Today fact and opinion have become entangled: there is comment in news reporting; the editorial is enriched with facts. The end product is none the better for it and never before has the profession been more dangerous. Unwitting or deliberate mistakes, malign manipulations and poisonous distortions can turn a news item into a dangerous weapon… It is some comfort to believe that ethical transgressions and other problems that degrade and embarrass today’s journalism are not always the result of immorality, but also stem from the lack of professional skill. Perhaps the misfortune of schools of journalism is that while they do teach some useful tricks of the trade, they teach little about the profession itself. Any training in schools of journalism must be based on three fundamental principles: first and foremost, there must be aptitude and talent; then the knowledge that “investigative” journalism is not something special, but that all journalism must, by definition, be investigative; and, third, the awareness that ethics are not merely an occasional condition of the trade, but an integral part, as essentially a part of each other as the buzz and the horsefly.
This in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s words is about the second oldest profession in the world which he wrote in an article titled, The Best Profession in the World.
Dear Gabo, you once said that life isn't what one lived, but the life one remembers and how he remembers it to retell it... your life, dear Gabo, will be remembered by all of us as a unique and singular gift, and as the most original story of all. It's difficult to say goodbye to you, with all that you’ve given us! You will always be in my heart and in those of all who loved and admired you.
And this is Latin American singer-celebrity Shakira on Marquez.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the intrepid reporter, and not the great magic realism novelist and Noble prize winner, once travelled with Shakira for many days, the singing and dancing sensation, and the famous ‘Waka Waka Girl’ of the famous World Cup of football when the whole world was dancing with her song, who could move her body like a million whirlpools and a million tides on a full moon night on a turbulent sea. And, yet, she would not be over. He covered her hard and arduous ‘live’ performances, backstage, where the audience would go mad.
Certainly, they had a special relationship of deep love and respect, and he wanted to discover her ‘live’ as a star on and off the stage. They were both Latin American icons, and continue to be. In a long essay, ‘The Poet and the Princess’, published in The Guardian, London (June 8, 2002), Gabo wrote: “She’s been known to give up to 40 interviews a day without repeating herself. She's got her own ideas about art, this life and the next, the existence of God, love and death. But her interviewers and publicists have tried so hard to get her to elucidate these views that she's become an expert in evasion, giving answers more notable for what they conceal than what they reveal. She rejects any notion that her fame is fleeting and is exasperated by speculation that overexertion could damage her voice. "’n the full light of day, I don't want to think about the sunset.’ In any case, specialists think it's improbable, since her voice has a natural range.”
Everyone knows about his great novels, especially, ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’, Love in the Time of Cholera, Autumn of the Patriarch, Living to Tell the Tale, Leaf storm and other stories, among other great works of literature. Not many know about his seminal journalistic-fiction masterpiece: ‘News of a Kidnapping’.
As we remember him on his birth anniversary (Born on March 6, 1927, Aracataca, Columbia; Died on April 17 , 2014, Mexico City, Mexica), the world might re-watch the thrilling Netflix serial on ‘Carlos’, the underworld mafia dawn, who was the king of drugs in Columbia, north and south America, and who out-manoeuvred the huge might of the American law enforcement and intelligence agencies for years. Few would know the investigative reportage and meticulous documentation of the entire drug industry, including the kidnappings of top officials and their wives and relatives by emaciated, young, nervous, restless mercenaries, trigger-happy, with itching fingers, forever on their guns, holed up in small holes, their hostages without light, or food, or water to drink, and no communication whatsoever with the outside world. Only Marquez could do it.
That was one of his another great journalistic classic turned into a novel: ‘News of a Kidnapping’, first published in Spanish in 1996.
He made Carlos – Pablo Escobar — look like an ordinary guy, just doing what he thinks he must do, conquering the world with drugs and killings, watching a dog being shot by another mafia don, feeling sad but distracted, or humans being killed, feeling sad but full of precision and cold-blooded at the same time, or turning the government’s powerful chess-game upside down with one masterstroke after another. Carlos, shadowy and inaccessible, was no mythical batman or a comic strip American superhero. He was real, as real as a man can be, with a devoted wife and a Robin Hood image, so unlike the Italian epic of the Godfather, part one, two, three, with both Marlon Brando and Al Pacino becoming larger than life. Pablo Escobar was as ordinary as any man on the street.
But, as he said, when stopped by the cops with loads of illegal stuff in his van, that, yes, he could be the next president. So beware! Feared and admired equally by the masses, he was often a shadow of his own glorified self. And he carried his own difficult baggage, of remorse, love, sex, with a gun on a woman’s private parts, feeling her insides with the total Latin American dominant male, macho principle. With a gun and the power of being a mafia don. She was his willful, pseudo-lover and ambitious sex-partner, chasing her own dreams of millions and power; she, herself, choosing to be handcuffed in the bed. He also had compassion, perhaps, while letting loose a bloody trail of dead bodies which shook Columbia and other nations. While he is having violent, misogynist sex first time with a journalist (the same woman), who is his power-broker with politicians, she says, “Do you do it with your wife like this?” He clutches her throat, ready to kill, and says, “Never talk about my wife like this.”
Check out the response of the international media on this book: Fascinating... Possesses all the drama and emotional resonance of García Márquez’s most powerful fiction.” —The New York Times. “Brilliant... Deeply affecting... A story rich in characters who are both heroic and contradictory.” —The Wall Street Journal. “A potent mixture of the newshound’s well-documented detail and the novelist’s tragic vision.” —Chicago Tribune. “A powerful story... In a series of telling strokes, shifting subtly from one perspective to another, García Márquez conveys the madness of the hostages’ imprisonment, the despair, the anger, the false hope, the resignation.” — San Francisco Chronicle.
This is far far away from the great love story of rebellion and family traditions in a town called Macondo in ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’, where the mother-figure, Ursula, blind, and, yet, is able to spot every dead and living object in that huge house of memories and dead and invisible legends, including Aureliano Buendia, who took up an armed rebellion for decades against the oligarchies and American imperialists, now content with making gold fish in his hidden corner, as dead and alive like the blind eyes of Ursula.
Equally distant is the love and longing of the man who celebrated his unrequited love in ‘Love in the Time of Cholera’ for years, which became unrequited centuries. Finally, when she agreed, her skin had become old, and their armpits perhaps smelled of onions and moist clothes dried in the incessant rain, it was true love. And then they became naked, celebrated love, full sexual and spiritual love, full of passion and beauty because the flesh was weak, but the spirit was still alive and young. That is Marquez. Shakira’s Marquez.
Winter is out and spring, however short is creeping in. The nation’s capital hardly felt the cold this winter and the famous Dilli ki Sardi seems almost to be a thing of the past. Anyway, with spring comes new hope always and this time our cover story is one of great ambition and fortitude, of young boys and girls in India who have struck it big in the world of business exhibiting their very own brand of enterprise and energy. Being young is wonderful, but being young and rich on your own merit is a badge. To raise enough capital to start a business and maintain it is among the toughest things. These are young men and women in India who have risen and managed to start and develop big businesses into empires and fortunes. So here’s a peek into their secret world.
A month after the last full budget presented by the Modi government, we take a look at the budget, which was largely aimed at Bharat and the poor with not much of a reform agenda. A look at how the budget did in economic and political terms.
With the latest scandal of how businesses repeatedly use public banks to funnel funds, there seems an urgent need to secure the banking system with fail-safe security. Nonperforming assets or NPAs which are basically band loans are spiraling by the year with the banks having to be rolled over by the government. Strangely, there seems to be a move to empower banks with a bail-in provision which would allow them to freeze and seize depositors’ money. With a bail-in, there may be no government bail-out in future. But how real can it be and how dangerous politically?
One of the most revolutionary pronouncements of this year’s budget was, of course, the ambitious healthcare scheme for the poor to be footed by the government. The National Protection Health Scheme in Budget 2018 drew immediate comparisons with the programme of former US President Barack Obama's Patient Protection and Affordable Care — also known as Obamacare. But how similar are these two healthcare missions of the two of the world's biggest democracies?
Apart from these thought-provocateurs, this issue of DW packs an amazing punch of variety from Russia’s action-man President Vladimir Putin to a world increasingly divided in our political column; from our Tech spread to the world of books and lots more.
So Happy Holi and Happy Reading!
u-19 woRlD cuP// India’s Under 19 cricket team made history when it lifted the U-19 World Cup on February 3 by defeating Australia. India is the first country to win the trophy four times. Played in New Zealand between January 13 and February 3, the U19 World Cup featured the best junior teams in the world. The Indian team had a fantastic tournament, winning every single match en route to the final. In the final, they thrashed Australia, winning by eight wickets.
After reducing Australia to 216, the Indian batsmen crossed that score in the 39th over, having lost just two wickets. Left-handed batsman Manjot Kalra smashed a century (101 off 102 balls) to help his team win. It was India’s second win over Australia at the 2018 U-19 World Cup, having also beaten them by 100 runs in the first stage.
Led by Prithvi Shaw, the U-19 team was easily the team with the best batsmen and bowlers. As India marched into the final, interest in the tournament grew, especially as it became clear that some of the young boys on the field would soon be in the national team. The U-19 team has traditionally thrown up stars of the future-the 2008 U-19 World Cup was in fact won by India under a young Virat Kohli. In 2018, players like Shubman Gill, Prithvi Shaw and Manjot Kalra are the ones to watch. Look out for these players in the Indian Premier League (IPL) this year!
As a batsman, Rahul Dravid was one of the most talented to ever play for India. As a coach, that run of form continues. For, it is under Dravid’s coaching that the U-19 team has climbed from peak to peak. In an interview after the win Dravid was quick to point out that, “The real challenges for them start now”, referring to the fact that the youngsters will now move on to play in the Ranji Trophy, IPL and perhaps even for the national team.
BuDgET// On February 1, Narendra Modi’s government presented its final full Union Budget, which was packed with ideas to help farmers and people who are not well-off. As this is the last full financial year (April 2018-March 2019) before Modi has to face voters in elections, the focus is on projects that affect the largest number of people. Let’s look at the biggest announcements of the budget.
The biggest gain for farmers was the announcement that the government would buy their crops for a price 50% above the cost. For example, if it cost Rs. 1 lakh to cultivate a field of wheat, the government would buy the crop from the farmer for Rs. 1.5 lakh. Farmers across India have been suffering from low incomes as they aren’t able to make much profit from their crops. This markup above cost should fix that hopefully.
Perhaps the most ambitious (toughest, most challenging) project announced in the budget is a health insurance plan. The insurance plan will cover 100 million families and their hospitalization bills upto Rs. 5 lakh per year will be covered by the scheme. So if someone who is covered by the insurance scheme is hospitalized, the hospital bill upto Rs. 5 lakh per year will be paid by the government through the insurance scheme. The 5 lakh limit is for an entire family so if several members are hospitalized, then the amount will be divided between them. Once implemented this will be the largest government health plan in the world.
AwARD// One of the Indian government's top awards for citizens, the Padma Shri, has this year been given to Romulus Whitaker, a herpetologist who started the Madras Crocodile Bank and the Snake Park, also in the southern city. Whitaker's work has been important for the conservation of endangered crocodiles, snakes and other reptiles.
The Padma awards are announced on Republic Day each year. This year others who won the award include:
Rajagopalan Vasudevan, a professor from Madurai (a city in Tamil Nadu), who came up with the idea of using plastic waste to construct roads
Subhasini Mistry, a woman from West Bengal who worked for 20 years as a maid to raise money to build a hospital in her village
Arvind Gupta, an IIT-trained scientist who gave up his job to create toys from garbage. He has visited thousands of schools all over India to spread his message of science
cRickET// The Indian cricket team notched up a historic 5-1 win over host nation South Africa in the One Day International Series that ended recently. This is the first time that India has defeated South Africa in a bilateral series playing in South Africa.
Other than one match that was shortened due to rain that India lost, the Indians were the dominant side. Captain Virat Kohli has been in tremendous form through the series. Giving him company has been opener Shikhar Dhawan who also scored a century and two fifties.
But the real stars of the series were the two spinners-Yuzvendra Chahal and Kuldeep Yadav. The pair have, between them taken an amazing 33 wickets in the six match series. This is the easily the highest number of wickets taken by India spinners in a series and also the most by any visiting team in a series in South Africa. The South African batsmen were simply unable to play the spinners.
With this win, India has become the No 1 ODI side in the world. However, it must be remembered that the Indians played against a weakened South African team whose top batsmen AB de Villiers and Faf du Plessis were not always available for the matches due to injury.
vERDicT// The Supreme Court last month decided on a new formula for sharing waters of the Cauvery River between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. Under the new order, Karnataka has to release 404.25 tmcft to Tamil Nadu each year, which is 14 tmcft less than the state’s earlier share. One tmcft stands for one thousand million cubic feet. This is used to measure volume of water in a storage tank/reservoir or to measure river flow. Although farmers in the Cauvery delta in Tamil Nadu may be unhappy about getting less water, some of them are already saying that they are happy that Karnataka has been ordered to release the waterwithout any more discussion. In the past, the quarrel between the states led to the stoppage of water released by Karnataka to Tamil Nadu. Karnataka farmers aren’t entirely happy about the order. They were hoping that Tamil Nadu’s share would be reduced by 30-40 tmcft. However, the people of Bangalore have something to cheer about as the Supreme Court ordered that 4.75 tmcft be set aside for the city. The dispute between the states over the use of Cauvery water is an old one. As the River Cauvery originates in Karnataka, the state is able to control the amount released downstream to Tamil Nadu through dams across the river. Tamil Nadu’s farmers heavily depend on the Cauvery for their cultivation of crops, especially rice. The much-awaited judgement was pronounced by a bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices Amitava Roy and A.M. Khanwilkar, which had on September 20 last year reserved the verdict on the appeals filed by Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala against the 2007 award of the tribunal. The apex court also allowed Tami Nadu to draw an additional 10 tmcft ‘groundwater’ from a total of 20 tmcft beneath the Cauvery basin. It said the increase in share of Cauvery water for Karnataka by 14.75 tmcft is because of the 10 tmcft groundwater and 4.75 tmcft drinking water requirement for Bengaluru residents. The apex court said drinking water has to be kept on the highest pedestal. It said its order on Cauvery water allocation will hold for the next 15 years
SPAcE// India’s second moon mission-Chandrayaan II-will see a rover land on the moon for a two week stay. The rover will land near the Moon’s south pole. The launch is likely to happen in April this year.
Previous landings on the Moon have always been near its equator. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is targeting a polar landing due to the presence of large rocks near the pole that are millions of years old. ISRO chairman Dr K Sivan told a newspaper recently, “Analysing these rocks and the surface will help us explore the moon better and enrich our understanding of the universe.”
The Chandrayaan II spacecraft will take off from Earth on ISRO’s GSLV MkII rocket. In outer space, the rocket will release the Orbiter which will take a month to reach the Moon’s orbit. Once there, the Lander will detach from the Orbiter and descend to the Moon’s surface.
The Rover, which will be housed in the Lander, has been designed to spend one Lunar Day which is equal to 14 earth days, on the Moon’s surface. It will walk 150-200 metres and conduct several experiments as well as analyse (study) the lunar surface. The Rover will use the Orbiter (which will still be circling the Moon) to send images back to Earth.
The Chandrayaan II mission is costing ISRO Rs. 800 crore, which is cheaper than the Hollywood space movie Interstellar which cost over Rs.1000 crore!
TRANSPoRT// A new super-fast transport system is being planned between Mumbai and Pune. Richard Branson of the United Kingdom -based Virgin Group has signed an agreement with the Maharashtra government to build a ‘Hyperloop’ system between the two cities.
Hyperloops consist of small pods or passenger vehicles (like mini-cabins) that runs inside a tube-like structure at very high speeds. They are able to move fast since a vacuum is created inside the tube. With no friction or resisting force, the pods are able to travel exceedingly fast. The Hyperloop will be able to transport a person from Mumbai to Pune in 25 minutes-the journey by car/train now takes three hours. Over the next six months, Branson and the Maharashtra government will make a plan for the project. If all goes well, India could have one of the first Hyperloop systems in the world.
DEATh// The sudden death of the actress Sridevi seems unlikely to leave the news cycle anytime soon as confusion abounds over her death in Dubai
On Monday, IANS reported diplomatic sources as saying that the Dubai Police had transferred the case to Dubai Public Prosecution following revelation that she died due to "accidental drowning" in her hotel room.
Later, a Dubai Police forensic report stated that 54-year-old Sridevi died due to "accidental drowning" in the bathtub of her hotel room here before her dinner date with husband and film producer Boney Kapoor. This development came a day after media reported that she had died due to a cardiac arrest on Saturday night. Another twist came with the mention in the forensic report of traces of alcohol in her blood — with some media reports claiming that it was found to have been at "elevated levels".
Sharing the image of the forensic report, Gulf News stated that Sridevi, who had traces of alcohol in her blood, lost balance and fell into the bathtub and drowned. However, this could not be independently confirmed.
The latest report of the accidental drowning has added new layers to the mystery surrounding Sridevi's death at the age of 54. It is not clear what caused the actor to lose consciousness, and whether the initial report of her death due to cardiac arrest still holds.
According to a post on the official Dubai Media Office Twitter handle, Dubai Police has transferred the case to Dubai Public Prosecution, which will carry out regular legal procedures that are followed in such cases. “The investigation is still going on to determine the circumstances surrounding the accident as the forensic report only says that she drowned,” an official told Gulf News
The police is trying to piece together the sequence of events and ascertain what exactly happened.
A chief prosecutor told Gulf News: “In such accidental death incidents, the results of the postmortem and forensic examination reports are referred to the Public Prosecution as part of ordinary law enforcement procedures. The papers are revised by the prosecutors of the jurisdiction where the incident happened. An official order to hand over the body of the deceased to the family or relatives is issued shortly after that.”
Earlier reports said that the actor was getting ready for a dinner date with her husband. Boney flew to Dubai from Mumbai and went to her room at the Jumeirah Emirates Towers Hotel at around 5.30 pm on Saturday to “surprise” her with the dinner, a source close to the family told the Khaleej Times.
He woke her up and the couple chatted for about 15 minutes before he invited her for dinner, said the report. She then went to the washroom. After 15 minutes had passed and Sridevi did not come out, Boney knocked on the door to check on her. When he got no response, he forced open the door to find the actor lying motionless in the bathtub full of water, the source said. "He tried to revive her and when he could not, he called a friend of his. After that, he informed the police at 9 pm," he added. The police and paramedics rushed to the site, but she was pronounced dead.
However, conflicting reports later emerged that her time of death was 10.01 pm, which throws the entire previously established timeline into disarray.
Sridevi, Boney Kapoor and their younger daughter Khushi Kapoor were in Ras Al Khaimah, another part of UAE, last week to celebrate the wedding of her actornephew Mohit Marwah. Boney had returned to Mumbai after the wedding, but decided to return to Dubai to surprise his wife.
Sridevi returns home, for the last time and her dead body has been taken to her Lokhandwala house in Mumbai, her funeral will take place at 3.30 pm on Wednesday, February 28. The Embraer jet, owned by industrialist Anil Ambani, landed in Mumbai around 9.30 pm. Anil Ambani, wife Tina Ambani and Anil Kapoor were among those at the airport when the plane landed. The mortal remains were then taken to the Lokhandwala house of the Kapoors where about a dozen police personnel and as many private security men were deployed for crowd management. Sridevi, known as Indian cinema’s first woman superstar, leaves behind her husband and their two daughters Jhanvi and Khushi. “On behalf of Khushi, Jhanvi, Boney Kapoor, the entire Kapoor and Ayyappan families, a sincere thanks to the media for your continued sensitivity and support during this emotional moment,” a statement by the family said. In Mumbai, industry insiders and friends visited the family in the home of actor Anil Kapoor, Boney Kapoor’s younger brother. With their father away, Khushi and Jahnvi were at their uncle’s Juhu home.
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Reams have been written about the world of technology and startups across India and around the globe. Despite that, there are many who managed to reach amazing heights in their field and yet very few people know much about them. There have been those who at a very early age broke the shackles of ‘normal’ and set a unique path for themselves, those who dreamt of starting a company just out of school and then see their dreams blossom and grow into a megacorporation. There are many in India who have dared to dream big and make it happen. Here’s a glimpse into some of those daring Indians, men and women.
He is the man who is the driving force behind the Manipal Education and Medical Group (MEMG). Ranjan Pai built a billion-dollar education and healthcare business in less than 15 years. He is now turning his attention to investing heavily in tech and the life sciences.
In 2000, he set up business in a small rented house in Bangalore’s famous central district, in a place near MG Road with an initial capital of $200,000. In the next 14 years, his business leapfrogged into a billion-dollar business
Ranjan diversified from the family’s not-forprofit education trust, Manipal Academy of Higher Education and built MEMG.
Ranjan’s success in health care and education—both highly regulated areas—has been hard won. In some part, he owes his accomplishments to what he calls his “wake-up call” when as a teenager he failed to get admission into his family’s institute, the prestigious Kasturba Medical College (KMC) in Manipal. He had no choice but to enroll in a lower-ranked institute before transferring to KMC in his second year. That incident made him realise that he had to make it on his own.
The Pai family has been operating in the field of education for three generations and, under the aegis of Ranjan’s grandfather Dr Tonse Madhava Ananth Pai, it set up India’s first private, selffinanced medical college in 1953. Ranjan graduated with a medical degree from this institute.
Brought up in India, Sriram grew up in Pondicherry and started work in the auto ancillary business, with postings in Chennai and Bangalore and training in Germany. He is one of the so many entrepreneurs with an interest in the Internet and computers. He was to later shift to desktop publishing, moving into digital content from print designs. In fact, Sriram’s wife sold her jewellery to fund his business and his company Integra. Keeping a tight control on quality, precision and business culture, Sriram was able to fast-track his company into one of the world’s Top 10 companies in the publishing BPO sector. Through his desktop publishing business, Sriram was able to notch up huge profits, making him one of the grand rich young Indians of business
It is not often that Internet entrepreneurs dodge the glare of arc lights to seal deals in the millions, not once but twice over. Brothers Bhavin and Divyank Turakhia, who snagged a nearly billion dollar payout for their online venture are that rare breeds of founders who in over a decade and a half have built a dozen firms, exited five, netted returns of over $1 billion and still managed to stay largely unknown.
And all this, not because they shy away from glitz and glamour. They boast a collection of homes across the globe, snazzy cars and private planes.
Media.net, the latest from Turakhias’ portfolio of businesses, which was sold to a Chinese consortium led by Beijing Miteno Communication Technology Chairman Zhiyong Zhang, has hosted parties for its clients at the Playboy Mansion, famed for being a venue for lavish celebrations.
Such spectacular returns have become the norm for the brothers, whose Directi Group, which doesn’t have any external investors, is now estimated to be worth $1.4 billion. Directi, the company they launched in 1998 with money borrowed from and since returned to their father, was the first to hit the big time. Bhavin did not even bother to finish school simply because he did not value or see the importance of such an education.
He is the budding ‘Rockstah’ of the entrepreneurial world. While most 15 year-olds struggle with school and the demands of those adolescent years, this youngster handles more than what most adults do or possibly can. Though Farrhad answered his ICSE examination only recently, he is one of India’s youngest entrepreneurs. In addition, he has been ranked by micro-blogging and social networking website Twitter as one of the country’s most-followed ‘Twitterers’.
Farrhad is the founder of Rockstah Media, a web development firm that satisfies clients’ media needs. His experience and youthful perspective are best summed up by his description of his work: “We conceive, conceptualise, visualise and materialise awesomeness on the web. We offer top-of-the-line custom website designs and even market sites and products — from scratch to the sky.”
The internet as we know it has more than its share of websites; and Farrhad believes that to be noticed, one needs more than just a few nice pictures. “Every day, thousands of websites are created. People nowadays understand the importance of professional websites, which stand out from and give them an edge over the rest. This is what Rockstah Media is targeting for is clients. We also offer marketing services, which means that we are a complete service station. And being noticed online brings added value,” this young entrepreneur said.
Amritanshu is the founder of Retention Company, which deals majorly with applications concerning their performance and impact on society. Retention.ai was in fact founded by four friends and IIT Kharagpur alumni – Amritanshu Anand, Anshul Singhle, Manan Shah and Abhimanyu Dikshit. They launched their enterprise in 2013 and since have worked on more than 12.5 million devices.
Earlier this year, they had raised Series A funding from Mercury Fund, with participation from angel investors like Anshu Sharma (Ex-VP Salesforce, Venture Partner Storm Ventures), Pratyush Prasanna (Ex-VP PayTM) and Punit Soni (Chief Product Officer, Flipkart). The startup was also a part of TLabs accelerator.
Today Amritanshu features amongst the Top 10 Richest Young India Entrepreneurs.
Founder of WPBeginner, Syed is one more entrepreneur who has made it good in the Web and Internet business. His love for the Web from an early age made Syed turn that into a fastgrowing and successful business. The WPBeginner story began in 2006 when he first discovered WordPress while searching for a blogging platform. It didn’t take him long to fall in love with the platform. In 2008, he decided to use WordPress for all his client websites.
This came with a set of challenges: PDF guides and 1-on-1 walk-throughs were incredibly time consuming and inefficient. He then scoured the web to find a resource that could help clients and other new WordPress users. At the time, most WordPress tutorials were written by developers for developers. That’s why he launched the WPBeginner on July 4, 2009, as a resource targeted for WordPress beginners and DIY users.
Since then, WPBeginner has become the largest free WordPress resource site in the industry. Syed has designed and developed websites for some of the big names in the industry in India and around the world. He owns Uzzz Productions, a company with huge profits and growth.
New Delhi-based entrepreneur Ankit Oberoi has been launching Internet startups for nearly a decade. Like many entrepreneurs, Ankit wears many hats; he describes himself as a programmer, online marketer, webmaster, and growth hacker. His current venture, AdPushup is an A/B testing tool for Web publishers. He has graciously agreed to take some time to share his thoughts on entrepreneurship and Web revenue monetisation. Ankit decided to leave school early and never really reflected on the importance of a formal education as he felt that school was a waste of time since he had already found a whole new world on the Internet.
Born on the 3rd of March 1974; Sameer Gehlaut, with a net worth of US$ 1.2 billion is the Founder of Indiabulls Group.
Described as “India’s youngest self-made billionaire” by Forbes, Sameer serves as the Chairman of the group, which holds its presence in sectors ranging from Real Estate, Infrastructure, Housing Finance, and Securities.
As of 2015; with a staffing of 7000 employees, the group holds a market valuation of more than Rs 34,000 crores
Indiabulls is also said to be one of the highest dividend paying groups amongst the Indian listed promoter owned group/companies.
Born in Rohtak, Haryana; Sameer is a Bachelor in Mechanical Engineering from IIT (Delhi), and now lives with wife Divya Gehlaut and two children in Mumbai. His father Balwan Singh Gehlaut was once known to be a powerful mining businessman of his times.
There was a time in the Nineties when a lot of women were experimenting with some of the business based on the distribution model such as Amway and Oriflame. Things have come a long way since. Today, women are rocking the boat by taking on businesses which so far were known to be male-dominated.
In fact the startup business has been a huge equalizer providing a level playing field to so many women with innovative ideas and business acumen. We profile six such women who have been ruling the Indian startup scene with some great disruptive ideas – from being a software developer to a recruiter, from travelling alone for days and evaluating hotels in small cities to someone who is helping women pamper themselves or the one who helps with messages even after life.
She and her husband wanted to start a restaurant venture, but were able to find any good software for it. From that need, emerged POSist which is a Cloud-based management software that automates almost all restaurant operations, including online reservation, inventory management, and billing. The programme covers every need for all types and sizes of food outlets. And like so many good business ideas that come out of filling a void, POSist too was the proverbial necessity is the mother of all invention. It was designed to fill the major gap to work out a workable hotel management software.
Design ‘N’ Buy provides high-end e-commerce software solutions for B2B and B2C companies such as print service providers, trade printers, and distributors. Remember the time you got cool personalised messages on a t-shirt or mug? Design ‘N’ Buy builds web-to-print software to empower corporate websites to automate that. You can get a tailored web-to-print solution to design caps, t-shirts, banners, posters, greetings, mobile covers, and much more. You just need to plug in this printing and designing software to your website and you’re set.
The idea behind Design ‘N’ Buy came to Nidhi Agarwal, a quintessential small town girl who overcame all obstacles, from learning English to mastering open source technologies, to actualise her dream. Today she is heading a 30+ team with over 500 projects to her credit.
Design ‘N’ Buy is already ruling the personalised merchandise scene in the US with 80 per cent of their clientele coming from California, Texas, Florida and New York. Nidhi has built a woman-centric team because early in the game she understood the women’s potential and ability to multi-task with ease.
VTest provides software testing services accompanied by detailed test reports and a digital certificate. Their business is restricted only to testing, a niche software development pain point.
Director and COO Almas Khan started out in the recruitment field but grew increasingly interested in tech. In the middle of a few lifechanging scenarios and a break from work, she found herself sitting at home, doing nothing. Initially, she did testing pro-bono for a friend. Soon, she realised this was what she wanted to do, and VTest was born. With her USP of focusing on “what not to do” VTest has made major inroads towards becoming a major player in the app testing business.
Vista Rooms is a niche business that offers lowcost luxury accommodation in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities across India. Launched in April 2015, their website now offers stays in more than 70 cities and over 500 hotels.
Theirs is a budget business model; so, they are leveraging existing platforms instead of making heavy investments, unlike competitors. For instance, instead of creating a standalone app, they created a complete app experience on Instagram that allows everything from browsing to booking to sharing reviews.
Co-founder Ankita Sheth travelled for one and a half month to various small cities and experienced the true horrors of bad hospitability. Slowly but surely, she and her partners put together a plan for offering standardised hospitality and making pleasant budget travel a reality in India.
Sugarbox is a gift subscription service, a first of its kind service in India that allows women to indulge themselves). All you need to do is subscribe, and you’ll get gifts – which could be fashion, beauty, lifestyle and gourmet products – handpicked by in-house stylists every month. That’s not all, you don’t know what your box contains is until it is delivered. Every month, Sugarbox has a new theme for the goodies.
It’s been barely over a year since Niharika Jhunjhunwala started Sugarbox, but the business is doing pretty well with 30-40 per cent monthon-month subscription growth.
Niharika feels extremely happy about being able to spoil women, and now that she has cornered the market in metro cities, she is looking forward to capturing a slice of Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities.
Although the idea of this startup is a little morbid, it is beyond doubt one of the most disruptive ideas in a very long time. A website to leave a message for your loved ones after your death, in a country like India, seems as strange to us as the idea of snake charmers to the west.
Nevertheless, Vedika Goel went on and gave shape to this thoughtful idea, and created With You. So many things happen today – heart attacks, accidents, etc. – that snatch away lives and worlds in a fleeting moment. With You allows you to leave messages for your loved ones – it might be a secret that you don’t want to take to your grave, a financial will, or just that “I love you” that you never got around to saying.
Vedika calls it the insurance of emotions; saying that her venture takes care of the emotions of people that are left behind when someone passes away
PRIME MINISTER Narendra Modi has described the 2018-19 budget as “farmer friendly, common citizen friendly, business environment-friendly and development friendly.” But is it defence friendly?
The defence outlay at Rs 2,95,511 crore has seen an increase of 7.81 per cent from the previous years budget, which stood at Rs 2,74,114 crore. The allocations are hence just about adequate to meet the current needs of the Armed Forces but would do little for any meaningful forward movement in the modernisation programme of the Forces. In terms of GDP outlay, the budget presented by the Finance Minister shows a decline from earlier years and works out to just 1.58 per cent of the projected GDP for 2018-19, the lowest such figure since the 1962 war with China. It has long been the contention of defence analysts that the modernisation process would require a sustained investment for over a decade at 2.5 per cent of GDP, to effectively deal with the collusive threat India faces from China and Pakistan.
But perhaps, the budget cannot be seen entirely through the security prism. There is a need to strike a balance between India’s need for economic growth and the well-being of its citizens. Investments to improve people’s health, education and skill development are vital for long-term growth prospects of a country, and the budget has rightly focused on them. It addresses the aspirations of a modernising nation through multiple initiatives, which would have a dramatic impact on the growth of India’s GDP. Thus, even the present allocation of the defence budget in GDP terms would result in higher outlays for defence, as India’s GDP rises to double its present level.
More importantly, the government has announced measures to push its ‘Make in India’ programme, including plans for two Defence Industrial Corridors and a new industry-friendly Defence Production Policy in 2018. This is likely to give a fillip to the creation of a defence industrial base, which will contribute positively to the modernisation programme and help fill the strategic void in some of the armaments which India has to currently
import. Of the two defence industrial corridors, the first of these is likely to come up in the Tamil Nadu-Karnataka area.
On the flip side, India’s defence budgets over the years have shown a discernible trend of declining modernisation outlays for new projects, with almost 80 per cent of the outlays earmarked for "committed liabilities”. This refers to payments for arms, which had been contracted in earlier years. The ratio of capital expenditure to revenue expenditure also appears to be skewed. Ideally, it should be in the ration of 50:50, but as of now, the defence budget on the capital head is Rs 99,563.86 crore, which is barely 33.7 per cent of the defence budget, with the expenditure under the revenue head at Rs 1,95,947.55 crore taking up the remaining 67.3 per cent. The major chunk of revenue expenditure is manpower costs, and for the Indian Army, which is manpower intensive, the capital to revenue expenditure ratio is as low as 17:83. This makes it well nigh impossible for the Army to discard obsolescent vintage weapons and equipment in service, which in turn degrades its operational capability. This is a matter of concern, especially as China is modernising its military at a brisk pace.
On the plus side, the government initiative to improve infrastructure on India’s eastern borders with China is a welcome step. The Finance Minister stated that the Rohtang tunnel has been completed to provide all-weather connectivity to the Ladakh region and that the contract for construction of the Zozila Pass tunnel of more than 14 kilometres is progressing well. He further stated that the government is now proposing to take up construction of s tunnel under the Sela Pass in Arunachal Pradesh.
As per the 13th Defence Plan, Rs 12,88,654 crore has been projected for the capital outlay and Rs 13,95,271 crore for revenue expenditure. There is also a separate section in the plan on "capability development" of the strategically located tri-Service Andaman and Nicobar Command, which was set up in October 2001 but which has suffered from relative neglect, lack of infrastructure and turf wars. This was a much-needed step and is a welcome addition to improving force capability to exercise control in the Indian Ocean Region.
In the final analysis, however, India’s defence preparedness will come about not so much from its defence allocations as from its ability to manufacture the major portion of its defence needs indigenously. This remains an imperative requirement for India, for which the DRDO, the private sector, as well as the defence public sector, has a huge role to play. Will India rise to the challenge? Only time will tell.
India achieved a landmark in the second quarter of the last financial year when deposits in Indian banks reached a whopping Rs 100 lakh crore. It was a time to celebrate, especially since the growth of deposits in banks had skyrocketed to Rs 5.32 lakh crore a month, which was more than the total deposits in the banking sector some 20 years ago.
But the celebrations were short-lived as another news emerged from the banking sector, which has created panic among millions of depositors across the country. In June this year, the Union Cabinet, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, approved a bill called 'Financial Resolution and Deposit Insurance Bill, 2017'
The bill was introduced in Lok Sabha in August this year and was sent to a Joint Committee of Parliament.
The Bill proposes to set up a Resolution Corporation to monitor financial firms such as banks, insurance companies and other financial entities, anticipate the risk of their failure, take corrective action, and resolve them in case of such failure. The Resolution Corporation thus established would also provide deposit insurance up to a certain limit, in case of bank failure.
But Sub-section 7 of Section 52 of the Bill sets a cat among the pigeons. Through this section, the FRDI Bill introduces a 'bail-in' provision for the banks to help them utilise the money received through deposits to meet a crisis situation. Experts feel that this provision empowers the banks to override the deposit agreement it has with its depositors, and forfeit deposits in case of bankruptcy.
This bail-in provision has created panic among depositors who feel that their hardearned money will no longer be safe in banks once this bill comes into force. Here is what sub-section 7 of Section 52 of the FRDI Bill says: “The bail-in instrument or scheme under this section shall not affect — (a) any liability owed by a specified service provider to the depositors to the extent such deposits are covered by deposit insurance; (b) any liability that the specified service provider has by virtue of holding client assets. Explanation — In this clause, the expression, “client assets” shall include such assets as may be specified by regulations made by the appropriate regulator; (c) any liability of original maturities up to seven days; (d) any obligation to a central counter party; (e) any liability, so far as it is secured; (f) any liability owed to employees or workmen including pension liabilities of the specified service provider except for liabilities designated as performance based incentive under section 51; (g) any transaction covered under section 47; and (h) such other liabilities as may be specified by regulations made by the appropriate regulator in consultation with the Corporation and the Central Government."
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as well as Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, have tried to allay the fears of depositors by reassuring them that their money is safe in banks. The Prime Minister accused the opposition parties of spreading falsehood and claimed that the bill, in fact, insures the deposit.
The bill too underlines that the bail-in instrument or scheme will not affect "any liability owed by a specified service provider to the depositors to the extent such deposits are covered by deposit insurance."
Both the repeated assurances by the Prime Minister and the Finance Minister as well as the provision of deposit insurance in the bill have, however, failed to dispel fear among depositors. Depositors feel that the draconian provisions of the FRDI bill would bring back the era of 1913-1960 when 1600 banks closed down and depositors lost all their money.
The reason for the depositors' refusal to believe in the government is simple. They say that the only assurance the government have given so far is that their deposits are insured. But the insurance that the government is referring to provides cover only for deposits of up to Rs one lakh per depositor per bank. Anything above Rs one lakh continues to face the risk of forfeiture by a sinking bank. The Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation set up in 1961 provides for insurance of deposits in banks up to Rs one lakh only. The government could have removed the depositor fears by issuing an unambiguous statement that this limit of the insured amount would be enhanced. But the government has not given any such assurance. The bail-in provision in the FRDI bill is, therefore, being read by the common folks as an attempt by the government to refuse bail-outs to banks in the event of them going bankrupt in future. The banks are, instead, being empowered to bail-in by tapping into their internal resources such as deposits.
The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Assocham), in a statement, asked the government to remove the bail-in clause from the FRDI bill. The industry chamber said that the trust in the banking system runs the risk of being eroded if the clause is not dropped. It said that the move to empower banks with a bail-in provision seems to have been guided by the government's decision not to bail out a bank in trouble.
Assocham said that "the depositors are covered only up to Rs one lakh, which is a measly sum for millions of middle-class families which have kept their life savings in bank deposits."
Assocham Secretary General DS Rawat said that the government should protect the savings of millions of Indians. He said if the government failed to protect bank deposits, "the savings by the households would find its way into unproductive avenues like real estate, gold, jewellery and even in the unorganised and informal financial markets run by unscrupulous people."
He said the middle-class families and especially the pensioners and other old people have no social security and the bank deposits are their only financial security.
With non-performing assets (NPAs) or bad loans mounting for banks and credit growth slowing down, the Union government pitched in with a bail-out package of Rs 2.11 lakh crore for the stateowned banks. But the government is clearly not in a mood to endlessly support sinking banks. Through legislation such as the FRDI bill, the government is giving powers to the banks to tap the hitherto untapped internal resource by freezing and seizing the deposits. But laws such as these would drive away the investors and depositors. And when the deposits slow down, even the government would not be able to stop the banks' downward spiral. The government's remedy, therefore, appears worse than the disease.
For those who believe that no government would ever allow banks to appropriate depositors' money, it is important to point out that it has already happened. And not in some poor, third world country in a distant past, but in a European country - Cyprus and that too in 2013 when banks forfeited people's hardearned savings to cover their losses.
It is also important to note that the global financial crisis which began in 2007 demonstrated that large banks and other financial behemoths which are the financial backbone of a country and which are considered too big to fall may also collapse. The 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers in the US being a case in point.
The Modi government seems to have picked up the idea of bail-in from countries such as the US, UK, Canada, Germany etc. All these countries have a bail-in law for banks. But along with the bailin law, these countries also have effective deposit insurance.
UK's Financial Services Compensation Scheme, for example, provides protection to deposits up to one million pound sterling. Compare this to our deposit insurance of Rs one lakh that has remained unchanged since 1993. And the worst part is that if you have more than one account in the same bank or more than one deposit in the same bank, the total insurance that you would have for all your accounts and deposits would be Rs one lakh only. So it would be wise to immediately ensure that you spread your deposits to as many banks as you can instead of keeping it all in one bank, besides looking for other avenues to protect your savings.
Incidents, similar in their chilling monstrosity, came to mind when I saw photographs of a row of Rohingya Muslim young men, on their knees, their hands tied behind their back. Gun-wielding military police, lurking within the frame, eventually mowed them down
This is the face of the horror the world will remember. In a state of funk, Myanmar’s commander-in-chief, General Min Aung Hlaing has admitted mass graves in one village: Inn Din 50 km north of the Rakhine state capital, Sittwe. Journalists have scoured many other mass graves.
The other gruesome episode etched in my mind is Srebrenica in Bosnia (1995). Hashimpura in Meerut (1987), of course, is our very own tragedy, still lingering. In each one of these macabre events, Muslim youth had their hands tied behind their backs and shot by the local army.
In the latest massacre of the Rohingya in August 2017, the local Buddhist clergy and army turned upon the Muslims. The number killed exceeds 6,700 according to the NGO Doctors without Borders.
In Srebrenica, the orthodox Christian troops of the Bosnian-Serbian army murdered 7,000 Muslim youth and expelled 20,000 civilians from the area.
In Hashimpura, forty-two young men were lined up along a nearby irrigation canal and shot by soldiers of the Provincial Armed Constabulary. These soldiers were Hindus. Can their denomination be spelt out? Apparently not, given the manner in which Asaduddin Owaisi of the Ittehadul Muslimeen has been shouted down for having dared to mention Muslims as “martyrs” because in the latest outrage it is mostly them who have been killed by terrorists.
Owaisi was making a simple point. The patriotism of Indian Muslims is regularly challenged on prime time television which places them on the wrong side of the secular line. But five out of seven killed in the Sunjwan army camp happened to be Muslims. Why is this detail missing from reports? Such stories would go some distance in bridging the communal divide. No, said the anchors almost in chorus, “Owaisi is communalizing the army”. Pray, how? “By reporting that five of the seven killed in the camp were Muslims”? Muslims must never upstage Hindu soldiers in the martyrdom stakes?
Given this attitude, the killers of the 42 Muslims in Hashimpura must be seen only as instruments of the “secular” state. That 19 PAC personnel, under the platoon commander, Surinder Pal Singh, rounded up Muslims in the Hashimpura neighbourhood of Meerut, should be blandly reported without mentioning religious identities. Religious identity must only be mentioned if terrorists turn out to be Muslims which is what they are when police shoot them down. The number of youth taken away is still unclear, but the police narrative suggests 42, mostly weavers and daily wage earners, who were taken in a truck to the upper Ganga canal in Murad Nagar, near Ghaziabad.
The men were blindfolded and shot. Their bodies were dumped in the canal. This was not the only such operation following a series of communal clashes in Meerut that year since March.
On May 24, 2007, 20 years after the massacre, 36 members of victim’s families filed applications under the Right to Information Act at the office of the Director General of Police in Lucknow. The inquiry revealed that all the accused remained in service. In their Annual Confidential Reports, there was not even a hint of their involvement in the Hashimpura massacre. The secular state was protecting its own.
The case has dragged on, zigzagged without any evidence of the establishment really searching for justice. News is expected from the High Court on February 20. Reporters recall the Minister of State for Home, P. Chidambaram, outside his North Block office actually scream at officials. “Crush them” he shouted. He was very hands-on during the Meerut riots and the aftermath. Subramaniam Swamy actually named Chidambaram as an accomplice but the allegation, coming from Swamy, became prima facie suspect. In the fullness of time, the PAC men involved in the case, including Surinder Pal Singh, have all departed to their maker, one by one
I have given the fairly commonplace details of the tragic saga of Muslims in the Hashimpura case simply to establish the contrast with massacres in Srebrenica and Rakhine in Myanmar. Orthodox Christians in one instance and Buddhists in the other brazenly targeted Muslims and for which they have been or are being punished. But in India, the secular edifice would be weakened if the religious identity of police or armymen who kill Muslims is mentioned. And the case will be dragged on eternally.
In Serbia-Bosnia, the International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia concluded that what happened in Srebrenica was “genocide”. It pinned the blame on senior officers in the Bosnian Serbian Army.
Bill Richardson, former Governor of New Mexico and US Ambassador to the UN, resigned last week from a Myanmar Advisory Board on the Rohingya crisis. He called it a pro-government “cheerleading squad”. Richardson has been a friend of the country’s civilian leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. This did not prevent him from expressing his anger at what he said was a whitewash in which she was complicit. “She has developed the arrogance of power”, he said.
For the horrors of Srebrenica senior commander Ratko Mladic and a host of his accomplices, have been awarded long sentences at the International Court of Justice. In Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi and her military accomplices are inching towards global opprobrium and eventual justice.
Why then are the perpetrators of Hashimpura, the oldest of the three massacres, still scot-free?
Supposing Owaisi were to lift the scab from another raw wound and say “wheels of justice, even when the complainants are Muslims, move faster in non-Muslim theocratic states than in pretentious secular ones”. Would he be shouted down again?
Most Indians shy away from a glaring reality. Eruptions in former Yugoslavia and Myanmar took place when Muslims were in bad odour globally after the wars in the Arab world. Communal clashes in India, particularly police versus people, have been endemic since the Partition of 1947. And the world does not take much notice because it is a routine “internal affair” of a sovereign state
Ashok Kumar Malhotra, Founder of the MBD Group — a first-generation entrepreneur and a pioneer of the publishing industry in India—has been honoured as a “Publishing Icon” by the International Publishers Congress 2018. The International Publishers Congress 2018 was hosted by the International Publishers Association (IPA) with its Indian member, Federation of Indian Publishers (FIP), in New Delhi after 26 years. The IPC is a biennial Congress and the principal theme of the Congress is ‘Shaping the Future: Innovation meets Experience’.
Ashok Kumar Malhotra, perhaps the youngest publisher ever who published a self-authored book when he was just 13, was a true visionary; he dreamt of creating an MBD product for every literate person. He was a force in shaping the publishing sector in India and elsewhere; not only did he understand the significance of creative learning, but he was also instrumental in modernising the publishing business and introducing contemporary learning practices among other things. He was a man with a mission to transform a book-selling business unit into a financial giant and one of the successful brands of all times.
Today, MBD Group is one of the leading education companies in India with over six decades of domain experience. It is the only company which has complete backward and forward integration with ten printing units, fully equipped with state-of-the-art prepress, press and post-press facilities, producing about 5,00,000 books per day. The Group has 34 branch offices, a large number of employees and a wide network of distributors and booksellers across the country.
The International Publishers Association (IPA) is the foremost global representative of the full range of publishers’ interests, from copyright to freedom to publish. Since the first IPA Congress held in 1896 in Paris, the event has continued to attract the world’s leading publishers and is a vital platform for publishers to discuss the industry’s most important challenges, network and learn.
“I am overwhelmed by this recognition accorded to my father whose vision and legacy laid the solid foundation upon which the MBD Group stands today. As a father, he is the perfect role model and whatever we have achieved today is solely because of his guidance and life lessons we learned from him,” his daughter Monica Malhotra Kandhari and Managing Director of MBD Group says in tribute to the great publisher.
Motivation, Belief, Determination were the key strengths that Ashok Kumar Malhotra had built the MBD Empire on. At MBD, he dreamt to offer a platform where all voices were equal. He wished to put a spotlight on, everything! Every profession, sector, issue and person was important to him.
As our founder, Ashok Kumar Malhotra, often said, “It’s when things seem the worst that you mustn’t allow yourself to quit.” He always had the vision of a guru but the free mind of a spiritual leader. A first-generation entrepreneur who embarked on his journey of books at the tender age of 13 when he published his first self-authored book, titled, ‘General Education’, with an initial seed capital of Rs One lakh, marked the birth of The MBD Group
Hailing from Jalandhar in Punjab, the beginnings of the journey were humble but he had the quiet conviction to make his vision come true, which was, “For every literate person, there should be an MBD Book”. Initially, he had to outsource the printing. He bought his first press 'Dhanpat Rai' where all the composition of books was done by hand using lead type, as there was no concept of offset printing as we have today. It would take up to two months to publish a single book by hand.
Today, MBD group publishes the largest number of titles, including textbooks, workbooks, teacher manuals, readers for all classes and subjects, in all major boards and regional languages of India. It also publishes books in programming language and mathematics curriculum. The e-learning programme caters to millions of learners across the globe via its e-content in the form of Academy (Digital Classroom), Self Learning Material for Students in CDs/ DVDs, and online resources. We have made inroads into Mlearning and have successfully launched the first augmented reality app Nytra, for learners in the Asia Pacific region, which is integrated with our textbooks.
Mr Malhotra firmly believed that the best things in life find their own place in course of time; all you need, to make this happen, is the motivation backed by belief and determination. His dynamism made him an extremely successful businessman, one who shouldered multi-business responsibilities with ease and huge success.
As a father, he always ensured that his daughters, Monica and Sonica, were brought up to be strong individuals with an independent mind and yet be grounded. The dynamic young duo is trained to handle the publishing, hotel and real estate divisions of the company and is following their father's footsteps as the company forges ahead in new directions.
To salute the entrepreneurial excellence and exemplary contribution of Ashok Kumar Malhotra to the publishing industry, the FIP (an apex organisation setting high standards of printing and publishing in India) and FEPI (India’s most acknowledged publishing organisation) have conferred several awards on him. Mr Malhotra always believed that “One could be the biggest or be the best but there was no accomplishment if the biggest wasn't the best... so one must strive to be the best.”
Budget 2018’s biggest bonanza was an ambitious health care project that the Modi government announced for the poor. The launch of the National Protection Health Scheme was quick to draw the attention and immediately being compared to former US President Barack Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care - also known as Obamacare - which promised affordable health coverage to all Americans. But how similar are these two healthcare missions of the two of the world's biggest democracies?
Even though it might be too early to launch forth into comparisons before waiting for some more clarity to emerge on the architecture of the Ayushman Bharat scheme, some obvious similarities and differences are clearly seen.
Initial estimates have pegged the cost of the project at Rs 4,000 crore and targeted to cover 10 crore households. It is going to be a Centre-state joint participation where the Centre has confirmed to cough up Rs 2,0000 crore and is hoping that the states will supplement the rest. The whole scheme is open to scaling up if and when the government decides to turn the programme into a universal healthcare scheme with benefits given to all citizens in the country. According to some in the know, the government plans to eventually do turn the programme to universal healthcare and aim to cover all the 24.49 crore households in India in the next three years. In 2010, Obama had pegged the whole cost at $ 940 billion over 10 years but two years later the Congressional Budget Office came out with an estimated cost of $1.76 trillion.
While Obamacare was also largely aimed at the poor, it also benefited middle-class Americans, but Modicare is specifically targeted at India's poor for the time. Obamacare made it mandatory for every citizen to buy insurance cover and offered government subsidy on the premiums. There have been criticisms over the recent increase in premiums and continuous debate over whether it should be scrapped, including President Trump's efforts to repeal the Act.
In sheer numbers the scheme is likely to cover, Modicare is going to cover a much larger population compared to Obamacare. A total of 10 crore families have been identified on the basis of the lowest earning 10 crore poor, BPL and APL families as per the Socio-Economic & Caste Census of 2011 to be brought under the cover of Modicare. In fact, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in his budget speech announced that 50 crore people were to ultimately benefit from the scheme. However, Obamacare till 2016 had brought around 2 crore 40 lakh citizens under the insurance protection scheme.
In India, the government is going to invite bids from the insurance companies to cover these 10 crore families. These insurance companies, in turn, will tie up with healthcare chains where the insured will be treated. The poor will not be expected to pay for the insurance as the government has promised to provide a cover of up to Rs 5 lakh per family for secondary and tertiary care hospitalisation.
Compared to the Rs 5 lakh limit under Modicare, there are no such limits or cap under Obamacare for essential health benefits. The US government pays a subsidy in the premium to those whose income fall between the 100-4—per cent poverty line. The US Affordable Care Act also ensures that in case of chronic illness, policyholders get health cover even if they have run out of coverage.
As far as spending on health care is concerned there is no comparison between the US and India by miles. The United States spends around 18 per cent of its GDP on healthcare, India’s public health budget is currently 1.15 per cent of GDP and it hopes to raise to 2.5 per cent of GDP by 2025. Surely a long way to go to come anywhere near the Obamacare’s huge outreach.
He is the modern Czar of Russia, one of the most powerful men in the world. But Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, President of Russia grew up in a oneroom bedsit in St Petersburg’s rat-infested streets. Then known as Leningrad, the street where Putin grew up was a tough neighbourhood to survive. This is where it’s believed that Putin got his ruthless streak. In fact, he famously once said that fifty years ago, the Leningrad street taught me a golden rule – if a fight is inevitable you have to throw the first punch.
Putin’s childhood was spent in a room with cardboard walls and several families sharing a single toilet. It was a Communist communal bedsit of those times which could at best be described as a hovel. Gangs roamed the streets and vicious brawls were common in those slum conditions where children often died of hunger. It is hard to believe that a boy who grew up in such poverty would one day rise to be one of the world’s richest and most powerful men.
The Kremlin website informs that Putin wanted to work for the Soviet intelligence, even before he finished school. And he did, going on to become a spy in East Germany as part of the KGB one of the most feared intelligence agencies in the Soviet era. He later went on to become the chief of Federal Security Service (the FSB — main successor of the KGB). And that was the beginning of Putin the Great.
Putin’s decisive moves were to later take many by surprise such as his swift military interventions in Ukraine, annexing Crimea in March 2014 and then moving into Syria where he sided with President Basar al Assad and went on to bomb anti-government rebels backed by the US, a move that soon helped tip the war in the Syrian government’s favour.
Putin has always seen himself as the restorer of Russian pride. After years of perceived humiliation by the US and its NATO allies, Putin has never made any secret of his determination to reassert Russian power. In 2005 he famously called the collapse of the Soviet Union “the biggest geopolitical catastrophe of the [20th] Century.”
Putin also did not shy from using the language of a street fighter while defending the military onslaught against the Chechnya rebels fighting for a separate homeland. In fact, Putin went as far as to say that he would wipe them out “even in the toilet”.
The Russian President also never shies from showing his macho side and appears to quite relish that image. Flying into Chechnya in a fighter jet in 2000 and showing up at a Russian biker festival by the Black Sea in 2011 were some of his election stunts. The biker gang the Night Wolves, in fact, played a huge role in whipping up patriotic fervour during Russia’s takeover of Crimea in 2014.
But Putin is clever enough to showcase his gentler side too by cuddling his dogs and helping to care for the endangered Amur tigers. Putin is quite the sportsman man too – passionate about ice hockey and judo. The 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi was a lavish showcase for the Putin era: it cost Russia an estimated $51bn (£34bn) the highest price tag for any Olympics.
President Putin however still enjoys great popularity despite having ruled for so long, a popularity that Western leaders can only dream of. Re-elected President in 2012 for a third, six-year term in the Kremlin, Putin continued to control the levers of power the previous four years too even though he played prime minister to President Dmitry Medvedev.
In his first two terms as president Putin was buoyed by healthy income from oil and gas - Russia’s main exports. Living standards for most Russians improved. There was a new sense of stability and national pride. But the price, in the opinion of many, was the erosion of Russia’s fledgeling democracy. In the run-up to his re-election, Russia was gripped by the biggest anti-government protests since Soviet times.
Protest leaders have been jailed or otherwise marginalised - including the most prominent opposition leader, Alexei Navalny. Navalny made a name for himself by exposing rampant corruption, labelling Putin's United Russia as “the party of crooks and thieves”.
But Navalny has been formally barred from standing in 2018 because he was found guilty of embezzlement - a charge he says was politically motivated.
The revival of religion in the Communist country after the fall of the Soviet Union has given the Orthodox Church more muscle. In fact, encouraged by the Orthodox Church, Putin’s third term has been marked by Russian nationalism. Groups accused of spreading gay ‘propaganda’ among teenagers have been banned and the Church also denounced the group Pussy Riot, a Russian feminist protest punk rock group based in Moscow.
NGOs which received foreign funding were ordered to register as foreign agents something the Soviet era had labeled such organizations fearful of the “spy.”
Putin’s wife Lyudmila had once described her husband as a workaholic. The mother of his two daughters, Lyudmila almost complained that Vladimir Vladimirovich is completely drowned in work. The couple however divorced in 2013 after nearly 30 years of marriage. There is very little information about the Putin family as he has kept his two daughters and his financial affairs completely shielded from any publicity.
His youngest daughter Tikhonova is said to be in the world of academia and doing well with a high-profile administrative job at Moscow State University. She is known to take part in acrobatic rock ‘n’ roll competitions.
It was a rare glimpse into Putin’s family life. He has kept his two daughters and financial affairs well shielded from publicity. But according to a news investigation, his younger daughter is thriving in academia, has a top administrative job at Moscow State University and performs in acrobatic rock ‘n’ roll competitions. Tikhonova is the partner of Kirill Shamalov, son of a wealthy, longstanding Putin associate, Nikolai Shamalov.
Maria, Putin’s elder daughter, is also an academic and specialising in endocrinology. Several other powerful figures close to Putin - often ex-KGB - also have successful children in lucrative management jobs.
As the opposition leader Alexei Navalny put it, it’ a "neo-feudal system" that looks after a small, privileged class.
Vladimir Putin is said to have never returned to the place where he once lived in poverty. Today Putin’s enormous wealth is pegged at some £150 billion, making him most probably the world’s richest man.
Most of his wealth is however kept hidden in secret bank accounts. He has 37 per cent control of an oil company called Surgutneftegaz and is known to have some 4.5 per cent in another gas company called Gazprom.
One of his palaces in the Black Sea is worth nearly £1billion and political rivals claim that he owns about 20 palaces and country retreats and also some 58 aircraft and choppers.
Putin is said to be obsessed with the riches and his macho photo-ops – hunting Siberian tigers, riding shirtless on horseback or taking a ride in a small military submarine. All this is a far cry from his humble beginnings.
His grandfather was a chef for the two great Russian leaders Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin. His parents married very young – his father Vladimir was a sailor on submarines and later worked for the KGB. His mother Maria did mostly cleaning jobs to keep the food on the table
Vladimir Putin was born on October 7, 1952. The boy was secretly christened at a local church because religion was severely frowned upon by Soviet Russia and his mother had to take him while his father was away at work. Thus began the Great Putin’s journey into the world