Innholdsfortegnelse for June 8, 2020 i India Today

India is a country that makes you weep at periodic intervals. This is because of the suffering one gets to witness, caused either by natural calamities or man-made ones like government policies, communal hatred and caste prejudices. The past several days have been such a time. In my 45 years of journalism, I have not seen such mass misery. Since the imposition of the world’s harshest lockdown on March 25 in the wake of the Covid pandemic, the country has seen the most searing and heart-breaking images of thousands of migrants trekking back to their villages and towns, driven by fear, or loss of livelihood, or both, in what could be one of the biggest displacements of humans on the planet this century. The fact that thousands have now made…

The announcements relating to fundamental reforms in India’s agricultural markets were a particular highlight of Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s recent stimulus-cum-reforms package, delivered in five instalments. Most commentators have received the agri reforms, three in particular, quite effusively: the decision to amend the Essential Commodities Act (ECA), 1955; a national law for agricultural markets; and a legal framework to enable contract farming. Ever since India embarked on economic reforms in 1991, agricultural market reforms have been a vexatious issue. A big challenge is that both ‘agriculture’ and ‘market’ are state subjects, even though the Centre has overarching powers, via Article 301, to ensure that trade within the country is free of barriers. Thus, state-specific laws under the Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee (APMC) Acts regulate agricultural trade within states. These…

Social net Establish social security boards for unorganised workers with simple registration methods like self-registration through mobile SMS. Digitise records for portability of protection and benefits Food security Allow portability of Public Distribution System benefits following the digitisation of beneficiary lists and/ or their linkage with Aadhaar, to enable delinking of individuals from households Healthcare Provide portable healthcare via the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana and the Employees’ State Insurance, with the focus on covering contract/ unorganised workers to provide benefits under the Unorganised Workers’ Social Security Act. Integrated Child Development Services centres should also expand their outreach to include migrant women and children Skill development Allow migrants access to skill programmes in urban areas. Remove existing domicile restrictions and ensure that skill programmes supported by the Union budget do not…

MOST ANALYSTS OF THE 1962 India-China conflict agree that Beijing chose its moment well as the attention of the then superpowers, the United States and erstwhile Soviet Union, was riveted on their rivalry around the Cuban missile crisis. As summer 2020 witnesses renewed India-China tensions on their contested border, observers wonder how the international situation will impact the relationship. The world is reeling from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The public health crisis is the worst seen in over a century. Most countries remain in various stages of lockdown, with recessionary effects on their economies. Even before the pandemic, the two largest economies, the United States and China, were in the throes of a trade and technology war. COVID-19 has only sharpened the schism. Today, two-thirds of the American…

In one of the new rabbit holes created by the lockdown, I stumbled upon the excellent series of videos made by Corey D’Augustine of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, where he makes pictures while following the painting processes of different artists from the canon of modern Western art. Among the thick-pigmented, turbo-elbowed methods of various male masters of the 20th century, D’Augustine spends one video examining the way American painter Agnes Martin created her body of work. It’s only when you see the things up close, or when someone like D’Augustine reminds you, do you note that the grids and straight bands are hand-drawn by Martin, using pencil or pen and rulers, producing all sorts of bumps, tiny detours and imperfections. It’s only when you spend some time…

Charlie Dreams of Escape, Ape Echoes + The Commons, Inalab Mumbai-based Ape Echoes’ album and New Delhi-headquartered Inalab’s EP defy genre-lisation. Their releases combine elements of electronic music, funk, hip-hop, jazz, pop, rock and soul (and in the case of Inalab, even Indian and western classical music), without turning it all into a hodgepodge. Instead, somehow the songs emerge with a whole that’s greater than the sum of its parts. Ghar: Sounds of Raw Mango, Various Artists The country’s indie and folk and classical music scenes rarely come together. They converge on this album, which was put together by designer clothing brand Raw Mango to celebrate its tenth anniversary, with the help of composer-vocalist Suryakant Sawhney aka electronic music producer Lifafa and the frontman of rock band Peter Cat Recording…

Karnataka’s law and parliamentary affairs minister J.C. Madhuswamy was recently pulled up by chief minister B.S. Yediyurappa after he was caught abusing a woman farmer on camera during his visit to Kolar district. The minister was heard abusing the woman who questioned him about the encroachment around Kolar lake. Madhuswamy has since issued a half-hearted apology, but his bursts of anger—aimed at citizens and journalists alike—are routine. Maybe a warning from the CM will calm him down.…

#To protect the interest of migrants, India has State Migrant Workmen (Regulation of Employment and Condition of Service) Act, 1979. The Central Industrial Relations Machinery is entrusted with the responsibility to enforce these provisions. Between 2016 and 2019, 23,908 inspections by authorities found 267,040 irregularities, but resulted in just 5,839 convictions (2.1 per cent) #While the Building and Other Construction Workers (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1996, prescribes minimum safety standards and conditions of employment for construction workers, the states have a Building & Other Construction Workers’ Welfare Fund. As per the Union labour ministry, they have Rs 52,000 crore at their disposal in this fund. The Centre asked them to spend Rs 31,000 crore to mitigate the Covid impact. Of 510 million construction workers, only 350…

With the country in the grip of the coronavirus and a lockdown extended thrice, even the gods are feeling a little deprived. In Tirumala, easily India’s most popular religious shrine, with some 80,000 pilgrims visiting it daily before the lockdown, the deity, Lord Venkateshwara, stopped giving darshan from March 21 as Covid fears rose. But denying access to the devout comes at a very high price. The Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD), managers of India’s richest Hindu temple, lose nearly Rs 7 crore a day from the hundi collection, accommodation and sale of tickets, not to mention the delectable prasad of the Tirumala laddoos. If the Covid-related restrictions continue through June, the TTD could stand to lose close to Rs 600 crore. The TTD, though, can dip into its reserves without…

While previous flashpoints over ‘differing perceptions of the LAC’ have been settled on an average in three weeks, the scale of the current incursions suggests this needn’t always be the case 2020 STAND-OFF May 5 PANGONG LAKE PLA troops intrude and occupy areas near the lake. Indian troops injured in scuffle with them. Early May GALWAN VALLEY Several hundred Chinese troops intrude 4-5 km deep into the valley, obstruct a road being constructed by India. They erect tents and set up camps.…

The COVID-19 outbreak and the national lockdown that has followed have inflicted deep financial wounds on people. Scores have lost their jobs and equally high numbers of workers have had to take pay cuts. Entrepreneurs have suffered heavy losses or shut down their businesses. Then there are those who have been infected by the virus itself. Crises like these invariably force people to make unexpected withdrawals from their investment corpus, as not everyone maintains an ‘emergency fund’. However, the choice of the investment to be encashed needs to be wise and one must look beyond conventional ideas, such as encashing fixed deposits (FDs), redeeming mutual funds or selling gold jewellery. Here are some of the best options available to meet financial exigencies. WITHDRAWAL FROM EPF, PPF THE GOVERNMENT HAS ALLOWED…

Nearly 15 years ago, Viineet Kumar was initiated into horror with the role of a ghost in a TV show. Today, he has returned to the genre as a zombie slayer in the Netflix series, Betaal. The show, which sees him as a gun-toting action hero, is a departure of sorts. Kumar is largely known for playing relatable, earnest characters from the hinterland. The series, he however insists, is not far-fetched. “It is not usual, but it gradually becomes believable,” he says. “You can see things that are contemporarily relevant.” Ever since his portrayal of a struggling boxer in Anurag Kashyap’s Mukkabaaz (2017), a film he wrote with his sister Mukti, and gave four years of his life to, Kumar’s career has been looking up. The year 2019 saw his…

Like with any great tragedy, we know the end. Henry VIII will turn on his beloved advisor, Thomas Cromwell, and have him beheaded. But the gory spectacles of history are not what preoccupy Hilary Mantel, whose acclaimed historical trilogy has finally reached its conclusion. The Mirror & the Light comes eight years after Bring Up the Bodies, the previous book in the double-Booker-winning series. The finesse and complexity of the last book, however, make it well worth the wait. It is not a novel weighed down by historical detail, precisely researched as it is. Rather, it is a plunge into the darkest, most tender corners of Cromwell’s mind. “Now we live in an age of coercion, where the king’s will is an instrument reshaped each morning,” Cromwell says early on—a…

Q. During the lockdown, you’ve been putting finishing touches to the Netflix film Serious Men and the second season of Hostages for Hotstar. How hard has it been? For people like us who have grown up in another time, it’s hard, but, thankfully, I’m blessed with tech-savvy assistants who take into account my old-fashioned quirks. Luckily, I had finished shooting and editing both these projects before the lockdown. We will, for instance, deliver Hostages very soon. Q. Everyone speaks of ‘a new normal’ these days, but do you think the COVID-19 crisis will also engineer a new realism for cinema? During this time, we have all needed to drop pretence. We’re all discovering who we really are. Those of us who write about the time in which we live are…

The main thesis of Abhinav Chandrachud’s Republic of Religion is that the structure of Indian secularism was built by a hypocritical, imperial British state which separated itself from Indian religions more from revulsion than principle. While England had an established religion, no religion was established in India. English government officials were entangled with the administration of churches, but kept away from the management of Indian temples. The colonial state prevented conversions back home, but allowed them in India. It refused to grant sociocultural or political rights to its own religious minorities, but in pursuit of an opportunistic policy of divide and rule, it permitted separate personal laws and electorates for Muslims in India. This ‘colonial secularism’ was modified by the makers of the Indian Constitution. They ‘softened’ it with various…

“The movement of individuals shall remain ‘strictly prohibited’ between 7 pm and 7 am except for essential activities…” —Ministry of Home Affairs circular, as reported by INDIA TODAY, May 17 The circular offered ‘relief for migrant workers by allowing inter-state movement of passenger vehicles and buses’ (IF two neighbouring states could agree on it). But said nothing about the millions voting with their feet on the highways. Those curfew hours condemned them to walking between 7 am and 7 pm in the hottest phase of summer, with temperatures touching 47 degrees Celsius. A month earlier, Jamlo, a 12-year-old Adivasi girl, working in the chilli fields of Telangana, set out on foot to reach her home in Chhattisgarh after the lockdown halted work and income. This child walked 140 km in…

April 2013 DAULAT BEG OLDIE On April 15, 2013, 40 PLA soldiers intruded into Indian territory for about 20 km in Daulat Beg Oldie. It led to flag meetings between local commanders; Indian envoy in Beijing involved in de-escalation. Resolution time: Three weeks April-May 2013 CHUMAR Hours after pulling back from Daulat Beg Oldie, Chinese troops came back in Chumar area—300 PLA troops camped, objected to tin shed structures put up by Indian forces. They said that as per the deal agreed during the last stand-off, India had to dismantle the sheds Resolution time: Three weeks September 2014 DEMCHOK Indian troops found Chinese troops building a road inside Indian territory. Resolution time: Twenty days…

• Exhaust your emergency fund or investments not linked to your key goals first • EPF subscribers can withdraw up to three months of their basic salary or 75 per cent of their account balance, whichever is less • PPF subscribers can make partial withdrawals from the seventh year onwards • One can withdraw up to 25 per cent of the corpus from the National Pension System (NPS) account after three years of subscription to the scheme • Instead of liquidating goal-linked investments, you can take a loan or advance against them • You can take loan against your PPF account or FDs • Loan against stocks, mutual funds and bonds are available from banks and NBFCs at 9-12 per cent interest rate • Take loan against physical gold or…

Everyone saw it coming. Rumours were abound that Bollywood producers were contemplating taking the direct-to-digital route for some of their films. Producer Bhushan Kumar had told INDIA TODAY (‘Cinema, Interrupted’, in issue dated May 11) that he was in talks with a few OTT platforms to premiere his medium-budget, concept-driven fare. Then came the big blow theatre owners had feared. Director Shoojit Sircar and producers Ronnie Lahiri and Sheel Kumar took one of 2020’a most anticipated films, Gulabo Sitabo,starringAmitabh Bachchan and Ayushmann Khurrana, to Amazon Prime Video. Calling it a part of the evolution of film business, Lahiri was happy to have the film dubbed in 12 foreign languages for release in 200 countries. “It’s like the parantha is hot and ready to serve. Why keep it for later?” he…