tapasya tofuss
@tapasya_umm
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Journalist. Wannabe poet. ACJ Award for Investigative Journalism, 2024. Member @reporters_co
New Delhi, India
Joined June 2011
1. In the last part of @reporters_co investigation, I reveal a hidden NITI Aayog study that found Modi govt's women safety schemes have failed. I also show how the govt planned to fiscally choke the schemes. Do read this but stay with me on the thread.
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🧵1. Ramdev and associates have a different life when they are off-screen. Once the yoga poses are done, and the cameras are gone, a twisty business empire gets to work. Hollow charity orgs & firms are created to "serve" the nation. What do they actually do? A detailed thread👇
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🧵 Baba Ramdev used to once talk of ending black money. But his Patanjali group has a web of shell firms that trade in Aravalli forests for huge profits. @shreegireesh & I at @reporters_co studied hundreds of corporate & land records to expose their modus operandi. Read on 👇🏽
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🧵1. Before the deluge of rains hit North India, Uttarakhand CM was lobbying the Centre. To prepare for monsoon? No. Our investigation reveals: For hasty approvals to continue mining 4 rivers, even during rains. In 5 days, he got it. My colleague @aggam_walia & I tell more 👇
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We @reporters_co are making public all documents related to electoral bonds, including those now removed by the State Bank of India from its website. And those that it never disclosed in the first place. You can find them here:.
All the PDFs related to #ElectoralBonds are removed from the SBI website. @TheOfficialSBI should come up with an explanation.
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🚨Uttarakhand govt violated a Supreme Court order, went against Centre's warning to mine rivers for money that should've gone towards conserving forests. It instead gave away its power to check illegal mining to private firms. I write for @reporters_co.
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🧵1. The Supreme Court sat on the #ElectoralBonds Scam too long. The Union gov't has built a more comprehensive (and simple) surveillance system over all manner of political funding. All kinds of donations to every political party. @nit_set & I reveal. Stay with us and read 👇🏽
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🧵 #Thread:. #Uttarakhand has become a communal tinder box. @HemantGairola25 & I uncovered how it's a concerted campaign of hate, running on impunity and state support. It's fueled by leaders from the BJP and its affiliates. While the police acts blind. We collected proof. 👇
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IMPACT: Apex court has overturned Centre’s business-friendly changes to forest law, and ordered it to go back to court’s previous definition of forest. A @reporters_co investigation had exposed how gov’t diluted protection to forestlands for businesses.
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1. #Thread: A Fact Check. Recently Union environment minister Bhupender Yadav .and Congress leader Jairam Ramesh engaged in a heated debate. Ramesh said Modi government diluted tribal rights. Minister Yadav said no rules or law had been diluted. Who was telling the truth?.
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#Thread: The Union gov't wants to become the judge in cases it's an accused. It has proposed new rules to take down news from online platforms once PIB (govt's publicity arm) calls the news 'fake'. Let me show you how malafide and bad 'PIB Fact Check' business of the gov't is:
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Part 2🚨 #Patanjali shell firm made 365% profit selling Aravalli forestland. Thanks to Haryana govt denying the forests legal cover. #Ramdev's firm did no biz, only traded in lands & pumped profits back in Patanjali. I report, with @shreegireesh.
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THREAD 🧵1. India is launching a controversial new carbon market. To trade in greenhouse gases. Why should citizens care about some companies making legit (or illegitimate) money from selling tonnes of a gas in a market?. I and my @reporters_co colleague @nit_set explain 👇🏿.
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🧵1. Uttarakhand's forests burned. Several died. Meanwhile, the state govt violated a Supreme Court order and snatched away forest conservation funds earned from river mining. It also outsourced its duty to check illegal river mining to private players. 👇
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🚨New: Aurobindo Pharma gave BJP Rs 25 crore two days after it was approved for a major union govt subsidy. The company earlier gave BJP Rs 5 crore five days after its director Sarath Reddy was arrested in Delhi liquor policy case. Read:.
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1. 🧵 #ForestsForProfit. Modi govt's amended forest conservation law exposes India's forests to exploitation by private players. The gov'ts efforts to do so, bypassing tribal rights, began at least 8 years ago. @nit_set and I reveal official docs and evidence. Stay with us.
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2. Before you start reading the thread, we @reporters_co have made public the documents that were used in our recent story on Patanjali empire's dubious charitable organization. Find them here:.
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4. It never fulfilled the purpose for which it was granted tax-exemption. Indian authorities have acted against minor transgressions. Of NGOs straying from their stated objectives. But Patanjali empire remained untouched. And its tax-exempt status intact.
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3. In my report for @reporters_collective I found:. Ramdev and associates run a tax-free charity organization that, instead of doing its charity work, became an investment parking spot for the Patanjali empire.
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🚨BJP got at least Rs 320 crore from Keventer group while the ED case on it was hot. This was more than half the group's total electoral donations. Other parties got money in the succeeding years. #ElectoralBondsTracker.
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5. Stay with me as I unravel the details. To read the story, click here:.
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🚨A charity set up by Ramdev & associates did nothing to help people through yoga and healthcentres, as they claimed. It didn't fulfill the objectives for which it was given tax exemption. Instead it was used to park Patanjali group's investments .
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Scoop: Centre has made Aadhaar compulsory for millions of children below 6 to get food, when only 23% children below 5 have it. Despite SC order that children not be denied any services for lack of Aadhaar. And CAG report saying Aadhaar for children < 5 is no use. I report.
Modi govt makes Aadhaar compulsory for infants and children upto 6 years to get free nutrition (which is their right by law). But only 23% children below 5 in India have Aadhaar. Millions of poor children would be left deprived. @tapasya_umm reports.
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Ramdev's Patanjali group floated dubious shell companies to buy Aravalli forestland. These firms got money from the group's main men and other companies, dealt in land & pumped proceeds back into Patanjali. @shreegireesh.& I report.
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# Thread: 1. Today we revealed how the Centre has made Aadhaar compulsory for beneficiaries of its nutrition programme, SNP. Which feeds children below 6, pregnant/lactating women. Published in @Article14live. You can read it here.
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#Thread: How India countered WHO death estimates using its own flawed set of data. When it had a better option. WHO's damning report pegged India's 2020 deaths at 100.51 lakh. Out of these, 8.30 lakh were Covid-linked deaths, it said.
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6. Stories like these take time and resources. Your support is critical for our work. Donate to us and share our work.
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#Thread A poor woman is declared rich; a living man dead. Their food and pension stopped by govt. These are not isolated cases. Faulty and opaque algorithms used by states are deleting thousands of poor across India and denying them their rights.
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7. Back to the story. In 2016, four people linked to the Patanjali group set up Yogakshem Sansthan. They said the charitable organization would set up yoga, ayurveda and health care centers for the poor and educational institutes for skill development of children.
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2. Let's first zoom into Uttarkashi district's hill town of Purola. May 26: Two men caught allegedly in a bid to abduct a minor Hindu girl. One was a Muslim, other a Hindu. Both were in the town for business. This incident was given a communal spin.
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8. But this charity didn't do anything that it proclaimed. Within two years of being set up, the group put the charity to use for parking investments. In 2018, it received a big donation- over 2 crore shares in Patanjali Ayurved Limited (PAL). Worth over Rs 79 crore.
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10. PAL's shares were donated to Yogakshem by Ramdev's close associates- Acharya Balkrishna and Swami Muktanand (who passed away in 2022), and 6 firms owned by them. Most of these shares were donated by Balkrishna who owned 98.54% of Patanjali Ayurved at the time.
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9. Patanjali Ayurved is the flagship company of Patanjali empire. It sells wide-ranging ayurvedic products- nutraceuticals to cosmetics. That year its revenue from sales was Rs 8,136 crore.
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3. Blame was immediately ascribed to "outsiders" and '"love jihad"- a baseless conspiracy theory that Muslims beguile Hindu women to forcefully convert them to Islam. Easy to add two and two to understand what community was targeted.
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30. Six months ago @shreegireesh and I did a two-part series on Patanjali's web of shell companies, set up for promoting Ayurveda, that instead turned into real-estate firms trading Aravallis forests. You can read them here:.
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8. May I distract you for a bit? We @reporters_co are able to question and hold the authorities responsible, because our readers donate to keep us going. Please consider donating Or, please come back later and do so if you find our work worth it.
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3. Ramesh alleged that Modi government's new rules ensure it can now give licence to industries to chop down forests without verifying if tribal rights on these forests have been recognised under the Forest Rights Act.
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11. Was this an altruistic donation?. Within 24 hours of donating shares in Patanjali Ayurved to Yogakshem Sansthan, Ramdev, Balkrishna and Muktanand took over control of the charitable company.
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32. If you want to read the full story we published in English with @Article14live, here you go:.
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12. They did so in two ways. One, that 100% ownership of Yogakshem was transfered to Patanjali Sewa Trust, a trust set up by Ramdev and associates. Ramdev got 1 share in Yogakshem as nominee shareholder. Two, the three of them were made additional directors in the charity.
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2. First, what triggered the argument between the two? . A change in the Forest Conservation Rules. The rules lay down how the Union government gives licences to industries and miners to chop down forests for their projects.
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31. Modi government had been working towards this dilution for a while, records reveal.
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8. New documents reveal that right from the start, way back in 2019, the environment ministry had internally declared its intention: To do away with its responsibility of ensuring that consent from tribal communities is in place before giving forest clearances.
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7. What did we find? . We found that Union environment, forests and climate change minister Bhupender Yadav had been economical with the truth.
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Over months @reporters_co analyzed 10+ years of financials records of over a 100 Patanjali companies. Linked them to 100s of state land records. To bring out the truth. Work like this takes immense resources. Donate if you value such journalism
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14. But that did not happen. Yogakshem had neither done any charity work till the time, nor would it do so in the years after it got PAL's shares and Patanjali Sewa became its owner. No yoga, ayurved or health care centers for underprivileged people were set up.
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13. During the same period, Ramdev told media that Patanjali Sewa Trust would be the sole holding entity of the Patanjali empire. Media reported, "Patanjali Ayurved will be turned into a non-profit entity as it seeks to plough back earnings from its businesses into charity.”.
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5. While videos exist online, the Sub-Divisional Magistrate told us the rally was "peaceful" and he wasn't aware of any vandalism. Police said the vandals were miscreants who infiltrated the peaceful rally and hadn't been identified [⚠️The 'Unknown Miscreant' Trick alert].
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3. Pause: You know why The Reporters' Collective @reporters_co could unravel the #ElectoralBonds scam, keep bringing out evidence over years even as SC sat quiet? Because you donated to keep us going. That's how we are still at it. Donate to keep us going
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4. Purola traders' union called for a rally and the closing down of shops in Purola market and demanded strict verification of "outsiders" [ ⚠️ Dog-whistling alert]. During the rally, on May 29, shops of Muslims were vandalised.
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17. Finally, after three years, Yogakshem said in its balance sheet that the share transfer had been reversed. Because Balkrishna had pledged his shares as collateral with banks. And the banks did not permit the moving of collateral from Balkrishna to Yogakshem.
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Before I go further, we have made public all the documents- corporate filings and Haryana's land records- used in our investigative series on Patanjali's dubious land deals. You can access them here:.
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30. The Union government's move runs counter to any progress India made to correct the historical injustices done to tribal communities. It washes away decades of legal battles fought by tribal- and forest-dependent people to gain rights over forests.
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15. A few months after, the previous owners were removed from their managerial posts as well. Ramdev, Balkrishna and Muktanand assumed full control of Yogakshem Sansthan. Why would Balkrishna and Muktanand donate shares in PAL but control them indirectly through Yogakshem?.
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2. I work at The Reporters' Collective @reporters_co. In June 2022, I exposed Centre's move to make Aadhaar compulsory for children under 6 to get nutritious food. The story was based on hard documentary evidence I had scooped out from govt files.
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6. Since the rally, Muslims have kept their shops shut out of fear. Many have now fled Purola and vacated their shops. But, local authorities told us that Muslim families hadn't left the town, Incredulously, they claimed, Muslims had merely gone away for the weekend.
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20. This acquisition was controversial- the lender banks of Ruchi Soya that had to recover their money gave hefty loans to Patanjali to buy the insolvent company. Adani Wilmar withdrew from the race to buy out Ruchi Soya. The acquisition was way too easy for Patanjali.
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6. But, we know, the truth often lies hidden in government files. And often gets obfuscated in what the government tells the citizens. So, we dug out the documents from the environment ministry.
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16. We asked Balkrishna, but didn't receive a response. There was also a discrepancy in this donation of shares. While Yogakshem showed in its account books that it had received the donation, PAL's financials continued to reflect Balkrishna as the owner of the shares.
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18. That was the story of a failed attempt to park Patanjali Ayurved's shares with Yogakshem Sansthan. But as soon as the share donation was reversed, Yogakshem was presented with another opportunity to lend a hand to consolidate Patanjali empire's business.
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4. We first got whiff of this scandalous move from a whistleblower. We @reporters_co investigated. How the CM and the Centre joined hands to make mining happen in one river- Gaula. Repeatedly. In breach of environmental safeguards.
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12. Records reveal that in 2019, in a meeting with coal, power and railway ministry, the environment ministry said it would delink forest rights law- a "major hurdle"- from the process to license forests to industry. This was to facilitate the private sector.
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7. When we @reporters_co questioned the authorities on June 5 and 6, they said everything was fine. That the fear amongst Muslims was a product of "media hype". So, was Purola's Muslim community scared for no reason?.
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New: Telangana's BRS govt started using an algorithm to decide who should get subsidised food. It left thousands of poor without food for years. I report with @Kum_Sambhav, @divijualsuspect, support: @pulitzercenter .
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11. My story was published in June 2022 based on govt's secretive guidelines of March 2022. But the govt was now telling me that in June 2022 it labelled my story fake relying on a document that came into existence only a month month later, in August 2022! Time Travelling eh?.
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Back to Purola. 9. A few days after the rally that turned violent, posters appeared on the downed shutters of shops run by Muslims. 'Love Jihadis are informed to vacate their shops before the mahapanchayat on June 15. Time will decide the repercussions of not doing so. '
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29. The Union tribal affairs ministry, which had earlier in this and previous governments fought against such a move, was not consulted this time around, records show. But later it also came out to defend the move.
community as the Presidential Candidate from NDA, the Congress party is trying to mislead the nation by making frivolous and baseless allegations. Further, the Ministry of Tribal Affairs is totally committed for upliftment of the tribal communities and at no point the.
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4. His second allegation: Modi govt had done away with its existing responsibility of ensuring that tribal communities have given their consent in writing to part with their forestland BEFORE industry and miners get their licences from the Union government.
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3. What the govt had done was against SC order that no child be denied welfare for the lack of Aadhaar. As of date only 23 % children under 5 have Aadhaar. The rest could be denied rations if officials followed govt diktat. Here is the story.
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19. It received another donation. Rs 42 crore worth of shares in Ruchi Soya (Patanjali Foods). Patanjali Consortium had acquired the bankrupt fast moving consumer goods company in December 2019.
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In 2015, Haryana CM offered Ramdev a Cabinet Minister rank. He declined. He said, the gov't and the Centre and state were his anyway. He was right. Haryana gov't ensured that portions of Aravallis didn't get legal cover. Allowing dubious real-estate firms to profit off them.
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What we dug out - the modus operandi of Patanjali's shell firms trading in Aravalli forests. These firms were buoyed by money from promoters- Ramdev's right hand man Acharya Balkrishna, his brother Ram Bharat and other close associates. What did they do with this money?.
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14. My RTI was also transferred to PIB. They said the "fact-check" was done based on a statement of the ministry. So for PIB a fact-check means merely parroting what another arm of the govt has said?
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22. After Divya Yog Mandir donated shares to Yogakshem, it got 60% shares in the charity. Effectively, it became an indirect owner of the shares it had donated. This roundabout way of ownership is typical of businesses that want to obfuscate ownership and wealth of owners.
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11. But industries and miners did not want the consent of tribals and their rights to come in the way of their lucrative projects. They preferred to merely convince forest officials, bureaucrats and ministers to get their forest chopping licences.
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28. The industrial sector got law-makers to ease for them the process of gaining control over forests. And an abiding environment ministry relented. Doing away with its constitutional & legal responsibility to protect rights of tribal and other forest-dwelling communities.
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21. One of the entities in the Patanjali Consortium that took over Ruchi Soya was Divya Yog Mandir Trust. It got 6 crore shares in the company. This is the trust that donated all of its shares in Ruchi Soya to Yogakshem in FY 2020-21. This donation revealed a pattern.
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27. The environment minister did not tell the truth in public.
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5. Such investigations, keeping our elected representatives accountable to citizens, require immense resources. We rely on your donations to keep at it. So do consider donating before you move to the next tweet and read what our probe found. Donate here:
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24. Time passed, Yogakshem did not serve the nation in any way. It did not serve underprivileged people. It did not nurture any skills in children. Then came the 2022-23 fiscal.
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29. It continues to hold a 16.5% stake in Ruchi Soya, according to latest available records of the FMCG company. Ramdev and his associates' tall claims of working in the interest of the nation turned out to be misleading, just like their advertisements.
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2. The gov't now has a new way to gain exclusive access to granular details of political donations. To all parties. This disclosure will come from donors themselves. All law enforcement agencies will get the data. Citizens, yet again, will remain in the dark.
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3. Dhami's request was accepted within 5 days. A 'double-engine sarkaar' move, in his own words. Instead of better governance, the 'double-engine' steamrolled over rule of law, green regulations and court orders designed to protect the environment, and us.
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26. A fait-accompli situation, because the industry had already given the money to the Union government (which the states too get) for the forestland.
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4. As the story spread bringing harsh criticism for the gov't, it retaliated quickly. The 'PIB Fact Check' swung into action and called my story 'fake'. With a mere bland tweet. That's it. It didn't present any counter evidence or facts or even pretend to argue with evidence.
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5. Remember, the gov't intends to use such 'Fact Check' tweets by its publicity wing, the Press Information Bureau or PIB to pull down critical journalism.
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🚨Union gov't neglected the health and well-being of Kashmiri citizens who breathed in air critically polluted by cement factories. An ex MP's persistence revealed grave violations by industries who were earlier given a clean chit.
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2. On 18 February this year, CM Pushkar Singh Dhami met Union environment minister and party colleague, Bhupender Yadav in New Delhi. He gloated about it in a Facebook post. He requested Yadav to hurry approvals to continue mining four rivers. And Yadav assured he would.
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28. Tax authorities can revoke tax-exemptions of charitable organizations that do not fulfil their objectives and do not utilize their tax exempt status. But Yogakshem Sansthan still enjoys a tax-free status.
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10. This poster was in the name of Devbhoomi Raksha Abhiyan. The authorities said they couldn't identify people behind this organisation. We were told the call for mahapanchayat was not official and had appeared only on those posters.
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10. Since 2009, to comply with Forest Rights Act, while appraising a proposal from industry and miners to chop down forests, the environment ministry first verified if tribal communities had given consent in writing. It sought evidence on this from the ground to verify.
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11. But, a report in Amar Ujala said a person called Rakesh Tomar of Devbhoomi Raksha Abhiyan led people to a police station in the same district over a case similar to Purola’s. This is not all.
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21. As the noose around honest journalism tightens, your support will matter more and more. Donate to @reporters_co. My colleagues and I at @reporters_co can do this work because you donate for such journalism.
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22. The law ministry told the environment ministry to explicitly state which of its responsibilities to check project developers for compliance was being done away with.
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12. A private Facebook group ‘Devbhoomi Raksha Abhiyan Founder (Swami Darshan Bharti) S,S,Rana’ exists online. Bharti has previously participated in events of hate speech against Muslims. He is also reported to have convinced locals in Purola to evict Muslim tenants.
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1. India has three environment laws to protect against pollution plus dozens of orders and govt notifications to check violators and an army of officials across the country to monitor and penalise them. But does this army really do its work? Stay with me please.
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25. In this financial year, the charity earned Rs 30 crore from its shares in Ruchi Soya. Tax laws mandate that a charity should spend at least 85% of its income on its stated charitable purpose in order to claim tax exemption. Yogakshem did not satisfy this condition.
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14. They asked the ministry to “eliminate the factors causing substantial impediments in the process of seeking approval under the Forest Conservation Act”. This means changing the rules to give easy licences to raze forests.
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23. Meanwhile, Yogakshem Sansthan continued to be idle when it came to fulfilling the purpose for which it was created in the first place. Its shareholding kept shifting hands from one Patanjali entity to another. Those who donated to the charity got ownership in it.
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2. Modi govt's changes to forest law went against Supreme Court's landmark 1996 order that all lands satisfying dictionary meaning of forests be given legal cover. @nit_set & I exposed how gov'ts undermined SC's directions
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