Innholdsfortegnelse for October 8, 2018 i India Today

The dogfight over the purchase of 36 Rafale planes currently dominating public discourse in the country reminds me of the dictum, ‘Don’t confuse me with facts’. National leaders are calling each other thieves, liars, traitors and, of course, corrupt. Even Pakistan and the current and a former president of France have been dragged into the imbroglio. The two national parties seem to be like two blindfolded boxers punching in the air hoping to land a knockout punch. A lot of half-truths are flying around, with facts becoming the biggest casualty. In the eye of the storm is industrialist Anil Ambani. The controversy is centred around the Rs 30,000 crore ‘offsets’ that Dassault and its associates have to spend with Indian manufacturers not necessarily related to the Rafale aircraft as part…

PM Modi launched what is being touted as the world’s largest government healthcare scheme on September 23, a collaboration between the Centre and states to provide healthcare to over 500 million people. Critics describe it as a smokescreen that gives the impression of universal coverage without making meaningful space in the budget for such a far-reaching scheme. Still, no one would deny that Indian governments have thus far failed to make necessary investments in health. Maybe we should seek solace in the fact that the need for universal healthcare has been recognised even though much about the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana—and the measly allocation to build primary care centres under the Ayushman Bharat plan—remains uncertain 107 MILLION Families in 445 districts across 26 states identified as recipients of the…

The Supreme Court decided last week that it would leave it to Parliament to legislate to prevent politicians with serious charges against them from contesting elections. The court agreed that there was a “steady increase in the level of criminality creeping into politics”, but insisted it was not its place to impose new rules. It did, however, ask for increased transparency, for candidates and parties to publish criminal histories to enable voters to make informed choices. Already, the court, in 2013, ruled that convicted criminals, who had been sentenced to more than two years in prison, would not be permitted to continue as MPs or contest polls for six years after their release. The Election Commission has told the SC that it supports a lifetime ban for politicians convicted of…

Despite Trump’s stated fondness for Modi, McMaster was unable to convince Trump to invite Modi to Camp David. Trump decided to simply host him at the White House The noted British newspaper, The Guardian, has acquired an early version of a book, Full Disclosure, written by the porn film star, Stormy Daniels (Stephanie Clifford), about her life and alleged affair with President Donald Trump. Apart from highlighting the president’s quirky personal characteristics, it is also rich in salacious detail about the putative affair. Once published, it will probably complement what two other books, including Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House and Omarosa Manigault’s Unhinged: An Insider’s Account of The Trump White House, have revealed both about the tribulations of the campaign trial and the subsequent chaotic…

Both the BJP and its allies greeted Amit Shah’s announcement on September 23 that the ailing Manohar Parrikar would continue as Goa’s chief minister with exuberant cheers. While for the BJP it ended the uncertainty over the state government’s stability, the allies, including the three independent MLAs, saw it as a chance to press home their demands. Admitted to Delhi’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) following prolonged treatment in the US, Parrikar had reportedly offered to step down. Shah and his advisors had even discussed alternative candidates, including Union ayush minister Shripad Naik and Sudin Dhavalikar, state PWD minister from the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP). But the prospect of a floor test in the assembly in the wake of a change of guard was deeply disconcerting. The BJP…

She’ll keep them guessing. After publicly warming up to UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi at H.D. Kumaraswamy’s swearing-in in Karnataka in May, and sacking a senior party leader for using intemperate language against Rahul Gandhi in July, BSP chief Mayawati didn’t mince words in blaming both the BJP and the previous Congress-led regime for rising fuel prices on September 10. A few days later, she trumped the Congress in Chhattisgarh by striking a deal with ex-chief minister Ajit Jogi’s Janta Congress Chhattisgarh for the coming assembly polls. The BSP will contest 35 of the 90 constituencies, but the parleys were kept secret until the surprise announcement on September 20 in Lucknow. Banaras Hindu University political scientist Ajit Kumar sees Mayawati’s alliance with Jogi as a political tactic to pressure the Congress…

FORMER FRENCH PRESIDENT FRANCOIS HOLLANDE TOSSED A STUN GRENADE INTO AN ONGOING CONTROVERSY OVER INDIA’S 2016 PURCHASE OF 36 RAFALE FIGHTER AIRCRAFT. ON SEPTEMBER 21, HOLLANDE TOLD FRENCH NEWS PORTAL MEDIAPART THAT THE INDIAN GOVERNMENT HAD PROPOSED THE NAME OF THE ANIL AMBANI GROUP AS AN INDUSTRIAL PARTNER. HIS STATEMENTS CONTRADICTED WHAT THE NARENDRA MODI GOVERNMENT HAS MAINTAINED SINCE THE CONTROVERSY BROKE LAST NOVEMBER. Hollande’s statement seemed to fly in the face of the government’s assertions that it had nothing to do with Anil Ambani’s presence in the deal. “I’ve not put his name or anyone in the Inter Governmental Agreement nor can I tell a commercial firm to enter into an agreement,” defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman had told the media just three days earlier, reiterating the line the government’s…

THE ‘RADIANT LEAVES OF MEMORIES’ FELL. Despite the gentle poetry of the title, excitement charged the balmy evening of September 15 as Shanti Gogoi, 84, resplendent in a white and gold mekhela-chadar, released her autobiography—Huworonit Rongin Paat in Assamese—at the Garden Treat Hotel in Dibrugarh, Assam. Across the room, people nudged each other. “There he is,” they whispered. A man, who sat with formidable composure in the front row. “He has come all the way for his mother’s book launch”; “Just two days after becoming the Chief Justice of India”; “Northeast’s first”. The mother looked on proudly at the son she called “His Lordship”, in jest and in earnest. The second of her five children, Ranjan Gogoi, certainly added a colourful leaf in her book of life. Despite the enormous…

Then God spoke. Through thunder and lightning, trumpet and smoke, he gave two tablets of stone, inscribed by his own finger: the Ten Commandments. In an age when thunder and lightning in our cells and tissues overwhelm us, doctors are the new gods. And right now they are dishing out the new ten commandments for optimising your health. The oldest umbrella organisation of cardiologists in India, the Cardiological Society of India (CSI), is asking us to embrace 10 everyday tips to live better. With ‘My heart, Your heart’ as the theme for this year’s World Heart Day on September 29, cardiologists have put together a slim document, ‘Ten Commandments for Creating Heart-Healthy Homes’ (see graphic), in 11 languages, and sent it out to schools and movie halls. “It is our…

Q. What excites you about this year’s long-list in the JCB PRIZE for Literature? We [the jury] read more than 61 books or, as someone counted, 150,000 pages. Some of those stories just stood out. As Shakespeare said, there are three kinds of stories in the world, but it is the way you tell them that matters. In these books, the concerns and the way they were depicted were very different. Whether it’s the language, the translation, there was gender and ecology and also, a deep love for humanity that really touched me. Q. What are your thoughts on contemporary Indian literature? Based on the shortlisted 10 books, I’d say, it is very healthy. If someone asked me if I would adapt any of these into movies, I would say…

If India thought Imran’s offer was just an effort to score international brownie points, it shouldn’t have agreed for talks in the first place Like a Greek tragedy, every new play scripted by India and Pakistan to improve relations between them ends up with either a sad or bad ending. That narrative hasn’t changed despite the emergence of a new actor on the scene: Imran Khan. The cricketing legend-turned-politician and now prime minister of Pakistan had complained during his election campaign that he was portrayed in India as a Bollywood villain. Khan was being presumptuous. Many Indian experts regarded him as a sidekick of the Pakistan Army chief Qamar Javed Bajwa, whom they consider the big baddie. Backed by the Pakistan Army, Khan rode to power on the plank of…

“Delhi ke andar awaidh ghuspaithiye hain... in ghuspaithiyon ko nikaalna chahiye ya nahin nikaalna chahiye? Desh mein karodon ki sankhya mein ghuspaithiye ghuse hue hain. Deemak ki tarah chaat gaye hain desh ke bhavishya ko .” In a now infamous remark, BJP president AMIT SHAH, speaking at Delhi’s Ramlila Maidan, compared the “crores” of illegal immigrants he claims have entered India, to termites eating the country from within. While not responding formally, Bangladeshi government officials have told reporters that Shah’s rhetorical exuberance was “inappropriate”. Of course, the imagery Shah conjures has a long history, much of it—at the risk of provoking the BJP’s hyperventilating hordes on social media—Nazi and fascist. Surely, it doesn’t need saying that it is never a good idea to compare human beings to insects and…

Ministers in the Modi government are always trying to come up with innovative ideas to catch the prime minister’s eye. Minority affairs minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi has planned mushairas (Urdu poetry fests) across the country for Mahatma Gandhi’s 150th birth anniversary celebrations on October 2. Except that several of the well-known poets invited for the mushaira, among them Wasim Barelvi and Gulzar, are known Modi critics and could well speak their minds. It could make matters verse.…

The September 21 killings of three Jammu & Kashmir police personnel—Firdous Ahmad Kuchey, Nisar Ahmad Dhobi and Kulwant Singh—in Shopian district have set off a wave of panic in the Valley. The government and security establishment tried to downplay it, but there has been a flood of resignations, particularly among the lowest ranks of the force. Coordinated apparently by Hizbul Mujahideen commander Riyaz Naikoo, police officials say some two dozen militants carried out the pre-dawn strikes in Batagund and Kapran villages. In a replay of earlier cop killings in south Kashmir, the policemen were taken from their homes at gunpoint and shot at pointblank range. The victims include the breadwinner of the only Rajput family that had stayed on after the exodus of Hindus from the Valley in the 1990s.…

Madan Mohan Jha’s appointment as the new state unit chief on September 22 marks a strategic shift for the Congress in Bihar. He is the first Brahmin to lead the party since Jagannath Mishra in 1991. There’s evidently a major game plan to the ‘bold’ decision in a state known as the backyard of Mandal politics. The party hopes to get OBC and Muslim votes by latching on to Lalu Prasad Yadav’s coat-tails, while also wooing upper caste voters at the expense of the BJP. Interestingly, it has named Rajya Sabha member and upper caste Bhumihar leader, Akhilesh Prasad Singh, as its campaign committee chairman in Bihar. Jha’s appointment comes a full year after the party high command in Delhi removed Ashok Choudhary (a Dalit) from the position and appointed…

FEB. 12, 2015 Reliance Infrastructure tells BSE it’s set up three wholly owned subsidiaries: Reliance Defence Systems Pvt Ltd, Reliance Defence Technologies Pvt Ltd, and Reliance Defence and Aerospace APR. 11, 2015 Prime Minister Narendra Modi signs MoU with President Francois Hollande for the sale of 36 Rafale aircraft in flyaway condition on terms that would be better than conveyed by Dassault Aviation as part of a separate process under way MAR. 4, 2015 Anil Ambani acquires Pipavav Shipyard for ₹2,082 crore MAR. 28, 2015 Anil Ambani- led Reliance Defence is incorporated DEC. 2015 Reliance Entertainment invests €1.6 million in a movie co-produced by Hollande’s partnerJulieGayet. Mediapart saysthe investment was made by an investment fund of a Frenchman who has known Anil Ambani for 25 years JUL. 2015 Defence minister…

SEPTEMBER 2018 Heads the Supreme Court bench monitoring the National Register of Citizens in Assam case, the claims and objections of 4 million people whose names do not figure in the July 30 draft NRC “What assurance? Court gives only orders” AUGUST 2018 Leads a bench that instructs Centre to put in place special courts for the speedy trial of criminal cases involving politicians. Not getting any response, says: “The Union of India doesn’t appear to be ready and prepared” FEBRUARY 2017 Part of a bench that refuses to grant an extension to Sahara honcho Subrata Roy to deposit Rs 600 crore “We cannot be assembling every month for you to deposit meagre amounts” NOVEMBER 2017 Along with senior colleagues, sentences an allegedly “eccentric” Justice C.S. Karnan for contempt to…

GAURI DEVIDAYAL, 37, doesn’t like to cook. “ I have zero desire to get into the kitchen and make something. I don’t find it relaxing like others do,” she says. But she does step into the kitchen to make cupcakes with her five-year-old daughter, Dia. Luckily for Mumbai, Devidayal is fussy about eating good food. She and her partner-husband Jay Yousuf, of hospitality group Food Matters, have given Mumbai The Table, the award-winning restaurant in Colaba; the experimental cooking space, bakery and dining area, Magazine Street Kitchen in Byculla; and most recently, the Asian restaurant Miss T, also in Colaba. “The exciting part is bringing something new to the city rather than following the tried-and-tested route. We want to be pioneers in the city’s food space,” she says. Each venture…

When designer Rahul Mishra was a boy, his mother would hang a white curtain embroidered with Daraz over a broken door. Filtering the light, it was like a gossamer shield against the world. Years later, as he was buying bedcovers for his new home, he stumbled upon Daraz work which brought back memories of the big steel trunk in his childhood home in Malhausi village in Uttar Pradesh in which those embroidered furnishings were kept. It smelled of burnt wood and weak sun. September and October, he says. From that point forward, Mishra, now 39, began to explore his intimate relationship with the things of his childhood—the pillow covers, the curtains, the table cloth. And over the past few months, he explored the craft of Chikankari and Daraz to elevate…

The majority verdict puts brakes on the untrammelled use of Aadhaar to gather information on all citizens A five-judge bench of the Supreme Court, in an eagerly anticipated verdict on September 26, upheld by a majority of four to one the constitutional validity of the Aadhaar Act, 2016. But the court appeared to also recognise that the penetration of Aadhaar into every sphere of public activity was excessive, what is often described as its ‘function creep’. Among the sections it struck down was 57 which permitted private entities to demand Aadhaar data, including biometric data, in exchange for their services. The court refused to accept that it was necessary for commercial banks or digital wallet companies, Paytm for instance, to demand the Aadhaar details of customers. Mobile service providers, too,…

India has now become the ninth country to introduce a ‘sex offender registry’ after the US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Ireland and Trinidad & Tobago. The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) now maintains a database containing names, addresses, fingerprints, DNA samples and Aadhaar numbers of persons convicted of sexual offences. It’s not yet clear how the NCRB plans to update information on offenders and whether the information will remain available only to law enforcement agencies. Considering the registry has been pitched as a public safety measure and the substantial costs of maintaining it, besides its possible impact on former offenders, it’s pertinent to examine the potential value of such a register. At first glance, a registry that helps law enforcement keep track of offenders, particularly those convicted…

1 Born on November 18, 1954, to Keshab Chandra Gogoi, former chief minister of Assam, and Shanti Gogoi, social activist 2 Second of five children: elder brother Anjan is a retired air marshal, younger Nirjan a doctor in London, sisters are homemakers 3 An alumnus of Don Bosco, Dibrugarh; Cotton College, Gauhati; St Stephen’s College, Delhi, and Delhi University 4 Married to Rupanjali, a homemaker; son Raktim and daughter Rashmi are lawyers, the latter is married to lawyer Tanmay Mehta, son of Delhi High Court Justice Valmiki Mehta 5 A football player and a debater in his youth, now regularly plays chess…

“HOW WELL DO YOU KNOW YOURSELF? AND WHAT DOES ‘KNOW YOURSELF’ HAVE TO DO WITH YOUR HEALTH? A LOT” Dr NARESH TREHAN Cardiovascular surgeon, CMD, Medanta: The Medicity, Gurgaon Knowing your body, how it works, and the environment you live in are the key to being proactive about your health. There are three things one has to work out. First, know your genes. They will tell you about your chances of getting the three most common and devastating diseases. If there is coronary heart disease in either your mother or father, you have double the chance of getting heart disease: 20 per cent. If both parents have it, then there is 30 per cent chance. Then there is diabetes. If one parent has it, children have 25 per cent…

India—especially Punjab—is drowning in opiates. But there’s almost nothing to relieve the pain of the ailing and dying. India is one of the largest producers of legal morphine in the world, says renowned palliative care physician M.R. Rajagopal. Due to draconian laws, doctors here have only some 37 kg of the stuff to meet a demand for 36,000 kg. A far worse drug problem is sweeping the United States, fuelled by the easy access to prescription opioids, especially fentanyl. Drug addicts often mix it with the heroin flooding the country. In 2016 alone, fentanyl misuse was blamed for 20,000 deaths. Few doctors there are trained in treating patients with drug addiction, and law enforcement agencies are unable to stop the flow of illegal drugs now that the trade has shifted…

GARBAGE Qauishiq Mukherjee’s (aka Q) film went straight to the web after premiering at the Berlin International Film Festival this year. Like Ghoul,ittakesaim at far-right religious extremists. Netflix THE DEUCE (SEASON 2) Women come out on top in the second season of David Simon’s intriguing series on the porn business in 1970s’ New York—a stink-bomb in the era of #MeToo that was further marred by harassment allegations against costar James Franco. Hotstar MUKKABAAZ Anurag Kashyap’s boxing movie-cum-excoriation of the Indian sports system hits the web, just as an Asian Games wrestler and overlooked Kabaddi players take their beefs to court. Zee5…

NEW DELHI: ART NOW 18! Sep. 28-Oct. 4: Lalit Kala Akademi Oct. 8-31: Art Alive Gallery Art NOW! presents new work by 35 artists every year—stalwarts Sakti Burman, Anjolie Ela Menon, Manu Parekh, Thota Vaikuntam, Prabhakar Kolte, Madhvi Parekh, Arpana Caur, to name a few, and younger talents such as Arunkumar H.G., Arzan Khambatta, Tara Sabharwal and Pratul Dash, among others. Curator Sunaina Anand says this year’s highlights include modernist great Krishan Khanna’s return to his famed ‘Band Wala’ series with two new works and Bengal artist Paresh Maity’s tribute to Mahatma Gandhi. MUMBAI: SERENDIPITY FEST CURTAIN-RAISER Oct. 27: Royal Opera House, Mumbai; Oct. 28: Max Mueller Bhavan The annual Serendipity arts, theatre and music festival in Goa, held in Panjim in December, announces its intentions for this year’s edition…