{"id":17802,"date":"2018-10-09T18:23:38","date_gmt":"2018-10-09T18:23:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=17802"},"modified":"2018-10-09T18:23:38","modified_gmt":"2018-10-09T18:23:38","slug":"minister-m-j-akbar-accused-in-indias-growing-metoo-storm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=17802","title":{"rendered":"Minister M.J. Akbar accused in India’s growing #MeToo storm"},"content":{"rendered":"
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India<\/a>‘s #MeToo movement snowballed on Tuesday after several female journalists accused a minister in Narendra Modi’s government of sexual harassment and a producer alleged she was raped by a veteran Bollywood actor.<\/p>\n

Female journalists took to Twitter with their allegations of how M.J. Akbar, a well-known former newspaper editor and now a junior foreign minister, conducted job interviews in fancy hotel rooms and made sexual advances when they were starting out in the media.<\/p>\n

Priya Ramani, the first journalist to go public with the allegations, identified Akbar as the unnamed editor whose inappropriate behaviour she had written about in an article last year.<\/p>\n

Ramani said she was 23 when Akbar called her to a Mumbai hotel room for a job interview around 20 years ago.<\/p>\n

Akbar was “an expert on obscene phone calls, texts, inappropriate compliments and not taking no for an answer,” she said in the article which she re-posted on Twitter on Monday.<\/p>\n

“You know how to pinch, pat, rub, grab and assault. Speaking up against you still carries a heavy price that many young women cannot afford to pay.”<\/p>\n

\n

I began this piece with my MJ Akbar story. Never named him because he didn\u2019t \u201cdo\u201d anything. Lots of women have worse stories about this predator\u2014maybe they\u2019ll share. #ulti<\/a> https:\/\/t.co\/5jVU5WHHo7<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Priya Ramani (@priyaramani) October 8, 2018<\/a>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

India’s foreign ministry was yet to respond to a request for comment from AFP and Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj ignored reporters when asked whether she would investigate the claims.<\/p>\n

Akbar – who has edited prominent Indian newspapers such as The Telegraph, Asian Age and The Sunday Guardian and is also a member of parliament – was yet to comment.<\/p>\n

‘Made life at work hell’\u00a0<\/h2>\n

Another journalist, who preferred to remain anonymous, said she declined a job offer after “the whole experience of an interview sitting on a bed in a hotel room followed by an invitation to come over for a drink”.<\/p>\n

Journalist Prerna Singh Bindra said Akbar “made life at work hell” when she refused his sexual overtures.<\/p>\n

Many women in India have in recent days taken to social media to out sexual predators, emboldening others to come out with their experiences.<\/p>\n

Bollywood figures, stand-up comedians and other top journalists have all found themselves accused of abusing their positions to behave improperly towards women.<\/p>\n

The trigger appeared to be actress Tanushree Dutta, who has accused well-known Bollywood actor Nana Patekar of inappropriate behaviour on a film set 10 years ago.<\/p>\n

Late Monday, writer and producer Vinta Nanda published a Facebook post saying she had not only been raped but “brutalised and violated endlessly” by a popular actor 19 years ago.<\/p>\n

She did not name him directly but gave enough hints which led others in the Hindi film industry to quickly identify him on Twitter as Alok Nath.<\/p>\n

“Neither I am denying this nor do I would agree with it,” said Nath who is adored for his fatherly and genteel on-screen persona.<\/p>\n

“It (rape) must have happened, but someone else would have done it,” the 62-year-old actor was quoted by Indian news channel ABP as saying.<\/p>\n

On Monday, the political editor of the leading Hindustan Times daily quit amid swirling allegations of sexual misconduct.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

India’s #MeToo movement snowballed on Tuesday after several female journalists accused a minister in Narendra Modi’s government of sexual harassment and a producer alleged she was raped by a veteran Bollywood actor. Female journalists took to Twitter with their allegations of how M.J. Akbar, a well-known former newspaper editor and now a junior foreign minister,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":17803,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17802\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}