Demolish Delhi Jama Masjid, hang me if idols are not found: Sakshi Maharaj

New Delhi, Feb 29: Former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan has said slowdown in growth is due to the current government focussing more on meeting its political and social agenda rather than paying attention to the economy.

India can still reverse its slowing economic growth by paying attention to key issues, he said. "It's a sad story, I think most recently, it is politics," Rajan said in response to a question on what was stopping India's growth which remains below potential.

In an interview to Bloomberg TV, Rajan said unfortunately the current government after a massive election win has "focussed more on fulfilling its political and social agenda rather than paying attention to the economic growth".

"Unfortunately, this drift has continued a pace of slowing growth, which was precipitated initially by some actions the government took such as the demonetisation and a poorly rolled out Goods and Services Tax (GST) reform," Rajan said.

India's GDP growth hit nearly 7-year low of 4.7 per cent in the December quarter, as per official data released on Friday.

The GDP growth for the quarter is the lowest since January-March of 2012-13.

In the interview, which was telecast before the official numbers were released, Rajan said India has not paid sufficient attention to cleaning up the financial sector and unfortunately, that is leading to the slowing growth.

"These are things that they can change if attention is paid to them and appropriate actions are taken," Rajan, Professor of Finance at University of Chicago Booth School of Business, said.

On being asked about the spread of the coronavirus globally and its impact, he said there will certainly be some legacy issues in terms of business rethinking in the global supply chain.

"If it is disrupted anywhere, the entire supply chain is held ransom and companies are going to start rethinking that should we actually have these really spread out global supply chain or to bring them back closer home and how much diversification should we have. Should we have multiple production sites across the world rather than have it focussed primarily in Asia," he said.

New Delhi, Jan 1: Newly-appointed Chief of the Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat on Wednesday said the armed forces stay away from politics and work as per the directives of the government of the day, remarks that come amid allegations that the forces were being politicised.

Gen Rawat also said that his focus as CDS will be to integrate the efforts of the three services and to work as a team.

"We keep ourselves away from politics. We act according to the directives of the government of the day," he said.

Gen Rawat said his focus will be to ensure best and optimal use of resources allocated to the three services.

New Delhi, Feb 5: Days after a gunman opened fire in Delhi's Shaheen Bagh, the epicentre of anti-CAA movement, YouTuber Gunja Kapoor was detained at the protest site on Wednesday after she was caught covertly filming the protests in a burqa.

Kapoor runs the channel ‘Right Narrative’ on YouTube and her pinned tweet on Twitter says she is followed on the microblogging site by PM Narendra Modi.

According to police, the protesters turned suspicious after Kapoor asked them "too many questions". She was caught by some of the women protesters after they identified her as the popular YouTuber. The incident led to a commotion at Shaheen Bagh, the epicentre of protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), a senior police official said.

#WATCH Political analyst Gunja Kapoor extricated by police after protestors at Delhi's Shaheen Bagh alleged that she was wearing a 'burqa' and filming them. #Delhi pic.twitter.com/llRiKhMvOd

— ANI (@ANI) February 5, 2020

She was taken to Sarita Vihar police station where her identity was ascertained, police said.

The incident sparked outrage on social media. Many took to Twitter to question why Kapoor was at the protest in disguise. Others expressed concern about her motives at secretly filming the protests.

Chaos at #ShaheenBaghProtest when a burka clad woman caught while making some video from her mobile. She is found out to a be a YouTuber. Objection was why she was covering the protest wearing burka. @DelhiPolice has detained her pic.twitter.com/W3Ypdey9il

— alok singh (@AlokReporter) February 5, 2020

Meanwhile, praises flew in for the women of Shaheen Bagh who can be seen defending Kapoor from angry protesters after she was caught.

This is not the first time that a right wing social media activist has landed in trouble in Shaheen Bagh where residents and other women and children have been sitting in protest for nearly two months since the passing of the contentious Citizenship Amendment Act 2019 in December last year.

A burka clad lady @gunjakapoor is caught in #ShaheenBaghProtest site,disguised as a Muslim.
She hs 20k+ followers in @twitter & one among them is PM.
Why BJP sent a prominent face like her & nt a small worker?
Why BJP is so scared?
What’s BJP plan?Mass murder?@IndiasMuslims

— Seerat Raza (@iamseeratraza) February 5, 2020

In January, Deepa Sharma had posted videos online about the "traumatic" experience she had when she was allegedly heckled and harassed by Shaheen Bagh protesters. While the woman's claim could never be verified, other pieces of rampant fake news aimed at delegitimising and villainising protesters has taken social media by storm.

A right wing activist caught in Shaheen Bagh trying to infiltrate by wearing a Burkha and faking her name

She is “Proud to be followed by Modi” on Twitter pic.twitter.com/l1zklov0io

— Dhruv Rathee (@dhruv_rathee) February 5, 2020

From doctored videos of women protesters allegedly accepting they were paid Rs 500 to attend protests to alleged fights over biriyani and anti-India sloganeering, trolls on social media seem to be working overtime to taint the ongoing protests.

The latter, however, show no signs of giving up. In fact, as Delhi nears elections on February 8, protesters have arranged for music performances by eminent artists, including pop celebrity Prateek Kuhad, till February 7.

Sit in protests take place 24x7 with women showing up in thousands to spend the night and sing songs of protest. And with polls around the corner, the protests have become an active part of political discourse with Aam Aadmi Party's Manish Sisodia expressing his support for the protesters at a recent press conference.