While the Nation celebrated its 75th year of Independence, here is how ‘The Hindu’ chose to worship Nehru and sound despondent

The following article was written for OpIndia. Pasting it here for reference. 

The Prime Minister of India had given a call for all citizens to participate in the #HarGharTiranga campaign. He had also requested for everyone to have the Indian flag as their display picture in various social media platforms. Ever since he said that, the Congress party and sections of the English media went haywire. First, they thought that this campaign will go nowhere. Then they saw the tremendous support the people of the country were giving to this campaign. Left with no choice to adopt it, the Congress party came up with what they know best – worship Nehru and his dynasty even while referring to the Indian flag! 

I was wondering how the mighty Congress party gets the public mood wrong every single time, until I saw the deluge of articles in the English media that were worshipping Nehru and Nehru only, for some mysterious reason! The occasion was to proudly display the Indian flag. The reaction of the Congress party and their friendly media was to display unflinching loyalty to Nehru! The coverage in The Hindu, over the past two days, aptly summarizes how this whole team celebrated Nehru instead of India. Let’s begin with the best article of all – published today – “The temples that Jawaharlal Nehru built”.  

For a large part, the article repeats the same old arguments on how the awesome Nehru built IITs, Bhakra Nangal Dam, ISRO and what not. Perhaps the author also felt bored with these repetitive arguments and he decided to up the ante. He goes on to tell us that Nehru was so awesome, that even after his death in 1964, he was responsible for the Green Revolution (in 1965), the telecom revolution (in late 1980s), the economic liberalisation (in 1991), and the digital revolution (in 2017)! Today, in 2022, India is the fastest growing economy in India only and only because of Nehru’s dreams. The others simply happened to be there when these events occurred. If you don’t believe me, see it for yourself! 

The author of this piece is a “Senior Fellow, London School of Economics”. Doesn’t it scare you that there are still such people sitting in reputed universities and guiding students on their future? The Hindu had no absolute qualms publishing this worshipping piece of Nehru. It is one thing for Jairam Ramesh and Rahul Gandhi to exhibit this level of worship. It is however a whole different thing for analysts, journalists and editors to indulge in this worship. If I were to follow only sections of the English media and the Congress handles, you wouldn’t fault me for thinking that it is Nehru’s anniversary that is approaching and not India’s Independence Day! 

On the same day and on the same page on which we were told how awesome Nehru is, The Hindu also published another opinion piece – “The fragility of Northeast’s integration”

The author tells us that the landmark years of severe turbulent years for North East are 1949 (Nehru was PM), 1958 (“draconian AFSPA was promogulated”, we are told. Not told that the awesome Nehru was the PM!), 1963 (Nehru was still the PM!) and 1971 (Nehru’s daughter is the PM!). According to the author, the tide started turning in 2001 and 2004 (separate ministry for North East), and 2002 (Powerful panel established for infrastructure development). The Prime Minister of India when things started getting better, was Atal Bihari Vajpayee from the BJP! The author also fails to mention that the “draconian AFSPA” was actually repealed across multiple places in the North East by the Narendra Modi government.

You would think that the author will properly credit Congress and BJP at the various years he mentions, but the only time he refers to a political party is in his conclusion section. And that party is the BJP – “Assam vehemently opposed BJP-sponsored CAA but voted BJP back to power”! It is continually baffling to note how these folks are disconnected to reality on the ground. We have often argued that the silence of the supporter is much more powerful than the violence of the detractor. The loudest voice need not be the right one, and the election results time and again have proved this. Instead of reflecting on why they are not able to read the ground realities better, the writers and editors always find new ways to blame the people!

The Hindu also published an opinion piece by Dr. Manmohan Singh – India must protect its hard-won freedoms.

“Authoritarian arrogance”, he thundered. I was immediately reminded of the many times that Sonia Gandhi had arrogantly undermined the authority of the Prime Minister of India. “Linguistically chavunist”, he said. I was immediately reminded of the times that the Congress party sought to create a divide in the country based on language. “Communally divisive”, he rued. Beginning with the horrific partition of India, I was also reminded about the 100s of riots that happened in India under the aegis of the Congress party. 

We can go on and on. But we mustn’t forget the occasion that was being celebrated was India’s 75th year of Independence. This was a time to celebrate India’s strengths; India’s victories; India’s people and India’s future. This was a time to visualise India’s 100-year celebrations. This was a time to plan to take India to greater heights in the next 25 years. For such a momentous occasion, we mustn’t also forget that the Congress party and friendly media chose to worship Nehru and sound despondent about our India. We definitely mustn’t forget. 

 

Modi govt has completed yet another successful telecom spectrum auction and Congress is using it to wash its own 2G scam sins

The following article was written for OpIndia. Pasting it here for reference: 

The Modi government has completed yet another successful telecom spectrum auction. Through the auction, the government will be getting a whopping INR 1,50,713/- crores. This immediately prompted our opposition leaders and sections of English media to justify Sonia Gandhi’s government action in the 2008 Spectrum allotment. They claimed that the then CAG flagged at a loss of INR 1,76,000/- crores in 2008 for 2G, but even in 2022 and that too for 5G, the actual spectrum auction fetched only INR 1,50,713 crores! 

First, let us quickly analyse the spectrum auction over the years. When a spectrum auction is announced, the government invites companies to bid in different frequency bands (units in MegaHertz or GigaHertz). For example, here is a snippet of the notice issued for the latest auction:

We can equate a Frequency Band to a road highway. Companies bid for different lanes on that highway – some buy all lanes; some buy few lanes. You cannot buy the entire highway, nor can you buy one lane for the entire country in one go. India is divided into 22 Telecom circles – companies have to bid for slots allocation in different bands in each one of these circles. 

The government will decide what frequency bands to put up for auction. It is not necessary that everything that has been put up for auction is sold, quite naturally. The cost of bidding is very high because the resource available is scarce. With this background, let’s begin analysing the table below. This table has multiple columns, which we will discuss further. 

The first big auction happened in the year 2010, after a massive uproar in the country over the illegal 2008 allotments. Two types of spectrum were put up for auction and a whopping INR 1,06,261/- crores were earned by the government of India. Only one band was put up for auction and 7 companies bid for various slots in that band only. 

You would have by now seen the very low amounts in the 2012 and 2013 auctions. This was because of a lot of issues between the companies and the then UPA government. You can also see in the table that 3 different bands remained unsold in these auctions. Even with such a poor performance, no one accused the UPA of a scam in these auctions, simply because unsold bands don’t indicate a scam! 

The 2014 auction for 2G spectrum only and the government earned good money from that auction – INR 61,162 crores! This auction was necessitated because the spectrum licenses that companies first got in the year 1994 were expiring. So, from auctions during the UPA time, a total of INR 1,80,469 crores was earned by the government of India! 

The first auction in the NDA government happened in 2015, and a new frequency band, 2100 MHz, was also put up for auction for the first time. This was yet another successful auction, with GoI earning INR 1,09,874 crores from the auction. For the 2016 auctions, we can also see that the government approved the auction of many more bands. This is very natural because now your existing highways don’t have enough lanes, so you open up new highways and lanes for auction! If all the frequency bands that were put up for auction were sold, the expected revenue was nearly 4.5 lakh crores! The bulk of this revenue was expected just from the 700MHz band (nearly 3.5 to 4 lakh crores!). 

You can see in the table that the 700MHz band went unsold both in the 2016 and 2021 auctions – quite obviously because of the very high reserve price for this band. The 2021 auction also saw no bids for a new band, 2500MHz. And you can also see that the GoI was able to earn INR 77,814 crores, making this yet another successful auction! 

The recently concluded 5G Spectrum auction was by far the highest amount that the GOI could earn – a whopping 1,50,713 crores! You can also see that some slots in the 700MHz were sold this time (Reliance bought it for nearly 40,000 crores!), but the new 600 MHz found no bidders, yet again because of a high base price. With all the information at our disposal, we can understand the trend too – some bands with high reserve prices will go unsold in the first auctions because companies need to weigh the pros and cons of investing so much in those bands. 

Thus far, the auctions under the NDA government fetched a whopping INR 4,04,190/- crores, as opposed to the INR 1,80,469/- crores under UPA. Together, GoI has earned a whopping nearly INR 6,00,000/- crores from the auctions of these spectrums, over the last 12 years. 

Now, did you know how much we earned under Sonia Gandhi’s watchful eye in the 2008 2G Spectrum allotment? We earned just close to ~12,000 crores! In the year 2008, Sonia Gandhi’s government allotted 2G spectrum to 9 companies. Each company paid INR 1650 crores, a rate that was decided in 2001! One such company, Unitech, sold 60% of this stake to Telenor for INR 6120 crores. So simple math suggests that if 60% value is 6120 crores, then 100% is 10,200 crores. Yet another simple math suggests that if one company is valuing this at 10,200 crores, then the total expected from 9 companies is 10,200*9 = 91,800 crores! 

The CAG report in 2010 took sales of 3 such companies into account; it took into account recommendations of various government bodies; and it took into account the successful 3G auction (shown in our table above). And came up with a range of “presumptive loss” – from a whopping INR 57,666 crores to a whopping INR 1,76,645 crores! For obvious reasons, it is the 1,76,645 crores number that garnered the most attention. 

Such was Sonia Gandhi’s hold on the government that the then Telecom minister, A.Raja could ignore advice from the Law and Finance minister and defy orders even from the Prime Minister of India! A total of 122 licenses were allotted to these 9 companies – 85 of them to ineligible companies! 

The Supreme Court declared the entire allocation of 122 licenses illegal and cancelled all the licenses! An illegal allotment was done in 2008 and yet sections of English media want us to believe that what Sonia Gandhi’s government did was perfectly alright! We have seen how valuable the spectrum is (6 lakh crores in 8 auctions) and yet the English media wants to argue that the mere ~12,000 crores earned by GoI in 2008 was the right decision at that point in time! 

It is indeed true that the CBI was not able to prove a financial scam in the courts, but for us to ignore the illegality of the 2008 allocations as confirmed by the same courts; and for us to ignore the huge earnings through spectrum auctions all these years, only amounts to deceiving the people of the country. 

A Spate of Resignations Rock Telangana Congress

 The following article was written for MyInd Makers. Pasting it here for reference:

In the 2018 Telangana Assembly election, we all know that KCR won by a landslide, winning 86 out of the 119 seats. The Congress party emerged as the main opposition party by winning 19 seats. Immediately after winning the election, KCR appointed his son KTR as the Working President of TRS. And mysteriously, the topmost priority of KTR was to start splitting the Congress party!

KTR went about this task methodically. MLA after MLA was joining the TRS, only by accepting a shawl by KTR. They all didn’t join at one go. They were taking their time to meet KTR and announce their intention to join TRS. None of them resigned from their membership too. Within a couple of months, 12 out of the 19 MLAs of the Congress joined the TRS party. 12/19 is still not 2/3rd of the party. The Speaker can only announce this split as valid only if 2/3rd of the party legislators shifts to another party.

One of the MLAs who stayed back with the party was the then TPCC President, Uttam Kumar Reddy. He was asked to contest as an MP in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Uttam Kumar Reddy won the MP seat, thereby prompting a byelection for this Assembly seat.  So now, the Congress party has 18 MLAs. The 12 MLAs that shifted to TRS now submitted a memorandum to the Speaker in June 2019 saying they are “merging” the Congress legislature party with the TRS, given that they now have 2/3rd members joining them!

We can debate what was the need for KCR and KTR to snatch MLAs away from the Congress party, but the problems of the Congress party didn’t end with 12 out of their 18 MLAs joining the TRS. While these internal rumblings were going on a weekly basis, the elections for GHMC were held in December 2020. Such was the disastrous performance of the Congress in these elections (winning 2/150 seats), that Uttam Kumar Reddy immediately resigned as the President of the TPCC.

Enter the great central leadership of the mighty Congress party now. They took their own sweet time of 7 months to appoint a new TPCC chief. They chose another MP of the Congress party, Revanth Reddy for this post. Revanth Reddy joined the Congress party in November 2017 and was made one of the “working presidents” of the party almost immediately. And within just 4 years of him joining the party, he was made the state unit President – which upset many of the long-timers in the party.

While the Congress was going through defeat after defeat, dissidence after dissidence, crisis after crisis – the BJP was gaining strength – winning 2 key assembly by-polls and upsetting the TRS in the GHMC elections. Survey after survey was also indicating that the BJP’s vote percentage is increasing in the state. Amidst this growth of the BJP, dissident voices also began increasing in the Congress party. A prominent former MP to leave the party was Konda Vishweshwar Reddy, who eventually joined the BJP recently.

One MP, Komatireddy Venkat Reddy, strongly urged Rahul Gandhi to step in and solve the problems of the Congress. Rahul Gandhi promptly stepped in, called for a meeting of many key leaders, and after about 4-5 hours, he declared that Revanth Reddy is the boss and everyone should listen to him.

Komatireddy Venkat Reddy’s brother Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy is an MLA. And he is one of the 6 Congress MLAs who stayed back with the party. Rajagopal Reddy finally decided that enough is enough and he cannot work with Revanth Reddy anymore. Rajagopal Reddy resigned from both the Congress party and as an MLA. He has now joined the BJP and will fight the impending byelection.

While this drama was happening, a long-time spokesperson of the Congress party, Dr. Dasoju Sravan announced his resignation from the party! In an explosive press conference, he talked about the details he presented to Rahul Gandhi in great detail, on the problems he is facing with Revanth Reddy; how he is not able to take the sidelining anymore and how he will contribute to the fight against KCR and TRS!

In summary, the Congress party lost 13 out of the 19 MLAs from 2018; 1 out of the 3 MPs is sulking on being sidelined, and many constituency-level leaders are leaving the party to join other parties! As always, Sonia and Rahul Gandhi aren’t really bothered about the exodus and the crisis hitting the Congress party here. The rise of the BJP and the fall of the TRS is also coinciding with the fall of the Congress party. Elections are still nearly 1.2 years away, so it remains to be seen if this trend will continue or if it will bounce back to a 3-way fight between these parties. As of now, the Congress is clearly facing a crisis.

The Hindu wilfully misrepresents what Kishan Reddy said about #HarGharTiranga program to insert China, KTR furthers the propaganda

The following article was written for OpIndia. Pasting it here for reference:

On August 1^st, 2022, The Hindu published a report with a headline – “Kishan Reddy defends flag import”. The accompanying tagline attributed the quote ‘Country’s khadi industry cannot meet demand for Har Ghar Tiranga scheme’.

As expected, Telangana CM KCR’s son, KTR, who holds multiple portfolios in the cabinet, picked up on this report and tweeted that the reality of Make in India was that our flags are being imported from China.

Now, nowhere in the report is China mentioned so people just figured out that this was one of those KTR’s half baked tweets with loads of misinformation. This piqued my interest further though and I went through the video link of the press conference, only to realise the cunning and deadly game that The Hindu has played.

The conversation between the Journalist (from The Hindu) and Minister Kishan Reddy happens from 37:45 to 38:42 in this video link. Am reproducing the conversation below for ease:.

Journalist: You amended the flag code. It is benefitting China only.

Kishan Reddy (with a clear gesture indicating “No”): We only are stitching flags in our villages with self help groups.

The journalist cuts short the minister and rephrases his question:

Journalist: Because of the import of polyester cloth, the khadi industry is getting affected severely.

Kishan Reddy: We have given orders to all the Khadi industries. However, we cannot manufacture so many crores of flags with the Khadi that we have. That you have to understand.

Journalist: You are planning from an year.

Kishan Reddy: No, we weren’t planning this from an year. This idea came recently

Journalist: You did not have this thought before?

Kishan Reddy: No, we didn’t. People like you gave this idea <smiles>

We now revisit KTR’s tweet in its totality. The Hindu’s report, that severely misrepresents Kishan Reddy, does not mention China anywhere. It looks like KTR picked it from the journalist’s question and simply used it in his tweet to further his meaningless propaganda. KTR also tweeted that though the Modi government knew that the 75^th year is in 2022, it couldn’t plan for flags for all homes. This argument is again directly from the playbook of the journalist who asked the same question, for which Kishan Reddy has given a clear-cut answer.

Whilst it is understandable that KTR is playing politics with even something like #HarGharTiranga program, it is completely unfathomable as to why The Hindu would resort to such mischief? The journalist’s question was about the impact to Khadi industry because of polyester, for which the minister had categorically stated that there is no impact because the industry is flooded with orders. At no place has he defended a “flag import”. He had infact categorically denied any import from China (Note how only The Hindu cares about China!). He has only explained the need to amend the flag code for usage of polyester in addition to Khadi. While the interaction is so clear-cut, how did The Hindu manage to think that in today’s day and age, they can get away with such wonton mischief that will aid the minister KTR in furthering his propaganda?

The original flag code says:  “The National Flag shall be made of hand-spun and hand-woven wool/cotton/silk khadi bunting”.

The revised flag code says: “The National Flag shall be made of hand-spun and hand-woven or machine-made, cotton, polyester, wool, silk khadi bunting”.

The amendment was done on 30 December 2021 to include machine-made flags and also that polyester as a material can be used for making these flags. There are many huge flags that are flown across India, including one in Hyderabad. These hand-woven flags often get damaged because of the wind, and so they are very often changed. Infact, the TRS government spends huge amounts of money to maintain the huge flag that flies in Hyderabad. Using machine-made polyester material will help prevent these frequent damages. This is a common practice world-wide. The Modi government made a very logical amendment to our flag code, to enable longer lasting huge flags.

At no place in the revised flag code is the word “import” used. The English media woke up very late in the day and simply concluded that this change implies that machine-made polyester will only be imported. KTR’s own party tweeted that the flag code was amended because Ambani is the largest manufactured of Polyester in India! Only KTR and his party can explain how can both Ambani and China get benefitted at the same time on the same issue!

The Hindu’s original report was published in the “South” section in the Hyderabad edition on August 1^st, 2022. Kishan Reddy’s OSD sent a stinging clarification letter to The Hindu. That clarification was NOT published in the “South” section of the Hyderabad edition on August 4^th, 2022. Instead, it was published only in the “Andhra Pradesh” section.

After the clarification from the office of Kishan Reddy, The Hindu has slyly changed their headline in the online version. The headline now reads – “Kishan Reddy brushes aside criticism on procurement of national flags”. Remember how the original headline talks about imports of the flag? The Hindu’s report starts with “Even as a controversy rages”. The only controversy is this willful misrepresentation of the Q&A with Shri Kishan Reddy solely intended to mislead the reader.  

 

How The Hindu tortured data to claim ‘consumer sentiment weaker in Rural areas’: Here is an analysis of 5 graphs they misrepresented

The following article was written for OpIndia. Pasting it here for reference:  

“Data Point” is a regular feature in The Hindu’s newspaper. As the name suggests, this section deals with data on a particular topic almost every day. At first glance of one such “Data Point” published on July 27th, 2022, it looked like there is a gloomy scenario in the country today. 

The choice of the headline – “Consumer sentiment weaker in rural areas” tells us the situation is bad in rural areas. The colour Red also gets prominence, giving you the impression that the situation is not quite good. Until you read the details of each of the graphs. You are then left stunned by the innovative interpretation by Team Hindu to make things look gloomy when they are the exact opposite!

Let’s proceed to study 5 of these graphs. 

Graph#1:

70% of Urban and 55% of rural folks were able to “save substantially for their future needs“, last year. 70% of Urban and 55% rural – these numbers are simply phenomenal by any standards. For the past 2 years, we are simply bombarded with articles on how bad the handling of the economy has been. You look at the response to this graph and your mind immediately begins to wonder if these numbers would have been possible if the handling of the economy was bad.

Graph#2:

A whopping 94% Urban and 88% of Rural people have said that their “current financial situation these days is better or about the same” compared to last year. Can you even begin to imagine the scale of this response? You look at the response to this graph – nearly 90% of those surveyed say their situation is actually better or the same –  and your mind immediately begins to wonder if these numbers would have been possible if the handling of the economy was bad?

Graph#3:

A whopping 90% Urban and 85% Rural folks are confident that they “will be able to systematically save, more or about the same as last year“. Not only have nearly 70% saved substantially last year (as seen in Graph#1), but nearly 90% of folks are confident of either saving better or the same as last year. Would this confidence have stemmed if the handling of the economy were bad? 

Graph#4:

We move on to Graph#5 because of the vagueness in the question of Graph#4 (which you can still see in the full graphic). Yet again, we see some positively astonishing numbers. The “ability to meet regular monthly expenses as compared to a year ago” has either improved or remained about the same for a whopping 84% Urban and 81% Rural folks! Would this have been really possible if the handling of the economy was bad in the last 2 years? 

Graph#5:

    

A whopping 96% of Urban and 94% of Rural folks are very confident that their situation will either be better or remain about the same one year from now. Would this confidence have stemmed if the handling of the economy were bad? 

The scale of numbers across the various questions put forth very clearly gives out a very positive picture of the economy. It is a generally accepted colour code to use Red for bad data and yellow/orange for neutral data. The Hindu has surreptitiously chosen to use Red for neutral responses, coupled with a gloomy headline, to give an utterly false impression to the viewer/reader. Unfortunately for them, once the reader gets to the details, he/she can easily see through these machinations. 

How three bizarre articles published on the same day reflects the pathological anti-Modi bent of The Hindu

The following article was written for OpIndia. Pasting it here for reference:

The weekend seems to have been a very difficult one for The Hindu. They seem to have spent many hours trying to figure out new ways to find anti-Modi/BJP content to fill in their newspaper for Monday. Despite those long hours, they didn’t find worthwhile content to be published. So, they chose 3 bizarre ways to come up with such news and print it in prominent places in the newspaper. 

The headline of their primary Op-Ed thunders as follows “Two messages from three photographs”. 

If you are wondering, why there is only one photograph whilst the headline says three photographs then please join the queue! The author has a problem with the picture that is published because the Maharashtra governor is “stuffing sweets” into CM-elect Eknath Shinde’s mouth! What exactly is the problem? That, so far no other governor has “stuffed sweets” into new office bearers it seems! The author Peter Ronald Desouza was so disturbed by this photograph that he just went all over the place – “In our zest to decolonise like we did when we replaced ‘Abide with me’ with Aye mere watan ke logon…”. What exact link does that decision have with the Maharashtra governor offering sweets to the CM-elect? What exact link does decolonization have with the Governor offering sweets? It was at this point that I figured out that it is better to shut our brains and simply view these arguments for entertainment purposes! Remember, we are to talk about three photographs, and we are still discussing the first one! 

The second photograph that the author has a problem, with is actually not a photograph. It’s a video of MLAs dancing on the tables when Eknath Shinde was announced as the CM! It is apparently an “unusual expression of our democratic culture”. Doesn’t it really amaze you how these folks somehow bring democracy into every argument they want to make? Dancing on the tables is now a serious threat to our democracy – can it really get any more entertaining than this! Yes, it can

Let’s discuss the next photograph. 

The author actually has heaped praises on the Electoral officer for sitting in his chair and accepting the nomination of Droupadi Murmu from Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Apparently, this indicates “conformity with constitutional propriety”. The mind simply baffles at the small things these people get happy about. Going by this (rather absurd) logic, is the electoral officer in this picture below transgressing “constitutional propriety”?

Did the author write about this grave attack on our democracy back in 2012? Or was it not kosher back then to talk about dangers to our democracy? If you thought this was the only unusual article, then you are mistaken. 

Since The Hindu still needed a lot of material to cover their pages today, they had Dushyant Dave thunder: “Preserving Democracy in India”. 

He picks up on Prime Minister Modi’s “Congress-mukt Bharat” argument and extends it to “Opposition mukt Bharat” by citing Karnataka, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh as examples. 

The Karnataka assembly verdict of 2018 was crystal clear in booting Congress out of power. Congress and JD(S) formed a post-poll alliance to prevent BJP (the single largest party). People spoke overwhelmingly in favour of the BJP in the 2019 LS elections. 17 MLAs rebelled, resigned and won elections again from the BJP ticket – thus completing the democratic necessity. A similar story happened in Madhya Pradesh too – those who rebelled have resigned and gone back to the people and won elections. The Maharashtra example is even bizarre – in fact, the 2019 mandate is restored in 2022. What happened in 2019 was a travesty and what happened in 2022 is a correction of that travesty. Yet our analysts somehow want to paint this as an attempt to make an “opposition-mukt” Bharat! A basic fact check will tell us that there are still so many states where the BJP is not in power, but clearly, analysts are not interested in such mundane facts. 

Dushyant Dave ends his article with – “Mr Modi and his party have a responsibility to ensure that India doesn’t turn into an undemocratic republic”. Such fancy statements may get approval in WhatsApp groups of English media journalists but how exactly is it Modi’s responsibility to strengthen the opposition? Mr Modi has won every election fair and square till now, yet these people keep coming up with bizarre articles that put an unnecessary burden on him to strengthen others!

Not content with two articles on how our democracy is in danger, The Hindu mysteriously figured out that they must get a member of the Congress party to write about RSS and BJP. 

Apparently, RSS’s strict code wouldn’t have allowed BJP to move MLAs to other states, so democracy is in danger! No, really. That’s what the article is about. In fact, the author says that “Democracy requires the elevation of the political realm” – whatever that means! The irony of a member of the congress waxing eloquent on changes in governments is not lost out on the reader. However, it was lost out on the management of The Hindu!

On a more serious note, it’s one thing for the newspaper to print bizarre arguments in their Op-Ed space. But it’s a whole different thing to have come up with this graphic on their front page. 

On a day when India covered 200 crores of vaccine doses (highest in the world by a wide margin), The Hindu thought it absolutely prudent to sound despondent instead of celebrating India’s achievement. This level of hatred for anything good that happens in today’s India is unparalleled even by The Hindu’s standards. All that can be said to them is – Get well soon!