Innholdsfortegnelse for Monday, August 7, 2023 i India Today

For a state that does not always make it to the mainstream of news, it is tragic that it took near-civil war conditions for Manipur to register on the national consciousness. The scenes playing out now in the Imphal valley and the high ranges surrounding it are shocking in a modern India. Two warring ethnic groups, the Meiteis and the Kukis, have barricaded themselves against each other after a near-complete population transfer. No Meitei is left in the hills, no Kuki in the valley. This includes those in civil administration, health services, education, banking and policing. The police, in fact, is split down the middle on partisan lines. It has either stayed a mute spectator or perhaps even collaborated in anarchy, having commonly alleged to have facilitated lynching and rape…

Just days after Congress leader Sachin Pilot claimed to have buried the hatchet with Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot, the circumstances surrounding his 2020 rebellion have come back to haunt the party, and that too in an election year. Stirring up the hornet’s nest this time is the 55-year-old Rajendra Singh Gudha, a ‘self-proclaimed’ Gehlot loyalist-turned-critic, who was sacked as a minister of state on July 21. Three days later, the state assembly witnessed unruly scenes as Gudha chose that very public venue to carry out his threat to “expose” Gehlot. The chief minister has often alleged that Pilot—the then deputy CM and Rajasthan Congress president—connived with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to defeat Congress candidates in the Rajya Sabha election in June 2020 and, on failing, tried to pull…

Bihar isn’t much known for an abundance of education infrastructure—an endemic scarcity is more like it. Even so, preliminary findings from an official scrutiny of 80,000 state government schools have come as a shocker. Especially the fact that Rs 1,400 crore school funds have been sitting unutilised. Principals have the mandate to take up development work of up to Rs 5 lakh for their schools. But what the survey ran into was systemic inertia: minutiae like missing bulbs, dingy toilets and unused lab equipment adding up to a sorry big picture. Sorrier for the fact that, under Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, education usually gets top billing—in this year’s Rs 2.62 lakh crore budget, it was endowed with the highest outlay of Rs 40,450 crore. In the backdrop, there’s a story…

Though Chirag Paswan paid his respects and touched the feet of estranged uncle Pashupati Kumar Paras at the dinner hosted for NDA parties in Delhi on July 18, the warmth was short-lived. Both have staked claim to the Hajipur LS seat and also indicated that not much should be read into the “courtesy” exchange. Political observers agree, pointing to how Chirag had touched Nitish Kumar’s feet at a function last year but has continued with his vitriolic attacks against the Bihar CM. Moral of the story being that touching the feet of one’s elders means little in politics. But then Chirag also greeted PM Modi at the NDA dinner, and touched his feet too!…

Nestled in the verdant Naga Hills, the picturesque district of Churachandpur was a tranquil backwater. Today, it is a tragic battleground in the bloody civil war that has engulfed Manipur over the past three months. Dominated by the Kuki tribe, Churachandpur is 60 km from Imphal, capital of the state and home to a majority of the state’s other significant community—the Meiteis. National Highway No. 2, the chief artery connecting the two key districts, has now turned into an unlikely and ugly Line of Control between the two communities. Road after road leading up to the highway, from Meitei areas to Kuki ones, is lined with the burnt remains of deserted homes and torched vehicles. Rifle-toting civilians man the multiple check-posts and bunkers that have come up, to ensure no…

If you can’t beat him, join others who can. At least that seems to be the strategy of the Bharatiya Janata Party, Chandrababu Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and actor Pawan Kalyan’s Jana Sena Party (JSP) as they plan to take on the ruling Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party (YSRCP) and its founder, Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, for the simultaneous assembly and parliamentary polls next year. Reddy himself firmly believes that his party, which won 151 of the 175 assembly seats and 22 of the 25 Lok Sabha seats in 2019, can only do better. His belief stems from the slew of welfare schemes and populist measures that his government has launched in the past four years, which cover nearly all sections of society. The state government claims…

Rakesh B.S., 36, from Thiruvananthapuram, was 34 when his wife scheduled a therapy intervention for his situational mutism—an anxiety-driven fear of social interaction, where he found it difficult to speak on select occasions. It was then that he discovered that there was a reason why he behaved in a way that he couldn’t understand or control. He had lived with the symptoms for the past three decades and endured for years the label of a “weird kid”. His speech was mostly normal, so no one suspected anything more. Till his wife read up on his condition and decided he needed help. “My wife helped me unmask my innate needs, which helped the therapist see that I was autistic,” says Rakesh. Autism—a neurodevelopmental disorder that affects social interaction and communication skills—has…

SANTOSH KUMAR CEO & Co-founder, 21K School “Students have to be allowed to use ChatGPT; it’s a fantastic tool for learning…I don’t think kids are using it for writing assignments. They can’t because the way the NEP is progressing and everyone is upskilling, it’s going towards critical thinking” REKHA KRISHNAN Principal, Vasant Valley School “ChatGPT is a reality and we can’t shy away from it. As teachers, we need to use it smartly. Perhaps in some ways, we need to say it’s like a new-generation calculator; so we need to tell the children to use it judiciously” PRASHASTI RASTOGI Director, Coursera, India “Technology has always been at the centre of access and inclusion…there is a human element that’s becoming increasingly important because of technology. That’s where the role of the…

DR MINU BAJPAI Dean of Academics, AIIMS, New Delhi “We are finding our undergraduates are not keen to attend classes any more… want to hook on to [online] platforms to accrue knowledge. It’s a big challenge… they don’t know what is good or bad. They need to be hand-held” KAMAL KANT PANT Principal, Institute of Hotel Management, Catering and Nutrition, Pusa, New Delhi “There is just one curriculum, but we have to fulfil the needs of students with diverse aspirations. So, we are assigning students to different mentors who are specialised in a particular domain” BIPIN JOJO Dean, School of Social Work, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai “The aspect of interdisciplinarity and community network has been in our curriculum for years. Our curriculum is geared towards the development sector…

Consumers are used to seasonal changes in the prices of vegetables, but this one was particularly hard to stomach. In a matter of just two months, retail prices of tomatoes soared to Rs 200 a kg in several parts of the country from as low as Rs 30 a kg in May, compelling many to cut down their consumption or take it totally off the household menu. With tomato prices hitting the headlines, the Centre stepped in to make the vegetable available at subsidised rates to consumers in some states, but those in the farm sector believe that only a move to higher production will offer any respite from soaring prices. That again is fraught with challenges, given that the delayed monsoon and floods in many parts of the country…

The India Today Group Education Conclave 2023, presented by the Sathyabama Institute of Science and Technology, was a robust affair attended by some of the leading lights in Indian academia. Up for discussion on the day were critical issues facing the education sector today, from the rollout of the 2020 National Education Policy (NEP), the tectonic disruption caused by AI-based (artificial intelligence-based) software like ChatGPT, and the immense stress faced by students at colleges and universities across the country. The keynote event at the conclave was the session with the Union minister for education, Dharmendra Pradhan, which spanned a variety of issues. In a conversation with India Today Group Editorial Director (Publishing) Raj Chengappa, Pradhan noted that the NEP’s rollout has so far been smooth. “The journey has been very…

SAMEER ARORA Vice Principal, Shiv Nadar School, Gurugram Students need to be world-ready and not just job-ready… skills are what we have deeply embedded in our curriculum…. Digital literacy is going to be very important. You need students to develop skills such as creative thinking and soft skills such as collaboration” DR RAJ NEHRU Vice-chancellor, Shri Vishwakarma Skill University We design a programme because there is a demand for a certain job role and skilling components are aligned with it…students have to earn 60 per cent of the credits through work…. Unless you blend technology with all kinds of jobs, there won’t be a transformation”…

Prayagh Nutri Products is an enterprise that has thrived on the passions of a father son duo. The Managing Director, Preetam Lalwani used his versatile networking skills to build an enormous distribution network in a short span of time to craft the company’s success. Vinod Lalwani, a post graduate in Food Technology from CFTRI Mysore, with his vast experience in production, quality and R&D operations in the field of sugar confectionery and chocolates brought in his passion and technical expertise. It is due to the combined eff orts of these masterminds, and a team of equally passionate and dedicated employees that Prayagh Nutri Products has been able to emerge as the 5th Largest Player in the Confectionery category, 6th Largest in the Chocolate category & 5th Largest in the Cakes…

It is a good thing that I picked up this book after a soul-satisfying meal, so I wouldn’t drool. Or at least that’s what I repeatedly told myself while turning the pages of Zac O’Yeah’s newest book. Digesting India is a wild ride across the subcontinent’s delectable culinary landscape, which the Scandinavian-origin author has explored over the past 30-odd years. However, it wouldn’t be right to call Digesting India a food book. It extends beyond the purview of the culinary and infuses the writer’s anecdotes from his travels across India, ties in the lives of literary greats influenced by the country (think E.M. Forster’s love for Hyderabadi food or the spiritually-minded W. Somerset Maugham’s time in Kozhikode), and provides history lessons to give context to consumption. I myself made a…

MOHAN AGASHE’S LATEST WEB SERIES Do Gubbare (streaming on JioCinema) unfolds in familiar territory, one that also happens to be his home—Pune. A Puneri all his life, Agashe chose to stay in the city even while pursuing a career in Hindi films in Bombay in the ’80s-90s. The Pune in the Varun Narvekar-directed show is seen through the eyes of an outsider (Siddharth Shaw) trying to eke out a living. The people he encounters while doing so include Ajoba (Agashe) who becomes a life coach. The slice-of-life drama, says Agashe, nails the pulse of the city. It comes across in details like a house gate sign that reads, “Don’t open if you can’t close”, and in how the city gradually grows on you. By the fifth episode, says Agashe, the protagonist’s…

The monsoon is now in full swing, which means—for most Indian musicians at least—that it’s time to take a break from the road and hit the studio. The rains make large, open-air concerts practically impossible, while even smaller club gigs run the risk of low attendance due to unpredictable weather that keeps many fans indoors. It’s a reality that leaves fans of live music jonesing for their fix, but on the bright side, this is also the season for new music. Every monsoon, we see a glut of new releases from artists both established and new. It’s a key time for musicians and music fans—new stars are born, new classics added to the pantheon of great music, new sounds come to define the year ahead. To help you navigate this…

It took a mother to discover the healer in her son. Her 8 year old son managed to cure her with some paracetamol tablets, when her husband was away and there were no doctors nearby. Her words of admiration surely seem to have worked. The seeds were firmly sown in young Roopesh’s mind, and he rose to emerge as a Surgeon. Fascinated by the nascent field of Neurosurgery, he honed his craft with a Masters in Neurosurgery in NIMHANS, Bangalore, Starting twenty years ago, when instruments weren’t as sophisticated, he has carved out a reputation for himself in Vascular Bypass, Cerebro Vascular Surgery and Skull Base Surgery. Dr. Roopesh Kumar is the Director of Neurosurgery at MGM Healthcare. Having published over 52 articles and contributed to renowned textbooks, the trailblazing…

In the midst of a heated debate in the Karnataka assembly on July 13, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah half-taunted Janata Dal (Secular) leader H.D. Kumaraswamy, asking if the latter was siding with the BJP of late. Kumaraswamy retorted that if he had wanted to join hands with the BJP, he could have done so four years ago when he was still the CM. Just weeks before the 2019 Lok Sabha election, Kumaraswamy revealed, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had spoken to him, offering to support his government for the rest of its term. “But I refused as I was in a coalition with you (the Congress) and didn’t want to earn a black spot. If I had accepted then, I would have remained CM for the past five years.” But that original…

The Bharat Rashtra Samithi regime in Telangana has ‘banned’ private donations of any kind to the poorly equipped state-run schools. It seems images of children without books and classrooms without furniture—used by rival party leaders while announcing grants—had become a source of embarrassment ahead of the assembly poll. Except that the ban comes after what critics call the “3G [3-generation] effect”. CM K. Chandrashekar Rao’s grandson and industries mini ster K.T. Rama Rao’s son, Him anshu Rao K., turned 18 on July 12, and the occasion saw donations (and photoops) for the renovation of a government school on Hyderabad’s outskirts.…

At last, after nearly a year of deliberations, the matter of selecting fighter aircraft for India’s newly inducted indigenous aircraft carrier, INS Vikrant, has been settled. On July 13, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi was on his way to Paris for a two-day visit, a meeting of the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) convened by defence minister Rajnath Singh granted the Acceptance of Necessity (AoN) to the Indian Navy to acquire 26 Rafale Marine (Rafale-M) fighter jets from France. The deal to procure the Rafale-Ms will cost India at least $8 billion (Rs 65,920 crore) and will be executed through an intergovernmental agreement between India and France. India will acquire 22 single-seater Rafale-Ms and four of its twin-seater trainer versions. They are expected to be based at Visakhapatnam, the home base…

DUSHYANT SINHA, COMMUNICATION SPECIALIST Dushyant Sinha, the Founder, and Director of ICCPL, is an outstanding communication specialist who brings a wealth of experience to his company. As a master at crafting and shaping the public image of his clients, he has worked with prominent names in realty, education, tech, agriculture, and startups. Before establishing ICCPL in 2011 at 25, Dushyant Sinha honed his skills at prestigious organizations such as Deutsche Bank and Wipro. His expertise has earned him numerous accolades, including the coveted WASME award from the Ministry of MSME (Govt Of India) and the “40 Under 40 Award” three times from reputed media organizations like Business World. DR. SRIDHAR PEDDIREDDY, ONCOLOGIST Dr. Sridhar Peddireddy holds a prestigious name in the field of Oncology for the last 25 years. He…

DR SHELJA SEN Family therapist & Co-founder, Children First “Follow the ‘You-Me-We’ strategy while communicating with children: I listen to you even though I may not agree; I explain my point of view; and we find out how we can manage this together” RAJAT SONI Author, Youth & Parenting Coach “Parents should spend exclusive time with their kids with a non-judgemental mindset. This involves having a conversation without devices and one that doesn’t involve studies or careers” DR SAMEER MALHOTRA Director and Head, Department of Mental Health and Behavioural Sciences, Max Healthcare “There is a heightened expression of emotion these days. The ability to tolerate stress has gone. So, the children’s reactions are much more severe”…

Aravind Murali and Maarten Visser have known each other for more than 20 years. Both composers, Visser on the saxophone and Aravind on bass, joined Manukrishnan on drums to form the band they call Many Things. The name, like their music with minimal production, rests on what-they-play-is-what-you-get. They are a cross-genre instrumental trio from Chennai hovering around jazz with an occasional leap into classical rock and funk and they are out with their album First Things First (available on Bandcamp and streaming platforms). Visser says he and Aravind had the idea of doing something in jazz, but it never happened until now. Before the pandemic Manukrishnan and Visser mulled over the idea when Manu and Aravind had not even met. It was a liberated way of writing music for each…