Indholdsfortegnelse for February 11, 2019 i India Today

Buildings can be allegories for the vision and vitality of a political party. Last year, the BJP’s sprawling new five-storeyed national headquarters, the country’s largest, symbolised a party bent on dominating the national narrative. This month, Nehru Bhavan, the Congress’s rundown party headquarters in Uttar Pradesh’s capital Lucknow, started getting a facelift, a fresh coat of paint, new doors, windows and a conference room. The makeover for a party out of power in the state for three decades follows the Grand Old Party’s January 23 proclamation of the formal entry of Priyanka Gandhi into electoral politics. Priyanka, 47, the newest member of the Nehru-Gandhi family to formally enter politics, will be general secretary in charge of eastern Uttar Pradesh, which comprises Awadh, Purvanchal and Lower Doab, together accounting for exactly…

Union minister for road transport, highways and shipping Nitin Gadkari is in the news for publicly questioning his government and the party leadership. But if there’s one thing Gadkari would like to keep a distance from it is the growing chatter suggesting his eligibility as the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate. Gadkari was in Mumbai recently for the wedding of Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray’s son and inexplicably cancelled a scheduled meeting with the Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray. No reasons were given, but there is speculation this was prompted by a Mumbai daily quoting Sena leader Sanjay Raut as saying that Gadkari as prime minister was acceptable to his party. Raut clarified he had been misquoted, but the damage had already been done. Gadkari was not going to…

“ SAPNE DIKHANE WAALE NETA LOGON KO ACHHE LAGTE HAIN, PAR DIKHAYE HUE SAPNE AGAR PURAY NAHIN KIYE TO JANTA UNKI PITAYI BHI KARTI HAI. ISLIYE SAPNE WAHI DIKHAO JO PURAY HO SAKEIN ” Union minister NITIN GADKARI warned the politicians who inveigle people into voting for them by spinning tales of a glorious, if illusory, future, to watch out. Those same voters, he said, will turn aggressive when those promises prove false. Surely he couldn’t mean Prime Minister Narendra Modi. After all, Gadkari is rumoured to be the RSS’s preference for the top job, should the BJP’s majority drop in the general election. Or, as the BJP insists, could he have been referring only to the Congress and Rahul Gandhi, with whom Gadkari was seen engrossed in…

Showering benefits on backward classes and projecting himself as the sole inheritor of the NTR legacy, Nara Chandrababu Naidu is pulling out all the stops to retain power in his state. After his Telugu Desam Party’s alliance with the Congress failed to deliver in the recent Telangana election, his party plans to go it alone in the simultaneous polls to the 175 assembly seats and 25 Lok Sabha seats in the state. Naidu is looking at it in the larger context of “saving the nation from the BJP”. As his co-brother Daggubati Venkateswara Rao decided to support the rival YSR Congress, Naidu was back to harking on the glory of his father-in-law and TDP founder N.T. Rama Rao. On January 27, a book by two retired civil servants was released,…

DATE OF BIRTH: January 12, 1972 EDUCATION: Studied at Modern School, Barakhamba Road, New Delhi till the assassination of her grandmother Indira Gandhi, after which she and Rahul were home tutored. Graduated in Psychology from Jesus and Mary College, DU MARRIED: Childhood friend Robert Vadra (now 50), on February 18, 1997, in a Hindu ceremony RESIDENCE: Stays at 35, Lodhi Estate, Delhi. and has two children—son Raihan (18) and daughter Miraya (16). Priyanka also has a house at Chharabra, 14 km from Shimla. The 3.5 bigha plot is located at a height of more than 8,000 feet EARLY INFLUENCES: As a teen, was influenced by her grandmother and wanted to become a politician. Has taken her three decades to take the plunge. Has always been political counsellor to mother Sonia…

She has a striking resemblance to her grandmother, the late prime minister Indira Gandhi. Ever smiling, dimples in place, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has a fresh and youthful disposition even at 47. A shrewd communicator, and always warm and compassionate, she has in the past displayed an extraordinary connect with voters when campaigning for her mother Sonia in Rae Bareli and her brother, Congress president Rahul Gandhi, in Amethi. But can Priyanka, roped in as general secretary in charge of eastern Uttar Pradesh just 100 or so days before the Lok Sabha election is scheduled, change the grand old party’s fortunes in this pivotal state? Can an organisational decline of three decades be reversed in this brief interval through her induction? Electoral compulsions These questions are difficult to answer. It is…

BE AN EARLY BIRD Women who are ‘larks’, functioning better at the beginning of the day than the end of the day, have a lower risk of breast cancer, according to a new study by the National Cancer Research Institute, Nov. 2018 TAKE A VITAMIN D PILL A new study by the American Cancer Society finds that higher circulating vitamin D concentrations are significantly associated with lower colorectal cancer risk HAVE DINNER EARLY People who have their evening meal before 9 pm or wait at least two hours before going to sleep have lower risk of breast and prostate cancer, says the Barcelona Institute for Global Health, July 2018 SAY NO TO FAT A 2017 study by the Michigan State University shows that a certain protein (fibroblast growth factor-2 or…

People laughed at me when I first started photo performances,” says artist Pushpamala N., whose early work riffed on proto-feminist legends like Fearless Nadia. However, with her solo show, The Body Politic, hitting New Delhi’s Nature Morte art gallery this month, it’s Pushpamala who is having the last laugh. “You have to keep fighting,” she says. “As a woman artist, I am not taken as seriously as I should be.” In the early photos, Pushpamala cast herself as the Phantom Lady, a wraith-like masked superhero who uses her psychokinetic powers to fight injustice in Bombay. ‘Phantom Lady or Kismet’—first presented at Gallery Chemould in 1998—is based on Bollywood’s Fearless Nadia (aka Mary Ann Evans), a superheroine, seen in a setting reminiscent of film noir. In The Body Politic—areference to her…

The recent Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) introduced by the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government has sparked widespread protest in the Northeast over its repercussions on the demography of border states. A similar conflict with troubling parallels is brewing in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, where a strong demand for an Inner Line Permit (ILP) regime has been voiced by local communities concerned about the growing number of migrants settling in the archipelago. In an emotional remark during his recent visit to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared that there is no difference between the islands and the mainland, and that for him they are one and the same. The statement did not go down well with many local residents, given the growing discontent over migrants from…

Victory in three Hindi heartland states has earned the Congress attention from some political heavyweights in Bihar, though they are of the kind the party should be wary of. Former Janata Dal (United) strongman Anant Singh, who has a criminal past, has launched a motorcycle rally to drum up support for Rahul Gandhi’s February 3 rally in Patna. And suspended Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) MP Rajesh Ranjan aka Pappu Yadav is already seeking support from the Congress for his 2019 Lok Sabha election bid.…

It’s budget season in an election year. No wonder the idea of a ‘Universal Basic Income’ (UBI), with its all-too-obvious surface appeal, is getting a thorough airing: from Rahul Gandhi’s attention-grabbing announcement of a ‘minimum income support’ for the poor to Sikkim’s announcement a fortnight earlier that it would become the ‘first state to roll out UBI’. The two key principles of UBI are ‘universal’ coverage and an entitlement to a ‘basic income’, to enable dignified living in the absence of other earnings. For its votaries, a big part of its appeal lies in the fact that UBI sidesteps the messy and flawed process of identifying beneficiaries. The oxymoronic variants such as a ‘targeted universal basic income’ or the Congress’s ‘minimum income support’ for the poor—walk right into the targeting…

K. Chandrashekar Rao (KCR) is a superstitious man, which is why he allegedly delayed the swearing-in of new MLAs for more than a month after the assembly election results were declared on December 11. The Telangana chief minister is also yet to name his cabinet, and is currently running the government with just one minister—home minister M. Mahmood Ali. Apparently the wait is for an “inauspicious period” to blow over. That said, despite the Telangana Rashtra Samithi’s (TRS) commanding position—it won 88 of the 120 assembly seats—KCR’s ‘managers’ are still out wooing legislators of the decimated opposition. “My government is passing through a transition, from an old to a new regime. We do not want to shoot arrows in the dark, but take firm steps,” the chief minister had declared…

The SP worries she’ll take away Muslim votes, but believes the Congress will damage the BJP more If she pulls in non-Jatav Dalit votes, which had moved to the BJP, she’ll indirectly help the BSP May also help the SP-BSP by wooing non-Yadav OBCs such as Kurmis away from the BJP Her entry may prompt the SP-BSP to rejig the poll alliance, though Mayawati is yet to relent Party insiders say leaders of the three parties are likely to informally agree on constituency-wise assessment to put up friendly fights, wherever needed, to minimise damage…

PRECISION MEDICINE Using the genetic changes in a patient’s tumour to determine its treatment TARGETED THERAPY Drugs that zero in on specific molecules that allow cancers to grow fast and abnormally IMMUNOTHERAPY Treatment that helps your immune system fight cancer CRISPR-CAS9 Fast and precise software that allows scientists to edit, remove or replace abnormal genes ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AI, machine learning and deep learning are revolutionising cancer detection…

PROCESSED MEAT Red meat and processed meat have been linked to the increased risk of colorectal cancers 9% higher breast cancer risk from processed meat, according to the International Journal of Cancer, Oct. 2018 The World Health Organization defines processed meat as follows: “Meat that has been transformed through salting, curing, fermentation, smoking, or other processes to enhance flavour or improve preservation” Go for whole grains, vegetables and fruits AIR POLLUTION In the first study of its kind, air pollution has been linked to heightened risk for mouth cancer; high levels of pollutants, especially fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and to a lesser extent, ozone, may be key, accordingto BMJ, Oct. 9, 2018 43% higher risk of mouth cancer for those exposed to high air pollution Wear a mask when going…

Five years ago, while playing golf, Indrajit Ghorpade had an epiphany that would change the course of his life. He overheard a conversation about the golf club’s plan to bring out a book on the birds commonly spotted on the course and it struck him that he had little to show for the four days a week he had spent surrounded by nature on the links for 30-odd years. Why not take up wildlife photography instead, he thought? After all, he was familiar with the wildlife around the grasslands near his ancestral home in Koppal, Karnataka. Plus, he had dabbled in photography in his youth and spent hours in the darkrooms of some of India’s best wildlife photographers. However, Indrajit soon realised that he wasn’t content with just pretty pictures,…

With unemployment looming large and the economy listing a bit precariously, the Narendra Modi government’s pre-election budget was always likely to be populist. The BJP is suddenly fighting for political salience, and the Congress with its competitive carrot-dangling—in the shape of farm loan waivers and a Minimum Income Guarantee in states it has recently won—has stolen a march on the saffron party. At the time of going to press, it looked like the BJP’s counter-offer would be a cocktail of direct benefit transfer to landed farmers and minimum income guarantees to the landless poor. Maybe zero-interest loans for farmers and some concessions to the salaried through tweaks in income tax slabs. SMEs could be in for some tax concessions and possibly interest subvention. The government will also hope that it…

Over 20 million people had died of AIDS before the world’s elite paid heed to the carnage. Then, belatedly, the disease became the global cause du jour. Billionaires and movie stars vied to declare their abiding concern for the AIDS-stricken, notably for ‘innocent’ women and children. Bill and Melinda Gates were in the vanguard of this elite, though with a commitment to public health matters that has been laudably sustained since—and in 2003, the couple selected Ashok Alexander to lead an HIV prevention effort backed by a $200 million gift. A Stranger Truth is Alexander’s journey from the moneyed world of McKinsey & Company, the American consulting firm, into the India of poverty, scorn and injustice suffered by sex workers of every gender. Alexander is perceptive and iconoclastic. He writes,…

As the grim beast of the 2019 general election skulks closer, voters are girding themselves for tall claims and empty rhetoric, but never a serious speech about something like education and expenditure. Are we spending enough on primary and secondary school education and are we making the most of what we do spend? Earlier this month, the NGO Pratham published its 13th annual status of education report (ASER) and while the overall picture is marginally brighter, with government schools reporting an improvement in reading and arithmetical ability, the quality of Indian education remains dismal. Development in a country like India, where the demographic skews young, must include comprehensive education for all. However, India spends only 2.8% of its GDP on education, well below the world’s average of 4.8% (2015). India…

Fresh investigations ordered by the new Congress state government into decisions taken under the previous BJP regime have kicked up a political storm and pitted arch rivals, chief minister Bhupesh Baghel and his predecessor Raman Singh, against each other. Vigilance agencies have been asked to re-examine certain aspects of the ongoing investigation into the Chhattisgarh State Civil Supplies Corporation scam and to probe irregularities in e-tendering and various purchases made by the previous government. The distribution of free mobile phones under the Sanchar Kranti Yojana, ostensibly aimed at increasing mobile penetration in the state, is also under the scanner. The Rs 36,000 crore civil supplies scam allegedly involved pay-offs by traders to corporation officers and employees in return for the government purchasing substandard rice for the public distribution system (PDS).…

In the late summer of 1999, a 27-year-old Priyanka Gandhi was in Amethi to campaign for her mother and then Congress president Sonia Gandhi who was contesting her first Lok Sabha election. During a media interaction, a reporter asked Priyanka what she thought of the opposition attack on her mother’s foreign origins. Reaching out to the journalist, Priyanka extended her hand and asked: “Do you think I have foreign blood in my veins?” That was perhaps the first sign of the politically savvy mind the Congress is relying on two decades later to revive its fortunes in Uttar Pradesh, the state that sends 80 members to the 543-strong Lok Sabha—more than any other state. In 2014, the Congress took just two seats in UP, both won by the members of…

The BJP brass agrees, in private, that Priyanka may take away upper caste votes; the party recognises resentment among upper castes and hopes 10 per cent reservation for the economically backward among upper castes will alleviate it Plans to finesse the caste arithmetic of the past two polls—coalitions of upper castes (Brahmins and Thakurs) and support from non-Yadav OBC groups, non-Jatav Dalits and farmers Plans to bring all castes under Hindu umbrella by raising tempo on building the Ram temple…

The 51 enclaves in India are spread over 7,110.02 acres and have a population of 14,215 The Aadhaar and voter ID cards given to the new citizens are full of errors Former chhits, located within Cooch Behar, a district declared as “Nirmal Bangla”, still lack toilets Greenhouses, solar panels, irrigation pumps built in the chhits are already defunct Land allotment in the former chhits remains incomplete Residents complain that they have become pawns in a vote-bank war between the BJP and Trinamool for the Rajbongshi vote in 2019…

FATIGUE Feeling extremely tired can be a symptom of cancer in your body. A lump or thickening of skin can be an early or late sign of cancer. People with cancers in the breast, lymph nodes, soft tissues, and testicles typically have lumps MOLES If you notice a mole that has an irregular or asymmetrical shape, is more than one colour, is bigger than 7 mm in diameter, and is itchy, crusty or bleeding, see your doctor. It could be a sign of skin cancer LUMPS Always see a doctor if you notice a lump in your breast, or elsewhere on your body, that is rapidly increasing in size. Lumps can be caused by non-cancerous things like cysts, but they need treatment regardless. COUGHING A persistent cough lasting more than…

The protagonists are damaged children, starving and scrounging amidst the rubble of a ruined city. Nothing is clear at the outset of this science fiction novel except that some sort of unholy conflict centred upon Ceylon has produced tribes of feral youngsters. Wait: Ceylon? Yes. Because the British Empire is still intact, China never became Communist and because this is 2033 and history as we know it is just another mirage in the reader’s mind. Even the little children who seem so pathetic in the opening pages are not what they seem. The Silent Girl for instance, is a vicious little warrior. She wields a wooden spear and can only speak via a cassette player she uses in place of a voice. She befriends a boy named ‘the Pissa’, a…

LUTHER Admit it, you would even watch Idris Elba paint a house. Luckily, Season 5 of Luther–a gritty, sometimes moving police procedural that teams Elba up with Ruth Wilson’s psycho killer–means you don’t have to. NETFLIX SONI Billed as Netflix’s best Hindi film to date (okay, faint praise), this story of two policewomen battling sexual harassment has impressed critics with its power and subtlety. NETFLIX A STAR IS BORN Everybody went, well, gaga over Lady Gaga’s feature film debut in a flick produced and directed by Bradley Cooper. Now you can see for yourself if the Lady outdoes Barbra Streisand’s 1976 performance in the same role. iTUNES…