Innholdsfortegnelse for 11/21/2016 i Open Magazine

editor@openmedianetwork.in LETTER OF THE WEEK What is most striking about Akhilesh Yadav’s makeover is the role he has allotted various family members. As mentioned in ‘The Son Supremacy’ (November 14th, 2016), his wife Dimple is doing more than what one would expect of the wife of an Uttar Pradesh politician. Since women’s empowerment is gaining prominence in India, Akhilesh has made an extremely wise decision by bringing in his wife to lend support to his campaign. Dimple standing up for him in an otherwise male-dominated political scenario also gives his speeches an air of modernity and respectability. It is equally interesting to note the differences and similarities between father and son, and how Akhilesh has finally succeeded in creating both a name and position for himself within the party and…

In 1993, when Hillary Clinton strode in as First Lady into the White House with President Bill Clinton in tow, everyone was clear that this was a partnership of political equals. Melania Trump is certainly not in the same mould. Even her consent to Trump contesting was given with reservation. In an interview to GQ, one of the rare ones that she gave, she spoke of telling him to go ahead only if he was sure about it because it would change their lives. When the campaign became vicious with tapes of lewd talk and allegations against him of sexual advances, Melania again gave one of her rare TV interviews to defend him. “If anyone is feeling sorry for me, don’t,” she told journalist Anderson Cooper in her halting accented…

AND THEY SAID Arun Jaitley cannot keep a secret. But he did, didn’t he?   The decision to scrap the two big currency notes, hitherto the darling of tax-evaders, was taken well over six months ago. At one stage, Prime Minister Modi and Finance Minister Jaitley had toyed with the idea of doing so at the time of the annual Budget. The ongoing schemes to mop up black money, however, came in the way. Aside from Modi and Jaitley, the only other people in the loop were a couple of bureaucrats. Of course, former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan and his successor Urjit Patel were in on the plan right from the beginning. It is a tribute to the integrity of the system that till the Prime Minister made his stunning…

ON OCTOBER 15TH, Donald Trump spoke at a campaign event organised by a group called the Republican Hindu Coalition. It was held in New Jersey, a state with one of the highest Indian-American populations in the United States. “I am a big fan of India,” Trump declared. He promised that if he became president, the United States and India would be “best friends” and that “there won’t be any relationship more important to us”. He referred to India as a “natural ally” of the United States, and described Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a “great man”. And now, as America and the world struggle to make sense of Trump’s stunning election triumph, he will have the opportunity to demonstrate that he’s willing and able to back up such rhetoric with…

Anuk Arudpragasam has a photo tacked on the wall in front of him. It is of a teenage boy bathing at a camp (where people were interred for a year or two after the war). The water cascades down on him. It is a picture that travels with him from his parental home in Colombo to his university in New York, and one that he pins from wall to wall. For him, moving between Colombo and New York is not shuttling between continents and countries. Rather, it is like moving between two rooms, he says. Just as the photo finds a nook on different walls, so do his books, pots, pans, and his curry leaves. Always the curry leaves. But this one image of a boy bathing at a camp…

I Want to Destroy Myself, translated from the Marathi Mala Udhhvasta Vhaychay, is an unusual name for a memoir. It is also unusual for its writer, Malika Amar Shaikh, was a young woman at the time she wrote it. When asked why she was writing her autobiography so early in life, ‘Does experience ask for your age before it happens to you?’ she asked back. Mala Udhhvasta Vhaychay caused a sensation in Marathi literary circles when it first released, but disappeared after the first print run. Acclaimed poet and author Jerry Pinto, who has translated the book, in his foreword describes his search for a copy of the original as well as access to its reclusive writer. Once he did begin reading the book, he could not put it down.…

THE DAY BEFORE THE US election, as your columnist, who stood among the rank and file of the wise men certain about human reason, meditated on the victory of Hillary Clinton, it occurred to him that this election could be about the arrival of the women’s vote, given how much it was believed to have swung away from Donald Trump. As is evident now, women did vote a little more for Hillary but it was of no consequence. There are reasons why events that would destroy a regular politician did not make the slightest dent on Trump, but who can now say with any certainty what they are. Theories on why Trump won are being floated by the same pundits who were clueless about what was changing under their feet…

Watching Donald John Trump graciously promise to “be president for all Americans” as he showered generous compliments on the defeated Hillary Rodham Clinton recalled Ronald Reagan’s reply when asked, “How could an actor become president?”: “How can a president not be an actor?” he retorted. But the most important job in the world would collapse in a terrible fiasco if the incumbent excelled only in dazzling deception. The secret of success lies in the ability to transform theatre into reality so that the hopes and dreams that resulted in this week’s historic triumph are fleshed out on the stage of everyday life. India should be especially joyful, for the White House will for the first time ever have an incumbent with a personal stake in this country’s stability and prosperity.…

BACK IN JUNE, shortly after she had secured the Democratic presidential nomination, Hillary Clinton recalled her adored mother, Dorothy Rodham, who had died in 2011. “She taught me so much in my life, including how to stand up to bullies, which apparently is going to be very much in demand in the upcoming campaign.” Not even Clinton, whose defeat by Donald Trump on November 8th has, among much worse things, dashed hopes for America’s first women president, could have imagined how prescient that would prove. She had been expected to beat Trump with ease. Opinion polls had put her around four percentage points ahead; betting markets gave her around an 80 per cent chance of victory. That she failed is terrifying for America and the world. Clinton’s failure has sent…

It’s a cold morning in Haryana’s Indri village. On a patch of dry land next to the local school building, we see a small group of young theatre practitioners trying to devise a scene. Four of them are exploring their bodies to communicate man’s hunger for intimacy. A few local inhabitants halt their daily chores to watch them work. In a dusty studio in suburban Mumbai, 1,500 km away, another set of performers share a joke over chai. The studio walls are covered with a long black cloth, which lets little light enter. Before they start their rehearsal, their director subtly drops a tip. “Poetry is never serious or heavy. We don’t need to play it like that,” he says. After a split second of silence, the female actors form…

The quest for better treatment for diabetes, which affects more than 420 million people worldwide, continues to drive scientists and doctors toward discovering new drugs. Virtually every year, a couple of new diabetes medications become available for clinical use. In addition, a large number of drugs— more than for any other condition—are in the pipeline. A 2014 US report lists 182 drugs in development for diabetes and its complications. Yet, despite the wide variety of medications available, achieving sustained good control remains a challenge for most people with Type II diabetes. The first drug discovered for treating diabetes was not an oral agent, but insulin, in 1922, in Canada. Banting, a war hero, tried setting up a practice on the outskirts of Toronto, and in his first year he saw…

For the Love of Money It’s true what they say—there are no permanent friends or enemies in Bollywood. The industry seems rather surprised that Sanjay Leela Bhansali has sought a partner in Viacom18 Motion Pictures for his magnum opus Padmavati , despite the famously unpleasant experience both parties had had while working together on Mary Kom, which Bhansali produced and the studio financed a few years ago. It is no secret that Bhansali and the studio’s top boss Ajit Andhare could not see eye to eye on marketing and releaserelated matters. Things had reportedly gotten so sour between them that they even refused to take the stage together at one of the film’s pre-release events. It is widely believed that the thorn between both sides stemmed from the fact that…

Donald Trump ’s unpredictable victory has taken a toll on many things. His rival, Hillary Clinton, the favourite to win the US election, has lost. So have a host of other people who predicted a win for her—pollsters, pundits, statisticians and others who rooted for Clinton. But there is another bunch of people, tucked away from sight, whose reputations have also taken a hit: political scientists. One may wonder how this—rather low-key group of people—has joined the list of losers. Unlike the past, journalists have become increasingly reliant on political scientists for understanding ‘big’ elections and events. The latter, in turn, make ample use of theoretical models and data to figure political change. In the US, the favourite model to understand presidential elections—all the way from initial forays by prospective…

Donald Trump’s victory has shown that the culture of celebrity worship, which has been gradually taking over modern civilisation, has finally reached a tipping point. The rich and the famous used to influence lives; now one of them, a rank outsider, will actually dictate the politics of the world, as President of the United States when he takes over from Barack Obama in January. Trump’s great following has its roots in the reality show The Apprentice that made him more than just another billionaire and brought him to the homes of ordinary Americans. In the show, contestants take part in a series of challenges in order to get a chance to work as an apprentice for Trump. How reasonable is it to expect someone who owes his position to being…

The 19-month Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi remains highly controversial. No commentator has risked asking whether Indira Gandhi can be forgiven for it, or seen it as an event that was inevitable for a young democracy’s trial-and-error process, or suggested that it strengthened the Government. The lessons learnt have resulted in perpetual and adjectival vilification of both Indira Gandhi and the event, giving the impression that the bedrock of the world’s largest democracy had been shaken. Considering these formidable positions, it is plausible that any new or significant interpretation of the Emergency has to adjudge not only the established trappings of politically correct and righteous readings, but also cautiously take an approach beyond the argumentative. Moving away from the usual rhetoric of labelling, Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jr’s The Emergency: An…