National Foundation for India (NFI) paid news media personnel for anti-national propaganda to topple the BJP in the Lok Sabha elections. From mainstream media personalities to freelancers, many became part of a covert ‘fellowship’ paid news project, reported Janmabhumi recently.
Now, journalist Regimon Kuttappan has admitted to being part of this paid news scheme under the guise of a fellowship. (Kuttappan is a self-proclaimed migrant rights defender. He was a reporter in Oman until he was deported back to Bharat in 2017.) The paid news scheme targeted Kerala, Kashmir, UP, Maharashtra and North Eastern states.
Kuttappan wrote on Facebook that he had received a fellowship from the National Foundation for India (NFI) in 2021. Kuttappan points out that the NFI is an organization founded in 1990 by C Subramanian, a former Union Minister awarded the Bharat Ratna, and MS Swaminathan, the father of the Green Revolution.
What matters is not who started the NFI but what it does. George Soros’s Open Society Foundation purportedly backs it, and the Ford Foundation of the United States directs the NFI Fellowship.
Kuttappan was paid to write about the ‘Gulf return workers not getting jobs due to Covid’. Several Keralites in the Gulf countries lost their jobs and returned to Kerala. Kuttappan wrote reams and appeared on evening talk shows to highlight their plight.
According to a survey conducted in the last three years, 50% of local Keralites are jobless. Kerala has the highest unemployment rate among individuals aged 15 to 29, at 28.7%, compared to the national average of 10%.
Interestingly, Kerala is now home to over 30 lakh migrant workers (including Rohingyas and Bangladeshis). In Kerala, young people are rarely seen working manual labour, which heavily relies on illegal immigrants to run the show. Such factors made Kuttappan’s job pretty easy.
The Janmabhumi report mentioned that the NFI, funded by the American Ford Foundation, is carrying out anti-national propaganda under the guise of a media fellowship. Media workers were paid Rs 30,000 per story. The project included 15 media workers, including Kuttappan from Kerala.
Journalists were paid to establish that Muslims are insecure in Bharat. The sold-out media spread the news of lynching and the beef ban. They whitewashed the accused in the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) cases, created riots in the North Eastern states, raised environmental issues to sabotage development projects and spread fake news of caste discrimination.
By establishing that the central government has failed to deal with COVID, media personnel tried to sow the seeds of discontent among us.
Dhanya Rajendran and Seema Chishti, who heads DigiPub, an organization allegedly funded by George Soros’s Open Society Foundation, also worked as media advisors to the NFI. Seema Chisti, the second wife of Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPM) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury, is also the editor of The Wire news portal.
The fellowship was awarded to those recommended by Dhanya Rajendran and Seema Chisti. It was given to minorities, extreme leftists and anti-BJP media workers. There was a centralized system for ideation and publication in online outlets such as The Wire, News Minute and Quint. About 150 media workers were awarded the fellowship.
Ashfaq E.J, a native of Kozhikode who won the fellowship, regularly published and spread fake news of the lynching at the hands of Gau Rakshak activists. (Gau Rakshaks are individuals working proactively for the protection of cows, focusing on protecting cows by prohibiting illegal cow slaughter and saving cows from cattle mafias.)
Such distorted news was regularly reported in The Caravan magazine and Madhyamam (the Jamaat-e-Islami newspaper)—media workers who are members of DigiPub copy/paste and spread such fake news.
Umar Ahmad, a native of Jammu and Kashmir’s Pulwama, published stories in The Quint, Kashmir Observer, etc., about the environmental impact of proposed hydropower projects in Kashmir, creating fear.
A freelance journalist in Kashmir’s Anant Nag was rewarded for reporting on the alleged ‘abuses’ of the UAPA in Kashmir.
Farheen Qureshi (from Ganderbal, Kashmir) tried to insinuate the government failed in the fight against COVID-19 in Kashmir. She claimed Islamist religious charities fought COVID-19 and saved Kashmir from a ‘Delhi-like’ situation.
(HinduPost reported how 956 foreigners belonging to 36 different countries were booked in the Delhi Nizamuddin Markaz case, where a congregation of 9000 Tablighi Jamaat members had assembled in March 2020, leading to the spread of the Wuhan virus in different parts of the country after the attendees dispersed and travelled all over Bharat. Later, a Delhi Court accepted the plea bargaining application of 60 Malaysian Tabligh Jamaat members and allowed them to go scot-free after paying a pittance of Rs 7000 each.)
Lucknow-based Alishan Jafri’s specialization is communal conflicts and beef news in UP. His work was based on Seema Chisti’s guidelines.
Aziz Mirza of UP Bahraich exaggerated the woes of villagers and Dalits. Sumit Chakraborty received a fellowship for environmental urban heritage impact news to undermine the metro rail project in Agra. Special fellowships were also given to promote separatism in the North-Eastern states.
NFI’s Malayalam section partner is Azhimukham Portal, where PFI terror suspect Siddique Kappan worked.
Recipients from Kerala include Rejimon Kuttappan, Ashfak E.J., Jisha Surya (Times of India), Nimisha S Pradeep (The Hindu), Amritha Mohan, Arathi M.R., Elizabeth Thomas (Consultant, Editor, and Content Writer – IIT Bombay), Ananya S.P. (Mathrubhumi), Archana C.A. (guest Lecturer at Thunchath Ezhuthachan Malayalam University), Arshak M.A., Eminta Paul (Reporter TV), Hasna K.H., Jomol Jose, Reshmi Jaydas, and Sindhu Maria Napoleon (stories were published in Azhimukham first).
Did the election results prove that the paid news plan to create an anti-Modi wave in the Lok Sabha elections did not fail?
