India\'s Accidental Dairy King

NEW DELHI - When Verghese Kurien demanded an autopsy on a dead fly, it was to protect the honor of his milk. Did the fly drown in the milk, or was it dead before it landed there? Was the fly planted by his foes?

It was the 1950s and Mr. Kurien, a young engineer who had returned to from Michigan State University, was the improbable chief of a cooperative society of impoverished dairy farmers in the western state of Gujarat. Under his leadership, their milk production had increased dramatically, and with success came bitter enemies - and the discovery of the fly in the milk that the society supplied to a vital wholesale buyer. Mr. Kurien's ludicrous demand for a postmortem to determine whether the fly had indeed drowned in the milk, according to him, made the scandal vanish.

It was among the many tricks he was to play in the decades to come as he turned India from a milk-deficient nation into the world's leading milk producer, transformed a cooperative society of dairy farmers in a small pastoral town into the country's largest food brand, rescued millions of dairy farmers from crushing poverty and gradually became one of the few beloved public figures in India. He died on Sunday, at the age of 90, following an illness. The man who described himself as an employee of farmers lay in state inside a coffin in a large auditorium in Anand, the small town where he had spent most of his life. Thousands came to pay their respects.

He was a man who saw the world as a conflict between the clever and the fools, and took the side of both to push his plans through. In his final years, he became a lumbering patriarch with an illuminated face and dark twinkling eyes, who was very aware of his greatness but chose his words with care in a nation where humility is the only permissible form of pride.

When he was young, a friend took him to an astrologer who discerned people's fate by measuring their shadows at noon. The shadow astrologer, obviously, worked far from the equator. Mr. Kurien recounts the experience in his pleasant memoirs, “I Too Had a Dream,” which he wrote with the journalist Gouri Salvi. The astrologer foretold an extraordinary career.

It was an accidental career. He arrived in Anand reluctantly in the summer of 1949 as a government clerk. Circumstances soon made him the general manager of a farmers' cooperative - the Kaira District Milk Producers Union Ltd.

He swiftly increased the cooperative's milk production, but to grow it further he needed a scientific breakthrough. He had to find a way to convert buffalo's milk into milk powder, which the leading dairy experts of the time said was impossible. But, with the help of a friend who was a chemist, he achieved the seeming miracle. Mr. Kurien implied in his memoirs that the supposed difficulty of converting buffalo's milk into powder was a myth created by the Western world, which had abundant cow's milk and wanted other nations, like India, to continue to import its milk powder.

Over time, Mr. Kurien's stature rose. Some of the most important politicians in the country, including prime ministers, lodged in his house when they visited Anand. The first time Jawaharlal Nehru stayed with them, Mr. Kurien and his wife, Molly, refrigerated a rose so that the prime minister could put the fresh flower in his buttonhole, as was his style. But soon the couple got tired of all the fuss around dignitaries. Once, a very tall governor was to visit, and his security detail complained that the bed in Mr. Kurien's guest room was too short, to which Mr. Kurien asked his excellency to sleep diagonally.

In the late 1950s, Mr. Kurien decided to market the produce of the cooperative through a brand name, and that led to the creation of one of the most enduring Indian brands - Amul Butter. Amul's billboard advertisements, which play on current affairs, are a parallel historical record of modern India. So endearing is the brand that even The Times of India, which does not grant any corporation free mileage on its editorial pages and even blurs images of company logos in its editorial photographs, carries images of Amul's billboards when the brand is in the news. Mr. Kurien's obituary was, inescapably, accompanied by the images of Amul's billboards in several newspapers.

In 1965, Mr. Kurien set up the National Dairy Development Board for the Indian government to replicate the success of Anand in other towns. The board's logo is derived from an ancient Harappan seal that featured the engraving of an ox. That led the veteran Congress party leader Margaret Alva to comment in jest once that Mr. Kurien must be a male chauvinist to have an ox represent a dairy board.

Rahul Da Cunah, whose advertising agency designs the Amul advertisements, was 6 when he first met Mr. Kurien. At that meeting, he told me, “Dr. Kurien gave me a big box as a gift. I opened it and found just papers. At the bottom was a small cube of Amul cheese.”

Mr. Kurien, who was probably the most famous dairy administrator in the world, didn't like drinking milk.

Manu Joseph is editor of the Indian newsweekly Open and author of the novel “The Illicit Happiness of Other People.”

Yuvraj Singh\'s Roaring Comeback Quiets Critics

September 13, 2012, 1:11 am

By HARESH PANDYA

India may have lost the second Twenty20 game by a solitary run against New Zealand on Tuesday, but the team's biggest consolation was the successful return of Yuvraj Singh after his battle with cancer.

The left-handed batsman made an emotional comeback after his treatment for a rare germ cell cancer. Chasing a target of 168 runs in 20 overs, Yuvraj scored 34 off 26 balls, with 1 four and 2 sixes, in his typical aggressive style.

Sports commentators had raised many questions about Yuvraj's selection because he had seen very little playing time while he underwent treatment. The chairman of selectors, Krishnamachari Srikkanth, was unable to justify Yuvraj's inclusion on the team with any conviction â €" the move was seen by observers as more emotional than rational.

“I can understand the sympathy wave for Yuvraj. But his selection baffles me,” Aunshuman Gaekwad, a former coach of the Indian team, said in an interview before the match . “He is an excellent batsman, even a match-winner on his day, but you can't pick a player who has overcome a battle against cancer straight in the national team, when he has neither proved his fitness nor played any match.”

While all his teammates gave him a warm welcome and said encouraging words, Yuvraj was obviously keen to prove himself, telling people how eager he was to play for India again after a long absence. Unfortunately, he didn't bowl a ball in the first Twenty20 match, in Visakhapatnam on Saturday, as it was called off because of rain.

Rain in Chennai threatened to disrupt the second match, too, but luckily for Yuvraj it was played for the full quota of 40 overs. And Yuvra j was unlikely to miss the opportunity. Besides bowling those two tight overs when Brendon McCullum (who was a top scorer in New Zealand's innings with a whirlwind 91) was on the rampage, Yuvraj also fielded brilliantly, just like the Yuvraj of old.

Yuvraj has already been chosen for India's squad for the fourth ICC World Twenty20 to be played in Sri Lanka from Sept. 18 to Oct. 7. Eyebrows were raised again about his selection for this global event, featuring 12 teams. But his performance Tuesday may have convinced critics of Yuvraj's fitness and ability to deliver.

“I admit I was against Yuvraj's selection,” said Mr. Gaekwad after the Chennai game. “And I was also apprehensive about his health. He has just come back after overcoming a battle against cancer, and you can't take any chance with his health.

“But I must say he played very well. He was hitting the ball comfortably, as usual, and there were no signs that he has come back overcoming a seri ous health problem. It was almost like the same old, vintage Yuvraj. If he bats like this in Sri Lanka, opponents are really in for some trouble.”

Film Shown on Russian TV Ties Exiled Tycoon to Pussy Riot

September 12, 2012, 3:57 pm

By ANNA KORDUNSKY

A film shown Tuesday on the state-owned Rossiya 1 channel claimed to have found the mastermind behind the Pussy Riot controversy: Boris A. Berezovsky, the exiled Russian tycoon living in London. The second installment of “Provocateurs,” a film by the journalist Arkady Mamontov, suggests that Mr. Berezovsky financed the punk band in order to destabilize Russian society.

“Provocateurs 2,” the second installment of a film shown on state-owned TV in Russia.

The film quotes a Moscow-based religious activist, Alexey Veshnyak, saying that Mr. Berezovsky had been plotting the punk band's performance in Christ the Savior Cathedral since at least 2011, providing money and strategic guidance. Mr. Veshnyak says that Mr. Berezovsky shared his plans with him in London that February, pointing to photos of the band member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and her husband, Pyotr Verzilov, and saying, “We will soon start acting in the church's direction.”

Mr. Mamontov also cited a letter said to have been obtained from an aspiring singer whose name is not disclosed “for safety reasons.” The letter describes the young woman's brief encounter with a recruiter advertising a mysterious Western-financed project about five years ago:

“The project was supposed to appeal to young people in order to use these people for other goals like a herd of fanatics. The clients, it turned out, were some Americans, and they were ready to pay good money. When I wondered if they were afraid of Putin at all, they replied that there's enough money for a revolution.”

The film also claims that internationa l celebrities are being lavishly paid to publicly support the band, using funds from Mr. Berezovsky funneled through a Britain-based public relations firm.

Pro-Kremlin commentators have long suggested that Russia's opposition is manipulated from behind the scenes by Mr. Berezovsky, a longtime political enemy of President Vladimir V. Putin. His fortune is estimated at $800 million even after his legal loss to Roman A. Abramovich last week.

Latest Updates on Rage Over Anti-Islam Film

September 12, 2012, 12:46 pm

By ROBERT MACKEY

The Lede is following the angry protests and violence in the Muslim world which began on Tuesday in response to a film trailer posted on YouTube that insults Islam's prophet.

In India, the Music Fest Comes of Age

September 12, 2012, 3:13 am

By ISHA SINGH SAWHNEY

Music festivalgoers in India are a happy lot these days. After spending the last decade looking enviously westward, and bemoaning the lack of Coachellas and Glastonburys at home, festival options now crowd India's social calendars.

Revelers can pick from travel-worthy destinations including a desert, an oceanfront, the ubiquitous Indian hill station and a handful of cities. For example, would you rather be: drunk on rice beer in Arunachal Pradesh's beautiful paddy fields with the Radiohead-inspired singing of Sky Rabbit's lead, Raxit Tewari, or wine-soaked in the vineyards of Nashik, fueled with copious amounts of live music from another Tewari â€" Ankur Tewari and the Ghalat Family?

India's music devotees are hopeful that the shoddy organization and short performer lineups that once characterized music “festivals” here are a thing of the past.

“The term ‘music festival' was often misused by Indian promoters,” said Arjun S. Ravi, a festival fixture and an acerbic music critic who runs the webzine Indiescision, which is sponsored by the music site NH7. Any event with “two or more artists on the bill, cheap drinks and a willing club” was billed a music a festival, he said.

But in recent years, professional management groups have been putting together smoothly run, skillfully executed festivals, like Only Much Louder's highly successful NH7 Weekender in Pune and Invasion in Delhi, Bangalore and Pune and Percept's Sunburn, a three-day electronica festival, in Goa.

Competition among these groups has meant more “long-term planning and better curators and audiences,” said Vijay Nair, Only Much Louder's ch ief executive. “People now expect all the things that come together to make a music festival,” he said, including big lineups, multiple stages, film tents and food courts.

The Indian music industry's newest bedfellows, big corporate sponsors, have helped make these expectations possible. For years, big brands in India feted only Bollywood and cricket. Now they have “woken up to a large demographic of the youth that's finding Bollywood crass,” said Ankur, the front-man and lyricist of the indie-rock band Ghalat Family.

It helps of course that surrogate-advertising laws ensure that festivals are the only (and probably coolest) way alcohol brands can advertise. For liquor companies, sponsoring music festivals and concerts is a way to tout their wares without violating the 1995 Cable Television Network Act, which bans advertisements that “promote directly or indirectly production, sale or consumption of cigarettes, tobacco products, wine, alcohol, liquor or other intoxicants.”

“The greatest boon to the music industry has been the ban on alcohol advertising,” said Anup Kutty, Menwhopause's bass guitarist.

Mr. Nair estimates that endorsements from alcohol sponsors account for about 60 to 70 percent of festival revenues. Finding a music festival to append to their name gives big brands much more mileage than any tie-ups with soda companies or releases of music compilations on compact discs.

More bands and better financing sources leads to more festivals, said Lalitha Suhasini, the editor of Rolling Stone India. She said organizers are now also offering audiences an entire new festival experience, which could involve “backpacking to a hill station for a festival to getting a band tattoo at a tattoo stall in the festival bazaar.”

Mahesh Madhavan, president and chief executive of Bacardi South Asia, which is the chief sponsor of the Invasion and NH7 events, said the liquor brand has longstanding tie s to music in India, dating from the 1990s, and has brought international bands like Bob Sinclar, Flo Rida and Basement Jaxx to the country.

Mr. Madhavan wouldn't give exact budgets earmarked for festivals like NH7, but said that a festival costs “anything between $800,000 to $1 million.”

Bacardi paired an individual brand with each festival it sponsored: Dewar's scotch with NH7 Weekender in Pune, which featured mattresses in the sun and slow, acoustic music, and Eristoff vodka at Invasion in Noida, Pune and Bangalore, which featured electronica, laser lights, the dance music group Prodigy and the D.J. David Guetta.

Musicians like Mr. Kutty of Menwhopause say they have also found friendly governments as sponsors. He has enlisted the Arunachal Pradesh Department of Tourism for the Northeast's first big mainstream music festival, Ziro. The founders of the Ragastan festival in Jaisalmer are partners with Incredible India, the central government's tourism c ampaign.

Still, a handful of festivals remain proudly independent, eschewing sponsors altogether, like Happily Unmarried's Music in the Hills, which celebrate its eighth year this April. Happily Unmarried avoids sponsors to keep the festival small and focused.

To help you decide where you want to wear your neons/Wellies/Ray-Bans and wave your lighters and jump around in mosh pits, we have listed the festivals of the season.

What: Ziro
Where and when: Ziro, Arunachal Pradesh, Sept. 14 to 16
Tickets: A three-day pass is 2,500 rupees ($45)
Getting there: By bus or taxi from Itanagar, by rail from the North Lakhimpur Railway Station, or by air from Guwahati.

Ziro will see local bands and big names from across the country come together for what's being touted as the Northeast's first music festival, in this green hill station. Expect performances from Digital Suicide, Dirty Punk, Vinly Records, Alisha Batth, Trisha Electric and Peter Cat Rec ording, among others.

Partnered with NgunuZiro, which works for the sustainable development of Ziro valley and empowerment of local communities, the festival promises to respect local Apa-tani tribe ethics. Sponsors are the state tourism board and local businesses. Food stalls by Apa-tani tribe villagers will offer dishes like fermented bamboo, many kinds of meats and many more kegs of rice beer. Of the 2,000 expected attendees, most are likely to come from the northeast.

What: Sunburn
Where and when: Delhi, Unitech Golf Course and Country Club, Noida, Oct. 7; Goa, Dec. 27 to 29
Tickets: Regular ticket 2, 500 rupees and VIP ticket 6, 000 rupees for Noida

With the dance music evangelist Nikhil Chinapa at the forefront, Sunburn kicked off in 2007 on Goa's Candolim beach as a three-day festival, and since then the festival attracts over 100,000 people each year. This year, the festival has been on the move, first to Mumbai in April, and then Delhi an d Colombo, Sri Lanka, in October.

Previous Sunburn lineups have included big acts like Axwell, Above & Beyond, Gareth Emery, Markus Schulz, Pete Tong and Infected Mushroom. Expect magnificent pyrotechnics and trippy visuals of the Delhi audio-visual deejays BLOT, both in Noida and Goa.  This year's big names include Dutch deejay Afrojack and German EDM deejay Moguai, other than Indian heavyweights Jalebee Cartel's Arjun Vagale and Ash Roy and DJ Pearl .

What: Bacardi NH7 Weekender
Where and when: Noida, Ground D, Budh International Circuit, Oct. 13 to 14; Pune, Amanora Park Nov. 2 to 4; Bangalore, Dec. 15 to 16 (venue to be announced)
Tickets: For Delhi tickets will cost between 1, 500 and 3, 000 rupees for Pune and Bangalore tickets still to be announced.
Getting there: All three cities are well connected by air, road and rail.

Now in its third year, the NH7 Weekender is expanding to Delhi and Bangalore despite skepticism by festivalgoers t hat the event can be successfully repeated outside of Pune. Delhi, in particular, has gained a reputation for mishandling big concerts by international artists like Bryan Adams, Akon and Metallica.

But Mr. Nair of Only Much Louder said he believed that the best crowds will be in Delhi. The company has also promised that no acts will be repeated in the other cities.

In Pune last year, more than 25,000 people visited five stages, featuring everything from punk, metal and electronic dance music to folk rock, dubstep and acoustic gigs. NH7 Weekender's last act has usually been headliners like Imogen Heap and Asian Dub Foundation.

This year one more stage, Fully Fantastic, has been added in homage to the great ol' Daddy of Indian rock who passed away earlier this year, Amit Saigal.  The lineup includes the Kaiserdisco, Solstice Coil, Parikrama. Shafqat Amanat Ali and the Music Basti Project.

What: JodhpurRIFF
Where and when: Mehrangarh Fort, Jodhpur, Oct. 26 to 30
Tickets: Full donor passes are available for 4,900 rupees here
Getting there: Regular flights, trains and buses to Jodhpur.

High up in Mehrangarh Fort, this folk music festival brings bands from Egypt, Paris and San Francisco together with the most formidable names of Rajasthani folk music. The festival is made for those who love the idea of an innovative mélange of jugalbandi (literally “entwined twins”, an Indian classical music term for a duet) collaboration, under the backdrop of the year's fullest, brightest moon.

What: Ragasthan
Where and when: Kanoi Village, Jaisalmer, Rajasthan, Nov. 16 to 18.
Tickets: 4,000 to 5,000 rupees
Getting there:Regular flights, trains and buses are available to Jaisalmer.

Harley bikers and buses of artists will head to the rolling sand dunes of Kanoi Village, where local Rajasthani folk musicians and experimental artists from all over the world will enthrall attendees against th e awesome backdrop of Jaisalmer's desert.

The festival, attracting an estimated 5,000 to 6,000 people, features three stages, the Morio Main Stage, Ammara Electronic Stage (complete with visual performances with dancers and artists) and a World Stage (collaborations with different embassies include music from Iceland, Britain and Norway). Visitors will be able to stay in tents in the desert, go stargazing and enjoy a nighttime movie at the Ujalo film tent.

What: Lost
Where and when: Pune, Nov. 23 to 25; Delhi, dates to be announced
Tickets: To be announced
Getting there: Regular flights, trains and buses are available to Pune.

The Bollywood actor and nightclub owner Arjun Rampal and Shailendra Singh, an executive with the marketing giant Percept, have joined forces to create the Lost festival. The two are major players in the country's music scene, having brought Lady Gaga to India's first Formula One race in December and the Sunburn festiva l to Goa.

Though not much has been announced about the lineup at Lost, Mr. Rampal promises this festival will be that “light at the end of the tunnel” for “rock stars and musicians in this country that are lost and don't have anything to do.”

Despite all that rhetoric, if Mr. Rampal's and Mr. Singh's track records are anything to go by, we're sure Pune is in for another winning festival. Promising 50 artists over two days including 20 international artists, the Lost festival will move bag and baggage (installations, artwork, everything) from Delhi to Pune. Word from the organizers is that they're hoping their very deep pockets might attract the likes of the Smashing Pumpkins, Jesse J or Porcupine.

Munnu Kasliwal, a Favorite Jeweler of Connoisseurs, Dies at 54

Palani Mohan/Getty Images

Munnu Kasliwal, the owner of Gem Palace, in Jaipur India.

From an old mansion on Mirza Ismail Road in Jaipur, India, the jeweler Munnu Kasliwal presided over an unlikely global empire. To the broader public Mr. Kasliwal's name was not nearly as familiar as those of Cartier or Harry Winston, but his family-owned emporium, the Gem Palace, has for decades been a valued secret passed along via word of mouth by international connoisseurs.

Collected by European royals, Italian designers, Arab sheiks, international society queens and the merely moneyed, who could find his designs for sale at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Neue Galerie in Manhattan as well as at Barneys New York, Mr. Kasliwal's baubles were also particular favorites of celebrities, whom he cultivated with unassuming charm.

Stars like Nicole Kidman were drawn to the dazzling and sometimes monumental gems Mr. Kasliwal set in audacious mounts. Undaunted by either rocks or bold effects, he strung precious stones as casually as pop beads. For a Vogue cover, a double-strand Gem Palace necklace snaked across Ms. Kidman's bare back in a gesture both elegant and punk, as though she'd been draped in glistening bicycle chains.

Mr. Kasliwal died on Aug. 23 in Jaipur. He was 54. The cause was brain cancer, his son Siddharth said.

Born in Jaipur on July 7, 1958, and educated at St. Xavier's Senior Secondary School, a private Jesuit high school, and at the University of Rajasthan, Mr. Kasliwal might have seemed predestined for his vocation. By the time he came along, his family had already plied the jewelry trade for six generations. Yet he had no formal training as a jeweler and first obtained a degree in business management before joining the family business, started, as he sometimes said, by an ancestor who sold gems to the Mughal courts.

Whether this was fact or fancy, a marked affinity for the opulence of the Mughal era became a hallmark of Mr. Kasliwal's style.

“Gem Palace was like the den of Ali Baba, and you could never leave with empty hands,” said the designer and socialite Muriel Brandolini. “Unlike certain famous jewelers who act like it's a favor for them to open the door, he was a seducer - of men, women and children. He could intuitively understand the personality of a person and capture it in the designs.” His work, said Julie Gilhart, the former fashion director of Barneys New York, was “spectacularly rich in technique and heritage.”

An eclecticist, Mr. Kasliwal drew inspiration equally from geomorphic Modernist forms and India's rich though occasionally fusty jewelry traditions. Knowing that virtually anything he dreamed of could be realized by the skilled craftsmen in his workrooms in Jaipur, he both flouted and enlarged the conventions of his craft, designing pearl torsades that knotted like bolos, earrings with gems mounted on miniature springs so that they quivered, and variations of the opulent kundan sets that barnacle Indian brides.  

Mr. Kasliwal developed his affinity for nature's rarest minerals in childhood, when he was given sacks of semiprecious gemstones to play with, and he readily shared his delight with visitors to the Gem Palace in India and his velvet-upholstered showroom on East 74th Street in Manhattan.

Beckoned into a private chamber at the Gem Palace in Jaipur, clients were invited to pull up chairs while Mr. Kasliwal, dressed in his customary white linen kurta, sat cross-legged before a cloth-covered table and spilled onto it the contents of small cotton sacks. As casually as though he were cleaning grains of rice, he sifted through his fingers Colombian emeralds, pigeon blood rubies, old-mine diamonds, tourmalines, citrines, labradorite or pearls.

In addition to his son Siddharth, Mr. Kasliwal is survived by his mother, Vimla Kasliwal; his wife, Kalpana; another son, Samarth; and his brothers, Sudhir and Sanjay.

Mr. Kasliwal reveled in sleuth work, pursuing great stones at international salesrooms and gem fairs as well as in the now-depleted treasuries of princely families.

Once, in pursuit of an old gem from the mines of Golconda, he drove through the deeply potholed roads of the impoverished state of Bihar, risking automotive disaster and highway robbery, to reach the palace of an erstwhile nobleman.

When at last he arrived and the palm-size gem was produced from a dirty old cloth, it was a dull disappointment. “It looked like a hunk of glass,” Mr. Kasliwal said.

Experience and instinct guided him to bring the diamond outdoors, where, by the rays of the setting sun, the subtly faceted old stone revealed itself.

“That is why people shouldn't hide their jewels away in vaults or save them for special occasions,” Mr. Kasliwal said. Having been freed from the grasp of the earth, he explained, “gems only come alive in the light.”

Under the British, Satire and Critical Cartooning Thrived in India

September 12, 2012, 8:43 am

By NARESH FERNANDES

On Christmas Day in 1887, a Mumbai paper, Parsee Punch, ran a cartoon depicting India striking a gong of Congress by the ear of a slumbering John Bull. “Rousing the sentinel,” ran the caption. It was only one of thousands of politically charged illustrations that would be carried in the weekly, which first appeared in July 1854 and was still being published well into the 1930s under the name Hindi Punch.

On Wednesday, as the cartoonist Aseem Trivedi was released from jail after being charged with sedition for allegedly insulting national symbols, the prominent historian Mushirul Hasan noted that the editors and contributors to Parsee Punch and other colonial-era satirical journals had never faced persecution from the British authorities.

Mr. Hasan, the director-general of the National Archives of India, is the country's leading authority on colonial-era cartoons. Earlier this year, he put together a collection of cartoons from the Mumbai satirical paper, titled “Wit and Wisdom: Pickings from the Parsee Punch.” It is a companion to his “Wit and Humour in Colonial North India,” a 2009 compilation of work from Lucknow's The Avadh Punch.

“The remarkable thing is that the British never took exception to the critical content” in these journals, Mr. Hasan said. “There's not a single instance of the Press Act being used to prosecute the editors or contributors. In fact, there was great appreciation” of these cartoons by some colonial administrators.

Parsee Punch and The Avadh Punch drew their inspiration from the British Punch magazine, which made its appearance in 1841. “These were not a timid subservient pro -government lot,” Mr. Hasan said. “They were eloquent, articulate and independent-minded individuals who spoke their mind through wit and humor. They played a considerable role in shaping public perceptions” on a range of issues.

Among the controversies highlighted by the Parsee Punch collection are debates about land revenue, taxation and taxes on liquor. “Because the viceroy was involved in the legislation about alcohol permits, the criticism extended to him too,” Mr. Hasan said.

Both journals, Mr. Hasan said, were characterized by the subtlety and sophistication of their cartoons and articles. “The quality of the writing is reflective of the quality of cultural and intellectual life,” he said. “Cartooning is really an expression of that style and refinement. There was a nuanced way of expression even as criticism that was very strong. They didn't use abusive language. They were part of a feudal culture where stridence wasn't considered desirabl e, where derision of the sort we see today simply wasn't on.”

Mr. Hasan said that Mr. Trivedi's arrest and other recent controversies regarding cartoons in India demonstrated how attitudes toward cartoons had changed over the last century.

“When there is general uncertainty in the political system, when there is growing instability, when there is erosion in the credibility of the ruling elites, these are the kinds of things that happen,” he said. “This would be a generalized way of looking at all such incidents. It would be a mistake to treat them as individual incidents. They're reflective of a society that is growing through a turbulent period.”

Naresh Fernandes is a freelance journalist who lives in Mumbai. He is a Poiesis fellow at New York University's Institute for Public Knowledge. He is the author of “Taj Mahal Foxtrot: The Story of Bombay's Jazz Age.“

Delhi\'s Gutka Ban Hailed, Even By Users

September 12, 2012, 10:15 am

By HARI KUMAR

The Delhi state government's ban of gutka, a popular product made from betel nut and chewing tobacco, has drawn protests from manufacturers, but found support from an unlikely group of people â€" those who actually buy and sell the product.

Delhi joins several other state governments in barring the sale of gutka, whose widespread use has been blamed for India's oral cancer rate, which is among the highest in the world. Millions of Indians, including young children, are believed to be addicted to gutka, a powdered mixture consisting mainly of crushed betel nut and chewing tobacco, which sells in small sachets for as little as 1 rupee.

Bhikari Lal Gupta, 60, used to sell g utka at his roadside stall, which he has run for 32 years, and he estimated that he would lose 7,150 rupees ($130) per month because of the ban, which was announced Tuesday. But he said he was in favor of the government's move.

“I want gutka to be banned,” he said. “I may be losing business, but I will be saving my son.” Mr. Gupta said his 30-year-old son, Anil, consumes three to four pouches of gutka daily. “Chewing of gutka can lead to cancer and impotency,” the elder Mr. Gupta added. “I have seen the young son of my neighbor suffering because of gutka.”

Mr. Gupta also said, “The ban on Gutka will make the road less dirty because the spitting will be less”. In India the stains of chewed tobacco are a common sight on pavements, government office buildings, and public places such as bus stands and train stations.

Dharmendra Pathak, 23, an insurance agent, went to a stall to buy gutka, but the owner told him it was illegal to sell it. Mr. Pathak took the news in stride. “It is not good for health,” Mr. Pathak said,
who started chewing gutka a year ago. “It stains your teeth, and it causes bad breath. So I welcome the ban.”

At Connaught Place in central Delhi, stall owners were trying to clear their gutka stock, some openly, some secretly. The punishment for violating the ban includes imprisonment ranging from six months to life and a fine of 100,000 to 1 million rupees. The law provides no penalty for consumers.

Gutka manufacturers are criticizing the Delhi government for not giving them enough time to clear out existing stock and make alternative arrangements for labor.

“I have 5 crore (50 million) rupees' of raw material, 200 employees and paid 20 crore (200 million) to government as advance excise duty,” said Pradeep Aggarwal, the secretary of the Smokeless Tobacco Federation, an association of gutka manufacturers. “What do I do now? The ban was introduced with immedia te effect.”

Mr. Aggarwal also said the Gutka industry is a 200 billion rupee business nationwide, giving direct and indirect employment to 50 million people.

Mr. Aggarwal said that for tax purposes gutka is considered a tobacco product and draws higher taxes, but for prohibition purposes it is considered a food product, so state governments can ban it. “This is the contradiction in the law, and we will fight out the ban in the courts,” he said.

Anshu Prakash, the principal health secretary of the Delhi government, said news of the impending ban had been circulating in the media for the past 10 days so manufacturers couldn't claim that they were caught unaware.

The state government will lose some revenue because of the ban on gutka, but “for us, the health consideration is supreme,” said Mr. Prakash. “So many children and new users are consuming it without even realizing that you are consuming tobacco and becoming an addict.”

Malavi ka Vyawahare contributed to this post.

Released From Jail, Cartoonist Vows to Fight Sedition Law

September 12, 2012, 10:24 am

By HARI KUMAR

The cartoonist Aseem Trivedi was released from jail Wednesday, following the Mumbai High Court's orders.

The Maharashtra government, which charged the cartoonist with sedition, disrespect of a national emblem and violation of India's information technology act, is considering dropping the sedition charge, officials said Wednesday.

Mr. Trivedi, who has long black hair, a beard and thick glasses, was received by jubilant supporters at the gate of Arthur Road prison, where he was held.

He said he plans to demand the repeal of the sedition provision from the law.

Last year, Mr. Trivedi made cartoons replacing the three lions in India's national symbol with wolves and posted them on his own Web site. Protesters carried those cartoons on placards during a hunger fast by the anticorruption crusader Anna Hazare last year in Mumbai.

A local lawyer filed a police complaint against Mr. Trivedi after the march, but Mr. Trivedi remained at large until last week, when he surrendered to Mumbai police. When presented to the court, he refused to put up bail and was sent to judicial custody. His arrest has drawn widespread criticism of the government from in and outside the country.

Reporters Without Borders, an international advocacy group for freedom of information, said in a statement Tuesday that the group “strongly deplores” his arrest. “The prosecution and detention of the cartoonist are a gross violation of freedom of expression and information by the Indian authorities,” the group said.

Mr. Trivedi told journalists after his release: “It was not my individual fight. It was the fight of every Indian.” The law barring sedition, section 124(a) of India's Penal Code, should be removed, he said. “Our fight will continue till then.”

Mr. Trivedi said that this law was used against people like Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Bal Gangadhar Tilak. “Were they all traitors?” he asked. “No, they all were freedom fighters.”

His case will be heard in the Mumbai High Court later this month.

Image of the Day: September 12

September 12, 2012, 11:13 am

By THE NEW YORK TIMES