Creating History
Aamir Khan steers away from mushy romance in lush locations in his first production, Lagaan. The formula-busting period film on colonial arrogance, backed by good acting, promises to give Indian cinema a classy makeover.

Governance On
The Hold
Absent ministers, coalition politics and an unwell prime minister paralyse all decision making at the Centre. With business sentiments diving and industrial growth rate receding, the alarm bells have begun to ring.

Super Clinic Inc.
Patients will be treated as customers with some companies hoping to revolutionise the Rs 60,000-crore private healthcare market. They are setting up a chain of neighbourhood health clinics that will provide quality medical care.

Fostering Ill-will
The arrest of Jayalalitha's foster son may be linked
to the sour relationship.

Crescent Classroom
An organisation has given madarsa education in the state a communal slant.

EYECATCHERS

Face-Off

She is Indian cosmetic major Lakme's new face. But hang on, only her name is Indian. Yana Gupta, 22, green-eyed, 5'8'', is Czech. Married to Satya Gupta, a Pune artist, Yana has just bagged a three-year contract with Lakme, and has been on ads for MTV and Limca, and Biddu's Tera Chehra music video. A compulsive globetrotter, before India and hubby happened, Yana had been a model in Japan and imagined India to be "so Third World". She changed her name. Now she'll change her mind.

Time Capsule

Muthukad and his box of feats

Even Houdini wouldn't have thought of it. To celebrate 25 exciting years in magicdom, and be remembered a 100 years later, intrepid Kerala magician Gopinath Muthukad has locked up a CD documenting secrets of 15 rare magical acts in a stone box and buried it in the earth, to be opened exactly a century later. At a ceremony at Muthukad's Magic Academy in Thiruvananthapuram, he said, "Most ancient tricks, like the Great Indian Rope Trick, vanished because they weren't documented. I wanted to preserve mine for posterity." Will the box have a magic genie popping out of it too?

Serial Mom

Helen in a still from DLKK

Be it Monica or Mehbooba, the effervescent Helen cabaret-danced her way into our hearts. Today, "Helen Aunty", as she's fondly called in the film industry, can't repeat the sizzling numbers that made her so famous -she still managed a jig in Yash Chopra's Mohabbatein- but at least she has said yes to TV. She had been putting off the small screen "for years" now, but when serial-makers Kiran Shroff and Kushan Nandy offered her a role spanning three generations in Do Lafzon Ki Kahani, on Sahara TV, she couldn't resist. Let's hope she'll do that jig again.

On Another Plane

Yawn. Another bored beauty queen in Bollywood? Naah. Femina Miss India 2001 Celina Jaitley, just back from her runner-up experience at the Miss Universe pageant in Puerto Rico, insists she never really considered films. Yet she has signed not one, but two films, Kalyug and Dil Chura Liya-about "20 offers" came her way and she picked two-with director Vikram Bhatt. But Bollywood is only a route to "make enough money" for flying school and her own private aircraft.

Compiled by Methil Renuka

MetroScape

Pak Unplugged
Fresh-faced youngsters were cheering through qawwalis, pop songs and poetry reading at India Habitat Centre, Delhi. The occasion? A week-long workshop, "Rehumanizing the Other", was all about promoting neighbourly feelings in a period of bad press.
more...

Looking Glass

Mumbai Exhibition:
"Potters in Peril"

Chennai Coffee Bar: Barista

Bangalore Resort: Angsana Oasis Spa and Resort

The Delhi Government's campaign to clean up the Yamuna was impressive but needs to backed up by measures that can weed out the root causes of the pollution. INDIA TODAY's Special Correspondent Sayantan Chakravarty reports in Long Drive