By BIMAN MUKHERJI and SWANSY AFONSO
NEW DELHI -- India will import 25 to 30 metric tons of gold in April after no imports in the last two months, the president of the Bombay Bullion Association said Friday.
Suresh Hundia said around 10 tons of gold have already been imported this month.
India, which imports around 700 to 800 tons of gold annually, had virtually halted purchases as consumers weren't willing to buy because of high prices.
But prices have been falling globally as a revival in equities markets has prompted many investors to shift out of gold.
Friday, pure spot gold in Mumbai was quoted at 14,160 rupees ($285) per 10 grams, down sharply from 15,725 rupees/10 grams at the beginning of March.
"Although there has been some improvement in physical demand compared with a month ago, it is still around 50% below that of last year," said Daman Prakash, director with trading house MNC Bullion.
He said that initially when prices started declining, big purchases were witnessed, but buying has slowed.
However, with marriages and Akshaya Trithya around the corner, he expects demand to pick up again.
The Hindu festival of Akshaya Trithya, at the end of the month, is considered an auspicious occasion to buy gold, and sales usually surge.
"We could import around 30-35 tons of gold this month," he added.
"Demand from jewelry manufacturers has risen to 150 to 200 kg on a daily basis in Ahmedabad after the fall in prices to 14,000 rupees levels," said Girish Choksi, a bullion trader
At the 15,000 rupees/10 gram level, demand was around 20 kg, he said, adding that as long as prices are below 14,500 rupees, demand will be good.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Incomplete Reform Agenda Is India's Elephant in the Room
By PAUL BECKETT
Whichever government comes to power in India on June 2, it will be handed, in effect, a very fat folder marked "Unfinished Reform Agenda."
By almost every realistic scenario for how the next government will be formed, that folder is likely to be overlooked, to the frustration and detriment of long-term investors.
Many of those needed changes -- in foreign-investment rules, labor laws, pensions and further privatization of certain industries -- have been on ice for several years because the Congress Party-led government was hamstrung by its left-wing allies.
Even after the Left Front bolted the coalition last summer, because it opposed the U.S.-India nuclear deal, hopeful talk that the government might slip through a few measures before the end of its term basically came to naught.
A new government led by the Congress Party will hardly fare much better. The dire global economic environment and the quasinationalization of financial services in Western countries gives left-wing antireformers in the party all the firepower they need to nix efforts to revive reform measures.
Meanwhile, Congress's key rival, the Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, is expected to garner even fewer seats than Congress. So any coalition it forms will be weaker.
There is a less-likely third scenario: a coalition government formed by neither of the national parties but most likely including the Left Front. To this group, market-oriented change is taboo.
True, India is faring better than much of the world, in part because it hasn't thrown open its economy. With global investors less fearful these days, the country's stocks are up 27% in the past month.
But it is worth remembering that even during its best years recently, India's economy effectively maxed out at around 8% annual growth, despite its capacity to expand much faster on a long-term basis. Failure to act on reforms -- especially in increasing employer flexibility and allowing greater foreign investment in retail, banking, media and real estate -- risks consigning India to the status of a nation that is permanently on the verge of realizing its potential.
That would make it a less appealing investment.
Not everyone is pessimistic. Chengalath Jayaram, executive director of Kotak Mahindra Bank, says any new government that doesn't involve the Left Front has a chance at enacting some reforms to keep the liberalization moving slowly forward.
He uses the analogy of a lumbering elephant: It isn't fast, but "once it moves in a particular direction, it rarely reverses course."
Fair enough, but once it stops, it also is very hard to get moving again.
Whichever government comes to power in India on June 2, it will be handed, in effect, a very fat folder marked "Unfinished Reform Agenda."
By almost every realistic scenario for how the next government will be formed, that folder is likely to be overlooked, to the frustration and detriment of long-term investors.
Many of those needed changes -- in foreign-investment rules, labor laws, pensions and further privatization of certain industries -- have been on ice for several years because the Congress Party-led government was hamstrung by its left-wing allies.
Even after the Left Front bolted the coalition last summer, because it opposed the U.S.-India nuclear deal, hopeful talk that the government might slip through a few measures before the end of its term basically came to naught.
A new government led by the Congress Party will hardly fare much better. The dire global economic environment and the quasinationalization of financial services in Western countries gives left-wing antireformers in the party all the firepower they need to nix efforts to revive reform measures.
Meanwhile, Congress's key rival, the Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, is expected to garner even fewer seats than Congress. So any coalition it forms will be weaker.
There is a less-likely third scenario: a coalition government formed by neither of the national parties but most likely including the Left Front. To this group, market-oriented change is taboo.
True, India is faring better than much of the world, in part because it hasn't thrown open its economy. With global investors less fearful these days, the country's stocks are up 27% in the past month.
But it is worth remembering that even during its best years recently, India's economy effectively maxed out at around 8% annual growth, despite its capacity to expand much faster on a long-term basis. Failure to act on reforms -- especially in increasing employer flexibility and allowing greater foreign investment in retail, banking, media and real estate -- risks consigning India to the status of a nation that is permanently on the verge of realizing its potential.
That would make it a less appealing investment.
Not everyone is pessimistic. Chengalath Jayaram, executive director of Kotak Mahindra Bank, says any new government that doesn't involve the Left Front has a chance at enacting some reforms to keep the liberalization moving slowly forward.
He uses the analogy of a lumbering elephant: It isn't fast, but "once it moves in a particular direction, it rarely reverses course."
Fair enough, but once it stops, it also is very hard to get moving again.
India May Receive Near Normal Rains, Driving Growth
April 17 (Bloomberg) -- India’s monsoon, critical to the country’s $1.2 trillion economy, will probably be near normal, helping counter the slowest economic growth in six years.
Rains in the June-September rainy season may be 96 percent of the 50-year average, the New Delhi-based India Meteorological Department said. The forecast is among the most widely watched indicator because the country’s 235 million farmers represent about a fifth of its economy.
Adequate rainfall will help sustain the record 4.3 percent average growth in farm output Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has presided over since 2005, raising incomes among the 742 million Indians who live in the countryside. That may help the Congress party-led government, seeking re-election in polls that started yesterday, to fight the slowest growth since March 2003.
“It’s good news coming amid a plethora of bad ones,” said Sonal Varma, a Mumbai-based economist at Nomura Securities Ltd. “The country definitely needs strong rural demand to boost the economy and good rains hold the key to a higher farm output.”
India, the world’s second-biggest grower of rice and wheat, depends on the June-September rains to water its farms because about 60 percent of arable land isn’t irrigated. Farmers rely on the timing of the monsoon to decide which crops to grow. The season typically starts on June 1.
Shares of fertilizer makers and producers of farm chemicals gained in Mumbai. Coromandel Fertilisers Ltd. added 6.5 percent to 106.65 rupees, Chambal Fertilizers and Chemicals Ltd. climbed 0.6 percent to 44.8 rupees and Rallis India Ltd., a producer of hybrid seeds and pesticides, rose 3.5 percent to 547.65.
Turn Around
Premier Singh told editors in New Delhi on April 15 that he expects the economy to begin turning around in September and that, if returned to power, would strive to achieve economic growth of 9 percent to 10 percent. India’s five-phase polls end on May 13, with counting of votes set for May 16.
Asia’s third-biggest economy may have grown at less than 7 percent in the year ended March 31. Gross domestic product may expand by about 6.5 percent in the year started April 1 as the global recession cools exports and saps consumer demand, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, deputy chairman of India’s Planning Commission, said yesterday. Overseas sales make up 15 percent of the economy.
“I don’t think the monsoon will be huge boost because the macro factors are weighing heavily on the economy,” said Bharat K. Rekapalli, a director with Global Financial Markets in the southern city of Hyderabad. “People will wait 30-40 days for a more accurate picture about the monsoon.”
Long-Period Average
Actual rainfall can be five percent more or less than the forecast, the bureau said. It considers rains to be near normal if they are between 96 and 104 percent of the long-range average. Today’s forecast will be updated in June, the bureau said.
Last year, rains were 98 percent of the long-range average, compared with a forecast of 100 percent. In 2007, showers were forecast to be 93 percent of the average, and actual showers were 105 percent of the mean.
The weather agency uses experimental forecasts prepared by agencies including the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology and the Centre for Mathematical Modelling & Computer Simulation, and estimates from overseas agencies such as the U.S.-based National Centers for Environmental Prediction and International Research Institute for Climate and Society.
Rains in the June-September rainy season may be 96 percent of the 50-year average, the New Delhi-based India Meteorological Department said. The forecast is among the most widely watched indicator because the country’s 235 million farmers represent about a fifth of its economy.
Adequate rainfall will help sustain the record 4.3 percent average growth in farm output Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has presided over since 2005, raising incomes among the 742 million Indians who live in the countryside. That may help the Congress party-led government, seeking re-election in polls that started yesterday, to fight the slowest growth since March 2003.
“It’s good news coming amid a plethora of bad ones,” said Sonal Varma, a Mumbai-based economist at Nomura Securities Ltd. “The country definitely needs strong rural demand to boost the economy and good rains hold the key to a higher farm output.”
India, the world’s second-biggest grower of rice and wheat, depends on the June-September rains to water its farms because about 60 percent of arable land isn’t irrigated. Farmers rely on the timing of the monsoon to decide which crops to grow. The season typically starts on June 1.
Shares of fertilizer makers and producers of farm chemicals gained in Mumbai. Coromandel Fertilisers Ltd. added 6.5 percent to 106.65 rupees, Chambal Fertilizers and Chemicals Ltd. climbed 0.6 percent to 44.8 rupees and Rallis India Ltd., a producer of hybrid seeds and pesticides, rose 3.5 percent to 547.65.
Turn Around
Premier Singh told editors in New Delhi on April 15 that he expects the economy to begin turning around in September and that, if returned to power, would strive to achieve economic growth of 9 percent to 10 percent. India’s five-phase polls end on May 13, with counting of votes set for May 16.
Asia’s third-biggest economy may have grown at less than 7 percent in the year ended March 31. Gross domestic product may expand by about 6.5 percent in the year started April 1 as the global recession cools exports and saps consumer demand, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, deputy chairman of India’s Planning Commission, said yesterday. Overseas sales make up 15 percent of the economy.
“I don’t think the monsoon will be huge boost because the macro factors are weighing heavily on the economy,” said Bharat K. Rekapalli, a director with Global Financial Markets in the southern city of Hyderabad. “People will wait 30-40 days for a more accurate picture about the monsoon.”
Long-Period Average
Actual rainfall can be five percent more or less than the forecast, the bureau said. It considers rains to be near normal if they are between 96 and 104 percent of the long-range average. Today’s forecast will be updated in June, the bureau said.
Last year, rains were 98 percent of the long-range average, compared with a forecast of 100 percent. In 2007, showers were forecast to be 93 percent of the average, and actual showers were 105 percent of the mean.
The weather agency uses experimental forecasts prepared by agencies including the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology and the Centre for Mathematical Modelling & Computer Simulation, and estimates from overseas agencies such as the U.S.-based National Centers for Environmental Prediction and International Research Institute for Climate and Society.
MIND SET Manifesto for our youth Young people must not retreat into cynicism or despair. India’s soul longs for change and its own ‘yes, we can’ gener
Every society is like a ragged army, with some parts running ahead and others lagging behind. In the case of India, a handful of farsighted leaders broke the socialist, isolationist mould to allow India to join the free market. But much lags behind.
The opening for a young people's movement cannot be denied. The question is how to take advantage of this opening.
What I see is idealism tempered by caution. Young people are restless, but they also realize that the old kind of activism (angry protests, labour stoppages, class warfare, etc) does not work in the long run. Moral outrage is still rage. In Cambodia and Burma, Asia has witnessed the horrendous results of morally certain leaders losing their humanity.
On a positive note, the young people I meet are eager to accept that a shift in consciousness is possible. What better country than India to foster such a belief ? Alone in the world, India has been a society where shifts in collective consciousness created enormous change without mass violence. It would be a betrayal of our heritage to add more anger to what already exists in the world.
How, then, can the future be shaped on the basis of consciousness? Several realizations must occur before it can happen:
A shift in consciousness is the most powerful way to create change: This realization will guide a new leadership to first seek personal transformation. The current leadership’s stagnation is rooted in routine, habit, inertia, and class pride. These are all the result of a stagnant consciousness. No one can hope to bring about change with reform or revolution applied from the outside. If we want new wine in new bottles, the consciousness of aspiring leaders must shift.
The role of a leader is to guide a shift that is already occurring:
No one is being asked to invent a new Indian identity — it is already being born. We don't need a new ideology. That route was tragically tested in the 20th century by c o m m u n i s m , fascism, Maoism and other toxic isms. Instead, the young people who will lead are the ones with sensitive antennae, the ones who can sense where the collective consciousness wants to go. That has been Barack Obama's secret and the need he sensed - for more freedom, democratic participation, idealism, and hope for the future - applies to consciousness everywhere.
A new type of activism is needed: Sacred activism is love in action. Love without action is irrelevant. Action without love is meaningless. Our youth must galvanize into leaders who turn love into its most practical products: relationship-building, creative problemsolving and service.
India gained independence under the guidance and inspiration of statesmen, visionaries and philosophers — Nehru, Vallabhai Patel, Gandhi, Radhakrishnan, Tagore, Aurobindo and many others. They were luminaries who considered themselves servants and stewards of civil society. British colonialism and its injustices were the impetus.
Today, the impetus is harder to label and nowhere as visible as a foreign occupation. We must be motivated by looking at ourselves. Jiddu Krishnamurti used to say that the violence in every person was the cause of war. He underlined the words ‘every person’ because he meant each one of us, not just those who openly foment violence.
As we are, so is the world. This spiritual dictum cannot be ignored or bypassed.
Therefore, youth must not retreat to the arrogance of youth, just as it must not retreat into the despair of youth or the cynicism of youth. Instead, the most basic and simple questions must be asked in the privacy of one’s awareness:
• What in me is the cause of the problems I see in the world?
• What change in me can bring about the change I want to see?
We need a revival of true leadership based on self-awareness. People are tired of power-mongering, influence-peddling, cronyism, corruption and bureaucracy. India is regrettably mired in all of these things.
The opening for a young people's movement cannot be denied. The question is how to take advantage of this opening.
What I see is idealism tempered by caution. Young people are restless, but they also realize that the old kind of activism (angry protests, labour stoppages, class warfare, etc) does not work in the long run. Moral outrage is still rage. In Cambodia and Burma, Asia has witnessed the horrendous results of morally certain leaders losing their humanity.
On a positive note, the young people I meet are eager to accept that a shift in consciousness is possible. What better country than India to foster such a belief ? Alone in the world, India has been a society where shifts in collective consciousness created enormous change without mass violence. It would be a betrayal of our heritage to add more anger to what already exists in the world.
How, then, can the future be shaped on the basis of consciousness? Several realizations must occur before it can happen:
A shift in consciousness is the most powerful way to create change: This realization will guide a new leadership to first seek personal transformation. The current leadership’s stagnation is rooted in routine, habit, inertia, and class pride. These are all the result of a stagnant consciousness. No one can hope to bring about change with reform or revolution applied from the outside. If we want new wine in new bottles, the consciousness of aspiring leaders must shift.
The role of a leader is to guide a shift that is already occurring:
No one is being asked to invent a new Indian identity — it is already being born. We don't need a new ideology. That route was tragically tested in the 20th century by c o m m u n i s m , fascism, Maoism and other toxic isms. Instead, the young people who will lead are the ones with sensitive antennae, the ones who can sense where the collective consciousness wants to go. That has been Barack Obama's secret and the need he sensed - for more freedom, democratic participation, idealism, and hope for the future - applies to consciousness everywhere.
A new type of activism is needed: Sacred activism is love in action. Love without action is irrelevant. Action without love is meaningless. Our youth must galvanize into leaders who turn love into its most practical products: relationship-building, creative problemsolving and service.
India gained independence under the guidance and inspiration of statesmen, visionaries and philosophers — Nehru, Vallabhai Patel, Gandhi, Radhakrishnan, Tagore, Aurobindo and many others. They were luminaries who considered themselves servants and stewards of civil society. British colonialism and its injustices were the impetus.
Today, the impetus is harder to label and nowhere as visible as a foreign occupation. We must be motivated by looking at ourselves. Jiddu Krishnamurti used to say that the violence in every person was the cause of war. He underlined the words ‘every person’ because he meant each one of us, not just those who openly foment violence.
As we are, so is the world. This spiritual dictum cannot be ignored or bypassed.
Therefore, youth must not retreat to the arrogance of youth, just as it must not retreat into the despair of youth or the cynicism of youth. Instead, the most basic and simple questions must be asked in the privacy of one’s awareness:
• What in me is the cause of the problems I see in the world?
• What change in me can bring about the change I want to see?
We need a revival of true leadership based on self-awareness. People are tired of power-mongering, influence-peddling, cronyism, corruption and bureaucracy. India is regrettably mired in all of these things.
Hamara Shakespeare lives on in India’s heartland
Shakespeare has made inroads into India’s vast tribal belt. His works are being translated into tribal dialects. In Jharkhand and Orissa, a Santhali translation of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ is doing well. One-fifth of the 1,000 copies published in 2008 sold in just two months. Likewise, ‘Maya ke Rang’, a Chhattisgarhi translation of the play. Tribals in the state’s Korba district are enthusiastic, believing this, the first Chhattisgarhi translation of a Shakespeare play, is their gateway to English literature. Or so says Mahavir Prasad Chandra, who translated the play even as he did his day job as an operator in the R&D department of Bharat Aluminium Company Ltd.
Poonam Trivedi, who has co-edited ‘India’s Shakespeare: Translation, Interpretation and Performance’ with Dennis Bartholomeusz, agrees that the Bard is now “very much a part of Indian heritage. We have made him our own.”
Trivedi’s book highlights the Bard’s unique connection with India today. ‘The Taming of the Shrew’, says Trivedi, was the first Shakespearean play to be translated into Gujarati. It was performed in Surat as early as 1852.
Shakespeare scholars agree that reinterpreted and localized versions of his plays have made the Bard acceptable right across India. Bollywood has famously done it time and again, notably Gulzar’s ‘Angoor’, which was based on ‘A Comedy of Errors’ and more recently Vishal Bharadwaj’s ‘Omkara’, which was based on ‘Othello’.
Regional theatre has also helped to Indianize the Bard of Avon. A notable example is thespian Habib Tanvir’s Hindi adaptation of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’. It was titled ‘Kamdeo ka Apna, Vasant Ritu ka Sapna’ (1993) and was an improvisation that incorporated Indian theatrical forms such as nautanki. The cast was Chhattisgarhi. Some of these Indian avatars of Shakespeare do exceedingly well. In Kolhapur in the early 90s, ‘Raja Lear’, a Marathi adaptation by poet Vrinda Nabar, played to packed houses.
Marathi theatre director Vijay Kenkre, who has adapted many of the Bard’s plays, says they are often successful because the common man does not find it hard to identify with the stories. The universality of the stories keeps them relevant and contemporary, nearly five centuries after his death. Mumbai-based playwright Ramu Ramanathan, who recently staged ‘Shakespeare and She’, compares the work of the English Bard to the ‘Ramayana’ and ‘Mahabharata’. “Shakespeare is a bit like that. His stories are told and retold and nobody ever gets tired of them. The characters are eternal and that’s why it’s easy to locate them in any situation,” he says.
That must explain the extraordinary success in Mizoram of a production of ‘Hamlet’ by an amateur theatre group. It was a roaring hit. Audio cassettes of the play sold in large numbers. It was a phenomenon that Pankaj Butalia would go on to capture in his 1989 documentary ‘When Hamlet Came to Mizoram’.
Alyque Padamsee, who has directed eight Shakespearean plays, says the Bard’s imagery “grabs the imagination of a director whether in Colaba or Chhattisgarh.”
Small wonder that phrases like a ‘pound of flesh’, ‘what’s in a name’, ‘to be or not to be’ and play titles such as ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ and ‘As You Like It’, have become part of our daily vocabulary. It is not just Indian English but other vernacular languages too that borrow heavily from Shakespeare, sometimes without even knowing the source. K V Narayana, senior fellow at Mysore’s Central Institute of Indian Languages, says, “In Kannada poetry, sonnets were introduced after reading Shakespeare. Similarly, the idea of a black Moor marrying a white woman came from him.”
Several Shakespearean sub-plots have passed into Bollywood without reference to the Bard. The heroine in male disguise, a la ‘The Merchant of Venice’ and young lovers caught between warring families (‘Romeo and Juliet’) regularly feature in Indian cinema. Trivedi, who teaches English at Indraprastha College in Delhi, says, “These motifs have become so much a part of our lives, that not everybody can catch them or even realize where they are coming from.”
The extent of India’s acceptance of ‘Hamara Shakespeare’ can be gauged from the fact that a major thoroughfare in the heart of Kolkata is called Shakespeare Sarani. Padamsee concludes, “He is 500 years old but still alive and kicking.”
THE BARD IN BHARAT
Jungle Me Mangal | A Marathi theatrical adaptation of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ in tamasha form
Kaliyattam | A Malayalam film based on ‘Othello’. It uses the theatrical tradition of Kaliyattam
Maranayaka Drishtanta | A Kannada adaptation of ‘Macbeth’, performed by the inmates of Mysore jail
Gunasundari Katha | Noted Telugu film director K V Reddi adapted ‘King Lear’ using the folklore format
Nanjudi Kalyana | Kannada film director M S Rajashekar set ‘The Taming of the Shrew’ in modern Karnataka
Bhranti Bilas | Bengali superstar Uttam Kumar starred in this 1963 hit film based on ‘The Comedy of Errors’
Poonam Trivedi, who has co-edited ‘India’s Shakespeare: Translation, Interpretation and Performance’ with Dennis Bartholomeusz, agrees that the Bard is now “very much a part of Indian heritage. We have made him our own.”
Trivedi’s book highlights the Bard’s unique connection with India today. ‘The Taming of the Shrew’, says Trivedi, was the first Shakespearean play to be translated into Gujarati. It was performed in Surat as early as 1852.
Shakespeare scholars agree that reinterpreted and localized versions of his plays have made the Bard acceptable right across India. Bollywood has famously done it time and again, notably Gulzar’s ‘Angoor’, which was based on ‘A Comedy of Errors’ and more recently Vishal Bharadwaj’s ‘Omkara’, which was based on ‘Othello’.
Regional theatre has also helped to Indianize the Bard of Avon. A notable example is thespian Habib Tanvir’s Hindi adaptation of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’. It was titled ‘Kamdeo ka Apna, Vasant Ritu ka Sapna’ (1993) and was an improvisation that incorporated Indian theatrical forms such as nautanki. The cast was Chhattisgarhi. Some of these Indian avatars of Shakespeare do exceedingly well. In Kolhapur in the early 90s, ‘Raja Lear’, a Marathi adaptation by poet Vrinda Nabar, played to packed houses.
Marathi theatre director Vijay Kenkre, who has adapted many of the Bard’s plays, says they are often successful because the common man does not find it hard to identify with the stories. The universality of the stories keeps them relevant and contemporary, nearly five centuries after his death. Mumbai-based playwright Ramu Ramanathan, who recently staged ‘Shakespeare and She’, compares the work of the English Bard to the ‘Ramayana’ and ‘Mahabharata’. “Shakespeare is a bit like that. His stories are told and retold and nobody ever gets tired of them. The characters are eternal and that’s why it’s easy to locate them in any situation,” he says.
That must explain the extraordinary success in Mizoram of a production of ‘Hamlet’ by an amateur theatre group. It was a roaring hit. Audio cassettes of the play sold in large numbers. It was a phenomenon that Pankaj Butalia would go on to capture in his 1989 documentary ‘When Hamlet Came to Mizoram’.
Alyque Padamsee, who has directed eight Shakespearean plays, says the Bard’s imagery “grabs the imagination of a director whether in Colaba or Chhattisgarh.”
Small wonder that phrases like a ‘pound of flesh’, ‘what’s in a name’, ‘to be or not to be’ and play titles such as ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ and ‘As You Like It’, have become part of our daily vocabulary. It is not just Indian English but other vernacular languages too that borrow heavily from Shakespeare, sometimes without even knowing the source. K V Narayana, senior fellow at Mysore’s Central Institute of Indian Languages, says, “In Kannada poetry, sonnets were introduced after reading Shakespeare. Similarly, the idea of a black Moor marrying a white woman came from him.”
Several Shakespearean sub-plots have passed into Bollywood without reference to the Bard. The heroine in male disguise, a la ‘The Merchant of Venice’ and young lovers caught between warring families (‘Romeo and Juliet’) regularly feature in Indian cinema. Trivedi, who teaches English at Indraprastha College in Delhi, says, “These motifs have become so much a part of our lives, that not everybody can catch them or even realize where they are coming from.”
The extent of India’s acceptance of ‘Hamara Shakespeare’ can be gauged from the fact that a major thoroughfare in the heart of Kolkata is called Shakespeare Sarani. Padamsee concludes, “He is 500 years old but still alive and kicking.”
THE BARD IN BHARAT
Jungle Me Mangal | A Marathi theatrical adaptation of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ in tamasha form
Kaliyattam | A Malayalam film based on ‘Othello’. It uses the theatrical tradition of Kaliyattam
Maranayaka Drishtanta | A Kannada adaptation of ‘Macbeth’, performed by the inmates of Mysore jail
Gunasundari Katha | Noted Telugu film director K V Reddi adapted ‘King Lear’ using the folklore format
Nanjudi Kalyana | Kannada film director M S Rajashekar set ‘The Taming of the Shrew’ in modern Karnataka
Bhranti Bilas | Bengali superstar Uttam Kumar starred in this 1963 hit film based on ‘The Comedy of Errors’
3 IIM-C grads manage BJP’s poll strategies
Kolkata: If you thought Bschool and the BJP don’t go together, think again: at least three IIM-Calcutta graduates are applying their management wizardry to strengthen the saffron stock.
The three are either pursuing political internship or volunteering for the BJP in Mumbai and Delhi. What’s more, none is ruling out an active involvement in politics in future. “If not a fulltime career, I may end up in politics in the future,’’ says Ankur Gattani, a 2008 graduate who runs his own business in Mumbai. “I will have enough in my kitty before I take a plunge into active politics. Moreover, even if parties don’t pay a salary, they take care of a lot of your necessities,’’ Gattani, who is looking after the party’s IT cell in Maharashtra, said.
The three are not fighting the polls, instead they are involved in assisting the party leadership in wooing voters, especially the youth.
Harsh Vardhan Chhaparia has been a member of L K Advani’s communication team at 26 Tughlaq Road. “I research for him, prepare press releases and help in updating the party’s website,’’ Harsh says. The party has found him a bungalow, which he shares with BJP national secretary Sudhendra Kulkarni.
Shubham Singal writes articles and does research work for the BJP website. “In it, we clarify the baseless remarks made against the party. If BJP leaders have been misquoted, we try and set the record straight,’’ Singal says. He believes that in future he might take a sabbatical and contest the polls as an Independent, much like Meera Sanyal, ex-ABN AMRO Bank CEO who is contesting from the Mumbai South seat. These young B-school grads feel that the lack of financial stability is the root of politicians turning corrupt.
SAFFRON SHINING: Ankur (top) runs a business in Mumbai besides looking after the party’s IT cell, while Harsh Vardhan is a member of Advani’s communication team
The three are either pursuing political internship or volunteering for the BJP in Mumbai and Delhi. What’s more, none is ruling out an active involvement in politics in future. “If not a fulltime career, I may end up in politics in the future,’’ says Ankur Gattani, a 2008 graduate who runs his own business in Mumbai. “I will have enough in my kitty before I take a plunge into active politics. Moreover, even if parties don’t pay a salary, they take care of a lot of your necessities,’’ Gattani, who is looking after the party’s IT cell in Maharashtra, said.
The three are not fighting the polls, instead they are involved in assisting the party leadership in wooing voters, especially the youth.
Harsh Vardhan Chhaparia has been a member of L K Advani’s communication team at 26 Tughlaq Road. “I research for him, prepare press releases and help in updating the party’s website,’’ Harsh says. The party has found him a bungalow, which he shares with BJP national secretary Sudhendra Kulkarni.
Shubham Singal writes articles and does research work for the BJP website. “In it, we clarify the baseless remarks made against the party. If BJP leaders have been misquoted, we try and set the record straight,’’ Singal says. He believes that in future he might take a sabbatical and contest the polls as an Independent, much like Meera Sanyal, ex-ABN AMRO Bank CEO who is contesting from the Mumbai South seat. These young B-school grads feel that the lack of financial stability is the root of politicians turning corrupt.
SAFFRON SHINING: Ankur (top) runs a business in Mumbai besides looking after the party’s IT cell, while Harsh Vardhan is a member of Advani’s communication team
Obama picks Indian as US’ first chief tech officer
Washington: US President Barack Obama on Saturday named a Harvardeducated Indian-American to the new post of Chief Technology Officer in an appointment muchawaited by Silicon Valley.
As the country’s first Chief Technology Officer, Aneesh Chopra, 36, will use technology to “improve security, ensure transparency, and lower costs’’, Obama said in his weekly address to the nation.
“In this role, Aneesh will promote technological innovation to help achieve our most urgent priorities—from creating jobs and reducing healthcare costs to keeping our nation secure,’’ the President added.
Chopra, whose background is in health policy, has served as secretary of technology for Virginia. He earned his undergraduate degree from
Johns Hopkins University and a masters in public policy from Harvard University.
Obama said Chopra would work closely with Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra, who’s responsible for setting technology policy and federal technology spending, which amounts to over $70 billion a year.
The appointment of the relatively unknown Chopra came as something of a surprise in technology circles, where speculation over the past three months had focused on more high-profile candidates. Microsoft’s Bill Gates, Google’s Eric Schmidt and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos were among the top vote-getters in a poll for the best candidate in a tech blog.
Aneesh Chopra, US’ Chief Technology Officer (top), and Vivek Kundra, his information counterpart
As the country’s first Chief Technology Officer, Aneesh Chopra, 36, will use technology to “improve security, ensure transparency, and lower costs’’, Obama said in his weekly address to the nation.
“In this role, Aneesh will promote technological innovation to help achieve our most urgent priorities—from creating jobs and reducing healthcare costs to keeping our nation secure,’’ the President added.
Chopra, whose background is in health policy, has served as secretary of technology for Virginia. He earned his undergraduate degree from
Johns Hopkins University and a masters in public policy from Harvard University.
Obama said Chopra would work closely with Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra, who’s responsible for setting technology policy and federal technology spending, which amounts to over $70 billion a year.
The appointment of the relatively unknown Chopra came as something of a surprise in technology circles, where speculation over the past three months had focused on more high-profile candidates. Microsoft’s Bill Gates, Google’s Eric Schmidt and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos were among the top vote-getters in a poll for the best candidate in a tech blog.
Aneesh Chopra, US’ Chief Technology Officer (top), and Vivek Kundra, his information counterpart
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