Indholdsfortegnelse for August 21, 2017 i India Today

The Narendra Modi government intends to mark 70 years of Indian independence by showcasing 70 government schemes. Most of the 70 policies selected were effected in the years the BJP was in power. Among the major government progra mmes omitted, say sources, are the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and Aadhaar, both of which were launched by the Manmohan Singh-led UPA government. Modi had criticised both schemes when he was Gujarat chief minister, but has persisted with them since becoming prime minister in 2014. Predictably, NDA pet projects such as the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, Make in India, Startup India, Skill India and the Jan Dhan Yojana, among others, make the cut. Newspaper reports suggest even ‘Bharatmala’, a yet to be launched project that aims to connect remote…

After governor Droupadi Murmu returned two contentious land tenancy law amendments in June, Jharkhand chief minister Raghubar Das is pushing another potentially polarising proposal— the new Jharkhand Religious Independence Bill. The bill forbids religious conversion ‘through allurement or coercion’ and violators face a three-year jail term and Rs 50,000 fine. Stricter punishment—up to four years in jail and Rs 1 lakh fine—is prescribed if the ‘victim’ is a minor scheduled caste or scheduled tribe girl. Approved by the cabinet on August 1, the bill will be tabled in the ongoing session of the state assembly. While the government claims the bill will deter those who fiddle with tribal culture by carrying out religious conversions through inducement, blackmail or coercion, many believe the provisions attack freedom of religion. The onus to…

Probing allegations of hawala funds from Pakistan being used for terror financing and to pay stone-pelting youth in the Kashmir Valley, National Investigation Agency (NIA) officials have come to believe that top Hurriyat separatists may have invested a large chunk of the money in pricey real estate. The ongoing crackdown on the Valley’s separatist leaders followed a sting operation by india today TV on May 16, in which fun ctionaries openly spoke of receiving funds from sources in Pakistan. The NIA, which arrested seven senior Hurriyat Conference functionaries on July 24, including Syed Ali Shah Geelani’s son-inlaw Altaf Ahmed Shah aka Altaf Fantoosh and Mirwaiz Umer Farooq’s closest aide Shahid-ul-Islam, is now scrutinising their assets. Sources quoting NIA investigators say close to 80 properties, including apple orchards, bungalows, apartments and…

Taking a cue from West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s success in winning over youth by distributing government grants to local sports clubs, the BJP is looking to woo the youth through football. The party has announced the Deendayal Upadhyaya Champions Trophy, a football competition through which it plans to distribute cash prizes, sports accessories and free tickets to the FIFA U-17 World Cup scheduled from October 6 to 28. Though evidently an attempt to firm up its foothold in the state, BJP leaders insist their foray into sports is different from what the Trinamool Congress is doing. BJP youth wing president Debjit Sarkar says it’s the party’s way of reminding Bengal’s youth of Swami Vivekananda and Deendayal Upadhyaya’s ideals. State BJP chief Dilip Ghosh says the clubs patronised by…

GODREJ | ESTABLISHED IN 1897 SOAP OPERA Through many of its businesses—from locks, soaps and animal feed to engines powering India’s space programmes—the group has played a big role in the evolution of various industries in the country. The group has its roots in India’s Independence and swadeshi movement. Founder Ardeshir Godrej failed in a few ventures before striking success with the locks business. Next came security equipment and steel furniture. From soaps, it moved to detergents and personal/ household products. Since vegetable oil was used to make soap, the byproduct, oil cake, was marketed as animal feed. With a large landholding in Vikhroli near Mumbai, the group also forayed into real estate. The Godrej group enjoys the patronage of 1.1 billion consumers globally and commands a revenue of over…

TATA STEEL | ESTABLISHED IN 1907 NATION BUILDER Ever since its inception, Tata Steel has contributed to nation-building by constantly introducing innovative, durable and affordable steel products, services and solutions in the domestic market. Tata’s steel has been used in the construction of the Delhi, Chennai and Kolkata airports and for metro rail projects in several cities. It has also supplied the high tension wires used in the Bandra-Worli Sea Link in Mumbai. THEN AND NOW Jamshedji Nusserwanji Tata’s desire to set up a steel plant was firmed up after he heard a lecture by Scottish philosopher and teacher Thomas Carlyle while on a visit to Manchester. In his lecture, Carlyle said: “The nation which gains control of iron soon acquires control of gold.” That greatly influenced Jamshedji. All along,…

DID YOU KNOW ? Former chief election commissioner T.N. Seshan worked as ISRO’s chief financial advisor in the 1980 NO ROCKET SCIENCE In 1962, astrophysicist Vikram Sarabhai impressed upon Jawaharlal Nehru the imperative of developing indigenous space technology. He did the spadework to create the inf rastructure for solid propulsion rockets at the Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station in the suburbs of Thiruvananthapuram, seeking only technological inputs from his extensive contacts in the US, former USSR, Japan and France. He created a culture of open-ended experiments and innovations that contributed to a healthy competitive environment and team spirit at the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). Blossoming as a space power, India today occupies pride of place with its mastery of rocket and satellite manufacturing expertise. This has engendered confidence in…

DID YOU KNOW ? BHEL is setting up incubation cen tres to promote startups. It is also building an ecosystem of dom e stic service providers, which sits well with the ‘Make In India’ programme THE JOURNEY SO FAR Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL) was conceived in the late 1950s to become the face of India’s industrial development. Its first factory manufacturing power plant equipment came up in 1956 in Bhopal but it started making profits only in 1971-72. Since then it has expanded its base to 15 manufacturing units across India. It manufactures over 180 products for sectors ranging from power to telecommunications. Over 70 per cent of power generated in India comes from BHEL-supplied equipment. Three out of four Indian homes are lit up with power generated by…

CRANKING UP THE MACHINE NTPC Ltd is a state-owned monopoly in electricity genera tion with installed capacity of 51,671 MW, of the cou n try’s total capacity of 330,153 MW. NTPC contributed 24 per cent of the electricity consumed in the country in the last fiscal, 2016-17. A company born out of necessity after the food and oil crisis of 1973-74, then prime minister Indira Gandhi set up NTPC as a PSU to generate and supply thermal-based electricity (NHPC was set up for hydro projects). Its first target: improve project delivery effi ciency. Power entities in the states used to take 60 months to instal 200 MW then, which NTPC soon brought down to 48 months or less. Today, NTPC is present in all the verticals of power generation—gas, coal,…

LOOKING FOR A CURE When Apollo Hospitals started operations on September 18, 1983 , it marked the entry of corporatised healthcare in India, an innovation the healthcare industry was desperately in need of. Over the years, Apollo has taken healthcare to the distant underserved corners of the country through innovation, technology and commitment. Today, the group has emerged as a forerunner of integrated healthcare in Asia and is even listed on the National Stock Exchange. The foremost challenge in setting up ‘a private hospital’ was regulatory approval and raising finance. “The protagonist in many ways,” says Apollo founder Dr Prathap C. Reddy, was former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi who supported several proposals “at a time when banks were not allowed to lend to hospitals in the 1980s”. Reddy wrote an…

DID YOU KNOW ? The reconstruction of the Pamban bridge at Rameshwaram helped E. Sreedharan prepare for the construction of the Konkan Railway STARTING POINT This rail link was the brainchild of Praja Socialist Party leader Nath Bapu Pai, who mooted it first in the 1960s. Former railway ministers George Fernandes and Madhu Dandavate then refined the concept, but it was only after the Southern Railway presented a final location survey report in 1988 that the Konkan Railway was established as a separate entity. E. Sreedharan, who was made its managing director, started the project from scratch as no survey data was available for the proposed stretch in Maharashtra—half the length of the line. Land acquisition in the absence of rational compensation laws for the fertile Konkan tracts and the…

COMMON TOUCH The buses operated by BEST carry 4.5 million people to their destinations every day The power utilities it manages supply electricity to over one million households every day BEST has set several records in India: it was the first municipal corporation to operate a transport system, to use double decker busses and to purchase power from private utilities HOW IT ALL BEGAN Established in 1905, BEST (then Bombay Electricity Supply and Tramways, today Brihanmumbai Electricity Supply and Transport) ran its first bus service in 1926. Services were initially limited to south Mumbai, but expanded in 1934. So great was the demand that BEST launched a double-decker bus service soon after. It also began producing electricity in 1905 and became a public supplier in 1921. It continued till 1926,…

THE JOURNEY SO FAR One of the greatest success stories of economic empowerment of dairy farmers in independent India, Amul provides livelihood to 3.6 million women across 18,600 villages in Gujarat, notching an annual turnover of Rs 38,000 crore. The seeds of this powerful cooperative movement were sown in Anand where dairy farmers, guided by Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Morarji Desai and Tribhuvandas Patel, ended the exploitation of the British government-supported local trade cartel. The Kaira District Cooperative Milk Producers Union Ltd they established in December 1946 later came to be known as Amul. Under the legendary Verghese Kurien, the brand diversified into dairy products to become a household name. The success of the Amul model was replicated across the country under the Operation Flood programme, making India the largest producer…

DID YOU KNOW? When people were not willing to go to his amusement park Esselworld, established in 1989 in Bombay, Subhash Chandra decided to take entertainment to them. So emerged Zee TV. Zee’s many firsts include a Hindi cinema channel (Zee Cinema) and 24-hour food channel (Zee Khana Khazana) FROM A TO ZEE From Antakshari, Tara and Hum Paanch in the 1990s to Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Lil Champs and Kumkum Bhagya now, Zee TV, India’s first Hindi satellite channel in the general entertainment category, has kept Indians glued to the small screen with its slate of shows across genres. Apart from Zee TV, the company, Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd, runs 31 channels in India and broadcasts in 172 countries, drawing over a billion viewers. From introducing Bollywood to…

BOARD GAME BEGINS If cricket has become a religion in India, and cricketers its deities, the credit must go to the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), the world’s richest supervising body for the game. The Board has made cricket the most financially viable game in the country, not only for players but anyone aspiring to get commercially associated with it. And all that without seeking any support from the government. ROLLING THE DICE In 1912, an all-India cricket team visited England for the first time, sponsored and captained by the Maharaja of Patiala. In 1926, two representatives of the Calcutta Cricket Club travelled to London to attend meetings of the Imperial Cricket Conference, the predecessor to the International Cricket Council. Although technically not official representatives of Indian…

B-SCHOOL STIRRINGS The story of IIM Ahmedabad began five years before it was actually set up in 1961. In 1956, Ford Foundation got Harvard Business School (HBS) to explore the possibility of a B-school in India. It proposed setting up one in Bombay, but Bombay University did not seem excited. Three years later, George Robbins, associate dean of UCLA, which had replaced HBS as the Ford Foundation collaborator, came to India and drew up a plan to set up two autonomous institutions in Bombay and Calcutta. The Planning Commission accep ted Robbins’ report but Bombay University had some reservations. When scientist Vikram Sarabhai came to know of it, he proposed Ahmedabad as a site. Along with Ahmedabad-based businessman Kasturbhai Lalbhai, they facilitated the setting up of IIM. Sarabhai, who was…

THE DRAWING BOARD It was Douglas Ensminger of the Ford Foundation who first recommended a school of design to the Indian government. In 1956, the government invited American design ers Charles and Ray Eames to travel to the country’s corners, meet writers, craftspeople, architects, scientists and industrialists. The result was The India Report in 1958. Keenly involved in the formation of NID, the Sarabhais, along with renowned Indian art and aesthetics scholar Prithwish Neogy and architect B.V. Doshi, felt that Ahmedabad, not Bangalore or Fatehpur Sikri, as the Eameses had suggested, was the most suitable site given its architecture, and should be the new institute’s location. IN THE WORKS Among NID’s notable projects are an encyclopedia of Indian crafts according to geography titled Handmade in India: A Handbook of the…

STAGE ONE In 1958, the Sangeet Natak Akademi took over the Asian Theatre Institute, run by the Bharatiya Natya Sangh. It was renamed the National School of Drama (NSD) and Asian Theatre Institute a year later. But NSD got its soul when Ebrahim Alkazi, with his immense knowledge of art, theatre and literature and dramatic skills acquired at London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA), took over in 1962. NSD was transformed into a premier theatre training institute under his watch. Jawaharlal Nehru came to see his production of Andha Yug in 1963, when he mounted it in the ruins of the Purana Qila in Delhi. ILLUSTRIOUS HISTORY Its productions, be it student or repertory, have had even leaders like Nehru, Indira Gandhi and L.K. Advani in the audience. Theatre…

THE BATTLE PLAN In 1941, Lord Linlithgow, then Viceroy of India, received £100,000 in gift from the Sudanese government for the sacrifices of Indian troops in the liberation of Sudan in the second world war. As the war ended, on May 2, 1945, a committee headed by then Commander-in-Chief Field Marshal Claude Auchinleck was set up to examine the feasibility of forming an institution for training officers of the armed forces jointly. A report it sumbitted in December 1946 recommended a Joint Services Military Academy. Post-Independence, the Chiefs of Staff Committee immediately began to implement the recommendations, initiating action to commission a permanent def ence academy and searching for a suitable site. Following partition, £30,000 from Sudan’s monetary gift went to Pakistan. The Indian Army decided to use these funds…

LAYING THE ROADMAP The Indian Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC) has played a pivotal role in the creation and advance of tourism infrastructure in India. It has been responsible for synchronising the work undertaken by the governments of different states as well as their tourism departments, and also for the planning and implementation of new tourism-related projects. START OF THE JOURNEY In 1946, a government report noted that it would be in India’s best interests to develop and enhance tourist traffic from both domestic and international locations. Three corporations—the Hotel Corporation of India, the India Tourism Corporation and the India Tourism and Transport Undertaking— were set up in 1956. In 1966, these were merged into a single undertaking by the government of India—ITDC. Today, this organisation remains one of the few…

AUTO RICKSHAWS ARE ICONIC TO DELHI'S culture. When Sanket Avlani, 29, decided to use three-wheelers as his canvas, not only did he give a new opportunity to designers but also transformed the dull interiors to enhance the everyday travel experience of thousands of locals. This, in turn, helped initiate conversations between drivers and passengers. “Each taxi is fitted with an identity label which tells anyone who rides in the taxi, the designer behind the TaxiFabric and the story of the design,” explains Avlani. CHALTI FIRTI ART GALLERY JYOTIRMAYEE PATRA'S design theme focuses on ‘Dilli Haat’—an open-air bazaar, bursting with life and colour, located in the heart of Delhi. DELHI'S BELLY PRAGUN AGGARWAL'S inspiration comes from Chandni Chowk's street food culture that according to him brings out the vibe of the…

RESTAURANT REVIEW / NOIDA BAR EXCHANGE 1 TIPPING POINT Noida's first stock-market theme bar is here and it's ready to take on some of the popular hangouts in the vicinity. Noida Bar Exchange by SMAAASH has been designed to give you the feel of a real stock exchange. Once settled in, you need to download their app, check the prices and order. Expect fresh cocktails made by their in-house mixologist and house wines for as low as Rs 160 and beer for as little as Rs 95. But this is not the only highlight of NBE, for the food will take you by a scrumptiously pleasant surprise. We recommend Beer Batter Chicken Strips and Chips—crispy on the outside and tender juicy chicken inside and Tempura Stuffed Mushrooms With Thyme And…

It was a victory snatched from the jaws of defeat. Many in the Congress had already braced themselves for the latest demoralising reverse—with the loss of Ahmed Patel’s Rajya Sabha seat. But the Election Commission was a white knight, riding to the Congress’s rescue literally at the midnight hour, as August 8 became August 9 and the most senior leaders of both the BJP and Congress worked their phones and bit nails. The EC rejected as invalid two votes by Congress rebels, leaving Patel needing 44 instead of 45 votes to win a fifth term in the upper house. He got 44, precisely what he needed. No wonder Congress president Sonia Gandhi said, “Thank god for the Election Commission.” In June last year, the party had been on the other…

Kerala has been in turmoil since RSS activist Rajesh Edvakode was hacked to death in Thiruvananthapuram on July 29. Just three days earlier, the BJP’s state headquarters was attacked by a group allegedly led by a local CPI(M) councillor. With the BJP and RSS raising the issue nationally, the Pinarayi Vijayan government finds itself on the back foot. Governor P. Sathasivam summoned the chief minister and DGP Loknath Behera to his office and said steps must be taken to curb political violence. Pinarayi had apparently received an intelligence alert a week ago that the BJP was plotting violent attacks in the state’s northern districts purportedly to divert attention from the medical college scam rocking Kerala. The office of state BJP chief Kummanam Rajasekharan faces allegations of involvement in the scam.…

Chief minister Manohar Par rikar’s decision to open an investigation against Kashinath Shetye, a state employee and prolific RTI activist, is the new flashpoint between the ruling BJP and the Congress in Goa. Announcing the inquest in the state assembly on August 4, Parrikar cited allegations that Shetye, who works with the power department, had violated service rules and possessed disproportionate wealth. Notably, in the past five years of the BJP government, Shetye had filed 195 petitions in various courts and with the National Green Tribunal, dealing with decisions or violations of virtually every department in the government. During this period, the official also submitted 495 applications for leave, ostensibly to attend court hearings. “This person (Shetye) has violated every rule and regulation [including] the Official Secrets Act,” the CM…

AGNI MISSILE DEPARTMENT | ESTABLISHED IN 1989 From the start, Agni was appreciated as a distinct product and, sensing its strategic importance, separated from India’s Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme. Agni-I, with a range of 700 kilometres, was first test-fired in 1989. Agni-II, an intermediate range ballistic missile, was tested in 1999. It has a range of 2,000-2,500 km and can carry both conventional and nuclear warheads. Agni-III, with a range of 3,500-5,000 km, was inducted in 2011, allowing strike capability deep inside neighbouring countries. Agni-IV was developed within a similar range but shorter flight time. It can carry a 1,000 kg payload. Agni-V, with a range of over 5,000 km, was a formidable addition to India’s strategic defence. Agni’s pioneer, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, would always turn poetic when talking…

HERO CYCLES | ESTABLISHED IN 1984 A RIDE TO REMEMBER As the world’s largest two-wheeler motorcycle manufacturer, with a 46 per cent market share in India, Hero has been constantly setting new benchmarks with its products. It is the first company in India to introduce four-stroke motorcycles and set the gold standard for fuel efficiency, emission control and quality. The journey began in 1944 when Brijmohan Lall Munjal and his brothers started a bicycle spare parts business in Amritsar, but Partition slowed down business. Munjal shifted operations to Ludhiana, where he got a licence from the Punjab government to set up a cycle factory—Hero Cycles. By 1975, Hero Cycles had become the largest bicycle manufacturer in India. In 1984, the company forged an alliance with Honda Motor Company to venture…

MINING STAGE It is one of the highest earners of foreign exchange for India and is the country’s largest public sector trading body, handling export of coal, iron ore and manufactured agro and industrial products. It is India’s largest trading company with a network across Asia, Europe, Africa, Oceania and America. It is also the largest player in bullion trade. MMTC was incorporated on September 26, 1963. With the State Trading Corporation’s direct trading activities growing rapidly and great emphasis being laid on mineral ore exports, the government decided to bifurcate the corporation to create an entity that would deal exclusively with trade in minerals and metals—and MMTC was born. The company played a significant role in developing India’s exports beyond minerals and also emerged as a hallmark of purity…

HOW IT ALL BEGAN In October 1989, even as the country was in political turmoil, the then V.P. Singh government decided to move on the plan to merge transmission assets of nine central sector generation compa nies along with the regional dispatch centres managed by watchdog Central Electricity Authority (CEA) to form the National Power Transmission Corporation Limited (NPTCL), later rechristened the Power Grid Corporation of India Ltd. This move led to a more synergised approach, allowing the transmission of electricity from one region to another. In 2016-17, the grid had a capacity to transfer 75,000 MW electricity. In the last fiscal, half of the 1,200 billion units generated in the country flowed through its network. The 19th CEA electricity survey projected that electricity demand in the country would be…

THE RISE TO FAME The All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Delhi was born as an Act of Parliament after the government felt the need for a state-ofthe- art institute of excellence with the best in medical education, research and high quality patient care. The then Union health minister, Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, who became the first president of AIIMS in 1957, played a big role in helping enshrine the autonomous nature of the college. By then, the hospital and college were already up and running (the first students had joined in 1956 after a competitive entr ance test in five cities). With the Rockefeller Foundation and the New Zealand government extending major grants, the hospital quickly got international attention. By 1961, the Massachusetts General Hospital, US, had AIIMS…

A NEW BEGINNING If there are second chances in life, the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) provides them in the field of higher education. In the mid-1980s, then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi had envisaged an open university, one without walls. The PM requisitioned the services of educationist G. Rama Reddy who had immense experience with correspondence courses in Andhra Pradesh in the 1960s. The professor became the founder vice-chancellor of IGNOU when the university was set up through an Act of Parliament in 1985. IGNOU had modest beginnings with two diploma courses and 4,528 students in 1987. Today, it has 3 million students, 21 schools of studies, 67 regional centres, 2,667 learner support centres and 29 overseas partner institutions. The open university also offers 228 certificate, diploma, degree, postgraduate…

HOW IT USED TO BE Only a few years ago, booking a train ticket ranked high among the very worst of Indian agonies—possibly right next to getting a root canal without anaesthesia. It usually involved endless queues in ticketing hothouses run by whimsical staff with no guarantee of anything but the slow wastage of time. Then, with the arrival of the Internet, the Indian Railway Catering and Ticket Corporation (IRCTC) launched online passenger reservation systems in August 2002. SMALL BEGINNINGS Like most big things, this had small beginnings—IRCTC’s online window sold 27 tickets on the first day and 3,343 tickets in the first month. Today, it sells over 600,000 tickets per day, over 55 per cent of railway ticket sales. Last year, it recorded sales of Rs 22,023 crore making…

GENESIS The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) began life quite modestly, operating out of a residential house in Maharani Bagh, Delhi, in 1988. Its fortunes changed significantly in 1995, when then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee decided on the development of a network of four-to-six lane highways connecting India’s four major metros (Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai), known as the Golden Quadrilateral. The network was to span about 12,000 km and had a completion target of 10 years. THE PICTURE TODAY NHAI laid the foundation for the modernisation of India’s road network. Though national highways account for less than 2 per cent of Indian roads, they carry more than 40 per cent of the traffic. The transport sector contributes about 5.5 per cent to India’s GDP, with road transport…

DID YOU KNOW ? One of India’s top 10 public sector undertakings, CSL’s operations have been rated ‘excellent’ by the central government four times in a row for achieving targets DOCK’S ORDERS Cochin Shipyard Limited (CSL) was conceived in 1969 and incorporated in 1972. The first phase of construction was completed in 1982, under technical collaboration with Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. It began shipbuilding operations in 1978, ship repair in 1981, marine engineering training in 1993 and offshore upgradation in 1999. This yard has the capacity to build and repair the largest vessels in India. WHAT IT DOES The company is currently building an aircraft carrier for the Indian Navy. It has also undertaken repairs of many kinds of ships for the navy, the coast guard and the fisheries and…

N.R. Narayana Murthy set up Infosys with six engineers in Pune out of a Rs 10,000 loan he took from his wife Sudha. Today, the company nets over $10.21 billion (around Rs 65,464 crore) in revenue. Before Infosys, Murthy was chief systems programmer at IIM, Ahmedabad, and worked at Patni Computer Systems, Pune. Infosys went on to pioneer the global delivery model and became the first Indian IT company to be listed on NASDAQ. Its employee stock options programme created some of India’s first salaried millionaires. Infosys created the digital network infrastructure and systems for the government’s Goods and Services Tax reform. “The concept of One Nation, One Tax, which is the agenda of the government, has been successfully envisioned by the Infosys team and GST project team,” says COO…

THE PLOT The eldest child of Bollywood actor Jeetendra, Ekta Kapoor took her father’s financial help to start a company with mother Shobhaa in his garage. After a few initial failures, the Kapoors scored their first big hit in the family comedy Hum Paanch (Zee, 1995-97) starring Ashok Saraf, Priya Tendulkar, Vidya Balan. Soon began the K serials bandwagon with Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi enjoying such success that, on public demand, Balaji had to bring back a key character it had killed off. In February 2000, Balaji Telefilms became a public limited company Such has been Kapoor’s dominance that in 2001 she had 18 shows running on air simultaneously. The production house has played a pioneering role in the glamorisation of the TV industry as well as bringing…

TECH THAT I n keeping with the vision of its founder, Jamshedji N. Tata, to promote “the material and industrial welfare of India”, the Indian Institute of Science has over the past one-and-a-half decades been encouraging its faculty and students to protect their intellectual property and convert the outcomes of some of their scientific investigations to practice via technology licensing or entrepreneurship. In the recent past, several technologies, such as gas flow sensors, electrical storage devices and related test instrumentation and fungal pesticides have been licensed. Inventors of other technologies such as enhanced electric gradient-based water filtration device, a multi-analytic device for diabetes monitoring and optic fibre sensors for structural monitoring have chosen the startup route. THE GENESIS IISc was established in 1909 in a unique public-private partnership between its…

DID YOU KNOW ? JNU awards MA in public management to IAS trainees from the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie BIRTH OF THE IDEA What Cambridge and Oxford are to the UK, the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) is to India. Its liberal ethos, egalitarian learning environs and freedom to openly debate have placed it in a class of its own. The bill for the establishment of JNU was placed in the Rajya Sabha on September 1, 1965, by the then education minister M.C. Chagla. In the discussion that followed, Bhushan Gupta, MP, said that this should not be just another university; new faculties should be created, including one for scientific socialism. Another thing the university could ensure was accessibility to students from weaker sections of society. The…

WHY IT IS ON THE LIST Its pivotal role in ringing in the Green Revolution made India self-sufficient in foodgrains. Efforts pioneered by the university resulted in the quadrupling of wheat, rice and maize productivity, and doubling of cotton and sugarcane. Over the years, the university has introduced 730 crop varieties and hybrids that have resulted in agricultural productivity leapfrogging in north India SOWING THE SEED While studying at the University of Michigan, US, Pratap Singh Kairon, chief minister of Punjab for eight-and-a-half-years, witnessed ‘land grant colleges’ wherein local farming communities contributed land for agricultural and other educational institutes. Set up on an extensive, 1,510 acre campus on the Ludhiana-Ferozepur highway, PAU replicated that model when Jawaharlal Nehru formally inaugurated it on July 8, 1963. Initially headed by P.N. Thapar,…

SLICES OF HISTORY In 1916, at a meeting between the Congress and Muslim League at the Taj, the two agreed to work toward a common goal: the selfgovernance of India For about 30 years, a suite of rooms at the Taj was kept permanently reserved for Sarojini Naidu Lord Mountbatten announced India’s Independence from the steps of the Taj THE DREAM The founder of the Tata Group, J.N. Tata, had a vision for his country. He knew that if India was to be acknowledged globally, it had to have a sound economy and strong industry. The hotel he set up—the Taj Mahal Palace in Colaba, Bombay, in 1903—soon became the standard by which all other hotels were judged. Within four years, it was counted among the top hotels in the…

DID YOU KNOW ? Its sustainable business model has become a case study for excellence in top B-schools, including Harvard and the IIMs THE BEGINNINGS In 1958, American John Bissell travelled to India to advise the All India Handicrafts Board and Cottage Industries on creating a market for handloom fabrics. He never left. Two years later, he set up Fabindia (implying the fabric of India), an India-inspired brand that drew on the strengths of rural weavers to bring an ethical, ethnic experience to consumers looking to wear homegrown fabrics and weaves. The company set up its first retail store in Delhi in 1976, at the time only selling textile-based apparel. Before long, the company had added a non-textile range (in 2000), organic foods in 2004, personal care products in 2006…

STAGE ONE The journey of Grasim Industries, a building materials and manufacturing company, is as old as that of independent India. The company was incorporated in 1947 as a textile manufacturer. Since then, Grasim has diversified into various new sectors and industries, including the production of viscose staple fibre (VSF), cement, sponge iron and chemicals. WHERE WE STAND A flagship of the Aditya Birla Group, Grasim is the world’s largest producer and exporter of viscose rayon fibre, with a market share of about 24 per cent. Textiles and related products comprise about 15 per cent of the group’s turnover. Other major businesses include cement and chemicals; its subsidiary, UltraTech Cement, is the largest producer of cement in India, and Grasim itself is the largest producer of caustic soda in the…

Vibrant Appeal Anupamaa Farm DECORATED IN DESIGNER ANUPAMAA Dayal's signature style, with vibrant green interiors and big floral motifs, Anupamaa Farm screams kitsch from the word go. The walls of the main living room are painted to reflect the Mangar forest- -with motifs of Dhau trees, apsaras, birds, butterflies and a winged deer—dramatic and inviting. The farmhouse has five bedrooms, all tastefully done up using Anupamaa textiles. With a wide garden, an open terrace for meditation and yoga, and a play area, there's a lot to keep you occupied, in style. The X Factor A plethora of activities such as block printing, forest walks, bird spotting, wellness workshops and Sufi performances. At Mangar Village, Camp Wild Road, Gurgaon-Faridabad Road Contact airbnb.co.in Price Rs 7,800 per night Yoga Retreat House of…

The Black Prince " is a very interestingly told history of Punjab’s last kingdom, something not many people know about SATINDER SARTAJ, ACTOR-SINGER. SATINDER SARTAJ’S MUSIC ALBUMS Tere Qurbaan (2009) Sartaaj (2010) Cheerey Wala Sartaaj (2011) Sartaaj Live (2012 Afsaaney Sartaaj De (2013) Rangrez – the poet of colours (2014) Hamza – A Sufiana Esctasy The Black Prince was more than a film for me. It was a five-year journey that exposed me not just to a different art form but also helped me evolve on many levels. I discovered many facets of myself. The entire journey of essaying a historical character was an internal voyage,” says singer Satinder Sartaaj, 37, who makes his debut as the lead character in the Hollywood production The Black Prince directed by US-based Indian…

T he Doklam stand-off isn’t just about China changing the status quo by building a road into the strategically significant plateau at the India-China- Bhutan trijunction. It is also about Beijing attempting to change another—perhaps more important—kind of status quo: in India’s relations with Bhutan. In Beijing, there is a growing clamour to scale up its engagement with Bhutan, with which China does not have diplomatic relations. This has become all the more apparent in the weeks since the June 16 stand-off. When some of China’s top strategic experts gathered in Beijing on July 25 for a Doklam brainstorming session at the Charhar Institute, a think-tank in west Beijing, the consensus among two dozen experts, including former diplomats who had served in India and long-time “India hands”, was the need…

Boxer Vijender Singh retained his WBO Asia Pacific super middleweight belt and took his Chinese opponent’s title on August 5, winning arguably the toughest fight of his brief professional career on points. It was a unanimous decision, all three judges scoring the bout in Singh’s favour. But after the fight, the victorious Singh offered his opponent both belts. “This is a message for peace,” he said, “to tell their people: please take my belts, but do not come into my territory.” It is not known what his opponent, who speaks little English, thought of the gesture. Nonetheless, Singh dedicated his win to “harmony... Hindi Chini bhai bhai”. PUNIT PARANJPE / AFP…

Former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Digvijaya Singh is preparing to set off on a journey—a Narmada parikrama. Starting on September 30, the 70-year-old Congress leader plans to walk an average 20 km a day to complete a 3,500 km walkathon up and down the river’s lengthy course in six months. Although it comes suspiciously on the heels of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s Narmada Seva Yatra, Digvijaya insists there is nothing political about his plans. “The parikrama is absolutely apolitical...it’s a spiritual pursuit for me. I have also written to the party high command to relieve me of all responsibilities so that I can participate in it,” he says. It’s been a long-standing wish, which he says couldn’t materialise till now for a variety of reasons. But now that he…

INDIA POST | ESTABLISHED IN 1854 India Post touches the lives of billions of Indians in the country and across the world. It’s the most widely distributed postal system worldwide. As of March 2015, India Post had 154,939 post offices, of which almost 90 per cent were in the rural areas. The neighbourhood post office also serves as a bank and, now, as a digital kendra for millions in rural India. THE DREAM By 1861, two years after the British started governing India, 889 post offices had come up, handling nearly 43 million letters and over 4.5 million newspapers annually. The first superintendent of the post office was appointed in 1870. In 1876, British India became the first non-founding member of the General Postal Union. The world’s first official airmail…

MARUTI | ESTABLISHED IN 1981 STARTING THE ENGINE It was India first people’s car at a time when only two brands ruled the roads—the Ambassador and the Premier Padmini. The top passenger carmaker in India, with a 50.5 per cent market share, it adapted quickly to changing consumer preferences and expanded its portfolio from small cars to all segments in the passenger vehicle market. An early flag-bearer of the Make in India campaign, it exported 1.5 million vehicles to over 100 countries. The premium hatchback, Baleno, became its first car to be manufactured in India and exported to Japan. It employs 25,000 employees and is building a sustainable profit model by reducing imports and aggressively pursuing localisation. It all began in a makeshift workshop in Delhi’s Gulabi Bagh. The year…

BHARTI AIRTEL | ESTABLISHED IN 1995 THE TRENDSETTER It is the largest mobile operator in India, the second largest in Asia Pacific and fourth largest in the world, with 248 million subscribers as on February 2016 It ushered in a telecom revolution with competitive tariffs and aggressive expansion, connecting millions It is one of the key drivers of data revolution and the first to scrap roaming charges on calls, text and data Sunil Bharti Mittal, the founder of Bharti Airtel, started with manufacturing bicycle parts when he was just 18. He graduated to importing electric power generators from Suzuki Motors. Later, in 1984, Mittal started manufacturing pushbutton phones. In early 1992, he bid for one of the four mobile phone network licences auctioned in India. To meet the condition for…

ONGC | ESTABLISHED IN 1956 EARLY DAYS ONGC anchors the country’s domestic oil production. It owns the biggest oil fields both onshore and offshore, including Bombay High, which produces 285,000 barrels a day, and the Barmer block, which produces over 200,000 barrels daily. Of the seven basins open for commercial production, six were opened by ONGC. ONGC has its origins in the Nehruvian era. The draft of the 1948 industrial policy laid emphasis on developing the petroleum sector. Prior to Independence, undivided India had only two oil producing companies, Assam Oil and Attock. In 1955, India decided to copy the Soviet model and formed the Oil and Natural Gas Directorate. But Jawaharlal Nehru and his deputy minister in the ministry natural resources, Keshava Deva Malviya, soon realised the model wasn’t…

A FLYING START A businessman with exceptional vision set up India’s first aircraft-producing factory, Hindustan Aircraft, in 1940. Seth Walchand Hirachand, who had also set up India’s first shipyard, Scindia Steam Navigation Company, and automobile plant, Premier Automobiles, was exceptionally prescient when he approached the kingdom of Mysore for seed capital for his startup. Hirachand was laying the building blocks for the soon-to-be independent country’s industrial base. Today, Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd is India’s only hub for the design, development and production of aircraft. Over the past 70 years, it has churned out 29 types of aircraft—from the MiG-21 to the Sukhoi Su-30MKI and the Tejas Light Combat Aircraft; Chetak, Cheetah and Dhruv helicopters; and transport aircraft for the security forces. An aerospace wing set up over two decades ago gave…

THE GENESIS Among India’s earliest river valley development projects, the Bhakra-Nangal multi-purpose dams were crucial to the success of the Green Revolution in the northern states of Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan. Water from the dams brought irrigation to 135 lakh acres in the three states, besides preventing floods. At Independence, close to 80 per cent of the cultivable, canal-irrigated area of erstwhile Punjab fell in West Punjab and consequently went to Pakistan This left the eastern or Indian portion of Punjab with scanty irrigation resources. Although envisaged even before Independence, preliminary earthwork on the Bhakra dam only started in 1948. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru inaugurated the construction on November 18, 1955, pouring the first pail of concrete into what was to be the firm foundation of the dam. He called…

EARLY DAYS The steel major has its roots in Hindustan Steel Private Limited (HSL), which was established in 1954 with the aim of laying the infrastructure for India’s rapid industrialisation after Independence. By the end of 1972, the government felt the need to integrate the production of steel in the country and develop a model for its management. It was suggested that an umbrella company be formed to manage the integrated public sector steel plants at Bhilai, Bokaro, Durgapur, Rourkela, Burnpur and Salem. This led to the formation of Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) on January 24, 1973, with an authorised capital of Rs 2,000 crore. It was made an operating company in 1978. The 24th largest steel producer in the world is today one of India’s largest employers.…

THE JOURNEY SO FAR Hindalco’s first contribution to the vision of an industrial India came in 1962, when the late G.D. Birla set up India’s first integrated aluminium facility at Renukoot, in eastern Uttar Pradesh. It was under the current chairman of the Aditya Birla Group, Kumar Mangalam Birla, that the business segments of aluminium and copper were consolidated to make Hindalco the non-ferrous metals powerhouse that it is today. This was achieved in part by inorganic growth through mergers and acquisitions with companies like Indian Aluminium Company Ltd and Birla Copper. Hindalco also secured copper reserves and amplified its operating base by acquiring Australian copper mines. In 2007, the landmark overseas acquisition of Novelis Inc., the world’s largest aluminium rolling company, placed Hindalco’s footprint across the globe, securing it…

FROM THE FAR CORNERS The scheme for establishing central schools was approved by the Union government in 1962 and soon 20 regimental schools under the ministry of defence were taken over and converted in 1963. Later, the Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan (KVS), an autonomous body registered as a society, was set up by the ministry of education in December 1965. The autonomous body issues directives on both academic and administrative matters for running the Kendriya Vidyalayas. The schools were initially meant for children of army personnel posted in ‘hardship’ areas. But they soon began catering to children of paramilitary personnel and, indeed, all central government employees. Kendriya Vidyalayas were then extended to public sector undertaking (PSU) townships as well. The idea behind all the schools under the KVS following the same…

NEW ROAD, OLD JOURNEY Those taking the old Mumbai-Pune highway well remember the nightmarish traffic jams. Passing through Bor Ghat en route from Mumbai to Pune, it had a rated capacity of 10,000 vehicles, but often had to deal with upward of 60,000. The 180-km journey took a minimum of five hours, because only 30 kilometres of the highway was broad enough to support four lanes. Vehicle breakdowns would cause kilometres-long traffic jams both ways. In 1990, the Maharashtra government appointed the Rail India Technical and Economic Services (RIGHTS) to study the feasibility of constructing a new highway. In 1997, then state PWD minister Nitin Gadkari decided to implement the recommendations of the RIGHTS report and construct an expressway from Kon, near Panvel, to Dehu Road, near Pune, for an…

A BILLION DREAMS A welfare state’s biggest challenge is to precisely identify the location of the recipients. The larger the population, the greater the challenge. For decades, this identification crisis lay at the heart of India’s notoriously leaky and inefficient public distribution system. Only 15 paise of every rupee reached the downtrodden, as former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi famously said in 1985 after travelling to Odisha’s drought-hit Kalahandi district. Opacity encouraged corruption as the state kept shooting in the dark. It all began as a National Identity Card pilot project in 13 states in 2003, but got a boost with the creation of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) headed by Nandan Nilekani for an ambitious project to use thumbprints and retinal scans of the world’s second largest population…

THE KHADI STORY Launching it as a weapon of political protest to promote swadeshi, Mahatma Gandhi embedded khadi firmly in the national psyche. He set up the first khadi production centre at Kathiawad, Gujarat, in 1921. A quarter of a century later, the Khadi and Village Industries Commission as we know it today came into being a year after the Khadi and Village Industries Commission Act was passed in 1956. A statutory body under the micro, small and medium enterprises ministry, it seeks to “plan, promote, facilitate, organise and assist in the establishment and development of khadi and village industries in the rural areas in coordination with other agencies engaged in rural development wherever necessary”. Being labour-intensive, the growth of khadi and village industries is significant in a labour surplus…

BACK TO THE ROOTS The genesis of the State Bank of India lies in the creation of the Bank of Calcutta (later Bank of Bengal) in 1806. In 1921, the Bank of Bengal and two other banks (Bank of Madras and Bank of Bombay) were amalgamated to form the Imperial Bank of India. The Reserve Bank of India acquired the controlling interests of the Imperial Bank in 1955 and the State Bank of India was created by an act of Parliament to succeed the Imperial Bank. The largest commercial bank in India in terms of assets, deposits, branches and employees, the consolidated assets of the State Bank of India (SBI) were Rs 18.62 lakh crore and deposits Rs 25.85 lakh crore at the end of financial year 2016-17. With a…

GOLD STANDARD It was the first IIT to be set up as part of Jawaharlal Nehru’s vision to build institutes of techni cal education that could help lay the industrial, scientific and technolo gical edifice of newly-independent India. And since its inception in 1951, IIT Kharagpur, alma mater to Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and Google CEO Sundar Pichai, has played a seminal role in that endeavour THE INCUBATION The IIT system was conceived in 1946 when Sir Jogen dra Singh, member of the Viceroy’s Executive Council, set up a 22-member committee under N.R. Sarkar to consider setting up higher technical institutes for India’s post-war industrial development. The committee recommended establishing four institutes in the east, west, north and south, possibly on the lines of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.…

WAR FOOTING In 1939, nuclear physicist Homi J. Bhabha made a trip home to Mumbai just as the Second World War was beginning and found himself unable to return to Cambridge. After serving for a few years as Reader at IISc, he began to wonder what it would take to create a school for physics that could be on a par with international institutes in terms of research. At Cambridge, he had seen at close quarters how fast the world of physics was evolving. In June 1945, just before America dropped the atomic bomb on Japan, Bhabha, through a tripartite agreement between the Dorabji Tata Trust, Government of Bombay and the Government of India, set up the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR). Well-connected with the upper crust of Bombay’s…

STORYBOARD Both Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi began supporting cinema by setting up the Federation of Film Societies of India in 1959. On the recommen dation of the film inquiry committee, the I&B ministry decided to set up an institution to impart training in screenplay, direction, cinematography, sound recording and editing. It acquired premises and properties from the defunct Prabhat Film Studio in Pune (the third and fourth generation of its employees still hold various jobs on the 21-acre campus). Remy Tessonneau, director of the Paris Institute des Hautes Etudes Cinematographiques, was recruited in March 1961 to help lay down a syllabus. Initially known as the Film Institute of India, it acquired its present name after the television wing was relocated from New Delhi to Pune in 1974. It has…

DREAM ENTERPRISE NIFT began as the dream of a few individuals, among them cultural activist and writer Pupul Jayakar, to build an institution that could train a generation of youth to appreciate the craft legacy of the country. The institute started out of a small makeshift area at the Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium, Delhi, in collaboration with the Fashion Institute of Technology, New York, whose experts not only trained the initial batches but also most of the early faculty at its New York campus. The tradition continues, with students being offered exchange and dual degree options abroad. Operating out of 16 campuses across the country now, NIFT runs a multi-faceted curriculum on traditional crafts, scientific design principles, modern tools and state-of-the-art equipment. It has given us well-known fashion designers such…

THE BIG BANG With a network of 38 national laboratories, 39 outreach centres, three innovation complexes and 4,600 active scientists supported by about 8,000 other scientific and technical staff, the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) today is the largest R&D organisation with a pan- India presence. Among CSIR’s major achievements are the development of the light combat aircraft, Tejas, and the supercomputer, Flysolver, and organising expeditions and research studies in Antarctica. Inspired by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, UK, the CSIR came into being after Sir Richard Gregory, then editor of Nature, reported to the British government about the dire need for such a facility after visiting scientific departments and universities in India in 1933. Then viceroy Lord Willingdon rejected the government’s suggestion and agreed only…

DID YOU KNOW ? The Oberoi in New Delhi was the first in India to offer guests a 24-hour coffee shop, in 1965. The one- of-a-kind eatery was known as Café Espresso RISE OF THE DESK CLERK It may be hard to imagine the members of the Oberoi family as anything but wealthy. But, Mohan Singh Oberoi, the father of current chairman P.R.S. Oberoi, did not have a fairytale childhood. He began his career as a desk clerk at the nondescript Cecil Hotel in Simla in 1920, earning Rs 50 per month. Within a few years, his hunger for learning and business acumen led him to a new job at the Carlton Hotel, working for an Englishman named Clarke. Clarke went on to become the owner of the Carlton, and…

ON THE HOUR Titan Company Limited, a joint venture between the Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation (TIDCO) and the Tata Group, commenced operations in 1984 under the name Titan Watches Limited. Titan is the world’s fifth largest integrated own brand manufacturer of watches. A major brand player, Titan stakes claim to over 50 per cent of the organised watch market in India, with over 150 million pieces sold to date across 32 countries. PRECISION ENGINEERING Titan commenced production at the end of 1986, and its watches hit the market in March 1987. The analog electronic quartz range of its products met with instant acclaim, bringing much joy to a watchstarved consumer market. Having received such an overwhelming response, the company then decided to grow its list of manufactured products, expanding…

Steeped in History It was in 1814, when missionary J.T. Thompson of Baptist Missionary Society bought a piece of land from Mughal Emperor Akbar Shah II in Daryaganj and built the first evangelist church. However, most of the Christians were killed by the rebels in the revolt of 1857. Thomson, along with a host of local in-charges of the church died, and the Baptist congregation in Old Delhi migrated to different states. Postrevolt, the Baptist Society in London in association with the East India Company contacted members of the congregation, and started looking for a new piece of land to rebuild the church. Finally, they found a Mughal garden that belonged to a powerful ruler, Begum Samru, the Begum of Sardhana, and it was here that they reconstructed the church.…