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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
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CINEMA: CONTROVERSY

FILM AS FIRESTORM: Rampaging anti-Gadar mobs in Bhopal were led by a leader of the ruling Congress party

Fleeing a Sikh lynch mob, a battered Sakina (Amisha Patel) runs into the arms of a burly lantern-wielding Sikh truck driver, Tara Singh (Sunny Deol). "Hand her over, she's a Muslim," the mob choruses. "Lo, ab ho gayi Sikhni (she's a Sikh now)," growls Singh who dramatically smears Sakina's hair parting with his blood as sindoor.

This pivotal scene in Gadar: Ek Prem Katha, typical of Deol's son-of-the-soil histrionics, has audiences before some 400 screens across the country on their feet. It has also made the film, which grossed over Rs 50 crore in its second week, potentially one of India's most successful ever.

But Gadar, which means upsurge or rebellion, has also attracted protest from Muslim groups across the country, particularly in cities with a recent history of religious strife; cities such as Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Bhopal. Loosely based on the Partition-era love tragedy of a Sikh called Buta Singh, Gadar tells the story of a poor truck driver marrying an aristocratic Muslim girl in the backdrop of August 1947. Post-interval, Deol enters Pakistan to rescue the girl from the clutches of her evil politician father Ashraf Ali (Amrish Puri).

"How can they show a Sikh applying sindoor on the forehead of a Muslim girl? This and many other scenes in the film are calculated to provoke Muslims,'' argues street vendor Abdul Sattar in Ahmedabad. Sections of the community seem to have held fast to Sattar's belief right from the film's June 15 release. Sporadic incidents of violence and arson marred the first week's shows in half a dozen theatres in the twin cities of Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar. Muslims and Hindus came to blows before the police dispersed the mobs. In Sangam theatre, groups of Muslims hurled petrol pouches on the screen before setting it ablaze. Stopping the show, the arsonists trooped out and set two scooters on fire. The owner of the theatre stopped the screening for two days before the state government assured him police protection.

On Monday, June 25, Bhopal teetered on the brink of a repeat of the post-Babri Masjid riots of 1992. A mob of 400 persons led by the president of the district Youth Congress, Arif Masood, used petrol bombs, swords, rods and stones to attack a cinema hall screening Gadar. A police constable was greviously injured and dozens received minor wounds.

Deol reacted to news of the violence with anguish: "What is sad about the protests is that they were started by cowards, but it is innocent people who are being hurt." Not every reaction was as stupefied. Gadar became the newest political hot potato.

It's a familiar script and a worn-out template. The cast of characters for and against Gadar have periodically locked horns in films like Bombay, Fire and Water in the past few years. Writing in his party mouthpiece Saamna, Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray said there was nothing objectionable in the film. Hindu organisations see a conspiracy behind the protests. Said Sanjay Nirupam, Shiv Sena MP in Mumbai: "The film shows Indians as tolerant and Pakistanis as communal and conservative. If Indian Muslims oppose the film, it only means their heart is closer to Pakistan."

The Shiv Sena was suitably provoked when the little-known Mumbai Regional Muslim League shot off a letter to Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh asking for a ban on the film or the deletion of its objectionable scenes. "The film is biased towards Hindus," charged League president Mohammed Faruque Azam. "It shows the suffering of Hindus but not that of the Muslims who are depicted as rapists and murderers." Azam was the first to raise the point about Patel's screen name, Sakina, being defamatory to Islam since it was the name of Prophet Mohammed's daughter. As Zee TV-its sister company Zee Telefilms has produced Gadar—was quick to point out, the Prophet's daughter was called Fatima. Sakina, scholars say, was the Prophet's great granddaughter.

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Misplaced Guile