DailyOh! Tarun Tejpal acquitted in rape case, to how Diana was inveigled
BBC journalist Martin Henry Bashir used forged documents to persuade Princess Diana to give the explosive TV interview that cost her marriage.
The big news of the day first — journalist Tarun Tejpal has been acquitted by the District and Sessions Court at Mapusa, North Goa today.
To jog your memory cells, the former Tehelka editor-in-chief was accused of sexually assaulting a female colleague inside an elevator of a luxury hotel in Goa in 2013. He was arrested on November 30, 2013, and the Goa crime branch filed a charge sheet against him. He was subsequently granted bail on July 1, 2014, by the Supreme Court.
Today, Judge Kshama Joshi acquitted him of all charges in the alleged sexual assault case against him after eight years. After the verdict, Tejpal thanked the court “for its rigorous, impartial and fair trial,” in a statement read out by his daughter Cara. It was an emotional moment for Cara, who said that the past seven and a half years have been traumatic for her family.
It was not just Cara who got emotional today. The PM’s voice was also choked with emotion as he said that the effect of the pandemic has been so vast that despite all efforts, numerous lives were lost. "This virus took away so many people who were close to us. I offer my deepest condolences to their families," he added.
कोरोना ने हमसे कई अपनों को छीना है। मैं उन सभी लोगों को अपनी श्रद्धांजलि देता हूं, उनके परिजनों के प्रति सांत्वना व्यक्त करता हूं। कोरोना की सेकेंड वेव में हमारे हेल्थ सिस्टम पर बहुत बड़ा दबाव पैदा हुआ। डॉक्टर्स, हेल्थ वर्कर्स के परिश्रम से हम इस चुनौती का मुकाबला कर रहे हैं। pic.twitter.com/Zuh8BwsGEe
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) May 21, 2021
Among those who the PM mourned was Sunderlal Bahuguna who died in AIIMS, Rishikesh in Uttarakhand this afternoon. This environmental activist was a pioneer in giving the Chipko Movement a direction of a crusade against deforestation in the 1970s. His appeal to then PM Indira Gandhi was the reason for a 15-year ban in 1980 on chopping green trees.
Passing away of Shri Sunderlal Bahuguna Ji is a monumental loss for our nation. He manifested our centuries old ethos of living in harmony with nature. His simplicity and spirit of compassion will never be forgotten. My thoughts are with his family and many admirers. Om Shanti.
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) May 21, 2021
A principled Gandhian, he used satyagraha and hunger strikes to protest the building of the Tehri dam in Uttarakhand on the Bhagirathi river. After winning many fights for the environment, the 94-year-old veteran lost the battle to Covid.
In the past 24 hours since Wednesday morning, India has registered 4,209 Covid-19 deaths and 2,59,551 new cases. Tamil Nadu is still topping the charts with 35,579 cases, standing responsible for 13.71 per cent of the new cases. It is followed closely by Kerala, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.
During his video conference with the healthcare professionals in Varanasi, PM lauded their efforts and said, “You have contained the virus significantly, but there should be no complacency as it is going to be a long fight."
हमें अभी एक लंबी लड़ाई लड़नी है। बनारस और पूर्वांचल के ग्रामीण इलाकों पर भी बहुत ध्यान देना है।‘जहां बीमार वहीं उपचार’, इस सिद्धांत पर माइक्रो-कंटेनमेंट जोन बनाकर जिस तरह शहर एवं गांवों में घर-घर दवाएं बांटी जा रही हैं, यह बहुत अच्छी पहल है। इस अभियान को और व्यापक करना है। pic.twitter.com/SFkZyAyRGG
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) May 21, 2021
After do gaj ki doori, mask hai zaroori, PM gave another mantra amidst the pandemic: "Jahan bimar, wahin upchar (treatment of the ailing at their doorstep)."
Now while the treatment of the ailing will be at the doorstep, the Calcutta High Court has prohibited the four TMC leaders from stepping out of their houses. HC has ordered the house arrest of Firhad Hakim, Subrata Mukherjee, Madan Mitra and Sovan Chatterjee who were arrested by the CBI in the Narada sting case.
The counsel for TMC leaders, Abhishek Manu Singhvi sought a stay on the house arrest order. While Justice Arijit Banerjee of the Calcutta HC bench agreed to grant interim bail, the acting Chief Justice Rajesh Bindal has ordered house arrest and said let the matter be referred to a larger bench for interim bail. Amidst the pandemic, it is better for all of us to stay at home, we say. Meanwhile, CBI has sought transfer of the case, citing the 'extraordinary circumstances' wherein Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee sat on a dharna at the CBI office on Monday after the arrests.
Dharna on the one hand and electioneering on the other. Didi had lost the recently-concluded West Bengal Assembly election from the Nandigram Assembly seat by a narrow margin to her protege-turned-nemesis Suvendhu Adhikari. Didi’s traditional seat was Bhabanipur.
However, losing Nandigram might not be her only loss. Didi might lose her CM ki gaddi too unless she manages to get re-elected to the Assembly within six months. We are not saying this, the Constitution is. And who is paving way for her re-election? Veteran TMC MLA from Bhabanipur, Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay. He resigned from his seat to make way for CM. Didi rewards loyalty and Chattopadhyay will stay on as the Bengal agriculture minister despite his resignation as MLA.
From desi politics to some angrezi politics now. Remember the explosive TV interview of Princess Diana broadcast on BBC on November 20, 1995? We say explosive interview because Diana divulged her troubled marriage to Prince Charles and the famous “three of us in this marriage” quote. The interviewer was British journalist Martin Henry Bashir.
Now, an independent internal inquiry has found that Bashir used forged documents in order to 'inveigle' Diana to get his sensational sit-down. To quote UK’s Justice Secretary Robert Buckland, “...I think we should be just as indignant and concerned if somebody who was vulnerable was inveigled into giving an interview that perhaps might not have happened if standards of probity and honesty had been maintained.”
Buckland said inveigle, but what does it mean? The dictionary defines our Word Of The Day as “to persuade (someone) to do something by means of deception or flattery.” Etymologically, inveigle comes from the early corruption of the French word aveugler which translates “to blind” or “to delude” that traces its origin to the Late-Latin word ab oculīs that literally means “away from the eyes”.
Princes William and Harry, and their uncle Charles Spencer have lashed out at the revelations and said the sit-down led to Diana losing trust in people and her untimely death. "She didn't know who to trust and in the end, when she died two years later, she was without any form of real protection," Spencer said.
Another untimely death of a prominent personality back home was 30 years ago. Today (May 21) India’s youngest Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, was assassinated by Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Much has been said about the killings, the reasons, the convicts and the investigations.
Allow us to tell you something that you might not have heard so far. The most crucial piece of evidence was a roll of film from the camera of a photographer (Hari Babu) who had died in the blast. The roll was found by the forensic expert who was investigating the assassination site, Pakkiriswamy Chandra Sekharan. The man later went on to become the director of the TN Forensic Sciences Department. He, at that time, developed the roll that identified the killers, and instead of handing it over to the investigators, he gave it to a newspaper reporter. The pictures were all over the news and it is only then that the CBI even found out about the roll. It went on to expose the role of LTTE in the former PM’s grotesque killing.
May 21 also marks another day, though not as grim. Today is International Tea Day. If you are as big a chai buff like us, it is a day to celebrate our love for the most consumed beverage in the world. And as a mark of our love for tea, we bring you the recipe of kahwah, the Kashmiri tea. We bring you the process but efforts are all on you. What better way to enjoy the weekend?
With that, we say bye for now. We will be back on Monday.
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