Left with no Choice
In a belated recognition of sweeping developments both at home and abroad, the CPI(M) grudgingly admits changes in its programme and distances itself from past ideological tenets

Killing The Goose
A strike at India's biggest carmaker punctures its plans to retain primacy and retrieve the ground lost to competitors in recent times

Fifth Column
by Tavleen Singh
Ghosts of Perception

Right Angle
by Swapan Dasgupta
Trident of Belligerence

On Cloud Nine

Angling for Power

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Going Steady: Lest We Forget

THIRD FRONT

Deluding Tactics

Comradely Ties: Gowda and Laloo

Thanks to the CPI (M) the Third Front is back in the news. But it is nowhere near being in the reckoning, if ever. The CPI (M)'s call for forging a third alternative has failed to set the Yamuna on fire. Potential big players like the Samajwadi Party, the Tamil Maanila Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party remain indifferent to the proposal. Without Mulayam Singh Yadav - all centrist parties agree - the Third Front will remain just an idea. Admits former prime minister H.D. Deve Gowda "Mulayam is pre-occupied with Uttar Pradesh. He has his own time-table."

The Thiruvananthapuram conference also saw the CPI (M) get rid of the pro-Congress tilt it had acquired in 1998-99. Doubts were raised about its secular credentials as well as its stand on economic reforms. The Congress, however, remained unmoved. It views the CPI (M)'s anti-Congressism as a pre-assembly election stunt. "The Congress evolves its economic policy keeping in view the interests of the nation," says Congress veteran Pranab Mukherjee. As for the Third Front, the party is banking on a disillusioned electorate not giving yet another fractured mandate.

-Lakshmi Iyer

Paintings for Perspiration
"Affordable art — Celebration of Life" was a unique showcasing of art goading fitness junkies.
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Looking Glass

Calcutta: Music

Delhi: Restaurant

Delhi: Play

INDIA TODAY Deputy Editor Swapan Dasgupta voices the despair of a community that Jyoti Basu forcibly converted into a diaspora in his 23 years of zero-contribution rule. Day Dreams.

With the NBA waging an out-of-court battle, the real test for the Gujarat Government lies in completing the task of rehabilitating all those displaced. It's daunting but not insurmountable, writes INDIA TODAY Special Correspondent Uday Mahurkar in Despatches.