Skip to main content

Startup India? Govt of India's top projects "handled, propagated" on social media by rabid pro-Modi trolls

By Our Representative
Has the Government of India put its key projects at the disposal of rabid, allegedly saffron social media trolls, known to use abusive language at the drop of a hat as and when Prime Minister Narendra Modi is criticized? It would seem so, if what happened over the last 24 hours on Twitter is any guide.
Troll literally meaning ugly cave-dwelling creature depicted as either a giant or a dwarf. Two of the trolls tweeted at two different places: “Indian army should be freed for one day to take care of pro-Pak #Presstitutes to make these #ProPakDovesSilent for eternity” and “Rakhi Sawant is more useful to this nation than Meera Sood”, tagging it to #ProPakDovesSilent.
The latter reference, apparently, is human rights advocate Mihira (not Meera) Sood, who, among many others, had signed a petition requesting the President of India to consider the mercy plea of terrorist Yakub Memon. She was present in a Times Now debate on Tuesday evening, where the hashtag #ProPakDovesSilent was floated.
So sooner the two tweet appeared, those responsible for propagating Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s top project, Startup Project on twitter, retweeted both the tweets, inviting the ire of well-known journalist Rohin Singh (‏@Rohinisgh_ET), senior editor, “Economic Times”, who said, “Shocking that government handle @startupindia is RTing trolls who are advocating violence against journalists!”
Among those who supported Singh was Aam Admi Party (AAP) leader Arvind Kejriwal, who, even as retweeting the shock expressed by another senior journalist Barkha Dutt of NDTV channel, said through Twitter, “All abuses and violence, whether online or offline, is emanating from topmost BJP leadership.”
Startup India deleted these retweets
Meanwhile, suspicion went wild that @startupindia is being handled by saffron brigade, using abusive language against anyone critical of Modi. Said @truthofgujarat, managed by Gujarat-based rights activist Pratik Sinha, Government of India @startupindia retweeting tweets asking for killing of journos… Bhakt forgot to change ID before retweeting.”
A popular site, janatakareporter.com, commented, “Modi has long been criticised for allegedly encouraging the nasty right-wing Twitter trolls by even following some of them on the microblogging site”, pointing towards how on Tuesday, in late hours, the government’s official Twitter handle @startupindia, retweeted “right-wing trolls.”
Calling Startup India a Modi brainchild, floated in January launched amidst much fanfare primarily to encourage entrepreneurship in the country, the site says, “The initiative is yet to deliver any tangible results, but it seems the official Twitter handle has been put to use to further the right-wing agenda of the ruling party.”
It adds, “Journalist Rohini Singh first posted the following tweet expressing her shock and horror on a central government’s official Twitter handle retweeting a political message posted by a troll.” In fact, @startupindia agreed with the comment which said that the Indian army should be “freed for one day” from “pro-Pakistani presstitutes”.
It continues, “#ProPakDovesSilent was the hashtag promoted by Times Now news channel while debating Kashmir unrest on Tuesday night. It was during this debate that a panelist had allegedly termed Indian army as rapist prompting right-wing users to post angry tweets.”
Finding things going out of hand, Startup India “corrected” its mistakes and removed the controversial tweets from its timeline. But the issue had already snowballed into a full-blown controversy, as social media users woke up to this development on Wednesday morning.

Comments

TRENDING

Importance of Bangladesh for India amidst 'growing might' of China in South Asia

By Samara Ashrat*  The basic key factor behind the geopolitical importance of Bangladesh is its geographical location. The country shares land borders with Myanmar and India. Due to its geographical position, Bangladesh is a natural link between South Asia and Southeast Asia.  The country is also a vital geopolitical ally to India, in that it has the potential to facilitate greater integration between Northeast India and Mainland India. Not only that, due to its open access to the Bay of Bengal, Bangladesh has become significant to both China and the US.

Swami Vivekananda's views on caste and sexuality were 'painfully' regressive

By Bhaskar Sur* Swami Vivekananda now belongs more to the modern Hindu mythology than reality. It makes a daunting job to discover the real human being who knew unemployment, humiliation of losing a teaching job for 'incompetence', longed in vain for the bliss of a happy conjugal life only to suffer the consequent frustration.

Buddhist shrines were 'massively destroyed' by Brahmanical rulers: Historian DN Jha

Nalanda mahavihara By Our Representative Prominent historian DN Jha, an expert in India's ancient and medieval past, in his new book , "Against the Grain: Notes on Identity, Intolerance and History", in a sharp critique of "Hindutva ideologues", who look at the ancient period of Indian history as "a golden age marked by social harmony, devoid of any religious violence", has said, "Demolition and desecration of rival religious establishments, and the appropriation of their idols, was not uncommon in India before the advent of Islam".

'BBC film shows only tip of iceberg': Sanjiv Bhatt's daughter speaks at top US press club

By Our Representative   The United States' premier journalists' organisation, the National Press Club (NPC), has come down heavily on Prime Minister Narendra Modi for recent "attacks on journalists in India." Speaking at the screening of an episode of the BBC documentary “India: The Modi Question,” banned in India, in the club premises, NPC President Eileen O’Reilly said, “Since Modi came to power we have watched with frustration and disappointment as his regime has suppressed the rights of its citizens to a free and independent news media."

Regional political dynamics 'leading to' institutional violence in SAARC University

By Sandeep Pandey*  South Asian University is a university set up in Delhi by member countries of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation – India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, Afghanistan and Maldives – which is open to students from all these countries. However, as SAARC is receiving little attention these days because of regional political dynamics, it appears as if SAU has lost significance too. Because of the hiatus in peace process between India and Pakistan, the Board of Governors of this University is dysfunctional.

Natural farming: Hamirpur leads the way to 'huge improvement' in nutrition, livelihood

By Bharat Dogra*  Santosh is a dedicated farmer who along with his wife Chunni Devi worked very hard in recent months to convert a small patch of unproductive land into a lush green, multi-layer vegetable garden. This has ensured year-round supply of organically grown vegetables to his family as well as fetched several thousand rupees in cash sales.

Over-stressed? As Naveen Patnaik turns frail, Odisha 'moves closer' to leadership crisis

By Sudhansu R Das  Not a single leader in Odisha is visible in the horizon who can replace Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik. He has ruled Odisha for nearly two and half decades. His father, Biju Patnaik, had built Odisha; he was a daring pilot who saved the life of Indonesia’s Prime Minister Sjahrir and President Sukarno when the Dutch army blocked their exit.

Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, Ban Ki-moon, others ask Bangladesh PM to 'protect' Yunus

Counterview Desk  A campaign has been launched to support Bangladesh-based economist, micro-finance guru and Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, seeking signatures from citizens across the globe in order to “protect” his work, life and safety.

Electricity sharing opens up new window for India’s eastern neighbourhood engagement

By Sufian Asif* Today, challenges like climate change, pandemics, energy reliance, economic crisis, and many more are concerning us. No nation can overcome these obstacles without the assistance and collaboration of other nations. Most importantly, many of these problems have international repercussions. South Asia is facing much more difficulty when compared to other regions. In South Asia, we have some regional organizations, but they are ineffective.

'Vulgar display of wealth': Govt of India using G20 presidency for political, electoral gains

Counterview Desk  Seeking endorsement for a public statement on India's G20 Presidency, several people’s movements, trade unions and other civil society groups have come together to say that not only will G20 and its priorities “will worsen economic, social and climate crisis”, already, India’s presidency is being used “for vulgar display of pomp & for electoral gains.”