India Today Monday, February 20, 2023

Today’s villains were yesterday’s heroes, or vice versa. That, after all, is how the cookie crumbles. It applies to businessmen, politicians, world leaders, even spiritual gurus. As new facts emerge, old perspectives change. So it has been with Gautam Adani, the 60-year-old chairman of the Ahmedabad-based Adani Group, who briefly became the second richest man in the world on September 19, 2022, and held on to the No. 3 spot in the Forbes rich list for a good many weeks last year. A man with the Midas touch, his group’s market capitalisation had grown nine-fold in just three years to touch Rs 18 lakh crore by December 2022, making it India’s second most valuable firm next only to the Tatas. Somewhere along the way, with a business empire spanning ports,…

How Nitish’s Samadhan Yatra has stirred Bihar politics By Amitabh Srivastava If Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra injected hope in the Congress, the Bihar CM’s statewide tour has made opponents sit up and take notice https://bit.ly/3HCpHBC STORY OF THE DAY Can Mamata weather the ‘corruption’ storm ahead of the Bengal panchayat polls? By Romita Datta Singed by allegations of irregularities in housing and job schemes, the Trinamool Congress has launched a village-to-village outreach to douse public anger and win back trust https://bit.ly/3Ys47GY GROUND REPORT | MAHARASHTRA ASSEMBLY BYPOLL Why the BJP may face Brahmin voters’ ire in the Maharashtra assembly bypoll By Dhaval Kulkarni The February 26 by-elections to the Kasba Peth and Chinchwad assembly segments in Pune are expected to indicate which way political winds are blowing after the change of guard in the state last year https://bit.ly/3Yj3tvy RECALL |…

The harsh winter in the surreal moonscape of Ladakh, with temperatures skimming minus 20 degrees centigrade, is hardly conducive to public protests. Yet hundreds of Ladakhis braved the extreme weather and gathered at Polo Ground in Leh on January 31 to show solidarity with educational reformist and innovator Sonam Wangchuk. The Magsaysay award recipient had just completed a five-day ‘climate fast’ from January 26 at nearby Phyang to draw attention to Ladakh’s fragile ecology, which he says is gravely threatened by uncontrolled development, tourism and commerce. Wangchuk is demanding Ladakh’s inclusion in the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution so that Ladakhis can have greater say over every aspect of their land. Four days before his fast, Wangchuk addressed Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a 13-minute video, ‘Ladakh Ki Mann Ki Baat’,…

↘ Sparsely populated Ladakh has a total area of 59,146 sq. km, greater than Himachal Pradesh or Punjab ↘ Over 90 per cent of its population comprises indigenous tribes ↘ UT status for Ladakh was a long-pending demand, but after the abrogation of Article 370, people feel the need for a legislature ↘ Leh and Kargil districts have united to press for a set of demands: full-fledged statehood, safeguards under Sixth Schedule, job reservation for youth, establishment of Public Service Commission and one more Lok Sabha constituency ↘ There is growing concern about ecological damage, with reports that glaciers are melting due to commercial activity…

Over the past couple of decades, the run-up to nearly every assembly election in Karnataka has involved a key question about the Janata Dal (Secular)—its ability to play the kingmaker. Such an outcome came about in 2004 and again in 2018, when the JD(S) was wedged in between the two bigger players, Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party, leading to short-lived coalition governments. In these two decades, the reach of the party led by former prime minister H.D. Deve Gowda, anchored in support from the Vokkaliga caste group, has seemingly dwindled, with a regular exodus of leaders between elections. Yet, as Karnataka heads into another state election in April-May, that key question looms as large as it always has. The prospect of a hung state assembly is something that both the ruling BJP…

It was meant to be a cakewalk for the ruling coalition, but the results of the elections to the Maharashtra legislative council in five seats from the teachers’ and graduates’ constituencies have come as a rude shock to the BJP and the Balasahebanchi Shiv Sena (BSS). The opposition Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA), which seemed to be in a state of disarray before these polls, won three of the five seats, with just one going to a BJP nominee and another to a rebel Congressman. What adds to the BJP-BSS’s embarrassment is that this was the first real electoral test for the Eknath Shinde-Devendra Fadnavis government after it came to power in a dramatic coup in June 2022. The bypolls to the Andheri East assembly constituency that had preceded it, in November,…