Innholdsfortegnelse for Monday, May 22, 2023 i India Today

India has been remarkably progressive as a modern republic on the whole ensemble of themes relating to marriage and love. As was ancient India. Its very first Parliament passed the Special Marriage Act in 1954, giving its citizens the right to marry across religion and caste. In 1971, the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act empowered all women with rights over their bodies—half a century later, even ‘advanced countries’ like the US are regressing on the abortion question. In 1978, the Supreme Court accorded legitimacy to live-in relationships—a series of later judgments solidified this, culminating in a 2013 verdict that set out its parameters. And in 2018, India decriminalised homosexuality, joining a comity of 130-odd nations. Now, the demand for same-sex marriage comes as another litmus test for India’s legal-constitutional system.…

Sharad Pawar is a political cat with far more than nine lives. His withdrawal of resignation on May 5 as the president of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) may be seen by many as only a temporary truce within the party, but with that denouement, Pawar has shown who’s the boss. His surprise announcement of retirement from the helm of the NCP had come only on May 2. That effectively put an unbridgeable moat around the fortress amid reports that a faction led by Ajit Pawar, his nephew and leader of the Opposition in the Maharashtra assembly, was in talks with the BJP. NCP leaders and workers went into an emotional three-day protest pleading for the return of the party patriarch. And when he did come full circle, it had…

Once a party stalwart, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) general secretary Satish Mishra’s public appearances have become rare these days. He was also M.I.A. in the campaign for the recent local body polls in Uttar Pradesh. While party insiders blame put it on his poor health, all is apparently not well between him and BSP chief Mayawati. Sources close to Mishra say he is exploring “other options” after being sidelined in the wake of the disastrous assembly polls last year. The ruling BJP could be an option, but the saffron leadership is tight-lipped on this.…

On September 6, 2018, a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court partially struck down Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, decriminalising same-sex relations between consenting adults. It meant LGBT individuals could engage in consensual intercourse in private spaces without inviting any legal action. Headed by the then chief justice Dipak Misra, the bench comprised, among others, Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, the current CJI, who is now heading the five-judge bench hearing a bunch of PILs seeking legal sanction for same-sex marriages in India. Justice Chandrachud was also part of the nine-judge Supreme Court bench that on August 24, 2017 recognised privacy as a fundamental right guaranteed by the Constitution. Known as the Puttaswamy case, this judgment has also been invoked in several PILs to support their cause. Almost all PILs…

↘ Twenty-five of Go First’s A320neo jets had to be grounded after problems surfaced in their engines supplied by the US firm Pratt & Whitney ↘ Pratt & Whitney alleges the airline has defaulted on payment obligations; Go First says the engine supplier is not abiding by a Singapore arbitration court order to compensate it ↘ Most Indian airlines are under-capitalised, and Go First is no exception ↘ Covid further dented Go First’s finances, and in just three financial years—FY21, FY22 and FY23—its losses mounted to Rs 4,000 crore, according to industry estimates ↘ The airline owes Rs 6,251 crore to a consortium of lenders led by the Central Bank of India. With half its fleet grounded, the airline will find it difficult to fund its remaining operations and service…

The women and the elderly have to bear the brunt when it comes to issues such as sanitation, water and electricity. Public toilets and community water taps are our life. The toilets are dirty and many shut down after 11.30 pm. And if the toilets on the main roads are open, women face harassment from goons and drug addicts. Lack of proper sanitisation facilities has also led to the spread of diseases like dengue and malaria. Planned redevelopment will provide relief, but it must be done through sustainable methods and uplift the community. Just converting horizontal structures into vertical ones is not redevelopment. The local communities will benefit if socioeconomic factors are taken into consideration.…

Money-laundering involves injecting illegally generated money into the formal/legitimate system. It involves layering of the money and spreading it over various transactions using book-keeping tricks to hide the source. The money is then routed back to the offender who uses it as legitimate money HOW RAM LAUNDERED MONEY The ED recorded the statement of suspended chief engineer Virendra Ram under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act wherein he confessed to having received 0.3-1 per cent of the tender awarded to companies. Here’s how he laundered the ill-gotten money: ↘ In 2022, Ram approached a Delhi-based CA who allegedly agreed to layer his money for a commission of 2.5 per cent ↘ Ram started sending cash in tranches of Rs 25 lakh to Rs 50 lakh to the CA through hawala…

The Panchatantra is one of those story collections that is everywhere and all the time, not simply in the subcontinent, where it is believed to have originated, but in animal stories across Europe and West Asia. As the stories settle into different languages, cultures and regions, their flora and fauna change, as does the religious and metaphysical universe they inhabit, but the message they carry—how to make friends, how to deal with the loss of power and pelf, how to guard yourself against reckless behaviour—remains the same. It’s a manual for how to live in the world of realpolitik, how to be prepared as a king or a ruler to maintain power, how to nurture allies and eliminate enemies and how to handle reversals and misfortunes. The many versions and…

On a visit to Mumbai in 2007, the author sees a photograph that will change her life. It’s a monochrome portrait made in 1924, of Rani Amrit Kaur of Mandi, shimmering in her tissue sari and jewels. The caption claims that the sad-eyed princess of Kapurthala was arrested by the Gestapo in wartime France “on the accusation of having sold her jewellery to help Jews escape the country”. Sent to an internment camp, she “survived less than a year of Nazi imprisonment”. This tiny scrap of history launches Sambuy, Italian author and journalist, on a 15-year quest to dig up the truth. Red herrings and side stories keep the facts stubbornly out of reach. Eighteen months after seeing the photograph, she travels to Pune to meet the Rani’s daughter, Nirvana…

The spectre of ethnic conflict returned to haunt Manipur on May 3 when a solidarity march by the All Tribal Students’ Union of Manipur (ATSUM) turned violent. Reports of killings, rioting and destruction of property soon emerged from several districts, including Imphal East, Imphal West, Kakching, Thoubal, Kangpokpi, Tengnoupal and Jiribam, besides Churachandpur. The first six districts are dominated by the Meitei community while mostly Kuki tribes live in the other three. The army and Assam Rifles carried out flag marches, internet services were suspended, curfew imposed and nearly 15,000 people from affected areas were evacuated to relief camps. The government claims 60 people were killed and over 200 injured; unofficial estimates of the toll are much higher. The tribal solidarity march was being held to voice opposition to a…

For years now, Trinamool Congress general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s nephew and chosen heir as party chief, has been trying to fill out his role as future supremo by spearheading a kind of ethical cleansing. Target: the high-handed leaders operating with impunity despite all-pervasive allegations of corruption sullying their name—and, in turn, the party’s. In this, the 35-year-old crossed swords with TMC veterans, even dared to disagree with Mamata. His crusade continued in the aftermath of the arrests of former education minister Partha Chatterjee in the alleged teachers’ recruitment scam in July 2022 and party heavyweight Anubrata Mondal in the cattle smuggling racket in August. A cabinet rejig saw fresh faces, several of them close to Abhishek. As popular outrage mounted over the scams as…

The BJP, it seems, is scouting for younger faces to include in Uttarakhand chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami’s cabinet. The 47-year-old CM has already done several rounds of Delhi to get the high command’s clearance for four vacancies and a few other political appointments, but matters have not moved ahead. Now, with the Karnataka assembly election over, sources say the saffron party top leadership may finalise the new faces for the hill state. Speculation is rife that it may not just be a filling of vacancies but a full-blown cabinet reshuffle. The purported focus on ‘youth’, though, has left three 60-plus seniors in the Dhami cabinet a worried lot.…

Tamil Nadu BJP chief K. Annamalai’s strident anti-corruption campaign against the ruling DMK is showing signs of recoil on its Dravidian party ally, the AIADMK. A fallout of the joust has been DMK chief and CM M.K. Stalin turning up the vigilance heat against five ministers of the former E.K. Palaniswami-led AIADMK government. Sources in the state directorate of vigilance and anticorruption say old cases are being revived and, in a bid to blunt the BJP’s attacks, there may even be arrests. But even this could be to the BJP’s gain: sources say it could bargain in the alliance for half of the state’s 39 Lok Sabha seats in 2024.…

The Tamil Nadu Government, under the leadership of Chief Minister M.K. Stalin, has made significant strides in its first two years of governance, delivering on several promises made in the election manifesto. Following are some of the key milestones achieved over the past two years across various sectors. KEY ACHIEVEMENTS In terms of women’s development, the Government has announced anew scheme, the Magalir Urimai Thogai, which provides Rs 1,000 cash assistance to women starting September 15, 2023, with an allocation of Rs 7,000 crore. Additionally, the Government has provided bank loans amounting to Rs. 47,034 crore to 8,57,949 Self-Help Groups. Under the Pudhumaipen Thittam, the Government has provided higher education incentives to 2.09 lakh girls at a cost of Rs 350 crore. The Chief Minister’s Breakfast Scheme has benefitted 18…

Aditi and Susan have built a life for themselves that’s enriched by love, companionship, equality, an affectionate dog and an adopted two-and-a-half-year-old son. Yet, there are so many things that they can’t do together, including being legal parents to their son. Like many other couples, one of them adopted their son as a single parent. But now it violates the adoption norm issued last year by India’s Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA), which states that two unmarried individuals irrespective of their sexual orientation cannot adopt a child as a single parent. That’s one of the reasons why the couple decided to fight for their rights and file a petition. “We don’t want our son to be embarrassed when he grows up,” they say. “We want to raise our child with…

For Sridhar and Saagar, joining the India Network for Sexual Minorities (INFOSEM) in the petition filed at the Supreme Court on April 13 was a step that came from the harsh realisation that after nearly three decades of living together, they still can’t take critical decisions when it comes to matters related to each other’s health. “If I or he falls ill, we are not able to sign at hospitals for being responsible for each other,” says Sridhar. “Saagar has been my partner for so many years, but he can’t be called a family member. As of now, he is just a roommate.” Even renting a house in Mumbai hasn’t been easy for the two, with the general perception being that they are “bachelors” seeking accommodation. Unable to open a…

The Supreme Court saw a gripping debate over the concept of gender when senior lawyer Abhishek Manu Singhvi said that ‘same-sex marriage’ was a narrow term and if the court were to grant marriage equality to gay couples, it should be for consenting adults across the “bodily gender and sex spectrum”. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta countered Singhvi, saying the “biological gender was the gender of a person”. CJI D.Y. Chandrachud immediately intervened to say there was no “absolute concept of a man or an absolute concept of a woman”. “It is not the question of what your genitals are. It is far more complex… So, even when the Special Marriage Act says man and woman, the very notion of a man and a woman is not an absolute based on…

Sprinter Dutee Chand, a two-time Olympian and 100m national record holder, made headlines in 2019 when she opened up about her sexuality and became the first openly lesbian athlete in the country. That was two years after she fell in love with Monalisa Das, whom she had first met at a village festival. There was some resentment from the families initially, but what Dutee was more worried about was whether her sexual orientation would affect her sports career. It was the 2018 Supreme Court judgment decriminalising homosexuality that gave her the courage to talk openly. But what she still didn’t have, like many others, was the right to be legally wedded to the love of her life. The couple is reminded about the lack of legal protection at almost every…

Our family of 12 stays in an 8x8 ft tenement. I was born in Dharavi and it is our dream that the children have good houses to live in. Dharavi has produced doctors, engineers and professionals despite every adversity. We can do even better if we get the facilities. Our houses lack ventilation and natural light and we live so cheek by jowl we can smell what the neighbours are cooking. But there is a question on our minds. Does the state have the will to ensure Dharavi is developed? Lord Ram’s vanvaas lasted for only 14 years, ours has been dragging on forever.…

Ganesh Haloi: A Rhythm Surfaces in the Mind is, like its title, about the melody evoked by the artist’s earth-toned abstract oeuvre. This recently published monograph brought out by Mapin Publishing and Akar Prakar, and edited by Natasha Ginwala and Jesal Thacker, traverses the artist’s six-decade practice and, in the process, raises as many questions as it answers. While much has been written on Haloi, including an autobiography, Amar Katha, which won the Manojmohan Basu Smarak Samman from the Paschimbanga Bangla Akademi, this book looks at his artistic practice as adjacent to and not just as a result of the tumultuous upheavals of his life. Featuring essays from curators and critics, and many of Haloi’s hitherto unseen works, sketches as well as familiar gouaches and watercolours, the book is an…

As soon as I saw Basu Chatterji on a store shelf, I wanted to read it. Though many current readers may not readily know of him—their touchstones of middle-of-the-road cinema would be gems such as Dum Laga ke Haisha (2015) or Badhaai Ho (2018)—he was, as Pearl Padamsee put it, the master of the low-budget film. His were the antithesis of the other memorable strain of the ’70s films—the angry-young-man movies. Chatterji’s films were anything but angry—they were middle-class character studies that sought to, as biographer Anirudha Bhattacharjee says in his book, find the lighter interludes of an ordinary life filled with burdens and obligations. Or, he depicted the independent-minded young woman. Chatterji was loved by producers because he kept to a low budget and a quick three-week shoot. He…

By director Kanu Behl’s own admission, the protagonist in his second feature, Agra, is up to no good. Guru (newcomer Mohit Agarwal), a sexually repressed twentysomething man, does “dastardly things” and has a “difficult gaze”, but Behl and his co-writer Atika Chohan hope to garner some empathy for him amidst the drama. The ‘Agra’ of the title isn’t just a reference to the backdrop but also to Guru’s state of mind, which others equate to the residents of the city’s infamous mental asylum. “Guru has his own bizarre method of saying what is wrong in the house,” Behl says. That’s not to absolve other occupants as saints. Adds Behl, “It is like being inside a madhouse with six crazy people…they are as mad, if not more, as him. They refuse…

Q. What was going through your head when you realised you might be in an Anurag Kashyap movie? When Anurag sir called me for Kennedy, he said he wanted me to come in for the film, but he actually wanted me to audition for the role. I was extremely nervous, but I told him that I had no problem with auditioning… When I got off the phone, I was so shocked and so amazed because I know what kind of a filmmaker he is. Q. What did you learn about your own process as an actor while shooting Kennedy? Through the process of making Kennedy, I learnt from Anurag sir the ability to let go and be as attentive as possible while doing a scene. I tried my best to…

Of the 60 assembly constituencies in Manipur, 40 seats are in the valley areas which comprise six districts—Imphal East, Imphal West, Thoubal, Bishnupur, Kakching and Kangkopi. The remaining 20 seats are spread over the other 10 districts. The valley districts, dominated by the Meitei community, account for just over 11 per cent of the geographical area. The hill districts are dominated by Naga and Kuki tribes Per cent of population VIOLENCE-HIT DISTRICTS 1. Imphal East 2. Imphal West 3. Bishnupur 4. Kakching 5. Thoubal 6. Kangpokpi 7. Churachandpur 8. Tengnoupal 9. Jiribam RELIGIOUS DIVIDE Per cent of population GEOGRAPHICAL DIVIDE…

Colours in West Bengal have strong political overtones. Birbhum strongman and Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Anubrata Mondal, now lodged in Tihar jail in a cow smuggling case, is known for wearing kurtas in varying shades of green, reflecting his party’s colours. Last week, though, he sprang a surprise with an orange-coloured T-shirt in a social media post. The 63-year-old neta looked at peace, leaving the party bosses a tad worried. Was the change in colour a sign that Mondal was leaning saffronward? Have the central investigating agencies finally got to him?…

Vaibhav and Parag got legally married in the US in 2017. While Vaibhav is an Indian citizen, Parag is an Overseas Citizen of India (OCI). Yet, the couple couldn’t get their marriage registered in India. “An officer at the Indian consulate in New York admitted that it was because we were a gay couple,” says Parag. This is despite the fact that the Foreign Marriage Act, 1969, requires India to recognise marriages that are legally solemnised abroad. “We have a two-month-old daughter. We’re about to have a son…. Without the protection of the law, we are all vulnerable,” says Parag. And that’s why they moved the Delhi HC in 2020. “When you love your country, it’s called patriotism. When your country loves you, that’s called justice. We look forward to…

When Surabhi and Paromita exchanged rings during their engagement in Nagpur in December 2021, the only family member in attendance was Surabhi’s father. His support came after much concern about the impact it would have on his daughter’s career. “My father was worried that people would point fingers and say that the psychiatrist they believed in so much has a mental disorder herself. He was worried that they would try to defame me,” recalls Surabhi. While their families have now accepted the relationship, they were concerned about the duo going public with it. For Paromita’s parents, it’s important that same-sex marriages have legal sanction whenever the two decide to tie the knot. “Only if same-sex marriage is legalised will they agree that it is a marriage,” says Surabhi. In April,…

Rituparna and Amrita have been seeing each other since 2016. The couple found acceptance from almost everyone in their families, except Rituparna’s brother. “It’s my super-educated brother and his wife, a former law professor, who have been a source of harassment for us,” says Rituparna, who in 2014 co-founded Nazariya, an organisation in Delhi working for the rights of queer people. She is also part of the Lesbian, Bisexual, Intersex Women and Transgender (LBIT) network, a pan-India group that has joined her plea in court. Family violence arising out of gender discrimination and the need for legal safeguards form the core of the petition. “Family violence is a major roadblock to achieving justice, equality and freedom for LGBTQ+ individuals”—RITUPARNA BORAH The duo also feels that rural India has been much…