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Rahul Gandhi needs to do his homework on Real Estate Bill

Gaurav
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Rahul Gandhi needs to do his homework on Real Estate Bill

After coming back from his agyaat-vaas of 56 days, Rahul Gandhi has found a new way of doing Politics. He is following the hit-and-run approach, or maybe treating politics like a Twitter account. Everyday, he sees the trending hash-tag, makes a generic statement along with the hash-tag, and moves on to the next topic. He started with Net Neutrality, but didn’t make much sense. He went on to the land bill, just repeating adages like “corporates ki sarkar”. He then went on to appeal to Hindus by visiting Kedarnath. He then travelled by train to meet with “aam aadmis” travelling by train, and then to farmers in Punjab. Now he has climbed on the Real Estate Bill bandwagon and come out with another catchphrase, calling the bill “Pro-Builder”.

But what is this Real Estate Bill? Its a bill which will bring about regulation in the Real Estate Sector of India, which is completely unregulated as of now. Builders going back on promises of all types is one of the major concerns. Now this bill wishes to address all these problems. A brief history of this bill:

Stage Date
Introduction in Rajya Sabha Aug 14, 2013
Referred to Standing Committee Sep 11, 2013
Report of Standing Committee Feb 12, 2014

The standing committee was headed by Sharad Yadav of JDU, and had 28 members, of which 11 were from Congress, 1 from NCP, 2 from TMC, 2 from Shiv Sena and 6 from BJP, and some other members of smaller parties.

Firstly, in his grandstanding yesterday Rahul Gandhi showed the plight of a home-buyer from NCR who had been duped in 2012. It was quite ironic to see Rahul take the high ground on this, although in 2012, his party Congress was ruling both Delhi and India. Could Rahul Gandhi in power not have come to the rescue of this lady in 2012 itself? Or is it that Rahul Gandhi was blind to people’s problems in power, and has suddenly woken with the rude shock of 44 seats?

Secondly, UPA came into power in 2004. Real Estate sector has always been a mess, it is not a new phenomenon. Why did UPA take 9 long years to introduce such an important bill? Where was Rahul Gandhi’s love for home buyers for 9 long years from 2004 to 2013 when nothing was done for the average middle class buyer? If the UPA had passed this law even mid way through their tenure, that is in 2009, this lady would not have been duped in 2012, the law would have come to her rescue. Did Rahul Gandhi wilfully protect builder lobby for 9 years? 10 years if you count the fact the law never got passed in UPA tenure.

Thirdly, in his brief statement on the Real Estate Bill, Rahul Gandhi made no substantive, objective points, just plain rhetoric. He talked about super area being promised as against the are being given by builders finally, and about views being promised and buildings coming in place of such views.

When someone asked him specific problems, he said,

“Main dilution yeh hai, ke humare bill mein clear transparency thi, carpet area jo sign kiya hai woh milna chahiye, this has been diluted” (Main dilution is that there was clear transparency. The carpet area that you sign is what would be given. They have diluted it)

It seems Rahul Gandhi has not done his home work. This post says, with the new law, Carpet area will be clearly defined. And Deepak Shenoy of CapitalMind.in, in this detailed analysis, says:

Real estate can only be sold by the actual carpet area – so builders have to offer a cost per square foot of carpet area.

It is pretty clear from above, Rahul Gandhi has again got it wrong. This is what happens when you go away on holidays and cram whatever you can 1 day before the exam.

Other significant improvements in the new bill over UPA’s bill are as follows:

1. The UPA bill was applicable only to residential real estate. It is now proposed to cover both residential and commercial real estate

2. The UPA bill proposed only one Real Estate Regulatory Authority for all of India, the new bill proposes Establishment of one or more ‘Real Estate Regulatory Authority’ in each State/ Union Territory

3. The UPA bill said registration of projects when area is below 4000 sqm was not needed, this threshold has been brought down to 1000 sqm, thus bringing more projects under the regulator.

4. The builder can now alter or modify structural designs only if two-thirds of the buyers agree

One issue which has been raised, of course by those who have read the bill, not by Rahul Gandhi, is the apparent watering down of one clause. The new Bill requires that 50% of all money received by the builder has to be transferred to a separate account, which is used only to meet construction expenses  of that very project. This proportion was 70% in the earlier bill. The purpose of this clause is to avoid builders shifting funds from project A to project B.

This reduction has come via recommendations of the Standing Committee, formed during UPA time, and which had a majority of Congress MPs. Even so, the logic behind this move is pretty solid. As per the old bill, since 70% is kept in a separate account to use only for “construction” expenses, the balance 30% is the only free money with the builder. The builder has to make do with this 30% to meet initial costs like land acquisition, security deposits and fees to the authorities for sanctions and other statutory clearances. And in many cases, especially in projects in metros and other big cities, the cost of the land will be easily more than 30% of the total costs. In such cases it becomes impossible for the builder to meet his initial expenses.

And fact is, currently there is no such clause at all, and even a 50% limit, would greatly help buyers. While Rahul Gandhi hasn’t been tutored about this yet, he very well maybe, and even then he needs to be pointed to page 35 of the Report of Standing Committee of Parliament.

Angry Nepalese trend #GoHomeIndianMedia to protest against insensitive coverage of earthquake

OpIndia Staff
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Angry Nepalese trend #GoHomeIndianMedia to protest against insensitive coverage of earthquake

Indian mainstream media, especially TV news channels, is hardly known for nuances, and they appear to miss it even during tragedies. Media coverage of 2008 Mumbai Terror Attacks is the biggest example of their insensitive, irresponsible, and sensationalist reporting, which made a lot of people take to social media to register their protest.

And it seems, Indian media has not learnt its lessons ever since. Now they have been able to irritate and anger even non-Indians.

On Sunday, many Twitter users living in Nepal started hashtag #GoHomeIndianMedia to protest against such brand of reporting. Not only in Nepal, but this hashtag trended even in India.

From their tweets, it was obvious that the anger was against the sensationalist approach by media, and not against India:


Apart from insensitive (like asking injured persons ‘aapko kaisa lag raha hai’ type of questions) and sensationalist reporting, some users claimed that Indian media even ended up blocking relief operations and rescue work:


However, among the “doyens” of Indian media, the hashtag was met either with denial or with cheap potshots at each other:


While the celeb journalists might differ with each other, Indians joined Nepalese citizens in bashing the Indian media for their attitude:


and such support from the Indian tweeters brought some smile to Nepalese citizens:


Hope Indian media uses this opportunity to introspect and listen to the common man’s voices instead of deflecting responsibility or choosing to live in denial.

Users claiming BJP association spread rumors by trending #GodhraAgain, Party must act against those

OpIndia Staff
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Users claiming BJP association spread rumors by trending #GodhraAgain, Party must act against those

On Saturday 2nd May, Twitter was abuzz with rumors that a Muslim mob in Shamli district of Uttar Pradesh had taken some Hindu pilgrims hostage and a Godhra like situation was developing.

Media reports suggest that there was a confrontation between the local authorities and members of a Muslim organization, which was protesting against alleged attack on some of their colleagues on an earlier day. The members of the organization, led by a local Samajwadi Party MLA are reported to have attacked train passengers too, but the situation was nowhere Godhra-like as some rumormongers imagined.

These rumors took a very ugly turn when some people spotted a hate tweet by a self-declared youth leader of BJP called Amitesh Singh. Operating as Twitter user @AmiteshSinghBJP, he posted the following tweet:

Photo Credit: Twitter
The tweet that created a flutter on Twitter.

This was not only a hate tweet, but a direct call for communal violence – an act punishable under the Indian laws. Realizing his mistake, he later apologised and deleted not only his tweet, but even his Twitter account.

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Amitesh Singh became the face of hate and rumor that was being spread under #GodhraAgain hashtag, but there were others too. Some users claiming to be officially associated with BJP, like Puneet Arora who is the State Co-Convener of I.T.Cell, Haryana BJP, posted the following tweet:


This was clearly an incendiary tweet that was sent without verification of information. It was not criminal as the other tweet by Amitesh, but an irresponsible act that was not helping the situation on the ground.

If these Twitter users really hold these official posts in the party as claimed in their Twitter bio, BJP should take some strict action against them for spreading rumors that could have caused law and order problems in the country. Even if they have apologized, they must be suspended from the party.

This is not the first time when some junior member of a party has spread such hateful messages. A couple of years ago a Twitter user linked to Congress’ youth wing NSUI had posted the following tweet:

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While these junior members acted irresponsibly, a senior leader like Omar Abdullah used this opportunity to link an event in Western Uttar Pradesh to politics in Jammu & Kashmir:


Notwithstanding the politics of Omar Abdullah or similar incidents by other parties earlier, BJP here must set an example and take disciplinary actions against these Twitter users who hold official posts in the party.

India Today group spins Shourie interview with Karan Thapar

OpIndia Staff
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India Today group spins Shourie interview with Karan Thapar

In his much talked about interview with Karan Thapar, Arun Shourie has made many critical observations of the Modi Government’s performance in the past 11 months. We had already analysed them here. While most of the remarks aren’t very scathing, the media coverage on this shows it as if Shourie has attacked the Government and Modi with his full fury. India Today, whose channel conducted the interview, is primarily responsible for blowing  things out of proportion, and accusing Shourie of saying things he never said. Take a look at some of these cases:

1. India Today claims Shourie said this:


Then, in the transcript, the word “Trimurti” doesn’t even appear.

In the video, after around 34 minutes, Shourie names the three people, saying they work as a team. Karan Thapar then interjects him saying “This Trimurti….” to which Shourie says “Trimurti, big word” and continues his sentence.

So firstly, “Trimurti” is Karan Thapar’s phrase, not of Shourie. Yet this has been attributed to Shourie at multiple places by India Today, very mischievously, and often in quotes. Secondly, this phrase has been completely omitted from the transcripts. Neither they have shown Karan Thapar’s first usage of this word, nor have they shown Shourie’s reaction. So there is a doubt that even the transcript, which should be a word for word reproduction, is not accurate.

2. In this piece titled “10 things Shourie said”, India Today says Shourie said “Keeping Sushma Swaraj on the margins is wrong.

According to their own transcript, Shourie did not say such a thing. He said he doesn’t know if Swaraj is on the margins, but if yes, it doesn’t bode well.

Untitled


One can partly blame Shourie here too, but India Today paraphrased it in a way, so as to show Arun Shourie also feels Sushma Swaraj is on the margins, when actually he said he doesn’t know. 

3. India Today said Shourie made this comment on the “Rs 10 lac suit”


Once again the transcript has no mention of a “Rs 10 lac suit”, but just a monogrammed suit. The video of the interview too corroborates this. Still, India Today insists at multiple places that Shourie said “Rs 10 lac suit”. While the misrepresentation is minor, it gives away the impression that Shourie was attacking the alleged price of the suit.

Compared to our usual Media shenanigans, these might be minor transgressions, but when repeatedly things are misquoted and transcripts are found to be inaccurate, then questions surface.

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Arun Shourie is neither 100% right nor 100% wrong

Gaurav
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Arun Shourie is neither 100% right nor 100% wrong

A lot has been said about all that Arun Shourie has said or is reported to have said about the Modi Government and its policies in his interview with Karan Thapar. While Shourie is a well respected journalist and former NDA minister, it is also a known fact that he has been completely sidelined by Modi.

So is this a case of unbiased, logical criticism? Or are the grapes sour? Or is it about his much talked about rivalry with the other Arun, our current Finance Minister? Let us see exactly what he got right and what he got wrong:

What he got right:

1. Modi’s foreign policy is good, recognizes China as a concern, unlike past Governments. But Government needs to follow up on MoUs and Agreements signed

2. Modi’s Pakistan Policy has been shaky, needs a “steadier gaze”.

3. Some achievements of Modi Government like low inflation rate and low deficit are in fact due to falling prices of crude and commodities.

4. Concern over the fact that posts like Chief Information Commissioner, Chief Vigilance Commissioner, Election Commission, Lokpals are vacant.

5. Decentralisation of Power from PMO to other ministries is needed.

What he got wrong:

1. On the coal and spectrum auctions he says the Government is merely following the Supreme Court judgement, but he fails to acknowledge the transparent procedure adopted by the Government which we highlighted here.

2. Shourie is guilty of making contradictory statements. First he says the Government is unnecessarily being confrontational with RBI, and later says Bank Credit has grown by just 3 odd %. One of the reasons why the Government was at loggerheads with RBI was to urge for Interest rate cuts, and one of the reasons for low credit growth is in fact higher Interest rate.

3. Fails to praise any of the following economic schemes: a huge push for the long pending GST, Jan Dhan Yojana, which is the base for much larger, ambitious economic schemes, NITI Aayog, FDI in defense, Smart Cities, Divestment Policy, and the Black Money Bill. And he only passingly mentions important reforms in simplification of processes in line with Ease of Doing Business norms.

4. Shourie feels estimates of 8% GDP are “big talks with no delivery” but he should realise, even NDA 1 took a few years to bring the GDP rate up.

5. BJP is expanding footprints too fast, and aggressively (he quotes Amit Shah taking on TMC in Bengal Civic elections) and thus alienates smaller parties and doesn’t get support in Parliament. Does this mean BJP should stop expanding in states?

6. Shourie says since even Ribeiro has expressed fears of Christian Persecution, things have gone too far. A journalist like Shourie should have seen through the false media propaganda, especially since almost everybody else has. And when you consider that he himself has written 2 books on exposing Christian Missionary agenda, such a remark is pretty unjustified.

Mixed Bag:

1. India needs to speed up action on US agreements because US is losing patience and might go elsewhere. As things stand, India is the best future market especially since Europe isn’t very strong yet and China is not a natural partner for US. So India need not get too perturbed by fear of US going away. But yes, it has to be careful of this possibility

2. Partly correct on point that Government must walk the talk on non-adversarial tax regime, instead of flip-flops. He must acknowledge that many of such notices are flowing from past court decisions, and the Government must abide by the decisions, even though they may not agree with them, at least until a higher court quashes the decision

3. He says Modi, Jaitley and Amit Shah are controlling BJP, which isn’t good. Modi being the popularly elected leader, also the face for which people voted has full right to lead the party. Shah, by virtue of being Modi’s main strategists also deserves to be on top. Although Jaitley lost the LS elections, he also was a backer of Modi for long, so he got his chance too. So unlike other dynastic parties, here the top 3 have come up on pure merit and popularity. But as always, if the top leaders are not open to views, then there can be a problem.

4. Criticizing Modi on the monogrammed suit was a bit childish, although in hindsight, its very easy to say he should have never worn it.

5. Shourie said nothing was being done to professionalise ailing public sector banks and recapitalise them. Fact is in January, the Government held high level meetings with chiefs of all banks, to chalk out a roadmap. Tangible progress is yet to be seen but the ball is rolling.

Threatened and boycotted, Muslim family that converted to Hinduism goes back to Islam

OpIndia Staff
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Threatened and boycotted, Muslim family that converted to Hinduism goes back to Islam

AGRA: The Muslim family that had embraced Hinduism during the much publicized “Ghar Wapasi” program last year has now gone back to being Muslims after they received threats and were boycotted by the local Muslim society.

A family of 17 members in Davli village headed by 70-year-old Rahmat had embraced Hinduism on December 25 last year, but they were reported to have stopped following Hindu rituals after they received threats from anti-social elements.

It has now come to light that the family was also boycotted by their caste members, most of whom are Muslims. The family belongs to “nat” caste, which is identified as a dalit caste.

Re-conversion to Islam in Agra
The family accepting Islam again (BBC photo)

On Friday, Rahmat’s family was reportedly denied admission into a wedding ceremony of someone from the same caste. Local people told them that unless they accept Islam again, they will not be accepted by the society and no one will allow them to join public functions.

Disowned by their community, the family claims that they didn’t receive any benefits, such as a piece of land, or social support from people who converted them to Hinduism during the Gharwapasi event.

Coupled with such social boycott, apart from threats that they received earlier, the family thought it was better if they accepted Islam again to lead a normal life.

As a result, on Friday itself the family became Muslims again. Their “reconversion” was solemnized by a local Mufti and an official of Tanzeem Ulema, as reported by Dainik Jagran newspaper.

Apart from reading qalma to become Muslims again, the married members of the family were asked to marry again as their earlier marriage was deemed null and void due to their conversion to Hinduism.

The family will be formally announced assimilated into the society in a panchayat that has been called on 14th May by the nat community.

The incident has once again highlighted the politics behind conversions and reconversions, where religious conversions among the poor appears to be happening mostly due to financial reasons. Earlier some dalits in Rampur had claimed to embrace Islam to save their houses. This family too has been changing their religion to have such support.

It also shows how Hindu groups have been mostly ham-handed in organizing events like “ghar wapasi”. Without any social support, such programs are just made-for-media-and-made-for-outrage events.

Strategic Petroleum Reserve – Big Move by Modi Sarkaar

Ullas
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Strategic Petroleum Reserve – Big Move by Modi Sarkaar

The Modi government has been going through turbulent times with respect to its PR, mainly due to its mismanagement in communication of the Land Acquisition Bill. However, there are other critical decisions that are getting drowned in this mayhem. Topic such as strategic petroleum reserve (SPR) is not sexy for a discussion on prime-time news show. However, critical steps have been taken by the government that shows that the long term is indeed being taken care of.

India imports nearly two-thirds of its oil requirements and this is expected to increase to approx. 80% by 2020. It has been one of the biggest reasons for increase in India’s deficit. With the falling crude prices since last year, the onus was on the government to make maximum use of the opportunity.  The government allocated Rs 4,948 crore to upgrade India’s strategic petroleum reserves (SPR) to cover itself from any crises.

Every country plans for contingencies and India too initiated the strategic crude oil reserve in 2003. Three facilities are being developed, in the first phase. These three facilities would be enough to store less than two weeks (11 – 13 days) of India’s oil requirements:

Mangalore, Karnataka – 1.5 million metric tonnes

Padur (near Mangalore), Karnataka – 2.5 million metric tonnes

Vishakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh – 1.33 million metric tonnes

Only the Vishakhapatnam facility is operational, as of date and the other two are expected to be ready by October 2015.

In addition, the government also initiated the second phase of capacity expansion in Padur, Bikaner (Rajasthan), Rajkot (Gujarat) and Chandikhol (Odisha). Together, all the reserves is targeted to store 90 days of oil requirements or 12.5 million metric tonnes of crude oil. The second phase is expected to be complete by 2020. Creating additional infrastructure for these four capacities, including storage, transport, pipeline is expected to cost Rs 20,000 crore. The government is currently exploring additional avenues to generate finance these capacities.

Officially, India placed its first order for the strategic reserve in March 2015. Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) bought 2 million barrel from Iraq, as the first order. In addition, IOC and Hindustan Petroleum (HPCL) will buy three million barrels each for storage in Vizag. Thus, the total arrival is estimated to be eight million barrels.

This eight million barrel is approximately 10% of the daily global market demand. Though not huge by global standards, it is expected that this purchase by India can offset drop in the purchase by China and Asian refinery maintenance stoppage.

India is a relatively new player in the SPR game, with USA and Japan leading with 95 million metric tonnes and 44 million metric tonnes of oil respectively. China and Germany are the other big economies ramping up their capacities. For India, its a step that hasn’t come a day too late.

Top Lies spread by the Indian Media in April 2015

Gaurav
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Top Lies spread by the Indian Media in April 2015

1. 3rd April 2015: PTI and IANS and subsequently all other media: Neemuch Riots

We had written a separate post on this. PTI and IANS chose to deliberately obfuscate the truth, in an attempt to post an unclear picture, when the facts were very clear. A Hanuman Jayanti procession was attacked by stone-pelting by some members from the Muslim Community. But PTI, IANS and subsequently all media, did not name the community. Instead they chose to use words such as “some miscreants” and “people from a specific group”. This although it was clear which community was involved. Eventually this stone-pelting resulted in violence, arson and 3 days curfew.

2. 4th April 2015: NDTV and Times of India: Open Letter to Arvind Kejriwal from Prashant Bhushan 

In the latest war of words in AAP, Bhushan wrote another letter to Kejriwal. NDTV reproduced the letter on its site in above post, but conveniently edited out a particular paragraph which had allegations against Kejriwal of being Communal. Times of India too had a story which claimed they had published the “FULL TEXT” of the letter, but they too omitted this paragraph.  We had written a full post on this here. Amusingly, NDTV added a footnote saying “This piece has been edited for brevity and in keeping with our legal guidelines.” It is intriguing how the same paragraph was edited out by both NDTV and Times of India for “brevity”. As for “legal guidelines”, NDTV isn’t one to show much concern for the law on most occasions, involving BBC documentary broadcast or its own tax issues.

3. 5th April 2015: Firstpost: The great Varanasi hoax: 10 months later, Modi’s constituency remains a big, smelly mess

The above post actually appeared on March 18 2015, but the truth has only come out now. This post claimed Varanasi, ” is as dirty, messy and chaotic as it was” when Modi got elected. It said, barring a few small works, “Modi has done nothing so far to honour his commitment“. It even “quoted” some locals, to prove its point. The truth came out 17 days later when Two separate news stories broke about Varanasi’s progress in the field of cleanliness. Times of India called its piece: “Swachh Bharat: Modi’s promise of cleaning Varanasi doesn’t appear to be an empty one” while Mid-day had a feature called “Cleaning up the spirit of Varanasi“. Both these reports acclaimed the work done in Varanasi to clean up the temple town. And more importantly, unlike Firstpost, it did not rely on “quotes” but put actual photos of various locations of Varanasi, including some before and after pics. Either the Firstpost article is full of untruths or all this was done within the 17 days between these 2 news items. For more such pics, please go here

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4. 7th April 2015: All Media – General V K Singh issue

This is an extremely curious case, on which we had reported separately. Gen V K Singh received lot of attention for his visit to the Pakistan Embassy. Just one week after this, he spearheaded a daunting rescue mission in war-torn Yemen which was applauded by the entire world, but he felt, and rightly so, Indian MSM hadn’t given due credit to their efforts. In response, he made a sarcastic remark saying that “His rescue mission is probably isnt as exciting as his visit to Pakistan Embassy“. Now starts the theatre of the absurd. Times Now spun this statement as if the General was demeaning the rescue ops and trended “#VKDisaster”. NewsX had a debate on this issue. IBN editor Zaka Jacob declared that V K Singh was “insensitive” to the plight of people in Yemen. All this, even though Gen V K Singh was personally overseeing the rescue ops from Yemen itself. Is Indian MSM that dumb? Or were they acting too smart and purposely misrepresenting Gen V K Singh’s views, to shield themselves from the criticism?

5. 9th April 2015: India Today – PM Modi’s Facebook likes slip a bit over Delhi polls, Land Bill

We had covered this issue in a separate post here. Facebook had deleted many inactive accounts, and thus deleted their “likes” too, which resulted in a sudden, massive drop in “Likes” to almost all Facebook pages. They had clearly stated this a circular. Yet, Aaj Tak chose to use this data, i.e. a sudden fall in the Likes on PM Modi’s page, and claimed this drop was a result of waning popularity of Modi, due to the Land Acquisition Bill. This was a blatant lie, to fit a data point, into a narrative. In fact head of BJP IT team, clarified to India Today the reason for the same, yet they decided to publish outright lies.

6. 12th April 2015: Pune Mirror – Narendra Modi wearing a Louis Vuitton shawl. 
Among other things in the above report, Pune Mirror stated that Modi “emerged at Orly, France, in a flashy shawl, which twitteratti said is a signature Louis Vuitton“. As admitted by them, this information about the brand of the shawl was based only on “Twitterati”. We traced the rumour here, and how Louis Vuitton’s official handle denied having ever made such a shawl. The issue was small, the brand of a shawl, but the games played were bigger, as to how costly it is and how a “chaiwala, a humble” PM could afford such luxuries. The narrative was going right in the direction of the “Rs 10 lac suit“, which again started of as a Twitter rumour and ended in Rahul Gandhi’s speeches. Luckily, this time the lies were nipped in the bud.
This is both hilarious and sad. Indian Express tried to pass of a post by a facebook page called “Unofficial Dr Subramaniam Swamy” as a quote by the real Subramanian Swamy. The said page is run by some fans of Dr Swamy. We had written a separate post on this issue, explaining what the quote was. Later, once Dr Swamy threatened Indian Express with legal action, the story was hastily taken down.
This article was tweeted with this caption “In this Gujarat school, saffron uniform for Hindu kids, green for Muslim“. This tweet was later deleted. Fact is, the report talks about two different schools, which have two different uniforms, irrespective of the child’s religion. Indian Express lied on 2 counts that :
a) There is only one school where this is happening
b) Hindu kids are wearing Saffron and Muslim kids are wearing Green, when the truth is ALL students of one school wear saffron, while ALL students of the other school wear Green uniforms.
We had covered this story here. As is the case, this deliberately twisted story was later covered by other media like India Today group, who even claimed this is happening in “Modi’s Gujarat”, although he has left Gujarat for almost a year now. Also, Rajdeep Sardesai chose to tweet this story without even verifying the accuracy.
This story started with the following screenshot being circulated on twitter.
CCijm2yUAAA8JM0From the image, it seemed like a tweet by ANI news about a statement made by PM Modi in Germany. The statement itself was pretty idiotic. And the tweet was not available in ANI’s tweets. While there was speculation as to whether this tweet was later deleted, Smita Prakash, Editor at ANI News had this to say:

This was later confirmed from the official handle of ANI and ANI went to the extent of filing a police complaint with the Cyber Cell, against this fake tweet. This version seems to be reliable since the tweet in question, misspells the word “Shepher” which shows it was probably the act of some lowly troll, rather than a News handle.  Inspite of all these clarifications, Firstpost ran a story which said that ANI first tweeted this tweet, then deleted it, and then later claimed it was a fake.

10. 15th April 2015: Times Now – Vivek Oberoi to be conferred Dada Saheb Phalke Award. 

Times now via a tweet (which was deleted within 30 minutes) claimed Vivek Oberoi had been awarded the Dadasaheb Phalke Award by the Government of India. Facts however were different. 2015’s Phalke award was already declared to Shashi Kapoor in March 2015. The award which Vivek had received was a similarly named award from a private body. Times Now had even managed to get a byte from Vivek on this story. Later that tweet too was deleted. We explored the possible ramifications of this fake news here.

11. 16th April 2015: Times of India – Canadian PM Stephen Harper announces visa on arrival for Indians in Canada

Indian Media has some serious issues in understanding English. Via above tweet, and via this deleted article, Times of India declared that Canadian PM had announced Visa on Arrival for Indians. The Times of India tweet seems to be the earliest instance of this news. But, this video of PM Harper’s speech, by India TV, shows he only referred to India’s Visa on Arrival program and did not even hint at a similar Canadian program. Ironically, even the India TV news bulletin in that video, claims that Visa on Arrival has indeed been announced for Indians.

12. 16th April 2015: Economic Times – HRD Ministry won’t interfere in IIT Delhi-Subramanian Swamy dispute

It takes special skill to get something diametrically wrong. Above report says HRD Ministry has “backed off” and “refused to interfere” in Swamy’s 40 year old dispute of settling his dues. This is comically the exact opposite interpreatation of what has happened. The report itself mentions towards the end, that the HRD Ministry has now said that “service rules (of Central Government) are not applicable to IITs” and hence the decision on Swamy’s dues is left to IIT Board. Economic Times interprets this as “backing off” from Swamy’s case, where as HRD has only made it easier for Swamy to get his legally available dues. The “service rules” were hindering Swamy’s case and now the HRD has said they are not applicable, thus making Swamy’s case smoother. But Economic Times reported the complete opposite portraying it as a blow to Swamy. Swamy himself clarified this issue in his tweet.

13. 17th April 2015: IndiaSamvad (And 01 December 2014: Outlook) – Smriti Irani has hired Rakesh Jhunjhunwala’s daughter Noopur Jhunjhunwala as Addl Private Secretary

This lie was first mentioned in passing in an Outlook post from last year, and has now resurfaced as a full fledged post in IndiaSamvad. This new post alleges that Millionaire Rakesh Jhunjhunwala’s daughter Noopur has been hired by Smriti Irani in GoI. It also says that Irani has taken loan of Rs 1.75 cr from Jhunjhunwalas and hence has appointed their daughter. While the loan part is true, the part about hiring Jhunjhunwala’s daughter is fully false. This Forbes interview of Jhunjhunwala from 2014 informs us that his daughter is only 10 years old. This interview of 2010 tells us that his daughter’s name is Nishta and she was born on 30 June 2004. This information is corroborated by numerous interviews. From this it is clear that Outlook and IndiaSamwad have both been doing a hitjob on Smriti Irani.

14. 19th April 2015: The Hindu – Saffron Bullies Cautioned, says Arun Jaitley

The Hindu ran an interview of Arun Jaitley, using the exact above headline. It gave an impression that Arun Jaitley has used the term “Saffron Bullying” in describing some elements. The introduction to the full transcript of the interview says that Jaitley spoke about the “vexatious saffron bullying by some of the Central Ministers”. But when we actually see the transcript, it is clear that Jaitley never used the above phrase. In fact this term “Saffron Bullying” was used by the interviewer herself in her 3rd question. Attributing this term to Jaitley is incorrect. There was outrage on Social media, after which The Hindu printed a correction clarifying this issue.

15. 21st April 2015: Scroll.in – Modi plans to rename Delhi (based on a Firstport report dated 6th April 2015)

We had written a separate post on this. In 2013, an NGO submitted a plan to the Delhi Government to divide Delhi into 2 “Imperial Cities”. This was done in order to help in getting a UNESCO Heritage City Tag, which would boost Tourism. This proposal was forwarded by the Delhi Government to the Central Government, which approved it. The Delhi Development Authority then planned to rename these 2 parts of the city, in order to help the proposal get clearance from UNESCO. As is obvious, this was the plan of an NGO, approved by Delhi State Government and late by Central Government. But Firstpost and Scroll.in deliberately chose to lie and claim this is Modi’s idea. They used this chance to take various illogical pot-shots on Modi. Eventually Scroll.in also changed their title, but forgot to edit the piece.

16. 22nd April 2015: International Business Times / IndiaTVNews: Sachin Tendulkar’s Daughter Sara to Enter Bollywood?

Another media story which originated out of nowhere apparently. Media claimed Sachin’s daughter will opt for Bollywood in a soon to be launched film. They even decided that 18 year old Sara will be cast opposite Shahid Kapoor in her debut film. Finally reacting to such rumours, Sachin Tendulkar responded on twitter, denying all such report:


17. 25th April 2015: NDTV and Times Now: Pictures from an earthquake in Philippines passed off as Nepal Earthquake pics.

This is not a serious lie, it doesn’t affect anyone. But it does show the incompetence in Indian media. NDTv and Times Now, 2 of India’s leading News channels used this easily available pic of an earthquake in Phillipines, claiming it was a pic from Nepal. The devastation in Nepal is similar, although not as much as is shown in the pic. (pics via  & @Rajsan2012)

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18. 29th April 2015: Indian Express: Dalit village wonders, if Modi govt’s help will ever reach us

There are so many half truths and whole lies in this news report, we had to write a separate post for this. Indian Express got the name, location and photo of the “village” they were reporting wrong. They got the caste of the person they interviewed wrong. They used illogical information to arrive at a conclusion that Modi is not supplying aid to a “Dalit Village”. For details, read the full post.

 

For MSM lies of previous months, please check the following links:

January 2015: 7 Lies

February 2015: 8 Lies

March 2015: 9 Lies

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Discourse on Newslaundry hits a new low with a Hilarious piece on “Soul Vultures”

Gaurav
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Discourse on Newslaundry hits a new low with a Hilarious piece on “Soul Vultures”

In his latest post on Newslaundry.com, Arunabh Saikia decided to bash a post of OpIndia.com, largely consisting of curated tweets and protect some evangelistic preachers from the Western world, leeching on the misery in Nepal. We had earlier collated a few tweets of such Evangelistic folks in this post, which went viral all over the world, and which also managed to get Saikia’s attention. Although I usually talk about serious, influential Media, not the kind of sites which just happen to be running by coincidence, I must break this covenant to respond to some utterly hilarious allegations on OpIndia.com.

Firstly, Saikia’s piece is titled “RIGHT WING ON TWITTER HITS A NEW LOW WITH #SOULVULTURES”. For the uninitiated, #SoulVultures was a hash-tag which trended on Twitter by people across the spectrum who were outraged when they saw Christian evangelists trying to link Christianity and the disaster in Nepal. If at all anyone hit a “New Low” it was the Evangelical folks, not the people who exposed them. But that is logic, and we cant have logic and Saikia in the same sentence.

Saikia explains this hash tag as “…in response to Christian missionaries reportedly (on social media) carrying out a mass proselytisation drive in the wake of the disaster “. Yes, “reportedly” on social media, because Saikia couldn’t see all the tweets for himself.

Further, Saikia says “there are no ground reports or first-hand accounts to suggest that something like that (proselytisation) is indeed taking place. Possible, but we are getting there. Even as we speak, “Samaritan’s Purse, an evangelical Christian organization” with the Trademark of “HELPING IN JESUS’ NAME“ and with over a lakh followers on Twitter, has “teams on the ground bringing relief” to Nepalis. At this point, they very well maybe helping with relief material, but they are self-declared evangelists, who have already reached the spot.

Next, Saikia gives a clean chit to all these “Soul Vulture” tweeters, by calling them “bunch of loons in some godforsaken town in Midwest America“. This sounded eerily similar to clean chits issued by Extreme Right Wingers to motor-mouth Hindu extremists calling them the “loony fringe from UP, Bihar” (read all your Sadhvis etc), but it is well within Saikia’s rights to be blindly hypocritical. Saikia later again defends these soul vultures by spouting these comical lines:

The Twitter users that OpIndia quotes in its story hardly have any significant following – and come across more as fringe elements desperate for any kind of attention than part of any organised proselytisation group.

Firstly Mr Saikia, “twitter followers” is not the equivalent of having influence in real life. Many of these twitter accounts may have low follower counts, but they are Pastors, Accounts of Missions, and self declared Missionaries. Secondly, they very much are part of proselytisation groups, if only you had bothered to actually check some of the accounts:

1. Bevin Centre: “The Bevin Center for Missions Mobilization exists to connect The Souther Baptish Theological Seminary (SBTS) (which has a separate Evangelical Department) to the global mission field in faithful obedience to the Great Commission.

2. Michael Catt: Senior Pastor and Author of Evangelical Prayers and other publications. Catt later deleted his tweet, but we have an embedded version on our site.

3. Reverend Rob Armstrong: pastor at New Union Baptist, the site which, states that they “labor to advance the gospel throughout the nations” and their mission as  “To see our neighbors and the nations glorify God in Christ”

4. Clay Smith: Senior Pastor at First Baptist Matthews, which has an active policy of Evangelism and calls it “Disciple-Making”

5. Sandra Johnson: who describes herself as a “Mission Service Corps Missionary”

6. Tony Miano: “An outspoken conservative, self-styled preacher, who has previously been accused of homophobia” who suggested Nepali’s should convert. He was covered by UK based media house “The Independent”

These are some of the Twitter Accounts featured in our earlier post. And these are the tweeters, a young journalist like Arunabh Saikia is defending vehemently. For what? We do not know. Most of them have low follower counts, and that, for our lazy journalist friend, that is coclusive proof of having ” hardly have any significant following”.  I would be laughing Mr Saikia, but the sorry state of affairs at Newslaundry is rather sad.

Also, on a lighter note, the assertion that these Pastors , Missions and Missionaries are “bunch of loons” from “Midwest America” is quite incorrect. First of all, I strongly urge “Midwest Americans” to oppose this lazy regional stereotyping by Saikia. Especially because this is purely baseless  slander, which is reflected in the following map, showing locations of the tweeters.

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Next, Saikia uses a straw-man tactic, of creating a false argument to show he won. He mentions “Columnist Sandeep Balakrishna” in the very next paragraph after talking about our site. And with malicious intent, doesn’t at any stage clarify that Sandeep is not in any way related to our site. He has his own site, which again has no connections with us. But facts don’t matter for Saikia, who then uses one of Sandeep’s tweet to say: LOOK ALL OF RIGHT WING IS STUPID . Fact is, Sandeep has already been called out for his “superstitious” tweet. While some Sandeep sympathisers would say he is just a single “loon” from “South India”, so lets ignore him, Saikia reserves such courtesies only to Evangelical Missionaries of USA, for reasons best known to him

Next he calls out journalist Rupa Subramanya for “passively defending” Sandeep, WHILE SAIKIA, IN HIS POST HAS ALL THE TIME BEEN PASSIVELY DEFENDING PASTORS, MISSIONARIES AND OTHER SUCH EVANGELICAL FOLKS WHO ARE READY TO LEECH ON THE MISERY OF NEPALIS. Well played Mr Saikia, Well played.

Saikia ends with the most absurdly hilarious nonsensical statement saying the Indian Right Wing is “Milking a tragedy for personal gains”, which ironical applies exactly to Saikia’s “loony” friends, rather than right wingers who just decided to expose them.

Coming to more important things than some journalist on some site, Why is Nepal such an important place for Missionaries? Simple: Nepal was the only constitutionally declared Hindu nation till 2008 odd. It is among the three countries, where Hindu’s are in majority and consequently, Christians are just 1.4 % of the population. This makes it a great target for evangelical groups, to help in “disciple-making” and “church-planting”

A parting note on Newslaundry.com: While it has objective intellectuals like A Rangarajan (although in limited capacity as Consulting Editor), the site has a whole has failed to live up to its name. A site which was started to actually track lazy journalism and hang it on a clothesline, has now fallen low enough to indulge in exactly the same kind of journalism, as we have shown above. It’s hate for a site like OpIndia.com is understandable, because our constant focus on shoddy journalism, was exactly what Newslaundry attempted, but failed. We get plaudits from editors of the very sites we trash when they post idiotic pieces:


We are also way more popular than a full-time site like Newslaundry.com, in a much shorter span of time, with our limited stories, and without asking a single rupee from anybody “to keep news free”.Try harder next time, Saikia and Newslaundry. I used to like your site many moons ago…

Oops IE did it again! Indian Express spins story on Nepal tragedy too!

Gaurav
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Oops IE did it again! Indian Express spins story on Nepal tragedy too!

After giving us such chart-busting hit-jobs such as Communalizing Nun Rape, Newton out Aryabhatta in, and a double on an unofficial Subramanian Swamy account and Saffron uniforms in schools, The Britney Spears equivalent of the Indian MSM (mainstream media), Indian Express has done it once again, successfully converting Nepal’s tragedy into a caste battle, that too involving Modi and Dalits of Nepal! Yes, Modi hates Nepali dalits too!

This article with this headline “Dalit village wonders, if Modi Govt’s help will ever reach us” would probably make you believe that Modi is discriminating against a Dalit village in Nepal while providing relief material. It is entirely possible that Modi spends a good part of his day with Nepal’s caste-wise population register, altering Air Force plane routes so that they avoid Dalit villages, but to be honest, it’s not probable.

A closer look at Indian Express’s own article though exposes all their claims. First of all, the village in question is said to be “Sarki village atop hills under Bhaktpura”. As Contributing Editor at Newslaundry @ARangarajan1972 shows, the only village named “Sarki” is a good 112 kms away from Bhaktpura and not “under” it.


He also shows us another ground report by The Guardian, where the village it claims to be reporting from, falls exactly in the zone it says it is in:


So, the very location of this village is in doubt. He further points out that while the article’s byline says “Bhaktipura”, the actual article says “Bhaktpura” whereas the actual name is “Bhaktapur”. Typos? or imaginary journalism where one area can have 3 different spellings.

Next, does this village need help that badly? Yes many towns and villages in Nepal have seen devastation, but obviously some places might have faced worse damage than others. It is natural for any government or organization to reach out to the ones who need help the most. Here too, Indian Express report fails.

The report itself says “only one person died in this village” and that “most stone and brick structures here have developed cracks beyond repair”. This is considerable damage, but not as much when we know there are more than 10000 dead all over Nepal. So exaggerated claims that Sarki is being ignored for being a “dalit village” are foolhardy.

Next, a villager from Sarki, Hari Bahadur Roka, himself trashes this “dalit” theory. He is quoted by the report to have said:

“People on the foothills are most benefited by any government compensation. They are busy saving people in towns. They have not ventured into the valleys to take a stock of actual damage”

So, the discrimination if any, is because of their geographical position, and not their caste. This also can be explained, because it is easier to reach foothills than villages on hilltops. And again, it is likely that more people stay in foothills than on mountains. Having said that, any government, Nepal or India, must provide relief material here too, but again, giving it a “Dalit” spin is cheap.

The last paragraph of this article, ones again kills the propaganda it attempts.

Even in the villages on the foothills, the better-off farmers, who too have suffered heavy damages, are complaining about no help from the government

Are these villages too “Dalit” villages? Are these “better off farmers” too dalits, who Modi has discriminated against? Or is this a case of inadequate disaster management techniques? Or is it because they are hilly areas, which might be difficult to reach? Or maybe because these areas have suffered lesser damage than most other areas?

Finally, is Mr Hari Bahadur Roka, from the “dalit village” actually a dalit? If this Nepali Twitter user is to be believed, “Roka’s” are not Dalits, and “Sarki” is not a village but actually a caste:


If this Wikipedia post is to be believed, the surname ‘Roka’ is a common surname of the “Magar” caste. This is corroborated in this post. Further, “Magar” caste is called a “non-enslavable caste” here and the same post supports the Nepali twitter user’s claim that “Sarki” is a caste. It says “Sarki” is an untouchable caste, and the community is involved in “leather profession” i.e. they are cobblers. And Presto, the 2nd line of Indian Express says it is a “Dalit basti of cobblers”!

So Indian Express has:

1. Named a village called Sarki, when most probably it is a caste.

2. Possibly given the wrong location of this village since it is 112 kms away from where it claims it is.

3. Reported about a village with relatively less damage.

4. Itself said that the reason for not getting aid could be because it is on hilltops, not because it is full of Dalits.

5. Itself said that even “better off farmers” in other villages are still waiting for aid.

6. Quoted a person with surname “Roka” as a person from the Dalit community, whereas he probably is from the “Magar” caste which is clearly not a Dalit caste.

7. And finally, using all this cooked up data, framed a Casteist headline with an idiotic reference to Modi.

Update:

8. And lastly, as @ARangarajan1972 points out again, Indian Express could not even get the photo of the village correct. They tried to pass off a photo of Kathmandu’s Durbar Square, as a photo of “Sarki” village. Maybe they didn’t have a pic because nobody went to this “dalit village”?

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