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.

EYECATHERS

Bang On Target

Abhinav Bindra was the youngest shooter at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Three months on, the 18-year-old lad from Chandigarh has won an unprecedented six gold medals on his first European shooting circuit, established a world record, elbowed out Olympic champion and Slovenia's Rajmond Debrie to second place, and won Holland's prestigious Den Haag Cup. But for Bindra, who donated his $1,000 prize money to victims of the Gujarat quake, and who returns to India in March, the European win is only the beginning. The ace shooter is on to bigger targets. It's the "World Championship, World Cup, Asian Games and the Olympics" for him now.

My Scene Now

Bollywood would have been a cakewalk. But 24-year-old Ahlam Khan-late actor Amjad Khan's daughter- took to the "small, cosy world" of theatre instead. Her stage debut was as a feminist in a multilingual play on youth and urban life called Angst. Angst. Cooth. Cooth. Boom. Boom. Dhandhal. Dhamaal. Kaput. with Mumbai theatre group Not Quite There. Before that, Khan had done a spot of journalism. There are the odd pressures of being a star-daughter though: "Sometimes, people give credit to my legacy and not me." No longer.

Reel Confident

Unlike most beauty queens secretly-craving-to-become-big-actors, her mind is made up. Diya Mirza, Miss Asia-Pacific 2000, will soon be seen opposite Abhishek Bachchan in Anupam Kher's Om Jai Jagdish-also starring Anil Kapoor, Tabu and Urmila Matondkar- in which she'll play "an immature girl turning responsible". What got the 19-year-old to say yes was her "respect" for Kher. Also, his "faith and conviction in my abilities that gave me a lot of confidence". That title-clinching confidence-speak again.

A Job To Do

Talk of overnight success. A day before being crowned Fa Femina Miss India 2001, 19-year-old science student Celina Jaitly landed herself a job and veejaying contract with music channel MTV, to whom she came across as "fun and very tuned in". But while Jaitly will anchor shows on and off, she'll also be fine-tuning herself for the Miss Universe pageant in May. It's going to be tough, but says the girl, whose brand of music ranges from Hotel California to Santana's Maria: "I'll just have to do it together." Smart girl!

Compiled by Methil Renuka

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.