Innholdsfortegnelse for 21 March 2022 i India Today

There seems to be a kind of internal life force that propels the BJP. An appetite for ceaseless growth and domination—a raging fire in the belly—that is absent in the others, most conspicuously in the Congress. On March 10, 2022, on the evening of another stunning set of victories in assembly elections, the state Prime Minister Narendra Modi took care to talk about was Punjab—the only one out of five where the BJP had come up short. That inner drive could not have been better expressed. For the BJP under Modi, failure only carves out a future project for success, a call to redoubled action. The sense the party exudes is that of an unstoppable force. It is as if the Indian landscape itself is readjusting itself in a more…

Rahul Gandhi’s likely coronation as Congress president seems to have hit more roadblocks—losing Punjab and the continuation of a disastrous run in Uttar Pradesh. While Rahul oversaw affairs in Punjab, Priyanka Gandhi was in-charge of Uttar Pradesh. The losses have emboldened the anti-Gandhis factions within the party, who have more reason now to oppose the Gandhi scion’s ascent to party presidency. The defeats will also likely impact the party members in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh who were pinning their hopes on the Gandhi siblings’ intervention to replace incumbent CMs Ashok Gehlot and Bhupesh Baghel. In other bad news, Opposition parties now are unlikely to accept a Congress name as their common candidate for the presidential election scheduled in July.…

The sweet taste of success that the ruling DMK enjoyed after its thumping victory in the urban local bodies election in Tamil Nadu has turned a bit sour for CM M.K. Stalin. He had directed that 94 posts of mayor and deputy mayor, municipal and deputy chairmen, president and vice-president in 21 corporations, 138 municipalities and 489 town panchayats would be for the party’s coalition partners, but DMK functionaries got themselves elected instead. After his allies complained that the coalition dharma had been flouted, an angry Stalin directed the rebels to quit, saying, “As a party leader, I feel guilty and ashamed.” Those who don’t resign face dismissal from the party.…

FOR SOMEONE COMMITTED to renunciation as a way of life, it was, ironically, the promise of material benefit that has helped Yogi Adityanath return to power in Uttar Pradesh. Gleaming highways, an international airport, Ujjwala or Ujala, Saubhagya, Swachhata… the BJP’s ‘double-engine sarkar’—Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Centre, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath in the state—it would seem, has delivered El Dorado to the electorate. On March 10, the people of UP—whose status as India’s most politically powerful bloc, controlling 80 Lok Sabha seats, is by now a well-worn cliché—rewarded the effort, handing the incumbent BJP government the distinction of being the first to be voted a second term since 1985 and Yogi Adityanath the honour of being the first chief minister in the state to return to power after…

PUNJAB › It was only in 17 seats that the AAP was not in the fight and the contest was limited to the traditional parties; 57 defectors from the Akali Dal, BJP and Congress won on AAP tickets › The Congress’s famous Majha brigade—with Sukhjinder Randhawa, Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa, Sukhbinder Sarkaria—who first rebelled against Capt. Amarinder Singh, all managed to win their respective seats › Parkash Singh Badal, 94, faced his worst defeat in seven decades. He had last lost a poll in 1967, when he was defeated by Congress stalwart Harcharan Brar at Gidderbaha by 57 votes UTTARAKHAND › Education minister Arvind Pandey won his Gadarpur seat by 1,120 votes, breaking the longstanding jinx of sitting education ministers losing assembly polls › With CM Pushkar Singh Dhami’s defeat…

The BJP had been trying to win the Ponda seat in Goa for decades, to no avail. This time, it inducted Ravi Naik, the former Congress CM, in one last throw of the dice. On March 10, during counting, Naik seemed to be in third place after the MGP and Congress, but in the last round, things changed. Almost every alternate vote was in favour of the septuagenarian. When the results were announced Naik had lost just by one vote. A confident Naik sought a recount and was ultimately announced the winner by a margin of 13 votes. This is the first time that the BJP has won the Hindu dominated seat. Naik, the only Bhandari CM Goa has ever had, is now tipped to be selected Speaker of the…

ON MARCH 10, WHEN THE counting of ballots began at 8am at the government polytechnic in Altinho in Panaji, Goa, the mood was somber. Just two hours later, though, the atmosphere had turned jubilant as BJP workers garlanded a victorious Vishwajit Rane and hoisted him on their shoulders to chants of “CM Vishwajit Rane yancha vijay aso (cheers to CM Vishwajit Rane)”. The health minister in the Pramod Sawant government could barely conceal his grin, but was humble in his response. “I have no ambition to become the chief minister. I will abide by the decision taken by my party leaders,” he told reporters. The BJP office turned celebratory once again after the news of Sawant’s victory came in. The workers cheered: “Pramod Sawant once more”. And though the CM’s victory…

1. PM Modi’s brand and the appeal for Hindutva still go a long way in the hill state. His reputation as a doer and the ‘double engine’ track the BJP plays still gets traction 2. The massive infighting in the Congress put off voters. Septuagenarian Harish Rawat, who was finally given charge of the party campaign after much drama, could not even get his seat of choice and had little say in candidate selection 3. Though he lost the polls himself, CM Pushkar Dhami had the image of being a doer and, being young, was popular among the youth…

IN 2012, THE SAMAJWADI PARTY BAGGED 227 of Uttar Pradesh’s 403 assembly seats with just over 29 per cent of the vote share and formed the government. A decade later, the party increased its vote share to 32 per cent, but could win only 111 seats, failing to pose any significant challenge to the BJP, which has retained over 40 per cent vote share in the past four polls in the state—the 2014 and 2019 general elections, and the 2017 and 2022 assembly polls. This absolute dominance of the saffron party in India’s most politically significant state, which elects 80 Lok Sabha MPs, indicates the magnitude of the challenge opposition parties face. That the incumbent BJP is set to form the government in UP, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur underscores the fact…

Dr. Palanivel Thiaga Rajan, Finance Minister, Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu Finance Minister Dr PALANIVEL THIAGA RAJAN believes GDP numbers mean little if development fails to touch the lives of the poorest of the poor. The former global financial markets analyst spoke to India Today Group Editorial Director (Publishing) RAJ CHENGAPPA at the ‘Tamil Nadu First’ conclave. Excerpts: Q. Your chief minister wants to make Tamil Nadu a $1 trillion economy… It is good to have goals as they hold you accountable. To get to a $1 trillion economy in three years, what we need to do is get about 14-14.5 per cent nominal growth rate that includes inflation, if you assume the effective rate is roughly the same. Right now, inflation is around 6.5 per cent; if I take that out, it means I need to…

TAKEAWAYS 1 Strengthen the value chain in millets by getting Agri firms to invest in millet-based products like energy bars and cookies. 2 Extend support in the form of finance and storage to enable pulse growers get a better price for their crop. 3 Promote genetically modified crops. 4 Launch custom hiring centres to make farm equipment available to small and marginal farmers by skipping the subsidy route. 5 Introduce one crop one district concept for crops like turmeric as it holds potential to increase farm incomes. 6 Handhold farmers to acquire managerial skills as they have to produce more with limited resources in future.…

Q. You were one of the first to take that OTT leap of faith with an autobiographical web series. Did you think streaming would take off in such a big way? It is the direction the industry should have taken a long time ago. Earlier, if you were on TV or on OTT, it was looked down upon. Because of Covid, things have changed. Now, the idea is to just keep working and keep finding different projects that need not be confined to the big screen. Q. You are playing the titular part in Anamika. Do you feel actresses are getting meatier roles on OTT? I think it is gender agnostic. We have been seeing different shows that make us go, ‘Who is this person? They are amazing.’ People across…

The observation made by the Bombay High Court on February 27 that NCP chief Sharad Pawar had used his influence and clout in the construction of Lavasa, the controversial hill city that came up near Pune in 2009, left him shocked. Anticipating that the BJP would be sure to bring this up, on March 2, Pawar explained his side of the story to 169 legislators at a meeting of the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi. According to a Congress leader, Pawar spent more than half the meeting, which was called to chalk out the ruling alliance’s strategy, defending himself. The controversy has certainly put the NCP chief on the back foot.…

Gujarat finance minister KanuDesai has estimated that the Centre’s grant to the state will dip by 41 per cent in 2022-23. The state had received Rs 27,178 crore from the Union government in 2021-22. The amount will be Rs 15,982 crore in the next financial year. The reduced central assistance would usually be considered a setback for the state government in an election year, but Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel is planning to claim it as an achievement. The state government says lower grants from Delhi are an indication that Gujarat is becoming less dependent on central funds, which is a sign of a healthy state economy.…

1. The promise of a ‘double-engine sarkar’—Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Centre, Yogi Adityanath in the state—seems to have found resonance among the people 2. The Yogi government was able to pitch its narrative of development, foreign investment and employment opportunity in the state 3. Likewise with law and order. Wearing the ‘Bulldozer Baba’ epithet proudly, the Yogi government was able to convincingly demonstrate that he has cracked down on criminal mafia groups and razed corruption to the ground 4. The BJP also undertook a massive beneficiary contact programme, under which its workers reached out to all the beneficiaries of the schemes of the central government, and reminded them how they were all part of the BJP family. They promised more would be in store if the BJP was…

WITHIN THE FIRST HOUR of counting in Punjab, the sound of bursting firecrackers and jubilant dhols erupted in the otherwise sleepy town of Dhuri. Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) supporters wielding brooms—the party’s election symbol—had reached the residence of Bhagwant Mann, their local candidate and AAP’s chief ministerial face. By lunchtime, the celebrations had spread across the state as AAP headed for a historic landslide with 92 seats (42 per cent vote share). Mann, a popular comedian-turned-politician in the mould of the Italian Beppe Grillo or Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, has earned quite a cult following with his merciless broadsides against the political establishment. The Sangrur MP since 2014, Mann’s wit-laced oratory has created its own niche in the Lok Sabha. And back home, those relentless barbs helped keep voters healthily sceptical…

1. With a thrust on infrastructure development and social welfare, the BJP had a better track record in the state than Congress. The BJP’s monthly 16,000 litre free water scheme has been a hit 2. The BJP’s assertion, that the same-party rule at the Centre as well as in the state will help Goa get more funds, worked 3. The BJP worked as a team irrespective of the team members’ lineage in the party, while the Congress seemed divided…

Launched in 2003, the India Today’s annual State of the States (SOS) survey has, over the years, not only become the most respected barometer of how different states in India are performing across vital development indices, but also come to serve as a report card of the nation. The states are ranked judging by their performance in several categories, like economy, infrastructure, industry, agriculture, health, education, law and order and governance. For four years in a row now Tamil Nadu has emerged as the best performing big state with consistent and credible performance across parameters, even in the wake of the devastating Covid-19 pandemic. On March 4, India Today held the Tamil Nadu First Conclave in Chennai, the first in its series of individual conclaves to be held across all…

TAKEAWAYS 1 Make matters of space and space technology accessible to the common man. 2 Value and recognise hardware start-ups with state helping provide infrastructure. 3 Treat start-ups as customers and enable them fulfil compliance issues. 4 Create a mini start-up city to attract more players. 5 Provide continuity with a 15-year long term perspective in the newly introduced FinTech policy. 6 Give priority to service-based sectors.…

TAKEAWAYS 1 Launch initiatives so that Tamil Nadu remains No.1 in drawing both domestic and international tourists. 2 Unveil an exclusive Tamil Nadu Tourism policy that accords industry status to the hospitality business. 3 Expand the temple tourism network now that many among the 44,000 odd temples in the state have a website of their own. 4 Develop specific sites as adventure tourism hubs. 5 Promote plantation tourism with tea estate owners showing willingness to come on board.…

Subodh Gupta’s show Cosmic Battle (on view at the Nature Morte gallery, New Delhi until April 10) includes a kinetic sculpture he has named ‘Self-portrait’. As often happens with Gupta’s art, this work, too, is made up of several cooking utensils. With the artist or his face nowhere to be seen, the question asks itself: How is this a self-portrait? “It’s an ode to my childhood memories,” Gupta tells us. “As a child, I remember my mother performing elaborate pooja with bricks, sand, rice, mango leaves, coconuts and some flowers arranged on a brass thali. We grew up with such rituals which were like installation/performance art for us. This self-portrait is a jugalbandi between me and my mother.” ‘Self-portrait’ has been refashioned from aluminium, brass and stainless steel—everyday materials that…

$9.4 billion (₹72,192 crore) TRADE BETWEEN India and Russia during April-December 2021 KEY IMPORTS: Defence equipment, crude oil, mineral oils, agriculture products, coal, pearls, fertilisers and nuclear reactors KEY EXPORTS: Electrical machinery and equipment, pharmaceutical products, nuclear reactor parts and organic chemicals ALTERNATIVE PAYMENT MODES ↘ A rupee-rouble arrangement for government-to-government transactions through a designated bank, which will act as a trading house ↘ SPFS (System for Transfer of Financial Messages) which Russia developed after the West raised threats to cut it off from SWIFT in 2015 7 million barrels Crude oil shipped out of Russia per day 18% Share of Russia in global wheat supplies…

A strange sort of veneration confronts you when you mention Naveen Patnaik in Odisha. Biju Janata Dal MP Amar Patnaik gets a little emotional when he says, “He is like family: a grandfather to children, father to many, brother to women.” It perhaps explains the 75-year-old BJD patriarch’s uninterrupted run in the state for the past 22 years. Be it parliamentary elections or for assembly, municipal or even rural bodies, his party sweeps them all with mandates so comprehensive that other parties seem like extras in some Naveen Patnaik show. So it was with the latest panchayat elections (held from February 16-24), where the BJD won 766 of the 851 zilla parishad zones, while the BJP and Congress managed inconsequential tallies of 42 and 37 seats, respectively. While the Congress…

IF THERE WAS A TURNING POINT behind the historic back-to-back victories of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, it came late last year and under the most unusual of circumstances. In November 2021, just before the saffron party formally launched its campaign for the election to the state assembly, there were loud rumblings against Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath within the party. The word was that the mahant-turned-politician was arrogant and ran the state government pretty much as his own fiefdom without involving cabinet colleagues in decisions or accommodating the party’s sensitivities. Some even called for a change of CM as had been done in neighbouring Uttarakhand as well as in Gujarat and distant Karnataka. It was at this point that Prime Minister Narendra Modi decided…

A YEAR OR TWO short of their 50th birthdays, both Yogi Adityanath and Akhilesh Yadav represent the younger generation of Indian politicians poised to inherit the mantle of their respective parties in the country. This round has gone to the 49-year-old Yogi Adityanath, giving him a second consecutive shot at chief ministership while denying Akhilesh a second stint. The Samajwadi Party scion appears to have been premature in his hope for his party’s resurgence, but its electoral performance is not entirely a lost cause in the manner of the Congress and Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party seem to be after Election 2022. The SP tally of 111 may have been significantly off the 202 mark needed for a majority in the 403-member Vidhan Sabha, but it did manage to deprive the…

1. Chaos created with the farm unions’ protests did the BJP in while the way the Congress sacked CM Amarinder Singh also put off voters 2. There was massive anti-incumbency against the Congress regime, but the churn created by Navjot Sidhu and his constant war with new CM Channi and others destroyed whatever goodwill the party had left 3. A lack of confidence in the Akali Dal leadership and the popular perception that they were responsible for many of Punjab’s past ills nixed their chances 4. AAP’s consistent campaign since August 2021, the promise of a repeat of Kejriwal’s Delhi model of good governance in Punjab, Bhagwant Mann’s relatively clean image, it all helped in getting voters to push the button for the broom this time…

AS DUSK FELL IN the hill state of Uttarakhand on March 10, a wave of jubilation swept through the BJP. The party had scored a second successive victory with 47 seats in the 70-member state assembly. The BJP’s tally is down from 57 in 2017 and so is its vote share (46.5 per cent to 43.5 per cent), yet managing a repeat government in what has been a ‘swing state’ electorally is no mean feat. The good fortune, though, did not extend to Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami, who lost his Khatima by 7,273 votes to old rival Bhuwan Chandra Kapri (Congress). Call it tradition, but the last incumbent CM to get re-elected to the Uttarakhand assembly was B.S. Koshyari in 2002. In fact, no one, except the late N.D. Tiwari…

1. The atmosphere of calm, with no major insurgent activities in the past five years. There have been no road blockades either, which used to cause immense distress to the general public 2. Timely delivery of welfare benefits. The state government also introduced a health insurance scheme 3. The efforts to bridge the gap between the people in Imphal valley and the hills 4. Candidate selection—the BJP poached over a dozen ‘winnable’ candidates from Congress 5.The Congress’s disarray left the field open for other parties…

TAKEAWAYS 1 Aim for a growth rate of 15 per cent in manufacturing and attract investments to the tune of Rs 10 lakh crore. 2 Focus on existing investors as they will be able to attract more. 3 Address issues related to land acquisition sensitively and quicken approvals. 4 Finetune the 2021 Tamil Nadu fintech policy so that the FinTech City planned at Nandambakkam evolves as the fintech capital of India. 5 Reduce the skill gap and provide more employment, even as the state shifts focus from engineering to vocational programmes. 6 Promote greater technology in the agriculture sector and help support MSMEs through financial programmes.…