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.

AN APPEAL; REBUILDING GUJARAT

New Foundations

Care Today sponsored a medical team that provided succour in the smaller villages in Kutch. Readers can help thousands of others cruelly robbed of home and livelihood by the earthquake.

BROKEN LIVES: Thousands have died, many more rendered homeless in Kutch district

Care Today was set up by the India Today Group in August 1999 to help the victims of the tragedies that take place around us. In the past 16 months Care Today adopted soldiers disabled in Kargil under the Lest We Forget programme, built houses for 100 widows and supported 106 orphans under Hope for Orissa, and funded rain-harvesting projects for Gujarat and Rajasthan in the Fight the Drought programme.

On January 26, an earthquake in Gujarat left a trail of death and destruction. Estimates of the death toll in the state range from 30,000 to one lakh. Property worth Rs 23,000 crore has been damaged, most beyond repair.

Responding quickly to the emergency, Care Today sponsored a 10- member medical team from St John's Medical College and Hospital, Bangalore, to provide emergency medical services in the earthquake-affected area. The team, led by Dr. T. Venkatesh, consisted of nine specialists in orthopaedics, paediatrics and anaesthetics and a specialist orthopaedic nurse. They flew into Ahmedabad on January 29 with 1.6 tonnes of medical supplies. Working through the local NGO coordination committees, they provided much-needed medical care in smaller towns and remote villages in Kutch district.

Care Today intends to intervene in the worst-affected regions there. It proposes to:

• Ensure the survival and security of the poorest families in the quake-hit area by providing them food.
• Fund the rebuilding of shelters, schools and healthcare centres in the worst-affected areas.
• Engage the survivors in income-generation activities, which would ensure sustenance in the long term.

We seek your support for such an endeavour. Readers will be kept updated on our activities and the progress achieved through the pages of India Today. All contributions will be individually acknowledged and donations of Rs 5,000 and above listed in the magazine.

Please make out cheques/drafts to: "Care Today Fund A/c Rebuilding Gujarat Fund", India Today, Hamilton House, 1A Connaught Place, New Delhi 110001. All contributions to Care Today are entitled to deductions at the rate of 100 per cent under Section 80(G) of the Income Tax Act, 1961.

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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.