Table of contents for 24 September 2018 in Open Magazine

NOT FOR POLITICAL PROPAGANDA The decision to construct a memorial to all prime ministers of India at Nehru’s old residence, Teen Murti Bhavan, makes perfect sense (‘The Legacy War’, September 17th, 2018). Why should only one prime minister’s life be commemorated and one party’s legacy be given so much importance? If we are truly a democratic nation then we should give an equal amount of importance and space to all our heads of state. However, this might be a problem going forward, as there will be only so many names you’ll be able to incorporate in a museum. In theory, the idea is correct. Its execution remains to be seen. Vidhya Puthur The Nehru Memorial Museum at Teen Murti complex is enormous and it is surprising why such a large…

IN HIS LONG career, Jagmohan has worn many hats: a civil servant, Lt Governor of Delhi and Goa, later, Governor of J&K, Cabinet Minister in the Vajpayee Government. Besides, he is a celebrated author. His book, My Frozen Turbulence, now in the 10th edition and translated into several regional languages, is an authoritative account of the events in Kashmir with historical references and context. He was elected to Parliament thrice from the New Delhi constituency. Given this background, it will be a surprise if a vast majority of the people knew his caste. It is so because he has never appended his surname, Malhotra, to his first name. Never felt the need to. He has done very well for himself with the bare mononym. Incidentally, his lawyer son Manmohan, now…

SIBERIA IS WITNESSING a warm wave of a different kind these days. Russia, China and Mongolia—three key states that together span the vast expanse of Eurasia—are engaged in a massive war game that involves more than 300,000 soldiers, thousands of military aircraft and a huge host of armoured combat vehicles. Such an exercise has not been seen since the end of the Cold War. The Vostok—or ‘East’—exercise was kicked off on September 11th by China’s president Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin in Vladivostok where the two leaders were attending an economic summit. For all practical purposes, the exercise signals a military alliance between the two countries. It also signals the end to an implicit goal of the Donald Trump presidency: the effort to check China’s rise by driving a…

WORD’S WORTH “Retirement is wonderful. It’s doing nothing without worrying about getting caught at it”GENE PERRET Succession is a difficult thing in corporations. And we only have to look closely at the events of the last few years at home—at the turn of events at Infosys and the Tata group—to realise just how tediously this can play out. In this light, the recent announcement by Jack Ma that he will step down from the role of chairman of the Alibaba Group appears shocking. Ma is at the top of his game. And he will be only 55 when he retires next year. His place will be taken by the current CEO Daniel Zhang, who joined the company in 2007. This step, Ma claims, is the culmination of a decade of…

THE WORD ‘RAPE’ as used in this essay will apply only to penetration of the vagina of an unwilling human female by the penis of a human male. It will not be a portmanteau word into which are tipped sexual assaults of many kinds, involving outrages inflicted with different instruments in different parts of the body. In the interests of clarity, the category of rape has here been decluttered, and the instrument involved limited to the penis and the site of the penetration to the vagina. Though some of us might like to think of the vagina as sacred, and casual use of it as a desecration, it has never been revered. The name ‘vagina’ is itself an insult. In Latin the word means ‘scabbard’, that is, ‘sword sheath’. Why…

It is common for cities and countries to fear outsiders and Assam is no exception (‘Citizen No’, September 17th, 2018). If there are problems in job opportunities and infrastructural resources, it is not because new people have entered a territory but instead reflects poorly on the ability of the state to provide for its residents. This is something that has not been conveyed to the public and thus the first instinct is to be wary of newcomers. It is terribly unfortunate that migrants, often those who desperately need a new home and country, are not welcomed. And often it also happens that minority groups who have been in a place for a long time are also persecuted in the same manner as migrants because they don’t form the majority population…

YOU MAY OR may not know that the national Ease of Living Index was released by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs last month. Now that you know, you may or may not care. Should you? I am not quite sure. When it was released, the average Mumbaikar’s reaction ranged from disbelief to laughter to sorrow. Cynics first asked ‘Which Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs?’ The Union Ministry or the Maharashtra Ministry? It was a legitimate question given that the top three cities were Pune (first), Navi Mumbai (second) and amchiMumbai (third). Mumbai, third? Mumbai, third?! Disbelief and raucous laughter. But—and this is where sorrow takes over—if our sad, dilapidated, polluted, potholed, overcrowded, traffic-jammed city can be ranked as high as third, what must be the state of…

THE APPLE WATCH, for all its success, ever since its release and across its various iterations, has been a somewhat confusing piece of technology. What is its purpose really? Is it a fashion accessory? Is its purpose to free us from our phones? Kevin Lynch, who was hired by Apple to make the Apple Watch, certainly seemed to think so. He once told Wired, “We’re so connected, kind of ever-presently, with technology now... People are carrying their phones with them and looking at the screen so much. People want that level of engagement. But how do we provide it in a way that’s a little more human, a little more in the moment when you’re with somebody?” Or was the Apple Watch a health tracker since it recorded workouts and…

INDIA HAS 29 States and seven Union Territories. In a strict legal sense, India is not a federation of states. The states haven’t come together to form this federation, nor can they secede from it if they want. Therefore, Article 1(1) of the Constitution states, ‘India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States.’ Articles 2 and 3 talk about the admission or establishment of new states, and the alteration of areas, names and boundaries of existing states. ‘Parliament may by law admit into the Union, or establish, new States on such terms and conditions, as it thinks fit. Parliament may by law (a) form a new State by separation of territory from any State or by uniting two or more States or parts of States or by uniting…

“I COME FROM A MUSLIM FAMILY AND HAD TORUN AWAYFROMA JAMAAT THATTRIED TO TURN ME. I AM DEAD TO THEM. ONLY MY MOTHER CALLS ME OCCASIONALLY”SHIVANI, 21 BEHIND A PLATFORM ON the Beach-Tambaram line of the Chennai Suburban Railway, a long dark corridor bears witness to private longings. It reeks of urine and self-recrimination and ends abruptly at the wall of a flyover. “The flyover is like a fortress, or a guardian deity,” says Rakshita, 30. “It hides us from the world so that we don’t have to hide our true selves—even from ourselves.” Occasionally, an office-goer or two will take this shortcut out of the station, but as soon as the glow of a torch dies out, silhouettes immediately relax, the conversation resumes, and giggles pierce the darkness. This…

LAST WEEK 35-YEAR-OLD KAVITA, A DOMESTIC HELP from Ghaziabad, watched a TV news clip of Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurating the India Post Payments Bank (IPPB) and made up her mind to open a zero-balance basic bank account at the village post office in order to save a meagre amount each month for her school-going children. “Every day is a struggle and I don’t know how much I can save each month. I don’t even know when I may have to withdraw what I have saved, at short notice. Regular banks demand a minimum balance. Besides, I can’t read and people at the bank intimidate me. I am comfortable in a post office environment with minimum hassle and more helpful staff. And I am determined to save some money for…

OPTION 1: Purchase 3 (or 5) years stand alone Third party Insurance OPTION 2: Purchase 3 (or 5) years full Insurance OPTION 3: Purchase 1 year full insurance plus 3 (or 5) years Third party Insurance Of the above, option 3 is the best choice because the third party premium that you pay in advance will be deducted from your premium at the time of your first and second renewals. Moreover, as the government tends to revise third party rates every financial year, you will beat the price hike, having locked-in your insurance cover. You will still have the option to change your insurers and get the best deal and better coverage as per your requirement at the time of renewals rather than getting stuck with one company and one…

WHEN A FORMER Chief of ISI writes a book on Pakistan, one expects plenty of insights. General Asad Durrani doesn’t disappoint there. But when he calls the book Pakistan Adrift: Navigating Troubled Waters one is tempted to say, ‘Oh! no, it’s the same old story again.’ Because so many books have been written on its impending demise or its directionless movement that it hardly makes news. Durrani writes, ‘I concede that, at the best of times, the defence forces have provided only a limited space for the country’s grassroots development by non-military means. The basic bricks to build the nation… are something more robust—the character of the people and the society.’ I wish he had begun the book with this profound observation and had gone on to explain why it…

FIVE YEARS AGO I undertook a climb up the Kazinag mountains to the Line of Control (LoC) with Pakistan. I wrote most of this, sitting under a rock-overhang, six hundred metres up a sheer cliff. Around me, the landscape was powder-white, clad in three feet of snow. The ascent took me six hours and what started as an easy ramble up the banks of the Jhelum had turned, in the last quarter, into a slow trudge over sludge. With night fast falling, our small team had to make quicker pace but my ice shovels sank into the snow faster than toothpicks in butter. As my legs gave way, there was only one way to make it to the top; take the extended hand of local guide Akbar. Once at the…

CRACKS ON THE rock of Peter reveal an ugly beast: the sexual predator, the paedophile priest, still protected by the robe. Headlines multiply, but only reluctantly has the papacy woken up to the crime, to the deepest moral crisis of the Church. In the US, one of its most powerful cardinals wants to resign following accusations of a cover-up; and in the state of Pennsylvania itself, according to a report by its attorney general, 1,000 children were abused by Catholic priests. A report published in two German magazines says the Catholic clergy has sexually abused 3,677 people—most of them young boys—between 1946 and 2014. And it took a while for the Pope to grant a leave of absence to one of his highest-ranking officials, a cardinal from Australia, following charges…

KERALA IS UNIQUE in being the only the state on the Indian mainland where the Catholic Church exercises real political power, something which it hasn’t shied from wielding. Parties are naturally wary about antagonising the Church, since it has that most prized of possessions in a democracy—the transferable vote. That is the reason you see the CPM-led government, which espouses an ideology that has disdain for religion, being so cautious when it comes to arresting the Jalandhar diocese Bishop Franco Mulakkal, who has been accused by a nun of multiple rapes over a span of two years. The first time the Bishop was questioned, the Kerala police reluctantly took an appointment and, in the comfort of his residence, did the interrogation. One imagines them politely hemming and hawing as they…

The allegation that the NRC was directed at a particular minority community is baseless. No official data on the basis of religion has been collected during the entire process. The NRC preparation was a transparent and scientific exercise ‘PROBABLY THE MOST important event in the province during the last 25 years—an event, moreover, which seems likely to alter permanently the whole feature of Assam and to destroy the whole structure of Assamese culture and civilization—has been the invasion of a vast horde of land-hungry immigrant.’ This was the warning given by British Census Superintendent CS Mullan as early as 1931 about the influx into Assam. Toward the Partition of India, this influx acquired humongous proportions. It was no longer just a migration for economic reasons. It acquired political and communal…

IN HINDUISM, GODS and goddesses marry. Hindu temples routinely conduct wedding rituals of gods and goddesses with much pomp and revelry. A wedding (vivah) in Hinduism is a rite of passage (samskara) that transforms a single entity into one half of a conjugal pair (dampatya). Being single, however, does not mean being incomplete. The idea of ‘wholeness’ in Hinduism is not necessarily a matter of the union of two bodies in marriage or even two souls in love; rather, wholeness or completeness in Hinduism can be understood as rising to the fullness of one’s true self and expanding the arena of one’s selfhood (brah—to expand, manas—the mind). Thus, even Krishna, visualised in a gentle, demure form with plaited hair and standing in a feminine pose, is considered the ‘Complete Man’…

President Trump’s ‘America First’ economic and trade rhetoric has threatened to overturn decades of US trade policy and alter the foundations of the liberal world order that the US was instrumental in creating after World War II. While such an approach is not a welcome policy, primary data does show Trump may have reasons to be concerned. The US currently had the biggest trade deficit in the world – a humongous US$ 863 billion in 2017, up from US$ 545 billion in 2009. Around 46% of this trade deficit was with China, increasing from US$ 240 billion to US$ 396 billion during this period. Duty Imposition by US Continuing with Trump’s anti-globalisation policy, the US withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) as soon as he assumed power. Following this,…

How is Mahindra MF differentiating itself from others? We endeavour to offer savings and investment solutions through variety of mutual fund schemes, with special focus in small towns and semi-urban markets. As a result all brand communication has been devised using a combination of English and vernacular languages. What’s been the learning so far from investors in rural India? What we are seeing today is a big shift in rural India's savings and investment preferences. In the past, approximately 90% savings in rural India and small towns went into land and gold. But in the last 10 years or so, the galloping price of land and gold has put it out of reach for the common man. There is now a lot of confusion in rural people's minds about what…

NINETY DANCERS CHECK into a hotel in Chennai. That might sound like the beginning of a bad or bizarre joke but, in fact, was the beginning of an important congregation of young contemporary dancers and dance makers from around the country. Every other year, several choreographers apply to the Prakriti Excellence in Contemporary Dance Awards (PECDA)—organised by the Chennai-based arts foundation, Prakritiwith videos of short works in progress. A handful of these dance pieces are then selected for a public showcase, where a jury of artists and arts professionals choose one work that is awarded a development grant and a tour with the Park New Festival. The work’s choreographer is also given a mentorship with an established choreographer, which in the past have included veterans such as Akram Khan and…

“You can’t invite everybody home and cook for them. You need spaces like restaurants to do that” ADIL HUSSAIN, actor ADIL HUSSAIN IS A happily married man. The inter-religious couple have a son, Kabir, named after the 15th-century poet saint claimed to be their own by both Hindus and Muslims. Before Hussain got hooked, he had a string of affairs and his friends attribute his “success with girlfriends” to his culinary skills. Hussain, the actor who has performed notable roles in films such as Mukti Bhawan (2016) (now available on Netflix as Hotel Salvation), English Vinglish (2012), Life of Pi (2012) and others, doesn’t contest these claims. He simply guffaws. Hussain knows he is a great cook, especially of the type of food that his mother used to prepare back…

Overstepping Her Role? Kangana Ranaut’s Rani Laxmibai project Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi is reportedly in trouble after two key members of the team exited recently. There have been murmurs that the director Krish, who has not been on set lately, departed from the project due to “creative differences” with his leading lady, though the word from the producers is that he has gotten busy with his next film, a biopic of legendary film and political doyen NTR. More recently news also surfaced that Sonu Sood, who plays an important role in the historical, had walked out due to clashes with Kangana. Insiders, however, reveal there is more to his departure. A source from the set says Kangana was not pleased that Sonu’s role had been inflated due to his…