Innholdsfortegnelse for Monday, March 13, 2023 i India Today

Just after creating record by reaching at the helm of affairs of state again in March month of 2022, the Yogi Adityanath government started working on strengthening of industrialisation. It was never seen before, that to bring industrial investment; a ground breaking ceremony was organized in any state within the hundred days of the formation of the government. As soon as PM Narendra Modi inaugurated the Ground Breaking ceremony by putting his hand on the digital Kiosk, the countdown to bring the investment of 1406 projects, worth Rs. 80224 crores to the ground started. In continuation of these efforts, the Government of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath started working for organising unprecedented Global Investor Summit. The Yogi government gave a positive signal to the investors by changing and framing the 25…

THE NEW LIQUOR POLICY On November 17, 2021, the AAP government rolled out a new excise policy for Delhi ↘ Projecting a revenue increase of Rs 9,500 crore, the government decided to exit the liquor trade and leave it only to private players ↘ As per the policy, 849 liquor stores were to open across 32 zones in the city, each having maximum 27 liquor outlets. Earlier, four government corporations ran 475 of the city’s total 864 liquor stores VIGILANCE ACCUSATIONS AGAINST SISODIA A July 8, 2022, vigilance report submitted by chief secretary Naresh Kumar accused deputy CM Sisodia, who headed the excise department, of crafting the policy with ulterior aims ↘ Sisodia, the vigilance report said, provided undue benefits to liquor vend licensees in lieu of “kickbacks” and “commissions”…

In what may lead to a churn in Maharashtra politics, Hindu Dalit organisations have launched a stir seeking a division in the quota for scheduled castes (SCs). Currently, SCs get 13 per cent reservations in education and jobs. Hindu Dalit organisations are alleging that the Buddhist Dalits—erstwhile members of the Mahar community who converted to Buddhism with Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar in 1956—have secured most of the benefits from these quotas at the cost of other groups. They believe that ring-fenced categories, or a system of quotas within the larger SC reservation, will protect their interests. Buddhist Dalit leaders are opposed to any such idea. In Maharashtra, the SC category has 59 castes listed under it, and Buddhist Dalits form the highest numbers among them. In all, the SCs constitute around…

↘ Upgrading 117 government schools as ‘schools of eminence’ Status: Project launched in January end ↘ Setting up 500 ‘Aam Aadmi clinics’ on the lines of the successful mohalla clinics in the national capital by converting non-functional Sewa Kendras Status: Hobbled by lack of trained medical staff ↘ Slashing load enhancement fee on tube-wells from Rs 4,750 to Rs 2,500 per bhp Status: Done ↘ Declared minimum support price for moong in July Status: Only 11 per cent of produce procured at MSP rate so far ↘ 300 units of free electricity per month Status: Done ↘ Government Volvo buses from 10 cities to Delhi airport Status: 25 buses plying daily ↘ Regularising certain temporary government jobs, including over 8,000 teachers Status: Done ↘ Implementing old pension scheme (OPS) Status: Committee…

YOGITA WARDE, AUTHOR Yogita Warde, a well-known Author, Lyricist and tremendous human being is gaining much fame due to her writing skills. Some of her successful books are Cooker ki Seeti, Diya, Saahi & Sudheer, to name a few. She believes in the power of words. She has written the lyrics of the song "Main Sirf Tujhe Chahun". An evocative song on love and longing, released on the Valentine's Day. Destiny has already decided to award her with a successful writing career. Since her childhood, she got deeply fascinated by writers and authors. MIRAJHALA, ENTREPRENEUR Mira Jhala, a Harvard Business School alumnus, is a serial entrepreneur and over the last decade has been involved in various food start-ups. Mira is the Founder and CEO of FroGo - India's first and…

The Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar University is named after the great early-20th-century educationist who made Rampur a major centre of education. Unfortunately, now the varsity is more known for the property disputes surrounding its chancellor Azam Khan. Spread over 350 acres, it was established in 2006 during the Mulayam Singh regime in UP. The university administration claims some 5,000 students study here for 33 courses, including engineering and mass communication. Azam had runins with many of UP’s governors before managing to get the varsity minority status in 2014. Since its inception, the university has been facing allegations of illegal encroachment. Bande Ali, 45, from Singankheda village that abuts the university on the north side, has been fighting for years to get back his two bighas of land. Ali says, “In…

Sayed Haidar Raza was one of India’s most important painters. This eponymous volume has been brought out in tandem with the opening of a major retrospective of Raza’s work at the Centre Pompidou, Paris, in his centenary year. Across a long life (1922-2016) and a career stretching across 70-odd years, Raza produced a variety of wonderful work, most of it made in France, his second home. His oeuvre encompasses a whole history of modern art, from Impressionism in the 19th century, the most skilful academic renderings from Indian art schooling of the 1940s, the early-20th-century movements of Fauvism, German Expressionism and Cubism, the post-war École de Paris, American abstract expressionism and Raza’s own, unique, post-abstract expressionism. While absorbing western influences, Raza’s work also stays in dialogue throughout with Indian traditions,…

PRATEEK KUMAR BHOWMICK, ENTREPRENEUR Prateek Kumar Bhowmick is a leading Entrepreneur, Co-Founder and COO of Review Adda. Review Adda is an education admission marketplace Company. Review Adda helps connect aspirants to the verified alumnus of various institutions for guidance and then makes admission process simple and fast. Prateek Kr Bhowmick co-founded Review Adda in 2015 and since then placed 36000 students in premium Institutes and Universities. Prateek believes that a motivated and consistent mindset along with smart work and perseverance will achieve success. He is also passionate about making small investments and contribution in early startups. His business mantra is the right investment in right market with right execution at right time and right team. MONISHA K GUMBER, AUTHOR Monisha K Gumber is a noted Author and leading Management Consultant.…

On February 14, while the world was celebrating the day of love, a massive controversy had erupted in Maharashtra erupt over a newspaper advertisement by the Assam government. Carrying a prominent picture of Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, the ad appealed to the masses to visit the Bhimashankar Temple on February 18 to celebrate Mahashivratri. There was nothing wrong in inviting people to the ancient Shiva temple lying in the foothills of Dakini Hill, near Guwahati, but the ad also claimed that the shrine was the sixth of the 12 sacred jyotirlingas (divine halos of light that connect to stone lingams on Earth through which Lord Shiva is said to have emerged) found across the country. Why did the Assam government’s claim evoke such sharp reactions in Maharashtra? It was…

Azam Khan was unusually quiet as he and his supporters waited at the MP-MLA court complex in Moradabad on February 13. The usually belligerent general secretary of the Samajwadi Party (SP) was waiting for a verdict on a case from way back in 2008, when he and his supporters had created a ruckus at the Chhajlet police station in Moradabad district. On New Year’s Day in 2008, there had been a terrorist attack on the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) camp in Rampur (incidentally Azam’s home district) after which a high alert had been declared in the whole state. The next day, Azam’s convoy was on its way to a marriage when it was stopped for vehicle checks in Chhajlet. An enraged Azam and his supporters ended up blocking the…

In 2015, when 15-year-old Piu Mondol was rescued from a sex trafficking racket in West Bengal, the usual refuge for survivors was a shelter home, where, if one was lucky, some NGO would come along and help them cope with life. However, for most, things rarely changed. There was no one to hear them, no one to offer solace, and, after a childhood spent grappling with betrayal, no one to trust. Mondol knew these realities all too well. “Nobody knows better what survivors need than survivors themselves,” she says. And so, Mondol, along with a few other survivors, started the Indian Leadership Forum Against Trafficking (ILFAT) in 2015. Located in Bengal’s Sunderbans district, the collective—the only one by survivors and for survivors in India—today has a 5,000 member-strong team. “To…

In 2015, Rana Daggubati was part of what would become one of the first pan-India cinematic phenomena, S.S. Rajamouli’s Bahubali films. Seven years later, he headlines Rana Naidu, Netflix’s first show with two Telugu actors. An adaptation of the popular American series Ray Donovan, Daggubati plays the eponymous character who has a fractured relationship with his father (played by Venkatesh Daggubati). “It’s the ‘India’ narrative,” says Daggubati. “It’s Hindi first, and after that you come to other industries.” Nonetheless, the actor hopes that it’s the beginning of many collaborations with entertainment industries in the South. “We are just blown away by the longform format… For us, it’s all very new… Getting into this part of storytelling is fun.” The proliferation of OTT platforms has facilitated engagement with other language industries;…

Spring in Delhi is the season of art. Galleries in the capital don the evening wear of high art, and the annual art fair is an efflorescence of creativity, leaping out of the booths in a mating dance of canvases and installations. Art parties acquire the aura of pilgrimages, and the delirium is unshakeable—even by an earthquake. And yet, in the middle of it, in the designer stores-lined service lane of the upmarket Defence Colony in South Delhi, there is an art show that is a counterpoint to all this, replete with Yin energy, like a nun in a meditative retreat. The artworks are on small sheets of paper, mostly with just pen and pencil lines—so delicate, like ‘glass placed in water’, that they can’t be photographed by phone cameras.…

“Currently there is a government in Uttar Pradesh which is taking decisions. The political stability is very helpful for investors. UP is capable and all set to become the growth engine of India.”- Droupadi Murmu, The President of India After organising Global investor Summit between 10th to 12th February in Lucknow and receiving the investment proposals of more than Rs 34 lakh crore, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is now preparing to implement these investment proposals. 10 country partners, more than 1000 representatives of 40 countries, 4 ministers of partner countries, 17 Union ministers, 5 ambassadors and more than 25000 delegates along with National and international investors and other dignitaries participated enthusiastically in this event. This function is going to become an important junction in making the state one trillion dollar…

The arrest of Manish Sisodia, the most high-profile minister in Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal’s cabinet, is perhaps the biggest political crisis to hit the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) since its inception in 2012. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) arrested the Delhi deputy CM on February 26 for alleged corruption in the formulation and implementation of the now-scrapped liquor excise policy of 2021-22. The agency alleges that Sisodia, as excise minister, took “arbitrary and unilateral decisions” causing “huge financial losses to the exchequer” and benefiting private players. AAP, refuting the charges, accuses the Narendra Modi government of using the CBI for political vendetta. Sisodia is the second minister in Kejriwal’s cabinet to be arrested by a central agency. Last June, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) arrested Satyendar Jain, another heavyweight…

“Crores of workers of the Congress party must build on the momentum of the Bharat Jodo Yatra to defeat the divisive forces of the BJP and RSS. A mass awareness campaign will be launched against the crudest example of crony capitalism which the entire country and the world is seeing.” The concluding sentences of this ‘Call to Action’ document revealed a new glint of steel in the Grand Old Party’s campaign plan for the 2024 general election. Released on the concluding day of the Congress’s 85th plenary session, held in Raipur over February 24-26, the document incorporates a four-pronged strategy. Chief among them is the idea of harnessing the energy created by Rahul Gandhi’s cross-country yatra. This bleeds over into the other three: trying to win six assembly polls later…

Four years after the murder of former Andhra Pradesh minister Y.S. Vivekananda Reddy, the ruling YSR Congress and Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy’s family continue to be embroiled in the case. The CBI, in a 38-page affidavit filed in the Telangana High Court on February 22, pointed the finger at Jagan’s cousin and current Kadapa MP Y.S. Avinash Reddy and his father Y.S. Bhaskar Reddy. The agency alleges that the duo, along with one of their men, D. Siva Sankar Reddy, hatched the plot to kill Vivekananda. The victim was Jagan’s paternal uncle, the younger brother of his father and former chief minister of united Andhra Pradesh, the late Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy. He was also Bhaskar Reddy’s cousin. Vivekananda was found mysteriously murdered at his home in Pulivendula, a…

IT was just a year ago that Bhagwant Mann and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) stormed to power in Punjab with a landslide victory after the electorate turned its back on the state’s two most powerful parties—the Congress and the Akali Dal (SAD)—that had taken turns to rule the frontline state since it came into existence in 1966. The 49-year-old Mann, like the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, was a popular comedian before he turned to politics. His promise of badlav, or change, along with the freshness that AAP brought with it, had wowed voters who were disillusioned with the shenanigans of the state’s seasoned parties. Yet when Mann completes one year as chief minister of the first AAP government in Punjab on March 16, the euphoria among voters will seem…

↘ Several of his government’s missions such as the drive against drug abuse, cattle smuggling, illegal encroachment on public land, unauthorised madrasas and child marriages, are seen to be targeting Muslims. His public statements on issues such as ‘love jihad’ and Muslim population growth have made him quite popular among the Hindutva brigade ↘ From sheltering Maharashtra’s rebel Shiv Sena leaders to facilitating the defection of eight Goa Congress MLAs to brokering peace between West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee and then governor (and now V-P) Jagdeep Dhankhar, Sarma has been the go-to person for BJP’s shadow politics. He has been instrumental in wiping out the Congress in the Northeast, primarily through his moles in his former party ↘ Sarma seems ready to hit back at anyone making offensive remarks against…

On January 20, as Gujarat agriculture minister Raghavji Patel arrived at a gaushala in Morbi, a bull—all decked-up—was readied for a special ceremony. During the short puja that followed, the minister showered the bovine with flowers, seeking blessings for what was to come… The unsuspecting bull was soon to become the first to be castrated as part of a statewide drive to—as Patel described it—“conserve stray cattle”. The BJP government in Gujarat finds itself in an uncomfortable quandary in dealing with an excess of bovines. So, it has decided to castrate 50,000-odd bulls that are over a year old. This is the latest in a series of failed attempts to curb the stray cattle menace in the state’s urban areas. Abandoned or left loose in public spaces, cattle—especially bulls—continue to…

There’s more to Indian tourism than just the Taj Mahal, the palaces of Rajasthan, the beaches of Goa or the backwaters of Kerala. A growing number of tourists are looking for lesser-known gems: the Triyuginarayan Temple in Rudraprayag, Uttarakhand, the spot where Shiva and Parvati are said to have got married, has become a popular wedding destination, while the beach town of Konark in Odi-sha, which used to be a day’s trip, now has people visiting for four-five days, thanks to the Eco Retreat ‘glam camp’ started just a few years ago. India’s tourism sector is recognising the potential of the ‘local’, and it is this idea that resonated among officials and industry leaders who came together at the 2023 INDIA TODAY Tourism Survey and Awards to discuss the future…

In these remembrances of her “extraordinary family” of writers, artists and others with a creative bent, Sara Rai evokes a 1960s haze of Civil Lines bungalows in Allahabad. From there, she meanders through the history of her grandfather, Premchand, and her father, an artist who ran the family publishing house. A literary and acerbic grandmother, bed-ridden aunts, and other characters appear in an often uneven tour of Rai’s richly branched and multi-coloured lineage in Raw Umber: A Memoir. Benares also frequently features in her essays, as she travels to the village in which Premchand was born, in a now-crumbling house, near a now-dry pond, to see a commemorative bust of the writer that does not resemble what she remembers. Privilege and pedigree attempt to put a faint sheen on even…