eXclUsiVe interView yogi adityanath
www.indiatoday.in
rni no. 28587/75
registered no. dl(nd)-11/6068/2018-20; U(c)-88/2018-20; FAridABAd/05/2017-19 licensed to post withoUt prepAyment
september 23, 2019 `60
the inside story
what went wrong
with vikram
chandrayaan 2 so close and yet so far: why a
precision moon landing went awry
oc
100 days of modi 2.0
DIGITAL EDITION
OC
100 DAYS OF MODI 2.0
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW Yogi Adityanath
SEPTEMBER 23, 2019 `60
RNI NO. 28587/75
REGISTERED NO. DL(ND)-11/6068/2018-20; U(C)-88/2018-20; FARIDABAD/05/2017-19 LICENSED TO POST WITHOUT PREPAYMENT
www.indiatoday.in
THE INSIDE STORY
WHAT WENT WRONG
WITH VIKRAM
CHANDRAYAAN 2 SO CLOSE AND YET SO FAR: WHY A
PRECISION MOON LANDING WENT AWRY
EXCLUSIVE MULTIMEDIA CONTENT
ONLY FOR IPAD
COVER STORY
WHAT WENT WRONG WITH VIKRAM?
100 DAYS OF MODI
GOVERNMENT
ALL GUNS BLAZING
100 DAYS OF MODI
GOVERNMENT
FORTIFYING DEFENCE
100 DAYS OF MODI
GOVERNMENT
CASTING A SECURITY NET
THE BIG STORY
ON THE FRONT FOOT
#WHYVIKRAMFAILED
SUBSCRIBE NOW
www.indiatoday.in/digitalmagazines
FROM THE
www.indiatoday.in
CHAIRMAN AND EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Aroon Purie
VICE CHAIRPERSON: Kalli Purie
GROUP EDITORIAL DIRECTOR: Raj Chengappa
GROUP CREATIVE EDITOR: Nilanjan Das; GROUP PHOTO EDITOR: Bandeep Singh
MANAGING EDITORS: E Jabir Friese, Rajesh Jha
CONSULTING EDITOR: Ajit Kumar Jha (Research)
EXECUTIVE EDITORS: S. Sahaya Ranjit, Sandeep Unnithan
Mumbai: M.G. Arun
DEPUTY EDITORS: Prachi Bhuchar, Uday Mahurkar, Manisha Saroop
Hyderabad: Amarnath K. Menon
SENIOR EDITORS: Shweta Punj, Sasi Nair
Jaipur: Rohit Parihar
SENIOR ASSOCIATE EDITORS: Kaushik Deka, Ashish Mukherjee
Mumbai: Suhani Singh, Kiran Dinkar Tare; patna: Amitabh Srivastava
ASSOCIATE EDITORS: Shougat Dasgupta, Chinki Sinha
Kolkata: Romita Sengupta; Bhopal: Rahul Noronha;
Thiruvananthapuram: Jeemon Jacob
ASSISTANT EDITOR: Zinnia Ray Chaudhuri
pune: Aditi S. Pai
PHOTO DEPARTMENT: Vikram Sharma (Deputy Photo Editor),
Rajwant Singh Rawat, Yasir Iqbal (Principal Photographers),
Chandra Deep Kumar (Senior Photographer); Mumbai: Mandar Suresh
Deodhar (Chief Photographer), Danesh Adil Jassawala (Photographer);
Kolkata: Subir Halder (Principal Photographer);
Chennai: N.G. Jaison (Senior Photographer)
PHOTO RESEARCHERS: Prabhakar Tiwari (Chief Photo Researcher),
Saloni Vaid (Principal Photo Researcher),
Shubhrojit Brahma (Senior Photo Researcher)
CHIEF OF GRAPHICS: Tanmoy Chakraborty
ART DEPARTMENT: Sanjay Piplani (Senior Art Director);
Angshuman De (Art Director); Devajit Bora (Deputy Art Director);
Vikas Verma (Associate Art Director);
Bhoomesh Dutt Sharma (Senior Designer)
Siddhant Jumde (Senior Illustrator)
PRODUCTION DEPARTMENT: Harish Agarwal (Chief of Production),
Naveen Gupta (Chief Coordinator),
Vijay Kumar Sharma (Senior Coordinator)
CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER: Manoj Sharma
ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER: Anil Fernandes (Impact)
IMPACT TEAM
Senior General Manager: Jitendra Lad (West)
General Manager: Mayur Rastogi (North),
Upendra Singh (Bangalore),
Kaushiky Gangulie (East)
GROUP CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER: Vivek Malhotra
Head of Marketing: Preetha Athrey
SALES AND OPERATIONS: D.V.S. Rama Rao, Chief General Manager
Deepak Bhatt, General Manager (National Sales)
Vipin Bagga, Deputy General Manager (Operations)
Rajeev Gandhi, Regional Sales Manager (North)
Volume XLIV Number 38; For the week
September 17-23, 2019, published on every Friday
Editorial/Corporate Office Living Media India Ltd., India Today Group Mediaplex,
FC-8, Sector-16A, Film City, Noida - 201301; Phone: 0120-4807100
l Subscriptions: For assistance contact Customer Care India Today Group, C-9,
Sector-10, Noida (UP)-201301; Phones: Toll-free number: 1800 1800 100 (from
BSNL/MTNL lines); (95120) 2479900 from Delhi and Faridabad; (0120) 2479900
from Rest of India (Monday-Friday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.); Fax: (0120) 4078080;
Mumbai: 022-66063411/3412, Kolkata: 033-40525327, Chennai: 044-24303200;
e-mail: wecare@intoday.com
l Sales: Direct all trade enquiries to General Manager (Sales), Living Media India
Limited, C-9, Sector-10, Noida-201301 (UP)
l Regd. Office: K-9 Connaught Circus, New Delhi-110001
l Impact Offices: 1201, 12th Floor, Tower 2 A, One Indiabulls Centre, (Jupiter
Mills), S.B. Marg, Lower Parel (West), Mumbai-400013; Phone: 66063355;
Fax: 66063226 l E-1, Ground Floor, Videocon Towers, Jhandewalan Extn,
New Delhi l Guna Complex, 5th Floor, Main Building, No.443, Anna Salai,
Chennai-600018; Phone: 2847 8525 l 201-204 Richmond Towers, 2nd Floor,
12, Richmond Road, Bangalore-560025; Phones: 22212448, 22213037,
22218343; Fax: 22218335; l 52, Jawaharlal Nehru Road, 4th Floor,
Kolkata-700071; Phones: 22825398; Fax: 22827254; l 6-3-885/7/B, Somajiguda,
Hyderabad-500082; Phone: 23401657, 23400479, 23410100, 23402481,
23410982, 23411498; Fax: 23403484 l 39/1045, Karakkatt Road, Kochi 682016;
Phones: 2377057, 2377058 ; Fax: 2377059 l 2/C, “Suryarath Bldg”, 2nd Floor,
Behind White House, Panchwati, Office C.G. Road, Ahmedabad-380006; Phone:
26560393, 26560929; Fax: 26565293 l Copyright Living Media India Ltd. All
rights reserved throughout the world. Reproduction in any manner is prohibited.
l
Printed and published by Manoj Sharma on behalf of Living Media
India Limited. Printed at Thomson Press India Limited,
18-35 Milestone, Delhi Mathura Road, Faridabad-121007, (Haryana)
and at A-9, Industrial Complex, Maraimalai Nagar, District
Kancheepuram-603209, (Tamil Nadu). Published at K-9, Connaught
Circus, New Delhi-110001. Editor: Raj Chengappa.
l india today does not take the responsibility for returning unsolicited
publication material.
All disputes are subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of
competent courts and forums in Delhi/New Delhi only
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
S
pace is hard,” NASA tweeted
It’s not just the presence of valuhours after its Indian counterable metals on the moon’s regolith but
part ISRO’s Chandrayaan 2
also the discovery of frozen water in
mission ended in disappointthe permanently shadowed craters of
ment and it lost radio contact with the
the moon’s dark side which could be
Vikram lander. The spacecraft is now
significant discoveries. This is because
believed to have suffered a hard landing
water on the moon could make human
on the Moon.
habitation in lunar colonies a reality in
NASA’s words of encouragement
the not-so-distant future. It could also
commending ISRO’s attempt are
be harnessed to make rocket fuel and
significant. No other agency knows
launch expeditions into deep space from
how hard space is—multiple tragedies
the moon, at a significantly lower cost
have not deterred the US space agency
than the terrestrial launches.
from its motto of exploring space ‘for
Our cover story, ‘What Went Wrong
the benefit of all’. It is also
with Vikram’, has been put
an acknowledgement of
together by Group EditoISRO’s commendable efrial Director (Publishing)
forts to catch up with the
Raj Chengappa, who has
US, Russia and China, the
tracked India’s space probig boys of the space club.
gramme for four decades.
Over the past decade, ISRO
Chengappa spoke to his
has sent probes to Mars and
sources to give us a comperfected the GSLV Mark
prehensive account of the
III launch vehicle that can
final moments of Vikram
carry a four-tonne satellite
and what went wrong.
into the Earth’s orbit.
It must be remembered,
Indeed, rarely has scihowever, that ChandrayOur Jul. 3, 2000 cover
ence captured the popular
aan is only one of several
imagination in India as it
inter-planetary missions
did in the early hours of
planned by ISRO. The
September 7 as millions of
space agency is working on
Indians tuned in to watch
missions to study the Sun,
the final leg of ChandrayVenus, Mars and possibly a
aan 2’s journey to the
Chandrayaan 3 mission. By
moon. India’s space proDecember 2021, it hopes
gramme has been a source
to accomplish what could
of national pride, and justibe our greatest scientific
fiably so. Chandrayaan 2 atachievement—injecting
tempted to make India the
three Indian astronauts
Our Nov. 3, 2008 cover
first country to land a misinto Earth’s orbit on an
sion on the moon’s remote,
Indian rocket.
unexplored South Pole and
I must confess I was
unlock its secrets. It had to contend
sceptical when India’s lunar ambiwith the fact that lunar soft landings
tions were first disclosed 19 years ago.
have to deal with very high failure rates, I thought it was a case of misplaced
the reason only three countries—the US, priorities for a poor nation. I now realise
the erstwhile USSR and China—have
the cost is not so much given the size
achieved them. ISRO has mastered
of our economy, and the benefits are
several critical technologies in this
many. Besides the technical spin-offs for
mission, including detaching the orbiter Indian industry, we have a world-class
and lander and firing the four rockets in organisation in ISRO despite it being a
the descent phase. It experienced failure government agency. We even celebrate
only on the final lap and, even here, the
its setbacks. Space may be hard, but it
failure of the Vikram lander and the Prgalvanises a nation. These are things
agyaan rover must not obscure the fact
money can’t buy.
that they comprised only 30 per cent of
the mission. Chandrayaan 2 remains
in lunar orbit. Its eight instruments are
still ticking and sending valuable data
about the surface of the moon back to
(Aroon Purie)
ISRO’s earth stations.
SE P T E M BE R 2 3 , 2 019
INDIA TODAY
1
UPFRONT
PAK’S DESPERATE
DIPLOMACY PG 3
RAKHIGARHI:
BURYING THE
LEDE PG 4
INSIDE
LEISURE
RUSHDIE’S
AMERICANA PG 63
Q&A WITH
ANUJA CHAUHAN
PG 70
Presenting India Today Insight
For sharp analysis on topical issues by
the editors of india today, log on to www.
indiatoday.in/india-today-magazine-insight
WITH AN ANTI-NRC RIPOSTE,
MAMATA LOOKS TO STRIKE
AT THE BJP’S HEART
by Romita Datta
A resolution
against holding
a National Register of Citizens
exercise in West
Bengal is passed
in the state legislative assembly,
while neighbouring Assam is on
the boil over the
issue
http://bit.ly/2kdHfxk
C OV E R S T O RY
I N T E RV I E W
44
‘BJP WILL RULE
INDIA FOR THE
NEXT 50 YEARS’
An exclusive interview with Yogi
Adityanath as he completes two and
a half years as chief minister
18
by Amarnath K. Menon
VIKRAM
FAILED
Chandrayaan 2: The inside
story of what went wrong
with the precision moon
landing, planned to a nicety
29
Beyond Chandrayaan 2:
ISRO has no time to pause
N AT I O N
A GLASS
HALF FULL
As the Narendra Modi-led
government completes 100 days of
its second term, an in-depth sectoral
analysis of what has been achieved
and what remains to be done
Cover illustration by NILANJAN DAS
A host of important missions to the Sun,
Venus and Mars, and a manned space
mission in the next two years means
ISRO has no time to pause
http://bit.ly/2k76EbO
Why the Indian Army is
closely watching the LoC
by Sandeep Unnithan
The post-Balakot term break over,
militants are back at their launchpads.
Now, more than ever, they have the
potential to spark an Indo-Pak conflict
http://bit.ly/2lNyJ8o
Kerala’s man-made disaster
by Jeemon Jacob
Unchecked mining and the soil piping
phenomenon has resulted in landslides
and floods in the state. It is crucial
for people and institutions to swiftly
embrace an environment-friendly
approach to avoid another disaster
http://bit.ly/2kCPVxo
Readers are recommended to make appropriate enquiries before sending money, incurring expenses or
entering into commitments in relation to any advertisement appearing in this publication. The India Today
Group does not vouch for any claims made by the advertisers of products and services. The printer,
publisher, editor-in-chief and the editor of the India Today Group publications shall not be held liable for
any consequences in the event of such claims not being honoured by the advertisers.
FOR SUBSCRIPTION ASSISTANCE, CONTACT: Customer Care,
India Today Group, C-9, Sector-10, Noida (Uttar Pradesh)-201301.
Phones: 2479900 from Noida, 95120-2479900 from Delhi and
Faridabad, and 0120-2479900 from Rest of India. Toll Free No.:
1800 1800 100. Fax: 0120-4078080. E-mail: wecare@intoday.com
E-MAIL
to:
letters.editor@intoday.com or
log on to www.indiatoday.in
Is the Surrogacy Bill
regressive? by Chinki Sinha
It excludes single persons, divorcees,
live-in couples, widows, widowers and
gay couples
http://bit.ly/2mamkMf
RAKHIGARHI:
DEAD MEN TELL
TALES PG 4
UPFRONT
DISSENT
AND SEDITION
PG 11
THEATRICS Pakistan PM Imran
Khan with families of dead solidiers on
Defence and Martyrs Day, observed in
Pakistan as Kashmir Solidarity Day
K ASHMIR
PAK’S DESPERATE DIPLOMACY
By Tilak Devasher
T
he constitutional developments
of August 5, which revoked the
special status of Jammu and
Kashmir, effectively demolished the
efficacy of the slogan ‘Kashmir banega
Pakistan’. Not surprisingly, Pakistan is
hitting out wildly, trying to find a suitable narrative and an action plan that
can force India to reverse the decision
and also assure its own people that the
government and the army are doing
something about it.
Pakistan’s focus has been on
diplomacy, peaking at the just-concluded session of the United Nations
Human Rights Council (UNHRC),
where the Pakistani foreign minister
Shah Mahmood Qureshi has led the
charge. It will get another boost at the
forthcoming session of the United
Nations General Assembly (UNGA)
later this month.
Despite this, imperceptibly, Pakistan is also considering the hard-core
terror and military options.
The national security advisor Ajit
Doval told journalists that some 230
terrorists had been spotted across the
LoC; the Indian naval chief warned
that an “underwater wing” of the
Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) was “training people to carry out attacks from
water”; the Southern Army Commander has talked about a possible
terror attack in southern and peninsular India; media reports suggest
that the JeM chief, Masood Azhar,
who had been taken into protective
custody after the February Pulwama
attack, has been secretly released from
custody—the implication being to plan
terror attacks in India; media inputs
also indicate that Pakistan is planning
“big action” in the Sialkot-Jammu and
Rajasthan sectors and that there has
UPFRONT
also been deployment of additional Pakistani troops
along the border near Rajasthan.
These developments have taken place against the
backdrop of Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s
vehement tirade against India, threatening the ‘fullest possible response’ to India’s moves in J&K. The
Pakistani army chief has also chipped in, with the assertion that they were prepared to ‘go till any extent’
and ‘fulfil our duty till the last bullet, last soldiers
and last breath’.
The scale and diversity of the inputs do suggest
that Pakistan, in an act of desperation, is perhaps
trying to resort to its familiar tactics of fomenting
terror in India. The purpose would be two-fold: one,
to reassure its domestic constituency that Pakistan
was retaliating to safeguard its ‘jugular’, as Kashmir
has been referred to; and second, to draw in international intervention to prevent the bilateral situation
from getting out of hand.
This, it hopes, will force
Despite its
India to negotiate and
focus on
reverse the changes.
diplomacy,
Pakistan is clearly
Pakistan is
miscalculating here. As the
Balakot strike showed, Inalso quietly
considering dia is determined to retaliate against any Pakistani
terror and
misadventure at a time
military
and place of its choice.
options
Moreover, Pakistan is currently under the watchful
eye of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), which
will be analysing Pakistan’s performance on a set of
parameters pertaining to Anti-Money Laundering
and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/
CFT). Its affiliate, the Asia Pacific Group, has already
put Pakistan on an ‘Enhanced Expedited Follow-Up
List’ for failing to meet the requisite standards. Any
terror strikes would put Pakistan in grave danger of
being ‘blacklisted’ by the FATF, which would send
shock waves to its already beleaguered economy.
Pakistan also faces a setback with US President
Donald Trump pulling back from a deal with the Taliban, which would eventually have led to a reduction
in US troops in Afghanistan and a likely Taliban takeover in Kabul. Pakistan was hoping that this would
enable them to relocate ‘strategic assets’ towards
India. This plan has been stymied, for the moment.
Despite this, Pakistan is known to be irrational when it comes to India. In the coming days and
weeks, this is something the Indian security establishment will have to guard against. n
Tilak Devasher is Member, National Security
Advisory Board
4
INDIA TODAY
SE P T E M BE R 2 3 , 2 019
R A K HIGA R HI
BURYING
THE LEDE
By Kai Friese
T
he enduring mystery of the Indus
Valley Civilisation
(IVC) just became
a little less mysterious last
week. Or did it? The carefully coordinated nearsimultaneous release of
two long-awaited papers,
analysing the DNA of
ancient Harappans (and
others), offers complex
answers to the questions
of who these people were,
where they came from,
what became of them
and how they relate to
the citizens of India today
(NRC-certified or not).
Despite the admirable
clarity of both papers, it
was only a matter of hours
before they were being
bowdlerised in the media
and, of course, social
media to suggest diametrically opposed conclusions.
But history, they say,
repeats itself. In this case,
the contradictory narratives surrounding the
two research papers in
question had already been
extensively aired. Recent
years have witnessed
a raucous dispute between a Hindutva-inflected
indigenist position, which
WHAT THE NEW
STUDIES SUGGEST
 DNA analysis of the female
skeleton I 6614 from Rakhigarhi
(pictured left) reveals ancestry
related to Andamanese tribes
and ancient Iranians
 Rakhigarhi DNA closely
matches 11 ‘Indus Periphery’
skeletons found in ancient sites
in Iran and Turkmenistan that
traded with Indus Valley
 These 12 samples suggest
that the Indus Valley Civilisation preceded the arrival of
mostly male migrants from the
Steppe, who introduced IndoEuropean languages such as
Vedic Sanskrit to India
 Harappans probably spoke
a Dravidian language
©VASANT SHINDE/DCPGRI
maintains that the Harappan civilisation was itself
‘Vedic’, and an emerging
scientific consensus that
South Asia and Northern
Europe were both impacted
by bronze-age migrations
of pastoralists from the
Eurasian steppe—and that
in India this was an event
associated with the end of
the Harappan civilisation
and the advent of a Vedic
culture and associated
Indo-European languages
such as Sanskrit. This has
been a politically charged
issue, particularly since the
BJP came to power in 2014,
with ministerial pressure
and patronage allegedly
exercised to promote the
indigenist narrative. These
dynamics also provoked
considerable speculation
over the fate of the project
to extract Harappan DNA
from the ancient site of
Rakhigarhi. Last March, a
team of researchers, led by
the geneticist David Reich at
Harvard University, seemed
to anticipate the results of
the Rakhigarhi project led
by the archaeologist Vasant
Shinde of Deccan College:
the Reich team put out an
online ‘pre-print’ of a study
that identified the bodies
of several individuals from
non-IVC archaeological
sites in Iran and Turkmenistan as ‘outliers’, with
origins in the Harappan
civilisation. Now, more than
a year later, the Rakhigarhi
paper (Shinde et al) and the
Harvard paper ( V. Narasimhan et al) have finally been
officially released in scientific journals in a carefully
choreographed exercise
of academic cooperation,
with researchers from each
team appearing as co-authors on the others’ paper.
To be sure, there is
much in the two studies
that should excite scholars
and lay enthusiasts without
stoking the bonfires of Indian identity politics. Shinde
et al finds that the IVC population modelled on the samples in both studies derived
from a combination of ‘tribal
southern Indians’ related to
the Andamanese huntergatherers of today and an
ancestry that branched off
from the lineage of ancient
Iranians some 12,000 years
ago. This contradicts earlier
theories that suggested a
more recent connection to
early Iranian agriculturists
and raises the possibility
that farming began in northwestern India without direct
contact with the ‘fertile
crescent’ of West Asia. Both
papers also affirmed that
IVC ancestry continues to
thrive in the subcontinent
as the most significant
component in the genomes
of modern Indians.
At a recent press conference in New Delhi, Shinde
did his best to dwell on this
point and the ‘pride’ Indians
should feel at this ancient
continuity. “The Indian gene
has not been replaced,” he
said. But Shinde seemed
at pains to obscure what
was arguably the headline
of greatest interest to the
Indian public: that the significant Steppe ancestry of
modern Indians is absent in
the IVC and must indeed be
The findings of
the two papers
have been
bowdlerised in
the social media
to suggest the
opposite of what
they say
the consequence of a largescale movement of IndoEuropean- (or ‘Indo-Aryan-’)
speaking people into South
Asia after the decline of the
IVC in the 2nd millennium
BCE. Instead, the veteran
archaeologist chose to bury
the lede in a series of peculiar assertions that were
not reflected in either of the
papers he had co-authored.
“At no stage do we find the
introduction of foreign cultural traditions into India,”
he offered, and his press
release went so far as to
claim that “our premise that
the Harappans were the
Vedic people thus has received strong corroborative
scientific evidence based on
ancient DNA studies”.
While these statements
are difficult to square with
the text of the two studies in question, they were
enthusiastically received in
Hindutva-indigenist circles
and have provoked confusing and misleading messaging in the media. Thus
while Shinde et al attests
that “a natural route for
Indo-European languages
to have spread into South
Asia is from Eastern Europe
via Central Asia in the first
half of the 2nd millennium
BC, a chain of transmission
now documented in detail
with ancient DNA,” Shinde
in the Economic Times pronounced that “there was no
Aryan invasion and no Aryan
migration”. Despite the consternation such statements
may provoke among people
who have actually read
the two papers, perhaps
some admiration is in order.
Doublespeak may well be an
effective strategy for scholars engaged in politically
sensitive research in India. n
UPFRONT
BOOKS
PLUNDERERS EXPOSED
By Ashok V. Desai
I
t is difficult to describe William
Dalrymple. He does not write fiction, but his books are as readable
as fiction. He is not a historian
as historians understand their craft:
he does not plumb obscure sources to
modify marginally the picture of the
past that historians have built up. But
most of his books are about the past.
Indologists would not recognise him as
one of their tribe; among his best books
is one on Byzantium, and he has also
ventured into Afghan history. But he is
one of the most entertaining writers in
our part of the world and he brings to it
his own, unique point of view.
This book is unlike his others in
two respects. One, it exudes outrage.
Dalrymple’s love of India is reflected in
his writings, but it is subdued enough
for his books to pass as historical travelogues. This is the first book in which
he is engaged. As the title suggests,
he regards the East India Company
as a predator; this is a story of how it
vanquished the Mughal Empire and
looted India, and how it then faded
away when the British parliament woke
up to its misrule. Two, the source work
of this book is much wider. Dalrymple
has delved into archives in Exeter,
Chambèry, Edinburgh, Pasadena, Lahore and other places to find obscure
material; over 400 sources and 1,000
footnotes give an idea of his labours.
But, it is not a labour of love; it is more
a work of passion. And it is a serious
historical study.
The book begins with the voyage of
Sir Thomas Roe. He brought presents
including a stage coach, a virginal (a
musical instrument like a harpsichord),
mastiffs and greyhounds, mannerist
paintings and crates of red wine and
expected that Emperor Jahangir would
fall for them and grant him permission
to trade. Jahangir was pleasant and
16
INDIA TODAY
SE P T E M BE R 2 3 , 2 019
THE ANARCHY
The East India Company,
Corporate Violence, and the
Pillage of an Empire
by William Dalrymple
BLOOMSBURY
` 699; 576 pages
Jahangir made
Sir Thomas Roe
wait three years for
permission
to trade. Some
would wish Roe had
waited forever
curious about the English, but he made
Roe wait three years for permission.
Some would wish he had waited forever.
It goes in some detail into the
career of Robert Clive, an incompetent young man sent to India by his
father as a writer. He made a fortune,
returned to England to bribe his way
into parliament, lost the fortune, failed
and had to return to India to make a
second fortune. Dalrymple describes
in detail the contretemps between
Siraj-ud-daulah, the Mughal governor
of Bengal, and Clive, which led to the
battle of Plassey and the beginning of
Company rule in India. It was Clive
who established the company in Bengal. Later in life, he was charged with
corruption, and though he was cleared
by parliament, he could not bear the
disrepute and committed suicide.
Shah Alam, the Mughal emperor,
was painfully aware of the Company’s
sinister plans and tried through the
second half of the eighteenth century
to thwart it. Shah Shuja, his nobleman, fought and lost two battles
against the Company in Patna and
Buxar; his defeat sealed the fate of the
Mughal Empire. Shah Alam turned to
the Marathas for support; their defeat
by the Company in Assaye and Aligarh
sealed his dynasty’s fate. These, for me,
were the book’s highlights; it goes on
to cover the rest of the Company’s history up to 1803.
This is history well told. But history is not just a sequence of events
and the fracas of fighters. Technology
matters: the British won battle after
battle with a very small number of
soldiers. Maybe they were supernatural; more likely, their guns and powder
were better. Money matters: India’s
prosperity in the 16th and 17th centuries had much to do with the bullion
the Spaniards found in Latin America
which multiplied European demand
for Indian spices and textiles, and its
decline may have something to do with
the end of the bullion bonanza. And
organisation matters: the Company
brought to India an economical organisation unlike the chaotic structure
of Indian kingdoms. Dalrymple has
proved his prowess as a historian, I
hope he will broaden his variables to
bring in the impersonal in history. n
The reviewer is a former
chief economic advisor
C H AT T E R
UPFRONT
The week in social media
@ShougatDasgupta
Hindu
Persecution
Complex?
Vikram Chandra’s
blockbuster Mumbai
novel Sacred Games
was published over a
decade ago. Its Netflix adaptation, the first original Indian content made for the international streaming service, premiered
over a year ago. Ramesh Solanki—“A Very Proud Hindu Nationalist”, according to his Twitter bio—took offence earlier this
month and filed a police complaint. Chief among Solanki’s accusations is that the Netflix series “shows Hindus responsible
for all crimes happening in the world”. This nonsense would be
funny if so many people, including Hindu supremacist organisations (among Solanki’s affiliations listed on Twitter is his membership of the “Shiv Sena IT Cell Core Committee”), didn’t make
#BanNetflixIndia trend on Twitter. Among the targets of Solanki
and his supporters’ ire is the Deepa Mehta-directed series
Leila. Albeit set in a fictional country in 2047—not coincidentally,
of course, a century after Indian independence—Leila, as with
the Netflix horror film Ghoul, has struck so close to the bone
that even supporters of Hindutva might decry the resonances
with contemporary India but cannot deny them. Hasan Minhaj,
a politically-inclined American stand-up comic, has also made
sensitive Hindus angry with his noting, “among a vocal minority”, of “a resurgence in religious nationalism, specifically Hindu
nationalism”. Well, if the shoe fits. When the national agenda
is indistinguishable from the Hindutva agenda, when we talk
about our country in Hindutva-inspired language, when our
popular culture and our sporting and scientific achievements
are all reflected through Hindutva-driven patriotism, which
sets the terms in which we now talk about our country, what is
so scary about a handful of productions that ask questions of
the status quo? n
The Chandrayaan 2 Obsession
India’s space programme has won plaudits across the world.
In India itself, though, the programme is not merely admired
or celebrated but has become a national obsession. Figures
released by a market research firm show that for several
days the top three trending
hashtags on Indian Twitter
were #Chandrayaan2,
#VikramLander, and #ISRO.
After contact was lost with
the lander, of tens of thousands of tweets, only three
per cent were negative. Any
ambivalence about the nature of our euphoria over the mission expressed online garners
either scorn, or the very common accusation of being a Pakistani agent. Naturally, on both social and mainstream media,
our obsession with Pakistan still overshadows our newfound
fascination with the intricacies of space exploration. n
INDEX
Bank Frauds, Big
and Small
A recent response to an RTI request revealed that public sector banks, in the first quarter of this financial
year alone, lost nearly Rs 32,000 crore through 3,000
cases of fraud. This, after a record-breaking
Rs 71,500 crore worth of fraud was reported in
FY19. The finance ministry has claimed to be turning around the situation with non-performing assets,
and announced unprecedented rates of loan recovery.
Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, earlier this
month, announced the mergers of several state-owned
banks in a bid to create larger, stronger, more stable
banks. But, in a sluggish economy, with the slowest
growth in six years, the mergers may dampen credit
activity and get in the way of an economic revival.
We’ll also have to wait and see if larger banks have
better mechanisms to cope with frauds and bad loans.
`31,898.63
1,197
Worth of scams
perpetrated on public
sector banks in the first
quarter of FY20, said
the RBI. Nature of fraud
unrevealed but 2,480 cases
have affected 18 PSBs
Of these cases, 48.3%
of total, affected State
Bank of India, worth
`12,012.8 crore. SBI
sought 147 lookout
circulars for fraudsters
between April and
August this year
CRORE
PU LLQUOTE
“I want to specify that Article 370
and Article 371 have only one
similarity and that is they come after
one another—that’s it. Article 370
was temporary, but Article 371 is a
special provision. It is a right of the
Northeast and no one can touch
it... When we bring the Citizenship
(Amendment) Bill, the laws that
you have to protect your community
and cultural identity will
remain intact.”
`2,855.46
`17.9
12
Worth of fraud detected
by the Allahabad Bank in
381 cases, second only
to SBI. And followed by
Punjab National Bank
reporting `2,526.55
crore from 99 cases
of fraud
In total business of
the newly merged
PNB, Oriental Bank
of Commerce
and United Bank,
making it the
second largest
PSB
PSBs in India,
down from 27 in
2017. Mergers
earlier this month
reduced 10 PSBs
to 4: the 2nd,
4th, 5th and 7th
largest PSBs in the
country
`71,542.93
53,334
`89,189
Worth of fraud
reported in 6,801 cases
of fraud in FY19, said
RBI. An unprecedented
amount, up from
`41,167 crore from
5,916 cases reported
in FY18
Frauds, worth ₹2.05
lakh crore, reported
from FY09 to FY19:
PNB (`28,701 crore,
2,047 cases); SBI
(`23,735 crore,
6,793 cases); ICICI
(`5,034 crore, 6,811
cases)
Decline in NPAs
affecting PSBs, from
`8,95,601 crore in
March 2018 to `8,06,412
crore in March 2019,
said finance minister
Nirmala Sitharaman in
the Rajya Sabha
CRORE
CRORE
LAKH CRORE
CRORE
Illustration by TANMOY CHAKRABORTY
Home minister AMIT SHAH,
addressing a conclave in Assam,
on September 9, of the BJP and its
regional allies, promised that while
the special status of Jammu and
Kashmir outlined in Article 370 of the
Constitution had been revoked without
consultation, the special status of
Northeastern states as outlined in
various amendments to Article 371 was
safe under this government. Concern
was expressed by Meghalaya chief
minister Conrad Sangma that the
Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, which
Shah has said will be reintroduced, will
enable continued illegal non-Muslim
immigration from Bangladesh and alter
the demography of the Northeast.
Given the unexpected outcome of
the newly finalised National Register
of Citizens in Assam, that concern is
perhaps not hard to understand.
CHANDRADEEP KUMAR
UPFRONT
Pawar Loss
Illustration by SIDDHANT JUMDE
S
GL ASSHOUSE
A BALANCING ACT
harad Pawar’s Nationalist
Congress Party is in disarray
ahead of the Maharashtra
assembly election, with Maratha
and Other Backward Class
leaders quitting in droves.
OBC faces Jaidutt Kshirsagar,
Sachin Ahir, Avdhoot Tatkare
and Ganesh Naik and Maratha
leaders Rana Jagjitsinh,
Dhananjay Mahadik and Bhaskar
Jadhav have joined the Shiv
Sena or the BJP. Had the BJP
allowed every defector in, Amit
Shah joked at a recent rally in the
state, only Pawar would have
been left in the NCP. An angry
Pawar threatened to walk out—of
his own press conference—after
a journalist asked him why his
relatives were leaving the party.
F
inance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has held a series of press briefings lately
to announce measures to bring relief to the economy. The conferences have
a secondary aim—to dispel the widespread notion in industry that the Prime
Minister’s Office calls the shots in her ministry. That’s not quite true, we’re led to
believe. The PMO was apparently not in the loop about the enhanced surcharge on
foreign portfolio investors announced in the budget. Even after the finance minister
announced the withdrawal of the additional surcharge on August 24, FPIs continued
to withdraw money. Around Rs 1,000 crore had been pulled out by September 5.
Under Sitharaman, the finance ministry also leans less on the PMO-favourite NITI
Aayog than it did under her predecessor Arun Jaitley.
NARCO ON THE PROWL
I
PS officer and former CBI special director
Rakesh Asthana took over as director
general, Narcotics Control Bureau, without
much fanfare. But the Gujarat cadre officer’s
name cropped up in home minister Amit
Shah’s informal interaction with Northeast
CMs and politicians in Guwahati. Urging the
CMs to crack down on drug deals in the
region, Shah gave
them three months to
identify and dissuade
politicians involved in
these deals. Asthana,
he told them, would
soon start making
regular trips.
IANS
Patel Rap
P
ower within the
Congress is back with
Sonia Gandhi confidant
Ahmed Patel. Rahul Gandhi
loyalists, such as Ashok Tanwar, Navjot
Singh Sidhu, Rajeev Satav, Gaurav
Gogoi, Deepak Babaria, Avinash
Pandey, Raj Babbar and Ajoy Kumar,
now face uncertain prospects. The
worst off, though, is communications
head Randeep Singh Surjewala. Party
veterans upset over his rise under Rahul
are baying for his blood; his equation
with Patel wasn’t good either. Which is
why he has immersed himself in work in
his constituency for the Haryana poll.
ANI
UNHOLY ROW
T
elangana chief minister
K. Chandrashekar Rao
is spending Rs 1,200 crore
to develop the largest temple
in his state at Yadadri to rival
Andhra Pradesh’s Tirumala.
The renovation, however,
sparked off a major row when
the CM’s likeness appeared on
one of the temple’s stone pillars.
Political rivals objected saying
only gods could grace temple
pillars, and warned of protests.
Project managers, who swiftly
removed the carvings, blamed
it on enthusiastic sculptors
acting ‘out of love for KCR’.
—Sandeep Unnithan with Shwweta Punj, Kaushik Deka, Amarnath K. Menon and Kiran D. Tare
UPFRONT
POINT OF V IEW
DISSENT AND SEDITION
By Sanjay Hegde
S
“Criticism of
the executive,
judiciary,
bureaucracy
or the armed
forces cannot
be termed
sedition. If we
stifle criticism,
India shall
become a
police state”
—Deepak Gupta
Supreme Court Justice
hehla Rashid, JNU student leader and
aspiring politician from Kashmir, is the
latest target of the sedition law. Her tweets
on alleged army excesses in Kashmir prompted
Supreme Court lawyer Alakh Alok Srivastava to
file a complaint with the Delhi Police. Given that
the complaint cites a cognisable offence under
the Indian Penal Code, Rashid risks arrest for
speaking her mind on Twitter. In another, followup tweet, the combative Rashid says: ‘Tell me
that it is not a democracy anymore, and I promise
that I won’t criticise the government’s actions.’
Just a day earlier, on September 7, Justice
Deepak Gupta of the Supreme Court said in a
public lecture: “Criticism of the executive, the
judiciary, the bureaucracy or the armed forces
cannot be termed sedition. In case we attempt
to stifle criticism of the institutions, whether it
be the legislature, the executive or the judiciary
or other bodies of the state, we shall become a
police state instead of a democracy, and this, the
founding fathers never expected this country
to be.” He added, “I think our country, our
Constitution and our national emblems are
strong enough to stand on their own [feet]
without the aid of the law of sedition”.
Sedition, as a crime, is easy to allege, hard
to prosecute and almost certain to not end
in conviction. Sedition acquired its criminal
definition in Elizabethan England, as a crime
short of treason but as a ‘notion of inciting by
words or writings disaffection towards the state
or constituted authority’. In 1870, it found its way
into the Indian Penal Code, 1860—as Section
124A. British India then faced an incipient
Wahabi threat. Subsequently, it proved to be
a useful tool for the colonial administration to
keep order among ‘restive natives’. The section
was used, on different occasions, to convict Bal
Gangadhar Tilak and Gandhi.
Doubts arose about the constitutionality
of the sedition law after the Constitution of
India, in 1950, guaranteed freedom of speech
as a fundamental right. While piloting the
first amendment to the Constitution—which
imposed ‘reasonable restrictions’ on free
speech—Jawaharlal Nehru said: “So far as I am
concerned, that particular Section [124A IPC] is
highly objectionable and obnoxious and it should
have no place both for practical and historical
reasons, if you like, in any body of laws we might
pass. The sooner we get rid of it, the better.”
In 1962, a Supreme Court constitution
bench read down the sedition section in Kedar
Nath Singh: “The provisions of the sections
read as a whole, along with the explanations,
make it reasonably clear that the sections aim
at rendering penal only such activities as would
be intended, or have a tendency, to create
disorder or disturbance of public peace by
resort to violence… . It is only when the words,
written or spoken, etc. which [sic] have the
pernicious tendency or intention of creating
public disorder or disturbance of law and order
that the law steps in to prevent such activities
in the interest of public order. So construed,
the section, in our opinion, strikes the correct
balance between individual fundamental rights
and the interest of public order.”
The Supreme Court’s balancing act
has, however, been largely ignored by
administrators. Many a person whose
inconvenient views sparked outrage among
administrators and the police has been
charged under 124A—or Section 153A or 295A
(penalising insults based on religious or other
identities). The threat of life imprisonment after
trial, or even some imprisonment before bail,
has a chilling effect on free speech, and would
deter all but the most obdurate dissenter.
However, most prosecutions under 124A
are withdrawn or fail legal scrutiny in a higher
court. Rashid is only the latest target of a harsh
law, sought to be applied selectively, with no
real prospect of a final conviction. A similar case
against her university compatriot, Kanhaiya
Kumar, has not taken off after the Delhi
government refused to sanction the prosecution.
The obsolete, colonial-era sedition law,
abandoned even in its country of origin, needs
to be jettisoned. It can scarcely be used to
suppress the voice of a millennial generation
raised in the internet age. n
Sanjay Hegde is a designated senior advocate
of the Supreme Court
Illustration by TANMOY CHAKRABORTY
KARNATAKA:
Q&A WITH B.S.
YEDIYURAPPA PG 1 4
STATES
CHHATTISGARH:
THE DANTEWADA
TEST PG 1 6
Photographs by CHANDRADEEP KUMAR
BIHAR
A TALE
OF TWO
BIHARS
The state is flood- and drought-hit
at the same time, complicating
response and relief
By Amitabh Srivastava
R
ahimbigha, nestled in the
foothills of Khakhaunda Pahad in Bihar, is a picturesque
and mostly peaceful village in
the Nawada district of Bihar. Especially when compared to its Maoism-hit
cousin across the mountains, Koderma
in Jharkhand. But every day, the women of this largely Dalit hamlet have to
make a serpentine pilgrimage across
its barren landscape. They are on their
way to collect water from an abandoned stone quarry as the hand-pump
the government installed in their
village has run dry. This is because the
water table has sunk dramatically after
a poor monsoon. “Our women have to
12
INDIA TODAY
SE P T E M BE R 2 3 , 2 019
TOO MUCH, TOO LITTLE Mahangu Saafi wades through flood waters with a gas
cylinder in Kusheshwar Asthan; a Rahimbigha resident crosses the dry Tilaiya riverbed
TWIN TRAGEDIES
Most of Bihar’s 38 districts grapple with
either floods or drought, or both
133 2.35
13
MILLION
TOTAL
TOLL IN
FLOODS
FAMILIES
AFFECTED BY
FLOODS
24
33
DISTRICTS HIT BY
DROUGHT
West
Champaran
Gopalganj
Flood-affected districts
Drought-affected districts
Flood- and drought-affected districts
Sitamarhi
Madhubani
Siwan
Saran
Muzaffarpur
Vaishali
Buxar Bhojpur
Kaimur Rohtas
%
AGRICULTURE YIELD
DEFICIT
Sheohar
East
Champaran
FLOODAFFECTED
DISTRICTS
Saharsa
Khagaria
Begusarai
Patna
Gaya
Araria
Kishanganj
Darbhanga
Samastipur
Nalanda
Arwal Jehanabad
Aurangabad
Supaul
Purnia
Katihar
Lakhisarai
Bhagalpur
Munger
Madhepura
Nawada
Jamui
Banka
Sheikhpura
trek twice a day for water. It takes them
an hour,” says Vijay Rajwar, a member
of the village panchayat samiti.
And in a twist of irony, some
225 kilometres away, in Darbhanga
district, the 300-odd inhabitants of
Kusheshwar Asthan are forced to wade
through waist-high water in the wake
of a flood that is playing havoc with
their homes and belongings.
Floods have affected as many as
2.35 million families this year, across
13 districts of the state, killing 133
people. Simultaneously, 24 districts in
Bihar have been identified as droughthit. Four of these districts—Muzaffarpur, Darbhanga, Madhubani and
Sitamarhi—have been declared both
flood- and drought-hit. In fact, in
November last year, Kusheshwar
Asthan was among the blocks declared
drought-affected by the state disaster
management department.
“It is ironic, but not strange,” says a
senior official in Darbhanga. “Different
blocks of a district may have different
problems at different times of the year.
But, yes, our water resources engineers
certainly need to manage the situation
better than they have done so far.”
The river Ganga cuts across the
middle of the state, with the Himalayan rivers feeding the north Bihar
plains, and the central Indian rivers,
the south Bihar plains. As the rivers
Ghaghra, Gandak, Bagmati, Kosi,
Kamala, Mahananda and others make
their way down from Nepal in frequently changing channels, the north
Bihar plain, located less than 250
feet above sea level, becomes prone to
flooding. Increasing deforestation has
also led to the denudation of vegetation
cover in the catchment areas of Nepal,
loading the rivers with more silt. The
bed slope of these rivers also drops suddenly as they enter Bihar, forcing them
to deposit the silt they carry. The state’s
demands for a dam and reservoir remain unmet. The Saptakosi high dam
project in Nepal, for instance, has run
into various hurdles over compensation and resettlement.
The south Bihar plains, on the other
hand, have, with the exception of the
Son, smaller rivers. Mainly darkish
clay or poor sandy soils characterise
this region. The land is usually parched
with relatively low average rainfall of
1,102 mm, compared with 1,235 mm
and 1,382 mm in the northwestern and
northeastern zones. Irrigation infrastructure is also inadequate. While the
state’s agriculture is mainly rain-fed,
and particularly dependent on the
southwestern monsoon, only 57 per cent
of the state’s cultivated area is irrigated.
The erratic rainfall, frequent floods
and drought collectively play havoc
with crop production cycles, with the
agriculture yield deficit reaching 33
per cent. The cost of natural calamities
in the state is mounting steadily. If the
state disaster management department spent Rs 85 crore in 2015-16, the
amount went up to a staggering Rs
1,569 crore in 2016-17. This year, the
state had already spent over Rs 200
crore till August. Ex gratia payments
of Rs 4 lakh have been announced for
the families of the deceased; flood-affected families will get Rs 6,000 each.
Drought compensation has been fixed
SE P T E M BE R 2 3 , 2 019
INDIA TODAY
13
STATES
at Rs 6,800 per hectare for rain-fed agriculture and Rs 13,500 for irrigation-supported
agriculture. At a review meeting last month,
chief minister Nitish Kumar told district
magistrates to prepare a panchayat-wise
status report on drought in their jurisdiction
and ensure that farmers got a diesel subsidy.
However, as the senior official in Darbhanga points out, “During floods, the role
of the district administration gets reduced
to relief and resettlement. We run community kitchens and pat ourselves on the backs
for taking good care of our people. But we
need to focus on prevention of floods, and if
not that, then providing a passage to flood
water. The flood
waters stay on for
over a month.”
The state’s
Agriculture Road
Map III, therefore,
KILOMETRES
addresses issues
Network of
of water-logging
embankments
in Bihar’s rainfallthe state water
resources dept has
surplus regions
built in Bihar
and facilitating
water availability
in rainfall-deficit
regions. This is in addition to schemes to
boost climate-resilient agriculture and credit
access, the availability of water for irrigation
and building irrigation structures.
Nitish also has great faith in the interlinking of rivers and the desilting of the
Ganga, Kosi and Gandak rivers. The Centre’s
approval last month for the Rs 4,900 crore
project to inter-link the Kosi and Mechi rivers
has come as a shot in the arm for the state.
The project is expected to prevent recurring
floods in north Bihar, and also irrigate over
214,000 hectares of cultivable land in Araria,
Purnea, Kishanganj and Katihar districts.
All this is of little consolation right now
to Ramanand Jha, a trader in Orgama
village in Darbhanga, who lost 700 bags of
cement after his hardware shop caved in due
to floods. “This was my rozi-roti,” he says. “I
lost more than Rs 3 lakh.”
Some 200 km away, in Sarkatia village of
Nawada district, sexagenarian Kailash Yadav
can be seen crossing the dry Tilaiya riverbed
on foot, a water pitcher strapped to his cycle.
The load is too precious for Yadav to ride the
cycle himself. Life goes on in the two Bihars. n
3,800
14
INDIA TODAY
SE P T E M BE R 2 3 , 2 019
K A R N ATA K A
‘FARMER
WELFARE
IS TOP
PRIORITY’
B.S. Yediyurappa, the
new Karnataka chief
minister, took over to
helm a BJP government
on July 26 after the fall
of the Congress-Janata
Dal (Secular) coalition.
With a thin majority to
defend, a flood crisis in
the state and thee deputy
CMs crowding his turf,
his task is by no means
easy. The fourth-time
chief minister talks to
Group Editorial Director
Raj Chengappa about his
plans. Excerpts:
Q. With just 105 seats (in a 225
strong house; 17 opposition
MLAs who crossed over have
been disqualified), you are left
with a wafer-thin majority.
Aren’t you worried about the
government’s survival?
Not at all. The opposition
Congress-JD(S) coalition will not
last. I don’t think there will be
any problem for us in the remaining 3.5 years of this assembly.
Q. Are you awaiting the Supreme
Court’s ruling on the MLAs’ disqualification? Will the turncoat
MPs now join the BJP ?
I have no idea about that. That has
been left to their individual choice.
Q. How are you so confident that
your government will not fall?
Because the people are happy
about the performance of my government. The previous government was corrupt, there was no
development at all.
Q. You have had three stints as
chief minister before. What do
you want to do differently in your
fourth tenure?
A corruption-free government is
very important.
HEMANT MISHRA
Q. Apart from curbing corruption,
what are your other priorities?
Overall development is key but irrigation projects are our top priority.
Next in line is housing projects,
implementation of GST and
improving Bengaluru apart from
alleviating the suffering of over
100,000 farmers affected by the
floods. After a long time, we have
had severe floods; 125,000 houses
and many roads, bridges have been
“THE CENTRAL
LEADERSHIP
TOOK THE
DECISION ON
THE DEPUTY CMs
TO HELP THE
GOVERNMENT—
AND ME”
affected. We have lost infrastructure worth more than Rs 35,000
crore. A central team has visited
the affected areas and we have
given our report. We are expecting
good support from the Centre.
Q. You have got three deputy chief
ministers and there are rumours
that two more will be appointed.
Are you happy, with so many deputies looking over your shoulder?
There is no problem, these are good
people and they are our supporters.
These leaders are also working day
and night with me.
Q. Why do you feel the need for so
many deputies?
The central leadership has taken
the decision to help the government, and also me, the chief minister.
Q. You will soon be expanding the
cabinet too...
We will expand the cabinet after a
month or so. n
STATES
C H H AT T I S G A R H
ELECTION METRE
DANTEWADA
With the national and state elections going opposite ways, the BJP
and Congress are fighting a pitched battle over a bypoll
VINAY SHARMA
By Rahul Noronha
LOSING BATTLE? Ojaswi Mandavi campaigning in Dantewada
A
fter a lull of a few months,
Chhattisgarh is in election
mode again. A byelection is
due in the Scheduled Tribe
assembly segment of Dantewada on
September 23. The seat fell vacant after
BJP MLA Bhima Mandavi was killed
in an IED explosion by Maoists in
April. He was campaigning for the BJP
Lok Sabha candidate near Nakulnar in
Dantewada district.
The outcome of the byelection is
crucial for both the Congress and the
BJP. While the result will have no
bearing on the Congress government’s
continuation in the state, it will serve
as a referendum of sorts on Bhupesh
Baghel’s nine-month-old government.
It could go some way in assuaging
the humiliating defeat the Congress
suffered in the Lok Sabha election
in May, winning only two of the 11
seats in the state, after an impressive
16
INDIA TODAY
SE P T E M BE R 2 3 , 2 019
show in the assembly election just a few
months before. For the BJP, a victory
could be another shot in the arm after
the general election, and a further
avenging of the dismal performance in
the assembly election, when it won just
15 of the 90 seats in the state assembly;
Dantewada was the only seat the BJP
won of the 12 seats in the Bastar region.
The Congress has bet again on
the late Mahendra Karma’s wife and
former MLA Devati Karma. Karma,
THE CONGRESS IS
BACKING THE LATE
MAHENDRA KARMA’S
WIFE, DEVATI, WHOSE
CHANCES SEEM GOOD
the Congress leader who was killed by
the Maoists in the May 2013 Jeeram
Ghati massacre, was by far the tallest
Congress tribal leader in South Chhattisgarh. Devati had lost to Mandavi in
the assembly poll, but remained the face
of the Congress in Dantewada. She was,
in fact, seen as the de facto MLA after
Mandavi’s death. Indeed, it would be
difficult to find a candidate outside the
Karma family for the Congress, given
that three of the four sons and two of the
five daughters are active in politics. The
Congress has already begun strengthening Devati’s hand, allowing her to claim
credit for work done in the region.
The BJP, on the other hand, has
fielded Mandavi’s widow Ojaswi, in the
hope of capitalising on the sympathy
vote. Once a civil services aspirant,
Ojaswi has education on her side but is
perceived as an outsider—she is originally from Kanker district and doesn’t
speak Gondi, the native tongue of most
tribals in Dantewada. However, the BJP
is counting on public disaffection with
the Karma family, which is perceived to
have cornered many public positions.
The Communist Party of India,
which has some sort of a committed
vote in the seat, has fielded Bhim Sen
and could well be the X factor in the
polls. In the 2018 assembly election,
the CPI candidate had secured about
12,000 votes, the BSP candidates about
6,000 votes, while Devati’s margin of
defeat was about 2,000 votes.
Another bypoll is due at Chitrakoot
in the Bastar region, the dates for which
have not yet been announced. Chitrakoot Congress MLA Deepak Baij has
been elected MP from Kanker. Till then,
September 27 will remain a crucial date
on the state’s political calendar—the day
votes will be counted in Dantewada. n
COVER
STORY
WHAT W
WRONG
WITH
VIKRAM
THE MISHAP TOOK
PLACE DURING A
PROGRAMMED
CHANGEOVER PHASE
OF THE LANDER’S
DESCENT ON THE
MOON—A MANOEUVRE
HITHERTO UNTESTED
BY ISRO AND FRAUGHT
WITH COUNTLESS
POSSIBLE VARIATIONS
By RAJ CHENGAPPA in Bengaluru
WENT
ANI
PHASES
OF MOON
LANDING
T
(Clockwise
from left) ISRO
officials watch
live telecast of
Vikram’s Fine
Braking Phase;
Sivan monitors
final descent of
the lander; the
PM consoling
Sivan
here was plenty riding on Vikram, India’s squat moon lander,
before its precision landing on the lunar surface on September 7 went mysteriously awry. There was Pragyan, the compact rover with Ashoka emblems embossed on its wheels, to
leave a permanent footprint of India’s presence on the moon.
If the lander, which was named after the father of the country’s space programme, Vikram Sarabhai, had succeeded, it
would have been a fitting finale to the 50th anniversary celebrations of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).
It would also have signalled to the world that India had come
of age in space exploration and made the country only the
fourth nation to achieve a soft landing on the moon after the
US, the erstwhile USSR and China. Coincidentally, it would
also have marked 100 days of the Narendra Modi-led government’s second term in office.
More than anyone else, ISRO chairman Kailasavadivoo
Sivan was acutely aware of the risks involved in loading this
particular space event with national aspirations. “In rocket
COVER
STORY
CHANDRAYAAN 2
science,” he told india today, “there are always
unknown unknowns” (see interview). Of the 109
lunar missions since 1958, only 61—or a little more
than half—had been successful. Of the 46 missions
that, like Chandrayaan 2, had planned a soft landing, only 21, slightly less than half, were successful.
ISRO had succeeded in its first attempt at sending
an orbiter, Chandrayaan 1, to circle the moon in
2008 and also had a Moon Impact Probe loaded
with instruments crash on the lunar surface. Before
it fell apart, it relayed vital information about the
presence of water molecules on the moon. ISRO
then stunned the world by sending the orbiter Mangalyaan to circuit Mars in 2014—again in its very
first attempt. Mangalyaan will complete five years
in the red planet’s orbit on September 24 and continues to beam data back. But, despite all these successes, soft-landing a rover on the moon to explore
its surface involved new challenges and complex
technology that ISRO had to master. So, even as
excitement over the moon landing built across the
country, Sivan, a veteran of space launches, had
famously confessed that the phase of Vikram’s descent to the moon’s surface from its orbital path
would be “15 minutes of terror” for space scientists.
U
nfortunately for Sivan and ISRO, his apprehensions turned out to be prescient.
With the prime minister looking on in
the Mission Operations Complex in Bengaluru,
those 15 minutes ended in disappointment and
despair. Space scientists lost communication with
Vikram in the 12th minute while it was making
some critical manoeuvres 2.1 km above the lunar
surface and have no idea what happened to it after
that. Though ISRO announced on September 10
that the Chandrayaan 2 orbiter had photographed
Vikram on the moon’s surface, it has since played
down such reports. Asked about the import of
Vikram being found on the moon’s surface, Sivan
told india today, “It means nothing. We have not
been able to establish any form of communication
with it and, till we do so, it is of no significance.”
More importantly, Sivan also said that scientists
are still analysing the details and have no answers
yet as to what went wrong with the lander.
So, why did Vikram behave so erratically in
the final three minutes of the concluding stages
of its descent, resulting in the abrupt termination
of the mission? Even as an official failure-analysis
committee examines the reasons, india today
20
INDIA TODAY
SE P T E M BE R 2 3 , 2 019
spoke to a host of space scientists and experts to piece together what
could have possibly gone wrong with India’s prestigious lander.
A CHEQUERED BEGINNING
A little history about Vikram at this point can help one understand
why a lunar lander is complicated business and why one out of two
such missions ends in failure. India had not planned to make its
maiden attempt at a soft landing on the lunar surface on its own. Even
before the indigenously-built Chandrayaan 1 orbiter was launched,
ISRO had decided that it could use the help and experience of Russia’s
Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) for the Chandrayaan 2 mission and
signed an agreement with it in November 2007. For the joint IndoRussian lunar mission, ISRO would have the prime responsibility for
the orbiter; Russia for the lander and rover. The launch was planned for
2012. Though ISRO was ready with the orbiter on schedule, Roscosmos pulled out of the agreement in December 2011. This was after its
Phobos-Grunt mission to put a lander and rover on a Martian moon in
collaboration with the Chinese space agency failed. ISRO then decided
it would build a lander and rover on its own and scheduled a launch
for 2016. Meanwhile, the organisation repurposed its orbiter for the
Mangalyaan, accomplishing it in record time.
Despite ISRO’s vast experience in building launchers and satellites, it soon found designing and developing a lander and rover
a complex and uphill task. According to M. Annadurai, a former
director of ISRO’s U.R. Rao Satellite Centre and till last year the incharge of planetary missions, “It is one thing to send an orbiter [to
the Moon] as we did with Chandrayaan 1, fire an impactor probe to
the Moon or send an orbiter to Mars. But to bring down an orbiting spacecraft and make it land softly on the lunar surface is vastly
more complex and challenging.” The key technologies ISRO needed
to master were a flexible propulsion system that would regulate the
lander’s descent, and a control system that would guide and navigate
the spacecraft to a pre-designated spot on the lunar surface. Both
WORD OF ENCOURAGEMENT The
PM interacts with ISRO scientists in
Bengaluru on September 7
being 3.84 lakh km, there is a time lag of more than a second before
commands sent from mission control reach the craft, and of another
second when data about its implementation is relayed back. As decisions had to be taken in milliseconds during Vikram’s rapid descent to
the lunar surface, ISRO developed a fully autonomous guidance and
control system that would take care of all the exigencies and anomalies
that may arise on the 15-minute flight. The craft was also equipped
with highly precise measuring instruments to monitor its velocity,
height, attitude, direction and position with relation to the moon’s
surface, enabling Vikram’s onboard computer to take decisions in real
time. The craft’s control and propulsion systems were also designed
keeping in mind that the moon’s gravity is one-sixth of the earth’s.
Both these systems were subjected to rigorous tests, simulating conditions corresponding to the moon’s erratic gravity profile.
THE BIG CHANGE
What was also under test was ISRO’s new plan for powered descent
that was put in place just two years
ago. When designing the lander,
ISRO scientists had initially decided
to work with only four engines instead of five. In this configuration,
the engines and the guidance control
system would gradually bring the
speed and altitude down to around
10 metres above the moon’s surface.
But then the concern arose that the
engine thrusters, at this distance,
would kick up a mini lunar dust storm that would envelop the craft
and damage its vital equipment. ISRO then planned to shut all the
four engines and instead strengthen the four legs of the craft to
withstand the free fall from that height without damaging either
the lander or the rover. A launch was scheduled for January 2018.
Meanwhile, a fierce debate had broken out among space scientists
over the dangers of having a four engine-controlled descent for a
moon lander. ISRO decided to circumvent the free fall by introducing
a fifth engine at the centre of the lander’s base. This would have two
advantages. The fifth engine would be fired only after all the other four
engines were shut down at 10 metres and ensure a powered descent
till touchdown. And since the engine was located at the centre of the
craft, the plume of dust it would kick up would be pushed away from
it. That decision would add more weight to the spacecraft: along with
other changes in the configuration, the composite Chandrayaan 2 with
the orbiter, lander and rover would now weigh 3.8 tonnes. This meant
that Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle, or GSLV MarkII was
no longer suitable as a launch vehicle, as it was capable of carrying a
payload of only 2-3 tonnes. So the Chandrayaan 2 project team had
to wait for GSLV MarkIII, ISRO’s heaviest rocket, then under development, to be validated. Rather than wait for the full range of trial
flights, ISRO decided to take a risk by launching Chandrayaan 2 on
THE KEY TECHNOLOGIES ISRO
NEEDED TO MASTER WERE
FLEXIBLE PROPULSION AND
CONTROL SYSTEMS
these technologies have been developed in the
past five years and are now the prime suspects in
the premature termination of Vikram’s mission.
THE LANDING PLAN
After its separation from the Chandrayaan 2 orbiter on September 4, Vikram was orbiting the moon
at a speed of 1,680 metres per second (or 6,048
km per hour, six times the speed of a commercial
jet) and at a height of 30 km above the lunar surface. That velocity, along with the height, had to
be brought down in a controlled manner to almost
zero within 13 minutes of the descent phase. The
lander would do so using the array of five rocket
engines and eight tiny attitude control thrusters fitted on its base, which ISRO had developed for the
mission. The engines were designed as throttle-able
ones, their thrust varying with the regulating of the
fuel flow, just like an accelerator in a car.
The control and guidance system was also developed to meet the complexities of a moon landing.
With the distance between the earth and moon
SE P T E M BE R 2 3 , 2 019
INDIA TODAY
21
ALTITUDE
AUTONOMOUS POWERED
DESCENT PHASE BEGINS
Vikram is at a height of
30 km and travelling at
1,683 m/s when the
descent phase begins. It is
about 648 km away from its
planned landing site
30
km
10
km
9
km
8
km
7
km
4
km
m/s
VERTICAL
VELOCITY
km
HEIGHT FROM
SURFACE
MIDWAY THROUGH ROUGH BRAKING
TIME FROM VIKRAM DESCENT START
m/s
HORIZONTAL
VELOCITY
m/s
VERTICAL
VELOCITY
km
HEIGHT FROM
SURFACE
ABSO
NAVIGATI
15 MINUTES
TO DESPAIR
3
km
2
km
Graphic by NILANJAN DAS
1
km
00:00:00
m/s
HORIZONTAL
VELOCITY
Vikram uses the brute force of four
of its five engines to brake its velocity
down to around 145m/s and bring its
height to 7.4 km. This phase goes on
for 10 minutes 20 seconds
The ISRO chairman’s fears of “15
minutes of terror” turned out to be
prophetic. This was the phase during
which moon lander Vikram’s journey
came to an abrupt end
0 km
TIME FROM VIKRAM DESCENT START
ROUGH BRAKING
6
km
5
km
WHEN VIKRAM STARTS ITS DESCENT
In this phase, Vikram’s control
system corrects any errors in
calculation of key navigation
parameters such as height an
velocity; but at the end of r
braking, its horizontal ve
much higher than plan
END OF ROUGH BRAKING
TIME FROM VIKRAM DESCENT START
m/s
HORIZONTAL
VELOCITY
m/s
VERTICAL
VELOCITY
ABSOLUTE
NAVIGATION
PHASE
ROUGH BRAKING PHASE
00:06:00
TIME FROM
DESCENT
00:07:00
00:08:00
km
HEIGHT FROM
SURFACE
00:09:00
00:10:00
00:11:00
TRANSITION TO FINE
BRAKING PHASE
Anomalies are noticed in the transition
from the absolute navigation phase and
the fine braking one. There is a manoeuvre at this stage to rotate the craft to
allow its cameras to acquire the moon
terrain for navigational purposes. Vikram inexplicably somersaults. Vertical
velocity, instead of decreasing, increases by over 15-25 m/s. Another explanation is that the spacecraft, noticing a dip
in velocity, overcorrected it and spun
out of control.
TERMINAL DESCENT
Even before Vikram could reach
the terminal descent height of
400 m, all communications snap
at 2.1 km above the surface.
Scientists do not know what
happened to it after that
LAST READING FROM VIKRAM
TIME FROM VIKRAM DESCENT START
m/s
HORIZONTAL
VELOCITY
END OF NAVIGATION PHASE
TIME FROM VIKRAM DESCENT START
m/s
HORIZONTAL
VELOCITY
m/s
VERTICAL
VELOCITY
m/s
VERTICAL
VELOCITY
km
HEIGHT FROM
SURFACE
km
HEIGHT FROM
SURFACE
WHERE VIKRAM GOES OFF COURSE
Altitude (km)
8
6
4
2
0
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
Down Range (km)
FINE BRAKING PHASE
00:12:00
TERMINAL DESCENT PHASE
00:15:00
Planned path
Actual path
Range
-5
COVER
STORY
INTERVIEW
IN ROCKET
SCIENCE,
THERE ARE
ALWAYS
UNKNOWN
UNKNOWNS
‘
ISRO chairperson DR KAILASAVADIVOO
SIVAN spoke to Group Editorial Director RAJ
CHENGAPPA on the Chandrayaan 2 mission and whether it had impacted the space
department’s future plans. Excerpts:
Q.
What is the significance of finding the
lander on the moon’s
surface?
A. There is no significance, we are
unable to communicate with it. We
have located it, that’s all.
Q. What do the photographs
from the orbiter show?
A. It has not soft landed. All we
know is that there is an object on
the moon’s surface that was not
there when we attempted to land
Vikram. We know it’s not a new
crater; so, by deduction, we know it
is Vikram. We cannot say anything
beyond that.
Q. Have you determined why
communication with Vikram
failed?
A. The analysis is going on, I can’t
say anything more now.
Q. Was it a propulsion or control problem?
A. We are analysing the data and
we are still trying to understand
what the problem is.
24
INDIA TODAY
SE P T E M BE R 2 3 , 2 019
Q. Did you anticipate there
would be a problem when you
earlier talked of the descent
being ‘15 minutes of terror’?
A. These are new technologies that
we have developed and we were
demonstrating them for the first
time in flight. Hence, the 15 minutes
of terror.
Q. When did you sense that
something was wrong?
A. Once we lost communication,
we knew.
Q. What did you tell the prime
minister when it happened?
A. I told him what happened. He
said, don’t worry, don’t get disheartened.
Q. Next day you broke down
when he was leaving and he
hugged you. How did it make
you feel?
A. Apart from being our national
leader, he is our boss too (the space
department comes under the PMO).
I became emotional because we
could not meet his expectations.
He immediately consoled me and I
felt relieved. The prime minister of
the country hugging you gives you
a feeling of inspiration. It’s given me
the mental strength for the tasks
that lie ahead.
Q. Despite the setback, you
claimed that the Chandrayaan
2 mission was 95 per cent successful...
A. The mission had two main objectives. One is the science mission we
are conducting using the instruments on the orbiter. The other is
the technology demonstration for
the landing. On the science front,
everything has gone well. We have
a powerful dual band synthetic
aperture in the orbiter where we
can penetrate 10 metres below the
surface. It will give us wonderful
information about water, minerals and other things present on
the lunar surface and below. We
also have high resolution cameras
and advanced infra-red imaging
spectrometers that will enable us to
collect fantastic data for science.
The other thing is that the orbiter’s
life, which was designed for one
year, will now go on for seven and
a half years. We have done this by
optimising our fuel strategy after
the launch vehicle gave us extra
performance. So in the science part
we have got more than we wanted.
ANI
Q. What about the technology
demonstration part?
A. Well, there are lots of new technologies we have developed. Like
throttle-able engine, sensors and
navigation and guidance systems.
Of the 15 minutes in the descent
phase, except for the last two
minutes, we demonstrated all the
technologies. It’s true we couldn’t
achieve the soft landing, but all considered, this mission has been more
than 95 per cent successful.
Q. What next? Will there be a
Chandrayaan 3?
A. That we will decide only after the
outcome of our analysis. We have to
find out what really happened, only
then can we talk about the future.
Q. Will this slow down
ISRO’s space exploration
programmes, including the
manned mission?
A. Everything will go on as planned.
Not only planetary exploration, but
also Gaganyaan (manned mission to
space) apart from newer developments. There is a lot more challenging work to do and more complex
missions. So rather than worry
about what happened in the past,
we are determined to do the work
we have set out to do.
Q. What lessons have you
learnt from this setback?
A. We always say space is unforgiving. Also, in rocket science, there
are always unknown unknowns.
This setback was one among them.
It’s part of space programmes—you
can have 12 successful launches
and then one may fail. In space, till
the objective is achieved, whether
we are using a new system or an
old one, we cannot say it is done.
GSLV MarkIII’s first operational flight. As it turned out, after an initial
scare, the GSLV MarkIII fired beautifully on July 22, 2019, launching
Chandrayaan 2 on its lunar journey.
THE WOBBLE
For Vikram’s descent to the moon, ISRO homed in on a parabolic
powered descent trajectory divided into four distinct phases. The
process would begin when the spacecraft was at a height of around
30 km above the lunar surface and 650 km away from the landing
site. In the first phase, known as the Rough Braking Phase and lasting for 10 minutes 20 seconds, Vikram would use the brute force of
its engines to brake its horizontal speed of 1,648 metres per second
down to around 150 metres per second. In this phase, it would come
down from 30 km to 7.4 km. While detaching from the orbit and independently revolving around the moon, Vikram was ejected with the
exhaust funnels of its five engines facing the direction of its revolution
instead of on the opposite side. At the beginning of the descent phase,
its onboard computers ignited four of the five engines to steadily kill
its velocity. To ensure that both the craft’s horizontal and vertical
velocities were within parameters, all four engines had to fire with
perfect synchronicity. If one of the engines deviated, the computer
was pre-programmed to use the other engines to provide differential
thrusts to correct the anomaly.
T
he live telecast by Doordarshan showed scientists clapping
at the completion of the Rough Braking Phase, indicating it
was successful. But some experts believe that there are indications that errors may have been building up in this phase. For while
the horizontal velocity (the speed the craft was moving at) was to be
around 150 metres per second at the end of the phase, the readings
on the large console in the mission operations complex showed that
it was around 200 metres per second, faster than what it should have
been. On the other hand, the vertical velocity or the speed with which
the lander was descending, hovered between 70 metres and 68 metres
per second for several seconds.
It was at this point that the second phase, termed the Absolute
Navigation Phase (ANP) and lasting around 40 seconds, kicked in. In
this phase, Vikram should have corrected any errors in calculations of
the key navigation parameters such as its height and velocity during
the Rough Braking Phase. It did this by double-checking the readings
of its on-board measuring instruments, including cameras photographing the lunar terrain, to measure Vikram’s velocity and height.
Variations in the velocity, altitude or inclination of the spacecraft were
to be corrected by the autonomous control systems, which arrive at
their own logical decisions on the adjustments that need to be made.
As a senior scientists put it, “The number of exigencies and errors you
can calculate and feed into the computer is only limited by your imagination. The best control systems are the ones where scientists let their
imaginations run free and plan for as many contingencies as possible.”
It was at the brief ANP phase that the anomalies in Vikram’s powered descent began to mount. In the control room, the large console
simulating Vikram’s descent showed the lander deviating from its
45-degree inclination. It inexplicably executed a somersault, making
the engines face upwards instead of downwards (see graphic: 15 Minutes to Despair). One explanation is that the onboard computer was
SE P T E M BE R 2 3 , 2 019
INDIA TODAY
25
KEY TECHNOLOGIES VALIDATED...
Despite the final stage disappointment, Chandrayaan 2, which combined an orbiter, lander and rover,
demonstrated a number of key technologies that will help ISRO in future interplanetary missions
LAUNCH
Chandrayaan 2 was
launched into orbit
on July 22 by ISRO’s
Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle
MarkIII-M1 (GSLV MkIIIM1) rocket, the heaviest
spacecraft to be lifted
by the launcher. This
was the first operational
launch of the GSLV Mk-III
(dubbed ‘Bahubali’). The
GSLV MarkIII platform
will also launch India’s
human spaceflight mission, currently planned
for 2021-end
INSERTION TO
LUNAR ORBIT
On August 20, when the
Moon was at its farthest
from the Earth and its gravitational pull at its weakest,
Chandrayaan 2 fired its
onboard propulsion rockets
to slip out of its Earth orbit
and enter into the lunar
orbit. The ‘handshake’
manoeuvre used a minimum
amount of fuel but had to be
extremely precise—too fast
an approach would have
bounced Chandrayaan 2
into deep space; too slow,
and it could have led to a
crash into the Moon
SEPARATION
OF ORBITER
FROM LANDER
The lander, Vikram
(carrying the rover,
Pragyan) separated
from the Chandrayaan
2 orbiter on September
4. Chandrayaan 2
continued with its lunar
orbit while Vikram proceeded on its mission to
make a soft landing on
the surface of the Moon
ORBITER
Weighing 2,379 kg and
able to generate
1,000 W of power, the
Chandrayaan 2 orbiter is
fitted with eight
sophisticated instruments to map and
monitor the Moon. It has
so far been a success
and its life expectancy
through better fuel
management has increased from one year to
seven and a half years
Graphic by TANMOY CHAKRABORTY
correcting the spacecraft’s attitude to enable the cameras to position it
properly for taking the pictures it needed to calibrate vital parameters.
But that manoeuvre went haywire and resulted in increasing the vertical descent velocity rather than decreasing it. The other explanation
is that the control system noticed a drop in the velocity and corrected
it even though it was still within the threshold. In doing so, it first erroneously rotated the craft by 140 degrees to boost the velocity, then
reversed it to the original position. By then, the spacecraft had lost its
orientation and control.
LOSS OF CONTROL
It was at this point that the third phase, the Fine Braking Speed Phase
lasting 90 seconds, began. To bring down Vikram’s horizontal and vertical speeds to near-zero and the craft to an altitude of 400 metres, two
of the four engines were to shut down. There is evidence to show that
the spacecraft was desperately trying to regain its orientation and was
pitching from side to side. The console showed that the vertical speed
had increased; it was also at this juncture that all communication
with the control room snapped. There was no evidence to show that
26
INDIA TODAY
SE P T E M BE R 2 3 , 2 019
the two engines had shut down as per plan. All the
console showed was that the horizontal velocity was
still a high 48 metres per second and the vertical
velocity 59 metres per second. Both these key parameters should have been considerably lower for
the lander to go into its terminal descent phase. Its
speed at this point should have been near-zero and
it should have been hovering over the lunar surface
at a height of 400 metres. Its onboard cameras
were then to take pictures for its control system to
check whether the landing site was suitable.
ISRO had decided that Vikram would land
near the colder South Pole where water molecules
were expected to be found in greater abundance.
This was the first time a lander was doing so—for
good reason, as there are more craters on the lunar
poles than its equatorial belt. Vikram’s control system, using its instruments including the cameras,
was to ensure that the craft would land on a flat
...TO BE
VALIDATED
CHANDRAYAAN 2
COVER
STORY
surface. If it landed on any surface that had an incline beyond 12 degrees, it would topple over. Vikram was to then descend to 10 metres
before its on-board control system would switch off two engines. The
fifth engine located at its base would then be switched on for a controlled descent. All this was to happen if everything had gone well in
the earlier phases. But, since communication snapped at a height of 2.1
km, there is no evidence so far to show whether the terminal descent
phase was activated or not.
VIKRAM: THE LANDER
The Vikram lander was indigenously developed,
after Russia (which was to provide the lander)
backed out of a joint effort. Though the landerorbiter separation went smoothly, Vikram failed to
make the soft landing on the south polar region of
the Moon. Perfecting this technology will be key in
further interplanetary explorations.
PRAGYAN: THE ROVER
After landing, this indigenously designed and built
six-wheeled robotic vehicle
was to emerge from Vikram’s belly. Pragyan was
to rove the nearby areas
of the moon and search for
signs of water during its
week-long lifespan
THE MANOEUVRE
TO ROTATE
THE CRAFT FOR
NAVIGATIONAL
PURPOSES
SEEMS TO HAVE
GONE HAYWIRE
A
ccording to experts, Vikram’s abrupt end can be attributed to
three major reasons, but they do not quite agree which one was
the main culprit. Some believe that the propulsion systems
malfunctioned during the transition from the Rough Brake Phase
to the Absolute Navigation Phase, when the engines were to fire synchronously to reduce the lander’s speed. Since the throttle-able engines
were based on a new technology, there is suspicion that one of them
could have misfired, causing unstable conditions beyond the system’s
tolerance, and confused the command and control system. Others
believe the error lay in the control system itself, with an improper logic
built in, that made the lander do a complete turn during the transition
between the absolute navigation and fine braking phases. Yet another
section of opinion argues that it was a combination of errors in both
propulsion and control systems that led to the setback. Meanwhile,
ISRO scientists are gathering every bit of data the lander transmitted
before its signal was lost. They are using such data to simulate all possible scenarios and explain Vikram’s aborted landing.
Space is harsh and unforgiving of errors. But ISRO scientists
need not feel discouraged with the outcome. As a total mission, Chandrayaan 2 has notched up many successes. It has validated ISRO’s
biggest launcher, the GSLV MarkIII. It has proved ISRO’s capability
to successfully send an orbiter to the moon and execute a complex
manoeuvre of undocking the lander from it. More importantly, the
orbiter itself is performing outstandingly and has eight major instruments that are transmitting reams of data about the moon, including
indicators of the availability of water on its surface. This could help
spacefaring nations determine whether the moon can be colonised
and used as a base for deep space explorations by using the water not
just for human needs but also as fuel to power rockets. The bonus is
that the orbiter has enough fuel to go around the moon for seven and a
half years instead of one year. The major technologies Chandrayaan 2
couldn’t validate relate to the thwarted soft landing on the moon and
the operation of the rover. These can be addressed only after ISRO is
able to decipher what went wrong with Vikram.
Scientists should take heart from the experience of the late Dr
A.P.J. Abdul Kalam when he was project director of ISRO’s first
satellite launch vehicle, SLVIII. When the first launch failed in 1979,
Kalam tendered his resignation to his boss, who tore it up and asked
him to carry on. Years later, Kalam gratefully recalled that the failure
taught him more about making better space systems than a success
could have. Prime Minister Modi was perhaps speaking for the entire
country when he said that despite the setback, the nation is solidly
behind ISRO and remains proud of its many achievements. n
SE P T E M BE R 2 3 , 2 019
INDIA TODAY
27
DAYS OF
MODI
GOVERNMENT
All Guns Blazing
The Modi government begins its second term with a raft of legislative and
executive action, but faces the big challenge of reviving an economy in slowdown
By Sandeep Unnithan
W
VIPIN KUMAR/ GETTY IMAGES
ell begun is half done. The maxim
seems to have guided the Narendra Modi government as it made
an explosive start to its second
term in office on May 30. Its 100-day strategy
has been marked by speedy decision-making—
decisions pending for years have been taken.
The dilution of Article 370 to alter the status
of Jammu and Kashmir and the appointment
of a chief of defence staff had been part of the
BJP’s manifesto for years. The government has
stepped on the parliamentary pedal—the first
session of the 17th Lok Sabha, in which a record
32 bills were passed, was the most productive
since 1952. The government has sought to fix
the loss-making public sector banks by merging
them. A similar merger awaits the mammoth
military ordnance factories. The first steps
towards part-privatisation of the railways have
been taken. In the social welfare sector, triple
talaq has been criminalised and a new law to
protect children from sexual abuse introduced.
The government has enhanced focus on
what it believes got it a second term with a bigger
mandate—delivering benefits to the commoner.
Existing schemes are being fast-tracked. The
target of providing 80 million Ujjwala gas connections by March 2020 was achieved seven
months in advance. New initiatives, such as expanding the power network and providing piped
water to all households by 2024, have kicked off.
But this speed of decision-making does not
conceal the gnawing worry about the economy.
Growth has contracted, from a high of 8 per cent
to 5 per cent—the lowest in six years. Practically
every economic indicator—automobile sales,
factory output, agricultural growth, exports,
private investment, real estate and construction—is down. The financial sector is weighed
down by bad debts. More than just the pace of
its 100 days, Modi 2.0 will be judged by how it
combats this looming recession. n
MODI 2.0
The PM giving his
first I-Day speech
of the second term
10
00
Free Falling
DAYS OF
M O D I ECONOMY
GOVERNMENT
With bad news on all fronts, the
government needs to inject positive
sentiment and target growth
By Shwweta Punj
The Journey So Far
Bold targets have been set for
India becoming a five trillion dollar economy but all economic data
suggests it will be a daunting challenge. Growth has plummeted and
India has lost the coveted fastest
growing economy tag to China.
The fiscal deficit touched 52 per
cent of the budget estimate for the
full year in the first two months
of FY20. The aim is to restrict
the deficit target to 3.4 per cent of
GDP, but mounting expenditure
and pressure to spend more coupled with declining revenues could
mean that India slips on this.
On the inflation front, consumer
price inflation has been a percentage point lower than the targeted
four per cent. Headline CPI inflation rose to 3.2 per cent in June
from 3 per cent in April-May.
In the April-June 2019 quarter,
the Index of Industrial Produc-
tion (IIP) grew at 3.6 per cent as
against 5.1 per cent in the same
period the previous year. The
fall in factory output was led by
a decline in manufacturing and
mining activity.
The rupee has slid from 68.75 to
a dollar on July 30 to 71.9 on September 5, on weak economic data
and negative market sentiment
In addition to the slowing
economy, the rupee is sliding as
foreign portfolio investors (FPIs)
turned negative after an enhanced
tax surcharge announced in the
budget restricted their activity. It
has since been revoked.
Assurances have been given on
ending ‘tax terrorism’. Income tax
orders and summons notices will
be issued through a centralised
computer system from October 1.
The ‘angel tax’, levied on startups, has been revoked
Is It Enough?
The Unfinished Agenda
The biggest challenge
the economy faces is a
breakdown in confidence
among all stakeholders.
The government has to re­
store confidence through
policy predictability, take
more short­term mea­
sures to improve liquidity
and act fast on its promise
of minimum government.
It also needs to pursue
its disinvestment agenda
with intent.
The economy expanded at its slowest in
25 quarters—5 per cent in the first quarter
of FY20. The Centre has to frontload
expenditure—in terms of infrastructure
spending—to spur economic activity
30
INDIA TODAY
Industrial production growth slipped
to a four­month low of 2 per cent in June.
Measures needed to arrest the slowdown
Rising food inflation, sliding rupee are
other major concerns
Give employment­generating sectors
such as textiles and manufacturing a push
Improve ease of doing business
SE P T E M BE R 2 3 , 2 019
BANKING
Lending Gets
a Helping
Hand
Recapitalisation and
mergers of PSBs and other
banking reforms aim to ease
the liquidity crunch
By Shwweta Punj
The Journey So Far
The government has announced the
mergers of several public sector banks
(PSBs), reducing the total number
from 27 to 12 over the next few years.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman
announced the merger of ten PSBs into
four entities, which would strengthen
balance sheets and allow banks to take
bold lending decisions.
REUBEN SINGH
EXPORTS
Fanning the
Trade Winds
Exports could boost growth,
but first they need policy
clarity and incentives
By Shwweta Punj
The Journey So Far
The commerce ministry has circulated
a cabinet note to phase out the Merchandise Exports from India scheme. It will be
replaced by one more compatible with World
Trade Organization rules.
The government has raised customs duties
on several items by 2.5-10 percentage points.
These items together accounted for an import bill of Rs 86,000 crore in FY 2018. This
is expected to rein in the current account
deficit and boost the rupee.
The SEZ Amendment Bill allows any entity
to set up a unit in special economic zones.
This is expected to boost exports.
BUILDING
THE NATION
Workers at the Toyota
Kirloskar factory in
Bidadi, near Bengaluru
Is It Enough?
There are concerns that the PSB
mergers could distract banks
from lending, especially critical
in view of the severe liquidity
crunch. Bank reforms have been
pending for long and recapitali­
sation is one of the many issues
that needs to be addressed. The
Centre must ensure greater acc­
ountability, independence and
transparency at PSBs, as well
as restore confidence and trust
between the banking community
and borrowers
The Unfinished Agenda
The government’s merger plan
needs to ensure that lending is
not interrupted, and that sectors
starved of credit do not suffer
The government needs to ensure
that the rate cuts by the RBI are
quickly passed on to consumers
Reforms at PSBs need to be
carried out thoroughly to be
restore trust between bankers and
borrowers
Is It Enough?
The Unfinished Agenda
Whether one con­
siders the increase
in import duties or
the lack of proac­
tive measures to
take advantage of
the US­China trade
war, the lack of
policy coherence
(and structural
issues) continue
to bog down the
sector
Lower import duties.
Several sectors, such as
pharmaceuticals and auto
components, are import
dependent. Data suggests
India has benefited from
lower import tariffs—
brought down from
300­400 per cent in 1991
to about 7 per cent until
last year
Clearly spell out India’s
policy stance on the rupee
ALL ON DECK? Container ships
at the Nhava Sheva port near Mumbai
MANDAR DEODHAR
The government has
also announced an upfront capital infusion of
Rs 55,520 crore for PSBs
to ease stressed balance
sheets
Governance reforms
include the appointment of
chief risk officers for PSBs
and better succession
planning for senior executive positions—as well as
allowing boards more flexibility in decision-making
for better functioning
The government has
announced a scheme to
implement its budget announcement of a one-time
partial credit guarantee of
Rs 1 lakh crore for PSBs to
purchase the pooled assets
of non-banking financial
companies (NBFCs) and
housing finance companies. This is expected to
ease the liquidity crunch
in the NBFC sector.
10
00
DAYS OF
MODI
POWER
GOVERNMENT
Current
Affairs
After power to every home,
affordable round-the-clock
electricity is the new focus
By Anilesh S. Mahajan
The Journey So Far
If Modi 1.0 was focused on supplying electricity to
every home in the country, then Version 2 is all about
making the supply 24x7 and affordable. Electricity
generated from renewable sources will form a larger
portion of the power basket than current levels.
To achieve this, second-phase reforms are
essential, including funding for distribution companies (discoms) to enhance infrastructure and more
authority for bill collection. The power ministry
is now pushing state governments to acquire and
instal pre-paid smart meters. These should help
enhance recoveries, though this will also be a
fund-intensive exercise.
Officials at the power ministry have already begun
detailing UDAY 2.0 (the Ujjwal DISCOM Assurance Yojana for the ‘financial turnaround of power
distribution companies’). This aims not only to provide funds for enhancing last-mile infrastructure,
but also to find ways to cut losses. The first round of
UDAY reforms involved a massive financial restructuring plan—as a result, the aggregate debt of discoms had fallen from Rs 2.7 lakh crore in September
2015 (when UDAY was launched) to Rs 1.5 lakh crore
in 2016-17. But things have again taken a turn for the
worse, with debt now at Rs 2.28 lakh crore (2018-19)
UDAY 2.0 is targeted at solving these problems.
The power ministry has also decided to penalise
discoms for wilful load-shedding. Regulatory commissions are making provisions for this, but it will be
difficult to execute.
32
INDIA TODAY
SE P T E M BE R 2 3 , 2 019
Is It Enough?
India’s per capita consumption of electricity has been
stagnant at around 1,100 units
for the past 3-4 years. This financial year, though, consumption of electricity has grown
by 3.3 per cent. Although
electricity has reached most
homes countrywide, consumption at commercial centres and
local bodies has not increased
significantly. The focus on
renewable energy is also pushing lesser utilisation of installed
thermal capacity.
Despite the overcapacity, the
country still faces, on average, 5 hours and 38 minutes
of load-shedding per day. This
underlines the need for augmenting intra-grid supplies and
distribution reforms.
The Unfinished
Agenda
A carrot-and-stick
approach to reform
the discoms
More manufacturing
capacities to meet the
demand for smart meters
and other equipment
States still not adhering
to sanctity of power agreements. In June and July, the
Andhra Pradesh government cancelled several
agreements executed by
the previous Chandrababu
Naidu regime. A regulatory push is needed to help
states bring power losses
to below 15 per cent. Only
15 states have managed to
do this so far.
POWER PLAY
Electric infrastructure
near Sonepat, Haryana
ROADS
Miles to Go
New road projects dipped to a five-year low last
fiscal, but execution speed stayed on course
By Anilesh S. Mahajan
CHANDRADEEP KUMAR
The Journey So Far
TELECOM
Call
Waiting
The government’s
plan of digital
penetration till the
last mile remains
stuck in the slow lane
By Anilesh S. Mahajan
More state highways will be developed by the NHAI under the National
Highway Development Programme.
With its AAA rating, it has access to
capital at much cheaper cost.
Road project allocations dipped in
FY19 to 5,493 km—a five-year low—
largely because of land acquisition
issues and the general election (a 68 per
cent drop from the 17,055 km awarded
in FY18). The execution speed, though,
remained constant. In the previous
fiscal, the execution speed was 10,855
km; in the current fiscal, construction
of more than 11,000 km is expected.
In the first 100 days of Modi 2.0, a
blueprint to accelerate the second phase
of the Bharat Mala project has been
worked out. The big idea right now is to
complete the construction of 48,000
km of highways before the next general
election in 2024.
Is It Enough?
The Unfinished Agenda
A big worry policymakers have is
the unpredictability of logistics movement patterns beyond the 5-10 year
curve (investments have to be done
much in advance).
A Rs 1 lakh crore infrastructure fund
has been announced in the Budget but
financing options and getting foreign
investors to commit will remain a
challenge
Two big challenges—funds crunch and
increasing land acquisition costs
The Journey So Far
The department of telecommunications (DoT) moved towards 5G spectrum auctions
along with selling six bands of
4G airwaves
DoT accelerated the implementation of the second phase
of BharatNet
DoT moved the courts to recover adjusted gross revenues
from telecom companies
Chinese companies were
kept away from 5G trails with
a plan to push indigenous
manufacturing of equipment
NHAI has a plan to raise debt of
Rs 75,000 crore from SBI and LIC
More under-construction and completed projects are expected to go for
monetisation via InvIT (infrastructure
investment trusts) and ToT (transfer
of technology)
Is It Enough?
The BharatNet Phase-II plan, of connecting
250,000 villages with optical fibre by 2020-21,
is significantly behind target. Industry experts
also say that optical fibre penetration should
be complemented with a plan to push mobile
connectivity in rural areas. But with most
telcos (including BSNL) bleeding funds and
with rural areas not providing high per-user
revenues, corporates may not venture into
this initiative without governmental support.
The Unfinished Agenda
BharatNet 3.0 needs a comprehensive plan to
take towers and hotspots to the last mile
Realistic pricing of 5G spectrum
Salvage loss-making BSNL or sell it; make
MTNL competitive
SE P T E M BE R 2 3 , 2 019
INDIA TODAY
33
MODI
RAILWAYS
GOVERNMENT
Long Train
Running
Part-privatisation, infra for faster
trains, freight corridors—Indian
Railways seem on track
MANDAR DEODHAR
10
00
DAYS OF
By Anilesh S. Mahajan
The Journey So Far
IRCTC is leasing out the Lucknow-Delhi and AhmedabadMumbai Tejas Express trains to private players. Onboard
services are being outsourced through an open bidding process;
ticketing will stay with the IRCTC. The Indian Railways has
identified 25 more routes and will offer 5 per cent of the total
2,800 rakes on lease to private players
Infra projects to accelerate the speed of passenger trains (up to
160 kmph) on the Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Howrah stretches
cleared. Projects will be completed by the end of FY 2023.
Work on the Western Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC) between Delhi and Mumbai accelerated and the 1,506 km stretch
may be ready by 2020 end. In the DFC connecting Ludhiana in
Punjab and Dankuni in West Bengal, the PPP plan for the 538km Sonnagar, Bihar-Dankuni stretch has been abandoned.
TICKET TO RIDE
Commuters at the
Chhatrapati Shivaji
Terminus, Mumbai
Is It Enough?
With annual capital
outlays of over Rs 1.5
lakh crore, the Railways requires massive
capacity augmentation and a corporate
work culture. It should
be transformed into a
PSU—as a corporate
entity, not only would
its efficiency improve,
but it would also have
access to markets for
capital. But this will
require big reforms. The
setting up of a regulator is crucial to ensure
a level playing field for
private investors and
rationalisation of fares.
The Unfinished Agenda
Labour unions have to
be brought onboard
reformed, but decisionmaking hasn’t improved
Fares have to be
rationalised. Regulator
needed to fix tariff for
fares and freight.
Indian Railways must
be made a PSU, with a
profit and loss balancesheet of all divisions
Railway board
3 more DFCs planned
MANUFACTURING
The Journey So Far
Is It Enough?
A Future in
the Making
Budget 2019 incentivised multinationals to set up mega-manufacturing
plants in sunrise and advanced technology areas via a transparent, competitive bidding process
A robust
manufacturing
sector could be a
game-changer for the
economy. But much
needs to be done for
that to happen
Pending GST refunds due to MSMEs
shall be paid within 30 days. In the
future, GST refunds to happen within
60 days from the date of application.
Many central governments have talked
about boosting manufacturing, but its
share of India’s GDP remains low, at 18.2
per cent in fiscal 2018-19. Growth in manufacturing is also critical to generating jobs,
essential in the current context.
By M.G. Arun
34
INDIA TODAY
To make India a global manufacturing hub for electric vehicles (EVs), GST
on EVs has been reduced from 12 per
cent to 5. Tax on charging stations has
also been cut, from 18 per cent to 5. An
income tax deduction of Rs 1.5 lakh has
also been allowed on interest paid on
loans taken to buy EVs. This amounts
to a total benefit of around Rs 2.5 lakh
over the loan period for buyers.
SE P T E M BE R 2 3 , 2 019
The Unfinished Agenda
Improve ease of doing business, especially in land acquisition/ clearances
Encourage public-private partnerships in skill development
Promote industrial clusters that can
lower the cost of production
MSMEs supply chains need to be improved. Better rail, road and telecom
connectivity is required.
Is It Enough?
REAL ESTATE
Divorced
from Realty
The government has retained its focus on
affordable housing. Now it needs to free credit
lines and concentrate on growth to boost demand
By M.G. Arun
GHOST TOWN
An incomplete
Unitech housing
project in Noida
The $120 billion Indian real estate sector is in the midst of its
worst slowdown in a decade. A
July 2019 study by realty consultant Knight Frank India said
unsold home inventories in eight
key cities—Mumbai, the National
Capital Region, Bengaluru,
Chennai, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Pune and Kolkata—stood
at 450,263 units in the first half
of calendar year 2019. Although
launches of new homes were
up 21 per cent in these cities
(rising to 111,155 units), sales
were just 4 per cent higher
than in the first half of 2018.
Therefore, the sector needs
drastic intervention to ensure a
revival. The budgetary thrust on
affordable housing has helped a
bit; 85 per cent of new launches
are estimated to be in the
affordable segment, with less
than 60 metres of carpet area.
But overall buyer sentiment is
lacklustre; consumers seem to
be delaying purchase decisions
in the hope that prices will come
down and that the government
will announce more sops.
The Unfinished
Agenda
YASIR IQBAL
The Journey So Far
To realise the goal of ‘Housing
for All’ and increase the supply of
affordable homes, developers of
such projects have been given a tax
holiday on profits. For consumers,
interest payments up to Rs 2 lakh
on housing loans for self-occupied
properties are allowed as tax deductions under Section 24B of the
Income Tax Act.
In her July budget, finance
minister Nirmala Sitharaman
allowed a further deduction of up
to Rs 1,50,000 on interest paid on
loans taken up to March 31, 2020,
for houses valued up to Rs 45 lakh.
In all, those purchasing affordable
homes are eligible for deductions
up to Rs 3.5 lakh.
On August 23, Sitharaman announced a financial package aimed
at improving market sentiment,
boosting demand and making
credit more freely available
The government has frontloaded
the recapitalisation of public sector banks with Rs 70,000 crore,
which could reopen the NBFC fund
channel, improve credit supply and
boost demand for homes
The government has also moved
to directly link the repo rate to
home loan rates to ensure better
transmission of the RBI’s rate cuts
Economic revival is imperative to growth in the sector. The
economy needs to grow at over
8 per cent for any meaningful
change in buyer sentiment.
The focus needs to be on job
creation, because only that can
improve discretionary spending
Although GST has been reduced
to 5 per cent for homes under
construction and to 1 per cent in
the affordable housing segment,
input cost of materials like cement
is high at 28 per cent. That needs
to be reduced to 18 per cent.
The ease and cost of doing
business must improve. High
costs affect the profitability of a
business where the margins are
10-15 per cent, say developers.
The business community is
demanding that corporate tax
be lowered from the current 33
per cent to 25 per cent to help
developers address market
uncertainties
SE P T E M BE R 2 3 , 2 019
INDIA TODAY
35
10
00
DAYS OF
MODI
WATER
GOVERNMENT
Liquid
Assets
Piped water to all homes remains
a laudable mission, but scale and
funds have to be boosted
By Anilesh S. Mahajan
A BRICK
IN THE WALL
A newly-constructed
toilet in Bhopal
district, MP
The Journey So Far
The government merged the ministry of water resources, river development and Ganga rejuvenation with the ministry of drinking water
and sanitation to form the Jal Shakti ministry,
with an aim to integrate resources and provide
clean drinking water to all homes
A countrywide 3D aquifer mapping project
is on to study the layers of water-bearing rocks
and assess groundwater levels in the country
A feasibility study for the proposed linking of
31 rivers has been started
Is It Enough?
Supplying clean drinking water to all households is a complex issue as a mere 18 per
cent of households have access to piped
supply. Sikkim, Goa, Gujarat, Puducherry
and Punjab are the only states where over
50 per cent of homes have such access.
RURAL DEVELOPMENT
Sadak, Bijli,
Paani Sarkar
The rural development ministry has kept up the
good work of the previous Modi government. It
needs to expand its focus in the second term
By Ajit Kumar Jha
The Journey So Far
The Unfinished Agenda
Given the exorbitant Rs 7.9 lakh crore
burden on the public exchequer for taking
piped water to every household, attracting
private capital through various PPP models
may be the way out. The demographic and
geographic diversity of the country also
needs to be factored in for the project.
JAISON G
TANKING UP A water queue in Chennai
The Narendra Singh Tomar-led
ministry of rural development
(MoRD) aimed to complete 1
million natural resource management (NRM) or water conservation projects under the Mahatma
Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme in its first
100 days. As of August 30, 661,003
NRMs had been completed.
Under the Jal Shakti Abhiyan
(JSA), nearly 211,000 works in
1,146 selected rural blocks are to
be completed. As of August 30,
157,688 had been finished.
After Prime Minister Gram
Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) I and II ,
PMGSY-III guidelines are being
finalised, with the objective of
constructing 125,000 km of
rural roads
With women’s self-help groups
(SHGs) becoming the new model
for women’s entrepreneurship and
female empowerment in rural
areas, the MoRD has been focusing
on converting nano enterprises run
by such women’s SHGs into small
and micro enterprises. By involving
SHGs, 59,120 rural start-ups have
been brought under the village
start-up enterprise programme.
The ministry has provided Rs
150.8 crore from the community
enterprise fund to create the village
start-up enterprise programme.
Is It Enough?
In the NDA government’s first
term, the focus was on developing rural infrastructure, such as
roads, houses and toilets. However,
the recent drought exposed the
limitations of these programmes.
Per available data, only 16 per cent
of projects in 2018-19 were drought
related.
The ministry is reorienting MGNREGS toward water conservation
by reserving at least 75 per cent of
work-days for water storage and
agricultural activity-related work
The ministry says that over 7 million rural households from droughtaffected regions sought employment under MGNREGS. Households
that need employment span across
105 districts across the country,
covering 3,000 panchayats.
Some 6.3 million households got
work, but of those, only 900,000
got 100 days of employment, while
only 700,000 managed 150 days of
employment. The government has
called for additional employment
in rural districts, over and above
the 100 days per household under
MGNREGS.
The Unfinished
Agenda
The focus on potable water
in rural areas should be taken
further. The MoRD should develop
large-scale rural water piping
projects and link them to clean
sources of water.
There needs to be a focus on
cleaning rural water bodies,
including tanks, ponds and wells.
This will reduce the spread of
water-borne diseases like dysentery and typhoid.
AGRICULTURE & FARMER’S WELFARE
Seeds of Discontent
Schemes like PM-Kisan are only band-aids; structural
reform alone will help farmers’ incomes double
The Journey So Far
The PM-Kisan scheme (Rs 6,000
per year as minimum income support) has been extended to cover
all farmers. By August 29, three
instalments had been released:
the first instalment covered 62.9
million beneficiary farmers, second
36.3 million and third 721,982
The agriculture ministry has
secured approval for a scheme to
create 10,000 farmer producer
organisations (FPOs)
A proposal for the revamp of
the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima
Yojana has been forwarded to the
states (since agriculture is a state
subject)
Enrolments for the pension
scheme for small/ marginal farmers started. By August 30, 536,637
were enlisted.
Is It Enough?
According to a NITI Aayog paper,
in real terms, farmers’ incomes
grew at just 0.44 per cent per year
between 2011 and 2016. Consider
the snail-like progress in agriculture growth. In 2018-19, agriculture
and allied activities growth is
estimated at 2.7 per cent, down
from 5 per cent in 2017-18. With
such a low growth rate, coupled
with the economic slowdown
and feeble growth in farmer incomes, the measures so far will
only add to short-term relief.
The Unfinished Agenda
The focus of agri policies must
shift from production per se to
farmers’ livelihoods
Despite promises of minimum
support prices (MSP) plus 50 per
cent to the farmers, procurement of
grains and commodities under MSP
is alarmingly low in most states
Measures needed to help farmers cope with the growing risks of
weather, price volatility and lack of
timely credit availability
Agri markets need better infrastructure and must be opened to
greater competition if farmers are
to realise better returns for their
produce
Agricultural policies must benefit
genuine farmers, not middlemen, as
is the case today in most states
Policies to improve efficiency of
land/ water use needed to conserve
critical resources
MANEESH AGNIHOTRI
Linking villages to towns and
village households to main roads
under PMGSY-III. Further, rural
roads need to be regularly maintained and repaired, such as after
the monsoons.
Creating jobs for rural women
to rectify the declining ratio of
women in the workforce
Reskilling the unskilled labour
force in rural areas and remunerating them while they acquire
those skills, in order to ensure
strong motivation
SMILING ACRES Farmers in Mohanlalganj, Lucknow
10
00
DAYS OF
MODI
NATIONAL SECURITY
GOVERNMENT
Fortifying
Defence
A Chief of Defence Staff and a corporatised
Ordnance Factory Board should streamline
decision-making and military requisitions
By Sandeep Unnithan
The Journey So Far
Pending nearly for two decades, Prime Minister Narendra Modi finally announced the
appointment of a Chief of Defence Staff (CDS),
a single-point military advisor to the government, in his Independence Day speech this
year. Ratified by the Cabinet Committee on
Security, it has set the stage for India’s biggest
post-Independence military reform.
The government has decided to corporatise the Ministry of Defence’s (MoD) 41
ordnance factories which make everything,
from clothing to armoured vehicles, rifles
to artillery pieces, for the Indian army. The
decision is yet to be formally announced, but
the process has already begun. The factories
function as attached offices of the Department of Defence Production, which is a part of
the MoD. Together, they comprise the world’s
largest defence department and operate under
the aegis of the Ordnance Factory Board in
Kolkata. More than 80 per cent of the OFB’s
orders come from the army. It receives an annual defence budget support of over Rs 2,000
crore, has 82,000 employees and occupies over
60,000 acres of land. Yet, it barely meets even
50 per cent of the army’s requirements. The
first moves to end the OFB monopoly came
last year, when the government notified 275
non-core items that the armed forces could buy
from the open market.
38
INDIA TODAY
SE P T E M BE R 2 3 , 2 019
Is It Enough?
A CDS is only the first step.
India is among the world’s top five
defence spenders but has been
unable to translate this into military power. We need to synergise
the efforts of the three services
of the armed forces
The next step should be to
combine the 17 single-service
commands into fewer multiservice commands with elements
of two or more services
At least three governmentappointed committees Corporatisation of the OFB has been suggested corporatisation of the OFB
in the past. In 2000, the T.K.A.
Nair committee recommended
the conversion of the OFB into
the Ordnance Factory Corp. Ltd.
In 2004, the Vijay Kelkar committee outlined something similar. In
2015, the Vice Admiral Raman Puri
committee suggested corporatising and splitting the OFB into
three or four segments, each specialising in one area—weapons,
ammunition, combat vehicles.
OFB products have issues of
quality and price inefficiencies
since the orders are on nomination basis, not through market
competition. Improving price and
quality have to be a priority.
The Unfinished
Agenda
India needs a national
security policy, in which the
country’s political executives
will define national security
goals. The strategy for the
armed forces will flow from
this. In the absence of either
a political or military strategy, any reform will be like
a roadmap to an unknown
destination.
The government should
consider the Vijay Kelkar
committee’s suggestion of
grouping the OFBs into three
clusters—one comprising
those that manufacture explosives and ammunition, to be
retained by the government;
second, of those that make
armoured vehicles and artillery, to be run as a privatepublic sector partnership;
third, those making clothing,
uniforms and tents, which can
be sold to the private sector
ANI
HIGH VIGIL
Army personnel on patrol near
Lal Chowk, Srinagar
LEGISLATION
On the Fast Track
The government has wasted no time in passing laws
that signify landmark changes for the country
By Uday Mahurkar
The Journey So Far
The first session of the 17th Lok
Sabha was the most productive since
1952, with a record 32 bills passed
The Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, bifurcating the
state into UTs of J&K and Ladakh,
will, says the government, facilitate
speedy development of the region
The Muslim Women (Protection
of Rights on Marriage) Act, banning
triple talaq, is seen as a major boost
for empowering Muslim women
The Protection of Children from
Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act
provides for stringent punishment,
including the death penalty, against
child sexual predators
The National Investigation Agency
(Amendment) Act and Unlawful
Activities (Prevention) Amendment
Act will bolster the internal security
apparatus against terrorism
The National Medical Commission Act replaces the corruptiontainted Medical Council of India
with a new body and will reform
medical education and research
The Motor Vehicles (Amendment)
Act cracks down on traffic violators
with penalties as high as Rs 10,000
Is It Enough?
While the quantum of parliamentary
business transacted is a feather in the
Modi government’s cap, the perceived
‘haste’ has invited charges that requisite
scrutiny was not allowed. As Trinamool
Congress MP Derek O’Brien remarked
about three bills being passed in three
days: “It’s like delivering pizza.” According to Chaksu Roy of PRS Legislative Research, “The first session was a big leap
forward, but scrutiny [of bills] remains
a question. It is only after parliamentary
committees are formed that we will
know the level of scrutiny [undertaken].”
The Unfinished Agenda
Given its brute majority in the Lok
Sabha, the onus of ensuring adequate
scrutiny of bills—by allowing reasonable
time for debates, taking into account the
opposition’s views and, if need be, referring the bills to parliamentary committees—lies with the BJP-led NDA
Controversial laws should not become
tools of misuse by government agencies. If needed, safeguards must be
introduced through amendments.
SE P T E M BE R 2 3 , 2 019
INDIA TODAY
39
10
00
DAYS OF
M O D I EDUCATION
GOVERNMENT
Beyond the
Learning
Curve
The forthcoming new education
policy and steps to scale up higher
education are encouraging; now, for
integrated action
By Kaushik Deka
CLASS ACTION
Students in a Kolkata school
The Journey So Far
The K. Kasturirangan committee
has submitted the Draft National Edu­
cation Policy, 2019. The new education
policy could come in November.
Five public universities have been
given the ‘Institution of Eminence
(IoE)’ tag; five private varsities have
received letters of intent for the same.
In all, the University Grants Commis­
sion (UGC) has recommended IoE
status for 15 public and private institu­
tions, respectively.
The HRD ministry has launched the
National Initiative for School Heads’
and Teachers’ Holistic Advancements
(NISHTHA) programme with the aim
of training over 4.2 million teachers
across the country
The Shagun portal will integrate over
230,000 educational websites, includ­
ing those of 1,200 Kendriya Vidyalayas,
600 Navodaya Vidyalayas, 18,000
other Central Board of Secondary Edu­
cation (CBSE)­affiliated schools, 30
40
INDIA TODAY
SE P T E M BE R 2 3 , 2 019
State Councils of Educational Research
and Training (SCERTs) and 19,000
organisations affiliated to the National
Council for Teacher Education (NCTE).
The portal will make available report
cards of 1.5 million schools. It aims to
connect some 9.2 million teachers and
260 million students.
The National Medical Commission
Bill replaces the corruption­plagued
Medical Council of India. The bill
also provides for a common entrance
‘NEET’ exam and regulates fee in pri­
vate colleges. Some 75 new government
medical colleges are also to come up.
Under the National Mission on
Education through Information and
Communication Technology, the Nat­
ional Digital Library of India project
has built a virtual repository of learn­
ing resources. More than 30 million
digital resources are available through
the library now, and it has over 5 mil­
lion students as members.
Is It Enough?
In its second term, the
Modi government’s blueprint
for the education sector included the unveiling of a new
national education policy,
filling 0.5 million faculty positions in higher education,
replacing the UGC with a
Higher Education Commission of India and fixing new
accreditation regulations
That finalising the draft
education policy took
five years and two panels
doesn’t augur well. Some of
the measures taken, such
as the launch of a teachers’
training programme and an
integrated school portal,
are part of the draft policy.
However, what is needed
is integrated action rather
than initiatives in isolation.
The HRD ministry also plans
to unveil a five-year vision
document to fast-track
educational reforms.
In 2018, the government
had granted IoE status to
three public institutes and
issued letters of intent for
SUBIR HALDER
TOURISM
Incredible
India Again
An inadequate budget, infrastructure gaps
and safety concerns stand in the way of India
becoming a world-class travel destination
By Kaushik Deka
The Journey So Far
the same to three private
institutes. The idea was to
create a competitive spirit
for developing world-class
institutions. The 100-day
blueprint sought to increase
the number of IoEs to 30.
Accordingly, the UGC’s Empowered Expert Committee
recommended that 15 public
and 15 private institutes be
recognised as IoEs. The government has taken action regarding 10 institutes. Where
the Modi government has
failed miserably is in its goal
of the filling up of 300,000
faculty positions in higher
educational institutions.
The Unfinished
Agenda
A five-year action plan
is needed to implement the
most critical reforms, such
as a new education regulatory mechanism and body
Vacancies must be filled
within a set deadline
The Modi government has reiterated, in the new budget, that
17 sites in the country would be developed as world­class tourism
destinations. An estimated 20 million Indians go abroad on vaca­
tion every year. PM Modi has urged this group to visit 15 destina­
tions in the country by 2022 to give a fillip to domestic tourism.
Work is on to introduce a five­year electronic tourist visa
Tourism minister Prahlad Singh Patel has taken feedback from
the ambassadors of various countries to understand the concerns
of their tourists while visiting India
The government announced the opening of 137 peaks in J&K,
Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Sikkim for mountaineering
The stall in Gujarat’s Vadnagar where PM Modi sold tea in
his younger days will be converted into a tourist spot
Is It Enough?
Foreign tourist arrivals
jumped 5.4 percentage points
within a year, to 721,015 in June
2019 from 683,928 in June 2018,
according to tourism ministry
figures. While the Modi government did well on policy initiatives in the past five years, the
plans did not get the requisite
financial push. The trend continues in the second term as well.
The ministry is seeking Rs 5,000
crore over five years for the development of 17 iconic sites. The
budget, though, has not made
any specific allocation for it. Of
the total estimated spend of
Rs 27,86,349 crore in 2019-20,
the budget allocated Rs 2,189
crore, or 0.07 per cent, for the
development of tourism. In the
absence of a concerted and coordinated effort from the states,
infrastructure, connectivity
and safety remain a concern for
international tourists.
The Unfinished
Agenda
Increase budgetary allocation
Draw a plan with states to
improve tourism infrastructure
Build a cohesive structure for
effective coordination among the
stakeholder ministries, such as
roads, railways, aviation, forests,
urban and rural development
Improve connectivity between
major tourist centres; create PPP
models to involve private players
Improve safety and cleanliness at tourism sites; link central
funds with the states’ performance in these areas
Run an awareness drive
through India’s missions abroad
and social media to woo tourists
Create dedicated banks for the
tourism industry, offering easy
loans to local stakeholders, such
as homestay-owners
SE P T E M BE R 2 3 , 2 019
INDIA TODAY
41
MODI
GOVERNMENT
THIS IS PROGRESS
Muslim women celebrate the passing
of the bill criminalising triple talaq
SOCIAL WELFARE
Casting a
Security Net
Though the government has fulfilled a crucial item
on its agenda by criminalising triple talaq, women
and children need more all-round initiatives
By Kaushik Deka
The Journey So Far
The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, 2019, criminalising triple talaq, passed
The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences
(Amendment) Act, 2019,
passed, with amendments,
including death penalty for
aggravated sexual assault
on children and stringent
punishments for other crimes
against minors
Merged four codes—on
wages; industrial relations;
social security and occu42
INDIA TODAY
Y
Is It Enough?
Though the allocation for social welfare
improved from Rs 46,492 crore estimated in the interim budget in February
to Rs 50,850 crore in the July budget, it
was just 1.8 per cent of total budgetary
allocation. While all parties supported
the Protection of Children from Sexual
Offences (Amendment) Act, the criminalisation of triple talaq was construed as
interference in the religious practices of
Muslims on the pretext of protecting their
women. To prove its intent on women’s
welfare, the government would do well
to introduce the Women’s Reservation
Bill, enabling 33 per cent reservation for
women in legislatures.
The Unfinished Agenda
pational safety; health and
working conditions—into
Code on Wages, 2019, to
simplify, rationalise and
amalgamate various labour
laws. Critics, however, claim
the act is biased in favour of
employers.
Passed Consumer Protection Bill, 2019, which
proposes, among other
things, the setting up of a
Central Consumer Protection
Authority (CCPA) to promote,
protect and enforce the rights
of consumers as a class
SE P T E M BE R 2 3 , 2 019
Implement stringent laws across the
country against mob lynching
Protect rape victims from administrative apathy and harassment by accused
Introduce laws against hooliganism in
the name of protection of culture
Ensure property rights of destitute
widows across religious groups
Pass the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Bill, 2019
Amend Prohibition of Employment as
Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act to make it more stringent
Amend Maintenance & Welfare of
Parents & Senior Citizens Act, 2007, for
social and economic security of elderly
AMAL KS/ GETTY IMAGES
10
0
DAYS OF
10
00
DAYS OF
MODI
GOVERNMENT
HEALTH
MANEESH AGNIHOTRI
CARE QUOTIENT
The paediatric ICU at
BRD Medical College,
Gorakhpur, UP
Towards a
Healthy Spirit
The national health agenda is complex and evolving
and India’s ailing health sector needs an overhauling
of governance and regulations to cure it
By Amarnath K. Menon
The Journey So Far
The National Medical Commission Bill, 2019, has been passed by
both houses of Parliament, heralding a new era in medical education
The ministry of health and family
welfare, through a notification, has
put in the public domain the Clinical Establishments (Registration
and Regulation) Act, 2010, and the
Clinical Establishments (Central
Government) Rules, 2012, adopted
by 11 states and six Union territories, to help check issues of overbilling and medical negligence
The Healthcare Service Personnel and Clinical Establishments
(Prohibition of Violence and Damage to Property) Bill, 2019, has been
drafted. It proposes to make acts of
violence against healthcare professionals a cognisable and non-bailable offence. It also seeks to provide
compensation for injuries to healthcare personnel (nurses, midwives,
doctors, medical students, ambulance drivers and helpers) and for
damage or loss to the properties of
clinical establishments (hospitals,
clinics, dispensaries, sanatoriums,
ambulances and mobile units).
The budgetary allocation for the
health sector this year is Rs 62,659.2
crore—up by 19 per cent from last
year. This includes Rs 6,400 crore
for the Centre’s flagship insurance
scheme Ayushman Bharat-Pradhan
Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY) that aims to provide around
10.74 crore families annual health
cover of up to Rs 5 lakh per family for secondary and tertiary care
hospitalisation.
In a controversial move, the
ministry has created a cadre of
community health providers with a
limited licence to deliver preventive
and primary health services at the
150,000 health and wellness centres to begin operations by 2022
The health minister has announced plans for a National Genomic Grid to study genomic data
of Indian cancer patients in line
with the National Cancer Tissue
Biobank
Is It Enough?
In India, both healthcare and health
insurance are weighed down by poor
governance and weak regulations.
With 86 per cent of the rural and 82
per cent of the urban population still
not covered, the agenda is in dire
need of reforms.
There is an acute shortage of
doctors, nurses, paramedics and
lab technicians in the country and,
unfortunately, there is no provision in
the budget to address this. There is
also an urgent need for research and
development in basic medical sciences and other areas to enable the
growth of indigenous technology.
The Unfinished
Agenda
The health ministry should review
the pricing of the 1,300 AB-PMJAY
Bharat medical packages to remove
anomalies and roll out the scheme
across the country as a top priority
India needs to work towards the
target of one doctor for every 1,000
citizens, as per the WHO standard,
by 2022 against the current ratio
of one for every 1,655 persons; and
also increase the number of MBBS
seats from 42,000 to 100,000
INTERVIEW
Y O G I
A D I T Y A N A T H
“WE INHERITED
ANARCHY...THE
PERCEPTION OF U.P.
HAS CHANGED NOW”
The journey of Yogi Adityanath, from being the
mahant of a prominent religious order to the chief
minister of Uttar Pradesh, was meteoric. Equally
interesting is his rise as an administrator with an
incorruptible, no-nonsense image. Completing
two-and-a-half years in office, Adityanath spoke
about his mission and vision for U.P. to Group
Editorial Director Raj Chengappa, Senior Deputy
Editor Uday Mahurkar, INDIA TODAY (Hindi) Editor
Anshuman Tiwari, and Assistant Editor Ashish
Misra at his Lucknow residence. Excerpts:
Photographs by BANDEEP SINGH
Q.
Before coming to power in Uttar Pradesh, the BJP
swore by the slogan ‘Na bhrashtachar, na goonda
raj (Neither corruption nor rule of goons)’. Has the
Yogi Adityanath government lived up to this call?
A. One needs to see our government’s achievements
in the light of what we inherited from the Akhilesh
[Yadav] regime. We inherited anarchy, chaos,
corruption and a culture of murder and loot. The public’s trust stood
shattered. The courts had put a stay on [various government] recruitments. There was corruption in recruitments and transfers and postings
[of officials]. Nepotism, casteism and communal riots had come to be
the state’s identity. After almost two-and-a-half years of BJP rule, we can
firmly say that under the guidance of our visionary prime minister, we
have changed this perception of UP.
INTERVIEW
Y O G I
A D I T Y A N A T H
Q. What effect has this ‘change of perception’ brought
about on the ground in the state?
A. Look at the way industrial investment has grown. Our
officials wanted to hold a global investors’ summit with
the aim of attracting investment to the tune of
Rs 20,000 crore. But I felt a global summit should bring
in investment assurances worth no less than Rs 2 lakh
crore. We worked hard and, eventually, secured investment promises worth Rs 5 lakh crore at the summit.
These proposals are fast turning into reality—a groundbreaking ceremony for proposals worth Rs 1.25 lakh
crore has already been held. Investment worth another
Rs 65,000 crore is in the pipeline. Since we came to
power, around Rs 2.5 lakh crore has been invested in
UP. Today, every industrialist at home and abroad wants
to invest in UP. Investors believe the state is free from
the grip of bureaucratic hurdles and red tape. Our drive
against corruption and goonda raj produced a bounty.
“SINCE WE CAME TO POWER,
AROUND Rs 2.5 LAKH CRORE
HAS BEEN INVESTED IN UP.
TODAY, EVERY INDUSTRIALIST
WANTS TO INVEST HERE”
Industrialists feel UP is now a safe place for investment.
We brought about this change through the same administration and officials.
Three major events define the change we have ushered in—the Kumbh in Prayagraj, the Pravasi Bharatiya
Divas in Varanasi and the peaceful conduct of the Lok
Sabha election. Kumbh was indeed the high point. With
the PM’s guidance, the state machinery worked as a
team. The result was that 240 million devotees attended
the Kumbh. There were no accidents, no stampedes.
There was no filth. For the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas, we
had estimated 3,000 participants; some 7,000 attended. Hotels proved insufficient, so we created a tented
city. During the Lok Sabha election, voting was held at
163,000 booths in seven phases, without any untoward
incident anywhere. In sharp contrast, voting in West
Bengal, which has half the number of booths in UP, was
marred by repeated violence and deaths. These events
prove that UP and its machinery are on the right track
46
INDIA TODAY
SE P T E M BE R 2 3 , 2 019
and our government has gained the trust of the commoner. We have fulfilled the trust reposed in us by Narendra
Modiji and Amit Shahji. We feel satisfied.
Q. Central government data suggests the unemployment
rate in UP has doubled in the past two years and stands
at 16 per cent. Why would unemployment figures go up
when investment is coming into the state?
A. These might be old figures. New data points to UP
emerging as one of the states with the highest exports.
Exports have grown by 28 per cent in the past one year
and our performance has been much better than of other
states. We have provided 225,000 jobs in the government sector and there have been no complaints about the
recruitment process—this in a state that was notorious
for corruption and nepotism in government jobs.
The way our traditional businesses expanded their
exports, under the ‘One District, One Product’ scheme, is
a story in itself. UP has clusters of traditional
business in every district. We improved the
mapping, marketing and branding of our
products and increased exports by about
Rs 25,000 crore in just one year. Today, our
total exports are to the tune of Rs 1.14 lakh
crore. We created 450,000 jobs. But our target
is to generate 2.5 million jobs under the ‘One
District, One Product’ scheme.
I have interacted with the state’s brass
industry—exports from Moradabad alone
have increased manifold. What made this
possible was the 24-hour power supply and a
sense of security among traders due to the end
of goonda raj. One trader came and congratulated me,
saying he has not encountered a single extortionist in the
past 18 months. I got similar feedback during my interactions with the carpet exporters of Bhadohi. The region
accounts for almost half of the country’s carpet exports
worth Rs 8,000 crore.
UP has chalked out a policy focused on its different
sectors. We have 21 policies for the various sectors. Scores
of youths are getting employed through the UP Skill
Development Mission. We have already generated 140
million jobs under MNREGA, and our target this year is
250 million jobs.
Q. How did you prepare yourself for the job of leading a
challenging state like UP?
A. When I took over in March 2017, I had no experience
in governance. My team, too, was mostly new. Recently,
we restructured the cabinet based on performance
and certain norms. Now, we are doing better work as a
“THREE MAJOR EVENTS
DEFINE THE CHANGE
WE HAVE BROUGHT—
KUMBH IN PRAYAGRAJ,
PRAVASI BHARATIYA
DIVAS IN VARANASI
AND THE PEACEFUL
CONDUCT OF THE LOK
SABHA ELECTION”
team. After assuming office, I decided to take presentations from every department in order to understand the
ground situation in every sector. This helped me gauge
the magnitude of the challenge, set targets and devise
tools to measure performance. Ministers, too, would hold
meetings with their department officials and watch the
presentations. This detailed approach has been one of the
main reasons behind our success despite the obstacles.
Now, we need to increase our pace and develop the ability
to not only lead but improve our decision-making process.
With this purpose, I visited IIM (Indian Institute of
Management)-Lucknow (on September 8) with my entire
cabinet to attend the ‘Manthan’ leadership development
programme. I wanted it to be a refresher course. Almost
every minister attended the event for nine hours, with
full commitment, and took part in the discussions. We
learnt that the ability to take decisions is very critical to
good governance. We are holding a second training course
at the IIM on September 15. It will be followed by a third
course and then a concluding session—all aimed at improving governance in order to realise the aim of making
UP a $1 trillion economy.
Q. How do you rate your track record in core governance?
A. The agro sector has been one of our big achievements.
Today, UP tops in foodgrain production because of the
improved irrigation facilities, modern agro techniques
and effective procurement policy introduced by my government. Other governments in the past 15 years never
ran any meaningful agro or irrigation programme, which
led to farmer suicides. UP didn’t have any procurement
policy. Take the example of the Bansagar irrigation project. It was approved in 1973 and the foundation stone was
laid by the late PM Morarji Desai in 1978. When we came
to power, it was still incomplete. We completed the project
within a year. It has brought over 150,000 hectares under
irrigation, and with the introduction of drip irrigation,
its irrigation potential will increase to 400,000 hectares.
About 170,000 farmers are directly benefitting from the
project. We are working on some other irrigation projects
pending for the past 50 years. They will be operational by
the year-end, taking our additional irrigation potential to
1.4 million hectares.
Another shocking example of poor governance and
massive corruption by previous governments is the state
of sugar mills. Sugar mills in the state were shutting down
and being sold at throwaway prices. When we came to
power, payments to sugarcane farmers were due for the
past five years. We drew up an action plan and approached
the owners and managers of all sugar mills. Thanks to our
sincere efforts, we have already paid Rs 73,000 crore to
the farmers whereas the previous government couldn’t pay
even Rs 50,000 crore in five years. We are not only reviving
sugar mills that shut down but also helping new ones come
up. Two new sugar mills have come up and will start production in this season. The expansion of the sugar mill at
Chaudhary Charan Singh’s village (in Baghpat)—pending
for 30 years—has been approved. We have also launched a
policy for encouraging production of ethanol. The sugarcane industry is on track now.
SE P T E M BE R 2 3 , 2 019
INDIA TODAY
47
INTERVIEW
Y O G I
A D I T Y A N A T H
On the power front, generation and consumption
of electricity has doubled since we came to power.
Against the 3-4 hour supply earlier, the district
headquarters now get almost 24 hours of power. In
the tehsil headquarters, supply has gone up to 18-20
hours and about 16-18 hours in the rural belt.
Q. Your government has big plans to develop
expressways and airports and provide cutting-edge
connectivity in the state.
A. For us, expressways are not a medium to benefit a
particular party. We have started three expressway
projects with the aim of making them the lifeline of
UP. The Purvanchal and Bundelkhand expressways
are being constructed to help develop the economically weaker regions by providing them connectivity. Varanasi and Gorakhpur in Purvanchal have
seen development, but areas in the middle remain
underdeveloped. The first stretch of the Purvanchal
expressway, connecting Lucknow, Barabanki,
Raebareli, Amethi, Ayodhya, Ambedkar Nagar,
Sultanpur, Azamgarh and Ghazipur, will usher in
development. We are extending it to Ballia. Akhilesh
Yadav laid the foundation stone for the Purvanchal
expressway in December 2016, but work did not
start until May 2017. I learnt that they had allotted
contracts worth Rs 15,800 crore without acquiring
land for the project—something unimaginable! We
started land acquisition and by March 2018 were
able to acquire around 96 per cent of the required
land. During the bidding process, the contracts
that the Akhilesh Yadav government had given for
Rs 15,800 crore went for less than Rs 12,000 crore.
This shows the extent of loot that had been going
on. The expressway will open to general public in
August 2020.
We are developing industrial clusters along the
expressway and have also sanctioned a university near
it in Azamgarh, all in keeping with our vision that
expressways should be the true pathways of development. On the Bundelkhand expressway, which
will connect Agra to Chitrakoot, we are planning a
defence manufacturing corridor. Then there’s the
Meerut-Prayagraj Ganga expressway. The three expressways will become the backbone of UP’s economy.
When we came to power, only a couple of airports were functional. Now, apart from Lucknow,
Varanasi and Gorakhpur, Prayagraj, Kanpur and
Agra airports are also operational. Work is in progress at 11 more airports. By September, we will complete acquisition of 85 per cent of the land needed
48
INDIA TODAY
SE P T E M BE R 2 3 , 2 019
“WE PAID Rs 73,000
CRORE IN DUES TO
SUGARCANE FARMERS.
THE PREVIOUS REGIME
COULDN’T PAY EVEN
Rs 50,000 CRORE IN
FIVE YEARS”
for these projects. The Jewar airport will be the country’s
biggest, spanning about 4,000 acres. Development of
waterways is also on our agenda.
Q. How do you see your journey from being the mahant
of a prominent religious order to the chief minister of
India’s largest state?
A. When I became chief minister, I had no experience or
idea how governments function. I was an MP and a yogi
at the Gorakhnath mutt. But we were lucky that the most
visionary person in the world was our leader. There is no
planner like our PM. He taught us to move forward with a
positive attitude. He taught us how to turn challenges into
opportunities. As a yogi, I had inherited public values and
qualities such as devotion to duty. In this culture, religion
is linked to duty and public welfare. As a mahant, I ran
several social service projects. In that sense, I had some
experience of running the administration with the right
sense of duty. I had already been MP for several terms. All
this proved useful when I took over as chief minister.
“AYODHYA IS A HOLY SITE. IT’S
MY GOVERNMENT’S DUTY TO
DEVELOP IT ACCORDINGLY. ON
THE MANDIR ISSUE, WE HOPE
FOR A FAVOURABLE VERDICT”
Q. The cow is a sensitive issue not only in UP but across
the country. What has your government done for the
preservation of cows?
A. There are two issues here: the protection of cows and
their preservation through the introduction of improved
and healthier breeds. To protect cows, we banned illegal
abattoirs as soon as we came to power. I was aware that
banning the illegal slaughterhouses would raise questions
about [the management of] the abandoned animals. So
we chalked out an elaborate policy. Gaushalas that had
shut down were reactivated. A part of the 54,000 hectares freed from the land mafia in the state was used to
build new cow shelters, using the special cow cess levied
on foreign liquor. Incentives were announced for farmers
willing to keep up to four unproductive cows. Indian cow
breeds, such as Ganga, Sahiwal, Gir and Tharparkar, are
being encouraged through incentive-based policies.
Q. Law and order has been one of your government’s high
priorities. Has the UP police been given additional powers for the purpose?
A. The police used to be politicised. There was massive
corruption and nepotism in police recruitments, transfers and postings. Not just rules and regulations, our
government is using technology to curb corruption in
the police. We have made the force more independent.
Maintaining law and order without discrimination is
their top priority.
Q. Samajwadi Party MP Azam Khan’s name has been
put on the UP government’s online list of land mafia.
A. This (action against land mafia) is taking place everywhere. We believe the land mafia has been one of the
main reasons behind the sorry state of politics and administration in UP. I have not lodged any FIR against
anyone; it’s the revenue department and the district
magistrates who are taking action. Everything will be
done as per the law, be it [in] Rampur (Khan’s stronghold) or Sonbhadra. In Sonbhadra, more than 100,000
bighas have been encroached upon by Congress leaders
by forming bogus agricultural societies. We are going to
take major action there.
Q. How is the outbreak of Japanese encephalitis being contained in the state?
A. We have succeeded against encephalitis due
to teamwork and the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. I have been fighting this menace for 21
years now. As an MP, I have repeatedly raised
the matter in Parliament since 1998. As chief
minister, I realised the solution lay in vaccination, promoting hygiene and providing clean
drinking water. In the past four decades, more
than 50,000 children in 38 districts of eastern
UP have died of encephalitis. The Swachh
Bharat Mission has played an important role in reducing outbreaks in the state. We are running four to five
annual programmes against water-borne diseases by
successfully coordinating the efforts of the health and
other departments.
Q. What is your action plan for Ayodhya?
A. Ayodhya is a holy site, so it is the responsibility of my
government to develop the city accordingly. The Ram
Janmabhoomi issue is in the Supreme Court. We are
hopeful of a favourable verdict.
Q. Some analysts predict that the BJP will rule at the
Centre for the next two decades, with Modi as PM, followed by Amit Shah and then Yogi Adityanath.
A. The BJP is going to rule India for the next 50 years.
Modiji and Amit Shahji have offered a perfect model
of governance that ensures development, security and
prosperity of the people. India is poised to scale great
heights. As for me, I shall continue to work as an ordinary worker of the BJP. n
SE P T E M BE R 2 3 , 2 019
INDIA TODAY
49
THE BIG STORY | M.L. KHATTAR
ON THE
FRONT FOOT
AS THE JAN ASHIRWAD YATRA SHOWS, HARYANA
CHIEF MINISTER MANOHAR LAL KHATTAR IS ON A ROLL
AHEAD OF THE ASSEMBLY ELECTION NEXT MONTH
By Uday Mahurkar
he adulation is
of caste- and region-based politics
manifest. As the
of favouritism and discrimination.”
grizzled chief
Khattar himself later says he was overminister leans
whelmed by the response to the yatra.
out of his elec“I must have shaken hands with at least
tion campaign
one lakh people in these 15 days,” he
rath and chants
told india today.
his trademark
On the evidence of the yatra, Khat“Haryana ek, Haryanvi ek (One Harytar’s popularity is widespread and
ana for all Haryanvis)” line, hundreds
draws on his clean image. Omprakash
jostle to shake hands with him. The soYadav, a marginal farmer in Jodhka
called rath is in fact a massive outfitted
village of Sirsa tehsil, is impressed. “He
bus equipped with a lift that takes him
listens to everyone... he has sincerely
to the top to address bigger crowds.
tried to end corruption,” he says.
The 15-day, 3,000 km Jan AshirNot far away, Suresh Punia, a Dalit
wad yatra of Haryana chief minister
marginal farmer and his two collegeManohar Lal Khattar, which wound
going daughters, Radha and Ravina,
through the state’s 90
gush. “He clamped
assembly constituendown on corruption
cies, will surely leave
and casteism. He wants
Khattar’s image
a lasting impression.
justice for everyone,”
With Haryana going
says Ravina. Yadav
change, from an
to the polls in October,
points to how, in the
honest but weak
Khattar had launched
administrator to his past one year, as many
the yatra to showcase
as 22 youths from the
current
dominant
his achievements and
village have got governposition,
took
some
seek the blessings of
ment jobs. And they
the people—hence jan
time. The CM puts it belong to all castes,
ashirwad.
from Dalit to Kamboj
down to “a matter
As the rath enters
to even the Jats who
of perception”
Elanabad, a small
were earlier often
town in Sirsa district,
accused of cornering
Khattar climbs to the
a majority of the jobs.
top to address the crowd. They are
Says Yadav: “All of them got in without
effusive, though Khattar is no great
paying a single rupee [in bribes, which
orator. The chief minister sticks to
is the norm]. This is a feat in itself.”
his showcase themes—how he curbed
Khattar’s transformation, from
corruption in the government departbeing rated an honest but weak adments, freed the state of the evils of
ministrator, to his current dominant
caste politics. “In the last election, the
position, took some time coming. The
BJP won only one assembly segment
chief minister himself puts it all down
out of nine in the Sirsa Lok Sabha seat.
to “a matter of perception”. He says,
Yet my government never discrimi“You will be surprised to know that
nated against Sirsa, we have brought
when I was organisation secretary of
development to the area. You must
the Haryana BJP unit, party workers
now rise above caste and regional
thought I was too strict. People used to
considerations,” he says. As the people
fear meeting me. When I became chief
cheer, Karnal MP Sanjay Bhatia, who
minister, I wilfully set out to change
is in charge of the yatra, bellows over
my style of working.”
the din: “This appeal of oneness by
Much of this ‘weak’ perception was
the chief minister has broken decades
created by the Jat reservation riots and
VIKRAM SHARMA
T
SHAKE ON IT
CM Khattar with
villagers during the
final leg of the yatra
in Sirsa district
SE P T E M BE R 2 3 , 2 019
INDIA TODAY
51
THE BIG STORY | M.L. KHATTAR
the agitations that followed the arrest
of godman Ram Rahim Singh. Around
80 people died in the violence and
police firing in the two incidents. Khattar had taken flak for his inability to
deal with the blowback. The CM now
feels these were “engineered” to show
him in a bad light. “But now the people
know the truth, they have experienced
what good governance can do. And we
have enough achievements to show. For
example, in the ease of doing business
rankings, Haryana has climbed from
14th position to third among the states
during our five-year rule,” he says.
ne of Khattar’s big
moves was migrating
the government
recruitment process
online and reducing
the weightage of
interview marks in the entrance
examination for senior categories (it
was removed altogether in the lower
categories like for school teachers, who
just apply online and get selected on
merit). He cut out the human interface,
leaving no room for favouritism and
corruption, and introduced technology
and check systems that have made the
recruitment process relatively transparent. During his five-year rule, the
state government claims to have
created 75,000 direct jobs and 25,000
indirect ones in a fair and transparent
manner, which has shored up its image.
Teacher transfer postings were a
big ‘industry’ in previous regimes with
the going rate as high as Rs 35,000
for a choice posting. In Khattar’s time,
teachers seeking preferential postings
just had to apply online, giving three
preferred places. The result: about 93
per cent teachers now get postings of
their choice without having to grease
palms, says government sources.
Sunita Duggal, the BJP Lok Sabha
MP from Sirsa, says, “The party machinery has coined catchy lines to beef
up the chief minister’s image based
on his work. Some of these have come
from the people themselves.” Like the
one that goes: “Khattar raj mein bina
O
52
INDIA TODAY
SE P T E M BE R 2 3 , 2 019
VIKRAM SHARMA
SHOW OF HANDS
The Jan Ashirwad rath rolls in
parchi bina kharchi (In the Khatgence has been his firm dealing with
tar regime, things are done without
power thieves in the farm sector. Harya parchi meaning a chit symbolising
ana had for a long time been notorious
nepotism or kharchi, bribes).
for this. While punishing the power
Another slogan that has caught the
thieves, Khattar introduced a scheme
popular imagination goes: “Haryana
of uninterrupted electricity supply to
mein ek hi Lal, Manohar Lal, Manovillages that eliminated power theft.
har Lal.” It refers to the end of the days
From a situation where there was not
of the three Lals—the families of Devi
a village in Haryana without power
Lal, Bansi Lal and Bhajan Lal—who
theft, now 4,200 of the 6,200 villages
lorded over Haryana for decades, and
get 24-hour supply under the ‘Mera
the emergence of the only Lal that
gaanv, jagmag gaanv (My dazzling
matters, Manohar Lal.
village)’ scheme.
The party’s ‘Ab ki baar, 75
Pramod Kumar,
paar (this time 75 seats
governance expert
plus)’ slogan focuses on
and director of the
A
big
step
in
the
the party’s ambitions for
Chandigarh-based
resurgence
of
the current election—winInstitute of DevelopKhattar
has
been
ning 75 of the 90 seats.
ment and CommuThe opposition disarnication, has studied
his firm dealing
ray should also help the
the Khattar model.
with power theft
BJP’s cause. The faction“When it comes to
in
the
farm
secridden state Congress has
fighting corruptor,
which
Haryjust changed the state
tion, he has done a
ana had been
party chief on the eve of
commendable job,”
the polls (former Union
he says. “This is in
notorious for
minister Kumari Selja resharp contrast to
places state heavyweight
the political culture
Ashok Tanwar while
that existed under
ex-CM B.S. Hooda pulls strings in the
previous regimes.” Kurukshetra-based
background as legislative party leader
academic R. Tanwar says Khattar’s
and chief of the election managesuccess lies in “restoring meritocracy
ment committee). As Khattar puts it,
that had been destroyed in Haryana.
“Changing the general when the battle
His grievance redressal mechanism
has already begun shows the state the
is very strong”. It is all the confidence
Congress and the opposition are in.”
Khattar needs to convince the people
A major step in Khattar’s resurhe is the man to beat come October. n
GOING
ABROAD
THE TOP DESTINATIONS
FOR INDIAN STUDENTS
STUDYING ABROAD
l
FIVE ENTREPRENEURS
ON WHY GOING GLOBAL
IS THE RIGHT CHOICE
l
EDUCATION
Illustration by SIDDHANT JUMDE
SMART
SMART
EDUCATION
DE S T IN AT IONS
TRAVEL,
EXPLORE,
LEARN
Some of the top choices for
students looking to go abroad
for higher education
SPAIN
www.campusspain.es
T
he 2019 QS World University Rankings has seven
Spanish universities in its Top 50 under 50, with
three in the Top 10 Global MBA rankings in Europe.
Spain is now a major destination for international students. One concern is the language barrier—most subjects at public universities are taught in Spanish—which
means students need to be fluent. The comprehensive
language, culture and adaptation to university course
(LCA) by Campus Spain is specifically designed for this.
Spoiled for Choice There are about 50 public and
35 private universities in Spain. Bachelor’s degree programmes are popular with Indians, with postgraduate
courses also seeing interest. The most popular undergraduate courses are law, visual arts, design, tourism,
filmmaking and engineering. MBA courses are highly
favoured by postgraduate students. Gonzalo Martinez,
director, Campus Spain, says, “Some of the best universities for medicine and engineering are public institutions, but for business studies, students should choose
private institutions.” The top-ranked degrees in public
universities cost students less than $1,000 a year.
Stay Back While those on student visas are allowed to
work while studying, those who have finished their degrees can stay in Spain for up to a year while looking for
a job if they can show they are financially independent.
—Shelly Anand
54
INDIA TODAY
SE P T E M BE R 2 3 , 2 019
STUDY ON THE GO
International exposure helps
students adapt better; team spirit
and extracurricular activities help
forge bonds (below)
IRELAND
www.educationinireland.com
A
lisha Mahajan, from Mumbai, chose Maynooth University, Ireland,
for her graduate degree. Now pursuing a Master’s in Education
there, Mahajan says the course offers her the freedom to choose
her own research area and that it focuses on both theory and practice.
Class Apart As an English-speaking country, Ireland is a great
option for international students. Over 4,500 Indian students study
in Ireland, of which 90 per cent are in postgraduate courses. “In 19
fields of research, Irish universities are in the top one per cent,” says
Barry O’Driscoll, senior education adviser, Education in Ireland.
Demand Graph The most popular courses include mechanical and
electronic engineering, biotechnology, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, data analytics, cyber security, accounting, finance and MBAs.
Why Ireland Students can opt for a two-year ‘stay back’ option after
their postgraduate course. With over 1,000 multinationals based in the
country, students have an easier time getting jobs and work experience.
—Shelly Anand
vna Jolly, senior program officer,
EducationUSA.
Number Speak From 2017 to
2018, there was a 13.8 per cent
increase in the number of undergraduate students from India in
the US. The majority choose degree programmes under STEM.
In 2018, the top five fields of study
were mathematics and computer
science, engineering, business
and management, physical and
life sciences, and health.
UNITED STATES
educationusa.state.gov
T
he US has over 4,700
accredited institutions of
higher education. “The
course flexibility, cutting-edge
curricula, infrastructure and
opportunities for research and
work (with up to three years of
practical training for STEMscience, technology, engineering
and mathematics—majors) make
the US a top choice,” says Bhav-
Plan Well Shortlist institutions
that provide scholarships and
funding. “Families should consider application costs and total cost
of attendance. Universities offer
many types of funding: merit and
talent scholarships, assistantships
and financial aid,” says Jolly.
After Graduation International students are allowed oncampus jobs for a specific number
of hours per week. After graduation, they can work in their field
of study from one to three years.
—Harshita Das
NEW ZEALAND
www.studyinnewzealand.govt.nz
I
ndians comprise the second largest international student body in
New Zealand, with a 51 per cent
increase in enrolments over the
past six months. “New Zealand’s
research strengths complement
India’s growth industries and
skill demands,” says John Laxon,
regional director (Asia), Education
New Zealand.
Work Rights New Zealand
offers post-study work visas for
three years for students who have
completed undergraduate, postgraduate or doctorate level studies.
Courses are designed to include
internships, allowing students to
connect with industry.
Popular Courses Commerce,
business management and engineering are traditionally popular
courses, though robotics, sports
sciences, entrepreneurship and
filmmaking (among others) have recently seen an increase in demand.
—Aditi Pai
SMART
EDUCATION
DE S T IN AT IONS
HIMSEL/AUSSERHOFER
TECH STOP Germany is a popular
choice for students of engineering
GERMANY
www.daad.in
G
ermany is fast
becoming a major
destination for international students, with 13.2
per cent of students in the
country having come from
abroad. Apoorv Mahendru,
director (marketing), DAAD
(the German Academic
Exchange Service), says,
“Indian students form the
second largest group of
international students in
Germany. Currently, there
are 17,570 Indian students
registered in the country—
that is the figure of intake
from the winter semester 2017. We expect that
56
INDIA TODAY
number to reach 20,000 by
September.”
A World-class Degree
In the past couple of years,
Germany has grown as a
research and education
hub, with a steady growth
in student numbers. “The
reason for this is the high
quality of education. Also,
Germany is very different
from other countries—a
majority of German universities do not charge tuition
fees. This is an important
factor for India, which is
a cost-sensitive market,”
says Mahendru.
SE P T E M BE R 2 3 , 2 019
What’s Hot
Germany is well-known for
technical subjects. Engineering is by far the most
sought-after discipline,
coupled with pure sciences
and STEM. Almost 80 per
cent of Indian students
who choose to study in
Germany take up this
stream. “Though German is
the mother tongue, universities are internationalised
and offer programmes with
English as the medium of
instruction; approximately
200 study programmes are
taught in English,” he says.
Scholarships are offered at
the Master’s level by DAAD
in the fields of engineering, law and development
studies.
Work Rules
Permissions for students
to work are quite liberal
in Germany. Students can
work for 120 full days and
240 half days. Permitted
jobs include employment at
the university library
or as a research or teaching assistants. After graduation, students can stay on
for about 18 months while
looking for a job.
—Harshita Das
SMART
EDUCATION
DE S T IN AT IONS
AUSTRALIA
www.studyinaustralia.gov.au
UNITED
KINGDOM
www.britishcouncil.in
W
ith 50,000 courses available at different levels of
study and half a million
international students, the United
Kingdom ranks 29th among the
top 200 global education destinations. With a mix of cultures and
nationalities on campuses across
the country, the UK is the topmost
popular choice for Indian students
looking for an international degree.
Tom Birtwistle, director (north
India) at the British Council, says,
“Studying in the UK is a career
investment for students—they
get both theoretical and practical
knowledge, and most courses are
designed with help from industry
leaders and major companies to
ensure the content is relevant.”
Strong Ties There is a long
tradition of Indians going to the
UK for higher studies. The total
number of Indian students in the
country as of July 2019 stood at
21,881, a 42 per cent increase from
last year. While the majority of
students are at the postgraduate
level, undergraduate numbers are
rising too. “That’s a reflection of
Indian students thinking of global
education,” says Birtwistle.
Best Picks Some consistently
popular programmes include
business management, finance,
engineering, medical science, law
and architecture. Of late, students have also begun taking up
humanities and other creatively
slanted subjects such as design.
The most popular universities with
Indian students are the University
of Warwick, De Montfort University, Coventry University and the
University of Edinburgh.
Talking Money UK universities have support mechanisms for
students, and are known
to help with on-campus
accommodation or with other
private set-ups. They also have
financial aid options on merit. In
2018-2019, for instance, the UK
government and British Council
Library offered 480 scholarships
to Indian students.
—Shelly Anand
EXCHANGE OF IDEAS
Students get to interact with their global peers
T
here are seven Australian
institutions among the top 100
in the world. Peter Coleman,
trade commissioner, Australian
Trade and Investment Commission,
says, “India is the second largest
source of overseas students in
Australia.” At the end of June 2019,
there were 92,691 Indian students
in the country. Over 50,000 Indian
students are enrolled in Master’s
programmes, with 1,330 in PhDs.
Multiple Options There are
more than 1,100 institutes and
22,000 courses to choose from.
Australia is a significant destination for subjects like robotics,
media and entertainment, archaeology, sports sciences and veterinary science, among others.
FULL HOUSE Out-of-the
classroom discussions
Financial Aid There are several
scholarships, grants, and bursaries for international students.
These include Australia Awards,
the Destination Australia Scholarship Program, the Australian
Government Research Training
Program and the Australia APEC
Women in Research Fellowship.
Work Rights Most student visas
allow students to work for up to
40 hours every two weeks—but
before students take up jobs, they
should ensure their visa allows it.
—Harshita Das
SMART
EDUCATION
TOP VOICE S
WEAVING
A STORY
PALAK SHAH, 28
Founder, Ekaya, Delhi
AN
B
INTERNATIONAL
AFFAIR
rimming with ideas and a winning attitude, it’s
tough to imagine Palak Shah as a timid young
girl. But time spent first at boarding school, and
then at King’s College London in the UK for her
bachelors in business management, and later for
an MBA in entrepreneurship at Babson College in the US,
shaped her personality and outlook on life. “I travelled
alone for the first time to the UK in 2009. During those
three years, I learnt to make my own choices” says Shah.
A foreign education can
help expand horizons and
sharpen business instincts.
Five entrepreneurs on why
going global works
Eye on the Future Shah launched Ekaya, a bespoke
luxury label helping to preserve Benarasi weaves, in 2012.
In 2015, she went to Babson College and it was as a college
project that she conceived Ekaya Thaan, a textile gallery
showcasing handwoven fabrics from all over India. “My
professor told me it was not a profitable business model,
but I was sure of my idea,” says Shah. A year old, Ekaya
Thaan has turned out to be a profitable venture.
Challenging Path “I loved being in the US. It is a
mature and competitive market. It throws tough tasks
at you, and teaches you how to deal with problems,” she
says. Shah’s advice for those wanting to take up a course
abroad: get out of your comfort zone and do not be scared
to fail. “No guts, no glory,” as she says.
—By Shelly Anand
YASIR IQBAL
A BRIGHT SPARK Palak Shah at Ekaya store in Delhi
OPEN WINDOW
Divya Jain in one of the
container classrooms
A
CHANDRADEEP KUMAR
graduate of the University of Cambridge, UK,
Divya Jain, founder and CEO of Safeducate, took
some serious inspiration from the UK system of
learning. Which is why the courses designed at
Safeducate, the training and skilling firm in the logistics sector, are based on experiential learning. “When I
came back in 2006, I realised in India they teach you supply chain in a classroom. There is no industry exposure.”
The idea to create colourful, air-conditioned ‘container’
classrooms to skill manpower came to Jain when she
visited Europe and saw hotels and hospitals made out of
scrapped containers.
LEADING FROM
THE FRONT
DIVYA JAIN, 36
Founder and CEO, Safeducate, Gurgaon
Right Move She launched Safeducate in 2007 and her
first step was to get an affiliation with the Indian chapter
of Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport in the
UK and evolve a similar logistics system in India. Though
from a conservative family, she convinced her parents
to let her pursue education abroad after completing her
graduation in economics from Hindu College, University
of Delhi. “I always wanted to do something in entrepreneurship so business was a huge part of my life. After
completing economics, I wanted to develop a base in
business and finance as the financial market was booming at the time,” says Jain.
Vital Outcomes While applying to a foreign university, you need to have your story right. “Go with an open
mind and a willingness to learn and unlearn the change,”
she says.
—By Harshita Das
A HEALTHY START
RAJWANT RAWAT
PRASHANT TANDON, 39
Founder and CEO, 1mg Technologies, Gurgaon
P
rashant Tandon, founder and CEO of 1mg Technologies, an online pharmacy platform, was working with
Hindustan Unilever when it became clear to him that he
wanted his own business. “I decided to pursue business education and applied to schools in the US,” says Tandon.
Experiential Transition After getting his MBA in
business from Stanford University, Tandon’s outlook
completely changed. “Studying abroad helps you analyse
things at a different level,” says the IIT-Delhi alumni. Having
worked in the healthcare segment, he saw an opportunity
in India. He launched HealthKart.com in 2011, followed by
1mg Technologies in 2015.
Focus Point Going abroad is all about knowing where you
are going and why. “Spend time researching the school and
reaching out to alumni. It’s about what you gain from that
experience. Don’t go just for the sake of going,” he says.
—By Harshita Das
SELLING AN
IDEA Prashant
Tandon at his
office in Gurgaon
SMART
EDUCATION
TOP VOICE S
MASTER CLASS Anahita Dhondy
experiments a lot with ingredients
BONDING
OVER
FOOD
ANAHITA DHONDY, 29
Chef-Partner,
SodaBottleOpenerWala
C
hefs at SodaBottleOpenerWala
arrive 15 minutes before their
scheduled work time. It’s because of the strict emphasis that
chef-partner Anahita Dhondy
puts on being on time, a habit she learnt
while studying at the Le Cordon Bleu in
London in 2012. Armed with a degree
from the Institute of Hotel Management in
Aurangabad, Dhondy enrolled for a yearlong Grande Diploma at the Le Cordon
Bleu in London where she specialised
in both pastry and cuisine. Back home a
year later, at 23, she landed a job as chef
manager at SodaBottleOpenerWala in
November 2013 when restaurateur A.D.
Singh launched the brand in Mumbai. Four
years later, after intense hard work “in
and out of the kitchen”, she went on to
become the chef-partner at the brand’s
outlet in Gurgaon. The stint in London
gave her an unforgettable experience
and widened her perspective. “It refined
my skills, perfecting so many techniques.
I would never have learnt how to approach certain ingredients or try different
ingredients if it wasn’t for the international
experience,” she says.
Make Friends “You must know that
there will be moments when you feel lonely and will miss your family and friends but
you should also make new ones. Go with
an open and positive mind and you’ll learn
and absorb the most,” says Dhondy.
60
INDIA TODAY
SE P T E M BE R 2 3 , 2 019
Discover More “Explore places whichever part of the world you are in. I
used to make a list of places and restaurants to visit on weekends,” she says.
Her favourites were the Borough Market, Camden Market, Brick Lane Market, Portobello Road Market and Gordon Ramsay’s Savoy Grill restaurant.
Lessons Learnt Being independent and responsible for yourself in
another country, handling your own finances which is very important in business, and being on time are a few of the things Dhondy feels her time at the
Le Cordon Bleu instilled in her.
—Aditi Pai
EDUCATION
TOP VOICE S
DANESH JASSAWALA
SMART
TORCH BEARER
Shaheen Mistri wants to make
education for all a reality
WORKING
FOR A
CAUSE
SHAHEEN MISTRI, 48
CEO, Teach for India, Mumbai
T
he idea of giving back to society was ingrained early on in Shaheen
Mistri. She grew up watching her mother work with the hearing
impaired at the school run by her. “I used to volunteer and spent every
summer among children with special needs,” says Mistri. These experiences led to Akanksha, an after-school centre for children living in
under-resourced areas, during her first year at St Xavier’s College in Mumbai.
“The centre soon evolved into the Akanksha Foundation in 1991. After about
two decades, I took time off to do a master’s in education from Manchester
University, UK,” she says.
Fully Equipped “I needed to learn the mechanics behind everything,
from building a team to raising funds. After experiencing the realities of
running a large scale non-profit organisation, I wanted to expand and grow
my skill set, which made me go for my master’s,” she says. Now, as CEO of
Teach for India, a non-profit organisation that is a part of the Teach for All
global network fighting for education equity, she has 1,016 fellows and 37,500
students learning in the classrooms.
Different Experiences Her course at Manchester University helped her
sharpen her organisation management and fund-raising skills. She channelled that towards creating an expansive, nationwide movement inspired by
what she learnt at the university. These became the seeds for Teach for India to
germinate as a movement.
Takeaway Tips For those planning to test the international waters,
Mistri says, “You should never feel bad about asking for help as you embark on
a big change in your life. You are now on the path to following your passion.
Surround yourself with people who understand and align with your vision.”
—Shelly Anand
62
INDIA TODAY
SE P T E M BE R 2 3 , 2 019
KIRAN
NAGARKAR
OBITUARY PG 6 5
DEVIKA RANI:
BOLLYWOOD’S FIRST
EMPRESS PG 6 6
THE RETURN
OF PARIKRAMA
PG 6 6
Q&A WITH
ANUJA CHAUHAN
PG 7 0
BOOKS
RUSHDIE’S
GREAT
AMERICAN
NOVEL
JOEL SAGET/ GETTY IMAGES
Shortlisted for the
Booker Prize, Quichotte
sees Salman Rushdie hit
a few of his old notes
LEISURE
alman Rushdie will
be forever revered
among Indian
readers in English
for giving voice
to Bombay, or at
least his vertiginous, slangy (in several
languages), cosmopolitan version of
what was once India’s only true modern
metropolis. Among Indian writers in
English, he will be revered for creating a
market where none existed, for opening
up the coffers of British and American
publishers. It arguably doesn’t matter then that, while his pen remains
fecund, he has not written a novel in
recent years to match those of his artistic peak: that remarkable period from
1981 to 1995, in which he produced
Midnight’s Children, Shame, The Satanic Verses and The Moor’s Last Sigh.
In between, he travelled to Nicaragua
at the behest of the Sandinistas, a trip
which resulted in The Jaguar Smile;
and wrote, seemingly with the edge of a
sharp knife rather than a pen, the essays
and journalism collected in Imaginary
Homelands; there was also his short fiction collection, East, West; his beloved
children’s book, Haroun and the Sea
of Stories; and an anthology of Indian
writing that he edited along with Elizabeth West (the third of his four wives).
In the latter, he made the unlikely claim
that Indian writing in English was
more significant and of a higher order
than ‘vernacular’ literature.
Of course, it must have seemed in
those heady days of The New Yorker
group photos and Indian newspapers celebrating Arundhati Roy, as if
the centre had moved from London
and New York to Delhi and Mumbai.
But how foolish and arrogant that
argument appears now when Indian
writing in English is dominated by the
cretinous and the inconsequential. At
least Rushdie’s still around, banging
out the riffs with enthusiasm, though,
as with ageing rockers on a seemingly
perpetual ‘farewell’ tour, it’s all a little
dated, the old razzle-dazzle that little
bit forced, the technicolour dreamcoat
S
64
INDIA TODAY
SE P T E M BE R 2 3 , 2 019
that little bit shopworn.
Nostalgia, though, is a powerful
emotion. What else could explain the
presence of Quichotte on this year’s
Booker Prize shortlist? The Booker is
almost synonymous with Rushdie, a
five-time shortlisted author. Midnight’s
Children won in 1981 and has since
become both the ‘Booker of Bookers’
(1993) and the ‘Best of the Bookers’
(2008), special prizes awarded to the
finest winning novel, as chosen by panels of judges and the reading public in,
respectively, the prize’s first 25 and then
40 years. For the Booker’s 50th anniversary in 2016, Midnight’s Children was
strangely not included on a shortlist of
best winners from each decade, resulting in the ‘Golden Man Booker’ award
going to Michael Ondaatje’s The English
Patient. This is Rushdie’s first appearance on the Booker shortlist, since The
Moor’s Last Sigh 24 years ago. In a curious echo, Aurora Zogoiby, the narrator’s
devilish artist-mother from The Moor’s
Last Sigh, is mentioned in Quichotte,
as Rushdie sets the scene for minor
spy thriller author Sam DuChamp’s
glittering Bombay childhood: “Ma and
Pa’s home... was full of the artistic and
QUICHOTTE
by Salman Rushdie
PENGUIN
`699; 416 pages
famous. Creative people of all sorts...
Even the great painter Aurora Zogoiby
herself came over, along with that notalent buffoon hanger-on of hers, Vasco
Miranda, but that’s another story.”
DuChamp (Sam the Sham) makes
a belated bid for literary status with
a ‘retelling’ of Don Quixote, finding
in Cervantes’ lugubrious comic hero,
that hapless devotee of the romance, a
soul brother. Quichotte—pronounced
‘key-SHOT’ in the “elegant French... for
reasons which the text itself will make
clear”, Rushdie writes in a prefatory
‘Quixotic Note on Pronunciation’—is
DuChamp’s antihero, a septuagenarian pharmaceutical salesman who is a
trash TV addict convinced he is about
to embark on a love affair with Salma
R., an Indian-born movie star who has
become an Oprah-like host of a daytime talk show in America. Quichotte,
whose cheerfully euphonious given
name is Ismail Smile, loses his job and
embarks on a journey across America,
accompanied by a figure he names,
obviously, Sancho, a black-and-white
manifestation, Quichotte believes,
of the son he is destined to have with
Salma R., a young man very much like
Quichotte himself. Quichotte, in turn,
is very like his creator, DuChamp, who
finds himself trying to write one story
(Quichotte’s) while simultaneously
telling another (his own) and finding
perhaps that these two stories are one.
It makes no sense to attempt to
offer a precis here of Quichotte, a
novel stuffed to overflowing with plot
devices, family drama, issues of great
pith and moment, jokes, pop cultural
allusions, high cultural allusions and
lists—so many lists! Rushdie remains
self-aware enough, funny enough to
make parts of Quichotte worth wading through all the clogged prose, the
self-satisfied satire, the trite ‘insights’.
And the passages about family, how
we lose those we love, are affecting. If
only Rushdie didn’t feel he had to dust
off that magician’s cape one more time
and reprise his too-familiar act. n
—Shougat Dasgupta
O B I T UA RY
ONE
AND THE
OTHER
T
he first time I met Kiran Nagarkar, it was
to interview him about his 2006 novel
God’s Little Soldier. He spoke about the
book’s themes, about the dangers of certitude
(“we must never stop holding our beliefs up
to the light”), about the need to learn as many
languages as possible, “to open up the dead
pathways in our brains”.
Our last meeting was at a literature festival
where, now in his mid-70s, he was anguished
about growing intolerance but also a bit unsure
of his own relevance: did he have something of
value to say, was anyone willing to listen? Even
when we discussed cinema, I was embarrassed by how deferential he was to my views,
genuinely keen to absorb what this muchyounger person felt—he seemed miles removed
from the man his long-time friend Manjula
Padmanabhan had once described to me, giving
her stern lectures about good and bad films.
It was poignant to see this side of
Nagarkar, also reflected in the deeply felt yet
rambling introduction he wrote for the 2015
re-publication of his play Bedtime Story—
jumping restlessly from fundamentalism to
climate change, as if trying to condense all of
the world’s dangers into a few pages. Watching him on literature festival panels—including
when he took on audience members who
denounced Nayantara Sahgal as a “Congress
stooge”, raising his own voice in a futile effort
to match their hectoring—the impression was
that of someone made weary by caring too
much about too many things.
There must, of course, have been many
other Nagarkars coexisting with the ones I
MANDAR DEODHAR
THERE WERE ALWAYS MANY KIRAN
NAGARKARS WHO COEXISTED WITHIN
THE SAME PERSON
KIRAN NAGARKAR
1942-2019
Watching him on panels of literature festivals, Nagarakar
gave the impression of someone made weary by caring
too much about too many things
experienced. Here was the author of warm, wide-ranging novels about
Mirabai’s cuckolded husband, about life in a Bombay chawl; the man
who understood history’s foot-soldiers so well and somehow managed
to be both empathetic and funny about them; the caustic playwright who
used the Mahabharata to comment on the many faces of discrimination in
our own time.
And yes, when looking at the entirety of a life, one must allow—
remembering the MeToo allegations—that the person who did the above
things might also have behaved inappropriately with young women
who came to interview him. When such charges are levelled against
beloved artists, the usual question is “Can you separate the art from the
person?”—but this is reductive, implying a need to stick ‘good’ or ‘bad’
labels on people; as if all of us aren’t many things at different times; as if
introspective art can’t come from the better places in a person who might
do condemnable things in other contexts.
The Nagarkar I knew would have understood those contradictions.
“Nothing is more dangerous,” he told me at that first meeting, “than to be
sure of your own rightness, or righteousness.”
—Jai Arjun Singh
SE P T E M BE R 2 3 , 2 019
INDIA TODAY
65
LEISURE
T
The release of Parikrama’s
‘Tears of the Wizard’ last
month didn’t just mark
their first official music
video since ‘But It Rained’ in
2001, it heralded a drastic
change in the mindset of
the veteran Delhi-based
classic rock group that had
steadfastly maintained its
policy of not recording their
T H E AT R E
BOLLYWOOD’S
FIRST EMPRESS
Lillete Dubey’s new play, Devika Rani, shows that one
of Bollywood’s early heroes was a woman
A
ctress-theatre
director Lillete Dubey
says putting up a play
is “like giving birth
to a baby”. By that analogy,
she has nurtured 24 children
under her banner Primetime
Theatre Co in the past 28
years. Some, like Dance Like
a Man, 30 Days in September
and The Wedding Album, have
matured and travelled far,
while Devika Rani: Goddess of
the Silver Screen, her latest, is
just about seeing its first light.
After sharing the first glimpse
of the play in Pune last month,
Dubey is travelling to Delhi and
Mumbai with it this month.
Devika Rani chronicles the
pivotal years in the professional life of Rani, a pioneer of
Indian cinema. A co-founder
of Bombay Talkies, one of
India’s first professionally-run
studios, she produced films
on topics like untouchability
and widow remarriage. She
acted, sang, vetted scripts,
designed sets and costumes.
She also gave future stars like
Ashok Kumar, Raj Kapoor and
Dilip Kumar, their break.
For Dubey, Rani is as
relevant today as she was
eight decades ago. Dubey’s
daughter, Ira, plays Rani
while Joy Sengupta plays
her husband and partner Himanshu Rai. “She struggled
in a highly patriarchal world,
but didn’t give a damn,” says
Dubey. “She’d be quite a
woman even now.”
Dubey convinced author
Kishwar Desai, who is writing
a biography of Rani, to make
Lilette Dubey
tackles yet
another strong
female character in her latest play on one
of Bollywood’s
strongest ladies
her debut as a playwright.
They focused on the period
when Rani met her husband
Rai, 15 years her senior, in
London to when she bade
farewell to cinema at the age
of 37. “Most actresses today
at some point want to put on
the grease paint and get into
showbiz again. They can’t
quite let go,” says Dubey.
“Even a Madhuri Dixit goes
and comes back.”
With Devika Rani, Dubey
continues to tackle strong
female characters in her
productions. Her Gauhar was
about the legendary thumri
singer Gauhar Jaan, while
Salaam, Noni Appa—adapted
from Twinkle Khanna’s short
story of the same name—was
about a 60-something widow
who finds love again. “The
common factor between
Gauhar, Devika and me is
junoon,” says Dubey. “I have
a crazy passion for theatre.
When I go on stage, I get such
an adrenaline rush.” That’s
enough to keep Dubey going. n
—Suhani Singh
K
C
O
R
songs and letting fans freely
download and distribute live
versions of the tracks on the
internet.
Those fans can now expect a series of single releases, a few videos and even an
album in the near future, says
keyboardist Subir Malik, who,
along with vocalist Nitin Malik
and guitarist Sonam Sherpa,
is one of the three founding
members of the six-piece,
which was formed in 1991 and
currently includes guitarist
Saurabh Chaudhry, bassist
Gaurav Balani and drummer
Srijan Mahajan. The decision,
Subir Malik says, came about
after the realisation that even
D
N
A
K
S E O F PA
A
C
E
H
T
IN
though Parikrama continues
to perform at least 25-30 gigs
a year, “younger kids were
totally disconnected with the
band”.
“I get calls from lots of
colleges for other bands,”
says Malik, who runs the
artist management company
Parikrama Inc. “[During the]
last four to five years, if I said
I’m from Parikrama, five out
of 10 kids would say ‘Oh yeah,
we’ve heard about the band’.”
As such, their trip to
play the Mechuka Adventure Festival in 2017 proved
fortuitous. The group was so
mesmerised by the natural
landscape that they thought,
“If ever the video of ‘Tears of
the Wizard’”—which, like their
tune ‘Am I Dreaming’, was
inspired by The Lord of the
Rings—“has to be made, this
would be the place”.
They subsequently
sent a proposal to the state
government of Arunachal
Pradesh, which organises the
festival, to sponsor the video.
To their surprise, their offer
was accepted. “It was a total
barter,” says Malik. “[They
got] a product to market
Mechuka, we got a product
to m k h
”T
’S
RAMA
PARIK ideo of
latest v f the
‘Tears o as
’w
Wizard The
by
d
e
ir
insp
gs
the Rin
Lord of
tourism department covered
the costs of travel, stay and
filming while the band “did
not ask for a single rupee” for
their services.
The video amassed over
50,000 views on YouTube in
10 days, relatively impressive
for a band that was largely
out of public consciousness.
Its success has propelled
Parikrama to finally get into
the studio. “We had been
discussing it for the last five
years,” says Malik. “This was
a good push for us because
it has got us back into the
momentum.” n
—Amit Gurbaxani
E
C
A
L
P
D
R
A
H
A
HAS R
O
E
D
I
V
A
,
RIKR AMA
Y
E S T E R DA
Y
D
E
T
C
ESURRE
’ S S TA R S
LEISURE
M O T O R S P O RT
HIS FOOT ON
THE PEDAL
F
R AW
AT
Gaurav Gill feels that winning the Arjuna award is a
big step for him, but a larger leap for his sport
R A JW
ANT
or rallyist Gaurav Gill, winning the
Arjuna award was a “shocker”. He
says he is still overwhelmed. Gill,
however, does not seem to measure
the impact of this prize in strictly
personal terms. His success, he feels,
the masses. “This includes introducing smaller, more powmight have a positive outcome for the future of his relaerful and exciting cross karts, which will be a cheaper form
tively niche sport: “I believe it will make a difference. I
of racing at the grassroots level,” he says. Committed to
now see a change in the commitment of other drivers.
making racing popular, he insists there is much we can
I see how they are pumped up. There is light at the end
learn from shooting and golf. “Twenty years ago, they, too,
of the tunnel. Many are talking about adopting this as a
were considered a rich man’s sport.”
full-time career.”
Preparing for the upcoming World Rally ChampionGill, a three-time winner of the FIA Asia-Paship (WRC) 2, and stressing that he is in “top form”, Gill
says that he has recently been spending hours watching
cif ic-Rally-Championship (2013, 2016 and 2017)
videos of the different stages of the race and checking out
and si x-time Indian rally champion, says he is
last year’s tracks on the internet. Strangely, he won’t get to
now trying hard to take the sport of ra i
D O C U M E N TA RY
WAITING
FOR A
MIRACLE
A new
documentary
details what
happens when
a cursed football club finds a
cursed manager
KEYSTONE PRESS / ALAMY
GAURAV GILL THINKS THAT,
LIKE MANY OTHER COUNTRIES,
INDIA SHOULD CONSIDER
WAIVING TAX AND DUTY ON
MOTORSPORT EQUIPMENT TO
GIVE THE SPORT A BOOST HERE
W
hen you are
desperate for success, here’s what
you don’t do: find
yourself a leader known for
originality and ethics, at the
cost of success. Leeds United
Football Club (LUFC) did exactly that in 2018. It recruited
a new manager, an Argentine
called Marcelo Bielsa.
Now, a docu-series on
the LUFC, Take Us Home:
Leeds United, on Amazon
Prime, follows the club’s first
season under Bielsa. Called
‘El Loco’, the mad one, Bielsa’s
high-energy approach to
football—relentless running
and pressing the opposition
players—has inspired the most
successful coaches today.
Nobody has had a greater
influence on modern football
and its entertaining pace. But
Bielsa has hardly won any major trophies. He is famous for
a thrilling start at new clubs,
transforming the players dramatically; it almost always peters out at the business end of
a season, the players injured
and exhausted, unable to cope
with Bielsa’s demands. It has
happened over and over.
LUFC had some success
in the past, winning the English
top division three times,
the last time in 1992. Since
then, the club dropped to the
practise in the car he will be participating in. “Getting
the rally vehicle here would invite ridiculously heavy
import taxes,” he says.
Gill, who also trains several Kenyan drivers, feels
that in order to push motorsport in the country, the
government will need to step in and waive tax and
duty on motorsport equipment. “I wish to speak to the
ministry concerned and apprise them of how this could
give a big boost to our sport. Several countries across
the world do not charge duties on equipment and cars
imported by rallyists. We shouldn’t either.” n
—Sukant Deepak
a
Home, e
s
U
e
k
a
im
T
azon Pr
new Ammentary,
docu
like
s much
seesaw ject—the
its sub l LEEDS
ia
mercur ITED
UN
second division, then third,
then second again. Now, it’s
desperate to enter the world’s
most lucrative sports league:
the English Premier League.
It led the second division
through most of the past season, failing at the last hurdle.
How very Bielsa of them!
The format of a club
making its own TV series is
trite. The cold menace in actor
Russel Crowe’s narration is
monotonous. The interviews
are repetitive. After a while,
the fans’ passion seems dull.
But watch this still. Get in on
what could be the next miracle
in football, nay sports. n
—Sopan Joshi
ALLSTAR PICTURE LIBRARY / ALAMY
Q A
“I HAVE A
MAZDOOR
MENTALITY”
Releasing this month, Sonam Kapoorstarrer The Zoya Factor is an adaptation
of Anuja Chauhan’s bestselling novel.
The author says the rewards of seeing her
work transition are worth the labour
Q. They say a film can never measure up to the book it is adapted
from. Any exceptions?
I really liked The Lord of the Rings
movies, but there are many I violently hate. A movie plays in your head
when you are reading a book. As a
reader, you will never be satisfied.
Q. How easy was it to let go of
The Zoya Factor?
As a writer, the money is good. It also
opens your readership. The audience
for films is vaster than for books.
Eventually, everyone writes to be read.
Q. Do you end up expanding on the
universe you have already created
while writing for screen?
There’s a lot of white space in a
screenplay, a lot of what you do is
more invisible than on paper. You
feel it is enriched. You get a second
chance with it.
Photograph by BANDEEP SINGH
Q. Screen rights for your books Battle
for Bittora and Baaz have also been
bought. You are developing the web
series of Those Pricey Thakur Girls.
Have you figured out the entertainment industry?
You can’t and I’m not interested to. You
just need to find a few like-minded
people who are excited, are control
freaks and obsessive like I am and
want to make a good film. I
have that mazdoor mentality—let’s write something.
—with Suhani Singh
70
Volume XLIV Number 38; For the week September 17-23, 2019, published on every Friday Total number of pages 100 (including cover pages)