An expiry date movie

An appealingly appalling teenhorror thriller, Happy Death Day chucks Groundhog Day into a microwave with the first Scream movie, and turns all the controls way up to the max.

Cleverly, the filmmakers know we’re all gonna keep watching to see what happens, even if it is against our better judgment.

Surprisingly, Happy Death Day never quite self-combusts, or even melts down into a glob of gory goo (though it does emit some whiffy fumes at times).

No, this is actually a tight, well-packaged effort: capable of raising tension levels into the dread zone when needs be, and just as capable of cracking a gag or three about how ridiculous the whole exercise is becoming.

Little-known Jessica Rothe stars as Tree, a self-obsessed college student trapped in a terminal time loop, for reasons that will never be sufficiently explained.

Not that it matters one iota. Happy Death Day is not here to re-prove Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. It is here to pick you up and take you on a pulpy, gulpy thrill ride.

A typical day for Tree runs something like this. Each morning at 9am, she wakes up in someone else’s room across campus.

She gets dressed. Does the traditional walk of shame back to her sorority house, where her roommate will remind her that today is her birthday.

Then it’s off to a day of classes, interspersed with a steamy hook-up with a married professor, a fractious meeting with her sorority sisters, and preparations for a party later in the evening.

By midnight, Tree will have died a terrible death at the hands of a masked killer. Then her alarm goes off, and the whole surreal ordeal starts over.

To stop finishing the day on such a bum note, this determined young woman must sift for clues about her assassin’s identity every time she is about to die.

Poor old Tree gets lopped over 20 times during the movie, so the investigation could take a while.

Though this movie is as disposable and dumb as such fare can be, it delivers its unrefined batch of goods in full, thanks to two key factors.

Firstly, the Groundhog Day repetition thing never gets old. Done right, like it is here, it forces the plotting to drop a lot of excess baggage.

Secondly, the casting of Rothe in the lead role of Tree is a masterstroke. For someone whose acting CV is mostly C-list TV, she is a real find. Someone who can repeatedly switch between confident, annoying, amusing and vulnerable — so quickly and so precisely — has real skills.

At its best, Happy Death Day is big, trashy fun, best seen with small expectations. At its worst, it’s just trash ... but it’s still fun!

Gai talks up English to conquer Everest

Gai Waterhouse thinks English will win Saturday’s The Everest and declared barrier 12 “couldn’t be better” for her runner in the $10 million race.

Renowned for being confident, Waterhouse was her usual self yesterday when she told a media pack at her Randwick stables why English was the horse to beat in the inaugural running of The Everest.

“I think she will win and I will tell you why I think she will win,” Waterhouse said.

“She is feisty, she is tough and she has rolled up her sleeves for the day and we’ve got her ready.”

English drew the outside barrier in the 12-horse field on

Gai Waterhouse on English

Tuesday but Waterhouse feels the wide draw is an advantage.

“Barrier 12 couldn’t be better. I’m telling you because she will be out there and she will be able to make her own luck and that’s what you want in these races, because there will be a stack of speed inside her,” she said.

English is rated a $12 chance behind $4.80 favourite Vega Magic but Waterhouse feels she is peaking at the right time.

English scored a slashing second in the Group 2 Premiere Stakes (1200m) a fortnight ago and Waterhouse said she has continued to thrive since.

“She has come right at the right time and she has put on the body weight you want going into a major event,” Waterhouse said.

“You see her skin the way it gleams and the muscle tone on her and she would knock you over.”

Co-trainer Adrian Bott shares the same enthusiasm and feels English is primed to run a big race at Randwick.

“She is exactly where she needs to be and we have been confident in her preparation all the way through and we are really looking forward to Saturday,” Bott said.

The Everest concept has taken Sydney racing by storm to put the Harbour City in the forefront of Australian spring racing.

Melbourne has dominated spring for many years but Everest Day is now on the cusp of overshadowing Caulfield Guineas Day in Melbourne on Saturday.

Waterhouse is a big supporter of the Everest concept and insists it will grow.

“It is quite unbelievable,” she said. “It started in America and (Racing NSW chief ) Peter V’landys grabbed hold of the concept and has made it work.”

“She is feisty, she is tough and she has rolled up her sleeves for the day and we’ve got her ready.”

No fireworks for consumer durables-makers

Diwali sales to be hit due to liquidity crunch; high base effect of pre-GST buying to kick in

Consumer durable players are heading for a lacklustre Diwali as festival sales have been impacted by liquidity crunch and pre-buying in June ahead of the implementation of GST. Subdued market sentiments are leading to the piling up of inventory with retailers, despite a price cut of up to 50 per cent for certain categories.

Croma, India’s first largeformat retail chain for consumer electronics and durables, is anticipating a decline in sales growth compared to last year, going by the numbers it has clocked so far. “Festival sales will be softer and definitely lower this year. There is going to be 9-10 growth compared to 20 per cent added sales last year,” Ritesh Ghoshal, Chief of Marketing, Infiniti Retail, which owns Croma stores, told BusinessLine.

The primary reason behind this is the purchases made by customers when companies were giving massive discounts to clear stocks ahead of the GST rollout on July 1. “Consumers bought products feverishly during the pre-GST period this year, and we, too, enjoyed our extensive sales that time,” he added.

High inventory

Higher-ticket products – premium LED TVs of 43 inch and above and refrigerators – have been more affected. “Inventory with retailers was back to preGST levels across most categories in August. However, weak secondary sales in August-September, have led to high inventory and resultant cut in new purchases from manufacturers,” Gautam Duggad, Head of Research, Motilal Oswal Securities, said. He also cited liquidity crunch due to GST as another reason for the slow off take of The retailer Croma is likely to witness a decline in sales compared to last year

consumer durables. So the companies are rolling out freebies, discounts and price-cuts to expand their customer base. Both Daikin and Voltas have cut inverter AC prices, with their 1.5tonne three-star inverter ACs being priced in line with LG at

₹38,000. Voltas is also running an exchange offer on inverter ACs where customers get a whopping ₹15,000 discount in exchange for their old units.

Nilesh Gupta, Managing Partner, Vijay Sales, said: “MNCs are already dropping prices by 7-10

per cent for their expensive LED TV sets and Indian companies may also follow suit to compete with them. Besides there are more zero down payment schemes being floated this year compared to last year,” he said. Vijay Sales, too, is expecting at least 10 per cent growth in sales compared to last year.

MNCs under pressure

MNCs are also feeling the heat because of the target set by their headquarters. “There is pressure to sell this Diwali and we have increased our promotions significantly compared to the last year. Now we are willing to give away smaller refrigerators with our side-by-side refrigerators, and even additional six-month warranties in the room air-conditioners segment since our dealers have similar expectations in sales like the pre-GST period,” said Vijay Babu, Business Head, Air Conditioners, LG India.

Manufacturers, as well as retailers, are now pinning hopes on Dhanteras next week to clock sales. K J Jawa, Daikin India MD and CEO, said that with the Dusshera weekend being a long one, customers avoided markets and purchases. “But the sales are back on track and the forthcoming weekend before the Dhanteras celebrations will be a big one for us,” he said.

HC lifts stay on OCs to Ghodbunder Rd bldgs

Mumbai: The Bombay high court on Wednesday lifted its stay on grant of occupation and commencement certificates to new constructions and building projects on Ghodbunder Road in Thane and Baner and Balewadi in Pune.

The direction by a bench of Chief Justice Manjula Chellur and Justice Nitin Jamdar came on a PIL regarding nonsupply of water to high-rises having OCs and shortage of water for existing buildings as it is diverted for construction purposes, forcing residents to purchase water from tankers.

On May 5, the court had directed the Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) not to iss- ue OCs and CCs to projects on Ghodbunder Road. A similar order was passed for the Pune Municipal Corporation areas of Baner and Balewadi.

But the HC on Wednesday noted that thereafter, except for the petitioners, no individual flat-owner or housing society had come up with complaints. “If there is any violation, we can take action. I’m waiting for the last six months. Water is something you cannot stay without,” the CJ said. TMC’s advocate said it was not diverting water for construction, while the PMC’s counsel said it had written letters to housing societies asking their representatives to attend meetings but nobody had turned up.

Traders ‘gift’, sell crackers online to get rid of stock

New Delhi: With the Supreme Court banning the sale of firecrackers in Delhi-NCR, vendors have devised innovative ways to get rid of their stock. Some have adopted the ruse of “gifting” or accepting payment in kind.

Those selling firecrackers online have come up with package plans of Rs 3,000, Rs 5,000 and Rs 10,000 with doorstep delivery. Some of the online stores are asking customers to place orders on WhatsApp and pay an advance of 50% and expect the crackers to be dropped at their house a day before Diwali. Sellers are pinning hopes on a petition that will come up before the Supreme Court on Thursday.

At the Sadar Bazar market, sellers who sold firecrackers have placed Chinese lights and earthen lamps on their counters. When asked about firecrackers, they first denied selling any. But some of them agreed to “give away” some of the stock in return for online payment. Delhi police had issued 400 licences, which were cancelled after a notification on Wednesday. hor and Corporal Nilesh Kumar were part of the first batch of Garud commandos attached to the Army for counter-terrorism training after the attack on the Pathankot airbase last year.

Finally, working on an industrial policy

The Industrial Policy Discussion Paper could have taken a more holistic view on FDI, technology development and trade

Indian policymakers have finally acknowledged the global revival of discussions on industrial policy, centred around the need to go back to such an approach. Grossly misunderstood and maligned, industrial policy has been anathema to market-led growth strategies. This has shown signs of changing after it became known that neo-liberal champions, including the US, have adopted active industrial policies to support their domestic manufacturing sectors directly or indirectly, especially since the 2008 global financial crisis.

But despite the initial excitement it elicits, the Industrial Policy Discussion Paper (DP) recently put out by the department of industrial policy and promotion for comments disappoints. Given that the Indian economy is at an inflection point as it rightly identifies, it should have proposed a comprehensive framework that addresses the inter-related issues impacting industrial performance. This should have necessarily involved an objective stocktaking of ongoing government schemes and benchmarking them against earlier policy recommendations, including those in the 2011 National Manufacturing

Policy.

Piecemeal approach

While the stated objective of the new policy is to provide “an overarching umbrella policy framework”, the document considers FDI, exports, domestic value addition, technology development, employment, etc, in a piecemeal manner. A crucial part of the diagnosis of the current state of Indian industry would be an explicit recognition that trade and investment policies are integrally linked with industrial policy. While the focus in the DP is on increasing “global strategic linkages” and there is a noteworthy call for undertaking an FDI policy review, there is no mention of the ongoing industrial slowdown and growing import dependence of Indian industry after 25 years of liberalisation of trade and FDI policies.

Arguably, the huge increase in import dependence and the low level of FDI into the manufacturing sector can both be linked to the market failures associated with non-strategic trade and investment liberalisation, which have negated both domestic and foreign producers’ incentives to undertake production locally. Apart from liberalising FDI entry non-strategically into almost all sectors, Indian policymakers have also liberalised other FDI-related regulations (technology collaboration, performance requirements, etc.) over and above what is required under the WTO’s Trade Related Investment Measures agreement. The failure to reframe policies ingeniously to ensure that FDI inflows served to improve the manufacturing and technological capabilities of the country needs to be urgently corrected.

Another central problem has been that trade liberalisation in most sectors has also not been aligned with development needs. This has been exacerbated by signing free trade agreements (FTAs) on the basis of an argument that participation in FTAs will enable Indian firms to become part of global value chains (GVCs) and improve their export capabilities. This has been especially reflected in the kind of tariff liberalisation that India undertook in its FTAs with Asean, Japan and South Korea, whereby the country has reduced or eliminated tariffs across the board. In the absence of active industrial policies to upgrade the domestic manufacturing and technological base, such tariff liberalisation has led to these partners achieving greater market penetration in India than what India could achieve in their markets. In light of such evidence, the DP should have recommen- ded that more FTAs should not be signed before evaluating the existing agreements.

Critical interface

The interface between the extent of trade liberalisation carried out by India and her ability to obtain developmental benefits from FDI is critical. Neither technology transfer nor domestic value addition by a foreign investor occurs voluntarily unless there is some advantage in it. Once tariffs are already very low, a country loses a major trump card — access to the large domestic market — which has been used by China effectively in some strategic sectors, including electronics and telecommunications. In such a scenario, it is not labour market conditions but technological strength and its continuous upgradation that will help domestic firms attract/utilise FDI sustainably and gainfully. Moreover, there is mounting evidence globally that the very entry and level at which developing country firms integrate into any GVC (which, in turn, determines their scope for moving up the chain) are conditional upon their existing technological capabilities.

All these clearly underline the need to recalibrate not just FDI policy, but equally crucially, trade policy. Simultaneously, the country requires active interventions to build and upgrade domestic entrepreneurial and technological capabilities. It needs to be stressed that following dilution in the role of tariffs as industrial policy, several countries have been using non-tariff measures such as sanitary and phytosanitary measures, technical barriers to trade, environmental/resource protection, etc. The DP has no discussion of these, all of which impact upon industrialisation efforts, particularly in the context of developing green technologies.

It would also have been pertinent for the DP to note that successive governments failed to pursue two major roles that were assigned to the public sector in the 1991 Industrial Policy, namely: (a) technology development and building of management capabilities in areas crucial for long-term development of the economy where private sector investment is inadequate; and (b) manufacture of products where strategic considerations predominate. These remain critical and should be re-emphasised in any new vision for industrial development.

Moreover, despite the evidence that the credit needs of MSMEs are unmet by private commercial banking and financial entities, the DP has recommended other market-based financing instruments such as peer-to-peer lending and crowd sourcing. Experiences from other countries including Brazil and China show that long-term financing needs of SMEs can be effectively supported publicly. Purely market-based mechanisms suggested by the DP may play only complementary roles.

It would be timely for a new industrial policy document to dissociate both state support for industrial development and public sector firms from the legacy of the excesses that were part of import-substitution industrialisation and grant them their rightful place in financing long-term investment and technological change. To ensure this, financing mechanisms must be designed in ways that preclude political leverage to avoid rent-seeking behaviour and inefficiency. Moreover, any government support must be time-bound and periodically modified based on performance monitoring. This was one of the factors that distinguished the successful industrial policy regimes of South Korea and Taiwan.

Trade, investment, fiscal and financial sector policies and policies for skill and technology development have to be coordinated within a strategic framework to achieve sustainable industrial development. This requires that along with policies geared towards upgrading firm-level, industry-level and economy-wide productivity, trade and FDI policies do not negate incentives for domestic production. These challenges need to be addressed.

The writer is a Delhi-based economist

How Bachchan stays on top of his game

At 75, Amitabh Bachchan is everywhere. If your roof is leaking, he is your Dr Fix-it. If your head is spinning, he is the masseur with the cool, cool oil. He will mildly admonish the open defecators, and explain why GST is such a great idea. Every weekday he is on KBC, much like a neighbourhood uncle casually dropping by.

If you missed him on TV, you might try Twitter where he has over 30 million followers, more than any of the Khans, averaging a manic 20 tweets a day. Or delve into his current thoughts in his longrunning blog on Tumblr. He’s on the big screen too — plotting politics (Sarkar 3, 2017), telling the world why a woman’s ‘no’ means ‘no’ (Pink, 2016) or just obsessing over his bowel movements (Piku, 2015), often to critical and commercial acclaim.

With advancing age, work schedules ease. It’s biology. But Bachchan seems to be on an anti-aging potion that only the wizards of Hogwarts could have brewed. As social scientist Shiv Visvanathan says, “He has done everything he wanted to do. And he is still doing them. Bachchan is the perennial man.” At the heart of his blockbuster career are a bunch of skills. First, the ability to transcend his own class background in his screen pro- jections. Second, a gift for constantly reinventing himself. Third, his relentless drive, discipline and professionalism. And that too with a liver that functions at only 25%, a sad fallout of contaminated blood that he received after the life-threatening Coolie injury.

Son of a reputed litterateur (Harivansh Rai Bachchan), Amitabh’s family had close ties with the NehruGandhi family. He went to a public school (Sherwood College, Nainital) and worked as an executive in a British firm (Bird and Company) in Calcutta. With his refined background, the actor seemed an unlikely candidate for venting underclass anger. Yet his most remembered performances came in Zanjeer, Deewaar, Trishul, and Kaala Patthar (all scripted by Salim-Javed), playing strong and silent men who locked themselves in and only let out their pentup fury when compelled.

Deewaar’s rebellious dockyard worker who becomes a smuggler epitomised ‘the angry young man’. The rebellion was personal, not social. Yet, at a time when young India was agitating against corruption, price rise and unemployment via the JP movement, the tall, lean and hands-on hero, who believed that the ends justified the means, touched a chord.

Gentler roles, especially in the Hrishikesh Mukherjee ‘family’ movies, endeared him to the gentry. In Amar Akbar Anthony (1977) and Don (1978), he delivered a wider entertainment package, adding comedy and dancing to his repertoire. In Don, Laawaris and Namak Halaal, he injected a dash of regional flavours: Avadhi, Mumbaiya, Haryanvi and Hyderabadi, widening his national appeal.

Bachchan was on top of Everest Bollywood when the Coolie accident happened in 1982. The actor came back strongly with two mega-hits: Coolie (1983) and Sharabi (1984). He dabbled in politics too, becoming a Lok Sabha MP from Allahabad in 1984.

Post-1985, his screen persona seemed to stagnate. The hits kept coming but the scripts felt recycled. Age too seemed to creeping up on that middle-aged face. Bachchan could still carry off a wellwritten movie but no longer salvage a rudderless venture — Gangaa Jamunaa Saraswathi, Mrityudaata and Laal Badshah to name some. His corporate venture, ABCL, al- so flopped. Increasingly, Bachchan appeared to be out of tune with the times.

KBC rescued him. Till then, the big stars shunned the small screen; being on TV was like being downgraded by a credit ratings agency. Amitabh expanded it to 70mm. His style–chatty and empathetic, laced with impeccable Hindi — made him TV’s No. 1primetime host. “Computerji, lock kiya jaaye” became a stock phrase like Sholay’s “arrey o Sambha”. And he is still there in Season 9. Says Siddhartha Basu, CMD of Big Synergy Media which produces KBC, “Seventeen years on, even after 686 episodes of KBC, his appetite for excellence and the slog he puts into each session remains undimmed.”

In the marketplace, Brand Bstands for reliability and durability— a potent combo that makes him the most prolific pedlar of products— from Lloyd to Just Dial to Gujarat Tourism. And that’s despite his name figuring in the Panama papers, though he has denied any wrongdoing.

Kaun Banega Crorepati has probably made him an arabpati. And next year, he will share screen space with Aamir Khan in Thugs of Hindostan. Nearly five decades on —the three Khans were four years old or less when his debut film, Saat Hindustani, was released in 1969 — Bachchan is still on top of his game.

At 75, Amitabh Bachchan seems to be telling everybody, buddhahogaterabaap.