Innholdsfortegnelse for March 22, 2021 i India Today

India’s recent economic history has shown that major reforms happen only in desperate times. They are driven not by ideological conviction but by economic necessity. In May 1991, when the country’s foreign exchange reserves were down to only a few weeks worth of imports, the Chandra Shekhar government did the unthinkable: it airlifted 67 tonnes of gold, a metal so dear to Indian hearts, to get an emergency loan of $2.2 billion from the IMF. This was followed in June by the famous dismantling of the licence raj, at least part of it. We stand at a similar juncture now. The GDP this financial year is expected to shrink by an estimated 8 per cent, which is a total loss of 12 per cent from the previous year, due to…

Rahul Gandhi’s frantic campaign in poll-bound Tamil Nadu and Kerala might make it seem like he is all set to return as Congress president, but party insiders maintain that he still wants a non-Gandhi party chief. Rahul, sources say, wants a career like cricketer Sachin Tendulkar’s—“a fine batsman but not the team captain who must shoulder the blame for others not executing his plan”. Whether this will work as a long-term plan in the T20-like frenzy of Indian politics, remains to be seen. One must also consider the potential infighting a non-Gandhi chief could lead to.…

The Modi government is not looking to divest stake in Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) purely as a fiscal measure; it has also announced far-reaching reforms in the insurance sector in Budget 2021. Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman proposed hiking the foreign direct investment (FDI) limit in the domestic insurance sector from the current 49 per cent to 74 per cent, a move that would attract additional capital and help insurers maintain adequate solvency margins and invest in technology and product innovations. The government also plans to privatise one of the five general insurance companies. The Centre has said that 50 per cent of company boards (under the new FDI norms) will be independent directors, and all key people will be Indians. A specified percentage of the profits of the insurance JV…

CM’s dashboard An AI-based dashboard at the chief minister’s official residence in Gandhinagar displays real-time data that allows Vijay Rupani to monitor his government’s 122 welfare schemes. He keeps tabs, for instance, on calls received by the state’s health helpline and the ambulances dispatched in response. Such monitoring has helped cut the average response time to medical emergencies from 30 minutes to 16 minutes within two years. “The aim is to reduce it to seven minutes in the next few months,” says Hitesh Gohil, an officer at the CM’s office. Rupani also uses the dashboard to assess the work of district collectors and track mega infra projects, such as the Ahmedabad Metro. People connect Under the Jan Samvad platform started in January 2020, a call centre connects with 1,500 people…

As West Bengal approaches voting day, chief minister Mamata Banerjee is increasingly bragging about having created 12 million jobs during her 10-year rule. Trinamool Congress (TMC) billboards in Kolkata laud her for drastically reducing the state’s unemployment rate. These claims fly in the face of some rather grim data that Mamata’s rivals are using to question her report card on employment and livelihood creation, especially for the youth. As of date, the state’s employment exchanges have nearly 3.5 million registered job-seekers, having added 100,000 people in 2020 alone. Data from government departments indicates that over 200,000 permanent posts are vacant. Another 150,000 teaching posts in government schools are yet to be filled. If it’s any consolation, many states have done worse, including, for example, highly industrialised Haryana, where unemployment stood…

Total assembly constituencies: 126 BJP To contest 92 seats; candidates announced for 71 seats 11 sitting MLAs, including one minister, Sum Ronghang, denied tickets All Himanta Biswa Sarma loyalists, including Jayanta Malla Baruah, Taranga Gogoi, Manab Deka and Jitu Goswami, have been given tickets Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal’s loyalists, including sitting MLA Rituparna Baruah and Nabanita Hadique, fail to make the cut Two former Congress ministers Ajanta Neog and Gautam Roy are not BJP candidates; both are Sarma loyalists AGP To contest 26 seats Candidates announced for 8 seats; two new faces Two former party presidents, Prafulla Kumar Mahanta and Brindaban Goswami, denied tickets Congress To contest 93 seats; candidates announced for 43 seats 18 of its 40 candidates are new faces None of the six sitting MLAs—of the 43…

■ Analysts say the initial allocations were granted based on political considerations, not business realities ■ The infra focus led to interest from real estate companies rather than those involved in food processing ■ The initial requirements—such as multiple partners in SPVskept many corporates away ■ The one-size-fits-all project guidelines were also a disincentive for major players ■ A lack of government support, difficulties in marketing MFP units to clients and missing infrastructure linkages created serious problems…

Placeof Publication: NewDelhi Periodicity ofPublication: Weekly Printer’sName: Manoj Sharma Nationality: Indian Address: A-3/723, Tower-8, Silver City, Sector-93, Noida-201 301, Uttar Pradesh Publisher’sName: Manoj Sharma Nationality: Indian Address: A-3/723, Tower-8, Silver City, Sector-93, Noida-201 301, Uttar Pradesh Editor’sName: RajChengappa Nationality: Indian Address: C-31, Defence Colony, New Delhi-110 021. Names and Addresses of individuals who own the newspaper and partners or shareholders holding more than one per cent of the total capital: Owner: M/s. Living Media India Limited, F26, Ist Floor, Connaught Place, New Delhi – 110 001. Shareholders holding more than one per cent of the total capital of the owner company: 1. Mr. Aroon Purie, 6, Palam Marg, Vasant Vihar, New Delhi-110 057. 2. Mrs. Rekha Purie, 6, Palam Marg, Vasant Vihar, New Delhi-110 057. 3. Mr. Ankoor Purie, 6,…

GHALIB A Wilderness at My Doorstep, A Critical Biography Mehr Afshan Farooqi PENGUIN ALLEN LANE ₹799; 341 pages GHALIB Selected Poems and Letters by Frances W. Pritchett & Owen T.A. Cornwall (translators) COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS ₹399; 208 pages If you have wanted to read Ghalib but haven’t known where to start, this English translation might be the perfect introduction. The translators ensure the poet’s ghazals retain their original wit and spark. GHALIB A Thousand Desires by Raza Mir PENGUIN ₹399; 200 pages In a book that is replete with anecdotes and trivia, Mir captures Ghalib’s genius while locating him in his specific socio-political context. His translation and analysis of Ghalib’s poetry also prove insightful. A TRIBUTE TO GHALIB Twenty-One Ghazals Reinterpreted by Azra Reza & Sara Suleri Goodyear PENGUIN ₹299;…

Paresh Rawal, actor and chairman of the National School of Drama (NSD), met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on March 8 to make a case for the school to be declared an “institute of national importance”. The PMO has so far rejected this demand and instead questioned NSD’s pitch for greater academic autonomy. But there’s still hope. The NSD is considering opening a theatre company in Kevadia, Gujarat, to showcase its theatre productions to tourists visiting the Statue of Unity—Modi’s pet project. Rawal, who once played Vallabhbhai Patel on screen, seems to have got himself a meeting. A foot in the door?…

Its acronym, LIC, and its logo have been iconic symbols of financial security for Indians born before the new millennium. Even now, 290 million—or one in five—Indians are insured by the government-owned Life Insurance Corporation. It still controls 66 per cent of the country’s life insurance market even though private insurers, allowed into the fray in 1999, have now been around for over two decades. LIC is a financial behemoth like no other in the country, overshadowing even the State Bank of India (SBI). It has 4,955 offices across the country, many of them occupying prime real estate. It directly employs 108,000 people, besides 1.3 million agents across the country, and has assets under management of Rs 36 lakh crore, making it a megacorp three times the size of Reliance…

For Tamil Nadu’s Big Two Dravidian parties—the AIADMK (All India Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam) and DMK (Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam)—managing their poll allies’ demand for seats is turning out to be a tough ask. The difficulty in imposing their will on much smaller allies also gives away the apprehensions of these parties about the 2021 election. The DMK and AIADMK have together polled over 70 per cent of the votes in every election since 1996, but they have had to rely on minor players of late to give them the decisive edge in several constituencies. The 2016 poll was an exception when an ailing Jayalalithaa decided to go it alone to prove her strength—the AIADMK bagged 135 of the total 234 seats even though its vote share was a slender 1 percentage…

A little late in the day, but on January 18, the Congress high command appointed Oommen Chandy, the former chief minister and AICC (All India Congress Committee) general secretary, to lead the party’s campaign in the assembly election scheduled for April 6. The 77-year-old’s re-entry into state politics seems to have energised party workers as the campaign heats up to dethrone the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front government. Party sources say it was veteran leader and former defence minister A.K. Antony who was instrumental in bringing back Chandy. The Congress leadership had estimated that with leader of the opposition Ra-mesh Chennithala and PCC (Pradesh Congress Committee) chief Mullappally Ramachandran pulling in opposite directions, something drastic had to be done. Sources say the affable Chandy has helped iron out issues in the…

ASSAM HOUSE ON FIRE Assam Congress leaders Sushmita Dev and Gaurav Gogoi, known to be close to the Gandhis, are reportedly peeved. Sushmita is upset over the number of seats being allocated to ally AIUDF (All India United Democratic Front) in the Barak Valley and Gaurav as he couldn’t manage tickets for some of his loyalists. Gaurav’s own desire to contest from Titabor, the seat his father and three-time chief minister Tarun Gogoi represented, was shot down by the state Congress leadership. A ‘consensus’ candidate, Bhaskar Jyoti Baruah, will be fielded instead. While Sushmita has knocked on party chief Sonia Gandhi’s door, Gaurav appears to be biding his time. —Kaushik Deka Flip Show Confusion awaits voters in Golaghat, where sitting Congress MLA Ajanta Neog is now the BJP candidate. Neog,…

Meena Kumari, 34 Constable, Bihar Military Police For Meena Kumari, eldest of five daughters, her job with the Bihar police has given her the status typically accorded only to sons in her community. It has enabled her, she says, to become “the son” her parents needed. Having joined the Bihar police in 2008, Meena, a graduate in history, has helped her family financially and even arranged the marriages of three of her sisters. One of them, Madhu Kumari, has joined the police force too. A resident of Motihari in Bihar, Meena has been assigned the crucial job of guarding the police arsenal. She heads the all-women team that protects the inner perimeter of the Bihar Military Police (BMP) arsenal in Patna. Jyoti Kumari Singh, 23 Police constable A…

Exhibited at Delhi’s Bikaner House last week, Atul Dodiya’s new series of watercolours and textured laminates has only furthered his reputation. At 62, Dodiya is one of India’s leading artists. His art provides amusing commentary on pop culture, cinema, socio-political issues and on the nature of art itself. Like the great Andy Warhol, Dodiya works out of a large atelier—in suburban Mumbai in this case. With assistants and staff on standby, it resembles a new-age factory. For much of last year, though, the pandemic forced this art manufacturing unit to down its shutters. Working from home, Dodiya decided to produce one A3-sized watercolour a day. Having started on March 22, 2020, he has amassed around 290 paintings. “Generally,” he says, “my paintings have a strong narrative in terms of references,…

There have been commentaries and translations aplenty—ranging from good, bad to indifferent—of Ghalib’s spectacular poetry but no substantial biography in English. A reader curious about Ghalib and his times, the contradictions of his age and his literary career, the complexities of his craft and tradition, would have to go digging in larger narratives on the development of Urdu prose and poetics and literary histories. What has been singularly missing, given the burgeoning crop of writings in English on Urdu literature, is an exhaustive critical biography of Ghalib in English, one that meets the requirements of rigorous academic scrutiny and easy, accessible insights into the work of one of Urdu’s greatest poets. This need has been filled by Mehr Afshan Farooqi’s Ghalib: A Wilderness at My Doorstep. Given her long years…

Q. Do you feel the burden of your mother’s legacy? I see it as a blessing. I know expectations are high but look at what I have to live up to. If I even aspire towards half of that, I can then get some place. I have no fear of ever being complacent because I am not allowed that. I feel it will benefit me as an artiste. Q. Unlike your peers, you veer towards doing author-backed roles. You are not just some pretty stand-in in a mainstream film… After Dhadak, I knew the house was divided. People were asking questions. “Can she act? Does she deserve to be here?” I needed to prove myself, to people around me that I can act. I am more confident about my emotional…

The discovery of LIC’s embedded value (EV), which must precede the IPO, is a tricky exercise. Not only is the public sector life insurance behemoth unlike other financial services companies (like banks, NBFCs or mutual funds), for the purposes of a pre-IPO valuation, it’s not quite comparable with private sector life insurers either. If even other life insurers do not quite offer a reliable benchmark, it is mainly on account of LIC’s unique product mix and profit-sharing structure. Guesstimates of likely valuation vary between Rs 2-3 lakh crore and Rs 20 lakh crorethat wide range in itself an indication that the exercise is complex. It’s possibly a good start that the valuation mandate has gone to actuarial firm Milliman Advisors, which is among the world's largest providers of actuarial services.…

At around 9.30 pm on March 3, V.K. Sasikala, 66, the long-time confidante of the late J. Jayalalithaa, released a two-page statement to journalists waiting outside her T Nagar home in Chennai. In a dramatic turnaround, Chinnamma (younger mother), as she was reverentially called by her former colleagues at the AIADMK, announced that she was ‘staying away’ from politics. ‘To ensure the continuation of the golden rule of the AIADMK for more than 100 years, just as my sister (Jayalalithaa) wished…the true cadre of Amma should stay united and work together for the upcoming polls, as they are the children of one mother,’ said the statement. She appealed to party loyalists to unite against ‘the evil force that is the DMK’. Predictably, it sent some in the ruling AIADMK into…

BJP Mithun Chakraborty Veteran actor and former TMC MP “Have faith in Dada (not to be confused with Sourav). I’ll always be there for you ” Hiran Chatterjee Actor, former member of TMC youth wing “I want meaningful change in West Bengal” Paayel Sarkar Actor. A regular at TMC events in the past “It’s a privilege to be part of the world’s largest political party” Yash Dasgupta Actor, friend of TMC MP Nusrat Jahan “We have to be within the system to make big changes” Srabanti Chatterjee Actor “My father was in the army. I want to work for the state as well as the country” Rudranil Ghosh Actor. Formerly with TMC, was part of state government committees “Do Hindus alone have the responsibility of upholding secularism?” TMC Raj Chakraborty…

When Varun Chaudhury, executive director of Nepal-based CG Corp Global, the makers of Wai Wai noodles, applied to build a food park in India, he expected the effort to be an extension of the work his company already does. A leader in the food processing industry, the Rs 13,000 crore conglomerate’s business in India spans several sectors, from FMCG (fast moving consumer goods) to hospitality. Nonetheless, Chaudhury, who is steering the group’s FMCG arm, says he found the experience unexpectedly challenging, with what he describes as complicated and stringent regulations. On the face of it, the government seems to be doing all it can to encourage the private sector to build and operate food parks—for instance, a Rs 50 crore cash subsidy is given as a grant to businesses that…

ERASURE Group Show Vadehra Art Gallery, Delhi Till April 2 Artist Susanta Mandal has invited colleagues such as Atul and Anju Dodiya, Dayanita Singh and Sudhir Patwardhan to exchange ideas about their creative processes through the exhibition of their art. CONFABULATIONS Jitish Kallat and Subodh Gupta Nature Morte, Delhi Till March 27 Their new paintings show that Kallat and Gupta have in common their idea of landscape. For them, it is essential to acknowledge the extreme shifts that are now taking place in humans and in nature. THE FAMILIARS Boshudhara Mukherjee TARQ, Mumbai Till April 24 This exhibition presents eight recent works by Mukherjee. They all showcase her distinctive style—shredded painted canvases that are then beautifully hand-woven into tapestry-like installations.…

SHUDH DESI GAY Though you hear a gay couple discuss everything from dating apps to coming out here, you must not expect deep political chats about gender and sexuality. With delightful ‘Hinglish’ conversations, Shudh Desi Gay is the perfect antidote to the tortured puns and laboured dialogue of other podcast content. THE BIG INDIAN GHOTALA This podcast deconstructs the shocking innovativeness of Indian fraudsters. From fake cricket matches to scamming the Indian Railways, you’ll find here the rulebook of a good swindle. Barring some overworked similes and its exaggerated cheer, the podcast is perfect for fans of Bad Boy Billionaires. LOVE AAJ KAL WITH AASTHA & ANKIT Love Aaj Kal addresses lighter subjects, such as how to make your profile on a dating app, along with more nuanced ones about…