Innholdsfortegnelse for October 25, 2021 i India Today

Five months from now, we will mark the second anniversary of the single most defining event of our time — the coronavirus pandemic. In the 19 months since the WHO declared the Covid-19 outbreak a global pandemic, the virus has killed nearly 5 million persons worldwide and caused a loss of about 4 trillion dollars in economic output. It is the most significant global disruptor since the Second World War, and we are not out of it yet. There is much to worry about and, yet, much to be hopeful about. The triumph of the human spirit can be seen in the rapid pace with which we developed multiple vaccines to fight the virus and the speed with which we administered them. The India Today Conclave 2020 was to have…

MISSION ELECTRIC: Meet the pathfinders. How India is moving to a green economy NITIN GADKARI Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways There can’t be a better person than surface transport minister Nitin Gadkari to talk about electric vehicles, alternative fuels and improving highway infrastructure in the country. Gadkari is the minister selling the dream of cutting the highway trip from Delhi to Chandigarh or Dehradun from five hours to two, or travelling to Mumbai from the national capital in 12 hours. He is betting big time on lithium ion and alternative fuel-intelligent engineering based vehicular traffic by the next decade, which will not only cut down on pollution and climate change effects but also reduce the dent on the country’s current account balance. Gadkari was joined by two new-age entrepreneurs,…

CM CONFIDENTIAL: On the BJP’s agenda. Breaching the South BASAVARAJ BOMMAI, Chief Minister, Karnataka Basavaraj Bommai, who had his political roots in the Janata Parivar, was made the Karnataka chief minister on July 28 following the exit of state BJP strongman B.S. Yediyurappa. Known as a moderate voice in the right-wing party (which he had joined in 2008), the 61-year-old chief minister has often acted as a trouble-shooter for the party, particularly during legislature stalemates. Now tasked with heading the state, he has his job cut out—fight anti-incumbency against the government and stabilise the faction-ridden party. The son of a former chief minister, Bommai has experience in several administrative roles, and has shown no signs of being cowed down by the legacy of his predecessor. In his first-ever detailed interaction on…

BULL FRENZY: Soaring public markets, new-age IPOs and the new investment paradigm RAKESH JHUNJHUNWALA Owner of Rare Enterprises, investor, trader & film producer Rakesh Jhunjhunwala first entered the stock market with just Rs 5,000 in 1985, and today is worth $5.6 billion. At a time when stock markets are rising, crossing the 60,000 mark last month, the “big bull” is among the most sought-after people in India for his advice on investment. Presently, his investment portfolio is worth an estimated Rs 40,000 crore. At the Conclave, Jhunjhunwala enthralled the audience with one-liners and tips for new investors. My first turning point was the Rs 5,000 [that I entered the market with]. My brother was a practising chartered accountant, and he introduced me to some of his clients… The first way of…

HYDRA HEADS: The roller-coaster world of cryptocurrencies. And what India should do about it India has seen a great deal of debate over cryptocurrency in the recent past. While some countries have already permitted cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin to be used as legal tender, India has treaded a cautious path, with talk of the country launching its own digital currency. At the Conclave, the founders and CEOs of cryptocurrency firms attempted to demystify these new digital tokens—which many believe are the future of currency—and how safe they are for investors SUMIT GUPTA Co-founder and CEO, CoinDCX “Cryptocurrency is more like an asset class, a store of value [than] a currency… We have seen a lot of liquidity coming into the system. People are parking their money in cryptocurrencies as a store…

BREAKAWAY: It’s time to build cars that are best for the planet Over the past few years, India has seen a buzz of interest about electric vehicles (EVs), thanks to a slew of government policies. Six years ago, the Centre formulated a scheme to speed the adoption and manufacture of hybrid and electric vehicles in India. Phase two of this scheme, which started on April 1, 2019, is being implemented over a period of five years with a budget of Rs 10,000 crore. In June this year, the Department of Heavy Industries tweaked this scheme, increasing purchase incentives for two-wheeler EVs by 50 per cent to Rs 15,000 per kWh (kilowatt hour) of battery capacity. At the India Today Conclave, a panel of experts discussed the impact of these schemes…

DRAGON TEETH: Is the world ready for a Chinese century? China’s astonishing rise as a military-economic power has been the biggest geopolitical event of the 21st century. China’s GDP is five times the size of India’s and three times the size of Japan. Its economy is poised to overtake the US’s by the end of this decade. China’s rise, however, is fraught with consequences for its neighbours like Japan and India, with which it has disputes, and also Taiwan, which it regards as a renegade province and which it has threatened to forcibly capture. SHIVSHANKAR MENON Former National Security Advisor “Previous regimes managed the relationship (with China). The trouble is, of course, that the power balance has shifted against us. When we established the ‘live and let live’ attitude in…

MAGIC DNA: INSIDE THE INSPIRATIONAL MINDS OF TWO SPORTING HEROES There’s little in common between shooter Abhinav Bindra and Neeraj Chopra, a track and field athlete who competes in the javelin throw apart from the fact that they are India’s lone Olympic individual gold medalists. Bindra, 39, arrived for the India Today Conclave dressed in formals. Chopra, 23, went for a more casual look. Bindra is shy; Chopra thrives in the spotlight. After his win in Beijing, Bindra felt lost and avoided the media upon his return home. Chopra has had no such issues dealing with fame. He has been modelling, shopping and he even vacationed in the Maldives. There are two qualities though that bind them—their passion for their respective disciplines and their nonchalant ways during crunch time. Talking…

FIRE STARTERS: The extraordinary men who brought revolutionary light to India Filmmaker Shoojit Sircar and National Award-winning actor Vicky Kaushal spoke at length on their upcoming film, Sardar Udham, a biopic on the revolutionary who shot dead Michael O’Dwyer, the lieutenant governor of Punjab at the time of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. VICKY KAUSHAL Actor ON HIS IDEA OF INDIA “My day started with reading the pledge every morning in school. It was about celebrating diversity and secularism, the brotherhood we have. One of the things that I am proud of is that being an Indian changes every 100 kilometres. The culture changes, the language changes, the food changes, the way we dress changes. We are living in a land full of white people, black people, brown people, every shade…

Q. How did you settle on the title of the book? When we were discussing titles, there were iterations of ‘my journey’ which is a very typical title for a memoir. Even now I am amazed and surprised at the fact that I got to work with people like Bimal Roy, Pandit Ravi Shankar, Uttam Kumar or Mahasweta Devi. They are all legends and I learnt so much from working with them… So, I thought ‘Actually…I Met Them’ would be a great title because people probably wouldn’t believe that I have worked with or met all these masters. Q. In the book, you share your experiences of meeting over a dozen legendary personalities—Satyajit Ray, Kishore Kumar, Suchitra Sen… I actually enjoyed the experience of talking about these 18 people so…

1. KUNAL BAHL, CEO, Snapdeal 2. BIMAL PATEL, Architect and president, CEPT University 3. DISHA RAVI, Climate activist 4. THOMAS FRIEDMAN, Pulitzer winner and Author 5. S. JAISHANKAR, Union Minister of External Affairs 6. IAN LIPKIN, Virologist 7. ABDULLAH ABDULLAH, Former Chief Executive, Afghanistan 8. KIREN RIJIJU, Union Minister of Law and Justice 9. MALAIKA VAZ, Conservationist and Filmmaker 10. GENERAL M.M. NARAVANE, Chief of Army Staff 11. RANI RAMPAL, Captain, Women’s Hockey Team 12. HARDEEP SINGH PURI, Union Minister of Housing & Urban Affairs and Petroleum & Natural Gas 13. HIMANTA BISWA SARMA, Chief Minister, Assam 14. J.P. NADDA, President, Bharatiya Janata Party 15.ABHINAV BINDRA, Olympic Gold Medallist, 2008 16. RICHA CHADHA, Actor 17. SANJIV PURI, Chairman and Managing Director, ITC Limited 18.SHASHI THAROOR, Congress MP 19. NITIN GADKARI,…

100,000 acres Ready land bank for industry: state portal GO-PLUS shows location-specific industrial plots with details of connectivity and other physical and social infrastructure. Post land allotment problems resolved by Odisha Industrial Infrastructure Development Co. 25 days Deadline for clearing projects, via GO-SWIFT single-window facility 3-5 years Project completion deadlines—3 years for MSMEs, 5 years for big projects 1.5 million Local youth to be re-skilled over the next 5 years by the Odisha Skill Development Authority…

TRACK CHANGE: WHY HUMANS MUST RACE TO ZERO BILL GATES Co-chair, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Five years before the Covid pandemic began, Bill Gates predicted that the next thing to kill over 10 million people would be an infectious virus. His latest warnings about an upcoming climate disaster have many alarmed. From how to de-carbonise 70 per cent of the world economy to the development of affordable green products, he sees innovation playing a big role in switching the world over to clean energy-based technology. He sets a tight timeline, saying we need to invent all the new technology we need in the next decade so that we have another 20 years after that to bring global greenhouse gas emissions down from 51 billion tonnes per year to zero by…

VITAMIN G: Designing booster shots for trade & commerce. A road map Post-pandemic India is not only looking at recovery but also accelerating the growth trajectory. The world, says the Union minister for commerce and industry Piyush Goyal, is looking up to India as a trusted and reliable partner due to the government’s effort to build a sustainable ecosystem for trade and commerce. India has used the Covid disruption to put in place a strategy to move to being a self-reliant economy, says Goyal. The government is determined to make India a global trade destination, he said, while commenting on favourable trade discussions, building infrastructure and stability in policy-making. The other speakers were Tata Steel CEO T.V. Narendran, KKR India chairman Sanjay Nayar and Snapdeal CEO Kunal Bahl. PIYUSH GOYAL…

MAPS & MINEFIELDS: Insights on concerns, triumphs & India’s foreign policy priorities S. Jaishankar is India’s foreign minister at an extremely challenging time. The Taliban takeover of Afghanistan has put Pakistan in the driver’s seat in Kabul. The Indian mission in Afghanistan has withdrawn from a country in which New Delhi invested for two decades. A belligerent China has breached nearly three decades of diplomacy. Its collusion with Pakistan and the sharply altered geopolitics of the region present challenges unlike those seen in recent decades. S. JAISHANKAR Union Minister for External Affairs ON THE LINE OF ACTUAL CONTROL “Things have changed enormously (in Ladakh)…they brought forces up…we counter deployed…. There has been no lack of resolve or firmness in what we have to do to protect our national security. I…

CM CONFIDENTIAL: The politics of population & polarisation HIMANTA BISWA SARMA Chief Minister, Assam Assam has historically been a conflict zone over identity, land and resources. From border clashes to eviction drives, the recent flashpoints have put the spotlight on Himanta Biswa Sarma. The newly elected chief minister explains his political philosophy and model of governance at the India Today Conclave. ON WHY THE ASSAM GOVERNMENT HAS BANNED BEEF CONSUMPTION AND SALE WITHIN A 5 KM RADIUS OF A TEMPLE “Most Muslims in Assam are converts from Hinduism. Their forefathers did not consume beef. If I’m just reminding them of that and asking them to restrict their consumption of beef, what’s wrong in that? Some people get angry when I remind them of their own civilisation. They talk about rights. Rights…

SEEDS OF WRATH: Fear & Facts. How to Address Farm Crisis Since June 5 last year, farm unions in Punjab, parts of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh have been engaged in a standoff with the government over three new farm laws. The unions have so far stone walled the government’s offer to amend the laws, demanding nothing less than a repeal. Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) spokesperson Rakesh Tikait and RSS pracharak-turned-Meerut MP Rajendra Agrawal debated the issue in the shadow of the Lakhimpur Kheri violence. RAKESH TIKAIT Spokesperson, BKU “The government says it’s ready for talks but will not repeal the laws. What does it mean? The decision has already been made, it has been put on paper, the farmers are being called to put their signature. The farmers are ready…

SENSE IN SUSTAINABILITY: Role of corporates in combating climate change For diversified conglomerate ITC, investing in sustainability and digital technology defines its vision for the future. ITC chairman and MD Sanjiv Puri, speaking at the India Today Conclave, reiterated his group’s commitment to combat global warming through its business practices and illustrated that sustainability makes good business sense. The challenge of global warming is here to stay and companies have to find innovative ways of doing business in the new world. SANJIV PURI Chairman and Managing Director, ITC Limited “We need to commit ourselves to improving and building green infrastructure, green energy, green mobility, green buildings in ITC. That’s a journey that we have traversed over two decades” “While there are many [problems] for which solutions do not exist today—and…

VOLATILE NEIGHBOURS: Taliban Act 2. How to navigate a dangerous minefield One of the defining geopolitical events of the 21st century unfolded on August 15 this year when the Taliban stormed the capital of Afghanistan and took over Kabul without firing a shot. The Taliban takeover came just two months after US President Joe Biden announced he was pulling US troops out of America’s longest war. The ignominious withdrawal and the Taliban takeover has turned the country into a global pariah with no access to badly needed foreign funding. A broke and hungry Afghanistan is on the brink—with winter approaching, there is a very real danger of millions of its citizens starving. Aspiring hegemon China will be closely watching the blow to US prestige. Pakistan’s triumph—it has supported the Taliban…

STORIES OF OLYMPIAN SPIRIT: THE BRAVEHEARTS OF INDIAN HOCKEY India’s performance at Tokyo 2020 was made more memorable thanks to the incredible efforts of both the men’s and women’s hockey teams. While the men’s team ended India’s 41-year Olympic medal drought with a bronze, the women’s side came agonisingly close to winning its first medal but lost in a toughly contested tie against Great Britain. Two months later, men’s captain Manpreet Singh and goalkeeper Sreejesh Parattu Raveendran and their female counterparts, Rani and Savita Punia, are witnessing first-hand how public perception of the sport has changed. Girls who were reluctant to pick up the stick are now motivated to do so, said Rani, citing the example of her niece who earlier identified hockey as a game most likely to leave…

SERIAL THRILLERS: The stars who have hijacked our minds There was no box office magic for Salman Khan or Akshay Kumar in 2020-21. Instead, the stars were all shining on streaming platforms. At the Conclave, three of OTT’s most popular actors—Pankaj Tripathi, Richa Chadha and Sanya Malhotra—were joined by Aparna Purohit, head of India originals at Amazon Prime Video, to share insights about the fast-growing industry and how their popularity has soared. RICHA CHADHA Actor ON WHY SHE DID A WEB SERIES AS EARLY AS 2017 “When I said yes to Inside Edge, it was because I couldn’t relate to television and the saas-bahu shows on it. There was good TV that my parents grew up watching, but there was nothing for me. I could not see anybody in my…

AIR INDIA’S KEY ASSETS Fleet: Over 130 aircraft Landing/Parking slots: 4,400 domestic and 1,800 international landing and parking slots at domestic airports; 900 slots at international airports REAL ESTATE PORTFOLIO Air India has thousands of crores worth of real estate in several parts of the world It sold 115 units of real estate assets between 2015 and 2021, raising Rs 738 crore Rental income alone (from properties across India) totals about Rs 100 crore a year CHALLENGES FOR THE TATAS Rs 15,300 crore of debt, taken on as part of the bid The Tata Group will need to retain all staff for a year Air India pilots have been clamouring for the restoration of full salaries The domestic industry’s losses in 2020-21 are pegged at about Rs 22,400 crore THE…

INNER ENGINEERING: Triumphs. Challenges. Introspection. And what makes the BJP tick JAGAT PRAKASH NADDA, President, Bharatiya Janata Party It was not an easy job for Jagat Prakash Nadda to assume the BJP’s national leadership. He had to make a mark in a space vacated by three illustrious predecessors—Nitin Gadkari, Rajnath Singh and Amit Shah. Yet, as the national president of the saffron party, Nadda has carved out his own path and doesn’t seem anxious about being overshadowed by any legacy. He credits this smooth transition to the tradition of collective leadership practised within the BJP. At the India Today Conclave, Nadda opened up about the party’s road map for the future, its stand on contentious issues such as the farmers’ protests and the secret behind the BJP’s formidable election record in…

CENTRAL VISTA CURTAIN-RAISER Unveiling democracy’s new face The Narendra Modi government’s ambitious Central Vista Redevelopment Project has been under the spotlight since it was conceptualised. Though the Supreme Court has allowed the government to go ahead with the renovation project, Opposition leaders and activists have expressed concerns over its aesthetics, cost and impact on the environment. The exercise aims to redevelop a 3.2 km stretch called the Central Vista that lies at the heart of Lutyens Delhi built by the British in the 1930s. It involves demolishing and rebuilding several government buildings, including iconic landmarks, and constructing a new Parliament at a total cost of Rs 20,000 crore. It is expected to be completed by 2022, when India celebrates 75 years of Independence. At the India Today Conclave, the Union…

IN A VOLATILE WORLD: Rebalancing India’s foreign policy A challenging external environment immediately translates into greater challenges for India’s foreign policy. Not only is unipolarity giving way to multipolarity but the balance of economic power is shifting towards Asia. For India, a triumvirate of threats—an aggressive China, a resurgent Taliban and a triumphant man-in-the-middle, Pakistan, which continues to use terrorism as a tool—presents a fresh set of challenges for the country’s diplomats. Foreign secretary Harsh V. Shringla, the man in the hot seat, spoke of the road ahead for Indian diplomacy. HARSH V. SHRINGLA Foreign Secretary of India ON AFGHANISTAN “We have seen the formation of a (Taliban) government that is far from inclusive or representative. You have seen the DG of the ISI go there and facilitate a government…

MAJORITY, MINORITY: The battle of belonging. How to rethink the Muslim question in India ARIF MOHAMMAD KHAN Governor, Kerala Numbering over 200 million, or nearly 15 per cent of our population, India’s Muslims represent the largest Muslim-minority population in the world. With a polarising narrative in recent years, Muslims in India face a genuine predicament. Often used as a vote bank by the political class, they have been at the receiving end of either selective appeasement or social isolation. While facing increasing intolerance, critics often blame Muslims for their own isolation by pointing to the allegedly regressive views or traditions of particular sections of the community. Worse, there have been very few representative voices for Muslims at the national level. Kerala Governor Arif Mohammad Khan has been known for his reformist…

INDIA’S EMERGING NATIONAL SECURITY PARADIGM: Preparing for future wars GENERAL M.M. NARAVANE Chief of Army Staff For the first time since Independence, India’s armed forces face the prospect of two live boundaries with its principal adversaries China and Pakistan. To the west, there is no slack in state-sponsored terrorism from Pakistan, with terrorists being pushed across the Line of Control. To the north, we have been engaged in a standoff with the People’s Liberation Army of China along the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh for 18 months. Add to that the arrival of new technologies such as drones and the continuing challenge of scarce budgetary resources and the long wish-list for new equipment. At the India Today Conclave, the Army chief Gen. Manoj Mukund Naravane made sense of these…

THE RECKONING: Debating India’s economy. Causes for concern. And cheer With the successful sale of Air India, the Centre is hopeful about the post-pandemic period, with several big-ticket disinvestments in the offing. However, the economy remains precariously poised, with consumption and investment still in a slump. India’s principal economic advisor Sanjeev Sanyal talked about the prospects of the economy and the progress the government has made in its reform agenda SANJEEV SANYAL Principal Economic Advisor, Ministry of Finance “Our approach was not to revive the economy through demand management. You can use demand management for a safety net…you need to make sure that people don’t starve, that you don’t get cascades of defaults through the financial system and so on. So, we provided the support for that. But reviving the…

EYE IN THE SKY: What the drone revolution can do for India. The excitement and the concern Drone technology is becoming increasingly widespread, and could play a big role in India’s next technological revolution. While drones can be a military threat—they have been used for cross-border terrorism—they can also be used to save lives, by transporting vaccines to far-flung areas of the country. At the Conclave, two entrepreneurs talked about the many possible uses for such platforms and the transformational technologies being developed. SAMEER JOSHI CEO, NewSpace Research & Technologies SWARM SATURATION “A swarm of drones is like a flock of birds flying together. First, they never collide with each other, and second, they don’t bang into obstacles. Swarm drones are inspired by biological [phenomena], like how bees or birds…

END OF HISTORY: Rethinking super power in the 21st century THOMAS FRIEDMAN Three-time Pulitzer winner & author Covid-19 struck its most devastating blow at the heart of the United States. The US, with over 700,000 deaths and counting (nearly twice India’s toll), continues to be the country most affected by the pandemic. The world superpower was suddenly left vulnerable. For Pulitzer-prize winning author and columnist Thomas Friedman, Mother Nature was the victor, the sole superpower. Friedman had famously said 15 years ago that the world was flat because it had created a telecommunications platform where more people in more places could collaborate, compete and connect in more ways than before. The pandemic for him was another defining moment for this flat world. It exposed countries that did not have good…

BULLS IN OUR MEMORY SHOP DEBATING HERITAGE, HISTORY, HUBRIS With Hindu-Muslim tensions rising in the past year due to the Ram mandir issue, protests against CAA and the Tablighi Jamaat being blamed for the spread of Covid, historians feel that making peace with the origins of such tensions could help defuse them. However, what is the truth that people should be exposed to and how can history be kept from being used for political mileage? According to historian and author Vikram Sampath, “History is always the handmaiden of the ruler. It is the victor who writes the story.” For Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, on the other hand, people deserve the right to be given all versions of the story and then be allowed to determine for themselves the narrative they…

STRONGER, HIGHER, TOGETHER WHY VICTORY IS A LINE IN THE HEAD. STORIES OF SPORTS AND RESILIENCE India had its best ever showing in the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics with a haul of 19 medals, some coming in disciplines least expected such as table tennis. The standout performance has had an immediate impact, with many states reviving their policies for para sports, as noted by Deepa Malik, Rio Games silver medalist in shot put and president of the Paralympic Committee of India. Malik was joined by national badminton coach Gaurav Khanna and three of Tokyo 2020 medalists who reflected on how they prepared for the games against all odds during the pandemic and how attitudes towards differently-abled individuals are gradually changing. SUHAS YATHIRAJ District Magistrate, Gautam Buddha Nagar, and Asian Para-Badminton Championship…

PLANET DOCTORS: Meet the dynamic young women fighting to keep India green Climate change is a growing global problem. But despite increasing awareness, the steps taken to counter it on individual and national scales are still limited. “With the reforms proposed in the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980, the government is diluting India’s environment laws. A lot of projects won’t need the approvals they needed earlier,” says Disha Ravi. How can climate activists find ways to connect with citizens and governments to prompt action and change? From narrating the disastrous impact of climate change via films to fighting for policy changes, young activists are going against all odds to make environment conservation a priority on everyone’s list. MALAIKA VAZ Climate Activist “We need to realise how important combating the climate crisis…

REKHA BHARDWAJ Singer “The pandemic has been bad for all, but it has also been transforming as we have all learnt to live differently. I have learnt one really interesting life mantra from Gulzar sahab—that life will always give us new problems, but it is up to us to decide whether we want to wake up and spend our day cribbing about it or accept it and stay happy. So, despite all odds, I choose to celebrate my life each day, stay positive and do things that make me happy—riyaaz, meditation, some zikr and, most importantly, thank god for all that he has given us. Gratitude and following your heart are always my happiness mantras.” TIPS FOR HAPPINESS Shalini Arvind, chief dietician, Fortis Hospital, Banner ghatta, Bengaluru, on 5 foods…