The mediator followed up with a question by referring the record high foreign direct investments. He said that FDI indicate the positive outlook the foreigners have on India’s future, however, he asked, why is it that the Indians are losing faith on the economy? Minister agreed that it is a matter of sentiment and sentiments by nature are very fickle and cyclical. Minister cited all the effort by the governments to bring back faith. He said, better demand is required to revive the economy and that is the reason they have undertaken quantitative easing through the banks. Along with the merging of the banks with bigger banks, he ensured that the banks will have access to more capital. Also, the Corporate Tax rate is brought down from 30% to 15% to make India attractive to private sector. Therese were the steps taken by the government to boost consumption.

On the issue of banks, the mediator zeroed in on the conversation towards the rise in insolvency of big market players. Mr. Thakur reverted to this question by passing the buck on the UPA Government. The minister claimed that banks before the 2009, total loan was 18 lakh rupees and it reached 58 lakh rupees under the UPA government. Without further blaming the UPA government, he shifted the attention on to the bank officials. He said that any decision taken by the bankers on the grounds of business is fine but personal gain is not. Also that CVA will decide to take action against the bank officials and that there will be no witch hunt.

Next was the big topic of demonetisation. The mediator asked the Minister to talk about the pros and cons of the policy. By expressing his pride on the bold decisions of Honable Prime Minister, he claimed that the tax base has increased by more than 40%. Tax collection was seen to be at a historic high. Coming to the last topic about China, whether the Chinese were partners to the economic development plan or mere competitors, Minister stated that the trade war of US with China will benefit India. He also claimed that FTA as returned before 2004 with China there were favourable to China and that successive NDA governments have tried to gain favourable grounds on these fronts.

Written by Pranjal Ghate

The post Money Matters appeared first on Mangaluru.

Anand Ranganathan opened the discussion with a brief peep into the history of the whole Kashmir issue starting with the post independent to the revocation of the Article 370 and 35 A. He shed light on some of the migrants who were placed in Kashmir from other parts of the country and despite being well educated and could only get menial jobs due to the special status it enjoyed.

“We have only heard about the ISI and not the ISPR form Pakistan who are propagating an anti- India narrative to the media”, said Lt Gen Syed Ata Hussain in his opening remarks. India is in a dire requirement of good PR and media game in the international forum. He added, the internet connectivity which is now assumed to be a Human Right was the prime problem in the valley. Incidents of 2008, 2010 and 2016 was moved using mobile internet to mobilize information against the state. This time when there was a connectivity black out, no such incidents took place.

Prof M D Nalapat, was asked about how political leaders feed on separatist ideologies to which he said, “More trouble you make in Kashmir, more you fight with Indian State gets richer rewards”. It is profitable to be anti-Indian and Kashmir. These leaders go to countries like Qatar, Saudi Arabia to fund these trouble makers. He opined, Mahatma Gandhi did not endorse a two state idea, he advocated they are the same people not someone from Mars. But when it came to Kashmir, Jawaharlal Nehru, Lord Mount Batten they made an exception because it was a Muslim majority state. Treating people differently which started after the 15^th of August 1947 just because they are Muslim, is the root cause for all the problems that we see today.

Dr Waeil Ahmad who is originally from Syria gave an observation on Kashmir as an outsider, “People of Kashmir are a victim of the separation. And every political party has always said the Jammu and Kashmir as an integral part of India”. The current central government has in its election manifesto always spoken on abrogation of Article 370. Today, government has to gain the trust of the people. Integration of the valley into the rest of India can be done through giving them an assurance about them being a part of our progressive democracy.

The session ended to a final question on the future of the newly formed Union Territories of J&K and Ladakh. Lt Gen Syed Ata Hussain opines we are a smart thinking nation and to combat over our neighbouring countries need not be done physically and look into a lot of new ways for our benefit.

Written by Subramanya Kini K

The post Kashmir: A Peep into the Future appeared first on Mangaluru.

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Mr Sanjeev Sirnoorkar was the resource person for the day impressing the audience upon the Vision India Foundation’s mission to accomplish this. Through Rashtram School of Public Leadership, as said my Mr Sirnoorkar, the foundation aims to populate the public institutions of the country with a critical mass of committed and competent individuals who are competent to bring about a coherence between the multiple realms of Nation Building. The session was mostly kept as an open forum for discussion where the audience interaction was welcomed. The eligibility of potential candidates, the avenues in which they would be absorbed into post their graduation, the academic and social merit of pursuing such a program, the fee structure, the program structure and activities in the course were discussed. Broadly classified into Academic, Political and Community Leadership, the program outcomes are to cover a wide array of critical thoughts and actions.

The idea of Vidya being free and accessible to all those who seek it is an essential part of India’s history and culture. Not wanting to reject that idea and deny any knowledge seeker the opportunity, the program is to minimize the cost to cover only the absolute necessities, the Foundation is inviting applications that is to open up soon.

More information about the program and its intent, program structure and other details can be found at rashtram.org

Written by Navaneeth Ganesh

The post Rashtram – A Mission appeared first on Mangaluru.

The discussion started with the past of Indian cinema and how producers used to rely on class inequality to strike a chord with audiences. Recently filmmakers have started taking more risks and investing cautiously in a wide range of genres and stories. Bhandarkar talked about the challenges faced by filmmakers like himself in securing funding to make new kinds of films as producer’s aren’t confident of getting a return on their investment. Prakash mentioned how the audience has an active role in communicating their preferences to the industry by actively encouraging films they like.

According to the panellists, film has a disproportionately high impact on society when compared to other media as the problems filmmakers choose to showcase and the behaviour of characters can shift public perception greatly. Bhandarkar spoke about Traffic Light and how the public perception around beggars completely changed after the film came out and how such a change in perception can have both positive and negative effects so a filmmaker should tread with caution. Prakash chimed in saying that filmmakers choose artificial conflicts when real and more serious conflicts exist which the public never see.

There was a palpable tension in the air when Malavika brought up the topic of female-centric films in Bollywood and Bhandarkar spoke at length about challenges such as funding, marketing and pay of women in cinema. According to Bhandarkar as soon as audiences are excited about watching female-centric films or certain actresses, the problem of wage inequality in the film industry would be fixed as producers would be confident to bank a female-centric film.

All panellists were positive in their outlook for the industry as female-centric films are becoming more bankable and the rise of streaming services has empowered the writers by giving them multiple avenues to sell their stories. Prakash pointed out that with increasing urbanisation and the rise of streaming services, India was at a tipping point and the industry must react appropriately to deliver content that resonates with audiences and also drives the industry further in terms of diversity and inclusivity.

The panel discussion was followed by a brief interactive session with the audience. The panellists were presented with mementos from the Mangaluru Literary Society.

Written by Utsav Dash

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“History should be the truth of what happened, at some place during some time. Correct facts that happened with sufficient evidence of it happening is of paramount importance. It is also important to find the exact time of this happening, since objectivity can be derived only if there is correct time. Also, anyone should be able to verify the facts if it should be considered history.” said Prof. Hegde.

“When British came to India, they asked the locals for history. The scholars and pundits of India, not knowing what exactly ‘History’ was gave the British the records of Vedas, Puranas, and the epics. These were stories containing history, but this history was mixed with stories. Hence, the British proceeded to historicizing the stories, while adding in details for it to make sense. The originals were categorized as myths. Due to this, the British and subsequently the Europeans opined that ‘Indians lack sense of history.’ Records are different from history, as the records may be of stories or histories. Rather history is embedded in records. We must construct history from records.” said Prof. Hegde.

Professor Rajaram Hegde also said,” History is an unending dialogue between historian and his facts” when questioned about the discrepancies in oral history passed down and generally accepted history. He accepted that there is always the chance that the most solid and accepted historical fact may be proven wrong at some point of time.

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BL Santhosh, the general secretary of BJP in a discussion with Ajit Hanumakkanavar gave his views on the possibly scenarios on the development of India with respect to India’s new demographics.

“Individual, society and institution are the three elements on which either possibility depends upon. With the individual as the base, how society shapes him and how institutions utilize him will mandate how he turns out later in life.” opined BL Santhosh. “There are cases in which the surplus population is negatively exploited, and there are cases when meaningful exploitation is done.”

When asked about the Health and Education’s in India with respect to India and how it applies to the meaningful exploitation of the population, Mr. Santhosh said,” Every year, there is close to 100% enrollment in primary education among eligible age groups. But the percentage that passes out of SSLC is 79%. And only 23% succeed in getting a degree. But a large majority of these aspirants still lack the skills which companies are looking for. Speaking of health, a significant portion of people at the employable age are not eligible to work due to obesity, diabetes, or overall lack of physical and mental fitness. For the lack of skill in India, I feel that recent programs like Skill India and Make in India have contributed significantly, and will continue to do so.”

Speaking about the availability of employment for those with the required skill, Mr. Santhosh said,” There is no dearth of jobs in the country of India as a whole. But for specific locations, there is a lack of jobs. Having 1 crore jobs in India is not adequate. The 1 crore jobs must be equally distributed across the country. Or else, people moving to select developed cities where jobs are available, subsequently competing with the locals for jobs and thus causing friction is inevitable.

BL Santhosh concluded this session by saying,” Controlling the population is not a viable solution, preparing for the meaningful exploitation is the best choice by all standards.”

Written  by Ranjeeth Krishna

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Mr.Sandeep, while elucidating on the strategies of Foreign NGO’s and Missionaries to target India’s civilization he mentioned three tactics “Human Rights, Religious Freedom, and through various NGO’s”. In addition to him, Mr Arvindan also echoed the same narrative and presented a few examples which included the ‘Phantom Comics’ and explained how they were used to manipulate the psychology of the readers by projecting Phantom to protect everyone from the ‘Eastern Darkness’, which he pointed out later that they were implying it to the ‘pagan cult’.

While addressing the audience regarding the idea of reservation policy, Mr Arvindan quoted Dr B R Ambedkar stating that “Dr.Ambedkar says, a secular nation is not supposed to have minorities based on religion”. While further discussing on who should be given the reservations again Mr Arvindan invoked Ambedkar’s idea and stated, “Dr.Ambedkar said, socio-economic aspects should be considered for reservations; You can give reservations to gender minorities, you can give reservations to ethnic minorities, you can give reservations to linguistic minorities, but why should you give reservations to religious minorities? It’s absolutely not needed.”

Mr Arvindan concludes his argument by saying, “The US sees leftist as very useful intervention forces into Indian polity. All these have joined to fight against the last remaining pagan culture, and we have the responsibility of protecting it”.

Written by Ruchika Rajshekar

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Written by Shloka Nayak

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Sampath started the talk by describing Sarvarkar’s idea of Hindutva as an inclusive social order based on geography rather than religion. In his version of Hindutva, past inhibitions and injustices of society are subverted for equality and harmony in society. According to Sampath, Sarvarkar’s ideology of Hindutva came as a response to the politicisation of Islam by Gandhi and his allies during the Khilafat movement. There was further discussion on the differing ideologies of Gandhi and Sarvarkar ranging from the caste system to satyagraha.

Sarvarkar’s role in the independence movement was discussed at length with emphasis on his passivity during the movement itself. Sarvarkar’s party, Hindu Mahasabha, couldn’t ally with the Muslim League and he himself believed that the Congress’ pandering to the minorities was unsustainable for the formation of an equal society. Sampath argued that Sarvarkar’s role during the independence movement was to give an ideological and intellectual basis to the movement. Sarvarkar’s support for the British and his recruiting actions for the Colonial Army didn’t get a mention.

Sampath concluded that many aspects of Sarvarkar’s Hindutva ideology differ from the mainstream Hindutva ideologies prevalent today and that his broad vision for India has come to fruition in spite of his tainted reputation. The talk was followed by an interactive session with the audience during which Vikram Sampath revealed that he will detail Sarvarkar’s role in the assassination of M.K. Gandhi in his next book.

Written by Utsav Dash

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