by admin | May 25, 2021 | Interviews

Derek O’Brien
By Prashant Sood & Sidhartha Dutta,
New Delhi : The opposition should not pitch the next Lok Sabha polls as a presidential-style contest against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, says Trinamool Congress leader Derek O’Brien who feels a “collective leadership” would bring parties together against the BJP in each state.
He also says that Bengal will play a very important role in the collective leadership of opposition parties, an obvious reference to his party supremo Mamata Banerjee.
“In 2019, the opposition has to work out a strategy which will be to play to its strength in all 29 states. I am saying this as student of politics. For example, when we are fighting the election in Bengal, obviously it is going to be Mamata di who is the prime mover there,” O’Brien, Trinamool Congress leader in the Rajya Sabha, told IANS in an interview.
He also said that West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee can play a role in bringing opposition parties together in crucial states such as Uttar Pradesh.
“In Uttar Pradesh, there is Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Samajwadi Party (SP) and Congress. Who is the most credible person to make this thing happen? Congress is a player, SP is a player, BSP is a player. Mamata di is the good one to do this job in UP. They will have to listen eventually,” O’Brien said.
He said Mamata Banerjee has won a second term and has credibility of four decades.
“She has got a track record of people’s movement, struggles. They are not some five-six year phenomenon, this is an old track record. Those are the people who will take the important roles but it will be a collective leadership,” he said.
Asked if Mamata Banerjee could be prime ministerial candidate, O’Brien said: “I told you it is collective leadership. Bengal will play a very important role. Don’t ask me about personalities,” he said.
He said Trinamool Congress can play the role of a bridge between the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi and, in the same way, the Congress can play the role of a bridge between the Trinamool Congress and the Left in West Bengal.
Answering another query, the chief national spokesperson of Trinamool Congress said the Prime Ministerial candidate is chosen from the party with largest seats in parliamentary democracy.
“This is not a Presidential election. Why should the Lok Sabha election be pitched as a Presidential election. This is not Trump versus Clinton,” he said.
On the likelihood of the Congress projecting party Vice President Rahul Gandhi as the prime ministerial candidate, O’Brien said: “At this stage, it looks (like)… it’s easier to take on Modi with a strong face in each state.”
He said Rahul Gandhi will be president of his party and Trinamool Congress wishes him well.
Asked if he was suggesting there should not be a single candidate against Modi, O’Brien said he was not a spokesperson for 18 parties which have been coordinating their actions against the government.
He said opposition should play to its strengths in all the 29 states.
“Who says opposition does not have a face? Doesn’t Karnataka stand a better chance if Mr. Siddaramaiah is the face to take on whoever in the BJP?”
He said Rahul Gandhi’s imminent elevation this month was “Congress’ internal decision”.
“What I can tell you from what I have seen, again as a student of politics, is that there has been a lot of momentum after his US townhall style meetings. There has been some momentum in the Gujarat campaign… Obviously, if he keeps this momentum going, it’s good for the opposition. A strong Congress is good for the opposition,” he said.
Asked about leaders like Mamata Banerjee having a certain comfort level with Congress president Sonia Gandhi, O’Brien said: “Please give Rahul Gandhi some time as president of the Congress.”
He said Trinamool Congress will do what it takes to make the opposition stronger to defeat the BJP.
The party’s target, he said, is to win all 42 Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal. “For two reasons people will vote for us — one is development, the other is communal harmony.”
O’Brien’s first political book, “Inside Parliament: Views From the Front Row”, was released last week. It has a chapter “BJP is beatable in 2019”.
The Trinamool Congress national spokesperson also said opposition parties have been coordinating inside and outside parliament and had made a statement by fielding good candidates for the presidential and vice-presidential polls.
Referring to 18 parties’ observing the first anniversary of demonetisation on November 8 as Black Day, O’Brien said: “We came to the conclusion that let us allow every party to interpret that protest in the local language and idiom, in the local situation and then make it a success.”
He said the opposition strategy to oust the BJP government was not a negative strategy. “It is a positive strategy. Strengthen federalism to run; that’s the positive strategy.”
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Corporate, Corporate Buzz, Corporate Governance, Interviews

Sam Pitroda
By V.S. Chandrasekar,
New Delhi : Debunking the “Gujarat model of development” propagated by the BJP, Sam Pitroda, who was instrumental in launching India’s telecom revolution in the mid-1980s under then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, has said the state needs a bottom-up approach discarding the top-down method that favours only big corporates at the cost of poor and marginalised sections.
“Gujarat needs a Gandhian model of development bottom-up. Development should not be assessed in terms of how many lakhs or crores of rupees you can bring in as investment at global investors’ conferences. It doesn’t mean you dislike big corporates. But what will transform Gujarat is what do you do for the poor,” Pitroda, who played a leading role in drafting the Congress manifesto for the Gujarat assembly elections, told IANS in an email interview from Illinois, US, where he lives.
The growth figures in terms of GDP look good, but what does it translate into for the ordinary Gujarati? asked Pitroda who is known to be close to the Gandhi family and played a pivotal role in organising Rahul Gandhi’s recent visit and engagements in the US.
The former Telecom Commission Chairman, who extensively toured Gujarat last month and talked to various groups, said the state needs a new design of development as the gap between the haves and the have-nots has increased.
He said in the alternative narrative of governance in Gujarat, if the Congress comes to power, would be the creation of a Gujarat Advisory Council on the lines of the National Advisory Council which was initially formed during the time of the first United Progressive Alliance (UPA-I) government in 2004 and continued during UPA -II (2009-14) to properly guide the government for an egalitarian development model.
After interacting with farmers, Dalits, women, fishermen, traders and NGOs in Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar, Rajkot, Surat and Jamnagar, 75-year-old Pitroda, who also served as Chairman of the National Knowledge Commission (2005-09), a high-level body to advise the Prime Minister, said there is a tremendous discontent among the people of Gujarat.
After this exercise, he found “too much” privatisation of education, he said. Education, particularly in the engineering and medical streams, has become very expensive, adding that medical education can cost up to Rs 80 lakh.
The health sector is the most affected because there are no government doctors available in rural areas. Of the 4,500 doctors that pass out every year, only about 500 go to rural areas. The remaining pay a penalty of over Rs 10 crore to escape such stints.
“We need to make medical education affordable. We need doctors in rural areas so that the health system does not collapse,” he said.
Referring to the plight of women, Pitroda said that they cannot file an FIR for any atrocity on them, though, on paper, they enjoy all rights. In rural areas, they walk four or five km to fetch water. There are four million single working women in the state and they don’t have proper places to stay, he said.
Traders and small and medium entrepreneurs were groaning under the adverse impact of demonetisation and the Goods and Services Tax (GST), he said. Banks are not giving them loans. They are ready to give loans to big corporates but not to small entrepreneurs. The focus is on big projects like that of Tata Motors.
“The farmers’ complaints are that fertile lands are taken away from them with some compensation given. But after that no industry comes up on those lands. There is no economic profit for the local society,” Pitroda said and cited the case of GIFT (Gujarat International Finance Tec-City), “which has huge area of land but just a couple of office buildings”.
“Overall I found youth, women, farmers, Dalits and Muslims dissatisfied,” Pitroda said, adding his interaction with these sections was an eye-opener on the flawed Gujarat model of development.
He also rebutted the BJP’s criticism of the Congress for courting leaders of caste formations like Patidars, OBCs and Dalits, saying there is nothing wrong with this as each group is a constituency in a democracy which has a right to be heard and its grievances addressed. “They deserve attention. What is wrong in aligning with Patidars or other groups?” he asked.
He also attacked the tenor of the BJP campaign against the Congress, especially the attacks on Rahul Gandhi for his temple visits and about Indira Gandhi going to Morbi decades ago with her nose covered to avoid the stench of human bodies and animal carcasses in the wake of a dam disaster.
“These are not issues. These guys are focusing on non-issues,” Pitroda maintained.
(V.S. Chandrasekar can be contacted at chandru.vs@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Branding, Interviews, Markets, Technology
By Nishant Arora,
New Delhi : To connect the next billion, India must establish micro-data centres — which can even run on a laptop from any location with a cell tower — and shun gigantic data centres that can cost a bomb in terms of building physical infrastructure, a global HP Inc executive has emphasised.
Data centres, to a large extent, have not succeeded as 60 percent of the world is yet to be connected and the micro-data centres can do this job better when it comes to India — by connecting schools, hospitals, small scale industries, etc., in a specified area, thus bringing digital transformation at a fraction of the cost.
“India needs Mangalyaan-scale thinking to connect the next billion and the effort has to be indigenous, not borrowed. We need to go back to fundamentals, know the hardware better like learning how to build a power plant with the help of the latest technologies, including jugaad,” Chandrakant Patel, Chief Engineer at HP Inc, told IANS in an interview.
An inventor with 151 patents to his name, a pioneer in thermal and energy management, and a visionary when it comes to the application of IT for sustainable growth, Patel is in town to address the two-day Global Conference of Cyber Security (GCCS) that will commence in the Capital on Thursday.
“Rather than looking at other countries, we should look within, to find solutions which can help more people book rail tickets online, get an appointment with a health care provider or get his complaint registered in case of no electricity — with the help of technology,” stressed Patel.
Patel has done his math when it comes to India.
“Let us think that there are nearly 20,000 data centres in the US and each needs one megawatt of power to run. It translates into 20 gigawatts power for running those data centres — roughly what we need to run 20 nuclear power plants,” Patel contended.
“Let us emulate this model back home and we need a gigantic proportion of power, say 80-100 gigawatts if we keep the population here in mind. India’s total installed power generation capacity is about 300 gigawatts. Can we afford a third of the country’s electricity production to run those massive data centres?” Patel asked.
The supply-demand conundrum is very significant in the India’s context. Technology like Artificial Intelligence (AI) can play a big role in the supply-demand mismatch, said Patel, but in order to do that, everyone needs to be connected.
“In the next three years, just like India did in going wireless, we need to connect every citizen by creating Mangalyaan-scale indigenous topology with jugaad mindset. India must create a talent pool with domain knowledge in data management if it wishes to succeed. The initiative has to start with infusing the domain information in school and college curriculum. We have to go back to fundamentals and come strong,” Patel noted.
Patel is an IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) Fellow, an ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers) Fellow and an inductee of the Silicon Valley Engineering Hall of Fame.
According to him, the edge devices in a peer-to-peer network will connect all.
“It will happen south of the Internet, maybe even at the cell towers where our country is very strong. Whenever I visit my wife’s village where the leopards still roam, I get better connectivity than Hanover Page Mill as there is a cell tower nearby,” Patel said.
The role of AI in the services towards the supply side is the next frontier the training has to begin keeping the Indian context in mind.
“We are in the cyber-physical age where real world melds with digital — so who have to tread carefully, not digressing from the path. The 21st century is all about the integration of cyber and physical, and India has to find answers within the country,” Patel emphasised.
Hackers, he said, will keep coming but we need to first secure end-point devices.
“Apart from being resilient, we need to be able to react fast in case of an attack, especially on a physical facility like an airplane or an autonomous vehicle. The game is no more about cyber security; it is cyber-physical security. We have to be both proactive and reactive when it comes to securing our world,” Patel emphasised.
(Nishant Arora can be contacted at nishant.a@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Interviews

Artist Jatin Das
By Saket Suman,
New Delhi : Prominent Indian artist Jatin Das — painting for well over five decades now — has come down heavily on the state of the contemporary art market. In one of his rare interviews in recent years, the prolific artist reflected upon his illustrious career and maintained that the art world has undergone “a sea change” and that many young artists compromise for their “bread and butter”.
“There is now a sea change in the art world. People talk about art market and art business. When somebody comes to see your work, they call him a client! And there are a lot of players now. Art students are more interested in commercial art or go abroad to study about art investment.
“This word did not exist before. People visited studios, sometimes multiple times, to look at the works. Nobody bargained. There was great camaraderie; there was no art business. Today a lot of young people say Sir, we have to compromise for our bread and butter,” Das told IANS in an interview.
“I just don’t feel like exhibiting, although I have lots of works. I sell very little. I’m not in the Art Market. Some people feel sorry for me that my works are not in auctions. They don’t realise that in auctions, artists don’t give their works. It is either buyers or gallerists who do it. It is all hype and high society, and it has become a glamorous world now,” he added.
Das also said that a lot of the artists these days paint for upcoming exhibitions. “Some even see the gallery size and paint accordingly. I or my friends from my generation never painted (for) an exhibition. Only when we felt that we had a body of work that gels, would we exhibit.
“We all had the idealism to work passionately with commitment. The idea was not to become an artist or earn money; that was not the concern for any of us. Some people used to work in advertising for money, but then they would do theatre, or write poetry and things like that,” said Das, who studied at Mumbai’s Sir JJ School of Art, under Professor S.B. Palsikar.
Das has held 68 one-man shows in India and abroad and has participated in numerous national and international exhibitions and camps for artists.
Responding to a specific question on the complaint by several contemporary artists that traditional artists, like himself, consider themselves more important, Das said that a “real artist doesn’t exhibit for the public”.
He reflected that when a painting is sold, he is happy, but “just for a minute”. And then he is sad that it is gone. He said he doesn’t paint for selling, but he lives on the sale of his paintings.
“Any creative person must keep away from the limelight, or it’s not a discipline of arrogance, you must be able to spend time on work,” he added.
His ongoing exhibition “Jatin Das: Artists & Friends. Over Fifty Years” will be on display at the Lalit Kala Akademi here.
“There are 500 portraits in this exhibition, made over 50 years. It requires you to slow down, and look at details and ruminate on the experience. To take time with things. We were drawing all the time; I still think the mark of a great artist is drawing. That is something I tried to show with this exhibition,” he added.
“This exhibition is not about sales or money; this is a personal endeavour, a display of intimate conversations and a lifetime of drawing, my friends and conversations,” he said.
He went on to state that he is “influenced by every artist, by every part of nature, by everything around me” and that he does what he likes, “and what I don’t, I destroy”.
“I paint in oils. I don’t like acrylic much, but I’ve done some. I like to draw and do water colours… It’s an integral part of me. Funny how people ask, ‘You also draw?’ Every artist must draw, paint, do murals, graphics, everything. You have to do all kinds of things. Play with the mediums like a child,” he concluded.
(Saket Suman can be contacted at saket.s@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Interviews

Naseeruddin Shah
By Arundhuti Banerjee,
Mumbai : The films that an actor chooses reflect not just his or her political and social beliefs but also establishes the person’s individuality, says film industry veteran Naseeruddin Shah.
“If I agree with the vision of the director, then and only then will I do the film. Therefore, an actor’s individuality comes from his choices. The film you choose reflects your own political beliefs and social expression,” Naseeruddin, 67, told IANS in an interview here.
At the same time, he believes that the job of an actor in films is to be the messenger of writers and the director.
“I think my definition of acting might just make many actors uncomfortable, but the fact is an actor’s role is to follow and execute the vision of the writer and the director who has created the character.
“With time, cinema has changed, but my approach hasn’t because I always attempted to tune in with their idea. I, an actor, am the messenger of the director’s vision. I am not there to create my individuality.
“Yes, my signature could come from my means of expression, but those expressions are of the director,” he said.
With a film career spanning over three decades, Naseeruddin is among the prominent faces of India’s parallel cinema. He has also been a part of more ‘commercial’ movies, but it’s interesting to observe how the widely awarded talent does not prefer to put himself in the spotlight of a film.
Asked what makes him not get seduced by attention unlike other actors, he said: “Because actors are basically narcissists, they love themselves. Not that I am not, but over a period of time, I realised there are a lot more qualities that are required to be an actor. Narcissism is just one of them.”
Naseeruddin spoke to IANS on the sidelines of the 19th Jio MAMI With Star, where his movie “The Hungry” was screened. He plays a dark character in the Bornila Chatterjee directorial.
On his process to internalise a character, Naseeruddin said: “I don’t look outward for inspiration, rather within, to find a connect with the character. I try to find the potential of the character within me, I try to understand how I would react if I am in a certain situation.
“If I can, I agree to do the role. It’s an internal process. I do not take a reference to someone I have seen next to me,” said the actor, whose contribution to the arts has been recognised with a Padma Shri and Padma Bhushan.
It was in 1980 that the actor debuted in Hindi cinema with “Hum Paanch”. He went on to act in films like “Karma”, “Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro”, “Masoom”, “Hey Ram”, “Monsoon Wedding”, “Sarfarosh”, “Maqbool”, “A Wednesday” and “The Dirty Picture”.
His filmography is laced with projects with iconic directors like Shyam Benegal, Sai Paranjpye, Govind Nihalani and commercial filmmakers like Anees Bazmee, Zoya Akhtar and Vishal Bhardwaj, to name a few.
What is the way to stay relevant with time?
“I keep trying to inculcate my thoughts and ideas of acting in youngsters. I think acting is a means of expression, it is a tool of communication.
“Sadly, in films, actors are conditioned to believe that they are the centre, their performance is everything for the film, which is not right. Therefore, they cannot take criticism and failure, because being the most visible component of a film, they face the criticism first.”
But film reviews are not something he takes seriously himself.
“For me, reviews are as good as the opinion of a taxi driver… Pardon me, but reviews are nothing but another piece of opinion on our film. Half of the reviewers do not critically analyse every aspect of the film but write about the plot in their review.
“And then half of the reviewers condemn a film for what it is not. I mean, what is the point of finding social relevance in David Dhawan’s film when he himself never claimed to have one? Or, of calling a Mani Kaul film ‘too heavy’ for not having song and dance?
“Is it right to take the reviews seriously?” questioned the actor.
(Arundhuti Banerjee can be contacted at arundhuti.b@ians.in)
—IANS