Innholdsfortegnelse for August 19, 2019 i India Today

ONE WOULD HAVE THOUGHT patriotism is like motherhood. Not much to debate about. Apparently that’s not true. It is in fact a manysplendoured thing. Much like a rainbow but with many shades of grey. I discovered this after reading the brilliant essays in this issue written by an eclectic group of 11 intellectuals. We invited them on the occasion of Independence Day to consider the many meanings and consequences of patriotism, for India today and indeed for India of the past. By illuminating the many aspects and complexities of Indian patriotism, we hope to hold a mirror up to the country at what feels like an inflection point in its history. It is particularly relevant in today’s environment when people are routinely being accused of being anti-national, and nationalism is…

The Prime Minister’s Office, in Modi 2.0, is tightening its grip on the ministries. The buzz is that the PMO is rejecting ministers’ recommendations for office staff, be it for personal secretaries or officers on special duty (OSDs). Even recommendations for renewal of tenure are being spiked. Pending recommendations include those from the Vice President of India, Venkaiah Naidu, and senior cabinet ministers Nitin Gadkari and Dharmendra Pradhan. Given the high rejection rate, the PMO has now asked the department of personnel and training (DoPT) and ministers to informally discuss the names before sending them up. The alternative on offer is to choose from a PMO-approved list of officers. —Sandeep Unnithan with Anilesh S. Mahajan, Amarnath K. Menon, Sahil Joshi and Romita Datta…

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee ’s suggestion to rename the state ‘Bangla’ in Bengali, ‘Bengal’ in English and ‘Bangal’ in Hindi was dismissed by the Centre. She is now rooting for Bangla. It is, unfortunately, also Bengali slang for country liquor. PM Modi was non-committal when the TMC raised the name issue in a recent meeting. The BJP wants to retain ‘West’ to remind people of the Partition, plus ‘Bangla’ could be confused with the neighbouring Bangladesh. With the BJP looking to unseat the TMC in 2021, what the state unit says will carry weight.…

October 26, 1947 The Maharaja of Kashmir, Hari Singh, signs the Instrument of Accession with Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru whereby Kashmir decides to join India. The first India-Pakistan war breaks out April 1948 The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) calls for a plebiscite in Kashmir. Since Pakistan refuses to withdraw troops, Kashmir is partitioned. Pakistan retains ‘Azad Kashmir’ as well as Gilgit-Baltistan October 17, 1949 Directed by Nehru, cabinet minister in-charge of Kashmir, Sir Gopalaswami Ayyangar, drafts Article 370 since B.R. Ambedkar refuses to do so. India adopts Article 370, conferring special status on J&K The Centre’s jurisdiction is restricted to key areas, such as foreign affairs, defence and communications Sept.-Oct. 1951 First election held in J&K. The Sheikh Abdullah-led Jammu & Kashmir National Conference (earlier Muslim Conference) wins all…

LOVE? SORRY, india today’s editorial gaze will say. Very sorry, but no. Not love, please. Any word but love. It is too romantic, too evangelical, lifted from a godman’s sack of stock words. After love will come devotion, then harmony, then peace, and… None of those marzipans, thank you. This is about India’s Independence Day, its historical magnetism, its political message. And we are not children. Fair enough. Love is the kind of word that floats in and out of assembly meetings in schools, pulpits, satsangs. It belongs to the ‘sacred’ columns of the newspaper-on-Sunday, family magazines. It is weak, pale, anaemic as a description of our bonding with India that is Bharat and also Hind, on Pandrah Agast. Magical, that date is, marking our ‘stepping out from bondage, stepping…

AS A RULE, GENERALS ARE NOT MEANT TO AGONISE OVER THE NATURE of the war they fight. In 1933, shortly after the bitter Civil Disobedience Movement launched by Mahatma Gandhi had led to a complete breakdown of the relationship between the Congress-led nationalist movement and the British Raj, Jawaharlal Nehru posed a question which he left unanswered: “Whose freedom are we particularly striving for, for nationalism covers many sins and includes many conflicting elements?” What prompted this self-doubt in the mind of one of the foremost leaders of the Congress is not all that puzzling. In 1933, Nehru was in the throes of his radical phase and deeply influenced by the socialist currents in Europe. In all likelihood, he perceived the struggle for Independence as part of a larger political…

THE GOOD NEWS IS THAT INDIAN BRANDS unequivocally live in the world of customers and the people of India, and not in the world of politicians. They speak to people, mindful of commercial good sense, by tapping into popular culture; the good news is that they still see popular culture as being quite far removed from the patriotic jingoism of today’s politics. Every Independence Day and Republic Day, brands in India do special campaigns—citizen brand talking to citizen consumer—and the conversation is quite revealing of the way business thinks about the state of the nation. We haven’t yet seen what the brand-speak for Independence Day 2019 will be, but it is a very safe bet, based on recent trends, that most will neither echo nor argue against the present political…

PATRIOTISM, LIKE RELIGION, IS a personal emotion. It lends itself to very intimate interpretations, and thus means different things to different people, much like religion does. And like religion, it can get inflammatory too. Patriotism is a delicate emotion which, I believe, needs careful handling by cinema. The first patriotic film I ever saw was Kranti (1981). Strangely, it didn’t make me feel very patriotic. I was too young at the time, and as children, I’d argue, we don’t watch films to soak in philosophical concepts. Film-watching is more a visceral experience that impacts you later, perhaps when you are older. You react to films very differently with time. When I was growing up, the texture of patriotism was very different. Through much of our childhood, for instance, the villains…

Technology is taking away many low-skilled jobs. But it is also creating opportunities in the form of new-age roles. Research shows 65 per cent of the jobs that today’s school students will take up may not exist in the future. Due to technological changes in virtualisation, artificial intelligence, machine learning and robotics, individuals need to continuously upskill to meet industry requirements. Travel and tourism, ITeS, energy, logistics, retail, financial and educational services, manufacturing and engineering will continue to witness positive hiring trends. Here are some of the emerging jobs in 2019-2020: Data analysts Organisations are processing large amounts of data; decision-making, too, is more data-driven. Key skills: Work on your critical thinking faculties, problem-solving, statistics, data management, analysis, programming, understanding of business, visualisation, communication, artificial intelligence and machine-learning abilities. Specialised…

Businesses are grappling with changes caused by technological breakthroughs, demographic trends, customer preferences, policy reforms and the long-term global economic power shift. This is also leading to a transformation in workplaces, investment in talent and creating flexible and collaborative ways of working. As organisations try to become fit for the future, we have seen roles go redundant and new ones emerge. Skill gap remains a major concern for most CEOs. The workforce, too, has evolved. Some appreciate stability and structured growth while others need constant change and new learning, and there are still others for whom purpose and sustainable choices come first. Our ‘Workforce of the future’ study looks at four possible ‘Worlds of Work’ for 2030. Survival of the skilled The ‘Red’ world is a perfect incubator for innovation,…

“TECHNICAL SKILLS ARE IMPORTANT BUT THEIR SHELF LIFE IS DECREASING. THE INDUSTRY VALUES A GROWTH MINDSET OPEN TO LEARNING, WITH THE ABILITY TO EMBRACE AND HANDLE CHANGE.” CHAITANYA SREENIVAS, HR Head, IBM India “Employers are looking for innovation these days. Being in the box is as important as being outside the box.” ANSHUL PUNHANI, Chief Marketing Officer, Monster (APAC and Middle East) “With the evolution of digital skills, businesses are looking to hire talent skilled in new technologies. Big data analytics, Java full stack, mobility, cloud computing and DevOps are some of the skills that are in demand.” SAURABH GOVIL, President & Chief HR Officer, Wipro “The workplace of the future is about continuous self-development, innovation and transformation. The ability to learn and unlearn is critical to staying relevant today.”…

Netflix has blamed the first drop in its US subscriber numbers since 2011 on price hikes announced in January. In India, a huge and growing market for Netflix, the streaming service has taken the opposite tack—announcing a lower-price option for mobile phone and tablet use only. In India, the company faces stiff competition from Amazon Prime and local player Hotstar, which dominates audience share, in large part due to its live sport broadcasts. Netflix does earn substantially more money per user. Accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) estimates that India’s video-streaming industry will be worth Rs 12,000 crore by 2023, recording the highest growth rates in the country’s overall media and entertainment industry. 25.3 MILLION viewers simultaneously watched the India-New Zealand cricket World Cup semi-final. Some 100 million watched India beat Pakistan…

Hyderabad-based godman Tridandi Chinna Jeeyar seems to have made a hobby of collecting chief ministers. In November 2016, Telangana CM K. Chandrashekar Rao had invited him to inaugurate his nine-acre office-cum-residence, Pragati Bhavan. More recently, Andhra Pradesh CM Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy paid his respects to him, while B.S. Yediyurappa, determined to complete a full term as Karnataka CM—having failed to do so thrice—made his way to Jeeyar’s ashram on August 1 to spend a night there.…

On August 2, Parliament passed the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Amendment Bill, (UAPA) 2019. The amendment introduces, in an earlier incarnation of the law—the UAPA 1967—a small but venomous change, allowing for the notification of individuals as ‘terrorists’; under the earlier UAPA, only organisations, not individuals, could be so notified. Unlike general criminal law, the UAPA allows the State to keep a person in custody for six months without a chargesheet, and the provisions for bail make it near impossible for an accused person to actually secure bail. UAPA prosecutions in the country are based on tenuous evidence or none at all and often result in acquittals only after 10 or so years of rotting in jail. A study of these cases shows that the purpose of prosecution is not conviction…

Q. Have Articles 370 and 35A been repealed? A. Article 370 hasn’t been repealed; a presidential order has ‘diluted’ its scope, making the Indian Constitution and laws passed by Parliament applicable in J&K. However, Article 35A is now void—its provisions rested on the framework of Article 370. Q. What is the current status of Article 370? A. It remains, but is toothless. One if its own provisions—Clause 3—was used to nullify it. Clause 3 allows the President of India to modify provisions of Article 370, provided he has the consent of the Constituent Assembly that drafted the constitution of J&K. A presidential order on August 5 construed the reference to the Constituent Assembly as the Legislative Assembly of J&K; and as the legislative assembly is in suspension and J&K is…

ONE MIGHT THINK THAT EXPLAINING the concept and meaning of patriotism would come easy to a soldier. After all, we are the most visible symbols of a group that displays its commitment towards the country by being forever ready to sacrifice lives for the nation’s honour. However, in today’s world, where ‘patriotism’ and ‘nationalism’ are often used interchangeably—and the subject has acquired an emotive character—defining patriotism is no longer simple. Personal biases may also creep in, and it could be argued that my perception of patriotism could be completely different from another soldier’s. A possible way around this predicament is to look at the issue of patriotism from an organisational, rather than individual, perspective. The military is not an ad hoc group of people, but a profession with a unique…

WE LIVE IN THE AGE OF REBORN NATIONALISM even as old dreams of an enlightened world government fade. The United Nations Organization (UN) just about survives, though it is difficult to imagine our world without it. The wars that scorched the globe also gave the UN its commitment to lasting peace. It is far from perfect, and yet we have no better substitute. As time goes by, the agency’s imperfections are becoming more apparent but also the need to fortify the platform where friends and foes gather to seek peace and accommodation, find difficult paths to contain bellicose elements and reduce the threat of a nuclear holocaust. But as the threat of a nuclear winter recedes, the world encounters other unsettling issues such as water scarcity, climate change, eco-degradation, terrorism…

TOGETHER, INDIAN CRICKET AND ITS SUPPORTERS tell us a lot about the journey our society has taken over the last hundred odd years. As Ramachandra Guha’s and Prashant Kidambi’s books on cricket history tell us, in the late 19th century, cricket was a scattered activity in different urban and mofussil pockets of pre-Partition India. The first Indian clubs were formed in Bombay, Karachi, Madras and Calcutta and they played among themselves on inferior, bumpy maidans while the sahebs played in a parallel world, on the other side of the fence on their (somewhat) plush green grounds. Around the same time that various Indian political groups began to challenge the Empire’s unquestioned hegemony, Indian teams began to have the occasional game against the goras. At first the Indian teams usually lost,…

Advances in robotics, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning are pushing the frontiers of technology. These newer generation autonomous systems can perform a range of routine activities faster and more economically than humans. Innovative companies are using them to augment their workforce, creating a demand for newly skilled talent which can adapt to these changes. Workforce development priorities and approaches vary. Financial services and technology firms are the most forward-looking and have progressed more than others on a number of fronts. Consumer products and retail are lagging. Technology firms place greater value on partnering with workforce development programmes and rolling out online training resources. Mean machine As many as 375 million workers globally are likely to require reskilling or make a transition to new occupational categories. Of all the technologies…

A Tidy Occupation GAYATRI GANDHI, 36 KonMari Certified Consultant, Founder, Joy Factory, Gurugram ADELHI UNIVERSITY GRADUATE, Gayatri Gandhi worked with Discovery Channel for 10 years before realising it wasn’t what she wanted to do. Then she came across Marie Kondo’s book The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up. “I started applying her methods the very day I saw the KonMari videos,” Gayatri confesses. Little did she know the pursuit would end in her founding her own clutter management company, the Joy Factory, in Gurugram. Step by Step With no clutter management course in India, Gayatri went to New York in 2017 for a certification course. “To do the course, you have to read Marie Kondo’s books, apply her methods in your home, take before and after pictures, apply for the…

The young woman who accused a BJP legislator in Uttar Pradesh of rape and was critically injured in a car ‘accident’ has been moved to AIIMS, Delhi, on the orders of the Supreme Court, which also directed that all cases related to the Unnao rape be moved to Delhi and trials completed within 45 days of the CBI completing its time-bound investigation. The grisly circumstances surrounding the young woman’s rape, the physical intimidation and suspicious deaths of her family members prompted a UP schoolgirl to ask a senior state police officer, during a school visit, how they could guarantee her safety should she be the victim of “someone powerful”. The statistics are not reassuring. Data from the National Crime Records Bureau for 2017 and 2018 has been delayed, for unspecified…

In 1999, Sushma Swaraj contested from Bellary, Karnataka—this was when the Bharatiya Janata Party was not well known in the state and no one had heard of either the BJP or Sushma Swaraj. The battle was a tough one. She was taking on Sonia Gandhi of the well-entrenched Congress party, but Swaraj was quick to embrace the challenge. She engaged two tutors to teach her Kannada and, using all her skills and photographic memory, within a fortnight she was addressing rallies in fluent Kannada. I personally checked with a few local journalists on her Kannada and everyone agreed that she really did pull it off. Her diction and choice of words were perfect. And though she lost by just about 50,000 votes, she won many hearts. Swaraj took on every…

NCP and Congress leaders who crossed over to the BJP are having a rough time. Possibly used to more easygoing chief ministers who wouldn’t turn down an official in matters of transfers and postings, a senior Congress leader, recently inducted as minister in the Devendra Fadnavis cabinet, was taken by surprise when told that, once approved by the CM, the transfer file could not be seen by anyone else. Turns out, Fadnavis, like Prime Minister Narendra Modi, likes to keep a tight grip on governance.…

WHAT DOES IT REALLY MEAN? A LOVE FOR YOUR country, your nation, your homeland? At the risk of getting all tukde-tukde about it, we can’t really talk about patriotism without splitting a few hairs. We asked a clutch of eminent citizens the question, and they all had very different answers. Or you could say they all agreed that it depends on who you are: a filmmaker or an author, a teacher or a soldier, a singer or a diplomat. And though we are all Indians, perhaps it matters where you are from too: from the North or the South, from the Capital or the periphery, from Calcutta or Allahabad—Kolkata or Prayagraj. Or Kashmir. Several of our contributors are at pains to point out that patriotism is something quite distinct from…

IT IS A SIGN OF THE TIMES that Dr Johnson’s lapidary utterance—“Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel”—is enjoying a sudden revival. This revival, however, is marked by some tweaks that might spring from ignorance, or malice. Thus, someone was tempted to substitute “liberalism” for Dr Johnson’s “patriotism”. However, there is little room for ambiguity as to the actual words uttered—Boswell was at hand—but there is some ambiguity as to what he might have meant by it. Apparently, there are local political resonances—as well as some suggestion that what prompted the good doctor’s ire might have been the “patriotism” of the American colonists, fighting for freedom from England, who were happy to utter the high rhetoric enshrined in their Declaration of Independence—life, liberty and all that stuff—with no consciousness…

THE YEAR IS 1948. ROBERT REID, the ex-governor of the Northeast provinces, travels to the then Naga hills (now Nagaland) as India is newly independent, where the events surrounding Partition, and the turmoil and trauma it brought about, are quickly unravelling. There’s political uncertainty with regard to the Northeast provinces: what is their future in this vast subcontinent? Amidst this sensitive historical moment, Reid hears of the assassination of M.K. Gandhi at the hands of Nathuram Godse, a staunch Hindu nationalist. In his shock and grief, he tells his Naga host, the Konyak chief Changrai, that Gandhi is dead. The historian Yasmin Saikia, in her book on Assam, Fragmented Memories, captures this telling encounter between Reid and Changrai. Changrai is baffled and says he does not know who Gandhi is.…

AN UNFORTUNATE TROPE among the global liberal elite is the demonisation of patriotism. Often, extremist nationalist groups of the 20th century, such as the Nazis, or the Italian Fascists, are used as examples to try and make us wary of patriotism and patriots. Of course, the Nazis, Italian Fascists and their ilk merit strong opprobrium. But using them repeatedly to tar patriotism itself is, honestly, unfortunate. What would you call those who use the examples of Mao and Stalin—the worst mass-murderers of the 20th century—to tar all Marxists, or those who cite genocidal maniacs like Timur, Alauddin Khilji and Aurangzeb to argue that all of Islam is fanatical? Patently biased, right? Why is it different for patriotism? One may argue—why bother with liberal harangues on patriotism when liberalism itself seems…

MEGAN KACHARI, 52 Poet, former publicity secretary of the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) “THE REVIVAL OF REGRESSIVE FORCES HAS THREATENED THE EXISTENCE OF DALITS, TRIBALS AND MINORITIES. WITH SCANT RESPECT FOR DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTIONS AND THE CONSTITUTION, THEY SEEK TO IMPOSE A CRUDE AND EXHIBITIONIST FORM OF NATIONALISM. PATRIOTISM IS EVERY CITIZEN’S CALL OF THE SOUL. IT’S NOT IMPOSED, IT’S A NATURAL INSTINCT.” KAMALA SHANKAR, 52 Musician “Patriotism or national pride is the feeling of love, devotion and sense of attachment to the homeland and with the citizens who share the same sentiment. It is about taking pride in one’s origin and working for the prosperity of the country. Being a musician, I feel music itself has the capability to influence one’s mood and psychology and when we add…

Technology has far-reaching effects on jobs. It has not only disrupted every major industry but also created new job roles. Information technology The IT sector is expected to more than double by 2025, to stand at $435 billion, according to a recent McKinsey report. The demand for IT professionals carrying excellent technological skills has skyrocketed. E-commerce The retail sector, including e-commerce, will register a phenomenal growth within the next five years. Experts in digital tools, such as SEO and data analytics, are the most sought. Financial services With banks partnering with fintech firms and digitising services, this sector will grow phenomenally and be worth $170 billion by 2025. Banking professionals, too, need to keep their skills up-to-date. Telecom The Telecom Sector Skill Council (TSSC) estimates that 14.3 million high-value, tech-centric…

Consider a typical university class. Students drift into the classroom. Some gravitate to the front of the class, some wander towards the back, and some do not attend. The professor lectures for 45 minutes, taking a few questions. The class is adjourned and students  move to their next class. This daily pattern repeats itself until a few weeks or days before the exam when the students try to mug up everything. This is passive learning because students sit and receive information with little active engagement. WHAT’S WRONG HERE? Until the exams, which could be months away, there is hardly any evidence of learning. How many students have understood what was presented in class? How many have registered more than a few phrases, and that too without comprehending? How many were…

Q. You talk about how your villainous image carries off-screen as well. Is it satisfying or annoying? When you play a villain, that image affects you. Even very progressive ad filmmakers rarely cast a villain to endorse a product. Q. Have you felt trapped by that image? I created the image myself and stayed in it—I wanted to build a brand. I’m happy I did it, I’m not at all dissatisfied. Q. Anything you would have done differently when you tried moving to Hollywood in the nineties? I think I did it at the right time. It was not just a personal triumph—I was able to expose them to wonderfully popular Indian cinema, which they had not heard of. Q. How do you look back on your work? To be…