Beef Wars

“What’s your beef?” is a common American phrase. It’s a question a person asks someone who talks or acts without reason or goes off on a rant with no purpose other than creating a confrontational situation. This is the question to ask many media and political ranters who have been trying hard to link every incident to Modi.  "If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be vegetarian” said ex-Beatle Paul McCartney who turned vegan long ago. Since they don’t, people put up such pics on SM so others can see:

I have kept the pic small so it doesn’t offend too much. Five years ago, a café owner was ordered to remove an extractor fan because the resident next to the café was offended by the fumes of bacon. This was in England where bacon is a routine food item. For those who are not familiar, bacon is made from pork – from pigs. Do you want me to tell you the Faith of the complaining neighbour? I don’t think so; it doesn’t take Einstein to figure that out. Now, bacon is common food in almost all western countries and for a Muslim to complain about the smell of bacon from a café (where even Muslims were patrons) should be considered absurd. But such is the stupidity of councils and govts that they will pander to the nonsensical victimhood of minorities (read the full story here).

Cow-slaughter ban has existed in many states in India for ages. Some states have adopted that policy in the last few decades. For centuries the cow has been a sacred symbol in India, particularly for the Hindus. Recently, the Maharashtra govt extended the ban to bulls and buffaloes too. The Maharashtra ban on cow-slaughter has been in place since the 1970s but govts never enforced it strictly. There is nothing wrong in respecting the sentiments of Hindus. Consider this – Every hotel, airline and food stalls at airports now put up a sign saying they use only “Halal meat”. Surely, that is not to respect the sentiments of Christians or Jews, is it? It is highly unlikely you will find hotels and restaurants that routinely offer pigs (pork) as food. Will you? Why is it that only Muslim sentiments must be respected over what food is offered and how the animal is slaughtered?

Once the Maharashtra government slapped a ban on sale or possession of beef there were responses from all the Sickular scoundrels. Bollywood reacted (slide show). The usual Sickos in MSM reacted. Others from political parties reacted. That’s how this new beef war started. Earlier, to defy the cow-slaughter ban some morons held a “Beef eating festival” at Osmania University in 2012 which led to violence. Do note, there has been a cow slaughter ban (in then what was united Andhra) since 1977. So why would the authorities allow an activity that brazenly breaks the law? If it offends Hindus, no law is important, one can break it – that’s a social law in India in most states. If these people had eaten beef privately in stealth it wouldn’t have mattered but they wanted to make a public statement. Criminal media passes this and the bigger jokers will even celebrate it like the Monk and the Moron:

The StreetThug wants to eat steak immediately after the beef-festival debate and the Category5Moron wants to eat meat dripping with blood. I doubt anyone cares what morons like these eat – they can eat rats, dogs, insects, bats, snakes. And if they want to break the law and express their defiance even more strongly - they can even eat dead human-beings. These Anti-Hindu thugs just want to keep offending Hindu sentiments and that is all. Govt should usually not make laws over social issues and food habits. After all, I doubt there’s any law that says only “Halal meat” should be sold but everyone is offering that. Isn’t it?  The respect for Hindu sentiments on cows should have come naturally. But most of these people in media and politics who want to kill cows don’t want it to end there – they want Hindus to disappear so that a Chrislamic State can become a reality. You just have to give 15 minutes to Akbar Owaisi (family friend of the Monk and the Moron).

They want Hindu traditions and customs to disappear. They want Hindus to stop celebrating Holi. They ridicule and condemn even Raksha Bandhan. They wantkite-flying to stop because the string sometimes slashes some birds. But they want to kill cows. Someone put it nicely when he showed that these same morons have extraordinary sympathy for stray dogs that are becoming a menace in many cities:

So, the latest round of outrage is over a 50-year old man, Akhlaq, who was lynchedby a mob because there was a rumour he and his family consumed beef. The family denies it and claims it was mutton and that was what was stored in their fridge too. Given the consistent pattern of our media getting news wrong I would naturally be sceptical about the reason for the attack. However, let us assume he was lynched for the reason the reports say. Now, nobody… nobody has to die for eating something. Even if that offends anyone or breaks the law, nobody needs to die. But this culture of madness and killing in UP happens for many other reasons too. But the outrage and the attempt to link it to Modi and Hindus wanting to kill a Muslim is the kind of stupidity that is criminal by our MSM and many politicians. Fortunately, such media-scams aren’t passing anymore, thanks to SM.  

How brazen and stupid can it get? Well, there is Akhilesh Yadav – CM of UP who, instead of assuring strong action against the killers, asks the PM to ban the export of beef. And the entire media carried his ignorant crap like a box of parrots. All it took was for someone to educate this beef-challenged kid:

The beef-export ban is already in place for some time but our UP CM wants to pin the nonsense in UP on Modi. That is the whole game of politicians and media – as if Modi is policing every nook and corner of this country. It is true that there are a lot of social issues that Modi is failing to address but he certainly can’t be a cop monitoring every corner. What are CMs and local police meant for? To talk nonsense when crimes happen in their region? But the overall trick is to bring up some issue to outrage on before every election. Remember the “attack on Christians” fraudulent campaign before Maharashtra and Haryana elections? Well there is Bihar around the corner. So, the already prosecuted Beef-war in progress now becomes a Muslim killed over beef. Hope for the losers is eternal. I am not sure this will work either. What’s their beef? 

Source: mediacrooks

Silicon Valley will be laughing at the anti-Modi 'moral advisory' by academics

By Madhu Purnima Kishwar

Even if Narendra Modi doesn’t do any other good as prime minister of India, he has made one historic contribution to politics: he has exposed the hollowness, hypocrisy and sheer venality of what masquerades as secularism and human rights activism with regard to India.

Recently a moral advisory has been issued by a group of US academics to Silicon Valley professionals that they should boycott India as an investment destination because its current prime minister is allegedly a tainted man and is “almost certainly” going to misuse information technology for spying on its citizens (see full text of original letter here).

To quote the advisory in its own words, “As it stands, ‘Digital India’ seems to ignore key questions raised in India by critics concerned about the collection of personal information and the near certainty that such digital systems will be used to enhance surveillance and repress the constitutionally protected rights of the citizens.”

In a democracy everyone has a right to criticise, oppose and even hate politicians whose actions are out of sync with their expectations. Modi certainly deserves criticism on several counts. I myself have critiqued various acts of commission and omission of the Modi government. These academics are also welcome to critique or even display open hostility to Modi provided they don’t distort facts and masquerade their hatred of the man as defence of “academic freedom” and “civil liberties.”

Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Dubai. PTI

Several signatories to this ridiculous appeal are my friends. Some of them have hosted my lectures in the US and offered me warm hospitality. Some of them have even contributed insightful articles to Manushi, the journal I edited. Knowing them well, I can only say that they seem to have signed this absurd appeal under peer pressure, without applying critical thought that is expected of academics in premier universities. To my old friends in this group, I can only appeal that they should do a reality check before they undertake political interventions where they end up being used by vested interests with devious agendas. The rest of my rejoinder is addressed to those who have made a religion out of nursing mortal enmity towards Modi and BJP at the behest of vested interests.

It is noteworthy that there is not a single scientist, engineer, lawyer or IT professional in this list of signatories. This campaign, and several other anti-Modi ones, have almost always come from the domain of feminist studies and the departments of South Asian studies which have been systematically nurtured by the US establishment to breed anti-India propaganda under the guise of upholding human rights and social justice. It is in the domain of science and technology that Indians have excelled and emerged winners in open competition with their American colleagues. Their relationship with India is far more constructive than that of academics employed in the ghettos of South Asian studies.

The Emperor has no clothes: It is hard to believe that this learned faculty does not know that they their own “Emperor has no clothes”. Residing in the US and bankrolled by its agencies or institutions, these "neo-Anglo-Saxons" choose to forget that the US and Britain have been running the equivalent of a worldwide police state for the past several decades, where almost any phone call or communication could be tapped by their intelligence agencies.

As pointed out by Prof K Gopinath of the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, “the Silicon Valley honchos they appeal to have pioneered countless technologies that are routinely used for offensive and defensive intelligence operations. They petition technologists and businessmen in Silicon Valley to be wary of privacy violations (only in India?) when, for many of them, it is part of their daily bread and butter! As one of their tribe announced in 1999 (Scott McNealy, former CEO of Sun Microsystems), “You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it.”

“Note that this quote applies to US citizens; it goes without saying that non-US citizens are completely at the mercy of US/British agencies without any recourse! Microsoft, AT&T, Yahoo, Google and other companies have routinely assisted (under duress/subpeona sometimes) “US national security operations”. Many Silicon Valley companies have actively sought out customers among well-known autocratic regimes. A well-known video-calling product, Skype, though certified by a leading cryptographer as being secure, was revealed to have a backdoor that provided the Chinese authorities access to every conversation in real time with almost no effort. If they had dared meddle with American investors going to China or even Pakistan or Saudi Arabia, they would have been asked to go see a shrink and certainly ruled out of tenured jobs!

“Have these worthies already forgotten the National Security Agency (NSA) classified information leaked in 2013 by Edward Snowden, a former CIA employee and government contractor? These leaks revealed numerous global surveillance programmes, many run by the NSA and the Five Eyes with the cooperation of telecommunication companies and European governments. Any unbiased observer can see how persistently (across six decades or more) the US, Britain and Europe have been taking the rest of the world for a privacy/security ride with the active collaboration of Silicon Valley.”

Though their pious appeal is bound to be laughed at by Silicon Valley, it can't be ignored because it seems to have been inspired by vested interests who wish to keep India mired in poverty, promote strife among its people, and keep it vulnerable to terror attacks.

Witch-hunting under the guise of piety: This coterie of Modi baiters reminds Silicon Valley entrepreneurs of their moral “responsibilities and obligations” but seems to be oblivious to their own “responsibilities and obligations” as academics, where they are expected to rely on facts rather than manufacture demonology around a leader whose popularity they cannot stomach. So blinded are they by their malevolent prejudice that they can't tell the difference between hating Modi and hurting India. By calling upon the global community to go for an economic boycott of India and declare it an apartheid state simply because of their hatred of one man, they have more likely been acting as pawns - some of them knowingly and others unwittingly - in the hands of forces inimical to India. The investments that come to India are by no means going to Modi’s pocket.

This is not the first time American academics have crossed the Lakshman Rekha that divides honest, well-meaning criticism from witch-hunting for ideological reasons. They, along with their collaborators in Indian academia, had launched a similar campaign in 2005 addressed to the US government demanding that Modi be denied a US visabecause they, not the Indian courts, consider him guilty of “masterminding” the massacre of Muslims in Gujarat in 2002. The fact that they launched this campaign three years after the riots and only after the Sonia Gandhi-headed Congress came to power indicates whose game they were playing, and whose interests they were serving.

Since the appeal had the backing of well-entrenched hardcore evangelical groups in the US who hate the BJP for opposing conversion drives in India, the US government readily obliged and announced a ban on Modi’s entry from 2005 and till he became prime minister in 2014. They wouldn’t even let him address a video-conference when invited by American universities or NRIs. It is noteworthy that not a single FIR had been registered against Modi at that time (or even till date), and no police station or court had registered any case against him. And yet the US academics began a McCarthy type witch-hunt against a popularly elected chief minister for the simple reason that vested interests in the US and India had failed to defeat Modi politically. They, therefore, began using patently lawless means to dislodge him from power.

It is becoming increasingly clear that the US establishment is uncomfortable with the rise of Modi and the BJP to power. Otherwise such hate campaigns would not have repeatedly emanated from American campuses. A majority of these academics are of Indian origin but the brains behind the whole move are undoubtedly white American. Rabid evangelical organisations are backing and funding anti-BJP hysteria because they find that, unlike the Congress Party, the BJP is unwilling to open up India for large-scale conversions to Christianity.

Absurd charges against Modi: The academics’ claim that Digital India is a Modi conspiracy for citizen surveillance, but are they so disconnected from reality that they are unaware that digitisation pre-dates Modi’s assumption of power as PM?

Digitisation is the magic wand that can help transform the face of governance in India, by making it transparent and more accountable. It is the only way the administration can deliver efficient and speedy services and welfare measures to citizens. The e-governance mantra has been adopted by all major political parties in India due to strong pressure from citizens to move in that direction. India has already lost precious time and fallen behind the rest of the world because leftist trade unions obstructed computerisation for nearly two decades. But now nobody in India is willing to brook delays and obstruction in this regard.

Yes, some of these technologies are bound to be used for surveillance, including crime detection, surveillance of hawala networks, monitoring terror networks and beefing up border security. But no one is complaining in India because people realise that India is among the most endangered countries in the world, thanks to its misfortune of having Pakistan as a next-door neighbour, whose self-declared policy is bleeding India to death through a thousand cuts! If these academics are genuinely bothered about the misuse of digital technologies for violating citizens’ right to privacy, let them first persuade the US to dismantle its global snooping systems. They rest of the world, including India, will gladly follow the example.

Incompetents in key posts: The academics also indict the Modi government for appointing incompetent people in key jobs. It is noteworthy that they cannot cite more than three cases. In each

Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Madison Square Garden. PTI image

of these three cases, the Modi government has indeed chosen very incompetent persons to head those institutions. But the list does not stop at these three. Many of us are dismayed that the Modi government has allowed too many incompetents and mischief mongers appointed by the Congress regime to either continue in key jobs or even be elevated to higher posts. These are far more glaring examples because they involve officers who were established cronies of the Congress Party and yet managed to get patronage even under the current regime. But such people don't rankle the signatories of this ludicrous appeal because they are "secular crooks."

I am sure there are plenty of such questionable appointments even in American universities. Did people stop investing in the US on that account? The merits of an appointment under any and every regime, in every country of the world, are often questioned and even challenged. This has happened during all regimes in India. But is it their case that before investing in India (and no other country) American investors must scrutinise all government appointments as per the norms set by these self-appointed guardians of academic excellence?

Most important of all, those critiquing the Modi government’s appointments should remember that none of them can beat the unsuitability of Gopa Sabharwal’s anointment as Vice Chancellor of Nalanda University by none other than the venerable Amartya Sen – who is well known to be the intellectual godfather of this academic gang. Gajendra Chauhan is no doubt a poor choice to head the FTII, but Sabharwal is by all accounts even less worthy of the job she was handpicked for in violation of rules, regulations and qualifying criteria. In fact, Sen himself may have been a celebrated economist, but he has earned a lot of ignominy by treating Nalanda as a personal fief, running its affairs through remote control and with little accountability. (Read some of the details here).

Sen’s mismanagement of the affairs of Nalanda caused former President APJ Abdul Kalam, who was the prime mover behind this project, to publicly dissociate himself from it. Sen went around complaining about “political interference in academic institutions” just because the NDA government did not renew his tenure in office when his term ended in July 2015. In fact, Amartya Sen landed this prestigious job only because of nepotism, as he is a personal friend of Manmohan Singh and a leading courtier in Sonia Gandhi’s durbar.

The truth of the matter is that a small coterie of leftist intellectuals and academics have been allowed total monopoly on prized institutions, and have thus come to expect such jobs as their birth right. Whenever this monopoly has been questioned or touched, they rise in outrage and make life hell for whichever regime dares bring in a different set of people. Eminent academics, artists and intellectuals whose credentials are widely respected have been hounded out of their jobs if they do not have the stamp of approval of this intellectually tyrannical coterie. Anyone who dares fall out of line with their agendas and ideological prisms has their careers marred for life.

As far as their charge of government interference in academic institutions is concerned, I wish the Indian signatories to this naïve petition had stayed on in India and launched a determined campaign to free educational institutions from statist controls which were institutionalised when regimes of their choice were in power! Have they forgotten that under CPM rule in West Bengal, leave alone a professor’s job, one could not get even a peon's job without being a card-carrying member of the Communist party? But since these academics chose greener pastures for themselves, let them not waste their precious efforts fretting about the sorry fate of our educational institutions, for the rot began with the Congress party, which ruled India for over five decades. The Congress institutionalised the idea of political interference in institutions. They can rest assured that many of us in India are committed to changing the rules of the game in favour of academic freedom – a task these worthies failed to undertake when they had a chance to do so

NDA crackdown on some NGOs: The statement in their letter, that Modi’s first year in office has meant “bans and restrictions on NGOs” is product of paranoia. They are crying wolf simply because same of their allies among US-funded NGOs have been issued notices to explain why year after year they have knowingly avoided filing audited accounts for the hefty funds they received from western donor agencies, thus violating income-tax laws and FCRA regulations.

A handful of NGOs have had their FCRA registrations cancelled following enquiries which yielded solid documentary evidence of gross corruption, including siphoning of funds to personal accounts, as well as spending money for purposes that were different from the ones originally stated. The most notorious case is that of a Mumbai-based NGO, whose founders Teesta Setalvad and Javed Anand, are great favourites with this clique. These celebrities have been accused of using crores of rupees from a fund collected in the names of the victims of the 2002 Gujarat riots. Teesta and her family allegedly used the money for purchasing personal luxuries, beauty treatments, wine, branded clothes, feasts and foreign travel. It is noteworthy that the investigation into Teesta’s misdemeanors began only after the concerned riot victims filed a police complaint alleging fraud and misappropriation against this NGO. And yet they are being treated as victims of Modi’s wrath!

Is it their case that their favoured NGOs are above the law of the land? Don’t they know how people accused of fraud and non-compliance would have been treated in the US? Yes, Greenpeace has been deprived of FCRA registration. But adverse reports were filed by the Intelligence Bureau against this international NGO under the “secular” UPA regime. In any case, cancellation of FCRA registration only means it cannot receive foreign funds for its political activism. It is free to carry on its propaganda and advocacy campaigns with locally raised resources, as lakhs of NGOs in India do. The FCRA law enacted under the Congress regime mandates that political activity cannot be carried out with foreign funds. Even political parties are banned from doing so. In such a situation, if NGOs indulge in political campaigns for or against this or that party using foreign funds, it cannot by any stretch of imagination be treated as a crackdown on dissent. There is no bar on their activism, provided they abide by the country’s laws like the others. No self-respecting country can allow its politics and economy to be held to ransom by a coterie of organisations propped up by foreign powers, especially those that have a history of harming India’s interests.

As for the charge that Modi’s regime has brought in harassment and censorship of opinions critical to his government, even a casual glance at our newspapers, magazines, TV debates, news programmes and academic writings would show that Modi is under the harshest possible public scrutiny by both media and academia. Some of the criticisms levelled against Modi are well deserved but a good part of it is malicious. Not a single journalist or academic can claim to have suffered on account of Modi bashing. There is only one person in the Modi government who the media chooses not to criticise because he has been their loved one for many long years - much before Modi came to the national scene. The rest in BJP, including Modi, are easy prey!

Then there is the charge of violation of “religious freedom” under the BJP government. This is nothing but a sinister way of painting India as a rogue nation where religious minorities, meaning Christians and Muslims, are under grave threat and being forever massacred. They have mastered the Goebbelsian technique of endlessly repeating lies with vehemence till they acquire the force of truth.

This sustained propaganda has put India on top of the hit-list of jihadi terrorists and created prejudice and fear among global investors. They are thus endangering India by making Islamic terror groups feel justified in executing bomb blasts and other murderous attacks in India. Many among this worthy list had signed similar appeals to Indian voters to prevent Modi from becoming PM, alleging that under his reign India would be engulfed by communal riots and rivers of blood would flow. They are outraged that nothing of the sort has happened. Therefore, they are reduced to gross exaggeration and outright lies by presenting half a dozen minor cases of theft or vandalism of some churches by local hoodlums as proof of the NDA's anti-minority policy. As per police records, in the same period, over 258 cases of theft and vandalism took place in Hindu temples of Delhi, without evoking any hysteria among Hindus or words of sympathy from the votaries of “religious freedom.”

Whatever be their other faults (and the BJP has many), none of the BJP-ruled states - be it Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan or Chhattisgarh - has witnessed communal riots that became the hallmark of Congress regimes. Even Gujarat, which was the most riot-prone state during Congress rule, became totally riot-free for 12 years after Modi understood and brought under control the forces that had instigated the 2002 killings. Since Modi became PM, communal riots have taken place in states ruled by "secular parties" such as the Samajwadi Party in UP and the Congress Party in Manipur and Assam.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Canada. Reuters

It is no coincidence that this pious group of global conscience-keepers has never lobbied for apartheid or economic boycott of military-dominated Pakistan, a state well known for having decimated religious minorities - Hindus, Christians and Sikhs alike - and promoted the most hostile policies against the minuscule non-Muslim minorities that have survived murders, abductions, tyranny, extortion, forced conversions and lack of full citizenship rights. The Pakistani state doesn’t even spare Muslim sects like Ahmediyyas that are considered heretical by Sunni Muslims. At the time of partition, Hindus constituted over 28 percent of the population in the areas that became Pakistan. Today, Hindus constitute about 1.8 percent of Pakistan's population and 8.2 percent of Bangladesh’s. By contrast, the population of Muslims in India has grown from 9.8 percent in 1951 to 14.2 percent in the 2011 census. Yet, it is India and not Pakistan that is consistently targeted by these self-appointed guardians of political morality. These worthies have never mobilised world opinion against Pakistan even though, in pursuit of its undying hostility towards India, Pakistan has made itself the fountainhead of global terrorism. Why? Because Pakistan’s regimes have been bankrolled by the US and act as its puppets.

Would these academics dare petition foreign governments to ban the entry of US presidents whose devious political interventions have wrecked numerous countries and caused mass slaughters in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria?

For the n’th time, they have raised yet again the charge that during Modi’s tenure 1,000 Muslims died in communal riots. However, for once they got their figures somewhat close to reality. Earlier they wouldn’t stop at less than 3,000 Muslim deaths. But they deliberately fail to mention that the total number of killings were as follows: 262 Hindus killed, either by Muslims or in police/army firing on riotous mobs, as against 863 Muslims done to death by Hindus or in police firing. Riots have taken place in several states of India under non-BJP regimes. How is it that their heart bleeds only for the victims of the 2002 riots? How come they have never grieved for the 58 Hindu men, women and children who were burnt alive in a train coach at Godhra by a Muslim mob – an incident that triggered off the retaliatory violence? Their harping on Modi’s complicity even after the Supreme Court of India found no evidence against him, after subjecting Modi’s handling of the riots to intense scrutiny for three long years, shows that their motive is not so noble.

Incidentally, the officers of the Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigative Team (SIT) which grilled Modi and his administration were handpicked with due approval of the professional Modi-baiter, Teesta Setalvad. Yet Modi emerged unscathed. I would feel very privileged if these self-appointed guardians of Indian Muslims would care to challenge and rebut my detailed fact-sheet detailing day-by-day handling of the 2002 riots by Modi’s government, including his public statements. This has been published in my book Modi, Muslims and Media. (It is available on Amazon.com)

I can only conclude by telling the ‘Hate Modi’ Brigade, that the more irrational and malicious their rants against Modi, the more they strengthen public opinion in his defence. The vigorous protest on social media against this petition have not all come from Modi admirers. Many of us who signed the rejoinder to the Silicon Valley petition (read here) are fairly critical of the current functioning of the Modi government. And yet we feel compelled to rise in his defence because the ‘Hate Modi’ campaign has clear ‘Hurt India’ overtones and motivated by the desire to reinstall a scam-ridden regime which has been junked by Indian voters for being venal and harmful for the country.

Those who wish their criticism to be taken seriously have to earn the right by being visibly non-partisan. This includes having the courage to acknowledge the positive aspects and good deeds of the person targeted for scrutiny. There are as many serious lapses being committed by Modi government as there are attempts to improve things. But the petitioners’ blind prejudice is not tempered by reason or a reality check. Therefore, they are only damaging their own credentials and taking attention away from important issues.

The author is a Professor at CSDS and founder of Manushi

Source: firstpost

Why the media seems to hate the Modi government

By Ashwini Anand

The media does not seem to be particularly in love with the Modi government or the BJP Meat Ban-Wagon Grows as Haryana Orders 9-Day Curb (NDTV), Under Siege for Others’ Failures, Modi Must Win Back Trust of His Core Constituents (New Indian Express), Empty chairs greet PM at rally venue (The Tribune), By basing asylum policy on religion, Modi government has set a dangerous precedent (Scroll), India’s only Muslim-majority state hit by beef ban (Financial Times) – These are some of the recent headlines pertaining to the Modi government in the mainstream media. After looking at these headlines and contrasting the broad narrative espoused by the media with what one observes in his day-to-day life, can you blame someone for coming to the conclusion that the media has a visceral dislike for the Modi government and for that matter, the BJP?

The media’s antagonism for the Modi government is taken for granted in social media circles, with several commentators regularly putting forward a counter-narrative that is lapped up by folks on Twitter and Facebook. In fact, OpIndia runs a series of monthly articles in which it highlights what it considers “lies” spread by the mainstream media, typically against the ruling Modi government/BJP. Let us try to analyze some of the reasons for this apparent “bias”.

1. Ownership patterns of media houses

The reality is that a large number of media houses are owned by politicians/people close of politicians. For example, NDTV is owned in part by close relatives of Congress MP Navin Jindal as well as by the sister of the CPI(M) MP Brinda Karat. News X, India News and Sunday Guardian are owned in part by the son of former Congress leader Venod Sharma as well as by relatives of former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda of the Congress. These facts are not very well known, though Newslaundry has put out a very interesting piece which highlights exactly this point. Further, it seems as if the Congress is much better entrenched in the media than the BJP, though the latter holds some sway with Hindi news channels.

Is it unthinkable that the ownership pattern of a news channel/ newspaper influences the narrative promoted by that channel/paper and substantially shapes its portrayal of the government’s work? Given that Congress leaders & their relatives own far more channels/newspapers, I don’t find it surprising that the mainstream media tends to favour the Congress over the BJP.

2. Strained relationships with individual journalists/editors

During the course of my work over the last couple of years, I had a chance to meet several journalists/editors, some of whom are now friends. They tell me that the media’s levels of access to ministers, bureaucrats and other key policy makers has dwindled drastically since the Modi government came to power and that the ruling establishment seems to want to keep the media at an arm’s length. One journalist who writes more front-page articles in a leading newspaper than any other journalist I know, told me that her fraternity feels unwelcome in government offices these days and that senior decision makers often treat reporters with disdain, perhaps even contempt. Some leaders have openly refer to journalists as “presstitutes”.

Naturally, these strained personal relationships with individual journalists/the media at large reflects in the news stories/editorials that come out, thus negatively influencing the media’s narrative on the government’s work.

3. A culture that doesn’t necessarily nurture long-term relationships

A fairly prominent South Indian businessman once highlighted to me, what he thinks of the difference in culture between the two major political parties. He recalled how Congress leaders remember even small favours done by him, whether it is a medium sized campaign contribution or something as simple as allowing party workers to use his vehicles or guest-houses during the elections. He lamented about how, in stark contrast, the BJP has completely forgotten all the help he has rendered to it, with leaders remaining largely inaccessible to him.

I have heard several people, ranging from stars, mediapersons, businesspersons and retired distinguished professionals, unaffiliated to the BJP, who I know for sure have contributed their time and spent money from their pockets to help the party during the elections, complain about what they perceive to be the lack of acknowledgment from the party. Many of these people would have been content with a phone call from a party leader thanking them for their contribution or an invitation to a party leader’s house for a cup of tea. Most of these people don’t expect government contracts, appointments or Padma awards, just a simple acknowledgement; though I would reckon that a cup of coffee with a leader would not suffice for many of the businessmen.

I consider this to be one of the key reasons for individual editors and journalists favor the Congress party. The argument is simple – “Why align oneself with the BJP and get nothing, when you can align yourself with the Congress and be treated well when they are in power?”

Is it possible that while the Congress has nurtured relationships over the decades, including with the media, the bureaucracy and with the business fraternity, the BJP has largely ignored personal relationships and maybe even alienated its natural supporters by not acknowledging their efforts? I think it is not only possible but also likely.

4. The loss of articulate spokespersons to government roles

One of the key strengths of the BJP when it was in the opposition was its articulate & effective de-facto spokespersons like Nirmala Sitharaman, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Smriti Irani and Piyush Goyal who would make liberal use of data, statistics and anecdotes to support their arguments while exposing scams and puncturing feeble counter-attacks from the Congress . Leaders like Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj would step in when required, with their oratorical skills to take down what was left of any of the Congress government’s credibility, under the leadership of Modiji, who would enthuse the cadre and independent voters alike.

But now, the tables have been turned. While the most effectual communicators of the BJP are in government, the best of the Congress’s arsenal i.e. the likes of Manish Tewari, Abhishek Singhvi and Jairam Ramesh are interacting with the media almost on a daily basis and are overwhelming the massively depleted spokesperson corps of the BJP which looks hapless on TV debates.

A case in point was the failure of the BJP spokespersons to effectively highlight, on TV debates, the fact that the Beef Ban (context- Maharashtra) is mentioned in the Directive Principles of State Policy in the constitution of India, that the meat ban in Mumbai on Jain festivals pre-dated the Fadnavis government and that UP (a non-BJP ruled state) too has such a ban in place. They looked helpless as TV anchors seemed to mercilessly rip them apart (metaphorically) and paint the Modi-led government as the new fascist game in town, out to turn Hindustan into “Banistan. It took an intervention from Nirmala Seetharaman before the record was set straight and some semblance of sanity was restored to the debate.

What next?

Perhaps it is time for the ruling establishment to recruit more effective spokespersons, rebuild old relationships and start taking PR more seriously before what many (including me) consider misinformation and a disingenuous narrative put forth by sections of the media erode popular support that the government currently enjoys?

(The author was formerly a Founder-Member of one of India’s leading socio-political organizations that is credited with having helped change political campaigning in India. He can be followed on www.twitter.com/ashkronos and http://ashwinianand.wordpress.com )
Views of the author are personal

Source: economictimes

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”?

Source: opindia

Multiple groups plan hot summer for Modi

Domestic players are planning to generate an atmosphere of agitation because of the challenge the PM and BJP are posing to other political parties.

MADHAV NALAPAT  New Delhi | 7th Feb 2015

Senior officials concerned with national security warn that multiple groups, most with strong connects abroad, are working to ensure that the months after the 28 February presentation of the 2015 Union Budget see demonstrations and protests on a scale last seen during 2011-12, when the Anna Hazare-led movement against corruption peaked. While the domestic players active in such efforts are working on the plan to generate an atmosphere of agitation because of the challenge that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party are posing to other political parties, interests based abroad seek to derail Modi's reform agenda before a renovated economy reaches takeoff speed, i.e., expands at a double digit rate. Since taking charge on 26 May 2014, the Narendra Modi government is putting into place transformational changes in policy and procedures designed to accelerate growth, although as yet, such moves have been given little publicity, the focus being on Modi's foreign policy forays.

Food grain price inflation has been abating over the past five months as a consequence of the government making hoarding a non-bailable offence, besides creating a Rs 500 crore price stabilisation fund. Other steps initiated by the Prime Minister's Office include moderating the UPA-era Minimum Support Prices of food grains and ensuring timely offloading of excess food stocks, unlike during 2004-14, when stocks piled up and wastage reached unprecedented levels. Also, because the UPA got passed a land acquisition law that made the setting up of large-scale enterprises almost impossible, Modi (through the LAAR ordinance) has exempted rural and other infra; industrial corridors; defence; and finally affordable housing from the chokehold of the social impact study and consent clause of the UPA land legislation. To promote production within the country, 100% FDI has been approved for railway infrastructure, while the limit for defence industry has been raised from 26% to 49%, with further boosts under consideration. Corruption is being reduced by ensuring that several classes of transactions went online, such as environment and forest clearance.

Other steps to make the setting up of job-giving units easier is an e-auction process of 24 coal mines, as well as the creation of a single online portal for the filing of returns of 16 labour laws through Shram Suvidha. Labour inspections have been made more transparent, with a 72-hour time limit for the uploading of reports, while reporting requirements under the Labour Act have been simplified. Diesel prices have been de-regulated, with other petro-products likely to follow. Finally, changes in the Factories Act have reduced the "inspector raj" in industrial units, thereby making industrial investment in India more attractive. The aim of Prime Minister Modi is to make the entire process of government non-discriminatory and transparent through the adoption of online systems, which do away with the need to constantly appear before officials to get issues cleared.

However, in other fields, the record of the Modi government has been less spectacular, such as in the bringing to book of high-level perpetrators of corruption during the Manmohan Singh years, and in ensuring that the estimated $112 billion of moneys siphoned off to overseas banking havens during the previous decade be brought back both by punitive means as well as via an amnesty. Senior officials say that thus far, only baby steps have been taken to ensure accountability at the higher levels of the machinery of the state, and that those political leaders in the UPA known to have enriched themselves and their families seem as yet beyond scrutiny. Interestingly, it is precisely these tainted elements, who are now mobilising various groups against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, aware that a strengthening of his position may lead to tough times for them, as "a PM empowered by high growth will better fulfil his agenda of change through green and clean governance".

These officials point out that there has been deliberate retention by successive regimes of colonial-era laws and the sharp contra-liberal boost in state powers (a change directed by Sonia Gandhi and loyally implemented by Manmohan Singh). Such bloated bureaucratic discretion has created a substantial vested interest whose financial interests mandate a rollback of the reforms planned by Modi during his five-year term. They say that vested interests eager to derail reform are working energetically to, (a) slow down reforms already announced, and (b) short-circuit decision-making by tardiness in the clearing of files, despite having been explicitly empowered to do so by Modi. What they are working towards is a "summer of discontent" directed against Prime Minister Modi and his policies. Select NGOs (several of whom have employed the children and other dependents of policymakers) have been working silently across the country mobilising farmers, fisher folk and the rural and urban poor to active protests against economic measures that within a few years would in fact benefit these very groups substantially.

Officials tracking funding and operations of groups active in mobilising social groups across the country say that a key prong of the strategy of specific NGOs headquartered abroad is to seek to block the development of the economy, the preferred way of doing this being to use the legal and political system to block projects (on the Niyamagiri and Nandigram patterns), as also to block extraction of raw materials such as coal, iron ore and uranium from sources within India, thereby forcing domestic users to import such resources at huge cost from developed economies, whose nationals are coincidentally very active in the management levels of such NGOs. Such large-scale imports depress the value of the Indian rupee, thereby giving a financial advantage to groups based in developed countries.

Interestingly, the RBI under Raghuram Rajan is understood to be focused on keeping the value of the rupee low by the purchase of dollars and turning a Nelson's eye to such massive forex drains as "royalty payments" by foreign-owned subsidiaries in India to their principals abroad, payments made without any substantive business benefit to the domestic branches of such MNCs. These branches are being drained of their cash surpluses by such payouts, as also by having to fund salary and overhead expenses of large numbers of high-priced international staff of dubious value to the domestic unit. Another signature policy of RBI Governor Rajan is sky-high interest rates, which are hobbling domestic industry and preventing jobs from being created. Despite the ill effects of such Wall Street-oriented medicine, the UPA-appointed RBI Governor is being given repeated kudos by North Block, which apparently believes that the best talent comes from universities in the US rather than in India, and which in effect prefer the interests of Wall Street to this country's Main Street.

Groups working for ensuring a climate of unrest during the following months are relying on rumours of a reduction in the retirement age of staff from 60 to 58 years. This is being harnessed to motivate unions to seek a fresh 1974-style railway strike, with railway union leaders being courted for the purpose. Other sectors where a general stoppage of work is being planned for the summer are coal and banking, and here too union leaders are being contacted to get them on board for large-scale industrial action by the middle of the year.

Prior to that and independently of foreign players, Anna Hazare is scheduled to reach Delhi on 21 March for an indefinite fast on the black money issue. Also, both the National Alliance of People's Movements and the Ekta Parishad have scheduled major protest meetings and movements within the next ten weeks, all of which are planned to converge on the National Capital Region. The revision in the land acquisition laws, which are deemed to be essential for ensuring investment in India on the scale needed to create millions of jobs each year, is the target of the Bharatiya Kisan Union led by Mahendra Singh Tikait, who is planning to launch a mass agitation against the land acquisition changes in selected districts of Uttar Pradesh in the first instance, expanding this to BJP-ruled states such as Rajasthan and Haryana later.

Internationally, well-funded NGOs with strong branches and contacts within the country are planning a large-scale campaign that alleges major violations in human rights as well as suppression of religious freedom in India, which is expected to begin in April and peak by September 2015. The European Union has already designated India as a country of concern where religious freedom is concerned, and the US is expected to follow in April this year with a similar indictment. Interestingly, unknown perpetrators have been selectively targeting Christian houses of worship in some locations, and are working hard on placing the needle of suspicion on the BJP leadership, despite evidence from Mangalore and other locations that many of such incidents have been carried out by groups opposed to Prime Minister Modi, so as to defame him despite his focus on development. It does not take much organisation for communal incidents to get initiated in sensitive parts of India, and those behind the ongoing preparations for the "Summer of Discontent" campaign are known to be identifying locations where tensions can get stoked, thereby reinforcing those seeking to create an the international perception of India as being a communal cauldron, when in reality, overall conditions are peaceful.

As yet, these officials warn, the national security machinery in India has yet to upgrade its capabilities in order to fully counter the threat of widespread social disruption through the utilisation of fault-lines such as unemployment and occasional tensions between groups. While acts of terror are overt and spectacular, such a "digging under the foundations of governance (in the words of a top official) usually passes under the radar until it is too late", the example given by them being Ukraine, where the elected President Viktor Yanukovich was taken by surprise at carefully-scripted and funded protests and almost lost his life as a consequence.

The reach of social media platforms controlled from foreign countries and the absence of any domestic alternatives are adding to such a vulnerability, these officials warn, adding that the months ahead are likely to witness efforts at disruption of normal life in key cities and economic sectors on a significant scale. They say that an acceleration of growth and the return of confidence are the best antidotes to the game plan of those seeking to derail the Modi reforms, which is why an anti-reform climate is being sought to get whipped up during the budget session of Parliament.

Source: sunday-guardian