This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the
current talk page.
Nithyananda was becoming a thread to the christian organisations of Tamil Nadu. Conversions to christianity reduced and people even went back to Hinduism thru him. Also he was speaking against conversion to christianity. To destroy him was already planned one year before and a sum of 200 Crore Rupia was also planned to put in that task. The criminals already confessed that eveything was fake and the video was professionaly faked. Totaly 365 hours of "sexscandal" report on TV, but less than 5 min to tell the truth to the public. See report on crusadewatch.org
http://www.crusadewatch.org/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=1071
The rape of the american woman too never happend. She already confessed!
I`m not a fan of this Gurus who collect masses of follower beccause a real Guru should always be available for his devotees, in case they have some spiriual questions cleared, what is not possible with many followers.
Nithyananda is not the first victim of evangelical or other forces with a lot of money and power! Many spirituall leaders in India are scared! Innocent Swamis are going to jail or even get killed like Lakshmanananda Saraswathi. Who is next? Medianews, specialy from christian TV, should be looked at with a big amount of scepsis! For the evangelicals, Hinduism is the religion of satan, whose followers are Satans children who must be "saved" from spiritual darkness and Hinduism itself must be destroyed. This is what happens in India these day`s. And more and more agressive evangelical missionaries are coming to India. Mostly disguised as tourist or as enlishteachers, and so on.
Please make a correction in the Article! The real story should be told!
Requesting updation of this wikipedia article based on evidences shown in court and court judgements that followed
Dear wikipedia writers, maintainers, moderators, admin, volunteers
Firstly I apologize, as I have not done much editing on wikipedia and I am not much familiar as to how one can tag another person on wikipedia and other things.
The information in this page is highly outdated and incomplete.
There are many things which have been overlooked
Judgement of Ohio Civil for case against Aarti Rao
Ohio Civil ordered and adjudged that defendant Aarti Rao and Manickam Narayan in the amount of $475,382.75 plus post judgement interest of 3% per annum.
Defendant devised a scheme to extort Swami Nithyananda. They videotaped and morphed it to make it appear that Swami engaged in sexual activities.
US forensic videographers found it to be fraudulent.
The morphed video tape was attempted to be sold to the media and also used to attempt extortion on the organization.
In wikipedia is it allowed to quote the original report and not media reports on original reports? Because media report are not giving the bigger picture.
For examples, these graphs
http://neembuu.com/tmp/Testosterone%20levels%20graph%20-%20for%20child.jpg
based on the reports actually show the significance of the medical reports which is not clear by the media-reports.
List of false reporting by media and court notices and legal notices and apologies offered by the media
Licenses of a few of these media houses have been recently canceled by the government of India.
Some historical references of illegal activities done by the media
Case of Star Vijay Channel and Broadcasting content complaints council ruling against this news channel
National television news channel Aaj Tak aired public apology to Paramahamsa Nithyananda for having aired a defamatory news item featuring the morphed video. In a written apology, TV Today Network Limited informed Paramahamsa Nithyananda that the said apology was aired on Aaj Tak on 18th September 2013 at 23:00 hrs and 19th September 2013 at 12:30 hrs. The media house thereby requested to accept the apology and take no further action.
Below is the communication from Aaj Tak.
http://neembuu.com/tmp/aajtak/aaj%20tak.jpg
Apology by TV10
Following suit was Telugu television news channel TV10 which aired public apology to Paramahamsa Nithyananda for having aired a defamatory news item featuring the morphed video. In a written apology, Spoorthi Communications Private Limited informed Paramahamsa Nithyananda that the said apology was aired on TV10 on 19th September 2013 evening. The media house thereby requested to accept the apology and take no further action with the promise not to ever repeat the defamatory program.
Below is the communication from TV10.
http://neembuu.com/tmp/tv10/TV10%20apology%20pg%201.jpghttp://neembuu.com/tmp/tv10/TV10%20apology%20pg%202.jpghttp://neembuu.com/tmp/tv10/TV10%20apology%20pg%203.jpg
I will be running OCR on all of these references and sharing that also very soon, so that it is easier for moderators and contributors at wikipedia to discuss and question these.
Kindly let me know if the following references are acceptable and please unlock controversy sections so that it may be updated.
You said Wikipedia does not rely upon editor interpretation of primary sources (such as court documents or medical records)
-- So does it mean media report on the medical records are not acceptable?
-- Then why are there so many media references in the article?
-- Also even if i get a link from Ohio Civil court's website to the judgement and share it here, citing that the judge observed this and this .... it would be not be considered admissible in wikipedia? But if the same thing was written by a newspaper (mainstream journalistic source) it would be considered admissible in wikipedia? I am asking because I would not go through the pain of looking into the possibility of digging out how to get this from Ohio court's press release website or something similar if it is still not going to be allowed in wikiepedia.
Finally in conclusion you said, "Some of those, such as the medical documents either violate the subject's privacy or else could have been constructed on behalf of the subject -- which is why we need non-primary sources."
--- My question is, wikipedia doesn't want to violate the subject's privacy because wikipedia understands (and is decent enough) that it might be defamatory to the subject (and may be also because it fears getting sued). But by not publishing the truth wikipedia is doing more defamation to the subject by having false allegations on it page. So doesn't it defeat the very purpose? The fifth pillar of wikipedia if I remember tells, that the context is more important than blindly following the rules?
Also the second part you say, "could have been constructed"
So that is perfectly fine. What we can do is, if we cannot show primary source, fine. But in the newspaper article, it says
"12.50 ngdl as against the normal 250 ngdl (nanogram decilitre)."
If you make a graph out of it looks like this :
http://neembuu.com/tmp/testosterone%20levels.jpg
Like this article
http://www.medicinenet.com/high_and_low_testosterone_levels_in_men/views.htm
suggests that normal testosterone level for adults is 270 to 1070 ng/dL which is close to what the newspaper wrote as normal. But Swami Nithyananda's testosterone level is 5% of the lower limit.
5% of the lower limit is something that can be simply stated as a fact in wikipedia.
Is it acceptable? My intention is to bring out the truth within the framework and rules and regulations of wikipedia. Kindly advise.
As for interpretation, the doctors have already commented,
"which would have been useful to assess the vascular causes of impotence "
The article is a newspaper article of the newspaper
The Times of India which has a readership of 7.643 million , so I hope it qualifies as a secondary source.
Finally the last part you said, "have been constructed on behalf of the subject -- which is why we need non-primary sources"
So what if the non-primary sources are constructed for vested interests? Like attracting attention of viewers/readers or increasing TRP or paid journalism. Recently National Security Advisor
Ajit Doval advised the media to keep "national interest" above everything else.
He also said,
Media defamation attempts
There have been cases of media putting defamatory news and airing defamatory programs on Swami Nithyananda, and then issuing public apology after legal action. Which means, as per the legal bodies of the country it is illegal. And also in their apology they acknowledge that they did wrong.
So how does this fact come out? I guess as per the rules, it will be allowed in wikipedia only if some newspaper writes about it. The problem is, they do print the apology on paper and they do air it on television and they do answer to the legal notice. BUT, they are very particular NOT to put in on their own websites because they do not want to expose their in-authenticity. Also apologies are very small in size, very small sized apologies are published. Anyhow I have already shared the references for these.
As for a few of the news channels, like Sun TV Network have faced rejection of security clearance for 33 of it's TV Channels. And the case is pending in the courts as of now.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Jaitley-likely-to-decide-on-Sun-TVs-broadcasting-license-today/articleshow/47823254.cmshttp://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-08/sun-tv-network-plunges-after-report-channels-may-go-off-airShashank Tuslsyan (
talk)
08:28, 10 August 2015 (UTC)
That Wikipedia
does not rely on editor interpretation means we only rely on mainstream media reports (like I said, "mainstream journalistic or academic sources"). I was clear about that, so it's a waste of time to ask if we do not use newspapers. The judge's findings would be court documents, which are primary sources. If you do not understand this distinction, and cannot understand the explanations about those distinctions, perhaps you should be editing a simpler topic.
Ian.thomson (
talk)
16:20, 10 August 2015 (UTC)
Thanks. I have made changes as per your recommendation. Let me know if the changes need to be revised.
I did not understand what you meant right now. The doctors said something and the disciple said something this has been reported in the newspaper and the newspaper has been quoted as it is. And even an information in the newspaper has been cited (like the lower limit of testosterone I have given a reference of it, which was used by wikipedia itself in the hypogonadism page). So things are as it is. Where is the problem? In the report a disciple named Mokshapriyan said and that was reported. I am reporting that in the report it was so reported by a newspaper which is considered mainstream journalistic. Now in this same page, there are atleast tonnes of references such and such angry mob attacked the ashram etc. etc. Do you know anyone in the angry mob? How can you say they are angry? How can you say the newspaper is neutral? If the newspaper is neutral when it is reporting that the mob was angry, how can the same newspaper not be neutral when it is reporting that disciples cited this as a proof of impotency? What do you mean by that that source is by an admitted "disciple of Swami Nityananda." ? You mean the newspapers are working for Nithyananda and have reported favourly? But the same newspapers have abused Nithyananda ? Or you mean to say the newspapers have not been quoted properly? Can you do a better job? Or your are saying the newspaper article itself is not valid? If that is the case why so many newspaper articles have been considered valid? Or you mean to say that the blood reports are by a disciple of Nithyanada? No the medical reports were not given to the press by disciples of Nithyanada, where is it given in the newspaper article? How can you establish that? From where did this logic came up. Sorry, it is confusing! Or is it that you simply doubt me as an contributor? (
Wikipedia:Assume good faith ,
Wikipedia:DNBTN ). See at the end you can always fix the edits or suggest improvements or simply clearly state that such and such link needs to be removed because it violates such and such rule, or more reference required, or tag it as not netural so many possibilities. Not doing anything, just sitting on top of a dead page which has been unupdated since ages, will it help? Afterall I am here to learn from you guys.
Shashank Tuslsyan (
talk)
19:33, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
Regardless of whatever else the newspaper prints, the source you cited was signed by "a disciple of Swami Nithyananda," and discusses results found only by doctors hired by Nithyananda -- that news article and its claims are in no way independent. The material only proves that Nithyananda's disciples claim he is impotent, nothing more than that.
That is why the world "vascular impotence" was used. The test which were not done were "Intracavernosal Injection" which means, something is artificially injected into your body to force your penis to erection. The court did not order that. (let me dig out reference for this as well, in the meantime let this sink into you). And what do you mean by true impotency? Say your teeth are broken, I give you artificial teeth does it mean you have teeth? Or it means you have temporary teeth? The biggest thing by far is that ALLLL reports report the same values for testosterone level, so why can't that be added (in the meantime i am looking for more references)
Shashank Tuslsyan (
talk)
20:31, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
Nov 2014 Medical reports
Pasting here for reference and discussion.
In 5 August, 2014 the
Supreme Court of India Supreme Court stays order on medical test of Nithyananda. The case has pending since 2010 in Ramanagaram Court. The bench expressed its displeasure, at the speed with which the investigation was proceeding. [1] In September 03, 2014 the
Supreme Court of India ruled that Nithyananda will take
potency test.[2]
In Nov 27 2014, reports of the potency tests that were conducted on Nityananda were released to
the media, it was found
The reports confirmed
Hypogonadism, extremely low levels of the male hormone testosterone. Only 12.50 mg/dl of testosterone is present in Nithyananda whereas its normal levels in adult males (aged 31-49) range from 249 mg/dl upwards.[3][4] as against the normal (lower limit) 250 ng/dl [5]
The doctors unanimously concluded that there was no evidence to suggest that the person is incapable of performing a sexual act, and there were no clinical signs to suggest that the person was involved in unnatural sexual acts.[6]
The article mentions that 249 mg/dl as normal whereas it is the lowest possible. The value range from Please refer MedlinePlus Encyclopedia:
Testosterone. It says the normal range for an adult Male is : 300 -1,000 ng/dL and an adult female: 15 - 70 ng/dL . So technically the person has testosterone even 16% lesser than the lowest for woman. What is normal about it?
The medical practitioners mentioned in the article are not related to the case, are not one of the doctors who actually performed the tests. The statement that potency tests are not fool proof have been give by Dr. Karthikeyan who is NOT the part of the team medical team which examined Swami Nityananda comprised Dr CR Chandrashekar, professor and head of department of urology; Dr Veeranna Gowda KM, professor of medicine, Dr Chandrashekar H, head of the department of forensic medicine and toxicology and Dr Venkat Raghava S, psychiatry. Who is Dr. Karthikeyan? And anyway was talking about impotency tests in general and not the specific one done in this case. For the list of doctors who actually participated refer
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bengaluru/CID-submits-potency-test-report-to-court/articleshow/45289335.cms
The doctors had also mentioned that potency tests are not fool proof. The word given was removed, as this statement was for potency tests in general. Also the same article is telling that potency tests cannot establish being guilty from the perspective that just because someone is capable of having sex or cannot be proven as guilty of rape particularly. Also very importantly it was noted that such tests are are violation of the dignity of a personShashank Tulsyan (
talk)
10:07, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
Which would have confirmed whether or not he was truly impotent. Citation mentioned for this statement does not have either of the two words uses. kindly fix with better citation. As per what I understand, intracavernosal injection was carried out because no reason could be found for vascular impotence. It is written clearly penile doppler study with intracavernonal injection "which would have been useful to assess the vascular causes of impotence from here
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bengaluru/CID-submits-potency-test-report-to-court/articleshow/45289335.cms . However a better citation may be used to further counter or strengthen the argument.
The statement has been modified to make it clearer the purpose of intracavernosal injection tests. The doctors were not able to find out any reasons for vascular impotence. Had potency been established this test would not be required, and also as per the Supreme Court directive it was not required anyway. Because the person was not accused of using not accused of using drugs and intracavernosal injections or other external means to perform rape.
Shashank Tulsyan (
talk)
10:07, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
If one reads the newpaper articles, it is found these just tell the person is potent, because the reason for vascular impotency could not be found.
He is sesensationalizing the article by editing topic titles, Like "Nithyananda Sex Scandal" from "Sun TV Scandal".
He is using self published sources,
WP:SPS (that too which in no way prove anything) in Sun TV section. It seems a random bunch of papers from send to NABL lab with no connection to this subject. Also it qualifies self published sources, is another point for not including these. This also doesn't go well with the
WP:BLPWP:NOR policy.
The last edit in this page was, done using another fake account
Truthalonetriumphz of
Emailarchiving.enthusiast. He is using self published sources, WP:SPS (that too which in no way prove anything) in Sun TV section. They seems to be a random bunch of papers send to NABL lab with no connection to this subject. Also it qualifies self published sources, is another point for not including these. This also doesn't go well with the WP:BLP WP:NOR policy.
Secondary reference, that is the news article confirm the same. Reverting edits.
Shashank Tulsyan (
talk)
01:22, 11 January 2016 (UTC)
Removal of baseless derogatory remarks like "Controversial Godman"
In my previous edit I had removed two words "controvertial" and second "
Godman" with the reason as explained below.
Basically the logic was,
(1) There is no valid reason to use these words. The "controversies" have been ended in the courts. Both USA and India as evident.
Godman is a derrogatory word used ONLY in India by Indian media in their smear campaigning.
(2) Media is doing is as part of smear campaign against the person as evident by
Swami_Nithyananda#Sun_TV_scandal
(3) The usage of words like "Sex Swami" is by no means "normal". It is derogatory. If headlines of the news articles are accepted in description of public figures, then it can go to extreme of writing as if, "is a controvertial Sex Swami Godman" based on what? Someone media house editor's perverted mind?
Ref :
http://www.ndtv.com/india-news/sex-swami-nithyananda-will-take-potency-test-rules-supreme-court-658673/info/en/?search=Swami_Nithyananda#Potency_tests
(4) The original source for these words is this NDTV article :
http://www.ndtv.com/south/controversial-godman-nithyananda-sacked-as-junior-pontiff-502276
(5) The article is factually inconsistent and outdated as per court findings (and their own publication, newspaper's).
There in light of these, I removed the two words, soon after which the article was marked as COI, which indicates that there is a risk of it being biased. Ofcouse the editor who marked it COI did not intend to say just removing two derogatory words makes his page biased. I invite other editors to see if this edit was ok or not. Please understand, that the article is already insulting/defaming the person to a great extent, with wrong information. It is already biased from the other side. Because newspapers write anything, "Sex Swami", "Condoms" etc.
Ref :
http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/swami-nithyananda-arrest-the-story-of-why-he-is-in-trouble/1/200560.html
And it is all acceptable for them to write anything, I don't understand how these guys are considered legitimate. But whatever anti-Hindu media writes, we must not let it spoil wiki articles. Even negative points, about a person should be properly presented, like this newspaper called this person a rapist, condom seller, etc, with the name of the newspaper. Name calling is cheap. It is very cheap.
So please review this edit, because I cannot quote primary court documents in wikipedia, I have no other option available. The anti-Hindu media rarely provides with something I can use to convey the truth in this topic.
/info/en/?search=Wikipedia:Don't_cry_COI
I'm closing this as the offending phrases no longer appear to be in the article. I have opened an RfC below regarding the large portion of the article that seems to be dedicated to controversy/criticism, and may need to be edited to fall more squarely in line with
WP:BLP and
WP:NPOV.
TimothyJosephWood19:37, 20 June 2016 (UTC)
The video is fake. It is an established fact not a claim.
There have been multiple edits done, by various genuine and fake users. I have made some modifications over it, and I would like to mention them and also clear once and for all that the video is fake. It is an established fact not a claim. Please find the details below.
1. Removed The channels stand by their claim that the film clip is original This statement has been removed as initially the channels might have stood up by their claim that the film clip is original, but now that is not the case now. Specially after Justice AP Shah (retired)-led self regulatory body, Broadcast Content Complaints Council (BCCC), directed the channels such as ‘Star Vijay’ to apologise to Ranjitha Menon for telecast of these kind of fake videos on 21 March 2012. The channels had been asked to run a scroll featuring the apology every two hours on its channel for seven days. This set set a precedent for other channels to follow. Even if the channels believe that the video is real, they have no right to air it and if they do it would amount to contempt of court. Therefore this statement has been removed.
Refer
http://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/Channel-ordered-to-apologise-to-Ranjitha/2013/09/03/article1765099.ece
3. The entire article is written as if there still exists an element of doubt if the video is real or not. The article has many statement containing these 3 sub-statements
(a) "Nithyanada and his followers"
(b) "claim"
(c) "video is fake"
There are 4 independent U.S.-based experts forensic experts/agencies which have given their report giving over 60 technical reasons to clearly prove the video was morphed, and manipulated : (a)Edward Joe, 27+ years experience in audio and video forensic analysis court expert in USA, Registered Investigator (RI), Primeau Productions Inc. In this video he personally testifies and explains his report
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ITsoaJWILw (b) David Notowitz, Forensic Video Expert in USA , Los Angeles Superior Court Expert Witness, National Center for Audio and Video Forensics (c)Joe Yonowitz, 58+ years experience in audio/video analysis in USA, Canada, Mexico, UK, Sri Lanka, Australia, Singapore, UAE; testified in state and Federal courts in civil, criminal and administrative matters throughout the USA as well as overseas. In these videos he personally in good detail testifies and explains his report
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueg1_-BL8mkhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtpUEmen2Oghttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpWVEc17284http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKs_qhEiTiw (d) Bryan Neumeister, Certified Federal, US District, State, Department of Justice, Civil & Aviation Forensic Expert, 31 Years Professional Experience, USA Forensic Audio & Video Labs. (e) There is a fifth report by FSL Delhi. Before coming to that, sharing other important facts. March 2010 An FIR was registered charging Swami Nithyananda of rape even though there was no victim named. In the over 2,75,000 cases of rape registered in India in the last decade, this is the only case of rape where there is no victim. He was arrested. 21 April 2010 To substantiate the arrest, the police in an unheard of move, made an open appeal on television, newspapers, social media like Facebook for “victims” to come forward and declared that even their travel expenses would be given by the police. Ref :
http://indianexpress.com/article/india/crime/nityanand-probe-cid-asks-victims-to-depose/ 17 August 2010 High Court was about to quash the case as it was a rape case without victim. It is then that Aarti Rao came forward as witness/victim. Till now the video was used to justify imprisonment and trial for rape. And please note even if the video is considered 100% authentic, it doesn't show rape, even so called sexual acts are not clear. 16 March 2012 Reports by 4 independent U.S.-based experts forensic experts/agencies which are often employed by FBI, was submitted to CID by Swami Nithyananda. During the same time the video was also taken out from the FIR against Swami Nithyananda. The CID didn't retain the video as evidence in court. The video, therefore became irrelevant to the criminal proceedings against Swami Nithyananda. The 4 forensic reports are unchallenged since. Further validation of the 4 forensic reports is not possible because the opponent is not interested in countering it. SunTV executives now face trial, as already earlier mentioned. May be in further trial the video may be again brought back if SunTV challenges the authenticity of the four reports. Public reference to Edward Joe's statement where he said, "video is not genuine and authentic. It is not a representation of facts and events as they occurred. Furthermore, the video appears to be layered and not a composite video. As a video forensic expert, I recommend that this video be excluded from any factual relevance to the events that appear to be happening", can be found here,
http://www.daijiworld.com/news/news_disp.asp?n_id=123627 . Another helpful reference,
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/tamil-nadu/nithyananda-cites-us-experts-to-claim-videotape-is-fake/article2999685.ece (Edward Joe statement is not present here however) ; Edward Joe expressed his willingness to testify in USA or India and answer any questions regarding this forensic investigation Similarly other forensic experts like, David Notowitz, Joe Yonowitz went ahead to give detailed explanation on shortfalls FSL Delhi's report. Bryan Neumeister further pointed to major shortfall in FSL report pointing out that The report has no actual scientific data on it whatsoever. It is an inventory sheet of what was received and a persons best guess that the client and person on the video matched. No forensic tests were performed according to the report. All these reports became part irrelevant to the legal proceeding as the video was withdrawn as evidence. All 5 reports are available, but all of them would be primary reference and hence useless/not-preferred to wikipedia.
Shashank Tulsyan (
talk)
20:25, 20 June 2016 (UTC)
4. Re-Added the confession of COO of Sun TV that they created the fake video and uploaded it on youtube. The following lines were removed by someone.
a claim that was later proven by a confession by the ex-[[Chief operating officer|COO]] of [[Sun TV (India)|Sun TV]]. Sun TV had released the fake video on YouTube.<ref name="dna-india-report"/><ref>{{Cite news|url = http://hinduismnow.org/blog/2016/02/17/nithyananda-video-is-a-fake-sun-tv-coo-hansraj-saxena-confesses/|title = Nithyananda Video is Fake: Sun TV COO Hansraj Saxena Confesses|last = |first = |date = |work = |access-date = 18 Feb 2016|via = }}</ref>
5. A contributor had also made the comment "a confession is stong evidence, which is not the same as proof."
The confession indeed amounted to as a proof which resulted in Chennai Crime Branch CID filing a chargesheet against SunTV on March 2, 2015 reporting the results of the 5 year investigation in the case of conspiracy and extortion done on Swami Nithyananda. The 250 page chargesheet filed before the Metropolitan Magistrate Court in Chennai, charged the eight accused including Lenin Karuppan, Arathi Rao, Sun TV executives and tabloid Nakkeeran editors under Sections 341, 342, 392, 323, 420 and 506(2) IPC@120B, 384, 385, 386, 392, 342 and 109 r/w 385 IPC, Section 67 r/w 67A IT Act 2000 and Section 4 of Tamilnadu Prohibition of harassment of Women Act 1998 and Section 3 and4 r/w 6 of Indecent representation of Women (Prohibition) Act 1986.
So retaining the word "proved"
In the article the word proved as been maintained, but as per discussion with
User:Iṣṭa_Devatā we both mutually agree that a confession by itself can be a strong evidence not a proof. So next revision may rephrase that statement.
Shashank Tulsyan (
talk)
20:25, 20 June 2016 (UTC)
6. For the Awards and honours section, where it talks about Swami Nithyanada being nominated as the chairman of the Hindu University of America, someone also added the line "He was removed from this position subsequently."
No reference to this statement has been provided. Also the website of Hindu University of America still shows Swami Nithyananda as the chairman, refer :
http://www.hua.edu/chairman.shtmlShashank Tulsyan (
talk)
22:22, 5 June 2016 (UTC)
Gurukul accreditation investigation
The gurukul section contains info regarding an investigation done to check the accreditation of the school. So it should be specified that the school has formal accreditation. Interestingly, the date for receiving accreditation is 2-3 months prior to the investigation. It can be found from the Edexcel website records that the school is indeed present in their records for list of affiliated schools. Also the letter of accreditation and press-release of this information, both were made in month of June 2013, but the allegation that the school was not accredited was made only later during October 2013. As always with Indian media, you will always find news regarding an allegation, but never any news/reference once the issue was settled.
This is again a case of allegation, and proof of innocence. I suggest we do either of the two
Either we add the information about 'innocence', that is the details of accreditation and also the 'allegation'
Or we remove both the allegation and the proof that the allegation was false (not substantiated)
I am avoiding to touch the article as any edits by me is seen as
COI.
I am leaving the content below, requesting some nice user with
NPOV to do it instead.
Feel free to add/ignore/improve it.
On 25th June 2013, the school got accreditation from
IGSCEEdexcel and to date is a recognized by it.[1][2] IGCSE is an international alternative to many popular national curricula followed by international schools worldwide. It is often seen to be more advanced and rigorous than national curriculum of various countries.[3][4][5][6]
This paragraph has been left as it was, just the date has been bolded
In October 2013, the school was accused of rights violations and running the gurukul without any accreditation. The district administration was asked by the women and child welfare department of the state government to rescue the children after a complaint that the ashram was violating rights. Following notices issued by the administration, the ashram had written to the Karnataka State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (KSCPCR) expressing willingness to produce the children before it or the Ramanagaram child welfare committee (CWC).[7]
Can this line be added? But there is no reference to it. But logically as explained above it is obvious even without you needing to go into the CWC report, that the school is accredited and it was accredited, even before the allegation was made. Also as for child abuse allegation, in the reference given above you can clearly see it is mentioned that they found that the children were brilliant, and the concern of authorities was mostly related to absence accreditation to a national/regional system and verification of international accreditation
The investigation closed reporting that no irregularities were found.
A video that apparently showed Nithyananda engaging in sexual acts with women, allegedly Tamil film actress
Ranjitha, was broadcast on the
Tamil television channel
Sun News on 2 March 2010.[8][9][10] Both Nithyananda and the actress had insisted that the video was morphed and the video was faked by using actors and deliberate blurring and obscuring of faces with the intent to deceive the viewer regarding the actors. Much later, forensic tests found the video to be morphed.[11] The
COO of
SunTV also came forward and confessed that the morphed video was made by the channel and uploaded to
YouTube.[12] However, before that, it was widely believed that the video was real because of the repeated telecast and coverage by various media houses. This incident also resulted in protests outside the ashram during which a fire broke out. On 4 March, Nithyananda made an application to a civil court in
Chennai, seeking an
injunction blocking further broadcasting of the video material.[13] Responding to the media reports, Nithyananada said that he was in a "state of samadhi" (trance) when the video was made and that the tape had been "misinterpreted, morphed and manipulated" during an interview with
Times Now on 13 March 2010.[14][15] In another follow-up interview to Outlook magazine, he claimed that an earlier mutation had rendered him incapable of sex.[16] After release of the video, Bidadi police registered cases under
Indian Penal Code sections 376 (rape), 377 (unnatural sex), 120B (criminal conspiracy), 506 (threat to life) and 420 (cheating).[17][18]
After evading summons for 49 days, Nithyananda was arrested on 21 April 2010 in
Arki in Himachal Pradesh by
Bangalore Police with the help of the police of Himachal[19] and the interrogation was done in
Bangalore by the
CID of the Bangalore Police.[20] On 11 June 2010 Nithyananda was granted bail, and was released from judicial custody after 52 days in Ramanagaram sub-jail. In October 2010, the releaser of the video who worked as Nithyananda's driver was charged by
Bidadi police under several sections of the
IPC with accusations of
defaming Nithyananda through distributing the video.[21] Subsequently, in July 2011, Nithyananda's ashram filed a complaint against
Sun TV Network, claiming they were the agents behind what the ashram alleged was a morphed video and the repeated telecasting of it.[22] The confession of
COO of
SunTV proved that the morphed video was made by the channel and uploaded to
YouTube.[12]
In February 2013, the High Court of Karnataka quashed two FIRs against Nithyananda, one pertaining to his activities at the ashram and the other over alleged assault on a pro-Kannada leader[23]
In September 2013, Broadcast Content Complaints Council (BCCC) directed the channel ‘
Star Vijay’ to apologise to
Ranjitha Menon for telecast of a defamatory program showing "morphed" video. She had filed a writ petition before the HC of Karnataka which had forwarded the case to BCCC. The channel was asked to run a scroll featuring the apology every two hours on its channel for seven days starting September 9. This judgement set precedent for other channels which were involved in similar activity.[24]
Rajiv Malhotra a Hindu activist pointed it out in his blog that the chronology of events that took place was very strange and abnormal: First the allegations against Swami Nithyananda were made solely by media, before any charges had been filed by authorities. Then the police wanted to gather evidence to substantiate the charges and started placing advertisements on TV asking for victims to come forth and approach the police with complaints. Police phone numbers were displayed on TV ads round the clock for people to call. Interestingly, nobody came forth despite massive solicitation by the police and media. It was strange that the allegations were being repeated as though the matter was settled, even before the police had formal complaints from any victims,and even before the evidence was available.[25]
Accusations by Arathi Rao
Arathi Rao, a former follower of Nithyananda, gave a detailed account of her five-year experience with the guru. She alleged that Nithyananda repeatedly raped her and threatened her with dire consequences if she revealed it to anybody. Arathi also claimed that it was she who had secretly filmed Nithyananda's sex tapes with a Tamil actress.[26] The ashram held a press conference which ended abruptly, the devotees and some journalists had heated arguments and they even exchanged blows. Later, activists of the Nava Karnataka Nirmana Vedike stormed the ashram to protest against the alleged attack on the media.[27] Karnataka Chief Minister Sadananda Gowda ordered the police to arrest the guru and seal his ashram.[28] On 13 June, Nithyananda surrendered himself before a court in Ramanagaram. He was released on bail the next day and the ashram was unsealed a few days later.[29][30] In August 2012, after failing to appear for a court-directed sexual potency test, passports of Nithyananda and 30 of his associates were seized at Delhi Airport.[31] Following this event, widespread resentment of Nithyanandas was reported at Madhurai Adheenam by various section of the media.[32] On 6 August 2014 the United States District Court Southern District of Ohio issued a judgment against Mrs. Aarthi S. Rao and in favor of Nithyananda Dhyanapeetam of Columbus in Delaware, Ohio (NDC) (Case No. 2:13-CV-00526) fining her nearly half a million dollar for false public statements.[33]
On 5 August 2014 the
Supreme Court of India stayed order on medical test of Nithyananda. The case has been pending since 2010 in Ramanagaram Court. The bench expressed its displeasure, at the speed with which the investigation was proceeding.[34] On September 3, 2014 the
Supreme Court of India ruled that Nithyananda will take
potency test.[35] In a separate case, Mr. Vinay Bharadwaj filed against Sri Nithyananda Swami and several U.S. non-profits but this was dismissed in favor of Sri Nithyananda Swami and the other defendants (Case No. CIVRS 1013793) by the US Appellate Court who also denied any and all appeals by Mr. Bharadwaj on this matter.[36]
Potency tests
On November 27, 2014, reports of the potency tests that were conducted on Nityananda were released to the media. The reports pointed to Nithyananda's
vascular impotency,[37] and
hypogonadism but claimed that he is a physically healthy male with no signs of being incapable of having sex.[38][39][40]
Nithyanada's council and followers found this self-contradictory, as at one point the report clearly indicates
vascular impotency and at the same time claims of finding no signs of being impotent. They interpreted these reports as claiming that he was incapable of sex,[37] also pointing to his
hypogonadism that resulted in him having 12.50 mg/dl of testosterone, which is 5 per cent of lowest level in adult males (aged 31–49) which is 249 mg/dl, and is also 16 per cent lesser than the lower limit of testosterone observed in healthy adult women.[38][39][41][42] These claims have been countered by the mainstream media, as the reports indicated that the low testosterone levels could be a result of outside factors.[39][40] The media however did not give any counter argument on
vascular impotency. Nithyananda refused an
intracavernosal injection, which might have been useful in determining the reason for
vascular impotency claiming the possibility of a
cardiac arrest.[39] Additionally, medical practitioners explained that potency tests are not fool proof and are violation of the dignity of a person.[43]
Mahamandelshwar, Madurai Adheenam and other controversies
In June 2012, a political party
Hindu Makkal Katchi in Tamil Nadu, filed a petition in Madurai court against Nithyanada alleging misuse of Madhurai Adheenam mutt for practicing immoral activities and for serving holy water laced with drugs.[44] On 12 October 2012, Arunagirinatha Desikar, the 292nd head of Madurai Adheenam
mutt, who had earlier anointed Nithyananda as his successor in April 2011, an appointment widely condemned at the time by Hindu religious bodies and the government, sacked him after pressure mounted from the state government and other Hindu religious and charitable organisations.[45] Following this decision, Sri Arunagirinathar sought police protection, citing threats to life from Nithyananda disciples.[45] In another related incident, pursuing eye witness accounts alleging widespread usage of tiger pelts and elephant tusks within the ashram, Madurai police opened cases against Nithyananda under the Wildlife Protection Act.[46] Eventually these charges had been dropped.[12]
In February 2013, Nithyananda was conferred the title of
Mahamandaleshwar of the Mahanirvani akhara during the
Kumbh Mela in Prayag. The event was a closed ceremony and the
Deccan Herald described it as "clandestine". The appointment met with protests from some other akharas and saints as traditionally the Mahakumbh officials are invited as are other akharas. Narendra Giri, the mahant of Niranjani akhara, was quoted as saying "Though it is the prerogative of the akharas to confer the title of Mahamandaleshwar, one has to see whether the person is fit for the same. The title is given to the saints, who have selflessly served the mankind. Nityananda does not deserve the title." Although later during Nasik
Kumbh Mela 2015 Narendra Giri changed his statement, lauding and praising Nithyananda, saying, “Swamiji is the backbone of Hinduism! Nithyananda Swami has not only done the work of Hinduism here, but he has taken the respect and honor of Hinduism all over the world. A human being cannot go forward or achieve big things in his life without tests and without hard work. Swamiji was put under so many attacks, but still he is untouched and is established in enlightenment. One day Paramahamsa Nithyananda is going to be the Guru for the whole world!”[47]Ravi Shankar had criticised the conferment. The
Mahanirvani akhara defended its action. Mahant Ravindra Puri was quoted as saying "Nityananda may have been facing charges, but it is his personal life and we have nothing to do with that. We should keep in mind that the charges have not yet been proved."[48][49]
The consensus is that the controversy section, which was removed from the article
here and moved to the talk page
here, is too long per
WP:UNDUE and
WP:BLP.
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
There seems to be some disagreement regarding discussion above about controversial coverage of the subject of this
WP:BLP. Looking at the article, it seems that fully half of it is the controversy section, which does not appear to be in line with the spirit of
WP:CSECTION, and might be treading on shaky
WP:NPOV ground.
Unfortunately, I know basically nothing about the subject and so I'm opening this to hopefully attract some uninvolved editors who might be better qualified. Also posting a link on WikiProject:India. Feel free to post on other WikiProjects that might be related.
TimothyJosephWood19:29, 20 June 2016 (UTC)
Controversy section is waaaay too long for a BLP. I would suggest that the article is currently a coat rack for critics of this person. Unfortunately I don't know enough about this subject to confidently edit out the superfluous content but it clearly needs to be done.
Elmmapleoakpine (
talk)
22:19, 30 June 2016 (UTC)
Definitely too long - Even though there are numerous sources to back up the information, it needs to be cut down in order to be commensurate with the rest of the text. The rest of the article treads into
WP:NPOV territory as well... -PaxVerbum03:20, 11 July 2016 (UTC)
Length alone not a criterion Whether a sertain section in a
biographical article is considered "too long" or "too short" is never to be assessed on its own. There are no prescribed formulas for length of sections or on information about specific items. It all depends on the
extent of the notability of the information in question, i.e. whether the section in the article dedicated to that information is commensurate in length to the importance the information carries for the subject as evidenced by
third-party reliable sources. We need to formulate a position in accordance to this criterion and only this, and certainly not on some kind of "literary" propriety. -
The Gnome (
talk)
09:00, 15 July 2016 (UTC)
Comment for the time being I have moved the entirety of this here as a likely
WP:BLP violation. Looking through it in more detail is appears to be entirely accusations and rumors, and so is inappropriate for the article. Given that this is a BLP it seems appropriate to remove immediately, and discuss inclusion rather than exclusion.
TimothyJosephWood12:56, 15 July 2016 (UTC)
Absolutely agree These accusations are very very old - most from 2010 and with no followup since - and most have been not even taken up for investigation by any authorities leave alone ruled on by a court of law. In the absence of legal ruling carrying all these accusations, I feel, is not worthy of an encyclopedia.
Acnaren (
talk)
15:46, 15 July 2016 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Ya there's no way this should be merged. This topic has been discussed numerous times on this page itself and every time it is deleted because it's inconsistent and purely tabloidal. There have been federal court documents proving his innocence. This is a biography, not an Indian Tabloid. --
Rurban23 (
talk)
Merge coverage or not, the other page is currently a paragraph long, and so there is no need for a separate page at the moment. If the content becomes too bulky here it can easily be spun out again.
Vanamonde (
talk)
05:27, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
Delete or document facts not media cooked stories. Now this para from
Nityananda_sex_scandal simply says a few things as a fact.
The Nityananda sex scandal refers to a video of godman Swami Nithyananda in a compromising position with Tamil actress Ranjitha in the godman's ashram in Bidadi. Telecasted by the Tamil television Sun TV on 3 March 2010, the video created a furore in India. Nityananda was eventually arrested in Himachal Pradesh on April 21, 2010 and brought to Bangalore where he stood trial for rape and unnatural sex.[1] Zee News later listed this episode in the top five sex-scandals in India.[2]
Inclusion of this as it is would be really inaccurate factually. So if at all it has be to include, it should be detailed enough to give the correct picture using documented public domain available facts OR just DELETE the content and the page based on lengthy 2 year old long discussion
Talk:Swami_Nithyananda#RfC_re:_controversy_section as to why such content does not fit the spirit of wikipedia. Re-iterating facts (although it has been done already earlier) for the benefit of other to decide what they want to do with it :
ii. 16 March 2012 Reports by 4 independent U.S. based forensic experts who are often employed by FBI, was submitted to CID. All of them reported the video to be morphed. Edward Joe, said "the video is not genuine and authentic. It is not a representation of facts and events as they occurred. Furthermore, the video appears to be layered and not a composite video. As a video forensic expert, I recommend that this video be excluded from any factual relevance to the events that appear to be happening”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ITsoaJWILw Other three experts David Notowitz, Joe Yonowitz, Bryan Neumeister also had similar conclusions
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueg1_-BL8mkhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtpUEmen2Oghttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpWVEc17284http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKs_qhEiTiw . According to the forensic experts the video is of no value.
iii. 3 September 2013, Broadcast Content Complaints Council (BCCC) directed the channel ‘Star Vijay’ to apologize to Ranjitha Menon for telecast of a defamatory program showing "morphed" video. She had filed a writ petition before the HC of Karnataka which had forwarded the case to BCCC. The channel was asked to run a scroll featuring the apology every two hours on its channel for seven days starting September 9. This judgement set precedent for other channels which were involved in similar activity. Refer -
http://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/Channel-ordered-to-apologise-to-Ranjitha/2013/09/03/article1765099.ece
1. The case is already closed, in US. The person who posed as rape victim has been fined $ 1/2 million. On 6 August 2014 the United States District Court Southern District of Ohio issued a judgment against Mrs. Aarthi S. Rao (the person who posed as a rape victim) and in favor of Nithyananda Dhyanapeetam of Columbus in Delaware, Ohio (NDC) (Case No. 2:13-CV-00526)fining her nearly half a million dollar for false public statements.
Bonus point (not of wikipedia value though).
User:Shashaanktulsyan 07:02, 24 Oct 2016 (IST)
::7. In 2013 1216 out of 1559 rape cases reported and tried in Delhi were found to be false rape cases. That is 78% of the rape cases filed were false.There are extortion rackets run by some women who threatened men to pay her or face a false rape complaint.
ii. Hypogonadism : Swamiji has only 12.50 mg/dl of testosterone, which is 5% of lowest level in adult males (aged 31–49) which is 249 mg/dl, and is also 16 per cent lesser than the lower limit of testosterone observed in healthy adult women. It is in the range of newborn babies!
4. Rape without victim. In the over 2,75,000 cases of rape registered in India in the last decade, this is the only case of rape where there was no victim mentioned.
d. 17 August 2010, Ms. Arathi Rao came forward as a "witness" (rape victim).
5. FBI says rape victim’s testimony “highly unlikely” FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) Academy specialist on infectious diseases Dr.McIlroy, has categorically stated in his detailed report (check reference below) after analyzing the medical reports of Sri Nithyananda Swami as well as conspirer and false rape victim Aarthi Rao, that the rape incidents alleged by Aarthi Rao against Sri Nithyananda Swami are false and untenable. It is “highly unlikely” for him to have raped her and never caught her incurable STD’s some of which get transferred even by skin to skin contact. It is impossible for someone to rape her for 5 years and not catch the disease.
Don't merge The page that was nominated for merge with this article is defamatory.
WP:BLP violation. First point: The whole thing is false as the Ohio Civil court judged,(see above) and then fined the lady who pretended to be raped. Secondly, posting false information and re hashing the lack of merit I don't think is valuable for being part of Wikipedia. In either case it shouldn't be sitting right on top of the page. Any person opening this page would first see this header. If at all the article is merged, it's title should be appropriately changed and the content should be updated FIRST and then it may be merged or linked. For example the title of the page (or topic, in case it is merged)
Nityananda sex scandal could be Aarti Rao extortion scandal.
Insight2010 (
talk)
05:07, 3 November 2016 (UTC)
No Merge and consider AfD for the stub. WP is not the place for unfounded allegations, which have been a persistent issue with editing regarding this subject, so much so that nearly half of this article needed to be excised because it was exhaustive tabloid rumors.
TimothyJosephWood12:23, 3 November 2016 (UTC)
Summary of a few of the changes made by spammers and fake wiki-users
Username
Original
Revised by this user
206.218.206.151
spiritual
controversial
something about Nithyananda birth
<section deleted by this user>
added section "Sex Contract for Volunteers" giving blogs as citation
trying to add back "controvery" and "scandal" section which was removed after 1.5 years of discussion due to
WP:BLP violation.
72.229.55.124
trying to add back "controvery" and "scandal" section which was removed after 1.5 years of discussion due to
WP:BLP violation.
Another request I have : Can this article be protected in some way. People are abusing this page too much and I other responsible wiki-contributors often miss these changes.
Thanks
To be honest, at least the current version is NPOV and makes it clear that these are simply accusations and Nithyananda has not been pronounced guilty. I am generally not in favour of including stuff like this, but I also notice that this has received sustained coverage for years. I am in a dilemma here. --
Lemongirl942 (
talk)
05:18, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
@
Lemongirl942: Hey that's great. I would like the section to stay. BUT with the other side presenting the facts also. What you see here is NOT NPOV. It looks NPOV because it has removed many critical information. Always editors have REMOVED both the points in favor and disfavor after debating over it for 1.5 years. If you REALLY REALLY would support let us do it. Then you must cover the micro details. Like - (1) The rape case was filed without mentioned a rape victim (since time of independence of
India this is the first and only case where this happened. (2) The Supreme Court termed the arrest and all proceedings which happened as illegal. (3) Currently the so called victim is facing trials and many other conspirators as well. The entire case has been squased in the High Court, but NO NEWS CHANNEL has reported, because the channels have mis-reported the incidence right from the beginning and are themselves facing various defamation in Ohio, New York and Bangalore. Refer
http://www.nithyananda.org/news/legal-victory-sri-paramahamsa-nithyananda-sriperumbudur#gsc.tab=0 . The whole rape case has been squashed. Also note, ideally wikipedia should completely remove this page if editors have decided to become accomplice with abusers, otherwise legal proceedings will have to taken against wikipedia. This is simply pathethic. I don't understand what is so difficult for people to understand even after 1.5 years of discussion, and why can't they refer to older discussion in talk page before supporting abusive edits.
Shashank Tulsyan (
talk)
05:30, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
And also about the
COI edit notice. I have NOT MADE any edits since the time I have been told not to edit the page due to COI. I have always shared it in on talk page and got it done by a 3rd party editor like for example
User:Timothyjosephwood. Now I would really appreciate that the so called neutral editors like
Lemongirl942 read the previous discussions and make positive contribution and not support abusive edits. Otherwise sometimes I feel for the kind of harassment Wikipedia (and it's so called neutral editors) deserves legal proceeding just like it is in progress with 40 news channels, which wrote 20,000 abusive articles, and some other people who uploaded 2200 morphed-pornographic videos on different pornographic websites. Surely if this abuse continues it will be done. — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
Shashaanktulsyan (
talk •
contribs)
05:38, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
One Sided Views Destroying Article With Long Content Deletions
I am unhappy with the last revision by @
Lemongirl942: and I'm requesting @
Sro23 and
Timothyjosephwood: to take a look into this issue as a third party.
Please see that user,
Inlinetext, has made 10 out of the last 15 edits by deleting the major content of this article which have stood and been discussed for many months... this is being accepted by
Lemongirl942. But when I reverted back to the revision before the deletion started I'm marked with
COI? Why is this being allowed to happen and why I am singled out when other users can delete half a page. Who has the real
COI here? Very unfair!
Rurban23 (
talk)
16:16, 27 January 2017 (UTC)
The only article you have worked on is this one. You are what is known as
Single Purpose Account. The material removed was done to protect the encyclopedia and all my removal (with due application of mind) edit summaries properly described the reasons and applicable policies. Since this is a BLP article very high editorial standards and reliable sources are to be maintained.
Inlinetext (
talk)
16:32, 27 January 2017 (UTC)
Please don't
Canvass support for your cause. If you want a 3rd party opinion use
3rd opinion, but strictly speaking 3O is not applicable here since there are more than 2 editors involved in this content dispute.
Inlinetext (
talk)
16:36, 27 January 2017 (UTC)
Meh, I'm mostly ok with it. I could see putting back in the more well sourced and apparently notable of the awards, and I don't hear a compelling reason not to include published works, since we regularly do that with people who have been published.
TimothyJosephWood17:28, 27 January 2017 (UTC)
They do seem to all be more or less self-published. Maybe not a bulleted list then, but I wouldn't be opposed to summarily saying "he has authored a number of work published by [his organization]" or something similar.
TimothyJosephWood18:08, 27 January 2017 (UTC)
One thing I noticed about the Finance and Management section: Reference 8[1]doesn't even talk about finances. The quotations used in the section are of the news journalist who wrote reference 9[2], not from the Karnataka Police as it's made to sound now. And reference 7[3] says the financials allegations have all since been dropped. I'm not interested in joining the above discussion, but I'm interested in learning how things work around here because this seems to be as shameless as all the promoting going on
Insight2010 (
talk)
19:12, 27 January 2017 (UTC)
Spot on. This article was one bad mess. While doing a google search to locate current sources I came across
this article possibly authored by an indef blocked user
User:Soham321 heavily based on these same references.
Inlinetext (
talk)
19:32, 27 January 2017 (UTC)
Rurban23 indeed appears to be a Single Purpose Account. And you are the one who, in August 2016, also deleted bulk of materials at your sweet will. The texts deleted by Inlinetext were somewhat promotional in nature coming mainly from self-published sources. -
AsceticRosé04:51, 28 January 2017 (UTC)
@
Inlinetext: I wonder if you can then delete the Finance and Management sections because of mentioned reasons and possibly get this page protected from further vandalism from both sides. I had to remove more
COI material today from
Shaktinipada78 who was obviously self promoting. The only thing I would add though is to remove "controversial guru" phrase from the biography and replace with "notable guru", as this figure does indeed seem to be notable in the field of spirituality: as example[1], and these allegations that keep appearing are continuously poorly sourced and seeming proved false in US courts (as per controversy talk section above)
Insight2010 (
talk)
20:14, 29 January 2017 (UTC)
@
Inlinetext:,
1) I am re-adding some of the information that you have previously deleted on this page. Begging with the fact the Swami Nithyananda is commonly referred to as Paramahamsa Nithyananda. We don't need to state "better known as" if you don't like, but upon searching for this particular individual, I can see that he publishes under the name Paramahamsa Nithyananda
on Amazon and his
website and social media including public
Facebook page. He's also called by this name in various articles online - needless to say this is a fair addition and need not be discussed further.
DocTox (
talk)
04:34, 14 February 2017 (UTC)
2) I am removing the phrase that says he founded an "e-commerce" site. Again, this claim is clearly not true. His primary website
(here) does not even have a working store on it. The reference that you've attributed to this claim is the sole opinion of a tabloid writer and does not reflect the actual work of Nithyananda. If you would like to add something in addition to the Nithyananda Dhanapeetam, you may want to instead state that he also founded the Nithyananda Mediation Academy which is a registered Non-Profit organization in Canada, see proof
here.
DocTox (
talk)
04:34, 14 February 2017 (UTC)
It's reliably sourced and verifiable. FYI, I didn't add that link/content in the body text. Wikipedia is based on 'verifiability and not truth'. Once again, your edit needs to be reverted as per policy. Please obtain consensus and don't edit-war.
Inlinetext (
talk)
06:21, 14 February 2017 (UTC)
In a ongoing issue, the latest news should take preference of old one. Much of the hue and cry about Nithyananda happened during the 2010-2012 time frame. It is now 5 years since. Not a single issue that was tagged on to him has been proven in any court. On the contrary, much of the material evidence as mentioned by the DNA article have proven to be in his favor. As such using the outdated news articles as a reliable source and ignoring the recent ones is contrary to the interests of truth. I hope the editors of this page consider this and suitably modify the page so that the readers are not misled --
acnaren
Do you know of any recent sources? The most recent source given on the article page is from February 2013. If there is nothing more recent than this, maybe the article should be deleted.
Jrheller1 (
talk)
16:42, 20 February 2017 (UTC)
If the article is worth keeping, that should definitely be included. There are 77 people watching this page, so it should be possible to get a good discussion about deleting or rewriting. Right now it's just a stub that looks like it's written to be a hit piece. If the article is worth keeping, it needs to be completely rewritten.
Jrheller1 (
talk)
20:02, 20 February 2017 (UTC)
Did you notice the missing '?' at the end of the DNA headline. It quotes anonymous 'official spokespersons' of Nithyananda. The DNA is also an unreliable source for such things being owned by pro-Hindutva BJP people.
Inlinetext (
talk)
07:21, 23 February 2017 (UTC)
Please read the content of the article. The title only talks about the final results of the medical tests but the article mentions how the video was morphed and how most of the cases filed against him since 2010 have been proved to be false. Much of the writeup in the article today predates this observation. Also the article doesn't talk about spokepersons of nithyananda but officials from the CID. About DNA being owned by BJP people, do you have reliable references that show this or is this your own conspiracy theory and prejudice that you are imposing on wikipedia? Would you then ignore any write up about Hindus by Indian newspapers such as TheHindu or Economist because many are owned by communists? I strongly feel such random allegations about the neutrality of sources is a slippery slope and should not be done. I hope some senior admin can comment on whether this kind of practice is wikipedia practice and if it is tolerated
Acnaren (
talk)
09:56, 23 February 2017 (UTC)
Not entirely sure what that apparently random dump of documentation is supposed to support, but it doesn't support that there was ever a conviction, which is what actually matters. We generally don't include unfounded rumors, especially not ones based on primary sources.
TimothyJosephWood16:09, 23 February 2017 (UTC)
The document contains alleged STD test results of both Rao (positive for herpes) and Nithyananda (negative for herpes), which (if true) make the allegations of Rao that she was raped from 2005-2009 unlikely. I just reread the DNAindia article and allegedly Nithyananda had an additional medical test more recently showing he is "incapable of rape". The DNAindia article also discussed the earlier STD test results.
Jrheller1 (
talk)
16:27, 23 February 2017 (UTC)
The DNAIndia article reported these alleged medical records of Rao as fact, so it is obviously important to know whether they are fraudulent or not. If they are fraudulent, then the article is obviously not a reliable source.
Jrheller1 (
talk)
18:25, 23 February 2017 (UTC)
But you would need other reliable sources to determine whether the article in question was itself reliable. You cannot however judge the reliability of a secondary source by using primary and unverifiable documents and
original research. We are encyclopedia writers, not investigative journalists.
The most recent seemingly reliable source I have been able to find is
this article in "The Hindu" on August 21, 2014 stating that the rape case against Nithyananda is ongoing and he had been ordered to take some kind of medical test.
Jrheller1 (
talk)
18:40, 23 February 2017 (UTC)
So to summarize the most reliable sources, the rape case against Nithyananda is still ongoing and the results of the "potency test" do not exonerate him (they are confidential).
Jrheller1 (
talk)
16:34, 24 February 2017 (UTC)
These are all
primary sources and legal pleadings/allegations by the Swami (which Wikipedians are presumed
incompetent to evaluate) taken off a prweb listing and clearly unusable in a BLP for a controversial subject. Now stop wasting our time.
Inlinetext (
talk)
06:11, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
ACTUALLY, The Appeals court in 2015 is speaking of separate lawsuits filled in the state of Michigan. USDC-SDO heard the case and ruled in favor of Nithyananda.
DocTox (
talk)
16:00, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
I misunderstood what can be used as "Primary". As the documents appear to be legitimate, there must be a public copy. I will thank, thank you.
DocTox (
talk)
19:34, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
So that you don't misunderstand. Even if you find and link to a copy from the court's official website, those documents are unusable. You must also be aware that a US Court of Appeal has found in 2015 that Aarthi Rao's US passport is impounded in India since 2012 and she thus cannot defend herself in USA. Consequently the 2014 US decree is merely a symbolic (hence valueless) default one obtained in-absentia because the defendant was in India and unable to travel. So don't waste our time unless you have multiple very high quality
reliable secondary sources.
Inlinetext (
talk)
19:50, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
Have you read the article? --- "Finance and Management" --- Contains 100% criticism. Anti-Nithyananda tone. --- "Timeline" --- Each point is negated, again, by an allegation or cited criticism.
Where in your assessment do you feel this article is pro-Nithyananda tone? I notice you have a long history of editing Tamil pages. I have to wonder if you're connected to Nithyananda as I do believe he is from Tamil Nadu?
DocTox (
talk)
23:51, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
Wow you're really aggressive about this. After failing to explain my mistake and respond to my request on your talk page, you then blast my talk page and post here also. Your stance on defending this bizarre and outdated claim make me wonder if YOU have a COI. After-all, you are from Singapore/Malaysia where Nithyananda has
centers.
DocTox (
talk)
14:11, 21 March 2017 (UTC)
If you feel I have done anything wrong, go ahead and complain at ANI.
User:Inlinetext changed it back to statusquo. You changed the consensus version without obtaining consensus. I am reverting it back to statusquo. For reference, you are the one who is edit warring. You want to discuss changes, propose them on the talk page. --
Lemongirl942 (
talk)
03:05, 26 March 2017 (UTC)
@
Lemongirl942: : This
User:DocTox has already done that once at ANI and was ticked off. S/he should discuss and obtain consensus for NPOV and RS content instead of trying to insert dubious sexual titillations based on unproven court records. They are also now making 'opposition research' based personal attacks against other editors which tends to show COI.
Inlinetext (
talk)
13:37, 26 March 2017 (UTC)
I'm sorry,
User:Inlinetext - what the hell are you talking about? You are the ONLY user who has mentioned any sexual reference in the article body. Which, mind you, is to be removed as per "Controversy" section consensus
here.
DocTox (
talk)
22:35, 26 March 2017 (UTC)
@
DocTox: Be civil. There is no consensus for your edits or changes. Several editors have objected to your insertions. Also take care not to insert poorly sourced sexual material about (B)LPs on article talk pages or discussions.
Inlinetext (
talk)
04:11, 28 March 2017 (UTC)
I have tried to help clean up this article, but it really needs to be completely rewritten. At best it is a stub, but any expansion is deleted by his followers, or contains advertising and claims of his divinity.
I think this page needs a team of balanced writers to come up with a decent article, and that edits need to be carefully monitored. — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
Abox26hs (
talk •
contribs)
16:12, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
Further clarification
I have edited and expanded on some of the information in the article. I thought the statement "magnificent powers manifested by his disciples through initiation" lagged clarity, so i chose to expand upon this. I realise this is a delicate topic so i have tried to stay as neutral as possible while giving some more information about the nature of Nithyananda among his followers. It seems to me that some of the links have a advertising function since they do not contribute with any substantial information to the article, and their relevans should therefore be considered. This is my first addition to wikipedia so let me know if i crossed any codes of conduct.--
Hameli (
talk)
05:52, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
This recent videotape controversy is covered in this article
Nithyananda supporters keep reverting edits, and go on to remove references or any cited material critical of him. Worst of all, they continuously keep writing that he is a living God and enlightened master. These may be their own personal beliefs, but they do not belong in an article. They also write things like "people cannot appreciate this great man." That does not belong in an article.
Abox26hs (
talk)
05:46, 25 June 2017 (UTC)abox26hs
The sourced version in the article as of this writing is that his adherents claim he's an
avatar, which is similar but a little different; it seems worded encyclopedically enough, though I have no idea how the page will read tomorrow or next month. I've attempted to reach out, though someone I know who is among his adherents, to more of his adherents, to get them to read and abide by our content policies; wrote a short "mini-tutorial" for them. I may generalize it into a
WP:ESSAY for others. Not sure if it will have an effect in this case, nor by when if it does have one. —
SMcCandlish☏¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 00:17, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
Article needs more watchlisters
There are two
WP:EDITWARring and
PoV-pushing camps mucking up this page:
After randomally coming up on this article, I was wondering why he was considered so controversial so I did some research and this is what I came up with:
I found out that Nithyananda is controversial for his large usage of gold for his jewelry, the throne that he sits on and for the lavish way he decorates his deities.
[1]Constructer76 (
talk)
11:19, 8 April 2017 (UTC)
Another thing that I found was that he doesn't celebrate other religions' festivals. As a spiritual leader, he's expected to be all inclusive, going beyond religion seeing that God is not exclusive to any one religion.
Constructer76 (
talk)
11:19, 8 April 2017 (UTC)
There was also some alleged scandal involving a young woman; upon looking into it, all I could find is that he was accused of sitting on a bed with someone, clothed. I'm not from India, so I'm not sure what kind of propriety/scandal levels apply there (and India has multiple cultures, in which these things may differ anyway). I think WP should "teach the controversy" neutrally, if there's reliable, independent, secondary sourcing of serious controversy about the matter, but otherwise it seems pretty tabloid and smear-tactic to me.
Of much more encyclopedic interest are the claims of the paranormal/magical. Presently the article is using some
primary sources to make claims (which are okay when phrased something like "According to Nithyananda/his adherents/his organization" – we're sourcing who made the claims and in what words – but not as statements of verified reality. I took an editing pass at some of these claims today to stop implying in Wikipedia's own voice that the claims are verifiable. An "India Book of World Records" sort of site claims to have verified a mass remote-viewing event, but I don't know anything about the publisher. The fact that the claim has been made seems worth including, but I'm not sure what
WP:FRINGE regulars would say about it.
As for the all levitation stuff, we probably should not overly dwell on this; the amount of material in there, both pro and con, seems sufficient. If you actually look into this stuff with a skeptical eye, and watch videos of claimed yogic "levitation", it's actually a kind of hopping into the air from a sitting position. While it's impressive and obviously requires quite a bit of development and control of leg, buttock, and lower back muscles, it's a skill, not paranormal. I know an adherent of Nithyananda who claims to have witnessed actual levitation (i.e., for multiple seconds), but we don't have any proof of this, so the article shouldn't get into it, beyond "Nithyananda and adherents claim they can do it", and "newspaper reported that it didn't happen when put to the test", which is what we have now. That's specific and tied to a particular event, not hand-waving about general claims.
Whatever standards we apply to, e.g., Christian claims of miracles like moving statues of Jesus, and exorcisms, should apply here as well. PS: For the record, I do not believe in flying yogis, remote viewing, or anything else paranormal; I am a total empiricist about such things. What I'm talking about herein, however, is claims made by adherents and skeptics; WP permits coverage of claims – as claims, with attribution, not as fact – if the claims receive noteworthy media coverage and they are not given
WP:undue weight (i.e., skeptics' views are also presented); see
WP:FRINGE for more information. —
SMcCandlish☏¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 22:07, 9 October 2017 (UTC); clarified: 04:58, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
There are plenty of neutral, secondary sources on the sex scandal. It was, in fact, front-page news in many Indian newspapers. He was even booked under the Indian Penal Code and spent time in police custody for the act . And then, he was controversially nominated by the head of a monastery the Madurai Adheenam as his successor and in equal haste, the announcement was rescinded
RaviMy Tea Kadai19:24, 26 November 2017 (UTC)