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India Today|Monday, June 19, 2023FROM THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEFAfter a catastrophe like the triple train collision that occurred near Balasore in Odisha on June 2, thoughts inevitably turn to rail safety. To understand the nature of the challenge, one must grasp the sheer enormity of the Indian Railways network. If you lay all of India’s running railway tracks in a single line around the Equator, you can go around the earth twice. A whopping 102,831 km, even if you exclude auxiliary bits like sidings and yards. Include those and you can finish the third trip around the planet with a couple of thousand miles to spare. Last year, it carted nearly four times the Indian population across overpopulated cities, booming towns and small kasbahs strewn along 68,043 km of routes crisscrossing the vastness of a still-largely rural subcontinent.…5 min
India Today|Monday, June 19, 2023POLITICS WITH A HINT OF ROYALTYThe crowded political arena in Maharashtra just got a little more so with Sambhajiraje Chhatrapati, the scion of the royal family of Kolhapur, announcing his intent to contest the Lok Sabha and state assembly elections due in 2024. He has converted his social organisation, ‘Swarajya’, into a political party of the same name. At a convention of his outfit in Pune on May 28, and amidst slogans like “Maharashtra ka mukhyamantri kaisa ho? Sambhajiraje jaisa ho”, the ex-royal attacked the established political parties for retreating from sectors like education, public health and cooperatives. He promised to “give a different direction to society and Maharashtra”. This is the first time someone with a major royal connection in Maharashtra—Sambhajiraje is the 13th descendant of Chhatrapati Shivaji—is floating his own party. However, erstwhile…4 min
India Today|Monday, June 19, 2023PROGRESS REPORT2022 July: India signs an MoU with Namibia for bringing in African cheetahs Sept. 17: The first batch of eight cheetahs—five females and three males—arrive at Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh Oct. 7: A nine-member Cheetah Task Force created to monitor the big cats Nov. 5-28: All cheetahs moved from quarantine to a larger enclosure stocked with game animals 2023 Feb. 18: Twelve more cheetahs, this time from South Africa, are brought to Kuno Mar. 11: Two Namibian cheetahs—the couple Oban and Asha—become the first to be released into the wild Mar. 27: Sasha, a female cheetah, dies of renal complications, marking the first casualty Mar. 29: Park authorities find four cubs born to Namibian cheetah Siyaya Apr. 23: Uday, brought from South Africa, dies of cardio pulmonary failure…1 min
India Today|Monday, June 19, 2023INDO-US: CIRCLING THE WAGONSUS secretary of defense Lloyd James Austin landed in New Delhi barely two weeks before Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s official visit to Washington from June 21. According to a US department of defense statement, Austin is in India “to reinforce major defence partnership and advance cooperation in critical domains” between the strategic partners. During his meeting with defence minister Rajnath Singh, a road map for defence industrial cooperation with the goal of fast-tracking technology transfer and co-production was agreed upon. “This initiative aims to change the paradigm for cooperation between the US and Indian defence sectors, including specific proposals that could provide India access to cutting-edge technologies and support India’s defence modernisation plans,” the DoD statement said, adding that both Austin and Rajnath were committed to supporting India’s leading role…2 min
India Today|Monday, June 19, 2023FRIENDS IN NEEDDesperate for a comeback, TDP supremo N. Chandrababu Naidu is trying to stitch up an alliance in Andhra Pradesh for the 2024 assembly election. Actor Pawan Kalyan’s Jana Sena is onboard, but Naidu is eager to rope in the BJP too. He met Union home minister Amit Shah in Delhi on June 3, the first time after the TDP exited the NDA in 2018. The saffron party is reportedly eager to keep both Naidu and CM Jagan Mohan Reddy’s YSRCP in good humour. Never know when you’ll need the numbers, especially with a general election coming up.…1 min
India Today|Monday, June 19, 2023ANATOMY OF A DISASTERPOINTS OF INVESTIGATION Was manual intererfence with the Electronic Interlocking System (EIS), which led to the diversion of the Coromandel Express, an error of judgement or sabotage? Why didn’t the station master and signal inspector carry out the mandatory physical checks to ensure the EIS was functioning normally? Why didn’t the EIS switch on the red signal on sensing an anomaly in the loop line, which put the express on a collision course with the goods train? Were the staff on this busy section of the South Eastern Railway sector overstressed and under pressure to push through trains to avoid delays? UNDER THE SCANNER Station Master Tasked with enforcing compliance with rules, discharge of staff duties Inspects all signals, level crossing gates and station machinery. Promptly reports defects Sole authority…2 min
India Today|Monday, June 19, 2023KCR PLOTS ANOTHER PINK WAVEOn June 2, Bharat Rashtra Samithi supremo K. Chandrashekar Rao (KCR) flagged off the 21-day decennial celebrations to mark the formation of Telangana. The “longest-serving Telugu chief minister” also crisscrossed the state to inaugurate a string of new projects. Of course, this being an election year, KCR spared no effort in highlighting his government’s achievements, and the most visible of these are the irrigation projects. Telangana now irrigates some 7.5 million acres of farmland, and the CM is promising water for another 5 million acres. “This will help us achieve the target of irrigating 12.5 million acres. The progress is there for everyone to see. Our per capita income is now Rs 3.17 lakh, more than double what it was in 2014 when Telangana was formed. The GSDP is Rs…6 min
India Today|Monday, June 19, 2023Dr. Meehir KulkarniThe Man with a VisionChairman Dr. Meehir Kulkarni, was born on 4th June 1987. Establishing the Gravity Group in the year 2008, he first ventured into the Fitness Industry. Since then, his Gravity Fitness Club has flourished across Indian cities and has expanded abroad. The Gravity Mr. Universe Contest was a huge success and made the Fitness Franchise even popular with celebrities like the Great Khali, Ronnie Coleman and FlexWheeler. His interests and constant efforts of enlarging the Gravity Group Empire, led Dr. Kulkarni to form Gravity infrastructure. Going beyond Buildings, Landscapes, Sky Scrapers and more, the group believes in development with quality, committed to an unending quest to perfection. The need of the hour is sustainable infrastructure and that is what Gravity Infra is all about. Understanding the climate change problem, they follow…2 min
India Today|Monday, June 19, 2023HINDUTVA WITH A BENGALI ACCENTIt was supposed to be a soiree celebrating the birth anniversaries of two great Bengali poets—Rabindranath Tagore and Kazi Nazrul Islam—in the sprawling nat mandir (dance hall) of Radha Govinda Jiu temple at Nabadwip, in West Bengal’s Nadia district. But, an hour before its start on May 24, amidst sudden commotion, the organisers were made to remove a picture of Nazrul and delete his name from the title—Rabindra-Nazrul Sandhya—by temple authorities. Later, it emerged they had bowed to ‘pressure’ from the BJP, who did not appreciate the celebration of a Muslim poet in a Hindu temple space. The targeting of Nazrul by the BJP has a history. As an icon who in many ways bridges the religious chasm that has scarred Bengal, he may not be particularly easy to villainise,…8 min
India Today|Monday, June 19, 2023GuruCoolThey call her the Meerabai of Gen Z. Twenty-seven-year-old Jaya Kishori from Kolkata turns Krishna folktales into 30-second clips to address issues of loneliness, friendship and lack of self-confidence. This has helped ‘Jaya didi’, as she is known, gain over 1.9 million followers on Facebook and another two million on YouTube. Her namesake, Jaya Pandey, a 16-year-old in Delhi, swears by her. “I have to keep shifting schools because my parents are in the army,” says Pandey. “But wherever I go, Jaya didi is with me. I would be lost in the maze of change without her as my guide.” There is also Devi Ushma Kishoriji from Jhansi. Infinitely wise for a 14-year-old, she gets regular leave from school to post new content for her 10,000 followers on Instagram. Most…8 min
India Today|Monday, June 19, 2023WALKING THROUGH FIRESaroja, the small-town girl who falls in love with a sodapop vendor, is no Madame Bovary, the French provincial temptress who flaunts her sexuality with devastating effect in Gustave Flaubert’s novel. Yet there are echoes of Perumal Murugan in Gustave Flaubert’s confession: “Madame Bovary, c’est moi (Madame Bovary is me)!” It’s a similar tone that Murugan uses when asked how much of himself he has infused in his portrayal of Saroja’s ordeals. “The writer doesn’t merely write about his own experiences. A writer could absorb the experiences and feelings of others. If writing is shrunk into one’s own experiences, it can’t be universal. It’s the ability to enter into others’ experiences that drives writing into the realm of universality. In that sense, a writer can possess anyone’s experience as his…5 min
India Today|Monday, June 19, 2023NO CHILD’S PLAYQ.You were one of the first to jump onto the OTT bandwagon in 2017 with The Test Case. Thereafter, the industry exploded. What took you so long to do your second web series, School of Lies? Long format is a thicker commitment than film…. Unless it [the project] really speaks to you, you won’t have fun doing it. You go with your instinct and attach yourself to people you want to work with. In this case, it was [filmmaker] Avinash Arun. Q.What’s the best and worst part about being on a set with kids? There was no worst part. It was entertaining. The kids today are so sharp. I really had to have my A-game on. I thought I could make them feel comfortable and ‘chill’ but they didn’t need…1 min
India Today|Monday, June 19, 2023WILL THE GROWTH SUSTAIN?India recorded a 7.2 per cent growth in gross domestic product (GDP) in the 2022-23 fiscal—exceeding, if marginally, what most economists had anticipated and the Centre’s own estimate of 7 per cent. A major contributing element behind this gentle elevation on the graph has been the 6.1 per cent GDP growth in the last quarter of the fiscal (Q4), which was quite a bit higher than the widely expected 5 per cent. How to read this good news? By all accounts, it’s best that optimism be tempered. There is concern on how sustainable this growth actually is, given that it reflects pent-up demand from the pandemic years. In fact, these numbers are still lower than the 9.1 per cent recorded in FY22, and that number was itself inflated, coming after…5 min
India Today|Monday, June 19, 2023WHO IS SAMBHAJIRAJE?Sambhajiraje is the eldest son of Chhatrapati Shahu II of Kolhapur. He came into public life through the hardline Maratha organisations Maratha Seva Sangh and the Sambhaji Brigade. In 2007, he started annual celebrations of the coronation ceremony of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj at Raigad, which helped build his public profile. Two years later, though, he lost from the Kolhapur Lok Sabha seat, contesting as an NCP nominee. Later, Sambhajiraje emerged as one of the faces of the Maratha reservation protests, especially after 2011, and toured the state as part of the ‘Shiv-Shahu yatra’. He is currently also the chairperson of the Raigad Development Authority, which oversees the conservation of Shivaji’s historic fort of the same name.…1 min
India Today|Monday, June 19, 2023THE FIRST GOANS ASK A QUESTIONTribal communities in Goa are becoming increasingly vocal about their political and social rights. Over the past few months, they have upped the ante on one of their long-pending demands—10 per cent political reservation for scheduled tribes (STs) in the Goa legislative assembly and have threatened to boycott the 2024 Lok Sabha polls if this was not met. In 2003, the Gauda, Velip and Kunbi com munities were added to the ST category. Though STs and Scheduled Castes (SCs) have 12 and two per cent quotas respectively in jobs and education, tribals still do not have political reservation. However, SCs have one seat reserved for them in the house—Pernem in North Goa. “We have been deprived of our rights for the last 20 years…if tribals are elected as MLAs from…4 min
India Today|Monday, June 19, 2023KNOWING VAJPAYEEHow is it that some political figures loom large in our collective memory and yet remain enigmatic, if not little-known? Atal Bihari Vajpayee is certainly one such figure, one of India’s most consequential politicians, not just for the party he steered for more than five decades, but also for the country he played a part in shaping as a political activist, a lifelong RSS member, a party leader, a parliamentarian, and a prime minister. And yet, his life has been reduced to stereotypical notions and snippets: Vajpayee the moderate, the poet-orator, the non-vegetarian, whisky-drinking pracharak, or the right man in the wrong party. Some of these notions, it turns out, are, at best, mild distortions of the truth. Others are misrepresentations of a complex man who, for all his unconventionalities,…3 min
India Today|Monday, June 19, 2023ALL FOR OPTICSMadhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s flamboyant brother-in-law, Sanjay Singh Masani, is stirring up the pot again. Masani, who has even done a few cameos in films, was in the BJP till 2018, but switched over to the Congress just before the election after he was given a ticket from the Waraseoni seat in Balaghat district. Masani lost rather badly and is now learnt to be focusing his political energies in the Udaipura seat in Raisen district, not too far from Bhopal. Why? Word is that Masani has family there and his community, the Kirars, are also present in large numbers. The only problem is that veteran Congressman Devendra Patel is the incumbent MLA here. Will the Congress oblige Masani again, give him a ticket for the sake of…1 min
India Today|Monday, June 19, 2023HUMANS OF BALASOREIt was around 7 pm on the night of June 2 and Manmath Bhuyan, 48, was relaxing at the home his station master father had built near the Bahanaga Bazar railway station when he heard the loud crashing sounds outside. “I rushed out on hearing the commotion. It was as though a bomb had hit Bahanaga,” he says. Bhuyan’s mother, Dhirodbala, actually thought a wayward missile from the nearby Chandipur-on-sea testing centre had crashed into their sleepy hamlet. They didn’t know it then, but they were in the vicinity of one of India’s deadliest train accidents, which left 288 people dead and another 1,200 injured. The Bahanaga locals were the first responders. “It was dark everywhere,” recalls Bhuyan. “Mutilated bodies lay all around the tracks. We shifted the injured to…4 min
India Today|Monday, June 19, 2023CHALLENGES FOR THE BRSBattle growing anti-incumbency The party has been in power since Telangana came into being in 2014 Find funds for schemes The party can ill-afford to scrimp in an election year—Rs 34,700 cr. earmarked just for Rythu Bandhu/Rythu Dalit schemes Counter corruption charges Opposition has red-flagged Dalit Bandhu and many other schemes Divide Opposition vote BRS will explore all means—including poaching viable leaders—to ensure neither Congress nor BJP gain traction…1 min
India Today|Monday, June 19, 2023Chandni Kapadia - Redefining possiblilities for womenRight from when Chandni Kapadia ventured out on her own to foreign lands as a teenager to seek experience and learn fashion, it has been a journey enriched with new challenges, exciting opportunities and learnings galore, paving way for newer and more empowering roles in her life - ranging from being the Asia Pacific Head or Country head for various luxury brands to being their consultant or being an Executive Director at a University or National Head for WICCI Design Council. There is a saying "When the going gets tough, put one foot in front of the other and just keep going''. Chandni seems to have done just that, rising to the occassion admirably to be called upon to helm newer situations and roles. The beauty of her career has…3 min
India Today|Monday, June 19, 2023BJP’SNEW DIRECTION● Start a religious congregation in Tribeni Sangam, claiming it was the site of a Kumbh Mela centuries ago ● Renovate Chowringheenath temple; rename J.L. Nehru Road back to Chowringhee Road ● Resanctify pond in Kolkata’s Dharmatala, now cast as the site of a forgotten temple to Dharma in the image of a tortoise ● Hindutva outfit Hindu Samhati Mancha publishes a calendar featuring 12 Islamic structures built allegedly after razing Hindu temples ● Organise congregations of sants in Kolkata to urge reading the Bhagavad Gita…1 min
India Today|Monday, June 19, 2023POSTS OF THE MOST POPULAR GURUSSADHGURU 10million followers The most followed influencer, Sadhguru invests in a variety of content relevant to modern life. This includes what to eat, how to think, how to handle office stress, even how to have fun SRI SRI RAVI SHANKAR 1.9million followers To make traditional concepts interesting, he posts short videos like ‘rapid fire on Ramayana’, ‘this is why you are single’, ‘amazing biohack for computer workers’ JAY SHETTY 14million followers A former monk, Jay Shetty is the go-to guru for tips on self-care, being positive and finding inner balance GAUR GOPAL DAS 7million followers He follows up videos with short write-ups, many of them focus on the unfairness, mistakes and challenges everyone faces in daily life and how to heal your mind from them SANDEEP MAHESHWARI 4.7million followers His…1 min
India Today|Monday, June 19, 2023Found in TranslationAN ORDER FROM THE SKY AND OTHER STORIES by Imayam (translated by Vasantha Surya) HARPERCOLLINS INDIA | ₹399; 356 pages Imayam is the pen-name of V. Annamalai, one of the leading contemporary Tamil writers. He won the Sahitya Akademi Award in 2020 for Selladha Panam. In this collection of stories, set mostly in villages and small towns across Tamil Nadu, ordinary people are forced to confront their innermost fears and desires, the things they grudgingly do every day to get by. Imayam captures the texture of lived reality better than most. THE ABYSS by Jeyamohan (translated by Suchitra Ramachandran) JUGGERNAUT BOOKS ₹699; 352 pages Jeyamohan is a veteran Tamil writer with over 20 books of fiction and co-writing credits on several hit movies, including Mani Ratnam’s recent Ponniyin Selvan II.…2 min
India Today|Monday, June 19, 2023Return of aCRIME THRILLERWhen Asur arrived in early March 2020 on Voot, a new virus had wreaked havoc. For an audience holed up in their homes, the crime thriller, involving CBI officers trying to hunt down a clever, cold-blooded serial killer, became a riveting watch. The shocking end that saw a tragic death and the killer’s identity revealed made viewers wait eagerly for season two. It finally comes three years later, this time on JioCinema. The first episode of Asur 2: Rise of the Dark Side, reconnects audiences with key characters: Dhananjay Rajput a.k.a. DJ (Arshad Warsi) has taken to Buddhism and introspects over his follies with a child in Dharamsala; Nikhil (Barun Sobti), the forensic expert, is dependent on anti-depressants, while his wife, Naina (Anupriya Goenka), also a computer expert, wants a…2 min
India Today|Monday, June 19, 2023LEST WE FORGETWHEN WE TALK ABOUT AN EVENT AS MOMENTOUS and tragic as the Partition of India (and the violence on both sides of the border), the stories therein aren’t restricted to words or even images. There are also physical objects inextricably linked to the event. A skilled curator, therefore, is tasked with sculpting a narrative around these objects—or rather, setting the stage for visitors to carve their own narratives out of this profusion of raw material. New Delhi’s recently opened Partition Museum, at Ambedkar University’s Dara Shikoh Library Building, succeeds in doing this, for the most part. This is the second such museum dedicated to the Partition of India—the first, set up by The Arts and Cultural Heritage Trust (TACHT) in 2016, is in Amritsar. Kishwar Desai, the chair-person of TACHT,…3 min
India Today|Monday, June 19, 2023FACT AND FICN IN BIHAROn the night of May 22, the police in Patna got a tip-off that liquor was being sold out of a flat in Rajaram Apartments in the posh Srikrishna Puri locality. Bihar being a ‘dry state’, the cops quickly arranged a late-night swoop. The raid yielded a lot more than a few liquor bottles—there was Rs 1.8 lakh in counterfeit currency (in Rs 500 and Rs 200 denominations) and banknotes printed on paper sheets, ready to be cut out and circulated. A full counterfeit cottage industry, in fact: printers, paper sheets, a cutting machine and laptop. Three of the accused managed to flee, but the cops arrested two other young men in their 20s—Ayub Khan and Ratan Yadav. Khan, who broke his leg in an abortive bid to escape, is…4 min
India Today|Monday, June 19, 2023A SPOTTY TRAJECTORYFor a plan that took five decades from conception to fruition, the expectations surrounding Project Cheetah—dubbed as the first intercontinental translocation of a large wild carnivore—are bound to be high. But after a promising start, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi releasing eight cheetahs brought from Namibia at Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh last September, the fanfare has given way to an appreciation of starker realities. Mortality among the spotted felines has led to a reevaluation of the whole project. The first death was reported in late March—a female, Sasha, dying of “renal complications”. But it was soon followed by the news of the birth of four cubs—a first after the big cat was declared extinct in India seven decades ago. The cheer was short-lived, though. In April, Uday, a…3 min
India Today|Monday, June 19, 2023CORRIDOR FOR THE FAITHFULChief Minister Yogi Adityanath is betting big on religious tourism to give a facelift to his state, Uttar Pradesh. The success of the Kashi Vishwanath temple corridor, where tourists and pilgrims are descending in hordes, has prompted plans for three new corridors—the Vindhyavasini in Mirzapur, Mathura-Vrindavan and the Nath circuit in Bareilly. Among the three, the Vindhyavasini corridor is where all the focus is currently, with construction work on at war footing. The Vindhyavasini temple, also known as Vindhyachal Dham, is dedicated to the goddess of the same name. One of the Shakti Peetha temples, it is situated on the banks of the river Ganga in Mirzapur district in eastern UP. Besides the beautification of the temple, a 50-feet-wide parikrama route and “world-class facilities” for pilgrims are on the cards.…3 min
India Today|Monday, June 19, 2023KARNATAKA REDUX IN TELANGANA?Enthused by the Karnataka results, Congress workers in Telangana are hoping the party will recreate the magic there as well in the assembly election later this year. And they are looking to party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi to lead the revival. Suggestions now include her getting a guesthouse in Hyderabad to even contesting the 2024 general election from Medak, from where her grandmother Indira Gandhi won in 1980. The prospect of a Gandhi leading the Congress campaign has not gone down well with the ruling Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) leaders, who dismiss the Gandhis as “political tourists”. Never mind that party supremo K. Chandrashekar Rao had, in 2014, flown down to Delhi to personally thank Priyanka’s mother and then Congress chief Sonia Gandhi after Telangana got statehood.…1 min
India Today|Monday, June 19, 2023LESSONS FROM THE COROMANDEL CRASHAt 9.30 pm on June 2, when Ashwini Vaishnaw, the Union minister for railways, landed in Goa to launch the Vande Bharat train from Panjim to Mumbai the next day, the officials who met him at the airport looked unusually grim. Then, they broke the bad news that there had been a triple collision between the Shalimar-Chennai Central Coromandel Express, a goods train and the Bengaluru-Howrah Superfast Express at the Bahanaga Bazar station in Balasore, Odisha. Vaishnaw knew the terrain well, having served as the district collector of Balasore in the late 1990s when he had made a name for himself for ensuring there were zero casualties in his jurisdiction during the Super Cyclone of Odisha in 1999. When he heard of the accident, among the first things Vaishnaw did…16 min
India Today|Monday, June 19, 2023GAUGING THE RAILWAYSEXPENDITURE ON SAFETY-RELATED WORKS The national transporter has spent over Rs 1.7 lakh crore in the past nine years to enhance safety on its ever-expanding network (Figures in Rs crore) EXPENDITURE ON TRACK RENEWALS The Rs 1.09 lakh crore spend on it made track renewal a major chunk of safety-related works (Figures in Rs crore) TRAIN ACCIDENTS AND PASSENGER FATALITIES Balasore’s death toll of 288 alone is higher than that recorded throughout any year since FY2005. Barring an uptick in FY2023, the no. of train accidents has been on a decline in recent years KEY INITIATIVES TO MAKE TRAINS SAFE Rashtriya Rail Sanraksha Kosh Created in 2017-18 for five years with annual contribution of Rs 20,000 cr To fund the replacement/renewal/upgradation of critical safety assets Extended for another five years…1 min
India Today|Monday, June 19, 2023Cold Steel Corporation - Trailblazers in Pre-Engineered BuildingsA qualified Mechanical Engineer, Rajwansh Bedi is an alumni of the Thapar Institute Of Technology, Patiala. After passing out with distinction he followed it up with a post graduate diploma in aeronautical sciences from A.F.T.C. and an advanced management diploma, from Staff College, Bangalore. Starting his career in 1970 as an engineer at Hindustan Aeronautical Limited (HAL), he gained priceless experience of working with cutting edge technology. He further trained in the areas of Stress analysis, Cold roll forming and Welding technology at Ayershire England and Ufalex France respectively. Considered the founding father of the Pre-Engineered Steel Building industry of India, he introduced and executed this concept in India as early as in 1977. He established his business in Alwar Rajasthan in 1981 with a modest capital and grew it…3 min
India Today|Monday, June 19, 2023LANDMARK-THE NAME SAYS IT ALLPANKAJ LIDOO Managing Director, Landmark Crafts Pvt. Ltd. Screws or fasteners are the smallest part in any assembled product. Their size belies their importance. Every assembled product requires a fastener in order to ensure a safe and strong final construction. One Indian entrepreneur identified the importance of this small yet versatile product to build an empire that laid the foundation for the nation to become self-sufficient. In the late 90's, colour coated sheet profiling trend was picking up in India. The concept of self-drilling screws was non-existent and it used to be imported. Pankaj and Vipin Lidoo established a company to import screws from Taiwan under the brand name HP" which is a registered trademark of the company. Blessed with tremendous foresight and ambitious by nature, they spend a lot…3 min
India Today|Monday, June 19, 2023SOUTHERN STRENGTHS“Kerala tells a remarkable tale of social harmony, equitable growth and progressive values. With its unique model of inclusive development, Kerala has emerged as an exemplar of people-centric progress”PINARAYI VIJAYAN Chief Minister, Kerala For a place with such lush green feathers in its crown, it was only a matter of time before the India Today Conclave South came to Kerala. In 2016, it was already the first state in India to achieve 100 per cent literacy. Last month, Kerala also became the first state to be fully e-governed. Its neighbours are also not far behind when it comes to socio-economic progress. So, it was only fitting when India Today Group Editorial Director (Publishing), Raj Chengappa, in his opening remark at the conclave, lauded the region as the ‘Incredible South’ for…12 min
India Today|Monday, June 19, 2023NEW-AGE SPIRITUAL LINGOBLESSED: It usually means being grateful…for anything from a trip to a five-star resort to a moment of enlightenment VIBES: Based on how an influencer feels about people or situations around them, classified as good or bad SELF-CARE: Anything you are doing for yourself can amount to self-care, be it a spa break, going for a walk or taking a breath SELF-LOVE: Decisions taken to emotionally stand up for yourself, like setting boundaries or demanding respect from others GODDESS: Instead of asking followers to find their inner strength, many influencers exhort them to find their inner goddess. It denotes strength, passion, glory and loyalty ABUNDANCE: This means taking time to see the positives in life, such as nature, material gifts or loved ones FOLLOW YOUR BLISS: Just do what makes…1 min
India Today|Monday, June 19, 2023DIRECTOR IN DEMANDDirector Hansal Mehta’s career has had two pivotal moments: Shahid (2012) and Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story (2020). After directing the National Award-winning biopic about a human rights lawyer, Mehta gained credence as a filmmaker with a pertinent socio-political perspective; post the SonyLIV series about the infamous stockbroker, he became one of the most sought-after directors for OTT shows. “I see myself as a chronicler of the times we live in,” says Mehta, “through the stories of people who are either forgotten or are on the fringes but have actually made a significant contribution to our social consciousness.” That quest continues with Netflix’sScoop, his second series (he was creative producer on AltBalaji’s Bose: Dead/Alive, 2017), in which he focuses on crime reporter Jagruti (Karishma Tanna), whose life turns upside…2 min
India Today|Monday, June 19, 2023Art by the PeopleOne of the major attractions at India’s newly-constructed Parliament complex is the Shilp Deergha, part of the ground floor galleries and designed to exhibit the various arts and crafts forms from across India—whether it is embroidery, textile work, metal sculptures, block printing or terracotta. The Shilp Deergha, conceptualised by Jaya Jaitly (founder and president of the Dastkari Haat Samiti) has been divided into eight parts, which correspond to eight philosophical concepts, namely, Gyan (knowledge), Prakriti (nature), Aastha (faith), Ullas (joy), Parv (festival), Samrasta (unity), Swavlamban (self-reliance), and Yatra (journey). “I have been working with craftspeople across the country for a long time,” says Jaitly. “This was a huge opportunity for me and, funnily, it wasn’t very tough. Once I started working on the concept, the idea of the eight parts…2 min
