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.

METROSCAPE

The Art Of Fashion

Dance of the Kites, an oddball fashion show at the new Sheetal Design Studio (SDS) store, elicited reactions like, "It's different and that doesn't need qualification" (singer Suneeta Rao) and "These couldn't be models, they're probably theatre artists!" (veteran model Anu Ahuja). The deviance was because the clothes, though noteworthy in their own right, were allied with abstract art, a surreal pantomime and models reciting lines from T.S. Elliot.

It was also the first in what will be a series of SDS events synergising art with fashion, and, according to CEO Dhiren Shah, will feature a different Indian each time "who has achieved spectacular success globally and yet owns an Indian soul". The Indian this time was Bangalore-based artist Yusuf Arakkal-his six angular abstracts of kites in blues and greys formed the nodal point from which kite-holding models (guided by Atul Kumar of The Company Theatre) became thespians moving from a state of joy to infinite emptiness, the latter allegorised by Eliot's Wasteland.

KICKED WITH KITES: Arakkal with models

The mandatory catwalk was also not bypassed. Eleven SDS designers showed eight semi-western wear collections featuring Capri pants, halterneck kurtas, short tops, in linen, cotton, silk, chiffon and georgette. All the wear, in dutiful adherence with the theme, were inspired by kites.

But the mostly appreciative audience were a trifle baffled on one score: how on earth has Arakkal managed to achieve "spectacular global success"?

-Natasha Israni

Feminist Fatale

READING THE WAY: Deshpande at the launch

Bangalore's Strand Book store was jammed with fiction followers last week when author Shashi Deshpande, 53, chose the spot for the release of her latest book, The Stone Women. The book is a compilation of nine hard-hitting (though non-abrasive) short stories based on the characters in the Mahabharat.

There was a book-reading, of course, with theatre personality Arundhati Nag adding drama to a few passages amid some vigorous clapping from Infosys Foundation chairperson Sudha Murty, shop partner Vidhya Virkar and the burka-clad Kamala "Sorayya" Das. Deshpande, whose earlier novel The Dark Holds no Terror is being converted into a film, said that she chose the Mahabharat because of the "nuances and complexities of its characters". Nothing better than being inspired by an epic.

-Stephen David

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