The feature will go live on Monday, when many users will access their Facebook profile from offices.

“We noticed that most Indian users were interested in adding women as friends,” Mark Mehta, a Facebook official in India told Faking News, “Women users had the maximum number of pending friend requests, followed by fake profiles of Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi.”

“However, the messages accompanying the friend requests to women were always requests for friendship, e.g. ‘medam, u luk butiful n sexy, pls aad me’ while messages to the other two profiles were mixed such as ‘u r doing great job’ or ‘fuck off asshole’, which didn’t exactly hint towards a desire to be friends,” Mark said.

Like her? Add her.

Based on such empirical data, Facebook concluded that there was a pressing demand among Indian male users to have female friends in their network. After a brief discussion, the social networking site decided to convert this into a revenue earning opportunity.

“Earlier we thought of a feature where we could let a user add any girl they liked after seeing her face in the profile picture. After all, we are ‘Face’book! All that a man needed to do was to pay $200,” Mark said, “We thought a girl might not know it and may blame it on some bug, as people blame it on Twitter bug when an ‘unfollow’ is unearthed.”

“However, we feared that there could also be a huge hue and cry and people would blame us for playing with their privacy, hence we decided to make it more transparent,” the Facebook official explained the new feature, “Now we would ask female users to sign-up for this ‘paid friends’ program, where they’d get $1 for every acceptance of a friend request sent through this program.”

“The girl will not be able to unfriend or block the user added through such programs for at least 3 months,” Mark clarified, “She will also be expected to interact at least once in a day by liking the user’s post or replying ‘hi’ to his chat messages or wall postings.”

Facebook officials believe that a huge number of both men and women will join this ‘paid friends’ program, which will soon be launched in others parts of the world too.

“We will target the Pakistani market next,” Mark said, “But before that we have to make sure that Facebook is not banned there and women are allowed to make profiles.”

The announcement has been met with largely positive reactions from Indian users, with many men hoping to get the sex-ratio right for their friends’ list on Facebook.

“They should give us some student discount,” an engineering college student, male, suggested.

“I will remove all those idiots whom I had added just because they were some mutual friends,” Gargi, a female user of Facebook said, “I always thought that I should be compensated for having them on my list. Let them send me friend requests through this feature only.”

Sources say that the Indian government, otherwise angry with Facebook for allowing offensive materials to be shared, has welcomed the idea.

“They believe that if men are busy adding women as friend and interacting with them, they’d spend lesser time sharing links about government scams or other conspiracy theories,” a source revealed.

“What if there was someone who was drawing offensive cartoons on the walls of cave while our forefathers were busy hunting animals for food outside in the wilderness?” Kancha Raja, an MP belonging to the LLB (Let’s Look Backwards) party expressed his concerns.

The offensive cartoon that was threatening the foundation of democracy in India all these years

“In fact, I had seen such cave paintings in NCERT textbooks when I was in school,” Kancha claimed, “I could never understand them then, but now I think they were made to mock our hardworking and honest forefathers.”

“Those paintings of bulls drawn during the Harappan era, I find them so offensive. I think they mean bullshit in pictorial language,” the MP interpreted the cave paintings and declared them offensive.

Kancha was backed by honorable members cutting across party lines who agreed that any cartoons drawn in prehistoric times were the most worrisome aspect of today’s modern life and needed to be resolved.

“We should also have a re-look at those nude paintings in Khajuraho,” Pornveer Pandey, another MP suggested, “I think they were made by sinful and shameful people. We must not accept anything just because they were accepted in the past.”

“We are a matured democracy now,” he added.

Agreeing with such observations and grave concerns raised by the honorable members, the Parliament of India decided to form a committee to inspect every place and work of historical and archaeological importance and dig out any dirt that was never known to the people of those times.

“Kapil Sibal ji will head the committee as he is expert in assessing offensive materials,” Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal informed.

“These men have at least a year of experience in working with different IT companies and now they are no longer interested in sports like cricket and football,” Pratik, a researcher told Faking News, “It is due to the fact that they have undergone hormonal changes that are normally associated with women.”

The researcher claimed that a report published by Texas Medical Center (TMC) had confirmed the presence of a newly diagnosed disease named TDilS (Testosterone Diluting Syndrome) in 92.73% of the male IT employees, especially those working in India.

Men are also watching it

“Testosterone is the principal male sex hormone that is getting threatened due to working conditions in the IT companies,” Pratik claimed, “Most of the men working in IT companies are only virtual men.”

The TMC report blames office culture like bitching about colleagues who sit next to one’s cubicle, spending most of their incomes on shopping and buying branded stuffs, choosy about colors, giving undue importance and overreacting to trivial issues like treating ‘bugs’ in softwares as ‘baaghs’ (Tiger in Hindi), etc. for fall in the hormones.

The report has expectedly filled IT employees in India with horror.

“Man, I think this could be true!” Satish (name changed) working in an IT company said, “I used to be a Don back in my engineering college. I used to rag kids from the junior batches and watch porn daily, which proves that I am a male, but I don’t what has happened now. I’m getting ragged by my offshore clients and I just cannot feel ‘it’ when I watch porn!”

“In fact, I actually bitched about my saas (mother-in-law, not Software As A Service) to my friend yesterday!” he recalled, “Oh God! What’s happening to me!”

Satish has demanded that government should allow men to watch porn not only in legislative assemblies but also in IT companies.

But sources claim that IT companies may not help the male employees. The companies have secretly welcomed the findings as they hope that they could get tax reliefs from the government for solving the low sex-ratio in India, sources claim.

“We can’t allow them to watch porn!” owner of an IT company told Faking News when contacted, “But we can allow them to watch YouTube clippings of those saas-bahu serials.”

(reported by Saikat Basu)

“I called up my brother working in Bangalore and my father called up our sister in Mumbai and we all logged into our IRCTC accounts this morning,” Vivek, 34, a manager working with an MNC in Delhi, explained the strategy he had worked out to book the ticket for his mother, who wanted to spend summers in Bangalore.

Vivek informed how they had logged into the IRCTC website at 7.45 AM itself as the homepage doesn’t load after 8.00 AM – time when the Tatkal booking starts.

Many believe this is no news

“I had delegated responsibilities to everyone,” Vivek, also an MBA by education, came up with details of the strategy, “Abhishek, my younger brother, was given task of regularly checking reservation status in three selected trains, which were respectively allotted to me, my dad, and Shailja, my sister, for booking an AC-III ticket.”

Vivek pointed out that the reservation status moved very fast with the Tatkal booking window being opened, and one might get a wait-listed ticket after transaction confirmation, even if the status was ‘available’ to start with.

“We were all on a conference call and Abhishek would feed us with live status in every train, while rest of us tried to book tickets,” Vivek recalled, “Dad couldn’t get beyond the form filling stage as his session expired earlier than the time he took to fill Mom’s full name and age, while I and Shailja moved to the payment stage after multiple attempts.”

After three transaction failures between the two, Vivek could finally book a ticket and got an RAC1 ticket, while Shailja was asked not to go ahead with payment by Abhishek as the reservation status had already moved to wait-list when she reached the payment stage after toiling for half an hour.

“Phew! Finally we did it!” Vivek punched his hand in the air, “We felt so good as a family; helping each other in such crucial times such as booking a Tatkal ticket.”

Although this is first reported incident of family members joining hands, experts believe that IRCTC has been playing a pivotal role in bringing families together – a hitherto unappreciated and unacknowledged act of corporate social responsibility by Indian Railways.

“Yes, we talked about family matters and caught up on days spent together while we waited for Tatkal booking to start, and when there was nothing to do during communication and payment failures,” Vivek acknowledged the role of IRCTC in the family reunion.

“They should seriously introduce social networking and group chatting feature for users so that people can pass time on the website while waiting for server to respond,” Vivek agreed with a query and suggestion by the Faking News reporter.

“There was all round honking for continuous half an hour I guess, but every car appeared to be stuck at the same place,” Satinder, one of the honkers, claimed. Satinder had blown the horn continuously for five minutes, but his persistent and polite request of getting a pass was turned down by the driver ahead.

Scenes just before the jam began

“The car ahead of me was moving very slowly, some aunty was driving it seems. These women drivers, I tell you!” he said. Satinder considered the aunty solely responsible for the jam.

“Man, I didn’t even abuse her as she was an old lady,” Satinder explained how he followed his honking attempts with civil courtesy, “Yes, I did deliberately bump into her car, but it didn’t leave any dent. I just wanted to make sure that she takes note of the jam.”

“I was pretty polite,” he added.

However, Kiran Dikshit, the aunty, blamed it on the car ahead of her. “The driver was moving very slowly,” she said, “Yes, there were at least seven cars ahead of him as well, all of them stuck in the traffic and honking, but this guy ahead of me was totally hopeless. How could he not hear the horns?”

Many others, who thanked their honking skills for managing to have driven 100 meters in an hour, blamed various factors like government policies, corrupt cops, wrong placement of traffic lights, kids wiping car-screens, cycle-rickshaw peddlers, and rising temperature among others for the horrible jam.

However, all of them seemed to agree that honking was the only solution to all these problems.

“We would have been stuck in the traffic till night if we didn’t act and blow horns,” asserted Amit, a professional honker who claims he can blow car horns in popular tunes.

“I was playing ‘Anarkali Disco Chali’ song in my car and I could blow horn to match the beats,” he recalled his attempts at clearing the traffic jam.

“They left after they couldn’t bear the shock waves originating from the vocal chords of Sidhu and Morrison,” claimed Satish, a cameraman who clearly remembered being slapped on his butts by a ghost during the first shoot. Though his friends claimed it was Danny Morrison who pinched his butts, he claims it was a ghost.

“No, Morrison was looking at Archana Vijaya at that time, I clearly remember that,” Satish clarified.

A normal picture of Danny Morison and Navjot Singh Sidhu with a normal girl

Owners confirmed that the studio was haunted by spirits and they were thinking of closing down the business when SET Max contacted them.

“We had tried everything; including eating golgappa while sitting on camera tripods as was suggested by Nirmal Baba, but the ghosts didn’t leave the premises,” Irfan, the co-owner of the studio confirmed.

Irfan informed that the ghosts were first witnessed when the studio was used for shooting of the reality show “Rakhi Ka Insaaf”.

“We didn’t have any issues before that. But it seems that the ghosts, if they existed before, went totally crazy and mental after being exposed to Rakhi Sawant’s show,” Irfan revealed.

The studio then saw various minor incidents spooking people at regular intervals during subsequent TV shoots, the spookiest being KRK (Kamaal Rashid Khan) talking about India’s foreign policy towards Latin American nations while he was shooting for a Bhojpuri song.

“We were shit scared,” Irfan said, “We knew that the ghosts were playing dirty games and the news was spreading in the industry. We were mentally prepared to shut shop when SET Max contacted us for IPL.”

“There has been no incident in the last three weeks,” a visibly happy studio owner confirmed.

Experts claim that the ghosts had deserted the building after Morrison and Sidhu scared the unsuspecting souls with ghoulish guffaws and unnerving expressions.

“A ghost even left a suicide note,” claimed a spotboy, who was shouted down by Irfan.

“We just have to wait till the end of the IPL for Morrison and Sidhu to leave, and our studio will be free of all kinds of ghosts – dead or alive.”

“Both are related with the main issue of ‘appearance at the top’,” Sourav Sharma, an expert on constitutional corporeal issues, explained, “The President is the ‘head’ of the state while a hairstyle is all about the head.”

Experts like Sourav point out that Tendulkar’s new hairstyle had been in place for over a month now – in fact, he got his historical 100th international century wearing a new hairstyle – but it became a matter of public discussion only recently, perhaps triggered by the debate around Tendulkar’s nomination to Rajya Sabha.

Both of them have been in news lately, apparently for similar reasons.

Similarly the post of President had existed for all these years – the incumbent President even addresses the nation each year – but people woke up to take note of the post only recently, perhaps triggered by the news of President’s foreign trips and accusation of land grabbing.

“Citizens have been treating both the issues in a similar manner,” Sourav claimed, “Maybe because both of them affect them in a similar manner, i.e. a common man’s life is impacted as much due to a new President as it is impacted due to a new hairstyle by Tendulkar.”

When asked to explain, Sourav first picked the case of Tendulkar. He claimed that his new hairstyle could impact the lives of many, especially of those desirous of looking like him.

“They will need to get a new haircut,” he said, “In fact, they will have to spend on hair straightening and coloring.”

“And not just the wannabe duplicates and lookalikes, millions of fans would need to change their posters, wallpapers, social networking display pictures, etc.,” he added.

Sourav then went on to enumerate some ‘commercial impacts’ of Sachin’s new hairstyle; such as rise in demand for wax, as Sachin’s statues at Madame Tussauds might need to be modified, and rise in demand for shampoo, with Tendulkar fans copying his hairstyle – developments, he claimed, could impact even India’s GDP and Balance of Payments status.

He stopped only after Faking News interrupted and asked him to compare this with the election of a new President.

“A new President too has impact on the common man’s life, such as… ummm… hmmm… you know… as in…” Sourav tried to find the relation, “I mean… a new President also causes some changes in the way we live.”

When probed further, and after much thinking, he said, “Yes! One needs to update the blogs, websites, text-books, and other lists with a new name. And if the new President is a man this time, they’d need to change even the pronouns. There is some impact you see!”

(originally written for and published in English daily DNA)

“We will be using our existing infrastructure and there will be no additional investment requirements,” informed Ravi Srinivasan, an investment banker with Jordan Fisher, the firm underwriting this merger and restructuring process.

Vijay Mallya has expressed a keen interest in having a 'Fishing Swimsuit Calendar' shoot for launch of the new company.

“Life jackets, which are already present in large numbers in the aircrafts, would be re-used during fishing. The wheels of the aircraft would be used for training the new recruits who had no experience in swimming. And for advanced training, the powerful Rolls-Royce engines would be used to simulate the rough weather,” Ravi explained the restructuring process.

“The wings of the Aircrafts would be split and given as Bonus at the end of the year to be used as Surfing boards,” he added and hoped, “Indian Fisheries will experience higher levels of employee satisfaction.”

Indian Fisheries, the new company, has already tied up with their ex-partners in the airline business to supply sea food for their employees, at a discounted price.

“Also, the multi-layered, big-fish small-fish structure of management, which is common in modern corporates, would be simplified. Everybody would catch fish,” Ravi explained the new philosophy of the new company, which is major departure from the way Mallya owned businesses work.

Stakeholders of both the companies have expressed confidence that the new company will earn better revenues and would be able to pay off their debts and fines.

“A Gujarati fisherman went fishing and returned as a crorepati the same day. With a more organized effort, we too can replicate that success,” an optimistic Ravi claimed.

(the reporter tweets here)

Experts believe that this could be the most significant outcome of the elections, which usually results in selection of a person who gets to spend five years in a big house called Rashtrapati Bhavan with frequent foreign trips and post-retirement benefits.

“I used to think Hamid Ansari was the President of Afghanistan!” said Pritam Kapur, an MTV Roadies aspirant who also discovered Hamid Karzai due to the ongoing presidential debate.

Hamid Ansari, looks somewhat similar to IK Gujral, another person about whom the youth didn’t know anything.

Super excited at his twin discoveries, Pritam further concluded that the post of Vice President must have been created as the President was often out of the country on foreign trips, or because there was too much workload, like taking decisions on hanging someone for murder, for a Lonely Planet lonely President.

“But where does the Vice President live? Is there any Up-Rashtrapati Bhavan? Or he is allocated a room in Rashtrapati Bhavan? I heard there are over 1000 rooms there, no?” Pritam wondered.

Some others like Deepak Naik are in a better position as they claim to have known about Hamid Ansari, though they didn’t know that he was the Vice President.

“I was switching channels sometimes back and I accidentally saw those scenes of that guy named Rajneeti something tearing that Lokpal script in the Parliament,” Deepak recalled, “And I had seen this guy sitting in the chair of Meera Kumar – that lady who always says ‘baith jaaiye, baith jaaiye’ – I thought he was assistant of Meera Kumar. Man, he turned out to be the assistant of Pratibha Patil!”

Faking News talked to at least 19 more young Indians and most of them agreed that they came to know about Hamid Ansari or the post of Vice President only after the recent news reports.

“Man, now don’t tell me there is some Vice Prime Minister too!” Alok, one of the respondents said, “Wait. Rahul Gandhi is what?”

However, to his horror, which was shared by millions of Tendulkar fans, he discovered that Sachin has got a new hairstyle – a cross between hairstyle of Akshay Kumar in the movie Action Replay and hairstyle of Ramesh-Suresh duo in the 5 Star television commercial.

Balbir is now worried about getting a new haircut that could make him a Sachin lookalike again. Short on finances, the duplicate Sachin has now written to BCCI to provide him with a wig.

Sachin’s new look has blinded many

“I can’t afford to spend another 5-6 lakhs to become a duplicate Tendulkar again,” Balbir expressed his helplessness, “I’m just a small actor and earn small money by appearing in ads and events as duplicate Sachin.”

Talking exclusively to Faking News, Balbir expressed anger and frustration over the fact that neither Sachin nor BCCI warned him about the hairstyle change, which was now threatening to ruin his professional life.

“How will Sachin feel if he was suddenly told that he has to bat left-handed from now on?” Balbir argued, “I can’t have another transplant as this would destroy my scalp and my artificial hair can’t be straightened.”

The duplicate Sachin has demanded that either Sachin gets his old hairstyle back or he’s provided with a wig that will help him become a Sachin lookalike once again.

“I think Sachin should get his old hairstyle back,” Mahip, a Tendulkar fan, opined, “Forget Balbir, what will happen to those was statues at Madame Tussauds? Are they going to melt it at the top?”

A quick survey by Faking News revealed that an overwhelming number of Tendulkar fans and most cricket fans favored Sachin getting his old hairstyle back. Though a few thought that Tendulkar should continue with his new hairstyle as it had helped him get his 100th international century and a nomination to the Parliament.

“Kirpa aa rahi hai,” Tunmum Pandey, a fan of Tendulkar and a bhakt of Nirmal Baba claimed.

“Master ji, Tendulkar ji ka hairstyle ek bilaang chhoti kar do,” Ramesh-Suresh demanded.

“I had walked out of the cinema hall during interval of Housefull 2, when I felt that it was just going on and on. I can do the same to IPL!” Tarun threatened. He was talking to Faking News in an exclusive interview that he agreed to give only during the Strategic Timeout of 2.30 minutes.

Experts believe that the message was delivered efficiently to the masses

Tarun is not sure why he ends up watching every IPL match even though he has dozens of pending tasks to finish within looming deadlines.

“I have to pay the electricity bill, finish a project report, and take my wife out for dinner,” Tarun conceded that IPL was taking a toll on his personal and professional lives, but he was stuck with it and was finding it difficult to find time for other things.

“Also, some of the matches have been pretty boring,” he added, “I think I have had it enough. No more matches from tomorrow!”

However experts believe that Tarun would end up watching every match of IPL.

“He said the same thing last weekend,” said Ajay, Tarun’s close friend and post-match discussion partner, “Then he saw my Facebook status and immediately switched on the TV.”

“Even Lalit Modi, thrown out of IPL, has been tweeting about every match yaar, how can Tarun stop watching it?” Ajay argued.

Experts claim that Tarun is one of thousands, maybe millions, of men who are undergoing similar experience in the country right now. Some have called it a condition similar to Stockholm syndrome, while others have termed it misogyny.

“He finds my occasional cribbing irritating, but he’s been listening to the howling crap by Danny Morrison and Navjot Singh Siddhu with rapt attention,” Tarun’s wife said.

When contacted, BCCI promised to look into the issue by announcing a ‘Fevicol Fan of the Tournament’ award for persons glued to the TV for the whole duration of the IPL.

“We follow each other on Twitter and she’s also on my Facebook friend list,” a visibly satisfied-with-his-internship-progress Ramesh said, “Apart from that I joined her at least thrice in the canteen for lunch or snacks in the last two days itself. Not an easy thing to do especially when I have an engineering background.”

Ramesh’s idea of corporate life

Ramesh, who is supposed to finish a market research survey as part of his internship and come up with suggestions based on that survey on how to re-package and re-sell an old product of the company, is yet to compose or compile a survey questionnaire.

“There are still six weeks to go,” Ramesh confidently allayed the fears of him being unable to deliver on his summer job. However, he wished he had a couple of more weeks to take out Sukriti for movies and other stuff.

“I spotted her late as I was interning in the sales department,” he rued as he recalled the days spent in the last two weeks.

Ramesh has already researched online and talked to a couple of his batchmates on how to raise and sustain a long term relationship. He had even made a PowerPoint presentation for himself, which included a slide showing ‘signing up on online shopping and gifting websites’ and ‘getting a post-paid mobile sim card’ as bullet points.

“Those are few of the pre-paid expenses that I’ve figured would be helpful in maintaining the relationship,” the MBA student told Faking News, “The rest I’d figure out as my internship progresses. After all, internships are all about practical learning.”

Sukriti was not available for comment as she had gone to see a movie with her boyfriend.

News channels, without questioning the logic of the statement, immediately turned the statement into headlines and breaking news, which led many people into believing that Rajinikanth was endorsing Congress party.

“It’s the hand of Rajinikanth, the hand of god,” declared Congress leader Rajiv Shukla, who had earlier arranged for a meeting between Sonia Gandhi and Sachin Tendulkar, where Sonia Gandhi apparently wished Sachin on completing 100 centuries and 39 years, but it was reported as if Sachin had gone there to collect his Rajya Sabha I-card.

This is the closest Rajinikanth’s hand looks to the Congress symbol, but such technicalities were ignored in the debate that followed.

Since he couldn’t arrange a meeting with Rajinikanth, Shukla showed to journalists the bouquet that Sonia Gandhi had sent to Rajini when he was admitted to hospital last year.

Faking News reporter tried to enquire how the bouquet, which should have been with Rajini if he had accepted it, was with Shukla, but the queries were ignored by the Congress leader. Rest of the reporters had already broken the news and a TV debate was taking place if Congress could win every seat in Tamil Nadu.

“Shameful of Thalaivar to have joined a corrupt party,” tweeted an anti-Congress activist, who was heckled by Rajinikanth fans on Twitter. Rest of the people cracked Rajinikanth and Kolaveri jokes as the virtual world virtually believed that Rajini had joined politics.

BJP, not able to understand anything and shocked by verdict on Bangaru Laxman, first demanded the resignation of Prime Minister, but later claimed that Rajinikanth was anti-Congress because he had whole heartedly supported Anna Hazare’s movement.

“LOL! So what? It’s either Congress or Anna in that case. Where is BJP?” Congress leader Rajiv Shukla demonstrated the effect of his statement.

“Anybody caught having sex during this time will be put behind bars and fined,” Minister of Information and Broadcasting Smt. Ambika Soni informed. Earlier the ministry had directed TV channel Sony not to telecast the movie The Dirty Picture before 11 PM.

Earlier, government had prohibited adults from watching such pictures before 11 PM

“The same logic applies here,” a source clarified, “Sex is for matured audiences and you never know who could be watching you having sex, as the recent controversy over Abhishek Manu Singhvi proved; so it’s better to be on the right side of the law and children’s sleeping hours.”

According to sources, the government is afraid that little children could be accidentally exposed to scenes of people having sex during daytime and it could have bad effect on them.

“There are so many Sex CDs and MMSes around, which clearly proves that adults don’t take enough precautions before having sex. Why should children suffer due to their recklessness?” an official in I&B ministry argued.

The new rules have expectedly been met with public outrage, especially in the social media, with #WeWantSex trending on Twitter and thousands of Indian users adding “sex” as an activity to their Facebook profile.

“All these guys are always online and active on websites. They don’t seem to be doing anything else. I wonder if they ever get to have sex! Why are they so upset?” wondered Justice Katju, who thought the government should regulate such noises on the web.

“I hope they make exceptions on weekends and national holidays” a couple working their ass off for a top MNC hoped.

However, couples need not worry as the new rules will come into effect only after the next general elections. Experts believe that the government is trying to force people into thinking only about sex till polls, so that they don’t focus on other issues like governance and development.

Shailesh has been busy tweeting, sharing, and liking status messages and pictures of Tendulkar since morning even as Rupal Joshi, his wife, is trying her best to control her anger and frustration. Rupal has decided to wait till 6 PM today to give Shailesh a second chance, failing which Shailesh could be in for some deep trouble.

Shailesh uploaded this picture on Facebook this morning and tagged his wife, driving her crazier.

“I am giving him some benefit of doubt for being a Sachintard, but if he doesn’t wish me a happy birthday by the evening, he will be denied entry into our bedroom, and he’ll have to wait longer than Sachin had to wait for his 100th century,” an angry Rupal threatened.

Rupal is still hopeful because last year, on her 25th birthday and Sachin’s 38th birthday, Shailesh had taken her out for dinner, that too to a restaurant that was not showing IPL matches on big screen.

However, Shailesh was busy reading articles on internet about likes and dislikes of Sachin till 1 PM, the time of filing this report, and showed no signs of remembering his wife’s birthday this year.

“Since Sachin has completed 100 centuries, I think he should be gifted a bouquet of 10,000 roses,” Shailesh proposed.

Sources of the aggrieved wife say that Shailesh had given 24 roses to Rupal last year, even though she had turned 25.

“He had bought them by per dozen rates yaar, and he bought two dozens, not just one! Don’t make it a big issue,” Tarun, another fan of Sachin and a close aide of Shailesh, told Faking News. Tarun and Shailesh often gang up on Facebook and Twitter to defeat Sachin critics.

“It’s so cute! Sachin is celebrating his birthday privately with his wife!” Shailesh said as he read another news report on Tendulkar.

Champu had reportedly posted an anti-Sachin comment on Facebook after the master’s 100th hundred blaming Sachin’s slow batting for India’s loss to Bangladesh. Immediately, he started getting plenty of hate comments, jibes, and taunts from his own friends, acquaintances, and random strangers alike.

Sachin fans claim he’s looking at his own reflection in the picture above

“They called me thankless, Chappel sympathizer, publicity seeking moron, anti-Indian etc. Initially I tried to argue with them by giving them logical arguments, but that made things worse!” Champu, alive and checking IPL scores from his bed in the hospital lawns, told Faking News.

“My best friend unsubscribed my posts. All my Facebook and twitter updates, even those not related to cricket, started getting the same reply in hundreds – Shut up you Idiot, Sachin is GOD! #crazyindianfan,” he recalled the horror.

After reading all such hate mails, Champu’s would-be father-in-law decided to call off his wedding scheduled for May this year.

“I can send my daughter to Delhi or Gurgaon and not worry about her security, but not to Champu after reading those comments,” a very scared could-not-be father-in-law of Champu told Faking News.

Depressed and heartbroken, Champu did the unthinkable two weeks back – he deleted all his social networking accounts. This extreme step should have been taken as a forewarning to the suicide that followed. Unfortunately that was ignored, and his “friends” continued to heckle him on SMS etc., finally pushing Champu into taking even more extreme step.

Delhi Police refused to file an FIR against his friends for abetting suicide. Although activists blame police for acting under pressure of Sachin fans, police sources claim law, as ordained by The God, has taken its own course.

Murari has filed a complaint with the office of NCW (National Commission of Women) and asked the commission to reign in the exploitative women.

“They come up with commercially irrational excuses like ‘Bhaiya, ek aur de do na, bachchi maang rahi hai’ or simply insist on getting extra puris for free just because they have bought and consumed a few earlier,” Murari shared his frustration with Faking News.

This much of panipuri is eaten for free in a month, Murari claims

“They even claim wrong number of puris they had consumed earlier; they would claim to have eaten just 7 panipuris even after gulping down 12,” he exposed the dishonest tricks employed by some of his customers, most of whom he insists are women, to fleece him.

Other tricks or strategies adopted by these women include repeatedly asking for additional dry puris with stuffing as complementary offering, and asking for replacement of defective or diminutive puris even after happily eating those ones, the harassed vendor claimed.

Murari claims that he suffered losses to the extent of 1 lakh rupees in the last financial year due to such unfair trade practices by his customers. In fact, he claims that he fears these women more than the supporters of Raj Thackeray.

After putting up with these losses for the last eight years, Ram Murari has now finally decided to speak against this exploitation and has written a letter to NCW. He has threatened to organize fellow vendors and sell panipuri at a premium price to the women customers.

While NCW has not yet responded as they were busy discussing the meaning of ‘sexy’, some activists have spoken up.

“This is sexist and can’t be tolerated,” Kareena, a feminist social worker objected to the complaints by Ram Murari and blamed the male chauvinist vendors for pushing women into such behavior, “Even though women are the biggest patrons of the panipuri business, we don’t see many women selling panipuris. These historical and social injustices have to be set right first.”

Murari didn’t respond to the criticism as he couldn’t understand the argument.

“We have to make sure that an aam aadmi, especially a Trinamool Congress supporter, doesn’t end up befriending a communist during a train journey,” Railway Minister explained the rationale behind the decision.

Earlier, Trinamool Congress had called for a social boycott of CPM supporters. The party had asked its members not to marry into families supporting CPM, in fact, not to be even friends with a communist.

There was a risk of ‘sleeping with the enemy’ if the co-passenger in the train turned out to be a communist, TMC sources say.

Following this instruction, Trinamool MP and former TV quiz-master Derek O’ Brien had declared, during an interview on a national television news channel, that he would not sit next to an MP belonging to the Left parties in the Parliament.

Sources say that Mukul Roy heard the statement on TV and decided to extend the logic to seating arrangements in the Railways.

“There is a race to impress Mamata Di among the Trinamool MPs; maybe with an exception of Dinesh Trivedi,” a source said, “The decision of Mukul Roy has to be seen in this light.”

After consulting party members and software experts, Mukul Roy is believed to have ordered changes in the IRCTC website. Now a person would be asked to fill up his political affiliation while booking a train ticket.

“Just like currently they ask you to indicate your food preferences in terms of ‘veg’ or ‘non-veg’ while booking a Rajdhani or Shatabdi ticket, you will be asked about your political preference in terms of ‘left’ or ‘non-left’ while booking tickets in any reserved class,” a source informed.

Passengers with left leanings will be allotted berths together, and it would be made sure that no one with non-left political leanings gets to sit next to a left leaning passenger.

“The same rule will apply in cases of ticket upgrade or RAC (reservation against cancellation). In fact, people won’t be allowed to exchange berths if the action ends up putting a communist next to a non-communist,” Mukul Roy explained the benefits of the new feature.

When asked why he was assuming that every non-communist would like to avoid contacts with a communist, the Railway Minister said that it was a decision that couldn’t be rolled back.

“Didi approves it, and this is for aam aadmi’s better future and welfare,” he said.

For the non-reserved class, a special coach for communists, with 24 berths and without any toilet or basic amenities like fans, could be attached to trains, unconfirmed sources tell Faking News.

(originally written for and published in leading English daily DNA)

With the CD being a total disappointment to the porn seekers, CAG has estimated a loss of at least 300 crore rupees to the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) in the current fiscal that has just started.

“What one got (the leaked CD) was far less in value than what was lost (working hours) as thousands of people indulged in such activity during weekday,” the CAG report pointed out, “With the CD being an apology for a porn clip and Abhishek Manu Singhvi being not that great a personality in the Indian politics, we have arrived at a figure of 301 core rupees as losses.”

No, this is not a still from the alleged sex CD, but many find it better.

When asked if the methodology adopted by CAG accounted for the possibility that the sexual act, which was morphed but consensual at the same time according to reports, could have been a ‘casting couch’ for appointments in courts, CAG official said that such interpretations were not the job of the office of CAG.

“We just come up with numbers,” he said, “And it was a pretty disappointing CD that was over 12 minutes long.”

CAG report claimed that thousands of working hours, which included night shift in IT companies and news channels, were wasted as people searched for, uploaded, downloaded, shared, and deleted the sex clip that showed a man, allegedly Abhishek Manu Singhvi, gyrating his head and kurta.

“Seriously man, it was pathetic!” Anirudh, one of those who wasted working hours to see the CD, told Faking News, “There better be a political and corruption angle to it else I’d never get those 12 minutes of my life back! Even Indian Censor Board will give the clip a ‘U’ or ‘U/A’ rating.”

“Madam has become sentimental about having to leave the house as her presidential tenure is coming to an end. That’s why she goes on a walk every now and then these days, inside the house,” a maid working in the Rashtrapati Bhavan disclosed.

President Pratibha Patil, after being discovered

“Earlier she used to step out only a few times in a year, and whenever she used to do that, she would directly fly to another country,” the maid added, referring to her frequent foreign trips.

Sources say that the GPS tracker Mrs. Patil used to carry with herself had stopped working. Special team of commandos was assembled for search operation, which lasted for over an hour. Madam President was found looking towards the sky when she was found out by commandos using night goggles.

“Frankly, we didn’t feel the absence of a President in India, but this could have become a big issue in the media so we ordered a search operation after waiting for a couple of hours,” a security officer told on conditions of anonymity.

However, the incident is threatening to snowball into a major controversy as it comes close to allegations of land grabbing against President Patil. She has been accused of trying to build a grand house for herself on a land belonging to the Defense Ministry.

“She has gone missing in the present house; what will happen in a bigger one? At least for Her Excellency’s own safety, she should return the newly acquired land back to Defense Ministry,” an expert argued on a national news channel.

In response to questions about possibility of her going missing again in bigger house, the President’s office replied saying that the new house will have “You Are Here” maps every 10 meters, together with emergency exits.

President herself was not available to comment on this issue as she had already flown away to attend a conference – “Homeless and Helpless in the sub-continent” – an initiative to provide shelter to the poor, being held in Australia.

(the reporter tweets here)

“Karan always claimed that he was the boyfriend of Katrina Kaif,” Langda Tyagi, another mango and a close friend of Karan told Faking News, “In fact, he claimed they were going to marry soon. He was very happy before he got kissed by Emraan and took this extreme step.”

The deadly kiss (inset: the kiss of life)

Sources say that Karan, a celebrity mango appearing in Slice TV ads with Katrina Kaif, had gone for anther television commercial shoot that involved Emraan Hashmi. Karan was told by his manager that the commercial will involve a fight with Emraan, but the actual ad copy required a mango being kissed by Emraan.

“Maybe it was a spoof ad by Slice competitors to mock the soft drink company, but it ended up hurting Karan badly,” an industry expert claimed. The expert cited various examples of ads by beverages companies that were produced just to mock their competitors; the latest being the ad involving cricketer Dhoni that appeared to mock his teammate Harbhajan Singh.

“That ad ended up creating divisions within the Indian team,” the expert claimed, “It seems that Karan was not mentally as strong as Bhajji, and he might have found the whole experience pretty insulting.”

The shocking incident has now raised concerns over safety of fruits in the entertainment industry.

“They claim that no animals were injured during the shoot, but what about fruits?” protested Rasiya, another mango that is regularly seen in Slice ads. Rasiya, now rumored to be the next boyfriend of Katrina, expressed grief over Karan’s death and demanded a ban on Emraan Hashmi.

Legal experts claim that since Emraan Hashmi is known for kissing and there have been no known case of any actress suffering from depression or sickness after being kissed, a ban on the actor would be unfair and illegal.

“Bullshit! There have been sequels to his films like Murder and Jannat, but they had to change the actresses; this proves that the actresses didn’t want to be kissed again by him!” a mango claimed, demanding a ban on Emraan.

“Rahul ji sacrificed his personal choices over public welfare,” a Congress leader from West Bengal told Faking News on conditions of anonymity, “Bidya was a very good girl, but her father and brothers were hardcore CPM supporters.”

Earlier, there were rumors that Rahul Gandhi had a Columbian girlfriend.

Bidya Bagchi, the alleged Bengali girlfriend of Rahul Gandhi, is now happily married into a CPM family in Kerala, sources inform. She waited for Rahul till as late as 2009, the last general elections.

“When results were announced and left parties faced a huge setback, Bidya asked Rahul one last time if he could marry her,” a source informed, “Rahul is believed to have asked her mother, who in turn decided to have a word with Mamata Didi.”

Mamata’s party Trinamool Congress had appeared as the second largest party in the UPA coalition and her support was crucial to the formation of a Congress-led government at the center.

“Mamata Di asked Sonia ji to choose between bahu (daughter-in-law) and bahumat (majority in the Parliament),” the source revealed.

Sources say that Sonia Gandhi tried her best but Mamata refused to relent. She openly threatened to walk out of UPA if Rahul was married into a CPM family.

“The pressure on Rahul Gandhi was increasing as his much younger cousin Varun Gandhi was also planning to marry a Bengali bride, whom he later married,” the source explained the complex socio-political equations behind the wedding.

Finally, Rahul Gandhi had to bow before Mamata’s diktat and drop his wedding plans to save the UPA-II government.

“Even we didn’t know this fact,” a Congress leader told Faking News when asked for a comment, “The respect for Rahul Baba has grown many times now! He deserves Bharat Ratna!”

However, skeptics in the opposition camp have rubbished the whole story and dubbed it as yet another attempt by Congress to blame its own shortcomings on its allies.

“He is already addressed as King Khan – King of Bollywood – but since India did away with Kings, Nawaabs, and Zamindaars after independence, we decided to call him the CM of Bollywood,” informed an official in the Ministry of External Affairs, who was given the special charge of taking up the SRK detention issue with US.

Shah Rukh Khan gestures when a journalist asked him if he, as a CM, could ban the telecast of Aamir Khan’s latest TV show Satyamev Jayate in Bollywood, his state.

While SRK has been given the status of a Chief Minister, his rights and responsibilities are not yet clear, and it’s already turning into a political controversy.

“Bollywood is a part of Mumbai, and Mumbai belongs to Maharashtra. We will not allow Bollywood to be taken away from Maharashtra,” Shiv Sena leader Uddhav Thackeray declared. Thackeray claimed that they already had a (moral) police force for Bollywood, and if at all Bollywood were to be given the status of a state, someone from Shiv Sena camp should have become the Chief Minister.

BJP too has supported Shiv Sena and has termed the move as Congress’ attempt to increase the number of Congress friendly Chief Ministers in India on a day it had to face opposition from non-Congress CMs on matter of internal security.

Not only political parties, sources say that fans and friends of Salman Khan and Aamir Khan are also angry and want the government to issue diplomatic passports to the other two Khans too.

“There were four Chief Ministers in Meghalaya just two years ago, so why can’t be there four or five CMs in Bollywood?” an Aamir Khan fan wondered.

“No, we don’t want to share the post. There should be elections and we are sure Sallu will win,” a Salman Khan fan demanded and threatened to tear off the diplomatic passport of SRK.

Even John Abraham fans believe that the special status to SRK was not needed.

The government has declined to comment on these responses, but they confirmed that SRK would be allowed to choose his own cabinet for Bollywood.

“Karan Johar could become the Home Minister while Finance Ministry could be given to Gauri Khan – SRK’s wife, who has recently produced Ra.One,” a source close to Shah Rukh Khan revealed.

“There are many similarities between Mayawati and Mamata – their names start with the same letter, both are nicknamed ‘sister’ i.e. Behenji and Didi respectively, both are unmarried, both run their respective political parties like private business, and both hate red color of their political opponents,” Gurunath Murthy, a senior bureaucrat in UP told Faking News.

Kolkata could be soon full of such statues of Mamata Banerjee

Sources say that UP officials got this idea after a professor in West Bengal was arrested for forwarding a cartoon of Mamata Banerjee. This reminded them of the incident where four school children were arrested in UP for damaging a poster of Mayawati.

“While Behenji had ordered release of the schoolboys, Didi justified the arrest – this reinforced our belief that Mamata Di could love something like her own statues installed in Kolkata; maybe she’d not even need an excuse like Mayawati ji that Kanshi Ram had it in his will,” Murthy claimed.

Convinced of West Bengal’s Chief Minister’s love for herself, the officials in UP suggested Akhilesh Yadav to sell off all the statutes of Mayawati to Mamata Banerjee, to which the young CM immediately agreed.

Sources say that sculptors were straightaway kidnapped from their homes and brought to the capital to prepare an execution plan for alteration of the statues from Mayawati’s to Mamata’s.

Sculptors are reported to have said that they could easily clip off the handbags and change the facial features of the statues to suit the needs, but the biggest problem was altering the salwaar-kameez of Mayawati into Bengali saari of Mamata. Sculptors warned that if salwaar-kameez was given shape of a saari, it might start looking like the dresses worn by cheerleaders of the Kolkata Knight Riders.

“That could have angered Mamata Banerjee and her supporters, causing fissures in the federal structure of India,” Murthy said, “But fortunately we had a solution ready; we decided to use all the cloth that was used by the Election Commission to cover Mayawati and Elephant statues. We will make saari out of those covers.”

Faking News thought of contacting Mamata Banerjee’s office for a comment, but we were reminded of the jokes we had cracked on Didi, so we dropped the idea.

Normal Baba, 37-year-old three times failed entrepreneur, is hopeful that he’d be fourth time lucky and turn his godmangiri into a profitable venture within a short span of one year.

“We’d recover all the cost within a few months,” claimed Normal Baba, born Nirmaljeet Singh Albela before he turned “spiritual” after he failed at three successive attempts of starting a business.

Earlier, Normal Baba had raised 50 lakhs through an angel investment that was used to launch website, buy video camera, get fancy furniture, and quizzing.

He is Nirmal Baba, not Normal

“We’d be buying slots on all major television channels and broadcast this program called ‘Third Arm of Normal Baba’, where we’d showcase people declaring their faith in Normal Baba and ask others to send donations to get their desires fulfilled,” Baba explained his fourth foolproof business idea.

Normal Baba explained that he’d be investing all the money into recording TV shows that would show random people thanking him for solving problems related to their personal and professional lives.

“I have original solutions to offer like polishing shoes with a special butter and eating apples dipped in water from my bathtub,” Normal Baba described the “product” he’d be selling.

Baba, who has already 2000 followers on Twitter and 20,000 in the real world – people whom he referred to as “shop-floor workers” in his business plan – expects at least 150 crore rupees in donations in the first year of his business.

“This is a very conservative estimate,” Normal Baba claimed.

Apart from ‘donations’, the business plan showed crores of extra “revenues” in shape of ‘goodwill’, ‘consultancy fees’, and ‘endorsements’. Baba’s b-plan showed thee major expenses – ‘video production cost’, ‘advertising’, and ‘event management’.

Justifying the investment, Varun Bafna, the managing partner of Banyan Capital, claimed that the VC fund had full faith in Normal Baba’s ability to convince common men of his special powers.

“We expect 5000% RoI (Return on Investment)” Bafna said. When asked about the exit options that he was considering, Bafna said, “Let’s not call it ‘exit’ option; we would consider it ‘nirvana’ when we exit the business. And we could do it by selling our shares to a political party or a news channel, who could be interested in having Normal Baba as the in-house superstar.”

The social networking website has offered 5 billion USD – five times it has offered to pay to Instagram – to buy out IRCTC, which has been accepted by the Railway Ministry, sources say.

“Since train fares were not increased for most of the traveling classes, we thought this was the best way to increase revenues,” a source at Railway Ministry confirmed the deal with Facebook, “And we are just selling the website; ownership of the Indian Railways remains completely with the government.”

Currently on roof, Facebook wants all of them on their website.

Post this acquisition, every user will need a Facebook login to book train tickets through IRCTC. In fact, he’d need to mention Facebook login details of every passenger who’d be traveling on that ticket.

The moment a confirmed ticket is booked, all the passengers traveling on that ticket will be added to the friend-list of those who would be traveling on adjacent berths.

“A user will get an automatic message from newly added friends like – Hi! I’d be traveling with you on the Side Upper seat of Radjhani Express next month. Let’s connect! – and they can start getting friendly so that there is no awkwardness during the journey,” a Facebook official explained the ‘benefits’ to the end user.

“Newly friended users can play card games on Facebook as rehearsal of what they could be doing during the actual journey, or they can just start chatting,” the official further enumerated the benefits.

The Facebook official clarified that a friend added through the IRCTC website can’t be removed till the train journey is completed or till either of them canceled their confirmed ticket.

“We are looking into cases where a passenger could exchange berths with another during the journey. We’ll make sure that the ‘right’ friends are added to a user network so that the train journey is truly enjoyable,” the Facebook official told Faking News.

The official rejected privacy concerns, claiming that passengers traveling by Indian Railways were already exchanging crucial contact details like email addresses and phone numbers at the end of the journey.

“We are just helping them stay connected,” he said.

Facebook is confident that the step will help them grown their reach in India and witness increased activity by thousands, maybe millions of users, who will be getting new friends each day.

“I am sure that Indian users will ‘like’ this feature, especially those guys who spend like hours at the gates of the railway coaches staring at the reservation chart to find out if any girl has been allotted a berth near to them,” an IRCTC official said.

Sources say that Bilawal could soon come back to India to join an internship program with Congress, the ruling political party of India. His personal guide will be Rahul Gandhi.

“Bilawal had a chat with Rahul Gandhi during the lunch hosted by Manmohan Singh and he was very impressed with Rahul’s knowledge,” a Pakistani source told Faking News on conditions of hilarity anonymity.

Bilawal Bhutto, standing behind two men, who apparently lead their respective nations.

Bilawal believes that there was a lot of similarity between Congress and his own party – Pakistan Peoples Party – and the internship could help him a great deal in becoming a matured politician.

“Both parties claim to follow center-left policy, both are accused of massive corruption by their respective political opponents, and political fortunes of both more or less revolve around a family,” an expert pointed out.

“With a government that is apparently afraid of the army, Bilawal could feel very much at home,” the expert added.

While refusing to say anything on record, Congress leaders have claimed that the development proved that Rahul Gandhi had matured as a politician.

“Those days are over when Rahul Gandhi himself was undergoing internship under Digvijay Singh,” a Congress leader said, “This clearly proves that he’s ready to lead the nation.”

Bilawal had earlier tweeted “much to learn from each other” after his lunch with Rahul Gandhi and Manmohan Singh, but nobody knew that he was thinking about internship.

“But what will he learn? Will he go back and grow a beard? Will he have dinner with a poor Muhazir family? Or will he go back and tear apart Imran Khan’s speech copy?” an expert wondered.

“This is totally disappointing,” a Trinamool Congress MP told Faking News on conditions of anonymity, “We have threatened to bring this government down on petrol price hike, railway fare hike, NCTC (National Counter-Terrorism Center), and other issues; and yet the government believes that it’s the army that will bring them down!”

Trinamool MP further revealed that an emergency meeting of all party leaders has been called by Mamata Banerjee to find out how they can spook the government in a bigger way.

“Madam Mamata Banerjee could give a missed call to the Prime Minister in the middle of the night to see if it sends a chill down the spine or not,” the MP revealed.

The news report, which upset the UPA allies

Similar sentiments were echoed by MPs belonging to parties like DMK, NCP, JMM, and RLD.

“This is an era of coalition politics, not military coup,” an NCP MP said, “It indeed is puzzling how the government can afford to be wary of the army movement, when movement of one party from the coalition can bring down the government, that too without any bloodshed.”

“Precisely!” RLD leader Ajit Singh, who became a cabinet minister for civil aviation just before the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, supported the views of the like-minded UPA allies, “Forget Air Force, the government should worry more about Air India.”

Ajit Singh candidly admitted that he was worried over lack of news reports about government’s dependence on allies and a sudden surge in news reports about ‘trust-deficit’ between the government and the army.

“I don’t want to feel like an employee of Kingfisher Airlines, whose job could go anytime,” Ajit Singh said, “I am sure the government needs allies like me to remain in power, and they must worry about us more than worrying about General VK Singh.”

Political experts too believe that the UPA allies and other political parties “friendly” to the Congress party were jealous of the current Army Chief, who is suddenly being seen as a threat to the government.

“Notice how parties like Samajwadi Party and RJD, not a part of the coalition but supporting the government from outside, were most vocal in criticism and asked for immediate sacking of General VK Singh,” an expert pointed out, “These parties don’t want the army to replace them as power centers that can arm-twist the government.”

When contacted, Prime Minister’s Office refused to comment on the issue. They even refused to order ‘UPA allies’, ‘parties supporting from outside’, and ‘armed forces’ in an increasing or decreasing order of threat to the stability of the government.

“Hey, we are also a threat to the government!” a BJP MP claimed as this reporter framed his questions, but the claim was ignored.

(originally written for and published in the English daily DNA)

This is what Dr. Singh experienced (screenshots provided by Google exclusively to Faking News):

Somehow, the glasses started on ‘silent mode’

Kapil Sibal, the most internet-savvy minister in the cabinet who is also a poet, was the first to ping Dr. Manmohan Singh on Project Glass

Even though press reports suggest sour relationship between the government and the army, the President of India, chief commander of the armed forces, seems to enjoy a cordial relationship

Prime Minister soon faced one of the biggest challenges

This is what happened before PM could respond

Representatives at Google have termed the trial by Dr. Manmohan Singh as ‘successful’. However, they clarified that Project Glass would help other users take decisions, unlike as demonstrated in the trial by Dr. Singh.

“He is a special case,” a Google source said.

Shekhar Gupta, Editor-in-Chief of The Indian Express, announced that the campaign was aimed at bridging the trust deficit that was exaggerated exposed by the newspaper through a front page story yesterday.

“The gaps need to be filled and who knows it better than us – journalists, who keep on filling information gaps with our secret sources, meticulous reconstruction, and sober interpretation,” Shekhar Gupta told Faking News.

The story that spooked the journalists

The meeting with Shekhar Gupta was called to discuss a business partnership between Indian Express and Faking News, which would have allowed some selected articles written by Pagal Patrakar to be republished on Indian Express under the pseudonym Faker Gupta.

“What nonsense! We are not into such senseless stuff!” Shekhar Gupta rejected the business proposition, “We are here to show mirror to the society; only that sometimes we use concave mirrors.”

When this reporter asked if his ‘Aman Ki Asha’ concept was not a copy of a similarly named campaign launched by Times of India for peace between India and Pakistan, Gupta said, “I reject such insinuations; even our spook story was termed as copy of an earlier report by Reddif.”

Sticking solely to what he considered important for the meeting, Gupta informed that as part of this peace initiative, various diplomatic and cultural exchange programs between the army and the government would be facilitated by The Indian Express.

“Army and government have some cultural similarities these days – like corruption, bribery, factionalism, etc. and we can organize events like ‘bribe bribe’ ‘catch me if you can’ and invite teams from the government and army to participate,” Shekhar said.

Among other things, a friendly cricket match between the army and the government will also be organized, sources at Indian Express claim. The rival teams will be captained by Defense Minister AK Antony and General VK Singh respectively.

“And you know; Antony has refused to have a runner, who was supposed to be a colleague from the cabinet, because our sources say that the fellow minister would have got Antony run out,” a source told Faking News.