SINGAPORE, WEEKEND OF FRIDAY,
MAY 19, 2
0
2
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LONDON SHOW
EXPLORES SARI’S
REINVENTION
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‘REAL KERALA
STORY’ SMASHES
RECORD
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MCI (P) 079/10/2022
INDIA’S
SECULARISM IS
HERE TO STAY
PAGE 5
REPORT ON PAGE 7
Mother’s Day Special
Mother makes sacrifices
to raise four children
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Madam Isotha Lakshamana Pillai (second from left) with her children Vinitha, Lalitha Devi, Tamilvanan and Pravin Raj.
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One dead, eight injured in clashes
over online post about The Kerala
Story
More than 100 people have been
arrested in the Maharashtra after one
person died and eight others were
injured in communal clashes.
Reports said the violence, which
took place in Akola city over the
weekend, was triggered by a social
media post on the controversial film
The Kerala Story.
Authorities cut Internet services
and imposed a curfew to bring the
situation under control.
12 dead from drinking toxic liquor
At least 12 people were killed and
several others taken ill after
consuming toxic liquor in Tamil Nadu
on Sunday, officials said.
The deaths were reported from
Villupuram and Chengalpattu districts.
“In Villupuram, the death toll has
reached eight, while in Chengalpattu,
four deaths have been reported,” an
official said. More than 30 people are
undergoing treatment at different
hospitals.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK
Stalin said Crime Branch CID will
investigate the incidents.
Apple supplier Foxconn to invest
US$500 million in Telangana
Apple supplier Foxconn will invest
US$500 million ($672 million) to set
up manufacturing plants in Telangana,
the state’s IT minister said on Monday.
The investment will create 25,000
jobs in the first phase, Mr K.T. Rama
Rao tweeted.
New video shows cricketers
beating policemen with slippers
Three days after two policemen were
suspended for allegedly beating two
state-level cricket players in Meerut,
Uttar Pradesh, a video went viral on
Wednesday, showing the cricketers
beating the cops with slippers.
Circle officer of Civil Lines area
Arvind Chaurasia said that a new
report had been sent to senior
officials, based on the new video. “Let
the officials examine the new evidence
and decide,” he said.
Cricketers Prashant Choudhary and
Vineet Panwar reportedly had an
altercation with Senior Sub-Inspector
Varun Sharma and Sub-Inspector
Jitendra on Sunday over the wrong
parking of a police vehicle. The
altercation turned into physical assault
and later, on the complaint of the
players, both cops were suspended.
40 monkeys found dead in Uttar
Pradesh
At least 40 monkeys were found dead
in Uttar Pradesh on Monday in the
Garhmukteshwar forest area in Hapur
district.
Forest department officials
suspected the monkeys could have
been poisoned.
“Our teams found several
watermelons and jaggery cubes at the
spot,” one of them said.
“Primarily, we suspect the monkeys
could have been poisoned.”
The police have registered a case
and some of the carcasses have been
sent to the Indian Veterinary Research
Institute in Bareilly for autopsy.
Indian-born patriarch of Britain’s
richest family dies at 87
Mr Srichand Hinduja, the Indian-born
billionaire leader of a global business
empire and the patriarch of Britain’s
wealthiest family, has died aged 87,
his daughters said on Wednesday.
Mr Hinduja, known by his initials
S.P., was suffering from dementia and
his family said he “passed away
peacefully this morning”.
He was chairman of the
eponymous business group which
owns public companies in India with
interests in banking, chemicals,
software and commercial vehicles.
Mr Hinduja and his younger
brother Gopichand, 83, topped The
Sunday Times Rich List in 2022 for a
fourth time, with an estimated net
worth of £28.5 billion ($48 billion)
that includes property worth millions
in central London.
Slowest inflation in 18 months
boosts rate hold calls
Consumer prices in India continued to
slide in April, giving the central bank
room to keep rates on hold after an
aggressive tightening campaign
dampened demand and muddled the
wider outlook for the economy.
Inflation rose 4.70 per cent last
month from a year earlier, the slowest
pace since October 2021, according to
data released by the Statistics Ministry
on Friday. The median estimate in a
Bloomberg survey of economists was
for a 4.76 per cent gain.
A third straight month of cooling
prices brings the marker closer to the
mid-point of the Reserve Bank of
India’s 2 per cent to 6 per cent target.
Monsoon rains to hit Kerala on
June 4
India’s monsoon rains, the lifeblood of
the country’s US$3 trillion economy,
are likely to be delayed this year and
hit the Kerala coast on June 4, the
state-run weather office said on
Tuesday.
The monsoon delivers nearly 70
per cent of the rain that India needs to
water farms and recharge reservoirs
and aquifers.
Nearly half of India’s farmland,
without any irrigation cover, depends
on annual June-September rains to
grow a number of crops.
Rains usually lash Kerala around
June 1 and cover the whole country
by mid-July. The emergence of the El
Nino weather pattern has raised
concerns over monsoon rainfall this
year.
Pilots seek government’s help to
quit Go First
Pilots at Go First face delays in getting
paid due to the airline’s bankruptcy
process and want the government to
allow them to take up new jobs
without serving long notice periods, a
group representing the pilots said in a
letter, reported Reuters.
In the letter dated May 15, the
Federation of Indian Pilots asks the
aviation ministry to intervene, saying
Go First is not issuing the necessary
documents to pilots wanting to resign.
Go First was granted bankruptcy
protection last week, but many pilots
have been looking for new jobs in
light of the crisis and in early May
flocked to a hotel for walk-in
interviews organised by rival Air
India.
Amazon’s cloud unit to invest
$17b in India by 2030
Amazon Web Services (AWS), the
cloud computing division of
Amazon.com, said on Thursday that it
plans to invest Rs1.06 trillion ($17
billion) in India by 2030.
That will be doubling down on its
past investments to cater to an
ever-growing demand.
The latest investment will be used
to build its cloud infrastructure in
India and it will support over 100,000
full-time jobs annually, AWS said.
Dust storm sends New Delhi
pollution to triple hazardous level
A dust storm swept through New
Delhi on Tuesday, sending air
pollution to hazardous levels and
reducing visibility in the Indian
capital.
Delhi topped the global ranking of
most polluted cities with an air quality
index of 973 as of 11.30am local time,
according to website IQAir, far above
the “hazardous” threshold of 300.
Newly-appointed United
States Ambassador to
India Eric Garcetti on
Monday visited the
Sabarmati Ashram in
Gujarat and spun the
charkha.
Mahatma Gandhi used
the cotton spinning wheel
as a symbol in his struggle
for India’s independence
and economic
self-sufficiency.
Mr Garcetti also visited
Ahmedabad and watched
a T20 cricket match at the
Narendra Modi Stadium.
He toured Mumbai on
Wednesday and met
India’s richest man
Mukesh Ambani and
Bollywood star Shah
Rukh Khan, with whom
he discussed Hindi
cinema and its global
impact.
New US ambassador tours Gujarat, Mumbai
An SPH Media Limited publication
Editor-in-Chief
(English/Malay/Tamil Media group)
Wong Wei Kong
Editor
Jawharilal Rajendran
Contributing Editor
V.K. Santosh Kumar
Cluster Head
(International & Transactional Sales)
Martin Boey
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May19,2023
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INDIA
Design
Museum’s
Priya
Khanchan-
dani looking
at the
Sabyasachi
sari worn by
socialite
Natasha
Poonawalla
at the 2022
Met Gala.
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The sari is being reinvented for the
modern age in an Indian “fashion
revolution”, with around 60 pieces
slated to go on display at a new
exhibition in London.
Over the past decade, according to
curator Priya Khanchandani, the sari
has seen the most rapid transformation
in its 5,000-year history.
From sari styles worn by young
women going to work in Delhi and
Mumbai to the spectacular creation
that was the first sari to grace New
York’s famous Met Gala, the London
showcase spotlights the garment’s 21st
century revival.
Ms Khanchandani said she first
became aware of a renaissance in 2015
when she met some of the designers in
Delhi who were transforming the sari,
traditionally a single long piece of
unstitched fabric draped over the body.
“I saw the sari being revived as an
everyday garment in a way that was
very fashionable. They were being the
younger women,” she said ahead of
The Offbeat Sari, which opens at
Design Museum in London today.
“They were intellectual women,
writers and artists... wearing the sari in
ways I did not expect.”
Having previously viewed saris as a
garment to be worn for special events
or weddings, Ms Khanchandani no-
ticed them being reinvented as every-
day clothing, even teamed with T-shirts
and sneakers.
The birth of mass consumerism and
social media in India, combined with
the growth of the country’s urban
middle class, has accelerated the sari’s
revamp, she said.
“The influence of digital media,
which has a really significant reach in
India, particularly among young peo-
ple, allowed trends to spread and I
think allowed the way that saris were
being worn to become a grassroots
movement,” she added.
Hashtags that have trended include
#sarilove, #sarifashion, #designsarees
and #sareeindia.
Despite the sari’s long history, it
was not until last year that a sari was
seen at the celebrated annual Met Gala
event in New York.
Worn by Indian businesswoman and
socialite Natasha Poonawalla, the show-
stopping ensemble featured a flowing
gold sari by Sabyasachi with a gold
Schiaparelli bustier.
In addition to extravagant couture
saris, designers in India have also been
pushing boundaries.
The Raj Kilt by Little Shilpa is
described as “half-kilt, half-sari” and
reflects the cross-cultural experiences
of Indian designer Shilpa Chavan who
studied in Britain.
Some of the most eye-catching and
innovative exhibits include a sari
adorned with sequins cut from old
X-ray images from hospital waste and
another in distressed denim.
But, while the sari’s potential for
extravagance and creativity is on full
display in the exhibition’s selections,
there are also examples of how it is
being pressed into use to express ideas
of identity and resistance.
Hundreds of thousands of members
of the so-called Gulabi Gang, a group
set up to fight domestic violence,
including sexual abuse and child mar-
riage in rural India, have adopted
bright pink saris along with bamboo
sticks as the symbol of their move-
ment.
Also included in the show is a
purple silk sari embroidered with se-
quins and crystals by the brand Papa
Don’t Preach.
After the label posted a photo of
the sari being worn by the author and
comedian ALOK, who founded the
#DeGenderFashion movement, it de-
cided to remove the “womenswear”
wording from their messaging.
AFP
New York City cab driver Sukhcharn
Singh (right) drove Prince Harry and
his wife Meghan Markle (far right) for
about 10 minutes soon after the couple
were chased by paparazzi on Tuesday.
The couple were clearly nervous
during the short journey, the Indian-ori-
gin driver told BBC.
Ms Meghan and Prince Harry were
involved in a “near catastrophic car
chase at the hands of a ring of highly
aggressive paparazzi”, a spokesman for
the couple said in a statement to the
media.
“This relentless pursuit, lasting over
two hours, resulted in multiple near
collisions involving other drivers on
the road, pedestrians and two NYPD
officers.”
Mr Singh said he picked up the
couple and Meghan’s mother Doria
Raglan at a local police precinct in
Midtown Manhattan and was witness
to only some part of the drama.
Not calling his drive a dangerous
chase by photographers, he said: “I
was on 67th Street and then the
security guard hailed me. Next thing
you know, Prince Harry and his wife
were hopping into my cab.”
“We got blocked by a garbage
truck, and all of a sudden paparazzi
came and started taking pictures.
“They looked nervous, I think they
were being chased the whole day or
something. They were pretty nervous,
but the security guard, he was on it.”
The couple’s spokesman said they
endured a “relentless pursuit” that
lasted for more than two hours.
The couple were pursued by photog-
raphers after attending the Ms Founda-
tion Women of Vision Awards.
During the few minutes they were
in Mr Singh’s car, he did not believe
they were in danger.
“I don’t think that’s true, I think
that’s all exaggerated and stuff like
that. Don’t read too much into that,’
he said. “New York City’s the safest
place to be. There’re police stations,
cops on every corner, there’s no reason
to be afraid in New York.”
The paparazzi were not being ag-
gressive during his drive, he asserted,
saying: “They were behind us. I mean,
they stayed on top of us, that was
pretty much it, it was nothing more.
They kept their distance.”
Indo-Asian News Service
Reinventing the sari, the whole nine yards
Indian cabbie gave Harry, Meghan ride in paparazzi ‘chase’
NEWS
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