by admin | May 25, 2021 | Interviews

Tathagata Roy with President Ram Nath Kovind.
By Saket Suman,
New Delhi : At a time when the opposition and several intellectuals have expressed fear that the BJP government is preparing to change the Constitution and make India a Hindu rashtra, Tripura Governor and former BJP-RSS insider, Tathagata Roy has said that what was accepted in 1950 can be changed.
“So far there have been 101 amendments to the Constitution, some of them under very questionable circumstances, as in the case of the 42nd amendment, when most opposition leaders were in jail (during the Emergency).
“So after scoring a century, what are those ‘intellectuals’, Left-Nehruvian establishment to me, afraid of,” asked Roy, appointed Tripura Governor in 2015.
He has authored a 450-page biography of Syama Prasad Mookerjee, the founder of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, which morphed into the BJP.
The Governor was responding to IANS questions in an email interview that sought his response on whether or not the fear of the opposition leaders and several intellectuals “holds ground” in the light of recent events.
“That said, what man has made, man can certainly change. France has had five republics since 1792. We the people of India can change what we gave ourselves in 1950 if we think it ought to be done,” he said.
Congress President Rahul Gandhi, writer-parliamentarian Shashi Tharoor, Salman Khurshid and historians such as Ramachandra Guha have repeatedly alleged that the real aim of the RSS and the BJP was to change the Constitution.
However, Roy said the roots of evolution of India’s intellectual class lie in “minority appeasement” and what “the so-called intellectual class calls ‘secularism’.”
He said that “there is no meeting ground” between these, and “it is no wonder that that class uses choice invectives against those who believe in the ideals of the RSS. Naturally, we believe we have been portrayed in the wrong light — but then, we are quite prepared to concede that one has a right to do all that.”
Roy said that as the Governor of a state he had nothing to do with the BJP but, at the same time, his basic beliefs had not evaporated and were merely kept on the backburner.
“It is indeed true that I share the ideologies of RSS and its Vividh Sangathanas and believe in the way they function,” he said.
Roy still finds Vinayak Damodar Savarkar’s definition of a Hindu — one who was born of Hindu parents and regarded India as his motherland as well as holy land — to be “unduly restrictive”.
“It is significant that the Supreme Court in 1995 defined Hindutva as a way of life rather than a religion, and declined to review its stand in 2017… As such, there is no difficulty in the Hindu mind to co-opt Allah or the Judeo-Christian God or Ahura-Mazda as part of the pantheon — in other words accept a Muslim, a Jew, a Christian or a Zoroastrian as an equal,” he said.
“But if someone says that there is no God but Allah, and if you don’t say so I’ll make you do it by force, then surely Hindutva will have an issue with that person. It is said that too much of anything is bad. This is expressed differently by saying that we must all be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains fall out,” said Roy, a civil engineer by training, who was employed by the Indian Railways and later taught at Jadavpur University in Kolkata.
Interestingly, Roy is full of praise for veteran BJP leader Lal Krishna Advani in the acknowledgement section of his book, though many veteran BJP politicians, including Advani, Yashwant Sinha and Shatrughan Sinha seem to have been sidelined by the new party high command.
“I don’t put Advani in the same bracket with Yashwant Sinha or Shatrughan Sinha. Advaniji had dedicated his whole life to the RSS and the party, and brought about a sea-change by increasing the strength of the party in the parliament from two to 88. The latest ups and downs have nothing to do with my respect for the man, which remains very, very high. Even today he is regarded as an elder statesman,” he said.
Asked of his evaluation of the new BJP high command, spearheaded by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party President Amit Shah, he said he would not like to respond to it while he is the Governor of a state but “shall be glad to answer” after May 2020 when he demits office.
According to Roy, Mookerjee’s politics had three principal features: Right-Wing, Indocentric and Constitutional.
“These were his personal beliefs. Of these, the right-wing nature and Indocentricity were or are very much in evidence in the BJS and BJP. As for being constitutional, in practical politics there are obvious difficulties in making a party in India adhere to totally constitutional methods, and this was not found entirely possible by the BJP or even the Jana Sangh. Still, by and large, the BJP remains a right-wing, Indocentric and constitutional party compared to all other political parties of India.”
Tathagata Roy joined the BJP in 1990 and rose to become the state president for West Bengal and a member of the BJP national executive.
(Saket Suman can be contacted at saket.s@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Investing, Markets, Technology
By Rituraj Baruah,
Taipei (Taiwan) : While it pushes 5G in the global markets in 2018, mobile chipset maker MediaTek will, in India, continue to focus on the 4G segment, David Ku, the firm’s Chief Financial Officer, has said.
“Globally, the company is likely to invest the highest on fifth generation (5G) connectivity, followed by the 4G segment,” Ku told IANS in an interview.
“4G is definitely for India. 5G is, arguably, for India as well, but not in the next year,” he said, adding, however, that in the next two to three years the chipset maker would bring 5G to the country.
He said the automotive segment would be next in their global priority list followed by Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC).
In 2018 and 2019, 5G would be pertinent for China, the US, Europe and Japan, among others.
The company had on June 5 announced that it would commercially deploy its first 5G modem “Helio M70” in 2019, and some of its key partners would be Nokia, NTT DoCoMo and Huawei.
Talking about MediaTek’s business in the country, Ku, who is also the Senior Corporate Vice President of the company, said revenue from India is about 10-15 per cent of the overall revenue and, in 2017, the growth rate “was very good”, given the low base of the company in the country.
MediaTek’s current market share in India is around one-third and the company is trying to be the market leader, Ku said.
On the outlook for the current year, he emphasised: “Growth rate is definitely double-digit for India in 2018.”
In 2017, however, the global performance of the company slowed on a year-on-year basis, he said, adding that, on a quarterly observation “from Q3 (July-September) of last year, the performance started recovering”.
“I think, in general, last year we did okay, but profitability-wise (it went down), due to our product portfolio… especially on the smartphone side”, leading to loss of some market share in China.
“Our market share in China alone is around 40-45 per cent, but last year it was down to 30 (per cent), but this is we have come back to 40-45 per cent… and want to maintain that level.”
MediaTek is currently listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange and asked about its plans of listing in other exchanges, Ku said: “Currently we don’t have any plans for listings.”
The financial performance of the modem maker in the current fiscal has been as per the guidance, the CFO informed.
“For the first quarter we were basically in line with our guidance, for the second quarter… we have not closed the quarter, but in general it is in line with our guidance.”
“The topline guidance on a quarter-on-quarter basis is to grow 12-20 per cent for the second quarter. I think we should be looking for a mid-high of this range…which means it is pretty good,” he added.
(Rituraj Baruah was in Taipei at the invitation MediaTek. He can be contacted at rituraj.b@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Entrepreneurship, Interviews, Women Entrepreneur

Nandita Das
By Sugandha Rawal,
New Delhi : Democracy is under threat in India with “artists, writers and rationalists” being attacked in some form or the other, says acclaimed actress and filmmaker Nandita Das, who feels conservatives and right-wing groups are increasingly becoming the country’s moral police.
Be it the debate around growing intolerance in India or the agitation around the release of Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s film “Padmaavat” or the issues around “S Durga” or the occasional calls to put a temporary ban on Pakistani talent from working in the Hindi film industry — the conversation around the extent of creative freedom in India keeps coming back. And Nandita feels there have been attempts to silence creative voices.
“Martin Luther King Jr. said: ‘Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter’. These days whether it is media or individuals, people are being censored by self-proclaimed vigilante groups or are self-censoring themselves, out of fear,” Nandita told IANS in an e-mail interview.
“Conservatives and right-wing groups are increasingly becoming the moral police. At the same time, official censoring bodies are becoming more bigoted and their rulings are getting more and more subjective and arbitrary,” added Nandita, who had faced protests over her socially moving and bold film “Fire”.
The actress noted that “artists, writers, rationalists are all being attacked in some form or the other and are being silenced”.
“A society can grow and develop only when it gives space for dissent and free thinking. And this shrinking space threatens democracy and human progress,” she said.
Taking her forthcoming film “Manto” to draw comparisons with the current scenario, the director said: “Manto was tried for obscenity six times because he wrote about sex workers, giving them dignity that was rare and used the language of the street, deemed inappropriate. He said, ‘If you can’t bear my stories, it is because we live in unbearable times’.”
After having helmed “Firaaq” in 2008, Nandita went behind the camera to trace the life of writer Saadat Hasan Manto. Nawazuddin Siddiqui will be seen bringing the character to life. “Manto” is expected to release in India in September.
Manto, who died in 1955 at the age of 43, penned an impressive body of work touching various genres.
He churned out about 22 collections of stories comprising a novel, essays, personal sketches and movie scripts. Out of his literary gems was a story on Mirza Ghalib, a poet who is often compared with the stature of Shakespeare. His work also gained attention for weaving stories around the ordeal of partition as well as sexuality.
“Manto”, co-produced by HP Studios, Filmstoc and Viacom 18 Motion Pictures, was the only Indian film in Un Certain Regard category at 71st Cannes Film Festival. It will also be screened at Sydney Film Festival that will start from June 6 and will go on till June 17.
The film provides a window into his life during the tumultuous partitioning of British colonial India into two new nations — India and Pakistan.
Do you think Indians have moved on from there?
“Far from it. Partition remains a very important part of the subcontinent’s narrative. It has been invoked for all kinds of reasons.
“Sometimes for political agendas, sometimes to understand the pain and trauma some still feel today. Close to 14 million people were displaced, hundreds of thousands of people were killed, women raped… all the heinous crimes that come with sectarian violence. It is bound to have a lasting impact. But I am not sure we have learnt all the lessons that we needed to learn.”
Nandita doesn’t agree with the calls to put a temporary ban on Pakistani talent working in the Hindi film industry. She asserts the role of art is to build bridges and not walls.
“When there is political tension, culture can become the means to bring people closer, lessen prejudice and trigger conversations. Whenever I have been to Pakistan, I find people in admiration of our democracy, diversity, art, culture and in particular, cinema. Good stories are local in their context but universal in their emotions. It is a pity that we in South Asia cannot travel and collaborate freely.
“If we want to be peaceful, we need to have peaceful co-existence with our neighbours.”
The actress, who garnered critical acclaim with films like “Earth” and “Bawandar”, points out that there is a need to fight terrorism.
“Fight governments that encourage it instead of stopping it, but we also need to have the wisdom to separate the people from those governments. People are suffering there too. Art can in fact become the balm to our common wounds.”
(Sugandha Rawal can be contacted at sugandha.r@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Interviews

Erik Solheim
By Kushagra Dixit,
New Delhi : United Nations Environment head Erik Solheim believes that only India can help itself when it comes to “Beat Plastic Pollution” — this year’s theme of World’s Environment Day that the country is hosting — or to rustle up the finances for this.
With the United States working on its way to quit the historic Paris Climate Agreement, Solheim says it’s just the right time for India and China — among the world’s top polluters — to lead the world in the war against climate change and pollution.
“First of all, only India can change India. Indian political leaders and its people can change India,” Solheim told IANS in an interview.
“But we can help,” he continued, adding that despite being in a desperate situation to work upon its solid waste management, the world can still learn from India and India can learn from China and vice versa.
India produces over 62 million tonnes of solid waste every year, of which only 43 million tonnes is collected, only 12 million tonnes treated and the rest dumped. According to the experts, the figure is expected to rise to 436 million tonnes by 2050.
“There is a huge issue of waste management in India and everyone can see that; we went from train to Agra from Delhi and we saw. There was plastic all over the rails, that’s a problem,” he said, highlighting the “big need” to manage that.
Speaking of plastic waste alone, approximately 900,000 tonnes of PET — used to make soft drink bottles, furniture, carpet, paneling, etc. — was produced in India in 2015-16, as reported by the National Chemical Laboratory.
About 25,000 tonnes of plastic waste is generated evey year in India, of which only 60 per cent, according to Union Environment Minister Harsh Vardhan, is recycled. Delhi with 689.52 tonnes tops the chart of plastic waste followed by Chennai (429.39 tonnes), Mumbai (408.27 tonnes), Bengaluru (313.87 tonnes) and Hyderabad (199.33 tonnes).
Solheim, however, was optimistic about India and counts on the initiative taken by the country’s political leaders. According to business analysts, Indian waste management Industry has a potential of $15 billion with promising growth prospects.
“To tackle the situation, you need to see how these problems were resolved in the past. For instance, we resolved the biggest global environment problem of 1980s — the hole in the ozone layer. At that time also political leaders and businesses bought us the solutions,” he pointed out.
Appreciating China for cleaning its rivers, Solheim highlighted the scope of learning for India. “If China can do that then India can do that in Ganga and other rivers,” he added.
Pointing to the International Solar Alliance, Kochi airport, which is the world’s first solar-powered airport, and the world’s biggest solar power plant in Tamil Nadu, Solheim believed that the world can learn much from India.
“We can provide the best Indian practices to the world and can bring best practices from the world to India,” he noted.
Asked about the polluting images of India and China he lauded the two nations for working towards solutions.
“India and China, frankly speaking, are in the lead of solving their environment issues, obviously there had been challenges,” he said.
“China has been cleaning its rivers like no other nation in human history. They have reduced pollution in Beijing by 30 to 40 percent. Similarly in India, city of Hyderabad has been declared plastic-free and soon the area around the Taj Mahal will also be,” he said.
Drawing parallels between the issues of India and China — traffic and vehicular pollution — he pointed out how China had built Metro rails in 35 cities in the last 10 years and has also emerged as the biggest market for electric vehicles, adding that given the trajectory of its growth, India will catch up very fast.
(Kushagra Dixit can be reached at kushagra.d@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Interviews
By Nivedita,
Noida : Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi, who has travelled to different countries to fight for children’s rights, feels India is going through an “epidemic” situation where no child is safe even inside their houses. This, he says, needs immediate attention.
“Children and their issues have to be be addressed now. Politicians can wait for the next election and prioritise their issues, but the children cannot wait for the next day or next hour,” Satyarthi told IANS here.
“A child could be in danger, could be raped, could be trafficked or could be stolen, so that is the time when you need immediate response and do all the preventive measures which is not normally not done in society,” he said.
The activist was at the Superhits 93.5 RED FM’s office here as the radio station has come up with another edition of their annual “Bajao For A Cause” initiative and this year they have associated with The Kailash Satyarthi Children’s Foundation to raise money for ‘Surakshit Bachpan Fund’. RED FM is also bringing the stories of brave survivor on-air for this CSR initiative.
Satyarthi created ‘Surakshit Bachpan Fund’ in the wake of his Bharat Yatra to combat child sexual abuse and trafficking. The lack of medical, rehabilitation, educational, vocational and legal structure and aide for victims and survivors of child sexual assault and their families made him come up with this fund.
“This is an important initiative not just to create awareness but also to engage people for a bigger cause that is a moral epidemic and is growing in our society very fast. The children are not safe inside their homes, schools, buses, public places and no parents can feel fearless for their children if they do not come back home,” he said.
“So this will definitely help in creating awareness where people can speak out, especially children who can talk about sexual abuse. Many a times they don’t talk because it is considered a social taboo. The most unfortunate part of this sickness of our society is that we stigmatise the victim and protect the offenders,” he said.
“We are fighting on all these issues,” he added.
Satyarthi says he created Surakshit Bachpan Fund when he spoke to rape victims and children who have faced sexual abuse.
“We can keep on fighting with the government for their policies and actions but let us begin ourselves. They not only need medical support but psychological and legal support too. There’s a lot of corruption involved,” he said.
“Police delay the cases and then the government persecutors also delay things, so we don’t have adequate legal and judicial infrastructure. I thought of engaging the best lawyers, psychologist and doctors. If we have to pay, we will pay,” he added.
Satyarthi also emphasised parents to share friendly relationships with children.
“To create a child-friendly world, let us begin with family. The parents should behave as a friend and that means respecting children, respecting their childhood, respecting their voice, listening to them carefully, understanding them and not imposing yourself,” he says.
“In a society, we had this trend for ages that adults think that they are wise. But I always see and say that please sit with your children, listen to them and learn from them,” he said.
“Because of the silence of children which is imposed on them, they cannot speak out. We know that four children are raped or sexually abused every hour but that is a government statistic. Reality could be ten times, 20 times bigger and bitter,” he added.
Satyarthi, who will be travelling to Brazil later this month to address issues like child labour, sexual abuse and trafficking, says people-to-people connect with different countries is important to curb such issues globally.
He has been working with Pakistan, which faces a similar situation like India when it comes to child abuse.
Satyarthi, who jointly shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai, told IANS: “I have been working in Pakistan much before my beautiful daughter was born. I was fighting and sometimes my life was in danger, sometimes I was deported from Pakistan, and sometimes the government there raised voice against me, blaming me as a RAW agent.”
He holds that Pakistani children were his children too and he has worked for them for many years. “People-to-people connect is the key. We learn how to work together through sustainable peace and the relationship building between two nations,” he said.
(Nivedita can be contacted at nivedita.s@ians.in)
—IANS