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Kerala floods, a tale of national disaster and bigotry: Even as the southern state battles its worst floods since 1924, with more than 300 dead and lakhs displaced, social media has seen a spate of bigoted commentary against Kerala. Among other things, the floods are being “blamed” on the fact that people in the state eat beef, and support for petitions seeking women’s entry in the sanctum sanctorum of the Sabarimala temple.
It seems to be true sir
Lord Ayyappa is angry with the Kerala Govt, as whole country knows that Communist & Congressi Workers had publicly slaughtered an innocent Calf in protest of Beef ban, cooked it publicly & feasted on its cooked beef openly on the road !
God wouldn't spare. pic.twitter.com/OtulS7xf90
— JN Kaushik (@JaganNKaushik) August 16, 2018
Mostly devastated area of Kerala is known for cow slaughtering area and congress celebrated beef party in that area. The district of Kerala where beef party was organised is washed away. This is a lesson for keralites. https://t.co/vMMnnlRKSb
— Mahesh Kumar Agrawal (@girijamahesh) August 19, 2018
#KeralaFloods #Kerala deserved it, Malayalees invited it upon themselves for being unapologetic beef-eaters@newslaundry #propaganda at the time of disaster #Commies ☭ #Congress Indulging in to spread hates&rift between peoples of #India 🇮🇳🤔 @sagenaradamuni#KeralaFloodRelief pic.twitter.com/jAbap558tC
— 🇮🇳 Singh J Poswal (@JaiPoswal1995) August 19, 2018
Media bias? Several netizens also questioned the abysmal coverage of the floods by national media.
https://twitter.com/ashwin_Vijay_dq/status/1030471495200456706
The @htTweets Mumbai edition front page today. Not one article on the front page on what's happening in Kerala! 97 people are feared dead and the coverage on the floods in God's own country in the national media remains dismal! pic.twitter.com/0hWEPd0QFF
— Rithika Kumar (@kumar_rithika) August 17, 2018
https://twitter.com/RepublicJammu/status/1031158750860607488
North vs south, again: Author-historian Ramachandra Guha recently tweeted an article published by The News Minute arguing in favour of stronger regional governments as a “southern collective” that can ensure greater financial grants from the Centre. The tweet sparked a heated debate, with several right-wing intellectuals dubbing the move a sinister ploy to break up India a la Muhammad Ali Jinnah.
One Jinnah broke up India into two with full cooperation of Nehru cum Mountbatten. Now countless new Jinnahs emerging from among Nehru admirers. The sinister game of #BreakingUpIndia is very seductive coz very remunerative. Best for dollar studded career advancement https://t.co/KfYd1h1DjT
— MadhuPurnima Kishwar (@madhukishwar) August 19, 2018
What’s in a number! A political battle royale has begun with the Central Statistics Office releasing GDP figures from 1993-94 to 2011-12. The ruling BJP had revised the base year for calculating annual growth from 2004-05 to 2011-12. With this revision, ironically, the annual growth under UPA-I has also risen to an average of 8.87 per cent, Hindustan Times reports.
Senior Congress leader P. Chidambaram said the numbers vindicated the UPA government, and discredited the BJP’s claims of inheriting a weak economy.
Union minister Arun Jaitley was quick to respond with criticism of the previous government’s economic policies. He said the Manmohan Singh administration had ruined the country’s banking sector and compromised on fiscal discipline regulations.
For India to grow at a high rate during 2003-08 was quite obvious. The NDA Government led by Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee went out of office in 2004 leaving behind an 8% plus growth rate, additionally the Government had the benefit of a continuous incremental reforms from 1991-2004.
— Arun Jaitley (@arunjaitley) August 19, 2018
Surjit Bhalla, member of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council backed the NDA’s claim.
Rumour going around that UPA had higher growth; therefore no policy paralysis; "new" GDP data does not change reality that macro-economic INSTABILITY was highest under UPA-highest inflation ever, highest center+state fiscal deficits, highest corruption & highest policy paralysis
— Surjit Bhalla (@surjitbhalla) August 18, 2018
Sidhu’s ‘jhappi’ causes political fury: Punjab minister and former cricketer Navjot Singh Sidhu, a Congress member, seems to have upset a lot of people by first accepting friend Imran Khan’s invitation to his swearing-in as Pakistan Prime Minister, and then speaking to and hugging Pakistan army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa. To the further consternation of these critics, he also took a seat next to the president of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, Masood Khan, during the ceremony.
Angry ‘nationalistic’ tweets followed:
DigvijaySingh talkng abt #Osama ji , Sonia ji crying for #BatlaHouse Terrorists or Sidhu hugging Pak Army General respnsble for so many terror deaths – All frm @INCIndia #ThePartyOfLove 🙏🏻😏😡 pic.twitter.com/Fq3wUQkTTu
— Rajeev Chandrasekhar 🇮🇳 (@rajeev_mp) August 18, 2018
Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh slammed his cabinet colleague as well, The Times of India reports. The CM said the hug was “not a nice gesture” and “completely avoidable”, especially when “Indian soldiers are being martyred on the border under orders of the same man (Bajwa)”.
Mani finds his way back: Congress president Rahul Gandhi has revoked the suspension of senior leader Mani Shankar Aiyar on the recommendation of the party’s disciplinary committee, The Indian Express reports. Aiyar was suspended on 7 December last year for making unsavoury remarks against PM Modi during the Gujarat election campaign. He had referred to the PM as a “neech kism ka aadmi“, later blaming the choice of words on his poor Hindi.
The Congress admits that statements made by Aiyar and others had harmed the party’s chances in Gujarat. Twitter had a field day after the suspension was revoked with “congratulations” pouring in for the BJP for the likely gains spelt by the maverick and outspoken leader’s return.
Good news for BJP: Congress revokes the suspension of Mani Shankar Aiyar.
— Sonam Mahajan (@AsYouNotWish) August 19, 2018
News it’s just kinda cool to know:
Talk about vintage cheese: Archaeologist Enrico Greco and a team of scientists from the University of Catania, Italy, and Cairo University, Egypt, have discovered a 3,200-year-old piece of cheese in the tomb of Ptahmes, a high-ranking Egyptian official from the 13th century BC. Here’s what isn’t so cool: They say old cheese is good, but a bite of this one could land you in a tomb of your own as researchers believe it could contain a deadly bacteria called Brucella melitensis. Nonetheless, the cheese is so far the oldest known to humankind.
Skin colour isn’t determined purely by genetics, a study by The Centre for Cellular & Molecular Biology has found. According to the study, “A complex interaction between physical and social forces is responsible for patterns of skin colour seen in males and females in India”. For example, women tend to have lighter skin as it results in UV-induced vitamin D production, which is absorbed by the body during pregnancy and breast-feeding, The Hindu reports.
Business Class
Amazon is teaming up with Goldman Sachs and Samara Capital to acquire More, the food and grocery supermarket chain of the Aditya Birla Group valued at Rs 4,500-5,000 crore”, reports The Economic Times.
The government has decided to turn down the RBI’s demand for removing its nominees from the boards of public sector banks (PSBs), Business Standard reports. The decision has been taken in light of rising bad loans and instances of alleged fraud at PSBs.
Point of View
Rains have abated in Kerala, but the state faces a long road rebuilding itself. The Times of India writes in its editorial, “Roads and bridges have been washed away and thousands of houses, commercial establishments, government offices and farms submerged in floodwaters. Over 7 lakh people were shifted to 3,500 relief camps. Kerala government’s preliminary assessment of losses is pegged at Rs 19,000 crore.”
In the 21st century, are traditional methods to calculate GDP and growth enough? Congress leader Milind Deora, writing in The Economic Times, believes that the health of the economy depends on five elements: Gender parity, climate change, secular democracy, technology, and water & sanitation.
Prime Time
Republic TV broadcasts ‘#TheHistoryDebate’. Editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami suggested that Indian history texts upheld the “Gandhi narrative” and had been “hegemonised” by the Left. The hashtags on the show included “time to rewrite history”, “anti-Right sliced and diced history”, and “Congress wrote fake history”.
Goswami added that the “garbage peddled in the name of history” in India had been tolerated enough in India and must be rewritten as early as possible.
(With inputs from Simrin Sirur)