The Importance Of Being Brajesh
The Opposition and the Sangh Parivar launch an attack on the Prime Minister's Office by targeting the Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister Brajesh Mishra. The Vajpayee camp finds itself fighting a grim political battle to retain credibility even as the Establishment tries to discredit the Tehelka allegations. An analysis.

Supercrat In His Labyrinth
There are 240 secretaries to the Government, but N. K. Singh is always a cut above-in style, networking, and power. The economic policy wizard gets defensive.

The Ways And Means Of Ranjan
Ranjan Bhattacharya's role as nursemaid to Atal Bihari Vajpayee gives the fun-loving foster son-in-law
the image of one who dabbles in government decisions.

Congress' Coalition Flight Grounded
With sceptic constituents, Congress President Sonia Gandhi's
plan to form an alliance just before the assembly elections in five states, may backfire.

Desperately Seeking loopholes
The Bharatiya Janata Party and Samata Party find discrepancies
in the charges levelled against them by Tehelka. But it's just details.

Nursery Of Hate
The week-long violence in Kanpur has cooled down, but the spectre of the Students Islamic Movement of India still looms large. A look at the reach of India's in-house Taliban.

Vroom Service
The four-stroke motorcycle overtakes middle-class India's greatest icon since the valve radio set, as sales of the doughty old scooter stagnate in spite of a spirited fightback.

George Cross
The FIR against Sonia Gandhi's private secretary is a plain corruption issue says the CBI. But, an embarrassed Congress complains of vendetta.

Nothing Official About It
The payment crisis is temporarily stemmed, but clandestine financing ticks like a time bomb.

EYECATCHERS

Through The Looking Glass

Please don't call it a comeback," pleads Malavika Tiwari, who we last saw playing Mohana in the Mills & Boons-esque serial, Kashish, on Doordarshan nine years ago, and who we will now see playing wife to "a future prime minister" in Ketan Mehta's forthcoming serial Pradhan Mantri on Zee TV. For Tiwari, 39, all it means is "going back to a serious hobby I indulged in in the past". What will continue to get her full-fledged attention though will be the "original" stained-glass business she's been heading all this while, because "you can't always paint your face for a living". Glass is better any day.

Life, Camera, Action!

Three months after surviving a bad road accident, bhangra pop singer Gurdas Mann is moving on to a new life, even a career in Bollywood. Making his Hindi film debut in Zindagi Khoobsurat Hai with Tabu, Mann plays an aspiring actor sacrificing his all for a spastic child. For his fans who prayed for him after his car hit a truck that fateful January afternoon, Mann feels he has "to work harder" now than ever before. He's moved on.

Bauled Over

It was a matter of chance. That pop diva Madonna (left), a recent convert to Sanskrit shlokas and bindis, was looking for a new sound. So when Kolkata-bred, Paris-based Baul (folk music from Bengal) musician Bapi Das, 37, took his one-stringed ektara and did a demo, it got the son of famous Baul musician Purna Das not only the opportunity to collaborate with Madonna on her yet untitled album but also to cut two tracks for her. Das, who also got Madonna to sing for his new album, says she found it "interesting". Ah, indeed.

Pop The Question

She was part of the eminently forgettable all-girl band Sansara two years ago, but what the heck, there's always something called a second chance. Or a solo album. UK-bred Sophiya Choudary, 23, who has just released Le Le Mera Dil with music producer Biddu, asks why "you only have Britney Spears and Jennifer Lopez posters on your walls; why not Asian pop icons?" Good question. But Choudary, who took home the Best Female Newcomer of the Year award at the Asian Pop Awards 2000 in the UK, is full of such questions: "Why can't a female singer here who is good-looking also be a good singer?" Yeah, she's looking to change that perception now.

Compiled by Methil Renuka

MetroScape
The Itch For Kitsch
When Kitsch Kitsch Hota Hai opened to an overflowing house at Delhi's India Habitat Centre last week, people didn't quite know what to expect.
more...

Looking Glass


Delhi Exhibition: Unbuilt India-Vision 2001

Delhi Music:
Shriram Shankarlal Music Festival, 2001

Delhi: Showroom
Interiors Espania

The 457-acre estate of the Roerichs near Bangalore is in a pathetic condition. But does anyone care, asks INDIA TODAY's Principal Correspondent Stephen David in Despatches.