Innholdsfortegnelse for January 29, 2024 i India Today

Bad news usually goes viral, while good news tends to be buried in the welter of negative developments that are churned out with metronomic regularity. So, in 2016, we at INDIA TODAY decided to break the dominance of gloom by annually bringing out an entire issue devoted to heartwarming developments. This year, it segued neatly into our Republic Day special issue. We decided to give you a collage of positive and inspiring individuals and institutions that have spread good cheer by their actions. But what you will find in the following pages are not some islands of bliss unconnected to the outside reality, not exceptions that prove the rule. These stories mark out a salutary state that’s getting generalised, in different ways and across different domains of Indian life. All…

Last month, Indian classical dance witnessed a path-breaking moment in Thiruvananthapuram. As Mohiniyattam exponent Methil Devika started her performance at the Ammaveedu, a heritage hub of music and dance, an excited group of hearing- and speech-impaired fans immersed themselves in the spectacle unfolding before them. But how did they follow the show? Devika merged Indian sign language with the hasta mudras (hand gestures) of classical dance for her performance titled ‘Crossover’, under her visionary project ‘Dance Philanthropy and Social Inclusion’. As expected, it got instant acclaim and more such performances are now planned. Additionally, a short film on ‘Crossover’ will soon grace various venues in Kerala. Devika says she reluctantly took on a role in a Malayalam film, Katha Innuvare (The Story Till Now), to fund the initiative. In her…

Eight-year-old Anita Solanki’s tryst with education began on a hot summer day last year when a bright yellow-coloured bus rolled into her poor neighbourhood in Ahmedabad. The daughter of an auto-rickshaw driver who was struggling to make ends meet, today, she attends an international school in the city. Like Anita, around 415 poor or homeless children, who had either never attended school or were forced to drop out, have been enrolled in regular schools after completing a bridge course from 12 such buses that double up as ‘Signal Schools’. Launched in March 2022 by the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) in collaboration with the Gujarat State Legal Services Authority (GSLSA), these buses pick up street children, aged between six and 14 years, around 7-8 in the morning and drop them off…

Have you ever wondered how the size of your smartphone has grown bigger over the years but the fast charger that keeps it going is still a compact little device? Thank Gallium Nitride (GaN). It’s a semiconductor compound more efficient than silicon when it comes to powering electronics—that means anything to do with controlling and converting the flow of electricity into an electronic device, be it a phone, laptop or an electric vehicle. GaN operates at a higher frequency than silicon. There’s also less wastage of energy: the old chargers used to run 5-10 watts; fast chargers nowadays use 30-60 watts in practically the same footprint, or even smaller. Now, a start-up, AGNIT Semiconductors, India’s first private sector company in semiconductor manufacturing, is aiming for a slice of the market…

Just over an hour’s drive from capital Raipur, a few kilometres before Tilda-Neora railway station, you enter Tulsi village, home to about 4,000 people, in central Chhattisgarh. Walking through its narrow lanes and open spaces, don’t be surprised if you come across a group of locals shooting a dance performance or a comedy sketch or even a DIY video. And not with just a smartphone or a digital camera, there is a whole paraphernalia: microphones, reflectors, multiple cameras, et al. With 1,000-odd villagers—at least one from each household, claim locals—engaged in creating video content, Tulsi today has 40 active YouTube channels with 1,000+ videos. Among them, Being Chhattisgarhiya, the first Chhattisgarhi comedy YouTube channel, has a library of 250+ videos and boasts of 120,000+ subscribers. Says co-founder Jai Verma, “Humour is…

A 120-year-old seed farm on the banks of the Periyar river has become a “role model for survival” at a time when climate change and the perils of global warming are on everyone’s minds. The 5.32 hectares of land in Aluva in the suburbs of Kochi became India’s first carbon-neutral organic seed farm in December 2022. ‘Carbon-neutral’ indicates that the farm does not contribute to greenhouse gas emissions and that whatever is produced is absorbed by the soil and plants here. The Kerala Agricultural University’s College of Climate Change and Environmental Science found that the farm on Thuruth island emitted 43 tonnes of carbon but was ‘storing’ 213 tonnes. This meant that the seed farm was not just carbonneutral, but also has 170 tonnes of carbon credits. “We have been…

No man or beast can ever dare to come in the way of an elephant herd when it goes foraging along its chosen route, or corridor, of migration. Except the mechanical beast called the locomotive, which, bound by fixed tracks, cannot play by those rules. In India’s Northeast, home to more than 10,000 elephants, this often leads to an inevitable, and tragic, conclusion. Over 200 elephants have died after getting hit by trains in the north-eastern states in the past 10 years. It is a crying shame, and something that needed an urgent fix. The Indian Railways finally found one, as engineers of the Assam-based Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) blended existing technology with a twist of jugaad to set off alarms in train engines and at stations every time a herd…

This ode to cooking with vegetables harks back to Bhogal’s Edenic childhood in Nairobi where her beloved Bhaji (grandfather), who had migrated to Kenya from Punjab, had tended a barren plot of land into a thriving vegetable patch. Cut to the present and Bhogal runs Jikoni, a much-feted restaurant in London, inspired by immigrant cuisine and “cooking without borders”. The recipes in this book certainly have the chef’s flourish, like Saffron Malpuas. Some have quirk, like KFC, which is actually Korean Fried Cauliflower! Thankfully, while choosing to celebrate vegetarian cuisine, Bhogal steers away from demonising our carnivorous instincts. Everyone who thinks Marwari food is boring should buy this book immediately. Bapu’s Curries is a culinary tribute to Shreeparna Khaitan’s father, Umesh Khaitan, a lawyer by profession and cook by passion.…

This year is all about integrating with the existing landscape; screening and allowing filtered light in different ways within each space and infusing volumes with light and shadows to transform differently at different times. And a perfect example of this is Zen Spaces, a four-level, eco-friendly home in Jaipur. Spread over 27,000 sq ft, it is a corner plot that has roads on three sides. It also has an existing house on the southern side. The clients wanted a new home since the family had grown larger. Keeping most of the existing garden as a common space for both houses, the new home was built on the extreme northern end, retaining all existing trees. The house is a composition of cuboid volumes punctuated with an open courtyard, built in four…

The 3,300 sq ft sea-facing apartment, owned by a 36-year-old affluent, well-travelled man with a keen eye for a trendy lifestyle, presented a unique design challenge. Despite his lack of specific interior preferences, I took the initiative to conceptualise the space, drawing inspiration from his dashing personality. The resulting interiors boast an edgy design and sophisticated vibe anticipated to trend in 2024. Planned and Executed Numerous structural changes transformed the four bedrooms into a master suite, walk-in closet, dining room, and gym. The long living room was artfully divided into formal and informal units, each oriented towards the TV and a stunning window-facing deck. Creating Atmosphere The living areas’ distinctive feature is the ombre effect seamlessly transitioning from floor to walls and ceiling. Moody neutral tones enhance the interplay of…

STORY OF THE DAY How military withdrawal from Maldives will impact India’s strategic interests By Pradip R. Sagar President Mohamed Muizzu’s aggressive posturing imperils decades of India-Maldives defence cooperation and gives expansionist China more opportunity to make inroads into the island nation https://rb.gy/y6vbob SPOTLIGHT Milind Deora gone, exodus rumours swirling, can Congress stay together in Maharashtra? By Dhaval S. Kulkarni Deora’s exit not only hots up the battle for Mumbai South Lok Sabha seat, there is also buzz of more Congress leaders, from regions like Marathwada, western Maharashtra and Vidarbha, looking to jump ship in the run-up to the general elections https://rb.gy/lih7sx SPECIAL REPORT: JAGANNATH TEMPLE HERITAGE CORRIDOR Far away from Ayodhya, Naveen Patnaik set for big temple revamp inaugural in Jagannath Puri By Arkamoy Datta Majumdar The Odisha CM…

A diverse workplace is not just a better workplace but also an attractive one. It is this wisdom, as enunciated by their chief sustainability officer, Anjalli Ravi Kumar, that has become a guiding principle at food aggregator major Zomato. “Diverse companies are also more innovative,” she adds. And at Zomato, that change begins at the very top, with the board of directors. Four out of its seven directors are women—Namita Gupta, founder, Airveda Technologies; Gunjan Tilak Raj Soni, CEO, Zalora Group; Aparna Popat Ved, a badminton player who has represented India at international forums; and Sutapa Banerjee, a banking veteran. Zomato exemplifies an encouraging trend in India Inc. According to data by primeinfobase.com, from a mere 5 per cent a decade ago, women now occupy 20 per cent of all…

A new elixir of life is changing the lives of 900,000 farmers in Gujarat. Called Jivamrut, it is a no-expense fertiliser made by processing cow excreta, essential pulses, jaggery and earthworms. And pushing its use is none other than the governor of Gujarat, Acharya Devvrat, who not only developed the process but has also deployed it on his 180 acres of farmland in native Kurukshetra for the past eight years. A completely natural method, as opposed to pesticide-driven or even organic farming, this ‘zero-budget farming’ is now happening on 752,000 acres across the state, from Kutch to Navsari to Saurashtra. In an interaction with INDIA TODAY, Governor Devvrat recounted his own experiences with natural farming. “Due to decades of pesticide abuse, soil fertility has been the biggest casualty,” he says. “Any…

Women cops on bikes? In Bulandshahr, Uttar Pradesh? Incredulous as it may sound, ‘bikewali police didis’ are now a common enough sight in this small town of western UP. Women police officers here ride what are locally called ‘phantom’ bikes, or vehicles that have been modified for policing needs, complete with a hooter, police lights, PA system and more. And it’s all thanks to 36-year-old Anukriti Sharma, an IPS officer of the 2020 batch, who is the current Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) of the city. Anukriti has taken it upon herself to make the police a more efficient and citizen-friendly force. And the first step towards achieving it, she feels, is by empowering the women officers in the force. So, female officers under her are given important, and visible,…

Nestled in the sugarcane fields of Satara, about 250 kilometres south of Mumbai, is a gurukul unlike any else. Students wake up at 6 am, recite prayers and, an hour later, converge on the ground, where, wielding bows and arrows, they start aiming for the bullseye 50-70 metres away. The range may not be a levelled, manicured lawn as seen abroad, and harsh sunlight and seasonal rain can play spoilsport. But nothing deters these young archers from their targets. It’s what Pravin Sawant, who runs Drushti Archery Academy, had dreamt of all along—a place where shishyas (students) eat, pray and love archery. Pravin, who is now 32, took up archery after chancing on the sport on TV during the 2008 Olympics. He was then working as a ward boy in…

Sikhs in the South have a history going back 300-odd years. The first of them came with Guru Gobind Singh, on his Deccan expedition in the early 18th century. Around 1832 came the Lahori Fauj, a Sikh contingent that was sent as a peacekeeping force by Maharaja Ranjit Singh to help the Nizam. In between fell the nomadic Sikhs, among them the Sikligars, weaponsmiths who, too, were part of the contingent that accompanied Guru Gobind Singh. From these proud martial beginnings, the Sikhs in Telangana fell on bad days post-Independence. While the descendants of the Huzoori Sikhs went on to receive education and employment, the Sikligars survived on the margins, turning scrap into knives or utensils, repairing locks and keys, and selling them as they moved from village to village,…

The winter session of the Uttar Pradesh assembly came to a close on November 30, and it created a record of sorts. Since the Yogi Adityanath-led government started its second term in March 2022, a total of seven assembly sessions (including one special session) have been held till now, but not a single day has had to be adjourned due to disruptions by members. This is the first time since Independence that seven consecutive sessions have passed off peacefully and the man behind this is assembly Speaker Satish Mahana, 63. He explains the reason for this relative peace: “Earlier, the time allotted for speaking to the parties was fixed on the basis of the number of MLAs in the house. I have stopped this tradition and have given equal time…

The greatest forms of charity give succour to the most vulnerable. Retired clerk Balram Chandra, 61, a resident of Gurugram, spent much of his hard-earned provident fund on weekly dialysis at a private hospital. “Within two years, I spent Rs 5 five lakh. When there was no money left, I gave up dialysis,” he says. In April 2023, Balram heard about a free dialysis centre in Barhalganj area of Gorakhpur district in Uttar Pradesh through a relative. For the past seven months, he has been undergoing free dialysis at the Babu R.N. Singh Dialysis Centre in Bharauli village on the banks of Saryu river, 75 km from Gorakhpur town. The centre was inaugurated by Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath on March 29, 2023. Since then, over 5,000 dialysis procedures have…

Almost 20 years after the release of her debut album as a composer, Rise in 2005, sitar player Anoushka Shankar feels people finally get it. “The change I’ve noticed in the last few years has been quite humbling in the way people call out certain songs at my shows,” she says. “Whereas at the beginning, I had to carve out an area for the type of genre-free music I was making, where I could feel the splits in the audience where some were coming for my classical work, and some were coming for the electronic sound. Now there’s a core listener group that really knows what I do.” While her compositions can’t be called “pure classical music”, there’s no doubt that just like her father, the legendary Ravi Shankar, she…

Q. Tell us about your international debut? I play the protagonist Ashish’s mother in Blue 52. The entire experience has been amazing because of the mix of so many different cultures. The different milieus gave me a chance to explore a challenging character who had great emotional resonance. I am fortunate to have a director like Ali for my international debut. Q. Is this a move away from Bollywood? I haven’t moved away from Bollywood at all. I have a romcom, Mere Mehboob Mere Sanam, with Vicky Kaushal and Triptii Dimri coming up soon. It’s just that I have a larger canvas now that includes many other projects besides Bollywood. These include reality shows, other TV shows and a talk show. I have a show on mental health lined up…

While the term bachelor pad typically brings to mind leather, metal, and glass, the project presents a distinctive design interpretation. The challenge involved striking a delicate balance between a sleek, uncluttered bachelor pad and a potentially opulent future family residence. We achieved this by integrating subtle and lavish elements while preserving the design’s inherent simplicity. Using a neutral colour palette in muted shades, greys, beiges, and cool blues, the entire space is tied together as a single elegant bachelor home. Retro Revival As one enters the spacious den room, the grand 110 ft screen and the comfortable lounging sofa will catch your attention. The other corner boasts a stylish custom bar unit with a retro-style front design (a trend we will see a lot of this year), accented by storage…

Over the years, innovative design has become a defining tenet for sustainable development in varied architectural typologies. With more and more people shifting away from standard building structures and instead opting for a sustainable yet practical design approach, it is crucial to integrate dual-purpose materials like vertical green facades, recycled polymers, and smart glass in luxury residential designs where long-term cost-efficient solutions can be implemented. Simultaneously, high-rise residential buildings can benefit from advanced glazing technologies, passive design strategies, and smart materials to enhance energy efficiency, ensure optimal daylight control and naturally improve thermal control. Harnessing Renewable Energy In recent years, one notable advancement in sustainable technology has been the widespread adoption of photovoltaic solar panels, which quietly convert sunlight into clean, renewable electricity, both on rooftops and as ground-mounted systems.…

The pursuit of happiness has always been a collective aspiration. There may have been civilisational differences in how happiness is perceived, but the yearning for joy, contentment and a sense of well-being has been a universal phenomenon. And then, just as we were struggling to cope with the post-pandemic world order came two unwarranted wars—Russia and Ukraine in Eastern Europe and Israel and Palestine in West Asia. It seems there will be no end to the ‘unhappiness’. However, the unprecedented deaths and destruction once again remind us of what is wrong and what is the cure. And it all starts with the ancient Indian wisdom—‘Sarve bhavantu sukhinah (Let everybody be happy)’. In 2011, a United Nations General Assembly resolution declared happiness as a ‘fundamental human goal’ recognising this vision. In 2015,…

It’s 8 am on a foggy and cold day in Bicharpur, a nondescript village in Madhya Pradesh’s Shahdol district. But around 70 kids from the ages of four to 18 have lined up to train and play football—a sport that has given Bicharpur a separate identity. The passion for football among residents has earned the village the epithet of ‘Mini Brazil’. Multiple persons have nurtured football in Bicharpur—once known for brewing illicit liquor—but the opening credit goes to Suresh Kunde, 65. Born in a marginalised Scheduled Caste community, Kunde as a youngster played football at the Railway ground in Shahdol town. In Bicharpur, Kunde began exhorting young villagers to take up the game. The first to respond was Ketram Singh Gond, 57, a labourer who played football on the side.…

As Archana Kushwaha walks across the giant computerenabled embroidery machine, overseeing the transfer of intricate designs onto the fabric displayed on the monitor, she places a call to the automobile service station where she had sent her car the day before. “How can a car worth Rs 17 lakh, purchased just last year, give trouble? Fix it before the weekend,” demands the 32-year-old owner of a manufacturing unit that produces designer saris and lehengas in Bihar’s West Champaran district. It’s been a busy day for Archana and her husband Nand Kishore Kushwaha, 38. While Archana is covering the 3,000 sq. ft workspace, monitoring the production process, Nand Kishore is taking orders from the retailers on the phone. “The upcoming marriage season is fuelling the demand,” he says. Having posted revenue…

A decade ago, when his gated villa community in Bengaluru’s Whitefield locality was grappling with a clogged drain, Tharun Kumar, 54, an IT security specialist, began looking for ways to set up a zero-maintenance sewage treatment method that could provide good-quality recycled water. The main concern, he says, was to prevent wastewater from draining into the nearby, much-polluted Varthur lake. Inspiration came from nature itself—specifically, the stomach of the cow, which breaks down digestive matter through powerful anaerobic bacteria. The stomachs of ruminants comprise four chambers. Replicating this, Kumar and his team designed a septic tank with four stages. “What’s happening here is anaerobic digestion, that’s a keyword,” explains Kumar, who started ECOSTP in 2017. Anaerobic bacteria, found in a cow’s gut, don’t require oxygen. On the contrary, the aerobic…

In 2019, just before Covid caused worldwide disruption, Minati Sabat, a homemaker from Ward No. 37 under the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation, decided she wanted to do “something better” with her life. And so she brought together 13 women to form the Om Sai Ram self-help group (SHG). Initially, guided by the Odisha government’s department of Mission Shakti, they set up a tailoring unit, but within a few months they found themselves among the nine SHGs chosen to form an area level federation (ALF) known as the Swayam Sradha Mahila Mahasangha. Sixteen of its 120 members now run a coveted Millet Shakti outlet at the Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneswar. The outlet is a joint venture of Mission Shakti and the Mission Millet initiatives. Established on January 12, 2023—when the Men’s Hockey World…

When a bureaucrat is a numbercruncher, the warp and weft of digits throw up solutions to problems that would pass others by. Subrata Gupta, who has a PhD in electronics and telecommunication from IIT Kharagpur, is additional chief secretary in the government of West Bengal in charge of the food processing industries and the horticulture department. He tweaked a Union government scheme to help horticulture farmers in the hills of Darjeeling and Kalimpong multiply their produce. The key intervention was erecting over 2,500 polyhouses—using the concept of greenhouse farming, the practice involves fully or partially covering crop fields—in the steep terrain in the past 15 months. Functioning within the ambit of the central polyhouse subsidy scheme, this was achieved without the farmers having to pay the mandatory half the total cost.…

The air is filled with the aroma of grilled chicken. The pleasant whiff of mushrooms and dal being cooked in stock pots is no less tantalising. Over a dozen women donning chef caps walk briskly across the 1,000 square foot kitchen, some busy stirring the pots, others making chapatis and one frying papad in a huge wok. It’s 1 pm—lunchtime—and another group of women wearing aprons, walks in and out, carrying food plates on trolleys. Outside the kitchen, another group is operating the canteen on the sprawling campus of the Bihar Institute of Mental Health and Allied Sciences (BIMHAS) at Koilwar in Bhojpur district, about 40km west of capital Patna. Here, one can have a samosa or Maggi or even a mutton plate. Almost at all times, the canteen is…

In 2018, the 15th century Kankaria Lake in Ahmedabad became the country’s first ‘clean street food hub’, certified so by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI). The area has 60-odd vendors serving extensive fare—pav bhaji, samosa, dhokla, panipuri, bhelpuri, dabeli, khichu, ice cream, coffee, and so on—to around 12 million people annually, many of whom throng it during festivals and the Kankaria Carnival held every December last week. Taking a cue from Kankaria Lake and following a positive response to the ‘clean street food hub’ certification, the Union health ministry, in collaboration with the Union ministry of housing and urban affairs, last year wrote to all states and Union Territories to develop 100 such food streets in 100 districts across the country. These streets will be cleaned…

THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT Inspired by architectural visionary such as Antoni Gaudí and fashion designer Alexander Mcqueen, interior designer Saachi Marwah Rana created a range of furniture. Each piece of furniture is crafted in bronze and draws parallels to the mathematical complexity of brutalism and disrupts the notion that high fashion should be limited to the human form. PRICE on request AT www.saachirana.com BLOCK BY BLOCK Throw a pattern party with Neeti’s Linen Library’s five new additions to its block-printed bed sheet collection called Mrinalini. Carnation has red flowers in a jaali print, Ashima, alternating pink and white flower motifs offset by green geometric patterns, Aarushi and Blossom have spaced-out floral motifs, while Rooh has bright red and royal blue motifs. PRICE on request AT www.thelinenlibrary.com LIGHT THE WAY Indecraft, a…

All projects are a labour of love and the coming together of the client’s dream and the architect’s vision. However, sometimes the synergy is so vibrant that it leads to a space that is forward-thinking and trend-setting (even though one doesn’t intentionally do that). The project in question for us is a 5,000 sq ft home, located on the second and third floor of one of old Mumbai’s luxury buildings on Peddar Road for the Chairman of a pharmaceutical company. Being an old building, in addition to reworking the layout and general refurbishment, the project involved the structural stabilisation of the apartment. Spread across two floors the lower floor level holds primarily the public areas of the home, in addition to the home gym, spa and massage room. The upper…

Nepal served as the connecting point and muse for two design enthusiasts. The result of which has been meditative, craft-driven and gorgeous furniture called the Dhyan Collection. But, we are getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s rewind to the lockdown, when after completing her design studies, product designer Aditi Kedia found herself back in Kathmandu. There a mutual friend introduced her to Harshitaa Agrawal, an interior architect working in the city. It was a match made by the design gods. Soon after the Mana Collective was born. “We launched in September 2023, we had been working on the project for past two years. Both of us are from Kathmandu and have been fascinated by the crafts from the valley. We wanted to address the reduced demand for the crafts in the…

Sometimes you are meant to be stuck between a rock and a hard place. Founder and principal architect at Kunal Maniar and Associates, Kunal Maniar found himself there when he saw boulders emerge from the ground during a construction excavation. The result? Heavy-duty limited-edition pieces—2.8 tonne, 14.7 ft long Rock Console and 1.6 tonne, 9 ft long Rock Bench, produced using locally sourced black granite. “Furniture making started quite organically with small product design stints within my landscape projects. I really don’t think creativity can be compartmentalised as such, so I never thought about furniture design as a separate entity in my practice,” says Maniar. Currently, Maniar who has worked with artisans in Lucknow to create sustainable outdoor fabrics with nylon using the technique of Chikankari embroidery, is working on…