🚨BBC investigation YOU deserve to know about
Modi govt’s ‘missing’ task force.
March 2020: With COVID approaching, PM Modi set up an economic response task force to come up with ways to protect your livelihood.
Except – there is no evidence to show it did anything.
Stay.🧵
IMP 🚨 INVESTIGATION
India's lockdown was called world's largest, strictest etc. @ BBC, we wanted to know how the govt planned it.
So, what're we looking at?
Govt docs that reveal every department/agency who was consulted by PM Modi before imposing
#lockdown
.
#Thread
🚨BBC Investigation🚨
We discovered a BIG, YouTube-based network spreading disinformation in India. The influencers - who were making money doing this - were fearless and had visible links with a political party.
What happened next?
Thread🧶
Sup?
Last week our govt told us – how India 🇮🇳’s 1st, self-made civi 🛫👇took to the skies AND ALSO - how ‘India’s 1st commercial airline to fly 🇮🇳 made plane’ was finally here.
You heard so?
Well - that was NOT THE CASE🤷♂️
I'll prove. Stay.
Thread 🧵
Every document you see - more than 300 - was to understand how
@narendramodi
did what he did this evening 2 yrs ago ~ impose a
#nationallockdown
with 4hrs notice.
Not one doc (all govt docs) could show any proof of any prior planning. Think about that.
India's lockdown was imposed by an
@ndmaindia
order. Who heads NDMA? Prime Minister.
So we asked NDMA - who all were consulted before lockdown? Also, how many NDMA meetings did the PM attend? Their response.
NIL to both. Yes, NIL.
EXCLUSIVE on
@BBCHindi
: Union Minister
@jayantsinha
tells me that BJP, members of the BJP and he - all of them bore the legal expenses to help lynching convicts get bail in the Alimuddin Ansari lynching case. Watch this space.
Altaf, a mechanic from Godhra told BBC, "Today, some are happy, some are hurt. If Supreme Court would've ordered a Ram Rahim hospital where free medication for all would've been provided, I think, everyone would've been happy".
#AYODHYAVERDICT
Remember migrant workers crisis?
Over 1 crore workers had to return home post lockdown.
@LabourMinistry
could not produce ONE DOCUMENT to show it had given any suggestions/foreseen the crisis/provided means to avert it - before the lockdown came.
.
@NITIAayog
's
@RajivKumar1
told my colleague Nidhi Rai that
@narendramodi
'consulted everyone' before lockdown.
Proof?
Well even NiTi Aayog's own documents don't support what Rajiv Kumar is saying.
We asked them TWICE.
BIG! 🚨
Recall India's 🇮🇳 coronavirus lockdown of March '20?
How was that planned, who was consulted, who advised etc?
@PMOIndia
consistently stonewalled RTI requests.
Info? Denied.
We NOW have a 👇CLEAR order to PMO to provide those details.
Took us almost 2 yrs.🧵
Coming to
@PMOIndia
- our RTI applications were met with little or no info. A clause that is not even an exemption clause was used to not give info. We're contesting these decisions and shall see how it goes.
Am giving you an example below 👇
How did we access the docs? Well, for months my colleague Arjun Parmar and I filed RTI applications with the relevant govt depts - State & Centre. Hundreds in fact. We then filed appeals, then filed second appeals..phew!
What about specialist bodies like
@RBI
, SEBI,
@NCDCgov
or Dept of Military Affairs (remember domains of disaster management, AFMS doctors etc)?
They had no information on consultations.
In fact, nothing to show they were EVEN INFORMED before lockdown.
Background - this day last year, India had less than 600 cases and nine deaths. Some European & Latin American nations (with way higher numbers) had imposed lockdowns.
China, with thousands of deaths and cases by March 2020, never imposed a national lockdown.
Coming to key economic ministries like
@minmsme
@MoCA_GoI
@GST_Council
@rsprasad
- they said they had no information on consultations.
@FinMinIndia
depts transferred our apps to MHA. But when MHA sent them all back, admitted it had no info on consultations.
Four days before the
#lockdown
- PM met CMs.
In the release issued afterwards, we found no mention of the word 'lockdown'. When we asked PMO if the topic was even broached, no information was provided.
@HMOIndia
asked us to see the press release again.
One more thing - India started monitoring and preparing it's response to coronavirus from January 8, 2020. It was repeatedly mentioned that none other than PM was personally leading the effort.
Let's start with what we've got now.
To state administrations now.
CMs/Govs from Assam, Delhi, Punjab, Gujarat, UP, DONER (centre's bridge to North East) all of them had nothing to show they knew.
*UP CMO threw our application out when it was asked about its own prep and info.
India suffered - whichever way you see.
Without lockdown, would suffering have been more? We don't know.
To be fair, few govts world over did well against the virus.
Q remains - why did India dive into something MINUS it's best & relevant experts on board?
From Jan to March 2020, I located many bold pronouncements by Modi govt.
It was claimed India had adequate PPEs, isolation beds, masks. Then, on Feb 22, 2020 - 2 days before Trump arrived,
@drharshvardhan
claimed India had 'stalled' entry of coronavirus.
One question - with what editorial insight/authority does this interaction, coming as it does, at the peak of campaigning/polling season get classified as 'non political'?
We met many citizens - from a young project manager whose both parents tested positive in April & a nurse who became jobless and was nabbed by police - who were desperate.
They were looking to their government.
Found it absent.
And yes - you must know this.
We requested the Modi Govt to put its point of view forward and waited for
@PrakashJavdekar
@MIB_India
for OVER THREE FULL WEEKS.
My colleague
@AamirPeerzadaa
did the rounds of the top hospitals in Srinagar. He found:
52 pellet and tear gas victims of which three were critically injured.
In Bemina, a bus carrying civilians turned turtle following pelting of stones. Three died and 27 injured.
#Kashmir
To recap in one line – PM promises an economic task force on national TV, when country faced a once in a century pandemic, and no ministry or govt agency has any info about it.
Since then we’ve filed RTI applications & appeals seeking
a. Members of this task force
b. Advice, meetings, suggestions, presentations, reports submitted
c. Terms of refence
d. Final report
e. In how many such meetings PM participated
Next tweet: Govt’s response👇
We've waited so long to say this 🙂 -
@BBCHindi
's flagship current affairs show 'DUNIYA' has a new home and that is
@ndtvindia
. Watch us weekdays @ 10pm. We'll be worth your while 🙏
PMO did not give info about PM’s participation.
However, asked Fin Min to provide us details on task force.
Except – Fin Min wrote kept telling us that they don’t have any info about such a task force.
Question – who has the info, then?
Fin Min forwarded our RTI applications to Home Ministry, ICMR, NDMA etc – even though it the task force was led by the Finance Minister.
Not a surprise, all the other ministries too said they had no such data.
Replies below.
Do these images ring a bell?
Last summer when convicts in Alimuddin Ansari lynching case were granted bail by the Jharkhand High Court, they went to the residence of the minister from where these images emerged causing a furore.
Why was this task force important?
What would it have done which FM and govt’s advisors wouldn’t have?
I’ll let PM Modi tell you. Video is from March 19, 2020 – five days before lockdown.
Question also arises – if the task force did not function, who did?
Whose inputs government relied on then?
We asked industry bodies as well if they participated, but they did not comment.
👋🏽 Personal update
Started in my new role, as the BBC's Editor - TV in 🇮🇳. Grateful to Maa, Papa and my wife Sapna - who taught and gave me everything I have today. To independent and fearless journalism always ✊🏽
For journalists keeping a check on power, receiving hate and abuse is now fairly common. Will we have to live with discourse around our elimination as well? If the answer is yes then everyone needs to worry.
I am used to their non-stop abuses since years. I mostly ignore them or laugh it off. But after we busted their fake propaganda about attacks on people of Bihar in Tamil Nadu, I am seeing many such tweets of people talking/planning about physically harming & finishing me.
Going beyond theory - what you see is the
@indiannavy
's Nuclear, Biological, Chemical Training Facility - ABHEDYA at INS Shivaji, Lonavla near Mumbai. Commissioned today.
Today we’ve taken a small step.
@BBC
’s maiden
#Disinformation
Unit in India 🇮🇳 is now a reality. With
@MedhaviArora
&
@_serajali_
, I’ll be leading the team from Delhi. DM open for tips and collaboration.
Thank you 🙏🏽
Disinformation can have disastrous consequences. Indian govt gets that. Which is why in the last two months, nearly 55 YouTube channels + several other SM accounts have been blocked.
Our work bore fruit around the same time that GOI announced its actions.
"He could help those who killed someone in broad daylight, someone who in one swoop destroyed an entire family! And he claims he has extended help to me, how? My son was promised a govt job, two years have gone by and we are still waiting".
Led by the US, a close ally of India, west kept sounding one warning after the other.
By February 12, 2022, they had acted on their warnings - by shifting or shutting missions, repeatedly asking citizens to leave.
Why did India move on February 15, 2022?
Rs 300 crore, 15 acre complex with a swimming pool for the Vice President of India.
Few kilometres away, Indians lacking access to clean water, forced to use water meant for public lawns.
(Pages 9 and 3
@IndianExpress
)
India’s economic recovery from the pandemic is not a done deal. If anything, India’s still incomplete recovery will further SLOW DOWN.
Read.
Source: Global Economic Prospects, World Bank, Jan 2024
🚨Yo, Story time🚨
BBC investigation: In Dec 2022, govt disclosed ~ 1100 Indians were in Ukraine. Ordinary statement? Naah coz not even 50 Indians were in 🇺🇦 by April 2022.
And war was/is still on.
So why are so many 🇮🇳 folks back?
🧵 Stay.
PM Modi has (again) said electoral bonds increased transparency.
But in Oct 2023, his govt opposed this transparency and making bonds data public.
It said Indians had no right to know who was funding BJP and others.
🤷🏾♂️
This ad with taxpayer money is okay now? Asking because our state felt secularism was threatened by a few girl students wearing hijab/headscarf in their classroom.
But what’s the relevance of a task force that was supposed to work 3-4 years ago, you’d ask?
Some may say that the economy has bounced back and we’re the fastest growing in the world so what's the point?
I'll explain.
Mohan Suresh (63) runs TechnoSpark, a manufacturing firm in Bangalore.
“COVID is like an atom bomb. How many years it took for people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, to recover? Like that, even though the pandemic is over, businessmen like me are still suffering.”
Jyotisar👇- a site of religious significance in Kurukshetra, Haryana.
On May 9, colleague Prashant Sharma spotted viral posts claiming that a 'mazaar' or shrine had been built there by Muslims. Hindu activists even gathered to 'demolish' it.
All over a FALSE CLAIM 🚫
Short🧵
Meet the Dorniers ~ part of
@indiannavy
's latest aircraft squadron (5th of the same aircraft) which was commissioned today in Chennai. INAS 313 'Sea Eagle' will operate from the naval enclave within the international airport.
B. Jan 25, 2022 – Indian mission put this out.
Basically a form asking for citizens, including students to fill this up. There is nothing about evacuation in this.
Recently in its white paper 👇, the govt said that while handling the economic fallout of the pandemic it ‘reached out to every sector and every person’ without delay.
Is that how it happened, really?
36-year-old Udit Kumar (not his real name) ran a bar and restaurant before the pandemic. He today occupies a corner of the pavement serving eggs.
“Policies made during the pandemic, had no connect with the reality. I employed 12 people. But banks didn't help me."
E. From Jan 25, 2022 till February 15, 2022 when the first advisory was issued, Indian govt's primary presence in Ukraine -
@IndiainUkraine
- was quiet.
I could find no posts except a video Republic day highlights.
Dug into NCRB data and found not only an explosion in the number of suicides during the pandemic years but also suicides linked to economic factors.
See data.
AVRO maker
@BAESystemsInc
on its site states:
"A total of 381 aircraft were built including 89 aircraft manufactured by HAL, the 1st Indian-built aircraft flying on 1st November 1961."
**IMP -
@HALHQBLR
-made Indian Airlines listed as a ‘significant user’.
C. At that time, what were close allies of India, namely USA🇺🇸 & UK 🇬🇧doing for their citizens?
It wasn’t too hard to figure.
Check this from JAN 23, 2022. Here's the 🔗
G. Next key dates - Feb 11 and 12, 2022.
@AlJazeera
reports - US, UK, Estonia, Latvia, Norway among others ask citizens to leave. (🔗)
@BBCWorld
- Germany, Australia, Netherlands, Japan and others do the same. (🔗 - )
India - ?
After I explained our findings to Udit, he said:
“Had this happened may be I’d still have my bar and restaurant. I am a guy who only travelled by flight. Today, I can only afford taking trains, when I can afford to take time off. That should tell you the difference”.
Let’s start from the start.
It was in late October that a mere YouTube search with terms like ‘Aryan Khan’, ‘NCB’ etc began showing us radical results.
Graph represents the volume of the overall content. Obviously, not all was disinfo.
Besides, India’s economy ‘23.9 per cent during the first quarter of 2020-21’ and 6.6 per cent over the entire year – govt’s own data.
These are stats.
When I began looking for people whose lives were economically impacted, I came across so many. Examples follow.
"When Pakistan Air Force targeted Indian Army's Brigade HQ on Feb 27 (day after Balakot ops), we had grounds to retaliate and were ready. But political clearance for counter strike never came".
Air Marshal Anil Khosla's (retd), IAF's then Vice Chief detailed interview out soon.
🚨BBC INVESTIGATION🚨
In the pandemic era, how has Modi govt treated India's
#HealthcareWorkers
?
I wanted to find out.
1st stop - in UP’s Bareilly with deceased ASHA worker Shanti Gangwar’s family.
#Thread
🧶
Here's a timeline of the Alimuddin Ansari lynching case. It was after bail in June 2018 that the convicts came to see
@jayantsinha
and were subsequently garlanded.
Now, remember that top right corner on your YouTube page?
From there we were being recommended channel after channel – SEVERAL VERIFIED BY YOUTUBE – which were fanning the flames. Their videos, often monologues or in the form of interviews with ‘experts’ lasted for hours.
In a UP govt video, an ‘Elvish Yadav’ was invited to a virtual meet with UP CM Yogi Adityanath. He even asked the CM a question.
We came across a video by the same influencer where actors were abused and sexist remarks passed.
Video remains on YouTube.
Now see this 👇– report from the day when Dornier, an 🇮🇳made Dornier, was handed over to join the fleet of Vayudoot, an 🇮🇳passenger airliner.
Date - 22 March 1986.
Loc: Chakeri, Kanpur.
Courtesy: Pushpindar Singh, Vayu Aerospace & Defence Review, April 1986.
Small point – in an interview he gave us, Sandeep Verma, influencer, insisted that the woman was a member of the probe team. He said he had verified her credentials.
When we asked for evidence he got upset, threatened action if we aired the clip. We aired it.
Was important.
Rs 18, 03, 89, 252 (over US$ 2 million)
Public funds spent to 'thank PM Modi' for various schemes implemented.
By whom? States/provinces ruled by Modi's BJP.
My colleague Arjun Parmar's perseverance has uncovered the tip of an iceberg.
Thread🧵
China 🇨🇳 changed the status quo in the South China Sea. Don't think they can do so in the Indian Ocean says Admiral Sunil Lanba, Chief of Naval Staff
@indiannavy
responds to my questions on
@BBCIndia