Nasheman News :  Megastar Amitabh Bachchan says it is unfortunate to have come across stories about married women who are thrown out of their house because they are suffering from Hepatitis B. He is against this kind of discrimination towards women and says he will fight for it as long as he is alive.

Amitabh was addressing the media at the launch of a national action plan combating Viral Hepatitis in India along with Maharashtra Minister for PWD, Public Health and Family Welfare Eknath Shinde here on Sunday. 

“I was interested in this great campaign that the government of India and other associations including the World Health Organisation (WHO) have put into practice. My family doctor and his other doctor friends visited me and made me aware of that… how very little is known about it,” said the cine icon.

“I immediately agreed in whatever way I could. There were two things that attracted me, first thing was dissemination of information about Hepatitis B. Most people aren’t aware of this disease but it is a life threatening one so, I felt it’s my duty as a citizen of India to create awareness about it.”

He also said that he feels sad when he sees discrimination towards women when it comes to fighting with diseases. 

“Second thing that surprised and hurt me was that the factor of discrimination particularly to women… it’s really unfortunate that I have come across such stories where married women are thrown out of their house because they are suffering from Hepatitis B.

“Women are half of the power of the country. They are the strength of our country so, they must be treated with respect and dignity that they deserve. If we begin to discriminate them, just because they are suffering from a particular disease, then it is not acceptable and I will fight for this as long as I am alive.” 

Talking about himself, he said: “Today, I am free from tuberculosis because it was diagnosed and treated at the right time so, I feel we must pay a lot of attention to the process of detections of these diseases because if they are detected on time, then there is a cure and I am an example of that.”

Nasheman News :  Karnataka intensified efforts to contain a raging wildfire in the Bandipur forest area in the Chamarajanagar district bordering Tamil Nadu, an official said on Monday.

“As the wildfire spread to about 2,000 hectares in the 874 square kilometres (sq km) Bandipur forest, around 500 guards, officials, eco-volunteers and people from the area rushed to douse the flames,” an official told IANS here.

Movement of people and vehicles, including cars, buses and trucks have been banned on the National Highway-67 and inter-state roads until further notice across Bandipur, which has a sprawling tiger habitat and is biodiversity rich as part of the eco-sensitive southern Western Ghats.

Unlike in the past or in many years, this is the first time the wildfire in Bandipur flared up earlier due to the sudden climatic change and rapid growth of dry grass and Lantana.

“There has been no reports of casualty or injury to animals, including spotted deer, bison, antelopes, elephants, tiger and leopard so far, as they would have ran into the core forest area to escape from the scorching heat and the raging fire that started on Saturday.

“Although small animals like snakes and calves would have perished caught in the blaze,” said the official.

Nasheman News : Karnataka Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy on Sunday urged Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to hold the biennial Aero India air show in Bengaluru only as Asia’s premier aerospace event, an official statement said.

“Kumaraswamy requested Sitharaman to hold the Aero India air show in Bengaluru only in the coming years too as the 2019 and previous 11 editions were held here over the last 22 years,” said thestatement after they met at the Chief Minister’s home office here.

Thanking Sitharaman for holding the 12th edition of the 5-day international expo here, the Chief Minister said the people of the state and city were happy to visit the air show and witness the static and flying display of over 50 aircraft, including fighters at the IAF’s Yelahanka base.

Kumaraswamy’s appeal to the Defense Minister came at a review meeting of the air show that concluded in the evening on a high note, with over a lakh of people crowding the venue to witness the metal birds fly and perform aerobatics.

The Chief Minister made the appeal personally as the Defence Minister did not announce dates of Aero India 2021 at the inaugural event on Wednesday though it is has been the practice hitherto and is customary at all international air shows.

Speculation was rife in July-August last year about a change of venue when following media reports that the Defence Ministry was planning to shift the prestigious event to Uttar Pradesh ahead of the general elections.

The massive fire in the air base parking lot on Saturday that gutted about 300 cars and the death of a IAF pilot after two Sury Kiran jets collided in the air and crashed on Tuesday while rehearsing for the flying display were also discussed at the meeting, where IAF and defence ministry officials, state officials and city police were present.

During the meeting the reason for fire at parking place and mitigating measures taken after the incident were discussed, with state Home Minister M.B. Patil who was also present. 

“The meeting decided to take precautions while organizing such events in future and measures to mitigate the hardship of the gutted car owners,” added the statement.

Nasheman News :Hospitalised Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar is under observation and should be discharged “in a day, or a day and a half max”, Goa Health Minister Vishwajit Rane said here on Sunday, urging people “not to speculate” about his health.

As confirmed by the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) on Saturday, a team of Delhi-based All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) doctors, led by professor of gastroenterology Pramod Garg arrived at the Goa Medical College near Panaji and examined Parrikar, who was earlier hospitalised at the Delhi hospital.

However, Rane while speaking to reporters late on Sunday said that while some of the medication which was prescribed to Parrikar have been changed by the AIIMS specialist, no endoscopy procedure was performed and that the former Defence Minister’s parameters are stable. He also said that an infection, which Parrikar was suffering from, “is under control”.

Rane also said that it is better that Parrikar remains hospitalised, because “all doctors, everything is there”.

Rane later tweeted a public appeal urging people not to heed to rumours vis-a-vis the Chief Minister’s health.

“There was no endoscopy performed, nor is there any sign of bleeding. He will be kept under observation for another 24 hours and discharged thereafter. Appealing all to follow my tweets for latest updates on the CM’s health and not pay heed to rumours.”

Rane’s tweet contradicts a formal statement by the CMO on Saturday, which said that Parrikar would be undergoing an “upper GI endoscopy” procedure at the top state government hospital.

Amid reports of his deteriorating health, Parrikar, who is suffering from advanced pancreatic cancer, was hospitalised on Saturday evening.

While the CMO on Saturday said he is stable and being admitted for a gastrointestinal endoscopy, Rane speaking to reporters in the night denied the same, triggering further speculation about Parrikar’s health.

Sources at the Goa Medical College, where the Chief Minister is admitted, said Parrikar is being treated for internal bleeding. “The internal bleeding was caused by a cut near the intestine,” the source said.

Parrikar was diagnosed with advanced pancreatic cancer in February last year and has been in and out of hospitals in Goa, Mumbai, Delhi and New York since.

Meanwhile, the Congress in Goa has asked people to pray for the Chief Minister’s health and not to mock his ill-health.

Nasheman News :  Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on Sunday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of cashing in on farmers’ plight for votes and said that launching the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) scheme at end of his tenure will not help him win the elections.

Modi on Sunday launched the PM-KISAN scheme by transferring the first instalment of Rs 2,000 each to over one crore farmers. Under the scheme, Rs 6,000 will be given per year to small and marginal farmers having combined land holding or ownership of up to 2 hectares.

“The attempt to win the elections by announcing the Rs 6,000 per annum scheme for the farmers will not help Modi, as the they have become intelligent,” Gehlot said at a press conference here. 

He also asked why the scheme was not launched earlier. 

“Prime Minister Modi said in Tonk on Saturday that the Congress raises the loan waiver issue only when the elections are near. But why did the Central government not introduce the Rs 6,000 per annum scheme five years back.”

Gehlot also expressed his doubts whether such a meagre amount will benefit the farmer in this era of high inflation. “Modi should know that we are giving higher pension to the farmers.”

The Rajasthan government on Saturday announced to provide Rs 1,000 monthly pension to small and marginalised farmers above 75 years of age. It will also give Rs 750 monthly pension to small and marginalised women farmers above 55 years of age and male farmers above 58 years of age without any regular source of income.

Gehlot also twisted the poll slogan “Modi hai to mumkin hai,” coined by Modi, to “Modi hai to namumkin hai.”

Addressing a rally at Tonk on Saturday, Modi said, “Public trusts the present government because of the work carried out in the last four years. People know ‘Modi hai to mumkin hai’ (People know that if Modi is there, everything is possible).”

Gehlot said, “It is not right to say ‘Modi hai to mumkin hai.’ Instead, one should say ‘Modi hai to namumkin hai’ (if Modi is there, nothing is possible) as the Prime Minister could not fulfil a single promise made during the election campaign before the 2014 polls.” 

Nasheman News :A Delhi court on Monday granted bail to journalist Priya Ramani in a defamation case filed by former Union Minister M.J. Akbar.

Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Samar Vishal granted bail to Ramani asking her to furnish a personal bond and surety of Rs 10,000 each.

The court has listed the matter for further hearing on April 10.

Ramani appeared before the court in pursuance of summons issued against her in the defamation case filed by the former Minister of State for External Affairs after Ramani named him in a case of misconduct.

She was the first in a long list of women journalists to accuse the former Minister and journalist-turned-politician of sexual harassment.

The allegations against Akbar, 68, dated back to his former career in journalism. 

Ramani revealed in October 2018 that an article she wrote in 2017 about an unnamed editor’s predatory behaviour was in fact about M.J. Akbar. 

She said he was as “talented a predator” as he was a writer. Several other women since have come forward with stories about him.

Akbar has denied the allegations made against him and said they were “false and imaginary”.

The statements of seven witnesses, including that of Akbar, who is now with the Bharatiya Janata Party, have been recorded in the defamation case.

 India’s ace badminton player P.V. Sindhu on Saturday flew in homegrown Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas at the Aero India air show being held in Bengaluru.

“The flight was a wonderful experience. The captain performed various maneouvers, including a loop,” Sindhu told the media after the sortie which lasted for about 40 minutes.

The combat jet’s trainer version was piloted by Group Captain Siddharth Singh, while Sindhu was the co-pilot in the tandem-seater cockpit.

Sindhu is the first woman to fly in a Tejas aircraft.

“The aircraft was on a medium altitude sortie and flew up to a maximum height of about five km,” an Indian Air Force (IAF) official told IANS.

Chief of Army Staff General Bipin Rawat also flew in the aircraft on Thursday.

The LCA on February 20 got the final operational clearance (FOC) from military aviation regulator Centre for Military Airworthiness and Certification (Cemilac) for induction into the IAF as a weaponised fighter jet in its operational fleet.

Prem Shankar Jhas column in The Wire caused my mind to wander in an unlikely direction: Kanpur riots soon after the demolition of Babari Masjid. Jhas piece headlined “In Pulwama, Narendra Modi has found the trigger he needed before 2019 elections” must be read keeping in mind that he was the first to push the barricades.

I shall revert to this, but first Kanpur:

Cameraman Kabir Khan, (now a fine film maker) with a keen eye for the story, ended up shooting something refreshingly different from the riots we had originally turned up to cover. In fact Gopal Gandhi picked the video for special screening at London’s Nehru Centre of which he was the director then.

The first of four scenes opens in a small room in which the dominant furniture is a high settee, the size of a bed. The sole occupant of the room is a middle aged woman in a crumpled, cotton sari. The neighbours, guiding us, addressed her as Panditayin, one married to a Pundit. The settee, it turns out, is a large size trunk which Panditayin had used to hide her neighbour, one Aayesha Bi, a woman of considerable bulk whom we also met. Rioters carrying rods and lathis barged into the room. They lunged towards the bathroom. “Are you hiding her there?” Panditayin told us she “swore in Rama’s name” that she was hiding nobody. Only after they left, showering expletives on “Pakistan”, did Aayesha Bi emerge from the trunk, drenched in sweat.

Scene two has Tripathiji, standing between a threatening mob and a large iron gate opening onto a park where Muslim families had taken shelter. “Musalman ke do sthaan; Pakistan ya Qabrustan”. (A Muslim can only go to Pakistan or a graveyard), the mob shouted, brandishing their weapons. But Tripathiji would not budge.

Scene three cuts to a terrace full of building material at the corner of a narrow lane leading to a Muslim basti. On the day of the riots, the approaching mob was checked by a hail of bricks from the terrace. The sole occupant of the terrace, an elderly woman in white sari had launched the missiles single handedly. One of the rioters recognized her.

“O’ Mishraen, please let us pass.” She did not relent. Mishraen means one married to a “Mishra”.

Later, when we interviewed her, she was in tears. She spoke in a rural dialect “dui din se roti naheen khai payin, betwa, itni nafrat dekh kar.” (I couldn’t touch bread, my son, at the sight of so much hatred.)

The last scene shows Pandeyji holding back the sword wielding rioters by simply standing in the middle of the lane, arms stretched sideways.

Panditayin, Tripathiji, Mishraen and Pandeyji, among others, must have saved, say, a hundred lives. The moral of the story is quite plain: a great deal of innate decency shines through even in the midst of blinding darkness. When this decency asserts itself, it can turn the tide, as happened in the four instances mentioned above. But it is almost incredible that bloodthirsty mobs would slink back when confronted by one individual of courage? Somewhere here is the sort of leadership which is recognized by a settled social order. Another point: all the four who stood up to the mobs, happened to be Brahmins. Was this a coincidence? Could individuals from another caste have felt secure enough to stand upto a rioting mob?

Against this backdrop, consider Prem Shankar Jha’s audacious intervention on the post Pulwama gameplan. The tragic death of 40 plus CRPF jawans had caused an eerie silence to descend on all, particularly Muslim enclaves. It was ominous. Telephones kept buzzing. These were more in the nature of signals – signals of anxiety. Not much conversation took place. Folks were afraid to talk on open phone lines, just in case, in their nervousness, they blurt out something which is not in line with prevailing jingoism.

The video footage of candle vigils in and around towns and villages where funeral processions were being taken out, reminded me of “shila pujan”, when bricks consecrated in local temples were taken out in procession towards Ayodhya as part of preparation for the Ram temple. This was in 1989. The fierce Hindu-Muslim divide that the “shila” processions created, resulted in the Bhagalpur pogrom, among scores of other, smaller ones. I was there.

Communal violence by itself does not yield electoral advantage, but communalism tied to nationalism can be stretched out until the real, or contrived, denouement, which can, if perfectly timed, create the potential to turn elections. Except for some exceptions, the electronic media has all but declared war on Pakistan. How long will it last? Supposing they raise their dedicated jingoism to the heights of one Geraldo Rivera of Fox News. Remember, when the hunt for Osama bin Laden was at its peak in Afghanistan around November 2001, Rivera whipped out a revolver, taking aim at the camera. “I shall blow his head off should I see him.”

Why did I not write on this theme all these days? Well, no journalist worth his salt did. Everybody was in a state of funk. What a sigh of relief all around when Mamata Banerjee took the Prime Minister to task for building an election campaign as the only patriot. “Why did New Delhi not act on the intelligence available to them?” she asked. Rahul Gandhi’s soporific response was a mystery. Thank God he woke up.

The truth is that the suffocating silence in the media was first broken by Prem Jha. The tone of my piece betrays a query which I have posed on the pain of being politically incorrect. As in Kanpur did it take a Brahmin to stand up where others were fearful? Is the Brahmin a metaphor for the leader whom societies will always need at critical moments? Of course, this runs headlong into the metaphysical dilemma: the constant quest for egalitarianism.

But in the context of Prem Jha’s intervention, Josh Malihadadi’s lament seems apt:

“Koi awaz pe awaz naheen deta hai”
(No one transmits the call, from one peak to the next until the deafening echo pulverizes the enemy.)