The Contrast Gets Starker

1 NOVEMBER 2014
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INDIA
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IF20141101
www.indiafirstepaper.com
RNI REGD NO. ORIENG/2004/13647
VOLUME 10, ISSUE 17 | FORTNIGHTLY
While the BJP is on a roll with electoral victories and
recruitment drives for further conquests, a listless Congress is
seen doing precious little to stop its political freefall
D
SCANDALS ROCK
BJD BOAT
But nothing so far has
managed to taint
Naveen Patnaik’s
squeaky clean image
Only at Lalchand Jewellers
FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK
“The Congress leadership continues to
propose vague and theoretical solutions
to real and practical problems”
THE CONGRESS
MUST ACT NOW
OR PERISH
By SUNJOY HANS
Editor-in-Chief
I
t was clear to one and all
that the October 15 assembly elections in Haryana
and Maharashtra would be the
first true test for the Bharatiya
Janata Party and the Congress
after the Lok Sabha elections earlier in the year.
Yet, while the BJP got Prime
Minister Narendra Modi to lead a
long series of election rallies
ahead of the D-day, the Congress
had to make do with the usual
few public meetings that its president Sonia Gandhi and vice
president Rahul Gandhi oblige it
with, leaving the dirty job of regular campaigning to the state
leaders.
When asked about the much
anticipated organizational and
structural changes – or rather
their absence – All India Congress Committee, the leaders
1 NOVEMBER 2014
said self-assuredly that those were still a work in
progess and would be put in place after the assembly
elections were over.
Wonder why the wait until assembly elections for
changes that seemed imperative to its very survival.
Anyway, by October 19, the Congress found itself on
the losing side, with the BJP wresting away Haryana
and Maharashtra – the two states where it had enjoyed
multiple consecutive terms. What’s worse, it was no
close contest in either state – the Grand Old Party was
relegated to a distant third in both.
In response, while the Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala was heard saying philosophically
about winning and losing being part of democracy,
both Rahul and Sonia appeared happy to rest on past
laurels by reminding the public wistfully about the
long terms their party enjoyed in the two states.
But even now, the party still seems to be making no
real attempt to mend all that is broken.
All that has happened so far is another Congress
meeting in the capital late last month, in which Rahul
talked about making the party's internal systems
"open, fair and transparent" – a phrase that has been
used ad infinitum and ad nauseum in Congress gatherings addressed by him. The other thing he dilated on
was about weeding out bogus membership.
It was concluded in this “membership centric"
meeting that organisational weakness and factionalism were the two main factors that contributed to the
Congress' losses over the past few years and, therefore,
the party needs “real” members now.
But here’s the real issue: The Congress leadership
continues to propose vague and theoretical solutions
to real and practical problems; nothing ever seems to
be tangible in all that talk.
Speaking of tangibility, the BJP is already getting
ready for the upcoming assembly
elections in Jammu and Kashmir
and Jharkhand, which are scheduled to be held towards the end of
this month. With an eye on other
elections that will follow during the
course of the coming year, to as far
as the Uttar Pradesh assembly
polls in 2017, the party has begun
a mega-membership drive this
month to continue expanding its
base across the country.
Sonia Gandhi said after the recent assembly elections that the
Congress would play the role of a
constructive and vigilant opposition. But in order to be a credible
opposition in the first place, the
party needs to get its acts together.
A true democracy will always
need a strong opposition party. It is
up to Congress to fill those boots
soon enough, or let others take its
place – at its peril. n
INDIA FIRST 3
INDIA
FIRST
S P E A K S
Y O U R
CONTENTS
M I N D
Editor-in-Chief Sunjoy Hans
[email : [email protected]]
Consulting Editor Pankaj Kumar
Associate Editor Siddhartha Tripathy
Senior Special Correspondent Kabita Dash
General Manager Bimal Ku. Bhanjdeo
Legal Advisors Yasobant Das, M.R. Mohanty
Auditor A.K. Sabat & Co. Chartered Accountants
Orissa Correspondent H.K. Rath
Delhi Correspondent Ashok Vermani,
Samita Chaudhary
Special Correspondents Tarun Khanduja,
Ashok Mehta
Production Head Debabrata Mishra
08 THE GAP IS WIDENING
COVER
STORY
While the BJP is on a roll with electoral victories and
recruitment drives for further conquests, a listless Congress
is seen doing precious little to stop its political freefall
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Volume 10, Issue 17, 1 November 2014, Fortnightly
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28
BUSINESS
4 INDIA FIRST
COMPACTS ARE
ALL THE RAGE
Hot-selling mini-SUVs
and compact sedans
are giving much-needed
momentum to the
flagging Indian car
market
34
HEALTH
TIME TO TACKLE
TRAUMA
The high incidence of
trauma deaths in India
can be significantly
reduced by raising
awareness about
emergency care
1 NOVEMBER 2014
In
a
nutshell
KEEPING IT IN THE
FAMILY
F
amily relations mixed well with
politics as the results of the Maharashtra assembly elections trickled out
in Mumbai on October 19. At least two
father-son pairs won in different parts of
the state and in two instances, while fathers lost, their sons scored victories.
Senior Congressman and former chief
minister (when in Shiv Sena) Narayan
Rane lost from Kudal, while his son
Nitesh Rane won from Kankavali, both
in Sindhudurg district of coastal
Konkan. Similarly, Nationalist Congress
Party's former minister Ganesh Naik bit
the dust in Belapur, but son Sandeep
Naik scored handsomely, both in Navi
Mumbai.NCP strongman Chhagan Bhujbal won from his bastion, Yeola, while
his son Pankaj Bhujbal also bagged
Nandgaon seat, both in Nashik. Bahujan
Vikas Aghadi chief Hitendra Thakur won
the Vasai seat and his son Kshitij Thakur
also bagged the neighbouring Nallasopara seat, both in Thane. Raosaheb
Shekhawat, son of former president
Pratibha Patil, lost in Amravati to BJP's
Sunil Deshmukh. Incidentally, Deshmukh was earlier with Congress, but rebelled in 2009 when Shekhawat was
given the party ticket. Sons of veteran
Congressman and Bihar Governor D.Y.
Patil's sons lost - Satej Patil (Congress)
from Kolhapur South and Ajeenkya Patil
(Shiv Sena) from Karad South. Late
union minister Gopinath Munde's
daughters continued his traditions by
bagging the Beed Lok Sabha and Parli
assembly constituencies for the
Bharatiya Janata Party. While Pritam
Munde won the parliamentary seat with
a margin of over 600,000 votes, Pankaja
Munde bagged the Parli assembly. Late
union minister Vilasrao Deshmukh's
son Amit Deshmukh won from Latur,
while former union minster Sushilkumar Shinde's daughter Praniti Shinde
JETHMALANI JABS JAITLEY
S
enior lawyer Ram Jethmalani recently wrote a fiery letter to Finance
Minister Arun Jaitley hitting out at him for handling the black money
issue in an inappropriate manner. Jethmalani said that the steps taken to
deal with the black money issue were not right and accused Jaitley of not
wanting the truth to come out. The letter, dated October 23, said: "I strongly
suspect that your conduct shows that you too like many others do not want
the truth to come out. Your public statements ... on one day and next day
are products of a troubled conscience and mental confusion; a deadly
combination." He said: "You are out to help the biggest criminals to escape." Referring to the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government's
stand in the court last week that it cannot make public the names of black
money account holders in foreign banks due to the confidentiality clause
under the Double Taxation Avoidance Treaty (DTAT) with some countries,
he said the DTAT or any equivalent document is not to be used and cannot
be used. With his humour intact, Jethmalani ends the letter signing of as
"Expelled BJP member". n
bagged Solapur Central constituencies,
both as Congress candidates. Former
chief minister Ashok Chavan's wife
Ameeta won the Bhokar seat in Nanded
district with a margin of over 50,000
votes on a Congress ticket. n
DIDI BLASTS NEW
DELHI
Accusing the BJP-led central government of not consulting West Bengal in
ordering an NIA probe into the October
2 Burdwan blast, Chief Minister Mamata
Banerjee countered allegations of her
government aiding infiltration saying
the borders were guarded by central security forces. However, Banerjee af1 NOVEMBER 2014
firmed that her government would extend "full cooperation" to the National
Investigation Agency looking into the
blast at Khagragarh in Burdwan district
in which two militants were killed. "We
have no problem with NIA probe. We
will fully co-operate. We just want the
centre to consult us before taking any
decision. They should consult rather
than insult. Infiltration is a central subject. It is not our responsibility. Borders
are manned by central agencies like Border Security Force or Seema Suraksha
Bal – they are responsible for infiltration," Banerjee told the media in Kolkata
after a meeting with party leaders. Stating that "there can't be any compromise
on terrorism", Banerjee said the state
police had handled the situation well in
INDIA FIRST 5
the aftermath of the blast. "It was Ashtami (of the Durga Puja festival) when
the Burdwan incident took place. Lakhs
of people were celebrating Durga Puja.
Eid was a few days away. Our police
managed the situation well. They did a
good job," she said. n
TRUTH OR DARE?
A
am Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal recently said that he had
been informed that a top BJP leader had
directed his party legislators to get at
least 5,000 fake votes in each constituency to win the Delhi assembly
elections. In a tweet Kejriwal said: "BJP
source – top BJP leader has directed all
Delhi BJP MLAs to get at least 5000 fake
votes made in each const n get AAP
votes deleted. Bribe rate-Rs. 1500 for
new fake vote, Rs. 200 to get any vote
deleted. This info given by someone
who did this job for BJP last week," the
former Delhi chief minister said in another tweet. He also said for this he will
be meeting election commission officials to lodge a formal complaint. "We
are meeting EC officials … and making
a formal complaint," he said in another
tweet. Delhi is under President's rule
since February 17. n
UNDER THE
MICROSCOPE
W
ithin hours of assuming office,
the new BJP government in
Haryana said the land deals of Robert
Vadra, son-in-law of Congress president
Sonia Gandhi, and other land scams in
the state will be probed. "We are certainly opening those cases. A sitting high
court judge will inquire into these," Ram
Bilas Sharma, the senior-most minister
in chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar's
government, said in Chandigarh. "(For-
ALL FOR AMMA
A
ctor Rajinikanth and union minister Maneka Gandhi recently expressed their happiness at the return of AIADMK general secretary
and former Tamil Nadu chief minister J. Jayalalithaa to her home in
Chennai. "I am very glad to have you back in Poes Garden. Praying for
good times for you. Always wishing you well for good health and
peace," Rajinikanth said in a letter to Jayalalithaa. Meanwhile Maneka
Gandhi, in her letter to Jayalalithaa, said: "This is just to let you know
that I am deeply sorry that this has happened." Gandhi told Jayalalithaa
that she has her support and sympathy and she would be happy to do
anything to make this time less onerous. "I am sure this time will be
over soon and we will see you formally back at the helm of administration
again," Gandhi wrote. A special court in Bangalore on September 27 convicted Jayalalithaa in the Rs.66.65-crore disproportionate assets case and
sentenced her to four years of jail, with a fine of Rs.100 crore under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Prevention of Corruption Act. She was released on bail on October 17. n
mer chief minister Bhupinder Singh)
Hooda's main problem was that instead
of looking after the interests of Haryana,
he was safeguarding the interests of
Sonia Gandhi," Sharma said. Vadra has
been accused of making millions of rupees in land deals during the tenure of
the Hooda government in Haryana between March 2005 and October 2014.
Another senior minister, Anil Vij, said:
"We will get every inch of this land scam
probed. Anyone found guilty in that,
whether any official, Robert Vadra or
Bhupinder Singh Hooda, we will not
spare anyone," Vij said. n
WHAT THE HACK
G
oa Governor Mridula Sinha's
website has been hacked by unknown people, the police said recently.
According to a complaint registered by
6 INDIA FIRST
Shilpa Shinde, secretary to the governor,
some hackers gained control of the website and deleted photographs posted on
it. According to police, a First Information Report has been registered under
Section 66 of the Information Technology and other sections of the Indian
Penal Code. Police, however, have not
been able to track the identity of the
hackers yet. On Saturday, a note on the
website www.rajbhavangoa.org read:
"Our website is currently undergoing
maintenance. Work in progress." This is
not the first time that a Goa government
website has been hacked. The state government portals were hacked by a Pakistani cyber expert in July 2013 when 13
websites maintained by state government departments were defaced. Police
had then said that the websites were
hacked by a Pakistan-based cyber group
called H4x0r HuSsy. n
1 NOVEMBER 2014
POLITICALLY
INCORRECT
A fortnightly update on the faux pas of the movers and shakers of Indian politics
"If doctors are found careless in
treatment of the poor, then their
(doctors) hands will be chopped off by
Jitan Ram Manjhi. I am ready to face
any consequence for this. Doctors
who play with the lives of the poor will
not be spared”
Bihar Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi,
however, later backtracked on his
controversial remark after the BJP and
doctors across the state demanded an
apology
"Kandhamal by-poll result is a lesson for
the BJP to introspect why Modi wave is
diluted in Odisha unlike any other part in
the country … The BJP in Odisha, as it
appears, requires immediate surgery. It
is unfortunate that some in the BJP are
celebrating it as an achievement”
Ashok Sahu, a senior leader of the BJP’s
Odisha chapter, was suspended after
posting this supposedly anti-party
comment on a social networking site
"Thank you
@narendramodi ji. Here's
a video of my clean-up & a
request to you (also
coming by letter)."
Congress parliamentarian
Shashi Tharoor might
further hurt his future
prospects in his party by
continuing to be a part of
Prime Minister Narendra
Modi’s Clean India
Campaign
1 NOVEMBER 2014
INDIA FIRST 7
D
uring the Lok Sabha election
campaigning earlier this year,
when Narendra Modi, the
then prime ministerial candidate of the
Bharatiya Janata Party, talked about his
party’s mission to have a Congress-free
India it sounded like another audaciously ambitious dream of the BJP –
even to those who had begun believing
in the “Modi wave”.
The Congress, after all, had been the
pre-eminent party of the country since
Independence. One disaster of a term,
or even a massive electoral loss, could
not possibly wipe it off the nation’s political map.
But now, when BJP chief Amit Shah or
the party’s national vice president B.S.
Yedyurappa say the same thing, the
dream does not seem so distant.
Much has been happening on the BJP
front for the party to further consolidate
its position as the top national party of
the country – in sharp contrast to the
goings-on (or lack thereof) in Congress.
The BJP's recent victory in Haryana
assembly polls and its strong performance in Maharashtra are helping the
party carry the momentum of its Lok
Sabha success, reinforcing Modi's credentials as a strong campaigner and giving the party renewed confidence to
expand its base in states where it is
weak.
The party's first-ever victory in
Haryana and its emergence as the single-largest party in Maharashtra on October 19 came on the back of an
aggressive campaign by Modi who addressed about 35 rallies in the two states.
The BJP secured majority in the 90member Haryana assembly. And although it fell far short of the crucial
figure of 145 in the 288-seat house in
Maharashtra, it still emerged as the single-largest party there.
The assembly poll results were crucial
for BJP as these were the first major polls
after the Lok Sabha elections and were
being perceived as a vote on the performance of the five-month-old Narendra Modi government at the Centre. This
was also the first round of assembly
polls under party president Amit Shah,
a confidant of Modi.
The party assiduously worked to live
up to the challenge with Modi leading
the campaign and Shah ensuring a wide
grassroots connect and effective booth
management, party leaders said. The results have also vindicated the BJP's
move of going it alone in the two states
though the party has put the onus of
break-up in the alliance on its former
partners.
The results have boosted the morale
8 INDIA FIRST
Cover
Story
The Gap is
Widening
1 NOVEMBER 2014
In both Haryana and Maharashtra,
the BJP's vote share has gone up substantially.
The BJP had performed well in the
two states in the Lok Sabha polls also,
but had fought these elections in alliance. The momentum of these results
is expected to help the BJP in the forthcoming assembly polls in Jharkhand
and Jammu and Kashmir.
The BJP is keen to expand its base in
states such as Odisha, West Bengal,
Tamil Nadu and Kerala where it is weak
and its electoral performance in Maharashtra and Haryana is expected to give
a push to such efforts. The electoral outcome is also likely to make BJP more assertive vis-a-vis its allies.
IN SELF-DESTRUCT
MODE
While the BJP is on
a roll with electoral
victories and
recruitment drives
for further
conquests, a
listless Congress is
seen doing
precious little to
stop its political
freefall
1 NOVEMBER 2014
of the BJP workers. The party also appears to have recovered from some reverses it suffered in assembly
by-elections over the past five months.
In Haryana, where the BJP had won a
total of six seats in the last two assembly
polls put together, the party established
itself as a prime force.
In Maharashtra, the party established
its credentials to be the senior partner in
any future seat-sharing negotiations
with the Shiv Sena, its former ally in the
state. The party's tally is more than its
combined tally of the past two assembly
elections.
Meanwhile, the results of the Haryana
and Maharashtra assembly polls came
as a shocker for the Congress and made
its revival even more difficult as the
party has been defeated in the states
that had been its traditional strongholds. The Congress finished third in
both the states.
The results once again raised questions on Congress vice president Rahul
Gandhi's leadership with no clarity yet
about the party's roadmap for restructuring. They also revived demands for
giving a more active role to Priyanka
Gandhi Vadra, highlighting the party's
dependence on the Nehru-Gandhi family.
With the party having received severe
drubbing in the Lok Sabha polls, Congress leaders were not expecting a miracle in the assembly election in the two
states but the results were below their
own assessment.
While Prime Minister Narendra Modi
campaigned aggressively in the states
addressing about 35 rallies, Congress
president Sonia Gandhi and her son
Rahul Gandhi participated in far fewer
rallies.
A worrying factor for the Congress is
the party's inability to gain ground in
the states where it has lost election to
the BJP. The Congress has lost successive
polls to BJP in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Gujarat.
Reduced to 44 seats in the Lok Sabha,
the Congress is facing challenge of
shrinking social base. The party also has
to contend with Modi's growing stature
as a campaigner and a national leader.
With polls in Jammu and Kashmir and
Jharkhand expected in a few months,
the Congress still has to put its act together.
INDIA FIRST 9
Both Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi
had taken responsibility for the Lok
Sabha debacle but no major revamp of
the party structure has taken place over
the past five months.
In their responses to the polls verdict,
both Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi
emphasised that the defeat had come
after the party' successive triumphs in
Maharashtra and Haryana.
"The Congress party will work hard on
the ground to once again earn the confidence of the people," Rahul Gandhi
said.
Sonia Gandhi sought to boost morale
of workers thanking them for "their tireless and unstinting commitment to the
party and its ideology".
A senior party leader said that efforts
for revival will be difficult in short term
as the Modi government was still carrying the momentum of the Lok Sabha
victory.
Congress spokesperson Sanjay Jha
said the party was "very disappointed"
with the election results of the two
states. He said the party had not been
"very aggressive" about its achievements in Haryana and Mahrashtra and
needs to reach out to people by all
media and platforms.
Jha, however, dismissed suggestions
that Rahul Gandhi was not measuring
up to the task expected from him.
"He is leading the campaign personally. He takes the full responsibility
about crucial decisions. He is leading
from the front," Jha said.
He also said that the party worked as
"a collective team" and an individual
could not be blamed for the failure.
10 INDIA FIRST
On Priyanka Gandhi Vadra taking a
more active role, he said it was for her to
take a decision.
"We take the defeat seriously. We will
take stock and move forward," he said.
Political commentator and senior
journalist S. Nihal Singh said the Congress has been facing difficulties as
Rahul Gandhi is not performing the role
expected from him.
"The problem is basic. What do you
do if the leader does not perform. Where
do you go from there. If it is a dynastyled party, the person concerned has to
perform," Nihal Singh said.
A.S. Narang, who teaches political science at IGNOU, also said the problem is
the party's leadership.
"They have to introspect about the
leadership, organisational programme.
They have to find out reasons for shrinking social base and take remedial steps,"
Narang said.
Perhaps the awareness about the irredeemable nature of the Congress's political fortune persuaded Prithviraj
Chavan to let the cat out of the bag. By
confessing, however, that he was powerless as the Maharashtra chief minister to
probe the allegations of corruption
against influential party members like
Vilasrao Deshmukh, Sushil Kumar
Shinde and Ashok Chavan, as well as a
ministerial colleague, Ajit Pawar, the
outgoing chief minister has drawn attention to the primary cause which is
behind his party's decline.
There is little doubt that it is the deliberate turning of the blind eye towards
suspected acts of corruption which has
fatally undermined the party's position.
The Congress' reputation for aiding and
abetting corruption first enabled Anna
Hazare to whip up public sentiments
against the party.
Since then, its soiled image has been
exploited in full measure by the
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has
buttressed its case by underlining Manmohan Singh's poor record in governance.
But it wasn't only the former prime
minister's seeming inefficiency resulting in a policy paralysis which hurt his
government and party but also the palpable dalliance with fraud. As much was
evident when, like Chavan, Manmohan
Singh confessed his helplessness to act
against dishonest colleagues because, as
he said, one couldn't have elections
every six months.
The person whom the then prime
minister probably had in mind when he
made the comment was undoubtedly
the telecom minister of the time,
Andimuthu Raja. Nor is there any doubt
at whose prodding Manmohan Singh allowed Raja to continue in office till the
Supreme Court intervened and sent him
to jail.
It could not have been anyone other
than the Congress's all-powerful president, Sonia Gandhi, who prevailed upon
Manmohan Singh to let Raja remain in
office if only because any step against
him would have made the DMK withdraw support, leading to the government's fall.
Sonia Gandhi must have been also behind Prithviraj Chavan's inability to act
against Vilasrao Deshmukh and others
lest the party be "decimated", as he said.
1 NOVEMBER 2014
In both the cases, a prime minister
and a chief minister known for their personal integrity had to bow to unethical
dictates from the powers-that-be and
pretend to be oblivious of all the wrongdoing that was perpetrated under them.
It is another matter that neither Manmohan Singh nor Chavan had the guts
to tell those higher up in the party echelons that they could not wink at fraud
and behave as if all was well. Had they
done so, the fate of the Congress might
have been different.
After all, it was someone like V.P.
Singh, whose refusal to close his eyes to
scams led to him being hailed as Mr
Clean and crowned as prime minister.
Since then, there has been hardly anyone in the Congress who has had the
honesty to admit that the party's sullied
image is letting it down although former
finance minister P. Chidambaram did
identify ethical and governance
"deficits" as the reasons for the downhill
slide.
Chavan is the first one to say that he
could not "shed" his tainted party colleagues because "if I had sent them to
jail, it would have hit the party organization". However, the irony is that the
party has been "hit" any way because
the belief that it is unwilling to act
against the guilty is electorally damaging.
The Congress paid the price, first, in
the Tamil Nadu assembly elections in
2011 when its defeat along with that of
its partner, the DMK, showed that the
voters were not ready to forgive and forget.
Since then, the party has lost a series
1 NOVEMBER 2014
of state assembly elections, notably in
Goa, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, and now it is on
the verge of defeat in Maharashtra and
Haryana.
There can be little doubt that the Congress's corrupt image is primarily responsible for the party's predicament.
Strangely, its leadership appears blind to
the writing on the wall. It still apparently
believes that its socialistic pretensions,
as is evident from Rahul Gandhi's criticism of Narendra Modi's pro-business
policies, will help it cross the electoral
Rubicon.
The deafening silence from the leaders which has greeted Chavan's spilling
of the beans is a tell-tale sign of what has
gone wrong with the Congress. A party
which was so quick to act against Shashi
Tharoor for his praise of Modi is acting
deaf and dumb when a serious charge
against its functioning has been made
by a senior functionary.
It is not, however, difficult to understand the reason for its coyness. Like the
decision to persist with Raja, the reluctance to act against Vilasrao Deshmukh
and others could not have been taken
without concurrence from the very top,
viz., Sonia Gandhi.
Yet, the party has seemingly convinced itself that it cannot survive
without the Nehru-Gandhi family. Arguably, it has an idealized image of the
family dating back to the times of
Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi
when their names and appearances
made the voters flock to the Congress's banner. This is no longer the
case.
NO LOOKING BACK
The BJP, meanwhile, has launched a
mega membership drive with the call for
"saath aaye desh banaye" (come together, build the nation).
Party leader J.P. Nadda told the media:
"BJP president Amit Shah had dedicated
the year 2014-15 for membership drive
during our national executive meet on
August 9."
He said: "We got tremendous mass
support during the general election and
our social welfare schemes and the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi
further got people's blessings in the assembly elections in Haryana and Maharashtra."
He added: "We are launching this
drive to enable people's participation in
our social welfare programmes."
He said the message of the campaign
is "strong BJP, strong nation".
Nadda said the drive will be launched
online too, whereby people can get
themselves registered as members via
SMS.
There will be three national level
awareness workshops in Bangalore,
Delhi and Kolkata on Oct 29, 30 and 31,
respectively.
Not long after suffering a shocking
setback in the Uttar Pradesh bypolls, the BJP – with an eye on the
2017 assembly elections – is planning to go on overdrive to have the
electorally crucial state’s youth, who
constitute 65 percent of its population.
For the sake of its own survival, the
Congress will do well to take a leaf or
two out of its arch-rival’s book. n
INDIA FIRST 11
E
mbarrassment seems to be getting more and more acute for
the ruling Biju Janata Dal in
Odisha with names of more and more of
its leaders cropping up in connection
with the chit fund scandal.
The interrogation of party’s tribal MP,
Ramchandra Hansdah by the CBI which
had earlier raided his residence and
seized Rs.28 lakh in cash has left the ruling party leaders red-faced. Hansdah
first claimed that the money was his and
then made a somersault saying it belonged to his party workers.
The CBI had seized the cash during a
raid at his Rairangpur residence on July
31. Since then the CBI has been trying
to find out if the money belonged to
Naba Diganta Capital Service Limited,
the chit fund company of which Hansdah was one of the directors.
Hansdah was interrogated by the CBI
along with former BJD MLA from Keonjhar Subarana Nayak who also tried his
best to save his skin. Earlier, two other
party MLAs, Pravat Tripathy and Pranab
Balabantray, had been interrogated by
the agency.
The questioning of all these leaders
has been a source of embarrassment for
the party as well as its supreme leader,
chief minister Naveen Patnaik. In Hansdah case, his association with Nabadiganta Limited began in 2011. The MP
said he was under the impression that
the company would work for the welfare
of the youth by providing them jobs and
hence he did not suspect its business
deals. Critics of the government, however, say that such claims are routinely
made by leaders when they are caught
on the wrong foot.
Yet another development that may
dent the ruling party’s image is the arrest
of Khirod Chandra Mallick, brother of
former minister and BJD women’s wing
chief, Pramila Mallick, who is alleged to
have duped investors to the tune of over
Rs.5 crore as the director of a microfinance company.
Mallick, who was also running a NGO
named Bharat Integrated Social Welfare
Agency (Biswa), had taken over the credible microfinance company as managing director in 2006. The company was
set up in 1993 as a non-deposit and nonbanking financial company.
However, even though the permission
for the operation of the company had
lapsed, Mallick allegedly continued to
collect money from the people using the
Biswa net work from investors under the
name of Credible Micro Finance Limited from different parts of the state.
The company is said to have violated the
RBI guidelines for which the apex bank
12 INDIA FIRST
State
Scandals
Rock BJD
Boat
But nothing so far has been able to taint Naveen
Patnaik’s squeaky clean image
Saroj Mishra
1 NOVEMBER 2014
had cancelled its license in June this
year.
The taint of chit fund scam, the
biggest after the mining scandal to have
taken place during the Naveen Patnaik
regime, has also haunted the literary
world. Noted writer and winner of the
Kendra Sahitya Academy award, Manoj
Das is reported to have donated the entire honorarium amount of Rs 10 lakh he
had received from chit fund company,
Sea Shore for acting as advisor to its two
literary magazines, to the chief minister’s relief fund (CMRF).
Das, a litterateur and thinker with a
national profile, took the step after
questions were raised about his association with the group which is under the
CBI scanner for having allegedly duped
investors. The author, who now spends
most of his time in Puducherry arranged
the money with the help of friends and
relatives and sent it to the CM relief
fund.
Das’s association with the group
began in late 2011 and he acted as advisor for Sea Shore’s two publications,
Sahitya Pruthivi and Sita Sakal. Apart
from contributing articles, he also
planned the content for these magazines. Das felt aggrieved about the “unfair” criticism as he had no way of
knowing about the company’s “illegal”
activities.
1 NOVEMBER 2014
But the state government remains unfazed about these developments with its
leaders claiming that the scandals have
hardly dented the image of the chief
minister. They, in fact, claimed that the
government has stepped up efforts to
end corruption with a number of meas-
“He is above corruption. The
opposition has tried its best
but has been unable to make
any dent in his image. As long
as people trust him, they will
also repose their faith in our
party
– A senior BJD leader
ures.
While as many as 15 special vigilance
courts have been set up in the state for
expeditious trial of corruption-related
cases, the conviction percentage in vigilance cases has reached a record 46%
this year. The vigilance courts have convicted 503 public servants while 137 persons have been dismissed from service
on grounds of corruption during the
past five years.
Significantly, the Vigilance recently
registered a case against former director
general of police, Prakash Mishra, who
is currently special secretary (internal
security) at the Centre. While top vigilance officials continue to insist that the
case against the top cop has been
lodged on corruption charges, Mishra
has described it as political vendetta
aimed at scuttling his chances of becoming CBI director.
The chief minister has gone on record
as saying that Odisha is the first state in
the country to enact the Special Courts
Act to achieve probity in public life. He
said the endeavour of the government
has received nationwide recognition, as
the governments of Bihar, Madhya
Pradesh and Rajasthan have enacted
legislations on the line of the Odisha
Special Courts Act.
It is, thus, an ironical situation with
ruling party leaders coming under the
CBI scanner in connection with chit
fund scam on the one hand and the BJD
leaders claiming to be fighting corruption tooth and nail on the other. They
also assert that with chief minister’s
track record remaining spotless so far,
the party has nothing to fear. “He is
above corruption. The opposition has
tried its best but has been unable to
make any dent in his image. As long as
people trust him, they will also repose
their faith in our party,” said a senior
BJD leader. n
INDIA FIRST 13
Tourism
Let Them In
For a plethora of problems, far fewer visitors from
Russia – the country that usually accounts for the
highest number of foreign tourist arrivals in Goa – are
expected to be in the beach state this season. Is there a
solution?
R
ussian tourist arrivals in Goa
are expected to drop by nearly
20 percent this season due to a
mix of factors, including the European
economic crisis, Russian tour operators
going bankrupt and the Ukraine-Russia
conflict, according to a top official of the
Russian Information Centre (RIC) in
Panaji.
Its head, Ekaterina Belyakova, said
that amid the present slump, expeditious implementation of the visa-on-arrival facility at the state's Dabolim
International Airport would help increase foreign tourist arrivals in the
beach state.
"In the beginning of season I had
hoped that the Russian tourist season
will be same, but in reality it will go
14 INDIA FIRST
down by at least 20 per cent," Belyakova
said.
The RIC is endorsed by the Russian
consulate in Goa and was started last
year as a resource and assistance centre
for the nearly 250,000 Russian tourists
who visit Goa every season from October to March. The Centre was also
started to soothe tensions following increasing squabbles between Russians
and locals over setting up of businesses
by foreign nationals, some of them illegal, and staking a claim for a piece of
Goa's tourism pie.
Belyakova listed out three key issues
for the expected drop in the number of
Russian tourists, of which a floundering
Russian and European economy tops
the list. "The dollar rate in Russia has be-
come very high. Last year, one dollar
was equal to 32 roubles, now it is 41,
making tour packages expensive,"
Belyakova said.
Aggressive undercutting has also resulted in several Russian firms like
Labyrinth, one of the biggest tour operators which accounted for nearly 20 per
cent of the chartered arrivals to Goa, in
a financial mess, Belyakova said.
"Several other tour operators are also
in dire straits and it could have a direct
bearing on Goa's arrivals as far as Russian tourists, the biggest contingent of
foreign tourists to the state, are concerned," she added.
According to Belyakova, it was a case
where the marketing levelling out and
stabilizing would take time.
1 NOVEMBER 2014
"It is not possible for the market to
stabilize so fast. It will stabilise, but it
will take time," she said, adding that the
Ukraine-Russia conflict could also contribute to the slump in numbers.
Belyakova, however, claimed that
while the charter tourist arrivals would
dip, there would be a rise in the number of Free Individual Travellers (FIT)
to Goa. While the charter tourists have
pre-fixed itineraries, FITs schedule
their own itineraries, bookings and vacation plans.
Belyakova said: “One remedy for the
shrinking number of foreign tourists is
to implement the visa-on-arrival facility at the Goa airport as soon as possible,” which was promised by Finance
minister Arun Jaitley in his budget
1 NOVEMBER 2014
“One remedy for the shrinking
number of foreign tourists is to
implement the visa-on-arrival
facility at the Goa airport as
soon as possible … If it
happens, then the tourist
arrival number will increase by
30 percent or more. It can save
the season”
– Ekaterina Belyakova, head of
Russian Information Centre in
Panaji
speech in July.
"If it happens, then the tourist arrival number will increase by 30 percent or more. It can save the season,"
she said.
Goa's conventional tourist season
starts in October and winds up in
March, when the mild winter sun works
as a good break for travellers from Russia, Britain and Germany, among others,
from the harsh winter back home. Three
million tourists visit Goa annually,
nearly half a million of which are foreigners.
Goa's tryst with Russian tourists
started in 2003, when the first charter
flight flew in. Russians now account for
the largest number of foreign tourist arrivals followed by British tourists. n
INDIA FIRST 15
B
ack in 2006, Joe Biden, then a
Senate candidate ran into trouble for a remark that "you cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin'
Donuts unless you have a slight Indian
accent."
Gaffe-prone Biden got away by explaining that it wasn't a racial slur but
"was meant as a compliment" for the
"vibrant Indian-American community"
making "a significant contribution to
the national economy as well."
A spin or not, Biden who went on become vice president in 2008, was speaking a home truth as according to the
Asian-American Convenience Store
Owners Association its 50,000 members
own over 80,000 convenience stores.
That's more than half the US convenience store count of 151,282 as of December 31, 2013. These small retail
businesses provide the public a convenient location to buy daily necessities
(predominantly food and gasoline) and
services. There is one convenience store
for an average of every 2,100 residents
all over the US with non-fuel sales of
$205 billion, according to National Association of Convenience Stores.
Then there are what have come to be
known as Potels or motels owned by Patels from India's Gujarat state in practically every single small town of America.
The Asian American Hotel Owners Association (AAHOA) is currently headed
by Pratik Patel. It claims its 12,500 members, largely Indian-American, own
more than 20,000 properties making up
more than 40 percent of all hotels in the
US.
They employ nearly 600,000 workers,
accounting for over $9.4 billion in payroll annually.
But this very ubiquitous presence of
Indian-owned convenience store often
makes them the target of attacks as it
happened in Ferguson, a small predominantly black town in Missouri
which erupted into violent protests after
a White policeman shot dead an unarmed black teenager on August 9.
Police released a controversial hazy
surveillance video implying that the
slain teen Michael Brown had robbed a
Patel-run convenience store in the days
or hours before the incident, but later
acknowledged that the alleged robbery
had nothing to do with the shooting incident.
The Ferguson Market, where Brown
allegedly grabbed a handful of cigars before his deadly encounter with police,
looters twice targeted the store owned
by a Patel family along with several other
Asian-American owned stores, according to the Daily Beast.
16 INDIA FIRST
Diaspora
AN ENDANGERED
LOT
Be it occupational hazard or for racial reasons, IndianAmericans have been paying a price for running
convenience stores in the United States
1 NOVEMBER 2014
At least eight stores were looted in
nearby Dellwood too with Pakistani
American Mumtaz Lalani's Dellwood
Market among those ransacked and almost burnt down by dozens of looters,
according to South Asian Times.
Jay Kanzler, the Patels' lawyer, told the
Beast he believed that law enforcement
authorities allowed the looting of Ferguson Market in part because it is a minority-owned small business.
However, local Asian-American business owners cited by the Beast said they
don't think looters targeted them because of their race.
Robberies appear to be an occupational hazard for those running a con1 NOVEMBER 2014
venience store.
According to the non-profit research
think tank Center for Problem-Oriented
Policing (POP Center), convenience
store robberies account for approximately 6 percent of all robberies known
to the police.
Convenience store employees suffer
from high rates of workplace homicide,
second only to taxicab drivers, it says
citing FBI data. Victims include Indian
students taking up overnight jobs at gas
stations to pay for their studies.
Just a couple of days before Brown
was killed, Rajinder Kumar, 49, an Indian-American convenience store clerk
at an Exxon gas station in Hanover,
Maryland, was shot in cold blood by a
masked man.
Meanwhile, as hundreds rallied not
long ago in Ferguson for slain Michael
Brown with a pledge to continue national discourse about police tactics and
race, many of the businesses' windows
remain boarded up, though most have
reopened, according to local media reports.
But while "Ferguson has held in relief
issues related to systemic racism in
America... the plight of Asian American
store owners is left out of the conversations between the white and black
America," as the ethnic South Asian
Times put it. n
INDIA FIRST 17
Education
A Welcome
N
ational Award winner Khagendra Nath Chetia Phukan,
who has spent 40 years teaching in some of the most remote parts of
Assam and its bordering areas, has seen
the education sector in the region undergoing major development.
Having emerged from the phase of the
1980s, when schools and colleges were
affected due to the frequent "Assam
bandhs" called by student unions and
the separatist United Liberation Front of
Asom (ULFA), the state is undergoing a
dramatic transformation which is not
only ensuring a bright future for the
people but also keeping insurgency at
bay.
Phukan, one of the receipients of this
year's National Teachers Award, said the
central government initiatives like the
18 INDIA FIRST
"There are several social
groups and organisations that
want to work in the education
sector in interior areas of the
northeast but they are
constrained due to scarcity of
resources. The state
government in collaboration
with the centre needs to help
them”
– Hage Bibijan, a senior
teacher at a government
school at Telluliang in
Arunachal Pradesh
Sarva Siksha Abhiyan (SSA) and
Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan
have helped in taking education to the
far-flung areas of the northeastern region, which until a decade ago was suffering due to poor infrastructure and
lack of funds.
"At times bandhs, riots and every
minor or major uprising hit schools of
Assam, and the situation still prevails in
some places. There was no dearth of
hurdles to harm education and its quality in the state. But it really feels nice to
see that the situation is improving fast
and the northeastern region has
emerged as the best in terms of literacy,"
Phukan said after being conferred the
award along with several others from
the state.
According to the 2011 census, the lit1 NOVEMBER 2014
Change
eracy rate in northeast India is 68.5 percent, with female literacy at 61.5 percent. The national average stands at 64.8
percent and 53.7 percent respectively.
Phukan, who now teaches at the
Mankata M.E. Senior Secondary School
in Assam's Dibrugarh, said: "The most
important thing the government
schemes have done is providing poor
students with uniforms, textbooks and
better quality education, which was not
there till a couple of years back."
Hage Bibijan, a senior teacher at a
government school at Telluliang in
Arunachal Pradesh, who was also
awarded the National Teachers Award
said there are several social welfare
groups keen to start schools and help
the government in the education sector
but they faced resource crunch.
1 NOVEMBER 2014
"States like Arunachal Pradesh,
Meghalaya, Manipur and other states of
the region need special focus as the
number of dropouts is high. The government needs to establish avenues where
students can engage after completing
their studies."
"There are several social groups and
organisations that want to work in the
education sector in interior areas of the
northeast but they are constrained due
to scarcity of resources. The state government in collaboration with the centre needs to help them," Bibijan said.
The Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance(NDA) government has allocated Rs.53,706 crore
for overall development of the northeast
region in 2014-15.
Ranju Dutta, principal of Karanga
With literacy, student
enrolment and quality
teacher numbers on the
rise, and bandhs and riots
fewer and farther
between, the education
scene in the Northeast
has undergone drastic
transformation over the
past couple of years – but
there’s still much scope
for improvement
Girls Higher Secondary school at Jorhat
in Assam, also won a National Teacher
Award. Dutta said that there is growing
realisation among the people, especially
children, of the northeast that education
is the only way for bettering their situation.
"Every year there has been a constant
rise in the number of students enrolling
in schools. Due to enhancement in the
quality of education students of the region are performing constantly well,"
she said.
According to University Grants Commission (UGC) data, over five lakh students from eight states of the northeast
ventured outside the region last year
due to lack of proper higher education
facilities.
Dutta, who has taught for 37 years in
villages and semi-rural areas of the state,
said the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan has improved the quality of teachers by imparting proper training.
The geographical and poor social
conditions in northeastern states were
reasons that earlier kept teachers from
taking up teaching jobs in interior areas,
she said.
But with proper training and increase
in the pay scale, including in primary
schools, the situation has become better. Teachers now happily take up teaching assignments even in remote areas,"
she said.
"It will be appreciated if teachers
working in remote parts of the northeast
get recognition like me, as mostly the
work they do goes unrecognised," she
added. n
INDIA FIRST 19
Technology
The New Rail
Revolution
E-business is changing the face of railway travel in
India, much for the better
20 INDIA FIRST
G
azing at the far-away tracks
searching for signs of train arrivals might bring in nostalgic
memories as a host of e-companies are
providing everything from tracking
minute-by-minute locomotive locations
to details of taxi availability or the best
deals at hotels to make rail journey in
India a more pleasant and less taxing experience.
Be it the last-minute confirmation of
the PNR status to a heavy-hearted goodbye, apps are making life easy for travellers on the Indian Railways network
and it's not just the private players but
also e-commerce behemoth IRCTC (Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation) that is reworking its strategy to
become more user-friendly.
At a recent high-level meeting, Railway Minister D.V. Sadananda Gowda
was informed that more investments,
ideas and professionals will be needed
to jack up the IRCTC website as the
1 NOVEMBER 2014
"While on board, travellers can
share the real-time live train
location through GPS and send
it to their friends' Whatsapp. If
you have a wait-listed ticket,
RailYatri predicts its
confirmation probability using
past history on the same train,
which helps users take more
informed travel decisions"
– RailYatri CEO Manish Rathi
competition from e-travel portals has
increased manyfold.
"We are increasing the overall capacity of the IRCTC site, apart from several
other initiatives. All these are a part of
our new IT policy for providing better
services to the passengers," Gowda had
said earlier.
Thus, to provide more hassle-free
services to users, the railways have
launched new initiatives like e-ticketing,
freight e-demand system, freight e-diversion system, Go India smart card and
train enquiry mobile app in the past
four months.
All this has not deterred private players from continuing to eat into the railways e-commerce platter.
Enter the likes of Xigo, Railyatri and
TravelKhanna e-commerce websites
which help rail passengers from travelrelated queries to food, books and even
customised travel plans on railways at
their berths.
1 NOVEMBER 2014
"While on board, travellers can share
the real-time live train location through
GPS and send it to their friends' Whatsapp. If you have a wait-listed ticket,
RailYatri predicts its confirmation probability using past history on the same
train, which helps users take more informed travel decisions," RailYatri chief
executive Manish Rathi.
These sites and their mobile apps ensure that not just railway travel but even
your last mile connectivity till your
doorstep is planned out as many have
tie-ups with taxi companies, hotel and
various tourism boards.
"Our trains application download has
increased by 47 percent and PNR status
app by a whopping 66 percent. This
clearly reaffirms the usability of our
apps for rail commuters," Xigo chief executive Aloke Bajpai.
"With respect to rail commuters, we
wanted to go a step ahead and have revamped our trains app by allowing users
to call budget hotels for free via a tollfree number, enable the facility to order
food while on a train journey through
third-party providers," he added.
But for TravelKhana.com chief executive Pushpinder Singh it's all about having a peaceful meal on the train while
the picturesque countryside passes by.
And he is not just offering the traditional
aloo-puris or pethas at the station; his
sophisticated app tracks train movement so that your curry does not lose its
whiff when it arrives at your berth.
"Our average client is a train traveller
and wants a decent quality, well-packed
meal. Typically we have a large number
of youngsters, students and professionals ordering with us," Pushpinder Singh
said.
"Our service is unique in the way we
connect with the restaurants. We track
the train and help the vendors with accurate deliveries. As a result, we have the
highest rate of success in the industry, in
which we are the pioneers," he added.
But is there any more space for such
apps or will the bubble just last till the
industry gets consolidated and a few
players opt out? Neither, say the experts,
citing the sheer size of the market.
"Travel constitutes nearly 70 percent
of the entire e-commerce business and
railways is a large segment in it. With the
increasing number of rail passengers
using mobiles, the trend and the businesses are bound to grow," said Ashvin
Vellody, partner, management consultancy KPMG in India.
Indian Railways, the world's second
largest network under a single management, runs 12,617 trains to carry over 23
million passengers per day connecting
more than 7,172 stations across its
116,000 km network. The passenger
movement per day is equivalent to moving the entire population of Australia.
In addition, the Railways operates
more than 7,421 freight trains carrying
about three million tonnes of cargo
every day. n
INDIA FIRST 21
Persional
Finance
A Taxing Truth
Thanks to a new government regulation,
many insurance payouts will now come
after a tax cut
I
n a quiet move, the impact of
which is being felt only now, the
statute books have been amended
to deduct tax at source on some insurance payouts, which could particularly
affect people above 45 and those with
single-premium policies.
This, by way of a new section – 194DA
– in the Income Tax Act, 1961, that took
effect on October 1, and surprised many
policyholders who got to know of it after
they received a communiqué from their
insurance companies. Many more are
still unaware.
"Section 194D envisages deduction of
tax at source on the life insurance policy
payouts which are not exempt under
Section 10(10D)," said Vibha Padalkar,
executive director and chief financial officer of HDFC Standard Life Insurance.
Under this section, life insurance
companies have to deduct a two-percent tax at source on aggregate payouts
exceeding Rs.100,000 during a financial
year under life policies. In case where
PAN card details are not available, the
deduction shall be 20 percent.
For the record, Section 10(10D) of the
Income Tax Act exempts any sum received under an insurance policy that is
paid from April 1, 2012, if the premium
for any of the years during the currency
of the policy is within 10 percent of the
actual sum assured.
For policies taken between April 1,
2003, to March 31, 2012, the condition
was that the premium shall not exceed
20 percent of the actual capital sum assured. The clauses were not applicable if
the amount received was on account of
the death of an insured.
"The actual capital sum assured excludes the value of any premium agreed
to be returned, as also benefit by way of
bonus or otherwise that is over and
above the policy amount," said C.L.
Baradhwaj, senior vice president, Bharti
Axa Life Insurance.
While life insurers try to ensure that
the premium amount is compliant with
the Income Tax Act at the product-de22 INDIA FIRST
sign stage itself, there are some set of
policyholders who could be affected by
the new provisions, Baradhwaj said.
"All single-premium policies would
be the immediate casualty, as the premia paid in one instalment would generally exceed 10 percent of the sum
assured," he said.
He said it is possible that people could
be paying premiums higher than the 1020 percent limit set by the new provisions on account of their personal
health, as also many other reasons. In
"Section 194D envisages
deduction of tax at source on
the life insurance policy
payouts which are not exempt
under Section 10(10D),"
– Vibha Padalkar, chief financial
officer of HDFC Standard Life
Insurance
such cases, too, the TDS liability could
arise.
"It is important to note that a person
aged, say, 50 years, pays a higher premium for the same sum assured when
compared to a person who is 35 years
old. Higher the age, higher risk and
higher the premium," Baradhwaj added.
Industry officials also maintain that
life insurance companies have been
asked to make a TDS deduction under
policies that are deviant of Section
10(10D), since some people were not reporting the same in their tax returns.
According to Baradhwaj, if the condition of 10-20 percent is not satisfied, all
benefits payable -- pertaining to the maturity, survival, or surrender -- under a
life insurance policy, excluding the
death benefits, shall be liable for TDS.
"Policy loan is not a benefit. It's a repayable obligation. Hence it is not taxable."
A marketing official of the state-run
Life Insurance Corporation of India said
that policyholders in rural and small
towns would be severely affected by the
new provisions, as they might not have
PAN cards.
At the same time conflicting views are
being expressed on pension polices. According to one view, pension policies are
outside the newly introduced section
194DA of the Income Tax Act as they are
outside the scope of Section 10(10D).
The argument: Pension policies do
not have any death benefit like ULIP
Pension Policies, or have only miniscule
death benefits like in the current regime
pension schemes, so they do not qualify
as a pure life insurance policy.
But a Supreme Court advocate and
expert in insurance and company laws,
D. Varadarajan, differs, raising a fundamental question: "How do life insurance
companies sell pension policies if they
are not treated as life insurance policies?"
"The regulator's licence allows insurance companies to only deal with the
life insurance business. Hence it will be
incongruous with the Insurance Act to
keep pension policies outside the ambit
of life insurance policy," Varadarajan
said.
He said pension policy is also a life insurance policy, as it covers the risk of living longer, as opposed to the
conventional life insurance policies
which cover the risk of dying early.
Meanwhile, industry officials agree
that life insurers have to communicate
with their policyholders about the impact of the new section of the Income
Tax Act.
"It's also important to create awareness among the sales force on the need
to tell their customers on the need for
proper disclosures to the authorities so
that insurance firms can avoid unnecessary policy cancellation requests later,"
Baradhwaj said.
"Software systems also need upgrade
to ensure compliance with the new requirements." n
1 NOVEMBER 2014
Energy
Barmer: The
Transformed
Town
The finding of hydrocarbon
reserves has turned Barmer from
a derelict desert town of Rajasthan
to the state’s prime property
O
nce known as "kala pani"
where government employees
were sent on punishment
postings, Rajasthan's Barmer district situated along the India-Pakistan border
and part of Thar desert is today witnessing transformational changes.
The discovery of hydrocarbon reserves and the fastest growing production profile have catapulted Barmer to
among the state's front-runner districts.
The transformational journey from
the bottom of the development ladder
to the top traverses a decade. In 2004,
Cairn India discovered the Mangala oil
field, considered the country's biggest
such on land. Before this, the government's annual economical surveys categorised Barmer as a district with "zero
industrial potential". But things have
taken a 180 degree swing since then. The
once sleepy and dusty town is today
competing with metros, perhaps not in
ambiance but definitely in terms of
house rent and land price.
Recalling the old days, Om Prakash
Ojha of Jodhpur said: "My father was in
the police service and I still remember
those two most difficult years of my student life when he was transferred to
Barmer. It was a place where managing
every basic necessity of life was a challenge. There was no pure water to drink,
no decent place to stay, no market and
no means of transportation."
Today, villages of this district are witnessing a silent water revolution. Gone
are the days when it was infamous as
"Kala Pani" due to the scarcity of
potable water. The production of crude
oil and the utilization of latest technology have provided an out-of-the-box solution to the problem: drinking water
facility at just the swipe of a card at Any
1 NOVEMBER 2014
Time Water machines.
"It gives us immense satisfaction to
witness that the community where we
work is developing at such pace. We expect this growth journey to continue in
coming decades," Nilesh Jain, head of
Corporate Social Responsibility at Cairn
India, said.
Cairn's prolific Barmer oilfield has
contributed over Rs. 35,000 crore ($6 billion) to the government's exchequer in
taxes and profits since production
"If you want to buy property or
are looking for a house on rent,
then it may come as a shock
for you. Rent of a double
bedroom house may go as high
as Rs.20,000-Rs.40,000 per
month and a three-bedroom
house between Rs.40,000 and
Rs.60,000 a month”
– Ramesh Kumar, a local
property dealer
started five years ago. Crude oil production from the block has helped in reducing the import bill by Rs.119,000 crore
till the March 31 end of fiscal 2013-14.
For a nation that imports more than 70
percent of its oil requirements, the output from the Barmer oilfield accounts
for close to 25 percent of domestic crude
production.
The discovery of Mangala has transformed the socio-economic landscape
of the region as well. Landowners who
were dependent on sporadic rainfall to
sow and harvest the bajra (peral millet)
crop have seen their fortunes rise by
selling their land to Cairn and also to the
Jindal Group's JSW, which operates a
huge power plant in the district.
Driven by the entrepreneurial spirit of
the local community, the service economy has been booming. "Barmer, which
used to have a couple of hotels in 2003,
now boasts of 18 hotels," said Pravin
Sodha of Sanchal Fort – a newly-constructed hotel with a heritage look. This
is the first sign of the growing tourist industry in the district, which otherwise
doesn't have much to offer to tourists.
"We are trying to develop activitybased tourism here and the presence of
oil companies assures us of fair business
round the year," Sodha added.
"There used to be only one ATM in the
town about 6-7 years back. Now, almost
all private and nationalised banks have
opened their branches and ATMs in the
city," Vikram Singh Taratra, a local resident who has seen the city transforming
over the years, said.
Surprisingly, there are almost 2,0002,500 taxis, including over 300 Toyota Innova maxicabs, plying on the narrow
roads of the city. "These cabs are being
used by the corporate houses that have
come here in the last few years to carry
their employees from one place to another," Taratra added.
Land and real estate property rates in
Barmer are higher than in state capital
Jaipur.
"If you want to buy property or are
looking for a house on rent, then it may
come as a shock for you. Rent of a double bedroom house may go as high as
Rs.20,000-Rs.40,000 per month and a
three-bedroom
house
between
Rs.40,000 and Rs.60,000 a month,
Ramesh Kumar, a local property dealer,
said. n
INDIA FIRST 23
A
s the Narendra Modi government gears up with its mammoth mission to clean the river
Ganga, details are being worked out to
plant thousands of indigenous trees
with high water retention in the Himalayas to help increase its water level
and enhance its flow to be able to wash
away the muck thrown into it, an official
said.
A senior official from the Water Resources and Ganga Rejuvenation Ministry said indigenous species such as
oak, spruce, fir and walnut will be
planted along the course of the Ganga,
which provides water to over 40 percent
of India's population across 11 states, to
ensure more water in the river.
"Trees like walnut and oak, which are
native to the Himalayas, absorb water
and then release it slowly," a senior official from the ministry said. "This ensures recharging of local water bodies
and high water level in the soil. This in
turn ensures that the water level in the
river remains normal," the official
added.
Explaining the procedure, he said if
the water level in local river bodies is
maintained, this in turn maintains
moisture in the soil.
"When the soil is moistened, it will not absorb
the river water;
hence
the
water level
in the
river will increase," the official said.
"The water retained by these trees
also gives birth to several springs which
contribute to many tributaries of the
Ganga," said the official.
Over 2,500km long, the Ganga flows
through one of the most populated regions of the Indo-Gangetic plain, supporting a population of more than 400
million, almost a third of India's total.
Deified by millions of Hindus, the Ganga
has seen more than Rs.5,000 crore (over
800 million USD) being spent on cleaning efforts in the past 28 years – but
these have had little effect.
According to experts, the Himalayas
saw massive replacement of flora during
British rule, when local trees were replaced with commercially profitable
pines.
Oak is regarded to be people's best
friend in the Himalayas due to its water
retention capability.
Pine trees, on the other hand, do not
retain much water. Moreover their needles are known for their acidic content,
which also affects soil fertility.
"The Ganga
c a n
Environment
Trees That Can
Save Ganga
The government’s plan to reforest the banks of the sacred river with
indigenous species like oak and walnut can pay rich dividends if
executed well at the ground level
be cleaned only when there is water in
the river. The plantation drive is one of
the steps to ensure this," the official
noted.
Well-known environmentalist Anil
Joshi welcomed the move and said focussing on the Ganga's catchment area
is very important for any long-term
change in the river.
"Ganga is a group of rivers. It is not
only snow fed, but many of the tributaries also get a lot of water from rain. If
there is a green cover with water retaining species, it will make a huge difference," said Joshi, who heads the
Dehradun-based Himalayan Environmental Studies and Conservation Organization (HESCO).
"There are two groups of trees. In the
upper reaches it is the oak and when
you come down, there is the sal group of
trees. These are all trees with broad
leaves," the Padma Shri-winning environmentalist
said on phone
f r o m
Dehradun.
He added that replantation of indigenous trees will also help solve the problem of floods as a higher amount of rain
water will be absorbed.
The cleaning of the Ganga first began
in 1974 when India first tried to tackle
river pollution through the Water Pollution Act. The Ganga Action Plan was
launched in 1986 and was in 1994 extended to the Yamuna, the Gomti and
other tributaries of the Ganga.
The second phase of the Ganga Action
Plan was launched in 2000 and the National Ganga River Basin Authority was
created in 2009.
The Modi government has now
launched the Clean Ganga Campaign to
draft an elaborate plan for cleaning and
rejuvenating the river from the Himalayas to Ganga Sagar in West Bengal,
where it empties into the Bay of Bengal.
The government is making long- and
short-term plans to clean up the river
and it will take
at
least
t h re e
"Trees like walnut and oak,
which are native to the
Himalayas, absorb water and
then release it slowly … This
ensures recharging of local
water bodies and high water
level in the soil. This in turn
ensures that the water level in
the river remains normal"
– A senior official from the
Water Resources and Ganga
Rejuvenation Ministry
years for the final plan to emerge.
The short-term goals include safe disposal of religious material in the river
and controlling industrial discharge. In
the medium-term, the ministry will try
to control the flow of fertiliser from
fields, while stopping the flow of sewage
into the river is one of the
long-term
goals. n
Food
In the Battle
of Sweets
Ladoos and gulab jamuns tickled Indian taste
buds more than chocolates and cakes did this
Diwali, but the competition between traditional
and modern sweets is getting stiffer by the year
26 INDIA FIRST
D
espite stiff competition from attractively
packed imported chocolates, fancy
cookies, cakes, and muffins on every Diwali, branded traditional Indian sweets – a market
estimated at Rs.49,000 crore ($8 billion) – have not
only managed to hold on to their own but have
witnessed a steady rise in sales due to an expanding market, rising incomes and, most importantly,
the emotional value associated with them, outlet
owners say.
Sweets like kaju katli (sweet cake made of
cashew nut powder and sugar), patisa (sweet flaky
cakes of gram flour), mysore pak (sweet small
cakes made from butter, sugar and gram flour),
badam halwa (fried flour cooked with sugar syrup
and ghee and topped with almonds) and gulab
jamun (fried dough balls soaked in sugar syrup)
were high on the preference list of Indians this festive season.
The fact that these sweets have a long shelf life
is the key point as during Diwali, sweets are often
bought in bulk and then distributed among
friends and families over a period of several days.
"All types of barfis, especially kaju barfi along
1 NOVEMBER 2014
with patisa and gulab jamun, are selling
in good numbers as they are premium
sweets and also have a long shelf life of
around 15 days," Deepta Gupta, executive vice president of sweets and
savouries maker Bikanerwala Foods,
said.
Gupta acknowledged the rising market share of sweets like cookies, cakes,
dougnuts, and the latest rage – macaroons – that are being sold by several upscale bakeries all over the city and have
particularly caught the fancy of youngsters who may find the traditional Indian sweets boring.
"But the market is expanding and
there is space for everyone. Moreover,
the branded sweets market has increased by around 30 percent this Diwali
season as compared to last year," Gupta
added.
Bipin Sareen of Mumbai-based
Mithaivala.in too agreed that sales were
headed north but unlike Bikanervala,
1 NOVEMBER 2014
which is a renowned brand, he has to
walk the extra mile to ensure that the
cash registers keep ringing.
"Apart from the traditional branded
sweets which remain a favourite all year
round, especially during Diwali, we also
deliver other sweet items like baklava
(sweet pastry of filo filled with chopped
nuts) and fruit katli," Sareen who handles the operation and marketing of the
two-year-old web portal, said on the
phone from Mumbai.
"We are always trying to rope in small
vendors who can provide us with
unique offerings to give us an extra edge
but it's a tough task to make consumers
buy unbranded stuff," said Sareen admitting that traditional sweets continued to drive the sales helping his site to
register a whopping 200 percent rise in
sales this season.
"Moreover, laddoos will always have
an emotional bond with Indians as
compared to chocolates as mithais
"But the market is expanding
and there is space for
everyone. Moreover, the
branded sweets market has
increased by around 30
percent this Diwali season as
compared to last year”
– Deepta Gupta, executive vice
president of Bikanerwala Foods
(sweets) are a part of our culture," he
said.
Mithaivala.in offers over 400 different
types of branded sweets, chocolates and
other savouries and delivers all over
India.
Sareen's inability to convince people
to buy unbranded sweets is reasonable
as India's traditional sweets market remains largely unorganized and constantly faces threats from rising prices of
key raw materials like milk, butter, sugar
and dry fruits.
Therefore, many resort to making
sweets from contaminated and adulterated ingredients and in some cases,
even chemicals are used to keep the
costs down.
This is a major deal-breaker that is
forcing consumers to opt for other alternatives, said D.S. Rawat, secretary general of the Associated Chambers of
Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham).
"Adulteration in traditional sweets is
eroding consumers' confidence that is
fuelling chocolate demand during Diwali," Rawat said.
Rawat further said that growing acceptance of chocolates amid varied Indian palates and with people getting
more health conscious amid growing
lifestyle diseases has further added to
the woes of the Indian sweets industry.
According to Assocham, India's sweet
and snack industry is estimated at about
Rs 49,000 crore and has been growing at
a compounded annual growth rate
(CAGR) of 10 percent.
However, growing at a CAGR of about
25 percent, India's chocolate industry
size is currently worth about Rs 5,000
crore and is likely to cross Rs 7,500 crore
mark in the next couple of years.
Besides, India's per-capita chocolate
consumption is hovering at about 100
grams and urban centres account for 35
percent of the chocolate consumption
in the country.
Cadbury is leading the pack with
about 70 percent market share followed
by Nestle, Amul, Ferrero Rocher, Toblerone. n
INDIA FIRST 27
Business
Compacts Are All
the Rage
Hot-selling mini-SUVs and compact sedans
are giving much-needed momentum to
the flagging Indian car market
I
n a country where cars are seen
as an extension of one's social
status, shrinking parking spaces
and congested roads are compelling Indian buyers to shift focus to
the smaller compact segment that still
offers luxury and maximum bang for the
buck, experts maintain.
Car manufacturers also are flooding
the market with their mini sedans,
priced between Rs.500,000 and
Rs.900,000, and sports utility vehicles
(SUV) and multi-utility vehicles (MUV)
in the range of Rs.600,000 to Rs.1.2 million.
The previous United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government's policy of
lower excise of eight percent for cars
under four-metre length as compared to
sedans with 20 percent and SUVs with
24 percent gave birth to this segment.
The current National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government's decision to
28 INDIA FIRST
continue with this policy has given a further boost to the segment.
Experts feel this segment is seeing a
decent sales drive as it also offers the
right combination of space, looks, affordability, luxury and, most importantly, better fuel economy and easy
manoeuvrability in the city traffic, compared to full-size sedans. Then, these vehicles are also quite comfortable to drive
for the weekend getaways, which is becoming quite a popular recreation
among youth today.
"The compant segment has picked
quite fast in the last couple of years.
Good-looking cars at the right price
have enticed a lot of buyers, especially
those who have not been able to shift to
an upper segment," said Kumar Kandaswami, senior director at Deloitte.
"The segment has been growing at a
healthy rate of 15-16 percent, compared
to the rest of the industry - which has
even seen marginal de-growth," Kandaswami said.
Features like touchscreen multi-information display, Bluetooth connectivity,
projector headlamps, parking sensors,
day-time lamps and CD players that
were restricted to one segment above till
a few years ago, have now made their
way to compact cars as well, as auto
makers lure the young tech-savvy buyers.
According to auto expert Tutu
Dhawan, features like Bluetooth connectivity or audio controls on steering
wheel are much in demand these days
as having a chauffeur to drive you
around does not work out always for
many people.
"Today, having these accessories is a
necessity as a majority of vehicles are
self-driven and these gadgets help the
driver in focussing on the road instead
of concentrating on incoming phone
1 NOVEMBER 2014
calls or changing music tracks," Dhawan
said.
Praising the buyers who have become
more realistic, Dhawan said: "The Indian car buyer is finally coming of age
and becoming a bit realistic in choosing
the right type of vehicle to their daily requirement and family needs."
"Earlier it was like monkey-see, monkey do."
Cars like the Ford EcoSport, Honda
Amaze, Maruti Suzuki Swift Dzire and
Hyundai Xcent are the popular sub-4metre offerings. Along with other compact models like the Renault Duster,
Nissan Terrano, Maruti Suzuki Ertiga
and Honda Mobilio, they have not only
taken the market by storm but also
helped some car makers, who were
fringe players at best, to change their
fortunes.
Companies like Renault and Ford
have literally piggybacked on the seg1 NOVEMBER 2014
"The compant segment has
picked quite fast in the last
couple of years. Good-looking
cars at the right price have
enticed a lot of buyers,
especially those who have not
been able to shift to an upper
segment … The segment has
been growing at a healthy rate
of 15-16 percent, compared to
the rest of the industry - which
has even seen marginal degrowth”
– Kumar Kandaswami, senior
director at Deloitte
ment to become prominent players
overnight.
While Renault, despite a late entrant
in the Indian market, became a household name once it launched the Duster
SUV in July 2012, Ford that had tasted
limited success in its close to twodecade operations in India saw unprecedented interest among buyers
when it launched the Ecosport.
The hugely popular mini SUV got
40,000 bookings in a record 17 days
and still has a waiting period of four to
eight months in various parts of the
country.
Little wonder this segment is the one
where car-makers in India seem to be
focussing on. In the next six months, at
least half a dozen more mini-sedans and
SUVs are expected to hit the market
from makers like Maruti, Tata, Hyundai,
Mahindra, Fiat, Chevrolet and Volkswagen. n
INDIA FIRST 29
O
fficials of the state agriculture
department say 8,200 tonnes
of Kufri Jyoti and Kufri Chandramukhi varieties, grown only in the
Lahaul Valley of Lahaul-Spiti district, are
expected this season.
“A large quantity of Lahaul potatoes,
meant for cultivating fresh crops, is finding its way for consumption in northern
India owing to the high rates prevailing
there," Puran Thakur, a trader in Manali
said.
He said initially the potatoes were
sold for over Rs.3,200 per quintal (100
kg) in the wholesale market. "Now when
the harvesting has picked up in the entire Lahaul Valley, its price fluctuates
from Rs.2,400 to Rs.3,200 per quintal,"
he added.
District Agriculture Officer Madan Lal
Sharma said the harvesting of potatoes
has been completed in the Pattan area
and is now under way in the Darcha and
Jispa areas.
He said the Kufri Jyoti variety is
prominently grown in the district.
"We are expecting a yield of over 7,300
tonnes of Kufri Jyoti, which is grown on
610 hectares. The rest 900 tonnes is of
Kufri Chandramukhi and it's grown in
70 hectares," said Sharma, who is based
in Keylong, the district headquarters of
Lahaul-Spiti.
After harvesting, which begins in end
of September and lasts for a month, the
farmers transport the entire produce to
Manali for grading and marketing.
"Like last year, this year too we are
getting lucrative prices," said Darshan
Negi, a prominent potato grower in Jispa
village.
He said most of the crop is headed for
northern India for consumption rather
than selling as seed potato.
According to him, last year both potato varieties fetched Rs.2,800 per quintal on an average.
Another farmer, Krishan Bodh, said:
"This is the second consecutive year
when the growers got lucrative returns.
Otherwise farmers were dumping it at
throwaway prices of just Rs.7 or Rs.8 a
kg."
He said lower return was the main
reason that discouraged the cultivation
of potatoes.
Agriculture department surveys show
over the past decade the area under potatoes has declined in Lahaul Valley
from 2,000 hectares to about 700
hectares.
The reason, say agriculture experts, is
highly remunerative returns from exotic
vegetables, mainly broccoli and lettuce.
Currently, the total area under vegetable cultivation in the Valley, which
30 INDIA FIRST
Agriculture
Seeds of
Security
While their cultivation is declining and
raising supply concerns across the
country, potatoes from the Lahaul region
in Himachal Pradesh are increasingly in
demand
1 NOVEMBER 2014
has a cultivation season of less than five
months from May, owing to heavy snow,
is around 2,200 hectares.
Amar Chand Dogra, managing director of the Lahaul Seed Potato Growers
Cooperative Marketing Ltd, which is
based in Manali, said this season there
was 5 to 10 percent less production of
both varieties of potatoes and the size
was not optimum.
He said it was mainly due to late cultivation of the crop in May due to the extended winter spell and less rain when
the crop was maturing in August.
The marketing society, founded in the
early 1960s and which has over 2,100
members, is yet to announce the rates.
1 NOVEMBER 2014
“A large quantity of Lahaul
potatoes, meant for cultivating
fresh crops, is finding its way
for consumption in northern
India owing to the high rates
prevailing there"
– Puran Thakur, a trader in
Manali
Every year, growers, mainly from West
Bengal, Bihar, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh,
Punjab, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and
the northeastern states buy potatoes
from the society and directly from the
farmers as seeds for crops.
The history of cultivating potatoes in
the Lahaul Valley dates to 1854 when
missionary A.W. Hide from Germany established a farm near Keylong, some 350
km from state capital Shimla.
In 1965, the then deputy commissioner of Lahaul, K.S. Bains, brought improved varieties of potato seeds that
triggered prosperity in the region.
For the first time, the Indian government has decided to import potatoes
from countries like Europe and Pakistan
to ensure sufficient supplies till January.
Currently, potatoes are being retailed
at Rs.35-40 per kg across the country. n
INDIA FIRST 31
A
fter almost a week of action
with all eight teams playing at
least one match each in the Indian Super League (ISL), the performances have been nothing to write home
about. And actor John Abraham, coowner of NorthEast United FC, was
quick to realise that promotion of football should begin in the region before
one starts looking at the bigger picture.
As if to remind the Indian football authorities, FIFA general secretary Jerome
Valcke, like a broken record, said the
country should concentrate more on
developing the sport at the grassroots
level and ISL should be used as scaffolding in building the edifice. For him one
of the pillars of that will be the 2017
Under-17 World Cup that India is hosting.
Any sporting event in India should
not be viewed purely as a commercial
venture whatever the market forces
might dictate. It should generate
enough money for it to plough much of
it back into the game. The first prerequisite for all the franchises should be floating their academies to take the sport
from their level down to the masses.
Like in all spheres of life in this country, the so-called middle class will have
to nurture sports also, but football is one
sport that can go right down to the lowest stratum of society. A couple of the
top European clubs lent their names to
academies which charge prohibitive
fees and train the children of high-end
income group.
The first impressions of the league's
novelty is it has succeeded in bringing to
the stadia sizable crowds which had run
away from the game in the last couple of
decades. Even if one concedes that gathering 60,000 spectators for a football
match in Kolkata is no big deal, the
25,000-strong response in Delhi is heartening.
That's not all for football. As suggested in these columns, John is determined to take his team's matches to
other cities in the catchment areas of the
northeast. If other franchises do it, more
and more cities can be involved in promoting the game.
The league could do with a restless futurist like Lalit Modi to bring in some
devices to make it more enticing for the
football fan, like he introduced cheer
girls in the Indian Premier League (IPL)
and other sports leagues are following
his glamour quotient by roping in Bollywood.
The film stars are proving to be better
promoters of sports. They have given
such a big boost to kabaddi which was
otherwise seen as a rustic, menial rural
32 INDIA FIRST
Sports
Much
Ground to
Cover
Football has to capture the imagination of the
masses before it can truly take off in India
1 NOVEMBER 2014
sport. Many converts now say that it is
much more exciting in such a short duration of play than any other glamorous
sport. People now want to see more
such physical activity.
Football has to catch the imagination of the people. For that to happen,
knowing Italians Alessandro Del Piero
and Marco Materazzi and Spaniards
Joan Capdevila and Luis Garcia and
Frenchmen David Trezeguet and
Robert Pires is not enough -- the fans
should identify themselves with the
Sunil Chhetris, Syed Rahim Nabis,
Gouramangi Singhs, Subrata Pals and
Mehtab Hossains.
Of course, they may now notice
Bhaichung Bhutia more as a celebrity as
compared to a versatile I.M. Vijayan.
Italian coach of FC Pune City, Franco
Colamba, saying the ISL stint will add to
his son Davide's understanding of football, is maybe something unless he is
talking like a good guest. Davide himself
admits that his ambition to play for Italy
is pretty tough because he has to succeed first in Serie A and it is tough to get
into the top division Italian league. Then
what to talk of Indians, they are surely
1 NOVEMBER 2014
“Knowing Italians Alessandro
Del Piero and Marco Materazzi
and Spaniards Joan Capdevila
and Luis Garcia and Frenchmen
David Trezeguet and Robert
Pires is not enough -- the fans
should identify themselves
with the Sunil Chhetris, Syed
Rahim Nabis, Gouramangi
Singhs, Subrata Pals and
Mehtab Hossains”
overawed by the presence of big names.
Frankly, the level of football played in
the ISL is average and the gap between
the Indians and the overseas players has
to be bridged – Balwant becoming the
first Indian to score in the ISL notwithstanding. And Subrata Pal saying that
the standard of ISL is better than ILeague is no certificate for the pro
league.
Valcke had the last word – that a twomonth league is no substitute for the
six-month-long I-League which remains
the national tournament, thus putting
an end to speculation that ISL will ultimately devour I-League.
For all the hype and taking teams
around like a circus troupe will neither
enrich Indian football nor make Indian
players skillful.
If at all, it will give them some confidence of rubbing shoulders with the
game's elites -- albeit of yesteryears. In
the IPL it worked to the advantage of the
Indians just because there is intrinsic
worth in the players who have come
through age-group competitions – as
also the participation of cricket's current top internationals.
It is not to run down Indian footballers who are often compared with
those playing for strife-torn Afghanistan
and Palestine. A week ago Palestine beat
India and all that it did was to get Dutch
coach Wim Koevermans sacked.
The AIFF will suggest another name
and he will also meet the same fate after
conning the media with quotes like India
should be in the top 100 of the world with
their skills. It sounds good because India
are presently ranked 157. And that's not
good for Indian football. n
INDIA FIRST 33
Health
Time to
Tackle
Trauma
The high incidence of
trauma deaths in India can
be significantly reduced
by raising awareness
about emergency care
D
ubbed the "epidemic" of
modern times, trauma claims
nearly 400,000 lives in India
every year. The deaths and disabilities
can be prevented if proper training is
imparted to the common man on how
to handle emergency care in accident
cases, experts say.
They advocate emergency medicine
courses for the common people, starting
from the school level.
"Trauma is the modern epidemic. In
2013, 400,000 young lives were lost due
to road accidents. Around 35 percent of
injuries take place on roads. Most of the
people who pass away are young males
who are the earning members of the
family," AIIMS director M.C. Misra said.
He said in India, deaths due to trauma
exceed those due to cancer and heart
diseases combined.
Apart from causing deaths in a largely
young population, trauma will, by 2020,
be ranked third for causing disabilities
among the Indian population, Mishra
added.
"Help does not reach within the
golden hour. If people are careful and
observe safety and wear helmets, then
the maximum number of deaths can be
prevented," said Misra, who is also head
of the Jai Prakash Narayan Apex Trauma
Center at AIIMS.
Sanjay Jaiswal, consultant and head of
the department emergency medicine at
Gurgaon's Paras Hospital, said: "Since
last 8 to 10 years many private hospitals
are promoting emergency medicine
courses at various levels.
"There are certain hospitals in our
country which are currently running a
three-year programme in emergency
34 INDIA FIRST
medicine in collaboration with the
United States.
"From this year, the National Board of
Examinations has also started short
courses in emergency medicine. A few
colleges in India run courses for emergency medicine recognized by the Medical Council of India (MCI)," Jaiswal
said.
"But it is all at a very primitive level.
There is still indefinite scope in this direction. Lots of effort has to be taken by
various institutions to achieve this goal,"
he added.
“Trauma is the modern
epidemic. In 2013, 400,000
young lives were lost due to
road accidents. Around 35
percent of injuries take place
on roads. Most of the people
who pass away are young
males who are the earning
members of the family"
– AIIMS director M.C. Misra
Gaurav Thukral, head of medical services at Healthcare at Home, said: "In
most trauma cases where deaths occur
before medical help arrives, there is nobody who knows what to do".
"Precious minutes are lost. People
should be trained in basic stuff like life
support," he said, adding that "if a person is not given help within three minutes of an accident, then we can lose the
person".
Thukral said there is also lack of
proper handling in case of spinal injuries.
"Such training should be included in
the school curriculum. Even a two-hour
workshop would suffice," he opined.
Agreeing with this viewpoint, Gopal
Shukla, consultant neurologist at the
trauma center of Columbia Asia Hospital, said: "I recommend trauma care at
the school-level so that every person in
this country is trained to save a life
whenever needed".
According to Misra, the government
was also trying to make efforts by putting up ambulances on highways like
the Jaipur-Delhi highway. "A better
trauma system and both pre-hospital
and post-hospital care are needed".
A senior official in the ministry of road
transport said the government also proposes a complete revamp of road safety
laws in India.
The Road Transport and Safety Bill
2014 has proposed an ambitious target
of reducing 200,000 deaths due to road
accidents in first five years, which constitutes 25 percent of the total traffic
deaths.
Provision for enforcement of modern
safety technologies, creation of a motor
accident fund for immediate relief to the
accident victim and special emphasis on
safety of schoolchildren are some of the
measures by which the bill aims to prevent these deaths.
Other measures include strict enforcement of laws against drunken driving and increasing the penalty for such
crimes.
Said Thukral: "Such a bill can easily
provide the much needed help to people
in trauma cases". n
1 NOVEMBER 2014
B
e it inflation or the risk of consuming pesticide-laden vegetables, urbanites are majorly
taking to farming in their apartments
and the kitchen gardens are sprouting
not only peace of mind but also e-businesses.
The phenomenon reminds one of the
bygone era of a spice garden in the backyard of a bungalow or grandmother's
vegetable farming hobby. Today, it is
conducted in the balconies, verandas
and terraces of apartments.
"The kitchen garden concept is fast
catching on today, more so for want of
more organic grown vegetables in our
own pots and pans. More and more
groups are forming on Facebook and
keeping the members motivated," Pragnya A. Nair, proprietor of niche website
Plantex.in, said.
"Most of the government nurseries
are gearing up for the requirements of
seedlings and plants for kitchen gardens," Nair said.
So popular has the concept become
that even e-retailing giant Amazon has
jumped into the fray while a dozen other
niche online retailers have come up to
cater to the needs of this segment.
"Not just Amazon, many portals have
started selling seeds and plants and it is
expected to increase. Trees of all kinds
are sold online. Sizes range from small
pots containing a tree sapling to even
seven-to-eight footers," said Bangalorebased Manikandan Pattabiraman, entrepreneur
and
blogger
at
geekgardener.in.
He said that even equipment like
trowels, secateurs, fork hoes, khurpas,
flat weeders, grass trimmers, lawn mowers, hand rakes, brush cutters and chain
saws, as well as pots, containers and
planters are sold online.
Not to be left behind, even micro-irrigation equipment is made available
through many websites.
There is a wide range of seeds, from
vegetables to rare African orchids starting from Rs.50 and going up to Rs.1,500
per pack depending upon herbal, natural or hybrid varieties (excluding delivery charges).
Samir Kumar, director of category
management at Amazon India, said that
the e-retail giant's lawn and garden category which was launched in March
2014 has seen a month-on-month increase in sales of about 25 percent.
"Live plants are one of our fastest
moving product categories. There is an
increasing trend of customers maintaining a small balcony garden and use the
kitchen balcony as a home herb and
vegetable garden," Samir Kumar said.
1 NOVEMBER 2014
Lifestyle
A ‘Growing’ Trend
Kitchen gardens are becoming a way of life and making
a living in urban India. Here’s how and why
"Live plants are one of our fastest moving product categories.
There is an increasing trend of customers maintaining a small
balcony garden and use the kitchen balcony as a home herb and
vegetable garden”
– Samir Kumar, director of category management at Amazon India
However, can the rise in hobby or serious home farming be sustainable business model for these booming
e-businesses? 'Yes!' says Gaurav Gupta,
senior director, Deloitte in India.
"Its all a demand and supply matrix.
If there is a demand then the first to take
the opportunity of servicing that demand will be the e-commerce platforms
as it is cheap with no overhead costs and
direct business model.
"It is also the most practical way to
provide customised solutions or products for their clientele whatever there
need be in this case accessories or other
material for a kitchen garden."
No matter how much the euphoria
around the freedom of growing one's
own vegetables or herbs increase, is this
sustainable in the long-term to tackle issues like food security?
"There are articles which suggest that
up until the 1940s a significant amount
of food was grown in cities. Urban
spaces, despite the limited space availability if captured and used to grow food
– particularly fruits and vegetables – can
undoubtedly impact both food and nutritional security in a positive manner,"
said Greenpeace India campaigner Shivani Shah. n
INDIA FIRST 35
Art
A Brush with Fame
By paying tribute to 50 Australian greats on canvas, an Indian immigrant artist has
made a gesture of patriotism to his adopted country like probably no one down
under has ever done before – and that is not going unnoticed
I
t's a 50x1.5-metre canvas that took
Melbourne-based, Kerala-origin
Sedunath Prabhakar 18 months
and AUS$7,000 to create as a tribute to
50 Australian greats, both living and
dead, thereby bringing alive the country's history. It is set to be unveiled this
month.
"Through my 50 portraits, I wanted to
narrate the history of Australia. The
exact date and the venue of a two-weeklong exhibition where my painting will
be displayed would be decided soon. It
is for the first time such an exhibition is
being held in Australia," 40-year-old
Prabhakar said on the phone from Melbourne. Among the greats depicted are
cricketer Donald Bradman; Julia Gillard,
the country's first woman prime minister; explorer Captain James Cook; General John Monash, who saw action in
World War I; literature Nobel winner
Patrick White; aboriginal artist Emily
Kame Kngwarreye; swimmer Ian Thorpe
and footballer Tim Cahill, to name a few.
"I first sketched the person and then
used the acrylic medium to paint. In all,
it took me 18 months from start to finish, which included research on selecting the 50 eminent Australians who
should be portrayed," said Prabhakar.
Hailing from Kidangoor in Kottayam
district, Prabhakar graduated in fine arts
from the prestigious Baroda School of
Arts in 1998 and migrated to Melbourne
in 2008 along with his wife, who is now
a social worker.
"It cost me more than 7,000 (Australian) dollars for the material, besides
my time. It took me around three to four
days for each portrait," said Prabhakar
who takes classes in painting, as also
Carnatic music, which is a passion with
him.
Thiruvallam Bhasi, editor of a Malayalam magazine published from Melbourne, said that Australian Prime
Minister Tony Abbot, at a meeting of editors in August, was so happy on being
told of Prabhakar's effort that he put his
arm around him and congratulated him.
"The Federation of Indian Associations of Victoria and the Malayalee com36 INDIA FIRST
Painter Prabhakar being congragulated by Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbot, when he was told of his painting.
Painter Prabhakar giving finishing touches to the portrait of John Monash (Army Commander who took part in the First world war).
munity has taken keen interest in the
upcoming exhibition and is extending
all support to make it a grand success,"
Bhasi said.
Prabhakar has decided to hold similar
exhibitions in other Australian states.
And, for his future projects he will explore the possibility of a fusion of Australia's rich artistic tradition with his
own. n
1 NOVEMBER 2014
Music
Hearing out Lucky Ali
One of the luminaries of the pop music scene in India, the 56-year-old hitmaker
is all for promotion of local talent. But what is he up to these days?
B
ollywood singer, composer and
notable figure in the Indian
music industry Lucky Ali feels
satisfied with the encouragement of
local talents in music festivals and says
it helps in the growth of the industry.
"What I am seeing in the festivals is
that they are encouraging local talent
and art, for instance – Rajasthani folk
music is the part of The Great Indian October fest," the 56-year-old said on the
sidelines of the 10th edition of the Kingfisher Premium – The Great Indian Octoberfest (TGIOF) in Bangalore.
"There is big exchange of culture in
India, which is good. It's growth and that
looks nice," He said.
Best known for his chartbusting songs
"O sanam", "Anjaani rahon mei", and
"Na tum jano na hum", the musician
took the Bangalorean crowd to the soulful journey of music when he performed
live in front of his fans at the city’s EZone club recently.
1 NOVEMBER 2014
From "Tera ye aashiyana", "Dekha hai
aise bhi", "Jaane kya dhoondta hai, yeh
mera dil", "Mohabbat ki kasam" and "Aa
bhi ja", he struck the right chord with
every member present with some of his
popular tracks from his hit albums and
Bollywood movies.
"Bangalore is like my home and I al-
“What I am seeing in the
festivals is that they are
encouraging local talent and
art … There is big exchange of
culture in India, which is good”
ways receive such a warm and thunderous appreciation from all of them that it
feels great," said Lucky who launched
his first album, “Sunoh”, in 1996 and
worked as a playback singer in films and
sang songs like "Kyun chalti hai pawan",
"Ahista ahista", "Bekarar" and "Hairat
hai".
He has also been credited for albums
like "Sifar", "Aks", "Kabhi Aisa Lagta
Hai" and "Xsuie".
From music festivals, Bollywood
tracks to albums, there is so much to do
for this talented man but he has set his
priorities right.
"I always space out my work. I write
music at home. I like to spend my time
like that more now. And now that my
children are expressing themselves, so I
am now more concerned of what they
are doing. I want to see how responsible
they become as human beings," said
Lucky, who has married thrice and has
kids with all of his partners.
TGIOF, a three-day event that concluded in Bangalore on October 19, witnessed some of the world's most
celebrated music artists from across diverse genres, including Bollywood sensation Benny Dayal and awe-inspiring
The Manganiyar Seduction performing
live in front of music lovers. n
INDIA FIRST 37
Movie
Review
'Happy New Year'- it's fun to be ditsy
Subhash K.Jha
Film: "Happy New Year"; Cast: Shah Rukh Khan, Deepika Padukone, Abhishek Bachchan,
Boman Irani, Vivaan Shah, Jackie Shroff; Directed by: Farah Khan; Rating:***1/2
W
hat is it about Shah Rukh Khan that brings out the
comic accent in Deepika Padukone? She did a very
funny broad South Indian accent in Mr Khan's inspired company in the maddeningly mundane "Chennai Express". She repeats the farcical feat, this time doing a bravura
Maharashtrian accent, with the relish of bar dancer grooving
to "Kaanta laga" in her own free time.
Dancing Deepika dreams of running her own dance school
where little girls will learn to dance not for drooling men. But
just for the heck of it.
Heck she's nailed it! That's what this film is all about! It's
been made with no loftier intention than to provide lowbrow
entertainment.
"Happy New Year"(HNY)
is the cinematic equivalent
of freshly-plucked guavas
from a roadside tree. Juicy,
tempting but of indeterminate origin. Eat and enjoy at
your own risk.
Some of the stuff passing
off as humour in this tall of
tale of a bunch of losers who
dance their way into a billion-rupee
heist,
is
pretty....ummm....ugh. Abhishek Bachchan, who plays
another interesting character, just vomits on unsuspecting victims to get his
way.
HNY is the kind of film
that doesn't allow us to
dwell on the crimes of excesses, of which there is
plenty in this stretched-out
plot. The carnival-like
flavour of presentation is
not quite the aesthetic experience that one expects from
a film with such a classy
line-up of actors and technicians. Instead what we get
in abundance are in-house jokes where Shah Rukh Khan does
dialogue take-offs with his co-stars from his own famous films.
Speaking of take-offs, there is an excess of shirtless scenes
featuring Mr Khan and Sonu Sood who seem to enjoy dropping their shirts for no other reason but to become instant eyecandy for the ladies in the audience. For most of the playing
time the main actors play graceless dancers masquerading as
wannabe winners at an international dance contest whose
owner Jackie Shroff(scowling constantly) has a strange version
to all things Indian.
38 INDIA FIRST
Of course that gives our five heroes(and I am including
Deepika in the list) a chance to dance with the Indian flag
being waved defiantly at all the unpatriotic spoilsports.
The formula is fearsomely in-your-face. You can't miss the
broadness of the humour and the patriotic spirit. Every emotion is like a message written on a t-shirt. Every actor seems to
have been given the brief to be as loud as possible. No wonder
Sonu Sood plays a partially deaf character. It offsets the plot's
ditsy celebration of dumbness.
Deepika is one of the more interesting characters in Farah's
new 3-hour dance-heist marathon. She sparkles in the dance
and the talkie portions. Abhishek Bachchan's tapori act is written with over-the-top intentions. He manages to
play the character with a
certain inbuilt cool that
perhaps was not there in
plot. But then, who knows
what was and wasn't there?
Even Farah would be flummoxed if asked.
Sonu Sood , Boman Irani
and young Vivaan Shah suffer because of sketchily
written parts but still succeed in making their presence felt, specially Sood
who as per character sketch
plays a 'bad' dancer which
he is not by any stretch of
the imagination.
But it's the King Khan's
show all the way , make no
mistake of that. The director misses no chance to
make Shah Rukh's 'loser'
character Charlie appear
emerge a winner. Shah
Rukh even has a long
rooftop fight sequence with
Korean dancers which has
no bearing on anything but
the hero's 8-pack midriff.
Somewhere in the scramble to engage our attention, the plot
comes up with filmmaker Anurag Kashyap and musician
Vishal Dadlani playing closet-gay reality-show judges who are
blackmailed by Charlie into eligibility.
Heroes, in case we forget, can do no wrong; Even when they
are caught doing wrong. For all its sins of excesses HNY is a
full-on paisa-vasool experience. It is a rollicking rumbustious
ode to the spirit of whopping howling shrieking and bantering
camaraderie. Filled with tongue-in-cheek episodes of hipswaying audacity, the all-pervasive madness is infectious. n
1 NOVEMBER 2014
Bollywood
Hope to find somebody
interesting: Parineeti Chopra
A
ctress Parineeti Chopra, who is single, says she hopes to meet her Mr. Right
soon. "I have not found someone interesting yet. For a long time, I have
been looking for the right guy, but haven't found yet," she said humorously. The actress added: "But still I am very happy and hope to find my love
soon. I hope to find somebody interesting
this year." She was speaking at the "Kill
Dil" song launch, which also coincided with her 26th birthday.
Another thing on her to do
list is to get some singing
offer soon. "Singing is
my first love. Hope I get
great offers for singing
this year. I will see to it
that it happens this
year," she said. Talking about her role in,
"Kill Dil", she said
that she is playing "a
very sophisticated
and rich girl".
"I don't come from a
small town in this film, so
it's a different experience altogether," said the actress who has
often been seen in the-girl-next-door
avatar on the big screen. Directed by Shaad Ali, "Kill Dil" also features Ranveer Singh, Ali Zafar and Govinda. n
Awards matter to
me: Deepika
A
ctress Deepika Padukone, who has lifted several awards
last year for her performances in "Chennai Express" and
""Goliyon Ki Raasleela - Ram Leela", says that awards are important as it is sign of appreciation and hardwork. "Awards
matter to me. I would have been very disappointed if was not
given any award last year. No matter what we say but at the end
of the day, the person who goes there and wins the award feels
good about it," the 28-year-old said. "It's a sign of appreciation
and hard work. If you are winning one then you are doing a
good job," she added. The actress, who made her Bollywood debut in 2007 with "Om Shanti Om", also feels that
her 2012 released film "Cocktail" was the turning point
of her career. "Some of my films didn't work so I went
through that rough phase and I think I made use of that
time and realized my mistakes. In stead of being bogged
down, I made use of it. 'Cocktail' was the turning point in
my career," said Deepika who is currently seen in Shah Rukh
Khan starrer "Happy New Year". n
1 NOVEMBER 2014
INDIA FIRST 39
Hollywood
Lopez to sign
multi-million
dollar deal?
S
inger-actress Jennifer Lopez is reportedly in the
final stages of securing a multi-million dollar deal
to perform in Las Vegas.
The 45-year-old is being offered $350,000 per show
at The Axis at Planet Hollywood as part of a 72-gig deal
over a one or two-year period, reports tmz.com.
It is the same venue where singer Britney Spears performs and earns $310,000 per show.
However, Spears is also said to be working out a deal
to perform 96 gigs over two years, which will take her
earning to $475,000 per show. n
Jennifer
Lawrence's
pricey house
A
ctress Jennifer Lawrence has reportedly forked out over $7 million on a
new house here. "The Hunger Games”
star's five-bedroom house boasts a home
gym and gourmet kitchen, reports eonline.com. The house also has a sizeable
swimming pool and a stone courtyard
which leads to a pond. n
40 INDIA FIRST
1 NOVEMBER 2014
Book
review
Indian soldiers' monumental
contribution in First World War
Raja Menon
Title: India and the First World War; Author: Vedica Kant;
Publisher: Roli Books; Pages 255.
T
he First World War was probably the last
war that soldiers went to with a sense of
glory and the feeling that something good
may come of it. The war itself was to prove otherwise, particularly as the leaders of the military
proved inadequate to either understand slaughter
on an industrial scale or to manage the administration and logistics for millions of men.
The Indian army, an all-volunteer force, was one
of the few that could be thrown into the trenches to
stem
the
tide
against
'civilization' as the purpose
of the war was defined. Raised, outfitted and equipped
to fight Britain's
colonial battles in
tropical climes, the
Indian troops were
ill-equipped to deal
with a European
winter. All troops
were unprepared to
deal
with
the
slaughter of the
trenches, but the
Indians, more than
the
rest,
were
stunned by the lack
of physical contact
of trench warfare
and by the death
caused by firing at
remote distances.
Great literature
came out of the First
World War in English, and a whole
generation of Indians were exposed to the poetry of Sassoon and
Owen. As the leader of the Indian expeditionary
corps quite rightly noted - all combatants from Europe would have their experience in the war
recorded and published - but the poor Indian soldier, who went loyally to Europe to fight a war, neither comprehended nor agreed to have a chronicler.
In that sense Vedica Kant has done a great service
by writing this book about an army that lost 74,000
solders to the British cause without or at least with
little dissent. In macro terms, the Indian nation's
1 NOVEMBER 2014
contribution to the war was truly monumental.
The author refers to an initial reluctance on the
part of Britain to involve Indian troops in a white
man's war, for the consequences it could have on
keeping the Indians without home rule after the
war. But the urgency of the situation on the western
front necessitated throwing the Indian army into
the cauldron.
Although the soldiers went without demur, Indian nationalists expected that Indian participation
would force the
British morally to
give India home rule
after the war. As
quoted, Bal Gangadhar Tilak advised
Indians to buy war
bonds as they would
be uncashed after
the war to trade for
home rule. So incumbent upon the
Indian soldier was
the loyalty to cross
Kala Pani, to die for
the honour of the
regiment, and to
come back to India
without
having
been corrupted by
the idea that he had
defeated white men.
The tragedy for
the soldier returning
home, however, was
that there was no
opportunity to put
into practice all that
he had learnt in 'Vilayat'. Quite often
the soldier was pensioned off to his village. In fact,
shortly after the end of the war occurred the tragedy
of Jallianwala Bagh which, conceding that 30 percent of the army was recruited from the Punjab, was
a slap on the face of the Indian soldier, followed by
the infamous Rowlatt Act which indefinitely
stretched the wartime restrictions to civil liberty beyond 1919.
A century later Vedica Kant poignantly illuminates a forgotten chapter of India's military history. n
INDIA FIRST 41
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