Where Have All The Jobs Gone
Old jobs are being slashed and new ones have slowed down to a trickle. With corporate India shedding staff faster than ever before, the worst sufferers are freshers and middle-level managers.

Preparing For Musharraf
Administrators, securitymen and hospitality merchants gear up to ensure that it's not just the Taj that will impress the visiting
Pakistani President.

Adviser Raj
Bureaucrats don't retire. Their terms are extended or they are reappointed to counsel political mentors.

Out Of Luck Now
It will take more than voter-friendly symbolism to ensure victory in UP.

Hard Cover Up
The Government is perturbed by a cop's unreleased book on Rajkumar's kidnapping.

Connecting Bharat
It's a project to bridge the digital divide. But sources of funding are not known.

BOOKS

Memory Lapse

A stale product from the Partition industry.

By Makarand Paranjape

Pakistan and Partition ... always make good copy," says Saumya Gupta, one of the contributors to this volume of translations, commentaries and criticism. Is this why we've seen such a surge in the literature on the Partition in the past few years? Even so, shouldn't such literature, at the least, offer fresh perspectives on that traumatic splintering which not only coincided with our Independence, but cast its long shadow over whatever we've been doing or have done since? Sadly, I'm not sure if this brave effort actually manages to do that. Except for one somewhat fastidious, self-conscious, but original and engaging essay by Arjun Mahey, Translating Partition is at best a convenient teaching tool and useful compendium of already available views on the subject.

TRANSLATING PARTITION Ed by Ravi Kant & Tarun K. Saint Katha Price: Rs 250 Pages: 238

Of course, you have new translations of well-known partition stories here, such as "Tetwal ka Kutta" and "Toba Tek Singh" by Saadat Hasan Manto, "Kitne Pakistan" by Kamleshwar, "Pali" by Bhisham Sahni, "Khayal Surat" by Surendra Prakash and "Dariyaon Pyasa" by Joginder Paul. This is definitely a positive sign.

In addition, the editors have also included an original English story, "Phoenix Fled" by Attia Hosain and a translation of "Dibacha", Manto's satirical foreword to Beghair Unwaan ke. The four critical commentaries in the second section are of varying competence, none striking or especially insightful. Again, nearly all the essays in the overview section do not necessarily reflect any special understanding or intuition. Moreover, this collection once again makes the mistake of equating the Partition solely with what happened in Punjab.

I won't end without some questions about Manto, who has emerged as the unquestioned "champion" of Partition authors. Is this because he is so utterly devoid of squeamishness and sentimentalism? Or because he offers an unblinking reflection of our own moral corruption? Or because a figure such as M.K. Gandhi is totally and deliberately absent from his work?

MetroScape

Mumbai Tribal Art: Murias

Pune Multiplex:
City Pride

Long considered politically naive, the Gujarat chief minister is a wiser man now. But the shrewdness would prove worthier if employed in matters of state, writes INDIA TODAY's Special Correspondent Uday Mahurkar in
Misplaced Guile