It’s made for those who jump, dive, sprint and scream in equal measure. What’s an adventure if it doesn’t set your adrenaline rushing?

IF YOU can spare around Rs 50,000 to spend on some exciting new piece of tech, what will you go for? My money is on mobile phones, a premium wireless speaker or maybe on amazing connected home electronics that you can play with through your mobile app. But if you’re not the homely kind and fancy a good ol’ adventure, I would suggest GoPro Hero 4.

WHAT’S IT FOR?

You wouldn’t know a 4k video until you’ve seen one, and the GoPro Hero 4 camera shoots them with ease. Looks do deceive, and at first look you might wonder why this costs Rs 45,000 of your hard-earned money. You should take another look.

GoPro Hero 4 isn’t made for selfies, groupies or clicking amazing mountain shots. It’s made for those who jump, dive, sprint and scream in equal measure. What’s an adventure if it doesn’t set your adrenaline rushing? You can mount it on your mountain bike, your light little motorcycle or even on your helmet as you set off on another rollercoaster of a journey. The waterproof casing does help a lot too!

WHAT’S IN THE CAMERA?

The camera is a 12MP one with a 1/2.3-inch CMOS sensor and an impressive f/2.8 aperture. The lens is pretty wide so you’ll be able to capture a lot more than on your smartphone camera.

While 4k videos look great, I’ll suggest you try out 1080p or 720p resolutions if you’re willing to preserve the battery for a long haul. These resolutions aren’t bad at all. Hero 4 can shoot great photos and videos in low light as well, so you shouldn’t worry much when it gets a little dark. If you want to try out the night mode, the camera will let you shoot 30-second stills at a time. Waiting for daylight will probably be a better idea.

OTHER SPECIFICATIONS

The best part about using a GoPro is that you can livestream everything you do. The camera connects through Wi-Fi with your smartphone internet and your phone app will let others views what you’re up to in real time. If you want to see your videos before you share them with others, a 64GB microSD card can save all your data for later use.

Be aware that the battery isn’t among the best and may fizzle out quickly if you do 4k videos or Wi-Fi. Rationing is the key here. If you’re rich, get an extra battery. But don’t even let the battery stop you from recording those amazing slo-mo videos!

You can view all the videos and stills on your Hero 4 through your Android or iOS phone by using the latter as a viewfinder. The camera’s settings also let you play with resolutions and adjust effects like brightness, sharpness, balance and exposure once you’re done with all the excitement.

WILL I BUY IT?

It depends. If I am planning to go on a long road trip and need to record the best bits, I will definitely consider the Hero 4. It’ll let me capture crisp photos and videos and back them up from time to time. However, the poor battery life will lead me to do all the research before I start packing and a helpful friend will probably buy me an extra battery.

However, pricing is the issue here. Will I spend 45k on an action cam that I’ll probably use only twice or thrice a year? I might, but if you live for the moment, you should go for it.

Modi's Challenge: Reshaping Indo-Russian defence ties

INDIA’S TIES with Russia has been a time-tested one for over six decades, founded on rock-solid grounds of mutual dependence, strategic cooperation and support for technological advancement. But that unrelenting friendship is suddenly seeing signs of losing sheen in the wake of developments of the past decade.

Since the 2005 civil nuclear agreement with the US, India is being seen globally as getting comparatively closer to the United States of America. The signs of such a tilt can be seen primarily in the defence sector, one of the key measures for geopolitical alignments.

In the decade between 2005 and 2015, India has bought arms and military platforms worth $17 billion from the US. That success in military sales has helped the US to edge past Russia and emerge as the largest supplier of arms to India in the three years ending 2014, according to figures submitted to the Indian Parliament a year ago.

The same year, India also emerged as the second largest defence customer for the US military industry, just behind Saudi Arabia, according to Pentagon’s figures. That trend has continued in 2015, too, with India signing two key military deals cumulatively worth $3.1-billion with the Obama administration and American aerospace major Boeing for 22 Apache attack helicopters and 15 Chinook heavy lift choppers, this September.

India had decided to reject Russia’s offers to meet its needs for attack and heavy lift helicopters, preferring to go with the American offers instead. This shift in favour of American military products was also witnessed when India chose to buy Boeing’s C-17s for heavy lift cargo transport aircraft requirement over Ilyushin IL-76, which already is the workhorse of the Indian Air Force fleet.

India is now buying more and more US weapons, highlighting the converging strategic interests between the two nations, which had strained relations during the Cold War. The stronger military ties between India and the US represent a shift for India’s approach, as it looks to reduce dependence on Russia for weapons and counter growing Chinese military capabilities. Russia and the Soviet Union supplied about 70 percent of its imports since 1950, figures from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute show.

No wonder, this Indian preference for American military products in the past decade has irked Russians to unfathomable levels. Russian leaders have been now publicly talking about how they had come to the aid of India at times of need and crisis to build military technology and production capabilities, and to support war efforts such as the 1999 Kargil battle with Pakistan.

Not just content with their verbal outpourings, Russia has begun to look at other military markets — ones it would never have touched even with a barge pole, respecting India’s sensitivities — such as Pakistan. In a way, Russia was expressing its displeasure. But that anger has gone beyond just rhetoric. A year ago, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu visited Islamabad — the first ever by a Russian defence minister.

His visit came about after noises were heard that Russia is now willing to sell Mi-35 attack helicopters to Pakistan’s air force. Shoigu landed in Islamabad ahead of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to New Delhi in December 2014, and signed the firstever defence cooperation agreement with Pakistan. The iron curtain had come down crashing with that one stroke of a pen. Since then, there have been recent Russian media reports of Moscow looking at a possible combat planes sale, the Su-35 in particular, to Islamabad.

If that Russia-Pakistan deal came as a shock, or even surprise, India never displayed the unease, although it came out with usual diplomatic utterances of how Russia was an all-weather friend. When Putin was in New Delhi, he made a generous offer to help India make the Kamov Ka-226T light military choppers through its domestic industry, which was readily accepted by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

It is in this background that the Modi-Putin summit meeting this December will be viewed with greater interest, even as India is making a bid to placate an upset Russia over New Delhi’s growing tilt towards Washington. Ahead of Modi’s visit Moscow, India’s Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar visited Russia in the first week of November for his annual bilateral talks with his counterpart Shoigu. Ahead of that visit, Parrikarheaded Defence Acquisition Council gave its nod to proposals worth $2.2 billion from the country’s three armed forces, including for upgrade of 20 IL- 76 and six IL-78 planes, both of Russian origin.

That and more are seen as India’s bid to placate an upset Russia that has recently lost out on key Indian defense deals, as stated earlier. In an interview to Russian news agency, TASS, ahead of his Russia visit, Parrikar confirmed that he would talk to his Russian counterpart about a possible deal on S-400 Truimf (NATO name SA-21 Growler) surface-to-air missile system, apart from making progress on the stalled Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft deal. The details of these deals are yet to be made public, though.

India is once again looking at Russia to lease a new Akula-II nuclear-powered attack submarine, to complement INS Chakra that was leased in early 2012 for 10 years. India may also approach Russia once again for its generous help in building six news nuclear-powered submarines that is envisaged to boost the Indian Navy’s underwater fighting capabilities. These have shown how Russia remains an important defense partner for India.

Defence arena is where Modi would face the challenge of redirecting the trajectory of the India- Russia ties that has been way off the mark in the recent years. That’s also why Modi government’s decisions clearing around $60-billion worth of arms purchases in the last 18 months include several projects that India will be doing with Russia, including the Ka-226T helicopters, indicate the necessity for such a change in direction in defence ties.

For, too much is at stake in the Indo-Russian ties for both nations. It can be understood well that India has the needed purchasing power to modernise its armed forces and Russian military industrial complex would benefit much from the business that Indian armed forces can provide. The same cannot be said in the case of Pakistan.

Retrospective tax: The spectre continues to haunt

The Union Budget in 2012 presented by the then Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee was a watershed moment in the history of Indian tax. The Indian government, after facing defeat at the Supreme Court in a tax dispute with Vodafone, decided to change the Income Tax Act with retrospective effect to get even with the British telecom company. The case pertains to capital gains tax made by Hutchison Telecommunication International by selling its 67 per cent stake in Hutch Essar Ltd to Vodafone. All the companies involved in the transaction were based out of India and the transaction took place in Cayman Island.

Since none of the companies were based in India, the capital gains made by Hutchison Telecommunication was not liable to be taxed in India — an argument that Indian authorities did not agree as major operations of Hutchinson Essar was based in India. Indian authorities argued that Vodafone should have withheld the capital gains tax from Hutchison and raised a demand of Rs 8,500 crore tax. After calculating the interest and penalty, the amount of tax demanded from Vodafone came to Rs 20,000 crore.

When the courts quashed the tax demand, the government took the radical step of amending the tax laws with retrospective effect to make Vodafone pay the amount. The decision led to a lot of hue and cry and many multinational companies raised serious concerns over uncertainty in tax laws in India. The decision severely impacted the country’s image as an investment destination, almost derailing the country’s economy.

Retrospective tax — changing the existing laws to tax past transactions — since then has come to be known as one of the biggest hurdles in the growth of the county’s economy.

Vodafone tax dispute is not the only case of retrospective tax in India; there are many such instances when tax authorities raised demands for tax for past transactions. Vodafone case came to highlight because both the amount involved and the company involved were too big. The spectre of retrospective tax and uncertainty of tax regime continues to haunt taxpayers despite the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government under Narendra Modi sending strong signals that it won’t resort to such hawkish tax collection methods.

The issue of retrospective tax again reared its head early this year with regard to Minimum Alternate Tax (MAT) on foreign institutional investors (FIIs). In its Union budget in 2015, while the government said MAT would not be applicable on FIIs from April 2015, it said that the past cases of MAT demand would be decided by the court. This statement stirred a massive controversy as FIIs feared they would be taxed for their past profits made in India.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley further fuelled the controversy after he made a rhetoric comment on the controversy. Reacting to the MAT row, Jaitley had said “Let it be clearly understood that India is not so vulnerable that every legitimate tax demand can be considered as tax terrorism. We are not a tax haven and we don’t intend to be one.” This comment was not taken kindly by the FIIs and they started exiting from the country’s stock market fearing tax demand. This led to stocks market shedding 10 per cent within a span of a month between March and April.

The controversy was doused only when in September, the government clarified that MAT would not be applicable on foreign companies with no permanent establishment in India.

CAUSES AND SOLUTIONS

There have been similar cases in the past, and business communities believe that the root cause of such retrospective and adversarial tax demand is the attitude of tax authorities towards taxpayers. As one industry player recently quipped, “Taxpayers are seen with contempt that he is a tax evader, tax cheater and therefore, he should be treated with contempt.”

Ambiguity of tax laws in another reason for uncertainty in tax laws which lead to retrospective taxation. The government — both in the past and in the present — has tried to make tax laws simpler and remove uncertainties due to different interpretation of the law.

The drafting of Direct Tax Code (DTC) was one such effort undertaken by the Manmohan Singh government. The DTC was drafted to address the issue of ambiguity and complexity of tax laws, and replace the existing Income Tax Act.

Unfortunately, the code was never implemented in its entirety, though some of its provisions have been implemented. Now, with a new government in place, the DTC has been kept in the cold storage. The new government has also recently formed a panel to look into the issue of equivocalness of tax laws. It has been entrusted with the task of studying and identifying provisions/ phrases in the Act, which are leading to litigation due to different interpretations and impacting the ease of doing business. The panel is supposed to come out with its first report in January 2016.

However, not all tax experts and industry players are too hopeful of any positive change in the situation. As one industry player tells me “There’s no point in forming one panel after another unless the recommendations of the committees are implemented. You need a strong will power to address those issues.”

He reminds the government of the Parthasarathi Shome Committee suggestions on reforms of tax administration. “If some of the points in the Parthasarathi Committee reports were implemented, that would have been sufficient instead of forming a committee,” he says. Parthasarathi Shome Committee has suggested sweeping changes in tax administration in the country, the most important being changing the attitude of tax authorities from that of an enforcement agency to service provider.

It also clearly states that “retrospective amendments to tax laws should be avoided as a principle.” The committee observes that retrospective amendments have resulted in protracted disputes, apart from having deeply harmful effects on investment sentiment and the macro-economy. Now, it remains to be seen if the Narendra Modi government is able to keep its promise of no retrospective tax in India and if it is able to pass on the strong message to the tax officials working on the ground.

The words “thank you” may sound simple but are filled with positive energy, and mark the beginning of the change we all desire

The dictionary meaning of the word “gratitude” is the act of being thankful, or readiness to show appreciation. In a deeper sense, it has a much wider connotation. Gratitude is an ingredient that consistently holds society and relationships together. The expression of gratitude is essential for the human survival, sustainability and prosperity.

The German philosopher and theologian Meister Eckhart summarises the importance of gratitude thus: “If the only prayer you say in your life is ‘thank you’, that would suffice.” The words, “thank you” may sound simple but are filled with positive energy, and mark the beginning of the change we all desire.

All the religions of the world talk in detail about the importance of gratitude. It is said in the Quran, “If you count God’s blessings, you can never encompass them all.” Nearly all the Hindu scriptures mention gratitude as one of the most important virtues. The Bible speaks of giving thanks to the Lord in its various psalms.

In order to live, we must continuously say thank for all that we have and are receiving from the universe. And once we are in this positive energy, we will be always surrounded by it. Being grateful brings us closer to those whom we thank and appreciate. Even modern-day research has shown that when one shifts into an active state of gratitude from the core of one’s heart, she operates from a higher state of vibration, which in turn acts like a magnet to bring higher good.Gratitude is the pathway to miracles.

Recent research have shown that those who incorporate gratitude in their daily schedule experience better health, are more calm and peaceful, have better relationships and exhibit higher levels of positive emotions of joy and happiness. Modern day research has shown that when one shifts into an active state of gratitude from the core of your heart, he or she operates from a high state of vibration which in turn acts like a magnet to bring higher good.Gratitude is the pathway to miracles.

Let me share my experience. Although I have been walking the spiritual path for more than two decades, it was only recently that I came to know the importance of gratitude and the role it plays in our lives, when I experienced a near death situation. On December 28, 2013, I was going through my normal daily routine when I experienced a sharp pain in my abdomen. It was unbearable and I was rushed to the hospital. Next morning the doctors in the hospital I was admitted said they would not be able to treat me. I was shifted to another hospital and sent to the ICU. The doctors declared my condition to be critical and my chances of survival were bleak.

As I lay in bed, reeling under severe pain yet conscious, I knew nothing was certain about my life. Seeing people suffering around me as they lay on their beds was not a pleasant sight. I felt my time had come to leave this world. My heart welled up with gratitude to God for blessing me with the life I had led. I mentally started thanking all the people who had been a part of my life’s journey and who had contributed meaningfully to make me who I am.

I gave sincere thanks whenever I was conscious as I prepared myself to move on to the next life. I also realised I had never thanked my body and every organ of my system for working for me nonstop to keep me alive physically on this planet. Then, something shifted. Things started changing for me on the fourth night. My condition started improving and after 10 days, I was completely fine and was discharged from the hospital. My doctor couldn’t believe he was discharging me and that too so soon. He termed my recovery nothing short of a miracle. But I knew that the energy of gratitude had brought the force of life within me and I thanked my Master.

Here are a few simple exercises for the next 21-days to incorporate gratitude in your lives.

As soon as you wake up, thank the universe/ god for the beautiful day. Devote five minutes giving thanks for the beautiful things you have in your life.

As you go about the day, live in the awareness of the moment and acknowledge the little things that come across your way. Be thankful for the morning coffee, the beautiful sunny day, for the easy commute to your work; friends, colleagues, support and so on. When you live in awareness, you will notice that you have plenty to be grateful for.

Be generous in giving compliments from your heart. With every compliment, a bond is strengthened and trust is built. Say “Thank you” more often. Grab every opportunity to show your gratitude.

Write a letter (Or say it in your head) to a loved one. The letter might look something like this, “I am grateful to my wife for all what she does for me. I am grateful for her love, compassion and her support. I am grateful how she takes care of the children and brings them up.” It is not important the other person listen or hear it, although it is appreciative if you express gratitude to the ones you love. But even if you don’t, they will feel the energy of love and gratitude as we all are connected.

Daily, write down (Or think) 10 things you are grateful for in your life and also write down the reason. End each sentence with thank you.

At night, before you sleep, think of the things for which you are grateful for that day. Thank everyone from your heart.

Do the above practices regularly and watch your life unfold beautifully.

As any life lessons guru will tell you, you do what you can to chase your dreams; if naysayers must do what they exist to do, ignore them

Some day, once the dust has settled and petty politics and pettier grievances have been stuffed where they belong, Vijender Singh will be given his due. That grand proclamation might seem unnecessary, considering his status as one of the most prominent athletes in India, an occasional movie star and much else, but it isn’t totally out of place if you think about it. Because if you go through some of the things the Indian boxing community said when Singh announced his decision to chuck up the amateur game and become a professional, you’ll see how self-centred and smallminded people can be, and how ungrateful they are at times.

Singh is 30. If not at the peak of his powers any more then still somewhere just a shade below it. He has been a part of three Olympic Games, won bronzes at the Olympics and at the World Championships, two silvers at the Commonwealth Games, an Asian Games gold, and silver at the Asian Championships. He, like MC Mary Kom for women, is one of the biggest reasons for youngsters taking up the relatively unattractive and nonlucrative sport of boxing in a serious way, as his 75- kilogramme successor Vikas Krishan Yadav has admitted more than once. Singh has, to put it simply, done the country proud. Over and over.

But he is greedy, a traitor, for turning his back on his country and joining the league of the mercenaries. Well, your mercenary is my professional, a view I have held from the time I came to know of Singh’s decision. It’s not just Singh, but any sportsperson who chooses a more lucrative career option over the rather over-rated virtue of patriotism. They are doing it for the money. That’s right, sir, the same reason you changed your last job. No?

Such hypocrisy! Even as we try to give our children the best education possible and take loans to send them to America, our athletes must be paragons of virtue (if shunning money is a virtue) who live and die for the tricolour. Oh, come on, get a life!

Having spent time and interacted with Singh (as a journalist with a subject), I think he took the call for two main reasons: one, with Vikas’s emergence, Singh wasn’t certain of qualifying for the Olympics at the middleweight (75 kg) category for the 2016 Olympics. Two, he has always wanted to be a professional boxer, at least since 2007, when he mentioned it to me for the first time.

Two fights into his professional career now, and Singh has two wins, one with a first-round knockout. Now, he belongs there. But he knows exactly what the community back home thinks of him, and while he could well choose to not care, he does. “If I had lost, everyone would have said they always knew I wouldn’t be able to make it,” he says with a laugh, chatting over the phone from Dublin soon after winning his second fight. “Now people are saying it’s all too easy because I won both my fights. I am clear about what I am here for — I want to be a champion. I need to keep doing my work, that’s all. I am a boxer. I box here, and that’s my job. Some fights I’ll lose — that’s just how it is. The show isn’t getting over anytime soon. I have a long way to go yet. No one should expect me to win everything. Don’t call me a hero or a villain before I finish my job here.”

One of the things Singh says again and again is about how he knew exactly what to expect and what he signed up for when he chose to leave his family behind at home and settle down in Manchester with a Queensberry Promotions contract. “I knew what I was getting into when I signed up for professional boxing, and I had trained well, sparred with good partners; so when I entered the ring... I have been in England for a while now, I have done everything the promoters and trainers wanted me to do. I saw in the ring that there were a lot of Indian fans — it was like the Olympics. It's a great feeling. I feel responsible, as an Indian, to do well. I get so many messages on Facebook and Twitter from my fans that it feels like I am still fighting for India,” he says, a little wistfully, after winning the Sonny Whiting bout, his debut as a pro boxer.

He also spoke, passionately and not a little irritated, about how his family back home in Kaluwas (a village in Bhiwani in Haryana) have had to field dozens of questions from news journalists, whose main agenda seemed to be to castigate the boxer for, yes, turning his back on the Indian team, for saying no to the Olympic Games. Amazingly, his brother Manoj was quoted as telling reporters that he wasn’t sure what Singh’s plan was, what exactly he was doing in England, whether he had actually turned professional. It was all very Cuba. As if Singh had committed a crime and was on the run and his family had to guard his secret.

As for Singh, he chose to give it his best shot. In an alien place, with people he didn’t know before, and getting ready to play a sport he didn’t really know — yes, you’d better believe it; while it all still seems the same, amateur boxing is as different from professional boxing as chalk and a cheese factory.

“From the moment I entered the ring, I figured that this was very different. Not the ring for the fight, but to spar, to train. Everything is different. The gloves are different. In amateurs, a normal punch wouldn’t hurt. But here every punch hurts. That’s probably why you get more knockouts here than in amateur boxing. If you see the bandage we wrap around our hands to protect them — they are different, and, so, the gloves we wear are smaller. It’s not easy to make out the difference on TV, but if you wear them, you can tell. And the way we are trained, we don’t try to score points like we did in amateur boxing; we go for hard punches, to hurt the opponent,” he explains.

“I didn’t really know about this before coming here, but I have been training in England for a while now. The first day I went for training and I saw the gear I saw the difference and realised that this was going to be tough. The bandage, we often put it on ourselves, but you can’t wrap this one yourself. If you do, the blood circulation will stop, and your hands will go blue. And when you get hurt, while fighting, you can tell the difference. You might think I have won two bouts easily, but that’s not true. I would, in fact, say that the training is tougher than the sparring or the fights. Sometimes we spar for six-eight rounds, even ten rounds. Because, in the future, my fights will be longer. The training goes on for hours. At the beginning, I could barely get back home after my training sessions I was so drained.”

But it’s worth it, isn’t it? “Yes, bhaisaab, this is what I wanted.” As any life lessons guru will tell you, you do what you can to chase your dreams; if naysayers must do what they exist to do, ignore them. Singh went to England to chase his dream and he is living his dream now. And he is doing it after having done time in the thoroughly inept and unprofessional world of amateur boxing in India where the people who run the sport seem to exist only to stall progress. Singh has escaped the nonsense, in a way.

He has achieved more, won more medals, than any Indian male boxer in the amateur arena. Now, he is doing it for himself. But if those who support the Indian cricket team or look at European club football and wish it were the same in India stop to think, they will realise that supporting Singh, and following his progress as a professional sportsperson, could be a very Indian thing as well.

K L SRIVASTAVA// In the #BattlegroundBihar, the Mahagathbandhan had a decisive 168 seats vis-a-vis NDA’s 58. The breakup within the ahagathbandhan was Lalu’s 80 seats and Nitish’s JD(U) 71. This equation, by any political logic, makes Lalu the kingmaker. However, the political and social reality on the ground in Bihar has changed. Changed might be a milder word, actually — it’s more like transformed. Lalu is no longer the old Lalu, of the 1990s and Nitish, in the newly-created socio-political space occupies a position of significance that cannot be ignored.

The national significance of this ex-employee of Bihar State Electricity Board, is well-established by the fact that BJP President Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi both stormed Bihar for campaigning to ensure the defeat of the Mahagathbandhan. The only leader they were watching and responding to was the incumbent Chief Minister of Bihar, Nitish Kumar. The question most are asking is will this alliance last? Well, I think this will last and will last its full term.

Post his heart surgery and conviction in the fodder scam leading to him being barred from contesting polls, Lalu was looking for a political resurrection of his political party. He needs this not for him anymore, but for his sons, Tejaswi and Tej Pratap, whom he appears to be handing over the reign to (who eventually takes over Lalu’s legacy is a question time will tell).

Lalu knows that he is no longer capable of a sprint, and hence decided to participate in a relay race instead. If we compare the old and the new Lalu, the recklessness and bluster was missing in the new avatar. He is more cautious and measured in his responses to the media. He is no longer playing to the gallery full of his sycophants. In fact, in all of the election campaign, there was only one sound bite of Lalu that caught the fancy of the electronic media — the one in Patna where he copied the Prime Minister Narendra Modi; where Modi talks about Nitish’s failure in bringing electricity to villages. Lalu is a male chauvinist patriarch and this is a well-established fact. For him the urgency to establish his sons is of paramount concern. Misa can wait.

The two boys have been given an opportunity to make a political windfall. It is important for the two to make an image of their own and come out of their corruption tainted father’s shadow (might sound brutal but is true). This is their big opportunity and that they want to work is reflective in the fact that one has chosen/ given road and the other health.

It is win-win situation for Nitish Kumar. Nitish knows that Lalu’s track record as a corrupt politician is well established and the last thing he or his sons will do is take that path all over again at the first given instance. It would be committing hara-kiri. Numbers wise, Nitish is sitting comfortably to have free hand in doing what he does best, administer.

Lalu and Nitish together enjoy 46 per cent voteshare; they should read the writing on the wall and dedicate the next five years for the Bihar government to roll in the investments on the ground and create jobs. Nitish as CM and Lalu as his close ally/ confidant now need to consolidate on the good work done over the past 10 years and convert this mandate into creation of wealth for the state of Bihar.

SASHEE KUMAR// The electorate in Bihar has voted for biology, again. It is more to do with the phrase dushman ka dushman, dost (An enemy’s enemy is a friend). Even though the BJP emerged as the singlelargest party in terms of vote share, the Bihar verdict highlights the party’s vulnerability to united opposition. Nitish Kumar should not for a moment feel he could possibly challenge Narendra Modi, for the alliance itself is a prime example of how fickle the game of politics can be. Once sworn enemies, Nitish and Lalu are now allies.

Both have mercurial personalities; the leadership of two former rival parties are ruthlessly ambitious. For them politics is a private affair. The alliance, therefore, is really challenging in terms of political management since both Nitish and Lalu have a markedly different style of governance and politicking.

Lalu stood for anarchy, and has little patience for administration. He is known to be politically assertive and authoritarian. Nitish, on the other hand, has given freedom to bureaucrats and officials; he may set the guidelines and supervise at a macro level, but he does not interfere, especially in law and order cases. Perhaps, this is what allowed for a certain amount of law and order to prevail after Lalu’s crime-pocked years. The problems are now compounded for Nitish, since the ministers are Lalu’s while the administration is his.

The second Achilles heel is the interface between the government and the party machinery. Both parties that have entered the alliance have distinct political capital, which may not be so well-connected on the ground. RJD’s organisation is strong and close-knit as opposed to the sketchy one of JD (U). Nitish will be compromising on a lot of ideas and ideals.

When one considers the core issues that concern the electorate — development — both Lalu and Nitish have different interpretations. Nitish would like to address his social base but also deliver on infrastructure. For Lalu, politics has always been about providing his own constituents with state resources and opportunities. And with 80 seats in kitty, Lalu would like to have more than fair play in partnership, which he made clear by certain appointments in Cabinet. Lalu made his political ambitions clear by installing his son as Deputy Chief Minister.

It is also imperative to bear in mind that the “forward class” did not vote for the alliance. The key to when and how the divorce in this marriage happens lies in whether the relationship will be accommodative, or confrontational. Not just between Lalu-Nitish or RJD-JD (U), but also between the upper-lower castes that are expected to walk the tightrope in Nitish’s “Badh Chala Bihar” agenda.

Sustainable Green Initiative is an example of how a simple idea, when translated with passion and hard-work into an endeavour for the larger good of the society, can yield positive results

What good can come from planting trees, you would think. Global warming, pollution and the toxic air we breathe continue to cause far more damage than we can imagine. What good would be one more tree in a corner of the planet when the damage is already done? No chance to win this battle, right?

Wrong.

“Every tiny effort will make a difference,” says Raj Mohan, founder director of Sustainable Green Initiative (SGI), a social enterprise devoted to planting fruit trees in various parts of India in partnership with corporate houses, NGOs and institutions. With over XX fruit trees already planted in more than 40-50 locations all over India (and still counting), SGI was started in 2012 with the aim of benefitting people living in the nondescript villages of India, empowering and equipping them with livelihood through planting of fruit trees.

The idea was simple; it was not merely about digging the earth, planting a sapling, getting accolades and forgetting about it. Mohan’s independent research showed that several companies, NGOs and individuals would plant saplings but never follow up on how the trees were growing, getting looked after, or being nurtured. With no accountability on what was happening, many of the so-called “plantation drive” initiatives, Mohan observed, failed to make a difference in the long run. There was another pressing matter, which the Kolkata-based entrepreneur observed while planning his mission to plant trees — the need for tying the good “cause” of planting trees to have a lasting “effect” on people, thus impacting them in the most positive way. Here’s how: Mohan’s social enterprise concentrated on planting fruit trees with the aim to sustaining several farmers and communities in villages, many of whom continue to struggle to meet ends. Parts of Uttarakhand, Delhi, the NCR, West Bengal and Odisha have benefitted from the plantation drive initiative led by SGI.

The planting of fruit trees bears significance: It’s an endeavour to fight hunger, poverty, rural migration and global warming. The trees are planted in parcels of lands owned by marginal/ below poverty line farmers or in community-owned lands such as orphanages and old-age homes. In rural areas, SGI works through self-help groups that identify and work with marginal farmers and help by providing saplings and money needed to plant and nurture the trees for an initial period of one to two years. In orphanages, old-age homes and rural areas, a sapling planted and nurtured for two years grows into a (fruit) tree, which can provide sustained nourishment and income to the beneficiary for the next four to five decades.

Mohan explains the effect of this enterprise: A grove of 100 trees provides sustainable income to a family of four and ensures that they do not need to migrate to urban areas from their rural communities in search of food or livelihood. The money for the tree planting activity is raised from individuals, businesses and other social organisations as a tree planting, afforestation, corporate social responsibility or sponsorship activity. For instance, as an individual you can, on birthdays, anniversaries and other special occasions, “gift” a tree in your loved ones’ names. So, if you’re based in New Delhi, rest assured, a “gift” on your behalf can benefit a family of farmers in Chandanpiri, a small village of sub marginal farmers in Sunderbans, West Bengal. It is the same area where cyclone Aila in 2009 rendered many homeless, deprived of their traditional paddy and fish cultivation. With over 3,000 trees to be planted in the region, SGI is an endeavor that takes a step closer to enriching the lives of many marginalised farmers and individuals in trying circumstances to gain empowerment.

Mohan’s enterprise takes care of all the nittygritty involved after a tree has been planted — the geo-tagging ensures you get a digital map location of where exactly your fruit tree is being planted. Over the next few weeks of your tree being planted, you’ll be sent pictures of how your tree is growing and how it’s being looked after by the family who gains sustenance from it in the long run. Gardeners and caretakers are employed by the company to nurturing these saplings into young trees. In Mulvany House, an old-age home in Kolkata, where a variety of trees (close to 500 fruit trees) were planted here, saw results in the first year itself. They’re no longer dependent on purchasing fruit at high costs from the market.

The dots get connected beautifully; a tree planted by you is nurtured by a family of farmers in rural areas (who obviously have the experience of nurturing saplings to their fullest potential) and in the course of the next one or two years, when it yields fruit, the tree sustains the very family that nurtured it. On your part: well, you helped a family in the best way possible by planting those nutritious banana, guava, apple, papaya and lime trees. The close monitoring by SGI volunteers ensures 80 per cent survival of the saplings into mature trees and into fruiting. Media reports indicate that several of the plantation drives fail in the long run with roughly 60 per cent of saplings not surviving due to sheer neglect. Mohan’s endeavour is not just reversing this trend in numbers. SGI’s aim is to impact the income of several of the households in the numerous villages of India where trees are being planted. This impact will be measurable from 2018 when many of these trees bear fruit in abundance. The initiative’s estimate is to increase the average household income by up to Rs 6,000 per annum.

Though there’s no dearth of tree plantation drive initiatives globally, what makes SGI special is how effectively it ties with sustaining communities and how the initiative is pumping accountability to ensure that saplings are nurtured into mature tree yielding fruit that benefit communities in the long run.

It is a reason why you, dear reader, should make a vow — to “gift” or plant a tree for your friend this birthday, to “gift” or plant a tree for your spouse on your wedding anniversary, to give your child a sapling on his or her birthday. Think about it: A tree planted from year one of your child’s birthday each year will be the ultimate way of saving the planet. If this isn’t securing your child’s future, what is?

Malhotra, a self-trained designer, has traversed a long way from modeling for pocket money while studying at Elphinstone College in Mumbai

People of a certain generation remember Urmila Matondkar scorching the screen with her Tanha Tanha act in Rangeela. And within a year there was Karishma Kapoor, who magically transformed from a bushy eye-browed, badly made-up actor to an uber-stylish star. Both, the Marathi mulgi and the Kapoor girl owed their transformation to the magic wand of designer Manish Malhotra.

Malhotra is the first designer who can be credited with introducing two words-- stylist and styling in the Bollywood lexicon — when he stepped in for some course correction for the two stars. But even though 20 years have passed since the release of Rangeela, the designer continues to be right on top in every A-lister’s wardrobe. Even gen-now actors, the likes of Alia Bhatt, and Deepika Padukone walk the red carpet at events in a Malhotra ensemble.

But the appeal of Malhotra’s clothes is not restricted to Indian actors. When international stars such as Demi Moore, Naomi Campbell and Kate Moss decided to don an Indian garb, it was in clothes designed by Malhotra. Besides this, he has also designed the team jersey for Shahrukh Khan’s Indian Premier League team Kolkata Knight Riders.

Malhotra, a self-trained designer, has traversed a long way from modeling for pocket money while studying at Elphinstone College in Mumbai. During the initial days he also worked part time at a boutique — his initial training ground where he took baby steps in the trade. “I was a sales boy-cum-manager,” he reminisces.

Malhotra was interested in clothes from the very beginning. “Not just how they looked, but how well they were finished,” he says. He often turned around the garment to check that. But then, starting out as a designer in 1990s was not looked upon too favourably. His family felt that he was like a ladies tailor. But he plodded on, determined to give respectability and integrity to it.

His first break came with the David Dhawan movie Swarg in 1990, for which he stylised a song. He worked with Sridevi in a Ram Gopal Verma directed Tamil movie in 1994. The director then roped him in for Rangeela – and there wasn’t any looking back for him thereafter. Soon after Rangeela, the term stylist and styling started being uttered in the same breath as his name.

Malhotra was good at painting and sketching — something that helped him showcase his ideas quickly and vividly. He would sketch while discussing the kind of look a customer wanted and the sketch would be ready even before the conversation ended. This naturally upped his stock amongst a lot of actors, directors and producers.

And it has been a long haul for the self-taught designer. “I worked for 18 hours a day. Even now if I have to sacrifice a dinner, a party, a holiday for work I do it,” says Malhotra. And the lineup of 40 awards in a span of 20 years after 1,000 movies, all bear testimony to the back-breaking work he has put in.

He may be the star Bollywood designer today, but his first break into movies was a tedious process. The producers were not really comfortable to work with a new guy. Their cheques would bounce and the payment system was really odd. “There was no fee — just payment per garment. But I worked relentlessly thinking that I must work with every actor and with every director. It was film after film after film. For the first 10 years I only worked in movies,” remembers Malhotra.

His association with Karan Johar has been a long standing one. Right from Kuch Kuch Hota Hai in 1998 to Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham in 2001 to Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna in 2006, he has designed — and won awards — for most of Johar’s movies. But from those initial heady days there is one thing about Bollywood that he misses in movies now. “I miss the glamour in movies as everything now is very real. Post Kareena’s Geet in Jab We Met, the small town girl who wears the T-shirt with a salwar is the heroine. She is small town but she smokes, drinks and is not scared to speak her mind. Similarly, the small town boy is the hero,” he says.

His association with Karan Johar has been a long standing one. Right from Kuch Kuch Hota Hai in 1998 to Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham in 2001 to Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna in 2006, he has designed — and won awards — for most of Johar’s movies. But from those initial heady days there is one thing about Bollywood that he misses in movies now. “I miss the glamour in movies as everything now is very real. Post Kareena’s Geet in Jab We Met, the small town girl who wears the T-shirt with a salwar is the heroine. She is small town but she smokes, drinks and is not scared to speak her mind. Similarly, the small town boy is the hero,” he says.

Ask him if there was any movie that he regrets not doing and pat comes the reply. “I wish I was around in 1960s and 1970s. I love Mumtaz, Hemaji, Rekha and R D Burman. The untouched beauty, the complexion and the make-up — I love it all,” he says. Malhotra’s career is intricately woven with that of the Hindi film industry. And he is extremely proud of the looks that he has stylised — whether it was Rangeela, Raja Hindustani, Dil Toh Pagal Hai, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai from the initial days, to the more recent Yeh Jawani Hai Deewani, Chennai Express or Two States.

But he has decided to step back from Bollywood and focus a little more on his eponymous label, Manish Malhotra. For some time now he has decided to do no more than one or two films in a year. He did Kareena Kapoor’s look for the super-hit Bajrangi Bhaijaan this year. Another change is the concentration on menswear. While Malhotra did design for actors such as Chunky Pandey and Sunny Deol, it was the designs for women that grabbed eyeballs. Naturally Malhotra focused more on it. But with men paying more attention to grooming, Malhotra has upped his game with the launch of a new line called Gentlemen’s Club at the Lakme India Fashion Week in August this year. So to do a collection where men dressed in trench coats, overcoats, bandhgalas and bandi jackets took centre stage was a first for the designer.

But not just menswear, Malhotra has his hands full with plans of overseas expansion. He plans to open stores in Dubai in the first quarter of 2016 (where he earlier had a store which shut down), as well as in London. The stores should be up and running sometime next year.

In addition there are his other stores in Delhi and Mumbai, which need to be regularly stocked up. The one at Ambawatta 1 in Delhi’s Mehrauli area is set in an old haveli which adds a vintage charm to the racks upon racks of beautifully coloured clothes that he is known for. This store opened about two years ago. There are two stores in Mumbai which together spread over 8,500 sq ft and display his couture and diffusion lines.

Malhotra’s brand also retails through multi-brand outlets in Mumbai, Chennai, Pune, Hyderabad and Bangalore as well as Dubai and London. A Manish Malhotra piece starts at about Rs 12,000 and can spiral up to Rs 25 lakh.

Of late, Malhotra has also been trying to incorporate Indian arts in his work. More than three years ago he took up the Mijwan Welfare Society, the NGO founded by Late Kaifi Azmi and headed by Shabana Azmi and Namrata Goyal and has been using the chikankari done by the women associated with MWS. He also works with Kashmiri embroidery.

So, while Malhotra and Bollywood might be inextricably linked, the designer refuses to be pinned down with one label and is constantly looking to expand his frontiers.

THE MEMORIES OF THIS BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY WITH ITS CULTURE, TRADITION, AND DISTURBING PAST WILL LIVE WITH YOU FOR A LONG TIME

Most good travel stories begin with delicious food and drinks. Mine started with prawns, fish and snake wine in Hanoi. Yes, the Vietnamese enjoy a dead snake or scorpion inside their bottles of liquor. It has a strong taste like rum; I couldn't take more than a few sips.

I sat on a stool, chopsticks in hand, looking at the never-ending wave of tuktuks and two-wheelers on the street. The food was good, but the bill extraordinary. “Four lakh dongs.”

I almost had a heart attack. Spent the next 20 minutes calculating. The restaurant owner watched me with amusement. I converted the Vietnamese currency to dollars and then to rupees, and then double and triple checked.

The amount came to eight dollars. The Vietnamese currency is inflated like an air balloon. One dollar equals 20,000 dongs. All travellers take time to adjust to this exchange rate and lament that time during childhood when they didn't pay attention in math class. I was officially a slumdog millionaire in Vietnam. Possibly the only place in the world where I would feel like Bill Gates.

Temple of literature

The right way to explore Hanoi is to take a walk across its streets, and the right place to stay is the Little Hanoi Hostel. The receptionists greet guests with a smile and warmth and the rooms are clean and spacious.

I started for the Temple of Literature, Vietnam's first national university, with a street map in hand. It seemed like the right place to begin an adventure, especially for an aspiring writer.

This temple was built in 1070 AD in honour of Confucius. The names of scholars who passed the rigorous royal examinations are immortalised on 116 statues of carved blue stone turtles. The king himself took part in conducting these examinations. The Vietnamese honour talent and hard work. That can never be a bad thing.

I saw an old man standing behind his desk and drawing Vietnamese characters on a sheet of paper. He had small hands, a slim figure and pants tied way above his waist. He was devoted to his art. Enjoying the creative process. I hope to grow old like him. Still creating. Still enjoying it.

It's in the evenings when the breeze sets in that the city comes to life. The squat-stools and tables come out on the pavement and the aroma of Pho noodles — the local’s favourite dish — takes over. There is no dearth of barbecue joints along the streets to enjoy their version of mouth-watering spring rolls along with alcohol. Men and women get together in the parks, dance joyously and spend time with family.

I spend most of the next day learning about the history and culture of Vietnam. The Ho Chi Minh Museum and mausoleum close by is a good place to understand the foundations on which this country was built.

The mausoleum is a big and regal granite structure with the name of Vietnam’s hugely popular president and revolutionary leader, Ho Chi Minh, inscribed at the top. Uniformed men guard the entrance and people prostrate. Men perish, buildings collapse, but legacies are forever. If I ever doubt what a single man can achieve, I will think of Ho Chi Minh.

Where dragons live

Whether you are a tourist or a traveller, any trip to Vietnam is incomplete without experiencing the Halong Bay. And what an experience it is. Halong Bay literally means the place where dragons descend.

It takes you back in time. Not the 1980s or 1990s, but centuries ago to the time of dragons when man had limited means and an unlimited spirit. Halong Bay is where imagination takes flight. The sunset at this Unesco World Heritage Site is worth any sum of money. It takes place between two mountains over the sea, and you get to witness the sky turn orange, purple and grey. Sit beside your loved ones silently and watch in awe.

Halong Bay is not about kayaking and cave exploring and any other activity that they show in crisp cruise-liner brochures. It's about being alone in the middle of the ocean under the stars. Nothing can compare to that.

A coastal paradise

The last stop on my itinerary was a charming town called Hoi An. I instantly liked the pale yellow-coloured walls and the warmth of this place, tucked around the muddy the Thu Bon River. It wasn’t bright; it wasn’t dull. The town wasn’t noisy, but it wasn’t silent either. Motorboats were passing by in the river nearby. Time stood still. Hoi An is a coastal paradise with clear skies, still waters and serene clouds. It felt like a place where I could be happy.

It served as the port town between 15th to 19th century and it continues to welcome people of all hues and colours. It has much to offer: finely tailored clothes, footwear, delectable food and souvenirs. The Rugby World Cup was going on during my time there. I don't think the Vietnamese understood the R of rugby. But every bar offered a live telecast and every local followed the game with interest. Every traveller becomes one with Hoi An and Hoi An becomes one with them. A never-ending party.

I stayed at a youth hostel, Sunflower, which was teeming with backpackers. It was a melting pot of nationalities. Conversations and booze flowed freely next to the pool and at the snooker table. Most of the backpackers were too drunk to remember each other the next morning or even care. Every girl here in Hoi An looks stunning and dresses in colourful clothes. Every man appears cool. Hoi An is a quaint town, sweet and sinful, just like a cocktail. In Hoi An, you don’t want more from life. You don’t want less. You feel content.

Ho Chi Minh City

At the end of this whirlwind itinerary from North to South, I reached Ho Chi Minh. The city is a mix of opulent French architecture and the pre-colonisation neighborhoods bursting at their seams.

A Saigon must-visit is the War Remnants Museum on 28 Võ Văn Tần, phường 6, Quận 3. The museum highlights the atrocities of the Vietnam War without any filters.

I sat on the rooftop bar of my hostel, took a deep breath and soaked all that I had seen and experienced in Vietnam. It will take a few days, maybe weeks before the memories of this country fade into the dark corners of my memory.

Vidya Deshpande traces the rise of Café King Riyaaz Amlani, the man behind Mocha, Social, Smoke House Deli and more

Social is going to be bigger than Starbucks. A tall claim, you say? Not if you are Riyaaz Amlani, CEO and Managing Director of Impresario Entertainment and Hospitality. He makes this claim proudly on his company website, and going by the rate his cafes are coming up, from one in 2001, to 42 across 14 cities under four brands, he may well be able to achieve his target sooner than you think. No wonder it has earned him the sobriquet of being Café King.

From being a shoe salesman when he started his working life, to being the owner of one of the most talked about restaurant chains, has indeed thrown the spotlight on him. Amlani’s first café in 2001 was Mocha, which he started in Bandra. It was a concept café, a place where you could chill, hang loose and smoke a sheesha or two, while downing a few shots of caffeine. I remember going to the Greater Kailash outlet in Delhi years ago, when it started. It was a spot where all the college girls from Lady Shri Ram College hung out, waiting for their boyfriends from Delhi University to join them. Since then, Amlani and Café Mocha have gone places. It has 20 outlets in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata and a host of tier-II cities.

But Amlani is not a man to rest on his laurels. He realised soon enough that the big cities wanted fine dining and not just casual cafés to hang out in. So he created a middle ground between the two and launched Smoke House Delis in seven cities, and Salt Water Grills in three cities.

The food in these café-restaurants are not as cheap as a regular café (Rs 250 for a sandwich, for instance) but neither as expensive as fine dining restaurant (where dishes cost upwards of Rs 1,000). Instead, for Rs 800-850 a head, you can get a sumptuous meal with some signature dishes the Impresario team has created.

But this wasn’t enough for Amlani. He was itching to revolutionise the café space with something quirky and different. To occupy the space in the café market, he came up with an idea from watching the crowds at his more serious competitors. Thus was born Social – from the idea of a café that doubles up as an office, too. Having seen the number of people who walk into cafés with work in hand, Social was created to give people a spiffy address they could use for official purposes at a tenth of the cost of renting office space.

For as low as Rs 5,000 a month one can use Social for all office needs. The rent is redeemable against food and drinks ordered and Social provides you with an office address, office supplies and a swish place to hold conferences. The menu is interesting, with all-day breakfast options named after famous company directors; smart lunch platters other than a range of burgers; hot dogs and grills, too. It also has a bar to make after-hour meetings more exciting! With seven Social Cafes already in place, he’s raising funds from investors to set up more.

Smoke House Delis, his other brand, on the other hand, are on the lines of a European café with pizzas, pastas and grills other than sandwiches on the menu. This is what the company is currently focused on. Amlani plans to increase the number of Smoke House Delis to 30 and also increase the number of Salt Water Grill cafes, while taking the number of Social cafés to 18 in the near future.

Impresario also recently announced a tie-up with Mirah Hospitality (which owns Rajdhani and Manchester United Cafes) for space sharing in malls, so as to ramp up its café numbers.

The company is growing at a fast pace, but whether Social will be able to muscle out the Tatas-backed Starbucks is a battle that is being keenly watched by the food industry.