Insecure daughter, Betrayed wife, National heroine, tough dictator. She was many things to many people and even today she is the most remembered political figure across the nation. Travel anywhere and ask and the one person they all remember is Indira Amma or Indiraji.
Sagarika Ghose's book, Indira almost throws a floodlight on the woman who ruled the nation for two decades.
“Who was she really close to? Her mother?
Ghose has in fact taken the stylistic freedom of writing writes letters to Indira throughout the book as a way of understanding her better. Is there something about her that still eludes her, she says: ''Who was she really close to? Her mother? Feroze? Sanjay? Who did she feel really intimate with?
These are searching questions with difficult answers. After all, she was an incredibly paradoxical person – and Sagarika admits that that was the reason she wrote those letters because there were so many things about her that she found mystifying. How could someone as astute as her, for example not see what she was doing by encouraging Sanjay the way she did? Or building up a Bhindranwale and then sending the Army into a place of worship? Could she not see the effects this would have? She must have
Indira Gandhi was a very complex person. No doubt about it. There have been more than 800 books written about her and yet one can write reams about the woman who foxed everyone. Her contradictory personality foxes and intrigues me, like someone who is all sweetness and charm one minute and the next minute a cold and aloof stranger.
It was 1971 when Indira Gandhi defied the US and liberated Bangladesh from Pakistan in face of strong global opposition. But she showed steely resolve in her decision and was hailed by no less than Opposition leader of that time Atal Bihari Vajpayee as Durga riding a tiger. A Congressman from Assam famously coined the term India is Indira, Indira is India. The woman-politician had arrived on the world stage dominated by men.
The nation fondly remembered her as the Durga who won India its first decisive military victory in centuries and the strong stateswoman who had the courage to look American bullying in the eye and not blink. But then she is as much remembered as the terrible dictator who imposed the Emergency and tried to destroy institutions ranging from her own party to the judiciary; she is also seen as the woman who shied away from tackling the many of the problems that afflict Indian democracy even today. Even so, for politicians, Indira is the very definition of a strong leader, and a role model on both sides of the aisle.
In this spellbinding story of her life, journalist Sagarika Ghose has excavated not just Indira the iron lady and political leader but also the flesh-and-blood woman. Born in 1917, Indira soon found her life swept up by Gandhi’s call for freedom and Swadeshi. Her family home became a hub of the national movement and Indira marinated in a political environment from an early age. But she also saw politics of another kind. Her sickly mother and she were the targets of unkind attacks from her aunts. And her celebrated father, who had no patience for illness, was desperate to sculpt his daughter into his version of perfection – but Indira simply couldn’t keep up with his expectations. Despite Nehru’s disappointment and dismissiveness, Indira rose to become the unquestioned high command of the Congress and, indeed, the most powerful prime minister India has ever had.
This no-holds-barred biographical portrait looks for answers to lingering issues: from why Indira revoked the Emergency to her son Sanjay’s curious grip over her; and from her bad marriage and love affairs to her dangerous religious politics. This is the only book you need to read about Indira Gandhi.
She reminds one of Tennyson’s poem, The Lady Of Shalott. A person of great personal charm and grace, yet caged in a fortress or a castle of her own insecurities, anger, suspicions and paranoia of others. She was indeed a half hearted dictator because while she imposed the Emergency, she also lifted it. The only “dictator” in history to put an end to her own dictatorship and submit to the power of the vote.
India’s most formidable politician, she was someone who dominated our political narrative and forged a cult of personality so deep that we still feel the reverberations today. Indira Gandhi loomed larger than life for much of India’s post-independence history. On the centenary of her birth, renowned journalist and author Sagarika Ghose takes a look back at Gandhi; delving into not just the wily political animal but the woman with a complex private life. For anyone interested in the making of modern India, Indira: India’s Most Powerful Prime Minister by Sagarika Ghose (Juggernaut Books) is a must read.
It’s not an easy to write a book on Indira Gandhi, a woman with so many shades, so many ideologies, so many colours. And the subject is surely a huge challenge and a great delight for biographers because of the glaring contradictions and the general accusation that she was devoid of any ideological moorings.
Sagarika Ghose's book is one in the hundreds of biographies written about the first woman prime minister of India, though there have been many prime ministers in the subcontinent which is especially significant that the great democracy of the United States of America is still not ready to elect a woman to the highest office in the country.
Where Sagarika has tried to be different is that she has tried to bring Indira alive for an entirely new generation who have little clue of the great woman and her troubled journey in politics – a family of greats and a family that has also suffered great tragedies in its personal life. Mother and son assassinated by militant outfits which they tried to subdue, and another son killed in a terrible air crash.
What this book also strives to achieve is draw a holistic picture of an otherwise enigmatic and paradoxical Indira. On the one hand, she was hailed as the living epitome of Goddess Durga, fearless and bold while, on the other hand, she was known to be meek, insecure and submissive in private.
Who was Indira in the ultimate analysis? She seemed to reflect a Dr-Jekyll-and-Mr-Hyde personality, full of contradictions and even confusion. She was strong and audacious and yet she seemed to be submissive and meek when it came to her relationship with her maverick and aggressive son Sanjay. Indira came to be known as a tough dictator many feel stemmed from her being an insecure daughter, fathered by a strong Jawaharlal Nehru. Her troubled and ignored childhood began in the sprawling Nehru abode of Anand Bhawan in Allahabad, in political Uttar Pradesh.
The only person Indira could really relate to was her mother Kamala Nehru who was elegant and beautiful and yet felt ignored at Anand Bhawan where Nehru’s sisters treated her with scorn because she was not used to the high-life of the Nehrus. Nayantara Sahgal writes, in her book, how at the time of Kamala Gandhi’s death, Indira “saw her (Kamala) being hurt” and “was determined not to be hurt.”
Her to be husband Feroze Gandhi came to her life around Kamala Nehru’s death, as a pillar of support. As Indira confessed several years later that Feroze “was always there for me", she couldn’t have let him go away. The marriage, however, didn't work and she blamed herself for her two kids, especially Sanjay, growing up without a father. Indira could see her own plight in Sanjay’s. Coomi Kapoor writes in her book, The Emergency, that Sanjay adored Feroze Gandhi and “believed that his father had been abandoned and that the neglect of his well-being had led to his early death from a heart attack.” This sense of guilt seemed to have made Indira gloss over Sanjay’s excesses.
Today the present Prime Minister Narendra Modi is rightly or wrongly in some slanted way compared to Indira. But Sagarika has resisted the temptation of making any such comparisons. It’s not a scholarly book on Indira Gandhi, but for anyone looking for a primer on the great woman, Indira Gandhi, it is worth a read.
There is a distinct nip in the night air these days, clearly, autumn will be slowly melding into winter. It’s a pleasant time of the year a time of festivity and joy, cheer and sharing. There is no denying the fact that all this adds to a feeling of festivity. Which is, of course, all very good. But let me be the voice of reason for a while -- stop and think. Autumn is a season of harvest; hopes sown in spring and summer are harvested in autumn. We wish all our readers too had a joyous month gone by before we draw you into our offering for the last quarter of the year
We have always brought you ideas and trends and keeping this idea in mind, we have the personality on our cover this month is one such man who has transformed Microsoft. This man is none other than the CEO, Satya Nadella. Not only has this man proved his mettle as a superb performer but has come out tops as a wonderful human being. Clear in his thoughts as CEO of Microsoft, he defines his mission and that of his company as empowering every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. The transformation under Nadella’s leadership is remarkable. Microsoft’s share price has tripled, briefly catapulting it above a $1 trillion valuation for the first time and restoring it to the position of world’s richest publicly-listed company, above Amazon and Apple.
Moving on, we address one of India's most alarming issues, The Environment. We bring you The State of India's Environment 2019, in figures, an exclusive data-driven analysis of major developmental and environmental sectors published by the Centre for Science and Environment. But there was good news as well. Indian-American Abhijit Banerjee won the Economics Nobel 2019. Who won the Nobel prizes in Medicine, Physics and Chemistry? And for what? Find out in our Science pages.
150 years after his birth, Mahatma Gandhi’s ideals shine bright and he continues to inspire others. The world today recognizes him as a far more compelling social innovator than humanity ever realized. We take a peek into Gandhi’s life, his stories, some little known.
The Garnish section has something very special on offer. Wine Tourism. Indians have been taking keen interest on how wine is made, consumed and celebrated. Although relatively new, it is gaining popularity by competing with other beverages and other tourism themes. The enchanting experience of visiting vineyards will surely turn you into a wine lover. Read on for more in this section and check out the most loved Indian vineyards. And in the backend comes the usual host of opinions, travel features and much more.
As we come towards the fag end of the year, t gives me immense pleasure to announce that Radisson Blu MBD Hotel Noida has won Haute Grandeur Global Awards 2019 in three categories:
And Made in India at Radisson Blu MBD Hotel Noida has won Excellence Award for:
In addition to the above Radisson Blu Hotel MBD Ludhiana has won the "Iconic Luxury Hotel" by Times Hospitality Icons 2019.
In the past two decades, Radisson BLU MBD Hotel Noida, has redefined luxury and has won multiple awards. Radisson BLU Hotel MBD Ludhiana is the second venture of the MBD Group is the first 5 star luxury hotel in the region. Aiming to tap into the remarkable increase in demand for quality accommodation in budget hotel segment the MBD Group has launched MBD Express that ensures impeccable standards to enjoy an active break, cultural offerings or discovering a new destination with family at minimum price.
The award is positioned as the pinnacle of achievement for luxury hotels worldwide. At MBD Group, it’s our continuous endeavour to create the most unforgettable stay for each of our guests and it's brilliant to know that our rooms as well as our restaurant has been recognised at such an international level. A perfect way to celebrate our 8th anniversary of this magazine.
Contributing to the world around us always feels special. Isn’t festivity always special when it’s shared? Try it this festive season and celebrate with a difference. Your festivities are bound to be more special! Have fun!
The Supreme Court bench ruled that the Hindu's claim that the Ram was born in Ayodhya is undisputed. The court upheld the claim that the disputed Ram Janmbhoomi-Babri Masjid site is the birthplace of Ram. The court ruled that the whole of the disputed land will be given to the Hindus for the construction of a Ram Temple and five acres of alternate land will be provided to the Sunni Waqf Board for the construction of a Mosque.
Supreme Court in its landmark judgement on November 9, 2019 dismissed Nirmohi Akhara's claim to the land but the court mandated its representation in the trust to be set up by the centre.
The Ayodhya verdict was read out by a five-judge constitution bench led by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and comprising Justices SA Bobde, Ashok Bhushan, DY Chandrachud and S Abdul Nazeer.
The case, which dates back decades – with even some antecedents in the 19th century – has been the source of great communal tension in India, particularly since the now-ruling Bharatiya Janata Party made the demand for a temple a key plank of their political mobilisation ini the 1980s, sparking riots and deaths around the country. The Supreme Court decided to hand the disputed site over to a trust, managed by the Central government, which will oversee all activities including the construction of a Ram temple. While reiterating that the demolition of the Babri Masjid was illegal, the court ordered that the government has to acquire an alternative plot of land on which a mosque can be built.
Key Points
Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh became Union Territories on October 31st. The Government of India has also issued maps showing the distribution of territories between the two.
If you see the map, you’d notice that Ladakh is significantly larger than Jammu & Kashmir. That’s because in addition to the districts that were originally within the Ladakh region, the government has also shown areas of Gilgit-Baltistan that are under Pakistan’s control as being part of Ladakh. Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and its capital Muzaffarabad have been included in Jammu & Kashmir.
This reflects India’s stated view that as far as official records go, these territories are an integral part of the country.
India's Lakshya Sen bagged his second successive BWF World Tour Super 100 title with a win at the SaarLorlux Open in Germany on Sunday. He defeated China’s Weng Hong Yang. This is Sen’s third straight singles title, having won the Belgian International Challenge and Dutch Open Super Tour 100 earlier this year. He has also previously won the Asian Junior Championship. Ranked at #51 in the men’s game before the win, Sen has now broken into the Top 40 and is ranked #42.
Manohar Lal Khattar has been made Chief Minister of Haryana for the second time in a row. His appointment happened at the end of October after his political party, the Bharatiya Janata Party tied up with another political party once the state election results came out.
The elections to Haryana’s legislature was a close fought one, unlike in 2014 when the BJP won easily. This time, the BJP won just 40 of the 90 seats, short of the majority mark of 46. Election rules in India state that in order to form a government, a political party needs to win a majority of the seats being contested.
Having failed to win outright on its own, the BJP reached out to the Jannayak Janata Party (JJP) headed by Dushyant Chautala which had won 10 seats. With the BJP-JJP combination forming the government, Khattar has been made CM with Dushyant Chautala as Deputy CM.
In Maharashtra, the picture is not as clear. The BJP had fought the elections along with the Shiv Sena. The combination won a majority but are now fighting over the chief minister's post. The Shiv Sena wants the chief minister's post to be rotated between the two parties while the BJP is no mood to do so. In light of this fight, a different combination of political parties may end up forming the government. We will have to wait and watch.
The 16 year old Greta Thunberg’s speech at the United Nations Climate Action Summit. has grabbed the attention of the world as she takes on politicians who aren’t doing enough about climate change. What makes her so important?
Greta was a 15 year old studying in Sweden when she decided to express her agitation over the lack of action from governments against climate change. She started protesting outside Sweden’s parliament in August 2018, staying out of school in a ‘school strike’ so as to draw the world’s attention to her message
Her view is simple and clear: science has evidence that out planet is warming up very fast and if nothing is done about it, future generations will suffer. She has demanded immediate action from governments to pull back our planet from this crisis.
Earth’s average temperatures have been rising steadily as humans burn fossil fuels like coal and petrol to light up homes and offices, drive cars and fly planes. The temperature rise is causing changes in rainfall patterns, droughts, floods and storms. It is causing ice in polar regions to melt and this could eventually cause sea levels to rise, flooding islands and coastal cities.
Greta’s actions have inspired children all over the world to join a global ‘School Strike for Climate Change’. She has spoken at many forums, addressing politicians with her clear message to do something about climate change before it is too late.
Will Greta convince governments to do something? We are not sure, but one thing is clear-her actions have captured the attention of many people and got them thinking about the problem of climate change. If they are convinced, then they might be able to force politicians they elect to do something. That’s when real change will begin.
Plastic waste is one of the largest environmental problems today as the material does not decompose and become part of the soil for hundreds of years. The Indian government plans to use Mahatma Gandhi’s 150th birth anniversary to begin a movement against the use of single use plastic.
Single use plastic refers to plastics that are used only once before being thrown away. Major single use plastics include plastic bags, plates, cups, spoons and sachets used to sell small quantities of soaps, shampoos and food items. Earlier the plan was to ban their use across India but the government seems to have decided against such a move. The feeling is that the economy and businesses aren’t doing well and banning plastic sachets would hurt their sales and therefore the money they earn.
Instead, the government plans to focus on strictly enforcing (implementing) the already inplace ban on certain single use plastics like polythene bags and Styrofoam. Styrofoam is especially popular for making use-and-throw plates (you may have seen them carelessly thrown on the street after an event/picnic/party) and for packaging.
Well, even though this is less than what was originally planned, it is definitely a start!
After making a late start, the south-west monsoon is in no hurry to leave. Heavy rains have been reported in many parts of India at the end of September with cities as far apart as Pune and Patna experiencing floods.
The south-west monsoon season lasts from June to mid-September. However, this year, at the end of September, it was still raining heavily in many parts of India and the weather office says that the monsoon season isn’t over yet.
In Patna, the capital of Bihar, three days of heavy rain until Monday saw the city getting completely flooded. Even the deputy Chief Minister of the state, Sushil Modi, had to be rescued by boat from his house. With the city under water, food packets are being dropped by helicopter for people who are stuck in their houses.
Earlier, Pune witnessed intense rainfall that saw floods across the city. Roads, buildings and vehicles were damaged by the flood water.
The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD), which tracks the weather, says that the monsoon winds will start moving out of India around October 10. Never before has the withdrawal of the monsoon been so delayed. In the process India has received 9% more rainfall than usual. This is the highest rainfall received in the last 25 years.
Lionel Messi has beaten Cristiano Ronaldo to win the FIFA award for best men’s player of 2019.The Barcelona star scored more league goals than anyone else in Europe last season, registering 36 times as he helped the Spanish side win another La Liga title.It is also the sixth time the 32-year-old has won the award, helping him move one ahead of rival Cristiano Ronaldo.
Messi and Ronaldo have dominated the award since 2008, with their string of victories only interrupted by Luka Modric last year.It was the second award of the night for the Argentinean forward, who was also included in the FIFA men's team of the 2018-19 season.
Earlier this month environmentalists clashed with the Maharashtra government over the cutting of trees in Aarey Colony in Mumbai to make space for a shed needed for the Mumbai metro project. The case in now in the Supreme Court, which will hear it on October 21.
The trouble began when Mumbai Metro began planning to clear out a part of Aarey colony, which is large expanse of green meant for dairy farming, to build a shed for the metro network. Environmentalists began protesting as this would involve cutting down of trees. The case was heard by the Mumbai High Court which dismissed the petition filed by the environmentalists on October 4.
Mumbai metro officials immediately ordered the cutting trees and began clearing the area for the project. Newspaper reports said that 1500 of the 2500 trees that were marked for felling have been cut. Those fighting the creation of the shed have now taken the matter to the Supreme Court asking it to overturn the decision of the Mumbai court. The Supreme Court has asked the government to stop cutting any more trees until it decides the case.
Aarey colony is a green area that is on the edge of the Sanjay Gandhi National Park, the largest green zone in congested Mumbai city. Environmentalists argue that any move to clear a part of Aarey is equal to destroying a green lung that purifies the city’s polluted air. Plus, the worry is that the shed would become the first of many projects that would eat into the green belt, little, by little. The problem is that Aarey isn’t officially labelled a forest, so it doesn’t get protected automatically. Green campaigners would rather the government shift the metro shed to another area so that it can be built without loss of green cover. But the government and Mumbai metro officials argue that Aarey is the most convenient location. Without doubt, the metro project is critical for Mumbai and would actually help the city tackle pollution as more people take public transport, but the question is-should we reduce the size of one green lung to make another?
With a second place finish in the US Grand Prix, British race car driver Lewis Hamilton sealed his sixth Formula 1 Championship title last Sunday. That places Hamilton, who races for the Ferrari team, just one short of equaling Michael Schumacher’s all time record of seven titles.
Despite a low starting position in fifth place (F1 drivers are lined up for a race based on how quickly they drove in the qualifying round held before the race), Hamilton quickly moved up to lead the race before finally finishing second behind his Ferrari teammate Valtteri Bottas.
Hamilton has won the last three Championships and locked this one up with two races left. He is so far ahead of the rest of the drivers that even with last two races of the year yet to take place, his top spot is secure. The sixth championship win also moves Hamilton past Argentina’s Juan Manuel Fangio, the ‘Godfather’ of F1 drivers who won five titles in the 1950s. Hamilton told journalists after the victory, “I remember watching this sport when I was younger. It's beyond surreal to think that this journey, that my life journey has brought me to this point.”
The celebrations of Diwali were followed by the desolation of polluted air across North India. Absence of winds, humidity in the air and smoke from crop burning in Haryana and Punjab created a perfect storm of pollution that choked the millions who live in the plains of northern India.
A lot of fingers were pointed at farmers who were burning the stubble left after the rice harvest to clear fields for the planting of wheat. While machines that manage the stubble are being sold, they are expensive and not always available. The late end to the monsoon also added to the problem. It left the farmers with little time between the rice and wheat crops-in their urgency, burning the stubble was the easiest option. Governments in Punjab and Haryana were also slow to stop farmers from burning the stubble. Had they acted quickly, it may have helped reduce the pollution.
Crop fires were only a part of the problem. Despite there being rules about using only green crackers on Diwali, people in Delhi, Gurugram and Noida burst polluting crackers without caring for the rules. Since none of the noisy crackers were environment-friendly, every bang you heard on Diwali was the sound of someone breaking the law.
Added to this was a layer of clouds over northern India especially over the National Capital Region that didn’t let the pollutants disperse. Still air became an enemy too as winds would have also dispersed pollutants.
SATYA NADELLA’S FIRST FIVE YEARS AS THE THIRD CEO OF MICROSOFT HAS BROUGHT PAIN TO FANS OF MICROSOFT'S CONSUMER TECH BUT DELIGHT TO INVESTORS.
Originally from Hyderabad, Nadella lives in Bellevue, Washington. He had joined Microsoft in 1992 and he quickly became known as a leader who could span a breadth of technologies and businesses to transform some of Microsoft’s biggest product offerings. Nadella earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Mangalore University, a master’s degree in computer science from the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee and a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Chicago. Before being named CEO in February 2014, Nadella held leadership roles in both enterprise and consumer businesses across the company. Recently, Nadella was executive vice president of Microsoft’s Cloud and Enterprise group. In this role he led the transformation to the cloud infrastructure and services business, which outperformed the market and took share from competition. Previously, Nadella led R&D for the Online Services Division and was vice president of the Microsoft Business Division. Before joining Microsoft, Nadella was a member of the technology staff at Sun Microsystems. The CEO serves on the board of trustees to Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center as well as the Starbucks Board of Directors. He is married and has three children.
“Always keep learning. You stop doing useful things if you don’t learn. So the last part to me is the key, especially if you have had some initial success. It becomes even more critical that you have the learning ‘bit’ always switched on.” —Satya Nadella
From a young age, Satya Nadella showed great interest in building things and enhancing the lives of people through technological developments; hence, he decided to pursue his Master’s degree in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and an MBA from the prestigious University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Hard work and determination never go unnoticed and this is evident in Satya Nadella’s career graph. In the last few years, Satya Nadella has held a number of positions, including that of the Senior VicePresident of the Research and Development group for the Online Services Division, VicePresident of the Microsoft Business Division, and the President of the Server and Tools Division.
Satya Nadella’s educational background, coupled with the leadership skills that he honed during his MBA studies, helped him to lead large groups in Sun Microsystems and Microsoft and enhance the capabilities of these organizations.
He worked in Sun Microsystems for a brief period and then moved to the Silicon-valley giant ‘Microsoft’, in 1992.
Nadella started climbing the corporate ladder steadily while working at ‘Microsoft’. He then went on to make important decisions in the interest of the firm.
He was one of the few employees who suggested the concept of cloud computing to the firm. Eventually the company dedicated lot of its time and resources to the development of this technology. The result was the germination of one of the world’s largest cloud based entities, named ‘Microsoft Azure’.
Satya was later given the responsibility to control the ‘Research & Development’ department, which belonged to the ‘Online Service Division’ and was even appointed as the senior vice-president of the same. He joined this department in 2007 and continued being a part of it for the next four years.
Nadella then moved to the Systems and Tools division of Microsoft and was even appointed its president. The annual turnover of Microsoft contributed by this segment of business alone is said to be around $20 Billion today.
He also guided ‘Microsoft’ to move many of their other projects such as the ‘Microsoft SQL Server’ and a few other tools to ‘Azure’.
After working in the firm for a period of twenty two years, Nadella was promoted to the designation of the CEO of ‘Microsoft’ in 2014.
In 2017, Satya Nadella came out with his book ‘Hit Refresh’. The book talks about his life, Microsoft and how technology is changing the world.
One of Nadella’s greatest accomplishments was pioneering the ‘Cloud computing’ division of ‘Microsoft’. The annual turnover contributed by this division of the business was $16.6 Billion in 2011, when he was just appointed its head. In a matter of three years, the turnover saw a significant increase to around $20.6 Billion.
Satya Nadella has mentioned his love for cricket on several occasions. While this may seem like a minor insight into his private life, his talk of leadership vibes with his reputation inside the company. He believes in collaboration, but he doesn’t believe a team effort requires layers upon layers of management. Nadella, who’s inheriting a company from Steve Ballmer in need of reorganization, is likely to execute it without hesitation
“In the post-Snowden world, you need to enable others to build their own cloud and have mobility of applications. That’s both because of the physicality of computing– where the speed of light still matters–and because of geopolitics.”
This quote from an interview with Forbes says a lot about Nadella’s attitude. Microsoft has seen no shortage of criticism over the information Snowden released, so a defensive response or a smoke-screen of platitudes could have been expected. Instead, he tackles the problem, and explains what it means for the company. He recognizes that not everyone is comfortable handing data over to a third party and promises to build products for those who’d rather not. This bodes well for Microsoft’s stance on privacy, and indicates that the company will be more sensitive to customer needs during his tenure.
Later at The LeWeb conference in Paris Nadella was asked where he thought technology was headed. His response was perhaps to be expected, but it goes well beyond the mundane when he said, “Over the next 10 years, we’ll reach a point where nearly everything has become digitized.” He explained, for example, that even farmers are using connected devices to monitor production on a large scale in real-time. This is the future he hopes Microsoft can thrive in, and it indicates that the term “enterprise market” means more to him than the IT department at your local bank or call center. If his vision is successful, Microsoft could become much like IBM or Cisco, a silent giant making big bucks with products most people don’t even know about.
In addition to his love of cricket, he also has a passion for poetry. He has avoided the narrow-minded focus on technology that plagues some engineers in the tech industry, and ultimately alienates them from the people using the products they develop. Nadella understands there is more to the world than features, spec sheets and code, which means that he should be a good judge when it comes to deciding when products should be released when he said, “You’re trying to take something that can be described in many, many sentences and pages of prose, but you can convert it into a couple lines of poetry and you still get the essence, so it’s that compression. The best code is poetry.”
“Nadella's strategic leadership, including his efforts to strengthen trust with customers, drive for a company-wide culture change, and successful entry and expansion into new technologies and markets,” Microsoft's independent directors said in a proxy statement released recently. “For fiscal year 2019, the annual total compensation for the median employee of the Company (other than our CEO) was $172,512,” the company announced. It further said “The past fiscal year offered another record year for financial performance, and Microsoft delivered strong results for our shareholders, including a return of $30.9 billion in the form of share repurchases and dividends.” Nadella wrote off $7.6 billion from Ballmer’s purchase of Nokia Corp., cutting 7,800 jobs in 2015, a clear sign he was giving up on an ambition to compete directly with Google and Apple Inc. in mobile. His first product announcement was an Office version optimized for Apple’s iOS mobile operating system. Microsoft had resisted such a move for years out of concern that its productivity software running on iPhones and iPads would speed the decline of Windows PC sales.
The new share repurchase programme, which has no expiration date, may be terminated at any time. The dividend is payable on December 12 to shareholders of record on November 21, 2019. The ex-dividend date will be November 20, 2019. For its entire fiscal year 2019, Microsoft reported revenue of $125.8 billion which increased 14 per cent and $39.2 billion net income -- setting a new record fiscal year for the company. Microsoft that continues to be valued as a $1 trillion company returned $7.7 billion to shareholders in the form of share repurchases and dividends in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2019.
“Believe me, my journey has not been a simple journey of progress. There have been many ups and downs, and it is the choices that I made at each of those times that have helped shape what I have achieved. -Satya Nadella”
No list would be complete without mentioning Ballmer’s last hurrah – the Nokia purchase. Even with the acquisition completing mere weeks after Nadella took over from the besweated one, the new CEO was quick to wield the axe.
12,500 Nokia staffers were given their papers in July 2014 before the final Lumias put in a belated appearance in 2016.
The rest, alas, is history.
The Microsoft Band was the software giant’s pitch at the wearables market, arriving in 2014 and surviving long enough to see a second, curvier, version put in an appearance in 2015 before Nadella once again swung his axe in 2016.
Like Microsoft’s phone efforts, the Band was blessed with a thoughtful interface and some innovative thinking in the hardware but, alas, also like the phone, hardware innovation was not enough to stave off an axeman cursed with limited patience when it comes to consumer tech.
If a music service that hardly anyone listens to is axed, would anyone notice?
Nadella clearly thought not as 2017 saw the CEO snuff out Groove Music. The last vestige of Redmond’s pitch at an iPod killer, Zune, lost the ability to stream music by the end of the year, with users directed to former rival Spotify.
The Groove app itself still lingers on, a shadow of its former self.
The fate of the Surface Mini (and other shrunken Surface devices that get the fans so excited) is cited as another example of Nadella’s ruthlessness.
While the Surface line has thrived under the CEO’s stewardship, the Mini was a throwback to the Windows RT era – unable to run Win32 apps and lacking the library of the iPad to which it would be compared.
The thing never made it past a limited early production run before the axe was once again wielded.
Microsoft would, of course, have another crack at a diminutive Surface in the form of the Go four years later.
Nadella’s latest bit of chopping has been at the neck of Cortana, specifically plans to turn it into a standalone AI assistant appliance, reflecting the CEO’s focus on services rather than hardware.
Cortana itself will live on as a software addon, but as hardware? Nadella reckoned that with Microsoft trailing some way behind the likes of Amazon and Google, trying for a third platform was pointless and thus his blade once again swung into action.
Of course, Cortana itself will live on, but as a service for other platforms and, significantly, a service lurking within Microsoft’s increasingly important cloud product lines.
There was a time when driving to the office in the morning one would see hundreds of cyclists making their way to work with their tiffins dangling from the cycle bars. They were quite a menace and if you hit one, God help you! But have you wondered where those cyclists have disappeared? The peddling two wheelers have been replaced by scootys and bikes, a bigger menace on the road these days. If one was in a small town, it was quite a sight to see thousands of cyclists taking over the roads on to way to work. No more.
Across the whole of India, the time around Diwali brings festive cheer but in the norther part of the country, specially Delhi, it also brings toxic air along with dense smog, thus engulfing the nation’s capital and endangering millions of its residents. The situation immediately needed a robust policy for fighting the environmental disaster that happens. And so happened the Odd-Even scheme for private vehicles. However, going by the data and the previous odd-even experiments, odd-even scheme may provide some relief temporarily and definitely it is not the ultimate solution yera after year. Much more is needed.
The Odd-even scheme hopes to decrease pollution by clamping down on transport emissions that the cars and bikes spew out in turn which polluting the air. But the question is till what extent this pollution is true. In Delhi itself, estimates of transport’s contribution to overall pollution have ranged from 18% to 39%, according to a review of pollution studies conducted by the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW).
The judgment of banning certain vehicles along with the command and control measure taken by the present Government has rather ushered in action that is inverse of what the Court wanted the citizens to do. The Supreme Court judgement was taken under the knowledge of reducing the pollution levels in the city by banning the purchase of high-end diesel cars and thus leading to reduced pollution levels. In reality, the Odd-Even Policy does the opposite. In theory the policy should have halved the traffic numbers, but a host of exemptions means many more than half the nearly nine million vehicles registered in the city can still take to the roads every day. Furthermore, such command and control policies tend to be marginally effective due to the inelastic nature of demand by the consumers. The road rationing formula of the Odd-Even policy did not impact the sale of four-wheelers during its implementation period in Delhi.
Driving restrictions are used in numerous cities around the world to reduce pollution and congestion. In an attempt to improve the air quality of Beijing, China implemented a temporary road space rationing. They imposed restrictions on private vehicles by allowing even and odd license plates to drive on alternate days with the violators having to cough up 200 yuan for breaking the rules. On the benefits side, we find that the restrictions significantly reduce particulate matter. As a result, the traffic volume was reduced by approximately 32% during the period. Along with imposing the OddEven policy in Beijing, other pollution relevant policies were imposed to complement the driving restrictions. These included bus fare reduction and subway line openings. The total utility derived by the people of Beijing amidst these restrictions was high due to an extensive and well connected public transportation system and expansion of its transit capacity. Beijing added subway capacity during the time when it imposed the Odd-Even Policy, so as to compensate the impact of people’s substitution from auto to public transport.
Although CAC measures like the Odd-Even Policy was initiated and enacted in both Delhi and Beijing, their impact differed as they were implemented differently. Taking the case of Beijing, along with imposing the Odd-Even policy, other pollution relevant policies were imposed to complement the driving restrictions. These included bus fare reduction and subway line openings. Therefore, the general public were incentivized to use public transport. Furthermore, Beijing added subway capacity during the time when it imposed the OddEven Policy, so as to compensate the impact of people’s substitution from auto to public transport. On the other hand, when the Odd-Even Policy was implemented in Delhi, it was done so in the isolation of other such policy incentives that made public transportation a cheaper and a more economically convenient way to travel. Rather than making public transportation system reliable and attractive enough to encourage the car users to shift to public transport, surge pricing by cab aggregators like Ola and Uber, made transportation more costly than before. Furthermore, the capacity of the Delhi metro remained the same and the excessive commuters added to the strain of the limited public infrastructure. On the air quality front, the Delhi’s OddEven scheme has provided limited benefits. This can be attributed to the fact that the share of private cars is small in the production of PM2.5 levels in Delhi and consequently, only marginal reductions could be achieved through the Odd-Even scheme. In winters, the Odd-Even experiment led to a ~7% reduction in the 24-hour PM2.5 concentrations; however, in summers, when the pollution levels are relatively lower and the share of vehicular sources is lower too, the impact of the scheme is further reduced (The Energy and Resources Institute, 2016).
The Economics Nobel for 2019 has been won by Indian-American Abhijit Banerjee. He shares the prize with two other economists Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer. Mumbai-born Banerjee, who studied in Kolkata and New Delhi, Duflo and Kremer were awarded “for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty," the prize committee said. Banerjee became an American citizen in 2017. Duflo is the second woman and the youngest to be chosen for the Economics Nobel. The three came up with a new approach to studying the problems of the poor. While earlier, these were reduced to numbers and percentages, the approach of the Nobel winners is based on the first-hand study of how poor people live, how they spend money and what motivates them. They also came up with the idea of control-based trials in which new programs for the poor are tested by applying them for one group and not applying them for a second group (this is called the control group). The impact of the program can be seen in the difference in what happens in the two groups.
The methods of the trio have been used to improve the efficiency of government-run programmes in India. Delhi government, for instance, used their ideas in the Chunauti scheme launched in 2016 to lower drop-out rates in government schools and to improve education quality, especially for the weakest students. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said that the new methods had helped a lot of school children and changed the way teaching was done in classrooms. The same methods are also being used in a pollution control project in Surat, Gujarat.
The Nobel Prize in medicine for 2019 has been awarded to three physician-scientists from the United States (US) and BritainWilliam G. Kaelin Jr., Peter J. Ratcliffe and Gregg L. Semenza-“for their discoveries of how cells sense and adapt to oxygen availability.”
Working independently, the three have helped humans understand how the body responds to different oxygen levels and adapt accordingly. For example, when the air is thin (oxygen poor), the body generates more red blood cells to carry more oxygen. As oxygen is necessary for the body to breathe, burn energy, digest food and do work, ensuring a regular supply of oxygen is a critical function. The Nobel was awarded to the three scientists as they have been able to explain how the body does this.
The work that won the Nobel has its roots in research done by Semenza in the 1990s when he identified the gene that swung into action when oxygen levels ran low. Genes themselves are proteins found within body cells and they instruct the cells on what they have to do. Semenza found that the genes got the body to increase the production of erythropoietin (EPO), a protein that increases the production of oxygen-carrying red blood cells, when oxygen ran low. Each red blood cell molecule (the tiny particles that make up a substance) can carry four molecules of oxygen, so more red blood cells means that the body gets extra oxygen supply.
The discoveries of Kaelin, Ratcliffe and Semenza are helping us find new cures for anemia (a condition caused by low levels of red blood cells), cancer and other diseases.
The Literature Nobel for 2019 has been awarded to Austrian author Peter Handke while the 2018 prize has been given to Polish author Olga Tokarczuk. The 2018 prize could not be announced last year, so both prizes will be given away in December 2019.
One half of this year’s Nobel prize in physics went to American James Peebles for his work in explaining what the universe is made up of. Peebles studied radiation, which is a wave of invisible energy left over from the time of the Big Bang when the universe was formed. What he found out that that the visible universe that we see around us-the stars, planets etc.-make up just 5% of the universe. The rest is dark matter and dark energy which works opposite to gravity, the force that keeps us grounded to Earth. Dark energy pulls things part and it is stretching the distances between objects in space as time goes by, leading to an ever expanding universe.
Discovery of Exoplanets
The other half of the prize is being shared by two Swiss scientistsMichel Mayor and Didier Queloz. They were responsible for discovering the first Earth-like plane orbiting a star outside the solar system, also known as exoplanets.
Almost 25 years ago, they were studying a star in the Milky Way called the D51 Pegasi. They were looking for a wobble as that would show the existence of a planet circling it. When planets circle a star, the exert a force of attraction on the star, which causes it to wobble. This happens to our Sun too due to the eight planets that orbit it. When Mayor and Queloz looked for the planet circling D51 Pegasi, they found one the size of Jupiter that was orbiting quite close to the star. The size of the planet and its closeness to the Sun, which made it much hotter than our own Jupiter, was very surprising. Discovery of this first ‘hot Jupiter’ and many others like it has completely changed our view of the universe. The work of Mayor and Queloz has led to the discovery of many more exoplanets, and the search is on for one that, like Earth, support life.
This year’s Nobel prize for chemistry has been awarded to three scientists who invented something that we all carry in our pockets. We are speaking of the lithium-ion re-chargeable battery which powers everything from mobile phone batteries to electric cars. John B Goodenough, M Stanley Whittingham and Akira Yoshino share the prize for their work on these rechargeable devices. Both Goodenough and Whittingham work in the United States while Yoshino lives in Japan.
At the age of 97, Professor Goodenough is the oldest ever Nobel laureate. The work on the battery began in the 1970s when a shortage of oil led scientists to work on energy technologies that did not rely on fossil fuels. Whittingham build a battery from an energy-rich material called titanium disulphide and lithium. Goodenough replaced the titanium disulphide with cobalt oxide to improve the battery’s power. Building on this, Yoshino built the first widely useable lithium ion battery in 1985 and the first such batteries were put on sale by Sony in 1991.
In addition to their use in electric vehicles, lithium ion batteries can also be used to store energy from renewable sources, such as solar and wind power.
Seoul, the capital and the largest city of South Korea, is a forward-looking city but also deeply traditional. It is an epicenter of Korea's rich culture, education, politics and economy. The city is divided into two halves by the river Han - Downtown Seoul and Gangnam District. Seoul is a wonderful city, brimming with mouth-watering food, amazing attractions and unforgettable shopping spots. Being a bustling city, energetic Seoul boasts of its rich history that is clearly visible through its majestic monuments, palaces and landmark gateways that were built by the dynasties that have ruled Seoul over the centuries. It is a wonderful tourist destination not only for tourists but locals too. Seoul is home to a fascinating blend of ancient traditions, digital technology, endless street food vendors and vast night life districts. It is a city filled with stark contrasts. Since Seoul is divided into 2 halves by the river Han, major tours that one can opt for are city tours of Downtown Seoul and Gangnam District. These tours cover attractions like Gyeongbokgung Palace, Blue House, Insadong Antique Street, COEX Mall, Gangnam Street and others. Other major attractions in Seoul include the National Museum of Korea, centuries-old Royal Tombs of the Joseon Dynasty, and many others..
Seoul is a city known for its endless shopping destinations. Dongdaemun is an expansive shopping area, divided into 5 districts, with thousands and thousands of shops and 26 malls. The Myeongdong area is quite popular among shoppers and is often called the best place to shop because of the huge number of international and Korean brands on offer. Itaewon is another bustling district popular for shoppers.
Experience Korea's culinary culture as you stroll through the streets of Seoul. Indulge your taste buds with the bud boggling Korean cuisine consisting of a variety of foods including Korean barbecue, savory pancakes and spicy braised chicken. Don't forget to wash it all down with alcoholic beverages like Korean rice wine (Makgeolli) and soju. Do spare a moment for the delicious pastries from the nearest bakery!
Seoul's convenient public transportation options include a well-organized subway network connecting Seoul to Gyeonggi-do Province and the outskirts of the town. There are plentiful of taxis available in Seoul that are affordable, clean, and safe. For easy transportation, check out T-Money & M-Pass that are stored-value electronic cards. An excellent network of Express and Intercity Buses is in place to provide easy travel from one region to another.
If you believe that Seoul is the only city of interest in South Korea, you are yet left to discover Busan. Busan, formerly known as Pusan and now officially Busan Metropolitan City, is South Korea's second most-populous city and the number one trading port.
Located on the most south-eastern portion of the South Korean peninsula, Busan, a large port city in South Korea, is known for its pristine beaches, majestic mountains and temples. For art lovers, Busan boasts of several museums and historical structures. If scenery is what you love, don't forget to visit the Dongbaek Island, or bird watch at the Nakdong river estuary! Being a seaside town, Busan features a number of beaches, seaports, and hot springs. Visit Dongbaekseom beach and HAEUNDAE BEACH, the two most popular beaches in Busan.
Busan Cinema Centre, the official venue of the Busan International Film Festival and Centum City are prominent tourist attractions there. Located at the foot of a mountain, Gamcheon Culture Village is definitely iconic of Busan. More tours attractions include Oryukdo Skywalk, Busan Sea Life aquarium, Yacht Tour and Trick Eye Museum!
There are many local specialty restaurants and places where you can try the most authentic food of Korea. The variety of food you can relish when in Busan is truly amazing!
Busan has a thriving culinary landscape which possesses world class gastronomy as well as local delicious food. If you're looking for some hearty beachside grub, or the best steak in town, Busan has it all. Some of the not-to miss delicacies are Fish Cakes, Cold Noodles, Ice Soups and more.
India’s prime minister, Shri Narendra Modi — who watched the final moments of the attempt — offered words of encouragement to the Chandrayaan team, which has been working on the $150 million project.
“India is proud of our scientists!” wrote Modi on Twitter. “They’ve given their best and have always made India proud. These are moments to be courageous, and courageous we will be!”
Chandrayaan-2 is a follow-on mission to the Chandrayaan-1 Mission. Chandryaan-2 comprises of an Orbiter, Lander (Vikram) and Rover (Pragyaan). Unlike Chandrayaan-1, Chandrayaan-2 will attempt to soft land its Vikram module on the lunar surface and deploy a six-wheeled Rover, Pragyaan on the Moon to carry out several scientific experiments. The lift-off mass of Chandrayaan-1 was 1380 kg while Chandrayaan-2 weighs 3850 kg. Chandrayaan-2 aims to widen the scientific objectives of Chandrayaan-1 by way of soft landing on the Moon and deploying a rover to study the lunar surface. The Orbiter carries eight scientific payloads for mapping the lunar surface and study the exosphere (outer atmosphere) of the Moon. The Lander carries three scientific payloads to conduct surface and subsurface science experiments. The Rover carries two payloads to enhance our understanding of the lunar surface. A passive experiment from NASA will also be carried onboard Chandrayaan-2. The mission life of Orbiter will be one year whereas the mission life of lander (Vikram) and rover (Pragyan) will be one Lunar day which is equal to fourteen earth days.
After the failed attempt, K. Sivan, Indian Space Research Organization’s chairman stated that “Vikram lander descent was as planned and normal performance was observed till the altitude of 2.1 km. Subsequently, the communication from the lander to the ground station was lost. The data is being analyzed”.
The mission, however, was not a complete failure. Chandrayaan-2, a $140 million mission, partially intends to study the possibility of water deposits further within the moon carters, first highlighted by Chandrayaan-1 in 2008. The 142-foot tall spacecraft that blasted off the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Andhra Pradesh on the 15th July, under this mission carried an orbiter, the Vikram lunar lander, and a six-wheeled rover. The orbiter that had detached from the lander earlier this week can expectedly continue to operate for about seven years. The failure of the Vikram lander, interestingly, comes, just months after India’s close ally Israel's first moon mission, Beresheet, met a similar fate.
Just moments before landing, telemetry screens at the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) mission control center froze, in a scene eerily reminiscent to the crash of Israel's Beresheet lander in April. Those screens reported the spacecraft was traveling at a horizontal speed of about 48 meters per second and a vertical speed of about 60 meters per second, just over 1 kilometer from the landing site. A flight controller said communications with NASA's Deep Space Network in Madrid had stopped. Several minutes later, ISRO chief K. Sivan said that Vikram's descent was nominal until an altitude of 2.1 kilometers, and communications were lost shortly thereafter.
The most probable conclusion is that Vikram crashed on the surface. The apparent end of the lander comes a month and a half after it launched as part of the combined Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft on 22 July. Chandrayaan-2 arrived in lunar orbit on 20 August, and Vikram separated on 2 September. The lander successfully used its engines to descend to an orbit with a perilune, or low point above the lunar surface, of just 35 kilometers.
The Chandrayaan-2 orbiter, meanwhile, continues to operate and is expected to perform scientific obervations of the Moon for at least a year. Among its science instruments is an infrared spectrometer that will search for signatures of hydroxyl and water ice near the Moon's south pole.
Had Vikram landed, India would have been just the fourth country to successfully soft-land a spacecraft on the lunar surface. Earlier this year, that honor almost went to Israel thanks to the country's Beresheet lander, but a software glitch caused the spacecraft's engines to shut down at the last minute. Like Beresheet, Vikram sent data home up until the last minute, which will provide valuable troubleshooting data that can also improve the chances of success for future missions.
In an official statement ISRO mentioned “The success criteria (were) defined for each and every phase of the mission and till date 90 to 95 per cent of the mission objectives have been accomplished and will continue to contribute to lunar science.”
“ISRO’s achievement with getting Chandrayaan-2 so far has made every Indian proud. India stands with our committed and hard working scientists at @isro. My best wishes for your future endeavors,” said home minister Amit Shah in a tweet.
Mahindra Group Chairman Anand Mahindra in his tweet said, “The communication isn’t lost. Every single person in India can feel the heartbeat of #chandrayaan2. We can hear it whisper to us that ‘If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”
that ‘If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” “The path to success will have pit falls but effort n endurance will clear the path n succeed we will. ISRO scientists will figure it out. The orbiter is a great sign of their scientific success,” said Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, chairperson and Managing Director, Biocon.
Air pollution is responsible for 12.5 per cent of all deaths in India. Its impact on children is equally worrying. Over 100,000 children below the age of five die due to bad air in the country. While India was one of the first countries to pledge the phasing out of non-electric vehicles, its national scheme to promote the sale of evehicles is yet to pick up. Against the target of 15-16 million e-vehicles by 2020, the county had 0.28 million vehicles till May 2019.
Climate change poses the biggest economic threat in the world today and features prominently in the UN Sustainable Development Goals 2030. With just 10 years to go, India is yet to identify indicators to track its climate change preparedness. Of the 13 SDGs the country is tracking, indicators exist for only a handful of the targets.
Both surface and groundwater in the country are under stress. 86 water bodies are critically polluted. The bulk of the polluted water bodies are in Karnataka, Telangana and Kerala. One of the reasons is the substantial increase (136 per cent) in the number of grossly polluting industries between 2011 and 2018. Groundwater is also reeling under overexploitation, which is running 94.5 per cent of all minor irrigation schemes in the country. There has been an unsustainable increase in the number of deep tubewells that has gone up by 80 per cent between 2006-07 and 2013-14.
India's farm sector is under duress. While the input costs for major crops are rising, the average farmland size is shrinking. Even the share of the insured cropped area stands at a dismal 26 per cent.
India's rural health infrastructure is ailing. There is a 35 per cent shortfall in the number of 24x7 public health centres, where 26 per cent of the positions for medical officers are lying vacant. In fact, Kerala does not have a single 24x7 public health centre. Another worrying trend is that the number of new doctors qualifying every year in the country has decreased by 60 per cent between 2013 and 2017. The country also shares the world's largest absolute burden of at least 11 major neglected tropical diseases, which includes diseases like dengue
By 2050, India is projected to add 416 million urban dwellers to the world's urban population and will be home to about 58 per cent of the total global population. Keeping this in mind, India in 2015-16 announced its ambitious plan of creating 100 smart cities. Four years later, only 21 per cent of the allocated funds for the smart cities have been spent. In the meanwhile, most urban cities have a sizeable population living in slums, which are unfit for habitation. India has 2,613 towns with slums. Of them, 57 per cent are in Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra.
The burden of solid waste is becoming unmanageable. In fact, 79 major protests against unsanitary landfills and dump yards have been recorded in 22 states in the past three years. Maharashtra, which registered 16 major protests, leaves 43 per cent of its waste unprocessed. While India claims to process 96 per cent of its biomedical waste, eight states and UTs have defaulting hospitals. The country has also recorded a 56 per cent increase in the number of hazardous-waste generating industries between 2009 and 2016-17. At the same time, most of these industries are not properly maintaining their waste inventory, as mandated by the law.
India's natural gas and hydro-based power plants are in shambles. Gas-based plants are running at 24 per cent of their capacity due to the acute shortage of domestic natural gas. Hydropower projects, on the other hand, are running at just 19 per cent of their capacity and their share in total installed capacity has consistently declined since 1962. The country's progress in renewable energy in 2018-19 has also been dismal. In wind, the country met only 6.3 per cent of the target this year. In solar, it met 5.86 per cent.
There has been a 22 per cent increase in India's greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions between 2010 and 2014. This has been fuelled by the energy sector, which is responsible for 73 per cent of the total GHG emissions. Besides, India phased out ozone depleting substances such as chlorofluorocarbon by 2011, it shifted to substances such as hydrochlorofluorocarbon, which have high globalwarming potential. India continues to bear the brunt of extreme weather events. In 2018, 11 states recorded major extreme weather events that claimed 1,425 lives.
India has recently shifted to a powerful forest fire monitoring and alert system, SNPP-VIIRS, which can capture forest fires with better accuracy and precision. In April 2019, the new technology recorded 69,523 forest fires, which was 9.5 times more than that recorded by the earlier technology.
37 species were poached or seized in 2018. Of these, 13, including lion, marked an increase over the last year; 161 wild animals were also killed due to road and train accidents.
India has witnessed a 1.9 times increase in the unemployment rate in the past two years. This has especially affected the youth and the educated. Unemployment rate among people with at least a graduate degree was 13.17 per cent in September-December 2018, up from 10.39 per cent in May-August 2017.
150 years after his birth, Mahatma Gandhi’s ideals shine bright and he continues to inspire others. Here are stories, some little known, from his life.
As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world... as in being able to remake ourselves.
Gandhi firmly believed that “There can be no room for selfishness, anger, lack of faith or impatience in a pure fast... Infinite patience, firm resolve, single-mindedness of purpose, perfect calm, and no anger must of necessity be there. But since it is impossible for a person to develop all these qualities all at once, no one who has not devoted himself to following the laws of Ahimsa should undertake a Satyagrahi fast”
It has been seventy years since Mahatma Gandhi departed from our midst. But his life and soul continue to animate humanity transcending national and international boundaries. His contribution to human development is far too great and varied to have been forgotten or to be overlooked. The world today recognizes him as a far more compelling social innovator than humanity ever realized.
The life of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi is a story of heroic effort to establish the values of Truth and Non-violence in human life. In pursuing this objective Gandhiji became a Mahatma from a mere ‘Monya’. He became a messenger, for the people of the world surrounded by fire of violence in the twentieth century. He also became ‘The Father of The Nation’. He saved India and Britain from mutual hate and revenge by resorting to the experiment of Truth and Non-violence in India’s struggle for freedom. This created an atmosphere which made it possible for other countries of Asia and Africa to free themselves without bloodshed from the hold of the European countries which had subdued them in the nineteenth century.
Being born in a middle class Vaishnava family and brought up in that atmosphere till he joined school and received instruction according to the system then prevailing, he lived, dressed and dined in the way all children of that class did. Later, he went to England for studies and changed his dress to suit the conditions of that country. But in food and certain other matters, he remained true to the lesson he had learnt early in life. On his return to India after being called to the Bar, he passed through difficult times as all beginners in the profession of the law have to do and it was as a lawyer that he went to South Africa to help a client. He had, however, to spend many years there as the condition of Indians and the treatment they received demanded that he should serve them rather than return to India. His struggle with the authorities brought about a considerable change in his life and by the time he returned to India, he had already become a Mahatma. His dress in India on his return was different from what he used to wear when he was practicing as a Barrister and conformed to the old Kathiawadi type.
If in South Africa it was the Railway Ticket Collector who paved the way for the birth of a Satyagrahi, in India it was a poor peasant from Champaran, Rajkumar Shukla, who provided him a platform to test the power of Satyagraha on the Indian soil. His campaign in favour of the non-co-operation movement brought about another change which identified his outward appearance with that of the humblest and lowliest of the land and he stuck to the loin cloth till he departed with the name of God on his lips.
Mahatma Gandhi was imprisoned several times in his pursuit of non-cooperation and undertook many ‘fasts’ to protest against the oppression of the down trodden in India.
He invented the techniques of mass –civil disobedience in South Africa which were later emulated in India and across the world.
On January 30th, 1948, the assassin’s bullet ended the physical existence of Mahatma Gandhi and made him immortal who left an indelible legacy to the mankind –‘My life is my Message’.
The world today hails him as a Mahatma — a great soul — a Saint. Gandhi always resented the title and found it intensely painful. He never cared for any beatification and insisted that he was an ordinary man who was trying his level best for the realisation of the divine presence.
Gandhi was not born a saint but chiseled himself into one by intensely agonising experiments in austerity and discipline.
Unlike most of us, Gandhi continued to grow and change until the last moment of his life and he never worried about contradicting himself. “In my search for truth, I have never cared about consistency.” Like Emerson, he rejected consistency as the virtue of small minds. He was bold enough to proclaim that, “If my readers find any inconsistency in my views, they should reject the older ones and believe in the later as my views might have changed.”
Some of his quotes are deep and profound and most likely to show the Gandhian way.