Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2, 2024 i India Today

How did Sanjay Roy, the main accused in the case, get such unfettered access to the hospital premises? Equally confounding is the fact that he was familiar with the movements of doctors and his victim’s whereabouts. He was, after all, a mere civic police volunteer, a force that West Bengal had constituted in 2012 to assist during festivals, elections and disaster management. Inducted in 2019, Roy lived in the barracks meant for the fourth battalion of the Kolkata armed police, something he was not entitled to. He would visit the hospital frequently, ostensibly to admit patients on behalf of the Kolkata Police Welfare Association. How he could have done this is another mystery since one needs to be a permanent member of the force to be inducted into the association. The…

Only three Indian prime ministers have scaled Mount 3.0—the rarefied pinnacle of a third term in office. The former two, Jawaharlal Nehru and his daughter Indira Gandhi, encountered major turbulence during their third stints and failed to complete their full terms. Nehru erred seriously at the start of his third term when the Indian armed forces suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of China in the 1962 border war. His persona and credibility considerably diminished, Nehru died of a heart attack in 1964, three years before his term was to end. Unlike him, Indira did not win a third consecutive term; she was defeated in the 1977 general election after completing two terms, the second term blackened by her imposition of the Emergency in 1975. However, she stormed back…

IT was a monsoon-heavy July afternoon in Delhi, and the Lok Sabha was abuzz with anticipation. Members of Parliament, the seasoned and greenhorns alike, straightened in their seats in anticipation as Rahul Gandhi took the floor. His presence, once dismissed as inconsequential, now commanded the hall’s full attention. In fact, his first speech in the 18th Lok Sabha drew interventions even from Prime Minister Narendra Modi. If the first speech was about how religion teaches non-violence—and how the Modi government’s 10-year-old reign has been promoting “hate politics”—in his second address, Rahul built his narrative around the Mahabharata, a tale as old as Indian civilisation itself. He spoke of Abhimanyu, the young warrior who was trapped and slain by a coalition of his enemies—men who bent the rules of war to ensure his…

The call for change, ushering in people-centric reforms and schemes in various sectors, from education to agriculture, echoes loudly across India. But while the respondents of the India Today Mood of the Nation (MOTN) August 2024 poll welcome reforms, they remain cautious about certain changes, such as the three new criminal laws, and favour robust checks and balances. The spectre of paper leaks looms large, putting a question mark on the conduct of multiple recruitment and entrance exams. The MOTN poll reveals that the most widely held perception—28.2 per cent—is that the central government is primarily responsible for the paper leaks earlier this year, followed by the authorities tasked with conducting the tests (21.2 per cent). That the state governments are responsible is the view held by a significant 18.8…

At 81, US president Joe Biden may have called it a day after over five decades in politics, but Amitabh ‘the GOAT’ Bachchan is still duelling with men half his age on screen. In doing so, he is not only winning hearts but also keeping the box office counters ringing with movies like Kalki 2898 AD. Whether it be his long hosting stint at Kaun Banega Crorepati, marked by an admirable balance of curiosity, charm and gravitas, or his stream of meticulously numbered tweets, Bachchan is delivering a masterclass in how to keep your cinematic career going. In doing so, he has also reclaimed the throne he had relinquished earlier this year to Shah Rukh Khan, who had a fabulous 2023, courtesy two back-to-back blockbusters. After a hiatus this year, Shah…

Denial seems to have been the default response in the sordid saga of the brutal rape and murder of a 31-year-old trainee doctor at the state-run RG Kar Medical College and Hospital (RG-KMCH) in Kolkata on August 9. First it was the hospital that refused to divulge that the medic was a victim of rape and murder, then the police who tried to pass it off as a case of unnatural death, followed by the administration that failed to realise the gravity of the public’s anger or acknowledge that the Independence Day-eve mob vandalism of the hospital premises was perhaps the handiwork of their own Trinamool Congress supporters. On the other side of denial was the overload of information, chiefly on social media. A miasma of rumour, untruth and mischief floated…

AUG. 9, 12.30 AM CCTV camera records victim entering seminar room along with four other colleagues on call with food ordered over a delivery app. They hang about till 2.30 am, after which the doctors are seen leaving AUG. 9, 4.00 AM Accused Sanjay Roy is seen walking towards the seminar hall and leaving around 4.35 am AUG. 9, 9.30 AM A junior doctor enters the room and comes running out almost immediately. He alerts other PGTs and the hospital staff AUG. 9, 10.30 AM Cops reach the premises. Police commissioner Vineet Goyal himself reaches around 1 pm AUG. 9, 10.53 AM RGKCMG assistant superintendent calls parents saying their daughter is unwell. Some 22 minutes later, he calls again, saying she has died by suicide AUG. 9, 4.20 PM Post-mortem…

A key reason for the BJP’s disappointing performance in the recent Lok Sabha election was the setback in Uttar Pradesh, where it dropped to just 33 seats, almost half its count of 62 in 2019. The poor showing has sparked internal discussions within the party about the “effectiveness” of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. Public opinion regarding the UP leader, though, remains strong. For the past nine Mood of the Nation surveys, Adityanath has been ranked No. 1 among chief ministers by respondents nationwide. The ‘Bulldozer baba’ has established himself as one of India’s most popular political figures, largely due to his tough-on-crime image and strong Hindutva identity. What might be of concern, however, is the decline in his approval ratings—only 33 per cent respondents now consider him the best chief minister,…

What makes work from home appealing? Is it the easy access to home-cooked food, the comfort of sitting in a chair without the risk of it sliding suddenly backwards or knowing that you are not just another white-collar employee sitting in a cubicle? Whatever it is, there is no denying that most professionals desire their home to be their office. Not only is this preference clear, but nearly 70 per cent of the respondents in the India Today Mood of the Nation (MOTN) poll agree that remote working would make them more productive. This figure is higher amongst the young, with 75 per cent of those in the 18-24 age group wanting to work from home. Interestingly, even companies with office spaces designed to be employee-friendly face similar resistance. Google…

Two of Indian cinema’s highest-paid, most talented and most sought-after voices, Arijit Singh and Shreya Ghoshal, comfortably topped the India Today Mood of the Nation charts yet again. That the two also feature in the year-ending chart of most-streamed artists comes as no surprise. After all, a year doesn’t go by in Hindi film music without the two delivering an earworm that strikes a chord. The year 2024 is no different. Arijit has already sung one of 2024’s most acclaimed songs—the moving ‘Vida Karo’ (Amar Singh Chamkila)—and won his second National Award for ‘Kesariya’, still the defining ballad for Gen Z. Meanwhile, Shreya continues to make waves this year with her sonorous renditions, be it in Hindi (‘Dheeme Dheeme’ from Laapataa Ladies) or Telugu (‘Sooseki’ from Pushpa 2). What’s noteworthy…

Uorfi Javed knew her life was tailor made for a reality show. A social media sensation, Uorfi is known for her risqué, quirky outfits which raise eyebrows and stoke controversy. Amazon Prime Video’s series Follow Kar Lo Yaar (releasing on Aug. 23) follows Uorfi as she seeks fame, and reveals her vulnerabilities as a young woman trying to stay relevant in the fiercely competitive world of internet stars. “I haven’t hidden anyth ing, even my sex life… you’ll know how much money I have in my account by the end of it,” she says. The show is full of ‘Uorfisms’. “I will do anything to look young,” she says while getting botox. “Jab tak Uorfi ke paas nahi hoga private jet, tab tak Uorfi nahi hogi kissise wed [I won’t marry…

Delhi-based artist Aditya Pande’s latest show of about 20 new works, ‘Blind Spot’, alludes to both psychological and physiological phenomena. “My art practice is centred around drawing; more as a form than as a medium. In this show, I try to build narratives that broadly claim kinship with mythology, satire, history, math and pop culture,” he explains. The largest work in the show is ‘Hollow Casts of the Levant / Witness the Domestication of Pegasus / In Ashoka’s Recurring Nightmare’. ‘Hollow Casts’ was a process employed to make toy soldiers by a company called W. Britain in the early 1900s. It is an eight-panel work divided into three segments that interconnect to read as a single continuous narrative about the mythology of Pegasus, satirising its presence in today’s context. “Its…

A professor of orthopaedics, Dr Sandip Ghosh had been transferred twice in the past three years, but quickly reinstated; once within a couple of weeks and another time within hours. This time, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is said to have thrown her weight behind him, transferring him to another prestigious state-run hospital as principal instead of accepting his resignation before the uproar forced a reversal of that decision. Multiple formal complaints have been lodged against Ghosh in the past few years, one as recent as April this year. Chief among these is that Ghosh was the mastermind of a racket that involved the unlawful collection of biomedical waste from hospital vats to sell to outsiders, and that he used dead bodies sent to the hospital by the police for postmortem for…

The 2024 general election saw economic issues—the dearth of jobs, high prices of goods and services, and the widening gap between the rich and the poor—take centre stage, significantly influencing the outcome. The widespread concerns among voters across states on these issues cost the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) dear, with its seat tally in the Lok Sabha falling to 240, significantly lower than the party’s ‘370-plus’ expectations. It, therefore, comes as no surprise that only 20 per cent of the respondents in the current India Today Mood of the Nation (MOTN) poll rate the NDA government’s handling of the economy ‘outstanding’. This is a significant drop from the February poll, when 32.4 per cent felt the same. Moreover, 27 per cent of the respondents with a higher education give…

Maintaining ties with neighbouring countries was the chief thrust of India’s foreign policy in the past six months. External affairs minister S. Jaishankar visited the Maldives from August 9-11 in the first high-level Indian visit since President Mohamed Muizzu came to power last year on an ‘India out’ plank. Naturally, ties have been strained as Male inches closer to China’s orbit. However, the damaged relations seem to be on the mend—during Jaishankar’s visit, Muizzu expressed gratitude for India’s long-term support and affirmed the Maldives’ commitment to strengthening ties. Also in early August, foreign secretary Vikram Misri was in Nepal to further consolidate relations. Ties with Sri Lanka are back on track too. Similarly, Bhutan and Myanmar are standing by New Delhi despite Beijing’s attempt to woo them. Ties with Bangladesh—where…

Indians following sports had a rocky ride in the last six months. Until early July the nation was on cloud nine, with the Men in Blue winning its second Twenty-20 World Cup title. Four heroes from that unbeaten side made it to the India Today Mood of the Nation ranking of top five male cricketers—Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Suryakumar Yadav and Hardik Pandya. The exception is M.S. Dhoni, whose aura remains undiminished. For 49 per cent MOTN respondents, WC glory wasn’t a one-man show but a team effort. The same five women cricketers feature in the top five this time as in February, with Smriti Mandhana and Harmanpreet Kaur leading the charge, and the retired, but ever-popular, Mithali Raj dropping to No. 4. A month after the triumph in the…

COLLEGE & RANK PREDICTOR >>> JEE Main College Predictor >>> NEET College Predictor >>> JEE Main Rank Predictor Website: https://bestcolleges.indiatoday.in/ INSTITUTE RANKINGS 2,000-plus colleges in 14 major streams, and 160 universities in over 4 streams ↘ Arts ↘ Science ↘ Commerce ↘ Medical ↘ Dental Sciences ↘ Engineering ↘ Architecture ↘ Law ↘ Mass Comm. ↘ Hotel Mgmt ↘ BBA ↘ BCA ↘ Social Work ↘ Fashion COLLEGE VS COLLEGE Find a suitable college on the basis of… ↘ 6-year results (2018-2023) ↘ National rankings ↘ By state ↘ By city ↘ Government vs private ↘ Best emerging colleges BONUS THE JOBS IN DEMAND… Positions available, salary information KEY PARAMETERS College performance rated according to… ↘ Academic Excellence ↘ Intake Quality & Governance ↘ Infrastructure & Living Experience ↘ Personality and…

IN HIS 1889 BOOK Twilight of the Idols, the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche argued that “true experiences” cannot be adequately expressed in words. “Our true experiences are not garrulous,” he wrote. “They could not communicate themselves if they wanted to: they lack words. We have already grown beyond whatever we have words for.” That last line lends itself to the title of a 2011 work by Delhi-based artist Amitava, currently on display at the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, Saket (Delhi), as part of twin solo exhibitions: Amitava’s If We Knew the Point and Mohan Samant’s Magic in the Square. These have been conceptualised by KNMA director and chief curator Roobina Karode and are open to the public till September 30. Amitava’s ‘We Have Already Gone Beyond Whatever We Have’ uses collage, gouache,…

A Guileless Modernist, edited by art historian R. Siva Kumar, introduces us to the life and practice of Leela Mukherjee (1916–2002), whose sculptures, prints and drawings are relatively unknown today. While Mukherjee did not leave behind a detailed inventory of her work, nor a chronological account of her life, the book attempts to gather available details in the form of photographs, exhibition catalogues and memories of friends and other artists. Interest in Mukherjee’s practice is heightened through association—her husband, Benodebehari Mukherjee (1904-1980), was a revered Santiniketan modernist, and her daughter, Mrinalini Mukherjee (1949-2015), was one of the most acclaimed contemporary sculptors of India. This volume contains a generous number of reproductions that inevitably draw the reader into comparing styles and themes across the pages, particularly amongst the sculptures in wood, where…