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.

EYECATCHERS

Here And There

If you haven't caught Musafir Hoon Yaaron, an around-the-world travelogue Sunday afternoons on Star Plus, you must. For Deepti Bhatnagar's sake. As show producer and anchor, it's clear she has been going places, literally. Can't say that about her now-you-see-her-now-you-don't career though. Some forgettable roles and music videos later-remember her twirl in the chart-busting Mera laung gawacha four summers ago?-the "don't-dismiss-me-I-am-talented" Bhatnagar says it was like "being back in school, doing my homework for each episode". Well, at least she's a good student.

Pretty Good

Seen her pretty face in the Lakme and Pepsi ads before? If you missed that, you might still have caught her wooing Sonu Nigam in his music video Deewana, or playing dutiful diva on TV soaps Muskan and Tanha. If you're still dying to know, check out 20-something Sandali Sinha playing Piya in Tum Bin, a T-Series film directed by Anubhav Sinha, who has made her music videos before. "After college, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do," says Sandali, a doctor-aspirant once. She now has her answer.

Record Times

The Sainis with Big B at Film City after the win

So what if Harshvardhan Nawathe was the country's first television crorepati? What makes Vizag Class X student Ravi Mohan Saini's win commendable as Junior KBC's first crorepati is he's only 14 and no astute IAS aspirant, yet. He's quite a pro though-he has been on quiz shows ever since he was four-years-old. But more than the crore, says Saini, the prize-proper was meeting Big B. Now haven't we heard that a crore times before?

Come Again

Shweta Menon who? you might ask. For those asking, Menon was a gawky, lanky Miss India contestant in 1994. Best known for: her leggy jig in the Aamir Khan-Juhi Chawla-Kajol-Ajay Devgan movie Ishq, and other daring, flesh-flashing numbers in films like Hera Pheri. But even for Menon, it seems there is such a thing as a second chance. Or a lead role as mother to a 10-year-old-a role originally offered to Juhi-in Mama is Waiting, an "offbeat English film" directed by award-winning Malayalam filmmaker Rajeev Nath. Muses Menon, "Rajeev reposed faith in me. He was willing to take the risk." So she knows too.

--Methil Renuka

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