India's bin laden
October 1 in Srinagar was not as dramatic as September 11 in the US. But the attack on the J&K Assembly emphasises the reality that India continues to be a permanent victim of jehad, that the author of the blast is the bin Laden of Kandahar vintage.

Reclaiming The Faith
Despite Pakistan's extremist image, the country is home to a wide cross-section of people holding moderate views on religion. After the terrorist attacks on the US, it is this non-confrontationist lobby that is waging a coup against the militant and vocal religious extremists.

Ready To Strike
The US strategy to strike the Taliban includes making use of the Northern Alliance, favoured by Russia and Iran and distrusted by Pakistan. In its military pact with the front, the US should keep in mind the future power equations in Afghanistan.

RELIGION

It's Vaastu All The Way

In the early 1980s, the Maharishi suddenly returned to India. His entourage was lodged in the incomplete Express Building on Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg in Delhi for days. He later bought 600 acres of rural property in Noida where the grand Maharishi Nagar was built. The ashram is now in various stages of decline with its huge buildings badly in need of maintenance. A huge circular building, the size of Parliament House, has also been demolished because it was later realised that the building was not built according to the tenets of Vaastu. The real reason might be the Uttar Pradesh government's interest in acquiring the ashram land worth a colossal Rs 6,000 crore. The case is in the courts but the Maharishi is now keen to shift his Indian operations to Madhya Pradesh where he has invested upwards of Rs 2,000 crore.

GLOBAL INITIATION Preaching Meditation

The Beatles learnt no lessons from Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and many former students of Transcendental Meditation (TM) do not believe in the magic of levitation the Maharishi followers swear by. Yet in Fairfield, Iowa, more than 700 students of the Maharishi University of Management (MUM) spend 40 minutes a day on tm. "The tm technique is not a religious practice," says Craig Pearson, MUM vice-president."It's all about developing the potential of brain function." It would be difficult to spot an MUM student among Rhodes scholars but the founders of the nearby Vedic City proudly announce how the National Institute of Health has allotted $20 million (Rs 96 crore) for tm research on hypertension. PEACE CITY: A meditation class in progress(below); the Vedic City(top)   But tension has persisted in Fairfield among Christian groups ever since Maharishi followers bought a defunct Christian college in 1973 and spent over $100 million to convert it into a hi-tech learning centre. They complain that tm is not a relaxation technique, but a disguised form of Hinduism. The Vedic City has won over many of the 10,000 Fairfield residents. Over $250 million was spent on the gold-domed meditation centres, opera house, colon irrigation clinic, a spa and restaurants for its 650 inhabitants-and for hundreds of visitors in search of tranquillity. The critics don't worry tm leaders, who believe nothing can stop TM's inexorable march-even to the White House. John Hagelin, a quantum physicist at MUM, was the presidential candidate of the Maharishi-inspired Natural Law Party and secured about 80,000 votes in the November election. Only tm can produce a US president who can bring world peace, they are convinced. -Arthur J. Pais

He had left India in the mid-1980s after allegations of strained relationship with Indira Gandhi, child molestation and death in the Maharishi Nagar campus, income tax raids and hounding by the intelligence agencies. He set up shop in Voldrop, Holland. Since then he has built a huge $10-million wooden palace for himself which can be accessed only through choppers. But in the 1990s his return to India was better planned. He did not physically reappear here, but transported his thoughts on world consciousness, education and wealth creation.

The Maharishi Foundation runs the biggest and most well-equipped chain of 249 schools in India, of which 49 are in Madhya Pradesh. "We opened our first school in the country in 1990 and now there are 80,000 students studying in these institutions in 15 states," says J.K. Gandhi, vice-president of India operations of Maharishi International. Each school has been built on the ancient principles of Vaastu Shastra at an average cost of Rs 3 crore, but the crowning glory is the Maharishi School of Excellence in Bhopal that has a 10-acre campus with 1,44,000 sq ft of air-conditioned space. It offers courses from kindergarten to PhD in five-star comfort.

The Maharishi seems to have come a full circle. Once upon a time, he was a mere J.L. Saxena, a junior scientist with a degree in physics from the Allahabad University at the gun carriage factory in, yes, yes, Jabalpur. Time for a gun salute to India's most ambitious, and divine, navel gazer.

MetroScape

Looking Glass

Bangalore Gallery: Gallerie Zen

Delhi Handicrafts: Crafts Museum

With a dramatic fall in the viewership of Kaun Banega Crorepati, Star makes a last-ditch effort to prop up its ratings. INDIA TODAY's Himanshi Dhawan analyses the revival struggle of the pasha of programmes in
Survival Of The Fittest