New Delhi, May 20: With the BJP registering a thumping victory in the general election, significant credit goes to the party's online campaign to tap the general psyche by connecting with millions of youngsters.
Vikas Pandey, a 30-year-old software architect, headed the social media campaigns like "I Support Namo" on Facebook and Twitter, as a volunteer for the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the then prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi.
He said the credit for such success should be shared by countless volunteers, mainly students and retired people.
Son of Gorakhpur mayour and BJP leader Dr. Satya Pandey, he said he involved himself with the political campaigning after meeting Modi in 2010. During this first meeting Modi asked him to make better use of the social media for the party's political success. Since then he started devoting his professional expertise as a 'swayamsewak' (RSS volunteer), without any fees for person or his fellow volunteers' services.
Pandey said the social media played a vital role in the current election in not only getting the BJP's desired message across but also influencing the public imagination at large to vote.
"Though Facebook was our main focus, we also got many volunteers from Twitter and Google+," Pandey said.
Asked whose baby the online campaign was, Pandey said he felt inspired by the Aam Aadmi Party's success in the 2013 Delhi assembly elections to turn the tables by getting non- partisan, self-motivated volunteers from the social media.
The rest was the team's dedication and determination for success.
"Our target was the middle and the upper middle class," Pandey said.
Due to these people, he said, "our team of volunteers could bypass non-favourable or negative views expressed in the mainstream media against the BJP or Modiji to reach out to voters directly".
"On Facebook, we have pages like 'I Support Namo', 'SanghParivar.Org', 'RSS', among others with over 45 lakh (4.5 million) likes. On Youtube, we started Narendra Modi's official Youtube channel, now India's most popular online political channel. And the 'I Support Namo' channel, which is now India's second most popular.
"On Twitter, I run many IDs such as @sanghparivarorg and @isupportnamo with more than 1.5 lakh followers," he said.
Asked about the secret of such an effective campaign in the polls, Pandey said it was all about "smart planning and team work, and in-depth knowledge of technology".
Since Facebook has an estimated 90 million members in India and Twitter has 30 million from India, he said they played a huge role in the polls.
The "I Support NaMo" page on Facebook now has over 23.5 lakh likes and its posts are read by over 2.5 crore people per week at times, "which is more than most of the newspaper readers", Pandey noted.
Pandey also worked during the Delhi assembly polls.
He said he has worked with various cells of the BJP in several state elections in the past."I created various ideology-related groups on Orkut with over 500,000 members in 2008," Pandey said.
Asked about the number of people involved in the NaMo campaign, he said: "We provided thousands of volunteers to the 'Vote for India Mission 272+' through social media networking in Delhi, Ghaziabad, Noida, Faridabad and Gurgaon and reached out to around 1.5 lakh voters.
"Our volunteers reached out to one lakh voters in Mumbai, to 20,000 voters in Shimla, to 50,000 voters in Pune, and to around 50,000 voters in Varanasi in the last one month."
Pandey, who dedicated the success to his team of volunteers, said that though activities on the ground have stopped, "future communications will be maintained so that they help spread the good work done by the government and even help in upcoming state elections".
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How BJP's online campaign proved vital for success
May 20, 2014
‘Kashmiris are in a terrible lockdown within lockdown’
Agencies
May 19,2020
New Delhi, May 19: Former Union Minister P Chidambaram said that as the fourth phase of the nationwide lockdown amid the coronavirus scare began from Monday, his thoughts were with the people of Kashmir who were in a "terrible lockdown within a lockdown."
The senior Congress leader said that at least now, the people in the rest of India will understand that he dubbed the "enormity of the injustice" done to those who were detained in Kashmir and those still under detention" immediately before and after the abrogation of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution on August 5, 2019.
Chidambaram said that former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti was the "worst sufferer" of preventive detention and even courts had shirked their constitutional duty with respect to detainees.
"The worst sufferers are Mehbooba Mufti and her senior party colleagues who are still in custody in a locked-down state in a locked-down country. They are deprived of every human right," he said in a statement.
"I cannot believe that for nearly 10 months, the courts will shirk their constitutional duty to protect the human rights of citizens," he added.
The detention on Mehbooba Mufti under the Public Safety Act (PSA) had been extended for three more months on May 5. Booked under the stringent PSA, she was initially kept at the Hari Niwas guesthouse in Srinagar but later shifted to a Tourism Department hut in the Chashma Shahi area.
She was shifted to her Gupkar Road official residence on April 7.
Besides Mehbooba Mufti, two other former Chief Ministers -- Omar Abdullah and his father Farooq Abdullah -- were also detained under the PSA but later released.
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Former MEA spokesperson Raveesh Kumar appointed India's next Ambassador to Finland
News Network
June 3,2020
New Delhi, Jun 3: Seasoned diplomat and former spokesperson of the External Affairs Ministry Raveesh Kumar has been appointed as India's next Ambassador to Finland, the government announced on Wednesday.
Raveesh Kumar, a 1995-batch Indian Foreign Service officer, served as the spokesperson of the MEA from July 2017 to April 2020 during which he deftly articulated India's position on a number of sensitive issues including last year's Balakot strike, reorganisation of Jammu and Kashmir and the controversy surrounding the National Register of Citizens.
"He is expected to take up the assignment shortly," the MEA said.
Before becoming the MEA spokesperson, Kumar was serving as Consul General of India in Frankfurt.
Kumar started his career at the Indian Mission in Jakarta and it was followed by his postings in Thimpu and London.
In his nearly 25-year career, Kumar also looked after the East Asia desk in the headquarters of the MEA in Delhi and served as Deputy Chief of Mission in Jakarta followed by his posting as Consul General in Frankfurt from August 2013 to July 2017.
In Finland, he succeeds Vani Rao.
Finland is an important country for India in Europe, and bilateral trade has been on an upswing in the last few years.
Around 35 Indian companies have invested in Finland in IT, healthcare, hospitality and automotive sectors while over 100 Finnish companies have operations in India in energy, textiles, power plants and electronics sectors.
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Sabarimala row: Apex Court begins hearing pleas on discrimination against women
News Network
January 13,2020
New Delhi, Jan 13: The Supreme Court on Monday commenced hearing on issues related to discrimination against women in various religions and at religious places including Kerala's Sabarimala Temple.
A nine-judge bench headed by Chief Justice S A Bobde said that it was not considering review pleas in the Sabarimala case.
“We are not hearing review pleas of Sabarimala case. We are considering issues referred to by a 5-judge bench earlier,” the bench said.
The apex court had on November 14 asked a larger bench to re-examine various religious issues, including the entry of women into the Sabarimala Temple and mosques and the practice of female genital mutilation in the Dawoodi Bohra community.
While the five-judge bench unanimously agreed to refer religious issues to a larger bench, it gave a 3:2 split decision on petitions seeking a review of the apex court's September 2018 decision allowing women of all ages to enter the Sabarimala shrine in Kerala.
A majority verdict by then Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices A M Khanwilkar and Indu Malhotra decided to keep pending pleas seeking a review of its decision regarding entry of women into the shrine, and said restrictions on women in religious places was not restricted to Sabarimala alone and was prevalent in other religions as well.
The minority verdict by Justices R F Nariman and D Y Chandrachud gave a dissenting view by dismissing all review pleas and directing compliance of its September 28 decision.
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