Two Winners And A Photo Finish
According to the INDIA TODAY-ORG-MARG opinion poll, there will be clear winners in two states, but a tight finish in a third.

The Last Rampage
To offset
J. Jayalalitha's slight edge, a pugnacious M. Karunanidhi gives it his all in what is his final electoral campaign.

The Sixth Sense
A mercurial Mamata Banerjee vs a dependable Buddhadev Bhattacharya. The mismatch leaves the Left Front with a premonition of victory.

Secular Stake
Even as the Church makes a blatant move to play a more political role in the state, the CPI(M) nominates a priest to woo minorities.

One Man Barmy
India's apex social sciences facilitating body is rocked by civil war: the chairman says he is being opposed by both RSS ideologues and leftist academics.

Changing Order
An ageing profile and a frustrated officer corps leads the force to consider VRS and restructuring.

Liquid Asset
The Rs 700-crore industry has attracted many players. Now, purity will decide who stays in business.

Board Of No Control
Tax authorities say the BCCI spends more money on meetings than on matches.

METROSCAPE

Style IT

FASHION TECHIES: NIFT creations in a hall of science

Bangalore takes its status as India's Silicon Valley seriously; even fashion has to bite it dust here. At the unveiling of the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) Design Collection 2001 at the Indian Institute of Science's J. N. Tata auditorium on April 30, laptops vied for attention with laps, lips and legs. IT-savvy Karnataka Chief Minister S.M. Krishna inaugurated the show, signing on an IBM Transnote laptop. Krishna, by the way, is a self-confessed designer himself-he lists designing his own clothes, "mostly Indian wear", among his "hobbies" (now did you know that?). NIFT's graduating students showed about seven ensembles each, but not before sketching the designs on the laptops, and projecting them on a large venue-screen.

—Stephen David

RUSTIC REMNANTS: The Anglo-Arabic School (left); Goel at Ajmari Gate (centre); and the Town Hall (right)

Crusty Old Flame

Chandni Chowk, Delhi, is not a preferred locale for asthmatics, claustrophobes or amathophobes. Even tourists with a nose for the past would be hard-pressed to spend a morning tramping through this corner of Mughal Emperor Shahjahan's once opulent capital.

But that might soon be history. Last weekend, area mp Vijay Goel, followed by a snaking queue of schoolchildren, walked from the Red Fort to Ajmeri Gate before unveiling a project to restore a semblance of magnificence to his constituency. Goel's more ambitious plans include the renovation of Ajmeri Gate Chowk and the Anglo-Arabic School, razing the local fishmarket, and metamorphosing the Fort into another India Gate with ice-cream sellers and fancy lighting. Even the Town Hall will acquire a new facet to its personality with a museum on Delhi. The results should be evident in three years, on an estimated budget of Rs 10 crore and the cooperation and coordination of seven agencies, including the ministries for urban development and tourism.

On August 8, 1857, The Illustrated London News wrote: "It is difficult from the appearance of modern Delhi to form an accurate picture of what it formerly was." No one could have envisaged how much worse it would get. The "aesthete" has his task cut out.

—Sonia Faleiro

All That Jazz

It was a three-day workshop on jazz and world music appreciation held by Mumbai's Jindal Arts Creative Interaction Centre at Little Theatre in the city's National Centre for Performing Arts (NCPA) last week. A one-musician workshop if you will, but Mumbai-based D. Wood (the D in his name is not spelt out, but his next "world music album" is called Dravidian, so there just might be a connection there) enlightened the 15 participants (mostly students) who had signed up on the origin of jazz, helping them create their own music with drums, bells, vocal chords. Wood laments that jazz is not being promoted the way it should be. Maybe his class of 15 can help.

—Himanshi Dhawan

MetroScape

Bond Free
The Savoy in Mussoorie must be the only hotel, apart from the Raffles in Singapore, to have a thing about writers. So, it was quite kismet when publisher Pramod Kapoor of Roli Books and author Namita Gokhale, who has an imprint with him, hosted the Ruskin Bond Festschrift—a Writers' Retreat in honour of that gentle Indian Roald Dahl, Ruskin Bond.
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Looking Glass

Delhi Cinema:
Canadian film festival

Delhi Art Fest:
Documenta

Bangalore Play:
Little Theatre