Shakespeare’s favorite month would seem to be April even though the poet T.S. Eliot called April the cruelest month. It seemed to be true this Hot April, with temperatures soaring beyond 45 in the plains of northern India. Global temperatures also shot up with America dropping the Mother of all bombs on Afghanistan. But maybe May holds out some hope.
We bring you a narrative of hope for thousands of children whose futures are being rewritten under the Reliance Foundation’s Education for All project. And this ambitious dream is being scripted by none other than the Lady of India’s richest corporate house – Nita Ambani. The woman sure plays fairy godmother with aplomb. It's people like her who need to step up more where governments are failing to provide basic needs.
In our Platform section, we weigh in on the portions of a food quota proposed by a minister who feels that the consumer needs to know how much he is paying for what exactly. But will it finally get plated needs to be seen
The sublime game of cricket where men in whites used to languidly play for days is getting a little aggressive with the stakes getting higher. With games getting shorter and more competitive, cricket is no longer a gentleman's game nor are cricketers. The aggression is clearly on show on the field
In the world of technology, children are getting addicted to devices. No wonder the Apple man Steve Jobs never let his kids use the ‘poisoned’ Apple iPad. Interesting, isn't it?
In the Arts section, we take you on a Song of the Road with the master storyteller and film maestro Satyajit Ray to mark his 25th death anniversary. The recent burst of feminist films and Bollywood's confusing stereotypes brings up the Cinema section.
Then, of course, the usual back of the magazine fun with travel across Eastern Europe, a Wedding Special and some unusual stories of women from the badlands of Uttar Pradesh. Keep reading DW and stay cool. Cheers!
MCD ELECTIONS// The BJP has retained, by huge margins, all three municipal corporations in Delhi for which elections were held last month. The only contest was for a number two between Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party and the Congress. AAP gets that consolation prize, with the Congress third in all the municipalities. The Congress’ Delhi chief Ajay Maken has resigned, while AAP has alleged that rigged voting machines led to its rout. BJP chief Amit Shah credited Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s governance for the victory and said, “The people of Delhi have rejected negative politics, the politics of excuses.”
The MCD elections is an important addition to the BJP’s list of victories this year in state and local polls across the country. The party has dominated the MCD for a decade and conducted a big campaign to retain control, still smarting at being reduced to just three seats in the Delhi assembly in 2015, as AAP swept 67 of the 70 seats. In the 2014 national election, the BJP had won all seven of Delhi’s parliament seats. Ajay Maken said he was quitting as the Congress' Delhi chief and would not hold any party post for a year. He said the Congress was the day's big gainer on vote share, but he had expected to do better. Just ahead of the MCD polls some top Delhi Congress leaders quit the party and joined the BJP as a rebellion bubbled against Mr Maken.
For AAP, this loss means a political wipe-out. Chief Minister Kejriwal’s party, which had swept assembly elections in Delhi two years ago, is already reeling from humiliating losses in the Punjab and Goa assembly elections last month
Final Results: BJP - 184, AAP - 46, Cong - 30, Independent - 6, BSP - 2, SP - 1, INLD - 1
MILITARY EXERCISE// North Korea’s military conducted huge live-fire drills on April 25 and issued new warnings that it would defend itself against the “American imperialists”, amid high tensions and a military buildup in the region. In retaliation, the United States and its South Korean and Japanese allies flexed their muscle as well by conducting military exercises of their own. In addition, one of the US’s largest guidedmissile submarines showed up in the South Korean port of Busan, presaging of the imminent arrival to the region of a naval strike group led by an aircraft carrier.
The military build-up on both sides comes amid heightened tensions over North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs, and warnings from the Trump administration that “all options are on the table” for dealing with the regime in Pyongyang. Analysts had been concerned that North Korea might seek to mark important dates this month - the birthday of the state’s founder was celebrated with a huge military parade on April 15 - with a nuclear or ballistic missile test. North Korea did launch a missile on April 16, but it exploded within seconds
Analysts also warned against reading too much into the exercises with conventional weaponry, noting that North Korea's annual winter training cycle culminates in big exercise every year around this time. Still, North Korea remains defiant despite mounting pressure from the Trump administration and, increasingly, China, to stop its missile program.
MILITANCY// Maoist militants killed 25 paramilitary personnel and injured six in Chhattisgarh’s south Sukma region on April 24 in an ambush possibly to thwart a crucial road link the government believes would break the back of the insurgent group. The midday attack, which occurred between the Burkapal-Chintagufa area in the Maoist hotbed of Bastar, is the worst in seven years. In 2010, rebels killed 75 CRPF troopers in the same region. Monday’s victims were part of a 99-strong team providing security to workers building the road
DM Awasthi, special director general of police (anti-Maoist operations) said later in a statement, “Security forces will move with ease in the area after this road is built and this is troubling the Maoists. We are entering their core through this road,”.
Survivors of the attack said about 300 militants waylaid them, firing with rifles from hilltops. Senior police officers said the security party was having lunch when they were attacked. The security personnel were evacuated by air force choppers and a rescue team. The deceased were from the 74th battalion of the CRPF and included an inspector-rank officer.
AWARD// Indian activist Prafulla Samantra has won the Goldman Environment Prize, one of the world most important environment awards. He won the award for his action in stopping a large company from taking over tribal land for mining in the Niyamgiri Hills of Orissa
Samantra grew up in Orissa in a family of farmers. He trained as a lawyer when he grew up. In 2003, he read a news report about the plans of a mining company named Vedanta to take over land in the Niyamgiri Hills of Orissa and convert it into a mine. Mines are used to dig out rocks and minerals from deep within the ground. The Niyamgiri Hills are rich in bauxite deposits which are mined to make the metal aluminum. Worried that the mine would destroy tribal and forest land important to the Dongria Kondh, Samantra worked hard to educate the local people to rise up in protest against the mine. He also filed a case in the Supreme Court. In 2013, the Supreme Court said that the local people of the Niyamgiri Hills alone could decide whether to go ahead with the mine or not. Thanks to the Samantra’s work, the village leaders of the area voted against the mine. Defeated, Vedanta cancelled the project in 2015. Samantra’s story shows how people can fight for their rights even when faced with a powerful company.
Samantra is the sixth Indian to win the Goldman prize.
POLICY// The Indian Government is thinking of issuing Identity Cards for cows, calves, oxen and bulls. The idea behind this is to prevent illegal smuggling of old and retired cattle across the border into Bangladesh.
The ID tag will contain details such as the cow’s age, breed, height, body colour and horn type and each cow will have a unique ID number. The government will also maintain a list of such ID card holding cows.
It is well known that hundreds of cows are illegally smuggled each day from India to Bangladesh, where they are sold. Such cows, many of who have retired from farm work or no longer produce milk, may be finally killed for their meat. The killing of cows for meat is not permitted in many states of India and the law does not allow cows to be transported from states where their killing is banned to ones where it is allowed. Therefore, smuggling cows to another country is also not allowed. The government hopes that through the ID cards, it will be able to fix the smuggling problem
PROTEST// Thousands of people in the United States took to the streets to march in protest on Saturday, April 22, which was celebrated as Earth Day. They were protesting against what they see as the ‘anti-science’ activities of the government led by Donald Trump. Many in the US are angry that Trump plans to spend less money on government science and research projects. More worryingly, the new President doesn’t seem to believe that the climate change problem is real. The increase in Earth’s temperature due to human activities is called global warming and this is causing the climate of the Earth to change. To stop or reverse climate change, scientific studies and research projects are required, and the fear is that the Trump government may stop supporting these projects. Many messages were leveled at Trump and his party, which holds majorities in Congress. Scientists have raised alarms over Trump’s budget blueprint, which would cut $12.6 billion from the Department of Health and Human Services, including $5.8 billion from the National Institutes of Health alone.
ELECTIONS// Winds of change are blowing across Europe with elections to be held in two countries-United Kingdom and France. Results to these elections could change the history of Europe forever. Its Macron vs Le Pen in France
In the final round of elections on May 7, Emmanuel Macron will face Marine Le Pen in a final fight that will decide who becomes the next President of France. The French elect their President through a ‘run-off’ race. If one single person does not get the largest share of vote in the first round, the top two candidates face off for a final round. That’s what will take place on May 7.
If elected, each of these leaders could change the way France is run. Marine Le Pen, for instance, is against immigrants and she is likely to make it very difficult for new immigrants to shift to France
Macron is a surprise winner-he formed his political party just a year ago and if he is elected, could become France’s youngest President. He promises to bring a fresh approach to the way the government in France is run. He also supports the idea of France remaining in the European Union, which is a group of European countries which follow common laws and rules.
UK Prime Minister Theresa May has called for a surprise election in June. She has called for it in June, just before the UK takes its first steps to leave the EU. After being part of the Union for years, the UK last year voted to leave the EU. May would like the people of the UK to choose the leader who will lead them through this change. At this point in time, May’s political party is in the lead and it appears that May will be back as Prime Minister after the election.
It was in April 2016, exactly a year ago that the Forbes magazine named Nita Ambani, Director of Reliance Industries, as the most powerful businesswoman in Asia. She headed a list of 50 women across Asia, eight of whom were from India. Describing her as the First Lady of Indian Business, the magazine said Nita Ambani, 53, was a ‘power near the throne’ and made the mark on the list because of her rising profile in Reliance Industries, led by her husband and India’s richest man Mukesh Ambani
In a country where billionaire wives tend to remain in the shadow of their husbands, Nita’s rising profile in the Reliance empire is unusual and earns her a debut spot on our Power Businesswomen ranking this year, Forbes said of Ms Ambani’s growing stature in the business world. Reliance is among India's most valuable companies, with $57 billion in revenues.
According to someone who has worked closely with Reliance, Nita is like the software which combined with the company’s hardware to create a unique work culture that became the foundation of their success.
Nita is Reliance's non-executive director, and has no formal operational role in the conglomerate that her husband runs as chairman and managing director. But it's no secret that Bhabhi (Hindi for brother's wife) — as she is called by insiders--is a power near the throne.
Nita is known to juggle multiple roles: she is the one behind the company’s charitable arm, the Reliance Foundation and looks after the Dhirubhai Ambani International School named after her father-in-law. Believing that education and sports have a symbiotic relationship, Nita runs the Reliance’s sports ventures which owns the Mumbai Indians in the IPL in a joint venture with the sports management firm IMG. She is also part of the EIH board which runs the Oberoi hotel chain and has a 18 per cent stake in it.
But it was not that Nita got everything in a platter by virtue of being Mukesh Ambani’s wife. For years she played the good wife and mother to her three kids and only after she stepped out of her home did the woman work diligently into her newfound role. At that time the two brothers also parted ways with Mukesh and younger brother Anil dividing up the family empire. The two are back now as business partners with Mukesh’s new mega Jio telecom venture using Anil’s vast network under Reliance Communications.
It is her missionary zeal and obsession with the details that have stood Nita in good stead. Even Mukesh acknowledges the huge impact her presence has had in the business. He has always said that Nita has the ability to bring together talented people and set up a cracking team to achieve goals. Be it retail or Jio, Nita is always a winner.
Nita grew up as the girl next door in Bombay’s Santa Cruz neighbourhood which was very middle class and grounded. Her father was an executive with the Birla Group. Nita did her undergrad in commerce, but her real interest was in Bharatnatyam. She was an accomplished dancer and performed publicly. It was dance that finally connected her to the world of the Ambanis. The story of her journey to the Ambani family has a hint of Bollywood except that it was father Dhirubhai Ambani who spotted her and not Mukesh.
Apparently Dhirubhai watched one of her shows and immediately took to her grace and charm and inquired of the young girl after the show. Next he called Nita’s home. It was she who picked up the call and on being told that it was Dhirubhai Ambani on the line she shot back that she was Liz Taylor and promptly hung up. What she thought was a prank turned out to be her greatest reality. She dated Mukesh for a while and as the story goes had to accept his proposal at a traffic signal when Mukesh refused to drive despite the light having turned green unless he got an answer. The two got married in 1985. But she made it clear to husband Mukesh that she would not end up as a decoration in the Ambani household.
After their marriage in 1985, Nita enrolled for a diploma in special education and worked as a teacher for a few years. People thought it was just fancy for Nita to work and always questioned her about the need to do it hailing from such a rich family. But she says that it was Mukesh who encouraged her to work, but had to take a break after a difficult pregnancy and the birth of her premature twins in 1991.
But you can’t keep a good girl down for long. Nita was back in action six years later. And she jumped into the building of a huge Ambani township in Gujarat’s Jamnagar. It was Mukesh who with his father’s backing got her involved in the project for building a giant refinery complex. She did have her doubts initially having no experience at all in such matters, but then as she was to say later, it was the challenge of creating an oasis in an arid zone.
It was not going to be some cakewalk for Nita. For the next three years, she had to visit the site twice a week and work among only men and getting used to being called Sir
But then it was great to see the fruit of her labours. The Jamnagar complex today boasts of a well-planned, tree-lined township for 17,000 residents. The complex is also proud of an orchard with more than a hundred thousand mango trees and home to many species of birds.
This was a defining moment in Nita Ambani’s life and the success gave her the impetus and the credibility to take on bigger challenges. The next step was giving shape to her dream project – to set up a quality school with international facilities. Thus, having got the go ahead from the family, Nita was to set sail now and build the Dhirubhai Ambani International School, which today boasts of more than 1,000 students and 150 teachers and is ranked among the top schools in Mumbai. She even sent her children to the school to prove her point. About certain criticism that the school serves only the elite, Nita is quick to point out that she conducts evening classes for street kids.
Once she finished with education, it was sports that seemed to beckon her. Reliance bought Mumbai Indians in 2008 at a whopping $112 million as part of the Indian Premier League (IPL) the new kid on the cricket-entertainment block. For the first two years the team was wallowing at the bottom of the table and struggling. It was then that Nita took it upon herself to learn the game and give the team some direction and leadership.
She remembers that it was in South Africa, where the league got shifted for a year that Nita found her footing. From then on she has been immersed in the game and can be seen at every Mumbai Indians game. The team went on to win two IPL titles, one in 2013 and then in 2015. Having won the alternate years, it looks like even this year the team is blasting ahead to win from its explosive performances and heading the points table.
Having made its mark in the IPL, Reliance has now expanded into basketball, tennis and football as Nita believes that education and sports must go hand in hand. Maybe some day Nita will deflect her talents to help the nation win some Olympic medals.
The Ambanis are not really the Gates or Beffet of India’s philanthropy, and have had their share of criticism that the family has not given in proportion to their immense personal wealth touching $22 billion. The Reliance Foundation, founded by Nita in 2010, is entirely funded by the company, not the family. The activities of the foundation are also criticized for not being far-reaching enough.
But unfazed Nita is quick to point out that the Foundation has been working with farmers in 531 villages across a dozen states under the Bharat India Jodo project which is an attempt to bridge the two worlds, between Bharat and India, between the rural and the urban.
Her interests have now also turned towards art and conservation. The foundation has sponsored an exhibition of traditional pichwai paintings of Shrinathji, the Ambani family deity, at the Art Institute of Chicago last year. She also funded the retrospective of Nasreen Mohamedi, an Indian artist, at the new Met Breuer in New York.
Nita being an Ambani always thinks big. She is now building a huge convention centre for the arts on a 19-acre plot close to her school in Mumbai. It will be thrown open in 2018 and will house a 2,000-seat theatre, retail spaces, offices and residences.
Nita has not learnt to sit still. The only time she does it when she does her Buddhist chantings which she has taken up as a way to keep some balance, within and without. Her attention next will be towards building a school for disadvantaged children and a university for liberal arts which could hold its head among the top schools in the world.
Nita is on a journey with no fixed destination. But whatever she touches or where she stops on the way, she is sure to make a difference.
This is Duke Orsino in William Shakespeare’s classic the Twelfth Night. The Duke is asking for more music because he is frustrated in his courtship of Countess Olivia. He muses that an excess of music might cure his obsession with love, in the way that eating too much removes one’s appetite for food.
It could be a similar sentiment that inspired our food minister Ram Vilas Paswan to come up with the idea of a food quota for hotels and restaurants. In fact, Paswan does not want people to be served too much food in case it spoils the appetite. The thought behind it must have been noble, I’m sure, but a little more thought would have served the minister well. For even before the words were out of his plate, the twiterrati and hotel and restaurant owners must have more than filled his appetite with a stomach full of tweets.
First came the Supreme Court’s curious ban on selling of liquor 500 metres off the highways which roped many an unsuspecting hotel and restro-bars having to turn off their taps. But even before the question on quenching the collective thirst was sorted, another bright idea of reducing the size of the food plate was floated.
Surely the industry received the two with parched throats and acute stomach pangs
Paswan, inspired by Modi’s Mann Ki Baat suddenly came up with this unique idea. “If a person can eat only two prawns, why should he or she be served six? It's a wastage of food and also money. People pay for things that they don't eat.“
Inspired perhaps by the best diets in the world, he decided that the secret sauce for preventing wastage of food is portion control and will soon define portion sizes for food served in hotels and restaurants
The ministry plans to call a meeting of representatives from the food industry and take their assistance in defining portion sizes before implementing the plan that was inspired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s comments against food wastage in his Mann Ki Baat talk on 9 April.
To be sure, the plan, as currently envisaged, doesn’t mean restricting how much a person will eat, as reported by a few websites and the social media, but simply defining portion sizes. “If a person eats two idlis, why serve four?” Paswan asked rhetorically. It is also likely that the definition could include either the size or weight of the servings
India will become perhaps the first country in the world to define portion sizes in restaurants, although many countries, including India, have such norms for packaged and processed foods. In the early 2010s, New York State tried to prescribe and restrict portion sizes for aerated soft drinks served at restaurants because then mayor Michael Bloomberg was worried people were consuming too much sugar, but the plan had to be eventually abandoned.
Restaurant owners appreciated the move’s sentiment but said it was difficult to implement. “Although the thought behind this concept is noble and we appreciate it, but to implement this idea is highly impractical,” Dilip Datwani, president of the Hotel and Restaurant Association Western India, said. “If the suggested move does come into effect, the pricing would most certainly be affected, making eating out more expensive for the consumer,” he added.
Restaurants may also have to change the way they prepare food in their kitchens. “Although the move is a good one to prevent wastage, standardization (of portions) will be very difficult,” Rajesh Mohta, director and chief financial officer of Speciality Restaurants said. “Restaurants already weigh ingredients keeping recipes in mind. Our food is made in kitchens by people, by chefs.” Unlike automated food preparation, a restaurant’s operations would find it hard to churn out standard food portions, Mohta said.
Some restaurants sell items whose large portion size is their USP. For instance, the coffee chain Coffee by Di Bella sells milkshakes called Freakshakes that are loaded with calorie-rich ingredients.
“Everyone has their own speciality that the customers come for,” Rahul Leekha, Coffee by Di Bella’s India head, said. “The government cannot demand that this particular portion is the portion to sell. If we start doing that, the place loses its novelty.”
Like Mohta, Leekha said that it will be difficult to change recipes that are designed and standardized over time. “We are an international brand that follows recipes given to us (by the parent),” he said.
It wasn’t immediately clear whether the portion sizes would be strict directions or general guidelines.
If Paswan’s suggestions are to be implemented, they would have to encompass several rules and regulations that currently govern how restaurant kitchens function. These include the Standards of Weights and Measures Act, 1976 that makes display of a maximum retail price or MRP mandatory for a product based on its weight and measure
Datwani added that the government will also have to modify regulations of the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) that apply to restaurants. Restaurants need an FSSAI licence to operate. FSSAI regulates the quality of food served and hygiene level of kitchens, among other things, and prescribes penalties for violations.
Restaurateur Umang Tewari says assessing how much a person will eat on an average is bizarre. “Customers will soon start blaming us for overcharging. The minister says that if a person eats two prawns, why should he/she be served six. What will happen to the person who eats four? He will order another portion and the extra bit will be wasted. It is becoming difficult for us stay updated each day with such bizarre rules and orders. We are trying to do business and not terrorists who should be controlled and monitored always,” says Tewari
Hoteliers also argue that more than in restaurants and hotels, where a majority of customers prefers to take away doggie bags, real wastage happens at private parties and weddings. “What is the government going to do in the case of weddings? Are they going to ask the halwai to make only 2,000 rotis for a gathering? Food wasted at private parties and functions should be monitored first. It is again one of those things where the government’s intention is good, but the execution is very poor, just like the highway liquor ban,” says restaurateur Zorawar Kalra.
Instead of coming up with bsurd and bizarre rules and orders for the F&B industry, the government should proactively participate in coming up with practical solutions to problems, restaurant owners say. Zorawar says that instead of limiting portions of food, the government should set up centres near major hubs like Connaught Place, Hauz Khas Village and Cyber Hub, to distribute food among the needy. “That’s what we do in our restaurants, we distribute our leftover food among the poor or we give it to orphanages. The government should set up such centres for food distribution, so that more restaurants and hotels can do this. Fixing portions of food are no solution, in fact, if implemented, this will set a very wrong example to the rest of the world.”
TECHNICALLY, a person or company is said to be bankrupt when they are unable to repay debts owed. Another word for it is insolvency. By this definition, a huge chunk of the Indian corporate sector is bankrupt.
A lot of these companies are not merely in a situation of cash flow insolvency, meaning they are unable to service debts, but are also balance sheet insolvent, meaning their liabilities have exceeded their assets and they cannot raise enough funds even by selling everything they own.
This is a major reason why banks reeling under a huge burden of nonperforming debts are frozen in inaction. Some are continuing to lend to defaulting debtors in the hope that they will turn around. Not much is improving; the mass of so called non-performing assets of banks is only growing. As a consequence, the level of bad loans has risen to a 14-year high.
The unfortunate case of liquor baron Vijay Mallya, who fled the country, after accumulating a mountain of bank debt he apparently had no intention of repaying is just one example of how bad things are in the corporate sector.
Mallya is not the only Indian business tycoon who borrowed recklessly and spent recklessly during the previous United Progressive Alliance (UPA) rule when banking norms were thrown to the winds and crony capitalism was the order of the day.
Large and political influential business houses in India in that period went on an acquisition spree, picking up real estate, infrastructure projects, mines, hotels and whatever other assets that were up for sale. This buying frenzy was fueled by lax and often corrupt bankers who were not accountable to anyone other than their dodgy political bosses.
According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), while global financial health continues to improve, the Indian corporate sector will see the greatest deterioration in its balance sheets.
In its April 2017 Global Financial Stability Report, the IMF has pointed out: “Although the profitability of banks in emerging market economies is generally strong—in particular compared with that in the United States and Europe - heavy credit losses continue to erode profits at many banks, notably in Russia and India.”
According to a CARE rating study, the Indian corporate sector’s non-performing assets in December 2016 amounted to ₹697409 crores out of which ₹614872 crores is attributed to PSUs. This is the reason why banks’ functioning is so constrained today.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) too paints a bleak picture of the state of the country’s banking sector. In its December 2016 Financial Stability Report, the RBI stated: “Theassetqualityofbanksdeteriorated further. The gross non-performing advances (GNPAs) ratio of SCBs increased to 9.1 per cent from 7.8 per cent betweenMarchandSeptember2016,pushing the overall stressed advances ratio to 12.3 per cent from11.5 percent(Chart2.2).Given the higher levels of impairment, SCBs may remain risk averse in the near future as they clean up their balance sheets and their capital position may remainin sufficient to support higher credit growth.”
An AFP report quoted Rajeswari Sengupta, an economist in Mumbai, saying that banks “are so stretched that they're not even lending to healthy companies, holding back growth…That’s a very big collateral damage... The biggest fallout is the lack of private sector investment — banks are stressed, private sectors are stressed, lending to corporates by banks has totally stalled.”Not surprisingly, credit growth has plummeted to 5 percent from almost 25 percent in 2010.
Mallya might have a point when he says he is a victim of a witch hunt and that there are bigger defaulters than him, none of whom are been tried for fraud.
Not surprisingly, hundreds of thousands of homebuyers in India have been thronging the courts to force large corporate builders to complete and handover homes they have already paid for. Despite clear evidence of fund diversion and non-completion of housing projects, large corporate builders have been able to get away with impunity
Chief among them is a group that had developed a Formula 1 racing track and picked up a slew of companies during the last one decade. It was one of the biggest corporate borrowers and now is sliding into bankruptcy.
The top ten business houses in the country have borrowed the most collectively owe more than 7.5 trillion rupees. Most of these companies are edging towards insolvency.
The RBI is its latest Financial Stability Report admitted that the “asset quality of large borrowers [have] deteriorated significantly. The share of special mention accounts (SMA)-2 increased across bankgroups.”
Everyone in the financial sector knows how bad things are. They however continue to pretend everything will fall into place. However, as the IMF has observed, the “link between the financial performance of the banking and corporate sectors in India is strong. With the corporate sector accounting for about 40percent of banks’ (particularly PSBs’) credit portfolios, PSB’s soundness and their ability to provide effective intermediation in the economy rest on effective debt restructuring and deleveraging in the corporate sector.”
The Fund however admitted that there was marginal improvement in the Indian corporate scene of late: “Corporate vulnerabilities subsided in FY2015/16 on concerted policy efforts to address structural bottlenecks, including delays in environmental clearances and land acquisition permits. Debt-at-risk—the share of debt held by firms with weak debtrepayment capacity (interest coverage ratio below one)—declined to 16.6 percent from 20.2 percent a year earlier, pointing to improved debt-repayment capacity.
However, the high debt-at-risk and NPAs in some sectors—as high as 36 percent in metals and mining—pose NPA slippage risks for banks.”
The RBI and the finance ministry has been issuing statements from time to time about fixing this huge problem; banks had been told to clean up their books by March 2017 and so on. A handful of senior bankers have been arrested. The finance ministry keep exhorting banks to shape up. But little has actually changed on the ground.
According to Credit Suisse’s Ashish Gupta, there are no signs of affected companies regaining their financial health: “To the contrary, the stress on corporates and banks is continuing to intensify, and this in turn is taking a measurable toll on investment and credit.”
Technology addiction —is a fairly new phenomenon. The smartphone is one of the most useful creations of the last decade. It has become almost effortless to access the internet and social media on your phone from almost anywhere, more of us are becoming increasingly dependent on communicating via the tiny handset. So it’s no surprise that health experts are seeing a rise in addictive tendencies that involve technology.
Since the early 90s, health professionals have been warning about this addiction to different types of technology, though it still isn’t a recognized disorder on its own. In 1995, the term “Internet addiction disorder” was coined by psychiatrist Dr. Ivan Goldberg. In the same year, Kimberly Young, PsyD, established the Center for Internet Addiction and created the first treatment plan for technology addiction based on cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) techniques.
Not all countries have the same level of tech addiction. Research and survey shows that it varies from country to country. Between 1.5% and 8.2% of the population suffers from Internet addiction in the US and Europe. One out of eight Americans have at least one possible sign of problematic Internet use. Solid statistics in the US for addictive behavior specifically related to smartphones, texting and social media are harder to come by. In countries like Australia, China, Japan, India, Italy, Japan, Korea and Taiwan technology addiction is recognized as a widespread health problem. To address this growing issue dedicated clinics are being set up gradually.
Technology addiction can range from moderate to severe. Excessive use of phones or staying online for many hours a day, one might experience a “high” — and also feel withdrawal when cut off. It is not only the amount of time spent with the device, that defines an addict, it adversely affects one’s mental and physical health, daily life, relationships and much more.
There’s little doubt that nearly everyone who comes in contact with the Internet has difficulty disconnecting: People everywhere are glued to their devices. With addiction it becomes difficult to stay focused on tasks that require more concentration than it takes to post an update. This technology is both pervasive and persuasive.
The technologies themselves, and their makers, are the easiest suspects to blame for our dwindling attention spans. Apps such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Buzzfeed and the likes are making products so good that users get hooked on to them easily. Since these services rely on advertising revenue, the more frequently you use them, the more money they make. These companies employ teams of people focused on engineering their services to be as engaging as possible.
Not only are we addicted to Facebook and web chats, it can also be regular emails. We check email at all hours of the day, whenever we can — before meetings begin, waiting in line for lunch, at red lights, on the toilet — we’re obsessed. It is understood that one of the main reasons for this is our workplace requirements. For almost all jobs, email is today the primary tool of corporate communication. A slow response to a message does not only hurt your reputation and performance but also your livelihood. In the bargain, work that requires uninterrupted focus and a calm brain to solve problems are hampered and technology addiction leaves almost no or very little time for higher order thinking. Personal technology is getting more engaging day by day and this is why the companies are designing their products and services to an extent where more and more people use them.
Unlike other misdemeanours, checking tech is contagious. It is a common practice that once one person looks at their phone, other people feel compelled to do the same, starting a discourteous chain reaction. This leads to more and more people looking at their phones, and finally one-to-one interactions crumble. Though it is understood that people around us influence how often we use these gadgets, it ultimately boils down to you, who is holding the phone.
But is technology solely responsible for all our distraction? Distraction in human minds has been there since Aristotle and Socrates debated the nature of “akrasia” — our tendency to do things against our interests. If our mind is distracted and unproductive, technology is not to be blamed. Even if a person is not a gadget freak, he would be equally unproductive, if he had a pre-occupied mind
It is time that we should attempt to control our use of technology before technology takes complete control of us. Human identity, could be facing an unprecedented crisis and that could reshape how we interact with each other or change everything that makes us happy. The human brain is under severe threat from the gadget filled world and we could be sleepwalking towards a future in which modern day devices could enhance our muscle power, or our senses.
It is customary for Mumbai movies to do their bit – even if it amounts to only lip service – on and around March 8, International Women’s Day. This year, it was much more than just a bit. Bollywood pulled out the stops and carpet-bombed us with a flurry of genderthemed dramas. Several leading ladies of Hindi cinema got to live up to that tag – they led the charge. Why, then, are the Deepikas and Sonakshis still having to fight for pay parity with their male counterparts?
On the face of it, divas are on a roll in Bollywood. Several films spearheaded by women (both before and behind the camera) earned critical and commercial rewards in 2016. The first quarter of the current year has extended the strong run of women-centric films in quantity, if not in quality.
Since early March, Bollywood has delivered Phillauri, Anaarkali of Aarah, Naam Shabana, Poorna, Begum Jaan and Noor. Barring Poorna, actor-director Rahul Bose’s ode to the spirit of a 13-year-old Telengana tribal student who became the youngest girl to conquer Mount Everest, these films have been middling affairs at best. Helmed by male directors, they have done little to turn the tide emphatically and permanently in favour of films about gender issues.
These films have been done in by a lack of intrinsic quality. Phillauri, produced and top-lined by Anushka Sharma, was an interesting experiment in merging disparate genres – period drama, modern rom-com, ghost story, woman-on-top saga and good old Punjabi love legend. But nothing in the film suggested that it had the power to rewrite the rules for good
When a woman makes a film about women (and their aspirations and desires) – like Alankrita Shrivastava’s Lipstick Under My Burkha – the Central Board of Film Certification, headed by a producer of 1980s B-grade Bollywood potboilers, promptly bans it for being “lady-oriented”. But over-the-top films like Naam Shabana and Begum Jaan, which offer a very male way of looking at female rebels and rabblerousers, face no obstacles
This is one reason why so many mainstream women’s films made in Bollywood tend to restrict the heroines within ‘approved’ parameters. These characters are made to mimic men and play trigger-happy, violence-prone avenging angels, as Priyanka Chopra and Sonakshi Sinha did in Jai Gangaajal and Akira respectively, and now Vidya Balan (Begum Jaan) and Taapsee Pannu (Naam Shabana) have done. The implication is that a woman can find a place at the high table only if she acquires ‘masculine’ traits – in other words, become one of the boys.
Journalist-turned-filmmaker Avinash Das’ Anaarkali of Aarah, propelled by a powerhouse performance from Swara Bhaskar, articulates the right positions regarding the question of consent. But so slackly scripted is the film that its assertions never acquire the sort of punch that could make other Bollywood filmmakers and consumers of Hindi cinema to recognize the potential of an alternative way of seeing women
Anaarkali of Aarah resorts to worn-out devices to push the story forward. A sozzled, power-drunk man molests a popular dancer in public. He shows no remorse. The cops side with him. The girl takes a stand. She receives support from sundry men who conveniently get out of the way when it is time for her to confront the wrongdoer all by herself and bring him to book. Some critics have hailed it as a radical film, choosing to ignore the trite, predictable vengeance-drama methods it deploys
Anaarkali of Aarah isn’t as screechy as Begum Jaan. The latter peddles feminism on steroids. A hookah-smoking harlot who runs a brothel wages all-out war (with the support of her feisty, foul-mouthed girls) to save her ‘home’ from being torn down because the Radcliff line runs through it. Begum Jaan is relentlessly loud and lacerating. It shrieks its lungs out to make a very obvious point: azaadi is as much for women as for the men who have divided the subcontinent.
Even in Dangal, the wrestler-girls have to function within a space demarcated by their unrelentingly stern father, himself a wrestler who could not achieve all he wanted in his sporting career. The problematic patriarchy at play in the Nitesh Tiwari-directed film has been commented upon by many observers and rightfully so. But Dangal is a breakthrough in terms of gender equations in an ultraconservative society in comparison with the Salman Khan starrer Sultan. Here, too, the female protagonist is a wrestler, but she is compelled to give up her career as she settles into a life of domesticity while her husband pursues greater global glory.
Much worse, of course, is the way in which Bollywood heroines are still frequently reduced to objects of desire to cater to the male gaze. Item numbers are routinely bunged into films without much logic – the idea is to titillate the audience and feed their baser instincts. While this still goes on unabated, all hell breaks loose if a woman on the screen appears to stray beyond the restrictions imposed by social orthodoxy.
In the recently released Jolly LLB 2, the character played by Huma Qureshi is the lawyer-protagonist’s feisty wife. She is a woman who loves her whiskey and often gets so high that she crashes out on the living room sofa. Her husband takes credit for the fact that he gives his wife the freedom to do as she wishes. Can’t a woman be a free bird without having to do the very things that wayward men indulge in or be dependent on her husband’s goahead?
In Pink, which has been widely lauded as a strong feminist film, the three girls who fight a bitter legal battle against a politically connected molester have to rely heavily on the wiles and tenacity of a moody old male lawyer. The latter is projected as a father-figure who takes up cudgels on behalf of the trio who, despite the spirited fight that they put up individually and as a group, remain three girls in need of a male helping hand to receive justice.
But not all women-centric Bollywood films are of the Pink ilk. Like Lipstick Under My Burkha, Leena Yadav’s Parched and Pan Nalin’s Angry Indian Goddesses project women as characters who decide their own fate despite being up against severe challenges. Pretty much the same is true of films like Neerja and Queen, neither of which needed the support of a big male star to make headway at the box office. Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari’s Nil Battey Sannata was another film that revolved solely around a woman from a socially disadvantaged segment who struggles to ensure that her daughter receives formal education and improves her lot in life.
So, Bollywood is changing all right as far as the portrayal of strong female characters is concerned, but gender sensitivity still isn’t mainstream Hindi cinema’s strong suit. The women we see in Mumbai potboilers are still some way off from acquiring meaningful substance and stature.
It is being made out that US President Donald Trump has delivered a massive blow to the Indian Information Technology (IT) sector by imposing visa restrictions on foreign workers. This move, its critics allege, will not only cripple India’s blue chip software behemoths such as Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Infosys but also affect millions of Indians aspiring to make a new life in the United States. But does Trump’s move really spell disaster for India?
The controversy revolves around what is known as the H-1B Visa programme, which was originally envisaged as a measure to bring in highly skilled foreign workers to the United States for its hi-tech industries. Under this programme, the US government awards 65,000 visas by lottery every year and randomly distributes another 20,000 to graduate student workers. Indians are the largest single group of recipients of this system.
“The India H1B story started with the Y2K issue in the late 90s when US required thousands of programmers to correct their legacy systems mostly written in COBOL or DB2 on mainframe systems,” explains ShekharDasgupta, former head of Oracle India. “This was indeed a specialized skill and quite a few Indian IT firms capitalized on this business opportunity, hired from good schools, invested in training before sending them to the US. They earned a good name for India
The abuse started after the year 2000 problem was overcome, says Dasgupta. This time there was a huge demand for ERP and web skills (dotcom companies were mushrooming from all corners in the US).
“More Indian IT companies – smaller and less professional – jumped into the fray, and compromised on quality. Rather than hiring from good schools and investing in in-house training, they hired from a new parallel IT school system that sprung up in the back alleys of Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad. The phenomenon of ‘tech coolies’ started,” recalls Dasgupta. “There were guys being shipped whose basic education (irrespective of the formal qualification they claimed to have) were pathetic. I have seen instances where guys did not know basic algebra or coordinate geometry. Their social, language and communication skills were worse. Poorly paid, they typically live in ghetto style.”
There had to be a backlash at some point. Trump’s election was the tipping point. At a media briefing on 17 April 2017, White House, press secretary, James S. Brady, explained what the Presidential order was all about: “Right now, as you may know, H1B visas are awarded by random lottery… And many people will be surprised to know that about 80 percent of H1B workers are paid less than the median wage in their fields.”
The main problem was the way the programme was implemented. Brady said “only five percent were categorized at the highest wage tier of the four wage tiers that are in place for the H1B guest worker visa. The result of that is that workers are often brought in well below market rates to replace American workers, again, sort of violating the principle of the program, which is supposed to be a means for bringing in skilled labour, and instead you’re bringing in a lot of times workers who are actually less skilled and lower paid than the workers that they are replacing.”
President Trump has been loudly and repeatedly saying: “Right now, widespread abuse in our immigration system is allowing American workers of all backgrounds to be replaced by workers brought in from other countries to fill the same job for sometimes less pay. This will stop.
Brady, in his media briefing, was more explicit: “Just to illustrate a little bit more how the lottery works — so some companies often times are called outsourcing firms. You may know their names well, but the top recipients of the H1B visa are companies like Tata, Infosys, Cognizant — they will apply for a very large number of visas, more than they get, by putting extra tickets in the lottery raffle, if you will, and then they’ll get the lion’s share of visas.
Many Indian corporate sector gurus, consultants and trade bodies are apprehensive of the Trump decision. One report prepared by ASSOCHAM clearly states that the recent moves by Trump “will act as a definitive dampener to the Indian outsourcing industry.”
ASSOCHAM feels that the Indian IT industry could be forced to lay off large numbers of employees while its realisations will be squeezed both by rising costs of operating abroad and the rising rupee.
Chiranjit Banerjee, Managing Partner, PeoplePlus Consulting, a firm that works with the top end of the captive IT space in India, does not believe that the IT industry is staring at disaster. “The bill being proposed by the Trump administration seeks to raise the cut off salary to USD 130,000 but Indian IT industry veterans believe that the final number will settle closer to USD 100,000 following the intense lobbying that is ongoing. The higher cut-off might shave off at least 200 basis points from the operating margins of Infosys and TCS among other Indian outsourcing heavyweights
Pradeep Mehta, head of CUTS, the country’s leading think tank on trade and consumer issues, believes that the impact of President Trump’s executive order remains uncertain despite the rhetoric. “While potentially threatening to Indian tech companies that greatly depends on the visa programme, including possibly requiring higher minimum salaries and education, it is unclear how long this review will take and what exactly will come of it.”
“As for legislation from Congress,’’ Mehta believes, “considering immigration is taken as a comprehensive issue in the United States, any bill reforming the H-1B visa will take substantial time and effort to pass. This all plays into the challenging uncertainty emanating from the Trump presidency. Although Indian technology and other companies must necessarily continue their relationship with the US as one of India’s top trading partners, this may also be an opportunity to explore expanding the global market for Indian service providers and high-skilled professionals.”
All said and done there would be no immediate effect of the changes, argues Ravi Garimella, an Indian origin software professional based in the US. “As far as visas go, there is no likely impact this year as the process has not changed and the visas are being distributed as in prior years. However, there will be an update on enforcement of these visas i.e. random checks and potential interviews while crossing into the country. Even the latest executive order is more on enforcement than a change in policy.”
Sayantan Nandi, Director, Pages Consultancy, who has been associated with IT services here and in the US for several decades, says,“the current Outsourcing model which was key to the IT industry's success story has to be given a quiet burial. This will, at least on a short-term basis, trigger heavy unemployment impacting industry at large and the IT industry in particular. It will also squeeze the margins of the current biggies like TCS, Infosys and Cognizant.”
Nandi is however not entirely pessimistic: “Having stated that, I don’t see this tremor in the industry to be long lasting if the industry is willing to effectively redraw its strategy, reskill the workforce and move up the value chain. In the event that they convince their clients to offshore to India to manage competitive price points and simultaneously hire local US resources, they should continue to remain successful. However, the question which remains to be addressed back home is what do we do with this large workforce which is ‘hard coded’ to perform low-end programming jobs?”
“Chances are that these Indian outsourcing giants will develop stronger near shore capability or hire more expensive US nationals to change the human resource mix in the US,” feels Chiranjit Banerjee. “This cutback could also lead to US companies off-shoring (rather than outsourcing) work to their own captives in India where visa don’t come into the equation at all as they are considered extended arms of the parents. In sum, the most impacted would be the Indian IT outsourcers and the least would be those US companies that display the flexibility to rapidly move work to their captives in India and other cost-effective destinations.”
At the same time, it remains to be seen how President Trump’s policies actually play out. For, executive action can only do so much regarding H-1B and legislation will be more difficult to accomplish.
There is also the larger India-US context which the Trump Administration cannot ignore. The US and India have built up dependencies over the years, which cannot be entirely disregarded. Indians in the US send home more than the US $ 10 billion a year in remittances, while Indian workers in that country pay millions in taxes to the US government. The two countries have become more interdependent than generally believed. Any major rupture would hurt both
Indranil Banerjie is a senior journalist and political commentator
Satyajit Ray was born on May 2, 1921, when Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was just about beginning to lift the freedom struggle and the non-cooperation movement in India to a higher plane. One year later, in early February 1922, Chauri Chaura happened, in the region of Gorakhpur in UP. As people and farmers protested, the police opened fire, killing three people. The people attacked the police. Outnumbered, the police took shelter in the police chowki. The enraged crowd burnt the police station, killing 22-23 policemen and other staffers. Gandhi, shocked as he was at the failure of his nascent strategy of nonviolence, withdrew the movement on the ground that the Indian people were not really prepared to forge a united, unarmed, peaceful struggle against the British.
As many as 228 people were brought to trial, charged with rioting and arson. Of the total number of people charged, six died while in police custody, while 172 were sentenced to death by hanging following conviction after a trial which went on for eight months. The country was outraged by the verdict. Leaders across the freedom movement protested. It is nothing but “legalized murder”, declared, communist leader and scholar, MN Roy. The progressives called for a strike of workers and others in protest across India. One year after the Chauri Chaura incident, on April 20, 1923, the Allahabad High Court gave a fresh judgement — 19 death and 110 life sentences. Others had to face long spells in jail
Indeed, Ray lived his childhood and youth in colonial times amidst reasonable turbulence, especially in the context of Bengal, which was consumed by the signs of western enlightenment, as much as reform movements, like the Brahmo Samaj movement initiated by Rabindranath Tagore (as depicted with such deep intellectual argument in his novel, ‘Gora’), amidst the fire of revolutionary zeal and a radical upsurge, including armed struggles against the British. Ray died on April 22, 1992, in Kolkata, where he spent most of his life, writing, sketching, illustrating, making films – and looking at that tall tree outside his window. He would, as painstakingly diligent and artistic as he was, drew and illustrated each moment of the film, with every little detail, like edited negatives of film rolls in old times
He also edited in his early years an iconic children’s magazine called ‘Sandesh’, worked in advertising agencies, composed fabulous music and listened too to a lot of music (apparently, he had a great collection). Not surprisingly, Ravi Shankar, another legend, composed the music of ‘Pather Panchali’ (Song of the Road), Ray’s first film made on a shoe-string budget (he reportedly sold his wife’s jewellery etc). It was based on an epic trilogy by the great Bengali writer Bibhuti Bhusan Bandopadhaya.
‘Pather Panchali’ became an international classic, one of the all-time greats in world cinema, followed by two other brilliant renditions of abject poverty, love and separation, the synthesis with nature, childhood’s pure music, magic and romance, even in stark deprivations, relentless tragedy, hunger, migration and exile, the condemnations of exile from their own imagined homeland, and, dying, death and resurrection in the life of a poor Brahmin family. The departure to ‘Kashi’ (Varanasi), was yet another moment of symbolism, even though the cycle of tragedy continued, despite the resilience and stoicism of the characters, especially the mother – Apu’s mother – stunningly dignified and strong, amidst the apocalypse.
The two other films in the trilogy are ‘Aparajita’ and ‘Apur Sansar’, with Sharmila Tagore and Saumitra Chatterjee, shifting the paradigm in the final moments, she dying soon after the marriage, and, he, unable to accept the loss or the child who arrives in the world. In the end, he is walking with the child on his shoulders, after long separations, and there is a glint in his eyes which only a black and white film can capture. The trilogy’s catharsis is that fleeting revelation of hope and joy in his eyes.
Indeed, in terms of understatement, and nuance and subtlety, there is no match to Ray’s finesse in the cinematic craft. And this transcends all aspects of film-making: location, cinematography, sound, editing, music, direction. A death is just about as shocking and heart-rending as birds suddenly fluttering in the sky, the sudden sound of their wings like a nuclear explosion which arrives and disappears as suddenly, shaking your roots. The toothless grandmother, with a tongue as sharp as those of traditional grandmothers, dies in a still and frozen moment, as silently as she lived (despite her tongue). Her dead body moves in the bylane in a kind of fog for just about a moment – the sorrow of her departure not lingering forever. This is Ray’s idea of pain; deep pain which does not have to linger to make it deeper and longer. It is pain, and it stays, even when you don’t dramatise it for effect.
In the same instance, and here it is ‘Pather Panchali’, his first film, as eclectic and refined as it could be. The grasshopper on the pond with Ravi Shankar’s sitar in the backdrop; a moment of infinite, magical, melodious happiness. Intangible, outside materialism, beyond the comprehension of the consumer society
Or, when the man with the ‘misthi’ (sweetmeats) in his earthen pots arrives — you can smell and taste the ‘mishti’ in the village backdrop of a typical ‘Sonar Bangla’ landscape, with the kids chasing him. In one of his later cinematic, comic caricatures, and not all great filmmakers can handle comedy or spoof, Ray, practically, stops a war, as loads of the finest Bengali ‘mishti’ start falling from the sky, making the soldiers run after the delicacies, leaving their weapons and bloodlust behind: there is kacha golla, chomchom, rajbhog, roshogolla, sandesh, you name it. Said Ray, “The director is the only person who knows what the film is about.”
Surely, if you look at another classic and spoof, ‘Hirak Rajar Deshe’, one song just about tells the entire story. The two great musicians and homeless wanderers (earlier in ‘Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne’, another great musical), singing and travelling through the melodious and sublime Bengal countryside, celebrating eternal ecstasy with the birds, the sky, the cosmos, and the little stream which flows along.
You can catch the restored version of this song on youtube: Aha ki anando akashe baatashe… Guess who is the lyricist and music composer of this classic rendition by Anup Ghoshal, which still plays in every nook and corner of Kolkata and in every pandal during Durga Puja? Satyajit Ray.
There is magic in the song, the music, the landscape; a complete surrender to the symphony and the folk, and the ecstasy unleashed across the zigzag of rural Bengal. If you trace Ray’s ritualistic departures from the Calcutta urban landscape (as in ‘Pratidwandi’), into the rural/tribal interiors (as in ‘Aranyar Din Raatri’, where he makes a ‘fair and lovely’ beauty like Simi into a dark tribal girl), you also can unravel the
contradictions of the city’s hypocrisies, artificialities, shallowness and crisis; how, for instance, they look down at tribal life, even though they themselves are so damned middle class, shallow and limited.
Said Ray, “When I write an original story I write about people I know first-hand and situations I’m familiar with. I don’t write stories about the 19th century.”
A woman's desperate late-night horse ride to her married lover's mansion, a tale-telling ex-soldier whose final journey becomes embarrassing, a piquant encounter in a red-light area and other nuggets make Uttar Pradesh not only India's most populous and politically significant state but also an unmatched repository of some uncommon tales of common people told and re-told with relish among family and friends.
Collecting over a dozen of them, ranging from the macabre to the miraculous, from the unspeakable to the uplifting, and featuring humans at their best and worst (more frequently though) is Bollywood writer and director Tanuja Chandra
These stories, heard during the holidays during her childhood, especially those entailing visits to relatives along the length and breadth of sprawling Uttar Pradesh where they were a staple, always "stayed" with her. This, she says, was because "there was something different about these odd tales, something unusual about the experiences of my rishtedaars, their neighbourhoods and communities"
And there is definitely something odd in some of these stories which can veer off into unexpected -- and even shocking -- tangents or create an atmosphere of high expectation before fizzing out without much ado, for real life may not always have neatly delineated endings, leave alone happy ones. But mostly all of them will leave you astounded at the boundless and inexplicable mysteries of the human condition and relationships, as well as the dynamics of a bygone era
A large number of the stories are about women, especially those trapped in abusive or empty marriages or worse, robbed of any chance of happiness by stultifying tradition, or never given much chance (but there is at least one smooth, heartless operator too).
In this strain, “Atta Chakki” is frankly gruesome in its strange ending, “The Don Life” most confusing (but having a satisfactory karmic comeuppance for the male character) and “Pilkhhuwa Waale” symptomatic of the condescension some women face some time or the other in their marital or family lives.
But among them, as in “The Tea Stall”, there are women who strike out boldly to chart out their own life course — though it is the heroine's mother who proves to be the real heroine, in her own way
As noted, there are some like "The Soldier", which, though amusing in their own way, leave you rather bemused when they end, and some are frankly puzzling and apparently pointless.
On the other hand, some hit a nice high — “Bijnis Woman”, which gives the collection its name, has some points of resemblance with W. Somerset Maugham’s frequently-anthologised “The Verger” as it relates to hard commercial work, while “The Guru” has some interesting patterns of redemption while rather neatly subverting the roles of family and orphanages in raising children.
They are more in this vein, like “The Fortune Teller” with its twists and a supernatural but most karmic ending, and the short but power-packed "The Accidental Meeting".
Chandra, who is best known for co-writing Yash Chopra’s epic “Dil Toh Paagal Hai” and directing “Dushman” and “Sangharsh", admits that while most of the stories are old, "they aren't older than the history of human relationships".
“And relationships, though they change, remain as always a web of emotion, tapestries of love and sorrow, registers of desire, anger and jealousy, greed and lust, generosity and sacrifice,” she says.
Chandra holds it was “extremely important to write these stories down before they were lost forever” since they are as important as the histories of monarchs, wars and politics as a “record of ordinary people who lived through their own unique times and circumstances” and “leave us enriched with the taste of a world close to us in lifetimes, but already so far away”.
In this, she has mostly achieved her aim, presenting a selection that will not fail to move readers of all types.