Courtesy Jnsbmi, here is a ToI story (emphasis added). Notice the headline and the tweet in which it was mentioned:

Gujarat accounts for 6% of India’s dubious bank transactions

Nov 2, 2011, 12.46AM IST TNN [ Ankur Jain ]

Gujarat has generated the fourth highest number of reports relating to dubious banking transactions in the last four financial years, according to a govt report.

AHMEDABAD: There is something more than that meets the eye with financial transactions in the state. According to a recently released report buy union finance ministry’s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), Gujarat has generated the fourth highest number of reports relating to dubious banking transactions in the last four financial years in the country.
Out of the total 17,209 dubious transactions reported across India in four financial years from March 2006 to March 2010, Gujarat accounted for around 1,032 or 6 per cent of the country. However, the only silver lining is that the state is way behind Maharashtra, which leads the pack of such transactions with 29 per cent, Delhi with 12.1 per cent and West Bengal with 7.3 per cent.

Here is the tweet from ToI:

Guj accounts for 6% of India’s dubious bank transactions toi.in/rI_IFb

Bonus: This is from Mail Today and comes courtesy Sh Gopi Maliwal:

Stranded travellers not Modi’s relatives http://bit.ly/vwiXTn ! See headlines n text: TrashToday forever!

Related Post: In which some people are more “equal” than others

and the entire series: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, and Part 15.

Please have a look at the two images below…They refer to news-reports of certain politicians implicated in a crime. They are both from the same newspaper and are fairly recent (one from yesterday; another from a few months back). Notice anything strange?

Source: Missing woman: Rajasthan Minister is accused of her murder and rape

Source: CBI arrests Punjab BJP MLA for graft, names minister too

I would like to think that the curious omission of the name of the political party to which the Minister belonged is just an inadvertent oversight and not the result of some editorial diktat.

OR (perish the thought) are some people – and political parties – more equal than others?

P.S. How many of you noticed the “tags” on the 2 reports? Why should it matter? Think search engines!  In practical terms it means that a “search” with the tags “congress” and “minister” and “arrested” is unlikely to throw up the first link…

P.P.S. Another trivia: guess the party affiliation of the Chief Minister mentioned in this report: Former Sikkim CM Bhandari Jailed in Graft Case.   Astonishingly, just a  month before Bhandari’s arrest, the current Chief Minister of Sikkim had offered to name the government college in Sikkim after his name!

“Our government has been honour our former leaders and recognizing their contribution to Sikkim, we have been naming the government infrastructures after them. If former Chief Minister Nar Bahadur Bhandari gives his consent, we will name the government college at Gangtok after his name”, said the Chief Minister in his address during the 197th Bhanu Jayanti celebrations held at Kyongsa near Gyalshing.

Related Posts: Of high-voltage jolts and spellbound cadres – UPDATED

and the entire series: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13 and Part 14.

Might this be a strawman / trial balloon to see how a solution that makes the LoC as a permanent border is received by the public? or am I reading too much into this?

I remember the days when such a map in an Indian publication would have led to copies of the magazine/newspaper being confiscated and/or banned and the offending map censored. I also remember one of the first “official” letters I wrote in the IFS, soon after joining the Embassy of India many years ago. It was to protest against a similar map that was printed in the Japan Times (this was 1994). But I guess times have changed.

Related Post: Has anyone else seen a smilar map? and Google Maps and Disputed Borders

This is WTF Moment of the 30th of March, 2011 AD. Record it in history. Indian Cricket Team toiled for a well deserved victory and moments after the victory, NDTV home page, shows this. Can you imagine?!.

For those of you who may be curious, there are other, better(?) examples of this technique at work.

Somewhat Related: Of high-voltage jolts and spellbound cadres

Most, if not all, of you must have read about the recent case against Rahul Gandhi involving a missing girl that was dismissed last week. What struck me was this last sentence from the report in The Hindu (emphasis added):

On the basis of her deposition, the court imposed a cost of Rs. 50 lakh on the petitioner and, taking suo motu cognisance of an effort to defame a high-profile person, ordered a CBI probe.

Suo-moto cognisance? I thought that was *very* interesting. Is there any precedence for such suo-moto actions related to defaming a “high-profile” person? I then also stumbled across this report in The Indian Express which mentioned that:

The court also ordered the CBI to register a case against websites which, Samrite claimed, had reported the incident, and the persons involved in the plot to frame Rahul Gandhi. The court directed that till the investigation was completed, and the websites in question were cleared by the CBI, their display in India shall remain banned.

Further, the court asked the CBI to prepare a list of such other websites which are involved in display of scandalous information about persons holding high public offices and submit a report on the next date of hearing.

That set several alarm bells ringing. To start with, who is a high-profile person? what constitutes defamation or attempt to defame or “display of scandalous information”?

What action will the Court prescribe? Will such websites (if any) be banned? Will their owners, publishers be fined? arrested? something else?

P.S. I also noted from the Indian Express report that:

The court directed that Rs. 25 lakh shall be paid to the girl, Rs. 20 lakh to Rahul Gandhi and Rs. 5 lakh to DGP Karamvir Singh for producing the girl and her parents in the court within the time frame.

Why pay the police for doing their job? Was their some kind of a reward on this? And what should the courts do if the police are unable to produce someone within the time-frame? Does anyone remember Dilip Patidar?   Comments and thoughts welcome, as always.

Somewhat Related Posts:  On Artistic Freedom, Censorship and Responsibility and On Husain, Khajuraho and Moral Policing.  Pl. also read about plans afoot to regulate online content and blogs.

Also Read: On Blogs, Comments, Liability and Being Sued