‘Terror’s Creed..’: More Poppycock From Rajdeep Sardesai

Let me first reproduce excerpts from what Rajdeep Sardesai has written on his blog at CNN-IBN: (Read the full post here)

“ If chain smses are a measure of the 'national' mood, then its clear what the popular opinion has been after every terror attack in recent times. "Not every Muslim is a terrorist, but every terrorist is a Muslim" was a familiar sms after every such incident. But now ...... there could be a twist in the tale. "If every terrorist is a Muslim, has Swami Aseemanand converted to Islam?" is the new counter sms....... So far, terror was seen either as a cross-border phenomenon or part of a larger 'jehadist' mindset. Now, if investigators are to be believed, there are at least a dozen terror incidents, stretching across several states, which have been masterminded by terror groups inspired by Hindutva.... When a Rajnath Singh as BJP president visits Malegaon blast accused Sadhvi Pragya Thakur and claims she is 'innocent' and is being harassed by the state government, he is taking a political stance incompatible with the rule of law. Has he, or any BJP leader for that matter, attempted to ever empathise with innocent Muslim youth who may also be facing similar charges? Similarly, when senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh attends the release of a book on 26/11 that describes the attack as a RSS-Mossad-CIA 'conspiracy', then he is only legitimizing those forces who are choosing to see terror through a prism of religious hatred. Why doesn't he unambiguously reject such elements rather than flirt with them” ?

To start with, after every stupid utterance of Digvijay Singh he can be mostly seen on CNN-IBN with Sardesai. Why didn’t Sardesai ever ask him the questions instead of asking them on his blog? While claiming BJP has not empathised with innocent Muslim youth who may be facing false charges Rajdeep dupes his readers by not asking the right question. Who is empathising with Afzal Guru? And for what reason?

It is the serious ineptness of the UPA in allowing killers like Afzal Guru or the killers of Rajiv Gandhi to defy justice that spurs anger among citizens. So is Aseemanand innocent? I don’t give a damn! If he is guilty, screw him and sentence him to death or life. So why is Rajdeep not highlighting the fact that Aseemanand, in his confession, clearly mentioned his acts were a ‘bomb-for-bomb’ tactic. Does it not tell him something? Or does Rajdeep think the nation is a bunch of idiots who can’t tell the difference? But if a scholar like Rajdeep Sardesai cannot distinguish between unprovoked acts of terrorism and acts of revenge then he is as good as any other Congress moron, chief among them being Digvijay Singh. Rajdeep lives in denial when he refuses to acknowledge that what he calls ‘Hindutva’ terror is not inspired by religion or Hinduism but by 'revenge'. In stark contrast much of Islamic Terror is clearly inspired by religious scriptures. The emails of Indian Mujahideen, various Islamic websites quote religious scriptures as the basis of their terror attacks. I need not go as far as referring to the Quran being used to supplement the diet of Islamic Terror to educate Rajdeep.

The media crooks ran campaigns to seek justice for the killers of Jessica Lall and some others. Where is the campaign to carry out the sentence against those who attacked the nation and our parliament and killed our jawans? To now see this self-righteous approach by a biased media crook is simply disgusting. The politicians are scumbags and no one doubts that. It’s the media that is more corrupted. It is the media that divides the nation more than politicians. Rajdeep happened to be one who reported on the Gujarat riots and even received awards for it. Will he explain why his channel never highlighted Hindu deaths in those riots? Is it because more muslims died? By that logic the fact that Islamic terror is a universal phenomenon is why it gets that tag and that is why Hindu terror cannot be given that tag because a few individuals resorted to revenge killings. And Hindus are not defending any Hindu killers. In contrast muslim clerics praise the terrorists and Osama is a hero to many muslims. How does Rajdeep explain that? Can Rajdeep explain why he has never managed to question that scholar Rahul Gandhi who equated RSS with SIMI?

As for the BJP members defending any Hindu killers, Rajdeep needs to ask himself a question. How did a party with just 2 seats 25 years ago in the parliament come to this strength? How did it gain such a prominent voice? These questions might give him some answers if he ever asked himself. But honesty is not a strong point in our media

If the focus of Sardesai’s post under reference is politiicisation of terror then he himself is the one to blame, along with other media crooks in the business. Who puts up two politicians of different hue after every terror attack or arrest on TV channels? Who interviews Digvijay Singh after every stupid utterance of his? Mind you, reporting what some politician has said is fine, but why give them all a platform for discussion or interview them after every incident or arrest or developing story? More than the politicians it is media crooks like Rajdeep Sardesai who could be held responsible for dividing the nation on communal lines and polarising the population because of their biased and slanted reporting.

As of January 19, 2011

This is the very same Rajdeep who tweeted how Salman Taseer was a liberal who loved his wine and women when the guy was killed. That should have been enough evidence for any moron to understand that Islamic terror is not just a threat to others but to muslims themselves. If someone can be killed for just questioning blasphemy laws you can imagine how strong the motivation for Islamic Terrorism can be. The underlying principle and cause for religious terrorism is INTOLERANCE! And intolerance is not a feature of Hinduism as a religion but predominantly a feature of Islam and its followers. Two Sikh guards killed Indira Gandhi. Do we call that Sikh terrorism? Yet most accusations of Hindu terror will invariably start with Godse,as if that was some terrorist act. Acts of deranged men are not consistent with systematic terror. Islamic terror has been systematic, consistent and religion-driven over centuries. For Rajdeep’s benefit I have once again put up the statistical pic from “Thereligionofpeace.com’

Rajdeep Sardesai would do well to himself listen to the advice given by B.Raman which he quotes at the end of his post : “They should just shut up and let the investigators do their job!" That piece of advice should hold good for media crooks like Rajdeep too!

Finally Mr. Rajdeep Sardesai, Terror’s creed is NOT violence. It is terror itself! Violence is merely the physical outcome. Don’t believe me? Search and take a look at all the Fatwas issued and you will find an answer there! When you are robbed of your freedom, religious and otherwise, through threats that too is terror. The ultimate robbery being your life itself! If we were living in Saudi Arabia, you and I may not be writing our blogs. You and I are able to do so because of the absence of Hindu Terror. Grow up and get real!

Black Money Games From The Economic Times

Lately the topic of black money is being discussed all over the place. The Opposition parties, the Government and of course, the media are full of revelations. The UPA PM, Manmohan Singh, had assured action on black money within the first hundred days of the government. You can forgive him, he was busy with those who were bent on making black money rather than exposing those who were hoarding it. And where such money is concerned can Swiss banks be far behind? Everyone seems to have an idea how much amount Indians have stocked up in Swiss banks. They even quote reports from the Swiss Bankers Association (SBA) to cite the amount of black money held in their banks. That’s the funny part! I never knew banks kept a separate account for White and Black money to enable them to make such disclosures in their report. 

Well, not according to the Economic Times. Stating clearly that the black money reports of Swiss Bankers Association was a myth ET ran an article (In Sept. 2009): “No black money statistics exist: Swiss banks” The article further goes on to add, as also quote an SBA official:  

“Various political parties and other groups have been claiming that the black money stashed away in Swiss banks by Indians exceed one trillion dollars.” Seeking to demolish the "myth" over these figures being "circulated as gospel truth", a top official at the Swiss Bankers' Association told media from Basel that there were no truth at all in such statistics. "Anyone claiming to have such figures should be forced to identify their source and explain the methodology used to produce them," said the SBA's Head of International Communications, James Nason. "We take all our statistics from Swiss National Bank and statistics about 'black money' simply do not exist." 

Coming from an established journal like ET that can be relied upon, right? And the article says “various political parties and other groups have been claiming.....” ! Really? Well, who was among the first to start the crap? Here’s the ET article from October 2008 excitingly titled: “Money lying in Swiss banks may hit markets via P-notes”. If one were to ask ET how much money actually came into India through P-notes I wonder what answer they would have. But wait, that’s not all! 

The reason for various political parties and groups talking big figures of black money is the ET itself. This is what the October 2008 article under reference said:

“According to the Swiss Banking Association report of 2006-- India topped the world with $1.45 trillion deposits in Swiss banks. Other countries were Russia $470 billion, UK $390 billion, Ukraine $100 billion and China $96 billion”. 

Now you can turn the world upside down, search in all your drawers and cupboards, even raid all the A. Rajas and the Radias of the world or try googling it – but you won’t find any such report with the above statistics.  So where in the world did ET come up with the statistics and what is their source? That India topped the black-money list of the SBA 2006 report with $1.45 trillion? That’s mainstream journalism for you! And then ET will tell you that various groups and political parties have been claiming that black money is stashed away in Switzerland. Pray, who is their source of information? If the Times can report Aishwarya Rai appearing in a wrestling event on the Jerry Springer show (a report based on a spoof) as a true story, what’s wrong in fake statistics from spurious websites. Right? 

Mind you, this disinformation crap may not have been actually started by ET itself, but for a newspaper to use unverified statistics from spurious websites is sensationalism at its best. And because they did, there are even more websites, blogs and politicians quoting these figures with ET as their source.   

That doesn’t in anyway diminish the seriousness of the black money issue. The recent query of the Supreme Court asking the government why it wasn’t disclosing names is a welcome step. One hopes the government will act. And when it does, don’t be surprised to find quite a few media outlets and media moghuls in that list of black money hoarders.

India Today - Banana Polls

India Today (IT) has come out with another opinion poll: Mood of the Nation. This is the second of such polls, the first being around August 2010. Though the poll reflects a fall in the ratings of UPA-2 it also suggests if elections were held today the Congress (I) & Co. would be back in power. And that’s not all, IT once again reveals Rahul Gandhi is the top candidate for Prime Minister. Opinion polls are just that! Opinions! But when a magazine repeatedly makes such exercises a cover story it wants the poll to be counted as a referendum on various political issues and personalities.

I have yet to come across a single serious or critical analysis of Rahul Gandhi as PM by India Today. While frequently touting him as the next PM, based on Congress Gandhi lineage and therefore natural logic, the magazine finds no need at all to analyze the person or his suitability for the post. The greatest article they came up with on Rahul was ‘Who’d be a perfect Mrs. Rahul Gandhi’. That was on November 24, 2010 when the nation was in grips of all kinds of scams including the Radia tapes. The only other article of note was another one promoting Rahul as the PM by ex-editor Prabhu Chawla titled ‘Rahul Rising’. This was consequent to their August 2010 opinion poll. Keep touting the line and a gullible nation will fall for it!

In the December 2010 poll Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi have all fallen in their ratings but Rahul still commands the lead for the PM post. Trailing him are Narendra Modi, Nitish Kumar, Mayawati by a long margin. And, of course, MMS and Sonia are trailing too, so is Advani. Now, why on earth would I ask someone if MMS, Sonia or Advani would make a good PM knowing well that these three people are not even in the race? Sonia declined the post in 2004 knowing well the legal complications, MMS might not even last this term and Advani would be a has-been by 2014. So thats the trick to opinion polls. Put up three real contenders, three meaningless choices and the answers become pretty obvious. It’s like asking what you will have for desert!  Icecream? Milk Shake? Roasted Papad? Or Karela juice? You see, the answer might be easy, that’s what such surveys and polls are meant to do. Then it’s easy for me to go to town saying Icecream or Milk Shake were the two most popular choices. That’s how banana polls work!

 

Take a look at their methodology. 12k voters surveyed in ‘stratified random sampling’! If you don’t know what that means, you can look it up anywhere and educate yourself. Now what exactly does that mean? Electoral politics in India encompass a wide variety of ‘stratified’ population. Hindus, Muslims, Dalits and other Castes etc. 

So what exactly does this stratified sampling mean? And this is from 19 states. Which are those states? Nobody knows. This is also supported by a rating of Chief Ministers. (See pic) 

How does one explain CMs like Sheila Dikshit, Karunanidhi, K. Rosiah and Ashok Chavan in the top 10? Two of them, Rosiah and Chavan, had exited by the time the polls were underway. 

And the corruption ridden head of Karnataka, B.S. Yeddyuriappa, is up there at no.13 too. In case you didn’t notice, the list makes up only 17 CMs. 

 Obviously, there was no time or relevance to rate the remaining 13 CMs. Thirteen out of 30 CMs is almost 50% and their states or performances aren’t relevant. Your guess is as good as mine! Most of those states would be those poor cousins of ours from the north-east, the one exception being Assam. There might be many reasons why governments neglect the north-east. Is there a reason for the media?

The CMs were probably measured on performance norms of some kind by respondents, real and perceived. So I find it amazing that the magazine finds people finding Rahul Gandhi fit for the PM job with no real or perceived performance measure and no governance experience either. Only one thing is clear, the media dearly wants to see this man as PM. So I’m running a poll too. Who could be a future PM? Vote on the poll on the right margin of this page.

NDTV : Train With The Best!

This appeared in TOI-Ascent on January 12:

The line below the pictures reads: "Train with those who have made the news for 22 years. Enroll as an apprentice with the NDTV Broadcast Training Programme."

Why ‘Liberal’ Media Is Scared of The Religion Of Peace!

Hindu Terror, Saffron Terror and such terms can be found in abundance in our media. Prominent among the users of such terms are Rajdeep Sardesai, Barkha Dutt, Sagarika Ghose, Arnab Goswami and their channels. Politicians aren’t too far ahead. For the Congress (I) Hindu Terror is now an industry, particularly for people like Digvijay Singh, his protégé Rahul Gandhi and, of course, P. Chidambaram. This is easy because your life will not be in danger if you keep using the term Hindu Terror. Islamic Terror? Well, that’s the religion of peace, isn’t it?

For about a week now our MSM is obsessed with the killing of a ‘liberal’ called Salman Taseer, the late Pakistani governor. NDTV even had his son and daughter sharing their sorrow and possible fate in Pakistan. Rajdeep Sardesai even tweeted “Salman Taseer loved his whiskey and his women. Served me fine scotch in Pakistan. Was a liberal in an illiberal milieu.” Salman Taseer exemplifies the reason why our politicians and “liberal” media are so scared of the religion of peace and to call Islamic Terror what it is.

A report from the Sydney Morning Herald (Also quoting the Telegraph and Times Of India) had this to say:

"The leader of an Islamic political party in Pakistan has warned the daughter of a murdered politician to ''remember her father's fate'' and to stop supporting his cause. Salman Taseer, the governor of Punjab, was shot dead ......because of his campaign to pardon a Christian woman sentenced to death for blasphemy. Many Muslims celebrated the murder and marched in support of Taseer's confessed killer. Shadab Qadri, the leader of Sunni Tehreek, said the politician's daughter, Shehrbano Taseer, 21, must stop speaking out against blasphemy laws. ''We read the statement of the slain governor's daughter in a newspaper. She should refrain from issuing such statements and must remember her father's fate,'' Shadab Qadri said........On Wednesday, Ms Taseer told the BBC Today program: ''My father's stance has been misrepresented and has been misquoted because he simply said these laws are being misused and they target the poor, the dispossessed and the voiceless. ''He said it's a man-made law and these things should be debated in parliament. That has been misconstrued into saying that he has been blasphemous.'' The Times of India has reported that a court in Punjab has sentenced an imam and his son to life imprisonment after finding them guilty of blasphemy for removing a poster containing verse from the Koran......The Times, said the father, Mohammad Shafi, 45, and his son, Mohammad Aslam, 20, had been accused of blasphemy arising out of differences between the Deobandi and Barelvi sects."

...As of January 13, 2011

If one were to go by Shehrbana Taseer’s statement, her father was killed mainly because he was misrepresented and misquoted. If that alone can merit death you can imagine why cowards in our media and politics won’t even touch Islamic Terror with the ‘Truth’! Those who commit acts of terror in the name of Islam are supposedly misunderstanders** of the religion of peace. How often have you heard statements like “terrorists have no religion”, “those terrorists are not muslims” or “they have hijacked Islam”? And then you will have a Barkha Dutt running programs like ‘Why muslims are being stereotyped’ or a Zia Haq of Hindustan Times lamenting he was denied US Visa because he was a muslim. Haq even writes a blog called ‘They Call me Muslim’ (reminded me of the western movie ‘They call me Trinity’)! It may be fair to say that many in the media and politics are practicing what has come to be known as ‘Stealth Jihad’**

For someone to be killed or sentenced to death for blasphemy is one thing but to be killed for speaking out against blasphemy laws is another extreme altogether. And it is in India that muslims like Ilina Sen (wife of Binayak Sen sentenced to life for Maoist links) feels her life is in danger.

Those Hindus involved in terror activities deserve condemnation and should be hanged to death or sentenced for life. However, it’s the media that is guilty of energising such people when they lie or mislead or cover up for Islamic Terror. If our media had the courage to speak up on Islamic Terror it would sooner or later force governments to act. On the contrary the media acts as an extension of the Congress and the UPA and the likes of Digvijay Singh to tarnish Hindus and gloss over Islamic Terror.  There should have been as strong a campaign by the media to hang Afzal Guru as there was to seek justice for Jessica Lall and some others.

One should also bear in mind that much of the terror funding flows from Saudi Arabia. Wikileaks only confirmed what many already knew. One of the reasons for the mainstream media’s silence on Islamic Terror is who funds it. Most people know a large part of our media is funded by mid-east money. If ever the funding or foreign subsidiaries and other companies of our media are exposed, it will make a sorry reading. Fear and money are the keys and that’s the reason our media won’t talk about Islamic Terror.

Would the media like to one day fear Hindu Terrorists in the same manner? Would someone like to be killed for blaspheming Hindu gods or religious scriptures? They need not fear. Hindu culture does not have blasphemy laws, rules or traditions.

** ‘Misunderstanders of Islam’ and ‘Stealth Jihad’ are terms coined by Robert Spencer of Jihadwatch.Org

15 Lakh Crores & The Business Channels Don’t Find It Newsworthy!

CNBC-TV18, NDTV-Profit and other mediacrooks of business news were busy all of yesterday with mundane statistics. How growth slowed down in November 2010 and blah blah blah! The only newsworthy story they carried was Indigo’s plan to buy 180 new aircrafts. That’s the single largest deal in commercial aviation history and one which can bring cheers. That would be worth around $ 15.6 billion. Cheers to Indigo! From from Paris where Indigo sealed that purchase there was an event in small time India that was far bigger, had big national and international players and has become some sort of roadmap to progress. Vibrant Gujarat.

If one were to go by the sound bytes of major business channels or news channels the Vibrant Gujarat event would appear to be some small time village mela for cattle trade. The only channels covering the event were local and some national Gujarati language channels. The major business and news channels only found space for the event on their websites, perhaps grudgingly so. For anything remotely connected to Gujarat or Narendra Modi is anti-India to them. So be it!

It is Gujarat though that is having the last laugh. Some minor details are mind boggling:

Mahatma Mandir - Venue of Vibrant Gujarat 2011

1. The worth of investment commitments is around 1/3^rd of the national GDP itself.

2.   Over 25000 international and national business, political and diplomatic delegates attended the two-day Vibrant Gujarat event on January 12

3.   2076 MOUs signed worth $333 Bn or 15 lakh crores.

In the season of scams this would have been something to cheer about. But as is the practice with our media, anything to do with Gujarat is a non-event. In an investment summit such as this, one would have thought that the central Commerce and Finance ministers would be interested as it makes a big difference to the Indian economy. Well, its not a Congress government in Gujarat so that doesn’t count for India to them.

Is there criticism? Sure, Shaktisinh Gohil, leader of Congress in Gujarat says only a fraction of the MOUs actually materialise and much of the land to big industrialists is given away at throw away prices. First, yes all of the MOUs may not finally translate into investments. However, even if a good fraction of the 15lakh crore ($ 333Bn) MOUs materialise it is still a huge investment. Compare this to the fact that Obama came shopping and went back home happy with commitments worth $ 10Bn. That should put it in perspective. And if land is being given away at throwaway prices as Gohil would suggest we are yet to hear complaints from those who sold their lands unlike in Singur (Bengal).Vibrant Gujarat and such events bring hope. Instead, the media is caught up with the nonsense of Rahul Gandhi’s utterances.

One would fervently hope that other states in India pick up this lead and set up events, systems and practices that put them and their people on the road to being busy with healthy economic activities. The good news is, Vibrant Gujarat may well recover the worth of all the UPA scams put together.

Prof. Rahul Gandhi : Inflation & Corruption Linked To Coalition...

On a ‘bad-TV’ night this could happen to you. Congress spokesman Manish Tiwari and CNN-IBN’s Sagarika Ghose could be on at the same time. The duo can out-decibel even the headbanger group called ‘Bhayanak Maut’! The two are very different. One is a TV screen hog, shouts over everyone else, knows more about law than Ram Jethmalani, can talk endlessly without meaning anything, can interpret everything that Rahul Gandhi says, usually starts with a statement of not having heard the actual statement and the other, of course, is Sagarika Ghose. One is the Raging Bull and the other is Ms. Caconfonix herself. So between them they managed to once again cloud the stupidity behind Prof. Rahul Gandhi’s utterances.

So the simple question that Sagarika put across to Tiwari was that Rahul Gandhi’s statement  to the effect that price rise and corruption are consequences of compulsions of coalition government was ‘meaningless’ and asked Tiwari to explain. That was Prof. Rahul Gandhi addressing students in Lucknow in a meeting organised by National Students Union Of India (NSUI) on January 11, where he linked price-rise and corruption to coalition government. Do you feel educated now? (For a change the media was allowed to attend this particular meeting, unlike the ones before.)

And so Manish Tiwari responds with a disclaimer that he hasn’t heard the statement but will interpret it for us. How kind of him! Apart from more lipstick, Tiwari now adds jewellery to the pig! He goes on to explain rainfall damaging onion crops and finally established a clear reason for the high prices. ‘It’s because demand exceeds supply”! Lo and behold, Manish Tiwari has founded and established a principle of economics that all the Amartya Sens and Keynes and the likes of the world never discovered. How come we idiots never knew anything about demand and supply affecting prices? Do you feel educated now?

Rahul Gandhi was asked  why the UPA government is "not able to control inflation and corruption as his grandmother and late prime minister Indira Gandhi could do". Really?  I wonder what bright student asked that question. Someone educated by the likes of Prof. Rahul Gandhi probably. I will field that one for the student. It was in Indira’s time that corruption was institutionalised, inflation started pinching the common man. Hoarding as a practice was born during Indira’s time. The ‘angry young man’ was born during Indira Gandhi’s time! Do you feel educated now?

Coalition may be a compulsion but it is outright majority that has institutionalised corruption in India. Rahul Gandhi seems to remember Indira Gandhi but seems to have forgotten his dear father, Rajiv Gandhi. Rajiv Gandhi was voted to power on a sympathy wave with the Congress then getting 413 seats in the parliament. No single party ever had that kind of majority. Yet, after arriving as Mr.Clean, Rajiv Gandhi is remembered most for two things. One is the infamous reversal of the SC ruling on the ‘Shah Bano’ case and two, the infamous Bofors scandal. The Bofors scandal is a landmark on the road to corruption by politicians and the Gandhi family. That didn’t come out of coalition compulsions, did it? Prof. Rahul Gandhi can likely be a future PM. Do you feel educated now?

It is one thing for the media to report Rahul’s stupid utterances with undue prominence but altogether another to  have someone like a Manish Tiwari interpret it for us. The lipstick is getting thicker by the day. I feel educated, do you?