Table of contents for 12 June 2017 in Open Magazine

editor@openmedianetwork.in LETTER OF THE WEEK Francis Fukuyama is absolutely correct about China being a country that India and the rest of the world should not take for granted (‘Francis Fukuyama in Conversation’ by Tunku Varadarajan, June 5th, 2017). China isn’t just ruthless and cunning when it comes to business and economics but also in power politics. The China-Pakistan corridor cannot just be for economic gain but there are also bound to be some political gains for China. A country that many claim will overtake the US in a few years in terms of their economy, will surely not invest so much money in a corridor for the benefit of another nation. Additionally, China is a nationalist country, and as Fukuyama said, they have a lot of resentment about not being…

Because of travel deadlines, this is being written before June 2nd, which is (or ‘was’ when you read this) World Environment Day. I don’t think I am sticking my neck out too much by saying that the day will be commemorated by printing many special newspaper supplements, holding a number of self-congratulatory/ dire warning events by environment-protection agencies and NGOs, and more formal government functions where the chief guest (cabinet minister, chief minister or higher) will grace the occasion after driving to the venue at speed with a trailing entourage. Thus will we celebrate World Environment Day by cutting down more trees for newsprint and paper, and generate more pollution with the cavalcade of cars. But if all this isn’t done, how will awareness about the environment increase? To be,…

AS THE OLD cliché goes, cricket is a team game played by individuals. The batsman bats, the bowler bowls, the fielder fields, the captain captains, and, away behind the scenes, the selector selects, and the coach— pray, what does the coach do? It is here in this query that the current reported impasse between Anil Kumble and Virat Kohli rests. Cricket like several other sports has a clear cut separation of powers. The selectors chose the squad and the captain helms that team on the field. But despite the rapid evolution of the game, the position of the coach has never come to be defined well. He has not come to assume the powerful position of ,say, a football manager. You don’t see him working himself up into an agitated…

AS SOON AS I emerged from the cave on the first Tuesday after Easter, my phone started to ping with missed calls and urgent texts. Would I like to comment on the breaking news? Could I be interviewed live on the radio from my mobile? Perhaps those of us who make a living from observing the political scene shouldn’t go down caves in the first place. But it had seemed like a quiet day was in prospect. Few people were back at work after the Easter holidays and it was the last chance to show my nephews the extraordinary works of art that are on show near where we were staying. The Chauvet caves in southern France are home to the first-known examples of human art anywhere in the world.…

THE INDIAN SPY: THE TRUE STORY OF THE MOST REMARKABLE SECRET AGENT OF WWII Mihir Bose Aleph 350 Pages | Rs 599 WAY BACK IN 1936, a young English aristocrat named Peter Fleming travelled across Turkistan along with Ella (Kini) Maillart, a member of the Swiss national sailing team. Both wrote books about the adventure. Fleming’s News from Tartary was a huge hit. So was Kini’s Forbidden Journey, brought out at a time when travel was becoming increasingly popular amongst the young generation growing up on either side of the Atlantic in the years between the two Wars. However, 1939 changed all that and it was to battlefields around the globe that many of those youngsters travelled. Fleming was no exception. He joined the Grenadiers but was lucky (or unlucky)…

ON MY WAY to meet standup comedian Zakir Khan, I speak to Tanmay Bhat, enfant terrible of contemporary Indian comedy and co-founder of All India Bakchod, on the phone. I ask him about Khan’s current status as a comedian (a year since his appearance at AIB Diwas, which catapulted him into the limelight). “He is the biggest stand-up comedy act in India. Period.” Bhat says it in a tone that suggests that I had inquired if Antarctica is cold. We chat for a few minutes and hang up. My taxi driver, whose name I learn is Abdul Rauf, pipes up: “Sir, aap kya Zakir Khan ke baare mein baat kar rahe thhe? Maine unka show NSCI [National Sports Club of India, Mumbai] mein dekha thha. Bahut badhiya thha. (Sir, were…

IT’S AS IF the leader of the free world is a badly imagined dictator from a Latin American novel of a certain vintage. As he whines against the press, history and other demons lurking in the shadows in his midnight solitude, all in the compelling incoherence of one hundred and forty characters, power of the most powerful is reduced to a pathological pastiche. A collateral casualty is language, and in the case of Donald Trump, or, to be specific, @realDonaldTrump, one day it’s possible that Barthes and Eco may be applied to get the meaning of the man and his mind we seem to be missing in our ridicule today. It may not be all fake news. It may even survive the revenge of the meme. Till then, it’s pure…

AS IT TURNS out, Paresh Rawal was the smarter one with the foresight to know just what it means to get kicked off Twitter for a political activist. He deleted his tweet about Arundhathi Roy being tied to the front of a jeep but made it clear that coercion made him do it. Cowardly, you might say, but this is really not the age of standing on principle. Abhijeet Bhattacharya, the playback singer, who rode on the wagon of the Roy issue, now finds himself without his Twitter account, all the more stupid because, in his case, the principle is publicity. The fates of these two is an abiding lesson for those aspiring for political fame as supertrolls. The chronology of Abhijeet’s sad story is as follows: usual patriotic foulmouthedness,…

ON MAY 15TH, a young woman from Banda, Uttar Pradesh, stormed into the wedding of her longterm boyfriend in the neighbouring Hamirpur district. She carried a gun, an eyewitness recalled. Actually, she carried two, said another. One she placed on the groom’s temple, another on her own. “This man loves me,” she told the guests. “Now he is betraying me. I will not allow this to happen.” She then bundled him into an SUV and drove off. That night, they said, life imitated art. The flimsiest, filmiest of all. “It was a shotgun wedding with a twist,” The Times of India sniggered. Aaj Tak invoked Shakespeare: “Agar koi Juliet hathiyaaron ke dum par apne Romeo ko hi utha le jaye, toh koi kya kare (What do you do when Juliet…

Hitachi India Pvt. Ltd. (Hitachi India) today announced the appointment of Mr. Bharat Kaushal as the Managing Director of Hitachi India. Bharat will be the first Indian to spearhead Hitachi India’s operations. He succeeds Mr. Kojin Nakakita who has been elevated as Chairman of Hitachi India Pvt. Ltd. and Hitachi Asia Ltd. The new appointment will be effective from 1st June 2017. Bharat is currently serving as Chairman in India of Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC). He is the first non-Japanese to be appointed as SMBC India’s CEO and served the role between 2012 and 2015. In his new role, Bharat will focus on promoting Hitachi’s Social Innovation Business in India. Hitachi’s Social Innovation Business resolves issues faced by society and customers by combining advanced IT with operational technology (OT)…

WHEN I HIT YOU: OR, A PORTRAIT OF THE WRITER AS A YOUNG WIFE Meena Kandasamy Juggernaut 249 Pages | Rs 499 THE FIRST VOICE in Meena Kandasamy’s novel When I Hit You: Or, a Portrait of the Writer As A Young Wife is that of the protagonist’s mother. The matriarch opens the book with a discussion of how she nursed the narrator back to health after the young woman escaped an abusive marriage. Even the appendages her mother describes—the blackened feet, the lice-ridden scalp—are at the peripheries of her daughter’s body. The mother’s telling, riddled with exaggeration and inaccuracies, shoves the narrator into the margins of her own life. Listening to her mother is, ultimately, what spurs the protagonist to authorship. ‘I am a writer,’ the protagonist tells us.…

FROM A STARRY-eyed 17-year-old winner of Miss World 2000, to bagging a role in a major Hollywood venture—Priyanka Chopra has scripted a real success story. After playing the feisty role of Alex Parrish in ABC’s Quantico, she can now be seen in Baywatch, opposite Dwayne Johnson and Zac Efron, among others, as Victoria Leeds, who wants to destroy the beach front to build her real estate empire. How important is it for you to portray strong women characters on screen? It’s always important for me to play empowered characters and it doesn’t matter how big or small the part is. In India, we have boy movies and I have like eight scenes, but, eventually, they are standout parts because they are empowered women. Empowered doesn’t mean only playing the villain…

IS HE GOING or staying? Well, who can tell what an Indian politician will do next? Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, by choosing to skip Sonia Gandhi’s lunch the other day, seems to have revived speculation about his intentions. Leaders of 18-odd parties were assembled at the Sonia luncheon for picking the joint Opposition candidate to challenge the ruling party’s nominee in the coming presidential contest. What added grist to the capital’s rumour mills was that Nitish chose to break bread with Prime Minister Modi instead. Being one of the more clued-up practitioners of realpolitik, Nitish is not trusted by his friends or foes. It may be because he refuses to be taken for granted. He has always played his cards close to his chest. On its part, the NDA…

THE HEADLINES AND the comparisons said it all. Soon after Narendra Modi left Germany for the next leg of his tour in Europe, newspaper headlines began suggesting that India was the new bulwark for keeping the Paris climate change accord ‘safe’. Even if one discounts the exaggeration in such claims, Modi’s staunch support for a global climate change mitigation accord is in plain sight. As the world ‘de-globalises’ and cooperation for vital international agreements dwindles, India has taken a principled stand. Modi’s words in Berlin were not those of a woolly environmental activist but those of a head of a government who knows the art of optimising what is needed with what is desirable. India’s investments in green technologies, from solar to wind power, among others, are considerable. In fact…

LAST WEEK, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was in Assam. The headlines the next day were all about him inaugurating India’s longest bridge, connecting Assam and Arunachal Pradesh. It was a typical forest for the trees situation. What was forgotten was Modi’s strong emphasis on ridding India of black money and benami wealth. In fact, a bulk of his speech was devoted to this topic. Just a day before that, the Income Tax Department had shared startling information—over 400 benami transactions spread across nine states had been identified up to May 23rd. After demonetisation, the I-T Department has confiscated over 40 real estate properties worth more than Rs 530 crore in Kolkata, Mumbai, Delhi, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. Apart from that, movable property including cash and jewellery worth Rs 600…

ON THE SIXTH floor of the Deen Dayal Research Institute is a modest residential facility. It was once the home of Nanaji Deshmukh, the pracharak and Jan Sangh ideologue. In the simple living room that receives guests is a large portrait of Guru Gowalkar, in his trademark flowing white kurta and dhoti. Those who once knew Guruji say he maintained his youthful energy and sprightliness even through his painful battle with cancer. The man I am to meet today has that same energy and youthfulness, and at 61, Dattatreya Hosabale will tell you that he has no use for reading glasses. His last medical examination confirmed what most people detect almost instantly on meeting him, his joie de vivre. The younger Dattatreya, an English Literature graduate with a love for…

Sporting Spirit Kangana Ranaut won’t be baited. The Rangoon star laughed it off when she was asked to respond to a joke by Vidya Balan on social media that seemed to reference a recent controversy in which Kangana was accused by the writer of her new film, Simran, of demanding ‘additional credit’ for contributing to the film’s script. Describing Vidya as a friend, Kangana took the joke in her stride, insisting she wasn’t “thin skinned” and could take the occasional jibe. Just a few weeks ago when the industry was compelled to take sides after Kangana got into a war of words with Karan Johar over the now infamous ‘nepotism issue’, Vidya defended the actress saying: “I think it’s really important that a woman stands up for herself. I feel…