Owaisi to start WB campaign from March 13
Radu Jude’s ‘Loony Porn’ lays bare a country that has revised its history to legitimise its past
All India Majlis-eIttehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) has finalised it’s candidates for 13 out of 22 seats in Murshidabad, one of the four key districts, it will contest in the ensuing West Bengal Assembly Election.
AIMIM Murshidabad district convener Asadul Sheikh said, “Our party will contest several seats in minority dominated districts Murshidabad, Malda, South Dinajpur and North Dinajpur. Our party chief Asaduddin Owaisi will kickstart the party’s poll campaign on
March 13 from Sagardighi. We have already selected eligible candidates for 13 seats.
“We have also sent party leadership a list of candidates for the remaining nine seats for approval. They are yet to take a call on it. We are optimistic that all the right candidates will be chosen very soon,” he said. He informed that he himself would contest from Jangipur in the district.
However, AIMIM insiders indicated that the party, despite a desperate hunt, was not getting popular and eligible candidates which has caused a delay in starting the poll campaign.
The ministry of external affairs (MEA) has been quite keen to add more joint secretaries to the diplomatic pool to staff new embassies and consulates being set up in various countries. Now, after some wait, headway has been made in this direction with the government planning to empanel eight IFS officers of the 2003 batch as joint secretaries.
According to sources, the cadre controlling authority of the IFS was ready with its list in December last year but was asked to wait since the government was about to empanel 41 IAS officers from the 2003 batch. The department of personnel and training (DoPT) reportedly informed MEA that there should be a gap of one month in the empanelment process between the IAS and IFS. It is further learnt that, except for Devesh Uttam who is posted in the country, the remaining seven IFS officers are posted abroad.
It is a known fact that India’s foreign service is woefully understaffed, with most Indian missions abroad having too few diplomats. This could be a small step towards addressing this grievance.
SREEDHARAN PADS UP FOR
ANOTHER INNINGS
The BJP wants to be a serious contender in Kerala and is hoping that “Metro Man” E. Sreedharan’s induction in the party will help it make inroads in the impending Assembly elections. Will the gamble pay off?
Mr Sreedharan has enjoyed a full innings in his illustrious career, immense credibility with the aam aadmi as an honest and efficient technocrat as well as respect among politicians across party lines, and picked up a Padma Shri, Padma Vibhushan and a host of other national and international honours.
Why would the man who shot to fame with the Delhi Metro project and who advised the Kerala government on Metro projects in the state and who is also involved in the other Metro projects in Jaipur and Lucknow want a stab at politics (and chief ministership, no less!) at the ripe age of 88 years?
Clearly, he enjoys wearing many hats. And a politician’s topi would be the crowning glory of his career if he can manage the challenge of transforming from technocrat into a neta. His future progress will be watched closely by not just politicians but also bureaucrats who may be nurturing similar
ambitions themselves.
MP CHIEF MINISTER FINDS HIS MOJO
The usually affable and soft-spoken Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan is a different man in his fourth term, according to the babus in the state. By some accounts, he seems to have set the proverbial cat among the pigeons! Mr Chouhan, it appears, is attempting an image makeover. The soft-spoken veneer has been replaced by a hard-nosed leader in “full action” mode.
The result of this transformation has been directed at the babus who, sources say, have begun to dread the CM’s new-found penchant to order the transfer of officers, sometimes during a meeting itself. According to sources, Mr Chouhan has unceremoniously transferred more than six district magistrates and SPs so far and seems to be in an unrelenting mood. One IPS officer, Vahini Singh, the SP of Niwari district, was transferred during a meeting by Mr Chouhan, who also told the gathered officials in as many words that he was keeping a close tab on them. Other officers transferred in this period are the SP of Guna Rajesh Singh, and the DMs of Neemuch and Betul, J.S. Raje and Rakesh Singh.
Those in the know say that the chief minister is using the monthly meetings with state officials to scare them into submission through these tactics. Mr Chouhan means business is the unmistaken message and it seems to be hitting its mark quite effectively!
● THE LAST Combined Commanders’ Conference was held in Jodhpur in 2018.
● DEFENCE minister Rajnath Singh will address the conference on Friday.
At a time when India is facing serious security challenge from China, country’s top commanders from Army, Navy and Air Force are meeting for three-day Combined Commanders’ Conference from Thursday in Kevadia in Gujarat to brainstorm and strategize an effective response to current and future threats.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to address the conference on Saturday where he will lay down his strategic vision for the defence forces. Defence minister Rajnath Singh will also address the conference on Friday.
The last Combined Commanders’ Conference was held in Jodhpur in 2018.
Theaterisation of armed forces, selfreliance in defence sector, and emerging threats in the cyberspace and in the form of drones will also be discussed.
The Commanders' Conference is crucial as it will be attended by the Commander-in-Chief rank officers of the three services and the tri-services organisations such as the Integrated Defence Staff Headquarters, Strategic Forces Command and the Port Blair-based Andaman and Nicobar Command.
The Chief of Defence Staff Gen Bipin Rawat will also be attending the meeting.
Mr Modi is expected to be given a briefing on the progress made in the field of the creation of theatre commands. Of all the theatre commands under plan, Air Defence Command is likely to be implemented first.
The Prime Minister will be given a detailed presentation on the restructuring of the Army formations in view of the recent Chinese aggression in the Ladakh sector.
During the Combined conference held in Jodhpur, the government had cleared the creation of the Defence Cyber Agency and Defence Space Agency along with their research components.
RADU JUDE’S film, which premiered in the main Competition section at the 71st International Film Festival of Berlin, uses this porn clip and the subsequent "trial" of Emi in the school’s yard to draw circles around a society's hypocrisy.
Romanian writerdirector Radu Jude’s Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn opens with a naughty, kinky pornographic scene. Emi (Katia Pascariu), a school teacher, is having sex with her husband and they are recording the proceedings for a bit of extra thrill.
But somehow the sex tape leaks and is soon making the rounds of giggly WhatsApp groups of her students and their parents. Some download it, purportedly as evidence to beat Emi with. The fact that the sex is consensual, between a husband and wife is irrelevant. There is outrage, and it's mostly about how could a middleaged, married woman be so raunchy.
Radu Jude’s film, which premiered in the main Competition section at the 71st International Film Festival of Berlin, uses this porn clip and the subsequent "trial" of Emi in the school’s yard to draw circles around a society's hypocrisy.
The film is split in three parts. In the first, Loony Porn walks with Emi as she visits her school principal, goes to a book store and a pharmacy. Shot during the Coronavirus pandemic, this segment has visuals of a city all masked up and wary of social interactions. But it's also a city busy consuming, enraging, eradicating the past. We watch arguments and fights in a supermarket, with owners of big cars who block the sidewalk as a matter of their right. Each clash is an assertion of the entitlement of the rich and marginalisation of others.
The film’s second part is polyphonic and here, through commentary, archival footage, statistics, words, nudes in newspapers, building rising and in ruins, Loony Porn tells the story of Romania — about its role in the Holocaust, its attitude to Jews, Romas, love for dictators, attitude to sex and children. It also tells us that in Romania, 6 out of 10 kids are subjected to family violence.
This fact hovers over the film's last segment — the meeting called by the school principal and parents to interrogate and then vote on Emi’s future. It is kicked off by a parent who insists on playing the sex clip for the benefit of all those gathered.
This scene, framed like an inquisition — the "accused" is in the middle, flanked by a judge who will rule based on the mood of the people and the enforcer of morality — is both dark and funny. Though allegations, tangential discussions, innuendoes, inappropriate remarks, shrill sanctimony and, finally, the judgment, Loony Porn lays bare a nation that has revised its history to legitimise its past and current criminal acts and feels emboldened to air its prejudice, bigotry and misplaced rage. Because many speak in the same tongue, collective hypocrisy gets elevated to a sanctimonious, chorus.
What's striking is how familiar it all feels. This searing portrait of a nation and its people could well be a day in the life of India.
narcissistic