Innholdsfortegnelse for June 10, 2024 i India Today

In a move that will provide a significant economic cushion to the next Union finance minister, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on May 22 announced a record Rs 2.11 lakh crore transfer of its surplus money for FY24 to the central government. The amount is 62 per cent higher than the previous record of Rs 1.76 lakh crore transferred in August 2019, and nearly 2.5 times the Rs 87,416 crore in FY23. The bonanza from the central bank—twice the Rs 1.02 lakh crore estimated by the Centre in this year’s interim budget, including dividends from banks and financial institutions—came as a big relief to the jittery stock markets during election time. Following the announcement, the benchmark BSE Sensex gained 1,196.98 points, or 1.61 per cent, on May 23, to…

PASHCHIM UP Vital factors: RLD, Muslim unity SEATS: 14 West UP is a cauldron dominated by Dalits, Muslims, Jats, Gujjars and Rajputs. With Jay ant Chaudhary’s RLD moving to the NDA at the last moment, the BJP-led alliance seems stronger though the INDIA bloc claims it gave a good account of itself in the first phase. The Jats make up about 15 per cent of the electorate in 10 LS seats in west UP. The Muslims (25 per cent), along with the Dalits, constitute half the electorate in the region. The RLD is contesting the Jat-dominated seats Baghpat and Bijnor this time, while the INDIA bloc is relying on Muslim-Yadav unity and local factors. Rajput anger against the “meagre representation” is one of them. The community makes up a sizeable 10…

UNTIL LAST YEAR, DHRUV RATHEE WAS CONTENT BEING AN “EDUCATOR” ON YOUTUBE, sharing videos on a variety of subjects that served as “explainers that inspire”. Then came an episode that Rathee, much like the Supreme Court of India, saw as a “murder of democracy”. It was the widely-circulated video clip of Anil Masih, returning officer for the January 30 Chandigarh mayoral poll, defacing eight ballot papers, resulting in the win of the BJP candidate over his AAP counterpart. Since then, the 29-year-old engineering postgraduate’s team, comprising 10-15 researchers and editors, has been rigorously scouring articles and videos for credible data and help Rathee prepare a script that can serve as “explainers that alarm”. It has resulted in videos like ‘Dara Hua Dictator’ (Arvind Kejriwal Jailed! Dictatorship Confirmed?), which spread like wildfire…

3,000 SQ. M. The area of the game zone, which includes an outdoor go-karting track 150-200 People inside the facility at any given time during the day due to summer vacations 95% of the victims were under 25 years of age; 27 people, including seven minors, are still missing. Charred bodies being identified with DNA tests, missing key accused Prakash Hiran among those dead THE STRUCTURE The whole two-storey facility was made of tin. Almost all the walls were lined with highly inflammable plastic foam sheets THE LAPSES ↘ The game zone had only one door for entry and exit besides a flight of stairs. When the fire started, those on the first floor had no exit to escape through ↘ TRP mall workers had no clue about the fire…

IN a classic instance of arrant perversion of justice not remaining a local event, a sordid tale of reckless privilege and alleged cover-ups has spilled out from the affluent enclaves of Pune to hit national headlines. At its heart is a 17-year-old scion of a prominent real estate family, accused of mowing down two young techies in an unregistered Porsche Taycan. The night of May 18 saw the juvenile, well below the legal age, allegedly drink high-end liquor with friends at two upscale bars. Later, in the wee hours, his speeding luxury car rammed into two techies’ motorcycle—Ashwini Koshta, 24, who was riding pillion, was killed instantly while the biker, Aneesh Awadhiya, also 24, succumbed to his injuries later. Eyewitness accounts say there were three boys in the car, all…

While heart transplants have been around for a while, over the last decade they have taken off in a big way. One of the pioneers in transplants is MGM Healthcare - Chennai, which runs the largest heart and lung transplant programme in South Asia, conducting over 100 transplants a year, with a high 10-year survival rate of over 75 percent in the case of heart transplants. Spearheading MGM Healthcare’s pioneering Institute of Heart and Lung Transplant and Mechanical Circulatory Support is Dr K.R. Balakrishnan, whose areas of expertise include end-stage heart failure management (heart transplant & VAD implant, lung transplant, combined heart & lung transplant). Dr Balakrishnan takes an evidence-based approach to healthcare practices and is known for his refined clinical expertise in surgery. He has received numerous awards for…

AN EPIC IN SEVEN CHAPTERS COMES to a close on June 1, proceeding left to right on the map—like words on a page. The ink will reveal itself a mere three days later, but it is Purvanchal’s privilege to get in the last word there. The 13 Lok Sabha seats of the far eastern belt of Uttar Pradesh are voting at the fag-end of a long-drawn electoral process that began setting its patterns right from the first phase on April 19. By and large, modest turnouts were seen across the first six phases when compared to 2019. Whether that trend continues may carry no material relevance to eventual outcomes in a star constituency like Varanasi, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi is seeking a third term. But elsewhere, including in the…

Chakia is an unclassifiable little blur of semi-urbanity caught in a stage of evolution somewhere between town and kasba. Instead of the road shooting straight southeast from Banaras to Robertsganj, the ‘capital’ of Sonbhadra district, a long, horseshoe detour brings you further out into these semi-hilly hinterlands. It’s still Chandauli district, but a part of it that falls in the Robertsganj Lok Sabha constituency, which also covers all of Sonbhadra. The very south-eastern tip of Uttar Pradesh, Sonbhadra is the only district in the state that borders four others: clockwise, Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh. Here, a lot of things collide: ethnicities, languages, landscapes, histories. The heterogeneity makes for complex electoral equations because Robertsganj—voting on June 1—is one of the 17 seats in UP that are reserved for the…

Longtime listeners of singer/songwriter Vidya Vox, aka Vidya Iyer, will notice a key difference between her new EP Sundari and her previous mini albums, Kuthu Fire (2017) and Mad Dreams (2019). The new effort is primarily in Tamil whereas the earlier sets were mostly in English. She attributes the shift to the inspiration behind Sundari. “I wanted to specifically make it in Tamil because the EP was inspired by my mom and the journey I’ve seen her go through,” says Vidya. “Tamil is my mother tongue and I felt like [her story] was best articulated in that language.” Vidya, who grew up with an abusive father, was 16 when her mother decided to flee their violent home with her two daughters. Despite this, Sundari feels exuberant. The title track is…

160 KM/HR The car’s reported speed when it hit the motorcycle ₹68,000 Total expenses the teenager made at the two pubs—Rs 48,000 at Cosie and Rs 20,000 at Blak Club, both in Pune’s Mundhwa 301 The average number of road accidents taking place in India daily due to overspeeding; another nine attributed to drunk driving* THE CONTROVERSY… QUICK BAIL: The 17-year-old was granted bail by the Juvenile Justice Board (JJB), reportedly within 15 hours of his arrest, with flimsy penalties—like writing an essay. He allegedly also got ‘special treatment’ at the Yerawada police station THE AGE FACTOR: The legal age for liquor consumption in Maharashtra is 21 years (for mild liquor) and 25 (for hard liquor). Yet, he was served liquor at two pubs. Being underage, he did not have…

PAWAN KUMAR CHAMLING Sikkim* Sikkim Democratic Front 24 years, 165 days Dec. 1994 to May 2019 NAVEEN PATNAIK Odisha* Biju Janata Dal 24 years, 85 days# Mar. 2000 (incumbent) *Consecutive terms;# till May 29 JYOTI BASU West Bengal* Communist Party of India (Marxist) 23 years, 137 days Jun. 1977 to Nov. 2000 LAL THANHAWLA Mizoram, Congress 22 years, 60 days May 1984 to Aug. 1986 Jan. 1989 to Dec. 1998 Dec. 2008 to Dec. 2018 GEGONG APANG Arunachal Pradesh Congress, Arunachal Congress, United Democratic Front, BJP, Congress 22 years, 250 days Jan. 1980 to Jan. 1999 Aug. 2003 to Apr. 2007 VIRBHADRA SINGH Himachal Pradesh Congress 21 years, 13 days Apr. 1983 to Mar. 1990 Dec. 1993 to Mar. 1998 Mar. 2003 to Dec. 2007 Dec. 2012 toDec. 2017…

Going along National Highways 44 and 3, cutting through Punjab after crossing the Shambhu barrier, giant hoardings promoting the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) candidates for the Lok Sabha election dot the entire 220-km journey to the border city of Amritsar. A stern-visaged Bhagwant Mann, the Punjab chief minister, stares down these posters, the look only accentuated by the neatly tied yellow turban and perfectly dyed and trimmed beard. His is the most imposing presence on the poster; the images of other candidates accompanying him smaller in size, the emblazoned message in Gurmukhi leaving no one in any doubt — ‘Sansad Vich vi Bhagwant Mann’ (Bhagwant Mann in Parliament too). There’s a ‘photoshopped’ image of national convenor Arvind Kejriwal, too, showing him behind bars—an attempt perhaps to corner the sympathy vote—but…

Vital factor: Caste dynamics SEATS: 24 (Voting on June 1: 13) The BJP’s smaller allies will play a big role here. Gorakhpur is also the home base of CM Yogi Adityanath. In 2019, the BJP had lost the Ghosi, Ghazipur, Ambedkar Nagar and Lalganj seats here. The poverty-stricken region has got big-ticket investments in the past five years and the BJP is betting on that and government scheme benefits to help them out. Key contests: In Varanasi, PM Narendra Modi takes on UP Congress president Ajay Rai. The BJP is focussed on increasing Modi’s victory margin, though the Congress claims its won’t be so easy this time. In Ghazipur, the SP has fielded Afzal Ansari, brother of the late gangster-turned-neta Mukhtar Ansari in the first poll after his death.…

IN a video circulating on social media, Rajkot resident Pradeepsinh Chauhan can be heard saying that if any of the accused in the TRP Game Zone fire tragedy gets bail before the trial concludes, he will “not spare them”. Chauhan was at the game zone with eight members of his family on May 25 when a spark from a welding work going on inside the facility triggered a fire. The game zone on Rajkot’s Nana Mava Road, operating illegally since 2021, was burnt to the ground—33 people, including nine children, were killed. Five are ‘missing’, including Chauhan’s 15-year-old son and his nephew. “I have nothing left to lose now,” he says, with a mix of sorrow and anger. Some 36 hours later, hearing a public interest litigation filed on May 27,…

Artist Pushpamala N.’s 30-second video installation ‘Urgent Saaru’ is one of the most intriguing parts of Moments in Collapse, a group exhibition by SAHMAT (Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust) at Delhi’s Jawahar Bhawan, which is on till June 20. This is a recording of a live performance—the video sees Pushpamala dressed as ‘Bharat Mata’, recreating a rasam recipe by her late friend and neighbour, Gauri Lankesh. “The video by Pushpamala is a recording of a live performance from a few years ago,” says artist Gigi Scaria who has curated Moments in Collapse alongside a five-member team (Ram Rahman, Aban Raza, Vijendra S. Vij, Shatam Ray and Priyanshi S.). “When she was alive, Gauri Lankesh and Pushpamala used to have rasam together at the latter’s house. This was the artist’s way of…