World \\ There was global outrage over the shooting of a 14-year-old Pakistani activist, working for education and empowerment. Malala Yousufzai, who opposed Taliban restrictions on woman education, was left in a critical condition after gunmen shot her in the head and neck, while she was leaving for school in Mingora, in the Swat area of Pakistan. Two other students, both girls, were also wounded in the attack. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, saying the young girl was ‘pro-West’ and speaking out against them. After the attack, UN chief’s spokesperson Martin Nesirky told press that the UN was ‘deeply moved’ by Yousufzai’s courageous efforts to promote the fundamental right to education. UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon, expressed his outrage and strongest condemnation over the shooting. One of the two Taliban militants suspected of attacking a teenage girl activist was detained by the Pakistani military in 2009 but subsequently released, intelligence officials said.

Cricket \\ West Indies were crowned the new World Twenty20 champions after a 36-run victory over hosts Sri Lanka in a dramatic final in Colombo, Sri Lanka. The West Indies, restricted to 137-6 after electing to bat, hit back to bowl Sri Lanka out for 101 and silence a sell-out crowd of 35,000 at the Premadasa stadium which also included Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa. Post match, Mahela Jayawardene (35) announced his decision to step down as the captain of the Sri Lankan T20 team after losing the final match. “Just one announcement guys, I have had a chat with the selectors and I have decided to step down as a captain of the Sri Lankan T20 team after the end of the tournament,” Jayawardene said in a matter-of-fact manner at the post-match press conference here. He also informed that he will “assess his future as captain” in the ODIs and Tests after Sri Lanka’s tour of Australia in December 2012. It was the first world title for the West Indies since the 50-over World Cup triumph under Clive Lloyd in 1979, and handed Sri Lanka their fourth defeat in a major final since 2007. Spinner Sunil Narine grabbed three wickets for nine runs and Sammy took two as the hosts, who had excelled in the field in the first session, undid the good work with irresponsible batting in the second. Skipper Mahela Jayawardene survived two dropped catches to top-score with 33, while tailender Nuwan Kulasekara hit 26 off 13 balls, including three fours and a six in the 16th over of seamer Ravi Rampaul. Sri Lanka’s unorthodox spinner Ajantha Mendis had taken four wickets for 12 runs as the West Indies collapsed once Chris Gayle was removed in the sixth over for only three runs. Marlon Samuels was the only batsman to defy the spot-on Sri Lankan bowling, making 78 off 56 balls with the help of six sixes and three boundaries. The hosts were cruising at 48-1 in the 10th over when the West Indies bounced back by claiming four wickets for 13 runs. It was a perfect stage set for a perfect final. The world’s two most loveable cricket countries, both starved of success in recent years, both with scant regard for conventional play, head-to-head in a stadium filled with cheering fans. Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa wasn’t going to miss this one—he was in a prime spot at the stadium to witness events unfold from his armchair. But the president, like the majority of the crowd, left disappointed as the home team came up short. Cricket means a lot in this part of the world, and after hosting a terrific sporting carnival over the past three weeks, it seemed that Sri Lanka was destined to win the trophy to add to its one and only triumph, in the 50-over World Cup way back in 1996. And it started so well, as the West Indies team—after winning the toss and choosing to bat—just could not find the room to score any runs off Sri Lankan bowling attack.

Nobel \\ Two Americans shared 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for deciphering the communication system that the body uses to sense the outside world, which will aid development of new drugs. The winners were, Dr Robert J. Lefkowitz, professor at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, NC, and Dr Brian K. Kobilka, a professor at the Stanford University School of Medicine in California. For the Nobel Prize in Physics, American physicist David Wineland, shared the Nobel Prize for Physics with Serge Haroche of the Collège de France and École Normale Supérieure in Paris “for ground-breaking experimental methods that enable measuring and manipulation of individual quantum systems.” British researcher John Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka of Japan won this year’s Nobel Prize in physiology for discovering that mature, specialised cells of the body can be programmed into stem cells, a discovery that scientists hope to turn into new treatments. Chinese writer Mo Yan was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his “hallucinatory realism which merges folk tales, history and the contemporary”. The most controversial award, however, turned out to be this year’s Peace Prize, awarded to to the crisis-torn European Union. It led to a Twitter backlash, though some netizens came to the decision’s defence.

Announcement\\ Michael Schumacher announced his ‘second’ retirement from racing at the age of 43 years in the Suzuka paddock in Japan. It came as no real shock, considering Schumacher’s seat was given to Lewis Hamilton for season 2013 onwards. That left Schumacher with few alternatives for his future in F1, with Sauber as the primary option. Most F1 fans will link Schumacher with Ferrari before Schumacher and Mercedes, and those who were witness to the dominance at the turn of the millennium know forever, that his greatness is perhaps only surpassed by the late Ayrton Senna. Several of Schumacher’s fans had seen him retire in 2006. Then he returned to racing in 2010. When Schumacher read his final farewell— and thanked his wife Corinna— he was given a hero’s farewell. This was clearly a different, more humble, more accessible Schumacher. He even came out with a line about how ‘‘losing can be more instructive’’ than winning. The Schumacher of the past would never accept defeat, to the point that he was judged to have purposefully knocked Jacques Villeneuve off the track in an effort to win the title in 1997, and had his points erased for that season as punishment.

Scams\\ India witnessed a slew of protests against high-profile politicians and personalities in October 2012. Robert Vadra, the son-in-law of Congress Party president Sonia Gandhi, came under the scanner. It was alleged that Vadra had bought as many as 41 premium apartments from DLF, and subsequently sold most of them at a profit. Apartments were acquired by companies promoted by him, including Sky Light Hospitality, which had dealings with DLF, by paying a minimum booking amount, with the exception of a luxury pad in the picturesque Aralias, for which he paid the entire sum of `11.9 crore upfront. Vadra used a part of the `58-crore advance paid by DLF (for purchasing a 3.5 acre plot from him in Gurgaon) for booking these flats. Also, Uttar Pradesh (UP) Police’s Economic Offences Wing (EOW) started collecting documents in connection with its probe into alleged financial irregularities in a trust run by Union minister Salman Khurshid. The UP government had directed the EOW to probe into charges of misappropriation of funds by Zakir Hussain Trust run by Khurshid, and wife, Louise. India Against Corruption activist Arvind Kejriwal also offered to present evidence against law minister Salman Khurshid.

SWATI KAUSHAL: I was born in Delhi. My father had a transferable job, as a result we moved around a lot when I was a child. Looking back it seems that my destiny was somehow connected with the US. My father was posted in Washington DC, at the Embassy, when I was merely three years old. We shifted, for the first time, at that time. We came back, the whole family, when I was in Class III. Since then, and for a long time, I remained in India where I completed my schooling, college and Master’s. Like good Delhi girls I graduated from the Lady Shri Ram College for Women with a degree in economics— one cannot get more Delhi native than that, can they? My destiny was slowly pulling me towards a corporate career as I got through Indian Institute of Management in Kolkata. The institution proved to be important, as I met my future husband there. Post- IIM, like every other management graduate, I moved to a steady corporate job at Nestle—where I started off as a management trainee and worked my way up to being the brand manager. In 1997, right after my son was born, my husband got this fabulous job offer in the US. I, too, believed that the time was right to make a move. I wished to re-think my career and be a full-time mom to my firstborn. So, we packed our bags and went to the US. I found living there quite a struggle—as a society it was independent. And I was soon juggling to be a full-time mother and a homemaker. Get the credit cards done, get the car up and running, get the groceries in time and be there for your child 24*7—for an Indian, brought up in an pseudo-extended family system, it was hectic! A year later, we gave up. We shifted to India, where my husband continued with his previous corporate job, while I rejoined my old job at Nestle. I continued in Nestle till a better offer came in from Nokia. Both of us (husband and I) were deeply entrenched into our corporate lives. However, there was always that nagging feeling that I wished to be there for my son. When both parents maintain fulltime jobs they get to see very little of their child. I realised that as a family we will not be able to sustain the strain of being away all the time. There were some personal events that clinched the deal, and I quit my job. I started to re-think my future, what was that one thing that I loved doing the most. And whether could I pursue it, and give time to my son? When I used to work at Nokia, we had a small marketing team. For the longest time, we did not have an ad agency because we had switched. During that time, I had penned quite a bit of the company’s advertising myself. I realised that I liked to write short and snappy lines which spoke their intent immediately. I did not like browsing through 100 pages before I had the faintest clue as to what was being said. There was an epiphanic moment—I knew that I wanted to read stuff that were pragmatic, logical and to-the-point. More importantly, I knew that I loved writing, so, so much. If no one else would, I will write the language of today, snappy and smooth. Once we moved back to the US in 2001, it was clear to me that I did not wish to pursue the corporate life anymore. We were settled in Minnesota. That is when I started to work on Piece of Cake. The process was not a piece of cake—pun intended. I knew the corporate sector well. I knew the marriage-obsessed, mom-market of India very well as well. But, there is a gap between knowing something, and writing, and in convincing readers about the main protagonist, the romance of the book, the arranged marriage and her corporate life. Fortunately, Piece of Cake became India’s first official chick-lit, a label that I was quite excited about. I have no qualms in admitting that I maintain that fine balance between a metro read and a new-age book. I can make my pages a brisk read, because I love reading simple language myself. However, I cannot compromise on the language, grammar and sentence construction. I love writing for all ages and for all genders, but I realise that a lot of young people read what I write. Therefore, the onus lies on me to maintain balance—my books are pacy, they will never be trashy. As a mother to a teenaged son and a toddler, I have strict standards of what I wish to put in on paper. Having said that, I try to not think of my readers when I am writing. It is a personal experience for me. I go into a zone where I cease to exist as a mother, wife and a homemaker. The Starbucks outlet near my house opens at 6am sharp. I am there after a shower by 6.10am. I am the shower and write person. So, showers are tense moments when I am hoping, praying for a fresh idea, some epiphany or snippet that I can elaborate upon. For an hour-and-a-half at Starbucks, I am writing things down. Anything and everything. It may be the best idea that I have or the worst. It could be something that I will be trashing immediately after I sit down to write next. I believe that the act of writing things down is important. The day when I manage to pen down around 1,000 words, I celebrate. Days when I write around 500 words, I remain quite kicked. That one per cent inspiration bit happens in that one hour in the morning when I am at Starbucks. Writers by nature are quite bipolar; we switch off and switch on different personas. And my management training has equipped me to be present in a situation and work according to clients’ needs. I can switch my American accent on and off. Give me 10 days in India and I shall talk to you in an Indian accent. Even when I am writing in the Starbucks cafe, I may be heavily-entrenched in an America reality, but I can switch that off and think like the Swati Kaushal who was born and raised in India. Having said that, the switching bit has been getting difficult over the years. When I wrote Piece of Cake, I was fresh off the boat, as they say. My Indian reality seemed more immediate, close and tangible. Now, I have been living in the US for 11 years. My home, my roots have changed. India has changed. I have not been a participant in that change. So, to place the story in the Indian context I have to seriously research and talk to several people, before I can even get a starting point. Before A Girl Like Me, which was for mothers and teenagers, I went back to India a couple of times, spoke to my friends and their children. I was like a fly on the wall, while the teenagers would talk. I would record conversations. I would listen to the tapes. To create the character of Nikki Marwah, for my latest detective series, Drop Dead, I visited Punita Bharadwaj, who was one of the first few female officers in Himachal Pradesh. Her inputs were cardinal in the character development of Nikki. Punita spoke to me about what it meant to be the woman in a man’s space. How she handled situations using her feminine sensibilities rather than act as one of the boys. I remember that Punita spoke about one particular incident when she reasoned out with an angry mob rather than use force, which would have been the default reaction of anyone who believed in being more masculine. My latest character Nikki is consciously feminine. Yet, she is as tough as nails. She is smart and sassy. While growing up in the pre-liberalised India, all of us girls had the idea that to be smart and to be taken seriously, we had to be ‘one of the boys’. Today, as a mother to a daughter, I realise that I do not wish my daughter to behave in a certain manner to be taken seriously. She can love high heels as much as she wants, and I believe she can be a rocket scientist if she has any interest in being one. We should consciously try to break the gender stereotypes, those are all passe now. For the first two books, my husband was my main sounding board. He is a voracious reader. He reads for pleasure. I do trust his judgement. We did have some heated discussions with him even when he was not actually reading the stuff that I had penned. I use him to bounce off ideas—do you believe that the character that I have just described would do such a thing? From the time I began my mystery series—I wanted to surprise everyone. Also, all these books that I have written before have given some boost to my confidence. Now, I am a little more relaxed. I seek less inputs from writer and reader friends, not because I am cocky but because I feel the responsibility to surprise them. I also share a strong bond with the people on the team—editors and publishers who have worked so closely with me. Now, I am confident enough—as much as a writer can be.

Dump those books and click the keys to get that perfect getaway

From flipping through outrageously priced Lonely Planet guidebooks to asking well-heeled and well-travelled friends for recommendations on where to go and what to do, travel has always had a social component to it. So it’s no surprise a large number of social travel websites—not just the Kayaks and the Trip advisors—are trying to make the experience of planning and enjoying your vacations and business trips that much more personal, and I have cherry picked the best of the lot for you. What are you waiting for? The holidays are coming and a new place beckons! Planning the Trip: Why fall for the marketing hype on a hotel’s website when you can see recommendations from your social circle and their friends? For instance, Gogobot connects with your Facebook account and lets you create travel plans and send out questions about your plans—places to see, things to eat—to your network and even publishes an itinerary on the site for you to share with your friends and family. There is a neat “passport feature” which not only documents where you’ve been (much like a real passport), but also lets you upload photos and share tips for other travellers about the destinations you’ve visited. On similar lines are Jauntlet–which posts a map with pinpoints of places you’ve been to (it integrates with Facebook, Foursquare, Instagram and twitter to annotate that map as well!) and Dopplr, which lets you privately share your itineraries with friends and associates, and should you wish to, see public itineraries for a sense of what one can do while vacationing at a holiday spot. Finding Offbeat Stayovers: The principle behind the hugely popular CouchSurfing site is rather simple—if you have a spare room or couch in your home, why not share it with a traveller willing to slum it out for a night. Which, as it turns out, works out rather brilliantly for those on a budget and looking to sample the local flavor of the land. With over 5 million members offering a place to crash for the night in more than 93,000 cities, Couch- Surfing makes its money, and helps keep the network safe as well, from its identity verification services, but keeps the search and hosting capabilities of the site free. The site’s success has seen it expand into tourism services, as a vacationer, you can use it to arrange for bicycle tours, museum visits and volunteering opportunities at your holiday destination and has led the way in the collaborative consumption business model, with later entrants such as Tripping and Airbnb expanding into the vacation rental segment. Finding Travel Companions: If you’re outgoing and enjoy chatting up with your fellow passengers on a long-haul flight, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines has something with you in mind—its Meet & Seat programme allows you to sign in with your LinkedIn and Facebook accounts to see who will be on your flight, view others’ profiles and chose your seat based on who is sitting where. Planely is a great introduction service for fliers to meet fellow passengers with the goal of making the most of the hours of downtime spent while traveling. The site’s algorithm uses your Facebook or LinkedIn profile to suggests compatible travellers on the same route as you’ve chosen, and is hugely popular with travellers who were heading to large events and wished to forge relationships with folks before arriving. Of course, if you’re really the adventurous sort socially, you can look at Travellution’s list of dream itineraries and even plan a vacation with a complete stranger—handy for those of us who have a bunch of friends who don’t share the same passion for travel that we do. Finding Great Deals: While big travel websites do a good job in helping you find offers at participating airlines and hotels, plenty of deals exist on airline and hotel twitter and Facebook pages as well. For international travellers, Wanderlisting has a up-to-date list of airlines and hotels, and tops it off by including big travel bloggers and publications as well. Or you could sign on to Facebook and ‘like’ your preferred airline, and watch as the offers roll in from time to time. Either way, there’s always a deal to be had for the determined traveller. And if you’re a last minute traveller, you could check out HotelTonight, an app that enables you to book a room at discounts of up to 70 per cent! Getting Local Tips: Instead of just typing out a Facebook update about who’s available to meet up in Paris when you’re there next week, you could let sites like Twigmore and Triptrotting search your social networks for friends who have friends in new places, then reach out to those people up for advice from a local’s perspective, or arrange meet-ups when you get there. Unlike traditional travel companies or guides, there’s a certain degree of trust that your friends—or their friends—won’t steer you wrong and get you to see the best of what their city has to offer for travellers.

50 years after the 1962 defeat

A STREAM of newspaper articles last month (October) marked the 50th anniversary of China’s 1962 war victory with headlines such as “The war we lost—the lessons we didn’t learn” and “Lessons from 1962—India must never lower its guard”. India’s guard is however still lowered and lessons have not been learned about anticipating an unexpected invasion– not just by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) taking up positions on India’s side of mountainous borders, but more importantly Chinese telecom companies possibly planting leaky and crippling bugs in networks and communications systems. Just as the defence pundits were revisiting the early 1960s, the US Congress’s intelligence committee issued warnings in Washington that two Chinese telecom companies—Huawei and ZTE—were a threat to America’s national security. The report said the companies could disrupt information networks and send sensitive data secretly back to China. Neither company had cooperated fully with the investigation, and Huawei had “provided evasive, non-responsive, or incomplete answers to questions at the heart of the security issues posed”. Although Huawei understandably suggested this was a protectionist ploy encouraged by American telecom companies to beat off low-cost competitors, the report triggered fresh complaints and renewed inquiries. Other countries are also worried, including Canada, Australia and the UK—and of course India which is clearly vulnerable to these security risks from a country that is its biggest long-term defence threat. Concerns that could one day lead to war include the 50-year old row over the border that China will not resolve, plus disputes over access to river waters and potential differences on sea lanes and other issues. In 10 years, Huawei has become a leading telecom provider in India, along with ZTE. It has a five-year $2bn investment plan and is the second biggest supplier of networks after Ericsson, with a 25 to 30 per cent market share, serving all of the country’s top telecom operators such as Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, Reliance Communications and Tata Teleservices. It also supplies telecom systems to companies, and has a substantial share of the market for devices such as data cards and phones, plus a large research centre in Bengaluru. It is not just telecoms where China is gaining a significant hold. Two-way trade currently stands at $60bn, heavily in China’s favour, making it India’s largest trading partner. The target for 2016 is $100bn. Orders for potentially sensitive power plant equipment exceed 44,000MW, triggering protective tariff demands by Indian manufacturers, and there are security concerns about possible Chinese bids on India’s power transmission grid. There are also growing financial links. China has taken some of the pressure off the heavily indebted Reliance Group run by Anil Ambani. A $1.2bn loan was secured from Chinese banks in January this year to refinance a convertible bond at Reliance Communications. In 2010 Reliance Power ordered $10bn equipment from Shanghai Electric Group financed by Chinese banks, plus $1.9bn for telecoms refinancing. The government is publicly in denial about the telecom and other possible security risks, though the army has expressed some concern, echoing worries earlier in the year when Chinese hackers were reported to have invaded Indian Navy computer systems. Three years ago, it was discovered that government-owned Bharat Electronics (BEL) was sourcing encryption communications equipment from China for the Indian Air Force. I have asked various officials and policy pundits about the risks in recent weeks and most duck the issue, offering no solution. Most take the same line as India’s telecom operators—that the products are irresistible because Huawei’s total costs of ownership are 25 to 30 per cent lower than rival companies such Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, and Nokia Siemens. India’s telecom imports from China in 2010-11 totalled $6.7bn, ranging from phones and attachments to networks. India stopped BSNL, a government owned telecom operator, buying Huawei and ZTE equipment in 2009-10 because of security concerns, but then allowed purchases by the private sector companies after Huawai co-operated with testing and certification of equipment, and offered access to sensitive electronic source codes. Speaking last week after the US report was published, India’s telecommunications secretary, R. Chandrashekhar, said the telecommunications department “has no problem” because the two companies were working within Ministry of Home Affairs guidelines. Shashi Tharoor, the MP who was previously a foreign affairs minister and a senior United Nations official, told me he was impressed not only about the low costs, but also that Huawei had been more willing than its European rivals to give the government access to the sensitive electronic source codes. He thought however that the manufacturers might need to be restricted for national security reasons, for example they are excluded from some critical networks and sensitive border states, especially in north-east India. Supporters point out that the PLA, where Huawei’s founder, Ren Zhengfei, used to work, has severed ties with the company (including possible equity stakes). But a company does not have to be tied to the PLA to toe the national line. Under China’s version of capitalism, companies owe primary allegiance to Beijing, whether they are in the private or public sector, so will do the government’s (or the PLA’s) bidding. It is however hard to know what can be done, especially since European manufacturers source components from other Chinese suppliers that might be harder to check than Huawei and ZTE. John Gapper, a leading Financial Times columnist, was probably right in a column he wrote last month. The headline was “It is too late for America to eliminate Huawei”, and he noted that “the time to declare telecoms a strategic, protected industry like defence, was 20 years ago; now is the time to make a deal”. He said that such a deal could involve Huawei opening up its very secretive books and ownership pattern by listing on London or New York stock exchanges, and separating its US (and presumably other country) divisions, as America demands for defence equipment manufacturers. That might be part of the solution, but surely it would be better for India and other countries to ban Chinese high-technology firms from all security and communication sensitive networks and gradually ease them out of as many other areas as possible. The chances of a war with China are remote in the foreseeable future, so India has time, if it starts now, gradually to remove the threat as contracts expire and technologies change.

An ad-man, a scuba diver and a wannabe filmmaker, Prahlad Kakar is the man who dons many hats

Creative people, artists, are generally moody, and just a bit loony. You never know what to expect from them. Despite this notion of ‘crazy people in showbusiness’, I was not prepared for this one particular encounter with the country’s arguably best ad-man, Prahlad Kakar. There is eccentric and then there is Prahlad Kakar. Had it not been for a pair of “gorgeous legs” (yes, you read it right), Kakar would have probably been working in a big MNC. Heck! He would have retired by now. After graduating in economics from Fergusson College, Pune, Kakar had got himself a high-paying white-collar job. When he walked into the office, he found the office to be dull. “The women were so busy crunching numbers, they had no time to take care of themselves”. He had a “scary vision” of spending the rest of his life in the company of the “dull people”, more importantly, dull women, and walked out of the office. On his way out, he found a bunch of lunchers outside an office. From where he was standing, they looked a bunch of good-looking, fun loving people. He went ahead and chatted with them and came to know that they all worked for an advertising firm. He liked the people so much, that he decided to give advertising a shot. So he walked inside the ad office, on a supposed job hunt. This is exactly where he spotted the said legs, which belonged to the beautiful receptionist. “I told her that I had travelled through Delhi, Mumbai, and the world. Hers were the best pair of legs I had ever seen”. She was so flattered, that the receptionist decided to help the cheeky young man. Kakar got the job—and the rest as they say is history. Anyone who has seen Kakar speak on the TV shows will know how much he loves to talk. This is a man who is generous with words, so generous in fact that an interview does not have to do much. When I ask him about his one childhood memory which he still cherishes, he speaks of a Anglo- Indian teacher, whose classes he looked forward to. She was his first love. “I would wait for her to ask us to read something from the texts. And the moment she did, I would stand right next to her and start reading from the book, while my eyes would be fixed on her.” He then goes on to talk about the lavender talc she wore, how he still remembers the fuzzy feeling. After narrating the story of his first love, he asks me about mine. I am told that “This cannot happen one way, a conversation can only take place when both individuals share their stories.” It is evident from the recounted memory that he was quite the brat in his growing-up years. Owing to this behaviour, Kakar had earned quite a reputation by the time he was a teenager. His parents allegedly had little faith in him and always believed he would not do much in life. When he rejected the MNC job and took up advertising, their reaction was, “Only people who do not get respectable jobs, join advertising.” A harsh response indeed, but that did not stop Kakar. Unfazed by the brickbats, Kakar went on to become the country’s leading ad-man. If you believe that his success has changed his family’s opinion of him, think again. “They see me having fun everyday. To them, all I have been doing all this while is hanging out with pretty women, and having a gala time, while pretending to work. All the name I have made for myself, my family calls it a fluke,” says a laughing Kakar. His mantra is to have fun while working. “So much fun, that work stops being work. If more and more people start enjoying what they do, the world would become a more conducive and creative place,” he adds. At the beginning of his career, Kakar had the fortune of working under Shyam Benegal as his assistant director in films such as Ankur, Bhumika and Manthan. One day, Benegal decided go out on a personal errand, and left the whole responsibility of the shoot on Kakar. “I was sh*****g bricks. It was a huge responsibility and I was not sure how to handle it. I was running out of choice and had to do something anyhow. With nervous apprehension, I took charge and completed the job assigned. When we saw the result, it was much better than what I had expected. But had Mr Benegal not pushed me into it, I would have never done it,” he confesses. He recounts a similar experience of his first ad shoot. Had his boss not literally pushed him into directing an advertisement, he would not have become the man he is today. Despite decades of experience under his belt, he still feels the butterflies of his first shoot when an ad goes on to the floors today. “The moment I stop being nervous, I will know that the work has stopped exciting me. One cannot create something extraordinary without even a hint of nervousness.” Looking at the advertisements that Kakar has created, one has to agree that the spark was and is in him to create something extraordinary. Yehi Hai Right Choice Baby! or Yeh Dil Maange More are unforgettable lines. So why is it that we do not have commercials which stay with us for years? “The budgets are getting tighter, and clients are more insecure. They do not want to risk anything these days. Without risk there is no room for creativity. People do not enjoy watching commercials presently, because the makers are not having enough fun while creating them.” His life, certainly, seems like a joy ride. When I say so much, pat comes the reply, “It does not seem like a joy ride—it is.” Each day is a new day for Kakar. Each day he looks forward to doing something new, meeting new faces and embarking on newer adventures. One time in Mauritius, one of his friends asked him to come for a scuba dive. Kakar who knew nothing about scuba-diving, refused to go under water, but agreed for a boat ride. When his friend vanished under the sea midway, he got bored sitting alone. So he too jumped right in. “It was uncomfortable. The salty water stung my eyes and I was mostly on the surface of the water. I decided to go again the next day, but this time I was better prepared.” The next time when he hit the water, he stayed inside for full 15 minutes. As he says, “Those 15 minutes changed my life.” Once during a dive he found a Quran on the sea bed. Five years later, when he founded the scuba-diving institute—Lacadives—he established it on the only cent per cent Muslim island in Lakshadweep, Kadmat. Prahlad Kakar, as is evident by now, is a talkative man. And he is flamboyant too. For someone who talks mainly about women, water and work, it is hard to imagine him with a spiritual side. Allegedly, even people who know him cannot imagine it. Apparently, a friend who spotted him “hanging out” at the Isha Foundation Ashram, Coimbatore, yelled, “Hell! The guy doesn’t even believe in God!” Kakar came to meet Jaggi Vasudev, founder of Isha Foundation, by accident. When he did, he enjoyed the Guru’s company so much that he got hooked. When someone asked Jaggi Vasudev, how he got a man like Kakar interested in “the spiritual stuff”, Vasudev said, “Prahlad finally found a guy wilder than him.” Today, he is as involved with the Yoga Foundation as he is with his company and his scuba-diving institute. It is a mystery how he manages to juggle so many roles, so magnificently. His life, Kakar says, is like a Hitchcock film, except there are no murderers. He lives by one rule: “Time is the only thing which is not infinite, invest it properly,” he says. Ad film-making, scuba-diving, volunteer work for the yoga foundation— is there anything more that the man wishes to do next? Of course he does. There are “some wonderful film scripts” written by him, which remains to be made into films, he has not found the “right guy as yet”. But then, why convince someone else? Why can’t the best ad man do it himself, especially since he began his career as an assistant director to one of the most prominent directors of India? Kakar confesses that someone needs to push him into it. He can’t make films, as he is too nervous. Ladies and gentlemen, that’s Prahlad Kakar for you—hard to define, and harder to predict. As we get ready to wrap-up, he reminds me of the golden rule of communication—it happens two ways. As I dodge his questions, he sighs, and manages to leave me with a “relationship advice”. Like it or not, that’s how Kakar is—the enfant terrible, unpredictable and talented.

Northeast India has been an enigma for the nation. An area which has more than 2,000km of international border but is connected with India by a narrow 20km-wide corridor, the region’s tenuous geographical link makes it politically and economically volatile. On the other hand, the international border makes the area a playground of international politics, and what some analysts describe as “Great Game East”

The porous border between India and Bangladesh makes it simple for people from the neighbouring country make an easy entry. According to analyses, the continuous migration has altered the demography of several districts. Others deny this claim. They stress that the mobility between the states, and within the region, has been a part of history. They point out that it was but recently that Bangladesh became a separate, geographical entity. The issue of illegal migration is one of the contentious topics in Assam. It sparked a violent students’ movement in 1980s, which ended with the Assam Accord in 1985. The issue of illegal migration led to the birth of United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) in 1979—a separatist movement which demanded a separate country for the Assamese. Though the ULFA movement has died down, the demand for state cleansing remains potent in Assam. The state also has different tribes and groups who want their separate territories—a Bodoland is one such movement which has led to bloodshed. The Centre may have created the Bodo Autonomous Council, an autonomous region for the Bodos, but the problem is far from being solved. That points out how the pressure on land has made the indigenous tribe insecured in their area. Though in the collective mind, the conflict and largescale violence in western Assam was always between Bodos and Bangladeshi migrants, the ground reality indicates a spillover of politics of dominance. The Bodos want a complete political dominance in the autonomous region. One of the main reasons behind the continuing insurgencies is economic backwardness. Realising this, the Centre formulated a “Look East Policy” in 1990s to connect the Northeast with Southeast Asian countries and bring in economic reforms within the landlocked eastern frontier. The process has been slow, but it is yielding results. The Centre’s economic packages, coupled with the gradual decline in violence, has given a new hope. Nagaland, once a nervecentre of violence, is registering economic progress. Similarly, Mizoram, has been showing signs of change. In Bertil Lintner’s Great Game East, he states that the “Great Game” being played out at the eastern fringes of Indian between India and China is reminiscent of the battle between Great Britain and Russia for Central Asia supremacy. To discuss the Northeastern problem, DW got Lintner and Colonel Anil Bhat, a defence and strategic affairs analyst to speak on the Northeast issue.

Colonel Bhat// China has been making cartographic claims on Indian territory since 1950s. Till date, the country maintains its claim over Arunachal Pradesh. According to experts, our neighbour has made incursions as deep as 20km in parts of it. After the Naga Separatist Movement which it supported, China moved onto Meitei insurgents of Manipur. Since 2008, the country has been supporting the United Liberation Front of Asom’s (ULFA) anti-talks faction. As trade develops between India and China, at the latter’s advantage, the country will continue to meddle in India’s Northeast (NE). India has enunciated a Look East Policy, which if implemented, has great potential for development of India’s NE states and also the countries like Myanmar and Bangladesh. But that can only happen if India is able to neutralise China threat, and if its neighbours— especially Burma—ensure that their territory cannot be used by insurgent-terrorist groups. Bangladesh, under the regime of pro- Pakistan Bangladesh Nationalist Party, and Pakistan’s ISI, had also provided sanctuary to these groups for two decades. When Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League came back with a massive electoral mandate, it made these groups retreat to Burma. So far, to keep the NE together, India has periodically used the Army. What it needed to do was to exercise political will and undertake infrastructural development. Also, the Illegal Migration Determination by Tribunal (IMDT) Act, enacted by the ruling Congress in 1983, replacing the Foreigner’s Act of 1946, virtually regularised illegal migrants from Bangladesh upto March 1971. This Act made it impossible for a Bangladeshi migrant to be deported from Assam. Under the Act, the onus of establishing nationality rested not on the migrant or government, but on an individual who had to pay a fee to lodge a complaint to a stipulated jurisdiction. It took 22 years for the Supreme Court to repeal Act. Over and over again, India’s blindness to NE has led insurgents become conduits for ISI to enter India’s NE. ULFA became an effective tool of ISI for pursuing its aim of settling illegal Bangladeshi migrants in parts into Assam, raising new madarassas and controlling old ones and trying to convert ethnic Assamese Muslims to fundamentalism, creating communal tension, circulating fake Indian currency, trafficking arms and narcotics, sabotaging installations—particularly rail, oil and public services—assassinations and massacres. My book, Assam Terrorism and the Demographic Challenge (Centre for Land Warfare Studies-Knowledge World) assumes greater relevance in the light of the recent riots in Kokrajhar. It dwells on how the demographic pattern of at least eight districts in Assam got adversely altered over two decades of terrorism by ULFA, when its leaders were hiding in Bangladesh. By now, it is believed that 11 districts have been affected. The July and August 2012 riots between Bodos and non-Bodos in Kokrajhar, being referred to as “Bagladeshis or Mians” and its neighbouring districts left 77 killed and about 378,045 people rendered homeless. This being an official figure, no one knows how many more people took shelter in the safe zones. Out of the displaced, 266,700 are Muslims and 111,345 are Bodos. Assam is a serious case of demographic shifts, which have occurred due to votebank politics. Whereas unspecified crores of illegal migrants from Bangladesh have settled in Assam, it now comes to light that there are only 3,000-odd families have land holding records, while the rest were found without any land records. At this rate the future of the NE is far from bright and for Look East Policy with tremendous potential, much will have to be meaningfully done to keep this region secure and on the path of integration and progress.

Bertil Lintner // On the eastern fringes of the Indian subcontinent, the new rivalry between India and China grows warmer. When I say this is a ‘new’ rivalry, it is so only compared to the 19th century Great Game in the west. Indo-Chinese rivalry is not new in the modern sense—it goes back China’s invasion of Tibet in the early 1950s, the Lhasa uprising 1959, the 1962 border war, Chinese support for ethnic insurgents in Indias northeast, and the fact that the Dalai Lama’s movement in exile continued to be based in India. It is a regional rivalry between the two giants of Asia, and now, of course, it is also about China’s access (through Burma) to the Indian Ocean, which has added a new dimension to it. The question remains whether the region will be always disturbed, or is there a chance for economic prosperity and peace. That unfortunately is had to say. Peace is possible in Mizoram, and to some extent, in Nagaland. But Manipur remains a troubled area with more insurgent groups than in any other Northeastern state. And Manipur is crucial to New Delhi’s Look East Policy, as the state is India’s gateway to Southeast Asia. At the beginning of my book, I mention that, “The Great Game East is also about India’s struggle to keep its ethnically-diverse Northeastern states within the Union.” It is important to remember that there are insurgencies in the NE not only because Pakistan and China have supported those movements over the past few decades. There are genuine grievances as well; many Northeastern people do not rally they are Indians, and many “mainland” Indians are blissfully unaware of the NE problems. It is important, of course, that the various peoples of the NE have been granted statehood, but more has to be done to create a better understanding among the population. It is important to look closely at the issue of foreigners in Assam and the agitation against Bangladeshi settlers. It is a big problem because Bangladesh is underdeveloped, and Assam’s fertile plains are there to the north. Furthermore, the borders are porous and impossible to police. The presence of immigrants in Assam is both a destabilising factor, and an economic opportunity. The immigrants take the jobs which ordinary Assamese people do not, and they contribute to the economy. However, any kind of immigration has to be regulated, which has not been the case. The recent conflict between Bodo and Muslims was interpreted broadly as a conflict between local and foreigners. As I saw it, the strife was a fight over land and resources. The never-ending unrest in Manipur has been the most difficult issue to solve in the NE. It is not only local militants versus the Centre, but Nagas against Meiteis, and Kukis against Nagas. No single solution would satisfy aspirations of all nationalities in this multiethnic state. Carving it up into smaller entities would not be a solution; creating autonomous districts within the state, with more self-government than now, could be the way forward. Insurgency has always been a bane of the NE. Manipur is still the most volatile state in the region. However, the Naga problem seems to be reaching some kind of a stalemate. Naga leaders were the first one to reach China for training. It is hard to see what the Nagas could get which they don’t already have: their own state. And I cannot imagine that the Centre will agree to any solution which is not within the framework of the Constitution. To do anything otherwise could, and would, set a precedent for other ethnic conflicts in other parts of the country and as such be a threat to the unity of the entire Indian Union. With economic development, and more importantly, serious considerations for the ethnic aspirations of the peoples, the strifes and the economic problems could be solved. One cannot come without the other; and only economic development will not be enough. These are different cultures and traditions that we are talking about. These differences must be respected and safeguarded and not seen as a threat to India’s unity.