Innholdsfortegnelse for September 19, 2016 i India Today

Two inventions that have transformed our lives are mobile phones and the Internet. Now that they are interminably linked to one another with the advent of smart phones, productivity has been increased to unimaginable levels. Today you can stay connected, stay entertained and stay informed, all at the same time. There are a total of 1 billion mobile phone subscribers in India, and 306 million of them already browse the web on their phones. As we get more and more dependent on mobile phones, they don’t always deliver what we expect of them. Indian subscribers have been battling with a number of failed promises—from call drops, which are slowly driving us back to land lines, to slow data speeds, which have belied the hope the launch of 4G networks generated.…

Growth in Gross Value Addition (GVA at constant 2011-12 prices) came down to 7.1 per cent in April-June 2016 from 7.9 per cent in the previous quarter (January-March 2016) and also below the 7.5 per cent annual growth registered in 2015-16. Even at this lower rate of growth, India retained its position as the fastest growing large economy in the world. This is accompanied by a marked improvement in macroeconomic stability. Foreign exchange reserves have risen from $270 billion to $360 billion in the last three years; inflation has been brought down to less than 6 per cent from double digits; the current account deficit has reduced to a mere 1.3 per cent of GDP; and public debt-to-GDP ratio held at less than 70 per cent. India has decisively moved…

IT WAS 2010 AND MUKESH AMBANI, the Reliance Industries (RIL) chairman, had only just acquired Infotel Broadband from telecom pioneer Mahendra Nahata. The company owned broadband spectrum in 22 zones across India. The acquisition was to be the springboard from which Ambani would launch his next telecom offensive, even more disruptive than the launch in 2002 of mobile telephony at throwaway prices. Brainstorming with close confidant Manoj Modi to blueprint the offensive, Ambani spelt out his brief. Modi was to focus on two key areas: he was to procure cutting-edge technology, and band together the old warhorses from Reliance Infocomm, the men who, back then, had helped him roll out mobile telephony that was “cheaper than sending postcards” (the challenging prescription Dhirubhai Ambani is said to have given his older…

1 GIVE 30 MINUTES TO YOUR BODY Engage in aerobic physical activity for at least 30 minutes daily. Walking, jogging, cycling, swimming and dancing are the best exercises for lowering blood pressure (BP) 2 WEIGH YOURSELF EVERY DAY Maintain normal body weight (BMI 18.5-24.9 kg/m² for adults). Keep an eye on the waistline: too much bulge there indicates a risk of high BP 3 KNOW YOUR ALCOHOL LIMITS Limit your alcohol consumption: only one standard drink (or 12 ounces of beer/five ounces of table wine/1.5 oz shot of spirits) a day for women, and not more than two for men 4 BE NICOTINE-FREE Quit smoking. There’s no solid proof that smoking causes high BP, but every cigarette you light up spi kes your BP temporarily 5 KNOCK OFF THE SALT…

4 HABITS THAT KEEP YOUR BRAIN FIT YOUR BODY CLOCK IS CONTROLLED BY AN AREA of the brain that resp onds to light. So if you rise with the sun and go to bed not long after sunset, your brain proc esses information better NERVE CELLS (NEURONS) & DENDRITES, BRANCHES growing on these cells help the brain transmit messages. You need to have lots of dend rites. Fish oil supp lements help growth ROUTINE SIMPLIFIES LIFE, BUT IT’S DEADLY for your brain. So go out of the box, learn new stuff, stay social, do things you haven’t done before. The brain thrives on novelty RESEARCH SHOWS THAT MEDITATION INCREASES grey matter in your brain. Exercises that focus your mind are good for neurological growth: solve puzzles, travel, learn programming, read,…

EYECATCHERS Bad week Compiled by Suhani Singh Follow the writer on Twitter @suhani84 Volume XLI Number 38; For the week September 13-19, 2016, published on every Friday Total number of pages 84 (including cover pages)…

AUGUST 29, 2016 Modi’s remark on Balochistan shows Pakistan the perils of tit-for-tat diplomacy “What seems to have provoked PM Narendra Modi into raising human rights violations in Balochistan was the Pak High Commissioner dedicating Pakistan’s Independence Day to ‘the freedom of Kashmir’.” NALINI VIJAYARAGHAVAN, via e-mail No Country for Sportspeople This is with reference to your coverage on the 2016 Rio Olympics (Silver Lining). While the nation is grateful to P.V. Sindhu and Sakshi Malik for bringing home the silver and bronze medals— as well as to Dipa Karmakar for her brilliant performance—is it not shameful that a country with our population could not win even a single gold medal? Countries smaller than ours have won many more medals than us. This is due to the shortsighted policies followed…

FRIENDS OF THE FOREST Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Japanese counterpart, Shinzo Abe, were put up at a Sheraton hotel near a forest over 20 km from central Hangzhou for the G20 summit. Of the eight hotels India had suggested, this was last on the list. Only the PM’s security detail were pleased as this was the most fortified accommodation at the G20. WAR ON BABUDOM Bureaucrats in Madhya Pradesh are under attack by ruling party leaders. At a meeting of RSS frontal organi sations in Bhopal on August 25-26, the babus were accused of corruption. This week, BJP general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya blamed them for the slo w progress of the metro rail project. The real target, goes the buzz, is CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan. VIDESHI TURN Union…

Curious about the source of the commotion outside her village home in South Kashmir where angry youth were protesting Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani’s killing on July 8, Tamanna Ashiq was peering out of her window when a deadly hail of pellets from a 12 gaugepump-action shotgun fired by security personnel struck her. “Chances of this girl regaining normal sight are minimal,” an attending surgeon at the Shri Maharaja Hari Singh (SMHS) Hospital in Kaksarai, Srinagar, tells INDIA TODAY. “Her right retina is severely damaged by a pellet.” The main public entrance to SMHS was closed three days after the Valley erupted in violent anger against Wani’s killing. This because the hospital administration, hugely burdened by the growing flood of casualties— men, women and children hit by pellets— from the…

1 TAKE CARE OF YOUR DIET Follow a low-carbohydrate, high-fibre diet; have whole grains instead of refined grains (stripped of important vitamins, minerals). Try and avoid sugar 2 MOVE AS MUCH AS YOU CAN Physical activity is key to lifetime management of diabetes. It can bring down glucose in your blood, help control diabetes, maintain weight and prevent complications 3 DON’T FORGET TO TAKE YOUR MEDICINES A healthy diet and physical activity are a must but diabetes also needs to be managed firmly from the time of diagnosis with medication 4 MONITOR YOUR DIABETES Buy a glucometer to monitor glucose levels at home. Check your HbA1c (glycated haemoglobin) once in three months, make sure it is always below seven per cent 5 GO FOR REGULAR CHECK-UPS Go for regular check-ups…

In the first decade of the 21st century, it began to seem that the British Empire was coming back into fashion. At the high noon of early 21st-century imperial hubris, with America poised to invade Iraq, Russia in retreat, the Taliban in disarray and bin Laden in hiding, and the currents of globalisation flowing strongly (and seemingly irresistibly) around the world, the controversial Scottish historian Niall Ferguson published Empire: How Britain Made the World, which saw in the past all the virtues he wished to celebrate in the present. The British, Ferguson wrote, echoing a string of imperial apologists like Lawrence James and Jeremy Paxman, combined commerce, conquest and some ‘evangelical imperialism’ in an early form of globalisation or, in a particularly infelicitous word, ‘Anglobalisation’. In so doing, Ferguson argued,…

It happens everywhere art is made. Which is to say, it happens everywhere in the world. A group of artists band together and resolve to light a firecracker under the staid establishment. Somewhere along the way, a manifesto is written. And so it was that Group 1890 came to be formed in 1962 in Bhavnagar in Saurashtra, naming themselves after the house in which they had come together. The founding artists included Jagdish Swaminathan, commonly agreed to have been the intellec tual impetus behind the group, Jeram Patel, Ghulam Mohammed Sheikh and Ambadas Khobragade. Modern Indian art, the group claimed in its manifesto, “by and large has been inhibited by the self-defeating purposiveness of its attempts at establishing an identity.” Offenders, in their view, included the celebrated Progressive Artists’ Group…

Date with the clouds September 24 Relive the magic of Kalidasa with Sankalp’s Meghadootam-The Cloud Messenger. This classic by the legendary poet is a story of a man who befriends clouds and travels to the Himalayas to meet his wife which will be presented as a dance drama in Bharatnatyam style. Mark your calendars for this performance that has been choreographed by dynamic duo, Shijith Nambiar and Parvathy Menon and accompanied by scintillating vocals by Bombay Jayashri Ramnath. Tickets eventjini.com Time 6.30 p.m. At Sir Mutha Venkatasubba Rao Concert Hall 3/1, Shenstone Park, Harrington Road, Chetpet Want to tell us about an event? A new store? A restaurant? People doing interesting things? Anything newsworthy? Please email us at: simplychennai@intoday.com…

Going by the chatter alone, it’s difficult to tell the mother and child apart in the fashion designing duo Neeta and Nishka Lulla. With the interview about to begin, Nishka, 29, says “Maa, talk loudly” to which Neeta’s reaction is that of a teenager who has made a habit of ignoring her parent’s commands; she coolly sips her Starbucks drink and peers into the phone keeping tabs on the recently launched autumn winter bridal collection, Vrindavan Symphony. For the photo shoot when Neeta, 52, thinks she too could do with more lip colour, Nishka is quick to say, “You don’t need it, Mamma”. No wonder then the popular costume designer of such films as Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, Devdas and Jodhaa Akbar, Neeta Lulla, says, “She is my mother.…

PINKI VIRANI Author and human rights activist, Mumbai “The opposite of freedom is coercion, not determinism’’ Once upon a time, there lived a king and a queen who were in great trouble because they had no children. They were sorrier about it than words can tell. They offered prayers, made vows and went on pilgrimages, moved heaven and earth. And for a long time, it all seemed to be to no avail. The ideology of incompleteness without a descendant exists in every religion, every culture, hence in films of that culture which inform each other which furthers society’s selfperception, and in every storybook. No favourite folk tale is complete without a tot, most mythologies come with offspring in situ. If fiction sees the presence of a minor as a propulsion…

I am 28. Can I go for egg banking? How much will it cost and what are the chances of getting pregnant later? AISHWARYA KUMAR, DELHI It is preferable for women to get their eggs frozen before they turn 35. In women with low ovarian reserve, the freezing should be done before the age of 30. Ovarian reserve can be assessed by doing a blood study called antimullerian hormone (AMH). If it is less than 1.5 μg per ml, it indicates a low reserve. Egg freezing costs anywhere between `20,000 and `80,000; the success rate for the procedure is about 59 per cent per transfer, which means that if you freeze 10 eggs, five of them will definitely fertilise. How does the egg banking cycle work? What are the risk…

Cell Shock It started three years ago as just another bedtime conversation between a father and his elder son. One night, during the customary 30-minute chat with his father, the late Dhirubhai Ambani, before lights out, Mukesh Ambani proposed creating a business in information and communication. The Reliance Group patriarch asked his son how much it cost to make a mobile call to Surabhai (a family elder) in Chorwad, Gujarat, to just ask “Kem chho? (How are you?)” “Rs 36,” came the reply. ”Too expensive. It won’t work,” Dhirubhai told his son. “If you can make every Indian talk to every Indian at less than the cost of a post card and still make money, you are in business.” Mukesh first checked how much a postcard cost (Re 1 for…

Long-Term Evolution, or LTE, refers to a standardised method of communication between high-speed wireless networks. GSM, GPRS, and EDGE are all examples of similar (but now outdated) standards. Standards like these are what allow wireless networks in different parts of the world to communicate with each other. To put it simply, they serve as an agreedupon ‘international language’ for technology. LTE is a significant upgrade on previous standards, not least because it uses a new, more efficient method for transferring data— ‘packet’ switching, as opposed to ‘circuit’ switching . In the older method, before data could be transferred between two nodes in a network, a ‘circuit’ was first established, which remained open until the entire ‘conversation’ between the nodes was completed. Under the new protocol, the data is first broken…

10 TIPS TO KEEP YOUR LUNGS HEALTHY By DR ARVIND KUMAR Senior consultant, laparoscopic, thoracic thoracoscopic and robotic surgeon, SIR GANGA RAM HOSPITAL, DELHI 1 PUT IN A LITTLE EFFORT For the most part, the body has a natural defence mechanism to protect your lungs from germs and dirt. Simple lifestyle changes and a healthy diet will take care of the rest 2 QUIT SMOKING, EVEN SECOND-HAND Smoking causes not just lung cancer, but also chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases (such as chronic bronchitis and emphysema). Remember, second-hand smoke is highly toxic as well, and can play havoc with your lungs 3 AVOID EXPOSURE TO POLLUTANTS Avoid exercising outdoors when the air quality is poor. Pollutants like car emissions and chemicals at home and in the workplace—such as Radon gas, which…

Professor & Head of Centre for Dental Education and Research, Chief of Department of Orthodontics and Dentofacial Deformities, ALL INDIA INSTITUTE OF MEDICAL SCIENCES, DELHI 1 TAKE A PEA-SIZED DOLLOP Brush twice a day for 60 seconds. The toothpaste needs to be a small, pea-size amount on your brush. Make sure it contains fluoride; abrasive toothpastes damage teeth 2 DON’T BE HARSH ON YOUR TEETH Choose a soft-bristle brush. Hard brushes, forceful or faulty brushing, dominant hand dexterity—all can lead to ‘toothbrush cavities’ at the neck of the teeth 3 TAKE CARE OF YOUR GUMS Pyorrhoea, bad breath, bleeding gums—it’s something 91 per cent Indians suffer from. Typically sets in when the body goes through hormonal changes: puberty, pregnancy, menopause, etc 4 IF YOU ARE A DIABETIC You are most…

A young couple walk into a kitchen appliances shop, where the canny shopkeeper emotiona lly blackmails them into buying the more expensive Prestige pressure cooker. The advertisement tagline: “Jo biwi se sach-much karte pyaar, woh Prestige se kaise karein inkaar?” Love your wife? Get her the costlier cooker. Ambi Parameswaran’s book promises to deconstruct Indian advertisements like these to provide “interesting insights into a society in transition”. It also declares its aim of improving public knowledge about the advertising industry. Alas, the book does neither. Here are Parameswaran’s “interesting insights” about the Prestige ad: “This television commercial, made in 1982 and directed by Prahlad Kakkar, then a confirmed bachelor, was widely aired during the late seventies capturing the ethos of a newly-married couple and a young nation getting ready to…

SADIA SAEED RAVAL Founder and chief psychologist, Mindful Spring, Mumbai Parents by nature are invested in their children, which is needed for a child’s growth. However, of late, experts find that the trend is moving towards over-investment in children rather than a healthy connection with them. High pressure parents are becoming very common. These are parents who push their children to achieve in most areas, closely watch their performance, are overly involved and often anxious to notice the smallest deviation. A typical scenario we see during counselling is a burnt-out child, uninterested in most things, brought to a psychologist and accompanied by anxious, exhausted parents with little space for connection between the parents and the child. Why the pressure? If you are a parent, ask yourself why you’re worried about…

RANA SAFVI Author and historian, Mumbai There is no gender difference in Sufism for as Dr Javad Nurbakhsh writes in his book Sufi Women; “women who seriously set foot on the path towards reality are in exactly the same position as men who do so.” He goes on to say, “Since in the ocean of divine unity neither “I” or “You” exists, what possible meaning can man or woman have?” There have been many famous women Sufi saints and many women who have influenced saints and been their teachers. Someone once asked the great Egyptian Sufi master Dho’n-Nun Mesri, “Who, in your opinion, is the highest among the Sufis?” He replied, “A lady in Mecca, called Fatimah Nishapuri, whose discourse displayed a profound apprehension of the inner meanings of the…

Last year, author Samit Basu wrote the ingenuous new Indian alphabet in keeping with what the times teach us. In it, B was for bans and C was for cows. D was for development and E was for energy. It captured the new language—the news and netas—collaborated to create. This year, scenes with bras are being slashed from films, women in burqinis are being harassed and tourists have been told not to wear short skirts. Women ought to relearn the alphabet in keeping with the entitled society that now dictates what they can do with their bodies and how they must keep them covered. And so, inspired by Basu and the goings on related to sartorial stigmas, here is the new alphabet for women; the ABC of women’s fashion.…