A very good reply on the Judge issue:
Jesus will bless those who work: Former judge
A Supreme Court judge has written to the Prime Minister after his letter to the Chief Justice of India to postpone a conference on account of Good Friday did not yield results but a retired judge has pointed out that "implementing justice" on sacred day is also a "holy act".
In his April 1 letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Justice Kurien Joseph expressed anguish over a three-day conference of high court judges that began today in New Delhi. Modi is scheduled to address the concluding session on Sunday.
But Justice K.T. Thomas, a widely respected former judge who served in the Supreme Court, told
The Telegraph from Kottayam in Kerala:
"On a previous occasion in 2007, the conference of chief justices was held (on a Good Friday), nobody even bothered. This is because today there are people who want to show that there is Christian persecution in India, to which I don't agree. There is no persecution of Christians in India. I am a church-going Christian. For the last 12 years, I am delivering sermon on Good Friday. That is my personal thing and belief."
Justice Thomas, who had presided over the Rajiv Gandhi assassination trial in the Supreme Court and turned out a request from the Centre to head the Lokpal selection committee, added: "What the chief justices are doing is also a holy act. They are implementing justice for the people on a Good Friday. Jesus Christ will bless them. The criticism only shows that some people have become intolerant."
Chief Justice of India H.L. Dattu had earlier rejected Justice Kurien Joseph's plea, pointing out that it was not the first time the conference was being held on a public holiday. The objective was to avoid disrupting normal working days of the courts in the country with a huge backlog of cases.
In his letter to the Prime Minister, Justice Kurien Joseph said: "Irrespective of the religion, Diwali, Holi, Dussehra, Eid, Bakrid, Christmas, Easter etc. are great days of festival celebrations in the neighbourhood. Your good self would kindly appreciate that no important programmes are held during sacred and auspicious days of Diwali, Dussehra, Holi, Eid, Bakrid etc., though we have holidays during that period as well."
While recalling the rich secular and cultural history of India, Justice Kurien Joseph further said: "The reason for writing this letter... is that of late, the world is in the midst of sectarian and communal violence, and brothers are turning on one another in the name of religion. Even the countries of Europe who claim to be the bastion of religious liberalism are entering a period of uncertainty. The Middle East is facing large-scale conflicts on religious lines. In the midst of this crisis, India shines as a beacon and a model of religious harmony.... The whole world jealously looks at the beauty of the secular image, communal harmony and cultural integrity of our great nation. India must in these trying times, safeguard her credentials and be a model that other nations must follow.
"I know it is too late to reschedule the events. But being the guardian of Indian secularism, I request your Honour to kindly have in mind these concerns also while scheduling events and benevolently show equal importance and respect to the sacred days of all religions which are also declared as National holidays. I have shared these concerns with the Hon'ble Chief Justice of India as well."
In his earlier letter to Justice Dattu, Justice Kurien Joseph had said: "Please do not think I am striking a communal note only since I see institution like ours which are otherwise bound to protect secular ethos and project the secular image as per the mandate of the Constitution are slowly drifting away from the Constitutional obligation I thought of putting this concern in writing. I am afraid the conference which we are holding now on the holy and national holidays gives a wrong message to other Constitutional institutions and public bodies who may feel compelled not to give equal importance and respect to all the holy days."
But Justice Dattu replied: "... Had I or any of my other brother judges been in your place, if I may say so, we would have valued institutional interests more than family commitments...."
Justice Dattu said: "Now the question that I have to ask myself, perhaps I cannot ask you, is whether it is the institutional interest or the individual interest that one should give preference to. As far as I am concerned I would give priority to the former and not to the latter." Serving judges usually do not speak to the media, especially on issues being discussed at the highest echelons of the judiciary.
Justice K.T. Thomas, the former judge, pointed out that Australia, which has a high Christian population, had conducted the recent World Cup cricket final on a Sunday, which is also considered holy for Christians. "I have not heard any Christian protesting about it. Second, this is a country, where only 3 per cent of the population are Christians. In America the Christians constitute 97 per cent, but Good Friday is not even a holiday there."
"Millions of Christians live in Gulf countries (where the weekly holiday falls on Friday) but I have not heard any Christian raising any grievance (that Sunday is not a holiday). On the other hand, they agreed to adjust on a Friday for church worship," Justice Thomas said.
Sadly we do not have enough of Christians like K T Thomas or Robert Rosario (guy who replied to Julio Ribeiro). They are in the minority. The same way muslims who see Abdul Kalam as an ideal to emulate is in the minority.
Meanwhile ........
Top Lies spread by the Indian Media in March 2015
BIGGEST Offender ? "INDIA TODAY" i.e. "AAJ TAK" Group.
1. 2nd March 2015:
Press Trust of India, and subsequently all Media houses – BJP MP Sadhvi Prachi calls for boycott of Aamir, Shah Rukh and Salman Khan films
Based on a PTI report, all media houses published a story that a “BJP MP” has asked to boycott films by the Khan trio. What was amazing was Sadhvi Prachi was never a BJP MP. She was never ever elected to any pots on a BJP ticket. As per this site, She could have been a BJP MLA candidate from UP, provided both the Prachi’s are the same. She was certainly a BJP member though, since she was hauled up by BJP UP president for her remarks. But the main reason why this story got played up was that many people believed she was a BJP MP.
2. 2nd March 2015:
IndiaToday – Valdimir Putin’s original name is Vaarahmihir Putr Singh, says Sadhvi Prachi
But Media was not done with the Sadhvi. First they made her an MP, now they put words in her mouth. India Today ran this story which claimed the Sadhvi had said Putin’s original name was “Vaarahmihir Putr Singh”. There was huge outrage on Twitter, hashtags like #VHPNames and #AlternateHinduNames trended. Even Pakistani media picked up this story. But sometime during this, India Today mysteriously took down the story. It was probably because this story was a full blown out lie. The Sadhvi never made such a statement. In fact this statement was made by a humour columnist in a satirical post on dailyo.in :
If you are from Sangh Parivar – all the better if you are a BJP member – and the media doesn’t show your mug on TV because they are busy pushing sound bites from senior leaders, here’s a sure-shot method to get bang under the spotlight: Say something outrageous. Say Vladimir Putin is Hindu and his name is Vaarahmihir Putr Singh
It is astounding how big media houses like India Today can “err” so much, or was it another wilful plant to tarnish a particular party, because even in this story, India Today re-iterated that the Sadhvi was a “BJP MP”.
3. 3rd March 2015:
Times of India – LS poll-eve NaMo blitz cost BJP Rs 700cr: ADR
On the face of it, there is nothing wrong here, but Times of India, the master at misreporting, spreads 2 lies here. Firstly they say “NaMo blitz cost BJP Rs 700 Cr”. We checked the original ADR report, which Times of India relied on. As per the ADR report, Rs 700 Cr (Rs 712 Cr to be exact) was the TOTAL expenditure incurred by BJP on Publicity, Travel, Expenditure on Candidates and Others, and not on “NaMo Blitz” as they claimed. Secondly, Times of India said the “LS Poll-Eve” blitz cost Rs 700 Cr. This again is wrong. The TOTAL expenditure over 75 days of election period, was Rs 700 Cr and not for the “LS Poll-Eve”, as reported. By using 2 lies in one statement, Times of India managed to magnify the impact disproportionately in order to create a sensation.
4. 4th March 2015:
India Today – PM Narendra Modi’s office among top rejectors of RTI queries
Considering the major brainfades we usually have, this is a minor one. On 4th March, India Today from its Twitter handle tweeted the above caption saying Modi is a serial rejector of RTI queries. On seeing the actual story, it was clear that the report was about RTI queries rejected during 2013-14 i.e. during Manmohan Singh’s tenure. Yet India Today in its tweet tagged Narendra Modi, to create a false impression. And then in what seemed to be a concerted effort or mass brain fade, even Outlook and Economic Times posted the same stories, using photos of Narendra Modi in the article, again creating a false impression.
5. 9th March 2015:
Scroll.in – Read the controversial emails by Prashant Bhushan’s sister that pushed AAP to breaking point
A series of emails from Shalini Gupta, sister of Prashant Bhushan were picked by Scroll.in. A story based on these emails painted Gupta in the negative. The article said “her emails demonstrate that she was not willing to wait for the verdict of the AAP Lokpal, Admiral (retd) L Ramdas, on the suitability of 12 nominations that were being challenged”. However Scroll.in leaked only selective emails and did not look at all the emails, thus providing a wrong image. As per this post on Newslaundry.com, Gupta in her last response to the mail trail wrote exactly the opposite “I think since the review process is going on, there should not be any cause for concern at this point. This is a satisfactory solution for now.”. This Scroll.in omitted crucial emails and reported something which was totally opposite to the truth. The author of the story now claims he did not have the entire trail of emails. We wonder if relying on half-information is incompetence or a deliberate attempt to malign.
6. 15th March 2015:
Press Trust of India – and subsequently other media: Gandhi Jayanti no longer a public holiday in Goa
We had written a full post on this on the very same day. The summary of the post is, the Goa Government while maintaining Gandhi Jayanti as a public holiday removed it from the holidays for Industries and Factories, by giving another compensatory holiday based on local needs. It also continued to be a holiday for Shops and Establishments. So the only people affected were workers in factories, and a for a valid reason. But PTI reported that it was no longer a public holiday which was completely inaccurate. Later Hindustan Times, which relied on PTI corrected its story, but PTI had stuck to its wrong news.
7. 17th March 2015:
DNA – Supreme Court sets aside Modi Government Order for Reservations to Jat Community
A small “slip up” possible by DNA, but the internet is unforgiving. On 17th March the Supreme Court set aside a Central Government order for Jat Reservation. The quota was announced by the UPA Government on March 4 last year, just a day before the announcement of the Lok Sabha polls. Although this was clearly an order by UPA, DNA decided to credit Modi for the same. By the time we were made aware of this, they had rectified the “error”, but a Google search confirmed that they had indeed blamed Modi’s Government for this. The Google search also confirmed that this error was exclusive to DNA and no other media house had erred. It must however be noted that once Modi came to power, his Government supported this UPA decision in the courts.
8. 17th March 2015:
Indian Express – Nun Gang Rape Case: Archbishop clears Mamata, blames Modi govt for rising violence against minorities
We had written a separate post on this issue. Indian Express reported that the Archbishop of Kolkata had criticised the CBI (a national body) for its poor work in the Rape case, thus giving a clean chit to Mamata. In fact the Archbishop had criticised the CID (local Bengal body) and had never cleared Mamata Bannerjee. Later Indian Express correct this error, but maintained that Mamata had been cleared. The report also suggested that the Archbishop gave the rape a communal angle, but failed to report the clear words of the Archbishop where he squarely refused to make any Communal or Political comments on the rape. This was reported by many other media houses.
9. 25th March 2015:
IndiaToday: Right Wing groups arrested in Mumbai church “attack“
Journalist Rupa Subramanya, via this tweet raised a point that an India Today report was claiming that people arrested in the Mumbai Church attack, belonged to Right Wing groups. The truth in fact, as reported by multiple news portals, was that the men arrested were gamblers, whose den, which is located near the church was raided recently. On suspicion that the Church ratted them out, they attacked the church. Inspite of knowing this plain truth, India Today’s reported tried to fix the blame on “Right Wing Groups” . Eventually the story was corrected, hence we donot have a screen grab of the original story.