Indholdsfortegnelse for July 1, 2019 i India Today

A little over a decade from now, India will become the third largest economy in the world. It will have quadrupled its GDP to around $10 trillion, surpassing France and Japan and behind only the US and China. Set to be the world’s most populous country by 2027, the challenges for India in the 2030s will be even more acute than at present. We are the world’s largest young country. Half the population, or over 600 million people, is under the age of 25, what is called our demographic dividend. The advent of the knowledge economy—where the creation, dissemination and utilisation of information and knowledge rather than land, labour and capital become the most important factors of production—poses new challenges and opportunities for us. Can a youthful India deliver the…

Muzaffarpur in Bihar and Gorakhpur in neighbouring Uttar Pradesh have been prone to outbreaks of acute encephalitis for around 40 years. Most of the children who die after contracting the disease are under 10 years old. Nearly 100 children have died in the past few weeks. The so-called Japanese encephalitis, part of the acute encephalitis ‘family’, is spread by mosquitoes. But other causes are more mysterious. Casting around for explanations, doctors have suggested excess heat and humidity as part of the problem; others identify toxins in lychees, grown in vast quantities in Bihar, coupled with poor nutrition and hygiene as the cause. After the deaths in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath told health officials in the state to be on guard. 127 children reported dead of acute encephalitis syndrome…

Jagat Prakash Nadda, 58, will be the Bharatiya Janata Party’s first working president. His predecessor, Amit Shah, the new home minister, will remain president until his term ends in December. Nadda is then expected to become party president, in keeping with the party’s “one man, one post” principle. A BJP functionary who had observed Nadda’s performance as the party’s general secretary in charge of Chhattisgarh, in 2014, describes him as a “good manager under a good chairman and certainly not a damager”. His comments echoed those of others within the party, suggesting that Nadda is viewed as a steady hand. The unspoken subtext is that Nadda is trusted by Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi to do as he is told, and also, that he harbours few political ambitions of…

Shame? The first day of the first session of Parliament saw the swearing in of MPs, but Rahul Gandhi only showed up at four in the afternoon. Perhaps he wanted to avoid the love-in for the prime minister, the chants of ‘Modi, Modi’ resounding through the hall. Predictably, Pragya Thakur’s induction met with protests. She took her oath in Sanskrit and appended to her name both the title of ‘Sadhvi’ and the name of her guru, causing considerable confusion and prompting a reminder that she could swear only upon God or the Constitution. It took three attempts to quieten the protests. The hashtag #Ashamed trended on Indian Twitter, with many users claiming that seeing Sadhvi Pragya take her seat in Parliament made them feel ashamed. This, in turn, caused a…

By 2030, the minimum qualification for teaching will be a four-year liberal integrated BEd degree; only accredited and multidisciplinary higher educational institutions would offer these degrees Thousands of sub-standard, standalone teacher education institutions across the country will be shut down Teachers will not be allowed to perform non-teaching government work, including electioneering, cooking of midday meals or other strenuous administrative tasks Teachers doing outstanding work will be identified, promoted and given salary raises. They will mostly be appointed to their home towns, and will be given adequate support in terms of salaries, working environments, resource materials and training. Periodic performance appraisals will also be carried out to ensure that teachers remain accountable for their work…

Despite these structural and curricular changes, the NEP acknowledges that teachers will be the pivot around which this learning revolution can be built. Former NCERT director J.S. Rajput is confident of the success of the policy once teachers are empowered. “Give education and educators their due. Trust the teachers, prepare them professionally and support them in performing their tasks. This will be the first step towards implementing the policy,” he says. The NEP lays down that all teachers in future earn a mandatory four-year liberal integrated bachelor’s degree in education before they sit for a recruitment test such as the Teacher Eligibility Test (TET). Thousands of substandard standalone teacher education institutions across the country will be shut down and only multidisciplinary higher educational institutions would offer BEd degrees. Menon, however,…

A new apex body, the Rashtriya Shiksha Aayog (RSA), will be responsible for developing, implementing, evaluating and revising the education policy in India. Budgets and their utilisation by all state agencies related to education will be reviewed by the RSA The prime minister will be the chairperson of the RSA, with the education minister as its vice-chairperson. 50 per cent of RSA members will be eminent educationists, researchers and leading professionals The executive director of the RSA will be a person with a reputation in education Similar to the RSA, a Rajya Shiksha Aayog will be constituted in all states with the chief minister as chairperson and education minister as vice-chairperson Higher education The National Higher Education Regulatory Authority will be the sole regulatory authority for such institutes The regulatory…

What makes a university stand apart from the rest? Is it the quality of students enrolled and faculty engaged in teaching, or the infrastructure? These certainly have a role as the university strives to gain excellence, but are not the primary driver. A close scrutiny of the table toppers in the INDIA TODAY-MDRA survey of India’s best universities reveals that they all have one thing in common—the constant endeavour to innovate and adapt to the growing needs of the local, national and global environment. This singular trait adds glory to the legacy of reputed universities, pushing them to the top of the rankings year after year. It also exposes an unfortunate trend—in all four categories, the top five universities have faced minimal challenge from the emerging ones. This low-intensity competition…

Q. What are the top emerging courses in legal education? Clinical legal education, cyber laws, legal regime pertaining to artificial intelligence, online dispute resolution and private international law are some of the emerging courses in legal education. Q. What steps have been taken by the university to equip students with new-age skills for the emerging legal world? NLSIU, by constantly updating the curriculum and giving complete autonomy to teachers to shape up the new courses, updates the skills of the stakeholders continuously, thereby making them ready as “tomorrow’s lawyers”. Q. What are the steps the university has taken to enhance research? Teaching is dissemination of knowledge and research is creation of knowledge. Hence NLSIU focuses on enhancing the quality of research, which enables us to ensure the best delivery system…

Having expressed his disappointment in his 2016 book The Great Derangement, with the failure of literary novelists to confront climate change, Amitav Ghosh put his imagination where his mouth is and wrote that novel himself. Gun Island is a blockbuster, a panoramic, intensely current, depiction of the violent upheavals of the Anthropocene, the cataclysmic effect man has had on the planet. But it would be reductive to read it as motivated solely by environmental concern. Ghosh is asking questions here about human certainty, about our faith in reason, in rationality, in empiricism, in what we think we know. Dinanath Dutta is the novel’s ‘Man of Reason’. A middle-aged, antiquarian bookseller—“there are few expressions”, he reflects wryly, “in the English language that are less attractive to women than ‘Rare Book Dealer’”—Dinanath…

Mumbai-based Nalini Malani has been making art for 50 years. Concerned with the dispossessed and the voiceless, her work has everything, from Manto to mythology. Nothing and nobody is at odds with each other on her canvases. At the ongoing 58th Venice Biennale, for instance, Malani’s exhibition—Rothko in Lampedusa, organised by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees—includes an installation of five larger-than-life cylinders that hang in space. Recently awarded the €70,000 (Rs 54.5 lakh) Joan Miró Prize, the pathbreaking artist spoke to us about her work For Nalini Malani, the artist, the art and the viewer work together to ‘wake up’ the artwork Q. What does this prize mean to you? The prize is from an artist’s foundation that was started by the artist Joan Miró himself during his…

Let’s face it. Simple blinds or cotton curtains do not make the cut. If you want to add drama to the room all you need to do is play dress up. From a laid-back aesthetic to floor-to-ceiling long formal drapes, the possibilities are endless. Still confused? Here are five trending styles to choose from. 1 BLINDS AND CURTAIN LAYERING Layering blinds and curtains work well for contemporary décor, especially with light fabrics. While using a sheer blind make sure the curtains are not see-through and vice-versa. Use a combination of prints and solid colours, but both layers should complement one another. 2 CUPPED When you want a modern classical look, pick satin or tussar or any medium weight fabric in solid colours or jacquards. Keep in mind that the knot…

Doing up your living room is the easiest and the toughest task. Understanding spatial planning is the key ingredient. And once you manage to set it up, changing the arrangement seems next to impossible. So, here are three arrangements of the same rectangular space that move from formal to casual to intimate, just by changing a few of the elements. LAYOUT 1 The idea here is to have two identical deep sofas with side tables, a few floating circular centre tables, and a statement arm or lounge chair in the main living area of the space. A fairly large rug ties these pieces together. Also, as soon as one enters the space, a pair of small chairs create a cosy nook in the corner, dotted with indoor planters. LAYOUT 2…

Foreign direct investment (FDI) in India rose 5 per cent last year, increasing from $40 billion (Rs 2.8 lakh crore) in 2017 to $42 billion (Rs 2.9 lakh crore) in 2018, according to a report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). That ranked India 10th among the top 20 economies for FDI inflows and 5th among the developing and transition economies. While the increase was driven by deals in retail, communications and financial services, one in particular—Walmart’s acquisition of Flipkart—carried significant weight. With this purchase, Walmart pitted itself directly against rival American firm Amazon in the battle for India’s e-commerce space. The US retailer acquired 77 per cent of Flipkart’s shares for $16 billion (Rs 1.11 lakh crore). Between them, the two behemoths—the Flipkart-Walmart combine and…

In the confusion following the Congress’s rout in the Lok Sabha polls, it seems nobody noticed that former prime minister Manmohan Singh’s Rajya Sabha tenure came to an end on June 14. Singh has been in the Rajya Sabha for five consecutive terms since 1991, when he was finance minister in the P.V. Narasimha Rao government. The party has no seats in the Upper House to accommodate the veteran. So far, no leader has shown any inclination to make way for the former PM. The only state where there are vacancies is Tamil Nadu, where six sitting Rajya Sabha MPs are retiring next month. The next lot of vacancies will come in April 2020 in the Congress-ruled states of Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Punjab. Until then, it is time for…

June 15 was World Elder Abuse Awareness Day, as designated by the United Nations, according to which the worldwide population of those over 60 years, 900 million in 2015, is set to double by 2050. About 16.7 per cent (one in six) of the elderly experience “some form of abuse”. A recent survey by HelpAge India, carried out across 20 tier 1 and 2 cities in India, which prides itself on a culture of respect for the elderly, found that 35 per cent of carers “never” felt happy looking after elderly relatives, while over a quarter felt “fatigue and frustration” leading to “aggressive behaviour”. Earlier this month, Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar declared he would “ensure deterrent punishment” to those “guilty of neglecting parents”. Other states are mulling similar action.…

The ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi’s (TRS) showpiece, the massive Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme (KLIS), when completed, will irrigate 70 per cent of Telangana, covering 80 of the 119 assembly constituencies. Launched in 2016, the first phase, including three major barrages, is almost ready. Although there is no water in the Godavari now, TRS boss and chief minister K. Chandrashekar Rao (KCR) was, at the time of going to press, all set for the inauguration on June 21 as there are no auspicious days in July. With no option to tap the Godavari but to lift water, KCR’s ambitious design is to stagger-lift the flood water at seven different locations beginning with the pumping up of 2,000 million cubic (TMC) feet daily. In this way, during the 180 days of flood,…

The 2,000-year-old Syro-Malabar Church, part of the Catholic fold in Kerala, has never had it so bad. There seems to be a new controversy every day, including cases of corruption against the head of the church, Cardinal George Alencherry. It all started after shady land deals in the Angamaly-Ernakulam archdiocese became public in March 2018. It was found that Alencherry sold off prime lands owned by the church below market price and even transferred the ownership without receiving the amount. Church officials say they lost around Rs 63 crore in the deals. The cardinal defended the deals, stating he was not aware of the money transactions. But the priests’ council demanded an investigation with former church spokesperson Fr Paul Thelakkat leading the campaign. Finally, Pope Francis removed Alencherry from all…

What will happen if the draft New Education Policy 2019, or NEP, submitted by the nine-member K. Kasturirangan Committee to the Union ministry for human resource development on May 31, is implemented in full by 2035, as the policy envisions? Let us imagine how Rohan, born 2032, might proceed in life. When he turns three, he will join the formal education structure under the 5+3+3+4 framework. For the first three years, he will receive pre-school education—in at least three languages—by trained teachers. In this time, he will learn the alphabet for each language, numbers, colours, shapes, how to draw, do puzzles, and be exposed to drama, puppetry, music and movement. There will be no textbooks, learning will be all play and experimental, in school premises with clean toilets, spacious rooms,…

Dr K. Kasturirangan, chairman of the panel that drafted the New Education Policy (NEP), answers india today’s questions on its key recommendations: Q. What were the major flaws your committee identified while formulating the draft NEP? Many of these are not newly identified challenges, but some new issues have been flagged thanks to advances in our understanding of education since 1986/ 1992. For example, neuroscience now tells us that 85 per cent of a child’s brain development occurs before age six. An education system that fails to address the resulting needs of children is flawed, a consideration to extend the RTE Act to include 3-6 year-olds. The education we offer must be based on our present understanding of the cognitive and socio-emotional developmental stages of children. It is largely absent…

All school students will receive vocational education in at least one vocation during Grades 9 to 12. They will receive exposure to vocations in more than one sector during Grades 6 to 8 All colleges will offer certificate, diploma and degree courses in vocational education; they will also offer vocational courses that are integrated into undergraduate education programmes A national committee for the integration of vocational education will be set up to ensure that enrolment in these courses increases from 10 per cent to 50 per cent of total enrolment by 2025…

2019 The Rashtriya Shiksha Aayog is established; the Ministry of Human Resource Development is re-designated as Ministry of Education 2020 A Rajya Shiksha Aayog is constituted in each state, as well as a State School Regulatory Authority A National Higher Education Regulatory Authority (NHERA) is set up; the University Grants Council and other regulatory bodies are converted into Higher Education Grants Council (HEGC) and Professional Standard Setting Bodies (PSSBs). A General Education Council is constituted Early childhood education is integrated with school education; the RTE Act is extended to cover children between ages 3 and 18 A National Research Foundation (NRF) is established; an autonomous National Educational Technology Forum (NETF) is set up to facilitate reviews of initiatives related to technology in education; a National Repository of Educational Data is…

With more than 900 universities and around 125 institutes of national importance for higher education to choose from, this annual INDIA TODAY ranking of best Indian universities intends to make critical career decisions easier for aspirants based on rich information and data. Other stakeholders, such as recruiters, parents, alumni, policy-makers, the general public and universities, would also benefit. The university rankings have been based on postgraduate courses. To see rankings of undergraduate courses, refer to INDIA TODAY Best Colleges Ranking in our May 27, 2019 issue. The methodology by INDIA TODAY knowledge partner, MDRA, set several milestones. For objective ranking, MDRA has looked at more than 120 attributes to provide a comprehensive and balanced comparison of universities. These performance indicators were clubbed into five broad parameters—intake quality & governance, academic…

Read this book while it’s light out, especially if you’ve ever waited for someone to come home. In a stream of prose that never loosens its cold hold on the reader, Raj Kamal Jha, editor of The Indian Express, tells a horror story that is particularly powerful because the horror was real and the story never ended. One evening a woman went to watch a movie with a friend and never made it home. On a bus coming back from the cinema, the two were assaulted and she was raped with such brutality that we still flinch to read about it. This was the case that all of India followed, from the initial reports to the handing down of the death sentence, not to leave out the death that happened…

Q. Some have found Arjun Reddy’s gaze very problematic. How did you see it? Many think they have watched Kabir Singh because they have watched Arjun Reddy.Myinterpretation was that there’s no sense of ownership in Kabir. It’s about when you can’t help but be drawn to someone. As much as aggression is the primary emotion that jumps out, I hope people will see that vulnerability is the most significant part of him. Q. Kabir Singh is temperamental. What makes you angry? Complacency. People who don’t give 100 per cent to the opportunity they get. When people get it easily, they don’t respect it. I have learned it the hard way. Q. You are a teetotaller. What passed off as alcohol during the shoot? Black tea was diluted to make it…

Effective organisation helps you save time, space, money and bring in calmness and comfort in your life. One simple solution is the world renowned KonMari method of tidying and organising developed by lifestyle expert Marie Kondo. This method encourages a way of life wherein you retain things that ‘spark joy’ and discard those that don’t. Once you have undergone the ‘decluttering festival’, you become more conscious of what you own, need and buy, leading you to live a life of positivity and mindfulness. Here are a few tips to walk you through the process. HOW TO TIDY THE STUDY OR HOME OFFICE BEFORE Piles of papers, magazines, books, mail, post-its, pens, highlighters, and other office supplies dot the desk’s landscape. Along with physical mess comes mental chaos, inefficiency, and most…

Flowers not only add style and elegance to your home but are also easy to source. The best part, you can easily take on the role of a florist and try some interesting ways to fashion your space in three to four simple steps. FRESH FLOWERS ARRANGEMENT For fresh flowers, you first need to condition them by removing any additional lower leaves on the stem or any thorns. Cut the stems of the flowers using scissors at a 45 degree angle and plunge them in cool water before you are ready with the look of your display. Also, remember to change the water daily. TIP Besides the vase, you can get creative by using pickle jars, wine bottles, vintage teapots and coffee and tea cups. If the flowers start wilting…

The coffee table is an important aesthetic and functional part of your living room. It could be the one element that helps anchor your seating arrangement. Whether you have a large space and can house a good sized one, or can only accommodate a small one in your tiny apartment, it’s important to have a surface to rest your coffee, or other beverage on. If you have a TV in your living room, your coffee table can also serve as a footrest and remote station. Whatever its function, how you style your coffee table can have a huge aesthetic impact and help pull a room together. Here are a few styling tips to help pretty up your centre table. LOOK FOR CONTEMPORARY ELEGANCE It’s all about balance. The goal is…

On June 17, while the newly elected members of the 17th Lok Sabha were being administered the oath of office, MP and Republican Party of India chief Ramdas Athawale asked where Congress president Rahul Gandhi was. The mocking question caused much hilarity all round, not counting the Congress MPs present in the house in their vanishingly small numbers. Rahul did show up later in the day—as the Congress MPs had said he would—back from a trip to London. They may even have seen a flicker of hope that he’ll put them out of their misery and embarrassment and assume charge of the party. Rahul has not shown any signs so far that he might relent. Giving senior leaders a month to find a new president, he had apparently said: “I…

It is not unheard of for auditors to resign before or during an audit, but in the long arc of time, it would seem rare. On the evidence of 2018, though, it might even seem a routine occurrence—as many as 200 listed Indian companies saw their auditors quit mid-exercise. There could be many reasons for an auditor to resign before or during an audit; the Code of Ethics and Auditing Standards sets down situations when an auditor should, in fact, resign. But before we move on, it’s important to register that the simple fact of PwC’s recent resignation as the auditors of Anil Ambani-owned Reliance Capital and Reliance Home Finance Limited—which made news headlines because of the high profile of both entities—is not an outlier phenomenon. An auditor’s resignation in…

The McMahon Line is, in many ways, the perfect embodiment of the smoke and mirrors clouding India-China relations. The line, perhaps the most widely known element of the boundary dispute, is often misunderstood in the media and public imagination. Right from where it runs (not along the entire border, but only in the east, from Bhutan to Myanmar), its origins (the 1914 Simla conference), or even its spelling (more often spelled as “McMohan”, invoking some improbable Scottish-Tamil heritage). There are few people better placed to demystify the McMahon Line, drawn on a map by Sir Henry McMahon in red ink with a thick nib, than General J.J. Singh (retd). Not only is Singh a former chief of army staff (2005-2007) with a five-decade career in the army, he is also…

The announcement that there will be lateral induction of over 400 officers at the level of Joint Secretary, Director and Deputy Secretary in the Government of India has met with two reactions: that the move will prick, if not burst, the IAS balloon, and, two, that it is an artful way of inducting preferred individuals with ideological affinity with the ruling dispensation. None of these presumptions carries substance. The IAS is an all-India service, and its members are allotted to state cadres and come on deputation to the Government of India for five-year stints—subject to being on central offer and considered suitable. Overall there is a shortage of some 1,500 officers out of a sanctioned strength of 6,500 and state governments—most of whom face an acute shortage of IAS officers—are…

It was business as usual for Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar as he returned to Patna on May 31 after attending the Narendra Modi government’s swearing-in. Nitish headed to his office for a cabinet meeting where, among other things, he okayed the dismissal of an undersecretary-rank officer who had been caught taking a bribe back in October 2006. In the ensuing 13 years, the officer, Anil Kumar Jha, was suspended twice but had also secured several postings. Nitish was in no mood to let the case drag on. In another cabinet meeting on June 11, he approved a proposal to legislate non-bailable jail terms for those who abandoned their elderly parents. Three days later, Nitish announced a pension scheme for the poor. A series of such big decisions within a…

The drubbing the Congress got in Madhya Pradesh, winning only one of the 29 Lok Sabha seats in the state, has put Chief Minister Kamal Nath on the back foot. His task is cut out—to deliver on the promises made in the party manifesto and revamp the state administration. Though Nath has handled various portfolios at the Centre, this is his first shot at running a state government. From his sandstone-clad, fifth-floor new office at the mantralaya, Vallabh Bhavan, atop a hill, Nath has a near 360-degree view of Bhopal—as he would like to have of the entire state. In an exclusive interview with Group Editorial Director (Publishing) Raj Chengappa, Nath spoke about the Lok Sabha verdict, the leadership crisis in the Congress, his agenda for MP and the challenges…

Early Childhood Care and Education will become an integral part of school education; three years of pre-school (ages 3-6) will be clubbed with Grade 1 and 2 (till age 8); the Right to Education Act 2009 will be extended to cover children aged 3-18 A 5+3+3+4 curriculum and pedagogical structure based on cognitive and socio-emotional developmental stages of children will replace the current 10+2 model; the first five years will be the foundational stage (ages 3-8), followed by the preparatory stage from Grades 3-5 (ages 8-11), leading to the middle stage, from Grades 6-8 (ages 11-14), ending with the secondary stage from Grades 9-12 (ages 14-18). The focus will be on multilingual and interdisciplinary education To reduce content load and rote learning, the focus will shift from textbook learning to…

By 2030, all higher education institutions will develop into one of three types—research universities, teaching universities and colleges. There will be no single-discipline universities; even professional institutions will have to be multidisciplinary By 2032, all three types of higher education institutes will be able to grant their own degrees; colleges will no longer be affiliated to universities Mission Nalanda will ensure that, by 2030, there are at least 100 research and 500 teaching universities equitably distributed across all regions. Mission Takshashila will ensure at least one high-quality higher education institute is established in or close to every district in India A four-year bachelor’s degree in liberal education with a multidisciplinary approach will be launched; the traditional three-year undergraduate degrees will remain, but will also move toward a liberal education approach.…

The first National Policy on Education was formulated in 1968, based on the report of the Kothari Commission The second National Policy on Education was adopted in 1986, which was later revised in 1992 A committee headed by former bureaucrat T.S.R. Subramanian submitted a draft of the National Education Policy in 2016. It was rejected by the Modi government, which formed a new committee under eminent scientist K. Kasturirangan; the committee submitted its draft on May 31, 2019…

During the time that I served as vice-chancellor of the University of Delhi, I used to fantasise about the possibility of Srinivas Ramanujan turning up (straight from the Madras University of his time) at my university in the 21st century. Of course, such a compulsion would have been dictated by his inability to clear the first-year BA examination of the Madras University of yore, in the hope that Delhi University, in this modern age, would welcome him. But, had I granted him admission on the basis of his extraordinary work in mathematics, I would have been subjected to a court of inquiry for transgressing rules not of my choosing nor of my making. Contrast this with what actually happened to Ramanujan when G.H. Hardy—at Cambridge University—heard of his plight. Ramanujan…

Jawaharlal Nehru University, or JNU, has long been the country’s leading university in the general category, but has often been in the national limelight for the wrong reasons. Seen as a stronghold of Left-leaning academics, the university has in recent years become an ideological battleground with right-wing thinkers now finding a space in the JNU universe. However, politics aside, the premier institute continues its journey of academic excellence. In an exclusive interview with Senior Associate Editor Kaushik Deka, JNU vice-chancellor M. Jagadesh Kumar, an electrical engineering professor from IIT Delhi who took charge in 2016, outlines what makes JNU a centre of excellence and the challenges it faces. Q. What makes JNU the best university in the country? A. JNU’s success is due to the fact that there is an…

There’s something to be said for the long, laborious hours of law firms. Slave labour, some may call it, but one advantage is that it helps you bond strongly with others in the same boat—those toiling away into the wee hours of the morning. And so it was with me and Ameet Datta, a dear friend. Incidentally, we interviewed for our jobs (at Anand and Anand, the country’s leading intellectual property firm) on the very same day and, thereafter, spent many a late night learning about the law and life. Ameet went on to become a leading IP lawyer. But I digress. This article is meant to celebrate a new model of legal education that late Prof. Madhav Menon, who passed away some weeks ago, birthed via the National Law…

As the world prepares for the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Indian hopes for gold rest on two men from Haryana—wrestler Bajrang Punia and boxer Amit Panghal. Both won gold at the Asian Games and at the recently-concluded Asian Championships. While Punia has already won an Arjuna award, Panghal feels it’s his time to win one. Nominated for a second time for the Arjuna by the Boxing Federation of India this year, Panghal’s confidence comes from his many achievements. Pitted against Olympic champion Hasanboy Dusmatov at the Asian Boxing Championship in Bangkok in April, the 23-year-old broke through the Uzbek’s defence with grit. “I had a better understanding of his style and knew his tactics,” he says. Panghal’s performance in Bangkok was impressive for other reasons too. At the Asian…

➔ For cupboards the starting point of the KonMari method is tackling items by category and not by location. ➔ The first category to tackle is clothes. This can be further simplified into items like dresses, tops, shoes, and so on. By classifying everything together, you can see how much stuff you really have. ➔ It is important to decide what you want to keep in your life. If you focus on what to throw away, you will lose sight of the real purpose of tidying. The best criterion for choosing what to keep is to see if it sparks joy when you touch it. Doing your ‘joy check’ is the most accurate way to figure out of what you should keep. ➔ Next step is applying the unique KonMari…

SOLID COLOUR WALLS ➔ One room would take approximately four-five days depending on the wall condition. ➔ This type of wall paint (the brown wall here) lasts a minimum of five years, depending on which product you are using. ➔ All spaces don’t really need a pattern or a design. A solid wall colour can make the area look bright and enhance the ambience of your home. PRICE ₹37 to ₹47 per sq ft (approximately) If done through Asian Paints Ezycolour Home solutions WALL TEXTURES ➔ It would take two-three days for the texture, while the base preparation would vary from surface to surface. ➔ It should last a minimum of five years, depending on the wall conditions. ➔ Wall textures should be the focus area in a room and…

Houseplants can help with everything from cleaner air to noise control; they also add a nice visual effect to your home. Flowers bring in colour, but simple green plants can help a room look cleaner and more polished. There is so much that you can do yourself, from making vertical gardens with herbs in old boxes, to planting succulents in old jars or mugs to make a nice planter. Here are a few ideas to green your home. TABLE OF CONTENTS It is normal to see tables decorated with cut flowers. We see this commonly at formal gatherings, weddings and parties. While indubitably beautiful, cut flowers wilt and die within a short time span. This particular dining table (previous page) was created using ficus, areca palm and dracaena. We wanted…

PRIVATE PARADISE This house creates its own terrain, a veritable oasis, within its inscribed territory. While it has been designed in crisp clear planes using local limestone, local hardwood and concrete, the main facade is lush green. The house was designed as a 9m x 9m block and different spaces, functions, and levels were recessed or extended outwards to bring down the scale of the house. The USP of this space is that it reveals itself slowly. Much like a multi-faceted organism, it has layers to it that are revealed with seasons, daylight, and illumination. Other features include a swimming pool that finds a discreet presence at the top; and a space inspired by the quintessential Indian verandah, for meet-and-greet and delayed goodbyes. One of the challenges we faced was…