'Nationalist' cub threatens to chop finger of dissent

New Delhi, Feb. 27: Among the many voices that rang out in Delhi University today, two stood out. One threatened to spill others' blood; the other recalled the blood, sweat and more shed for over three decades to build a college where he had little option but to spend his last day tomorrow unable to fulfil a wish.

Ankit Sangwan, the ABVP leader who heads the Delhi University Student Union, told a flag march by his supporters that "if anyone raises a finger on this country, that finger will be cut".

The solution for "anti-nationalism" was prescribed on the university campus on a day one minister after another threw their weight behind the Sangh's student arm.

The open threat by Sangwan, the DUSU general secretary, capped a nearly weeklong campus turmoil that began with the ABVP disrupting a seminar at Delhi University's Ramjas College over an invite to JNU students considered "anti-national" by the Sangh. The ABVP holds three of four key positions in the DUSU.

At Ramjas, principal Rajendra Prasad, who retires tomorrow, cancelled an expected speech to students.

Instead, he released an impassioned appeal, saying: "My heart bleeds when Ramjas bleeds, because I have put in 32 years of blood, sweat and tears to bring Ramjas to its present stature."

He added: "I again urgently appeal to all students and other stakeholders and role players to respect the right of others to study; and to act responsibly through constructive engagement and to desist from any form of disruptive action..."

On Wednesday, ABVP activists had attacked a student march that was protesting the disruption of the seminar at Ramjas. Several varsity events in the capital have been indefinitely postponed since the violence, which left many people, including three teachers, injured.

Today, Sangwan led an ABVP march through the campus with a 180ft-long cloth Tricolour, chanting slogans calling for a purge of communists from Delhi University.

When the march ended, Sangwan climbed on the pedestal of a Swami Vivekananda statue at the arts faculty. "This march was for all those students whom the Left activists misbehaved with (last Wednesday). We won't let this (campus) become JNU part two," he said.

"Friends, the media repeatedly say we committed this violence, they call us intolerant. Who are these people who label us intolerant? We are patriots. If anyone raises a finger against this country, we will not tolerate it."

The threat to the finger came soon as Sangwan's supporters cheered him on, chanting: " Bharat Mata ki jai".

"The way these people poisoned JNU, they want to poison DU too. But we won't allow this," Sangwan said. " Dilli Vishwavidyalaya ka chhatra itna jaagruk hai ki agar is desh ke baare mein koi ungli uthaane ki koshish karega, tho woh ungli kaat di jayegi par bolne nahi diya jayega (Delhi University's students are so aware that if anyone raises a finger at this country, that finger will be cut and they won't be allowed to speak)."

DUSU president Amit Tanwar told the gathering: "If the communists enter again, they will be opposed."

The RSS-backed teachers' body, the Rashtrawadi Shikshak Sangh, also waded into the row, protesting against the alleged anti-national slogans chanted at Ramjas last week. One of its leaders, Manoj Khanna, said: "We must counter the Red insects.... If someone tries to insult my motherland, I will be unable to control my actions."

A senior police officer said the cops were bracing for a march tomorrow by students and teachers supported by the Left. "They may need protection from the ABVP.... Adequate deployment has been planned," the officer added.

The march - in protest against ABVP "hooliganism" - has been planned from Shri Guru Tegh Bahadur Khalsa College, which had to indefinitely postpone a street skit competition under ABVP pressure. A student theatre troupe from the college was prevented from performing at another college following "advice" from the police to the organisers.

Backlash after PM salutes Savarkar

New Delhi, Feb. 26: Prime Minister Narendra Modi was fiercely criticised today for describing Vinayak Damodar Savarkar as a "true patriot", with many ordinary tweeters joining Congress members in asking him not to distort history.

"Remembering Veer Savarkar on his punya tithi (death anniversary). He was a true patriot who envisioned a strong and developed India," Modi had tweeted last evening.

Savarkar did have a vision for a "strong and developed India" but the Prime Minister came under fire for calling him a "patriot" and referring to him as "Veer", a sobriquet meaning "hero" that is often attached to Savarkar's name.

Some "nationalists" have always celebrated Savarkar, proponent of a Hindu rashtra (nation), while others see him as a bigot who, unlike a hero or patriot, repeatedly begged for mercy when the Raj jailed him during the freedom struggle.

Modi has often been accused of assiduously trying to hijack national icons, from B.R. Ambedkar to Vallabhbhai Patel, but he had so far avoided locking horns with political and ideological rivals on the merits of Sangh parivar luminaries.

As usual, the Prime Minister had remained silent on February 22, the birth anniversary of former Sangh chief M.S. Golwalkar. Although the Modi government has laboured to secure intellectual legitimacy for ideologue Deendayal Upadhyaya, it hasn't tried to debate the virtues of other Sangh stalwarts.

The way common people lambasted the Prime Minister's tweet today, going to his Twitter handle to vent their anger, showed how challenging any project of publicly sanctifying Sangh idols can be.

Prerna Bakshi, an author, wrote: "Savarkar was a coward and a bigot who begged for mercy on multiple occasions and pledged allegiance to the British rule."

She added: "Savarkar was the biggest coward there ever was, he justified the idea of rape... as a political tool."

To try and back her charge, she posted a passage from a book Savarkar had written in Marathi a few years before his death in 1966.

While BJP supporters merely endorsed Modi's views instead of providing counter-arguments, the critics repeatedly rebutted the presumption of Savarkar's bravery.

Dwaipayan Mitra wrote: "His biggest patriotic act was licking the Britishers' boot."

Rahul Lad tweeted: "Sir, you don't teach wrong history to our fellow citizens. You are in the chair of PM, not RSS."

Abdullah Maidumoole said: "What did Veer Savarkar do for India? Other than sowing seeds of hatred?"

Modi did receive some support. A man named Anand Gupta wrote: "There is no parallel in history to the torture Savarkar suffered. Nehru and Gandhi didn't take a single lathi."

Harish Joshi tweeted: "He sacrificed his youth for the nation. Can an old man fight with the enemy?"

Jailed at 27, Savarkar was released at 40.

Congress activist Gaurav Pandhi had triggered the controversy by posting the text of Savarkar's apology along with this message: "Savarkar bowed in front of the British, wrote mercy petitions, assured won't work against them, received pension from the British."

He recalled how Savarkar had appealed to Hindu youths to join the British army during World War II instead of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose's Azad Hind Fauj.

Savarkar had fought the British as a young man and several tales of his bravery are known. But he earned ridicule by apologising to the British to get out of the notorious Cellular Jail in the Andamans, where he had been sentenced to spend 27 years.

He wrote in his petition: "If the government in their manifold beneficence and mercy release me, I for one cannot but be the staunchest advocate of constitutional progress and loyalty to the English government which is the foremost condition of that progress.... I am ready to serve the government in any capacity they like, for as my conversion is conscientious so I hope my future conduct would be. The Mighty alone can afford to be merciful and therefore where else can the prodigal son return but to the parental doors of the Government?"

Savarkar faced trial in the Mahatma Gandhi assassination case and was listed in the chargesheet as Accused No. 8. He was released for want of clinching evidence.

There are no ‘Hindu actors’ and ‘Muslim actors’, please!

“Is not this same white missionary beach that gave 4 stars to raees, a movie on an anti-national Moslem terr0rist? Any Hindu actor’s movie, this hater tries to pull it down!” (sic)

This comment was one of many that appeared below my review of the Hindi film Jolly LLB 2, starring Akshay Kumar, published on Firstpost this month. If it weren’t so venomous, it would be funny. A friend with a vivid imagination says “missionary beach” conjures up visions of hanky panky in the sand — an experience I cannot claim to have had. Just as I did not give Raees a four-star review, I rated it 2.5 stars. Whatever. The truth, as you know, is irrelevant to propagandists. They prefer what Donald Trump’s aide Kellyanne Conway describes as “alternative facts”.

So what’s new? After all, falsehoods and personal attacks against critics in the virtual world are as old as the day websites first opened their comments sections to the public. The preceding paragraphs signal a relatively recent trend in online animosity though, evidenced by the pigeon-holing of Kumar.

“Hindu actor” — what does that even mean? A man may simultaneously be Hindu and an actor, but to place the two words side by side is as reductive and demeaning to his craft as tags like “woman journalist”, “gay filmmaker”, “Dalit writer” and “black singer” when used outside discussions on discrimination.

If you have been around long enough, this labelling may remind you of Hrithik Roshan’s smashing debut in 2000, which led to some distasteful right-wing cheer at the arrival of a “Hindu superstar”. The dominance of the three Khans in the Hindi film industry had been a sore point with the Hindu Right for a while, but the political atmosphere was different back then, and the attempt to celebrate an actor’s religious identity remained on the margins of our collective existence.

That began to change with the BJP and Narendra Modi’s general election victory in 2014. The subsequent flow of the ruling party’s Internet battalions into the film criticism space turned into a flood in 2015, when Aamir Khan and Shah Rukh Khan both publicly condemned religious intolerance. Since then, these trolls have unrelentingly exhorted viewers to boycott — and critics to slam — films starring “Muslim actors” Aamir and Shah Rukh, and to back “Hindu actors” Ajay Devgn, Hrithik Roshan and Kumar.

How can we know that these are BJP supporters, you ask? Because their vocabulary and behaviour patterns have consistently mirrored BJP trolls, and mimicked the party and government’s reaction to these stars. For instance, online workers goaded “nationalists” to boycott Snapdeal, since Aamir was its brand ambassador, and Dilwale, since it starred Shah Rukh, even as the sarkar engineered the termination of Aamir’s association with the Incredible India campaign and bullied Snapdeal into leaving him. Meanwhile, these trolls have largely spared the other Khan, Salman. BJP insiders admit that this is one of Salman’s many rewards for his proximity to the PM and silence on the government’s shenanigans.

The repulsive communal profiling of Hindi film stars peaked this January when the SRK-starrer Raees clashed in theatres with Kaabil featuring Roshan. Online troops demanded that “nationalists” should skip Raees and make Kaabil a hit, while BJP national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya batted for Kaabil with this obtuse tweet he claimed was about demonetisation: “The #Raees who are not for the country are of no use. We should all stand with a #Kaabil (worthy) patriot.”

As I write this column, I call up fellow critics to ask what they make of this ugly scenario. Raja Sen, whose reviews began appearing on Rediff in 2004, tells me, “The Hindu-Muslim divide among fan responses existed earlier too, but it was only one of many polarities including regionalism which one encountered as a journalist online. Now though, religion dominates responses to reviews. It is often clear that these people are not even paying attention to what you have written and that they are not necessarily film fans or mobs hired by some star’s PR, but may well be members of Chairman Modi’s orange army.”

Suparna Sharma, film critic for The Asian Age, offers this analysis: “Today’s online trolls attacking critics based entirely on the religion of certain stars are simply an extension of the ongoing campaign to communalise everything — the food we eat, the clothes we wear, how we vote, whether we stand for the national anthem or not... Unfortunately for them, and fortunately for us, box-office is secular. So while politicians and their Sanghi trolls can hound out, say, Pakistani actors from a film, they can’t really keep people out of theatres. I’d like to believe that critics, but more than them, audiences who queue up to buy tickets with their hard-earned money and commit two-three hours to a film, are above this sort of bunkum.”

Still, it is important to vocally condemn this well-strategised endeavour to infiltrate our reactions to cinema, because we cannot risk having well-meaning viewers and reviewers go the way of many political journalists, and subconsciously self-censor their public statements to avoid abuse. We live in a world where even shamshaan ghats (cremation grounds) and kabristaans (cemeteries) are being politicised. In this world, more than ever, it is important too to remind bigots that for a true cinephile, there are no “Hindu actors” and “Muslim actors”; there are only actors, characters, stories and films.

Anna MM Vetticad is the author of The Adventures of an Intrepid Film Critic; @annavetticad

Apollo Hospital to return Rs 7.23 lakh treatment cost to family of deceased

KOLKATA: Apollo Gleneagles Hospital decided to return the entire treatment cost of Rs 7.23 lakh to the family of Sanjay Ray following calls from "top officials", the hospital's senior management announced at a press conference on Friday afternoon, hours after former transport minister Madan Mitra had publicly threatened to shut the hospital down if it did not refund the money.

"We have received phone calls from top officials. We will return the entire amount to the family on humanitarian grounds and consider it a discount to a needy patient's family. The decision has been taken not under any duress," the hospital COO Joy Bose said after being persistently questioned by reporters on the amount billed for Sanjay Ray's treatment and the hospital's alleged refusal to allow his family to transfer him to state-run SSKM Hospital till they had paid the entire bill.

Refuting allegations levelled by the patient's family and friends, the hospital officials said there were no discussions with the patient party to either deposit property deed or ornaments or fixed deposit certificate. "We had asked the patient party to issue a check and give an undertaking on a piece of paper that the dues were being paid in this manner. The person from the family who came to settle the bill prior to the patient's discharge voluntarily offered the FD certificate as security which we accepted," the hospital official said.

Suresh Ramasubban, chief of critical care unit, also outlined the treatment to the accident victim to both explain the billed amount and counter the charge of improper treatment. "The patient had severe injuries and after assessment and a CT scan, we found out that he had internal bleeding in the abdominal area. There was a puncture in the liver and a rupture in one of the kidneys. There was also bleeding in the lungs area. Ray had suffered rib fractures and accumulation of fluid in the lungs. On February 16 evening, we conducted Angio Embolization on the patient to stop bleeding from a tear in the kidney and injury to the liver, and put on ventilation due to respiratory distress. He was also administered a lot of antibiotics. He underwent multiple scans later to track the progress," Ramasubban reasoned.

On delay in discharging the patient that could have led to his death within hours of being admitted at SSKM, the doctor said treatment to the patient had not been discontinued at any point and had continued till the patient was put on ventilator in the ITU at SSKM. "We transported the patient in an ambulance that had a ventilator. Two doctors accompanied him to SSKM. Our oxygen supply was used to then transfer the patient from the ambulance to the bed. Our doctors ensured that the ventilation rate in SSKM was in sync with what was being administered," Ramasubban said.

According to him, the sequential organ failure assessment (SOFA) test on Ray had revealed a 45% predicted mortality in the next 28 days or more than a 50% chance to survive at a medical board formed before his discharge. "We had told the family his condition was stabilizing. The only system that was not responding was the brain. It was so agitated that we had to keep him restrained. It could have been due to nicotine addiction withdrawal. The other organs were okay. Blood pressure, pulse and creatinine levels were good," Ramasubban added.

Like all other hospitals, Apollo Gleneagles is also infamous for overcharging patients so whatever explanations given above by the hospital authorities may be considered as lies to cover their faults. I has a close relative who expired there although she had gone there just for Dialysis.

In one of my earlier blogs I had reported about AMRI, Salt lake from where if I hadn't removed my younger brother to RIITC, Mukandapur, they would have killed him.

AMRI, Gariahat is also infamous for the bad treatment and expiry of Anuradh Saha, wife of Dr. Kunal Saha, founder of PBT. PBT has done very good work in making errant hospitals and doctors pay for their bad treatment by taking up the cases in consumer courts.

Press Release: Phase 5 Uttar Pradesh Analysis of Candidates

Dear Friends,

The Uttar Pradesh Election Watch and Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) have analysed the self-sworn affidavits of 612 out 617 candidates from 75 political parties, including 6 national parties, 4 state parties, 65 unrecognized parties and 220 independent candidates, who are contesting in the fifth phase of Uttar Pradesh Assembly Elections to be held on 27^Th February, 2017.  The details of candidates who have not been analysed are given below:

S.No	Name	Party	Constituency	District
1.	VIJAY PRATAP	IND	GAURA	GONDA
2.	RAKESH PRATAP SINGH	SP	GAURIGANJ	AMETHI
3.	KHALID KHAN	BSP	KAISERGANJ	BAHRAICH
4.	RAM KARAN ARYA	SP	MAHADEWA (SC)	BASTI
5.	PRAMOD KUMAR	RLD	RUDHAULI	BASTI

For Full Reports in Hindi and English click here: http://adrindia.org/content/analysis-criminal-and-financial-background-details-contesting-candidates-uttar-pradesh-2  

Criminal Background

·         Candidates with Criminal Cases: Out of 612 candidates analyzed, 117 (19%) candidates have declared criminal cases against themselves.

·         Candidates with Serious Criminal Cases: 96 (16%) candidates have declared serious criminal cases, including cases related to murder, attempt to murder, kidnapping, crimes against women etc.

·         Candidates with cases related to murder: 9 candidates have declared cases related to murder (Indian Penal Code Section-302).

·         Candidates with cases related to Attempt to Murder: 24 candidates have declared cases related to attempt to murder (Indian Penal Code Section-307).

·         Candidates with cases related to Crimes against Women: 8 candidates have declared cases like assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty (Indian Penal Code Section-354), rape (IPC Section-376) and  husband or relative of husband of a woman subjecting her to cruelty (IPC Section-498A).

·         Candidates with cases related to Kidnapping: 4 candidates have declared cases related to kidnapping for ransom, etc. (Indian Penal Code Section- 364, 365).

·         Party wise Candidates with Criminal Cases: 21(41%) out of 51 candidates from Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP),  23 (45%) out of 51 candidates from Bahujan Samaj Party(BSP), 8 (27%) out of 30 candidates from Rashtriya Lok Dal(RLD), 17(41%) out of 42 candidates from Samajwadi Party ( SP),3(21%) out of 14 candidates from Indian National Congress(INC), and 19(9%) out of 220 Independent candidates have declared criminal cases against themselves in their affidavits.

·         Party wise Candidates with Serious Criminal Cases:  19(37%) out of 51 candidates from BSP, 14 (28%) out of 51 candidates from BJP, 7 (23%) out of 30 candidates from RLD, 12(29%) out of 42 candidates from SP, 2 (14%) out of 14 candidates from INC and 17(8%) out of 220 Independent candidates have declared serious criminal cases against themselves in their affidavits.

·         Red Alert Constituencies*: There are 22 constituencies in the fifth phase of Uttar Pradesh assembly elections having 3 or more candidates with declared criminal cases. *Red Alert Constituencies are those which have 3 or more candidates with criminal cases contesting elections.

Financial Background

·         Share of wealth among candidates : The share of wealth amongst the candidates contesting in the fifth phase of assembly elections Uttar Pradesh is as follows:

Value of assets (Rs.)	No. of candidates	Percentage of Candidates
Rs.5 cr and above	51	8%
Rs.2 crores to 5 crores	80	13%
Rs. 50 lakhs to 2 crores	102	17%
Rs.10 lakhs to 50 lakhs	195	32%
less than  Rs. 10 lakhs	184	30%

Table: Share of wealth amongst contesting candidates

·         High asset candidates:  The 3 richest candidates contesting in  the fifth phase of the Uttar Pradesh  Assembly Elections are given below:

S.No.	Name	District	Constituency	Party Name	Movable Assets (Rs)	Immovable Assets (Rs)	Total Assets (Rs)	PAN Given
1	Ajay Pratap Singh	GONDA	COLONELGANJ	BJP	2,79,62,192	46,26,00,000	49,05,62,192  49 Crore+	Y
2	Ameeta Singh	AMETHI	AMETHI	INC	8,60,81,633	28,16,50,000	36,77,31,633  36 Crore+	Y
3	Mayankeshwar Sharan Singh	AMETHI	TILOI	BJP	4,31,70,454	28,39,59,000	32,71,29,454  32 Crore+	Y

Table: Top three candidates with highest declared assets

·         Crorepati Candidates: Out of the 612 candidates, 168 (27%) are crorepatis.

·         Party wise Crorepati Candidates: 43(84%) out of 51 candidates from BSP, 38(75%) out of 51 candidates from BJP, 32 (76%) out of 42 candidates from SP, 7(50%) out of 14 candidates from INC, 9(30%) out of 30 candidates from RLD and 14(6%) out of 220 Independent candidates have declared assets worth more than Rs. 1 crore.

·         Average assets: The average of assets per candidate contesting in the fifth phase of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly Elections is Rs 1.56 Crores.

·         Party wise average assets: Among major parties, the average assets per candidate for 14 INC candidates is Rs.4.40 crores, 51 BJP candidates is Rs 4.64 crores, 51 BSP candidates have average assets of Rs 4.16 crores, 42 SP candidates have average assets worth Rs 3.48 crores, 30 RLD candidates have average assets worth Rs 2.20 crores, and 220 Independent candidates have average assets of Rs. 44.96 lakhs.

·         Zero asset candidate:    There are no candidates who have declared zero assets in their self sworn affidavits.  

·         Low asset candidates: The three candidates with lowest assets (excluding  candidate with zero asssets) are as follows:  

S.No.	Name	District	Constituency	Party Name	Movable Assets (Rs)	Immovable Assets (Rs)	Total Assets (Rs)	PAN Given
1	Ramesh Kumar	AMBEDKAR NAGAR	ALAPUR (SC)	Uttar Pradesh Republican Party	1,000	0	1,000  1 Thou+	N
2	Radheshyam	BASTI	KAPTANGANJ	IND	10,290	0	10,290  10 Thou+	N
3	Indrajeet	BAHRAICH	BALHA (SC)	IND	12,000*	0	12,000  12 Thou+	Y

Table: Candidates with declared lowest assets

  * Candidates who have not provided the total in their affidavits, it has been calculated on the basis of details provided by them in the same

·         Candidates with high liabilities: The top three candidates with highest liabilities are as given below:

S.No.	Name	District	Constituency	Party Name	Total Assets(Rs)	Liabilities (Rs)	Disputed liabilities (Rs)	PAN Given
1	Sri Rakesh Srivastav	BASTI	BASTI SADAR	IND	16,49,93,996  16 Crore+	6,18,00,000  6 Crore+	0	Y
2	Smt Rubab Sayeda	BAHRAICH	BAHARAICH	SP	9,93,12,472  9 Crore+	5,94,00,000  5 Crore+	0	Y
3	Santosh Kumar	GONDA	COLONELGANJ	BSP	4,61,29,320  4 Crore+	4,36,17,000  4 Crore+	0	Y

Table: Top three candidates with high liabilities

# disputed liabilities

·         Undeclared PAN:  A total of 156 (25.5%) candidates have not declared their PAN details.

·         Candidates with high income as declared in the ITR*: Only 3 candidates have declared total annual income of more than Rs 50 lakhs. The top 3 candidates  with highest income are as given below:

S.No.	Name	Party	Constituency	District	Total Asset (Rs)	The financial year for which the last income tax return has been filed by candidate	Total income shown by candidate in ITR (Self+Spouse+Dependent) (Rs)	Self income shown by candidate in ITR (Rs)
1	Ritesh	BSP	JALALPUR	AMBEDKAR NAGAR	21,08,13,416  21 Crore+	2015-2016	59,68,608  59 Lacs+	59,68,608  59 Lacs+
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