Saving Bharatiyata

Otis is a short, fat sidekick. He’s a very clever and cunning sidekick though. Miss Eve Teschmacher is the criminal’s moll. She’s a perfect bimbo. And Lex Luthor is the boss. Lex considers himself the greatest criminal mind of all time. There can’t be much dispute about that. A long time ago, Lex had left us an enduring lesson which will hold true for eons. It’s a lesson he claims his father taught him. Let’s watch (2.41 mins):

So Lex Luthor has this grand plan to explode a 500 mega ton bomb and sink the west coast of California so that his desert land can become the new west coast. All the new cities would be named after Lex and Luthor. In that grand scheme little Otis doesn’t forget to find a little space and name it “Otisburg” after himself. He’s like the sidekicks in our media who have enriched themselves from the massive scams of the Congress. Of course, Lex Luthor explains how he created his empire from humble beginnings. Have you heard stories of such “humble beginnings” in the real estate business in India? I bet you have. Lex Luthor would have been proud of how Robert Vadra became a land tycoon from “humble” beginnings:

There is desperation in the media; there is desperation in the Gandhi family. “Power corrupts but the prospect of losing power corrupts even more” said Ram Jethmalani. On April 14 Sonia Gandhi came on TV and made a grand appeal to people. She said her party was fighting to protect the “very heart and soul” of India from those who sought to change it and divide the people of the country. As they taught you in school, the heart and soul of India is the “Gandhi family” and everything else is crap. Okay? She begged “We want unity. They want to impose uniformity. They say, ‘Just believe in me’… Their vision, clouded with hatred and falsehood, their ideology, divisive and autocratic, will drive us to the ruination of our Bharatiyata, our Hindustaniyat”. Astonishing! We have to now learn “Bharatiyata” from some Italian. You know, I doubt if SoniaG can even sing our National Anthem impromptu (a senior Kerala Congi could not sing it at a function). Err… asking if she can recite “Vande Mataram” impromptu would be outright foolishness. For a woman who claimed “power is poison” the level she goes to retain it is the story of her life. Someone rightly pointed out that in 2004 SoniaG only gave up “accountability” not the PMship. She is accountable for nothing it seems and was a back-seat PM as everybody knew and the recent book by Sanjaya Baru confirmed.

This hateful bile on TV went unquestioned by any media editorialist. To me, the only ones who hate Bharat and who want to destroy are the Congis and their heads. The Gandhis seem to believe that India is some kind of “real estate” inherited by them. The number of allegations in the land scams against Vadra is mounting. There are also allegations of land scam against the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation. Count the number of towns, townships, projects, IT parks and such real estate named after the Chinese Gandhis. And all this hateful fear-mongering from SoniaG and the other Gandhis is for what? Just because Narendra Modi challenges them like nobody has ever done before. And he rightly does so. The SoniaG hate-appeal is the culmination of a gang of Indian and International media and motley crews who are hell-bent on wanting their corrupt ways of life to continue. The latest is the Bollywood crap from Sonia’s doormat NDTV:

There is something else that the media did that is criminal. Most of them passed off Sonia’s speech as if it were some speech to the nation for donations for a national calamity by the PM or the President. They defrauded the viewers by not clearly stating this was a paid political speech. In other words, this was “advertisement” and the screens should have indicated it as such. At the risk of boring you I have to repeat: The media is the first line of defence for the corrupt. Of course, there is this 5-year Gandhi Queen who turns up in UP every once in a while. She’s the Great White female hope of the media and the sickulars who will save them from anything. Priyanka Vadra (Gandhi during elections) comes in like a queen, throws a few soundbites at the media who jump and squeal around her for crumbs like pet dogs (as the pic shows) and then run her silly statements endlessly on loop on TV. I have no other way to describe the silly 5-year cameos of Priyanka as I did in a tweet:

Priyanka grandly comes out twice in 5 years; once during the state elections and once during LS elections. She then meets those “wretched” villagers who are dying for a glimpse of her face to quench their thirst and hunger. The “Old Jungle Saying” was the Phantom leaves the jungle and visits the city like an ordinary man. This is reverse. The Queen leaves her cities, hill-stations, foreign abodes and jeans. She meets the villagers in Sarees and renews her lease agreement for the inherited land called Amethi. In 50 years this is how the Chinese Gandhis have not only fooled Amethi and Rae Bareli but a large part of the country. Take a look:

Look at the bottom pic carefully. An open gutter runs through the lane of huts of villagers in Amethi. For over 50 years Amethi has been called the “bastion” of the Gandhis and this is what their real estate has to show for it. And Priyanka realises her “Bharatiyata” only during elections when she visits Amethi or Rae Bareli. And SoniaG talks about the “heart and soul” of India?

Do any of these Gandhis even know anything about Bharatiyata? They aren’t really bright and don’t really have any ideas about anything. RahulG talks about “Toffee model” when it comes to land in Gujarat. In truth it is Robert Vadra and Congress govts who indulge in the Toffee model where Vadra buys land at toffee rates and sells at aircraft rates. Lex Luthor would be proud of him. Silly utterances like these are all that they come up with in absence of answers for the extraordinary corruption and non-performance by the Congress. The other frequent rant is “my daddy died, my daadi died” for the country. While their death is tragic this is a wimpish claim and has nothing to with reality. True to the pattern Priyanka recently claimed her father died for the “unity of the country”. This absolute nonsense is then passed off by the media as great emotional crap. This is an absolute lie and no editorialist has the guts to call it. India wasn’t in some civil war which threatened her unity that RajivG had to save by sacrificing himself. He and Congress members helped in his death at the hands of LTTE assassins by breaking security cordon and arrangements.

If his death was so painful then there are other questions that the Gandhi family simply does not answer. Priyanka herself went to meet the killers in prison. For what? To share her grief with the killers? SoniaG brought down a govt because the DMK (who she alleged supported the LTTE killers) was a part of it. In the Congress led UPA she had no problems having the same DMK and their members. Some of these DMK members were also allowed to loot the nation under her nose. What tragedy are they talking about? Which Bharatiyata are they yakking about? Their nonsensical fear, as peddled by them and many in the media, can be explained in one word: “Modi”. That’s it! He poses a challenge to the corrupt Congress and Gandhis like no one has ever done before.

From Christian media abroad to a majority in the Indian media, assorted NGOs, Bollywood crooks and some others, the only objective is to somehow stop Modi. Why? Obviously, to them Modi is not “Bharatiyata” and they are. The Gandhis who run off abroad at will with no one knowing, who answer no questions on any scam and who let off people like Quattrochi and Anderson (of Bhopal tragedy) understand Bharatiyata? The same SoniaG gave of 12 billion dollars to the EU to save the EURO while the rupee was constantly falling. Bharatiyata? 12 billion dollars with not a second thought? Italian marines kill Kerala fishermen and they are protected under special agreements. Bharatiyata? RahulG ran off to Spain when he heard of the Uttarakhand tragedy in 2013. Bharatiyata? RahulG was partying after terrorists killed over 160 people during 26/11. Bharatiyata? Medical treatments or check-ups, SoniaG runs abroad and doesn’t trust Indian doctors. Bharatiyata? Former PM Narasimha Rao was denied a funeral at Rajghat in Delhi and rushed to Hyderabad. That Rajghat is a private estate of the Gandhis? Bharatiyata? I can go on and on.

For all the rants from all kinds of media and hate-filled, anti-Indian Bollywood creeps and international media and hate-mongers, there is someone who explains quite well why Modi is hated by the elites and the corrupt. This is from a former US Govt official David Cohen:

“Modi bears striking similarities to a celebrated American president: one Ronald Wilson Reagan. Both men rose from humble origins. Modi, in particular, worked from childhood hawking tea in railway stations. Both were popular and successful state governors: Modi is the chief minister (equivalent to a governor) of Gujarat, an Indian state whose gift to the world was Mahatma Gandhi. Modi, like Reagan, is an unabashed proponent of free market economics: “Modinomics,” the term coined to describe Modi’s free market and anti-corruption reforms, is of course a nod to “Reaganomics”; it has unleashed an economic boom in Gujarat. A major common denominator between the two men is the nature of their detractors. Like the U.S., India has cultural elitists who seem to desperately crave the approval of their former colonial masters in Europe. The Indian cultural elite despises Modi every bit as much as the American cultural elite despised Reagan. They look down their noses at Modi, cringing at the thought of being led by a common “tea seller” who can barely speak English. (Can you imagine Chinese or Russian citizens, proud of their own heritage, being ashamed that their leaders don’t speak English?)”

The thing Cohen doesn’t explicitly say is that Reagan wasn’t from the political circus of Washington DC. The same is true for Modi; he isn’t from the political circus of Delhi where people from different parties conveniently sleep with each other and this has helped the Congress and Gandhis extend their corrupt rule for over 60 years. SoniaG or her family isn’t even the last fountain from where I would like to learn Bharatiyata. The indisputable truth is that it is Modi who really represents Bharityata. He was born in India, got whatever education he did in India, came up from a small village after hawking tea for a living, rose through the ranks of a party to his current level through his work. Modi didn’t reach where he did because his father or mother considered it their birthright to rule this country. Modi did not have parents who ran a dynastic political party. Last I heard Modi doesn’t have Italian genes. Modi doesn’t change clothes from city to village to Assembly. There isn’t a fake appeal by him to voters with “Bharatiya” clothing for convenience. He lives the Bharatiya life and I would trust him to save Bharatiyata more than imported Gandhis. 

CNN-IBN: Twist & Shout

When the previous post ‘Robert Vadra & the innocence of journalists’ was pointed by someone on Twitter to Rajdeep Sardesai he, at his wits end, was naturally rattled. Instead of responding to the tweet Rajdeep sends the person a DM with a message about Media Crooks: “Now he is what is Paid Media. Paid to abuse media”. That is nice! Now all I have to do is to wait for Rajdeep to send me my cheque so his dry dream comes true. I have only one objection though. I have rarely used the term ‘Paid media’ and that too mostly in quoting someone or in the context of some report. I find the term is not as respectful as MediaCrooks which I coined to honour some of our media celebs. Oh there’s the “abuse” part too. Isn’t that the cover these folks use in defence when they have nothing to say? His deputy editor has even complained of being abused because she’s a “woman” after the Sri Sri episode. I wonder what Rajdeep’s excuse is. Abused because he’s a “man”? Haha! Anyway, the laughter challenge bit is over. Let’s get into some more of CNN-IBN’s “Twist” and “Shout”. Yep, twist headlines, questions and shout misleading information, even LIES.

What does one understand by the term “accused”? In casual conversation it can substitute allegations, finger-pointing and so on. But is the news business casual conversation? People in the news business would be careful about terms they use. ‘Accused’ is normally used when a person or entity is legally charged with an offence and is likely to be prosecuted. Umm ... not so when it comes to CNN-IBN! You see they have the license to concoct headlines the way they would like to see the story.

Given that the Robert Vadra (RV) financial allegations have had the media running for cover in defence they seem bent on somehow balancing the damage by desperately tarring someone from the Opposition. Narendra Modi would have been handy but they are still searching for some real muck on him. So they have to make do with Nitin Gadkari, the BJP president. On the night of October 6 the CNN-IBN kept scrolling a headline: “Gadkari is an accused in the Goshikurd irrigation project”. Really? This is, of course, in connection with the Maharashtra irrigation scam which has been in the news. Gadkari seems to be trigger-happy when it comes to issuing legal notices for defamation. I guess CNN-IBN just gave him one more reason. So Rajdeep and his channel have the license to concoct and twist headlines, abuse media power with even lies, and taint people and then cry “abuse” when challenged and exposed.

The twists of CNN-IBN didn’t start there for that night. It actually started some hours prior with the Karan Thapar (KT) - Arvind Kejriwal (AK) interview over the latter’s allegations against RV. Now, we are not going to deal with AK’s answers to Thapar’s questions or statements. We will dwell merely on some of what Thapar asked or said. The only thing that was disingenuous by AK was that he claimed never to have read or heard about the ET report on RV till the previous evening. Surely, AK didn’t wake up with a dream one night that said “go after RV”. There has been enough in the print and online media that would have motivated AK and team to go after RV. Even if AK didn’t actually read ET as he claims, one can be sure there are enough watchdogs in his team to educate him on the news.

So let’s read some of the questions and statements of Thapar. I must mention that these are transcriptions and though I may have missed a word or two here and there, the essence of what he said has been kept intact. (All questions/statements from the interview are in blue):

KT: Was it politically motivated or morally improper? Huh? How do you answer this question? Pick either option and you’re screwed. Nice try. On the other hand since AK is now a politician where is the need to seek a political motivation?

KT: He (RV) is not a ruler, he’s an ordinary citizen, you have libelled him without giving him a chance to explain. Really? I have little doubt that every citizen in India would like to be as “ordinary” as RV. Any idiot can tell you that Vadra would be less than ordinary selling some handicrafts in Moradabad if not for his relationship with the Gandhi family. Now then, if RV is indeed so ordinary why is he entitled to exemption from security checks and screening at airports? I guess the wiseguys at CNN-IBN don’t rehearse the questions before they ask. This is a question many people are asking. Who knows what RV is taking out or bringing in through all the airports in this country. Also, do the media usually stand up so much for “ordinary” citizens? Amazing!

KT: If a newspaper or channel had done what you have done it would be accused of biased journalism. Will they? But then CNN-IBN and KT batting so much for RV doesn’t seem to them to be bias at all. The twisted headline indicting Gadkari doesn’t seem to be a bias at all. Is it?

KT: You encashed the fact that he is Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law. You are using RV to target Sonia Gandhi. To this I don’t even have to offer any comment. AK’s reply was stinging enough as he sarcastically asked: “Am I encashing … or is he (RV) encashing this fact?” That’s right! Between AK and RV who does the public think is encashing his position? AK may be politically encashing the hit but in the case of RV the term “encashing” could even be taken literally given the financial allegations.

KT: He (RV) became a pawn in your political ambition. Haha! I do have the choicest description of pawns in the media and have written about it elsewhere. But hey, does anyone remember who was called a “Tool” by presidential candidate P.A. Sangma? So any allegation going against the Congress political capital is either using a “pawn” or is being a “tool”. The shameless Thapar even called Sangma a “tool”. So what nonsense is he talking here? Twisting it like his channel’s agenda?

KT: You are being deliberately anti-Congress, you have a bias against Congress. So you see, this is really what hurts KT that the allegations are against Congress. Now, if RV is an ordinary, private citizen how do the allegations amount to a bias against Congress? But that’s what bothers KT and CNN-IBN. It’s hurting their own favourite political party. Elsewhere, KT even asks why AK is not targeting BJP leaders. All this after the allegations being aired against Gadkari by TeamArvind and even the fake headline of “Gadkari accused” being scrolled by the channel. Another shameful performance by both KT and CNN-IBN.

The rest of the interview went along the same lines. In a 20 minute interview, KT spoke for 11 minutes and AK had 9 minutes. When the host talks more than the guest you are assured that the purpose is not to know or educate but to defend the Congress. CNN-IBN and KT are getting to be good at it.

After being recently slapped by Mamata Banerjee with “you people don’t have guts” to ask Sonia Gandhi, then Subramanian Swamy again slapping Rajdeep with “innocence of journalists” AK too joined the party. He slapped KT with: “If you have guts, call him (RV) on this program and ask him for an explanation, you don’t have the courage..”. I wonder how many slaps it will take Rajdeep to understand twisting and shouting untruths and abuse of media power doesn’t sell anymore.

Robert Vadra & The Innocence Of Journalists

When Arvind Kejriwal announced a press meet on October 5 the media must have rushed to get some more interesting sound-bites on his new political party. They didn’t expect him to lay out alleged financial misdeeds of Robert Vadra (RV), the national son-in-law. All hell broke loose. Later, one anchor, who likes to see the larger picture, even asked if TeamArvind is going to target a BJP member next. I’ve never seen so many heavy weights coming out with guns blazing to defend one man. Some of them even claimed he’s a ‘private citizen’. Yes indeed, the sudden growth of RV to a billionaire is indeed a very private affair. There were Congresspersons of all voices and sizes. There was Rashid Alvi, Rajiv Shukla, Manish Tiwari, Renuka Chaudhary. They even threw in ministers like Salman Khurshid and also Jayanthi Natarajan, who made a sudden special appearance after a long gap. Khurshid even angrily stated: “We will teach Kejriwal a lesson”. Someone joked on Twitter if Khurshid is the Union Law Minister or the Union “In-Law” minister.

All this is nothing new. The Robert Vadra story has been doing the rounds for over a year now. It’s only the print media though, that was doing all the talking. TV news channels stuck to their Sharia which prohibits them from ‘blasphemy’ against the Sonia Gandhi clan. Private folks on Youtube showed greater courage and narrated RV’s story. You can see and hear it on this Youtube site or this Youtube site. Oops.. Sorry! If you opened those pages this is what you get:

Well, another Youtube page does carry that picture story on RV with a toxic warning about how GOI pulls any videos on Youtube that portrays the Gandhi family negatively. As usual, the worst debates did happen on NDTV and CNN-IBN. While the big pieces came out in force the small pawns didn’t fail in defending RV either. The worst one was clearly Rajdeep Sardesai on CNN-IBN. In trying to “balance” his stupidity Rajdeep never fails to ask why BJP didn’t bring up the RV case earlier. This time he got a reply asking why the media didn’t debate it when the RV reports have been out for more than a year. “Point taken” said Rajdeep. The Axis of Evil of TV news kept asking everyone why they don’t go to the courts if there are misdeeds by RV. This is where Rajdeep received another resounding slap. This time it was from Dr. Subramanian Swamy. Prabhu Chawla, once again did some homework (Why now? Why not earlier?) and suggested many politicians have got flats or property from DLF at throwaway prices.

First, a bit about Robert Vadra’s billions. Economic Times (Robert Vadra ties up with DLF) was among the first to do a full story in March 2011. Then Outlook magazine did an analysis of the ET article with reactions from Opposition parties including the BJP. Here’s what Outlook said on March 18, 2011 (Tweets are highlighted in red):

The story was summed up by Mr Swapan Dasgupta, a journalist known to be close to the BJP, on Twitter as: “ET's Vadra story drives home reality of crony capitalism. DLF pays Vadra 2 buy its own properties at sharp discount & get secure equity” Monday, March 14, 2011 10:47:38 AM via web

“According to 1 opp leader, after Bofors "winding up charges", IPL "sweat equity", we R seeing emergence of "political equity" in Vadra case” Monday, March 14, 2011 10:51:57 AM via web

On March 16, the TOI reported: BJP, Left to corner Cong on Vadra's rise:

On Tuesday, leader of opposition in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj said, "The matter is a serious one and the party is gathering documents to aise it with the prominence it deserves." She said the party had "entrusted" leader of opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley to collect facts on Vadra's rise. CPM leader Sitaram Yechury was on the same track. "It looks like a serious matter and our party is ascertaining facts and will come up with a structured reaction on this," he said. But the story began to change, as Mr Dasgupta tweeted on March 16: Resistance in BJP on raising Vadra issue is from some a of its ex-Presidents. Wednesday, March 16, 2011 2:57:47 PM via Mobile Web

…Leader of Opposition in the Lok Saba Sushma Swaraj felt it would not be good form to target family members of political rivals. Since then, of course, the focus has shifted to the cash for vote wikileaks expose… Notice how many of those who helped the UPA win the confidence vote & also helped Vadra's business secured Padma awards? Not incl. media…. The controversy over Sant Singh Chatwal was public enough but perhaps Mr Dasgupta was alluding to Dr. Kushal Pal Singh, the chairman and CEO of DLF, getting a Padma Bhushan for 2009 and the prominent name in this list in his last tweet?

Hmm… yes, some of the Padma awards under the Cong-UPA govt are indeed surprising, including those delivered to media folks. In case you forgot, Robert Vadra was also voted “Style Icon” of 2011. He does have style, doesn’t he? Anyway, let’s read what RV said when the DLF tie-up was sealed: “The Hilton Garden Inn Hotel in Saket is a small business hotel. I have interest in hospitality and am happy to be part of the hotel.”  Vadra also added, ”I have known the DLF people for a long time and they are friends of mine. I had wanted to invest in real estate and one thing led to another. Right now, I can only be part of a small hotel. If I were taking favours from people I would be doing far bigger things. But I am doing this on my own. I can’t expand immediately but I hope to expand a few years down the line”. Oh, these are just “small” things and RV hopes to “expand” in a few years. So you and I will have to wait for that “expansion”. Wonder what that is going to be like! Buying up real estate on the moon or mars?

On August 25, 2011 FashionScandal reported thus: “DLF, which is going through a financial crunch is also looking to divest its stake in the Hilton Group. Some feel that these divestments are aimed at distancing DLF from Robert Vadra owned Sky Light Hospitality Pvt. Ltd. DLF Hotel Holdings entered into partnership with Sky Light Hospitality Pvt. Ltd. but after that the group has been facing political heat from the Opposition parties”. So now that we have some background story we can get back to Rajdeep Sardesai. On pushing Dr.Swamy over why they aren’t going to courts, Swamy replied he had announced long back RV was third on his list after 2G and P.Chidambaram. This is correct. But it’s clearly shameful of Rajdeep to ask these stupid questions when TV channels even failed to discuss the RV reports in print/websites. Naturally, Dr.Swamy delivered a stinging slap to Rajdeep and others like Prabhu Chawla and Vinod Mehta when he pointed out the “innocence of journalists” in real estate scams. Ouch! That’s gonna hurt. What Swamy was clearly hinting at was that top media celebs and media houses were no exceptions when it came to real estate scams. Is it then a surprise that all the ‘media pawns’ were fighting so vigorously for Robert Vadra?

Here’s a tweet from Swamy from June 2011. He clearly states Shekhar Gupta, of Indian Express, has acquired 20 times the property to his known sources of income and therefore has to “behave” for Sonia Gandhi. Gupta, who sued his critics for 500 crores over the silly “Army coup” story has not uttered a single word over this allegation by Swamy. Not just Swamy, even Kuldip Nayar has stated that Gupta had become “abnormally affluent”. Did the media ask any questions? None! Hammam, you see!

Interestingly, when asked by Shekhar Gupta “Can you run a property business without bribing?” the DLF chairman replied: ‘In my terminology, what I call bribing, is in two parts: One, where you give money to somebody to facilitate quicker disposal. Second, you give money, if somebody asks you, to do a wrong job. Now in my terminology, bribing is to do a wrong job, which I have never done in my life”. Haha..“facilitate quicker disposal”. Yeah, that answer surely deserves a Padma Bhushan.

If RV is dabbling in real estate crores and is a private citizen, what exactly was he doing in UP in February 2012? He was running around on bikes campaigning for Congress. He even suggested Priyanka Vadra would do well in politics. “Point taken” is not an answer Rajdeep. Regardless of what political parties do or don’t do, it does not explain why the media is permanently silent on alleged misdeeds of the Gandhi family or its own media clan. Lately, N. Ram of The Hindu is accused in a land-grab case. A FIR has been filed against N.Ram and even a DMK member and Ram has sought anticipatory bail according to news reports. Why is the TV media and even major print media houses not debating or even reporting that? Sonia Gandhi has been named as the 4th richest politician in the world with assets over $2 billion. Do they want to wait for another Kejriwal moment to debate the story? Why does it take Narendra Modi to talk about SoniaG’s foreign travels for media to debate or report? The BJP had even constituted a special task force on black money and submitted a report. Did the media even discuss the report or its contents?

The answers are not very difficult to find. Rajdeep Sardesai and his clan of media pawns move only when moved by other forces. I had earlier written a post: “Why Is Indian Media Scared Of Sonia Gandhi? in June 2011. That deals with how Rahul Kanwal cut off a person asking questions of SoniaG’s assets. There was another debate when Rajdeep Sardesai quickly cut off former IT officer Vishwabandhu Gupta when he raised questions on SoniaG’s wealth. Rajdeep then chided V.Gupta “Don’t make wild allegations”. The allegations against Robert Vadra aren’t wild. In fact Prabhu Chawla’s analysis of the documents makes worse reading. Chawla states that the 65crores being referred as loan is actually an “advance” paid by DLF to RV for properties to be sold by RV. Hmmm!

Here’s the thing: Since it is recorded as “advance” in RV’s books it becomes a “liability” rather than his income. Secondly, being shown as “advance” it also avoids being treated as income and avoids capital gains tax, if any, that is applicable. Another journo, Vineet Narain, told Prashant Bhushan on NDTV that all property deals everywhere are “under-valued”. He may have “innocently” forgotten that he implies that both Robert Vadra and DLF may be dealing heavily in black money. Maybe it's time to make another movie: "Innocence of journalists" and that won't lead to any violent riots.
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