Innholdsfortegnelse for October 29, 2018 i India Today

It’s only when the tide goes out that you realise who’s been swimming naked,’ billionaire investor Warren Buffett once famously said. That could be said of the Indian economy today. With crude oil prices rising, the rupee in free fall, inflation creeping up, the investment rate on the slide and financial markets in a funk, the tide is definitely ebbing. And it has caught many bankers, industrialists and government officials in the buff. The Modi government didn’t exactly inherit an economy in a shambles in 2014. According to revised GDP calculations adopted in 2015, GDP growth under the UPA stood at 6.9 per cent in 2014, and recorded a 10-year average of 8.1 per cent. When the Modi government assumed office in May 2014, the crude oil price was $106…

The death of Prof. G.D. Agarwal, also known as Swami Sanand, on October 11, 2018, on the 111th day of his fast for the Ganga also marks the utter failure of the Narendra Modi government to achieve any improvement in the state of the river. In fact, as Prof. Agarwal repeatedly pointed out, for all Modi’s oaths to rejuvenate the Ganga, the state of the river has worsened under the current government, which has pushed several damaging initiatives, from Ganga Waterways to Riverfront Development, the Char Dham Road, river inter-linking and more dams and hydropower projects in the river basin. The PM may have been rattled by the letter in which Agarwal wrote if he died, he would pray to Ganga that Modi is held responsible It’s worth noting that…

Last week, India held its first major tourism convention, essentially a statement of intent to announce itself to the industry as ready to ramp up the country’s largely underexploited appeal to tourists. Last month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi boasted on social media about the pace of airport construction as his government races to put in place the infrastructure necessary to make India competitive as a holiday destination. His statistics might not have been entirely accurate, but there’s no doubting his enthusiasm. Tourism Minister K.J. Alphons is clear that if India wants to achieve its targets, it needs to find a way to attract more Chinese tourists. After all, in 2016, Chinese tourists spent more than double what American tourists spent on their travels. India continues to disappoint when it comes…

The BJP’s creative team in Mumbai has figured out how to counter cartoonist-politician Raj Thackeray’s caricatures uploaded on social media. In four months, the party’s media cell has parried Thackeray’s cartoons with those of their own. Recently, when Thackeray lampooned Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis in a grounded boat—“no wave in the next election”—the BJP countered saying Raj can’t win an election even if with Sharad Pawar. Interestingly, the rebuttals come only when Fadnavis is the subject, not when the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena president lampoons Narendra Modi and Amit Shah. —Sandeep Unnithan with Kaushik Deka, Rahul Noronha and Kiran D. Tare…

N.R. BHANUMURTHY Professor, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy Currently, the Indian economy is facing downside pressures on various counts. Although it has registered a surprise growth of 8.2 per cent in the first quarter of FY19, going forward, it will be tougher to achieve such high growth. Most analysts as well as RBI suggest that the growth in the second half of FY19 could be much lower. But most importantly, there are risks building up across all growth drivers. In addition to this, given the multiple elections this year, one is not sure how the government will navigate the economy from here on. R. NAGARAJ Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai The situation looks pretty grim in the short term. The problem is flight of capital, as…

PRONAB SEN IGC The depreciation of the rupee is an important corrective in itself. However, we’ll do well to remember that while an oil price increase and the flight of FPI (foreign portfolio investors) have immediate impact, adjustments in exports and imports, in response to rupee depreciation, take time. New customers and sources have to be identified, fresh contracts drawn up, production has to be ramped up, supplies have to begin. Three to four months is the minimum. Nevertheless, there is evidence that speculators are ‘shorting’ the rupee, leading to excessive depreciation. This needs to be put down with a firm hand. The government and the RBI have instruments to do so, but the recent marginal tinkering with duties and external borrowings is unhelpful. N.R. BHANUMURTHY NIPFP One easy way…

Alter the first list of contestants to include confident and sure winners Convince veterans to mark time and contest the Lok Sabha polls or wait for other opportunities Explain why he avoids the secretariat and why he advanced the assembly poll by nine months Punish rebels and their supporters, if need be by expelling them from the TRS to show that he is in command Clarify why representation for women in the government is low (none in the state cabinet) though they accounted for 74.2 per cent of the votes as against 74 per cent of the male vote in the last election in 2014 Overcome the superstition about polling and counting days…

The release of Notes of a Dream: The Authorised Biography of A. R. Rahman has come at a fortuitous time. Proving that he’s as popular as ever more than a quarter century after his debut as a music director, Rahman has just scored two consecutive chart-topping Tamil film soundtracks, for Mani Ratnam’s Chekka Chivantha Vaanam and A. R. Murugadoss’s Sarkar. His first foray into television, Harmony with A.R. Rahman, began streaming on Amazon Prime on Independence Day. He recently concluded a 10-city tour in the US. And a second web show—a talent contest on YouTube called AR-Rived—is in the works. Like many official biographies, Notes of a Dream occasionally veers into hagiography, but its biggest strength is that author Trilok Krishna is part of Rahman’s inner circle. Krishna is the…

Oldest paranormal organisation In 1862, the Ghost Club was formed as an organisation focusing on paranormal activity. Members included W.B. Yeats, Charles Dickens and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Today, it’s a nonprofit social club. Longest-running magazine on paranormal topics Fate was founded in 1948 to talk about everything, from telepathy and ghosts to UFOs. It is still published today alongside a series of books. Highest prize offered for scientific proof of paranormal ability James Randi offered $100 in 1968 to anyone who could scientifically prove the existence of supernatural abilities. The prize has increased to $1 million and came to be known as the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge. Over a 1,000 people applied for this, but none was successful. The challenge was terminated in 2015.…

Q: Styled by Neha is a makeover show. Are you worried about contributing to the world’s preoccupation with looks? To me, a perfect body is the one that’s healthy. Just because in your mind you’re a little bit of plus size doesn’t mean you can’t be stylish. [We try] to make people comfortable in their skin and work around their personality. Q: Have you ever had any self-confidence issues about your own appearance? Yeah! All the time. I think the beauty of being in your 30s is you stop sweating the small stuff. When I went for Miss India and Miss Universe, I was 20 kg lighter. If I count my pregnancy weight, I was 35 kgs lighter. Still I thought I’m fat. Q: What’s the best thing about…

PRIVATE RESIDENCE HOUSE 1058 Hyderabad What makes this project a success? Our clients had expressed their wish for an iconic structure as seen from the road and from within. Primarily the roof forms were constructed to be climate sensitive, to combat the fierce summer sun as well as the heavy monsoon rain in Hyderabad while allowing the best quality of natural light into the house. But apart from being a climate sheltering device we also managed the forms to be bold and innovative and visually playful. Salient/key features of the project. The house is characterised by its accentuated and cantilevered timber clad trapezoidal roof forms that hover above the main spaces. A series of staggered rooms with slopes in different directions orient towards the privacy of an internal garden When…

Here’s your chance to join the likes of Hollywood A-listers such as actors, Jennifer Lawrence, Anna Kendrick and Ryan Reynolds and pop icons, Kanye West and Miley Cyrus, who are all big fans of IKEA. The Swedish furniture retailer opened its doors in India earlier this year. The 4,00,000 sq ft (13-acre) Hyderabad showroom will house around 7,500 products (out of which about 1,000 cost less than ₹200), designed to integrate within an Indian home but reflective of the Swedish furniture retailer’s clean, minimal sensibility and aesthetic. The Swedish company in fact, visited over 1,000 homes across Indian to understand the needs and aspirations of consumers before finalising the products for the store. WHAT IT’S BEST FOR From lights and furnishings to cookware and furniture—there is so much to choose…

In the latest Global Hunger Index, released on October 11, India has once again failed to make much progress. While there is little to support opposition claims that India’s position in the hunger index has significantly worsened since the present government took over in 2014, it is fair to say that progress has been limited, particularly in comparison to the likes of Bangladesh and Nepal. India also received a lowly rank in the World Bank’s inaugural human capital index, released around the same time as the hunger index. The government responded defensively, with the finance ministry claiming the World Bank’s index suffered from “major methodological weaknesses” and “substantial data gaps”. Steps have been taken, the government insists, through big-ticket social programmes that have led to “transforming human capital in India…

Yogi’s History Lesson Allahabad has apparently been renamed Prayagraj, a reversion to its pre-Mughal name some five centuries ago. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath bristled at suggestions that the name change was an example of Hindutva pettiness. The critics, he said, are ignorant of history and ignorant of tradition. But what’s ahistorical or anti-historical is to pretend vast chunks of the past can simply be excised like a wart, leaving no trace. Prayag, supporters of the move insist, is used in common parlance in the state. And the RSS has long referred to the city as nothing else. Besides, as some in the UP government have been eager to point out, it is a government’s prerogative to change names. Never mind that it seems odd in a democracy not…

Did you make a card transaction today? If that card has a Visa, Mastercard or American Express logo, the companies behind those logos now fall afoul of a new law. That’s because a six-month deadline, given through a Reserve Bank of India (RBI) circular issued abruptly last April to force all payment companies to store all financial data of Indian citizens only in India, expired on October 15. There’s irony in the huge amount of American financial data that is processed in India. Of our tech services exports in 2017-18, 62 per cent was to the US and 41 per cent of the total was in the financial services area. (Nasscom calls all this IT-BPM—information technology and business process management.) Enforced ‘data localisation’ could hurt India’s $126 billion services exports…

Devendra Fadnavis has said he will continue as Maharashtra’s chief minister after the assembly polls next September. His confidence stems from his success in weathering political storms and neutralising rivals rather than his government’s achievements. Close to entering his fifth year as CM on October 30, Fadnavis has emerged taller than everyone else in the state BJP. Besides leading the party to victory in consecutive local polls, he is also credited with winning the largest number of seats in zila parishad and municipal polls. This was despite being under constant attack from rival politicians like NCP chief Sharad Pawar. Fadnavis, on his part, engineered a rift with the NCP by convincing Prime Minister Narendra Modi to nominate Sambhaji Raje, a descendant of Chhatrapati Shivaji, to the Rajya Sabha in 2016.…

Back in the last general election, in 2014, nothing helped the then prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi more than his promise to root out corruption and bring a troubled economy—derailed by the ‘policy paralysis’ in the second edition of the UPA government—back on track. With just months to go before the next general elections, the economy, ironically, is occupying centre stage again. There’s distress and uncertainty, triggered by a host of global factors, and, yes, some policy manoeuvres and misadventures too. The short-lived optimism in some quarters, as GDP growth ticked past 8 per cent in the first quarter of the current fiscal, is all but gone. Rising oil prices and a widening current account deficit (CAD), where the value of imports is higher than that of exports, have weakened…

PRONAB SEN IGC Global developments have unquestionably precipitated the problem, but the conditions that have led to our present state of vulnerability are the outcome of our past policies. Unfortunately, the discourse has focused excessively on oil price increases and flight of portfolio capital with resulting stress on the current account deficit and the exchange rate. The real threat comes from the fact that our recent growth has been largely urban and organised sector-led. The rural and informal sectors have languished. Farmers’ agitations are a symptom of this. This skewed pattern seems to have led to distributional changes that make us far more dependent on imports and external financing. This pattern is almost entirely domestic policy-driven. N.R. BHANUMURTHY NIPFP After a stable external environment for the past three years, there…

AS CHHATTISGARH AND MADHYA PRADESH GEAR UP FOR ASSEMBLY POLLS, defections—those last-minute moves dictated by reassessment of political prospects—are on in full swing. And if they are an indicator of which way the political wind is blowing, then the BJP in Madhya Pradesh is in trouble, as is the Congress in Chhattisgarh. On October 13, Ramdayal Uike, a veteran Congress tribal MLA from the Pali Tanakhar assembly constituency in Chhattisgarh, joined the BJP while party president Amit Shah was touring the state. Uike had been elected MLA from Marwahi on a BJP ticket in 1998, had defected to the Congress and vacated the seat for Ajit Jogi in 2000 enabling him to enter the House as chief minister. Subsequently, he had been elected on Congress tickets from Pali Tanakhar in…

The prestigious Old World Theatre Festival (OWTF) returns to New Delhi for its 17th edition this week. Set to showcase 15 plays over nine days, the OWTF will open with one of the oldest Sanskrit theatre traditions, Kutiyattam. Later, it will showcase experimental contemporary theatre, including original plays from Chennai, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Pune, Mumbai and Kerala, says Vidyun Singh, director, programmes, Habitat World, India Habitat Centre. “Over the years, we pretty much have had every big play, production, director or actor as part of the OWTF. But we have slowly been trying to introduce a number of experimental as well as younger theatre practitioners,” says Singh. “This time, we have taken a more dramatic step in that direction, by bringing in a lot more younger theatre practitioners.” These works…

Privilege is a peculiar possession,” writes Sharmila Sen in her migration memoir Not Quite Not White. “To those who possess it, privilege is weightless, tasteless, odourless, soundless and colourless. Those who have least access to it are painfully aware of its mass, density, taste odour, texture, sound and colour.” Sen’s premise is that her family’s migration thrust race and minority status upon her, that in order to succeed in her new home, she has had to put on whiteface. “I have been wearing whiteface for so long,” she writes. “Because my Halloween never ends... Blackface is jolly, makes fun of others, is entertainment, is a game you get to play when you are already the winner. Whiteface is sad, demeans me, is deadly serious, is a game we play when…

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE DOOR When an expat woman’s son is killed in an accident, she learns about a mysterious temple that will allow her to communicate with him on ‘the other side’. Warned that she should never open the door, she does it anyway only to discover that beyond the grave, her son has turned evil. Hotstar RAAT Often name-checked in lists of great Indian horror flicks—not an oxymoron!—Ram Gopal Varma’s Hindi-Telugu thriller has a spooky house, a creepy cat that comes back from the dead, and a brutal murder or two. Even scarier than the prospect of being forced to watch Naach. Zee5 A QUIET PLACE A scifi-horror genre bender, this 2018 gem builds suspense around silence in a post-apocalyptic America where sightless, indestructible (and bloodthirsty) aliens…

QUENCH YOUR THIRST LG’s PuriCare range of water purifiers have a stainless steel storage tank, five-stage RO filtration, digital sterilising, a UV cycle that runs when the water is stored and a smart display that indicates filter change and water level. It also has a secondary valve located on the side, making it possible to hygienically rinse vegetables with clean water. PRICE ₹16,990 onwards AT www.lg.com/in TUNE INTO THIS Love retro designs, but can’t live without modern technology? Then Anemos’ new music player modelled on old-style gramophones is for you. It comes equipped with premium quality speakers, connectivity to AM/FM and Bluetooth. PRICE on request AT www.anemos.in STAY CONNECTED Picostone, a home automation company has launched Polar and IR stone. The two together enable your air conditioner to be controlled…

Ikea sent two designers, Eva Lundgren and Synnove Mork to India to create a new textile collection for the country. “I was inspired by the small, secret gardens that I would discover while walking down the streets of Bangalore,” says Lundgren. For Mork, “the different qualities of Indian line motifs, from really coarse to tenderly thin”, were what made her fall in love with the unique design language of India. The result was Ursprunglig, a collection of fabrics, cushion covers, floor cushions, bed linen, rugs, jewellery boxes, curtains and table linen. PRICE ₹299 per metre (fabric), ₹499 (cushion cover), ₹999 (floor cushions), ₹2,590 (rugs), ₹849 (bedspread), ₹1,990 for a pair (curtains), ₹799 to ₹899 (tablecloth)…

By NIRAV SHAH his was a time bound project of 180 days where in we had to reorient a penthouse and transform it into a cosy weekend gateway. Along with the time constraint, we had a limited budgetary allowance within which we not only had to retrofit the apartment but also complete the interior decoration. We opted for a classic American home design with specific focus on furniture coupled with furnishings that complement it. We opted for super glossy faux dark emperador vitrified tiles and balanced it with matte white wash on the walls. The 5,000 sq ft penthouse is located on the 10th, 11th and 12th floor of the toniest building, Delta Empress, in the most sought out residential enclave of Sopan Baugh in Pune. The brief was to design…

“Why has this storm risen a few months before a general election? Is there an agenda? You be the judge. These false, baseless and wild allegations have caused irreparable damage to my reputation and goodwill. Lies do not have legs, but they do contain poison, which can be whipped into a frenzy.” If anybody expected contrition from M.J. AKBAR, Rajya Sabha member and MoS for External Affairs, confronted by a dozen or so women alleging sexual misconduct, they were disabused of the notion by the belligerence of his denial. The suggestion of a political conspiracy was always risible. Still, given the vehemence of Akbar’s denial, no one anticipated he would resign within days. He maintains that he will continue with the legal effort to clear his name. It’s hard to…

Abdulali replaces sociological tools with testimonies. As a result, this becomes a book of pain and triumph, of solidarity and comfort, of hope and prayer Rape is the only crime that is so bad that victims are supposed to be destroyed beyond repair by it, but simultaneously not so bad that the men who do it should be treated like other criminals.” Abdulali is not an objective commentator on sexual assault and aggression—she was gang-raped when she was 17 and soon after, wrote about what had been done to her. Her account was published in Manushi, at the time India’s only and path-breaking feminist magazine. Since then, Abdulali has earned degrees, written novels, had children and consistently been a counsellor for women who have suffered sexual violence. Her new book,…

Bryan Adams, whatever they may think of him elsewhere, must know he’ll always have ardent fans in India. It’s the sort of love that makes a man willing to see the best in his surroundings, to always look on the bright side of life. So Adams, after playing another triumphant show in Gurugram, posted a photo on Instagram. If “you look carefully”, wrote Adams (though in truth you don’t have look that carefully, it’s staring you in the face), “you can see my shadow silhouetted in the dust and smoke of the venue over the audience. I’ve never seen that before”. Ah, Bryan concluded, “magical India”. Perhaps Adams had never seen that before because almost nowhere in the world is as smoggy as parts of the National Capital Region. The…

V-SHAPED RECOVERY India’s GDP growth hit a sharp low before staging a comeback of sorts. But 8.2% growth is not sustainable PRICE WISE A tight monetary policy has kept inflation under control LOST IN LIMBO Sectors such as mining and agriculture are performing way below capacity and a lot of the pain here is due to policy inaction ROUT OF THE RUPEE The currency has weakened 14 per cent this calendar year and is yet to recover SHRINKING TAX REVENUE After peaking in the middle of the Modi government’s term, the growth in tax revenues has plunged NO CREDIT TO ANYONE Credit growth is recovering; deposit growth at 8.1 per cent is just marginally higher than the 10-yr low of about 3% in Jan. FUELLING DISCOMFORT Rise in international prices…

PRONAB SEN IGC There is nothing inherently wrong with inflation targeting, but the RBI appears to have interpreted its mandate much more rigidly than the ‘flexible targeting’ objective requires. It is really a pity that it has consistently allowed the terms of trade to shift against agriculture in the name of inflation targeting. N.R. BHANUMURTHY NIPFP The RBI and the MPC, under the monetary policy framework agreement, have mandated to maintain price stability (in other words, contain inflation) though [lip service is also paid to] ‘... keeping in mind the objective of growth’. In a sense, maintaining price stability is expected to ensure targeted growth. I also feel inflation is a byproduct of stability in the external accounts as well as output gap. The recent hikes by the MPC were…

MADHYA PRADESH PADMA SHUKLA State social welfare board chairperson Quit BJP to join the Congress SHEKHAR CHAUDHRY Former Congress MLA Returns to Congress from BJP SUNIL MISHRA Ex-Congress MLA from Mudwara Returns to the Congress fold from the BJP RAMASHANKAR CHAUDHRY Former Congress minister from Bhind Joins the BJP CHHATTISGARH RAMDAYAL UIKE Three-time MLA from Pali Tanakhar Joins the BJP from the Congress ARVIND NETAM Former Union minister Joins Congress after own party fails to take off VINOD TIWARI JCC youth wing president Defects to the Congress KRIPA SHANKAR BHAGAT JCC candidate from Jashpur Defects to BJP after his seat goes to BSP…

Two years ago, Majiziya Bhanu was home for college vacation when she decided to take up boxing—travelling 50 kilometres to Kozhikode from Vadakara for classes. Since her braces prevented her from sparring, her trainer recommended she take up power lifting instead, a piece of advice that changed her life. She soon transformed herself from a fitness fan to a state-level celebrity, going on to win the title of ‘Strong Woman of Kerala’ three times, as well as a silver medal at the 2017 Asian Power Lifting Championship held in Indonesia, where she turned heads with her headscarf. And this week, she’s the only woman competing in the open category of the World Armwrestling Championship in Antalya, Turkey. “If I can run on the field under the hot sun wearing the…

WAYS OF BEING DESI By Ziauddin Sardar PENGUIN 288 pages; ₹599 Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Indian, Sri Lankan, American, Canadian, German or Italian—the colour of your passport has nothing to do with being desi,which knows no geographic boundaries. But what are the qualities and customs that unite and make unique the Indian subcontinent? AMERICA FOR BEGINNERS By Leah Franqui HARPERCOLLINS 320 pages; ₹499 Recently widowed Pival Sengupta travels to America and embarks on a coast-to-coast road trip to track down her son—whom her husband told her had died after he’d declared he was gay and went to San Francisco. Before she can find him, though, she’ll have to become an American of sorts—or at least come to terms with them. SEARCHING FOR HOME By Simran Chawla HACHETTE 160 pages; ₹399 To the…

The first season of the ‘American Horror Story’—way back in 2011—stunned TV audiences with its campy blend of gore, depravity, outré sexuality and post-modernish film gags. Centred around a family that moves to California for a fresh start in what turns out to be a haunted mansion, it was consciously derivative. But creators Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk played off the clichés of the horror genre to create something as stylistically fresh as the first films of Quentin Tarantino. Both loved and hated, the show never really held together as a story. But that wasn’t what Murphy and Falchuk were after, they confirmed over subsequent seasons about a decrepit Massachusetts mental asylum, a New Orleans’ coven of witches, a carnival ‘freak show’ in the backwaters of Florida, and similarly familiar…

IF DIWALI CELEBRATIONS conjure up images of bedecked, brightly-lit homes, Anavila Misra shows that festival time needn’t always call for ostentation. The acclaimed designer dresses up her home in her own signature way—one that spells understated elegance and charm. The beige sofa gets a makeover with silk covers and the metal lamps by Anuj Kasliwal take centrestage here. Marigold and fresh chrysanthemums dot the house and her collection of candles lights up the space. Like her subtle linen and silk saris that are precious picks in wardrobes across the country, Misra’s Khar home reflects her love for a muted aesthetic and ethnic crafts. The living room is bathed in shades of cream and beige with paintings, a framed photograph of an artisan she has worked with, crafts by artists across…