Shamed And Crippled
With Tehelka.com's spy-camera taking a heavy political toll after the damning revelations of corruption in defence deals, the beleaguered Atal Bihari Vajpayee Government will have an uphill task restoring its credibility and undoing the damage to its image.

BJP: Old Hype

Interview:
Bangaru Laxman

Jaya Jaitly:
Jhola To Purse

Opposition: On A Roll

INDIA TODAY-ORG-MARG Poll: Outraged !

Defence Establishment
: Surgery For Graft

Interview: G. Fernandes

Barak Missiles:
Off The Mark

Tehelka:
Sting Theory

Highlights Of The Findings

Rakesh Kumar Jain: Gasbag Man

Wheeling A Good Deal
The battle for BALCO degenerates into a political chess match between Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Ajit Jogi, and Union Disinvestment Minister Arun Shourie. Jogi holds most of the aces at the moment--but will he play them all when it could mean loss of investments to the state?

The New Targets
The 60,000 policemen in Kashmir are caught in a dilemma. On the one hand, they are the target of militant attacks, and, on the other, the Army sees them with suspicion. It is not just themselves, but their families that the policemen worry about as they struggle to battle militancy and falling morale.

Crisis Of Confidence While stock prices haven't recovered since the collapse of March 2, the panic has spread from Mumbai to Kolkata. Underlying the fear is a deepening fear of the Securities and Exchange Board of India's will or capacity to regulate the stockmarkets.

Escape to Victory
Down and virtually out, India create a miracle at the Eden Gardens to stun the Australians and break their winning streak.

Mixing Metaphors Music, dance, and tourism synthesise in the famed textile centre of Maheshwar to provide sustainable synergies for its growth.

METROSCAPE

Pop Corn

Take a stadium. Pack it with 10,000 people. Put in 20,000 watts of foot-stomping music by four people who call themselves the "world's greatest party animals". Turn on the heat. Recipe for a sinfully good evening, right? Well, maybe.

March 12, Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, New Delhi. Pop group Vengaboys, in their second coming to India, were performing their high-energy-no brainers to an audience of hip young music lovers and people with free passes. "You are the best audience in the whole world," they said. (Of course they are --Vengaboys has sold 10 lakh units here, which is more than anywhere else in the world). But, strangely, the spectators barely moved.

WAVE OF ENTHUSIASM: (from left) Denise, Yorick, Kim and Roy at Delhi's Nehru Stadium

A day earlier, Denise, Yorick, Kim and Roy had told the crowd at the Royapettah YMCA ground in Chennai the same -- with much greater success; people screamed and danced themselves to dehydration; girls went hysterical, guys threw off their tees. And the acoustics was just great, as the ticketless ones who lined up on the flyover overlooking the venue (grinding the traffic to a halt), would have agreed.

In the capital things were a bit different. When the crowd-including, like Chennai, the unexpectedly many uncles and aunties-finally got into a dance mood (when the lissome 20-something Vengababes and Vengaboys got swinging to their anthem Going to Ibiza), the police and Rapid Action Force jawans would have none of it. Order and decorum were maintained and people were made to sit down-appreciative screams and clapping were the only responses that were ratified. The world's greatest party animals had come up against the world's not-so-greatest party poopers.

-Samrat Choudhury & Arun Ram

MetroScape
Pop Corn
"You are the best audience in the whole world," the Vengaboys tell raving crowds
in Delhi.
more...

Looking Glass

Delhi Exhibition:
Pop To Classic

Delhi Restaurant:
San Gimignano

Mumbai Accessories Store: Watches Of Switzerland

Bangalore Concert: Deep Purple

A bloody crackdown on Naxalites in the south-eastern fringes of Uttar Pradesh proves that only developmental programmes, not guns, can help fight the menace. INDIA TODAY's Special Correspondent Subhash Mishra explains why in
Despatches.