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 FROM THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

T
he Tata Group has been one of India’s iconic industrial houses since its
www.indiatoday.in inception in 1868. It has built steel plants and townships, made every-
thing from salt to cars, and established globally recognised institutes of
Editor-in-Chief: Aroon Purie science, social research and cancer treatment.
Group Chief Executive Officer: Ashish Bagga
Group Editorial Director: Raj Chengappa
This business behemoth, which has total revenues of $103 billion, over half
Editors: Kaveree Bamzai (Special Projects), Ajit Kumar Jha (Research)
of which come from abroad, is one of India’s few truly global brands. No won-
Group Creative Editor: Nilanjan Das; Group Photo Editor: Bandeep Singh der its leader for 21 years, Ratan Tata, has been on our cover five times, and
Managing Editors: Kai Jabir Friese, Rajesh Jha
Executive Editors: Damayanti Datta, Kunal Pradhan,
the legendary JRD Tata once in December 1981, when he anointed Ratan Tata
S. Sahaya Ranjit, Sandeep Unnithan as his successor. In that issue, we had interviews with both JRD Tata and Ratan
Deputy Editors: Prachi Bhuchar, Uday Mahurkar, Manisha Saroop
Mumbai: MG Arun Hyderabad: Amarnath K. Menon Chandigarh: Asit Jolly
Tata. Both spoke about their vision and the future. The transition was smooth,
Senior Editors: Shweta Punj, Sasi Nair, Jaipur: Rohit Parihar unlike the recent sudden ouster of Ratan Tata’s successor, Cyrus Mistry, almost
Senior Associate Editors: Kaushik Deka
Mumbai: Suhani Singh, Kiran Dinkar Tare; patna: Amitabh Srivastava four years after he was given charge to chart a brave, new future for the group.
Associate Editors: Shougat Dasgupta, Chinki Sinha
Kolkata: Romita Sengupta; Bhopal: Rahul Noronha;
When Ratan Tata exited, to head Tata Trusts in 2012, the message to Mistry
Thiruvananthapuram: Jeemon Jacob; BeiJing: Ananth Krishnan was clear: take risks, continue with the expansion, grow the business aggres-
Assistant Editor: pune: Aditi S. Pai
Chief Copy Editor: Anindita Satpathi
sively. But Mistry, the first non-Tata to be at the helm after Nowroji Saklatwala
Photo Department: Vikram Sharma (Deputy Photo Editor), in the 1930s, clearly had his own ideas. He was ruthlessly ridding the group
Rajwant Singh Rawat (Principal Photographer), Yashbant Singh Negi
(Senior Staff Photographer), Kekhriezhazo Miachie-O
of what he considered to be bad assets, whether it was the English end of the
(Senior Photographer), Chandra Deep Kumar (Photographer); Corus steel acquisition, or Taj Boston in the US. He had articulated a vision—
Mumbai: Mandar Suresh Deodhar (Chief Photographer),
Danesh Adil Jassawala (Photographer); ahmedabad: Shailesh B Raval that the Tata Group would be the 25th largest by market cap globally in 2025—
(Principal Photographer); Kolkata: Subir Halder (Principal
Photographer); Chennai: N G Jaison (Senior Photographer) but it was not necessarily aligned to that of his predecessor. It meant growing
Photo Researchers: Prabhakar Tiwari (Chief Photo Researcher), at 15 per cent, less than the 20 per cent the company had grown at during the
Shubhrojit Brahma (Assistant Photo Researcher)
Chief of Graphics: Tanmoy Chakraborty Ratan Tata years.
Art Department: Sanjay Piplani (Senior Art Director); Mistry was no stranger to Tata Sons, which controls the Tata Group, as his
Jyoti K Singh, Anirban Ghosh (Art Director),
Vikas Verma, Rahul Sharma, Vipin Gupta (Associate Art Director); family is the group’s biggest individual shareholder with 18.5 per cent while 66
Bhoomesh Dutt Sharma (Senior Designer)
per cent is held by Tata Trusts. The Tata Group is more than just a business or a
Production Department: Harish Agarwal (Chief of Production),
Naveen Gupta (Chief Coordinator), company. For many Indians, it is the ultimate place to work, a gold standard of
Vijay Kumar Sharma (Senior Coordinator) Indian business. Even scandals like the Tata Tea tapes or the Niira Radia con-
Publishing Director: Manoj Sharma versations did not affect its image of doing good while making money.
Associate Publisher: Anil Fernandes (Impact)
The Tata Group has always been held as an epitome of professionalism and
IMPACT TEAM
Senior General Manager: Jitender Lad (West) therefore the undignified exit of its chairman is most unprecedented. With the
General Manager: Mayur Rastogi (North),
Upendra Singh (Bangalore), Velu Subramaniam (Chennai) key players maintaining silence, there is wild speculation about the reasons for
Deputy General Manager: Kaushiky Chakraborty his sudden departure.
Sales and Operations: D.V.S. Rama Rao, Chief General Manager
Deepak Bhatt, General Manager (National Sales) By all accounts, shares of Tata companies were doing well during Mistry’s
Vipin Bagga, Deputy General Manager (Operations)
Manish Kumar Srivastava, Regional Sales Manager (North) tenure. However, of the 100-plus independent operating companies in the
Rajeev Gandhi, Regional Sales Manager (West) group, only two were considered star performers—TCS and Jaguar Land
Arokia Raj L., Regional Sales Manager (South)
Rover, acquired in 2008. Also, there was an ugly legal spat with Japan’s NTT
DoCoMo, in which the Tatas were asked to pay a penalty of $1.17 billion.
Perhaps, all of these did not matter and the reason for his departure could
simply be that he was taking decisions without discussing them first with Tata
Trusts. Or perhaps, the Tata doyen just didn’t like his style.
Volume XLI Number 45; For the week
November 1-7, 2016, published on every Friday
Our cover story on the Tata coup was written by Business Today Editor
l Editorial Office Living Media India Ltd., India Today Group Mediaplex,
Prosenjit Datta. He was interacting with Mistry and his team, planning a major
FC-8, Sector-16A, Film City, Noida - 201301; Phone: 0120-4807100
l Subscriptions: For assistance contact Customer Care India Today Group, A-61,
report for the magazine, when news of his removal came in. Neither Mistry nor
Sector-57, Noida (UP)-201301; Phones: Toll-free number: 1800 1800 100 (from
BSNL/MTNL lines); (95120) 2479900 from Delhi and Faridabad; (0120) 2479900
the Group Executive Council, handpicked officials entrusted with steering the
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; group and making it future-ready, had any inkling. For all of them, it was busi-
e-mail: wecare@intoday.com
l Sales: Direct all trade enquiries to General Manager (Sales), Living Media India ness as usual till the weekend before the tumultuous board meeting on Monday.
Limited, B-45, Sector 57, Noida-201301 (UP)
l Regd. Office: K-9 Connaught Circus, New Delhi-110001 This dramatic story, which has sent shock waves through the corpo-
rate world, underlines the endemic problem of succession planning in India.
l 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 l E-1, Ground Floor, Videocon Towers, Jhandewalan Extn,
New Delhi l Guna Complex, 5th Floor, Main Building, No.443, Anna Salai, Business titans often find it difficult to find successors to fill their big shoes, as in
Chennai-600018; Phone: 2847 8525 l 201-204 Richmond Towers, 2nd Floor,
12, Richmond Road, Bangalore-560025; Phones: 22212448, 22213037, 22218343; the case of another very professionally run company, Infosys, where the founder
Fax: 22218335; l 52, Jawaharlal Nehru Road, 4th Floor, Kolkata-700071;
Phones: 22825398; Fax: 22827254; l 6-3-885/7/B, Somajiguda, Hyderabad-500082;
Phone: 23401657, 23400479, 23410100, 23402481, 23410982, 23411498;
made a controversial comeback after a series of co-founders had had a turn at
Fax: 23403484 l 39/1045, Karakkatt Road, Kochi 682016; Phones: 2377057,
2377058 ; Fax: 2377059 l 2/C, “Suryarath Bldg”, 2nd Floor, Behind White House,
the helm. The other scenario in family-founded firms is when the owners don’t
Panchwati, Office C.G. Road, Ahmedabad-380006; Phone: 26560393, 26560929;
Fax: 26565293 l Copyright Living Media India Ltd. All rights reserved throughout
reconcile to their mortality and leave no clear instructions, resulting in succes-
the world. Reproduction in any manner is prohibited.
Printed and published by Manoj Sharma on behalf of Living Media
sion battles. At Reliance, it manifested itself in a split between brothers Mukesh
India Limited. Printed at Thomson Press India Limited, and Anil after Dhirubhai Ambani passed away.
18-35 Milestone, Delhi Mathura Road, Faridabad-121007, (Haryana)
and at A-9, Industrial Complex, Maraimalai Nagar, District The Tata Group, with a market capitalisation of Rs 7.8 lakh crore, is impor-
Kancheepuram-603209, (Tamil Nadu). Published at K-9, Connaught
Circus, New Delhi-110001. Editor: Aroon Purie. tant for Indian business. Hopefully, Ratan Tata’s choice of leader this time will
l india today does not take the responsibility for returning unsolicited
publication material. meet his expectations and benefit the economy.
All disputes are subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of
competent courts and forums in Delhi/New Delhi only

(Aroon Purie)
NOVEMBER 7, 2016 u INDIA TODAY 10
 INSIDE

BIG STORY
AKHILESH YADAV

20
Patched-up
COVER STORY The corporate world tries to come Party
CYRUS MISTRY to terms with the sudden removal
Sense of After the bitter family feud spills out in

10
of Cyrus P. Mistry as chairman of the open, the Mulayam-led Yadav clan
Tata Sons, a man hand-picked to
an Ending be Ratan Tata’s successor
temporarily gets behind CM Akhilesh

SPECIAL REPORT 6 UPFRONT

DEFENCE PURCHASES
8 GLASS HOUSE

42 Readying for
War?
The defence ministry embarks on a quiet
32 NATION

ammunition buildup in one of the largest 60 GLOSSARY

procurements since Operation Parakram
62 EYECATCHERS

Cover Photograph by AP
(File photo from 2012)

CINEMA
SUNNY LEONE

57 Sunny
SMART MONEY
BEST BETS
Day

49 Make Your Own

Diwali Bonus
Look beyond FDs, go for debt funds. It’s also
a good time to buy gold. And the pifalls to
avoid when taking personal loans
The porn star-turned-Bollywood
actor tells it like it is in a new
documentary, but is squeamish
about it showing in India. Director
Dilip Mehta is having none of it

02 INDIA TODAY u NOVEMBER 7, 2016

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 MAIL
Dangerous Liaison
OCTOBER 24, 2016
Why India needs to worry about the China-Pakistan love affair
Friends in Deed
China is being conspicu­
ously chummy with
Pakistan, but it can’t ign­
ore the dangers of tying
up with the epicentre of
Islamic terrorism in the
region (Brothers in Arms).
China is not blind to the
threat terror outfits pose
in the economic corridor it
is planning, which cuts
through Balochistan and
PoK. Its real objective is to
keep India’s borders on the
boil, and keep us from be­
coming a formidable reg­
ional power. But with its
economy on the down­
swing, China also wants to
maintain and expand trade
relations with a stable de­
mocracy like India. If
Pakistan continues to exp­
ort terror across its bor­
ders into India, New Delhi
will have to defend itself
with force instead of
through mere dialogue or
dossier diplomacy.
KANGAYAM R. NARASIMHAN,
Chennai
Friends and foes in
international relations are
dictated not by ideological
similarity but business
concerns—a critical factor
in shaping foreign policy.
04 INDIA TODAY u NOVEMBER 7, 2016
India’s growing status has made China view it
as a challenger. By politically and economically
supporting a teetering Pakistan, China’s only
objective is to ensure that India does not
become powerful enough to challenge it
VIJAI PANT , via e-mail
a naval base in the south­
Neighbour’s Envy western port of Gwadar, it
Salman Bashir’s piece What India will get strategic access to
Can Learn from China is a false por- the Arabian Sea. The
trayal of India’s geopolitics. In my evolving India­US partner­
opinion, India has never imitated ship introduces another
the Western model of geopolitics, zone of uncertainty in
and it does not need to learn from China now. India is not trying to South Asia. Hopefully, we
become a superpower by virtue of its military strength; it has been can use this connection to
making strides in IT, space, indigenous technology for the past few our advantage.
decades, creating a trajectory of overall growth. Peaceful trade COLONEL C.V. VENUGOPALAN
with neighbours is a priority for us. The author seems to have for- (RETD), Palakkad
gotten about the Delhi-Lahore bus via Wagah, inaugurated in 1999.
H.K. VIJAYKUMAR, Mangalore Blinded by its ruthless am­
bition for economic growth
China, since Chairman Mao’s days, has been subjected to media and expansion, a myopic
obituaries sourced from the hate-mongering West. Today, it stands China is eagerly moving
majestically self-reliant with pioneering breakthroughs in science into the vacuum left by the
and technology supported by a sound economy. We should US’s waning interest in its
attempt to learn from the country’s marvellous metamorphosis. former frontline ally
R. NAMASIVAYAM, Nagpur against terrorism. New
Delhi is naturally unnerved
by the growing bonhomie
India’s wariness of the Accused of exercising heg­ between its adversaries,
China Pakistan Economic emony in its own back­ for it has the potential for a
Corridor needs to be yard, South Asia, India is two­pronged attack. China,
balanced with a policy that confronted by Pakistan, known to deal heavy­hand­
accommodates our best Bangladesh, Nepal and edly with dissent, is
interests vis­a­vis China Myanmar, all of whom dealing with fundamental­
and Pakistan. China will have been befriended by ism­inspired insurgency in
soon realise the price it China. These countries Xinjiang province. The cor­
has to pay for backing have readily embraced ridor will connect Kashgar
Pakistan on terrorism— China’s means of offsetting in Xinjiang province and
anti­China sentiment is “India’s overwhelmingly Gwadar Port in Balo­
growing in the country dominant position and fre­ chistan, so it is unlikely
and it is likely to lose its quently high­handed atti­ that this honeymoon will
markets in India. tude”. China’s closeness to last. Pakistan has a track
RAJESH JUNEJA, Pakistan is worrying for record of misusing military
Sriganganagar India—by helping it build and economic aid from its
 FROM THE
MAIL FROM THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF ARCHIVES

T
allies, diverting it to fund he Tata Group has been one of India’s iconicThe industrial
New Lord houses ofsince its
terror groups www.indiatoday.in
which it con- Ship without inception a Captain
in 1868. It has built steel plants and townships, made every-
Bombay House
siders strategic assets. thing from salt to cars, and established globally recognised institutes of
outsider overcame hurdles Relations between the Pallonji
Editor-in-Chief: Aroon Purie
History is wont to repeat science, social research and cancer treatment.
to become which
the ‘supreme family and the Tatas soured
Group Chief Executive Officer: Ashish Bagga
This business behemoth, has total revenues of $103 billion, over half
Groupitself.
EditorialWithDirector:China
Raj Chengappa having leader’ of the AIADMK and when Cyrus’s grandfather ac-
of which come from abroad, is one of India’s few truly global brands. No won-
lostKavereetheBamzaiSouth China Sea
der its leader for 21almost years,a Ratan
deity inTata,
Tamil has
Nadu.
Editors: (Special Projects), Ajit Kumar Jha (Research)
Group Creative Editor: Nilanjan Das; Group Photo Editor: Bandeep Singh been on quired more stake
our cover from other
five times, and
caseEditors: andKaithe Jabir US-led Thereonce
aren’tinmany politi- 1981, when Tata family members to in-Tata
Managing Friese, Rajesh Jha
the legendary JRD Tata December he anointed Ratan
Western Bloc leaning tow-
Executive Editors: Damayanti Datta, Kunal Pradhan,
S. Sahaya Ranjit, Sandeep Unnithan
cians in the country who crease
as his successor. In that issue, we had interviews with both JRD Tata and Ratan his holding to 16.5 per
ards
Deputy India,
Editors: we are
Prachi Bhuchar, Uday in a po-
Mahurkar, Manisha Saroop Amarnath K. Menon
Tata. Both hasspoke
given aboutcan match
their her
visionabilities
and in
the future. cent.
The JRD Tata, appointed
transition was smooth,
M umbai : MG Arun H
sition
Editors:to garner
yderabad : Amarnath K. Menon C
Punj, Sasisupport
handigarh
for
: Asit Jolly
a lucid picture of hospitalised dealing with the bureau- Tata chairman
Senior Shweta Nair, J
aipur : Rohit Parihar unlike the recent sudden ouster of Ratan Tata’s successor, CyrusinMistry,
1938, was almostin-
our cause. India
Senior Associate Editors: Kaushik Deka
should Tamil Nadu CM Jayalalithaa, cracy. Notwithstanding her censed at the move but even-
M : Suhani Singh, Kiran Dinkar Tare; p : Amitabh Srivastava four years after he was given charge to chart a brave, new future for the group.
obvious disdain for demo-
umbai atna

strengthen
Associate Editors: Shougat economic
Dasgupta, Chinki ties
Sinha and the currentWhen state ofRatan Tata exited, to head Tata Trusts in tually
2012, thethe twomessage
families to Mistry
K olkata
with
: Romita Sengupta; B
Japan,
hopal
a far
: Rahul Noronha;
more rel- flux there (The Amma of all cratic practices, what she
T hiruvananthapuram : Jeemon Jacob; B
eiJing : Ananth Krishnan was clear: take risks, continue with the expansion,smoked grow the the business
peace pipeaggres- and
iable ally.
Assistant Editor: p : Aditi S. Pai Questions).sively.
If she has built a has managed to do for Tamil maintained a cordial relation-
une
But Mistry, the first non-Tata to be at the helm after Nowroji Saklatwala
Chief Copy Editor: Anindita Satpathi
three-metre-tall wall aroundclearly Nadu is incredible. That ship. In the early 1990s,
PhotoNALINI
Department: VIJAYARAGHAVAN,
Vikram Sharma (Deputy Photo Editor), in the 1930s, had his own ideas. He was ruthlessly ridding the group
Rajwant Singh Rawat (Principal Photographer), Yashbant SinghVeda Negi Nilayam guarded by said, the twice interim CM O. Pallonji Mistry invested
Thiruvananthapuram of what he considered to be bad assets, whether it was the English end over
of the
(Senior Staff Photographer), Kekhriezhazo Miachie-O
barbed wireCorus and commandos, Panneerselvam or Sasikala
(Senior Photographer), Chandra Deep Kumar (Photographer); steel acquisition, or Taj Boston in the US. He Rshad60 crore of his cash
articulated in Tata
a vision—
M umbai : Mandar Suresh Deodhar (Chief Photographer), she has alsothat fortified herself have no sanction to act on
Your
Danesh stories
Adil Jassawala seem to
(Photographer); a sug-: Shailesh B Raval the Tata Group would be the 25th largest by market Sons’ rights cap issue
globally in 2025—
to maintain
her behalf. The situation is
hmedabad
(Principal Photographer); K olkata : Subir Halder (Principal as far as herbut personality is
it was not necessarily aligned to that of his predecessor. his stake. It It wasmeant
around growing
that
gest that
Photographer); C China
: N G Jaison is(Senior
a biggerPhotographer)
even more pathetic than that
hennai
concerned.at The15 pujas
perbeing
cent, less than the 20 per cent the company timehad thatgrown
speculationat during
in the
adversary than Pakistan.
Photo Researchers: Prabhakar Tiwari (Chief Photo Researcher),
offered across the state of Indira Gandhi, who at least
Tatafor
Shubhrojit Brahma (Assistant Photo Researcher)
Yet, we have largely ign- Ratan years. Mumbai arose that Shapoor
Chief of Graphics: Tanmoy Chakraborty
her well-being are a result had a son she trusted.
of no stranger
ored it, choosing instead
Art Department: Sanjay Piplani (Senior Art Director); Mistry was to Tata Sons, which controls Mistry,the Tataelder
Cyrus’s Group, as his
brother,
Jyoti K Singh, Anirban Ghosh (Art Director), the goodwillfamily
she hasisfostered KRISHAN KALRA, via e-mail
the group’s biggest individual shareholderwould withbe 18.5 pertocent
Vikasto engage
Verma, Rahul Sharma,in kebab
Vipin Guptaand (Associate Art Director); asked be awhile
direc-66
by working tirelessly for the
Bhoomesh Dutt Sharma (Senior Designer)
ghazal parties with per cent is held by Tata Trusts. The Tata Group is more tor onthanthe boardjust aofbusiness
Tata Sonsor a
Production Department: Harish Agarwal (Chief of Production),welfare of the people. If she
Pakistan. China will inevi- company. For manyThe hiddenithand
Indians, of ailing
is the ultimate place in to work,
place of a gold
his father.standard
But of
Naveen Gupta (Chief Coordinator),
can let go of her habit of firing Jayalalithaa’s closest asso-
Vijay Kumar Sharma (Senior Coordinator) Indian business. Even scandals like the Tata Tea tapes or the Niira
Cyrus’s appointment to the Radia con-
tably emerge as the pre- her cabinet ministers at will ciate, Sasikala,
Publishing Director: Manoj Sharma versations did not affect its imageisof believed
doing good while board making
in 2004money. and his eleva-
dominant global
Fernandespower (Impact) of and escape Sasikala’s manip- to be behind the decision
Associate Publisher: Anil
The Tata Group has always been held as an epitome tion as of professionalism
the deputy chairmanand
the 21st century—being ulative clutches, all will be to allot the
exitCM’s portfolios
IMPACT TEAM
Senior General Manager: Jitender Lad (West) therefore the undignified of its chairman is most unprecedented.
of Tata Sons ended corporate With the
richer and
Mayurmore powerful well in Tamil Nadu. to statesilence,
financethere
minister
General Manager: Rastogi (North),
Upendra Singh (Bangalore), Velu Subramaniam (Chennai) key players maintaining is wild speculation
India’s aboutspeculation.
biggest the reasons for
than
Deputy GeneralIndia.
Manager:Since 1962, we
Kaushiky Chakraborty
MANI NATRAAJAN, Chennai
his sudden departure. Panneerselvam. It appears
Ratan Tata endorsed Mistry’s
have not had any skir- By all accounts,to be trueofthat he companies
is favoured were
Sales and Operations: D.V.S. Rama Rao, Chief General Manager
Deepak Bhatt, General Manager (National Sales) shares Tata doing well and
appointment during
called Mistry’s
it a
Vipinmishes
Bagga, Deputy withGeneral China
Manager while (Operations) Your big story somewhat
tenure. because he keeps a low
However, of the 100-plus independent operating companies inchoice”
the .
Manish Kumar Srivastava, Regional Sales Manager (North)
there Gandhi,haveRegional been three ser- demystifiesgroup,the great eni- profile and unquestioningly “good and farsighted
Rajeev Sales Manager (West) only two were considered star performers—TCS and Jaguar Land
“He has been on the board of
Arokia Raj L., Regional Sales Manager (South)
ious conflicts with gma calledRover,
Jayalalithaa.acquired in 2008. acceptsAlso,
Amma’s authority.
there was an ugly legal spat with Japan’s NTT
Hers is a fairy tale sagain which the PADMINI RAGHAVENDRA, Tata Sons since August 2006
Pakistan in 1965, 1971 DoCoMo, Tatas were asked to pay a penalty of $1.17 billion.
of how a strong-willed Secunderabad and I have been impressed
and 1999. In China, we Perhaps, all of these did not matter and the reason for his departure could
with the quality and calibre of
have a neighbour who is simply be that he was taking decisions without discussing them first with Tata
his participation, his astute
not as belligerent as Trusts. Or perhaps,Patidar the Tata doyen just
agitation. To didn’t
pre- like his style.
observations and his humil-
Volume XLI Number 45; For the week
Pakistan and from
November 1-7, 2016, published on every Friday whom Maha issue Our cover story on
ventthe Tata
matters coup
from was written by Business Today Editor
getting
ity,”
weOffice can Livinggain by Ltd.,way ofGroup
as-Mediaplex, The situation in
Prosenjit Datta. He was interacting with
out of hand, chief minister Mistry and his said
team, theplanning
group’s chairman
a major
l Editorial Media India India Today
report for the magazine, when news of his removal in a
came statement,
in. Neither adding:
Mistry “Henor is
sociation. Why should we
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For all on of
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ness as usual till thesituation.
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board meeting on Monday.will be com-
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Direct all trade enquiries to Generalirredeem-
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rate world, underlines the endemic problem of over the next
succession year toingive
planning India.him
Fax: belligerent Pakistan?
Videocon Towers, Jhandewalan Extn, has a record of orderliness, tively address the problem.
Mills), S.B. Marg, Lower Parel (West), Mumbai-400013; Phone: 66063355;
66063226 E-1, Ground Floor,
l
New Delhi Guna Complex, 5th Floor, Main Building, No.443, Anna Salai, Business titans often find it difficult to find successors the exposure,
to fill their the involvement
big shoes, as in
went into a spin after the
l
DEEPAK SINGHAL, Noida BAL GOVIND, Noida
Chennai-600018; Phone: 2847 8525 201-204
l Richmond Towers, 2nd Floor,
12, Richmond Road, Bangalore-560025; Phones: 22212448, 22213037, 22218343; the case of another very professionally run company, andInfosys,
the operatingwhere experience
the founder
to equip himhad to undertake theat
Fax: 22218335; 52, Jawaharlal Nehru Road, 4th Floor, Kolkata-700071;
made a controversial comeback after a series of co-founders had a turn
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firms is when the of the group
owners don’t
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26560929;
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reconcile to their mortality
before sending E-MAIL YOUR and leave
LETTERS no clear on my retirement.”
TO: instructions, resulting in succes-
l
money, incurring expenses or entering into commitments in relation to
the world. Reproduction in any manner is prohibited.
sion battles. At Reliance, it manifested
letters.editor@intoday.com itself in a Thebetween
split handoverbrotherscomes atMukesh a cru-
Printed and published any by
advertisement
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behalf of Living publication. The India Today Group
Media
India Limited. Printed doesatnot vouch
Thomson forIndia
Press any Limited,
claims made by the advertisers of and Anilandafter Dhirubhai
products OR LOG Ambani
ON TO passed away. cial time for the Tata Group as
18-35 Milestone, Delhi Mathura Road, Faridabad-121007, (Haryana)
and at A-9, Industrial services.
Complex, The printer,Nagar,
Maraimalai publisher, editor-in-chief and the editorThe
District Tata Group,
of the India with a market capitalisation of
www.indiatoday.in Rs 7.8 lakh
it continues with crore,
its rapidis impor-
Kancheepuram-603209, Today(Tamil
Group publications
Nadu). Published atshall not be held liable for any consequences in
K-9, Connaught
Circus, New Delhi-110001. Editor: Aroon Purie.
the event of such claims not being honoured by the advertisers.
tant for Indian business. Hopefully, Ratan Tata’s choice
growth of leader
ambitions. this time will
l india today does not take the responsibility for returning unsolicited
publication material. meet his expectations and benefit the economy. by Sandeep Bamzai and
All disputes areFOR
subject to the exclusive jurisdiction
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(Aroon Purie)
NOVEMBER 7, 2016 u INDIA TODAY 50
 UPFRONT GOPALKRISHNA GANDHI

BEYOND BORDERS
W
hat stops going from India to Pakistan or have not, will not. The more a family is divided, the
coming to India from Pakistan, stops only more the desire to step over the fence. Neither country
for the moment. What does not stop or even has announced a closure of its consular offices. Visas,
slow down, simply, does not stop or slow or visae, as the fastidious would say, will continue to be
down. For it cannot. It is meant to cross over, to journey, issued, even if the stamping officers wear a scowl. Not
to be shared, experienced. Its very nature intends it to that they ever wore a smile anyway.
keep moving, happening. Overarching all these is another wind-path that can-
Nothing can halt it, no adesh-nidesh here, no fatwa not be walled.
there. And its name is the human spirit.
After traumas such as Uri, it would be naïve to expect Lata Mangeshkar does not have to go to Pakistan,
bilateralism to flow like some dream-stream between nor Nayyara Noor come here, to be heard. And from Yon
the two countries. Not just naïve, it would be absurd. A High, Bade Ghulam Ali Khan continues to throb Pakistani
blow is a blow. You cannot pretend that you have not hearts as does Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan pulse ours. The liv-
been stunned, shaken, hurled down. You cannot pre- ing voltage of Shah Rukh Khan, Aamir Khan, Salman
tend not wanting to give it back, right and proper. Khan, Irrfan Khan ‘charges’ Pakistan as much as it does
But just as the process of natural recovery from their own India. And Karan Johar’s plans notwithstand-
any non-fatal trauma commences the very moment ing, Fawad Khan has claimed hearts in India through
the injury has done its work, so it is with violence scar- what can only be called a collective bypass. Do what ter-
ring two nations , especially among two neighbours that ror might to wrench them apart, cinema’s Khan-ate has
were one until just the other day. For anyone to arrest welded Indians and Pakistanis as nothing else ever has,
that renewal of torn tissues is also naïve, absurd. ever can. Piracy is a nasty crime against copyright. But it
Despite calls for the abrogation of the Indus Waters has done an incidental Robin Hood on cultural conceit.
Treaty, India has not done that. This is not just because Abida Parveen’s voice cannot be censored in India,
the treaty, signed by India, Pakistan and by the World nor Gulzar’s or Javed Akhtar’s in Pakistan. Sachin Ten-
Bank, is an international obligation, a vachan. And not dulkar awes Pakistan as Javed Miandad does us. Faiz
just because of ‘duniya kya kahegi?’, but because our Ahmed Faiz will be read in India and Khushwant Singh in
prime minister knows that if India is an upper riparian Pakistan, long after the rasping of ban-seekers has played
here, it is a lower riparian elsewhere and those who out. And thanks to Sarmad Khoosat’s film on Saadat Hasan
need to protect downstream river users’ rights cannot Manto made last year in Pakistan and Nandita Das’s on
turn taps off from their higher perches. He knows that the same theme in India, both countries celebrate the life
rivers are inter-continental arteries, not mohalla nallas. of a man who belonged to both countries’ ideals and to
But waters, snowmelts, air- neither countries’ crassness.
Illustration by ANIRBAN GHOSH
waves, cranes, chirus and snow Evil-mindedness exists in all
leopards apart, there are other societies, nations. It always has.
currents that will not stop. Trade That evil does not operate with
across the LoC was suspended after the leave of the lovers of music,
Uri, only to resume. And this is not the arts, literature, sport, among
because of a most favoured nation whom it thrives. Fight terror we
(MFN) status given to Pakistan by must; spite culture, we must not.
us, or G20 izzat, WTO sentiments We should view the call for
or GATT obligations. This is beca- cultural and sports boycotts as
use mutuality between once-uni- natural, understandable and in
ted nations cannot be stopped. fact inevitable. But depending
Caravans of embroidered fabrics on our individual ‘rasa’, we must
from our side, crossed kafilas of meet it either with Faiz’s powerful
dried fruit coming across the LoC anguish, Khushwant’s withering
from theirs. And that too right wit or Manto’s excoriatingly mean-
under the watch of armed person- ingless “Upar di gur gur di annexe
nel. Trade as such between the two di bedhiyana ji moong di daal…”
Do what terror might to
countries, over land, sea and air,
too, marked a dip, only to limp back. wrench them apart, Gopalkrishna Gandhi,a
Travel, likewise. Have Indians cinema’s Khan-ate has columnist and teacher, is the
and Pakistanis stopped visiting each welded Indians and author of a play in English
other for all time? No way. They Pakistanis like nothing else verse, Dara Shukoh

6 INDIA TODAY u NOVEMBER 7, 2016

 GLASS HOUSE by SANDEEP UNNITHAN

WIDE ANGLE
B JP president Amit Shah has often
fulminated about unfavorable
media coverage. It now emerges that THE NEW
at least part of the dissatisfaction was
due to the unflattering pictures of
BESTIES
him used by the media. Shah recently
circulated a pen drive loaded with A recent call from
Rahul Gandhi to
Bengal CM Mamata
46 pictures to media houses, mostly
taken at a special shoot (for which, Banerjee enquiring
sources say, the BJP chief spent a about her nephew Abh­
pretty penny). Naturally, the vanity ishek (injured in an
accident) has proved

Illustration by ANUP RAY

project has raised eyebrows within
the BJP too. This is the first time in its to be an ice­breaker
history that a party chief has circulat- for Congress­TMC
ed ‘officially approved’ images. ties. Mamata later told
partymen the Congress
was “essential” to
fight the BJP!

TWITTER
TRENDS
B irthday messa­
ges for Chhatti­
sgarh CM Raman
Singh trended on
Twitter on October
15 but his party chief,
Amit Shah, didn’t do
too well on his big day
a week later, October
22 (a distant 8th on
Twitter trends). This,
despite the BJP’s
avowed ‘110 million
members’.
HIGHWAY
HITCHING
STRIKE THREE L alu’s younger son
Tejaswi Yadav is
clearly Bihar’s most
S udhir Pratap Singh, the new Director General of the
National Security Guard (NSG), has started a long­
needed clean­up of the counter­terrorist force. The NSG’s
eligible bachelor. The
deputy CM has so
far got over 44,000
effectiveness had come into serious question after the marriage proposals on
January 2 Pathankot airbase attack. Three senior NSG an official WhatsApp
officers, DIG (administration), IG (headquarters) and IG number, made public
(provisioning), were moved out within a month of the to seek feedback on
1983 batch IPS officer’s taking over. Insiders say Singh’s the state’s roads.
‘surgical strike’ has the approval of NSA Ajit Doval.

THE WEEK IN TECHNOLOGY TRENDS

WHATSAPP PHONE-TAPPING FILM
BJP national general Controversial Kerala Kerala CM PINARAYI
secretary RAMLAL asks vigilance director VIJAYAN calls film­
party workers to create JACOB THOMAS star Mohanlal to
30­member WhatsApp lodges police com­ compliment him
groups for a plaint, alleges cops on his SFX­
marketing tapping his phone, laden Puli
drive hacking his e­mail Murugan

8 INDIA TODAY u NOVEMBER 7, 2016

 GLASS HOUSE
FROM THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

TTHIRD PARTY
he Tata Group has been one of India’s iconic industrial houses since its
www.indiatoday.in

Editor-in-Chief: Aroon Purie

THE inception in 1868. It has built steel plants and townships, made every-
thing from salt to cars, and established globally recognised institutes of
science, social research and cancer treatment.

A s Indo-US ties warm

This business up and which has total revenues of $103 billion, over half
behemoth,
Group Chief Executive Officer: Ashish Bagga
Group Editorial Director: Raj Chengappa
tensions
of which with
come China
from rise over its
abroad, is one of India’s few truly global brands. No won-
SHORTING
Editors: Kaveree Bamzai (Special Projects), Ajit Kumar Jha (Research)
Group Creative Editor: Nilanjan Das; Group Photo Editor: Bandeep SinghPoK corridor, American
der its leader for 21envoy
years, toRatan
India Tata, has been on our cover five times, and
THE BABUS theVerma
legendary JRDhisTata
firstonce
visitin toDecember 1981, when he anointed Ratan Tata
Managing Editors: Kai Jabir Friese, Rajesh Jha
Executive Editors: Damayanti Datta, Kunal Pradhan,
Richard made
S. Sahaya Ranjit, Sandeep Unnithan Tawang as on
his October
successor. 21.InThe
thatvisit,
issue, we had interviews with both JRD Tata and Ratan
inci-

A
Deputy Editors: Prachi Bhuchar, Uday Mahurkar, Manisha Saroop
M umbai : MG Arun ndhra
H
yderabad Prad eshK. Menon
: Amarnath CM C
handigarh
Tata. Both spoke about their vision and the future. The transition was smooth,
: Asit Jollydentally, came a day after the 54th anni-
N. Chandrababu: Rohit Parihar
Senior Editors: Shweta Punj, Sasi Nair, J aipur
versary unlike
of the the recent
start sudden
of the ouster of Ratan Tata’s successor, Cyrus Mistry, almost
Sino-Indian
Senior Associate Editors: Kaushik Deka
M umbai :Naidu
Suhani Singh, has Kirancut
Dinkarred
Tare; ptape
atna : Amitabh Srivastava borderfourwar. years
China after he was
claims muchgivenof charge to chart a brave, new future for the group.
Associate Editors: Shougat Dasgupta, Chinki Sinha
K olkata for
: Romitaindustrial
Sengupta; B clear­
hopal : Rahul Noronha; Arunachal, When Ratan Tawang
but views Tata exited,as par-to head Tata Trusts in 2012, the message to Mistry
T
ances with the amend­
hiruvananthapuram : Jeemon Jacob; B
Assistant Editor: p : Aditi S. Pai
eiJing : Ananth Krishnan
ticularly sensitive, given its links withwith the expansion, grow the business aggres-
was clear: take risks, continue
Tibet. sively.
BeijingBut Mistry, the first non-Tata to be at the helm after Nowroji Saklatwala
une

Chief Copy edEditor:

AP Infrastructure
Anindita Satpathi expectedly slammed the
Development
Photo Department: Vikram SharmaEna bling
(Deputy Photo Editor),
visit in theit1930s,
saying would clearly
“sabotage had his own ideas. He was ruthlessly ridding the group
hard-won
Rajwant Singh Rawat (Principal Photographer), Yashbant Singh Negi
(SeniorAct. Proposals now Miachie-O of what he considered to be bad assets, whether it was the English end of the
Staff Photographer), Kekhriezhazo peace” on the border, and urged the US
(Senior Photographer), Chandra Deep Kumar (Photographer); Corus steel acquisition, or Taj Boston in the US. He had articulated a vision—
M umbai :don’t
Mandar Sureshneed clea(Chief
Deodhar rance Photographer), “to stop meddling in disputes between
Danesh Adil Jassawala (Photographer); a : Shailesh B Raval that the Tata Group would be the 25th largest by market cap globally in 2025—
from bureaucrats, : Subirand
hmedabad
(Principal Photographer); K Halder (Principal India and China”.
olkata
but it was not necessarily aligned to that of his predecessor. It meant growing
political bosses can
Photographer); C hennai : N G Jaison (Senior Photographer)
Photo Researchers: Prabhakar Tiwari (Chief Photo Researcher), at 15 per cent, less than the 20 per cent the company had grown at during the
Shubhrojit overrule all objections
Brahma (Assistant Photo Researcher)
Ratan Tata years.
Chief of Graphics: Tanmoy Chakraborty
Art Department: Sanjay Piplani (Senior Art Director); Mistry was no stranger to Tata Sons, which controls the Tata Group, as his
Jyoti K Singh, Anirban Ghosh (Art Director),
Vikas Verma, Rahul Sharma, Vipin Gupta (Associate Art Director); FEVER family is the group’s biggest individual shareholder with 18.5 per cent while 66
Bhoomesh Dutt Sharma (Senior Designer)
per cent is held by Tata Trusts. The Tata Group is more than just a business or a
Production Department: Harish Agarwal (Chief of Production),
Naveen Gupta (Chief Coordinator),
PITCH company. For many Indians, it is the ultimate place to work, a gold standard of

R
Vijay Kumar Sharma (Senior Coordinator)
ajasthan Indian business. Even scandals like the Tata Tea tapes or the Niira Radia con-
Publishing Director: Manoj Sharma versations did not affect its image of doing good while making money.
Chief Minister
Associate Publisher: Anil Fernandes (Impact)
Vasundhara Raje The Tata Group has always been held as an epitome of professionalism and
IMPACT TEAM
Senior General Manager: Jitender Lad (West) therefore
recently tweeted about the undignified exit of its chairman is most unprecedented. With the
Upendra Singh (Bangalore), Velu Subramaniam (Chennai) the painful key SEE YOU AGAIN
players maintaining silence, there is wild speculation about the reasons for
General Manager: Mayur Rastogi (North),
after-effects
Deputy General Manager: Kaushiky Chakraborty his sudden
even departure.
M
Sales and Operations: D.V.S. Rama Rao, Chief General Manager of chikungunya, adhya Pradesh
By all accounts, shares of Tata companies were doing well during Mistry’s
Deepak Bhatt, General Manager (National Sales)
appearing in public Chief Minister
NOT SO GIFTED tenure. However, of the 100-plus independent operating companies in the
Vipin Bagga, Deputy General Manager (Operations)
Manish Kumar Srivastava, Regional Sales Manager (North)
with her arm in a sling Shivraj SinghLand
Rajeev Gandhi, Regional Sales Manager (West) group, only two were considered star performers—TCS and Jaguar

S iddaramaiah is on October 23. This,

Rover, acquired in 2008. Also, there was an ugly legal spat with is Chouhan a very NTT
Arokia Raj L., Regional Sales Manager (South)
Japan’s
paranoid about after the CM’s office in which the Tatas were asked to pay a penalty
DoCoMo, confident
of $1.17 man. He told
billion.
gifts after being burnt had been denying all all of these did not matter and the reasoninvestors
Perhaps, at the recent­
for his departure could
over a Rs 70 lakh along that she hadbe
simply been
that he was taking decisions without discussing ly concluded
them firstGlobal
with Tata
Hublot watch in March. affected (sources Trusts.say it
Or perhaps, the Tata doyen just didn’t like his style. Investors Meet (GIS)
Volume The XLI Number
Karnataka 45; ForCM the week
had was partly to cover
Our up
cover story on the Tata coup was written by Business
2016 in Today
IndoreEditor
that
November 1-7, 2016, published on every Friday
gifts from a Bengaluru for the health department’s
Prosenjit Datta. Hefailure in fightingwith
was interacting theMistry
mos- and his team,
he wouldplanning a major
be welcom­
l Editorial Office Living Media India Ltd., India Today Group Mediaplex,
businessman inspe­
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when to
newscome
of hisclean
removal came in.
ing Neither
them againMistry
as CMnor
cted, to check
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handpicked was entrusted
officials with steering
in February the
2019 (his
Mumbai: were reallyKolkata:
sweets
from Rest of India (Monday-Friday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.); Fax: (0120) 4078080;
022-66063411/3412,
feigning thegroup
033-40525327, Chennai: 044-24303200;
illnessandtomaking
postpone a cabinet reshuffle,
it future-ready, had any as inkling. For all of them,third
unbroken it was busi-
term
Sales: Direct all trade enquiries to General Manager (Sales), Living Mediadesired
e-mail: wecare@intoday.com
l India ness aspresident
by party usual till theAmit weekend
Shah. before the tumultuous board meeting
ends in 2018). on Monday.
Limited, B-45, Sector 57, Noida-201301 (UP)
l Regd. Office: K-9 Connaught Circus, New Delhi-110001 This dramatic story, which has sent shock waves through the corpo-
rate world, underlines the endemic problem of succession planning in India.
l 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,
Business titans often find it difficult to find successors to fill their big shoes, as in
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l

THACKERAY’S U-turn RAJ After initial

Chennai-600018; Phone: 2847 8525 201-204 Richmond Towers, 2nd Floor,
l
12, Richmond Road, Bangalore-560025; Phones: 22212448, 22213037, 22218343; thehoo­hah, MNS chief
case of another verybacks down, withdraws
professionally Ae Dil Hai
run company, Mushkil
Infosys, protest
where the founder
Fax: 22218335; 52, Jawaharlal Nehru Road, 4th Floor, Kolkata-700071;
made a controversial comeback after a series of co-founders had had a turn at
l
Phones: 22825398; Fax: 22827254; 6-3-885/7/B, Somajiguda, Hyderabad-500082;
l
Phone: 23401657, 23400479, 23410100, 23402481, 23410982, 23411498;
Fax: 23403484 39/1045, Karakkatt Road, Kochi 682016; Phones: 2377057,
l
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l
the helm. The other scenario in family-founded firms is when the owners don’t
Panchwati, Office C.G. Road, Ahmedabad-380006; Phone: 26560393, 26560929;
Fax: 26565293 Copyright Living Media India Ltd. All rights reserved throughout
l
reconcile to their mortality and leave no clear instructions, resulting in succes-
the world. Reproduction in any manner is prohibited.
Printed and published by Manoj Sharma on behalf of Living Media
sion battles. At Reliance, it manifested itself in a split between brothers Mukesh
India Limited. Printed at Thomson Press India Limited, and Anil after Dhirubhai Ambani passed away.
CHENNAI EXPRESS TOLL TAX with a market 2014 POLLS of Rs 7.8 SURAKSHETRA
18-35 Milestone, Delhi Mathura Road, Faridabad-121007, (Haryana)
and at A-9, Industrial Complex, Maraimalai Nagar, District The Tata Group, capitalisation lakh crore, is impor-
Kancheepuram-603209, (Tamil Nadu). Published at K-9, Raj withdraws threat
Connaught Gives call to Announces that
tant for Indian business. Hopefully, Ratan Tata’s choice of leader he Okays 2015 music
this time will
Circus, New Delhi-110001. Editor: Aroon Purie.
l india today to stall film in 2013
does not take the responsibility for returning unsolicited
meet his ‘attack’
expectations toll tax
and benefitwill contest
the assem­
economy. concert with Pak
publication material.

All disputes are subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of

after meeting pro­ in Maharashtra. bly elections. Later artistes after organ­
competent courts and forums in Delhi/New Delhiducer only Rohit Shetty Fizzles out soon withdraws isers call on him

SANTOSH KUMAR, ROMITA DATTA, AMITABH SRIVASTAVA, JEEMON JACOB, ANANTH KRISHNAN, ROHIT PARIHAR,
AMARNATH K. MENON, ARAVIND GOWDA, RAHUL NORONHA, KIRAN TARE
(Aroon Purie)
NOVEMBER 7, 2016 u INDIA TODAY 90
 COVER STORY THE TATAS

THE CYRUS
MYSTERY THE TATAS, NEVER KNOWN FOR PUBLIC BLOWOUTS,
SACK THEIR CHAIRMAN. HOW DID CYRUS MISTRY
FALL FROM GRACE SO FAST?

By Prosenjit Datta with Rajeev Dubey and Nevin John

F
OR CYRUS MISTRY AND HIS BAND
of faithfuls, it had been business as
usual till as late as Friday, October
21. Most of the Group Executive
Council (GEC) members that con-
stituted Mistry’s brains trust in the
mammoth Tata Group were appar-
ently unaware of the impending
removal of their boss. In fact, just a month ago, in
an interaction with this reporter, Mistry had spoken
with some pride of the Tata’s tradition of graceful
exits. He was speaking in a very different context,
of course. Another key team member had expanded
on how the Tata way was to ensure that any senior
leader, even when being asked to go, would leave
with his dignity intact.
It was an indication of how badly Mistry misread
the signals coming from the Tata Trusts, headed by
his predecessor Ratan Tata, which has a huge say in
the board decisions of the Tata Sons, the holding com-
pany of the Tata Group. The abrupt way in which the
chairman was unseated by the board—hidden under
the agenda of “any other business”—did not reflect
well on the Tatas who have always built themselves
up on doing things the proper way. While legal, it was
hardly the most ethical way to remove someone so
senior for a group that prides itself on doing not only
the right thing, but also the right way. Mistry himself,
in a hard-hitting letter to the board, said, “I have to
say that the board of directors did not cover itself with
glory.... To replace your Chairman without so much
as a word of explanation and without affording him
an opportunity to defend itself...must be unique in the
annals of corporate history.”
By all accounts, Mistry was first told of the deci-
sion to remove him by a board member of Tata Sons
on Sunday, October 23. Sources say that he was
offered an honourable way out if he resigned imme-
diately, though whether this offer was actually made
could not be independently verified. Sources also say
that Mistry should have understood his time was up
because it had been communicated to him almost
a year ago by the trusts that he was not living up to
their expectations. Mistry apparently chose to take
his chances by presenting his side of the story at the
board meeting. What he was unaware of was that the
Tata Trusts—read Ratan Tata—had been preparing
for this event for at least a couple of months, if not
more. Before the board meeting, all the members had
been briefed, and even legal opinion sought about the
move. Mistry either needed to resign on his own—or
he would be removed by a board resolution brought
in under “any other business” at the meeting. As it
turned out, only two board members abstained, while
all others voted in favour of removing him. Until a suc-
cessor was found, Ratan Tata would be interim chair-
man though a time limit of four months was set for the
committee to find a new chairman.

10 INDIA TODAY u NOVEMBER 7, 2016

 Illustration by Nilanjan Das
Digital Imaging by Amarjeet Singh Nagi
 COVER STORY THE TATAS

The terse announcement of Mistry’s removal imme-

diately after the board meeting sent shock waves
through the corporate community. It was an extremely
abrupt dismissal of someone who had been picked and
anointed as Ratan Tata’s successor after a year-long
search, and then worked closely with him for almost
a year before taking over formally as chairman on
December 29, 2012. At the time of the handover, Tata
had exhorted Mistry to be “his own man”. Perhaps he
took the advice too literally.
There were some things that particularly stood out
in the board’s move. First, in the Tata Group, exits were
generally not so messy—or at least had not been in a
long time. The last time the group witnessed controver-
sial exits was a few years after Ratan Tata had taken
charge as chairman of Tata Sons for the first time in
1991 and had his famous battle with the group satraps
of that era—Russi Modi, Darbari Seth, Ajit Kerkar and
Nani Palkhivala. (And even that was more deftly han-
dled: ‘retiring’ the satraps by bringing down the retire-
ment age. Later, once they had all left, it was increased
once again by Tata Sons.)
The second was that the ouster took place despite
Mistry being deeply entrenched in the Tata Sons board
for multiple reasons. Apart from his position as chair-
man of Tata Sons, he was the director representing the
Shapoorji Pallonji interests—they own 18.4 per cent of
the shares of Tata Sons and are the single biggest share-
holders—since 2006, when his father retired as a board
member. As chairman of Tata Sons, and as chairman of
most of the listed group companies, he also represented
the shares of Tata Sons which were held by these com-
panies—and which accounted for almost 13 per cent of
the total shares.
Moreover, he had been working with the Tatas even
before that, and was a director on the boards of a few
Tata companies. His sister, Aloo, was also married to
Ratan Tata’s half-brother Noel. But, in the event it has
been the shortest stint of any Tata Sons chairman since
the inception of the group. Cyrus took over when he
was just 44, and he was removed when he had hit just
48 years of age. His term has been two years shorter
than N. Saklatwala’s six-year tenure between 1932 and
1938. And Saklatwala died in the saddle. Incidentally,
he was also the only other chairman without the
Tata surname.
By the evening of October 24, more details had
emerged. One was that the GEC—which comprised
Madhu Kannan, Mukund Rajan, N.S. Rajan, Nirmalya
Kumar and Harish Bhat—would be disbanded with
immediate effect. Whether they would be absorbed or
asked to leave was yet undecided though some reports
said the old Tata hands—Mukund Rajan and Harish
Bhat—might be absorbed, while the others would be
nudged to go.
Mistry himself was shocked by the swiftness of
Hired
THE MEN
MISTRY
BROUGHT IN
TO REVAMP
THE GROUP
NIRMALYA KUMAR
GEC member
N.S. RAJAN
GEC member
DR MUKUND RAJAN*
GEC member
the removal. In a letter to the board, he used the term
“shocked beyond words”, going on to comment that
the move was “unparalleled in the annals of corporate
history”. Though he was unavailable for comment, he
had told this reporter at an interaction a month ago
that the Tatas only gave up on people and companies
when every other option had been exhausted. The only
exception would be if it was for ethics-related issues. (So
far, it has not been suggested that Mistry was removed
for such issues. Rather, it appears he was removed for
not meeting business expectations.) As more details
emerge, it is apparent that Tata and Mistry had differ-
ences over too many things. In his letter, Mistry says
that despite his pushback, he was forced to countenance
the group’s investments in the two aviation businesses
(Vistara and Air Asia India) because of Tata’s “passion
for the airlines sector”.
Mistry’s letter talks about his inheriting a debt-laden
enterprise saddled with losses and with bleeding units
in Indian Hotels Co., Tata Motors Ltd’s passenger vehicle
operations, Tata Steel Ltd’s European business, as well
as Tata Power and Tata DoCoMo. His letter points out
that despite plowing Rs 1.96 trillion—more than the net
worth of the group—into those units, they would prob-
ably need to write down about Rs 1.18 trillion over time.

12 INDIA TODAY u NOVEMBER 7, 2016

GUENTER BUTSCHEK
Tata Motors CEO

Retired
N.A. SOONAWALA
Ex-Tata Sons
vice-chairman

HARISH BHAT*
GEC member

J.J. IRANI
R.K. KRISHNA Ex-Tata Steel MD
KUMAR
Ex-Tata Sons
director
MADHU KANNAN
GEC member

RAYMOND BICKSON
Ex-Indian Hotels MD

* Unlike the others, Rajan and Bhat were already part of the group
before being elevated to the GEC

in the top management after taking charge. But over

Mistry was “shocked beyond
words”, and said the move
was “UNPARALLELED
IN THE ANNALS OF
CORPORATE HISTORY”
He also points to constant interference from
Ratan Tata and the fact that he was never given the
freedom to act the way he needed to turn the group
around. (The Tata Trusts control 66 per cent shares
in Tata Sons and the articles of association give them
immense powers over the board and the chairman.
And the Tata Trusts are headed by Ratan Tata.)
THE GROWING FRICTION
Though Mistry and the GEC members probably did
not see it coming, the tensions in the group had been
building. Initially, Mistry had not made many changes
a period of time, he had put in place a completely new
structure to oversee the group companies. The first
move was the creation of the GEC that would report
only to him, and would have a big role to play in the
strategic direction of the group and the individual
companies. The GEC members were not part of the
Tata Sons board unlike the group structure during
Ratan Tata’s time. The GEC members were also rela-
tively young, between 45 and 55 years of age. They
were replacing stalwarts who had been in the group
for decades and were all in their 60s and 70s. While
the council took charge, many of the stalwarts of the
Tata Sons who used to play group-wide roles were
retiring. J.J. Irani, N.A. Soonawala and R.K. Krishna
Kumar all retired shortly after Mistry became chair-
man, as did Kishor Chaukar. (Most of them would con-
tinue to be associated with the trusts though). Ishaat
Hussain, who looked at group level finance, was also
preparing to hang up his boots. (Under Tata, there
were two group-level bodies—the Group Corporate
Council for strategic planning and thinking and the
Group Executive Office for execution of plans. But
though they reported to the chairman, most were Tata
Sons directors too).

NOVEMBER 7, 2016 u INDIA TODAY 13

 COVER STORY THE TATAS

CYRUS MISTRY
(LEFT) AND
RATAN TATA

FOTOCORP

Apart from the GEC, Mistry also used the Tata
Business Excellence Model (TBEM), designed on
the basis of the Malcolm Baldridge National Quality
Award in the US. The TBEM was an annual assess­
ment framework for the companies and both Mistry
and the GEC members admitted that the interactions
between the company managements and the TBEM
were not always smooth.
The problem was that the TBEM was supposed
to point out what processes were less than perfect
and what improvements could be made. But often
the senior management of the companies felt that
the TBEM members (and for that mat­
ter some of the council members) did not
have enough knowledge about the busi­
ness dynamics while giving their feed­
back or recommending something. Many Tata Trusts sources say after some time
senior members of TCS, Tata Motors,
Tata Steel, Tata Chemicals, Tata Power
Mistry stopped KEEPING THEM IN THE
and the other big group companies bri­ LOOP for many big decisions
dled at the suggestions made by the GEC
and TBEM members. The company man­
agements often saw little reason to take
advice from a group of people who had little practical
experience of running companies.
Apart from the group level, Cyrus was also mak­
ing changes at the individual company level. In the just
under four years that he was in the saddle, the CEOs
of Tata Steel, Tata Motors and Indian Hotels changed.
While in the case of Tata Steel, the change was
because of the retirement of the incumbent, allowing
Mistry to name a new leader, in the case of Motors it
was due to the unfortunate demise of Karl Slym. In
Indian Hotels, there was the resignation of Raymond
Bickson, probably due to a difference of strategic
vision between Bickson and Mistry. In both Motors
and Hotels, Mistry and his team looked for external
hires to fill the positions. Bickson was supposedly close
to Ratan Tata and his departure and replacement by
Rakesh Sarna was not taken well, according to sourc­
es though this could not independently verified.
Sources say some of the old guard had complained
to Tata about having problems with the new structu­
res and perhaps also with Mistry. Initially, sources say
Tata didn’t pay much heed, but over a period of time,
he started to take them more seriously.
GROWING DISTRUST
Sources now say the relationship between Tata and
Mistry was excellent for at least the first year after the
formal handover. Tata also used the clout of the trusts
he controlled to fully back Mistry’s decisions. At one
point, he apparently even contemplated giving Mistry
some role to play in the trusts, and even considered
smoothing a path for Mistry to take over the trusts
after his own retirement. (As things stand today, Ratan
Tata will be the lifetime head of the trusts).

14 INDIA TODAY u NOVEMBER 7, 2016

WHEN TATA
WENT GLOBAL
A LOOK AT THE TATA GROUP’S MARKET CAP
AND REVENUE DURING THEIR INTERNATIONAL 2014
ACQUISITION SPREE (2005 ONWARD) 662
GROUP MARKET 2011
CAPITALISATION 450
(Rs ’000 crore)
2013
497
2008 2012
2006 226 434
211 2010
329
2007
221 2009
125
2005
Source: TATA Group
51/27
Apparently, Mistry did go the extra mile in consult­
ing Tata about all important matters during his initial
year. However, increasingly differences cropped up
over the handling of some of the legacy problems—
Tata Nano (which Mistry feels should be shut down if
the car division is to be saved), the costly purchases
in India and abroad by Indian Hotels which had to
be sold at a loss, the problems about how to deal
with Tata Steel UK’s losses, the whole Tata DoCoMo
agreement, and finally other assets like Tata Power’s
Indonesian mines.
For their part, sources in Tata Trusts say that
after some time Mistry stopped keeping them—which
essentially meant Ratan Tata—in the loop for many of
the important and big decisions. Sometimes, decisions
were communicated to the Tata Sons board only after
they had been taken.
Sources say it was four big decisions which cre­
ated particular friction: the Tata Steel UK sale, the
decision to buy Welspun Energy’s renewable assets,
the ugly fight between Tata and its telecom partner
DoCoMo and the efforts by Mistry to sell off other
global assets to prune the group debt. There was also
the perception that the Mistry camp was too focused
on hard profit metrics and wanted to sell off anything
they perceived as unprofitable. Mistry insisted during
his interaction with this reporter that this was not his
approach. (He pointed out that if only metrics were
GROUP REVENUE
2015
811
(Rs ’000 crore)
700
2016 600
759
500
400
NAL
NATIO
INTER EVENUE
R 300
200
REVENUE 100
DOMESTIC
0
2016
2013 211/461
2009
187/339
110/217
driving him, there was no justification to keep the
domestic business of Tata Motors going. But because
he saw it was turning around—and saw what it could
be in a few years—it made sense to stay with it).
The heartburn about the UK steel operations also
stems from the fact that Tata felt the decision to sell
was taken without consulting the Tata Sons board
and the trusts. The takeover of Corus Group, UK, for
$12 billion in 2007 was the biggest ever takeover of
a foreign asset by any Indian company at the time.
Corus became Tata Steel UK, and it very soon became
a headache for its new owners. First, the post­2008
global financial meltdown prompted a drop in demand
in Europe, compounded by runaway costs. A suc­
cession of CEOs tried to turn around operations and
Mistry said that even till 2014, it seemed that it could
be sustained. But the China slowdown from that year
dealt a crippling blow as demand and prices for steel
plummeted in the face of Chinese overcapacity. At one
point, it threatened to undermine even domestic oper­
ations, which were still profitable. In 2016, Tata Steel
finally started looking for a buyer for the UK business.
Sources in the Tata Trusts feel that the Mistry
group gave up too quickly on Tata Steel UK, and taken
with the other selloffs—two prestigious properties
that India Hotels had picked up in New York, as well
as other global assets like coal mines in Indonesia—
gave out a wrong signal about the group’s long­term
NOVEMBER 7, 2016 u INDIA TODAY 15
 COVER STORY THE TATAS
House of Tatas
THE GROUP’S ILLUSTRIOUS LEADERSHIP, STARTING FROM
JAMSETJI, WHO FOUNDED THE COMPANY IN 1868

NUSSERWANJI DADABHOY
1820-1904 (Brother-in-law of
(Married to Nusserwanji)
Jeevanbai)

VIRBAIJI
JAMSETJI (Married to R.D. TATA
1839-1904 Bapuji
(Married to Saklatwala)
Hirabai)

RATAN
1871-1918

NAVAL
(Adopted)
DORABJI NOWROJI
1859-1932 SAKLATWALA
(Married to Mehrbai) 1820-1904

JRD TATA
(1904-1993)
ALOO (Married to
Thelma)
NOEL

CYRUS MISTRY
RATAN TATA (BORN 1968)
SHAPOORJI PALLONJI
BORN 1937 (SP Group MD)
MISTRY
BORN 1929
(SP Group Chairman)

commitment to assets they had acquired. Apparently,
this became a major source of distrust between the
trusts and the erstwhile chairman.
Another point of friction was the expensive acqui-
sition of Welspun’s alternative energy assets by Tata
Power. Tata Power was not doing particularly well
on financial parameters and one of the accusations
against Mistry is that he again allowed the bid with-
out taking the Tata Sons board into confidence. The
GEC members stress that it was a decision taken by
the company, and at the group level, Mistry and the
others only played a supportive role. It was not a deci-
sion taken by them without consulting the Tata Trusts
and rammed down the throat of the company. A view
from the trusts suggests raised eyebrows at the fact
that Mistry was selling off assets in steel and hotels to
ostensibly cut debt—while also allowing the purchase
of expensive assets in power.
The Tata DoCoMo case is a bit more complicated,
with sources saying the two men could not agree on

16 INDIA TODAY u NOVEMBER 7, 2016

A Tale of Two
Chairmen
HOW THE TATA GROUP PERFORMED UNDER RATAN TATA
(1991-2012) AND CYRUS MISTRY (DEC 2012-2016)
REVENUE
(Rs ’000 crore)
8.5
%
672
526
2%
19.
GR
CA
11
1991 2013 2016
how to best deal with it. Tata Teleservices and NTT
DoCoMo (of Japan) had tied up in 2008 when Ratan
Tata was still chairman. DoCoMo had invested $2.2
billion for a roughly 25 per cent stake with clear per-
formance goals. The deal envisaged that if the perfor-
mance goals did not work out, or if DoCoMo wanted to
exit, they would get at least half the money—$1.1 bil-
lion—that they had invested back.
As it turned out, the Tata telecom operations
did not do well, and continued losing money. When
DoCoMo finally wanted to exit, the share price had
fallen so low there was no way it could get the $1.1
billion unless the Tatas agreed to buy the shares.
Unfortunately for DoCoMo, the RBI and the Indian
government ruled that the Tatas could not pay out a
value so far in excess of the share price, even if it was
part of the agreement. (It would have involved a for-
eign currency outgo, so the RBI was involved.)
DoCoMo dragged the Tatas to an arbitration coun-
cil in the UK, and won a $1 billion plus award. The
Tatas, under Mistry, dug in their heels and said that
they would like to pay, provided they got the permis-
sion from the government. But not if they couldn’t.
Apparently, Ratan Tata thought that by taking the
stand he did, Mistry was harming the Tatas’ reputa-
tion for never reneging on any deal term. Mistry, on
the other hand, apparently took a harder view, and
followed the legal options strictly. However, whether
this was indeed an area of disagreement cannot be
independently verified.
GROUP* MARKET CAP** vs BSE SENSEX
(**Rs ’000 crore)
SENSEX
25,342
(2016)
.4%
10
18,836
1%
759
(2013)
15.
5%
497
13.
GR
CA
3%
14.
GR
CA
1,168
(1991)
26
1991 2013 2016
*Listed group companies; Source: TATA Group
Note: Compounded Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) figures not comparable due
to different time ranges—1991-2012 (solid line), 2013-16 (dotted line)
The erstwhile GEC members were at pains to
explain that the perception that Mistry was intent on
selling off many of the things Tata had bought and
had embarked on an asset sales spree to make the
group more profitable was not true. Indeed, their
contention was that any asset sale was only the last
option, after everything else had failed. In terms of
proportion, the asset sales in Cyrus’s time were no
different from what happened in different periods in
the group’s life, they argued.
If these were areas of distrust, the growing schism
could also be seen in the new appointments to the Tata
Sons board by the Tata Trusts. The Tata Trusts col-
lectively hold 66% of the Tata Sons shares but their
powers go far beyond their shareholding because of
the Articles of Association of the Tata group holding
company. The articles of association of Tata Sons was
modified first during JRD Tata’s tenure to make the
hold of the Trusts stronger. Shortly after the appoint-
ment of Mistry, the articles were changed once more
to make the grip of the Trusts even stronger. The
articles ensure that as long as the Trusts continue to
hold more than 40% of the shares, they have the right
to nominate one third of the directors, and the direc-
tors also through voting have the rights to appoint or
remove the Tata Sons chairman. Ratan Tata is essen-
tially in the driver’s seat of Tata Sons for life.
Just a couple of months before Mistry’s abrupt
removal, the board of Tata Sons was expanded, pri-
marily to bring better representation for the Tata
NOVEMBER 7, 2016 u INDIA TODAY 17
 COVER STORY THE TATAS

The Cyrus LETTER BOMB

Excerpts from the leaked letter that Cyrus Mistry sent to the Tata Sons board after he was replaced
l Prior to my appointment, I
was assured that I would be
given a free hand. The previous
Chairman was to step back and
be available for advice and guid-
ance as and when needed. After
my appointment, the Articles
of Association were modified,
changing the rules of engage-
ment between the Trusts, The
Board of Tata Sons, the Chairman
and the operating companies.
Inappropriate interpretation
indeed followed, and as elaborat-
ed below, it severely constrained
the ability of the group to engi-
neer the necessary turnaround
l As is public knowledge, the
foreign acquisition strategy,
with the exceptions of JLR
and Tetley, have left a large
debt overhang. The European
steel business faced potential
impairments in excess of USD 10
billion... Many foreign properties
of IHCL and holdings in Orient
Hotels have been sold at a loss.
The onerous terms of the lease
for Pierre in New York are such
that it would make it a challenge
to exit. Tata Chemicals still needs
tough decisions about its UK and
Kenya operations.
l IHCL, beyond flawed interna-
tional strategy, had acquired
the Searock property at a highly
inflated price and housed in an
off balance sheet structure. In the
process of unravelling this legacy,
IHCL has had to write down
nearly its entire networth over
the past three years.
l Of all the companies in the
portfolio, the telecom business
has been continuously haemor-
rhaging. If we were to exit this
business via fire sale or shut
down, the cost would be USD 4-5
billion. This is in addition to any
payout to DoCoMo of at least a
billion plus dollars. The original
structure of the DoCoMo trans-
action raises several questions
about its appropriateness
from a commercial or pruden-
tial perspective...
l The Nano product develop-
ment called for a car below Rs 1
lakh but the costs were always
above this. This product has
consistently lost money, peaking
at Rs 1,000 crores. As there is
no line in sight of profitability
for the Nano, any turnaround
strategy requires it shut down.
Emotional reasons alone have
kept us away from this...
l If we look at the aggregate
data between 2011 and 2015,
and limit the analysis largely
to legacy hotspots, it will show
the capital employed in those
companies have risen from Rs
132000 crores to Rs 196000
crores (due to operational
losses, interest and capex). This
figure is close to the networth of
the group which is at Rs 174000
This created
ALTERNATE
POWER
CENTRES
without any
accountability
or formal
responsibility...
crore. A realistic assessement of
the fair value [of these
businesses] could potentially
result in a write down over time
of about Rs 118000 crores.
l Despite all the above, during
my term, the operating cash
flows of the group have grown
at 31% compounded per
annum. The Tata Sons networth
has increased from approxi-
mately Rs 26,000 crore to Rs
42000 crore after considering
impairments.
l To come back to the amend-
ments in the Articles of
Association, as feared, the
inappropriate implementation
created a flux in the decision
making process..... This created
alternate power centres without
any accountability or formal
responsibility...I hope you do
realise the predicament I found
myself in. Being pushed into
the position of a “lame duck”
Chairman, my desire was to cre-
ate an institutional framework for
the effective future governance
of the group...

Trusts. Originally, the Tata Sons board had Dr Nitin
Nohria, Mistry himself, Ronen Sen, Ishaat Hussain,
Vijay Singh and Farida Khambata as its members. In
August-end, TVS group chairman Venu Srinivasan,
Piramal Enterprises chairman Ajay Piramal and
Amit Chandra from Bain Capital were inducted to the
board. Reports suggest the new board members were
chosen without consulting Mistry. As it turned out, nei-
ther the new inductees nor the old members backed
Mistry when the final meeting took place.
TOO FAST OR TOO SLOW?
Sources from the trusts say that Mistry was too con-
servative and fiscally cautious. He did not have the
vision to grow the business the way Ratan Tata did.
They point out how long it took for him to choose a
new head for Tata Motors after Karl Slym’s
untimely death.
On the other hand, there are critics who say that
Mistry was moving too fast to dismantle Tata’s legacy.
They point to the decision to sell the UK steel division
and the other asset sales as well as the messy legal
battle with DoCoMo to buttress their point.
For his part, Mistry would probably agree that he
moved with abundant caution and not as fast as other
groups would have. As for the Tata Motors situation,
he had apparently met dozens of highly qualified can-
didates over two years before zeroing in on Guenter
Butschek because he thought the latter would fit in
with the overall “Tata group culture”.
In fact, it was probably the overemphasis on tak-
ing the long view, and not wanting to disturb the
Tata culture, that led to some degree of perceived
slowness. An erstwhile GEC member explained,
“In a couple of years, we are going to celebrate 150
years of existence. All our current decisions need
to be taken in the context that we need to grow and
thrive for the next 150 years.”
Looked at in detail, the performance of the Tata
Group during Mistry’s stint provides a mixed picture.

18 INDIA TODAY u NOVEMBER 7, 2016

 FROM THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
COVER STORY THE TATAS

T
he Tata Group has been one of India’s iconic industrial houses since its
www.indiatoday.in inception in 1868. It has built steel plants and townships, made every-
During Ratan Tata’s tenure, group revenues hadthing from salt Into thecars,
earlyand established
days of the Tata globally
Group,recognised
the eminent institutes of
Editor-in-Chief: Aroon Purie
grown at a Officer:
CAGR ofBagga19.2 per cent between 1991 and science, social research and cancer treatment.
Parsi financier Framroze Edulji Dinshaw often loaned
Group Chief Executive Ashish
This business behemoth, which has total revenues of $103 billion, over half
Group2013,Editorialthough
Director: Rajthe Chengappafastest growth came in the 2001- the group money for their projects. When some of the
of which come from abroad, is one of India’s few truly global brands. No won-
2010
Editors: period
Kaveree when
Bamzai (Special theAjit
Projects), groupKumar Jha moved
(Research) overseas fairly money could not be repaid, he was paid through equity
Group Creative Editor: Nilanjan Das; Group Photo Editor: Bandeep Singh der its leader for 21 years, Ratan Tata, has been on our cover five times, and
aggressively
Editors: Kai Jabirusing a number of big acquisitions, shares in Tata Sons. Dinshaw was an old friend of the
Managing Friese, Rajesh Jha
the legendary JRD Tata once in December 1981, when he anointed Ratan Tata
including the Corus and Jaguar-Land Rover as his successor.Tata
takeovers, family and never had any intentions ofJRD
disposing
Executive Editors: Damayanti Datta, Kunal Pradhan,
S. Sahaya Ranjit, Sandeep Unnithan In that issue, we had interviews with both Tata and Ratan
along
Deputy Editors: with buyouts
Prachi Bhuchar, in beverages.
Uday Mahurkar, Manisha Saroop
Tata. Both spokeofabout
the shares.
their Meanwhile,
vision and thethe Shapoorji
future. The Pallonji fam-
transition was smooth,
M : MG Arun H : Amarnath K. Menon C : Asit Jolly
Between 2013 and :2016—when Cyrus unlike
was atthe therecent ilysudden
had become ousterpre-eminent builders of Mumbai
Cyrus and
umbai yderabad handigarh
Senior Editors: Shweta Punj, Sasi Nair,
aipur J Rohit Parihar of Ratan Tata’s successor, Mistry, almost
helm—growth
Senior Associate Editors: Kaushik Deka
M umbai
had dropped
: Suhani Singh, Kiran Dinkar Tare; p atna
to less than half,
: Amitabh Srivastava four just after indeed
oryears he wasMaharashtra
given charge becauseto chart aofbrave,
their flawless
new future execu-for the group.
8.5 per
Associate Editors: cent
Shougat CAGR. On the
Dasgupta, Chinki Sinha other hand, the global econ-
When Ratan tion.
Tata They
exited, wereto associated
head Tata with the
Trusts in Tatas by
2012, the virtue
message of to Mistry
K olkata : Romita Sengupta; B hopal : Rahul Noronha;
T omy was: Jeemon
hiruvananthapuram in the doldrums.
Jacob;
eiJingB It was also growth
: Ananth Krishnan wasfrom clear: building
a take risks, severalwith
continue of thetheTata buildings.
expansion, They
grow thealso built aggres-
business
much higher base. Mistry’s letter to the board
Assistant Editor: p : Aditi S. Pai
une

Chief Copy Editor: Anindita Satpathi

sively.makes it
But Mistry, Dinshaw’s house. to be at the helm after Nowroji Saklatwala
the first non-Tata
Photoclear thatVikram
Department: he feels he was
Sharma (Deputy Photostuck
Editor), with a bunch in theof costly
1930s, clearly When
had his Dinshaw
own ideas.died,He Saklatwala
was ruthlessly was the chair-the group
ridding
mistakes from the Ratan
Rajwant Singh Rawat (Principal Photographer), Yashbant Singh Negi
(Senior Staff Photographer), Kekhriezhazo Miachie-O
Tata years while he
of was
what not
he man
considered of Tata
to be Sons,
bad and
assets, JRD was
whether still
it waiting
was the in
Englishthe end of the
given
(Senior enough
Photographer), Chandrafreedom
Deep Kumarto act fast.
(Photographer); Corus steel acquisition,
wings. As oritTaj Boston
turned out,in Shapoorji
the US. HePallonji
had articulated
acquireda vision—
M umbai : Mandar Suresh Deodhar (Chief Photographer),
Danesh Adil Even
Jassawala the bulk ofathis growth
(Photographer); hmedabad came fromthat
: Shailesh B Raval twothe starTata Group would from
the shares be thethe 25th largestestate,
Dinshaw by market cap globally
something that in 2025—
(Principal Photographer); K : Subir Halder (Principal
performers—Tata
Photographer); C
hennai
olkata
: N G Jaison (SeniorConsultancy
Photographer) Services (which but itclocked
was not necessarily
apparentlyaligned made JRD to thatseeofred.
his Over
predecessor.
the years, It meant
consol-growing
over 20 per cent CAGR) and Jaguar-Land Rover,
Photo Researchers: Prabhakar Tiwari (Chief Photo Researcher), at 15 per the cent, less thanand
idation theother
20 perevents
cent the ledcompany
to the SP had family grown at during the
control-
Shubhrojit Brahma (Assistant Photo Researcher)
Chiefcompany
of Graphics: Tanmoy Ratan Tata had picked up. Most other
Chakraborty Ratancom- Tata years. ling the largest chunk of Tata Sons shares that were
panies in the group showed anaemic growth of
Art Department: Sanjay Piplani (Senior Art Director); Mistry
3-4 per was no stranger to Tata Sons, which controls the Tata Group, as his
Jyoti K Singh, Anirban Ghosh (Art Director),
VikascentVerma,with TataVipin
Rahul Sharma, SteelGupta actually shrinking. family is the group’s biggest individual shareholder with 18.5 per cent while 66
(Associate Art Director);
Bhoomesh Dutt Sharma (Senior Designer)
Profit growth was similarly lacklustre for perthe cent is held by Tata Trusts. The Tata Group is more than just a business or a
Production Department: Harish Agarwal (Chief of Production),
group
Naveen as
Gupta (Chief a whole.
Coordinator), That said, debt had company.
largely been For many Indians, it is the ultimate place to work, a gold standard of
Vijay Kumar Sharma (Senior Coordinator) Indian business. Even scandals like the Tata Tea tapes or the Niira Radia con-
kept under check, and the group as a whole continued
Publishing Director: Manoj Sharma
a capex
Associate Publisher: spend of between
Anil Fernandes (Impact) $9 billion and $10 billion Mistry’s letter makes it
versations did not affect its image of doing good while making money.
The Tata Group has always been held as an epitome of professionalism and
annually, mostly in increasing capacities and also fresh
IMPACT TEAM
Senior General Manager: Jitender Lad (West)
investments. On(North),
the other hand, the market
clear that he feels he was
therefore the undignified exit of its chairman is most unprecedented. With the
capitalisa-
General Manager: Mayur Rastogi
key players maintaining silence, there is wild speculation about the reasons for
Upendra Singh (Bangalore), Velu Subramaniam (Chennai)
tion of the group
Deputy General Manager: Kaushiky Chakraborty companies shot up from stuck with A BUNCH OF
roughly
his sudden Rs departure.
Sales434,000
and Operations:

March
crore
2016.
D.V.S. Ramain
Deepak Bhatt, General Manager (National Sales)
The
March
Rao, Chief General

market
2012 to
Manager Rs 759,000
clearly thought Mistry
COSTLY MISTAKES from
crore
By all
was
byaccounts, shares of Tata companies were doing well during Mistry’s
Vipin Bagga, Deputy General Manager (Operations)
tenure. However, of the 100-plus independent operating companies in the
Manish Kumar Srivastava, Regional Sales Manager (North)
doing
Rajeev Gandhi,reasonably
Regional Sales Manager
Arokia Raj L., Regional Sales Manager (South)
well. (West) Certainly, Mistry didgroup, the Ratan Tata years
not setonlya two were considered star performers—TCS and Jaguar Land
scorching pace, but the world was a different place
Rover, acquired as in 2008. Also, there was an ugly legal spat with Japan’s NTT
well, and the new normal was slower growth. DoCoMo, in which the Tatas were asked to pay a penalty of $1.17 billion.
Perhaps, all of these did not matter and the reason for his departure could
A LONG HISTORY AND THE FUTURE simply be that he was taking decisions without discussing them first with Tata
Despite a number of reports coming in that Trusts.
Mistry Or perhaps,
not withthe Tata doyen just didn’t like his style.
the trusts.
Volume XLI Number 45; For the week
might file a suit,
November 1-7, 2016, published on every Friday it seems unlikely at the moment. Our cover
At story on the
Later, Tata
the coup was written
relationships mended,by Business Today Editor
and Pallonji
l
theOffice
Editorial time of going
Living Media toToday
India Ltd., India press, a press releaseProsenjit
Group Mediaplex, from himDatta. He was Cyrus’s
Mistry, interacting with
father, was Mistry and hisofteam,
a director Tata planning
Sons for a major
had said that the media
FC-8, Sector-16A, Film City, Noida - 201301; Phone: 0120-4807100
l had no
Subscriptions: For assistance contact Customer Care India Today Group, A-61, reason to report
speculate for the magazine,
a very longwhen news
period of
before his removal
Cyrus took came
over.in. Neither
Pallonji Mistry nor
was
Sector-57, Noida (UP)-201301; Phones: Toll-free number: 1800 1800 100 (from
on alines);
BSNL/MTNL lawsuit
(95120) 2479900being
from Delhi filed.
and Faridabad; Mistry is an intensely
(0120) 2479900
the Group
private Executive Council,
so low-key handpicked
that officials entrusted
he was nicknamed the Phantomwith steering
of the
from Rest of India (Monday-Friday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.); Fax: (0120) 4078080;
man,
Mumbai: and
022-66063411/3412, he likes
Kolkata: keeping
033-40525327, a low
Chennai: 044-24303200; profile. group
It is hard and to making it future-ready,
Bombay House, had
the anyheadquarters.
Tata inkling. For allCyrus of them, it was busi-
contin-
e-mail: wecare@intoday.com
l
believe such a family would involve itself in
Sales: Direct all trade enquiries to General Manager (Sales), Living Media India ness anas usual tillued
ugly the weekend
the tradition before
untilthe hetumultuous
came into the board meeting
limelight whenon Monday.
Limited, B-45, Sector 57, Noida-201301 (UP)
l
legal battle that would
Regd. Office: K-9 Connaught Circus, New Delhi-110001
bring it under media This dramatic
glare. he story,
was which has
named Ratan sent shock
Tata’s waves through
successor. How orthe
if corpo-
at all
rate world, underlines the will
endemic problem of succession planning in India.
l Impact Offices: 1201, 12th Floor, Tower 2 A, One Indiabulls Centre, (Jupiter

However, it does appear that

Mills), S.B. Marg, Lower Parel (West), Mumbai-400013; Phone: 66063355;
Fax: 66063226 E-1, Ground Floor, Videocon Towers, Jhandewalan Extn, he would like to set the the family react will only be apparent in the future.
Business titans often find it difficult to find successors to fill their big shoes, as in
l

The new chairman would have to deal with a num-

New Delhi Guna Complex, 5th Floor, Main Building, No.443, Anna Salai,
recordPhone: straight—or at least present his version of the
l
Chennai-600018; 2847 8525 201-204 Richmond Towers, 2nd Floor,
the case of another very professionally run company, Infosys, where the founder
l
12, Richmond Road, Bangalore-560025; Phones: 22212448, 22213037, 22218343;
Fax:story—to
22218335; 52, Jawaharlalboth Nehruthe board
Road, 4th of directors
Floor, Kolkata-700071; and to the public ber of problems that remain unresolved. For one, the
made a controversial comeback after a series of co-founders had had a turn at
l
Phones: 22825398; Fax: 22827254; 6-3-885/7/B, Somajiguda, Hyderabad-500082;
l

at23401657,
Phone: large if his
23400479, leaked
23410100, letter23411498;
23402481, 23410982, is any indication. group-level debt remains high, and the Tata Steel UK
Fax: 23403484 39/1045, Karakkatt Road, Kochi 682016; Phones: 2377057,
l the helm. The other scenario in family-founded firms is when the owners don’t
It would not be the end of the matter, though,
2377058 ; Fax: 2377059 2/C, “Suryarath Bldg”, 2nd Floor, Behind White House,
l
Panchwati, Office C.G. Road, Ahmedabad-380006; Phone: 26560393, 26560929; reconcile to their and Tata DoCoMo
mortality and leave problems
no clear remain to be sorted
instructions, resultingout. in succes-
even
the world.
l
if they
Reproduction chose
in any manner not to make a public issue
Fax: 26565293 Copyright Living Media India Ltd. All rights reserved throughout
is prohibited. of it. Making the other companies in the group
sion battles. At Reliance, it manifested itself in a split between brothers Mukesh profitable
The Shapoorji Pallonji (SP) group is no pushover—it
Printed and published by Manoj Sharma on behalf of Living Media
India Limited. Printed at Thomson Press India Limited,
is going toAmbani
and Anil after Dhirubhai be a tough passedtaskaway.
given the external environ-
is a multi-billion dollar conglomerate in its own
18-35 Milestone, Delhi Mathura Road, Faridabad-121007, (Haryana)
and at A-9, Industrial Complex, Maraimalai Nagar, District Theright mentwith
Tata Group, (though the domestic
a market operations
capitalisation of Rsof7.8the steel
lakh busi-is impor-
crore,
and has enormous resources.
Kancheepuram-603209, (Tamil Nadu). Published at K-9, Connaught
Circus, New Delhi-110001. Editor: Aroon Purie.
They also have a his- ness are making a lot of money). There
tant for Indian business. Hopefully, Ratan Tata’s choice of leader this time will are also the
torydoeswith
l india today
the Tata Group which began even
not take the responsibility for returning unsolicited
publication material. meetbefore new businesses
his expectations and benefit thatthe need to be funded.
economy.
All Shapoorji
disputes are subject Pallonji,
to the exclusive Cyrus’sjurisdiction grandfather,
of picked up the Meanwhile, Ratan Tata is back and apart from
shares that makes the family the single-largest
competent courts and forums in Delhi/New Delhi only
finding a new successor will have to deal with the
shareholder of Tata Sons. damaging fallout of the Mistry sacking. n
(Aroon Purie)
30 INDIA TODAY u NOVEMBER 7, 2016 NOVEMBER 7, 2016 u INDIA TODAY 190
Photograph by BANDEEP SINGH
 BIG STORY UTTAR PRADESH

ADVANTAGE
AKHILESH
But the bitter family feud will likely take a toll on the
Samajwadi Party’s fortunes in the 2017 assembly election

By Ashish Misra and Ajit Kumar Jha

W
restling in the akhara style has had a long tradition in Uttar Pradesh,
dating back to Mughal times. And Yadavs in particular have been ace
wrestlers. Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav was a dis-
trict level wrestler of some repute in his youth. It was at the dangals
(wrestling competitions) of his native Saifai village, in Etawah, that he learnt the dao-
pench (hold and grapple) of the sport, which he has since successfully employed in
politics to win Uttar Pradesh four times. And each time his loyal brother Shivpal has
been by his side, learning tactics from elder brother Mulayam. Both have together
championed the old culture of patronage politics, using money and muscle to power
their way through politics.
Son and Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh is neither—he is not a profes-
sional wrestler like his father, nor the seasoned politician of the old school like uncle
Shivpal. In fact, he has a strong distaste for the muscle power and criminal connec-
tions that have characterised UP politics in their reign. He prefers to fight elections
through social media, digital technology and trained communication and campaign
specialists to manage his election campaigns.
Being Mulayam’s son, however, Akhilesh has imbibed one technique of
wrestling—the Nelson hold, in which a wrestler slips his arms under the opponent’s
armpits, locking his hands behind his neck, forcing the opponent’s head into his
chest. He is using it to good effect to turn the tide of SP politics today. In the first two
years of his rule, it was alleged that UP had five-and-a-half chief ministers, alluding
to his father and various uncles and his own compromised status in that mix. Today,
Akhilesh seems to have the upper hand.
Consider the outcome of the press conference that Mulayam, SP’s national presi-
dent, held at 19, Vikramaditya Marg, the party headquarters in Lucknow, on October
25. A final attempt to thrash out a resolution to the family feud that had spilled out
into the public domain, most people expected Mulayam to disown his son. Instead
he did a 180-degree turn. When asked whether Shivpal Yadav—state party chief,
Mulayam’s younger brother and now Akhilesh’s biggest rival—and three other
expelled ministers would rejoin the cabinet, Mulayam would have earlier sworn by
Shivpal. At the press conference, however, he simply said, “CM Akhilesh Yadav will
take a decision on this issue,” adding, for good measure, “yahan jitne log baithe hain
unhein kisi ko mukhyamantri se koi shikayat nahin hai (all those sitting here have no
complaints against the chief minister).”
The balance of power in the SP has clearly shifted in favour of the younger Yadav.
He has ably stood up to his father’s hegemony over the party and withstood attempts
by the domineering elders to throttle him, which included openly calling the UP chief
minister “a liar”. With the support of 183 of the SP’s 229 MLAs, the younger party
cadre and a favourable public mood, Akhilesh seems to have pulled the rug from
under the feet of his father and uncles.
 BIG STORY UTTAR PRADESH

BLOW BY
BLOW
How the hold and grapple played
2

out in the Samajwadi family saga 1

Illustration by Anup Ray 4

September 3, 2015
SP kept out of the Grand Alliance
before the Bihar assembly
3
election
Gainers: Akhilesh Yadav and
Ram Gopal Yadav
Losers: Mulayam Singh Yadav
and Shivpal Yadav

5
December 25, 2015
Youth leaders Sunil Yadav Sajan 6
and Anand Bhadauria suspended
from party just before Saifai
Mahotsav. Suspension revoked
after Akhilesh objects
Gainer: Akhilesh
Loser: Shivpal

HOW THEY WEIGH IN

AKHILESH
Strengths: Popular leader; party’s youth face; pursued a
development agenda as CM
Weaknesses: Surrounded by youth leaders who don’t
pull votes; inexperienced at organisational work
SHIVPAL
Strengths: Proximity to Mulayam; good at organisational
work; backed by most senior party leaders; has a grip on
traditional Yadav vote bank
Weaknesses: Not a popular leader; no youth connect

Just a day earlier, an unprec-
edented public scuffle between
Akhilesh and Shivpal—with accu-
sations and counter-accusations of
being liars and manipulators flying
thick and fast—seemed to have taken
the SP to the brink of disaster. Uncle
and nephew had come to blows
when asked by Mulayam to hug each
other. Shivpal accused Akhilesh of
attempting to split the party.
The first act of this drama had
begun in September when Mulayam
replaced Akhilesh with Shivpal as
the new party president, and made
Amar Singh party general secretary.
The duo was to control the distribu-
tion of tickets for the 2017 assembly
polls. Furthermore, Akhilesh had to
reinstate sacked minister Gayatri
Prajapati. He also had to suffer the
humiliation of being publicly chided
by his father for costing him the
prime minister’s job in the 2014

22 INDIA TODAY u NOVEMBER 7, 2016

 May 17, 2016
Amar Singh named party candi-
date for Rajya Sabha election
Gainer: Shivpal
Loser: Akhilesh
AKHILESH SUPPORTERS
1. RAM GOPAL YADAV UNCLE 2. DIMPLE YADAV WIFE
3. DHARMENDRA COUSIN 4. AKSHAY YADAV COUSIN
5. TEJ PRATAP SINGH NEPHEW 6. AZAM KHAN SP GEN SECY
Lok Sabha polls.
What irked Mulayam so much
to turn against his own son? People
in the know say that Akhilesh has
consistently opposed Mulayam’s
attempts to appoint Sanjay Seth, MD
of real estate company Shalimar
Corporation, first as MLC in June
September 13, 2016 September 13, 2016
Chief secretary Deepak Control of PWD (Public Works
Singhal sacked Department) taken away from Shivpal
Gainer: Akhilesh Gainer: Akhilesh
Loser: Shivpal Loser: Shivpal
September 18, 2016
1 Seven youth leaders—including
4 MLCs Sunil Yadav Sajan, Anand
Bhadauria and Sanjay Lathar—
expelled from party
Gainer: Shivpal
Loser: Akhilesh
October 6, 2016
Mafia don Mukhtar Ansari’s
5 Quami Ekta Dal merged into
Samajwadi Party
Gainer: Shivpal
Loser: Akhilesh
6
3
October 23, 2016
Akhilesh sacks Shivpal and three
other ministers from cabinet
Gainer: Akhilesh
Loser: Shivpal
SHIVPAL SUPPORTERS
1. SADHNA GUPTA SISTER-IN-LAW 2. PRATEEK YADAV NEPHEW
3. APARNA YADAV PRATEEK’S WIFE 4. ANKUR YADAV SON
5. GAYATRI PRAJAPATI 6. AMAR SINGH BOSOM PAL
TRANSPORT MINISTER
2015 and then as treasurer of SP. considered close to Akhilesh, has
Seth is considered close to Mulayam’s been writing open letters to Mulayam
second wife Sadhna Gupta and to support Akhilesh against Shivpal.
younger son Prateek. Mulayam accuses Ram Gopal of
His cousin Ram Gopal Yadav is conspiring against the party. At the
the other reason Mulayam has turned October 25 conference, an angry
against his son, precipitating the Mulayam screamed: “The man who
crisis within the party. Ram Gopal, is a conspirator, who doesn’t have
NOVEMBER 7, 2016 u INDIA TODAY 23
 BIG STORY UTTAR PRADESH

any public base, is questioning Amar

Singh.” Shivpal too blames Ram
Gopal for Akhilesh attacking Amar
Singh. He claims that Ram Gopal
has a direct connection with tainted
Noida engineer Yadav Singh. “To
escape a CBI probe, Ram Gopal is
in touch with BJP senior leaders,”
Shivpal accused. In response, Ram
Gopal said, “ I have no connection
with any BJP leader. Everyone knows
at whose invitation PM Narendra
Modi came to Saifai last year.”
According to latest reports, Hindi
Sansthan chairman Uday Pratap,
considered close to Mulayam, has
started efforts to patch up things
between Mulayam and Ram Gopal.
Sources in the party claim that the
expelled Ram Gopal will be rein-
ducted into the party before its silver
jubilee celebration on November 5.

C
risis situations usually
bring out the best in some
political leaders. Akhilesh
is one of them. Even as the
family feud was unfolding, he held a
meeting with his trusted bureaucrats
where he instructed them to finish
the 302 km Agra-Lucknow express-
way before November 22, Mulayam’s
birthday, when he turns 77. Akhilesh
wants to gift the expressway to the
public on the occasion.
In an exclusive informal chat with
india today television on October 25, a
confident Akhilesh was first candid MULAYAM WITH SHIVPAL AND AKHILESH BEFORE THEY BROKE
about the crisis and then spelt out his INTO A SCUFFLE ON OCTOBER 24
new priorities. “I cannot worry about
things I cannot control,” he said. appointed him the CM’s chief advi- Samajwadi pension scheme.
“The polls are a priority, not the fam- sor. Ranjan heads the Project If the crisis within the party
ily feud. I shall go to the people and Monitoring Group (PMG), which is has forced Akhilesh to focus on the
explain the work the Uttar Pradesh directly monitoring 20 development development plank and his elec-
government has done under my projects. “We have divided all 20 tion campaign, it has prompted
leadership. Netaji (father Mulayam) projects into four parts for smooth Mulayam to make efforts to form a
had given me certain tasks when I monitoring. By the first week of mahagathbandhan with the help of
was made chief minister in 2012. I December, most of the projects will the Congress, the Rashtriya Lok Dal
have delivered more than what was be completed,” Ranjan said. (RLD) and Bihar chief minister Nitish
assigned to me.” On November 3, Akhilesh will Kumar. On October 23, a desperate
Ever since its 2014 debacle, embark on a rathyatra to publicise Mulayam called RLD chief Ajit Singh
when the SP was reduced to five his government’s achievements. and Janata Dal-United JD(U) leader
Lok Sabha seats as against the Political consultant Steve Jarding Nitish on the phone and discussed
NDA’s 73 (the BJP won 71), Akhilesh of Harvard has been engaged to the political situation in the state.
realised the significance of the handle SP’s 2017 assembly elec- The template for the mahagathban­
axiom ‘perform or perish’ in politics. tion campaign. Following Jarding’s dhan will be the Bihar assembly
After former chief secretary Alok advice, film actor Vidya Balan was polls, in which Lalu Prasad Yadav’s
Ranjan retired on June 30, Akhilesh appointed brand ambassador for the Rashtriya Janata Dal combined with

24 INDIA TODAY u NOVEMBER 7, 2016

UNITED WE STAND THE OTHER SIDE
A mahagathbandhan of Samajwadi Party, Congress and RLD in UP, And how the rival parties fare
floated by Mulayam Singh Yadav, could be a formidable alliance

SAMAJWADI PARTY CONGRESS MAHAGATHBANDHAN BSP BJP

Assembly
poll 2012 29.1 + 11.7 = 40.8 Assembly
poll 2012 25.9 15

Lok Sabha
poll 2014 22.3 + 7.5 = 29.8 Lok Sabha
poll 2014 19.8 42.6

The Rashtriya Lok Dal, led by Ajit Singh, was part of the Congress alliance both A pivotal player, the Bahujan Samaj Party has the
in 2012 and 2014. RLD joining the mahagathbandhan will top up the total potential of forming an alternative mahagathbandhan
popular vote of the alliance by a few percentage points with the Congress, RLD and other smaller parties

All figures are percentage votes parties polled in the two elections

Nitish’s JD(U) to counter the BJP.
The arithmetic in UP is simple: With
the Congress’s 11.7 per cent popular
vote (2012 assembly elections), the
SP with its 29 per cent vote (2012
figures) and the alliance with other
smaller parties, a Bihar-style maha­
gathbandhan would have an edge
over the BJP and BSP.
Mulayam was relying on Shivpal
to help build the mahagathband­
han. SP spokesperson Deepak
Mishra says, “Shivpal has good rela-
tions with RLD chief Ajit Singh and
JD(U) president Nitish Kumar.” On
September 25, Shivpal shared the
stage with Nitish during an Indian
Lok Dal rally in Karnal, Haryana.
The SP plans to invite these leaders
for the silver jubilee celebration on
November 5 in Lucknow.
However, given how the tide has
turned in Akhilesh’s favour, the chief
minister will be the SP’s face for the
campaign. The campaign slogan will
be: “Kona kona Akhilesh hoon, main
Uttar Pradesh hoon (Every corner is
Akhilesh, Akhilesh is Uttar Pradesh).”
Asked how this has come about, Ajit
Kumar, professor of social work at
the Banaras Hindu University, has
the best answer. “For the first time,
Akhilesh showed he had become
a politically mature politician,” he
says. “The day before his meeting
with party MLAs, he sacked Shivpal
from his cabinet and indicated that
in the government he was the one
and only boss.” The effect of this deci-
sion clearly showed in his meeting
with party MLAs on October 23 at his
official 5, Kalidas Marg residence in
Lucknow. All 183 MLAs were pres-
ent in this meeting in a show of sup-
port for Akhilesh. The expulsion of his
formidable uncle—who was his main
rival right before the meeting of party
leaders with Mulayam on October 24
in the state party office—displayed
Akhilesh’s masterstroke.
But though Akhilesh won this
battle, the war for UP is far from
over. A split in the party may have
been averted for the moment, but
the infighting may have done dam-
age. Barely two months ago, the
Samajwadi Party was in pole posi-
tion in most pre-poll surveys. Today,
it has slipped to third place in most
surveys, behind the BJP and BSP. The
fissures within the party are likely to
signal to its minority vote banks that
it is too weak to thwart the challenge
from the BJP. Such a strategic calcu-
lation might lead to a visible shift of
minority vote banks towards the BSP.
Equally, the BJP, in its Mandalised
avatar, desperately seeking OBC and
MBC votes, might eat into the SP’s
OBC votes, including the Yadavs.
After all, in neighbouring Bihar, the
saffron party had broken RJD leader
Lalu Prasad’s monopoly over the
Yadavs in 2014.
The only leader in the Samajwadi
Party capable of holding all its fac-
tions together and simultaneously
building a mahagathbandhan is
Mulayam. Despite all the high drama
and internal bickering, whether it’s
Shivpal and Amar Singh or Akhilesh
and Ram Gopal, they all swear by
Netaji’s leadership. In the autumn of
his life, he is the glue that binds the
party together. He has played a canny
game: aware that a split was immi-
nent, especially over seat distribu-
tion, with Shivpal likely to walk out,
Mulayam went all out to keep him
in the fold, while also ensuring that
Akhilesh’s interests were protected.
Moreover, if Akhilesh has youth
and charisma on his side, Shivpal
has 25 years of experience building
the party. And while Amar Singh and
Ram Gopal Yadav may not see eye to
eye, both are backroom manoeuvr-
ers par excellence and indispensable
to the party. Perhaps it’s time for the
Samajwadi parivar to realise that for
all their differences, they could still
be a winning team—together. n

NOVEMBER 7, 2016 u INDIA TODAY 25

 PROFILE AMAR SINGH

INSIDER
OUTSIDER
Exile over, the Great Gatsby of Indian politics is back in the thick of things
By Shougat Dasgupta

O
N NOVEMBER 5, the Samaj­
wadi Party (SP) celebrates
its 25th birthday. It will
be, in keeping with large
family occasions, a tense affair, rife
with resentment, mutual suspicion,
sidelong glances and much fevered
whispering. Amar Singh will feel right
at home. The ‘outsider’ blamed for
exacerbating the rift between father
and son, uncle and nephew, Singh
has made an extraordinary return to
mainstream politics. Nominated to
the Rajya Sabha by Mulayam Singh
Yadav in May, an announcement that
shocked other SP leaders who, after
six years without Singh around, might
have been forgiven for thinking they’d
GRAND
ILLUSION
AMAR SINGH
AT HIS DLF
CHHATARPUR
FARMHOUSE
BANDEEP SINGH
seen the last of his brand of relentless
politicking. In September he was made
the party’s national general secretary.
And, now, with the Uttar Pradesh
state elections just months away, the
party stands on the brink, before cam­
paigning has even got underway, of
ensuring its own defeat. Even Singh
must be surprised at the speed with
which it has all unravelled.
Once known for being the perpe­
tual house guest of the rich and the
famous, the great and the good, Singh
sat on a sofa in his own expansive
farmhouse on the outskirts of Delhi on
October 11 and considered the years
he has spent in the eye of the whirligig.
He was once the pivot, the fulcrum
around which, it sometimes appeared,
the worlds of politics, business and
the movies revolved. He knew it. And
he made sure you knew it too. It was a
different Singh on the sofa. Physically
wrecked, having lost his kidneys and
part of his intestine, he claimed he
was exhausted of the media attention
and the vertiginous social ambition
that characterised his life in the spot­
light. It is hard not to be sceptical.
Thrust by Mulayam into the
breach as a loyal soldier in what
has become open, internecine war,
Singh’s wish for a quiet life has not
been granted. Akhilesh Yadav, the UP
chief minister, and Mulayam’s son, is
considered by most to be the obvious
successor to his father. His principal
opposition is Shivpal Yadav, report­
edly Mulayam’s favourite brother, the
SP’s state president, and leader of
what might be termed the party’s old
guard. Singh is the most prominent,
most recognisable member of that old
guard. On October 23, Akhilesh sacked
his 61­year­old uncle, Shivpal, for the
second time, stripping him of various
portfolios, including the public works
and revenue departments. Three other
ministers were sacked. An MLA pres­
ent at the meeting in which the deci­
sions were made said, anonymously,
that Akhilesh claimed that anyone
with “ties to Amar Singh” could not
also be part of the government.
Azam Khan, the veteran MLA and
UP cabinet minister, had restrained
himself to a snarled “sordid” when
asked about Singh’s nomination to the
upper house. As the split widened, he
told reporters that only one “outsider
is to blame” for the party’s fissures.
Khan has not been able to forgive
Singh for bringing the former BJP
leader and UP chief minister Kalyan
Singh into the SP in 2009; Kalyan
Singh was, of course, chief minister
when the Babri Masjid was razed.
Another MLA, the SP’s Maharashtra
president Abu Azmi, also blamed
“only one man”. “Amar Singh hatao,”
he said, “Samajwadi Party bachao.”
Ram Gopal Yadav, a cousin of
Mulayam and Shivpal, has been stro­
ngly supportive of Akhilesh, writing
a letter addressed to party members
that claimed those who opposed the
NOVEMBER 7, 2016 u INDIA TODAY 27
 PROFILE AMAR SINGH
chief minister had “minted crores and
misused power”. Mulayam responded
to Shivpal’s sacking by expelling Ram
Gopal, one of SP’s 19 Rajya Sabha
MPs, from the party for six years on
the peculiar, unsubstantiated charge
of “colluding with the BJP”. Amar
Singh, meanwhile, has chosen to keep
his counsel. Happy to talk for hours,
just a week before the crisis came
to a head, repeated calls since have
gone unanswered and text messages
unreturned. “A rat who looks like a
mouse,” is how one party insider, who
wished to stay anonymous, summed
up Singh’s cunning and the decep-
tive danger he represents. Ram Gopal
Yadav is more direct—“you’re sur-
rounded,” he wrote to Mulayam after
his expulsion, “by demonic forces.”
“I am super saturated,” Singh
says, of his return to front line politics
just months before the closely fought
UP assembly elections, “and there
is no ambition left.” His satisfaction
these days comes not from palace
intrigue, from the scheming of court-
iers, but from hard-won knowledge of
what is important in life. He launches
into a story about tribal girls he is
raising in Udaipur, a project he is
working on alongside Sandip Verma,
or Baroness Verma, a Conservative
AKHILESH, AMAR SINGH SAYS, “HAS A
GOOD, CLEAN FACE”, BUT MULAYAM, HE
ADDS, “IS NOT A RETIRED POLITICIAN”
member of the House of Lords, before
digressing into the failures of those
who have conspired to keep him
down, rounding into a peroration
about his business success and the
power and security of being able to
provide financially for your family,
and concluding with a couplet.
“Sahaj hai seedhi rah pe chalna
(it is easy to walk on a straight path),”
he begins. And you realise you are
being given the full Amar Singh treat-
ment—how in the space of a single
anecdote he can be sincere, wise,
self-serving, disingenuous, charming,
and corny. How he can drop names
to remind you how extravagantly
28 INDIA TODAY u NOVEMBER 7, 2016
SUPPORTING CAST
AMAR SINGH WITH THEN CM
MULAYAM AFTER HE WON THE
2003 NO-CONFIDENCE VOTE
well-connected he is; how he can
claim humility and lack of ambi-
tion and revel at the same time in
defying his enemies and doubters;
how he continues to be fuelled by
the sort of pride and amour propre
that enables him to hang an enor-
mous oil painting of himself in the
faux rococo lobby of his mansion;
and how, as he continues to recite
his couplet—“dekh ke uljhan bach
ke nikalna/koi ye chahe maane na
maane/ bahut hai mushkil gir ke
sambhalna (tackling a problem,
picking yourself up after a fall is very
difficult, whether or not you believe
it)”—committed he is to his shtick.
However hard he tries, you can-
not allow yourself to be disarmed
by Amar Singh. To begin to believe
the line he is selling. Why, if in his six- by the UPA’s left front allies with-
year exile, cast out of the SP, uncer- drawing support from the govern-
emoniously ‘unfriended’ by Amitabh ment because they disagreed with
Bachchan and Anil Ambani, and even the Indo-US nuclear deal. Singh’s
briefly imprisoned, Amar Singh redis- involvement, though he was cleared
covered “the value of family”, has he by the courts, was widely consid-
chosen again the life he now disavows ered strange because no one could
as so much frippery? work out what he had to gain.
The simple answer is that Amar But this is to misunderstand
Singh wants to play in the game, Singh. A gain for him is to be in a
position where people come to him
for help, whatever the issue and
however little it affects him. Politics,
to Singh, is personal, in that it is
about relationships, not ideology.
It’s a point that both his detractors
and supporters use to make entirely
different arguments. For his sup-
not sit on the bench. For all his talk porters, Singh is a deal-maker, an
of repairing his relationship with essential backroom figure in contem-
his daughters, whose milestones, porary Indian politics. He knows how
first word, first step and so on, to work his contacts to get things
passed him by while he posed for done. His friends also say he is “loyal
pictures with the Bachchans, Singh to a fault” as long as he is on your
only faded from the scene in 2009 side, that he makes for sparkling
because he was, in his own words, conversation, and is always willing to
“tainted”. The SP had expelled give people a sympathetic ear. Singh
him and his ally, the actress Jaya himself maintains that his greatest
Prada, and in 2011 he had sunk to strength is that he gives of himself
his lowest ebb, arrested in the so- entirely, holds nothing back.
called cash-for-votes scandal, in It’s doubtful, though, that Mulayam
which Singh was alleged to have brought Singh back in from the cold
participated in the bribing of MPs because he is a good listener. Sudha
to save the UPA government after Pai, a political studies professor at the
a no-confidence motion triggered Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi,

argues that the upcoming UP elec-
tion is “so hard fought, that Mulayam
feels insecure. Winnability has become
very important and even if Amar Singh
has this image of being corrupt, he is
also known as an excellent negotiator,
with friends in every party.” The elec-
tion mathematics is complicated, but,
as Pai points out, “eastern UP is essen-
tial to SP’s prospects, which is why,
despite Akhilesh Yadav’s objections,
Mukhtar Ansari is being welcomed
into the party”. Amar Singh’s political
base, such as it is, also relies heavily
on Azamgarh and eastern UP.
Singh was born in Aligarh on
January 27, 1956. His father, he says,
ran a small family business mak-
ing locks. When Singh was just six
years old, the family moved to the
Burrabazar area of Kolkata. His rela-
tively humble origins are important
to Singh. Part of his self-mythology
is that he is spurred on by doubt-
ers, motivated by hate as much as
love. His first doubter, he says, was
his father, who thought his son was
getting above himself by thinking of
admission into “a nice college like
St Xavier’s or Presidency”. From an
early age, Singh says, his “memory
was sharp”, and while he had no par-
ticular academic interest in chemis-
try, he achieved a distinction “just by
mugging”. Offered a place to study
MANEESH AGNIHOTRI
FOR MULAYAM,
POLITICS IS
AN EXTENDED
NEGOTIATION,
DEALS MADE IN
BACKROOMS.
AND SINGH’S AN
EXPERT AT IT
Chemistry (Honours) at St Xavier’s,
he told the priests he wanted to
read English Literature. It’s an early
example of Singh’s fondness for upset-
ting expectations, of not hewing to
the path others imagine for him. St
Xavier’s also gave him a view of the
‘good life’ and a chip on his shoulder
about not being able to afford it. “In
those days,” he says, “Calcutta was
the place: Firpo’s, Trincas, Blue Fox,
Flurys, Sky Room, Mocambo, Waldorf.
I used to pass all these hot spots to go
to St Xavier’s. I was probably the only
person in my class who didn’t have
his own personal vehicle. Most of the
boys were from high middle-class
families. I still remember taking the
No. 20 tram from Prabhat Cinema
and No. 9 bus from Ram Mandir to
reach Park Street and the Park Circus
crossing and from there I used to
walk. And there was no female atten-
tion from the Loreto girls because I
had no money to spend.”
N
o wonder Singh exulted in
the attention he received
from actresses later in his
life, took unabashed plea-
sure in extravagant parties and sophis-
ticated holidays with the beautiful
people. At St Xavier’s, he met Subrata
Mukherjee, then a Congress student
leader, and Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi,
who went on the become the state
party president. Singh became close
to both men, but soon realised he
had no future in West Bengal poli-
tics. “Temperamentally, culturally,”
he says, “I am still a Bengali. I speak
Bengali better than any Bengali. But
there was a streak of non-acceptance,
of petty, factional, parochial politics.”
Singh became part of a North Indian
association in the city and through it
met Vir Bahadur Singh, the Congress
leader and former UP chief minister,
and Madhavrao Scindia. Amar Singh
shared with the former a Rajput back-
ground and origins in Azamgarh dis-
trict, “so we spoke the same language
and had the same food habits and it
was because of Vir Bahadur Singh
that I met many UP leaders including
Mulayam Singhji.” He also became
close to Chandra Shekhar, prime min-
ister, of course, for several months
between 1990 and 1991. “If you nur-
ture an ambition to get into politics,”
one of Singh’s contacts had told him,
“go back to North India.”
Scindia provided Singh with his
first opportunities to run campaigns
and award tickets to local assem-
bly candidates in Madhya Pradesh.
Singh himself was in line for a ticket
in Bhind, bordering UP, where he
hoped his proximity to Mulayam
Singh Yadav would help. “At the
last moment,” Singh says, “Arjun
Singh, who had a very bitter feud
with Madhavraoji, got me replaced
with Udayan Sharma, the journalist.”
Singh had already ordered a jeep and
NOVEMBER 7, 2016 u INDIA TODAY 29
 PROFILE AMAR SINGH
started his campaign. He has since
never come close to seeking elected
office, except for a quixotic attempt in
2014 when he stood as the candidate
for Fatehpur Sikri on a Rashtriya Lok
Dal ticket that he knew was a lost
cause in the year of Modi.
B
ack in Bhind, he shrugged
off his disappointment
and used the resources he
had already marshalled to
help get the Congress candidate in
Morena elected, impressing Scindia
with his skill and dedication. “But,”
Singh says, “in politics enemies are
enemies and friends are jealous,”
and he had started making powerful
enemies. “I am not,” Singh says, “a
typical careerist, who will swallow
humiliation, will tolerate something
unjustifiable just for petty gains.”
Under the prime ministership of P.V.
Narasimha Rao, Scindia was briefly
Union minister for civil aviation.
Singh, ever able to make himself use-
ful, quickly became, in his own tell-
ing, close to Rao and was appointed
to the board of Indian Airlines. When
Scindia left Congress in 1996, Singh
says, he felt “morally free to do the
same”. His growing friendship with
Mulayam led to a celebrated politi-
cal partnership, Singh emerging as
something of a Cardinal Richelieu
figure, flourishing and growing
increasingly powerful so long as he
retained Mulayam’s confidence.
Already, Singh had begun to
leverage his political savvy to cul-
tivate business contacts, particu-
larly Shyam Bhartia, who, Singh
says, “was my introduction to the
elite.” Bhartia invited Singh to stay
for long periods in his Delhi house
and Singh later served on the board
of the Hindustan Times, owned by
Bhartia’s wife, Shobhana, daughter
of K.K. Birla. “I got married,” Singh
says, “from the Bhartias’ house.”
From 1996 till he was expelled from
the Samajwadi Party in 2010, Singh
acted like the most influential man in
India, or certainly the most connect-
ed. In conversation, he will humble-
brag constantly. About how he never
thought his and Mulayam’s “casual
suggestion” to L.K. Advani to make
30 INDIA TODAY u NOVEMBER 7, 2016
Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam the president
would be adopted, for instance. Or
about how he introduced Chandra
Shekhar to Amitabh Bachchan, the
former prime minister having been a
student in thrall to Bachchan’s father.
It was the introduction that essential-
ly rescued a bankrupt Bachchan, as
he once said and Singh never tires of
repeating, from having to drive taxis
on the streets of Mumbai.
Singh, an unfashionable middle-
class boy, became a Gatsbyesque
figure, famous for his dazzling par-
ties and his mysterious wealth, the
source of which is apparently indus-
try and investment acumen. And, like
Gatsby, he had no friends when he
needed them. He became, with his
connections to the likes of Sahara,
the poster boy of crony capitalism, of
favours exchanged, and dodgy deals.
POLITICS
TO SINGH IS
PERSONAL. IT
IS MORE ABOUT
RELATIONSHIPS,
NOT IDEOLOGY
That his name has come up even
in this fraught US election—Singh
handed Hillary Clinton a cheque for
anywhere between $1 million and $5
million, depending on who you talk
to, as a donation to the Clinton foun-
dation that Donald Trump, among
others, has said was effectively a
bribe to encourage the passing of
the Indo-US nuclear deal—gives you
an idea of the range of access Singh
enjoyed. Even in December, last year,
with Singh no longer part of SP, he
spoke to Sushma Swaraj to ensure
the actor Orlando Bloom could make
it to an event in UP after he was sent
home from Delhi airport over a prob-
lem with his visa. Pictures appeared
in all the papers of Bloom at the
Taj Mahal with Singh dressed in an
orange sports coat, a hand placed
familiarly on the celebrity’s thigh.
Perhaps the return of such an
irrepressible character to national life
was inevitable. Singh has made much
of his bond with Mulayam, unbroken
even by expulsion from the SP. “How
could I not come back when Mulayam
said I may not be in his party but I
was in his dil,” Singh says, “when an
old friend says ‘I miss you’.” Singh
makes no apologies for saying he is a
“Mulayamwadi”, his allegiance given
to the man rather than the party. It
is also his way of emphasising that
Mulayam is in charge, that Akhilesh’s
cleaner, performance-driven vision of
the party is subject to his father’s sup-
port. The changes Akhilesh wants,
Sudha Pai says, “might be seen by the
old guard to be too radical, divorced
from more fundamental calculations
about vote banks and how to win
elections.” Singh is at pains to say
that “Mulayam is not a retired politi-
cian”. His references to Akhilesh tend
to be patronising, on the one hand
pledging that they are all “sevaks” of
Akhilesh and on the other emphasis-
ing his lack of experience. “He has a
clean, good face,” Singh says, as if a
face is all Akhilesh is, a front for the
SP’s real power brokers.
As the UP election approaches,
Mulayam has gone back to what
he knows, politics as an extended
negotiation, as a series of imper-
fect compromises and deals made
in backrooms. Singh is an expert at
that game and there is little doubt
he adds to the gaiety of the nation,
but perhaps his party and the nation
have moved on, eager for less opacity
and more accountability. “All Amar
Singh’s sins are forgiven,” Mulayam
has said, as the party he built tears
itself apart. There is talk of a grand
alliance, with Mulayam, Shivpal,
and no doubt Amar Singh, work-
ing the phones, trying desperately
to salvage the party. The conflict
between Mulayam and Akhilesh is
Oedipal; while Akhilesh and Shivpal
appear to be acting out Hamlet; but
Amar Singh is a character out of the
Mahabharata, a Shakuni who sits
in his comically gilded farmhouse
watching as the flame he ignited
burns everything in its path. n

BACK ON TRACK
The PMO is shaking up the top echelon at the Railways. The other services are next
A
s the Narendra Modi govern-
ment nears the halfway point
of its five-year term, admin-
istrative reforms continue to
be a priority. This follows the
belief that without transparent admin-
istration, its vision of good governance
won’t percolate down. After disman-
tling the transfer-posting raj in Delhi
in 2015 and changing the rules for
empanelment in 2016—to select the
best officers for top postings in Delhi—
the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) has
now embarked upon a comprehen-
sive inter-department service reform,
beginning with the Indian Railways.
The reform has been seen as neces-
sary to uproot the culture of nepotism
that has taken a firm hold, especially in
the selection and posting of divisional
railway managers (DRMs), zonal gen-
eral managers (GMs) and members of
the Railway Board. These are three of
the most important posts in the rail-
way administration. For many years, it
32 INDIA TODAY u NOVEMBER 7, 2016
PTI
NATION PMO
By Uday Mahurkar
has been alleged that these processes
are open to manipulation by the Union
minister for railways (MoR) and the
chairman of the Railway Board (CRB),
allowing political bosses to pick and
choose favourites, sidestepping both
seniority and merit in appointments.
That Indian Railways has 68
divisions and 17 zones and seven
Railway Board members and a total
of eight services has led to a jostling
for key postings. The hefty Rs 1.21
lakh crore annual capital budget for
the Railways—which, on an average,
translates to around Rs 1,750 crore
per division and Rs 6,500 crore per
zone—as well as the power and pelf
associated with the post of DRM, are
widely acknowledged to be the cul-
prits for the breeding and prospering
of this culture of ‘selective postings’.
The CRB’s choice of DRM is equivalent
in seniority to a chief mechanical, elec-
trical or traction engineer in a zonal
railway—all joint-secretary level posts
in the Government of India. Add to this
the intense competition: of the 700
DRM- or joint secretary-level posts in
the Railways, only 68 officials become
DRMs, contributing to the scramble
and string-pulling.
According to the old rules, only offi-
cers who had already served as DRMs
could be considered for the post of GM.
The situation became further compli-
cated by the fact that there were two
kinds of GMs—‘Open Line’ and ‘Non-
Open Line’. Of the total strength—27
GMs—17 had to be ‘Open Line’, or con-
sidered able to run a railway zone. The
remaining 10 GMs were accommodat-
ed in ‘non-zonal’ side of the railways,
such as railway factories. Finally, only
Open Line GMs are considered for
Railway Board membership.
This system, as well as the power
wielded by those at the top, has
ensured that those with political clout
were often promoted to the posts of
zonal GMs and then to members of the

Railway Board. This eliminated the
chances of many capable and deserv-
ing officials. For example, K.K. Saxena,
a railways officer with outstanding
appraisal reports, was declared unfit
to be posted as zonal GM in 2009. Two
years after that, a similarly deserv-
ing DRM, Radheyshyam, was denied
the post of zonal GM, and posted as
GM of the Chittaranjan Locomotive
Factory instead. This paved the way
for V.K. Gupta to become a member
of the Board, despite Radheyshyam’s
seniority in the organisation.
To begin with, the government has
done away with this system, allowing
non-Open Line GMs to become Board
members. It has also fixed quotas for
DRMs and GMs from all eight rail-
way services, based on seniority and
appraisal reports. The numbers have
been fixed on the basis of the service’s
importance in railway operations. For
example, officers from engineering
services are often found to be more
qualified for main railway operations
than those from accounts, personnel
and stores. Under the new system, the
greatest number of DRM posts have
been assigned to mechanical and traf-
fic services—14 apiece—while electri-
cal has been allocated 10, Signals 6,
Accounts 4 and Stores 4.
The selection process has also been
overhauled: earlier, the decision was
taken by the CRB alone. Now, there
is a four-member panel, including the
CRB and the Secretary of the Union
department of personnel. Moreover,
three new posts have been created
at the Board level, with the rank of
director-general (DG). These posts
will ensure that services that were
under-represented on the Railway
Board now have a voice. The CRB,
A.K. Mittal, who played a key role in
formulating the new rules, says that
“the aim is to create an atmosphere
of justice, comradeship, ownership
and transparency, in all the eight
services”.
Mittal, on the directions of
THE AIM IS TO CREATE
AN ATMOSPHERE
OF JUSTICE, COMRADE-
SHIP, OWNERSHIP
AND TRANSPARENCY,
IN ALL THE EIGHT
RAILWAY SERVICES”
A.K. MITTAL
CHAIRMAN, RAILWAY BOARD
(L TO R) PM MODI WITH SURESH
PRABHU AND CURRENT AND FORMER
CRBs AT THE DIESEL LOCOMOTIVE
WORKS, VARANASI; THE GROUP OF
SECRETARIES PRESENTING
PROPOSALS TO PM MODI
railways minister Suresh Prabhu, has
already carried out a game-changing
reform. The duo mooted memoranda
of understanding (MoUs) between
the Board and its GMs, under which
the latter will have to meet mutual-
ly decided annual targets. How GMs
measure up will affect their perfor-
mance evaluations. The targets are
linked to operational performance,
loading of goods, passenger earnings,
safety, punctuality, project execution
and capital expenditure. The targets
vary from zone to zone, are based
on local conditions and set in mutual
consultations with the GMs, who have
also been directed to employ similar
performance-based MoUs with the 68
DRMs below them. The DRMs will, in
turn, do the same with their divisional
officers. “We are committed to bring-
ing transparency and efficiency in
railway administration,” says Prabhu.
Along with the railways, the PMO
has also carried out a small reform
in the Indian Police Service, again in
the interest of improving fairness and
transparency. There are 15 director-
general level IPS posts at the Centre,
of which only 11 are of secretary level.
So far, the Union ministry of home
affairs had total discretion on who got
the apex posting and who did not. This
led to frequent injustice: for example,
IPS officers Meera Borwankar and
Aruna Bahuguna, currently posted at
the Centre, were not among the 11,
though their juniors were. The PMO
has now directed that the 11 apex-lev-
el DG posts will be filled only on the
basis of seniority.
“The PM is committed to ushering
in transparency and fairness at all lev-
els of Indian bureaucracy. It is part of
his core vision of ushering in a policy-
driven administration. But it’s a long
process and will take time,” says a
senior official in the PMO.
Follow the writer on Twitter @UdayMahurkar
NOVEMBER 7, 2016 u INDIA TODAY 33
 NATION PUNJAB

MEMORIAL
PARADE
In poll-bound Punjab, the
Badal government is racing
to inaugurate grand memorials
for war heroes, Dalit icons

By Asit Jolly

I
t is poll season in Punjab and the
Parkash Singh Badal government
has timed its monumental tribute
to the war martyrs to perfection.
Just a month after terrorists from
Pakistan attacked and killed 19 Indian
soldiers inside the Army Brigade
Headquarters in Kashmir’s Uri town,
the Shiromani Akali Dal-BJP govern-
ment is ready with a symbolic riposte
to the continuing threat of terrorist
violence from across the border.
The drive from Amritsar to the
Attari-Wagah border is now happily
interrupted by a grand new monu-
ment: a bared steel sabre shooting
148 ft into the sky, its razor-sharp edge
tellingly turned towards Pakistan. It’s
the centrepiece of the Punjab State
War Heroes Memorial and Museum,
located hardly 16 km from the border
between Amritsar and Lahore oppo-
site the sprawling military cantonment
at Khasa along National Highway One.
It is also the first in a long list of memo-
rials and heritage structures that the
Badal government is racing to inaugu-
rate before the model code of conduct
kicks in for the assembly elections in
February next year.
The Rs 150 crore memorial and
museum spread over eight acres of
what used to be farmland opened to
visitors on October 23. It’s a tribute to
the warriors from Punjab who sacri-
ficed their lives protecting India.

34 INDIA TODAY u NOVEMBER 7, 2016

 THE 45 METRE HIGH STEEL
SWORD AT THE PUNJAB
STATE WAR HEROES
MEMORIAL, AMRITSAR
PARKASH SINGH BADAL
Chief Minister, Punjab
REMEMBERING
THE MEN AND
WOMEN WHO
SACRIFICED
THEIR LIVES
FOR US AND
THE FUTURE
GENERATION
SHOULD BE AN
IMPORTANT
PART OF
OUR LIVES”
Photographs by PRABHJOT GILL
For Major General (retired) Raj Located between Guru Ki Wadali
Mehta, a former Armoured Corps offi- village, the birthplace of the sixth
cer who helped curate the museum Sikh guru Hargobind Singh who rose
with a team of young professionals, the against Mughal tyranny in the 17th
project “commemorates the heroism century, and Asal Uttar, the scene of
of the armed forces personnel, across the biggest tank battle since World
religions and beliefs, who donned the War II during the 1965 India-Pakistan
India colours since antiquity”. He says war, the Amritsar War Memorial
nothing of this sort has been attempt- includes depictions of battles across
ed in the country, both in scale or the several centuries.
expanse of battle history the project The complex houses eight galler-
attempts to cover. ies, each one delving into a significant
period of history or battle in which
the people of Punjab rose to the coun-
try’s defence. Collated from various
sources, including the Indian Army,
Sikh religious archives and private
collections, the museum chronicles
the times of Guru Hargobind Singh,
the Anglo-Sikh wars, the two world
wars, the India-Pakistan wars of 1947,
1965 and 1971, the India-China war of
1962, India’s peacekeeping mission in
Sri Lanka, counter-insurgency opera-
tions and the Kargil war of 1999.
The exhibit is state-of-the-art.
Actual battles are depicted using
three-dimensional silicone and fibre-
reinforced plastic artwork enhanced
through audio-video projection and
lighting. Some of India’s best public
art and museum installation com-
panies, sculptors from Lucknow and
Bhubaneswar, and painters from
Kolkata worked for months to bring
it all together. “I did not go home for
Durga puja. This time it was puja for
the Indian soldiers,” says Dheeraj, a
Bengali sculptor who worked at the
museum for nearly a year.
The eight war galleries are com-
plemented by a unique seven-dimen-
sional auditorium that employs
smoke, water, snow and moving chairs
besides three-dimensional film projec-
tion to showcase the wars India fought.
The heart of the monument, howev-
er, is the breathtaking 54-tonne sword
memorial designed by Ram Vanji
Sutar, 91, one of the country’s most
celebrated sculptors who was com-
missioned by the Narendra Modi gov-
ernment to design the Statue of Unity, a
towering statue of Sardar Vallabhbhai
Patel coming up in Gujarat. Rising
from a saffron hilt ornamented with
four lion-heads, the face of the weath-
erproof, stainless steel blade is intri-
cately inlaid with brass to depict more
lions reaching up towards Surya (the
Sun). And all around the base of the
high granite platform that bears the
sword are steel plaques bearing the
names of martyrs—3,800 soldiers,
sailors and airmen from Punjab killed
since the 1947 war in Kashmir.
On a clear day, the sword is visi-
ble from kilometres around. Brigadier
(retired) J.S. Arora, Punjab’s direc-
tor of Defence Services Welfare, who
NOVEMBER 7, 2016 u INDIA TODAY 35
 NATION PUNJAB
oversaw the construction of the war
memorial, indulges in a bit of brag-
ging banter. “Even the Pakistanis can
see our sword,” he says with a grin. “I
seriously do not believe that anything
of this scale would have been possible
without the chief minister personally
pushing the project and ensuring no
bottlenecks.” Construction started in
February 2014 and Badal, he says,
made more than 20 visits to the site in
the past one year.
At his official home in Chandigarh,
an indisposed Badal explains why he
thinks the project is so significant.
“Remembering our heroes, the men
and women who sacrificed their very
lives for us and the future genera-
tions, should be an important part of
our lives,” he says. Besides celebrat-
ing valour and sacrifice, building suit-
able memorials, he says, is a way of
expressing “shukrana (gratitude)”.
Badal, who will turn 89 in December,
says, “this is personally the most sat-
isfying achievement of my entire life”.
Into its second consecutive term
in office, the Badal government had,
in its previous term, wrapped up the
Rs 225 crore Virasat-e-Khalsa or
Khalsa Heritage Memorial Museum
at Anandpur Sahib and the 328 ft
tall Fateh Burj (victory tower com-
memorating Sikh military com-
mander Banda Singh Bahadur) at
Chappar Chiri outside Chandigarh
in November-December 2011, just
months before the February 2012
elections. The indulgence continues
in Badal’s second term in office with
a slew of new memorials estimated to
have cost over Rs 1,500 crore.
Besides the war memorial in
Amritsar, the Rs 200 crore first phase
of the Jang-e-Azadi Memorial, funded
by Punjab and Delhi together, is ready
to be inaugurated at Kartarpur along
the Jalandhar-Amritsar highway on
November 6. But not every project is
dedicated to the martyrs. Ten kilome-
tres from Amritsar, towards the India-
Pakistan border at Lopoke, workers
are frantically trying to finish the
Rs 250 crore Valmiki temple complex
at Ram Tirath. Valmiki Dalits form a
sizeable chunk of the Punjab elector-
ate. In Doaba, home to Ravidassia
Dalits, construction of an imposing
36 INDIA TODAY u NOVEMBER 7, 2016
memorial for Guru Ravidass is under
MONUMENTAL way. At Anandpur Sahib, a memo-
TRIBUTE rial dedicated to Baba Jeevan Singh,
a widely respected Sikh martyr, is
`
150
CRORE
under construction.
In Amritsar’s old walled city, the
Badal government on October 24
Punjab State War Heroes Memorial inaugurated a bunch of projects that
and Museum, include an imposing golden-domed
Khasa, Amritsar district gateway to the holy city, a new heri-
Opened on October 23, 2016 tage walk in which 150 buildings on
way to the Golden Temple have been
given a makeover to achieve a uniform
`
200
CRORE
vintage look, and what will be India’s
very first Partition Museum inside
the renovated precincts of Amritsar’s
Jang-e-Azadi Memorial, British-era Town Hall.
Kartarpur, Jalandhar district Critics question Badal’s penchant
Opens on November 6, 2016 for building memorials, saying the
state government is crippled by debt
(Rs 1,13,070 crore in 2015) and is
`
250
CRORE
struggling to pay employees salaries
every other month. His political rivals,
however, are wary about criticising
Ram Tirath Temple and the projects. As chief minister from
Panorama complex, 2002 to 2007, Captain Amarinder
Ram Tirath, Amritsar district Singh of the Congress had contin-
Opens in November 2016 ued to liberally fund the construction
of the Virasat-e-Khalsa, a project
started by Badal.
Aam Aadmi Party leaders are more
forthcoming. “All this money would
have been better spent on the peo-
ple,” says the party’s Punjab spokes-
person, Chander Suta Dogra. “Rather
than building a grand war memorial,
a greater tribute would have been to
spend the money on war widows and
veterans who are routinely made to
run around even for their pensions.”
RAM TIRATH TEMPLE, AMRITSAR
Despite some evidently political
motives, particularly the projects on
Dalit icons, historian M. Rajivlochan
`
110
CRORE
is delighted. “These are significant
interventions,” says the professor
of history at Chandigarh’s Panjab
Guru Ravidass Memorial and University. “We must recall and nur-
Minar-e-Beghampura, ture memories or risk granting future
Khuralgarh, Hoshiarpur district societies and generations the oppor-
Opens in July-August 2017 tunity to mess with the truth.”
Excited about both the scale and
the construction, he adds, “This is the
`
5.97
CRORE
first time in India that museum-mak-
ers are taking care that common peo-
ple can relate to the exhibits. Museum
Partition Museum, visits no longer need to be a boring
Old City, Amritsar and detached experience.”
Opens in August 2017 Follow the writer on Twitter @Asitjolly
 NATION BENGALURU
A FLYOVER
TOO FAR
Why a project touted to decongest the drive to airport is
at the heart of an intense public campaign in Bengaluru
By Aravind Gowda
A
n upcoming flyover in
Bengaluru has run into
steely resistance from citi-
zens, who see it as a waste
of public money and a far
cry from the jam-breaker it is billed to
be. Bengaluru has been showing just
how outraged it is by the proposed Rs
1,791 crore steel structure—6.72 km
long and connecting the city centre to
the Hebbal flyover—that authorities
say will decongest the ride to the inter-
national airport on the city’s outskirts.
On October 23, some 41,000 residents
signed a petition that the project be
scrapped. A 10,000-strong human
chain formed a week ago, nearly
42,000 nays in a door-to-door poll and
a Twitter campaign are other signals
of the mood. Not that the Congress
government in Karnataka is budging,
so campaigners are thinking of legal
options beyond a petition already being
heard in the High Court of Karnataka.
The project had been gathering
dust for years. Bengaluru Development
Minister K.J. George revived it, soon
after his appointment earlier this
month on getting a clean chit in a sui-
cide case. The government intends to
complete the flyover in two years, not-
withstanding questions about its cost,
ecological impact—812 trees will be
chopped—and allegations of kickbacks.
Bengaluru has more than 50 fly-
overs and underpasses. Most projects
lost their utility after a few years. Not
a day passes in the city without jams
on the Yeshwanthpur, Silk Board and
38 INDIA TODAY u NOVEMBER 7, 2016
Richmond Circle flyovers and the
underpass near the Indian Institute
of Science. Opponents say such proj-
ects merely shift traffic congestion
to another area. “As the number of
vehicles is increasing exponentially in
Bengaluru, the flyovers and underpass-
es have become redundant,” says M.N.
Sreehari, a traffic engineering consul-
tant. “Jams have become common on
every major flyover because of capacity
constraints. We need to explore long-
NILOTPAL BARUAH
term, permanent solutions to reduce
the number of vehicles on the roads.”
Some 160,000 vehicles criss-cross
the proposed flyover’s route each
day. “Agreed, it (flyover) may work,
but only for the next 3-4 years,” adds
Sreehari. “As the number of vehicles
increases, this flyover, too, will become
useless. The congestion will shift to the
Hebbal flyover. The government should
explore mass rapid transit systems so
that the people are motivated to give
up personal vehicles and use them.”
Bengaluru registers close to 3,000
new vehicles every day. The city
already has more than six million
vehicles, of which 3.4 million are two-
wheelers, the highest in the country
after Delhi. But the metro rail project,
though delayed, is making a difference.
Every day, more than 30,000 people,
mostly IT professionals, use it between
Vijayanagar and Old Madras Road, tak-
ing some burden off the roads. Theatre
personality Prakash Belawadi, who is
leading the citizens’ campaign against
the flyover project, wonders what the RUSH-HOUR CRAWL AT HEBBAL; A PROTEST

Why a steel flyover?
6.72
KILOMETRES
steel flyover connecting
Basaveshwara Circle to
Hebbal flyover (Airport
Road stretch), to
decongest traffic
Will be made of steel because
it causes minimum distur-
bance to motorists during
construction; it’s pre-fabri-
cated and installed on site
Steel structure lasts longer
than concrete
Why the opposition?
812
FULLY GROWN TREES
will be cut; flyover will spoil
city’s aesthetics, heritage
`
150
CRORE
per km for concrete flyover
against Rs 267 crore per km
for steel flyover
Congress faces allegations of
kickbacks; the government is in
an inexplicable hurry to imple-
ment the project after K.J.
George returned as Bengaluru
development minister
The government can opt for
long-term solutions, such
as metro rail connectivity
to the airport
Motorists will have
AGAINST THE PROPOSED FLYOVER to pay toll
“great hurry” is all about. “Why can’t
the government consult the stakeholders
before taking up such a mega project?”
he asks. “Bengaluru doesn’t need a proj-
ect like this at the cost of greenery and
transparency. We will not stop. We will
seek a legal remedy against this project.”
The flyover is estimated to cost Rs
267 crore per km—quite a pinch since
an elevated metro line to the airport is
estimated to cost Rs 385 crore for every
km and carry some 25,000 commut-
ers an hour. Monorail will cost Rs 140
crore per km and ferry some 15,000
passengers every hour to the airport.
The government is ducking the flak by
projecting the flyover as the BJP’s idea,
since it was conceptualised in 2010 while
the party was in power. It says almost
three-fourths of the 299 responses
received when public opinion was sought
in June this year favoured the project.
“Bengaluru is a growing city. We need
all kinds of infrastructure projects,” says
Chief Minister Siddaramaiah. “This proj-
ect has been vetted, cleared by experts at
all levels. There is no going back.”
Cost escalation (Rs 441 crore for the
project) is a major reason why the fly-
over has been questioned. “Why is the
Congress activating the project when
they are nearing the next election? Why
is the project being activated as soon as
a controversial minister is back in the
cabinet?” asked historian and author
Ramachandra Guha at a public consulta-
tion in Bengaluru on October 23. “Some
people think they are collecting money
for the elections. But that’s not true.
They know they will lose. So they want
to collect money quickly.” Siddaramaiah
says the cost shot up in the two previ-
ous years, among other things, from the
increase in VAT on steel. The Bangalore
Development Authority, which is super-
vising the project, expects to raise funds
by auctioning real estate. Eventually, the
government may have to chip in.
Another downside of the flyover is
motorists paying toll, though minister
George says the decision is not final.
Guha is unsparing in his criticism of
the project and Siddaramaiah. “He has
become captive to ministers with spe-
cial interests. What is the legacy he will
leave behind? Political corruption is a
cancer eating into our society,” he says.
Follow the writer on Twitter @AravindShiv
NOVEMBER 7, 2016 u INDIA TODAY 39
 NATION MADHYA PRADESH
BIZ W
hile speaking at the open-
ing ceremony of the
Madhya Pradesh Global
AND
Investors Summit (GIS-
2016) at Indore, Union minister for IT
and electronics Ravi Shankar Prasad
described Chief Minister Shivraj Singh
THE
Chouhan as the opening batsman of
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Team
India. “Shivraj can play inswingers,
BUZZ
bouncers and outswingers with equal
ease,” he said. Besides reading the
statement as a compliment to the CM’s
political skill, delegates saw another
Like previous editions, message: that Chouhan, having suc-
cessfully batted for farmers, was now
GIS-2016 saw massive bringing his batting abilities to bear on
investments—on paper. other sectors of the economy.
But first, some context. In 2014-
Will they materialise? 15, MP had a GDP of about Rs 5 lakh
crore, of which about Rs 1.8 lakh
crore came from the primary sec-
By Rahul Noronha tor (agriculture, animal husbandry,
40 INDIA TODAY u NOVEMBER 7, 2016
forests and fishing), Rs 1.1 lakh crore
from the secondary sector (industries,
manufacturing, etc.), with the balance
Rs 2.1 lakh crore coming from the ser-
vice sector. In doing so, the primary
sector had grown by almost 30 per
cent that year, the secondary by 7.8
per cent, and the tertiary by 12.2 per
cent. Broadly speaking, these trends
have held steady for some time: MP
has clocked GDP growth of almost
10 per cent over the past four years,
with agriculture maintaining over
20 per cent growth over the same
period. As a result, agriculture is per-
ceived to have reached the potential
of its growth, prompting the politi-
cal leadership to consider developing
other sectors in order to maintain the
growth momentum. With this objec-
tive in mind, CM Chouhan and his
team played host to nearly 5,000 del-
egates, from more than 40 countries,

SALES PITCH
MP sold itself as a favourable
industrial destination
AGRI LEADER
MP is the top producer of soya-
bean, gram, garlic and pulses
POWERHOUSE
It has abundant power supply;
in the past two years, capacity
has increased to 18,900 MW
RESOURCE RICH
It is rich in diamonds, coal, lime-
stone, pyrophyllite, manganese,
dolomite and glass sand
HIGH GROWTH
Has maintained near 10 per cent
growth rate over the past four years
PANKAJ TIWARI
on October 22-23, at GIS-2016. The event
was attended by several captains of indus-
try, among them Gopichand Hinduja, Anil
Ambani and Kumar Mangalam Birla.
Political heavyweights were roped in too:
finance minister Arun Jaitley inaugurated
the event, and the valedictory session was
presided over by minister for external
affairs, Sushma Swaraj. This was not the
first time that MP was laying out the red
carpet for investors—GIS-2016 was the
fifth summit of its kind, with earlier edi-
tions held in 2007, 2010, 2012 and 2014.
G
IS-2016 began with the state
chief secretary, Anthony de Sa,
making a presentation on devel-
opments in the state. The MP
government had identified key sectors that
it wished to aggressively develop, including
agri-business and food processing, textiles,
renewable energy, defence, pharmaceu-
ticals, IT/ ITES and electronic systems
design and manufacturing (ESDM), not to
mention urban development, tourism and
automobile engineering. One takeaway
was the new, sector-based approach: tradi-
tionally, industries in MP have been based
in clusters located close to the divisional
headquarters of Bhopal, Indore, Ujjain,
Gwalior and Jabalpur. More importantly,
each industrial area features a mix of
industries that are mostly ancillary units
catering to bigger units elsewhere in the
state. Another takeaway was the focus on
integrating new development with existing
sectors. While MP already holds pole posi-
tion in the production of certain agri-com-
modities, it expects to vertically integrate
these by setting up food processing units.
The pitch at GIS-2016 was based on
easily available land and resources. The
state government claimed to have ear-
marked an industrial land bank, 120,000
acres in size, an installed capacity of
18,900 MW, up from 12,600 MW two years
ago, with 4,200 km of national highways
and 10,000 km of rural roads added or
repaired in the past two years. These plans
were matched by sector-specific policies
like interest subvention, rebates on land
registration, transport reimbursement
and entry tax exemptions to investment
projects. The GST Bill was also pitched as
INDUSTRIAL SIZE MP CHIEF MINISTER SHIVRAJ
SINGH CHOUHAN SPEAKING AT THE GLOBAL
INVESTORS SUMMIT 2016, INDORE
a game-changer in the attempt to develop
MP into a logistics hub. “Once a single
taxation regime is implemented across the
country, what was a location disadvantage
will turn into an advantage for Madhya
Pradesh,” said finance minister Jaitley.
Doing what he often does during elec-
tions—seeking to leverage his personal
rapport with folks into public support—CM
Chouhan said that industrialists should
remember that MP has him as its CM. In
turn, the big guns of industry heaped ful-
some praise on him: “I have grown more
in the seven years I have spent in Madhya
Pradesh than in my 30 years in Punjab,
from where I come,” says Rajendra Gupta
of Trident Group, promising a Rs 2,500
crore investment.
PR exercises aside, the chief minis-
ter is no doubt aware that investment
has not been arriving in MP in propor-
tion to expectations. The opposition made
much of this: a day before GIS-2016, state
Congress president Arun Yadav said pre-
vious summits had been utter failures:
“They provide an opportunity to officers
and ministers for foreign junkets, crores
of rupees are spent and the state doesn’t
get anything,” he said. He added that the
state government had claimed the summit
in 2007 would yield Rs 1,20,000 crore, but
only Rs 4,744 crore actually materialised.
He offered figures for 2010 and 2012 as
well, saying Rs 2,37,836 crore and
Rs 1,22,300 crore were promised, while
actual investment was under four per cent
of that. GIS-2014 should have brought in
Rs 6,79,000 crore, he said, but there was
no way to know the final sum, since no
MoUs were signed that year.
Towards the end of the second day of
GIS-2016, the chief minister announced
that investment proposals totalling
Rs 5,62,847 crore had been received.
While no one doubted the CM’s sincerity,
the bureaucracy in MP does not have the
best reputation for efficiency, prompting
Anil Ambani to mention that in an age of
competitive federalism, when all states are
wooing investors, the pace of decisions has
to quicken, and that a “CM is as good as his
team”, adding, “it is better to tell us some-
thing can’t be done rather than delaying”.
The Hindi heartland has a saying:
‘Uttam kheti, madhyam vyapar, nikrishth
chakri, bheekh nidan (when it comes to
work, farming is the best)’. Vyapar, it
seems, still has a long way to go. n
NOVEMBER 7, 2016 u INDIA TODAY 41
 SPECIAL REPORT DEFENCE PURCHASES

PREPARING FOR
THE WORST
The defence ministry fast tracks ammunition buys to replenish war
stocks as the threat of conflict with Pakistan lingers. It is the largest pro-
curement of its kind since Operation Parakram

By Sandeep Unnithan

D
ays after the September 18 Uri
attack in which 19 Indian army
soldiers were killed, the higher
echelons of government went
into a huddle. Military retalia-
tion was among the options discussed by
the cabinet committee on security. This was
when the forces revealed to the government
the critical voids in its ammunition reserves.
The army was deficient in four to five
critical items of ammunition. These includ-
ed armour piercing fin stabilised discard-
ing sabot (APFSDS) ammunition fired by its
T-72 and T-90 main battle tanks for which
it held just one day of war wastage reserves
(WWR). Ammunition needed to meet war
requirements during an operation is termed
WWR. The IAF’s Su-30 fighter jets and
Mi-35 gunships also did not have ammuni-
tion. The revelations galvanised the political
leadership into action. Bureaucratic chan-
nels were bypassed and emergency powers
delegated to the vice-chiefs of the army and
air force to push purchases. The MoD under
defence minister Manohar Parrikar decided
to fast-track imports.
So, in late September, the MoD sent
out empowered committees comprising a
senior bureaucrat, an armed forces rep-
resentative and a member of the defence
finance wing with wishlists. The commit-
tees went to ammunition suppliers in Russia
and Israel with indents for buying several
million dollars worth of ammunition. The
wishlists include rockets and gun ammu-
nition for Mi-35 helicopter gunships and
AMMUNITION FOR THE ARMY’S T-90 TANKS (IN PICTURE)
Su-30 fighter jets, 155 mm ammunition for HAS BEEN A PRIORITY FAST-TRACK PURCHASE
the Bofors howitzers, and 125 mm APFSDS
CHANDRADEEP KUMAR

42 INDIA TODAY u NOVEMBER 7, 2016

ammunition for the tank fleet.
The urgency was evident in the
indents—the MoD was willing to buy
up existing stocks as well as off pro-
duction lines. Factories were asked
to identify time-frames of possible
delivery, from ‘immediate’, within
‘one month’, ‘two months’ and ‘three
months’. Army officials confirmed
that several contracts had been final-
ised and deliveries of ammunition
had begun. The value of the contracts
is estimated to be close to Rs 5,000
crore, just for ammunition. “The
purchases are easily the largest fast-
track procurements since Operation
Parakram in 2001,” says one official.
Fast-track purchases bypass
the regular defence procurement
procedure (DPP), a tedious process
which takes 5-8 years. Fast-track
procedures (FTP) telescope the regu-
lar acquisition process, which takes
up to a decade, into just nine months.
FTP was first introduced in the
2002 DPP manual which guides Ind-
ia’s military buying. The 2016 man-
ual extended FTP to apply to items
“where undue/unforeseen delay...
seem to be adversely impacting the
capacity and preparedness of the reg-
ular and special forces”.
The special forces which conduc-
ted surgical strikes across the LoC on
September 29, have especially come
in for attention. Requirements for lim-
ited quantities of assault rifles, ther-
mal imagers, light machine guns and
rocket launchers (see box: The Quick
Draw) have been put in for them.
Procurements like those for imported
anti-tank guided missiles (ATGM) for
the weaponised variants of the Dhruv
advanced light helicopter are also
being fast-tracked. Through FTPs,
senior army officials say, they plan
to push up war stocks to cater to 10
days of intense war fighting, eventu-
ally building up to 14 days worth of
stock. No one is talking war just yet.
Not even in the currently tense secu-
rity situation following the surgical
strikes. Restocking, the military says,
gives it the flexibility, endurance and
confidence in logistics for its opera-
tional plans should a contingency
arise. “It increases the number of
THE QUICK DRAW
MoD has rushed the procurements of
hardware, to be got in three months
Anti-tank guided missile for ALH
124 launchers/ 1,326
ATGMs
Carl Gustav M4 recoilless rifle
50 pieces
7.62 x 51 mm assault rifles
for special forces
2,000 pieces
Light machine guns
500 pieces
Advanced thermal imagers
100 pieces
30 mm GsH ammunition
for Su-30MKI
50,000 rounds
80 mm S8 rockets
60,000 rounds
7.62 mm ammo for PKT gun/co-axil
of T-72/ T-90 tanks
60,000 rounds
23 mm API-T ammo for ZSU-23-4
anti-aircraft gun
60,000 rounds
12.7 mm ammo for Mi-35 gunship
50,000 rounds
NOVEMBER 7, 2016 u INDIA TODAY 43
 SPECIAL REPORT DEFENCE PURCHASES

HOW FAST-TRACK PURCHASES WORK

Normal procurement route (at least 4-5 years) VS Fast-track procurement route (deadline 9 months)

l General Staff Qualitative Requirements okayed by General Staff
Equipment Policy Committee chaired by deputy army chief
l Acceptance of necessity OKed by MoD chief financial advisor (CFA)
l Request for proposal of equipment sent to manufacturers by
acquisition wing and technical manager land systems
l Technical evaluation committee observes equipment trials
l Technical oversight committee (for all cases over Rs 300 cr)
l GS evaluation prepared by WE Directorate. Okayed by
army’s deputy chief, additional secretary (acquisitions)
l Cost negotiation committee starts commercial negotiations with
vendor of lowest bid. Approved by competent financial authority
before contract signing
l General Staff Qualitative Requirements
l Acceptance of Necessity
l Request for Proposals to companies selected by user
l Field Evaluation Trials done in country of origin.
Requirement that equipment has to be in service at least
with their own army.
l Price Bids In revenue cases, delegation can
open bid in the host country. In capital acquisition
cases, have to return to India and prepare a report of
price comparison. Product signed by empowered
committee in 3 months

options available to us,” one general
says. The army hopes to make good
its shortfalls within the next three
months. “War endurance for the
stipulated period is necessary to deal
with all possible operational contin-
gencies and especially for creating
military conditions, through strategic
offensive manoeuvres that ultimately
contribute to the realisation of politi-
cal ends,” says former army chief
General Bikram Singh.
WHY THE SHORTAGES?
The MoD’s notoriously inefficient
procurement process is to blame for
acquisition delays. It takes the min-
istry at least seven years to buy new
weapon systems. The army, which
has found itself unable to acquire
even basic items like assault rifles,
ballistic helmets and bulletproof
jackets for its troops, also shares
some of the blame. Ammunition
purchases are on the slow track. In
May last year, a CAG report tabled
in Parliament put the army’s WWR
stocks at less than half the mandate
calling for 40 days intense fighting.
The WWR concept, first approved by
the government in April 1979, stipu-
lated a national stockpile of ammu-
nition required to fight a battle for a
30-day intense period and another 30
days at the normal rate. The WWR
scales were revised in October 2010
to cater for 40 days ‘intense fighting’.
A 2015 report by the Comptroller
and Auditor General (CAG) on
ammunition management covered
the years between 2008 and 2013.
An ammunition roadmap drawn up
by the Indian army in 2012 for build-
ing up stock to 50 per cent by March
2015 and 100 per cent by 2019 fai-
led. Stocking even at the minimum
acceptable risk level (MARL) of 20
days was not ensured. Nearly 74 per
cent of ammunition (125 out of 170
types) reserves were below MARL
levels as of March 2013. This had
seriously impacted the operational
preparedness of the army because
the void had grown from 15 per cent
in 2009 to 50 per cent by March
2013. High caliber ammunition—
used by the 155 mm Bofors artillery
guns—made up nearly 84 per cent of
the shortage in the five-year period.
Senior army officials, however,
say stocking 40-day WWR scales is
simply unrealistic. “We have neither
the storage capacity nor the land to
store such vast ammunition stocks,”
says a senior army officer. This pos-
sibly explains why the armed forces,
with their current round of pur-
chases, are only pushing to meet a
requirement of stocks for the mini-
mum 14 days of intense war fighting.
The CAG report attributed the
reasons for the failure to build the
40 days ‘intense fighting’ WWR to
budgetary constraints and also to
inadequate production capacity
within the Ordnance Factory Board
(OFB). The OFB has repeatedly failed
to meet targets despite the fact that
10 of its 41 factories are exclusively
devoted to producing ammunition
and explosives. One reason frequent-
ly cited by the OFB for delays is that
they are never given adequate time
to procure raw material and stream-
line production. Even this excuse has
been exposed now. The MoD placed
a five-year order for ammunition to
the OFB in January 2010 but it could
meet just over 70 per cent of the
army’s requirements.
Another major reason for the low
ammo stocks is slow imports. The
CAG report found that no ammuni-
tion procurement took place for nine
items of ammunition identified for
import between 2008 and 2013. The
reasons ranged from a single vendor
situation, complexities in transfer of
technology, delay in finalisation of
qualitative requirements to delays in
finalising import contracts. Still more
worrisome is the fact that the fast-
track purchases have been anything
but. Sometimes, they take as long
as purchases through the regular
procurement route. Fast-track pur-
chases contracted during the Kargil
war, arrived long after the conflict
had ended. This continued even dur-
ing Operation Parakram in 2001-’02.
A 2006 CAG report noted how fast-
track purchases which were to have
come in 12 months arrived only after
four years. If the MoD has learnt
anything from the past, the current
round could be different.
Follow the writer on Twitter @SandeepUnnithan

44 INDIA TODAY u NOVEMBER 7, 2016

 SOCIETY BRIDGE

BRIDGE
BUILDING
A HIGH-PROFILE INTERNATIONAL TOURNAMENT IN DELHI REVEALS A THRIVING GLOBAL
SUBCULTURE OF CEREBRAL—AND PASSIONATE—CARD PLAYERS FROM ALL WALKS OF LIFE

By Devangshu Datta

T
riskaidekaphobia. Fear of
the number 13 is so all-
pervasive that it has its
very own dictionary entry.
Hotels refuse to have the
13th floor, vehicle owners pay to avoid Think of it as hundreds of people try-
the numbers 13 or, even worse, 1313
on their number plates.
However, there is one global com-
munity that doesn’t subscribe to that
superstition. The game of bridge
revolves around the supposedly
unlucky number and bridge players
contemplate the number as a matter
of course. They count up to 13 con-
stantly, using groups of four numbers
like 5-4-3-1, 4-4-3-2, 7-4-1-1, 4-3-3-
3, 6-4-0-3. The best bridge players
are the ones who can calculate swiftly
and then communicate their counts
accurately to partners.
About 600 bridge players
met in Delhi recently to
showcase their skills at
the HCL International
Championships. The win-
ners took home $180,000
(over Rs 1.2 crore) in prize
money between them. The
event drew several world
champions and partici-
pants from acrosscountries
because it is one of the high-
est prize money events.
There is a reason why
very few people will play
bridge on Diwali—it is not
a gambling game. The format of
tournament bridge further reduces
luck to an absolute minimum. The
same hand is played out at hundreds
of tables and the scores compared.
ing to solve the same logic and maths
problems, while trying to prevent
other people from solving them.
In major events like the HCL, deals up. One got the impression that they
are computer-generated and the
players don’t speak. The losing final-
ists at the Naresh Tandan Trophy, a
Russian team led by Andrey Gromov,
came back twice from behind. They
were trailing through the first three
sessions in their semi-finals against
Hemant Jalan’s team. They turned
things around with a bravura fourth
session performance. In the finals
against the Italian giants Lavazza
they came within an inch of winning.
TEAM LAVAZZA WITH CHIEF GUESTS SHARMILA TAGORE
AND ZIA MAHMOOD AND HCL’S KIRAN NADAR
It was a great match—the equiva-
lent of an ODI, which comes down
to six needed off the last over. After
56 deals, one wrong view or a single
card played this way or that could
have altered the result. The Russian
quartet smiled, shook hands hero-
ically, and said unprintable things
in Russian as the scores were totted
would hit the vodka hard that night.
The game is a minority taste per-
haps, but it is a driving passion for
those who do play. It attracts people
from all walks of life. It requires an
unusual blend of logic, counting facil-
ity and communication skills. You
need to know what your partner is
thinking and to nudge him/ her in the
right direction. Partners have liter-
ally murdered each other. In 1929,
a Kansas City jury let off Mrs Myrtle
Bennett of Kansas City for
gunning down her husband
after a bridge argument.
John Bennett played badly,
accused Myrtle of bad play
and slapped her before she
retaliated with four rounds
from her .32.
When partnerships
work, the chemistry can
be fantastic. The patrician
Zia Mahmood partnered
the late Masood Salim,
who learnt to play under
the streetlights in Karachi,

46 INDIA TODAY u NOVEMBER 7, 2016

RAJWANT RAWAT
and spoke broken English. The two
anchored Pakistan for years.
Zia won the HCL, skippering the
Lavazza team, which is sponsored
by Maria Teresa Lavazza of the
Italian beverages giant. That squad
includes two Italian world champions,
Norberto Bocchi (55) and Giorgino
Duboin (57), who no longer partner
each other (after winning five world
titles together) for reasons nobody will
elucidate. The fourth is the Danish
world champion, Dennis Bilde, who’s
far younger than the others at age 26.
Zia is a Pakistani by birth, a char-
tered accountant by training and
a bridge gypsy by avocation. The
70-year-old is a British citizen, mar-
ried to the daughter of an Earl. He’s
won world titles playing for the US.
Lavazza won the Naresh Tandan
Trophy but despite the presence of
four world champions, it was pushed
very hard by those hard-bitten
Russian pros. Down the line, there
was the Mohini Tandan Trophy for
‘silver’ teams with fewer credentials.
Next year, HCL intends a bronze
THE 14TH HCL INTERNATIONAL BRIDGE CHAMPIONSHIP 2016 AT NEW DELHI ON OCTOBER 20
category for newcomers.
HCL Group’s initiative comes
straight from Kiran Nadar, who’s
played bridge at top levels and spon-
sored an Indian team called the
Formidables for over a decade. She’s
very clear about the fact that HCL
would like to scale up this tourna-
ment to be the biggest and best in the
world. It was the 14th edition; it had
impressive amounts of prize money.
The next edition will be even bigger
and the organisers will look to smooth
out any minor edges.
Like many people in the top ech-
elons of Indian bridge, Nadar is evan-
gelical about the game. The Bridge
Federation of India hosted the world
championships last year in Chennai,
where two Formidables, Sunit Choksi-
Keyzad Anklesaria, took the bronze
in pairs. The game has quite a few
sponsors in India, since several prom-
inent businesspersons and CEOs play
it regularly to high standards.
Overall standards are good but
India is looking to breakout to top lev-
els. According to Zia, more exposure
is required. Jerry Stamatov of
Bulgaria and Duboin concur and Bilde
says the cardplay is good but part-
nerships tend to be uneven, with not
particularly polished bidding meth-
ods. Zia believes that more Indian
tournaments with foreign invitations
are necessary (with a twinkle saying
“Mujhe toh aana hi hai”). Duboin said
more Indians need to play abroad.
Hema Deora, a team sponsor, says a
bit of both is required.
India is one of many federations
trying to face up to a global demo-
graphic challenge. Very few young
people play bridge. The game has
greyed. Globally, bridge federations
have started pushing the game at
school levels. China and Indonesia
have done well with this. But there’s
lack of enthusiasm on the part of
school authorities in some cases and
active resistance in others.
Giorgio Duboin says the hassle, in
Italy, is unionisation. Bridge teachers
must belong to the teachers’ union
in Italy. In India, it’s more likely igno-
rance of school authorities regarding
NOVEMBER 7, 2016 u INDIA TODAY 47

BRIDGE BASICS
Bridge tournaments
are played between teams of four
and pairs. The same cards are
played at all tables and the results
are compared in pairs events
Internationally, the World
championships are the
Olympiads (where many na-
tions participate), the
Bermuda Bowl (an inter-con-
tinental championship) and a
world junior championship
There are multiple national
circuits in Italy and the US, where
there is reasonable money in-
volved in the game, trophies to
play for and huge participation
the game, so it has to be marketed as
an aid in developing useful life-skills.
Sagnik Roy-Sayantan Kushari
were probably the youngest pair
playing at HCL. Both are still techni-
cally in school (they’ve just sat for HS
exams). Both learnt bridge from their
respective fathers, who are top play-
ers. They’ve played a World Junior
and their ‘gut-feel’ is that bridge
needs to be on the school curriculum
if it’s going to catch on.
M
ini Naidoo and Priyaranjan
Sinha run a school bridge
programme in Bengaluru.
They’ve been at it for three years,
teaching the game to disadvantaged
children in government schools. They
now have a core group of 16 players
to play the next national juniors. They
would like to scale up their model
across other cities, other schools. But
so far, it’s been a labour of love with
money crowdsourced from enthusi-
asts. Taking it to the next stage will
need major resources.
Outside the circuit, there is no
48 INDIA TODAY u NOVEMBER 7, 2016
There are attempts being made to teach
bridge in schools in Israel, China,
Indonesia, Italy and the UK, in an effort to
popularise it among young players
understanding of the game, com-
pounded by a kneejerk fundamental-
ist response that “cards=gambling”.
Zia says that the bridge club in
Karachi has to operate in a low-key
manner out of a changing room at
the National Stadium. He runs one
charity event every year dedicated
to his late mother and he hopes that
bridge will survive even in places
where the shariat bans it, by going
underground if necessary.
‘Fundamentalist’ in this context
includes Joseph Stalin who tried to
stamp out the game in the Soviet
Union. Nonetheless, it remained pop-
ular. Soviet Grandmasters at chess
tournaments used to hustle a few
rubbers. The game got back into the
mainstream during the Gorbachev
era and, unsurprisingly, Russia now
produces top-class players.
In technical terms, bridge is a
game of incomplete information.
At any given time, a player can see
a maximum of 26 cards (one set of
cards is laid open on the table dur-
ing play). She must guess what the
SOCIETY BRIDGE
India has two sets of national
championships (one is open,
one by invitation) and a fairly
active circuit
In a team event,
each team sits North-South
at one table and East-West
at the other table. So each
team gets to hold both sets
of cards and the results can
be compared
Players in tournaments
are awarded ‘masterpoints’ for
performances of a certain level.
They become life masters,
grandmasters, etc
Illustration by ANIRBAN GHOSH
distribution of the other cards are.
Bridge also requires good commu-
nication skills and an ability to stay
calm, when miscommunications hap-
pen, as they inevitably do.
It’s played at varying levels of
skill by all sorts of people. It’s hard
to programme bidding skills into
computers, which means good play-
ers still beat artificial intelligence.
The game was popularised in the
period between the two world wars
by a flim-flam artist named Ely
Culbertson. Culbertson turned bridge
into a spectator sport; he challenged
other players and put up large stakes
and played long matches.
But the game has fallen off the
map in the digital era. That was evi-
dent at this event itself where there
were very few players under 30. It
will take a monumental and creative
effort to put bridge back on the sports
pages. HCL has made a beginning,
however, and there might be enough
momentum to make this happen.
Devangshu Datta is an occasional kibitzer
 Smart Money

MAKE
YOUR OWN
DIWALI
BONUS
DEBT FUNDS
GOLD
MUTUAL FUNDS
PERSONAL LOANS

AR SUMANTH KUMAR
 smart
money DEBT FUNDS INSIDE

WHEN DEBT
LOOKS
GOOD
Low-risk investment
options in the time of
falling interest rates IMAGESBAZAAR

B
ank fixed deposits
(FDs) provide you
fixed and guaran-
teed returns and are easy
to understand—virtues
that make them one of
the most favoured invest-
WHAT SHOULD
INVESTORS DO?
Look at options beyond
FDs, such as debt mutual
funds. Debt funds had a
good run over the past two
years and some delivered
There are various types of premature withdrawals
debt mutual funds, such attract penalties in terms
as accrual funds (which of lower interest rates.
earn interest income from Debt funds don’t levy any
coupon periodic interest such penalty. But some
BIG STORY
offered on bonds), dura- debt funds charge exit
AKHILESH YADAV
tion funds (which take a loads on short-term invest-

20
ment options, particularly
among senior citizens and
double-digit returns. call on interest rate move-
ments), credit opportuni-
Patched-up
ments of less than a year.
COVER STORY The DEBT
corporate world tries to come Party
retirees. But interest rates WHAT ARE ties funds (which invest in RISK
CYRUS MISTRY
have been falling over the MUTUAL toFUNDS?
terms with the sudden removal
high-risk debt papers for Debt funds
familyare market-
Sense of After the bitter feud spills out in

10
past two years and may These are of Cyrus
mutualP.funds
Mistry as chairman of
higher coupon). However,
the open, linked instruments
the Mulayam-led andclan
Yadav not
dip further. TatainSons,
that invest a man hand-picked
debt papers, to
before investing, you must as safe
getsas FDs.CM Debt funds
an Ending
At present, banks are such asbe Ratan Tata’s
government secu-successor assess what kind of debt
temporarily behind
carry credit risk (risk of
Akhilesh

offering 7-7.25 per cent rities, corporate bonds, fund will suit you. default by the company)
interest on 3- to 5-year money market instru- Let’s now see how as well as interest rate
SPECIAL
term deposits. REPORT
For a person ments, etc. As interest debt funds and bank fixed 6 UPFRONT risk (change in the interest
DEFENCE PURCHASES
in the highest tax bracket rates fall, the prices of deposits compare. rate scenario, which may
(30 per cent), the effec- securities in which debt 8 GLASS impact the price of bonds),
HOUSE

42 Readying for
tive rate of return on FDs
War?
would be 4.9 per cent—
negligible real returns
considering
The that inflation
defence ministry
funds invest rise (bond
prices and interest rates
are inversely related),
leading to a rise in the net
embarksison a quiet
TAXATION
Debt funds have a big tax
advantage over FDs when
the investment period is
32 NATION
whereas FDs offer fixed
guaranteed returns.

LIQUIDITY
ammunition
around 4-5buildup asset values of these funds. over three years, which60 GLOSSARY
in one of the largest
per cent. Debt funds are pretty
procurements since Operation Parakram helps them deliver infla- liquid as they are open-
tion-beating real returns. 62 EYECATCHERS
ended, the only exception
E XP ERT VIEW Gains on debt funds over being fixed maturity plans,
a three-year period are which can’t be redeemed
Debt funds are better compared taxed at the rate of 20 Cover Photograph by AP
before maturity; however,
(File photo from 2012)
to fixed deposits as they provide better per cent after indexation. one can sell them on the
tax-adjusted returns, diversification Indexation helps adjust stock exchange as they
and liquidity CINEMA the capital gains against have to be compulsorily
Anil Rego, CEO and founder, RightSUNNY HorizonsLEONEprice rise, helping reduce listed. The investor can
the tax burden to almost withdraw the money on

57 Sunny
SMART MONEY nothing. If the investment any working day. Also,
BEST BETS An investor seeking regular inflation- is up to three years, the you can make partial
beating, post-tax returns with capital Day
taxation of debt withdrawals, which is not

49 Make Your Own

safety can invest in a good accrual fund mutual
The porn star-turned-Bollywood funds is on par possible in the case of FDs.
to get regular tax-efficient income actor tells it like it iswith bank FDs.
Diwali Bonus
Anil Chopra, Group CEO and documentary, but is squeamish
in a new
by Renu Yadav
Look beyond FDs, director,
go for debt funds.
Bajaj It’s also
Capital about it showing inPENALTIES
India. Director Follow the writer on Twitter
a good time to buy gold. And the pifalls to Dilip Mehta is having In none of it of bank FDs,
the case @MoneyRenu
avoid when taking personal loans

50 INDIA TODAY u NOVEMBER 7, 2016

 smart
money GOLD
FROM THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

T
he Tata Group has been one of India’s iconicby industrial
mutual funds. housesFor sincethoseits
www.indiatoday.in inception in 1868. It has built steel plants and townships,
without madeare
one, there every-
thing from salt to cars, and established globally goldrecognised
funds offered institutes
by MFs,of
Editor-in-Chief: Aroon Purie science, social research and cancer treatment. which then systematically
Group Chief Executive Officer: Ashish Bagga
This business behemoth, which has total revenues of $103 billion, over half
Group Editorial Director: Raj Chengappa invest in gold ETFs. Gold
of which come from abroad, is one of India’s few truly global brands. No won-
Editors: Kaveree Bamzai (Special Projects), Ajit Kumar Jha (Research) fund investors, however,
Group Creative Editor: Nilanjan Das; Group Photo Editor: Bandeep Singh der its leader for 21 years, Ratan Tata, has been on our cover five times, and
have to bear the expense of
Managing Editors: Kai Jabir Friese, Rajesh Jha
the legendary JRD Tata once in December 1981, when he anointed Ratan Tata
Executive Editors: Damayanti Datta, Kunal Pradhan,
S. Sahaya Ranjit, Sandeep Unnithan as his successor. In that issue, we had interviews with bothboththe ETFsJRD Tataand the andfund.Ratan
Deputy Editors: Prachi Bhuchar, Uday Mahurkar, Manisha Saroop
Tata. Both spoke about their vision and the future. The A transition
second option was is to
smooth,
M : MG Arun H : Amarnath K. Menon C : Asit Jolly
buy goldCyrus coins Mistry,
that banks
umbai yderabad handigarh
Senior Editors: Shweta Punj, Sasi Nair, J aipur : Rohit Parihar unlike the recent sudden ouster of Ratan Tata’s successor, almost
Senior Associate Editors: Kaushik Deka
M : Suhani Singh, Kiran Dinkar Tare; p
umbai atna : Amitabh Srivastava
and
four years after he was given charge to chart a brave, new future for the jewellers offer every group.
Associate Editors: Shougat Dasgupta, Chinki Sinha
When Ratan Tata exited, to head Tata Trusts in festive
2012,season.
the messageHowever, to Mistry
K : Romita Sengupta; B : Rahul Noronha;
was clear: take risks, continue with the expansion,while growyou thecan be assured
olkata hopal
business aggres-
SHUTTERSTOCK

T hiruvananthapuram : Jeemon Jacob; B

eiJing : Ananth Krishnan
Assistant Editor: p : Aditi S. Pai
une

Chief Copy Editor: Anindita Satpathi

sively. But Mistry, the first non-Tata to be at the helm after Nowrojigold
of the quality of Saklatwala
Photo Department: Vikram Sharma (Deputy Photo Editor), in the 1930s, clearly had his own ideas. He was ruthlessly offered by banksthe
ridding andgroup big
Rajwant Singh Rawat (Principal Photographer), Yashbant Singh Negi
(Senior Staff Photographer), Kekhriezhazo Miachie-O
of what he considered to be bad assets, whether retailers,
it was the the
Englishsame end cannot
of the
(Senior Photographer), Chandra Deep Kumar (Photographer); Corus steel acquisition, or Taj Boston in the US. Hebehad said articulated
of buying gold a vision— from
M : Mandar Suresh Deodhar (Chief Photographer),
umbai
Danesh Adil Jassawala (Photographer); a hmedabad : Shailesh B Raval that the Tata Group would be the 25th largest by market jewellers cap who globally
mightin 2025—
offer
(Principal Photographer); K : Subir Halder (Principal
but it was not necessarily aligned to that of his predecessor. It price
meantbut growing

YELLOW METAL FEVER

you a lower com­
olkata
Photographer); C hennai : N G Jaison (Senior Photographer)
Photo Researchers: Prabhakar Tiwari (Chief Photo Researcher), at 15 per cent, less than the 20 per cent the company promisehad grown
on purity. at during the
Shubhrojit Brahma (Assistant Photo Researcher)
Chief of Graphics: Tanmoy Chakraborty Ratan Tata years. Finally, there are sov­
Mistry was no stranger to Tata Sons, which controls ereignthe goldTata Group,
bonds issued as his
It’s
K Singh,the festive season and gold will begroup’s
in demand.
Art Department: Sanjay Piplani (Senior Art Director);
Jyoti Anirban Ghosh (Art Director),
Vikas Verma, Rahul Sharma, Vipin Gupta (Associate Art Director); family is the biggest individual shareholderinwith 18.5 per
tranches cent
by the while 66
govern­
Is it also a good time to buy? per cent is held by Tata Trusts. The Tata Group is more
Bhoomesh Dutt Sharma (Senior Designer)
Production Department: Harish Agarwal (Chief of Production),
ment than of India.justJust
a business
like or a
Naveen Gupta (Chief Coordinator), company. For many Indians, it is the ultimate place to work,
gold ETFs, athese
gold standard
bonds of

G
Vijay Kumar Sharma (Senior Coordinator) Indian business. Even scandals like the Tata Tea tapes or the Niira Radia con-
old prices have However, the minutes of provide exposure to gold
Publishing Director: Manoj Sharma
Associate Publisher: tumbled
Anil Fernandesafter(Impact)a the Fed’s September meet­ XP
versations did not affect E its imageERTofVIEW doing good while making money.
in paper form. Listed both
The Tata Group has always been held as an epitome of professionalism and
IMPACT TEAM remarkable year. ing suggest there may be on the NSE and BSE, you
Senior General Manager: Jitender Lad (West) therefore the undignified exit of its chairman is most unprecedented. With the
International
General Manager: Mayur Rastogi gold prices
(North), a rate hike in December. Given
key players maintaining silence, there is wild speculation the can buy about the bonds on thesefor
the reasons
Upendra Singh (Bangalore), Velu Subramaniam (Chennai)
have fallen 8 per
Deputy General Manager: Kaushiky Chakraborty cent from Experts, however, feel that
his sudden departure. global macro exchanges when the issue
Salesa peak
and of
Operations: $1,366
D.V.S. Rama Rao,
Deepak Bhatt, General Manager (National Sales)
per 10
Chief gm
General Managergold prices have factored
By all accounts, shares of Tata is not open. Available
companies were doing well during Mistry’s
uncertainty in
VipininBagga,
July Deputythis year
General to $1,255.
Manager (Operations) in one rate hike anyway,
tenure. However, of the 100-plus independent
and geopo- units
operating of 1 gram,
companies an inves­
in the
Manish Kumar Srivastava, Regional Sales Manager (North)
Even
Rajeev Gandhi, after
Regionalthis correction,
Sales Manager (West) and even if group,the Fedonlyhikes two were consideredlitical starrisks,
performers—TCStor canand buyJaguar
a minimum Land of
Arokia Raj L., Regional Sales Manager (South)
gold has delivered around rates, the impact would be
Rover, acquired in 2008. Also, theretowas
it is important havean ugly legal spat with Japan’s of
1 gm and a maximum NTT
20 per cent returns this minimal. Further, DoCoMo, givenin which the Tatas were asked
gold in one’s portfolio. 500 gm.ofThese
to pay a penalty $1.17bondsbillion. have
year after delivering nega­ the presidentialPerhaps,election all in of theseWe didwould notrecommend
matter and the reason a duration
for hisofdeparture
eight years, could
tive returns over the pre­ the US and simply negative beinter­
that he wasantaking decisions
allocation with an exit
without discussing
of 10-15% them option fromTata
first with
vious three years. Taking est rates across Trusts. Or perhaps, the
economies, Tata doyen
of one’s portfoliojust didn’t likethehis fifth
style.year onwards. A
Volume XLI Number 45; For the week
a cue from international
November 1-7, 2016, published on every Friday political and Our
economic cover story on the Tata coup was written by Business
great Today Editor
advantage with gold
Prosenjit Datta. He was Chirag Mehta,with
interacting Sr fund
Mistry andbonds
his team,is overplanning
and above a major
l
prices,
Editorial Office Livingdomestic gold
Media India Ltd., India prices
Today Group Mediaplex, uncertainties remain. And

have also come down to

FC-8, Sector-16A, Film City, Noida - 201301; Phone: 0120-4807100
l Subscriptions: For assistance contact Customer Care India Today Group, A-61, gold is report
always a for
good the
bet magazine,
in manager,
when alternative
news of invest-
his removal came
the gainsin. Neither
from theMistry
rise innor
Sector-57, Noida (UP)-201301; Phones: Toll-free number: 1800 1800 100 (from
Rs 29,773,
BSNL/MTNL after
lines); (95120) 2479900 going
from Delhi up to
and Faridabad; uncertain times.
(0120) 2479900
the Group Executive Council, ment, Quantum AMC officials entrusted
handpicked prices, you with steering
also earn fixed the
from Rest of India (Monday-Friday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.); Fax: (0120) 4078080;
Rs022-66063411/3412,
Mumbai: 31,529 inKolkata: July.033-40525327, Chennai: 044-24303200; group and making it future-ready, had any inkling. interest For all ofofthem, 2.75 it perwas centbusi-
e-mail: wecare@intoday.com
l Sales: Direct all trade enquiries to General Manager (Sales), Living Media TIME
India ness as
TO BUY GOLD? usual till the weekend before the tumultuous board meeting
payable semi­annually on on Monday.
Thishas dramatic Gold
alw­ story, which has sent shock waves thethrough the corpo-
Limited, B-45, Sector 57, Noida-201301 (UP)
l
WHY
Regd. Office: K-9AREConnaughtGOLD
Circus, New Delhi-110001
The festive season initial value of invest­
l Impact Offices: 1201, 12th Floor, Tower 2 A, One Indiabulls Centre, (Jupiter
PRICES FALLING? rate world, underlines the endemic prices can of succession
problem ment. If planning
you hold in India.
them till
Mills), S.B. Marg, Lower Parel (West), Mumbai-400013; Phone: 66063355;
Fax: 66063226 E-1, Ground Floor, Videocon Towers, Jhandewalan Extn, ays been a good excuse to
Business titans often find it difficult to find
go down tosuccessors to fill their big shoes, as in
l

buy gold. A good monsoon maturity, the capital gains

New Delhi Guna Complex, 5th Floor, Main Building, No.443, Anna Salai,
Gold prices Phone: 2847tend to be
l
Chennai-600018; 8525 201-204 Richmond Towers, 2nd Floor,
the case of another very professionally run company, Infosys, where the founder
l
12, Richmond Road, Bangalore-560025; Phones: 22212448, 22213037, 22218343;
Fax: inversely Floor, Kolkata-700071; this year is also likely to
Rs 28,500 are tax free; gains on sales
22218335; 52, Jawaharlal relatedNehru Road,to4thinterest
made a controversial comeback after a series of co-founders had had a turn at
l
Phones: 22825398; Fax: 22827254; 6-3-885/7/B, Somajiguda, Hyderabad-500082;
l
23410982, 23411498; spur rural demand, as will
per 10 gm before maturity are taxed
rates.
Phone: When23410100,
23401657, 23400479, interest23402481, rates
Fax: 23403484 39/1045, Karakkatt Road, Kochi 682016; Phones: 2377057,
l the helm. The other scenario from current in family-founded
levels. firms is when the owners don’t
are high, gold becomes less
2377058 ; Fax: 2377059 2/C, “Suryarath Bldg”, 2nd Floor, Behind White House,
l
the oncoming wedding sea­
reconcile to their mortality and leave in the same
no clear instructions, way asingold
resulting succes-
Panchwati, Office C.G. Road, Ahmedabad-380006; Phone: 26560393, 26560929;
Then there’ll be con- ETFs and physical gold are.
attReproduction
the world. ractivein any
l
asmanner
anisinvestment
Fax: 26565293 Copyright Living Media India Ltd. All rights reserved throughout
prohibited. son. The dipsion in prices
battles. is an
At Reliance, it manifested itself in a split between brothers Mukesh
solidation. Post that, we The interest income earned
option. This year, there
Printed and published by Manoj Sharma on behalf of Living Media
ideal window to buy gold.
and Anil after Dhirubhai
India Limited. Printed at Thomson Press India Limited,
mayAmbani passed away.
see a recovery onRs these bonds, however,
has been a looming fear of
18-35 Milestone, Delhi Mathura Road, Faridabad-121007, (Haryana)
and at A-9, Industrial Complex, Maraimalai Nagar, District The Tata Group, with a market capitalisation of 7.8 lakh crore, is impor-
the US Fed hiking interest
Kancheepuram-603209, (Tamil Nadu). Published at K-9, Connaught
Circus, New Delhi-110001. Editor: Aroon Purie.
WAYS TO INVEST Sugandha Sachdeva, is added
tant for Indian business. Hopefully, Ratan Tata’s choice of leader this time will to the investor’s
rates.
l india today
It had projected four
does not take the responsibility for returning unsolicited
publication material.
Those with meet a demathis expectationsAVP and& benefit
in-charge, Metals,
the economy. income and taxed.
rate hikes
All disputes are subject attothe begin­
the exclusive jurisdiction of account have the option
Energy & Currency Research, by Renu Yadav
ning of the year, but has
competent courts and forums in Delhi/New Delhi only
of buying gold exchange­ Religare Securities Follow the writer on Twitter
kept them on hold so far. traded funds (ETFs) offered @MoneyRenu
(Aroon Purie)
NOVEMBER 7, 2016 u INDIA TODAY 510
 smart
money MUTUAL FUNDS
THE TYRANNY OF TER
A quick look at the Sebi mandates on mutual funds
and what they charge to manage your money
A
management fee of 3
per cent for a mutual
fund doesn’t sound
too high, especially when
equity markets are on an
upswing. However, fees
of this kind can dramati-
cally impact returns on
your investment, more so if
you’re in it for the long run.
It is important to know how
much you are paying your
fund managers to manage
your portfolio.
WHAT IS EXPENSE
RATIO?
The Total Expense Ratio
(TER) is an annual charge
that a fund levies on
investments as manage-
ment fee. It is calculated
as: (Total expenses during
an accounting period*100/
Net assets of the fund). It
includes all costs borne
by the fund, such as man-
agement and advisory
fees, sale and distribu-
tion commissions, legal,
SHUTTERSTOCK
52 INDIA TODAY u NOVEMBER 7, 2016
auditing and service fees, ARE THERE LIMITS?
not to mention those paid Market regulator Sebi
to registrars and transfer (Securities and Exchange
agents, as well as expens- Board of India) has set the
es such as fund admin- maximum TER funds can
istration, marketing and charge: for equity funds,
sales. The Net Asset Value it’s 2.5 per cent, for debt
(NAV) of a mutual fund is funds, up to 2.25 per cent.
calculated after deducting TER is also dependent on
TER; a high TER, then, will the total assets controlled
result in a lower NAV, and by the fund, also known as
vice versa. assets under management
EXPERT VIEW
A small fund could end up charging
3 per cent—2.5 per cent TER, another
0.3 per cent for distribution, and 0.2 per
cent on exit load compensation
Amit Trivedi, Independent trainer
and financial planner
The difference between the TER of
direct plans and regular plans is almost
0.5 per cent to 1 per cent
DP Singh, Executive director &
chief marketing officer, SBI Mutual Fund
(AUM). For equity funds,
the maximum TER ranges
from 2.5 per cent for the
first Rs 100 crore of total
assets to 1.75 per cent after
Rs 700 crore. For debt
funds, TER is 2.25 per cent
for the first Rs 100 crore,
dropping to 1.5 per cent
after Rs 700 crore. Asset
management firms can
also charge 0.3 per cent as
fees on funds from smaller
cities, as well as an addi-
tional 0.2 per cent for loss
of revenue from exit load
collections.
CAN I SAVE ON IT?
If you do not need a per-
sonal asset manager, invest
in direct plans offered by
MFs for they have a lower
TER. Reason: direct plans
are not routed through a
distributor, thus avoiding
distribution expenses, com-
mission charges and the
like. Fees can be less by as
much as a third—from 3
to 2 per cent, sometimes
more. However, direct
plans are suitable only for
financially well-informed
investors. Also, a lower
TER does not guarantee
the fund is well managed; it
only ensures lower fees.
ASK QUESTIONS
As an investor, you must
be aware of how much
commission a distributor
earns from the schemes.
This is necessary in figur-
ing out whether a recom-
mended scheme is in your
best interest or theirs. Sebi
has also mandated that
distributors disclose the
commissions they earn. On
average, the current annu-
alised fee for distributors
is in the range of 0.5-1 per
cent for equity funds.
by Tanvi Verma
Follow the writer on Twitter @vtanvi
 smart
money
FROM THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF LOANS

T
he Tata Group has been one of India’s iconicyour industrial houses since
loan provider aboutits
www.indiatoday.in inception in 1868. It has built steel plants and thetownships,
total cost you made will every-
thing from salt to cars, and established globally recognised
have to bear. institutes of
Editor-in-Chief: Aroon Purie science, social research and cancer treatment.
Group Chief Executive Officer: Ashish Bagga
This business behemoth, which has total revenues of $103 billion, over half
Group Editorial Director: Raj Chengappa PREPAYMENT FEE
of which come from abroad, is one of India’s few truly global brands. No won-
Editors: Kaveree Bamzai (Special Projects), Ajit Kumar Jha (Research) Even in the universe of
Group Creative Editor: Nilanjan Das; Group Photo Editor: Bandeep Singh der its leader for 21 years, Ratan Tata, has been on our cover five times, and
personal loans, there are
Managing Editors: Kai Jabir Friese, Rajesh Jha
the legendary JRD Tata once in December 1981, when he anointed Ratan Tata
Executive Editors: Damayanti Datta, Kunal Pradhan,
S. Sahaya Ranjit, Sandeep Unnithan as his successor. In that issue, we had interviews with product
bothvariations.
JRD Tata and Make Ratan
Deputy Editors: Prachi Bhuchar, Uday Mahurkar, Manisha Saroop
Tata. Both spoke about their vision and the future. sure
The of the fine was
transition printsmooth,
in
M : MG Arun H : Amarnath K. Menon C : Asit Jolly
order to Cyrusmake Mistry,
the right
umbai yderabad handigarh
Senior Editors: Shweta Punj, Sasi Nair, J aipur : Rohit Parihar unlike the recent sudden ouster of Ratan Tata’s successor, almost
Senior Associate Editors: Kaushik Deka
M umbai : Suhani Singh, Kiran Dinkar Tare; patna : Amitabh Srivastava four years after he was given charge to chart a brave, new future for choice. Options such theasgroup.
Associate Editors: Shougat Dasgupta, Chinki Sinha
When Ratan Tata exited, to head Tata Trusts in part-payment
2012, the message facilityto can
Mistry
K : Romita Sengupta; B : Rahul Noronha;

IMAGESBAZAAR
olkata hopal
T hiruvananthapuram : Jeemon Jacob; B
eiJing : Ananth Krishnan was clear: take risks, continue with the expansion,begrow a bigthe saver if you aggres-
business want
Assistant Editor: p : Aditi S. Pai
une

Chief Copy Editor: Anindita Satpathi

sively. But Mistry, the first non-Tata to be at the helm to prepay the loan.
after Nowroji Saklatwala
Photo Department: Vikram Sharma (Deputy Photo Editor), in the 1930s, clearly had his own ideas. He was ruthlessly ridding the group
Rajwant Singh Rawat (Principal Photographer), Yashbant Singh Negi
(Senior Staff Photographer), Kekhriezhazo Miachie-O
of what he considered to be bad assets, whether itTURNAROUND was the EnglishTIME end of the
(Senior Photographer), Chandra Deep Kumar (Photographer); Corus steel acquisition, or Taj Boston in the US. He had articulated
Prefer institutions athat
vision—
M umbai : Mandar Suresh Deodhar (Chief Photographer),
Danesh Adil Jassawala (Photographer); a hmedabad : Shailesh B Raval that the Tata Group would be the 25th largest by market can deliver cap faster.
globally Forin 2025—
(Principal Photographer); K : Subir Halder (Principal
but it was not necessarily
mobilealigned to that of his predecessor. It meant growing

UP CLOSE WITH
olkata
Photographer); C hennai : N G Jaison (Senior Photographer) app-based lending example, credit card loans
Photo Researchers: Prabhakar Tiwari (Chief Photo Researcher), at 15 per cent, less platforms,
than the 20allowing per centusers the company had grown
are easily availableat duringeitherthe
Shubhrojit Brahma (Assistant Photo Researcher)
Chief of Graphics: Tanmoy Chakraborty Ratan Tata years. to borrow cash in minutes. through online authorisa-

PERSONAL LOANS
Art Department: Sanjay Piplani (Senior Art Director);
Jyoti K Singh, Anirban Ghosh (Art Director),
Vikas Verma, Rahul Sharma, Vipin Gupta (Associate Art Director);
Bhoomesh Dutt Sharma (Senior Designer)
Mistry was no stranger

per cent is held by Tata

For to TataMoneytap,
example,
family is the group’sBengaluru-based
Trusts.
company, hasThe
Sons, which
biggest individualfintech
Tata Group
launched
a controls
tion orthe
shareholderprocesswith 18.5
its is more
IVR. Tata
really
than just
fast. Banks
Group,the
It makes
persimple
cent while
alsoa advertise
as his
and 66
business or a

A
Production Department: Harish Agarwal (Chief of Production),
company. For manyapp-based
Indians, itcreditis the ultimate place tocustomers
work, a gold standard of
VijayPersonal
Kumar Sharma (Seniorloans
Naveen Gupta (Chief Coordinator), cash crunch at the line with to to shift to
Coordinator) Indian business. Even scandals like the Tata Tea tapes or the Niira Radia con-
end of the month or RBL Bank, and provides EMIs whenever they make
areDirector:
Publishing easy Manojenough
Sharma versations did not affect its image of doing good while making money.
an emergency need instant credit. Here’s a a big purchase on their
Associate Publisher: Anil Fernandes (Impact)
The Tata Group has always been held as an epitome of professionalism and
to
IMPACT TEAM
get but they
Senior General Manager: Jitender Lad (West)
not put you through the checklist of things to credit cards. This pushes
therefore the undignified exit of its chairman is most unprecedented. With the
General Manager: Mayur Rastogi (North), embarrassment of bor- consider to get that per-
key players maintaining silence, there is wild speculation customers aboutto optthefor reasons for
are
Upendra Singhnot without
(Bangalore), Velu Subramaniam (Chennai)
Deputy General Manager: Kaushiky Chakraborty rowing from friends or
his sudden departure. sonal loan right. an easy loan.
their pitfalls
Sales and Operations: D.V.S. Rama Rao, Chief General Manager
Deepak Bhatt, General Manager (National Sales)
relatives. You could By alltake a
accounts, shares of Tata companies were doing well during Mistry’s
Vipin Bagga, Deputy General Manager (Operations)
Manish Kumar Srivastava, Regional Sales Manager (North)
personal loan. You However,
tenure. could ofINTEREST
the 100-plus RATEindependent operating PAPERWORK companies in the
Rajeev Gandhi, Regional Sales Manager (West) even buy angroup, expensive
only two were Always compare
considered starinterest
performers—TCS Beforeand applying
Jaguar forLanda loan,
Arokia Raj L., Regional Sales Manager (South)
gadget or aRover, phoneacquired
and rates before picking a per- check
in 2008. Also, there was an ugly legal spat with Japan’s with the loan provid-
NTT
have the cost converted
DoCoMo, in which thesonal loan.
Tatas It isasked
were common er the documents
to pay a penalty of $1.17 billion. needed.
into EMIs sincePerhaps, new chan- for merchants
all of these did not matter to offerand you Sincefor
the reason credit
his card
departurecompa- could
nels are now available
simply be thatto he wasthetaking
optiondecisions
to convertwithout nies or banks
pur- discussing themalready
first with have
Tata
meet the growing Trusts.demand
Or perhaps,chases
the Tata intodoyen
EMIs. just didn’t likeyour
Before his style.
details via KYC or
Volume XLI Number 45; For the week
November 1-7, 2016, published on every Fridayfor personal loans. Fintech
Our cover story on the for
going Tata it,coup was written byknow
ask about Business yourToday
customer, Editor they
l Editorial Office Living Media India Ltd., India Today Group Mediaplex, companies have launched
Prosenjit Datta. He was interacting
interest rates. For withexam-
Mistry andmight his team, planning
not ask a major
for additional
FC-8, Sector-16A, Film City, Noida - 201301; Phone: 0120-4807100
l Subscriptions: For assistance contact Customer Care India Today Group, A-61,
report for the magazine, whenFinance
ple, Bajaj news ofhas his removal
tied came in. Neither
paperwork. A new Mistry
banknoror
XP the Group Executiveup Council, handpicked officials entrusted with steeringmight the
Sector-57, Noida (UP)-201301; Phones: Toll-free number: 1800 1800 100 (from

Eof India (Monday-Friday,

ERT10VIEW
BSNL/MTNL lines); (95120) 2479900 from Delhi and Faridabad; (0120) 2479900 with merchants offering credit card company
from Rest a.m.-6 p.m.); Fax: (0120) 4078080;
Mumbai: 022-66063411/3412, Kolkata: 033-40525327, Chennai: 044-24303200; group and making itno-cost future-ready,
equated had any inkling. ask
monthly For you
all offorthem,
more it docu-
was busi-
e-mail: wecare@intoday.com
l Sales: Direct all trade enquiries to General Manager (Sales), Living Media India ness as usual till theinstalments.
weekend before the tumultuous
In this case, ments, ranging fromMonday.
board meeting on
Limited, B-45, Sector 57, Noida-201301 (UP)
Many banks, mainly PSUs, are This dramatic story, which has sent shock waves through thecardcorpo-
l Regd. Office: K-9 Connaught Circus, New Delhi-110001
the retailer bears the inter- your Aadhaar to
l
witnessing stress on the corporate-lend-
Impact Offices: 1201, 12th Floor, Tower 2 A, One Indiabulls Centre, (Jupiter
rate world, underlines the endemic problem of succession planning in India.
Mills), S.B. Marg, Lower Parel (West), Mumbai-400013; Phone: 66063355;
Fax: 66063226 E-1, Ground Floor, Videocon Towers, Jhandewalan Extn, est-rate load. Personal income tax returns.
ingBuilding,
portfolio and
Salai, want to move Business
towards titans often find it difficult to find successors to fill their big shoes, as in
l

loans are usually offered

New Delhi Guna Complex, 5th Floor, Main
l No.443, Anna
Chennai-600018; Phone: 2847 8525 201-204 Richmond Towers, 2nd Floor,
12, Richmond Road, Bangalore-560025;more retail lending-led the case
portfolios thatofare
another very professionally run company, Infosys, where the founder
l
Phones: 22212448, 22213037, 22218343;
Fax: 22218335; 52, Jawaharlal Nehru Road, 4th Floor, Kolkata-700071; in the range of 12-18 DEFAULT
made
NPAsa controversial comeback after a series of co-founders had had a turn at
l

performing
Phones: 22825398; Fax: 22827254; 6-3-885/7/B,
l
better with lower
Somajiguda, Hyderabad-500082;
Phone: 23401657, 23400479, 23410100, 23402481, 23410982, 23411498; per cent interest. Loan instalment defaults
Fax: 23403484 39/1045, Karakkatt Road, Kochi 682016; Phones: 2377057,
l the helm. The other scenario in family-founded firms is when the owners don’t
Parth Pande are serious business in and
, CEO,
2377058 ; Fax: 2377059 2/C, “Suryarath Bldg”, 2nd Floor, Behind White House,
l
Finance Buddha
Panchwati, Office C.G. Road, Ahmedabad-380006; Phone: 26560393, 26560929; reconcile to their mortality and leave no clear instructions, resulting succes-
Fax: 26565293 Copyright Living Media India Ltd. All rights reserved throughout
l
the world. Reproduction in any manner is prohibited.
sion battles. At TOTAL
Reliance, it COST
manifested itself in a can
split lead
between to charges
brothers on the
Mukesh
Printed and published by Manoj Sharma on behalf of Living Media
andbanks Charges such
Anil after Dhirubhai Ambani passed away. as process- consumer and/or a lower-
India Limited. Printed at Thomson Press India With the technology foray,
Limited,

Tata Group,ing and a late payment fees ingRsof7.8hislakh

credit score. The
18-35 Milestone, Delhi Mathura Road, Faridabad-121007, (Haryana)
and at A-9, Industrial Complex, Maraimalaihave been
Nagar, able
District to reach The with
customers with market capitalisation of crore, is impor-
Kancheepuram-603209, (Tamil Nadu). Published at K-9, Connaught
Purie. processes. This hastant
can make a deal unattract- long-term
for Indian business. Hopefully, Ratan Tata’s choice of leader this time will impact is a com-
Circus, New Delhi-110001. Editor: Aroon simpler made
l india today does not take the responsibility for returning unsolicited
meet his expectations ive.and
Banks usually
benefit economy. promised loan profile.
the charge
publication material. personal loans a very fast category
All disputes are subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of 2-3 per cent of the loan by Teena Jain Kaushal
competent courts and forumsRishi Mehra , Founder, Deal4Loans Follow the writer on Twitter @
in Delhi/New Delhi only
amount plus service tax as
processing charges. Ask teena_kaushal
(Aroon Purie)
NOVEMBER 7, 2016 u INDIA TODAY 530
 LEISURE BOOKS

WAXING
ELOQUENT
Time to check ‘feminism’ off the Bhagat-list
By C.Y. Gopinath

I
n 2012, the year Chetan Bhagat’s Revolution
2020 was wall to wall at every bookshop dis-
play in India, I was whining to a friend about
the abysmal sales of my first novel, The Book of
Answers, which had been shortlisted that year
for the Commonwealth Book Prize for Best Fiction.
“The people sitting right here are your audience,”
my adman friend said, indicating the trendy coffee
One Indian Girl shop where we sat. “Reach them and your book will
by Chetan Bhagat sell better than Chetan Bhagat’s.” Warming to this
Rupa Publications notion, I conducted a spot poll among the coffee-
India
Pages 280 philes in the café, asking them five questions:
Price Rs 99 l Have you heard of Chetan Bhagat?
l Have you read any of his books?
l Do you think he is a good writer?
l Would you buy his next book?
l Have you heard of C.Y. Gopinath?
The numbers came in—all 26 of them had heard
of Chetan Bhagat. About 60 per cent of them had
read one or more of his books, and they agreed,
without exception, that he was a terrible writer.
Without exception, they also said they would sure-
ly read whatever he wrote next. None of them had
heard of C.Y. Gopinath.
I mention this up front to clear up any foolish
notions that book reviews have anything to do with
why people read Chetan Bhagat. As with Donald
Trump, nothing that anyone throws at Bhagat has
any effect on his millions of readers.
Not that I plan to throw anything at Bhagat, let
me add. His latest work, One Indian Girl, in which
he writes as Anastasia Steele disguised as a young
Punjabi girl is nothing if not a gem of wheatish-com-
plexioned feminism. There is even an Inner Goddess
called Mini-me, á la Fifty Shades of Grey, making
sassy, inappropriate remarks at the wrong moments.
In 272 riveting pages, it is the saga of 25-year-
old Radhika Mehta, torn between money, love and
a mother who wants her to give up both and just
get married. A firm believer in women’s rights, she
eventually decides to take the money.
Radhika Mehta’s search for the right man is
doomed before it starts. Which Indian man worth
his 5 o’clock shadow would even consider a girl who
takes home the ego-numbing salary of half a million
dollars a year from a gold-plated firm like Goldman
Sachs? It doesn’t help that she also enjoys cunnilin-
gus, loves sex (including spooning afterwards), has
lived alone in countries with suspect moral stand-
ards, and has brought shame and calumny on her
family by refusing to get married.
Unfortunately, she is helplessly attracted to vac-
uous deuterostomes with no redeeming features—
two in particular are Debashish Sen, Madison
Avenue adman, last seen shovelling chips into his
mouth while watching television unshaven; and
Neel Mehta, philanderer, Adonis and gym-crawler
in awe of his own awesomeness. After having her
heart broken by both, Radhika, like all good Indian
girls, lets mummy find her a good boy from a good
Punjabi family. The story starts in Goa, where a
week-long wedding is getting under way, to plight
Radhika’s troth to Facebook systems engineer
Brijesh Gulati, discovered through shaadi.com.
Things get complicated when her ex-lovers,
Debu and Neel, hearing of the wedding, realise
belatedly that she is truly the girl of their dreams
and jet in independently to Goa to gate-crash the
wedding. Each hopes to persuade her to cancel the
wedding and elope with him. In between flashbacks

54 INDIA TODAY u NOVEMBER 7, 2016


Illustration by ANIRBAN GHOSH
THE RADHIKA WHO REZZED IN MY
MIND’S EYE WAS A MYTHICAL
CREATURE WITH CHETAN BHAGAT’S
FACE, GORGEOUS BREASTS AND AN
HOURGLASS BODY, BUT A BASS VOICE
to New York, Hong Kong, the Philippines and
London, Radhika plays hide-and-seek in Goa with
three men, all of whom want to marry her.
Everything comes to a head in an epistemolog-
ical shootout over sunrise breakfast at the resort
hotel. Debu and Neel are made to look in the mir-
ror and realise they are douchebags, while Radhika
discovers that she is so feminist that she is almost a
man in her own right. And Bhagat once again does
what only he does best: create an unputdownable
story despite being saddled with a barely discernible
plot, a peripatetic narrative arc, dialogue in which
everyone sounds like everyone else, and a wedding
party full of Punjabi aunties who all speak like Yoda
(“So much money a girl should earn why?”)
On Wikipedia, the one place where a fellow may
lavish praise on himself while pretending to be look-
ing the other way, Bhagat has described himself as
a “noted Indian intellectual”. One Indian Girl must
be seen as a tribute to Bhagat’s terrifying powers of
analysis and insight; this man is all cerebral cortex.
He has written an entire book as though he inhab-
ited a woman’s body and mind, including a thrilling
description of having legs waxed and your vagina
licked by your boss on a sandy beach. Without warn-
ing, in three pages just around the end of the book,
we are also privy to the metamorphosis of Radhika
from America-Based Confused Desi to full-fledged
feminist, after 257 pages of ping-ponging all over
the planet from one man’s arms into another’s while
watching her paycheck grow and grow.
But One Indian Girl is, at best, Bhagat test-driv-
ing the female body and mind without quite figuring
out where the controls are. Try as I did, the Radhika
who rezzed in my mind’s eye was a mythical crea-
ture with Chetan Bhagat’s face, gorgeous breasts,
an hourglass body but a bass voice and unverifiable
assets between the legs. A kind of Radhika Bhagat,
or a man still undecided if he should go for that sex
change or not. For example, she seems to think of
little other than sex and money, in lock-step with
every male in the story. It took me a while to real-
ise this was Bhagat introducing us to his version of
gender equality. Why should only guys be fixated on
buttocks, breasts, genitals and paychecks?
Radhika’s conception of what women are real-
ly like sounds like every man’s justification for date
rape: “At times we girls want to be wanted even when
we deny it.” She said no, but she really meant yes.
The tragedy of One Indian Girl is that its protag-
onists, male and female, do not seem to have much
more to them than this—2D characters constant-
ly checking out each other’s bodies, talking about
money, flirting, having sex—and rinse and repeat.
But when one has a devoted readership running
into millions, it is difficult to look past what Bhagat
has done—or not done—in this book. Squandering
the opportunity to create a woman of substance in
Radhika Mehta, he has delivered a cheap, rather
squalid story of good-looking and pointless rich
young Indians chasing their own tails while skirting
the edges of deeper issues that matter.
Bhagat lives in the city where Nirbhaya was
raped, in a country where women live under the axe
of sexism—sometimes brutal, sometimes patriar-
chal, always dehumanising. Yet his book is just a
quickie about sexual choices and equal pay aspiring
to be a piercing entrée into feminism. The story is
skin-deep, and pays lip service to the profound ineq-
uities every Indian woman faces. One would have
expected more from a noted Indian intellectual.
The author is a Bangkok-based writer and
filmmaker. His latest book, Hoyt’s War, is a dysto-
pian satire about an American idiocracy after four
years of a Trump-like president
NOVEMBER 7, 2016 u INDIA TODAY 55
 LEISURE BOOKS

THE INCONSPICUOUS
REVOLUTIONARY
An imperfect but fascinating account of the forgotten prime minister

By Ashok V. Desai

N
ot so long ago, Sanjaya Baru was
a comet in the stratosphere of
central power; now he is back on
earth and has the time to look
back. Some years ago he wrote a book
1991: How P. V.
about Manmohan Singh, for whom he
Narasimha Rao acted as press advisor. Now, he has writ-
Made History ten one about Narasimha Rao, a friend of
By Sanjaya Baru
Aleph Book his father, whose career he watched for
Company four decades. Narasimha Rao precipi-
Price Rs 371 tately demolished licence permit raj. He
Pages 224
had shown no earlier signs of such im-
petuosity. But then, he was thrust into a
role he could have never imagined stepping into and was Rajiv Gandhi’s obstruction (p. 16). I know from notes in
faced with the worst economic crisis in independent India’s finance ministry files I read, for instance, that someone in
history. Soon after he stepped down as prime minister, he the government preceding the one I served opposed obvi-
was erased from India’s history by the return of the Nehru- ously necessary policy changes, but he claimed later on
Gandhi family. After the general election of 2014 removed that he was a sabotaged reformer; Baru accepts his and
the N-G family from power, there have been a couple of others’ claims. A review, however, is too short to list too
books about Rao—conventional, fawning biographical many of the shortcomings.
studies. This book, however, seeks to recall the one dra- Baru thinks that the root cause of the 1991 crisis was
matic moment in the life of a reclusive politician, and of a private commercial borrowings. It may look like that from
nation that has since then forgotten its addiction to crises. the Reserve Bank’s balance of payments statistics, but that
The book is divided into chapters named after months. is a mistake. It was borrowings of public sector undertak-
They do cover the events as they unfolded, but the events ings that were at the bottom of the crisis. In the 1980s, Japan
had a complex background, which too Baru seeks to cover. was running huge payments surpluses, and its banks had
So, 1991: How P.V. Narasimha Rao Made History is also a mountains of cash. Latin America had bankrupted itself
compendium of what went wrong over the decades and in the previous decade; India was the only major country
why. In particular, Indira Gandhi’s alignment with the that was still solvent. It had easy access to Japanese loans,
Soviet Union in 1970 made India dependent on it for oil and those in power in the 1980s encouraged the PSUs to
and military equipment. The Soviet Union’s collapse in take them to shore up reserves. This borrowing game ran
1990 deprived Narasimha Rao of this prop, and he had to into trouble when Iraq invaded Kuwait and the US beat it
reconstruct India’s external relations. back; that led to a sharp rise in oil prices, worsened India’s
There are some errors in the book. For instance, balance of payments, and made potential lenders wary.
Narasimha Rao did not have a parliamentary majority in Trade credit became scarce for importers, exporters start-
1991 as Baru says (p. 14); he reached majority by persuad- ed delaying receipt of proceeds, and non-resident Indians
ing or buying some non-Congress began to withdraw their deposits with
members’ support. Licence-permit Indian banks. All these developments
raj was not post-Nehruvian (p. 15); THIS BOOK SEEKS combined to cause the crisis. However,
it was introduced by the British gov- TO RECALL THE these are mere details; Baru’s account
ernment in 1939 on the outbreak of the year in the life of Narasimha
of World War II, and retained by ONE DRAMATIC Rao, based as it is on his personal rap-
Nehru to construct his brand of MOMENT IN THE port with him, is riveting nevertheless.
socialism. Those in pre-Rao govern-
ments have claimed that they would
LIFE OF A RECLUSIVE The author is a columnist and a
have been great reformers but for POLITICIAN former chief economic advisor

56 INDIA TODAY u NOVEMBER 7, 2016

CINEMA SUNNY LEONE By Suhani Singh

IT’S NOT
I
don’t give a s*** if you don’t like me,” says Sunny Leone
at one point in Mostly Sunny, photographer-turned-
filmmaker Dilip Mehta’s documentary about her journey

ALWAYS
from the quiet, small town of Sarnia in Canada to big city
Mumbai. It is one of the many provocative statements that
the porn star-turned-Bollywood actor makes in the 94-minute
film, in which Karenjit Kaur Vohra tells it as it is. It’s a film she

SUNNY
doesn’t want Indians to see. At its India premiere in the Mumbai
Film Festival, there are some clues why Leone and Daniel Weber,
her husband, manager and confidant, are upset. There are brief

IN LEONE
clips from her porn films as well as footage from a brazen inter-
view she gave to The Howard Stern Show, declaring that she
knew she was a bisexual since she was 13. Whatever be Leone
and Weber’s sentiments, Netflix has acquired the worldwide

LAND
A new documentary on the
porn star-turned-Bollywood
actor tracks the transformation
of Karenjit Kaur Vohra to
Sunny Leone
rights for Mostly Sunny and plans to release it in early 2017.
Sunny Leone’s present rests on her past and it is that very past
that she now wants to be represented in ways that she is comfort-
able with. But Mehta, who sought complete creative control and
total access, won’t budge. He can be as unapologetically frank
as Leone. “The only reason for her success, and I’m not being
unkind about it, is her past as a major porn star,” he says. “She
is not particularly a good actor as yet, she is not particularly a
good dancer though she has improved significantly; she is good-
looking, but then this is Bollywood which has attractive women a

NOVEMBER 7, 2016 u INDIA TODAY 57

 CINEMA SUNNY LEONE

dime a dozen.” That Leone is a rank

outsider who, against all odds, has
found a foothold in the Hindi film
business drew Mehta to her story.
Mostly Sunny benefits greatly
from the complete participation of
Leone and Weber, who gave Mehta
access to their home, both in Mumbai
and Los Angeles, the set of Leone’s
Hindi films and even a porn film for
their banner, SunLust Productions—a
threesome shot in an apartment in
Los Angeles. “I said I’d only do it if
they’d give everything, because if
you withhold then what’s the point,”
says Mehta. In the film, Mehta travels
with the couple to her family home in
Canada and attends a wedding where
Leone dances for the groom while his
wife stands by the side. “It’s insane,”
says Leone about how people pay to
watch her perform at events.
Sunny Leone the star is known
to all, but Karenjit Kaur Vohra the
daughter, the sister and the Sikh
girl from Sarnia is not. Brother
Sundeep Singh Vohra aka Sunny,
the California-based chef, provides
the most insightful bits about her life
before she became famous. It is his
pet name that Karenjit adopted as
her porn moniker in her late teens.
The surname comes from Italian
filmmaker and spaghetti western HER ASCENDING STAR WAS
genre legend Sergio Leone. The
younger sibling went on to sell her
ON THE WANE IN NORTH
scantily-clad, autographed photo- AMERICA. OUT HERE, THEY WERE
graphs to his collegemates for pocket FALLING OVER EACH OTHER
money. He was the first person she
confided in about acting in porn WANTING TO EMBRACE HER
films. “They are remarkably close,” DILIP MEHTA, Filmmaker
says Mehta, who shares a similar
rapport with his filmmaker-sister
Deepa Mehta. “She has his back and
he has hers.” It’s Leone’s resilience (“Get used at home. “He didn’t have to force or
Sundeep is also the only family to my body because it’s not going cajole me,” says Leone about her
member willing to talk about Sunny anywhere”) and her vulnerabilities meeting with the owner of a porn site.
as most of her Indian relatives, both (“I was a loner”) that lend Mostly More than greed, it was easy money
in Canada and the US, where she Sunny some of its best moments. that powered her. “They [the family]
moved at the age of 14, have aban- They include Leone reminiscing about definitely didn’t get what we wanted,”
doned her. Leone explains that when her father at the gurdwara in Sarnia says Leone. She was naive enough to
entering the adult film industry, she and her brother’s moving revelation believe that the amount she earned
didn’t think of her family or the moral of their mother’s alcohol addiction, for being Penthouse Pet of the Year
repercussions of her choice. “The which worsened after she learned of in 2003—$100,000—would convince
Indian community here doesn’t want Leone’s vocation. Mostly Sunny is also her parents to support her decision.
to talk to me,” she says. Later, she clear that Leone ventured into por- Mehta almost didn’t make the film.
speaks of how they told her she was nography not because of a traumatic Son of a film distributor, he studied
“a disgrace to every Indian”. childhood or impoverished conditions in Dehradun, then pursued graphic

58 INDIA TODAY u NOVEMBER 7, 2016


SUNNY LEONE SHOOTS FOR THE
SONG PINK LIPS
design in advertising in Toronto. He
took up photography, shot for Time
and National Geographic magazines
and was signed on by Contact Press
Images agency. His first film, The
Forgotten Woman—on the widows of
Vrindavan—caught the attention of
the producers. After initially agree-
ing, Mehta backed out in the after-
math of the Nirbhaya gang-rape
case, when Leone was blamed for
propagating rape culture because of
her earlier work. “Rape existed long
before pornography,” says Leone.
“Stop freaking blaming me.”
A meeting with Leone and
Weber in Mumbai made Mehta
change his mind. He says, “She
grew up in a Sikh household, which
makes her more Indian at heart
than Indians who live here [in
India]. She grew up watching Hindi
films; so for her it was, and is, a
dream come true. In my opinion,
her ascending star was on the wane
in North America. Out
here, they were falling over each
other wanting to embrace her.”
Mehta followed his subject for two
years, covering the highs (chart-
buster Baby Doll) and lows (film
Jackpot) of her career and inter-
viewing lesser-known profession-
als from the industry, such as three
background Bollywood dancers
“who want the luxurious life of
Leone” as opposed to the dream of
wanting to be like Leone.
Mehta covers Leone’s continen-
tal shift well, but when it comes to
her stint in Bollywood—Leone has
at least two releases a year—he
doesn’t have all the answers. So
then, why does Sunny Leone still
shine? Adman Suhel Seth and film-
maker Mahesh Bhatt offer a few the-
ories. “You can be a porn star and
still be shy,” says Bhatt about her
appeal. Seth says Leone’s marriage
to Weber, her musician boyfriend
who became her co-star in porn
films, brought her social acceptance.
Mostly Sunny avoids being a
hagiographical account and is also
non-judgemental of Leone’s choices.
On Leone and Weber rejecting the
film, Mehta says: “Disappointing.
It was such an intimate collabora-
tion.” The absence of a narrator and
Mehta’s fly-on-the wall approach
brings to the film some much-need-
ed droll moments, which are saved
for the last when Leone is shooting
for Ek Paheli Leela in Rajasthan.
Her co-star Rajneesh Duggal brags
about how, unlike him, many actors
have reservations working with her.
Bollywood may have welcomed
her into its fold, but Leone knows
her boundaries or perhaps her
limitations. “I’m not a part of the
group,” she says, giving a glimpse
of her loneliness and struggle to fit
in. Aamir Khan will stand up for her
after she is judged in a news channel
interview and Shah Rukh Khan may
dance with her (in the forthcoming
Raees), but when it comes to being
their leading lady, there is still a long
way to go.
It’s not always sunny in
Bollywood.
Follow the writer on Twitter @suhani84
 GLOSSARY by DAMAYANTI DATTA

HAPPY DIWALI
CALL IT THE TRIUMPH OF GOOD OVER EVIL, AN AWAKENING OF ONE’S
INNER LIGHT, OR AN UNABASHED WORSHIP OF WEALTH—HOW A
HARVEST FESTIVAL WAS TRANSFORMED INTO A RITUAL OF RENEWAL

DAZZLING PAST Graphic by ANIRBAN GHOSH

1 Diwali became a 2 Shah Jahan began the

state festival when tradition of using fire-
the Mughal emperor works, illuminating his
Akbar started Jashn- palace with ‘akash diyas’,
e-Chiraghan, writes chandeliers, chiraghdaans
Abul Fazl in the Ain-e- and faanoos. Chefs from
Akbari. Agra was all across the country
made dazzling with were invited to prepare a
diyas lit at the royal gala feast, with the
palace. The emperor chhappan thal or platter
began the tradition of of sweets from 56
distributing sweets on kingdoms, made with
this day ingredients from Persia

60 INDIA TODAY u NOVEMBER 7, 2016

 ATTRACT W
EALT H
Time for a year
ly
goddess of go spring-clean. Light up lam
od ps
said to wande fortune and prosperity, La to guide the
r the earth on ks
home to bless this day, lookin hmi, who is
with year-long g for the perfec
prosperity t

REJUVENATE YO
UR SELF
Take a dip in the
ho
snan before sunr ly Ganges. If not, go for a ritual ab
ise hy
oils, a massage an on the first day of Diwali, with ar ang
d natural scrubs om
to cleanse and de atic
tox
F PESTS e fire and
GET RID O ig part of the festival—th d microbes
eab s an
Fireworks ar nt to drive away insect
mea
fumes are

OME
IN SOME, LOSE S d the god-
W of chance
an
nce
me . He THE OTHER SIDE OF
Life is a ga h is famously fickle eur in THE CO IN
of wea lt de rig u Alakshmi is the other fac
dess ling—
n of gamb e of
midnight, tradition dictat wealth: greed, jealousy and misfortune. At
the traditio es that you sweep all the
North India your home using a new
broom, symbolically ask
rubbish away from
ing the goddess to depa
rt

YOUR H WELL URNED to buy a metal

EALING Dhanteras, it is customary
The tra DIET On the first day of Diwali, or symbol ise the urn of longevity that
ed to
dit
in a pot. ion is to buy, or utensil. The utensil is suppos as he em erged from the
of the gods, carried
O at
has deto ne of the first sp least, sow som Dhanvantari, the physician
creation myth
x, alkalin ic e
e and an es used by man coriander seeds ocean of milk in the Hindu
ti-inflam k
matory ind, coriander
properti
es
d wealth.
WORSHIP and earne s,
WORK IS a year’s worth of workledgers, account book i-
l for d to r a ta
Be gratefu , prayers are offere ols (say, scissors fo
ym b o lica lly ssional to ers)
S rofe rm
ters and p attle for fa
cash regis for a goldsmith or c
le s
lor or sca

BEGIN ANEW
BE GOOD, ALWAYS From new clothes to
new accounting book
nd: from Rama’s dars (in some parts s to new calen-
Because good always wins. Legends abou of western and north
after 14 year s of exile, to the homecoming of ern India)
victorious return na killing
ess Kali, Krish
Pandavas, the victory dance of godd Nach iketa,
kasu ra, the legen d of Yam a and
the demon Nara
viole nce
and the emperor Ashoka giving up
 EYECATCHERS

EYES WIDE SHUT

After Iru Mugan’s success,
Vikram is in pole position to
play the blind antagonist in a
remake of Hollywood’s Don’t
Breathe. He has aced similar
roles, in Kasi and Thandaavam.

ART AFFAIR
For months, Yami Gautam
has been in the news for her
alleged affair with co-actor
ACE MOVE Pulkit Samrat. For a change, it
Gauri Khan is cashing in on her is her films now making head-
star power and status as a lead- lines: Kaabil, opposite Hrithik
ing interior designer. She is col- Roshan, and Sarkar 3, with
laborating with ACE Builders on Amitabh Bachchan.
a coffee-table book on design.

HOW WAS THE WEEK?

Good
Waris Ahluwalia

Ouch NYC declared October 19

‘Waris Ahluwalia Day’, for

Surfing
his exemplifying freedom,
tolerance and inclusivity

F
ormer Miss India Pooja Chopra, last seen as the lead-
ing lady in Commando, recently starred in a short film,
Ouch, directed by Neeraj Pandey and co-starring Manoj
Bajpayee. In the humorous short, Chopra plays a wife having
second thoughts on her affair with a married man.

PATRIOT ACT
Akshay Kumar is the go-to actor for playing
India’s everyman hero. Knowing this, Excel
Entertainment roped him in for Gold, to play
the man who put together India’s Olympic
gold-medal winning hockey team of 1948. Bad
Karan Johar
Had to donate Rs 5 crore
BREATHING SPACE so that MNS would
Before Ashutosh Gowariker made films, he allow Ae Dil Hai Mushkil
was a model and an actor. Following Mohenjo to be released
Daro’s not-so-epic box-office run, he returns
to the front of the screen, starring in a Marathi
n Compiled by Suhani Singh
film, Ventilator, produced by Priyanka Chopra.
Follow the writer on Twitter @suhani84

62 Volume XLI Number 45; For the week November 1-7, 2016, published on every Friday Total number of pages 84 (including cover pages)
 DIGITAL EDITION

THANK YOU FOR READING

PLEASE CONTINUE
TO YOUR FREE MAGAZINES
NOVEMBER 2016 NOVEMBER 2016

A MONTHLY CITY MAGAZINE A MONTHLY CITY MAGAZINE

LUXURY

THE
Good
THE
WEDDING
LIFE
HOW TO LIVE IT UP
PLANNERS IN THE CITY
PEOPLE BEHIND THE CITY’S
MOST STYLISH WEDDINGS

DEBABRATA DEY, SHAHEB

WEDDING CARDS BHATTACHARJEE,
DESIGNER ACTOR
 NOVEMBER 2016

A MONTHLY CITY MAGAZINE

THE
WEDDING
PLANNERS
PEOPLE BEHIND THE CITY’S
MOST STYLISH WEDDINGS

DEBABRATA DEY,
WEDDING CARDS
DESIGNER
SIMPLY HYDERABAD Inside

Photograph by KRISHNENDU HALDER

Editor-in-Chief
Aroon Purie
Group Chief Executive Officer
Ashish Bagga
Group Editorial Director
Raj Chengappa
Editor-at-Large
Kaveree Bamzai
n
COVER STORY
Assistant Editor
Mona Ramavat
The Wedding Affair s-4
Editorial Team
Mohini Mehrotra, Ursila Ali Wedding specialists in the city are offering novel
Photo Department services for those looking to get hitched in style. Cover photo by
Vikram Sharma KRISHNENDU HALDER

Photo Researchers

OUR PICK of the month

Prabhakar Tiwari, Shubhrojit Brahma
Art Director
Jyoti Singh
Design
Vikas Verma,
Bhoomesh Dutt Sharma Let the Music Play
Production November 5 to 6
Harish Aggarwal (Chief of Production),
Naveen Gupta, Vijay Sharma, The Bacardi NH7 Weekender
Prashant Verma in its second edition this
Layout Execution year comes to the city for a
Ramesh Kumar Gusain, smashing two-day revelry of
Pradeep Singh Bhandari music mania. A host of artists
n and bands are set to perform
Publishing Director for Hyderabad’s music lovers,
Manoj Sharma including Indian Ocean,
Associate Publisher (Impact) Parikrama, Farhan Akhtar,
Anil Fernandes Parvaaz, Peepal Tree and
n Balck Letters, among many
IMPACT TEAM others. Time to rock we say.
Senior General Manager: At GMR Arena, Shamshabad
Jitendra Lad (West) Contact insider.in/
General Managers: nh7-weekender
Upendra Singh (Bangalore);
Velu Balasubramaniam (Chennai)
Want to tell us about an event? A new store? A restaurant? People doing interesting things?
Deputy General Manager:
Kaushiky Chakraborty (East) Anything newsworthy? Please email us at: simplyhyderabad@intoday.com

s-2 SIMPLY HYDERABAD u NOVEMBER 2016

SIMPLY HYDERABAD Cover Story

THE
Wedding
AFFAIR
SPECIALISTS IN THE CITY ARE
OFFERING NOVEL SERVICES
FOR THOSE LOOKING TO GET
HITCHED IN STYLE.
n By MONA RAMAVAT
Dattu Khandavilli, 29
A
couple would do almost anything to get
that perfect shot, and if the photographer
Photographer happens to be Dattu Khandavilli,
he’ll go a few extra miles and fly them to Dubai,
PICTURE Colombo or Singapore for a great background.
One of his favourite locales to shoot at is the
THIS Suluban Beach in Bali. “It’s vividly picturesque,
there’s ample natural light and romance in the
air with hoards of honeymooners. All I have to do
is wait for the chemistry between the two to kick
in, and voila,” says Khandavilli, who once had
an NRI couple from the UK come to Hyderabad
exclusively to discuss a photo shoot, and a week
later, they were off to Bali with him. Three thou-
sand clicks and 20 hours of behind-the-scenes
videography later, “we were all pretty exhausted
but high on creating memorable pictures.”
Pretty sunrises, gorgeous beaches and
flowers, blended with the right timing, natural
light, expressions and emotions—are what his
pictures are all about.
Ask him what compliments he receives from
the couples he shoots and he says it’s mostly
questions like ‘Do you also teach? How do you
do this?’ “The best of all though is when they sit
down to choose pictures and say, ‘Is this really
us?’,” says Khandavilli.

Contact facebook.com/
dattukhandavilliphotography/

Photograph by DATTU KHANDAVILLI

A couple at a
pre-wedding shoot
organised by
photographer, Dattu
Khandavilli
SIMPLY HYDERABAD Cover Story

Photograph by KRISHNENDU HALDER

Dinaz Noria, 53
Event stylist

PETALS
OF
MAGIC

A
guest once described event
stylist Dinaz Noria's venue
design at a wedding as
“a little Shangri La, the magic of
which lingers for a bit even after
you’ve left.” Since the detailing in
Noria’s work is exquisite artistry,
it’s clearly not a case of a 'rose
is a rose' here. A rose instead
is reworked, given a new spin,
made wider and more elaborate
with several petals of other roses
pinned to it. Add to this kind of
hand-crafted fare an exotic mix
of Thai orchids, pincushions and
heliconias, or hydrangeas and
hyacinths from Holland, and
the space turns mesmerising.
“Elegance with rich detailing is
great for south Indian weddings,
which are sombre affairs com-
pared to the colour and zest of
the North.”
However, that doesn’t mean
that we can’t have fun elements
like food served in a decorated
auto or a kitsch rickshaw that
you can perch on for a selfie, typi-
cally at the mehendi,” says Noria.
While she doesn’t quite enjoy
anything too gimmicky, she’s all
for whimsical themes, with one
of her recent favourites being an
Alice in Wonderland setting. “We
had the Mad Hatter’s tea party—
the entrance was a hollow tree
that you could walk through, with
flowery bowers all around,” she
says. A surrealist theme she’s
designing for later this year will
have a garden spray-painted in
grey for a winter wedding.

Contact decorbydinaz.com
Dinaz Noria, event stylist

s-6 SIMPLY HYDERABAD u NOVEMBER 2016

SIMPLY HYDERABAD Cover Story
T
he Bollywood brigade made
Jegatha the sangeet popular in south
Muralidharan, 31 Indian weddings a while
Choreographer ago, “but nobody dances to those
styles any more, not even the
SETTING Hum Saath Saath Hai kind of
family,” says choreographer
THE Jegatha Muralidharan, showing us
instead how a salsa move can be
STAGE incorporated into a desi number.
Popular remixes mashed up with
Western tracks seem to be the new
anthem at weddings in Hyderabad.
“Fun and casual kind of songs for
saying 'this-is-how-we-fell-in-love'
are in,” says the zumba jammer,
who infuses her choreography with
high energy Latin mixes or fun hip
hop moves. She focuses more on the
upper body rather than the foot-
work, “so the lehenga doesn’t come
Photograph by KRISHNENDU HALDER
Jegatha Muralidharan (centre front), choreographer
in the way. The technicalities are not
important here. It’s the experience
that matters,” she adds. Couples are
experimental these days and don’t
mind pushing their comfort zone to
make their sangeet extra special.
Muralidharan recalls a bride’s inter-
esting surprise for the groom. The
lights were turned out and the bride
was nowhere to be seen, only to
reappear behind a screen for a solo
shadow dance. “She got changed
from her wedding finery into a body
hugging outfit and scorched the
stage to a soulful Punjabi song. After
the performance ended, she came
back dressed like the bride she
was earlier and it was a huge hit,”
recalls Muralidharan.
Contact dancejockey.in
SIMPLY HYDERABAD Cover Story

Varsha Khemani, 31
Co-founder, Oye Happy

THE
QUIRK
BOX

A
larger-than-life teddy
bear hugging your wed-
ding guests at the airport
or girls who will break into a
flash mob style dance during
your mehendi might seem like
something straight of a movie.
But such theatrics are daily
business at Oye Happy that spe-
cialises in making memories out
of moments. “The quirkier, the
better,” says Varsha Khemani,
talking about client requests
for elaborate surprises to funky
wedding giveaways. A plain box
of assorted chocolates is passé,
when you can offer guests a
basket of chilli shaped choco-
lates with a note that reads,
'you are too hot to handle', or
customised shot glasses bearing
the couple’s love story. “A
hangover kit post the sangeet
ceremony is perfect to add to
the hamper at a resort wed-
ding,” says Khemani. A radio
show about the wedding on
your ride to the venue, a crew
of “happy folks” holding out
placards announcing the next
ceremony and fun selfie
stations all around—are guest-
thrillers too. They’ll have the
groom go on ahead in the bara-
at on the customary ghodi but
have him return in a Porsche,
or organise a Harley ride for
the bride and the groom just
for kicks. After such an eventful
wedding, the couple wouldn’t
mind relaxing on a whole island
to themselves, “and we offer
them exactly that as a honey-
moon package,” says Khemani.

Contact Oyehappy.com
KRISHNENDU HALDER
Photograph by
Varsha Khemani, co-founder, Oye Happy

s-8 SIMPLY HYDERABAD u NOVEMBER 2016

 SIMPLY HYDERABAD
Photograph by KRISHNENDU HALDER
I
Debabrata Dey, 35 t’s a big compliment when
Wedding invite designer someone says that they kept the
invite even after the wedding,”
AN says Debabrata Dey, whose uncon-
ventional invite designs delight as
INVITE TO much as they surprise. There are
playing cards inspired invites with
REMEMBER king and queen graphics or comic
strip style rendition of the bride and
groom, a news magazine with all
about the couple presented like the
‘inside story’ and a proper tabloid
too with a sensational spin around
how the couple met. “I’m inspired
by who the bride and groom are as
people and that gets me thinking
about an idea,” says Dey, showing us
Cover Story
Debabrata Dey with his quirky creations
what looks like a corporate ID with a
rolliflex camera, but is actually the
wedding invite of Anu, an HR profes-
sional and Murali, a photographer.
An air hostess, an entrepreneur and
their 13-year-long relationship with
a shared passion for travel is anoth-
er such interesting story we glean
out of the wedding invite of Nitika
and Mohit. “It’s all about blending
together a little bit or art, emotion
and humour to create something
memorable,” says Dey, who enjoys
designing funky selfie booths too for
wedding venues.
Contact thumbsparkcreative.com
SIMPLY HYDERABAD Buzz
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The recently launched ‘pawsome’ brunches by Taj
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s-10 SIMPLY HYDERABAD u NOVEMBER 2016

 DIGITAL EDITION

THANK YOU FOR READING

PLEASE CONTINUE
TO YOUR FREE MAGAZINES
NOVEMBER 2016 NOVEMBER 2016

A MONTHLY CITY MAGAZINE A MONTHLY CITY MAGAZINE

LUXURY

THE
Good
THE
WEDDING
LIFE
HOW TO LIVE IT UP
PLANNERS IN THE CITY
PEOPLE BEHIND THE CITY’S
MOST STYLISH WEDDINGS

DEBABRATA DEY, SHAHEB

WEDDING CARDS BHATTACHARJEE,
DESIGNER ACTOR
 NOVEMBER 2016

A MONTHLY CITY MAGAZINE

LUXURY

THE
Good
LIFE
HOW TO LIVE IT UP
IN THE CITY

SHAHEB
BHATTACHARJEE,
ACTOR
SIMPLY KOLKATA Inside

Cover Story

The High Life s-4

Four people talk
about their favourite
luxury hotspots in
the city.

Health and Wellness

Editor-in-Chief
Art of
Aroon Purie Balancing s-12
Group Chief Executive Officer Guide to soulful
Ashish Bagga living in the city.
Group Editorial Director
Raj Chengappa
Editor-at-Large
Kaveree Bamzai
n
Special Correspondent
Malini Banerjee
Editorial Team
Mohini Mehrotra, Ursila Ali
Photo Department
Vikram Sharma, Subir Halder
Photo Researchers
Prabhakar Tiwari, Shubhrojit Brahma
Art Director
Jyoti Singh OUR PICK
of the month
Design
Vikas Verma,
Bhoomesh Dutt Sharma
Production
Harish Aggarwal (Chief of Production),
Naveen Gupta, Vijay Sharma, OLD WOUNDS
Prashant Verma November 5
Layout Execution Catch Kharaashein, a play with four
Ramesh Kumar Gusain, stories set against the backdrop of riots.
Pradeep Singh Bhandari While most are stories and poetry by
n Gulzar, one of the four, Khuda Haafiz is
Publishing Director Gulzar’s adaptattion of the Bengali nov-
Manoj Sharma elist Samaresh Basu’s work Aadab. En-
Associate Publisher (Impact) acted by powerhouse caste that includes
Anil Fernandes Atul Kulkarni, Lubna Salim, Yashpal
n
Sharma, the play is designed and directed
by Salim Arif and is brought to Kolkata by
IMPACT TEAM
Senior General Manager: Leopard Creations.
Jitendra Lad (West) At Kala Mandir, 48 Shakespeare Sarani
General Managers: Tel 22902197 Timing 7:00 p.m.
Upendra Singh (Bangalore);
Velu Balasubramaniam (Chennai)
Want to tell us about an event? A new store? A restaurant? People doing interesting things?
Deputy General Manager:
Kaushiky Chakraborty (East) Anything newsworthy? Please email us at: simplykolkata@intoday.com

s-2 SIMPLY KOLKATA u NOVEMBER 2016

 SIMPLY KOLKATA Cover Story

THE
High
LIFE
FOUR PEOPLE ON
THEIR FAVOURITE LUXURY
HOTSPOTS IN THE CITY
n By MALINI BANERJEE
 SHIVANGI
BHAMBANI I 26
Restaurateur and marketing director,
The Factory Outlet and We.Desi

Q If there’s one thing you could pick as

the most coveted luxury, what
would it be?
Most of the holidays I took as a student or when
I was working were budget holidays—staying in
youth hostels and taking economical flights. So
now my idea of ultimate luxury is going all out on
vacations and staying in luxury hotels.

Q What was your most luxurious experience ever?

A vacation I took with my husband. We went to
New York, Las Vegas and Miami. My husband
managed to get us a suite at the Bellagio in Vegas,
which was an experience within itself. I almost felt
like the entire Ocean’s Eleven cast would pop out
from corners.

Q What are your favourite shopping destinations?

I like Bombaim in Kolkata. Though I am from
Chandigarh, Delhi is my favourite shopping desti-
nation—from Promenade and Emporio in Vasant
Kunj to the little boutique stores in Shahpur Jat.
Spitalfields Market and Oxford Street in London
are also fun to shop at.

Q How has your idea of luxury changed over the

years?
New, shiny and fancy things have been added to
the list. But some things are the same. I remem-
ber, growing up I would be given Rs 20 every
week to spend in the school canteen. I’d try not to
spend it everyday, rather I’d save it to run down
to the store and buy a white Toblerone. A white
Toblerone will still give me more satisfaction
than the most extravagant thing I might have.

Q Most extravagant buy?

The first edition of Ham on Rye, signed by Charles
Bukowski.

Q What luxury items do you like collecting?

Sunglasses. The last pair I bought was Dior
and the next one I have my eyes on is a Barton
SUBIR HALDER

Perreira.

Shivangi Bhambani,
Photograph by

restaurateur NOVEMBER 2016 u SIMPLY KOLKATA s-5

SIMPLY KOLKATA Cover Story
Q Who were your style icons as a child?
I love Audrey Hepburn and she’s always
stood for a sort of gentle and feminine
demeanour and I love that about her.
In Bollywood it was Madhuri Dixit be-
cause she’s so graceful and feminine.
Q How has your idea of luxury changed
over the years?
I was pampered a lot by my father so I
never really felt like I wanted anything.
Nowadays though, luxury is more
about premium brands and accesso-
ries which I do indulge in to a certain
extent. About my clothes I’m still very
TRIDHA
old school. I think no matter how pre-
mium you go, you can’t match the fit of
well-worn pair of Levi’s.
CHOUDHURY Q What was your most luxurious expe-
rience ever?
23 I Actor I think it was this fabulous meal that
I had in The Vault in Dubai. We had
s-6 SIMPLY KOLKATA u NOVEMBER 2016
champagne and wines I hadn’t even
heard off. The meal included duck con-
fit and exquisite chocolate rolls. It was
a meal I will remember forever.
Q What are your go to brands or
favourite designer labels?
I love Gucci a lot these days. I just
recently picked up a Gucci Dionysus
bag, I am completely in love with it.
Dionysus as you know is the Greek
god of wine (and partying). It’s got a
beautiful silver chain with an antique
finish detailing and hand-painted
flowers on it. Michael Kors has been
an eternal favourite. They make piec-
es which I feel all girls are bound to
like because they have something for
everyone.
Q What’s your favourite family heir-
loom?
My grandmother’s old teak chair.
Photograph by
SUBIR HALDER
Tridha Choudhury,
actor
 SIMPLY KOLKATA Cover Story

SHAHEB
BHATTACHARJEE
30 I Actor
Q Who were your style icons as a child?
James Bond especially Pierce Brosnan. I wanted
to be like him. But other James Bond actors too
were quite stylish.

Q What was your most luxurious experience ever?

Right now, building my own place in Golf Green
is the most precious luxury for me. I am doing it
up with white Greek style interiors, a roof top bar
since I love entertaining, French windows to let in
a lot of light and a walk-in closet.

Q What are your favourite shopping destinations?

I like Quest Mall in Kolkata, ambling about in
Lokhandwala in Mumbai and Oxford Street in
London.

Q One luxury item one will always find in your

wardrobe?
I love collecting shoes. I think I have 100 odd
pairs. I don’t differentiate between brands or
style. If I like it I buy it, be it a Louboutin or a
Bangkok buy or whether they are Oxford brogues
gladiators or boots. I think I own at least one in
every style.

Q What’s your favourite family heirloom?

My favourite heirloom is something that I can’t
even use. There is this pair of gold bangles that
have been passed down three generations from
my mother’s side of the family. My great grand-
parents side were zamindars and to me those
bangles are a symbol of that past. Besides that
that kind of authenticity of design and workman-
ship is not something you can get these days. I’m
sure it is going to be passed on to my sister when
she gets married. Or my wife if she is lucky

Q What was your first luxury buy?

My first ever was a Salvatore Ferragamo jacket I
bought in London. Another favourite is a Christian
Louboutin shoe that my girlfriend Sonika (Chau-
han) gifted me for my birthday.
CHANCHAL GHOSH

Q Most extravagant buy.

My most extravagant dream would be to buy
my own customised Chopper bike from Orange
County Chopper USA.
Photograph by

Shaheb
Bhattacharjee, actor
 CHIKKY GOENKA I 27
Blogger and curator, Travelling Trunk-Made In Bengal

SUBIR HALDER Location Anamika Khanna studio

Photograph by

Chikky Goenka,
blogger and curator

Q If there’s one thing you can pick that’s

the most coveted luxury for you what
would it be?
Sometimes I feel like all I know is
fashion. So for me luxury is about going
shopping for haute couture. But if it
happens in exotic destinations and
while travelling, then it’s the best com-
bination ever.
a few of the multi designer stores in
Kolkata like Bombaim and 85 Lans-
downe. I love shopping in Hauz Khas
and Shahpur Jat in Delhi and Palladium
in Bombay. Abroad, it’s Bicester village
and Harrods in London and The Dubai
Mall in Dubai. I also like shopping in all
the flagship stores in Champs Elysees
and Galeries Lafayette.

Q What are your go-to brands or

Q Who were your favourite style icons as
designer labels? a child?
With Nicholas Ghesquière at the helm, It was and will always be my mother,
I can see that Louis Vuitton’s vibe is a Lalita Jain. She always encouraged that
lot younger and fresher now, and is a flair for fashion and style in me. Other
favourite. I am into accessories as well, than that, my imagination and obses-
so Outhouse and Eina Ahluwalia are fa- sion with 90s Bollywood were enough
vourites. Other than that I love Anamika fodder.
Khanna, Shantanu and Nikhil and young
designers like Pero, Quirkbox, Huemn,
Raw Mango and Payal Khandwala.
Q How has your idea of luxury changed
over the years?
I think I was a hoarder, for everything
Q What are your favourite places to from clothes to bags to shoes. Now I
shop? believe in minimalism and like to invest
In Kolkata, I love Anamika Khanna and in limited edition and unique pieces that
my wardrobe is full of her designs. I love will last me a decade to a lifetime.

FOR TRANQUIL TIMES
SOMETIMES THE PERFECT VACATION SPOT MIGHT JUST BE AS
CLOSE AS YOUR OWN BACKYARD. By Malini Banerjee
Clouds appear free of care
And carefree drift away.
But the carefree mind is not to be “found” —
To find it, first stop looking around.
Wang An-Shih (A Drifting Boat: Chinese
Zen Poetry, translation by J. W. Wallis)
I
f you stop looking around, other
than a carefree mind you will also
find a perfect travel destination
that fits all your requirements (such
as affordability and distance) staring
right at you, next to the map of your
state. So close that it’s barely even
considered as travelling to another
state, Sikkim’s hill stations offer
another kind of unparalleled beauty.
It’s a state that has something for
every kind of traveller. While the
north offers glaciers and icy lakes,
the east has more waterfalls and
forests. South Sikkim is most acces-
sible by road, especially if you are
looking for a quick getaway and
don’t want to go Darjeeling—the
most obvious choice for every tour-
ist in the region.
s-10 SIMPLY KOLKATA u NOVEMBER 2016
n
One of the best places to see
in Sikkim is Ravangla, though you
might do well to stay far away from
the crowded Ravangla town. Closer
to its outskirts is the newly built
NIT Sikkim campus and there are
options to stay near the institute.
One such option is the Barfung
Retreat which is roughly a 20 min-
ute drive from the main town.
Though a couple of miles down
from Ravangla, the retreat offers,
along with plush cottages, a near
panoramic view of the hills with
the snow-peaked Mount Narsing
and other snow-capped spurs of
Kanchenjunga. There is a bal-
cony next to its cosy library that
makes for a perfect perch no mat-
ter what your fancy is—reading,
a game of chess, or whiling away
the hours watching the snow peaks
play hide and seek amongst the
clouds. Towards your right, nes-
tled amongst the mountains is the
130-feet-tall statue of Buddha which
looms as if passing on his message
SIMPLY KOLKATA Travel
Tathagata Tsal, or Buddha
Park, Ravangla, Sikkim
Photograph by MALINI BANERJEE
of peace and love through the cool
mountain air.
Tathagata Tsal, or Buddha Park
is a short drive away. It is known is
a relatively new construction hav-
ing come up only in 2013. Its mas-
sive gardens are a treat for children
looking to run around but do make
it a point to enter the temple for its
stunning murals depicting the life of
Buddha and stories from the Jataka
tales in various styles of painting.
Outside the temple are water foun-
tains you can wish upon with a coin.
There is even a bag placed near the
door where you could exchange
your notes for coins. With nobody
monitoring the exchange, they leave
it upto faith that the visiting tourists
and pilgrims will play fair. That is a
lesson one always comes back with,
from a trip to the hills—knowing
when to have faith.
Getting there Ravangla is roughly 150 km
from Bagdogra Airport
Stay Stay in hotels in Ravangla, Namchi or
Barfung Road Details sikkimstdc.com
SIMPLY KOLKATA Health & Wellness

The Art of Balance

MASTER THE PRACTICE OF SOULFUL LIVING IN THE CITY
KANISHK GUPTA OF LENSOCRAT FILMS

L
Photograph by

iving in the City of Joy comes

with certain perks. Life can be
simple or tough, depending on
the way you look at it. One way is
to equip yourself with skills. Living
with skill is an extension of living
with ‘awareness’ and it encompass-
es everything we do, eat, and how
we sleep or breathe. How does one
skillfully maximise the benefits of
living in a city where everything
moves at breakneck pace? Here are
few quick tips.

Early Morning Detox

I am often asked how to release the
ever-accumulating toxins that store
up, especially the previous nights’
kochuri-aalu and maach mangsho
still embedded within the system. I
often recommend a simple glass of
lime-honey-luke warm water the
minute you wake up. Even if you
cannot forgo your rosogolla and
puchka’ binges, this grandma’s
recipe will do the trick and pump
out any remnants of the Ama or tox-
ins that have coated your intestinal
walls and hinder proper absorption
of minerals in the body and improve
digestion, blood circulation facili-
tating weight loss. Another tech-
nique to try is Jal Neti, a technique
by which saline water is passed
through the nasal passage to clear
out a build-up of heaviness in the
head and sinuses.
Start the Day with Gratitude
Always start the day with some
‘Inner celebration’. It will certainly
keep you smiling all day. This half
hour of ‘me time’ in the morning—
whether doing a yoga routine or
meditation is like giving thanks to
the life that sustains you, it is the
battery charger that never dies.
Food for the Soul
Temptation in today’s world is
hardly a fruit dangling in the Garden
of Eden. In fact it is the right oppo-
site. It’s not a juicy apple we’re
tempted by. Refraining from those
oily crunchy snacks might be the
best thing you ever do for yourself.
Carry nuts or seeds like walnuts,
flaxseeds or sunflower seeds, and
fresh fruit that you can munch on
whenever hunger strikes. Whether
in the Garden of Eden or the Eden
Gardens, this is an easy tip to live by.
One with Nature
‘Saucha’ or inner and external
Varuna Shunglu,
wellness professional
cleanliness is an important sub-set
of the 8 Eight Limbs of Yoga.
A yogi contributes to society in his/
her own small way, whether reduc-
ing the carbon footprint, or recy-
cling, creating compost or growing
more trees. These are the signs of
a truly aware mind that wants to
play their role in environmental
preservation. Finally, for true well-
being, one doesn’t need to run to
the Himalayas but instead spend
some ‘undiluted’ time (without your
phones) with the ones you love.
Spend time with your dear ones,
dance a little (even in this sweltering
humidity); lift your spirits with some
soothing Rabindrasangeet, Abba or
maybe Kygo but don’t forget to talk
about your day. Keep it simple.
Varuna Shunglu is a wellness
professional in Kolkata