[IAC#RG] PROTEST against selective / biased news selection by PTI

To:

The Editor-in-Charge of news selection

PTI (Press Trust of India)

By Email,

Sir

This concerns PTI's selective, biased and discriminatory editorial policies when it comes to news selection involving the undersigned.

You will recall that a report titled as "India Against Corruption' was a conspiracy against UPA: Congress" was published by PTI Bhopal at 10:27 pm on 24.Dec 2017. I, as National Convenor India Against Corruption immediately protested this motivated report (copy below) and and PTI put out some kind of misleading and censored version of our rejoinder as a consequence.

http://www.business-standard.com/article/pti-stories/iac-rejects-congress-s-conspiracy-charge-against-forum-117122500566_1.html

Consequent to the keen interest being taken in IAC by the Congress Party recently, the IAC Core Committee, consisting of the leading RTI and social activist of India, decided to revive the RTI I had filed in 2012 to Shri Motilal Vohra (then the designated RTI incharge for Congress Party) concerning religion and caste of Shri Rahul Gandhi being misused for electoral advantage. Accordingly, a second RTI was immediately filed to the Election Commission on 27.12.2017 by me and because Congress is refusing to respect the decision of Central Information Commission that they are public authority and under RTI regime.

The Election Commission of India has not replied in any manner to the RTI request or RTI Appeal we have filed thereafter to them concerning Mr. Rahul Gandhi religion and caste etc as being deceitfully represented by their party spokespersons and through political posters.

I, as an expert in Hinduism, Arya Samaj conversions and also current Pradhanacharya of the Hindu Samaj of India, am unable to understand exactly how a such a public personage with at least 3 out of 4 non-Hindu grandparents becomes a Hindu under the law and also possesses a Brahmin's caste. I am certain that a substantial number of Indian electors would also like to know the truth of the Gandhi-Nehru family's religion(s) and caste (if any) and if the ARYA MARRIAGE VALIDATION ACT 1939 is being regularly misused for this purpose. When I (as Pradhanacharya of Hindu Samaj of India) submitted a press release to this effect to PTI based on RTI filings with verifiable registration numbers from DoPT's website, we would ordinarily expect that PTI would publish our claims as equally and easily as that of the Congress Party spokesperson Shri Deepak Babaria who plied your reporters with food and drink at Bhopal to get his mischievous story about IAC published without any supporting documents whatsoever.

I am very sorry to say that in my opinion and based on the record so far, the PTI would be better off being re-labelled as (P)ress(T)itutes(I)ndia news agency and depicted as the primary source of FAKE NEWS in India.

I am therefore calling upon you at PTInews to behave yourselves and respect the motto of India "Satyameva Jayate" by only publishing true facts in future. We are not interested if PTI publishes our press release or not since we decline to be associated with your unreliable organisation and we hereby forbid you to publish anything about INDIA AGAINST CORRUPTION or HINDU SAMAJ of INDIA. We would also expect that PTI does its own research into the controversy for Mr. Rahul Gandhi's religion / caste and informs the public about it as soon as possible.

In protest

Er.Sarbajit Roy

National Convenor- India Against Corruption, jan andolan

Principal - Hindu Samaj of India

B-59 Defence Colony

New Delhi 110024

Mob: 8010205897

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Sarbajit Roy <sroy.mb@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Dec 25, 2017 at 2:52 PM
Subject: REJOINDER : "'India Against Corruption' was a conspiracy against UPA: Congress"
To: trans@pti.in

To:

The News Editors

PTI (Press Trust of India)

Sirs

I am the National Convenor of "India Against Corruption".("IAC")

The India Against Corruption protest and objects to the malicious and false news story tiltled as "India Against Corruption' was a conspiracy against UPA: Congress" published by PTI Bhopal at 10:27 pm on 24.Dec 2017 which has just come to our notice after it was republised by Indian Express at http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-against-corruption-was-a-conspiracy-against-upa-congress-4997421/  and also by many other newspapers

At the outset, we are aggrieved that your reporter Mr. Ajay Dubey published these malicious canards about IAC only after enjoying the hospitality of Congress Party / Mr. Babaria at their press conference at Bhopal, and Mr. Dubey (mobile number 9827065652) has informed us that he will only correct his report if we throw a similar press conference for him. We say that any responsible or ethical professional reporter is obliged to contact the target of these accusations before filing his report. We further say that PTI's editorial team was obliged to contact us before circulating such statements about us to your subscribers.

We object to this impugned news report of PTI as follows:

1) We object that this report is being connected/attributed to Mr. Manish Tewari (by publishing his photo as part of it) who seems to be unconnected to IAC or this canard We say this report seems to be made by a local unit of Congress Party in Madhya Pradesh

2)  The IAC is a non-political organisation / people's movement. As a movement we are least interested in political parties or their internal affairs or internal corruptions.

3) Ms. Kiran Bedi was never a member of India of India Against Corruption or had anything to do with affairs of India Against Corruption. To our limited knowledge, Ms. Kiran Bedi was a member of the so-called "Team Anna" which was agitating for a LokPal law. Mr. Hazare has also stated on several occasions / news channels that he was also never in IAC.

4) The IAC categorically refutes false statement that "India Against Corruption (IAC) movement was a political weapon used against the then UPA". It is reiterated that IAC, is and has always been, a non-political movement under my leadership since 2007.

5) The IAC categorically refutes the false statement that "IAC was a conspiracy, as evident by the fact that the people like Kiran Bedi who were associated with it later joined hands with the BJP." We reiterate that Ms. Kiran Bedi was never part of IAC and neither was Shri Anna Hazare her mentor. To our limited knowledge Ms. Kiran Bedi has been a long time associate of the BJP and its ideological communal sponsors like the RSS. Since IAC is a secular movement, it is unlikely that Ms. Bedi was ever a part of IAC movement.

6) The IAC categorically refutes false claims of expertise in the report ie. that Shri Deepak Babaria, alleged to be Congress general secretary and party in-charge of Madhya Pradesh, knows anything about India Against Corruption to make such absurd claims on behalf of Congress Party. The IAC suggests that the Madhya Pradesh local unit of Congress Party seems upset with IAC because of an old RTI request filed to Congress Party by the undersigned in his personal capacity as President of Hindu Samaj of India which is long pending with Shri Motilal Vohra (former Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh) seeking to know how Shri Rahul Gandhi is a caste Hindu and specifically a caste Hindu of Brahmin caste. (see http://www.freepressjournal.in/india/rti-notice-served-on-rahul/214666 , http://www.moneylife.in/article/are-activists-barking-at-the-wrong-tree-on-political-parties-being-under-rti/33706.html ). Mr. Deepak Babaria's malicious statement therefore smacks of a personal communal vendetta against myself to distract from the national controversy over the religion and caste of the Congress Party's President who seems to have recently rediscovered some faint minority Nehruvian Hinduness in his bloodlines for electoral reasons.

5) The IAC categorically refutes false innuendoes that IAC is nowhere to be found or is silent on national corruption issues. As a private anti-corruption movement, the IAC is not obliged to explain anything to politicians like Mr. Babaria who are our natural class enemies. Instead Mr. Babaria should introspect how and why the local people of his state eliminated, by assassination, virtually the entire top leadership of his party in greater Madhya Pradesh. Mr. Babaria should investigate how persons close to Ms. Sonia Gandhi and who in her NAC as members were harbouring Maoists in their homes in greater Madhya Pradesh (incl. Chattisgarh). Mr. Babaria / PTI should clarify whether or not it was the IAC who got these overground pseudo-Maoist's who were partially responsible for the death of Congress' top leadership of MP expelled from Ms. Sonia Gandhi's NAC (the evidence of which is retained by us). For the record it is stated that IAC is active in the anti-corruption space and is actively exposing corrupt officers within the Central and State governments.

6) Finally, IAC would like to say that the Congress Party has plagiarised the issues of Rafale deal scam and demonetisation scams from the IAC movement, considering that IAC is at the forefront of protests against these BJP scams when the Congress Party was silent.

We would be obliged if our rejoinder is circulated immediately to all your subscribers to balance your / their reportage.

sincerely

Sarbajit Roy

National Convenor

INDIA AGAINST CORRUPTION

B-59 Defence Colony

New Delhi 110024

Tel : +91-8010205897

http://www.indiaagainstcorruption.org.in