest twist indeed warrants scrutiny.
But as we see news reports from Economic Times, Times of India (a TNN report) and NDTV we are told that the meat was not from Akhalaq’s house, but was found in a garbage dump / dustbin / tri-junction near Akhlaq’s house. The Times of India report bases this theory on the version of an unnamed “senior UP Police officer” while the Economic Times says that they obtained a copy of the seizure memo prepared by the UP Police on the day of the incident which confirmed that the sample was taken from meat found by sub-inspector Tej Pal Singh from a “tri-junction near a transformer“ in the village.
If one goes back to the earlier reports from December, which had “prima facie” declared the meat to be mutton, they too indicated that the meat was sourced from inside Akhlaq’s house. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5). Even media reports from just days after the incident, which mentioned that the meat had been sent for testing, said that the meat “which was consumed” or which was from the fridge of Akhlaq, had been sent for testing. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5). One cannot find the mention of any dustbin or dump in these reports.
The handwritten note which specifies the nature of the meat also makes no mention of the source of the meat, hence it is indeed intriguing as to how the media has found out the source of the meat.
This small detail changes the complexion of the case, because if the meat was in Akhlaq’s house then there can be a claim that there was a genuine reason for the anger of the villagers (although it doesn’t justify a murder). And on the other hand if the meat was from outside Akhlaq’s house, then a claim can be made that either Akhlaq threw away the meat, or worse, it was planted by someone to “frame” Akhlaq.
In this situation it is bewildering how at the time when the meat was sent for testing and at the time when based on prima facie tests, the meat was said to be mutton, all media reports were unanimous in saying that the meat was indeed from Akhlaq’s house, but now as soon as the final report says it was in fact beef, a few reports carry a new found piece of information that the meat was not sourced from Akhlaq’s house. Was the media getting it wrong all this while and have they suddenly got the right information? Or is this new information a cover up?
Irrespective of what the meat was, Akhlaq must get justice and his murderers must be punished in the most severe manner. Meanwhile, the search for the facts regarding this aspect must continue.
Yesterday, controversial journalist and now AAP leader, Aashish Khetan unleashed a set of tweets on journalists, full of anger and even a few threats. What prompted this reaction?
A website called FountainInk released a detailed investigative report on the functioning of AAP the party and its Government. The report revealed widespread corrupt practices, disappointed MLAs, malpractices to influence media and techniques used by the party to suppress negative information. Some of the key points were:
1. Delhi Government gave honorary positions to journalists at educational institutions by dissolving the governing bodies of 28 colleges despite opposition from the university. AAP nominated 25 journalists and some former journalists listed as “Educationists” to these bodies, making for more than 20 per cent of all nominations. At least four senior journalists in the Bennett Coleman group (which publishes The Times of India, The Economic Times and Navbharat Times) had accepted the appointment but had to resign as such office goes against group policy.
2. Party workers, businessmen who didn’t have a background in the education industry, were listed as “social workers”, some others were listed simply as “Professional” to draft them into above bodies. The posts play a pivotal role in the hiring process. These appointments are also the ones for which huge bribes are paid.
3. AAP has a list of digital marketing consultants and crores of rupees are paid for such consulatncy, to manipulate online news such that positive news is pushed up and negative news about AAP is suppressed. The report cites the example of the scam in which Minister Gopal Rai was caught renewing licences of only favoured autorickshaws, and how the stories were suppressed.
4. A tainted firm, which was rejected by other states and even the previous Delhi Government was given a contract for High Security Registration Plates. Officials who raised an alarm over past misconduct of the firm were threatened into silence and the firm got business from the Delhi government. In exchange AAP workers and MLAs were “enriched” by the said firm.
5. AAP has also started a lucrative “transfer-posting” industry where officials are either transferred to a particular post because of their ability to generate cash through various means, or because the officer coughs up enough money for party funds for a transfer to a particular department or for a promotion. The report also gives a detailed modus-operandi of the entire scheme.
6. In October 2015 AAP directed its MLAs in Delhi to contribute Rs 1 lakh each per month to fund its Punjab campaign. Later the party declared then that the plan had been shelved. Barely six months later, however, it has quietly passed on instructions to MLAs to deposit Rs 1.5 lakh every month towards the Punjab elections, according to several party workers and MLAs interviewed for the story. MLAs now claim that they cannot stay honest even if they want to, thanks to this demand.
The report further claims that multiple attempts to contact AAP spokespersons, Nagendra Sharma, media advisor to chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, and leaders like Ashutosh and Aashish Khetan failed. They didn’t respond to calls on their mobile phones. An email questionnaire sent to Khetan went unanswered.
What sparked off Khetan’s outburst was the fact that another controversial journalist, Rana Ayyub had shared the story. Hartosh Singh Bal, another journalist also shared the story on Twitter. Mind you, this story was originally published by the site on 18th May, but somehow it landed up in the reading lists of both these journalists only almost 2 weeks later.
Liers & drunks sacked by their previous employers are settling personal scores in the guise of journalism. https://t.co/pUiT1W0qYe
Khetan also denied that he had ever been contacted by the author. In the heated exchange with Hartosh Singh Bal, Bal asked Khetan to clarify on some issues:
isn’t about you, its about AAP. were businessmen appointed ‘educationist’? is this how AAP manages criticism? https://t.co/QnScleH1vL
— Hartosh Singh Bal (@HartoshSinghBal) June 1, 2016
That’s again an innuendo. Someone may call owners of Caravan as businessmen. Ask specific Q, will gv specific reply https://t.co/7UEAsSzljq
The amusing thing in this entire incident is how people who were on the same side a few days ago have all changed stances. It was just on 30th May when AAP supremo Kejriwal had congratulated Rana Ayyub on her badly written book. The same content, which even the then Managing Editor of Tehelka Shoma Chaudhury, claimed “did not meet the necessary editorial standards”. Shoma had further said that “there were a lot of loopholes and serious concerns about the procedure that had been followed”.
Coming back to Kejriwal, here is AAP supporting Rana Ayyub a few days ago and then within a few days, Ayyub tweets out an anti-AAP story, to which she gets a threatening response from Aashish Khetan from AAP. Even Hartosh Singh Bal, who is a known Modi-hater was attacked by Khetan.
Does the key lie then in Khetan’s remark that Bal would get a reply only if Caravan (the publication he edits), sends a formal letter? Will we see a rebuttal of sorts in Caravan? Is this what one would call a “friendly-fight”? In fact even the original investigative report tells us that when AAP is hit with negative news, they create more negative news about their adversaries. Further, how does a story published on 18th May become a focal point almost 2 weeks later? So is this AAP playing by their own rule-book? Only time will tell.
Arnab Goswami is India’s angry young man. Love him or hate him, you cant ignore him. Every night he picks up one topic, often picks a side, and then lambasts all the people on the other side. Yes he screams, yes he shouts, but he also has the highest TRPs. And on a macro-level, if you see his coverage he seems to be more neutral than most of India’s left-inclined anchors: He hounded the NDA Government for almost 2 weeks in a row to sack Sushma Swaraj over the Lalit-gate issue. He went after the Congress on the Agusta Westland scam. He attacked AAP over the fake degree issue.
And yesterday, he lost his cool. Known Congress sympathiser masquerading as an “independent” commentator, Sanjay Hegde was at the receiving end as he tried to allege that since Arnab is related to some BJP leaders, he is biased. Arnab does no take allegations on his independence lightly:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1Z_6-6Q8pc?start=1140]
This was not the first time. 2 years back BJP leader Meenakshi Lekhi had alleged that he received money from the Government, and she too got an Arnab special:
During a debate on the Shashi Throor issue, Arnab literally asked Congress representative Shehzad Poonawala to leave the debate, humiliating him repeatedly for trying to disturb the debate:
