Innholdsfortegnelse for April 17, 2017 i India Today

OLD: Anonymous cash donations up to Rs 20,000 NEW: Anonymous cash donation limit cut to Rs 2,000 IMPACT Creating multiple anonymous entries of sub-Rs 2,000 is as easy as the earlier provision, given that there’s still no cap on the total amount of cash donations OLD: A company may donate up to 7.5 per cent of the average of its net profits in the past three years NEW: A company may donate any amount to one or multiple political parties IMPACT Big money corporates could gain undue influence on government policy OLD: Political parties exempted from paying income tax NEW: Parties still exempt; donor companies now get exemptions on donations through electoral bonds IMPACT Companies could use political parties to launder money OLD: Companies had to disclose contributions and beneficiaries…

@ShougatDasgupta Joyless Republic Those who frequent CyberHub, a popular cluster of bars and restaurants in Gurgaon, have been beating breasts and gnashing teeth since the Supreme Court banned the sale of alcohol within 500 metres of national and state highways. Compared (unrealistically) to Clarke’s Quay in Singapore, CyberHub was a gleaming manifestation of Gurgaon’s yuppie corporate dreams. Now, in the days after the court’s ruling, it lies abandoned. “It was like a scene from a post-apocalyptic movie,” begins an entry on Delhipedia’s Facebook page. “We are open,” announced The Wine Company, smiling through its tears, “for food and mocktails”. n Mob Mentality The clip of two Nigerian brothers being set upon in a Greater Noida mall was hard and shaming to watch. The miraculous news was that the brothers, beaten…

On March 27, 2017, the Lok Sabha passed the Mental Health Care Bill (MHCB). Earlier cleared by the Rajya Sabha, the bill now awaits presidential ratification to become an act, a step that seems a formality. To move beyond the headline-grabbing provision to decriminalise suicide attempts, unpacking the MHCB is perhaps an overdue exercise. There are at least three noteworthy things about the MHCB: the first to consider is how ‘lean’ mental health legislation should be. Traditionally, the need to regulate the process of involuntary admission —when the individual is at his/her most vulnerable, and can possibly be subjected to rights violations—has been seen to lie at the heart of mental health legislation. The MHCB takes the debate of ‘leanness’ completely out of the reckoning by enlarging the legislative mandate…

500 METRES From national and state highways, the distance within which alcohol cannot be sold; it’s 220 m for cities, towns, municipal areas with a population of 20,000 or less; distance is 220 m for hilly Himachal Pradesh; Sikkim and Meghalaya wholly exempt 146 THOUSAND Road deaths in 2015 (NCRB data). Deaths due to overspeeding: 44.2 %; deaths due to alcohol intake: 1.5 % 300 KM Approximate length of 19 state highways the West Bengal state government has denotified following the SC order, to protect at least 2,000 liquor shops within the 500 metre zone 400 Road deaths per day in India, or one every 3.6 minutes, based on 2015 figures 1 MILLION Jobs the hospitality industry estimates will be lost; reven ues of Rs 1,000 crore per day…

HAWALA’S HIDDEN TENTACLES The illegal money pipeline fuels several other shady operations TERROR FUNDING Used to fund terror operations, buy weapons and explosives MONEY LAUNDERING OPERATIONS Black money holders in India use the network to launder money and bring it back into India in the form of tax-free white earnings GOLD SMUGGLING Used to buy gold in the Gulf countries, to be sent into India. The gold is sold and then converted back into cash FAKE INDIAN CURRENCY NOTES Hawala operators mix Pakistan-printed counterfeit notes with genuine Indian currency to make payments in India Days after the RBI’s November 8 withdrawal of high-denomination currency notes, Kerala’s hawala network went into complete paralysis. The illegal hawala pipeline funnels what the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) and the Kerala police estimate to…

Five years after the documentary Celluloid Man, Shivendra Singh Dungarpur revisits the cinephile, archivist and legend Paramesh Krishnan Nair—who headed the National Film Archive of India from the mid-1960s to 1991—to whom goes the credit of single-handedly safeguarding India’s cinematic history. Film lovers will find much to appreciate in Yesterday’s Films for Tomorrow. Published by the Dungarpur-founded Film Heritage Foundation, this book is an anthology of P.K. Nair’s writings, and is filled with the legendary archivist’s uncensored views on everything cinema—from his unabashed admiration for India’s first filmmaker Dadasaheb Phalke to his take on Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Devdas (all “technical gloss and gimmicks”, and otherwise “soulless”). Some of the more delightful chapters chronicle Nair’s earli- est movie-going outings, and shed light on his crazy hunt for silent films. Lists such…

1 GALITOS For the past few years this QSR in Bengaluru’s Whitefield has been giving patrons a taste of South Africa and Mozambique with its popular peri-peri chicken, kebab-like Afrikaaner sosaties and mealie pap soup that’s made with corn meal and flavoured with tomato and basil. Exotic appeal: chicken boerewors sausages with tangy bean-rich chakalaka sauce 2 GREEN ONION While prima facie there may be nothing remotely Nigerian to the look and feel of this Marine Lines, Mumbai, restaurant, a glance at the menu will throw up myriad surprises in the form of the tomatoey jellof rice with a huge hunk of deep-fried chicken, served with fried plantain slices as accompaniments and the funky smelling, dried fish redolent goat onugbo curry, best mopped up with balls fashioned out of the…

Rs 52,000 MONTHLY SALARY FOR MPs. PLUS TENS OF THOUSANDS IN ALLOWANCES. ALL EARNINGS ARE TAX-FREE Rs 2.7 LAKH SPENT BY THE GOVERNMENT EVERY MONTH ON EACH MP’s SALARY AND EXPENSES 150,000 FREE CALLS ALLOWED PER YEAR FROM 3 TELEPHONE CONNECTIONS Rs 0 PAID BY MPs AS RENT, AND FOR 50,000 UNITS OF ELECTRICITY AND 4 MILLION LITRES OF WATER PER YEAR Rs 1 LAKH MONTHLY SALARY DEMANDED BY MPs. PLUS RAISES IN ALL PERKS RS 35,000 LIFELONG MONTHLY PENSION DEMANDED BY MPs, UP FROM Rs 20,000 NOW 83% OF 543 LOK SABHA MPs ARE CROREPATIS. AVERAGE ASSETS: Rs 14.7 CRORE PULLQUOTE “In UP, the cow is considered mummy, in the Northeast it’s yummy. If this is not the BJP’s hypocrisy, then what is?” AIMIM leader ASADUDDIN OWAISI poked fun…

Between May 11 and 19, the Supreme Court expects to finish hearings on the issue of triple talaq, the rule that enables Muslim men to dissolve their marriage by orally repudiating their wives. Muslim women have in the past challenged the custom, outlawed in several Muslim-majority countries. Most recently, a pregnant woman wrote to PM Narendra Modi and Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath to ask for help after her husband had allegedly given her triple talaq and left her “on the road to die”. The All India Muslim Personal Law Board, though, maintains that the issue is beyond the ambit of a secular court. 49% of Muslim women are married by age 19, the 2011 census showed; 13.5% before 15 14% Indian women, or 84 million of them, are Muslim…

Living well, the poets say, is the best revenge. In Mumbai, on April 2, a local NGO and an event management firm teamed up to put up a fashion show in Lokhandwala Garden. The models were young women who had been scarred in acid attacks, some by their own brothers and husbands. One woman was scarred as a baby, collateral damage in an attack on her mother. The president of the organising NGO, Daulat Khan, was herself a victim. The proceeds go into a fund intended to help victims pay for medical and legal help. Though ‘victims’ is, perhaps, the wrong word. “This was a walk for self-reliance,” says an organiser, “the girls are victors.”…

KISHORIAMONKAR 1932-2017 In the last decade, Kishori Amonkar’s stage persona was, naturally, a physically reduced version of herself. Her voice would take half an hour to gradually find its stride. Her seated posture seemed to barely rise above the sur mandal (a box-like zither) whose strings she caressed to fill the spaces in her singing. She seemed to lean on its wooden frame for support, holding the box as if it were a defence against the world. Or a defiance of it. Old age is never the image we want to remember someone by, yet this image of defiance has the seeds of permanence. Kishori raged against age, admitting to worrying about it even in her 60s, when many artists touch their peak. She strove to preserve a youthful persona,…

1,000,000 LITRES of illegal liquor seized in 2016. Bihar’s prohibition laws prescribe the death penalty for manufacturers, suppliers and sellers of hooch. But even this hasn’t stopped career criminals from taking up bootlegging. Last year’s haul of illegal liquor—510,000 litres of IMFL (Indian made foreign liquor), 455,000 litres of country liquor, 10,000 litres of toddy and over 12,000 litres of beer— offers a measure of the problem 584 LITRES RAIDS A DAY Cops and excise officials in the state conducted 213,000 raids in the past year to break up bootlegging networks and seize illegal stocks of liquor. This led to over 44,000 arrests. These numbers indicate a staggering average of 584 raids in Bihar every day last year, or 25 raids every hour. Ending bootlegging appears to be a top priority…

You can bank on Bengalis to be discreet. Quite unlike the widely circulated images of blatant cheating in school and college exams in neighbouring Bihar, students in Kolkata are rather craftily misusing social media platforms like WhatsApp to get by examinations. And the student unions on campuses affiliated to Calcutta University, Barasat University and Jadavpur University are, according to some sources, in on what threatens to become even bigger than the legendary cheating scandals of Bihar. The annual exams in Kolkata’s Ashutosh College in March saw ‘Mass Com Family’, a group on WhatsApp, helping students write answers inside the examination halls. Precise answers to the questions in the exam paper sent out minutes after the start of the exam were freely available to the group’s members—in this instance, a significant…

USSR The first to land on the moon with Luna 2, its luna missions continued till 1976. Land rovers return with moon soil USA First moon probe in 1964, followed by 30 successful missions, including six manned ones between 1969 and 1976 Japan Hiten spacecraft in moon orbit in 1990. Selene orbiter/ impactor in 2009 European Space Agency SMART 1 lunar probe orbiter/ impactor in 2006 India Chandrayaan 1 orbiter on November 8, 2008; impactor on November 14, 2008. Fifth country to touch down on moon China Chang’e 1 orbiter in 2008. Chang’e 3 lander in 2013, third country to do so First commercial moon mission M4 flies past moon in October 2014 UPCOMING CHINA Chang’e 4 & 5 to land on moon in 2017 INDIA Chandrayaan 2 orbiter, lander…

At the beginning of Mukti Bhavan, an arthouse film that releases in India on April 7, an elderly father tells his work-obsessed son, “Mera waqt aa gaya hai (my time has come).” Because he wants to spend his last days in tranquility, 76-year-old Dayanand (Lalit Behl) prevails on Rajiv (Adil Hussain) to take him to Varanasi. The film’s title comes from the Ganga-facing establishment that they check into to await Daya’s demise. Shubhashish Bhutiani’s feature debut, the film elegantly portrays the difficulties of filial responsibility, a complex father-son relationship and the arduous wait for a loved one’s death. The film, which premiered at the Venice International Film Festival last year, releases in India on April 7. ike Piku, Mukti Bhavan highlights the burdens of managing an ailing, demanding parent, and…

Running through May 6, a new exhibition of photos at Jaipur’s Jawahar Kala Kendra offers a compelling retrospective of Ebrahim Alkazi’s theatre work. Spanning a period of 50 years, Alkazi’s career ran parallel to the Independence movement and the birth of Indian modernism in theatre. Curated by Amal Allana and designed by Nissar Allana, the exhibition features rare photographs, objects, archival documents and models of stage sets. The multimedia approach effectively showcases Alkazi’s vision and ideas, as well as some of his work from the 1940s and 1950s that has rarely been seen anywhere in India. A legendary figure in Indian theatre and director of the National School of Drama (NSD) from 1962 to 1977, Padma Vibhuhshan winner Ebrahim Alkazi introduced revolutionary changes in set design and lighting, and wove…

We will organise workshops to introduce enthusiasts to coffee and dessert pairing What do you think of the newest coffee trends like micro-roasteries? The café culture is now slowly moving towards coffee appreciation, and that is a good sign. We had our own roasterycafé and wine lounge called Berries and Barrels as early as in 2014, but it seemed ahead of its time. Tells us about your journey with Classic Coffees? I joined Classic Coffees seven years ago after a degree at Le Cordon Bleu, and have had a keen interest in food and coffee pairing. We will soon be organising workshops titled ‘The Coffee Art’ that will introduce enthusiasts to coffee and dessert pairing. We are also in the process of launching a range of affordable premium coffee for…

The tenth season of the hugely popular and successful Indian Premier League T20 cricket tournament got under way on April 5. In the wake of an absorbing series between arguably world cricket’s most fractious rivals, a series that showed Test cricket remains the game’s highest form, comes six weeks of delirious hitting and fan frenzy 6 THE NUMBER OF DIFFERENT CHAMPIONS IN 10 YEARS. AN INDICATION OF THE IPL’S COMPETITIVENESS 30 BALLS FACED BY CHRIS GAYLE TO SCORE THE LEAGUE’S FASTEST 100 60.7% CURRENTLY SUSPENDED CHENNAI SUPER KINGS’ WINNING PERCENTAGE. HIGHEST IN THE IPL 143 WICKETS TAKEN BY LASITH MALINGA IN 98 MATCHES, WAY AHEAD OF AMIT MISHRA AT NO. 2 (124 IN 112) 4,110 RUNS BY IPL TOP SCORER VIRAT KOHLI IN 9 SEASONS. ALSO MOST IN A SEASON:…

Convinced that keeping vigilance director Jacob Thomas would harm his government more than help it, Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan has fina lly moved him out. This followed a series of scathing remarks by the Kerala High Court over the functioning of the 1985 batch IPS officer. Thomas has said he will now take up teaching. The Haunting Deterred by the fate of its past four occupants, Yogi Adityanath’s ministers are rel uc tant to move into bungalow no. 6, adjacent to the UP CM’s 5, Kalidas Marg official residence. Mulayam Singh Yadav’s chief secretary Neera Yadav was jailed for a scam when he lived here, a fate that also befell another occupant, Mayawati’s minister Babu Singh Kushwaha. Rajendra Chaudhuri lost the important food and civil supplies ministry under the…

When Uma Bharti became MP chief minister in 2003, the ICDS scam was the stick she used to beat the previous Digvijaya Singh government with. More than a decade later, the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government has announced an amnesty scheme for corporate groups who owe the staterun MP State Industries Development Corporation (MPSIDC) for loans it extended under the Inter Corporate Deposit Scheme (ICDS). Between 1995 and 2001, MPSIDC borrowed money from banks and forwarded them as loans under ICDS to 42 corporate groups. Not only did this violate a 1994 cabinet decision forbidding MPSIDC from disbursing loans, public servants also flouted rules in sanctioning such loans. Amounting to about Rs 400 crore then, the dues have now gone up to Rs 4,000 crore, including interest. At least 20 of…

Eight hundred lost strains of rice, including 60 of the most aromatic kind and 50 kinds of red rice with precious medicinal qualities, are set to make a comeback in West Bengal. An indigenous grain revival project at the Agricultural Training Centre in Fulia in West Bengal’s Nadia district has already helped cultivate seeds for some 400 varieties for distribution to local farmers. “Once these seeds reach the farmers, Bengal will witness a Green Revolution like in Punjab,” says Anupam Paul, assistant director of agriculture at the centre. Paul says the traditional strains, which were once the staple in the state, can be cultivated at two-thirds the cost of raising modern hybrid varieties. These can be grown without chemical fertilisers, and after three seasons farmers can use a part of…

1 DENOTIFYING HIGHWAYS On March 16, a fortnight before the judgment, the Chandigarh district administration denotified highways to ‘district roads’, saving 84 of the city’s 99 liquor vends 2 MOVING BARS INTO VILLAGES States like Kerala and Goa, which have little geographical depth, have been forced to do this. But local opposition to the move is rising in the villages 3 MEASURING MOTORABLE DISTANCE Haryana’s excise department is measuring the SC’s 500 metre benchmark ‘as motorable distance’. This means taking distance not as the crow flies, but according to how far it is by road from the highways 4 SHIFTING ENTRY Large hotels are shifting their entrances to ensure they stay outside the 500-metre exclusion zone…

A quirky streak runs through all of Harinder Singh’s enterprises. A former garment exporter, Singh now runs a chain of boutique stores that sell Punjabi memorabilia. Named ‘1469’, after the birth year of Guru Nanak, the chain is best known for T-shirts bearing smart alecky Punjabi quotes like “Jadon strong si odhon wrong si (when we were strong, we were wrong)”. The T-shirts are all the rage among urban Punjabis and NRIs who see in them “a celebration of Punjabiat”, in the words of singer Jasbir Jassi. The success inspired Harinder and his wife Kirandeep to reinvent and popularise Phulkari, the traditional, painstakingly embroidered shawls that are given to Punjabi brides as part of their trousseaus. The couple created a line of products including key chains, potli pouches, upholstery covers…

While every selection trial is important to a runner, Indian ultra-runner Kieren D’Souza is particularly thrilled about an upcoming one. Having become a member of the International Association of Ultra-running (IAU), the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) can now select a team to compete in the 2017 Trail World Championships in Italy, on June 10. The race runs through national forests in the central Apennines (between Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna) for 49 kilometres. India’s membership is a big boost to ultra-runners,” says 24-year-old D’Souza, who became the first Indian to participate and finish the Spartathlon—a 246-km race from Athens to Sparta in Greece that ranks among the most competitive ultras worldwide. “I am sure this will help the Indian presence in the global ultra- and trail-running map,” he adds. Female competitors…

Kaatru Veliyidai is being called Roja redux. Are there similarities? The film is an emotional story. I wouldn’t compare it with Roja. You’ve made several love stories. How would you describe the love in Kaatru Veliyidai? Every story is a love story in some sense, and every film is about relationships. Even when we are dealing with conflict, it is a relationship we are talking about. In Kaatru Veliyidai, I would say the love is a bit more classical. What did you think of OK Jaanu, the Hindi remake of your film? If I ever remake a film, it would be my take on it. That is the only way it should be done. Shaad (Ali) is a good friend and we talked about several aspects. [One] wants the director…

Q: You play a spy in Naam Shabana. If there was one person you could spy on, who would it be? A: Akshay Kumar. He is my favourite rags-to-riches story. I’d like to know how he gets it right almost every time. How can someone grow so exponentially? Q: Favourite spy novel or movie? A: I find the on-screen spies too flashy and glam. Instead I’m a fan of the X-Men series. I also like the adventurous Lara Croft Q: One thing you can’t do without when you’re shooting on location? A: Jokes. I love to pick on people. I’m a big bully. Thanks to people like Neeraj [Pandey], I’ve picked up more sarcastic humour. He calls me a drama queen. Q: What’s your most prized possession? A: My family…