Innholdsfortegnelse for Monday, August 21, 2023 i India Today

India, a nation rich in history and culture, celebrated 75 years of its glorious independence with Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav (AKAM). This momentous occasion marked a tribute to the country’s journey towards progress, freedom, and unity. Under the visionary leadership of Hon'ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, the Government of India organized various events and campaigns to commemorate this historic milestone. One of the most impactful and exhaustive on-ground joint campaigns was the collaboration between the Ministry of Culture, Ministry of Rural Development, and India Today Group in 10 Major Cities across the country. With the main overarching theme of "Inclusive Development" i.e., Samaveshi Vikaas, the campaign aimed to raise awareness about critical aspects such as Plantation on Riverbanks, livestock awareness, Financial Literacy, PMAY-G, and promoting digital transactions. Covering 10…

RANKING OF UNIVERSITIES 1600 universities in 4 major streams KEY PARAMETERS University performance rated according to… Reputation & Governance Academic & Research Excellence Infrastructure & Living Experience Personality & Leadership Development Career Progression & Placement UNIVERSITY VS UNIVERSITY Find a suitable university on the basis of… Six year results (2018-2023) National rankings: By state and city Government vs Private KNOW YOUR UNIVERSITY The details available on each university.. ↘ Brief profile ↘ Rankings in past 6 years ↘ Courses, seats and fee ↘ Admission: Selection criteria and cut-offs ↘ Placements: Domestic and international ↘ Faculty: Strength, research record and patents granted ↘ Infra: Campus size/labs/libraries/hostels ↘ Industry connect: Seminars, consultancy projects, competitions ↘ Global exposure: Foreign exchange programmes, tie-ups ↘ Funds and grants ↘ Contact details SCAN HERE TO GO…

With Rahul Gandhi reinstated as MP, some Congressmen are pushing for another round of the Bharat Jodo Yatra, this time from west to east. The proposal is to start it from the Sabarmati Ashram in Gujarat on Gandhi Jayanti (October 2). Also, there will be no permanent yatris this time except Rahul, so that the cavalcade is much smaller. Buoyed by the huge outpouring of support last time, the leaders expect thousands to join the yatra on their own every day. The Gandhi scion and his team haven’t consented to the idea yet, as they feel it will disturb the momentum built for the assembly poll campaigns in four big states—Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Telangana.…

The BJP is making Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Geh lot’s toe injuries a political issue. The CM injured the big toes on both feet in a June 30 accident, but the opposition says he is faking it to get voter sympathy in the upcoming assembly poll. Since Gehlot still has the bandages on, they are demanding that a panel of five doctors examine him and present a public report. Rubbing salt into the wounds, BJP leaders drew comparisons with West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee, who was injured just before the 2021 assembly polls there and “played it up to garner sympathy votes”. A visibly upset Gehlot says he can send his CT scan reports to anyone who needs hard evidence.…

SINGAPORE ↘ The third-largest foreign exchange market, after the US and UK ↘ Tax rebates/incentives for variable capital companies (type of investment firms) and family offices to attract fund managers ↘ Located along the Strait of Malacca, an arterial shipping route HONG KONG ↘ No tax on capital gains or dividends ↘ Capital account fully convertible, i.e., currency exchange can happen without any restriction on the amount ↘ Gateway to Mainland China DUBAI ↘ 50-year tax holiday on corporate income/profits ↘ 100% foreign ownership allowed without the need for any local partner ↘ No currency exchange controls, or curbs on returning capital/profits to primary country of investment…

800 METRE Elevation 4,393 POPULATION (2011 census) 7.25 SQ. KM Area 788,867 TOURISTS (in 2022) ● All motor vehicles barred, except ambulances/fire tenders, since the town’s inception during the British Raj ● Also declared an Ecologically Sensitive Zone in 2003, banning development activities harmful to environment ● Both tourists and locals have to park their vehicles at Dasturi Naka, about 3 km away, before beginning the ascent ● Modes of transport include 460 horses and 94 hand-pulled rickshaws (which charge around Rs 500 per person) ● Goods are brought uphill by 127 licensed porters and over 250 ponies ● A narrow-gauge toy train provides limited services to the nearest railhead of Neral, covering 21 km in over two hours…

» No. of Esports players across all competitive levels: 1 million in 2022 from 600,000 in 2021. Expected to reach 2.5 million in 2023 » No. of Esports teams: 110,000 in 2022, from 100,000 in 2021, a growth of 10 percent. Can reach 125,000 in 2023 » Prize money for Esports tournaments: Rs 15 crore in 2022, lower than the Rs 22 crore in 2021. Estimated to rise to Rs 30 crore in 2023 » Airtime of competitive level games: 4,500 broadcast hours in 2022, a jump of almost 50 per cent from 3,100 hours in 2021. Expected to rise to 6,000 hours in 2023 » Broadcasting platforms for Esports: 14 in 2022 » No. of brands investing in Esports: 80 in 2022, from 72 in 2021. Could touch 100…

YOU HAVE TO HAND IT TO THE MAN! Ranveer Singh has single-handedly paved the way for the movers and shakers of tinsel-town to take more risks with how they dress. Call it avantgarde, eccentric, quirky, loud or whatever, Singh’s style statement is an extension of his vivacious personality. More often than not, he has carried everything off with aplomb, whether it is brocade tuxedos, floral-print shirts, or a sequinned Gucci turtleneck paired with yellow pants and silver boots. Singh has worn a blinding neon-green double-breasted suit and a full tracksuit with a silver space jacket. He wore a zebra-printed outfit at the Filmfare Awards, donned a ghaghra with a pathani and golden foil wrap. When it comes to Bollywood’s fashion experimentalists, Singh makes his own rules in his fashion laboratory.…

To be alive in the 21st century is to inhabit a paradox. Never before have we been able to alter our environment so thoroughly. Airconditioning, internet connectivity, speedy travel, and products from around the globe have made the world our oyster. Yet, that oyster is agitated by turbulent currents, cracked open by floods, droughts, fires and plagues that seem to be visited upon us by vengeful gods. The technical instruments we control and the political and economic institutions we have built seem to be failing. And much of the crisis is our own fault. Peter Frankopan tells us that none of this is new. The scale of the crisis may now be planetary but, over millennia, many civilisations that sought to conquer their environment confronted a similar threat of collapse.…

Q. Kaia Goa marks your debut in the F&B space. What led you to this venture? I’ve always been interested in the food and travel segment. I’ve been a keen traveller. I love good properties, luxurious as well as budget travel. I am a big foodie, so this is something that I was definitely going to do. Goa is where I belong. My village is here, I have a lot of family here. When the opportunity came along, I was thrilled. I resonated with the property and it’s a great start for me. Q. You’ve often spoken about climate change. How important is sustainability to you? Sustainability is a way of life, the need of the hour and something I practise every day. What attracted me to Kaiā was that…

Health checkups are routine these days and progressively new tools are being invented to give you a more accurate diagnosis. Now, in the age of Artificial Intelligence, we are seeing a quantum leap in medical diagnostic technologies. In other domains, AI tools have of late become playthings for the public. But those such as ChatGPT or the ones that deal with image and video are producing a form of virtual reality. In healthcare, on the other hand, AI-powered technologies are getting as real as possible, cutting close to the bone with predictions on your body that are as solidly reliable as possible. Are you in line to get cancer? How much of a risk are you at for a heart attack or a cerebral stroke? And most importantly, when? At…

It was June 1976, India was seething under the Emergency, and a 25-year-old Nitish Kumar was on the run. The police did not have a photo of the young Turk who was part of Jayaprakash Narayan’s Total Revolution movement, yet they identified him from among a group of activists; an informer had tipped them off about Nitish’s habit of wearing his watch dial on the inside of his wrist. The intriguing episode was revealed in a book on the Bihar CM released in July. Incidentally, Nitish still wears his watch the same way, one of the few leaders who does so. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is another.…

On July 18, the same day as over two dozen constituents of the national Opposition front came together in Bengaluru for their second conclave, Rajesh Ranjan, alias Pappu Yadav, one of the most popular don-turned-politicians in Bihar and five-term Lok Sabha MP, was dejectedly addressing a press conference in Patna to express hurt over not being invited to the meeting. Yadav, who heads the Jan Adhikar Party (JAP) and enjoys clout in the Kosi region, recounted how he had appealed to Bihar chief minister and Janata Dal-United (JD-U) supremo Nitish Kumar, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) boss Lalu Yadav, and even the Congress for entry into the state’s Mahagathbandhan (MGB) fold, only to be ungraciously snubbed. It was just last year that the Congress had nominated his wife Ranjeet Ranjan to…

↘ DR DANGS LAB Tests offered: Allergy testing. Data is fed into AI-powered machines that can accurately detect potential vulnerabilities to 163 common allergens, based on the analysis of 300 components of various allergens Cost: ₹ 25,000 (approx.) ↘ NURA Tests offered: Gender-specific screening and genetic diagnostics, the results of which are analysed by AI to make predictions about future health concerns Cost: ₹ 18,000 (for prediction through blood work/body scans) plus ₹ 15,000 (for genetic testing) ↘ MEDANTA Tests offered: Blood work and body scans that can help predict the risk of heart disease, diabetes, respiratory ailments, bone ailments and liver disease. They have developed their own algorithm Cost: Price on enquiry ↘ MEDGENOME Tests offered: Over 1,300 types of genetic tests, which can find markers for all common…

RAJASTHAN MINIMUM GUARANTEED INCOME ACT Target: The entire adult population ↘ Makes employment of a minimum 125 days in a year, at Rs 255 a day, an entitlement for all ↘ In the absence of work, every adult in a BPL family to get Rs 1,000 a month ↘ It also guarantees a minimum monthly pension of Rs 1,000 to those above 55, the specially abled, widows, single women, to go up by 15 per cent annually ↘ It thus extends MNREGA by accounting for rural and urban job guarantees, while also bundling the minimum pension under one umbrella legislation RAJASTHAN PLATFORM-BASED GIG WORKERS (REGISTRATION AND WELFARE) ACT Target: Estimated 300,000 ↘ Extends basic rights to gig workers, the first law in India to do so ↘ All gig workers…

TOTAL AREA 886 ACRES ACRES 261 IFSC & SEZ* 625 ACRES Domestic Tariff Area TOTAL ENTITIES IN IFSC & SEZ: 400 35 Fintech firms 2 stock exchanges $30.6 bn: Average daily trading volume 1 Bullion exchange 75: Qualified jewellers onboarded 23 International banking units $36.5 bn: Cumulative asset size 64 Ancillary firms 23 Insurance firms/intermediaries $30 bn: Sum assured 63 Fund management companies $14.6 bn: Capital committed 24 Aircraft leasing and financing entities 15: Aircraft leased *International Financial Services Centre & Special Economic Zone…

The grand matriarch of Indian fashion, Ritu Kumar is currently basking in the adulation of her recent showcase ‘The OG’ at India Couture Week (ICW) 2023. Her return to the runway at ICW after a decade-long hiatus is not just another appearance—it is a testament to her relentless pursuit of reviving Indian textile and craft over five decades. However, Kumar isn’t too pleased with the word ‘comeback’. Her outings on the ramp, lately, may be far and few, but the veteran fashion designer has been at the forefront of haute couture much before it became a part of India’s vocabulary. “Couture in India translates to bridal wear and party clothes, which we have been designing right from our inception in the 1960s. There have also been fewer couture shows. This…

FOLLOWING A PRAYER by Sundar Sarukkai TRANQUEBAR/WESTLAND BOOKS ₹599; 244 pages Where do words go? What does it mean to follow a sound? Is ‘God’ just another word or our collective shorthand for ‘illusion’? Or is language itself the root cause of lies? These questions sound like they belong at a philosophy seminar, but in Sundar Sarukkai’s brilliant and highly unusual novel Following a Prayer, such are the queries posed by children mounting a valiant attempt to make sense of a disorienting world. Twelve-year-old Kalpana disappears into a nearby forest for three days after deciding to obey a casual utterance by her praying grandmother, urging her to ‘follow the prayer’. Upon her return, she refuses to speak, confounding her family, her teachers and the village at large — their possible…

THE STORY OF THE DAY Why Gehlot dared BJP to project Vasundhara Raje as CM face By Rohit Parihar Is the Rajasthan chief minister trying to widen the fault lines in the faction-ridden state BJP by rooting for the sidelined Raje? https://bit.ly/3qpkwQU GROUND REPORT | TIGER CENSUS With 785 specimens, how MP retains ‘tiger state’ tag By Rahul Noronha Village relocations and wildlife conservation outside Protected Areas helped notch the impressive numbers in the 2022 tiger census https://bit.ly/3QOR163 SPOTLIGHT | SEMICONDUCTOR BOOM How India is aiming to acquire IP rights, become leader in semiconductors By Jumana Shah The buzz at the recent SemiconIndia 2023 conference was that India’s time on the semiconductor world stage had come https://bit.ly/47nUE8I SOCIETY & TRENDS | DATING Five new dating trends everyone’s talking about By…

At a memorial meeting for former Kerala chief minister Oommen Chandy, leader of the Opposition V.D. Satheesan demanded that the church declare the late Congress leader a saint as his tomb in Puthuppally had been attracting large crowds since his interment on July 21. Now, the Syrian Orthodox Church needs ‘three miracle testimonies proving divine intervention’ to initiate the sainthood process. Social media is already abuzz with memes of Chandy’s powers—a poor widow visiting Chandy’s tomb wins a Rs 80 lakh lottery while others are cured of chronic ills. Critics recall the insinuations Chandy endured in the 2013 ‘solar panel’ controversy and joke that the party is looking for redemption in the 2024 election from an ex-CM who was “crucified by his own partymen” when he was alive.…

If there was any speculation that actor Sunny Deol, the BJP MP from Gurdaspur, Punjab, will recontest in 2024, it has vanished now. Recently, he was in Amritsar, an hour’s drive from Gurdaspur, to promote his new film, Gadar 2, but chose not to visit his constituency where he was apparently last seen three years ago. Deol also skipped the monsoon session of Parliament where his attendance registers at an abysmal 19 per cent. In a strange turn of events, ex-Congressman Sunil Jakhar, whom Deol defeated in 2019, now heads the BJP’s Punjab unit.…

ANANT SINGH, 56 Singh was a man in favour in the 2019 general election when Congress fielded his wife Neelam Devi from Munger, with Tejashwi Yadav even campaigning for her. But disqualified last year after his conviction in an Arms Act case, he has been left high and dry. It’s unlikely that the MGB or the Congress will field his MLA wife in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls MUKESH SAHANI, 42 From partnering with the RJD in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls to storming out of Tejashwi Yadav’s press meet on the eve of 2020 state polls, to ultimately aligning with the BJP, this self-proclaimed ‘Son of Mallah’ has been a mercurial leader. With BJP in 2022 inducting all three MLAs from his party, which goes by the name VIP,…

WHAT IF SOMEONE COULD TELL YOU SUFFICIENTLY IN ADVANCE WHAT DISEASE YOU ARE LIKELY TO GET IN THE FUTURE, and you act on it so that the possibility does not come to pass at all? That is what a special health screening package at Nura, a Fujifilm-Dr Kutty’s Healthcare collaboration, can help determine. Enter their premises in Gurugram and you may be forgiven for thinking you have strayed into a luxury hotel. There are Japanese wood-panelled gardens and you are welcomed with a cup of matcha tea. Then you are dressed in a kimono and personally escorted to a set of rooms spread over two floors. Inside, however, instead of hot tubs, you find blood pressure monitors, CT scan and ECG machines. Computerised tomography, electro-cardiogram…each test takes you to a…

Venturing into Oncology 40 years ago when it was a nascent field, Dr. M. A. Raja, Senior Consultant, Medical Oncology, Director Oncology Services, MGM Cancer Institute has been a ringside witness to the growth of this field. Having a domain expertise in virtually every type of tumour, he is the most competent person to talk about Cancer as a whole. In his characteristic “cut the clutter” manner, he has simplified the approach to this condition. He says it needs to be handled in a humane manner where empathy matters the most. Cancer he says mainly of two types. The ones that you can totally avoid and the ones that you can take precautions against. Cancer of the Cervix can be eliminated by following a good hygiene practise of a daily…

WHEN MAYANK PRAJAPATI ISN’T CHANGING HIS TWO-YEAR-OLD SON’S DIAPERS, he is busy breaking legs and cracking heads in Street Fighter V, a ‘fighting’ video game in which two players use a variety of special techniques and ‘characters’ to knock out opponents. “It is pretty difficult…I don’t sleep at all,” says Prajapati about his balancing act as a freelance architect, a stay-at-home dad and a committed competitive gamer. He is amongst the growing legion of diehard Indian Esports enthusiasts—competitive video gaming where people play against each other online and at spectator events in indoor arenas. Having played Street Fighter for two decades and after winning multiple tournaments in India, 32-year-old Prajapati awaits his finest hour. He will represent India at the Asian Games at Hangzhou, China, where Esports makes its debut…

Koel Purie Rinchet’s debut novel Clearly Invisible in Paris begins on a supremely confident note, introducing us to its four principal characters via ‘point-of-view’ chapters, the literary equivalent of a ‘split-screen’ device in cinema. Teenaged Russian model Dasha cannot stop herself from showing the finger to the exploitative overlords of the fashion world, even if it stops her march to the big leagues. Filipina housekeeper (and later, nanny) Rosel is desperate to be reunited with her infant son, but her passport and documents have been confiscated by her conniving ex-employers. Senegalese trans woman Violet struggles with her job as a burlesque dancer, her memories of pre-transition life, and her feelings for Raphael, a handsome beggar she finds herself drawn to. And finally, beautiful, ennui-riddled columnist Neera, married to a handsome,…

Murder-accused Indrani Mukerjea’s life story makes for unpleasant reading, but there are at least three things to admire. True grit, for one. The daughter whose murder Mukerjea is accused of was the result of being raped as a teenager by her own father. A male friend offers to legitimise the birth while offering to marry her. A year later, she has a son by him, but remains unmarried. She does well at school and college, abandons the friend, and at barely 19, cedes custody of both children to her parents. She goes to Kolkata, completes her degree, begins her working life with the Diners Club and soon marries Sanjeev Khanna, a businessman. Has a daughter by him, grows disenchanted and moves to Mumbai. There she meets Peter Mukerjea, eventually marries…

A few weeks ago, Jyothi Yarraji got a tattoo inscribed on her forearm. It reads ‘Hope’, a feeling she thrives on. As the favourite for the 100 metres hurdles at the Asian Athletics Championships in Bangkok in July, she was hopeful of making her mark at the meet. And though she slipped after the seventh hurdle, she took top spot in 13.09 seconds. The timing was far from her then national record (12.82 seconds), but forthe first time, a female Indian hurdler had won the 100m hurdles gold at the meet. Two days later, Yarraji managed silver in the 200m in a time of 23.13 seconds. This time around, it was a personal best effort, the fifth-improved on her own mark. race this year where she had Then, on August…