India Today
April 19, 2021India Today is the leading news magazine and most widely read publication in India. The magazine’s leadership is unquestioned, so much so that India Today is what Indian journalism is judged by, for its integrity and ability to bring unbiased and incisive perspective to arguably the most dynamic, yet perplexing, region in the world. Breaking news and shaping opinion, it is now a household name and the flagship brand of India’s leading multidimensional media group. Additionally, the weekly brings with it a range supplements like Women, Home, Aspire, Spice and Simply which focus on style, health, education, fashion, etc. and Indian cities.
in this issue
from the editor-in-chief
In the first week of March, with the daily cases of Covid-19 reduced to a trickle, officialdom was busy patting itself on the back for having conquered the virus, unlike many advanced countries. The euphoria did not last long. In just 24 hours on April 6, India crossed 115,312 infections, the largest number of daily cases after the United States and the highest since the pandemic began. On April 2, we recorded 713 deaths, our highest number of deaths in a single day. A little over a year after India imposed the world’s harshest lockdown to break the rising wave of infections, we seem to be back to square one. Hospitals are rapidly filling up and major metros have declared night curfews. In fact, what we are seeing is everything short…
mumbai confidential
On April 5, Anil Deshmukh of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) became the first home minister of Maharashtra to quit on charges of corruption. Deshmukh stepped down after the Bombay High Court ordered a preliminary inquiry by the CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation) into former Mumbai police commissioner Param Bir Singh’s allegation that the home minister had given officers of the Mumbai Police a target of collecting Rs 100 crore per month from some 1,750 bars and restaurants in the city. The Bombay HC order came in response to a PIL (public interest litigation) filed by lawyer Jayashree Patil. She had also filed a complaint against Deshmukh with the Malabar Hill police station on March 21, based on the letter Singh sent chief minister Uddhav Thackeray on March 20. In the…
campaign cred
Has Rahul Gandhi found a stand-in for poll strategist Prashant Kishor? Most Congress leaders are upbeat about the party’s return to power in the Assam assembly election. Their confidence stems from the feedback provided by DesignBoxed, a digital campaign management company run by Chandigarh-based Naresh Arora. The 10-year-old firm had earlier handled the Congress campaigns in Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, shaping the party’s manifestos in these states and running digital campaigns. In Assam, it came up with the ‘five guarantees’ idea, which seemed to have found traction among voters. Interestingly, the Congress, which often attributes lack of funds for its electoral defeats, has reportedly coughed up Rs 25 crore as payment to Arora’s firm for Assam. Samajwadi Shakuni Last year, estranged Samajwadi Party relatives—party chief Akhilesh Yadav and his uncle…
holes in your facebook wall
The latest Facebook data breach, which reportedly compromised the personal data of over 533 million users, including 6.1 million Indians, has once again focused attention on the social media behemoth’s apparent laxity in protecting the privacy of its users and, more importantly, lack of accountability towards them. In January, Alon Gal, chief technology officer at cybercrime intelligence firm Hudson Rock, discovered the leaked data when a user in a hacking forum advertised an automated bot that could provide phone numbers for hundreds of millions of Facebook users for a price. Now, the entire dataset, which includes details like phone number, Facebook ID, name, location, email ID, relationship status and bio, has been posted on the hacking forum for free. Security researchers have warned that with the leaked data in the public…
the sgpc takes aim at the rss
As the Sukhbir Badal-led Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) struggles to regain the trust of its core support base in the state—Punjab’s rural farmers and religious Sikhs, the so-called Panthic voters—after quitting the NDA alliance over the farm laws in September last year, the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) has added fuel to the fire. On March 31, it passed a resolution condemning the BJP’s ideological parent, the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) for attempting ‘to make India a Hindu Rashtra’. On April 3, it also convened a meeting of the Sant Samaj, Nihang sects, Kar Sewa organisations and traditional Sikh bodies in Amritsar to seek an endorsement of the resolution. Critics say this is a purely political move. “There was no recent incident to trigger [such a] resolution,” insists Jagtar Sandhu, an…
returning soon?
On April 4, Akshay Kumar announced on social media that he had contracted Covid-19. A day later, 45 crew members from his upcoming film, Ram Setu, also tested positive in Mumbai. It is not the start the producers were looking for after the mahurat at Ram Janmabhoomi in Ayodhya. Ram Setu is among the many films hit by the surge of Covid cases in the metropolis. Shoots of Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2, Mr Lele and Gangubai Kathiawadi were also halted after their respective leading actors tested positive for Covid. The livelihoods of hundreds of daily wage labourers and technicians deployed on sets will, once again, be affected. “When an actor falls sick, the whole film shuts down,” says B.N. Tiwari, president of the Federation of Western India Cine Employees (FWICE). “But…
