TERRORISM// On January 2, 2016, a heavily-armed group of five terrorists from Pakistan attacked the Pathankot Air Force Station, part of the Western Air Command of the Indian Air Force. Four attackers and two security forces personnel were killed in the initial battle, with an additional security member dying from injuries hours later, after the terrorists breached a high-security security perimeter and entered the base to carry out the attack. The gun battle and the subsequent combing operation lasted about 17 hours, resulting in five attacks and three security personnel dead. Gunshots rang out at the facility in Pathankot around 3.30 am as the group in army-style clothing — believed to be operatives of the Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorist group — launched the dastardly operation. The attack came less than 24 hours after an alarm was sounded in the state over the assault of a top police officer by suspected Pakistani terrorists. Suspected to have infiltrated about three days ago, the attackers, with a huge quantity of RDX in their possession, made their way to the base from the rear area, where there is a jungle. Security forces were put on high alert after Gurdaspur Superintendent of Police Salwinder Singh said he and his associates were kidnapped by five armed men in army fatigues. A team of 50 commandos of the National Security Guard (NSG) led the fight against the militants, a top security official said. The NSG commandos were flown to Pathankot as soon as the alert was sounded. The IAF used its two attack helicopters to assist the joint team of ground troops to neutralise the remaining terrorists. The attack came close on the heels of an upswing in India-Pakistan ties after PM Modi made a surprise trip to Lahore in December, and held talks with his Pakistani counterpart, Nawaz Sharif.
CELEBRATIONS// India celebrates 67th Republic Day; Francois Hollande chief guest India celebrated its 67th Republic Day on January 26. President Pranab Mukherjee, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and French President Francois Hollande, who was the chief guest, witnessed the Republic Day parade at Rajpath along with thousands of people. India’s military prowess and diverse cultural heritage were on display at the Rajpath. For the first time, a contingent from the French 35th Infantry Regiment was given the honour of leading the marching contingents. The celebrations began with Prime Minister Narendra Modi driving to Amar Jawan Jyoti at India Gate and laying a wreath in honour of the countless Indian soldiers who have died in battles since World War I. Vice President Hamid Ansari, three service chiefs, Congress President Sonia Gandhi, Cabinet ministers, a host of dignitaries and a group of women achievers seated in a special enclosure were on hand to witness the hour-andhalf long parade. Thousands of people on both sides of the imposing Rajpath braved the winter chill and cheered loudly as the marching contingents and tableaux went past them. A multi-layer security blanket was thrown around the national capital with threats of an impending terrorist attack from ISIS.
MANHATTAN IS a place that features in nearly every Karan Johar movie, at some time or the other. It’s either a melodramatic scene with the famous Brooklyn Bridge as backdrop, or a romantic song on the Manhattan Bridge, a sentimental journey under the skyscrapers, or the actors getting lost in the crowd of the city that never sleeps.
Sarang, my husband, never liked the place, but he never liked taking me around in Mussoorie (Uttarakhand), his hometown — and his favourite place in the world — either. But maybe that was because he was so used to living in these places. I got a chance to stay in Jersey City for six months, and later living in a Tri State Area and 90 minutes away from the New York City, a visit to brother-in-law’s place once a month made us roam about the most famous Time Square and get lost in the crowd from all over the world.
The first visit to Manhattan will mesmerise you and all you will do it walk, and walk some more to figure out the routes with a GPS or a map. (Did I also tell you this is the city where people walk and walk and walk?). The hustle-bustle, fashion parade, movie stars walking past, stretch limousines, diverse ethnicity, and the lights and the brightness will leave you overwhelmed. And soon, your parents, friends and siblings will get used to you gushing about the city and its many delights over the phone, through WhatsApp, Facebook, and what have you.
It will also remain you most cherished tourist experience. Things change when you start staying in or around the city and see it more closely, however. With time, your nose will rebel at the constant smell of urine at the Subway, and the hawkers and vendors on the streets selling fake handbags, or food items such as fruits, juices, kebabs, and pretzels will remind you of just another pavement market in India.
The pushy sales guy forcing you to buy tickets of some comedy show, and how can I not mention the ubiquitous yellow taxis of New York City, which always remind me of my reckless driving in India and how everybody else learns to drive like a cab-wala in India. The taxi drivers in New York seem to have spent some time of their lives in India for they drive as any Indian in India would.
Even average New Yorkers love to be considered fashionistas, and so, they do all they can to be called one. A slight drop in the temperature and out they come – stylish coats, scarves and fashionable boots. Not surprisingly, you get to see some skin even in sub-zero temperatures, if you happen to be at a place where your image would go down if you are not dressed as one of them. So what if your heels are killing your feet, and who cares if you have to walk several blocks in the City each way, and it’s all right if the cold threatens to give you pneumonia. It’s all fair when it comes to keeping and guarding the fashionista title.
Since all women love their hoops and loops, and pretty necklaces, they wear them even if they can’t carry them off well, or would look much, much nicer with a pair of studs, say. Accessories look great and I love to collect them, too, but somehow being comfortable for me now is more important than looking stylish — or foolish.
The city has its own charm, however. No matter how many times you have been here, but when you are back amidst the chaos after being away to a quiet, peaceful and green suburb, coming back home always makes you feel better. For many, this is the only place they would rather call home.
It’s a little different for us, though. My husband and I can only be occasional lovers of the noise, the people, the high fashion shows, the food and a great stroll at the Times Square. Most times, it only reminds me of Gurgaon back home, which I call the next Manhattan for its contrasting features — just like it is in Manhattan.
While his contemporaries in India are busy playing the numbers game and counting crores, Irrfan Khan chooses to let his craft do the talking.
His roles in Hollywood movies such as The Warrior, The Namesake, A Mighty Heart, Spiderman, Jurassic World and several others have catapulted him beyond the “crore club” and made sure he is as feted in the festival circuit as he is recognised in the world of commercial cinema. Well-known to both Indian and international audiences, Khan has been a chameleon on screen, whether he is playing a police inspector in Slumdog millionaire, scientist Rajit Ratha in The amazing Spider Man or the grown up Pi Patel in Life of Pi.
The beginning
Born in a feudal zamindar family in Jaipur, Sahibzaade Irfan Ali Khan, was the apple of his mother's eye, and a subject of great curiosity for his father (he owned a tyre business), who would often refer to him as, in Irfan's own words, “a Pandit born in a Pathan's house” because of Irrfan’s reluctance to go on shikar outings, and strict vegetarian habits.
Irrfan’s choice for his life’s journey was rather unconventional. At his mother's insistence, and for the purpose of “getting a secure job”, Khan was contemplating postgraduate studies when he earned a grant to go to the National School of Drama (NSD) in New Delhi in 1984. For those who don’t know about the admission criteria for NSD the institution requires about a dozen certificates of prior stage or theatre experience as one of the criteria for admission. Irrfan faked all of them and still got selected.
The system dealt with, now the mother remained. “I actually told my mother that after graduation from the college I would get a job of a lecturer in NSD itself. That was the only way she would have allowed me to go,” confesses Khan, adding, “I often imagined giving my mother this big suitcase crammed with currency notes — like those gangsters do in our masala flicks.”
After completing his course from NSD in 1987, Khan moved to Mumbai, where he acted in various TV serials such as Chanakya, Sara jahan hamara, Banegi apni baat and Chandrakanta, Sparsh and so on, which were aired on national broadcast channel Doordarshan as well as other private channels. This stint on television and sporadic appearances on stage kept him above water during his struggling days. But Khan was pining to be on the big screen. His big break was a rather small role — almost a cameo — in Mira Nair’s acclaimed Salaam Bombay in 1988.
Asserting himself
It is thanks to his stubborn streak that Khan trudged on. Even now, he has no complaints about the phase when he was testing waters and says, “I feel very fortunate to have had these opportunities of struggle, too. They taught me a lot and challenged me, and challenges sharpen your skills." The patience and persistence paid off. In the 1990s, he featured in Ek doctor ki maut and Such a long journey (1998) and various other movies which went largely unnoticed. After numerous unsuccessful movies, things changed when London-based Asif Kapadia gave him the lead in The Warrior, which was shot in weeks on location in Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan. In 2001, The Warrior raged in several film festivals, making Irrfan Khan a known face the world over.
In 2003, he acted in Asvin Kumar’s short film Road to Ladakh. The film got rave surveys at universal celebrations, and is presently being made into a full-length highlight, again featuring Khan. The same year he assumed the title part in the discriminatingly acclaimed Maqbool, adapted from Shakespeare’s Macbeth.
Khan’s first major Bollywood appearance came in 2005 with Rog. Even after that, he showed up in few movies; sometimes in significant roles and sometimes as supporting leads. Bollywood and commercial cinema only sat up and took notice of this actor with unusual looks and deep-set eyes in 2004, when he won the Filmfare best villain award for his part in film Haasil.
In 2007, Khan appeared in Metro, for which he got a Filmfare award for best supporting actor, perhaps realising that to “be seen, he had to be seen. And commercial cinema was the best way to do that”. It was also the year he established his foothold in the international circuit with The Namesake. This film meant global acknowledgment when he portrayed a non-resident Bengali professor in the US. Recalling his anxiety about being in the movie, Khan says, “When I went to work on The Namesake, I was wondering he’s so unobtrusive, he’s so unnoticeable. The parts I was playing in India at that time were all presence-oriented. They were big and loud. I was wondering how do you do such an obtrusive character? It was a big high when I could pull it off, despite not knowing how I could do it.” The Namesake was not only feted by major international dailies, but also occupied the number one spot at the US box office.
Finally, Khan was no longer an obscure actor. Not just in India, his craft had won him admirers worldwide.
His appearances in A Mighty Heart and The Darjeeling Limited sealed his global appeal. But it was 2008’s Oscar-winning Slumdog millionaire that catapulted Khan in the big league. For this film, Khan also won the Screen Actors Guild Award for outstanding performance by a cast in a motion picture.
But, out of all his Hollywood appearances, Khan picks two and says, “I loved The Namesake and In Treatment. Sometimes an actor sees a film and he starts looking at his character not as him in the film, but as that character. That moment when the character comes alive and takes over the actor, that’s a wonderful thing and I discovered it in both these films. That is the magic of filmmaking.”
Signature craft
Known for his amazing versatility, there is not a role that Khan can’t play with style. The actor, who was seen recently with Aishwarya Rai in Jazbaa and the critically-acclaimed Talvar, has also blazed trails in The lunchbox, Paan Singh Tomar, Haider, Piku and several others.
But he does not wish to draw a distinction between commercial and parallel cinema. “I get extremely moved by great stories and great cinema. I am here to redefine entertainment with stories that engage the audiences differently. I don’t like typecasting movies. Every movie that I have done has given me a different kick. Each and every role I have played has a special importance in my life,” he says. Emphasising that he must connect with the film’s script, Khan adds, “It is the most pathetic situation for an actor to not connect to a film when he is doing it. I hope and pray I am never in that situation. So I have to let the script lead me on.”
And what are the kinds of roles that Khan longs to do? “I am a die-hard romantic. I really want to do comedy. I want to entertain people alright, but I cannot lip sync. (laughs). I want to explore romance at various levels — at real levels. That happened with Piku and I am thankful for it. See, all through my life, all the people that I have met have been reflected in my characters. Do real people lip sync and dance around trees?” retorts Khan. The man walks his talk, too. His portrayal of Saajan, a widower stuck in a mind-numbing desk job, who finds life has new spark in The lunchbox, was real.
Back where he belongs
Thanks to the “uncloseting” of cinema, as Khan calls it, Indian filmmakers are making a beeline for their most famous brand ambassador abroad. So where does he see himself in this dynamic equation? “I am trying to create my own brand identity. It is my own unique space and style. I have to convince that I will entertain with my roles. That is the only way I can convince people — both filmmakers and audiences — to put their money on me.”
For now, Khan is, in his own words, “Content and happy as a soul who’s in search of excellence and who still hasn’t made peace with his existence and the mystery of life. Yes, there’s certain restlessness that only a personal assurance from God, when I meet him, can cure!”
WITH THE air quality in most metropolises swinging from hazardous to unhealthy most of the time, it would be a prudent expense to invest in a goodquality air purifier.
We recently brought home a Sharp FU-A80E-W air purifier after a comprehensive research online, talking to friends who had bought one, and, of course, after discussing it on social media.
An air purifier is a device that removes contaminants and pollutants from the air. It works like any filter by sucking in the air, passing it through a cleaning mechanism, and giving you clean air. Unlike water which is chemically treated, air is not purified chemically, but filtered.
THE LOOKS
The Sharp FU-A80E-W is a sleek looking device with nice clean lines and easy-to-read LED lights/ indicators. The device has both active and passive purification technologies. The dimensions in millimetres are 402 x 620 x 245 (W x H x D).
THE PERFORMANCE
The most important thing to look out when buying a purifier is whether it has a high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filter. Consider your machine a glorified trash can if it doesn’t come with a good-quality HEPA filter. According to the US department of Energy, HEPA can/ must remove at least 99.97 per cent of 0.3 micrometers airborne pollutants.
The A80 is the top-of-the-line non-humidifying plasma-cluster — which means it does not have a humidifier attached to it. The Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers- (AHAM)-certified clean air delivery rates (CADR) average a strong 318.
The A80 has a pre-filter, which is a good thing. Let me explain why. Indian conditions are such that the air has heavy particulate matter, the PM2.5 and PM10 we keep hearing about in the news. It then has an activated carbon filter, whose main function is to suck out most of the gaseous containments in the air. Plasmacluster FP-A80U is a plasma-ion streamer, producing both positive and negative ions simultaneously. These ions attach to airborne water vapour and create hydroxyl radicals, which are very strong oxidizers.
It is commendable that this is one of the few devices able to purify air at a spectacular 62m2 (667 ft2) radius area.
The A80 retails online and offline from Rs 28,000 to Rs 34,000. The filters cost Rs 3,000 and needs to be replaced every 24 months.
THUMBS UP
There are several counts on which the SHARP FU-A80E-W scores over competition. There is no ozone, a once popular oxidizing agent which works well but persists in indoor air after use, posing health hazards. Plasmacluster oxidizers are short-lived and are considered much safer than ozone.
The top dry plasma-cluster is automated with auto mode running one dust sensor, which selects fan speed based on particulate levels. Energy star qualified, FP-A80U burns 98 watts on high fan, and a negligible 4.8 watts on low.
POSSIBLE CONCERNS
My only concern would be the two-year filter lifespan, which is relatively short for air purifier that comes with such powerful air suction. Still, for an air purifier of such calibre and the price at which it retails, you couldn’t ask for more.
Verdict: Most value for money!
There is a Bengali trope, or maybe it is more universal: grandfathers spending lazy summer afternoons spinning yarns, the silver in their hair and the slowness of their limbs the only giveaways as they became friends, or an older brother at times, to their grandchildren. There was a lot of storytelling and role playing, fooling the in between generation — typically a son and a daughter-in-law — with tricks and tall tales.
There are a fair few examples of this in Bengali literature and cinema (and, of course, from life itself). The grand father grandson tag-and-gag team finds expression in Satyajit Ray’s work, for instance, all very real to anyone who has grown up in the non-nuclear set-ups of a certain time.
In Joy Baba Felunath, the grandfather-grandson pair plots to prevent a crime by hiding a precious Ganesha figurine in the mouth of the lion in the family’s Durga idol. The story treads slightly different paths in the book and the film, but both are planned to fool the real criminals and, in the case of the film, challenge the detective. With prodding from his older partner, the younger aide provides riddles for Feluda to work out. And the playful deceit goes up another notch when it emerges that the patriarch was, in fact, playing a trick even on his partner.
In Pikoor Diary, the old man is less of an active participant, bed-ridden as he is, but assumes the role of the grandson’s confidante as the boy roams around the house, observing but not quite absorbing the goings-on in the lives of the adults.
In Agantuk, a globetrotter comes to visit the family of his niece, her husband and their son. The whole story, a short by Ray, is mired in deceit, real and perceived, but for the child, it is the granduncle who opens his eyes to the world beyond the immediate, teaching him words, wordplay, being the friend the boy’s parents cannot be.
But, above all, there is the cinema of Hrishikesh Mukherjee — middle-of-theroad cinema, the average Indian family and friends; stories of humour and sensitivity; of simplicity and warmth. Those are words I’ve read and heard being bandied about when it comes to Mukherjee’s cinema, but, of course, it isn’t easy trying to place the work of someone who has made Satyakam and Anuradha, as well as Musafir and Bemisal, and Gol Maal and Khoobsurat. (A shout out here to my friend Jai Arjun Singh’s book on Hrishikesh Mukherjee The world of Hrishikesh Mukherjee, which teases out the many complexities of the director and his cinema.
I suppose one could say his was the cinema of the educated bhadralok, his own milieu. Mukherjee had studied science, worked as a teacher of mathematics, and then turned to theatre and cinema, initially as a cameraman and editor and then, in Bombay, as assistant to Bimal Roy in Do Bigha Zameen and other films. The serious young man he was in his early cinema appeared again and again and again, even in his funniest films. But, almost from the start, when he was still in his 40s, the Mukherjee who was having a little fun with his audience was what stood out for me.
Not in-jokes or laugh-out-loud gags, no, certainly not. A montage of the funniest scenes in Hindi cinema might include only a handful of Mukherjee handiworks, including, maybe, the Dharmendra-Om Prakash exchanges from Chupke chupke. His brand of humour was — how best to put it? — that of an older man sitting down in a gathering, saying, “Let me tell you a story”, chuckling to himself, and then making up an elaborate lie over the next many minutes.
There has to be a target, of course. Maybe someone who claims great intellect, or has a dictatorial way, or is rich and powerful, or has a character quirk that needs fixing. And then the trickery plays out, taking centre-stage. Even as the others in the mix clue in on the game, the target stays blissfully unaware.
I recall my otherwise dignified father once getting irritated about a man who claimed to be an expert on alcohol of all kinds, and proceeding to treat him to country liquor — Bangla, it’s called — served from a porcelain sake bottle and in appropriate cups. The man was blown — in many ways — by the wonderful “sake” that Mr Dasgupta had acquired specially for him from the Japanese embassy. Sake, being what it is, is served neat — and so was the Bangla, which meant a rather early and unpleasant end to the evening.
Very Mukherjee-esque, no?
To me, the venerable filmmaker was, above all, a prankster.
The earliest signs of this were probably in the two 1961 films, Mem-didi and Chhaya, and then, to a lesser extent, in Asli naqli, in 1962. But these were pieces of trickery or deceit, part of a larger narrative. He had already directed Musafir, Anari and Anuradha, and was yet to make Anupama or Aashirwad or Satyakam, or even Guddi — all serious films. So it was early days. But he had time for Biwi aur makaan in between, his first full-fledged attempt at sitting back and having a great laugh. It was 1966, when he was between Gaban and Anupama, and Mukherjee gave us the story of four men pretending to be two married couples so they could fool the landlord into renting them the house. A grand deceit. But, as always in Mukherjee films, with no harmful intent. Just a greater good, if only to give the trickery legitimacy. As the story pans out, the lies and gags add up and get unwieldy because the original trickery was never good enough to last the distance.
That — gags taking the narrative forward — is something we find again in the tragic Anand, where Rajesh Khanna’s memorable character routinely walks up to random people with his “Arrey o Murarilal… Qutab Minar pe beer pila ke out kar diya tha” line. He tries it on Johnny Walker, who cottons on and comes back with “Arrey Jaichand!” The two then proceed to banter even though they both know the joke’s over — the lines flow, the imagined story builds, and then, for a few precious seconds, Amitabh Bachchan’s grumpy Dr Bhaskar Banerjee becomes the target as Khanna and Walker introduce each other to the good doctor — as school friends Murarilal and Jaichand, of course. The entire sequence lasts less than a minute, from the time Khanna catches hold of Walker to when the latter walks away: a lesson in not stretching a good joke too long.
That —gags taking the narrative forward —is something we find again in the tragic A n a n d , where Rajesh Khanna’s memorable character routinely walks up to random people with his “Arrey o Murarilal… Qutab Minar pe beer pila ke out kar diya tha” line. He tries it on Johnny Walker, who cottons on and comes back with “Arrey Jaichand!”
Yet, Mukherjee effortlessly stretches a gag to last the length of a film, and nowhere better than Chupke chupke, Gol maal and Naram garam, all released between 1975 and 1981, and then the two coups de grace in 1983: Rang birangi and Kissi se na kehna. Small stories all of them — no grand middle-class messages or the mantle Mukherjee seemed to be stuck with: reflecting changing mores in a changing world. Instead, we had David (David Abraham), mainly, and Ashok Kumar in Khoobsurat, and Saeed Jaffrey in a brilliant performance as Lala-ji in Kissi se na Kehna — all playing the sutradhaar, the older man with the heart of a youngster, as gags and tricks make up the story.
Not to forget the regulars, Amol Palekar and Farooque Sheikh, and others such as Dharmendra or Amitabh Bachchan, Deven Varma and Asrani and Om Prakash, Dina Pathak and Lalita Pawar, adapting magnificently to Hrishi-da’s very particular brand of mischief. A poker face the greatest weapon.
Towards the end, in 1985, came Jhoothi and then the unnecessary 1998 Jhooth bole kauwa kaate, the titles underscoring Mukherjee’s love for the lie — lies of varying shades, lies with different intents.
Through the tears of Anand, the poignancy of Satyakam, the drama of Namak haram and Mili, the stunning songs and all else from what is as stellar a filmography as one is likely to encounter, it’s really the jhooth (lie) that has stayed on for me. I don’t know if that’s unfair to him. I hope it’s not. For, above all, I admire the effortless simplicity of his cinema — “It is so simple to be happy but so difficult to be simple,” said Khanna’s bawarchi…. Who knows, maybe that was the answer Mukherjee sought through his movies. Laughter, yes — it helped.
Watching Gol maal, Naram garam and Kissi Se Na Kehna, I can’t help but imagine that Mukherjee had a rigid Utpal Dutt-like uncle or someone at home, some poor chap that was the target of a few real-life gags. Indeed, I wonder what Mukherjee was like in real life. Wickedly funny, I imagine — it would have been fun to know him.
At a time when the government is desperately trying to revive the Indian economy by spending heavily on infrastructure, some of the companies that ought to have benefitted from the government’s spending spree are probably facing huge working capital crisis.
Saddled with unprecedented debt, most of these companies — Lanco, Jaypee Group, GMR, GVK Group, Essar, Adani, Reliance Group, JSW Group and Vedanta Group — in the infrastructure sector are today finding themselves in a vicious cycle, where they need more debt to even run their daily operations!
The situation has come to such a pass that the companies’ interest cost has become bigger than their gross profit. This has resulted in companies defaulting on loan repayments leading to sharp rise in non-performing assets (NPAs) of banks. At the end of September, impaired assets (NPAs plus restructured loans) accounted for almost 13 per cent of the total advances.
Take, for instance, Lanco Infratech. For the past two financial years, its operating profits (Rs 176 crore in 2014-15, and Rs 215 crore in 2013-14) is less than its interest costs (Rs 772 and Rs 628 in the same order). The company had a total debt of Rs 6,600 crore at the end of 2014-15. In the same year, the company’s revenue was only Rs 1,400 crore, its debt-equity ratio — which calculates how many times the shareholder’s equity is the company’s total debt — was 3.25 times.
A debt-equity ratio of over two is usually a sign of not-so-good financials of a company.
Lanco Infratech is not an isolated case; when you sift through reams of data and pages of annual reports of companies, you would realise the rot has set in deep and unsustainable levels of debt has assumed the proportion of an epidemic.
The total debt of BSE 500 companies at the end of March 2015 was close to Rs 46 lakh crore, up 50 per cent from Rs 30 lakh crore in March 2012. During the same period, the interest cost of the companies has gone up from Rs 5 lakh crore, to Rs 8 lakh crore — an increase of almost 60 per cent. Not that rising debt always points to a crisis — higher debt is also a sign of higher capital expenditure by companies.
But the real cause of concern is that such high growth in debt is in spite of slow or no pick-up in capex activities in the past three years. In fact, many research firms have predicted a 10-15 per cent decline in private sector capex during the current financial year.
WHAT LED TO THIS MESS?
Blame it on the excesses of capitalism. In market economies, bubbles do get created when times are good, and individuals and institutions fall for the vice called indiscretion. In the past decade, between 2004 and 2008, India saw a period of super growth.
There was huge wealth creation — both for the companies and individuals. Many domestic companies sitting on huge cash piles got carried away by the success they had tasted and became more ambitious. They set out to expand globally, and went on a buying spree. Companies such as the Tatas, Birlas, Airtels, Vedantas and even the smaller ones such as the Crompton Greaves, and Suzlons bought companies in Europe, Africa and other parts of the world.
They took huge loans to make these acquisitions. For instance, the Tata Group took a loan of around $7-7.5 billion to finance its purchase of Corus.
However, soon after some of these acquisitions, recession hit badly the economies in Europe and North America — continents where most of these acquired companies operated. The recession lasted for a much longer period than it was earlier expected. Soon, these acquisitions started bleeding and the Indian companies that bought them by paying hefty prices found themselves neck-deep in debt.
Some companies also suffered because of stalled projects due to delay in environmental clearances, land acquisition, and other regulatory issues. These delays led to huge cost-overruns, which in turn led to mounting debt for companies involved in these projects.
Some of the mess is also due to falling demand for metals and capital goods due to global recession followed by slowdown in China.
Whatever may have led to this mess, it has become one of the most pressing issue for the government trying hard to kick-start the capex cycle.
Companies are laden with huge debts, and banks are facing a precarious situation where over Rs 7 lakh crore worth of loan assets are seen going to drains. What role can the government play to help both the economy as well as the companies to get out of the turmoil?
Spend heavily on infrastructure: It can continue to invest in the infrastructure by taking loans from public or overseas institutions. Bring in foreign companies to complete the projects. Let the work start first, and let the domestic companies gain from the trickle-down effect, if they themselves are not in a position to undertake huge projects given the working capital issues they face
Recapitalise PSU banks: Public sector banks are worst affected due to increasing the poor asset quality. The government needs to infuse more capital into them so as to keep them from falling prey to corporate default.
Bring the bankruptcy code: Bankruptcy law would help expedite the insolvency process allowing banks and other lenders to attach and sell defaulters’ property to recover their debt. Bankruptcy law would shift the balance in the favour of lenders, which is today unfairly tilted in the favour of borrowers.
Keep the reform process going: The government can help corporate houses by cutting through the red tape, reforming tax laws and auto-piloting the economy. Of course, the path ahead is little rocky, but if the government can maintain the pace of reform process, it would be a big favour for businesses at large.
The ability to think is what makes us different from all living species on this planet. That itself speaks volumes about the importance of the ability to think. I remember what my mother used to teach me as a child: As is our thought, so is our deed, so is our destiny.
It took me years to understand the depth of this age-old saying. Yes, it is true; we are what our thoughts make us. R W Emerson, the famous poet and essayist who led the Transcendental Movement has said aptly, “Man is what he thinks about all day.”
So if thinking is so important then we should also realize that what one thinks is of prime importance… Your thoughts can either make you, or break you.
However, before we discuss the power of thoughts and how to use thoughts to manifest, let us dwell into what thoughts are.
A thought is the genesis of all creation. All creation, whether tangible or intangible, originates from thoughts.
Thoughts are deeply influenced by the condition of our body, mind, emotion and intellect, and vice versa — our body, mind, emotions, and intellect get deeply influenced by our thoughts. It is a vicious circle that keeps going around, leading us to a merry dance of confusion, contradictions and conflicts. This constant tug of war prevents us from living a harmonious existence, both at the conscious and sub-conscious level.
Thoughts also get colored by our perception of people and situations. Different people are found to react in different ways in a given circumstance, since their perceptions, and in extension, their thoughts are generally influenced by their cultural, social and religious beliefs, and their environment, which in turn influence their reactions and actions towards the situation.
There is increasing scientific evidence that our biological bodies respond to our thoughts. Negative thinking leads to unnecessary worries and stress, which in today’s world is the major cause for most diseases and illnesses. When we are in a state of negative thinking, our blood pressure increases, the sympathetic nervous system becomes overactive, leading to secretion of stress hormones such as adrenalin and cortisol. Similarly, positive thinking leads to secretion of happy hormones like serotonin, dopamine, and oxytocin. Therefore, the inner dialogue, the conversation which we are having in our mind is very important for our health, since our body responds differently to the different states of our mind. Every mental process has an effect on our physical body.
CONSCIOUS THINKING
One might ask that we all know that negative thinking is harmful but what should we do to correct it or replace those negative thoughts with the positive ones. After all, it is not in our hands to dictate what we think.
Awareness is the answer. The more we are aware of our thoughts, the better equipped we are to divert negative thinking into positive thoughts. The moment you find yourself drifting into negative thinking, and if you are aware of it, you should say a loud “no” and “stop”. Initially, you have to practice deliberate positive thinking. It might be difficult in the beginning to have positive thoughts, especially in adverse situation, but with practice, you will soon notice a change in you and your surroundings.
Let us change the way we think, to live our life in abundance, joy and peace. Whatever situation we are in can’t change by worrying or thinking negatively. Negativity begets negativity and will never lead one to a positive, constructive solution to the problem at hand. However, a positive mindset can definitely make the situation look less intimidating and also lead one to get positive solutions for the problem at hand. Our thoughts have an impact on our being, if not on the situation.
CHOOSE YOUR EXPERIENCE
How many times have you stepped outside and not even noticed how the sky looks like? How much do you really notice while traveling? We are just so engrossed in the thoughts of past or future we miss the finer moments of life and joy this moment is giving us. Life is made of experiences, big or small. But all experiences are momentary — they exist in one second, and in another they become history.
Let’s feel them and live every moment in positivity. Our positivity should not depend on the experience. We need to acknowledge the situation and be grateful for the experiences.
Be aware of your thoughts and surround yourself with things and people who teach and give you positivity in life. Use good and positive words for yourself and others. Love life and accept the process of life with complete understanding. It is much easier than to keep suffering in your negative thoughts and harbouring resentment toward acceptance.
Ultimately, the choice is yours — accept it gracefully or keep crying.
You will be amazed to see how effortlessly your mind becomes a free flow of positive thoughts, just like a clear stream that flows effortlessly, without any restraint. Positive thoughts are associated with higher vibrations of love, joy, happiness, and gratitude and you will find yourself in a state of inner bliss, no matter what your external situation is.
To conclude, let me quote author Henry Thomas Hamblin: “You are the architect of your own life; it is yours to make or to mar. By the power of thoughts you are building; are you building it right?”
Gerry Martin and his wildlife camps are extremely popular with children. After all, he shares their excitement when it comes to the “creepy-crawlies”. And just like most of his school-going visitors, studying and homework weren’t his first love either. Today, despite all the “ists” to his credit – conservationist, naturalist, herpetologist (one who specialises in the study of reptiles and amphibians) – Martin remains an explorer at heart, ready to investigate nature’s many mysteries and share them with like-minded people.
One of the few sane voices when it comes to discussing and working on conservation, protecting wildlife, and raising awareness about it, Martin combines his various experiences and spearheads work that has conservation focus and implication. Projects that he runs or is involved with range from community-based sustainable conservation, to snakebite mitigation. He also strongly believes that conservation in India needs to be made viable for grassroot-level stakeholders.
“In 2005, I was working on various random projects, conducting camps and working on conservation initiatives, when a friend suggested that I put everything under one banner,” he says. And The Gerry Martin Project (TGMP) was born. The venture is Martin’s way to show how conservation can be the foundation of a responsible, for-profit business. And yes, those of you who have heard he bred Indian king cobras, it is true; Martin was a part of the team in 1995, and raised the world’s longest venomous snakes successfully.
With TGMP, Martin’s big priority is to address the snakebite issue in the country. “India loses over 40,000 people to snakebite every year, and we are part of a team that is working hard to solve this issue,” he says. Also on the anvil are building a bigger team, and kick-starting another site for a field station in the Western Ghats.
Hatching of an idea
Martin’s earliest memories of childhood are as one who was attracted to animals and enjoyed interacting with them. If you are comparing notes with your own childhood, stop. For when he was just about five years old, Martin remembers holding his first snake – a red sand boa.
Interaction with wildlife and outdoors was easy for him in his early days since he grew up in a farm outside Bangalore. “In those days, it was truly wild, with lots of wildlife – from jackal and chameleons to cobras,” Martin recalls. Plus, his parents were extremely supportive of him. “My mother worked hard with me to help me learn how to learn,” he says.
Before his Bangalore days, Martin’s family used to live in Ahmedabad and as a little boy, he visited a local animal park called Sundarvan with his Montessori school. He says he doesn’t remember, but his teacher and mother tell him he enjoyed playing with pythons.
The interest grew and the connection with wildlife became stronger with Martin weaning off on National Geographic’s VHS tapes. “I was never focused on my school work and always dreamed of doing that kind of ‘stuff’ in my life,” Martin reminisces. When his classmates would talk about going into space, becoming a doctor, an engineer or a doctor, he would always come back to “reptile expert”.
And although failing class 12 might not have felt good back then, it only paved the way for the path he is still walking on. After spending a little time wandering around, trekking, fishing and simply enjoying the wild, Martin decided that the one place he would be able to feel fulfilled would be working with Rom Whitaker – herpetologist, wildlife conservationist and founder of Madras Snake Park, and Madras Crocodile Bank Trust. “So I landed on his doorstep early one morning, and begged him to let me stay. He did!” says Martin, chuckling, adding how from there on, every day for him had purpose, made sense to him, and brought about an excitement in what he was doing and learning. “Plus, wildlife and conservation are fields that I can relate to perfectly and feel absolutely comfortable and driven pursuing. What else could I do?” he asks.
Starting to grow
While working with Whitaker, Martin started working on film and documentary projects in 1995. Shortly after that, he was approached to work on various other films and in 2000, the National Geographic Channel asked him to be its face in Asia; for three years, Martin worked as “India’s first National Geographic Channel Adventurer”, the face for the channel.
A candid Martin confesses he doesn’t like television, however. “When I was working on television programmes, I achieved very little actual work in the field,” he admits, adding how most of his time was spent in doing various programmes on reptiles and other wildlife, primarily for entertainment. “It really wasn’t fulfilling to me,” he feels.
So he gave it up, and joined the field of education, which was his way to trying to be a part of building relevant curriculum and enabling children to learn from experiences in the outdoors. He joined iDiscoveri Education, an innovative education company, and helped the company set up operations in south India
He also continued with his conservation work, looking at ways to share his learning from the outdoors and use these principals in the work he did with children and adults. With TGMP, Martin wants to reach to even more people. It’s been anything but easy, however. “Being a responsible business poses numerous challenges. High up on that list is the fact that there aren’t many precedents that one can follow,” he rues, adding how much of what TGMP has done and continues to do, is quite new. “I have also noticed that much of what we do is quickly taken up by many other operators, not all of whom are particularly value-driven when it comes to conservation,” says Martin.
The tale ahead
Martin and dedicated conservationists such as him have brought about positive changes in the past decade, and he believes a lot more people are now talking about, and are dedicated to, conservation. “However, the actual premises and perspectives of conservation seem to remain,” says Martin, adding, “I think the biggest flaw in this thinking is the exclusive nature of conservation efforts that strive to keep people out of and separate from nature.” He feels it is crucial we realise that we are a part of this entire system and unwaveringly adhere to what is best for the ecosystems that we affect.
Martin welcomes current policies on conservation and the environment being geared towards renewable energy, but feels it doesn’t address the direct issue of biodiversity conservation and things such as human-wildlife conflict. “We need to approach conservation more as being who are part of a great system, and less as managers or custodians of a subservient system.”
We’re rooting for you, Gerry Martin!
INDIA HAS TAKEN its first baby steps to create history in the world of defence exports. For the first time ever, India took its indigenously-build Light combat aircraft (LCA) to the Bahrain air show in the fourth week of January 2015, much to the glee of Indian aviation enthusiasts.
This is the first definitive bid by India to showcase its home-built combat plane to the global military aviation market at an airshow abroad. The plane has flown at the biennial AeroIndia air show at Yelahanka in Bengaluru in the past few editions.
At the Shakhir air base in Bahrain, the Indian aircraft went unchallenged. But more on that later.
LCA, or Tejas, as it is fondly called, is getting ready for full-scale production by 2017. This comes at a time when there has been a lot of interest generated in Asia in the Tejas as a possible Indian offer for exports.
The Indian export dreams for Tejas has been spurred by the recent decision of the Indian Air Force to induct 120 Tejas fighters into its combat fleet at the earliest in its presently available version, code-named as LCA-1A, and allowing the Indian Aeronautical Development Agency to simultaneously work on a much improved version of the plane, to be called LCA-2, for later inductions.
The Air Force move, to finally induct Tejas by 2018, is a pragmatic one, and allows the force to use what is presently available from the Indian defence R&D establishment and to help keep the production line set up at Hindustan Aeronautics Limited rolling for a while before the LCA-2 gets ready for production.
The production targets for LCA continue to remain eight a year initially, which will be jacked up to 16 a year at the peak of its serial production. At this rate, HAL would take close to a decade to even complete delivery of the first 120 LCA-1A variant of the plane ordered by the Air Force.
It is in this background that India has taken the LCA to Bahrain. But India’s LCA has a South Asian competitor. Pakistan’s JF-17, called “Thunder”, and built with Chinese help, has been in its Air Force service since 2010, and the country has taken the plane to international airshows for the past couple of years now.
After doing the rounds of some airshows, both in Asia and Europe, Pakistan has begun talking of exporting the JF-17 to some Asian nations. The countries that were bandied about for JF-17 exports were Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Malaysia. But all the three nations have denied they had interest in JF17, which essentially is a third generation fighter modeled on the Soviet-era MiG-21 supersonic combat jet technology.
At Shakhir air base, a contest of sorts between Tejas and Thunder was anticipated by aviation enthusiasts ahead of the air show. But that turned out to be a dud after Pakistan pulled out the Thunder from the flight and static display.
Indian Air Force pilots, who have had the opportunity to fly the Tejas, vouch for it. Some have even claimed that Tejas, a fourthgeneration plus fighter, would beat JF-17 hands down in a one-on-one dog fight in the air. But that sort of a contest can happen only during war time. A joint air force exercise to test each other’s aircraft is next to impossible, even on foreign air space.
If Thunder had participated in Bahrain air show, it would have competed with Tejas for the first time to grab the global aviation enthusiasts’ attention. But that was not to be.
While we await the contest between Tejas and Thunder at the next international air show, (may be at the Singapore air show in February), the talk of Sri Lanka being interested in Tejas as an import option, too, has got reported in the island nation. No official word on that “interest” from India’s neighbour has come yet. The inherent message from India through its Tejas offer, even if it is just a media report, shows the kind of reach New Delhi still has with Colombo.
What’s in store for India if the talk about Tejas being available for exports turns into a real deal? That sale would enable manifold growth of India’s defence exports.
In 2014-15, India had done only about $150 million in defence exports and these included the supply of Sukhoi combat plane parts, warships, military helicopters, sonars and radars to nations that are considered friends by New Delhi, according to data presented to Indian Parliament in 2015.
Some analysts note that the defence export from India is expected to grow by 50 per cent — to at least about $225 million in the current fiscal ending March 2016.
But the exponential growth in defence exports, as envisaged by Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, to touch $1 billion by 2017-18, seems like a far off dream. But this dream could get the much-needed wings and the lift if India is able to convince one of its closest neighbours (Sri Lanka, may be) to buy the LCA. ]
This will not only spur growth in the defence exports figures, but also ensure that the LCA project achieves economies of scale. It would be an understatement to say that this would energise the aviation manufacturing ecosystem in the country.
India has maintained its status as the world’s largest arms importer for nearly halfa-decade, according to the Stockholm-based SIPRI’s annual data. The latest SIRPI data was released in March 2015, and that showed India had garnered about 15 per cent of the entire global defence exports in the 2010-14 period.
India’s imports were still largely (70 per cent) met by Russia. US and Israel met another 12 per cent and seven per cent Indian defence imports, respectively.
China, on the other hand, had reduced its imports to drop in the largest importers table to the third position. Beijing has achieved this within the five-year period. No one would now believe that China was, until 2010, the world’s largest importer of arms, with Russia covering about 61 per cent of its imports even today.
Again, India was not among the top ten defence exporters of the world, and this list was led, obviously, by the US, with 31 per cent of the global arms exports in the same five-year period. Russia was a close second with 27 per cent.
What came as a surprise was China growing to the third position in the defence exports table, spurred by the five per cent export business it did since 2010. China’s largest customer was Pakistan, which got 41 per cent of Beijing’s defence products. Bangladesh and Myanmar got 16 per cent, and 12 per cent, respectively.
The Narendra Modi government’s focus on Make in India is likely to be a game-changer in bringing the nation of 1.2 billion people out of the ignominy of being the world’s top importer of arms. That is, if the Make in India initiative is implemented well. The defence sector is going to be the one powering this initiative. That’s where lies the promise of India growing in the world defence exporters table and occupying a respectable seat there at the top.