DailyOh! Jaya, Karishma aur Deepika: What powder they want, to why farmers get MSP
Rhea Chakraborty and brother Showik to remain in judicial custody till October 6.
What connects Hema, Rekha, Jaya aur Sushma? Washing powder Nirma.
What connects Jaya, Karishma aur Deepika? Various kinds of powders, collectively classified as 'maal'.
A lot of people have a thing for maal but what is it that Jaya, Karishma aur Deepika have in common? Dump data from their phones shows they could be headed for the dumps together.
Jaya Saha works with Karishma Prakash, who is the talent manager of Deepika Padukone. Jaya was once upon a time (in Mumbai) the talent manager of Sushant Singh Rajput. She is the same person with whom Sushant’s girlfriend Rhea Chakbraborty chatted about CBD oil, a substance that is very much legal in India. The kind that is available, that is. The pure CBD oil made from cannabis is illegal though. Here, let this video clear the oil, err, air.
Dump data from Karishma’s phone has purportedly revealed that she was supplying maal to Deepika because Deepika was asking for it: hash na, not weed.
NCB may call in Deepika for questioning. NCB may also call in Sara Ali Khan, Shraddha Kapoor and Rakul Preet Singh to answer questions because Rhea and boatman Jagdish Das have allegedly named the actresses among the people who consumed drugs with Sushant. Rhea and her brother Showik, who the NCB has questioned and arrested, meanwhile moved Bombay High Court for bail. They got a hearing date for tomorrow. NCB got extension of Rhea’s jail term till October 6. The siblings have been in jail for about a fortnight now, along with a host of alleged peddlers.
But 8 MPs who protested at Parliament House last night have decided to spend tonight and the nights henceforth at home by calling off their sit-in and sleepover protest. The suspended MPs - Derek O'Brien, Sanjay Singh, Raju Satav, KK Ragesh, Ripun Bora, Dola Sen, Syed Nazir Hussain and Elamaran Karim – slept on the Parliament lawns.
Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman Harivansh Singh reached today morning to offer them bed tea even if he could get them no beds for the night. There were also snacks on the side. PM Narendra Modi hailed Singh’s ‘chai generosity’ saying Bihar had centuries ago taught the world about democracy and today a representative from Bihar has done the same, referring to Harivansh’s Bihar origin, but not referring to his electoral motives in mentioning Bihar.
AAP MP Sanjay Singh quickly reminded that they are not fighting for chai but charcha over Farm Bills. The MPs were suspended after creating ruckus over their demand that the Farm Bills be discussed by a select committee of Parliament. No charcha, no chai. Not at least in a cuppa coming from the government.
We don’t know how Modi felt about it, but Harivansh has gone on a one-day fast because he is hurt over the manner in which the MPs behaved – not turning down chai, but in the House. Nationalist Congress Party patriarch Sharad Pawar is also on fast today, not in solidarity with Harivansh, but with the 8 MPs who refused chai.
What is a morning without chai? For many, exactly like a morning without coffee. For still others, it could mean a morning without maal, but let’s not go there. Let’s go to China from where chai came to India. Chai or tea was popularised largely in the British colonial era when large plantations were established.
Chai, the Word Of The Day, finds its origin in Mandarin cha. In English, you know, chai is tea. Even tea has its origins in Mandarin. The words that sound like ‘cha’ spread across land, along the Silk Road. The tea-like words spread over water, by Dutch traders who brought the leaves to Europe.
So what Starbucks calls as Chai Tea is nothing but chai chai or tea tea or just chai/tea.
As Sanjay Singh said, that isn’t the issue. The issue is the farmer, who the Farm Bills are most likely to hit. September 24 and 25 may see some major protests as farmers in Punjab and Haryana, also the opposition parties, are gearing up to make a bid to push the government to take back the legislations.
In a bid to mollify the farmers, the government has increased minimum support price (MSP) on crops – by Rs 50 per quintal for wheat, Rs 300 per quintal for lentil, Rs 225 per quintal for lentil, gram and rapeseed and so on.
Why does the government offer farmers a minimum support price for crops? To ensure that farmers grow crops. Farmers wouldn’t grow crops if they can’t earn on them. If they don’t grow, we will be back to the 1960s when food shortage was so bad that government campaigns asked people to ‘miss a meal’.
In 1959, a US team warned India that a serious food crisis awaited it because the crop growth rate was far slower than population growth. The Indian government did not take the report as seriously as people take their meals. The first signs of a severe shortage appeared in 1965. The same year, then Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shashtri raised the slogan, “Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan” at Delhi’s Ramlila Maidan. In 1966, India requested the US for help and grains were imported.
We were importing and reforming at the same time. Farmers were given price support as an assurance that what they grow will be bought and won’t be left to rot. MSPs are raised from time to time because cost of production rises. MSPs are also raised when elections are near or the government has to hurriedly appear pro-farmer.
The new MSP will be effective in the Rabi season. But come November 1 and the new academic season will take off. For all admission cancellations, a full refund on fees has been ordered for this season as a special case. Institutes have been asked to teach six days a week to make up for the time lost. Vacations will also be cut short to add to hours of learning. What about the hours spent learning what the coronavirus was teaching us? We learnt because scientists were studying. Credit the scientists and get back to classes.
But scientists never got out of labs. A new scientific study says prior exposure to dengue could provide some immunity against Covid-19. The study has not been published yet but the findings have been shared with Reuters. It compared the geographic distribution of coronavirus cases with the spread of dengue in 2019 and 2020 and found that places with lower coronavirus infection rates and slower case growth were locations that had suffered intense dengue outbreaks in 2019-2020. Does the virus not like mosquito-bitten bodies? Don’t try to get yourself bitten now because remember the study hasn’t even been published. It can always be retracted or debunked.
But Huma Qureshi’s response is final because there will be no more responses or statements from her on the issue of filmmaker Anurag Kashyap. What is the final response? “In my personal experience and to my knowledge he has neither misbehaved with me or anyone else.”
Huma is angry “at being dragged into this mess.” What’s the mess? The allegation made by actor Payal Ghosh saying that Kashyap told her that many actors, including Huma, were at his beck and call.
Some response over the Farm Bills stir could come from Congress president Sonia Gandhi since she is back in India after her medical check-up in the US. Son Rahul Gandhi who went with her has also come back with her.
Both are likely to remain quarantined for the next few days and not be seen in Parliament for what remains of the cut-short Monsoon Session.
But if you think Bollywood is all drugs and no work, stop thinking. Even to pay for drugs, you need to work.
We leave you with that for today.
Be back tomorrow.
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