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

ORIGINS
Is this the end of racism?

Hitler had it totally wrong. And we might have all descended from Eve after all. And gosh, Eve could even have been black. That's what a close analysis of the human genome sequence tells us.

When the scientists made genome sequence comparisons among various races-Caucasian, Afro-American and Asian-the findings astonished them. The similarities were so striking that for every 10,000 letters they cracked, the difference between a black and white person was just a single letter. In contrast, you are more likely to find two people of the same community being more different. "There is no molecular support for racial distinction among human groups," says Chad Nusbaum, assistant director, Sequencing Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Center for Genome Research, who has been closely associated with the project. Nusbaum's conclusion: "Race characteristics are very superficial from the genetic perspective."

According to the "Eve theory", all human beings inherit certain sausage-shaped cell structures called mitochondria only from their mother. The DNA, the genetic matter carried in the mitochondria, can be used to trace human beings back to the original Eve. The genome sequence now provides a simpler method. The genetic similarities between different races are being interpreted as descent from common ancestors. One reason our DNA is so similar could be that it did not have time
to accumulate many changes. That is one way to trace the beginning of man. The genome sequence shows that man probably originated on earth about 1,00,000 years ago, a very short time in evolutionary terms. It also means that all of us probably descended from a small and localised population of about 10,000 people. Again, because our genes are so similar, the view that the first man (or woman) originated from Africa could well be correct.

Anthropologists, therefore, have a powerful new tool to date
the existence of man. So what accounts for the difference in physical characteristics? According to the team, minor variations were adaptations more in tune with environmental conditions. And how about the mice? It's the way the genes function and give instructions. "Essentially, humans get much more out of their genes," says Nusbaum. It means the same genes make many more of their products, the proteins, than the ones in mice do. Which makes understanding how proteins act possibly the final frontier in understanding genetic differences.

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.