India Today
October 25, 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
Five months from now, we will mark the second anniversary of the single most defining event of our time — the coronavirus pandemic. In the 19 months since the WHO declared the Covid-19 outbreak a global pandemic, the virus has killed nearly 5 million persons worldwide and caused a loss of about 4 trillion dollars in economic output. It is the most significant global disruptor since the Second World War, and we are not out of it yet. There is much to worry about and, yet, much to be hopeful about. The triumph of the human spirit can be seen in the rapid pace with which we developed multiple vaccines to fight the virus and the speed with which we administered them. The India Today Conclave 2020 was to have been held…
on the cover
1. KUNAL BAHL, CEO, Snapdeal 2. BIMAL PATEL, Architect and president, CEPT University 3. DISHA RAVI, Climate activist 4. THOMAS FRIEDMAN, Pulitzer winner and Author 5. S. JAISHANKAR, Union Minister of External Affairs 6. IAN LIPKIN, Virologist 7. ABDULLAH ABDULLAH, Former Chief Executive, Afghanistan 8. KIREN RIJIJU, Union Minister of Law and Justice 9. MALAIKA VAZ, Conservationist and Filmmaker 10. GENERAL M.M. NARAVANE, Chief of Army Staff 11. RANI RAMPAL, Captain, Women’s Hockey Team 12. HARDEEP SINGH PURI, Union Minister of Housing & Urban Affairs and Petroleum & Natural Gas 13. HIMANTA BISWA SARMA, Chief Minister, Assam 14. J.P. NADDA, President, Bharatiya Janata Party 15.ABHINAV BINDRA, Olympic Gold Medallist, 2008 16. RICHA CHADHA, Actor 17. SANJIV PURI, Chairman and Managing Director, ITC Limited 18.SHASHI THAROOR, Congress MP 19. NITIN GADKARI, Union Minister of Road Transport & Highways 20. ANURAG THAKUR, Union Minister of Sports and I&B 21. NEERAJ CHOPRA, Olympic…
fear returns to the valley
For the past fortnight, a Kashmiri Pandit social activist in Srinagar (name withheld for security concerns) has been living under police protection. A posse of policemen knocked on his door around midnight on October 5 and shifted him to a more secure location, a kilometre from his house. “They told me I was on the militants’ radar and needed to go with them,” he says. Only a few hours earlier, militants had killed Makhan Lal Bindroo, a 68-year-old Kashmiri Pandit who owned a pharmacy in the Iqbal Park area of Srinagar. Bindroo, like the social activist, was among the 808 Kashmiri Pandit families that chose to stay behind when militancy in the 1990s forced a mass exodus of Hindus from the Valley. Fear and déjà vu returned to the Valley this month…
can priyanka revive the gop?
On the night of October 3, Congress general secretary and Uttar Pradesh in-charge Priyanka Gandhi flew into Lucknow from Delhi. Her flight landed at 9 pm and she immediately left for Lakhimpur Kheri where, earlier in the day, violence had erupted in Tikunia town after four farmers were mowed down by a convoy of Ashish Mishra, son of Union minister of state for home Ajay Mishra ‘Teni’. The state government had sealed all the roads from Sitapur, which is on the route to Lakhimpur Kheri, and every vehicle coming through was being checked. Priyanka’s convoy reached Sitapur at 11 pm, 100 km from Lucknow. Here, Priyanka asked Congress district president Utkarsh Awasthi, a local who knew every route from Sitapur to Lakhimpur Kheri, to take the wheel. After dodging the police…
the return journey
The privatisation of Air India, though much delayed, should come as a big relief to the Modi government, which has faced much flak for its apparent inability to come good on its promise to get out of business and focus on governance. Even though the Tatas’ bid of Rs 18,000 crore was not exactly a king’s ransom—the government gets to keep only Rs 2,700 crore; the remaining Rs 15,300 crore is debt the Tatas have taken on—the Tatas’ bid was nearly 40 per cent higher than the Centre’s reserve price and nearly 20 per cent higher than the only other bid, by SpiceJet promoter Ajay Singh. Air India is just one of a large number of public sector undertakings (PSUs) the government hopes to disinvest in this year. For 2021-22, the…
sizing up the deal
AIR INDIA’S KEY ASSETS Fleet: Over 130 aircraft Landing/Parking slots: 4,400 domestic and 1,800 international landing and parking slots at domestic airports; 900 slots at international airports REAL ESTATE PORTFOLIO Air India has thousands of crores worth of real estate in several parts of the world It sold 115 units of real estate assets between 2015 and 2021, raising Rs 738 crore Rental income alone (from properties across India) totals about Rs 100 crore a year CHALLENGES FOR THE TATAS Rs 15,300 crore of debt, taken on as part of the bid The Tata Group will need to retain all staff for a year Air India pilots have been clamouring for the restoration of full salaries The domestic industry’s losses in 2020-21 are pegged at about Rs 22,400 crore THE DEAL The sale was based on Air India’s enterprise value, which took…
