Innholdsfortegnelse for July 22, 2019 i India Today

In business schools, they tell visionary companies to have a BHAG (pronounced bee-hag; Big Hairy Audacious Goal) or, in new-age terminology, a ‘moonshot’. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is a great one for this. He had one in the latest budget too—to double India’s GDP to $5 trillion by the end of his second term in 2024. It’s easy enough to set a grand target, but whether India can get there is open to question looking at the ground reality. The economy must grow at 8 per cent over the next five years to get there; what it managed in 2018-19 was a five-year low of 6.8 per cent. The budget last week was not a good start. It was a damp squib, in fact, with no ‘big reform’ signals in…

A look-out circular by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), a probe by the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) and an income tax investigation—Naresh Goyal, former chairman of Jet Airways, has received a lot of attention since he was ousted from the now-grounded airline in March this year. In May, as a result of the MHA’s notice, Goyal was deboarded from a flight to Dubai. On July 9, in response to his plea challenging that notice, the Delhi High Court directed him to deposit Rs 18,000 crore as guarantee against Jet Airways’ unpaid loans to have his travel privileges reinstated. The odds of this happening are low—in May, Goyal had already offered Rs 250 crore as capital infusion from Jetair Pvt Ltd (one of his group companies) to placate lenders.…

Big Brother’s Watching There was a small kerfuffle last week over a letter sent from the HRD ministry to higher educational institutes to “connect all the students’ Twitter/ Facebook/ Instagram accounts” with those of their school and the ministry. Some 900 universities and 40,000 colleges are expected to comply with the ‘request’. The aim, ostensibly, is for the colleges to “share their achievements”. To this end, each institution is expected to appoint a so-called social media champion. Why a government needs to tell institutions to publicise their achievements online is unclear, as is the need for a point person to both control the institution’s social media outreach and liaise with the ministry. Even more baffling is why each student’s social media account must be linked to their institution and the…

The party is still relevant in Bihar. In the 2015 assembly poll, the Congress contested 41 seats in alliance with the JD(U) and the RJD. It won 27, bagging nearly 40 per cent votes in the seats it fought in The BJP’s offer of just one seat to the JD(U) in the Union cabinet, and the latter’s tit-for-tat response in the state, has ruffled feathers on both sides. The JD(U) sees increasing saffron assertiveness; the BJP may not settle for junior partner status in the 2020 assembly poll Bihar’s 17 per cent Muslims may prefer a Nitish-Congress alliance over the RJD…

Instead of wasting time mulling over the Lok Sabha election result, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati is focusing on reorganising her party and preparing for byelections to 12 assembly seats that have fallen vacant for various reasons. As a first step, Mayawati severed her party’s alliance with the Samajwadi Party (SP). Then, on July 2, she held the BSP’s first-ever review meeting at the party office on Mall Avenue in Lucknow. At this meeting, she reverted to the zonal system within the party, dissolving the sector system that had been evolved for the general election, under which she had divided all 18 regions in Uttar Pradesh into two sectors: West UP-Bundelkhand and East UP-Awadh. With the BSP contesting only 38 of the state’s 80 seats, retaining the zonal system…

₹ 83,000cr Allocated to roads. Also includes off balance sheet borrowings of Rs 75,000 crore ₹ 19,000cr Allocated to PM Gram Sadak Yojana. Connection of eligible habitations to road networks to be completed by 2019 19.5mn Affordable homes to be constructed between 2019 and 2022. 15.4 mn such homes have been constructed in the past five years ₹ 68,000cr Allocated to railways. Special focus on PPPs in railway and metro-rail infrastructure ₹ 75,000cr Allocated to PM Kisan Samman Nidhi. 10,000 farmer-producer groups to be set up to improve agricultural productivity 92% The increase in funding for agriculture, compared to Budget 2018-19 (revised estimates) ₹ 60,000cr Allocated to MGNREGA. A decrease of Rs 1,084 crore, compared to Budget 2018-19 (revised estimates) Sources: Budget 2019-20, Economic Survey 2019, Yes Securities Institutional Equities…

Q. How would you categorise this budget? Is it a growth budget? Will it stimulate the economy? A. D.K. JOSHI The accent is on fiscal consolidation, with the budget resisting the temptation to spend aggressively to bolster growth. That said, one needs to read between the lines of growth-propping measures. First, the fiscal restraint will make way for a growth-supportive monetary policy. Fiscal policy is the key signal to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) under the inflation targeting regime and we expect it to cut the repo rate by 25 basis points in its policy meet in August. Second, bank recapitalisation of Rs 70,000 crore and support to non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) will enhance their lending capacity, crucial to stimulate growth. The partial credit guarantee from the government for…

FUN AND ENGAGING CLASSROOMS Teachers can see the limitations that technology can’t or doesn’t observe. However, there is no scalable way for students to closely engage with teachers as class sizes grow. This leads to gaps of knowledge between the lessons teachers submit to their administrators and the principles students are able to absorb. With better use of artificial intelligence (AI), virtual reality and other technologies, participation can become scalable to allow engagement between teachers and classes of all sizes. This allows teachers more time to focus on making lessons as fun and engaging as they are educational for students. INDIVIDUALISED, SMARTER LEARNING Personalised learning is invaluable, particularly for children with learning disabilities, such as attention deficit/ hyperactivity disorder, autism or dyslexia. And while it is not humanly possible for…

Anubhav Sinha can’t think back to the epiphanous moment that would explain his transformation from the director of duds like Cash andTum Bin 2 to one who is earning plaudits for his powerful and socially relevantdramas,Mulk and Article15. He says what he does have is plenty of rage. “I think I have become socially and politically very angry,” says Sinha. “Anger cannot be suppressed, it’s the trigger. The image of the child in a red T-shirt, lying face down in the sand by the sea, of those two girls hanging from the tree, and images of people beating up others to say ‘Jai Shri Ram’ angers me.” Sinha is putting the emotion to good use. His next film, which he begins shooting for in August with Taapsee Pannu in the…

Avvaiyar, the legendary Tamil poet and wise woman, takes centre-stage in the poem The Fine Art of Ageing in Arundhathi Subramaniam’s latest anthology, Love Without a Story. ‘Spare me the desperation of the old/ she says/ and the puerility of the young,’ Subramaniam writes in the first section of the sequential poem. In another, she says: ‘She’s done with the nightmare/of smiling and finding she’s forgotten/ to wear her dentures.’ The poems are a reflection of Subramaniam’s growing fascination with the idea of the crone and the gendered disparities that accompany ageing. “When men age, they become sages. When women do, they become hags. We fetishise youth and beauty so much that growing old for many women is about turning increasingly powerless. I was curious about female figures who don’t…

Therukural, an independent Tamil hip-hop album by Arivu and OfRo, holds up a mirror to political angst and caste-based inequalities in an attempt to reclaim human dignity. Arivu of The Casteless Collective, writer and singer of Therukural, speaks about the thought that went into its making. Q. Would‘Kallamouni’ be the one single that defines your album’s philosophy? Yes. Kallamouni’s backdrop is India’s recent political developments and the voice of its victims. The word is derived from ‘kallamounam’, which means selective outrage or the purposeful silence of someone in a position to help others. Their silence kills more people than the actual problem. Q. The album has powerful political undertones; the song,‘ Snowlin’, for instance is based on the 2018 Tuticorin massacre, right? Yes, most songs in the album are based…

MUMBAI FLOODS: HOW BMC AND CO. SANK THE CITY AGAIN by Kiran Tare Behind the July 2 monsoon flooding lies the city’s crumbling drainage and poor coordination among development agencies http://bit.ly/2XynMFb Goodbye, Rahul Gandhi? by Kaushik Deka Will his resignation as party president be the final nail in the Congress coffin? Or a new beginning where the party learns to function without a Gandhi at the helm? It all depends on whether the family can refrain from exerting influence by proxy http://bit.ly/2XwKLAl Small is Beautiful by Shwweta Punj The Economic Survey emphasises the need to nurture MSMEs and help them enhance productivity so that they become job creators. But the ideas presented in it could go either way—help or hurt entrepreneurship http://bit.ly/2XB814Y Modi 2.0: How PM, Amit Shah Picked the…

Media, in both Thailand and India, have been reporting an uptick in Indian tourist traffic and spending. For the Thai tourism industry this comes as a significant relief as Chinese money plateaus and European interest wanes. An official of the Thai Hotels Association told the Bangkok Post that “Indians are now driving industry growth like the Chinese had previously done.” The United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) has estimated that by 2022 over 50 million Indians will be holidaying abroad. Indians are already big spenders abroad, with Australia’s tourist authorities rubbing their hands in glee at the six-fold increase in tourists between 2000 and 2015 and at the nearly $700 million Indians spent there in 2016 alone. But while an ever increasing number of Indians flock abroad, India itself attracts…

The Congress may have lost the general election but in Rajasthan, it is putting into action one of the big promises in its election manifesto—a focus on Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises or MSMEs as a route to job creation. As part of this initiative, the state launched a website for MSMEs on June 12. An online registration followed by an instant acknowledgment is all the ‘paperwork’ needed to start a business unit. In about three weeks, 708 people, including several women, had registered. For the next three years, as the spiel goes, they needn’t worry about any approvals and can focus on building their businesses. The new rules for the Rajasthan MSME (Facilitation of Establishment and Operation) Ordinance, 2019 were notified on May 24 and will come into force…

The appointment of a new Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) president in Chhattisgarh is an affirmation of life in the grand old party, struck by a sort of decisionmaking paralysis in the aftermath of the Lok Sabha rout and the subsequent resignation of Rahul Gandhi from the post of party president. On June 28, tribal MLA Mohan Markam took over the job, replacing Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel who had held the post since October 2014. (Incidentally, the appointment was made in the name of ex-Congress president Rahul Gandhi, who has stated that he will not take any decisions and leave them to his successor.) Political watchers have taken note that the All India Congress Committee (AICC), the party’s highest decison-making body, has not taken any decisions after the Lok Sabha election…

With the Congress and Chandrababu Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party in retreat, the BJP has seen a clear opportunity in Telangana, enunciated in Union home minister Amit Shah’s ‘Mission 2023’ formulation. On July 6, Shah launched the party’s campaign in the state, a part of the larger goal of growing its footprint in the south. The BJP’s state unit has stepped up its attacks on the state government, especially after Telangana chief minister and Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) president K. Chandrashekar Rao (KCR) reminded media agencies in June that he was “the first to declare in 2014 that Narendra Modi is a fascist”. Modi-KCR relations have been strained for some time, with KCR not attending either the prime minister’s swearing-in ceremony or the BJP’s all-party meeting to discuss simultaneous assembly and…

Budget 2019 was drafted amid high expectations and severe constraints. And finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman decided to stick to the straight and narrow path of fiscal prudence. The advocates of growth-above-all would have been disappointed, but Sitharaman sounded characteristically resolute at the INDIA TODAY Budget round table. Explaining her reasons, she simply said: “I have to maintain fiscal discipline... It is the law”. Finance secretary S.C. Garg had this to add: “[About] 80-85 per cent of India’s savings are deposited in government banks. That doesn’t leave much for private banks [leaving them with less to loan out]. Interest rates remain high, which discourages private sector investment. A stimulus would take more savings away from the private sector.” Some economists agree with Garg. India’s total borrowings account for 8-9 per cent…

SAL KHAN, Founder, Khan Academy There is a notable demand for educational programmes from learners around the world who are not being served by existing systems. In the traditional academic model, students are pushed ahead at a fixed pace. So, in a middle-school pre-algebra class, the teacher might go over exponents. After some homework and perhaps another lecture, there would be a test. Some would score 70 per cent, others might get 80-90 per cent. The problem is that even though the test has identified learning gaps, the class will move on to the next concept. Those gaps keep accumulating. In India, there is a massive need and a whole industry for extra-school tuition. Some might call it ‘supplemental’, but in terms of resources invested, it is almost equivalent to…

1 THE HEALING POWER OF READING Michelle Kuo “How reading can change our lives and the limits of that change. How reading can give us a shareable world of powerful human connection. But also, how that connection is always partial. How it is ultimately a lonely, idiosyncratic undertaking.” 2 How risk-taking changes a teenager’s brain Kashfia Rahman “I began to wonder why so many teens took such crazy risks. It seems like getting a certificate from DARE class in the fifth grade can’t stop them. The more they exposed themselves to these harmful risks, the easier it became for them to continue taking risks.” 3 HOW ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE COULD BECOME AN EXTENSION OF YOUR MIND Arnav Kapur “Through AlterEgo, a wearable artificial intelligence (AI) device, what I want to do…

The Duffer brothers, creators of Stranger Things, say the show will go on, but only till its natural breaking point Twin brothers Matt and Ross Duffer, the brains behind Netflix’s hit science-fiction horror show, Stranger Things, talk about their “Barb-like” high school days, meeting the expectations of their demanding fans and about ending the show when the time is right. Q. Stranger Things is set in a small town in Indiana. Did you imagine the show would resonate with audiences the world over? Well, you never know how these things will resonate, but that was certainly the hope. We think the idea of the ordinary meeting the extraordinary resonates universally. It’s exciting for anyone to imagine themselves getting swept away from their normal lives and into a crazy adventure. Q.…

In Joanne Harris’s latest book, The Strawberry Thief, the fourth instalment in the successful ‘Chocolat’ series, we return to the fictional French town of Lansquenet-sous-Tannes where Harris’s recurring heroine, the witch and chocolatier Vianne Rocher, now lives with her “special child” Rosette. Her elder daughter, Anouk, stays in Paris with her boyfriend, causing Rocher much heartache. The novel opens with the death of the elderly florist Narcisse who, though borderline rude to the townsfolk, was fond of Rosette. He also made no secret of his antipathy to the church, so when he appoints curé Francis Reynaud as the executor of his will, the priest likens it to a practical joke. Terms of the will are revealed, including the fact that Narcisse has bequeathed 16 hectares of oakwood to Rosette. Livid,…

On July 18, the Durbar Hall of the Mysore Palace, with its ornate ceilings and colonnades, will resound to the strains of Western classical music. To celebrate the birth centenary of Jayachamarajendra Wadiyar, the last ruler of Mysore, his family is paying the Renaissance man a fitting tribute. The chamber ensemble of India’s first and only professional orchestra, the Symphony Orchestra of India (SOI), will perform at both the maharaja’s homes, the royal palaces of Mysore and Bengaluru (July 20). Though the maharaja had shown early promise with the piano and even wanted to pursue music professionally, he became a ruler at just 21. He did, however, continue to promote music in Europe from faraway Mysore, where, as EMI producer Sir Walter Legge had reported, he had a huge record…

It’s not enough of a start to get going. The budget announcement to cut GST on electric vehicles from 12 to 5 per cent, aimed at the manufacturer, and the sop of an income tax deduction on purchase, directed at the prospective buyer, is likely to lure neither party. The GST carrot is too little for the industry to confidently make the kind of heavy investments needed to roll out electric vehicles on a scale that will help achieve the government’s 2030 targets. Thirty per cent, or nearly a third, of the cars on roads, is not a small ambition. Nor is the promised deduction any kind of lure for the buyer. E-vehicles are twice as expensive as their diesel/ petrol counterparts. For example, in the UK, the electric Hyundai…

When Rahul Gandhi visited Patna on July 6 in connection with a court case, he made an unscheduled stopover at a restaurant where he ordered an onion dosa and coffee. So happens that both the restaurant and the dish are known to be well-loved by the Bihar chief minister as well. The coincidence was too rich to ignore, and soon became a talking point in the state capital. “Whether it’s dosa or secularism, it’s clear that Nitish and Rahul share the same tastes,” quipped a state Congress leader. On the face of it, the political divide is clear. The National Democratic Alliance (NDA), consisting of the BJP, the Janata Dal (United) and the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), bagged 39 of Bihar’s 40 Lok Sabha seats. On the other side, the…

After three years in power, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has finally realised that the state police are doing him more harm than good. Having gotten over his aversion to the police—a result of his experiences during the Emergency—Vijayan had backed the department in his current term, going so far as to prevent his CPI(M) party-men from interfering in its work. But with the police’s latest indiscretions—including custodial deaths—even the chief minister is feeling the heat. That Vijayan finds himself in this position—in the line of fire for supporting the police—has surprised everyone. So marked was his turnaround vis-a-vis the police that, in his current term, he even appointed a former police official—controversial former DGP Raman Srivastava—as an advisor, to help him manage home affairs. But the faith he placed in…

In an unusual exposition, the Economic Survey 2018-19, released before the Union budget by chief economic advisor Krishnamurthy Subramanian, devoted an entire chapter to behavioural economics that enunciated four major tactics to implement public policy: Laissez faire: Leaving individuals/ firms to follow their own course; Nudge: Gently steering people to a desired goal; Incentivise: Using positive and negative inducements to change behaviour; and Mandate: Using diktat to enforce a particular outcome. While his economists favoured the nudge approach, Narendra Modi is employing all the four drivers of change to achieve the goals he has set for his second term as prime minister. First, he employed the ‘mandate’ approach. He used Budget 2019 to signal his intent and, as is typical of his style, he thought big—really big. He got Finance…

While finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman was presenting the Union budget on July 5, Tarun Mehta, 30, co-founder of the electric scooters maker Ather Energy was in Chennai, gearing up for a big launch in a city with 4 million two-wheelers on its roads. It couldn’t have come at a better time: Sitharaman announced attractive sops for electric vehicles (EVs), including a cut in the applicable GST (Goods and Services Tax) rate from 12 to 5 per cent. “This is an extremely laudable decision,” says Mehta, whose Bengaluru plant can build 30,000 electric scooters a year. “Prices will fall, both for manufacturers and customers.” While the government also announced an income tax deduction to make EVs more attractive to prospective buyers, much more was in store for start-ups as a whole.…

Abujhmarh is in Narayanpur district of Chhattisgarh The 3,905 sq. km region consists of 237 villages under 36 gram panchayats Abujhmarias are the main tribe; Dadami Maria and Gond are the other communities The Maoist stronghold is virtually a no-go area for the government. Lack of access means the land has never been surveyed The habitation rights, under the Forest Rights Act, being planned for the tribes will not only protect their land and livelihoods but also their culture and way of life…

ANINDYA CHATTERJEE, Postgraduate in data science from upGrad and IIIT Bangalore Pursuing an offline or full-time course is difficult these days as you need to be physically present in the institute to attend classes. I could do this course alongside my job as it is designed for working professionals. Study hours I devoted 10 to 12 hours in a week. I gave about an hour and a half five days a week while on the job and three hours on Saturdays and Sundays. There are live sessions once a month where you can clear doubts. What works You can complete the course at your own pace What doesn’t Several employers don’t value online degrees. SANATHAN SHRIVASTAVA, AutoCAD course from Udemy I am pursuing AutoCAD, a software related to technical drawings,…

“Khujli,” answers Ratna Pathak Shah. The itch. The question: what has kept the theatre group Motley going for 40 years? “Another reason is that it’s the only place where you can train as an actor,” she adds. “How do you work on your craft or on your mind and soul as an actor? In cheap comedies or soap operas?” Naseeruddin Shah mutters “brain damage”. “Or shoot for one bad movie after another,” he says. “Theatre saved my sanity. Because one could engage with worthwhile writing instead of the rubbish one was doing in the movies.” On a rainy Mumbai morning, the Shahs, between rehearsals in the basement of an auditorium in Dadar, reflect on the history of Motley and what keeps it going. It all started in 1978 when Naseeruddin…

THE OFFICE Some of the humour might be lost in translation, but this Indian adaptation of The Office has gotten its casting right. It’ll make you giggle, if not guffaw. Hotstar COMICSTAAN The first three episodes of Comicstaan’s Season 2 will release on July 12 and, going by the trailer, one can expect the comedy talent hunt to be even more of a riot. Amazon Prime KUNG FU PANDA: THE PAWS OF DESTINY It’s hard to have enough of Po. Season 1B of the show will see the winsome panda further train four cherubic kiddie pandas to fulfil their Kung Fu destinies. Aww! Amazon Prime…

Q. Most filmmakers like to take time to tell a story. You return from a nine-year hiatus with two 10-second Facebook ‘Thumbstopper’ films. It was happenstance. The idea was to create a social impact and illustrate that duration is not crucial to show some kind of change. We are in an age where we are fighting for the finite attention of audiences. As people making stories, it is important to understand what that is doing to narratives themselves and how we look at visuals. Q. Do you wonder how some directors end up making a film a year? Most directors who are prolific have a team of writers working for them. The heavy lifting is done by someone else or they are making substandard films. Consistent high-quality work is rare,…