Innholdsfortegnelse for Monday, June 12, 2023 i India Today

The recent inauguration of the grand new Parliament building neatly symbolises Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s style of leadership. It was widely acknowledged that an upgraded parliament facility was needed, whether refurbished or new. The proposal had been bandied about for over a decade and the then Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar had even set up a high-powered committee for alternatives to the 1927-vintage building. During his second stint in office, Modi took the bull by its horns and an elegant, state-of-the-art building came up over 65,000 sq. ft within a period of two and a half years. Mindless of an accompanying storm of controversy, its inauguration on May 28 was a spectacle full of pomp and circumstance. That’s Modi for you. Bold and brave in his decisions and actions, regardless…

STORMS TEND TO HAVE NAMES THESE DAYS. After a bit of wavering, this one was named, simply, Covid. A monster that switched off headlights all over the world, the Modi government wasn’t even a year into term two when it struck. The health emergency was so acute and all-pervasive that it became, inevitably, the defining economic event of Modi 2.0. The lockdowns shuttered all activity but for those to do with bare existence. The economy plunged into negative growth for two straight quarters in 2020: sector after sector asphyxiated. It was a complex riddle. How to ease the immediate misery? And craft policies to cure India of ‘economic long Covid’? Such doom and gloom—an inertia of negative momentum—had every chance of lingering. Could one try rebounding to a better place…

SUBRAHMANYAM JAISHANKAR took charge of the ministry of external affairs (MEA) in May 2019; his tenure thus runs parallel to the second term of the Narendra Modi government. Within months of his taking charge, the Centre turned Article 370 into a dead letter and bifurcated the state of Jammu & Kashmir into two Union territories. A storm of protest rose from China and Pakistan, and while many countries supported India’s move, many others, including several Islamic countries, UK, Canada and the EU, expressed concerns. As both China and Pakistan attempted to raise the issue at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), the former foreign secretary ran a massive campaign, in person during his visits to Europe and the US, and mobilising India’s foreign missions elsewhere, to impress upon the international…

THIS RAIN-SPLATTERED SUMMER, coal, mines & minerals minister Pralhad Joshi could afford to be a bit relaxed. In 2022, demand for electricity peaked in March-April, straining the entire energy vertical. Since then, Joshi has been at the root of the supply chain—sourcing more coal and having it delivered to power plants across the country. Around 95 out of 165 thermal power plants in the country ran out of critical coal stock last April-May, and Joshi had to source 66.2 MT (million tonnes) coal from private as well as public sector mines. This year, he had planned for adequate coal stocks much in advance. In FY23, India’s coal production was 893.08 MT (a 14 per cent rise from 778.21 MT produced in 2021-22), out of which 770.35 MT came from the…

ON THE FACE OF IT, the figures look impressive. The eShram portal of the Bhupender Yadav-led labour ministry has registered a staggering 300 million workforce, about three-fourths of the total estimated unorganised workforce. eShram allows registration in 400 different occupations under 30 broad sectors. It is being integrated with the Skill India portal, enabling workers to avail of the various skilling initiatives. However, there is little incentive for workers to register on eShram, thanks to the time and income lost in registration, or for employers to push them. The absence of credible and promised social security benefits is another dampener. Also, while Rs 708 crore has been spent to launch the portal, there is no proportional spend on popularising it. The implementation of the four Labour Codes is another work…

IF THERE IS ONE POLL promise the Narendra Modi government has been unable to deliver on, it is the “doubling of farm incomes”. In December 2022, Union agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar tabled a situation assessment survey report, ‘Agricultural Households and Land and Livestock Holding of Households in Rural India, 2019’, which says average monthly income of farming households was Rs 10,218. To double real incomes, produce prices had to increase at a rate of over 10 per cent, but they went up only by 2.5 per cent. Getting this done required structural changes, not mere hikes in MSP (minimum support prices), which has been taking place since 2018. The key reasons for this include the lack of storage capacity in the country, and not enough convergence of private processors…

WITH THE 2023 SPACE POLICY, the government cleared the decks for India to take a quantum jump into the Second Space Age. For one, the Indian Space Rese arch Organisation (ISRO) will transition out of manufacturing of operational space systems and lean more on nongovernment entities (NGEs). The private sector thus becomes a critical stakeholder in the space economy. ISRO is the sixth largest space agency in the world and also ranks fifth globally in the private space tech sector, with over 400 companies operating. But around 75 per cent are involved in manufacturing products in the low-to-medium value add category, one reason why India’s share in the global space economy is less than two per cent. ISRO is now focusing on Chandrayaan (moon mission) and Gaganyaan (human spaceflight mission).…

DoNER EVER SINCE NARENDRA MODI took charge as prime minister, the eight Northeastern states have emerged as the new growth engine of India and the ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER) has played a pivotal role in this. In the last eight years, the gross budgetary support through 55 ministries and departments for the development of the region has seen an increase of 185 per cent. Thanks to meticulous tracking of expenditure by the DoNER ministry under G. Kishan Reddy, the actual expenditure not only increased in the financial year gone by but also exceeded the target for the first time ever. The launch of the Prime Minister’s Development Initiative for Northeast Region (PM-DevINE) scheme in 2022 to build infrastructure projects with an outlay of Rs 6,600 crore…

THE YEAR 2022 saw several key milestones for India’s tribals. The country elected its first Adivasi president, set up the first research institute for tribal issues and put renewed focus on their welfare. The budget outlay for the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, led by Arjun Munda, increased from Rs 4,296 crore in 2013-14 to Rs 6,815 crore in 2019-20 and Rs 12,462 crore in 2023-24. Education and livelihood are key focus areas. Launched in 2020, Going Online as Leaders, a joint effort by the Centre and Meta, aims to digitally upskill 1 million tribal youth in its second leg that started last year. The ministry is also helping tribals from the Northeast market their products. On the health front, there are now 15,041 Ayushman Bharat centres in 177 tribal districts.…

One is never too old to write a novel or any other book for that matter. Agatha Christie was well into her eighties when she wrote some of her bestselling detective stories. At the age of 90, P.G. Wodehouse continued to regale us with stories of Bertie Wooster and his valet Jeeves. The body might falter but, if you are lucky, the brain will keep ticking away. Ruskin Bond, one of our most admired writers, is still active. At the age of 89, he has come up with a gem. The Golden Years is about the many joys of living a good, long life. Bond is never lonely, but he enjoys solitude. “Loneliness is something that is thrust upon us, solitude is something we seek,” he writes. When loneliness threatens…

It’s a day Clifford Miranda won’t forget in a hurry. On March 16, he was handed the reins of Odisha FC, after the departure of their Spanish head coach, Josep Gombau. There was this unsaid pressure ahead of the Super Cup, especially after Odisha’s stellar season where they finished sixth on the table to make the Indian Super League (ISL) playoffs for the first time. However, results were the last thing on Miranda’s mind. “My goal was to convince the players that I am the man to take them forward,” says Miranda. The wait wasn’t long for Odisha. On April 25, they clinched their first silverware after beating Bengaluru FC 2-1 in the final of the Super Cup. And a few days later, they continued their winning run against last season’s…

PRIME MINISTER NARENDRA MODI’S PENCHANT FOR alliteration is well-known. Among his favourites is 2S: Speed and Scale. He is fond of saying that if the previous governments thought speed was a luxury and scale a risk, he as prime minister made “speed the ambition of India and scale its strength”. Modi has demonstrated these qualities in ample measure in almost everything he has achieved in his nine years of office and more so in the four years of his second term. The most recent example of this is the swank, state-of-theart, hexagonal new Parliament building that he inaugurated on May 28. The complex came up at a remarkable speed, taking just two and a half years for completion despite Covid restrictions kicking in almost from the start. Then there is…

THE HEADWINDS THAT INDIA’S TRADE and commerce faced over the past four years were unprecedented. While the pandemic gave a big jolt to trade, the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 once again created uncertainties around geopolitical stability, a prerequisite for robust trade. However, a host of policies by the Centre—including many that have simplified exim processes—not only helped India keep its head above water but also brought about a phenomenal growth in overall exports. India’s overall exports grew 14 per cent and stood at a record $770 billion-plus (Rs 64 lakh crore) in 2022-23, aided by robust services exports. Meanwhile, merchandise exports grew 6 per cent to $447 billion (Rs 37 lakh crore), which is a new high but lower than what was expected at the start of…

THE LAST THREE YEARS were riddled with disruptions because of two major global crises—first, the Covid-19 pandemic, and then the Ukraine-Russia war. In terms of their economic impact, the aviation sector has been among the worst-hit. Add to that a falling rupee and the increase in aviation turbine fuel (ATF) prices, and airlines in India bled heavily, with Go First going bust in May, four years after Jet Airways met a similar fate. As the combined losses of the industry kept mounting, the Union ministry of civil aviation had to play the role of a facilitator, and not just a regulator. Led by the dapper Jyotiraditya Scindia, the ministry convinced 19 states and UTs to reduce the value-added tax (VAT) on ATF. The goods and services tax (GST) has also…

THE OIL-GUZZLING NATION that we are, India saw its crude oil imports rise to 232.4 million tonnes in 2022-23, a 9.4 per cent year-on-year growth. In value terms, the imports, which help meet over 80 per cent of the country’s crude oil requirement, stood at $158.3 billion (Rs 13 lakh crore), a 31 per cent y-o-y rise. Amid the protracted Russia-Ukraine war, crude oil prices have remained volatile, ranging between $75 and $130 a barrel through the year. But with the Union government striking deals with Russia to import oil at discounted rates, despite the West threatening sanctions, Russia has replaced Saudi Arabia as India’s largest crude oil supplier in recent months. The ongoing war is also creating opportunities for Indian refiners. As the European Union stopped imports of petroleum…

FOR THE NEXT PHASE of the production-linked incentive scheme, the Piyush Goyal-led textiles ministry is working out the modalities with a projected outlay of Rs 4,307 crore for manufacturing of garments, made-ups and textiles accessories. In the first phase, 64 projects are in different stages of implementation with an outlay commitment of Rs 10,683 crore over a five-year period. The assistance was to enable these factories to achieve size and scale, and become globally competitive. The labour-intensive sector is battling increasing labour costs, headwinds in the West, and complexities generated by cheaper imports. Despite plugs like antidumping duties on inputs, the industry continues to complain that Chinese players are using the ASEAN FTA to break into Indian markets. The worst impacted are the viscose players, who face challenges from the…

ONE OF THE BIGGEST challenges for Parshottam Rupala, who in 2021 took charge of a ministry that was formed just four years ago, came in the form of the lumpy skin disease, which felled thousands of cattle across the country last year. For the world’s top milk-producing nation, it was a mega crisis. The ministry, however, managed to stem it swiftly. “We were holding regular meetings with the affected states. We had also set up a control room in the ministry, and vaccination was in full swing,” says Rupala about the efforts. On the fisheries front, the several schemes that the government has launched to boost the sector have resulted in fish production reaching an all-time high of 16.24 million tonnes in FY22; sea-food exports, too, saw record earnings of…

IN ITS OWN WORDS, THE MINISTRY of Information and Broadcasting, now headed by Anurag Thakur, is entrusted with the task of disseminating information about government policies, schemes and programmes through the different mediums of mass communication. However, in the last few years, it has been embroiled in several controversies over ‘control’ of information—from showdowns with big tech companies to new laws reportedly aimed at censoring content on TV, digital and OTT platforms. Critics cried foul when the ministry formed a fact check unit, a TV channel was banned for allegedly hurting national security, and several YouTube channels got blocked intermittently. The truth, though, has other shades too. Watchdogs do raise valid concerns, but the government has its own reasons for keeping a hawk-eye on the ceaseless flow of information in…

IT’S COMMON WISDOM THAT no society can advance until its women are empowered and contribute as equal partners in development—and India, to put it mildly, has plenty of room for improvement on that front. The work of the Women & Child Development (WCD) Ministry, thus, assumes deep significance in our national project. Last year, the ministry divided its major schemes into three categories: the Saksham Anganwadi & Poshan 2.0 for nutrition and education, Mission Shakti for the safety and empowerment of women, and Mission Vatsalya for child welfare. All three have notched up some valuable hash marks on a sheet still largely blank. Under Saksham Anganwadi, the WCD ministry—led by Smriti Irani since last year—plans to upgrade the infrastructure at some 200,000 centres with smart learning facilities. As of December…

THE JAL JEEVAN MISSION (JJM), the central government’s flagship programme launched in 2019 to provide piped water to all homes, is on track. In the past year, as many as 21.2 million new rural households got water connections, bringing the total number to 121.5 million (as of May 31), says ministry data. JJM connections are called functional household tap connection (FHTC), qualified as at least 55 litres of water per day per person on a regular basis. This covers about 62 per cent of all rural households, up from 17 per cent when the mission was launched. While rural households in seven states and UTs had 100 per cent tap water coverage, as many as 10 states had less than 50 per cent coverage. Jharkhand (24 per cent) and Lakshadweep…

How exactly did a provincial trading company end up becoming the most dominant political and economic force in the Indian subcontinent? What set of circumstances in the late Mughal era allowed the East India Company to take over, well, everything in India? These are the kinds of questions historian William Dalrymple’s 2019 work of nonfiction The Anarchy (Bloomsbury Publishing) seeks to answer. The bestselling book, which was nominated for the Bailie Gifford Prize (and included in former US President Barack Obama’s annual ‘Books of the Year’ list), will soon be adapted into a web series by producer Siddharth Roy Kapur’s Roy Kapur Productions. Screenwriter Jeremy Brock (The Last King of Scotland, Brideshead Revisited) will adapt the book while Dalrymple himself will be a consultant. Talking about the book and its cinematic…

Parini Shroff’s debut novel The Bandit Queens tells a rousing tale of female solidarity, albeit one manifesting in an unconventional form—bumping off useless, abusive husbands—packed with the right measure of wit, hilarity and irreverence. A word of advice, though: for best enjoyment, leave incredulity at the door. Geeta has something of a reputation in her unassuming village in western India. Her husband Ramesh disappeared five years ago, and rumour has it that she killed him. Spoiler: she didn’t. But being reviled as the local churail has its advantages. No one messes with her; village busybodies give her a wide berth; men avoid her. Geeta can’t complain—she loves being an independent woman, with a thriving business selling her handmade jewellery. Also, Phoolan Devi is her hero. When a fellow villager asks her…

IN A RECENT INTERNAL COMMUNICATION TO HIS OFFICIALS, Nitin Gadkari, the Union minister of road transport and highways, set an ambitious target for them: to construct 60 kilometres of highways every day. It’s an uphill task, considering that in FY23, just over 30 km of highways were built on an average daily. The total length of highways thus laid stood at 10,993 km, falling short by 13.7 per cent of the fiscal’s target to add 12,500 km. But Gadkari, who has been at the helm of the ministry since the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power at the Centre in May 2014, is known as a tough taskmaster—setting onerous targets and pushing his officials hard to achieve them. And it is this very trait that has helped him speed…

Speaking to India Today, Mr. Sanjiv Chadha, Manag· ing Director & CEO, Bank of Baroda said "India is a diverse country - a melting pot of cultures, religions and languages. And in its diversity lies its strength and distinctiveness. We believe that the promotion of literature across Indian languages helps strengthen our multiculturalism" What is the rationale of BoB constituting such an award? As you are aware, our Bank was founded on 20th July 1908 by Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad Ill - one of the greatest patrons of arts, music, literature and performing arts. He founded several cultural and educational institutions besides being a great collector of classical Indian painters like Raja Ravi Varma. So, the inspiration to promote art and literature is ingrained in the Bank's DNA. The Bank has…

THERE IS SOME CONFIDENCE in the Mahendra Nath Pandey-led ministry’s implementation of the Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Hybrid and Electric Vehicles, or FAME 2. The government has greenlighted their proposal to start phasing out the support extended to electric vehicle manufacturers. From June 1, the existing support of Rs 15,000 per kWh has been reduced to Rs 10,000 per kWh. The maximum cap on subsidy is brought down from 40 per cent to 15 per cent of MRP. The two phases of FAME—part of the National Electric Mobility Mission Plan—have already created some base in the electric two-wheeler space; 846,976 units were sold in FY23, 2.5 times more than in the previous fiscal. This is the nodal ministry that is pushing the silent electric mobility movement in the country.…

IF THERE WAS ONE sector that took the hardest hit from Covid-19, it was the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs). The backbone of the Indian economy, contributing 30 per cent to the GDP and employing over 113 million people, it reportedly saw thousands of units shutting down. Conscious of their plight, thanks to the large-scale migration of out-of-work people back to their homes, the Central government had to prioritise easing MSME woes, helping them financially, besides focusing on skill training and technology upgradation. Succour came a couple of months after the lockdown in March 2020, when an Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme for MSMEs was announced. As of November 2022, 11.9 million loans had been sanctioned under it, comprising 71 per cent of the Rs 5 lakh crore limit.…

THE INCREASING FOCUS ON rural development has Panchayati Raj institutions in the throes of change. The call for saturation of schemes in the panchayats is making steady progress, though the ministry, headed by Giriraj Singh, is yet to develop a model that helps implement them faster. However, the allocation under the Finance Commission—direct transfer to the panchayat—that was just Rs 54 per person two decades ago is now Rs 700. Despite rapid urbanisation, the majority of India’s population still lives in villages. Women are increasingly essaying a key role. Of the 315,000 elected representatives of rural local bodies, 46 per cent are women. As many as 21 states have reserved 50 per cent seats for women in three-tier panchayats—way beyond the 33 per cent constitutional provision. About 310,000 elected representatives…

FOR LONG DEPENDENT ON IMPORTS of key starting materials (KSM), active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) and medical devices, the Rs 25,000 crore PLI scheme for pharma, bulk drugs and medical devices could well be turning the tide. Fifty-one projects for APIs, 26 for medical devices and another 55 for pharma have got approval so far with investments of Rs 22,000 crore. A National Medical Device Policy, 2023, was also approved in April. The battle has been different on the fertilisers front, courtesy Russian aggression in Ukraine. India began to feel the pinch as the West imposed sanctions on Russia, one of our top suppliers of fertiliser components urea and potash. Deals with supplier countries like Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Jordan helped avert the crisis and ensure record harvests in FY23. Looking…

IN THE PAST COUPLE OF YEARS, under cabinet minister Kiren Rijiju, the Union ministry of law and justice remained in the news mostly because of the increasing friction between the judiciary and the executive over a host of issues—from the row over the appointment of judges to the government’s charge of judicial activism and overreach. Now, a change of minister—Arjun Ram Meghwal assumed office in the middle of May—such contentious issues are expected to be resolved amiably and in accordance with the country’s Constitution. Before that, however, the Indian judiciary needs to be strengthened in terms of both manpower and infrastructure. The recently released India Justice Report by Tata Trusts says that the country has 19 judges per million people (when calculated against the sanctioned strength), still lagging behind the…

INDIA’S POTENTIAL in sports is perhaps best measured in kilotonnes, given that it has the world’s largest population in the 15-24 age bracket—around 254 million, as presently estimated by the United Nations Population Fund. But it still lies largely buried, like an untapped goldmine. That analogy applies equally well to everything else the young can get up to, as India struggles to cash in on this golden period. The objective of the Department of Youth Affairs (DoYA), led by Anurag Thakur, is to act as a facilitator to harness the power of this young demographic in fruitful ways. Its flagship schemes, training institutes and events are oriented to this end. In the last three years, the DoYA has also mobilised young men and women to be Covid warriors and take…

THE MINISTRY of Minority Affairs under the PM Modi-led government has received mixed opinions over the last few years, with fund allocation being a key area of criticism. In the last financial year, the budget estimate for the ministry was Rs 5,020.5 crore, which was later revised to Rs 2,612.66 crore. Until March this year, only Rs 712.5 crore was utilised. This year’s budget at Rs 3,097 crore is 38 per cent lower than last year’s initial allocation. Many have also condemned the discontinuation of schemes such as Padho Pardesh, Naya Savera, the Maulana Azad National Fellowship and a sizable component of the Pre-Matric Scholarship. However, several steps have also been taken for minorities, particularly on the gender front. In education, as many as 30 per cent reserved seats for…

The world was quite a different place when folk-fusion act Indian Ocean last released an album, 2014’s star-studded collaborative experiment Tandanu. Narendra Modi had swept to power. Vladimir Putin had annexed Crimea in Russia’s smaller first invasion of Ukraine. Barack Obama was still in the White House. The climate crisis still seemed solvable, rather than inevitable. We live in darker, more dangerous times now. But this is still a world in which Indian Ocean’s central thesis—love for the environment, syncretic philosophy, and for each other—is relevant, and the band stays on-message for their eighth album Tu Hai, released on May 5. The six tracks on the album all deal with themes of sustainable living and spiritual renewal, set to music that blends Indian classical and folk traditions with elements of…

THE LIT PICKERS Writers Deepanjana Pal and Supriya Nair host this sharp, funny, free-flowing podcast where they talk about everything literary—dying genres, underrated authors, posthumous revisions, literature festivals, books that challenged literary establishments and so on. The podcast began life in 2020 and has 25-plus episodes so far, with the latest being released in March last year. KHANDAAN: A BOLLYWOOD PODCAST There are bigger and more popular Bollywood podcasts out there, but few have Khandaan’s style, encyclopaedic knowledge or easygoing vibe. Hosted by three millennials who eat, sleep and dream Bollywood—Asim Burney, Amrita Rajan and Sujoy Singha—Khandaan has had over 180 episodes so far. While Bollywood (especially the movies of the Khan trio) remains the focus, there have been lively discussions on films from other Indian industries too, Ponniyin Selvan…

The first half of Anupama Mohan’s debut novel Where Mayflies Live Forever is a series of eyewitness interviews conducted by a police officer, an ACP called Asha Peter, who we only meet after several ‘POV chapters’ centring other characters are done and dusted. ACP Peter (who, as per genre trappings, is a divorced and world-weary maverick) is investigating the murder of Senganoor Adhiban, a political bigwig in the small town of Sittanavasal, Tamil Nadu. We learn that Adhiban has recently been decapitated. The head is missing, as is the chief suspect Veni, a young woman who teaches geography at the local school and who was gangraped by Adhiban and his cronies four years ago. The beauty of Where Mayflies Live Forever lies in the fact that during the course of…