Innholdsfortegnelse for February 3, 2020 i India Today

Maharashtra’s three-party coalition has seen a diverse array of portraits on the walls of state ministers in Mumbai’s Mantralaya. As per protocol, portraits of the president and prime minister are mandatory, but not of ministers, which is just as well in a state where coalitions have been the norm for 25 years. Sena ministers have pictures of Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and his son Aaditya, while for Congress ministers, it is Sonia Gandhi. NCP ministers have installed portraits of party president Sharad Pawar and deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar. In a first, minister of state Aditi Tatkare has installed a portrait of NCP leader Supriya Sule in her office. BLOW COLD Shiv Sainiks are perplexed by the cold shoulder their leader Aaditya Thackeray is said to have got when he…

Sometime next month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will welcome US President Donald Trump on his first state visit to India. Among the highlights of the Trump trip will be a sequel to the rapturous ‘Howdy, Modi!’ event organised in Houston, Texas, in September last year which saw the two heads of state walking hand-in-hand before a crowd of nearly 50,000 people of Indian origin. The next US presidential elections are just 10 months away. While Trump’s domestic approval ratings remain high despite facing an impeachment in the US Senate, he needs all the help he can get. A rub-off from the Modi effect among the small but influential Indian-American community would be greatly welcomed. Some 45 per cent of the respondents feel that India’s relations with the US have improved…

A retirement corpus is a critical saving, for it decides whether you will lead a comfortable retired life or not. But how much is enough? Well, there is no one-size-fits-all solution to this as the number differs for each individual on the basis of income and its growth, expenses and their growth, the stage of life one is in, lifestyle, number of dependants, assets in hand, future liabilities, future goals and so on. All this involves complex calculations and sometimes, even financial planners fail to get it right. However, with educated assumptions and a focus on the goal, one can close in on a desired reserve. EYE ON THE FUTURE By the time retirement rolls in, many recurring expenses like those related to asset accumulation and children may be substantially…

In 1964, when Vinod Kapur invited Girija Devi to sing in his Bareilly house, he barely had any interest in music. She, too, hadn’t made it big yet. “She was no Begum Akhtar,” says Kapur. At four in the morning, however, when the vocalist asked Kapur if she should keep singing, he had to shake off his immersion. For nearly eight hours, Kapur and his guests sat cross-legged, captivated by a music they felt more than understood. “I was submerged.” “With the doors of classical music having opened,” Kapur ritualised the informal Hindustani baithak, inviting artists to his Panchsheel home in Delhi, the India Habitat Centre basement and, eventually, his Gurgaon farm. “I like that you have to take off your shoes and sit on the floor. In 1998, when…

On his globe-trotting travels over the past few years, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has frequently wooed foreign investors in the hope of bringing more foreign direct investment (FDI) into India. On January 15, when Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos announced a fresh investment of $1 billion into the country over the next five years, it appeared Modi’s untiring foreign trips were not wasted, after all. However, the very next day, commerce minister Piyush Goyal stunned many by making light of the announcement, reportedly saying that it wasn’t as if Amazon was “doing a great favour to India”, and that the investment was probably to cover losses. “How can a marketplace make such a big loss,” asked Goyal, “unless they are indulging in predatory pricing or some unfair trade practices? These are…

The relentless debate around Brexit in the UK is entangled with the never-ending narrative of the British empire. The sun never sets on the empire, so believe those in favour of Britain’s exit from the European Union. The powerful historical link between Britain’s empire and Brexit deserves scrutiny. Priyamvada Gopal’s book is extremely relevant in our present global times. Like the critics and supporters of Brexit, we, in India, too, have opposing views on the empire. But, blaming and praising are both sides of the same coin. In fact, Britain’s imperial project was not benevolent. Violence was fundamental to its very existence. Connecting the voices of dissent and rebellion in India, West Asia, Africa, the West Indies and their resounding echoes in Britain, Gopal tells an extraordinary story. Resistance to…

Soon after assuming office as Maharashtra deputy chief minister on December 30, 2019, Ajit Pawar demanded that his allotted office in Mantralaya be changed. The cabin he had been assigned, #602, is considered ‘inauspicious’. Three former occupants—Eknath Khadse, Pandurang Fundkar and Anil Bonde—have suffered political setbacks as incumbents. (However, Pawar brushed aside the suggestion that he was being superstitious, saying, “I chose another cabin [to be closer] to the chief secretary’s—if the chief minister calls a meeting, it’ll be more convenient for me to attend.”) Pawar looks to be attempting an image makeover to establish himself as an inclusive leader and stern administrator. On the first count, on January 1, despite being an advocate of Maratha dominance, Pawar made a point to travel to Koregaon-Bhima to pay homage to Dalit…

For the past month or so, India has witnessed a growing swell of protests against the Narendra Modi government’s stand on the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, the National Population Register (NPR) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC). Cutting across all sorts of social divisions, citizens have been vocal in their opposition of a new law, a new policy drift that seems to strike at the country’s constitutional commitment to diversity and inclusion. At one such nationwide student protest in the second week of December, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi-Vadra tried to join a group of protesters assembled at Delhi’s India Gate. She was booed away. The message was categorical: even while taking on the Modi-led BJP government, the young protesters were not willing to throw in their lot with…

There was a time when a government scheme could be launched simply by handing over a giant cheque to a grateful-looking recipient. Prime Minister Narendra Modi changed all that. In 2016, for example, when he launched the Ujjwala Yojana in eastern Uttar Pradesh, which targeted handing out 80 million free LPG connections by 2020, he picked his media opportunities with care. The picture of him handing over a cardboard gas cylinder to a burkha-clad woman four years ago is still circulated as proof of his commitment towards the social upliftment of women, Muslims and the poor. His drive to promote the Bharatiya Janata Party’s various social measures is alive to this day. Three months ago, at a beach in Tamil Nadu’s Mamallapuram, Modi went plogging. On Twitter, three million people…

An ‘index’ is a grouping of stocks, based on factors like the market cap of those stocks or the sector they are a part of, such as IT, pharmaceuticals or banking. An ‘index fund’ is a mutual fund that only invests in stocks listed in a specific index, and in a similar proportion to those stocks’ representation in that index. In an ideal case, therefore, these funds deliver returns similar to the index as a whole. These funds are also often known as ‘passive funds’, because they do not require active management by fund managers. In active funds, managers aim to generate higher returns than the category benchmark. However, with the re-categorisation of mutual funds schemes in 2018 by market regulator Sebi, stricter asset allocation limits have been imposed on…

Vasant Panchami Sangeethotsav Chowdiah Memorial Hall, Bengaluru January 29—February 2 Carnatic and Hindustani musicians will together celebrate the advent of spring at this five-day-long festival. The line-up boasts of Niladri Kumar, Kaushiki Chakraborty and violinist R. Kumaresh Swara Samrat Festival Nazrul Manch, Kolkata February 13 Sarod exponent Pandit Tejendra Narayan Majumdar will come together with Ustad Zakir Hussain on the tabla to celebrate the contributions of greats like Ustad Ali Akbar Khan and Pandit Ravi Shankar Shradhanjali Tata Theatre, NCPA, Mumbai January 30 On the death anniversary of his father Ustad Haafiz Ali Khan, sarod maestro Amjad Ali Khan will take the stage to honour his memory and legacy. His sons Amaan and Ayaan Ali Bangash will also join him…

On January 16, the Supreme Court rejected a plea by Indian telcos asking it to review its decision on October 24, 2019, to uphold the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) definition of ‘adjusted gross revenue’ (AGR). This definition is central to determining the licence fees Indian telecom operators owe the DoT. As a result, telcos found themselves holding a combined bill of around Rs 1.47 lakh crore, of which Rs 1.02 lakh crore was owed by three firms—Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea and Tata Teleservices. Adding to the crisis was the fact that the Supreme Court had set a three-month deadline—expiring on January 23, 2020—for this payment. As a result, the rejection of the review petition on January 16 appeared to be the end of the road for at least one—Vodafone Idea—which…

Jagat Prakash Nadda’s uncontested elevation on January 20 from ‘working’ president to national president of the BJP was on expected lines. To fill Amit Shah’s shoes won’t be easy and 59-year-old Nadda will invariably find himself being compared with his predecessor, who transformed the party into an electoral behemoth which, at one point, ruled 20 states along with its allies. However, there have been many setbacks since, and five states have slipped out of the party’s grasp. The new BJP chief will have to hit the ground running. He has to course-correct the party’s poll strategy and try to get it back to winning ways in time for the assembly elections in Bihar, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh. Shah took over the BJP’s reins in July 2014. When he joined…

If you thought Dilip Ghosh would pay the price for shooting off his mouth on the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, think again. Ghosh, under whose watch the BJP notched a spectacular tally in the 2019 general election—18 of the state’s 42 seats and a 40 per cent vote share—was re-elected state BJP president on January 16. THE PARTY, SAYS A BJP LEADER, HAD LONG PONDERED GHOSH’S ELECTION, BUT FOUND NO OTHER OPTION Ghosh was roundly criticised within his own party for first calling CAA protesters “spineless devils and parasites” and then asking for them to be “shot like dogs”. The central leadership apparently cautioned him, the Union minister of state for environment, forests and climate change Babul Supriyo dissociated himself and his party from Ghosh’s comments while BJP state vice president…

Barely eight months ago, a pall of gloom hung over the Opposition parties when the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) swept the 2019 Lok Sabha election with 353 seats, including 303 for the BJP, its highest tally ever. Today, with new activism in the air, the opposition parties are a much more enthused lot. Two currents—one emanating from the east and other from the west—have gathered enough tailwinds to propel a grand coalition (mahagathbandhan) of opposition parties into a confrontation with the Narendra Modi-led central government. The eastern current emerges from Assam where a flawed National Register of Citizens (NRC) effectively declared 1.9 million Indians “stateless”. In both Assam and Tripura, the resultant churn led to violent protests, suspension of internet and train services and deployment of army units. The…

Does good politics translate into good economics? Not necessarily, at least in the Indian context. The team of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and home minister Amit Shah might have seemed unstoppable in winning elections and delivering on audacious political promises but there has been a sweeping sense of disappointment on the economic front—be it new jobs (he promised 10 million a year in his 2014 campaign), making a go of ‘Make in India’, simplifying taxes or strategic disinvestment in state-owned enterprises. Seven months into its second term, the Modi government is faced with a tottering economy. Although the government was initially in denial, the fall in GDP to 5 per cent in the first quarter of this financial year and subsequently to 4.5 per cent seem to have stirred it…

Home loans come with some of the lowest interest rates on offer. They even allow for tax deduction benefits on repayment of the principal amount and interest due. As a result, if you have a home loan at the current interest rate of around 8 per cent and you fall in the higher income tax slab of 30 per cent, your effective interest rate be below 6 per cent. However, most people also seek to be debt-free. So does it make sense to make prepayments and pay off your loan as soon as you can afford it? The answer depends on many factors, such as income stability and growth and the scope of your investment goals. WHEN TO AVOID Given the low interest rates and the tax advantages, if you…

Director Kabir Khan’s latest offering, The Forgotten Army, an Amazon Prime series, comes with the tagline ‘Azadi Ke Liye’. An alumnus of Jamia Millia Islamia University, Khan grew up on the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) campus. His father taught political science there. The question asks itself. What does he make of the several ‘azadi’ chants that have resounded in campuses across the country to protest against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC)? Khan simply quotes a dialogue from his upcoming show. “Azadi kayam rahne ki jo ladai hai, woh aur bhi mushkil hai, aur woh tumhari ladai hai (The fight to hold on to freedom is tougher, and that’s your fight),” he says. “We are making films about people who contributed towards getting that…