The year 2021 is unlikely to be forgotten. After all, humanity is still to win the war against Covid. India is yet to push agricultural reforms, what with farmers fighting back and the government playing real politics. India is getting thick-skinned as Munawar Faruqui will vouch. The judiciary is getting to be tardy, as the Aryan Khan case showed. This is not the India I grew up in. Here are 10 events that captured our imagination.
India Fights Corona
The year’s star turn was the rollout of two coronavirus vaccines, Covaxin and Covishield. The former takes pride of place because it was done by India’s Bharat Biotech while the latter came from Oxford-AstraZeneca. India received a thumb up from UN chief Antonio Guterres for supplying doses world-over.
The battle against Covid is not as yet over, but the chorus of Thali Bhajao, Diya Jalao, Aur Phool Pheko is now behind us.
Farm Laws Withdrawn
The agitating farmers showed what can be achieved if you stayed steadfast to a cause. The apex court had stayed the order implementing the three farm laws, but the farming community stayed put in a show of solidarity. Farmers believe that the laws would benefit large corporates and hurt them personally. Finally, jolted by the election results and scared by the polls coming up in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh (the heart of the farmers’ protests), Prime Minister Modi blinked.
The government failed to convince the farmers, failed to implement it in states which had no issues with it (makes the decision that much more dubious) and used choice epithets against those who opposed the bill. We have not still heard the last word on this.
India Intolerant
In February, A 22 YO Bangalorean, Disha Ravi, was arrested by the Delhi cops on charges of sedition. Her crime: she shared a document to help farmers protests. She was flown to the national capital without disclosing a cause and in total violation of norms for arrests laid down by the Supreme Court. A month later, the apex court held that the toolkit she shared was ‘innocuous.’
Earlier on New Year Day, Comedian Munawar Faruqui was arrested on charges of cracking a joke insultive of Indian gods at a function. He had actually done no such thing. Faruqui’s bail was rejected by the High Court. The Supreme Court had to intervene by which time he had spent 37 days in jail for a joke that he didn’t crack. The joke was clearly on us.
India’s Highest Medal Tally
Neeraj Chopra won the gold in Javelin Throw at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics played in 2021. India returned home with its highest medal haul in an Olympics – seven. Chopra became the second Indian to win an individual gold after shooter Abhinav Bindra (2008 Beijing Games). The Indian hockey team won their first bronze in almost 50 years. The last was in 1972 and you may like to count out the gold of 1980 because that was the year of boycotts. The Women team, too, returned with a the fourth spot.
Zomato-Freshworks-Paytm
Food delivery company, Zomato, made a spectacular debut at Dalal Street. At one point, the market capitalisation of this 10-YO entity was twice that of the healthcare major, Apollo Hospitals! M-cap is the market price per share multiplied by the number of shares and indicates the wealth of a company. Overnight Deepinder Goyal became a well-known name.
Elsewhere in New York, Freshworks, a company floated by a non-IIT, non-IIM, non-metro Indian, Girish Mathrubootham, made a sensational debut on the NYSE. Freshworks builds software to automate customer management and chatbots. It is listed at $43.5 – much higher than the set price of $36 per share.
In a third story, the IPO of Paytm bombed. The much-hyped company was oversubscribed a mere 1.89 times. The issue was predominantly an offer for sale and the man laughing his way to the bank was the founder Vijay Sharma. Starting in 2009, “Paytm App,” India’s largest payment platform offered cashless payment service to customers, is a success story of the last decade. The market is fickle. No one knows who will win and who will lose.
Monetisation
Finance Minister Sitharaman announced a set of assets the government is planning to monetise (read lease out). The resultant Rs 6 lakh crore is to fund its ambitious infrastructure projects. Overall, the top 5 sectors cover over 80 per cent of the pipeline value. These are: Roads (27 per cent), Railways (25 per cent), Power (15 per cent),
Oil & Gas pipelines (8 per cent), Telecom (6 per cent). If this leasing were carried out to its logical conclusion, it would be the most sensible way of crunching money from dead assets.
Tatas Buy AI
The Tata Group finally got the nod to buy a 100 per cent stake in Air India as part of the government’s disinvestment plan. This is a homecoming, since it was Tata Airlines that metamorphosed into Air India. The big question: with four airlines under its belt, how would the Tatas proceed? The revival will be far more difficult than the purchase. To Indians of my generation, the Maharajah has a sentimental value and the Tatas will do a world of good all over again.
10 Patel Nagar, Mumbai
India-born New Zealand cricketer Ajaz Yunus Patel became the third person in history, after Jim Laker and Anil Kumble, to take all 10 wickets in a Test innings. In the process, he became the first left-arm spinner, the first overseas player and the first man in the first innings to do so. Yet the 33-year old found himself on the losing side as the Kiwis lost by a whopping 372 runs. The series will be remembered not for India’s win over the World Test champions but for Patel’s 10-wicket haul.
The Aryan Khan Case
Aryan Khan, son of the Badshah of Bollywood, Shahrukh Khan, was released after being in jail for 26 days on unsubstantiated charges of doing recreational drugs at a party. Junior Khan, 23, was taken off a cruise ship that was on its way to Goa. The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) charged him under laws “related to possession, consumption and sale of illegal substances.”
Along with him, Arbaaz Merchant and Munmun Dhamecha too were arrested. The court held that the WhatsApp chats amongst the accused were innocuous.
The case was ‘prime time news’ and was reminiscent of what happened in the Sushant Singh Rajput case. Channels like Times Now, Republic TV and Aaj Tak ran programmes that were case studies in how reporting should not be done: half-truths, innuendos and lies flew around.
Chief Of Defence Staff Bipin Rawat Dies
India’s first Chief of Defence Staff, Bipin Rawat, died in a helicopter crash in the Nilgiris along with his wife and 11 others on board. There is a Chennai connection to him as he obtained an MPhil in Defence Studies and diplomas in Management and Computer Studies from Madras University.
Indian politicians tryst with aeroplanes and helicopters has been fragile. Some of the famous personalities demised in aircrashes were: Sanjay Gandhi, Madhavrao Scindia, AP’s former Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy… Perhaps it is time India revisited helicopter flying.
–V Pattabhiram with inputs from Shubhangi Vithun
