The Beat Issue 1 (February 2017)

FROM THE

EDITOR’S DESK Welcome to the 2017’s first issue of The Beat, and what a tumultuous new year it’s already been. The scale of disruption caused by November’s demonetisation shock is only now becoming apparent. The cash crunch upended retailing and services, credit collapsed, supply chains were dislocated and employment, agriculture and small-scale manufacturing were hammered.

Now comes confirmation that the monetary shock has seriously impacted economic growth with effects expected to last well into next year.

As we point out in our cover story, the tragedy of demonetisation lies not just in the widespread chaos and suffering it caused. It was unnecessary, ill-conceived and failed to achieve its goals.

Public consultations on the Bengaluru urban development plan 2031 got off to a bad start with citizen groups complaining of a lack of transparency. We talked to urban planners and experts to see what they thought of the government’s vision for the city.

India lags its poorer neighbours in South Asia on almost every index of social development. Our report points to something even more alarming: despite economic growth, infant mortality rates in parts of India are actually rising.

The Indian space programme is set to mark the new year with a record launch of 103 satellites on a single vehicle later this month, a perfect opportunity we thought to look at what it’s achieved in the last decade.

The year began on a spectacular note for Indian cricket and for captain Kohli in particular, with a comprehensive win over England in a home series. But how will this young team fare abroad?

If Modi rattled India with his currency play, Donald Trump’s ascension to the presidency sent seismic waves rippling around the world. It turns out the two gentlemen have a lot in common. Happy New Year!

Phalguni Vittal Rao 4th February 2017

TEAM Layout editor: Shannon Ridge Court and Phalguni Vittal Rao Aishwarya Iyer Ilona Dam Cherry Agarwal Nivedita Naidu Manasvini Paul

THE BEAT February 2017

Romita Majumdar Cathline Chen Karishma Jaipaul Ashima Chowdhary Mahak Dutta

CONTENTS 2

Physician, Heal Thyself

Tackle corruption in government to eliminate black money

6

Cashless Fantasy

7

Opinion

8

Fintech cannot abolish cash

Simplify your life

Bangalore on the Brink

Find consensus on the city’s future

12 Back to the Roots

Tracing forgotten food trails

14

The Sky’s No Limit

16

Wasted Lives

18

Unsafe Women

ISRO’s remarkable record

High infant mortality is a disgrace

Why do we tolerate criminal conduct?

20

Playing to Win

22

Brothers in Arms

24

Cyber Cops

Virat Kohli’s killer instinct

Trump and Modi have a lot in common

Data security is big business

25 Film review: Manchester By the Sea 26 Art review: Bengal’s prodigious talent 28

Breath of Fresh Air

Breaking stereotypes in Bollywood February 2017 THE BEAT 1

COVER STORY

Physician, Heal Thyself Demonetisation cannot eliminate black money because it doesn’t tackle its root cause: government corruption, write CHERRY AGARWAL and MAHAK DUTTA

T

he November 8th “surgical strike” on black money, that abruptly withdrew Rs.500 and Rs. 1,000 currency notes from circulation, will fail to expose and eliminate unaccounted wealth because it ignores its root cause, say analysts. The engine of black money in the Indian economy, its origin and the source of its everyday replenishment, is the systemic and retail corruption that pervades government administration.

“There are two broad sources of black money,” explains Arvind Virmani, former chief economic advisor to the ministry of finance and executive director of the International Monetary Fund. “First, tax evasion and tax terrorism, and second, politician-bureaucratic-police corruption from the lowest to highest level, unrelated to taxation. In the 10-year period from 2004 to 2014, the second has far exceeded the former,” he says.

The explanation isn’t hard to find.

“The privatisation of government services by officials and exercise of discretionary powers by high-level officers are reasons for systemic corruption,” says Virmani.

“A lack of accountability, low-levels of punitive action and high-levels of re2 THE BEAT February 2017

ward, are the common reasons for retail corruption,” argues Swati Ramanathan, co-founder of Jana Group, a collective of urban-transformation enterprises in Bangalore. One of their initiatives is IPaidABribe.com, a site to encourage citizen whistleblowers.

Harish G, an Ola driver paid a “fine” of Rs. 100 in early January for jumping a traffic signal on Mahatma Gandhi Road, Bangalore. He didn’t get a receipt.

“It’s better to pay Rs. 100 and drive away than paying Rs. 1,000 for not wearing a seat belt, speeding or any other reasons that could be invented,” Harish explains. “Getting rid of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 notes makes no difference.”

In 2016, Bangalore police registered 7,22,738 cases of signal violations. If we extrapolate, just one class of traffic violation in Bangalore has the potential to generate unaccounted money worth Rs. 7.22 crore a year. The arbitrary exercise of power by law enforcement agencies, hiding behind a thicket of rules, can be a very profitable enterprise.

In a January 2017 report, The Economist quotes a local politician saying that municipal officials in Mumbai “squeeze some three billion rupees a month” from the city’s hawkers. That might sound like an exaggeration but

Rangaswami, a Bangalore’s street vendors’ representative, insists the city’s estimated 3 lakh vendors pay approximately Rs. 1.9 crore of bribes money every month.

“On a daily basis we pay Rs. 40 to the khaki police (local beat cop) and Rs. 10 to the traffic police,” said Sivanadar, a 45-year-old street vendor who has been selling t-shirts, near Majestic, for the past 25 years. “The rates are higher during weekends when it goes upto Rs. 200-250 a day.”

“There are simple steps to regulate street vendors if one follows the Street Vending Act, 2014,” says Arbind Singh, coordinator, National Association of Street Vendors of India (NASVI). “However vendors still have to pay bribes to anybody who is powerful—the municipal staff, the local police, the traffic police, mafias, shopkeepers or building owners where they set up shop and so on.”

“The major cause of corruption is the human interface that exists,” says Deepthi Mary Mathew, a research associate at the Centre for Public Policy Research (CPPR) in Thiruvananthapuram.

GIVE ME BACK MY MONEY: The queues that snaked around bank branches for weeks after the ban were testament to haphazard planning. Photo: Rajya Sabha TV

“Unless we are able to reduce the human interface, corruption will continue to grow. Demonetisation doesn’t have any impact on the system where we give donations to get admission to educational institutions or give bribes to get licenses.”

Cash is paid at every point where a bureaucratic nod is needed and scrapping high-denomination currency notes makes no difference to this arrangement whatsoever. A retail shopkeeper in a small town of Jamshedpur, trading in plywood and laminates purchases goods from factories located in Gujarat and Siliguri every month. Apart from the on-receipt cost of transportation, he reimburses anything between Rs. 1,000-3,000 to the driver for the extra costs incurred while crossing each state border—this includes payments made to police at check points, octroi staff and others.

There is an annual ritual in Jamshedpur’s commercial market. Every year retailers pay approximately Rs. 40,00050,000 to officials from the revenue department. There is no receipt for this transaction nor does this exchange ensure immunity from tax raids. Rather it is ‘permission’ to simply conduct their business. With more than 50,000 busi-

nesses operating in Jamshedpur, their potential for generating unaccounted money runs to 2 billion rupees a year.

India ranks 130 among 190 countries in the ease of doing business, according to a 2017 report of the World Bank.

The ranking is based on parameters such as ease of getting reliable power supply, accessing credit and simplified trade logistics. Though the report does not measure the prevalence of bribery and corruption in its ranking methodology, it points to their key role in creating income disparity, which in turns adversely impacts the economy.

“Undoubtedly, a majority of the black money exists behind the government’s desk,” says D. Brahma Reddy, assistant professor in Delhi University’s department of economics. “A few days ago, I had attended a conference where I met representatives of MSME (Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises); there I got to know that before starting any enterprise of their own they need to bribe every government official for pro-

viding them basic amenities like water and electricity.”

“We can’t decry that we are over-regulated, and yet at the same time accept high-levels of discretion,” says Ramanathan, who has worked with the governments of Karnataka and Rajasthan on urban transformation projects. “A high level of discretion comes when there are not enough regulatory checks, or unclear and imprecise regulatory processes. This is when discretion comes into play,” she adds. “In the absence of clarity, when rules are ambiguous, discretion exists.What is excessive is often the operational processes - 20-steps for something that could be done in two.”

Demonetisation has had a severe and immediate impact on the economy, its effects felt across agriculture, trade and industry, but most sharply in the most cash dependent sectors. According to a December 2016 report by Business Standard 70 per cent of Bhiwandi’s 1.2 million power looms have closed down since November and an estimated 2.5 lakh people have left the city.

India’s Rs. 17 lakh crore agriculture and food market which constitutes 15 per cent of total output has been severely hit with the note ban creating a disruption in the payment and supply chain. “Prices of onion have come down to Rs. 5 per kg in Lasalgaon, country’s largest wholesale onion market in Nashik,” says Prof. Reddy. Farmers and wholesalers do not have the resources to store perishable-agricultural commodities for long, Reddy explains, adding that a surplus of stock with stagnant demand is damaging the agricultural economy.

“Reform is about changes that will reduce corruption and inefficiency. It isn’t about a magical elimination of problems.”

February 2017 THE BEAT 3

COVER STORY INFINITE LOOP: The cash crunch prevented millions of farmers from selling their harvest as the demand for it dropped overnight. Photo: Reuters

for long, Reddy explains, adding that a surplus of stock with stagnant demand is damaging the agricultural economy.

Anecdotal evidence from across the country tells the same story. In Firozabad, a district in Uttar Pradesh, hundreds were rendered jobless with 90 of 100 bangle factories shutting down, stated a report in The Times of India.

As many as 40,000 workers in Surat’s diamond polishing industry were laid off in December. Similarly, the cement sector estimated a 65 per cent decline in production post demonetisation, according to The Economic Times.

The beedi industry, which has an estimated value of Rs. 10,000 crore per annum is on the verge of collapse with over eight million workers remaining unpaid in the aftermath of demonetisation. Travel and tourism which contributed to 6.3 per cent of India’s gross domestic product (GDP) and employs over 50 million workers has seen a 60

per cent decline since the note ban.

The consequences will be grave. A November 2016 report by a Mumbaibased financial-services firm, Ambit Capital projected a 3.3 percentage point decline in India’s real GDP from 6.8 per cent to 3.5 per cent for the year ending March 2017 and predicted a gradual recovery to 5.8 per cent next year.

In light of India’s currency “withdrawal and exchange initiative,” as the International Monetary Fund put it, its January 2017 World Economic Outlook update cut India’s annual growth forecast from 7.6 per cent to 6.6 per cent for the current financial year.

It’s the poor who have borne the brunt of the dislocation caused by demonetisation. Four-fifths of India’s workers are in the informal sector and receive their wages in cash. More than 90 per cent of the country’s labour works without a formal contract. As much as 45 per cent of the economy

“It is a virus that has infected the bones of our government and seeped outwards into the flesh of our society” 4 THE BEAT February 2017

is informal, mostly comprising casual work or providing services like running kirana stores or transport. Even the formal sector depends to a great degree on cash transactions in its supply chain. In fact, approximately 90% of all purchases in India by volume are in cash.

Consequently, when 86 per cent of the cash in circulation (69 per cent of India’s total monetary base) was withdrawn, it caused a major disruption.

The acute shortage of cash reduced consumer spending. With people deferring their spending on goods and services, the informal sector—which deals entirely in cash—collapsed. In all this “the hardest hit section has been the daily wage workers and roadside vendors who earn in smaller denominations like Rs. 100-200 per day,” Reddy adds.

“I have seen a 30 per cent loss in my business,” says 32-year-old Tejaram, who owns a grocery store on Mysore Road. The average sale has dropped down from Rs. 7,000 to Rs. 5,000. I couldn’t bear more loss, so I had to accept payments via Paytm after demonetisation.”

Jitendra, 42, a roadside toy seller,

MITRON: Prime Minister Narendra Modi makes economic policy with elections firmly in mind. Photo: The Indian Express.

in Satellite Town, Kengeri says, “Before demonetisation my average monthly savings were around Rs. 5,000. And now it seems impossible even to save Rs. 2,000. Sales have been terribly hit since November. There are hardly any customers who are willing to buy the toys. As I’m the only working member in my family, looking after them has become extremely difficult. I feel helpless.”

“It was problematic in November,” recounts Syeed Anees, 25, an Ola driver. “The number of bookings had decreased because people preferred paying in cash. Not everyone had a debit or a credit card. There was no money for diesel. But then Ola installed a giftvoucher app on our phones. Though it was accepted at Bharat Petroleum pumps only, life became easier. I would stand in queue once in a week, withdraw Rs. 2,000. The entire family would survive on that.”

It is difficult to measure the longterm effects of demonetisation on the economy and most analysts predict a recovery within the next two years. But that is little consolation for the thousands of small businesses and trades

that have gone under and will never recover. It is the destruction of swathes of the informal economy that will be its true legacy.

The tragedy however is not that demonetisation has proven highly disruptive and damaging to India’s poor and middle classes but that it was a pointless and wholly unnecessary exercise. Even the most generous estimates say no more than 3 per cent of unaccounted earnings are ever held in cash, the rest having been converted into tangible, and most likely, productive assets. According to the Reserve Bank of India, 97 percent of the cash in circulation has been surrendered.

Thus, not only does the bulk of ill-gotten wealth accumulated over decades remain untouched, but the mechanism that made it possible in the first place, the vast bureaucratic machine that turns on extortion and bribes, remains intact.

“Reform is about changes that will reduce corruption and inefficiency.

It isn’t about a magical elimination of problems,” says former economic advisor Virmani. To curb systemic corruption, he suggests, “breaking up monopoly, privatisation and boosting competition. We need institutional reforms -- that is political, legal, police, judicial, bureaucratic reforms to break the political-bureaucratic-police flow of corruption.”

“E-governance and digitisation of interaction will reduce retail corruption,” he believes. There is a need to digitally record name of every person

who interacts with the government directly, Virmani says.

“There is no singular silver bullet to eliminate corruption. It is a virus that has infected the bones of our government and seeped outwards into the flesh of our society,” says Ramanathan of Jana Group. “There is an urgent need to increase the risks associated with bribery or at least make [associated] risks as high as reward, such that there is significant deterrence before a bribe taker chooses to play the odds.”

“As far as the bureaucratic authority is concerned, discretion should be rare and narrow in scope. There should be complete clarity in rules and regulations, such that corrupt actions when challenged and presented in a court of law, enable punitive judgements,” she says. “In the absence of such clarity—we are all hostage to the integrity of individual officers of our government— we are wily nilly all part of the problem.”

Prime minister Narendra Modi had a unique opportunity to get to the root of the problem when he took office with the single biggest parliamentary majority in recent memory. Having promised to eliminate black money during the electoral campaign, Modi had the mandate and popular support to end bureaucratic rent seeking and cleanse the administration. But that is hard work. It is so much simpler to undermine the country’s currency and declare victory. Nobody will ever forget him, he hopes. He may get his wish, only not the way he wanted.

February 2017 THE BEAT 5

COVER STORY Payment in cash by volume in various countries (%) Payment in cash by volume

Australia Austria Canada France

Germany U.S.A

SOURCE: Federal Reserve Bank of Boston

Brave New Cashless World

The government’s push for a cashless society is just wishful thinking, writes NIVEDITA NAIDU

T

he government’s explanations for cancelling the bulk of India’s currency have changed almost as frequently as it has tweaked rules governing the surrender of old notes and issuance of new ones.

Initially it was all about black money, fake currency, terrorist funding and drug smuggling. Then, once it became apparent that the estimates of unaccounted cash were overstated and that the expected windfall to the RBI was a fantasy, the government moved the goal posts.

IndiaSpend, a data-journalism initiative, found the keywords used by the Prime Minister to justify that his action had now become one of creating a ‘cashless society’ built on a ‘digital economy’. Within weeks, there were reports of how Paytm, the mobile-wallet company, had seen a surge in their business. Next, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announced subsidies for payments using digital channels.

Financial technology is changing the landscape of the global economy.

Fintech firms are riding on innovationto challenge the banks on their own turf (and collaborating with them too) to simplify banking as never before.

To understand the concept of fintech, think of ICICI Bank and Google working together. In January 2017, the Institute for Development and Research in Banking Technology (IDRBT), the Reserve Bank’s research arm, published a paper on ‘Applications of Blockchain Technology (BCT) to Banking and Fi6 THE BEAT February 2017

nancial Sector in India. RBI Deputy Governor R. Gandhi in the report said, “BCT provides tamper-evident recording of the linked transaction history in a distributed network, and has the potential to disrupt the financial business applications.”

A report by KPMG, an audit and consulting firm, forecasts the Indian fintech sector to touch $2.4 billion by 2020 from a current $1.2 billion. Fintech in India is delivering products from bitcoins, insurance, less complicated methods of investments to artificial intelligence-powered robots. The Unique Identification Authority (UIDAI) of India, an agency of the central government, is working towards financial inclusion using its Aadhar database. The BHARAT Interface of Money (BHIM) app was also launched by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) to back the government’s Go Digital vision.India is today a hotspot forfintechstartups like Paytm, Mobikwik, Lendingkart, Policybazaar and Zebpay jostling for market and attracting fabulous valuations from international investors.

Unfortunately, most of India lacks the basic infrastructure to avail of fintech’s breathtaking innovations. Just 79 percent of Indians have access to electricity, according to the World Bank.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) estimates rural teledensity is barely 50.72 per cent – that’s the number of SIM cards not users, who are far fewer. In September 2016, the total

number of mobile internet connections were 221 million.With fewer than 1.5 million point of sale (POS) devices in the country, India has one of the lowest POS- penetration rates in the world -just 693 machines per million, say consultancy Ernst & Young. When Aadhar is touted as the solution to these glaring shortfalls, one must wonder about the security and privacy risk involved.

Risks of scale also prevail when dealing with over a billion records.

The question is whether going cashless will really help. If so, why are the developed economies still so dependent on cash for payments? The Federal Reserve report in 2014 gives the percentage of cash payments for developed economies.

Going digital also means leaving behind an audit trail or logs for every legally earned penny. The question is whether people would be comfortable in letting others have access to their personal transaction details. Because of the corrupt few, is it justifiable to place the whole nation under a scanner?

As Nikhil Pahwa sums it up in a very revealing article in Medianama, “Cash might be more expensive for the government, because of tax evasion, corruption and the need to keep recirculating old, spoilt, currency, and enabling transfers, but digital is very expensive for citizens. What is happening here is a transfer of thecost of money from government to citizens, and a massive collection of data.”

OPINION

Keep it Simple Minimise your belongings, streamline your needs and start living, writes ROMITA MAJUMDAR

H

ave you ever spent hours randomly browsing online shopping catalogues? Have you ever looked at the piles of clothes and shoes in your wardrobeand wondered why you have absolutely nothing to wear? Do you often end up buying things that weren’t on your grocery list? What you perhaps need is a dose of ‘minimalism’ to simplify your life.

Joshua Fields Millburn is one of the founders of ‘The Minimalists’, an online movement to de-clutter and simplify life. It does not seek to make us ascetics. Rather it aims to reduce excess and force us to question whether we actually need our possessions -- and if not, can we live without them? Millburn calls it a “perpetual state of paring down.” Minimalism is tool to achieve a meaningful life by attaching meaning to experiences rather than to material possessions.

Trash is for Tossers is a YouTube blog by Lauren Singer, a young environmentalist in New York, which is a variant on the theme. Two years since its inception the channel has gathered 65,000 subscribers and more than 2 million views. Her most watched videos are ones that recommend replacing soap, shampoo, detergent and cleaning agents with a baking soda and vinegar solution. The aim is to cut out synthetic chemicals from one’s life.

Online retailers and FMCG companies have tried to utilise this trend by launching a whole new range of so-called ‘herbal’, all-natural products.

That may also explain the rocketing rise of Patanjali products in India. But here’s the problem: when people try

to catch up with a trend without understanding its core philosophy, it becomes a fad. We end up buying products with dubious claims and spurious ingredients.

The most common challenge among zero-wasters is to fit an entire year’s worth of garbage in a single jar. A large number of companies and consultancies have sprouted up lately that help people transition to the new lifestyle for a fee. Again, as in case of Minimalist living, a lot of energy is focussed on replacing or getting rid of existing ‘non-sustainable’ items completely.

While this helps the practitioner rid their lives of toxins, it doesn’t address the junk that’s suddenly thrown out of the window. Neither does it consider the extra stuff being produced to feed the fad.

One spectacular side-effect of the rise of the minimalist and zero-waste millennial has been the demand for mason jars. Mason jars are nothing but the American version of the ubiquitous pickle jars in your kitchen.

They have become an Instagram and Pinterest phenomena overnight. While the zero-wasters replace all their kitchen containers and shampoo bottles with mason jars, the minimalists have been serving up hipster drinks and salads at high-

“The most common challenge among zerowasters is to fit an entire year’s worth of garbage in a single jar.”

end cafes in them. Indian companies like Chumbak, Flipkart, FabFurnish and PepperFry have joined the race by launching their own designer lines of glass jars. One wonders if buyers recall the bottles of Kissanjam and glass pickle jars they chucked away before buying their mason jars.

Forbes magazine called these lifestyle trends a response by a generation of millennials who grew up during the recession of the past decade with huge student loans to pay off in a struggling job market. Like other trends, they took off on social media and went viral. These trends force people to question the consumption-centric lifestyles that we lead. The only drawback is that we’re expected to get rid of thingswe don’t need on a regular basis. But our lives are stocked with so many things that we need to use once in a while.

How can one throw away belongings that we don’t need every day, like say winterwear or the 24-piece dinner set?

Food for thought: By obsessing about reducing our possessions, aren’t our lives still revolving around things?

February 2017 THE BEAT 7

SPECIAL REPORT

Bengaluru on the Brink The city must debate the future it wants and plan accordingly. The government thinks it knows best, writes ILONA DAM

I

n the past two decades, Bangalore has grown faster than any other Indian city. With a population of around 11.8 million people, its basic infrastructure including water supply and sanitation, waste management and housing stock are all falling short of public demand. Garbage disposal has reached a crisis point with irregular collection, limited processing capacity and overflowing landfills. Due to the paucity of public transport, the city is now home to 6.2 million vehicles that clog the roads and foul the air.

This is why the recently announced public consultation over the Revised Master Plan 2031 (RMP)assumes such significance. A transparent and wellinformed discussion could produce a robust framework to guide and manage what could well become a metropolis of some 20 million people in the next decade or so.

But that’s where the disagreements begin. Civic evangelist, V. Ravichander, is of the view that the BDA needs to come up with a regional strategy to provide “population relief”to Bangalore and not treat growth as a given. Calling the projections unrealistic, Ravichander says that BDA needs to assess the capacity of the city and then come up with strategies for dealing with the population. The need, according to him, is to create urban pockets in the immediate hinterland to take the load off the city.

Sridhar Pabbisetty, CEO of Namma Bengaluru Foundation, agrees. “The key question for us to answer is not whether planning for 20 million people is good or a bad idea.We should instead focus on what is the carrying capacity of the city of Bengaluru. Today according to Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board’s (BWSSB) own admission, it is supplying water to 65 lakh people. The rest of us rely on non-BWSSB sources including bore wells and water tankers from private bore wells. These are unsustainable sources of water supply.”

8 THE BEAT February 2017

TRANSPORTATION According to the plan’s estimates, Bangaloreans make over 90 lakh trips every day but the Bengaluru Metropolitan Transport Corp.’s (BMTC) buses cater to less than half of them. So the city has been overrun by private vehicles, which create congestion and pollution.

The Bengaluru Development Authority (BDA) calculates that Bangalore’s 1.18 crore citizens spend 60 crore man hours a year commuting and consuming fuel worth Rs. 1,350 crore. According to the BDA forecasts, traffic congestion is likely to triple and the share of public transport will fall to 36% from the existing 47%.

In order to ensure better mobility, the Master Plan proposes improving the quality and carrying capacity of roads, to be able to support the influx of vehicles. The plan also aims at increasing public transport usage from the current 47% to 70% by 2031. This would include a Bus Rapid Transit System and monorail as well as a proposal to increase the metro network to 211 km.

Ravichander questions the feasibility of increasing public transport usage to 70%, saying that BMTC and the Bengaluru Metro Rail Corp. Ltd (BMRCL) are legally not obliged to obey the BDA in its urban plans. “How will you get BMTC to release 12,000 more buses in the city?” asks Ravichander. He rec-

ommends a strategic-spatial plan that could be used as a negotiating platform between government agencies and the BMTC and BMRCL, in order to come up with a comprehensive transportation plan. He advocates a planning system from the city to the wards.

HOUSING The plan projects a hike in housing demand from 1.8 million to 4.2 million units in the next 30 years, and a shortage of 2.6 million housing units by 2031. To deal with this shortage, the plan has aimed to sell serviceable land to the public, especially for low income groups. Houses are to be allotted through fair means to people who have

registered.

Kathyayini Chamaraj, from citizen’s group CIVIC, wonders, “Where would the land come from? Where are the projections of the land available?”

According to Ravichander, in addition to affordable housing, proximity between the house and workplace is critical. Moreover, he advocates the vertical growth of the city, in order to deal with urban sprawl. “We have to think of more high-rises to accommodate people, in order to ensure maximum utilization of the land,” he says. In a bid to increase the efficiency of construction projects, Ravichander says that the government has to give building plans project clearances within a month, as opposed to eight months that the government currently takes. This would, to some extent, help in bridging the gap between the demand and supply.

According to Pabbisetty, Karnataka has a very lopsided development practice where the state capital of just 800 sq. km has 16% of the population.

“Time has come for the state to encourage decentralized economic growth in tier 2 and tier 3 cities and divert existing as well as new growth heading towards Bengaluru to these cities. Hubli-Dharwad, Mangalore, Mysore, Tumkur can easily accommodate tripling of population with adequate planning,” he says.

WATER Water supply has been a problem in Bangalore, with the influx in population and increase in demand. The Master Plan’s projections indicate a population threshold of 21 million people who need to be supplied water in Bangalore. The plan also estimates a cumulative shortage of 69.45 tmcft of water by 2051.

According to architect Naresh Narasimhan, Bangalore does not have enough water for 70 lakh people as of now, so making policies for a 2.2 crore population is completely unrealistic.

Moreover, the BDA’s plan to get an additional 12.88 tmcft of water from the Cauvery Water Tribunal hasn’t worked well with urban experts.

EXPLODING CITY: Housing is fast consuming much of the green space around Hebbal Lake. Photo: Romita Majumdar

February 2017 THE BEAT 9

SPECIAL REPORT BREACHING LIMITS: (Left) Lake conservationists have been up in arms against builders constructing flats too close to Kaikondrahalli Lake. Photo: Romita Majumdar.

(Right) St. Mark’s Road, among the select planned areas of the city, incorporates footpaths, roads and green spaces effectively.

Photo: Cathline Chen

SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT

According to the plan, by 2031 per capita waste generation would increase from about 7,825 MT a day in 2015 to 18390 MT per day by 2031. Already barely 69% of it is collected. This calls for more landfills. According to the BDA, landfill requirements are set to increase by 30% by 2031. “Taking the city’s garbage 100 kms away for disposal is completely unrealistic and unsustainable,” says Ravichander. It might work well

for a year or two, but it won’t be long before the BDA will have to start looking for alternatives. “We need to have hard metrics that wouldn’t allow more than 15% waste to go into landfills,” he says.

The BDA’s numbers, according to Mr. Pabbisetty, are highly inaccurate and are in stark contrast to what Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has submitted to the High Court in the garbage management case. “The foundation of these numbers is extremely

questionable and has resulted in great amount of disbelief in the process adopted in arriving at the RMP estimation.”

Delhi-based urban planner S.K Das believes that our planning fails when we seek to replicate other global cities.

He sees our failure in understanding our unique urban condition and the kind of appropriate and sustainable urban landscape we ought to create.Ravichander believes, “The priority is to prepare and re-design the city to make it capable of accommodating the present population and create additional space for the excess.” Pabbisetty says the plan has been shaped by particular issues like transportation rather than more important considerations such as quality of life metrics that would make Bangalore a “livable city.” “ Experts believe that controlling the city’s growth is the priority. The uncontrolled spatial growth leaves the periphery undeveloped with a very low population residing in it. As a result,

Tender Mercies CATHLINE CHEN

I

n June, 2015, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramiah inauguratedthe first two roads, St Mark’s Road and VittalMallya Road, to be redesigned under Bengaluru’s TenderSURE (Specifications for Urban Roads Execution) project. What distinguished them was their marked reversal of priority: While city roads tend to occupy every inch of available space leaving nothing for pedestrians, these roads were different. St Mark’s Road has a 4-5-metre-wide pavement and a 9-metre carriageway that allows for 3 lanes of one-way traffic; Vittal Mallya Road’s footpaths are 3.5- 5 metres wide.

More important, the roads are designed to integrate all public utilities including electricity, water, storm water drains, sewage and fibre-optic cables in easily accessible ducts built under the pavement, which eliminates the need to dig up the roads for routine repairs and maintenance.

Says Sanjay Das, who works at Frankie Rolls on St Mark’s Road, “While the construction was in progress, the dust flew everywhere and business took a beating. But now business is flourishing because many people want to

10 THE BEAT February 2017

walk around and hang out and eat in this area, so it is good for the restaurants. But the traffic jams have become worse over the last seven years that I have worked in this area.”

These roads don’t come cheap. Eighteen roads have been selected for redesign under the project’s first phase at a cost of Rs. 208 crores and 50 roads in all are to be upgraded. Critics says they cost 10 times what a regular road would, but their supporters point out that over their lifetime they will turn out far cheaper.

A criticism of the project that does merit attention is that the design doesn’t provide adequate space for the roots of the large trees that line these roads, causing some of them to fall. During the second phase of the project, five trees reportedly fell on a single stretch of road in Jayanagar. According to Jahanavi Pai who studied the project, while a tree’s roots can occupy up to four to seven times the area of its canopy, TenderSURE provides barely 0.4-1 metrespaces around the trees. What’s the point of having pleasant sidewalks without the shade that makes walking such a pleasure?

distribution of infrastructure like water, sewage and electricity becomes costly. Das believes, “The more spatially compact the city, the more optimal the density and the better it is for municipal planning and urban management. The lower is the cost of laying out infrastructure and its optimal and immediate use.” Narasimhan advocates the development of satellite towns into autonomous, vibrant urban hubs.

Narasimhan also recommends development of surrounding towns like Nelamangala, Bidadi and Ramanagara.

Developmental projects like Smart Cities and the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) need to be accommodated in the plan, according to Ravichander.

More than anything, Bangalore needs decentralized urban governance.

Currently, the BBMP has the monopoly over the wards. Pabbisetty says, “I strongly urge the members of the Bangalore Metropolitan Planning Committee to take charge of this constitutionally mandated responsibility and push the government to either scrap the BDA

Act or suitably amend it to curtail its powers keeping in accordance with the provisions of the 74th Constitutional Amendment.”

Ravichander says that what can be done at the ward level, like waste management and maintenance of street lights should be done by the ward bodies, without involving the BBMP. “For municipal administration, decentralisation as zonal municipalities for managing infrastructure and city maintenance and collection of taxes and dues such as in the case of Delhi may be desirable,” says Das. Ravichander also advocates a need for ward-level plans in future. Detailed consultations mush be conducted at the ward level with residents’ welfare associations, NGOs and ward councilors in order to gauge the issues and needs at the local level before a generalized Master Plan is framed.

Moreover, urban planners have pressed for an interdepartmental coordination process, which would ultimately guide the fate of the Master Plan. No urban utility like water, sani-

“Traditionally in India, citizens’ participation has remained a statement of ideology. Politicians and the bureaucracy hate it.”

tation or waste management can function in isolation and integrating them is essential to formulating an overarching vision for the city.

Public consultation on a city plan essentially means taking democracy to the g ra s s ro o t s. S ay s Das, “Traditionally in India, citizens’ participation has remained a statement of ideology.

Politicians and the bureaucracy hate it.” Participation was restricted to issuance of public notices and only those who had partisan interests or who were well connected and powerful would formally respond and appear at public hearings. The poorer communities typically protested when contemplated actions by the authorities affected their very existence, such as in the case of planned evictions.

The first public consultation for BDA’S Master Plan in Bommanahalli, saw irate citizens criticising the BDA for not having given them enough time to read the report. Calling the process flawed, Ravichander says, “Ideally, the consultation begins before the final plan is out. The plan is supposed to evolve with public opinion and feedback.” Before the final plan is released, documents like the existing land-use map and the proposed land-use plan needs to be made public with due publicity in local newspapers and on websites.

However, the BDA flouted the norms by directly releasing the final plan in the public domain. “The BDA needs to be transparent, otherwise there will be a severe trust deficit between the government and the citizens,” Ravichander says. Without due consultation, the plan won’t be based on ground realities, he adds. This might also lead to a possible rejection of the plan through public and media pressure. The planned consultations appear have got off to an inauspicious start. There’s too much at stake to let them end that way.

February 2017 THE BEAT 11

ENVIRONMENT

S

omanahalli is a small village off Kanakpura road on the fringes of Bangalore city, surrounded by vegetable fields and banana plantations. Chandrakala, pushing a vegetable cart, squints at the dusty road as she awaits customers. An old lady comes up to her and asks, “Do you have colocasia leaves?” Chandrakala frowns, “Who will get colocasia leaves here? Nobody buys such things. I have some leftover yam if you want.”

Many centuries ago Karnataka enjoyed royal cultural patronage, whose influence could be seen in literature as well as traditional food habits of the region. Chavundaraya, a 11th century scholar, documented these practices in a comprehensive book titled Lokopkara. As food blogger Ammini Ramachandran records in her blog Peppertrails, Chavundaraya mentions the use of unusual ingredients like castor shoots, tamarind shoots, leaves of coral berry and coffee senna or even leaves of bael fruits and red hibiscus flowers in food preparation.

Much of that knowledge has sadly vanished while many ingredients have joined the cornucopia of traditional food through centuries of migration and cultural exchange.

In his famous book, Indian Food: A Historical Companion, scientist KT Achaya describes how Mesopotamian tablets from as far back as 2,300 BC mention sesame oilseeds that came to Sumer from India. He also says that although dishes like iddalige and iddarika are mentioned in ancient Indian texts from as far back as 920 AD, they were only made of urad dal flour. It wasn’t until cooks, who accompanied Hindu kings to south-east Asia, came back with steaming vessels and fermentation science that the modern day idli came into being.

While the spice inventory has certainly grown richer over the past centuries, the vegetable garden has suffered gravely due to lack of government patronage and popular demand. Says Dr. Harinder Singh Oberoi, scientist at Indian Institute of Horticulture Research, “Today we

FOOD FOR THOUGHT: Ragi mudde is Jayamma’s staple food. She wishes it would get more affordable as her son has swapped ragi cultivation for flower cultivation and she doesn’t get it for free anymore

12 THE BEAT February 2017

Back to t

Tracing forgotten food trails reveals a rich and diver

are importing exotic items like broccoli but we don’t recognise the nutritious value of everyday items growing in our backyard.”

Food habits are largely influenced by economic decisions. Many recipes once used jaggery for sweetening instead of sugar. According to the Economic Survey of Karnataka (2014-15), the area under sugarcane has increased by 586 times in the last 40 years.

While sugar became cheaper, jaggery prices have peaked. This coincides with the consequent drop in jaggery usage in food. Gojju or preserves made from citrus fruits and jaggery are disappearing from our dining tables.

“I remember my mother making gojju with orange peels and tamarinds. It can never taste the same with sugar or pesticide flavoured oranges,” says Surekha Manjunath, a resident of Bangalore since the 1950s. Chavundaraya’s treatise also mentions the use of a mixture of jaggery and black lotus to substitute sugar.

Gowramma, 38, another resident of Somanahalli has never heard of Chavundaraya or his recipes. Her weekly groceries include carrots, bean, potatoes and brinjals, usually bought from Chandrakala. “Jaggery is expensive, I use it only during festivals, in small quantities,” she says.

The six main components of food according to Sushruta, the legendary 7th century physician of ancient India, were sweet, sour, salty, pungent, bitter and astringent. While our diet of sweet and salty has increased rapidly over the past few decades, (witness the expanding waistlines and heart disorders), bitter has quietly disappeared from our palates.

the Roots

rse

Buffalo Back Collective, a Bangalore-based organisation has been working with a small rural culinary culture, writes ROMITA MAJUMDAR community near the Bannerghatta National Park to bring heirloom grains and vegetables to the urban dining table. Vishala, founder of Buffalo Back says, “There are at least 20 types of weeds that can grow in our yards without water-intensive gardening.

Hongonesoppu helps ease nervous disorders. Genikesoppu, harivesoppu and gonisoppu are way more nutritious than fancy chia seeds or even spinach.”

It’s difficult if not impossible to find these humble greens in neighbourhood markets. Buffalo Back also helps out their customers with recipes to help them savour native varieties. Kaulige, another Bangalore based company is trying to popularise milMORE OF THE SAME: One struggles to spot variety even in the KR market, today. Heirloom lets, the staple grain of yore, through grains and vegetables have become an elite fancy new-age millet recipes and bakobsession though. Photo: Romita Majumdar. ery products.

Organically grown food grains like brown rice and millets are becoming popular but they are available only in specialty stores, packaged in stylish jute and cotton bags with atrocious Restaurants won’t be caught dead price-tags. A kilo of foxtail millet can serving bitter-melon, elephant foot cost one anything between Rs. 80-200 yam, ivy gourd, pointed gourd or even rupees depending on the brand. Fabibitter gourd. While these vegetables ndia retails 500gm of millet porridge at might not be as cool as kale, they defi- Rs. 155, way beyond the means of most nitely trump western super-foods in people. the nutrition race. Unfortunately, by Renowned food technologist, KC side lining these vegetables, we are only Raghu says, “Just blindly aping poputhreatening our longevity. lar diet charts from the West can go Vanastree, a seed collective based in horribly wrong. We need to be aware Sirsi, has been organising the Malnad- whether what we are eating suits our Mela in Bangalore since 2007. The mela genetic disposition.” This awareness is included women from remote commu- being created by a number of socialnities discussing wild gardening, food media spawned communities. MyEathabits and traditional recipes. Laxmi- inggame is one such Facebook group Amma, a member of the Siddi tribe that helps people make the transition sits behind a table full of wild tubers to ‘slow food’ through games and group in varying shapes and sizes, telling visi- activities. tors how they could be consumed. She The loss of old habits isn’t limited to points at a brownish tuber called hal- urban areas alone. Sunita Rao, Vanaskesu, from the colocasia family. “This tree co-founder says, “We have actually one can be turned into bhajjis, palya, been approached by some rural combonda or even added to sambhar. It’s munities to help them collate their tramy favourite,” she giggles. ditional knowledge because entire gen-

erations have simply forgotten them.

There is an intergenerational erosion of information today that needs to be addressed.”

Rao points out that all old habits need not be healthy. The Soliga tribes of Karnataka have survived on a diet of millets and wild greens for centuries and yet they suffer serious nutritional deficiencies. Access to quality food is as important as awareness. Vanastree volunteers conduct workshops for farmers on sustainable farming based on knowledge handed down through generations.

India’s Public Distribution System is often blamed for the uniformity of our diet. Nutrition advocates have long lamented the flooding of white rice where native varieties where available.

In the past 40 years since the advent of large-scale irrigation techniques in Karnataka, there has been more than 50% reduction in millet cultivation with a few minor varieties being declared extinct by the authorities.

Wheat was never part Karnataka’s diet chart. Finger millets or ragi was the food of choice here. The horticulture and agriculture departments had a clear choice between eradicating mass hunger and maintaining climate compliance and diversity. The government is eradicating hunger through food policies encouraging high-yielding but water intensive crops.

According to the World Health Organisation, Indians consume a daily average of 150gm of vegetables and fruits against a recommended 400gm. This is shocking for the world’s second largest horticulture producer. Non-communicable diseases have become the largest cause of death in the country, many of which can be easily tackled through nutritional and lifestyle changes.

Every region has its climate-specific food culture documented or passed down through oral tradition through the ages. Yet, we end up living a ‘one size fits all’ lifestyle with barely any diversity. These traditional recipes, local crops and even farming practices are not just our heritage. They are the key to a healthy and sustainable future.

Gowramma serves a steel glass filled with fresh lemonade. It smells faintly of ginger. She doesn’t know why it’s added. “My mother taught me to make it this way,” she smiles.

February 2017 THE BEAT 13

TECHNOLOGY

The Sky’s No Limit!

ISRO is the best example of public-spirited commercial enterprise at work, writes RISHIRAJ BHAGAWATI.

C

LAUNCHING OFF: ISRO’s workhorse PSLV has a launch history of 38 launches, since 1993, including 36 successful ones.

SOURCE: ISRO

14 THE BEAT February 2017

ome February and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will attempt something no space programme has attempted before: placing 103 satellites in orbit using a single launch vehicle. To put this in perspective, the record for the highest number of satellites launched in a single mission is held by Russia, which launched 37 by 2014, followed by NASA’s launch of 29 satellites in 2013.

While ISRO chairman A.S. Kiran Kumar insists that the project is not aimed at recordmaking but only at maximising its workhorse. Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle’s (PSLV) carrying capacity, there is little doubt that it will earn political and commercial gains for the country.

The launch, from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, comes after a rather remarkably successful 2016 for ISRO, with the space agency marking its presence not only on the global map, but also on the new Rs. 2,000 note. ISRO launched seven vehicle missions last year, which carried 9,700 kilograms of payloads into space, comprising eight ISRO satellites, 22 foreign satellites, and four student satellites among others. The year also saw maiden flights of two new launch vehicle technologies designed locally, the Reusable Launch Vehicle-Technology Demonstrator (RLV-TD) and Scramjet technology demonstrator. This, of course, is in addition to the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) or Mangalyaan completing two years in orbit around Mars and the ASTROSAT space observatory completing one year in orbit.

But what makes ISRO’s feats special is its significantly low cost of fabrication and operation. When Mangalyaan was launched in 2014, people joked that it cost ISRO $74 million to put the MOM in orbit, while it cost Hollywood $100 million to produce the film Gravity. Some worried our fixation on the price-tag took away from the fact that the probe, which took ISRO engineers and scientists years to put together, was a gamechanger in terms of technology and design. While all concede that ISRO seems to have mastered frugal engineering, some feel it comes at a price.

Most parts that go into the making of a probe or a launch vehicle cost more or less the same in all parts of the world.

The difference lies in the labour cost involved. Labour costs are lower in India than in the West which matters for products which require direct human involvement in terms of skill and work. A report in The Wire said that ISRO heavily depends on human labour and “seldom pays for overtime work while freely asking for it”. This, among others of course, is a major reason why ISRO, like other public sector organisations in India, are able to keep costs down.

ISRO’s eventful year was however marred by a couple of untoward incidents. After losing a significant case in the Antrix-Devas deal last year, the agency has been asked to pay several million dollars as financial compensation by a Permanent Court of Arbitration tribunal based in The Hague. The Prime Minister’s SAARC satellite project also suffered a setback after Pakistan backed out of the proj--

It is common practice now for ISRO to accommodate foreign satellites on board their launch vehicles, as it not only economically rewarding, but also politically. Out of the 103 satellites which are set to be launched in February, only three are Indian. “Today, manufacturers of small satellites have increased but they are not getting an opportunity to put their products into orbit. PSLV fills that gap and helps us earn credibility,” Dr. Kumar told NDTV. But as Yogita Limaye of BBC pointed out, so far India has only launched small and light foreign satellites. “Launching heavier ones is where the big money is.”

Vikram Sarabhai, recognised as the father of India’s space programme, once said, “We are convinced that if we are to play a meaningful role nationally, and in the community of nations, we must be second to none in the application of advanced technologies to the real problems of man and society.” The success of the February launch will increase the number of operational satellites in space by almost 10 percent. Having indigenously developed cryogenic engines scheduled to power missions this year and with the ambitious second lunar mission Chandrayan-2 planned for next year, ISRO is enhancing its commercial satellite launch capability, expanding the ambit of its space research even while contributing to economic development on the ground. Sarabhai and the other co-founders would doubtless be proud how far their fledgling has flown.

SOURCE: ISRO

-ect, forcing the project to be renamed South Asian Satellite.

ISRO chairman Kiran Kumar, in an interview with NDTV, said that among all space agencies around the world, ISRO gives back most to the society.

“We are currently in a position to increase the number of launches in a year, which is essential to meet our country’s demands of using space technology for earth observation, disaster monitoring, communication, navigation, geospatial technology, location based services, and for inter-planetary studies.” This is reflected in the range of satellites launched just last year: CARTOSAT 2C (India’s fourth in the cartographic satellite series), RESOURCE SAT 2A (an earth-observing satellite), INSAT 3DR (a meteorological satellite), SCAT SAT 1 (a weather studying satellite) and three IRNSS satellites (India’s GPS-lite constellation) to name a few. The geospatial technology made available by ISRO is helping the efficiency of the work done under MGNREGA and thus aiding rural development, he claims.

But to do justice to its acronym, ISRO also actively helps push the frontiers of space research. ASTROSAT, which was launched last year, had payloads from academic institutions.

From Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) in Mumbai and the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) in Pune to Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and Raman Research Institute in Bengaluru, research institutions, both government and private, build these payloads to make such unique space observatories. “From far UV to X-ray, it (ASTROSAT) has a sensitivity which is way better than anything available in space today. Very soon, you will see its effect in research papers and academic publications,” Dr. Kumar promises.

When journalist Shekhar Gupta asked Dr. Kumar if India has finally

planted its flag in space along with other major powers in the world, he promptly says “Oh quite literally!” He was referring to a place on the moon called Jawahar Sthal where ISRO’s mission hoisted the national flag. He went on to say that both the Mars mission and the lunar mission have shown to the world that it is not necessary to spend a lot on space exploration. “Though man had landed on the moon (and had) probes going around the moon decades back, it is to the credit of Chandrayaan-1 that water molecules and the processes responsible for water formation on moon were discovered.”

For a poor country, space exploration might appear to be an unaffordable luxury. As the space agency makes all satellites and launch vehicles from scratch, and now plans one launch a month, it is certainly an expensive business. But ISRO argues that there are very good returns as most of ISRO’s operations focus on activities on the ground, whether it is weather forecasting or navigation. Though the returns may not be immediately visible, they are very tangible and enable a number of terrestrial processes to function efficiently. More directly, ISRO wants to commercially exploit its growing launch capacity to fund the rest of its activities.

February 2017 THE BEAT 15

HEALTH

The persistence of high levels of infant mortality in the 21st century is a national shame, writes AISHWARYA IYER.

A

ll Raghavi could think about was cradling her baby. Through the excruciating labour pains, the 25-year-old, first-time mother hung onto that one thought and the incredible joy that lay in store.

When the nurse told her the baby was underweight and was being kept under observation, she was upset but knew it was for the best. But just hours later, to her horror, she discovered the baby had succumbed to acute anaemia.

A mother’s health is critical to the survival of her newborn, say senior doctors. Anaemia, malnutrition and pregnancy-induced hypertension in mothers are the primary causes of fatal complications and disorders in the newborn child.

According to the 2014 Civil Registration System report (CRS), released in December last year, Karnataka has the highest infant-mortality rate (IMR) among the southern states. The state registered 15.89 deaths per 1,000 live births, almost double the national average of 8.21. The state ranks seventh nationwide for infant deaths; Mizoram topped the list with 38.87 deaths, followed by Meghalaya (29.93) and Rajasthan (27.83). More alarming, Karnataka saw a 31 per cent increase in infant mortality in the four years from 2010 to 2014, from 13,199 to 17,286 deaths.

“We have to accept the fact that despite development and increasing standards of living, malnutrition exists on a large scale,” says Dr. Rajkumar, Deputy Director of Maternal Health and Family Welfare and Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHA) for the state. ASHA workers are local women 16 THE BEAT February 2017

who are trained as community health workers instituted by the government of the health ministry to help villagers with their health and medical issues. “Poor nutrition in young mothers results in defective growth of the foetus and delivery of low-birth-weight infants,” According to Dr. Rajani M, Deputy Director of Child Health in Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (Karnataka), 24 per cent of infant deaths are on account of low birth weight. “Babies weighing from 1 kg-1.5 kg fall under the lowbirth weight category and are very difficult to treat. Lowbirth-weight babies account up to 30 per cent of the total.”

However, there are contributing factors that severely limit the chances of saving a newborn. Intrauterine Growth Restriction (IUGR) is a condition where the foetus does not develop at the normal rate and is smaller than normal for its gestational age. The condition is caused by the baby not getting enough oxygen and nutrition through the placenta, explains Dr. Rajkumar. “In such complications, the antenatal care (medical checkups during pregnancy) plays a major role and has to be done carefully,” he says.

Dr. Premalatha, head of department of paediatrics at Bangalore Medical College says of IUGR cases, “Whenever a baby is born with such ailments, it doesn’t cry after being delivered. It gets cold, its glucose levels drop and it eventually succumbs. Even if it survives, it develops disabilities like cerebral palsy.”

Another threat is meconium aspiration or when the foe-

PHOTO: counterview.org

Wasted Lives

tus inhales part of its stool while in the uterus or during birth. It could be caused by pregnancy-induced hypertension, delayed labour process or foetal distress. This can cause breathing problems and infection in the lungs, explains Dr. Rajkumar.

In 2014, according to the CRS, there were fewer infant deaths (2,195) in rural Karnataka than in its urban centre (15,091). At 1,983 Bangalore had the highest number of registered infant deaths.

Says Dr. Rajani, “The CRS report is misleading and unreliable.” She explains that CRS data records the place of delivery and the mother’s address.

Pregnant women from neighbouring districts like Tumkur, Kengeri, Chittradurga, Ballari come to Bangalore to receive and utilise the services at the city’s top government hospitals. “The patients give their relatives’ address as their temporary address which the CRS team has recorded, not the original place of residence of these patients.

This is one major reason for Bangalore to have high infant deaths.”

She further adds that people move to the urban parts of their district for delivery of their babies and avail the government facilities rather than getting admitted in a primary health centre (PHC). “The infant mortality rates are decreasing gradually and the government is doing its best to improve hospital facilities,” asserts Dr Rajani.

Compared with the data record of infant deaths maintained manually in every district which is audited, the numbers vastly vary, she says. “There

are 800 deaths in Udupi if we go by the manual data whereas the CRS report claims 245 deaths. In some areas, the manual data has concealed the deaths and recorded very less numbers and the CRS has come out with the actual numbers. Usually, manual data is 90 per cent reliable.”

On the other hand, the Sample Registration System (SRS) 2015, released last December, states the IMR rate to be 28 infant deaths per 1000 live births against the national average of 37.

Villagers have limited access to avail the health facilities provided by the government, says Pravin Shivshankar, associate general manager, at Child Rights and You (CRY) Foundation. “The whole district of Raichur (which has a rural female population of 7,20,492) has only one gynaecologist for all the PHCs. The idea of access changes when you are in a place like Bangalore. There’s good transport and PHCs at the distance of 20-21 kilometres can be reached quickly by bus or auto. But that’s not the case with remote villages.”

The PHCs in the state lack facilities to diagnose such complications during antenatal tests. Under such circumstances, Dr. Premalatha highlights the need for a neonatal transport ambulance. “Since there are fewer incubators, ventilators and less trained nursing staff to deal with health complications, the babies have to be shifted immediately to a private clinic with adequate facilities. In the course of doing so, many babies fall cold and die.

There’s no proper way to transport the

babies from one hospital to another.

The neonatal ambulance will have well equipped ambience for the baby to survive till it reaches its destination.”

This strategy has been implemented effectively by the Tamil Nadu government and Dr. Premalatha points towards this initiative as one of the major reasons why the state has been able to reduce infant deaths.

Hygiene is another important area.

“Every bed should have just one baby instead of two-three (which is actually the current case) to avoid infections.

Doctors and visitors should use sanitisers before coming in contact with the child. Sufficient water supply to hospitals is crucial. Such preventive cares are the most important cost-effective interventions,” says Dr. Premalatha. She further adds that recruitment of counsellors in PHCs and hospitals is necessary to deal with new, young mothers.

A free mobile voice-call service app call mMitra to help women in slums and villages get simple information on complications during pregnancy and labour process has been developed by NGO Armman founded by Dr. Aparna Hegde. Their operations are restricted to Hubli in Karnataka, parts of Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Delhi and Rajasthan.

The app counsels pregnant women about nutrition, food habits, hygiene, antenatal care and other related topics.

During the antenatal period, the users get messages twice a week and postnatal, messages are delivered once a week.

The messages are in the local dialect of the region and are designed according to the gestational period of the mother.

Looking for solutions of the crisis on a broader level, Shivashankar of CRY points to the Cuban and the U.K. systems of public health. “The whole world is moving towards privatisation. Government hospitals in India collaborate with the private ones, pool money and treat patients in times of emergencies. Instead of paying money to the private partners, why not utilise the funds in strengthening the facilities at the public-health sector?” asks Shivashankar.

SPACE CRUNCH: Every bed should have one baby instead of two or three as is the case today. Photo:Arindam Dey/ AFP.

February 2017 THE BEAT 17

SOCIETY

Why are women expected to tolerate behaviour that is defined as criminal under the law, asks KARISHMA JAYAPAUL.

O

n a day when people make resolutions to become better human beings, 2017 arrived in Bangalore to witness women being molested in public by drunks. Ten days later, we had reports of police sexually exploiting 40 tribal women in Chhattisgarh. About 20 days into the new year, a 10-year-old girl in Meghalaya was raped by seven juveniles between the ages of 11 and 16 years.

More than 3 lakh cases of sexual violence against women were recorded

by India’s National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) in 2016. Some things never change. A 23-year-old girl was gang raped by the same men who had raped her three years earlier and they were still at large.

So what’s new this year?

Despite the litany of outrage, Maneka Gandhi, the Union Minister for Women and Child Development, sought to assure us that India ranks amongst countries with the lowest incidence of rape. That failed to prevent a drop in tourist arrivals once India 18 THE BEAT February 2017

earned a well-deserved reputation asbeing unsafe for women.

“Disrespect invites disrespect, violence incites violence,” actress Meryl Streep remarked in her Oscar speech, warning President Trump that his disdain for people of colour and his barbaric attitude towards women would only sow the seeds of deeper hatred.

Thousands of women are marching in protest against Trump’s senseless laws deciding the future of women and the astonishing vulgarity he displays towards them.

In India, women started a #YesAllWomen campaign to show how all women have faced sexual violence in some form or the other to retort against the #NotAllMen campaign where the egos of some men couldn’t take being accused of taking advantage of women.

The Bengaluru City Police’s women’s safety unit,Vanitha Sahayavani, has a 24x7 helpline number to register cases of domestic abuse, sexual and other forms of violence against women, with two policewomen on duty to take

calls. Shilpa Jayachandra came with her 9-month-old baby wrapped around her waist all the way from Sarjapur to Infantry Road to report domestic violence. “He says he doesn’t want me anymore,” she says with tears welling up in her eyes. Her husband threw her out of the house when she couldn’t meet his demand for Rs. 2 lakh.

“I am staying at the temple near my house where I help wash utensils in return for free food and a place to sleep,” she says as she looks at her restless baby sucking on his thumb and tears roll down her face, “I don’t even have money to feed my baby.” She wrote ‘I want to be reconciled with my husband’ under her complaint, leavingwith two notices, one for her husband and one for herself, summoning them for a meeting with the counsellor.

Firoza Banu, a petite young girl with dull green eyes smeared with kajal, stood in a burqa without any hesitation andsaid, “I don’t want to live with him anymore.” Her father, Abdul Masood explained, “Her husband beats her up and she cannot take it anymore.” Firoza

PHOTO: IANS

Another Year, Another Outrage

has a 19-month-old child with her husband but she is certain she cannot live with her child’s father anymore.

Madhuri Mudhol is a businesswoman, living in the city since the past 20 years and believes that the police must be more proactive at approaching cases of sexual violence against women. She was victim to obscene calls from a man and wanted to report him. But the police did not think it was necessary to do so. The lady officer heard her out and asked her to come back after two days.

There isn’t much one can do when emergency numbers turn out to be invalid. “When I tell the police nobody answers their emergency number 100, they tell me that I should try again,” she says. Madhuri fears that men who make obscene calls or gestures at women and get away with it might be encouraged to commit more serious crimes against women such as rape. “We don’t just need to reform the mindset of men but also make the police more sensitive towards women who come forth to lodge complaints,” she says.

Aparna Purnesh, senior counsellor at Vanitha Sahayavani, thinks that the police have changed a lot since she first joined the organisation. “When we want to stop something wrong, we have to face certain challenges,” is her response to Madhuri’s ordeal with the police.

For those living in paying guest accommodations and hostels, it is a different battle altogether. Although Bengaluru city police had made it mandatory for women’s hostels and PGs to

have CCTV cameras, only few install them. Jasneh Jaison, a 21-year-old student studying in Christ University recalls a incident where she was hit on the back by a man on a scooter while walking back to her hostel at around 10 o’clock in the night. “By the time I could even figure out what just happened, he turned around and went away,” she says.

But the dark streets aren’t the only places that make her uncomfortable.

Even staying inside her room doesn’t keep her away from men who want to make obscene gestures. “In my first year of college when I was living in a girl’s hostel, there was a man who used to come in front of our hostel at around 1 in the night, remove his pants and masturbate right in front of the hostel gate.”

Michelle D’souza, another student of Christ University has faced the same problem in the girl’s hostel she was living in last year. “We knew he would come every night and be looking at us while he was doing it,” says Michelle.

Purnesh admits such cases are common and that they do come up during awareness programs that they conduct in schools and colleges in the city. They alert the police in such areas. “If the police are on patrol, the predators might have some fear.”

Bengaluru’s IT companies have working hours that requires many thousands of women to keep long hours working in shifts. Puja Srinivasan works late and finds the city unsafe for people working night shifts. “The peo-

ple look at you from top to bottom and judge you for what you’re wearing and the time at which you’re returning from work.”

The 22-year-old is new to the city and feels the mentality of the people has to change. “Even if you make laws, at the end of the day it is people’s mentality that needs to be changed.” However, she feels the women need to have their own safety as their foremost concern.

“She cannot expect the police to have her back all the time,” says Purnesh.

The low conviction rates for crimes against women seems to be promoting a culture of impunity where men believe that they can get away with anything. This is only reinforced by people in influential positions making statements suggesting that women incite violence against themselves by dressing provocatively.

Says Emerson Samuel, a professor at Concerns Foundation Community College in Bengaluru that helps skill destitute women, “Women in our country don’t just need a narrative that tells them that they are safe but they need to be able to sense a community that is nurturing, uplifting and respectful of their existence. We need to build a narrative of acceptance alongside practical solutions to combat crimes against women. This can only happen when not just our men but also our judicial system, policemen and others handling the law are sensitised towards handling such cases.”

LEARNING COMPASSION: The police needs to be more sensitive towards victims of sexual or domestic violence. Photo:AFP

February 2017 THE BEAT 19

SPORT

Playing To Win!

Virat Kohli brings a killer instinct to the leadership of Indian cricket, writes SHANNON RIDGE COURT.

T

he baton passed to Virat Kohli gives him leadership of the Indian team in all three formats of the game. It would be a challenge for anybody, made particularly difficult by his predecessor Mahindra Singh Dhoni’s stellar record.

Dhoni has led India to victory in three major ICC events. From winning the maiden T20 World Cup in 2007 on his captaincy debut to helping India win the World Cup on home soil in 2011 after 27 years, the former captain has also gifted India the ICC Champions Trophy in 2013. The achievements don’t stop there: Dhoni is the only Indian 20 THE BEAT February 2017

captain to take India to the No. 1 spot in ICC Test Rankings in 2009.

Speaking to the media, India coach Anil Kumble complimented Dhoni saying, “10 years of captaincy is phenomenal. It goes to show the capabilities of MS as a leader and also what he has been able to achieve during the transition phase and also when the seniors left, it is not easy coming into the team as captain and having so many senior players. He managed them very well.”

Kohli is not new to leadership. In 2008, he captained the Indian Under19 side to win the trophy in Malaysia.

He showed maturity beyond his years,

Photo Credit: BCCI

displaying a fearlessness and clarity that is essential to succeed at the highest level of the game. As a skipper, it is important that a leader is capable of serving in order to lead, to play the part asked of him. Virat Kohli has earned his place through his commitment and his ability to deliver on the big stage.

When Dhoni abruptly pulled the plug on his Test career in the midst of 2014-15 tour Down Under, the morale and confidence of the Indian squad was shakened. Kohli, however, was sensational on the tour, with runs flowing like water every time he went out to bat with his positive energy rubbing off and influencing the entire team. There was no doubt about Dhoni’s successor.

Especially after a string of overseas series defeats under Dhoni’s leadership, the team needed a fighter like Kohli.

More often than not Kohli digs India out of the hole and remains intimidating even in the face of adversity, earning him the respect of the opposition but most importantly, the trust of his team-mates. Any team requires a captain who can lead from the front, and Kohli’s contributions with the batalways reflect on India’s overall performance.

Dhoni has a reputation for being as cool as a cucumber whereas Kohli looks like a cracker waiting to go off. Where Dhoni is patient and unflappable, Kohli gestures, claps, hollers and offers verbal encouragement to his team all the time. The newly appointed skipper is what the Test side needs for the long haul, the first requirement being the ability to adapt to situations and put together a winning squad. Kohli fields the best possible line-up depending on the playing conditions rather than just relying on aproven winning combination. Another change Kohli has brought to the game is making pacers (not often India’s strongest card) a core part of his team. He has also uses ace spinner Ravichandran Ashwin to attack the batsman, even at the cost of a few runswhile the job Dhoni gave Ashwin was to prevent runs.

Post Dhoni’s retirement in 2014, India has done rather well in Test cricket, losing just one Test series while bouncing back to win five series back to back under Kohli. The highlight of those victories came against England at home that helped India reclaim the crown as the No.1 test team in the world. Kohli’s intensity was mirrored by the team’s proficiency, planning and execution.

Kohli is undoubtedly suited for the job, just as Dhoni was before India toured abroad. Only time will tell how India under Kohli will fare overseas.

Once labelled as being ridiculously self-confident, Kohli allows his numbers and statistics to speak for themselves with Test, ODI and T20 averages all above 50. Kohli has a wealth of knowledge about the game and a keen awareness of his ability as a player, even if his captaincy isn’t fully developed.

As captain of the Royal Challengers Bangalore, Kohli handles pressure in every situation and helps his team perform to the peak of their ability. In 16 IPL matches last year, Kohli was the top scorer, amassing 943 runs in a team which boasts power hitters such as Chris Gayle, AB De Villiers, Shane Watson and KL Rahul. He bagged 4 centuries in one IPL season!The enthusiastic captain maintained his composure to routinely score in match after match and helped RCB reach the final.

Kohli plays cricket to win and his laser-like focus is the secret to his amazing consistency. That sense of wilfulness, the air of stubbornness he exudes doesn’t change whatever the format of

the game he’s playing. Speaking to the press Kohli recently said, “I think we’ve become more resolute, patient and mentally stronger than our opponents in terms of difficult situations where we test them to the limit of them making mistakes rather than us committing (them)”. He added “It’s been a gradual process to get to that level in Test cricket. The squad trains well, practices hard and everyone takes equal ownership of the results we achieve. And that’s the only way to stay on top in international cricket nowadays.”

“The added responsibility of being captain has always worked for me because I don’t have room to be complacent. And, that’s why in the IPL, it’s very easy for me to throw away my wicket after scoring 60-70 runs, but the fact that I push even after that is because I need to lead from the front and set an example for my team. I have to make that effort myself first,” Kohli explained.The level of consistency that Kohli has displayed in ODIs, T20’s and especially the IPL, has contributed to his self-belief and the confidence that he can read different situations well and can adapt as needed.

But Kohli isn’t alone even if captaincy must sometimes feel like that.

He still has the presence of Dhoni on the field, to help him learn how conditions and circumstances should be approached, what strategies are to be explored and how to read the rhythm of the game. Without the pressure of

captaincy, Dhoni has the liberty to rewind the clock to the old days with Yuvraj Singh, to score freely like they did in the second ODI against England, stitching together a 200-plus-run partnership.

Kohli’s versatility will come in handy in limited-overs cricket. One day and T20 cricket present their own challenges, where the intensity of game creates situations and the players who can take away the game from the opposition in a blink of an eye. Kohli, no stranger to snatching victory from the jaws of defeat, realizes that such formats require a different mental frame to succeed. In the first ODI of the recently concluded one-day series against England, India at one stage was tottering at 63/4.

Kohli decided India would win so he set about building an extraordinary innings of 122 while mentoring and motivating newcomer Kedar Jadhav to score a 78-ball century in pursuit of the 350 needed. India won the match and gave Kohli his first ODI series victory as captain.

With the Champions Trophy just around the corner, Kohli’s objective will be to identify players for particular positions and roles. This will be tricky, considering India has excellent bench strength with new talent knocking on the door. With Kohli at the helm, India is truly spoilt for choice.

LEAD TO WIN: Virat Kohli lead India to a 2-1 series win against England in the recently concluded ODI series.

This was his first as skipper.

February 2017 THE BEAT 21

INTERNATIONAL

U

.S. President Donald Trump took the world by shock when he won the 2016 Presidential elections last November. What made his victory even more amazing was that he succeeded despite astrong anti-Trump campaign in the mainstream American media. It reminded one of how Indian news outlets ran stories against Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, but to little avail. Shortly after Trump won, the Shiv Sena in an editorial in the party’s mouthpiece Saamna called him ‘America’s Modi’. It is not difficult to see the similarities between them.Both are right-wing populists with a tendency to the theatrical in everything they do.

They both thrive on exaggeration, on drama and a selective representation of reality that they communicate directly to their supporters though social media.

If Modi has his signature ‘Make in India’ initiative, Trump wants to ‘Make America Great Again.’ Trump has already met with CEOs of American automobile companies to arm twist them to manufacture and create jobs in the US or face crippling tariffs on products they import into the country. Similarly, Narendra Modi ran his election campaign on the promise to bring more foreign investment by creating a con22 THE BEAT February 2017

Brothers

Donald Trump and Narendra Modi share more than just n ducive atmosphere for business, thus creating new employment opportunities.

Both leaders raged and ranted against a failed administration, whether it was Obama and the Washington Establishment or Manmohan Singh andthe Lutyen’s Delhi crowd. Trump and Modi are crudely ‘nativist’ conservatives who take similar stands on immigration. Trump has vowed to deport some 11 million illegal migrants from the U.S. and plans on sealing its borders to refugees and Mexicans by building a 3,800-mile wall to separate the two countries. This divisive hardline rhetoric is similar to Modi’s stance on Bangladeshi and Pakistani immigrants.

What also makes Donald Trump and Narendra Modi uniquely similar is how skillfully they each play their country’s media. When Donald Trump in his first press conference as Presidentelect on January 11 refused to answer CNN journalist Jim Acosta and berated his organization calling it “fake news,” it became crystal clear that the relationship between the White House and the media was going to be tumultuous

for the next four years. The war with the media escalated when Trump’s chief strategist Steve Bannon tagged the media as the “opposition party” and asked it to “keep its mouth shut” in an interview with The New York Times.

This consistent evasion of the media is reminiscent of Modi’s approach.

In his first year in office, Modi made it clear he would play the game by his rules. He prefers to address the country through state-run media, namely Doordarshan and his weekly national radio address Mann Ki Baat on All India Radio and rarely gives any interviews to private news channels and publications. He carefully chooses foreign channels (CNN and Time) for one-on-one interviews. The Hoot, a media watchdog website remarked that for Modi, communication is a “one-way, non-interactive flow of information.”The government makes no attempt to hide its contempt for the media with V.K. Singh, minister of state, external affairs, referring to journalists as “presstitues.” Despite their controversial pasts clouded with sexual assault in one case and the Gujarat riots of 2002 in the other, Trump and Modi

PHOTO: REUTERS

in Arms

narcissistic personalities, writes PHALGUNI VITTAL RAO managed to control the message.

As strong individuals with huge egos, Modi and Trump prefer to work alone and often spring surprises, even on closest confidantes. Modi’s dramatic demonetisation announcement on the night of the American election sent India into economic turmoil but it’s likely that nobody in Modi’s cabinet knew of his plans before the rest of us did. As time went by, it became clear that the move seemed more impulsive than a rational thought-out process. Trump, in line with his election promises, revived the Keystone XL and Dakota Access oil pipeline projects without consulting or considering their environmental or economic impact or the concerns of native American tribes who land is in question. In a series of executive orders, Trump set in motion the repeal the Affordable Care Act, which could potentially cost 18 million people of their health-insurance cover.

Obsessed with their public image, the two leaders make every effort to micromanage how their leadership is perceived. This is evident in the manner in which both Trump and Modi control what information regarding

policy reaches the public ear. In case of India, the Modi government refused to provide answers under the Right to Information Act on the details of demonetisation, be it the minutes of the November 8th cabinet meeting or the RBI’s role in devaluing 86 per cent of the country’s stock of currency. Similarly, Trump reprimanded the National Park Services for revealing out the difference in crowd turnouts between Obama’s inauguration in 2009 and Trump’s this year. The National Park Services later apologized for it while White House press secretary Sean Spicer insisted it was “the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period, both in person and around the world.”

Dissent and right-wing nationalism is on the rise in the wake of Trump and Modi’s leadership in U.S.A and India.

While Trump is impervious to criticisms and rushes to Twitter to fire back at anybody from Meryl Streep to Chelsea Manning, Modi’s government just brands them anti-national, the JNUKanhaiya Kumar episode being a case in point. What’s more exasperating is how these men enforce their ideas of patriotism on the people, be it declaring a

National Day of Patriotism or banning beef because it goes against the Hindutva ideology – or simply because it excites the base. Intolerance is on a rise under their leadership and what is worrisome is that they find it acceptable. It could be the Dadri or Una lynching of Dalits or racist remarks made against blacks or Muslims in America.

Modi and Trump make it amply clear they are not men to be played around with. If provoked, they bite back harder than their bark. In a world with rising intolerance and paranoia, it takes a while to look through their hypocrisy. If Barack Obama had run a campaign like Trump’s by calling Mexicans rapists or Rosie ‘O Donnell ugly “both inside and out,” would he ever been the U.S. President? Similarly, if Rahul Gandhi or anybody from the Congress party had the audacity to sit behind Gandhi’s charkha and justified it saying nobody owned the “symbol”, would BJP have backed down quietly and let him be the new Father of the Nation? Religion, caste and race are a major if unstated element in their politics. Trump and Modi have learnt to manipulate every bigoted, sectarian and partisan sentiment in the populace to their own ends without ever endorsing, or becoming identified with, them.

That surely must count as a high qualification in this cynical age.

February 2017 THE BEAT 23

BUSINESS

Invisible Policeman In an increasingly risky environment, data security has become a big business opportunity, writes RISHIRAJ BHAGAWATI. is talking about it,” says Gupta, 38.

He says they differentiate themselves from their competitors by making the most automated security products using artificial intelligence and analytics. “We are also the only company in the field which touches the end users,” says Tannu, 44.

While explaining their product to an audience in May last year, Gupta had said, “What is happening to information that needs to go outside an enterprise, like contracts to lawyers and term sheets to potential investors?” This kind of data, he quipped, “is only covered by non-disclosure agreements and faith in God”.

The way Seclore protects information going out of the enterprise is by making the information ‘aware’ of who is supposed to access it, what each of these people is supposed to do, when and from where. “Now because the information itself is aware of its own security, the security of the information becomes independent of the security of networks, devices and applications,” says Gupta.

“We have had to consistently innovate both in terms of technology and product placement. One thing that has helped us massively is that we have always worked very closely with our customers,” says Gupta.

With almost 500 customers and

“What is happening to information that needs to go outside an enterprise, like contracts to lawyers and term sheets to potential investors?”

24 THE BEAT February 2017

SOURCE: indiatoday.com

C

orporate espionage is not new.

At the turn of the millennium, Procter & Gamble admitted to a spying operation on its competitor - Unilever. In January 2010, Google said it had detected a sophisticated cyber attack that resulted in theft of its intellectual property.

Closer home, the Delhi police last year arrested oil ministry officials, corporate executives and even a journalist for allegedly leaking classified government documents to energy companies for money.

The threat is real, and the stalkers could be competitors or employees. So how can companies keep their strategies and innovations secret? IITians Vishal Gupta and Abhijit Tannu have made it their business to help.

In 2009, the two started Seclore, a security-software provider which builds products to prevent companies’ internal data from being compromised.

It provides security solutions in areas of information usage control, digital rights management and data outsourcing.

What began as a project in IIT Bombay in 2008 has now spread across 30 countries.

For the first few years, the twomember-strong Seclore team operated from the IIT campus. Today, the company has offices in Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Singapore, Dubai, Riyadh, Amsterdam, New York and San Francisco, and employs about 230 people around the world.

When the company started its operations in 2009, they were among the few people interested in digital security and Seclore was the pioneer in its field in India. “The challenge when we started was to convince people that cyber and digital security were important.

Now, almost nine years later, everyone

over four million end users, their client profile — insurance, financial services, legal, telecom and manufacturing firms — has expanded to include government firms. Clients include ICICI Bank, HDFC, L&T, Maruti Suzuki, Suzlon Energy, TCS, Essar and the Aditya Birla Group.

Seclore received an investment of $12 million funding from Sistema Asia Fund, Helion Venture, Venture East and India Alternatives, last May. In December last year, Bangalore-based specialist-IT distributor TechnoBind announced a tie-up with Seclore and said it will offer support to its strategic and business expansion plans in India.

Seclore recorded 83 per cent yearon-year revenue growth in the last financial year. “For now, we want to expand both in terms of employee strength and revenue. By the end of 2017, we plan to have about 350 people in the group, and as always, aim for a 100 per cent annual growth ever year.”

To budding entrepreneurs, Tannu has a word of advice: Have a clear focus on customers and revenue. “Your technology will only be successful if you have paying customers.”

FILM REVIEW

Manchester by the Sea A wreckage on the shore, writes SHANNON RIDGE COURT.

M

anchester by the Sea is directed by Kenneth Lonergan and stars Casey Affleck, Michelle Williams, Lucas Hedges and Kyle Chandler. Affleck plays the part of Lee Chandler, a janitor who’s forced to return to his hometown to look after his teenage nephew when the boy’s father dies. He must confront a tragic past as he prepares to face his new responsibilities as a guardian.

Casey Affleck gives his subtlest performance yet and also his best since Gone Baby Gone. Michelle Williams plays Lee’s sassy, rumpled and no nonsense ex-wife Randi, and despite appearing in just a few scenes, conveys a caring and fragile character dealing with loss by pushing herself towards levity and cheerfulness.

Youngster Lucas Hedges is a revelation. Having already appeared in The Grand Budapest Hotel and Moonrise Kingdom, he’s endearing and earnest as the outgoing and selfish nephew Patrick, who’s on the hockey team, part of a band and with two girlfriends at the same time.

Manchester by the Sea is a tough watch. Affleck, who is pitifully vulnerable, expresses himself with subtle movements and gestures, hunching his shoulders with his hands in his pockets and a deadpan glare that tells of an in-

ner emptiness. The setting of the film is a wintry one, with tones of blue and white, flat skies and leaden waters that serve as metaphors for the character’s despair. But it also observes, with care and affection, the character of Lee, who thinks a renewed relationship with his nephew might somehow help change his perspective on life. Their combative yet affectionate scenes together pierce the gloominess that penetrates the film.

The film depicts Lee as a self-punishing, depressive loner working in a deadbeat job, living in a cruddy apartment in Boston going through the rituals of daily life, whether reheating a pizza or forgetting where he parked his car. Lee is broken and has a good excuse for hating life. That defines Affleck’s character and once the audience learns of it, they can understand his inclination to sabotage the task assigned to him. Affleck is subdued in his interpretation and doesn’t tell the audience what to feel, allowing us to read what we want into his silence.

The film is built around a series of long flashbacks that reveal confrontations and confessions which seem to consume the characters. Without passing judgement on what just happened, the audience is drawn in anticipation to what’s just around the bend, thanks to a clever script where the writing and dialogue is taut and tied together with a subtext that

slowly reveals itself. The grandeur and awfulness in the film makes the audience feel like it’s peeping through a window and eavesdropping on conversations not meant for them.

The film portrays the wreckage from a disaster that’s befallen the characters by making use of a very unconventional way of setting up its back-story. You find yourself watching the past without quite realizing it, as when you see Affleck who was once jovial with his friends and sported a messier hairstyle. The storytelling scatters crucial bits of plot information that are tied together later in the movie even as it develops the characters at its own pace.

Crafted, written and acted to invoke catharsis, the highlight of the film takes place on a street corner where Lee encounters Randi. They still feel for each other but are held apart by a tragic past. Randi confides in Lee, revealing that she knows his heart was broken, urging him to realize she forgives him. Paralyzed with bitterness, Lee is barely able to expresses himself as he holds back soft sobs, choking to her, “There is nothing there.” The audience discerns a layer of Lee’s sorrow and infers the source of his pain, which it may want to understand but not itself experience.

February 2017 THE BEAT 25

ART REVIEW

A Study in Contrast ROMITA MAJUMDAR views an exhibition of contemporary Bengali artists.

T

he Karnataka Chitrakala Parishath hosted contemporary artists from Bengal over the Republic Day weekend with works by Chandana Khan and Sunirmal Maiti on display. The collections are a study in contrast.

Maiti’s collection celebrates feminine moods in subtle ways, mostly through their deep and thoughtful eyes. While their attire is militarily stern bordering on the austere, the eyes speak volumes.

The lips do not have a hint of curve nor do wisps of hair stray across the face to invoke nymph-like charm. Yet, the eyes play, without crinkling or suggesting tears. They laugh, admire, mock, complain, hurt and hold on to a sense of selfrespect and independence all at once.

Most of Maiti’s exhibits consist of close-up watercolour portraits of women. There are a few surreal canvases of women day-dreaming to escape their mundane realities. But they don’t have the same impact as the portraits. The exposed pencil hatching on the subject’s skin provides a strong sense of texture. But when he paints anything other than close26 THE BEAT February 2017

ups, the textures seem to overwhelm the idea, giving them a blurred or faded look. As if the colour washed away. They have a hint of the Pahari style with a pronounced sideways glance.

Backgrounds in bold hues of red, green, blue are in stark contrast with the Spartan features. The canvases are mostly 40 by 30 cm in size with few variations. The only drawback was the absence of descriptions to identify the paintings.

Maiti’s art delves extensively into mythology and the emotional lives of eras gone by. His appreciation of the sublime past has a way of sprouting in unexpected forms on the canvas.

The tribal goddess, the rural belle or the working woman, they are all bound by the thread of a shared history. Moreover, his distinct love for vintage cinema peeks through the subtle Suchitra Sen-esque angle of the chin or the pursed lips reminiscent of Deepti Naval. The facial features are not conventionally Bengali. But the aesthetics, which remind one of film-maker Satyajit Ray’s female protagonists, betray their origin. Except one particular canvas which attempted

to capture the South-Indian audience by decking up the subject in tonnes of jewellery.

Khan’s collection celebrates nature in full bloom. The canvases are an explosion of butterflies, birds, forests and the cheerful light-headedness at the onset of spring. It is nature as chaos.

But it’s a joyful chaos, bordering on spiritual ecstasy. One of my personal favourites is one which depicts the young Buddha meditating in a forest.

His calmness spills into contentment as the wild envelops him.

The paintings are etched in a cornucopia of media and colours. It ranges from tempura to oil to rubber print and charcoal. She also uses a variety of techniques to add tumultuous textural variation to the canvas.

The strong jagged lines and rough surface of Khan’s paintings add to the

wilderness within. But the colours lull the viewer into a hypnotic trance. The visuals vary from canary yellows to loud lilacs and placid greens. Sometimes, the flora is conveyed more through a burst of shades rather than shapes. The charcoal streaks wander across the canvas untamed lending a playful charm.

Khan has been travelling all over the country to learn and include traditional tribal motifs which are reflected in her work. There is an over-arching presence of the arbor-vitae or Tree of Life in her art. It’s always there in the background like a patrician watching over the ensuing chaos below. The element of gold in some pieces could have been toned down as they tend to contradict the underlying organic mood of the art.

The canvases are large, meant to be centre pieces. As in Maiti’s case, Khan’s paintings also lacked identifying tags. It might have been deliberate, but it prevented the viewer from remembering their favourite pieces.

“The canvases are an explosion of butterflies, birds, forests and the cheerful light-headedness at the onset of spring. It is nature as chaos.”

COLOURS OF LIFE: Portraits by Sunirmal Maiti and floral motifs by Chandana Khan.

February 2017 THE BEAT 27

CINEMA

A Breath of Fresh Air

Modern day directors have dumped the stereotypes that have defined women in cinema, writes, MANASVINI PAUL.

A

t least in one respect, contemporary directors have become torchbearers of a cinematic revolution.Traditionally women in Indian cinema have been straightjacketed into domestic roles. She would either be cast as the manipulative mother, the submissive wife, the shunned widow or the unwed mother to be. Across all these cinematic roles ascribed to women there is a common characteristic: a lack of ambition, self-confidence and independence. It is this stereotype which is being challenged in the last decade’s mainstream Hindi cinema.

Irrespective of their priorities, family or career, new-age productions have cast women in roles of strength. The portrayal of women in cinema has made an ideological shift where her identity is no longer defined with respect to the man in the story. She is not limited to the stereotypical roles of a mother, a wife or a daughter-in-law in need of rescue but is increasingly being cast as a survivor. She who can trump all odds, is the new protagonist of the India cinema.

With characters like Raani from Queen, Ram Madhvani’s Neerja, and Dangal’s Geeta and Babita, directors have sought to portray women as strong, independent and fearless individuals.

Of course they have vulnerabilities.

It’s the story of a struggle to overcome them that that makes women stronger.

Queen is a story of self-discovery where Raani, the protagonist, is a heroine in the fullest sense of the word: someone who takes charge of her life and is willing to face whatever it might 28 THE BEAT February 2017

bring her. She’s plausible, down-toearth and eminently relatable. The movie begins with marriage being the ultimate goal for Raani, but steps away from the cliché as she sets out on a lone honeymoon after a heartbreak.

Queen is a classic example of a shift in the portrayal of women in Indian cinema as it sends Lisa Haydon to Raani’s aid rather than a Robin Hood. Where women have typically spelled distress for each other in Indian cinema, Haydon is breath of fresh air. She shakes Raani out of her self-pity and sets her off on a journey of self-realisation.

Just like Queen, Madhvani’s Neerja is another example of directorial finesse which disrupts the mould in which women have been cast. Neerja is the career-oriented protagonist of her story. Cast as a Pan American airways’ flight attendant, she embraces the role of a good samaritan when her flight is hijacked. Madhavani successfully beats the odds as he portrays Sonam Kapoor being the saviour which has been a male prerogative so far.

Neither Raani nor Neerja are utopian representations rather they are bold expressions of directorial vision and enterprise. Such experiments, that challenge the conventions of Indian cinema, have the potential to alter women’s lives.

They allow wom-

en not only to view themselves through a new lens but inspire them to work towards changing the reality of their lives.

The fact that they were commercially successful is of enormous significance.Because, while directors are initiators of the change and artistes are their comrades, the responsibility for sustaining this transformation lies with the audience.

We need to applaud the directors for boldly envisioning such roles and recognise the artistes for their invaluable contributions in realising this vision. But equally, we must acknowledge the role played by consumers of Indian cinema in bringing about this transformative disruption.

Audiences need to be acknowledged as they not only make these cinematic enterprises financially viable but are also the source of directorial inspiration. Cinema has always been a two-way process. While the new cinematic representations could inspire audiences to reimagine and reform their lives, their example might one day inspire another Queen.

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Arrival Hidden Figures La La LAnd Hacksaw Ridge Fences Hell Or High Water Manchester By The Sea Moonlight

COSTUME DESIGN

Allied Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them Florence Foster Jenkins Jackie La La Land

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VISUAL EFFECTS

Deepwater Horizon Doctor Strange The Jungle Book Kubo And The Two Strings Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

MUSIC (ORIGINAL SCORE)

Jackie (Mica Levi) La La Land (Justin Hurwitz) Lion (Dustin O’Halloran and Hauschka) Moonlight (Nicholas Britell) Passengers (Thomas Newman)

BEST ACTOR

Casey Affleck (Manchester By The Sea) Andrew Garfield (Hacksaw Ridge) Ryan Gosling (La La Land) Viggo Mortensen (Captain Fantastic) Denzel Washington (Fences)

BEST ACTRESS

Isabelle Huppert (Elle) Ruth Negga (Loving) Natalie Portman (Jackie) Emma Stone (La La Land) Meryl Streep (Florence Foster Jenkins)

BEST ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

Mahershala Ali (Moonlight) Jeff Bridges (Hell Or High Water) Lucas Hedges (Manchester By The Sea) Dev Patel (Lion) Michael Shannon (Nocturnal Animals)

BEST ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

Viola Davis (Fences) Naomi Harris (Moonlight) Nicole Kidman (Lion) Octavia Spencer (Hidden Figures) Michelle Williams (Manchester By The Sea)

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY Arrival La La Land Lion Silence Moonlight

THE BEAT February 2017

PHOTO: Cherry Agarwal