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.

STATES: UTTAR PRADESH

Out Of Luck Now

Charged with upsetting the BJP's caste equations and hamstrung by ministers he inherited, Rajnath needs to go beyond voter-friendly symbolism

By Ashok Malik in Lucknow with Subhash Mishra

In many ways, the vast expanse of land called Uttar Pradesh is the world's largest gossip zone. Two weeks ago, as the first monsoon rains hit Lucknow, the city was abuzz with stories of the "mafia panchayat" convened at the office of Sports Minister Raghuraj Pratap Singh (aka Raja Bhaiyya). The turn of phrase was a takeoff on the many "panchayats"-for farmers, traders, teachers and so on-that Chief Minister Rajnath Singh has been organising to woo special interest groups in the run up to the Vidhan Sabha election expected in February 2002.

In the sort of farzee (bogus) logic explicable only to those in the cow belt the "mafia panchayat" was seen as part of the great pre-poll effort. Its host, a strapping young Rajput eager to help fellow clansman Rajnath, was asked why he had invited alleged criminals to his office. If he had to mobilise such elements, surely he could have done so outside a government building. Raja Bhaiyya looked confused, "But why shouldn't I invite them to my office? Most of them are MLAs and MLCs anyway." It sounds bizarre but in Uttar Pradesh it's called politics. It is also entirely in keeping with Rajnath's complex blueprint for his return to the chief minister's office.

In the 403-member House, the BJP has 158 MLAs. It rules with the help of 53 other legislators, most of them bribed with a place in the 86-member ministry. In the 1999 Lok Sabha election, the BJP led in 129 segments, conceding first place to Mulayam Singh Yadav's Samajwadi Party (SP), ahead in 135. By October 2000, when Rajnath became the BJP's third chief minister-after Kalyan Singh and Ram Prakash Gupta-the party's leadership was openly talking about "75-85 seats". Today, despite the chief minister's optimism of winning "170 seats and more", a cold internal assessment gives the BJP roughly 100 seats, maybe less. In contrast, the SP is seen at the 140-seat level.

With a hung Assembly guaranteed, the single-largest party will have to resort to manic mergers and acquisitions. A prime target is likely to be the BSP, a party with a committed vote from the Jatavs-the biggest Dalit sub-group-and, in the words of a BJP minister, "the best party to be in before elections and an even better party to be in afterwards". They say in Lucknow that you can "buy a BSP ticket for an assembly seat for Rs 20 lakh". Should you get elected, "recovering your investment" in the lucrative season of government formation will be a cinch.

Rajnath probably knows the rules of this game, which is why his refrain is "Jo bhi ho, sarkar hum hi banayenge (Whatever happens, we'll form the government)." As the first step he has to ensure the BJP, and not the SP, emerges as the single-largest party. So Rajnath's immediate goal is to take the party from possible double digits to respectable three figures, "from less than 100" to "at least 130 seats".

He has a two-pronged strategy. First, project himself as an able administrator, a "doer". Second, add the Jats to a Rajput-led caste combination to make up for any loss to the 33.6 per cent vote the BJP received in 1996.

As chief minister, Rajnath has followed an announcement a day routine-higher wages for teachers, better prices for farmers, a new airport in Greater Noida, a grant to Arabic and Persian scholars. The foolproof Kumbh Mela in Allahabad earlier this year enhanced his image. Even so, a secretary in the chief minister's office admits, "In the past two months, a negative feeling has been detected." Rajnath's advocates argue eight months is not enough time to redress the non-performance of two previous chief ministers.

If the honeymoon is over, the ruling coalition's squabbling is responsible. Remarks Urban Development Minister Lalji Tandon, blithely deploying bulldozers in an election year: "The BJP worker can forgive anything but not leaders fighting."

Sample what has been happening.

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