Innholdsfortegnelse for 9 January 2023 i India Today

As a year, 2022 has been difficult to define. The world had believed it was out of the Covid-19 nightmare, and that life was beginning to get back to a new spring. But February itself got us the Ukraine war, plunging things into a new uncertainty. And as the year winds down, even as the war rages, the pandemic stalks us again. What made the year special though is the human spirit, working its path across domains—in business, sport, politics, cinema. We feature in this issue the most engaging parts of what we witnessed this year. Gautam Adani, chairman of the Ahmedabad-based Adani Group, became the richest person in India and Asia and the third richest in the world. The self-made entrepreneur did so with his explosive growth strategy in…

WORLD’S THIRD RICHEST With a net worth of $125.8 billion, Gautam Adani is the world’s third richest person behind French fashion business tycoon Bernard Arnault ($180.5 billion) and Tesla and Twitter CEO Elon Musk ($138 billion). He also overtook Mukesh Ambani, chairman of Reliance Industries, as the richest Indian STOCK MARKET DARLING His group’s total market capitalisation registers a phenomenal ninefold growth from Rs 1,96,917 crore on December 23, 2019 to Rs 17,90,038 crore as on December 23, 2022 BETTING BIG Acquires Swiss firm Holcim’s stake in Ambuja Cements and ACC for $10.5 billion (around Rs 87,000 crore), India’s single largest deal in the infra sector, and becomes the country’s second largest cement manufacturer behind Aditya Birla Group’s UltraTech EXPLOSIVE EXPANSION Takes over controlling stake of NDTV; acquires India’s largest…

WORKAHOLIC: Adani works for 12 hours on most days. “I always tell people that when I am at work, I relax. Whenever I go on a holiday, I work too,” he says STRESS BUSTER: Plays a game of rummy with his wife Priti at least three to four times a week, even if he reaches home late. “She is always the winner. The card game helps me relax and spend some quality time with my wife.” PERSONALITY TRAIT: A positive thinker, does not get worked up by any adverse situation. Believes in destiny MANAGEMENT STYLE: Empowers professionals to think as entrepreneurs and take own decisions. Stands by them even if things go wrong. Follows his gut feeling, and prefers logical and simple solutions over jargon OTHER INTERESTS: Says he doesn’t…

› India’s economy remains among the most robust in the world because of the way Modi handled the darkness of the Covid-19 pandemic › Signals are that the next Union budget will focus on imparting a massive boost to domestic consumption › PM listed the naval aircraft carrier INS Vikrant as a marker of the country’s manufacturing prowess › The trade deals struck with the UAE and Australia go towards adding some vitality to the global economy › Populations at the bottom of the pyramid are feeling left out. Modi touched on this theme as he accepted India’s G20 presidency › Progress in the expansion of capacities for capital goods in sectors such as space, drones and defence…

These days, along the national highways in Punjab, the alternating scenes of lush wheat fields in the countryside and the hubbub of towns and cities are frequently punctuated by life-size billboards of a tight-faced Bhagwant Mann, the chief minister. They proudly declare the Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) success in delivering on its poll promise of providing free electricity. In a head-turning sweep, Mann stormed into power in Punjab with 92 AAP legislators in March 2022. Perhaps the comedian-turned-politician’s victory was not entirely without notice—rivals Congress and the Akali Dal were already engulfed in their own big crises. Even so, it was a turning point for the AAP, and a sliver of hope for a state whose struggles had been ballooning for years. Mann is the AAP’s second chief minister after…

A day before Christmas, India celebrated 20 years of its most extensive metro rail network—the Delhi Metro. Constructed with Japanese expertise, it has revolutionised urban transport in India. Indeed, India and Japan share a unique bonding, marking 70 years of diplomatic ties in 2022. Yet, whether business or strategic, the overall performance has been underwhelming. The India Today Indo Japan Conclave 2022 on December 19 in New Delhi touched upon several parts of this multi-faceted relationship, and set the agenda for high growth. While delivering the inaugural keynote address, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar said that Japan and India have a positive history that will be an asset in future. Japan, he said, is perceived in India as a model of harmonising modernity and tradition. “A strong national consensus exists…

Without doubt, the most moving read of my year was The Line of Mercy: A Novel (HarperCollins India) by Tarun J. Tejpal. It is such a beautifully over-the-top product of sagesse, swag, wryness and chuckle. The media stonewalling of one of the most polyphonic “India books” ever to come out is emblematic of the poverty and herd-mentality that marks intellectual life in India today. The loss is ours. The book has a date with history. I was, until this year, not able to afford the luxury that is the two-volume compendium Amrita Sher-Gil (Tulika Books), edited by Vivan Sundaram. What emerges through the letters, photos and art is a playful, peppery young woman with the confidence to laugh at convention, who lived and worked in an epoch of giants and…

South Asian fiction made a big splash at international awards this year—scooping up two Bookers and a raft of praise. Sri Lanka’s Shehan Karunatilaka won fiction’s top prize for The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, a black comedy set in the afterlife, while Geetanjali Shree won the International Booker for her Partition-themed Hindi novel Tomb of Sand. However, Shree, who was also shortlisted for India’s top honour—the Rs 25 lakh JCB Prize—lost to Urdu writer Khaled Jawed. His winning novel, The Paradise of Food, tracked a Muslim middle-class family over half a century and was hailed by the jury as a “modern fable” and “fine artistic achievement”. It was the third year in a row that the prize went to a translated work—the shortlist consisted entirely of translations. Tumult beset…

It’s been seven decades since the first elections were held in India, but caste arithmetic still remains integral to this democratic exercise. So, when Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy addressed the ruling YSR Congress’s ‘Jayaho BC Mahasabha’ in Vijayawada on December 7, it was the same backward classes math that was decidedly on his mind. In February 2019, just ahead of the last assembly election, Jagan—vying to dethrone then CM and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) chief N. Chandrababu Naidu—had tried to woo the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in the state with a slew of promises in his party’s BC Declaration unveiled at Eluru. Now, with the next state poll due in 2024—coinciding with the general election—Jagan shared his government’s ‘report card’ at the well-attended outreach programme in…

On December 25, Delhi was shivering. Yet, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was seen only in a T-shirt while paying tributes to Mahatma Gandhi and former prime ministers, including Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Even during the Bharat Jodo Yatra, amid the chilling winters of north India, Rahul has been seen only in his trademark white T-shirt, while other leaders, including Sonia Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, and Mallikarjun Kharge, were seen wearing gloves, mufflers, and jackets. As social media was abuzz wondering what kept Rahul warm, he sought to philosophise: “They keep asking me how I do not feel cold. But they do not ask the farmer, the worker, poor children, this question.” But the best answer came from party communication in-charge Jairam Ramesh. He said Rahul had developed a thick skin, surviving…

GAUTAM ADANI, billionaire industrialist and third richest man in the world, is India Today’s Newsmaker of the Year. In a freewheeling interview with Group Editorial Director RAJ CHENGAPPA, he talks about the Adani Group’s explosive expansion in 2022, future plans, the many controversies and even his relationship with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Excerpts: Q. Looking back at 2022, what makes this year so special for you? For me, 2022 was an exceptional year in so many ways. We had a successful Adani Wilmar IPO and now it is becoming the seventh listed company in our group. We have built a business model where we start one from scratch, make it profitable and then go public. This IPO was another example of that. We also became India’s second largest cement manufacturer…

The journey from the remote Uparbeda village in the Mayurbhanj district of Odisha to Raisina Hill in Delhi had been long and arduous. As India’s first president from the tribal community, Droupadi Murmu summed it all up in her first address to the nation after her appointment: “Reaching this office isn’t my personal achievement but that of all poor people. My election is proof… that in India the poor can dream and fulfil their dreams.” Murmu was working for the adivasis when the BJP’s Raj Kishore Das saw in her an immense potential that could help the party grow among tribals. At every level of her career—councillor, MLA and then cabinet minister of a BJD-BJP government—her priority was to improve the lot of villagers. When she was governor of Jharkhand…

Hardcore political allegory? A feminist fable? Magical realism? A love story? None/all of the above? K.R. Meera’s Qabar (published by Eka), translated from the Malayalam by Nisha Susan, was impossible to pin down, which made reading it a magical as well as disturbing experience. What more can you ask for from a novel? No matter what the theme of his fiction is, Jerry Pinto as novelist does life and Mumbai—not always in that order—in a way that plays with every sensation and feeling that you thought you had under control. The Education of Yuri (Speaking Tiger) was no exception. Small things like these novels, one of them titled Small Things Like These (Grove Press), remind us that you don’t need to write a doorstopper to tell a big, big story…

Though the book was delivered to me for review as a PDF version, I ran right out and bought a physical copy. It’s that kind of book—it needs to be held in the hands, smelled, listened to. This slender hardback is a reprint, produced with care on the 25th anniversary of its first edition. It has been called a graphic novel, but “allegorical documentary” might be a more appropriate term. It tells the story of a movement, a river, a giant dam and a nation in conflict with itself. In the book, the river is the Rewa. In the real world, the river is—or was—the Narmada. As author-activist Arundhati Roy says in her eloquent foreword, the river has today been reduced to a mere trickle. Sen writes in his introduction…

Jens Erik, an expoliceman, is an unlikely hero. To his daughter, he is embarrassingly racist. To his former colleagues he is a Luddite. His mind keeps returning to the body of a Black man recovered from the sea some years previously. Harris Malouf is an unlikely villain, a killer now leading a quiet life tending to his garden and an assortment of swans. The Body By the Shore is a tale of redemption and damnation; but if the good guys win and the bad guys lose, who is which? And to what degree? Knowledge in the hands of the ‘wrong’ people can be destructive, but who decides that? Larger questions come accompanied by smaller ones—do we have a responsibility to keep ourselves informed? When the characters all come together at…

Indian THE ASSASSIN by K.R. Meera In November 2016, a woman is attacked by an unknown assailant while returning home. She emerges unharmed. But soon, she realises that this incident might be part of a larger plan to end her life. Once her wheelchair-bound father dies, the plot thickens. SMOKE AND ASHES: A Writer’s Journey Through Hidden Histories by Amitav Ghosh Ghosh returns with a new book about China and India, environment, capitalism, opium, tea and history. This wide-ranging work takes on several themes Ghosh has so skilfully tackled in the past. INSATIABLE; MY HUNGER FOR LIFE by Shobhaa De De’s book opens with a typically unabashed strike: “I promise not to be three things—profound, pedantic and pretentious.” In her 75th year, the writer-columnist-socialite goes on a whirlwind tour of…

For years, speculation in Maharashtra had been rife: ‘will he, won’t he?’ Some acolytes of Eknath Sambhaji Shinde said he had touched the glass ceiling and was looking for greener pastures, while others said he owed everything to the Shiv Sena and would never betray it. But when Shinde quit the party and joined hands with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in June 2022, toppling the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government led by Uddhav Thackeray, he put these conjectures to rest and reaffirmed the old cliché: politics is the art of the possible. The Shiv Sena is no stranger to splits, but Shinde’s rebellion was a watershed as he walked away with 40 of 56 MLAs and 13 of 19 Lok Sabha MPs, fomenting an existential crisis for the party.…

The year 2022 saw Hindi cinema, a.k.a. Bollywood, further lose its grip on the masses. Capitalising on this lull, the southern film industry stepped up to regale audiences, even those in the Hindi belt. At the forefront was Yash-starrer KGF: Chapter 2, the highest-grossing film of 2022 in India and also the second biggest in the history of Indian cinema. The Kannada actor personified the rage, swagger and machismo that made his Rocky Bhai an icon for the working class, much like Amitabh Bachchan’s Vijay. Yash’s biggest achievement though was putting the relatively smaller Kannada film industry on the national map. Five months later, Kantara, featuring Rishab Shetty as a rebel protecting his village, became a nationwide hit, introducing audiences to the captivating buta kola tradition of coastal Karnataka. Visionary…

Deep into The People of the Indus, a kurta-pyjama-clad, bespectacled narrator laments: “If only we could read their script, the world of the Indus people would open up before us and their names, their titles and their gods would come tumbling out.” By this point in the book’s journey, the “if only” sentiment is shared by both author and reader alike about a civilisation that every Indian student reads about in school textbooks. Tragically, for all of us concerned, the Indus script bears no resemblance to any other known script, making it particularly indecipherable, and thus, keeping the civilisation’s myths, legends, and the ways the Harappans once perceived the world, a giant mystery. Through detailed black-and-white drawings, The People of the Indus, written by Nikhil Gulati with inputs from Jonathan…

As a translator, I’m very picky when it comes to reading translations. The key to success is to pay attention to who your translator is. Once you find the one you love, hunt down more titles by the same translator, because you are bound to find more great books in the process. My list of five great reads from 2022 are all translations, all brought to English by highly skilled fellow-translators. People from Bloomington (Penguin Random House), by Budi Darma, was translated from Indonesian by Tiffany Tsao. This is a classic Indonesian collection and the English version is flawless. Darma writes about his time in Bloomington, Indiana, USA, from a fascinating and quirky perspective invoking the bland Midwestern landscape to a tee. Rouge Street (Metropolitan Books) by Shuang Xuetao was…

Q. Your novel, All the Lives We Never Lived, was widely praised by critics the world over, but does seeing it win a Sahitya Akademi award feel special? This award is like no other—it places my novel alongside the work of so many writers I have grown up reading. It makes me feel as if I am part of a long tradition of Indian writing in English. It is also unique in that it is decided upon by an independent jury despite being a state award. Q. Of all the historical figures in your novel, did any one grow to become a favourite character in the end? Walter Spies is my favourite historical character in this book. Despite his genius, he seems not to have a grain of self-importance. He…