Table of contents for 19 February 2018 in Open Magazine

EYE ON ELECTIONS The Budget presented by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley can be best described as a budget with an eye on the next General Election (‘The Equaliser’ by Swapan Dasgupta, February 12th, 2018). The Finance Minister has kept in view India’s agrarian crisis and has duly adopted a cautious approach by trying to strike a balance between the Centre’s political priorities and lending a helping hand to agriculture. Thus, he has fixed MSPs at one-and-a-half times the cost of production, introduced healthcare coverage under a health insurance scheme with a cover of Rs 5 lakh per family for hospitalisation, and is keen to improve standards of education with larger allocations. While he gave some concessions to corporates, senior citizens and marginal benefits to the salaried in the lower-income group,…

AT THE BASE of Indian philosophy’s superstructure is the negotiation of death. What Buddhists call ‘nibbana’ and Hindus ‘moksha’ is in theory the ability to arrive at a state of death whilst conscious. Why would a culture think that the extinguishing of the senses and the elimination of the mind is the ultimate objective of life? Because of fear obviously, but also ambition. If death is by definition unknowable, then what can be a bigger search than to know it? It is not a rational quest, but since life is essentially meaningless, anything can have meaning. To die meaningfully is a paradox. If you are not there to appreciate the meaning, then what is the point? But to die meaninglessly is still being in the same trap. In Kerala, over…

IF POLITICS IS the art of the possible, then a budget is the art of the feasible. It is where the soaring rhetoric of possibility meets the unpleasant arithmetic of feasibility, and dreams of grandeur melt away in the cold light of day. A budget maybe dull and prosaic (or, more accurately, numeric), but like weather reports, those dry numbers have a direct bearing on our daily lives. First, it is in some ways the most honest reflection of the Government’s immediate priorities, given the limited fiscal resources and realities of the economic challenges and political compulsions; this, no poll or policy campaign can possibly do. In a budget, you literally have to put money behind your words, whether it is funny money or real money. Second, it also offers…

ELSTON MENEZES and Benson Martis knew nothing about cannabis or hemp until they had finished their schooling in Kuwait and reached Bengaluru to study in a college there. They were still in their late teens when a friend returned from Nepal with a wallet that he said was made out of hemp. That piqued their interest. They were aware of marijuana and the narcotic aspect of the cannabis plant, but a little research told them that almost 30,000 products, from fabrics to medicines to car body parts, could be made from non-narcotic strains that went under the label of ‘industrial hemp’. They mulled over getting into business but were wary. There could be trouble from the police and most people still associated hemp with narcotics. They decided to start by…

WE ARE DRAWN to spy novels because of the skullduggery, the deception, and the eventual sense that perfect order has been restored to the world once our man triumphs over the evil empire. That happens in our youth. But when we are older, we realise that there is no perfect order. Not even a fair order. This becomes even truer for state security services after the Cold War ended, and the enemy is no longer identifiable with a country. Or worse, the enemy is within and among us rather than out there in the Siberian steppes. One realises that in playing the spy game one will hurt, that one will get hurt, that one will lose the sense of right and wrong within a system where the end justifies the…

WORLD WAR II is raging across Europe and Winston Churchill is the newly elected prime minister of Britain. The German army is unstoppable, having just invaded France, and it is a matter of time before Hitler’s forces cross the English Channel to occupy England. Does London negotiate a peace treaty with Nazi Germany or stand firm for the principles of liberty and freedom? These are the questions confronting Churchill in Darkest Hour, starring Gary Oldman, who plays the prime minister. Oldman has won numerous awards for his performances, including a Golden Globe for his portrayal of Churchill. We sit down to talk in a room at the newly opened Waldorf Astoria Hotel in Beverly Hills. In your research for the role, what did you learn about Churchill? Well, he is…

Arun Jaitley may be keeping the country’s long-term goals in mind (‘The Equaliser’ by Swapan Dasgupta, February 12th, 2018), but this comes at a cost to the middle-class and its short-term lifestyle. The Budget that has recently been announced holds very few promises or benefits for the middle-class in terms of day-to-day living. Of course, the overall prosperity and uniform upliftment of the nation will benefit everyone in the years ahead, but eating out, entertainment, gadgets, etcetera, have not become any easier or affordable. Also, despite paying high taxes, the infrastructure in cities is yet to see any significant improvement. This Budget may focus on better healthcare for the poor and enhancing educational opportunities, and it may also turn us into a ‘caring society’, as the author notes, but it…

THE MALDIVES, A chain of islands in the Indian Ocean, is a country in trouble. President Abdulla Abdulla Yameen Gayoom recently declared a state of emergency for 15 days. Over the next two days, he had judges of the country’s supreme court, including its chief justice, placed under arrest. The crackdown left no one untouched, not even the president’s half-brother Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, a former president who ruled from 1978 to 2008. Within no time, Abdulla’s predecessor Mohamed Nasheed—the only fairly elected leader of the Maldives—tweeted asking for Indian military intervention to restore democracy on the archipelago and also secure the release of all political prisoners, including former President Maumoon Gayoom. Nasheed lives in exile in Sri Lanka and is one of a clutch of leaders who were tried in…

Virat Kohli has just scored his 34th One Day International century against South Africa in Cape Town, moving ever closer to Sachin Tendulkar’s record of 49. But it is in the captaincy of the two cricketers that the contrast between their skills is most evident. Even in the Test series that India recently lost in South Africa, Kohli led from the front with a respectable showing of his bat even when the rest of his team failed to perform their best. Kohli has also proved himself immune to the pressure of captaincy, as against Tendulkar who eventually gave up on it. Great sportsmen don’t necessarily make great leaders. In Kohli, the two qualities seem to blend. One need not be at the cost of the other.…

“There is nothing so disturbing to one’s well being and judgement as to see a friend get rich”Charles Kindleberger economic historian The bubble of Bitcoin, like all bubbles, began with this kernel of truth. Cryptocurrencies were to mark a revolutionary moment in the financial history of our world. They were a new type of global currency independent of governments and Central banks, their validity based on ‘crypto-proof ’ or a peer-to-peer network that would administer each to perfection, ensuring it was both plentiful enough for utility and scarce enough not to lose its value and suffer debasement. What Central bankers often struggled with, smart software free of politics would do better. Satoshi Nakamoto, the anonymous coder who created the Bitcoin, launched his—or her?—jeremiad against the monetary system back in 2009…

TWO REASSURING ADJECTIVES leap out at you from the literature for the upcoming edition of the India Art Fair (IAF)—‘refreshed’ and ‘expanded’— suggesting an infectious energy, an infusion of which the 11-year-old fair, the country’s largest, desperately needs in order to sustain its relevance in the South Asian art scene, especially given the numerous stimulating events and platforms that have mushroomed in the region, many of which could be seen as the consequence of the fair’s own catalytic role. ‘The 2018 programme will offer unrivalled access to South Asia’s thriving cultural scene, including its galleries and artists, private foundations and arts charities, artists’ collectives, national institutions, cultural events and festivals,’ reads its release, crediting much of this to the fair’s new director, Jagdip Jagpal, a woman with the enthusiasm of…

THERE AREN’T MANY books that make one feel impassioned and comforted at the same time. The Elephant in the Room, a collection of comics by 16 graphic artists from India and Germany, does just that. This is an anthology of drawings that achieves all that feminist art should aspire to. It explores female issues and goes beyond them. It addresses many ‘elephants’, whether it is freedom and consent, or butts and breasts. These women illustrators tell us what it is to be female and also remind us what it is to be human. In 2015, Zubaan came out with Drawing the Line, which was a direct response to the December 2012 rape and murder of a young medical student in Delhi. Fourteen women artists reacted to the unrest and fury…

Keen on Biopics Vidya Balan, hot off her Best Actress sweep at award ceremonies for Tumhari Sulu, is enjoying some downtime. The actress, who showed up looking simple but lovely in a dark sari for a screening of the Marathi film Gulaabjaam earlier this week, told me she isn’t committed to any film currently—and feels perfectly secure. Far cry from actresses who tend to get insecure when they have nothing on the horizon. Recently, Vidya and her husband, producer Siddharth Roy Kapur, bought the rights to an Indira Gandhi biography by Sagarika Ghose, with the aim to turn it into a biopic of the former Prime Minister. But the actress has admitted she isn’t sure yet whether the project lends itself to a feature film or a web series. It’s…

I HAVE NEVER BEEN pick- pocketed in a crowded street and I don’t know the feeling of bewilderment and helplessness that immediately follows such an experience. The nearest I have come to helpless anger is when my Twitter account was hacked. That in itself was bad enough, but it was accompanied by profound embarrassment on two counts. First, the Turkish group that imagines Pakistan is its foremost ally not only posted some puerile propaganda from my timeline but also some I-love-Pakistan type tweets. Some friends immediately gauged that my account had been hacked. Others imagined that senility or madness had finally struck me. Secondly, Direct Messages were sent from my account asking them to click on a link that appeared to be a newspaper article from the Guardian. I was…

THIS WEEK MY 22-year-old nephew is starting work as an intern at a think-tank in Delhi. I seem to be the most excited about all this, while he is quite calm. My friends are pulling out all the stops to ensure he has a smooth beginning to his time in India. Yet, advice is needed about things a young Brit hasn’t seen— servants, geysers, quilts (rather than duvets), bathroom taps. When I first went to India 37 years ago, I was a teenager, alone. This was before ‘The Lonely Planet’ (I saw it first the next year), let alone the internet. In those days, going to India meant saying goodbye to people at home and then vanishing. Family and friends sent me ‘poste restante’ to Delhi that would be my…