Innholdsfortegnelse for September 14, 2020 i India Today

For the past five months, we have been inundated by news that falls into just four categories—the corona pandemic, the conflict with China on the LAC in Ladakh, the shrinking economy and the controversy around Sushant Singh Rajput’s death. All bad news, and all still on the news radar because they all remain unresolved. This issue, we move away from these four topics and bring you a powerful story in which there has been substantial progress. February 14, 2019, is a day that will forever live in infamy. Not just because a suicide bomber rammed his explosives-laden car into a CRPF convoy in Pulwama, killing 40 troopers, but also because it pushed India and Pakistan to the brink of war. The Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), a terrorist group founded by Maulana Masood…

Uttar Pradesh Congress president Ajay Kumar alias Lallu is the go-to guy for sit-down protests and dharnas. During the lockdown in UP, Lallu was the only leader who was out on the streets, agitating on public issues. Between April and August, he staged over half a dozen dharnas in Agra, Mirzapur, Lucknow, Varanasi. He was arrested and jailed for a month after his dharna against the government, which had been refusing entry to buses hired by the Congress to ferry migrants. Has it left him chastised, or will he be back on the streets? —Sandeep Unnithan with Romita Datta, Uday Mahurkar, Ashish Misra and Rahul Noronha…

In responding to the Covid-19 pandemic, India imposed one of the most stringent lockdowns anywhere in the world, beginning March 25. “Jaan hai to jahaan hai (life before anything else),” Prime Minister Narendra Modi famously said, rationalising the total lockdown. But the economy, which was already in the midst of a slowdown, paid a very heavy price. Much has been said and written on the economic consequences of the controversial decision, and now the GDP data for the April-June quarter shows the full extent of the damage caused—the economy shrank 23.9 per cent in that period. The manufacturing sector collapsed by 39.3 per cent, while construction activity fell by 50.3 per cent. The trade, hotels, transport and communications sector shrank by 47 per cent, with investment activity declining by 47.1…

In India, entrance exams are a filtration system. The competitive examination system is designed to filter an otherwise unmanageable number of applicants for a limited number of seats in professional technical and medical education institutions. Given what hangs in the balance, the anxiety caused by the Covid pandemic, made worse by postponement of entrance exams, is understandable. Will students ‘miss’ a year? Will they be ineligible to appear for the exam next time? Will the competition be too fierce? Treating 2020 as a ‘gap year’ for students ignores the fact that missing a year has economic consequences most can ill afford With the numbers of Covid cases rising, there were concerns about how to conduct the IIT-JEE and NEET 2020. After two postponements, it was advisedly decided to go ahead…

April 2018 Umar Farooq infiltrates India across the International Border October 30, 2018 Umar’s brother, Usman, is killed in an encounter in Tral November 2018 JeM chief Masood Azhar calls for a revenge attack. Umar begins preparations to purchase explosives December 2018 Cash transfers to Umar’s bank account begin. Safe houses are identified in Pulwama, purchases of explosive materials begin January 20-30, 2019 Car bought and bombs assembled; propaganda video of suicide bomber filmed February 1-5, 2019 Reconnaissance performed of targets February 6, 2019 The attack is postponed because of snowfall February 14, 2019 Pulwama attack Mar. 29, 2019 Umar Farooq is killed in an encounter in Nowgam…

A famous Satyajit Ray film some decades ago captured the Indian self-absorption that shapes its larger awareness of the world. It depicted two Indian nawabs engrossed in a chess game while the British East India Company steadily took over their wealthy kingdom of Awadh. Today, as another global power rises—that too in India’s immediate proximity—this country cannot be oblivious once again to its consequences. Ideally, the emergence of China should serve as an inspiration to sharpen India’s competitive instincts. But at the very least, it should stir a serious debate about the direction of world politics and its implications for us. This is important because in parallel there are other momentous shifts underway. A larger rebalancing was already in evidence, now overlaid by greater regional volatility, higher risk-taking, stronger nationalism…

By far the most acceptable face; still has a lot of goodwill. And then there’s TINA Backed by a formidable alliance; the BJP-JD(U) bagged over 54% of the vote in the 2019 Lok Sabha election Because the biggest threat, an electoral backlash for the handling of the Covid crisis, has diminished as infection rates have fallen and recovery is up past 80 per cent Opposition leader Tejaswi Yadav looks like a weak challenger. And Lalu is still in jail Because the RJD, like the BJP, is still a polarising presence. A great number of voters from other castes are unwilling to back it…

Every avatar I saw him in, Pranabda looked comfortable and in control. There was always an anecdote and a joke to enliven the atmosphere As I look back over the years and flip through innumerable photographs in my physical and digital albums, it comes to mind how much Pranabda was a part of my life. It would be presumptuous to claim that I too was part of his life, for his was a remarkably glorious one, so full and eventful that one wonders how one life could be so rich and varied. I saw him first as my father’s senior minister in the commerce ministry when I carried some important papers he had sought urgently. It was late in the evening and he looked relaxed, puffing on his favourite pipe,…

Released in the West as Burnt Sugar, Avni Doshi’s Girl in White Cotton disrupts and delights in equal measure. Sometimes dark, forever unsettling, the novel unquestionably deserves its place on the Booker long-list. Doshi, for her part, feels “tremendous gratitude” to have been included. “There really is no guarantee that a book will get noticed, especially a debut novel. I feel lucky that my book is reaching readers, I think that is the reception all writers want,” she says over email from Dubai. The Booker shortlist will be announced on September 15, but Doshi insists she isn’t anxious. “I save [my anxiety] for when I sit down to write. I have a newborn and a toddler, I don’t have time to be anxious,” she says. In her book, Avni Doshi…

2020 has been the year for web series to upstage films, both in terms of headlines and hashtags. It has also meant that a host of talented actors finally got their moment in the spotlight. Amit Sial in Jamtara: Sabka Number Aayega, Gulshan Devaiah in Afsos, Vijay Varma in She, Jaideep Ahlawat and Abhishek Banerjee in Paatal Lok, Namit Das in Aarya and Chandan Roy Sanyal in Aashram are just some of the actors that shone in the longer format. Some, like Banerjee, didn’t even need lines to make an impact. They let their menacing eyes do the talking. For Banerjee, better known as a casting director, the streaming format has cut down the “waiting period” for good thespian talent to “establish” themselves. “On web, it’s not about a lead role,”…

Geetanjali Kulkarni As the irritable yet endearing matriarch in a houseful of lazy menin Gullak (SonyLiv), Kulkarni is the soul and spine of this show by The Viral Fever. She’s equally impressive in Taj Mahal 1989 Rasika Dugal Be it Mirzapur(Amazon Prime), DelhiCrime(Netflix) orOut of Love(Disney+ Hotstar), Dugal is a bankable performer who shines irrespective of her screen time Srishti Shrivastava Much before her scene-stealing actinthefilm Gulabo Sitabo, Shrivastava had wowed with her feisty and blunt demeanour on TVF shows such as PA-Gals and Girls Hostel…

For several years, Kishore Biyani, the 59-year-old founder and CEO of the Future Group, would just brush aside the idea that e-commerce was any kind of threat to India’s traditional brick-and-mortar retail business. Credited with pioneering organised retail in the country, he was a firm believer in the Indian shopper’s preference for the touch-and-feel experience of physical shopping. For years, Biyani seemed to be right, at least going by the scenes at his Big Bazaar stores, where people jostled for space on mega sale days. A three-decade veteran in modern retail, Biyani kept expanding his store count, taking the number to 1,800 across formats—apparel, lifestyle and groceries. Flush with funds from banks, he also acquired as many as six companies in the past seven years to expand his reach. However,…

Main Hoon Na. Even as students fretted over whether and how they would make it for the IIT-JEE exams that got under way despite protests, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee put out a reassuring hand. ‘I’ve got your back’, she seemed to be saying, a la Shah Rukh Khan in that 2004 hit, in the posters that sprang up all over Kolkata. SRK, of course, is the owner of the IPL team Kolkata Knight Riders and a close friend of the CM’s. Didi’s critics—the Left, Congress and the BJP—berated her for borrowing from Bollywood. And her bête noire, Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar? Not to be left behind, and gubernatorial propriety be damned, he swiftly tweeted ‘Main Bhi Hoon Na’.…

THE SCENE OF THE CARNAGE wreaked by the terror attack in Pulwama on the afternoon of February 14, 2019, was worse than in a horror film. Burnt human body parts and mangled steel lay strewn across the Jammu-Srinagar segment of National Highway No. 44 that cuts through the Pulwama district of south Kashmir. In one of the worst terror strikes in the erstwhile state, 40 CRPF personnel travelling in a convoy were slaughtered when a suicide bomber rammed his explosives-laden car into the bus they were in. The Pakistan-based terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) immediately claimed responsibility for the strike and released a pre-recorded video of the purported suicide bomber as he announced his motives for the deadly plot. The fidayeen attack pushed India and Pakistan to the brink of war,…

1 Farooq and his Pakistani compatriots smuggled 35 kg of RDX into India when they crossed the border 2 Shakir Bashir purchased ammonium nitrate, which is highly explosive, from a local shop selling farm fertilisers, and also two plastic containers for the job 3 Waiz-ul-Islam purchased 4 kg of aluminium powder, batteries and other items from his Amazon account 4 Farooq’s team bought gelatin sticks illegally from mining contractors in South Kashmir 5 A secondhand Maruti Eeco minivan was bought for Rs 1.85 lakh. The back seats were removed so that the explosive devices could be loaded in their place 6 Farooq, with the help of two operatives, packed the explosive materials into two containers, weighing 200 kg in total 7 After the IEDs were made, Farooq (left) took a…

Q. How does India’s way in the foreign policy that you have outlined in your book differ from that of the previous governments’? What is the new way that Modi government has charted out? A. Part of the answer lies in what my book stresses on—an uncertain world. And by that I mean the repositioning of the US, the rise of China, the developments seen in Europe, including Brexit, a more active Russia, a more engaged Japan, a greater role for Middle powers and changing equations in the Middle East. All of this really makes for a more uncertain world along with weaker multilateralism and non-traditional trends. Part of it also lies in our own growing capacities, our growing confidence and aspirations. So when you say what is the difference,…

The Booker longlist, announced just over a month ago, was greeted with a strange mixture of delighted surprise and disdain. The response suggested that the Booker Prize had been calcified into another form of celebrity endorsement, of already famous writers enjoying another round of industry backslaps. But the Booker has often shortlisted and awarded unanticipated writers, including the likes of Kiran Desai and Aravind Adiga, to name the most recent Indian winners. Not to forget Arundhati Roy in 1997. Still, this year’s longlist is especially rich in new names and largely ignored points of view. Those who criticise this diversity as a nod to political correctness and the impact of the Black Lives Matter movement are rehashing an old and stupid argument that dogs affirmative action and reservation policies around…

THE WOMEN are not alright in Zindagi’s first Pakistani original web series Churails (streaming on Zee5). But who needs perfection when one can have a purpose—to hold men accountable for their injustices against women. The women use their sleuthing skills to help wives get to the truth and attain closure, but the results are not always rewarding. It doesn’t help that the burqa-clad vigilante squad has plenty of its own messes to sort while addressing the misogyny around them. Written and directed by London-based filmmaker Asim Abbasi, the 10-episode series starts with a bang but totters midway, struggling under the weight of its many issues—adultery, marital rape, domestic violence, missing women, domineering fathers and patriarchy. The hour-long episodes feel needlessly lengthy as Abbasi ties up the loose ends. Still, he…

Q. You hit the 25-year milestone in Hindi cinema in 2020. Are you content with the way your cinematic journey has shaped up? I don’t think I did the best I could. Everybody who looks back at their career will always wish they had done better. I wish I had been more focused. Q. We didn’t see you for almost four years... It was a dark period in my life. I gave up because I couldn’t find the work I wanted. I took to other things which prevented me from seeing the clear picture. After a couple of years, I saw that my family was empathetic about my lull. At one point, something just snapped in me. I decided I would start taking care of myself and looking the best…

Amid the drug controversy in the Sushant Singh Rajput case, Vishwas Sarang, Madhya Pradesh’s medical education minister, has proposed a novel idea to curb drug usage in Bollywood. Sarang dashed off a letter to Prakash Javadekar, the Union I&B minister, demanding that an agency like NADA/ WADA (National/ World Anti-Doping Agency) conduct random dope tests on actors. Such testing, he said, has reduced the use of performance-enhancing drugs in sports. He also demanded jail and a lifetime acting ban for the guilty.…

On August 25, Assam’s finance minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, who has been the chief architect of the BJP’s spread in the entire northeast, tweeted: “I am not interested in contesting next assembly election”. This is not the first time he has said so—Sarma has made the same statement on multiple occasions in the past four years. In 2019, he had announced that he would contest the Lok Sabha election, but Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked him to continue as a minister in the Assam cabinet. The latest tweet, however, is seen as a final announcement of his intent that he will not remain a minister in the Assam cabinet should the BJP win the next assembly election. If he has to be persuaded back to contest the assembly poll, there…

Perfection wasn’t an abstract concept in Sushant Singh Rajput’s worldview. His methodical approach towards his work proved as much. He would devote seven months to prepare for a film. If it got shelved, as it happened with Shekhar Kapur’s Paani, he would not regret the process. For Kedarnath, Sushant turned one of his rooms into what he perceived would be the living quarters of his character, a porter by profession. A journalist during the press rounds of MS Dhoni: The Untold Story even told him how one of Sushant’s contemporaries had, in jest, described his process being as intense as three-time Oscar winner Daniel Day Lewis’s. Sushant didn’t know any other way. With his mental composure under threat, as at least two psychiatrists have confirmed, Sushant knew that rigorous preparations…