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Monday, 11 March 2019
Protest fails to make waves; Mumbai's coastal road stays on course
The civic body should look to develop an extended sea link from Worli to Marine Drive, instead of reclaiming the sea. We want maximum Mumbaiites to join the protest.' Fishermen, too, have joined in. 'In December, BMC commissioner Ajoy Mehta had promised that a committee comprising fishermen and experts would be formed to look into our issues. The reclamation at Worli is destroying the fish breeding sites,' said Damodar Tandel, president, Akhil Maharashtra Machimar Kriti Samiti, adding, 'The report from the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute, which is vital to gauge the extent of environmental damage, is awaited.' The reclaimed land at Girgaum Chowpatty will be used to launch the shaft for the tunnel-boring machine. 'The civic body has placed an order for the machine, and it is expected to arrive by September. We will take up to three months to put the machine together. Construction of the tunnel will start by January 2020,' said a senior civic officer of the coastal road department. 'The BMC has got all relevant permissions and no-objection letters from the environment ministry. We have got 18 permissions, the last one in May 2017. We have ensured no breeding spots are destroyed. The coastal road will not require private land. To avoid traffic congestion, we move trucks only at night.' Dailyhunthttps://www.mobypicture.com/user/sikendergunm
Thursday, 7 March 2019
4 missing Karnataka Congress MLAs return after several weeks
They had been absent from the budget session of the state assembly as well. It was called to take stock of the Congress's strength amid speculation that some legislators were about to resign from the party and in the process of destabilising the coalition government of the Congress and Janata Dal (Secular). Jarkiholi came back to Bengaluru on Tuesday night, news agency ANI reported. 'I have small issues with my party leaders. There was some miscommunication. I was not satisfied with some of the party decisions. As this is a budget session, I have come back,' Kumathali was quoted as saying by ANI. Jarkiholi and Mahesh Kumathahalli, who were untraceable for the past few weeks, wrote to former chief minister Siddaramaiah earlier in January to reiterate their loyalty to the party after they were sent notices for failing to attend a meeting of the CLP. 'The BJP led them astray from their path. Now they have realised that the path they had chosen was a wrong on, and that they will have to suffer on that path. They have now returned home,' Karnataka minister Zameer Ahmed Khan said, according to ANI. 'Now, the party high command will decide. The decision to disqualify them has been taken in the CLP meeting. We have given a letter to the Governor already,' Khan said. Khan was referring to the Congress's tough stand on the four leaders, who have said they will not be able to attend the 10-day budget session and also skipped a legislature party meeting. Their prolonged absence appears to have emboldened the BJP and sparked fresh speculations over the future of the ruling alliance. Similarly, Janata Dal(Secular) leader KC Narayana Gowda reiterated he was being treated for food poisoning in a hospital after speculation over his political move following his absence from the assembly session in Karnataka. 'The BJP can't and never purchase me. If I want I can bring 10 BJP MLAs. I was admitted in hospital after food poisoning, I have the hospital bills. There will be some internal issues inside the party and we'll clear it as usual,' Narayana Gowda said, according to news agency ANI. Reports had said Gowda was not happy with chief minister HD Kumaraswamy for ignoring his constituency Krishnarajpet. The Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have been levelling accusations at each other of poaching legislators in Karnataka where the former, in partnership with the Janata Dal (Secular), runs the state with a majority of seven seats. Dailyhunthttps://zeef.com/profile/mahidhar.raj
India's search for meaning
As Kapil Kapoor, a fine scholar of Indian knowledge systems, once remarked pithily, "Dharma is the one-word unwritten constitution of India." In other words, it would be a serious mistake to equate dharma with "religion". India's two epics, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, whose central purpose is to expound and discuss dharma, are not, in that sense, religious texts. Sharing the same purpose are texts on governance, warfare, administration, the collections of wise sayings called Subhashitas, or even historical chronicles such as Rajatarangini, as the historian of Kashmir Shonaleeka Kaul brilliantly demonstrated in a recent work. So is it with traditional historical or semi-historical ballads still sung across India, such as the rasas of Gujarat and Rajasthan, which do not stop at praising a noble ruler or narrating some military campaign or heroic deed, but go on to draw moral lessons that reaffirm dharma as the one cement of society. From this mass of literature in all languages of India, it would appear that dharma is the be-all and end-all of our human quest. Yet India's search for meaning, if I may adapt the title of Viktor Frankl's celebrated and poignant psychological study on Nazi concentration camps, refused to stop anywhere. The Bhagavad Gita is a case in point; at the start of the Great War, Arjuna, asking what purpose will be served by all the impending bloodshed, in effect preaches ahimsa, albeit without the word. His charioteer, Krishna, at first reminds him of his swadharma (or specific duty) as a warrior, then proceeds with his sublime teaching on the nature of the human soul and the need to renounce all attachments-not to action, but to its fruits, to ego and its whole pathology. Chapter after chapter, concisely yet systematically, the Teacher explains the means of self-exploration and self-fulfilment, erecting in turn each of them-self-knowledge, devotion and action-as the supreme method of realisation. The last chapter is an appropriate climax, when he destroys the very argument he started from: the warrior's dharma. Now that Arjuna has been enlightened, Krishna asks him to "abandon all dharmas" (in the plural) and "take refuge in Me alone". The supremacy of spiritual knowledge is perhaps the most significant master idea of Indian civilisation and will remain one of its most enduring legacies. That knowledge-paravidya-is beyond all dharmas, all human conventions, all moral codes. So are its seekers, in principle at least, although one might argue that they should be so only after attaining their goal. Be that as it may, this explains India's "God-mad" men and women, sadhus, sannyasins, Bauls and renunciates of all ilk, and their often unconventional behaviour; perhaps it also explains some apparently offensive Tantric practices designed to radically decondition the mind. All that is the outward, often exotic side of India's spiritual quest, which has delighted all manners of less-than-genuine seekers. Behind it, however, lies one of the most important statements humanity could ever make: the supreme consciousness or truth is beyond the mind and its grasp; therefore, "mind cannot arrive at truth", in Sri Aurobindo's words, and "Yoga is not a field for intellectual argument or dissertation." It does not mean that India shunned intellectual life; quite the contrary, she built theories for every field of life, including the philosophical, while recognising their limitations as part of aparavidya ("non-supreme knowledge"). And whether it is polity, art, architecture or Ayurveda, even astronomy at times, the spiritual (for lack of a better word) influence perceptibly works behind them. In the old system of the purushartha or four-fold objectives of a well-ordered human life ("India's Take on Individual vs. Collective ", 4 October 2018), moksha is the last, after artha, kama and dharma. The word is not to be understood as the cessation of reincarnation, rather as the liberation from ignorance, much like the Buddha's goal. The mind cannot work out that liberation; it is too much in love with itself and its endless somersaults, and too convinced that it is the sole judge and arbiter of the truth. It is India's greatness to have shown the mind its place and allowed full expression to other regions of consciousness and to practical means to access those-the many systems of yoga. Indeed, realisation of the truth beyond mind and dharmas even broke through rigid caste barriers, producing enlightened beings from all social layers, even today. If social freedom was curtailed, spiritual freedom was not. All human life ultimately seeks meaning. India's answer, or rather answers, do not claim finality and are not dogmatic; they effectively reject all exclusive claim to the truth, since no text, no teaching, no prophet can do more than imperfectly grasp and express a small portion of the truth. They are for the unblinkered, unfettered mind. If humanity journeys on, they will remain part of the journey. (Michel Danino is a French-born Indian author, scholar of ancient India, and visiting professor at IIT Gandhinagar. Email: micheldanino@gmail.com.) This is the tenth part in a series on Master Ideas of Indian Civilisation; earlier articles in this series: Defining Indian Civilization, 11 June 2018 The Universal in Indian Culture, 11 July 2018 Consciousness, the Key to Indic Thought, 6 August 2018 Sacralising the Cosmos, Nature and Life, 3 September 2018 India's Take on Individual vs. Collective, 4 October 2018 India's art of simple living, 29 October 2018 India as a Knowledge Creator, 29 November 2018 Was India's Knowledge Elitist?,31 December 2018 Dharma, Generator of Indian Ethics, 31 January 2019 Dailyhunthttps://www.redbubble.com/people/jprsinner
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t Rajdhani Express turns 50, passengers get special treatment
In pic: Eastern Railways fan club members celebrating the golden jubilee of Rajdhani Express. (Twitter/@EasternRailway) The railway staff on duty in the train wore a badge with the message of celebration of 50 glorious years of Kolkata Rajdhani Express. (Express archive photo: Nirmal Harindran) Passengers were treated to some of its old delicacies like fish fry or vegetable cutlets and 'rosogollas' apart from ice cream for dessert during its golden jubilee run Sunday. (Express archive photo: Subham Dutta) The iconic train went through stages of evolution over the years, the official told PTI, adding that the present Kolkata Rajdhani Express was upgraded with elegant makeover of existing LHB (Linke Hofmann Busch) coaches in 2017. (Express photo: Nirmal Harindran) Rajdhani was the first train in the country whose fares included charges for meals served. (Express archive photo: Renuka Puri) Dailyhunthttps://www.thinglink.com/user/1154631797422686211
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Honda sees 8% growth
We have grown more than the industry," said Gaku Nakanishi, president and CEO, HCIL at the launch of the latest Civic model in New Delhi on Friday. The new Civic petrol models will retail between Rs 17,69,900 (ex showroom) and Rs 20,99,900. The diesel models are priced between Rs 20,49,900 and Rs 22,29,900. The petrol models have BS-VI compliant engines, while the diesel models continue to have the BS-IV engines. Honda, so far, has BS-VI engines for the petrol versions of The Civic and the CR-V. It will start the conversion of its entire range into BS-VI in the fourth quarter of next fiscal."From January 2020, we will start the BS VI conversions for the entire portfolio and finish by 31st March 2020," said Nakanishi. The company will continue to produce a small volume of BS IV engines beyond 2020-21 for its exports. It said the conversion of diesel engines to BS-VI will impact the prices and sales of diesel models. "Having said that we will continue with our diesel powertrains and convert them into BS-VI engines," said Rajesh Goyal, director sales and marketing, Honda Cars India. Dailyhunthttps://amara.org/en/profiles/profile/jprsinner/
'I've broken the perception of being this glamorous, urban heroine'- Kriti Sanon
Did that worry you at all?It didn't, because I was constantly working. I think 2018 was my busiest year, because I had four films that are releasing this year, in the process of being filmed. I was jumping from the schedule of one film to the other, and there were times I didn't even come back home in between. I was living out of a suitcase. It was exhausting, but a lot of fun and exciting as well. I liked being busy, so I didn't feel the fact that I had no releases. You didn't have any formal training when you started acting. Having done a handful of films now, do you have a better understanding of your craft?Yeah, I feel a little more confident of myself and my process. Earlier, I didn't even know if I had a process. I was still figuring it all out and realising what kind of work I want to do. I'm a lot more confident now approaching a character and scene, and it's all come with the experience.Thankfully, I've broken the perception of being this glamorous, urban heroine, so there's a lot more for me to choose from now after Bareilly Ki Barfi (2017). When you try something different and it works, then you get a lot more confidence to explore other things and not be scared to take risks. In that way, I feel a lot more settled and in a better place maybe, but at the same time there's so much more I want to do and those kind of offers are still not coming my way. Do you feel you have a better sense of how things work in the industry now? I've become a little better at it. Like I used to be apprehensive about reaching out to the directors I wanted to work with. I can now walk up to a director and say I'm a fan of their work and would love to work with them. Or to even tell someone I've heard they're doing something and I really feel I can do this. I think it's perfectly fine, because there's nothing wrong in communicating. You almost didn't do Luka Chuppi, right?Yeah. I had heard the script very long back when nobody else was on board. I really wanted to do the film because it was just really, really funny. The problem was that I had signed Housefull 4 and Dinoo (Luka Chuppi producer Dinesh Vijan) wanted to start the film. So, we let it pass. Then I got to know that August and September were free for me, by which time Kartik was on board and their recce was done. So, I could be a part of the film. Almost immediately after I signed the film, I flew to London for the Housefull 4 schedule. A week after I returned, I jumped into this film and 40 days later we were done. We saw you last as Bitti, a feisty, small-town girl, in Bareilly Ki Barfi. How is she different from Luka Chuppi's Rashmi, who is also a feisty, small-town girl?I think their innocence is very different. The way they've been born and brought up - the environment - is very different. Even Rashmi comes from a conservative family. She's studied most of her life in a place like Delhi and is way more educated, so she's way more liberal in her head. She's the one who's had a boyfriend, figured it wasn't working out and she's clear in her head and ambitious about her life. She doesn't want to make any compromises and make mistakes. Bitti, on the other hand, had studied in a small town, was educated but not so much, and her aspiration was only to find a guy who accepts her for the way she is and that's about it. She was even okay with an arranged marriage to someone she didn't know very well. Rashmi is way more modern, and closer to me in her kind of thinking, where she makes a choice rather than just wanting to be accepted. She wants to be sure, and feels she has the right to be sure. I also feel that Rashmi is very impulsive as a person, she's gutsy and takes decisions in a snap; you can sell an idea to her in seconds. If she has a problem and you give her a solution, she'll listen to it, put logic to it quickly and go with it. She's very impulsive and in that way, completely opposite to me, because I am very indecisive in real life. That also made her way more spunkier than Bitti. Apart from Luka Chuppi, you have three other releases this year!(Laughs) You are going to be seeing a lot more of me. Panipat is a period film, Arjun Patiala is a comedy based in north India and then, of course, there is Housefull 4 which is part of a really successful franchise and I think, it's the funniest one yet. Panipat is your first period film...Yeah. That's what I am busy shooting right now. There's a bit of 'period' in Housefull 4 as well, because that's a reincarnation comedy. Panipat (directed by Ashutosh Gowariker), however, is a proper serious period film and I'm playing a Maharashtrian for the first time. Coming from Delhi, being a Punjabi, it's a completely different culture in terms of the language, dressing, and the way people talk.Also, I'm playing a character that was alive at some point, which I've never done before and there isn't much material available about my character Parvatibai. One doesn't know how these characters behaved and how they were. Ashu Sir has helped us create and understand our characters. I'm enjoying the shoot. I've recently shot a sequence with a bit of a sword fight in it. It was a first for me and I loved it. I would love to do an action film with a good script, if it comes my way. Dailyhunthttp://www.nfomedia.com/profile?uid=rPjVdf
Ex-Nagaland chief minister KL Chishi quits BJP
Insincerity and the lack of urgency have greatly harmed the aspirations of the people". Talking about Citizenship Bill, he said the "brazen attempt to ram through Parliament" despite massive protests in the Northeast had only exposed a particular narrative-driven agenda that is dangerous to the demography of the entire region. "The flip-flop stand of PDA government in Nagaland on Citizenship Bill has only made matters worse. Moreover, the proposal for extension of ILP under BEFR, 1873 to cover the district of Dimapur lacks a certain political will. The hallowed slogan of the BJP about development has crumbled while youths are facing major job crisis leading to proliferation of anti-social activities," he observed. "In view of these unaddressed issues that have put the state and its people under grave threat and BJP Nagaland playing second fiddle to nascent party NDPP (ruling Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party), prolonging my association with the BJP has become untenable. I, therefore, submit my resignation from the membership of the BJP with immediate effect," he wrote. Dailyhunthttps://steepster.com/jprsworld
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