All
Politics
Business
Entertainment
Sports
Celebrities
Three ministerial resignations in Yogi Adityanath’s government — Swami Prasad Maurya, Dhara Singh Chauhan, Dharam Singh Saini – that rocked the poll-bound BJP bandwagon in Uttar Pradesh had been in the works for six months. All the three quit Mayawati’s BSP and enrolled BJP just ahead of the 2017 assembly polls while alleging money demands made by Behenji. Their hurried exit and joining Samajwadi Party may take some sheen off the BJP’s “double-engine Sarkar” theme but, the OBC leaders by themselves are no political Bahubalis. A segment of BJP in UP feels the BSP imports were overrated and blame BJP general secretary Sunil Bansal, who inducted them. Sources said while Maurya and Chauhan alleged neglect of OBCs during four years that he was a minister under BJP rule, even as the ex-ministers flexed their political muscles. They fell out over their demand for assembly seats not being met by the BJP. “Maurya asked for a dozen seats including a ticket for his son. Chauhan wanted 7-8 tickets for his people”, says a BJP insider. Will the OBC leaders’ exit wreck the caste coalition BJP had stitched in UP? “What is the guarantee that these OBC leaders will fit into the SP’s Muslim-Yadav (M-Y) matrix? As it is, there is non-acceptance of M-Y domination in UP villages,” says UP minister Sidharth Nath Singh.
The beleaguered Punjab and Maharashtra Urban Co-operative Bank’s (PMC Bank) draft amalgamation scheme with Unity Small Finance Bank (transferee bank) may have to be reworked ahead of the upcoming BMC polls. The fly-in-the-ointment pertains to the clause that “no further interest will be payable on interest-bearing deposits of transferor (PMC) bank for a period of five years from the appointed date (of merger). It will be a long wait of five years for innocent depositors to be paid their money in full. PMC Bank’s deposits stood at Rs10,535.45 crore at end of March last year with nearly 50,000 depositors expected to bear the brunt of the current deferred payment scheme. A number of housing societies (read voters) in Mumbai had deposited their funds in the PMC Bank. Even bank employees’ cooperative credit societies were caught in this jam: The RBI Officers’ Co-operative Credit Society with some 3,500 members has FDs of Rs 105 crore while the RBI Staff & Officers Co-operative Credit Society with nearly 8,300 members has Rs 86.50 crore. Sahakar Bharati, a powerful force in the cooperatives space, has already made clear its discomfort with the scheme as things stand today and sought a relook at the repayment plan for depositors. Will political parties in the BMC polls fray take up the issue now? Last year, the RBI gave a licence to Centrum Financial Services and BharatPe to set up a small finance bank, Unity Small Finance Bank so the PMC Bank could be amalgamated with it.
Move over Japan and USA, India now has a 300MW gas insulated substation (GIS), which can scale up to 700MW, that ensures full power 24×7 to 10 data centers on the two-million square feet Mumbai campus of CtrlS. Backed by three different sources and diversified paths that power it at all times, the GIS facility will allow businesses to co-locate their high-density IT infrastructure with seamless scalability, customized to growth requirements. The Hyderabad-headquartered data center major, with a campus in Noida too, is in the business of guaranteeing totally safe data hosting to its global clients. The new GIS facility with “very limited” sensitivity to environment and humidity, is corrosion proofed, seismic resistant, operating life longevity of over 50 years and maintenance free for 25 years. It is not only advanced but sustainable, too, possessing LEED Platinum certification and, designed to withstand earthquakes measuring 9 on the Richter scale. “This deployment is our commitment to the industry as we continue to address the growing needs of hyper-scalers, telcos, BFSI, healthcare, gaming and new-age companies,” says CtrlS Datacenters Founder & CEO Sridhar Pinnapureddy. The GIS technology originally started in Japan in the 1960s to save space as against, conventional air-insulated substations. Even in the USA only about 2-5% of new substations constructed are GIS facilities.
South Africa had the last laugh at Cape Town and outwitted India 2-1 to win the Freedom Trophy. Had India put it across the home team on the auspicious day of Makar Sankaranti, it would have become the first Asian team to win a Test match at a city that visitors visualise as “God’s Own”. So hitherto India/Pakistan/Sri Lanka have not won a Test match at a fascinating venue that’s beneath the Table Mountain and Devil’s Peak. India has now played six matches at Newlands and lost four, Pakistan and Sri Lanka four each and lost all. Bangladesh has not played a Test at this venue. The successful touring teams have been Australia which has played 14 and won 10, England has played 21 and won 10, and New Zealand has played three and won one. The West Indies has played four and lost three and Zimbabwe has played one and lost it. India created an opportunity to sort of buck the trend that has occurred over the last three decades because Asian teams have been playing in South Africa only after the apartheid policy was dismantled in the country. The sage of South African cricket, Dr. Aron ‘Ali’ Bacher said thus some hours before the start of the fourth day’s play: “Great Test series and a great Newlands Test match.”
Malaika Arora’s Bollywood career started in 1998 with run-away hit item song Chaiya Chaiya making her a star. She stayed rooted as an item girl without the urge to evolve as an actor perhaps, by design. The 47 years young model, fitness freak single mom carved a distinct place in Bollywood with more memorable item numbers including Gur Naalo Ishq Mitha, Maahi Ve and, Munni Badnaam Hui. This Mumbai-born middle-class lass started modeling as a teenager that made her film industry smart. She typically took in her stride and moved on, after her 19-year marriage with Salman Khan’s brother, producer Arbaaz Khan soured. She walked away with her son and started afresh, even dropping the Khan surname. She is a brand and needs no morning walks with a pet dog in tow, as other paparazzi crazy stars do. Malaika still bags modeling assignments, is part of dance reality shows and partners with Sarvanga Yoga to post pics of various asanas over Instagram. A Bollywood insider says, “She is a person, unlike most celebrities, comfortable in her body. She wears what she feels like and aces it.” She showed guts by dating a younger man, actor Arjun Kapoor and soon may even tie the knot. Malaika’s is the story of a strong-willed woman who has come of her own, on her own terms.
The third wave (Omicron) has turned politically providential for the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government in Maharashtra that is actively considering deferment of scheduled local self-body elections including the big stakes Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) in Mumbai. The MVA is beleaguered after the SC ordered the elections, re-designating 27% of allocated OBC seats in the general category. Faced with a political backlash from the unrepresented backward castes, MVA is actively considering postponement of polls to April/May 2022, giving it ample time to complete the ongoing fresh OBC census. A Shiv Sena minister’s aide told shortpost.in, “Omicron is spreading faster. We are considering postponement of elections to BMC and other local bodies scheduled in February 2022.” In the previous elections to BMC in 2017, the richest civic body in India, saw the Bharatiya Janata Party and Shiv Sena fighting tooth and nail against each other, and winning 83 and 85 seats respectively. Post elections, BJP withdrew from its natural claim to be leader of opposition post in the civic body, which then went to the Congress party. This time though, there is no state alliance between the two parties and no love lost either. While NCP and Sena announced joint plans to contest BMC elections, the Congress is yet to make up its mind.
AICC General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra kept her word giving 40% tickets to women in Uttar Pradesh as she released her party’s first list of 125 candidates for the state that featured 50 women candidates. There are going to be 120 women candidates out of a total 403 seats. Prominent among Priyanka’s picks were Asha Singh, mother of the Unnao rape victim, who battled for justice for her minor daughter. The other candidates include Poonam Pandey, an Asha worker who was allegedly roughed up by the police while trying to meet UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath in Shahjahanpur in November last year, and Congress leader Sadaf Jafar, who was incarcerated over the anti-CAA stir in the state. The list also has Ramraj Gond, who had spearheaded the Gond tribals’ legal battle over land in Umbha village in Sonbhadra. Significantly, Priyanka took a lot of pride in her candidates that she aired a short video clip on her activist candidates. Priyanka feels by setting a gender agenda, she has made other political parties follow suit. Has she? The BJP dismisses such challenges. After all, in the Lok Sabha, out of 81 MPs, 42 belong to BJP.” It is not enough that more women are fielded; it is important that the party helps them get elected,” says BJP spokesperson Anila Singh.
Mythologist-author-speaker Devdutt Pattanaik courted controversy, even before he spoke, as invitee of the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports at the Two-Day National Youth Festival virtual conference, Puducherry. This may also have led to his live telecast over Doordarshan being blanked out. Pattanaik’s session was not televised live by DD due to “unforeseen technical issues”, said Kanchan Gupta, senior advisor to the I&B Ministry. Union Minister Anurag Thakur also faced flak from his own party and women’s pressure groups asking why the mythologist was chosen to inspire youth through his lessons from Bhagavad Gita? Sexist, misogynist and sexual abuses frequently hurled across social media by Pattnaik went viral on social media. The chorus for his removal from the event gained shrill currency even as author and columnist Shefali Vaidya (among several women) tweeted, “The problem with Devdutt Pattnaik is not just that he is a mediocre person, who completely distorts our scriptures without even basic knowledge of Sanskrit. He is an absolute filth who loves abusing people’s mothers. To hail this man as a ‘great mind’ is truly sickening!”. The fallout: of the huge banner of revolt and repulsion was that one of the backroom boys for the event decided on the “unforeseen technical issues” as a better option than facing the further wrath of the scorned women.
The sports broadcaster SuperSport of South Africa is in the crosshairs after an “impossible” replay reprieved skipper Dean Elgar when he seemed plumb in front to off spinner Ravichandran Ashwin in the Cape Town Test. Visiting teams are accustomed to facing hostility from various quarters but a telecaster is an additional one on tours of South Africa. Known for commentators who are cheerleaders for the home team, SuperSport is, however, not in charge of the technology of replays that is outsourced to a technical company and whose feed is made available to the match referee and TV. On an early tour of South Africa, Kepler Wessels shocked the cricket world by swiping his bat across Kapil Dev’s shins after taking his first run. There was a huge brouhaha about it and conveniently, the host broadcaster said it had no replays to show because the cameras had been on the blink. As excuses went, that was the weakest one but the South Africans, rabid supporters of their own, were quite smug about it. It is moot whether the host broadcaster can influence the replays which have predictive elements to them but the Indians let the world know what they thought of it by using the stump microphones strategically. And KL Rahul went the farthest with his cutting comment – “Whole country is playing against 11 guys.” The occasion probably deserved it.
TRENDS & VIEWS
Editor’s Note: Big Punch In Small Pack
It is the Third Anniversary of Short Post and as a news media startup launched during the Covid-19 pandemic it certainly feels better than good to find ourselves where we are today. Here, I must cite the unstinted support of our seasoned contributors, all senior editors in the country, who brought a great degree of maturity and sagacity to the Short Post newsroom. But for them, our tagline “Authentic Gossip”, an Oxymoron, would not have matured viably. Our user numbers may be small but our stories have created the desired impact among people who matter — decision makers and influencers. We offer a big punch in a small pack and Short Post with its 225-word stories has been punching above its weight category. Having posted close to 3,000 stories in the last 36 months, Short Post, I feel, is an idea whose time has come.
And this is vindicated by our two marquee advertisers – IDFC FIRST Bank and ICICI Lombard. Both believed in our story and have supported us from Day one. A big thank you to both.
If you look at the media landscape – print, TV and digital — it is a mixed bag. There are job losses as some outfits have closed down while a lucky few were bailed out by large corporate houses. Yes, there is a lot of action in the digital space. However, the entry of corporate houses has raised the question of independence of news media outfits. Sadly, there are just a handful of independent media outfits in the country that are highly respected for their neutrality. At Short Post, our credo is not to take sides, prejudge issues or be biased but, informing readers of behind-the-scenes happenings. In essence, Short Post strives to be a neutral editorial platform — neither anti-establishment nor pro-establishment.
As I said last year, disruptions in the media world are moving at a fast and furious pace. Technology is playing a very big role in how content is generated and consumed. But, we are neither alarmed nor perturbed as it is all a part of the evolution process. What gives us comfort is that AI is unable to create original gossipy content. And that is the news arena where we have achieved a distinction.