25 years since Babri Masjid demolition: BJP, Congress give Ayodhya issue new political twist before Gujarat polls

25 years since Babri Masjid demolition: BJP, Congress give Ayodhya issue new political twist before Gujarat polls

It was only incidental that the day enthusiastic "Pandit Rahul Gandhi" posters were put up — obviously taking a cue from media department chief Randeep Singh Surjewala's claim that Congress president in-waiting was "not just a Hindu but a 'Janeu Dhari' (holder of sacred thread) Hindu", senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal appearing on behalf of the Sunni Wakq Board argued in the Supreme Court that the hearing on Ramjanabhoomi-Babri Mosque dispute should be deferred to after the 2019 Lok Sabha election. His rationale was that the verdict will have strong political implications on the upcoming polls.

It has now been quarter of a century since the demolition of the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya and the coming-up of a de facto makeshift Ramlala (childhood image of Lord Ram) temple. The charioteer of the early 1990s Ram temple movement in Ayodhya, Lal Krishna Advani has slipped into the background of the party he built. Advani is once again facing a demolition conspiracy charge and isn't even campaigning for his party in the constituency or the state that he represents in Parliament.

File image of the demolition of the Babri Masjid. AFPFile image of the demolition of the Babri Masjid. AFP

But it is also true that on the 25th anniversary of the demolition of the Babri Masjid — or 'disputed structure' as the BJP described it, the Ram Mandir issue after all these years has returned to the foreground. A majority BJP government at the Centre and in the state of Uttar Pradesh aren't pushing for the temple on record, but have been making their intentions very clear by picking up issues around Ayodhya and indulging in other symbolism around Ram to keep the pot boiling. Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath is unapologetic when it comes to talking about Ayodhya and Ram. He has, in fact, visited Ayodhya on numerous occasions and done everything possible to keep the hopes of BJP sympathisers and Ram Mandir supporters alive and as the common refrain among them goes “Centre me Modi and UP me Yogi mandir ab nahi banega toh kab banega ( with Modi at the centre and Yogi in UP, if the temple built now, will it ever be built).

What has changed on this landmark anniversary of the demolition in Ayodhya is the simple fact that until now, the Opposition used to be on the offensive every 6 December, disrupting Parliament (which used to be in Winter Session on this date) and the BJP would defend its case, matters of faith and so on. But this time around, it is the BJP that has gone on the offensive, seeking categorical answers from the Congress and other Opposition parties.

The opportunity for which the BJP had been waiting to reignite this emotive issue and launch a full-scale political debate was provided by Sibal’s argument in the Supreme Court. He used all sorts of pleas to get the matter deferred indefinitely, but the most operative and politically contentious part — the bit about not have a hearing or coming to a decision until after the 2019 polls — was picked up by BJP president Amit Shah to corner Rahul and the Congress. It was a matter of chance that the Supreme Court had decided to hear this case on 5 December — a day ahead of the 6 December anniversary ritual that "secularist" parties and groups had been following for two-and-a-half decades.

What made Sibal’s argument even more politically contentious was the fact that electioneering (between the BJP and Congress) is at its peak in Gujarat and that the Congress — after the Rahul "non-Hindu" goof-up at Somnath Temple — is portraying the president-elect as a devout Hindu Pandit to send a message across that he is not anti-Hindu and pro-Muslim. The big issue being debated in Gujarat is whether the Congress will succeed in making the state return to vote on lines of caste after three decades, or if the BJP’s Hindutava theme will continue to prevail in majoritarian Hindu voters' minds.

Due to cyclonic conditions in parts of the state, Shah’s public rallies were cancelled on Tuesday, so he arrived at the BJP's brand new media office — that has been put together for the elections — at GG Road in Ahmedabad and hurriedly called the media for "a bite", demanding that Rahul make his position clear on the Ram Temple vis-à-vis Sibal’s statement on issue. Later, Shah tweeted:

IIT Kharagpur placements: Over 300 students bag jobs in two days, Apple makes debut at the institute

Kolkata: The placement season at IIT-Kharagpur has started on a robust note with more than 300 students bagging jobs on the first two days.

Apple Inc. made its debut on the Kharagpur campus on Friday and picked five students for its Bengaluru office.

UK-based Halma plc, a group of technology companies that makes products for hazard detection, Dubai-based Dunia Finance and Mercari Japan Ltd, which specialises in dealing with industrial machinery, were also among the first-time visitors, an IIT-KGP statement said today.

The first day of the recruitment season had 29 companies visiting the campus, including Flipkart, HSBC, American Express, IBM Research, JP Morgan, Schlumberger, Airbus, Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, Microsoft, ITC and UBER.

A total of 188 students got jobs, 22 of which were overseas postings.

On the second day, LG Korea, Konica Minolta, Ola, Deloitte, Walmart, Adobe and Bajaj made offers to the students. Eight out of 147 students picked on the second day got overseas postings.

The chairman of Career Development Centre at the institute, Debasis Deb, said, "Data Analytics and software are the two booming sectors this year... So far, we are extremely happy with the response that our students have received this recruitment season," he said.

The centre has taken innovative measures to strengthen relationships between the institute and the industrial sector, Deb said.

"The centre has been exploring avenues to engage with the industrial sector beyond recruitment. The students can gain experience from internships and learn about the importance of core engineering sectors at open houses and workshops," he added.

Apple's New Flagship - iPhone X

The iPhone X, pronounced "iPhone 10," was introduced at Apple's September 2017 event as a classic "One more thing..." addition to the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus product lineup. According to Apple, the iPhone X represents the biggest technological leap forward since the original iPhone was introduced 10 years ago, and it sets the path for the next decade of iPhone development.

Apple's aim with the iPhone X was to create an iPhone that's all display, blurring the line between physical object and experience. The 5.8-inch front screen melts into a highly polished curved-edge stainless steel band that encircles a durable all-glass body available in two pearlescent finishes: Space Gray and Silver. Both feature a black front panel.

The edge-to-edge top-to-bottom Super Retina display adopts OLED technology for true-to-life colors, deep blacks, and a million-to-one contrast ratio. It features a 2436 x 1125 resolution and 458 pixels per inch, the highest resolution and pixel density ever introduced in an iPhone. It supports HDR, wide color, 3D Touch, and True Tone for adjusting the white balance of the display to match the ambient lighting.

At 5.8 inches diagonally, the iPhone X has the largest display introduced in an iPhone yet, but with no bezels aside from a notch housing the camera and sensors, it fits comfortably in the hand. At 143.6mm tall by 70.9mm wide by 7.7mm deep, it's not much bigger than an iPhone 8, and it's smaller than an iPhone 8 Plus.

The glass body of the device is IP67 water and dust resistant and it enables support for inductive wireless charging for the first time. The iPhone X adopts the Qi wireless standard and can charge through the glass back using any Qi-certified charging accessory. Apple is making an "AirPower" accessory to charge iPhone X, Apple Watch Series 3, and AirPods simultaneously, but it won't be out until 2018.

With an edge-to-edge design, there is no room for a Home button, so the iPhone X adopts a new user experience. A swipe up at the bottom of the screen brings up the Home screen, while a swipe and a hold brings up App Switcher. There's a Tap to Wake feature for looking at notifications, the side button can be pressed and held to activate Siri, and the Control Center is accessed by swiping downwards from the top status bar

No Home button also means no Touch ID, so unlocking the device is done with a new Face ID facial recognition system. Face ID uses the TrueDepth front-facing camera system to create a 3D map of your face that's used much like a fingerprint for unlocking the iPhone, authenticating Apple Pay purchases, making App Store purchases, and accessing passcode protected apps.

Face ID uses infrared camera technology so it works in the dark. It also uses machine learning and detects your face with hats, glasses, beards, and other objects that obscure your face. Because it uses a 3D map of the face, Face ID cannot be fooled by photos, masks, or other facial replicas. As an added layer of security, Face ID is "attention aware" and unlocks your iPhone only when you're looking at it.

Face ID is powered by a state of the art dual-core neural engine built into the new A11 Bionic chip, data stored in the Secure Enclave and all processing done on-device. The A11 chip includes a total of six cores, with two performance cores and four high-efficiency cores, including the neural engine.

The performance cores are 25 percent faster than the A10, while the high-efficiency cores are 70 percent faster. An upgraded GPU is 30 percent faster, and there's 3GB of RAM in the device.

With a second-generation Apple-designed performance controller, all six cores in the A11 chip can be accessed at the same time, resulting in much improved performance, especially when it comes to multi-threaded workloads. The A11 also features a faster GPU, an Apple-designed image signal processor and video encoder, an A11 motion coprocessor, and the Secure Enclave for Face ID.

With efficiency improvements enabled by the A11 Bionic chip, the iPhone X offers two hours more battery life than the iPhone 7, but the battery falls short of the battery in the iPhone 7 Plus.

The same 7-megapixel TrueDepth camera that powers Face ID enables a new feature called Animoji. Animoji are 3D emoji able to mimic your facial expressions. The TrueDepth camera tracks more than 50 facial muscle movements and translates that to the Animoji, which can be used in the Messages app.

Apple's TrueDepth camera also introduces Portrait Mode for the front-facing camera and enables Portrait Lighting, a new feature for adjusting the lighting in a portrait image taken by the front or rear camera.

In the back, the iPhone X features a vertical 12-megapixel dual-lens camera arrangement with an f1.8 wide angle lens and an f/2.4 aperture telephoto lens. Both lenses support optical image stabilization and have improvements like a new color filter, deeper pixels, better low light zoom, and improved video stabilization. Between the cameras, there's a new quad-LED True Tone flash.

With the individually calibrated cameras, a new accelerometer and gyroscope, tuning for ARKit, and the powerful A11 chip, the iPhone X has been designed for a better augmented reality experience. Developers can take advantage of both the rear camera and the TrueDepth camera to create unique AR apps with unparalleled face tracking capabilities.

iPhone X is available with either 64 or 256GB of storage. The 64GB model is priced at $999, while the 256GB model is priced at $1,199. Apple began accepting pre-orders for the device on Friday, October 27 ahead of an official November 3 launch date.

The iPhone X is Apple's new high-end flagship device, but it is being sold alongside two other new devices, the iPhone 8 and the iPhone 8 Plus. Both devices are less expensive, but also lack the redesign and the new Face ID system.