The Truth About Ourselves
The human genome sequence has been completed and shows some surprising findings. Despite having one-third less genes than estimated, human beings are still very complex. With access to disease genes, medicine and diagnostics will be revolutionised. However, this will also raise ethical questions on cloning and genetic privacy.

Hope In Hell
Four weeks after the earthquake, Gujarat is still coming to terms with the devastation. True grit is emerging from the rubble but it will be some time before lives are rebuilt. INDIA TODAY's teams went out across these death zones, capturing stories which record this renewal.

Simmer Time

Profitable Loss
36 With over 90,000 employees opting for the VRS scheme, PSU banks are set to get over their problem of overstaffing. But is it going to make banks more competitive in this age of automation? Besides, it is also going to cost more than Rs 7,500 crore and will deprive the banks of skilled workers.

Paper Money

Spreading Terror
The attacks on Delhi's Red Fort,
the Srinagar airport and the city's police control room show the Lashkar-e-Toiba is increasingly catching the Indian security forces unawares-and emerging as the most daring terrorist group from Pakistan.

Face Off
It's David Vs Goliath as India play an Australian demolition squad at home. What makes the Aussies tick and how can India take them on?

Cricketwatch:
Ashley Mallett

COVER STORY: HUMAN GENOME

Life Will Never Be The Same

It's done. What was in the realm of science fiction just a few years ago has become a reality in our lifetime. In less than decade and a half, a galaxy of scientific minds collaborated to reveal the blueprint of life that humans had speculated about for close to 5,000 years of civilised existence. The cost: just $3 billion or Rs 13,800 crore-more than twice India's annual outlay on healthcare and education. Amidst much drama, atypical of science, two superstars of molecular biology, who are also archrivals, published last week in prestigious science journals the entire human genome, the string of three billion chemical squiggles that define who we really are. One is a brash young startup American company, Celera, led by Craig Venter, who once even dropped out of school. The other a huge international collaboration of distinguished scientists led by Francis Collins, director, National Human Genome Research Institute at the National Institutes of Health, also in the US.

Just six months ago, in June 2000, the two groups had pulled off a possibly Nobel-winning coup by jointly announcing the actual raw translation of the book of human life, as it is now called, which had involved deciphering billions of strands of DNA-deoxyribonucleic acid-the basic building blocks of all life. Last week saw them revealing a comprehensive atlas of the human being that provides the first step in answering the fundamental question: how did man become man? Says Michael Dexter, director of the Wellcome Trust in Britain: "The findings will guide researchers for centuries even if every inch isn't explored or used tomorrow." Already the atlas has revealed some startline facts. Being the most complex organism, human were expected to have more than 1,00,000 genes or combinations of DNA that provide commands for every characteristic of the body. Instead, their studies show that we now have only 30,000 genes-around the same as mice, three times as many as flies, and only five times more than bacteria. "It's quite humbling," Mani Subramanian, senior scientist at Celera who works directly with Venter, told INDIA TODAY. Not only are the numbers similar, the genes themselves, barring a few, are alike in mice and men. Fewer genes will make diseased ones quicker to find, paving the way for a medical revolution. It also destroys the basis for a revolution of another sort. Unity is in, racism is out-all human beings share an incredible 99.99 per cent of all genetic material.

MetroScape
Delhi On My Mind...
I'm very flattered to have this act of 'piracy' take place," laughs William Dalrymple, as extracts from his engrossing travelogue City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi were interpreted by photographer Agnes Montanari and art historian Nathalie Trouveroy in an exhibition.
more...

Looking Glass

Delhi: Restaurant

Delhi: Exhibition

Mumbai: Exhibition

"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.