Innholdsfortegnelse for October 15, 2018 i India Today

GIVEN A FREE HAND TO GO AFTER CRIMINAL GANGS, THE POLICE ARE NOW TRIGGER-HAPPY, SAYS A FORMER IG On September 28, Uttar Pradesh police chief O.P. Singh proclaimed that “sanskari” police personnel—vegetarians and teetotallers of good character—would be posted on duty at the Kumbh mela in Allahabad next January. The DGP’s pointless attempt to project his force as a ‘cultured’ unit became a talking point less than 12 hours later. In Lucknow’s Gomti Nagar Extension area, not far from where Singh had spoken, police constable Prashant Chaudhari shot dead a 38-year-old sales executive working for US multinational Apple Inc. Returning past midnight (1:30 a.m.) from an event to launch the new iPhone in the city, Vivek Tiwari was on his way to drop a female colleague home when Chaudhari and…

DESPITE THE SCARCITY, SIX SUGAR MILLS ARE STILL FUNCTIONING IN DROUGHT-PRONE LATUR It seems no lessons were learnt from the drought two years ago. Maharashtra’s Marathwada region is facing yet another water crisis and it’s again a result of woeful mismanagement of available water resources. The reservoirs at Jayakwadi, Manjra and Majalgaon—the three dams that supply water to the region—have almost no water. On September 30, Jayakwadi was at a fourth of its capacity, while the others had run dry. It’s a scary situation given that nearly two million people depend on these dams. Across the region consisting of eight districts, all available water bodies together have just 31.2 per cent water stock. This time last year, it stood at a far more reassuring 82.2 per cent. Although Marathwada received…

Pinarayi Vijayan’s ‘salary challenge’ to Kerala government employees—to contribute a month’s pay to the Chief Minister’s Distress Relief Fund (CMDRF)—has hit the wrong note, with even his Left Front comrades deriding the idea. Service organisations affiliated with opposition parties have objected to the mandatory provisions in the finance department’s order. The September 11 order states that employees could donate in as many as 10 instalments and even avail of provident fund loans or surrender earned leave. Employees who did not wish to donate were to sign a ‘no consent’ declaration. “It’s unfortunate that a government is forcibly squeezing its staff in the name of a disaster. This is extortion,” said Ramesh Chennithala, leader of the opposition in the Kerala assembly. Responding to a petition by the Kerala Non-Gazetted Officers’ Union,…

High Priestess MAHANT DEVYAGIRI, 41 Mankameshwar Temple, Lucknow In her stark saffron attire, hair encased in matching headgear and a string of rudraksh around her neck, Mahant Devyagiri is a far cry from the young pathology student from Barabanki who stopped by at the Mankameshwar temple in Lucknow and decided to stay on, going on to become its chief priest. Back then, she was known as Arunima Singh. A bright student, she intended pursuing pathology after Class 12, but her parents were reluctant to send her outside Barabanki for higher studies. Finally, they relented and she came away to Delhi in 1998 to do a diploma in pathology. A believer in god, yes, but Arunima was never a frequent visitor to temples. After completing her diploma, she wanted to set…

BEST RIVER CLEANING INITIATIVE Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation Rajiv Ranjan Mishra, director general of the National Mission for Clean Ganga, is a confident man. He claims he is well on course to accomplishing the task of rejuvenating and conserving the Ganga by 2020. By then, the flow of thousands of million litres per day (MLD) of industrial effluents and untreated household sewage into the river will stop, he says. “With the help of an IIT consortium, we have studied earlier (Ganga cleaning) projects and come up with a long-term and holistic approach to cleaning the river—at a much faster pace and with public participation.” It has been three years since the Union government initiated the Rs 20,000 crore Namami Gange programme. Of the 231 projects…

BEST WASTE WEALTH CREATOR GPS Renewables When Mainak Chakraborty and two friends in Bengaluru decided to start a new tech venture in 2011, they did not have to think much. They were well aware of the garbage problem in the city—approximately 3,500 tonnes of waste generated every day—and the poor disposal system. “Unlike others in Bengaluru, we did not want to tread the e-commerce path. We wanted to make a meaningful impact on society and chose to address the garbage issue,” says Chakraborty, CEO of GPS Renewables. The trio realised that tackling the garbage problem at the source was one solution—hotels, educational campuses and IT parks are the bulk generators of organic waste. GPS Renewables spent the first three years in R&D, perfecting the technology to convert organic waste into…

BEST INSTITUTE FOR SANITATION SKILLS WASH Institute Barely a decade after a few domain specialists came together to form the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Institute at Kodaikanal, Tamil Nadu in 2008, it has been able to do groundbreaking work in increasing coverage of water and sanitation services and bridging the gap in skill and trained resources in the sector. The institute has now spread its operations to 11 locations. WASH-related projects are now being implemented in Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Kerala, Bihar, UP and West Bengal, besides the technical support it provides to the Swachh Bharat Mission. “Issues such as depletion of groundwater, water quality issues, poor sanitation coverage, dealing with solid and liquid waste and emerging issues brought on by climate change are our focus,” says Arumugam Kalimuthu, program…

CLEANEST CITY Indore Indore, the commercial capital of Madhya Pradesh, was a city fighting filth as late as 2014. The Indore Municipal Corporation (IMC) had outsourced the work of garbage collection to private operators who weren’t proving effective; garbage bins overflowed and viral and respiratory diseases were on the rise. Concerned citizens had filed a PIL at the Indore bench of the high court hoping judicial intervention would help. It resulted in action, but only in the form of suspensions of sanitation workers that instead of leading to a clean-up, left the administration with an employees’ agitation on its hands. That is when the civic agencies—with fresh political and administrative heads at the helm—rose to the challenge. Packing off the outsourced agency, IMC undertook an inventory of garbage bins. Cyclerickshaws…

Hugely successful in the early 20th century, M.V. Dhurandhar is these days a forgotten figure. This may be as much the result of his position as a member of the colonial establishment as his academic style, which fell out of favour with the advent of Indian modernism. But art historian Suhas Bahulkar—curator of M V Dhurandhar: The Romantic Realist, a retrospective on display at the National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai—believes it’s time we took another look at his legacy. Dhurandhar certainly paid his dues as a loyal servant of the Raj. He served under various British principals of the Sir JJ School of Art for 41 years. He painted the King and Queen receiving obeisance from their Indian subjects and decorated the Imperial Secretariat with busy murals representing the…

Q. Your dislike for technology is well known. What inspired you to write The Fox—a book about hackers? The idea came to me a year ago when I read in the paper that a British hacker was fighting a charge of extradition from Britain to America. He had Asperger’s syndrome. [I wondered] what would happen if you point him at the enemies of the West instead of the allies of the West, and that began the idea. Q. Your most famous books—The Odessa File, The Day of the Jackal—are set during the Cold War. Do you miss the golden age of espionage? I have dealt with a number of topics, for example the assassination of Charles de Gaulle (in The Day of the Jackal), is not really espionage. There was…

The industry is unwilling to even reprimand, let alone punish, men who have been accused of inappropriate behaviour When actress Tanushree Dutta reminded Indians of the alleged sexual harassment she suffered at the hands of Nana Patekar a decade ago on the sets of Horn Ok Pleassss, Bollywood professionals didn’t respond with #MeToo but #IBelieveHer. The hashtag is proof that Bollywood is far away from following Hollywood’s example in opening the can of worms that led to producer Harvey Weinstein, actor Kevin Spacey, comedian Bill Cosby, to name a few, losing favour with the public and the entertainment industry—and face legal action. Ethical Bollywood is content still lifting only stories and plotlines. Dutta’s story gained some traction only after Janice Sequeira, then a reporter with Aaj Tak and Headlines Today,…

Till date, no army personnel have been punished for violations under AFSPA In the clutch of highly sensitive cases the Supreme Court is currently hearing is one challenging any dilution in the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act or AFSPA. Last August, the court admitted this petition by nearly 700 serving military personnel. The military frowns at serving personnel approaching civil courts and General Bipin Rawat reacted on predictable lines when he publicly wondered why they were doing it. The petitioners have sought guidelines to protect military personnel from criminal proceedings for actions taken in the line of duty. The petition admitted by the Supreme Court this August was prompted by the CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation) action to register an FIR against a serving army Major for allegedly killing a…

Police on the border between Uttar Pradesh and Delhi prevented protesting farmers from entering the capital, using water cannons, teargas and, according to some witnesses, lathis. The force used, critics said, was entirely out of proportion. Organised by the Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU), the march began in Haridwar on September 23, with farmers banding together to protest the low minimum support prices and the high cost of fuel. As with many other farmers’ marches over the last harrowing year, the BKU is also calling for loan waivers to help farmers cope with crippling debts as they continue to battle adverse weather and crop failures. Some of the farmers described the “excessive” policing as “undemocratic”. After a meeting with home minister Rajnath Singh, some of the farmers’ demands were accepted but…

BOTH THE JD(S) AND THE CONGRESS CLAIM THE BJP IS TRYING TO POACH THEIR MLAs. THE LATTER SCOFFS AT THE CHARGE It’s been a gruelling four months for H.D. Kumaraswamy. Battling to keep Karnataka’s precarious coalition intact, the chief minister has had to deal with ego clashes and ally Congress’s rebellious MLAs fighting turf wars. The situation is slightly precarious and even affecting administration. In a fresh crisis, three Congress MLAs went AWOL, forcing AICC general secretary in charge of the state, K.C. Venugopal, to rush to Bengaluru on September 23. Speculation was rife that the BJP was wooing them in a bid to bring down the Kumaraswamy government. This isn’t the first time disgruntled Congressmen have caused their party embarrassment. Earlier in September, the Jharkiholi brothers—Ramesh, Satish and Lakhan—powerful…

TECH ICON JanaJal In a video clip, a boy from a Mumbai slum fills water from a water ATM every day. That is justification enough for launching water ATMs across the country to provide affordable drinking water, according to JanaJal, a flagship initiative of the Supremus Group. It also justifies charging a nominal Rs 2 for a glass of water and Rs 5 for a litre. “Water needs to be respected,” says Parag Agarwal, 46, chairman-cum-managing director of JanaJal. “If it is free, water gets wasted.” It was on World Water Day—March 22—in 2016 that JanaJal set a target of providing people with 1 billion litres of drinking water by 2020 through its water ATMs. The first one was set up in Varanasi three years ago. Today, JanaJal has 450…

GARBAGE GURU 3R Management Private Limited Manish Pathak, 40, founded NoKooda, later rechristened 3RMPL, in 2013 with his brother Manoj. The idea had struck his brother when, leaving for work one day, garbage from a truck had fallen on him. Manish, an alumnus of BIT, Mesra, who had worked with the likes of C-DAC, HCL and TCS in the US before returning to India to start his own IT company with TCS ex-colleague Paras Arora, readily agreed. Manoj died two years back, but Manish and Paras are carrying their collective vision forward. 3R Management’s urban waste management model focuses on providing decentralised solutions along with technical and operational aid. Indigenous technology is deployed close to the location of waste generation to eliminate transport costs and convert the waste into a…

BEST SANITATION APP Innovative Citizen Redressal Forum (ICRF) In 2014, Pendela Suresh, a Hyderabadbased tech-entrepreneur, decided to dabble in politics and joined the Jai Samaikyandhra Party of former Andhra Pradesh chief minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy. Suresh lost the assembly polls but gained something invaluable. While campaigning, he realised people needed faster redressal and response from government bodies for their sanitation complaints. To facilitate this, Suresh set up the Innovative Citizen Redressal Forum (ICRF), a non-profit, in 2014. A few months later, he launched an ICRF app. Citizens can now post their e-petitions on the app which ICRF-registered members examine and, if found valid, initiate a discussion and generate public support for. Hundreds of messages are then sent to the officials concerned demanding early resolution. The pressure forces the authorities…

CLEANEST RAILWAY STATION Visakhapatnam In every crisis lies an opportunity. Ravaged during Cyclone Hudhud in October 2014, the authorities had a chance to rebuild the Visakhapatnam railway station in a modern avatar. Crucial to the project was an integrated cleaning strategy. An army of jet machines, scrubbers, vacuum and steam cleaners is constantly at work cleaning platforms, tracks and the surrounding area; all platforms have washable aprons with epoxy floor coating. Toilet blocks are cleaned six times daily while cleaning of all parking areas, gardens, signboards, minor plumbing, pest and rodent control is listed on a comprehensive schedule. Garbage, 900 cubic metres of it every day, is ferried away three times a day. There are dustbins every five to 10 metres on all platforms. Ten lakh litres of waste water…

There’s good news and there’s bad news—and let’s face it, the bad news is usually more fun to read. Except when it isn’t. So brace yourself for some bad, bad news: Crime & Detective magazine is no more. This will come as a rude shock to many readers, particularly army personnel, residents of the northeast and a legion of ironic hipsters, punsters, wits and wags and, well, mostly men. The fact is that C&D was a luridly entertaining and brilliant magazine but also something of a guilty addiction for thousands. For this writer, like countless others, it was a favourite companion on railway journeys, where, shrouded in the anonymity of transit, one could revel in the relentless assault of headlines unveiling the most salacious crimes from the heaving underbelly of…

With Lok Sabha polls approaching, political parties in Uttar Pradesh are busy appeasing their deities. Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav has announced the construction of a Vishnu temple in Etawah. Congress president Rahul Gandhi, who burnished his Shivbhakt credentials with a visit to Kailash Mansarovar last month, was welcomed with chants of Bam Bam Bhole as he offered prayers with some hundred Kanwariyas in Amethi. The Yogi Adityanath government is planning to start construction of a 151-metre-high statue of Lord Ram in Ayodhya in December. Twice the height of Qutub Minar, it will cost over Rs 300 crore. The state government is looking for land on the Sarayu riverbank.…

Nara Chandrababu Naidu is intent on luring the Telugu film industry from its present hub in Hyderabad to the port city of Visakhapatnam in his state Andhra Pradesh. The chief minister, who much like his father-in-law N.T. Rama Rao, lured the Telugu industry to move from Chennai to Hyderabad in the 1980s, is offering filmmakers extraordinary incentives. Naidu’s offer: no entertainment tax on movies with budgets under Rs 4 crore; zero charge for shooting at most locations in the state; single window for clearances and permissions to film; subsidies from the Andhra Pradesh Film Television and Theatre Development Corporation; and priority allotment of land at reduced rates to set up studios. The government has set aside 350 acres outside Visakhapatnam for this. To avail of these benefits, production houses need…

Q. Let me begin on a negative note. India’s foreign minister Sushma Swaraj recently said at the UN General assembly that the UN is going the way of the League of Nations—it is becoming defunct. What are you doing to make the UN more relevant? A. I wouldn’t say it is defunct but it is clear that we face a huge challenge. We live in a moment in which problems are global, but at the same time we need multilateral solutions and international cooperation. Today, we see countries, we see public opinions, we see people thinking it is better to do it alone, that it is better to have confrontation than cooperation. Obviously, this represents a huge challenge for the United Nations. The UN has to reform itself. The need…

COMMUNITY MOBILISER Waste Warriors When Avinash Pratap Singh, 26, started noticing trash piles in pristine mountain trails, forests and riverbanks, he knew something had to be done to reverse this ecological eclipse. Starting as a volunteer with Waste Warriors (headquartered in Dehradun, Uttarakhand), Singh now leads it as its chief operations officer. He feels their efforts in the urban areas of Dehradun, the mountainous terrain of Dharamshala (Himachal Pradesh) and forested villages around Jim Corbett National Park in Uttarakhand are paying off. “Innovative partnerships, community participation and collaboration with state agencies has had an effect. People have begun understanding the difference between recyclables and non-recyclables and how to compost their food waste at home,” says Singh about Waste Warriors, which has collected over 733 tonnes of recyclables and saved 1,805…

CORPORATE TRAILBLAZER Tata Trusts In 2016, when Tata Trusts chairman Ratan Tata announced a programme for skilled young professionals who would work in rural areas with the government, it was also a first step towards making rural areas free of open defecation. Today, around 500 such professionals, designated as Zilla Swachh Bharat Preraks (ZSBP), have brought change to the lives of six million people in 7,000 villages in 26 states. They hope to end open defecation by 2019. The ZSBPs assist the government in strategic planning that includes preparing district cleanliness programmes, creating time-bound targets in ‘mission mode’, preparing, monitoring and evaluating protocols,and planning large community-wise interventions. They are trained in programmatic delivery, management skills and on-ground best practices. Almost 35 per cent of them are women and 80 per…

CLEANEST RELIGIOUS PLACE Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Temple The Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Temple was literally a ‘holy’ mess before the constitution of a board to manage its affairs in 1986. “But the big thrust happened three years ago when there was a renewed emphasis on cleanliness and conservation,” says current additional CEO of the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine Board, Anshul Garg. The improvements have swelled the faith too, pilgrim footfalls were up to 81,78,000 last year. In June this year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated two key projects at the shrine—a 7.5 km alternative paved pathway from the starting station at Katra to Adhkuwari, and a service ropeway capable of transporting 5,000 kg of material from Sair Dabri to Bhawan every hour of the day. Initiatives that have…

CLEANEST SCHOOL DISTRICT Mandi When the Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) was launched in 2007, government schools in Himachal Pradesh’s Mandi district were a disgrace. Besides dank and dirty classrooms, less than half the 2,482 schools had toilets for students, forget separate facilities for girl students. Today, 4,282 toilet blocks have been constructed in Mandi’s schools. Of these 1,382 are for boys and more than twice the number—2,900—for girls. Besides the Rs 11.2 crore government grant, local communities—village panchayats and residents—have contributed both in cash and through voluntary work. “Community participation is a big part of our success here,” says Rugved Milind Thakur, the incumbent deputy commissioner, who was posted to Mandi just nine months ago. Adjudged ‘India’s cleanest district’ among 75 districts shortlisted by the Quality Council of India (QCI)…

The fourth edition of the India Today Safaigiri Summit and Awards in Mumbai on October 2 stressed on the importance of public participation in keeping the country clean. The day-long event saw brilliant performances by a range of singers, from icons like Sonu Nigam and Abhijeet to the seasoned Abhijeet Sawant and newbies like Meghana Sharma and Shahid Mallya. Actors Radhika Apte and Ayushmann Khurrana admitted that the cleanliness mantra is no longer to be scoffed at. Apte narrated an experience how she as a school student had washed the toilets for two weeks as part of a school project. Actors Arjun Kapoor and Parineeti Chopra insisted that illiteracy and unsafe environments for women must be flushed out from India. Calling himself a baagi (rebel), Abhijeet alleged that the Indian…