Innholdsfortegnelse for February 6, 2017 i India Today

ll politicians come to power promising hope—whether it is Barack Obama who pledged Yes We Can, Donald Trump who wants to Make America Great Again or Narendra Modi who spoke of achhe din. However, delivering on promises is easier said than done. It requires conviction, audacity and courage. The respondents to our biannual Mood of the Nation (MOTN) poll have understood this to mean being “unafraid of taking risks”, and have rated it as the prime minister’s strongest characteristic; it manifested itself in the surgical strikes against Pakistan as well as in demonetisation. There is a spate of good news for Modi— he is considered the best prime minister so far, displacing both Indira Gandhi and A.B. Vajpayee; two-thirds of the respondents believe he is best suited to lead the…

ARVIND KEJRIWAL, in a letter to chief election commissioner Nasim Zaidi, argued that the EC had misinterpreted his suggestion that voters in Goa accept bribes from Opposition parties but cast their votes for AAP. The EC rapped him for it, but Kejriwal countered that the EC had failed to stop graft Choking Hazard Last week, the Supreme Court described air pollution as a “very serious” problem, for which “we need to find solutions fast”. More people die in India and China than anywhere else because of the air they breathe. Particulate matter in the atmosphere is carcinogenic, and fine particles (PM2.5) are particularly dangerous because they penetrate deeper into our lungs. At least, China is doing something about it. CHINA -17% percentage change in PM2.5 levels between 2010 and 2015…

Sanjay Joshi is an RSS pracharak with considerable clout. Despite incurring the wrath of Narendra Modi, he retains support within the BJP. Some even talk of a ‘Joshi faction’ opposed to the all-powerful prime minister. Such gossip has reared its head because of controversial comments by senior RSS leader Manmohan Vaidya opposing castebased reservations. The Sangh clarified that the remarks referred to Muslim reservations, but that hasn’t stopped tongues wagging. Vaidya is considered close to the Nagpur-based Joshi and his supporters, who have long mistrusted Modi’s political ambitions. RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat continues to play referee. Great Firewall Breached Tibetans in China have been sharing images on social media of themselves watching the Dalai Lama’s teachings at the Kalachakra festival in Bodh Gaya. This was in defiance of Chinese authorities.…

Q. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 was, you write, the making of the ISI... A. Yes, it transformed the ISI from an obscure outfit into what it is today. The Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1988 was the ISI’s first big success. After 9/11, the ISI was restructured—it rebirthed the Taliban in 2004. I would rate it as one of the best intelligence agencies in Asia, comparable even to Mossad. Q. The ISI knew Osama bin Laden (OBL) was in Abbottabad? A. General Musharraf knew OBL was there. And General Kayani (former Chief of Army Staff) certainly knew. Perhaps two other people within the ISI knew. I believe OBL was sold for the $25 million bounty. But the Pakistan army couldn’t just hand him over to the Americans,…

Goa’s Congress veterans, Pratap sinh Rane and Digambar Kamat, had rushed to Delhi on January 5 to convince party chief Sonia Gandhi to enter into an alliance with the newly formed Goa Forward Party (GFP), saying it had to be done if the party wished to save face in the assembly elections on February 4. For in GFP leader Vijai Sardesai, Rane and Kamat saw someone who could play spoilsport for their party in at least four south Goa seats. Sardesai isn’t the only one to watch out for this Goa election. Goa Suraksha Manch (GSM) patriarch Subhash Velingkar, BJP MLA Michael Lobo and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief ministerial candidate Elvis Gomes are the three other leaders that everyone’s keeping an eye on. A first-time independent MLA from Fatorda…

The logic is simple: if there is demand, there will be supply. Which explains why Bihar’s bootleggers, undeterred by the arrests of over 20,000 of them since the state’s prohibition policy came into effect in April 2016, still continue with their liquor runs. Some half a million litres of smuggled liquor, worth over Rs 40 crore, has been seized so far. Even demonetisation has failed to put the brakes on the lucrative trade. When the cash dried up, liquor dealers shifted to digital payments. Last week, police in Rohtas arrested bootleggers who had transferred Rs 40,000-50,000 in salaries to the bank accounts of their ‘home-delivery’ staff. Satya Kumar and Shankar Sharma, members of a gang active in Dehri, some 150 km from Patna, had given ‘ jobs’ to 10 men…

780 SQ. KM Total area of Mukundara national park, of which 418 sq. km is core area After Ranthambore and Sari s ka, Rajasthan may get a third tiger reserve. The Mukundara Hills National Park has been in the works since 2003, but was notified only in 2013, shortly before Vasundhara Raje became chief minister. Now she has asked the finance and forest and wildlife departments to prepare the budget and modalities of resettling 1,600 families in forest land outside Kota. It will take Rs 160 crore and the consent of the families for that to happen. No easy task, as Sariska has shown. Some 780 sq km in area, the Mukundara Hills National Park is spread across Rajasthan’s Kota, Bundi, Chittorgarh and Jhalawar districts, and comprises the Durrah, Jawaharsagar…

WHO IN YOUR OPINION IS THE NO. 1 HEROINE OF 2016-17? WHO DO YOU SEE AS THE NO. 1 HERO OF 2016-17? AMIR KHAN PRODUCED and starred in sports drama Dangal which overcame demonetisation woes to become Hindi cinema’s biggest ever hit. Yet, Mr Perfectionist Khan has a ways to go before he becomes the most popular one. That position is still held by Salman ‘Bhai’ Khan. Shah Rukh Khan has kept himself in contention, though his star has lost some of its sheen with some ‘disappointing’ shows (which in film parlance means his movies are no longer cracking the Rs 100 crore club). But then, the actor has lately demonstrated a proclivity for less-formulaic cinema (Fan) and isn’t insecure about taking the backseat (Dear Zindagi) for a change. The…

In the tube-lit interiors of a private military store in Gopinath Bazaar in the heart of Delhi Cantonment, a salesperson scribbles down the order for medals. “Nine years, 20 years, 30 years… Rs 450…you will get them by tomorrow. For the Shaurya Chakra, you need to give me a request on a letterhead…the tailor outside will make your ribbons.” The medals are on his counter the next day, sealed in a plastic wrap with the name of the officer scrawled on it with a marker pen. The medals are fake, of course. Only the ministry of defence (MoD) is authorised to hand out service medals. Yet, for several years now, personnel of the 1.4 million-strong Indian armed forces have been purchasing cheap knockoffs from private military stores which dot the…

8.65 PER CENT The rate announced by the State Bank of India for floating home loans up to Rs 75 lakh beginning this year Demonetisation might have ruined the yearend party for many, but 2017 began on a happier note, at least for home loan borrowers. Led by the State Bank of India, India’s biggest public sector bank and the country’s largest lender, many others also lowered lending rates, by a considerable 0.7 to 0.9 percentage points. Beginning April 1, 2016, all banks had moved to the MCLR-based (marginal cost of funds) lending rate, derived on the basis of the incremental cost of funds. That is, loans were offered on an MCLR-plus-spread basis. This was a switch from the earlier base rate method banks followed, brought in to ensure transparency…

Decrying 2016 as that most disastrous of years for liberals has become a meme, as columnists, public intellectuals and pop culture celebrities line up to bemoan a worldwide reversion to fear, distrust, anger and hatred culminating in the election of Donald Trump, an orange alert if ever there was one. “Something is rotten in the state of democracy,” Pankaj Mishra wrote in a recent column in the New York Times. “The stink first became unmistakable in India in May 2014,” he added, “when Narendra Modi, a member of an alt-right Hindu organisation inspired by fascists and Nazis, was elected prime minister.” It was a line calculated to cause umbrage. Cudgels were duly taken up against Mishra in the comments, with one disgruntled supporter warning American readers not to “go by…

Musical performances, handicraft sales, art exhibitions and snipe sessions notwithstanding, the literapalooza in Jaipur is still about those black squiggly marks on paper. Here are some of the actual b-o-o-k-s that authors were shilling: The Rise of Sivagami by Anand Neelakantan You know a book is big when the publisher unveils the jacket like it’s Salman Khan’s next ‘look’. That’s the treatment Neelakantan’s prequel to the wildly successful film Baahubali—which hits shelves in Hindi, Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu on March 7—got in Jaipur. The story traces the childhood of the queen of Mahishmathi, Sivagami and the royal slave Kattappa. Suspected Poems by Gulzaar Beloved for his work in films from Ijaazat (yes!) to OK Jaanu (not so much), Gulzar injected some Hindi-Urdu street cred in his inaugural address, admonishing the…

It rained a little on the inaugural ceremony of President Donald Trump on January 20. An inauguration like no other, the mood was dark, suffused by angeron- a-leash, but anger nonetheless. The newly anointed leader-of-the-free world’s speech was combative, unsmiling, almost war-painted. His words were a call to arms: making America great again will involve a show of muscle, no speaking softly, and yes, carrying a big stick. If there was a takeaway from the address for that agglomeration of continents called the rest of the world, it was ‘brace, brace, brace!’ This is going to be a roller-coaster ride, in a world dictated to by an absence of strategy, by the here and now, as Robert Zoellick said recently. And India! The partnership between India and the US is…

@mitalisaran It was Yuge. Believe me. On January 20, Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th president of the US. The Tweeter-in-Chief, ever incapable of stepping out of character into something less obnoxious, began by tweeting about how the inaugural crowd at his swearing-in was the biggest inaugural crowd ever (it wasn’t). His press secretary, Sean Spicer, spent his first press interface repeating that lie; and Kellyanne Conway, counselor to the president, defended it by calling it an ‘alternative fact’. Talking the Walk The Women’s March on Washington DC, on the other hand, was a truly, actually yuge protest. A fiery poem written by a 19-year-old and performed by actress Ashley Judd created a firestorm online; but for the star speakers there, from Gloria Steinem to Madonna, it was…

It all began with a protest on January 10 against the transfer of the SP of Katni, a small town about 400 km from the capital. Gaurav Tiwari was allegedy shifted out as he was investigating a ‘hawala’ scandal and was about to arrest certain people close to the new minister for small and medium enterprises Sanjay Pathak (in pic), the threeterm Katni MLA who had recently defected to the BJP from the Congress. Two days later, the Congress and AAP had jumped in with a bandh call. The agitation soon spread to Bhopal. Within a week, the transfer issue receded to the background as calls for Pathak’s resignation grew to a chorus. But what makes Pathak a party asset in the first place? Why was the turncoat immediately made…

360 NUMBER OF SEATS NDA IS PROJECTED TO WIN OUT OF A TOTAL OF 543 SEATS LET’S BEGIN WITH what Narendra Modi is not. Whatever his opponents may say, the prime minister is not impetuous or hasty in any of his actions. Nor is he a gambler ever willing to risk all on a hunch and a prayer. Then let’s look at what Modi is. Those who know him well and work with him closely say the man is a doer. He is a tough task master. He is open to ideas. His critics call him authoritarian, but ministers and bureaucrats who have dealt with him on issues beg to disagree with them. They say the prime minister is curious, asks pertinent questions and is ever willing to consider their…

HAME ON PEOPLE for trolling @AnushkaSharma nonstop. Have some compassion. She has always only given me positivity.” The 116 characters—the most retweeted tweet of 2016—highlight that off-field too Virat Kohli leads by example, standing up for his then ex in front of misogynistic trolls. With great power, Kohli has only demonstrated greater responsibility, passion and aggression as he shoulders the hopes of a billion-plus cricket fanatics. His individual performance—he is the only batsman who is in the top 5 across ICC rankings in Test, ODI and T20—hasn’t suffered despite the media glare, reaffirming that he is more than capable of multitasking. With M.S. Dhoni relinquishing the Test captaincy too, the Virat era has truly begun. Kohli isn’t the only Indian sports personality with a winner’s mentality. Three women—Olympic silver medallist…

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s previous budget came amidst a serious drought, and he addressed it with plenty of sops for rural India. His fourth budget, to be presented on February 1, comes in even more trying circumstances—an economy thrown into disarray by the demonetisation that sucked out 86 per cent of India’s currency. Can Jaitley pull off a budget that can heal the wounds and nurse the economy back to health? The FM faces a challenge alright. Post-demonetisation, growth estimates have been slashed—Crisil estimates India’s GDP growth for 2016-17 to drop by a percentage point to 6.6 per cent. Experts say for every percentage point drop in GDP growth, the economy would suffer a loss of around 6 million jobs. The Central Statistical Organisation (CSO) has pegged GDP growth at…

I remember my village—a remote hamlet of four or five houses, about 150 kilometres from Kathmandu. When I was a child, I used to remind myself that I was a boy, and try to behave like men. I wanted to be a girl, but I was afraid. The last time I went back to my village was when my mother passed away. I cried all the way. She had told me once that it didn’t matter whether I was a son or a daughter. My mother knew my heart. After high school, I came to Kathmandu and started working in a restaurant to pay for college. Employers would taunt me and say that I was driving away their customers. Then, in 2005, I saw an episode of a television show…

FUEL TANKS Two specially designed fuel tanks are positioned below the seat with a combined capacity of 29 litres—competitors must cover at least 250 km before refuelling, and every stop costs precious time BODY The Chromium-molybdenum steel frame provides the bike with extreme durability, without increasing weight. The bodywork is a carbon-Kevlar composite, further enhancing its strength ENGINE The oil-cooled, 4-stroke single-cylinder engine features two overhead camshafts, four valves and electronic intake pipe injection / digital engine management. At 449.5 cc, it produces 55 PS, or 54 horsepower SUSPENSION The suspension has a massive travel of 300 mm (11.8 inches) up front and 320 mm (12.6 inches) out back. 52 mm WP cone valve inverted forks with steering damper and Trax rear shock with full linkage for the rear…

It was a human tsunami on Marina Beach in Chennai, the likes of which have not been seen in Tamil Nadu in recent times. What started as a student protest had, by evening, swelled to hundreds of thousands of slogan-shouting, if peaceful, youngsters demanding that the government lift the ban on Jallikattu. It soon spread, and an estimated 15 million— one in every five residents of Tamil Nadu—were on the streets protesting. The feud, which has been raging for over a decade, is now a bone of contention between animal lovers and farmers. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) activists say the bulls are subjected to cruelty, force-fed with liquor and have chilli powder thrown into their eyes. Those who rear the bulls say they are looked after…

Last week, two Indian Police Service officers and one Indian Administrative Service officer were forced into early retirement on the grounds of inefficiency, non-performance and doubts over their integrity. This was part of a drive by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to make the bureaucracy more transparent, more accountable and more productive. On the advice of the prime minister’s office (PMO), the Department of Personnel and Training has made it mandatory for officers from all of the 36 all-India services to file their annual performance appraisal reports (APARs) online. (It will now also be mandatory for civil service officers to file their property returns online.) Appraisals have been prone to manipulation, an opportunity for senior officers to play favourites or be vindictive. In recent years, about 90 per cent of IAS…

One of the first tests for the new CBI director will be to probe the allegations against his predecessor Ranjit Sinha A new director is in place at the CBI. By all accounts, Alok Kumar Verma, a former Delhi police commissioner, is a no-nonsense and straightforward officer. He is assuming office at a time when the CBI has a disconcerting image issue. Two of Verma’s predecessors are in the dock and being probed for irregularities. This is sad, because the country’s highest investigating agency deserves some honest, if not the most efficient, leadership. I am hoping Verma will not let us down. One of his first tasks will be to handle the Supreme Court’s directive to probe his predecessor, Ranjit Sinha. The highest professionalism is called for here because whatever…

Bihar banned liquor in April 2016... ...but cognisable crimes went up month-on-month from 14,279 in April to 16,065 in July and 16,153 in October However, for Apr-Oct 2016, these crimes were down 7.6% to 112,596 compared with 121,817 in the same period a year ago Kerala banned liquor in August 2014... ...but post-ban (in 2015), it had the highest crime rate— 723 cases (per lakh population); all-India average was 234 Some prohibition states have lower crime rates Gujarat had a crime rate of 203.6 (it banned liquor in 1960), Nagaland of 55.1 (1989) and Lakshadweep of 62.5 (1979) ...but so do non-prohibition states UP’s crime rate was 112.1, Uttarakhand 97.2, Sikkim 119.3, Daman & Diu 94.1 and D&N Haveli 64.4…

When it comes to tax saving, most of us know about Section 80C (of the IT Act) under which we can claim a deduction of up to Rs 1.5 lakh a year. But there are deductions available under other heads too. Here are some you can look at: __ You can claim three types of deductions under the National Payment Systems (NPS). Besides the Rs 1.5 lakh under 80C, an additio nal Rs 50,000 is allowed under Section 80CCD (1B). An employee is also allowed to claim deduction against contributions made by the employer of up to 10 per cent of salary (basic plus dearness allowance) in the NPS under Section 80CCD(2). __ Home buyers can avail a deduction of up to Rs 2 lakh on interest paid on loan…

15,000 CONSUMERS win a minimum of Rs 1,000 every day, under the NPCI’s Lucky Grahak Yojana scheme The age of digital money has arrived. Take, for example, the National Payments Corporation of India’s (NPCI’s) newly launched Bharat Interface for Money (BHIM) app. Only days after being launched, around 10 million people had downloaded and installed BHIM, and over 2 million transactions had taken place over its unified payment interface (UPI) and unstructured supplementary service data (USSD) platforms. While it is only one of many such apps, BHIM stands out for several reasons. First is security. Most digital wallets rely on your smartphone’s screen lock, and often don’t even ask for a password before processing transactions. Therefore, if the phone is stolen and its screen unlocked, your wallet balance is at…

Nominated for Oscars in the best picture, best cinematography and best original score categories (with a nomination for Dev Patel as best supporting actor), Lion is the closest India will get to an Academy Award when the hardware is doled out February 26 (telecast in India on the morning of February 27). The true story of Saroo Brierley, who tracked down his biological parents in Khandwa, Madhya Pradesh, some 25 years after he was separated from them by a tragic mistake, Lion features Slumdog Millionaire star Dev Patel, Bollywood’s Priyanka Bose and Nicole Kidman. But it’s Sunny Pawar (pictured below)—who plays the five-year-old Saroo—who has the US media going gaga. “He kills it on the red carpet and talk shows,” says Bose, who plays Saroo’s biological mother, Kamala. She also described…

Q: The Jaipur Literature Festival now has art, music, handicrafts, you name it. Has the tamasha begun to eclipse the authors? A: I noticed that some people have been writing jaundiced criticisms along those lines. But I think it adds. It’s like a big mela. You could feel [the focus on literature] is being diluted but for me it adds to the fun. Q: Netflix is working on a series based on your novel, Sacred Games. What’s it like watching type turn into TV? A: I wanted to let go. When you’re translating from one medium to another it’s as difficult as translating from one language to another, and I’m too close to the book to try to see it in new ways. [As an executive producer] most of my…

Q: You just flew back to India for the opening of Raees. How is your life different in America? A: It’s not possible for me to walk around outside in India—I basically travel from bubble to bubble. In America, no one recognises me. Q: What impact do you think you’ve had on Indian attitudes toward women’s sexuality? A: I don’t know that I have had an impact. Women’s sexuality is so personal. Each woman comes into her own at different times. Q: Not many people know that you paint abstract art. Who’s the last person you gifted one of your paintings? A: [My husband] Daniel usually steals them and says I can’t give any away. I don’t sell them because I’m too insecure. Q: What’s the last picture you snapped…

KOLKATA FAVOURITES SUSTAINABLE DRAPES WEAVERS STUDIO For most of the fashion savvy in the city, Weavers Studio and its work with weaves, textiles and textile revival has been an open secret. But it’s only when the 23-year-old brand showcased at the Lakme Fashion Week Winter Festive 2016 for the Sustainable Fashion and Indian Textile Day, that the rest of the country heard about it. With the motto of handcrafted and sustainable fashion, the studio has created a niche for itself. Its classic weaves are worn by Aparna Sen, Shabana Azmi, Nandita Das and many more. The studio is known for its extensive work with kantha embroidery and more recently for its work in sourcing and reviving baluchari weaves—a craft rooted in the Bengali tradition. Their forthcoming collection will include hand-spun…