Innholdsfortegnelse for April 9, 2018 i India Today

When bestselling writer Yuval Noah Harari talked at the India Today Conclave in Mumbai of the possibility of the North Korean government forcing its citizens to wear a bracelet transmitting biometric data to government data centres to monitor how people feel about their leader, it seemed straight out of science fiction. In a Digital Dictatorship, he warned, technology would be able to extract high-precision biometric data from people and report back to a centralised decision-making control system, owned by governments or by corporations—or both. It turns out we’re not so far off from that reality, given recent revelations by a whistleblower of the role of British firm Cambridge Analytica (CA) in using a data-harvesting app that was allowed by Facebook to gather data of 50 million users without their consent.…

Tit for Tat The BJP and Congress only have eyes for each other. No matter what the issue, or what the charge, the only thing that appears to matter to either party is to prove that the other guys did it too. Whatever ‘it’ is. So if questions are asked about the prime minister’s NaMo app and what it does with users’ data, it is imperative that a Congress app is shown to be doing the same thing. If questions are being asked about how the BJP information technology head could tweet the date of the Karnataka elections before the Election Commission, it is imperative to show a Congress functionary did the same. If the Cambridge Analytica whistleblower names the Congress as a client of the disgraced firm, it’s imperative…

Ahead of the June 9 Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Qingdao, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping may have a third informal ‘walk and talk’ meet. Two such efforts in the past, along the Sabarmati waterfront in Gujarat in 2014 and at the Great Wild Goose Pagoda in Xian in 2015, had failed to soothe the troubled relationship. The Sabarmati walk came amid an India-China standoff in Chumar, which Modi raised with Xi. The Xian walk saw Modi raise concerns over Chinese investments in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor passing through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. With a major thaw post-Doklam, the question being asked is: will it be third time lucky? CUTTING A SORRY FIGURE Following Madhya Pradesh Congress leaders’ complaint to the party high command about Deepak Babaria asking ticket-seekers…

Keenly aware that he risks splitting the spoils with the YSR Congress, PK accuses the opposition party of collusion Four years after he launched the Jana Sena Party (JSP), Telugu superstar Pawan Kalyan is looking to manoeuvre himself into a controlling role in the politics of Andhra Pradesh. The man who charmed crowds at NDA rallies, speaking ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, is preparing to go it alone. With less than a year before simultaneous polls to the Lok Sabha and the state assembly in 2019, 46-year-old PK has deliberately distanced himself from both the ruling Telugu Desam Party (TDP) in the state and the BJP at the Centre. He blames both for their failure to deliver special category status (SCS) and other…

The Karnataka assembly polls, slated for May 12, will be a no-holds-barred battle between the ruling Congress and the BJP, with the Janata Dal (Secular) also looking for a slice of the electoral pie. The Siddaramaiah-led Congress, which ousted the mired-in-controversy BJP regime in 2013, is hoping to pull off a “repeat performance”. The chief minister, who only joined the party in 2006, appears to have gone through his five-year term without too much in the way of scandals or rebellions. (Incidentally, he is also the first Karnataka CM in the last 15 years to serve a full term.) Bengaluru-based analyst A. Veerappa says, unlike in the past, this election is bereft of any major issues. This, he believes, “will make it very difficult for the Congress to retain power…

Data is the exhaust of the digital age and there’s much money to be made from it. Security agencies, marketing companies and, yes, political parties, are all interested in your digital footprint WIRELESS-ENABLED WEARABLE TECH (Fitbit) Gives out detailed profile of users’ health data, their activity, when they’re having sex, among other things SEARCH ENGINE DATA Users’ search history reveals their interests, choices and preferences. Can be used to create a digital profile of a person. Sites instal tracking cookies on users’ browsers to track their internet usage SOCIAL MEDIA PROFILING Online profile based on social media usage. Can be used to track whereabouts too with location sharing Global Positioning System (GPS) data Used for location tracking. Can track users down to a few metres of a certain location. Can…

“I WRITE AT HOME WITH MY DAUGHTER’S CLASSES AND TESTS, MY FATHER’S REQUIREMENTS AND THE HOUSE MESS. I LOVE THE CHAOS BECAUSE IN IT IS THE DESIRE TO ESCAPE FOR A WHILE” -Juhi Chaturvedi The trailer of Varun Dhawan-starrer October came with a twist. First came director Shoojit Sircar’s name followed by the film’s writer Juhi Chaturvedi. It had cinephiles on social media applauding the rarely-seen gesture: acknowledging the vital contribution of the screenwriter, long the most underappreciated job in Hindi cinema. Chaturvedi, 43, whose earlier credits include the beloved films Vicky Donor and Piku, also directed by Sircar, was surprised by the reaction that included a blog post featuring screenwriters’ reaction to it. “A lot of my friends have called saying, ‘Look your name is there’,” she says. “I’m…

IT was a day after the Champions Trophy final on 18 June 2017 that senior BCCI officials, including secretary Amitabh Chaudhary, CEO Rahul Johri and M.V. Sridhar—the then general manager of cricket operations and who passed away in September 2017—met Kumble and Kohli in a London hotel. Incidentally, they first met Kumble alone followed by Kohli, and then Kohli and Kumble together before a final brief meeting with Kumble again. While Kumble, in his meeting with the BCCI, denied talk of any serious rift, Kohli, according to what members present in the meeting confirmed to me, outlined multiple instances of how the relationship had become unworkable. ‘It was not like a slugfest or that the two couldn’t stand each other; nothing like that. Instead, there were multiple smaller flashpoints and…

Journalist and writer Akash Kapur grew up in Auroville before moving to the US. He returned to India, and Auroville, with his family in 2003. Self-effacing almost to a fault, Kapur says hardly anything in his introductionto Auroville: Dream & Reality abouthislasting relationship to the town, what it was like to grow up there, the effect it might have had on his world-view, and why he wants to raise his children in Auroville. His carefully compiled anthology would have benefitted from more of his limpid prose and his insights into what it takes to live in Auroville. Founded in 1968, Auroville was dreamed into being by ‘the Mother’, Mirra Alfassa, who alongside Sri Aurobindo created ‘Integral yoga’ and founded the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry. It took a group of…

COLLATERAL Archie Panjabi stars in an entertaining but clumsy thriller that addresses what happens when a young man recruited by Islamist militants changes his mind. Netflix HOMELAND The once-nationalist counterterrorism series continues its shift to the left in Season 7, as Carrie takes on a corrupt presidential administration. Hotstar THE LOOMING TOWER Jeff Daniels leads this knotty look at the inter-agency rivalries and associated cock-ups that led the US to ignore various warning signs ahead of 9/11. Prime…

Oona Reilly (Copper), a young American, arrives in Paris with her journalist husband, Amory Heathcote, in 1944, immediately after the liberation. Though their marriage is merely 18 months old, it is already in trouble. Amory has a roving eye and cares little about his wife’s feelings. Though Copper initially fools herself about her husband’s infidelities, after a point she decides to walk out and files for divorce. She worries little about their families’ reactions or her means of survival in an unfamiliar country still recovering from the throes of war. Since Copper had been ghostwriting articles and doing photography for a journalist friend who died, she now decides to pursue journalism as a profession and establishes herself pretty quickly. Copper approaches Christian Dior, to whom she had been introduced by…

Q. You’ve made your brand a success in India and abroad—and count Kate Middleton among your customers. How did you break into the business? In the early 1990s, ‘fashion design’ wasn’t considered a ‘real’ profession in India, but I set up my first workshop—two sewing machines in my balcony—where I, along with my sister Meena, designed for friends and local boutiques. I’ve always designed keeping in mind the needs of the modern woman. The Duchess of Cambridge, Kate Middleton, and Sophie Trudeau, the spouse of the prime minister of Canada, are the embodiment of this woman—my muse. Q. You recently opened tailoring units in tribal areas to provide employment to women. To me, sustainable fashion means looking towards the future, practising and building processes that are sustainable, respectful of the…

An austere laboratory with pristine white tables, sterile equipment and the quiet hush of feet covered in sanitised shoe covers are not the traditional images one would associate with diamonds. While most people don’t look beyond the finished, brilliant stone that is cut and honed to perfection, the journey of a diamond, from mine to wrist is a tedious, exacting process. It takes many experts, sitting for hours at this highly technical lab, painstakingly sorting through thousands of stones to create and grade that perfect diamond. One of the world’s leading diamond brands, Forevermark, understands this better than anyone else. Their International Institute of Diamond Grading and Inscription in Surat traces the diamond miles of these precious stones as they go on to lure consumers with the promise of…

“Recently, a retired Supreme Court judge said that if there were ever a competition for the most corrupt government, then the Yeddyurappa government would win first prize” BJP president Amit Shah, speaking at a press conference, launched a fresh broadside in the run-up to the Karnataka election in May. Except that Shah’s unintended target was the BJP’s own chief ministerial candidate B.S. Yeddyurappa instead of the current Congress chief minister Siddaramaiah. Shah’s minor slip provoked much hilarity in the Congress ranks. Rahul Gandhi even combined a dig at Shah with one at BJP IT cell chief Amit Malviya, who tweeted the date of the Karnataka poll before the Election Commission had made its announcement.…

Recently released Reserve Bank of India data shows that Indians are remitting more money abroad than ever before. The monthly figure in January set a record and the figure for the first 10 months of the financial year dwarfed the equivalent figure from the previous years. More Indians are travelling abroad is one likely reason, as is the increasing numbers of students choosing foreign universities and colleges. Of course, what money Indians spend outside the country does not come anywhere near the sums Indians abroad send back home. Of late, though, remittances, particularly from the oil-rich Gulf states, are slowing down. $ 1.2 billion Sent in remittances from India in January 2018 alone, says RBI $ 8.17 billion Sent in remittances in FY 2016-17, up from $4.64 billion (2015-16) 90%…

India’s auto makers probably never thought that the acrid smoke from crop residue burning across the fields in the northwestern parts of the country that engulfed the oh-so-pampered Delhi NCR area for a couple of weeks at the end of 2016, could impact their business and their future in the way it ultimately did. Even as they cried themselves hoarse that vehicular pollution accounted for just a quarter of total PM10 and PM2.5 pollutants in the Delhi NCR winter haze, came a variety of perceived roadblocks to their future growth. Soon thereafter, electric vehicles (EVs) became the holy grail. India’s policymakers waxed eloquent on everything from electric mobility to battery technology to charging systems and building the ecosystem for smart e-mobility. Then, just as India’s car consumers had started dreaming…

“Both the public and the private sector are collecting and using personal data at an unprecedented scale and for multifarious purposes. While data can be put to beneficial use, the unregulated and arbitrary use of data, especially personal data, has raised concerns regarding the privacy and autonomy of an individual. Some of the concerns relate to centralisation of databases, profiling of individuals, increased surveillance and a consequent erosion of individual autonomy.” This is what a nine-member committee of experts formed by the Union government to study various issues related to data protection had said in a white paper four months before two national parties of the country—the BJP and the Congress—got embroiled in a nasty slugfest over data theft. On March 27, Christopher Wylie, a former employee of British data…

The Facebook/ Cambridge Analytica scandal is only a few days old. But the issue dates back to 2013/ 2014. Cambridge Analytica had commissioned an academic, Aleksandr Kogan, at University of Cambridge to develop an app that would use personality quizzes to survey Facebook users. Approximately 270,000 Americans downloaded the app and participated in this. They also gave permission to the app to access the likes and comments of their friends as well. A total of 50 million people’s data was collected by the app using this technique. This was shared with Cambridge Analytica. Cambridge Analytica is a consulting company providing services to political parties and think-tanks that want to profile and connect with citizens. With the help of Cambridge Analytica’s data, these organisations can now micro target the citizens based…

Two events will change the course of privacy and data security this year. Even in India, where privacy is a word unknown to most, and where we will welcome online by 2020 another 300 million smartphone internet users even more vulnerable to data breaches than the first 300 million. The second of these two events will be Europe’s implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) rules on May 25. The pathbreaking GDPR aims to give control of personal data to the people—with uniform rules binding across the EU’s 28 member states. A great reference for the world—and for India—which has no privacy regulation as yet. And the first event? Last month’s outing of Cambridge Analytica (CA), the British political consulting firm that stole the personal data of 50 million…

NIDHI MEHRA AND MEHUL SURI VEERE DI WEDDING Delhi-based Nidhi Mehra and Mehul Suri know their maiden film will largely be dubbed a chick flick but Mehra says it’s a film about friendship. “A lot of women-centric movies tend to be about issues or a catastrophe they face which are, of course, needed but we wanted a film which is normal for once,” says Mehra, a former advertising professional. Inspired by her own close-knit gang of friends, Veere Di Wedding follows a quartet that reunites for the wedding of one member (Kareena Kapoor Khan). Newcomers to the industry, they were put in touch with filmmaker Shashanka Ghosh. Impressed by their work, producer Rhea Kapoor has also acquired the rights of the first project they wrotetogether, Saat Hindustani, a film on…

In the early 1980s, the era of gurus and seekers was finished in America. The Christian right had seemingly put the last nail in the coffin of the counterculture. Ronald Reagan was president. The Official Preppy Handbook was hot. And greed was good. But in one rural corner of Oregon, where a handful of ranchers and retirees had hunkered down and waited out the radical ’60s and psychedelic ’70s, a new revolution was brewing, filmmaker brothers Maclean and Chapman Way suggest at the outset of Wild Wild Country , a documentary series about America’s encounter with Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, also known as Osho. What’s stunning about the six-part Netflix series is its subtlety. There’s something archetypal about the story: like Socrates, Osho is mainly a cipher, his…

Nepal has capped its harum-scarum progress through cricket’s Associate Member proving grounds by winning ODI (one day international) status for the next four years. The victorious campaign—at a qualifying tournament in Zimbabwe—rewarded a rapt nation all the more, by first submitting it to gruelling anxiety. The decisive run was scored from the last ball of the innings, in a 51-run ninth wicket partnership against Canada. It was their third final-ball victory of the competition. The team’s place among the limited-overs elite might have been sealed with less delicious theatrics, if they hadn’t gone down to three successive defeats in the super-sixes. There’s been cricket in Nepal since the 1940s at least, but it really got started with the arrival of cable TV in 1996. After years of success in age-group…

Little Saigon, a small, family-run Vietnamese restaurant in South Delhi’s Hauz Khas market, looks like any street side joint in the city it’s named after—with plastic chairs and minimal decoration. But this is a dhaba with a difference. Run by chef Hana Ho, who was chef de cuisine at the posh Blue Ginger at New Delhi’s Taj Palace hotel until 2010, the tiny joint serves what could well be India’s most authentic Vietnamese fare—offering homely dishes and street snacks. Ho started in the restaurant business straight out of high school, working in her mother’s restaurant in Ho Chi Minh City. She trained with her mother for six years, then worked for the Marriott hotel and the Intercontinental in Vietnam’s bustling commercial centre before landing the gig with the Taj Palace.…

THREE MONTHS INTO THE YEAR THE VERDICT is already out on what’s scorching runways and fanning imaginations. Spring and summer invite you to be whimsical as you slip into the silly season where not much happens, on or off the runway. Fashion is moody, people are edgy, the sun is harsh, and since waistlines are once again visible after the ample camouflage of winter coats, new wardrobes are essential. What is fashion if not dictated by trends? In our cover story we ask top designers, some new, some veterans, for their take on the season’s best. While it is well known that trends are fleeting, the next few months will be dictated by the current design vocabulary of these designers, many of whom have seen season after season of changing…

The universe of fashion design is as vast as it is diverse. With the ever-evolving fashion industry looking to turn things around and shake things up every season, trends are par for the course. Every season there are new influences and inspirations--from pop culture to art, from political attitudes to the world of entertainment and we find these expressed via creations that are thought-provoking and original. This year is no different, as every brand, every designer has revealed collections that have set the tone for the millennial, fashion-conscious consumer and those looking to the runway for cues. With fashion being a universal language of expression, today, both men and women are enthusiastic about their sartorial choices as these reflect who they are and who they would like to be. Most…

2018 HARLEY-DAVIDSON FAT BOB ENGINE Milwaukee-Eight 107 Twin cylinder V-Twin POWER 1750cc TORQUE145 NM PRICE 14 LAKH (ex-showroom, Delhi) It would be, in my mind, downright unfair to consider the 2018 Fat Bob an ‘evolution’. As someone who’s genuinely been fond of H-D’s Softail line-up, or even just as part of the community that loves, and has relationships with motorcycles, it would be disingenuous to let the new Fat Bob, brilliant as it is, to cast a long shadow over its predecessor. This motorcycle’s older brother was a mean-looking mass of metal with tremendous heft, that grunted and snorted like an ill-tempered bull. Yes there were significant vibes passed on to the rider, and yes, it felt a bit, certainly when compared to the new Fat Bob—crude. It was a…

REVIEW 1 WINNING FLAVOURS Not even half way through the year and Kolkata has seen scores of restaurants open in and around Park Street, which might as well be crowned gastronomy central. The Salt House is one such place. The 170 seater restaurant has a lovely open air space, a well-lit cafe that looks upon the coffee bar and wood fire oven, and across the courtyard is the lounge for those looking to party. But the most splendid thing about the space is its food. The restaurant boasts a modern European style menu that heroes many local ingredients. Take for example the Chicken Tortellini in a Broth, a flavourful dish that pays homage to old-school Kolkata style wanton soup. The tortellini filling is made only with country chicken breast to…

All is not well with the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in Bihar. Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s veiled warnings to “those out to create social rift in the state” are widely being seen to be directed at a section of BJP leaders from Bihar. Sources in the ruling Janata Dal (United) say that even though the chief minister has not mentioned anyone in particular, recent incidents pertaining to law and order lapses have really irked him. Nitish was particularly riled by state BJP chief Nityanand Rai and Union minister Giriraj Singh’s reported attempts to ‘twist’ facts relatiing to the murder of a septuagenarian BJP supporter in Darbhanga on March 15. Singh and Rai have alleged that the man was killed because he’d installed a plaque bearing Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s name…

A small parcel of land teeming with corrugated tin shacks, the new Rohingya colony at Hardah, is one among the many such clusters that have sprung up in the villages of South 24 Parganas. At Sandeshkhali, some 55 kilometres from the Sundarbans, a large tract of land is being levelled to accommodate “new guests” from Bangladesh and elsewhere. The Rohingya are said to have the ‘protection’ of Sheikh Shahjahan, a Trinamool Congress politician who wields muscle and money power in the area. State BJP leaders, who have been circulating videos of Shahjahan ferrying relief material to Rohingya camps in Bangladesh, accuse the TMC of encouraging refugee infiltration to appease its Muslim vote bank for the July panchayat polls. Pointing to a TMC minister and an MP joining demonstrations in Kolkata…

462.1 million internet users in India, 34 per cent of total population; global average is 53 per cent of total population 61 per cent use the internet daily 430.3 million use the internet from mobile phones, 79 per cent of the total web traffic At 31 per cent, India is the second fastest growing country in terms of social media penetration A user spends an average of 7 hours 25 minutes daily on the Internet 250 million social media users, 19 per cent of the total population; global average is 42 per cent of the total population A user spends an average of 2 hours and 26 minutes daily on social media 250 MILLION FACEBOOK USERS 200 MILLION WHATSAPP USERS 53 MILLION INSTAGRAM USERS Source: 2018 Global Digital Report by…

In the final hearings on the Aadhaar project in the Supreme Court, the Attorney General’s main (perhaps only) line of defence is that the court must ‘balance’ the right to life of millions, which he claims is guaranteed by Aadhaar, with the right to privacy. This is perhaps the first time that the government acknowledges that the right to privacy is compromised by the Aadhaar project. This is an important admission. There are, however, several other problems with this line of argument. Aadhaar is a direct assault on the ‘right to life’ of many in the sense that pre-existing benefits (rations, pensions etc.) have now become contingent upon Aadhaar. Our research and government data suggests that the number of affected people is in hundreds of thousands. Earlier, to get rations,…

Is privacy dead? These are strange times when this is treated as a reasonable inquiry. Or even as rhetorical, not needing any serious response: of course, it is dead. Let it be laid to rest, and let the ambitions of control, commerce and profit be pursued unhindered. The conversation about privacy has been deliberately turned on its head. About half a decade ago, as technologies were developed that could make huge profits out of personal data, and when state and corporate control of people began to emerge as clear political and commercial possibilities, we began to get asked: why do you want a right to privacy? Why would you ask for privacy if you have done no wrong? Corollary: if you have done wrong, why should you be allowed to…

For many of us midnight’s grandchildren, The Beatles were part of our sonic landscape, as familiar as R.D. Burman and Nazia Hassan. From their peppy early stuff to the solemn pomp of Let It Be, the Beatles were easy to claim as ours: the musical novellas about Eleanor Rigby, The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill and Lovely Rita, the wordplay; the peace anthems, that crescendo at the end of A Day in the Life. With their mix of the quotidian, provincial and the utopian, the Beatles really were here, there and everywhere. But for a few weeks 50 years ago they were actually here, in Rishikesh, studying Transcendental Meditation (TM™) at the ashram of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. In many books, the Rishikesh sojourn features prominently, as a watershed moment in…

IN 2013, Pulitzer prizewinning dramatist and actor Anna Deavere Smith embarked on The Pipeline Project. Over the next few years, she spoke to some 250 people to understand how the American justice system pushes children of colour out of classrooms and into prisons. Notes from the Field is a series of monologues developed from 17 of those interviews. Best known for her roles in The West Wing and Nurse Jackie, Smith transforms herself into these very different characters, embodying their tics and drawls, to bring their stories into the spotlight. Accompanied by jazz bassist Marcus Shelby and chilling actual video footage, Smith becomes a boy who runs from cops’ tasers in Baltimore, a former convict in a Yurok reservation, a reverend mourning a dead child, a teacher recounting how black…

Across the Anglophone world at this moment, viewers sit slumped in their chairs between the second and third seasons of The Crown,longingforsome short parade of toffs to fill the interval. Stuart Turton’s debut novel looks like just the thing at first. But it’s not your average English mansion murder mystery. It clothes a Groundhog Day premisein Gosford Park togs,completewith unacknowledged children, unlamented dead parents, a houseful of guests. And there is a bitof Inception thrownin. Sebastian Bell wakes up in a forest to a sense of undefined terror. He is searching for a woman called Anna. He sees a woman running, a man pursuing her. He hears a scream and then a gunshot, and thinks he knows what to do. Over the next few hours, Bell pieces together his own…

KALAKKAL CAFÉ, CHENNAI As India’s first ‘inclusive’ cafe, this ramp-equipped café in Chennai’s Kotturpuram is an initiative by NGO Vidya Sagar. Here food can not only be ordered off a Braille menu, but also with the aid of pictorial menus. No. 1, Ranjith Road, Kotturpuram, Chennai Call 044-22364712 SHEROES’ HANGOUT, AGRA Run by a group of acid attack survivors, this café has amassed street cred ever since it opened its doors a few years ago. And that’s not just because of girl power, but also because of its reasonably priced food. Fatehabad Road, Tajganj, Agra Call 0562-4000401 OM, BENGALURU Inspired by a chance meeting with a visually impaired dancer, Bhavna Jain partnered with NGO EnAble India to develop a Braille and an audio menu for her vegetarian restaurant, Om. 18,…

My favourite thing about fashion is that it has now come to embrace comfort. There are no longer rigid trends, no more specific rules about what’s hot, what’s not. The biggest trend we are seeing this year is the desire to be comfortable is one’s own skin and not suffer in the name of haute couture. Clothes shouldn’t restrict your movement or constrict your life. They should enhance thiings instead and make you feel terrific about yourself. 1. Comfort is key This Spring/Summer, fashion is unashamedly about comfort. What I have been doing from the beginning is to meld beauty and comfort, which is not something typical for fashion. Earlier, comfort was considered a dirty word. You didn’t use it because it meant cheaper products that were often ill fitting.…

Time can be a great leveller. Nobody in India knows it better than sportspeople whose performances determine their fame. If you happen to be a player in the Indian cricket team, then there’s hardly a moment of peace. Virat Kohli, Team India captain in all formats, is conscious of it. Every innings is critiqued, every match lost draws criticism and every international tour is a test of epic proportions. But Kohli has never let pressure get to him. Instead he has dominated the game with stellar, memorable performances. Kohli is not one to rest on his laurels. “I don’t believe in living in the past,” he says “But I always go back to know where I come from.” His is a quest to be remembered and treasured. Off field too…

TOP WORKS My Pink Sari by Michael Shaonawasai Subodh Gupta’s performance art piece, Modinagar, 1999 The Wailing Well by Sonia Khurana, 2000 The Delhi 17 boom box boys, 2017 In one of their first acts of defiance, they hosted a Thai artist in their early years. The artist was dressed in a pink saree and visited beauty salons in Modinagar as part of the Khoj artists’ worshop. My Pink Sari became a way of asserting one’s identity, even reclaiming it. “The Thai artist was gay,” says Pooja Sood, the founding member and director of Khoj International Artists’ Association, adding. “It was how we would go about promoting art.” It has been 20 years since Khoj, International Artists’ Association, a non-profit organisation established to support contemporary art and emerging artists in…