Innholdsfortegnelse for January 20, 2025 i India Today

The second coming of Donald Trump is being received across the world as an unstamped visa to an uncertain future. One thing about it is certain: Trump will unveil a radical immigration policy post haste. His chief rallying cry was how migrants are taking away jobs from Americans, besides being responsible for rising crime. There are two categories of Indians, very different from each other, in the direct line of fire. The unfortunate ones are those who have chased the American Dream using the common legal route: the H-1B visa. An estimated one million Indians figure in this ledger, if you count dependants. The other is more dubious: a large pack of illegal immigrants, said to be about 725,000. With Trump promising the largest-ever mass deportations of illegal immigrants on…

Winter may be intensifying in Bihar but the state’s political climate is anything but cool. On December 30, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) patriarch Lalu Prasad Yadav extended an unexpected olive branch to Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, offering to “forgive” his volte-faces and keeping the “doors always open” for reconciliation. With Nitish as well as Lalu’s son Tejaswi Yadav ruling out any such reconciliation, this dramatic overture has injected fresh intrigue into Bihar’s evolving political script ahead of the assembly election due later this year. The timing is notable. Nitish’s Janata Dal (United) has been asserting its leadership ambitions with a vigour that leaves little room for ambiguity. On December 21, the party flooded social media with bold declarations like ‘Jab baat Bihar ki ho, naam sirf Nitish Kumar ka ho…

WHAT ARE H-1B AND H-4 VISAS? H-1B VISA ↘ A temporary employment visa for skilled workers in specialised fields like technology and medicine ↘ Requires American employer to sponsor the applicant H-4 VISA ↘ For dependants (spouses and children) of H-1B visa-holders ↘ Admitted to America for the duration of the primary visa-holder; can’t usually work THE PROS AND THE CONS FOR AMERICA THE PROS ↘ Allows American companies to fill critical skill gaps by hiring highly skilled foreign workers ↘ Plays a significant role in supporting small-scale businesses in high-demand sectors like IT THE CONS ↘ Some firms misuse the programme to hire foreign workers at lower wages, displacing American workers ↘ Especially linked to increasing layoffs of domestic graduates in tech industry INDIAN SUPREMACY Indians remain the biggest…

AI-driven spam detection Airtel, Vodafone Idea and Jio have implemented AI-based systems to block spam in real time and flag suspected spam Enhanced message traceability A November 2024 TRAI mandate requires every commercial message to have a traceable trail from sender to recipient Mandatory URL and APK whitelisting From October 2024, only approved URLs, Android Package Kits (APK) and OTT links are allowed in SMSes Transition to DLT platform TRAI directed telcos to migrate all telemarketing calls to the Distributed Ledger Technology platform by September 2024, improving monitoring/control of commercial communications Blocking unused headers and templates Since February 2023, service providers have blocked over 350,000 unused headers and 1.2 million unverified SMS templates to prevent misuse Punishments for violators From August 2024, telemarketers caught violating regulations face blacklisting for two…

The Mumbai Gallery Weekend (MGW) has returned from Jan. 9-12, marking its 13th edition. Organised by the Mumbai Gallery Association, the annual event is a key feature of the city’s cultural landscape. Featuring 37 galleries and spaces, MGW 2025 has a rich programme of exhibitions, curated walkthroughs and engaging discussions. Since its inception, MGW has been a platform for renowned and emerging artists, drawing audiences from across the globe. Among this year’s highlights: • Atul Dodiya’s Radio Ceylon Paintings: Vol. I at Chemould Prescott Road, evoking nostalgia through music. • Rana Begum’s stunning works at Jhaveri Contemporary, blending light, geometry, and colour. • Christopher Kulendran Thomas’s debut solo exhibition at Experimenter Colaba, exploring diasporic identity and cultural history. • Interactive events, like curated walk-throughs by Art & Wonderment, offer audiences…

For Onir, the starting point for We Are Faheem & Karun, his latest Kashmir-set queer romance, began in 2018 when the Supreme Court struck down Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, a draconian law that criminalised homosexuality. “At that point, I felt a deep calling as a storyteller to make a film that paid tribute to queer Indians,” the National Award-winning filmmaker tells india today. “Until then, all my films that dealt with queer stories had been dark. Of course, I don’t think the struggle is over for us. But I wanted to make something lighter.” To help his vision come to life, Onir brought Fawzia Mirza, a Canadian writer, director and producer of Pakistani origin, on board as a co-writer. “Working with Fawzia was so wonderful because…

Table tennis player Manika Batra talks about the changing perception of the game and the rise of Indian women in the sport Q. 2024 was a break-through year for women’s table tennis in India with five women in the top 100. The year was incredible. If you see, not just women but even young girls are doing great. We won the Asian Table Tennis Championship bronze medal and at the Olympics, too, we made it to quarter-finals in the women’s team and I reached the round of 16. I can see the growth. There’s self-belief now. Earlier, the mindset was that we cannot win against the Chinese, but that’s changed in the past few years. I defeated world #2 Wang Manyu. Q. There’s greater visibility for the game, too, courtesy the Ultimate…

Q. What made you greenlight Girls Will Be Girls as your first production? Shuchi Talati, the director, is a long-time friend of mine; we went to college together. I knew that whatever she would write would be very fresh and would be a new take on how things are generally looked at. In her personal life too, she is curious, intelligent and non-judgemental. I was one of the first people to read her script. We took it to a film bazaar and from there, it took on a journey of its own. Q. How has Shuchi brought a unique perspective to female sexuality and the mother-daughter relationship? The script is very special. There is a lot of finesse and refinement in the writing. Shuchi’s grasp over her craft is incredible…

WHAT THE KEY RULES ARE INFORMED CONSENT: The rules now require apps to explain in simple language what data they’ll collect and why—like your location for curated playlists in case of music apps. No more hidden clauses in fine print PARENTAL CONSENT FOR MINORS: If anyone aged under 18 years wants to create an account on, say, a gaming app, the parent must provide a verifiable consent CONSENT MANAGERS In case you have shared data with an e-commerce website, you can use this tool to revoke permissions if you are no longer comfortable with how your data is being used STRONGER SECURITY: Firms are now obligated to implement advanced security measures. For instance, a shopping app must encrypt your payment data and track access logs to detect unauthorised access IMMEDIATE…

TRUSTED LIEUTENANT Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma’s rapport with Union home minister Amit Shah is no secret, and its influence was clear in the recent election for the general secretary’s post at the all-powerful Indian cricket body, BCCI. The position, vacated by Amit Shah’s son Jay Shah after his ascension as International Cricket Council (ICC) chairman, demanded a trusted successor. Enter Devajit Saikia, former BCCI joint secretary under Shah Jr, who was elected unopposed. A former Ranji player and wicketkeeper for Assam, Saikia also serves as the state’s advocate general. Less widely known is the fact that he and Sarma have been buddies since childhood. This relationship, coupled with Saikia’s reputation for being discreet and meticulous—traits Shah Jr values—cements his place in the intricate web of power connecting cricket and…

↘ SIMPLIFIED PROCESSES The Bhumata portal reduces the number of modules from 33 in the Dharani portal to just 6, ensuring ease of navigation for users, especially farmers ↘ DETAILED LAND RECORDS The manual pahani (land register) system, reduced to a single column in Dharani, is replaced with an 11-column format, to allow comprehensive land record details ↘ CLEAR DEMARCATION Mandatory inclusion of survey maps during property registrations should come in useful for resolving boundary disputes and double registrations ↘ UNIQUE IDENTIFICATION Like Aadhaar for individuals, Bhudhaar will provide a unique identification number for each land parcel. This should ensure clear ownership details and facilitate seamless transactions ↘ DUAL RECORD-KEEPING Manual land records will be maintained alongside digital databases to bolster accuracy and prevent data loss ↘ REDRESS MECHANISM The…

“Photography is a form of deception; it is what the photographer includes and excludes in the frame and what their point of view is,” says Dayanita Singh by way of explanation of her exhibition’s title. Photo Lies is currently on view at the Jehangir Nicholson Art Foundation (JNAF) at Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS). It features extracts from Dancing with My Camera, Singh’s retrospective that was on tour in Europe in 2022–2024, alongside new pieces created specifically for this exhibition, all of which are being presented for the first time in India. The deception in photography is evident throughout the exhibition, particularly in the ‘montages’, where Singh cuts up her own images and recombines them to make analogue compositions. Her architectural montages are particularly striking, seamlessly combining Kanyakumari’s…

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Why photograph?” is the question the Chennai Photo Biennale asks, as it returns with its fourth edition after a three-year physical hiatus since 2021, expanding its presence across more prominent venues in the city by occupying galleries and public spaces in Chennai. The question takes inspiration from photographer Dayanita Singh’s body of work, which inquires into the very act of photographing in an age of hyperdocumentation, as lines between fact and fiction blur more than ever. “Photography has become a spontaneous act and a universal language now. In this age of excess image production, the question that begs to be asked and answered not just by photographers and artists, but by anyone, is—why do we photograph?” says Shuchi Kapoor, cofounder and director, CPB Foundation, the charitable trust behind the biennale.…

To watch Tahir Raj Bhasin in Netflix’s popular series Yeh Kaali Kaali Ankhein is to derive vicarious pleasure from the sheer misfortune that befalls his character Vikrant. If season one was all about feeling sorry for Vikrant as he dealt with an obsessive lover, in the recently released season, two shades of grey emerge as he loses sight of his moral compass in his desperate quest to get out of the compounding mess. Key to the show’s clever subversion of Hindi cinema’s tropes of crazy love and the love triangle is Bhasin’s portrayal which highlights how troubling, tense and even darkly funny it is to be on the receiving end of unwanted passion. Writers Sidharth Sengupta and Varun Badola make Vikrant the show’s narrator, giving audiences a peek into his…