Uttarakhand’s Disaster Cycle

The deluge that swallowed Dharali village in Uttarkashi district of Uttarakhand is not the first disaster to strike the hill state. By now, such disasters have become a yearly routine in Uttarakhand. As soon as monsoon rains arrive, preparations for disaster management commence in Dehradun.

This is no longer about badly conceived road projects taking a toll in geologically unstable regions of the state or an unsuitable developmental model exacting costs. The time to address those issues was much earlier. What is being witnessed now is not a linear extrapolation between, say, a road being constructed in place Y and some geological event in place X. If the Earth and its subsystems are ‘self-organising’, such linearity gives way after a certain threshold to a wholly different, nonlinear, response. It is to be feared that our hill states are now in such a situation. Uttarakhand’s neighbouring state, Himachal Pradesh, is also witnessing something similar and equally disastrous.

Within days of the Dharali disaster, a blame game began. Environmental activists were quick to blame ‘road building’ and a ‘wrong developmental model’ for the mess. They are wrong. Unless hill states get connectivity, chances are that people living there cannot earn decent incomes and secure livelihoods. To think that these states can be hermetically sealed and preserved in their ‘pristine’ condition is wishful thinking.

Failures, if any, are likely to be of a cumulative nature in this case. For starters, during the entire era of planning, the idea of ‘rural-urban’ linkages was never explored systematically. Except for some desultory ideas about ‘pulling’ out people living in rural areas into economically more dynamic urban areas—a process that never really took off—no effort was made to develop the hinterland. The result: as decades went by, the demand for local ‘development’ became too difficult to ignore. Conceding Uttarakhand as a separate state was part and parcel of that process. It is too late now to ‘disallow’ roads and other infrastructure. What can be done now is to equip these states to better withstand climatic events by building up their capacity to deal with such events.

Newsmaker
Heir Fall: Prajwal Revanna

HD Deve Gowda’s grandson is found guilty of raping a domestic worker

PRAJWAL REVANNA, HEIR to a dynastic throne in Karnataka politics, had walked Parliament’s halls as its youngest MP after his election in 2019. Now, he stands convicted of rape by a special court in Bengaluru, the first of four such cases against him. The sentence: life imprisonment.

Grandson of former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda and son of former minister HD Revanna, Prajwal had long been cloaked in power. In 2019, he won Hassan on a Janata Dal (Secular) ticket, but behind the electoral sheen lay predatory entitlement. In April 2024, thousands of explicit videos—some reportedly recorded without consent—surfaced online, triggering national outrage and a manhunt. By the time the Karnataka Special Investigation Team moved in, he had fled the country. He returned only after weeks of diplomatic pressure, his passport flagged and a Red Corner Notice against him.

The case that brought him down involved a 47-year-old domestic worker employed at his farmhouse. The court found Revanna guilty not only of rape but of criminal intimidation, destruction of evidence, and sexual harassment. The judgment leaned heavily on the principle of res gestae, where spontaneous, contemporaneous reactions are treated as credible evidence. The court also cited forensic reports: voice analysis, DNA traces, and video superimposition techniques that placed him unmistakably in the frame.

In a country where cases against the powerful often dissolve into delay and doubt, this judgment marks a departure. Delivered just over a year after the complaint was filed, the conviction of a sitting MP—armed with dynastic credentials, legal firepower, and institutional reach—sends a rare unambiguous message. (By V Shoba)

Noisemaker
Dance Barred: Raj Thackeray

On the night of August 2, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray gave a speech where he railed against dance bars and soon after, in a place called Panvel in the outskirts of Mumbai, a bunch of his party workers got together, turned into a mob, and headed to an outlet called Night Riders and vandalised it.

Thackeray and his party have been known to target migrants from the Hindi belt, taxi and auto drivers, Muslims and lately, those who would not speak Marathi. All this comes under the umbrella of a Maharashtra—and Maharashtrians—first ideology. A dance bar was an unusual new entry to the list but their very presence in Raigad, the capital of Chhatrapati Shivaji, according to his speech, was an offence to Maharashtra’s dignity. Many, he said, were owned by non-Marathi speaking people. That became the cue for MNS workers to go on the rampage.

Ideas
Appeasement

For more than a week now, the civic administration in Mumbai has been besieged with protests over the shutting down of kabutarkhanas, or feeding spots for pigeons. Members of the small but influential Jain community, who are known to feed pigeons as part of practising their faith, have taken to the streets, with one monk even announcing a fast-unto-death unless the order of closing down kabutarkhanas is revoked. The anger tipped over recently, when a large group clashed with policemen, broke through barricades and ripped open the tarpaulin sheets covering the spot, some even tossing grains into the feeding area.

The link between large uncontrolled pigeon populations and respiratory ailments in humans is well known, not to mention the harm they cause to buildings. Cities across the world have instituted bans on feeding pigeons. The municipal body in Mumbai has been trying to do this too for a number of years, but failed. Such a ban seemed to finally be coming into place when the government made a renewed push to close down these kabutarkhanas, and the Bombay High Court directed the city’s municipal body to lodge FIRs against those who defy the ban.

These efforts however seem to be coming to naught now, with members of the same government, right at the top, making statements about finding a solution. Just a day before the clash, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis made a statement saying the sudden closure of kabutarkhanas was not appropriate, and that “controlled feeding” should be allowed. The turnaround is of course meant as a form of appeasement.

Money Mantra
Rupee To The Rescue?
Tariff is not a broad brush across exporting sectors

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP’S August 6, 2025 executive order imposing an additional 25 percentage point tariff on most Indian exports—bringing the total tariff to 50 per cent—has significantly escalated trade tensions between the US and India.

The new tariffs take effect on August 27, with a brief grace period until September 17 for goods already in transit. While India has criticised the move as unfair and discriminatory, it has refrained from immediate retaliation.

For market investors, this development introduces a fresh layer of uncertainty, particularly in sectors that are heavily export-dependent. However, equity investors should avoid panicking. Historically, the Indian rupee has acted as a shock absorber in similar episodes. During previous tariff disputes, such as the 2018 metals levy or the 2019 GSP withdrawal, the rupee typically adjusted within the first quarter to absorb 25-40 per cent of the tariff pressure.

Of course, not all sectors are equally vulnerable. Investors would do well to tilt towards domestically-focused growth themes like banking and insurance, telecom, power utilities, and urban infrastructure services.

These sectors are largely insulated from external shocks, as their revenues, costs, and customer bases are overwhelmingly domestic and rupee-denominated. Historically, their earnings correlation with trade-related volatility has been negligible, making them strong defensive bets in turbulent times.

At the same time, the current dislocation offers an opportunity to revisit the broader “China Plus One” theme. Despite US tariffs, India’s cost advantage over manufacturing hubs like Mexico and Eastern Europe remains intact. Unit labour costs are still 20-30 per cent lower.

Investors should therefore see the current weakness as a buying window for Indian export-oriented mid-cap companies that have diversified order books, particularly in sectors like specialty chemicals, industrial castings, and bicycle components. These segments often have strong footholds in Europe and Southeast Asia, where trade conditions remain stable. (By Ramesh Singh)

Viral
Prayagraj’s Swimming Policeman

The heavy rainfall that battered some parts of Uttar Pradesh leading to severe waterlogging and floods may have despaired and outraged many residents. But it didn’t seem to have any such impact on Chandradeep Nishad, a police sub-inspector in Prayagraj. Nishad, who is said to have once been a national-level competitive swimmer, turned the flooded streets into something of a stage, as he dived from the first-floor window of his house into the water below, and swam through flooded streets. In some other videos, he stood in waist-deep water in his living room, offering prayers to the river Ganga. It might have been protest masked in humour, or just a lighthearted take on the situation, but his cheerful demeanour quickly made him a viral sensation.

Dharalidisasterflash floodIndian stock marketinvestmentPrajwal RevannaRaj Thackerayrescue operationUttarakhand