Indholdsfortegnelse for January 14, 2019 i India Today

Two evenings after Christmas, I steeled myself for a task I truly abhor—call a stranger and have a formal conversation. Only the thought that hundreds of others from Shakti—a non-partisan group I’d recently joined—were also steeling themselves across India made me not suddenly develop a headache. The group had only just formed in November but was impressively focused on its one-point agenda—get more women elected as MLAs and MPs. In its short lifespan, Shakti had managed to organise an eye-opening national event of women politicians from parties as diverse as the BJP, Congress, JD(S), AIADMK, DMK and NCP. Soon after, the Congress officially backed the Women’s Reservation Bill. The BJD has already been campaigning with other parties to boost support for the bill. It was a good moment. In December,…

Hartej Singh Rarewala, 33, Mohali When not leading mountaineering and trekking expeditions in the Himalaya, Rarewala can be seen at his three-acre organic farm in Kailon village in Mohali, where he grows seasonal vegetables and fruits like bananas, mangoes and kinnow. Though Rarewala grew up on a farm, he has been actively participating in farm activities only for the past seven years. “It’s the passion that keeps you going,”he says. “For me, getting my hands in the mud and watching eager customers pick up your produce compensates for the low income that this activity generates.” All set to introduce more processing of goods at his farm, including flour and oil, as well as rearing goats for organic milk, this young farmer hopes that more urbanites will join him in the…

IRON WOMAN Sudeshna Sengupta, 35 OFFICER IN THE DIRECTORATE OF REVENUE INTELLIGENCE Sudeshna Sengupta’s radiant smile hides the persona of a hard-as-nails revenue intelligence official. For five years now, she has chased down and nabbed those unsavoury characters who usually make it to the daily crime pages of newspapers—drug traffickers, gold smugglers and fake currency kingpins. Sengupta is in the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), the apex agency meant to nab violators of the Customs Act. She has so far arrested more than 80 criminals. Felons on bail have whispered the name of her son’s school and her home address, but the DRI officer is unmoved by such threats. She willingly accepts these threats as occupational hazards and hasn’t even once questioned her decision to skip a cushy desk job…

Long-term Capital Gains (LTCG) tax on equity made a comeback after almost 14 years in 2018. Now, equity fund investors will have to pay 10 per cent LTCG tax on gains over Rs 1 lakh in a financial year. This means that the gains made from investments in ELSS (equity-linked savings schemes) will attract LTCG tax at redemption if the net gain is over Rs 1 lakh in a financial year. ELSS is a diversified equity mutual fund product that qualifies as a tax-saving instrument under Section 80C of the Income Tax Act. The tax exemption is limited to an investment of Rs 1.5 lakh. Taxation on your equity investment doesn’t mean it has lost its charm. “Even with LTCG tax, equity remains attractive from a taxation standpoint,” says Radhika…

Mohan Kumar’s single aspiration is to see his sons Radha and Manju become the best batsmen in the world. The three leave their village for Mumbai with less than six months to go for Selection Day—when three under-16 players will be awarded professional contracts. After some big-bad-city humbling, the boys win a scholarship to an alternative school that hopes its cricket team will turn the school’s fortunes around. And for this, legendary coach Tommy Sir is coaxed into returning to the school’s cricket ground. Eyeing the same ground for real estate is a failed businessman whose gaze then turns towards sponsoring players. Netflix’s new series Selection Day races through its material cursorily and quickly—the first season is six episodes of around 20 minutes. The main characters tend towards being one-dimensional and…

Picture This Unofficially, it’s a joint venture, but it’s unlikely to bring the warring Thackeray cousins Raj and Uddhav together. The controversial Bal Thackeray biopic, slated for a January 25 release, has been produced by Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut but directed by Maharashtra Navnirman Sena leader Abhijit Panse. Panse got the job because Raut wanted a political insider and not a Bollywood director to make the film. The Sena is already taking ownership of the film. Panse was kept out of the limelight at the recent launch of the ‘Thackeray’ trailer in a theatre that Uddhav attended. But the MNS has vowed to reclaim credit for the Marathi-Hindi film when it’s released on Balasaheb’s 93rd anniversary. Public screenings and Panse’s felicitation will highlight that it ultimately took an MNS…

HOPE IS YOUNG Dr Sandeep Chhatwal, 48 Founder, Nanhi Jaan, Chandigarh Project ‘Nanhi Jaan’, launched in 2011 by Dr Sandeep Chhatwal’s ‘Veeranwali Foundation’, has over the years set up a playroom, donated two ventilators, an ABG (arterial blood gas) machine, 35 baby warmers, incubators and much other material to the children’s wards of PGI and GMCH (Government Medical College and Hospital) in Chandigarh. A private practitioner for 20 years, Chhatwal became a changed man after seeing the selfless work being done at PGI Chandigarh when his son was rushed to the paediatric unit there eight years back after a case of febrile illness got complicated. “I saw how the doctors and nurses worked day and night to save him. It stunned me. I knew there and then that I owed…

Rouhid Ali, 26 Unless you’ve been to Myanmar or have a Burmese connect, chances are you’ve never heard of Mohinga, the beloved Burmese dish. Ali grew up in Manipur but on a daily diet of Mohinga, rice noodles in fish soup, cooked to perfection by his grandmother—a true-blue Burmese. As a student in Delhi University, Ali started missing his Mohinga. The search for roots and the secrets in his DNA led him to the idea of a diner—Mohinga: The Taste of Myanmar—at Humayunpur in south Delhi. His mother taught him how to cook a winning bowl from her homeland, keeping in mind vegetarians too. “She is my inspiration,” he says. ILHAM AFGHANI FOOD Ilham means positivity in Arabic. For refugee Afghan women in Delhi, displaced by war, terrorism and conflict,…

BLOOD DONOR BATS Vampire bats drink the blood of mammals. If a bat does not find a mammal, it goes without a meal for a night. But it takes just three days for bats to starve to death. So if one fails to score a meal, bat-friends in the roost will regurgitate own meal, ensuring its survival. What else are friends for? NO BUSINESS LIKE MONKEY BUSINESS Vervet monkeys scream alarms to warn other monkeys of predators, even if it puts them in danger by attracting attention A CHIMP IN NEED IS A CHIMP INDEED New research on chimpanzees shows that they can act to help each other selflessly. Chimps cosy up to friends, share food, groom vulnerable areas, fight alongside, act to promote the welfare of friends and return…

The year 2018 saw interest rates go upwards as the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) raised the repo rate twice by 25 basis points each (100 basis points is equal to one per cent). This led to banks raising their fixed deposit as well as lending rates. Prime lender State Bank of India (SBI) is currently offering an interest rate of 6.8 to 6.85 per cent on one to 10 year deposits. For people in the top tax bracket, post-tax returns will come down to 4.76 per cent and 4.8 per cent respectively. However, some non-banking finance companies (NBFCs) have been offering a higher interest rate of up to 9 per cent or above since October-November. Liquidity conditions tightened for NBFCs after the IL&FS crisis forced them to raise the…

Indians love gold. The country is the world’s second-biggest buyer of the yellow metal and consumes 800-900 tonnes of it annually, as per the World Gold Council. But does it make sense to make gold part of your portfolio? ALL THAT GLITTERS? More than a crucial investment avenue, gold should be looked at as a tool to spread risk and diversify. It is a safe haven during economic volatility, especially during phases of high inflation. Experts suggest an exposure of 5-10 per cent. Balwant Jain, an independent tax and investment expert, says, “While one should hold around 5 per cent in gold at any time, currently we are recommending investors to park 10 per cent in the metal,” says Jain. MIDAS TOUCH WOES Investment in physical gold has risks such…

Two unrelated developments in the last month of 2018 have added fuel to the fiery debate over the Right to Privacy of Indian citizens, as established by the Supreme Court, and the surveillance measures enacted by the government in the interests of what it describes as national security. In the past few weeks, the government has made official what has long been an open secret. The ministry of home affairs authorised 10 security and intelligence agencies to intercept, monitor and decrypt “any information generated, transmitted, received or stored in any computer resource”. Critics warned that the notification was draconian and authoritarian in scope, that the use of “any” gave the agencies in question blanket rights to access people’s information. Veteran human rights lawyer Indira Jaising, for instance, described the notification…

THE STREET’S HER STAGE Shilpi Marwaha, 29 THESPIAN AND ACTIVIST, DELHI She lost her mother when she was a child. Last November, she lost her father. But the very next day, she was on stage. A promise is a promise to the activist-thespian, who has well over 9,000 street play shows to her credit. One day you’ll find her up in arms against sexual harassment and assault at Jantar Man-tar, singing “Sarfaroshi ki tamanna” another day in Kargil or putting up a nukkad natak in a Jharkhand village, depicting illness through the lens of theatre at AIIMS, shooting for Bollywood movie Raanjhanaa, going on camera for Oscar-winning director Ross Kauffman’s documentary on women at other times. Gender, domestic violence, health, environment... you name it, and you’ll find her with her…

A conversation-starter, an easy topic to bond over, a paean to nostalgia and memory. The sari is having its moment. When Shital Mahajan Rane, 36, wore a pink Nauvari Maharashtrian nine-yard sari instead of a high-performance freefly jumpsuit, the international audience at the Thai Skydiving Centre in Pattaya sat up and took note. That was in February 2018, when the Padmashri awardee and holder of 17 national and six world records, made yet another skydiving mark by jumping from a height of 13,000 feet in a sari. To prove that Indian women are capable of excelling at anything. In 1976, when she had looked into the mirror and found a young woman dressed in a pink and blue Narayanpet sari her mother gave her to wear in junior college staring…

Fixed deposits may be one of the most popular investment products for risk-averse investors but fixed return investments are not entirely risk-free. Buying a suitable insurance product requires some research on your part to identify your needs and comparisons to find the best product. “The life insurance products available in the market are for different financial needs: term plan for income replacement, endowment plan for regular savings and corpus creation and unit linked insurance plan (ULIP) for wealth creation,” says Anirudh Jain, head, insurance, Centrum Group. When it comes to pure insurance products, people cannot decide between a whole life term plan and a regular one. The regular term plan is cheaper, but a whole life plan ensures protection for a longer tenure. To help you choose between the two,…

Mrinal Sen made his first film in 1955, the same year his contemporary Satyajit Ray made his illustrious debut. Pather Panchali made Ray an instant sensation. Overshadowed by other popular films, Sen’s Raat Bhore sank without a trace. It took Sen until 1959 to make a second movie. Neel Akasher Neechey, about an immigrant Chinese peddler’s bond with a nationalist Bengali woman, was a hit, garnering praise from both Jawaharlal Nehru and the Communist Party. Though he later expressed embarrassment about its sentimentality, it launched a remarkable career. Between 1960 and 2002, Sen directed 25-odd features, films as various as the devastating Akaler Sandhane and the cheeky Bhuvan Shome. He handled adivasi colonial drama (Mrigayaa) as comfortably as Naxalite politics (the Calcutta Trilogy) or middle-class morality (Ek Din Pratidin). He…