'In what it claimed was an “exclusive story”, broadcast at around 3.30 pm on October 11, the Times Now channel claimed that Pakistani social media accounts were responsible for the hashtag #GoBackModi trending on Twitter ahead of the Prime Minister’s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Chennai... Though many media reports claimed that Pakistani users were behind trending #GoBackModi in India, Twitter trends are region-specific. This means that for a topic to trend in India, users from India need to tweet on the issue.
'It is essential for Hindus to take back their faith from extremists, says the founder of Hindus for Human Rights... A close Kashmiri friend of mine in New York City has not spoken with her loved ones for more than 50 days. The Valley has been under siege since August 5, with a communications blackout in place. Meanwhile, detention centres are being built in Assam for potentially millions of people rendered non-citizens through the National Register of Citizens programme.
'Thousands of South Asians and concerned North Americans staged a rally in front of the UN headquarters as Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the UN General Assembly of the United Nations on Friday. Those who gathered said they had come to oppose what they described as an undeclared Emergency in India, the “military occupation” of Kashmir, the lynchings of Dalits and Muslims, ongoing violence against women, the violation of the rights of workers, farmers, adivasis and minorities.
'...Noorjahan Mandal*, a 33-year-old domestic worker from Mumbai’s Reay Road area, sits listlessly among the crowd, clutching a huge pile of documents that she has meticulously assembled over the past nine years to help her prove her nationality. A matted ration card issued in early 2000 shows that she has been living in Mumbai for close to two decades. Her school-leaving certificate claims she has studied till Class Seven in a district-run school in West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas. Her laminated Aadhaar card too declares her a Mumbai resident...
'Union minister Jitendra Singh on Wednesday said those who “do not feel proud” of US President Donald Trump’s comment that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the “father of India”, do not consider themselves Indians. “India is being respected in a way which was rare in the past,” Singh said on the sidelines of the launch of CPGRAMS reforms in the department of posts. “People who live abroad are proud today of being Indian. This is happening due to the personality and personal outreach of Prime Minister Modi,” said the minister of state for the Prime Minister’s Office...'
'The entire debate around outsiders and foreigners has been based on the long held belief that Bangladeshi infiltrators are threatening the demography and culture of Assam. But now, as per a community wise break-up of the over 19 lakh people excluded from the final National Register of Citizens (NRC), nearly a third of the people left out of the list are actually non-Bengali people, many of whom belong to indigenous tribes and ethnic groups. Shockingly thousands of Karbis, Rabhas, Sonowal Kacharis and even Ahoms have been excluded from the final NRC!
'The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is facing a barrage of criticism from prominent lawyers, human rights activists and philanthropists after it announced that it would honour India’s controversial Hindu nationalist prime minister with an award later this month. The Global Goalkeeper award recognises Narendra Modi’s flagship Clean India programme, through which the government has built millions of toilets and publicised the benefits of sanitation and hygiene. The award comes amid growing criticism of the disenfranchisement, detention and deportation of Muslims in Assam and Kashmir.
'Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi briefed Russian President Vladimir Putin about the “rationale” behind India’s move to change Jammu and Kashmir’s constitutional status and thanked him for Moscow’s “very clear and strong support”.
'A piece of “breaking news” published by several media outlets on August 31 claimed that the Kerala police had booked 30 students of Kozhikode’s Silver Arts College for waving a Pakistani flag during the campaign for college elections. The anchor on Times Now channel (which reported that 25 students had been booked) said that the Bharatiya Janata Party had protested against the incident. She went on to question the channel’s correspondent, “Yes, Vivek, could you give us details about what really happened because we can see the visuals of a massive Pakistani flag being raised?”...
'When the history of India’s sordid new chapter in Kashmir is written, let it be noted that it all began with lies. To be sure, it will never be clear whether the ‘intelligence inputs’ warning of a ‘major terrorist threat’ was in itself a lie. What is clear in hindsight, though, is that it was used for systematic deception. When the government told the public that this terrorist threat was the reason for the massive troop surge, that was almost certainly a deception.
