Insightful newsletter of Drishtikone - Issue #80: How Turkey and China control Indian media

Survival is predicated on Prejudice. Free thought is risky.

In the diversity of creation, where there are natural foes and neutral entities, every being seeks safety of the known. Known ally is that which conforms. Deviance is enmity. When society seeks order – it really seeks a “conformity” in a set of prejudices (which are pre-determined result-to-action rules). Enforcing “a” set of rules is dictated by the power of the core in a group.

Groups and herds help in creating strength through numbers. Tenacity of the herd is brought about by a predetermined sanctified“purpose”.

Purpose requires rules, morals and laws. Laws of a group, which provide cohesion, however temporary. Actions outside of those laws – deviance – are punished. Crime is deviation from the collective edict.

Strength of laws come from legitimacy. Legitimacy comes from power.

Power of a Tyrant. Power of an Elder. Power of a “Higher” being.

Tyrant can be defeated. Elder may not be respected.

But an invisible power of folk-lore brooks little revolt. God, therefore, is a perfect insurance against deviance and for conformity.

God fulfilled the role of a Higher “legitimate” power that could be installed on the pedestal from which certain group members could create laws on “His” behalf.

Claims were made. Visions promised. Stories weaved of magic and miracle arousing wonder and awe. Once the picture of the Power of law was larger than life, it became an instrument of perpetuating prejudice, violence and subjugation.

Instinct for survival created the need for a God in man’s own image. Then God became the source of rules of “opting in and out” of a group.

Opt-in rules were morals. Opt-out rules became crimes.

God was man’s mirror – schizophrenic, short tempered, benevolent, loving the way humans loved. Just more powerful, invisible and crudely, artificially legitimate.

God’s morals are implemented through the power of core on the society when group attains majority.

Majority covets and enforces conformity. If those in majority can be “converted” over to the minority by some initiation methodology and allowed to be felt “special” and thus use that power to discriminate against those who remain “different”, then conformity and thus survival could be “bought” or worse “won”! Religious legitimacy by power of majority became a political game at best and abuse of vanquished at its worse!

The business of majority creation through forced conformity is popular sport through theological and political history. Nation-hood, citizenship, conversion, initiation, memberships, test and exams, are some of the tools in this business. The run to change and bring in new conformists goes on…


“No one is more hated than he who speaks the truth.” ― Plato

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caliphate dream and anti-India work

There is a battle for the supremacy amongst the supremacists. There are many candidates who are vying for the leadership of the Islamic world. Saudis, Qataris, Pakistanis under Bhutto, Malaysia under Mahathir and now the Turks.

Turkey of Kemal Atatürk has taken a religious turn where it seeks to radicalize itself and other countries.

Turkey has been funding anti-India activities, Erdogan vying to become the leader of Islamic nations: Reports

Reportedly, Erdogan’s regime has been funding many religious seminars in India to radicalise Muslims and taking them on full-expense covered trips to Turkey for further indoctrination.

Erdogan’s Turkey has been funding anti-India activities and radical Islamist work in India, including funding terrorists in Kashmir and Kerala.

According to the report, Pakistani and Turkish officials had also funded hate preacher Zakir Naik, who has been accused of inciting and radicalising Indian Muslims, with the help of Qatar. Besides criticising India over the humanitarian Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the subsequent riots, the Turkish government had reportedly pumped in funds to prolong the protests. Reportedly, the government in Turkey have been funding separatist leader in Kashmir, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, for several years. As per the report, the Turkish government has also disbursed funds to a radical Islamist organisation in Kerala from time to time.

As India improves its relationship with UAE, Pakistan’s ISI has moved its “safe haven” to Turkey.

Interesting aside: Last year in October, Turkey openly sided with Pakistan after the UN General Assembly antics of Imran Khan. Curiously, right after that India’s Congress Party opened its office in Turkey to apparently “help build IOC organization & institution in Turkey”. Why? Well, how’s this?’

“In this capacity you [Khan] will identify and work with qualified, capable, committed and concerned people to lead our various initiatives,” the statement added. (Source)

Work with “committed” Turks to lead “various initiatives” in India? Do you get the drift?

And then we are told that “opposing Modi doesn’t make you anti-national.”

No, it doesn’t.

You have to work exceptionally hard to be anti-national. And, Congress leadership is showing how. At least give credit where it is due!

stealing Indian science and mathematics

Grudgingly perhaps, some institutions in the West are accepting the contributions of Indians in science and mathematics. For example, this tweet on so-called Fibonacci series. Problem is that India’s own “brown sepoys” and self-loathing “liberals” will leave no stone unturned to even contest this!

Royal Institution

@Ri_Science

You find the number sequence and associated golden ratio/spiral peppered throughout nature. But the sequence was perhaps first noticed around 200 BC in relation to patterns in poetry, by Pingala. It was developed in Indian mathematics and introduced to Europe in 1202 by Fibonacci https://t.co/EA30oBGIDp

4:13 AM - 23 Nov 2018

usurping Indian scientific accomplishment by Europeans

Back during the British colonial times, it was customary for the British to usurp the scientific achievements of Indians and showcase as Western accomplishments.

A case in the point was the invention of wireless and radio. By some quirk of fate, Marconi’s grandson had stumbled upon evidence that Jagdish Bose and not G. Marconi had first worked on wireless transmissions. So, he wanted to set the record straight.

Guglielmo Marconi had probably interacted with Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose in the spring of 1899 in London before sending and receiving the first wireless message across the Atlantic in 1901. “We haven’t yet found any documentation on this meeting but work is on to find details of their collaboration,” said Francesco Paresce Marconi, the grandson of Guglielmo. (Source)

Interestingly, Bose’s invention of his “mercury coherer with a telephone” was published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, London, on April 27, 1899, over two years before Marconi’s first wireless communication on December 12, 1901, from NewFoundland, now in Canada.

Marconi realized the commercial windfall that this could bring, so he started working in secret on this. He worked with his friend Luigi Solari who created a slightly changed prototype than Bose’s and shared with Marconi, who ultimately used it for the transatlantic experiment in 1901!

That is how Jagdish Chandra Bose was robbed off the invention and Marconi got the credit! (Source)

how china buys Indian media

China spends $1.3 billion annually for media propaganda. What look like “personal views” are dictated by China’s Communist Party hegemons. Since last year it has been buying space in Indian newspapers directly and through its lackeys in other media to “tell its story”. Here is WION’s Palki Sharma sharing the details on how this was done.

Gravitas: Has China infiltrated Indian newspapers?

A 2018 news report shared how China purchases media influence in India.

Over 100 journalists from around the world had been given special “privileges”, euphemism for bribes, by the Chinese government. The privileges include personal benefits to access within the Chinese administration, which is otherwise restricted.

For 10 months every year, starting 2016, China’s foreign ministry has hosted around 100 foreign journalists from leading media houses in Asia and Africa. They have been given the red-carpet treatment: apartments in one of Beijing’s plush residences, the Jianguomen Diplomatic Compound, where a two-bedroom apartment costs 22,000 Yuan (Rs 2.4 lakh), a 5,000 Yuan monthly stipend for some (Rs 50,000) and free tours twice-every-month to different Chinese provinces. They are also given language classes and at the end of the programme, they are given degrees in international relations from a Chinese university. (Source)

Degrees from China University. Does that sound familiar with some journalist from NDTV getting to be an assistant professor at Harvard? That is how this “perks/bribes” industry works.

This “Chinese media intervention” was done for what Xi Jinping called “telling China’s story better” - another euphemism for furthering China’s propaganda. These journalists came from - India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and more than a dozen countries from Southeast Asia and Africa.

China is paying foreign journalists to report from Beijing : Ananth Krishnan

approaching the Divine - Guru Nanak Dev

How should one approach the Divine? The Aarti that we see - how should it be? Here is an amazingly beautiful expression of that by Guru Nanak Dev.

कैसी आरती होइ ॥ भव खंडन तेरी आरती ॥ अनहता सबद वाजंत भेरी ॥१॥

An invocation where no “bhav” remains anymore and the anhat (the unstuck sound) resonates in one. Listen to this beautiful rendition of this poem by Baba Nanak.

Guru Nanak's Aarti by Shivpreet Singh

tech point - hack attack on Twitter

Remember that hacking attack on Twitter sometime back? Do you know who was the mastermind behind it? A 17 year old kid named Graham Clark!

A Tampa teenager is in jail, accused of being the “mastermind” behind a hack on the social media website Twitter that caused limited access to the site and high-profile accounts, according to jail records and the Hillsborough State Attorney’s Office.

Well he is in jail now. But heck!! This is a strange world we live in now.

Tampa teenager and two others arrested for Twitter Bitcoin hack | Engadget

Authorities in Tampa, Florida have arrested a 17-year-old for being the alleged “mastermind” behind the Twitter Bitcoin hack that targeted several high-profile accounts on July 15th, 2020.

nota bene

Almost 1000% rise in Video internet in India: Frankfurt internet exchange is the world’s leading interconnection platform, managing over 9 terabits per second (Tbs) peak traffic. In India, it operates exchanges in Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi and Kolkata. In last roughly four-and-a-half months beginning March, India’s data consumption grew at a scorching pace with demand on OTT (Over the top - film/media content via internet) and VoD (Video on Demand) platforms rising by a whopping 947% compared to what it was in February, with indications that the rally is far from over. (Source)

SC bats for opening places of worship: A three-judge Supreme Court bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra said that a limited number of devotees can be permitted in temples during the Unlock period provided adequate safety measures and social distancing guidelines are adhered to. (Source)

Congress imploding?: There is something brewing in Congress. The rift between young Congress leaders and UPA-era ministers intensified a day after the former urged the latter to introspect and claimed at a virtual meeting that the UPA government ruined the grand old party’s fortunes, with former minister Manish Tewari alleging sabotage from within. (Source)

Social Media News Junies less informed: Pew Research has compared the U.S. adults who get their news largely from social media platforms versus those who use other sources, like TV, radio and news publications. It was to compare their understanding of current events and political knowledge given their sources. It found that the former (social media news junkies) follow the news less closely and are less informed on several key subjects. (Source)

Ottoman Empire and the Americas

Given what is happening in Turkey, the original place of the Ottoman Empire, here is an interesting story of why it never ventured into the Americas for colonization, even when smaller European powers did. Worth a watch.

Why the Ottomans Never Colonized America?

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