Minister for Economy, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum called the Opposition “Bina Pendi ka Lota” which he says means a vessel without a base and that moves around all the time.
Fijileaks: Who is THAKUR RANJIT SINGH? The following raw article on his support for Bainimarama's 2006 treasonous coup we had saved from the now defunct RawFijiNews of August 2011 sheds some light on
'The Other Side of Thakur Ranjit Singh'
Coup apologist Thakur Ranjit Singh was booted off air from Radio Fiji by Chaudhry government for ‘violating media ethics’
His response: “I feel that I have been stripped naked of my constitutional right – which is the right of freedom of speech.”
By “Tanik Hamari Bhi Suno – Hey Mate, Listen To Me”
COUP propagandist Thakur Ranjit Singh, enjoying the hospitality of the New Zealand Government, has been peddling a particular line since the dictator Frank Bainimarama took over the country in 2006.
The line, in Singh’s various columns and speeches, is that Fiji needed a Bainimarama coup to right the wrongs against Indo-Fijians, and in particular, to teach a lesson to the Fiji Times and its defiant then editor Netani Rika, whom Singh holds responsible for the state of race relations that existed in Fiji before the dictator’s 5 December 2006 coup.
Singh’s obsession with the Fiji Times led him to do a journalism degree in Auckland, and the subject of his thesis was to analyse the contents of the Fiji Times during the Mahendra Chaudhry’s political leadership from May 1999 to 2000, to determine what role, if any, Fiji Times played in the demise of democracy. His argument seems to be that there is no need for us to support a First World media in a Third World country like Fiji which is mired in racial tensions.
Ranjit Singh and regime’s rag mouthpiece Fiji SUN
Since the coup, Singh has become a regular commentator in the Fiji media, writing mostly in the regime’s rag mouthpiece, The Fiji Sun, and exposing himself as an Indo-Fijian racist bigot of the highest order. For some years now he has been blaming the Fiji Times for keeping Indo-Fijians like him down, and that Fiji Times had contributed to Chaudhry government’s downfall in 2000. He also claims that the deposed Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase was behind his sacking as general mamanger -publisher of Daily Post.
We, however, understand that the former Government controlled Fiji Daily Post suffered a tragic financial fate because it was handed to Singh, someone who had no hands on experience of the Fiji media, having worked previously with Carpenters, RABUKA'S the collapsed National Bank of Fiji and the Suva City Council. A brief stint on the Daily Post as general manager does not qualify him to talk about media and freedom of the press, or by scouring through the old stories in the Fiji Times for a journalism degree. He should be analysing his own on-air comments on Radio Fiji which had led to his sacking by the very Chaudhry government.
Singh booted off ‘Tanik Hamari Bhi Suno’ from Radio Fiji
The self-styled critic of the Fiji media should know better. While acting as publisher of Daily Post, then Chaudhry government owned newspaper, Singh was also a volunteer host on Radio Fiji Two’s bi-weekly Hindi-language programme, Tani Hamari Bhi Suno. In March 2000, he claimed on air that women in the northern part of the country, Labasa, were being oppressed, and exposed, in particular, to types of atrocities committed on them by their families.
His on-air comments offended Fiji Labour Party MPs, especially the MP from Labasa, Muthu Swamy, who on behalf of the people of Labasa demanded an apology from Singh. But Singh refused to apologise, maintaining that his radio programme was intended to expose truth generally swept under the carpet. “My programme was designed to highlight the suppression and oppression of women in Labasa, in particular, and expose types of atrocities committed on them by their families. I do not owe apology to anybody. As for one man who did not like the programme, there are 10 oppressed ladies who regard Thakur as a brother,” he said.
The FLP also accused him of lowering the standard of Hindustani on his programme, something he has been accusing the Fiji Times of doing, in this instance to the quality of the English language in news stories. In his case, he defended the lowering of the Hindi language, telling Fiji TV that FLP charges on the language issue was an insult to the “forefathers” of Indo-Fijians, who had developed a common language, Fiji Hindi.
Most powerful forces in the FLP were now circling around him, wanting every inch of his flesh. The first to attack him was Lekh Ram Vayeshnoi, Chaudhry’s Assistant Minister of Information (later the dictator’s interim Cabinet Minister after the 2006 coup and now temporarily in New Zealand) who ordered the state-owned Fiji Broadcasting Corporation to stop hosting Singh’s Tanik Hamari Bhi Suno which was aired on Thursdays and Sundays.
Bowing to the order, the chairman of the FBC DANIEL Whippy (now facing corruption charges but who had been instrumental in appointing Khaiyum’s brother Riyaz as FBC CEO) pulled Singh off air. “The company is looking at several permanent employees of the FBL’s Hindustani language. Mr Thakur Ranjit Singh was never an employee of the company,” said Whippy. Singh was, therefore, booted off the show. Radio Fiji admitted that Singh’s talk show could have been “offensive”, without providing any evidence to support its claim.
Vayeshnoi said his Information Ministry had received numerous complaints from members of the public and Government about Singh’s radio programme. However, his expulsion was met with fierce criticism and from Pacific Islands News Association. Vayeshnoi also admitted writing a letter to Radio Fiji to remove Singh.
Like the reasons adduced in support of Rika now, PINA said the Chaudhry government, as did any member of the public, had the right to complain about the programme. But it was a matter of great concern that it applied pressure to ban a current affairs presenter.
PINA declared: “Radio Fiji as a national broadcaster must remain totally independent from government interference if it is to play a crucial role in providing the people of Fiji with the information they need to participate fully as citizens in a democracy. The Fiji Media Council of which Radio Fiji is a member, provides an independent complaints tribunal through which breaches of news and programming standards can be adjudicated on.”
Fiji TV chief Ken Clark said Vayeshnoi’s interference in the choice of an air host for a radio programme on Radio Fiji was a blatant case of government control of broadcasting matters. This is an area in which government should have no part to play.
Chaudhry, however, defended Vayeshnoi’s decision to boot Singh off air. Chaudhry said media ethics had been breached in the presentation of a radio programme. He said Vayeshnoi’s decision was commendable. He also criticized PINA president. Chaudhry said the government is the "custodian" of the taxpayers' money and Radio Fiji has a responsibility to be fair, accurate and unbiased.
He said Singh violated this and was biased against the Fiji Labour Party. Regarding media criticism, Chaudhry, as prime minister, said: "In the name of freedom they want to commit murder." Chaudhry also suggested that the Fiji Media Council would take too long to handle a complaint.
And Guess Who Came to His Support: Yes, the Fiji Times
The Fiji Times came out fighting on behalf of Singh: “No matter how hard it tries, the Government cannot justify taking Mr Singh off the air. Voters did not give the Government a mandate to do as it pleases. The Government’s insensitive to criticism has already led to threats of regulating the media, revamping the Media Council and public attacks on the media at every opportunity. Now, it has crossed the line and introduced censorship.”
Singh cringed about his dismissal: “I feel that I have been stripped naked of my constitutional right – which is the right of freedom of speech.”
And yet the Indo-Fijian racial bigot and opportunist led the charge against Rika, supporting the new editorial policy of the Fiji Times, its new owner, and that of the publisher. There were widespread rumours in Fiji that Singh was hoping to be appointed to a top post with Fiji Times, and also wanted a position in the illegal Bainimarama-Khaiyum regime, maybe as media propaganda chief.
What the Fiji Times editorial stated in 2000 in support of Singh stands today; that the people of Fiji gave no mandate to the dictator and his illegal Attorney-General and that other Dracula, Christopher Pryde, to bring in the Media Decree to muzzle the press and freedom of speech in Fiji.
Tanik Hamari Bhi Suno, Netani Rika – The world salutes you for standing up to the illegal regime. We are proud that you kept your principles fully wrapped up, unlike Singh who stripped naked his buttock, in the eternal hope of warming it up in the editor’s chair at the now Motibhai owned Fiji Times.
Fijileaks: Thakur Ranjit Singh is an old friend of ours but it seems like many others, he has gone off his rockers. A Coupist is a Coupist. There must never be Hobson's Choice, to tell Voters, "Choose The Lesser of the Two Evils. In 1933, Germans rushed to embrace Adolf Hitler, voting him into power
The line, in Singh’s various columns and speeches, is that Fiji needed a Bainimarama coup to right the wrongs against Indo-Fijians, and in particular, to teach a lesson to the Fiji Times and its defiant then editor Netani Rika, whom Singh holds responsible for the state of race relations that existed in Fiji before the dictator’s 5 December 2006 coup.
Singh’s obsession with the Fiji Times led him to do a journalism degree in Auckland, and the subject of his thesis was to analyse the contents of the Fiji Times during the Mahendra Chaudhry’s political leadership from May 1999 to 2000, to determine what role, if any, Fiji Times played in the demise of democracy. His argument seems to be that there is no need for us to support a First World media in a Third World country like Fiji which is mired in racial tensions.
Ranjit Singh and regime’s rag mouthpiece Fiji SUN
Since the coup, Singh has become a regular commentator in the Fiji media, writing mostly in the regime’s rag mouthpiece, The Fiji Sun, and exposing himself as an Indo-Fijian racist bigot of the highest order. For some years now he has been blaming the Fiji Times for keeping Indo-Fijians like him down, and that Fiji Times had contributed to Chaudhry government’s downfall in 2000. He also claims that the deposed Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase was behind his sacking as general mamanger -publisher of Daily Post.
We, however, understand that the former Government controlled Fiji Daily Post suffered a tragic financial fate because it was handed to Singh, someone who had no hands on experience of the Fiji media, having worked previously with Carpenters, RABUKA'S the collapsed National Bank of Fiji and the Suva City Council. A brief stint on the Daily Post as general manager does not qualify him to talk about media and freedom of the press, or by scouring through the old stories in the Fiji Times for a journalism degree. He should be analysing his own on-air comments on Radio Fiji which had led to his sacking by the very Chaudhry government.
Singh booted off ‘Tanik Hamari Bhi Suno’ from Radio Fiji
The self-styled critic of the Fiji media should know better. While acting as publisher of Daily Post, then Chaudhry government owned newspaper, Singh was also a volunteer host on Radio Fiji Two’s bi-weekly Hindi-language programme, Tani Hamari Bhi Suno. In March 2000, he claimed on air that women in the northern part of the country, Labasa, were being oppressed, and exposed, in particular, to types of atrocities committed on them by their families.
His on-air comments offended Fiji Labour Party MPs, especially the MP from Labasa, Muthu Swamy, who on behalf of the people of Labasa demanded an apology from Singh. But Singh refused to apologise, maintaining that his radio programme was intended to expose truth generally swept under the carpet. “My programme was designed to highlight the suppression and oppression of women in Labasa, in particular, and expose types of atrocities committed on them by their families. I do not owe apology to anybody. As for one man who did not like the programme, there are 10 oppressed ladies who regard Thakur as a brother,” he said.
The FLP also accused him of lowering the standard of Hindustani on his programme, something he has been accusing the Fiji Times of doing, in this instance to the quality of the English language in news stories. In his case, he defended the lowering of the Hindi language, telling Fiji TV that FLP charges on the language issue was an insult to the “forefathers” of Indo-Fijians, who had developed a common language, Fiji Hindi.
Most powerful forces in the FLP were now circling around him, wanting every inch of his flesh. The first to attack him was Lekh Ram Vayeshnoi, Chaudhry’s Assistant Minister of Information (later the dictator’s interim Cabinet Minister after the 2006 coup and now temporarily in New Zealand) who ordered the state-owned Fiji Broadcasting Corporation to stop hosting Singh’s Tanik Hamari Bhi Suno which was aired on Thursdays and Sundays.
Bowing to the order, the chairman of the FBC DANIEL Whippy (now facing corruption charges but who had been instrumental in appointing Khaiyum’s brother Riyaz as FBC CEO) pulled Singh off air. “The company is looking at several permanent employees of the FBL’s Hindustani language. Mr Thakur Ranjit Singh was never an employee of the company,” said Whippy. Singh was, therefore, booted off the show. Radio Fiji admitted that Singh’s talk show could have been “offensive”, without providing any evidence to support its claim.
Vayeshnoi said his Information Ministry had received numerous complaints from members of the public and Government about Singh’s radio programme. However, his expulsion was met with fierce criticism and from Pacific Islands News Association. Vayeshnoi also admitted writing a letter to Radio Fiji to remove Singh.
Like the reasons adduced in support of Rika now, PINA said the Chaudhry government, as did any member of the public, had the right to complain about the programme. But it was a matter of great concern that it applied pressure to ban a current affairs presenter.
PINA declared: “Radio Fiji as a national broadcaster must remain totally independent from government interference if it is to play a crucial role in providing the people of Fiji with the information they need to participate fully as citizens in a democracy. The Fiji Media Council of which Radio Fiji is a member, provides an independent complaints tribunal through which breaches of news and programming standards can be adjudicated on.”
Fiji TV chief Ken Clark said Vayeshnoi’s interference in the choice of an air host for a radio programme on Radio Fiji was a blatant case of government control of broadcasting matters. This is an area in which government should have no part to play.
Chaudhry, however, defended Vayeshnoi’s decision to boot Singh off air. Chaudhry said media ethics had been breached in the presentation of a radio programme. He said Vayeshnoi’s decision was commendable. He also criticized PINA president. Chaudhry said the government is the "custodian" of the taxpayers' money and Radio Fiji has a responsibility to be fair, accurate and unbiased.
He said Singh violated this and was biased against the Fiji Labour Party. Regarding media criticism, Chaudhry, as prime minister, said: "In the name of freedom they want to commit murder." Chaudhry also suggested that the Fiji Media Council would take too long to handle a complaint.
And Guess Who Came to His Support: Yes, the Fiji Times
The Fiji Times came out fighting on behalf of Singh: “No matter how hard it tries, the Government cannot justify taking Mr Singh off the air. Voters did not give the Government a mandate to do as it pleases. The Government’s insensitive to criticism has already led to threats of regulating the media, revamping the Media Council and public attacks on the media at every opportunity. Now, it has crossed the line and introduced censorship.”
Singh cringed about his dismissal: “I feel that I have been stripped naked of my constitutional right – which is the right of freedom of speech.”
And yet the Indo-Fijian racial bigot and opportunist led the charge against Rika, supporting the new editorial policy of the Fiji Times, its new owner, and that of the publisher. There were widespread rumours in Fiji that Singh was hoping to be appointed to a top post with Fiji Times, and also wanted a position in the illegal Bainimarama-Khaiyum regime, maybe as media propaganda chief.
What the Fiji Times editorial stated in 2000 in support of Singh stands today; that the people of Fiji gave no mandate to the dictator and his illegal Attorney-General and that other Dracula, Christopher Pryde, to bring in the Media Decree to muzzle the press and freedom of speech in Fiji.
Tanik Hamari Bhi Suno, Netani Rika – The world salutes you for standing up to the illegal regime. We are proud that you kept your principles fully wrapped up, unlike Singh who stripped naked his buttock, in the eternal hope of warming it up in the editor’s chair at the now Motibhai owned Fiji Times.
Fijileaks: Thakur Ranjit Singh is an old friend of ours but it seems like many others, he has gone off his rockers. A Coupist is a Coupist. There must never be Hobson's Choice, to tell Voters, "Choose The Lesser of the Two Evils. In 1933, Germans rushed to embrace Adolf Hitler, voting him into power