Seriously, Ms. Kishwar? Get off the pedal

The News Minute| New Delhi| July 19, 2014| 6.00 pm IST(Comment)It is now safe to assume that Indians following the Indian media and others on twitter in the country may have noticed that educationalist, feminist and author Madhu Kishwar has a problem with Union Human Resources Development (HRD) Minister Smriti Irani. When Ms. Irani was sworn in to the Narendra Modi government this May, Ms. Kishwar took to Twitter to highlight the fact that the person in charge of a ministry as critical as education did not have the requisite qualifications. That limited point was well noticed and the rest of the world moved on. Not Ms. Kishwar. She took to Twitter time and again to criticise Ms. Irani. Near midnight on Friday, July 18th 2014, Ms. Kishwar tweeted this. â€œWonder if Irani trolls accusing me of being “jealous” of her realize they seem to hint she seduced NAMO 4 job. PM doesn’t deserve such insult.”What does this say about feminist Ms. Kishwar? First, it’s a sly tweet, second she conveniently pushes a rumour and finally, she insults a woman saying that’s an insult to a man. We at The News Minute (TNM) will limit ourselves to this observation. In other tweets Ms. Kishwar says she holds no grouse against Ms. Irani, but instead of applauding her for raising a genuine issue, all she has received is abuses from the minister’s trolls. She also claims that trolls hinted 'this'. TNM checked that out, could find no such insinuations made by anyone. And nobody is abusing Ms. Kishwar other than the odd comment all famous people receive on their TLs. Ms. Kishwar, you just crossed a line. If not for the sake of people who respect your work, then for your own sake, get off the pedal. Today no one is frightened of asking PM any questions. His actions put to scrutiny all the time. How come Irani is above scrutiny?— Madhu Kishwar (@madhukishwar) July 18, 2014Till May 2014, media petrified of asking questions of Sonia. Today they are more petrified of calling Irani to account.What's brewing?— Madhu Kishwar (@madhukishwar) July 18, 2014I had stopped paying attention to rani till she issued another Tuglaqi Farmaan to private universities to scrap their 4 year courses.— Madhu Kishwar (@madhukishwar) July 18, 2014As an educationist, HRD ministry most vital portfolio. Cant be trifled with. Had Irani got any other ministry, I wdn' t hv bothered one bit.— Madhu Kishwar (@madhukishwar) July 18, 2014If I could single handedly take on the might of leftist & Sonia G trolls, Irani trolls are not going to intimidate me into silence.— Madhu Kishwar (@madhukishwar) July 18, 2014