The New Boom

Better Off Than Dad

Services Sector: Growth Engine

Faces: Adventure Capitalists

Adapters: Tradition Meets Technology

Industry: Being Indian

Careers: Techies Line Up For Jobs Online

The Scindias: Will Power
The contentious will of Rajmata Vijayaraje Scindia virtually disinherits her only son Madhavrao Scindia. This controversy threatens to mar the reputation and respectability of one of India's best- known and highly regarded royal families.

Gujarat: Shaky Regime
Confronted with a monumental disaster, the Gujarat Government is at the centre of relief operations. Was its reaction timely and efficient? Could more lives have been saved?

And Greed Hits Home
More than anything, it was corruption that killed people in Gujarat as buildings constructed by getting around norms came crashing down.

Public Sector: Shotgun Exit
First large PSU where workers agreed to leave the company.

NEWSNOTES: CAPLOOKS

Post Paralysis
Delhi: With the passing away of four leaders in the past seven months, Congressmen have become extremely superstitious. Known to covet any party post, however inconsequential, the men in khadi are, for a change, quite reluctant to take over the posts held by the departed leaders. For instance, no senior party functionary is willing to head the AICC Relief Committee that was led by the late Jitendra Prasada. As a result the panel, which has been holding a series of meetings after the Gujarat quake, is not chaired by anyone. Collective decisions, smirk party circles, do not behove Congressmen.

Immobilised

Chandigarh: Keen to portray himself as a techno-savvy chief minister, Om Prakash Chautala arranged special classes for MLAs to make them computer literate and promised them laptops. But Haryana bureaucrats were in for a shock this week when the Jat chieftain issued a circular barring them from carrying mobile phones to official meetings presided over by him. While the babus have been asked to keep their cell phones switched off, Chautala has precluded MLAs and himself from the ban.

Deferred Donations
Bhubaneswar: Politicians are responding with alacrity to help the earthquake victims of Gujarat. But what happened to their consciences when the devastating cyclone ripped through Orissa in 1999 and killed thousands? In response to the appeals made to all the 797 members of the Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha for help by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, just 49 MPs had responded, promising Rs 10 lakh each from their MPLAD funds. But months later, only 19 of them have actually made the donation. So much for social commitment.

Jumbo Trouble
Hyderabad: Congress MP Renuka Chowdhury wants to ride a horse, like warrior queen Rani Rudramma Devi, in the campaign against TDP in local body polls. How long before I pick up equestrian skills, the portly leader asked. Retorted an Andhra Pradesh Riding Club member: We don't have an elephant in our stables.

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MetroScape
Random Readings
Arvind Krishna Mehrotra would rather be "accurate" in his latest undertaking, a book of Kabir's poetry in English, even if he says "Kabir's greatest hits may not have been written by him at all".
more...

Looking Glass

Kolkata: Restaurant

Bangalore:
Art Exhibition

New Delhi: Play

Who says Indian theatre is dying? Playwrights--both veteran and budding--in the country had a chance to interact with those from the Royal Court Theatre, London, at its first residency workshop in Bangalore recently.
It was a fortnight
of enrichment, concludes Principal Correspondent Stephen David in Despatches.

"I was very much against the idea of India," says William Dalrymple, author, The City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi. In conversation with INDIA TODAY's Sonia Faleiro, he talks about his old girlfriend, Delhi and his "enormously exciting" next book, The White Moghuls in Interviews.