It's About Politics
The limits on Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha's budget this year are political. He has the prescription to put the economy on a high growth track, but hampered by vested interests, vote-bank politics and stubborn opposition parties, he is unlikely to deliver.

The Rot in Farming
Falling prices, stagnating production and diminishing returns are brewing an unparalleled crisis in farmlands across India. Ironically, the alarming situation has arisen despite an unprecedented 12 consecutive normal monsoons.

Creeping Paralysis
Doubts over Keshubhai Patel's fitness to rule are growing after his government failed to provide basic relief like tents to those affected by the earthquake. Despite having speedily restored electricity and water, which earned praise from some international agencies, criticism over Patel's poor marshalling of resources continues.

Artless Artistry
The festival tried to exhibit the widest selection rather than the best, making it a disappointing show.

Stillness of Change
The legendary bamboo curtain is lifting to reveal that Myanmar isn't quite the "fascist Disneyland" it is made out to be. The winds of change have brought back English as the medium of instruction and Aung San Suu Kyi is talking to the military. After prolonged isolation, Yangon wants to face the world, but on its own terms.

Making It Happen
John Buchanan gives an exclusive insight into what it takes to coach the world's most successful team. He also enumerates what
he feels will be the Indian strengths that the Aussies
will have to watch out for.

Strategic Partners
As emphasis shifts from relief to rehabilitation, Care Today is selecting regions to focus on and NGOs to help it channelise aid. The involvement of victims is integral to the plan so that their dignity remains intact.

BOOKS

Soap Bubbles

There's Hindu nationalism and there are holy telecasts. But where is the link?

By Bhaskar Ghosh

The title of the book is misleading; it is really a chronicle of the rise of Hindu nationalist sentiment and, quite separately, comments on the telecasting of the Ramayan and Mahabharat on Doordarshan between 1987 and 1989. If one was expecting an analysis of how the two were interlinked, whether, in fact, the telecasts triggered off the latent deep devotion in Hindus or gave a focus to something already in the air, or any other manner in which these two fed on each other, one will be disappointed.

RELIGION AS EXTRAVAGANZA: A scene from Doordarshan's Mahabharat

That is the book's chief weakness. It fails to explore what it sets out to-the links between these two events. Instead, there is a rambling, discursive account of how Hindu nationalist sentiment grew in the mid-'80s and thereafter and a quite separate account of the telecast of the two epics. Worse, in relating these two events, the author makes some breathtaking generalisations which he does not shore up with any evidence. Right at the outset Arvind Rajagopal says, "the Ram Janmabhoomi movement aimed to destroy the Babri mosque in Ayodhya ... Ram was claimed to be a national symbol and Hindus were declared to be an oppressed community, a majority denied its rightful status by politicians pandering to minority votes, chiefly of the Muslims."

	POLITICS AFTER TELEVISION By Arvind Rajagopal Cambridge Price: Rs 495 Pages: 393

Now this is a simplification so gross as to be almost amusing; even its bitterest critics know that the Ram Janmabhoomi movement was, and is, much more than a movement to destroy a mosque. Later, Rajagopal does say that the movement was, in fact, a "complex and many layered series of events". But then he's talking about the events, about what happened, not of the nature of the movement itself. A little later he declares that "mythological serials must be seen as a successor to the pro-development soap opera". Why? No reasons given.

Even if we grant Rajagopal the occasional generalisation, there is something else which flaws the book very badly: the endless use of jargon which is very often a cover for lack of anything substantial, or a mystification of something commonplace or well-known. Consider this: "Given the historic compromise between emergent bourgeois and residual yet tenacious and adaptive elites on the one hand, and orthodox opinion on the other, in countries such as India, capitalist development in its late forms may seek cultural registers significantly different from earlier ones. The Ramayan serial's success illustrates this difference, I suggest." I rest my case.

This is a disappointing book. The subject is interesting, and a clear, focused analysis would have helped readers understand the undoubted, close links between the Ram Janmabhoomi movement and the telecast of the two epics, and draw their own conclusions about the nature of the medium and, indeed, of the manner in which the politics of the time developed. Instead, Rajagopal tries to bring everything into his book, from excerpts of the screenplay of Ramayan to the Hindi-English debate in the press and an elaborate history of Hindu nationalist politics. There's just too much of all this, and too little of what the author declared as his intention.

NEW RELEASES

Rabindranath Tagore Ed by Sisir Kumar Das and Sukanta Chaudhuri (Oxford, Rs 595) Tagore's selected writings on literature and language.

Selected Poems: Kaifi Azmi Trs by Pavan K. Varma (Penguin, Rs 195) Passion and pronouncements.

Indian Defence 2001 Ed by R.K. Jasbir Singh (Natraj, Rs 950) Pictorial yearbook with essays.

Yoga: The Path to Holistic Health By B.k.s. Iyengar (Dorling Kindersley, £25) Detailed guide for all age groups.

Enquire Dictionary of Quotations Ed by T.J.S. George (HarperCollins, Rs 295) Wise ones from G.V. Desani to Vivekananda.

Garuda and Winged Horses: A Journey Through Sikkim By Somnath Guha (Srishti, Rs 145) Towards the Bayul Denzong, the Promised Land.

Values, Visions and Verses of Vajpayee: India's Man of Destiny Trs by Bhagwat S. Goyal (Srijan Prakashan, Rs 495) Poems from the prime minister.

MetroScape
Charitable Mood
In the backdrop of murky allegations about underworld connections, philanthropy by the Bollywood badshahs comes a little more easily.
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Looking Glass

Delhi: Lifestyle Store

Delhi: Film Festival

Mumbai: Restaurant

The Indian Navy's International Fleet Review was a fine effort at naval diplomacy which the Government would do well to build on, writes INDIA TODAY's Principal Correspondent Sandeep Unnithan
in Despatches.

"The only obvious competition is in bhangra," say the Pakistani duo of the music group, Strings, in an exclusive interview with INDIA TODAY's Sonia Faleiro.
Interviews.