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NEWSNOTES
CAPLOOKS
Friend
in Deed
 Delhi:
As speculation abounded about P.V. Narasimha Rao being sent to jail by
the court that convicted him in the JMM case—the former prime minister
was eventually granted bail—a vocal group of BJP MPs began a campaign
to ensure Rao was sent to Delhi's Tihar jail. Keen to draw political mileage
and sensing poor Rao was left with no friends in the perfidious Congress,
these MPs met Home Minister L.K. Advani to press their demand. Advani,
Rao's political foe from before Ayodhya to after hawala, surprised them
with his lack of enthusiasm. "It is a political crime," he emphasised,
"and he is a former prime minister." Advani decided to keep
a Lutyens' Delhi bungalow ready to "imprison" Rao. It's still
vacant.
Signal
Service
Bhopal: The earlier Mrs Gandhi sent tortuous
signals to let a chief minister know she didn't like him. Her daughter-in-law
does likewise, as Digvijay Singh, Madhya Pradesh chief minister, discovered
the other day. It was a public function in Chhindwara and there were three
chairs on the dais. Sonia plonked herself on one and invited local MP
Kamal Nath and AICC General Secretary Prabha Rau to the others. Digvijay
was left standing and wondering for an hour. Last heard, he'd registered
for a course in semiotics.
Talk
Show Host
Delhi: The NDA Government was completing
a year since re-election but the prime minister was hors de combat. So
it devolved on L.K. Advani, in between trying to find ol' pvnr a new habitat,
to meet every journo in town. In one day, the Cabinet's No 2 man was interviewed
by nine TV channels. Incidentally, the colleague Advani mentioned most
saliently was Jaswant Singh: negatively for escorting terrorists to Kandahar
and positively for stopping him from resigning after the Amarnath massacre.
The Queen
and I
 Bangalore:
As the Veerappan crisis seemed to near an end, S.M. Krishna, chief minister
of Karnataka, switched off, "I am more concerned about development
in the state than the kidnap." Well, Sonia's due to inaugurate the
Stree Shakti project there this month; and the Queen is more important
than Rajkumar.
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CII’s
conference on Friday on corporate governance is called Independent Directors:
Why, How and Who. Why Not, How Not and Who Not, would have been better,
says INDIA TODAY Associate Editor, V Shankar Aiyar