Cobra post, Gobar post. MOHA, withdraw visa of US citizen, Siddharth Varadarajan

In the middle of 2012, much before the Gujarat elections, I was meeting a ‘well-connected’ business client that I had met a few times before. He was also aware of this blog that I write. He started talking about elections and politics and out of the blue asked me if I would write against certain parties and politicians. He told me there would be good money. I declined but now on hindsight a thought comes to my head. What if I had accepted and started negotiating the amount? What if we had finally arrived at some agreement on what to write for what price? What if this guy also had a spycam recording all of it? Who knows! This guy could have then put up a post to show I’m corrupt and will twist my writing for money. He could have tarred this blog site whereas ideally I should have been legally entitled to send him to jail for secretly recording discussions with me without my knowledge. It would have been deliberately framing a person. It would have been a “sting operation”.

The direction of all the stings in the public and political domain have been singularly directed at parties opposed to Congress, particularly the BJP. This is no secret and every scumbag in the MSM knows it. But they still support this nonsense because they too are political thieves. The “Fiberal” bimbos have a mistaken idea of liberalism. The only true tolerant liberal in India is the real Hindu. Which is why the Category5Moron whines over the fate ofTarun Tejpal by wrongly connecting it to liberal values. The values of these Fiberals surely belong in the toilet as Swapan Dasgupta points out to her.  It is difficult for Sagarika to acknowledge the only values that the Fiberals share is the so-called “incestuous club” of lies, hate and behaving the way Tejpal did. 

And Tejpal is just the ponytail of the whole big Ravanesque head of this Fiberal club. He even founded one called ‘Prufrock’. His former colleague, Anirudh Bahal, has founded an exclusive “sting” company called Cobrapost. I fondly call it GobarPost because it is nothing but unadulterated bullshit. People who go around with spy cameras and pry on unsuspecting people and create reports belong in jail, not in the media.

Since the days of Arun Shourie this country hasn’t seen honest investigative reporting. There is an exception in J. Gopikrishnan of The Pioneer who broke the 2G scam. But the TV channels like NDTV, CNN-IBN, AajTak, HeadlinesToday clearly delight in shortcuts and spurious stings to claim “investigative reporting”. This is nothing but Gobar journalism. Investigative reporting takes a lot of patience, talking to hundreds of people, facing a lot of rejections, doors closing on the reporter, slander against the reporter, sleepless nights, danger, fear, good leads and wrong leads, confirmations and denials, people not going on record, lucky breaks and all of that plus an absolutely tough editor. It requires conviction and perseverance. It is nothing like a James Bond movie or the pathetic acts of Tehelka or GobarPost. This is a montage from a 2 hour movie and won’t explain the whole story but I have tried to show what kind of work and patience honest work involves. Video (11 mins):   

The guys in the video weren’t investigating a mail fraud or a petty scam. They brought down the most powerful man on earth. It didn’t involve phone-tapping, they didn’t have mobile phones, spycams or laptops. In contrast our MSM and so-called spooks are acting like brokers for the govt. Investigation is not about trapping people when they are unguarded. It’s about getting to the bottom of a story through honest work but also using connections and sources in the best possible manner. So this Cobrapost with their Gobar journalism delivers some crap about BJP and AAP using some IT firms for some bogus promotion of their campaigns or to malign the Congress. So what’s new morons? This is the historical gift by the Congress; popularly known as DTD. And why is this any big news or such a big deal at all? Don’t political parties slander each other in the open at rallies and private meetings? Doesn’t the Congress malign Narendra Modi for any disaster in this country; even Onions? Don’t Ashok Gehlot and Ajay Maken get loverly fans from Turkey or Burkina Faso?

If election campaigns and politics are primarily dirty then they are going to be dirty everywhere; on the streets, in the parliament, in the cabinet, in rallies, on mountain tops, on the corrupt MSM and on the social media too. What exactly is shocking the bolts of these people or the anchors like Rajdeep or Arnab? Are these guys such ignorants? NO! It is just that people like Rajdeep have run a campaign against the BJP for long and this nonsensical Gobar of Cobrapost is just handy. As was Tehelka. The sleeping beauties of our MSM are just about waking up to the financial crimes of Tejpal and Tehelka. Here’s what FirstPost reports:

First, the beneficiaries: • Shoma Chaudhury was then Editor (Features). Anant Media had allocated 1,500 equity shares to her at a price of Rs 10 each. On 14 June 2006, she sold off 500 shares to AK Gurtu Holdings Private Ltd at a premium of Rs 13,189 per share, thus pocketing Rs 66 lakh … In short, Shoma Chaudhary’s Rs 5,000 investment (a third of her full investment of Rs 15,000 in buying 1,500 shares) brought her Rs 66 lakh in less than three years. • Tarun Tejpal’s wife Geetan Batrasold off 2,000 equity shares to AK Gurtu at a premium of Rs 13,189, thus getting Rs 2.64 crore. • Tejpal’s brother Minty Kunwar sold 1,500 shares to AK Gurtu for nearly Rs 2 crore. • Tejpal’s fatherInderjit Tejpal offloaded 1,000 shares to AK Gurtu for Rs 1.32 crore • Tejpal’s mother Shakuntla too sold 1,000 shares to the same company for Rs 1.32 crore • Tejpal’s sister and Tehelka’s COO Neena T Sharma sold 432 shares for Rs 57 lakh. Tarun Tejpal did not offload any of his shares. Rather he acquired 4,125 equity shares from two persons, Shankar Sharma and Devina Mehra, at Rs 10 per share on the same day – that is, 14 June 2006. Thus on the same day, Anant Media shares had two different prices – Rs 10 and Rs 13,189 per share!

Anyone who believes there isn’t back door funding and illicit money in these deals or that there isn’t any political hand in these dealings surely needs to see Dr. Batra urgently. In the video Deep Throat has profoundly left an advice for posterity: “Follow the money”. Now what is this Cobrapost funded with and who funds it? If you look at their website there’s no “About us” or who’s behind the operation. The home page has a very visible “Donate” button at the top, the rest is links to articles. The only other page that has any other information about them is the donate page with Anirudh Bahal’s name and the address/accounts to send your money to. Take a look:

Appropriately, the real name of the organisation is “Forum for media & literature’. Ahem! After all, Tehelka too graduated from crappy stings to LitterFests, didn’t they? THINK and all? So the road map for Gobar journalism and easy money is pretty much well laid out. Throw crap against all opponents of Congress and get rich. That’s the scheme. Scams, sex, rapes; if at all there was a goldmine for these silly stings it has to be the Congress. Yet, as I keep pointing out repeatedly, not one major sting has been carried out against any Congi. It was reported earlier too and now evenHuffpost reports Sonia Gandhi’s assets worth $2 Billion. Would these Congress doormats (which the guy in the video calls honourable “RatF*****s”) dare to peep into her asset history? How does a woman who claims she doesn’t even a car own $2 Bn worth of assets? These jokers and other “fearless cowards” like Arnab, Rajdeep, Barkha, Ashutosh, Sreenivasan Jain, Chaubeji, Sagarika & Co. will never dare to ask the question. Their heads would be rolling in some Gobar dump if they did. I would not be wrong in saying all the powers and crimes of Tejpal & Co. flow from being doormats of Sonia and Congress. It’s not me alone, now even others are reflecting on this glaring truth: Here’sFirstPost again:

There you go! Land, Defence, Spectrum, Space! You name it and you have a goldmine for stings but our “Fearless Cowards” find problems only with the Opposition. And of all the stupid things this Gobar sting of Cobrapost investigates fake accounts and political slandering on social media as if that is the greatest issue for the country. After suppressing and destroying theCash4Votes sting Rajdeep Sardesaipermanently lost his credibility as an editor. Why should anyone trust these guys anymore? On top of that, post the Tejpal rape scandal there are more people giving information of many other editors who are also involved in sexual harassment. This tweet from Sucheta Dalal says a lot. They started out maligning the opponents of Congress for political reasons but all their sleaze is now coming out. I repeat: Crooks and Liars in the Indian MSM are the greatest danger to our democracy. And when confronted with police investigation, the champion of stings, Tejpal, hides like a rat, like a coward till forced out of his hole. His partner in Tehelka, Cowardni Shoma Chaudhury became hysterical, threw tantrums and even threatened political pressure. Here you go:

The TOI report related to the above pic says: “Sources said Shoma shouted at the team and tried to stop them when they decided to take away Tejpal's computer (CPU). She even dropped names of some senior politicians and threatened to make calls, an investigator said”. Any more doubts that these Tehelkas and Gobarposts are backed by political masters pulling the strings? It’s no different for most of the MSM either.

Remember Linda Tripp? She’s the woman who illegally recorded her conversations with Monica Lewinsky (Bill Clinton – Lewinsky scandal) and offered it as evidence to the prosecutor against immunity from legal action. She got that immunity but earned public scorn forever. No public respects a friend who turns spy. Recording phone conversations (and using it for public purposes) without knowledge of the person is a crime in the US. This and recording people’s images without their knowledge also need to be outlawed in India. Such Gobar journalism comes only funded by corrupt money. To borrow the term from the video in this post what Tehelka and Cobrapost are doing is called “RatF*****g” on behalf of a political party. And these morons are worried about Social Media which doesn’t indulge in corruption anywhere close to the MSM and its players do.

The MSM delightfully calls crooks like Tejpal and those like Anirudh Bahal, Ashish Khetan “investigative journalists”. That is Gobar by itself. They are nothing but “Peeping Toms”. Voyeurs of a different variety! The original peeping Tom was struck and went blind watching Lady Godiva ride naked. Tejpal has been struck. If Bahal doesn’t dump his Gobar and return to honest journalism, he will be struck too. It’s nature’s law of retribution. In the previous ‘Redemption’ post I quoted the Lord’s warning for the criminal: “His judgement cometh and that right soon”.

The other obvious question, therefore, is where will all this end? The Supreme Court has recently asked the Centre to frame guidelines to regulate content on TV media. For this, we need an independent authority to exercise a watch over TV media, particularly the corrupt news media. While the govt can set up and fund such a body it should never be involved in it. Once formed, this should be an autonomous body with prominent citizens from the public. Neither govt nor any media persons should be appointed there. But even before that happens, the entire news media must be brought under RTI. They don’t have any excuses anymore. The media houses may be private but they are in the public domain and are govt beneficiaries in many ways. They are equivalent to public health and should be under as much scrutiny as they think they have the right to put others to. Till then Gobar journalism from the likes of Cobrapost supported by political channels like CNN-IBN, NDTV, ABPNews, TimesNow and the whole lot will continue.