Pairokar

NDTV issue exposes the duplicity of a section of media and powerful influencers in India. This lobby has been telling people worldwide that the company's owners (wife and husband) were forced to sell lion's shares of their company to a business tycoon. They allege that huge pressure was brought to bear on them to offload their shares because their news channel has been an eyesore for the government. According to these people, NDTV became the most popular channel because of its boldness and unsparing reporting. However, one fails to understand that if its proprietors have been so bold then how and why did they buckle under the pressure of the government of the day? N Ram and company have been crying foul from the housetops that deal of Roy’s with the Adani group was done by adopting coercive methods. If it was so, then why Roys, the so-called champions of freedom of speech and expression and other conscience keepers of the country did not raise the hue and cry over the sini

One often wonders that why there is so much brouhaha by a section of pseudo-intellectuals over the sale of NDTV by a crafty capitalist duo, claiming to be the espousers of public interest to a proclaimed industrialist. This duo made a huge amount of money by adopting all the tricks of the trade, which could be unbecoming of any ethical and intellectual person. But by their intellectual posturing both accumulated stinking amounts of wealth. They are said to have assets worth thousands of crores, that too, within a span of two/ three decades. It is said they were living in a Barsati of a house but in a very little time, they made hundreds of crores, mostly because of their connections with powers that be. They are, thus, classic examples of crony capitalism. There was an Income Tax Officer, some Srivastav, who used to publicly say that husband and wife duo- Pranoy Roy and Radhika Roy owned a ramp consisting of hundreds of acres of land in an African country. So, NDTV was like any oth

          Frequent elections have made the manifestos redundant. They have now become an exercise in futility, although they were never taken seriously by most people. The general impression is that manifestos are merely for discussions and debates of some elites, who claim to be intellectuals but hardly have any say in the decision-making process of political parties or the electorates because elections are mostly held on the castes and religious considerations. For example, Muslims except for a group of Shias, never vote for the BJP irrespective of its highly promising manifestos. More or less the same is the case with Christians.  Manifestos are, therefore, meaningless for them because their only agenda is to defeat the BJP.  Look at the schemes of the BJP governments, which have been benefitting all sections of society regardless of their castes or communities and yet they are clear-headed that they would go for any candidate, who can defeat the BJP.   In some places, certain

  It is very sad that in less than a month two eminent retired Professors of Philosophy of Allahabad University- Dr D N Dwivedi and Dr Ram Lal Singh- left for their heavenly abode. Both of them were in their eighties and were the giants of Indian and Western Philosophy. I knew them through my father-in-law Dr Sabhajit Mishra, who is also a retired Professor of Philosophy from Gorakhpur University and who formed the distinguished company with them along with Dr (Professor) R R Pandey of the Banaras Hindu University. All of them have been very eminent and highly respected by their students and colleagues as well.   They have been foremost in developing the scientific temper of reasoning and logic among the students of philosophy. They inculcated the ambience of learning and thinking to the seekers of knowledge. It is because of these illustrious teachers most of the students coming from eastern Uttar Pradesh normally opted for philosophy as a subject for their undergraduate and postg

               Planting fake and false news is not new to journalism. This practice has been going on for quite a long time but the scale and frequency with which it is being resorted to these days by a cross-section of motivated people and organisations are too much to recount. The sad part of it is that those who claim to be the champions of the cause of truth and objectivity are also indulging in this nefarious practice.  Some time ago we have seen that an operator of a Utube channel, who boasted himself to be the fact checker floated a wild rumour about himself having been shortlisted for the Nobel Peace Prize. Many news channels became a willing and collusive parties to give credence and wide publicity to the wild rumour.    A few years back a TV Channel spread the false news about a schoolteacher running the flesh trade and using the girl students at the school to make money. The said rumour spoiled not only the career of the innocent teacher but brought disrepute to the scho

     Live streaming of the proceedings of some of the High Courts and three Constitution Benches in the Supreme Court has already given an inkling of how the courts (mal) function in India. If one can see the erudition, courtesy and learning of some of the judges and the advocates then at the same time the tantrums and arrogance of some of the judges and bluffs and bragging of some advocates can also be witnessed. Some of the judges look grotesque with their unbecoming attitude and they give of the appearance of a headmaster in the courtrooms. Instead of asking searching and incisive questions from the advocates and clients, their arrogance and ill manners come into display.   When we were campaigning for the live telecasting of the court proceedings, many used to oppose it tooth and nail. Their only logic was that the judges and advocates should not be exposed to the mockery or merriment of the general public. They came forward with all sorts of asinine logic against live streamin

  A constitution bench of the Supreme Court of India is engaged in hearing many petitions filed against the demonetisation of the currency notes of Rs 500 and 1000 denominations. One thing is clear the outcome of these petitions will be definitely infructuous at the cost of a huge judicial time. There is no denying that demonetisation largely curbed the flow of black money.  Be that as it may, demonetisation has given a great push to the digitalisation of payments. The Narendra Modi government must be credited to have incentivised and encouraging the Apps like GPay, Payfone and Bhim etc. One can move around without carrying cash. It is the swiftest mode of receiving and making payments without any hassle.  Think of those days when a term was used by the newspapers like ‘money order economy ’. It was very cumbersome and a delaying mode of remittance. The Post offices used to tell at the very outset that any complaint for non-delivery of the money ordered amount would be accepted or

                  Two conmen- Prateek Sinha and Mohammad Zubair- should be complimented for having spread the false news that both of them have been shortlisted for Nobel Peace Prize and many believed them. They also got some congratulatory messages from the echo system of which they have been the part and parcel. The mockery is that they claimed to be awarded for running a fact-checking portal called Alt news, which is more known for the notoriety of peddling fake news. It was this portal which was responsible for creating an atmosphere of communal frenzy in India. These Johnnies were successful in ploughing the hate campaign against a BJP leader, which had resulted in an all-India chorus for ‘tan se juda’ slogan by a section of a community.   It is said that rumours have no legs but only wings. By the time, the truth is known the rumours already get caused enough damage. It would have been most incredible fiction, even if the names of these liars had been remotely thought of conf

               Untold Stories of the Framing of the Indian Constitution: An Absorbing Book      ‘Bhartiya Samvidhan Unkahi Kahani’ by the journalist Ram Bahadur Rai is a highly informative book on the making of India‘s Constitution in a very lucid and anecdotal style. What prompted Shri Rai to go for this book has been elucidated in the preamble of his book. It must be mentioned here that the first meeting of the Constituent Assembly for the framing of the Constitution took place on 9 th  December 1946, more than nine months before the country achieved independence on 15 th  August 1947. Obviously, this Constituent Assembly was not elected by the people, yet its legitimacy was beyond any reproach. Initially, there were 389 members of this Assembly out of it, 292 were elected through the Provincial Legislative Assemblies: 93 were the representatives of the Indian Princely States, and four members represented the Chief Commissioners of Provinces. However, as a result of partition under t

                        By Parmanand Pandey     My colleague Shripal Singh and I have been regularly campaigning for the live streaming of the court proceedings. I have written copiously on it in my blog’ Life and Law’ as well as on my website’ Judicial Panorama’. Fortunately, a good beginning of live streaming of three Constitution Benches has been made from today i.e., 27 th of September 2022. The decision to video-record the court proceedings was taken in November 2017 by the bench headed by the then CJI Dipak Misra. It was then directed by it that the proceedings of two courts in every district of the country would be video recorded. In the first week of 2018, again the bench consisting of the then CJI, Dipak Misra, Justice A.M. Khanwilkar and Justice D.Y. Chandrachud gave a verdict that the live telecasting of the court proceedings would begin from the court of the Chief Justice of India itself.   There are many democratic countries where a video recording of the courts is

  The Government of Jammu and Kashmir must be congratulated for two bold recent decisions after the abrogation of Articles 370 and 35 A from the Constitution of India. One is to make Hindi the official language of the state apart from Urdu and the second is to grant voting rights to nearly 25 lakh people, who have been living there for decades together but were deprived of their legitimate rights.    This gerrymandering and the delimitation of the state along with the new electoral rolls will go a long way in the integration of Jammu and Kashmir with the rest of India. Was it not an insult to lakhs of refugees who came from Pakistan and settled down in Jammu and Kashmir but were denied voting rights? So much so, that thousands of Valmikis, who gave everything in the service of J@K for generations did not have voting rights for 75 years. Sikhs, who came from the western side of the border and were domiciled in the state yet were denied their voting rights.   The law says that anyb

 Going through the popular column of journalist Vivek Shukla ‘Dilli dil se’ in a Hindi daily of Delhi provides enormous profit and immense pleasure. It is simply engrossing and enlightening. His pen portraits of the historical places and the history of Delhi leave an indelible mark on the mind. It is the simplest way of recounting history. However, the stories of the monumental tragedy of the partition of India in 1947 grip any reader with extreme sadness, agony, anguish, and anger. Partition of India of India, without doubt, was the most incredible human catastrophe in which lakhs were killed, millions were uprooted, and properties worth billions were destroyed. The biggest onslaught was faced by women who were raped, ravished, and killed by devils.  ‘Train to Pakistan’ by Khushwant Singh and ‘Jhhotha Sach’ of legendry Yashpal or ‘Tamas’ of Bhishma Sahni has given a vivid picture of death and destruction that was caused by the division of our motherland.  It is true that the refugee

  The credit for coining the words like ‘Rashtrapati’, ‘Shri’ and ‘Shrimati’ for the ‘President of India’, ‘Mr’ and ‘Mrs’ go to famous Hindi journalist Pandit Baba Baburao Vishnu Paradkar when he was the editor of the daily Aaj of Varanasi. Hindi journalism has produced six great editors- Baburao Vishnu Paradkar, Rajaram Khadilkar, Lakshman Narain Garde, Ambika Prasad Vajpayee, Pandit Kamla Pati Tripathi and Vidyabhaskar. Pandit Kamlapati Tripathi later left journalism to become an active politician. This group was later known as ‘Five Greats of Hindi journalism. Incidentally, all of them had their roots in Kashi and some association with Calcutta. The first three of them were Marathi speaking and the last one Pandit Vidyabhaskar was Telugu speaking. Only Ambika Prasad Vajpayee and Pt Kamla Pati Tripathi belonged to the Hindi heartland. It must be mentioned here that Hindi journalism was born in Calcutta, and it was from here Pandit Jugal Kishore Shukla brought out ‘Udant Martand’, the

     My friend Ravindra Nath Tripathi, an Advocate practising in the courts of Azamgarh has sent me an invite to the annual conference of Uttar Bharat Darshan Parishad, which is being organised on the campus of the prestigious Children College and Schools of Azamgarh. In a way, it is the most appropriate place to hold this annual conference. This conference will impel the new generation of students to develop and broaden the horizon of their rational thinking. It is situated a few kilometres away from the din and bustle of the town in a tranquil ambience of the village Belaisa. It is being held for three days from 15 th to 17 th July. Azamgarh is the land of Rishi Duravasa. A village named after Rishi Durvasa is located on the confluence of rivers-Tamsa and Majhui and it has acquired the status of a pious pilgrim centre, where people from far-off places assemble for three days in the month Kartik for holy dips in the Sangam.      Azamgarh has been systematically impoverished by t

Lord Atkin has said ‘justice is not a cloistered virtue, she must be allowed to suffer the scrutiny and respectful, even though outspoken, comments of ordinary men. That is why the oral observations of the Supreme Court in Nupur Sharma’s Transfer Petition must be allowed to be freely commented upon by the public. In fact, the observations are not only uncalled for and unwarranted but highly disturbing. If the Supreme Court was so troubled with what Nupur Sharma had said in the heat of a TV debate, it should have been recorded in the order sheet but the SC rather preferred to lecture orally on her conduct. This obiter dicta comment ought to have been avoided by the judges because it will adversely affect Nupur Sharma in getting justice. Although obiter dicta are legally not binding on the courts below, it will certainly be cited to persuade and prejudice the mind of judges of lower court judges. A transfer petition is normally filed by the litigants for transferring the case from one

Sometimes extraordinary measures need to be adopted to deal with an extraordinary situation. The manner in which the peace was being hijacked by some rioters in different places of Uttar Pradesh after the Friday prayers in mosques was highly disturbing for the common people. There could be no room for any doubt that it was being planned by some and executed by namazis. Yogi government has restored the peace sooner than it was expected by administering the ‘bulldozer medicine’. The preliminary revelations have made it clear that the vicious radical PFI has been responsible for the state-wide trouble. But what is more troublesome is the letter of some former judges of the Supreme Court and the High Courts and some advocates to the Chief Justice of India requesting him to take suo motu cognizance of the use of bulldozers to stop the razing of the houses of the rioters. As far as the identification of culprits is concerned, nobody is expected to know better than them that real culprits m

                          Arun Shourie’s latest book ‘The Commissioner for Lost Causes’ is absolutely boring and insipid, and it does not enlighten in any manner whatsoever. It is an account of the self-righteousness of Arun Shourie. Let it be said that it has unfortunately now become a new trend or fashion for most of the journalist-writers to tom-tom about themselves. In the book, Shourie has reproduced long reports from newspapers, official files or the letters that he had written earlier to buttress his own conclusions. In some places, he has praised Ram Nath Goenka, the owner of the Indian Express Group of newspapers but at many times he has traduced him in his book. Ram Nath Goenka was called RNG by his well-wishers and admirers, however, for workers he was always Lalaji. In the eyes of Shourie, he was intrepid, fearless and courageous till he subserved the interests of this self-styled thinker. But when RNG started reining him in, Shourie brought forth his all demerits of a

  Stone pelting after the Juma Namaz (Friday Prayers) at various places in the country amply demonstrates that some forces, which are inimical to India are actively engaged in hatching a conspiracy to shatter the peace and harmony. This is being done in the name of opposing Nupur Sharma. Demonstrations and gheraos are legitimate rights of the people in our country. Even for peaceful dharna and pradarshan permission from the police is necessary but in such types of orchestrated violence police and other citizens are attacked by Namazis. It is generally believed that after the Namaz, devotees would turn to peaceful self-introspection but here they become violent and target police and the public by pelting stones. This could not have been a spontaneous incident as it happened simultaneously at many places. This was a well-thought plan, which is clear from the fact that stones could not be collected on the spur of the moment. Therefore, to maintain law and order and to restore the confiden