Innholdsfortegnelse for Monday, April 17, 2023 i India Today

FOCUS ON BASIC INFRASTRUCTURE The Yogi government is committed to making the state a one trillion dollar economy and organised Global Investor Summit in the month of February. The government received investment proposals approx rupees 35 lakh crore through this Summit. The budget reflects the intention of the government to implement these investment proposals. The biggest thrust in the budget of 2023-24 is on mega infrastructure projects and industrial development. There has been an allocation of 20586 crore rupees for medium and heavy industries in the budget of the year 2023-24. Apart from developing the infrastructure facilities, the provision has been made to develop the Industrial corridor along with them. With the completion of two link express ways of Bundelkhand expressway the connectivity will increase till the Jhansi and Chitrakoot…

Each of West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee’s government schemes carries the suffix ‘Sree’, which signifies prosperity or beauty. Road projects, for instance, are named Rastasree, schemes for youths become Yuvasree. Girls go for higher studies as part of Kanyasree and women can get married under Rupasree. The latest to be ‘sree-fied’ is Yogasree, the medical college and yoga and naturopathy hospital at Belur in Howrah. Originally a central government initiative, like all other Centre-state shared or aided projects, it was given a touch of ‘sree’ by Mamata for people in her state to feel a sense of ownerhip.…

“A man enjoys himself in paradise as long as his memory is green in the world. One should (therefore) set up a memorial on the mountains that will endure as long as the moon and the sun”—MONK BUDDHABHADRA Inscription at Cave 26, Ajanta, circa 478 CE The battle against mortality, in a sense, is inscribed into the very foundational scrolls of Ajanta. An anxiety of perishing haunts and animates the 5th century Buddhist monk’s words—aspiring to the eternal, without a trace of irony, in two worlds at once. Over 1,500 years later, that same dread hangs like an invisible nimbus cloud over this little wooded nook of the northern Deccan near Aurangabad in Maharashtra. It might as well: this is a place with no match in the world. On a…

↘ Treat the entire Indian Rock-Cut Architecture ecosystem of 1,200-odd sites as a ‘Heritage Collective’, with a unified management authority, and Ajanta as its nodal centre. Unesco often treats clusters as a continuum, e.g. Cambodia’s Angkor Archaeological Park, or its 121 ‘Cultural Landscapes’ ↘ The primary caretakers (ASI, MTDC) must answer to a larger monitoring structure—comprising an inter-disciplinary panel of experts, scientists, representatives of Unesco, funders et al—with at least bi-annual in situ reviews, scientific surveys, updated conservation strategies ↘ Other sites face neglect due to the near-exclusive focus on World Heritage Sites, which soak up all the tourism load and resources. The missing dwarapala at Pitalkhora and the orphaned burnt-brick monastery remains at Ajanta attest to a massive asymmetry of attention. A composite plan benefits all ↘ Unlike Ellora,…

↘ Soon after taking charge, BJP leader and deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis snatched the mike from CM Shinde at a press conference, cutting him short. The symbolism was not lost on anyone ↘ The two are apparently not on the same page when it comes to transfers and postings, including that of police officials. Shinde was reportedly upset at IPS officer Deven Bharti being appointed ‘special commissioner’ of the Mumbai Police in Dec. 2022. Bharti is said to be close to Fadnavis ↘ Local BJP leaders have had run-ins with Shinde’s ministers like Abdul Sattar ↘ BJP and Shinde Sena workers were involved in a clash at Magathane in the western suburbs of Mumbai in March. Shinde’s MLA Prakash Surve is at odds with ex-leader of the opposition and Fadnavis…

Enter the Bandra Kurla Complex in Mumbai and you cannot ignore the vast presence of Reliance Jio properties. There’s the Jio World Garden where everyone from Arijit Singh and Prateek Kuhad to Ed Sheeran and Skrillex has performed; there’s Jio World Drive, a mall with a host of luxury stores, eateries and even a drive-in theatre. Then, inside the 18.5-acre Jio World Centre, there’s the Jio Convention Centre, which can host the finest and most grand exhibitions or trade shows, and the Fountain of Joy. Now, the sprawling site has another mega attraction: the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre or the NMACC. Home to three auditoriums—the 2,000-seater Grand Theatre, the 250-seater Studio Theatre and 125-seater Cube—and a four-storeyed arts space called The Art House, the Centre is a huge boost…

Windows with arched eyebrows. Glorious sunbursts on the floor. Intricate geometric patterns. Towering ziggurats. Swastika patterns curving across a rounded balcony. These aren’t just glimpses of an artist’s fantastic reverie, but actual architectural features on certain buildings. Just keep your eyes open in your own city. Chances are, there is at least a neighbourhood or a building that has been built in the characteristic Art Deco style that was born in France and became popular globally in the 1920s, but caught the imagination of architects in India in the 1930s and ’40s. On Mumbai’s Marine Drive and along the Oval cricket ground, a cluster of 35 mostly residential Art Deco buildings were inscribed in UNESCO’s World Heritage List in 2018. But the whole city boasts edifices that have been built…

Tiger Baby Films’ recently-launched Tiger Baby Records is the newest addition to a growing list of music labels from film production houses. Unlike most such labels, such as YRF Music for instance, which mostly release their parent companies’ movie soundtracks, Tiger Baby Records plans to issue singles, EPs and albums by independent artists, as well as podcasts and music-centric documentaries. The studio’s co-founders, filmmakers Reema Kagti and Zoya Akhtar, see the label “as an extension of our storytelling”. The pair enlisted frequent collaborator, singer-songwriter Ankur Tewari, to helm the enterprise, the inaugural release of which is Aaja Nindiya, a set of six Hindi lullabies by Tewari. It’s the first of four children’s EPs it will put out by the musician, whose discography includes Bachcha Party, a 2018 album of songs…

On March 31, the day the financial year 2022-23 came to a close, Piyush Goyal, the Union minister for commerce and industry, announced the Foreign Trade Policy (FTP), 2023, for India, that outlined an ambitious plan to clock $2 trillion (Rs 164 lakh crore) in exports by 2030. Given that India’s overall exports have crossed over $765 billion (Rs 62.7 lakh crore) in FY23, the country would have to clock an average of over 14 per cent annually for the next seven years to reach that figure. Experts say that the projections look optimistic as exports grew only by around 10 per cent in FY23. They point out that though robust exports were a key factor in India’s post-Covid recovery—after dipping to $291.8 billion (Rs 24 lakh crore) in 2020-21,…

Just over a year to go before the general election, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) seems to have borrowed a leaf out of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s book in anointing Samrat Choudhary, 54, its new state unit president. Samrat, who took over the office on March 27, comes from the Kushwaha caste, a group belonging to the Other Backward Classes (OBC) that is said to be the second largest after the Yadavs in Bihar’s caste pyramid. More significantly, the Kushwahas (or Koeris) are the ‘Kush’ in Bihar’s Luv-Kush bloc (Kurmis being the ‘Luv’) that is the bedrock of Nitish’s social support base. Since 2005, if Nitish’s Janata Dal (United) repeatedly succeeded against the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD)’s strong vote bank of Muslims and Yadavs (or M-Y, who together account for…

It is the result of the guidance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the able leadership of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath that now the economy of Uttar Pradesh is out of the clutches of Covid crisis. The numbers are self explanatory. The budget was 3.46 lakh crore rupees in the financial year 2016-17. Now the volume of the budget for financial year 2023-24 has increased to 6.90 lakh crore rupees. It’s almost the double of the budget of the financial year 2016-17. Despite dealing with the crisis, the volume of the budget of Uttar Pradesh has increased 2.11 lakh crore rupees. The increase in GSDP of the state was 16.8% in 2021-22 which was better than the national average. The expected growth rate in GSDP of the state for fiscal…

↗ 103 crore rupees has been allocated for establishing National Law University Prayagraj which is the top priority of the government right now. ↗ 700 crore rupees have been allocated for the construction of court buildings on pilot projects in the newly formed districts. ↗ Yogi government has made the arrangement of 420 crore rupees for the construction of non housing buildings for district courts in Uttar Pradesh. ↗ Allocation of 150 crore rupees for the construction of residential buildings for the judges of respected High Court. ↗ 6 crore rupees have been allocated in the budget for the payment of net gain through the sale of welfare stamps related to Uttar Pradesh Adhivakta Kalyan Nidhi. ↗ State government has allocated 20 crore rupees for Uttar Pradesh Adhivakta Kalyan Nidhi…

In the 2018 state election in Karnataka, giant-sized garlands strung together with apples and hoisted by a crane were the in thing at political rallies. This time, party workers are outdoing each other to come up with new objects to felicitate their leaders. The Janata Dal (Secular) leader H.D. Kumaraswamy has even found an entry in a book of records for the wide variety of garlands he has received since his Pancharathna Yatra began in November 2022. In January, Congress leader Siddaramaiah was offered a 1,000-kg garland made of the famous Mysore Pak sweet. That is not all. There have been garlands with coconuts, capsicum, sugarcane, onions, volleyballs, juice packets and milk cartons too!…

Sources: Various studies by the ASI, Science branch, and the Tourist Environmental Impact Assessment Study by CSIR-NEERI, 2013-14, submitted in 2015 Microbiota In damp conditions, the organic base of the plaster becomes a perfect breeding place and feeding site for a variety of bacteria, algae, coprophilous (dung-feeding) fungi whose spores attack the binder and penetrate deep into the substratum, secreting corrosive enzymes Insects The holes in the plaster left by biodeterioration are excellent sites for insect eggs, larvae and pupae. The majority of the damage to the Ajanta murals is done by silverfish (Lepisma saccharina), which feed on carbohydrates in the vegetal cellulose and live deep within the plaster. Since silverfish migrate up from the Waghora river, the use of pyrethrum (the toxin used in mosquito repellents) along the pathways…

Sir J.C. Bose was the preeminent experimental scientist of his time. His work on radio transmission and the properties of millimetre radio waves preceded that of Marconi and others who not only got the credit for it but also managed to make money out of it. Later in his career, he worked on the response of plants to various stimuli, for which he developed several ingenious pieces of equipment. Born in 1858, Bose had a relatively privileged upbringing since his father was a civil servant in Bengal. After obtaining his undergraduate degree at St Xavier’s College, he went to England to study medicine but couldn’t do so because of ill health. He went on to study natural science at Cambridge under some of the most well-known scientists of that time.…

From a stalemate to reconciliation, Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot had to finally relent on his tough stance in order to end the two-week-long complete shutdown of private healthcare services in the state. What was being touted as a landmark legislation, the Rajasthan Right to Health (RTH) Bill ended up paralysing the state’s healthcare system after it was hurriedly pushed through the state assembly on March 21. Though initially refusing to roll it back, Gehlot on April 4 agreed to make changes to the rules and regulations, and till then put in abeyance the new law’s enforcement, following overnight hectic parleys to end the impasse with the representatives of striking private hospitals and doctors. Under the proposed law, every resident of the state was to have the right to get…

A slow crisis has been engulfing rural West Bengal, affecting tens of thousands of labourers. Around 10 million people, despite having MNREGA job cards, have had no work over the past one year, nor have most been paid for the work done under the central jobs scheme. It resulted in massive joblessness and migration out of the state in 2022. NREGA Sangharsh Manch, a civil rights group, also claims that over 10 million may have been affected. The ostensible reason for the Centre withholding funds for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act and the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) is the allegation of widespread corruption in the administration and the ruling Trinamool Congress. The issue has been politicised for long—the TMC has blamed the Centre’s ‘vendetta politics’ for…

Come 2036 and Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state Gujarat may well be hosting the Summer Olympics. Why 2036? Well, the next three hosts have already been finalised—Paris in 2024, Los Angeles in 2028 and Brisbane in 2032. India has already communicated the desire to host the 2036 edition to the International Olympic Committee (IOC), though officials privy to the development say “formal engagement” will begin at the global body’s next meeting scheduled in Mumbai in September. Many a nation has used big-ticket sporting events to showcase its soft power, and the PM Modi-led Union government is driven by the same urge to enhance the country’s global standing. Since the idea was first mooted in early 2021, it has gathered steam in political circles, while bureaucrats…

↗ More than rupees 3.5 lakh crores have been sent through DBT into the accounts of farmers to bring change in their life. If we add the waiver of loans into it, then the gross amount crosses 4 lakh crore rupees. ↗ The state government has done the payment of 2 lakh 2 thousand crore rupees to sugarcane farmers. There was no procurement policy for paddy and wheat before 2017. Government implemented the procurement policies to bring farmers out of the clutches of middlemen. ↗ Only 123 lakh metric tonne paddy was procured between 2012 to 2017. Farmers got only Rs 17,190 crores for this purchase. But from 2017 to till date, around 345 lakh metric tonne paddy have been procured and farmers got around Rs 64 thousand crores through…

Just after assuming power in 2017, Yogi Adityanath is started taking strong action against the criminals and mafia under the zero tolerance policy against crime. The result is that the state which was infamous for its poor law and order situation before 2017 is now getting laurels in the country and abroad for its strong law and order. As a result of the improved law and order situation, investors from the country as well as from abroad are interested in setting up industries in the state. The Yogi government has made a heavy budgetary allocation of 2260 crore rupees for the fiscal year 2023-24 for the improvement and better control of law and order. This will not only provide the facility of housing to the employees and officers of the…

Like spokes on a hub, all answers to that question converge on one point: nodality. Whichever prism you see it through—art, political history, or religion—Ajanta is irreplaceable, as both symbol and substance, as riddle as well as revelation. Conservator Sanjay Dhar opens up the first trail. “It’s the mother lode of all Asian art. It is the place,” he says. Imagine that same centrality in the history of power in the subcontinent, and of its religion. That’s the treasure trove of signs we have been bequeathed. Start with art. We can see Ajanta forming a vital node in a caravan trail of echoes all the way from Sigiriya in Sri Lanka to the Mogao Caves at the far end of the Silk Road in China, to the murals at Horyuji,…

In just about eight months from now, Shivraj Singh Chouhan will be leading the BJP to elections as the incumbent chief minister of Madhya Pradesh—for the fourth time. Even as battle lines are being drawn and the electoral narrative honed, Chouhan has chosen to pivot his election strategy on a tried and tested demographic—the state’s nearly 26 million women voters. To reiterate his commitment towards improving their lot, Chouhan has come up with the Ladli Behana Yojana (LBY), a welfare scheme for the state’s women not covered under any of his previous schemes such as the Ladli Laxmi Yojana. Existing schemes are being dovetailed with the larger plan to target women. In the budget announced on March 2, a third of the Rs 3.14 lakh crore allocation went directly to the…

Before they get the coveted stripes on their uniforms, proclaiming them as elite fighter pilots, flight cadets of the Indian Air Force undergo months of gruelling training that involves flight and safety manoeuvres, aircraft mechanics and instrument flying—controlling an aircraft using basic instruments. The platforms of such training are the various trainer aircraft, mostly foreign-made, of the IAF. Now, in a significant indigenisation move, the Cabinet Committee on Security led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave its go-ahead to the acquisition of 70 units of the Hindustan Turbo Trainer, commonly known as the HTT-40 basic trainer, for Rs 6,800 crore. The trainer’s makers, Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), inked the deal with IAF on March 7. The new aircraft, to be delivered over the next six years, will complement the IAF’s…

Pop South Asia: Artistic Explorations in the Popular at the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA), Saket, New Delhi brings together over 100 artworks by artists from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and the South Asian diaspora. The exhibition, which was earlier on view at the Sharjah Art Foundation, has been curated by artist lftikhar Dadi, Cornell University professor John H. Burris and Roobina Karode, director and chief curator of KNMA. The works span a time frame from the mid-20th century to the present, and include M.F. Husain, whose entire oeuvre could perhaps be viewed as pop art. Meanwhile, a few artworks popped out at us. These include Sri Lankan-born Ramesh Nithiyendran’s vibrantly coloured figurines, Pakistani artist Saba Khan’s ‘Gymkhana Ladies Swimming’ and Dhaka-based Samsul Alam Helal’s Love…