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Government blocks 32 sites using Sec 69A of the IT Act: What did we learn

OpIndia Staff
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Government blocks 32 sites using Sec 69A of the IT Act: What did we learn

Today, the Government of India blocked 32 sites, mainly used for content sharing, on the pretext of protecting “sovereignty and integrity of India”, “defense of India”, “friendly relations with foreign states”, “public order” or “for preventing incitement”. We have already expressed our utter dismay at this churlish behaviour. But what did we learn after this episode?

1. Change in ruling party doesn’t change Governance!
Granted BJP has the one of the strongest majority ever. Granted PM Modi is stronger than his predecessor. But he is till working with largely the same people UPA worked with. All the bureaucrats are the same. Over 10 years of UPA government, they have been conditioned to function in a particular manner. Maybe some are just incompetent. What does Modi do? Sack all of them? Not an option. His best chance is to change their outlook and model it to match his and his parties. But that will take time

2. Until bureaucracy doesn’t come out of its slumber, Ministers will have to work overtime.
No we aren’t trying to shift blame from the Government to the bureaucrats. The Minister concerned, Mr Ravi Shankar Prasad is equally responsible. He and his colleagues will have to be extra cautious whenever any Babu brings any suggestions to them. Even the Ministers’ own suggestions should ideally be vetted by a domain expert for practicality. For egs if the Ministry had asked views from anyone familiar with how the Internet works, prior to blocking these sites, he might have been spared the embarrassment from outrage, especially from own supporters

3. Right Wing supporters will not spare anyone, even one of their own.
The first people to vent their anger, during GOI Blocks were the so-called “Right Wingers”. Today also the same right-wingers were not left behind. Sure, some hardcore supporters tried to justify this act saying “blocking was necessary for national security”. (Update: the user has deleted the tweet; it appears he too realized that what the government did was not worth supporting)


But an overwhelming majority of them spoke vociferously against the Government:


And some even chose to dig out PM Modi’s own tweet criticising UPA’s similar actions in 2012:


It was heartening to see those, who are often maligned as bhakts, criticize the party they openly support. Hope the other political groups, often indulging in sycophantic behavior, take note of this development and help in improving the levels of political discourse in the country.

Dear BJP, take Kapil Sibal in your government if you love his policies so much

Gaurav
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Dear BJP, take Kapil Sibal in your government if you love his policies so much

We got a new government under Narendra Modi, who is known to be IT savvy and youth oriented, but it seems the IT department is still full of people who have no idea what new media is. In fact, it appears that Kapil Sibal, the poet who almost killed your internet connection, is still our IT minister.

Because nothing else explains the silly decision of the NDA government, which blocked tens of content sharing websites such as DailyMotion, GitHub, PasteBin, etc. because some users were sharing “objectionable” content on these sites.

This is exactly what the UPA government had done in August 2012, when they blocked many websites on similar grounds.

One thing that separates those blocks from the current blocks is that the UPA government had also targeted Twitter accounts of people who were anti-government – no such ideological witch hunt is seen here – but the decision is as dumb and draconian as earlier.

The government has claimed that it is being done to control pro-ISIS propaganda on the net. According to Arvind Gupta, National head of BJP IT Cell, this was done at the behest of the Anti-Terrorism squad and sites which are deleting the materials are being unblocked:


Apparently individuals with links to ISIS were using these site to spread material, hence these sites were blocked until they removed the material. The problem with this is, due to the actions of a few, the entire site is taken down. Why not go after the specific posts? Why not go after those authors/contributors? What logic says that if a content sharing site has some illegal material, whole site goes down.

This approach is not only iron-handed but ham-handed too. You are blowing up the entire house and claiming to do pest control. This is not how it works.

However, it is working this way because India’s IT Act is designed in such a way that even ISPs can be held liable. So these ISPs prefer to block entire websites as soon as the government asks them. This is the monster Kapil Sibal had created, whom the BJP appears to be feeding now.

We all know about Section 66A of the IT Act, under which if anybody sends “any information that is grossly offensive or has menacing character” can be jailed for upto 3 years. We also know how under previous Governments, this section had been misused. I also spoke about some other equally devilish sections on my blog. These are Sec 67 and Sec 67A, which basically say that If you send stuff “containing Sexual Acts” then you may be jailed for upto 5 years. That’s like on Engineers being jailed.

The latest blocks shows another head of the monster. And that head is Sec 69A. This clause was invoked to block the websites following advisory by the Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS).

But what is this new Section 69A? A bare reading of it is (emphasis added):

“69 A Power to issue directions for blocking for public access of any information through any computer resource

(1) Where the Central Government or any of its officer specially authorized by it in this behalf is satisfied that it is necessary or expedient so to do in the interest of sovereignty and integrity of India, defense of India, security of the State, friendly relations with foreign states or public order or for preventing incitement to the commission of any cognizable offence relating to above, it may subject to the provisions of sub-sections (2) for reasons to be recorded in writing, by order direct any agency of the Government or intermediary to block access by the public or cause to be blocked for access by public any information generated, transmitted, received, stored or hosted in any computer resource.

(2) The procedure and safeguards subject to which such blocking for access by the public may be carried out shall be such as may be prescribed.

(3) The intermediary who fails to comply with the direction issued under sub-section (1) shall be punished with an imprisonment for a term which may extend to seven years and also be liable to fine.”

So what it says is, if the Government feels, that in order to protect “sovereignty and integrity of India”, “defense of India”, “friendly relations with foreign states”, “public order” or to “for preventing incitement”, it is necessary to block a site, then it can do so.

Clearly these clauses fall within the ambit of ATS, but the solution is not to ban entire domains even if the law empower the authorities to. As said earlier, it is blowing up the entire house to undertake pest control.

If we have to continue with this silliness set by Sibal, why not make him the IT minister again.

This incident should make us demand a complete overhaul of the IT act. It is one of the most retrograde laws in India, and maybe in the world. It advocates shooting the messenger essentially. Banning DailyMotion for a video, is akin to Pakistan banning YouTube. Last heard, Prime Minister Modi wanted us to compete with giants like China, not failed states like Pakistan.

If we are not willing to change this IT act, let’s have Kapil Sibal back as the minister.

Oh, the secular rush to prove that Hindus are behind every crime!

Editorial Desk
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Oh, the secular rush to prove that Hindus are behind every crime!

While police was investigating the Bangalore blast on Sunday that killed a woman, some tweets were sent out by a Twitter account @LatestAbdul threatening of more blasts if pro-ISIS Indian Mehdi Biswas was not released.

Now it has come to light that the tweets were sent by a “Hindu” boy who assumed the Muslim username. Apparently the boy is a minor, and most probably mentally deranged, which is why the police has not disclosed his identity.

However, it appears that the police revealed to the media that the boy was a “Hindu”.

Couldn’t the police just have said that the tweets were not sent by a Muslim man and it was a case of impersonation? Why was the need to disclose the religion of the boy, who could as well be deranged, as per the police themselves?

And even if it was revealed by the police, Couldn’t the media have avoided naming religion of the boy. Just tell that the tweets were not sent by a Muslim man and it was a case of impersonation.

It was done so, because it was a “secular” thing to do so.

Because it helps in conspiracy theories that Muslims can never do anything wrong. It is always Hindus who carry out such false-flag operations and blame the Muslims.

Remember, people like Congress leader Digvijay Singh and Bollywood filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt had released a book that claimed that Mumbai terror attacks were carried out by RSS. Such conspiracy theories are hugely popular among domestic Muslim circles.

An extension of such theories is used in Pakistan, where everything is blamed on India. The latest being the claim that Peshawar school attack was a false-flag operation by India i.e. Hindu groups dressed as Talibani terrorists killed Pakistani children!

While the Indian media is not yet “secular” enough to endorse the Pakistani conspiracy theories, they are always obliging to help in spreading domestic conspiracy theories, such as 26/11 being a RSS conspiracy.

To give credence to crazy conspiracy theories that Digvijay Singh and Mahesh Bhatt endorse, one needs “proof”, and thus it was important to highlight that a Hindu boy carried out a false-flag operation on Twitter.

And that is why this information was “leaked” by the police and the media put it prominently in their reports.

OpIndia.com would like to make it clear that we are not suspecting what the Bangalore police is saying. It could indeed be a false-flag operation by a Hindu boy, whether mentally deranged or sound. But it doesn’t prove anything bigger, as some on Twitter would like everyone to believe.

However, the secular army on Twitter is all out to prove that after this incident, there is no doubt that every crime attributed to Muslim groups is committed by some Hindu.

This is a regular phenomenon now. We saw it earlier this year when a Muslim youth was killed in a hate attack in Pune. A Hindu boy was wrongly blamed for another incident then. Please read this report from those days to understand the case.

To sum it up: A Hindu youth was attacked by Muslim groups in Pune. His injured photo was then circulated on WhatsApp, and it was claimed that he was a Muslim guy who had put offensive pictures of Shivaji on Facebook. The boy clarified that he was Hindu and not a Muslim, and he never put up any pictures on Facebook.

But look what the secular army on Twitter did. They spun this incident of WhatsApp hoax to mean that the Hindu boy, who was himself a victim, had undertook a Muslim name and put morphed pictures of Shivaji to create communal tensions. A victim was made criminal by these people because it suited their political and ideological agenda.

Among those who peddled such lies was a blogger called Farzana Versey, one of the vocal apologists for Islamic fundamentalism. See how she blames the poor Hindu boy of committing the false-flag operation, without conclusive proof. And when pointed out in the article that she might be defaming the boy, she refused to correct herself or update her blog.

It appears that these conspiracy theorists are fan of false-flag operations. Maybe because they themselves indulge in false-flag operations to defame their opponents.

After all such an incident was caught red handed by blogger Akhilesh Mishra. Congress supporters, who happened to be Muslims, had made fake accounts in Hindu names and were abusing others. See the tweet below and click the link contained in the tweet:


Yes, the latest incident in Bangalore indeed appears to be a false-flag operation. At best, it is the case of pot calling the kettle black when it comes to false-flag operations.

And wait seculars, please don’t use this Twitter false-flag operation to prove that the Bangalore blast itself was a false-flag operation by some Hindu group. Or have you already done that? We will not be surprised!

Protests over PK is worrying, but we should have been worried over these too

OpIndia Staff
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Protests over PK is worrying, but we should have been worried over these too

When a group of hooligans start tearing posters and vandalizing private property, we need to worry. We need to worry not because it’s a law and order situation – tearing posters is still a misdemeanor, not a grave crime – but we need to worry because it shows the level of intolerance growing in the society.

However, the vanguards of freedom and tolerance in our society appear to worry only when a particular group protests, that too when a particular party is in power.

If we go by the commentary of those who identify themselves as left-liberal, we’d be to believe that such intolerance was never shown earlier. And the only time Bollywood was under attack was when BJP ruled last – from 1998 to 2004.

If we go by the discourse promoted by these commentators, there were protests against movies like Fire and Water, and then there was golden era under Manmohan Singh, and finally fascism has returned with Narendra Modi.

But even a person with average memory can say that this is pure propaganda.

Our great commentators are known to be selectively deaf and blind to follies of their own and of their fellow travelers. They are to be as much blamed for this rise in intolerance as those hooligans who are tearing posters of PK.

Kolkata protests by Muslim groups
When fringe Hindu groups see such protests attracting no criticism or action, they get into a competitive match.

Note that those hooligans are indulged in competitive intolerance. When they see that intolerance of other groups is ignored and similar deeds go unpunished, they try to match the groups’ intolerance.

Just in case you think we are making this stuff up, do consider the following incidents:

Barely weeks after Congress returned to power in 2004, a movie called Amu was to be released. The movie was based on anti-Sikh genocide of 1984 and it showed how some Congress leaders were involved in killing of Sikhs.

The movie was earlier cleared by Anupam Kher, who was appointed as the Censor Board chief by the Vajpayee government, but Kher was sacked after Congress came back to power and Amu producers were harassed. Censor Board asked for various cuts on pretexts like the movie could hurts sentiments, it can cause law and order problems, and more. After tones of cuts, the movie was given an “A” certification and allowed to release.

Did you hear any liberal criticize this? Now compare how much noise the liberals made when there were some protests against Parzania, a movie on 2002 riots.

So a movie critical of Congress was almost killed by the UPA government appointed Censor Board as soon as the party was back in power. There were no op-eds written by liberals protesting it.

And the Censor Board, since then, has always indulged in such irrational censoring while our liberals have looked the other way.

Remember that in 2006, few months after Amu was mauled by cuts, India banned the internationally acclaimed movie The Da Vinci Code. Apparently it would have hurt Christian sentiments and created a law and order problem.

The feelings of the Christian community, widely considered to be peaceful and tolerant, were again “protected” by the Censor Board when it acted “pro-actively” and decided to cut some scenes in a comedy movie Kamaal Dhamaal Malamaal.

Yes, a comedy movie was censored! If the same would have been done by a Hindu group, those groups would have been criticized, and rightfully so, for having no sense of humor and having sad lives. Did we hear the same about protesting Christian groups from any of these commentators?

This was not the only comedy movie that was censored. Only a few months back, Akshay Kumar starrer Entertainment was asked by Censor Board to change the name of a character as it would have hurt the sentiments of Muslims.

No kidding. A character’s name, not even his actions parodying any holy figure, but the name could have hurt sentiments, and the Censor Board asked the producers to change the name.

It was just a few months back, do you remember any tweets saying freedom of expression or artistic freedom was being assaulted by religious fundamentalists? And all these years, the UPA government appointed board was humoring such demands.

So much so that during Vishwaroopam protests, some Muslim groups demanded that Censor Board should be restructured demanding reservations for Muslim community leaders in the board!

Perhaps if BJP had not won, UPA-III would have been working on a bill promising reservations to Muslim clerics in Censor Board. Who knows, maybe next time when they return to power, they will do it! And believe us, our liberals will keep quiet if and when it happens.

Violent protests by Bajrang Dal and VHP against PK: Match Fixing?

OpIndia Staff
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Violent protests by Bajrang Dal and VHP against PK: Match Fixing?

PK released all over India amidst much hype on 19th December 2014. The story was kept under wraps right till the release date. Once the film was released, it was evident that PK was a satire on the ills that plague religion. There was some outrage online saying the film is “Anti-Hindu”, but as we have already explained, much of this outrage is mis-directed.

The interesting point to note is, even when such Online outrage was going on Social Media and to an extent on Mainstream Media, no untoward incidents or protests happened on the ground. Now suddenly, a good 9 days after PK’s release, after it has exhausted all the hype generated, some groups have begun vandalising theatres. News reports claim these people are either affiliated to VHP or Bajrang Dal.

Already people on Social media have begun to smell a rat, especially with regards to the timing of these so called protests. Even some very senior and respected journalists have cast aspersions on the authenticity of these actions:


In fact Chitra Subramanian goes on to claim that such activities are “Standard Operation Procedures” (SOP) down south. Here are the views of some more Twitterati:


While we wonder about the timing, It certainly seems to have caused the desired effects:


It is important to note that PK had one of the lowest pre-release promotion: No Appearance on any TV shows, No Public shows etc. Knowing that Aamir Khan is a master salesman, we wonder how he missed this trick.

Or has he diverted the pre-release marketing budget to post-release, and have we missed his trick? After all, Bollywood is known to use such means, like the time Shah Rukh Khan has his tiff with Shiv Sena just before My Name is Khan released.

How the Government swung the GST Act around

Gaurav
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How the Government swung the GST Act around

It has taken 15-odd long years for the GST Bill to finally winding its way into the Parliament. In 2000, Vajpayee, the then PM, had initiated the discussion on GST by setting up an empowered committee. Then during the UPA-1, Chidambaram announced that GST would roll out from 1st April 2010. But we all know that it didn’t make that deadline. GST needed all the States and the Centre to be on one common understanding since it is a tax reform which moots uniform Indirect Taxation all over India. Of course, UPA  failed to get develop any sort of consensus, even after being in power for 10 years. Then how did a BJP government manage to achieve this within 10 months?

Some “Journalists” would like you to believe this: When UPA was ruling, BJP states played politics and opposed the GST Bill, and now that a BJP Government has been installed at the centre, all BJP states have agreed to the Centre and have compromised.

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Well, a little bit of fact-finding will make it clear that nothing of this sort happened. Till the last discussion of GST under UPA, the states had some major demands:

1. Keeping Petroleum out of GST ambit
2. Keeping Alcohol out of GST ambit
3. Keeping Entry Tax out of GST ambit
4. Some sort of guarantee from Centre for potential revenue loss

Some of these demands were made by BJP states too, including the Gujarat Government then ruled by Modi and the Madhya Pradesh Government. So if we believe these journos, did the states take back these demands? No. They continued with the same demands. Then how did the Centre arrive at a consensus?

The BJP Government was desperate to get GST out as soon as possible. They understood that this single reform could kick-start the Indian economy. Already 120+ countries have adopted GST, so India is already far too late. And the BJP Government didn’t want to delay it further. So, it decided to accept some of the demands of the state, and give them some comfort, so that they can agree with the centre at other places. Out of the above 4 demands, 3 were accepted, and a bonus benefit was passed on to the state:

1. Petroleum was kept out of GST
2. Alcohol was kept out of GST
3. A proposal was sent to the law ministry to work out a “Constitutional Guarantee” to compensate states
4. And the Bonus: The power to states of levying an additional 1% tax levy, for maximum 2 years, to help augment state revenues

In exchange for this, the Centre convinced the states to allow Entry Tax to be subsumed into the GST ambit.
From this, it should be clear that GST was achieved not because BJP states bowed to a BJP centre, but because the Centre was genuinely focused on allaying the fears of States.

Nehru admirer expresses disgust at Madan Mohan Malviya awarded Bharat Ratna

OpIndia Staff
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Nehru admirer expresses disgust at Madan Mohan Malviya awarded Bharat Ratna

Ramchandra Guha, one of the leading intellectuals in a system established by Congress governments and one of the biggest admirers of Jawaharlal Nehru, today expressed disappointment and disgust at the decision to award Bharat Ratna to Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya.

The NDA government had earlier in the day announced giving Bharat Ratna, the highest civilian award of India, to former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Madan Mohan Malviya, an educationist who founded BHU (Benaras Hindu University).

While the decision was welcomed across the board, a few like Ramchandra Guha used the opportunity to display their disgust because they thought it smacked of parochialism.


For those who don’t know, Mr Guha is one of the well-known admirers of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. In fact, he is often called the first apologist of Independent India.

Mr Guha is deemed an apologist for Pandit Nehru because he, as a historian, whitewashed all the negative and weak characters of the first Prime Minister of India.

Madan Mohan Malviya
Ironically, the same Mr. Guha didn’t object when Congress government led by Dr. Manmohan Singh felicitated Madan Mohan Malviya in the year 2011.

Books, often termed as history books, written by Mr Guha never talk about Nehru’s controversial aspects like him believing in astrology, him being opposed to his daughter’s marriage on grounds of religion, and him being a confused administrator.

Due to such whitewashing of Pandit Nehru’s persona, Mr Guha is widely regarded as a Nehru apologist rather than a Nehru admirer.

However, his disgust at another Pandit – Madan Mohan Malviya – took everyone by surprise.

One would have expected a Congress endorsed intellectual to give some respect o Pandit Malviya, who was once the President of the Congress party, but Mr Guha tried everything to diminish the statue of Pandit Malviya through a series of tweets.

Mr Guha, who also doubles up as cricket expert when not praising Nehru, had on earlier occasions disapproved comparing contemporary greats, calling it an exercise in futility. He opposed comparisons of historical figures like Nehru and Patel or cricketers like Tendulkar and Ganguly.

But he forgot his own rule today. Overwhelmed by the disgust he felt at Pandit Malviya, he ended up comparing Madan Mohan Malviya with all his contemporaries to cut down his size and stature.

This hypocrisy was well caught with a popular Twitter user:


While one can merely guess what caused Mr Guha to feel so disgusted, many believe that it was prevalent Hinduphobia among the Congress endorsed intellectuals that made him do so.

Madan Mohan Malviya always underscored his Hindu roots and expressed pride in the Hindu culture – a behaviour that always most certainly fills “secular” and “liberal” people with disgust and hatred.

As OpIndia.com had pointed out earlier, this is how secular-liberal Hindus react when they see a religious-cultural Hindu.

Dear Hindus outraging at PK, look what babas are doing. They are converting Hindus to Christians!

OpIndia Staff
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Dear Hindus outraging at PK, look what babas are doing. They are converting Hindus to Christians!

OpIndia.com had earlier written why it was not worth the time and effort of Hindus to protest against the Bollywood movie PK, accusing it of “Anti-Hinduism”.

While some grouse against the movie is valid, the movie primarily targets babas and godmen, who are not really bringing any benefits to the Hindu society or religion.

In fact, on occasions, they prove to be very dangerous and end up eroding the strength – both in terms of population as well as in terms of spirituality – of Hindus.

Religious conversion by deceit
A fraud baba who converted to Christianity and then converted his followers (Read the story here).

And this fact is being used as a tool by evangelists.

It is no secret that Christian missionaries and evangelists have been targeting India for religious conversions. They have had exceptional success in North East India and now they are targeting the mainland India in the last couple of decades.

(You can follow the Twitter handle @ trackevangelism to know more about their activities)

OpIndia.com has found out that one of the strategies employed by such evangelists is to involve local babas for mass conversions of Hindus into Christianity.

Their modus operandi includes “convincing” the babas to accept Christianity, who in turn preach the gospel and message of Jesus Christ to their unsuspecting Hindu followers who have been blindly believing them.

Although evangelists claim that such babas accept Jesus Christ as their saviour of their own, in most of the cases it is allurement and fraud that makes these babas jump on the conversion bandwagon.

One such example can be found here. Please watch this YouTube video, especially the confession of the “baba” and the testimony of the evangelist working in India, whose identity has been kept secret in the video, from 7:37 minutes onwards:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCaIYsd0t5w&t=7m37s

If this religious conversion of baba was “genuine”, there was no need to conceal the identity of the evangelist who made it possible. He is shown as reporting the activities of the baba to his bosses abroad on how the baba had been spreading the message of Jesus Christ among Hindus after joining the missionaries.

Please note that the evangelist claims that the baba is spreading Christianity by “performing miracles”. Will any rational person ever believe this?

It is clear that the baba is fooling his unsuspecting Hindu followers and claiming those miracles as being born out of his newly found faith in Jesus Christ.

These miracles could be simple tricks that any magician does, or he could be “healing” people by mixing medicines in “prasad” of Jesus Christ, as is often done by Christian missionaries in remote and rural parts of India.

Since those Hindus were already following the baba and believing his words, it becomes easier for the evangelists to reach out to the Hindus and get them converted through such babas.

They just need to buy one baba, and they get his followers free!

In such a scenario, should we really take it to our heart if a Bollywood movie attacks babas? Yes, they should attack these evangelists too who have been fooling the people as much as these fake babas. But we would be committing a mistake by allowing such babas to spread their network.

Keep in mind that Sant Rampal of Haryana, now in jail, had convinced his followers not to worship Hindu gods and had declared himself a reincarnation of Sant Kabirdas. Next step could have been to declare himself a disciple of Jesus Christ and ask his followers to become Christians.

We need to save Hinduism from such babas more than from a Bollywood movie.

Cartoon: How secular-liberal Hindus see religious-cultural Hindus

OpIndia Staff
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[test_ure] Following is a cartoon from Disney, which shows Minnie mouse, a fictional character, getting shocked at the sight of a common mouse, a real character:

Mouse vs Mouse
The Hinduphobia that is ingrained and innate among Indian pseudo-seculars

OpIndia.com believes that this cartoon captures the essence of the attitude so-called secular-liberal Hindus have towards the religious-cultural Hindu.

In the cartoon, Minnie mouse feels she is superior to a common mouse and feels almost shocked and disgusted after seeing a common mouse.

Similarly, despite being born a Hindu and possessing the secular-liberal thanks to the culture they grew up in, such secular-liberal Hindus don’t feel like Hindus and feel superior to a common Hindu.

And their attitude is as funny and ironic as the attitude of Minnie mouse in the above cartoon.[/test_ure]

AAP resorting to lies and fabrication to win Delhi assembly elections?

OpIndia Staff
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AAP resorting to lies and fabrication to win Delhi assembly elections?

Even though the Aam Aadmi Party accuses BJP of lying and using “photoshop” to create confusion and misinformation among voters, increasingly AAP is using the same strategy to win the upcoming assembly elections in Delhi.

Fake poster by AAP
The AAP poster trying to mislead voters about BJP’s CM candidate in Delhi. (Picture courtesy)

It all started with AAP projecting BJP leader Jagdish Mukhi as the BJP’s Chief Ministerial candidate for Delhi even though BJP had not made any such announcement.

AAP even put posters in Delhi projecting Mukhi as BJP’s Chief Ministerial candidate – a step that was called “childish” by Mukhi, who also mulled taking legal action against the party.

However, in absence of BJP taking any legal action, it appears that AAP has become emboldened and decided to extend this strategy in other fields, especially on social media.

This strategy was used when a picture of Arvind Kejriwal sitting in the business class of an aircraft was released a couple of weeks ago. At that time some AAP supporters themselves photoshopped a picture and falsely claimed that the photoshop was done by BJP to defame Kejriwal.

Following is one such tweet that shows AAP using “false flag operation” as a strategy:


Such false claims about BJP photoshopping picture was made even when AAP’s official website had put “Modi for PM, Kejriwal for CM” banner.

Later, both the business class photo of Kejriwal, as well as the official website showing pro-Modi banner, was accepted by AAP leadership as being genuine cases, but not before hordes of AAP supporters on social media claimed it to be a photoshop work by BJP.

OpIndia.com would like to make it clear that BJP is no saint in such cases and their supporters have also been caught using photoshopped images to make wrong claims, but such acts appear hypocritical when AAP, which claims to indulge in “clean politics”, does it in such blatant manner.

One of the popular incidents where a prominent BJP supporter was found circulating fake and photoshopped picture was when Priti Gandhi, a BJP worker from Mumbai, tweeted a poster that showed WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange endorsed Narendra Modi’s credentials as “incorruptible”.

WikiLeaks had officially issued a clarification earlier this year claiming that the poster was fake. BJP had to suffer embarrassment over the episode. Priti had accepted her mistake then.

But in the latest episode, Priti Gandhi herself appears to be a victim of fabricated and fudged poster created by AAP supporters.

Following tweet is being circulated on social media with help of AAP and Congress supporters. The poster claims to prove that Priti did a U-turn on the issue of insurance bill:


However, when OpIndia.com decided to find the truth of it, we found that it was a case of misrepresentation of facts to make it appear that Priti had earlier tweeted against the insurance bill.

The context of the first tweet in the poster can be found by clicking here, and it is very apparent that Priti was referring to insurance policies for retired individuals and not about the bill about FDI in insurance.

One can say that karma has caught with Priti, but it doesn’t justify fabrication of facts by AAP supporters to prove a political point. It is no secret that both Congress and BJP are making U-turns on earlier issues and one doesn’t need to fudge data or misrepresent facts to prove it.

It is really unfortunate that every party is now using such tactics, making every one of them very unreliable. It is high time that top leadership of parties give clear instructions to their supporters and workers to practice “clean politics” in reality, not just in slogans.

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