Innholdsfortegnelse for July 11, 2016 i Open Magazine

editor@openmedianetwork.in LETTER OF THE WEEK This refers to the cover story ‘The Minimum Leader’ (4 July 2016). Arvind Kejriwal’s journey in politics was initially viewed with much expectation and hope by the average citizen. Many thought, ‘Now there will be a fresh spin, a new outlook on the drab and corrupt political system’. Unfortunately, a few years later, it seems that he too has succumbed to the system. Aside from all the controversy he has courted and the daily allegations he makes against the country’s ruling party, he has very little to show for himself and his AAP. What has this party done for Delhi so far? There is no scientific evidence to prove that Odd-Even has helped reduce pollution, for example, but there is proof that it inconvenienced a…

DURING MY YEARS as a Research Fellow in Nuffield College, Oxford, in the early-1980s, I made it a point to unfailingly attend a seminar on British politics that Sir David Butler used to conduct on Friday afternoons. A political buff, David was firmly of the view that a rounded view of politics could never be acquired unless academia got under the skin of the players themselves. The seminar was doubly rewarding because the invited guest would dine at the High Table subsequently and follow it up with a convivial chat until the late hours. The entire proceedings were governed by Chatham House rules that ensured everyone spoke their minds. It was at one of these High Table dinners that I first met Enoch Powell, a man whose reputation was shaped…

THERE’S ONLY so much that coconut oil and eggs can do for your hair. With that thought in mind, Aarti Bhasin, 32, picked up her first box of dietary supplements in 2013—‘extra strength hair, skin and nails rapid release softfels’ by Nature’s Bounty. Infused with argan oil, the pills claim to contain enough biotin, vitamin A, C and E to provide 100 per cent of our daily recommended needs (based on a 2,000 calorie diet). “It was suggested by my hair dresser. She said, ‘Instead of monthly hair spas, try biotin supplements.’ I did some research and Nature’s Bounty products came highly recommended,” says Bhasin, a manager with Wipro Bengaluru. Since then she’s added three other pills to her daily diet. “I take Alpha Liphoic Acid (300 mg), Glutathione (50…

THE INVENTION OF NATURE: THE ADVENTURES OF ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT Andrea Wulf John Murray 473 Pages | Rs 599 IN THIS COMPELLING biography, Andrea Wulf draws out the life of what in his time (late 18th to mid-19th century) was certainly one of the world’s most remarkable, prodigious and electric minds: what we might today call a one-man Wikipedia, armed with an instant recall memory. And yet, today Alexander Von Humboldt remains largely forgotten— though his ideas on how we ought to regard nature and the earth remain at the forefront of our thinking in our dealings with matters such as climate change and deforestation. Wulf takes us through the astonishing journey of Humboldt’s long life; from his birth in a rich Prussian family in 1769, his yearning for travel…

Another Date Bites the Dust After twice shifting from previously announced release dates, Jagga Jasoos is giving up its September release date too. The Ranbir Kapoor-Katrina Kaif starrer will more than likely not open in 2016 at all, industry insiders say. The nearly three-years-in-the-making movie has considerable postproduction to complete in the months ahead. Barfi! director Anurag Basu has a reputation for taking his time on every project, but Jagga Jasoos is fast becoming Bollywood’s favourite joke. Co-produced by Ranbir and bankrolled by UTV-Disney, the film has faced every hiccup possible—from actors being replaced, script rewrites, multiple reshoots, and finally the break-up of its lead stars which reportedly led to much awkwardness on the set. For Ranbir, who’s been going through a rough patch the last few years, industrywaalas were…

HOW DOES A country with just a little over 100 professional footballers defeat Britain, with all its Premier League teams and stars who make millions of pounds? Some indication of the answer is in Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh’s batting. When these bowlers started their careers, they couldn’t hold a bat properly and their scores stayed in single digits most of the time. But after a few hundred matches under their sleeve, they had become mediocre batsmen in their own right. What happened to them, and to many such bowlers, is the power of association. In the company of great batsmen and playing against great bowlers, you develop your skills, almost inadvertently, despite no obvious acumen. If Iceland’s handful of professional footballers had remained cooped up on that island, they…

INDIA DIDN’T GAIN NSG membership last week. Does this constitute a failure? No and yes. Why ‘no’? For starters, all is not lost. India will have other opportunities to enter the prestigious club that governs global nuclear commerce. Just a few days after the Seoul summit’s conclusion, reports emerged of a newly formed informal consultative group, led by outgoing NSG chair Rafael Grossi of Argentina, that will explore a potential membership process for non-NPT nations like India (Beijing, predictably enough, denied any knowledge of this new mechanism). Grossi has publicly expressed his support for Indian membership in the past. The NSG could well meet by year’s end to take up India’s case once again. Additionally, from a nuclear trade standpoint, India doesn’t need NSG membership. In 2008, India earned a…

ALL OF US IN OUR OWN LIVES Manjushree Thapa Aleph 213 Pages | Rs 499 WHEN MANJUSHREE Thapa quietly, without ceremony, burnt Nepal’s constitution at the banks of Boulder Creek in Colorado last year, she wrote: ‘Something in me—hope, perhaps, for a better future for Nepal— had died. My loyalty had faded...The fire flared, blazed briefly, and flickered out. My emotions toward my country burned away.’ Thapa felt gutted that Nepal had yet again failed to give equal citizenship rights to women in its new constitution, brazenly ignoring the feminist movement that Nepali activists and citizens such as her had spent years fighting for. Thapa, born in Nepal, raised in Canada and the US , now divides her time between Toronto and Kathmandu. It’s these difficult emotions, of feeling rooted…

“IT’S A ‘ZERO profit’ venture,” says Nikhil Kaul, speaking about the business model behind Lowlit. It’s hardly the kind of talk we expect to hear from the owner of a record label, but Kaul, who started Lowlit last year, is surprisingly not an exception. Also known as Frame/Frame, the Delhi-based electronic music DJ and producer formed the label with his Bangalore-based counterpart Soulspace aka Vishnu PS to put the artist first and commercial considerations second. It’s a philosophy shared by the founders of such recently-launched Indian independent music companies as Consolidate, Kadak Apple Records, Pagal Haina and Transcending Obscurity. “We felt the Indian music fraternity has a shit load of talent but it’s not organised,” says Kaul. “Artists are popping up but nobody’s listening.” That’s pretty much also why Bangalorebased…

IN INDIA, EVEN the most innocuous legislation can be devastating. A good example is that of a slew of Shops and Establishments Acts passed in the high noon of socialism. Each state had its own law, prescribing almost everything that a bureaucrat could imagine as worthy of being regulated. That may change soon. The Union Cabinet has just crafted a new model legislation that tries to get rid of some of the incongruous features of these laws, many of which date back to the 1950s. It will now be up to state governments to repeal old laws and bring in new legislation on the subject. Some degree of regulation is inevitable even in a free economy. For example, no shop or commercial establishment anywhere runs without registration. But the Indian…

Resentful nations dream in the vivid colours of a lost future. Cosy correctness and cold reasons of the present aggravate their anger; they are caught between the memories of glory and the fear of the day after. In a world defined by the movement of ideas and people, they are appalled by their own stillness—and by an identity corroded by cultural invasion. Britain on 23 June was such a nation, and it woke up the next morning as a people torn apart—emotionally, politically, demographically, and even geographically, considering the mood in Scotland. The vote for Britain’s exit from the European Union was cathartic nationalism at play, and still, I saw no fireworks over the Thames on the day Britain ‘took control’ of its destiny after a campaign which in its…

THE GOSPEL OF YUDAS KR Meera Hamish Hamilton 157 Pages | Rs 399 THE GOSPEL OF Yudas by KR Meera is not an easy book to get through. The language is weighty, the subject heavy and death riddles the text like a moth boring its way through a shawl. People perish at regular intervals, and all in unnatural ways. In merely 100 pages, six deaths by drowning occur. The novella is set around the inexplicable love of an impressionable Prema for a hardened Yudas who retrieves bodies from a lake. With this being his profession, it’s little surprise that death is the eddy and current of the text. The lake here is not a source of joy and plenty. Rather, it is the first refuge of the lonely and the…

WHEN WAS THE last time you read a review of an art exhibition in the Indian media? And I don’t mean a column (such as this one), where you are more likely to come across opinions on the state of contemporary art than a structured critique of specific artists and their work. Nor do I refer to the forgettable artist profiles and tittle-tattle from opening nights of art exhibitions that occasionally grace the society pages of various publications. What I’m thinking of is a full-blooded review: an impassioned declaration of love for an artist or as much hatred for another’s work. Chances of such encounters in Indian cultural journalism—or rather whatever activities go by that name—are woefully slim. A couple of weeks back, though, Indians were jolted by that rarest…