oppn parties Congress Purveys Fake News, Makes Wild Allegations

News Snippets

  • Supreme Court questions the continuing relevance of two-child norms. The Court observed that falling fertility rates have weakened the population-control rationale behind laws disqualifying people with more than two children from contesting local body elections. It referred the issue to a larger Bench for consideration
  • Supreme Court declines to shift Tirupati laddu case outside Andhra Pradesh. The Court rejected a plea seeking transfer of the trial, despite arguments that political statements by Andhra Pradesh's Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Minister could affect the fairness of proceedings
  • Supreme Court transfers Azam Khan's fresh ED bail plea to Allahabad High Court. The apex court declined to consider the Samajwadi Party leader's bail request in a fresh Enforcement Directorate case and directed that it be listed before a division Bench of the High Court on November 16
  • Two killed in Delhi building collapse; contractor booked. Two bodies were recovered after a building collapsed in Chawri Bazaar. Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta said the contractor had been booked and the concerned junior and assistant engineers suspended
  • Uttar Pradesh voter rolls show a 2.4-crore discrepancy. A difference of approximately 2.4 crore names has been reported between the state's panchayat and rural Assembly voter lists. The Election Commission has ordered the two sets of rolls to be matched
  • Gujarat announces 3% dearness allowance hike. The state government announced a three-percentage-point increase in dearness allowance for government employees and pensioners ahead of Diwali
  • Sensex and Nifty post their strongest single-day gains in months. The Sensex surged 2,008.61 points, or 2.60%, to close at 79,310.01, while the Nifty 50 climbed 576 points, or 2.40%, to 24,536.60. Financial and automobile stocks led the rally, supported by falling crude prices and renewed foreign investor buying
  • Maaya Rajeshwaran reaches WTA-level quarter-final. The 17-year-old Indian defeated Poland's Weronika Falkowska 6-4, 6-3, becoming the first Indian woman since Sania Mirza in 2012 to reach a quarter-final at a WTA Tour-level singles event
  • Tanvi Patri reaches Youth Olympics badminton final. The 15-year-old defeated Japan's Yuzuno Watanabe in the semi-final, assuring India of a medal and becoming the first Indian badminton player to reach the girls' singles final at the Youth Olympics
  • India beat Pakistan 3-2 in SAFF Championship. India defeated Pakistan in a closely contested match, having led 3-0 before conceding two late goals. The victory was reported as a significant result for India's second-string side
  • India beat Japan 4-1 to win a record sixth Asian Champions Trophy. India recovered from an early deficit to defeat Japan in the final at Mohali, extending its record as the tournament's most successful men's team
  • The Supreme Court issued notice to the Centre and the Election Commission on a petition challenging Section 16 of the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners Act, 2023, which grants the CEC and Election Commissioners protection from legal proceedings for acts performed in their official duties. The petition argues that such blanket immunity could leave citizens without an effective remedy for alleged wrongdoing by the Commission
  • The Supreme Court told voters whose names were deleted from Delhi's draft electoral rolls not to be apprehensive about seeking re-enrolment through Form 6, after the Election Commission assured it that such applicants would not be prosecuted merely because their names had appeared in earlier rolls
  • Congress leader Rahul Gandhi opened the party's campaign for the 2027 Punjab Assembly elections with an Insaaf rally in Sangrur, Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann's home district, accusing the AAP government of failing to control drugs, gangster violence and corruption. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge outlined six commitments, including a drug-free Punjab, protection of farmers, employment for young people and action against corruption
  • Rahul Gandhi accused the AAP government of running Punjab through a remote control from Delhi and questioned Bhagwant Mann's ability to tackle drug abuse, making personal allegations about the Chief Minister's conduct during their time together in Parliament
Stock markets on fire due to US results, Sensex gains 2008 points to reach its highest level in 8 months
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Congress Purveys Fake News, Makes Wild Allegations

By Linus Garg
First publised on 2019-04-10 11:36:18

About the Author

Sunil Garodia Linus tackles things head-on. He takes sides in his analysis and it fits excellently with our editorial policy. No 'maybe's' and 'allegedly' for him, only things in black and white.
It shows the desperation of the Congress party that it has now come out with a video it claims was shot in July last year. In the video, a man claiming to be a RAW officer claims that a team of government officers, drawn from various departments, were commanded by BJP president Amit Shah. This team got old notes exchanged after the deadline set by the RBI and the owners were given new notes after deducting 35 to 40 percent commission for “services rendered”, claims the Congress. It was also claimed that old currency worth thousands of crores was printed abroad and brought to India in special planes, to be exchanged for new currency.

So preposterous is the claim and the unverified video that the Congress can be accused of spreading fake news. The entire media, even those channels and newspapers that are blatantly anti-Modi, has either completely ignored the claims made by Kapil Sibal or have relegated it to the news section with a small mention. If they had sniffed even an iota of truth in these allegations, the nation would have been bombarded with a never-ending spectacle of 24-hour coverage of planes landing at Hindon, huge boxes being carried out of them and people claiming to be RAW or other government officers narrating how they were made to collect the cash and bring it there.

But if there is nothing in the claim to attract the attention of the national media, it means that there is nothing in the claim at all. The Congress has tried to raise the point that the government is raiding politically exposed people affiliated to the Congress party on receiving what it calls “specific information” but is ignoring the specific information provided by the Congress party. Sibal, being a lawyer, must know the difference. The specific information being received by the government is from multiple sources who are not interested parties. The information provided by the Congress is just from one very interested source. It takes less than Rs 5000 to make such a video. Government agencies have a lot of more pressing things to do than look into such stupid allegations.