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.

As far as weeks go, the past one resembles a series of political aftershocks in the aftermath of the Tehelka earthquake. The traumatised political class ran helter-skelter trying either to put their lives back together or to see what advantage could be extracted from the chaos. Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee seized the opportunity to walk out of the NDA. Sonia Gandhi went on the warpath at the AICC session in Bangalore and changed the Congress' earlier stand by now showing willingness to share power with other parties. The Opposition ensured that Parliament remained adjourned for the whole week. The Samata Party made desperate attempts to discredit the tapes. Delhi's rumour mills worked overtime to spread stories of several resignations, including the prime minister's. After the resignation of George Fernandes and Jaya Jaitly, the fire shifted to the PMO. The result of which was the unprecedented sight of Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister Brajesh Mishra presenting himself with all the key officials of the PMO at a press conference to counter accusations of wrongdoing in deals.

A principal secretary is as powerful as the prime minister permits him to be. In an INDIA TODAY article last December, a professor of diplomacy aptly described Mishra as "a hybrid between Chanakya and Henry Kissinger". There have been principal secretaries just as powerful and controversial, who controlled policy and access to the prime minister but all of them stayed in the background. However, Mishra, a long-time confidant of Vajpayee, is different. A man who enjoys power, Mishra thinks nothing of treading on important toes, formulating key policy from foreign affairs to Kashmir, and soaking up the limelight as Vajpayee's alter ego. "With a PM who doesn't like details, a proactive principal secretary can carve a larger-than-life image for himself," says Editor Prabhu Chawla, a veteran watcher of nine PMOs and writer of this week's story on Mishra.

In the midst of all this gloom there was some good news for us. Against all odds India beat Australia in Chennai to win the series. And last week, I was awarded the Padma Bhushan by the President of India. This is an honour for journalism, and in particular, a tribute to all those who have worked for the India Today Group these past 25 years.

(Aroon Purie)

MetroScape
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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.
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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.