Innholdsfortegnelse for February 24, 2020 i India Today

The political journey of Arvind Kejriwal is a fascinating story. He has been on our cover six times in the short span of seven years. I must confess I was quite taken by him when he launched his party—the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)—and fought his first election in December 2013. I wrote in my letter from the editor at that time: “His sudden emergence as a possible game-changer in the forthcoming Delhi assembly election has made him a symbol of hope for the aam aadmi, who believes that he will deliver a land free from corruption and self-serving politicians.” The former IRS officer turned social activist managed to come to power in alliance with the Congress, but his government lasted only 49 days because of his political naivete. Then, in…

12-14 MONTHS The time for which former J&K chief ministers Mehbooba Mufti and Omar Abdullah, among others, can be held without even charges framed against them under the erstwhile state’s Public Security Act. They have already been held for six months without charges. The prime minister quoted a satirical website’s words as if they were those of Abdullah, while the police’s justifications to hold both Abdullah and Mufti would be comical if they weren’t so disturbingly serious 44 EVENTS starred home minister Amit Shah in the last 13 days of poll campaigning in Delhi, including 35 rallies and 9 road shows. Shah’s invective, and a poisonous cameo by UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath, may have helped the BJP up its vote share, but couldn’t stave off a thorough drubbing at…

Ask any Indian about Balochistan and chances are they’ll claim ignorance. To most, especially the post-Partition generation, Balochistan is not part of their common geography. This alone makes Tilak Devasher’s book relevant and timely. Partition’s historiography of the past 70 years and its inevitability suited the British and the dispensations that acquiesced to it. But the territory of Balochistan and the NWFP, in fact, never chose to align with Pakistan. Kashmir, too, sided with India. And till March 1947, the Unionist Party, not the Muslim League, ruled Punjab. The deliberate narrative of India’s Partition, of its inevitability, has only lent credence to Jinnah’s two-nation theory. Devasher, especially in Balochistan’s context, questions this historiography. And rightly so. It was on the same day, August 15, 1947, that Kalat also declared its…

On February 7, Union minister for agriculture Narendra Singh Tomar informed the Rajya Sabha that almost 170,000 hectares of crop in Rajasthan and Gujarat had been damaged by locust swarms in the past few months, with about 80 per cent of the damage reported from Rajasthan. As much as 88 per cent of affected land saw crop loss of 33 per cent or more, with almost 135,000 hectares in Rajasthan sustaining severe damage. Although this problem has been months in the making, its arrival in India seems to have caught officials unprepared. Locust swarms were first reported as migrating east from Yemen, Saudi Arabia and southwest Iran as early as January 2019, with early reports of their arrival in India in May. Nonetheless, the central and state governments spent the…

On January 14, Tamil superstar Rajinikanth targeted the Dravidar Kazhagam (DK)—the springboard that launched both the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK)—by criticising party ideologue, the revered late ‘Periyar’ E.V. Ramasamy. Rajini’s focus was on Periyar’s distaste for Hindu deities and forms of worship. Expectedly, the Dravidian parties took umbrage, but the superstar refused to back down. On February 5, the actor and wannabe politician called the media to declare that certain political parties were instigating protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act or CAA for political gains and that the National Population Register (NPR) was “very essential”. Just so happens that the release of a new Rajini-starrer— Thalaivar 168—is round the corner, and a cursory look at the script of the past couple…

1 There is still no better poll plank than development. Delhi’s electorate rewarded Kejriwal for his government’s performance in education, healthcare, delivery of welfare schemes and for its corruption-free image 2 Nationalistic issues, such as abrogation of Article 370 and Pakistan, raised by the BJP, and religious polarisation do not work in assembly elections—as has also been evident in the Maharashtra, Haryana and Jharkhand elections 3 A strong regional leadership or anti-incumbency can successfully challenge the Narendra Modi-Amit Shah juggernaut in the states, where voters recognise they will not be voting for the prime minister. Apart from Delhi, the trend has been visible in eight state elections since December 2018 4 While the BJP boasts the most popular leader in Modi, it has yet to groom charismatic second-rung leaders in…

1 TIWARI CAN’T DO THE DANCE Delhi BJP president and actor Manoj Tiwari just did not inspire confidence, especially taking on someone as powerful as AAP chief Kejriwal 2 TAKE THE LOCAL ROUTE Issues of national security, J&K and even the Ram Mandir do not resonate in a state election; the party should have stuck to local issues 3 DELHI IS STILL TOO FAR The party has to rebuild the state unit from scratch, get in grassroots leaders in top positions and not rely so heavily on ‘managers’…

A year before the Olympic Winter Games in 2018, Vishwaraj Jadeja was training hard when he slammed into the ice. He didn’t think much of the pain, for the speed ice skater had training to attend to. A month later, he crashed again and, this time, he had cracked his patella, dislocated his ribs in two places and suffered tissue damage in his lower back, which put paid to his Olympic dream. He was away from competitive action for the next 18 months. A lot was at stake then, as the 34-year-old lined up at the start line of the Winter World Masters Games in Innsbruck, Austria, last month. Coming home with a medal at the world stage was top priority for Jadeja and as he picked up silver in…

Hindi cinema, in its hundred-odd years of existence, has relentlessly milked the lovers-who-fight-with-their-families-to-be-together formula. Writer-director Hitesh Kewalya rehashes that potion in Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan (SMZS), albeit with a twist: his romance involves two men (played by Ayushmann Khurrana and Jitendra Kumar). “The LGBTQ community has to fight many battles, but the one with the family is the biggest,” says Kewalya. “They are fighting the world with all its biases, and they need the family by their side. If the family understands them, it’s the biggest validation.” In SMZS, Kumar’s Aman struggles to come out to his parents (Gajraj Rao and Neena Gupta) while Khurrana’s Kartik embraces his alternative sexuality. SMZS isn’t the first Hindi film to have homosexual protagonists. Fire (1996) and My Brother...Nikhil (2005) were two of the…

True Colours Maharashtra tourism minister Aaditya Thackeray has mooted the idea of painting the signboards and name plates of the streets and establishments in south Mumbai’s Fort area the same colour. He also wants to open the heritage Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation headquarters to tourists on weekends to give them a rare glimpse of the cabins of the mayor and municipal commissioner. A few years ago, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee painted Kolkata blue, while Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath turned Lucknow saffron. There is curiosity over Aaditya’s choice of colour, especially since his father, Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, said on February 10 that he will never change his saffron colour. Truth to Pawar In his fourth term as Maharashtra deputy chief minister, Ajit Pawar is a changed man.…

In April 2016, Chandigarh police arrested management graduate Anurag Awasthi and his engineer partner, Pratham Gupta, for setting up an e-commerce site offering home delivery of liquor. Within three months of the launch, it had become a hit. The duo told the cops they had tied up with local vendors and were able to deliver liquor in Chandigarh, Panchkula and Mohali within 30 minutes of an order. Some four years later, the two are still facing trial even as the Punjab government has decided to test the model. The new excise policy has zeroed in on Mohali to try out the online delivery model. Punjab, known for its ‘Patiala pegs’, with annual per capita consumption at 7.9 litres, is next only to Kerala (8.4 litres) in its fondness for liquor.…

A little more than a year into its term, the Kamal Nath government has begun the process of replacing state DGP (director general of police) V.K. Singh, who took over at the end of January 2019 as the second DGP to serve this government. This has triggered a political storm, with opposition BJP legislators accusing the government of ‘targeting honest officers’. True or not, there is certainly a shake-up taking place—on February 10, 52 IPS officers in the state were transferred, many of them within six months to a year of assuming office. There are many theories about why the state government is looking to replace the DGP. One possible flashpoint is the tussle between the IAS and the IPS over an incident on January 19. On that day, at…

Born in Haryana’s Siwani on August 16, 1968. Father Gobind Ram Kejriwal was an electrical engineer Joins IIT-Kharagpur in 1985 to study mechanical engineering; joins Tata Steel in 1989 and is posted in Jamshedpur. Resigns in 1992 and spends time doing social service with the Missionaries of Charity in Kolkata, the Ramakrishna Mission in the Northeast and the Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan Joins the Indian Revenue Service (IRS) in 1995 In December 1999, while working in the income tax department, Kejriwal, along with Manish Sisodia, launches the NGO Parivartan to address citizens’ grievances related to the PDS, public works, social welfare schemes, income tax and electricity In November 2000, takes a work sabbatical to focus on Parivartan In 2001, the Delhi government enacts a statelevel Right to Information (RTI) Act.…

Scribbled on the back of a landing, positioned so that you see them walking down the stairs while leaving Suñatã Samantã: Emptiness Equality, are two scraps of text in Hindi and Urdu. Some may try to read the Hindi, but it is gibberish, empty of meaning (suñatã). Those who read Urdu, however, realise the Devanagari is backwards, meant to be read right to left, like Nastaliq. It’s only by placing the Urdu reflection on an equal footing (samantã) that the words are revealed: the first two lines of Faiz Ahmad Faiz’s Hum Dekhenge, currently one of the touchstone anthems for anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act protesters. We will see, argue the words, if we know how to look beyond what’s easy and obvious. The exhibition, curated by publisher and author S. Anand,…

Q. You were 13 when the first Love Aaj Kal came out. Did you visit your father on set? I did, but I don’t remember anything of consequence. But once I decided I wanted to be an actress, I knew I wanted to work with Imtiaz Ali for the way he portrays romance and, more specifically, women who are so real, relatable, so nuanced and so grey. Q. Ali says your character, Zoe, carries the burdens of the ‘past relationship’... My character is listening to the story from the past and reacting to it, changing her behaviour. We are all influenced by the relationships we see around us. You do get affected. For instance, my mother [Amrita Singh] is a single parent... I can’t say it hasn’t changed my worldview.…

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has deployed yet another credit tool to boost credit growth in auto and housing loans and loans to micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). These are sectors that are known to have a multiplier effect on other sectors, such as steel, cement and construction. The RBI has done this by giving banks exemption, for a five-year period, from maintaining a cash reserve ratio (CRR) of 4 per cent of their deposits against incremental loans disbursed to select segments, such as auto and housing. The exemption window is open for a six-month period, ending July 2020. CRR is the money deposited with the RBI, on which banks do not earn interest. The purpose of maintaining CRR is to create a safety cushion for bank deposits.…

Having drawn a blank in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, Lalu Prasad Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) is keen to reinvent itself before the assembly election later this year. The focus, says a senior leader, is to expand the party’s base, which has long been seen as “a party of Muslims and Yadavs”. Leader of the opposition and Lalu’s chosen heir Tejashwi Yadav said as much on February 9 when he described the RJD as a party of “A to Z”, and not just of some caste and communities. The RJD’s vote bank of Muslims and Yadavs has repeatedly failed to stop Nitish As part of this plan, the RJD has given 45 per cent “reservation” to members of Scheduled Castes and Tribes and the Extremely Backward Classes (EBCs) in…

FASHIONABLY NEW Akanksha Kaila Akashi, 29 Founder, REFASH, Mumbai www.refash.in In what might well be described as turning old into gold, Akanksha Kaila Akashi took her venture of upcycled fashion and accessories, REFASH, from a start-up with an investment of Rs 2 lakh to a business with a turnover of Rs 15 lakh in less than two years. “It’s a platform where we sell products from designers and creative artisans who create new products out of old, discarded materials,” says Akashi who started in 2017. Her enterprise has built a database of over 200 upcycling brands including Vie from Chennai, Waste No More from the US and Retro Upcycle from Pakistan, and makes clothes, accessories, shoes and stationery. LONG LASTING An alumnus of the University of the Arts London, where…

In a particularly moving bit from Animal Intimacies, a cow named Chanduli has stopped giving milk and is sold off. She cries loudly as she is taken away. Back in the house, Mamta, who is deeply attached to Chanduli, is overcome with sorrow. She suspects the cow will be slaughtered. But in addition to her sorrow, there is a certain hard-edged pragmatism: it had become hard to go on caring for Chanduli, and there’s the mitigating factor that she was only a Jersey cow with a diminished ritual status compared to a local pahari cow. Life must go on. Human life is bound with that of other animals among us. This entanglement is highly localised in its texture, being some function of human culture, history, landscape, climate, and social, economic…

Artist Shambhavi Singh is showing her work after a period of five years, unusually, in two solo exhibitions in Delhi—Bhoomi and Bhurukuwa/ Dawn. Both display a range of sculptural work by the Patna-born artist who draws from her childhood memories of riverine, pastoral landscapes in Bihar and current concerns. Bhoomi, with large-scale metal sculptures, expands upon work that was shown at the Kochi Biennale in 2018 and in her last solo, Reaper’s Melody, in 2015. Handmade agrarian tools like sickles and water troughs used in traditional irrigation methods,like rehat, retain a memory of their symbolic value as utilitarian objects in sculptures defined by the material they are made of. The best examples of this are ‘Reerdha. Spine’, a snaking column of water troughs and rusting strips of metal, and ‘Chiriya…