NEW DELHI, MUMBAI, BENGALURU, KOLKATA, CHENNAI, AHMEDABAD, HYDERABAD, CHANDIGARH*, PUNE* VOL. 14 NO.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 1, 2020

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mint primer
Woke millennials
and money, the
two indeed meet
BY DISHA SANGHVI
Millennials form about 47% of India’s working population, making
them the largest demographic group in the country. Mint takes a look
at how millennials can strike a balance between spending and saving
and make the most of their money.
Why millennials borrowed in 2019
Payment of bills was the top reason for Indian millennials to take loans in
2019. Bengaluru had the highest number of millennial borrowers.
5.10 5.97
5.43
25.09
6.38
in %
6.88
14
9.90
21.25
Should you be saving
1 or splurging?
It could irk you when elders say
that you need not spend thousands
on that foreign holiday or the new
iPhone. Millennials and the
younger Gen Z are often criticized
for spending on things and
experiences the previous
generations kept away from.
However, what gets ignored is that,
over time, lifestyles have evolved.
Still, does this mean you blow all
your money to achieve that perfect
Instagram-worthy click? The
answer is to spend but only after
you have saved for the things that
you would certainly need later.
You could begin by saving as little
as 15-20% of your monthly take-
home pay.
Paying bills Average ticket
Weddings size of loans
Medical
expenses
₹ 33,000 90%
Education MILLENNIAL BORROWERS: HOW
CITIES RANK
Purchase
of vehices Delhi
Shopping
Rent
deposit
Mumbai
5 Hyderabad
Travel
Bengaluru
Others 1 4
Source: MoneyTap
SANTOSH KUMAR SHARMA/MINT
Is it ever too late to
2 start investing?
If you’ve just started working, you
may feel you have several years
ahead of you and investing doesn’t
have to start immediately.
However, what you should
understand is that the earlier you
start investing, the better your
returns will be. For example, you
start investing ₹2,000 every
month for the next 25 years. The
final value of your investment
would be around ₹20 lakh,
assuming an 8% annual return.
Besides, your investments will
only increase as your income goes
up, adding to the total pie of
investments and also giving that
much more scope for
compounding to work its magic.
QUICK EDIT
A big infra
push
The government is betting big
on infrastructure development
to achieve India’s $5-trillion
economy goal by 2024-25. On
Tuesday, finance minister Nir-
mala Sitharaman unveiled a
₹102 trillion infrastructure
spending plan for the next five
years. The Centre, states, and
the private sector will make
these investments, though it
was unclear how such a huge
Repeat
sum would be financed.
borrowers Such projects can sometimes
take decades to turn profitable,
so banks are often wary of lend-
ing if they fear their own short-
term funding will not cover the
3 gestation period. An asset-lia-
bility mismatch is risky. The
public-private partnership
finance model has sought to
2
provide a more workable solu-
Chennai
tion, though its success, too, has
been chequered. Land acquisi-
tion delays and weak enforce-
ment of contracts have also
served to dissuade private par-
ticipation. The scope of the
challenge can be gauged from
India’s recent infrastructure
development record. Despite
all the attention, India managed
to spend ₹51 trillion on it over
the past six years. To double
that figure in one less year
would require major moves to
ease the path. Still, given the
resolve, it could be achieved.
MINT METRIC
by Bibek Debroy

Best wishes for a Happy New Year

3 Are credit cards and easy
loans a good option?
As there’s so much to indulge in, you
To far and near.
could fall short of money. Swiping your
May all wishes come true
credit card could mitigate that situation. With little to regret and rue,
As long as you are disciplined and are
repaying the outstanding amount on
A new decade full of cheer.
time, using a credit card can help you
build a credit score. Payday loans, on the
other hand, come at a high interest rate
and can trap you in debt. QUOTE OF THE DAY
Here’s hoping 2020 marks
4 Isconfidence?
debt a sign of

Access to credit cards and loans

could help boost your financial
confidence and make it easier for
you to spend. You may take some
loans expecting a salary hike or an
awaited bonus. The problem arises
when the money does not come in.
Such fears are more justified at
times when the economic outlook
is grim as organizations are not
liberal with salary hikes or bonuses
in such times. Studies have found
that while debt gives a boost and
sense of self-confidence to people
in the 18-27 age group, the feeling
fades as people enter their 30s.
5 How should you strike
a balance?
You could be the “cool” one among
the continuation of people-
your peers with your fancy gadgets
powered efforts to transform
and branded clothes. But if you are India and empower the lives of
fuelling these expenses through
loans, you are not really being
130 crore Indians.
“cool”. Getting habituated to credit
can land you in a debt trap and you
may then have to give up the
façade you’ve built. You should
instead secure your future while
enjoying the small pleasures of life.
Financial planners suggest the NARENDRA MODI
30:30:40 rule: Direct 30% of your PRIME MINISTER
income towards expenses, 30%
towards EMIs and 40% into the
savings kitty.

m MINT SHORT

US, China to sign ‘phase 1’ trade deal on 15 January

AFP
AFP nearly two-year trade confrontation,
feedback@livemint.com with Washington cancelling and reduc-
WASHINGTON ing some tariffs in exchange for Chinese
pledges to increase purchases of US

A
partial new US-China trade
agreement will be signed on 15
January, US President Donald
Trump said Tuesday, announcing that
he will also then travel to China for con-
tinued talks.
“I will be signing our very large and
comprehensive Phase One Trade Deal
with China on January 15,” Trump
tweeted moments before Wall Street
was due to open. Trump said he would
Trump said he’d travel to Beijing to
continue negotiations ‘at a later date’.
then travel to Beijing to continue negoti-
ations “at a later date.”
The two sides earlier this month
announced a “Phase One” deal in their
exports and adopt trade reforms.
The text of the agreement has not yet
been made public pending legal and
translation reviews, US officials say, and
details remain scant.
US and Chinese officials said the
agreement includes protections for
intellectual property, food and farm
goods, financial services and foreign
exchange, and a provision for dispute
resolution.
 FLIP SIDE RAMESH PATHANIA/MINT

Here’s a Masayoshi Son

shopping list for 2020
Tim Culpan kind of thing SoftBank should be putting money into
feedback@livemint.com because oil is just not futuristic enough. Data is said to be
the new oil anyway. But then, taking Saudi money is some-

I
t was an Uber year for Masayoshi Son and his SoftBank thing many believe Son shouldn’t be doing at all in light of
Vision Fund. One in which WeWorked out just how the murder of writer Jamal Khashoggi.
much attention he could Grab by saying Ola to lots of Son has pledged not to abandon the Saudis—after all,
cash while actually being quite Slack on stuff that matters, they gave $45 billion to the Vision Fund—and so that com-
like corporate governance and profits. Critics Wagged mitment may as well include throwing support behind
their fingers at the improbable bets, even when he tried to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and his nation’s
make lemonade from the year’s biggest failure. largest asset. Riyadh ended up settling for a $1.7 trillion
The numbers are so bad, you have to laugh. Uber: down market cap at its initial public offering, after previously
37% since IPO. WeWork: valuation cut by 80%. Wag: sold assuring everyone that it was worth at least $2 trillion.
back to founders at a loss. While it hit that figure within days of listing, the shortfall
But Son will bounce back. He has to, because he has at IPO is equivalent to three Vision Funds. After
another Vision Fund to raise and run. Instead of being WeWork’s $40 billion drop in value, Masa will feel right
cowed into humility, it’s more likely he’ll double down and at home.
make even more fantastical bets with other people’s
money. To help him out, I did a multivariate analysis based A COUNTRY
on past SoftBank deals to come up with a list of investments No idea which country, but there are certainly some
he ought to consider. around that seem up for sale. Just ask China and Taiwan,
which have been buying loyalty for decades (the Solomon
A K-POP BAND Islands being the latest transaction).
For all the preppy tunes and perfect And let’s not forget that US President
cheekbones, Korean Pop bands are really Instead of being Donald Trump, whom Son met just a
just assets. Money is poured in, data are month after the 2016 election, has floated
crunched, and if the algorithm works as cowed into humility, the idea of buying Greenland (which is a
planned, money comes back out. There’s it’s likely Son will self-ruled territory of Denmark). The
buzz and superficial sheen, pure invest- Danes described the notion as absurd,
ment-bait for Son. Of course, this is an and make more making it right up Son’s alley.
industry with a dark side. Suicides, fantastical bets Heck, he could even set up an air-can-
assaults, and allegations of prostitution ning plant on the North Atlantic island.
remind us that these impossibly beautiful super idols are But Son needn’t simply acquire a nation. He would rebrand
vulnerable humans who have “a highly controlled relation- it as his own, replete with passports and a flag. From there,
ship with fans”, as Matthew Campbell and Soohee Kim virtual citizenship and a utopian paradise are just a step
wrote in Bloomberg Businessweek. Scandal has never kept away.
Son away, though, and given his enthusiasm for artificial Masastan could be a combination of Cayman Islands and
intelligence (a fancy word for number-crunching), a K-Pop Switzerland, offering anonymity, privacy, and a tax shel-
band would hit the right note. ter—the perfect place for the newly minted billionaires he’s
helped create to park their assets. Sure, founding your own
AIR nation isn’t easy, but Son isn’t one to be swayed by practical
Yeah. Really. If a French company can bottle water from a realities.
little town on the shores of Lake Geneva (called Evian-les-
Bains), then Son could certainly can air from the Himalayas TESLA
or the Antarctic. More recent thirst-quenching fads have A dreamy idea. A cult-like status among investors and cus-
ranged from La Croix to hydrogen water. So it makes sense tomers. A megalomaniac for a leader who eschews author-
that something as bizarre as canned air would make it into ity. And chronic losses. It’s got SoftBank written all over it.
the SoftBank portfolio. That stuff would be flying off Rather than tackle big egos, Son has a history of enabling
shelves in Australia or India recently if marketed according them—“We created a monster,” he’s reported as saying of
to spiking pollution levels. There’s an app? Masa can invest WeWork founder Adam Neumann.
in that, too. With the US Securities and Exchange Commission and
cave-diving heroes trying to cut Elon Musk down to size,
SAUDI ARAMCO Son (and his cash) would be just the kind of cheerleader
To be frank, Saudi Arabia’s state oil company isn’t really the that the 420-guy needs. BLOOMBERG OPINION

BOOKMARK
The magic in our neighbourhood
A collection of recently discovered stories by Nobel Prize-winning Naguib Mahfouz offers
dramatic, comedic and entertaining snapshots of life in a small quarter of Cairo

T
he manuscript of these narratives was found in a drawer with a note attached stating,
‘To be published in 1994’. This is how Roger Allen, the long-time translator of Nobel
Prize-winning Egyptian author Naguib Mahfouz, reveals in his introduction to The
Quarter. A collection of recently-discovered short stories translated into English from Arabic,
this 89-pager is an exceptional treasure trove for familiarizing us with the life, works and poli-
tics of the world of Mahfouz, Egypt’s most eminent writer who, in a career of more than five
decades, wrote 24 novels, including the The Cairo Trilogy, The Children Of The Alley and The
Thief And The Dogs. All the 18 stories take place in, as the title suggests, in a single hara (quarter)
of Cairo, with each offering a slice of life in an anonymous district filled with energy, enthusi-
asm and people both good and bad. His simple, detailed writing makes you believe you have
known the characters and places for long. One of the stories in this collection ends with a strik-
ing dialogue. “I’ve enough misery to deal with,” says one of the characters, to which the other
responds: “So have I. Each one needs the other.”
With such simple words, Mahfouz reminds us of the difficult path in front of us and the help
on offer beside us. If your new year resolution is to read more books, let The Quarter be the first
one on the list.

Write to us at businessoflife@livemint.com POOJA SINGH

PEANUTS by Charles M. Schulz

 NEW DELHI, MUMBAI, BENGALURU, KOLKATA, CHENNAI, AHMEDABAD, HYDERABAD, CHANDIGARH*, PUNE* VOL. 14 NO. 1 Rs 5.00 IN DELHI-NCR; Rs 6.00 OUTSIDE DELHI-NCR. PRICE WITH HINDUSTAN TIMES Rs 9.50 (FOR DELHI & NCR) 26 PAGES

AIR INDIA SALE PROCESS TO THE MARKET OUTLOOK IS

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 1, 2020
LIVEMINT.COM
START IN WEEKS: PURI uP2 SUNNY FOR THE NEW YEAR uP23

DON’T MISS
Ambani tax case
part of wider probe
Any I-T action will
depend on the relevance
FM unveils ₹102 tn infra W H Y MILLENNIALS
WILL DEFINE 2020s
push to reignite growth M illennials get it.
They don’t just
have a natural grasp
of the world around them,
born as they were into a gen-
eration that has begun to
Most investments to be made in initial part of 5-year period: Sitharaman shape most of our popular
culture, eclectic arts, social
m MINT GRAPHITI trends and market forces,
Shreya Nandi and display the confidence
shreya.n@livemint.com THE ROAD TO RECOVERY of knowing that the future is
NEW DELHI A renewed thrust on infrastructure projects is expected to increase economic activity, theirs. They’re right, of
generate employment and boost demand. course, and the 2020s shall

F
of the information
received from other
countries. P23
Kerala steps up
fight against CAA
The Kerala assembly on
Tuesday passed a
resolution demanding
the Citizenship Act be
scrapped. P24
Govt initiates 5G
roll-out process
Telecom operators are
set to begin testing the
wireless technology later
this month and trials may
continue till March. P2
RBI sets norms for
urban co-op banks
Urban cooperative
banks, which have
deposits of over ₹100 cr,
must set up a board of
management. P23
Publishing legend
Sonny Mehta dies
Mehta, who died at 77 in
New York, scaled
unprecedented heights
in the hierarchy of global
publishing. P23
inance minister Nir-
mala Sitharaman on
Tuesday unveiled a
plan to invest ₹102
trillion over five years
to develop social and eco-
nomic infrastructure to boost
India’s sagging growth.
The projects will be imple-
mented under the National
Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP)
mechanism. A task force for
the purpose, set up under eco-
nomic affairs secretary Atanu
Chakraborty, submitted its
first report after consultation
with infrastructure-related
ministries, lenders, states and
companies over the past four
months.
The task force was set up
after Prime Minister Narendra
Modi, in his Independence
Day speech, promised to roll
out an ambitious infrastruc-
ture push worth ₹100 trillion
over the next five years to
make India a $5 trillion econ-
omy.
Sitharaman said much of
the infrastructure investments
will be implemented in the ini-
tial part of the five-year period.
“We have a compilation of pro-
jects worth ₹102 trillion. In the
next couple of weeks, we will
add projects worth another ₹3
trillion, taking the total to ₹105
trillion,” she said.
The government has taken a
be the decade of their ascent
Investment (in ₹ tn)* Status of projects Sector-wise break-up
Implementation Development to positions of influence.
FY20 13.6 At the conceptual stage
Rural
infrastructure
Energy This is a demographic inevi-
Unclassified 19 tability. Every third Indian is
FY21 19.5 8
Rest 24
a millennial. As an age
FY22 19 31 1
8 (in%)*
Roads cohort, they are in the bulge
42 19
FY23 13.8 (in%)* Airports 16
13
bracket of India’s earners,
which grants them the
FY24 12.8 19 Urban Railways
weight of numbers. Happily,
FY25 11.1 Source: Finance ministry they are also in the prime of
*Excludes the power sector and data from some states. FY20 figure is an estimate, others are targets. their lives, a phase when
For the ₹100 trillion that we had committed, the task force has come up dreams beckon and belly
with ₹102 trillion worth of projects within just four months. fires of ambition get lit. The
youngest of them would
NIRMALA SITHARAMAN soon be eligible to represent
Finance minister
us in Parliament, while
SARVESH KUMAR SHARMA/MINT
many of the eldest are set to
raft of measures to address a review process. NIP will ena- states and Union territories. scale one peak after another
slowdown in the broader ble a forward outlook on infra- While the Centre and states as they approach their fabu-
economy, including a massive structure projects, which will will contribute 39% each of the lous forties. But, demogra-
MILLENNIALS SPECIAL EDITION Pages 3-22
corporate tax cut and sector- create jobs, improve ease of project cost, the private sector phy apart, they are a club
specific steps. living and provide equitable will contribute 22%. “By 2025, unto themselves by their
However, a renewed thrust access to infrastructure for all, we expect the private sector very psychographic profile. most hit their teens, India as their ability to bear risk.
on infrastructure thereby making contribution to rise to 30%,” As they take centre stage, so was already an emerging They are ready to strike out
projects is Encouraging growth more said Sitharaman. will the broad values, atti- market with vast exposure to on their own and dare the
expected to more private inclusive,” read a Out of the projects in the tudes and lifestyles they a widely wired world. Choice odds. Plus, with the paternal
increase eco- statement by the pipeline, 42% are under imple- espouse, share and lead. has always been around, as “mai baap” state in retreat
investment in
nomic activity, infrastructure can finance ministry. mentation, 33% are at the con- Our mil- they see it, during their formative years,
generate employ- Greenfield and ceptual stage and 19% are lennials m E D I T O R I A L and there’s they’ve also had a keener
create additional
ment and boost brownfield pro- under development. The pro- came of age no magic in sense of charting out their
demand. Encour- fiscal space for jects worth more jects are in sectors such as in a new h a v i n g destiny. Their entrepre-
aging more pri- the government than ₹100 crore power, including renewables, millennium and, so, their information at their finger- neurial instinct, thus, is of no
vate sector per project that railways, urban development, reference points don’t tips. With no direct memory surprise. They do seem to
investment in the may be at the con- irrigation, mobility, education, stretch back to an economy of such deprivations, they’ve recognize the limits of what
infrastructure space can create ceptualization stage, under health, water and the digital that wasn’t yet open, let had the liberty to pursue they can individually
additional fiscal space for the implementation and under sector. alone the “end of history” stuff that was once in the achieve. Climate change, for
government. development would be part of Suggestions for reforms that a late-80s triumph of realm of fantasy. This example, demands collec-
“This exercise, the first of its NIP, the ministry said. made by various working liberal democracy was sup- appears to have amped up
kind, is expected to be fol- The projects will be spread posed to spell. By the time their individuality as much TURN TO PAGE 2
lowed up by a periodical across 21 ministries and 18 TURN TO PAGE 24

Train journeys to get Core sectors shrink for fourth straight month ‘Widen opportunity
costlier from today as
Railways raises fares
Silver lining for women, youth’
Asit Ranjan Mishra
asit.m@livemint.com
Cement output bounced back while power generation shrank
back to 4.1% growth, recover-
ing from monsoon-related dis-
NEW DELHI ruptions, while the output of
at a slower pace, helping improve core sector performance.
(Year-on-year change in %)
refinery products accelerated

Shreya Nandi For instance, in the case of
shreya.n@livemint.com the Delhi-Mumbai Rajdhani,
which covers a distance of
NEW DELHI
1,384km, the hike at the rate of
I
ndia’s eight infrastructure 20 to 3.1% in November. The out-
sectors shrank for the fourth 15
Core sector Cement Electricity put of coal and electricity sec- THE FUTURE IS HERE
straight month in Novem- 11 tors shrunk at a slower pace of
10
ber at 1.5%, though the magni- 2.5% and 5.7%, respectively, in To ring in the new decade,
tude of contraction slowed 5 4.1 November from the previous
1.5 Mint invites corporate
from 5.8% in the previous 0 month. However, crude oil,
0.8 -1.5 leaders to share five ideas

T
rain journeys will cost 4 paise per kilometre will raise month. 5- natural gas and steel saw their
more from Wednesday, the ticket fare by ₹55 for AC The slowing of the pace of -5.7 output shrink at a faster pace that will impact the future.
10-
with Indian Railways third class. contraction is being inter- in November than in October. Amit Agarwal, SVP and
15-
increasing passenger fares “Indian Railways has con- preted by some economists as Jan Nov Madan Sabnavis, chief country head, Amazon
across its network, excluding tinuously endeavoured to aug- a sign of green shoots, indicat- Source: DPIIT economist at CARE Ratings, India, says the
those for suburban trains, the ment passenger experience ing that the economy is on a said the core sector growth
ministry said in a circular on through modernization of recovery path. SARVESH KUMAR SHARMA/MINT
numbers for November, courage to dream
Tuesday. coaches and provision of India’s economic growth released by the Controller Five of the eight infra sec- though disappointing, have a and an ability to
Passenger fares were last improved facilities over sta- decelerated to a six-and-a- General of Accounts on Friday tors reported a drop in output silver lining as sectors such as achieve will take
raised more than five years ago tions. Further, the burden of half-year low of 4.5% in the showed that the government in November, according to cement and fertilizers have India to the
in July 2014. the 7th Pay Commission on September quarter on the exceeded its 2019-20 fiscal data released by the industry registered growth. “There is a $5 tn goal. P2
The development comes a Indian Railways has necessi- back of slowing domestic and deficit target by 114.8% during department on Friday.
week after Rail- tated rationaliza- external demand. Data the April-November period. Cement production bounced TURN TO PAGE 2
way Board chair- Non-AC fares tion of fares,” said
man Vinod hiked by 1p/km. the ministry.
Kumar Yadav On express However, the
said Indian Rail- non-AC trains, ministry did not
ways would
the hike is 2p/km. hike fares for pas-
rationalize pas-
senger fares and
freight rates.
AC class fares
sengers using
suburban trains,
raised by 4p/km which account for
Out on bail, Ghosn gives Japan authorities the slip, flees to Lebanon
Yadav did not two-thirds of the
specifically men- total passenger Issam Abdullah & Tim Kelly will no longer be held hostage Lebanese ID with normal fied Lebanese security official.
tion a passenger fare hike, but segment, and season ticket BEIRUT/TOKYO by a rigged Japanese justice security procedures. Asked if His lawyers were still in pos-
had hinted at a cut in freight holders, keeping the afforda- system where guilt is pre- Ghosn used a French passport, session of his three passports,

O
rates. bility concerns of daily com- usted Nissan boss Car- sumed, discrimination is ram- the French foreign ministry one of his lawyers, Junichiro
For passengers using ordi- muters in mind. los Ghosn was in his pant, and basic human rights press service said it had no Hironaka, told reporters.
nary non-air conditioned (AC) Experts said the fare hike is childhood home of are denied,” Ghosn, 65, said in immediate comment. Hironaka, in comments
trains, fares have been hiked expected to improve the trans- Lebanon on Tuesday after a brief statement on Tuesday. Ghosn arrived broadcast live on
by one paisa per kilometre, porter’s finances, which have fleeing what he said was a “I have not fled justice—I in Beirut on a pri- It was unclear NHK, said the
while fares for express non-AC been under pressure. Indian “rigged” justice system in have escaped injustice and vate jet from how Ghosn was first he had heard
trains have been increased by Railways is incurring losses in Japan, raising questions about political persecution. I can Istanbul on Mon- able to leave of Ghosn’s depar-
two paise per kilometre. Fares the passenger segment as the how one of the world’s most- now finally communicate day, people famil- Japan, where he ture was on the
for AC class have been fare is subsidized. It subsidizes recognized executives slipped freely with the media, and look iar with the mat- news on Tuesday
increased by four paise per passengers by overcharging
was under strict
away while on bail. forward to starting next week.” ter told Reuters. morning and that
kilometre, the circular said. transport of goods. Ghosn’s abrupt departure Tokyo officials have previ- Immigration court-imposed he was surprised.
There will be no change in “The fare increase in the marks the latest dramatic twist ously said the system is not authorities had surveillance He also said it was
the reservation fee and super- passenger segment will give in a year-old saga that has inhumane and that Ghosn, Ousted Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn said in a statement that he had no record of “inexcusable
fast charge and the hike in Indian Railways between shaken the global auto indus- who is facing trial on financial fled a “rigged” Japanese justice system. AFP Ghosn leaving behaviour”.
fares will not be applicable to ₹3,000 crore and ₹5,000 try, jeopardized the alliance of misconduct charges he denies, the country, Japanese public Japan has extradition treat-
tickets already booked, the cir- crore.,” said Jagannarayan Nissan Motor Co. Ltd and top has been treated like any other able to orchestrate his depar- his passports. broadcaster NHK said. A per- ies with only the US and South
cular said. Premium trains Padmanabhan, director and shareholder Renault SA, and suspect. ture from Japan, given that he A senior Lebanese foreign son resembling him entered Korea, as per the justice minis-
such as Shatabdi, Rajdhani, practice lead of transport and cast a harsh light on Japan’s It was unclear how Ghosn, had been under strict surveil- ministry soruce said Ghosn Beirut international airport try, meaning it could be tough
and Duronto will be part of the logistics at CRISIL Infrastruc- judicial system. who holds French, Brazilian lance by authorities while out entered Lebanon legally on a under a different name, NHK to force Ghosn to return to
fare revision, it said. ture Advisory. “I am now in Lebanon and and Lebanese citizenship, was on bail and had surrendered French passport and using his reported, citing an unidenti- stand trial. REUTERS
02 WEDNESDAY, 1 JANUARY 2020
NEW DELHI NEWS

DoT kick-starts process to roll

out 5G, trials likely in Jan-Mar
Telecom firms and equipment vendors meet DoT officials, trial 5G spectrum may be allotted in a few days
Navadha Pandey includes those from China’s ZTE The national carrier loses about ₹26 crore a day. MINT
navadha.p@livemint.com and Huawei. Any field trial in
NEW DELHI respect of 5G is to be carried out
only through licensed telecom Govt will seek bids for
T
he telecom department service providers in a restrictive,
has initiated the process
of rolling out 5G net-
works in the country,
limited geographical area and for
specific use case,” telecom minis-
ter Ravi Shankar Prasad told the
RBL Bank
raises ₹675
crore via
preferential
Air India ‘in a matter
with telecom operators Lok Sabha on 26 June. issue
set to begin testing the technology
later this month.
All major telecom operators and
Earlier this month, DoT
approved prices for the next spec-
trum auction that will happen by
bit.ly/2F79d4B
of weeks’, says Puri
equipment vendors on Tuesday April. Of the 8,300MHz of air-
met top officials of the department waves the government plans to Gireesh Chandra Prasad & few weeks and, hopefully,
of telecommunications (DoT) to offer, 6,050MHz have been allo- Rhik Kundu sooner than later, the process
discuss the roadmap for trials. The cated for 5G. The of privatization will set in,” he
meeting, chaired by telecom secre- 3,300-3,600MHz band allocated NEW DELHI said.
tary Anshu Prakash, was attended for 5G has been priced at ₹492 On Monday, the minister

T
by senior representatives of Bharti crore per megahertz. he Centre will issue an had said that privatization was
Airtel Ltd, Vodafone Idea Ltd, Reli- 5G is the next generation of expression of interest the only way forward for the
ance Jio Infocomm Ltd and all wireless technology and will boost for the privatization of debt-laden airline.
equipment vendors, including data speeds and propel the Inter- debt-ridden Air India “in a In 2018-19, Air India’s net
Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. net of Things, with the potential to matter of weeks”, civil aviation loss was provisionally esti-
“The broad roadmap for the bring radical changes in agricul- minister Hardeep Singh Puri mated at ₹8,556.35 crore.
trials was discussed. DoT is 5G is the next generation of wireless technology and will boost data speeds. ture, manufacturing, healthcare said on Tuesday. Besides, it has a debt of over
expected to allot spectrum in a few and education. In November, the minister ₹60,000 crore, half of which
days and trials will happen in Janu- spectrum to its licencees, which concerns. The US has claimed that ment will be cleared for a commer- India’s 5G trials and commercial had told Parliament that the has already been taken out of
ary-March,” said a person aware of are telecom service providers, who Huwaei’s 5G equipment could be cial rollout in India. rollout are far behind global peers, national carrier, which loses the books and parked in a spe-
the matter, seeking anonymity. can then choose to partner with used by China to spy on other In June 2019, DoT approved a which have even deployed com- ₹26 crore a day, might have to cial purpose vehicle, Air India
An email query sent to DoT was vendors such as Nokia, Huawei, countries, an allegation the com- one-year 5G trial period and a one- mercial networks. shut down if it was not priva- Assets Holding Ltd. “Air India
unanswered till press time fee of ₹5,000 for South Korea was the first to tized. is a good asset, but the debt of
time. A Huawei repre- HUAWEI IN THE SPOTLIGHT entities seeking experi- commercially start 5G services in However, at a press confer- the airline is not sustainable,”
sentative who attended mental spectrum to con- April. China’s state-run telecom ence on Tuesday, Puri said the said Puri.
the meeting declined to AFTER getting trial THIS has come as THE US has claimed BUT approval for duct trials. The govern- operators China Mobile, China airline won’t be shut down and The government will also
comment on the specifics spectrum, telcos can relief for Huawei, that Huawei’s 5G trials does not imply ment also announced its Unicom and China Telecom rolled exuded confidence that inves- soon invite bids for selling its
choose their vendor which was under equipment could be that its equipment
of the discussion. partners like Nokia, scrutiny for network used by China to spy will be cleared for intention to focus on out 5G services in November to tor response would be favour- stake in national helicopter
The meeting with tele- Ericsson or Huawei security concerns on other countries commercial rollout three big social sectors for consumers in 50 Chinese cities, able, considering Air India’s tour agency Pawan Hans. The
com companies hap- deployment of 5G—edu- including Beijing and Shanghai. robust service network on government owns 100% in Air
pened a day after the gov- cation, agriculture and US’s Verizon Communications domestic and international India and 51% in Pawan Hans.
ernment said it has allowed all Ericsson and Samsung. pany has denied. healthcare. However, building Inc. kickstarted 5G services in routes, besides its strong State-controlled Oil and Natu-
applicants, including China’s Hua- This has come as relief for Hua- The approval for conducting 5G use-cases in these sectors is still a October 2018 in Houston, Indian- brand recall. ral Gas Corp. Ltd owns the
wei, to participate in 5G trials. wei, which has been facing global trials does not, however, automati- work in progress. “So far, six pro- apolis, Los Angeles and Sacra- “Air India is a national asset. remaining 49% in the helicop-
The DoT will allocate the trial scrutiny over network security cally imply that Huawei’s equip- posals have been received, which mento, using non-standard gear. The Maharaja is a great brand, ter company. However, previ-
owns 120 aircraft, half of which ous attempts to privatize the
are owned and the rest leased. companies did not elicit much
It runs a large number of investor interest.
domestic routes The minister
and flies to 40-50 Air India won’t said the govern-
Millennials Karvy revamps corporate structure, i n t e r n a t i o n a l be shut down, the ment is commit-
destinations… aviation minister ted to privatizing
will define the We want an said, exuding six more airports

new decade separates non-financial businesses Indian entity to

acquire it for stra-
confidence that
—Amritsar, Vara-
nasi, Bhubanes-
tegic objectives,” investor response war, Indore, Rai-
he said. will be favourable pur and Trichy—
FROM PAGE 1 PTI clients whose securities were He, however, following the
feedback@livemint.com pledged and also among the declined to com- recommenda-
tive action. So, too, an enabling MUMBAI banks, who had lent against ment on the government’s tions of the Airports Authority
environment for peace and the securities to Karvy. expectations of how much the of India.

O
prosperity. On these issues, ver a month after it Karvy Group chairman G. proposed sale might fetch. In February, the govern-
The steel sector saw its output shrink at a faster pace in they don’t look likely to let was barred by Securi- Parthasarathy said Chatur- “The government will make ment had privatized the Luc-
November than in October. BLOOMBERG governments off the hook. ties and Exchange vedi has been mandated to money. The government does know, Ahmedabad, Jaipur,
Yes, millennials get it, and Board of India (Sebi) from tak- “completely overhaul the not want to give it on a sizzling Mangaluru, Thiruvanantha-

Core sectors shrink this also applies to the casual

irreverence they often display
vis-à-vis authority. This break
ing new clients for misusing
clients’ securities, the troub-
led Karvy Group on Tuesday
governance processes, ensure
best practices and to bring in
greater fiduciary discipline”
platter,” said Puri. puram and Guwahati airports.
He said airlines as well as Adani Group won the bids to
private companies have shown operate, manage and develop

for 4th straight month from a relatively solemn past

has arguably lent them some
clarity on what cannot be
announced corporate
restructuring to separate non-
financial businesses from the
Karvy has named Amitabh
Chaturvedi as the group’s CEO
to the business, according to
an official statement.
Chaturvedi hinted at fun-
interest in the sale of Air India, all the airports.
despite an overall risk-averse Puri said land acquisition
investor sentiment due to the for the upcoming Jewar Inter-
changed, and what must be. financial ones. for financial services. draising plans being in the economic slowdown. national Airport in Uttar Pra-
FROM PAGE 1 Expectations Survey of 1,200 Notably, this is India’s first It has also appointed Ami- offing and said that the lead- In his response to whether desh’s Gautam Buddha Nagar
companies by IIM Ahmedabad generation since 1947 that has tabh Chaturvedi, who used to given by its clients after the ership team will work on the government would be able that will be developed by
mixed picture when it comes released on Friday showed fully overcome Gandhian aus- head private sector lender brokerage was found to have strengthening the brand. to complete the sale process by Zurich Airport was more or
to non-energy based indus- early signs of improvement in terity. In their perspective, Dhanlaxmi Bank, as the com- allegedly misused clients’ A statement said stock March and, if not, whether his less complete. “About 80% of
tries, which have performed sales perception. In Novem- what counts are the values pany’s group chief executive securities to the tune of over broking, wealth manage- ministry was considering the land acquisition for the
better (than energy-based ber, around 68% of the compa- upheld by Mahatma Gandhi, for financial services. ₹2,000 crore. ment, commodities trading shutting the airline down by Jewar airport is complete.” He
industries).” nies in the sample reported inked into our Constitution, Sebi, through an interim Securities held by KSBL and investment banking will June, Puri said the privatiza- added that investment by pri-
With an improvement in the that sales were “somewhat or rather than how he himself order passed on 22 Novem- were used by the brokerage come under the financial ser- tion process had already been vate companies in airports
performance of a number of much less than normal” com- lived. In sum, they seem to ber, barred Karvy Stock Brok- for borrowing from the len- vices vertical, while the other set in motion, but “whether it such as Jewar is a healthy indi-
lead indicators, including core pared to 76% that reported so have forged a novel synthesis ing Ltd (KSBL) from taking ders courtesy the PoA. vertical will comprise data happens by March or June (we cation of the confidence of pri-
sector industries, auto produc- in October. of true Indian ideals. Let’s new brokerage clients and This led to widespread anx- management services, data will see)”. vate operators to develop
tion and non-oil merchandise After reducing policy rates hope they turn it to our advan- also prevented it from using iety in the financial system, analytics, market research “We will be seeking expres- Indian airports.
exports, Aditi Nayar, principal five consecutive times by a tage in this decade. the power of attorneys (PoA) starting with the nearly 1 lakh and allied businesses. sions of interest in the coming gireesh.p@livemint.com
economist at ICRA Ltd, cumulative 135 basis points,
expects factory output to the Reserve Bank of India
report modest growth in (RBI) opted for a pause in its
November after
having con- The Reserve Bank t a r y
December mone-

tracted since Sep- earlier last month review, given the

policy ‘EXPAND OPPORTUNITIES FOR YOUTH, WOMEN WITH SKILLING’
tember. The eight sharp increase in To ring in the new decade, Mint invites thought leaders and heads of companies to share five ideas that
core sectors con-
pared its growth retail inflation
tribute 40% to the forecast to 5% and weak mone-
will impact the future. Amit Agarwal, SVP and country head, Amazon India, tells Anil Padmanabhan
Index of Indus- for 2019-20 from tary transmission that India’s courage to dream audaciously, combined with the means to achieve, lends credibility to its
trial Production. its October from its earlier THE FUTURE IS HERE ambition of becoming a $5 trillion economy.
Retail sales of estimate of 6.1% rate cuts. Retail
passenger vehi- inflation quick- TAKE ‘MAKE IN INDIA’ INCENTIVIZE JOB CREATION FOR SCALe ACCESS TO TAKE LEADERSHIP ROLE
cles in India grew ened to 4.6% in GLOBAL IN FUTURE INNOVATION WIDER GROWTH OPPORTUNITY IN SUSTAINABILITY
just 1% year-on-year to 257,271 October, propelled by a surge Easing access to global mar- We can help businesses More than half of India’s Increasing women’s work- India can lead the world in
units in November, after the in food prices. kets will push India towards be more competitive to population is of working force participation from building climate sustaina-
worst festival season sales in Earlier last month, RBI greater growth. This can be incentivize innovation and age. To leverage our 27% to the global average bility and resilience into the
nearly five years, showed data pared its growth forecast to 5% done by sharing knowledge expand opportunity. GST young, working-age popu- of 48% can add $700 bil- fabric of our economy. We
released by the Society of for 2019-20 from its October of the export process and reform, which allows for lation, we need to expand lion to our economy. This can learn from the mistakes
Indian Automobile Manufac- estimate of 6.1%, citing weak international consumer free movement of goods, opportunities for millions makes opportunity expan- of global counterparts.
turers in December. business and consumer senti- expectations, faster customs tax reforms, and improve- of people. This requires sion for women critical to Reducing plastic waste in
Commerce ministry data ment. “While improved mone- clearance and using tech- ments in physical and digi- efforts in the form of skil- India’s $5 trillion dream. supply chains, invest-
released last month showed tary transmission and a quick nology to unlock value, as tal infrastructure are exam- ling and job creation. Digi- Empowering women ing in renewable
that non-oil merchandise resolution of global trade ten- well as introducing other ples of reforms that expand tal literacy and science and entrepreneurs, giving energy sources and
exports grew 2.5% in Novem- sions are possible upsides to enabling policies. This will opportunities. With start- engineering education can their products a platform, considering recyc-
ber, led by electronic goods, growth projections, a delay in ensure that every Indian ups innovating across immediately widen the and easing their entry into lability of prod-
engineering goods and phar- revival of domestic demand, a producer is empowered to domains such as digital funnel, empowering commercial activity can ucts and materi-
maceuticals, even as overall further slowdown in global create not only for India, but payments, online retail, India’s youth with the skills enable millions of women als we use are
exports contracted 0.3% dur- economic activity and geopoli- the world. We should take education and software, to succeed in the digital to be employed and gener- some steps we
ing the month. tical tensions are downside ‘Make in India’ global. India has made a solid start. world. ate income. need to take.
The Business Inflation risks,” said RBI.

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04 WEDNESDAY, 1 JANUARY 2020
NEW DELHI
HOPE AND ANXIETY AMONG
L I B E R A L I Z AT I O N ’ S C H I L D R E N
An open economy spurred growth and created a generation of aspirational millennials, but provided few avenues to follow these dreams
Vivan Marwaha
feedback@livemint.com
W
henever I discuss my
research on Indian mil-
lennials, most people
assume that I’m talking
about the social-media
addicted youth they see in Delhi or Mumbai,
glued to their smartphones and in pursuit of
instant gratification. While that image might
fit a very small minority of millennials, real-
ity tells a starkly different story.
Born between 1981 and 1996, millennials
grew up in an India in the midst of rapid
social, cultural, and economic change. The
forces of economic liberalization, intro-
duced in 1984, but unleashed in 1991,
changed the nature of the Indian economy
and ushered in unprecedented levels of for-
eign investment, which is why we are told
that liberalization ‘transformed’ India.
But as I’ve spent the last two years essen-
tially camped out in India’s small towns and
cities, my assumptions on the advertised
benefits of liberalization have been funda-
mentally chal-
lenged. Textbook
The cruelty of their situation
economic theory
is exacerbated by the fact of greater invest-
that as a whole, millennials ment, an increase
in white collar
are better educated than jobs, and the
previous generations entry of multina-
tionals appears to
have limited
weight and impact outside India’s metropol-
itan cities. And for older millennials—born
in the early 1980s and now on the other side
of 35—while liberalization encouraged
incredible aspirations and the promise of
opportunity, the avenues to pursue them
were few.
I see this most clearly in my field work in
Madhya Pradesh. In the winter of 2018, I
spent weeks in the state during its assembly
elections. As I travelled to town after town,
one sight had become eerily familiar to me:
hordes of young and middle-aged people,
mostly men, spending their time at public
squares, seemingly unemployed and disen-
gaged from economic activity.
Jabalpur is considered one of Madhya
Pradesh’s economic centres. At the time of
independence, it was a vibrant industrial
hub of central India, and is still home to one
of the government’s largest ordnance facto-
ries. I expected to find a thriving working
class population given the city’s history as a
manufacturing hub. Instead, I encountered
a city of more than one million people in
decline. As I shadowed local candidates can-
vassing for votes, the biggest issues raised to
me were the ongoing agricultural crisis and
unemployment. The youth I met broadly
came from two groups: rural labour who
were not currently needed on the farm, and
contractual workers who were laid off due to
the economic downturn. Both were casual-
ties of liberalization.
Today’s Jabalpur is a shadow of its former
self, largely because liberalization created
disproportionate growth in the services
industry—encouraged by globalization-fu-
elled cost arbitrage—instead of manufactur-
ing, which absorbs more people. It is
remarkable how the manufacturing sector’s
contribution to India’s GDP has remained
unchanged since liberalization.
But the cruelty of their situation is exacer-
bated by the fact that as a whole, millennials
are better educated than previous genera-
tions. An intensive focus on increasing
enrolment at the school level, along with an
increase in the access to public and private
higher education has created millions of
degree-holders who are either unemployed
or employed in positions which are not com-
mensurate with their qualifications.
Although this labour undervaluation is also
a product of the quality of education
attained, which leaves a lot to be desired,
neither the promise of education nor liberal-
ization has provided them with well-paid
and stable employment.
One evening after campaigning had fin-
ished, I was at a snack stall where I began
talking to the owner, a 32-year-old civil engi-
neer and first-generation graduate. After he
was laid off from a construction company
four years ago, no one was willing to hire him
and he could not move elsewhere because
he had to look after his ailing parents. So he
opened a snack stall, which sells pakoras,
kachoris and tea. After expenses, he brings
home about ₹5,000 every month. His wife,
a librarian at a private school, makes
₹12,000, which is how the family primarily
sustains itself.
“Being an engineer doesn’t mean much. I
wish I had applied for a government job
instead. I would have at least had a stable
income and been able to provide for my fam-
ily,” he told me.
His wife is an anomaly, given women’s
participation in the workforce has fallen
sharply since 2000. She only works because
her husband doesn’t make enough. A World
Bank study found that nearly 20 million
women dropped out of the workforce
between 2004 and 2012, and a Tata Sons-
Dalberg analysis estimated that approxi-
PLAIN FACTS
The Millennials
mately 120 million women in India have a
secondary education but do not participate
in the workforce. The snack stall owner’s
example suggests that their involvement in
the labour force can save families from desti-
tution, and the Tata-Dalberg study further
found that their employment can add ₹31
trillion, or roughly $440 billion, to India’s
GDP, but a variety of structural inequities
disable women from joining the workforce:
from existing social taboo and gender norms
to safety and mobility.
While we often discuss statistics that tell
us the Indian economy needs to add one mil-
lion jobs every month to keep its youth occu-
pied, or that employment needs to grow by
3% every year but has grown at approxi-
mately half that number, we forget about
older millennials who have families to sup-
port and children to educate.
According to government data, the
median age at marriage in India continues to
hover around 19 years for women and 23 for
men, which indicates that the median older
millennial is a parent to one or two children.
Juggling parental responsibilities with find-
ing or maintaining stable employment in an
economy which is shedding jobs has created
incredible anxiety among liberalization’s
children. The double whammy of women
missing from the workforce and the lack of
vibrant employment opportunities is the
biggest hurdle stopping older millennials
unlocking their greatest economic potential.
Although I had gone to Jabalpur to inves-
tigate the economic aspirations, social views,
and political attitudes of millennials, I was
left with more questions. But the biggest one
gnawing at me was about the breadth and
width of liberalization—since it clearly
wasn’t enough.
ASPIRATION AND REALITY
A few hours away from Jabalpur, in the
state’s capital, Bhopal, I met Jalaj Sharma, a
35-year-old money manager. After graduat-
ing with a degree in engineering from
Mandsaur Institute of Technology, he
ignored his government doctor parents who
were pleading with him to study for the
UPSC.
“For the same, or less, effort, I knew I
would be able to find a well-paid job in the
private sector,” he told me.
Sharma got a master’s degree in finance
next, and soon found a job at HDFC Bank. in
Mumbai, where his starting salary was
₹24,000 a month. “My peers and I knew that
stability wouldn’t be an issue. We only cared
about promotions and growth, and it is a fact
that the private sector would give us much
greater career progression than any suppos-
edly stable job in the government,” he said,
Two years later in 2009, he bought his
first car, a Maruti Alto, with the help of a
loan, and after working in Bengaluru for a
few years, he moved back to Madhya Pra-
desh, where he started a successful wealth
management business in Bhopal. His clients
largely include retired government servants
looking to invest their pensions.
“Joining the public sector and getting
promoted would have been harder for me as
a general category applicant,” he added.
With the implementation of the Mandal
Commission report in 1990 and the subse-
quent economic liberalization in 1991, many
forward caste members who had advanced
degrees essentially vacated government ser-
vice and dominated the nascent private sec-
tor. For this subset of educated young Indi-
ans, liberalization kicked off a 10-year boom
in 2000 with the creation of thousands of
high-paying jobs and opportunities that
were unthinkable a few years earlier.
Noida, Gurugram, Bandra Kurla Com-
plex, Whitefield and HITEC City rapidly
eclipsed Connaught Place and Colaba as the
hotbeds of economic power, fuelled by tal-
ented Indians joining companies lured to
these areas in search of selling products and
services to India’s growing middle class.
However, liberalization’s bounty has been
concentrated in a few enclaves in India’s big-
gest cities, where pricey shopping malls and
fancy office complexes stand on land consid-
ered remote just a few decades ago. As the
reforms were primarily focused on the for-
mal sector, the informal and non-corporate
sectors—where a majority of India’s popula-
tion finds its employment—continued to
remain shackled. As a corollary, most indi-
viduals linked to the formal sector were able
to capitalise on the economic churn, while
those in the informal sector were expected
to benefit from trickle-down economics.
A study by the International Labour Orga-
nization found that while the average wage
of the Indian worker doubled from 1990 to
2010, the median wage failed to keep pace,
implying that a small minority of workers
were skewing the mean wage upwards. Fur-
ther, a majority of the new jobs added from
2000 were in the low-productivity informal
sector, where most workers make less than
₹11,000 a month, roughly half of their coun-
terparts in the formal sector. This is why we
see news reports of millions applying for
peon-level positions in the government. A
stable, decent-paying job is better than
unstable and poorly compensated work
In an ideal situation, liberalization would
Millennials are constantly reminded
about life in India’s big cities and beyond,
and are well aware of the opportunities
and the wealth accumulated by those
living in these places. PRIYANKA PARASHAR/MINT
have ushered in a migration from the farm to
the factory. The lack of broad manufacturing
policies created a situation where the factory
was skipped and inequality exacerbated:
where most workers are still toiling on farms
or odd jobs for low pay, while a small group
of white-collar workers makes unprece-
dented sums of money in the services sector
This essay is not meant to demonize
wealth creation; its intent is to shine a light
on wealth expansion. Jalaj Sharma and the
snack stall owner are both small-town mil-
lennials, educated and running their own
businesses yet each has had a vastly different
experience from liberalization. Being a mil-
lennial and growing up with open markets
hasn’t meant the same access to opportu-
nity. But it has meant the same aspirations—
of doing better than their parents, owning a
house and a car, and being able to provide a
comfortable life for their children.
Today, millennials across classes and geo-
graphies are more equal than ever in their
access to information. The introduction of
new television channels in the 1990s and the
data and smartphone revolution currently
underway has cre-
ated India’s most
Being a millennial growing up
aspirational gen-
eration. Millenni- in open markets hasn’t
als are inundated meant the same access to
with ads about
new cement to opportunity. But it has
build houses, meant the same aspirations
home loans to
finance their con-
struction, and paint to finish them, but many
are not able to afford their own homes.
Given that they grew up before the econ-
omy liberalized, older millennials are happy
to have left the lack of choice and opportu-
nity in socialist India behind, but many feel
the old rules still apply. Crucial networks of
class and caste continue to play an important
role in accessing opportunity. Government
jobs are as competitive and desirable as ear-
lier, while success in the private sector is still
determined by one’s privilege. While aspira-
tions have evolved, reality hasn’t kept pace
Opinion is subjective but data objective.
Although liberalization accelerated India’s
GDP growth, it failed to turbocharge job cre-
ation and change the structure of the job
market. Finding answers to expand the ben-
efits of liberalization and create millions like
Sharma is the need of the hour.
Vivan Marwaha is a policy consultant and
author of the forthcoming book, What Millen-
nials Want, an intimate biography of Indian
millennials (Penguin, June 2020). He tweets
at @VivanMarwaha

WORK
T H E H U N T E R - G AT H E R E R S
O F T H E D I G I TA L W O R L D
Sandhya Soman
feedback@livemint.com
PANJIM
T
he beach is boring, declares a poster at a
backpacker cafe in Fontainhas, Panjim’s
Latin Quarter with cobbled lanes and ruby-
red villas. The poster is the only decoration
at the spartan café that offers free Wi-Fi
and dorm beds for ₹650 a night.
But Nikhil Mundhra spent one month in Panjim
only for the sea and sand. He’s not your regular tour-
ist—the 24-year-old India sales head for a digital mon-
etization company is one of India’s growing number
of digital nomads who depend on the internet to work
remotely, without a fixed home base.
“Beaches are the best part of Goa,” says Mundhra,
who would hit Miramar daily for an hour-long run.
The rest of the time, he worked out of 91springboard,
a co-working space in Panjim’s St Inez, away from the
crowds hell-bent on touring.
In December, Mundhra moved to Alt Life, a hostel
that doubles as a co-working space in Dharamkot in
Himachal Pradesh. He continues to work steadily for
his Canadian employer, plans treks to the Dhaulad-
hars on weekends, and ring in a productive New Year.
“The best part of the day: the evening bike rides,” says
Mundhra. To these young travellers, who chase
work-travel balance, it is the freedom to experience
slices of local culture that makes a workday meaning-
ful. What makes an ideal destination, though, is the
internet. For millennials, who entered the workforce
around 2003 in an era of relatively higher salaries
post-liberalization, travel was never about pilgrim-
ages or visiting relatives. Many of
them are choosing to see the world
Millennials are choosier at their own pace, sampling Ros
about what they do and omelette in Goa and biking in high-
where they work than earlier altitude Kangar to collect social
media mileage that would outdo
generations. And they have any souvenir. Unlike their prede-
more opportunities to do so cessors, the backpacker and the
flashpacker, digital nomads aim to
be financially self-sufficient to sus-
tain their lifestyle. Though millennials seem carefree,
it does take time to discard the rule-based world
they’ve grown up in and the notion that life must be
lived with caution. Mohammed Danish, a boot-
strapped engineer building a SaaS product, hit upon
the benefits of mixing work and travel after he quit his
job as chief technology officer at a co-working com-
pany in 2018 and decided to see the world.
“I met many who were working remotely or on
their own projects and was amazed to see this culture
that gives you freedom of work. It is an adventurous
life. I carry only one backpack with all the things
need,” says Danish, 26, now in his hometown of
Anupshahr in Uttar Pradesh after a month-long stay
in Singapore.
For Mundhra, it was about ditching a 12- to 14-hour
workday, his routine at his first job at an Indore
startup after graduating as an engineer from Vellore
Institute of Technology. The other path his class-
mates took was to cram for the IIT Common Admis-
sion Test. Instead, Mundhra says he is doing what he
likes. “Isn’t that important? If not, there will be no
individuality. We will all be the same.”
Mundhra is not alone in his desire to set himself
apart. Millennials are the “disrupted generation”,
shaped by technological and societal transformation,
says Deloitte Global Millennial Survey 2019. Millenni-
als are no less ambitious than previous generations
MARK TO MARKET WEDNESDAY, 1 JANUARY 2020
NEW DELHI 05
The Millennials
(From left) Sethu Sathyan, Shailna Wadhwa, Charlez
Kurian and Joshua Zuzarte recently moved to Goa to
work in 91springboard’s office near Panjim’s heritage
quarter of Fontainhas. UPENDRA NAIK/MINT
but 57% of those surveyed would rather see the world
than have children or buy homes. Many don’t hesitate
to leave jobs; they actively consider freelance or con-
tract work if workplaces aren’t inclusive enough or
the pay insufficient.
To live without worrying about money is possible
only if one has a job and the discipline to see it
through. Danish works 70% of the time Monday to
Thursday. “I work in cafes, public libraries and some-
times drop in at companies and co-working spaces to
network,” he says. Mundhra works four hours a day,
talks to colleagues on Slack or Skype, and switches off
on weekends.
NOMADISM AND GLOBALIZATION
It was in 1997 that the term ‘digital nomad’ was first
used by computer scientist Tsugio Makimoto and
journalist David Manners, writes Greg Richards a
professor at Tilburg University’s School of Social and
Behavioural Sciences. He says traditional backpack-
ers can be seen as a “neo-tribe”, gathering in self-suffi-
cient enclaves, while the digital nomad “utilizes exist-
ing digital and logistic infrastructure to maintain a
fluid, individualised lifestyle”.
Professor emeritus Joshua Meyrowitz of New
Hampshire University says society is witnessing a
return to early nomadism—hunting and gathering.
The ‘location-independent traveller’ tries to integrate
with the local community, while avoiding the stric-
tures of ‘system’, he writes.
Businesses too have started up around this way of
work. Across the world, there are summits, workshops
and even cruises to guide eager nomads. Seasoned
travellers start online support forums and bring out
guides, partly to sustain their own lifestyle.
Nishchal Dua, who has travelled across India and 18
countries, founded The Remote Life to act as a bridge
between freelancers and companies in 2016.
“The opportunity is in telling people how to manage
time and communicate with remote teams while con-
necting location independents with companies,” says
Dua. Of the 11,000-plus registered on his site, 40% are
from India. Not all are based out of Medellin or
McLeod Ganj but work from their homes, especially
women, says Dua, who was recently in Bengaluru to
speak at The Global Nomad Summit started last year.
A few years ago, Shivya Nath, 31, who’s been globetrot-
ting for seven years, put together her digital marketing
skills and travel experiences to start a rural tourism
company. Some startups are trying to get entire offices
to migrate to a nomadic lifestyle but with limited suc-
cess. In October, Harsh Snehanshu and Ashish Singh,
co-founders of YourQuote, a writing app, took their
eight-member team from Bengaluru to Burwa in Him-
achal Pradesh for a workcation. The team had trekkers
and bikers and the hills fit the bill. Till Diwali. “Many
wanted to be with their families and we got a bit disillu-
sioned,” says Snehanshu.
The management of 91springboard shifted its head
office to Panjim in 2017, and 36 of the 54 employees
moved. “For the most part, those who moved seem
happier. It has led to high performance and a loyalty
boost,” says Varun Chawla, co-founder.
Mundhra’s learnings are growing. The life experi-
ence and increasing confidence are better than any
MBA, he says. His family is slowly coming round,
adjusting to the idea that he’s not “settled” yet inde-
pendent and happy. “I am from a Marwari family and
have to send home money every month. It is good
money and at first, they asked if I was selling drugs,”
laughs Mundhra. As for the pursuit of happiness: “For
the first time, I am happy after college.”
06 WEDNESDAY, 1 JANUARY 2020
NEW DELHI BUSINESS OF LIFE
The Millennials
PLAIN FACTS

A N E W G E N E R AT I O N TA K E S
CHARGE OF OUR DESTINY
Vishnu Padmanabhan
vishnu.p@livemint.com Students from across the country
NEW DELHI came out to protest against the CAA
and raised slogans in solidarity with

O
ne of the defining moments of colleagues who faced the brunt of
2019 came almost at the end of police brutalities. PRADEEP GAUR/MINT
the year: Young students from
universities across the country
out protesting against the con-
troversial Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA)
and raising slogans in solidarity with col-
leagues who faced the brunt of police brutali-
ties. These protests are arguably the biggest
pan-India protests the country has witnessed
since the anti-corruption agitation of 2011,
which led to the formation of a new political
outfit, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), and helped
a three-time chief minister, Narendra Modi, to
stake claim to national leadership.
And if social media platforms Facebook and
Twitter were the key vehicles of mobilization
eight years ago during the anti-corruption
movement, photo-sharing app Instagram and
short video sharing app TikTok appeared to
have replaced them in these protests.
Data from the first round of the YouGov-
Mint Millennial Survey conducted in mid-
2018 had shown that among urban post-mil-
lennials or Gen Z, Instagram had replaced
Facebook as the more popular social media
platform. Among younger millennials, the two
had similar appeal, the data suggests.

GEN Z VS PREVIOUS GENERATIONS

Beyond social media usage, how different is
the Gen Z from earlier generations?
The data from the second round of the You-
Gov-Mint Millennial Survey conducted in the
first two months of this year suggest that this
generation is perhaps a bit more political com-
pared to millennials. Around 25% of Gen Z
adults (18-22 years) said they had participated
in some form of protests and rallies compared
to 22% among millennials.
Gen Z adults are also slightly
The data from a YouGov- less supportive of the Bhar-
Mint Millennial Survey atiya Janata Party’s per-
suggests this generation is formance compared to their
older cohorts.
perhaps a bit more political The second round of the
compared to millennials survey asked respondents
their views on important
social issues. And the
responses revealed a clear pattern in age and
views. Gen Z tends to hold liberal views on the
most important social issues—but this is only
relative to older generations. For instance,
only 54% of Gen Z find same-sex marriage
acceptable but this is still significantly higher
than the equivalent proportion for Gen X
(24%).
POLITICAL OUTLOOK
Generation Z or Gen Z is the term used to
describe the generation of young men and
women reaching adulthood at the end of the
second decade of the 21st-century. And India’s
generation is the largest in the world.
According to UN projections, there are cur-
rently 99.2 million Gen Z adults, aged
between 18 and 22 years. This is roughly a fifth
of the world’s entire Gen Z cohort, a propor-
tion greater than China, the US and Europe.
The growing importance of this generation
is reflected not just in these protests but also
on the internet. Search interest in Gen Z on
Google has steadily increased steadily over the
Gen Z more tolerant than other
generations
Support* for issue (% by generation)
Gen Z
100
80
60
40
20
0
Same-sex Inter-caste Inter-religious
marriage marriage marriage
*Support is defined as those who either find the issue completely acceptable or
somewhat acceptable. Analysis based on the views of 5,038 respondents.
years—both around the world and in India.
Searches for the Gen Z on Google, a useful
proxy of interest in a topic, peaked in 2019.
More than half of all Gen Z cited unemploy-
ment (55% of all respondents) and women’s
safety (53%) as their biggest concerns during
the second round of the YouGov-Mint Millen-
nial Survey. These were the biggest areas of
concern for millennials and Gen X as well. In
contrast, only 28.7% listed intolerance as an
area of concern compared to 33% of older mil-
lennials and 35% of Gen X who listed that as an
area of concern.
ISSUES OF CONCERN
The issue of jobs appears to be a source of
worry for youngsters everywhere. According
to a 2019 Deloitte survey of 3,009 Gen Zers
from 10 countries, unemployment was the
second biggest issue for the global Gen Z, just
Gen Z most concerned by
unemployment and women's safety
Issues of concern (% by generation)
Millennial Gen X
60
50
40
30
20
10
Gender parity 0 0
in salary Unemployment
Safety of
women
behind climate change.
Despite their youth and lack of work experi-
ence, employment, in general, seems to be
very important for India’s Gen Z. When asked
about what they considered important, India’s
Gen Z prioritized family, work and spending
time for themselves. More than 90% of Gen Z
considered these three aspects either impor-
tant or very important. Unsurprisingly, less
important were factors such as marriage and
religion which grow in importance with age.
WORK-LIFE BALANCE
For older millennials and pre-millennials, reli-
gion and marriage hold more importance, the
data from the second round of the YouGov-
Mint Millennial Survey showed.
The YouGov-Mint Millennial Surveys aim
to examine the attitudes and outlook of India’s
digital natives. Between mid-2018 and now,
Family, work and time for themselves
most important for Gen Z
What do you consider important? (% by generation)
Gen Z Millennial Gen X
100
80
60
40
20
Corruption Inflation Increase in
intolerance
Plight of GST
farmers
three rounds of the survey have been con-
ducted soliciting the views of thousands of
GenZ, millennials and pre-millennials, spread
across 180 cities and towns of the country.
Unlike many millennials, who started using
the internet after they grew up, Gen Z has
grown up with the net, and naturally, spend
much more time online, findings from the first
round of the YouGov-Mint survey found. And
a good chunk of this time is spent on online
shopping. Almost all of Gen Z prefer to do
their shopping online. Another key differenti-
ator is the type of spending. Gen Z, unsurpris-
ingly, tends to spend the least on big-ticket
items such as houses and cars, as they have less
accumulated savings compared to older age
groups. According to the third round of the
YouGov-Mint Millennial Survey conducted
between September and October 2019, the
biggest planned expenditure for Gen Z in the
Gen Z Millennial Gen X
Family Taking time Travel Marriage
for yourself
Work Friends Romantic relationships Religion
Source: YouGov-Mint Millennial Survey (Jan-Feb 2019)
SANTOSH SHARMA/MINT
upcoming year is on consumer durables such
as television sets and refrigerators. One big-
ticket area where the Gen Z are outspending
their older cohorts is vacations.
LACK OF JOBS CAUSES PANGS
All of this spending, though, is contingent on
income. Because of the ongoing slump, Gen Z,
many of whom will be entering the workforce
soon, are pessimistic about finding a job. The
third and latest round of the YouGov-Mint
Millennial Survey (Sep-Oct 2019) found that
an overwhelming majority among the GenZ
believe it is difficult to find a job these days.
Unless India gets back to creating growth
and jobs soon, these job-related anxieties of
India’s youngsters would only grow. India’s
political stability too could come under strain
if these anxieties of the youth are left unad-
dressed.

Why India needs its own definition of what it means to be a ‘millennial’ RAMESH PATHANIA/MINT

consumption encouraged, not curbed. Let’s call them Liberali- ernment. How are they coping with the slowdown? As the main-
zation Children (LC), a term I have used earlier. Why pick 1981 stream ruling age cohort and not some niche protected segment,
TA L K I N G to 1996? This is the period when India’s transition happened
from a closed economy to an open one—colour TV, 1982, Rajiv
they struggle with vulnerable occupations and muted or negligi-
ble income growths. Their utilitarian consumption gets even
POINT Gandhi and 1984 heralded both a generational shift and more utilitarian and their careful trade-offs make for interesting
so-called light reforms, while big-bang liberalization followed and patchy corporate results. While they consume debt, they do
RAMA BIJAPURKAR in 1991, and executing the basic reforms (decontrolling) for the so prudently. But their desire to consume is intact.
transition between 1991 and 1994. Though LC mark the beginning of the age of Indian consum-
Respond to this column at Studying this period also allows meaningful analysis of this erism, the next generation is far more interesting and discontin-
feedback@livemint.com cohort which is today between 25 and 40 years old, all in the uous in consumption and worldview. Born after 1996, called Gen
workforce and “full nest” householders. More than 85% are mar- Z in America, the appropriate label for them in India is Digizens.

M
illennials are an age cohort conceived in America as
those born between 1981 and 1996. In an article Defining
Generations: Where Millennials end and Generation Z
Begins, Pew Research says that “cut-offs of ages aren’t an exact
science, but tools for allowing analysis, yet not arbitrary, and
based on political, economic, social factors”. This means that
before we adopt the American construct of “millennials” as a rel-
evant tool for analysis, we need to test whether, by this defini-
tion, it makes sense to do so. And if not, what do we use then?
The markers for American millennials include being “old
enough to grasp the historical significance of 9/11”, growing up
“in the shadows of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan” with “huge
polarization of the environment”, the 2008 watershed election
when youth played a major role, entering the workforce at the
height of the economic recession, and with being the most
racially diverse group in America’s history. Clearly, none of these
markers apply to us here.
So what are India’s age cohorts that fit Pew’s criteria of being
a good tool for analyses and yet not arbitrary, but based on
thresholds which are defined by political, economic social
events? Liberalization is a central event for Indians, and cer-
tainly is most impactful one for any analysis of consumption.
The age cohort born between 1981 and 1996, the Indian con-
temporaries of American millennials, is a distinctive one.
They’re India’s first non-socialist generation, the first to have
ried, most have children presumably, and this is the first cohort
of both parents and children with post-liberalization consump-
tion sensibilities. That is why their large numbers—30% of the
population—have fuelled India’s consumption growth, aided by
gross domestic product-enabled income growth, more than any
generation before.
Consumption commentators often forget to factor in the criti-
cal role that supply plays in shaping consumption. For example,
it is no surprise that LC consume more debt than their parents—
they have more access to loans because of the birth of modern
private retail banking in 1993 and establishment of CIBIL in
2000. The better-off LC are sought after by banks for loans for
cars, two-wheelers, housing, durables, and this fuels their con-
sumption. This cohort is also the beneficiary of decreased prices
and improved quality thanks to, post-liberalization, duties com-
ing down, competition increasing, the Chinese goods boom and
the e-commerce money-burn wooing of customers, followed by
the sharing economy.
But we also need to be less starry-eyed and notice this cohort’s
dismal demographics—a majority rural, one-third have not
crossed primary school, only 10-12% are graduates, most who
work are in casual labour or petty self-employment, salary earn-
ers are in the minority.
Being mostly of modest income, and raised by socialist gener-
ation parents, they are not trigger-happy spenders. They spend
Millennials are 30% of the population and have fuelled India’s
consumption growth more than any other generation.
pragmatically on utilitarian consumption and affordable indul-
gences. Their consumption is thus rooted in the past sensibility
as well as the future. Conveyance, communication, productivity
tools (durables, motorcycles, smartphones), family entertain-
ment and education are their high-spending categories.
Cellphones tariff was affordable only from 2001. Cellphone
access truly began when our oldest millennial was 20, and par-
ents didn’t give it to the young ones. Affordable smartphones
came much later. They are enthusiastic about technology, very
comfortable with it and encourage their children’s usage of tech-
nology, though unlike them they are not digital from birth.
Given that the majority have endured modest incomes and
tough living conditions for a lot of their lives and have in the last
five to 10 years gained access to cooking gas connections, bank
accounts, improved infrastructure and amenities, direct benefit
transfers and easier payments, they are grateful to the Modi gov-
The oldest is still under 23 years old,
In India, Gen Z and none of them know the India that
should be called was before its Y2K-spurred identity of
Digizens. None aand software giant, before ubiquitous
cheap internet and gadgets,
of them know before digital payments, JAM, e-gov-
the India that ernance and tech-driven subsidies,
was before Y2K social media, all accessible no matter
which social class you are. Digitally
driven businesses enable even lower-
income Digizens to consume “above their pay grade” in status-
blind ways (think dynamic pricing on airline tickets, ride-shar-
ing, rickshaw hailing apps). The rise in data tariffs and how they
will adjust the rest of their consumption to afford it is yet to be
seen.
The big picture is that from now on, supply will drive demand.
The desire and the business models are available and consump-
tion will depend on who offers a more meaningful supply. If the
economy picks up as we hope it will and this supply-side
vibrancy happens, then liberalization children and their Digizen
offspring will skyrocket consumption, the new way.
Rama Bijapurkar is a market strategy consultant and
co-founder of People Research on India’s Consumer Economy,
www.ice360.in
 BUSINESS OF LIFE WEDNESDAY, 1 JANUARY 2020
NEW DELHI 07
The Millennials
TRENDS

LOOKING FOR SUCCESS IN 15

SECONDS ON TIKTOK STREET
Pooja Singh
pooja.s@htlive.com
NEW DELHI

H
rithik Sohankar has just taken a
break from directing a TikTok
video. Set in a back lane of Con-
naught Place’s B block, it features
a young man saving a blind
woman from a thief, with a Punjabi song as
background score. It took Sohankar 30 min-
utes to perfect the 15-second production,
which stars his friends. “I make every video
with the belief that it will go viral,” says
Sohankar, 19, as we sit down on the pavement.
For the past two years, every Sunday,
Sohankar, a Delhi University student, and his
five friends, aged 17-21, meet in the lane at
11am, and spend 9 hours making TikTok vid-
eos of each other. They cry; they laugh; they
lip sync to songs; they dance; they moonwalk;
they act out short skits; they express anger,
sadness, fear, disgust, surprise—all in 15 or 60
seconds. They break for lunch at 2pm, when
they share food from tiffin boxes brought from
home or go to the gurudwara for langar.
Their agenda is more than just fun. They
want to become TikTok stars, with a fan fol-
lowing of a million or more and a deluge of
brand endorsements. “We have to make 60
videos in a day so we stick to a strict schedule,”
says Sohankar, a resident of east Delhi’s Mayur
Vihar, who has over 2,000 TikTok followers.
“Also, it gets very crowded on the street.”
B Block’s back lane—with colonial white
pillars on one side and crumbling office build-
ings on the other—is like any other 250m
stretch in the Capital city, full of vehicles and
pedestrians.
But on Sundays, it turns into TikTok street.
Hundreds of young people throng the street,
coming from as far as Moradabad, about
175km from the capital, to make videos, which
will be uploaded with hash-
tags and filters over the Hundreds of young men and women
TikTok street regulars treat course of the week. Music meet every Sunday in the back lanes of
videos like an enjoyable work and dialogues blast from Connaught Place’s B Block in Delhi to
assignment. They make as tiny speakers as the young- make TikTok videos, hoping they would
sters face their phone cam- go viral and become famous.
many videos as possible till eras. All are working to PRADEEP GAUR/MINT

it’s time to go home and edit achieve what most people

only secretly dream of—
fame.
But why TikTok? “It’s easier to get famous
here; some people have become famous for no
reason,” laughs Sohankar, as he gets up to
rehearse. The group’s theme for this chilly
December Sunday is “disability awareness”
because talking about social issues “gets more
views”. “Our themes depend on what videos
are trending on Saturday. The performance
needs to be spontaneous,” says Sohankar,
while checking his reflection in a window. He
sucks in his cheeks, fixes the collar of his navy-
blue floral shirt, pulls his skinny jeans up, and
admires his gelled hair with tan-brown spikes.
“Action,” shouts his director, Deependu
Das, 21.
It was Das who introduced Sohankar to Tik-
Tok in 2017. “Initially, we watched it for fun.
Then I heard someone got endorsement gigs
after his videos went viral,” says Das, a corre-
spondence student who works as a clerk in the
Supreme Court. “If they can do it, what’s stop-
ping us? Imagine the thrill of people knowing
your name wherever you go.”
For many, TikTok is just another Chinese
import, a video-sharing app that provides
mindless yet refreshing entertainment with-
out too many ads or news. But for some mil-
lennials and post-millennials, the app is a
ticket to success.
The desire to be an influencer is so strong
that 86% of millennials and post-millennials
want to be an influencer, says a report by US
research firm Morning Consult, which sur-
veyed 2,000 people in the 13-38 age group.
Ashutosh Harbola, founder of influencer
marketing company Buzzoka, says a social
media celebrity can earn ₹20,000 to ₹1.5 crore
for an endorsement video or post, depending
on their popularity. “Whether it’s YouTube or
TikTok, brands recognize the power of influ-
encers and are ready to spend. Unlike celebri-
ties, an influencer is a regular person who peo-
ple can relate to and trust,” says Harbola.
India is the biggest market for TikTok with
over 200 million users across Tier 1, 2 and 3
cities. It works because it is a place for every-
one, regardless of ethnicity, gender or socio-
economic levels, says Sachin Sharma, TikTok
India’s director of sales and partnerships.
BACK-STREET STORY
A few metres from Sohankar’s group is a team
of five spiky-haired men in T-shirts, denim
jackets and skinny jeans, doing acrobatic
moves to the tune of Calvin Harris’ My Way.
“We are just making goofy videos today,” says
Pawan Thakur, 25, a bus conductor who lives
near Rohini. “I told my family, ‘Weekdays I
work to earn money, and weekends I work to
become famous’,” says Thakur, who learnt
about TikTok from his 10-year-old niece a
year ago. His group has been a TikTok street
regular since 2017.
What’s so special about TikTok street? The
light, the white background and the fact that
most viral videos were shot here, Thakur says.
“It looks like a foreign street.”
TikTok street regulars treat their videos like
an enjoyable work assignment. They make as
many videos as possible till it’s time to go
home and edit them. “We all know how to use
PhotoShop and Final Cut thanks to YouTube,”
says Sohnakar. His father, Sanjay, keeps a tab
on the videos. “He checks whether I was work-
ing or roaming around,” smiles the son.
“Like all parents, I want Hrithik to be happy,
but not at the cost of his studies,” says Sanjay,
an office attendant at state-run power com-
pany NTPC. “We never got the opportunity to
do what we really wanted (singing). At least
our children should follow their hearts.”
Two years ago, Rishabh Puri, 22, a graduate
of Amity University, used to travel two hours
from Faridabad to make videos on TikTok
street, but no more. Since his videos, showing
funny, daily-life shenanigans, started going
viral a year ago, brands started reaching out to
him for endorsements. So, he started focusing
on marketing videos. But, of course, keeping
his two million TikTok followers entertained
is his “first love”.
“I got my fans after years of hard work. They
have made me who I am. That’s why I’m con-
scious of my content,” says Puri. He recently
turned down an opportunity to promote an
alcohol brand. How did he develop the confi-
dence to face the camera? “You need to be a bit
of a narcissist,” says Puri, who plans to become
a producer within the next two years.
Unlike him, Gunjan Joshi, 30, gained fame
within a few months. “I shared my weight loss
journey,” says Joshi, who used to come to
TikTok street from her home in Gurugram.
After building a steady following, she quit her
engineering job at a multinational. She began
from uploading exercise videos and health
food recipes and today, she shares diet plans
with some of her 2.2 million followers. She
hopes to launch a wellness website soon.
In a world where the slightest hint of con-
troversy can end a career, these TikTokers are
aware that fame has an expiry date. They are
practical enough to create, or at least plan,
another career. Sohnakar wants to get into
event management, Das wants to find a better
job within the Supreme Court’s administra-
tive block, and Thakur is saving money to buy
a bus on loan.
“We know how to hustle,” says Sohnakar.

Kolkata’s millennials channel the bhodrolok spirit for a new decade

Sushmita Bose “Yes, true, things are in a flux, we have to rolok ecosystem—is too ingrained in us.” It’s from them that I’ve learnt my core val-
feedback@livemint.com change with the times, but our basics, the As is mostly the case, popular culture has ues that define ‘Bengali-ness’ for me: to be
KOLKATA value system, will always be in place, been a notable matrix. In reel, Uttam open-minded and accepting. They have a
despite the reinvention,” says 27-year-old Kumar—carrying off both dhoti-kurta and modernity that eludes the youth, who may

O
ld-time Calcuttans, especially dis-
placed ones like myself who still
prefer to call Kolkata by its more
anglicized name, find the City of Joy way
more cosmopolitan than it was a decade
ago. Scattered across the rapidly expand-
ing city are miniaturized versions of Big
Ben, Christ the Redeemer, Eiffel Tower,
the Colosseum and its own rendition of a
wax museum. Bollywood superstar Shah
Rukh Khan has been seen promoting Ben-
gal tourism as its brand ambassador—rid-
ing a Kolkata tram, humming a Rabindra
sangeet. International visitors, earlier a rar-
ity, are now a dime a dozen.
It’s also a city coming to terms with the
rapid influx of migrants from all over India;
its carefully-preserved silos are being bro-
ken; comfort zones are being stepped out
of.
Kolkata millennials have grown up, and
evolved, in this state of churn. They
acknowledge that the Bengali bhodrolok
(somehow the English “gentleman” cannot
pack the same punch), hallmarked by gen-
teelness and a type of non-intimidating
intellectual arrogance, remains a byword
for the city’s ethos.But word on the street is
being a bhodrolok does not cut much ice by
way of practical functionality.
I am sitting with 26-year-old Rwitoban
Deb, a political consultant and a former
Rwitoban Deb, 26, says young people in Kolkata want to change the perception that
Bengalis are laid-back
journalist. We are in a restaurant on Park
Street, right next door to Flurys, where yes-
teryear’s bhodroloks nibbled on chicken
patties and drank copious quantities of
Darjeeling tea.
“The bhodrolok is being reinvented,”
says Deb. “Consequently, we are being
reinvented.” From time to time, he refers to
“we, the millennials” as Kolkata’s “Netflix
generation”. “You see, people my age want
to snap out of the perception that Bengalis
are laidback, lazy and… well… ineffectual.”
While there’s a certain romantic ele-
gance about being a bhodrolok, the tag is
overwhelmingly associated with an image.
A bunch of Bengalis gathered in the
smoke-filled environs of the casually
ARIJIT SEN/MINT
decrepit College Street Coffee House—not
very long ago, the hub of robust dis-
course—endlessly debating Tagore, films,
welfare economics and the collapse of
communism.
Intellectually stimulating, yes, but ulti-
mately unproductive. “We live in result-
oriented times,” says Deb. “How does a
‘typical’ slow-paced, argumentative bhod-
rolok quantify the bottom line?”
The change sweeping Kolkata, he adds,
has been a good thing. “Bengalis are trying
to redefine and reclaim their identity and
culture, things they were taking granted,
with a twist. We are moving on. Our bhod-
rolok ethos will remain with us—it just
needs to evolve,” he says.
Suranjana Ray, who’s starred in popular
Bengali serials like Rajjotok and Chhoto
Bou. True to form, she gets quite dramatic.
“Bengali-ness, for me, is like a piece of
exquisite jewellery, a valuable artefact, an
heirloom, that’s passed on from generation
to generation, a legacy if you will.”
How is the Bengali value system differ-
ent from the rest? “It’s as simple as having
initiative,” says Ray. “The average parent
goes out of her/his way to instil ‘Bengali-
ness’ in their child, wherever in the world
they may be—learning to sing Rabindra
sangeet, for instance, even if you don’t have
a particularly good singing voice.”
IN THE LINE OF FIRE
Ritwika Basu, 26, who’s pursuing a PhD in
psychology, agrees. Her interview had to
be worked around her Rabindra sangeet
class timings. “Wouldn’t miss it for any-
thing.” The Bengali reinvention, she says,
can easily be mistaken as a classic deflec-
tion. “What comes through to me is how
we, members of the millennial generation,
are in the line of fire.”
They are being blamed for “forgetting
Bengali culture just because Kolkata has,
on the face of it, changed so much”.
Assumption: she is young, therefore root-
less and disconnected. “Far from it,” she
asserts. “Bengali-ness—or call it the bhod-
tux with an equal measure of flair—and be more exuberant but not necessarily in
Soumitra Chatterjee as Felu-da (the iconic step. It’s time to bust the myth that the older
Bengali detective created by Satyajit Ray) lot make you look backwards.”
equalled the alpha version of the bhodrolok In his own way, Deb tries to keep his lan-
culture in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s. That guage alive. He reads a Bengali newspaper
notion of living in the past stuck like glue, in the morning. It’s a conscious dose of sus-
feels Deb. “And that was the problem: we tenance to his roots, even though he real-
were drawing from a template created by izes that Bengali, as a language, has been
nostalgia.” Nothing steadily losing its cur-
wrong with nostal- rency.
gia but when one
There’s a certain romantic “Everything is
begins to build a elegance associated with need-based these
belief system around being a bhodrolok, and it’s days: if I make an
it, it becomes an effort to do some-
anachronism. not always in consonance thing, it’s usually
But there are with the present because there’s a
“small gestures” benefit attached to it.
establishing millen- But Kolkata’s Netflix
nial links to the Kolkata chromosome. millennials going that extra mile to resusci-
Many of them make it a point to have their tate their language, knowing they probably
wedding ceremony in Kolkata. won’t be able to cash in on this proves a
“It’s become a trend,” says Ray. “They Bengali revival [identity plus language] is
don’t have to do it, but they want to. Some- on its way.”
how it’s really important that their identity Food, he adds, is another great leveller.
shines through via a typical Bengali wed- Ray takes that forward: “I like having luchi-
ding, complete with quaint rituals, authen- torkari [Bengali-style pooris and potato
tic food and classic attire, and most of them curry] on Sunday mornings. The gastro-
marry non-Bengalis, non-Indians.” nomic pride she feels as a Bengali is akin to
Hanging out with family elders is Basu’s a signature seasoning. “Yeah, right, I know
favourite pastime, her way of carrying on it’s childish to gloat over identity at the
the bhodrolok legacy. “I really enjoy it. breakfast table—but, what to do, we are like
There’s so much to learn and carry forward. that only.”
08 WEDNESDAY, 1 JANUARY 2020
NEW DELHI BUSINESS OF LIFE
The Millennials
ENVIRONMENT

I N G R E TA , C H E N N A I F I N D S
I T S C L I M AT E C H A N G E I C O N
Karthikeyan Hemalatha
feedback@livemint.com
CHENNAI

T
he relationship between Chennai-
ites and their beach is as old as the
city itself. Student-volunteers
greeting nesting turtles, young lov-
ers finding a quiet spot, grandmoth-
ers in saris and sneakers on daily walks and
fishermen unknotting nets—the beach has
space for everyone, and each person has his or
her own ties to the sea. Fifteen years ago, this
relationship was briefly tested when the 2004
tsunami hit the city.
There’s a threat looming again from the sea:
a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change has estimated that 730,000
people in Chennai and property worth more
than $100 billion would be exposed to flood-
ing with a 50cm sea-level rise. Chennai is also
among the 20 cities with the highest propor-
tional increase in exposed population by the
2070s by when sea levels would have
increased by half a metre.
But Chennaiites aren’t sitting back. Its mil-
lennials—born between 1981 and 1996—are
leading the charge to create awareness about
climate change and sea-level rise, much like
their contemporaries around the world.
The floods of 2015, the subsequent drought
and the water crisis of 2019 have brought the
climate crisis centre stage. “It was definitely a
turning point in how Chennaiites saw cli-
mate,” says Daniel Robinson, 38, city director
for C40 Cities, a network of the world’s
megacities committed to addressing climate
change, who works closely with the govern-
ment.
“The government has realized how vulner-
able the city is to climate change. Yet, environ-
mental clearance is given to projects built on
wetlands. There is a bureaucratic inertia that
is difficult to shake off,” says
Pooja Kumar, 28, from Veti-
In Chennai, which has ver Collective, who works
seen a string of extreme with local fishing communi-
weather events, the threat ties and government bodies
to save the city’s wetlands. (From left) Miruthula Padmanabhan, Dilip Srinivasan and
of climate change is real A city of eight million Daniel Robinson at Marina Beach, where most rallies to
and has been a wake-up call people, Chennai has wit- raise awareness about climate change are held. KUMAR/MINT
nessed massive protests, and
youngsters have always
been the driving force. From the student-led out, we’ve had the highest turnout of people since 2011, Chennai experienced drought, Srinivasan, 30, who runs an apparel business. chapter has about 130 members, all aged
protests against Hindi imposition in the 1960s wanting to join our movement since I started with 2013 recording a 33% deficiency of rain. He is the moderator of a Facebook group, The between 21 and 35.
to the 2011 India Against Corruption rallies, it’s working in 2009,” she says. “At least 3,000 The year after the 2015 floods, Tamil Nadu New Face of Society, which started as a plat- Fridays For Future, a global movement
the young who have pushed for change. In people came for our September climate saw its worst drought in 140 years. Chennai form to coordinate volunteer work during the inspired by Thunberg, has about 300 members
2015, traditional barriers of caste and class march,” she said. “But we need to go beyond received 62% less than normal rain during the 2015 floods. It has over 60,000 members. in Chennai. “When we talk about a two-degree
came down briefly as the city united to work carrying placards and find ways to hold the 2016 northeast monsoon, the main rain sea- Since the floods, the spirit of volunteering rise in global temperatures, no one cares. But
on flood relief, led by millennials who used government accountable.” son for the state. 2017 and 2018 were also has grown, he says, adding that Chennai has when we talk about sea-level rise, everyone
social media to coordinate rescue work. Chennai is no stranger to drought, extreme drought years with water scarcity reaching a become a hub for volunteerism. “I used to use takes note. This is not to say that there is no
In 2017, college students turned out in summer temperatures and flooding. Records peak during the summer of 2019. Soon after a a two-wheeler. Now I’ve challenged myself to inertia when it comes to people taking climate
thousands to protest against the Supreme of drought go as far back as the 19th century. drought season in 2018, Cyclone Gaja killed at use public transport for commuting,” he says. change seriously,” Padmanabhan says.
Court’s ban on jallikattu or bull-taming. The However, the intensity and the frequency of least 45 people and went on to flatten agricul- The threat of sea-level rise is the easiest trig- James Lovelock, a renowned environmental
Marina Beach, with its seemingly endless these extreme events indicate that climate tural fields in southern Tamil Nadu. ger point for an average Chennaiite. “The fear thinker and an independent scientist, once said
sands, untiring waves and a statue of Mahatma change is altering Chennai’s weather patterns. Despite this, most people seem to have of air pollution doesn’t work here as it hasn’t humans were “too stupid” to do anything about
Gandhi, is often the site of these protests. Between 2004 and 2011, Chennai experi- moved on from the shock of the 2015 floods. At hit us as badly as it has landlocked cities like climate change. “I don’t think we’re yet evolved
While the government might be slow to enced eight consecutive years of excessive that time, 500 people died and 2.3 million Delhi,” says Miruthula Padmanabhan, 21, who to the point where we’re clever enough to han-
react, millennials have found their icon in rainfall from the northeast monsoon, accord- homes were inundated. “Yes, 2015 was a studies fashion and is a member of the Chen- dle as complex a situation as climate change,”
Greta Thunberg and have responded to her ing to data from the India Meteorological wake-up call. We had a number of volunteers. nai chapter of Extinction Rebellion (XR). As Lovelock said in an interview nearly a decade
call for action. Kumar says whenever the Veti- Department. “This is the longest streak of Everyone wants to do something but they’re the name suggests, XR is known globally as a ago. “The inertia of humans is so huge that you
ver Collective used to hold protests or rallies excessive rains since weather recording began slow to come out of their comfort zone. We hit group that uses non-violent civil disobedience can’t really do anything meaningful.”
before, the same set of people responded. “In in 1870,” says Y.E.A, Raj, retired deputy direct- the snooze button very quickly, and that has to pressure governments to reduce emissions The millenials of Chennai might just prove
the past year, with Greta Thunberg speaking or-general for IMD Chennai. For three years been the case with every disaster,” says Dilip and act against climate change. The Chennai him wrong.

Leaving behind the past, Bhopal sows seeds of a new green revolution
Sushmita Bose Centre are working at cross-purposes.” ber, the anniversary of the Bhopal gas zameen (land). “it’s a kuchcha house,
feedback@livemint.com It’s easy to see why a mindful millennial tragedy. Protest group members came where food is prepared in the chulha
BHOPAL can get depressed. There are tonnes of and lay down on the track, “dressed” like (earthen oven)”. He maintains he doesn’t
chemical waste lying here, residue has corpses. “We carried on regardless,” he believe in environmental activism but it’s

T
here’s a haze of toxicity shrouding
Bhopal, one of India’s greenest, least
polluted urban spaces that goes by
the moniker City of Lakes—the lingering
shadow of the Bhopal gas tragedy.
The infamous gas leak, now consid-
ered the world’s most catastrophic indus-
trial disaster, played out on 3 December
1984. Even today, its residual chemical
impact continues to wreak havoc on soil
and water, and ultimately, human lives.
The Union Carbide leak continues to
haunt— and stoke—the collective young
psyche.
Sitting in a café overlooking the sun-
dappled Bhojtal—also known as Upper
Lake or Bada Talab—with 20-somethings
Umar Khan, Shahrukh Rahman and Kok-
ila Bhattacharya, I am told the Bhopal gas
tragedy should be used as a metaphor for
environmental change. A call to action.
“You see, I don’t think most of us realize
we’ve reached the point of no return,” says
Khan. “Unless we do something about it
right now, we are doomed.”
Khan, a trained engineer and former
TCS employee, started The Dream Box
Foundation a few years ago. The NGO
conducts public campaigns and aware-
ness drives around environment, health
and education. It works with students and
local authorities using its crowd-sourced
‘Green Army’ of volunteers.
Khan runs Dream Box while pursuing a
seeped into soil and water, contaminating
them for the long term. Second- and third-
generation kids have suffered, there are
babies born with disabilities even today.
“But all assessment projects have been
dumped because the government does
not want to take responsibility.”
Clearly, the ‘green’ revolution has to be
a people’s movement.
The onus has to be on us.
Hearteningly, all of them feel the
younger generation is much more aware
and vocal than the previous one, espe-
cially in matters related to the environ-
ment. Bhattacharya points out that even
though “policy-level” changes are yet to
see the light of day, that doesn’t stop her
(From left) Shahrukh Rahman, Tanmay Jain, Umar Khan and Kokila Bhattacharya believe from making lifestyle tweaks.
individual action, however small, can help preserve the environment. “No plastic comes to my house, I carry
cutlery in my bag, never use products
degree in environment management. His voice to the arts and socio-political issues, manufactured by companies that are
right-hand man is Rahman, whose day job and has been involved with campaigns in harming the environment. It may not
lies in the real estate domain. Rahman is her state, at times in collaboration with make a difference to the corporates, but it
quick to point out his family construction other bodies, including UNICEF. does make a difference to me.”
business incorporates green trends and “We’ve done campaigns that cover Earlier in the day, I’d met 32-year-old
eco-friendly structures. everything from the aftermath of the Bho- Tanmay Jain, the man behind Fervid
“Environment is an extension of our- pal gas tragedy and environmental issues Club, an organization that manages mara-
selves… we have to save it if we want to to gender and sexuality, LGBT and child thons (and art carnivals) all over India,
save humanity,” says Bhattacharya. “We rights,” she says. and, of course, Bhopal and its adjoining
have the power, the privilege, the talent… How effective is millennial angst in districts. One of them is Run Bhopal Run.
maybe it’s time to do away with ‘millennial Bhopal? This flagship marathon is held on the first
depression’ and get cracking?” Expectedly, not much. “Nothing hap- Sunday every December.
She is a freelance visual artist who runs pens really,” says Bhattacharya. “The gov- Jain told me about the one year when
Dylogg, a community space that lends a ernment doesn’t care, the state and the the first Sunday happened to be 3 Decem-
recalls. They were trolled on social media, obvious there’s an ecosystem he is influ-
but he waved that aside. encing.
“It’s time to get over the ‘tragedy city’ Back in the café, I ask Khan, Bhatta-
tag and move on. I hope one day Bhopal is charya and Rahman about what should be
tagged the city of marathons instead. You the way forward for a green ecosystem to
run past lakes and waterfalls, through for- fructify.
ests… it’s exhilarating to be so close to Khan: “We need to have sustainable cit-
nature.” He’s also introduced plogging— ies. In rural areas, there has to be empow-
picking up garbage while running—in erment and economic revamps... The gov-
Madhya Pradesh. ernment must intro-
Jain was previ- duce subsidies and
ously a journalist,
They believe that the new incentivization
and tends to dive green revolution has to be a schemes.”
into the deep end of people’s movement. Gen Y Bhattacharya:
an issue. So when he “We need to band
felt inspired by is more aware and vocal than together, not be iso-
Akira Miyawaki, the the previous generations lated. Let’s create
Japanese botanist benchmarks and
who has been take public action…
restoring natural vegetation on degraded this is our battle, we need to fight it.”
land, he decided to do something about it. Rahman: “We formed an NGO, started
One of his initiatives has been conducting collaborating with people, made them
plantation drives — à la Miyawaki — inside aware, called for media intervention…
the Bhopal campus of the All India Insti- Let’s keep up the momentum.”
tute of Medical Sciences. What are millennial impressions about
In his office, you don’t see a single piece post-millennial green warrior Greta
of plastic. He insists on food being pre- Thunberg?
pared in the kitchen for his staff—no out- “She’s a child, reminding the world
side food is allowed. Cloth bags are used what to do,” Bhattacharya shrugs matter-
for shopping. If anybody gets anything in of-factly. “Instead of worrying if she is
a polythene bag, they risk getting a dress- genuine or fake, listen to her message.
ing down. What she says is important. Take action,
Jain doesn’t have air-conditioning at be responsible. We all need to be Gretas in
home or in his car. His farmhouse is called our own way.”
 BUSINESS OF LIFE WEDNESDAY, 1 JANUARY 2020
NEW DELHI 09
The Millennials
WORK

M E E T S I K K I M ’ S WA R R I O R S
F O R S U S TA I N A B L E T O U R I S M
Sohini Sen
sohini.s@livemint.com, Manisha and Bhavna Sharma (centre), who organize an annual
GANGTOK/YUKSOM cycling ride along the ancient Silk Route in Sikkim, with their
guests from Tagalong Hostel in Gangtok. RUDRA SUBBA/MINT

I
n Gangtok’s Tagalong Hostel, groups of
20- and 30-somethings are in the café on
the ground floor, eating pasta, playing a
game of Uno, and sharing stories (and a
smoke). Most of them are solo travellers,
making friends along the way as they take in
the sights and sounds of Sikkim.
Tagalong isn’t luxurious but there’s a rea-
son the guests have chosen it—there are cloth
napkins on each table, water is poured from
glass bottles, and there’s hardly any plastic in
the café. For many millennials, making eco-
logically conscious choices while travelling is
as important as experiencing new places.
In its 2018 survey, travel company Cox &
Kings found that 87% of millennials—many of
whom are also looking for off-beat experien-
ces and destinations—want to make sustaina-
ble choices when they travel. And in Sikkim,
it’s not just the travellers who are woke millen-
nials but also the hospitality providers.
“What’s exciting is that our guests support
our efforts to follow sustainable practices,”
says Bhavana Sharma, 29, who co-founded the
café and hostel with her sister Manisha in
Gangtok’s busy Development Area in 2017.
What they’re best known for though is Ride
the Silk, an annual, week-long cycling expedi-
tion to Nathula along the ancient silk route.
They were the first to introduce cycles on the
route popular with motorbikers.
It’s the kind of story that appeals to millen-
nial travellers—a brand that’s grown slowly and
consciously, drawing in the community, and
providing a niche, curated travel experience
with minimal ecological impact. Since cycle
rides are slower and riders make more over-
night stops, the Sharma sisters convinced resi-
dents along the 160km route to open home-
stays. For the ride and other
treks they organize, the sis-
With more people on the ters choose sustainable alter-
road, ecotourism, or visiting natives—they’ve replaced
natural areas in a way that Maggi packets with home-
made snack packs, Pet water
leaves a low impact on bottles with steel sippers,
biodiversity, is important and everyone has to carry
back waste and dispose it off. tion Committee (KCC), a not-for-profit based ment also trained home-stay hosts in an about a range of issues from the importance of targeted by people pretending to be tourists.
Most urban millennials in Yuksom in western Sikkim. attempt to make the state an ideal ecotourism education to garbage recycling. The younger generation, having seen the natu-
take two to five trips a year, enthusiastically Waste management is an issue, especially in destination. “When the locals are aware and mobilized, a ral treasure trove under threat, have signed up
immersing themselves in experiences. With remote areas of Sikkim, such as the village of Chungda Sherpa trained as a guide with lot can be done,” says Gopal Limbu, 34, recall- for the Himal Rakshak programmes or
more people on the road, ecotourism—or visit- Yuksom. At 1,780 metres above sea level with KCC straight out of school in the late 1990s. “I ing a 2001 incident when two Russians were reported “suspicious behaviour” of trek-
ing relatively undisturbed natural areas in a a population of 4,000 (according to the 2011 decided to focus on birding. I take groups for arrested for illegally collecting 2,000 rare but- kers.Training like this has been important in
manner that leaves low to zero impact on the census), Yuksom is still largely untouched by treks, and have increased my income because terflies from the forest above Yuksom. He’s building an environment for ecotourism in Sik-
biodiversity—becomes significant. It’s the urban problems. But the small village is also the I provide a niche service,” says Sherpa, who been volunteering as a ‘Himal Rakshak’ since kim. The work that goes behind the scenes is a
small-scale alternative to standard, commer- entry point for major treks to Khangchend- also runs a home-stay in Yuksom. 2014. The ‘Himal Rakshak’ or voluntary moun- lot—from identifying areas that do not have
cial mass tourism. Tourism in Sikkim so far, zonga, including Dzongri and Goechela. “Yuk- Sherpa’s clients are mostly millennial bird- tain guardian programme was piloted in Sikkim many hotels to finding families who don’t mind
unfortunately, has mostly been of the latter. som gets an average of 4,000 tourists a year ing enthusiasts who visit to get a glimpse of Sik- in 2006 for on-ground conservation. if guests enter their private space.
Since permits were relaxed in 1992, there’s and often during the same season. This can be kim’s 500-plus species. He says millennials in As a ‘Himal Rakshak’, Limbu and others run Every step that individuals like Limbu and
been a boom in tourist arrivals. According to a burden on our natural resources. The treks Yuksom are now interested in turning guides awareness campaigns, conduct the animal cen- Sharma take is geared towards a bigger goal—
the latest data from the Sikkim Tourism also lead to deforestation and garbage dump- and naturalists. “Back then, none of us had sus and more. “At panchayat meetings, we talk making Sikkim the model for ecotourism,
department, the number of tourists jumped ing. We needed to do something to maintain access to reference books or binoculars. My to villagers to help them understand that we which will inspire other areas in the country.
77% to 1.4 million in 2017. “Most locals depend balance,” explains Bhutia, 49. nephew, who is now training to be a birding must protect our environment,” he adds. Similar, small initiatives for sustainable and
on agriculture or tourism here. We need to KCC started raising awareness about guide, has everything on his phone.” There are three such clusters of Himal Rak- eco-friendly travel are being incubated around
make sure that the state can handle all these ecotourism in Yuksom in 1996 and organized Sherpa’s nephew is not the only one training shaks in Sikkim, each with an average of 15 vol- the country—home-stays in Karnataka’s Coorg,
tourists. If we don’t adopt sustainable tourism training for locals in a bid to bring employment to be a guide. As tourist numbers rise, young unteers. Sikkim has always been under threat turtle watching in Velas in Maharashtra, staying
practices, we’ll end up destroying the thing to the region. They trained locals—mostly people are dropping out of school to guide from poachers and bio-pirates. With abundant in floating islands of Loktak, Manipur, or shar-
that sustains us—like the goose that laid the young boys who’d dropped out of school—as treks. They see easy money, and do not return flora and fauna, including snow leopards, red ing a traditional meal with tribal families in
golden eggs,” says Pema Gyaltshan Bhutia, naturalists, guides, trekking cooks, porters and to finish their education. So Sewaro Youth panda, blue sheep, Asian black bears, various Ziro, Arunachal Pradesh. It’s travel for millen-
general secretary, Khanchendzonga Conserva- pack animal operators. The Sikkim govern- Club has come together to raise awareness orchids and medicinal plants, it has often been nials and by millennials.

The writers’ bloc behind the scenes at Netflix and Amazon Prime shows
Lata Jha balance is also important; some producers viewer to return, and not switch to a differ- telling. There is a new format of writing,
lata.j@livemint.com specifically ask for equal representation ent show or platform. not limited to 90 minutes or two hours.
MUMBAI from women in the writing team. “What we have right now is more than They go on, their arcs are different, they go
“The way a writers’ room functions an outline and less than a beat sheet,” the from season to season,” filmmaker Ritesh

A
group of six 20-something writers
are eavesdropping as a woman in
the next room screams down the
phone at a colleague who has gone AWOL
for a week. It’s pretty clear from their gig-
gles that it’s likely some of the scenes will
make it to their script, just like much of
their own backgrounds and life experien-
ces do.
Every minute of the meeting to discuss
plot lines and characterization for a new
Netflix show is documented by a person
taking notes on a Macbook. The discussion
is recorded on a mobile phone. A white
board is laid out with broad themes for five
episodes and sub-points scrawled with a
marker. The youngsters haven’t started
writing yet—there are no scenes or dia-
logues on paper. They are brainstorming
over motivations of characters, their arcs
and journey.
The writers spend six to eight hours a
day, six days a week with one another, in a
high-rise in Andheri. There are no dead-
lines but they have to send sketches to
their producers on a regular basis. They
speak in a mix of Hindi and English, and
their characters will too. A supervising
producer is visiting today to check on
progress and give feedback personally.
“I’m not told anything (by Netflix about
the target audience for a show),” says
Dhruv Sehgal, a writer for the platform’s
popular romantic comedy Little Things.
depends a lot on the narrative that is set by
the head writer,” says Sehgal, who was
head writer on the previous season of Little
Things. He started the writing process with
exercises that he felt matched the ethos of
the show. “All of us writers would discuss
the biggest and smallest things in terms of
space and physicality that gave us joy,
essentially the magnitude of happiness,
and a lot of it made it to the show.”
When his protagonists Dhruv and Kavya
meet after a few months of being in a long-
distance relationship, she notices him
playing with his ears and asks him about it,
to which he replies he likes the wind pass-
ing through the back of his hair.
“Our writing assistant came up with that
Writers spent six to eight hours a day, six days a week, with one another in a room when asked about the smallest thing that
working on characters and scripts. ISHIKA MOHAN MOTWANE/NETFLIX makes him happy. I do a lot of such exer-
cises. It shows you how different people
The show, which has just closed its third them because they resonate with me—the think and why a writers’ room is needed is
season, revolves around a Mumbai-based, sudden feeling that money is very impor- for perspective,” Sehgal says.
millennial, live-in couple, struggling to tant or that your parents are getting old, In the 14th-floor room, the six young-
make sense of their evolving lives and per- these issues are universal. There will sters are looking to put a bit of themselves
sonalities. Sehgal plays the lead along with always be a confused 27-year-old who will into their stories and characters. Every the-
film and web show actor Mithila Palkar. watch a show like that.” ory is critiqued and questioned (the most
“But it’s not possible to not think of an For now, most producers of Netflix Orig- common refrain being “Bollywood-sa ho
audience while writing,” he says, referring inals are looking to bring in writers whose gaya ye”—which translates roughly into an
to the show’s millennial vibe and connect. own stories resonate with audiences of a arc having turned too mainstream movie-
“The point is I know my age, I know the age certain age. When Sehgal is recruiting for like and, consequently, unrealistic and
of my characters and I, therefore, know his writing team, he wouldn’t want people unacceptable). But it’s not just about mak-
that the majority of my audience will be in to feel lost if he envisions Dhruv and Kavya ing it believable; making it interesting is
this age bracket too. I will be talking about (his protagonists) walking into a Blue Tokai important too. The goal is to make sure
things and feelings that will resonate with coffee shop or a Palladium mall. Gender each episode ends in a way that forces the
head writer says, making sure the others Sidhwani of Excel Entertainment had said
are on their toes. His team comes from dis- in an earlier interview to Mint. “We’re see-
parate backgrounds—Delhi, Mumbai, ing so much new talent in front of and
Kanpur—and the diversity aids the discus- behind the camera. Writers, directors,
sion. Some of them have been picked by showrunners and actors are all investing in
Netflix, others have pitched themselves, creating characters people enjoy.”
some are known to be good with grammar, Many writers admit they would not con-
others funny. sider writing for traditional cinema or TV.
Bollywood had a tradition of writers’ Sehgal made independent documentaries
rooms through the before he signed up
1970s. Filmmakers with Pocket Aces for
like G.P. Sippy
Streaming platforms are Little Things, the first
would credit writing bringing back the ‘gadda’ season of which the
teams and not indi- rooms of 1970s Bollywood, company released on
viduals. These writ- Dice Media’s You-
ing sessions took where the writers would Tube account in
place in the film- brainstorm for hours 2016. Subsequent
makers’ homes or seasons were picked
offices, in rooms up by Netflix. Other
popularly called gadda (mattress) rooms. creators, like Biswa Kalyan Rath and
The rise of screenwriter duo Salim Khan Sumukhi Suresh, who work with Amazon
and Javed Akhtar in the 1970s, the first Prime Video, started out as YouTube
Indian screenwriters to achieve star status comic sensations too.
and have their names emblazoned along “For a young writer, it’s suddenly
with the leads on posters, brought individ- become very easy to make a lot of money,”
uality to screenwriting. Sehgal says. But with money come distrac-
Now streaming platforms like Netflix tions. “The good thing is that young writ-
and Amazon Prime as well as Bollywood ers like me have an opportunity to get feed-
production houses have set up writers’ back from other writers,” he says. “We
rooms, providing a more democratic way don’t live in a cocoon. If I watch a show that
for young writers to make a foray into the I really like, the first thing I do is message
entertainment world. the writer. So besides the money and the
“The most exciting thing about this (dig- opportunity, there is a small writing com-
ital) platform is the kind of stories you are munity that has formed.”
10 WEDNESDAY, 1 JANUARY 2020
NEW DELHI CORPORATE
The Millennials

One of the best performing films of 2019, Gully Boy, directed by Zoya Akhtar, told the story of hip-hop artists from Mumbai and captured the millennial spirit of aspiration and ambition. The film is India’s entry to the 2020 Oscars.

A SHORT HISTORY OF
MILLENNIAL INDIA
Millennials, the generation of Indians born between 1981 and 1996, came of age in a country that was opened up, not just in terms of the economy and
markets, but also to ideas, cultural influences and innovation. Growing up as digital natives with exposure to a diversity of ideas, millennials are a
generation with the hustle and the hunger to do more. Here’s a quick look at some of the social, cultural and political events that shaped them

As the 1980s begin, so does the Indians get on the road to mass
beginning of the end of licence raj consumption—in a small car
I n the 1980s, GDP growth had touched 5.6% and BSE
Sensex was just beginning to take off. This was the era
Millennials oftentimes are mocked—people I n 1983, the first Maruti car rolled off an assembly line in
what was then Gurgaon. It was a project that started with
when the idea of liberalization began to take root. From the
1960s, price controls and licences ruled policy, but through
the 1980s, various committees that were appointed began to
say they’re lazy, they’re entitled and that they cry controversy but gave birth to one of India’s most iconic
brands. A project for an affordable small car was
conceptualized by then prime minister Indira Gandhi’s son
examine the need for deregulation and industrial reforms.
The sixth Five-year Plan (1980-85) aimed to undertake a
about small things (which is true). But they’re also Sanjay, but so ridden with flaws that the government finally
signed a joint venture with Japan’s Suzuki to produce the
string of measures to boost competitiveness. This meant the
removal of price controls, initiation of fiscal reforms, a driven. They wish to make a change. vehicle. It was a real people’s car—fuel-efficient, affordable
and easy to drive, a far cry from the clunky cars Indians
revamp of the public sector, reductions in import duties, were used to till then. The Maruti 800 and the demand for
and de-licensing of domestic industry—in essence, ending TREVOR NOAH it signalled the rise of a new Indian middle class. It would
COMEDIAN AND TV SHOW HOST, IN ‘TIME’
the licence raj. The government’s attitude towards business, take 20 years for a similar revolution to disrupt aviation,
if not markets, gently moved from hostile to supportive. courtesy Air Deccan.

HT

Life on television gets some colour, Dev’s Devils take India into seventh Network over cash: One of the earliest
and a dose of entertainment heaven with first World Cup win hostile takeover bids in India foiled
I n 1982, television broadcasting went from black-and-
white to colour ahead of the Asian Games. Until then, TV
programming was confined to a few cities and was largely
N o one—probably not many within the Indian cricket team
—imagined India would win the World Cup in 1983 at
Lords in the UK. The team, captained by Kapil Dev, beat the
A s the government relaxed capital markets in 1982-83 to
get more foreign money, particularly from non-
resident Indians, London-based Lord Swraj Paul acquired
informative and educational in nature. Telecasting began in formidable West Indies by 43 runs. Members of the team, significant shares from the open market in chemical
India in 1959, and daily transmission in 1965. But it was only from Kapil Dev, Sunil Gavaskar and Kris Srikkanth to Syed manufacturing company DCM Shriram and engineering
in the 1980s that TV sets found their way into homes across Kirmani, Ravi Shastri and Mohindar Amarnath, became stars group Escorts (makers of the iconic Rajdoot motorcycles,
the country. Sponsored programmes began in the 1980s, overnight, and gave the country much to be proud of. Dev among others). The promoters’ families had small holdings,
and shows like Malgudi Days, Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi and scored a personal record as well during the tournament, with but their influence in circles that mattered was large. At that
Buniyaad became a reason for the family to sit together an innings of 175 not out against Zimbabwe (not televised or time, government-owned banks held a substantial take in
once a week to catch the latest episode—very different from recorded in that era so few Indians witnessed it), and held the all companies. The families, Bharat Ram of Shriram and
individual binge-watching sessions that millennials thrive record for the highest World Cup score at the time as well as Nandas of Escorts, began hectic lobbying. After some
on today. TV advertising also spurred the beginning of the highest score in One-Day International cricket. anxious months, their deep networks paid off, and they
consumer demand and aspiration in a generation. managed to stave off the hostile takeover.

THE CONSUMPTION SHIFT

60 THE RIGHT NOTES

15.5
$ 30
BILLION
Value of imports of telephones,
computers and video monitors in
2018-19. In 1996-97, this was
$0.2 billion. Or, a 22%
compounded annual increase.
With liberalization in the early 1990s, import tariffs began to drop. India being part of Carnatic musician T.M. Krishna is
50 the World Trade Organization (WTO) compact resulted in tariffs coming down even
further, and opened the doors to items of necessity and desire.
likely to have remained little known
40 outside of classical music circles  if he
hadn’t started speaking out against
APPLIED TARIFF RATE, WEIGHTED MEAN, ALL PRODUCTS (IN %)
caste hierarchy, intolerance and social
20
injustice, and raised the question of
whether art can bring about social
10 change. In 2016, he won the Magsaysay
award for his work on inclusion, the
0
1990 2017 same year as activist Bezwada Wilson.
Compiled by How India Lives Source: World Bank; Export-Import Data Bank, department of commerce RICK ROSS FT LIL WAYNE | LUXURY TAX
 CORPORATE WEDNESDAY, 1 JANUARY 2020
NEW DELHI 11
The Millennials
The killing of a prime minister and a
blot on the nation’s conscience
O n 31 October 1984, then PM Indira Gandhi was killed by
her Sikh bodyguards, months after Operation Blue Star
when the army stormed the Golden Temple complex where
militants had taken refuge. For the next three days, mobs
murdered and raped Sikhs, and looted businesses and
gurudwaras. The attacks were concentrated in Delhi, but
there was violence, arson and killings in other northern parts
as well. Eyewitnesses say the mobs had voter lists, allowing
them to identify Sikh-owned homes and businesses. Official
documents put the number of dead at around 3,000 but
independent estimates put the figure at over 8,000. Cases
relating to the riots have continued until this decade.

HT

World’s worst industrial accident

with victims still awaiting justice
M ore than 30 years later, the local population is
still feeling the effects of the 1984 Bhopal gas
tragedy, and are awaiting justice. On the night of 2-3
December 1984, at least 40 tonnes of poisonous
methyl isocyanate gas leaked from a plant run by US-
based Union Carbide (now owned by Dow
Chemicals), killing at least 4,000 people in the
immediate aftermath and permanently disabling
thousands more. The then chairman of Union
Carbide, Warren Anderson, managed to flee India One of the early diaspora films of the 1990s that followed the formula of an ensemble cast in international locations, Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge, went on to become the longest running Bollywood film.
under controversial circumstances. The victims
received a pittance in damages, the water and soil
remain contaminated, and generations that followed
were born with disabilities.
In crisis mode, the Rao-Singh combo
takes the country in a new direction
Often, we think that you have to become a prime T he Narasimha Rao-led government, with Manmohan
Singh as finance minister, took over on 21 June 1991
India’s youngest prime minister came
as a symbol of hope but his aura faded minister or president or a CEO to be the change- and launched a raft of economic reforms. On 1 July 1991, the
Reserve Bank of India devalued the rupee by 9% and then
by 11% two days later. The economy was facing its worst

R ajiv Gandhi took over as prime minister after his

mother Indira was assassinated in October 1984. He
maker—no, you don’t. You can bring change at any
was 40 then, represented youth and aspiration, and had an
image of a reformer. The 1985-86 budget lowered direct
taxes for companies and raised exemption limits for income
tax. Gandhi is widely credited with ushering in the
information technology and telecom revolutions.
Politically, though, he played by the old rules, and made
many questionable decisions. Controversies that dogged
him include his handling of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, the
Bofors scandal, the Shah Bano case, the Bhopal disaster and
involving India in the Sri Lankan civil war. He lost the 1989
elections and was assassinated by the LTTE in 1991.
MINT
crisis and foreign exchange reserves could pay for only
three weeks of imports. Subsidies on fertilizers and sugar
point, at any age you want. were reduced and the system of quota and licensing was
dismantled. The economy was opened for private markets,
foreign investment and trade. The year’s events were to
MALALA YOUSAFZAI influence an entire generation of millennials who grew up
NOBEL PEACE PRIZE LAUREATE, AT THE WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM IN DAVOS
with memories of socialist India and came of age in a
liberalized, market-oriented economy.
ALAMY
From HoTMaiL on clunky
computers to Gmail on phones
T hat is not a typo. That was the name Sabeer Bhatia
and Jack Smith had decided on for their Web-based
email service provider (notice how the letters HTML
stand out?) launched in 1996. The company was
purchased by Microsoft the next year and changed online
conversations forever. Hotmail’s users only needed a
computer, a Web browser and an internet connection,
and no longer needed to install a paid software to
communicate with anyone in the world. The fiercest
competition for Hotmail came only in 2004, when
Google launched its own email service. Hotmail has since
been discontinued, and all old accounts were migrated to
a new platform, Outlook, in 2013.

The 1992 stock market scam: the rise

Private banking, ATMs, EMIs
and a new telecom policy
A fter nationalization of banks in 1969, no new
banks were set up in India, until 1993 when RBI
laid down the guidelines for the establishment of
private banks. With this came ATMs, credit cards and
the EMI culture. Payment in equated monthly
instalments put everything, from cars and washing
machines to houses and holidays, within reach for
the middle class. After banking, telecom was the
sector where reforms transformed lives. The New
Telecom Policy, 1999, opened up the market to
private operators, allowed for cellular networks,
established a regulatory mechanism and helped the
sector become one of the world’s fastest growing, and
eventually put a cellphone in most Indians’ hands.
and fall of Harshad Mehta When the Indian economy was Bollywood shoots for the
living on borrowed time globalized Indian audience
S oon after liberalization when the markets opened up,
Indians began investing in the stock market to make a
quick buck as well as compensate for falling savings rates. In B y the end of the 1980s, India’s balance of
payments was dire owing to unsustainable P itching films that would appeal to non-resident
Indians (NRIs) emerged as a major theme in
April 1992, the stock market scam broke, and it came to light borrowing, high expenditure, and imports Bollywood in the 1990s. Big stars, extravagant
that stockbroker Harshad Mehta had been using the overtaking exports. The breakup of the Soviet Union romance, affluent lifestyles, international locations
government bond market to fund his purchases. Suddenly, (as terms of trade changed) and the rise in crude oil and characters who travelled abroad on a whim
Indians were inundated with details about his fleet of foreign prices due to the Gulf War contributed, and in became the norm in storylines. Filmmakers had
cars, his posh bungalow on Mumbai’s Worli Sea Face, and his March 1991, India’s credit rating was downgraded. focused on the diaspora before—Manoj Kumar’s
flamboyant lifestyle—the start of saturation news coverage The balance of payments situation reached crisis Purab Aur Paschim (1970) and Dev Anand’s Des
dissecting every aspect of a person’s life. Mehta died in 2001. point in May 1991 largely because current account Pardes (1978), for instance—but the theme of NRIs
The scam was pegged at ₹4,025 crore, and led to the rise of deficits were financed by borrowing from abroad. returning to roots caught the imagination of
the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) as it exists The immediate solution was to take conditional audiences. Filmmakers such as Aditya Chopra and
today and the formation of the National Stock Exchange of loans from the International Monetary Fund, and Karan Johar made films, like Kuch Kuch Hota Hai and
India (NSE). This and subsequent scandals led regulators to pledge gold to avoid defaulting on external Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, which reflected
bring more transparency, and use technology to eventually payments. sensibilities of mobility and globalization.
reform Indian markets.

THE SERVICES SHIFT

WINNING WORDS
YEAR-ON-YEAR GROWTH IN SERVICES SECTOR (3-YEAR MOVING AVERAGE, %)

54
20
% 10
The contribution of the services
sector to gross domestic product,
or GDP, in 2018. In 1982, its share was
39%, and the big jumps came in the
late-1990s and the early-2000s.
Before the economy touched 7% growth, the services In 1997, Arundhati Roy won the Man
sector had started expanding at that rate. On the back of Booker for her debut novel, The God of
software and banking and financial services, services has
15
grown rapidly, creating jobs that appeal to millennials. Small Things, and contemporary literary
7% fiction gained ground in India. She
became an outspoken advocate of social
5 justice and equality. The win opened
doors for Indian authors writing in
0
English and sparked publishers’ inter-
-5
est. In 2006, Kiran Desai won the prize,
1983 2018
Compiled by How India Lives Source: World Bank; ministry of statistics and programme implementation
followed by Aravind Adiga in 2008.
RICK ROSS FT LIL WAYNE | LUXURY TAX
12 WEDNESDAY, 1 JANUARY 2020
NEW DELHI
WEDNESDAY, 1 JANUARY 2020
NEW DELHI 13
The Millennials
A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A
STARTUP CITY
Mint artist Jayachandran pays tribute to Bengaluru, India’s truly millennial metro and startup capital, its inclusiveness,
its adventurous innovators, its hustling nerds and its woke citizens. Truly, a paean to urban disruption
14 WEDNESDAY, 1 JANUARY 2020
NEW DELHI BUSINESS OF LIFE
The Millennials
Y2K, the millennium bug, gives Indians
a taste of the American dream
A s the countdown to 2000 began, global businesses
feared computer chaos from Y2K, or the millennium
bug, and the inability of computers to differentiate between
the years 1900 and 2000. India—and specifically companies
such as Infosys, TCS and Satyam—provided the thousands of
engineers needed to perform the tedious task of trawling
through millions of lines of code to upgrade systems to store
the year as a four-digit number. Indian techies packed up and
flew abroad on a day’s notice as the US issued thousands of
H-1B visas. Ultimately, though, the American dream
collapsed with the 2008 financial crisis, and many software
firms built on the outsourcing boom stagnated.

S SUDARSHAN/MINT

Digital upstarts drive the

national startup fever
O ver the past decade, startups have mushroomed
as entrepreneurs experiment with ideas in
digital payments, online retail, on-demand delivery,
education, software and more, making India the
third largest startup ecosystem in the world—and it’s
largely driven by millennials who both build these
products/services as well as consume them. India is
home to 8,900-9,300 tech startups, with 1,300 of
these founded in 2019, according to a Nasscom
report. The industry body also estimates startups The opening of multiplexes in the late 1990s brought comfort to movie viewing, and heralded the rise of filmmakers like Anurag Kashyap, Farhan Akhtar (Dil Chahta Hai), Vishal Bhardwaj and Zoya Akhtar.
created about 60,000 direct jobs and 130,000-
180,000 indirect jobs. About $4.4 billion in
investment flowed to Indian startups until
September this year, up 5% from a year earlier.
Android comes to India in 2009 and
Jio in 2016, connecting Bharat
People are taking more breaks and are taking W hat would you stream your music on if it wasn’t for
smartphones? But the smartphone was never called
Kargil, Parliament attack, Mumbai
siege bring conflict to the doorstep holidays for themselves. A lot of credit for this that till Android came to India in 2009. South Korean giant
Samsung used Android to take the Indian market away
from Nokia, while startups started growing around the

T he Kargil War of 1999 is probably most millennials’ first

memory of active conflict. Militancy in Kashmir and
goes to the millennials of today who travel features these phones provided. The early adopters were
millennials, and after Jio launched in 2016, practically every
the North-East made news, but it was Kargil that stirred
emotions and gave rise to a new kind of nationalism. In for the joy of travel. Indian could afford an internet-enabled smartphone. India,
today, is the world’s second largest smartphone market
December that year, Indian Airlines’ flight 814 was hijacked behind China, and reports suggest it soon might become
to Kandahar and India was forced to release terrorists who DEEP KALRA the largest, thanks to saturation in the Chinese market.
CHAIRMAN AND GROUP CEO OF MAKEMYTRIP, DURING HT CONCLAVE
would go on to plan the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai—the start With an app for everything and a government bent on
of a string of events that brought millennials face to face making a “digital” India, smartphones play a vital role.
with international terrorism. First was the terrorist attack
on Parliament in 2001, which killed at least nine people and
ratcheted up Indo-Pak tensions. Then in 2008, terrorists
from Pakistan laid siege to Mumbai for four days, targeting MINT HT

average Indians in restaurants and railway stations.

The rise of Flipkart and its journey
to the unicorn club—and beyond
HT
F ounded in 2007 as an online bookstore, Flipkart quickly
grew into India’s biggest homegrown e-commerce
marketplace. Founders Sachin and Binny Bansal were
poster boys for the ecosystem. In Silicon Valley style,
the Bansals—former IIT-Delhi alumni and colleagues at
Amazon—started the company in a two-room apartment in
Bengaluru’s Koramangala. They received their first tranche
of funding of $1 million in 2009, and crossed a valuation of
$1 billion in 2014. In 2018, US retailer Walmart valued it at
over $21 billion and bought a 77% stake, after which both
Bansals exited—Sachin as soon as the acquisition was
through and Binny a few months later when a Walmart
probe found “serious personal misconduct”.

Mandal, Babri Masjid, lynchings

The world’s Muggles take Harry
Potter and friends to heart
A n instant hit around the world, the Harry Potter
series got children and teenagers hooked to
reading about fantasy and launched J.K. Rowling
into the millionaires list. With over 500 million
copies sold, the franchise is still churning out movies,
plays and more. The series also encouraged a
generation to dabble in fan fiction and a magical
universe, leading to more books being published in
the fantasy genre. Indian millennials began queuing
up outside bookstores to be the first to get their
hands on copies of her books (as they released in
instalments)—much to the bafflement of an earlier
generation that had to line up for essentials like rice,
kerosene, pulses and petrol.
and the rise of polarized opinions NEFT, Paytm, UPI, digital IPL changes the face of cricket, as
payments and demonetization well as Indian sports fans’ lives
I n 2019, the Supreme Court finally settled the Babri Masjid
case, the fallout of an event that took place more than 25
years ago. In 1992, after a Rath Yatra by BJP’s L.K. Advani, kar W ith NEFT, introduced in 2005, allowing
limitless fund transfers to bank accounts, T he cricket-mad nation saw a massive change in
the sport with the launch of the Indian Premier
sevaks demolished the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya. The 1993 India was on the path to digital payments. The launch League, or IPL, in 2008. Currently comprising eight
Bombay riots followed, both incidents that have shaped the of digital mobile payment companies followed, teams, the brand value of IPL has been estimated at
political ideas of millennials. These followed the protests including Paytm founded by Vijay Shekhar Sharma ₹47,500 crore by consultancy firm Duff & Phelps.
against reservation in government jobs after the in 2010. In 2016, National Payments Corporation of IPL also meant that cricket could be watched in
recommendations of the Mandal Commission report were India introduced UPI (unified payments interface), a summer without clashes with existing tournaments
implemented in the 1990s. In 2002, the horrific Godhra riots real-time system that brings multiple bank accounts in any of the major cricket-playing nations, and more
polarized communities further. The effect of all this has into a single mobile application and merges many international sports stars could be roped in. Add to
prompted more millennials to take sides—some opting for a banking features. The government has also been that the glamour, thrill and liberal dashes of
more jingoistic nationalism, some choosing a path that making a push for a cashless economy—be it via the controversy, and IPL has left an indelible mark on the
foregrounds Constitutional values. For many millennials, controversial 2016 demonetization exercise, or the world of cricket. It has also influenced other sports
these events, and the more recent lynchings of people recent announcement that NEFT will be available with badminton and kabaddi following the format
suspected of eating beef, were a wake-up call, getting them round the clock. and giving a new lease of life to the games.
to engage more closely with politics and social issues.

T H E D I G I TA L S H I F T
MUSICAL MAVEN
EFFECTIVE COST OF OUTGOING CALL (IN  PER MINUTE)

493
16 With his ability to merge sounds,
Mobile telephony was the precursor to the age of the internet. And what unshackled it
14
was a drop in tariffs. In two decades, effective call rates have gone from about 16 per
genres, styles, languages and schools,
12 minute to next to nothing, and data has become the new currency of mobile plans, with technology, A.R. Rahman has 
10 opening up all kinds of new possibilities. transformed film music in India. He
8 began his career with Roja (1992) and
MILLION 6 in 2009, won two Grammy awards for
Number of internet subscribers as 4 his soundtrack for Slumdog Millionaire.
of March 2018. In other words,
nearly one-third of all Indians are 2 He’s performed with the London
subscribing to the internet. In 2005, 0 Philharmonic Orchestra, Mick Jagger
1998 2016
this figure was 7 million.
Compiled by How India Lives; source: World Bank; ministry of statistics and programme implementation; Telecom Regulatory Authority of India
and most recently, with U2 in Mumbai.
RICK ROSS FT LIL WAYNE | LUXURY TAX

The Bharatiya Janata Party wins it big
in 2014 with a majority on its own
I n May 2014, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National
Democratic Alliance swept the Lok Sabha elections,
winning 336 of 543 seats on the back of a campaign that
accused the Congress of corruption, entitlement and policy
paralysis, and promised development and economic growth.
The BJP itself had a comfortable majority of 282 seats on its
own. It was the biggest majority since the Rajiv Gandhi-led
Congress won 414 seats in 1984. It was also the first time that a
non-Congress party had won a simple majority on its own.
Narendra Modi was sworn in as Prime Minister. The election
signalled a change in the way Indians, especially millennials,
viewed politics, growth, development and nationalism.
AFP
Isro aims for the stars with
Chandrayaan, multiple launches
A technical glitch put a spoke in the wheel of
India’s plan to land a rover on the Moon and
explore its south pole, but the Chandrayaan-2
mission was one of 2019’s most exciting space
missions. It has been a decade of high-profile
launches for the Indian Space Research Organisation,
which has been indigenously building low-cost
satellites since its founding in 1969. In October 2008,
Isro detected the presence of water on the Moon via
Chandrayaan-1, and in 2013-14, placed an orbiter in
Mars’ orbit. Mangalyaan made India the first country
to succeed in its maiden attempt to reach the red
planet. In February 2017, Isro launched 104 satellites
on a single rocket, a world record.
Repeal of Article 370, a prolonged
internet shutdown, a state is split
I ncluded in the Indian Constitution in 1949, Article 370
permitted Jammu and Kashmir to draft its own
Constitution. It restricted Parliament’s legislative powers to
make laws for the state. Broadly, the provision was a
constitutional guarantee of reasonable autonomy to a state
that joined the Indian Union under unique circumstances.
Similar provisions are in place in the North-East states. In
August 2019, the ruling BJP revoked the constitutional
provision and simultaneously converted J&K into two new
Union territories. Autonomy is a touchy, emotive issue in
the Kashmir valley and it remains under a prolonged
internet shutdown, even as the constitutional validity of the
government’s move awaits its test at the Supreme Court.
HT
Writing down Section 377 and
decriminalizing homosexuality
S ection 377, a colonial-era law, essentially
criminalized sexual activities “against the order of
nature”. In practice, LGBTQIA+ activists have long
held that such laws are used by the police to
persecute citizens based on their sexuality. The legal
and constitutional challenge against the law dates all
the way back to 2001, and was built on the premise
that consenting gay and lesbian couples are entitled
to a private life. The Supreme Court finally struck
down Section 377 in 2018, terming the law
“irrational, indefensible and manifestly arbitrary”.
With India legalizing homosexuality, over 70% of
humanity now lives in a country where sexual
preference, in itself, is not a crime.
THE BORROWING SHIF T
BENCHMARK PRIME LENDING RATE OF STATE BANK OF INDIA (IN %)
4.02
20
16
TRILLION
12
The value of outstanding housing
loans of HDFC, India's largest home
financier, as of March 2019. In March
1982, this was 56 crore. 8
1 Apr 1991
CORPORATE
The Millennials
Films centred on female stars are still a rarity, but Queen (2014) is among the few made in the last decade that took cinema forward.
The automobile industry was under stress because
of the mindsets of millennials, who now prefer
to have Ola or Uber rather than committing to
buying an automobile.
NIRMALA SITHARAMAN
UNION FINANCE MINISTER, DURING A PRESS CONFERENCE
Shared autos to cabs on call—the
rise of the sharing economy
C ommuters in Indian metros heaved a sigh of relief when
cab aggregator Ola launched operations in India in 2010,
around the same time as Uber rolled out services in San
Francisco before coming to India in 2013. Their growth
coincided with the rise of the sharing economy and on-
demand services in India—shared hosting, co-working and
co-living spaces, grocery and food delivery, furniture and
equipment rental, and more. Subscription-based services for
everything from food and streaming to wellness have kicked
off a new economy and way of consumption. By 2014-15 both
Ola and Uber had expanded, including auto-rickshaws,
pooled rides, outstation car hire and food delivery. Being on
the road is less of a hassle—no worries about parking, car
maintenance or EMIs—prompting finance minister Nirmala
Sitharaman to say that millennials’ preference for Ola and
Uber was affecting the auto sector.
Early millennials were among the first to actively access educational loans.
Later, they did the same to buy cars, houses and more. Enabling this was
an evolving framework where interest rates were on the down and the
interest of banks in retail lending on the up.
Compiled by How India Lives Source: State Bank of India
WEDNESDAY, 1 JANUARY 2020
NEW DELHI 15
Nirbhaya, India Against Corruption,
student protests and citizen activism
C itizens shed their apathy in the past decade and took part
in protests, led largely by millennials, to demand gender
and social justice, probity in public life and protection of
constitutional values. The India Against Corruption rallies
and serial hunger strikes in 2011 moved thousands, and led to
the formation of the Aam Aadmi Party. The next year, young
people turned out in droves seeking justice for Nirbhaya, who
was brutally gangraped and left to die in December 2012. The
crime and subsequent protests led to legal amendments and
greater awareness of women’s safety. 2019 ended with huge
countrywide protests against the Citizenship Amendment
Act and police crackdowns on peaceful protestors.
HT
From P.T. Usha to Mary Kom and
P.V. Sindhu—women make a mark
I n the 1980s, P.T. Usha set the track on fire and
placed fourth in the 400m hurdles at the 1984 Los
Angeles Olympics. In the past decade, more women
have made their way to the podium and won the
hearts of millennials. There’s Mary Kom who’s an
Olympian and the only boxer (male or female) to have
won eight World Championship medals. The Phogat
sisters have made their mark in wrestling and
Deepika Kumari in archery, while Dutee Chand
(100m), Hima Das (400m) and Swapna Barman
(heptathlon) have blazed a trail in athletics. In
badminton, it’s P.V. Sindhu and Saina Nehwal, while
gymnast Dipa Karmakar made headlines with her
Produnova vault.
The very last telegram, HMT and the
desire for keepsakes and nostalgia
O ver 160 years of history ended in June 2013 when BSNL
shuttered its telegram service as email and WhatApp
made it obsolete. It was set up in 1850, when India’s first
telegraph line was set up between Calcutta and Diamond
Harbour, and opened up to the public in 1854. Since then, it
was used to announce births, deaths, send greetings and call
people for job interviews. Even Jawaharlal Nehru once sent
a telegram to the UK’s Clement Attlee, requesting help
when Pakistani troops invaded Kashmir. When the closure
was announced, millennials, many of whom had never sent
or received a telegram, queued up to send them as
keepsakes—much like they clamoured to buy HMT watches
when the old watchmaker went out of business in 2016.
AFP
Oh captain, my captain—Dhoni, Greta Thunberg becomes a
Kohli and a new-look Indian team climate icon for a generation
I n the past decade, we’ve had cricket captains who
transformed the game. Who can forget the look on S wedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg
stirred a hornet’s nest in 2018 when, at the age
M.S. Dhoni’s face as he hit the tournament-winning of 15, she spent her days outside the Swedish
six in the 2011 World Cup? But it isn’t just his Parliament calling for stronger action to counter
helicopter shots, on point wicket-keeping, or calm global warming. This soon snowballed into a global
demeanour that won him fans among millennials and school climate strike movement. Every week, school
Gen-Xers. Dhoni put small-town India on the map, students held peaceful strikes and protests after she
took risky decisions of benching known names and spoke at the 2018 UN Climate Change Conference.
built a fierce fielding team. Virat Kohli, who played Surveys reveal that millennials consider climate
with him and went on to be captain, ushered in the change a key issue that requires immediate attention.
age of fearless cricket. If Dhoni was captain cool, The youngest person to be named Time Person of the
Kohli was aggression personified. He stressed fitness, Year, Thunberg addressed the UN Climate Action
and as an ‘influencer’, has motivated hundreds of fans Summit in New York in 2019 and was also nominated
to take up an active lifestyle. for the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize.
LITERATURE LITE
Love him or hate him, Chetan Bhagat
made a mark with his first book, Five
Point Someone. He created characters
who had the same compulsions and
anxieties as ordinary millennials and
captured young India’s imagination.
For better or worse, he kicked off a
trends of easy reading, books priced at
16 Dec 2019
₹99-150, and people from the manage-
ment industry turning authors.
RICK ROSS FT LIL WAYNE | LUXURY TAX
16 WEDNESDAY, 1 JANUARY 2020
NEW DELHI
T H E I R P R I D E I S I N B E I N G FA ST E R
AND BETTER, NOT CHEAPER
Malavika Velayanikal & Sumit Chakraberty
BENGALURU
B
engaluru is home to several startups
whose valuations soared as investors
poured in funds to capture the last big
domestic consumer market—India.
Flipkart and Ola set the trend, Swiggy,
BigBasket and others followed. E-commerce,
ride-sharing, food delivery and aggregation of
everything is transforming the consumer experi-
ence. But there’s another side to Bengaluru’s
startup story. There are maverick entrepreneurs
out to conquer global markets with cutting-edge
products riding on artificial intelligence (AI),
internet of things (IoT) and robotics. Their inno-
vation showcases Bengaluru as a hub for deep tech
rather than cheap tech. IT services put Bengaluru
on the global tech map as an outsourcing hub.
Over the years, the city became known as the back
office of the world, good only for low-level work.
The likes of Google, Apple and Facebook were, in
the meantime coming out with innovative tech
products from the West. Indians in the US, too,
became successful innovators in Silicon Valley.
Bengaluru needed to break out of the shackles of
its services mindset to give wings to its abundant
tech talent. This is now happening as pathfinders
set out to prove that their tech products can be the
best in the world.
Mint brings together three entrepreneurs who
represent the new dawn. Excerpts from a conver-
sation with Derick Jose, co-founder of IoT startup
Flutura, Aruna Schwarz, co-founder of AI com-
pany Stelae, and Balaji Viswanathan, co-founder
of robotics startup Invento.
How did you become an entrepreneur?
Aruna Schwarz: I got my first flavour of
entrepreneurship in a joint venture between
Cable & Wireless and Schlumberger with a
carte blanche to build an internet product
for the oil and gas sector in the late 1990s. I
was living in Paris after doing an MBA in the
UK. I exited telecom to get into software with
a small funded company in Paris, transform-
ing PDFs into publishable outputs.
That was in the early 2000s when every-
body wanted to put content online. The
problem was turning all these documents
into HTML. There were a lot of cross-media
publishing systems but I wanted to build
something that wouldn’t need a change in
human behaviour.
I met my CTO Pierre Fraisse who had a
PhD in maths, spent over 20 years in R&D on
content management, and grown in the
publishing sector in France. I didn’t know
code but what I did know was how to take a
product to the market. We started building
our product for a large French publishing
company, Lagardere. We later moved into
legal publishing because there was no
money in online media.
A lot of people think startups are there to
change the world. Maybe, but not all of us,
because you need to make money to sustain
the people who work with you.
How did you get your first big break?
Schwarz: It was just Pierre and me until
2010 when Rolls-Royce in the UK came to us
and asked whether we could apply our algo-
rithms to their documents. They purchased
a six-figure licence from us and that’s how
we got into aerospace.
Then I moved the company to India in
2012 when we got a huge digital transforma-
tion project for defence. We’ve worked with
the French naval defence company DCNS
and last year we signed a contract with Air-
bus. Now we’re purely focused on aerospace
and defence.
We expanded with customer revenues
and we’re now a team of five. All the algo-
rithms, the way the software is architected is
Pierre’s work. It’s not a short-term game
because when you really start to scale is in
the seven-eight-year period. I don’t know
what Derick and Balaji would say, but look at
SAP or Oracle. Sustainable products and
companies take time to build—without
becoming unicorns.
LONG STORY
The Millennials
Balaji, how did you become an entre-
preneur?
Balaji Viswanathan: I grew up in a small
village near Kumbakonam in Tamil Nadu.
My father was a bank manager and he used
to take me to all these places where he would
give loans to entrepreneurs. It fascinated me
to see these people make something out of
nothing. Somebody was doing mushroom
farming; another one was making scientific
test tubes and beakers.
In my own family, my grandfather quit his
bank job to start a company making agar-
agar from algae. That went down because it
wasn’t managed properly. But my maternal
grandfather came from Burma during the
World War with nothing, started a small
shop and grew that into a printing press. So
I saw both the negative and positive sides of
entrepreneurship.
I started my career at Microsoft in Red-
mond. After a year of building Windows, I
was put in something called Startup Factory.
This was around 2006 when Google and
other startups were building all sorts of cool
things. We were taken far from Redmond to
be out of its influence and told to build
things like they do in Silicon Valley. Small
teams got short-term funding and after six
months you had to raise another round like
in a VC model. It was an interesting experi-
ment but then the recession hit in 2008 and
I was asked to help with Windows Phone.
We did not like being moved like that, so
most of us quit.
My partner and I came back to India and
started an edtech company called NalandaU.
We got content from top universities and
built a social layer around it. This was 10
years ago, before Coursera, Udacity and oth-
ers. But it was hard to convince VCs that Har-
vard and MIT would give their videos for free
and people would watch these videos. Then
we pivoted to fintech. But this was 2011 and
VCs said the financial sector was the slowest
to adopt technology, so why would we even
want to call it fintech.
We wanted to extract sentiments from
social media and see what the smart money
was up to. The same guys who said that was
the stupidest idea they had heard would be
funding the same thing with another com-
pany three years later. So what I learned
from all this is that you have to survive the
first three to five years to make a mark.
So Invento Robotics is your third try...
Viswanathan: After a stint with a Boston
company helping enterprises manage open
source software, I moved back to Bengaluru
to start Invento three and a half years ago.
This time we decided we would not even talk
to investors for the first three years, because
if we listen to them, we might take them seri-
ously. We were designing and building
hardware with AI on top of it. This is some-
thing everybody will say the Chinese can do
bigger, faster, better. So you have to shut
your ears and stay on course. Only after
crossing the three-year mark, we raised two
rounds of funding.
Derick, you moved out of IT services to
become a deep tech entrepreneur.
What made you do that?
Derick Jose: Three of us—Krishnan
Raman, Srikanth Muralidhara and myself—
were cruising along at Mindtree, doing tem-
plated stuff. But one day this question crept
in: Are you an order-taker or an order-
maker? Suddenly it didn’t seem so cool
being order-takers. We wanted to do more
order-maker stuff.
The three of us started going to our exist-
ing customers and asking, ‘What if’. Each
time, the ‘what if’ was shot down. We didn’t
know why. So on one of our travels abroad,
we sat down over a coffee with a manager
and asked, ‘Why wouldn’t you want to do it?’
He said, ‘These ideas are great, but you know
what, we’re coming to you because you guys
are cheap, not faster or better.’ That was a
significant inflection point. That’s when we
had the intoxicating idea that we would cre-
ate something faster and better that will not
be cheap.
For two years, that keeda (worm) kept
going around our heads. We couldn’t do it
within the existing structure because it was
oriented towards people who only perceived
value in terms of cost. Then Krishnan went
and announced that we three were quitting.
Srikanth and I came to know we were quit-
ting only after he announced it.
How did that work out?
Jose: The first six months were all about the
excitement of being free in a cool new world,
brainstorming. Then we had to start con-
verting. The first question was: Will some-
body write a cheque for us? We used to get
orders at Mindtree but we didn’t know if it
was for the brand or what we did. We man-
RAJ SAM/MINT
aged to get a couple of orders from Cleartrip
and a London healthcare company. It gave
us the confidence that we could sell some-
thing as individuals and deliver it.
Next, we had to build a product because
we didn’t want to do services. But this meant
going without revenue for a long period of
time. Our savings were not enough to do
that. Those days we used to write a lot of
blogs on the big data theme. One blog caught
the eye of Arihant Patni (whose family built
and sold Patni Computer Systems). He came
to our office. I don’t know what we said but
the three of us were talking a lot. He saw the
energy and decided to write a cheque. That
was our second moment of truth.
Our vision was to be among the top three
in our category of AI applications for oil and
gas and speciality chemicals. Last year, we
were third in Gartner peer insights, which
ranks vendors based on customer ratings.
This year we’re
number one, beat-
ing Siemens, Hita-
The perception about
chi and others. the country is vital. When
At this juncture, we send a rover to the
do you see any
opportunity for moon, we should not say
cross-learning it cost us less than making
between the
three of you?
a Hollywood movie.
Viswanathan: I DERICK JOSE
can learn a bunch
of things about walking into unfamiliar spa-
ces. How do you bring clients to the table?
Schwarz: My experience there is that we’re
into the hardest cartelized industry which is
aerospace and defence. For me, the way of
getting around that was to have a French
CTO. And I do have 35 investors, many of
them in Europe, all private guys. That gave
me leverage. And we’ve been around for
over seven years, so they know we’re not
going to die.
Breaking into one industry and staying
there is important. We went to one of the
hardest but we got there because we got a
call from Rolls-Royce. Another lesson that
Derick and I will agree is that it’s not always
about the best product but who you know
and who knows you, which involves a lot of
hard work in being at the right place at the
right time.
TURN TO PAGE 17

BALAJI
VISWANATHAN
is CEO and co-founder of
Invento (founded 2016),
whose humanoid robot Mitra
greeted Prime Minister Narendra
Modi and US President Donald
Trump’s daughter Ivanka on stage
at an event in Hyderabad. These
days, Viswanathan is a frequent
visitor to China where his robots
are in a race with their Chinese
and Japanese counterparts,
hoping to outflank them with
their AI brains and enterprise
FROM PAGE 16
smarts.
Jose: I look at all three of us as seeds. If the
seed falls in Bengaluru, then the soil here
kicks in. We can say Flutura is God’s gift to
mankind, but it will not take us far unless we
can also brand the soil around us. That’s
why we’re obsessed with branding Benga-
luru and India. Take Israel: the worst Israeli
security startup will beat the best Indian
security startup in perception because of
the soil factor.
Schwarz: Exactly!
Jose: The perception about the country is
vital. When we send a rover to the moon, we
should not be saying it cost us less than mak-
ing a Hollywood movie.
Schwarz: I know, that is so embarrassing.
Jose: When a person is buying from us for
industrial operations, he’s not looking for
the cheapest solution. He’s saying I’m ready
to pay three times the price. So when we talk
of Isro (Indian Space Research Organiza-
tion), we should not be saying we’re cheaper.
We should be saying we’re faster or better.
Viswanathan: Or more reliable.
Jose: We’ve got into this psyche of cost, cost,
cost. So they look at us and think we’re
cheap. That’s where we want to see a shift at
a country level. We won’t be cheap. We’ll be
at the same price.
Schwarz: I hate that word ‘cheap’, and I
think it’s useless because nobody wants
something that’s going to break. But this is
what the Indian coding industry is about.
When you go into some of the European
manufacturing companies, they don’t think
Indian software is reliable or sustainable.
They don’t
think software
I hate that word ‘cheap’, and I products com-
think it’s useless because ing out of
nobody wants something India are real
products
that’s going to break. We either. They
have to build the India brand think it’s a
cobbled-to-
for solid software products. gether appli-
ARUNA SCHWARZ cation we built
for somebody
else and are trying to resell. So building the
India brand for hardcore software products
has to be done and that’s why Derick and oth-
ers have pioneered the industrial AI forum.
Jose: We need a new narrative where we’re
able to say we’re the world’s first at some-
thing, even if it’s in niches.
We may not have them in consumer AI
but we do have some verifiable firsts in sub-
categories of industrial AI. Take a startup
like Detect which can easily say they’re the
world’s first company in AI inspection of oil
pipelines. Mitra robots could be the first in
XYZ subcategory. We can say Flutura is the
world’s first in autonomous machine data
gathering systems.
We’re taught to be humble in India, so we
face severe resistance in being able to say
we’re the world’s first, even if we’re actually
doing it. I got important feedback from an
investor, T.M. Ravi, in the Valley. After my
pitch, I asked him what he thought. And he
said, ‘Derick, you should walk like a samu-
rai.’ We’re ‘samuraizing’ our product, why
can’t we ‘samuraize’ our body language?
Viswanathan: A related point is that many
of the new startups don’t project themselves
as Indian startups. For a while we were fol-
lowing a startup with facial recognition tech-
nology that we wanted to integrate with
ours. They called themselves a Singaporean
company and we were talking to them on
Skype.
At some point, we asked where they were
sitting and it turned out to be four buildings
away. I said, ‘Dude, I’ll switch off Skype and
walk to your building right away.’
So the problem is that even successful
ARUNA
SCHWARZ
is CEO and co-founder of Stelae
(founded 2002), whose AI product
Khemeia turns legacy documents
into structured content that can
be integrated with digitized
systems. It does in minutes what
would take days to do manually.
From legal documents to aircraft
manuals, Khemeia plays a part
behind the scenes in the digital
transformation underway in
multiple sectors. Schwarz’s
fluency in French opens doors for
her in Europe.
brands coming out of India project them-
selves as an American company or a Singa-
porean company because our country does
not have a brand. It becomes a self-fulfilling
prophecy because these companies won’t be
known for their Indianness. That’s not the
case with Israeli startups.
Schwarz: Totally. There is an Israeli brand
which is reinforced by the bigger Israeli
brand in the US or Europe. So, echoing what
Derick said, we’re known for being cheaper.
That’s the whole service industry.
And even in the software product indus-
try, the only ones making news are SaaS
products which are cheaper versions of
something else. Where we should play on is
a hardcore differentiation in our product.
Our software, for example, is the only one
that does automated conversion of aero-
space documents.
Jose: World’s first.
Schwarz: Yes, I can say we’re the world’s
first.
Jose: There you go!
Schwarz: For me, it’s easier because being a
woman, you know, they don’t expect you to
say that. So when I do say it, they think it’s
highly cute, whether they believe me or not.
Viswanathan: At least Europe and the US
have been doing business with India. East
Asia, especially China, has a far lower opinion
of India. We’re also not doing favours to our-
selves. They know Indian merchants will go
for the cheapest things.
But China is also becoming more of a con-
sumer society than a producer. The cost of
doing business in China is rapidly increasing.
We’ve been talking to multiple factories
there. In Shenzhen, the cost of entry-level
factory labour is ₹80,000 a month which is
four or five times that of India. The cost of
land has shot up in the last 15 years, and cost
of regulations also because now they seri-
ously care about pollution. A couple of facto-
ries asked us how to set up bases in India.
Textiles have moved out of China to Bangla-
desh and Vietnam. Other industries have
moved to the Philippines. This is actually a
time when we should be entering China with
our products, but again it should not be on
the cheap selling point but quality.
How are you making your China play?
Viswanathan: So one of the tags we’re using
is that we’re one of the first enterprise-ready
robotics companies. There are a bunch of
robotics companies who can move hands,
fingers, all those things.
But what we say is that you can connect
your enterprise software, CRM, email, etc, to
our robot’s software. That is something they
start to believe because there are so many
enterprise software companies in India. So
our robotics software is ready to get inte-
grated with enterprise software. That is the
hardware-plus-software story that is starting
to resonate for us in China.
I’ve been travelling to China every three
months for the last couple of years. We’re
now incorporating in Suzhou near Shanghai.
One thing about China is that it is very pro-
vincial. There’s a lot of competition between
municipalities. So even if it’s a Chinese com-
pany, they will say, ‘You’ve not incorporated
in our municipality.’ So this creates an oppor-
tunity for us.
Does it bother you that deep tech or
hardcore enterprise tech startups get so
little funding in India compared to the
consumer internet startups, which are
raising millions or even billion-dollar
rounds?
Viswanathan: A couple of startups on the
next street from us in HSR Layout became
unicorns in just two or three years. One of
them became a unicorn before having a via-
ble product, so that’s pretty crazy.
Schwarz: Yeah, I know. It became a unicorn
on valuation. But if we get depressed every
GLOBAL
The Millennials
DERICK
JOSE
is co-founder and chief product
officer of Flutura (founded 2012),
whose industrial IoT product
Cerebra uses AI for predictive
maintenance and efficient
processes. From oilfields in
Houston to German multinational
Henkel’s plant near Shanghai,
Cerebra is in mega industries,
taking on global rivals. In his spare
time, Jose is building an industrial
AI consortium to help Indian
startups overcome perception
hurdles abroad.
time somebody gets funded, we would have
chronic depression.
I do get annoyed when me-too models get
millions in funding. But the thing is, for me,
I get a bigger buzz from a purchase order
than I get from investor money.
Viswanathan: One of the companies in our
neighbourhood is three-four years old and
they notched up losses of ₹52 crore with rev-
enue of ₹10 crore. How do you do that? I see
them as being in a different world from ours.
I keep working with my CFO on how to get to
profitability fast, although VCs tell me that’s
the wrong thing to focus on. But fundamen-
tally, I feel more secure if the company is
actually making a profit.
Jose: Most of our global rivals are also much
better funded than us. But when you’re an
underdog, I think it makes us more capable
in some areas to win David versus Goliath
battles. Some of our rivals with a lot of money
have become a little bit comfortable. So that’s
a positive for us.
Viswanathan: Also, to see companies grow
so fast around us is invigorating. Four build-
ings from us, there’s a company building con-
trol systems for electric scooters in China.
This team goes there, deploys, and comes
back to HSR Layout.
I’ve lived in San Mateo, Palo Alto, Seattle
and Boston. But here, it’s an incredible expe-
rience to walk across and see the hardware
and software that startups are building in all
kinds of areas like aerospace and so on. It’s
magical.
Ten years from now, we’ll be looking back
and saying we underestimated what was
happening. Like you guys, Derick, are sell-
ing to oil and
gas majors in
different con-
China is slowly becoming
tinents. more of a consumer society
Schwarz: For than a producer. This is the
me the biggest
change since time when we should be
2017 is that the entering China with our
US and Euro-
pean giants
products.
are picking BALAJI VISWANATHAN
companies
from here for their innovation labs.
The fact that they’re nurturing technolo-
gies, whether it’s in aerospace or retail, and
taking them global inside their own organi-
sations is the phenomenal difference I see
because they’re actually buying products
from startups.
And many of these startups I had never
heard of earlier, and I don’t think Nasscom
had heard of them either.
Jose: India is a great place to cross-pollinate,
unlike other clusters. Houston does not have
AI skills. Bay Area does not have electrome-
chanical skills. Here in Bengaluru, we have
both electromechanical and digital skills, the
old and new worlds constantly colliding.
To wind up, what are some of the funni-
est experiences you’ve had as entrepre-
neurs?
Schwarz: When I used to go to VC meetings
with my co-founder Pierre Fraisse, they
would call him “Mr Schwarz”. They just
ignored me and talked directly to him. At
first, I used to be upset but then I was like, this
is so funny. They say the craziest things and
I can sit in a corner and watch as an observer.
Viswanathan: We were showcasing our
humanoid robots at a tech event in Dubai.
We allow a range of expression of fingers and
gestures to have a more human connection.
But an API call went to the wrong digit and
our robot showed the middle finger to a sen-
ior government official instead of a
thumbs-up. At first, the official was taken
aback because he had his subordinates
around him, but then he started laughing
and gave the robot a playful slap.
feedback@livemint.com
S TA R T U P S
T H AT P U T
MONEY TO
WORK
Malavika Velayanikal
feedback@livemint.com
BENGALURU
H
itesh Thakkar, 30, an engi-
neer with an MBA from
Indian Institute of Manage-
ment, Ahmedabad, worked
with JPMorgan and Samsung
before co-founding QuezX, an HR tech
startup in Mumbai. He’d been investing
for eight years, but the pleasure of seeing
his pile grow remained a distant dream—
many of his investments ended in losses as
he was too busy to track the market
closely. That was until six months ago.
He spoke to several personal finance
startups, and picked Cube Wealth. “They
looked at the amount I wanted to invest,
my risk appetite, and suggested an alloca-
tion portfolio. The app gives me an over-
view of all my investments and I can see
the rate at which they are growing any
time,” Thakkar says.
Young, skilled and earning handsome
salaries, millennials are getting smart
about how to make their money grow
without spending too much time on it. To
help them is a new crop of fintech startups
that make it easy to save, invest and man-
age money. They offer varied and innova-
tive products, beyond merely bringing the
offline financial platter online. And mil-
lennials well-versed with tech take to
these products like fish to water.
Thakkar is the ideal investor Cube was
built for—young, urbane, busy and mon-
eyed but not a moneybags yet—in the
annual income bracket of ₹10 lakh to ₹2
crore. “It’s still early days for our clients so
it’s important to focus on the basics like
setting up an emergency fund, buying life
insurance and health insurance,” Satyen
Kothari, founder of Cube, explains.
Almost 80% of Cube users are male,
between 28 and 40, from the tech and
media spheres. Traditional investments
like real estate, fixed deposits and gold
lack sheen. More are getting into the equi-
ties market. In the last two years, 5.6 mil-
lion new investors registered at the
National Stock Exchange, taking the regis-
tered investor base to 28 million this fiscal.
This is fuelled by financial awareness as
well as a lower entry barrier, thanks to
technology-fuelled ventures. Zerodha, for
example, is India’s first discount broker-
age. In the nine years since inception, it
has become the country’s largest stock-
broking firm in number of active traders,
two-thirds of whom are millennials.
But it wasn’t enough to bring offline
investment products online. Many first-
timers need hand-holding. That’s some-
thing Groww, founded by four former
Flipkart-ers—Lalit Keshre, Harsh Jain,
Neeraj Singh and Ishan Bansal—focuses
on. The median age of their users is 26.
The four engineers explored this space
while still at Flipkart, before quitting in
2016. Firms like FundsIndia and Scripbox
were in the fray, and new ones like Kuvera,
which used algorithms to assess risk pro-
files of users to make investment decisions,
WEDNESDAY, 1 JANUARY 2020
NEW DELHI 17
Satyen Kothari (centre, seated),
founder of Cube Wealth, and his
team. ANIRUDDHA CHOWDHURY/MINT
had just come up. Zerodha too launched a
direct mutual funds platform, Coin.
That didn’t scare Groww. It launched in
May 2017. “When we talked to users, we
learnt they needed tools to help them
decide for themselves,” says Keshre. So
Groww brought all mutual funds into one
app. “While others were building robo-ad-
visers and telling users what to buy, we
took a contrarian approach: users are
smart, so give them choice and make it
simple to choose.”
Nancy Chayara was one of Groww’s beta
users. “The app helped me start investing
small amounts. I started on Groww with
₹10,000 the middle of my birthday party
in 2016.” Now she runs a social venture,
Anthill Creations. “As a new entrepreneur,
you don’t have a steady salary and savings
are important. Groww has given me a sort
of financial stability because I know any
time I need money, I can pull it out.”
WEALTH MANAGERS FOR ALL
Though millennials are the chief wage
earners in India, a good chunk of the 440
million of them aren’t used to saving.
That’s where Gurugram-based Sqrrl,
launched in 2017 by industry veterans
Samant Sikka, Dhananjay Singh and San-
jeev Sharma chose to play.
Savings and investments are used inter-
changeably, but are different ball games.
To tackle the first, you need to plant a
habit. Marrying a new habit to an old one
is a technique habit scientists recommend.
Sqrrl founders did that by embedding
their product into the spending cycle of
users. Each time you spend on Uber or
Amazon or swipe your card for a coffee,
your Sqrrl account would round it off to
₹100 or ₹500 and divert the extra into an
account that is invested in liquid funds.
Sqrrl claims to have users from 600 places
across India—from Thekkady in Kerala to
Pahartoli in Jharkhand. The median
annual salary is ₹5 lakh.
Sqrrl’s proposition is that investment
isn’t just a luxury of the rich. “To break
down barriers in that segment, you have to
think small,” says Sqrrl CEO Sikka. “Think
shampoo sachet.”
Once you develop the savings habit, you
can move on to investments. Like Adithya
Shanker, a 25-year-old engineer with JK
Tyres in Mysuru, did. In the beginning of
2018, he used Sqrrl to park what he had
saved in a mutual fund. He later took up a
systematic investment plan after figuring
out how much he could afford to put away
every month.
While Sqrrl works on the lower end of
the pyramid, Cube has set its sights on the
higher end, as the tech set gets rich quick.
Cube’s Kothari had “several” millions to
invest after he exited Citrus Pay, a startup
he founded with Amrish Rau in late 2011.
He met many wealth managers and got the
idea for Cube. He decided to democratize
access to high-quality managers.“When
you have lots of money, you get guidance
to grow it, but when you don’t have that
much, you don’t get access to the best
help. We’re trying to change that,” he says.
18 WEDNESDAY, 1 JANUARY 2020
NEW DELHI
THIS IS HOW I CHOOSE TO LIVE ,
THIS IS WHO I AM, DEAL WITH IT
Pooja Singh
pooja.s@htlive.com
NEW DELHI
D
utee Chand doesn’t know how to give
up. “My whole life has been about
fighting for what I want, what I
believe in,” says the 23-year-old
sprinter, with a proud smile.
That’s why the girl who as a seven-year-old used
to train by running barefoot around a lake in Odi-
sha’s Chaka Gopalpur village is now the first
Indian athlete to win two golds at the 2014 Asian
Junior Championships and a gold at the 2019
World University Games. That’s why when a rul-
ing banned her from competing in 2014 in compe-
titions because of her high natural testosterone
levels, she challenged it and won a precedent-set-
ting case. That’s why she’s the first openly gay
sportsperson of India, and a poster girl for queer
pride in a country still coming to terms with
homosexuality. To millennials across the country,
she’s both an inspiration and an icon. But it’s not
just India that’s watching her—Time magazine has
put her in its 100 Next list of rising stars and
up-and-comers who are shaping their industries
and the future. Soon after she came out in May
2019, a well-known advocate for gay rights Ellen
DeGeneres tweeted in her support.
In an interview with Mint, Chand, who recently
became the brand ambassador of sports company
Puma, talks about her preparation for the Sum-
mer Olympics in July, her strategy for success and
how her life changed after coming out. Edited
excerpts:
How are the preparations for the Olym-
pics going?
Right now, life is home and track. I wake up
at 5am, get ready and reach Kalinga stadium
(in Bhubaneswar) by 6. There, I train till
9.30am and then I’m back home at 10. After
75 minutes, I do my core exercises at home.
Then after some rest I’m back at the stadium
at 3pm, doing either a track workout or a
gym workout, depending on what I did in
the morning. By 8pm, I’m back at home.
That’s my life right now. Everything else
is on hold. My studies are also on hold. Peo-
ple study to become educated; I don’t see a
need for myself to become educated. I want
to give my best performance in Tokyo and
be successful on the track and in life so that
the world remembers me.
What is your strategy for success?
Success comes but with time. People want
to achieve things very quickly; they are not
patient. When I was a kid, I dreamt of being
a runner. My mother and father always told
me to go after what I wanted. I went after
running. When I started running, I just
wanted to do well so that I could get a job in
the government sector, earn good, steady
income, change the financial situation at
home, and make my parents happy.
But no. God showed me a different way.
He showed me that I had real talent, that I
could do more than just participate in local
competitions. My God showed me that I had
the ability to make my family and my coun-
try proud. That’s why I concentrated on
sports and worked hard.
And slowly and steadily, I achieved my
medals and tried to break records. I won’t
stop till I get my Olympic medal. That’s the
ultimate goal, at least at the moment.
And after that?
After I have achieved the Olympics medal,
I think I would have achieved success. After
that, I will find my next path.
Where would you like your next path to
take you?
Hopefully, I will do two things. I want to cre-
ate a running academy for children. I don’t
VIEWS
The Millennials
want another child aspiring to be a runner to
run barefoot or run around a lake the way I
did. I want to build a stadium where they can
train. I want to make their dreams come
true.
And I want to work for the welfare of soci-
ety. That’s why I want to become a leader
and join politics. And yes, get married.
What were the reactions from the peo-
ple closest to you after you came out,
and how did it affect you?
We have advertisements for everything so
that people can be informed about a prod-
uct, a service or an issue. But there is no
awareness about homosexuality, and people
don’t talk about it much in public.
When I said I love a woman, many people
in my village were shocked. Some were
clueless. They didn’t even know what it
meant to love a person of the same gender.
Others were charging against me for saying
and doing something that was against our
religion. “What will a girl and a girl do?”
(implying that a romantic relationship
required a man). People behaved as if we
were doing something that the world
doesn’t need.
People in my village told me, “Dutee, your
days are numbered. You will be back in the
village again (referring to the 2014 case
when the International Association of Ath-
letics Federations barred her from compet-
ing internationally against women because
her body produced high levels of the male
hormone, testosterone. She challenged the
rule and it was temporarily suspended).”
For a month, it was extremely tough. It
affected my training. I was preparing for the
World University Games (held in Naples,
Italy, from 3 to 14 July last year; she won a
gold), but I just couldn’t concentrate.
Were you prepared for the backlash
against your decision to come out?
A child doesn’t know what will happen if
they put their fingers in hot water. It’s only
after they do it that they realize the conse-
quences. It was the same with me.
I was extremely nervous and scared about
how people, media and my family would
react. What if my fans stopped loving me?
Or what if I was asked not to participate in
sports again? I couldn’t sleep for nights. But,
at the same time, I had to say it. I deserve to
live my life the way I want to. I owe it to
myself. This is how I choose to live.
I checked with my advisers and lawyers.
Their advice was I should tell the truth. The
said it would in no way affect my career
since there was no such rule that would for-
bid anyone from participating because of
their sexual identity. I even called the Inter-
national Federation and asked them if I
would be allowed to play after my confes-
sion. They said it was a personal matter.
I also called Adille Sumariwalla (president
of Athletics Federation of India). He too said
it was a personal matter and offered to help
in case someone discriminated against me.
Achyuta Samanta (a social worker and
founder of Odisha’s Kalinga Institute of
Social Sciences, which provides free educa-
tion to nearly 30,000 tribal students) also
supported me.
When my family finally accepted my rela-
tionship, I knew I was on the right path. My
fans’ love has only grown. And more impor-
tantly, this is who I am, this is how I chose to
live. People need to deal with it.
On the track, how do you deal with a
slump in performance?
Building a steady career in sports is tricky.
One small injury can suddenly end your
career. In November 2017, while preparing
for the Commonwealth Glasgow competi-
tion, I sustained a fracture in the hand while
doing a huddle exercise. I couldn’t partici-
pate in Glasgow. I was in very bad shape.
I motivated myself to keep it moving. I
was exercising in a cast. One day, I forgot
that I had a fracture and I worsened my
injury. Then my doctor asked me to take
complete rest for 10 days. I dreamt for 10
days straight that they were calling out my
name during a competition but I was not
coming out.
When you are not in the right frame,
physically or mentally, it’s difficult not to
worry but you have to remind yourself that
things will get better eventually because
they have to get better.
Before you, Hima Das was signed by a
sports brand as their brand ambassa-
dor. Companies are finally looking
beyond Bollywood celebrities and
cricketers for endorsement. What do
you think has brought about this shift
in attitude?
Earlier, brands would associate themselves
with sportspersons who were doing well
and were famous. They were riding on their
fame. Nobody paid much heed to athletics,
and so, not many even knew sportspersons
in athletics. Cricket matches go on for a long
time, while our runs end very quickly, in a
matter of minutes. We don’t get much space
in newspapers.
So, our visibility
has always been
When you are not fully fit, it’s
less. But now, hard not to worry, but you
brands are signing must remind yourself that
sportspeople to
support and pro- things will get better because
mote them. Ath- they just have to get better.
letics has enough
people who
belong to poor families. Brands are recogni-
zing this and they know that if they support
and promote us, we will perform better, and
make the country proud. And in the process,
they will look good.
How would you describe the past dec-
ade?
From a girl who used to run barefoot around
a lake to becoming a sportsperson recog-
nized across the world, it’s been a long, hard
journey. People now see me for my sport, for
my hard work and for what I stand. Now I
just want to make my dream come true.
What do you dream of?
Making a bigger name for myself, building
a running academy in a rural area, making a
career for myself in politics. And yes, I want
to make same-sex marriage legal. I want to
marry the love of my life.
 PERSONAL FINANCE WEDNESDAY, 1 JANUARY 2020
NEW DELHI 19
The Millennials
ISSUES

W H AT T H E S T U D E N T S O F J N U ,
A M U , J A M I A R E A L LY W A N T
Pooja Singh
pooja.s@htlive.com (From extreme left) Students Santosh
NEW DELHI Kumar, Qasim Masumi, Amita and Manish
Kumar at the JNU campus. PRADEEP GAUR/MINT

I
f statues could talk, I wonder what the
nine-foot-tall, bronze Jawaharlal Nehru
would say when the saffron-coloured
cloth is finally removed from a life-sized
Swami Vivekananda figure installed 50m
opposite him in the administrative block of
Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU).
Perhaps, why were you covered for so long?
“Or maybe, what brings you here,” offers Man-
ish Kumar, 30, a PhD student who came to the
varsity from Bihar’s Samastipur in 2011.
The yet-to-be-inaugurated statue of the
19th century Hindu reformer, who is often
invoked in the branding of the Rashtriya
Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)—the ideological
parent of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)—
was installed last year. Its placement is part of
a list of issues that have plagued the varsity
after M. Jagadesh Kumar became the vice-
chancellor in early 2016.
“We need better libraries, financial help.
Will statues help me complete my studies?”
asks Qasim Masumi, 25, Manish’s friend and
an MPhil student.
His anxiety is rooted in the university’s
recent move to increase fees. The hike, set to
come into effect from the next academic year,
will almost double the annual hostel fee for
students to ₹55,000-61,000, making JNU the
country’s most expensive central university.
Students have been protesting against the
move, arguing it would push poor and margin-
alized people out of the varsity. “Most people
I know will quit. I might have to, too. Loans are
not an option for students in arts and social
sciences,” says Masumi, who is studying social
sciences. Banks offer loans only for engineer-
ing and other professional courses.
Over the past four years, several protests at
JNU, which has a reputation
for being a hotbed of politi-
Several protests at JNU— cal activism, have spilled out
which has the reputation for of the university campus.
being a hotbed of political From the sedition row in
2016, which saw the arrest of
activism—have spilled out then JNU Students’ Union
of the university campus president Kanhaiya Kumar,
to the case of student Najeeb
Ahmed going missing from
the university campus the same year, to the being anti-nationals has been played up so the economics school in July 2015. ates an opinion in public. She eventually have. If we are not educated, how different are
recent protests against the fee hike, the Citi- much, especially in the media, that some stu- His classmate Amita came to JNU to delay wants to be a professor, as do Manish and we from animals? Aur waqt ki nazakat dekhiye
zen (Amendment) Act (CAA) of 2019 and the dents are now scared to raise their voices, he getting married. She used to help her family Masumi. “JNU made space for so many people (And look at the sensitivity of the prevailing
National Register of Citizens, the university claims. “When I got admission here, my par- with farming in Haryana’s Mahendragarh dis- like me. If something goes wrong here, where circumstances). How can I not protest?”
has frequently been at loggerheads with the ents specifically told me not to get involved in trict and finished her college studies in her will people go? Who will accommodate chil- He admits the recent protests have demor-
establishment inside and outside the varsity. politics. But it is not about politics; it is about spare time. “My parents let me study here dren who sleep in the tribal areas dreaming alized him. “I want to study, become a clinical
Their relentless fight, however, has become a what’s right and wrong,” says Masumi, whose because of the cheap fee,” says Amita, 30, an they will come to JNU one day, to become psychologist, but the current environment is
testament to their beliefs. father is an event organizer in Patna and MPhil student who dropped her last name learners? That’s why we protest,” says Siwach. so toxic that I have to raise my voice.”
“The circumstances are such that there’s no mother a homemaker. when she was in Class X to remove the caste When the protests against CAA and NRC Some 160km away, Abdullah Parvez, a sec-
other solution but to protest. Our walls that Manish Kumar’s parents didn’t have any barrier. She’s just got a job in the Union labour took place in central Delhi’s Mandi House area ond-year English honours student at Aligarh
were covered with art and graffiti, which such demand when he joined the university in ministry. on 24 December, Siwach, Manish and Masumi Muslim University, too was protesting with his
accommodated ideas of everyone, whether 2011. His dad has a fish shop, and his parents Like Manish and Masumi, Amita too would were present. All three were detained. fellow classmates outside his campus against
left, right or centre, were removed. We don’t don’t even know “how big a deal it is” for him be the first-generation learner in the family the same issues.
have any army; we only have our voices to to study here. and is on her way to complete her MPhil. TURNING POINT “The issue is not about one sect of people, it
show our dissent. By raising the fee, they are For Twinkle Siwach, 29, an Army child, Rahim Yusuf was also one of them, protesting is for democracy,” says Parvez, 22. “Look at the
telling us we don’t belong here. By creating THE EARLY VISITORS admission in JNU marked the start for her against the way police handled the peaceful Hong Kong protests, the Black Lives Matter
CAA they are telling us that we don’t belong Like Manish and Masumi, hundreds of stu- “empowerment journey”. “I became more protest against CAA and NRC at Jamia Millia movement—students have always been at the
here. Throughout our lives, we were taught dents from different backgrounds and regions vocal and self-aware here. My parents weren’t Islamia on 15 December. “My acquaintance forefront. It’s not like we like protesting. We
humans are equal, why are they creating barri- across the world come to JNU, with the hope too happy with my admission since they was shot just below his chest area. They hit me are fighting for what is supposed to be ours, for
ers?” asks Manish, adding: “In my hometown that they will get a premier education at an wanted me to an engineer, but since I had with lathis on my spine and calf muscles,” says something that was given to us on paper. We
I faced caste oppression but we never talked affordable price. some money saved from previous jobs, I paid the 21-year-old who came to Jamia university owe it to our society.”
about it. When I came to JNU, there were open Santosh Kumar, 33, for instance, who came the fees. It was only possible because it was to study psychology two years ago, “for per- JNU’s Manish, who was released the same
discussions about it. I finally felt I was not from Bunapur, a remote village near Varanasi, affordable,” says Siwach, a sociology student sonal growth and the importance it gave to day he was detained as were his fellow class-
alone.” made five attempts to crack the JNU entrance who is completing her PhD in how first infor- education among the minority groups”. mates, says when the fight is over, we will all
Not all students, however, are so vocal, exam. “I was able to live my dream because I mation reports (FIRs), especially those by Yusuf, too, has been at the forefront of pro- go back home. “But I don’t know when they
interjects Masumi. The narrative of students could afford the fee,” says Santosh, who joined women, are read by the media and how it cre- tests at his university. “My education is all I will lift the veil.”

Students don’t want to be dragged into the past, they want a future
Yogendra Yadav marksheets to degrees. There hasn’t ever university feel they are headed for a world when it is not mobilized by organized for-
been a student protest about an issue that where employment is an uncertainty. The ces. It is this element that comes as an

S
ocialists. Leftists. These are tags peo-
ple are giving our students today. I
say let’s not typecast them into cate-
gories that we have inherited or ones
familiar to us. Socialism brings too much
baggage. Yes, today’s students and youth
have a deep unease with unequal educa-
tion and employment opportunities. Yes,
they are sick and tired of the Hindu-Mus-
lim dialogue. But what they are actually
saying is give me the future, not the past.
They’re saying: You want to settle Parti-
tion, which happened over 70 years ago.
You want to settle Babri Masjid, which
happened almost 30 years ago. But I want
to look at my present and future. Don’t
drag me to the past again and again.
Understanding this is probably the best
way of understanding them.
The last time this country witnessed
nationwide student protests at scale was
the 1970s. We had the JP Movement, led
by Gandhian socialist Jayaprakash Nar-
ayan, against corruption. Their demand
was the resignation of then prime minister
Indira Gandhi. The other instance was the
Navnirman Andolan, a socio-political
movement in 1974 Gujarat, led by stu-
dents against corruption in public life.
Then there were movements like the
Assam Movement against illegal immi-
Yogendra Yadav being detained by Delhi Police during a protest against the Citizenship
Amendment Act in December 2019.
grants in the late 1970s, which was led by
the All Assam Students Union and the All
Assam Gana Sangram Parishad. Another
one was the Mandal Commission protests,
against reservation in government jobs.
The protests we are witnessing now
against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act
of 2019 and the National Register of Citi-
zens (NRC) are different from anything we
have seen in the past. Firstly, geographi-
REUTERS
cally speaking, this movement is wider
than any other youth movement India has
seen. At least 35 universities are partici-
pating. It is not supported, driven and con-
trolled by any political party or political
face. It is neither left nor right.
The other distinguishing factor is that
the issues are not specific to students.
Generally, previous student protests were
about issues related to the campus, from
is not student-exclusive and has become economy is a deeper cause that creates an additional cherry on the top that gives it
such a big wave. The Bihar and Gujarat overall climate in which something like direction. And students are the cherry on
movements left a mark nationally but both the Jamia incident becomes a spark. top because they are not mobilized. They
began with specific problems in cam- When it comes to women students, have become a barometer of society and
puses. The present movement is not just there is a strong aspiration not to be chap- the direction of the future, and that’s why
about the police response to protests at eroned as they are at home, not to be told students and youth have disproportionate
Jamia Millia Islamia anymore. And women what to do, to be whoever they want to be. influence. That’s why government can
have taken the lead. No other protest has This is not feminism; this is just an asser- withstand a protest by 10,000 but not a
seen such strong leadership of women. tion of dignity. They want equal opportu- protest of 500 students/youth.
The manner in which students pro- nity, they want We are at the cusp
tested at Jamia and how it was handled is equal treatment. of a student and
symptomatic of something wider. They They may not sub-
At this moment in history,
youth movement,
are not just fighting police behaviour but scribe to the social- students and youth are the which has the poten-
also the deeply suffocating environment ist dream of a world only ones who can bring tial to change our
of university campuses. The quality of with no private public life. It has a
leadership at universities has dropped and ownership, but about radical change and wide footprint, the
the desire to control students’ lives has there certainly is an poke a hole in hegemony right depth required
gone up. This is happening at a time when egalitarian streak in for such a move-
students aspire to be free on their own what they are doing. ment. It does not yet,
campuses. They are nothing like the stu- At this moment in history, students and however, have a face and a name to it. It is
dents of two decades ago, who accepted youth are the only social catalysts who can not a movement that has come from dep-
whatever the teacher told them. The stu- bring about radical change in a situation rivation and desperation. It is a movement
dent of today has a very different sense of where the regime enjoys unquestionable of aspiration. Aspiration for better educa-
who he or she is, and you can’t confine majority and power over autonomous, tion and dignified livelihood. Aspiration
someone like that to a hostel by 7pm. independent institutions like the media for a forward-looking national agenda,
At a deeper level, the protests are about and judiciary. In such a situation, only a rather than a backward-looking one.
what’s happening in the economy. The student protest on the street can poke a
unemployment rate is unusually high. A hole in hegemony. —As told to Pooja Singh
2019 report by Centre for Monitoring What makes students unusually power-
Indian Economy shows that 11 million peo- ful is that their participation is spontane- Yogendra Yadav is a political analyst and
ple lost jobs the previous year. Those in ous. Usually, a movement gets direction national president of Swaraj India.
20 WEDNESDAY, 1 JANUARY 2020
NEW DELHI
SEARCHING FOR REAL TIES
IN A CONNECTED WORLD
Shalini Umachandran
shalini.umachandran@livemint.com
MCLEOD GANJ
F
or the past 14 years, Kailash Chan-
drabauddha has been living in
McLeod Ganj, a suburb of Himachal
Pradesh’s Dharamshala city, studying
Buddhism, Tibetan language and
philosophy. He’s far from his hometown in
Uttar Pradesh’s Mainpuri district, but it’s in
the hills that he’s found his purpose.
“The Tibetan community-in-exile has pre-
served knowledge that holds meaning for the
world. I’m hoping I can do my bit to keep this
knowledge alive, share it and contribute posi-
tively to the world,” says Chadrabauddha, 33,
who translates the Dalai Lama’s teachings into
Hindi and posts them on social media.
Education, technology, connectivity and
urbanization have brought diversity to the
lives of millennials, but have also created a
sense of restlessness. Many are looking to
understand themselves and what truly drives
them, be authentic, and cut through all the
chatter on
social media to
The Tibetan community has
separate real
provided a base for those relationships
seeking peace, or those who from virtual
ones.
want to take a short break to “More young
‘find themselves’ people are
interested in
religion and
spirituality now and come to Dharamshala
looking for direction,” says Chadrabauddha,
a science graduate from Lucknow University
and now a student at McLeod Ganj’s Institute
of Buddhist Dialectics.
“Buddhism appeals to millennials because
the message is simple, and questioning and
debate is encouraged. His Holiness never
preaches; he talks to you, which works best for
my generation,” he says. “It’s different from
the unquestioning obedience and blind faith
that we’re brought up with.”
All around Dharamshala are posters and fly-
ers offering ways and means to find inner
peace. One can try kriya meditation, a restora-
tive yoga retreat, Japanese butoh dance for
mindfulness, experience power healing or
crystal energy healing, centre oneself by pet-
ting pig at an animal recovery centre, partici-
PERSONAL FINANCE
pate in a mindful march against climate
change, or even unleash one’s inner goddess.
Some of these may seem like they’re tai-
lored to the flaky tourists looking for a quick
fix to anxiety, but it’s a market that’s grown
around the institutions and monasteries that
the Tibetan community-in-exile has recreated
painstakingly over the past 50 years to keep
their religion and culture alive.
By retaining a link to their past, the Tibetan
community has provided a base for millenni-
als seeking peace, or those who have decided
to take a short break from the corporate world
to “find themselves”.
Millennials who pick spirituality over orga-
nized religion, however, aren’t in the majority
in India. Religion matters to more than half of
India’s millennials and religiosity increases
with age, according to data collected in a You-
Guv-Mint Millennial Survey.
Those who do identify as spiritual but not
religious prioritize finding meaning or pur-
pose over rituals, daily prayer and organized
religion. The questions they’re asking them-
selves include how should I live, who should
I be, what is my purpose? Often, what sparks
such reflection is experiences they cannot
make sense of, a vague sense of dissatisfaction
in their work or personal life, or having a nag-
ging sense that there’s more out there.
“Millennials are questioning more, there’s
no doubt about that,” says Sharanya G., 32,
who works in the social sector in Bihar. “But
we also have to recognize that a market has
grown around ‘finding your purpose’. Some-
times, it seems like everything around you is
pushing you to ‘find yourself’ and ‘seek pur-
pose’, like you’re not doing something if you
don’t ‘follow your passion’,” she says.
She’s been on meditation retreats in Dha-
ramshala, tried practising Vipassana and spent
a year working on a spiritual arts project in
Bengaluru, after quitting a job in communica-
tions. In the past year though, she’s been prac-
tising “active listening and empathy” and says
that’s been more effective than anything else
she’s done so far.
“In the current political climate, when
everyone is fighting with everyone else, and
WhatsApp and social media are the main form
of communication, we don’t seem to be listen-
ing. So, in 2019, I reminded myself to listen
fully in all my interactions.” She says it’s made
her more mindful and has helped her have
The Millennials
meaningful conversations. “I’d say my spiritu-
ality has shifted and become more action-ori-
ented in the past year. Listening with empathy
keeps you in the moment, which is the aim of
meditation too.”
Many believe in manifesting good energy
for themselves by meditating, reading, spend-
ing time in nature, doing yoga and going on
spiritual retreats. There’s also the belief that
all beings are interconnected and being spiri-
tual means connecting with a universal
energy. “I believe that love is our basic nature,
or that we should all operate from a place of
love, not fear or anger or hatred,” says Nirup-
ama Kumar, who lives in McLeod Ganj and
works as a content writer for Bengaluru-based
startups. “That’s how I approach spirituality.
Living in the hills gives me a chance to make
time for meditation and long walks in nature,
which ground me.”
She moved to Himachal Pradesh four years
ago after her engagement ended.
“My workplace was also toxic, and every-
thing seemed overwhelming. I needed space
to breathe and, if not find myself, at least find
a pace that suited me,” says Kumar, 31.
NEW CAREERS, EXPERIENCES
Dharamshala is also home to people like Kris-
han Pandey, 30, and Aparna Saha, 32, who run
The Unmad, a guesthouse in Upper Dharam-
kot. Pandey moved two years ago after spend-
ing eight years in the advertising world in
Delhi. “I was being paid well, we partied every
night after work, but then I evaluated my life
and realized I wanted more than just money.
I wanted to feel happy within,” he says.
For the first few months, Pandey just spent
“me-time” and worked on his novel. “Then I
decided to start the guesthouse as a way to
welcome people to share my experience of liv-
ing in the mountains,” he says.
Saha, a freelance illustrator who takes on
commercial projects, joined him about a year
later because she wanted time to focus on her
personal art and dreamt of opening a restau-
rant. “We’re hoping to do that in the north-
east when we move again in a few years,” she
says.
For tarot card reader Abhishek Gautam,
moving to Dharamshala was the culmination
of years of spending weekends in the hills to
escape the city. “I didn’t like my management
job at all,” says Gautam, 32, sitting at a table at
Jimmy’s Café in McLeod Ganj, with his cards
set out, reading a book while waiting for
walk-in clients. “I was never happy in the city.
I quit five years ago, and moved into an apart-
ment in Naddi nearby.”
He trained as a tarot reader and astrologer
after a friend told him he was intuitive. “Now
I’m completely settled in my heart and my
mind. But you can’t chase peace. It’s better to
chase money, maybe you’ll catch it. Peace has
to come to you.”
Sharanya has come to a similar conclusion.
“I have moved from trying to find myself to
realizing that I have to understand others and
the world around me if I want to make sense of
myself. Spirituality has to be contextualized to
find ways to make sense of the world,” she
says.
Some millennials realize that privilege and
life circumstances allow for this kind of quest
for meaning.
“My father, for instance, had just one path to
follow—you helped others, but the priority
was securing your future and ensuring your
family was comfortable,” says Sharanya.
“I’m privileged to question, to pursue spiri-
tual doubts, and try different kinds of work
before choosing this job. As a generation,
we’re lucky to have the time and resources to
reflect,” she says.
For Tenzin Thinley, 29, a Tibetan refugee
who’s been studying Tibetan Buddhist philos-
ophy for the past five years, his studies help
him find “synonyms to happiness”. After he
graduated with an arts degree, his family
wanted him to work but he didn’t have the
confidence to do so because he didn’t know
what he wanted from life.
“I am on the path now. Buddhism touches
my heart. I know that I want to learn to pre-
serve Tibetan knowledge and culture. When-
ever I have problems, I reflect on this and feel
lighter,” he says.
CHANGING ATTITUDES
The world offers far too many distractions to
millennials, including those who have chosen
to live the monastic life, says Geshe Samten
Gyatso, director of the Institute of Buddhist
Dialectics. The institute has about 100 stu-
dents, of which about 30 are not monks.
“The outside world is so colourful now.
There’s so much choice,” says Gyatso, 50, who
was once a student at the institute and recalls
Tenzin Lhundup Gyaltso, 20,
Tenzin Lhachoe, 23, Tenzin
Thinley, 29, and Kailash
Chandrabauddha prepare
for their exams at the
Institute of Buddhist
Dialectics in McLeod Ganj.
PRINYANKA PARASHAR/MINT
the strict discipline that was demanded of
them.
“We would sneak out to go play football
once in a blue moon. But I don’t think that
kind of discipline will work today so we give
the students Sundays off. We encourage them
to swim in the (nearby) Bhagsu lake, play foot-
ball, do more than just study. I truly believe we
should change a little, offer more courses and
choices without diluting our traditions,”
Gyatso says.
Gyatso, who has taught in Karnataka, South
Africa and the UK, believes this is a generation
that needs to truly understand why they are
doing things. “Unlike my generation—we
were happy to see where a path would take
us,” he says. “Their search for answers is genu-
ine but they have to be allowed to search in
their own way.”
In McLeod Ganj, the crowds of seekers have
manifested other, more earthly problems—
water, garbage clearance and sanitation are
issues, cars choke the narrow hill roads and
the fragile mountains are crammed with four-
to six-storey buildings.
“Dharam-
shala is no
Many believe in manifesting
longer the
quaint Himala- good energy for themselves
yan village that by doing yoga, reading,
we’re advertis-
ing it as,” says spending time in nature and
L o b s a n g going on spiritual retreats
Wangyal, a
photographer
who runs the local news website Tibet Sun,
conducts spirituality workshops abroad and
organizes the annual Miss Himalayan pageant.
He’s also aware that the rush of seekers has
led to “guaranteed happiness” and one-hour
meditation workshops popping up across
Dharamshala. “That’s rubbish, and it’s for the
day trippers. But the presence of His Holiness
does make these hills special, and that’s what
draws those looking for peace. His message is
compassion, and it’s such a simple one that it
appeals to everyone, of all ages.”
Serious students of religion find space
alongside those seeking a quick fix. “It doesn’t
matter if you contemplate for a week or for
life,” says Dhargye, 24, a Tibetan Studies stu-
dent at a college in Sarah, Dharamshala. “If
you do anything that encourages understand-
ing of life, that is spirituality.”

RELATIONSHIPS
W H E N I T C O M E S TO LOV E ,
NO COMPROMISE PLEASE
Sushmita Bose
feedback@livemint.com
HYDERABAD
A
s a Gen X-er, what strikes me as
remarkable about millennials is
their wearable lightness of being.
Not self-conscious. Not apolo-
getic. Not possessing of an inbuilt
defence mechanism that hems and haws,
because there is an overriding need to justify
decisions and seek validation.
They say it like it is.
Even—and especially—when it comes to
love, relationships and sex in a world of tech-
enabled interconnectivity and Hollywood-
coded urban dictionaries.
Hyderabad’s cosmopolitanism, where tradi-
tional dum biryanis are slow-cooked alongside
a fast-paced IT hub lifestyle, is a badge of hon-
our for its younger population. They are proud
of their hometown’s coming of age over the
past decade. And they are proud of it being a
city that’s good-hearted and largely non-judge-
mental. I am in a car with Shweta Melwani, who
works for a food and dining app, we are being
driven down Mehdipatnam Road to dinner.
Born and raised in different parts of Africa, she
moved to Hyderabad 10
years ago as a teenager, and
They’re very clear that just now considers it home. “But
because they are having sex, only for as long as it suits
it doesn’t mean that the me,” she laughs. No “forever”
tags.
relationship is tangible in the She’s sitting in front, next
‘committed, romantic sense’. to Ali Bhai, her driver and
our chauffeur for the even-
ing, who hails from the older
part of the city, and she starts telling me about
how popular the trend of “friends with bene-
fits” has become in her “very large social circle”.
“I’d say about 80% of people my age would
be absolutely okay going along with it. They
look for something casual, and are very upfront
about it,” she says.
They’re also clear that just because you are
having sex, it doesn’t mean it has to be in a
“committed, romantic sense”. Melwani
MARKETS AND FINANCE
The Millennials
For Sindhu Sharma, Shweta
Melwani and B. Sri Krishna,
complete honesty, convenience
and flexibility take precedence
in all relationships. S. KUMAR/MINT
explains: “Having sex without commitment
does not mean you are having sex without
respect and emotions.” At times, a one-night
stand with a friend can lead to a lasting relation-
ship, and that’s cool too.
I’m impressed how comfortable she is not
pulling her punches as she speaks animatedly
in front of the middle-aged Ali Bhai. Ali Bhai
appears mostly unperturbed and at times
enjoying our chatter (Melwani tells me the next
day he had complimented her with “You talk so
well!” when he drove her home after dinner).
The next day, sitting across me at a hotel coffee
shop, Alex Jo, who works for a California-based
startup, displays a similar swag. He doesn’t let
his voice dip a few notches for the benefit of
occupants of neighbouring tables — like I do
when I’m asking him how soon into a relation-
ship does the sex part come into play (in case
you were wondering, his response is: “Ideally,
on the third date”).
Jo tells me about his life’s big story: a rela-
tionship with a Pakistani girl who was studying
and then working in Hyderabad. She went
home on a vacation six months ago, sometime
after the Pulwama attack, and couldn’t return.
“So, it’s most probably over, though we did
meet in Dubai a few weeks ago.”
FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS
Again, he has the millennial clarity that if some-
thing practical works out (“it’s going to be a
miracle if it does!”), he will pursue her. But not
if it isn’t a workable option. “I dated someone
else briefly while on this break. I realized I
couldn’t bring myself to feel for her the way I
did for my girlfriend, so we called it off.” No
problems if I write about this, I ask. He shrugs.
“None whatsoever, there’s nothing to hide.”
He met his big love at the house of a Tinder
contact. Jo uses Tinder for networking. “I have
a blog, and contacts evince interest in it. We
meet for work, we become friends.” With bene-
fits? “There’s always that option, but I prefer
not to tread that path,” he grins.
At 30, he considers himself a “veteran mil-
lennial”. “By the time you are in your late-20s,
you’ve had a spate of relationships, so at my age
I should be ‘settling’—that’s what people tell
me—but I’m in no hurry, lots to explore.”
Are there young people who decide to stick
to one person for life? “Really, really few,” says
B. Sri Krishna, an aspiring entrepreneur and an
organizer of Hyderabad TEDx.
He’s one of them, clear in his head and heart
that he wants to be with his girlfriend of seven
years for the rest of his life. “My friends rib me:
‘How can you say you want to be with one per-
son for the rest of your life?’” He agrees things
can take a different complexion 10 years on, but
for now, he’s sticking to his guns. “I’m upfront
about my choices. If I need to, I tell others I
don’t want to hang out with them because my
WEDNESDAY, 1 JANUARY 2020
NEW DELHI 21
girlfriend is possessive about the time she
spends with me.”
Like Krishna, Sindhu Sharma has also been
actively involved with the city’s TEDx commu-
nity. A classical dancer and singer, she’s on her
way to becoming a civil servant, very focused
on her life trajectory. “One needs to be sure
about what one wants from hook-ups: only
when you have factored in the extreme scenar-
ios that could unfold should you venture into
it—that’s when it becomes fun.”
I ask all four of them to sum up their point of
view on dating apps. This is what they say:
Melwani: “Dating apps bore me, people ask-
ing random questions to find out if I live alone,
can they come over… I would rather go to a club
and hook up. He has to be cute, of course. There
was a time when a woman who hit on a guy
would be considered loose… not anymore. Not
in Hyderabad at least.”
Jo: “Not crazy about dating apps. I have
about 60 to 70 contacts on Tinder, but not for
dating. I chat with only six or seven about com-
mon interests and work.”
Krishna: “My friends play PUBG, and find
dates. It’s a survival saga, but you can interact
with team members in real-time. A lot of young
people believe if you’re battling to stay alive
together virtually, you can click in real life.
Many people I know date players from PUBG.
It’s random, but it works, even for a hook-up.”
Sharma: “We are a generation driven by
casual relationships, so if I’m feeling lonely, it’s
convenient to use dating apps. Some people go
overboard, and date a bunch of people at a
time… that really messes with your mind.”
At the end of it, I’m fascinated by the objec-
tive clarity of this generation. Melwani explains
how uncompromising her generation is about
“convenience” in relationships. “I would not
compromise on the country I want to live in or
my career because of a relationship. To a cer-
tain level, yes, every relationship needs effort,
but compromise cannot go all the way… that’s
a deal-breaker.”
Jo rephrases it. As a generation, “we will flex
ourselves a bit, but not a lot—because we need
to adjust to practical concerns”.
 NEWS WEDNESDAY, 1 JANUARY 2020
NEW DELHI 23

ANIRUDDHA CHOWDHURY/MINT

Despite slowdown, equities likely

to register healthy growth in 2020
The divide between rising Indian equities and a weak macroeconomy is likely to continue this year
Urban cooperative banks with deposits above ₹100 crore must
Nasrin Sultana central banks’ appetite for gold constitute a board of management, according to the guidelines.
m MINT GRAPHITI
nasrin.s@livemint.com continues especially in an envi-
MUMBAI
Gold shines brightest ronment of negative rates in
developed economies,” ICICI RBI issues norms to
I
ndian equities are likely to Gold outperformed equities, gaining 18.75% in 2019, registering its best performance in 10 years. Overall Securities said in a report on 17
continue the upward trend benchmark indices Sensex and Nifty registered their best performance since 2017. December. Bitcoin’s
this year, despite major head-
winds such as the economic
slowdown and fiscal slippa-
Investments
FII ($ bn) DII ( cr)
(Right-hand scale)
Markets
60
Sensex Nifty Midcap Smallcap (in %)
Gold outperformed equities,
gaining 18.75% in 2019, register-
ing its best performance in 10
9,000,000%
rise this
decade
leaves the
shore up governance
40

standards at UCBs
15 120000 skeptics
ges. 14.51 years.
20 aghast
Indian stock markets are Overall benchmark indices, the
expected to see healthy returns in 0 Sensex and the Nifty, were up bit.ly/37mDRm

2020, though there may not be a 10 -20 14.38% and 12.02%, respectively, D Gopika Gopakumar UCBs will have to make suit-
quick recovery in the economy, 80000 -40
in 2019—their best performances gopika.g@livemint.com able amendments to their
said analysts. The divide between 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 since 2017. MUMBAI by-laws, with the approval of
66841.95
rising Indian equities and a weak Rupee Gold (in %)
On Tuesday, the BSE Sensex, the general body and registrar

I
macro economy, which puzzled 5 20 lost 304.26 points, or 0.73%, to n order to strengthen gov- of cooperative societies to pro-
investors in 2019, is likely to con- 41643.48 close at 41,253.74, while the Nifty ernance standards at urban vide for the constitution of
3.27 10
tinue in 2020. 40000 50 index lost 87.40 points, or cooperative banks (UCBs), BoM, in addition to the BoD.
Credit Suisse expects headline 0 0 0.71%, to close at 12,168.45, fol- the Reserve Bank of India on The CEO of a UCB may be
indices to stay elevated, despite lowing weak global markets. Tuesday released the final appointed by the board, and he
continuing weakness in the -10 According to UBS, base-case guidelines for setting up a should be a person meeting
Indian economy, driven by steady target for Nifty by June 2020 is board of management (BoM) the ‘fit and proper’ criteria, the
-5 0 -20
fund inflows and earnings growth 2015 2019 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 12,300, based on 18 times forward for such banks. According to RBI said.
from firms that are not directly Source : Bloomberg, BSE, NSE SHARMA/MINT
and NSDL
price to earnings (PE) multiple, the guidelines, UCBs, with UCBs having deposits of
SANTOSH KUMAR
hurt by domestic macroeconomic with upside/downside scenarios deposits of ₹100 crore and ₹100 crore and more will
weakness, but benefit from fac- indices to stay elevated driven by Narrow market performance during FY19-FY21. It said that at 13,300/ 10,300. “We have been more, will constitute the BoM, obtain prior approval of the
tors such as rising penetration of inflows and as most of the market will continue for now, as eco- absolute returns, at high single- constructive over the past three which will be a mandatory RBI for the appointment of a
products and market-share gains. cap is in stocks linked to rising nomic uncertainty continues to digit, for Nifty during 2020 are months, but post the recent rally, requirement for opening new CEO.
“Even as destocking ends in penetration of products/formali- push funds into “safe” stocks, constrained by the sharp run-up Nifty is trading at 18.5 times one- branches. The proposal to create the
some sectors, driving some stabi- zation, market share gains, or resulting in higher market con- in stocks in the fourth quarter of year forward PE multiple. We “The board of directors BoM was first proposed by the
lization in the economy, 2019, thereby stretching believe the risk-reward is becom- (BoD) of a UCB perform both expert committee on licencing
pro-cyclical forces in ANALYSTS’ EXPECTATIONS equity valuations. ing less attractive in the near- the executive and supervisory of new urban cooperative
credit, fiscal, and senti- “We expect small/ term,” UBS said in a report on 16 roles, and has the responsibil- banks, constituted under the
ment may still create CREDIT Suisse NARROW market ICICI Securities UBS puts base-case micro-caps to outper- December. ity to oversee the functioning chairmanship of Y.H. Male-
downside risks. Policy expects headline
indices to stay
performance will
continue, as funds
expects small/micro
caps to outperform
target for Nifty by
June 2020 at 12,300
form mid-caps as the The Indian economy witnessed of UCB as a cooperative soci- gam. The creation of a BoM, in
interventions to get a elevated, driven by continue to become midcaps and gold to as risk-reward former asset classes have a sharp slowdown in 2019. While ety, as well as its functions as a addition to the BoD, was
growth rebound to 6.5% steady fund inflows ‘safe’ stocks outperform equities remains unattractive much higher margin of investments, particularly private bank. Since UCBs are accept- aimed at addressing the issues
levels are not politically safety in terms of the investments, have been deceler- ing public deposits, it is imper- arising out of dual-control, and
challenging, but it is risk-spread over large ating over the past 3-4 years, the ative that a separate mecha- to bring about an improve-
unclear when they may be under- global factors,” said Neelkanth centration, said Credit Suisse. caps. Top performance of gold in slowdown in consumption is nism be put in place to protect ment in the functioning of
taken. Efforts to reduce the cost Mishra, co-head of equity strat- ICICI Securities expects Nifty 2019 points at a period of scepti- more recent, and has impacted the interests of depositors,” UCBs. Subsequently, the high-
of capital should be among the egy, Asia Pacific and India Equity earnings to have a compounded cism towards risk assets and the macro economy for the past said the RBI in its notification. powered committee, set up by
first of these. We expect headline Strategist at Credit Suisse. annual growth rate (CAGR) of 17% could continue in 2020 as global 4-5 quarters. The BoM will comprise the RBI under the chairman-
expert banking professionals. ship of R. Gandhi, made it a
It will also exercise oversight mandatory for UCBs to set up
on banking-re- a BoM.
lated functions of The creation of a The decision
the UCBs, assist BoM, in addition assumes signifi-
Ambani family tax case part of wider probe on the BoD on for-

cies and any

foreign income, assets under black money law
Gireesh Chandra Prasad
gireesh.p@livemint.com
NEW DELHI
to a board of cance against the
mulation of poli- directors, is aimed backdrop of a
at addressing the scam at Punjab
other related and Maharashtra
matter, specifi- issues arising out C o o p e r a t i v e
cally delegated to of dual control Bank. The scam at
it by the board for PMC Bank has
ate the leads related to the ment on the issue. people with knowledge of the proper function- affected 915,000
cases. The Indian Express had matter, that the tax department ing of the bank, it added. depositors, the RBI imposed
“The outcome of these reported on 15 September that has sought clarifications from The BoM will also oversee restrictions on withdrawals.
inquiries will depend on the the tax department’s probe overseas following show cause the management of fund and Statutory inspection of PMC

A
ny action following the
income tax depart-
The REIT will use the IPO proceeds for partial or full prepayment, ment’s inquiry into the
or scheduled repayment, of certain debt facilities of the assets alleged tax evasion by family
held by it. REUTERS members of Reliance Indus-
tries Ltd chairman Mukesh
quality of information received began after the government notices to Ambani’s family borrowings, and recommend by the RBI had revealed large
from other nations. Often, received details of an esti- members regarding the alleged action for recovery of non-per- group exposure of about
many countries take the view mated 700 Indian individuals evasion on account of foreign forming assets (NPAs). The ₹6,226.01 crore to Housing
that attracting for- and entities hold- income. The report cited the BoD will continue to be the Development and Infrastruc-
eign investment is The I-T dept has ing accounts in Ambanis as saying that the noti- apex policy setting body and ture Ltd (HDIL) and its group
their priority set up teams to HSBC Geneva in ces were illegal. constitute various committees companies.

Mindspace Business Ambani on account of foreign

income and assets will depend
on the relevance of the infor-
rather than coop- process the 2011. The report
eration in tax mat- references it gets claimed that a
ters,” added the
on undisclosed subsequent
Other investigating agen-
cies, such as the Enforcement
Directorate and the Central
of the board, including the Of the total exposure to the
BoM, to assist the board in car- HDIL group, only ₹439.58
rying out its responsibilities. crore was disclosed to the RBI

REIT files for IPO mation received from other

Swaraj Singh Dhanjal
swaraj.d@livemint.com
MUMBAI
msf of future development area,
as on 30 June 2019. Our portfo-
lio has five integrated business
parks with superior infrastruc-
countries, said a government
official, requesting anonymity.
The income tax department
has set up special teams to pur-
sue the references it receives on
undisclosed foreign income
and assets, and any action, if
necessary, will be taken under
official.
In cases, where
the information
foreign income
and assets
investigation by
the daily revealed
that some of the
Bureau of Investigation, are yet
to take cognizance of the mat-
ter, said another official, who
The BoM will be constituted while ₹5,786.43 crore
by the BoD within a period of remained undisclosed. Mean-
one year from the date of the while, the RBI has issued a
had merit, the accounts held by also requested anonymity. circular, and have a minimum comprehensive cyber security
department will offshore entities “The CBI or the ED can act of five members and may have framework for UCBs.The
take action under the Black in tax havens had links to the once the IT department for- as many as 12 members. The framework for UCBs has been
Money Act, which will include Ambani family, a claim they wards a complaint to either of CEO will be a non-voting formulated based on a graded
re-assessment of past income. deny. An email sent to RIL in the agencies—whether it is to member, the RBI said. The approach.They have been cat-
An email query to the tax the evening remained unan- probe a money trail or corrup- chairman of the BoM may be egorised into four levels based

M
indspace Business ture and amenities (such as res- the black money law. department remained unan- swered at the time of publish- tion. In this case, the I-T elected by the members from on their digital depth and
Parks REIT, which is taurants, crèches and outdoor Tax sleuths have reached out swered till press time. A Mum- ing department needs to conclude among themselves, or interconnectedness to the
backed by real estate sports arenas) and five quality to other countries to see if there bai-based tax official Mint The Economic Times its investigations first,” he appointed by the BoD, it payment systems landscape.
developer K. Raheja Corp. and independent offices,” the pro- are any facts that may substanti- reached out to declined to com- reported on Tuesday, citing added. added. PTI contributed to this story
private equity investor Black- spectus said.
stone, on Tuesday filed the draft The Mindspace REIT portfo-
prospectus for its initial public lio is located in four key office
offering (IPO), making it the sec- markets—Mumbai Region,
ond REIT to attempt a listing on Hyderabad, Pune and Chennai.
the Indian bourses. Mumbai comprises the biggest
In March, Bengaluru-based chunk of the portfolio with 12.1
developer Embassy and Black- msf of leasable real estate, fol-
stone had launched India’s first lowed by Hyderabad with 11.6
End of an era in global publishing as Sonny Mehta dies
public REIT, Embassy Office msf.
Parks REIT, in a ₹4,750-crore As on 30 June, the portfolio Somak Ghosal Amrik Singh Mehta, one of also keenly invested in the mar- Penguin and Random House,
IPO. had 173 tenants somak.g@livemint.com India’s first diplomats, Sonny keting and publicity of his of which Knopf was an
According to According to draft and approxi- BENGALURU Mehta had an itinerant child- authors. imprint), Mehta was able to
the draft prospec- prospectus filed mately 84.5% of its hood. Educated all over the “The Sonny hallmark was retain significant control over

S
tus filed by Mind- by Mindspace, the gross rentals were onny Mehta, who died on world, but mostly in the UK, he outstanding design and strong the operations and vision of
space, the REIT REIT is targeting derived from mul- Monday in New York at began his career in London, marketing alongside the selec- the company.
aims to raise
to raise ₹1,000 cr tinational corpo- the age of 77, was unique where his rise through the tion of books,” wrote Chiki In a profile for Vanity Fair
₹1,000 crore rations and 34.8% on several counts. Not only was ranks was fast and phenome- Sarkar, founder and publisher, magazine in 2015, Mehta told
through a fresh via a fresh issue from Fortune 500 he the rare Indian to scale nal. As editor of Pan Books in Juggernaut Books. “He would the writer Dave Eggers that “on
issue of shares, of shares companies. The unprecedented heights in the the 1970s, he created a vastly tell me again and a good day… I am
while the existing REIT’s tenant base hierarchy of global publishing, successful commercial imprint, again that the only Mehta was not still convinced I
shareholders, K. comprising a mix but was also the maker of which led to him being courted way to survive, to only an editor par have the best job
Raheja Corp. and Blackstone, of multinational and Indian cor- household names and superhit by the US, and his subsequent be left alone by excellence. He in the world”. His
will offload a part of their share- porates, included affiliates of books. move to New your bosses, to do was also keenly delight in his
holding through an offer for Accenture, Qualcomm, BA Con- In his role as m OBITUARY York in 1987. what you want to work was
invested in the
sale. tinuum, JPMorgan, Amazon, the editor-in- In his role as do, was to make undaunted till the
The REIT will use the IPO Schlumberger, UBS, Capgem- chief of Alfred A. chairman of the enough money.” publicity of his end, and he kept
proceeds for partial or full pre- ini, Facebook, Barclays and BNY Knopf in New York, he pub- Knopf Doubleday Publishing It was this authors at it until he was
payment, or scheduled repay- Mellon, as on 30 June. lished best-selling writers of lit- Group, Mehta continued his unique combina- laid low by his last
ment, of certain debt facilities of For 2018-19, the REIT erary fiction, including Salman excellent work of discovering tion of uncanny illness.
the assets held by it. The quan- reported revenue of ₹1,679.7 Rushdie, Kazuo Ishiguro, V.S. new talents like Marjane business sense and razor-sharp Mehta was married to jour-
tum of the offer for sale by the crore, compared to ₹1,502.2 Naipaul, Haruki Murakami and Satrapi (author of the graphic editorial instincts that helped nalist and writer Gita Mehta,
existing shareholders is yet to be crore in the previous fiscal. It Gabriel Garcia Marquez. He novel Persepolis) and champi- Mehta beat all odds. best known for her classic
decided. reported a profit of ₹515.4 crore also possessed the same golden oning them. Writer and histo- In the 1960s, the early years account of Indian life, Karma
According to the prospectus, in fiscal 2019, as against ₹161 touch that filled his list with rian Ramachandra Guha of his career, he managed to Cola. Gita Mehta is the sister of
the Mindspace REIT has a port- crore in the year-earlier. Nobel, Pulitzer and Booker described him as “a truly great establish himself in the then Odisha chief minister Naveen
folio of commercial properties Investment banks Morgan winners, when it came to mass- editor and a wonderfully warm predominantly white milieu of Patnaik.
with a total leasable area of 29.5 Stanley, Axis Capital, Nomura, market stars such as Jackie Col- and compassionate human British publishing. Later, in “My brother-in-law Sonny
million sq. ft (msf). Bank of America and Citi, lins, Douglas Adams and E.L. being” in a tweet mourning his the US, in spite of the several Mehta…was one of the world’s
“Our portfolio comprises 19.8 among others, are managing James (best known for the Fifty passing. mergers that Knopf went best editors and an extremely
msf of completed area, 6.1 msf of Mindspace REIT’s initial share Indian-born publisher Mehta turned writers like Jackie Collins Shades of Grey trilogy). But Mehta was not only an through over the decades (the civilized person,” Patnaik
under construction area and 3.6 sale. and Salman Rushdie into household names. AP Born in India in 1942 to editor par excellence. He was last being in 2013 between tweeted on Tuesday.
 NEW DELHI, MUMBAI, BENGALURU, KOLKATA, CHENNAI, AHMEDABAD, HYDERABAD, CHANDIGARH*, PUNE* VOL. 14 NO. 1 Rs 5.00 IN DELHI-NCR; Rs 6.00 OUTSIDE DELHI-NCR. PRICE WITH HINDUSTAN TIMES Rs 9.50 (FOR DELHI & NCR)

TELECOM DEPARTMENT BEGINS END OF AN ERA IN PUBLISHING

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 1, 2020 PROCESS TO ROLL OUT 5G uP2 AS SONNY MEHTA DIES uP23
LIVEMINT.COM

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Kerala passes resolution seeking POLLUTION WATCH

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DELHI
201-300
AQI
301
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scrapping of citizenship legislation

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RBI guidelines for

TWITTERVERSE
urban co-op banks The move is likely to boost anti-CAA protests even as Supreme Court is set to hear the matter on 22 Jan
RBI released guidelines
for setting up a board of RAMESH PATHANIA/MINT
management for UCBs Anuja & Pretika Khanna Venkaiah Naidu to initiate breach
with deposits over ₹100 of Parliament privileges and con-
NEW DELHI
crore. See Page 23
tempt proceedings against

Govt will seek bids
for Air India: Puri
Govt will issue an
expression of interest
for the privatization of
Air India “in a matter of
weeks”. See Page 2
Mindspace REIT
files for IPO
K Raheja Corp and
Mindspace Business
Parks REIT on Tuesday
filed a draft prospectus
for an IPO. See Page 23
Karvy splits biz
into two verticals
Karvy Group on Tuesday
said it will separate non-
financial businesses
from the financial ones.
See Page 2
T
he Kerala legislative
assembly on Tuesday
Centre passed a resolution
likely to
make
demanding that the
process of Citizenship (Amend-
granting ment) Act be scrapped, a move
citizenship that is likely to give a boost to the
under CAA
ongoing protests against the Act.
online:
Report The assembly’s resolution comes
bit.ly/2u98uOb
even as the Supreme Court is set
to hear the matter on 22 January.
The resolution moved by chief
minister Pinarayi Vijayan was
supported by both the ruling
Communist Party of India (Marx-
ist) or CPM-led Left Democratic
Front (LDF) and the Opposition
Congress-led United Democratic
Front (UDF). The only dissenting
voice that came in the one-day
special session on Tuesday was of
the lone Bharatiya Janata Party
(BJP) MLA and former Union
minister O. Rajagopal.
CAA is against the secular out-
look of the country and would
lead to religion-based discrimina-
tion in granting citizenship,
Vijayan said while presenting the
resolution. It goes against the
‘basic values and principles’
enshrined in the Constitution, he
said.
“A special session of the Kerala
Legislative Assembly was con-
vened. The assembly passed a res-
olution demanding the scrapping
Vijayan over passage of the reso- P. Chidambaram
lution. @PChidambaram_IN
Experts said that the Constitu-
Our first greetings for
tion gives the court the authority the New Year must go to
to comment on an Act once it is Farooq Abdullah, Omar
passed by Parliament. Abdullah, Mehbooba
“If anyone has any doubt about
Mufti and other leaders
the constitutional validity of an detained in J&K since
Act, they will go to the Supreme August 5 without any
Court. According to the Constitu- charge. May the New
tion, only the court has the Year bring them free-
authority to comment on the law. dom and justice!
It is an Act passed by Parliament
which is required by the Consti-
tution to be implemented by all Narendra Modi
states. The state government can @narendramodi
only ensure the implementation Sonny Mehta would be
Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan moved the resolution at a special session of the assembly on Tuesday. of the Act. They can challenge it fondly remembered by
in court. The Constitution does countless avid readers
of the #CitizenshipAmendmen- urged the All India Anna Dravida tion in the matters of citizenship. not permit any resolution passed across the world. Sad-
tAct. All main opposition parties Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) “It is only Parliament which has by the state,” said former Lok dened by his demise.
of the assembly joined the Gov- in Tamil Nadu to adopt a similar got the powers to pass any law Sabha secretary and constitu-
ernment in demanding the with- resolution. with regard to citizenship, not tional expert P.D.T. Achary.
drawal of CAA,” Vijayan posted The passage of the resolution any assembly including Kerala The CAA provides citizenship
on Twitter. assembly,” he to Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Bud-
The passing of SETTING PRECEDENT said in Thiruvan- dhists, Parsis and Christians from
the resolution athpuram. Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bang-
could not only THE resolution DMK chief M.K. BJP minister Ravi The CAA does ladesh seeking shelter in India Sitaram Yechury
give fresh impe- against CAA was
supported by both
Stalin urged AIADMK Shankar Prasad said
in Tamil Nadu to that states did not
not relate to because of religious persecution @SitaramYechury
tus to those pro- the ruling LDF and Indian citizens or fear of persecution in their
adopt a similar have jurisdiction in Kudos to the people of
testing against the Opposition UDF resolution matters of citizenship and it neither cre- home countries. It has led to pro- Kerala and their repre-
the Act but also ates nor takes tests in several parts of the coun-
sentatives in the state
lead to more criti- away citizenship, try, particularly by students, with legislative Assembly.
cism from Opposition parties. on Tuesday drew sharp reaction said the minister. protesters saying that it is biased
We will not let BJP’s
Hours after the resolution was from the Centre, with law minis- Later in the day, BJP parlia- against Muslims. nefarious designs suc-
passed, Dravida Munnetra Kazha- ter Ravi Shankar Prasad saying mentarian G.V.L Narasimha Rao anuja@livemint.com ceed.
gam (DMK) chief M.K. Stalin that states did not have jurisdic- urged Rajya Sabha chairman M. PTI contributed to this story.

Sitharaman unveils SYDNEY KICKS OFF NEW YEAR CELEBRATIONS SMS services in Kashmir
₹102 trillion infra to be restored from today
Shaswati Das The Centre’s decision to ease
push to revive growth shaswati.d@livemint.com
NEW DELHI
restrictions in Kashmir was
announced by Rohit Kansal,
principal secretary of the

FROM PAGE 1
groups under the task force
will be taken up with all ear-
nest, Sitharaman said. This
will include reforming the
contracts based on the public-
private partnership model,
enforcement of contracts and
the dispute resolution process.
“A robust monitoring mecha-
nism will also be established,”
said the minister.
Between FY20 and FY25,
sectors such as energy (24%),
roads (19%), urban (16%) and
railways (13%) amount to
around 70% of the projected
capital expenditure in infra-
structure in India, according
to the finance ministry state-
ment.
For the current fiscal,
annual investment of ₹13.6
trillion has been estimated.
According to projections,
₹19.5 trillion will be spent in
2020-21, ₹19 trillion in
2021-22, ₹13.8 trillion in
2022-23, ₹12.8 trillion in
2023-24 and ₹11.1 trillion in
2024-25.
The figures exclude those
for the power sector and data
The NIP report sought robust
private sector participation in
the infrastructure sector. MINT
in due course,” said the minis-
try.
To boost investment in the
infrastructure sector, the NIP
report released by the finance
minister also suggested gen-
eral reforms and updating sec-
tor policies.
The report said it is critical
to have a robust project prepa-
ration framework consisting of
a transparent policy and legis-
lative framework, presence of
guidelines, model bidding
documents and standard pro-
cedures, design, multistage
reviews and audits.
M
obile SMS services in Union territory of Jammu and
Kashmir will resume Kashmir. He said mobile mes-
from Tuesday mid- saging services had been ena-
night, nearly five months after bled on select mobile phones
the imposition of a complete from 10 December.
communication lockdown in There was, however, no clar-
the region follow- ity on the restora-
ing the Centre’s There is, however, tion of mobile and
decision to abro- no clarity on the broadband inter-
gate Jammu and restoration of net services in the
Kashmir’s special mobile and valley. “The Cen-
status. tre will review the
broadband
The adminis- security situation
tration also said internet services in the valley and
that broadband in the valley then take a call.
services will also Because of inter-
resume in govern- net being
ment hospitals from 31 Decem- restricted, there have been
ber (midnight). In October, fewer cases of militant recruit-
postpaid mobile services were ment,” said a central govern-
Fireworks over Sydney’s iconic Harbour Bridge and Opera House early Wednesday kick off celebrations as the world rang in the new restored in the valley in a ment official, seeking anonym-
year. A million revellers thronged Sydney harbour and nearby districts to watch more than 100,000 fireworks explode above the city. PTI phased manner. ity.
Delhi records longest spell of cold days in December since 1992
Srishti Choudhary ber of 17 such days in the However, cold days are likely According to IMD scientists,
srishti.c@livemint.com month. to persist for longer. the dense fog was the main
NEW DELHI “In terms of number of cold A cold day is declared when reason for the record cold on
days, this December is the the maximum temperature is Monday. “There was mixing of

from some states.
Out of the total expected
capital expenditure of ₹102
trillion, projects worth ₹42.7
trillion (42%) are under imple-
mentation, which includes
expressways and the national
gas grid.
Projects worth ₹32.7 trillion
(32%) are in the conceptualiza-
tion stage and the rest are
under development, which
includes urban, roads and
renewable energy.
“It is expected that projects
of certain states that are yet to
communicate their pipelines,
would be added to the pipeline
“Inadequate attention to
project planning may lead to
avoidable delays in the imple-
mentation of the project or
may even lead to scrapping of
projects prior to its implemen-
tation,” said the NIP report.
The report also called for
robust private sector partici-
pation in the infrastructure
sector and optimal risk sharing
between the public and pri-
vate sector entities, such that
the risks are allocated to enti-
ties best equipped to handle
them.
Asit Ranjan Mishra contrib-
uted to this story.
T
he national capital broke
the record of the longest
cold spell on Tuesday, a
day after recording the coldest
December day in more than a
century on Monday.
Delhi recorded 18 consecu-
tive cold days since 14 Decem-
ber, the longest such stretch so
far. The mean maximum tem-
perature for the month was
18.76°C.
The last time Delhi faced
such low temperatures in
December was more than two
decades ago in 1997, which
had a mean maximum temper-
ature of 17.3°C and a total num-
coldest so far since 1992,” said
Kuldeep Shrivastava, head of
Regional Weather Forecasting
Centre, New Delhi.
North India and parts of
central India are reeling under
an intense cold spell with con-
secutive severe cold days and
intense cold waves in certain
pockets.
The situation however,
improved slightly on Tuesday,
as the cold wave abated across
various parts of India, includ-
ing Delhi. According to the
India Meteorological Depart-
ment (IMD), the minimum
temperature on Tuesday rose
less than or equal to 16°C and
foggy conditions prevail. A
cold wave forms when the
wind chill brings down the
actual minimum temperature,
depending on the wind speed.
The minimum tempera-
tures have shown a positive
trend across various parts of
north India, according to an
IMD forecast. It has also pre-
dicted very light rain over
Delhi recorded 18 consecutive cold days since 14 December. PTI Delhi and its suburbs during
2-3 January.
by 2°C and was recorded at 14.6°C. The strong easterly winds
4.8°C at the Safdarjung mete- “No more cold wave is have gained speed and have
orological station, while the expected till 4 January,” said prevented the formation of
maximum was recorded at the weather department. dense fog.
lower level warm and moist
light south-easterly winds
with dry and cold northwest-
erly winds over Delhi which
led to foggy conditions. But,
the strong easterly winds have
now helped in reducing the
thick cover of clouds and fog,”
said Shrivastava.
On Monday, Delhi wit-
nessed the coldest December
day in 119 years. The maximum
temperature stood at the low-
est ever of 9.4°C, which was
11.4°C below the normal tem-
perature of 20.8°C. It sur-
passed the record of 11.3°C on
28 December 1997.