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FROM THE
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
T
here are four activities that societ-
ies have never been able to suc-
cessfully ban or control: gambling,
alcohol/ drugs, prostitution and
pornography. Among these, pornography
was, for a long time, the most susceptible
to control. No longer. india today has
tracked the growth of pornography since
our cover dated December 1978. Since the
arrival of the Internet, it has become almost
impossible to control its proliferation. Few
recent inventions have changed our lives
as radically as the Internet has. Its reach
and ability to network billions of humans,
inform, illuminate and entertain, is as life-
changing as the development and harness-
ing of electric power in the 19th century.
But as is the case with all technology,
there is a dark side to the Internet too. It
has given sociopaths corners to hide and
play out their reprehensible obsessions.
One of the darkest of such crimes is child
pornography—the trafficking of pictures and
videos depicting the abuse of minors. Major
social media platforms have been battling
this menace. In the first six months of 2019,
Twitter took down 244,188 unique accounts
for sharing child pornography images. Last
January, WhatsApp blocked 130,000 ac-
counts for sharing child pornography. Insta-
gram removed a staggering 1.2 million child
porn images in just six months last year.
Regrettably, India has the dubious
distinction of topping the list of child porn
consumers. The US-based National Centre
for Missing and Exploited Children says
that India is the source of more online child
pornography than any other country. The
agency estimates that Indian users have up-
loaded 25,000 such images in the past five
months alone. Delhi had the most uploads,
followed by Maharashtra, Gujarat, Uttar
Pradesh and West Bengal.
Indian government agencies, too,
have highlighted the worrying rise in the
consumption of child pornography. The
National Crime Records Bureau’s latest
report on crime figures for 2018 listed 781
cases of creating or storing child porn. This
was more than double the cases from the
previous year. Odisha, for some reason, has
seen the largest spike in such cases—333 in
2018, up from only eight in 2017. Last year,
377 websites showing child pornography
were blocked in India.
This is only the tip of what is clearly
a large and terrifying iceberg. The dark
web—a part of the Internet that search en-
gines cannot access—offers a haven for such
criminal activity and is beyond the pale of
law enforcement agencies.
Child pornography seems to be a grossly
under-reported crime in India. Unlike in
the US, social media firms in India are
not obliged to detail child pornography
cases to a central authority. The absence
of any dedicated government organisation
or agency to track instances of child porn
keeps the public from being aware of how
big the threat really is. Tracking the menace
is time, and resource, intensive. A joint Our Dec. 1-15, 1978 cover
US-South Korea crackdown on a child porn
website, for instance, took over two years to
complete. Transactions made in cryptocur-
rency, onion routing, encrypted chats and
email pose significant challenges for dark
web investigators.
Our cover story, ‘The Dark Web of Child
Porn’, written by Associate Editor Sonali
Acharjee, documents this hidden menace
and the gaps in the government’s response
to it. The lack of sex education in Indian
schools, she finds, is worrying. A child
who knows about his or her body will also
be aware of what is right or wrong. Many
children now fall prey to dangerous new
trends like ‘cyber grooming’—where online Our Nov. 8, 2004 cover
predators ensnare unsuspecting children.
A few schools have begun teaching
digital hygiene, but it is still fairly new and
confined to private schools in Tier 1 cities.
And, of course, much pornography con-
sumption and targeting of children takes
place in Tier 2 towns too. Parents, who are
the first responders, need to be more aware
of who their children are in touch with on-
line and what they are watching. They also
need to support one another and share best
practices for how to sensitise their children
towards digital threats. Technology is a
double-edged sword. Education and aware-
ness can help blunt its harmful edge.
Anybody caught indulging in this Our Feb. 27, 2012 cover
repugnant behaviour—whether in consum-
ing or in purveying child pornography—in
my view, deserves the severest of punish-
ments. They should be made an example
of. Nothing can be worse than sexually
abusing children.
(Aroon Purie)
M A RC H 2 , 2 02 0 INDIA TODAY 1
 INSIDE
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SENIOR DEPUTY EDITORS: Uday Mahurkar, Manisha Saroop
Hyderabad: Amarnath K. Menon
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 UPFRONT
INDEX: GENDER
EQUALITY IN THE
ARMY PG 7
BOOKS: THE
LIFE OF V.P.
MENON PG 6
https://t.me/Free_eMagazine
GROUNDWORK
Members of a
delegation of 25 envoys
of European Union
countries in Kashmir to
assess the situation
‘Green Shoots’ in J&K?
S
ix months after a shocking
constitutional coup to ef-
fectively abrogate its special
status under Article 370 and its down-
sizing to a Union territory, efforts are
on to showcase Jammu and Kashmir’s
return to normalcy.
On February 12-13, a delegation of
25 envoys of European Union member
countries, including the EU ambas-
sador to India, Ugo Astuto, were taken
S TAT E O F T H E VA L L E Y
By Moazum Mohammad in Srinagar
on a guided tour of the state, orches-
trated by the Union ministry for ex-
ternal affairs, during which they met a
select group of politicians, civil society
members and mediapersons.
Byelections were scheduled on
March 5—and then deferred for three
weeks over security concerns—to near-
ly 13,000 panchayats, in a first attempt
at a seemingly democratic electoral
exercise since August 5, 2019. In May,
CONGRESS:
A PARTY ADRIFT
PG 8
PAK: TRANSPARENT
DECEPTION
PG 11
ABID BHAT
the administration hopes to host the
J&K Global Investors Summit 2020,
for which it has already started holding
roadshows across the country.
Meanwhile, the most prominent
faces of the J&K political establish-
ment, now in effective abeyance—Fa-
rooq and Omar Abdullah of the Na-
tional Conference (NC) and Mehbooba
Mufti of the Peoples Democratic Party
(PDP), all previous chief ministers of
UPFRONT
the erstwhile state—have been sum-
marily removed from the scene, held
under the draconian Public Safety Act,
which legalises detention without trial
up to two years. Former IAS officer
Shah Faesal became the latest to be
charged under the law on February 15.
The ban on 3G and 4G inter-
net services in the Valley has been
extended till February 24. Mobile
2G services were restored on Janu-
ary 25, though access is restricted to
around 1,500 whitelisted websites.
Two journalists were summoned to
the counter-insurgency headquarters
of the police in Srinagar, for report-
ing on the call for a shutdown by the
banned JKLF (Jammu and Kashmir
Liberation Front) on the death an-
niversaries of their founder Maqbool
Bhat and Afzal Guru. “The restric-
tions on internet and forcibly seeking
undertakings from news organisations
for allowing limited internet access,
constant surveillance by police and
physical attacks and summons are
tools designed and aimed to ensure
[that] only [a] government-promoted
version is heard outside [J&K],” reads
a statement issued by the Kashmir
Press Club on February 10.
Even amid all the effort to sanitise
the reality of Kashmir, Debbie Abra-
hams, a Labour MP from the UK,
who had been openly critical of the
government’s moves in Kashmir, was
deported on February 17 for alleged
“involvement in anti-India activities”.
E
lsewhere, 60-year-old business-
man and former J&K minister
Syed Altaf Bukhari is trying to
cobble together a new political
formation, styled Aapki Party, with
rumoured covert support from the rul-
ing BJP at the Centre. Giving Bukhari
competition is the young Mir Junaid,
the son of a former PDP member and a
law graduate from Kashmir Univer-
sity, who launched the Jammu and
Kashmir Workers Party on February
5 in New Delhi and colourfully refers
to Bukhari’s nascent outfit as ‘A libaba
4 INDIA TODAY M A RC H 2 , 2 02 0
SNAPSHOTS
OF A
SHUTDOWN
`
17,878.2 crore
Kashmir’s economic
losses (Aug 5 to Dec 3),
as per Kashmir Chamber
of Commerce and Industry
(KCCI) report
496,000
Jobs lost in the same
period (KCCI)
`
1,056 crore
J&K tourism losses
(KCCI)
43,000
Tourist arrivals in Aug-Dec,
compared with >300,000 in
the same period last year
(Indiaspend)
174 days
Of total internet shutdown
in Kashmir; only low-speed
(2G) mobile internet restored
on Jan. 25; state-owned BSNL
broadband internet, which
caters to almost 90 per cent
people, still suspended
1,485
Websites ‘whitelisted’ so
far, not including local news
websites; ban continues
on social media platforms
Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp
THE BAN ON 3G AND 4G
INTERNET SERVICES IN
THE VALLEY HAS BEEN
EXTENDED TILL FEB
24; 2G SERVICES WERE
RESTORED ON JAN 25
Chalees Chor’, a not-so-veiled refer-
ence to the character’s talent for artful
dodging and reinvention.
An attempt is being made to stew-
ard J&K’s political narrative beyond
Article 370. In a 15-point memoran-
dum Bukhari submitted to Lt. Gover-
nor Girish Chandra Murmu on January
7, there was no mention of restoring
Art. 370. Instead, the charter of de-
mands included restoring statehood to
J&K, safeguarding land rights and jobs,
release of detainees, withdrawing cases
against youth, restoration of internet
and revival of development activities.
Says a long-time Kashmir watcher, pre-
ferring anonymity, “The group has been
demanding domicile and land rights
for J&K citizens. But did anyone in the
Valley demand this? No. It is mainly
BJP leaders in Jammu who have been
talking of domicile rights because they
are afraid of a large influx of non-state
subjects to Jammu.”
Bukhari’s rival Mir, who hails from
Langate in north Kashmir’s Kupwara
district, also wants to avoid making
Art. 370 a centrepiece of his new poli-
tics, and instead wants to foreground
development, education and health.
“Our agenda will be to seek statehood
as promised in Parliament. Art. 370
is in the Supreme Court; let the court
take a call. Life has to go on [in the in-
terim], so that we don’t suffer,” he says.
Further, on the way forward, he adds:
“The prime minister and home minis-
ter promised a clean and accountable
leadership once Art. 370 was removed.
They should keep their promise by
not encouraging this lot who created
problems for Kashmir. Instead of
Illustration by TANMOY CHAKRABORTY
https://t.me/Free_eMagazine
booking them under PSA, anti-
graft cases should be filed against
Farooq Abdullah, Omar and others
for embezzling funds.”
P
redictably, not many in the
Valley are convinced about the
new vanguard or their politics.
What they see is rank op-
portunism. Bukhari, his critics are
quick to point out, was the richest
candidate in the 2014 assembly elec-
tion, with declared assets of Rs 84
crore; he won from his Amira Kadal
constituency. He was in the first
PDP cabinet of Mufti Mohammad
Sayeed, but fell out with Mehbooba
after he held secret negotiations with
the BJP to head the government
after the Mufti’s death. They made
up later and he was finance minister
in Mehbooba’s cabinet. Then, in
AS MANY AS 13 SENIOR LEADERS FROM THE
PDP HAVE QUIT THE PARTY SINCE THE BJP
PULLED THE PLUG ON THE MEHBOOBA
MUFTI GOVERNMENT IN JUNE 2018
November 2018, he tried to forge a
grand alliance of the National Con-
ference, PDP and Congress to keep
the BJP out of power, but former
governor Satya Pal Malik scuttled
the move by dissolving the 87-mem-
ber legislative assembly.
Bukhari and PDP co-founder
Muzaffar Baig were also among
the handpicked politicians who
met with an unofficial far-right EU
delegation in Delhi last October.
With seven legislators drawn from
the PDP and Congress, Bukhari met
Murmu in Jammu on January 7.
Emboldened by the Lt. Governor’s
response—who assured them land
rights and jobs for locals, as outlined
in their charter—the group began
to formalise a framework for Aapki
Party in a series of internal meet-
ings. When the first delegation of
envoys, including current US ambas-
sador to India Kenneth I. Juster,
arrived in Srinagar on January 9,
on a two-day visit to J&K, it was the
Bukhari formation that represented
J&K’s political mainstream. But
no sooner had the delegation left
the venue than the PDP expelled its
members from the party’s primary
membership for “working against
the interests of the state”.
The PDP is facing the worst-ever
attrition in its ranks in the two de-
cades of its existence. As many as 13
senior leaders, including seven for-
mer legislators and ministers, have
quit the party since the BJP pulled
the plug on the Mehbooba govern-
ment in June 2018; seven of them
are part of the new Bukhari forma-
tion. “The party will be launched in
Srinagar before March,” said a senior
politician privy to the development.
“And it will have politicians and leg-
islators from across the board,” says
Ghulam Hassan Mir, a key member
of Team Bukhari.
Former Congress leader Shoaib
Lone, another key member of the
new outfit, affected a pinched opti-
mism: “Things are returning to nor-
mal now…. It’s like an intense feeling
of pain after the death of a person,
but… we have to accept the reality
that Art. 370 is not there anymore.”
Lone points out that even the Con-
gress is silent on the abrogation of
Art. 370, which, he says, is proof that
the party is not opposed to the move.
However, he is not averse to his new
party pressing for special status
under Art. 371, or a similar provision
that seeks to protect the ecologically
fragile Himalayan region. n
UPFRONT
THE PHENOMENAL MR MENON
N
arayani Basu’s book on V.P. Me-
non has stoked a significant con-
troversy because of a few pages
where she asserts that Prime Minister
Jawaharlal Nehru had failed to include
Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel in the initial
cabinet list. It has become the subject of
a fraught public debate, with prominent
historians and politicians alike weigh-
ing in. It is simply beyond the scope of
this brief review to adjudicate the merits
of the issue. Undoubtedly, in the fullness
of time, the matter will be effectively
resolved and disposed of.
That said, this book is the result
of painstaking research in multiple
archives, the culling of evidence drawn
from memoirs and the deft use of oral
histories. It provides a sweeping account
of the extraordinary career of a man
who was mostly an autodidact having
wilfully dropped out of formal schooling
at an early age. It traces the arc of the life
of a recalcitrant child who fled to work
in the Kolar goldfields and eventually
rose to the rank of the Secretary to the
Government of India.
The book also shows the remarkable
role of sheer serendipity in Menon’s early
life. At moments when he found himself
in hapless situations (largely because of
his own questionable choices), complete
strangers came to his assistance. It is a
testament to Menon’s character, Basu
notes, that he never forgot these for-
tuitous moments. Instead, later, when
he was of some means, he displayed a
remarkable generosity of spirit toward
those in less fortunate circumstances.
Once in the reaches of high office,
as Reforms Commissioner, he not only
helped influence the process of the
transfer of power from colonial rule to
independence, but also played a critical
role in ensuring the integration of the
500-odd princely states into the Indian
Union. Without obvious self-aggrandis-
ement, he left a record of these colossal
endeavours in two books—The Transfer
16 INDIA TODAY M A RC H 2 , 2 02 0
BOOKS
By Sumit Ganguly
V.P. MENON
The Unsung Architect
of Modern India
by Narayani Basu
SIMON & SCHUSTER
` 799, 440 pages
Basu’s description
of Menon’s efforts
to persuade,
cajole or induce
the sometimes
obdurate rulers is
nothing short of
captivating
of Power in India and The Story of the
Integration of the Indian States.
Basu’s book also offers a detailed
exposition of the intricate matrix of
politics, race and class in colonial India.
Even as Menon rose from the rank of
a lowly clerk to the high office because
of his sheer grit, determination and
native intelligence, the prevalent racial
hierarchy impeded his progress. It was
only the intervention of his superior
officer and predecessor, an enlightened
Britisher, Henry Vincent ‘Harry’ Hod-
son, that allowed him to rise to the rank
of Reforms Commissioner.
In that role, as Basu carefully
documents, his impact on the twin
processes of the transfer of power and
the integration of the princely states
was simply inestimable. As Indepen-
dence approached, Sardar Patel offered
Menon the post of Secretary in the
newly formed States Department. The
principal task of this organisation was
to ensure the merger of the vast array of
princely states into the nascent Indian
Union. It is intriguing that Menon,
who eventually developed a close rap-
port with Patel, had initially harboured
misgivings about accepting this new
position for fear that the Indian Na-
tional Congress may have doubts about
the trustworthiness of a civil servant.
Ultimately, Menon, who was inti-
mately involved as the constitutional
advisor in the process of the transfer
of power under the tutelage of Lord
Mountbatten, the last Viceroy, turned
to this task with indefatigable energy.
Basu’s description of the efforts that
Menon had to undertake to persuade,
cajole or otherwise induce the range of
sometimes obdurate rulers is noth-
ing short of captivating. To compound
matters, Basu shows that on various
occasions, senior British officials, even
as Independence and Partition was im-
minent, were not above various forms
of chicanery designed to undermine the
emergence of a unified India.
As is well known, Patel, with Me-
non’s assistance, eventually prevailed
over the objections and resistance of
the native princes and helped forge the
modern republic of India. Basu’s book,
the dissension that it has provoked
aside, amounts to a worthy paean to a
worthy son of India whose contribution
to the making of modern India deserves
due recognition. n
Sumit Ganguly is a distinguished
professor of political science and
holds the Tagore Chair in Indian
Cultures and Civilizations at Indiana
University, Bloomington
https://t.me/Free_eMagazine INDEX

GENDER EQUALITY
IN THE ARMY
Upbraided for their “disturbing” arguments, the government must now
accept the Supreme Court’s verdict that women officers too deserve the
opportunity to ascend to the top ranks of the Indian army. Congress
leader Rahul Gandhi seized on the court’s decision and said on social
media that the BJP had “disrespected every Indian woman by arguing
in the SC that women Army officers... were inferior to men”. Part of the
government’s argument was that the men in the army, most of whom
are from rural backgrounds, were not prepared to accept commands
from women. The government, though, seemed not to recognise the
irony of its position, given its dubious contention that “motherhood,
childcare and psychological limitations” should limit a woman’s career
in the army. That said, the Supreme Court
Co demurred on making a
decision on the deplo oyment of women in combat roles.

3.9% 10
of Indian Army officers non-combat streams
are women, according to in which women could
information provided by the be granted ‘Permanent
government in the Rajya Commission’; 8 added by
Sabha last year; 6.7% of Navy the government on Feb. 25,
officers are women and 13.3% 2019; women have had this
of Air Force officers right in two streams, legal
and education, since 2008

1,561 14
of 42,253 army officers
are women, even though The maximum number of
their induction began in years women officers could
the 1990s; 100% of serve in the army on short
armed forces’ nursing service commissions, after
services officers are which they got no pension
women, 21.6% of or retirement benefits
medical corps
officers and

1,700
20.8% of dental
corps
officers
women to be inducted into
the military police corps as
the first women to serve
below officer rank. In July
2019, 200,000 women
applied for just 100 posts
as jawans in the CMP

332 3
women army officers filed the women fighter pilots
petition that led to the landmark became the first to be
SC verdict after a near 10-year commissioned into the
appeal process since a Delhi IAF in 2016. As of July
High Court decision to grant 2019, the IAF had 8
women officers permanent women fighter pilots and
commission in 2010 17 women navigators
Illustration by TANMOY CHAKRABORTY
 UPFRONT
CONGR ESS
A Party Adrift
MANEESH AGNIHOTRI
T
he recently concluded Delhi as-
sembly election was practically a
bipolar contest between the Aam
Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Bharatiya
Janata Party (BJP); the Congress did
not even seem interested in putting up a
fight. But after the election results were
released, this apparent indifference
turned into a series of fractious fights.
Taking responsibility for the defeat,
AICC in-charge of Delhi P.C. Chacko
resigned, but tried to shift the blame
to former Delhi chief minister Sheila
Dikshit, who passed away on July 20
last year. “The downfall of the Congress
party started in 2013 when Sheilaji
was the CM,” he said. This drew sharp
criticism, with former Mumbai Con-
gress chief Milind Deora saying it was
unfortunate to see Sheila Dikshit being
blamed after her death.
Deora himself stepped into the line
of fire when he tweeted praise for the
AAP government, commending it for
doubling its revenues and maintain-
ing a revenue surplus. In reply, former
Delhi Congress president Ajay Maken
18 INDIA TODAY M A RC H 2 , 2 02 0
the party is riven by infighting with
little being done to resolve differences.
Many within the party cite the example
of the Haryana poll last year, where
the Congress finished with 31 of 90
seats, just nine less than the BJP. “Had
the leadership crisis in Haryana been
settled before the polls, we could have
won,” says a Congress general secretary.
The infighting is evident even in
states where the Congress is in power.
In Madhya Pradesh, Chief Minis-
ter Kamal Nath and former Union
minister Jyotiraditya Scindia have
been making jibes at each other, as
have Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and
deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot in
Rajasthan. Similarly, there has been a
clamour to restructure the state unit in
Assam, which heads to the polls next
year. With the BJP facing anti-CAA
protests, state Congress leaders hope to
do well, but they first need to put their
own house in order.
It’s not even just the states: the
THE HIGH COMMAND
Sonia Gandhi with Priyanka and Rahul
Congress high command appears in
no hurry to fix its central leader-
ship issue either. After Rahul Gandhi
dared Deora to ‘leave Congress’, saying resigned as party president last May,
that Delhi’s budget grew at a much his mother, Sonia Gandhi, took charge
higher rate during the Congress regime. as interim Congress president, pending
Meanwhile, another spat erupted an election for the post. But there has
on social media between former finance been no word on such an election, and
minister P. Chidambaram and Delhi a campaign has begun to put Rahul
Mahila Congress president Sharmistha back at the helm.
Mukherjee, daughter of former presi- What’s giving the high command
dent Pranab Mukherjee. In a tweet, a headache at the moment is the Rajya
Chidambaram saluted the people of Sabha election in April. From three
Delhi for defeating ‘the polarising, Congress-ruled states—Rajasthan,
divisive and dangerous agenda of the Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh—
BJP’. That did not go down well with the party could gain at least six seats in
Mukherjee, who wrote: ‘Has the Con- the upper house. Leaders like Scindia,
gress outsourced the task of defeating Maken and communication in-charge
the BJP to state parties? If not, then Randeep Singh Surjewala could get a
why are we gloating over ticket to the upper house
an AAP victory rather In most states, from any of these states.
than being concerned the Congress Scindia’s candidature will,
about our drubbing?’ is riven by however, depend on the
Mukherjee’s out- goodwill of Nath, who
burst, in fact, reflects a
infighting, also happens to be the
growing demand among with little president of the Madhya
the Congress rank being done Pradesh Congress. That’s
and file to strengthen to resolve where the high command
state-level party leader- differences may have to step in. n
ship. In most states, —Kaushik Deka
 Illustration by SIDDHANT JUMDE
GL ASSHOUSE

HACK PROOFING
When Rahul Gandhi changes his mobile phone number and goes off WhatsApp,
it is bound to fuel speculation. Some said it was to cut off direct access to
partymen, others whispered it was because of a woman stalker. Few were
willing to consider the more plausible explanation: hacking. The Nehru-
Gandhi scion was apparently spooked by the data breach of such high-
profile individuals as Amazon chief Jeff Bezos and the targeting of WhatsApp
accounts of Indian journalists and activists last November, reportedly by
government agencies using the Pegasus spyware. Apparently, no messaging
apps are linked to Rahul’s new number. Interestingly, sister Priyanka, too, has
got herself an additional number to communicate with her inner circle. It sure
won’t help the Congress siblings shed their aloof image.

CAAsus Belli RETIRED

A s part of its efforts to promote tourism
in Assam, the Sarbananda Sonowal-
led BJP government in the state teamed up
with a media group to hold a film award
ceremony in Guwahati on February 15. But
rather than provide cheer in the aftermath
of the anti-CAA protests,
it ended up angering the
protesters even more.
Especially as Assamese
singer Zubeen Garg,
who had at one point
appealed for a boycott of
government functions,
not only attended the function but was
also hugged by Sonowal. Pro-CAA finance
minister Himanta Biswa Sarma missed the
event, as he was away in Delhi, attending
the wedding reception of Arun Jaitley’s
son. Biswajit Daimary, a Rajya Sabha MP
of BJP ally Bodoland People’s Front, also
boycotted the event after he claimed he
was insulted.
HURT
A nyone
know
where cricketer-
politician Navjot
Singh Sidhu is? The
former Punjab minister has been
incommunicado for the past four
months—despite being listed as
the Congress’s star campaigner
for the Delhi election. Word is,
he wants to quit the Congress.
Sidhu’s supporters reportedly
explored the possibility of his
return to the BJP but found
the door firmly shut. After all,
you don’t get chummy with the
Pakistani prime minister, even if
he is a former cricketer, and then
expect to sing a saffron tune. Now,
we hear, the Aam Aadmi Party and
a rebel faction of the Akali Dal are
wooing him. What will it be? Pehle
AAP or a SAD outcome?

—Sandeep Unnithan with Kaushik Deka and Anilesh S. Mahajan

UPFRONT

THE WEEK IN
NUMBERS

13.61 seconds
The time taken by Nishanth Shetty to run 142.5 metres down a slushy
track, setting a new record in the rural sport of Kambala in mid-February.
This breaks a record set just weeks prior, by Srinivasa Gowda—13.62
seconds—which had itself replaced a 30-year-old record. Many have
noted that at this speed, both would have run the 100 m dash faster than
ANI

311
Usain Bolt. The comparison is specious, of course, even if fun

9
so-called ‘urban
MANDAR DEODHAR

UIGHUR MUSLIMS Naxals’ have spent over

were detained in China in 2017
20 months imprisoned in
and 2018, with their families and
Maharashtra, allegedly
friends subjected to constant
for inciting violence in
surveillance, reveals a leaked
Bhima Koregaon in 2018.
report. Their ‘crimes’ included
The case was transferred
growing long beards. Authorities
to the NIA, leading NCP
monitored social media accounts
leader Sharad Pawar
and used facial recognition
to criticise CM Uddhav
technology, marking behaviour like
Thackeray. The state is to
applying for passports, accessing
set up an SIT to conduct a
foreign websites and going to
parallel investigation
mosques as ‘suspicious’. Dubbed
the ‘Karakax list’, it details the
cases of detainees exclusively

7.59 % 867
from the eponymous county near
China’s western border with India

ANI SPECIES OF BIRDS

Retail inflation in January was
India’s highest since May 2014,
with the prices of basic vegetables
soaring. High inflation coupled
with sluggish industrial output
has prompted some economists
to question the “green shoots”
of recovery that finance minister
Nirmala Sitharaman says she sees
in India were studied in a report
released at a major international
conservation conference
held from February 15-22 in
Gandhinagar, Gujarat. Long-term
assessments could be made for
261 species and showed 52%
were in decline, with 22% in
“strong decline”

5.6
STUDENTS
MILLION
sat for their 50
Class X and XII board exams in MILLION
BANDEEP SINGH

Uttar Pradesh from February 18
onward. They are being monitored
on 200,000 cameras across 7,784
exam centres to prevent cheating,
a frequent problem in the state
Instagram followers makes Virat Kohli the
first Indian to achieve such popularity on the
social media site. The most popular individual
worldwide on Instagram is footballer Cristiano
Ronaldo, with 203 million followers

10 INDIA TODAY M A RC H 2 , 2 02 0
UPFRONT
GUEST COLUMN
AJAI SAHNI
TRANSPARENT DECEPTION
P
akistan has refined the stratagem of the minimal satis-
fier to an art form. For decades, whenever it has been
brought under extraordinary external pressure, it
has quickly sought to project formal compliance on counter-
terrorism parameters to escape imminent punitive measures,
but ensured that its basic capacities to project terrorism into
its neighbourhood and beyond remain intact.
This has continued for decades, despite the fact that
Pakistan has been acknowledged, even by the most reluctant
among prominent powers, as the epicentre and a state spon-
sor of terrorism; and crucially, despite the
fact that its proxies—most prominently the
Taliban and Haqqani Network—have tar-
geted and killed thousands of soldiers of the
US-led Coalition in Afghanistan (as well as
tens of thousands of Afghans); despite the
fact that US drones have ‘taken out’ dozens of
top terrorist leaders on Pakistani soil; despite
the fact that the US located and killed Osama
bin Laden within a stone’s throw of one of
Pakistan’s most prestigious military institu-
tions in the cantonment town of Abbottabad;
and despite the fact that the 9/11 attacks
Despite poor
themselves had a gigantic Pakistani footprint.
compliance
But Pakistan’s transparent deceptions are
not, by far, the most remarkable aspect of this
with
charade. That space is taken by the astonishing
conditionalities,
eagerness with which its falsehoods and misdi-
FATF
rections are embraced by the very institutions blacklist Pakistan
and states that pretend to call it to account.
This is the context within which the news
regarding Hafiz Muhammad Saeed’s conviction on money
laundering charges, and Azhar Masood’s ‘missing’ status needs
to be read. Saeed’s case will go in appeal to the high court and,
as in the past, is likely to be thrown out after a bit of elaborate
fakery. These are facetious alibis, intended only to convince
those who are desperate to be convinced by pure fabrications.
Saeed’s conviction by a counter-terrorism court came just
days before the visit of UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres
to Pakistan, and before the plenary of the Financial Action
Task Force (FATF) in Paris, where Pakistan’s ‘grey listing’ is up
for reassessment. Significantly, in Islamabad, Guterres chose
to speak glowingly of Pakistan’s ‘solidarity and compassion’ for
‘hosting Afghan refugees’, but made no mention of the weap-
onisation of these refugees in Pakistani terrorist camps, or of
continuing support to the Taliban and Haqqani Network; and
while gratuitously offering to mediate on Kashmir, he made no
mention of Pakistan’s unrelenting terrorism in India.
Despite persistent failures to comply with all but the most
insignificant of its conditionalities, the FATF has repeatedly
backed off from blacklisting Pakistan. In October 2019, the
Asia Pacific Group (AGP) published its ‘Mutual Evaluation
Report’ on Pakistan, noting that, of 40 FATF recommenda-
tions, Pakistan was compliant on just one (financial institution
secrecy laws); ‘largely compliant’ on nine; ‘partially compli-
ant’ on 26; and ‘non-compliant’ on four. Even where Pakistan
was ‘largely’ or ‘partially’ compliant, the AGP repeatedly notes,
“efforts… are not consistent with its risks”.
The impact of FATF blacklisting would be
potentially devastating for Pakistan. And yet,
its efforts have been focused overwhelmingly
on deception and notional compliance; and,
more vigorously, on securing support within
the FATF’s voting members to ensure that it
stays off the blacklist.
FATF is not a judicial body that relies on
objective evidence and transparent process.
It is a political entity susceptible to tactical
horse-trading. Thirty-six member-states exer-
cise voting rights, and just three votes can keep
Pakistan off the blacklist; it already has the
explicit support of China, Malaysia and Turkey.
If it secures the support of half the voting mem-
most of its bers (or fewer, with engineered abstentions), it
the could go off the grey list. With China throwing
has failed to its weight behind Islamabad, tactical support
from some Western states, and some symbolic
compliance, there is speculation that Pakistan
could well be off the grey list itself.
More significantly, there is nothing to celebrate in the
tokenism of action against Saeed or the ‘disappearance’ of
Azhar. These two may be the most visible faces of anti-India
terrorism in Pakistan, but there is a deep base of leaders and
cadre behind them. Crucially, despite the constant empha-
sis on the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammad
(JeM), the reality is, it is the Inter-Services Intelligence
that controls all such entities, and they rise, fall or reinvent
identities on its command. Unless the Pakistani deep state
abandons its terrorist enterprise against its neighbours—an
unlikely prospect in the proximate future, and certainly in
the absence of crippling sanctions—Pakistan’s support to
terrorism will not end. n
AJAI SAHNI is the executive director of the Institute for
Conflict Management and the South Asia Terrorism Portal
and editor of South Asia Intelligence Review
Illustrations by TANMOY CHAKRABORTY
 STATES
MAHARASHTRA: TELANGANA:
FARM-LOAN WAIVER MONEY MATTERS
KICKS OFF PG 1 4 PG 1 4

JHARKHAND: SOREN KARNATAKA:

TWEETS IN CHANGE SEDITION DRAMA
PG 1 6 PG 1 7

NO DRILLING
Villagers at Neduvasal,
Pudukottai, protesting
hydrocarbon exploration
in the Cauvery delta
JAISON G

TA M I L N A D U

FUELLING
CHENNAI

Cauvery
River

Cauvery
Basin PROTESTS
Chief Minister Palaniswami’s move to declare the Cauvery delta a protected agri zone
is both eco-friendly and politically expedient, but it is not likely to pass muster
By Amarnath K. Menon
O
n February 10, Tamil
Nadu chief minister E.K.
Palaniswami announced
that the Cauvery delta
would be declared a Protected Special
Agricultural Zone (PSAZ) to accord
primacy to the state’s food security
and to protect farmers’ livelihoods.
Over the past four decades, the delta’s
share of the state’s food production
has fallen from 65 per cent to 40 per
cent. A major cause of this decline is
hydrocarbon exploration. In recent
years, there have been many protests
against such projects, which not only
occupy fertile agricultural lands but
also cause ecological damage.
The chief minister’s announce-
ment followed his objection, in Janu-
ary, to a unilateral amendment by the
Union government to the Environ-
mental Impact Assessment Notifica-
tion, 2006. This amendment relaxed
the environmental clearance require-
ments for oil and gas exploration.
“The state government will not per-
mit hydrocarbon exploration in the
delta region, which would affect the
livelihood of farmers,” announced the
chief minister. He has also reportedly
written to the Centre for support in
creating the PSAZ, which will include
parts of Thanjavur, Tiruvarur, Naga-
pattinam, Pudukottai, Cuddalore,
Ariyalur, Karur and Tiruchirapalli.
These areas make up the state’s rice
bowl and produce about 3.3 million
tonnes of grain every year.
Farmers have long opposed
hydrocarbon projects in the delta,
pointing to the damage they cause,
such as groundwater contamination.
Agriculture scientist M.S. Swami-
nathan has also endorsed the chief
minister’s plan: “Areas identified for
PSAZ status should be given facilities
to ensure that agriculture remains
economically viable. This is an im-
portant step to ensure the future of
our food and ecological security.”
The chief minister’s plan is to
allow only agriculture and allied in-
dustries in the region. “Enacting spe-
cific legislation to protect the region,
though welcome, is inadequate,” says
Professor S. Janakarajan, president
of the South Asia Consortium for
Interdisciplinary Water Resources
Studies. “There are grey areas. The
state cannot act unilaterally, ignoring
central government laws that permit
entities like ONGC to take up [hy-
drocarbon] exploration. Another seri-
ous concern is the fracking technolo-
gy these entities rely on. It has already
been banned in several countries for
the ecological harm it causes. Issues
like these have to be addressed for any
meaningful protection of the delta.”
The state has, in the past,
taken note of, and acted on, farmers’
3.3
MILLION TONNES
The annual grain production
from the 2.8 million acres
in the Cauvery delta, the
state’s rice bowl
40
PER CENT
Tamil Nadu’s supply of food
from the Cauvery delta,
down from 65 per cent
in the 1980s
protests. In 2013, Chief Minister J.
Jayalalithaa had ordered the suspen-
sion of coal-bed methane exploration
and production in Thanjavur and
Tiruvarur districts, following it up
with a ban in 2015. However, in 2017,
the Centre signed contracts for hy-
drocarbon extraction in 31 locations
in the state. With an eye on invest-
ments over Rs 90,000 crore, the state
government also notified 45 villages
in the Cuddalore and Nagapatti-
nam districts in the delta as part of
a Petroleum, Chemical and Petro-
chemical Investment Region that
year. (Chief Minister Palaniswami’s
proposed PSAZ puts a question mark
on this ambitious scheme.) Then, in
2019, the central government also al-
lowed Vedanta Ltd to conduct impact
assessment studies to drill 274 off-
shore and onshore hydrocarbon wells
in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry.
Facts like these will make it diffi-
cult for the chief minister to walk the
talk. He has to get the ministry of pe-
troleum and natural resources on the
same page and get the Union govern-
ment to agree to the proposed PSAZ.
This will be all the more difficult
since the Centre’s move to relax the
rules for hydrocarbon firms is aimed
at incentivising increased production
in India to address the country’s high
oil-import dependence. The Tamil
Nadu government will face both
pressure from the Union government
and litigation from firms that have
already invested significant sums in
such projects, which could lead to
adverse consequences for investment
in the state.
At the same time, the chief
minister is also using this issue to
score points off the rival DMK. The
PSAZ tag was a central poll plank of
all political parties in the state, both
in the previous assembly election
and in last year’s Lok Sabha election.
By winning 29 of the 45 assembly
seats in the delta region in the 2016
assembly election, the AIADMK had
conquered what was seen as a DMK
stronghold. However, by winning all
but one of the 40 Lok Sabha seats in
the state and Puducherry last sum-
mer, the DMK-led alliance showed
that it had regained the upper hand.
Moreover, the party managed to win
over half the votes in the Cauvery
delta, particularly in Thanjavur and
Nagapattinam, in local body elections
in December 2019.
Some analysts wonder, therefore,
if the chief minister’s announcement
was made primarily with an eye on
the 2021 assembly poll. n
M A RC H 2 , 2 02 0 INDIA TODAY 13
STATES

M AH AR ASHTR A

Uddhav’s
Waiver Bounty
Can the Maharashtra government afford
the exorbitant loan-waiver bill?
By Kiran D. Tare
GROUND WORK Uddhav Thackeray with farmers in Sangli

M
aharashtra of-
ficials are busy
setting in motion
Chief Minister Ud-
dhav Thackeray’s ambitious
scheme to waive farmers’
loans upto Rs 2 lakh. The
government has begun a pilot
run of the scheme before its
official launch on February 21,
even as Thackeray, speaking
in Jalgaon on February 16, reit-
erated that he was committed
to alleviating farmers’ distress
since he had come to power
with their blessings. The chief
minister has also instructed
officials to be ‘sensitive’. “Do
not think you are doing farm-
ers a favour by waiving their
loans,” he told them recently.
The state government
says the loan waiver will
benefit 3.64 million farmers.
Prodded by Thackeray, the
cooperative department has
developed a portal for the
scheme, on which data of
about 3.22 million farmers
has already been uploaded.
Eligible farmers will have to
authenticate themselves
with Aadhaar IDs—for which
96,000 centres have been set
up—and biometrics. Govern-
ment data shows almost 95
per cent of the beneficiaries
have Aadhaar-linked bank
accounts. Thackeray praised
officials for completing the
ground work in a span of 15
days. “This is the country’s
biggest loan-waiver scheme;
I want you to be sensible in its
implementation,” he said.
At Rs 40,000 crore, the
one-time loan waiver will be
one of the country’s most ex-

TEL A NGA NA

MONEY MATTERS
For now, KCR is betting on efficiency
to rescue the state’s finances
By Amarnath K. Menon

APPETITE FOR REFORM
K. Chandrashekar Rao addresses district
collectors in Hyderabad, Aug. 2019
T
elangana chief minister K. Chandrashek-
ar Rao is reforming the state’s revenue
administration, ushering in a new unified
revenue law. As a first step, he has restructured
the district administration: instead of being
assisted by a single deputy collector, district col-
lectors will now be supported by two additional
collectors, one of whom will attend exclusively to
local bodies while the other will be tasked with
making panchayats more efficient.

14 INDIA TODAY M A RC H 2 , 2 02 0
 pensive. To fund it, the Maha-
rashtra government may have
to curtail allocations to some
other departments by 20-30
per cent. Given the state’s
total debt of Rs 4.72 lakh crore
(2019-20), about 17 per cent
of its GDP, some experts have
panned the scheme as an ill-
conceived misadventure.
A cooperative depart-
ment official says Thackeray
wants a smooth rollout of the
scheme, as a similar initiative
by the erstwhile BJP-Shiv
Sena government had suf-
RAJU SANADI
fered from technical glitches.
“We have taken utmost care
so that the new scheme is
THE LOAN implemented in a foolproof
WAIVER WILL manner,” says the official.
BENEFIT SOME Keen to dispel the notion
3.64 MILLION in some quarters that he is an
‘urban politician’ who knows
FARMERS. little about agrarian issues,
THACKERAY Thackeray kept the agriculture
SAYS IT’S THE portfolio with his party and
COUNTRY’S gave charge of the ministry to
BIGGEST SUCH Dadaji Bhuse, a farmer. The
SCHEME ministry has set up farmer
assistance centres in each
`40,000
CRORE
is what the one-time loan
waiver scheme will cost
the state exchequer
of the state’s 350 talukas and
launched a portal that allows
farmers a single-window ap-
plication for all agri schemes.
“Farmers no longer need to
file the same application year
after year,” says Bhuse.
Beginning February
16, Bhuse has been visiting
farmers to get a first-hand as-
sessment of their problems. In
Bhuse’s assembly constituen-
cy of Malegaon Outer, farmer
Shantaram Gawali complained
to him about problems in get-
ting crop loans and seeds.
The exercise is expected
to throw up a litany of prob-
lems. Farmers have been
complaining about not receiv-
ing the minimum support
price (MSP) for their produce.
Suhas Bhatkar, a farmer
from Amravati, says he sold
cotton at Rs 5,200 per quintal
whereas the MSP is Rs 5,500.
Others have complained that
they had to sell tur dal at
Rs 4,900 a tonne and chick-
pea at Rs 4,300 per tonne, as
against the MSP of Rs 5,800
and Rs 4,800, respectively.
Agriculture expert Vijay
Jawandhiya says the Thac-
keray government has failed
to take steps to augment farm
incomes. He says he wrote to
Thackeray for an additional
assistance of Rs 10,000 per
acre for farmers, but has “not
received any response yet”.
While the BJP’s Vinod
Tawde says Thackeray “lacks
innovative ideas”, Jawandhiya
says loan waivers cannot be
a long-term solution. “Sharad
Pawar had demanded that
orange farmers be com-
pensated for losses due to
unseasonal rains,” he adds.
“I want to know from the
government what happened
to that demand.” n

On February 11, the chief minister
explained his plans at a specially con-
vened district collectors’ conference.
“Implementing government policies for
welfare and development should be a
priority,” he said. In aid of this, authori-
ties will be allowed to take measures
for development to make their districts
self-sufficient. This includes monetis-
ing local assets to increase revenue.
“The administration can be stream-
lined by strengthening the institution
of collectors,” added the chief minister.
“Collectors have been given more pow-
ers.” One such is the authority to rectify
land records. Treating land as a key
source of income, under the proposed
new revenue law, every bit of land
will be accounted for, with officials
ensuring that ownership disputes are
resolved and clear land titles issued.
Revenue tribunals are proposed in ev-
ery district to dispose of disputes and
simplify land ownership.
Improving the state’s finances is a
big concern, since Telangana spends
almost 50 per cent of its revenue—
about Rs 40,000 crore—on welfare
and development initiatives. The
chief minister is unwilling to curtail
any of these schemes, even as a belt-
tightening measure. “Telangana is
TELANGANA
SPENDS NEARLY
HALF ITS REVENUE
ON WELFARE AND
DEVELOPMENT
facing a [financial] shortfall due to
the huge cut in central taxes as well as
the Centre avoiding paying GST dues,”
says B. Vinod Kumar, vice chairman
of the state planning and development
board. “The Centre has also decided
not to approve the 15th Finance Com-
mission’s recommendation to give
[Telangana] a special grant of Rs 723
crore for 2020-21.”
Over the next five years, Telangana
requires Rs 40,170 crore for its lift irri-
gation projects and Rs 12,770 crore for
Mission Bhagiratha, its piped domestic
water supply scheme. To keep these
and other schemes going, the state may
have to raise taxes to at least partly
make up for the shortfall in funding.
For the moment, the chief minister is
banking on increased government ef-
ficiency to deliver savings. n

M A RC H 2 , 2 02 0 INDIA TODAY 15
 STATES
JHARKHAND
TWEETING IN CHANGE
In Twitter, Chief Minister Hemant Soren finds a handy
tool for governance—and self-promotion
By Amitabh Srivastava
E
veryone, irrespective of caste
and community, is entitled to
quality education. The family’s
financial constraints cannot be allowed
to become an impediment. Deputy com-
missioner, Gumla, take cognisance of the
report, do the needful and update.”
This was Jharkhand chief minister
Hemant Soren’s tweet on February 14,
with which he tagged a newspaper re-
port on how Amisha, a state-level school
topper, was struggling to pursue her
education because of financial hardships.
The post had an electrifying effect. Within
three days, Gumla deputy commissioner
Shashi Ranjan met Amisha’s parents and
assured them of help. “We are making
all arrangements so that Amisha, who is
studying in Ranchi, faces no hindrance in
her studies,” Ranjan told india today.
From ordering an air ambulance for
a girl facing renal failure to reuniting a
homeless woman with her son, from
providing relief to a dead army jawan’s
wife to ordering a probe into how tribal
land was transferred to a hospital, Soren
has turned Twitter into a governance tool.
SOMNATH SEN
PEOPLE’S CM Hemant Soren at a public interaction session in Dumka
16 INDIA TODAY M A RC H 2 , 2 02 0
Since assuming charge on December 29,
he has sent more than 250 tweets related
to governance matters, keeping officials
on their toes. Now, the chief minister’s
Twitter handle is regularly tagged by peo-
ple airing their grievances on social media.
Once Soren takes up these complaints,
his office pursues them. Sources in the
chief minister’s office (CMO) say Soren’s
Twitter handle is managed by the same
team that ran his social media campaign
during the assembly election.
The headstrong Soren of his first stint
as Jharkhand chief minister (July 2013
to December 2014)—when he fired three
ministers from his cabinet despite his
government’s wafer-thin majority—ap-
SOREN’S TWEETS
ARE ADVERTISING
HIS OUTREACH AND
KEEPING OFFICIALS
ON THEIR TOES
R ANCHI
pears to have reinvented himself. In his
second innings, he has really upped the
outreach of the CMO.
Soren started his tenure with the
magnanimous gesture of dropping an FIR
he had filed during the election campaign
against his predecessor Raghubar Das.
But he vows to remain unsparing of of-
ficials who have pending cases against
them. Like additional director general of
police Anurag Gupta, whose suspension
he ordered on February 14; Gupta is ac-
cused of misusing his position in the 2016
Rajya Sabha election. While the Election
Commission had ordered departmental
action against Gupta in June 2017 and an
FIR was subsequently registered, the
Das government did not pursue the case.
“Soren could have suspended Gupta
immediately after taking over but he took
more than 45 days to do so. The idea is
to not appear to be someone who has
scores to settle,” says a senior IPS officer,
on condition of anonymity.
Soren has also ordered a scrutiny
of projects undertaken by the road
construction department, which was
headed by Das. Sources say discrepan-
cies have surfaced in the rates fixed
for construction work in this and other
departments during Das’s tenure.
However, bureaucrats are appre-
hensive that the Soren government may
go soft on radical tribal activists. Soren’s
first cabinet meeting, in which it was
decided to drop sedition cases against
Pathalgadi movement leaders, kindled
these fears. However, he has sought to
ally those fears by visiting, this Janu-
ary, the homes of seven villagers killed
in an alleged strike by pro-Pathalgadi
elements in West Singhbhum district and
issuing a warning that such incidents
would not be tolerated. n
STATES
K A R N ATA K A
No Child’s Play
In a real-life drama that beggars belief, a classroom play has
become grounds for sedition
By Amarnath K. Menon in Bidar
T
here seems to be no
end to the Kafkaesque
nightmare a small
school skit has triggered in
Bidar, Karnataka. It was
meant to be an in-house per-
formance, but a proud par-
ent, Muhammad Yousuf Ra-
heem, decided to stream it on
Facebook. Local BJP activist
Nilesh Rakshyal took note,
and lodged a police com-
plaint stating that children
were being instigated into
uttering unpatriotic words,
hurling abuses at Prime
Minister Narendra Modi and
being trained to say that if
the Citizenship Amendment
Act (CAA), the National
Population Register (NPR)
and the National Register of
Citizens (NRC) came into
force, Muslims would have to
leave the country.
The police, of course,
wasted no time acting on the
complaint. Storming into the
school (whose spacious facili-
ties on the five-acre campus
they have regularly used for
hosting police programmes),
a posse of policemen, some in
uniform, tried to identify the
students who had partici-
pated in the play as well as
85 others who watched it.
This went on for five days
and many children stopped
coming to school for fear
of being questioned by the
police. Never mind that the
Karnataka State Commis-
sion for Protection of Child
Rights pulled up the police
for violating the norms of
K. SHIVA
the Juvenile Justice Act and
asked them to stop question-
ing the children. “When
the children were being
questioned, their parents or
guardians should have been
present and the police should
not have gone in uniform,”
says the commission’s chair-
man, Antony Sebastian, also
a juvenile justice advocate.
Before long, the police
booked Abdul Qadeer,
founder-chairman of the
Allama Iqbal Educational
Society and Shaheen Group
of Institutions; Fareeda
Begum, 50, headmistress of
the Shaheen Urdu Primary
School; Najibunnisa, the
46-year-old single mother of
the girl who uttered the con-
troversial lines on Modi, and
BIDAR
GOING BY THE BOOK? A
class in session at a Shaheen
Group school in Bidar
four others, under Sections
504, 505 (2), 124 A, 153A
and 34 of the Indian Penal
Code. Both Fareeda (whose
husband is a part-time me-
chanic) and Najibunnisa, the
breadwinners of their fami-
lies, were in Bidar Central
Prison for a fortnight.
Ordering the conditional
release of the women on
February 14, Bidar prin-
cipal and district sessions
judge Managoli Premavathi
observed: “The drama shows
that the children have con-
demned enforcement laws.
No other community has
been named; all they have
said is Muslims will have to
leave the country.” In its bail
order, the court observed
that the women had not been
named in the original FIR.
It was the remand memo
that noted that the children
had allegedly said they were
asked by Fareeda to enact
the play. Similarly, the child
who ‘spoke derogatory words
[referring to] using a chap-
pal against Prime Minister
Narendra Modi’ revealed in
her interrogation that her
mother (Najibunnisa) had
asked her to use the words.
School authorities
point out that the perfor-
mance was part of routine
classroom activity. Seven
students, aged between nine
and 12, had been asked to
put up a six-minute per-
formance on the NRC on

STATES
January 21. “A key element
of the National Curriculum
Framework stipulates creat-
ing awareness on contem-
porary social issues. This
was just another assignment
given to students,” claims
Thouseef Madikeri, CEO
of the Shaheen Education
Foundation. Now, the Kar-
nataka High Court has to
decide if the student play was
a creative or literary activity
within the ambit of freedom
of expression. It is likely
to decide by February 25
whether or not Qadeer and
the four other accused should
be arrested and tried on
sedition and related charges.
“Every citizen of the country
has the right to oppose a
law intended to be brought
into force and this cannot
be treated as sedition,” says
Keshavarao H. Srimale, one
of the lawyers who moved the
bail application for the two
women. “Further, since there
is no reference to any other
community, there is no ques-
tion of causing disharmony
among communities.”
Following the initial
outcry by politicians, includ-
ing former chief minister
Siddaramaiah, the police
are treading cautiously. “We
are awaiting the findings of
the forensic analysis of the
surveillance camera footage
from the school’s recordings
for a fuller understanding
of the course of events to
act on the charges against
the accused,” said a senior
police officer. Activists
in Bidar argue that it is a
motivated complaint as the
anti-NRC rally on December
23 drew a huge response.
“Several disparate groups got
together for a common cause
under the banner of a secular
18 INDIA TODAY M A RC H 2 , 2 02 0
MORE THAN A
BRICK IN THE WALL
Shaheen Education
Foundation School
Mainstreaming the Marginalised
S
haheen is the mythical bird that entrance exams to professional col-
flies farther than a falcon. That leges; last year, 327 of them secured
is what the educational enter- medical college seats through the
prise that blends modern formal edu- National Eligibility cum Entrance Test.
cation with religious teachings from The educational enterprise is also
the Quran strives to achieve progres- known for its successful experi-
sively. Soaring higher. It is also the ments like the Academic Intensive
school motto. What Abdul Qadeer Care Unit, which takes charge of
started as a single-room facility with dropouts besides mainstreaming
18 students in 1989—while searching those exposed only to madrassa
for a good school for a younger sib- education. About 500 are admitted
ling—is today a full-fledged facility. “In to the AICU every year and its alumni
Bidar alone, there are 9,000 students are now among those pursuing
from 23 states and nine countries collegiate education at the Jamia
with diverse backgrounds,” says Dr Millia Islamia and the Aligarh Muslim
Thouseef Madikeri, CEO, Shaheen University. This is enabling Hafizes
Education Foundation. The 43 institu- (those who memorise the Quran) get
tions across nine states are expect- modern education.
ed to go up to 55 in 13 states by the Although its tuition fee is in line
next academic year. “Many more who with quality private schools, the
go to the traditional madrassas for Shaheen Group extends conces-
religious learning alone, especially sions and scholarships to deserving
in the north, need to be exposed to indigent students. It also takes in
quality modern education,” he says. students from socially and economi-
Madikeri takes pride in the fact cally backward communities while
that Shaheen students excel in the wearing the ‘minority’ institution tag.
forum. This has turned offences under Section 124A the cancellation or alteration
out to be unsettling for the of the IPC. The judges ruled of those acts or measures
BJP,” said Mansoor Ahmed that ‘comments, however by lawful means... without
Quadri, district president strongly worded, expressing exciting those feelings of
of the All India Majlis-e- disapprobation of the actions enmity and disloyalty which
Ittehadul Muslimeen. of the government, without imply excitement to public
Proving the charge exciting those feelings that disorder or use of violence.’
of sedition (for which the generate the inclination to Besides, the sedition law
maximum punishment is cause public disorder by itself has other limitations.
life imprisonment) is easier acts of violence’, would not “It uses words that are ame-
said than done. A five-judge be penalised. “Disloyalty to nable to multiple interpreta-
constitutional bench of the government established by tions. It also relies on the
Supreme Court presided over law is not the same thing as perception in the mind of the
by Chief Justice Bhuvanesh- commenting in strong terms listener, adding to the poten-
war Prasad Sinha in Kedar upon the measures or acts of tial for misuse,” says Kunal
Nath Singh vs State of Bihar government, or its agencies, Ambasta, who teaches at the
(1962) laid down the guiding so as to ameliorate the condi- National Law School of India
principles for dealing with tion of the people or to secure University, Bengaluru. n
 I N T E R V I E W | T R I V E N D R A S I N G H R AWAT

I have curbed
corruption in
the state with
an iron fist
In an exclusive interview with india today Group Editorial Director RAJ
CHENGAPPA and Senior Editor ANILESH S. MAHAJAN, Uttarakhand
Chief Minister TRIVENDRA SINGH RAWAT says his focus in the past
three years has been on good governance, creation of new infrastructure
and promoting tourism. This year, it will be on ensuring that the Haridwar
Kumbh Mela is a great success. Edited excerpts:

Q.
The BJP stormed into power in Uttara-
khand in 2017, winning 56 of 70 seats in
the state assembly. As you complete three
years in office, what would be your mid-
term analysis?
A. The mandate was against the previous regime’s cor-
ruption in matters related to land, mining, transfer
postings, forests and liquor, among others. We brought
in legislation to curb interventions in transfer postings
in government jobs. The committee under the chief
secretary considers pleas only in exceptional cases. We
have effectively wiped out the forest, liquor and mining
mafias in the state. We cracked down on 150 officials,
including five PCS and two IAS officers.
Q. When you assumed office, you talked about bring-
ing in a lokayukta (anti-corruption ombudsman) and
said that chief ministers, too, would be under its ambit.
A. I never promised a lokayukta. My philosophy is to
curb corruption with an iron fist, so that there is no need
for an ombudsman. In principle, we are not against it,
but if the political leadership is clean and determined,
you won’t require this office.
Q. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has a special con-
nection with Uttarakhand—spiritually and as a state
whose development he is invested in. As the Haridwar
Kumbh comes closer, the general perception is that the
speed of preparation seems slow.
A. This is an incorrect perception. The construction of
some of the ghats stopped on the banks of the irrigation
canals of Uttar Pradesh, but we will get a window of
15 days in April to complete it. The development work
for permanent structures, like bridges and tubewells
for drinking water supply, has begun. The tender for
construction of the remaining Aastha Path has been
floated. The target is to complete 75 per cent of the
work by July, and the rest by November. The Kumbh
is scheduled for January 2021. By then, the temporary
infrastructure, too, will be in place.
Q. The Prayagraj Kumbh raised the bar. Can we expect
the preparations for the Haridwar Kumbh to surpass
Prayagraj’s? How many pilgrims are you expecting?
A. I don’t want to compare the two, but I can assure you
that the Haridwar Kumbh, too, will be a landmark. The
pilgrims are excited to watch the peshwai processions

20 INDIA TODAY M A RC H 2 , 2 02 0
 and we are constructing roads and seating facilities on
both sides of the path for pilgrims to enjoy the programme
without any fear of a stampede or overcrowding. By June,
all the transmission lines in the city will be underground.
The height at which the flags for the processions are held is
specified by tradition and the custom is to not lower them.
Earlier, electricity supply had to be discontinued to make
way for the flags, but not any more.
We are expecting roughly 12 crore pilgrims this year
and we are shifting the entire temporary town of Maha-
mandaleshwar Nagar from Haridwar to Gauri-Shankar
Island. Earlier, the Kumbh was organised in a 600 hect-
are area. This time, it will be in a 1,500 hectare area, for
better crowd management. Mahamandaleshwar Nagar
will also have temporary ghats, so that the pilgrims don’t
have to come to Har Ki Pauri for their daily holy dip.

Q. You had also promised facilities for the Char Dham,

like construction of all-weather highways.
A. Clearances for 70 per cent of the Char Dham highway
have been given. The rest are pending with the National
Green Tribunal (NGT), which has formed a committee to
review this. They have taken two months more than the
stipulated time and not completed their report still. The
minister of state for road transport and highways, Gen-
eral V.K. Singh, and I will soon travel together to identify
bottlenecks and he will give his report to the Centre. The
construction on the cleared track is in advanced stages,
which includes the 4.5 km tunnel connecting the Ganga-
Bhagirathi and Yamunotri valleys.

Q. Your government courted controversy on its decision

to take over the management of the Badrinath and Ke-
darnath temples. BJP MP Subramanian Swamy is plan-
ning to move court; VHP leaders, too, are opposing it.
A. In one of the biggest reforms the state has seen since
its formation 19 years ago, we constituted the Devastha-
nam Board, which regulates the temples in Char Dham.
BANDEEP SINGH There are apprehensions among some communities
that their livelihood would be effected, but we are as-
suring them that the new set-up will, in fact, improve
“NO POST IS PERMA- facilities and increase livelihood opportunities. Various
NENT, BUT WHILE I AM prominent temples, like the Vaishno Devi Shrine Board,
Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh or Somnath in Gujarat,
IN THE CHAIR, MY have similar arrangements.
FOCUS WILL BE ON Q. But what is the need for a new Devasthanam Board?
DELIVERING TRANS- A. There has been a 36 per cent rise in the influx of pil-
PARENT, MEANINGFUL grims in the past two years. The temple committees can
only provide a limited amount of facilities. A senior IAS
GOVERNANCE” officer will be the CEO and the chief minister the chair-
man of the new board. This will be directly in control
of the state’s political head. We expect 1 crore pilgrims

M A RC H 2 , 2 02 0 INDIA TODAY 21
 I N T E R V I E W | T R I V E N D R A S I N G H R AWAT
to visit these temples by 2025 and need to develop the infra-
structure and facilities accordingly. The VHP hasn’t raised
any objections; even several swamis have welcomed this step.
Q. As a hill state, how are you dealing with the challenge of
checking migration, skill development and creating opportu-
nities in rural areas?
A. We formed the Uttarakhand Rural Development and Mi-
gration Commission to study each village. It has completed the
study in three districts. It has now been asked to concentrate on
migration separately. We identified three big reasons—educa-
tion, health and employment—for migration. In rural areas, we
sanctioned 83 growth centres, which are in different stages of
being set up. We have also brought in a biomass policy to enable
the generation of roughly 300 MW electricity. We are encourag-
ing players to create more employment
opportunities for people in rural areas.
This could potentially create employ-
ment for over 2 lakh people. “WE ARE WORKING
TO MAKE
Q. Tourism continues to be the mainstay
of the state’s economy. What are your
UTTARAKHAND A
plans to push that? ROUND-THE-YEAR
A. There are 13 districts in the state and
we are identifying 13 new destinations in
TOURIST DESTINATION,
all of them. Tourism got industry status NOT JUST FOR SIX
in the state. For example, we are develop-
ing a 50 hectare tulip garden in Pithor-
MONTHS”
agarh district. In the water reservoir de-
veloped in Udham Singh Nagar, we have
started an annual carnival. There is also
the Tehri Lake festival. The skiing facilities in Auli district have
been improved too. The idea is to make Uttarakhand a tourist
destination all year round, not just for six months.
Q. The gross expenditure of the state is projected at Rs 48,664
crore. You had to cut down on spending in the last fiscal by 4.7
per cent. Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman has spo-
ken about lower tax collections, which means the state’s devolu-
tion will be lower. How are you coping with these challenges?
A. The Centre is assisting the state governments. We don’t have
a crunch in the education sector, especially, higher education.
The 14th finance commission was unfair to us; they didn’t give
us a revenue deficit grant. We convinced the next finance com-
mission and got an allocation of Rs 5,000 crore annually to
compensate for the revenue deficit. We also demanded a green
bonus—our share was 7.5 per cent. The Centre enhanced it to
10 per cent, along with the allocation for disaster management
going up from Rs 200 crore to Rs 1,000 crore. There is a 32 per
cent growth in the state GST collection. Our per capita income
is more than Rs 1.95 lakh today, 10.1 per cent more than 2016-
17, and the annual GDP growth is 6.1 per cent.
22 INDIA TODAY M A RC H 2 , 2 02 0
Our focus is on developing the services sectors, like pro-
moting film shoots in the state. We have not only waived the
Rs 10,000 per day fee for shoots, but are also giving NOCs (no-
objection certificates) within 24 hours. The film industry also
finds the people here to be ‘film shoot’-friendly. There are several
other plans to push earnings from service sector.
Q. You have also spoken about equal focus on development of
both Garhwal and Kumaon regions...
A. We are developing infrastructure across the state equally.
We have achieved 100 per cent connectivity in 30 blocks. In
the next two years, all village panchayats in the state will be
connected by road. We saw a requirement for the construction
of 300 bridges of which 175 are complete. The rest will be done
in the next two years. Pithoragarh is now connected by air and
helicopter facilities are being extended
to various parts of both regions.
Q. Environment conservation is a big
challenge, especially after the 2013 flash
floods. What kind of work has been done
in this area?
A. We are taking tree plantation to the
next level. We are developing reservoirs
in Dehradun, Haldwani and Nainital,
among others. The success rate of plan-
tation drives in Uttarakhand has been
90 per cent; much higher than the na-
tional average of about 60 per cent.
Q. There are 20-odd BJP MLAs in Delhi
who often lobby against you. You recently met with them at the
Manthan programme, but they continue to say their interests
and local development programmes are not a priority for you.
Speculations of you being replaced are always ripe. The legisla-
tors also eye three vacant cabinet berths. What is your take?
A. No post is permanent. Some will stay on the post for two
years, some for 10 years. While I am in the chair, my focus will
be on delivering transparent, clean and meaningful gover-
nance. There is no MLA who can say they haven’t met the chief
minister or their development work has not been taken on. Even
during the Manthan programme on February 13, we discussed
issues. I do want to fill the vacancies in my cabinet, but there is
a process. It can only happen after wider discussions.
Q. How do you see Arvind Kejriwal’s victory in Delhi?
A. I congratulate him. People have re-elected him. It could be
because of the freebies, but the focus of a state government
should be on enriching the roots of the economy in a sustain-
able manner. This cannot be achieved through free food or
electricity. It may help one win elections, but it is not good
for the economy. n
 TRUMP IN
INDIA

NOW IT’S
SHOW TIME
US President Donald Trump embarks on his first official
visit to India, in the final year of his presidency. This is the
eighth visit by a sitting US President and the ninth meet-
ing between Modi and Trump. Four of those meetings
took place last year, including the ‘Howdy Modi!’ event in
Texas. This visit comes at a time of great contradictions.
India and the US are strategic partners and Washing-
ton is New Delhi’s second largest arms supplier. The two
sides, however, are in the midst of a trade war. Trump has
targeted the trade deficit with India, looking to prise open
the Indian market. The Modi government has retaliated
with tariffs. Though a new trade deal has so far eluded
both sides, that reality is likely to be overshadowed by the
two leaders addressing a ‘Namaste Trump’ rally in the
world’s largest cricket stadium—at Motera, Ahmedabad.

125,000 50
TRUMP’S people are expected to
attend the rally at stages will host

TRAVELS Motera stadium. An

additional 125,000 are
performances along
the road show. Twenty eight
of these will feature cultural
expected at the 22-km-
long road show performances from as
before it many states

25,000
security personnel will
SAM PANTHAKY/ GETTY IMAGES

28
be deployed during the visit—
about a third of the Gujarat
police’s strength. Trump’s
The number of own security team will
parking lots constructed contain about 200
around Motera stadium. secret service
Expected to accommodate agents
2,500 buses and
5,000 cars during
the event
24 INDIA TODAY M A RC H 2 , 2 02 0
 ONE FOR THE CAMERA
First Lady Melania Trump
with President Donald
Trump and Prime Minister
Narendra Modi in June 2017

350 ANDREW HARRER/ GETTY IMAGES

30
` CRORE
The cost of resurfac-
ing and beautifying the
18 approach roads to Motera
60
monkeys have The number of
hoardings being put
been captured from
up in Ahmedabad to
around Motera
stadium and relocated 100-200 publicise the event
km outside Ahmedabad to
ensure they do not pose a

90-120
stadium. An additional Rs 3.8 threat during the event
crore is being spent to
spruce up green areas
MINUTES
55
in Ahmedabad
The length of the road show,
with an additional 90-120 min-

60
The number of cars medical teams,
utes at Motera stadium. Modi
expected to make up each comprising one
and Trump are expected
the Modi-Trump medical officer,
to arrive sometime
motorcade one pharmacist and two
around noon
nurses, have been consti-
tuted to ensure public
safety at the rally

M A RC H 2 , 2 02 0 INDIA TODAY 25
TRUMP IN
INDIA

ACROSS
THE POND
INDIANS IN THE US
There were 1.78 million Indians in the
United States in 2010. By 2018, that number
risen to 2.65 million—a 49 per cent incr

As of July 1, 2018, Indians constituted 5.9 p

cent of the foreign-born populatio
US but comprised less than 1 per cent of the

THE POTUS
Donald Trump was born on from his first marriage, Tiffany
June 14, 1946, in New York, from his second and Barron
the fourth of five children from his third.

He was educated at New Trump has co-authored

York Military Academy
and then at the University
of Pennsylvania, graduating
from the Wharton School of
Finance in 1968
several books, including the
bestselling The Art of the Deal
(1987). An estimate by Forbes
put his wealth at $3.1 billion as
of September 2019

DREW ANGERER/ GETTY IMAGES In the 1970s and ’80s, Trump
worked in real estate and in
the casino business. In 2004,
THE INDIAN-AMERICAN VOTE he began starring in a real-
According to the Asian American Legal Defense ity TV show, The Apprentice,
and Education Fund, 84 per cent of Indian- the source of his widely
Americans voted for Hillary Clinton in recognised catch phrase:
2016 and 14 per cent for Donald Trump. “You’re fired!”
According to the Asian American Voter Survey,
Trump had an approval rating of 28 per cent among In 2005, he married Melania
Indian-Americans registered to vote in 2018 Knauss, his third wife.
He was formerly married
to Ivana Winklmayr from
WHAT THEY WANT 1977 to 1992 and Marla
Maples from 1993-1996
Jobs. Many Indian-Americans depend on the
H-1B visa program, which allows 85,000
foreigners to go to the US to work in Trump has five children—
Donald Jr, Ivanka and Eric
‘specialty occupations’. Indian natives accounted
for 75 per cent of approved H-1B applications in 2017,
according to the US Department of Homeland Security
Illustrations by SIDDHANT JUMDE
On June 16, 2015, Trump
announced that he would be
running for President of the
United States. In May 2016,
he was announced as the
Republican candidate. On
November 8, 2016, he won the
American electoral college,
defeating Democratic can-
didate Hilary Clinton—though
he lost the popular vote by
almost 3 million
Trump was sworn in to
office on January 20, 2017,
becoming the oldest person
to become a first-term presi-
dent, as well as the wealthiest

26 INDIA TODAY M A RC H 2 , 2 02 0

HE FLOTUS
nian supermodel
nia Trump (née Knauss)
orn on April 26, 1970
ia and Donald Trump
met in 1998, at the
t Club in New York.
n years later, she
become his third wife
only the second
US (First Lady of the
d States) to be born out-
he US, and was the first
naturalised, becoming
citizen in 2006
Like other First Ladies,
she uses her office to
support a social cause.
Her ‘Be Best’ campaign
focuses on youth welfare, ad-
vocating against cyberbullying
and drug use. However, she
has also been criticised for not
pursuing this campaign at the
White House—her husband,
THOSE
WHO CAME
BEFORE
Donald, has frequently been
accused of bullying behaviour
online
She speaks six languages:
Slovenian, French, Serbian, December 9-14, 1959: Dwight
German, Italian and English D. Eisenhower was the first US
President to visit India. The trip,
aimed at strengthening Indo-US
THE OTHER ties, was widely seen as a diplo-
FIRST LADIES matic success on both sides
WHO HAVE
VISITED INDIA:
MICHELLE OBAMA July 31-August 1, 1969: President
in 2010 and 2015 Richard Nixon made a very brief
visit to New Delhi. Some say the visit
LAURA BUSH
was an (unsuccessful) attempt at
in 2006
reducing tensions between him and
HILLARY CLINTON Prime Minister Indira Gandhi
in 1995 and 1997
ROSALYNN CARTER
in 1978 January 1-3, 1978: President
Jimmy Carter’s two-day visit was
PAT NIXON in 1969
overshadowed by long-term conse-
JACQUELINE KENNEDY quences of the 1974 Pokhran-I test,
in 1962 with Carter and Prime Minister Morarji
Desai ‘disagreeing sharply’ in private
March 19-25, 2000: President
Bill Clinton’s visit ended India’s
pariah status after the 1998
Pokhran-II tests—which had led to
sanctions—and signalled a pivot in
US foreign policy toward India
March 1-3, 2006: President
George W. Bush’s visit completed
the Indo-US rapprochement on
nuclear issues. It saw the signing
of the India-US Civil Nuclear Agree-
ment (or the ‘123 Agreement’)
November 6-9, 2010; & January
25-27, 2015: Barack Obama is the
only US president to have visited
India twice. His first visit included
an announcement that the US would
back India’s demand for a permanent
seat on the UN Security Council
M A RC H 2 , 2 02 0 INDIA TODAY 27
 TRUMP IN
INDIA INDIA-US KEY ISSUES

PUSHING BUSINESS
Minister of commerce Piyush Goyal (R)
with US trade representatives and US
ambassador to India Kenneth Juster (2L)
ANI

Trade Matters Flashpoints In April 2018, the RBI issued

l On February 11, India clas-
In the past two years, with India buying sified certain medical products
more crude oil and LNG from the US, the for humans—like stents and
knee implants—as ‘essential
trade gap of $22 billion in 2016-17 has fallen
commodities’, giving it the right
to about $17 billion in the current fiscal to impose price caps. This cut
l India exports $52.4 billion of goods to the US, about into US medical manufacturers’
16 per cent of its total exports. American goods com- business, causing friction
prise 6.9 per cent of India’s imports, at around $35.5 l In June 2019, India retali-
billion. Further, Indian travellers spend $16 billion in ated to the termination of its
the US. New Delhi has asked for this expenditure to GSP rights by increasing tariffs
be considered part of tourism exports on 28 US products, including
l On various fronts, New Delhi has also found itself walnuts, grams, pulses and
caught in the crossfire between Washington and Bei- shrimp
jing. This includes Washington’s stance at the World l India has been pushing
Trade Organization’s Buenos Aires Ministerial Confer- FDI-funded e-commerce com-
ence, refusing to allow differential tariffs to both panies to abandon ‘inventory-
India and China. This was followed by the unilateral based’ business models, with
withdrawal of the Generalized System of Preferences financial consequences for
from India and other countries. New Delhi was a ma- US e-tail titans Amazon and
jor beneficiary of this system in 2017, with $5.7 billion Walmart (via Flipkart)
worth of exports to the US given duty-free status
l
a circular instructing payment
system providers to store all
payment-related data only in
India. Mastercard and Visa
were the worst impacted. Indi
is also pushing parallel pay-
ment gateway Rupay, further
squeezing US business
l India has refused a US
demand to allow the import of
dairy products from animals
that have been fed ‘animal-de-
rived blood meal’, on religious/
cultural grounds. This disquali-
fies many US dairy products
l India was forced to back
out of commitments made to
Iranian oil companies after the
Trump administration imposed
sanctions on Iran. Alternative
options—like oil from Saudi
Arabia—are more expensive

HEAVY HITTERS (L-R) Defence minister Rajnath Singh and ex-

ternal affairs minister S. Jaishankar with US Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo and US secretary of defense Mark Esper in Washington
Ties That Bind
Indo-American defence coopera-
tion has come a long way in the
past three decades—from being in
opposite camps during the Cold
War to close strategic partners
with multiple areas of convergence

28 INDIA TODAY M A RC H 2 , 2 02 0
 MEETINGS
Defence OF THE MINDS
The US is India’s second largest defence supplier. India’s military
JUNE 26, 2017
conducts more exercises with it than with any other country
White House, Washington
D.C.: Modi and Trump’s first
l Since 2016, India has Compatibility and Se- l India and the US held
meeting. India and US release
been designated a ‘ma- curity Agreement have their first tri-services a statement on shared values.
jor US defense partner’, been signed. A third, the exercise—codenamed India objects to China’s Belt and
giving it access to clas- Basic Exchange and Co- ‘Tiger Triumph’—in 2019 Road Initiative, with US support
sified US technology operation Agreement, is
l Deals worth $15 billion
yet to be signed
l Two agreements to were concluded from NOVEMBER 13, 2017
increase inter-operation l India conducts more 2006-2019. Deals for ASEAN summit, Manila: Modi
capability—the Logistics military exercises with planes, drones, missiles, and Trump discuss geostrategic
Exchange Memorandum the United States than gunships and naval guns interests in the Indo-Pacific
of Understanding and it does with any other worth $10 billion are Quadrilateral and free trade
the Communications country currently in the pipeline
DECEMBER 1, 2018
G-20 Summit, Buenos Aires:
Modi participates in the first
trilateral meeting with Japanese
premier Shinzo Abe and Trump

IN THE JUNE 28, 2019

PIPELIN G-20 Summit, Osaka: Trump
and Modi discuss 5G, defence
and trade. Before the meeting,
Trump demands India withdraw
‘unacceptably high tariffs’
24 Seahawk MH-60R
multi-role helicopters AUGUST 26, 2019
$2.6 billion G-7 Summit, Biarritz, France:
6 Apache attack Trump says he ‘discussed Kashmir’
with Modi, offers to mediate with
helicopters Pakistan. India rejects the offer
22 Sea Guardian drones $ 934 million
$2 billion SEPTEMBER 22, 2019
“Howdy, Modi!”, Texas: Trump
and Modi address a crowd of
50,000 Indian-Americans. Modi
makes a strong pitch against ter-
6 P 8I Poseidon rorism. Trump describes it as “ag-
Five NASAMS $1.8 billion gressive” but very well received
surface-to-air
missile systems SEPTEMBER 24, 2019
$ 1.8 billion 13 Mk 45 UN General Assembly, New
naval guns York: Trump and Modi meet on
$ 1 billion the sidelines of the UNGA. Trump
says Modi will take care of radical
Islamic terrorism

l There are more than 50 bilateral
dialogue mechanisms between India
and the United States
l A hotline was established in 2016,
JOSE LUIS MAGANA / AP
second country with which India has
such a dialogue
l Strategic and commercial dialogue
meetings have been held at the

connecting the Indian Prime Minister’s foreign minister and minister of

Office and the US White House
l India holds annual ‘two plus two’
meetings between its foreign and
defence ministers and their Ameri-
can counterparts. The US is only the
state level between India and the US
l In 2018, the US gave India its
‘strategic trade authorization’ designa-
tion. India is the third Asian country to
receive it after Japan and South Korea

Compiled by Roshni Majumdar, Suhani Singh, Anilesh S. Mahajan and Aditya Wig
C OVER STORY | CRIME

THE DARK
WEB
OF CHILD
PORN
Driven by demand and veiled by the dark web, the
creation and circulation of child pornography has
seen an alarming rise in India—now the biggest
uploader of child sexual imagery in the world

By SONALI ACHAR JEE | Illustrations by NILANJAN DAS

 COVER STORY | CRIME

Last October, Prajwala, a Hyderabad-based NGO that

rescues and rehabilitates sex trafficking survivors, came
across some disturbing footage of child pornography
on the internet. When Sunitha Krishnan, co-founder of
Prajwala, went to meet a child featured in it, she expected
a scared, silent, suspicious person. Instead, she found a
cherubic 12-year-old girl, bursting with enthusiasm. Pra-
niti (name changed) was no problem child. She attended
school, was polite and never begged for chips or soda. She
would chat with a close friend online, someone her par-
ents assumed was from school. Nothing prepared them
for the discovery that the person was a stranger and that
sexually explicit photographs of their daughter were all
over the internet. Praniti’s reaction was different. There
was only denial. “She was adamant this person was her
friend, that she had done nothing wrong,” says Krishnan.
The biggest threat in children being ‘groomed’ through
the internet is the complete transfer of trust from the prey
WHAT’S
to the predator. It destroys the construct of victimhood in
a child’s mind. “The child doesn’t know he or she is being OUT THERE
exploited. Imagine a childhood spent grappling with the
notion of betrayal and abuse,” says Krishnan.
Cyber grooming of the very young, like Praniti, is the newest
threat in a booming online child pornography market that has rea-
ched alarming proportions in India (see Perverse Patterns). Accor- 244,188
ding to the US-based National Centre for Missing and Exploited unique Twitter accounts engaged in
Children (NCMEC), India now accounts for the maximum number child sexual exploitation were removed
of online child sexual abuse imagery in the world, followed by Thai- between January and June 2019
land. NCMEC estimates that Indian users have uploaded 25,000
images or videos in just the past five months. Delhi tops the list for the
maximum uploads of child porn, followed by Maharashtra, Gujarat,
Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. “Innovation and the internet come
with their own set of challenges, some of which are alarming as in
child pornography,” says Dr Gulshan Rai, chief information security
11.6 million
pieces of content considered to involve
officer in the prime minister’s office. “The IT Act bans the viewing,
child nudity were removed by Facebook
creation and distribution of child pornography in the country, but it in the first quarter of 2019
still happens. Moreover, intermediaries like social networks are not
removing such content fast enough. They are not owning up to their

32 INDIA TODAY M A RC H 2 , 2 02 0

1.2 mn
photos of child abuse
and nudity were
removed by Instagram
in the second and third
quarters of 2019
850,291
videos were
removed by YouTube
between July and
September 2019
over concerns
about child safety
Source: The latest transparency reports of Twitter,
Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram
130,000
WhatsApp accounts
that shared images of
nude children in January
2019 were blocked
50,000
The number of daily Indian
users on the dark web.
In 2014, before virtual
private networks (VPNs)
became commonplace,
the figure was 200,000
INDIAN USERS
HAVE UPLOADED
25,000 IMAGES
OR VIDEOS IN JUST
THE PAST FIVE
MONTHS. DELHI
TOPS THE LIST
responsibility towards society, focusing instead on revenue and
maximum visibility.”
Anyone—a family member, criminal racket or cyber strang-
er—can create child porn. They need not be paedophiles. “We
are seeing an increase in self-generated child porn,” says Sidd-
harth Pillai, co-founder of Aarambh, which runs a helpline for
reporting child porn. Government figures also show that circu-
lation of child porn is on the rise. Last year, 377 websites were
blocked in India for posting child porn content. According to
the latest National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) report, 781
cases of creating or storing child porn were recorded in 2018. In
2017, it had been 331 cases. Odisha had the maximum number
of such cases (333) in 2018, as opposed to only eight in 2017.
“Much of child abuse footage is filmed inside homes by known
relatives or family friends. This could happen anywhere—ur-
ban, rural, poor, rich. There would also be an offline apparatus
where victims of sex trafficking could be filmed,” says Pillai.
Reports show that approximately 100 people have been
arrested or summoned for viewing and distributing child porn
across the country since November 2019. Additionally, Guja-
rat’s Crime Investigation Department received names of 62
paedophiles in the same month. In October 2019, the CBI
filed cases against seven Indians involved in an international
child sex racket. What is not mentioned is whether these same
people also create content. According to the NCRB, one child
is sexually abused every 15 minutes in India. While there is no
single figure for how much of this happens within homes, those
working with victims and several independent studies estimate
that 70-90 per cent of all child abuse is perpetrated by people
known to the child. “Often couples or child abusers film their
acts, and this content gets leaked. There is also grave concern
over children being groomed to participate in sexual activities
through social media friends,” says Pillai. Child sex abuse is not
just traumatic in a person’s formative years, it creates a cycle of
abuse. According to a 2008 study in the International Journal
of Adolescence and Youth, ‘pathological family atmosphere with
precocious exposures to sexual behaviours and sexual acts,
traumatic sexual experiences in childhood, sexual interests and
exploration, deprivation and failure in romantic relationships,
and young boys who have been coerced into homosexual acts,
are at increased risk of becoming young sexual offenders.’
There are also reports of an offline, unorganised child porn
industry, perhaps a subset of the larger organised porn in-
M A RC H 2 , 2 02 0 INDIA TODAY 33
dustry in India.
exists where tra
Krishnan. One
sume child sexu
ery could be be
in areas that a
of traff icking
Bengal, Rajasth
harasthra being
three, shows NC

A
larm
repo
Sabh
and
Ven
set u
under the leade
gress’s Jairam R
2019. The 14-me
with social media firms and repre-
sentatives from the women and child
development, electronics & IT and
home affairs ministries to discuss two
key issues: children accessing por-
nographic material and the circulation of child porn.
Around 40 recommendations were submitted in the
RECOMMENDATIONS BY THE RAJYA
final report last month. At present, instances of child SABHA COMMITTEE, FEB. 2020
porn are not reported to a governing body or recorded
and made public by social media companies, a practice LEGISLATIVE sold in India
the same firms follow in the US. The US also has cyber î Make advocating sexual î Coordinate with block-
acts to a child an offence chain analysis firms to trace
crime teams that monitor and track down child porn
under POCSO and IT Acts cryptocurrency transactions
creators based on these reports. The Rajya Sabha re- î Prescribe Code of î Make it mandatory for so-
port has recommended that a central body be set up to Conduct for intermediaries cial media platforms to have
whom online platforms can report IP addresses of those (online platforms) to curb use tools to detect child porn
searching for child porn. While the panel did consider of children for pornography
several legislative, technological and institutional mea- î Hold intermediaries re- INSTITUTIONAL
sures for those viewing and promoting child porn, it did sponsible for reporting IP î National Commission for
addresses of all those Protection of Child Rights to
not include how content creators or those advocating
viewing or searching for porn be the nodal agency for child
sexual activities to children online will be tracked. The î Make school management pornography cases
menace is largely to be dealt with on visible circulation responsible for a child’s î National Crime Records
channels. And while digital safety education was recom- safety on premises Bureau to mandatorily record
mended, nothing was mentioned on sex education for î Enact punitive measures and report every year all
children to be more aware of their bodies and rights. The for those showing cases of child pornography
children porn
report’s impact on lawmakers and subsequent imple-
î Let Centre block any SOCIAL/ EDUCATIONAL
mentation of the recommendations remains to be seen. channel carrying child sexual î Campaigns for greater
While the electronics & IT ministry had earlier abuse material awareness among parents
recommended that automated tools weed out terror- to recognise early signs of
ism and child porn, it is likely that the final draft of TECHNOLOGICAL child abuse, online risks and
the guidelines for IT intermediaries will mandate only î Permit law enforcement improving online safety
child porn be monitored and removed. The final call agencies to break end-to-
end encryption to trace child STATE LEVEL
on revised guidelines is expected in the next few weeks.
porn distributors î Appoint e-safety commi-
Among the people the committee consulted and who î Make apps to monitor ssioners in states to ensure
also helped draft the final report was Amol Deshmukh children’s access to porn implementation of social
mandatory on all devices media and website guidelines

34 INDIA TODAY M A RC H 2 , 2 02 0

of research outfit Herd Foundation. “Online exploitation of chil-
dren is a major concern,” he says. “We have recommended that
cyber grooming, advocating or counselling sexual activities with
a person under 18, be made an offence under the Protection of
Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. We also discussed
setting up a cyber-crime investigative agency in India, especially
to monitor the dark web, where a major chunk of child porn is
viewed.” However, monitoring of online criminal marketplaces,
like the dark web, did not make it to the final Rajya Sabha report.
THE DARK WEB
Social media giants are beginning to act against child pornogra-
phy in India. In January 2019, WhatsApp blocked 130,000 ac-
counts that shared images of nude children in 10 days. YouTube
removed 851,441 videos citing child safety concerns between July
and September 2019. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, too,
removed millions of such images and videos last year. However,
this is just the trackable surface web. What is available on the
dark web can never be fully documented. Playpen, a dark web-
site the FBI shut down in 2015, had 215,000 users and 23,000
sexually explicit images of children, even toddlers.
India is currently among the top 10 countries logging on to
the dark web, according to metrics released by the TOR Project,
an open-source software for enabling anonymous communica-
tion (50,000 Indians logged on daily as of January 2020). Fig-
ures can fluctuate depending on how people access the network,
and how they cover their tracks. In 2014, the figure was over
200,000 a day for India. According to Hyderabad-based ethi-
cal hacker Bharat Rao, “It is now very simple for people to hide
COVER STORY | CRIME
their location, thanks to online tutorials and virtual private
networks. This makes it harder to track actual user numbers.
I don’t think the figures since 2014 have reduced, people are
just accessing the dark web differently and more covertly.”
Unlike the surface web, where websites are indexed on
search engines, the dark web helps sites achieve total anonym-
ity. Software like TOR directs internet traffic through hun-
dreds of virtual tunnels. These tunnels are created between
nodes (or relays). Each time data is transmitted, a random
route is picked between these nodes. TOR also goes a step
further and deploys the ‘onion routing’ of data. Imagine driv-
ing from Delhi to Jaipur—
instead of taking the direct
TRACKING NH-48, you drive through a
A SINGLE number of other towns and
USER ON THE cities to reach it. None of the
DARK WEB cities will know which other
CAN TAKE 3-4 city you visited except the
MONTHS. FOR one before and after it. And
WEBSITES, each time you go, you take a
MUCH MORE different route. This is essen-
tially how a user connects to
the deep web; the convolut-
ed, hidden route maintains
blanket secrecy.
A user can access the dark web very simply. All one has to
do is download a TOR browser (available as an app on smart-
phones and downloadable on desktops), and connect. On the
deep web, there is no Google. Instead, you have search en-
gines like The Hidden Wiki, Duck Duck Go and TOR Links.
These will not show you any results for child porn, which is
‘officially’ banned just as on the surface web, complying with
the guidelines of the offline world. However, logging on to
specialised encrypted search engines like Onion Land and
Onion Dir takes you to a different world. On Onion Land
alone, a search for ‘child porn’ throws up over 130 website
links, and a search for ‘child porn India’ around 50. There
are websites which sell children as slaves, host videos of child
torture, images of children with aggressive animals and of
children taking nude selfies. A search for ‘nude child Indian’
on Onion Land reveals 42 links, and one listed images by
caste, state, colour, gender and age.
Rather than names, websites on the dark web are a random
alphanumeric sequence strung together with the domain name
‘.onion’. For example, a link describing ‘india child stripping to
bra’ was ‘jnsbixyz32lsex82nm.onion’. Transactions to access
such content are made in Bitcoin. On jnsbixyz32lsex82nm.
onion, the price to view five images was about Rs 6,000 in
Bitcoin. To gauge the popularity and cost-effectiveness of these
links, you only have to visit the various crowdfunding plat-
forms for child porn. One website—uh3xkebozq5n6ygv.onion
(listed on a Reddit forum)—lets you view images and videos
only after 500 users have paid around Rs 800 in Bitcoin.
Content is also sold on the hundreds of marketplaces of the
M A RC H 2 , 2 02 0 INDIA TODAY 35
 PERVERSE
PATTERNS
Child predators often spend weeks building
connections with their victims, normalising
the watching of porn before manipulating
them into making such material themselves

T
he cyber grooming of children
by predators—the befriending of
children online with the explicit
intention of later sexual exploita-
tion—is spreading with alarming
rapidity in India. And what often goes
largely unreported in India is the evolving
modus operandi of such predators.
“The victims are those who are
‘struggling’ in some way,” says Shelja Sen,
child psychologist and family therapist.
“They could be lonely, failing in academics,
dealing with parental strife, born with a
disability, isolated from others their age...
these are the kids who are singled out
and approached.” Through a process that
involves stalking their victims on social
media and spinning a compelling narrative
as bait, cyber groomers appear to rely
heavily on gaming forums and chatrooms
to develop emotional connections with
their victims. “They don’t care if the child
is rich or poor, urban or rural, male or
female. They will look for signs [of vulner-
ability], such as posts about loneliness or
weight issues or health conditions—any-
thing that suggests the child is alienated
and craves social connection,” explains
Sunitha Krishnan, co-founder of Prajwala.
This was clearly visible in the case of
14-year-old Heena (name changed). Hee-
na, a student from Lucknow, had often
disclosed to other players on Fortnite (an
online video game that has a chat window
where players can text each other) how
70
per cent
of boys in
Grade 9 watched
6 porn videos a
week on average,
according to one
estimate
miserable she was because her parents
were getting a divorce. It was here that an
online predator—‘Mudita’—found her.
Mudita later approached Heena
on Facebook, and over the weeks that
followed, manipulated her into believing
they had a great deal in common. Mudita
would post about her own parents getting
a divorce, and after she found out that
Heena enjoyed street food, also began
posting photos of chhole bhature, golgap-
pas and kebabs. She was so successful
in the deception that it was Heena who
messaged her, offering words of comfort.
Later, when Mudita introduced her to por-
nography, Heena accepted it as normal
because ‘her friend’ had shown it to her—a
trust that remained unbroken even when
Mudita asked Heena to film herself naked.
It was only when Heena’s mother chanced
upon the messages that the dangerous
‘friendship’ came to light.
It was Mudita’s Facebook account
that gave Manoj Sharma—psychiatrist and
founder of NIMHANS’s social media de-
addiction centre in Bengaluru—a look at
how much deliberation predators put into
their efforts. “Of the 8-10 children we see
per week, invariably, several have been
led to watch porn online,” says Sharma.
“Typically, they are conditioned to porn
from an early age—they find nudity to be
no big deal. So it doesn’t feel exploitative
to them [if they were to be] filmed in the
same manner,” says Sharma. “Everything
is available online and can also easily be
hidden. This is a big advantage for
predators: they hide behind the cloak of
their own profile, and behind what chil-
dren don’t share with their parents.” n

36 INDIA TODAY M A RC H 2 , 2 02 0
 COVER STORY | CRIME
HOW GROOMERS
RUN THEIR
SHADY BUSINESS deep web. Popular ones include Empire, Berlusconi, Cave to R,
Black Mart, Dream and Elite. Most of the products on sale here
are drugs or weapons. All marketplaces have the disclaimer that
selling child porn is banned. And it is indeed not a product for
transaction, until you start a chat. Encrypted, chats are where
cyber groomers peddle content. On Elite, a buyer for static images
quoted the following rates: ‘Child Front: Rs 4,000/ Child Back:
Rs 6,000’ (rupee equivalents of Bitcoin). More can be offered for
Identify child based on Viewers of child videos, children with objects, children with other children, or
vulnerability, emotional porn pay in Bitcoin children with adults. These chat rooms are heavily monitored—
deprivation to access content even something as inconspicuous as taking a screenshot of a
conversation can trigger off an alert, and instant blocking out.
Currently, India does not have the resources to crack down on
such operations. “The dark web cannot be regulated and it will
require a full-fledged investigative
agency to even try. At present, we
THE CENTRE don’t even have one for the surface
HAS BANNED web,” says Mukesh Choudhary, a
Establish contact with Content is now on ‘dark’ CHILD PORN, cyber crime expert who has trained
child through social
media or a video game
websites, which have no
name, and are only listed on BUT IS YET close to 5,000 armed forces officials
chat encrypted search engines TO SET UP A and police in India on cyber crime
DEDICATED investigations. “Hunting for users
AGENCY TO through the dark web is very hard,”
INVESTIGATE he adds. “Websites change links,
CASES people hide locations, routes of
data transfer are hidden and differ-
ent each time.” Rai makes a similar
point: “The dark web is extremely
Gain trust through Sells images time-consuming to regulate. At times, it can be impossible.”
repeated conversations and videos— Tracking a single user on the dark web can take 3-4 months;
(this can take 2-3 transaction in tracking a website even more. A US-South Korea crackdown on
months) Bitcoin
a child porn dark website called Welcome to Video took over two
years. Transactions in cryptocurrency, onion routing, encrypted
chats and Protonmail (which also cannot be tracked) are the big-
gest hurdles for dark web investigators.

THE ROAD AHEAD

Various stakeholders are involved in child protection, each play-
ing a different role. Social media platforms are clear there is zero
Introduce Contacts buyers tolerance for any kind of child abuse. Says Pallavi Walia, public
the child to porn through encrypted
and nudity chats on dark web policy head at Twitter India, “We have been at the forefront of
marketplaces responding to the challenge of preventing the exploitation of
children on the internet and will continue to fight online child
sexual abuse and invest in essential technology and tools.” What
these tools are, the company is unwilling to divulge.
ShareChat, however, is open to sharing that they use artificial
intelligence (AI) to detect child porn. “AI tools usually detect
skin or movement. Some videos have only audio, or the bottom
half will be cut off to trick the AI,” admits Berges Malu, public
Ask child to Cyber groomer policy head at ShareChat. A similar problem with AI has been
shoot ‘harmless’ taps dark web detected on Facebook too. Krishnan tried to report a group called
nude images using a free TOR Kochu Sundarikal (Little Pretty One), an English-Malayalam
of self browser community of 3,000 paedophiles openly discussing child abuse.
The AI could not spot a ‘community guideline violation’ because

M A RC H 2 , 2 02 0 INDIA TODAY 37
 The Dark Web COVER STORY | CRIME

DEEP WEB REGULAR

The part of the deep web
where criminal activities
happen is called the dark web
î Users and websites can
achieve total anonymity
î Uses ‘onion routing’ to hide
the original IP address: data
passes through several points
î A new route of data
transmission is picked each
time and the entire route is
not known to any of the points
data passes through
î Websites do not show on
Google search. Popular search
engines include Onion Land,
Duck Duck Go, Hidden Wiki
crisis’. Public shaming or humiliation is often used as a deterrent
(SURFACE)
WEB for crime in China and some American states. Psychiatrists, be-
haviouralists and even judges are divided on whether this is an
effective form of discipline, though it’s viewed as a stronger mes-
î Users and sites can sage than moral policing. The justice system, however, needs to
be tracked through in- be speedy and robust for such punishments to have an impact.
dividual IP addresses A blind eye is being turned towards sexual education,
even though academics argue for its benefits in deterring
î Data passes
through fixed points child abuse. “Children need to be educated about sex. If they
and the entire route is know about their bodies, they knows about their rights,” says
known S.K. Khandelwal, head of psychiatry, AIIMS, Delhi. Chennai-
based sexologist Prakash Kothari, who has been practising for
48 years, thinks likewise. “I have seen the age of puberty speed
up from 14 years to 11 now. This is largely because of exposure
to sexual content through
movies, news, songs, so-
î Websites can be
indexed by Google EXPERTS cial media, chatrooms etc.
search RECOMMEND SEX However, the mind still
EDUCATION, SO matures at age 21. This

î Web links are a random î Web links begin THAT CHILDREN is why it is imperative for
alphanumeric sequence with www KNOW THEIR schools to educate chil-
dren about their bodies, to
strung together, ending BODIES—AND
help them understand ex-
with ‘.onion’ THEIR RIGHTS
ploitation,” says Kothari.
î Can be accessed only î Can be accessed Arun Kapur, director
through a TOR browser through any browser of Delhi’s Vasant Valley
(TOR, Chrome, Ex-
plorer, Safari)
School, says, “Parents need to be parents, not friends. Discipline
and awareness about digital safety begins at home. There is only
î Transactions only happen î Transactions largely so much schools can do. Most children today are on phones
through cryptocurrency and happen through even before they start school,” says Kapur. Indeed, parents are
all chats are encrypted traceable forms of the first responders here. In the UK, Papaya Parents, a collec-
banking; not all chats
tive of concerned parents who wish to battle phone, porn and
are encrypted
internet addiction among their kids, advises being involved
with children, having open discussions and clear guidelines on
usage. Many also access their kids’ social media accounts, and
will monitor it till they turn 18. India has no such support group.
it was in a vernacular language. Similarly, Ankit Mitra (name Despite media scrutiny and suggestions for stricter legal
changed), 31, a cyber hacker from Ahmedabad, says he re- measures, creation of, and access to, child pornography has
cently helped bust a WhatsApp group called Bhabiji ghar pe never been simpler. In 1991, when Freddy Peats was arrested
hai, where 150 paedophiles shared images and links to child for sexually exploiting children at his Goa orphanage, the po-
porn on the dark web. Despite consultations with social media lice discovered 2,305 porn photographs of minor boys engaged
companies, the government has not mandated accountability in sexual acts with white men and 135 film negatives of child
or punitive measures for failure to remove or report content. porn in his possession. What took Peats 20 years to achieve
The government has banned child porn but is yet to set can now be done in a few weeks. A search on a dark website
up a dedicated agency to investigate cases of those who view, reveals 300,000 images of children being forced to engage
distribute and create it. There is a general consensus on the in sexual acts with other children, children being tortured
ineffectiveness of moral bans. “Generally, harm reduction is by adults, being bitten by animals and nude selfies of young
a more successful approach because even if pornography is schoolgirls and boys. This is the threat of the internet, where
banned, people are likely to continue watching (as they have the hunter and the hunted exist on the same platform with
for centuries). Typically, a ban does not stop use, it just moves nothing to distinguish one from the other. With close to 66
use into the shadows and stigmatises the behaviour, which is million children from India scouring the web every day (ac-
antithetical to the goal of decreasing negative health effects,” cording to a 2019 study by the Internet and Mobile Association
says Kimberly M. Nelson, professor, Boston University, and of India), each one is at risk of becoming a silent victim in an
co-author of the study, ‘Pornography is not a public health advancing pornography market. n

38 INDIA TODAY M A RC H 2 , 2 02 0
 THE BIG STORY
TELECOM

THE TUMULT IN
HOW POLICY AMBIGUITIES AND A PROTRACTED LEGAL BATTLE WITH THE GOVERNMENT OVER REVENUE
BY M.G. ARUN

T
TEN YEARS AFTER INDIAN TELECOM
was rattled by the 2G spectrum scam
and the Supreme Court cancelled 122
licences issued by the UPA govern-
ment in 2008, the sector is witness-
ing another upheaval. This time, the
apex court has stepped in to ensure
that telcos Bharti Airtel, Vodafone
Idea and Tata Teleservices pay up over
Rs 1 lakh crore in revenue share the
government claims they owe in return
for acquiring licences and spectrum.
The three companies are widely re-
ferred to as the ‘incumbent’ players,
since the other major operator, Reli-
ance Jio, entered the market only in
2016. According to the Department
of Telecommunications (DoT), which
issues the licences, the three incum-
bents owe the government Rs 35,600
crore, Rs 53,038 crore and about
Rs 14,000 crore, respectively.
TELECOM
SHARING HAVE PUSHED INDIAN TELECOM PLAYERS TO THE BRINK
On February 17, three days after
the Supreme Court pulled up telcos
for not abiding by its January 16 order
to clear the dues, Vodafone Idea made
a Rs 2,500 crore part-payment to the
DoT, with the assurance that it will
pay another Rs 1,000 crore by Febru-
ary 21. Bharti Airtel said it had paid
Rs 10,000 crore to the DoT while
Tata Teleservices paid Rs 2,197 crore.
While the telcos have sought re-
lief from the hefty payments, Voda-
fone Idea’s case is particularly com-
plicated, with the court rejecting its
plea that the DoT be directed not to
invoke the company’s bank guar-
antees—reportedly about Rs 2,500
crore—to recover dues. “I hope good
sense prevails over the government
that if it encashes the guarantees, the
banks will pay, but the company will
go down,” Vodafone Idea’s counsel
Mukul Rohatgi told a TV channel.
Industry observers say if Voda-
fone Idea shuts down, the conse-
quences will be drastic. “It will be
a terrible thing for the economy,
the banking system, the telecom
industry and its customers, sup-
pliers and digital partners,” says a
telecom official, requesting anonym-
ity. “Unlike airlines, where the sup-
ply breach caused by the closure of,
say, Jet Airways could be filled by
other players, in telecom, capacity
cannot be replaced, including the
enormous physical infrastructure.
In such cases, the executive should
wield its powers and step in to save
the operator.”
The industry expects the govern-
ment to allow it an extended morato-
rium to make the payments, to rede-
fine Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR),
Illustration by TANMOY CHAKRABORTY
or even waive interest and penalties,
and to stick to the principal amount
to be paid. The incumbents and the
DoT have been waging a legal battle
for around 15 years. The crisis points
to ambiguities in policy, which have
not only caused confusion, but also
left loopholes for telcos to exploit.
The government’s handling of the
telecom sector has also come under
question. What was a sunrise indus-
try now sees players, except Reliance
Jio, battling for survival. It all threat-
ens to end in a duopoly that could
send tariffs skyrocketing.
TROUBLED HISTORY
The telecom sector was liberalised
under the National Telecom Policy,
1994, paving the way for the entry
of private players. For a fixed fee,
licences were issued in various cat-
egories—unified licence, which al-
lowed a firm to offer both wireless
and wireline services; licences to
Internet Service Providers (ISPs);
and licences to provide passive infra-
structure, such as towers and fibre.
In 1999, the NDA government gave
licensees the option to migrate to the
revenue-sharing fee model.
As per the model, telecom op-
erators were to share a percentage
of their AGR with the government
as annual licence fee and spectrum
usage charges. The licence fee was
pegged at 8 per cent of AGR while the
spectrum usage charges were fixed
at 3-5 per cent. According to Clause
19.1 of the Draft Licence Agreement,
gross revenue included installation
charges, revenue on account of inter-
est, dividend, value-added services
and so on. Calculated on this basis,
 THE BIG STORY
TELECOM THE AGR DEMAND
The Centre has demanded Rs 1.48 lakh
crore in licence fees, spectrum charges,
AGR excluded certain charges, such as the Interconnection penalty, interest and interest on penalty
Usage Charge (IUC) and roaming revenues that are passed
Licence fee demand
cr

28,300
on to other operators.

24,700
`
While the DoT says it is following the definition of AGR as Spectrum usage

5 5 ,1 0 0

92
charge demand Total
per the licence agreement, industry sources claim the defini- demand

,6 0 0
tion of AGR in the licence conditions underwent revisions (Figures in Rs crore; `1,47,700

13,900
some figures have

21,700
regarding the applicable rates for licence fee and spectrum us- crore
been rounded off)

`
cr
age charge. While operators wanted to be charged on the basis
of their core business, involving use of the spectrum allotted,

16,500
4,700
the DoT said the definition of AGR includes other items,

10,000
such as dividend, interest, capital gains on sales of assets and

3,800

3,000
7,900
securities and gains from foreign exchange fluctuations. In

3,800
2,900

1,400
2001, the Association of Basic Telecom Operators submitted

2,100

2,500
to the government that non-operational income should not

600
be included while computing AGR. However, in 2002-2003,
the DoT demanded revenue share as per the Draft Licence
Agreement, following which operators approached the Tele-

Vodafone
Idea

Tata Tele.
Airtel

RCom

Aircel

BSNL

MTNL

Others
com Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT).

A
long-drawn-out legal battle followed. Around the
same time, the telcos stopped paying their revenue
share on the disputed part of the AGR. Operators
argued that taxes and levies in India were among THE COST Total ` 92,641 cr
the highest in the world and appealed to the government
not to press for payment of AGR-based dues. The industry’s OF DELAY Interest on
penalty ` 16,878 cr
contention is that it pays the government Rs 30 for every Rs Over time, the
Penalty ` 10,923 cr
100 earned, in the form of levies and taxes. GST is at 18 per dues claimed by
cent, and the industry has been demanding that the licence the government
fee be reduced to 3 per cent, and the Universal Service Ob- in licence fees
ligation Fund (USOF) charge to 3 per cent from the current have ballooned to Interest on
Rs 92,641 crore disputed amount
5 per cent. USOF was created in 2002 to expand internet
when the original ` 41,650 cr
and mobile connectivity in rural areas. In August 2019,
the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) alleged disputed amount
was about Disputed amount
that half the funds raised by USOF between 2002-03 and
a fourth of ` 23,189 cr
2018-19 remained unutilised.
that sum
In 2015, the TDSAT ruled that AGR includes all receipts
except capital receipts and revenue from non-core sources. Source: Supreme Court judgment, company annual reports,
stock exchange filings, Kotak Telecom report, Ace Equity
But on October 24, 2019, the Supreme Court set aside that or-
der and upheld the DoT’s definition of AGR. The incumbents
approached the court for a review, but the plea was rejected on
January 16 this year. However, the Supreme Court agreed, on
January 21, to take up a modification plea filed by the telcos, AGR: A BRIEF HISTORY
seeking to negotiate a ‘sustainable payment schedule’. This î After the telecom sector was liberalised in 1994,
followed the Union cabinet’s decision on November 20, 2019, the National Telecom Policy stipulated a steep fixed
that telcos be given a two-year moratorium on payments. annual licence fee; telcos defaulted regularly
However, on February 14 this year, the Supreme Court
î In 1999, telcos were given the option to shift to a
slammed the telcos over unpaid dues and warned of con-
revenue-sharing model; 15% of the Adjusted Gross
tempt proceedings if they did not pay up by March 17. “The
companies have violated the order passed by this court in pith Revenue (AGR) was fixed as licence fee; revised to 8%
and substance,” said the court. “In spite of the dismissal of by 2013. Spectrum usage charges were fixed at 3-5%
the review application, they have not deposited any amount î While telcos want AGR to be calculated based on
so far.” Following the Supreme Court rap, the DoT asked the income from core operations, DoT says it should
telcos to pay the AGR dues by the end of day on February 14. include dividends, sale of assets, etc. The Supreme
As per reports, the original disputed amount of about Court upheld the DoT’s contention in Oct. 2019
Rs 23,000 crore snowballed to the present figure of close to

42 INDIA TODAY M A RC H 2 , 2 02 0 Graphics by TANMOY CHAKRABORTY

 THE BIG STORY
TELECOM PEACE-MAKING
PAYMENTS?
Total dues* Paid so far**
Rs 1.5 lakh crore as the DoT contended that the entire dues accu-
mulated over the past 15 years be paid with interest and penalty.
` 2,500

VODAFONE
The Supreme Court was of the view that telecom players
benefited immensely from the DoT’s formula of AGR calcula- ` 53,038 crore

IDEA
tion. In its October 24, 2019, order, the court said the “revenue- crore
sharing package turned out to be very beneficial to the telecom Another
service providers, which is evident from the continuing rise in `1,000 crore
by Feb. 21
the gross revenue”. Gross revenues earned by telecom service
providers stood at Rs 4,855 crore in 2004, Rs 89,108 crore by
2007, and subsequently touched Rs 2,37,676 crore in 2015,
said the court.
`10,000

BHARTI
AIRTEL
SIGNALS TURN RED ` 35,600 crore

“The industry is reeling from the Supreme Court decision on crore

AGR. It has further aggravated the already precarious financial
position of operators,” says Rajan Mathews, director general of
COAI. “The ball is now firmly in the government’s court to fix

the vexatious AGR problem, by either eliminating it altogether
or redefining it along the lines recommended by the Telecom
Regulatory Authority of India and the industry, as well as reduce
the licence fee and spectrum usage charge to 3 per cent and 1 per
cent, respectively. We believe AGR is an anachronism in a day
when operators have paid for spectrum and licences upfront.”
As of January, TRAI pegs Reliance Jio as the largest tele-
com player, with 369 million mobile subscribers, followed by
Vodafone Idea (336 million) and Bharti Airtel (327 million).
‘The increase in Jio’s subscriber base is largely at the cost of the
fall in Vodafone Idea’s subscriber base,’ says a report by India
Ratings & Research. While a Vodafone Idea spokesperson
refused to comment, company sources said the board had as-
sessed the company could pay up Rs 3,500 crore without delay,
of which Rs 2,500 crore was paid on February 17. Vodafone
Idea’s assessment of its dues to the government is “significantly
different” from the government’s claim, the source says. For
part payments of dues, the company can dip into its cash
reserves without affecting its working capital needs. Also, the
Indian subsidiary can ask the parent Vodafone Plc to pitch
in with Rs 8,000 crore, the source says. The proposed sale of
Indus Towers, a telecom infrastructure firm jointly promoted
by the Bharti Group and Vodafone Group, would also help.
In a February 17 letter to member (finance), DoT, Bharti
Airtel director-legal Vidyut Gulati said that of the Rs 10,000
crore paid, Rs 9,500 crore was on behalf of Bharti Airtel and
Rs 500 crore on behalf of its subsidiary, Bharti Hexacom. ‘We
are in the process of completing the self-assessment exercise
expeditiously and will duly make the balance payment upon
completion of the same, before the next hearing in the Supreme
Court,’ says the letter, which india today has seen. While a
Bharti Airtel spokesperson declined comment on the AGR
matter, a mail sent to Tata Teleservices went unanswered till
the time of going to press.
The Supreme Court’s October 2019 directive hit the in-
cumbent telcos hard. The year-to-date losses for Vodafone
Idea, Bharti Airtel and Tata Teleservices in FY2019-20 stand
TELESERVICES
`2,197
crore
TATA `14,000
crore
(*as per DoT) (**till Feb. 17, 2020)
at Rs 62,233.8 crore, Rs 26,946 crore and Rs 2,840 crore,
respectively. Vodafone Plc has already spent over $17 billion
(around Rs 1.2 lakh crore) to buy out Hutch and Essar’s stake
in Vodafone Essar between 2007 and 2012, and injected
several billions of dollars more to acquire spectrum and
build infrastructure. Effective December 1, 2019, Reliance
Jio, Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel announced tariff hikes,
for the first time in five years. According to India Ratings &
Research: ‘The average revenue per user (ARPU) reported by
telcos has started showing signs of recovery in the last two-
three quarters. The recent tariff hikes are likely to support
the increase in ARPU over the next few quarters.’
Even if Vodafone Idea tides over the AGR crisis by, say,
delayed annual payments over the long term, its weak bala-
nce sheet makes it vulnerable, as per an SBI Caps note, to
incremental regulatory changes. In a three-player market,
that could be a reason for TRAI to go soft on it. ‘But the mo-
ment Indian telecom shapes up as a duopoly, the regulator
may start perceiving telcos differently. Price hikes, pricing
power, spectrum pricing—all...may see the regulator taking
a tougher stand,’ the note says. While some analysts foresee
a Reliance Jio-Bharti Airtel duopoly and higher tariffs,
Vodafone Idea is looking to stay in the fight. “There is hope
of some relief in terms of staggered payments [of dues],”
says a company official. But the options seem to be running
out for the British telco that had entered India betting on
its high growth potential. n

44 INDIA TODAY M A RC H 2 , 2 02 0
TOWARDS A
BETTER FUTURE
INSURANCE PLANS BECOME
MORE TRANSPARENT
AND FLEXIBLE
HOW TO PROTECT YOUR
Illustration by SIDDHANT JUMDE

FIXED DEPOSITS

SHOULD YOU GO FOR

DIVIDEND OPTION IN
MUTUAL FUNDS?
SMART MONEY INSURANCE
MORE BANG
FOR YOUR
BUCK
Guidelines issued by the regulator have
made new insurance policies more
transparent and flexible
I
f you are planning to
buy life insurance, you
must know that IRDAI
(Insurance Regulatory
and Development Authority)
has introduced significant
changes in non-linked and
unit-linked insurance poli-
cies to make them more cus-
tomer-friendly and trans-
parent. Effective February
1, only products complying
with the new guidelines have
been on offer. The old ones
have been withdrawn or re-
filed with IRDAI. Existing
policyholders, though, will
have to wait. The regulator
is yet to define guidelines to
extend the benefits to ongo-
ing policies.
As per the new regula-
tions, you can make partial
withdrawals from ULIPs
(Unit Linked Insurance
Plans), withdraw more
money from your pension
plans, have defined and
uniform surrender value
across insurers and make
use of extended revival peri-
ods for lapsed policies. “The
new guidelines will help
policyholders stay insured
and save more,” says Naval
46 INDIA TODAY M A RC H 2 , 2 02 0
Goel, CEO and founder of
PolicyX.com. Here are the
major changes in life insur-
ance policies and how they
will impact you:
LONGER REVIVAL
PERIOD
Earlier, if your policy had
lapsed because premiums
had not been paid, you could
have revived it only within
two years from the date of
the first unpaid premium
(FUP). Now, the revival
period has been extended to
three years for ULIP plans
and to five years for non-
linked plans. However, you
will have to pay up all the
premiums skipped. “If a new
ULIP customer discontin-
ues premium in the first five
years and does not opt to
revive the policy, the revival
period could be limited to
the period remaining of the
first five years as the policy
will be terminated at the end
of five years,” says Sanjay
Tiwari, director, strategy,
Exide Life Insurance.
Earlier, for ULIPs, if
you paid the first three an-
nual premiums, your policy
Illustration by TANMOY CHAKRABORTY
became a paid-up policy
and could have continued
till the originally planned
maturity even if you did not
pay any premium. This has
changed. “If a new ULIP
customer discontinues pay-
ing the premium after five
years and does not revive the
policy, the paid-up option
is restricted to a three-year
revival period and the policy
is terminated thereafter. A
paid-up or non-premium-
paying ULIP policy will not
be continued till the origi-
nally planned maturity,”
adds Tiwari.
UNIFORM
SURRENDER VALUE
Surrender value is the sum
an insurance company pays
if one exits the policy before
maturity. Earlier, one could
have terminated a policy
only after three years. Now,
one can do so after two years
if the premium-paying term
is less than 10 years. Besides,
the surrender value factor
that insurers used to fix by
themselves has been defined
by the insurance regula-
tor for all insurers. If you
surrender a policy after two
years, a fixed sum of up to
30 per cent of the total pre-
miums paid less any survival
benefits already paid will
be given. The value will be
35 per cent in case of three
years and 50 per cent after
four or seven years.
LOWER SUM
ASSURED ON ULIPs
The changes in ULIPs are
most important to take note
of. Earlier, only those above
45 years of age were eligible
to buy ULIPs, with a death
cover of less than 10 times
the annual premium. Now,
the death cover for regu-
lar premium and limited
premium-paying policy has
been reduced to seven times
the annualised premiums,
irrespective of the age when
you purchase the policy. The
move can result in better
returns as a lesser amount
of mortality charges will get
deducted. However, going
for a lower sum assured,
that is, less than 10 times
the annual premium paid,
will not get you tax benefits.
“For availing income tax
 benefits under Section 80C
and 10(10D) respectively,
the minimum sum assured
needs to be 10 times the
annualised premium for
the policyholders to take ad-
vantage of tax exemptions,”
says Aalok Bhan, director
and chief marketing officer,
Max Life Insurance.
Exide Life Insurance
has continued with higher
insurance for longer term
policies. “A higher cover for
longer term policies reflects
our brand philosophy. We
have chosen not to offer
the life cover of seven times
multiple of premium below
WHAT’S IN the entry age of 45 years to
ensure all these customers
IT FOR YOU get tax benefits,” says Tiwari.
l Now, revive your
lapsed ULIP within
three years and PARTIAL ULIP
non-linked plan WITHDRAWALS
within five years No defined partial with-
l Surrender value is drawal rules were available
now fixed across all in the previous ULIP plans.
insurers and ranges Now, IRDAI has allowed
between 30 and 50% it for events such as higher
for two to seven years
education, marriage of son/
l Partial withdrawal daughter, critical illness of
up to 25% in three
tranches allowed for self/ spouse and buying/
ULIPs after five years constructing a residen-
of the policy tial house, thus making it
l Minimum death benefit competitive with respect to
guaranteed at 105% of the National Pension System
all premiums paid (NPS). You can withdraw
l Flexibility to reduce up to 25 per cent of the
your ULIP premium to fund value thrice during the
50% after five years policy term, provided the
l Commute up to 60% policy has completed five
from your insurance- years. Note that although a
linked pension plans
defined partial withdrawal
l Minimum death cover option will provide much-
under ULIPs down
from 10 to seven times needed liquidity, your insur-
the premium paid ance cover will reduce.
l One can pick a differ-
ent annuity provider in HIGHER RISK
deferred annuity plans COVER ON ULIPs
l ‘No-guarantee option’ Earlier, nominees of ULIP
on market-linked pen- investors used to get the
sion products higher of the sum assured or
the fund value in case of the
demise of the investors. In
case of policies with lower
sum assured and longer
tenure, often the premium
paid becomes higher than
the sum assured over a
period. If the market under-
goes a correction, the death
benefit in many cases could
be lower than the premium
paid. However, now the
nominees would receive a
higher amount. “ULIPs will
be available with a risk cover
equal to 105 per cent of the
total premiums paid (in case
this amount is higher than
the sum assured and fund
value) on the settlement
period,” says Goel.
FLEXIBILITY TO
REDUCE ULIP PREMIUM
New ULIPs will offer
more flexibility in case you
want to bring down your
annual investment. “You
have the option to reduce
premiums by up to 50 per
cent of the original annu-
alised premium after the
end of the five-year lock-in
period. This offers you
convenience if you are not
able to pay up the larger
premium due to any finan-
cial exigency,” says Goel.
PENSION PLANS
GET BETTER
Policyholders with insur-
ance-linked pension plans
can now withdraw up to 60
per cent of their maturity
benefit at vesting age when
regular payment begins. It
was fixed at 33 per cent of
the corpus so far. However,
in pension plans, only the
withdrawal of one-third of
the corpus will remain tax-
free and not the entire 60
per cent. “Even though the
tax exemption remains the
M A RC H 2 , 2 02 0
same, it gives the investor
an option to withdraw a
higher amount on maturity.
Having such an option
will make investors worry-
free to meet the rising costs
of living,” says Rakesh
Goyal, director, Probus
Insurance Broker Ltd.
CHANGE ANNUITY
PROVIDER
In a deferred annuity plan,
investors typically invest a
lump sum and wait or invest
a regular amount to build a
bigger corpus over a period.
After reaching the vest-
ing age, when the annuity
payment starts, they did not
have any option to change
the annuity provider even if
other players were offering a
higher rate. Now, investors
are allowed to shift 50 per
cent of their corpus at the
time of vesting to a different
annuity provider.
MARKET-LINKED
RETIREMENT BENEFITS
The new rule allows policy-
holders to opt for the pos-
sibility of earning a higher
return on their investment
by choosing the ‘no guar-
antee option’ and by asking
the insurer to increase
the equity exposure in the
policy. However, any equity
investment comes with zero
guarantee of returns or
capital. If you choose the
‘no guarantee option’, the
insurer will not be account-
able to return your capital
or earnings. “If you can take
this risk, you may con-
sider investing in insurance-
linked pension plans. Else, it
is better to prefer traditional
retirement benefits,” says
Goel of PolicyX.com. n
-Aprajita Sharma
INDIA TODAY 47
SMART MONEY FIXED DEPOSITS
B
anks have tradition-
ally enjoyed people’s
trust, especially
when it comes to
safekeeping their money.
However, the crisis in the
Punjab and Maharashtra
Cooperative (PMC) Bank
not so long ago, where many
depositors with higher
fixed deposit (FD) amounts
were unable to withdraw
their deposits, has come as
a shock to many investors.
It also exposed the gross
inadequacy of the deposit
insurance cover of Rs 1 lakh
given to each depositor in
case of bank failure. This
limit was introduced in
1993 and continued for al-
most 27 years. Budget 2020
has done damage control by
raising the insurance cover
to Rs 5 lakh, which came
into effect on February 4.
It could provide safety to a
decent number of people,
but may not be sufficient for
those with a much higher
amount of deposit in bank.
We tell you how you can en-
joy higher insurance cover
on bank deposits.
INVESTING IN
DIFFERENT RIGHTS
AND CAPACITIES
The deposit insurance cover
applies separately on each
account held in different
rights and capac applies
separately ities. As an
individual, you can open a
regular savings account. Ad-
ditionally, you may also have
an account as a guardian of
a minor, a partner of a firm
or a director of a company.
All these accounts held in
different capacities will
enjoy a separate Rs 5 lakh
cover. You can have joint ac-
counts with different people,
MAKING THE MOST
OF YOUR FDs
How to get a higher insurance cover
on your bank deposits
all of which then enjoy a
separate insurance cover.
INVESTING IN THE
NAME OF FAMILY
MEMBERS
One way to divide your
deposits is to hold FDs in
the name of different family
members. “We all invest in
the name of family mem-
bers in any case. Now the
FD cover would be about
Rs 5 lakh,” says Suresh
HOW TO MAXIMISE YOUR
DEPOSIT INSURANCE COVER
l Hold deposits in differ-
ent rights and capacities
to enjoy Rs 5 lakh cover
separately on each
l Similarly, hold FDs in dif-
ferent capacities—as an
individual, a partner of a
firm, guardian of a minor
or director of a company
CEO and co-founder, Paisa-
bazaar.com. “The same rule
applies to FDs opened in the
name of minors, except for
a tax exemption of Rs 1,500
per year, per child. However,
interest income from FDs
opened in the name of the
Illustration by TANMOY CHAKRABORTY
depositor’s parents and
major child does not get
clubbed with his income.”
INVESTING IN
DIFFERENT BANKS
If you wish to get higher
interest by depositing in
smaller banks, it is better to
stick to a Rs 5 lakh deposit
which also includes the
interest amount. “Insur-
ance cover on bank deposits
applies separately to the de-
posits held with each bank,”
says Kukreja. “Hence,
banking consumers can
reduce their risk by diversi-
fying their deposits across
Sadagopan, founder, Lad- multiple banks. Increased
der7 Financial Advisories. insurance cover for deposits
“We do not suggest more of up to Rs 5 lakh will also
than two or three bank ac- allow consumers to deposit
counts per person. For chil- a higher amount in small
dren, we suggest just one.” finance banks and some
However, it may have private sector banks, which
tax implications. “Interest offer much higher interest
earned from FDs opened rates than bigger public and
in the name of a depositor’s private sector banks”
non-working spouse will get If your priority, though,
clubbed with the depositor’s is safety than some percent-
income and taxed accord- age point benefit, then it is
ingly,” says Naveen Kukreja, better to stick with strong
banks. “If one is interested in
protecting one’s money, one
of the things we suggest is to
choose high-quality banks
like SBI, Bank of Baroda,
l Maintain joint HDFC, which are strong
accounts with
banking entities where the
different family
members to enjoy deposits will be safe,” says
a separate Rs 5 Sadagopan. “Such entities
lakh cover on each will offer lower returns as
compared to other lower-
rated banks.” n
l Open additional —Naveen Kumar
account in multiple
banks
 SMART MONEY MUTUAL FUNDS

source will increase money tion the dividend received

in the hands of investors in
the lower tax brackets and
remove the double taxation
impact on mutual fund in-
vestors. But it might increase
the tax liability of investors
in the higher tax brackets,
especially equity and debt
fund investors, who earlier
under the head of ‘Other
Income’ in their income tax
returns. “DDT has been
removed, but taxpayers will
need to pay tax on the same.
Those in the 30 per cent tax
bracket will pay more taxes,
as earlier they used to pay no
tax on dividend income up

TAKING STOCK OF YOUR paid 10 per cent and 25 per

cent tax, respectively.”
to Rs 10 lakh,” says Kuldip
Kumar, leader, personal tax,

MF INVESTMENTS WHAT’S DIFFERENT?

So far, mutual funds were
Dividends will now be taxed in the hands of paying DDT before handing
individuals. Here’s how this affects you over dividends to investors.
DDT was levied at 10 per
PwC India.
Should you stick to the
dividend option in mutual
funds? “Individual with
incomes below the basic
threshold of Rs 5 lakh

M
utual fund investors
are often unsure
whether to opt for
the dividend or
growth option of their mu-
tual fund investments.
Many inexperienced inves-
tors go for the dividend
option in the hope of getting
some additional income.
However, unlike shares,
mutual fund dividends are
your own money, and not
additional income.
WIN-WIN FOR LOW INCOME EARNERS
CALCULATION FOR A DIVIDEND OF `10,000 VS CAPITAL GAIN OF `10,000
TAXED ON THE BASIS OF OLD SYSTEM AND NEW SCENARIO
Finance minister Nir-
mala Sitharaman has, in the
Union budget, proposed the
abolition of the dividend dis-
tribution tax (DDT), which
made dividend payments
taxable. In the new dispen-
sation, dividend receipts
will be taxed in the hands
of individual investors. The
percentage of the tax will
be as per one’s income tax
bracket. According to Crisil,
‘The abolition of DDT at
cent for equity schemes and
25 per cent for debt schemes,
excluding the applicable
surcharge (12 per cent) and
cess (4 per cent).
Under equity schemes,
if dividend worth Rs 10,000
was to be distributed, then
Rs 1,000 would be deducted
as tax. Under debt schemes,
the amount paid after tax
would reduce to Rs 7,500.
After the budget proposal,
investors will have to men-
should opt for the dividend
distribution option,” says
Jayant Vidwans, director,
Allstages Financial Solu-
tions. He adds that those
with taxable income should
change their mutual fund
scheme options to growth.
CHANGE YOUR
SALARY STRUCTURE
If your company has been of-
fering you its shares, request
a rejig of your salary struc-
ture such that you get income
in hand instead of more
shares. This is critical as the
dividend would be taxed—at
a steep 43-plus per cent for
top-rung earners.

OLD TAX REGIME NEW TAX REGIME

TAX DEDUCTED
NET
NET AMOUNT AFTER TAX** AT SOURCE
MUTUAL FUND
SCHEME TAX AMOUNT (AS PER INCOME TAX BRACKET) If a mutual fund pays out
RATE RECEIVED
AFTER TAX dividend of over Rs 5,000
NIL 5% 20% 30%
in a year, it would deduct 10
Equity funds dividend 10% `9,000 `10,000 `9,500 `8,000 `7,000 per cent of the amount as
Equity capital gains > 1yr ^ 10% `9,000 `10,000 `9,500 `8,000 `7,000 TDS (tax deducted at source).
Equity capital gains < 1 yr * 15% `8,500 `8,500 `8,500 `8,500 `8,500 To avoid hefty TDS cuts, an
investor will have to opt for
Debt funds dividend 25% `7,500 `10,000 `9,500 `8,000 `7,000
different folio numbers in
Debt fund capital gains > 3yr # 0 `8,000 `8,000 `8,000 `8,000 `8,000 their fund investments.
*Short-term capital gains tax, ^ Long-term capital gains tax above Rs 1 lakh This will make keeping track
Tax rates *^# Remain unchanged under Budget 2020 proposals of your fund investments
Additional surcharge (12%) and cess (4%) applicable on the dividend distribution tax amount
**Additional cess and surcharge applicable as per income level more complex. n
-Khyati Dharamsi

50 INDIA TODAY M A RC H 2 , 2 02 0 Illustration by TANMOY CHAKRABORTY

A CITY IN EXILE AND THE
A FOG KINGDOM
PG 55 PG 5 6

OF ART AS Q&A WITH

CURRENCY B. SAI PRANEETH
PG 5 9 PG 60

REEL ACTION
(top to bottom) Stills
from Sthalpuran:
Chronicle of Space;
Eeb Allay Ooo! My
Salinger Year; and
Gumnaam Din

E VEN
AMONGST
4 00 FILMS,
NE W GEN
INDIA MAKES
IT S MARK
by Meenakshi Shedde

I
that exciting time of year when the
Berlin Film Festival, or Berlinale, one of
the first A-list festivals in the calendar,
comes around. Held from February 20
to March 1, the 70th edition of the festi-
val will open with Philippe Falardeau’s
My Salinger Year. Starring Sigourney
Weaver and Margaret Qualley, it fol-
lows Joanna, assistant to literary agent
Margaret, whose job is to answer the
fan mail of cult author J.D. Salinger.
Headed this year by artistic director
Carlo Chatrian, the Berlinale will screen
about 400 films of all genres, including
fiction, documentary, shorts, animation
and children’s and experimental films.
It’s a sign of the times that Johnny
Depp (of Pirates of the Caribbean fame)
now stars in the docu-fiction film Mina-
52 INDIA TODAY M A RC H 2 , 2 02 0
CINEMA PARADISO Berlianale Palast, the festival’s principal venue
mata, as war photographer W. Eugene
Smith, who documents the devastating
effect of mercury poisoning on locals
in Minamata, Japan. The other keenly
awaited films include Abel Ferrara’s Si-
beria starring Willem Dafoe, and Sally
Potter’s The Roads Not Taken starring
Javier Bardem, Elle Fanning and Salma
Hayek. From Asia, there’s Hong Sang-
soo’s The Woman Who Ran (Korea) and
Swimming Out Till the Sea Turns Blue
by Jia Zhangke (China).
India’s Rima Das has been invited
on the festival’s Generation 14plus
international jury. “It was like magic. I
couldn’t help crying,” Das told the press.
Her Bulbul Can Sing had won a Special
Mention in the Generation 14plus cat-
egory last year. Her previous film Vil-
lage Rockstars premiered at the Toronto
Film Festival, won four National Film
Awards and was India’s entry for the
Oscars in 2019.
India has a strong showing this year
with four films, including Pushpen-
BRIGITTE DUMMER COPYRIGHT BERLINALE 2016
dra Singhs’ Laila aur Satt Geet (the
Shepherdess and the Seven Songs). A
feminist allegory about a Kashmiri
woman, it will have its world premiere
in the new Encounter section. Trapped
between a cowardly husband and
sexual advances by the police, she re-
jects authority, patriarchy and even her
clothes. The character has shades of the
14th century Kashmiri mystic Lal Ded.
“Berlin feels like a second home,” says
Singh. “I went initially for the Berlinale
Talents and, since then, apart from my
film Lajwanti as a director, a couple of
German films (including Asta Upset), in
INDIAN CINEMA
HAS A STRONG
SHOWING AT
BERLINALE
2020 WITH
FOUR FILMS IN
THE LINE - UP
LEISURE
which I acted, were also screened here.”
Prateek Vats’s Eeb Allay Ooo!, to
be screened in the festival’s Panorama
section, is a dark satire about a migrant
worker who nearly goes mad trying to
keep his ‘job’ as a monkey repeller in
Delhi. “I did not expect to get selected,”
says Vats. “At every stage (of filmmaking),
I had doubts whether the film was worth
it—being selected is a validation.” Akshay
Indikar’s Marathi film Sthalpuran:
Chronicle of Space will play in the Gener-
ation Kplus section for children. It is told
from the point of view of eight-year-old
Dighu, whose family moves from Pune
to a Konkan village. Not realising his
parents have separated, Dighu struggles
to understand where his father is and
when they will return to Pune. “I had ap-
plied to Berlin, but without expectations.
It’s thrilling to have my world premiere at
the Berlinale,” says Indikar. His previous
feature Trijya (Radius) had its world pre-
miere at Shanghai and was later shown
at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival
(Estonia). Ekta Mittal’s Gumnaam Din
(Missing Days) in the Berlinale Shorts, is
a poetic evocation of the lonely families
migrants leave behind.
In the Berlinale Talents section,
where young filmmakers and film talents
get mentoring, networking opportunities
and more, a whopping 15 South Asians,
including seven from India have been
selected across disciplines. These are Ivan
Ayr (Soni), Geetika Vidya (Soni), Domi-
nic Sangma (Ma’Ama), Acharya Venu
(Ma’Ama), Varun Sasindran (his Omar-
ska won a Berlinale Shorts Special Men-
tion in 2019), Prantik Basu (Rang Mahal,
Berlinale Shorts, 2019), and Mukul Haloi
(Tales from Our Childhood). The South
Asian talents to watch out for are Anam
Abbas and Nida Mehboob (Pakistan),
Deepak Rauniyar, Rajesh Prasad Khatri,
Kiran Pokharel and Asmita Shrish
(Nepal), Sadia Khalid (Bangladesh) and
Rajee Samarasinghe and Bavaneedha
Loganathan (Sri Lanka). The Berlinale
is a rare opportunity for South Asian
filmmakers to network, something they
might find challenging back home. n
Meenakshi Shedde is a well-known critic
and an independent curator
CINEMA
‘Lal Ded is
the solution for
Kashmir’
Pushpendra Singh, director of
Laila aur Satt Geet, showing at the
Berlin Film Festival, was inspired
by a folk tale for this feminist alle-
gory about a Kashmiri shepherd-
ess. Excerpts from an interview
Q Laila aur Satt Geet, your
second feature at the
Berlinale after Lajwanti,
is epic, poetic, contemporary
and political. How did the script
evolve?
My scripts are usually only an
idea. I work with people, and
change things along the way. In
fact, Laila aur Satt Geet was the
first film I wanted to make. It is
based on Vijaydan Detha’s story
Kenchuli, drawn from a folk tale.
I belong to Rajasthan’s Gujjar
community, which is linked to the
nomadic Gurjars and Bakarwals
in Kashmir. They are associated
with militancy, but I found them
to be hard-working and kind. I
thought I could adapt the folk tale
to Kashmir well.
Q. Kashmir is a hotbed of socio-
political issues. How did you
decide what would lend itself
to a fable?
I could connect the feudalism of
Detha’s story to Kashmir. So, for
me, Kashmir is Laila, the Indian
state is the policeman, and the
Kashmiri mainstream politi-
cian is the security guard. They
act as if they are playing a game.
For instance, when Mehbooba
Mufti formed a coalition with the
Bharatiya Janata Party, they both
pretended to be naïve. Also, Kash-
miris suffer from the Stockholm
Syndrome. Sometimes, they are
pro-India, at other times, pro-
separatist. They say the Indian
State is luring them, or that the
Indian security is forcing them.
This seemed like a folk parable.
Q. Your film also gives the 14th
century Kashmiri mystic Lal Ded
a contemporary relevance. What
drew you to Lal Ded?
I’ve been fascinated by the Kabir
and other mystic movements
since my Film and Television
Institute of India days. Lal Ded
is the solution for Kashmir. The
Bakarwals, who have suffered the
most from boundaries, discuss
her. They are nomads who have
travelled to Afghanistan and
Tajikistan; their music and dress
reflect these influences. n
—with Meenakshi Shedde
A
In LAIL T
S A T
AUR ,
GE ET
gh
us hp endra Sin
P ussed
has foc ir’s
m
on Kash karwal
ic a
B
nomad unity
comm

A DOMINANT
CHARACTER
The Radical
Science and
Restless Politics
of J.B.S. Haldane
by Samanth
Subramanian
W.W. NORTON &
COMPANY
Rs799; 416 pages
The
BOOKS
Lifelong
Rebel
In
Samanth
Subramanian
brings us one of
20th century’s most
colourful characters his day, J.B.S. Haldane was
one of the most famous
in science scientists (and popularisers
of science) in the world. A
colourful character, he was a
lifelong rebel who became a
committed Marxist and, near
the end of his life, renounced
his British citizenship and
moved to India to live and
work there. Seeing that
there is clearly a great story
to be told here, Samanth
Subramanian has written a
well-researched biography
that can help revive interest
in one of 20th century’s most
fascinating characters.
The book starts with an
54 INDIA TODAY M A RC H 2 , 2 02 0
LEISURE
account of a 1948 meeting
in Moscow where Trofim
Lysenko used Stalinist tactics
(including public confes-
sions and purges) to force
Russian biologists to reject
“Bourgeois Genetics” and
accept his pseudo-scientific
nonsense in its place. When
the BBC did a programme
about this, they invited
four eminent geneticists to
discuss it. While his fellow
panelists were unequivocal in
their condemnation of these
events, Haldane offered
mealy-mouthed justifications,
refusing to reject Lysenko’s
theories even though they
clearly contradicted es-
tablished biology as well as
Haldane’s own discoveries in
genetics. Subramanian then
asks: “Why did he side with
the party against science?”
The book is his attempt to
answer this question.
Subramanian, who
does not appear to have a
background in science, does
an excellent job of explaining
Haldane’s discoveries and
the development of genet-
ics in general. The story of
Haldane’s life is told in an ex-
tremely readable and engag-
ing manner. And what a story
it is—the son of a famous
Scottish physiologist (J.S.
Haldane), he went to Eton and
Oxford (where he studied the
classics and mathematics),
served with distinction as an
officer in the Black Watch in
the great war, published his
first genetics paper while
fighting in France, taught at
Oxford and Cambridge before
settling into University Col-
lege London and becoming a
world-famous geneticist.
As a committed Marxist,
he visited the Soviet Union,
fought for the Republic in
Spain and became chairman
of the editorial board of the
Daily Worker. But his famed
willingness to challenge
authority and think for himself
seemed to desert him when
it came to the Communist
Party. Long after many fellow
Leftist scientists saw the gap
between the ideals and the
reality of the Soviet Union,
Haldane continued to defend
Stalin (whom he described
in 1962 as “a very great man,
who did a very good job”),
and refused to accept that his
friend and Russian geneticist
Vavilov had been purged and
starved to death in prison.
The last section deals
with Haldane’s life in India
and his struggle with cancer,
which he faced manfully,
quoting the Gita (“For one
who has taken birth, death is
HALDANE’S FAMED
WILLINGNESS
TO CHALLENGE
AUTHORITY WOULD
DESERT HIM ONLY
WHEN IT CAME TO
THE COMMUNIST
PARTY
certain. For one who is dead,
birth is certain. Therefore, for
what is unavoidable, do not
grieve”), and, finally, leaving
his body to science. Subra-
manian then adds some boil-
erplate liberal commentary
about science, racism, eu-
genics and the role of politics
in science—“We have realised
the failures of the calm weight
of scientific evidence to
influence government policy,
the need for scientists to find
their voice has grown even
more urgent.” This is ironic,
considering Haldane’s at-
tempt to “find his own voice”
led him to admiring Stalin and
defending Lysenko; less “en-
gagement” might have been
an improvement. Despite the
shallow philosophical mus-
ings though, Subramanian
tells the story of Haldane’s life
and explains his science well.
Well worth reading. n
—Omar Ali
 BOOKS
A CITY
IN A FOG
Deepa Anappara’s Delhi is a bleak
place where dangers lurk in the long
shadows cast by ‘hi-fi’ buildings
S
mog meanders
through the pages
of Deepa Anap-
para’s moving
debut novel; an oppressive
presence, like one of the
malevolent djinns that
nine-year-old Jai worries
might be behind a series
of child snatchings in his
basti—the last stop of a
metro line in the book’s
nameless fictional analogue
of Delhi. Smog and djinns
are just part of a combus-
tible mix of dangers, lurk-
ing in the long shadows of
Nithari and Nirbhaya. Jai’s
basti is filled with relent-
less poverty, child abuse,
rape, murder, exploitation,
extortion, corruption,
religious ferment—in short,
the smouldering stuff of our
daily newspaper city pages
Deepa
Anappara
that occasionally flare up
into a lead headline.
Anappara has worked
as a journalist, reporting on
poverty, religious violence
and education and won
awards for her writing. But,
increasingly, gruesome
crime is as inescapable in
our urban fiction as it is in
our cities; Djinn Patrol...
is just one of several
novels in recent years
that have fruitfully
borrowed the tools of
detective and speculative
fiction to hammer stories
out of the cha-
otic, systemic
violence
Photo copyright LIZ SEABROOK
that defines urban life for
so many.
If all this sounds a bit
heavy, it is—and sometimes
novels take up the mission
of writing from behind
the beautiful forevers only
to find themselves unable
to escape being pedantic,
patronising or purple (Raj
Kamal Jha’s The City and
the Sea is a recent example).
Djinn Patrol..., however,
NN
HE
NE
ra
IN
es
transcends its burdens
by being exceptionally
well-written, thoughtfully
structured and, above all,
sensitive to the precise
individuality and mental
acuity of its characters. Its
world is also beautifully
described, from the alleys
of Bhoot Bazaar to the big
city’s main railway station,
where Jai and his school-
friend Pari travel in search
of missing children.
That trip to the city—
their first via metro—feels
like an adventure that’s the
inverse of the famous train
scene in Pather Panchali.
(The film’s archetypal
sibling relationship is also
echoed in Jai and his sister
Runu.) But unlike Apu
and Durga running to
see the powerful symbol
of modernity steaming
through their pastoral
fields of blooming kaash,
Jai and Pari “stare out of
the glass panels… We pass
hi-fi buildings, gone before
we can look into their
windows, a clock tower,
an amusement park with
giant roller coasters… and
the tops of trees going grey
in the smog. Three streaks
of green zoom close to
the train and disappear.
‘Parakeets,’ Pari tells me.
I feel like I’m in a dream.”
It’s the landscape around
them—full of places they
will never enter—that is
rapidly moving, and the
commuters on the Metro
only chasing its promises.
Jai’s ability to dream, to
thrill to possibility, is one
of the novel’s bright spots—
a ray of sun momentarily
cutting through the smog
(or a good djinn, like
those found in Ferozeshah
Kotla). So is the loving
relationship his parents
share, or the equitable
marriage of his neighbour
Shanti Chachi. But Djinn
Patrol... is not a hopeful
book and that makes it a
better one. Its readers will
mostly be “hi-fi” people—
us—and Anappara doesn’t
pull punches when it comes
to illustrating our constant
complicity in perpetuat-
ing dehumanising poverty.
Djinn Patrol... shames
without being preachy, but
also without mitigation. n
—Sonal Shah
 ON THE OUTSIDE
Aatish Taseer
(above); and a still
from In Search of
India’s Soul

D O C U M E N TA RY

Postcards from an Exile

In a new documentary, writer Aatish Taseer, whose OCI card was revoked by the Modi
government, explores the fear Indian Muslims feel of a government they perceive as hostile
THE RESISTANCE

Bharat Ek Khoj
This 53-part film (1988), based on Jawaharlal
Nehru’s Discovery of India, was made, written
and produced by Shyam Benegal for Doordar-
CINEMA

shan. Its opening episode is titled ‘Bharat Mata

ki Jai’. Nehru, played by Roshan Seth (as he did in
Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi), points out that
Bharat mata is not found in the land, seas, rivers
or mountains but in all of us. All the people of
India, not just those of us deemed fit by the gov-
ernment of the day. (Available on YouTube)
 LEISURE
B
ack in November, the government’s
decision to revoke writer Aatish
Taseer’s Overseas Citizen of India
(OCI) card caused a brief media
kerfuffle. Taseer, a prominent writ-
er, is the son of veteran columnist
and Lutyens insider Tavleen Singh
and Pakistani politician Salman
Taseer, a former governor of Punjab whose criticism
of his country’s blasphemy laws precipitated his as-
sassination by his own bodyguard. The product of a
fleeting affair, Taseer wrote over a decade ago about his
secular upbringing in India and his infrequent contact
with his father and extended family
in Pakistan. Taseer now lives in New
York with his husband Ryan Davis. Taseer’s
The reason provided by the gov-
ernment for revoking his OCI card documentary
was his apparent failure to disclose explores India’s
his father’s Pakistani nationality. The
39-year-old suspects the decision tak-
secularity and
en by the Narendra Modi government the fractures of
was motivated by a story he wrote, in Partition
the midst of India’s general election,
for Time magazine, its cover embla-
zoned with the headline—‘India’s Divider in Chief’.
For over a year before the Time article was pub-
lished, Taseer had been working on a documentary—
portentously titled In Search of India’s Soul—for Al
Jazeera, the Qatar-based English-language news chan-
nel. The first of the two-part film was aired on Febru-
ary 6, with both parts now available to watch on the
network’s YouTube channel. It is a thoughtful explora-
tion of the Indian Muslim’s fear of Modi’s ‘New India’.
Taseer invokes the secular underpinnings of India, the
idealism and perhaps naivety of a country that hoped a
kind of benign historical amnesia and the sheer scale of
India’s irrepressible plurality would be enough to heal
Final Solution
Rakesh Sharma’s 2004 documentary, ini-
tially banned, has still not been shown on
Indian television and has received the odd
screening at film festivals. Full of violent
language and chilling sequences, It fol-
lows then Gujarat chief minister Narendra
Modi on his ‘gaurav yatra’ around the
state in the near-immediate aftermath of
the 2002 riots. Every Indian should see it.
(Available on Vimeo and YouTube)
the gaping wounds of Partition.
Indeed, Taseer, like his mother, was an early pro-
ponent of Modi, or at least the hope he represented of
an end to a certain kind of sclerotic elitism, the cyni-
cism of equal opportunity appeasement as practised
by Rajiv Gandhi, in which leadership meant giving
in to the worst elements of conservative Muslim and
Hindu ‘sentiment’. But, as In Search of India’s Soul
shows, from the very start of Modi’s time in office,
the sectarian worldview of the Sangh Parivar rode
roughshod over the development-driven promises
that swept him to power. What had seemed a bracing
honesty about old India and the smug entitlement
of its ruling class was little more
than a fig leaf for the paranoia and
animosity towards Muslims that
is the catalysing force of Hindutva.
Towards the end of the film, Taseer
says he is “pleasantly surprised to
find how intact Indian life still is,
how integrated, how assimilated”.
Even this brief note of Pollyan-
nish optimism is made discordant by
Taseer’s sense of Muslim disillusion-
ment, of “a deep feeling of disenfran-
chisement”. He may have “left India feeling encour-
aged and hopeful”, but says Indian Muslims feel a fetid
breath on the back of their necks, the miasma of an
existential threat.
Speaking on the phone, Taseer doesn’t “hold out
hope” for a favourable resolution to his standoff with
the government. He says he is “determined to exhaust
every opportunity”, to see the process through to its
‘logical’ conclusion. What he will not do, though, he
adds, is be cowed, submit to the double whammy of
being deprived of his claim to India—where his mother
and grandmother live—and “being silenced”. n
-Shougat Dasgupta
Ram Ke Naam
Anand Patwardhan’s 1992 film received
a National Award for ‘Best Investigative
Film’ and a Filmfare award. Released
a few months before the Babri Masjid
was torn down, it examines the virulent
campaign to build a Ram temple in
place of the mosque. A temple will, of
course, now be built, one, says home
minister Amit Shah, that reaches up to
the skies. (Available on YouTube)
HIDE,
AND SEEK
Atul Dodiya’s solo exhibition is a
tribute to the greats of western art
ew practis-
F ing artists
in India
are as
knowl-
edgeable about interna-
tional art histories and
cinema, popular visual
culture and vernacu-
lar traditions as Atul
Dodiya. In 2005, he
installed ‘Stammer in
the Shade’, a large can-
vas propped up on metal
crutches, behind which
hid another painted
canvas. The image was
the title of a painting by
Enzo Cucchi, a member
of the 1980s’ Italian
Transavanguardia
movement.
Dodiya’s latest
solo exhibition, on
display at New Delhi’s
Vadehra Art Gallery
till February 29, takes
its title from this work.
It’s classic Dodiya:
luscious oil paintings
on canvas and painted
shutters of galvanised
steel are combined with
photographs taken
during his interna-
tional museum travels.
This exhibition is not
only a homage to the
artists he adores, it also
58 INDIA TODAY M A RC H 2 , 2 02 0
A RT
presents the context in
which viewers see the
work—framed, pro-
tected within galleries
and museums. Dodiya’s
photographs show only
a part of the painting,
and sometimes the art-
ist’s signature (Courbet,
Hopper, Picasso, Van
Gogh, Degas, etc.). The
focus is on the ornate
or plain frames and
the shadows they cast.
Displayed as a series of
small shrines, the shut-
ters are placed as the
central icon, with the
photos propped on top.
The images range
from references to
western art movements,
such as Dadaism, Sur-
realism, Impressionism,
Cubism and Russian
avant garde paint-
ers such as Kazimir
Malevich. The subjects
are drawn from Biblical
episodes, Indian my-
thology (iconic scenes
from Krishna’s life)
and literature (such as
Tagore’s Sonar Tari and
Melville’s Moby Dick).
In a 2005 interview,
Dodiya said, “To hide
a painting behind
another painting, which
 LEISURE
ACROSS TIME
(clockwise from left) A RT
‘Angel’, ‘River’, and

OF ART AS CURRENCY
‘Rose’ by Atul Dodiya;
(bottom) the artist
himself

rk,
s wo
In hi ODIYA a
LD for A REVIVAL Works by
ATU ut clues eep
o d Bikash Bhattacharya (left)
lays r to do a tiple
e u l and Nandalal Bose at the
view into m
dive istories Currency Building
h

I
n the restored 19th century and academic art in Bengal
Currency Building in Dalhou- through the works of painters
sie Square is Kolkata’s brand like Hemendranath Majumdar
new museum. The structure and Atul Bose. There is also
demonstrates the success of a section on the encounter of
public-private partnerships— indigenous art with European
here, the Calcutta Municipal modernism, traditional Kalighat
Corporation, INTACH and the paintings, popular mythological
ASI. It now houses an exhibition imagery etc.
with more than 600 works— A high point is the section
Ghare Baire | The World, The on the Bengal School, led by
Home and Beyond: 18th-20th Abanindranath Tagore, lead-
Century Art in Bengal, com- ing into Santiniketan, Nandlal
missioned by the Bose, Ramkinker
Ministry of Culture Baij et al. Next to the
and curated by the iconic ‘Bharat Mata’ by
e some
Delhi Art Gallery, Despit issions, Tagore are displayed
g laring om ENCY
in collaboration RR unseen gems by
the CU DING
with the NGMA. BU IL Nandlal—small paint-
great
Large panels us e u m is a ata’s ings and sketches.
m to Kolk
d ition
with illustrated ad l map However, by this stage,
cultura
timelines plot a the caption informa-
a viewer can’t see multiple histories and historical trajec- tion becomes thin and
properly, is frustrat- practices of artmak- tory with key moments susceptible to sentimentality.
ing. In the process, ing across time. and figures in the art of Bengal. One is struck by the almost
the viewer would The exhibition Introductions to each section complete absence of women
to struggle hard is rewarding in its are interspersed with excerpts artists. Other than 20th century
ally to see the breathtaking display from the writings of historians painter Sunayani Devi, there are
ge behind. I am of Dodiya’s skill and, like Partha Mitter and Tapati scant few. Also disconcerting is
Guha-Thakurta. the absence of Muslim artists—
playing with the above all, in his play-
The exhibition, on till March Chughtai and Zainul Abedin
rdity of claiming ful dialogue with art 5, begins with 18th-century appear briefly.
erstanding to any history and with the paintings from the colonial Despite these omissions,
k of art.” In his frameworks of insti- period made by itinerant British the museum is a welcome ad-
k, Dodiya lays tutions and canon- and European artists, as well as dition, and one hopes Kolkata
lues for an making through locals looking for new patron- can once again become a hub of
rested viewer to which art is viewed. n age. The next section traces significant art activity. n
deep dive into -Latika Gupta the development of realism —Latika Gupta

M A RC H 2 , 2 02 0 INDIA TODAY 59
 Q A
SLOW AND STEADY
After a slow start to the year, Indian shuttler B. Sai Praneeth, is
ready to jump in and begin training for Olympic qualification
Q. Are you happy with the
current qualification system
for the Olympics?
I’m in a good position to qualify
Q. How are you picking your tourna- for the Olympics, so, I’ll say that
ments at this point? they could ensure qualification
The Asia Team Championships will Q. Is there are a lot of pressure for podium finishers at certain
get me some points which are really as the highest ranked Indian? big tournaments. But if I were still
important at this time. After that, I’ll train If I am the highest ranked Indian, it fighting for a spot, the current
for three weeks and then go for the All means I’m playing well. So I don’t system is good as I can perform
England Open, which will get me ready think I need to worry much. There are well and ensure qualification.
for the big tournaments. And I’m quite so many tournaments, some you play
confident about putting on a good show. well, some you don’t. The season has
just started and the first thing is for
me to qualify for the Olympics.

Q. You have been training

with the top-30 players in
Hyderabad. How has this
helped your game?
Each one has a different style
of play and everybody is in the
top-30, so we have great spar-
ring. We always fight hard during
practice and I think that’s how
we have improved so much.

—with Shail Desai

SHI TANG/GETTY IMAGES

60 Volume XLV Number 9; For the week Feb 25-March 2, 2020, published on every Friday Total number of pages 76 (including cover pages)
 FEBRUARY 2020

FLOORING SPECIAL

ARE IN
FLOORS ARE NOW WORKS OF ART
PATTERNS
OME

RNI No. DELENG / 2006 / 20557. Not for sale. To be

circulated free with India Today in Mumbai, Delhi &
NCR, Chennai, Bangalore and Kolkata. “Supplement
to India Today issue dated March 2, 2020”
 contents
HOME
Editor-in-ChiEf: Aroon Purie
Group Editorial dirECtor: Raj Chengappa
Group CrEativE Editor: Nilanjan Das
Group photo Editor: Bandeep Singh
assoCiatE Editor: Ridhi Kale
photo rEsEarChErs: Prabhakar Tiwari
and Saloni Vaid
art dirECtor: Angshuman De
assoCiatE art dirECtor: Rajesh Angira
produCtion: Harish Aggarwal
(Chief of Production),
Naveen Gupta, Prashant Verma

ChiEf opEratinG offiCEr:

Manoj Sharma
assoCiatE publishEr (impaCt):
Anil Fernandes
sEnior GEnEral manaGEr (impaCt):
Jitendra Lad (West)
GEnEral manaGErs:
Upendra Singh (Bangalore)
Kaushiky Gangulie (East)

Photograph by SAMEER TAWDE; Courtesy MUSELAB

Group ChiEf markEtinG offiCEr
Vivek Malhotra

VOL. 15 NUMBER 2; FEBRUARY 2020

Flooring Special
Copyright Living Media India Ltd. All rights reserved throughout the

8
world. Reproduction in any manner is prohibited.
Printed and published by Manoj Sharma on behalf of Living Media India
Limited. Printed at Thomson Press India Limited, 18-35 Milestone, Delhi
Mathura Road, Faridabad - 121007, (Haryana); A-9, Industrial Complex, DOWN UNDER
Maraimalai Nagar, District Kancheepuram - 603209, (Tamil Nadu).
Published at K-9, Connaught Circus, New Delhi - 110001.
From a home, where the hero is the flooring to an
Editorial/Corporate Office: Living Media India Ltd., India Today Group indepth analysis of wooden wonders, from getting
Mediaplex, FC-8, Sector-16A, Film City, Noida - 201301; a closer look at patterns, as the next big trend to
Editor: Raj Chengappa.
India Today does not take responsibility for
understanding if marble still rules the ground beneath
returning unsolicited publication material. our feet, this is all you need to know about floors

COVER PHOTOGRAPH BY: SAMEER TAWDE

COURTESY: MUSELAB, MUMBAI

Follow us on Instagram @indiatoday_home

to stay up to date on design, interiors,
products, deals and a lot more.
 contents
HOME

24
Photograph by RAJWANT RAWAT

Spaces
DESIGNER'S DEN
A tour of fashion designer
Tarun Tahiliani's Delhi-home

6
Q&A
3
Photograph courtesy STIEBEL ELTRON GMBH

QUICK TAKE
In conversation LAUNCHES
with Dr Nicholas
Matten of Stiebel
Eltron GmBH

28
LAST LOOK

2 INDIA TODAY HOME FEBRUARY, 2020

 n ews
Launches

iSpy
Your guide to the hottest
new stores and products

By RIDHI KALE

TABLE OF
CONTENTS
It’s the season for collaborations and we
are very excited about this one.
Tableware brand Hitkari has collaborat-
ed with Casa Pop and the collection
is just the right mix of traditional
and modern design.

PRICE on request
AT www.hitkari.co.in

FIRST
CHAIR
Flipkart recently tied up with
House of Pataudi and launched
a range of solid wood products.
Featured here is the Ruhani
Fabric Living Room Chair
in Baroque blue.

PRICE `34,999
AT www.flipkart.com
 n ews
Launches

between
the sheets
The new year marks the entry of a
new bath and bed linen brand, Stellar
Home USA, in India. From bed sheets,
comforters and towels to pillows and
curtains, the brand walks a fine line
between classic and contemporary.

PRICE `649 onwards

AT www.stellarhomeusa.com

floral notes
There’s something about frangipani flowers
that can uplift even the drabbest space. This
time they play muse to Delhi-based decor
brand Ellementry’s latest tableware collection
by the same name. Each piece, be it a serving
tray, roti box, cutlery stand, salad bowl,
candle holder, platter with cloche or an oval
tray, has been hand-painted.

PRICE `590 onwards

AT www.ellementry.com

hue knew
French cookware label, Le Creuset is the go-to name
for cast iron vessels that look good and have a host
of health benefits. The new Ultra-Violet range is no
different. The vivid collection is all you need to add a
dash of colour to your kitchen or table.

PRICE `1,100 to `26,000

AT www.le-creuset.in
 n ews
Launches

green
is good
While Stenna Wallpapers may not be as
old as some of the other wallpaper brands
(it was launched in 2018), but it already
has in its repertoire more than 1,200 vari-
eties of wallpapers to choose from. Their
latest nature-inspired offering is all you
need to bring the outdoors in.

PRICE `4,000 (per roll) onwards

AT www.stenna.in

wooden wonder
Wonderfloor, synonymous with vinyl flooring, and the
flagship brand of RMG Polyvinyl India Ltd makes your
floors come to life. The new Timberland and Timber-
world collection of PVC wooden planks come in shades
and designs, carefully chosen to complement natural
wood. Manufactured with multi-layer technology to
handle heavy foot fall, it also has a PUR protection layer
that enhances durability. What’s more? The PVC wood-
en planks are termite moisture and fire resistant. Plus
the flooring is recyclable.

PRICE on request
AT www.wonderfloor.com

old is gold
The Décor Circle, an online store that retails an
assortment of home decor products, has launched
a range of vintage jars. Featured here is Volantis, a
set of two decorative ceramic pieces in white and
gold with a small bird made on the lid.

PRICE `5,499
AT www.thedecorcircle.com
 n ews
Q&A

Home Care
Why energy efficiency and climate-based
products are the need of the hour
By ADITI PAI

“There is no such thing as the Indian climate. The subcon-
tinent is influenced by extremes all across the four zones,”
says Dr Nicholas Matten, the Group Managing Director of
Stiebel Eltron GmBH, known as the pioneers of Tankless
Water Heaters and the heat pumps. While the Holzmind-
en-based German company has more than 3,500 products
in home comforts and renewable technology including
devices for domestic hot water, room heating and ventila-
tion and air purification, it has a whole new range of prod-
ucts for India. While their products have been sold in the
country for years, Stiebel Eltron set up its operations in
India in 2017 with products that are energy-efficient and
reasonably priced.
Made for India
In keeping with the diverse climatic conditions across the
country, Stiebel Eltron has a portfolio of products that
cater to the varied needs such as single-phase and three-
phase instantaneous water heaters, small water heaters,
wall-mounted and free-standing cylinders and heat
pumps for domestic hot water, distributed ventilation with
heat recovery and air filtration devices. “We are coming up
with new concepts and ways of solving traditional applica-
tions around heating and cooling houses,” says Matten.
Multi-functional Water Heaters
A new introduction in the Indian market is the Euro Heat
Pump, which is a “mega heat pump” that performs multi-
ple functions at the same time from heating the water to
heating or cooling the room and providing adequate ven-
tilation. While cooling a room, it extracts the hot air from
the house and uses the same energy to heat water. “For
every one kilo watt of electricity that you put into it, you
get functions worth 6 KW out, making it energy efficient,”
says Matten. The device
has two pipes and the dis-
tribution is done according
to the requirement of hot
water or cold water.

LIQUID ASSETS
Dr Nicholas Matten
(above); a heat pump
(left); and water heater,
both from the brand (top)
particles that are as fine as 2.5 micron. It comes with an
easy to change filter so is convenient to use,” says Matten.
PRICE `25,000 onwards
AT www.stiebel-eltron.in
Looking Ahead
Even as heating and cool-
ing solutions vary across
the length and breadth of
the country, a new pan-
India product that Stiebel
Eltron is set to bring to
the market is a ventilation
system with filtration in
keeping with the growing
pollution across Indian cities
and towns. “It can consider-
ably change air quality inside
and hold back pollen and

16 INDIA TODAY HOME F E BRUA RY, 2020

 n ews
Book Review
The Unplanned City
Delhi’s growing needs and population
demands the government, architects and
urban planners to sit up and take notice
By MRINI DEVNANI
A
Sense of Space—The Crisis of Urban Design
in India takes you on a virtual journey of In-
dia with the author, architect and urban de-
signer, Ranjit Sabikhi who raises vital questions
about town planning, land, space, and design.
He picks several cities across India and goes onto
give a detailed account of Delhi’s urban crisis.
In the book, you will find comprehensive plans,
a complete study of urban planning and ideas,
especially if you are a planner, urban designer,
landscape architect, economist, or sociologist.
He starts with traditional Indian architecture
that was all about close-knit spaces, internal
courtyards, and narrow streets and stresses that
these had a sense of community and local charac-
ter as opposed to the current, detached ones. He
then turns a critical eye when the British enter
into India’s design landscape with no intention to
reconstruct the socio-cultural necessities of cities.
They made no attempt to understand the exqui-
site beauty of Shahjahanabad, the Vastu Purusha
mandala of Jaipur or the
mix of Hindu, Muslim
and Christian lifestyle in
Kerala, and ended up
destroying native struc-
tures to set up ‘Civil
Lines’ inspired by Eben-
ezer Howard’s Garden
City idea. With a
geometric grid of roads
and isolated structures,
the cities lost their
traditional fabric and
early settlements.
Post-Independence a
shift in attention to mak-
ing rigid land-use zoning
and master plans failed
to accommodate the changing needs of cities.
Sabikhi observes that the Partition of India,
1957 posed challenges of over-population for
Delhi where the numbers increased from 60,000
to 5 lakh. Years of master planning failures since
1962 led to over-population, congestion, squalor,
and settlements on the fringes of the city, giving
it the shape of a suburban settlement. With this,
the Delhi Development Authority (DDA), in the
process of providing affordable housing, sought
to make profits like a commercial developer.
While lands since then have become open to
misuse, Sabikhi points at the current deteriorat-
ing quality of life in Delhi. Through master plan
2021, he observes that to accommodate a
population of 230 lakh people, we have long way
to go to become a developed city. Sabikhi holds
the authorities responsible for not having a
mechanism in place and ignoring important
issues of town planning. With no periodic
revision of developmental plans, lack of aerial
surveys, there always has been a dearth of
upgraded information. Increased citizen partici-
pation in decision-making with a need to provide
adequate facilities by the authorities such as
health centres, schools and play areas has become
the need of the hour for the capital.
Taking up several case-studies in and
around Delhi, Sabikhi’s book becomes a critical,
eye-opener for Delhi’s growing needs. By plan-
ning our multi-modal transport network and are-
as around the metro stations, we too need to start
taking responsibility for our public spaces. With
bye-laws and systematic plans and execution, A
Sense of Space is also about ‘a sense of place’ that
must stimulate civic identity and pride.
Publisher HarperCollins
Price `1,499
 cover story
Material

WOOD YOU DO IT?

I
Our expert decodes the f you are looking for
flooring options that are
wooden flooring options versatile and instantly add
in the market and helps a luxurious feel to your in-
you pick the perfect teriors—wooden flooring is
the answer. Be it laminate,
one for your space engineered or natural wood,
the beauty of this material adds
By RUCHIR PARMAR warmth, character and enhanc-
es the overall ambience of the
space. While budget is always an
important factor, today wooden
floorings come in inexpensive
options too. And while you are
still toying with that idea, here is
an insight on what’s available in
the market.
Natural Wood
Nothing beats the real thing. So
if you can, you should invest in
natural wood. Solid wood floor-
ing tends to last for more than
a hundred years. If maintained
well, it looks even more graceful
with age. It is low maintenance
and the non-electromagnetic
nature keeps the dust and dirt

Senior Partner at Mumbai-based

KKD.Studio that specialises
in luxury interiors.
www.kkd.studio

LOOKS GOOD
BPC Master Silver Cedar from HKS 1835,
Germany is perfect for outdoor areas
Price on request;
www.hksflooring.in

28 INDIA TODAY HOME F E BRUA RY, 2020

 STEP UP
Laminate wooden flooring by NOTION is made up
of multi-layered synthetic flooring product fused
together with high-density fiberboard
`110 per sqft onwards; www.notion.net

at bay. More importantly, no two Laminate Wood

planks will be alike; the natural
variations make it interesting.
Since wooden planks are thick,
even if there are small differences
in the floor heights, it can be
adjusted, while this is not possible
with laminates. The highlight is
that installing and dismantling is
pretty easy, so you can take it along
when you’re relocating. And if that
is not motivation enough, it also
provides a good return on invest-
ment, since the value of wood
continues to rise with time. Having
said that, other than the cost, there
are a couple of drawbacks like
swelling or shrinking with temper-
ature and moisture fluctuations,
increased potential for termite
attack that require treatments
that are expensive.
PRICE `500 onwards
If you have your heart set out for
natural wood and don’t have a big
budget, this inexpensive alterna-
tive to natural wood is what you
could consider. From rustic and
antique versions to heartwood
pines you will never run out of
options. Laminate is quite a stable
material and is not prone to hu-
midity and surface spills, hence is
easy to maintain. It is resistant to
abrasions in normal wear and tear
being harder than natural wood.
In addition, because of its light-
weight and thin sections (6mm to
9mm thick), laminates can be eas-
ily installed over existing flooring.
However, the body is not entirely
moisture resistant and long-term
exposure will cause damage, hence
not recommended for several ar-
eas such as kitchens or bathrooms.

F E BRUA RY, 2020 INDIA TODAY HOME 9


GROUND REALITY
Engineered natural walnut wood
flooring from SPAN Floors
`1,200 per sqft; www.spanfloors.com
The decorative finish is only a few
microns thick and tends to wear
off in high traffic areas. It is not
cost-effective in the long run since
it can’t be refinished the way
natural wood can be and needs
to be replaced. The biggest
disadvantage of laminate wood
however, is that it is not environ-
ment-friendly. The inorganic
element in it makes it impossible
to decompose.
PRICE `95 to `200 per sqft
Engineered Wood
This type has a greater similarity
to natural wood than laminate
because it incorporates a thin
layer or veneer of natural wood
10 INDIA TODAY HOME F E BRUA RY, 2020
cover story
Material
on top. They are stylish and s
tand up to moisture and
humidity much better than natu-
ral wood as the base or body can
be moisture stabilised. It can be
refinished a couple of times
before it wears out so lasts longer
than laminate flooring but not
as long as solid wood. Like every
other wooden flooring, this comes
with a set of disadvantages as
well. It is not maintenance-free
and just like solid wood flooring
will get scratched and dented. In
some cases, engineered wood will
cost you as much as natural wood FLOOR SHOW
or perhaps even more. Engineered wood floor from Mikasa
PRICE `350 per sqft to `2,500 Price on request;
per sqft (for imported ones) www.mikasafloors.com
 cover story
Style

TWO TO TANGO
Wooden floor transitions
into a slate flooring in a
project by RSDA

THE TRANSITION
All you need to know to connect two disparate floors in your home

By RAKHEE BEDI

S
pace division through flooring is necessary, as
solid walls not only restrict the circulation but
also reduce the volume. Transition of flooring
widens the scope of experimentation with open
plans where different spaces of diversified functionality
coexist without any barriers. Material palette of flooring
decides the mood of the space. Huge spaces that lack
natural light demand dark tones of wooden flooring
such as red wood, Brazilian cherry and beech to induce
warmth; wherein tiny rooms demand light wood like
maple and hickory to reduce the suffocation of volume.
Neutral tones of Italian marble work well in swish living
rooms and shades of white tiles blend vibrant interiors
of children’s room. Matte tiles that stand up to the wear
and tear are ideal for the kitchen. To further enhance
the luxe, brass strips are used to etch patterns that
gleam on the floor and nuances of monochromes are
laid to add a minimal touch.
With time, the challenges and structural complexities
of the process have been resolved through technology.
Such as transition strips that link two different floors
and restrict thermal expansion. These evolved from
dreary aluminium strips that degrade the essence of
flooring and laminate strips that merge with the
material of the floor. Versatile transition strips give the
freedom to play with the shapes of tiles and evoke
fluidity in transition.
Despite challenges, transition flooring is a popular
concept and a convenient facet for designers.
Rakhee Bedi is the founding
principal at Rakhee Shobhit
Design Associates (RSDA).
Founded in 2003 it is a
Gurgaon-based multidisci-
plinary design firm.
www.rsda.in

F E BRUA RY, 2020 INDIA TODAY HOME 11

cover story
Home
GROUND
WORK
Moverover expensive art, for the true
showstopper in this Mumbai-home by
interior designer Richa Bahl is the flooring
By ADITI PAI
Photographs by FABIEN CHARAU
S
taid but stunning micro
concrete, printed heritage
tiles in soft shades, bright
blue stripes and a wash
of warm wooden flooring
offer Siddharth and Minal Bhargava’s
Santacruz home, the ideal backdrop
against which their vibrant travel
souvenirs, bright artworks, and con-
temporary furniture and accessories
stand out beautifully. Artefacts from
Spain, Portugal and India rub shoul-
ders with artworks from Miami as
subtle greys, blues and blacks domi-
nate the furniture and upholstery in
the young couple’s home. “For a space
to stand out, the objects in it must
communicate, respond and balance
one another,” says interior designer
Richa Bahl who designed the home
for the businessman-and-fashion
designer couple who enjoys travelling
and socialising. It helped that they
were her friends because Bahl knew
the pulse of the house “from day one”.
In keeping with their choices and
lifestyle, the design is minimalistic,
12 INDIA TODAY HOME F E BRUA RY, 2020
yet stylish and cosy with a colour pal-
ette that is largely muted with grey
and white and hints of bricks. Gener-
ous sunshine lends the house a bright
and airy feel and highlights the art
and artefacts that dot the decor. The
space is divided into two sections—
one private and the other designed
for socialising, seamlessly connected
by an attractive living room. The
personal section has the bedroom,
walk-in wardrobes and bathroom
and the living room leads into a space
that holds the kitchen, utility area, a
den for friends and a guest bedroom.
“The essence of the design is always
about the people and how they live
and use the space,” says Bahl, who
heads Richa Bahl Design Studio. A
design feature that she created in the
living room is a wooden pole that
lends the space a loft-apartment feel
and is used by people to stand or lean
against during parties.
The home has a warm well-lived
and extensively travelled vibe with
the aesthetic use of accessories from
 STEP UP
(clockwise from below) The bedroom has
tiles by Bharat Flooring; Siddharth and Minal
Bhargava in their living room with micro-
concrete floor; Havwoods wooden flooring
 cover story
Home
the world over. Lights and lamps from the iconic
British brand
Angleposie and Swedish architect and designer
Jonas Wagell share space with furniture from the
Scandinavian maker Muuto. “Their collections
from the travels to various countries contribute to
creating the mood and look of the space,” says Bahl.
Well chosen flooring can transform and
uplift a space instantly while lending furniture and
accessories the right base to stand out and Bahl
has handpicked the flooring. The living room floor
has been micro-concreted and the bar tiles were
ordered from D-tile. The two sections of the house
were done up with cement tiles from Bharat
Floorings and a section of wooden floor from
Havwoods. She added a hint of Indian art with
small elements like mosaic borders. The bathroom
is done up with floor tiles from London’s Original
Style. “A good floor is like a good foundation base
when you are applying makeup. If the base is not
right, all the flaws will show. Make sure you choose
something that isn’t too prominent and over-
whelming yet contributes by balancing the overall
look of the space when accessorised,” says Bahl. The
usage of the space also plays a role in deciding the
flooring material. For the living room, she picked
micro-concrete flooring which makes the space
look large and offers a neutral base that allows the
furniture to go bright. A brass strip adds a dash
of glamour and is easy to maintain but can be
scratched by heavy furniture. With a wooden floor,
Bahl advises against excessive use of water.
LIVING SPACES
(clockwise from left)
Wooden flooring in
the den; the kitchen
uses floor tiles from
Spain; micro-concrete
flooring in the living
room; monochrome
tiles in the master
bathroom
cover story
Design

THROW A
PATTERN
PARTY
Geometric or circular, terrazzo or marble,
let your floor come to life with motifs,
hues and designs that make it stand out
By HUZEFA RANGWALA and JASEM PIRANI

Photographs by SAMEER TAWDE

Architects Huzefa Rangwala and Jasem Pirani are the

founders of Mumbai-based design practice MuseLAB. They
are constantly inspired by the meticulous inlay techniques
and geometric patterning of flooring. www.muselab.in

16 INDIA TODAY HOME F E BRUA RY, 2020

 MODERN MARVEL
Three types of leftover marble
created this floor pattern in the
project, Colourmetrix (inset);
a contemporary rangoli forms
the flooring in the project,
Colour Story (bottom)

I
t is important to realise that although our first
interaction with a space is a visual one, the first
physical contact a person will have with any space
is the flooring. What is underfoot will immediately have
an impact on our psyche even if it is the subconscious
mind. Through the course of this article, we will talk about
four different looks from some of our projects that will give
you all the inspiration you need to redo your floors.

Terrazzo Rangoli
Project - Colour Story, Khadki, Pune
For this maximalist home, we wanted to work with a
cohesive palette of patterns, colours and materials to
create a space which was rich in visual and tactile experi-
ences. The floor is the hero of the design and the furniture
was also planned to reflect the narrative of the pattern,
a glorified contemporary rangoli in the informal living
room which bleeds into the formal dining room as well.
The flooring in the dining room is a series of concentric
rings radiating from the circle in the adjacent room.

F E BRUA RY, 2020 INDIA TODAY HOME 17

 cover story
Design

THE RIGHT MOTIF

Contrasting geometric patterns in the project, Deco
Ground (above); in the project, Uber Gatherer, a
chevron pattern is used in the nursery’s sleeping area
and laminate wood in the playroom (right)

Brass strips give definition to the various shapes
and patterns, and prevent cracking by reducing the
castable surface area.
Composite Chevron
Project - Uber Gatherer, Powai, Mumbai
The floor of the nursery for our youngest client comprised
two contrasting materials. The sleeping area has a fun
monochromatic chevron pattern of white and desert beige
composite stone while the playroom comprises a white
oak laminated wooden flooring.
Patterned Cement Tiles
Project - Deco Ground, Worli, Mumbai
Contrasting geometrical patterns were chosen for the liv-
ing room, while a solid colour was selected for the dining.
A heritage pattern was used in the master bedroom, a dot
like playful pattern for the nursery and a free hand line
pattern for the guest bedroom. All these patterns were
applied in colours such as silver-grey, grey, blue lagoon
and sprinkles of sunshine yellow. The rich bold pattern
and colour combinations of the flooring were juxtaposed
with relaxed contemporary furniture styles. This home is
our quirky, yet avant-gardist interpretation of Art Deco.
Marble Doritos
Project – Colourmetrix, Mazagaon, Mumbai
Our client was keen on using marble for the flooring
of his home. We used leftover slabs of Australian white,
black marquina and armani beige to create a pattern in
triangular shapes of varying permutations and combina-
tions such that no two squares were repetitive. Juxtaposi-
tion of colours and geometric shapes within the flooring
pattern, art work and furniture, all combined accentuate
the bold look.
These are just a few of the many hacks, styles and
ideas that one can use to make the designs of the floor
both timeless and unique.

18 INDIA TODAY HOME F E BRUA RY, 2020

BUYER’S GUIDE
This pattern has been created
using Mikasa Oak Fume and
Mikasa Oak Stockholm from
Mikasa Floors.
PRICE on request
AT www.mikasafloors.com
Photograph by PRATIKRUTI09;
Interiors by THE BRICK TALES
These Moroccan tiles under Customised Giza pattern
Somany Ceramics’ Duragres from Bhart Floorings’
Tiles come with VC Shield, BFT+ Designer
built to last abrasion. collaboration range.
PRICE on request PRICE `250 per sqft
AT www.somanyceramics.com AT www.bharatfloorings.com
Stone Polymer Composite
tiles from Welspun
Flooring’s Click N Lock
range are highly durable.
PRICE `175 per sqft
AT welspunflooring.com
cover story
Design
INDIA
Photograph by SEBASTIAN ZACHARIAH
CALLING
These natural flooring
options are easy on
the eye and the pocket
Concrete In-situ
By KANHAI GANDHI In-situ concrete is poured,
molded and cured on site to
custom build and is incredibly
versatile. Cement concrete floor-
ing is one of the most common
types of flooring used in both
residential as well as public
buildings owing to its non-
absorbent nature. It is durable,
smooth, pleasing in appearance,
easy to maintain and economi-
cal. Ensure the floor finish is
divided into suitable panels to
reduce the risk of cracking.
PRICE `150 per sqft onwards
Slate
Slate is a beautiful porous stone
yet durable flooring material.
Available in black, grey and
Architect Kanhai Gandhi is the partner and
co-founder of Mumbai-based KNS Archi- gold, it is a suitable material to
tects. He specialises in residential architec- use for creating a warm atmo-
ture and interiors. www.knsarchitects.com sphere in the home. Due to
20 INDIA TODAY HOME F E BRUA RY, 2020
its aesthetics and properties it
generally adds real estate value.
It has a stain-resistant surface,
making it suitable for installa-
tion in kitchens, bathrooms,
porch and entryways. Being a
permeable material, it requires
the application of sealants ev-
ery few years. Hence, increases
maintenance needs and cost.
PRICE `250 to `350 per sqft
(with labour and material)
Sandstone
Widely available in India, sand-
stone has a range in grain and
colour variants. It has rocky look
with distinctive features of gold,
reds, browns and tans multi-
layering each other. Since it is
highly durable, it may be used
for both indoors and outdoors
(especially the terrace). Consid-
ering sandstone is a relatively
 Photograph by RADHIKA PANDIT

GET STONED
(clockwise from
left) Sandstone;
limestone;
and concrete
floors, all from
projects by
KNS Architects

porous material, it is vulnerable

to damage from liquid stains, harsh
chemicals or moulds.
PRICE `140 to `150 per sqft

Limestone
Limestone can be found in a
variety of colours, from creams to
charcoal. These stones make good
company for all kinds of decor
styles, be it traditional or contem-
porary. By nature it’s porous and
soft, and can be treated for vari-
ous textures. Common names of
limestones available in India are,
Cuddapah (black in colour), Kota
Photograph by INDRAJIT SATHE

(available in green, blue or brown)

and Jaisalmer stone (in shades of
yellow to pale yellowish-orange).
Limestone is a great choice for high
traffic areas and outdoor spaces.
The radiant colour gives a warm,
welcoming vibe.
PRICE `60 to `100 per sqft

F E BRUA RY, 2020 INDIA TODAY HOME 21

cover story
Trends

WALK
ON THIS
Is marble flooring too old
school for 2020 or does
it have new takers? Our
expert shares her insight
about what’s trending.

By SONAL TAYAL

Sonal Tayal is the head of design
and sales operations at design firm
Livspace. www.livspace.com
A
s a sturdy material with an elegant and luxurious look,
marble instantly uplifts the room. The good news is that it
continues to be in vogue in 2020. Possibly introduced by the
Rajputs, marble with inlay work is making a strong come back
to give homes a luxe touch. It doesn’t have to be only marble with
marble inlay work, it can also include marble with metal inlay as well. This
flooring option can instantly uplift the room. There is also a noticeable
shift from darker floor colours to lighter hues. From off-white to beige and
grey, minimalism is trending and white marble floors continue to be in.
Honed marble finish, a porous marble finish is winning hearts and minds
everywhere. It is created when the stone’s surface has been chipped or
ground by abrasives to provide a matte finish and helps give homes an old-
world look, an alternative to the glossy marble flooring.
Marble also makes an excellent focal point in a room. To add to this
trend, marble look-alike tiles are a rage amongst homeowners who are not

22 INDIA TODAY HOME F E BRUA RY, 2020

 BUYER’S GUIDE

MATERIAL WORLD
Examples of real homes with
marble flooring by Livspace

Titled Michel Angelo, this highly durable

keen on spending a huge amount of money. These flooring is part of the natural marble
tiles look exactly like natural marble and it is difficult collection by Classic Marble Company.
to tell the difference. Available in a variety of colours PRICE on request
and patterns, they can be installed anywhere at home. AT www.classicmarble.com
There are a few pointers that one must bear in
mind while judging the quality of marble. One side of
the slab should be polished and all four sides should
be machine-cut. The slab used should be straight and
uniform in thickness. The backside of a marble slab
should not have a wire-mesh attached to it as this is
usually added to fragile pieces. Examine the marble’s
surface under light at an angle of 45 degrees, if you
find any dull surfaces and patches it indicates poor
quality. Do a scratch test. If it resists scratches then
it is probably artificial, since natural marble is not
resistant to scratches. You can check the porosity of
the marble by dropping a few droplets of lemon juice
on the slab. If marble absorbs lemon juice quickly, it Statuario marble from A-Class
means marble has high porosity and hence it is not of Marble’s Signature collection is ideal
for indoor applications.
good quality.
PRICE `1,000 to `10,000 per sqft
As for its maintenance. Firstly, seal marble slabs AT www.aclassmarble.co.in
well. It protects the surface from staining agents to
a great extent. Use a damp mop or cloth to remove
dust and dirt from marble surfaces. Do not use acidic
cleaners. Keep a marble polishing powder handy, for
mild etching.

These NEOM Neo Modern Tiles by

Hindware are designed to look like
marble flooring.
PRICE `1,778 per sqm (planks)
AT www.hindwarehomes.com

F E BRUA RY, 2020 INDIA TODAY HOME 23

AS GRAND
AS IT GETS
History, culture, and art all come
together to write an engaging
‘India Modern’ story at fashion designer
Tarun Tahiliani’s home in Delhi
 cover story
Home

TIES THAT BIND

The library-cum-family den room (below) is where Tahiliani
indulges in his creative side (seen here with his wife, Sal, and
son, Jahan). The garden (left) with its wicker furniture and a
swimming pool is where the family unwinds and entertains.

By SHELLY ANAND

T
here is no right or wrong when
decorating a home. It can be as
minimal as popularised by Marie
Kondo or as ostentatious as any
Victorian castle. What’s of sig-
nificance is that it should be a safe,
secure space for its inhabitants to
let their hair down. Couturier Tarun Tahiliani’s 1.2-
acre farmhouse on the Green Avenue Lane in Vasant
Kunj, Delhi, is a picture of who he is as a person and
designer, and what are his tastes and inspirations.
“People should live the way they feel comfortable, but I
think it’s nice when there is warmth and the interiors
reflect the country of one’s heritage,” says Tahiliani,
who lives here with his wife, two sons, and three dogs.
A good home must be made and not bought, and
Tahiliani has followed this rule in every room, nook
and cranny. In tune with his design aesthetics of ‘India
Modern’, the sprawling farmhouse has a mix of Indian
and colonial furniture in the living room, a large col-
lection of old bidri vases and artefacts, silver and glass
accents in the library-cum-family den, and lots and
lots of paintings and canvases spread across the home.
The long corridor meanders along in an S-shape; there
is a living room and family room on one side, dining
room on the other with an outdoor patio, and moving
along is the master bedroom and two other bedrooms.
“The house was never really done up in a conscious
Photographs by RAJWANT RAWAT

manner but I wanted all Indian floors and the story

to be the colour of muted mud, and wanted it to be a
home rather than a showpiece,” he says. With collect-
ibles bought from different artists and some inherited
from his grandparents, one comes across Viya Home
brass pots, old Chinese antiques, and a neglected mix
of things picked up from Chinese flea markets,
especially a giant one from Chiang Mai.

F E BRUA RY, 2020 INDIA TODAY HOME 25

 A COLLECTOR’S
PARADISE
The living room with
its multiple seating
arrangements, comfortable
couches, old traditional
carpets and paintings, is
full of character.

26 INDIA TODAY HOME F E BRUA RY, 2020

cover story
Home

POINT OF CONFLUENCE
The 15-seater round
dining table is not the only
piece of attraction in the
room (below). The high
wooden ceiling, a majestic
chandelier from China,
and a couple of frames
complete the story.

WALK OF FAME
The long-carpeted corridor
floor and walls lined with
different-sized paintings by
known Indian artists lead one
inside the farmhouse (above).
A small cosy set up in the
living room with stylish
sofas is accentuated by
antique brass lamps (below).

F E BRUA RY, 2020 INDIA TODAY HOME 27


Art Underfoot
This fashion designer’s foray into rugs and carpets gives new meaning to floor coverings
By RIDHI KALE
A
lot can happen in five years.
But for fashion designer
Raghavendra Rathore, the
quinquennial marks the
completion of his designs for car-
pets and rug company, OBEETEE.
Part of the brand’s third in the
Proud to Be Indian (PTBI) series,
the carpets bring in a beautiful
royal touch. “The collection epito-
mises old-world luxury and has the
essence of a bygone era. The Mar-
war region, specifically Jodhpur, is
28 INDIA TODAY HOME F E BRUA RY, 2020
the core inspiration for all ideas and
vision behind the look and feel of
these carpets. We have experiment-
ed heavily with paisleys, asymmet-
rical designs and unusual patterns
to create unique design sensibilities
taking references from the past,”
says Rathore. Exquisite and fine
embroidery, intricate weaves and
asymmetrical designs come togeth-
er to create three sub categories.
The Durbar Gaadi Masand, ren-
dered with opulent embroidery in
l ast look
velvet, derives inspiration from the
textured royal sette used by kings
and queens in darbars of yore.
The artwork in Rajasthan Archi-
tecture, borrows inspiration from
the majestic arches and structural
design elements. The third vari-
ant, Jodhpur Coat of Arms, is an
offbeat showcase of logos, emblems,
insignias and monograms of Rajput
princely states.
PRICE `8,000 to `12,000 per sqft
AT www.obeetee.com