Faking News - leading news satire website of India: January 2013

Thursday, January 31, 2013

Rat Biryani served to passenger, Railways asks rats not to panic

Ahmedabad. There have been worrying reports of mass exodus of rats from the railway stations triggered by the news that rats are now being cooked along with biryani in pantry cars of Indian Railways.

The railway tracks wore a deserted looks and no rabbit-sized rat could be spotted as the news spread. The Railway Minister convened an emergency meeting, and immediately after the meeting they announced that the rat community should not be horrified by such isolated incidents.

“There is no need for panic; necessary steps will be taken to arrest those who have spread rumors which has led to this mass exodus,” Railway Minister declared.

A rat running away from the Railways

A railway official, after a lot of ~~liquor~~ persuasion and on condition of anonymity, revealed why the government was deeply worried by this exodus.

“There are estimated 43 lakh rats settled on railway lines. As per their estimate they collectively consume about 645 tonnes of food waste per day and 2.43 lakh tones annually. Railways will have to spend crores of rupees annually to clean this food waste, which we can’t afford,” the official told Faking News.

“Also, there are issues of tariff and territory in handling this waste between local municipalities,” the official added.

Since the government needs rats, it has ordered an inquiry into who spread “rumors” that led to this exodus. The role of social media is being investigated on a priority basis.

“We have reports that Facebook and Twitter were flooded with the rumors that railway caterers were swindling away funds meant for Chicken Biryani by serving Rat Biryani to the unsuspecting passengers. Some enthusiast even shared recipes of food made from rat, mostly copied from blogs of China origin. We will act against all such persons,” Home Secretary warned.

Home Ministry is considering blocking some Twitter accounts on this issue, though they failed to explain how such messages could have been read by the rat community, which apparently added to their panic.

The rat community has welcomed such reassurances from the government.

“We don’t eat railway catering food ever as we are not sure of the quality,” claimed a rat from Ahmedabad Railway Station, “People of Gujarat live affluent life and throw ample of leftover food such as delicious dhokla and thepla from the train, which works just fine for us.”

Since the Rat Biryani incident took place in a Gujarat bound train, many NGOs have taken note of the incident and the statement by the rat above. It is expected that they may use this statement against the local government at an appropriate time.

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

An ideal terrorist for Tamil movies

After a huge controversy erupted on the way terrorists were depicted in Vishwaroopam, Tamil film industry is trying to find out the ideal way in which a terrorist should be depicted.

Our special correspondent has the following suggestion:

Apparently a terrorist has no religion

India to send Vivek Oberoi into space

Banglaore. Close on the heels of Iran sending a monkey into space, India has announced that it will send Bollywood actor Vivek Oberoi into space. However, authorities have clarified that these two evens should not be linked.

“No, we are neither competing with Iran nor pitching Vivek against a monkey,” ISRO Chairman K. Radhakrishnan told Faking News, “We needed someone who was totally jobless and who might not be missed if stuck in space for a few months.”

ISRO sources revealed that the plan to send someone in space was conceived last year but got stuck in red-tapism and bureaucracy.

Vivek Oberoi dressed as an astronaut

“The original pool comprised of Rohit Sharma, Vivek Oberoi, and Manmohan Singh – all of whom met the criteria of being jobless and not getting noticed if missing for a few months,” an ISRO source revealed, “But Rohit Sharma found form and we were told that Manmohan Singh will be available only after the 2014 general elections. Thus Vivek Oberoi won the race by default.”

“This could be Vivek Oberoi’s most successful moment of late,” the source added.

ISRO is confident that Vivek Oberoi will not be missed by anyone and this would be the most important project he has ever taken.

“Frankly, no one took him seriously, starting with Aishwarya Rai,” Mr. Radhakrishnan said, “We are taking him seriously by choosing him for this mission, and we are confident that Mr. Oberoi would accept our offer.”

When asked why any regular and trained astronaut was not picked for the mission, Mr. Radhakrishnan said that ISRO feared unnecessary controversy if a non-Vivek human being was picked up.

“We could have sent only one human being, but people would have asked why a person of this particular religion, caste, or state only? We can’t represent every community and there would have been hurt sentiments,” Mr. Radhakrishnan explained.

The ISRO Chairman further claimed that Vivek Oberoi was beyond any controversy, especially after the Aishwarya Rai issue was settled.

“The biggest proof is his presence at the oath-taking ceremony of Narendra Modi,” Mr. Radhakrishnan pointed out, “Nobody attacked him despite sharing stage with Modi. Contrast this with what happened to Amitabh Bachchan, Ajay Devgn, and Irfan Pathan.”

“Not even an open letter was addressed to Vivek asking him to explain why he attended the oath-taking ceremony of the most polarizing figure of India,” he explained why Vivek was a safe bet to be sent to space.

When Faking News contacted Vivek Oberoi for comments, he claimed that he didn’t have “dates” and was too busy doing meaningful movies.

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

BJP leader wants Salman Khan to be party’s PM candidate

Mumbai. The race for becoming the Prime Ministerial candidate of the BJP/NDA has become even more competitive and confusing. After Yashwant Sinha recommended Narendra Modi and Shiv Sena preferred Sushma Swaraj, a little-known leader of the party has recommended the name of Salman Khan.

“We have learnt all the bad things from Congress, such as corruption, foot-in-mouth statements from our leaders, confusion on economic policies, etc. It’s time we learn some good things from them too,” the BJP leader argued.

“We should make a member from the minority community our Prime Ministerial candidate,” the leader, who didn’t want to be named, suggested, “Sikhs are to Congress what Muslims are to BJP. If Congress fought last elections under a Sikh, we should go for a Muslim, and my choice is Salman Khan.”

Salman had earlier campaigned for a few BJP leaders, such as Vinod Khanna.

The choice of Salman Khan was backed by factors like widespread appeal despite being a polarizing figure, acceptance among the youth (especially among those who have no idea about politics and who tend to vote Congress consequently), acceptance among the core Hindu groups, and someone who matches Rahul Gandhi – the putative Prime Ministerial candidate of Congress for the next general elections.

“Salman is over 40, young, good-looking, and unmarried like Rahul Gandhi, and his movies have as much logic as some of the statements by Rahul,” the BJP leader told Faking News, “Shiv Sena too supports Salman, while JD-U will not oppose a Muslim candidate; so he’s good for the alliance too!”

The leader further pointed out that Salman holds Ganpati Puja at his home, which could convince Hindu groups of his acceptability, while he could get much more Muslim votes than any current BJP leader, including the Muslim ones, can ever manage.

The leader further argued that just like Congress manages to get votes in the Sikh majority state of Punjab, BJP will do better in the Muslim majority state of Jammu & Kashmir after Salman is made the party’s Prime Ministerial candidate.

“If Salman Khan ends up marrying Katrina Kaif, who is half Kashmiri, I don’t see any reason why BJP can’t win elections in Kashmir,” the leader came up with the logic.

When asked about the various criminal cases, such as hit-and-run and illegal poaching of Black Buck, which Salman faces, the leader said that the party could use them as strings to control the Bollywood superstar if he refused to toe the party-line.

“We can transfer these cases to the CBI, which is the best tool to control any political leader having independent ambitions,” he suggested.

When contacted for comments, Salman Khan said, “kya bakwaas hai yaar! I’m not the Khan whose movies have flopped recently, so no plans to enter politics.”

Monday, January 28, 2013

Constitution to be changed to allow minors to become corrupt ministers

New Delhi. After the sixth accused in the infamous Delhi gangrape case was declared a “minor” on the basis of school certificate, politicians in India are thinking of using the juvenile delinquency laws to their own advantage.

“He (the rape accused) will be a free man just after three years, even though he’s accused of acting in the most ghastly and beastly manner,” a politician marveled at the benefits of being a minor.

“Imagine, if this is what he gets for raping and killing a girl, what he would have got for carrying out corrupt activities like taking bribe or undermining policies,” the politician added,“ Man, one can be free in just a few days, even if there is clinching proof of corruption!”

Corrupt politicians are now hoping to hide behind another law

Sources tell Faking News that politicians are thinking of amending the constitution that disallows minors from voting for contesting elections. They see this as an excellent opportunity where they can get a person under 18 years as a proxy minister, who can be the front to carry out all the corrupt activities.

“They are thinking of allowing those over 13 years i.e. those eligible to join Facebook, to contest elections and become MPs, and finally become ministers in the government,” a source revealed, “Finally they won’t have to worry about their corrupt practices being caught.”

In fact, some of them are planning to declare themselves minor by producing fake school certificates; somewhat on lines of Raja Bhaiyya of Uttar Pradesh, who produced an affidavit that suggested that he had won his first assembly elections when he was just 19, whereas the minimum age-limit as per the Indian constitution to fight elections is 25 years.

Sources suggest that while there is near unanimity among all politicians to allow minors to contest elections, there are sharp divisions between Congress and BJP over allowing minors to vote.

“While Congress claims to have the youth icon Rahul Gandhi, they are not sure if the Facebook generation will vote for them as the social media is dominated by anti-Congress elements,” a source revealed, “They want to wait till they spend the 100 crores rupees on social media effectively.”

Saturday, January 26, 2013

Researchers find a woman not fond of shopping

Mumbai. In a rare discovery last week, a team of Psychologists from the Department of Social Sciences, Tata Research Center, Mumbai found a 30-year-old woman in Mulund, a suburb in Mumbai, who is not interested in Shopping.

According to Dr. Ramesh Deshpande, a Senior Psychologist in the department, this is the first case of his career spanning over23 years that he has come across such a ‘personality trait’ in a woman. He says, “While we were conducting research for our esteemed clients, we came across this unique case. I was shocked to see that such a woman does exist in this world.”

Shopping is often considered the fifth major season, which is experienced and witnessed in every month of the calendar.

Officials from Ripley’s Believe it or Not have already met the woman two days ago. An official, a woman herself, adds, “This is truly out of the world experience to see a fellow woman who can resist touching the shiny bag, wrapping the silky scarf, the smell of leather shoes, or wear the sparkling diamond ring!”

On being asked about it, the woman Mrs. Reena Yadav told Faking News, “I was never interested in shopping. All my shopping was done by my mother or my elder sister since my school days. In fact, I was often taunted and isolated by my friends for this habit of mine! But I never felt sad about it.”

Her husband is extremely happy with this. He says, “I knew about this habit of hers only after our marriage. I felt like I won a jackpot! All my friends and neighbors envy me for this. Most of my friends send their wives to meet my wife and to learn something from her.”

While most men were happy to know about Reena, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy-Chairman of the Planning Commission had a word of caution.

“This is an unfortunate one-off case. When economy is going through a bad shape, we expect people to behave responsibly and avoid habits that can restrict consumption and spending,” he said.

To address Ahluwalia’s concerns and their own interests, The Mumbai Shop Association has decided to start “Sale Season” every month, which will also make sure that other women don’t get infected with such habits.

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Hurt Muslim groups cool if villains in Vishwaroopam are depicted as Jews

Chennai. The representatives of various self-styled Muslim groups have said that they were perfectly fine if all the villains in the Kamal Haasan’s latest movie Vishwaroopam were depicted as Jews, especially religious Jews.

Earlier, they had taken strong objections as the movie showed terrorists who were Muslims.

Protesters claim that depicting a bad Jew in the movie would be just too good

“Oh yes, the Jews! Always cunning and scheming to take over the world through Zionist conspiracies,” Zaid Hamid, representative of one of the groups that forced the Tamil Nadu government to put a ban on the release of the film, told Faking News, “They are the people who have caused maximum problems in the world. No problem if they are shown as terrorists.”

When asked if this won’t amount to hurting the religious sentiments of Jews and depicting all Jews in a bad light, Zaid said, “What kind of crappy argument is that? Jews are known to be bad people!”

Earlier, there was a suggestion from Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde to run a disclaimer reading “Hindus are terrorists too” every time a Muslim looking terrorist appears on the screen during Vishwaroopam shows, but the protesting groups discarded the idea.

“We don’t want to make it a Hindu-Muslim issue,” one of the protesters claimed, “Apart from that, people may not take such disclaimers seriously just as they don’t take the ‘smoking is dangerous to health’ disclaimers during the movie.”

“But no problem if the bad people are shown as Jews,” he added.

Arnab trolls Rajdeep and Barkha on his birthday

Both Barkha Dutt and Rajdeep Sardesai decided to forget the professional rivalry on the occasion of birthday of Arnab Goswami today, also known as the National Outrage Day. Barkha and Rajdeep wished Arnab. However, Arnab trolled them:

The nation wants to know why Arnab trolled them

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Rahul Gandhi’s first Facebook status update after the bigger role

After becoming the Vice President of the Congress party, Rahul Gandhi updated his Facebook status. Find out who all commented and what they had to say:

The message, the interpretation, and the discussion.

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Imaginative journalism mistaken as investigative journalism

New Delhi. In a millionth such incident since the start of this month, a reader of a weekly magazine genuinely trusted a piece of reportage to be a work of investigative journalism, while in reality it was a work of imaginative journalism.

“Wow! This guy (reporter) risked his life to expose the criminal-police-politician nexus in running an illegal dog-breeding center in the heart of Delhi,” said an awestruck Jitin Singh, a loyal reader of Thenga, a weekly news and current affairs magazine.

Little did Jitin know that the reporter did nothing but to talk to a few of his close friends while having the new year’s party early this month, where his friends, addressed as “sources” in the report, came up with those bits of information under the influence of Old Monk.

Faking News also practices imaginative journalism, but it’s fundamentally different in nature from the one practiced by the mainstream media.

“Journalists are really good at networking and uncovering truth. I mean look at the kind of details this guy could extract from his sources,” 27-year-old Jitin told Faking News, “Sometimes I feel I should have also become a journalist. Being a research assistant is no fun.”

Jitin blindly believed everything he read in Thenga, considering it truth and nothing but truth, and felt enraged at the authorities who were allowing an illegal dog-breeding center.

“You know. That Chihuahua or Pug that you buy for thousands of rupees could actually be product of corruption and crime such as kidnapping of male and female dogs from posh localities,” Jitin showed off the wisdom and awareness he had acquired after reading the exclusive and sensational report.

He later updated his Facebook status warning his friends about the risks of illegal dog-breeding and tweeted a series of messages demanding an immediate closure of the dog-breeding centers.

“He (Jitin) read each word of the report with awe and astonishment, marveling at the level of research and analysis put in by the reporter, completely oblivious of the fact that the reporter had just conjured them up while having his weekend whiskey,” Varun Rampal, the Editor-in-Chief of Thenga, candidly admitted.

For some reason, imaginative journalism, which requires powerful creative thinking and decorative writing skills, has not been recognized and accepted as a genuine form of journalism, even though it has been in practice for years. Experts hope that things may change in future.

“It requires coming out of the closet,” Varun Rampal said, “Once someone does that, we’ll follow suit.”