Ram's Laxman
Vajpayee's every pronouncement is fast becoming a new theme song of the BJP, reaffirming his grip over the party and the NDA. Quite a change for the party that once claimed that personality cult was the prerogative of the Congress.

It's On, It's On, It's Enron
Enron's Dabhol Power Corporation continues to generate more controversy than electricity.

Fifth Column
by Tavleen Singh
Clean Up Officialdom

Right Angle
by Swapan Dasgupta
End of the Durand Line

Flip Side
by Dilip Bobb
The Year Ahead ...Sort Of

Border Pangs

Bye Line

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From The Editor In Chief

For the second time this month we are running a cover story on the inroads made by organised crime into the Mumbai film industry. Since entertainment tycoon Gulshan Kumar was shot down in August 1997, this is in fact our fourth cover on a chain that seems to be growing longer by the week. That mafiosi spread from Karachi to Kuala Lumpur have been buying into the Hindi film business, demanding protection money from top producers, grabbing distribution or music rights and even asking top stars to "cooperate" with select producers is, frankly, old hat. In the past week, the murky equation acquired a third dimension with the arrest of diamond merchant and film financier Bharat Shah. Should the net spread wider, the impact on the gems and jewellery trade, among India's biggest export earners, could be massive. The stock markets-Shah and his compatriots are reckoned to be big investors-have been quicker to react: the Sensex fell 63 points the day the police knocked on the diamond king's door.

The movie industry has always been an amorphous business sector. Since films are highly risky ventures, they have tended to attract money launderers and other fly-by-night operators. Cinema's new economy has fine-tuned this business model to perfection. Gangster filmwallas now sign on only big stars or acquire, say, the overseas rights of a film already successful in the domestic circuit. The Mumbai-Karachi bhais operate through respectable fronts and the Mumbai Police say Shah is one such. To trace his rise and fall, we sent Special Correspondent Uday Mahurkar to Shah's native village in Palanpur, Gujarat, while Special Correspondents Sheela Raval and Anupama Chopra kept track of government and industry sources in Mumbai. Says Raval: "What we've seen is only the tip of the iceberg. The police plan more arrests shortly. At least one matinee idol may be implicated." Cricket-mafia links one year, Bollywood-mafia relations the next and now the Bollywood-business-mafia nexus. Indians need to find new heroes.

(Aroon Purie)

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A Fancy For Words
"I don't think I could be called a poet," insists Feroze Gandhi with a shy smile.
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Looking Glass

Chennai: Mall

Calcutta: Home Library

Pune: Hotel

Delhi: Restaurant

Delhi: Play

Sagarika Ghose's The Gin Drinkers is easily the best diaspora novel set in India and an account of existential dilemmas of Indian PLUs , writes INDIA TODAY Deputy Editor Swapan Dasgupta in Day Dreams.

Cooking gas prices go up, derailing Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu's populist plans in Andhra Pradesh. INDIA TODAY Associate Editor Amarnath K. Menon reports on the flaming out of Deepam, a hyped scheme of subsidised gas connections in Despatches.