UNENDING TRAIN OF TRAGEDY
REGIONAL FILM STARS
18 `60
THE INSIDE STORY OF HOW THE PREMIER INVESTIGATING AGENCY WAS ROCKED BY
A CORRUPTION SCANDAL AND A DESTRUCTIVE
TURF WAR. CAN IT RECOVER? AND WILL THE
BLOWBACK SINGE THE GOVERNMENT?
DIGITAL EDITION
FREE WITH YOUR DIGITAL EDITION
UNENDING TRAIN OF TRAGEDY
REGIONAL FILMM STARS
NOVEMBER 5, 2018 `60
- 9
- 9
MAY 8, 2017
OCTOBER 2018
WEAVES OF WONDER
Makin g a d ifference
WHAT TO EAT BEFORE YOUR WORKOUT
WHY MAMMOGRAMS MATTER
The
Tre dsetters
50 INFLUENTIAL WOMEN UNDER 50
Festive Spirit
Anshu Jamsenpa, first Indian woman to scale the Everest five times
CELEBRATE THE SEASON IN STYLE
THE INSIDE STORY OF HOW THE PREMIER INVESTIGATING AGENCY WAS ROCKED BY
A CORRUPTION SCANDAL AND A DESTRUCTIVE
TURF WAR. CAN IT RECOVER? AND WILL THE BLOWBACK SINGE THE GOVERNMENT?
EXCLUSIVE MULTIMEDIA CONTENT ONLY FOR IPAD
AYODHYA
THE MANDIR MOMENTUM BLIGHTLY ON OUR LAND WHAT A MESS
BOOK REVIEW COVER STORY BIG STORY
BLOOD ON THE TRACKS
#CBIWar
SUBSCRIBE NOW
www.indiatoday.in/digitalmagazines
FROM THE
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Aroon Purie GROUP EDITORIAL DIRECTOR: Raj Chengappa
- tampering with evidence and worse.
- he CBI’s initials have long been the
butt of alternative interpretation—from Narendra Modi’s 2013
GROUP CREATIVE EDITOR: Nilanjan Das; GROUP PHOTO EDITOR: Bandeep Singh
MANAGING EDITORS: Kai Jabir Friese, Rajesh Jha
Our cover story this week, by Deputy
Editor Uday Mahurkar, digs deep into the roots of this highly avoidable confrontation and reveals multiple players pulling strings from behind the scenes. It’s a classic case of a political and bureaucratic tug of war, but the charges being traded are too serious to be dismissed as mere one-upmanship. In his letters to the Cabinet Secretary and the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC), Asthana listed 10 cases of alleged irregularities against his boss, Verma, while the CBI, under Verma, has accused Asthana of accepting a Rs 3 crore bribe. The widespread perception that Asthana, a Gujarat cadre IPS oicer, was brought to the agency at the behest of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah makes the recent developments all the more intriguing.
CONSULTING EDITOR: Ajit Kumar Jha (Research)
T
EXECUTIVE EDITORS: Damayanti Datta, S. Sahaya Ranjit,
Facebook quip ‘Congress Bureau
Sandeep Unnithan, MUMBAI: M.G. Arun
of Investigation’ to Rahul Gandhi’s recent tweet ‘Captive Bureau of Investigation’. The punchline is really the same: that India’s most powerful and constitutionally independent investigative agency is ultimately a tool of the government of the day.
In 2013, an irate Supreme Court judge famously called the elite agency a “caged parrot” for its shoddy inquiry into alleged irregularities in the allocation of coalfield licences. Four years later, more ignominy followed when the CBI booked two of its former directors on charges of corruption.
But if we thought that was the nadir,
DEPUTY EDITORS: Prachi Bhuchar, Uday Mahurkar, Manisha Saroop HYDERABAD: Amarnath K. Menon CHANDIGARH: Asit Jolly SENIOR EDITORS: Shweta Punj, Sasi Nair, Alokparna Das JAIPUR: Rohit Parihar SENIOR ASSOCIATE EDITORS: Kaushik Deka, Ashish Mukherjee MUMBAI: Suhani Singh, Kiran Dinkar Tare; PATNA: Amitabh Srivastava ASSOCIATE EDITORS: Shougat Dasgupta, Chinki Sinha KOLKATA: Romita Sengupta; BHOPAL: Rahul Noronha; THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Jeemon Jacob; BEIJING: Ananth Krishnan
ASSISTANT EDITOR: PUNE: Aditi S. Pai
PHOTO DEPARTMENT: Vikram Sharma (Deputy Photo Editor), Rajwant Singh Rawat, Yasir Iqbal (Principal Photographers), Chandra Deep Kumar (Senior Photographer); MUMBAI: Mandar Suresh Deodhar (Chief Photographer), Danesh Adil Jassawala (Photographer); KOLKATA: Subir Halder (Principal Photographer); CHENNAI: N.G. Jaison (Senior Photographer) PHOTO RESEARCHERS: Prabhakar Tiwari (Chief Photo Researcher), Saloni Vaid (Principal Photo Researcher), Shubhrojit Brahma (Senior Photo Researcher)
CHIEF OF GRAPHICS: Tanmoy Chakraborty
ART DEPARTMENT: Sanjay Piplani (Senior Art Director); Angshuman De (Art Director); Devajit Bora (Deputy Art Director); Vikas Verma (Associate Art Director);
developments over the past year culminating in a flashpoint last week proved
Bhoomesh Dutt Sharma (Senior Designer) Siddhant Jumde (Senior Illustrator) PRODUCTION DEPARTMENT: Harish Agarwal (Chief of Production), Naveen Gupta (Chief Coordinator),
how mistakenly optimistic we were. The director of CBI, Alok Kumar Verma, and his deputy, Rakesh Asthana, were asked to proceed on leave following charges and counter-charges of corruption. The unprecedented and ugly feud between them reiterates a dark truth often whispered in informal conversations: that the CBI’s become a playground of its political masters.
The Central Bureau of Investigation was set up in 1963 to probe serious cases of corruption and economic ofences. Gradually, several high-profile cases of conventional crimes such as murder and rape also landed at the agency’s doorstep, mostly because state police forces bungled with routine investigation. Placed directly under the Prime Minister’s Oice, it emerged as the country’s premier investigative agency, often probing the alleged misconduct of India’s high and mighty.
Perhaps this empowered existence also became the CBI’s weakness. Since the early ’80s, the ruling party at the Centre often used the agency to ‘fix’ political rivals. As corruption became endemic, the CBI’s role shifted from probing malfeasance to managing the speed and direction of investigations for political convenience. Several big-ticket cases of corruption involving top politicians—Bofors, Jain Hawala and the 2G spectrum scam—ended with no conviction. The agency also failed miserably in its investigation of more conventional criminal brutalities. We still don’t know who killed Aarushi Talwar and Hemraj Banjade in Noida, a decade ago. Indeed, in that case, the court censured the CBI for
The prime minister cannot entirely
Vijay Kumar Sharma (Senior Coordinator)
escape responsibility for this unsavoury episode, as he had more than fair warning about the impending clash. But for reasons best known to him, he chose to look away. The government, on the recommendation of the CVC, an institution entrusted by the Supreme Court to monitor the CBI’s functions, took action against the two oicers, but it was too little too late. The incident had blown the lid of the CBI to reveal the snake pit inside. Despite its chequered past, the CBI was still regarded as the last resort for investigation in the country. The current snafu has severely damaged its reputation.
However, the game is not over yet.
Asthana has sought protection from the Delhi High Court against any action by his own agency, while Verma has moved the Supreme Court against the government’s order efectively sacking him. As has happened so many times before, it will be fi- nally left to the courts to mend this administrative dysfunction. For someone who takes pride in his administrative skills, the meltdown at the top of the CBI will remain a blot on Modi’s record of governance. Restoring the credibility of the country’s top internal probe agency will take time and some long-term reforms. But that will only succeed if politicians desist from keeping their grubby hands of the CBI.
PUBLISHING DIRECTOR: Manoj Sharma
ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER: Anil Fernandes (Impact)
IMPACT TEAM
Senior General Manager: Jitender Lad (West) General Manager: Mayur Rastogi (North), Upendra Singh (Bangalore), Kaushiky Gangulie (East)
GROUP CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER: Vivek Malhotra
Assistant General Manager: Garima Prashar (Marketing) SALES AND OPERATIONS: D.V.S. Rama Rao, Chief General Manager Deepak Bhatt, General Manager (National Sales) Vipin Bagga, Deputy General Manager (Operations) Rajeev Gandhi, Regional Sales Manager (North)
Volume XLIII Number 45; For the week Oct 30-November 5, 2018, published on every Friday
● Editorial/Corporate Office Living Media India Ltd., India Today Group Mediaplex, FC-8, Sector-16A, Film City, Noida - 201301; Phone: 0120-4807100 ● Subscriptions: For assistance contact Customer Care India Today Group, B-45, Sector-57, Noida (UP)-201301; Phones: Toll-free number: 1800 1800 100 (from BSNL/MTNL lines); (95120) 2479900 from Delhi and Faridabad; (0120) 2479900 from Rest of India (Monday-Friday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.); Fax: (0120) 4078080; Mumbai: 022-66063411/3412, Kolkata: 033-40525327, Chennai: 044-24303200;
e-mail: wecare@intoda y . com
● Sales: Direct all trade enquiries to General Manager (Sales), Living Media India Limited, B-45, Sector 57, Noida-201301 (UP) ● Regd. Office: K-9 Connaught Circus, New Delhi-110001 ● Impact Offices: 1201, 12th Floor, Tower 2 A, One Indiabulls Centre, (Jupiter Mills), S.B. Marg, Lower Parel (West), Mumbai-400013; Phone: 66063355; Fax: 66063226 ● E-1, Ground Floor, Videocon Towers, Jhandewalan Extn,
New Delhi ● Guna Complex, 5th Floor, Main Building, No.443, Anna Salai,
Chennai-600018; Phone: 2847 8525 ● 201-204 Richmond Towers, 2nd Floor, 12, Richmond Road, Bangalore-560025; Phones: 22212448, 22213037, 22218343; Fax: 22218335; ● 52, Jawaharlal Nehru Road, 4th Floor, Kolkata-700071; Phones: 22825398; Fax: 22827254; ● 6-3-885/7/B, Somajiguda, Hyderabad-500082; Phone: 23401657, 23400479, 23410100, 23402481, 23410982, 23411498; Fax: 23403484 ● 39/1045, Karakkatt Road, Kochi 682016; Phones: 2377057, 2377058 ; Fax: 2377059 ● 2/C, “Suryarath Bldg”, 2nd Floor, Behind White House, Panchwati, Office C.G. Road, Ahmedabad-380006; Phone: 26560393, 26560929; Fax: 26565293 ● Copyright Living Media India Ltd. All rights reserved throughout the world. Reproduction in any manner is prohibited.
Printed and published by Manoj Sharma on behalf of Living Media India Limited. Printed at Thomson Press India Limited, 18-35 Milestone, Delhi Mathura Road, Faridabad-121007, (Haryana) and at A-9, Industrial Complex, Maraimalai Nagar, District Kancheepuram-603209, (Tamil Nadu). Published at K-9, Connaught Circus, New Delhi-110001. Editor: Raj Chengappa.
● INDIA TODAY does not take the responsibility for returning unsolicited publication material.
All disputes are subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of competent courts and forums in Delhi/New Delhi only
(Aroon Purie)
ꢀ
NOV EMBER 5, 2018 INDIA TODAY
ꢀ
1
UPFRONT
THE SEARCH FOR DRONE ACHARYAS PG 3
LEISURE
VETRI MAARAN’S
VADA CHENNAI PG 59
THE COSTS OF UNSAFE WORKPLACES PG 6
Q&A: ROBERT PIRES
PG 66
N JA B R A I L AC C I DE N T
BLOOD ON THE RAILS
t lessons can we learn from the fic rail mishap in Amritsar?
F I L M S
50
OLLYWOOD GGER THAN
AYODH YA
Meet the superstars of five film dustries who don’t need indi films to assert their popularity
34
MOMENTUM
MANDIR
Sangh Parivar steps up the clamour for the Ram temple in Ayodhya as the title suit comes up for hearing
Cover by NILANJAN DAS
Readers are recommended to make appropriate enquiries before sending money, incurring expenses or entering into commitments in relation to any advertisement appearing in this publication. The India Today Group does not vouch for any claims made by the advertisers of products and services. The printer, publisher, editor-in-chief and the editor of the India Today Group publications shall not be held liable for any consequences in the event of such claims not being honoured by the advertisers.
E-MAIL to:
log on to www.indiatoday.in
FOR SUBSCRIPTION ASSISTANCE, CONTACT: Customer Care, India Today Group, B-45, Sector-57, Noida (Uttar Pradesh)-201301. Phones: 2479900 from Noida, 95120- 2479900 from Delhi and Faridabad, and 0120-2479900 from Rest of India. Toll Free No.: 1800 1800 100. Fax: 0120-4078080. E-mail: [email protected]
ꢀ
2
INDIA TODAY
NOV EMBER 5, 2018
UNSAFE PLACES
PG
PG 4
6
FOR THE ONE AGE
PG 8
PG
7
are In rones in he hee way nd eapon ombat nted nteemart elm mbers. oking the pplies ecially
UPFRONT
in remote and far-flung areas.
POL I T IC S
It wants a single operator in a portable ground control unit to be able to control up to 50 drones that can fly 100 kilometres, carry a payload of one kilogram spend upto an hour on the target. A swarm of such drones could, for instance, take relief supplies to flood-affected areas like those seen recently in Kerala, allowing the IAF choppers for tasks like rescuing people.
Sharad Pawar: King Maker?
t appears that even the Con-
The contest, for which entries have to be submitted by November 14, has three phases. In phase 1, presentations will be decided by December 28. During phase 2, 10 drones will have to fly 10 km at a range of 50 km, at an altitude of 3,300 ft with GPS. In phase 3, 50 drones will have to fly as a swarm for 100 km without GPS. Developers will get their development cost reimbursed up to Rs 25 lakh for phase 1 and Rs 10 crore for phase 2. Up to three winners will get Rs 10 lakh as prize, followed by a co-production opportunity with a Base Repair Depot (BRD).
MILIND SHELTE
must avoid an American-style personality clash between Modi and Rahul in 2019. “Modi won’t become PM again,” he said. “The people want to defeat the BJP. There is a huge gap between the promises they made and the work they’ve done on the ground.” Pawar admits he is gress, like other opposition
I
to Prime Minister Narendra
Modi and the BJP, is keen to stress that its president Rahul Gandhi is not necessarily the party’s pick for prime minister. Former finance minister P. Chidambaram said last week
The acquisition bypasses the conventional lengthy procurement process of issuing Requests for Proposals by using a newly intro-
that the party would decide with willing to help forge alliances,
- its alliance partners once the
- exploit his good relationships
election was won. Sharad Pawar, with regional leaders. The
The winners could bag a Rs 100 crore
duced clause in the Defence Procurement Procedure
president of the Nationalist
mahagathbandhan, or grand
order to build drone swarms for the IAF, potentially, the largest such sourcing from industry
2016, which covers products developed by BRDs under the Buy Indian (de-
- Congress Party (NCP), agreed,
- alliance, has not really taken
talking up the prospect of a mys- off beyond a photo-op at the tery candidate, a regional satrap swearing-in of H.D. Kumawith sufficient support. “Who had imagined,” he asks rhetorically, “that Manmohan Singh would become PM in 2004?”
Rather than a national opraswamy in Karnataka. Modi and BJP president Amit Shah attacked the putative alliance as an opportunistic power grab.
And Pawar is careful to
signed, developed and manufactured) category, under the delegated powers of the Service Head-
position coalition, Pawar argues disavow any firm commitment for strategic local alliances, with to an alliance, insisting that
quarters. The winners will be announced on Kargil Vijay Diwas (July 26) next year.
strong state parties dominating partnerships. For instance, he said, the Trinamool Congress should be the senior partner in a West Bengal alliance; Chandrababu Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party must take the lead in Andhra Pradesh. But the Congress, Pawar believes, could turn the tables in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Haryana, while in Uttar Pradesh, a Samajwadi Party-Bahujan Samaj Party combine has already shown winning potential. while he is against the BJP, he’ll also maintain distance from the Congress. He believes, instead, in the potential of the likes of Mamata Banerjee and Naidu to make a national impact. Modi, he says, is not a towering figure like Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who also lost despite his charisma. Pawar claims not to have any prime ministerial ambitions, even in a situation in which, as he predicts, no party has enough votes to form the government, and an alliance is forged. The sort of situation that led to
This is also the first time the armed forces will directly place a significant defence order on an external agency after an open contest. This model, if successful, has the potential to upend the traditional model of acquiring high technology from the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and defence public sector undertakings a process frequently marked by long procurement and development cycles. “This contest brings a direct participation of the startup and MSME ecosystems to address the demands of the armed forces and to grow the Indian defence industry,” says Anshuman Tripathi, a consultant working with the IAF on the contest. A military application cannot be far away. A drone swarm that delivers relief supplies could also be programmed to drop ordnance or strike at
- The Congress and other
- H.D. Deve Gowda becoming
prime minister in 1996. “I was
opposition parties, Pawar said,
enemy aircraft.
ꢀ
4
INDIA TODAY
NOV EMBER 5, 2018
PU L L QUO T E
“Just plain common sense. Would you take sanitary napkins steeped in menstrual blood and walk into a friend’s home? You would not. And would you think that it is respectful to do the same when you walk into the house of God? So that is the diꢀerence. I have a right to pray, I do not have the right to desecrate, that is my personal opinion”
THE MEDIATOR
The NCP chief will likely play a bridge-building role in 2019
Textiles minister SMRITI IRANI
barged into the Sabarimala debate with her usual finesse. It would be reasonable to interpret her words as meaning women on their period should not visit their friends. ‘Activist’ Rehana Fathima was rumoured to be carrying used sanitary napkins when she tried to enter the temple, a claim she has denied. But it’s one thing to argue, as the dissenting judge did, that courts should stay out of the business of religion, but entirely another for a minister to reinforce taboos about women and refuse to concede that her critics may have a point, that her words were at the very least badly chosen.
involved in that process,” he cautions, “and we know it doesn’t work. Gowda was an accident and I don’t want to be part of another one.” liance between the NCP, the Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatana, the Congress and the BSP. Of course, the BSP and Congress failed to agree on a pre-poll alliance in MP. But this is what Pawar means when he says alliances will succeed based on particular circumstances in particular states rather than parties being forced together.
He hopes, though, that the opposition will put aside self-interest to come together. Shiv Sena, he said, was certain to join the BJP in the Lok Sabha poll. So he acknowledged the possibility of a Maharashtra-specific al-
—Kiran D. Tare
VIKRAM SHARMA
I N DE X
- 81,344
- 1,500
364 MILLION
Individual tax payers declared incomes of over Rs 1 crore in their FY18 returns, said the income tax department, up 68% from 48,416 such
Indians estimated to be worth more than $100 million and 3,400 over $50 million, says Credit Suisse. The Hurun global rich list estimates 131 Indian dollar billionaires
Indians are “MPI poor” in FY16. Multidimensional poverty measures 10 indicators in education, health and living
The Great Indian Plutocracy?
Released a week ago, the Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report confirms that India is an overwhelmingly poor country with extraordinary riches concentrated in the hands of very few. Combined with recent taxpayer data from the income tax department, the evidence makes for depressing reading. The US is often criticised for its inequality, for the outsize proportion of income and assets controlled by the 1%, but compared to India, both the US and China are almost Scandinavian in their wealth distribution. In India, while income tax data shows a rise in the number of taxpayers declaring an income of more than Rs 1 crore, the concern is that large swathes of the
standards. You are “MPI” poor if you are deprived in
- 33% of the indicators
- declarations in FY15
- 91%
- 8.6%
Of adult Indians have a net worth of less than $10,000 (over
Indians live in “severe poverty”, deprived of over 50% of the MPI indicators, say the UNDP and Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative, which came up with MPI
Rs 7 lakh), says Credit Suisse; 0.6% have a net worth of more than $100,000 (over Rs 70 lakh)
